WASHINGTON -- The U.S. has been relying on Pakistan as an ally in the war on terror in the region and has provided the country with billions of dollars in aid over the last 15 years.

But American military and diplomatic officials have time and again expressed concerns about Pakistan's inability or unwillingness to crack down on terrorists and extremists that are based in the country.

As the new U.S. administration is positioning itself to address some of the pressing foreign policy challenges in the region, experts offer mixed recommendations as to what approach the new administration should pursue in its relations with Pakistan.

People are much smarter about what the region needs, the challenges, where the policy works and where it doesnt, said Shamila Chaudhary, a senior South Asia fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

We actually have built a pretty significant infrastructure to address what the problems are. What we don't have are any answers, and that's what I think we need to focus on when we talk about a review, she added while speaking at a panel discussion on U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Last 10 Years A Failure?

Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argued that U.S. policy toward Pakistan in the last 10 years has been a failure.

I would propose that as a starting point, we do look at the failure of our Pakistan policy over the last 10 years, Curtis said. I would say that we need a clear eyed approach on just how detrimental Pakistan's continued support has been to fundamental U.S. national security interests.

She added, 15 years later we still have Taliban and the Haqqani network sanctuaries inside Pakistan."

Former U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel Feldman pushed back against Curtis' analysis.

I tend to disagree with Lisa's analysis about it [U.S. policy] being purely a failure. What I believe is that there are many equities that we have with the U.S. Pakistan relationship, all of which we have tried to address in some way or another, Feldman said. Certainly over the tenure of the Obama administration we had highs of significant bilateral cooperation relationship with the strategic dialogue, with assistance and we also had lows.

Cutting Aid Did Not Work

Feldman added that at times the U.S. has gone as far as cutting all assistance to Pakistan, and none of those measures necessarily produced a result in which the U.S. has been able to influence or change Pakistan's core strategic calculus.

John Gill an associate professor at the National Defense University, argued that a review should not mean starting all over again.

It makes a lot of sense to have a new review, but that does not necessarily mean that we have to change. If there are pieces of the strategy that seem to be on track or going in the right direction, we should not be afraid to stick with those even if they are holdovers from previous administrations, Gill said.

US Should Take The Risk

Some analysts propose that the U.S. should adopt a different approach to changing Pakistan's behavior.

I think in the past whenever we thought about imposing conditions or actually implementing conditions on Pakistan you bring up the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state and the conversation sort of ends, Curtis of Heritage said. I would argue that our counter-terrorism interests in the region are so fundamental that we need to be willing to take some degree of risk in evoking a different Pakistani response.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States and director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, thinks there is a two-way street when it comes to getting Pakistan to change its behavior.

I think most people agree that Pakistan needs to change its behavior on terrorism, and in relation to Afghanistan and India, and that change is unlikely to come without the rest of the world changing its policies towards Pakistan, Haqqani said.

Haqqani who co-authored a new policy paper on U.S.-Pakistan relations with Lisa Curtis, argues that American interests in the region are not in line with Pakistan's strategic thinking, which is heavily influenced by its belief that India wants to weaken and break it.

Continued U.S. assistance, offered in the hope of a gradual change in Pakistan's terrorism policies, only provides Pakistan an economic cushion and better quality military equipment to persist with those policies, argued Haqqani.

In their defense, Pakistan's military and civilian leaders have argued that they have sacrificed in the war against terror and have paid with blood and treasure. The country's State Bank published a report late last year, alleging a $110 billion loss to the country's economy since 2002.

Pakistan Could Do More

U.S officials acknowledge Pakistan's efforts and view U.S.-Pakistan relations as important.

"The Pak-U.S. relationship remains a very important one," General Joseph Votel, head of the U.S. Central Command, said last week during testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

However, U.S. officials continue to assert that Pakistan could do more.

We have seen progress. We have seen them take some steps to address these safe havens, but clearly the problem persists and it is something, which is part of our ongoing conversation with Pakistan, said U.S. State Department spokesperson Mark Toner.

-- Written by Hasib Danish Alikozai for Voice of America
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Albert Einstein (opens in new tab) is often cited as one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. His work continues to help astronomers study everything from gravitational waves to Mercury's orbit.

The scientist's equation that helped explain special relativity  E = mc^2  is famous even among those who don't understand its underlying physics. Einstein is also known for his theory of general relativity (an explanation of gravity), and the photoelectric effect (which explains the behavior of electrons under certain circumstances); his work on the latter earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Einstein also tried in vain to unify all the forces of the universe in a single theory, or a theory of everything, which he was still working on at the time of his death.

Early years

Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, a town that today has a population of just more than 120,000. There is a small commemorative plaque where his house used to stand (it was destroyed during World War II). The family moved to Munich shortly after his birth, according to the Nobel Prize website (opens in new tab), and later to Italy when his father faced problems with running his own business. Einstein's father, Hermann, ran an electrochemical factory and his mother Pauline took care of Albert and his younger sister, Maria.

Einstein would write in his memoirs that two "wonders" (opens in new tab) deeply affected his early years, according to Hans-Josef Kupper, an Albert Einstein scholar. Young Einstein encountered his first wonder  a compass  at age 5: He was mystified that invisible forces (opens in new tab) could deflect the needle. This would lead to a lifelong fascination with unseen forces. The second wonder came at age 12 when he discovered a book of geometry, which he worshipped, calling it his "holy geometry book."

Contrary to popular belief, young Albert was a good student, according to an online archive. He excelled in physics and mathematics, but was a more "moderate" pupil in other subjects, Kupper wrote on his website. However, Einstein rebelled against the authoritarian attitude of some of his teachers and dropped out of school at 16. He later took an entrance exam for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, and while his performances in physics and math were excellent, his marks in other areas were subpar, and he did not pass the exam. The aspiring physicist took additional courses to close the gap in his knowledge, and was admitted to Swiss Polytechnic in 1896, and in 1901 received his diploma to teach physics and mathematics.

Albert Einstein aged 14 (Image credit: Getty Images)

However, Einstein could not find a teaching position, and began work in a Bern patent office in 1901, according to his Nobel Prize biography (opens in new tab). It was while there that, in between analyzing patent applications, he developed his work in special relativity and other areas of physics that later made him famous.

Einstein married Mileva Maric, a longtime love of his from Zurich, in 1903. Their children, Hans Albert and Eduard, were born in 1904 and 1910. (The fate of a child born to them in 1902 before their marriage, Lieserl, is unknown.) Einstein divorced Maric in 1919 and soon after married Elsa Lowenthal. Lowenthal died in 1933.

Career highlights

Einstein's career sent him to multiple countries. He earned his doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905, and subsequently took on professor positions in Zurich (1909), Prague (1911) and Zurich again (1912). Next, he moved to Berlin to become director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and a professor at the University of Berlin (1914). He also became a German citizen.

A major validation of Einstein's work came in 1919, when Sir Arthur Eddington, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, led an expedition to Africa that measured the position of stars during a total solar eclipse. The group found that the position of stars was shifted due to the bending of light around the sun. (In 2008, a BBC/HBO production dramatized the story in "Einstein and Eddington (opens in new tab).")

Einstein remained in Germany until 1933, when dictator Adolf Hitler rose to power. The physicist then renounced his German citizenship and moved to the United States to become a professor of theoretical physics at Princeton. He became a U.S. citizen in 1940 and retired in 1945.

Einstein remained active in the physics community throughout his later years. In 1939, he famously penned a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that uranium could be used for an atomic bomb.

Late in Einstein's life, he engaged in a series of private debates with physicist Niels Bohr about the validity of quantum theory . Bohr's theories held the day, and Einstein later incorporated quantum theory in his own calculations.

Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard reenact the signing of their letter to President Roosevelt. (Image credit: Time Life Pictures)

Einstein's brain

Einstein died of an aortic aneurysm on April 18, 1955. A blood vessel burst near his heart, according to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). When asked if he wanted to have surgery, Einstein refused. "I want to go when I want to go," he said. "It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."

Einstein's body  most of it, anyway  was cremated; his ashes were spread in an undisclosed location, according to the AMNH. However, a doctor at Princeton Hospital, Thomas Harvey, had controversially performed an autopsy, and removed Einstein's brain and eyeballs, according to the BBC.

Harvey sliced hundreds of thin sections of brain tissue to place on microscope slides, and snapped 14 photos (opens in new tab) of the brain from several angles. He took the brain tissue, slides and images with him when he moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he was a medical supervisor in a biological testing lab.

Over the next 30 years, Harvey sent a few slides to other researchers who requested them, but kept the rest of the brain in two glass jars, sometimes in a cider box under a beer cooler. The story of Einstein's brain was largely forgotten until 1985, when Harvey and his colleagues published their study results in the journal Experimental Neurology .

Harvey failed a competency exam in 1988, and his medical license was revoked, Blitz wrote. Harvey eventually donated the brain to Princeton Hospital, where the brain's journey had begun. Harvey died in 2007. Pieces of Einstein's brain are now at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, Live Science reported (opens in new tab).

Albert Einstein at the blackboard (Image credit: Getty Images)

What the studies found

Harvey's 1985 study authors reported that Einstein's brain had a higher number of glial cells (those that support and insulate the nervous system) per neurons (nerve cells) than other brains they examined. They concluded that it might indicate the neurons had a higher metabolic need  in other words, Einstein's brain cells needed and used more energy, which could have been why he had such advanced thinking abilities and conceptual skills.

However, other researchers have pointed out a few problems with that study, according to Eric H. Chudler (opens in new tab), a neuroscientist at the University of Washington. First, for example, the other brains used in the study were all younger than Einstein's brain. Second, the "experimental group" had only one subject  Einstein. Additional studies are needed to see if these anatomical differences are found in other people. And third, only a small part of Einstein's brain was studied.

Another study, published in 1996 in the journal Neuroscience Letters (opens in new tab), found that Einstein's brain weighed only 1,230 grams, which is less than the average adult male brain (about 1,400 g). Also, the scientist's cerebral cortex was thinner than that of five control brains, but the density of neurons was higher.

A study published in 2012 in the journal Brain (opens in new tab) revealed that Einstein's brain had extra folding in the gray matter (opens in new tab), the site of conscious thinking. In particular, the frontal lobes, regions tied to abstract thought and planning, had unusually elaborate folding.

This autographed photo of Albert Einstein with his tongue out was sold at auction for $125,000. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Einstein's scientific legacy

Einstein's legacy in physics is significant. Here are some of the key scientific principles that he pioneered:

Theory of special relativity : Einstein showed that physical laws are identical for all observers, as long as they are not under acceleration. However, the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same, no matter at what speed the observer is travelling. This work led to his realization that space and time are linked into what we now call space-time. So, an event seen by one observer may also be seen at a different time by another observer.

Theory of general relativity: This was a reformulation of the law of gravity. In the 1600s, Newton formulated three laws of motion, among them outlining how gravity works between two bodies. The force between them depends on how massive each object is, and how far apart the objects are. Einstein determined that when thinking about space-time, a massive object causes a distortion in space-time (like putting a heavy ball on a trampoline). Gravity is exerted when other objects fall into the "well" created by the distortion in space-time, like a marble rolling towards the large ball. General relativity passed a major test in 2019 in an experiment involving a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Photoelectric effect: Einstein's work in 1905 proposed that light should be thought of as a stream of particles (photons) instead of just a single wave, as was commonly thought at the time. His work helped decipher curious results scientists were previously unable to explain.

Unified field theory (opens in new tab): Einstein spent much of his later years trying to merge the fields of electromagnetism and gravity. He was unsuccessful, but may have been ahead of his time. Other physicists are still working on this problem.

Einstein's legacy for astronomy

There are many applications of Einstein's work, but here are some of the most notable ones in astronomy:

Gravitational waves: In 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected space-time ripples  otherwise known as gravitational waves that occurred after black holes collided about 1.4 billion light-years from Earth. LIGO also made an initial detection of gravitational waves in 2015, a century after Einstein predicted these ripples existed. The waves are a facet of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Mercury's orbit: Mercury is a small planet orbiting close to a very massive object relative to its size  the sun. Its orbit could not be understood until general relativity showed that the curvature of space-time is affecting Mercury's motions and changing its orbit. There is a small chance that over billions of years, Mercury could be ejected from our solar system due to these changes (with an even smaller chance that it could collide with Earth).

Gravitational lensing: This is a phenomenon by which a massive object (like a galaxy cluster or a black hole) bends light around it. Astronomers looking at that region through a telescope can then see objects directly behind the massive object, due to the light being bent. A famous example of this is Einstein's Cross, a quasar in the constellation Pegasus : A galaxy roughly 400 million light-years away bends the light of the quasar so that it appears four times around the galaxy.

Black holes : In April 2019, the Event Horizon telescope showed the first-ever images of a black hole . The photos again confirmed several facets of general relativity, including not only that black holes exist, but also that they have a circular event horizon  a point at which nothing can escape, not even light.

Additional resources

To find the answers to frequently asked questions about Albert Einstein, visit The Nobel Prize website. Additionally, you can learn about The Einstein Memorial at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C.

Bibliography

"Einstein: The Life and Times". American Journal of Physics (1973). https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1

"On the brain of a scientist: Albert Einstein". Experimental Neurology (1985). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3979509/

"The fascinating life and theory of Albert Einstein". Mih, W. C. Nova Publishers (2000). https://books.google.co.uk/books

"Alterations in cortical thickness and neuronal density in the frontal cortex of Albert Einstein". Neuroscience Letters (1996). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8805120/

"The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: a description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs". Brain, Volume 136, Issue 4 (2012). https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/136/4/1304/356614?login=true
Arianespace Kicks off 2017 with Soyuz Launch

Arianespace

For its first mission in 2017, Arianespace launched a Russian-built Soyuz ST-B rocket on Jan. 27 and successfully delivered the Spanish communication satellite Hispasat 36W-1 into orbit.

Milestone First Mission

Arianespace

For the Soyuz family of rockets, this launch was a milestone first mission to geostationary orbit from the Guiana Space Center in Korou, French Guiana.

Soyuz Soars into Space

ESA/Manuel Pedoussaut, 2017

Hispasat 36W-1 joined the Hispasat fleet of geostationary telecom satellites that provide Europe, the Canary Islands and the Americas with faster multimedia service.

Liftoff!

ESA/CNES/Arianespace-Optique Video du CSG, 2017

The mission, designated flight VS16, lifted off from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 8:03 p.m. EST on Jan. 27 (01:03 GMT on Jan. 28).

Year-opening Flight

Arianespace

Arianespace's first flight of 2017 was the launch of Hispasat 36W-1, which is the first spacecraft built using Europe's new SmallGEO platform.

SmallGEO

ESA/Stephane Corvaja, 2017

Hispasat 36W-1 is the first telecommunications satellite to use the European Space Agency's new small SmallGEO platform.

Launch of Small GEO

ESA/Stephane Corvaja, 2017

The Soyuz ST-B rocket fires its engines on the launchpad at Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Arianespace Liftoff Poster

Arianespace

Arianespace issued this special Soyuz launch poster for the Hispasat 36W-1 mission.

Pre-Launch Tests

ESA/P. Sebirot

The Hispasat 36W-1 satellite went through a series of tests at the Airbus Defence and Spaces Compact Antenna Test Range in Ottobrunn, Germany on Sept. 1.

Rail Line Transfer

Arianespace

The Soyuz was transferred via rail line from the Spaceport's MIK launcher assembly facility to the ELS launch zone on Jan. 24.

Putting It in Place

Arianespace

Soyuz is positioned on the launchpad by its transporter/erector rail car.
NASA's fourth annual Pi Day Challenge asks participants to propose solutions to problems about Martian craters, the size of the moon's shadow, a Saturn orbit and distant exoplanets. (Image credit: NASA)

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is celebrating Pi Day (March 14) with a set of four math problems  featuring Martian craters, distant exoplanets, Saturn orbits and eclipses  to be understood with the number pi.

The mathematical constant pi  the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter  comes out to 3.14159 and so on. As such, the crucial constant is celebrated on March 14, or 3/14. For the fourth year in a row, NASA set up a series of math problems using pi to demonstrate the mathematical constant's importance to calculations to engineering and understanding space.

The problems, aimed at the sixth grade through high school level ("but fun for all," NASA officials wrote), ask students to evaluate a Martian impact crater; a total solar eclipse, like the one that will cross America on Aug. 21; the final orbits and "grand finale dive" of the Saturn orbiter Cassini; and the newly discovered planets around the star TRAPPIST-1.

NASA also highlighted the ways pi is important in the everyday work of NASA researchers.

"In my career, pi has allowed me to calculate the size of a shield needed to enter the atmosphere of Venus and the size of a parachute that could safely land the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars," said Anita Sengupta, an engineer at JPL. "Most recently, we used pi in our calculations of the expanding atom cloud we will create for an experiment called the Cold Atom Laboratory, which will fly aboard the International Space Station."

So while you feast on pie or see how many digits of the number you can recite (you can share your stories with NASA here)  and look out for potential Pi Day astronaut tweets  take a moment to try a challenge or two and reflect on the number's usefulness.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the EchoStar 23 communications satellite sits atop Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket will launch early on March 16, 2017.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  Cloudy skies and high winds in Florida early Tuesday (March 14) forced SpaceX to delay the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the EchoStar 23 communications satellite, the company said.

SpaceXs next opportunity to fly will be at 1:35 a.m. EDT (0535 GMT) on Thursday (March 16).

The flight will be SpaceXs second from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, which previously was used to launch NASAs space shuttles and Saturn V moon rockets.

SpaceX inaugurated the pad on Feb. 19 with a cargo run to the International Space Station.

Putting the EchoStar 23 satellite, which weighs about 6 tons, into its intended high-altitude orbit will not leave the Falcon 9 first stage with enough fuel to attempt a landing, SpaceX representatives said.

The company, which so far has recovered eight flown boosters, plans to re-launch the first of those later this month on a satellite delivery mission for Luxembourg-based SES.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Our mighty sun bathes Earth in a tender glow. Reach overhead on a cloud-free, summer day, and it almost feels like you can catch a few of its caressing rays. While your relaxing efforts will technically be unsuccessful, it should warm your heart to know that scientists have literally caught some of the Sun's rays. And you know what's even cooler? There's a place on Earth where you can actually hold a piece of the sun!

Stored within two tidy cleanrooms at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas is a collection of metallic wafers and foils, and etched within their insides are particles of the solar wind. Fifteen years ago, these charged particles shot out into space from the sun's upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 750 kilometers per second. Usually, they'd trek out into the solar system, but on this occasion, something was waiting for them. Camped at a location between the Earth and Sun where their gravity's cancel out was a radiant spacecraft, fanned out to catch as much of the precious particles as possible.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL)

The spacecraft was called Genesis, and for 850 days between December 2001 and April 2004, it captured as much of the Sun as it could within wafers and targets composed of materials like silicon, diamond, gold, aluminum, and sapphire.

A four-month journey back to Earth ensued. Afterwards, from high orbit, Genesis deployed a capsule containing the collection plates. On September 8, 2004, the capsule descended to Earth. After a fiery re-entry, the craft was intended to slowly float downwards, suspended by a massive parachute, where a hovering helicopter would safely catch it. But to scientists' horror, the parachute malfunctioned, and the capsule slammed into the Utah desert, spilling priceless pieces of the sun onto the heat-baked sand.

(Image credit: USAF 388th Range Squadron)

The word "disaster" seemed fitting for the scene as officials approached the Genesis wreckage, but as scientists examined the scraps, they soon realized that all was far from lost. Many of the collecting devises were shattered, but others were largely intact, with the solar samples safely embedded inside. Recovering them was a matter of sifting through and removing contaminants from the crash site, a tedious task to be sure, but entirely accomplishable. By January 2005, the first wafer was deemed fit for analysis. Scientists now had their unspoiled piece of the Sun, and they set about examining it.

Analyses returned some fascinating results. For one, researchers determined that hypothetical particles called solar energetic particles did not actually exist within the solar wind, countering a long-held supposition from the Apollo era. They also found (opens in new tab) that that the Sun has a higher proportion of Oxygen-16 (the most common isotope of the element) than Earth. That's strange, since the Earth and most everything in the solar system was born out of the same nebula. So what happened to the oxygen? Scientists still aren't sure. The Genesis samples also helped to slightly revise the known composition of the sun.

There's undoubtedly more we can learn from the solar particles. For now, they are safely stored away, waiting for novel technologies and inquisitive scientists to unlock their secrets.

(Image credit: NASA)

Originally published on RealClearScience.
Between 1:34 am and 4:04 am EDT on Tuesday, SpaceX plans to execute its latest rocket launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending a communications satellite into orbit roughly 22,000 miles above Earth. It will be the company's second rocket launch in three weeks  an aggressive flight rate that it needs to maintain to fulfill its promise of low-cost, reliable transportation to space.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has taken a Silicon Valley approach to building and flying rockets, improving design and operations as the company juggles a manifest of more than 70 missions for NASA and commercial customers that is worth more than $10 billion.

Three versions of the aerospace company's Falcon 9 rocket have flown since its debut in June 2010, including the current model, known as Falcon Full Thrust, which typically has the range to fly back to a landing pad so that its boosters can be reused  an approach also favored by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's rocket company, Blue Origin. But due to the heavy payload and high-altitude orbit no attempt will be made to recover the booster flying on Tuesday.

Watch a live webcast of Tuesday morning's SpaceX launch here:

SpaceX is working on the final version of the rocket, known as Block 5, and hopes to fly it before the end of the year, according to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.

RELATED: Watch SpaceX Successfully Land Its Falcon 9 Rocket

Blue Origin has taken a different approach. Bankrolled by Bezos, who is currently ranked by Forbes magazine as the fifth-richest person in the world, Blue Origin is intent on refining its design and perfecting landing technology before beginning commercial launch services. The company has opted to develop a reusable suborbital launch system, called New Shepard, for passengers and payloads before attempting orbital spaceflight and landing bigger rockets. Last week, the company unveiled a fully assembled version of its newly developed rocket engine, the BE-4, which will be used in its New Glenn rocket.

See more

"New Shepard is so important for us because that's a mission that we can fly many, many times a year, and we will get so much practice," Bezos said at the Satellite 2017 conference last week

"If you want to recover a booster, a big booster, an orbital booster, there are a few options. You can put wings on it, kind of like the space shuttle. You can use parachutes and you can use vertical landing," Bezos added. "The reason why I like vertical landing is because it's so scalable. If you balance a broom on your hand, you can do that. If you try to balance a pencil on your hand, it's very difficult. So as the vehicle gets bigger, that inverted pendulum problem actually get a little easier to solve."

Blue Origin's incremental approach to commercial space flight has won the company some early fans. During his talk on March 7, Bezos announced that satellite operator Eutelsat had signed the first contract for a New Glenn rocket ride, to take place sometime around 2021. A day later, Blue Origin and internet-via-satellite startup OneWeb jointly announced an agreement for five New Glenn flights around the same timeframe.

This year, United Launch Alliance  a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the two biggest companies in the US aerospace industry  will decide whether to buy Blue Origin's methane-fueled BE-4 engines for its new Vulcan rockets or switch to a backup offering by industry stalwart Aerojet Rocketdyne.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are taking different approaches to deep space exploration as well. Musk, who has made no secret of his ambition to send landers and eventually people to Mars, announced two weeks ago that SpaceX had signed a contract to fly two tourists around the moon in late 2018.

RELATED: SpaceX Must Still Prove That It Can Safely Launch Astronauts Into Space

He didn't say how much the flight would cost, but likened it to "a little bit more than the cost of a crewed mission to the space station."

"I think there's a market for one or two of these per year," Musk remarked. "The goal for SpaceX from its founding in 2002 has been to accelerate the advent of space exploration, ultimately with the idea of a self-sustaining civilization on Mars and making humanity multi-planetary. A critical step along the way is getting to understand what it's like to have people in deep space."

Another potential customer for SpaceX is NASA, which is considering adding a crew to the lunar flyby test flight of its new heavy lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion deep space capsule. The debut launch, originally targeted for late 2018, is likely to slip into 2019, which is potentially enough time to add the equipment and procedures for accommodating two astronauts. A feasibility study is underway. The SpaceX mission could be an alternative.

Bezos also sees a potential partnership with NASA for lunar exploration and commercial development. Blue Origin is pitching a proposal to NASA and President Donald Trump's transition team to fly cargo to a potential lunar base at the moon's south pole.

For now, SpaceX's main focus is on building up its Falcon flight rate to maintain an edge on the competition. The fleet has been grounded twice in two years following accidents, delaying launches of customers' revenue-producing satellites for months.

SpaceX returned to flight in January from its last accident. The company hopes to fly about 20 more Falcon flights from Florida and from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California before the end of the year.

Originally published on Seeker.
The Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute (IKI) Venera-D mission concept includes a Venus orbiter that would operate for up to three years, and a lander designed to survive the harsh conditions a spacecraft would encounter on Venus surface for a few hours.

NASA scientists are meeting with representatives from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute (IKI) this week, to continue discussion of a possible collaboration on the institute's upcoming Venera-D mission to Venus, NASA officials announced last week.

Russia launched 16 space probes toward Venus as part of the Venera series between 1961 and 1983, including the only probes to ever successfully land on the surface of hellish planet. The IKI Venera-D mission is scheduled to launch sometime in the 2020s. The mission would include an orbiter and a lander, and possibly a solar-powered airship that would fly through Venus' upper atmosphere.

"This potential collaboration makes for an enriching partnership to maximize the science results from Venera-D, and continue the exploration of this key planet in our solar system," Adriana Ocampo, who leads the Joint Science Definition Team working on a report regarding the potential partnership, said in the statement. [Photos: Venus, the Mysterious Planet Next Door]

Scientists from NASA will meet with representatives from IKI to "[identify] shared science objectives for Venus exploration," according to a statement from the agency.

Earth and Venus share many similarities  such as their size, composition and proximity to the sun  and yet Venus' atmosphere has experienced a runaway greenhouse effect that generates surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Venus is hotter than Mercury, even though the latter is closer to the sun.

NASA has sent multiple probes to study Venus from orbit, beginning with the Mariner 2 orbiter in 1962. The U.S. space agency's last dedicated Venus mission was Magellan, which launched in 1990 and mapped 98 percent of the planet's surface over four years.

"While Venus is known as our 'sister planet,' we have much to learn, including whether it may have once had oceans and harbored life," Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said in the statement. "By understanding the processes at work at Venus and Mars, we will have a more complete picture about how terrestrial planets evolve over time and obtain insight into the Earths past, present and future."

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Future Mars settlers will need to rely on local resources and a lot of human labor to make a colony sustainable on the Red Planet.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.  Colonizing Mars will be no easy feat. It will require billions of dollars and years of specialized research led by some of the smartest scientists and engineers in the world. It will demand advanced technologies, yet to be invented  new kinds of spacecraft, for example, advanced rocket propulsion, deep-space life-support systems and high-speed communications.

But when humans arrive at the Red Planet, their best chances for success and survival will depend on simple materials, low-tech solutions and a broad set of problem-solving skills that will allow people to adapt.

"Here on the Earth, when we go to a remote location to do an engineering development project, we've learned that taking high-tech equipment isnt really the right approach. What you want is appropriate technology," said planetary scientist Phil Metzger, who is also a co-founder of NASA Kennedy Space Center's Swamp Works. "You want technology to be maintained using the local resources and local labor." [In Images: NASA's Vision of a Mars Base]

Metzger was speaking at the New Space Age Conference held Saturday (March 11) here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School. He was part of the panel, "Sustainable Expansion: Reaching Mars and Beyond," which included Jeffrey Hoffman, former NASA astronaut and director of MIT's Man Vehicle lab; Keegan Kirkpatrick, founder and team lead of RedWorks; and Mark Jernigan, associate director of NASA JSC Human Health and Performance Directorate.

There was a consensus among the group that maintaining the structures and systems a Mars colony would need to sustain itself could not rely on resupply ships.

"Mars has to operate independently from Earth," Kirkpatrick said.

Imagine if, when the British formed the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, they built their houses in England, shipped them across the Atlantic and then counted on additional shipments to make repairs, he said.

"The United States as we know it would never have grown beyond a handful of outposts along the Atlantic Seaboard," Kirkpatrick said.

On Mars, colonists will have to turn to the local environment for construction materials, as well as for water and oxygen. Kirkpatrick said he and his colleagues at RedWorks are looking to the past for inspiration. They're reinventing a kind of building material popular during the Roman Empire, called welded tuff. The modern version is made using a low-heat system that's able to turn fine silicates and basaltic compounds into simple stone compounds.

Another technique, called molten regolith electrolysis, uses electrical energy to break down soil into its basic minerals in a single step. The process releases oxygen, which can be harnessed for breathable air, and creates a kind of "mongrel alloy" made of iron, aluminum, titanium, silicon and other trace metals.

Although the alloy won't be very strong or of high quality, in the low-gravity environment of Mars, it doesn't need to be. People can use it to build "beefier" structures and foundations to support early settlements.

"A simpler system like that would be easier to maintain and easier to source with spare parts," Metzger said.

Pulling water and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere might be easier than trying to source it from the soil, said Hoffman, who is the deputy principal investigator for the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resources Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE. The experiment is the first of its kind to test whether life-sustaining products can be extracted from Mars. The instrument is planned for NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission and is designed to split the carbon dioxide molecules in the Red Planet's atmosphere into carbon and oxygen.

"The nice thing about using the atmosphere is that you don't need a whole mining infrastructure," Hoffman said.

"I mean, we're struggling now with running MOXIE, which has very few moving parts except for a compressor," he said. "To set up a real mining operation with robotic excavators and all of the other processing that you need, and have that running completely autonomously, is a huge challenge."

That's why eventually establishing a colony of humans on Mars is important.

"The advantage of having people is that people are capable of responding to situations that were not anticipated," said Mark Jernigan of NASA. "People can understand the situation and adapt as needed, and they also have the ability, that when failures occur, to use resources that were not originally anticipated in order to solve the problem."

But the kinds of people who ultimately go to Mars may surprise you.

"You have to have a lot of people with a diverse, less-specialized array of skills to go to Mars," Kirkpatrick said. "In other words, average people that have to be able to support this large diverse economy," he said.

Just as the infrastructure may draw from simpler times, so, too, may the population. A Mars colony will likely have a greenhouse, for example. People will need to understand farming, as well as biology and pest control.

"When you're talking about trying to survive on the surface of Mars, the level of skills that you need are so much broader," Jernigan said.

People will need to adapt to local conditions and make use of resources in ways that were not planned.

"We will need a lot of MacGyvers out there," Jernigan said.

You can follow Tracy Staedter at her website and @tracy_staedter. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
An imager on the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image, on March 5, 2017, of Antarctica's Granite Harbor, a cove near the Ross Sea, where the sea ice has a green hue due to a bloom of phytoplankton.

No, Antarctica isn't busting out the green beer for St. Patrick's Day. But a new satellite image of the continent shows strange green ice floating in the Ross Sea.

The green-tinged ice is probably the work of phytoplankton, marine glaciologist Jan Lieser of Australia's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center told NASA's Earth Observatory, which released the image yesterday (March 9).

Photosynthetic plankton called phytoplankton (and algae) grow all around Antarctica in summer (which runs from October to February, because Antarctica is in the Southern Hemisphere). It's now autumn on the icy continent, but algae blooms can happen in the Antarctic fall, too, the Earth Observatory reported.

In 2012, Lieser and her colleagues noted an enormous bloom in late February and early March that was 124 miles (200 kilometers) long and 62 miles (100 km) wide. Scientists on an expedition to observe the green swirls found that the bloom was not free-floating algae, but green sea ice, or sea ice with algae growing on it.

A zoomed-in patch of green ice near Antarctica's Ross Sea can be seen in this Landsat 8 image captured on March 5, 2017. (Image credit: NASA)

The current late-season bloom appears to have gotten trapped in the slushy, just-forming sea ice, lending it a green hue. It's unclear whether the algae bloom is on the ice, or trapped within or beneath it.

On the other end of the globe, Arctic waters experience phytoplankton blooms, too. As in Antarctica, these tiny organisms are the basis of the food web. Scientists have found, however, that the Arctic's spring phytoplankton blooms are coming earlier. What's more, a second season of algae blooms has emerged in the fall, as sea ice has retreated.

Original article on Live Science.
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement
The Second Moon Race







Gerroa, Australia (SPX) Mar 13, 2017





The US and China are in an undeclared race back to the Moon. At first glance it's easy to dismiss China's efforts as being little more than what the US and Russia achieved decades ago. And while the pace of China's manned launches has been slow with over a year in many cases between launches; looks can be deceptive and China has achieved each critical step towards building a permanent space station within the next few years. Meanwhile, its overall space program builds out each critical element to ... read more
Germans don't like to hear such sentiments, and neither do Turkish opponents of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP). Kilicaslan is aware of that. He is one of the few who has been willing to defend the Turkish president in the German media and has appeared on a widely viewed primetime talk show in addition to a national radio program. He says he does so because he wants to help explain how many Turkish-Germans think.

He is frequently attacked for his views. In response, he posted a message on his Facebook page reading: "Yes to debate and critique! No to hate campaigns and violence!" There isn't much uniting those who bitterly oppose Erdogan with those who support him, but when it comes to hate for their adversaries, the similarities are difficult to ignore.

Integration expert Caner Aver, of the Center for Turkish Studies and Integration Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, sees another commonality uniting the parties to the conflict: "There is a collective malaise. Everybody recognizes that something is going fundamentally wrong at the moment." Though they disagree about the reasons.

Appealing to Deep Emotions

The conflict over the coming referendum has exposed the degree to which many Turks in Germany feel their pride has been hurt and that they are not respected. They feel that, as Muslims, they are constantly on the defensive. When Foreign Minister Cavusoglu appears before them in Hamburg and says, "nobody can sever the bond we have with you. We will always be there for you," he is appealing to deep emotions and strikes a nerve among his listeners. What German politician has ever approached them with such commitment?

A survey conducted on behalf of the University of Munster last year found that 87 percent of German citizens with Turkish backgrounds feel closely bound to Germany. But more than half of the 1,200 respondents also said that they feel like second-class citizens because of their origins. According to the survey, 83 percent get angry when Muslims immediately fall under suspicion following a terror attack.

But it's not just about feelings and emotions. Turkish Germans, after all, have been successful in Germany and have good reason to exhibit more confidence than they sometimes do.

Many AKP supporters, though, have a different understanding of democracy -- despite their integration in Germany and lessons on politics and civics in school. If the majority of a population decides to place its faith in a single party and a single head of state, then other countries simply have to accept that, many believe. The lessons of German history -- the reflex most Germans have to think back to 1933 when hearing such arguments -- are not as deeply rooted among all of those with Turkish roots. They view the separation of powers as largely unnecessary because they believe that Erdogan's patriotism will lead him to act in Turkey's best interests. Plus, those in Germany who watch pro-government broadcasters from Turkey have difficulty separating the propaganda from reality. Because they live in Germany, they have little experience with the more ominous elements of Erdogan's rule.

Neither are they inclined to place much blame on Erdogan's shoulders for the recent spate of terror attacks that have shaken Turkey, for the country's suddenly weak economy or for the ongoing conflict with the Kurdish minority in the southeast. Instead, they believe the fault lies with the Zionists, with the United States, with the Kurds and with Europe. They see accusations that the AKP is destroying press freedoms as a joke. On the contrary, they see the fact that no German media outlet has reported positively about Erdogan's referendum as proof that if anyone has a problem with freedom of opinion, it is Germany.

Doubts and Concern Among Turkish-Germans

"Many have the feeling there is a double standard," says integration expert Aver. Why, for example, was the Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders allowed to hold a speech in Dresden but when it comes time for a Turkish minister to campaign on behalf of the constitutional referendum, he suddenly can't find a venue? It is difficult for many Turks to believe in German democracy, Aver says, when they have the feeling that the freedom of assembly doesn't apply equally to all.

There are a number of similar discrepancies. Why, for example, are Islamist terror suspects pursued to the fullest extent of the law yet followers of the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused of being behind the coup attempt in Turkey, are protected? And, if the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) is banned in Germany as a terrorist organization, why don't German authorities do more about extremist Kurds in the country?

These are questions that the journalist Polat Karaburan wonders about as well. Two years ago, he founded the news website NEX24 and he and his team report on Turkey in German as an "independent, non-partisan media outlet," Karaburan says. He only agreed to answer questions from SPIEGEL in writing. "We only report on those things that you won't see elsewhere," he wrote, meaning positive news about Turkey and Erdogan. "The Turkish president calls for aid to combat hunger in Africa," reads one headline, for example. Many Turks celebrate NEX24 on social media platforms as the only "truly objective" media outlet.

Kurds and liberal Turks are less enthusiastic. NEX24, they say, is merely a purveyor of fake news and is controlled by Ankara, they write in emails and on Facebook. Karaburan, for his part, wrote to SPIEGEL that his critics only say such things "because we also publish reports that are critical of the PKK."

Recently, Karaburan received a frightening threat from someone who identified himself as Kurdish. The writer said he wanted to blow up Karaburan with a hand grenade and then "extinguish your burning body with my urine."

German security officials are just as concerned about the PKK youth organization as they are about the ultranationalist Turkish group the Gray Wolves. The PKK group has posted calls for violent resistance on the internet. But in addition to those radical groups, Turkish clans and even Turkish motorcycle gangs are represented in Germany, a milieu with a high potential for violence.

Domestic intelligence head Maassen has warned of a "significant, powerful threat potential," both among supporters of Erdogan and among their opponents. Security officials are worried about the possibility of a repeat of the street battles and riots that took place in 2014 between PKK supporters and Salafists in Germany during the battle for the Syrian city of Kobani.

'Oil on the Fire'

In March 2016, PKK supporters in Aschaffenburg attacked a demonstration of Turkish nationalists and then began throwing rocks at police. "The situation in Turkey is so explosive, it won't take much for things to escalate here," says one high-ranking intelligence official. "It seems clear that appearances by AKP politicians or Erdogan himself are likely to pour oil on the fire."

Dilan Karacadag, a journalist with Kurdish roots whose family migrated to Germany two generations ago, is sitting at her computer in Frankfurt clicking through the layout of the next day's issue of the daily Yeni Ozgur Politika. The paper is printed in both Turkish and in Kurdish -- and it doesn't offer its readers much in terms of good news. There are stories about oppression and violence against opposition activists in Turkey and about the conflict between Erdogan followers and Kurds in Germany. It is the only Kurdish newspaper in Germany and has long been accused of being close to the PKK. "I've never seen things as bad as they are now," Karacadag, 27, says.

For the last two years, she says, Erdogan has been exploiting the conflict with the Kurds to launch aggressive attacks against the minority group as a way of solidifying support. "The result has been significant hatred."

The Turkish community these days seems to be gripped by destructive emotions that are driving it apart: Kurds versus the Turks, progressives versus the conservatives, the extreme right versus the leftists. Since organizing a campaign against the referendum in Germany, Murvet Ozturk has learned just how deep this hatred runs. Angry Turkish taxi drivers have accused her of being an "enemy of Turkey" and she was branded a criminal by a group in front of a mosque. But she nevertheless continued her campaign, spending a recent afternoon dropping in on Turkish greengrocers, barber shops, restaurants and telephone shops in the Wiesbaden city center.

In her shoulder bag, she was carrying two stacks of brochures. On one stack, the word "Hayir" was on the cover, on the other, the German translation: "Nein." She says she doesn't want to leave the streets and event venues in Germany to pro-government Turkish politicians and to Erdogan fans. Instead, she hopes to start a conversation with the many voters who still haven't made up their minds and she wants to encourage those who are opposed to the constitutional amendments to cast their ballots in the Turkish Consulate on March 27.

'Business Is Priority No. 1'

In some shops, Ozturk has an easy job of it. In one barber shop, three freshly shaved young men immediately identify themselves as opponents of Erdogan's constitutional reform plan and they pose with Ozturk while holding up the "Hayir" brochures. In a Turkish restaurant, the owner takes a pile of the brochures for his counter so he can hand them out to his Turkish guests.

Most, though, are warier. One travel agency owner says that many of his customers are Erdogan supporters and that he has sought to stay out of the debate. The man behind the counter of a Turkish jewelry shop takes a similar tack, saying: "Business is priority No. 1." Plus, he plans to vote "yes" anyway, because he is certain that Erdogan won't abuse the power he is asking for.

Ozturk, 44, is a representative in the Hesse state parliament who, despite being a member of the Green Party, does not belong to a political party group in the legislature. A few weeks ago, she joined forces with Turgut Yuksel, a Hesse state parliamentarian with the Social Democrats who also has Turkish roots, to launch a non-partisan "No" campaign. Since then, they have found more than 300 active supporters, collected donations and printed 80,000 flyers. She believes that between 60 and 70 percent of Turkish-Germans are opposed to Erdogan's grab for uncontrolled power. "The problem, though, is going to be that of getting them to actually take part in the referendum."

Not surprisingly, their adversaries have been quick to react. The pro-Erdogan paper Sabah called on its readers to refuse to open their doors to the two "traitors."

The effect of such propaganda has seeped deep into the daily lives of Turkish-Germans. Filiz Ilhan, a 41-year-old lawyer from Berlin, tells the story of a recent visit to a Turkish supermarket in the German capital. She noticed that conversation stopped as soon as she walked in because she wasn't wearing a headscarf. At check-out, the cashier made a demonstrative show of friendliness to the woman behind her, who was wearing a headscarf.

Ilhan is a self-confident, thoughtful woman. With her left-leaning liberal worldview and turn-of-the-century apartment in the Wilmersdorf neighborhood, her Turkish roots seem like more of an afterthought. She and her legal partner focus on criminal law, Ilhan has two sons and she is involved in public life and politics. But she says that it has become more difficult.

She says that she lives "in a silent country" because everyone now seems to have to carefully weigh their words to avoid being immediately categorized, judged and maligned. Because the pressure brought to bear by AKP supporters has become so great, she says, those who think differently are pulling back and going quiet. "We can hardly be heard anymore," she says. Everybody is becoming increasingly careful about who they speak with and what they talk about. The unease is reminiscent of that encountered in countries with widespread state surveillance.

Keeping Her Cool

Ilhan laments that there is a lack of solidarity from German civil society, saying that she had expected more people to take part in demonstrations on behalf of imprisoned journalist Deniz Yucel. "It is a mistake to believe that Erdogan is merely a Turkish problem," she says. "It is something that now affects us all."

Nevertheless, she is opposed to simply banning Turkish politicians from campaigning in Germany for Erdogan's proposed constitutional amendments, a position she shares with the German chancellor. Thus far, Merkel has been doing her best to keep a cool head in her interactions with the Turkish government. In response to Erdogan's Nazi accusations, she merely said: "You can't even seriously comment on such misplaced aspersions."

Last year, German-Turkish relations suffered as a result of parliament's passage of a resolution on the genocide perpetrated against Armenians in the early 20th century. Turkey likewise complained about the perceived lack of sympathy following the putsch attempt last summer. Since then, the German government has been doing all it can to avoid providing Erdogan with further excuses to raise his profile by attacking Germany. Merkel is doing her best to solve all conflicts away from the public eye.

That, though, is not to Erdogan's liking. He is aware that blasting away at Merkel is a useful strategy for winning over Turkish-German supporters -- which explains his eagerness to provoke reactions from Germany.

Yucel, the correspondent from Die Welt, is still behind bars, despite Erdogan having given Merkel the impression during a personal meeting in early February that a solution to the case could be negotiated. But on March 3, the president doubled down, accusing the journalist of being a "German agent" and a "representative of PKK."

Ankara has also accused Merkel's government of being responsible for preventing Turkish ministers from campaigning in Germany on behalf of the referendum. This despite the fact that both Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel have spoken out in favor of allowing such events to proceed.

The two of them would have welcomed it were at least one of the events allowed to go ahead. After campaign appearances were cancelled in Gaggenau and Cologne, Germany's Foreign Ministry even sought to intervene to ensure that Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu's event in Hamburg would go ahead. When local officials revoked permission for the event ostensibly due to fire safety concerns, Gabriel's staff called Hamburg City Hall to ask if perhaps a different venue could be arranged for the Turkish foreign minister -- without success.

Diplomatically Sensitive

The extent to which trust between Germany and Turkey has eroded could be seen at a breakfast meeting between the two foreign ministers last Wednesday in the Adlon Hotel in central Berlin. Cavusoglu told Gabriel that he was convinced that Berlin had, in concert with the secret service and municipal governments, prevented the events. Gabriel was unable to convince his counterpart of the contrary.

Still, the Turkish government has now submitted to Berlin a list of upcoming campaign events. It remains unclear, however, whether Erdogan is planning a personal visit to Germany prior to the vote. His name doesn't appear on the list, but the German Foreign Ministry is convinced that the Turkish president will make an appearance.

Around 1.4 million Turks in Germany have the right to vote in the referendum, and polling stations will be opened at 13 different sites across the country between March 27 and April 9. Turkish law does not allow for voting by absentee mail ballots. In 2015 parliamentary elections, around 60 percent of voters in Germany supported the AKP, but there are no surveys to indicate how Erdogan's popularity has evolved since then.

At the same time, Germany must address a further diplomatically sensitive issue: the climbing number of asylum applications being submitted by Turks. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has not been moving quickly to approve these applications, with a waiting period of around 16 months. But at some point, the agency will have to resolve the cases filed in the aftermath of last July's attempted overthrow. Should they be approved, the Erdogan government won't be happy. Indeed, Ankara has demanded that Germany extradite alleged followers of cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan blames for the failed putsch .

Many of the asylum applications likely have a good chance of approval. In a confidential report regarding the "situation in Turkey from the perspective of asylum and extradition" compiled at the end of February, the German Foreign Ministry painted a rather dark picture. "There are significant current indicators of systematic oppression against presumed Gulen movement followers without the existence of criteria for what signifies a 'follower,'" reads the report, which is a significant basis for decisions made at BAMF.

Since the coup attempt, more than 500 Turks have been applying for asylum in Germany each month, including diplomats and soldiers. Just last week, the German Interior Ministry reported that four additional high-ranking military officers with diplomatic status had applied for asylum.

Foreign Minister Gabriel has been doing his best to tip-toe around the looming conflict. He noted that even during the 1980s military dictatorship, Turkey was allowed to remain a member of NATO. Turkish economic interests and European security interests, he added, are significant enough to warrant caution when it comes to tensions in the relationship.

Overcoming the 'Us vs. Them Approach'

But the question remains as to whether trust between Erdogan and Merkel has already eroded too far. The two didn't like each other from the very beginning. A Turkish government official says that Erdogan still hasn't forgotten Merkel's vocal opposition to Turkish EU membership, even before she was elected chancellor. Many Turks saw the failed EU membership application as rejection, as a collective slight of an entire people. Such emotions are now playing into Erdogan's hands.

Many integration experts believe that Merkel's approach is fundamentally the correct one. Erdogan likes to play the victim role, says Ahmet Toprak, dean at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Dortmund, adding that one should avoid encouraging him. But for the domestic climate in Germany, Toprak says, it is important -- with the chancellor's help -- to overcome the "us vs. them approach."

Detlef Pollack, a sociology of religion professor at the University of Munster, agrees. "The greatest achievement of civil society is that people get along even if they hold diametrically opposing views," he says. That, he continues, isn't so easy for some Turks because they never learned how to deal with self-criticism and diversity. Pollack nevertheless believes that majority German society, because it is in a position of strength, must take a step toward the Turkish community. "Of course you should be allowed to criticize, but you should also exhibit a certain amount of understanding and empathy when it comes to their strong connection to Turkey."

Back in Hamburg last Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu steps into his sedan following his appearance, leaving his cheering supporters behind. Three young men stick around in the cold, continuing to talk in front of the consulate general's residence. "It isn't fair how we are being treated by the Germans," one of them says. "If you support Erdogan, you don't have a chance anymore of being accepted." His friend agrees, saying he used to get along well with his German coworkers. But that is no longer the case. "Nobody wants to go to lunch with a Turk who votes for Erdogan."

By Laura Backes, Matthias Bartsch, Anna Clau, Markus Deggerich, Jorg Diehl, Katrin Elger, Jan Friedmann, Hubert Gude, Martin Knobbe, Martin Pfaffenzeller, Fidelius Schmid, Nico Schmidt, Christoph Schult and Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt
Brussels (Belgium), March 14 2017 (SPS) - The minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ramtane Lamamra called Monday, in Brussels (Belgium), for the European Union to act concerning the western Sahara issue in conformity with international law and the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

In a statement to the press on the sidelines of the High level meeting of the EU-Algeria Association Council, the minister said that discussions between the two countries were based on the ruling of the CJEU, issued last December, which confirmed that the Western Sahara territory is distinct and separated from Morocco.

The Algerian Foreign minister said that from there, the EU must act in conformity with international law and the CJEU ruling, so long as the Kingdom of Morocco joined the African Union alongside the Sahrawi Republic.

In this regard, Lamamra said that this attests to the existence of two sovereign territories and that there is an international and African law that must be enforced in order to reach a peaceful solution to this conflict which has lasted too long and which hindered important programmes, including the building of the Great Arab Maghreb. SPS

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Copenhagen, (Denmark) March 14th, 2017 (SPS) - In Press release issued Tuesday by the Danish Member of Parliament from the Red-Green Alliance Party (Enhedslisten) development Spokesman, Mr. Christian Juhl has urged the Moroccan Government to release the innocent Saharawi human rights activists of Gdeim Izik group.

In his press release the Danish MP further said: The Kingdom of Morocco leads these days trial against 25 activists of Gdeim Izik group, whom for several years have been jailed under severe conditions for participating in peaceful protests in Western Sahara. On Monday Morning it has been announced that Moroccan authorities have detained the activists' lawyers at the airport in Rabat.

Mr. Juhl said also in his Press release I call upon the Danish Foreign Affairs Minister, together with his European colleagues to intervene and exert pressure on Morocco to stop its unacceptable treatment against the Saharawis.



There must also be an international Investigation of human rights violations in this case.

 In addition, it must be ensured that the activists' lawyers can work freely and that there is a fair trial under international supervision.

 The innocent human rights activists from Gdim Izik are innocent and should be released until the contrary is proved.

Finally, Mr. Juhl reaffirmed that Gdeim Izik group peaceful and democratic efforts to put an end to Moroccos occupation of Western Sahara have his full support. (SPS)

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Algiers, March 14, 2017 (SPS) - Minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and Arab League Abdelkader Messahel expressed the hope that the new Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres will give a new impetus to the decolonization process in Western Sahara.

The UN process for the peaceful settlement of the Sahrawi cause is currently at a deadlock, said Messahel, the guest of the National Television programme Hiwar Essaa.

In this regard, he expressed the hope that the new UN Secretary General, well informed about the issue as he was UN High Commissioner for Refugees, will bring a new approach to relaunch dialogue.

Underlining an international consensus on the Sahrawi peoples right to self-determination, Messahel said that all the international decisions are for a settlement allowing the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination.SPS

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Scott Olson / Getty Images

The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue reportedly is in talks to acquire department store rival Neiman Marcus, which in January shelved plans for an initial public offering of stock.

Led by Chairman and Greenwich resident Richard Baker, Hudsons Bay brands include Saks Fifth, Lord & Taylor and Saks Off Fifth, which all have locations in southwestern Connecticut. The closest Neiman Marcus store is at The Westchester mall in White Plains, N.Y.; the company also operates the discount merchandise chain Last Call.
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While abuse among state conservators is rare and isolated, Probate Court Administrator Paul J. Knierim has asked lawmakers to approve a series of accountability measures, including random audits and written practices for lawyers and family members who handle the affairs of elderly and disabled residents who cannot take care of themselves.

The legislation is supported by the AARP and leaders of the General Assemblys Judiciary Committee, including Sen. Michael McLachlan, R-Danbury and Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, co-chairmen of the panel, as well as Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, vice chairman.

Tong said that for elderly people like his 92-year-old grandmother, he wants to make sure the appointed conservators are held to uniform standards and act in their best interests. The vast majority of people who serve in that role do so well and honorably but we just want to make sure that people are protected, Tong told reporters during a Monday news conference.

In addition to the AARP, the legislation is supported by the Alzheimers Association, the Connecticut Legal Rights Project and the Elder Justice Coalition. Statewide, more than $350 million in assets is managed by thousands of conservators.

There is no more-important responsibility that one human being can have for another, than the duties of a conservator to a conserved person, Knierim said. For an adult with dementia or mental illness, or intellectual disability, a conservator can be the key to having ones basic needs met.

In addition to managing finances, conservators arrange public assistance, housing, nutrition and medical care. The legislation is aimed at strengthening the competence of conservators; and preventing the misuse of the finances of conserved people, through review of the financial records of individuals by CPAs, who would be paid by the courts.

Stafstrom, a lawyer with experience dealing with probate cases, said that hospitals regularly file requests for conservators for elderly and disabled residents who have no relatives and need places to live and people to care for their affairs. Thankfully we have several attorneys throughout the state ready to step up, Stafstrom said, acknowledging that a few bad apples act against the interests of those whom they serve.

It is only common sense that Connecticut Probate Courts have written standards of practice for conservators to provide definitive direction in how they should operate, McLachlan said. This will provide clear guidance for conservators and help eliminate any confusion.

Police want open carry law tightened

Second Amendment supporters are expected to show some force of numbers on Wednesday during a scheduled public hearing on gun-related issues before the legislative Judiciary Committee. One bill, supported by police and state prosecutors, would clarify Connecticuts so-called open-carry law.

Currently, police must have a reasonable suspicion that someone openly carrying a pistol or revolver intends to use it in a crime, before they may ask the gun owner to present their permit. Under the proposed bill, owners would be required to show their permits upon request of law enforcement personnel, if a firearm is visible.

Gun advocates, who are banned from bringing firearms into the Capitol complex, are expected to stress they have constitutional rights to carry and shouldnt have to surrender their permits upon request. There are about 240,000 permits in the state, with many people having more than one firearm.

Another bill before the committee would codify the use of drones by police and private individuals.

Grandparents seek

visitation rights

All families are different, but many grandparents find themselves alienated from grandchildren, particularly after divorce, or the death of a spouse. A bill pending in the Judiciary Committee would allow grandparents visitation rights with minor children after they demonstrate clear and convincing connections and support to a state judge; or if parents or other grandparents are depriving them of opportunities to visit.

Emidio Cersale, director of the Grandparents Rights Association of Connecticut, told the Judiciary Committee on Monday that the proposed legislation does not threaten the rights of parents. But currently, some grandparents are forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to be able to see their grandkids.

Charity begins at the state

Comptroller Kevin Lembo faced a legislative committee on Monday asking for a change in the law governing the state employees charitable-giving program.

Our goal is always to raise, in a United Way-fashion, money from employees so we can support the good work of our nonprofits in Connecticut and elsewhere, Lembo told the Government Administration & Elections Committee, stressing that the non-profit administrator of the program will no longer run it. Lembo wants to restructure it, strip out layers of cost and seek a new contractor.

You might remember that Lembo was the recent target of an Internet trolling and a concerted telephone campaign from a Mississippi-based group that has been labeled extremist, after he attempted to obtain its donation policies.

Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, asked Lembo why his office doesnt run the program itself, to which the comptroller replied that it is a time issue, particularly with 800 or so participating charities, minus one: the American Family Association, which Lembo disqualified earlier this year, after it failed to provide requested information.

kdixon@ctpost.com
STAMFORD  Mayor David Martin has proposed a 3.62 percent tax increase in the next fiscal years budget, a figure including some new hires that could be cut as city legislators look to reduce the hike to less than 3 percent.

The main drivers of the budget are salaries and benefits. The mayors $562.4 million operating budget for the city and Board of Education does not reduce staff and keeps services and aid to outside agencies roughly the same.

Martins 2017-18 proposal would increase the number of police officers and building inspectors. It would also add employees to economic development, land use and human resources, and a person to oversee parks and recreation.

The biggest challenge for the upcoming budget, which goes into effect July 1, is what to expect from the state, Martin told the Board of Finance and Board of Representatives at separate meetings Monday night. The state next year is projecting a $1.7 billion budget deficit.

Stamford could be up $6 million or down $8 million from its current funding level depending on what happens at the state capitol, Martin said. The General Assembly will also not pass a budget until after the city has set its tax rate, meaning Stamford will need to estimate what it will get when it authorizes spending for 2017-18.

Its unlikely this will be resolved until after we set the mill rate, Martin said. There is almost no one who thinks this will be settled early at the state and the uncertainty surrounding it is quite large.

More Information By the numbers How the $562.4 million budget breaks down: Board of Education $278M City operating $156.6M "Other employee benefits" $46M Unfunded benefits $26.2M City and school debt service $52.2M Contingency $3.4M See More Collapse

Gov. Dannel Malloys proposal increases funding to Stamford by $6.5 million. While the city would for the first time be hit with $14 million for teacher pensions, that expense could be offset by $8 million in a new hospital tax, an additional $11.5 million in school funding and $1 million in shared municipal revenue from sales tax.

Martin advised the Board of Finance not to trim the budget based on what may happen with the state budget.

If we get cut, we will find savings, Martin said. What I urge you is to not try to make the savings upfront then set a mill rate that assumes the savings that you put into the budget.

Discussing the budget, Martin touted Stamfords strong financial outlook. He expects a surplus of at least $1.5 million in the current budget, due to conveyance taxes and building permit fees. The city received $2 million from the $400 million sale of five Harbor Point towers in late 2016.

Martin said Stamford spends less per capita than all other cities in the state except Waterbury. The New Haven County city nearly filed for bankruptcy in the early 2000s, but recovered after a period of state oversight.

Still, Martin cited an uncomfortably high commercial vacancy rate in Stamford that hovers around 20 percent and revenue from conveyance taxes and permits that he does not expect to be a regular boost to the bottom line.

In his presentation, Martin reduced the budget to several categories. City operating accounts for $156.6 million; unfunded benefits, $26.2 million; other employee benefits, $46 million; Board of Education, $278 million; city and school debt service, $52.2 million; and contingency, $3.4 million.

Martin said the city for a second year would fully fund its pension obligations, which he said are about 20 percent underfunded.

The mayor also trimmed the capital request to the safe debt limit of $25 million, a marked reduction after years of heavy capital spending on the new Strawberry Hill school and police station.

Martins budget represents a spending increase of about 4 percent, or $22 million. The jump is offset by an increase in the 2017-18 grand list, the sum of the citys taxable property, up .89 percent to $19.7 billion.

After a series of meetings with the Board of Finance and Board of Representatives, city legislators are expected to vote on the budget and set the mill rate in early May. The public meeting Monday night was attended only by city officials giving presentations.

City legislators last year approved a 2.7 tax increase that brought the average mill rate to 25.27.

eskalka@stamfordadvocate.com
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STAMFORD  Regina and Michael Kirshbaum said goodbye to their Magee Avenue store the only way they knew how last week: with a party for friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Agabhumi: The Best of Bali will close its doors for good Wednesday after nearly 15 years in Stamford, as the Kirshbaums move the business online before the Shippan residents relocate to Hilton Head, S.C.

It is certainly not for lack of success that the Kirshbaums are closing their Stamford storefront, as evidenced by the crowd in attendance at the party.

I am so overwhelmed and overcome with gratitude, Regina Kirshbaum said, tears forming as she looked out over the sea of people. Stamford has been a great place to build our business. I feel very proud of the fact that we had a hand in transforming fashion here.

Almost every guest was dressed head-to-toe in Agabhumi, and Kirshbaum worked the room with order forms and clearance items as party-goers browsed remaining stock.

In fact, the line for the dressing room was longer than the buffet line.

This has always been one of my favorite stores in Stamford, said former sales associate Christy Giannattasio. I started here as a customer when the store first opened and then I just fell in love with the product. I loved working here.

Joanna DAmelio, a close friend of Kirshbaums, said the city is losing one of its great creative minds.

Regina herself is a brand, DAmelio said, gesturing to her friend as she ushered another customer into the dressing room with a hand-picked outfit. She throws herself into the work, and you can see it in the product. Its so unique what she creates.

Heart of the neighborhood

Kirshbaum leaves behind more than just a fashion legacy at 22 Magee Ave.

She spearheaded a movement in 2010 to rebrand Agabhumis neighborhood, recognizing the district between Canal Street and Magee Avenue as SoTo  short for South of Town.

She always had high hopes for her SoTo neighborhood, with visions of Stamfords next hip, industrial hangout. For years, she asked the city to fix crumbling sidewalks, curbs and roads near her store.

I hope our spirit lives on in this neighborhood, she said. I know that it will live on in this space.

Kirshbaums neighbor, Lima Ceramic Tile, is expected to take over the space at 22 Magee Ave.

Im glad that a small business will still live here, Kirshbaum said.

At her new waterfront home in Hilton Head, Kirshbaum will convert the garage into a Bali-themed warehouse. She will be available to video chat with customers, offering the same personalized service shes known for in Stamford, and also branch out with other ideas.

This gives me a chance to build a resort line, she said.

nnaughton@stamfordadvocate.com; @noranaughton
NEW CANAAN  For the 15th year in a row, the Kiwanis Club brought a taste of Ireland to New Canaan, when it hosted a St. Patricks Day Dinner & Social at St. Aloysius School hall Sunday afternoon.

Its a family-friendly gathering of people who love corned beef and cabbage, said Eloise Killeffer of New Canaan, club publicist.
NORWALK  A New York man who is accused of stabbing a Norwalk woman multiple times on Saturday was arraigned at Norwalk Superior Court on Monday.

Clifton Cole, 36, of the Bronx, N.Y.  being held on $750,000 bond on charges of first-degree assault, possession of a deadly weapon, and two counts of risk of injury to a minor  sat silently in court as Judge Alex Hernandez ordered his bond to remain as set.
Thumbs up to Julia A. Stark Elementary School celebrating its 90th anniversary. Stark has maintained a reputation as Stamfords last remaining neighborhood school, proven out by the fact that 400 of the 600 or so students there live within one mile of the Glenbrook Road address. Stark also mirrors the diversity of the city, as 43 percent of the students are Hispanic; 35 percent are white; 16 percent are black and 6 percent are Asian. The school has survived a lot of changes over 90 years, including a proposal for a merger a decade ago, but seems well on its way to hitting the century mark with its traditions intact.

Thumbs down to the Stamford Innovation Center looking to expand while owing the citys Old Town Hall Redevelopment Agency three years in back rent. The center, which offers guidance to startup companies, needs to learn the one of oldest rules of business: To succeed, you must first be able to afford the rent.
I t is a pity no one senior in the Governments Brexit team has ever worked on mergers and acquisitions. A spell in a major investment bank might have taught them the value which comes from maintaining flexibility and keeping options open in any negotiation.

The shortfall in knowledge and experience is obvious as the Government prepares to trigger Article 50, as are the parallels. Takeover Panel rules dictate that once a company has made a formal bid it only has a certain number of days in which to reach a deal. If it fails to achieve its objective in that time it leaves with nothing, and probably with its credibility in shreds.

The key objective of an investment banker intent on securing a successful deal is therefore to avoid, for as long as possible, triggering the formal start of proceedings. Because once the clock is running down they are no longer in control of the process and their options become increasingly limited.

Thus, for as long as possible, they do everything on a conditional basis. They approach the target board on a conditional basis; they secure support from investors on a conditional basis; they say they are minded to make an offer  but only subject to satisfactory due diligence  to the agreement of the targets management; to achieving the support of a major shareholder and to all sorts of things without which they feel they might be disadvantaged.

This opens up the possibility to weeks and sometimes months of negotiation in advance of the launch of a formal takeover.

It is only when the investment banker has eliminated as many of the uncertainties as possible and put himself or herself in a position where a successful outcome is as certain as it can be, that they actually start the clock by triggering the process.

Those handling Britains proposed exit from the European Union are perfectly at liberty to adopt a similar tactic but they have refused to give it serious consideration. There is a respectable body of opinion which says that it would be well within the law to notify the European Union of our intention to leave the union  but subject to the condition that we first negotiate a satisfactory transitional agreement to cover the arrangements after we have left.

Therefore, the first item on the agenda would become the future relationship between Britain and the EU, and only once this had been hammered out to everyones satisfaction would Article 50 be formally triggered. Only once we had secured a satisfactory deal would the formal talks on the mechanics of separation begin against the clock.

The advantages of such an approach are obvious: it would change the whole emphasis of the talks from negative to positive; it would put the focus of the talks on where they should be  securing a positive outcome, not apportioning cost and blame; it would reduce the possibility of a hard Brexit; it would give some reassurance to the 63% of the entire adult population who did not vote for Brexit and who have been left unrepresented and abandoned by their MPs. Most of all, it would wrest the initiative from the ideologues currently running the process who dont care what happens provided we leave.

Legal experts say it is perfectly possible to approach the talks in this way. They say Article 50 has never been tested and that fact alone means it is open to all sorts of interpretation and there are no precedents to say what can and cannot be done. They say that such an approach  a conditional triggering  would be well within the law. It has to be worth a try.

Theresa May set for EU withdrawal talks after Brexit Bill clears Lords

The other attraction of a conditional approach is that the Government is still clearly hopelessly ill-prepared for what it is about to do. There is no strategy to speak of; everyone involved, other than the wilfully blind, is utterly overwhelmed by the complexity of what is about to be undertaken; no one has any idea what the nations responsibilities are beyond the fatuous taking back of control; and there is even less idea how that is likely to be delivered.

There are other issues which are glibly talked about, but could cause all manner of difficulties.

The idea of a great reform act to transfer all European law at a stroke into English law threatens to cause chaos because every bit of legislation will have to be scrutinised in advance and some other body found to adjudicate on disputes as we will no longer recognise the European Court of Justice.

The Bank of England alone has 10,000 pages of legislation someone has to go through. In total, about 15% of all laws on the statute book will be affected. The fall-out threatens to bring decades of chaos and legal uncertainty.

And spare a moment to think about the farmers. They have to plan their crops at least a year  and often two  in advance which means they actually need to know now what structure they will operate under in two years time.

Half their income comes from the EUs common agricultural policy. Thousands of farms will become unsustainable overnight when this disappears including almost every hill farmer in Wales, Cumbria, Yorkshire and Scotland. The economics of the arable crops will also change fundamentally. But there is still no sign of the Governments White Paper on Agricultural Strategy, though this was supposed to come out at the same time as the Industrial Strategy White Paper nearly two months ago.

The delay is evidently the result of farming minister Andrea Leadsom not having a clue what to put in it.

Sadly, not having a clue is increasingly what defines this Government.
A t first dash, the pot given in last weeks Budget to compensate SMEs for business rate rises looks heavily skewed in Londons favour.

Quite right, too. London firms face by far the biggest hit. But look closer and you see the shortfall between how much compensation is available and how much extra these businesses will still be left paying is truly enormous.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the borough-by-borough breakdown published 24 hours after the Budget hullabaloo.

In Westminster, increased rates are going to cost small businesses eligible for the relief way over 400 million in extra payments over the next four years.

Yet the relief on offer tots up to just 20 million in that period, dwindling to just 332,000 in 2021. In Camden and the City of London, rates for small firms go up more than 190 million over the period.

But the victims, for thats what they are, will be able to recoup only 9.5 million. Meanwhile, business rates demands have just started landing on companies doormats.

In many cases theyre later than normal, as local authorities have held back in the hope of more clarity from Number 11. Yet clarity is in short supply; even the discretionary pot is still in the consultation stages. So councils are telling businesses to pay in full now then quibble about rebates later.

No doubt theyll be bending over backwards to ensure anyone whos overpaid gets their rebate in full.

See for yourself why your local high street is destined for even more vacant lots and charity shops than usual.
S lashing stakes on controversial crack cocaine betting machines could cost as many as 4300 jobs in London as up to 1000 bookies are forced to close, the boss of Ladbrokes Coral warned today.

Speaking on the opening day of the Cheltenham festival, chief executive Jim Mullen made the jobs warning ahead of the results of an official review into fixed-odds betting machines by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, due in April.

The machines, which have a maximum stake of 50, account for half of Ladbrokes and William Hills profits, but campaigners, including an all-party group of MPs, are pressing for a stake limit of 2.

In January, politicians said there was a prima facie case for cutting stakes, with MP Carolyn Harris accusing them of sucking money out of the pockets of families in deprived areas.

But Mullen  who began his career in the industry as a student working Saturdays in his local betting shop  warned that such a cut would have a drastic impact on Londons 1800 betting shops, which employ more than 9000.

In London alone, potential shop closures could hit nearly 1000, with nearly half of all employees, 4300, losing their jobs, and a potential tax loss to the Exchequer from these London shops alone of 230 million by 2020.

He added: The future for high-street betting shops is bleak. The challenges we now face, in my opinion, pose the most serious threat to the existence of bookmakers and the key part we play in communities from Brent Cross to New Cross and throughout the UK.
T here was no need for SIG shareholders to run for cover today as the roofing firm avoided another profit warning and installed a new boss to fix the cracks in the business.

Shares in the FTSE 250 company raced to the top of the mid-cap index, up 10.7p at 117.9p, back above the level before Novembers painful profit alert that sent the shares down 20%.

SIGs annual results were in line with forecasts, with revenues up 4.4% to 2.74 billion after taking foreign exchange movements out of the equation.

However, it racked up a 106 million pre-tax loss, largely from writing down the value of its French roofing business Lariviere by 100 million.

Even still, underlying pre-tax profits fell 19% to 77.5 million last year.

Interim chief executive Mel Ewell said the strategy had been the right one but that the company spent too much time on internal issues such as the supply chain and not enough selling to clients.

Ewell hands over next month to new boss Meinie Oldersma who joins from industrial parts maker Brammer, which was bought out by private equity firm Advent this year for 222 million.

His job will be to sell off some of the business and get costs under control. The company cut the dividend from 4.6p to 3.66p per share.

Sterlings slump, with Britain a step closer to leaving the EU, was not enough to lift the FTSE 100 to new highs as it crept up 8.72 points to 7375.80  less than 20 points off its intra-day record.

Defensive stocks, which are unaffected by changes in consumer sentiment, were inevitably at the top of the blue-chip table.

They included consumer goods giant Unilever, which rose 30.5p to 4020p, and cigarettes giant British American Tobacco, which advanced 38p to 5177p.

The Citys punters had a flutter on bookie Ladbrokes Coral, which gained 2p at 128.8p on day one of the Cheltenham Festival.

Investors lost faith in Metro Bank, led by Vernon Hill, one of the biggest challengers to the high-street lenders, as it dropped 101p to 3242p after a gloomy note from Numis.

The broker said it was baffled by the loss-making banks 2.6 billion market value, which it said can only be justified if it smashes managements already lofty targets for 2020 out of the park.

Although we may disagree on the branch expansion strategy, we believe there is an opportunity for a bank that places a greater focus on the customer; just not on a valuation around 3 times higher than peers, Numiss analysts said.

Investors cheered the deal by Teddy Sagi-backed online marketing tech firm Crossrider to buy Romanian mobile cyber security firm CyberGhost for up to 9.2 million (8.1 million) as the shares rose 3p to 60p.

We believe the company is moving in the right direction, was the verdict of Shore Capital.
T he Lords passed the EU Withdrawal Bill last night, which clears the way for the Prime Minister to invoke Article 50 and formally initiate divorce proceedings from the EU. Its a terse piece of legislation, which does exactly what it says; what it doesnt try to do is spell out any of the details about what, exactly, is involved.

This is the context for Nicola Sturgeons bold declaration that she intends to seek a fresh Scottish independence referendum by spring 2019. Theresa May rapidly made clear that as far as she is concerned, it is inconceivable that there should be a referendum on independence while Brexit negotiations are still under way. The country can only cope with one constitutional upheaval at a time. And the reality is that the timing of any referendum lies with her.

The intention of the SNP is ostensibly to try to give Scotland a fast-track means of remaining inside the EU, if it applies independently to remain in the EU before Brexit negotiations for the rest of the UK are concluded. Yet the EU has already intimated that in the Brexit talks, it is dealing with the UK as a whole. If an independent Scotland wishes to join the EU, it must join the queue.

Granted, the dynamics of the debate have been changed by the Brexit referendum in which Scottish voters favoured Remain more than the English, but the problems associated with independence have if anything been highlighted since then. One crucial issue with Brexit is the land border between the UK and Ireland. Neither the British nor the Irish government wants border controls reintroduced but it is possible that Brussels will insist that this happens. It does not set a happy precedent for borderless travel between Scotland and England after independence. Then there is the currency issue; Scotland in the EU may have to join the euro  which would bring its own problems. Ms Sturgeon can indeed call for a referendum soon, but the reality is: she proposes; Mrs May disposes.

Classless trains

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has set out his expectations for the future of the Southeastern franchise, which is due for renewal next year. The new operator will, as Mr Grayling makes plain, take over a service which has been dogged by problems  and will thus be under intense pressure to make swift advances.

Among Mr Graylings proposals, first-class carriages could be abolished in favour of new, metro-style carriages, which have fewer seats but more space for passengers to stand. Its rather a bleak prospect, but the lack of capacity during peak periods requires bold steps. Other reforms include longer trains and reducing the range of terminus stations served during rush hour.

Anything which reduces overcrowding and makes the service more reliable will be welcomed by commuters. But Mr Grayling himself will be under considerable scrutiny. Having refused to cede control over suburban rail services to Transport for London he needs to prove the existing franchise model can work. The question is whether his vision is radical enough.

Irish Cheltenham

The Cheltenham Festival starts today, a time for the entire Irish racing fraternity to decamp to Gloucestershire. Its a good-humoured occasion, which peaks on St Patricks Day on Friday, conspicuous for the amount of drink taken as much as for the bets laid. There are few more democratic events in the racing calendar, where the rich and impoverished, English and Irish, rub shoulders  most of them will be a bit poorer by Friday. The festival has gone from strength to strength; long may it last.
A debate I chaired the other day at the Southbank on what Brexit means for women had split narratives. The pro argument was that womens rights are enshrined in the EU. Maternity pay, anti-discrimination, progressive thinking: these are the values of the European Union.

Challenging the fiercely Remain audience was the Conservative MP Suella Fernandes. To her, Brexit meant breaking free from the shackles of establishment power to assume personal control and responsibility. The precedent she cited was a woman of modest background who took on the political patriarchy and won. Triumphantly, she pointed out that Margaret Thatcher was followed by a second female Conservative Prime Minister. The Conservatives are ushering in Brexit, and Conservatism is good at promoting women to the top. QED. As it happens, the SNP are good at creating a female nemesis for Theresa May but lets not confuse the argument.

Harriet Harman claimed to Cathy Newman at the same Women of the World festival that the Conservatives have done better than Labour at appointing women leaders because women in the Tory party are not a challenge to power relationships and gender relationships. It is the old argument that Tories are in it for themselves whereas Labour folk look out for each other. So appointing a Tory leader is like getting a female non-executive on a board. Nothing to frighten the horses, just a flash of golden skirt. Labour, on the other hand, means root-and-branch reform.

It is a plausible thesis but does not get Labour off the hook. What is the point of all the rights and good practices if women make no progress at the end of it? What if you have somehow killed off female ambition or caused men to close ranks against it? Harman also underestimates the power of individuals to make a difference. One thing we notice about May is that she promotes other women (in a way that Margaret Thatcher notably did not). She is also influenced by other women. Her adviser, Fiona Hill, has convinced her to tackle trafficked women, a difficult and unfashionable cause.

Harman says May has not been a sister but that assumes sisterhood can only be cut from one kind of cloth. At a Downing Street reception for International Womens Day, I asked Baroness Jenkin, founder of Women2Win, which champions more female Tory MPS, why the Labour Party had more women MPs. She said with cheerful disdain: Quotas. You can force the intake but not the outcome. It is like watching migrating birds take off at the same time, expecting only the hardiest or luckiest to make it.

The truth is you need both approaches. It is a curious fact of professional life that if you do not keep an eye on women they have a tendency to vanish. And the few that remain seem to magnify themselves in male eyes so that the chairman of Tesco, John Allan, can joke that white men are endangered. One female Prime Minister does not make a female-friendly political party  but it is a sullen form of socialism which cannot celebrate one womans extraordinary achievement.

There are the rich, and then the idle rich

Its all relative: Joan Collins, who took umbrage with a Radio Times interviewer / Dave Benett

Joan Collins is offended by a Radio Times interviewer who suggested she was rich enough to stop working. Dame Joan says she is not f*** you rich. As she travels from house to house in the US, London and the South of France, she will be dogged by people who are richer. There are always better private jets, or bigger yachts.

I think her irritation is also based on the distinction between the working rich and those who dont have to. I am reading a biography of Kenneth Clark by James Stourton, in which Clark sums up his parents. My parents belonged to a section of society known as the idle rich. In that golden age many people were richer but there can have been few who were idler.

Dont ignore the real world

Our columnist, Rohan Silva, warns that small shops and businesses will be driven out of London unless business rates are reformed. On the high street outside our offices, shops are closing down in rapid succession. Maybe there was no demand for charming chocolate or original clothes but it is a dystopian vision to think of a high street which is just chain stores.

We have embraced the digital world without measuring the consequences. Yet it does not make sense to sweep the physical world away. I recall talking to a tech boss about expansion. I asked: But where are you in real life? He said the firm was building a huge HQ in London. How interesting to have a neighbour rather than a taxless entity.

Of course the limitations of real shops can seem quaint. I ordered overnight from Amazon a paperback of Libby Purvess book Radio: A True Love Story. But local bookshops are as vital for quality of life as parks. The Government must think of tax creatively. If local character goes, what is the point of our sovereignty?

Connections come back to haunt you

Charlotte Hogg, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, has lost her job. She resigned after the Treasury Select Committee criticised her professional competence because she did not declare that her brother Quintin worked for Barclays. This is always going to be a problem for the metropolitan dynasties.

It reminded me of Baroness Butler-Sloss, who resigned from the historic child abuse inquiry she was conducting because it was pointed out that her brother, Michael Havers, was Attorney-General in the period the abuses took place. She said she had not sufficiently considered her family background.

Thats the fun of being part of the metropolitan elite, but also its downside.
T he man sitting near me in the Amsterdam cafe was ordering his lunch from the menu, in Dutch. The waitress said to him: Im sorry, I dont speak Dutch. Youll have to speak English. The man put the menu down, quietly closed his newspaper and walked out.

That scene took place some years ago, but I wondered at a cafe employing staff who could not speak the local tongue. I also wondered how the man would later react to what he clearly took as an insult. I imagine he joined Geert Wilderss Freedom Party.

Tomorrow the Dutch go the polls and not speaking Dutch has brought Wilders within striking distance of power. A salient cause is the Netherlands militant Turks. Almost five million now live in western Europe, occupying a majority of primary school places in some German provinces. And that is just Turks. A million immigrants arrived in western Europe last year, and the same number the year before, almost all of them Muslims with little affinity for European languages or culture.

Lumping together language, religion and country of origin is seldom helpful, but the antagonism towards all forms of immigration has become politically critical. London is still relatively free from this impact. But three million of its eight million citizens do not use English at home, and more than a third were born abroad. The police and 999 services claim to need translators in 150 languages. The extent of this diversity is reflected in Londons schools and colleges, cafes and shops, national enclaves and foreign-language newspapers.

Like most Londoners I find this enriching. I love the citys diversity. When a French politician comes to London to campaign in the much-cited sixth-largest French city, I am flattered, even if the figure is rubbish. I would not mind if a Turkish president likewise chose to campaign among Londons Turks. When I see ever more Arab families with shrouded women moving into my neighbourhood, I do not feel culturally threatened, even when they play no part in the community and do not return my morning greeting. I take the world as it comes and accept that just now it is coming to London.

Second and third-generation immigrants constitute a majority of Londoners and I have no doubt they will become ordinary citizens, working, playing, complaining, even voting, like everyone else. Just as it was famously hard to find an English surname in the New York phone directory, so it is becoming hard in London. Mine was almost the only one in my last jury service.

But, unlike many Londoners, my neighbourhood is not my world. No foreigners are taking my job or leaving my child isolated at school. They are not demanding, as on the Continent, to be taught in their language rather than mine. I can afford to be broad-minded.

Most Dutch people of my acquaintance are no less tolerant. They regard their country as a bastion of welfare liberalism. Amsterdam is a glorious city famed for its genteel dens of sin, so orderly that even cyclists dont wear safety helmets. But the city is not London. It is a small place with a distinctive culture, language and history. Clearly its citizens feel threatened from invasive numbers. I know Dutch people who seriously wonder how much migration it will take to reduce their language to obscurity. Will Dutch become the Gaelic of northern Europe?

What went wrong in the Netherlands appears to have been the fallacy of liberal totalitarianism  the view that other peoples opinions, fears and insecurities do not matter because we find them intolerant and bigoted. Even the bigoted can vote. As the new politics is showing across Europe and America, people whose opinions are disregarded will eventually hit back. When that happens in the Netherlands of all places, liberals should worry.

Controlling immigration is no longer someone elses problem. It electrifies every corner of European politics. Yet I see no answer to it. Britain is supposed to have strict controls on migrants from outside the EU. Yet more are coming in from outside the EU than from inside. The biggest immigrant group is from India. We also host seemingly unlimited numbers of Somalis, Eritreans, Nigerians, Colombians, Afghans, Koreans and Vietnamese  mostly in London.

Londons current immunity to an anti-immigrant backlash is probably because it is a booming, robust, international city. It seems able to absorb ever more numbers of newcomers, with the only cry of pain coming from the housing market. It is no longer a city dependent on immigrants, rather one composed of them. That is why safeguarding EU residents in London under Brexit seems a no-brainer. What is the problem?

Nothing here is easy. When London was not so booming, in the Powellite late-Sixties, race politics exploded. Of all the strains now upheaving global politics, population movement is the most pressing. We can (and should) turn our backs on foreign wars, but not on their human consequences. War is driving millions out of Asia and Africa. Europe is the great magnet. Handling immigration is becoming the toughest job for European leaders.

Newcomers clearly make many Britons feel insecure and alienated. This is not 19th-century New York, welcoming the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We are today seeing the nervy politics of Donald Trump and Brexit Britain. It is no good deploring or denying it.

It would help if it was feasible to control the pace of migration into cities such as London, but even that is unlikely to alter the politics of the subject. It is vital instead to hear the protests of those we expect to bear the burden of such immigration. It is their schools, clinics, families and housing estates that want assistance, as much as the immigrants. If not, we should watch the Dutch. Voters under pressure no longer just suffer. They get very angry.
With all its subservient princesses and happy-ever-after endings (made possible with the assistance of a gallant young man with a chiselled jaw), Disney has rarely offered much in the way of feminist inspiration. Nor has it garnered much attention from the luxury fashion world.

After all, while many of us grew up marvelling at the cut of Snow Whites puff-sleeved gown and inspired by the mysterious mechanism that kept Ariels clam-shell bikini in place, as grown-ups of the 21st century we are ill at ease with princess syndrome. Accordingly, for women over the age of seven Disney might be a place for secret escapism but it is not the obvious source for a new style icon.

Bill Condons action remake of the 1991 animation Beauty and the Beast could be the exception. Honing in on the strength of character of leading protagonist Belle, the remake sees Emma Watson go all out to recast the Disney icon as a woman who makes her own choices.

It is this thoroughly modern outlook that has made the film a comfortable match for a host of designers  among them British fashion heavyweight Christopher Kane, who has designed a capsule collection in Belles honour, and the progressively minded students of Central Saint Martins BA in performance design, who this week unveil an official collaboration with the film.

Satin bow silk jacquard mule, 795, Christopher Kane x Disneys Beauty & the Beast

Despite being one of Londons most prestigious and respected designers, Kane has long been driven by a determination to make the closed-off world of high fashion more inclusive. As proof of this the Scottish designer ensured that Crocs  the rubber shoes favoured by nurses  are a regular feature of his catwalk shows and recently took out an ad in The Sun. But is the Disney association a step too far? Hardly, says Kane  a savvy businessman whose brand is backed by French conglomerate Kering.

Collaborations are a great way of working with people you respect and being able to reach out to a different market or audience, he says. Its an extension of our collections and brand and allows us to tell more stories. The collection is very Christopher Kane and speaks to our woman as well as opening us up to a new fan base.

For Kane, whose directional aesthetic is revered by a host of strong, vibrant women, Belles appeal is her normality. She isnt a princess, which is what is so great about this film  she is just a normal, intelligent girl and I think she is more relatable because of it. Shes heroic, feisty and confident. She also has this real independent attitude. Shes the kind of heroine my young niece should have.

Of course, given Kanes aptitude for clothes that delight in their difference, his take on Belles wardrobe features no floor-sweeping yellow ball gown or chambray pinafore but takes its lead from the setting and mood of the movie, with fairy blue and a recurring rose motif harnessed through oversized digital prints among the prevailing features.

TODO: define component type brightcove

Led by Academy Award-winner Jacqueline Durran, students at Kanes former art college also found Belles role as an active heroine to be a point of inspiration. Creating a series of costumes based around the key themes of the film, the Central Saint Martins students worked with Durran to ensure Belles wardrobe confirmed her as a free spirit.

But there were no feminist slogan T-shirts created for the modern Disney woman: instead the students paid careful attention to details such as pockets and practical shoes that would allow her to carry out her job.

She had pockets where she could put books and things she might need and she was wearing boots, not delicate shoes, so that she could run around the village, says Durran.

This Belle is very practical  shes an inventor. Shes always thinking of ways to improve the village.

Beauty and the Beast launch 1 /17 Beauty and the Beast launch Dave Benett Dave Benett Dan Stevens, left and Emma Watson arrive for the Beauty And The Beast launch in London AP Dave Benett Isabel Infantes/PA Dave Benett PA Dave Benett Dave Benett Matt Crossick/PA Matt Crossick/PA Matt Crossick/PA

There are references to Belle as a working woman in Kanes collection too, with a loose-fitting silhouette prevailing throughout, as well as a host of separates. While the iconic yellow gown Belle wears for the films most famous scene may be the best-known, the rest of her look is the result of a host of individual pieces. Spanning everything from coats to skirts to sweatshirts, Kanes tribute is a reflection of this.

Belles style moment, certain to prevail for as long as the film remains on our cinema screens, may be a brief one but its presence is refreshing. Not least because its proof that in a contemporary world where gender barriers are as outmoded as last years trends, those who create the fairytales are making bold moves to reinvent the classics for the next generation. Their message? Even in a tale as old as time, no woman need evoke a passive princess in order to find her happy ending.
T he National Gallerys Michelangelo and Sebastiano is fascinating, if maybe initially obscure for a popular audience. It is worth anyones effort to try to understand it.

Michelangelo befriended the Venetian painter Sebastiano Luciani  who later became known as del Piombo  in 1511, when Sebastiano first moved to Rome. At the time, Michelangelo was finishing the ceiling for the Sistine Chapel. The style of this work, innovated over the many years it took to complete it, had an impact on a number of artists including Sebastiano but also the much more famous Raphael.

Michelangelo loved Sebastiano (and was to continue to do so for two decades) but by this point had come to hate Raphael because he was considered charming and intelligent by the court of Pope Julius II, whereas Michelangelo was frightening  and always late delivering his commissioned works.

The story of Michelangelos use of Sebastiano as a factotum for his own artistic ideas and the pursuance of his rivalry with Raphael is one of the great narratives of art history. Just as important is this exhibitions achievement in bringing Sebastiano to life as a figure in his own right. Known to anyone familiar with the history of Renaissance art he is otherwise obscure, and his achievements are difficult to sum up, unlike the lovely balance of harmony and surprise that characterises Raphael, and the epic rush of Michelangelo.

Arts picks of the week: 13th-19th March 1 /6 Arts picks of the week: 13th-19th March Michelangelo & Sebastiano This exhibition charting a remarkable 25 year friendship is bound to be spectacular. Michelangelo met Sebastiano in 1511 as he was finishing working on the Sistine Chapels ceiling, and their friendship spawned a number of fruitful artistic collaborations, which can be seen here.



March 15 - June 25, National Gallery; nationalgallery.org.uk



Picture: Sebastiano del Piombo, incorporating designs by Michelangelo The Raising of Lazarus, 1517-19 The National Gallery, London (NG1) Royal Ballet triple bill What a feast. A premiere from Crystal Pite will be performed alongside David Dawsons Keats-inspired Human Seasons, and Christopher Wheeldons After the Rain, created in 2005 for the New York City Ballet. Pite recently spoke to the Standard about her new piece, inspired by the refugee crisis.



March 16-24, Royal Opera House; roh.org.uk Moonlight screening with live score What a way to see one of the most celebrated films of the year. Crowned Best Picture at this years Oscars (eventually), Moonlight will be screened at the Barbican this week with a live performance of its score, by composer Nicholas Britell.



March 18, Barbican Centre; barbican.org.uk Project Polunin Sergei Polunin has been called the greatest dancer of his generation - hes also had a turbulent career, recently documented in the documentary Dancer. He was the Royal Ballets youngest principal, but now his Project Polunin sees him stand alone. This triple bill will include modern and classical pieces, including a collaboration with photographer David LaChapelle, who he worked with for his legendary performance to Hozers Take Me to Church.



March 14-18, Sadlers Wells; sadlerswells.com Rosalind This new work from James Cousins will premiere at The Place this week. Inspired by one of Shakespeares greatest heroines, Rosalind is played variously by a number of male and female dancers.



March 15-18, The Place, theplace.org.uk E15 The E15 campaign was a huge part of the story of Britains housing crisis. A group of 29 single mothers fought their local council when they were forced out of their homes due to skyrocketing rent - they picked up celebrity support along the way and found themselves in the Houses of Parliament. This piece of documentary theatre charts that story.



March 13 - April 1; Battersea Arts Centre; bac.org.uk

Sebastianos work has an initial hit of grandness, whether enormous, such as the magnificent Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, borrowed from the Museo Civico in Viterbo, or only a foot or so across, as with Elizabeth and Mary, on loan from the Louvre.

There are a number of works in the show that arent really works, being either unfinished or plaster casts or a giant digital photo, and a number by Michelangelo that are too well known from the National Gallery and Royal Academy without actually being his most important achievements.

And the pairing is awkward: one is probably historys best known artist while the other is hardly known at all other than as a player in the narrative of Raphaels life story  Sebastiano was the great rival that Raphael defeated in a famous contest, with Michelangelo hiding in the wings, just before Raphael died at a glamorously young age. But the impact of Sebastiano is particular and very impressive once you get used to his visual language. And this show is good at educating the viewer.

The Lamentation is a strange night-time landscape  interestingly, this is the first case in Renaissance art where this episode is depicted by night. The scene of the greenish brown corpse contrasted against a white shroud, the grieving Mary represented as a vast soaring triangle of blues and off-whites, and a landscape of blasted trees and jagged rocks, is picked out by the light of a grim moon. Background blacks and greys are countered by a single accent of saturated colour: a drifting cloud of the same ultramarine as Marys dress.

The forms come from Sebastianos exposure to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Michelangelo worked directly with Sebastiano to create the Lamentation, supplying drawings for it. The work is on an immense wooden panel, displayed in the exhibition so that the reverse can be seen, which turns out to contain charcoal sketches likely by both artists, try-outs for faces and bodies.

The small painting illustrating the mysterious episode in the Gospel of Luke where the Virgin greets her much older cousin Elizabeth radiates solemn power. Marys salutation is heard, the baby leaps in the womb and Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith. Two heads in a velvety blackness, each covered in a coloured cloth, one white and one yellow, are contrasted like resounding musical notes, one shimmering and crystalline, one deep and warm.

The exhibition wont make an impact on everyone straight away. It might require a repeat visit and more than usual attention to the catalogue essays. Fortunately these are lively, full of gripping historical context, as well as careful summaries of the influence on art of humanist thought.

Its not only the relationship of the two artists that becomes clarified (Michelangelo ended up despising Sebastiano and putting him down in public just because he was that kind of guy; read the essays to understand the perverse knots that bound the pair of them). A sense builds of what it is in the less familiar figures achievements that is worth thinking about.

To know about something in art is to see more clearly what the art is really doing. Its not that we must suddenly become theologically clued up before a painting depicting a religious subject can be meaningful. But there are issues of physical sensuousness and spiritual unearthliness becoming united that pertain to everything in this show.

Michelangelo strikes anyone as important anyway so visitors dont necessarily need to be informed about him to be awed. But to learn even a little about the impression made on him by the theories of the humanist scholar and philologist Marsilio Ficino is to understand something about the weirdly massive women he created for the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Sybils of antiquity who predict the coming of Christ, and thereby come to terms with what might otherwise be off-putting in Sebastianos Lamentation, instead of mistakenly dismissing it as a bit of inexplicable olden-days grotesquerie.

What is that beefy, big-jawed appearance of the Mother of God about? Her bulging biceps and wrestlers shoulders are part of a whole complex of signs and suggestive atmospheres that would have been readable by observers in the 16th century, and were really the product of theologians and philosophers populating Julius IIs court.

A philologist studies languages, and a Renaissance humanist is concerned with bringing the knowledge of pre-Christian civilisation into harmony with modern ideas. The past is translated into the present. On a visual level thats what Michelangelo and Sebastiano did too.

Not having heard of Sebastiano we might resist being impressed by him. This would be wrong. The interest of his paintings is in the clarity, massiveness and luminosity of their shapes and forms. These make the spiritual ideas hes required to illustrate profoundly vivid. A monumental sadness and seriousness becomes pleasurable. You dont have to be a philosopher or religious to get it.

Actually, the impact of the work alters the mind of the viewer at least to a degree in both these directions. It may sound queasy to an atheist and would certainly be objectionable to any serious believer to claim that a work of art can make you feel a bit religious. Religion requires faith whereas paintings, contrary to many peoples misconceptions, dont at all. But they do need patience sometimes.

Michelangelo & Sebastiano is at the National Gallery, WC2 from tomorrow until June 25; nationalgallery.org.uk
S uckling pig liver, lamb kidney and fish head will feature as northern Thai barbecue restaurant Smoking Goat turns its focus to offal for a series of special menus.

From next week the Denmark Street site  which is sister to Sohos Kiln  is launching weekly offal takeovers on Monday nights.

This will give co-founder Ben Chapman and head chef Ali Borer, along with junior members of the team, the chance to devise new dishes and experiment with different ingredients.

Read all the latest restaurant news and reviews

For the first night, on March 20, the menu will include northern-style duck offal laab; suckling pig liver Isaan-style nam tok; Makassar-style smoked beef cheek; spicy fried lamb kidney nam prik pao; and a fish head curry, made with smoked and dried fish offal  plus an accompanying jungle-style som tom salad.

There will also be specially-matched wines available, selected by Zeren Wilson.

Ben Chapman explained that the idea came about on a recent research trip to Georgetown in Penang, where the team were in search of a famous fish head curry:

A few beers around a plastic table later wed hatched a plan to take over the menu at Smoking Goat every Monday, serving interesting dishes from around South East Asia featuring any amount of undervalued animal extremities from turbot heads to suckling pig liver and fermented mud crabs.

He added: We've found offal and other less value-led bits of animals like fish heads are a vital part of the experience of eating around Thailand. We're excited about being able to serve interesting dishes with loads of flavour at a really good price for adventurous guests who want to join in.

30 must-try dishes in London restaurants 1 /41 30 must-try dishes in London restaurants Bone marrow on toast with parsley salad at St John Not only has this dish kicked off countless wonderful meals over the course of St Johns 25 years, but it also gets credit for putting British cooking back on the global culinary map. Roasted bone marrow, coaxed out onto toast, cut perfectly with salad of parsley, shallots and capers. A nose-to-tail revolution, and utterly divine. Whole turbot at Brat Tomos Parrys talents with a turbot first came to feverish acclaim at Mayfair restaurant Kitty Fishers, but they are now the star attraction at his Michelin-starred solo spot. This whole fish  grilled Basque-style, over hot coals and in a specially designed cage  softens as if it has melted, and is basted at the table in an emulsion made with its own juices. Benjamin McMahon Marinara at 50 Kalo di Ciro Salvo Superlatives should be used in moderation  but heck it, this might just be Londons best pizza. This under-the-radar London iteration of a Naples pizzeria serves an unrivalled marinara: just tomato sauce, oil, garlic and oregano. No need for any more  with a sauce this good and a base so fine and perfectly charred, you can stop mourning your cancelled Italian holiday at first bite. Luciano Furia Clay pot baked pork and crab glass noodles at Kiln When we say Kiln is one of the hottest spots in town, we mean it  hang over the counter at the Thai barbecue and youre not far out of range for the odd flame. Baking in the heart of the swirling heat is this must order: shimmering glass noodles, coated with a silky sauce enriched with fatty slicks of Tamworth pork belly and improbably unctuous crab meat. Lamb chops, Melabes Perhaps because its quietly tucked in among its unassuming neighbours down on the wrong end of High Street Kensington, Melabes is often overlooked by Londons food lovers. An unwarranted shame, as this partly Middle Eastern, partly Mediterranean set-up is really very good; it is somewhere to pick and choose from bits and pieces, and put a meal together yourself. The lamb chops, which come all smokey and burnished from the grill, are perfect; pink as a Vegas sign inside, but the fat all soft and dripping and delicious. A must, whatever the order. Steak tartare imperial at Bob Bob Ricard Theres Press For Champagne buttons, lobster in your mac and cheese and anything that stays still long enough gets gilded  there is no point in going small at Bob Bob Ricard. Steak tartare is a luxurious pick at the best of times, but the Imperial upgrade here comes with a dollop of caviar  even without the finishing touch, the tartare itself is one of the best in the capital. Bacon naan at Dishoom Londoners spent decades believing bacon in a bap with some ketchup (or brown sauce, but lets not have that argument now) couldnt be beaten  and then Dishoom came along. This breakfast sandwich fills a fresh naan with bacon, a slathering of cream cheese, a luxurious tomato and chilli chutney, coriander and an oozing fried egg if you feel so inclined. Hangover be gone. Cacio e pepe at Padella Five years ago, you would have thought anyone queuing for pasta in London to have lost their minds  this dish changed that. The starlet of Padellas much coveted is this plate of pici  hand-rolled fat worms of eggless pasta  with a mirror-shine sauce of parmesan cheese and pasta. Simple but unrivalled  and itll set you back just 6. Jamon croquetas at Barrafina A dish like this should be elusive  it is far too easy to eat seven portions of croquetas in a single sitting, which is why we presume Barrafina makes you queue. Very sensible. As the crunchy coating gives way to the oozing centre, enriched with the flavour of Spanish jamon (the best ham in the business), were already planning our next visit. Biang biang noodles at Xi'an Biang Biang Noodles There are oodles of noodles in the capital, but Guirong Weis triumphant take is one of the finest. First finding followers at her north London restaurant Xian Impression (soon to reopen for dine-in, but not yet), the dish of has inspired a whole spin-off restaurant in Spitalfields. Thick, hand-pulled, chewy noodles soak up all the spice and zing of the special sauce they swim in  very special indeed. Souffle Suissesse, Le Gavroche Le Gavroche  the street urchin  is perhaps not for everyone. It is a Mayfair time machine, a reminder of how things were done once upon a time. Fortunately, it happens that how things were once done was very well indeed, and lunch or supper here is a masterclass in traditional French luxury (and often, happily, includes very large glasses of wine). Staff make the place, anyone who has been gently teased by the twins pretending to be each other will know. A tendency towards the old ways does mean the cooking offers little in the way of evolution or revolution, but new, after all, isnt always better. Michel Roux Jrs cheese souffle, baked on double cream, stuns, so overwhelmingly tasty, utter decadence that clings to the taste buds. Buttermilk Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Around the Cluck / 12:51 James Cochran found his signature dish early on, but its good it should stay with him for the rest of his career. While he has chops, and can do more beyond, theres something special in the way he works with his chicken; hotly spiced, gorgeously crispy, beautifully soft on the inside. A long-standing favourite and, though 12:51 cant operate as it did before, there are tables at his new project Around the Cluck, which is operating out of the same site. Breakfast at Hawksmoor Guildhall Your Full English is not full in comparison to the Hawksmoor breakfast at the steak connoisseurs Guildhall restaurant. The mind-boggling two-person spread swaps bacon rashers for an entire smoked chop, serves its bubble and squeak with short rib, puts trotter meat into its baked beans, and adds grilled bone marrow to all the usual trimmings. Cauliflower shawarma at Berber & Q Its not often that the main event at a barbecue restaurant is the veg, but Berber & Q have achieved just that. The cauliflower shawarma here is cooked on their flaming grill until softened and charred, before being doused liberally in tahini, pomegranate molasses, coriander, pomegranate seeds and a scattering of dried rose petals. BBQ Butter Chicken Wings at Brigadiers Brigadiers is a bold, boisterous sort of place: a labyrinthine City dining room, packed to the rafters with beer and Indian food that is indisputably gutsy. But arguably its finest moment comes in one of its smallest packages  these chicken wings may be diminutive, but are mightily spiced, deftly charred and dripping with ghee-fuelled succulence. Beef brisket bun at Smokestak David Carters Shoreditch restaurant occupies itself by giving the entirety of Kansas City a run for its money on a daily basis. The star turn at this lauded barbecue restaurant is its beef brisket bun  the meat is soft and juicy, riddled with its fats in the centre, while charred and treacle-like on the outside, paired perfectly with pickled chillies. To remember it is to salivate, we assure you. Snails, LEscargot LEscargot is one of Sohos old aristocrats and in its grand, beret red dining room there is always a mischievous sense of fun  perhaps because it is still such a smart, suited, chandeliered place, and people are often drinking themselves rather silly. The clue to good eating is in the name; the snails come still clinging to their shells and submerged in their butter and parsley sauce. Dive in; you will emerge stinking gloriously of garlic. It wont matter a jot; roll on the red wine and settle in for a long, comforting night. Confit potatoes at Quality Chop House Yes, there are some high quality chops on offer at this 150-year-old Clerkenwell restaurant but blimey, leave room for the chips. Fine slices of potato are stacked into architecturally sound wedges, and confited until shatteringly crispy on the outside and devastatingly soft in the centre. They have been much imitated in recent years, but never bettered. Smoked eel sandwich at Quo Vadis Jeremy Lee cooks many things to a legendary level at Quo Vadis  his pies could so easily have also made this list  but he gets the nod here for his unrivalled take on the fancy sandwich. Smoked eel, horseradish cream and Dijon mustard, served with red onion pickle  a combination so popular Lee says he nearly ran out of eel on post-lockdown reopening. Classic bao at Bao London has buns in abundance, but we still bow down to the fluffy superiority of Bao. The Taiwanese restaurant has become a cross-town favourite, thanks to its pleasingly pert rice buns (they are genuinely very pert, no crassness intended) and carefully considered fillings. The classic order comes filled with braised pork, fermented veg, coriander and a dusting of peanut powder. Carol Sachs Potato and roe, Core by Clare Smyth Clare Smyth has a knack that must infuriate other chefs; she is able to take the simplest of ingredients  say, a single carrot and a smattering of lamb mince  do something devilish with it and charge rather a lot for it; so good are the results, though, that few mind. Smyths sorcery is perhaps best witnessed with her signature, the potato and roe. It is simply a potato on a plate in a little sauce, but then it is also perhaps the best potato dish in the world; it has this wonderful salty richness, a certain seaside intenseness. It is glorious; so too is the smoked chicken that tends to come as an amuse bouche. Youll be treated here. Omelette Arnold Bennett Dont worry, no Arnolds were harmed in the making of this dish. Alongside impeccable service and an arguably perfect dining room, you could add another highlight to your breakfast at The Wolseley by ordering this creamy, haddock-filled dish, named for the writer who inspired its creation while staying at the Savoy. Fish pie, J Sheekey Long an actors favourite, J Sheekeys glamour has never lost its lustre. Its kept its regulars and charmed newcomers with a menu that plays the greatest hits of fine dining favourites. Seafood is Sheekeys thing; simply done sole is beautiful here, crab comes three ways, brill brushed in butter has a meatiness thats beyond satisfying. The fish pie is famous though, and rightly so; beneath the flaking pastry is a sea of cream, mustard and white wine, in it bobbing cod, haddock and salmon. It is simple but never fails; it does on its own for lunch, but is a failsafe at supper, too. John Carey The Ari Gold at Patty & Bun Theres a cheeseburger on every high street in the capital  but not all of them are created equal. Patty & Bun has got the classic combination down to a tee with its curiously named Ari Gold burger: a fat, 35-day aged patty is served medium rare, and topped with gooey American cheese, smokey house mayo and tangy pickled red onions. Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung Few dishes in the capital have been known to cause queues of four hours. Thats exactly what the world-famous xiao long bao dumplings did when top Taiwanese restaurant group Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden. An intricately folded out layer (made by chefs trained for at least 18 months) gives way to succulent meat and a broth you could take on by the bowlful. Pig's trotter, the French House Upstairs in the Soho local, Neil Borthwick is quietly running one of the areas best kitchens. He orders in particularly good oysters, does brilliant things with brill and with his pigs trotter, has a dish that is rich and fatty, but with a beautiful salty cut that makes it madly moreish. The menu tends to change often upstairs in the French, but have this if its on. That little dining room is somewhere to go in early for lunch and stay until late, eventually spilling down into the pub below, to drink pints  they do pints now, not just halfs  all while merrily reliving the joys upstairs. Peter Clark Dover sole with crab butter at Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill There are so many delights at Bentleys, its tricky to pick a single one. This could so easily have been a plate of rigorously sourced oysters, the fish pie, the decadent Royal seafood platter (pictured). It is however, the Dover sole that wins. A sublime piece of fish always, expertly cooked without fail  choose it either filleted with beautiful crab butter, or grilled and whole for a simple pleasure. Over in the City, Corrigan does similarly brilliant things with lobster at Daffodil Mulligan. Ragu, Lina Stores Sohos Lina Stores  the pasta bar, not the longstanding Italian deli it comes from  is the sort of restaurant one longs for; small, fun, friendly, not too pricey. They do small plates of near perfect pasta; their ragu, whether lamb or veal, is a gem. A good ragu is hard to find  too often theres too little meat, or meat not cooked for long enough  but here, they spend the time over it, cooking slowly, carefully. No restaurant can compare with a Nonna, but Lina gets gratifyingly close. Porterhouse steak, the Guinea Grill London is not short of steakhouses, but the Guinea does not number among them. A pub  a proper one  it is tucked down a Mayfair sidestreet, away from everything and yet still perpetually busy. Besides the small bar is a dining room that looks much as it must have done when the likes of Sinatra was in (or Bette Midler, or Kylie, or Regan, or, or, or), where theyve served prime Aberdeen Angus cooked on a smoking hot grill. The Guinea is all about having a good time  pints, red wine, brandies, the lot  but they cook beautifully, and their handling of a good piece of beef is second to none. Puree de pommes de terre, Le Comptoir Robuchon The late Joel Robuchon may have been the most decorated chef of his and perhaps any other era, but his signature stayed humble  mashed potato. Until youve had it, it is hard to believe it could be quite so good; mash, after all, is mash. No matter the scepticism, it will always surprise; it is almost silly that so little could taste of so much. A side, it will match almost everything on the menu; of which, the lamb with aubergine on the menu of classics is extraordinarily good.

The menu will be a mixture of traditional regional Thai dishes as well as interpretations inspired by Thailand and other countries in southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Indonesia.

The weekly-changing special menu will take over the restaurant every Monday from 6pm. Bookings can be made via bookings@smokinggoatsoho.com but walk-ins are also welcome.
W hen he chaired the Be Your Own Boss panel for the Evening Standards Young Progress Makers day at the Roundhouse in January, Rohan Silva pushed a message of enthusiastic hope. Its a really exciting time to be a young entrepreneur in London because you can start a business and reach a global market almost instantly, says the 36-year-old.

He knows what hes talking about. Silva quit his job as senior policy adviser to David Cameron in 2013 after seven years. Within 12 months he and his business partner, Sam Aldenton, had set up Second Home, a flexible, inspirational and agonisingly cool home for start-ups, creative businesses and kooky offshoots from global corporates, in a former carpet warehouse in Spitalfields.

Three years on, Second Home has already spawned an eccentric bookshop called Liberia, opposite, and it has also just annexed two further floors of the large carpet factory.

Its first international outpost opened in Lisbon this month, with another planned for Los Angeles in the future. (San Francisco would be too monocultural for a company that believes in the synergy of diversity.) Later this year a family-friendly Second Home will open in London Fields, and another catering to west Londons grey entrepreneurs in Richard Rogerss former architectural studio in Holland Park.

The original Second Home was fully occupied the day it opened and is now, er, home to 150 companies and 850 people, working on everything from crowdfunding to virtual reality to bringing better education, sanitation and awareness to girls in the third world.

Recruiting participants for the Young Progress Makers event was, Silva says, just a matter of walking around the building, with its curved-glass studios, its Ottolenghi-influenced cafe, and its stylish jumble of plants and mid-century modern furniture, and asking people: Hey, do you wanna speak?

He knows just about everyone who took part in the Roundhouse day  the co-founder of AI goldmine DeepMind, Demis Hassabis; hi-tech jeweller Kate Unsworth; business rainmaker Brent Hoberman; blue-sky policy wonk (and former No 10 colleague) Steve Hilton. Prime among Silvas many talents is the gift of making friends and connections.

Second Homes expansion is a riposte to the banks and businesses quavering, or quitting the capital and the country, in the face of Brexit.

Opportunity arises out of uncertainty, says Aldenton, 33, who is a neat and laid-back foil to Silvas wild-haired enthusiasm.

Brexit means, Right, well roll up our sleeves, go global, invest more, says Silva. I think fortune favours the bold.

Second Home: an 'agonisingly cool' home for start-ups

He acknowledges, though, that Brexit adds an extra layer of difficulty to a city that, for political and economic reasons, is already tough going for the young.

There are big challenges, says Silva. One of which is: how will the policy environment after Brexit support or hinder entrepreneurs? Young entrepreneurs, particularly, arent having their voices heard. There are no lobbyists for young people. I think that is a real challenge. Also housing. Again, the views of young people who cant own homes in London isnt being properly reflected: every politician owns their own home  most have multiple homes so there is a real empathy gap.

Silva was born in Wakefield to Sri Lankan parents, a dentistry lecturer and a teacher, while Aldenton is the son of two Hackneyites who worked for a charity and for the Environment Trust. You wouldnt guess either mans birthplace from his accent.

Silva studied law at Manchester and political philosophy at LSE, was fast-tracked to the Treasury under Gordon Brown, then jumped ship to join George Osborne and David Cameron, first in opposition, then in government. The creation of Tech City in Old Street is one initiative he has been credited with.

Office of the future? Wallpaper* editors create their ideal workspace 1 /5 Office of the future? Wallpaper* editors create their ideal workspace Wallpaper_WorkSpace_JSmith-007.jpg Work space: editors of design magazine Wallpaper have created their ideal office space at an exhibition in Victoria. Pic: Jamie McGregor Smith Wallpaper_WorkSpace_JSmith-012.jpg Desk bound: Wallpaper predict tablet computers will become the norm. Pic: Jamie McGregor Smith Wallpaper_WorkSpace_JSmith-006.jpg Chillaxing: the meeting room looks like a living room. Pic: Jamie McGregor Smith Wallpaper_WorkSpace_JSmith-002.jpg Office politics: the exhibition will open to the public on Saturday for 10 days, open daily from 11am  4pm at Howick Place. Pic: Jamie McGregor Smith

Aldenton studied international development and politics at the University of Sussex. He worked for a social enterprise called the Bootstrap Company, set up Londons first co-working space in 2005, created the hugely successful Dalston Roof Park on top of another charitable venture and opened the supper club for superchefs, The Long Table.

It was Londons first night-time food market, he recalls. Four thousand people turned up on opening night and we had capacity for 400. He and Silva bonded, he once told the FT, at a lunch where we poured icing sugar over our heads and danced around to Talking Heads.

The division of labour in their partnership is ostensibly simple. I build the buildings, says Aldenton, and Ro fills them.

Aldenton substituted the partitions, strip lights and mini-fridges of the typical co-working hutch with quirky spaces made of recycled materials, able to accommodate expanding or contracting teams. Huge windows and cutaway floors make it light and porous. Everything is transparent to encourage serendipitous collision, he says. Silva adds: My role is making sure the community is buzzing and we have the breadth of industries we want to have here; the cultural programming [of in-house talks and events], the expansion, investment.

Second Home's London office

Their commitments outside the business are currently helping to shape their thinking inside it. Aldenton has just had his first child with his gallerist wife Isabel Parada Cano-Lasso and Silva is going through IVF with his architect wife Kate McTiernan. With children in mind, you think, Wow, the city makes it really hard to be an entrepreneur and a parent, says Silva.

Most small companies cant afford the childcare schemes common to bigger businesses, which, Aldenton adds, is a big barrier to female entrepreneurship. So the London Fields Second Home, which opens in May, will have a creche and nursery, soft flooring, bottle-warming facilities and so on. (A rather self-consciously modish plan to make the nursery bilingual in English and Mandarin is now up for discussion.)

The Holland Park building, due to become a Second Home in September, plays to Silvas interests in architecture, urbanism and the theory that certain locations are genius loci which retain their character and magic however their surroundings change. Originally the studio of John Cowan, a lesser known but fabulous snapper of the Swinging Sixties, its where Antonioni shot Blow-Up, and later became Richard Rogerss studio.

Silva and Aldenton talk about rebalancing the capital after the relentless focus on east London, about wealthy west London retirees creating start-ups, and about bringing creative life back to an area that has lost the BBC, Riverside Studios, and Rogers himself. But really, I reckon they just couldnt resist it.

Both men talk with such missionary zeal about entrepreneurialism that youd think no new business ever failed, no start-up ever stopped dead. Silva acknowledges the point: failure is inherent in innovation, and Second Home is also designed to make failure less bruising, expensive and final. But they are true believers. Their commitment to green energy, recyclable materials and the living wage makes their life harder, not easier.

Second Home is a social enterprise funded by investors, and both men claim to take home smaller salaries than the senior members of the team they have recruited. Aldenton and a friend managed to buy a house opposite where he was born in Clapton, in 2007, but Silva and his wife rent in Clerkenwell.

They also claim they are in Second Home for the long haul. Aldenton says: Trying to solve the challenges of how people live and work in the city are among the great human questions, and will keep me occupied for decades to come.

Silva adds: The hope is that in 10 years we will have built something really global, that has had an impact. Maybe then I can buy a flat in London.

Follow Nick Curtis on Twitter: @nickcurtis
I t took 2,364 people to stop Tom Stranger from speaking on a London stage this weekend. Stranger is a man who admits he raped his girlfriend 20 years ago: when he was 18 and she was just 16. By giving the rapist in question a platform to relay their narrative, argued the successful petition, the event will inevitably encourage the normalisation of sexual violence instead of focusing on accountability and root causes.

But Stranger is still in London. Though the Southbank Centre cancelled his Saturday appearance at its Women of the World festival, its artistic director, Jude Kelly, rescheduled the event to this evening. Stranger and Thordis Elva, the ex-girlfriend he raped in December 1996, will tell their story of rape and reconciliation  just not within the context of a festival that celebrates women.

Strangers appearance, say those who oppose it, would set a precedent for rapists, suggesting they can be applauded simply for admitting to their crime, and may even encourage rapists to contact survivors, an action that could severely disrupt their process of healing.

Stranger counters that: If I was to not say anything publicly about what I had done I would feel that I was complicit in this issue. I would be doing nothing to change anything. I dont think thats right.

He understands he has stepped into a volatile debate but believes his is an important message. Id like to be able to communicate that this is not a womens issue. Im a white middle-class male from a nurturing humane family  and I think we need to talk about sexual violence.

Stranger is 39 now, wears a wedding ring and a carefully-trimmed beard. He has a tan from his native Australia, where it is currently summer, and speaks the careful language of a serious person who has spent many years working as a counsellor  he specialises in youth services  and reflecting upon the knowledge that what he did will, in many eyes, automatically make him a hate figure.

The story is certainly worth the book, South of Forgiveness, that he and Elva wrote together. Elva, who is Icelandic, is a writer. Her 2009 book on male violence won several prizes  the current collaboration was her idea. At the time of the rape Stranger was a normal, middle-class boy on an exchange trip to Iceland. He met normal, middle-class 16-year-old Elva  he became her first teenage romance. The pair went to a Christmas party and, wanting to impress him, Elva tried rum for the first time. She became very drunk and spent the night being sick in the toilets  staff at the venue wanted to call an ambulance to get her home but Tom volunteered.

South of Forgiveness, which Stranger and Elva wrote together

She was incapacitated and remembers how grateful she was to him for removing her vomit-stained dress and high heels, and how alarmed she suddenly felt when he started to go further. He raped her.

She remembers it being painful. She never reported what happened because it didnt fit with her idea of what rape was. Or his, he says: I presumed that after a night out with your girlfriend, a boy is deserving of sex. I sanctioned my own perceived needs and sexual urges, and had no regard for Thordiss wellbeing. I did not have an intent to hurt Thordis but that is what I did.

Though he and Elva have talked about the events of that evening together publicly  including in a TED talk that went viral  this is the first time Stranger has been interviewed without her, and he is clearly anxious about causing offence.

How did he feel when their talk was taken off the WOW line-up? I dont seek to counter any of the criticisms. I understand how some people might feel its problematic to have me on stage. Im just grateful I still get to speak. Im not seeking to re-traumatise survivors.

Loading....

But the protests have clearly knocked him: he was intending to give a portion of his profits from the book to charity. Now hes giving all of them.

Nine years after the rape Stranger, long since back in Australia, all thoughts of Elva buried, received an email. It was detailed and clear. Her words took me back to that room nearly a decade earlier. They told me what really happened and revealed the effects my actions had on her. Words cant convey how it felt to realise what I had put her through, and recognise my own past brutality. But I also felt I was being offered something really rare, something that needed to be understood, respected and not questioned. To not reply to her, or to try to deny my deed, seemed impossible.

He wrote back and they spent the next two years corresponding in long emails, unpicking the events and repercussions of that night. Eventually Elva threw down the gauntlet: You may need a lifetime to forgive yourself for what you did to me. That is up to you, and you take however long you need. I, however, am climbing a different mountain. And I am getting very close to the top. I propose that in six months time we meet up with the intention of reaching forgiveness, once and for all. In person.

They met on neutral ground  a hotel in Cape Town. Talking was difficult. At one point Stranger broke down. Ive come to understand the damage that I caused. Its been a long journey for me to totally able to acknowledge that it was rape, and to comprehend how Thordis has had to live with the effects of my actions.

Rape victim: Thordis Elva

Some men take a more lenient view, he says: Ive been told: You were only 18, youd been drinking, hormones were to blame, but Ive also seen a look of reflection on the faces of some men thinking, God, have I ever overstepped the boundary of consent? Have I ever done something like this?

So far, in their publicity and talks, the emphasis has been on Elvas story. For Stranger, this undermines one of the key purposes of writing the book  in discussions about rape he wants to shift the emphasis towards perpetrators. Rape is a mens issue, he says.

In Australia the book has prompted significant discussion among men. The same cant be said  so far  of Britain. Though the story has featured heavily in the press its in so-called womens sections, commented on only by women columnists  his Radio 4 debut was on Womans Hour. Not a single male journalist has offered to interview him. Not a single mens magazine has featured Elva and Strangers story.

The overwhelming majority of perpetrators of sexual violence are male. So the way its framed as a womens issue is deeply problematic and just plain incorrect  100 per cent. Its about time we started looking at sexual violence as a mens issue.

He has a theory about why men are reluctant to admit this and take part in the conversation.

If you Google Tom Stranger a lot of the headlines include the word rapist. I dont know if its my place to question that term  it is factually correct and Im not looking to refute it. But its a weaponised term. The semantics of it  its the grandest of sins. No one in their right mind would ever want to call themselves a rapist. I understand that. The discourse around that word almost isolates it. It is reductive to the point where it doesnt get past the labelling. Being a rapist is unforgiveable  something beyond any kind of redemption or understanding.

Tom Stranger was removed from the Women of the World festival programme / Matt Writtle

In South of Forgiveness we speak about the monster myth and how rape is seen as an inhuman act. I see it as part of a specific problem. Its almost like escapism.

What does that mean? I think the term rapist disallows any further analysis because it is a branding of someone as opposed to a behaviour.

Stories of sexual assault are currently dominating the press. Earlier this month a report uncovered epidemic levels of sexual violence at Britains universities, and last week the female judge, Judge Lindsey Kushner warned that drunk women are putting themselves at higher risk of rape.

Does Stranger agree with that analysis? Elva was very drunk when he raped her. I would say thats a continuation of victim blaming, he says. Once again, the scrutiny is on the behaviour and actions of women. Its the continuation of a trend.

Are there any situations he thinks women should avoid on grounds of their personal safety? Absolutely not. I would not speak about the choice of women in that way. I want the focus to be on the young men making their choices and why they do what theyre doing.

Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger speak at TEDWomen 2016

Perhaps Judge Kushner should have targeted men instead of women with her comments  drunk, disinhibited men are also more likely to engage in sexual assault? I dont think alcohol is the primary issue here either. Its complex ideologies, notions of masculinity, gender relations, things that are hugely complex. My upbringing was not about disrespecting women and yet I still did what I did. In terms of speaking to young men I would want the conversation to be around the damage you do. And the fact that you dont have ownership of your girlfriend.

Its a nice thought  the rapist who regrets and maybe even changes the world for the better. But Strangers is a positive worldview in which sexual predators under different societal conditions would be changed men. He says that he is. Im not seeking to represent men at large or perpetrators of rape in general. What I offer is a plain retelling of my past, without any artifice and without ego.

 After Thordis and I went to Cape Town I came back a different person. I recognised that I cant detach from my past but also began to carry it as less of a thing that I would beat myself with out of shame and guilt and self-flagellation. I guess I am an example of acknowledging your own culpability but not letting it consume your whole person.

He wont proselytise but he does have one message for men who might find themselves in the same position as he was, that evening in 1995: Its very clear  unless its a mutual thing, unless there is consent, then its wrong.

Follow Stefanie Marsh on Twitter: @MarshStefanie

South Of Forgiveness  Shifting the Focus is at the Royal Festival Hall tonight at 5.30pm (southbankcentre.co.uk)

South of Forgiveness by Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger is published by Scribe, 12.99
D escribed as an advanced communications vehicle, this bespoke SUV was developed in partnership with the worlds largest humanitarian agencies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Known as Project Hero, the Land Rover has been specially engineered with a view to improving communication and response times to natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes.

The Hero will be trialled by emergency response teams from the Austrian Red Cross over the coming year. The use of a drone will allow the Red Cross teams to have a live view across difficult terrain that might have been altered by avalanches, or floods, making traditional maps redundant. This is particularly useful in the Heros mountainous trial region of Eisenerz, Austria.

Land Rover and the team of engineers and designers at SVO are proud to support the incredible humanitarian work of the IFRC and its members, said Jonathan Edwards, Special Operations Manager at Jaguar Land Rover.

The new Discovery is an outstanding all-terrain SUV, and Project Hero is the optimum combination of enhanced capability and innovative technology. We hope to help the Red Cross save lives in emergency situations.

The car's roof is equipped with self-centring and magnetic retention technology, meaning the crew can land a drone while the vehicle is in motion.

Away from airborne technology, Project Hero also comes equipped with a heavy-duty workspace, improved night vision and multiple power supply points. Land Rover has had a longstanding relationship with the Red Cross and has built 120 custom vehicles for the organisation since 1954.

Land Rover Project Hero 1 /14 Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero Land Rover Project Hero

We are grateful to Land Rover for their generous support over the past 60 years, and are proud of our ambitious global partnership that has transformed the lives of millions of people on four continents, said Dr Jemilah Mahmood, IFRC Under Secretary General for Partnerships.

The partnership is supporting communities around the world to become more resilient in the face of natural disasters such as monsoons, flooding and earthquakes. Project Hero combines the best expertise of the Red Cross and Jaguar Land Rover to create a truly unique vehicle, which we hope will be capable of making a difference to rescue operations in the toughest environments.

Also shown at this years Geneva Motor Show was the road-going version of Jaguars luxury electric SUV offering, the I-PACE, as well as the all-new Range Rover Velar.

Follow Evening Standard Motors on Twitter and Facebook.
P olice are hunting burglars who are thought to have taken designer watches and a diamond wedding ring worth a total of more than 100,000 from a north London mansion.

A Cartier Pasha, Cartier Roadster and a womans Cartier 2698 were among the haul stolen from a familys 7 million, eight-bedroom property in Highgate Village.

The family, with two teenage children, had returned to their native United States when the thieves struck on New Years Day.

One of the victims, who did not want to be named, said: We were away on a trip to the US. These people must have known that. I think they had been watching the house.

They were definitely looking for jewellery and watches. They ransacked the house, including our childrens rooms, but they only took watches and jewellery.

"There were still some Christmas presents there but they did not touch them. They were professionals.

She said it was heartbreaking to have her wedding ring taken as well as the watch collection, which the couple had planned to pass on to their children. It is the sentimental value more than anything. My wedding diamond ring was worth around $17,000 but it is the emotional side which is worse.

Witnesses reported seeing two men using a ladder to enter through a bedroom window. A mens Gucci 9000M watch and a 48,000 Swiss Patek Philippe watch were also taken.

Police in Haringey have released a CCTV image of one of the suspects.

A number of neighbours have now increased their security measures. One mother said: We have just bought a big dog and put in CCTV outside. One night thieves tried to steal my car which was parked in the drive and there have been other burglaries around here.

"The burglars see the area as rich pickings.

Anybody with information is asked to contact DC Karl Latham on 0203 276 3150 or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800555111 (ref number 2800175/17).
A 16-year-old boy has been stabbed outside a college in south London.

Police and paramedics descended on the area after the teenager was knifed outside Croydon College on Tuesday afternoon.

A quick thinking member of staff administered first aid to the victim until emergency services arrived at the scene, officials at the college said.

The boy was stabbed in the street just outside the education centre at about 12.25pm.

He was treated at the scene by medics from Londons Air Ambulance before being rushed to a major trauma centre.

Doctors from London's Air Ambulance entering Croydon College / Facebook / Catherine Stephenson / Street Trails

A spokesman for the college, which has more than 8,000 students on its books, said: The incident took place outside the college.

"A quick-thinking and well-trained member of college support staff administered first aid, while others contacted the police and the ambulance service.

Scotland Yard said the victims condition was not yet known.

Witnesses described seeing a swarm of emergency vehicles in the area.

Artist Catherine Stephenson, 44, who lives locally, told the Standard: I saw the Air Ambulance landing on the college green, the open space just outside the college.

We watched it come into land and then we saw the medics heading inside.

Matt Woosie posted on Twitter: Looks like something serious has happened at/near Croydon college - police have taped off part of college road.

Another person named Josh tweeted: An air ambulance just flew past my building and landed by Croydon College! What's going on.

Winston Smith wrote on Facebook: There has been stabbing outside Croydon College.

A Met Police spokesman said: Police were called by the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to College Road, Croydon on Tuesday, 14 March at around 12.25pm to a report of a stabbing.

Officers attended along with the LAS and London's Air Ambulance Service and found a 16-year-old male suffering from a stab injury.

Emergency services remain on scene.

A London Ambulance spokeswoman said: We sent an ambulance crew, a paramedic in a car, an emergency responder in a car and an incident response officer to the scene. We also dispatched Londons Air Ambulance.

The first paramedic arrived at the scene in seven minutes.

We treated a teenager at the scene and took him as a priority to a major trauma centre.

The boy's injuries are not believed to be life threatening, police said.
A thug who launched a frenzied knife attack on his neighbour in south-west London has been jailed for five years.

Lee Francis, 38, left his victim seriously injured and in an induced coma for three weeks after the brutal assault in New Malden.

The neighbour, in his 30s, had returned home from a holiday with his partner to find Francis car parked in his drive.

A row erupted between them before Francis dashed back into his house and returned wielding a 12-inch kitchen knife.

Stabbing: the knife used in the attack / Met Police

He stabbed the victim four times in what witnesses described as a frenzied attack, causing him extremely serious damage to his chest, arm and abdomen.

The victims female partner bravely stepped in to stop Francis brutal attack and was threatened herself.

Emergency services rushed to the scene following the attack on April 18 last year. Francis was arrested shortly after.

Police said the victim remained in a medically induced coma for three weeks and was not discharged from hospital until August 2016.

Francis pleaded guilty to Section 18 GBH wounding with intent, but denied a charge of attempted murder. He was found not guilty of attempted murder at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday, 14 March.
A predator who groomed two teenage girls online before sexually assaulting them has been jailed for seven years.

Taheeb Udusole, 27, met his victims on social media while pretending to be a 17-year-old boy called Daniel who was rich due to his father being an African king.

The unemployed Nigerian offered the girls, aged 14 and 15, gifts and money while he sent taxis to collect them and bring them near his home in south-east London.

The victims, who did not know each other, both thought that Daniel was their boyfriend and made their allegations to police independently.

Udosole was arrested last May and on Monday pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court to one count of sexual activity with a 14-year-old and two with a 15-year-old.

He also received a Sexual Harm Prevention Order [SOPO] and will be deported at the end of his sentence.

Detective Sergeant Laura Hillier, the investigating officer, said: "Taheeb Udusole is a predator who claimed that he believed the girls were adult because neither arrived in school uniform. Both girls had told Udusole their age and he continued to force them to have sex regardless".

"Unaware that they were victims, these girls have gone through a traumatic experience and should be proud of the strength of character they have shown during the investigation and approaching trial. I hope that today's sentence brings them a measure of comfort and closure and that they can move on with their lives.

"We cannot be certain that there are not more victims who have suffered from the actions of this man who have not yet come forward. I would urge anyone who has been a victim to contact police immediately by dialling 101."
A young man was forced into a car and driven off after being kicked and punched by two thugs in south London, police said.

Scotland Yard said the victim, a black man aged in his twenties, was spotted being beaten up by two suspects in Bermondsey on Monday night.

He was attacked and dragged into a grey or silver coloured two door car in Wilson Grove at 7.45pm, according to police.

The suspects are described as two black men also aged in their 20s.

Police said two black men in a second dark coloured car joined the suspects before they all drove off towards Bevington Street.

Officers are examining CCTV footage and appealing for witnesses.

Anyone with information is asked to call Southwark CID on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A photography student who went on the rampage after being turned away from a Notting Hill club for being too drunk was spared jail after a judge told her: Im not sending a lady to prison for something like this.

Karolina Szumko, 18, had drunk half a bottle of vodka when she attacked staff at the Notting Hill Arts Club, hurling racist slurs at police officers and aiming kicks and punches as she was dragged away in handcuffs.

Even after her arrest, Szumko, who is in her first year of a photography degree at Kingston University, continued to rant at police, calling them British p*****s and telling them: You are going to f***ing die, f***ing racists, pretend to be white but wish Merry Christmas to Muslim people.

Hammersmith magistrates court heard the student could barely remember the outburst, on December 15 last year, in the morning, and now says she is mortified by her actions.

Deputy District Judge Adrian Turner on Monday sentenced the Polish-born student, who has lived in the UK for five years, to 150 hours of community and told her to pay 200 to her victims.

I hope you are horrified, it horrifies me, he said. Racially abusing and attacking police officers and security people, all in a public place, and thats the result of drinking far more vodka than was good for you.

Spared jail: Karolina Szumko, 18, had drunk half a bottle of vodka

I dare say you were not aware of what was going on, and I accept what happened wouldnt have happened apart from drinking, you are genuinely sorry.

Im not going to send a lady to prison for something like this.

Prosecutor Kerry McNulty said the incident began when Szumko and her friend, who had shared a bottle of vodka, were turned away from the live music venue in Notting Hill Gate for being too drunk.

She said initially the two women were fighting each other, but when bouncer Emmanuel Obaseri intervened, Szumko told him: You f***ing black, you shouldnt be standing between us.

She then slapped the club manager, Ralph Laurila, on the neck before wandering off towards the nearby Russian Embassy.

When police arrived, she slapped one of the officers and began shouting and screaming, said Ms McNulty, before kicking another officer on the leg.

Szumko then wrapped her leg around the officers leg and refused to let go, as more police were called to the scene to help contain her.

She was now put in handcuffs and leg restraints but was still thrashing around, said Ms McNulty.

She was shouting you f***ing b*tch, f***ing pigs.

Szumko spat in the face of one of the officers and, once in a cell at Charing Cross Police Station, she threw a glass of water over the custody officer.

She was heard shouting: British p*****s, you dont believe in any f***ing nation, you are going to f***ing die.

F***ing racists, pretend to be white but wish Merry Christmas to Muslim people.

The court heard Szumko, of Ealing, works at Debenhams in Oxford Street in between her studies and also volunteers at a Polish military history charity.

She admitted three counts of assaulting a police officer, three charges of racially aggravated public order offences, one count of assaulting an accredited person, and one charge of common assault.

The judge gave her until the end of April to pay compensation to her victims, which will come out of her next student loan payment.
P olice are hunting a flasher who allegedly grabbed hold of a woman before exposing himself to her after they left a north London bus.

The victim, 27, was sitting on the lower deck of a bus when a man tried to strike up a conversation with her.

She left the N15 in Stanley Road, Haringey, shortly before 4.30am but the man exited behind her.

He then grabbed the victim and exposed himself before she managed to wriggle free and hurry away, police say.

Police say the man was white, aged around 25, with short black hair.

He informed the victim that his name was Anton.

Police have released a still CCTV image of a man they want to trace over the October 16 incident and asked anyone who recognises him or has any information to get in touch.

Call Detective Constable Natalie Baynes on 07770 315 690 or via 101. Alternatively call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or you can tweet @MetCC with any information.
A burglar has been jailed after police in south-west London penned an open letter urging her to stop blanking us as they hunted her down.

The unconventional letter, which caused controversy on social media, was written to Tracey Dyke - who was wanted for a series of burglaries.

Officers in Kingston said they sent Dyke a Facebook friend request, called at her home and even sent her a text message before resorting to writing to her publicly.

The 30-year-old career criminal was spotted by an eagle-eyed reader and was quickly arrested soon after the open letter was published, police say.

Police penned an open letter to the suspect. / Kingston MPS

She was sentenced to four years and three months in prison at Kingston Crown Court on Friday after pleading guilty to 18 counts including conspiracy to burgle, burglary and fraud.

DI Adam Guttridge, who was in charge of the investigation, said Dyke was traced after a reader spotted her and called the police.

Ta ta for now: Kingston Police's letter divided opinion. / Kingston MPS

He said: I would like to thank the public and the media for their assistance in tracking down Tracey, she was located via a member of the public who had seen the letter and called 999.

Burglary is a terrible crime and severely affects the victims who have to pick up the pieces after their homes are broken into and their valuables stolen.

Tracey was a career criminal and has been in and out of police custody for most of her adult life. She will now spend a number of years behind bars.

Burglary is treated with the upmost importance in Kingston and we will do everything in our power to bring offenders to justice including using Social Media and our local residents to help us track down and convict criminals.

Some hit out at the public post, even after Dyke was jailed, claiming police were unfairly targeting the woman and behaved unprofessionally.

Samuel McCready wrote on Facebook: "Do we really want our police acting like this? How would you feel little Facebook trolls if you were accused of a crime and the local police used your case as an opportunity for the lolz."

But others praised their unconventional methods, writing on Twitter: Who said the written word was dead! To all those who moaned about it, it worked! Always moaners until it's them burgled!
T he London doctor who performed a world-first operation to save a premature baby is leading a charity mission to one of the worlds poorest countries in memory of his sister.

Zahid Mukhtar led a theatre team who saved the life of Abi Peters at St Georges hospital in Tooting after she was born at 23 weeks. He will travel to Nepal in May with about 20 NHS colleagues.

Abi, of Hinchley Wood near Esher, was born on October 26 weighing 1.3lbs and put on life support with a severe gut condition, perforated necrotizing enterocolitis. She was operated on six days later and is thought to be the youngest to survive such surgery.

Mr Mukhtar, a consultant paediatric surgeon, grew up in the Pakistani Himalayas and said he was inspired to take up medicine by the death of his sister Naseem from gastroenteritis aged three: I came [to the UK] when I was really young but spent quite a lot of my childhood staying with my grandma.

That is when I really understood the lives of poor farmers in the mountains and the total lack of healthcare, particularly for children. My grandmother was my greatest influence.

"She was uneducated but very wise. She felt it was a total injustice that children would die from such simple things. She would take me to the childrens cemetery. That has made me do what Im doing.

The way my mother dealt with grief was to talk to me about my sister  how she went from one quack to another to try and get help. These times as a child influence what you do.

Shabnam Parkar, consultant paediatric surgeon at St Georges, Zahid Mukhtar, consultant paediatric surgeon at St Georges, Jessica Ng, paediatric surgical registrar at Royal London

The three-week mission is being organised by Health Partnership Nepal, which Mr Mukhtar, 45, runs with paediatric surgeons Jessica Ng and Shabnam Parkar. It first set up annual camps in 2009 and sees more than 2,000 people on each visit.

The team, joined by medical students and Nepali doctors, use annual leave and pay travel costs to perform about 100 life-changing operations in the most basic settings. Last year they took over a rural school and performed surgery wearing hiking headtorches and using ketamine as a local anaesthetic.

On the first day Ms Parkar and Ms Ng saved the life of a 14-year-old boy who had been critically injured by roofing debris sent flying in a thunderstorm.

He and his 12-year-old sister suddenly appeared at the school door. He was bleeding from two chest wounds and had a life-threatening pneumothorax  trapped air between the chest wall and lung.

Using a 20 heart rate monitor bought on Amazon and intravenous tubing as a chest drain, they inserted a surgical tool into the wound and the boy was able to breathe properly.

Dr Ng, 32, a registrar at The Royal London, added: They called us the next day to say thank you, he is alive.

The charity needs to raise about 20,000 a year for medical supplies. Surgery ranges from removal of cysts and birthmarks to treating severe swellings, tumours and hernias. The most serious cases are taken to Kathmandu.

Ms Parkar, 36, a consultant at St Georges, said: We sometimes see people who have walked two or three days from their village. Its the first time they have seen a doctor.

To donate visit hpnepal.org
A disgusting road sign warning people about the presence of Jews has been found attached to a lamppost in north London.

The triangular sign, discovered in Stamford Hill on Monday, shows a silhouette of a traditionally-dressed Orthodox Jewish man with a bright red border around it.

It is in the same style as official government road signs which warn of dangers including schoolchildren crossing the road and slippery surfaces.

Neighbourhood watch group the Shomrim said it had reported the sign to police and Hackney Council after it appeared near a synagogue on Clapton Common.

Barry Bard, Supervisor at Stamford Hill Shomrim, said: "The sign has caused a lot of concern amongst local Jewish residents, especially as it is in such close proximity to a Synagogue."

'Unacceptable': the sign was found near a synagogue / Shomrim

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot, who is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, branded the sign disgusting and unacceptable on Twitter.

Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy also slammed the sign. "Despicable, nasty behaviour that has absolutely no place in our community," he wrote on Twitter.

The silhouette of the man on the sign clearly has the hat, side curls and long coat associated with Orthodox Jewish men.

A Shomrim study last year recorded 32 anti-Semitic incidents during a month-long study among Orthodox Jews living in the Stamford Hill area.

Among those attacked were an eight-year-old boy who was beaten up on his way home and a woman who was confronted by a man giving a Nazi salute.

Sadiq Khan pledged to organise talks between police and the neighbourhood watch group following the report.

He said: That number of reports in a single month is of concern to me.

"Both I and the MPS agree that hate crime is under-reported and this is particularly true with regard to hate crime affecting London's Orthodox Jewish communities.
A sexist Tube advert which sparked a backlash for suggesting men should treat their partners to a manicure to keep them sweet after a night out is to be reviewed by transport bosses.

The ad, for London-based beauty and wellness app USPAAH, provoked a flurry of outrage from both men and women who branded it sexist and misogynistic.

Alongside a picture of a mans mock sad facial expression, the advert reads: Out with the guys til 4am again? Keep her sweet with a spa mani/pedi at home.

Commuters who spotted the poster on the London Underground network accused the spa company of suggesting that women were simple creatures that could be bought off by gifts.

Others hit out at USPAAH for peddling attitudes belonging in the 1950s.

The ad has been displayed at Tube stations across the London Underground network / USPAAH

The company said it stood by the advert "wholeheartedly".

Iglika Ghouse, founder and CEO of USPAAH, said: Just because it is 2017 [it] does not mean couples dont argue and as far as we are aware it's still OK to receive a gift as part of an apology."

On Tuesday, City Hall and Transport for London told the Standard that the advert would be reviewed following the backlash. TfL will work with its advertising partners to decide whether further action should be taken and if the ad breaks any rules.

The Advertising Standards Authority said it was also considering whether to launch an investigation after receiving a handful of complaints saying that poster was sexist and offensive.

The ad prompted an angry backlash on social media with both men and women publicly tweeting the spa company, which is run by an all-female team, to complain.

Charlotte Sexton wrote: Silly me, I forgot this was the 1950s and all that's needed to make a woman happy is to buy her a pedicure. @USPAAH this is @EverydaySexism.

Milly Thomas tweeted: Hey @USPAAH I found this advert pretty gross and unnecessary. Might you consider changing it for something more inclusive?

Hauke Grun said: @USPAAH 1950 just called and wants its advert back! #saveyourself #adfail.

Poppy Corbett said: The ad implies shes stupid and can be bought off. Just look at his patronising face. Wont be using this company.

In response to her tweet, USPAAH said: How interesting that you think if one receives a gift, they're "stupid". Must stop gift giving worldwide ASAP. #BanXmas too?

The mobile beauty provider repeatedly responded to criticism on Twitter, including asking whether Christmas should be cancelled if its offensive to suggest men give their partner gifts.

Others applauded the company for sticking to its guns.

A Twitter user, posting under the name Vivian, said: "Kudos to @USPAAH for not backing down. Proper thing. I enjoy companies that don't buckle under social pressure to please everyone.

"It's good to keep your ground even under criticism. It's rather refreshing to see."

Another person wrote: "Absolutely impressed with your responses to the haters."

The companys founder and CEO Ms Ghouse said: "We are an all-female team and we stand whole-heartedly behind our ads especially, as we have received hundreds of reassuring and supportive messages from all over the world.

"Our ads were designed with full compliance of the official guidelines provided to us, together with research into the most annoying partner behaviour and we are happy to let our campaign run its course."

She said the company would provide its full co-operation with TfL and the ASA should any investigation arise.

A spokesman for Mayor Sadiq Khan said: In some cases, adverts are referred to TfL for further review. Had this advert been referred to TfL, they would have worked with the advertiser to amend it.

TfL will work with their advertising partner today to review the content and assess what further action can still be taken around this advert.

A Transport for London spokeswoman said: In some cases, adverts are referred to us for further review. Had this advert been referred to us, we would have worked with the advertiser to amend it.

We will work with our advertising partner today to review the content and assess what further action to take around this specific advert.
I t remains a mystery why a former Tube driver from London travelled to Manchester before taking rat poison on a bleak moor, an inquest concluded.

David Lytton, 67, was discovered on Saddleworth Moor in Greater Manchester on December 12, 2015 prompting a massive police investigation.

An international hunt for clues sparked interest across the world as his identity remained unknown for 13 months, Rochdale Coroner's Court was told.

But on Tuesday an open verdict was recorded by Simon Nelson, senior coroner for Greater Manchester North, who said a series of "fundamental questions remain unanswered" over the death of Mr Lytton.

An artist's impression of David Lytton - found on Saddleworth Moor in December 2015 / Greater Manchester Police

Originally from London, he flew 4,000 miles from his adopted home in Pakistan  where he moved in 2006  and booked into a hotel for five days in London before paying for a return train ticket to Manchester.

While in Manchester he went to a pub near Saddleworth Moor, asked the landlord the way to "the top of the mountain" and wandered off into the dark to take strychnine.

He was wearing a light mac, trousers, a shirt and slip-on shoes and had no connection to Saddleworth.

Mr Lytton was discovered on a remote track on the ground above Dovestone Resevoir. He was fully clothed but with no identification on him.

CCTV unidentified man Greater Manchester Police

Despite a mass media appeal he was only identified in January, more than a year after his death.

Mr Lytton had been in a relationship for more than 30 years with a woman, the inquest heard, but did not even tell her he was moving to Pakistan and simply left.

Another friend of his did not even know of her existence.

He had also not spoken to his only brother for more than 10 years before his death.

Though highly intelligent, he was also a complex man who "compartmentalised" his life and friendships, the inquest heard.

CCTV image: Greater Manchester Police released CCTV footage of David Lytton at Ealing Broadway station / PA

Coroner Mr Nelson said he was satisfied there was no third party involvement in Mr Lytton's death and that he had taken the poison "by his own hand."

But he said there was no way of knowing his intention. He had booked a hotel for five nights in London, bought a return train ticket, had no connection to Dovestone Reservoir, and was "inadequately and inappropriately" dressed to go walking in winter on the moors.

And it was not known where he had got the strychnine or "his prevailing intention" before ingesting the poison.

Mr Nelson, concluding the four-hour inquest, added: "This has been an extra-ordinary case for obvious reasons.

"Sadly, notwithstanding the quite outstanding investigative work by the police, there are many fundamental questions which remain unanswered.

"He was a highly complex, private individual who tended to compartmentalise his life or not reveal or share his thoughts or future plans."

The inquest heard he had been born David Lautenberg, the family changed their name to Lauten, and he later changed his name again to Lytton, growing up in Finchley, north London.

Younger brother Jeremy Lauten described him as a "genius" who did well at grammar school and wanted to become an Oxbridge student.

But he failed to get the grades and eventually dropped out of a sociology and psychology degree at Leeds University, and became ever more "insular" and distant from his family.

He became a croupier and later a Tube driver on the London Underground - so he could spend all day in the cab on his own without speaking to people.

He had a house in Streatham but lived a "minimalist" life "unencumbered with possessions" and his home was virtually empty.

Old friend Salim Akhtar described his friend as "highly intelligent" but "very private" and a "loner" who had a "difficult" relationship with his family.

Mr Akhtar picked him up from Heathrow Airport when he returned to the UK for the last time.

In a statement, he said: "He told me he was thinking of going travelling. He was very relaxed.

"I did not hear from David again, it did not come as a surprise because that's how David was.

"He was just going off to do his own thing without any warning."
B anks could start making plans to move operations out of the London as soon as Article 50 is triggered, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned.

Mr Khan told a House of Commons committee that banks were telling him they wanted assurances that they did not face a cliff-edge move to World Trade Organisation tariffs.

This would be a "catastrophe" for the sector and could have a huge impact on jobs in the capital, he added.

Theresa May is planning to trigger EU withdrawal talks under Article 50 later this month.

What is Article 50?

Mr Khan called on her to strike an early "interim deal" on transitional trade arrangements with Brussels, warning that banks "can't wait" for the full two-year negotiation to be concluded.

Addressing the Commons Exiting the EU Committee, Mr Khan said without clarity on "passporting" arrangements, which allow UK-based financial institutions to operate across Europe, there was a danger of companies following one another in making the move away from London.

"If, in the next few weeks - post Article 50 being served - they have not got the reassurance that there is going to be an interim deal in two years and one day, they will start making plans to move some of their operations," Mr Khan told the cross-party committee.

"They don't want to leave. They love being in London, because of the technology, the talent, the finance, the legal services, our courts. They love that, but they will have no choice but to go, they have told me."

Finance chiefs had privately told him they were "worried" about the prospect of the two-year Article 50 negotiations resulting in "hard Brexit".

He said: "They have got plans for the possibility of a deal not being done in two years.

"Those with a presence in Europe say it takes between a year and 18 months to get up and go. Others without a presence in a European city, it would take two years."

And he warned that some institutions would not move to European cities such as Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin, which are actively wooing them, but to international financial bases outside the EU, such as New York, Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai.

Mr Khan, who backed Remain in the 2016 referendum, acknowledged that fears of an immediate flight of jobs from London after the Brexit vote had not materialised.

But he noted that banks, including UBS and JP Morgan, had publicly discussed transferring thousands of staff out of the UK, while HSBC had said that it could move to Paris.

He stood by previous warnings of "colossal damage" to the capital if the UK left the EU without a deal and was forced to fall back on WTO rules, as Prime Minister Theresa May has said she would do if she was offered a "bad" deal by Brussels.

"In most circumstances, no deal means WTO terms, which means tariffs for goods, non-tariff barriers on services," said Mr Khan.

"When I speak to the service sector in particular, no deal and WTO terms equals catastrophe as far as they are concerned."

Mr Khan called on Mrs May to declare on the day she triggered Article 50 that she was offering "a cast-iron guarantee to all the EU citizens who are already here to streamline their permanent residency".

There was already evidence of some of London's one million EU nationals returning to their home countries because of uncertainty over their post-Brexit status, he said, as he warned of the damage which cuts in immigration would inflict on the capital's economy.

"Not only do we need talented people and need immigration but London voted that we want it as well," he said.

"If we can't continue to attract talent it will have a large impact on our ability to be a wealth generator for our country."

Additional reporting by Press Association
D onald Trump has a lot on his plate at the moment but has he found time to sue British artist Alison Jackson?

The Londoner met Jackson at Cure3, a Bonhams art sale for the Cure Parkinsons Trust last night. As guests roamed around works by Damien Hirst, Sir Peter Blake and Jonathan Yeo, word spread that Jackson might be having legal troubles with the US President.

Jackson is famed for playful lookalike photos of celebrities, especially royals. Her latest book is full of mocked-up images of Trump, and imagines him with the Ku Klux Klan, holding a rifle, and having sex with Miss Mexico on a desk in the Oval Office.

No publisher would touch the book last year, so Jackson self-published in October, against advice from her lawyers. Was she being sued, The Londoner asked? She seemed to confirm the rumour.

I cant talk about it in case it gets worse.

The subject turned to other things, before we tried again. Where is he suing you? The thing is I cant talk about it. In America or UK? Anywhere. You know about legal cases  you cant.

Last year Jackson told The Guardian she feared legal action. Nobody wants to end up in litigation with the President, she said. But I find it outrageous that artists should be under threat from a President in the US.

Jackson was happy, however, to discuss Trumps state visit to the UK. I bet hes busy rehearsing his curtsey, she joked, and said shed probably watch him meet the Queen. Id like to see him. Ive just been to Florida and saw his friends. They are all orange.

Jackson said her next target was Theresa May.

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UKIP don't Bank on Banks

Getty Images

Ukip is surprisingly jolly about a Scottish secession. Its time to build a wall, a big huge beautiful wall  bring back Hadrians Wall, Nigel Farages pal Andy Wigmore tweeted yesterday. Donor Arron Banks added: Its time the English have a vote on retaining the Scots. Ukip is having its own vote on retaining Banks: he said hed been suspended, the party said his membership had lapsed. Given the money Banks pumped into the party, he will feel he has paid his dues.

Novelist writes a love letter to Boris

Getty Images

Author Rowena Macdonald, veteran House of Commons committee assistant, is releasing her debut novel, The Threat Level Remains Severe, set in the corridors of power.

The Londoner got a sneaky peek and was struck by the sections on Boris Johnson  the only real politico named in the book  which are less roman-a-clef, more roman-a-totally-obvious. One female character explains the wonder of Boris thus. He was incredibly intelligent, he spoke fluent Latin and Greek... so kind, such a fair and understanding employer... He gave her so many opportunities. The enthusing over Boriss barnet is also disturbing. His hair is absolutely wonderful. So thick and blonde. For more on Boriss godliness, the book comes out in July.

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Quote of the day: 'Referendums are like buses. You wait for ages for one and then Nicola Sturgeon comes round the corner and runs you over

From the conductor of the Timess Red Box political mailout, Matt Chorley.

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Prue Leith chains herself to the stove

Getty Images

Unlock the Red Room: novelist and foodie Prue Leith has denied claims that she is to be the new judge on The Great British Bake Off, but she could give Mary Berry a run for her money with erotic puns. Leith hosted the Romantic Novelists Associations Romantic Novel of the Year Awards, held at Whitehalls Gladstone Library. I dont like the word romantic, she said. Its been corrupted into meaning pink and light, frilly and horrid. Im in favour of 50 Shades. I havent read the book but I saw the movie  E L James broke a taboo. Good for her. Will she whip the cream and beat the eggs?

Deep pockets, Mr Osborne? David Owen

Dave Benett/Getty Images

In an age of austerity, George Osborne will receive 650,000 for working one day a week at BlackRock, the US fund manager, with added publpublic speaking gigs. Lord Owen, right, thinks its a disgrace.

Osborne is very clever, Owen told us last night. Hes also current, and is using the opportunity to profit before the window closes. But I dont believe an MP should be profiting from public service or using his ministerial position to get work. It seems wrong: if politicians are asked to speak they should do it for free.

Owen was at The Garrick last night for the launch of new book The China Maze, written by George Walden under the pseudonym Joseph Clyde. Also at the bash was journalist Celia Walden, Georges daughter, and her husband Piers Morgan. Many arrived prepared to put their hands in their pockets to support the book, but since The Garrick doesnt allow profiteering, all copies were gratis.

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Imported holidays are controversial: Brits have taken to Halloween but are still sceptical of Black Friday. The latest US export is Pi Day  a celebration of maths marked with free pie giveaways. Singaporean PM Lee Hsien Loong counts as a fan. Sharing maths puzzles on Twitter, he noted: Theyre not as easy as pie, and can be quite tricky! :) It doesnt add up for The Londoner: Pi Day only works if you write todays date as 3/14, like the mathematical constant Pi. Dudes: its 14/3.

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Tweet of the day: It is so odd living in a country that is calmly walking itself off a cliff. No war, no general election won by rogue candidate. Just cliffs.

Journalist Sophie Heawood on our dis-United Kingdom.

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Stay tall in the saddle, Emily

Dave Benett/Getty Images

On the eve of Cheltenham, Emily Oppenheimer, centre, hosted the launch of equestrian clothing range Miasuki at the Bulgari Hotel. She welcomed PR pal Jenny Halpern Prince, left, and Tatlers Kate Reardon, who toasted women including Oppenheimers riding buddy Elisabeth Murdoch who have returned to the saddle as their children have grown up. No more empty stable syndrome.

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Ban of the day: China has banned Peppa Pig, part of the new constraints on the inflow of ideology in foreign fiction and TV for children. Cancel our order for sweet n sour pork.

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T heresa May declared Brexit was not a moment to play politics today in a rebuff to Nicola Sturgeons demands for another Independence referendum during negotiations with the EU.

The Prime Minister said the passing of the Bill authorising departure talks was a defining moment for our whole country, making clear she would not allow separate negotiations north of the border.

He words came in a Commons statement following the decision of the Lords and Commons last night to pass the Bill, which Mrs May would get Royal Assent over coming days.

This will be a defining moment for our whole country as we begin to forge a new relationship with Europe and a new role for ourselves in the world, she said.

We will be a strong, self-governing Global Britain with control once again over our borders and our laws.

Rattled investors offloaded Sterling in response to the political bombshell dropped by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeons call for a re-run of the once in a generation independence poll, driving the Pound to an eight-week low.

And earlier an ally of Ms Sturgeon demanded more clarity about Scotlands future and said Scots faced two years of drift during negotiations with 27 EU partners.

Rattled investors offloaded sterling, driving the pound to an eight-week low, in response to the political bombshell dropped by the SNP leader when she called for a new vote.

The Queen is set to give Royal Assent to the law authorising Mrs May to trigger the departure process within the next few days.

But the Governments hopes of a smooth path to the exit door were disrupted as an ally of Ms Sturgeon called for more clarity about Scotlands future, and said Scots faced two years of drift during negotiations with 27 EU partners.

Scotlands external affairs minister Fiona Hyslop said: We cant drift for the next two years, we have to provide strong political leadership and thats exactly what First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has done.

Downing Street hit back, saying: It is precisely by raising the question of a second referendum that the SNP are creating uncertainty and division.

In another sign of trouble, top diplomats claimed there was almost no chance of a comprehensive trade deal being reached between Britain and the EU in the two-year timetable for talks.

Viviane Reding, the former European Commission vice-president, said it was wishful thinking on the Prime Ministers part to believe such a deal could be agreed swiftly.

The MEP for Luxembourg told BBC Radio 4: Two years is out of the question. It is completely ... unrealistic.

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Meanwhile, a leaked document revealed seven Acts of Parliament will have to be passed before Britain is ready to move outside the bloc.

Mayor Sadiq Khan called on ministers to guarantee that environmental regulation will be strengthened rather than weakened after Brexit.

He told MPs on the Brexit select committee he was deeply concerned about the impact that leaving the EU will have on the environment and air pollution.

City Hall believes EU green regulations have had a hugely positive effect overall. It is understood to be concerned that Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom said only two thirds of EU environmental regulations would be brought directly into British law.

The Mayor has called on ministers to bring in a new Environment Act to make sure replacement laws are equivalent if not better than EU standards.

He also wants new EU policy yet to be enshrined in UK law  such as the winter package on energy efficiency and renewable energy  to be brought in.

Mr Khan, who campaigned to Remain, said: The British people did not vote to make our air more polluted or our environment dirtier. Our relationship with the EU has been particularly important for Londons environment."
T he deputy governor of the Bank of England has resigned as a damning report by MPs today heavily criticised her for failing to declare her brother worked for Barclays.

The Treasury Select Committee said Charlotte Hoggs professional competence falls short of the standards required to fulfil her role over her failure to admit the connection.

It came after the 46-year-old - who is one of Britains most senior bankers - last month [FEB] said her brother Quintin is director of group strategy at Barclays bank, which the Bank of England regulates.

Despite joining the bank in 2013 as chief operating officer, she did not disclose her brothers role until February 2017 ahead of a meeting with MPs about her promotion as governor Mark Carneys deputy.

The Committee considers that her professional competence falls short of the very high standards required to fulfil the additional responsibilities of Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking, the Treasury Select Committees report said.

The report by the influential committee, headed by Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, concluded she had not deliberately misled the committee but her failure to comply with the banks code of conduct for nearly four years would have impacted on the committees decision to recommend her as a candidate for the job to the Chancellor.

Moments after the report was published, it was made public that Hogg - whose parents both sit in the Lords - offered to resign last week before writing to Bank governor Mark Carney yesterday insisting she must step down from her post.

Writing to Mr Carney and Anthony Habgood, chairman of the Banks Court, Ms Hogg said: Last week I offered you my resignation in recognition of the fact that I made a mistake in not declaring my brothers work on the forms that the Bank requires. It has become clear to me that I should now insist.

As I have said, I am very sorry for that mistake. It was an honest mistake: I have made no secret of my brothers job - indeed it was I who informed the Treasury Select Committee of it, before my hearing.

But I fully accept it was a mistake, made worse by the fact that my involvement in drafting the policy made it incumbent on me to get all my own declarations absolutely right.

I also, in the course of a long hearing, unintentionally misled the committee as to whether I had filed my brothers job on the correct forms at the Bank. I would like to repeat my apologies for that, and to make clear that the responsibility for all those errors is mine alone.

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank, said: While I fully respect her decision taken in accordance with her view of what was the best for this institution, I deeply regret that Charlotte Hogg has chosen to resign from the Bank of England.

Since Charlotte joined the Bank almost four years ago, she has transformed its management and operations.

He praised her work to overhaul the banks IT systems and for changes to how it manages and rewards its employees.

He added: Along the way, she has inspired countless colleagues at the Bank and attracted a new cohort of professionals to it.

Ilford North MP Wes Streeting, who sits on the Treasury Select Committee said: The message from the committee is clear and unanimous: had we known then what we know now we would not have endorsed her appointment.

"Her subsequent evidence to the committee has made it impossible to conclude anything other than her professional competence falls short of the standards required - and she should not take up that role.

Oxford-educated Ms Hogg wrote to MPs last week apologising for not disclosing her brothers role when she joined the bank.

She said she would remain alert to future situations where there may be either a perceived or actual conflict of interest.

However the report concluded this to be a serious misjudgement because as deputy she would have sat on the Prudential Regulation Committee which discusses commercially sensitive information about the UK banking sector.

Labour MP John Mann, who sits on the the Treasury Select Committee said the decision was one of the most significant they had made and had been strongly united on the decision.

He tweeted: Charlotte Hogg: strongest opinion ever made by a Treasury Committee: knowing what we know now, we would not have approved her. Unanimous.

Ms Hoggs father is Douglas Hogg, 3rd Viscount Hailsham, a former Tory minister who joined the Lords in 2015 as a life peer in David Camerons dissolution honours.

Lord Hogg stood down as an MP at the 2010 General Election after being at the centre of the expenses scandal when he claimed 2200 to dredge the moat at the familys estate Kettlethorpe Hall in Lincolnshire.

Her mother is businesswoman Sarah Hogg who was head of John Majors policy unit and was the first female to head a FTSE 100 company. She was granted a life peerage in 1995 and sits in the Lords as a crossbencher.

Entrepreneur Luke Johnson Tweeted: A bit of a setback for the entitled toffs.


A female crew member dragged from the sea after an Irish Coast Guard helicopter went missing has died.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick was pronounced dead in hospital after the aircraft which had been carrying four people lost contact during a rescue mission around 1am on Tuesday.

Cpt Fitzpatrick, 45, was pulled from the water off the west coast of Ireland around 7am, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport said.

Friends and family took to social media to pay tribute.

George Lawlor wrote on Facebook: A superb helicopter pilot with the Irish Coastguard who lost her life doing what she did best - serving others.

Danni McLoughlin added: What a woman. RIP.

And, Padraig Nolan wrote: A hero and a true lady. So sad to hear that Captain Dara Fitzpatrick has died following the loss of Rescue 116. A lovely woman to speak to, a true hero and accomplished SAR pilot.

A frantic search for three other crew members continued on Tuesday afternoon.

Missing helicopter: The aircraft went missing off the coast of Ireland's Co Mayo / Irish Coast Guard

The helicopter disappeared while providing cover for another chopper involved in a result operation involving a fishing vessel, officials said.

A Coast Guard spokesman said the missing helicopter had been providing cover in the evacuation of a crewman who needed urgent medical attention, from a UK-registered fishing vessel approximately 150 miles west of Eagle Island in Co Mayo.

"Owing to the distance involved, safety and communication support, known as Top Cover, was provided by the second Coast Guard helicopter, the Dublin based R116," he said.

"The search operation is being coordinated by the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centre in Malin Head.
B ritish Airways has come under fire from hungry travellers after running out of food on short haul flights from London.

Furious customers bombarded the airline with complaints after being left unable to buy snacks in mid-air.

The company has also cfaced criticism for failing to stock enough toilet roll.

Tess Evans, who flew from Gatwick Airport to Fuertaventura, in the Canary Islands, said cabin crew ran out of food after only half of passengers had been served.

In a letter written to the Telegraph, she wrote: They just had a couple of packets of biscuits and nuts... Our 11-year-old daughter was in tears she was so hungry.

A Twitter user wrote: Why are passengers paying for food now? Unbelievable. Then the food ran out mid flight! #britishairways #rethink #shameful

Rebecca Clifford, who was travelling from Geneva to the UK, added that the company ran out of food almost instantly on an evening flight".

According to the Daily Mail, on a flight to London from Innsbruck, Austria, last week, there were just three sandwiches left for 110 passengers.

Earlier this month a BA flight to Barbados was grounded at Gatwick for more than five hours because there was not enough toilet roll on board.

In September last year, the company announced plans to scrap free meals for economy class customers and sell pricey Marks and Spencer food instead.

A BA spokeswoman told the Standard that the company regularly adjust stock levels.

She added: Customers tell us they really appreciate the choice and quality of the M&S range and have already bought hundreds of thousands of items, including 39,000 bacon rolls and 14,000 bottles of prosecco, since they were introduced.
E mployers are within their rights to ban workers from wearing religious symbols including headscarves, the European Courts of Justice has ruled.

Private employers may bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions, the European Union's top court ruled on Tuesday.

The decision was the first to be made over the issue of women wearing headscarves at work.

The ban means decisions can be made based on internal company rules requiring all employees to "dress neutrally".

Companies cannot ban items of clothing, including burkas, based on a customer complaint.

Jonathan Chamberlain, partner, Gowling WLG, said: "The decision brings EU law into line with what has been the UK's approach for some years.

For example, it's fine for employers to have a dress code but it needs to be applied with some sensitivity and flexibility to take account of religious beliefs.

What is almost certainly never OK is for an employer to tell an employee to stop wearing a religious symbol because a particular customer has asked for it."



The court found that a Belgian firm which had a rule barring employees who dealt with customers from wearing visible religious and political symbols in a bid to maintain neutrality, if it met certain other conditions.

However, it found that a French company that dismissed a software engineer for refusing to remove her headscarf may have breached EU laws barring discrimination on religious grounds if it did so following a customer complaint.

Referring to the case of Samira Achbita, who was dismissed as a receptionist in Belgium by services firm G4S, the court said: "An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination."

However, it added, in the case of Asma Bougnaoui, who was dismissed by French software company Micropole: "In the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer's services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination."
A ngelina Jolie today said she was feeling butterflies ahead of her first lecture as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The actress and film-maker, who co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, was set to tell students at the LSEs Centre for Women, Peace and Security today about her experience in the field and how sexual violence is used as a tool of war.

Im a little nervous, feeling butterflies, she told the Evening Standard beforehand. I hope I do well. This is very important to me.

The post, which is unpaid, formally begins in September, with Ms Jolie helping teach students about the impact of war on women.

As a visiting professor, she will deliver guest lectures to students, participate in public events and workshops, and undertake her own research.

Ms Jolie, the special envoy of the UN High Commission for Refugees, launched the campaign against rape in war zones five years ago with Lord Hague when he was foreign secretary.

Ms Jolie said she was nervous ahead of the speech / Alex Lentati

Last week, Lord Hague spoke to students on the same course about his experiences of shaping policy.

Ms Jolie and Lord Hague are two of four visiting professors contributing to the programme, alongside Jane Connors, the director of International Advocacy at Amnesty International in Geneva, and Madeleine Rees, Secretary General of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom.

Today, Ms Jolie was set to speak to students taking the paper Women, Peace and Security  a one-term course taken by masters students from a range of postgraduate disciplines.

However, from September, students will be able to take an entire masters in the subject, the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

According to a university statement, the course is intended to [develop] strategies to promote gender equality and enhance womens economic, social and political participation and security.

The centre, run by Professor Christine Chinkin, opened in February 2015, in the hope of ensuring the next generation of policy-makers at the United Nations and other global institutions are schooled in this area.

Ms Jolie, who attended the launch, said at the time: I am very encouraged by the creation of this masters programme.

"I hope other academic institutions will follow this example, as it is vital that we broaden the discussion on how to advance womens rights and end impunity for crimes that disproportionately affect women, such as sexual violence in conflict.
A woman leapt from a balcony after she was allegedly locked up and gang-raped by five men in East Delhi.

The 28-year-old claimed that one of the men, an acquaintance, offered to drop her home in south Delhi, but instead forcibly took her to a rented house where all five took turns to rape her.

Five men have been arrested following the incident overnight on Saturday, The Times of India reports.

The single mother-of-two was driven to Pandav Nagar, in East Delhi, with three of her alleged attackers in the car, police were told.

The incident allegedly happened in East Delhi / AFP/Getty Images

Once there, the men took to her to a house, where two others were waiting, and allegedly took turns to rape her.

The woman said that she then fell unconscious and the men locked her in the room.

After gaining consciousness on Sunday morning, she tried to call for help.

When the young men returned to the room and tried to open the balcony door, she rushed out and jumped off of the first-floor flat before they could reach her, it is claimed.

She was found by the roadside by local police after she called for assistance at about 5.30am.

Paramedics took her to hospital where she was treated for her injuries and counselled.

A medical examination confirmed the sexual assault and gang rape case has been registered on the basis of her statement, The Times of India wrote.
B eauty and the Beast has been shelved in Malaysia despite being approved after removing a gay moment.

The countrys two main cinema chains said the film had been postponed indefinitely.

Film Censorship Board chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said he did not know why the film was postponed by Disney as it was approved after the minor gay scene was cut.

Abdul Halim said: We have approved it but there is a minor cut involving a gay moment. It is only one short scene but it is inappropriate because many children will be watching this movie.

He said scenes promoting homosexuality were forbidden and that the film was given a P13 rating, which requires parental guidance for children under 13 years of age.

Beauty And The Beast - Trailer 3

Abdul Halim said there was no appeal from Disney about the decision to cut the scene.

Disney officials have yet to respond to a request for comment, the Associated Press said.

Controversial: Gaston and LeFou in Beauty and the Beast (Laurie Sparham/Disney) / Disney

Josh Gads character LeFou, who plays the sidekick to the villainous Gaston (Luke Evans), is confused about his sexuality, according to director Bill Condon.

He enjoys an exclusively gay moment at the end of the film during a group dance, which sees him dancing with a woman, before sidling up to the dress-loving henchman.

Stanley Tucci spoke recently about the importance of a gay character in the live-action remake, but said the film is challenging an even bigger screen taboo  interracial couples.

Beauty and the Beast launch 1 /17 Beauty and the Beast launch Dave Benett Dave Benett Dan Stevens, left and Emma Watson arrive for the Beauty And The Beast launch in London AP Dave Benett Isabel Infantes/PA Dave Benett PA Dave Benett Dave Benett Matt Crossick/PA Matt Crossick/PA Matt Crossick/PA

The American actor plays Maestro Cadenza, the husband of Audra McDonalds character Madame Garderobe. They are one of two interracial couples alongside Lumiere and Plumette, played by Ewan McGregor and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

He said: This movie will have more resonance than ever  and is needed more than ever. The idea of two mixed-race couples was very unusual.

Living in England now, you see that a lot on television, whereas in America you dont see that very often.

On TV, youll see an advert for insurance and its a black woman and a white man or an Asian man and a white woman  never in America do you see this. The fact these things are part of this film is really, really important.

Beauty and the Beast is set for UK cinema release on Friday.
C ara Delevingne is bidding to swap the catwalk for the bestseller list after announcing she has written her first novel.

The star's fiction debut, called Mirror, Mirror, is out in October and is described by publishers Trapeze as a "powerful and gripping" story of four London teenagers navigating their way through life.

Delevingne announced the news by posting a picture of her holding the manuscript on her Instagram account.

She told her 38 million followers: "I love these characters so much, I love what they stand for, what this story represents. The process of putting this novel together has been life changing ans something I hold really close to my heart. I cannot wait to share with everyone."

Delevingne's literary debut, written with best-selling author Rowan Coleman, sees her join a select band including Naomi Campbell, whose novel Swan, about a supermodel dealing with blackmail, was released in 1994 to poor reviews.

It was ghostwritten by Caroline Upcher, with Campbell explaining that she just did not have the time to sit down and write a book.

Anna Valentine, the publisher who won the rights to Mirror, Mirror, said she had no hesitation in snapping it up after a select number of firms were invited to bid for it.

She said: "Cara is such an interesting person, she is a strong individual with amazing opinions and incredible insights into the issues that young people face today.

Cara Delevingne's fashion career - in pictures 1 /34 Cara Delevingne's fashion career - in pictures May 20, 2015 The Vanity Fair And Chanel Dinner at Cannes Film Festival



Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Pascal Le Segretain/Getty May 19, 2015 The de Grisogono 'Divine In Cannes' party



Picture: Dave Benett Dave Benett May 4, 2015 The Met Gala



Picture: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty March 10, 2015 The Chanel show at Paris Fashion Week AW15



Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty February 24, 2015 Winner of the Breakthrough Actress award at the Elle Style Awards



Picture: Dave Benett February 23, 2015 The Burberry Prorsum AW15 show at London Fashion Week



Picture: Dave Benett January 23, 2015 Joining TAG Heuer as Brand Ambassador



Picture: Dave Benett Dave Benett January 5, 2015 LOVE magazine cover



Picture: courtesy of LOVE January 3, 2015 Topshop campaign



Picture: courtesy of Topshop December 1, 2014 Winner of the Model of the Year award at the British Fashion Awards



Picture: Dave Benett October 18, 2014 The launch of the Cara Delevingne DKNY Capsule Collection



Picture: Dave Benett Dave Benett September 30, 2014 The Carine Roitfeld Party in Paris



Picture: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty September 23, 2014 John Hardy campaign



Picture: Splash/John Hardy September 16, 2014 At party hosted by Mrs Brooke Barzun and Alexandra Shulman to celebrate London Fashion Week



Picture: Dave Benett September 2, 2014 The GQ Men of the Year awards



Picture: Anthony Harvey/Getty September 30, 2014 The Chanel SS15 show at Paris Fashion Week



Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty July 11, 2014 Campaign for for Chanel



Picture: Instagram/caradelevingne May 16, 2014 Cara at sister Poppy's wedding



Picture: Ian West/PA Wire May 16, 2014 Cara and her sister Poppy at Poppy's wedding



Picture: Ian West/PA Wire May 13, 2014 A dinner to celebrate the work of The Royal Marsden hosted by the Duke of Cambridge at Windsor Castle



Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty February 17, 2014 Walking for Burberry at London Fashion Week AW14



Picture: Tim P. Whitby/Getty January 21, 2014 The Chanel SS14 show at Paris Fashion Week



Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty November 13, 2013 The 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show



Picture: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Victoria's Secret) August 17, 2013 With Clara Paget at the Mahiki Coconut Backstage Bar at V Festival



Picture: Dave Benett All pictures: Dave Benett June 23, 2013 'Charlotte Tilbury's House of Rock n'Kohl' party



Picture: Dave Benett All pictures: Dave Benett November 27, 2012 The British Fashion Awards



Picture: Dave Benett Dave Benett

"She has an enormous following and is incredibly in touch with her followers and she wanted to write a book that dealt with issues young people face today and that was the thing that was really exciting for us".

Her huge popularity online almost guarantees the book will be a best-seller.

The publishing industry has been quick to take advantage of the rise in social media with book deals for prominent YouTubers including blogger Zoella.

Ms Valentine said the model's online presence would offer "lots of opportunities" to speak to readers directly.

She said: "But I think really it is about engagement.

"The number of followers is obviously important and interesting but it is about how engaged people are and Cara is hugely engaged with her fans, listens to them, and talks directly to them and thats very important and powerful for publishers."

A second draft of the book is due by the end of this month and it will be in shops in October.
E wan McGregor has hit out at the controversy over the gay scene in Beauty and the Beast.

The actor  who plays Lumiere in Bill Condons live-action remake of the Disney classic  turned the airwaves blue when he criticised the uproar and confirmed that Josh Gads character LeFou is gay.

McGregor made the outburst on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after the chat show host touched on the little bit of controversy in the film.

Theres lots of gay of sex in ittheres a lot of gay sex in this cartoon, McGregor quipped.

In character: Ewan McGregor as Lumiere / Disney

Referring to a cinema in Alabama that has cancelled the film over a gay character, he said: And I think if you live anywhere near Alabama, you should not go and see this film. What would Jesus think?

Colbert said: There are rumours that LeFou has gay feelings for Gaston.

McGregor replied: Its just likehes a gay character. Its 2017 for f**** sake.

LeFou, who plays the sidekick to the villainous Gaston (Luke Evans), enjoys an exclusively gay moment at the end of the film during a group dance, which sees him dancing with a woman, before sidling up to a dress-loving henchman.

(Laurie Sparham/Disney) / Disney

The film, starring Emma Watson as Belle alongside Dan Stevens as the Beast, has been pulled from a number of cinemas across the globe including Malaysia.

The countrys two main cinema chains said the film had been postponed indefinitely despite being approved after removing the gay moment.

Beauty And The Beast - Trailer 3

As well as introducing a gay character, the film also takes Belle in a feminist direction and features two interracial couples - something Stanley Tucci said is an even bigger taboo.

The actor, who plays Maestro Cadenza, the husband of Audra McDonalds character Madame Garderobe, said: This movie will have more resonance than ever  and is needed more than ever. The idea of two mixed-race couples was very unusual.

Living in England now, you see that a lot on television, whereas in America you dont see that very often.

On TV, youll see an advert for insurance and its a black woman and a white man or an Asian man and a white woman  never in America do you see this. The fact these things are part of this film is really, really important.

Beauty and the Beast launch 1 /17 Beauty and the Beast launch Dave Benett Dave Benett Dan Stevens, left and Emma Watson arrive for the Beauty And The Beast launch in London AP Dave Benett Isabel Infantes/PA Dave Benett PA Dave Benett Dave Benett Matt Crossick/PA Matt Crossick/PA Matt Crossick/PA

Beauty and the Beast is slated for UK cinema release on Friday.
ORANGE CITY | A Hawarden woman has pleaded not guilty to helping cover up physical abuse of her child and not protecting the child from further abuse.

Nina Spaans, 33, entered her written plea Tuesday in Sioux County District Court to six counts of child endangerment and two counts of assault causing bodily injury or mental illness.

She and her husband, Matthew Spaans, were arrested in February after the Iowa Department of Human Services had received several allegations that they had abused the child.

According to court documents, on at least three occasions from September through February, Matthew Spaans caused injuries to the child with his hands, a clothing dryer and a 56-inch sword, causing severe bruising to the child's head, legs, neck and face.

Nina Spaans told the child to make up stories about how the injuries happened and did not protect the child from further abuse, court documents said.

On Feb. 3, the child told a teacher about the abuse, and authorities were notified.

Matthew Spaans, 35, is charged with seven counts of child endangerment and seven counts of assault causing bodily injury or mental illness. He has yet to enter a plea.

The arrest was a joint operation with the Iowa Department of Human Services.

"It is our belief the abuse has gone on for several months if not years," Hawarden Police Chief Mike DeBruin said. "We were able to put together the case and have enough for probable cause to arrest them both."
With city council approval of a redevelopment agreement, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is now in place for the Cobblestone Hotel to be built at 10th and M Streets in downtown Gering.

The approximate $900,000 in TIF monies, which come from real property, will be financed over a 15-year period. The funds will be used for the public infrastructure portion of the hotel project. Included are a new water main for the 9th and M Street area, a new sanitary sewer line, curb and gutter work, and the hotel parking lot, which will also be used for public parking.

Before the TIF funds were made available, the council had to revisit and update its previous resolutions. Members first approved a redevelopment agreement with Gering Hospitality Group LLC, which is in charge of the project. That action terminated the original plan implemented by the council in July 2015.

The termination allowed the council to authorize Mayor Tony Kaufman to sign a redevelopment agreement using the TIF funding.

Council members then voted to convey the property at 10th and M Streets from the city to Gering Hospitality Group.

Over the life of the original project, the city has invested about $2.1 million dating back close to six years. It now appears to be getting underway. Kaufman said that while a certain level of funding has been approved, actual spending could possibly come in lower than that.

General contractor Bri-Mark Builders has requested bids for plumbing, electrical and mechanical work from local contractors. Kaufman said that although the lot at 10th and M Streets is currently empty, he expects to see some action within a month.

Hotel funding wasnt the only item on the council agenda for Monday evening. There were two ceremonies that Mayor Kaufman said shows the fun part of city government.

Gering Police Chief George Holthus was joined by several of his officers for a ceremony to administer the oath of office to new officer Breanna Stickels.

Were pleased that Breanna has chosen Gering to begin her career in law enforcement, Holthus said. Our oath isnt just words on paper. They signify a way of life, a part of our identity, and a lifestyle choice that matters.

Officer Stickels is from Limon, Colorado, and attended Chadron State College, where she was member of the track and field team. Her bachelors degree is in criminal justice.

Gering Fire Chief Jay Templar also made his final annual report to the council, as he will be retiring at the end of March after 37 years of service to the department He started as a volunteer in 1980 before becoming chief in 1991.

Reading from a proclamation of commendation in Templars honor, Mayor Kaufman said that under his leadership, the Gering Volunteer Fire Department has provided outstanding public service in the areas of structure and wild land fires, emergency medical services, technical rescue operations, community and school education, and much more.

I cant say enough about Chief Templar, Kaufman said. Hes been a great leader for the fire department for so many years. His will be big shoes to fill because under his leadership, Gering has one of the top volunteer fire departments in the state.
Democrats and some Republicans on Monday criticized a veteran GOP congressman for saying America can't restore "our civilization with somebody else's babies" and warning of a liberal effort to destroy Western civilization through immigration.

On Twitter Sunday, Rep. Steve King of Iowa paid tribute to a Dutch politician who opposes immigration and has spoken against Islam. It came as the Dutch prepared for an election for prime minister.

King, who has served in the House since 2003, said Geert Wilders "understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

In an interview Monday on CNN, King said he stood by his remarks. King said, "I meant exactly what I said," and noted that he delivers the same message to countries in Europe.

"We need to get our birth rates up or Europe will be entirely transformed within a half a century or a little more," King said.

King is known for making racially charged commentary. Last year, at the Republican National Convention, King questioned contributions to civilization by nonwhites. In 2013, he described children in the country illegally as having "calves the size of cantaloupes because they've been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

King said his comments aren't focus on race, but critics disagreed.

A spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called on GOP leadership to condemn King's statements.

"Republican congressman Steve King's vile racism has no place in decent society, much less in the U.S. Congress," said spokesman Drew Hammill. "But once again, disgusting hatred has been met with deafening silence from Speaker (Paul) Ryan."

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, subsequently responded that Ryan took issue with King's comments.

"The speaker clearly disagrees and believes America's long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths," Strong said.

When asked whether he is promoting a kind of white nationalism, King said the debate isn't about advancing a particular race but rather advancing American culture and Western civilization.

"This is an effort on the left, I think, to break down the American civilization, the American culture and turn it into something entirely different. I'm a champion for Western civilization," he said.

In defending his remarks, King told CNN said there's been too much focus on race and wants to see Americans "bonded together."

"If you go down the road a few generations or maybe centuries with the intermarriage, I'd like to see an America that (is) so homogenous that we look a lot the same from that perspective. I think there's far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years. I want to see that put behind us," King said.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, was one of the first GOP leaders to take issue with King's comments. He was joined Monday by Republican Rep. David Young of Iowa.

"First of all, I do not agree with congressman King's statement," Kaufmann said in a press release. "We are a nation of immigrants, and diversity is the strength of any nation and any community."

Most members of the House were still back in their home districts Monday, muting reaction from King's colleagues. But a couple of Florida Republicans took to Twitter to voice their displeasure.

"Get a clue, @SteveKingIA. Diversity is our strength. All looking alike is such a waste. A travesty. I wanna be me. All others are taken," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who was born to Cuban exiles who fled Fidel Castro's regime in the 1960s, asked King via Twitter: "What exactly do you mean? Do I qualify as "somebody else's baby?" #concernedGOPcolleague"

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights leader in the 1960s, said the United States is a melting pot of cultures, traditions, appearance and languages.

"Rep. King's statement is bigoted and racist. It suggests there is one cultural tradition and one appearance that all of humanity should conform to," Lewis said. "These ideas have given rise to some of the worst atrocities in human history, and they must be condemned."
When 9-year-old Hannah Fernandes woke up Saturday morning, she was full of nerves.

It was her first time competing in the Midwest Spelling Bee. She was up against 70 other third- through eighth-graders whod won their school and county bees around Nebraska and Iowa. And her hopes werent exactly high.

I thought I was going to get out in the written rounds, Fernandes said.

But low and behold, Fernandes not only made it past the written rounds but beat four finalists in 18 oral rounds to take the regions highest spelling honor. The fourth-grader from St. Stephen the Martyr is headed to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

It took more than three tense hours to crown the champion of the 88th annual Midwest Spelling Bee, sponsored by The World-Herald. The competition drew about 200 to the Omaha Public Schools Teachers Administration Center near 32nd and Burt Streets. Only four girls made it to the oral rounds: one from Blair, one from Papillion and two from Omaha.

After a few rounds, only the two Omaha contestants remained on the auditoriums stage. Deeksha Sridher, a seventh-grader at Millard North Middle School, and Fernandes went back and forth for more than 10 rounds. In three of the rounds, both girls misspelled words, keeping the competition alive.

A little after 2 p.m., enunciator Charles Johanningsmeier, a University of Nebraska at Omaha literature professor, gave Sridher the word sloganeer. Sridher misspelled it.

Now it was Fernandes turn. Cautiously, she spelled parvule. Johanningsmeier whispered with the judges before asking her to spell the word again. She repeated it. There was more whispering among Johanningsmeier and the judges.

The audience waited in silence. Fernandes stood alone at the microphone.

Johanningsmeier returned to his microphone and apologized for the delay. Youve won, he said.

The auditorium erupted with applause. When it died down, Fernandes flew off the stage into her familys arms.

Im really happy, Fernandes said as the crowd began filtering out of the room.

Her mother, Sharmila Braganza, stood nearby with a camcorder, tears in her eyes. Sridher came over to shake her hand and say congratulations.

Last year, Sridher represented Nebraska in the National Geographic Bee.

Fernandes won an all-expenses-paid trip for two to Washington for the national spelling bee from May 28 to June 2. She also landed a cash prize, Websters Third New International Dictionary, a 2017 U.S. Mint proof set from Jay Sugarman and a one-year subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica Online Premium.

Kids have competed for a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 1925. This year, 11 million students will compete in school, district and regional bees across the country.

Jennifer Reinke, who lives near York, came to watch Saturdays competition. This year is the 50th anniversary of when she won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1967 as an eighth-grader.

She hasnt been to the Midwest Regional Bee since 1977, and she said she was impressed with the spellers of today.

They ask more questions, and the words are harder than they were 50 years ago, she said.
A Wyoming Highway Patrol employee has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending an ongoing investigation by the Cheyenne Police Department and an administrative internal investigation by the Wyoming Highway Patrol's Professional Standards and Conduct Division.

Robert King, a Cheyenne area WHP trooper since December of 2008, was placed on leave on Feb. 17 after the WHP was contacted by the Cheyenne Police Department and made aware of an investigation involving King, according to a press release from Lt. David Wagener of the Wyoming State Patrol.

It is standard Wyoming Highway Patrol policy to place an employee on leave when any WHP member is being investigated by an outside law enforcement agency.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol is assisting the Cheyenne Police Department with the investigation. As the Cheyenne Police Department is the primary investigating agency, the Wyoming Highway Patrol cannot comment on the details of the investigation, Wagener said.
Donald 'Blackie' Green departed this life on March 10, 2017 at Heritage Estates in Gering, Nebraska. His funeral service will be held at 2pm on Friday, March 24, 2017 at Zion Evangelical Church in Scottsbluff with Pastor Andy Griess officiating. Interment will follow at Fairview Cemetery with military honors rendered by the United States Army National Guard. Visitation will be Thursday, March 23 from 3-8pm at Jolliffe Funeral Home. The family respectfully requests that in lieu of any flowers, memorials in Dons honor be made in care of Heritage Estates in Gering. Online condolences may be left at www.jolliffefuneralhome.com.

He was born January 12, 1932 in Scottsbluff, Nebraska to Henry and Elizabeth (Heimbouch) Green. As one of eight children in a farming family, Blackie was an active participate in the farming operation from a very young age. He often shared that he was driving a tractor before he was tall enough to see over the wheel so he had to stand while driving! It was his deeply seeded roots in the family farming operation that instilled in Blackie an unparalleled work ethic that he passed on to each of his children. As his children, we were always taught that we were entitled to nothing. If you want it, go out and earn it.

Blackie served in the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1954 and was stationed in Korea during this time. He was proud of his service to his country and received the National Defense Service Medal; the United Nations Service Medal; Korean Service Medal and ROK Presidential Unit CitationGood Conduct Medal during the course of his service to his country. He was released from active military service in 1954 and transferred to the Army Reserve to complete 8 years of service under the Universal Military Training and Service Act.

Upon returning from Korea, Blackie married the love of his life, Norma Jean Yakel on March 13, 1955. From this union three children were born. Ron, Rod and Rhonda. He and Norma were blessed with six grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Blackie and Norma adored their grandchildren and took advantage of every opportunity to spend time with them and spoil them.

Blackie was employed at Lockwood Corporation and served for 36 years as the foreman of the welding department. The majority if his career was spent manufacturing center pivot irrigation systems. He played an integral role in transitioning this company from building potato harvesters to center pivot irrigation systems. This employment was the basis of friendships that lasted him throughout his life. His work provided him with the opportunity to travel not just the United States, but also took him into Canada and as far away as Saudi Arabia.

Blackie was blessed with the ability to be able to fix and/or build anything. If he couldnt build it from the ground up or repair it, he would convince you that no one else could either! In his spare time, he enjoyed building homes and he and Norma remodeled and/or built four homes in the Northfield area of Gering during the course of their marriage. Blackie never knew the meaning of the word relax. He wasnt happy unless he was busy and productive. Much to Normas dismay, as soon as he finished one project he was ready to move on to the next. He maintained an impeccable yard, garage and shop and he was always the first in the neighborhood each year to have the greenest and best manicured yard. His garden was unsurpassed and he and Norma spent hours picking produce and canning it each year.

Blackie ruled with an iron fist, both literally and figuratively. There was no gray area with him when it came to wrong and right. He had high expectations for each of his children and there was heck to pay when those expectations were not met. Although he was denied the opportunity of formal education, he encouraged each of his children to pursue their education and was always our staunchest supporter in everything we did. Although he was exacting and demanding he wanted everything for his children and grandchildren that he never had growing up. He was generous to a fault at times. He was the first to jump in and assist anytime someone he knew or cared about needed help with any project. Whether it was re-shingling a roof, hanging dry wall or laying cement, he brought the expertise and the necessary tools!

He was proceeded in death by his wife, of 55 years, Norma Green; parents, Henry and Elizabeth Green; and siblings: Henry (Whitey) Green; Albert Green; Reuben Green; Roger Green; Esther Behling and Helen Lambert. He is survived by his children, Ron (Becky) Green of Gering; Rod (Valerie) Green of Bellevue, Nebraska; Rhonda (Steve) Flower of Scottsbluff; six grandchildren, Brian and Tyler Green, Karli and Katie Green, Colton and Payton Flower; 3 great grandchildren and his sister, Donna Brehm, of Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

Blackie will be greatly missed as God certainly broke the mold when he made him. When we look back over time we find ourselves wonderingDid we remember to thank you enough for all you have done for us? For all the times you were by our sides to help and support usto celebrate our success to understand our problems and accept our defeats? Or for teaching us by your example, the value of hard work, good judgment, courage and integrity. We wonder if we ever thanked you for the sacrifices you made to let us have the very best? And for the simple things like laughter, smiles and times we shared? If we have forgotten to show our gratitude enough for all the things you did, were thanking you now and we are hoping you knew all along how much you meant to us.

The family would like to express its sincere gratitude to the staff of Heritage Estates, especially those on the Golden Rod wing, for the amazing care, and compassion shown to our father during the last 15 months of his life. He liked to brag that everyone there worked for him. In Blackies memory, a memorial has been established to Heritage Estates.
Lew Mehling, 90 of Sidney, Nebraska died Sunday morning, March 12, 2017 at his home in Sidney.

There will be visitation on Wednesday, March 15th at Holechek Funeral Home in Sidney from 3 p m. to 6 p.m. with the family present. Cremation will follow with memorial Services to be held at 10:30 A.M., Thursday, March 16, 2017 in the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Sidney with Pastor David Hall officiating. Services will conclude at the church with inurnment in the Greenwood Cemetery at a later date.

Memorials have been established to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church or Sidney Regional Medical Center.

You can view the online obituary and share condolences with the family at www.holechekfuneralhomes.com

Lewis H. Mehling was born November 10, 1926, in West Point, Nebraska to Frank and Clara Mehling of Bancroft, Nebraska. He had five half-brothers and one-half sister. Lewis family lived on a farm southwest of Bancroft. Lewis attended Bancroft Public School. After graduating from high school in 1944, Lewis joined the United States Air Force in June of 1944. He graduated from the Air Force A & E school in October of 1945. Lewis was then stationed at Itami Air Base in Osaka, Japan from December 1945 to November 1946. He received his honorable discharge from the United States Air Force in November of 1946. Upon returning to Bancroft in 1946, he began his banking career at the First National Bank in Bancroft. On May 19, 1951, he was married to Rosella Martin of Walthill, Nebraska. To this union four children were born: Lynn Marie, William Martin, Claire Louise and Charles Kent. The Mehlings remained in Bancroft until May of 1952. At that time Lew became a national bank examiner working for the Office Comptroller of the Currency as an Assistant National Bank examiner in Omaha, Nebraska. They made their home in Omaha from May of 1952 till October of 1955, when they moved to Sidney. At the American National Bank of Sidney, Lew held the various positions of Cashier, Vice-President, Executive Vice-President, President and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. After retirement, Lew became associated with the Potter State Bank in 1990 as a financial consultant and loan officer.

Lew was an active participant in local civic activities such as a board member and president of the Sidney Chamber of Commerce. He served many years as a board member and chairman of the Finance Committee for the Memorial Health Center. He was a board member and president of the Panhandle Growth Inc.; a board member and president of Voluntary Employees Benefit Association for the Nebraska Bankers Association; a board member for the Nebraska Business Development Corp.; a board member of Nebraskans for the Arts. He served as a board member for the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Advisory Committee. Lew was also a board member for the City of Sidney Development Advisory Committee. Lew served many years as a board member and President of the C.A. Story Foundation. .

Lew was preceded in death by his mother and father.

His survivors include his wife Rosella Mehling of Sidney, NE; his children: Lynn Nelson of Denver, CO, William and wife Janet Mehling of Goodland, KS, Claire and husband Dave Evans of Southlake, TX and Chuck and wife Cheryl Mehling of Houston, TX; nine grandchildren: Chadd Nelson, Scott Gausman, Katie Morgan, Kristy Stutz, Brooke Baker, Crystal Cutbirth and their spouses; Tom and Craig Evans, and Taylor Mehling, and 13 great-grandchildren.

Holechek Funeral Home and Cremations in Sidney is serving the Mehling family.
Melissa Irene Coen Irene, 92 of Harrisburg, passed away Saturday, March 11, 2017 at her home. Cremation has taken place at her request. Memorial services will be held on Friday, March 17, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. at Gering Zion Church with Pastor Francis Grubbs officiating. Inurnment will follow at Sunset Memorial Park. Memorials can be sent to the Banner County Fire Department. Tributes of sympathy may be left at www.geringchapel.com. Gering Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

Irene was born on February 13, 1925 in Gering, Nebraska to H.L. Cross and Coral F. (Nighswonger) Cross. Irene married Melvin E. Coen November 9, 1942 and to this union two children were born; Gary L. Coen and Donna M. (Coen) McGowan.

Irene and Melvin enjoyed many winters traveling south with the snow birds the Sams Club members. Irene loved to crochet-making beautiful afghans, which she gave to many friends and family. She also loved fishing and could catch fish when no one else got a nibble! Irene also worked several campaigns at the Great Western Sugar factory weighing beets.

Irene is survived by her son Gary Coen, Sheridan, WY; daughter Donna (Dick) McGowan, Harrisburg, NE; six grandchildren: Shelly, Shannon, Terra, Marci, Shamarie and Shauna; eleven great grandchildren, two great great grandsons and two sisters Janie (Jim) Necessary, Janice Wynne and numerous nieces and nephews.

Irene was preceded in death by her parents, husband three brothers and one sister.
Memorial services for Norma Jean (Sinner) Borland, 86, will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, March 20, 2017 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Morrill, Nebraska with Pastor Kenneth Humphrey officiating. Burial will take place at 2pm at the Valley View Cemetery in Torrington, Wyoming. Jean died March 11, 2017 at her home in Torrington and cremation has taken place. In lieu of flowers memorials may be directed to Trinity Lutheran Church of which she was a faithful member for 59 years. Arrangements are under the direction of the Colyer Funeral Home and friends may send condolences to the family at www.colyerfuneralhome.com.

Jean was born August 9, 1930 in Iliff, Colorado, one of four children of Henry and Hilda (Dick) Sinner. At a young age the family moved to the Huntley, Wyoming area and she received her education and graduated from Huntley High School. She married Ray Borland on November 7, 1948. They continued to farm in the Huntley/Morrill area until their retirement. After purchasing a home in Torrington, Ray could be found out in his shop working on lawnmowers, and Jean in the house either baking or sewing. She enjoyed baking, especially pies, and German chocolate cake from scratch. She also enjoyed sewing and made tag blankets for all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. After sixty years of marriage Ray died on March 26, 2009 and Jean continued to live in the home until her death.

Jean is survived by her daughters Susan Schawe, Bonnie Sorrick and Julie (Gene) Alkire; grandsons Mike, David, Ryan, Jason, Justin and Ross; two granddaughters Elizabeth and Morgan; thirteen great grandchildren; sisters Violet Greenwald of Torrington and Linda Ferguson of Omaha, Nebraska; and numerous nieces and nephews that loved and respected her. She was preceded in death by her husband Ray; parents Henry and Hilda; brother James; and great granddaughter Tayler.
With one hand holding a bottle of champagne and the other an oversized certificate declaring him the winner of $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, Bruce Saunders stood on the front porch of his western Davie County Monday and rattled off a list of things he plans spend his spend money on  medical bills, fixing his lawnmower and helping family members.
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
CLEAR LAKE | A man who broke into a Clear Lake business has been ordered to spend up to five years in prison.

Richard Sigler, 50, of Clear Lake, received that sentence this week after pleading guilty in January to felony third-degree burglary.

Clear Lake burglary suspect arrested CLEAR LAKE | A man accused of breaking into a Clear Lake business in July has been arrested.

He was accused of breaking into GRP and Associates, 218 10th Ave. N., on July 13 and stealing several items, including a lawn mower and a battery charger.

Investigators say Sigler left DNA evidence at the crime scene.

He is to pay restitution in an amount to be determined. A $750 fine was suspended, but Sigler was ordered to pay a $125 surcharge and costs.

Misdemeanor charges of attempted third-degree burglary and possession of burglar's tools are being dismissed through a plea agreement.

 Mary Pieper
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Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu requested a joint working visit to Italy, Wednesday through Friday, of representatives of the Ministry for Romanians Abroad and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, considering the information about cases of Romanian citizens' exploitation while working in Italy's Sicily and extreme southern Calabria.

"Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu follows with concern the situation of Romanians in Italy and is waiting with interest the report of the Government's representatives sent on site," announced the Government in a press release sent on Tuesday to agerpres.

The Minister for Romanians Abroad, Andreea Pastarnac and a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will participate in the working visit. The members of the delegation will have meetings with local officials, as well as with representatives of Romanians organizations at work in Italy, and also with those in the associative environment involved in defending the rights of foreign workers and combating against their being abused, mention the Executive.

According to the source, the Minister for Romanians Abroad launched a consultation on actual topics regarding cooperation and bilateral dialogue, in a meeting with the Head of the Italian diplomatic mission in Bucharest.

British publication The Observer on Sunday carried a feature article in which it alleges that thousands of female Romanian farm workers are suffering horrendous abuse, including threats, sexual abuse in the Italian province of Ragusa, Sicily. It quotes an Italian migrant rights organisation, the Proxyma Association, as estimating that more than half of all Romanian women working in the greenhouses are forced into sexual relations with their employers. Almost all of them work in conditions of forced labour and severe exploitation."

It also quotes local Police as saying they believe that up to 7,500 women, the majority of whom are Romanian, are living in slavery on farms across the region.

Romania's Foreign Ministry (MAE), via the Romanian Embassy in Rome and the Romanian Consulate in Catania, has started inquiring with Italian authorities into press allegations of workplace abuse of Romanian women in Italy, MAE said Monday in a press statement.
The national leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, ruling), Liviu Dragnea must find another way to communicate with the Government, because the latter " is not under guardianship", but it must have authority, declared on Monday former (socdem) Prime Minister Adrian Nastase at private TV broadcaster Antena3.

"But until those in PSD understand this once again, they will not be able to advance in terms of the population's confidence, nor in terms of fully regaining the public confidence, because they have proved in the elections that they have a very good basis. But they will not succeed with the governing either. By creating various centers, you cannot ... The Government must have in the end its own communication, a certain independence. And one more thing: as a party leader you cannot say: 'I ask the Government' or 'I'll send', 'I will request the Government to ...'. It is not possible, the Government is not under guardianship. They must have authority and they don't have it under these circumstances. I therefore believe that Liviu Dragnea must find another mode of communication. Not public, not to escape the criticism of newspapers, which would attack him anyway, or the criticism of political leaders, who would attack him anyway. It does not seem normal to me to go out publicly that way to advise your head of the government because you practically cut the branch under his feet and not give him the necessary authority. Or, he is going to need these things," Nastase asserted.

According to him, "politics is a team sport," a thing which is true for Victor Ponta, too, who he believes "should speak less on television and act more with a team spirit." In the opinion of former premier, the "hard part" will come in the second half of the year.

"The problems will begin when the issues of financing the projects will start to create a certain pressure on the budget deficit, and the IMF has been these days in Bucharest and is waiting to the corner a larger shortfall that would require a new loan agreement, a loan to cover that respective amount and conditionalities on the so-called economic reforms," he argued.

Adrian Nastase says that he has some advice for Liviu Dragnea.

"I would very much care for the party and the PSD's and this coalition's government to achieve the performance they have set as target. So, I think he (Dragnea, e.n.) should concentrate on the party's activity and especially on the Parliament's activity, because he does not realise yet the extraordinary power the Parliament may have as complementary to the Government's work. He needn't worry so much with the Government's activity, he should take care more about the Parliament's activity, which can change the institutional foundation and to the limit, as I think it should have been done, to ensure a revision of the Constitution which, unfortunately, the USL leaders did not achieve in 2014. And this is very bad," Nastase claimed.

At the same TV broadcaster, Adrian Nastase declared that he did not believe Liviu Dragnea or Victor Ponta could be the PSD candidates to the presidential elections that will take place in two years time, but rather that it could be a woman.

"It's not clear, a candidate with a profile somewhat neutral might show up. It won't be Dragnea, nor Ponta, I think the party has not yet begun to think about this candidate. It could be a woman," he revealed.

The former prime minister (2000-2004) also believes that the current opposition would not go with Iohannis at the presidential elections, because he "has problems already."

"I think there is a certain tradition in the right wing to look for candidates closer to election. It is very possible for him not to run (e.n. - Klaus Iohannis), he has problems already. He came based on a message of honesty. The stories with his houses were worse than in my case. I, at least had so-called four houses in which I moved successively. (...) But his story with private lessons, the houses,the loss of house and so on .. . They will erode in depth, as time goes by, on the one hand. On the other hand, he now expects the Government to erode. (...) I am not convinced that the National Liberal Party (PNL) or the right wing in general, will go with Iohannis as candidate, " the former PSD leader added.

Asked whether "Ciolos will continue to be", Nastase said: "Romania has had a certain experience with Phanariots. (...) I hope we do not have to bring leaders in from Brussels. I do not think Ciolos will succeed to persuade."

agerpres.
CLEAR LAKE | A Clear Lake woman has been ordered to serve up to five years in prison after her probation was revoked this week on a felony willful injury conviction.

Shannon Cosgriff, 38, was given a suspended prison sentence last year after entering an Alford plea to allegations she stabbed her boyfriend.

In an Alford plea, a defendant doesnt admit to the crime but acknowledges prosecutors can likely prove the charge.

Clear Lake woman gets suspended sentence for stabbing CLEAR LAKE | A Clear Lake woman accused of stabbing her boyfriend received a suspended five-

Cosgriff stabbed her live-in boyfriend multiple times with a knife on Nov. 22, 2015, at their shared home in the 700 block of Buddy Holly Place, according to police and court records.

The man was treated at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa.

 Mary Pieper
A researcher who long has argued that rankings on Google and other search engines can skew elections will announce plans on Tuesday to establish a global monitoring system to detect and counter the political effects of such alleged bias.

Robert Epstein, a former editor in chief of Psychology Today and co-founder of a behavioral research institute in California, has won several converts through a series of experiments since first raising his concerns in 2013. Though Google has challenged his research, Epstein's latest initiative includes the public support of 12 academics in four countries, from institutions as Stanford University, the University of Maryland and the University of Amsterdam.

The global monitoring system Epstein envisions, called the Sunlight Society, would involve people from various nations conducting searches and transmitting the resulting rankings and links to a central office, where they could be analyzed for signs of bias.

This would resemble a system that Epstein and several colleagues used to track alleged bias throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, during which they recruited 95 monitors in 24 states who ultimately captured more than 13,000 sets of search rankings and the 98,000 pages to which they linked. In that election, Epstein said searches related to the election were more likely to produce links to Web pages offering a favorable impression of Democrat Hillary Clinton than of Republican Donald Trump.

Epstein, who is trying to raise $2 million to support the project, offered no evidence of intentional manipulation.

He said the goal of the Sunlight Society was "to detect, to study and to expose new technologies that threaten human freedom."

Three of the 12 academics publicly supporting the Sunlight Society, when contacted by The Washington Post, said they were uncertain about the sources of bias but favored creating a group for studying the issue because search engines had become dominant sources of online information. Results often vary from person to person based on location and other factors, often including browser and search history.

"One of the questions we are still grappling with is, where is the bias coming from?" said one of Epstein's supporters, Natali Helberger, a professor of information law at the University of Amsterdam. "Part of this bias is probably in ourselves."

Google dismissed Epstein's research as "nothing more than a poorly constructed conspiracy theory."

"We have never re-ranked search results on any topic (including elections) to manipulate political sentiment," the company said in the statement to The Washington Post. "Moreover, we do not make any ranking tweaks that are specific to elections or political candidates, period. We always strive to provide our users with the most accurate, relevant answers to their queries."

Microsoft, which operates the Bing search engine, and Yahoo both declined to comment.

The importance of search rankings  and especially their order as they appear on the screen of a computer or other device  is well established when it comes to how consumers select online shopping offers, websites or news stories. Epstein summarized research into the impact of search results on political behavior in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

University of Maryland law professor Frank Pasquale, who in 2007 publicly raised the possibility of a "Federal Search Commission" to monitor the increasingly powerful effects of search engines, said a monitoring group is a valuable step. "It's part of an ecosystem of accountability," said Pasquale, who is a public supporter of Epstein's project.

Dennis Allison, a lecturer at Stanford's Computer Systems Laboratory and a supporter of Epstein's project, also called the study of bias in new technologies important. "The source of that bias has not been established as far as I can see but likely is present," he said.

In Epstein's study on the 2016 election, a summary of which is scheduled to be presented at an international psychological conference in Vienna this month, bias was most prominent in results displayed to people who had already made up their minds about how to vote. Results in Democratic-leaning states were also more biased, Epstein said, with the lowest measures of bias in swing states.

Panagiotis Metaxas, a Wellesley College computer science professor who has studied the workings of search engines but has no affiliation with Epstein's project, said the biggest risk of ranking bias comes from spammers or political activists who seek to manipulate results  not from the search companies.

He questioned whether Epstein, based on his writings, will focus the Sunlight Society on this target, as opposed to scrutinizing Google and other tech companies.

"The battle is elsewhere," Metaxas said. "But overall I think it does not hurt to have such an organization."
MASON CITY | A North Iowa man accused of hiding marijuana in a guitar case has been arrested.

Matthew Slater, 41, of Ventura, was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance  third offense.

Slater allegedly had a small amount of marijuana in a dugout in his guitar case and also had it "on his person" when he was entering the Cerro Gordo County Jail, according to court documents.

He'd been taken into custody about 12:15 a.m. Friday at 34th Street Southeast and South Federal Avenue in Mason City.

His next court hearing is March 17 in Mason City.

 Molly Montag
Deadly encounters between police officers and motorists have prompted legislation in Missouri, Illinois and across the country that seeks to ensure drivers understand what to do if pulled over by law enforcement.

Two bills have been introduced in Jefferson City that seek to beef up driver education and exams as a means to improve interactions between police officers and motorists. Illinois passed a similar law recently, and another awaits the Virginia governors signature. Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina and Rhode Island also are considering them.

Lawmakers say they want to make police interactions more transparent and improve community relations, in particular with people who feel unjustly targeted or mistreated because of their skin color. Most dont pretend to legislate exactly how drivers should react, leaving the details to be worked out by state law enforcement or education and drivers license agencies.

The 2017 Rules of the Road for Illinois, published in February, could provide a model, making detailed suggestions about proper driver behavior.

The goal here is to reduce what could be a tense situation that can be very stressful on both sides, said Dave Druker, with the Illinois Secretary of States Office, which oversees licensing 2.2 million new and veteran drivers annually.

The overall message? Use a common-sense approach and dont be confrontational, Druker said.

Missouri state Rep. Gretchen Bangert, D-Florissant, likes the Illinois approach. Her bill would require those taking driver exams to be offered guidelines to follow if stopped by police.

In talking to constituents, Bangert said she found parents seldom talked to their teens about what to do if pulled over and liked the idea of including the information in the driver exam. Bangert said she also talked with the Missouri Highway Patrol about putting together a video that drivers would have to watch as a final condition of getting their license.

By preparing drivers for what could be their first encounter with a police officer, maybe they will be more comfortable in other situations, Bangert said. Her bill has yet to receive a hearing.

In the Missouri Senate, a bill introduced by Jeanie Riddle, a Republican from Callaway County, would require that all driver training programs include instruction on how to respond to traffic stops. The Department of Revenue, which oversees drivers licenses, in consultation with the Missouri Highway Patrol and attorney general, would determine how such regulations are rolled out.

Polite and cooperative

Capt. John Hotz with the Missouri Highway Patrol said his agency does not comment on pending legislation but we do support, in general, anything that makes Missouri safer. He also pointed to a brochure on the patrols website that outlines how to best respond to traffic stops.

While the trooper is approaching your vehicle, DO NOT attempt to reach under your seat, in a glove compartment, into a console or any other place hidden from the troopers view, the brochure states. It also includes a reminder to motorists to maintain a polite and cooperative attitude if issued a ticket. And if a motorist is alone and uncertain if the person conducting the traffic stop is a legitimate police officer, pull over but keep car doors locked. Roll down the window far enough to express concerns and request driving to a public place.

Most police officers will understand and allow this, unless they suspect you are an impaired driver or your license is suspended.

The Illinois law lays out specifics ways to behave during a traffic stop, including:

 Keep both hands clearly in sight on the steering wheel and leave them there until the police officer offers instructions.

 Do not exit the vehicle unless asked to do so. The new law states that getting out of the vehicle can be perceived as aggressive behavior and a threat to the police officers safety.

 If documents the officer requests to see, such as a drivers license and proof of insurance are in the glove box or under the seat, let the officer know that and wait for permission before reaching for them.

In North Carolina, Robert Dawkins, state organizer of the police accountability group SAFE Coalition NC, said the additional information provided could help young drivers control their emotions at traffic stops. But he said North Carolina needs companion legislation so that police officers can understand to control their emotions as well, and be trained that racial profiling is unlawful.

Treated with dignity

The Illinois guide focuses on driver responsibilities, but addresses officer behavior in several sentences at the end.

It says a driver is to be treated with dignity and respect by law enforcement officers, and that drivers should report what they consider to be inappropriate conduct to the officers superiors as soon as possible. It also notes that officers are required to provide their names and badge numbers upon request.

The American Civil Liberties Unions online know your rights if youre stopped in your car guidelines include some identical suggestions, and adds several more: It says drivers should turn off the engine, turn on the internal lights and open the window partway before placing their hands on the wheel, presumably to reduce the need for any risky movements.

The ACLU also says drivers can refuse a search request, but that officers dont need consent if they believe the car contains evidence of a crime. And it notes that both drivers and passengers have the right to remain silent. Passengers can ask if theyre free to go; If yes, silently leave, it says.

Allen Robinson, chief executive of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, which creates curricula in 35 states, said these mandates wont prevent all problems, but they should help teenagers avoid bad decisions.

Anything that keeps the rancor and stupidness from going on inside of a car when there is a minor traffic violation, were all for, Robinson said.

Mike Right, a spokesman for AAA Missouri, said educating drivers on how to respond to a traffic stop makes sense, especially in light of high-profile confrontations between police and motorists over the past decade.

But guidelines already are offered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and AAA is in the process of adding information about what to do during a traffic stop to its How To Drive book.

Does it rise to the level of creating a state statute? That Im not sure of.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BERKELEY  The acting chief of this suburban police department said Tuesday that lab results on human remains found during a search in February should be available to investigators soon.

If they are found to be those of missing Berkeley woman Monica Elaine Sykes, police are likely to ask prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against a man already in custody, Capt. Art Jackson said.

The remains were discovered on Feb. 4 in an area of Kinloch where police suspected Sykes, 25, might be found. The police had searched the area first and did not initially find anything, but a volunteer search party led by a national search group revisited the area that day and found remains.

Sykes disappeared Oct. 28 from the home in Berkeley she shared with her sister and three nephews.

Berkeley police say she had spent the night with a married Berkeley police officer, who dropped her off at home at 6:48 a.m., according to the security system at her home. Monica Sykes left the house 13 minutes later, telling her nephews she was coming back with candy.

One of her nephews, 6, told detectives he remembered looking out the window and seeing her stepping into a white car. She was never seen again.

Another man she was dating has been in custody for several weeks on a probation violation. Police have called him a person of interest. His white car was found on fire after Sykes was reported missing.

The officer is not a suspect, Jackson said on Tuesday. But the officer is no longer working for Berkeley police after the department came to a decision last week on his employment, Jackson said.

During the Sykes investigation, the City Council was made aware of an unspecified concern about the officer and realized that the city had not checked his background before hiring him.

He was placed on administrative leave during the background check, the result of which led to his separation, Jackson said.

The officer, reached by phone, said he was fired without explanation. He said he heard on the news it was because he didnt pass the background check. There is nothing in my background, he said. And he said he had nothing to do with Sykes disappearance.

I wish the media would put the focus on the family and what they are going through, he said.

Sykes family has been upset about the citys handling of the case, and the revelation that the department had not checked the background of the officer dating her.
CHARLES CITY | A North Iowa woman was drunk when she crashed a van carrying her two children into a Dumpster in Charles City, police say.

Bobbi Quade, 31, of Floyd, was charged with felony child endangerment and misdemeanor counts of failure to maintain control, open container and operating while intoxicated  second offense.

Charles City police say Quade lost control of a Chrysler van and crashed into a Dumpster and parked car about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday in the 2100 block of Clarkview Drive.

Staff from AMR Ambulance treated an approximately 2-year-old child for a cut on the top of her head. The other child wasn't hurt.

Quade has been released from the Floyd County Jail pending her next court appearance.

A phone number for Quade listed in court records rang unanswered early Tuesday afternoon.

Quade, who was convicted of drunk driving in 2008, failed field sobriety tests after the March 8 crash and a breath test showed a .12 percent blood-alcohol concentration, according to court documents.

The legal limit is .08 percent.

Police say they also could smell alcohol on Quade and saw an open container of alcohol.

Her next court apperance is March 27 in Floyd County District Court in Charles City.

 Molly Montag
MAPLEWOOD  The city of Maplewood is violating the Fair Housing Act by disproportionately revoking the occupancy permits of African-Americans, women and disabled residents, in effect banishing them, a federal lawsuit filed Monday says.

Two or more police calls can put someone on the list of chronic nuisances, the suit says, without a conviction or even when that person is the victim of the crime that triggered the police call.

The Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, which filed the suit in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, said Maplewoods nuisance ordinance was one of the countrys most onerous.

In a study of the use of the ordinance from 2010 to 2015, the council found that the majority of enforcement actions had been taken against African-Americans, the suit says.

It also says that a large percentage of actions have been taken against victims of domestic violence and those struggling with mental illness who seek police or medical help.

The council is a nonprofit that says it seeks to ensure equal access to housing and other public accommodations in the region.

Sasha Samberg-Champion, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that hundreds of similar ordinances had been enacted around the country in recent years.

He called Maplewoods perhaps one of the most egregious because it can result in eviction and exile and explicitly provides that [being the victim of] domestic violence can be the basis for enforcement. Samberg-Champion works for a Washington civil rights law firm that has been investigating similar ordinances around the country.

City Manager Marty Corcoran said, I obviously would deny that weve ever done anything based on race, religion, age, gender. ... I just dont believe thats taken place. Corcoran said cases were not initiated by the city. Someone else, typically neighbors, starts the process with a complaint, he said.

The housing council says that the ordinance defines nuisance so broadly that it can potentially include virtually any act that city officials do not like.

A nuisance can include more than two instances within a 180-day period of peace disturbance or domestic violence resulting in calls to police, the suit claims.

The ordinance has only one way to abate the nuisance: revocation of the occupancy permit for up to six months, the suit says.

The council looked at details of 43 enforcement hearings from March 2010 to August 2015. In more than 55 percent of the hearings where race could be determined, the household was African-American, the suit says, or three times the percentage of African-American residents in the city.

Sixteen of the enforcement actions, or more than 37 percent, involved at least in part incidents of domestic violence.

Six involved women  all black  who had been attacked by a rebuffed suitor or current or former male partner, the suit says. All six were deemed a nuisance subject to occupancy permit revocation, the suit says, although in two cases action was suspended, effectively putting the survivor on probation.

That probation effectively forbids the women from calling police for fear of being exiled from town, the suit says.

Eleven of the cases involved residents whose misconduct was the manifestation of mental illness or other disabilities, the suit says.

The ordinance makes residents afraid to call for police or ambulance services, the suit says. One family called a cab rather than an ambulance because apparently the ambulance is a crime for us, the suit says.

The suit says the citys actions violate the federal Fair Housing Act by discriminating against residents based on race, sex and disability.

It says that many jurisdictions have recently enacted chronic nuisance ordinances and that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has warned cities against discriminatory enforcement of the ordinances.

The suit asks a federal judge to find that the citys practices violate the Fair Housing Act and the Missouri Human Rights Act, and ban the city from enforcing the ordinance. It also seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Fairview Heights Police Chief Nicholas Gailius has been named the 2017 Chief of the Year by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.

The award, to be given for only the second time, is for leadership in law enforcement, leadership in his own police department, and service to the association, according to a press release.

Gailius will receive the award April 21 during the associations Annual Awards Banquet in Oak Brook, Ill.

Gailius is a past president of the Southern Illinois Police Chiefs Association. Gailius has been the Fairview Heights police chief since 2010. He started with the department as a Police Explorer at 14 and has served in his native city ever since.

Gailius has been a dispatcher, patrolman, undercover agent, detective, sergeant, Emergency Services and Disaster Agency Coordinator, lieutenant, Assistant Chief, and Chief of Police.

The Illinois Chiefs also recognize Gailius leadership in Ferguson, Mo. in 2014. Gailius led the Unified Command Center of local chiefs, who collaborated with federal and state agencies, according to the release.

Gailius also has hosted training in Fairview Heights for his state association, most recently on body cameras and use of force.

Gailius clearly is a great leader well-versed in community policing, which is not a new concept in law enforcement but is gaining renewed attention nationwide since the Ferguson uprising, wrote the organization's president Steven Casstevens, who is also police chief in Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Gailius has an MBA degree from Lindenwood University and a bachelors degree from Western Illinois University. He also graduated from the prestigious FBI National Academy and Southern Police Institute.

Last years winner of the Chief of the Year Award was Chief Timothy McCarthy of Orland Park, Ill.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police has nearly 1,300 members representing more than 450 police agencies in Illinois.
ST. LOUIS  A Wellston woman was charged Monday in a deadly robbery that police say stemmed from plans to sell a stolen gun.

Dominique L. Williams, 20, of the 6400 block of Wells Avenue, is the third suspect to face charges in the killing of Markus Jones on May 12, 2015. Jones was found dead in the street in the 3100 block of Goodfellow Boulevard about 11:30 p.m with gunshots to his chest and lower back.

Police said in court records that Williams told detectives she intended to sell Jones a gun that she had stolen from her brother. She and Jones agreed on a price of $225, police say. Williams, Rowell and Ivory were in a car with Jones to make the gun deal when Rowell and Ivory pulled guns on Jones, demanded his belongings and shot him.

Police later obtained text messages between Williams and Jones about the gun transaction including photos of the gun on the day of Jones' death. Police also said Williams' brother had reported his gun stolen to Wellston police.

Williams was charged with second-degree murder and armed crminal action. Her bail was set at $500,000 cash.

At the time of the killing, Rowell was being held in jail on charges of robbing two teenagers of their cellphones and hoverboards in north St. Louis County in late December. Police said Rowell and another suspect then led police on a pursuit into St. Louis City that ended with a crash where nobody was hurt.

In addition to the murder and robbery charges, Ivory is also being held on two counts each of first-degree assault and armed criminal action for an incident out of Berkeley in December.
ST. LOUIS  Multiple gaps in curriculum and inadequate policies have placed St. Louis Universitys School of Medicine on probation by an accrediting agency.

The school remains accredited but has two years to fix about 20 action items identified as noncompliant during a recent reaccreditation process by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

SLU is the only medical school in the United States currently on probation, though other schools, such as Baylor and George Washington universities, have been on probation in recent years.

In a letter dated Feb. 21 to SLU President Fred Pestello, the accrediting group cited a constellation of standards with which the school is out of compliance, which has compromised the quality of the medical education program.

If there is not sufficient progress toward compliance with the cited accreditation standards within 24 months, the LCME may choose to withdraw accreditation.

SLU leaders are confident that wont happen.

Medical school dean Dr. Kevin Behrns, who joined SLU Jan. 1, told the Post-Dispatch that he was ready to launch a remediation plan to address all of the issues brought to light by the accrediting group. He plans to involve students and faculty in a total evaluation of the medical schools operations and curriculum.

Deficiencies were found in about 20 percent of 93 measures judged by the accrediting body.

Behrns said the review, which comes around every eight years, happened in the middle of phasing in a new curriculum, which probably created some gaps, he said. Evaluators visited campus in October and made the decision to put SLU on probation mid-February.

SLU notified students, employees and alumni Tuesday morning of the probationary status and the remediation plan.

The deficiencies vary, but multiple items highlight concerns about the way the curriculum is managed. For example, the letter cites a failure to link the schools learning objectives to students progress in developing those competencies that the profession and the public expect of a physician.

If it says the student must know how to do a physical exam of the abdomen then the student needs to show us that, Behrns said.

A few of the concerns also involve the schools affiliation agreements, which arent specifically named. SLU has a partnership with SSM Health, which in 2015 acquired St. Louis University Hospital. Top leaders from SSM are aware of the probation.

Specifically, the accrediting group says SLU and its affiliates do not share responsibility for the learning environment. There are no periodic evaluations to better understand how well the learning environment is helping students understand professional standards. Evaluators also criticized the fact that students in clinical settings may be supervised by physicians who are not medical school faculty members.

One needed fix is improving documentation, Behrns said. If a medical student is on rotation at an affiliate hospital such as St. Marys, and isstuck with a needle while trying to administer an IV, there needs to be documentation of the process or next steps that are to follow.

That process is not hard wired; we need to have that hard wired, Behrns said.

The medical school also needs to improve central oversight to identify potential gaps in education, Behrns said.

Say our students dont perform in a topic area very well on a national exam, we need to go back and look at that topic area, he said.

Recruiting and retaining low-income and first-generation college students were other issues the school faces. Mizzous medical school battled a similar issue recently after diversity concerns were raised.

We didnt measure up, Behrns said.

Both Behrns and Pestello underscored that the school was still accredited, so current and prospective students continued to be eligible to take the national board exams and apply for residency positions.

Were still accredited, and we will own the issues and fix them, Behrns said, when asked about how this situation could affect the perception of SLU.

The accrediting group offers schools the opportunity to refute probationary status, but Behrns doesnt plan to do that. Instead, he hopes that a few advisory committees and schoolwide input will put the school in a position to be taken off probation within a year.

I have full and complete confidence that he will aggressively address every issue thats been raised, Pestello said of Behrns.

The reason its a big deal is that we didnt exercise the discipline we needed to exercise to make sure that we remain fully accredited, Behrns said. When youre talking about medicine and taking care of patients, its all about the details.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education is co-funded by the American Medical Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges. The organization reviews more than 150 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada, including four in Missouri: SLU, Washington University and both the Columbia and Kansas City campuses of the University of Missouri.
JEFFERSON CITY  Gov. Eric Greitens started the week with a rare bit of good news for state executive branch employees Monday afternoon.

A new executive order grants primary caregivers six weeks of paid parental leave following a birth or adoption. Secondary caregivers will get three weeks.

Greitens, a Republican, announced the measure in a video alongside his wife, Sheena, and their 9-month-old son, Jacob.

"We need to do everything in our power to support children and families in this state  and that begins on day one of their arrival in the home," he said in a statement. "We believe that this policy will help new parents gain some stability during a happy and hectic time."

Greitens executive order creates additional weeks of available paid leave for employees on top of their sick leave and vacation. President Barack Obama signed a similar order for federal employees in 2015.

Its unclear how much the move will cost, but Greitens spokesman Parker Briden said the governors office expected state agencies to be able to afford the extra leave out of their current budgets.

The new policy comes just weeks after Democratic Auditor Nicole Galloway sent a letter to Greitens asking him to approve two measures expanding family leave for state employees recommended by his predecessor, Gov. Jay Nixon.

One would have let employees use their sick leave to take time off for parental bonding; currently it can only be used for pregnancy, childbirth or recovery.

The other would have only applied when both parents were state employees, granting each person 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave instead of requiring them to split 12 weeks.

Both were quashed by another Greitens order banning state agencies from issuing new regulations.

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City, applauded the governors move.

Its the right thing to do, she said. I think its a good start.

The order applies to more than 45,000 state employees who belong to the worst-paid corps in the nation.

The executive order also included a line encouraging other statewide officials, the legislature and the judiciary to adopt similar measures.

Two proposals have been filed in the House that would put similar policies for all Missouri workers on the ballot for a public vote.

A measure sponsored by Rep. Tracy McCreery, D-Olivette, would grant six weeks of paid leave per year for reasons including parental bonding within a childs first year and serious health conditions. Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, has proposed granting eight weeks at 67 percent pay for those reasons.

Just 13 percent of Americans had access to paid family leave at work in 2015, according to the Department of Labor.

Post-Dispatch reporter Kurt Erickson contributed to this report.
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NORTHWOOD | The newest development at the Diamond Jo Casino interchange on Interstate 35 in rural Northwood will serve its first customers Wednesday morning.

Doors to the 6,400-square-foot Kum & Go convenience store at 818 Highway 105 will open at 6 a.m.

Local and regional officials hope the addition of the new store, which opens its doors at 6 a.m., will help spur more development at the interchange six miles west of Northwood in northwestern Worth County.

The development is anchored by the Diamond Jo Casino-Worth and the Top of Iowa Welcome Center rest stop. It also has the Country Inn & Suites and Holiday Inn Express hotels, a Burger King restaurant and a BP gas station.

"We're looking at every opportunity possible and we've done some active marketing on the (development) and will continue to do that for the interchange," said Teresa Nicholson, executive director of Winnebago-Worth Counties Betterment Council. "We've talked with a few potential companies, but nothing we're willing to disclose at this time."

Nicholson, of the two counties' shared economic development agency, was one of several local officials who attended a ribbon cutting ceremony and invite-only preview of the new Kum & Go store on Tuesday morning.

The new Northwood location is one of the West Des Moines-based company's marketplace designs, which has a larger footprint and an expanded food-preparation area.

In addition to regular gasoline, Kum & Go will offer E-15, E-85 and biodiesel, which it blends on site.

It will operate 24-7.

Kum & Go Spokeswoman Amy Day said the company was drawn to the Northwood location due to its prime location along Interstate 35.

"This is a great location for several reasons, one of them being that we're right on the interstate, so we're going to get a lot of traffic coming through, especially traveling up to Minneapolis and back down," she said. "Another reason is Diamond Jo Casino being our neighbor, so we're really excited to kind of be part of this community."

Worth County has taken significant steps in the last five years to make the site 22 miles north of Clear Lake more attractive to developers.

That includes a newly upgraded water system and wastewater treatment system and the addition of natural gas service.

Those efforts have been heavily supported by the Worth County Development Authority, or WCDA, which is the nonprofit that holds the gaming license for Diamond Jo Casino.

As a license holder the WCDA receives 5.7 percent of the casino's revenue.

It used $990,000 of that money for recently completed upgrades to the county-owned water system and in 2015 footed the approximately $1.5 million bill to run a natural gas line from Lake Mills to the development.

There are shovel-ready sites available at the interchange, including some county-owned land.

"We have the sanitary sewer. We have the water. We have the natural gas," said Worth County Supervisor Merlin Bartz. "We're ready and open and willing to do additional business."
Pictured in Shottery Manor, are Rosie Williamson, Tess Eastgate, Hannah May, Abi Riley, Lucy Staves, Imogen Horton, Jade Spencer and Kate Bassil. Submitted photo.

RANKED top ten nationally in The Times listings, and with nine Oxbridge offers, Stratford Girls' Grammar School has a lot to celebrate.

Emma Bell, head of sixth form, said: We are always truly proud of the diversity of talents amongst our sixth form, and this year is no different.

With places secured at Russell Group universities, conservatoires and positions with Higher Level Apprenticeship providers, our girls prove that any door is open to them after being in the sixth form here.

The University of Oxford has offered places to Imogen Horton (History and Politics), Jade Spencer (History), Rosie Williamson (History), Tess Eastgate (Languages), and Lucy Staves (Law).

The University of Cambridge has offered places to Kate Bassil (Engineering), Hannah May (Engineering), Abi Riley (Maths) and a post A-level application by Vicky Simkin (Psychology).

Meanwhile, Anna-Isabel Mochar, of Welford, has also received an unconditional Oxbridge offer, to read History and Modern Languages (Russian) at Pembroke College, at Cambridge. Annas family is from and Anna attended school in Austria.

Five offers of Oxbridge places have been made to students at Alcester Grammar School.

Oxford have offered places to Imogen Airlie (Chemistry) and Elizabeth Hatton (Medicine).

Cambridge have offered places to Callum Farrow and Finlay Battersby (Natural Sciences), and Eliza Griffiths, who completed her A level studies last summer, has been given an unconditional place to study English.

Principal Clive Sentance said: We always encourage students, whatever their level of ability, to make the very best of it and to take every opportunity they can.

Each year, there are thousands of gifted young people from around the world who try for Oxbridge, which makes an offer something to be celebrated.

These offers round off a good couple of weeks for the AGS sixth form, following the publication of national sixth form performance tables.

Intense competition hasnt stopped students from Warwick School and Kings High School receiving a sweep of offers from the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Eleven students; Morgan Barnden (OW), Henry Day (OW), Jintong Du, Anna Ellwood, Lucy Evans, Oliver Layzell, Anson Lei, Ross Perry, Ben Rhodes, Tom Steeley and Timothy Tam are set to study their chosen subjects including Chemistry, Engineering, Modern History, Mathematics and Music.

Gus Lock, head master, Warwick School said: I remain incredibly proud of the achievements of all our pupils and I am delighted that, against incredibly fierce international competition, these students have secured offers from these prestigious universities.

Richard Nicholson, head master, Kings High School said: Every year our girls secure places at exceptionally competitive universities: we are proud of all that they achieve. The girls who have offers to Oxford deserve our congratulations, as we know just how demanding an application and interview process it is.

The Herald has previously reported that ten Oxbridge offers have been made to students at King Edward VI School, in Stratford, with seven offers from Oxford and three from Cambridge.
Cartoonist Steve Bells take on Julius Caesar is the first commissioned cartoon to emerge from the RSCs Draw New Mischief exhibition

To coincide with the Royal Shakespeare Companys forthcoming Rome Season a new

Curator David Taylor

exhibition of political cartoons opens at the theatre on Saturday. Draw New Mischief at the theatres PACCAR Room celebrates 250 years of Shakespeare and political cartoons, and will feature five specially commissioned cartoons from renowned cartoonists. Curator of Draw New Mischief, David Francis Taylor, an associate professor of English at the University of Warwick, spoke to Gill Sutherland about it.

So, David, it seems to be a boom time for satire at the moment! Discuss!

Yes thats a really interesting way of looking at whats going on. Theres so much for satirists to feed off, with Trump in America and the Brexit situation, that it has been hailed as a Golden Age for satire. However, I think its more complicated than that. Yes, on the one hand satirists are having a field day; on the other hand the question of what satire can actually do to change things has become ever more pressing  more now than ever before.

Who are the people looking at cartoons of Trump and the impressions of him on Saturday Night Live? By and large it may be that they are preaching to the converted. So its a really interesting way to look at what satire can do. It might be called a boom time, but in my view its also a crisis for satire. Yes, theres lots of satire but is it really getting us anywhere?

There was a tremendous amount on Trump in the build up to the presidential election  he was ruthlessly ridiculed but it had absolutely no effect on the outcome.

Crikey, so Trumps to blame for a crisis in satire, as well as everything else!?

Trump is a political figure who is peculiarly resistant to satire, because hes so over the top already. He cannot be exposed, which is what cartoonist thrive on. For example, cartoonists would take a politician who is anti-immigration and depict them building a wall to keep migrants out but Trump is building walls and banning people from Muslim countries! Trump makes it hard for the satirists because what he does and says is already pushing things to the extremes.

So what is the purpose of political cartoons and what are the origins?

In Britain, political cartoons go back to the 17th century, and what we recognise now emerged in the 18th century. For me, the way political cartoons work is that they are an ultra responsive way of thinking about the political moment. Politics is a messy business, its bewildering; it doesnt have a neat beginning middle or end, or even clearly identifiable villains or heroes. So one of the things cartoonists have done since the 18th century is to try and find a way of fashioning this bewildering and odd political moment into a story and the real challenge is they have to do that with a single image.

By turning to Shakespeares plays the cartoonists are able to use a single image to say so much. For example, in the exhibition theres a cartoon of President Obama as Hamlet in 2013, the very moment that Obamas government was weighing up whether they wanted to be in the war in Syria, and this cartoon shows Obama holding a skull labelled Syria and behind him you can see the ruins of Aleppo and a mountain of skulls indicating the death toll. What this cartoon does is actually offer us quite a complex picture of political indecision. Because if we know that Hamlet is a tragedy about someone who doesnt know how to act, then suddenly a much richer narrative comes into view for us.

How did you decide what to include in the Draw New Mischief exhibition?

Weve selected 30-odd images from 1760 through to this year  its been tricky because there were hundreds to choose from. The British Library has a huge searchable database online, so thats how Ive found most of these cartoons; and the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent were also a great help.

We particularly looked for cartoons that would work with the Rome plays: any kind of political portrayal or assassination. If you think about Michael Gove stabbing Boris Johnson in the back, and there was a lot drawing on Julius Caesar last year.

Macbeth is the most popular play with cartoonist, then probably Hamlet.

We have selected cartoons that give a sense of an enduring tradition, todays cartoonists are doing something similar to those from 100 years ago or longer.

The cartoons must have changed in the last 200 years?

One important way they have changed is the medium. Back in the 18th century they were published as single sheet engravings in specialist bookshops. You framed it or pasted it into an album. By the mid 19th-century cartoons had moved into magazines like Punch, and then by the start of 20th century you have the emergence of the editorial cartoon in newspapers. Today, as newspapers have gone online, it means that cartoons are being seen in new ways, and can be shared on Twitter and social media, and move across national borders. Of course there can be consequences of that; when one nations sense of humour clashes with anothers [for example, the Charlie Hebdo killings in 2015].

In some sense the cartoons have become simpler; in the 18th century they were quite elaborate. Someone like James Gillray  often described as the father of political cartoonists  produced really elaborate drawings with lots going on. Most cartoonists today know they have to get a point across in a matter of seconds  so thats why Steve Bells depictions of David Cameron as a condom or Donald Trump with a toilet head are so effective.

You have also commissioned five cartoonists, tell us about them.

Weve commissioned the five cartoonists to produce their work on a different Rome play at roughly the same time as it opens at the RSC. It will keep the exhibition fresh and alive.

We wanted a couple of big name artists, so Steve Bell from The Guardian is the first to submit his [see his take on Julius Caesar, pictured] and across the political landscape we have Christian Adams from The Telegraph. We also wanted to go with some less well known and international cartoonists, so we have commissioned Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist from the Washington Post  she used to work for Disney and her cartoons are wonderful  hers of Trump are really fantastic. Weve also commissioned Lorna Miller, a young, dynamic Scottish cartoonist whose work has appeared in Private Eye. Finally weve asked Victor Ndula, a political cartoonist for the Kenyan national newspaper The Star for his perspective.

Its a real challenge for the cartoonists who are going to have to somehow use their specific play to respond to events of the moment. Its going to be tremendously exciting to see what they come up with.

Finally, what do you hope people will get from the exhibition?

A couple of things. People tend to maybe think of Shakespeare as being something they see on a stage or theyve read in school, and a lot of people dont realise how profoundly Shakespeare circulates and influences our environment  the way we see things beyond literature. Hopefully people will leave the exhibition being conscious of the degree to which Shakespeares characters and narratives shape the way that we see and engage with the world. And perhaps they will leave with a renewed appreciation for the skill, intelligence and wit of these cartoonists, and the tradition that has been going on so long.

WHERE AND WHEN: Draw New Mischief: 250 years of Shakespeare and Political Cartoons is on at the Royal Shakespeare Theatres PACCAR room from Saturday, 25th February to 15th October. Entrance is free. David Taylors book on political cartoons, Plotting Politics: Caricature, Parody, and Literary History, will be published next year.
Wochit Continues Global Expansion with Major APAC Market Deals

New content partnership and publisher customers significantly increase social video creation platforms reach in a large and growing market

New York( )

Social video creation platform Wochit today announced several new publisher relationships in Asia and Australia, indicating significant growth in the APAC region resulting from the companys aggressive global expansion strategy.

Following a recent funding round from investors including Singapore Press Holdings SPH Media Fund, Wochit is actively pursuing growth throughout Asia. The company is already used by SPH news properties such as The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, The Business Times, AsiaOne, Stomp and magazines such as Mens Health, Womens Health, Young Parents, Home and Decor, Torque, The New Paper and Icon.

Other significant deals with media companies in APAC include:

Australia: Pacific Magazines has enlisted Wochit to produce timely, short-form social videos for over two-dozen brands including Womens Health, Mens Health and InStyle. Additionally, West Australian News has tapped Wochit for use at Perth Now and The West Australian.

China: Wochit is powering video production for cross-platform news video provider, Pear Video, enables its team of digital natives and videographers to rapidly produce optimized content for consumption on mobile devices and across social media.

Japan: Yahoo! JAPAN, the largest portal in the nation, incorporated Wochit into its newsroom workflow to help build audience engagement.

Malaysia: Digital media company Hybrid News Group, has selected Wochit to power video creation its Kuala Lumpur-based news bureau to service brands including Asian Correspondent, Study International, Travel Wire Asia and Tech Wire Asia.

In addition to the growth of partnerships with publishers, Wochit is also increasing its partnerships with key content providers in the region. To date, Wochit has signed content deals with China Central Televisions CCTV+ and Xinhua News Agency. These agreements bring assets from two of Chinas largest media companies into Wochits library of pre-licensed assets, substantially increasing the platform's Asia-specific content and bolstering their ability to support culturally- and geographically-relevant coverage in the region.

The entire media ecosystem in APAC is enormous and still growing, which makes it an ideal geography in which to expand our customer base, said Christoph Pleitgen, SVP of Sales and Business Development at Wochit. eMarketer estimates nearly a billion individuals are watching digital video in the region, which is almost half of all viewers worldwide. And this will continue to grow as mobile proliferation increases penetration, especially in rapidly-developing economies like China.

About Wochit

Wochit is a video creation platform that empowers newsrooms, media companies and brands to expand audience engagement through the power of social video. Worldwide media brands such as Time Inc., Daily News, USA Today, Gannett, AOL, The Week, ProSieben, Singapore Straits Times, Focus online and Der Spiegel use Wochit to produce short-form videos around trending topics at the scale and speed required in the video-first, mobile era. With rights-cleared assets from AP, Reuters, Getty, Bloomberg and others, cloud-based editing tools and native uploads, horizontal and vertical videos are quickly created and distributed across all social and digital platforms. Wochit is among the 2016-2017 EContent Top 100 companies in the digital content industry as well as the the winner of both the Gutenberg Prize for its disruptive technology in the field of journalism and Digidays Best Video Technology Innovation for its significant impact on publishers bottom line. The Company is backed by ProSieben, Singapore Press Holdings SPH Media Fund, Carlo de Benedetti, Redpoint Ventures, Marker LLC, Greycroft Partners and Cedar Fund. Wochit is based in New York, with offices in London and Tel Aviv. Find out more at www.wochit.com.
MASON CITY | A Mason City man who was sentenced Monday on multiple counts of violating a no contact order left the courthouse before he could be taken to jail, court documents state.

An arrest warrant has been issued for King Allah James, 26. The Cerro Gordo County Attorney's Office has filed a motion to find him in contempt of court.

James, who had been released from custody on Feb. 27, appeared before Magistrate Patrick Byrne for sentencing late Monday morning.

Byrne ordered him to spend 90 days in jail with credit for any time already served in the case.

Byrne then told James to stay in the courtroom and requested the presence of a sheriff's deputy to provide security, according to court documents. However, James reportedly left the courtroom and the courthouse before the deputy arrived.

On Feb. 25 Byrne found James guilty of six counts of violating a no contract order. He was accused of using the phone at the jail to call the protected party in the no-contact order, or a third person he asked to contact the woman on his behalf.

Mason City man arrested on strangulation charge MASON CITY | A Mason City man was arrested over the weekend on a felony charge of domestic a

James was arrested in December and charged with felony domestic abuse assault (strangulation) causing bodily injury and misdemeanor domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury. The no contact order was issued at that time.

On Feb. 27 the court accepted James' guilty plea to the misdemeanor domestic abuse charge. A sentencing date was set for March 27.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson says Pakistan and India are China's important neighbours.

China has expressed the hope that Pakistan and India will improve their bilateral relations through dialogue.

This was stated by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying during press briefing in Beijing.

The spokesperson said both Pakistan and India are China's important neighbours and important countries in South Asia.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said China looks forward to the early accession of Pakistan and India to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as full members.

The spokesperson said both countries could work with other members for the security, stability, development and prosperity of the region.
Iraqi army soldiers, backed by fighters from pro-government Popular Mobilization Units, have managed to liberate two more neighborhoods in the western flank of Mosul as the Daesh Takfiri terrorists are trapped inside the city.

The commander of Nineveh Liberation Operation, Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah, announced on Monday afternoon that Iraqs Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) had established control over Mosul al-Jadida district and hoisted the national flag over a cluster of buildings in the area, Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network reported.

Earlier, CTS troopers had managed to reclaim Naft neighborhood following bitter clashes with Daesh terrorists.

Yarallah added that Iraqi forces had inflicted heavy losses on Daesh ranks during the operation and destroyed a large amount of their military hardware.

The developments came only a day after the spokesman for Iraqs Joint Operations Command (JOC), Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, announced that Iraqi forces had recaptured some 65 percent of territories in western Mosul from the Daesh terrorist group.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi military officer, Jabbar Hassan, said Iraqi forces had evacuated around 5,200 civilians from western Mosul over the past 24 hours.

He added that civilians continued to leave the citys western side as Iraqi forces and fighters from Popular Mobilization Units  better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Shaabi  were struggling to dislodge Daesh terrorists from their last urban stronghold in the country.

Iraqi forces launched their offensive to retake Mosul last October and since then they have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements.

Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched the battle in the west on February 19.
MASON CITY | A Mason City man who left the courthouse Monday before he could be taken to jail after his sentencing hearing is now behind bars.

King Allah James, 26, was arrested on a warrant Tuesday in Mason City and is in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $2,000 cash-only bond.

Mason City man flees courthouse after sentencing MASON CITY | A Mason City man who was sentenced Monday on multiple counts of violating a no 

James, who was released from custody last month pending sentencing, was ordered Monday to spend 90 days in jail with credit for any time already served on six counts of violating a no contact order in a domestic abuse case.

Magistrate Patrick Byrne then told James to stay in the courtroom and requested a sheriff's deputy to provide security, according to court documents.

However, James reportedly left the courtroom and the courthouse before the deputy arrived.

 Mary Pieper
MASON CITY | A Mason City man who injured a police officer during a struggle was sentenced Tuesday to 32 days in jail.

Cody Allen Henderson, 26, was sentenced to 365 days in jail with all but 30 days suspended for misdemeanor assault on a police officer causing bodily injury.

He received an additional 365 days in jail, with all but two days suspended, for misdemeanor interference with official acts causing bodily injury.

Mason City police officer on restricted duty after incident MASON CITY  A Mason City police officer hurt while arresting a man last week remained on re

Henderson was put on probation for two years. A $625 fine was suspended, but he was ordered to pay a $315 fine in addition to court costs and restitution in an amount to be determined.

Mason City Police Officer Steve Shrader hurt his foot while struggling with Henderson on Sept. 24 in the 500 block of Eighth Street Southeast, according to police.

Henderson, who was being questioned about a possible domestic disturbance, allegedly advanced at Shrader when the officer was trying to handcuff him, and the two began to struggle on the ground.

Henderson pleaded guilty in February.

 Mary Pieper
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Kiwifruit Vine Health Inc has signed an agreement with the Ministry for Primary Industries to help reduce the damaging impacts of the four most common biosecurity threats to the kiwifruit and kiwiberry sectors.

The operational agreement under the Government Industry Agreement for Biosecurity Readiness and Response sets out the contractual arrangements of how industry and government will work together to manage potential pests.

KVH CEO Barry ONeill says the agreement means the kiwifruit and kiwiberry sectors and MPI can work together to manage and help reduce the impact of a number of pest threats on the sector, which has exports of almost $2 billion per year.

"There are a number of biosecurity threats facing our industry. The Psa incursion which impacted us from 2010 cost the kiwifruit industry $1 billion. With the signing of this agreement we have committed to doing everything we can to stop another Psa-type event from occurring.

The agreement establishes the operational details for readiness and response activities and cost-sharing arrangements, to deliver better biosecurity outcomes for the kiwifruit sector. It includes the roles and responsibilities of all the parties, including how joint activities will be cost shared. The GIA partnership currently has 14 partners from across government and the wider primary sector, who have agreed to work together to jointly manage biosecurity threats.

GIA Secretariat Manager Steve Rich says the agreement is a positive step forward for both government and the kiwifruit sector.

This agreement provides a prime example of how biosecurity will come to be managed in New Zealand under GIA  with industry and the Crown working together to achieve the best possible outcomes.

The agreement covers the four most common threats to the kiwifruit sector, and other pests and pathogens can be added to the agreement as they are identified. Signatories to the agreement include Kiwifruit Vine Health Inc (on behalf of the kiwifruit and kiwiberry sectors) and the Ministry for Primary Industries on behalf of the Crown).

The kiwifruit and kiwiberry sector operational agreement is the second of its kind. The first agreement was the multi-sector agreement for the management of fruit fly in New Zealand and agreements for brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) are currently in development. Over time, further operational agreements for specific biosecurity threats, and sectors represented under GIA, will be executed between the partners to GIA.
The newspaper headline yelled $40 million invested in kiwifruit.

Well, imagine if that headline read $40 million invested in arts and culture instead, says Dawn Hutchesson, a creative sector specialist. What a different place the Bay of Plenty would be.

Dawn is the person charged with overseeing a redirection of the regions art and culture scene, transforming Bay of Plenty into a mecca of creativity and innovation.

Even 10 per cent, or $4 million; even one per cent, or $400,000, invested in arts and culture. But would that make the front page? A question that answers itself.

Tauranga City Council and Western Bay of Plenty District Council are putting up the money for the development of what they says will be a robust arts and culture strategy for the region.

Its a three-year plan creating a clear framework and prioritiesto ensure our arts and culture sector grows in a logical and sustainable way.

That we do what we can afford and do it well. It wont be a business case for a new museum or performing arts centre, more a considered plan for what our arts and culture wants and needs to develop.

Because, as Dawn says, its important for a city  for the feel and look of the city, the vibrancy, for tourism but also the economy.

For example, the Auckland arts and culture sector contributes a whopping $1.8 billion to the citys Gross Domestic Product. Thats on the back of that citys strategy Toi Whitiki, which is designed to make arts and culture an everyday part of peoples lives.

Dawn says we should be wary of the devaluing arts and culture. If you compare sport with arts and culture, then art and culture hardly registers.

In a sense, arts and culture is not valued as it should be. She then finds a story about a public art work in the newspaper. Finally, a world class artwork buried on page seven. And a miniscule budget.

Valuing arts and culture from a dollars and cents perspective is one thing, but it also requires a change of mindset.

As well as sending your child to a dance class, which is great, why dont you go to dance show and support arts and culture? Having a painting in your office is great but did you pay the artist?

So, what should the region being doing with arts and culture? Im not here to put ideas in anyones mind. I cant speak for the community, the community will speak for itself, says Dawn.

Okay, hypothetically, what could we be doing to assist the arts and culture?

I could tell you but I wont because it wouldnt be helpful. I dont want to be seen as some Aucklander coming in and telling you what you want and need.

This strategy must be community-led.

Dawn says theres already a base of creativity and arts and culture here. Theres The Incubator, theres the Tauranga Art Gallery and everything that goes with that, theres Bay of Plenty Film. Theres a whole raft, its alive and doing okay, but what do they need to drive things forward?

Dawn is an enabler, a very qualified person pulled in to put a process in place and make it work. She spent three years with a team on Aucklands strategic arts and culture action plan. They examined 50 to 100 international plans, along with Dunedin and Wellington, so she knows the best practice globally.

I have looked at all the research in this region. The creative industries and creative sector, whos doing what; any data I could get my hands on.

Like the Smart Art Strategy of 10 years ago that wasnt adopted  for whatever reason. And like the Civic Heart project, which will determine the look and feel of the future Tauranga CBD.

This is your strategy, Dawn tells the Bay of Plenty. So we want the community to take ownership. Its about your aspirations for arts and culture in your hometown.

Were just driving the conversation between the sector  the artists, the musicians, the creatives and the likes  the community and the two councils about the role and value of the arts and the part to be played by local government.

Working on the draft plan with Dawn, a creative strategy specialist, is group of leading local arts sector people, along with education, business and iwi representatives. And before the plan goes to the TCC and WBOPDC in May, it will be opened up to all residents in the Bay.

Thats why the strategy is community-led. If people are wondering whats in this for them, then they should engage, have their say and be part of the process.

Arts and culture are fundamental to a healthy society and a good quality of life. It plays an important part in many peoples lives. They are woven into the fabric of our streets and many of our buildings. Public art enhances and enlivens our experience of public places.

And a network of facilities provides opportunities for people to attend exhibitions and performances, and participate in a wide range of activities.

So, says Dawn, we need to tap into the richness and diversity of creative talent here. Our artists, arts and culture organisations, institutions and businesses, all contribute to the citys vibrancy and economic vitality. Tourism relies on arts and culture because it attracts talent and skills to the region.

Research in Auckland shows most people believe the arts are good for you, the arts help to improve society and that they learn about different cultures through the arts. In 2014, more than 90 per cent of Aucklanders attended or participated in at least one arts event.

Arts and culture play a key role in the cultural, social and economic life of cities and regions making them more dynamic places to live, work and visit.

It connects and strengthens communities, gives a sense of identity and pride and improves individual and community health and wellbeing, says Dawn.

The Bay of Plenty arts and culture strategy is being drawn up now. All residents will get to have their say on the strategy before it goes to councils for adoption later this year. Its expected the strategy will become part of the 2018 Long Term Plan process for both the TCC and WBOPDC.

Instrumental in the strategy will be Creative Bay of Plenty, the council-funded development agency for arts and culture in our region. Our key action really starts next year once we move into the implementation phase, says Creative Bay of Plenty general manager Lena Kovac.

For more information, see: www.creativebop.org.nz/arts-strategy.html or link in through the Creative Bay of Plenty Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/creativeBOP
More prosecutions for water users who breach the terms of their consents should be the Bay of Plenty Regional Councils top priority.

That was the verdict delivered by protestors at todays Save Our Water rally outside the BOPRC offices in First Avenue, Tauranga.

Meeting at 12pm, around 30-40 people of all ages, genders, and races assembled peacefully to both listen, and have their voices heard.

The Tauranga rally was organised by Lance Talstra, who says there are over 20 sites in the Bay of Plenty that carry either temporary or permanent health warnings for recreational use or shellfish gathering.

These include popular swimming areas such as Kaiate falls and shellfish gathering areas such as the Little Waihi estuary. Some of it is due to human pollution, and some is of undetermined origin, he says.

The main things I want to know is the timeline. Are these permanent bans forever? Or will they be sorted out? And how long will that take?

Lance Talstra.

At the rally, many people shared their opinions, both on water quality and water allocation. The common theme was When its gone its gone, while questions included Is there a cap on how many dairy cows can be in the region? and Would Nick Smith swim in one of our rivers?

Although it was not a political rally, Tauranga Green Party candidate Emma-Leigh Hodges was there to lend her support. She says while the economy is important, people and the environment must come first.

Council regional direction and delivery committee chair Paula Thompson fronted up to the protestors, along with general manager of regulating services Eddie Grogan. They fielded questions from the crowd, and explained that while the council is always striving to achieve better outcomes for water quality and use, there are no quick fixes.

The historic way of allocating water was on a first in, first served basis. Were now looking for better and more efficient ways of allocating water, which is fairer and more equitable, says Paula.

The regions water quality and supply is generally good but its under increasing pressure and needs improvement in some locations.

Central government is responsible for the Resource Management Act and National Policy Statement for Freshwater, which is the legal framework Regional Council is required to work within. Were investing more than $24 million each year into work to clean up local waterways and deliver on central government requirements.

Were totally committed to setting water quality and quantity targets that meet the needs of our community, but that does take time. In the meantime, were also delivering work on the ground with land, business and infrastructure owners alongside iwi and the wider community to strengthen water allocation limits, reduce pollution, and clean up waterways. Were making real progress, but theres more work to do.

Eddie explains there are more than 1300 consents for water use across the region, with seven of them for bottling. He says in his nine years on the job there have been 30 prosecutions against dairy farmers for breaching the terms of their consents.

Todays rally was part of a series of simultaneous gatherings across the country on the same issue, including a petition delivered to the steps of parliament.

Regional councillor Paula Thompson.
A Papamoa Head Hunter has been sentenced to seven years jail on charges ranging from harassment, intimidation and violence.

Dwaine Riley, a 43-year-old from Papamoa, was sentenced by Judge Thomas Ingram after being found guilty by a jury last year on 12 charges including injuring with intent to injure, kidnapping and threatening to kill.

Charges of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, assault with intent to injure and threatening to kill were representative charges, covering many separate incidents.

According to court documents, the injuring with intent charge relates to Rileys habit since the beginning of 2015 of strangling his former partner on a regular basis, placing one hand around her neck and squeezing her carotid arteries.

The woman later told police she would be unable to breathe and she could feel something happening to her brain. She would get a fainting sensation and Riley would release his grip.

The assault with intent to injure charge relates to Riley placing his hand over her nose and mouth, leaving her unable to breathe. He did it to her four times at her house and she thought she was going to die.

On these occasions, she would be left with marks on her own face from her fingernails as she struggled to loosen Rileys grip.

Riley threatened to kill not only his former partner, but her parents and brother.

Kidnapping relates to an incident on a Friday night in July 2014. Riley said he had no food. She believed him and took some around to his place but refused to enter when asked.

Riley dragged her inside and locked the doors, so she could not escape.

Court documents say he yelled at her, smothered her and said she was disrespecting him and his club (the Headhunters gang).

He lay on top of her with his hand over his mouth until 4am, then ordered her up to the bedroom. All the doors were locked and she was escorted to the toilet.

He let her go at 2.30pm, when she told him her parents would worry if she didnt show for work.

On July 3, 2015 Riley kicked her around the kitchen floor, after he had arrived uninvited the night before. He was wearing sneakers and kicked her around the lower back and ribs.

On July 7 when the woman arrived from Hamilton at 7pm Riley jumped into her car when she stopped at her house. Grabbing her, he threatened to kill her if police showed, and ordered her into the bedroom

When police arrived and shone torches at the doors and windows Riley told her not to move.

She got away at 10am again saying her parents would worry if she didnt show for work.

In addition to the violence there was phone harassment and flowers. Her spam folder had 800 of Rileys texts from one two-week period. Riley sent her three bouquets of flowers in one day and another time, sent her one or two bouquets a day for two weeks.

The text and phone messages continued while he was in Waikeria prison following Rileys arrest on July 9, 2015. He arranged for associates to contact her or for them to deliver flowers.
The Human Rights Commission has welcomed news a Members Bill seeking to improve legal protections for victims of domestic violence will get the consultation it deserves.

Green MP Jan Logies Domestic Violence Victims Protection Bill seeks to create a system where businesses can better support victims of family violence.

The bill passed its first reading in Parliament and was unanimously supported by MPs earlier this week and will now go through the Select Committee public submission process.

Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Jackie Blue says this is a fantastic step for an important piece of proposed legislation.

It is not often that a members bill gets the support of all parties at first reading. I am truly proud of Parliaments unanimous acknowledgement that the public, along with business, should have their say on this very important bill.

Allowing the bill to advance through to Select Committee will mean a robust and thoughtful conversation can take place about the bills merits and where adjustments can be made to ensure it is workable for all kiwi businesses  big or small.

Jackie believes workplaces have a huge role to play in addressing the issue of domestic violence and there are already a number of businesses who have put active family violence policies in place to do that.

The bill has the potential to enable all New Zealand workplaces to offer their staff much-needed support, she says.

The Commission looks forward to making a submission in due course and being part of crafting this important piece of legislation.

A video produced by The Human Rights Commission asking businesses to implement their own family violence policy. Source: HRC.
Both John Key and David Cunliffe are set to leave parliament in April.



The former Prime Minister will give his valedictory speech on March 22 and his resignation from parliament will take effect from April 14.

David will deliver his final speech on April 11, with his resignation effective from April 23.

It has been an absolute honour to serve in Parliament since 2002, as MP for Helensville, National Party Leader, and Prime Minister, says John.

One of the great privileges of my political career and my life was to meet so many hard-working and inspiring New Zealanders. I remain as ambitious for them, and New Zealand, as the day I entered Parliament.

I would like to thank all those who backed me and the National-led Government to build a stronger and more resilient country. We got New Zealand back on its feet, got people into jobs, got back into surplus, and tackled natural disasters."

John says he has enormous faith in the leadership team of Bill English and Paula Bennett to provide the "stability and continuity we need to build on that strength, while continuing to support those in need".

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my wife Bronagh, and my children Stephie and Max. I absolutely could not have done this job without their ongoing love and support.

David sentiment is the same, saying "its an enormous privilege to serve as a Member of the New Zealand Parliament and I have loved nearly every minute of it".

In my time as MP for Titirangi from 1999-2002, as MP for New Lynn since then; and as a Minister of the Crown, senior Opposition spokesperson and as Leader of the Opposition, I have never forgotten the reason I came into politics and the reason that Im passionate about the Labour Party.

I believed then and now that all New Zealanders should have a right to reach their potential, regardless of race, job or gender; and that all our people are of equal worth and deserve equal respect, security and opportunity.

"As a Minister, I had a chance to do things that I hope will continue to make a difference, including helping Kiwis secure faster, cheaper telecommunications; better healthcare planning, more humane and focused immigration, better jobs in our regions, and a fairer tax system.

I leave knowing that the Labour Party I care about is in good heart, well-led by Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern, and with an able team of colleagues ready to make that difference for New Zealand in government.

"Ive loved representing my electorate of New Lynn and the vibrant communities within it. Im deeply grateful to my wonderful staff and members of the awesome New Lynn Labour Electorate Committee, who have stood solidly behind me through the ups and downs.

"I also want to express my deep gratitude to family and friends who have sustained and enabled me to serve during my term in Parliament.

"Im excited about beginning a new chapter as part of the leadership team of management consulting firm Stakeholder Strategies Ltd, based in Auckland, where Im looking forward to spending time with my sons William and Cameron, who continue to inspire me, says David Cunliffe.
Called the Niniette 66, Bugatti are to create a 20-metre yacht as part of a collaboration with luxury boat builder Palmer Johnson.

Featuring a number of design nods to the brand new Bugatti Chiron supercar, the yacht boasts the same large, sweeping lines where the air intakes are placed on the car, but instead curve up to create the yachts superstructure. The hull and deck are both made from carbon-fibre, and buyers can apply a two-tone Chiron inspired colour scheme too.

When it comes to power and performance, the differences between the Niniette 66 and the Chiron are more notable. While the car gets a quad-turbocharged W16 engine producing 1,479bhp, the yacht is less powerful, with its 1,000bhp V8 engine enabling a top speed of 44 knots  almost 51mph. A more powerful 1,200bhp engine is on the options list, but only nudges the top speed up by 5 knots to 55mph.

The yachts deck is trimmed with carbon fibre, leather, and a striking natural blue morta oak, while the lower deck is home to a Jacuzzi, with a sun lounging pad and drinks bar placed in the middle, and a small fire pit sitting ahead of the Jacuzzi. Up front, the driver is furnished with a Bugatti steering wheel and a huge set of digital binnacles and instruments.

Below deck is a lounge featuring furniture and decorations made from carbon-fibre, leather and marble. A large Bugatti horseshoe overlooks the salon, while adjacent to the lounge is a master bedroom with a double bed and bathroom.

When it comes to the yachts interior, buyers will be offered a number of customisation options, though an exact price for the Niniette 66 has yet to be announced.

At last Septembers Monaco Yacht Show, Aston Martin grabbed headlines when the British car brand launched the AM37 powerboat.
"Today the office comprises four further staff members, we also have a presence in Limassol and fully expect further expansion over the next few years," explains Hill Robinson Director Stelios Kazamia.

Cyprus has been a member of the European Union since 2004, with a regulatory regime in full compliance with the requirements of the EU and OECD, so following Brexit the economic and political links cannot be exaggerated.

The law on the island is based on English common law, a benefit making the island attractive for incorporation and marine business investment. Cyprus also has one of the lowest EU corporate tax rates at 12.5%.

The Cyprus office now has several vessels under management with services delivered including technical, operational, crew and commercial management, as well as project management, and are primarily responsible for the payment administration on behalf of fleet vessels.

This ensures precise review and approval and subsequent remittance of supplier invoices, credit cards and ships cash utilising our HRipay secure online approval system. The team also provide a stakeholder function to Owners and Charterers ensuring that charter fees, the APA and VAT where applicable are paid in accordance with the MYBA Charter Agreement.

Working closely with the other International offices, providing the highest levels of service to its clients, Hill Robinson Cyprus is poised to significantly contribute to the Groups growing presence and capability in the Eastern Mediterranean.

This expansion coincides with a significant increase in yachting activity around the island, including many larger yachts visiting the marina in Limassol.
South Dakota's lax executive session law fosters an environment in which the public is kept in the dark about much of government's business, and boards and commissions are given too much room to make errors.

The law, SDCL 1-25-2, offers overly broad reasons boards and commissions are allowed into executive session. Its soft language also allows for executive session when the procedure is not necessarily required by the law.

The law allowed one public body to call executive session at more than three-quarters of its meetings in 2016.

Executive session is called during public meetings when the body decides that the material is best discussed in closed session. At that point, the board either adjourns to a separate room, or the public is asked to step out of chambers.

There are five reasons given in the law for boards and commissions to call for an executive session, summarized here:

To discuss the qualifications, performance, etc. of any public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee. To discuss the discipline, educational program, etc. of a student or the eligibility of a student to participate in interscholastic activities. To consult with legal counsel or to review proposed or pending litigation or contractual matters. To prepare for contract negotiations or to negotiate with employees or employee representatives. To discuss marketing or pricing strategies by a board or commission of a business owned by the state or any of its political subdivisions, when public discussion may be harmful to the competitive position of the business.

In a story in Monday's American News, reporter Shannon Marvel took a look at how often the Brown County Commission, Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeen Public School Board went into private executive session in 2016:

County commission: Executive session called in 40 of 52 meetings (77 percent).

City Council: Executive session called in four of 53 meetings (8 percent).

School board: Executive session called in 13 of 52 meetings (25 percent).

We understand that the public school board would regularly hear news about students that, barring a crime, should generally be private.

We applaud the Aberdeen City Council for doing so much work in front of the public at council meetings and public work sessions.

We pause at the 77 percent of Brown County Commission meetings that include executive session.

Here's why.

Of those 40 out of 52 meetings, according to the American News analysis, executive session was called 48 times: 37 of the closed sessions were to discuss personnel, and 13 were to discuss contracts. (In our findings, there was some overlap in executive sessions called for both personnel and contracts.)

The county employs 150 to 160 people, according to Doug Fjeldheim, commission vice chairman. The county commission is, apparently, involved in the hiring and performance details of many of those employees.

By contrast, the city of Aberdeen employs about 265 full-time workers, but the city council is not involved in personnel matters, likely accounting for the fraction of times that group goes into closed session.

David Bordewyk, general manager of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, told Marvel this is true around South Dakota.

"That's how it gets termed  personnel  which can cover a wide variety of things," Bordewyk said. "If you look at the statute itself, sometimes public boards get rather liberal in their interpretation of a closed session, more so than what they should."

This liberal interpretation allows commissions too quickly to remove the public from listening to the public's business. And, when in executive session, any group of people can veer from the approved topic.

At county commission meetings, Larry Lovrien, Brown County deputy state's attorney, sits in on executive sessions to be sure they stay on target, Fjeldheim said.

"He'll say, 'I don't know if that falls under our executive subjects that we can do that,'" Fjeldheim said.

Here is what we would like to see:

A reinterpretation by city and county attorneys of South Dakota's law, which says: "Executive or closed meetings may be held ." May is the key word here. May is not a requirement, but a suggestion.

Personnel, contracts, etc. does not automatically trigger executive session. In fact, we believe the law allows that some of this material can be discussed and debated in open meeting.

A requirement that commissions give more detailed reasons for calling executive session.

For instance, a commission member may now say, "I make a motion we adjourn to executive session to discuss personnel."

In fact, SDCL 1-25-2 breaks down five different topics related to personnel, two different types of employee ("public officer or employee") and two statuses (employed or prospective employee).

How much more focused, accurate and transparent it would be if the commission member were to say, "I make a motion we adjourn to executive session to discuss the performance of a prospective public officer."

While state law is clear that "any official action concerning such matters shall be made at an open official meeting," we would like to see a requirement that, when an action is taken because of information discussed during executive session, the commission note that during the action, including using names when available.

This allows the public to understand when and how the commission arrived at its decision, and also acts as a bookend to the commission's earlier request for an executive session.

It also respects and protects those who are most affected by those closed-door discussions and subsequent actions.

More light, and fewer closed doors, should be the governing principle.

This editorial appeared in the March 5 edition of the American News of Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Like many states today, revenue from casinos around Iowa has become a substantial component of the state's economy.

In 2015, Iowa's casinos paid more than $312 million in gambling taxes and contributed nearly $40 million to charities.

That's true around the Cedar Valley, as well. Since 2007, the Black Hawk County Gaming Association has awarded millions of dollars to hundreds of projects across the Cedar Valley. It has been an incredible infusion of funding for a variety of recipients, and we are fortunate to have this supplemental funding source.

Voters around the area gave their approval to a casino in the Cedar Valley, and we supported it. We have praised the benefits ever since.

That was always with the understanding audit reports from state-licensed casinos were available to the public.

There's a chance that could be changing.

Last year, a group of Iowa casinos, including the Isle Casino Hotel Waterloo, filed a lawsuit to keep documents from being released. The action was intended to block their proprietary information from being released to competitors.

At that time, Iowa Gaming Association President Wes Ehrecke said the audits include trade secrets that shouldn't be publicly released. However, the reports have been public in Iowa for almost 30 years., and they are relied upon to gauge the health of the industry.

A decision is still pending in that case. In the meantime, bills making their way through the Iowa House and Senate would allow audit reports to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission to be kept confidential.

We don't believe that's what we signed up for.

Iowa citizens expect and deserve transparency in all areas of government and in all government agency dealings. In 1983, Gov. Terry Branstad signed a law requiring the audits of gambling licensees' "total gambling operations, including an itemization of all expenses and subsidies."

The law also states books and records kept by the licensee are a public record.

Currently, the media is able to make a request to the IRGC to obtain an audit report. The IRGC then contacts the casino and it has 20 days to respond by either providing the audit or filing a court injunction.

It is our hope our state leaders unite against this potential erosion of transparency at a time when more transparency is needed in all government dealings.

Passage of these bills would do away with transparency we have had here for more than three decades. The loss of transparency is not the direction we want to go.

This editorial appeared in the March 9 edition of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, another Lee Enterprises publication.
I have an ongoing pre-existing condition, and as I have struggled with it over the years, I have learned that many people also struggle with intense health conditions.

Before the Affordable Care Act, I had full health care coverage, but would not have ever been able to move out of Iowa if I had chosen to. To leave Iowa would have meant that my pre-existing condition would not have allowed me to get coverage anywhere else. I was a young professional when I realized this. I had no real reason or desire to leave Iowa, but I was well aware that I couldn't even if a lucrative offer came my way.

The Affordable Care Act allows me the freedom to seek life and health coverage any where I choose to live.

Under the ACA, many of my neighbors and friends received health care coverage for the first time in their lives. Parents who did not have to worry about whether they would be around long enough to care for their children because they could afford to be healthy for once. Parents who could get the medications that their children needed.

The current legislation before Congress states the pre-existing conditions mandate that is currently covered by Obamacare will be maintained. Will it? Will they maintain the lifetime cap provision? This current government struggles to keep its promises. Many health care experts believe that millions will lose their health coverage. And it unfairly targets mental illness - a minority we could all join, through no fault of our own.

I do not support the current legislation before the Congress. I encourage you to educate yourself regarding its provisions, and call your members of Congress if you have concerns about this legislation. We are the only Western culture country that does not offer health care coverage for all our citizens.

Paul Norland, Northwood
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Officials in Oneida County have declared a state of emergency due to the weather and ordered the public to stay off the roads.

Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente declared the state of emergency Tuesday afternoon and said it was in effect until 6 a.m. Wednesday.

All travel in the county is banned except for "highway, emergency and essential services."

Police in the city of Rome also separately announced that its streets were closed to traffic until 6 a.m. for snow removal.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo already declared a state of emergency for all of New York state. Nearby Madison County also declared a state of emergency and banned all traffic other than emergency vehicles until Wednesday.

Experts have said the winter storm bearing down on the Northeast and Central New York could be the biggest in the area in 10 years. Up to two feet of snow could fall in some areas of the state.
Joyce Mitchell movie

Actress Penelope Ann Miller stars as Dannemora prison worker Joyce Mitchell in the Lifetime movie "NY Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell."

(Lifetime video still)

The Upstate New York prison escape that captured America's attention is now a dramatic film.

Lifetime has released the first trailer for "NY Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell," which focuses on the Clinton Correctional Facility employee who helped convicted killers Richard Matt and David Sweat escape the Dannemora prison in 2015. Penelope Ann Mitchell (best known for "Carlito's Way" and "Kindergarten Cop") plays Joyce Mitchell, a tailor shop instructor who agreed to drive a getaway car before backing out at the last minute.

Footage highlights the story of her relationship with Matt and Sweat, played by Myk Watford ("No Country for Old Men," "Spider-Man") and Joe Anderson ("Across the Universe," "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn"), respectively. At one point she appears to be having a steamy affair with Matt somewhere inside the prison.

The made-for-TV movie is also expected to show how Matt and Sweat escaped, "Shawshank Redemption"-style, and evaded authorities for three weeks. Matt was shot and killed in the woods 30 miles west of the prison; Sweat was captured two days after that, heading for the Canadian border.

"Shawshank ain't got (nothing) on me," Sweat later bragged to investigators.

Mitchell was denied early release from prison last month for her role in the escape. She allegedly provided contraband tools, sneaking them in frozen ground beef for the prisoners; had sexual relations with Matt and brought him liquor; and professed her love for Sweat (she once brought him a Big Mac).

"NY Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell" will premiere April 23 at 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

A big-screen version of a real-life New York prison escape movie is also possible. Actor-director Ben Stiller was spotted in the Dannemora area last summer, potentially scouting filming locations.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Tahirah Mims is a 2-year-old girl with lead poisoning that each day threatens her chances to grow into a healthy and successful adult.

Still, she remains in the Syracuse house that is hurting her - even though health officials cited the rental home for lead paint hazards three years ago.

Mims and her eight siblings live in the house at 119 Kellogg St. on the Near West Side, despite efforts by city and county officials over the past year to get Rashida Mims, their mother, to move them out.

The family was featured last year in a syracuse.com story about how lead paint poisons hundreds of kids each year in Syracuse. Their landlord has ignored orders to fix lead paint problems in the house.

Toxic legacy of lead paint



The family's situation shows how persistent and intractable the toxic legacy of lead paint is, even though eliminating childhood lead poisoning has been a public health priority for decades.

Tahirah has a blood lead level of 5 micrograms per deciliter. The federal government says that is much higher than most other children and can cause learning disabilities, lower IQs and other irreversible health problems.

Rashida Mims, 39, had the toddler tested in July. None of Mims' other children have tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. But Mims is worried her 4-year-old also may have lead poisoning because she's caught the child peeling paint.

Landlord could face criminal charges

The Onondaga County District Attorney's Office said it is considering bringing criminal charges against Mims' landlord, Mendy Kletzky of Brooklyn.

Mims moved into the house four years ago. She said Kletzky promised to fix peeling paint and other problems in the house, but he never did. She called the county Health Department and requested a lead inspection, which found high levels of lead.

The county ordered Kletzky in 2014 to correct the lead hazards, but he has not complied.

Rick Trunfio, first chief assistant district attorney, said his office is investigating to determine if the landlord's actions endangered Mims' children and, if so, whether criminal charges are warranted.

City, county officials want family to move

City and county officials, including County Executive Joanie Mahoney who spoke with Mims on the phone last year, have tried to persuade Mims to move.

"We've worked with her on multiple occasions to try to get her out and yet she's still there," said Paul Driscoll, commissioner of the city's Department of Neighborhood and Business Development. "She's very amenable to our suggestions, but never seems to pull the trigger."

He said the city does not have the authority to force her out.

The county health department said the house's condition was not bad enough to declare it unfit for habitation.

A year ago Mims said she wanted to eventually buy the house and fix it up. But that's unlikely now because she's been unemployed for more than a year after getting injured in a car accident and is struggling to make ends meet on public assistance.

Mims said she wants to move, but is unsure if she can find a place that's big enough for her family, affordable and in a safe neighborhood.

Driscoll said the city recently agreed to postpone shutting off Mims' water over an unpaid water bill on the condition Mims work with Catholic Charities to relocate to a new home. Mims is applying for a Section 8 housing federal rent subsidy. The county health department said once that application is complete it will expedite the process to find a new home for the family.

City plans to seize house for back taxes

"I want to move the children to a better neighborhood than this one," Mims said. "I don't want to move into a place with lead paint again."

The city expects to seize the house for back taxes in about 60 days and turn it over to the Syracuse Land Bank, which sells blighted properties to new buyers who will fix them up and pay taxes. Kletzky owes the city and county more than $31,000 in back taxes on the property.

Kletzky went to city court last year to evict Mims after she stopped paying rent. But court records show he never obtained a warrant of eviction needed to force Mims out.

Kletzky said Mims is living in the house as a "squatter" and should have moved out. He said he has not fixed the violations in the house because of financial problems.

Mims said she stopped paying rent last year and put the money into an escrow account because Kletzky did not keep his promise to fix the house. The city also issued a stop rent notice on the property.

City has history of problems with landlord

The city has a pending judgment of more than $1 million against Kletzky's company, 119 Kellogg LLC, over outstanding code violations at the house. The house, which has 25 code violations including broken windows, broken steps and loose detached electrical outlets, has continued to deteriorate and now is infested with rats. Mims said she recently found a rat, killed by the family cat, in one of her kid's bedrooms. Her son also saw a rat in a cabinet under the bathroom sink.

The city has a history of problems with Kletzky. The city obtained a court order in 2015 to demolish a two-family house Kletzky owned at 112 Williams St. on Tipperary Hill. The city said in court papers Kletzky made no effort to repair the house which had been vacant seven years and was a health, safety and fire hazard. The city has another pending judgment against him for $21,647 to cover demolition costs.

Near West Side hotbed for lead poisoning

More than 15 percent of children tested on the Near West Side in 2015 had elevated blood lead levels. The area has many old homes built before 1978 when lead paint was banned. Experts say there is no safe blood lead level. Research shows blood lead levels as low as 2 can cause health problems in children.

The federal government encourages "case management" for children with blood lead levels of 5, which can involve removing lead hazards from the home, educating families about lead safety and, ordering more blood test. Medical treatment is recommended when blood lead levels reach 45.

After learning of the lead paint hazards three years ago, Mims took several precautions to protect her kids, such as using plastic to seal off flaking window sills.

That's why Mims said she was surprised when Tahirah's blood test showed elevated lead levels.

"I thought if we covered the windows we would be OK."

Contact James T. Mulder anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2245
Snowstorm 3.14.2017 Buffalo couple.JPG

Suzann Denny and Chris Wilson, of Buffalo, wait at the William F. Walsh Regional Transportation Center in Syracuse on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, for a train back to Buffalo. Their plan for a week's vacation in New York City was ruined by a major snowstorm.

(Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- When they boarded an Amtrak train in Buffalo Tuesday morning, Chris Wilson and Suzann Denny were excited about spending a week in New York City taking in the sites, visiting museums and seeing a couple of shows.

But as the train passed through Rochester, the conductor broke the bad news. The train could get only as far as Albany because of the snowstorm.

"He said there was no way to get to New York City from Albany," said Wilson. "No buses, no train and I guess no planes as well were leaving."

The best the conductor could do? Drop the couple off in Syracuse so they could catch a train back to Buffalo. So instead of completing their trip to the Big Apple, the couple found themselves sitting around the William F. Walsh Transportation Center in Syracuse waiting for a train back to Western New York.

"We had hotel reservations for a week and tickets to the theater," said Denny. "Now we're sitting in front of a bunch of vending machines in Syracuse."

The couple wasn't alone. Tuesday's storm, dubbed Winter Storm Stella by The Weather Channel, wreaked havoc with a lot of people's travel plans in the Northeast as airlines canceled nearly all flights, Amtrak stopped many of its trains, and Greyhound and Trailways took many of their buses off the roads.

The train back to Buffalo was scheduled to leave at 12:45 p.m., but it didn't leave until a little after 1:30 p.m. Wilson and Denny said they would try to reschedule their vacation in New York City in a few weeks, but they were not sure if they would be able to get refunds or rainchecks on their theater tickets.

Just up the road at Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Barbara Potter, of Morristown, and Katherine Wears, of Ogdensburg, were trying to catch a flight to Atlanta, where they planned to hop on a plane to Paris for a European vacation that is to include a 550-mile hike from France to Spain.

"It's my birthday present to myself," said Potter, 70, a retired St. Lawrence County Family Court judge.

She and Wears, retired associate dean of the Clarkson University School of Business, found themselves sitting around the passenger terminal longer than they expected, however. The storm delayed their 11:30 a.m. flight out of Syracuse to 3 p.m. They were going to miss their 4 p.m. connecting flight to Paris, but they hoped to catch one at 11 p.m.

"We knew it was going to be iffy because of the weather," said Potter. "But that's OK. We don't have a set itinerary."

They were among the lucky travelers on Tuesday. The flight to Atlanta was one of only a handful of flights that were not canceled Tuesday. Approximately 50 incoming and 50 outgoing flights, accounting for most of the airport's daily schedule, were canceled.

Airlines notified customers hours ahead of time that their flights were canceled, so the airport's terminal was nearly deserted most of the day.

Airport Executive Director Christina Callahan said the airport remained open and crews were working hard to keep the runways cleared. However, airlines canceled most flights as a precaution, she said.

"Not all airports are able to deal with it the way we are," she said.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Due to hazardous road conditions caused by the winter storm Centro is cancelling its Utica bus service at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Madison County has banned travel for all but emergency and essential personnel on its roads beginning at 6 p.m. through 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Centro is operating its Syracuse buses on snow routes.

"Considering the conditions, we are doing quite well with no significant delays and our lineups at the hub have been breaking on time," said Steven Koegel, the Central New York Regional Transportation Authority's vice president of communications and business planning.

The weather in Oswego County seems to be the most moderate and the service has no delays there, he said.

A couple of bus routes in Auburn have been detoured due to impassable conditions, but service is running relatively on time, Koegel said.

"The most significant situation is in Utica," he said. "We are suspending service in Utica as if 6pm tonight because of the hazardous conditions. We intend on operating normal service tomorrow in all locations."

Koegel encourages customers to follow the service on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Anyone with questions about the curtailed service may call 315-442-3400.
Winter Storm Wisconsin

A member of Advance Towing and Recovery stretches a line to a semi-truck that jackknifed in the southbound lane on Interstate 41 Monday, March 13, 2017, in Hartford, Wis. An extreme winter storm is expected to hit much of New York starting late Monday.

(John Ehlke/West Bend Daily News via AP)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered all "non-essential" state employees, except in six North Country counties, to stay home Tuesday because of an extreme winter storm expected to hit most of the state.

Cuomo said non-essential state workers in all counties except Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Lewis, Franklin, Clinton and Essex do not have to report to work on Tuesday. They will not be charged vacation time for the day off, he said.

He issued the directive while declaring a state of emergency across all 62 counties in New York ahead of a winter storm that is expected to bring heavy snowfall and high winds to much of the state.

"The expectation is she's going to bring a wintry fury with her, which we are taking quite seriously," Cuomo said.

An announcement of the directive did not detail which state workers are considered non-essential, but the list presumably would include employees who are not part of law enforcement, emergency services and road plowing. If an agency has any questions, the agency's designated representative should contact the governor's Office of Employee Relations at (518) 474-6988, the announcement said.

Cuomo also urged New Yorkers to avoid unnecessary travel and pay close attention to winter storm advisories.

"With heavy snow and blizzard-like conditions expected from upstate to downstate, we are taking every precaution to keep New Yorkers safe," he said. "I urge residents to stay informed, avoid unnecessary travel, and where possible, leave work early as heavy snowfall is expected to begin tonight."

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Sign on the milk cooler at the Wegmans on Taft Road in Clay on Monday night, March 13, 2017, prior to a large snow storm.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Hundreds of people swept through Central New York's grocery stores ahead of Tuesday's winter storm to stock up on essentials.

If you haven't gotten a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk to tide you through there's still some on the shelves, and time left to buy it, local grocers said.

Nojaim Brothers Supermarket on the city's Near West Side shut down its delivery service Tuesday due to the condition of the roads, said owner Paul Nojaim.



The store itself was fully stocked and open. "Since 1919 we've never closed, not even in '66 (blizzard)," he said. "We may go home early if it's really that bad."



"My wife has already sent me a list of what she wants me to bring home, because she's not coming in," Nojaim said.



His brother, Richard Nojaim, who owns the Nojaim's in Marcellus planned to watch the weather and customers. The store that's usually open until 10 p.m. may close early if customer traffic slacks off after people return home from work, he said. It could close as early as 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m., depending on business, Nojaim said.

Wegmans announced on Twitter shortly before 6 p.m. that its Taft Road store will close at 10 p.m. and reopen at 7 a.m. on Wednesday.



Earlier in the day Wegmans spokeswoman Evelyn Carter said the stores in Syracuse planned to remain open its normal 24 hours during the storm. Some specific departments in each store may close, however, she said.

"We had quite an extensive amount of customers yesterday," Carter said. "We did our best to keep the shelves as stocked as we could."

Customers were stocking up on bread, milk, eggs, peanut butter, jelly and cold cuts, she said. Water was also in high demand, she said.

Monday night a sign on the milk cooler in the Taft Road store in Clay said the store did not have any 2 percent milk.

The stores are stocked and products should be available, Carter said.

The stores' department managers knew that the storm was coming and requested greater quantities to meet the customers' needs, she said. The stores are still getting deliveries, although the state's tractor trailer ban on the New York State Thruway is having an impact and slowing things a bit, Carter said.



Tops Friendly Markets saw the same rush of customers Monday and Tuesday, said Kathy Romanowski, speaking for the company. Its stores will also remain open during the storm, she said.



Byrne Dairy stores also don't expect to close for the storm, said Christian Brunelle, Senior Executive Vice President.



Sonbyrne Sales, Inc. "We coordinate extra, or earlier than usual deliveries, to our stores the day or a few days before the storm. Helps that we have our own Dairy with our own drivers and we also have our own grocery warehouse with our own drivers," he said in an email.



Byrne saw an increase in fuel and dairy sales ahead of the storm, he said.



Contact Charley Hannagan anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2161.






March Snow Storm hits CNY

A city worker snow blows the sidewalk on Lodi St near N. Salina St. during the late winter snow storm hitting the northeast, March 14, 2017. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

(Dennis Nett)

As the snow began to fall from winter storm 2017 today, nearly every school district in Central New York closed.

In the end, only three of the 43 districts in Onondaga, Madison, Cayuga and Oswego counties opened, according to school closings reported to Syracuse.com.

The three? Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, Morrisville-Eaton and Stockbridge Valley.

But after opening, the three decided to dismiss students midday.

In a twist, a number of districts opened in Jefferson County, an area that traditionally is first to see its schools close. This storm is dumping less snow on the North Country than other areas of the state.

Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Superintendent Martha Group said district officials looked at how the snow was tracking early this morning, and decided to open for a partial day.

"The weather conditions looked like they would be no worse, if not better, than other occasions" when school has opened, Group said.

Group said VVS and Morrisville-Eaton also host BOCES special-education programs, so closing would mean children with disabilities wouldn't have a place to go.

"We felt our students would be safe if we opened and dismissed early,'' she said. "Student safety is our top priority."

Morrisville-Eaton Superintendent Greg Molloy didn't return calls from Syracuse.com, but tweeted about the opening this morning.

Appreciative of our Highway Supervisors. They have confidence about having roads cleaned off for early dismissal.  Gregory Molloy (@molloyg1) March 14, 2017

In another tweet, Molloy said

Spoke with Town of Eaton and Madison County Highway Depts. Forecast looks good for a morning session. Dismiss 10:30M/H & 11:15 Elem.  Gregory Molloy (@molloyg1) March 14, 2017

The district then changed its elementary school dismissal time to 10:50 a.m. rather than 11:15.

Other schools throughout the region closed, some announcing their plans to close last night.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LexaGene Holdings Inc. (TSX-V:LXG) (OTCQB:LXXGF) (the Company). LexaGene is pleased to announce that further to its news release of February 10, 2017 the Company closed its non-brokered private placement (the Offering) with the sale of 6,685,363 units at $0.30 per unit for gross proceeds of $2,005,609. Each unit consists of one common share and one common share purchase warrant. Each warrant entitles the holder to acquire an additional common share for $0.60 per share for a three year period. The Company intends to use the proceeds from the private placement to complete alpha prototype development as well as some additional corporate working capital.



The Company paid cash finders fees of $59,047.95 to eligible finders.

All securities issued pursuant to the above referenced Offering are subject to a hold period expiring on July 14, 2017.

About LexaGene Holdings Inc.

LexaGene is a biotechnology company developing the very first fully automated pathogen detection platform that is open-access. The open-access feature will empower end-users to target any pathogen of interest, as they can load their own real-time PCR assays onto the instrument for customized pathogen detection. End-users simply need to collect a sample, load it onto the instrument with a sample preparation cartridge, and press go. The instrument is expected to offer excellent sensitivity, specificity, and breadth of pathogen detection. The instrument will be able to process six samples at a time, in an on-demand fashion, returning results in about 1 hour. The company expects to sell its technology in the food safety, veterinary diagnostics, water quality monitoring, and aquaculture pathogen surveillance markets.

For more information visit www.lexagene.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Daryl Rebeck

Daryl Rebeck, President and Director

For further information, please contact:

Daryl Rebeck, President and Director, darylrebeck@lexagene.com

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains forward-looking information, which involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual events to differ materially from current expectation. Important factors -- including the availability of funds, the results of financing efforts, the success of technology development efforts, the cost to procure critical parts, performance of the instrument, market acceptance of the technology, regulatory acceptance, and licensing issues -- that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations as disclosed in the Company's documents filed from time to time on SEDAR (see www.sedar.com). Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., March 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) announced that the scheduled presentation at the Barclays Emerging Payments Forum has been changed into an audio conference call as a result of Winter Storm Stella. Jim Young, Chief Financial Officer, will respond to questions on the call, which will take place on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. Those wishing to listen to the call should dial 1-877-212-3281 and enter conference ID number 88441542. International callers may dial 1-706-634-5163 and enter conference ID 88441542.



A replay of the call will not be available.

About Broadridge

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) is a leading provider of investor communications and technology-driven solutions for banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds and corporate issuers. Broadridges investor and customer communications, securities processing and managed services solutions help clients reduce their capital investments in operations infrastructure, allowing them to increase their focus on core business activities. With over 50 years of experience, Broadridges infrastructure underpins proxy voting services for over 90% of public companies and mutual funds in North America, and processes on average over $5 trillion in equity and fixed income trades per day. Broadridge employs approximately 10,000 associates in 16 countries. For more information about Broadridge, please visit www.broadridge.com.
Having read the recent criticism of our Syria event published in The Cambridge Student, we thought it only appropriate to issue a short response to some of the claims made about the nature of our society and our affiliations. Dealing with controversial issues relating to the Middle East is a complicated business, and accusations of bias are essentially inevitable. That is likely why we are the first society in the University to dedicate our events exclusively to discussing the region's politics, inviting speakers from across the political spectrum, to speak at our events and engage with students and staff alike. The way we know we are doing our 'job' correctly is when we receive accusations of bias from both sides, which we are very proud to report as being the case. The accusation against our neutrality as a forum is unfair, based on information taken wholly out of context and impede what we maintain is a worthy goal: creating a space for real debate and dialogue in Cambridge about Middle East politics.

We accept speakers and funding from across the political spectrum, all of which have different agendas and none of which we seek to promote more than others. Having accepted money from "Israeli interest groups" to fund events such as the hosting of the Israeli Ambassador does not make us any more beholden to "Israeli interest groups" than accepting money from sources sympathetic to the Russian government, the Kurdish cause, or any other, for that matter. We want to present a variety of viewpoints because we see value in broadening the discourse on campus. Moreover, we could have hidden our sources of funding but did not, precisely for the sake of transparency and because we do not seek to be 'subversive', but an open platform for discussion and debate.

All members of our committee come from different walks of life, and have different political alignments and commitments  none of them are promoted through our society. Similarly, we are not beholden to any organisation including those listed in the article and because of that, we have the freedom to host whatever events we believe would best engage students.

Regarding the Syria event, we have addressed the confusion that arose from it, clarifying that the event did not at all go as planned; the writers of the article clearly read the apology we put out immediately after the event. The event was indeed "co-opted by the veiled propagation of special interests", something we did not intend to be the case, immediately admitted to, and apologised profusely for. The suggestion that any of what happened was premeditated by the committee is both deeply hurtful and wrong.

We are always looking for ways to develop our still-new society and to host events that will attract students from across the political spectrum. We are more than happy to engage in discussion and have, indeed, taken on the suggestions of our members. We really do thrive on constructive criticism and we found that taking it on made great improvements to our latest event, "Russia in the New Middle East"  ideas for improving format or interesting speakers you want hosted? Let us know. We want to know what people think of us, how to do better, and we intend to continue working to be an impartial platform for a diverse and exciting range of voices.

For all further enquiries, feel free to contact us at committee@cmenaf.org
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Naturally Splendid Enterprises Ltd. ("Naturally Splendid") (FRANKFURT:50N) (TSX-V:NSP) (OTC:NSPDF) is pleased to announce that its recently acquired packaging system has been successfully installed and has commenced operations. Naturally Splendid is now fulfilling the Eat Real Snack Food Canada Ltd. (ERSF) co-packing contract.



Work has been ongoing since the start of the year to finalise preparation of the 3,000 sq.ft. packaging facility at the Companys Pitt Meadows headquarters. Installation of the machinery acquired from Eat Real Snack Foods, described in the agreement announced on 25th January 2017, started during February and was finished earlier this month. The first order of dried fruit products to be packaged into stand-up zipper bags is under way and is near completion at the time of writing of this update.

Naturally Splendid CEO Dave Eto states, Interest from other co-packing clients continues to grow and now we are introducing them to our facility. Sample runs of product and co-packing agreements are being discussed. This is also an opportunity to introduce our co-packing partners to other parts of our business, like HempOmega and food ingredients. Co-packaging facilities like ours are rare in western Canada. We have tailored our co-packing services to be beneficial to companies ready to transition from hand-fill operations to a more automated process. These businesses may not currently have the volumes or capital to develop their own packaging operations, and are looking to grow. By offering our services at this level, we provide processing capability to local processors ready for the next stage of their business.

Naturally Splendid has also received $445,425 in cash and $120,000 in accounts payable settlement from the exercise of warrants previously granted. The warrants were exercised at prices of $0.30, $0.35 and $0.40 for a total of 1,464,500 common shares being issued. Following the issuance of these shares, Naturally Splendid will have 76,010,649 common shares outstanding.

About Naturally Splendid Enterprises Ltd.

Naturally Splendid is a multifaceted biotechnology company that is developing, producing, commercializing, and licensing an entirely new generation of plant-derived, bioactive ingredients, nutrient dense foods, and related products. Naturally Splendid is building an expanding portfolio of patents (issued and pending) and proprietary intellectual property focused on the commercial uses of industrial hemp and non-psychoactive cannabinoid compounds in a broad spectrum of applications.

Naturally Splendid currently has six innovative divisions: (1) Natera brand of retail hemp superfood products currently distributed throughout North America and Asia; (2) Chi Hemp Industries Incorporated (Chii) is selling natural and organic hemp products through e-commerce (3) PawsitiveFX brand of pet care products; (4) Simpli Plant-Based Ingredients Division of plant-derived bulk ingredients including patent-pending HempOmega; (5) The 12,000-square-foot POS / BPC Facility - which is managed for Naturally Splendid by POS Bio-Sciences - is positioned to offer commercial-scale custom processing solutions for biological materials, such as functional foods and natural health ingredients to a wide range of clients (6) hemp-based cannabinoid nutraceuticals. Naturally Splendid's advanced technologies, industry expertise, and strategic partners allow for the creation of customized solutions with a consistent focus on quality and sustainability.

For more information e-mail info@naturallysplendid.com or call Investor Relations at 604-673-9573.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors



Dave Eto

CEO and Director

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. Naturally Splendid cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond Naturally Splendid's control including, Naturally Splendid's ability to compete with large food and beverage companies; sales of any potential products developed will be profitable; sales of shelled hemp seed will continue at existing rates or increase; the ability to complete the sales of all bulk hemp seed purchase orders; and the risk that any of the potential applications may not receive all required regulatory or legal approval. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Naturally Splendid undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

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.
Cambridge-based physicist, Stephen Hawking has said that the rise of technology could be potentially dangerous for humanity. He said that humans are hard-wired for advancement, but the current trajectory of nuclear and biological weaponry could very quickly lead to the human race destroying itself.

Hawking suggested that "some form of world government" would be a solution to the problem as global unity would slow the progress of weapons technology.

However he recognises that putting one person or group in charge of the world has its own problems, as this group may become tyrannical.

Source: Cambridge News
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Samsung has confirmed that unlocked Galaxy smartphones in the United States will be receiving faster security updates than before, as the company is shifting to a monthly instead of quarterly release cycle.

While Samsung hasn't gone into specifics, a statement from the company's mobile security team did say that due to "various circumstances," they have been releasing security updates on a monthly basis. However, Samsung "have now resolved the challenges; and we are committed to releasing security updates for those devices on a monthly basis."

Those with Galaxy devices from carriers will still have to put up with delayed security and feature updates, thanks entirely to the slow validation process of the carriers.

It's not completely clear whether Samsung's statement refers to all unlocked Galaxy devices, or just the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. Samsung's most popular devices will no doubt be a priority for software updates, but hopefully this policy also applies to lower-tier devices like the Galaxy J3.

Unlocked Galaxy devices are set to receive the March security updates "soon", and there are hints that this update will also bring Android 7.0 to the Galaxy S7 series.
A new batch of Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus information has leaked, thanks to, oddly, trusted de facto Apple leakster and KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. As to why Kuo has suddenly entered the ongoing Galaxy S8 rumor mill is probably still lost on many, but no matter  his rumors align with previous leaks, so his information might hold merit.

Samsung is set to unveil the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus handsets on March 29, dropping a vague "This was a phone" teaser trailer to get everyone hyped up for the next smartphone after the company's ill-fated Note 7, whose troubling defect caused many units to blow off  literally.

Anyhow, Kuo has delivered a flurry of information regarding the enigmatic handsets, both lining up with past rumors while providing new details. Here's a full detailed breakdown of the specifications, as reported by 9to5Google:

Samsung Galaxy S8 Rumors

Kuo says that the Galaxy S8 will come in two models: the regular model with a 5.8-inch display, and the Plus model with a 6.2-inch display. As hinted in Samsung's silhouetted photo of the handset, the phones will have minimal bezels around the screen, which renders wider aspect ratios for both. This means that both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will come with increased resolutions of 2,960 x 2,400.

Both models will also feature curved OLED displays, a first time for Samsung to do so after offering the Galaxy S7 edge in curved and non-curved variants.

No Home Button

Also, the physical home button is indeed being scrapped, supporting purportedly leaked images of the handset very recently. Both phones will feature four modules on the back panel: a rear camera, flash, fingerprint sensor, and heart rate sensor. Both will feature an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter, and a 12-megapixel one on the back.

The top bezel of both handsets will feature six components: an iris scanner, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, infrared LED transmitter, front-facing camera, and the receiver.

No Dual Cameras

Supposedly, there were plans to outfit the phones with a dual camera setup, but Samsung reportedly backpedaled, citing challenges in terms of cost and "immature dual-camera ISP design."

U.S., Japanese, and Chinese releases of both phones will come equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, while those sold in Europe and the rest of Asia will pack Samsung's proprietary Exynos 8895 processor. Additionally, Chinese and Korean Galaxy S8, S8 Plus will have 6 GB of RAM. Elsewhere, it's down to 4 GB.

A special docking accessory will be presumably sold separately. This enables the phone's PC Mode, which allows the owner of the phone to access a desktop-like user interface, similar to how Windows 10 Continuum is set up.

As expected, both phones will feature a USB 3.1 Type-C port, a further step away from microUSB ports of yesteryear.

Pricing, Availability, And Color Options

Finally, both handsets, says Kuo, will come in seven colorways: silver, gold, bright or matte black, blue, orchid, and pink. Whether these colors will be available in every country upon launch remains to be determined. Both handsets will go on sale on April 21, which might suggest Samsung has overcome reported shipping delays.

On top of everything, Kuo expects a 6:4 shipment partition, with the base Galaxy S8 model getting the higher end of the ratio. He hasn't offered pricing details for both handsets, although they're expected to be priced slightly higher than last year's models.

Thoughts about the new batch of Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus rumors? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Unique images captured by NASA reveal a new Antarctic wonder and this one is visible from outer space.

Last week, the Landsat 8 satellite recorded rare footage of Antarctica  particularly the region called Granite Harbor, a cove in the proximity of the Ross Sea.

The photos, taken on March 5 with the Operational Land Imager aboard the satellite, show eerie green ice formations that scientists have later attributed to microscopic marine plants, also called microalgae.

The ice discoloration is believed to be caused by photosynthetic plankton normally present at the water's surface and which is now undergoing an unusual blooming period.

NASA's Earth Observatory released the rare images on March 9, along with other snapshots of ice and water which offer a beautiful comparative view of this amazing phenomenon, only possible in certain environmental conditions.

Expedition Planned To Study Microalgae Late Bloom And Its Implications

According to marine glaciologist Jan Lieser, from Australia's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center, phytoplankton and algae can be seen all around Antarctica during the austral spring and summer, lasting until February.

Microalgae require specific circumstances to flourish and thrive, needing a warmer climate and plenty of sunlight to grow. Summer winds and the receding ice make way for phytoplankton to expand, and reach the nutrients that sustain it.

However, it appears offshore winds and fast ice  ice that anchors to the shoreline and provides seeding grounds for phytoplankton  have enabled these resilient microscopic plants to also prosper during autumn, and survive in large enough quantities to color the freshly-forming sea ice in a mesmerizing green hue.

The late-blooming phytoplankton seems to be caught in the slushy ice and scientists are setting to examine whether the microalgae is trapped within the ice formation or beneath it.

Phytoplankton stands at the cornerstone of aquatic ecosystems as the major food source for zooplankton, fish species and other marine wildlife. Any changes in its presence and timeline of existence are consequently of extreme importance for the oceans's ecology.

To find out why microalgae have prolonged their bloom season and how this will impact phytoplankton in the next spring, researchers have scheduled a study expedition and plan to visit Granite Harbor in April.

"Do these kinds of late-season 'blooms' provide the seeding conditions for the next spring's bloom?" wonders Lieser, who also wants to uncover what happens to these microscopic plants "if the algae get incorporated into the sea ice and remain more or less dormant during the winter."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NEW YORK and REDWOOD CITY, CA, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The KPMG Board Leadership Center and Equilar, the leading provider of board intelligence solutions, are partnering on a thought leadership series in 2017 to bring more awareness around the critical issues of corporate board composition and diversity.



"The partnership with KPMG underscores our efforts to provide comprehensive research and analysis on the changing boardroom landscape, particularly with respect to composition and diversity," said Belen Gomez, Senior Director of Research and Board Services at Equilar. "Both organizations provide services to corporations of all sizes across business sectors, and therefore we share a common interest in bringing awareness to these issues from the top level down."



"The correlation between diversity in the boardroom and strong financial performance is clear, yet the needle is not moving fast or far enough," said Susan Angele, Senior Advisor, KPMG Board Leadership Center. "Given KPMG's strong commitments to diversity and enhancing corporate governance, we look forward to working with Equilar on this important initiative."



According to the Equilar Gender Diversity Index (GDI), a quarterly benchmark of women on boards, the percentage of females on Russell 3000 boards reached 15.1% in 2016, up from 13.9% a year earlier. While there has been progress on an annual basis, it would take until 2055 for boards to reach gender parity at the current rate of growth, the most recent report found.



A separate Equilar study found that just 12.8% of the S &P 500 disclose information about race or ethnicity in their board composition. Since there is not a requirement for board diversity disclosures, this information remains difficult to find and benchmark.



Gaps in board diversity underscore the focus from investors, boards and other corporate service providers to emphasize refreshment and succession planning. A recent KPMG global pulse survey found that 14% of 2,300 directors polled said they were not satisfied with the combination of directors on their boards, and nearly half of respondents, or 49%, said they were "somewhat satisfied."



Meanwhile, respondents to the KPMG global pulse survey said robust board evaluations (87%) and a formal succession plan (77%) were the most effective ways to achieve better board composition, as compared to 22% who said age limits and 17% who noted expanding the size of the board as clearer paths to better composition.



"As the current and future needs of a company change, boards need to keep pace," said Susan Angele. "Age limits, term limits and expanding the size of the board can be useful tools to open up space for new directors with different backgrounds and capabilities. But effective evaluations and succession planning are the best way to build and maintain a board that remains fit for purpose, high performing and committed to continuous improvement."



To help support the efforts of those boards seeking diverse candidates for board succession, the Equilar Diversity Network (EDN) launched in 2016 within Equilar BoardEdge as the "registry of registries" for diverse director lists. Currently, EDN has more than a dozen partners featuring thousands of director candidates with diverse backgrounds, searchable within the BoardEdge database alongside more than 150,000 executives and board members.



The Equilar and KPMG partnership will include a quarterly webinar series as part of the Equilar Executive Network Series, in addition to articles in the Equilar Board Intelligence newsletter and the quarterly C-Suite magazine, designed to help board members understand and strategize director recruitment and succession planning.



The first installment of the webinar series, "Succeeding in Succession: Navigating Transition in Board Composition" will broadcast on March 30, 2017. The webinar will focus on how boards can develop recruiting and onboarding strategies that will maximize the ability of new directors to add value in the boardroom. KPMG is also a partner for "The Changing Face of America's Boardrooms," a recurring feature in C-Suite magazine that highlights the contributions of new directors who have joined their first boards.



About KPMG Board Leadership Center

KPMG Board Leadership Center champions outstanding governance to help drive long-term corporate value and enhance investor confidence. Through an array of programs and perspectivesincluding KPMG's Audit Committee Institute and Private Markets Group, the WomenCorporateDirectors Foundation, and morethe Center engages with directors and business leaders to help articulate their challenges and promote continuous improvement. Drawing on insights from KPMG professionals and governance experts worldwide, the Center delivers practical thought leadershipon risk and strategy, talent and technology, globalization and compliance, financial reporting and audit quality, and moreall through a board lens. Learn more at https://boardleadership.kpmg.us/



About Equilar

Equilar is the leading provider of board intelligence solutions. Companies of all sizes rely on Equilar for their most important boardroom decisions, including 70% of the Fortune 500 and institutional investors representing over $13 trillion in assets. Equilar offers data-driven solutions for board recruiting, executive compensation and shareholder engagement that bring together business leaders, institutional investors and advisors to drive exceptional results while ensuring sound corporate governance. The Equilar suite of solutions includes industry-leading board education symposiums, comprehensive custom research services and award-winning thought leadership. Founded in 2000, Equilar is cited regularly by Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other leading media outlets. Learn more at www.equilar.com



Contact

Dan Marcec

Director of Content & Communications

Equilar, Inc.

dmarcec@equilar.com

706-461-8333
Parents across the United States may be starting to rethink the use of traditional cribs  not in favor of expensive strollers and high-tech baby monitors, but of simple cardboard boxes to put baby to safe and sound sleep.

The idea takes after a Finnish program some seven decades earlier, where baby boxes were used to curb infant mortality rates through promoting safe sleep practices.

Baby Box Phenomenon Across The US

Think of baby boxes this way: heavy-duty paper of rectangular shape, encouraging the newborn to remain on his or her back and with limited potential for flipping over. This is seen as a deterrent to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the abrupt death of an infant younger than age 1.

SIDS is typically implicated in sleep-related cases such as suffocation, strangulation, and entrapment. In 2015 alone, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documented around 3,700 infant deaths from SIDS.

Last January, New Jersey became the first U.S. state to launch a universal baby box program, with babies locally born eligible to receive a free cardboard box as well as newborn essentials such as mattress, clothes, and fitted sheets.

Expecting parents, as well as parents of babies younger than 3 months, are also offered a short online education course and advice on how to use the sturdy box as a safe sleeping space for the little ones.

"In taking the online syllabus, we hope parents will learn the importance of safe sleep environments, thus reducing the number of fatalities related to unsafe sleep environments, said Kathryn McCans of Cooper University Healthcare in New Jersey.

Other states such as Ohio and several hospitals in Philadelphia and San Antonio, Texas, have since jumped onto the baby box trend. NBC reported that Los Angeles-based Baby Box Co. is partnering with more hospitals in the country to give away free boxes to parents after they are quizzed on the educational video.

Addressing Infant Mortality Rates

Baby box proponents believe that this mix of education and free resources will drive down Americas infant death rates, closer to those seen in wealthy Nordic nations.

The government thinks its making great progress since it launched the Back to Sleep campaign in 1994, where parents are urged to have babies sleep on their backs instead of their stomachs. A drastic drop in infant mortalities followed, yet some groups  including black infants  are still worse affected by SIDS more than others.

Baby boxes, 105,000 of which are distributed in New Jerseys statewide initiative, are deemed key in winning the battle. In Finland when the program took off in 1949, the deaths dropped to 3.5 per 1,000 births from 65 per 1,000 births in the 1930s.

For experts, combating infant mortality will entail the creation of policies enhancing post-neonatal care for mothers of low incomes and socioeconomic status.

According to a University of Chicago study, higher infant death rates in the United States compared to some European nations are driven almost completely by infant deaths among lower-earning families once the mother and child step out of the hospital. Related factors include poor maternal education and health insurance coverage.

Guidance from the American Academy of Pediatricians strongly urges sleeping in the same room with the baby but never in the same bed. It recommends that babies sleep in the parents bedroom for the first half of the year or until age 1.

The AAP also deems exclusive breast-feeding extremely beneficial in this matter, lowering the chances of an infants instant death by about 70 percent.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The prospect of colonizing Mars is no longer a fantasy, as NASA has already completed the first phase of its latest Red Planet mission, namely the one-year-training of astronauts Scott Kelly (United States) and Mikhail Kornienko (Russia) on the International Space Station.

Titled "Journey to Mars," this mission hopes to achieve the momentous goal of sending humans to Mars by the 2030s.

Some scientists believe, however, that man may not yet be ready for the colonization of Mars. The journal Space Policy recently featured a paper suggesting there are many aspects to living on Mars as an established colony that are virtually impossible to replicate while training for this purpose on Earth.

According to Konrad Szocik, study lead author and cognitive scientist at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland, since there is no way of mimicking the physical and environmental conditions of the Martian environment, Earth-based training remains fairly limited.

Szocik particularly points to aspects such as Martian microgravitation and radiation exposure, which can't be replicated on the ISS.

"Consequently, we cannot predict physical and biological effects of humans living on Mars," Szocik explains.

Super Human Training

Szocik believes that, if humans are to terraform the Red Planet, they need to be prepared for anything and be thoroughly aware of the numerous perils awaiting them.

In his opinion, the reality of Martian settlers potentially never returning home as well as all the dangers that accompany this mission are impossible to experience during training.

The study author argues that even the extreme conditions found on the frozen continent are no match for what the first human colonists will find on Mars. In consequence, training either on the ISS or in Antarctica would not sufficiently prepare astronauts for their bold mission.

Although he concedes that trainees accommodated to life in a harsh environment would certainly be more qualified for the exploratory mission on Mars, he stresses that this is not enough. Szocik suggests the success of this mission will require significant mental and physical changes for the journey ahead.

His study's main focus is that future colonists will only be able to adapt to their newly conquered environment by possessing enhanced traits, specifically designed to help them survive on Mars. Szocik refers particularly to electronically heightened senses and a hyper-evolved ability to cope with crisis, the latter achieved via prescription medication that attenuates emotional reactions.

Life In A Space Colony: Social And Ethical Implications

More than the technological and financial difficulties of building and maintaining a colony on Mars, Szocik is interested in the inner workings and social ramifications of a space colony, given the sociability of human nature.

The scientist has also studied the problem of reproduction on Mars and believes it will not only require a technological and medical support system but also a large-enough colony to avoid the risk of inbreeding.

His recommendation is that the minimum number of adult colonists sent to the planet's surface should be 500. In addition, he advocates that medical officials should take steps to reduce the expected mortality rate associated with disease, potential technological failures, and exposure to radiation.

Other points of interest covered by his studies include the role of religion in a Martian colony and how life on the Red Planet might impact the human psyche.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
It seems Verizon Wireless, the U.S. carrier, and the authorities of New York City are in the middle of a dispute which has led to the city officials filing a lawsuit against the company.

The lawsuit states that Verizon was unable to meet the terms of a contract, which the carrier had signed with the city officials in 2008.

New York City's Grievances Against Verizon

City officials claim that the telecom company failed to fulfill its promise of delivering FiOS connectivity to all residences in New York City by 2014.

"Verizon promised that every household in the city would have access to its fiber-optic FiOS service by 2014. It's 2017 and we're done waiting. No corporation  no matter how large or powerful  can break a promise to New Yorkers and get away with it," stated Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City.

It is important to note that the agreement was regarding cable TV connectivity, but the same wire used for the FiOS connection can also be used for high-speed internet connection.

According to New York City officials, the company was supposed to install underground fiber optic connections, as well as pass the lines through each of the residences via above-ground utility poles.

The officials further state in the lawsuit that Verizon has not only failed to follow through with the FiOS installation, but has also not been able to provide its connections to many houses where the residents have requested for the same.

Verizon Defends Itself

The telecom company strongly disagrees with what the lawsuit claims. It says that the city officials have misinterpreted the word "pass" in the original agreement signed nine years ago.

Verizon claims that it never agreed to essentially connect each individual residence to the FiOS network but only to run its line along the old telephone network route.

Company officials also claim that providing connections to many residences have been challenging, especially due to the landlords who refuse to grant company workers access to set up the network in many houses.

"We have lived up to our obligation 100 percent. We'd appreciate his support in getting access to buildings where landlords resist allowing us to build fiber to people's homes," said a spokesperson for the company in a statement to Ars Technica.

The company also confirmed that it would invest an additional $1 billion into New York City within the next four years to improve connectivity, as well as ensure that it can reach the remaining 1 million residences where Verizon connections are not available currently.

As of now, it is unclear which of the two parties involved are justified in their stance, but New Yorkers would surely like to get their network issues sorted one way or another.

Photo: Eric Hauser | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Small yellow submarine Boaty McBoatface is off to its first scientific mission in the Antarctic this month.

The unmanned vehicle was called as such after a competition in the United Kingdom sought out names for the new polar research ship. At one point, the countrys Natural Environment Research Council overrode the winning Boaty McBoatface entry in its own contest and mulled naming the vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough instead.

Naming Controversy

A campaign from the NERC asked the public to suggest names for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), poised to travel beneath ice at depths of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) and transmit collected data to scientists through a radio link.

The NERC said it would have the final say on the 200 million (around $244 million) ship, now being constructed by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead. So it instead named it after naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, reported The Guardian.

In a previous interview, Attenborough said it would be huge honor to see the ship named after him. In response to questions about the Boaty label, he said that the name proposed by a radio journalist was likely meant in a jokey kind of way, after which people also probably voted in a joking manner.

People take the names of their ships quite seriously. I served in the navy at the end of the late 1940s and we cared about the name of our ship, he said.

Agency bosses, however, finally decided to honor the public vote and let the Boaty name for the remotely operated submarine live in.

Boatys Antarctic Mission

Boaty McBoatfaces mission, however, is not one to be taken lightly. It is tasked to probe water flow as well as turbulence in the dark recesses of the Orkney Passage, a deep region off the Southern Ocean. The resulting data will assist researchers in further understanding how the oceans act in response to global warming.

It will travel with an expedition called Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DynOPO) on the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research vessel James Clark Ross, leading from Chiles Punta Arenas on March 17.

The Orkney Passage is a key choke-point to the flow of abyssal waters in which we expect the mechanism linking changing winds to abyssal water warming to operate, explained lead scientist and University of Southampton professor Alberto Naveira Garabato.

The team will measure the speed of stream flow, turbulence, and their response to wind changes over the ocean in a bid to determine complex processes in the area and represent them in climate models predicting changes in the 21st century and beyond.

Boaty will be provided with acoustic and chemical sensors in 2019 and deployed into the North Sea to scour for signals linked to artificial release of gas under the seabed. Boaty is also planned to cross the Arctic Ocean under ice for the first time, a groundbreaking research effort in this critical region.

The UKs National Oceanography Center has also released Boatys cartoon version to educate children on marine research, with a full-sized, inflatable version planned to travel to events nationwide.

A study this month warned that severe ocean acidification is engulfing the Arctic Ocean, particularly the Western Arctic Ocean, and a host of marine animals including shellfish and other crucial links in the food web are bearing the brunt of the changes.

Acidification at the Arctic sea, according to researchers, is exacerbated by the entry of Pacific Ocean waters into the Arctic during winters and abetted by ocean currents and Arctic sea ice loss, which allows for expanding the acidic water levels.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
It is never too early for Halloween, and for a self-described aspiring roboticist, what better way to start decorations early by making Amazon's Alexa digital assistant speak out of a creepy skull?

The Yorick Project by Mike McGurrin, who also goes by the name ViennaMike, chronicles how he was able to switch out the Amazon Echo speakers with a skull. For those with the necessary knowledge and tools, you might even be able to do the same.

How To Make Alexa Talk Out Of A Skull

McGurrin posted all about The Yorick Project on Hackster.io, where he narrated his love for Halloween decorations, including the various talking skeletons that he said he has set up over the years.

McGurrin's wife gave him a gift of a three-axis talking skull for Christmas of 2015. The skull, which also had moving eyes, was used to upgrade one of his skeletons that previously only had a moving jaw.

According to McGurrin, the inspiration for The Yorick Project came from the Alexa Billy Bass, which used a talking fish in place of Amazon Echo speakers for Alexa to utilize. If a fish can be used for that purpose, why not a skull?

The Yorick Project, named as such in reference to the skull of a court jester in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", details all the materials and the process used by McGurrin, though he warns that it is an expensive undertaking due to the cost of the three-axis talking skull.

The components of The Yorick Project, in addition to the skull, include a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and the AlexaPi software, which would turn the mini-computer into an Alexa client device. McGurrin also used an audio servo controller to transform audio output into servo commands for the skull's jaw, along with a servo controller to control the eye, nod, tilt, and turn servos of the skull.

The project also utilized powered speakers, as the Raspberry Pi releases very little volume through its audio jack, a microphone through which users can input their voice commands, and other miscellaneous components such as optional LEDs, a PVC pipe to prop the skull on, and a box to contain all the other materials once completed.

McGurrin also noted that other models of the Raspberry Pi should work with The Yorick Project, as long as the model offers Wi-Fi support.

The process is detailed in the Hackster.io page for The Yorick Project, including all the custom script and code that other users would need if they would like their own Alexa-powered talking skull.

Horrors Of Amazon's Alexa

The result of The Yorick Project is awesome or unsettling, depending on who you ask. Alexa's disembodied voice, combined with an animated skull, makes for a great Halloween item, even in the middle of March.

Unfortunately, a talking skull is not the only source of horrors regarding Amazon's digital assistant. In January, the Alexa-powered Amazon Echo caused numerous orders for dollhouses across San Diego due to a TV report mentioning its name. Users have also complained about how the smart speakers power up when people with similar names to Alexa are called.

Besides, with Amazon making further improvements on Alexa, perhaps the digital assistant itself would take over the world someday. Who knows?

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After several rumors and teases, Tag Heuer itself leaked the details of its upcoming Android Wear 2.0 smartwatch before the device's official announcement.

Tag Heuer posted information regarding the smartwatch, named the Connected Modular 45, on its official website before the March 14 announcement date, revealing a few things that customers can expect from the device.

Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45 Specs And Features

The Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45 smartwatch, initially expected to be launched in May, was previously rumored to be announced on March 14. The rumors turned out to be true, as Tag Heuer teased that the smartwatch will be announced on that date. However, the company spoiled its own surprise, revealing information regarding the Connected Modular 45 early.

As expected, the Connected Modular 45 will be powered by Android Wear 2.0, the latest version of Google's operating system for wearable devices. The smartwatch also comes with a price tag of $1,650, and will allow customers to choose between a wide variety of colors, materials, and combinations, with interchangeable straps, lugs, and buckles. Some of the options available to customers for the material of the strap include rubber, calfskin, rubber combo, ceramic, and titanium bracelets. Customers will be able to choose between titanium, titanium with 18K rose gold, titanium with matte black ceramic, and titanium with diamonds for the lugs, while buckles will be offered in titanium or PVD.

While the customization options for the device are expansive, they are not the major draw of the Connected Modular 45. The smartwatch is capable of switching between the Connected module, referring to the smartwatch mode, and the mechanical module. The latter module allows the Connected Modular 45 to come with Swiss Made certification, which was not given to the Connected smartwatch that Tag Heuer released in November 2015.

The smartwatch side of the Connected Modular 45, in addition to Android Wear 2.0, features an Intel chipset, support for Wi-Fi and GPS, Android Pay capabilities, an AMOLED display, an over 24-hour battery life, and storage of 4 GB.

Google's Android Wear 2.0

The Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45 being powered by Android Wear 2.0 is a big deal for the wearable device operating system, especially as its Swiss Made certification will allow it to better challenge the luxury models of the Apple Watch.

Google officially launched Android Wear 2.0 last month, alongside the first smartwatches that utilized the operating system, the LG Watch Style and the LG Watch Sport.

Google claims that the latest version of the operating system is focused on customizable watch faces, improve workouts, new ways to utilize apps and connect with people, and Google Assistant integration. Android Wear 2.0 has since been pushed out to wearable devices that the operating system will support.

The LG Watch Style and the LG Watch Sport, the result of a collaboration between LG and Google, were released as the first Android Wear 2.0-powered devices. Along with other smartwatches powered by Android Wear 2.0 such as the Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45, Google is now looking to expand its presence in the wearable device industry.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that sperm donated in three counties in Florida since June 15 may be infected with the Zika virus.

The notice cautions women who are considering trying to become pregnant with sperm coming from 12 sperm banks in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward counties.

Zika Transmission Via Sperm

Only Miami-Dade County was previously designated as an area of precaution after the first local Zika transmission in the continental U.S. was confirmed in the Wynwood neighborhood back in July. The community was declared free of the virus last December.

The CDC has now expanded the warning to include Palm Beach and Broward counties, where anyone who has traveled to or between the three counties since June 15 may consider themselves at an increased risk for the virus. This is a change from previous guidance designating June 29 as start of greater Zika risk period.

Donated semen can be stored frozen for certain periods of time.

It does not necessarily inactivate Zika, so it could be stored in tissue banks, used subsequently and people should be made aware, explained Dr. Peter W. Marks of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at a media briefing.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, incident commander of the CDCs Zika emergency response, warned that some individuals in the area therefore may have not realized they are at risk.

According to CDC, they issued the warning only out of caution, with no reports of Zika transmission via donated sperm already reported. Unlike blood donations that can be screened for the virus, there is currently no screening technique to test Zika presence in semen.

Ongoing probe also found that residents of the three counties frequently travel between the areas and possibly may not realize they could be infected.

The Continuing Threat Of Zika

A person could be infected with Zika without knowing it since about 80 percent of infected individuals exhibit no symptom. Signs that could manifest include rash, fever, red eyes, and joint pain, lasting from a number of days to one week.

Pregnant women are most at risk since they can transfer the virus to their fetus, leading to miscarriage or lasting neurological setbacks. The virus can also result in congenital Zika syndrome, a pattern of conditions in the infant that comprises brain abnormalities, hearing loss, and eye and limb defects.

In a recent study from the University of Texas, the Zika virus was found to alter fetal brain development and cause microcephaly, which can lead to a host of health problems for the child including vision and hearing loss, feeding difficulty, seizures, and developmental delays.

Women from the Florida areas who have been pregnant since June 15 are urged to talk to their doctors about the potential risk. They are also advised to avoid unprotected sex with an infected partner or someone who has lived in or traveled to a location where Zika is present.

The Florida Health Department revealed 280 cases of local transmission in the state as well as 38 more cases where transmission location is yet to be determined.

Today, 70 countries and territories worldwide are dealing with active Zika transmissions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NASA scientists and engineers went to one of the driest places on Earth, Chile's Atacama desert, to test tools designed to drill for samples and find signs of life on Mars.

Hunting For Signs Of Past And Present Life On Planet Mars

Last month, members of NASA's Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies, or ARADS, worked in 90-plus degree heat to test technologies that may be used in robotic missions prior to the arrival of human explorers on the Red Planet in a bid to demonstrate the scientific value and technical feasibility of a mission that would search for signs of life on Mars.

Mars 2020

Results of the test can help NASA scientists and engineers determine if the next probe the U.S. space agency will send to Mars can drill for samples and find signs of existing and past life on the extraterrestrial world. The Mars 2020 mission, which could reach Mars by February 2021, aims to do these.

"This mission marks a significant milestone in NASA's Journey to Mars  to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and to advance our goal of sending humans to the Red Planet," said Geoffrey Yoder, from NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

Life Underground

If life ever existed or still exists on the Red Planet, exposure to extensive radiation and the aridness of its surface would possibly drive life underground, which makes Atacama a good place for scientists to practice hunting for life on the planet.

Just like Mars, the desert has extremely dry conditions and is persistently exposed to UV radiation from the sun which means that the little life that exists there comes in the form of microbes that live inside rocks or underground.

Life-Detection Instruments For The Red Planet

Team members used a practice rover called KREX-2, which carried a drill and a robotic sample transfer arm. Samples acquired by the rover's drill are fed into three life-detection instruments that are positioned nearby.

The life-hunting tools include the Wet Chemistry Laboratory and the Signs of Life Detector, which uses biochemical methods that are distantly comparable to those employed by home medical tests. Diabetes patients monitor their blood sugar using a device that detects glucose. The instrument, on the other hand, is designed to detect 512 different biological compounds.

The two tools have already been tested by members of the ARADS team in February last year but these were included again in the tests this year to evaluate some new modifications. Scientists also conducted the first field test of the Microfluidic Life Analyzer, which processes small volumes of liquid sample to isolate amino acids which are known as building blocks of life.

The team successfully drilled to depths of up to 2 meters and acquired samples that the three life-hunting instruments searched for signs of life.

"The drill, rover and robot arm combination behaved beautifully in the field," said ARADS Principal Investigator Brian Glass. "It was a steady platform that enabled us to go deeper than we expected."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Rumor has it that the successor to OnePlus 3T will skip the "4" and just jump into OnePlus 5, a la Note 5 jumping into the Note 7 naming scheme.

The 3T has only been out for a few months, becoming available this past November. Yet, because of how fast-paced smartphone development has become, we're now seeing rumors of the OnePlus 5, and they're all sounding pretty good so far.

Why Jump To 5?

Before heading to rumors, let's first address the name. Why is OnePlus allegedly skipping the favor and jumping to OnePlus 5? It's possible that the company, in keeping with Chinese tradition, has chosen to drop "4" because of the number's association with misfortune and death, according to AndroidPit.

Never Settle Teaser

Now, onto the rumors. Tech Times previously reported early March that an image containing the familiar OnePlus signature "Never Settle" was leaked by trusted tipster Evan Blass, which purportedly hinted at the next flagship to be released by OnePlus.

Since then, the rumor mill has been rife with tidbits of the smartphone in question. Android Police's David Ruddock also teased that OnePlus is on the verge of announcing something big soon, although many people have argued that this might just be a new color option for the OnePlus 3T, as suggested by OnePlus cofounder Carl Pei's tweet of wolves howling during midnight.

Whether OnePlus is indeed close to an unveiling of a new product is up for debate, but for some perspective, the OnePlus 3 was released in June 2016, which makes this year the likely release window for a new OnePlus iteration. Granted, there was the OnePlus 3T in November, but the phone isn't considered a true upgrade over the 3; just a newer iteration with slightly bumped up internals.

OnePlus 5 Rumored Specs

In terms of specs, rumors suggest that the smartphone could be equipped with a dual-curved edge display, Tech times previously reported. It's also suggested that the phone will be powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 or an 835 processor.

In terms of internal storage, rumors suggest 256 GB, and in terms of RAM, it's going to be either 6 or 8 GB. Because the OnePlus 3T offers 6 GB at present, rumors suggest that the OnePlus 5 could push the RAM to 8 GB altogether. Of course, it's entirely possible that OnePlus will release different variations in internal storage and RAM, so having a 6 GB option at a lower cost is still a welcome idea.

Rumors also point to a 23-megapixel rear shooter and a 16-megapixel front-facing shooter for selfies. In terms of battery life, the OnePlus 5 is expected to come with a beefy 4,000 mAh battery that supports fast-charging technology.

The phone is also expected to come with a USB Type-C port, and feature a ceramic body, similar to the Xiaomi Mi Mix.

Possible OnePlus 5 Release Date

It's possible that with Samsung readying up the Galaxy S8's internals with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip, others have had to make do with either the 821 or delay development of their phones altogether. If OnePlus chooses the latter route, it could take a while before OnePlus 5 gets released, since the Galaxy S8's unveiling is not until March 29.

A release date, however, is different from an unveiling, which, if indeed on the cards should cause rumors to start ambling out and about in no time. Expect due coverage for the latest OnePlus 5 rumors moving forward. In the meantime, feel free to speculate away regarding the OnePlus 5 down in the comments section!

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Majedie Asset Management Limited (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):



The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:



Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree



BOVIS HOMES GROUP PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:



For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 13 March 2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?



If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" No









2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



ORD 50P



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 1,461,784 1.09 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL:



1,461,784



1.09

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit ORD 50P Sale 10,006 921.4731 ORD 50P ORD 50P ORD 50P

(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. CFD Nature of dealing



e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit





(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type



e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing



e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:



Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:



(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or



(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:



If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 14 March 2017 Contact name: Matthew Hambly Telephone number: 0207 618 3900

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.
TAG Heuger Launches Luxury Smartwatch Modular 45 | TechTree.com

Swiss watch-maker TAG Heuer unveiled a luxury connected smartwatch. Dubbed as Modular 45, the watch is made in collaboration with Intel. TAG Heuer promises to deliver the connected platform without compromising on style.







The all-metal watch comes with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and NFC connectivity onboard. Thanks to the inbuilt sensors, it can navigate route or track workouts without needing to connected to a smartphone. As its name suggests, the Modular 45 offers customization capabilities to enable more than 500 style choices. Buyers can select from 56 different versions of the watch  11 standard models offered in-store with an additional 45 upon request.







The watch is powered by Intel Atom Z34XX processor. It features a 1.4-inch AMOLED touchscreen. It comes with 4 GB internal storage. The smartwatch boasts of water resistance too. On the software side of things, it runs Android Wear 2.0 platform. The Modular 45 comes with a companion apps available for Android and iOS. It supports Google Voice control, which means you can communicate with it via voice.







The TAG Heuger Modular 45 will be available from first week of March on tagheuer.com and brick-and-mortar shops. The connected watch's price starts at $1600.

TAGS: Smartwatches
TACOMA, Wash., March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Orphans Africa Eighth Annual Benefit Dinner and Auction will raise money to fund four schools in Tanzania, which educate between 600 and 700 students, including many orphans. Orphans Africa accomplishes a great deal on a small budgetless than a dollar a day per studentto achieve excellent educational quality and provide opportunity to some of the worlds poorest children.



The volunteers at Orphans Africa work to maximize donor dollars by implementing a model that allows our schools to become self-sustaining over time. By integrating tuition-paying students with orphans, we create a framework where schools can support their own operating costs while we provide infrastructure and expertise, says Carl Gann, OAs President. Our schools are high-performing, cost-effective, and radically improve lives in very poor areas.

Join us for an evening of fun and good works on March 18th at 5:00 p.m. at the Temple Theater Ballroom in downtown Tacoma. Meet Princesses Miss Kenya, Salome Munyaka, and Miss Ivory Coast, Nancy Toure-Yapo, of the 2016 Miss Africa Washington Pageant. Enjoy the live African music of Soyaya, led by Ghanaian-born, Mohammed Shaibu. Soyayas music is a mix of Palm wine and Highlife, West African rhythm and blues.

Guests will enjoy great appetizers while bidding on a wide variety of items including jewelry, African art, wine, and crafts by local artists. Then, enjoy dinner, dessert, and the live auction with some great items up for bid, including:

7-day Holland America Line Cruise for Two in Alaska, Caribbean, Mexico, or Canada/New England

Vacation at a Condo in La Paz, Mexico (NEW)

Flightseeing" Bush Plane Tour of Rugged Alaska

Disneyland Resort Getaway for Four People

One Week Stay at The Grand Mayan in Nuevo Vallarta Mexico

Luau in Your Backyard, a Private DJ Party (NEW)

One Week Stay at a Private Vacation Home in Palm Springs

8 day / 7 night Vacation in Maui Oceanfront Condo

6 day/ 6 night Zulu Nyala African Photo Safari

A variety of weekend getaways from mountain cabins to hotels & resorts

Beer Tasting and Gourmet Dinner for Ten at the Dog and Pony Alehouse and Grill (NEW)

Drive in style in with the Tesla 24-Hour Gift Experience and a $500 gift certificate for the downtown Seattle Four Seasons Hotel where you can charge your Tesla for the next 300 miles. (NEW)

And much more!

Financial Design Group is a strong supporter for this event.

Tickets for the Benefit Dinner and Auction are still available at $65 including appetizers, dinner and a crazy dessert dash. Purchase a table of 10 for $600 and save $5 per person. To browse the catalog or reserve your seat, visit: https://orphafri.ejoinme.org/2017Auction or go to the events page at www.orphansafrica.org. Cant attend, then go virtual and let one of our volunteers bid for you through our proxy bid sheet. http://orphansafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Proxy-Bid-Form-Orphans-Africa-2017.doc
SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a release issued under the same headline earlier today, a URL was missing from the text. It has been added. The corrected release follows:

It takes small and midsized businesses an average of 86 candidates, 15 resume screens, 4.7 onsite interviews and 1.5 offers to secure one hire, according to a new study from Lever, the recruiting software for more than 1,200 fast-growing companies around the world. Lever examined sourcing and hiring data from over 600 companies with fewer than 200 employees over the course of a year to determine how efficient small to midsize companies are when it comes to hiring.



The research suggests SMBs, with their one in 86 hire ratio, have a more efficient hiring process than larger companies, as a 2016 study from Lever which examined companies of all sizes  from startups to large enterprises  showed a hiring ratio of one in 100.

Levers latest research found the most selective stage in the recruiting process for SMBs is the first one  the progression from new candidate to screen. Overall, only 17 percent of all candidates get an invite from the company for an initial conversation. Applicants (people submitting their resumes directly) are the least likely to advance, with only 13 percent being selected for a screen. On the flip side, candidates referred to the company have a preliminary conversation 57 percent of the time  over three times the average. Candidates sent by recruiting agencies are screened even more often (59 percent of the time), implying they are just as attractive as referrals in the early stages. Recruiters conduct screens with sourced candidates (a.k.a. passive candidates) 21 percent of the time.

The research also found the hiring process isnt complete once an offer is extended, as 31 percent of candidates decline an offer. Engineering (59 percent), product management (63 percent), and business development candidates (63 percent) accept their offers at the lowest rate, while customer success candidates accept their offers at the highest rate (78 percent), followed by design (76 percent), and sales (74 percent).

Other findings related to SMB and startup hiring include:

Once they reach the onsite interview stage, applicants and sourced candidates receive offers at similar rates  30 and 31 percent, respectively. A much higher percentage of referrals who come onsite (42 percent) receive an offer, while agency candidates trail behind at only 23 percent.

Applicants have the lowest hire ratio (one in every 128 applicants is hired), but represent 71 percent of the average candidate pool. This demonstrates the need for companies to embrace targeted employer branding to increase their quality of applicants.

Conversely, referrals represent two percent of the candidate pool but 14 percent of hires.

Strong, efficient hiring is a true competitive advantage in the SMB market, yet many companies are unsure how to boost efficiency while also decreasing investment, said Sarah Nahm, CEO and co-founder of Lever. This research shows businesses must simultaneously nurture their networks for referrals, source passive candidates, improve the quality of their incoming applications and have backup offers at the ready. The smaller the team, the higher the stakes and the SMBs that apply this mentality to their hiring process will be the ones who succeed.

The report addressed SMB and startup hiring by position (sales, engineering, etc.) as well. It found:

Sales candidates (25 percent) are most likely to receive a screen, and 44 percent of sales candidates progress from a screen to an onsite interview.

Among the least likely to make it to a screen are design (13 percent) and recruiting candidates (14 percent).

Engineering candidates have an above average chance of securing a preliminary conversation with a company, but face the toughest screen to onsite interview process. Nineteen percent of all engineering candidates are screened, but only 26 percent move to the onsite stage.

Account management, business development, and operations candidates receive offers after interviewing onsite at the highest rate (32 percent), while product management (26 percent) and design (27 percent) candidates receive offers at the lowest rate.

Sales roles require the fewest screens per hire (11), followed by customer service (12), and account management and marketing (13).

The full report, entitled Inside the Recruiting Funnel: Essential Metrics for Startups and SMBs 2017 is available for download now at https://www.lever.co/recruiting-resources/recruiting-metrics-for-startups-and-smbs-report.

Methodology

Levers report aggregates data from approximately 1.5 million candidate considerations, 15,000 hires and 600 Lever SMB customers from 11/1/2015 - 11/1/2016. Customers ranged in size from 1 to 200 employees when they began using Lever, and some began using Lever midway through the study period.

About Lever

Built from the conviction that recruiting is the responsibility of everyone at the company, Levers 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. The company has raised more than $32 million in funding from Scale Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, Y Combinator, Redpoint Ventures, and Correlation Ventures among others. 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.




The president emphasized that people are voting for Nicaragua and by doing so they are also voting for peace. | Read More
STEVENSON, Md., March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The securities litigation law firm of Brower Piven, A Professional Corporation, announces that a class action lawsuit has been commenced in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado on behalf of purchasers of FusionPharm, Inc. (Other OTC:FSPM) (FusionPharm or the Company) securities during the period between March 31, 2012 and September 16, 2016, inclusive (the Class Period). Investors who wish to become proactively involved in the litigation have until April 18, 2017 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff.



If you wish to choose counsel to represent you and the Class, you must apply to be appointed lead plaintiff and be selected by the Court. The lead plaintiff will direct the litigation and participate in important decisions including whether to accept a settlement for the Class in the action. The lead plaintiff will be selected from among applicants claiming the largest loss from investment in FusionPharm securities during the Class Period. Members of the Class will be represented by the lead plaintiff and counsel chosen by the lead plaintiff. No class has yet been certified in the above action.

The complaint accuses the defendants of violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by virtue of the defendants failure to disclose during the Class Period that the proceeds reported from stock sales as revenue were proceeds of illegal sales.

According to the complaint, following a May 16, 2014 Order of Suspension of Trading from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a lack of accurate information concerning the Companys assets, revenues, financial statements, business transactions, and financial condition, the value of FusionPharm shares declined significantly.

If you have suffered a loss in excess of $100,000 from investment in FusionPharm securities purchased on or after March 31, 2012 and held through the revelation of negative information during and/or at the end of the Class Period and would like to learn more about this lawsuit and your ability to participate as a lead plaintiff, without cost or obligation to you, please visit our website at http://www.browerpiven.com/currentsecuritiescases.html. You may also request more information by contacting Brower Piven either by email at hoffman@browerpiven.com or by telephone at (410) 415-6616. Brower Piven also encourages anyone with information regarding the Companys conduct during the period in question to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others.

Attorneys at Brower Piven have extensive experience in litigating securities and other class action cases and have been advocating for the rights of shareholders since the 1980s. If you choose to retain counsel, you may retain Brower Piven without financial obligation or cost to you, or you may retain other counsel of your choice. You need take no action at this time to be a member of the class.
MONACO, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (Navios Partners) (NYSE:NMM), an international owner and operator of container and dry bulk vessels, announced today that it has agreed with investors to sell approximately 47.6 million common units for an aggregate of $100.0 million in a registered direct offering at $2.10 per common unit. The offering is expected to close on or about March 20, 2017. Navios Partners estimates that the net proceeds from the offering, after deducting estimated offering expenses and placement agent fees, are expected to be approximately $95.0 million. Navios Partners will use the net proceeds of the offering for general working capital purposes, including vessel acquisitions.



Navios Partners common units trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NMM.

Fearnley Securities Inc. acted as the sole lead manager.

S. Goldman Advisors LLC and Fearnley Securities AS acted as the lead placement agents in the registered direct offering. Fearnley Securities AS is not a U.S. registered broker-dealer and to the extent that this offering is made within the United States, its activities will be effected only to the extent permitted by Rule 15a-6 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

A shelf registration statement relating to Navios Partners common units was previously filed by Navios Partners with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has been declared effective.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. This offering may be made only by means of a prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus. When available, copies of the prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus related to this offering may be obtained from: Fearnley Securities Inc., 880 Third Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10022, Attention: Prospectus Department or by emailing prospectus@fearnleys.com, (tel: (212) 277-3636).

About Navios Maritime Partners L.P.

Navios Partners (NYSE:NMM) is a publicly traded master limited partnership which owns and operates container and dry bulk vessels.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements (as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended) concerning future events and Navios Partners growth strategy and measures to implement such strategy; including expected vessel acquisitions and entering into further time charters. Words such as may, expects, intends, plans, believes, anticipates, hopes, estimates, and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements related to the anticipated public offering of shares. Although the Navios Partners believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, no assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. These statements are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates which are inherently subject to significant risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of Navios Partners. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to changes in the demand for dry bulk vessels, competitive factors in the market in which Navios Partners operates; risks associated with operations outside the United States; and other factors listed from time to time in the Navios Partners filings with the SEC. Navios Partners expressly disclaims any obligations or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Navios Partners expectations with respect thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any statement is based.
MARKSVILLE (AP)  The head of the Louisiana State Police called it the most disturbing thing he's seen: a 6-year-old autistic boy's lifeless body, strapped into the front seat of a car riddled with bullets fired by two law enforcement officers.

Video from a police officer's body camera captured the burst of gunfire and gruesome aftermath of the shooting that killed first-grader Jeremy Mardis and critically wounded his father.

The recording of the November 2015 traffic stop also showed the father with his hands raised inside his car as two deputy city marshals opened fire. At least four of their 18 shots tore into Jeremy.

Not seeing the video below? Click here.

"He didn't deserve to die like that," State Police Col. Mike Edmonson said as he announced their arrests after the shooting, which exposed tensions between law enforcement and residents of Marksville, a central Louisiana town of roughly 5,500 people.

On Monday, jury selection began in the second-degree murder and attempted murder trial of Derrick Stafford. The other deputy city marshal, Norris Greenhouse Jr., awaits a separate trial on the same charges.

State District Judge William Bennett, prosecutors and defense attorneys questioned the first of hundreds of prospective jurors, asking if they've seen the bodycam video.

Attorneys also asked if race might influence their verdict, or if they've heard arguments that race was a factor in the investigation. Both officers are black, both victims white.

A black woman who had seen the video said race wouldn't influence her view, but added that it was "pretty obvious" others had already decided race was a factor in the case.

"But is that something you feel is important?" the judge asked.

"Oh, no," the woman said.

The attorneys also questioned them about their attitudes toward law enforcement.

"There are some that feel they are above the law," a black woman said.

Defense attorney Christopher LaCour asked a panel of 14 prospective jurors if they had ever used a racial epithet.

"I was born in the '50s. I grew up in the '60s. What do you think?" answered a white man who was later dismissed after saying he already made up his mind.

Earlier Monday, the judge denied a defense request to postpone the trial because prosecutors notified them only last week about a new expert witness they'll use to refute defense claims that a third officer may have fired his weapon.

Attorney Jonathan Goins said he needs more time, but prosecutors said they only recently raised the allegation of a third shooter, even though they have had the ballistics evidence for roughly a year.

"Shame on you if you thought it was a potential and didn't pursue it," the judge told the defense.

The 14-minute video only captured the tail end of the chase and lacks audio for the first 27 seconds. The deputies began shooting before the audio begins.

Prosecutors say the bodycam video proves Jeremy's unarmed father, Christopher Few, didn't pose a threat to the officers as they fired on his car from a safe distance.

Defense attorneys argue that Stafford and Greenhouse acted in self-defense. They claim Few drove recklessly as he led deputies on a 2-mile chase and then rammed into Greenhouse's vehicle as he exited it, before he and Stafford opened fire.

"My client wanted to go home and be with his family that night, just like any officer wants to go home and be with their family," Goins said.

A State Police detective has testified there isn't any physical evidence of Few's car colliding with Greenhouse's vehicle, but couldn't rule that out.

After the gunfire stopped, more than seven minutes elapsed before Marksville Police Sgt. Kenneth Parnell III  the officer wearing the body camera  checked on the boy and found a faint pulse. After donning surgical gloves, Parnell walked back to the boy and turned a flashlight on him.

"Oh, my God," he muttered.

Four minutes later, a paramedic told Parnell that the boy was dead.

Investigators traced 14 shell casings to Stafford's gun and four other casings to Greenhouse's gun. Three of the four bullet fragments recovered from Jeremy's body matched Stafford's weapon; another couldn't be matched to either deputy.

Stafford, a Marksville police lieutenant, and Greenhouse, a former Marksville police officer, were moonlighting that night as deputy city marshals.

Before the shooting, both Stafford and Greenhouse had been sued, accused of excessive force or neglecting their duties. The Marksville Police Department suspended Stafford after his indictment on rape charges in 2011, but reinstated him after prosecutors dismissed the charges.

"It's been emotional. It's been divisive," said District Attorney Charles Riddle, who recused himself from the case because one of his top assistant prosecutors is Greenhouse's father. "Law enforcement has taken some hits, but we have tried to address the complaints."
Judge James Best has announced he's retiring after having served 24 years as a judge for the 18th Judicial District.

Best's retirement will take effect May 15, according to a letter dated Feb. 21 that he submitted to the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office.

"My wife and I have been talking about this for awhile," Best said in a telephone interview with The Advocate. "It was a wonderful experience but it's just time to move on and let a younger person take the seat."

The Governor's Office will have to call a special election to fill Best's unexpired term, which ends Dec. 2020.

Richard Carbo, spokesman for the Governor's Office, said Tuesday their office has yet to receive notice of Best's retirement from the Secretary of State's Office.

"Once we get it we'll have 30 days to call a special election," Carbo said.

According to the Secretary of State's Office, that special election could take place Oct. 14 with qualifying happening between July 12-14.

Best, who is 63, was never opposed since he won a set on the 18th Judicial District in 1993. The district encompasses West Baton Rouge, Iberville and Pointe Coupee parishes.

Best began his 30-year career in the legal profession as a public defender. He was encouraged by a friend to seek the seat on the bench that was left vacant when Catherine "Kitty" Kimball was appointed to serve on the state's highest court.

"I looked at him like he was crazy when he said it. But he planted a seed that I talked over and prayed about with my wife before deciding to run," Best said.

Best's tenure as a judge was marred by recent controversy when the Louisiana Supreme Court handed him a 15-day suspension last year for mishandling a probation termination hearing for a sex offender he knew from his church choir.

Louisiana Supreme Court suspends two district court judges over misconduct The 18th Judicial District Court will likely lose two of its judges  who together have spen

The humility Best showed when he appeared before the state Supreme Court justices to answer for the allegations drew praise not only from the justices but from constituents back home who told him he handled the difficult situation with dignity.

Best said that setback did not influence his decision to retire before his term ended.

"Of course I wish it never would have happened," he said. "But I tried to handle it the best way I knew how."

The judge said he signed up to participate in the state's Deferred Retirement Option Plan, commonly known as DROP. Because that meant he would earn less money for doing the same work after April 1, he said, that weighed more heavily in his decision to retire at this time.

Best said he plans to spend more time with his family and two grandchildren during retirement but intends to also practice law in a limited capacity. In addition, he said he'll continue to work in his church, play his guitar and ride horses.

"After 24 years, this is probably one of the most controversial jobs a human being can have," he said. "I'm going to miss it. My wife says I'm addicted to people."
The mother of a Baton Rouge man shot to death by a 17-year-old boy in 2005 told a judge Tuesday it would be "cruel and unusual punishment" for her family and the community if the convicted killer was given the possibility of parole after serving 35 years in prison.

"Our loss is permanent. Our sentence cannot be changed," Mary Magee testified just a few feet from Anthony Johnson, who was found guilty in 2007 of second-degree murder and sentenced to life behind bars without benefit of parole in the killing of 22-year-old Daniel Magee.

Johnson, now 28, was back in state District Judge Richard Anderson's courtroom a decade later because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 in an Alabama case that automatic life terms for juvenile killers unconstitutional and said they are entitled to hearings to determine whether they are capable of reform.

In response to that decision, the Louisiana Legislature in 2013 gave judges handling murder cases with juvenile defendants the option of making them parole-eligible after serving 35 years in prison.

The nation's highest court early last year used the case of an East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's deputy fatally shot by a 17-year-old boy in 1963 to make its 2012 decision retroactive, giving hope to roughly 300 Louisiana inmates serving life terms for crimes they committed as juveniles.

East Baton Rouge Parish Assistant District Attorney Dana Cummings, who prosecuted Johnson in the Magee slaying, argued during Tuesday's resentencing hearing that Johnson has clearly shown while being held at the Louisiana State Penitentiary the last 10 years that he is incapable of reform.

"He continues to be (among) the worst of the worst -- at Angola," she told Anderson. "There are no mitigating factors here."

Johnson's attorney, Bob Tucker, disagreed and said the 17-year-old who killed Magee on Dec. 11, 2005, cannot be compared to an adult.

"There are gaps between adults and juveniles. There are differences," he said, citing maturity level as one of them.

Johnson, who turned 17 four days before the killing of Magee, was not called to testify at the Tuesday hearing.

Gary Stagg, a former Angola assistant warden and current deputy secretary at the state Department of Corrections, testified Johnson has been a "disciplinary problem" while at Angola, racking up 39 disciplinary reports.

The charges against Johnson have included masturbating in front of a female correctional officer; being caught with contraband, including synthetic marijuana; and battery on a corrections officer, Stagg said. Johnson's visitation privileges are currently suspended for trying to smuggle drugs and a cellphone into the maximum-security prison, he added.

"He has no interest in being rehabilitated," Steve Magee, the father of Daniel Magee, testified.

The elder Magee urged the judge to once again sentence Johnson to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"Our family deserves no less," he said.

Mary Magee, who said Daniel Magee is her youngest son, also read a letter from her oldest son, Timothy, who is awaiting the birth of his second child and could not attend the hearing. He intends to name the child Daniel Magee, she said.

Timothy Magee wrote in his letter that Johnson's killing of his brother was "a heinous act for which he has shown no remorse." He described the family's loss as immeasurable.

"Does Anthony Johnson sound like a person you would like to meet walking down the street? He is not," he stated in the letter.

"Don't let him destroy more lives," Timothy Magee concluded.

Anderson, who presided over Johnson's 2007 jury trial and sentencing, said he will issue a ruling April 19.

Magee was shot while driving his vehicle, and his body was left along River Road. Johnson was sitting in the front passenger seat when he shot Magee, Cummings said. Robert Louis Edwards, who also was 17 and in the back seat at the time, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to second-degree murder and was sentenced to five years in prison. All but 18 months of that sentence were suspended.

Anderson also has the resentencing case of Henry Montgomery, the then-17-year-old Scotlandville High School student who fatally shot 41-year-old sheriff's Deputy Charles H. Hurt in 1963.

Montgomery, whose resentencing hearing is set for April 24, has spent more than 50 years in prison after being found guilty of murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Gov. John Bel Edwards and state Superintendent of Education John White disagreed Monday on when the state's plan to overhaul public schools should be wrapped up and submitted to federal officials.

White, in an email Sunday to members of Louisiana's top school board and an interview Monday, said he still plans to present the plan to the U.S. Department of Education by April 3.

But a task force named by Edwards wants to submit the changes closer to Sept. 18, and the governor does too.

"There are enough concerns about that plan that it needs to be looked at a bit more," said Donald Songy, the governor's education policy adviser.

Here's why governor's panel recommends five-month delay in public schools overhaul Amid sharp divisions, a panel named by Gov. John Bel Edwards recommended Thursday that Louis

White said the April submission, not September, makes sense so the changes are in place by the start of the 2017-18 school year, not mid-year.

"I have heard repeatedly from teachers and principals and families that they want to know about any changes prior to the start of the year in which the changes take effect," White said.

The dispute focuses on the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Louisiana and other states are preparing lengthy proposals on how to revamp school policies to comply with the measure.

Under a plan backed by White, the state would change how public school letter grades are calculated and require fewer tests, among other revisions.

The Edwards task force has recommended a more sweeping overhaul, including a major reduction in annual science exams.

New arguments erupt over Louisiana public schools overhaul More fault lines surfaced Thursday in the rancorous debate on how to overhaul Louisiana's pu

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is set to hold a special meeting on March 29 to discuss the state's proposal, including when it should be submitted to federal officials.

In his email Sunday to BESE members, White noted that last week Congress repealed ESSA regulations issued by the Obama administration.

However, he said those rules did not dictate Louisiana's proposal.

"By submitting a plan April 3, Louisiana would remain both compliant with the law and on track to complete a plan in time for the school year's start," he told BESE members.

The new regulations, announced Monday by the Trump administration, are shorter and trim the requirement that states seek a wide range of input from education "stakeholders," according to Education Week magazine.

Exactly how the recommendations of the governor's task force will fit into the state's ESSA proposal is unclear.

Under the earlier rules, Edwards had until March 22 to endorse the plan, add comments or do nothing.

The revised, 30-day comment period should not affect the state's timeline for an April submission, White said.

However, Education Week said "it could be a big deal in states like Louisiana where the governor and chief (White) have some pretty big differences of opinion on ESSA."

Songy said the governor plans to meet with White, possibly on March 21, to discuss the issue.

"Ultimately they will discuss where there can be points of agreements on any of those issues," he said.

White and Songy, former superintendent of the Ascension Parish School District, have held meetings on the ESSA for weeks.

The state's proposal is the result of more than a year of work, including public hearings statewide.

"It just needs more discussion, more meaningful stakeholder input," Songy said.

In one key difference, White wants to continue annual standardized testing in grades three through eight in English, math, science and social studies.

The governor's task force backs state science tests only in grades five and eight, and an end to the annual standardized exams in social studies.

Edwards is a longtime advocate of reduced testing.
Former U.S. Sen. David Vitter is working as a consultant to one of the key players in the state's criminal justice reform efforts.

Will Booher, interim executive director of the conservative-leaning Pelican Institute, confirmed on Tuesday that the group has retained Vitter, a Republican who didn't seek re-election to the U.S. Senate last year, to help guide the group's efforts.

"He's one of many members we have on the team here," Booher said. "We welcome his thoughts and input."

Reached by phone on Tuesday, Vitter, a Republican, said he wasn't authorized to speak to the media about the efforts.

But the move puts Vitter back in the same orbit as his former foe, Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Edwards, a Democrat, has urged the Louisiana Legislature to rework the state's criminal justice laws during the legislative session that begins next month. Later this week, a task force that has been reviewing the state's options will approve a series of recommendations for lawmakers to mull.

The Pelican Institute is one of the major players behind the bi-partisan push.

After leaving the U.S. Senate earlier this year, Vitter signed on to work for one of Washington, D.C.'s largest lobbying firms, Mercury LLC.

Vitter, 55, spent six years in the U.S. House and 12 in the Senate. Before that, he served in the state House from 1992 to 1999.

Vitter unsuccessfully ran for governor against Edwards in 2015. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Madisonville, was elected to his Senate seat after Vitter opted not to seek re-election.
Every Lent, because of a belief that doing without small pleasures can make you stronger, many people give up sweets in the weeks before Easter. Its a special sacrifice in Louisiana, where the local cuisine includes bread pudding, beignets, doberge cakes and a hundred other temptations. But the craving for sweetness spans many cultures, as journalist Gary Taubes reminds readers in The Case Against Sugar, his new book about the dangers of eating too much of it.

Taubes mentions Roald Dahl, the British author of perhaps the worlds most famous celebration of candy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the childrens book about the magical chocolatier, Willie Wonka. Dahl came by his interest in confections honestly. The sweet shop in his childhood town in Wales was what a bar is to a drunk, or a church is to a Bishop, he recalled. Without it, there would have been little to live for. ... Sweets were our life-blood.

As we grow up, the early magic of sugar can become more routine. But children remind us of what the fuss is all about. Im thinking of my sons first experience of sugar: the icing on the cake at his first birthday, says food writer Michael Pollan, who also appears in Taubes book. I have only the testimony of Isaacs face to go by (that, and his fierceness to repeat the experience), but it was plain that his first encounter with sugar had intoxicated him  was in fact an ecstasy, in the literal sense of that word. That is, he was beside himself with the pleasure of it, no longer here with me in space and time in quite the same way he had been just a moment before.

Some animals also have a sweet tooth, Taubes tells readers, although many of them dont. Cats seem indifferent to sweets, as are chickens, armadillos, whales, sea lions, certain kinds of fish, and cowbirds, he mentions.

What he does not detail is how, for example, we know that armadillos are not exactly crazy for pie. We are left to guess that perhaps it stems from research conducted by a few bored Cajuns on a Saturday night.

Taubes outlines the usual case against sugar: that we eat too much of it, making us fat and more prone to diabetes and other health problems. Its a warning that cuts both ways in Louisiana, where sugar cane farms are an important part of our culture  and where we have more than our fair share of health issues.

With sugar as with all things, moderation is key, which is what giving up sweets for Lent is supposed to teach the devout.

Presumably, in these lean days before Easter, the earnest among us will have to think like armadillos.
Imagine spending a leisurely evening in the French Quarter, lounging under the newly installed ferns on Bourbon Street and sipping your Huge Ass Beer.

I don't know. I'm having a little trouble picturing it.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's drive to clean up and secure the Quarter's seamiest strip apparently includes not just more policing and crowd control, but also an attempt to crack down on a "culture of lawlessness," as City Planning Commission Deputy Director Leslie Alley put it at a public meeting this week.

That apparently means not just blocking off Bourbon Street to traffic, increasing video surveillance and cracking down on code violations, but also adding outdoor seating and greenery. Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Hebert said the model would be nearby Royal Street, which on weekend days becomes a family-friendlier pedestrian promenade full of musicians and street performers.

To say this would change the character of a street known internationally for its strip clubs and boisterous bars is an understatement. And frankly, the city at large has never had much of a discussion about whether such a change would be popular.

Security is one thing, and an important one, given recent shootings and the possibility that Bourbon Street could be targeted for a terrorist attack.

But concerns over possible Disneyfication are real. You can't say that places don't fundamentally change after such civic-minded initiatives. When I lived in New York in the late 1980s, Times Square was seedy, to say the least. I visited the city over the weekend, and while turning a corner, I nearly collided with Minnie Mouse (a Minnie Mouse, I should say, because she did not appear to be the only one).

And while people visit New Orleans for all sorts of reasons, it would naive to think that the general edginess doesn't hold appeal. On the plane back home, I eavesdropped as one perfectly respectable-looking fellow passenger described to another, with some wonder in his voice, about how you can get a drink to go and just walk around.

Literal lawlessness is obviously a serious concern. The sense that the rules are at least somewhat different here, though, is definitely part of the city's charm, for some folks, anyway. And I'd really have to wonder what would take its place.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Critics of GOP health care legislation got fresh ammunition from a report that estimates the bill would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 14 million people next year alone, and 24 million over a decade.

The findings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could make prospects for the legislation backed by President Donald Trump even tougher, with a few House and Senate conservatives already in open revolt and moderate Republicans queasy about big cuts to the Medicaid safety net for the poor.

"It's awful. It has to be a concern," Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said of the budget office findings. "President Trump said he wanted as many people covered as under Obamacare."

A Cassidy spokesman said last week that the senator, a doctor who offered an alternative health law replacement proposal, had been digging into details of the proposal and waiting for this week's estimates before commenting.

With the legislation headed for votes in the House Budget Committee within days and floor action next week, its supporters at the White House and on Capitol Hill showed no sign of retreat. Instead, they attacked the parts of the CBO report they didn't like, while touting the more favorable findings, including smaller deficits from their bill and lower premiums over time.

"I'm pretty encouraged by it, it actually exceeded my expectations," House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said on Fox News Channel shortly after the report was released Monday evening.

Ryan said the CBO findings about millions losing coverage were to be expected, because the GOP legislation removes the penalty in former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act aimed at coercing people into buying coverage.

"If we're not going to force someone to buy something they don't want to buy they're not going to buy it, and that's kind of obvious," Ryan said.

The GOP legislation would use tax credits to help consumers buy health coverage, expand health savings accounts, phase out an expansion of Medicaid and cap that program for the future, end some requirements for health plans under Obama's law, and scrap a number of taxes.

Ryan pointed to other CBO figures, including that the GOP bill reduces federal deficits by $337 billion over a decade, and begins to bring down insurance premiums by around 10 percent starting in 2020, though that comes only after premiums sharply rise in 2018 and 2019.

Democrats scoffed at Ryan's positive take, calling the CBO analysis damning evidence that Republicans are interested only in giving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the rich, which their bill would accomplish, while yanking health coverage from the poor.

"I hope they would pull the bill. It's really the only decent thing to do," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said. "How can they look their constituents in the eye when they say to them '24 million of you will no longer have coverage.'"

At the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price rejected portions of the CBO's findings, in comments that seemed to contradict Speaker Ryan.

"We believe that the plan that we're putting in place is going to insure more individuals than currently are insured. So we think the CBO simply has it wrong," Price said

It was unclear exactly what impact the CBO news would have on the debate. Republicans were already planning to move forward with no Democratic votes, aiming for action by the full House next week and the Senate the week after that. Senate prospects look particularly dicey, given the GOP's slim 52-48 majority and vociferous objections from several Republicans including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

Senators were just beginning to absorb the CBO findings Monday night. The approaching winter storm had delayed the arrival of House members to the Capitol.

"At the end of the day, we should pause and try to improve the product in light of the CBO analysis rather than just rejecting it," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Price planned to meet with GOP senators Tuesday to discuss the issue.

All along Republican leaders have assumed that once it comes time to vote, few if any Republicans will dare vote "no" on the repeal and replacement of "Obamacare" that their party has been promising for seven years. They are relying on Trump's popularity with conservative voters to close the deal, and Trump on Monday announced he would be traveling to Kentucky for a rally early next week.

But the Congressional Budget report seemed likely to increase some Republicans' discomfort with their approach, especially those representing states that expanded Medicaid coverage under Obama's law. Roughly 14 million fewer people would have Medicaid coverage over a decade as the GOP bill cuts $880 billion from the federal-state health program for the poor and disabled, the CBO said.

Trump pledged during the presidential campaign that he would not cut Medicaid, but the bill would violate that pledge, as well as fail to meet Trump's stated goal of "insurance for everybody."

The CBO report also undercuts a central argument that Trump and other Republicans have cited for swiftly rolling back Obama's health care overhaul: that the health insurance markets created under the 2010 law are unstable and about to implode. The congressional experts said that largely would not be the case and the market for individual health insurance policies "would probably be stable in most areas either under current law or the (GOP) legislation."

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Alan Fram, Stephen Ohlemacher, Mary Clare Jalonick, Richard Lardner and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.
The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is set to permanently revoke a teaching certificate for Kimberly Naquin, the Destreh
It was a genius move that landed him 160 potential dates - but Canberra's 'Buy Swap Sell' lover Anthony Symes has homed in on someone he's hoping could spell love.

And in a true Facebook twist, Melody McCabe's not even a member of the Buy Swap Sell group - she saw Anthony's story on the Canberra Times Facebook page.

Anthony Symes and Melody McCabe, who met after Symes's Facebook "love stunt". Credit:Rohan Thomson

Anthony and Melody have so far shared a coffee (that we hear progressed to brunch) and posed together for photos for this article, but their big outing to the National Zoo and Aquarium is planned for this Saturday.

Anthony had the whole of Canberra talking last Tuesday night when he posted an ad to the 'Canberra and Queanbeyan - Buy Swap Sell' Facebook group offering a free ticket to the zoo - with a catch. The catch was, you'd have to go as Anthony's date.
A teenager accused of a shooting that injured two people in Gordon last month is set to fight the allegations.

Police said they were called to Matson Street residence after reports two men entered the home firing shots about 9.35pm on February 10.

Reece Salcedo, 19, was charged with offences including intentionally threatening to cause grievous bodily harm and two counts of discharging a loaded shotgun at a person.

He was also accused of discharging a shotgun endangering life, possessing ammunition and unauthorised possession of a firearm linked to the alleged shooting.

Salcedo pleaded not guilty to the charges when he faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Helping a young child to take some control for themselves gives them that extra sense of confidence and agency at the same time as working with the school to stop the actual bully. Credit:Michele Mossop But I have my own theory on why so many people have opted for private schooling. I think a lot of it gets down to parental guilt. These days families have much fewer children, which means parents take a lot more active interest in their kids' schooling than they did when I was the last of four. And these days both parents are more likely be in paid work  meaning they have more money to spend, but see less of their kids than their parents did. So what more natural than for parents to believe that, in their decisions about how to spend their income, ensuring their kids get the best education possible should have high priority.

And what's more natural in our market economy than to assume that the more you have to pay for something, the higher quality it's likely to be. It's the old male cop-out, spread to women: I may not see as much of my kids as I'd like to, but I'm working night and day so I can afford to give them the best of everything. The more materialist you are, the more you're inclined to judge a school by the quality of its facilities  gyms and swimming pools, music, art and drama theatres  than by the quality of its teachers. Of course, the former is, as economists say, much more "observable" than the latter. But whatever people give as their reasons for preferring private schools, you'll never convince me they're not well aware of the status they gain by sending their kids to private schools, especially independent schools.

Private schools are among the things economists classify as "positional goods"  they reveal your position in the pecking order. But what's changed? Why has the drift to private schools come to an end? One possibility is that the slow wage growth of recent years has made it harder for parents to afford private school fees. This may be particularly the case for independent schools, where the rate of increase in fees from year to year bears little relationship to rate at which teachers' salaries are rising. Nor does the rate at which government grants have been growing seem to have had much effect in slowing the rate at which independent school fees have grown. (The extra government grants may have gone into improving schools' facilities.)

My guess is that, as economic textbooks predict, independent school fees rise according to what the market will bear. They judge how strongly demand for their product is growing relative to supply by the length of their waiting lists. In any case, keeping the cost of independent schooling high is an essential element in maintaining its status as a positional good. Another possible contributor to the end of the drift to private schools is the decision of state governments  particularly NSW governments  to increase the number of places at selective schools. Why pay fees when you can get what you want inside the government system? As a parent who's had one of each  independent and selective  I can assure you selective schooling works well as an (intellectual) positional good. But there's one last possible contributor to the end of the trend to private schools: maybe parents are realising that paying all those fees doesn't buy your kid superior academic results along with their old school tie.
Say the word privatisation and chances are you will get a passionate response either for or against. While the privatisation of infrastructure can and should yield considerable public benefit, we often see the privatisation of public assets done badly and see rising prices where usually the reverse should occur.

When we privatise we should seek to improve economic efficiency, not maximise sale proceeds. We should therefore encourage strong competition, and where that is unlikely to occur we need appropriate regulation: before the asset is sold.

These views now seem to be gaining some traction. More people are now voicing their concern when governments privatise infrastructure assets without these safeguards in place.

These views can also be extended to human services where we have seen some recent disasters.
Early on Saturday evening, a 32-year-old man was bashed unconscious on a quiet street in Box Hill South. His wife, the mother of their one-month-old baby, does not know when or if he will completely recover.

Later that night, more than 100 young men converged on the Moomba festivities in the city centre to brawl, knowing full well police would be waiting for them.

Police maintained a strong presence in Federation Square on Saturday night following rioting at last year's Moomba. Credit:Wayne Hawkins

Officers seized knives, a Taser and knuckle-dusters, and had to use capsicum spray to control the crowd.

This is not Melbourne as we have known it, but it is the Melbourne many fear we are becoming.
It's time to investigate the electricity retailers According to the Grattan Institute, Victoria is "the state with the most (electricity) retailers and the longest experience of deregulation". And yet our prices are higher than the other states. Is it due to collusion? A royal commission would find out. Peter Johns, Sorrento Empty promises of cheap, reliable power So when Jeff Kennett privatised the SEC and the Gas and Fuel Corporation, the Victorian public was lied to and deceived about the benefits to them. Bring back public ownership.

Andrew Churchill, Abbotsford Final nail in the coffin for would-be parents? Treasurer Scott Morrison suggests people are delaying having children so they can get into the property market. With kids increasingly on hold, first for the sake of careers and now housing affordability, there is a good chance the high electricity bills will bring nippers in Victoria to the brink of extinction. John Skaro, Malvern THE FORUM

Support all families The opinion that stay-at-home parents, usually mothers, are a drain on the economy (Comment, 13/3) is an indication of how our society considers financial gain to be paramount. Some parents decide to care for their children during their preschool years. Children are not a commodity to be balanced against economic return. Our society should be doing its utmost to ensure families are supported with measures that best suit their needs. Yes, affordable, flexible childcare is essential. But parents who stay with their children are not "leeches". They are nurturing the next generation and trying to balancing the huge demands of today's society. Annie James, Canterbury A woman's work I have been wondering for a very long time when women's financial contribution to the economy would be recognised and even given a figure. Apart from child-minding and housework, women have always helped those in need, raised money for good causes and never gone on strike. However, I am not hopeful of seeing any practical remediation of this situation under our current federal government.

Dorothy Davies, Ivanhoe Great, a long weekend Racing authorities say the Melbourne Cup will continue to be held on the first Tuesday in November (Sport, 13/3). I had hoped they would change the day. Holding it on a Tuesday only encourages workers to take the Monday off and make it a long weekend. This is unproductive and bad for the economy. The race should be held on a Saturday. Kenneth Fernandes, Altona Passenger safety

A key reason for the increase in serious injuries on trams (The Age, 14/3) has to be the rarity of "next stop" buttons and their distance from most seats. As an elderly passenger, my preferred policy is to remain seated until the tram stops. This is possible on the older trams where one simply has to reach up to pull the cord. The newer trams, foolishly, have not been so equipped. In the interests of safety, this needs to be remedied without delay. Brendan Byrne, Parkville Critical research data Julie Smith (Letters, 13/3), I am sorry your husband developed life-long asthma following vaccination for smallpox. However, I doubt this was causally related because asthma is not a recognised side effect of the smallpox vaccine, which was administered to billions of people. I say "was" because smallpox was the first infectious disease to have been eradicated, and the vaccine made this possible. Because of this, smallpox vaccination is no longer needed. The next infections of humans to be eradicated should be polio and measles, provided levels of vaccine uptake remain high. Regarding your nephew, I am certain that the MMR vaccine did not cause his brain damage or autism, because this possibility has been ruled out following meticulous research involving millions of children. It is irrelevant how many thousands of parents may tell the same story as you, because anecdotes are not the same as research data.

Roy Robins-Browne, professor of microbiology and immunology, University of Melbourne Such a tragic loss Years ago my colleague saw a baby with a mild cold in the morning. As I was leaving that night, the father approached reception with the baby, now blue and limp, in his arms. The baby died the next day in hospital. One month later the first meningococcal vaccine became available. Dr Ralph Frank, Malvern East

PM, take a firm stand Malcolm Turnbull's leadership on vaccinations is welcome. The challenge for him is to promote other policies that reflect the overwhelming scientific evidence. Sensible climate policy with a transition to renewables would be welcome. Then he can move on to obesity, gambling, alcohol and illicit drug policies. The role of government is to use policy levers to make it easier for people to make safe and healthy decisions. Leadership requires standing up to vested interests and those with fringe views. Mr Turnbull, at least you will be able to say: "I stood up for the values of most Australians and what I knew to be right". Trevor King, St Kilda East Put public interest first

The federal government needs to recognise the key to its survival is not in chasing the 4.5per cent of voters who are attracted to One Nation's wacky positions. Three-quarters of the population wants more attention given to climate change. They favour marriage equality and a royal commission into the banks. More people favour Australia becoming a republic than oppose it. The government's positions on penalty rates and Centrelink's crackdown on welfare recipients have little support. Addressing income equity, housing affordability and obesity would also give it a chance of polling higher. It is not a rush to the right or the centre, but governing with public interests above other forces. Peter Allan, Brunswick West The joy of being alone Introverts of the world, unite (Comment, 14/3). A mass rally will be held on Sunday. Silent non-compliance is strongly advised. Stay at home and enjoy the bliss of solitude. Thank you, Clare Boyd-Macrae. Pamela Western, Murchison

Fighting the good fight I agree with Elspeth McCracken-Hewson (Letters, 13/3). Repeated use of "myself" in the subject or in place of "me" grates. So too does confusion of loath/loathe, lay/lie, rein/reign, amount/number, fewer/less, the use of "I" in the object and the lack of subject/verb agreement. Journalists often make these "mistakes". Before the wave of journalist sackings, many subeditors got the chop. Sure, language is changing and perhaps in the era of post-truth relativism, we pedants should retire gracefully  and preferably quietly. Bill Hampel, Malvern East A perfect day, almost Congratulations to the City of Melbourne on the Moomba procession. The floats were wonderful and the council workers who assisted the attendees were very helpful. The only disappointment was the area cordoned off for those with extra access needs: children in prams, the elderly and the disabled. The area was tiny and unsheltered from the sun. Families with prams chose the front positions, blocking the view for those in wheelchairs. The disabled and their carers often require a great deal of time to prepare for these events. Their day could have been more enjoyable if the area had been larger and shaded, and there had been assistants to ensure visual access for all.

Jenny Hardie, Kooyong Onus on the wealthy Even by her standards, Amanda Vanstone is drawing a long bow if she seriously equates the Coalition's acceptance of Sunday penalty rate cuts to the American Civil War (Comment, 14/3). A better lesson she could have taken from Teddy Roosevelt's speech is that of the responsibility which comes with great wealth. I do not think Bill Shorten "wants us to believe that we can move ahead as a nation without anybody losing anything". I do think that he, along with many Australians, believes that the first sacrifice should made by someone who is not relying on overtime rates to pay their rent. Mick Cahill, Fitzroy North A win-win for all

Despite what some people think (Letters, 11/3), removing level crossings will be a windfall to commuters. Currently timetables have to include long gaps between trains to allow the boom gates to rise, and traffic to pass. No crossings, no gaps. More frequency, more trains an hour. Fewer people per train, less crowding. Removing level crossings is more useful than wasting money wiping felt pen marks off the carriage windows. Matthew Gilbert, Hampton Park The name is Paul I have received worse reviews than those by Clive O'Connell (The Age, 14/3). However they, at least, have granted me the dignity of getting my name right. Was that symphony No. 7 by Garry Mahler that Mr O'Connell was banging on about? Paul (or was that David?) Stanhope, Belfield, NSW

Let's start planting We are going to lose trees along St Kilda Road at the Domain interchange due to the construction of the much-needed Domain Train Station. One way to mitigate this loss is to plant more trees now. There are a number of gaps in St Kilda Road's nature strip where elm trees are missing. There are even more plane trees missing from the median strip. In fact, the spacing between the plane trees along the central median is almost double that of the elm trees on the footpaths' nature strips. The cities of Melbourne and Port Phillip, with the help of Melbourne Metro, could plant trees now. Steve Stefanopoulos, Armadale Helmets and cyclists There are more than three countries where helmets are compulsory for cyclists (11/3). Some require them only for children, or within urban areas, or for other requirements.

Hedley Finger, Camberwell AND ANOTHER THING Politics Kate Ellis is not "pathetic" (11/3). She has her priorities and has acted accordingly. Proud of you, Kate.

Elwyn Bourbon, Springvale The Coalition thinks the WA result had nothing to do with federal politics. This would suggest a very bad case of cranium rectal inversion. Ivan Woods, Sale The real question following the election: Why is the state at the centre of the mining boom now heavily in debt? Joe Wright, Greensborough

The only time you can be sure politicians are telling the truth is when they call each other liars. Christine Hurwood, Newport Environment When Matt Canavan talks about "clean" coal, he means "slightly less dirty" coal at a much higher cost. David Pahl, Beechworth

The reef took thousands of years to evolve and now it's disappearing  a victim of climate change liars, profiteers and federal dunderheads. Mark Hill, Middle Park Turnbull & Musk Pty Ltd. Now is the time for some agility and innovation. John Manfield, Blairgowrie Furthermore

Yeah, right. As if our "tough" courts in Victoria will jail masked rioters for up to 15years. Ed Veber, Malvern East Well done, Mem Fox (Q&A). You say it like it is and so eloquently. Pamela Pilgrim, Highett Pope Francis says the church must consider ordaining married men because numbers are low. What about ordaining women?
Today's free advice for Turnbull comes from former NSW Liberal Premier Nick Greiner who says politics is not risk-free and highlights the PM's flight from the penalty rates issue as a prime example of where he needed to stand up for his view. [Andrew Clennell/The Daily Telegraph] Julie Bishop campaigning in Lindsay with MP Fiona Scott at RKR engineering. Credit:Deborah Snow Aaron Patrick has a extraordinary read on women in the Liberal party, including an astounding and unrefuted anecdote from former MP Fiona Scott who says her colleague Scott Buchholz told her that the economics committee was for the "big boys." Buchholz was Whip during the Abbott-Credlin era. You might remember his office told nursing mother Kelly O'Dwyer to consider expressing more milk to stop her from missing (non-essential) divisions in the House. This is a gobsmacking, if not depressing story. My must-read for today. [The Financial Review]

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce wants free movement between New Zealand and Australia. [Michael Smith/The Financial Review] Paragon Business Group, a company headed by Afghan refugee Alande Mustafa Safi, wants to finance a new airport, potentially worth $5 billion for Melbourne's southeast. [Rowan Callick/The Australian] The Greens will use a Press Club speech to propose a six-hour working day and four-day working week. [Mark Kenny/Fairfax] 2. Rohingya abuses Four Rohingya women at a refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Credit:Saiful Islam

Australia is vying for a seat on the UN Human Rights council but is refusing to back an international inquiry into the abuses against Rohingya Muslims, favouring instead an internal Myanmar government investigation. That position is being slammed as "hopelessly weak." [Lindsay Murdoch/Fairfax] 3. Somali pirates FILE - In this Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012 file photo, masked Somali pirate Hassan stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew, in the once-bustling pirate den of Hobyo, Somalia. A U.N. official said Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 that Somali pirates have released four Thai sailors who were held hostage for nearly five years, after their ship the FV Prantalay 12 was seized by Somali pirates on April 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File) Credit:Farah Abdi Warsameh It's been a long time since Somali pirates were in the news but now an oil tanker has been as hijacked off the coast of Somalia. [Fairfax]

It is the first hijacking since 2012 when the issue was rife but quelled by international naval forces. [ABC News America] 4. Headscarf ruling Women wearing headscarves in Rome. Credit:AP The European Union's top court has ruled that companies can stop women from wearing headscarfs. The case was triggered by a woman complaining of discrimination after she was sacked for wearing a headscarf. The ruling says a company can say no to headscarfs but only if it has a dress code that bans all religious symbols.

Critics say the ruling will make it even harder for Muslim women to enter the workforce. [Alastair Macdonald/Reuters] 5. Dutch elections The ruling comes on the eve of the Dutch election where all eyes are on the fortunes of anti-Islam nationalist Geert Wilders. Polling suggests the ruling right-wing Liberals are now well ahead of Wilders. [Dutch News] Prime Minister Mark Rutte says Wilders' plan to close the borders and shut down mosques are "fake solutions." [Reuters]

6. Fake News Facebook was accused of helping spread false internet stories during the US election. Credit: AP One real solution to the curse of fake news, and we're not talking about "failing New York Times," being proposed by Germany is huge fines for social networks who don't do enough to have fake stories removed. Germany has drafted legislation with fines worth as much as 5 million euros. The draft law targets fake news as well as hate speech and illegal content. [Bloomberg] In Britain the nation's new cyber-security boss is also targeting Facebook and Twitter saying the social media giants have a social responsibility to tackle the issues. [Josh Halliday/The Guardian]
Nigerian feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  known for her book Americanah and her TED talk 'We Should All Be Feminists'  has disappointed many fans this week who did not expect her feminism to be trans-exclusionary. Appearing in an interview for Channel Four, she addressed the topic of whether transgender women like me are, in fact, women. Her answer was this: "When people talk about, 'Are trans women women?', my feeling is trans women are trans women."

Adichie went on to explain her view that the "male privilege" trans women apparently receive fundamentally sets apart our experiences from those of cisgender women (those whose gender identity corresponds with their body parts).

"It's about the way the world treats us," she said, "and I think if you've lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men and then sort of change gender, it's difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are."

As both a transgender woman as well as a longtime fan of Adichie and her work, it was heartbreaking to hear her comments.
Severe storms remain near the Sunshine Coast, with the main cell heading straight for Noosa.

An updated severe thunderstorm warning from BoM just after 2pm said the wet weather was moving east and forecast to affect Imbil and Kandanga in the Wide-Bay Burnett region by 2:35 pm.

It was then expected to hit areas south of Gympie including Kenilworth, Amamoor and near Mapleton about 3pm.

Rainfall of 105 millimetres was recorded in the hour to 1pm west of Yandina in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
Two men who pleaded guilty to shooting a policeman in the head, after targeting attacks on the homes of Carl Williams' relatives, have each been jailed for at least six years.

Rodney Phillips, 25, and Sam Liszczak, 23, were in a stolen four-wheel-drive when one of them blasted a shotgun at a police car that had pursued them in Melbourne's north-western suburbs in the early hours of July 7, 2015.

Sam Liszczak had been out of jail just days when the attack took place.

First Constable Ben Ashmole, the driver of the marked police car that followed the pair, ducked when he saw the shotgun pointed at him from 4.5 metres, but the blast hit him in the back of the head. The wound left him with 14 pellets lodged in his head, and surgeons could only remove three. His partner was not injured physically.

First Constable Ashmole and his partner that day were in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, as Justice Michael Croucher jailed Phillips and Liszczak.
ABC Perth said the decision by Pauline Hanson's One Nation party to ban its journalists from the party's WA election night event is an attack on democracy.

Reporter Nic Perpitch said he was told by One Nation officials on Saturday night that media with prior approval only could enter, although many other press outlets there did not require this.

ABC editorial director Alan Sunderland said in a statement on Tuesday the ABC was treated differently to all other media.

He's been in contact with One Nation since Sunday to try to get an explanation.
The footage was filmed on Friday afternoon just after 4.30pm on Beaufort Street in Inglewood, near Grand Promenade.

This dashcam footage captures the bizarre moment a Perth driver got his u-turn horribly wrong.

We believe it ranks very high indeed.

Is this the worst u-turn in history?

The moment of impact is captured on film. Credit:Dashcam Owners Australia

The footage shows the driver of a small silver sedan perform a u-turn over the median strip just in front of a set of traffic lights.

As the driver swings his car back around 180 degrees, he speeds over the median strip once more and through a set of bushes.

But he collides heavily with the rear of a Toyota Hilux in the right hand lane, which sends debris flying into the air.

The offending driver appears to have his right arm up to his ear at the time of the collision and keeps it there for several seconds after the crash.
It has been more than a week since President Trump alleged that President Barack Obama wiretapped him at Trump Tower, and the White House has spent much of that time trying to talk about basically anything else.

Kellyanne Conway isn't going to help in that effort.

In an interview with the Bergen Record, Conway muses about the possibility that such surveillance could be conducted through phones, TVs and even microwaves. Here's the exchange with columnist Mike Kelly:

KELLY: Let me ask you about one of the things that seems to be dogging, at least this past week, is the wiretaps  the allegation that Trump Tower was wiretapped. What can you say about that? Do you know whether Trump Tower was wiretapped?
The analysis immediately prompted a clash of reactions between the White House and Republican leaders. Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said the report is "just absurd", and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said: "We disagree strenuously" with it. Bill author: House Speaker Paul Ryan makes his case for the GOP's plan to replace the Affordable Care Act on Friday. Credit:AP Ryan defended the report, saying that it proves that the proposal will "dramatically" reduce the deficit and usher in "the most fundamental entitlement reform in a generation". "Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage," he said. "It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. That's what this report shows." Donald Trump, centre right, with his cabinet on Monday, says it could take several years for health insurance prices to start to drop under the new plan. Credit:Bloomberg

The release of the CBO's report marks the beginning of a new phase in the debate over the week-old healthcare bill, which is moving through the House on an accelerated timetable despite opposition from Republicans, Democrats and virtually every sector of the US health-care industry. Conservative Republicans, in particular, have demanded changes to the measure in exchange for their support. The CBO report offered conclusions that might neutralise some conservative concerns, perhaps softening those members' opposition to the measure. Donald Trump between James Mattis, US Secretary of Defence, right, and Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of State, on Monday. Credit:Bloomberg The conservative House Freedom Caucus did not immediately provide a response to the report. At the same time, some moderate Republicans expressed concerns about the number of people who would lose coverage.

"These kinds of estimates are going to cause revisions in the bill, almost certainly," said Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine. "I don't think that the bill that is being considered now is the bill that ultimately will be the one that we vote on in the Senate." Democrats cited the CBO numbers to support their flat-out opposition to the plan. "The CBO score shows just how empty the President's promises, that everyone will be covered and costs will go down, have been," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. "This should be a looming stop sign for the Republicans repeal effort." "I would hope that this would make the Republicans say 'we can't do this," said Senator Patty Murray, also a member of Democratic leadership.

"Twenty-four million people lose their coverage, it is total chaos to the country and I hope they pause, say 'this is not what we should be doing' and move on." The White House has spent the past week engaged in a charm offensive aimed at bringing conservatives on board, as well as an effort to discredit the CBO before it released numbers that might cast the plan in a negative light. "If you're looking to the CBO for accuracy, you're looking in the wrong place," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said last week. Ryan had predicted that the CBO would forecast a loss in coverage, but he had also suggested that those affected would be exercising their choice not to buy health plans, a choice that is penalised under the Affordable Care Act. "CBO will say, 'Well, gosh, not as many people will get coverage,' " Ryan said Sunday in an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation. "You know why? Because this isn't a government mandate."

"It's up to people," he said. "People are going to do what they want to do with their lives because we believe in individual freedom in this country." The Affordable Care Act has increased coverage by 20 million to 22 million - almost half of those through the insurance markets the law created for people who cannot get affordable coverage through a job, and the rest through an expansion of Medicaid in 31 states and the District of Columbia. According to the report, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured in 2026, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under the current law. "Obviously, we want to improve those coverage numbers," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn. "But when you don't punish people for their refusal to buy a government-approved insurance [plan], some people are going to make the decision not to buy it". This reasoning would only account for the immediate increase in the uninsured, according to the CBO.

Eventually, many people would lose health insurance because the legislation's tax credits would be less generous than those in the current law and because some states might undo the expansion of their Medicaid programs. "All I can tell you it is a work in progress," Cornyn said of the bill. The Trump administration led a broad effort to undercut the Congressional Budget Office over the weekend, including pointing out flaws in its forecasts for the original Affordable Care Act. "If the CBO was right about Obamacare to begin with, there'd be 8 million more people on Obamacare today than there actually are," said Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. "Sometimes we ask them to do stuff they're not capable of doing, and estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably isn't the best use of their time." "The CBO estimate five, six, seven years ago when this started, they estimated that over 20 million people would have coverage at the end of the ten-year window," Price said on NBC's Meet the Press. "In fact, it's about half of that right now. So CBO has been very adept in not providing appropriate coverage statistics."

Price, the former chairman of the House Budget Committee, had previously celebrated the selection of CBO Director Keith Hall in 2015, saying he would bring an "impressive level of economic expertise and experience." In private meetings last week, Trump suggested he was open to significant changes to the bill to appease skeptical hardliners. By the end of the week, however, the White House clarified it was siding with House Republican leaders on at least one request from the hardliners: speeding up cuts to Medicaid eligibility. "Right now, the date that's in the bill is what the president supports," Spicer told reporters. "It's not a question of negotiation," he added. On Friday, members of the House Freedom Caucus remained split over which elements more urgently needed change. Some called for changing the Medicaid timetable, while others urged the elimination of basic benefit requirements for health plans. That same day, Trump put his own spin on the split, saying despite press coverage, all was well.

On Sunday, a growing group of conservatives was still threatening to kill the plan unless GOP leaders agreed to renegotiate parts of it. "He will not have the votes," Republican Senator Rand Paul, said of Ryan on CBS' Face the Nation. "Everybody is being nice to everybody because they want us to vote for this, but we're not going to vote for it." In January, Trump had promised to replace the ACA with a plan that provided "insurance for everybody." "There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us," Trump said in a January 15 interview with The Washington Post.
London Morgan - Latest Big Name On 2017 London Motor Show Exhibitor List

LONDON - March 14, 2017: The London Motor Show is pleased to announce that London Morgan has joined the list of high-profile exhibitors at the Battersea Park event.

Running from 4-7 May 2017, the London Motor Show will see over 150 brand new cars on display from a vast range of acclaimed manufacturers, and Morgan is the latest organisation to confirm its attendance.

Morgan enjoyed fantastic sales success at the inaugural event last time around, with the International and British public and members of the media captivated by its cars unique blend of beautiful design, craftsmanship and performance.

For the 2017 show, Morgan is bringing three stunning models: the Aero 8, a Classic Morgan Roadster and a Morgan 3Wheeler with the team on hand to discuss their creations and one-of-a-kind eccentricity.

The London Motor Show is one of the most eagerly anticipated events on the automotive calendar and is becoming an iconic British event, entirely appropriate for Morgan with its very British heritage.

Alec Mumford, Chairman of The London Motor Show, said: Were absolutely delighted to welcome London Morgan to the London Motor Show  bringing two British icons together in the perfect London setting. Morgans attendance and subsequent success at last years event demonstrated just how great the show is for the public and businesses, and we hope Morgan enjoys similar success this time around.

Further information on The London Motor Show displays and tickets are available at www.thelondonmotorshow.co.uk.
Estimados amigos,

Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia.

Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro.

Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras.

There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

No soy alguien que sabe, sino alguien que busca.

Only Gold is money. Everything else is debt.

Las grandes almas tienen voluntades; las debiles tan solo deseos.

Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
A former graduate student is suing Princeton University , alleging the New Jersey institution mishandled his reports of sexual assault, and expelled him after a related suicide attemptall because of his gender.

Going by the pseudonym John Doe, the Harvard graduate has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking undisclosed damages for the University's supposed violation of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, alleging it failed to act on two sexual assault complaints against a ex-boyfriend.

Princeton has created an environment where a male victim of sexual assault is fundamentally denied a fair and impartial process, his complaint alleged. John Doe would not have been subjected to Princetons discriminatory acts if he were a female victim of sexual assault by a male assailant.

Advocates report one in six women has been the victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. According to a 2013 Department of Justice study, one out of every 10 rape victims are male.

Princeton has denied the allegations leveled in the complaint, and called the case without merit, in a statement provided to The Daily Beast by the schools vice president for communications, Dan Day. The suit contains a series of inaccurate accusations and repeatedly mischaracterizes how the University handled this former graduate students complaint, the statement read in part. The University responds seriously and compassionately to victims of sexual misconduct and to all students who need support.

According to the complaint, Doe, a Turkish citizen in the U.S. on a student visa, is gay, but was not out when he started dating the man who would become his alleged assailant, an influential student on campus identified only as Student Y.

The identity of the Does alleged rapist is unknown.

By the fall of 2014, the pair were dating exclusively, but had not been sexually active, according to the complaint. When Y asked him to have sex, Doe says he initially refused, but buckled under pressure from his boyfriend. While they were actually engaged in intercourse, the complaint claims, Doe withdrew his consent, asking Y to stop multiple times, a request that allegedly was ignored.

Doe claims he was injured from the alleged assault and wanted to break things off with Y as a result. When Doe tried, Y started to cry, according to the complaint.

As [Y] was crying, he slipped his hand into John Does trousers, the complaint says. John Doe asked, What are you doing? but [Y] moved very quickly and undressed him down to his boxers. The complaint goes on to describe a second assault, which it claims stopped just short of rape.

Doe was no longer seeing Y when, a month later, he says he reported both alleged assaults to an assistant dean at Princeton, along with harassment from Ys friends, who allegedly leveled anti-gay slurs at him. These reports, Doe claims, were not taken seriously. The investigation that followed was slow-moving and traumatizing, Doe says.

In a series of interviews, investigators allegedly asked Doe about his own sexual historya line of questioning that the complaint calls, insensitive, irrelevant and in violation of Title IX. Further, he claims Princeton provided little support as he struggled with the aftermath of his alleged assault.

The complaint states that Doe, "overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness, attempted suicide and it claims that campus religious leaders ignored him when he told them.

And on June 3, Doe received a letter advising him of his immediate expulsion for failing to maintain a B average. As a result, Does student visa was revoked and he was forced to leave the country.

[Doe] felt like request for academic accommodations were being ignored. He felt like he had been abandoned, Does lawyer, Kimberly C. Lau, told The Daily Beast.

Lau has represented over 100 students in college disciplinary proceedingsmostly men accused in sexual assault complaints, figures she refers to as victims of overzealous administrations. Having been on both sides of these cases, Lau said she realizes how difficult it can be to investigate them fairly.

I think schools are in a tough position when they are handling cases of sex misconduct, she said. Its a tall, tall order to fulfill.

Princeton would know.

In 2014, the university reached a settlement with the Department of Education after a four-year investigation found it had shown favor to the accused in sexual assault cases. In the ruling, the DOEs Office for Civil Rights concluded that Princeton had failed to provide prompt and equitable responses to complaints of sexual assault and violence, and in at least one case, allowed for the continuation of a sexually hostile environment that limited and denied the students access to the Universitys educational program.

And the Ivy league institution is still embroiled in ongoing litigation in the three-year-old case of W.P. v. Princeton University, in which a former student alleges he was expelled after a 2012 suicide attempt.

The university has yet to be served with Does lawsuit, but said in its statement: We intend to mount a vigorous defense."
A previously unreleased audio recording of House Speaker Paul Ryan telling Republican congressional representatives that he would never again defend the party's presidential nominee was published by Breitbart News on Monday evening, the latest salvo in the war between the beleaguered speaker and the far-right news outlet sparked by the introduction of the American Health Care Act.

The audio tape was recorded during a conference call between Ryan and Republican members of the House of Representatives on October 10, 2016, three days after a decade-old video surfaced showing then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. In the recording, Ryan is heard telling his fellow party members that he would not defend Trump then or in the future.

His comments are not anywhere in keeping with our partys principles and values, Ryan said in the recording, comments that have been previously reported, albeit not verbatim.

There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your Speaker," Ryan continued. "I am not going to defend Donald Trumpnot now, not in the future. As you probably heard, I disinvited him from my first congressional district GOP event this weekenda thing I do every year. And Im not going to be campaigning with him over the next 30 days.

Ryan continued, telling members of the Republican caucus that I have real concerns with our nominee, but insisting that maintaining the Republican majority in Congress remained his top concern.

"Im doing what I think is best for you, the members, not whats best for me," Ryan said. "So, I want to do whats best for our members, and I think this is the right thing to do. Im going to focus my time on campaigning for House Republicans. I talked to a bunch of you over the last 72 hours and here is basically my takeaway. To everyone on this call, this is going to be a turbulent month. Many of you on this call are facing tough reelections. Some of you are not. But with respect to Donald Trump, I would encourage you to do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do. Personally, you need to decide whats best for you. And you all know whats best for you where you are.

The leak of the audio recording is nearly guaranteed to further strain the long-frayed relations between the Trump administration and Republican congressional leadership, and could not come at a worse time for either: the introduction of the AHCA has infuriated right-leaning members of Congress and their supportersBreitbart News among themwho see the bill as "Obamacare Lite." The Trump administration's support for the bill as-written has consequently wavered, with the president reportedly even floating the possibility of simply allowing Obamacare to "explode" rather than implement a replacementallowing Democrats to take the blame for its failure.

When asked about the contents of the tape, Ryan's office was dismissive.

The world is well aware of this history, spokesperson Brendan Buck told Breitbart. And obviously a lot has happened since then. As everyone knows.
Five months after dismissing criticism that his latest venture broadcast a racial slur above its entrance, the owner of a controversial bar in Crown Heights has changed tack. What debuted last September as Crow Bar has been rebranded as Franklin 820, according to a neighbor who saw workers erecting the new sign on Monday afternoon.

Crown Heights was known as Crow Hill in the 19th century, and while historians debate the origin of this moniker, at that time the word "crow" was used as a derogatory term for black people. Franklin 820, meanwhile, appears to be a reference to the bar's address: 820 Franklin Avenue.

Crow Bar owner Dan Wilby did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment, and we have yet to confirm that Franklin 820 is under his ownership. [Update below: Wilby has confirmed that he still holds the lease, and has changed the bar's name.] The liquor license for the property is still affiliated with Crow Bar, according to the State Liquor Authority website. We called the number associated with 820 Franklin, and reached the voicemail for Crow Bar; Aviva Gibbs, the Crow Bar chef, is also listed as the chef for 820 Franklin on the establishment's Facebook page.

Gothamist spoke with Wilby last fall, about his decision to stand by the name Crow Bar. "If people are offended I'm sorry," he said at the time. "It's not the intention of it, but it's a free world I guess."

Jim Search, a 29-year-old teacher and Crown Heights resident of ten years, captured video of the new sign installation in progress, around 4:00 p.m. on Monday:

Crown Heights was known as Crow Hill for the better part of the 19th century, up until Crown Street was built in 1916. From 1848 to 1907, the Kings County Penitentiarya prison for minor offenders known also as the Crow Hill Penitentiarystood on Carroll Street between Nostrand and Rogers avenues.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle also made frequent reference to Crow Hill in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In one article from August 1873, a retired police officer told a reporter, "It was called Crow Hill, partly because there were a great many crows there and partly on account of the people nicknaming the darkies 'crows' too."

Wilby adhered to a benign interpretation of the Crow Hill name. "The penitentiary was called Crow Hill after the crows that sat on top of the hill," he said.

Zaheer Ali, an oral historian at the Brooklyn Historical Society, said Wilby's claim was a minority opinion. "Most historians suggest that the name originated as a derogatory term in reference to the earliest black residents of the settlement, which would become Crown Heights," Ali said.

Crown Heights is predominantly black, though its demographics have shifted in recent years.



The old Crow Bar sign (Scott Heins / Gothamist).

Esteban Giron is an organizer with the Crown Heights Tenant Union, which represents tenants who live above the bar. His group has been vocal in opposing Crow Bar since last winter, when Giron voiced concerns to Wilby at a Community Board meeting. When Wilby doubled down on the name last fall, CHTU hosted protests outside the bar for several weeks straight.

"We would oppose the bar no matter what," Giron told Gothamist on Tuesday. He and other advocates have called for fewer bars and more affordable amenities as the cafes and boutiques north of Eastern Parkway have begun to spread south.

"But this is definitely a win," he added. "It really hurts to have to walk by something every day that's painful to you."

Search, the teacher who captured video of the new sign going up, says that he's boycotted the bar since the day it opened. "If he [Wilby] really cared he would have done it [changed the name] from the beginning," Search reasoned.

"I'm still not going to go there, just because he changed the name," he added. "Come on now."

[Update 1:30 p.m.]: In a statement to Gothamist, Wilby said that he changed the bar's name, and that "it was a significant and regrettable oversight on my part not to have done my due diligence in learning the negative aspect of the neighborhoods history."

"I remain committed to Crown Heights and Franklin Avenue and to offering a welcoming atmosphere with affordable food and drink in the newly reopened 820 Franklin," he added.
It wouldnt be surprising to learn that Donald Trump despises the Washington Postbut who knew that hes a fan of Emily Post?

Early Monday morning, the president of the United States seemed to be channeling the legendary American etiquette doyenne when he tweeted: It is amazing how rude much of the media is to my very hard working representatives. Be nice, you will do much better!

This is not the first time that President Manners has schooled members of the news media in appropriate decorum.

Dont be rude! Trump commanded CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta during a pre-inaugural Jan. 11 press conference, refusing to take Acostas question after the latter objected to Trumps trash-talking of his network.

Sam Donaldson, ABCs legendary White House correspondent who was occasionally called rude for his loud and persistent grilling of presidents, said about Trumps tweeted admonition: Remember what [Jimmy Carters press secretary] Jody Powell used to say? Thats like being called ugly by a frog.

Donaldson told The Daily Beast that nearly three decades ago, when he and Diane Sawyer co-anchored an ABC program called Primetime Live, he, too, was the object of Trumps etiquette education.

In 1990 I interviewed this guy about his business, Donaldson recalled. And in the course of the interview, about 13 minutes long, he accused me of being rude to him, he accused me of being ignorant, and he accused me of being out to get him. And I wasnt out to get him, but yes, I was ignorant about his business, although I knew better than to think that he could service the debt for the airline, for the Plaza Hotel, and for the Taj Mahal, because he didnt have enough money! And so he lost them all to the banks, right?

Donaldson continued: I interviewed that guy. And it passed from The Donalds lips that I am rude, ignorant and out to get him. Hello. I know the boy. You know the boy. Everybody really knows the boy. It was a lot of fun, all of this. But unfortunately, its now very serious.

Indeed, during the 2016 campaign the president tagged his political opponents with boorish nicknames, called Mexicans rapists, mocked Megyn Kellys menstrual cycle, mimicked the physical disability of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, encouraged his supporters to beat up protesters at rallies, threatened to bomb the shit out of ISIS, and advised American businesses that move overseas to go fuck themselves.

And lets not consign to collective amnesia that hardly-ever-mentioned-these-days Access Hollywood video.

Who hasnt he insulted, at least during the campaign, and even while hes been president? Donaldson demanded. If theres a group of three people he hasnt found to insult, I dont know who they might be.

Donaldson, never one for verbal restraint, likes to refer to the 45th president as the EVIthe egomaniacal vulgarian ignoramus.

But apparently, at least for now, the press corps is dealing with President Polite.

Thats really rich, isnt it, and more than a little bit obnoxious, Lucy Dalglish, dean of the University of Marylands Philip Merrill College of Journalism, said about Trumps complaint. And who set the tone for that? Just think of all the things hes said and done to and about people. Is he surprised? It goes both ways.

Dalglish, a former journalist and longtime First Amendment lawyer, added: I cant think of anybody in the media who has actually been rude. And be nice? What does that mean? Dont challenge me? Dont ask questions? Dont expect us to dig for data? Im just kind of bewildered.

Its difficult to know what exactly provoked this mornings censorious tweet, much as it remains a mystery what might have prompted the presidents accusation nine days ago that his bad (or sick) predecessor wire-tapped Trump Tower.

Perhaps Trump was simply doing a bit of mischief, trolling the press for his own amusement.In a compelling New Yorker magazine report on how the Trump White House is working to delegitimize the mainstream by legitimizing rightwing crackpots in the briefing room, author Andrew Marantz calls the president the worlds most gifted media troll.

Or maybe Trumps tweet was inspired by the merciless drubbing administered to presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway Monday during a series of morning show appearances in which she tried to defend her unsupported claimto the Bergen (N.J.) Recordthat Barack Obama could have spied on Trump using microwaves that turn into cameras. (The president, who apparently has a protective streak, frequently defends his former campaign manager.)

Or maybe it was White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers unpleasant Saturday encounter at a Washington, D.C., Apple store with a fellow customer, a non-journalist who kept her cell phone recording as she berated him repeatedly for work[ing] for a fascist and lying to the American people. (In fairness, the president is far less protective of Spicer, and has even publicly nitpicked his performance.)

During Spicers Monday briefing for the White House press corpswhich turned fractious when reporters for NBC News, Peter Alexander and Hallie Jackson, stubbornly demanded to know which of the presidents various claims should or should not be taken literallythe press secretary was asked what he thought about the bosss tweet.

I think Ive been asked for my personal opinion several times; thats not my job, he dodged. I dont get up here to speak for myself. I speak for the president. I think he has been very clear he doesnt believe some of the behavior and the reporting has been appropriateI will let the tweet speak for itself.Others, however, were happy to offer some textual analysis.

Our job isn't to be nice or not nice. Its to cover the news, said Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. And that is the fundamental point that the president doesn't understand: critical stories or reporting don't amount to some kind of personal attack or a meanness on the part of the reporters. We live in the world of information, and care less about whether it's nice or not nice and more about simply whether it's true.

Frank Sesno, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, echoed Popes sentiments in a text message: Journalists are not paid to be 'nice.' They're paid to be reporterssometimes tough, focused on accuracy in search of truth. Respectful but skeptical.

Independent journalist Sharyl Attkisson, a former CBS News correspondent, was dismissive about the significance of Trumps tweet. Its funny. Who cares? she emailed, although she added that niceness has limited application. As an aside, I am polite to the Trump folks, as I try to be to all, and I havent had any luck getting interviews the last 4 months. I was polite to the Obama folks and didnt have much luck with them, either.

Nation magazine editor Mark Hertsgaardwhose groundbreaking 1988 book, On Bended Knee, chronicled the Reagan White Houses conquest of a pliable, subservient Washington press corpssaid Trumps complaint is laughable, because, among other reasons, sometimes the watchdogs have to bark pretty loudly so that they can get through to the people in the palace.

Hertsgaard, who has just edited the special Nation section, Media in the Trump Era, said the louder, the better.

Its very interesting to watch the Washington press corps begin its rediscovery of its vestigial adversarial responsibilities, he told The Daily Beast. The Washington press corps by instinct is not adversarialthey believe themselves to be a part of a governing elite--and its interesting to see how with Donald Trump, theyve been faced with a choice: Either go along and find your adversarial past, or get down on the knee pads again.
President Donald Trump is at war. But its not one against the enemies of the people , Democrats, Nordstrom , countries not named Russia, the former president who he says wiretapped him , or the microwaves spying on him per aide Kellyanne Conway .

This week Trump will have to fight on a new front against his own partys friendly fire, as Republicans progress from a covert operation to contain him with quiet pleas for fewer tweets and more teleprompters to an open one to stop him from killing them.

That war doesnt just have outspoken grunts like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham but now soldiers like Speaker Paul Ryan, who deflected questions on the cost of Trumps promises and Sen. Tom Cotton, who issued a stark warning on the annihilation awaiting Republicans at the polls if they stick their necks out to fulfil their promise to undo Obamacare, behind only the wall and locking her up on base voters list of priorities.

On ABC Sunday, Sen. Tom Cotton warned I would say to my friends Do not walk the plank, on the American Health Care Act (dont dare call it Trumpcare, says Trump) thats already barreled through two committees. Cotton fears that they will put the House majority at risk next year.

And for nothing. While the Congress feels obligated to put something on paper before the April recess, Trump is leaving his options open, a position that works when you are bargaining over a lease in Dubai but not so much when dealing with The Hill. Trump continues to shout that Obamacare is a disaster about to implode if he doesnt save it but puts little shoulder behind the current proposal to fix it. If it dies, Trump will claim he told us so.

On Monday, he met with so-called victims of Obamacare and read, hostage-like, from a prepared statement praising the general idea of more choice at less cost. More passionately he revealed his dilemma, his unhappiness that people are loving the thing they once hated. If we end it, Trump exclaimed, Everyone is going to say remember how great Obamacare used to be?

Thats similar to the horror that wakes him before dawn sometimes and that compelled him nine days ago to compose, with typos, his most intemperate tweet to date accusing Obama himself of being a sick, bad, guy who wiretapped him. Its a little bit like President Obama, he said. When he was in office, people didnt like him so much but now that hes gone people like him. Sad.

Republicans are beginning to see the harsh truth that their embrace of Trump as a Republican for purposes of winning the presidency did not mean he would govern as one. He doesnt care about his adopted party, not even enough to learn about the things it stands for, before he and Steve Bannon topple them. He cares about his business, the children whove been in business with him, and spending time at Mar-a-Lago. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan are way down the list, just ahead of others whose names he will never bother to learn. Let them get bogged down in the intricacies of legislating. During the campaign he plucked out of the Affordable Care Act the popular pieces he liked without a thought to how they fit together. He was very fond of covering pre-existing conditions and children being able to stay on their parents insurance, stopping just short of pledging to extend it until theyre eligible for Medicare. The resulting mirage is what he wanted to dub Donaldcare.

For Trump (for now), it just takes a rally at an airport hangar to gin up his base before retreating to the cocoon of his private club where theres no risk of being egged. Members of Congress have to face their restive voters most weekends in community centers. Few of them have the con mans charm, capable of convincing voters its not raining when it was , or spinning that hell give them so much inexpensive health care theyll be bored with health care.

The White House did come to the defense of Ryancare with a pre-emptive shot at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Press secretary Sean Spicer declared before its numbers were out that the office overvalued Obamacare, which he refers to as rainbows and puppies and would devalue any prospective replacement. He also praised the House bill by stacking it upliterallyagainst the many more pages of Obamacare on the floor next to his podium on the most un-Trumpian principle that less is more and short is beautiful.

Spicer was right to be concerned. The CBO found that 24 million people would lose insurance under the ACHA within the next decade. As Trump said of health care, Its complicated! This morning in a 9 a.m. tweet he didnt promise that the ACHA would save health care. He promised generically that Republicans would.

To produce something within his first hundred days, Trump will have to either go all out for Ryancare or come up with an alternative not based on alternative facts. Its harder than it looks. Its not just Cotton finding his voice but Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, up for re-election in 2018, who is no longer so sure he wants to repeal and replace as thats now conceived. In a piece of performance art, Sen. Rand Paul went looking for the bill and couldnt find it, particularly entertaining since Republicans accused Democrats of not sharing the details of Obamacare until it was too late.

Once Republicans start speaking out, or not speaking up in Trumps defense, who knows where it will stop. On the wiretapping charge, Trump has almost no vocal support. Other allies, including Republicans from farm states that rely on guest workers, are worried about his fierce deportation raids and are questioning him on immigration and trade agreements. Of NAFTA, Sen. Chuck Grassley said We know what we have, and I guess I don't think it's as bad as what the president thinks it is. And Sen. Cory Gardner came out to criticize the White House for  making it too difficult to enter into trade agreements.

Whats next for nervous Republicans? Tear down that (proposed) wall.
Katrina Pierson , one of the most prominentand most controversialsurrogates for Donald Trumps presidential campaign, was formally offered a top White House position, The Daily Beast has learned.

But Pierson turned down the job of deputy press secretary for reasons that still arent completely clear.

Current White House press secretary Sean Spicer told The Daily Beast that he personally offered Piersondubbed  Hurricane Katrina  by Texas Monthly and known for sporting a bullet necklace on televisionthe spot.

She accepted and I was excited to have her on the team, Spicer said in an email to The Daily Beast. She ultimately decided to pursue another role on the Trump Team.

I made a personal decision to remain on the outside for now. I have plenty of time to serve, Pierson told The Daily Beast over the weekend.

Instead, Pierson joined a new nonprofit initiative called America First Policies in order to support President Trumps agenda on the grassroots level. The group hopes to serve as a political arm for the White House, galvanizing support and raking in money to keep the presidents support strong.

But Pierson didnt cut her teeth during the campaign doing fundraising or ground-level organizing. She became a strident and prominent national television face for Trump who wasnt afraid to defend him with senseless logic and arguments that generated viral clips.

In innumerable hits on CNN and Fox last year, Pierson made inconceivable claims including that President Obama started the war in Afghanistan and that Hillary Clinton suffered from the medical disorder dysphasia. It was the perfect narrative-shifting that the campaign became so adept at using.

And as one former campaign official put it to The Daily Beast, President Trump watched the hits and LOVED them.

On the early campaign, she was a hired gun who was counter-narrative and effectively doing her own bookings, etc, the official, speaking on background, told The Daily Beast. Did on camera what we needed her to do. Really the first national surrogate we had.

Two former campaign officials suggested to The Daily Beast that Piersons ultimate decision not to join the administration was due in part to an unspecified difference in opinion between her and Spicer and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

What do you think lol, one source emailed The Daily Beast when asked if the two camps had any conflicts. DJT (Trump) I know wanted her in the WH.

Pierson said any talk of a rift with her and Spicer was just untrue.

They were both very supportive, Pierson told The Daily Beast referring to Spicer and Priebus. Ive been on team Trump since the beginning so Ill say again that its very strange to hear otherwise, particularly from unnamed sources that were likely not on the Trump team in the beginning.

People don't have to accept my decision, but that doesn't give them the right to question it or lie about it either, Pierson added.

Spicer only had praise for her as well.

She did a great job on the campaign and we were excited to have her [as] part of the press team, he told The Daily Beast.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders ultimately took the role of deputy press secretary.

Last Friday, Pierson returned to television to help promote her nonprofit group, which had had a rocky, sluggish start. As The Daily Beast previously reported , in the first few months of the Trump White House, Piersons nonprofit America First Policies hadnt done any real demonstrable work.

Republican super-donor Rebekah Mercer walked away due to a conflict with the nonprofits founder Brad Parscale, who also ran digital and data enterprises for the campaign. David Bossie, a former deputy campaign manager and close friend with Trump and White House strategist Steve Bannon also  bolted  before the project could get off the ground. (As an indication of its inauspicious beginnings, in a recent interview with The Washingtonian, Pierson was allegedly unclear as to where the nonprofits headquarters would be located.)

Asked about the status of the group over the weekend, Pierson told The Daily Beast that she was involved because Brad Parscale and I decided to work on the outside of the administration to continue to help President Trump be successful.

What are they doing exactly?

We are working on supporting the presidents vision to make America great again, Pierson said.

As she would tell it, the tiff between Mercer and Parscale, which sources told The Daily Beast had to do with Parscales refusal to show details about the enormous fortune he made during the campaign, had nothing to do with her.

I don't know her, Pierson said of Mercer to The Daily Beast. I've only met her once in passing and she was very pleasant. I would hope that all of the presidents supporters work together on several projects.

On Friday, Pierson unveiled America First Policies first advertisement on Fox News.

It focused on the progress of the Trump administrations early highlights in the first 100 days, citing the appointment of Neil Gorsuch as a nominee for the Supreme Court and the approval of American pipeline developments specifically. But the unveiling was also an opportunity for Pierson to step back into the cable news circuit where she once lived and breathed throughout a majority of Trumps presidential campaign.

After essentially disappearing from television, where she built a national brand last year, Pierson used the ad as proof that she was still working to support Trumps agenda.

Ive seen a lot of that fake news lately as well, Pierson told The Daily Beast in response to a question about her television hiatus, including a link to the March 10 appearance on Fox News. Not sure why other than the typical haters obsessing over things that they cant control.

My FB [Facebook], Twitter, and Snapchat are fairly active so it's not rocket science, she added. It's unfortunate that there are people who lead such boring and miserable lives that they have to negatively reinvent the lives of others to project a perceived value of themselves.

Last Thursday, Pierson also visited the White House and met with Trump. Neither side would say much about the conversation. Spicer told The Daily Beast that she stopped by to touch base and congratulate POTUS on enacting his agenda. He thanked her for continued outstanding and dedicated support.

But if Pierson would ever like to return to the White House on a more permanent basis, it appears the door is open.

Sure, if she wanted to come into government, Spicer said, in response to a question about Pierson joining the administration.

For now, Pierson would rather people just stop talking about where she ended up working.

Why is it that the media is obsessed with my choice of employment? Pierson told The Daily Beast. Will there be other stories about the white men who decided not to go into the administration?
Iconic British actor and grand old man of gay-rights advocacy Ian McKellen won huge laughs and a round of applause Monday night as he described Disneys new Beauty and the Beast as a gay extravaganza in brief remarks made before the films New York City premiere.

Beauty and the Beasts director, Bill Condon, has claimed the movie has the first openly gay moment in Disneys storied film history.

McKellen, who previously worked with Condon on Gods & Monsters, in which he played gay filmmaker James Whale, joked that the Disney movie marks another gay extravaganza for himself and Condon. The Oscar-nominated Shakespearean actor was speaking as the cast took the stage at the Alice Tully Hall in New York.

McKellen stars as a magical talking clock alongside Emma Watson, who is the movies heroine, Luke Evans is Gaston and Josh Gad plays the role of LeFou.

The gay moment comes during a scene in which Gastons manservant LeFou explores his sexuality. Condon told the British magazine Attitude: LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston.

Hes confused about what he wants. Its somebody whos just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And thats what has its payoff at the end, which I dont want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.

The interview has caused global ripples, with one Alabama theater refusing to play the film, an Anglican bishop in Singapore condemning the picture, and Russian officials giving the production a restrictive age rating.

However, some early reviews have questioned whether or not the new production is actually any advance on the increasingly progressive studios long tradition of including coded gay references in some of its output: Varietys Owen Gleiberman wrote that LeFou is maximally silly and fawning, but I must have missed the memo where that spells gay.

The director himself subsequent to the interview said that the comments were overblown and that all of the anticipation for the scene has hurt the moment.

There is one fleeting moment where LeFou dances with another mana sequence that was greeted by the invited crowd last night with claps of approval, according to Variety.
During Donald Trumps first address to a joint session of Congress (three weeks or a lifetime ago), the president promised the American people that he was going to spend his term granting wishes, like a carrot-colored genie. During that address, looking just like a president, Trump promised that hed invest in womens health. It was the first and only moment in his careening administration that pundits agreed was  presidential . It was also untrue.

On Monday, the long-awaited Congressional Budget Office analysis of the proposed GOP Obamacare replacement came down the pike. Like many on both sides of the aisle expected, it was an avalanche of bad news for Republicans who thought the American Health Care Act would be an easy sell to their constituents. It was also bad news for President Trump, who will have a hard time peddling a kneecapping of health-care coverage for low-income and older women as some sort of investment.

The report put actual numbers on how many people would be left uninsured by the ACA rollback24 million kicked off insurance and an additional $880 billion gouged from Medicaid, all in the name of a measly 1 percent reduction in the deficit.

The numbers dont adequately convey the scope of humanity they debase. Overall premiums decrease under the plan, but thats only because a large number of people are being kicked off, and older Americans will face a debilitating spike in premiums. Slashing the Medicaid expansion means that low-income families will see reduced access to health care. Allowing premiums for older people to shoot skyward means that a 64-year-old making $24,000 per year will see half of their income go toward the cost of covering medical insurance.

Further, the language some analysts read, at first glance, as a one-year defunding of Planned Parenthood and other health centers was actually language that exclusively applied to Planned Parenthood. One of the nations largest womens health-care providers and a point of entry for many women with limited means was being cut off without even being directly named. Death by shade.

Advocates for womens health contend that if the AHCA were to be enacted as-is, Trumps promised investment in womens health would be a comical falsehood.

[Republicans] are doing nothing to invest in womens health, Jamila Taylor, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, tells The Daily Beast.

Taylor is particularly concerned with the one-two punch the AHCA gives low-income women and women of color. Whats going to happen to the 2.4 million women who are folks that are accessing their health care through Planned Parenthood clinics? Taylor says. Planned Parenthood is the entry point or access points to health care particularly for low-income women. This is not just about Planned Parenthood as a provider. This is about taking services and health care away from people who really need it.

Taylor is skeptical that the GOPs proposed ACA replacement is even fiscally conservative. In the long term, it does nothing to help women be more economically secure, she says. Were just pushing people further down into the hole of poverty. And thats unacceptable.

The bill doesnt have many fans on the left side of the political spectrum. Sen. Patty Murray, ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions committee, released a statement condemning the bill again in the aftermath of the CBO report. She called the bill a broken promise to every patient and family who listened when President Trump and Republicans said that their reckless, mean-spirited bill would somehow provide better coveragefor everyoneat lower cost. Additionally, she cited the gutting of Planned Parenthood and Medicaidtwo programs many women rely onas a reason the legislation didnt merit her support.

Conservative Republicans are balking at Trumpcare, too. The partys libertarian wing has long called for a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would ostensibly leave many more than 24 million Americans without insurance. At least theyd be morally consistent, though. Right?

Paul Ryan and Trump, for their parts, have divergent views on the CBO assessment. President Trump, in the past a fan of citing the CBOs analysis as evidence that then-President Obama was a failure, is suddenly skeptical of the CBOs findings. House Speaker Ryan took a different tack. He concluded that the CBO report vindicated him, operating in a universe with different math from the one that was used in the report.

Can the plan be both good and bad for Americans? Can it still be awful for half the population if its middling for the other half? Does it matter as long as it was a Republicans idea?
When Julia Louis-Dreyfus found out that Donald Trump had won the election, she was on set for Veep . More, she was shooting a scene in which her character Selina Meyer, who had recently lost her own bid to become the first elected female president of the United States, was overseas in the Republic of Georgia monitoring a free election.

That is the truth, Louis-Dreyfus says, pursing her lips, bugging her eyes, and jutting her head forward for dramatic, punctuating effect, in that Julia Louis-Dreyfus way. We were actually in a polling place. With a lot of people in babushkas and things. Its true.

Louis-Dreyfus is in Austin, speaking to the The Daily Beast just minutes after the first official trailer for Season 6 of Veep was released and a few hours after she and the rest of the shows cast participated in a standing-room-only panel at the SXSW festival.

Next to her in the Four Seasons Austin hotel room is showrunner David Mandel , who took the reins of the series last year from creator Armando Iannucci .

It was weird, Mandel says. Because we werent watching on TV like most people, because I think the TV softens it in a way because theres a lot of chit-chat. Just every couple of minutes it was just like [Hillary Clintons] percentages were coming down. Like, 90 percent! 71, 55, 49, 29, she has to win Alaska, Ohio

When the show returns, Selina will be adjusting to life outside of the White House, where she will awkwardly test the waters of what, exactly, a former occupier of the Oval Office does once they leaveweathering all the indignities that tend to follow anything Selina Meyer does.

Since Veep launched in 2012, elements of her characters tunnel-vision pursuit of power and her often inelegant handling of the roadblocks she encounters along the way have drawn comparisons to Clinton.

Never more so than during Season 5, which saw Meyer on the same trajectory Clinton herself was on to become the first woman to be voted into the White House.

Everyone involved in the show has always reacted on a spectrum of coy to dismissive of the comparisons, especially since the episodes are written months before mirroring real-world political events.

When Season 6 was written, it was assumed that Trump had no chance of winning the election. With Clinton supposedly in the White House and Meyer out of the fictional one, comparisons might have finally come to an end. Now, however, theyre stronger than ever: Both women are adapting to life outside the public, political eye.

So once again, people will be asking Louis-Dreyfus to speak as if she truly understands Clintons experience, or as if shes an authority on election politics.

To be honest with you its a tricky needle to thread, she says. Theres only so much of this I want to discuss [with people]. Im not an authority on campaigning. I dont understand a lot of the, I suppose you could say, nuances of the election. I mean I do understand a lot of it, but a lot of it I dont. I dont want to speak like Im an authority on it. And under certain circumstances I will.

One of those circumstances was at this years SAG Awards , which took place the same weekend that the first draft of the Trump administrations ban on immigrants from a select group of predominantly Muslim countries took effect, sparking protests at airports around the country.

She won the Best Actress in a Comedy Award, and, as usual, had the audience in stitches with the beginning of her speech. But then her remarks took a more serious and personal turn.

I want you all to know that I am the daughter of an immigrant, she said. My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France. And I am an American patriot, and I love this country. And because I love this country I am horrified by its blemishes. And this immigrant ban is a blemish and it is un-American.

Veep, then, has provided her with another tricky needle to thread. Starring in a show about politics invites lots of questions about politics and opportunities to speak her mind. How does she choose when to use those opportunities?

In terms of real-life politics, that moment at the SAG Awards was just something that kind of happened organically because the immigration ban had come down almost immediately before and it was something that I was deeply offended by and felt as if I couldnt with a clear conscience not mention, particularly because my father was an immigrant, she says.

I wouldnt have had a press conference about it, but the moment presented itself to me when I so happily won the award as a member of the Screen Actors Guild, a union of which Im a proud member.

Her willingness to tread those waters, though, only goes so far: Its funny because, people have asked me since doing this show now for many years, would I go into politics. Im not a politician! In that circumstance Im a concerned American citizen and a patriot and wanted to say what I did. Im not somebody whos going to run for office.

Still, whether people think shes playing a satirization of Hillary Clinton or not, shes aware the show has mined great comedic nuance from the ways culture expects women in power to behave, and the viciousness with which vultures swoop when they dont conform. Veep has helped show that there are more shades to, as Louis-Dreyfus says, having ladyballs.

That was one of the fun things about Cuntgate, Mandel says, prompting Louis-Dreyfus to laugh: Which I would like you to write out in the article. Theyre referring to a standout episode from Season 5 that has Meyer apoplectic after it was leaked that a member of her staff called her a cunt.

Theres the bitterness and fury that she feels, Louis-Dreyfus says. By the way, its particularly ironic because she is one of the biggest woman-haters on the show. Shes not a fan of women, generally speaking, and will tell you that whining and bitching and moaning about your problems isnt going to get you anywhere. So its funny that for somebody whos so driven and infuriated by the men who get in her way, she herself is the first to kick a woman down.

Before Louis-Dreyfus and Mandel depart, theres one last hot-button issue to discuss. In a widely circulated, lengthy interview with New York magazine , David Letterman revealed that he had been offered a cameo role on Veep but turned it down.

Holy shitI got so scared, Letterman said. I thought about it for 24 hours and then I told them, Heres what would happen: Im going to do your show. Im going to worry about it, Im going to get sick to my stomach, and Im going to ruin it. I cant do that to you.

Though Lettermans cameo really is not happening, Mandel and Louis-Dreyfus light up at the mention of it.

It would have been in season sixs ninth episode. But, Louis-Dreyfus sighs, We cant really explain it now.

There has never been a cameo in the history of Veep, before me or since I took over, Mandel says. Newsmen have never played themselves. We sort of backed into this. I feel like an asshole because it will make sense when you see it.

He leans over emphatically: I promise I will talk about it to the end of time. Louis-Dreyfus nods her briskly: Because it was really wild.

It was wild just talking to him on the phone, Mandel says. Those [words in New York] were the exact words that he said to us, but we did get him to think about it for 24 hours. That alone, speaking as somebody whos always wanted to work there, that was a victory unto itself.

As I walk out, the pair continues fawning over the interview. Mandel giggles that he kept referring to the president as Trumpy. Louis-Dreyfus focuses on Lettermans desire to come back only to interview Trump.
Imagine a typical day at work including the ever-present possibility that you may be murdered.

We live with the uncertainty, said Veronica Lopez, a trans woman and board president of ASTRANS, one of El Salvadors leading trans rights organizations. We do not know if we will come back home, or come to work the next day. You get accustomed to it. We have little choice. We know if we do something that is not liked we can be killed.

I help trans women at our clinic, and when I think about going there I think, theyre going to kill me in this office, said Dr. Modesto Mendizabal, an ASTRANS board member who oversees the medical and psychological help and hormone therapy ASTRANS offers to over 100 clients. Colleagues of ours have gotten killed. Its very painful, but it is something that happens. I am not surprised. (ASTRANS stands for Asociacion Salvadorena de Transgeneras, Transexuales y Travestis, or translated: the Salvadoran Association of Transgender, Transsexual and Transvestite Women.)

A brightly lit room with cups of coffee and glasses of water in Midtown Manhattan seemed far from El Salvador. But the stories of extreme violence and persecution endured by lesbian, gay, bisexual and particularly transgender people as told by the members of ASTRANS felt sharply near.

As we sat in the offices of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the international human rights organization which funds and supports the work of ASTRANS, a member of the trans campaigning and support group related the story of two female colleagues who had been attacked and assaulted. They were both raped, suffering fissures in their anuses.

Gang members asked one of the victims where her family lived. That family had to move, far, far away, and the family completely disintegrated as a result. They took everything they needed to take, and left, an ASTRANS member said. (For all gang-related and other deemed-sensitive stories in this article, the groups members asked for their individual names not to be used.)

Another staff member was pulled out of her home, raped, and beaten up. She was told, If you dont come with us, you know what is going to happen. They would have killed her, her brothers, and her family. This goes on daily. Its really, really scary.

One of ASTRANSs clients who had been forced to leave her mother and family wanted to kill herself.

Its impossible for her to go home. When someone receives a threat that they will be murdered they have to leave. You cant come back. If you do, gang members will murder you. This woman lost communication with her mother and brothers. She decided to commit suicide. Luckily we got her some help and anti-depressants. Its a small example of a much deeper problem. It is not just individuals being threatened, but entire families. Gangs tell them, Well not just kill you, we will kill all your loved ones too.

Trans women are already at risk of suffering disproportionately from poverty, violence, and social exclusion, said ASTRANS. Fleeing persecution, they go to Guatemala, Mexico, and the U.S., among other countries.

The level of persecution faced by El Salvadors LGBTI community made international headlines recently, with the widely publicized murders of three trans women in the San Luis Talpa municipality of the La Paz department of El Salvador, between Feb. 18 and 21.

One accompanying report stated that the average life expectancy of a trans person in the Central American nation was 35 years. While the El Salvadoran government has vowed to investigate the murders as hate crimes, activists suspect that they will not beand the perpetrators not be caught.

The U.S. State Department told the Washington Blade that it supports the investigation into the killings.

In a wide-ranging report on LGBT violence in Central America, the Blade reported that more than a dozen trans women were killed in El Salvador in 2015. Karla Guevara, director of trans advocacy group, Colectivo Alejandria, told the Blade that the country was totally full of hate.

An ASTRANS member said, Were not exactly sure what happened with these most recent murders. The gangs have stopped the media talking to family members. Theres a particular threat in that city and that state against LGBT people. Some have left everything behind because they are afraid of being killed. All this is combined with high levels of impunitycases that are either not investigated, or criminals who have gotten off scot-free.

After the civil war (which took place between 1980 and 1992), we hoped the situation was going to get better or be better controlled. But the murder rate is so high (there were headlines in January when the country recorded its first homicide-free day in two years), and LGBTI people are much more vulnerable. This part of the country specifically has more criminal acts and threats than any other places, and violence too. This is a very violent country: There is not even enough space for dead bodies in morgues.

There was a document released after the murders of the three women around hate crimes, and the district attorney has promised to reopen the casesunder pressure from international press and mediabut it hasnt happened yet.

Gangs typically shoot LGBTI people, and disfigure them with bullets to the face, the ASTRANS member said. One of our friends, a gay professor at a university, was killed this way, and so was another activist. Both were shot in the forehead.

Both murders have gone unsolved. The district attorney has not pursued them, no witnesses had come forward, and the judgment of judges is usually prejudiced, an ASTRANS member said.

In gang killings, the ASTRANS member said, trans people have their clothing removed to humiliate them even more, exposing their genitals, so revealing a person who looks feminine and who has a penis. In some cases they have been stoned to death, or murdered with a machete, but usually it is a firearm. There is a very high level of violence and hatred in the murders of trans people. In the code of the gangs, being trans is seen as something negative: People do not differentiate a trans person as distinct from a homosexual person.

As well as supporting trans people and speaking out on the issue of their life-or-death forced migrationeither within the country or having to leave it altogetherASTRANS said it is the only organization in El Salvador to provide gender-affirming hormone therapy.

The organizations clients are learning how to interpret their laboratory results, identify risks, and act accordingly, ASTRANS says. As part of their care, they are complying with hormone treatment and changing nutritional and physical habits to optimize their treatment. They are also avoiding risks such as self-medication and intoxication.

Anti-LGBT and trans prejudice is rooted in stereotypes of machismo, said Mendizabal, who is gay, as well as a very religious society where it is considered a sin or vice to have a different orientation than the one society expects of you. You cant be sure that the crimes against these women were done just because they were trans. The ways they were murdered was the same, but this is a mix of criminality, violence, and transphobia.

Since 2014, AJWS has been working with ASTRANS to advance the rights of trans people by conducting human rights training, carrying out workshops with key public officials, providing health services for trans people, and contributing to national and international advocacy forums.

Through a grant from AJWS, ASTRANS is providing health services and psychological support for new and returning trans patients through their health clinic.

ASTRANS is also leading local and national advocacy efforts around Transgender Identity Law and for the investigation of LGBTI hate crimes.

While marriage equality and recognition of same-sex unions seem at-present distant possibilities, Presidential Decree 56, issued in 2010, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the public sector, and created a Directorate For Sexual Identity within the Secretariat For Social Inclusion.

However, violence and prejudice against LGBTI people remains high, as does police and official inaction over tackling them as outlined in a 2015 State Department report (PDF). That same year, Francela Mendez Rodriguez, a prominent Salvadoran trans rights activist, was murdered.

I think we have to talk about culture, said Lopez. They are not willing to create laws that protect human rights in El Salvador. There is reform to address hate crimes, and some institutions are doing investigations but not applying laws.

The aim of ASTRANS is to work within states, district attorneys, organizations, and various state and government departments, she added. Other LGBT groups include Asociacion Entre Amigos, Generacion de Hombres Trans de El Salvador, and Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad.

Mendizabal said: We need space to demonstrate our qualities that we are not something bad for society, that our lives are sustaining for our country. The Department of Social Inclusion leads work on LGBT work from central government, but there are very few resources. We want to improve visibility of the trans community, and show our skills, and create a window for LGBT people.

Sebastian Flores Cerritos, a trans man and communications officer for ASTRANS, said that the political conflicts in El Salvador were harmfully reflected back on to LGBT people. The political forces are constantly at war and social issues, like LGBT, are seen as an instrument to regain power. Every time the issues comes up in our country, its as a strategy, and then the homophobic people get really crazy, and aggression and homicides happen.

***

Aside from being murdered or attacked, trans people are excluded from many other social spaces and often rejected by their families, said Mendizabal. They can be forced into sex work or selling drugs. Some are accepted by their families, but very few. They experience exclusion in schools. Bullying is very, very hard, so many abandon their education.

We assembled a focus group of 20 trans women; the majority18 of themtalked about the importance of spirituality for them. They looked to church, and went there to listen to messages, because they felt tormented by their exclusion from society. The majority of their experiences was negative. They could find no space to be themselves, had psychological violence done to them, and experienced aggressive stereotyping at home and hospitals.

Lopez said her efforts to access a proper education and health care had been hindered because her gender identity was not recognized.

The experience of trans people and the civil, military and municipal police forces in El Salvador is mostly negative. The experience of trans women in particular is that they suffer all kinds of violence, including sexual violence, and extortion at the hands of the police, said one ASTRANS member. We also know of a physically small guy who was beaten by the police, who were much bigger than he was, and then he was accused of beating the police himself.

Another member told a story of a young trans man, thrown into jail by police after Pride celebrations in 2015, who considered himwithout evidenceto be a delinquent. The police assume young people are gang members.

When the ASTRANS member and their friends went to the police station they looked at us like they wanted to hit us, then confiscated the members cellphone. My friend was treated in a very inhumane way. He was being criminalized as if he had done something wrong. The police should have been protecting us.

There is a lot of violence from the police and army, but you cannot say the entire police is bad, said Mendizabal. There are good police and there are bad police. There are police that are in communication with LGBTI people, but only a few of them. Sometimes the police take care of trans people, as in the case of some trans women who had been kidnapped by a gang. That time the police intervened, and saved their lives.

What would help would be a full non-discrimination law, said Lopez. It would not solve our lives, but it would help make society to be more inclusive and respectful of LGBTI human rights. A gender identity law for trans people would be good, so we can access our rights, because without a law that doesnt identify us we dont exist in our country. Mendizabal said hate crimes needed to be prosecuted fully under the countrys penal code.

The prevalence of gangs, and their control is all-pervasive. One ASTRANS member said that if someone asks to see your ID, which shows that you live somewhere else, you can be asked why are you in that particular neighborhood.

You have to be very careful and very aware of where youre going to, and the certain zones of a city. I once got a wrong bus, and ended up somewhere I shouldnt be. I was somewhere where gangs killed people. I was able to get out. Nobody is safe. You have to try and be careful. It can have an impact on family and friends, because they can go and kill someone else in my family. Some projects have to pay off gang members to reach trans people in various communities.

With such tough work, how do the ASTRANS members remain committed? Jorge Lopez, who defines himself as a queer man and who oversees the organizations finances and administrative matters, said: Trans individuals have disadvantages when it comes to being members of the community. I want to help them have a right to live better and have jobs. He stifled tears. I get very emotional when I think about this. Its about how you are as a citizen.

Mendizabal added, Many people say here that they are proud of being American. Like you, we are proud of being from El Salvador, and we love our country. We dont want to leave our country. We want to develop our rights and equality. We believe our country will get better one day.

Next, ASTRANS wants to launch a campaign against the stigmatization of trans identities, and the phenomenon of trans women over-hormoning themselves. AJWS gave them a sum of money which helped expand their clinical services. Mendizabal is a volunteer, and there is also a volunteer psychologist. They hope to be able to secure funds to be able to pay a nurse.

More than trans social rights, good health, well-being, and psychological stability are all part of someones self-realization, said Mendizabal. We hope we can help people become more confident and affirmed with their identity and happier with themselves.

***

The changing priorities from an Obama to a Trump administration, in terms of foreign aid and advocacy, has alarmed activists.

There is a lot of uncertainty, said Mendizabal. We are very dependent on the United States. What happens here has an impact globally. The anti-trans law that was just announced was a big alarm for us. It gives more value to anti-trans activists in El Salvador.

While there hasnt been an outbreak of bathroom-related panics and bills in El Salvador, the country takes its cues from the U.S., said Mendizabal, so they go as far as they can get away with things one way or another. Under Obama, the administration moved toward human rights. When there is no human rights advocacy and when foreign aid may be dependent on ramping up the fight against terrorism, rather than human rights, we may see some negative effects for what that might mean for more marginalized populations and the advocacy for their own rights.

The ASTRANS activists are determined to persevere. When Cerritos wanted to start hormone therapy in 2013, he went to a hospital and was told that I was crazy, that I should think about it, that I wouldnt be able to pay for it, that my parents wouldnt support me. I didnt feel confident. I didnt want to see a psychologist who would make me feel bad about myself. I had to seek other help, and other trans men, and self-medicate.

Cerritos said he had to leave El Salvador and go to Guatemala to access the care he needed, but it took me a year and a half to be able to start my transition because I needed to save money for the trip and consultation. It was very expensive. I had no economic support from my parents and I was also a student. It wasn't easy.

How is his family now? Well, its a process for my family. Because they have been living with someone for 20 years and that person is now doing a very radical change. It is not easy, it is hard for them. They fear how society is. They are afraid something might happen to me. They are frightened for my safety, but they try to be strong.

How is Cerritos feeling? Is he living the life he wants in El Salvador?

Yes, I feel very motivated right now. Activism and starting my treatment have [totally] changed my perspective on life... Before, I didnt want to study or see anyone. Now that has all changed. The support of my parents has been fundamental. They didnt abandon me. They never abandoned me. And I have been able to find people in activism that lend me a hand in different ways and make me motivated to continue to fight for something bigger.
A would-be Trump White House appointee who withdrew in the face of plagiarism allegations is now lobbying on behalf of a Ukrainian oligarch who has recently advocated greater concessions to the Russian government, according to newly filed documents.

Monica Crowley told the Justice Department's National Security Division that she will represent billionaire Victor Pinchuk in discussions with U.S. government officials and other policy makers regarding issues of concern to Mr. Pinchuk.

Crowley, a Fox News contributor, was in line for a senior post at the White House National Security Council until reports from CNN and Politico reported that she had plagiarized large portions of her 2012 book What the (Bleep) Just Happened and her Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation.

Crowley dismissed the plagiarism allegations in her first public remarks on the controversy last week. What happened to me was a despicable straight-up political hit job, she said during an appearance on the Fox News show Hannity. Its been debunked, my editor has completely supported me and backed me up. ( It has not been debunked .)

She nevertheless withdrew from consideration for the post shortly after the allegations surfaced. Crowley will now be providing outreach services on behalf of Mr. Victor Pinchuk, according to a Friday filing with DOJs foreign agent registration office.

The man who would have been Crowleys boss at the NSC, former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, also recently registered as a foreign agent, months after he went to work on behalf of a Turkish company linked to that countrys government.

Flynn resigned from his post atop the NSC last month after it was revealed that he had failed to disclose conversations during the 2016 presidential campaign with Russias ambassador regarding U.S. sanctions on Russia over the countrys annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea.

Crowleys new gig comes as European critics of Russian aggression in Ukraine worry that Pinchuk is going soft. In a December column for the Wall Street Journal, he called on Ukrainian leaders to make additional concessions to Moscow.

The new administration in Washington can be an opportunity for Ukraine to contribute to the solution of Russias intervention, he wrote. He advised that Ukraine abandon plans to join the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The column immediately drew fire from Ukrainian leaders, including president Petro Poroshenko, who reportedly indicated he would not attend Pinchuks annual Yalta European Strategy meeting this year due to the WSJ column.

Trump has been highly critical of NATO, even suggesting that the United States might not honor mutual defense obligations in the event of Russian aggression against the alliances Eastern European member states if those states do not step up their domestic defense budgets.

Crowley will now be working to facilitate relations between Pinchuk and U.S. government officials. She did not respond to questions about her new role.

Crowleys foreign agent lobbying will supplement work by another Fox contributor, Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who has represented Pinchuk since 2011 . She will draw a salary for part-time work, according to her Foreign Agent Registration Act statement.

Schoen told the Washington Examiner that he only approached Crowley after her NSC job fell through.

There were no discussions about any potential work she might do for my firm until she had chosen to leave her position in the administration, he said in a statement.

According to Schoens registration form, he is paid $40,000 per month for work that includes facilitating conversations between [Pinchuk] and American policymakers regarding Democratization in Ukraine and European integration.

Since last year, Schoen has arranged meetings with officials at the NSC, the State Department, dozens of House and Senate members, and journalists and media personalities including, one recent disclosure form shows, Crowley herself .

Pinchuk made his estimated $1.5 billion fortune in Ukraines steel and pipeline industries. His EastOne Group currently has holdings in the industrial, media, and banking sectors.

Pinchuk was a high-dollar donor to the Clinton Foundation, and his relationship with the failed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee came under scrutiny after emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that Pinhuck had attended a dinner at her home, despite the campaigns public insistence to the contrary.

Trump labeled Pinchuks financial support for the Clinton Foundation crooked. But Pinchuk also had financial ties to Trump himself, and they raised red flags among charity watchers concerned that Trump was drawing funds from his tax-exempt foundation.

Additional Pinchuk connections to the Trump campaign came by way of Carter Page, a Russian-friendly foreign policy advisor to the campaign. Page reportedly told Merrill Lynch colleagues in 2004, shortly before he set up the firms Moscow office, that he was on friendly terms with Pinchuk.
Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller came under scathing criticism Tuesday about the Marines United photo-sharing scandal from the Senate Armed Services Committee, especially from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

If we cant crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyber-hacking throughout our military? she asked Neller.

This is a problem with our culture, Neller responded. I dont have a good answer for you. Im not going to sit here and duck around this thing. Im not. Im responsible. Im the Commandant. I own this, and were going to have to change how we see ourselves and how we treat each other. Thats a lame answer, but maam, thats the best I can tell you right now. Weve got to change, and thats on me.

In what is being characterized as a sad day for the U.S. Marine Corps and the entire Armed Forces by congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Neller pledged to bring forth all of the militarys investigative resources for its pursuit of the Marines and former Marines who posted and shared the nude images and videos of female Marines and civilians.

Neller testified today in front of open and closed sessions of the Armed Services Committee, led by U.S. Navy veteran Sen. John McCain to discuss allegations surrounding nude photos shared in the secret Marines United Facebook group and other groups . Neller parsed his words carefully while answering senators questions to avoid unlawful command influence on the case, a military charge for when a person bearing the mantle of command authority exerts or appears to exert undue pressure on an ongoing military criminal investigation.

Neller decried the photo-sharing as detrimental to force-readiness and morale and asked more victims to come forward, saying none will receive any retribution from Marine Corps leadership. He did warn, however, that victims and whistleblowers do often face harassment and intimidation from anonymous crowds on the Internet. Neller added that while he has been ignorant on social media and cyber issues in the past, Im trainable.

Gillibrand was not satisfied with Nellers statements.

We have countless victims who have come forward, and theyre not just being harassed online, she said, her voice rising in intensity. Once their name, face, where theyre stationed is posted, do you think the harassment ends online? It doesnt. I spoke to a civilian yesterday who has continued to be harassed in her community because her ex-boyfriend exploited her onlineso I have to say when you say to us, Its got to be different, that rings hollow.

Sen. Ken Donnelly referred to The Daily Beasts reporting in his statement about how Marines United has thumbed its nose at the Marine Corps.

I went online and found already that theres a Marines United 2.0, posting links to the same materials that already has over 3,000 members, Donnelly said. They are basically challenging you, General. They are thinking they can get away with this. You are the Commandant of the Marine Corps and I think its up to you.

Sen. Lindsay Graham also asked about The Daily Beasts coverage of the scandal when he demanded the name of an administrator of one of the later groups who taunted the Marine Corps about how after his honorable discharge from service, he was no longer subject to NCIS jurisdiction, nor that of the Uniform Code of Military Conduct.

Who is that person? Graham demanded. Do we know their name? Lets make them famous right here We will publicly let the world know who this person is.

The photo in question was previously reported by this journalist, but unpublished until now. The selfie was taken by Lance Cpl. Brandon D. Toftner and posted inside Marines United with the caption: Hey NCIS, Suck my 3 inch flaccid cock.

Toftner told The Daily Beast he was unaware that his comments in Marines United was brought up by congressional senators on Capitol Hill but defended his defiant statement via text message:

Its not illegal to say mean things to federal agents. Thats well within my First Amendment rights as an honorably discharged Marine. That is not breaking any laws, he texted, adding: Nothing, a dumb picture, yes. But zero laws were broken. I have the First Amendment to protect my free speech as a civilian.

Neller said he agreed with Graham that the Marines United scandal is one of the darkest moments in the history of the Marine Corps.

The irony is, were trying to increase the number of women in the Marine Corps, Neller said.

Several senators asked questions about womens place in the Marine Corps and whether the Marines United scandal is indicative of a deeper cultural problem.

What more do women have to do to be accepted into the Marine Corps? Neller asked in his opening statement, in which he mentioned five female Marines who recently died in combat zones. Weve got to earn [female Marines] belief that theyre going to get the same opportunity as anybody else to compete and to be the best person they can be. We need to earn the trust, of them, of this committee, and of the American people.

He addressed male Marines at the end of his statement.

To the men in our Corps, serving today, and those who no longer wear the uniform: Youre still Marines. I need you to ask yourselves, how much more do the females of our Corps have to do to be respected? . What is it going to take to accept these Marines as Marines?
It was only a matter of time before Ivanka Trump was lampooned on Saturday Night Live for being the glossy face of her fathers prejudice, for beingas the Scarlett Johansson-led sketch had itcomplicit in his much-criticized presidential actions.

As the confused faces of SNLs female cast revealed, Ivanka is also supposedly an unofficial ambassador for women in the Trump administration, a vague advocacy role thatfar as many can surmiseconsists primarily of high-profile meetings-turned-marketing opportunities for her Instagram and Twitter feeds.

But while fans of the show thought Saturday nights spoof advertisement for Ivankas new fragrance, Complicit, brilliantly skewered the first daughters superficial feminism, the skit may turn out to be a boon for Ivankas surprisingly resilient brand.

Going after Trump is one thing, but by taking that next step and going after Ivanka, SNL might elicit a backlash of sympathy for her for any number of reasons, said Carol Spieckerman, a branding and retail consultant. The show has an agenda on some level, and thats when a lot of peoples heckles get up. They might see it as a form of bullying.

However unlikely a prospect bullying a Trump may sound, the SNL spoof marked the end to a week of mostly positive events for Ivanka.

Despite the designer Zac Posen revealing to The Daily Beast that he would no longer dress her or Melania Trump, Ivanka celebrated International Womens Day with the UN Foundation campaign Girl Up, of which she became a founding partner in 2010.

She also had a luncheon with female Republican lawmakers at the White House, with whom she reportedly discussed child care and family leave policies.

Then there was the news that her eponymous fashion brand saw a surge in sales in Februarysome of the best performing weeks in the brands history, according to Abigail Klem, who took over for Ivanka as president of the company ahead of President Trumps swearing in.

Klems remarks were backed up by figures from Lyst, an e-commerce site that tracks retailer purchasing data and found that the Ivanka Trump brands sales had jumped 346 percent from January to February. Indeed, the figures indicated a surprising turn of events since the beginning of the month, when Nordstromciting poor salesdropped Ivankas fashion line, and items from her fine jewelry collection suddenly disappeared from Neiman Marcuss website. More items returned to the site as recently as this week, though the Ivanka Trump brand confirmed on Monday that it is discontinuing its fine jewelry line. The company told the New York Times that the decision stems from a renewed focus on "solution-oriented products at accessible price points.

Ivankas fashion and jewelry lines had been targeted by an anti-Trump boycott, #GrabYourWallet, since Octoberand it seemed the boycott was paying off when retailers suddenly distanced themselves from the Ivanka Trump brand.

But celebrations of the brands apparent demise were premature. Despite being roasted by the liberal cast of SNL and criticized by progressives for pushing a family leave policy that will primarily benefit women who earn upward of $100,000 a year, Ivankas female-focused fashion brand is still thriving.

All of this is baffling to Ivankas critics. They see her as a feminist fraud and cynical opportunist who is prettifying her fathers ugly politics. But to the 63 million people who voted to elect President Trump, the real Ivanka is the embodiment of her social media persona: an engaged, loving mother and dedicated advocate for improving child care and womens economic empowerment.

There are likely a lot of Trump supporters who have bought her products in reaction to the boycott, said Neil Saunders, retail analyst at Conlumino USA. While the Ivanka Trump brands customer base has become more politically polarized, the brand has likely benefited from the publicity-generating boycott more than it has suffered.

That publicity has probably attracted a lot of consumers to the brand who arent politically motivated shoppers, said Saunders. Suddenly you have people who never heard of the Ivanka Trump brand looking it up online and buying it.

Robert Passikoff, the founder and president of Brand Keys, a brand research and consulting company, said that its likely not a coincidence that Ivanka Trumps fashion line sales spiked following Kellyanne Conways orders that Americans go buy Ivanka Trump in a Fox interview, after Nordstrom dropped the label. As we saw with Trumps campaign, even negative news can positively impact brand equity.

Here you have a little known brand suddenly getting tons of visibility, which is likely contributing to the increase in sales, said Passikoff. While political ethicists called on the Trump administration to fire Conway, most mainstream consumers arent sophisticated enough to care about this stuff. They see Ivanka Trumps name splashed across headlines next to a photo of the beautiful first daughter and are sold.

Brand awareness is traditionally the longest route to profitability, but the internet has created a kind of brand equality, said Passikoff. So if you can create some level of engagementgood or badyou will attract consumers.

Ivankas response to the conflicts surrounding her fathers administration has been deafening silence. So far, that strategy is working: She is, as ever, presenting a carefully curated view of her role as an inoffensiveif insufficientadvocate for women under her fathers administration. It may not be an honest image, but its still plenty appealing to millions of Americans.

Shes very good at striking a delicate balance between seeming neutral without seeming aloof, said Spieckerman. Indeed, a woman who has an opinion but doesnt make too much noise about it is particularly appealing to conservatives. The fact that many progressives despise Ivanka may benefit the brand.

Theres arguably more to be gained from being a polarizing figure than being a brand with mass appeal, because you can do a lot of great business in many different forms through people who are passionate and fervent about supporting you, said Spieckerman. If people arent passionate about a brand, there are too many other things vying for their attention. Having haters means youll also have those who love you rushing to your defense.

Spieckerman predicts that Ivankas brand may suffer setbacks during her fathers presidency, but will be resilient in the long term. It might even do better without the fashion component.

She can take the brand in any number of directions and make it successful. Especially post-administration, she can go back and present herself as someone who had ideas that were different at times from her father, but didnt always prevailsomeone for whom family comes first, and who tried to influence decisions and was successful sometimes and other times not. I think shes uniquely suited to striking that balance and not getting dinged by a lot of peripheral action.
The city is suing Verizon for failing to finish its citywide Fios cable installation by 2014, as it allegedly promised in its franchise agreement.

Nearly 1 million of New York's 3.1 million households are currently without access to the fiber-optic-cable-reliant internet service. The agreement, struck in 2008 under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg, applied to Verizon's cable TV offerings, but the fiber cable installation also means boosted internet speeds. The agreement specified that the cable should "pass all households" in the city by the end of June, 2014.

"Verizon must face the consequences for breaking the trust of 8.5 million New Yorkers. Verizon promised that every household in the city would have access to its fiber-optic Fios service by 2014," Mayor de Blasio said in a statement. "Its 2017 and were done waiting. No corporationno matter how large or powerfulcan break a promise to New Yorkers and get away with it."

Verizon argues that where the agreement says that the cable should "pass" a home, it means pass close enough that service can be set up in a reasonable period of time if a building owner provides access. Lack of access, the company says, is a large part of the problem. The city's suit argues that Verizon agreed to make service "available to all residential dwelling units in the city."

A Verizon spokesperson told reporters, "Mayor de Blasio should read our agreement with the city. Then he could clearly concludeas others have before himthat we have lived up to our obligation 100 percent. We'd appreciate his support in getting access to buildings where landlords resist allowing us to build fiber to peoples homes."

Far from going out of its way to hook up buildings, the city claims that Verizon has been trying to get owners of large apartment buildings to agree to exclusive agreements that would block other cable providers, in violation of Federal Communications Commission rules. Verizon has told the city it wants help coming up with a "competitively-neutral letter" to landlords and is "yet to see even a draft" after "over a year." The city also alleges that Verizon has told would-be customers that Fios is not available in their area, despite the company's representations that it has already provided Fios service that area. The lawsuit states that over 40,000 service requests have been pending for more than a year.

The de Blasio administration started to formally object to Verizon's progress in 2015, when the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications published an audit faulting Verizon for allegedly failing to meet its obligations. In September 2016, the city put the telecommunications giant on notice that it was in default of the agreement and could be sued.

Verizon said in a letter to the city that it plans to spend another $1 billion over the next four years and to provide access to the remaining million households.
This is the third and last article in a three-part series looking at a single sexual assault that became a viral sensation in Mexicoand its many surprising results. In the first installment, Andrea Noel wrote about what happened when she reported on Twitter and to the police that a man rushed up behind her in broad daylight in a quiet Mexico City neighborhood and pulled down her panties. In the second chapter, she looked at the hunt for her attacker on the streets and online.

TIJUANA, MexicoThere is safety in numbers, and the encouragement of one person speaking out about a sexual assault soon became four, and then a dozen, and then more.

Some had been speaking out for a long time, in fact, but it seemed no one was listening.

The Mexican government wasnt even pretending to care, much less take meaningful action. That much of the national media did not consider gender-based violence newsworthy was proved by the countless undocumented murders of womencommonly called feminicidios, or femicidesand by the unforgivable victim-blaming and unending columns and think pieces about whether or not victims are liars.

My case was not by any means the only one that helped change the media and political agenda last year. But 2016 would build on previous waves of outrage and solidarity: Women would speak out, and women would be listened to despite those who tried to silence them.

I received thousands of messages of support during this period, and spoke to dozens of women who reached out for help.

I wanted to write their stories in their own words and not my own. But eventually I realized that the most effective way to explain what millions of people are subjected to in lawless, systemically, and culturally misogynistic countries might be to tell my own storyeven though in itself it is hardly exceptional.

As you read this, hundreds of women are being churned through the machine, hoping for justice that will likely never come.

The many victims Ive spoken to whove faced rape, violence, humiliation, discredit, scorn, death threats, and even jail time would come to tell me how they were violated first by their aggressors, and then by the authorities, and then society and the media.

Three weeks after I released the video of The Incidenta man rushing up behind me, pulling down my panties, and running awaythe father of an underage girl in Veracruz, who said she had been sexually abused almost a year and a half before by four adult schoolmates from politically connected families, released a video he had managed to film.

One after another, the four young men look into the camera and apologize for what we did to her. One of the parents promised to punish his sonby taking away his cellphone.

News of the case against the Porkys, as they were labeled early on, would spread internationally. But the authorities would call the taped confession inadmissible.

As the young girls case and her name spread across Mexico causing indignation, Daphne Fernandezwhose father confessed to me that she had begged him not to do anything about the crimewould become reclusive after facing ridicule and public shaming, and accusations that she was lying.

Yakiri Rubio, who would become my dear friend after The Incident, was 19 when she killed a man with his own dagger as he raped her in 2013.

She went to the authorities, covered in blood, with slashes on her arms and legs, and they in turn threw her in jail to await a possible 60-year sentence for homicide. Following mounting public pressure that raised the more than $20,000 she needed for bailmore than 13 years of wages for Mexicans on the lowest social rungshe was released after three grueling months behind bars.

I trusted the justice system to help me, but the opposite happened, Yakiri said outside the prison the day of her release. She said systemic machismo had led to her sentencing, and on that day she became an activist. So did her father, Jose Luis, whose pride for his daughter is palpable.

I promise to do everything I can to help other women, she said upon release, surrounded by a massive crowd. I give my word.

But she faced every possible injusticesocially, judicially, and from the media. The lesbian who slit her rapists throat is released from jail, one headline blared. Others would repeat government claims that said she knew her rapist, and was in fact his girlfriend.

Even now, four years after her assault, the attackers accomplicewho helped kidnap her and watched the dead man rape herremains free.

I had followed her case for years, but wouldnt meet her until last April.

We sat at a table together, along with Gabriella Nava, a 22-year-old college student who released a video in late March exposing a university employee who had filmed up her skirt. In mid-April we would film a public service announcement that would be watched by more than 3 million people, encouraging women to speak out, using the hashtag #NoTeCallesDont Be Silenced.

Then, a petition directed to the Mexico City prosecutors office and sex crimes department began circulating, calling for the authorities to take action in my case. In just a few days, it would receive more than 50,000 signatures.

We were gearing up for a trial that was described to me by both my lawyer and the prosecutor as a coin toss that could go any number of ways. It was unclear whether a Mexico City judge would agree to investigate the crime, which would allow access to the videos and phone records, and the record is poor on this point. So, reluctantly two weeks before the trial, I let slip that The Suspect was a public figure. It was an insinuation I would grow to regret.

But throughout all this, online a war was brewing.

***

Factions of the loosely organized hacktivist collective Anonymous in Mexico and Venezuela hacked dozens of minor Mexican government websites, replacing their home pages with a picture and video of me, and a call against gender-based violenceNo more deaths, no more impunity.

But in response to the outrage of feministas across Mexico, teams of trolls were on the attack. Within days, the number one trending topic on Mexican Twitter was #MujerGolpeadaMujerFelizBeaten Woman, Happy Woman.

In subsequent weeks, more deplorable hashtags began appearing in the top spots, including #RapedWomanIsHappyWoman, #RapeAChild, #WomenAreCleaningObjects, #DeadWomanPerfectWoman, and countless others that were used hundreds of thousands of times. But Twitter was unwilling to take action.

A march was announced for April 24, calling for women to take to the streets to stand up against gender-based violence.

The day before the protest, women across Mexico began tweeting, using the hashtag #MiPrimerAcosoMy First Harassmenta tag that is still being used to share victims stories. It became the number one trending topic in Mexico, with nearly 80,000 tweets by real users within just a few hours. Then it spread through Latin America.

The tweets were downloaded and analyzed by observers who noted that 59 percent of the abuses the women were reporting happened when the victim was between just 6 and 10 years old. The average age was 8 years old.

In just 140 characters, tens of thousands of women across Mexico shared their stories.

#MiPrimerAcoso happened when I was four, and next at seven. After that I learned to stop smiling at strangers, reads one fairly typical tweet. My first harassment was when I was seven and my neighbor tried to touch me. I was scared and disgusted, and still avoid him to this day, reads another.

I was four when it happened. Do I have to tell the story? asked one Twitter user.

The following day, the hashtag continued to trend, while streets across Mexico flooded in a sea of purple as thousands of women marched through more than 40 cities.

Before the day was over, it was being called the largest march of its kind ever in Mexicowith an estimated 10,000 women in Mexico City alone, another 3,000 in Jalisco, another 1,000 in Nuevo Leon, and thousands more in cities across almost every state in Mexico. It would foreshadow the historic global womens march that came the day after President Donald Trumps inaugurationwhich Mexico also participated inand the womens march that took place in cities across Mexico this past Wednesday, on International Womens Day.

Women of all ages, classes, and skin colors danced, sang, and beat drums across the country. Catholics and anarchists, children and indigenous women, LGBT and even men, all came together for the peaceful protest, saying We want ourselves alive! (#VivasNosQueremos).

In Mexico City, the march began in Ecatepec, Mexico States femicide capital. From there, they marched from one landmark to the next, from the Monumento a la Revolucion to the Angel de Independencia. The monuments they chose would seem like a larger metaphorfrom revolution to independence.

They called it Violet Spring. And it made everything that had happened since The Incident feel less burdensome.

In response to the historic protest, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera would later announce a strategy to combat violence against women. His plan: rape whistles. Women were furious, arguing that the ineffective plan puts all the responsibility on victims and none on the authorities and victimizers.

Unfortunately for Mancera, the Spanish word for whistle, pito, is also a phallic double entendre. I began using the far-too-obvious hashtag #ElPitoDeManceraor Manceras whistleand it quickly turned into a viral meme. It was the mayors turn to face ridicule, and it quickly became the number one hashtag in Mexico, trending for days.

The ACME brand, gendered whistlespink for women, black for menwhich somehow cost the government more than $4 each, have now been ready for months, but not yet handed out. In order to obtain the novelty item, of which 15,000 were made for a city of more than 8 million people, one must pre-register, go to the police station, and share personal information to provide the government with ongoing feedback. It was all a big joke.

But the day after the march, following weeks of speculation online that my next move would be posing nude for Playboy, that joke became a reality, as Playboy Mexico tweeted a topless photo of me that had been circulating widely, with a link to an article announcing that the case would be going to trial.

Then came May 3, the day before the trial, and I boarded what would be my last flight from New York to Mexico City.

***

Id been an accidental advocate for outrage, and landed in Mexico City to find myself the subject of its backlash.

Going viral feels like exactly what it sounds like: a contagion that leads to quarantinea disease that one catches online from contact with the spit of those who hiss.

My case had brought deserved hellfire for the group that called themselves the Master Trolls and tried to turn ugly pranks into lucrative television. But in the end, in the public eye, I would become the master troll.

One of the Master Trolls, Andoni Echave, who had been labeled as The Suspect in my case, had continued to proclaim his innocence, at least of that act. But the day before the trial, on May 3, he had finally managed to recover one of the many surveillance videos from the corner of the Condesa neighborhood where The Incident took place.

The video, released while I was in the air en route to Mexico City, proved the attacker wasnt him. As I landed at the Benito Juarez International Airport, the storm of tweets came flooding in. He didnt do it, I texted the lawyer who had been helping me.

No, he didnt, she responded.

I went from victim to hero to victimizer. And he went from dick to Dick Tracy.

The drama at that point had gone on for 58 awful days.

***

I called Andoni that afternoon and asked him to meet mea phone call that he secretly recorded. (Suspicions were high all around.)

Audio I, too, recorded secretly late that night at the prosecutors office pretty much explains it all. Andoni walked in, cracked a nervous joke, and we all laughed apprehensively.

He sat down and I started rambling: First of all, Im horrified. That video has been in the investigation folder for more than two months, but Ive been denied access to it. The expert analysts declared themselves incompetent at the time of analyzing it, and, well, you just managed to do it. So, thats interesting, I cringed. Im sure youve read everything thats in the folder, and you know that I waited to move forward, until after all of the results came back and only then did we proceed to formally implicate you, six weeks after the cyberpolice identified you as a suspect, I rambled on and on.

This was never a personal vendetta, its the result of everything thats been compiled in the course of the investigation, which is now like 500 pages long, and I think its just crazy that it ever got this far, and that the authorities with all the tools at their disposal and all of the social pressure in the world 

He interjected to explain just how he had managed to prove his innocence. I went to one of the buildings and begged the woman to please, please, please give me the video, he said. I downloaded it using a USB and a mouse, and then I went to a friends house and we converted it to an MP4. That automatically made the image clearer, and I was so relieved when I saw that assholes face.

This had all begun with me tweeting the video I had obtained. And it all ended with him tweeting his.

The full force of the Mexican justice system had been no match for a millennial with a computer.

An MP4, I said, incredulous, now addressing the agent at the sex crimes division. Youve got to be fucking kidding.

In the background theres a cacophony as our lawyers all argue with the prosecutor, but by then the tension between Andoni and me had lifted.

We sat outside for hours that night on the steps of the prosecutors office, talking about everything that had happenedabout how he realized that his friends were jerks, and about what his mother had to say about all this.

And I told him, in turn, about the comedy of errors that had brought us here, my frustration, the side-by-side comparison I had made of Andoni and The Suspect using my own cellphone footage that really did look like him, and the irony that he would finally acquire all of the videos Id been demanding if we just went to court in the morning.

It was a nearly unbearable Catch-22. Back inside, the prosecutor explained that we might not be able to call off the hearing, but we agreed that we just wouldnt go, holding a press conference the following morning instead.

I had been dragged through the gutter by some, and lionized by others. And this would start a whole new string of think pieces and op-eds, but I would shrink away silently to recover.

I tried to be a victim and a journalist at the same time: documenting the untethered violence affecting millions of women by pursuing justice for my own sexual assault, and speaking truth to power by recording the infuriating process that revictimizes and blames victims at every opportunity. But it became too personal.

Forced to stand up for myself, I had become an accidental activist. As many other women in Mexico have been forced to.

***

Last Wednesday, International Womens Day, I called Andoni to wish him awkwardly a Happy Anniversary!

We talked for hours. About everything that had gone wrong. And everything that had gone right. We reminisced about this time last year, and the weeks of hell we went through before confronting the press last May.

We are close in age, and not much else. But against all possible odds, Id say weve become friends of the unlikeliest sortthe bullfighter and the vegetarian, somehow tied together like two strangers whove survived something unspeakable.

Andoni has stopped pulling pranks, and no longer has anything to do with the other Master Trolls, who continue to produce copious garbage. Many of their videos have been deleted, but fan-made videos have continued to surface, garnering millions of views. And the pranksters were, most recently, featured on Comedy Central Latin America this past week. To my absolute dismay, these pranks are still as popular as ever, especially among adolescent boys.

In speaking with Andoni I see that he stands out from the bunch, now, as the one seemingly normal guyno costume, no stage name, no luchador mask, no cowboy hat. I dont dress up like Batgirl or anything, he told me on Wednesday.

He said The Incident was almost like a message from God, one that brought him closer to his family, and further from the image he had created for himself. It made that Andoni I had inside wake up and realize that I couldnt keep pulling pranks forever, he said. Now, ironically, he works on other peoples images. He has certainly learned a thing or two about social media and rebranding. He manages athletes images, he said, like a Mexican Jerry Maguire.

I think hes kind of funny, but never would have before.

We were really good at what we did. But I see the pranks now and I dont like them at all, he said. This kind of content caters to the lowest common denominator, people with no education, culture, who have never read a bookthats the target audience. This opened my eyes to a lot of things I hadnt realized before about that industry. Its nefarious.

This year was rough, he said. And it was. We had both been through the mill and would come out relatively OK. But he was upset that the authorities had used him as a scapegoat of sorts, an easy way out in lieu of actual police work. And he said that whoever The Suspect really is must be laughing it up. But also, he feels that he was unfairly judged by everyone, and that we had been pitted against each other in an entertaining spectacle.

They wanted to see us stripped naked in a stadium, throwing tomatoes at each other, Andoni joked, and I laughed.

[My co-hosts] didnt help by adding fuel to the fire at every opportunity, he said. I told them, this is serious, and you need to just stop making it worse. But [one of the Master Trolls known as the Grupero King] couldnt stand that I was getting more press than him. I told him I didnt want it!

But it had been a media-fueled witch hunta social justice movement of the sort that can only exist in the absence of real justice.

In the end, Id spent thousands of dollars that I didnt have, let go of my apartment, sold my furniture, and gave away my cat. And hed severed ties with the people who had been among his closest friends, and was forced to remake himself.

But there is perhaps, maybe, a consolation prize.

***

Soon after The Incident, the interior ministry and the national media chamber signed a historic agreement with more than a thousand media companies that would call for a more sensitized depiction of women, and an end to the promotion of images and statements that are damaging to women.

And in response to furor surrounding The Incident, senators, members of Congress, and other politicians used the case to set an agenda against gender-based violence, and demand government action. Legislation and policies have been proposed that would protect other women from what happened to me, and many much worse incidents that happen to millions of women in Mexico.

Many Mexican states consider sexual abuse of the sort that happens behind closed doors and involves power dynamics a crime, and workplace-variety sexual harassment a crime, and unwanted touching on public transportation a crime, but have no criminal designation for the type of street assault that happened to me and happens to hundreds of others each week.

But on March 29 last year, three weeks after The Incident, the Mexican congress asked each state government to implement public policies that would help protect women from street harassment. Within days of The Incident, Congresswoman Jorgina Gaxiola proposed that public sexual assault be criminalized in all 32 states.

Less than two weeks after The Incident, Olympian-turned-Senator Ana Gabriela Guevara took my case up with the Senate. She asked the national anti-discrimination council to elaborate a strategy that would criminally sanction people who violently threaten women in Mexico online, and work to build a relationship with the largest social media networks to facilitate reporting and ending violent online threatsdescribing the way online harassers band together to hunt their victims for sport.

In a sick twist of fateor perhaps not much of a surprise at all reallyshe could have easily written the same proposal about herself. Just eight months later, in December last year, Guevara was brutally beaten and kicked by four men, including one former police officer, on a federal highway. She released video footage of the suspects, and had immediate reconstructive surgery to repair the fractures around her eye socket, before speaking about the attack before the Senate.

She would face her own online threats and ridicule. But, unlike many cases, the suspect in hers was arrested in January.

Two of the four Porkys have also since been arrested.

And, in July, the Mexico City Human Rights Commission asked the government to apologize and indemnify Yakiri Rubio for her unfair incarceration.

Earlier this month, six days before the one-year-anniversary of The Incident, Senator Guevara used both of our cases to ask the Senate to launch a national crusade against gender-based violence by convening all government bodies, universities, and social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to draft legislation that would attack the conditions, roots, attitudes, and customs that cause, maintain and promote violence against women in any of its forms.

Im not saying anything has improved yet, but Im newly hopeful that change is possible.

***

I still dont quite understand what happened, and could certainly have never envisioned it. I didnt know Id inadvertently get a trollish columnist fired, a terrible television show taken off the air, and spark legislative pushes in the areas I was stubbornly complaining about.

That I was a protagonist throughout this was entirely accidental, and the exact opposite of what I wanted early on.

But in a country so divided by gender, class, education level, and social status, it seems sadly fitting that one 26-year-old white girl could become the subject of such attention, while other womenespecially the indigenous and impoverishedrarely are.

I think of the femicide victims, the anonymous Jane Does who appear in bags along highways, who barely have names. I think of the rape victims who have been unable to speak up, or who tried to and were shut up.

And I think that had I just worn pants that day, none of this would have ever happened. But The Incident would have still happened to someone else.

Im embarrassed by parts of this story, but not about the outcome. During the course of the past year, my emotions would move between impotence, outrage, fear, shame, and eventually land on intense pridefor the women of Mexico who continue to demand their rights. My story is just one online version of what many of them live through IRL.
Donald Trumps nominee to lead the Department of Agriculture has pledged to restructure his assets to avoid conflicts of interest, but public records show he has already benefitted financially from a major Trump administration policy.

Agriculture Secretary nominee Sonny Perdue, the former Republican governor of Georgia, owns a grain merchandising company that, along with a trade association directed by Perdue, fought an Obama administration environmental rule that the company expected to increase its regulatory compliance burden and reduce the value of its land holdings.

In late February, President Donald Trump announced that he was rolling back the regulation, known as the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. In remarks on the executive action, Trump noted that WOTUS was one of the rules most strongly opposed by farmers, ranchers and agricultural workers all across our land.

Among those workers were the employees of AGrowStar LLC, a company owned by Perdue and his wife that bills itself as a full service grain merchandising company offering solutions for all sizes of clients and customers.

AGrowStar officially lent its support to a lawsuit in 2015 challenging the WOTUS rule. In a joint filing with a Georgia-based fertilizer company, AGrowStar told the court that they are engaged in operations or own properties affected by the WOTUS Rule and would be harmed by the WOTUS Rule to the extent they must either comply with the rule or suffer penalties or because their properties or businesses are devalued by the rules requirements.

But Perdue was not simply another plaintiff in the suit; he was involved personally, through AGrowStar, and by way of an agribusiness interest group.

On its website , the Southeastern Legal Foundation said it brought the lawsuit on behalf of Perdue and other companies and organizations.

Perdue represents AGrowStar on the board of one of those other organizations, the Georgia Agribusiness Council, which officially joined SLF in pushing the court to overturn the rule.

When AGrowStar filed a motion to intervene in the suit, it noted that it would be represented by SLFs attorneys. The same attorneys represented the GAC.

The lawsuit was pending before a federal appeals court when Trump rescinded the WOTUS rule. AGrowStar, which was fined in 2012 for serious violations of federal workplace safety laws, will no longer have to worry about the rules financial burdens.

That is good news for Perdue, who reported an ownership stake in AGrowStar worth between $5 million and $25 million in a personal financial disclosure statement filed on Friday with the Office of Government Ethics (PDF).

The company is technically a subsidiary of Perdue Business Holdings, Inc., a holding company owned by two trusts set up for the benefit of Perdue and his wife and children. Perdue Business Holdings also owns ProAg Products LLC, a grain market trading company.

Perdues involvement in agribusiness by way of AGrowStar and ProAg could present conflicts of interest if he is confirmed. He told OGE last week that within 90 days of his confirmation he will place Perdue Business Holdings and its subsidiary companies into a new trust that will not benefit me or my spouse (PDF).

He did not rule out keeping his children as the beneficiaries of that new trust. A spokesperson for the Trump transition team, which is handling media requests for the presidents nominees, did not respond to questions about the trusts structure.

Perdue had previously been dismissive of blind trusts, which keep officials in the dark about how their money is invested, as a means of preventing conflicts of interest. A blind trust is not functional for a small business person, he said in 2006 in the face of ethical scrutiny. Im in the agri-business. Thats about as blind a trust as you can get. We trust in the Lord for rain and many other things.

Perdue told OGE that he is expecting to personally bring in additional income from AGrowStar even if confirmed, and has been earning interest on that outstanding payment. The payment will eventually come by way of the new trust he is setting up to take ownership of the company, he wrote.

According to Perdues financial disclosure statement, that promissory note is worth between $500,000 and $1 million, and Perdue earned between $50,000 and $100,000 in interest on the obligation last year.

Until this promissory note has been repaid in full, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that to my knowledge has a direct and predictable effect on the ability or willingness of AGrowStar, LLC... to repay this note, unless I first obtain a written waiver, Perdue told OGE.

Perdues continued financial ties to companies that could be affected by USDA rules, and in AGrowStars case one that already benefitted from administration policy, could revive ethics controversies from Perdues time as governor during his confirmation hearings.

He faced 13 ethics complaints during his tenure as governor, and was twice found to have violated state ethics rules, issues sure to be raised by Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
I am offering the solution to a problem most Republicans don't know they have -- that they can be outmaneuvered and thrown on the defensive endlessly, on nearly any issue, because they accept as true Democrat lies about the Republican Party. To correct that misperception and to help the Republican Party get 'back to basics' is why I'm a man on a mission.

A few years ago, after one of my speeches, a man told me "Do you know what your problem is? You're too far ahead of your time!" My efforts to show Republicans how they would benefit from celebrating the heritage of our Grand Old Party have been arduous, but if this were easy someone else would have already done it.

Among my speech topics are Reconciling the Tea Party and the GOP; Barack Obama, the Worst President Ever; Socialism, the new Slavery; Appreciating the Heritage of our Grand Old Party; Returning to the Founding Principles of the United States; The Womens Rights Achievements of our Grand Old Party; Abraham Lincoln, Republican; Frederick Douglass, Republican; Martin Luther King and the Republican Civil Rights Legacy.
1. Fill in your name or an alias. Do not leave blank or use the name 'guest' or 'anonymous'.

2. No Nivul Peh. Profanity will be deleted.
Le Clos unveils Geisha range of Karuizawa

A US$300,000 world-exclusive collection of vintage Karuizawa Japanese whisky has been launched by Le Clos.

The complete Karuizana Geisha Series, the only one of its kind in the world, will be showcased in a bespoke, Japanese-inspired display at Le Clos Dubai Airport Concourse A outlet.

The 27 bottles which make up the Geisha Series are the finest expressions of Karuizawa whisky, which have been aged for 29, 30, 31 and 50 years, and were bottled in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990. This is the first time in history that they have been retailed as a full set.

Commenting on the collection, Iain Delaney, COO at Le Clos parent company MMI, says: We are proud of our proven track record and expertise in sourcing rare and unique products and bringing these to market. Japanese whisky is currently one of the most coveted products in the luxury drinks market, and the Geisha Series is the pinnacle of Japanese whiskys. We are truly delighted to bring this collection to our customers.

Le Clos has the largest range of rare whiskies in the travel retail market, and this collection is one of a number of unusual products the fine spirits and wine specialist has presented in recent months. In December, Le Clos sold a collection of The Macallan Fine and Rare, spanning 1937  1990, for a travel retail record-breaking US$500,000.

Given its scarcity, Karuizawa continues to increase in value, making the Geisha Series a very exciting prospect for whisky enthusiasts and collectors across the world.

Its popularity has been rapidly growing in recent years, with demand skyrocketing and the number of casks available falling, as prices are rising.

Before its closure 17 years ago, Karuizawa produced world-class malt whisky for around 50 years. It would import a barley called Golden Promise from Scotland, and aged its whisky in Spanish sherry casks. The whiskies were famed for their floral scent and maturity, and were produced in small batches, making them highly sought-after products.

Karuizawa's whiskies are said to be the closest to the Scottish malt style in Japan, but they still have their own character; the water used to make them was filtered through lava, and the distillerys scorching hot summers and extremely cold winters resulted in a unique maturation profile.

14 March 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor
However, without that experience of things that have gone before, how will those new activists develop their craft?

That's why 'grey-haired activists' like me - the 'survivors' of the peace, anti-roads, Criminal Justice Act and other campaigns - need to crank themselves back in to action. To do what John Bugg and others like him did for us back then.

Are the police today really that bad?

Lately I've been debating the question, 'why are the police so bad, protecting corporations rather than the public interest?'.

I have to point out that actually they're a whole lot better than they were.

In April 1979, at an anti-Nazi protest in Southall, Blair Peach was beaten unconscious by a policeman. He died in hospital the following day. A teacher, today he has a primary school in Southall named in his honour.

It took thirty-one years for the police acknowledge their role in his death.

Four years before, at another anti-Nazi protest in 1974, Kevin Gately died at a protest in London - the first person to die at the hands of the state during a public protest since the Liverpool 'police strikes' of 1919.

In 1981 there were riots in London, Liverpool, Bristol and other cities, sparked by police violence, racism and discrimination. The Scarman Report which followed highlighted the failings of the police, though little was learned. Many of those points were repeated in the McPherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence a generation later.

These events further highlighted the way in which the police were fundamentally unaccountable. It was parodied in the comedy of the time.

What activists today cannot appreciate is that the scandals of that time, like Blair Peach and many others, led to fundamental changes in the law - creating the rights they have today.

In 1984 the Police and Criminal Evidence Act was passed. Unless you'd been an activist before that time, you can't really appreciate what a difference that made to our powers to hold the police accountable. Most notably, our rights during police stops, searches, arrests and detention.

'Public order', from Orgreave to the Second Summer of Love

The shift in the Government's attitude towards 'controlling' public protest began with the Miners' Strike in 1984. That's because there were few laws on the statute book which allowed them to police political protest effectively.

Just as the police resisted owning-up in the Blair Peach case, last week the Government stated its opposition to an inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave.

The 'politicization' of the police service can be seen in the memo from a mandarin at the Home Office, who in 1984 wrote that "internal questions" needed to be asked about how "the Home Office relay(s) to the police service the political influence on operational policy which was wanted in the early days of the (miners) dispute."

Against that background, the police excesses at the Battle of the Beanfield a year later were no surprise.

The events of 1984 and 1985 were the pretext to the Government's first significant attempt at 'political control', under the guise of the Public Order Act 1986 - the Act that is still used to this day against protests around the country.

The first general use of these powers was against environmental protests, political campaigners, and peace / anti-nuclear activists.

In that sense some things have not changed. For example, anti-fracking campaigners today complain about the use of sexualized violence against them, just as it was used against women at Greenham 30 years before.

Constable, where's your number?!

As part of the successful legal case against against Wiltshire police, one of the specific criticisms which came out of the Beanfield case was the failure of the police to wear identifying numbers. Without that, police officers could not be held personally accountable for their actions.

Despite the Beanfield case, police at protest actions often do not wear identifying numbers. That's something which every activist should challenge them on.

Ask to see their warrant card, if only to check if they are a 'real' policeman (they can't unreasonably deny the request). Also, ask to see and complain to the senior officer on the scene, and get his ID too - for when you lodge a complaint to the IPCC about the incident after the event.

Policing musical taste

Where the Public Order Act fell down was the challenge posed by drug-addled ravers. They were not 'political' - they were just having a good time. So the crack-down on rave culture was enabled by a new law, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (the 'CJA'), still in use today.

Thing is, if you tell people they're not allowed to have a good time they tend to get miffed about it. Opposition to the CJA politicized that generation, just as the suppression of youth culture had politicized generations before.

For example, the 'CJA generation' were part of the successful anti-roads protests which spread across Britain during the 1990s.

Policing is not about 'justice', it's about 'order'

The police represent 'order' - it's the magistrates and judges who decide 'justice'.

People seem to think that the police must be 'fair', and represent the well-being of the public. Historically that's not what they were designed to do, and it's not how the laws they enact function.

Policing is about property rights, established political power, and who controls them. Those who feel aggrieved that the police are protecting fracking rigs should really look at the history of - or rather, for ordinary people, the lack of - land rights in Britain.

The basis of English law is the protection of property rights. For example, fracking exploration licences are a form of property - likewise planning or pollution permits.

Usually most people do not see this statist, property-protecting side of the police because they only offend against the 'public good' - such as bad driving, or getting drunk and mouthing-off.

However, be it 'stealing food' from a bin or protesting against polluting developments, when you engage with the state's powers to protect property rights, you enact a whole different level of police power.

Rule 1: Don't get angry at the police

There's a key lesson I try to teach all activists involved in direct action. You cannot respond to provocation or violence from the police with aggression or violence.

The police are trained and equipped to respond to aggression, and if push comes to shove, to use immediate violence against you. Getting angry or mouthing-off against the police is a waste of time. They deal with it like water off a duck's back, and the law will support them in that process.

That's why the police deliberately provoke violence - so that you give them the power to act against you. So why fall for it, and let them control you in the process?

Instead, by understanding the law, you can work in a way which can deflect or subvert their power. And, in the Alinskian principle of 'pushing people beyond their experience', being passionately non-violent with the police takes away many of the powers they have - allowing you to push the boundaries of activism in all sorts of strange and inventive ways.

Know your heritage

People have been resisting the state in this country since 1066. It's an intrinsic part of our national identity - though you won't find that on a school history curriculum!

If you go to a protest today you'll be confronted by the (updated) Public Order Act 1986 and Criminal Justice Act 1994. To really understand those laws is to understand the history of protest in Britain - and vice-versa.

It's YOUR history today because you are living its effects; just as it was 'ours' when us grey-haired activists lived through the events around which those laws were enacted.

Understanding our shared history of protest in Britain not only lets you know how the law was created. You can also take inspiration from how people have responded to that law in the past, and build your own creativity upon that - to make it your own.

Brexit and the neo-liberal 'year zero'

Why did I make that bold promise to 'pay back' my training as an activist in the 1980s?

Essentially, just as I thought Brexit and Trump were a force mobilized for action, I could also see that lobby's desire to roll-back our long-won civil rights - negating all those positive changes in the law since I became an activist in my teens.

Trump is a problem because his 'illiberal' neo-liberalism gives permission for other would-be demagogues to argue for the same. Difficulty is, in Britain - just as the neo-liberals under Thatcher were already way-ahead of Ronald Reagan - today's neo-Conservative's are already ahead of Trump.

Getting out of Europe might top the news, but the right of the Conservative Party are itching to secede from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - which is likely to be the first thing to happen after Brexit.

Why? All those positive changes to people's rights, since and including the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, make it more difficult to exercise political power. In leaving the ECHR, those laws can be erased in a single legislative stroke.

Unless we personally, and if necessary bodily oppose the roll-back of our civil rights post-Brexit, we will be facing a return to the days of 'real' police violence - of Kevin Gately, Blair Peach and the 'Battle of Orgreave'. But getting angry is no solution; in most situations it is positively counter-productive.

Instead we must educate ourselves. Not only about the law and how it works, but of our great British tradition of protest, and how that is intertwined in the evolution of the law as it stands today.

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental researcher and freelance author. He is also the creator of the Free Range Activism Website, FRAW

A fully referenced version of this article is available on FRAW.
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 ...
Plan your week ahead in SE Iowa with these local events

Your guide to getting off the couch and out the door this week in Southeast Iowa.
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With Metro-North electing to suspend commuter rail service at noon Tuesday, many Norwalk businesses that had braved a morning opening chose to call it quits in the early afternoon as winds escalated and road crews struggled to keep up with the blizzard of March 2017.

Yesterday was a busy one, with people stocking up just in case  and today we see that the forecast was correct, said Tom Sato, owner of Wilton Hardware, a True Value affiliate in Wilton Center. We ... will be closing early, as it appears from the low store traffic that people are staying home.

Stew Leonards opened Tuesday morning with as large a staff as it could muster of those within walking distance of the store, and did a not-insignificant business serving coffee and food to snow plow drivers, police and the occasional ambitious customer in the words of spokeswoman Meghan Bell. Also making it into the Norwalk store was Westport resident and CEO Stew Leonard Jr., who took a video of his Tuesday morning walk through the aisles.

We have a few things out on the buffet, some sandwiches, Leonard said. We can get by today, but the store is empty.

That was the scene in many offices as well throughout Norwalk as the afternoon hours hit, if not beforehand. Frontier Communications, the dominant telephone company in Connecticut, kept its Norwalk headquarters and New Haven call center closed Tuesday with employees working remotely, and calls being rerouted to other call centers.

A spokesman said Frontier had yet to experience any significant storm-related service disruptions in Connecticut as of late Tuesday morning, and advised anyone who spots downed cables or otherwise incurs an outage to contact Frontier at 1-800-921-8101.

As of noon Tuesday, electricity provider Eversource reported about 60 outages in Norwalk and its surrounding towns, with Woodbury the only town in the state with more than 500 customers without power.

OperationsInc elected Monday morning to close its Norwalk office for the day Tuesday, with the company providing training and consulting on human resources issues. As the snow billowed around his home office in Stamford Tuesday morning, CEO David Lewis had already held a couple of Skype video meetings with employees  including with a few of their kids in attendance.

As long as (the) internet stays up we can be productive, Lewis stated in an email. Overall its about preparation, communication, and the understanding that about 50 to 75 (percent) productivity vs. a normal day is the norm  and you should be happy getting that vs. the days when a snow day (equaled) a no-work day.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-354-1047; www.twitter.com/casoulman
Cindy and Mark States of Grand Island believe that after a dog is placed on the city of Grand Islands dangerous dog list, it should have an opportunity to get off the list if it is no longer a threat to the community.

City code defines a dangerous animal as one that has killed a human being, inflicted injury on a human being that requires medical treatment, or killed a domestic animal without provocation.

The Stateses spoke about their German shepherd, Cooper, being put on the dangerous animal list at the Animal Advisory Board meeting Monday.

Mark explained that Cooper was placed on the dangerous animal list in February 2011 after an incident involving a mail carrier. At the time, he said, he was in his front yard with Cooper and turned to go into the garage when he heard the mailman yelling at Cooper and claiming he had been bitten.

He said the mailman left and returned a half-hour later and showed him a bite the size of a branch, which Mark claimed was caused by a bush in the yard.

I was right there when it happened, he said. I didnt see the dog do anything. I just turned to go into the garage.

Since the incident, the Stateses said, they have had to pay $100 a year since they own a dangerous dog, have placed dangerous dog signs in the yard and had a kennel installed in their backyard when Cooper was an outside dog.

I had a $1,000 kennel chained down to the concrete, Mark States said. I had it welded so he couldnt get through it. I had a wired top over the top. It had a sun shade over it and a couple dog houses in there.

The Stateses added that since the incident six years ago, Cooper has never bitten anyone. Cindy told the Animal Advisory Board that when they go places, such as to the store to buy dog food, Cooper receives treats from employees. She said animal control officers have been to their home and can testify to how Cooper is not dangerous.

People go to prison and they get out free, but a dog that possibly did not even bite is in jail forever? Cindy States asked the board. Hes not a dangerous dog. We want him off this list. We want the signs off our property.

Laurie Dethloff, Central Nebraska Humane Society executive director, questioned how an animal on the dangerous animal list can get off of the list if it no longer poses a threat. She asked if it could be taken off the list after going through canine citizenship training.

Assistant City Attorney Stacy Nonhof said state statute does not allow for animals to be removed from the list. Councilman Mitch Nickerson, the Grand Island City Councils liaison to the Animal Advisory Board, responded, Our hands are tied to remove the dog from this list. We cannot supersede state law.

Mark States responded that he would have to take his concerns to the state Capitol in Lincoln.

When an animal is placed on the dangerous animal list, the board explained, it must have a muzzle when it is outdoors among the public. Mark States said when Cooper was first deemed a dangerous animal, he put the muzzle on him, but he stopped after the first year.

Ive got one, but I wont leave him on it because its not fair to him or to me, he said.

Police Chief Robert Falldorf did not approve of Mark States actions.

Do you realize you are violating the law? he asked.

Board member Doug Jensen echoed Falldorfs comments, saying it is all about ownership in the case of an animal being put on the dangerous animal list.

If you have a dog with a problem thats going to have a problem for the rest of his life, youre not going to alleviate that problem, Jensen said. But if you have a dog thats a biter, its going to be a problem.

In other action, the Animal Advisory Board discussed the possibility of allowing a monkey as a service animal. Nonhof said she received a request from a woman who wished to have a monkey as a service animal.

Dethloff said her concerns about allowing a monkey as a service animal are related to the lack of a veterinarian in the area qualified to treat a monkey and the lack of adequate resources for housing a monkey at the Humane Society should it get loose.

Nickerson said he felt more information was needed on the issue before making a decision on having the city acknowledge monkeys as service animals. Jensen requested the Animal Advisory Board table discussion on the topic until more research and information is provided. The board unanimously agreed to do so.
According to a recent audit on the city of Grand Island done by Almquist, Maltzahn, Galloway and Luth, the city is in accordance with accounting principles.

The Grand Island City Council will hear a presentation from Terry Galloway of the local accounting firm on the fiscal year 2017 audit at its meeting Tuesday.

The main thing (about this audit report) is do we have a clean opinion or not? Do the numbers reflect fairly, in all material respects, the finances of the city? City Finance Director Renae Griffiths said.

The auditors opinion is yes, it reflects that. They will go through it and give us suggestions and things like that. But as far as the actual audit is concerned, this is a clean opinion.

Griffiths said the audit is actual numbers, while the budget consists of projected numbers. She added the audit will be used as a starting point for the FY 2018 budget.

According to the audit report, the citys total debt for fiscal 2016  from Sept. 30, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016  increased by $6,254,209, or 5.9 percent. Of this amount, $7,253,766 was on governmental activities and $104,713,961 was on business-type activities. This is an increase from fiscal 2015 where the total outstanding debt was $105,713,518.

Griffiths said the main factor in the increase in outstanding debt is the issuance of the sewer DEQ notes. She added she anticipates the total overall debt for fiscal 2018 will increase.

The total overall (outstanding) debt probably will increase because we have the public safety bond issuance that was done, she said. We have the new water revenue bonds that are being done for the new water tower and we have a loan out there that we can take out to use the money on the food and beverage occupational tax.

Griffiths added the city will make principal payments as required.

The total valuation for fiscal 2017 is $2,933,977,196, up from $2,831,663,760 for fiscal 2016. The total levy has been consistent at 32 cents since fiscal 2012. Valuation numbers are determined by the Hall County assessor and not by the city of Grand Island.

The levy has stayed relatively steady throughout, Griffiths said. So what that means is as our valuation increases, if we keep our levy the same, then the total property tax dollars asked for increases.

The total Community Redevelopment Authority levy was .026 cents for fiscal 2017. Of this, the requested levy was .019 cents and the Lincoln Pool levy was .006 cents. The Lincoln Pool levy is to pay off the construction of Lincoln Pool.

In other action, the city council will:

-- Consider approving a proclamation to make March 20 Abbott Sisters Day in honor of Edith and Grace Abbott.

-- Consider approving an interlocal agreement with the Nebraska Community Energy Alliance. The benefits of approving the agreement was discussed during last weeks study session. The item is in the consent agenda.

The city council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
The city of Grand Island and the Downtown Improvement Board were awarded the Implementation Award from the American Planning Association Nebraska Chapter during the Nebraska Planning and Zoning Association annual conference on March 8 through 10 in Kearney.

The award recognizes an effort that demonstrates a significant achievement for an area in accomplishing positive changes as a result of planning and has long-term, measurable results.

The city of Grand Island and the Downtown Improvement Board were honored for efforts in transforming downtown into Railside as part of implementing the 2013 Grand Island Downtown Redevelopment Study, which was prepared by Alley-Poyner Macchietto Architecture of Omaha and Marvin Planning Consultants of David City.

Some of the accomplishments:

 The start of four downtown apartment projects at Tower 217, Wing Properties, Temple Lofts and the Hedde Building.

 The citys creation of a life safety program to assist with upper-level development and fire safety in historic buildings.

 A rebranding of the downtown as Railside as seen on parking lot signs, gateway signs and banners.

 The redevelopment of the former Kaufmann Park to the new Railside Plaza, which serves as a community gathering space for the new Hear Grand Island concerts, Railside Christmas and Third Thursday events.

 The upgrade of downtown infrastructure, including larger water lines to support fire sprinkling systems and $321,000 of historic downtown lighting to add ambiance to the district.

 A facade program aiding the restoration of the fronts of numerous downtown businesses.

 Creation of a destination district for new businesses such as Prairie Pride Brewery, GIX Logistics, Prodigy No. 5, Performance Plus Outdoors, the Happy Brush, Helium, Kindred and McKinneys Irish Pub.

"Plans are always a good thing. They provide direction and goals," Regional Planning Director Chad Nabity said. "They become a great thing when you see them coming true."

Nabity said the downtown revitalization plan has reached the "great" level because of the way it has been implemented.

"This award from the Nebraska Chapter of the American Planning Association is recognition of the work involved in bringing this plan and Railside to life," Nabity said.

"This study has provided significant direction and guidance to the many partners who are striving to bring economic development to downtown Grand Island," said Cara Lemburg, Downtown Business Improvement District director.

The city of Grand Island received two other honors during the conference. It received the Public Outreach Award for its organization of a communitywide tax-increment financing workshop last October. The city also received the Best Practice Award for a tax-increment financing learning game it prepared and has presented to the media and community groups.
Rep. Adrian Smith says he and other members of Congress from farm states have told President Trumps trade team to be careful about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He said the members of Congress were emphatic in saying the administration had best be careful about adjusting NAFTA, because of its significance to American agriculture.

In a visit with The Independents editorial board Monday, the Nebraska Republican talked about other ways to help agriculture. Given the fact that Trump has abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Smith said hes willing to explore other trade agreements. He said hes working on a bilateral agreement with Japan that would, among other things, reduce tariffs.

Americans cant wait around to take action. Australia is making strides in the distribution of its beef, even though it doesnt taste as good as American beef, he said. If Americans wait around too long, Australia will get its foot in the door with various countries at the expense of American beef.

In a visit to St. Paul earlier in the day, Smith said, the comments he heard most were about health care and taxes. Those are the two issues hes working on most, along with trade, he said.

Smith believes simplifying the tax code would do more for the economy than just about anything else.

Asked about health care, Smith said he found the individual mandate of Obamacare offensive. Each American was required to sign up for insurance or pay a fine.

He voted in favor of passing the Republicans new health care plan out of the House, Ways and Means Committee. That is just the first of many steps on the way toward implementing the package, he said.

There have been signs the private sector is anxious to engage if there is adequate flexibility, Smith said.

A Nebraska ag lender estimates that his customers currently pay $3,000 a month for health insurance.

Because of health care costs, more Americans are discovering that emergency rooms are required to accept every patient, Smith said.

Questioned about Trump, he said the president has a very different style than he does. You may have observed that, he said, smiling.

With every new president there are adjustments, Smith said.

The fact that he tweets will require more adjustments, he said.

Trump said the introduction of the Republican health care plan is just the beginning of negotiations on health care, Smith said.

He believes that one of the best qualities Trump brings to the White House is his ability to make a deal.

Trump, he said, has a much different style than any other president in history.

But Trump connects with blue-collar Americans better than any president since Ronald Reagan, he said.

The difference between those two men is interesting, Smith said. Reagan was a Hollywood actor, while Trump is a Manhattan billionaire.

Smith was asked about criticism that Republican lawmakers are not accessible.

I would say my access has been very open the entire time Ive served, he said, noting that he had a public meeting Monday in St. Paul.

Last week I had a public meeting in Chadron, he said.

Smith said he has telephone town hall meetings that have good participation. In addition to his own appearances in the state, his staff has meetings, from which he receives good information. So he mixes up the formats and generally gets good feedback, he said.

I appreciate it, he said.

I should also note that we are scheduled to be in session in D.C. more days this year than we have for several years, Smith added.

Asked about the Keystone pipeline, he said the process has been very open, and most of the general public favors the pipeline. He also said todays technology can transport oil effectively and safely.

Smith also displayed a copy of a letter he wrote to Postmaster General Megan Brennan about U.S. Postal Service plans for Grand Island.

Because concerns about community accessibility have been raised regarding the Old Potash Highway location, I am writing to ensure the Grand Island communitys concerns about the possible relocation are appropriately addressed as you consider this option, reads a portion of the letter.
Was there a murder 100 years ago at Yardley's Continental Tavern?

Frank Lyons began excavating the basement of the Continental Tavern in Yardley. He found a gun, bloody corset and part of a woman's purse.
The Edwardsville District 7 Board of Education received its bi-monthly review of finances during the finance meeting last night. The message was clear  since November, the district's financial outlook has increasingly worsened.

Edwardsville District 7 Superintendent Lynda Andre provided the review pointing out that when the current school year began, the district estimated that its negative operating fund balance in the Education Fund would increase to approximately $6.7 million by the end of the year. This estimate assumed that the State of Illinois would eventually pay all outstanding and mandated categorical and grant payments due through June 30, 2017, Andre noted.

But with the state's backlog of bills totaling over $12.3 billion, the Illinois State Board of Education had indicated to District 7 that it should only expect two of the four mandated quarterly categorical payments (Special Education and Transportation) this year. However, the state's ability to pay even two of the four mandated quarterly categorical payments and all of the early childhood grant payments due for the school year is now seriously in doubt, Andre said.

She went on to note that as of Monday, the state owed District 7 approximately $2.7 million from both last school year (2015-16) and this year (2016-17) and that the state had yet to pay any mandated categorical payments (Special Education and Transportation) this school year. Also, the state has paid only four of nine early childhood payments due for this school year, Andre stressed.

The district had originally anticipated borrowing $5 million through tax anticipation warrants in May to finish the current school year, but the latest delay of state payments may push the borrowing up a month. If the state of Illinois does not make any categorical payments for Special Education or any additional Early Childhood grant payments, it is possible that the district would need to borrow tax anticipation warrants for the Education Fund to finish the month of April 2017, Andre said.

In addition, Andre also noted that the State of Illinois currently owes the district approximately $1.1 million in transportation funding and that this amount will increase to over $1.6 million by the end of March if no payments are made to District 7. As a result of the state's inability to pay District 7, the district currently owes First Student, the district's transportation provider, approximately $900,000, Andre explained. If the state of Illinois does not make any transportation payments soon, the district will have to issue tax anticipation warrants for the Transportation Fund in addition to the warrants issued for the Education Fund.

Andre reminded the board that the tax anticipation warrants would fund the district until it begins receiving property tax payments in June and July.

In another financial update that at face value seemed like a small glimmer of hope, the preliminary EAV (Equalized Assessed Valuation) was received last week. While the district's estimated EAV growth rate had been estimated to be 1.9 percent in December, it has now increased to over 6 percent due to township multipliers. As a result of the EAV change, the district could receive an additional $700,000 in revenue in the Education Fund above what was projected for the 2017-18 school year, Andre said.

But Andre also pointed out that it's important to remember that under the current General State Aid (GSA) funding formula in the state of Illinois, that when a district's EAV increases in one year, the district will see a corresponding decrease in GSA the next year.

Displaying a chart showing the increase in EAV and the correlating decrease to the state's GSA funding, Andre noted that all of the 2017-18 increases in Education Fund tax revenues resulting from the EAV adjustment would be eliminated through the reduction of GSA in 2018-19. The only way for the additional revenue received in the Education Fund for 2017-18 to be sustainable is if the district experiences a similar growth rate in EAV in the 2018-19 school year, she said.

Edwardsville District 7 Finance Committee Chairman Jeff Miller summarized noting that the news from the state seems to get worse with every update that the board receives at finance meetings. None of the plans to address state funding of education help District 7, Miller said. They all will likely be worse for District 7 moving forward so that continues to be a trend we're seeing.

The EAV and our local property tax values is a complex situation, and I think the important point and you summarized it is, even though we've sen some modest growth locally, the state sees that as modest growth and so they therefore correspondingly take away state aid so it ends up being a net-virtually-neutral impact...so it is a difficult situation to wrap your mind around because it is a complex funding formula, but the bottom line is as we see modest growth within the district, the state will see that as our ability to self-fund and correspondingly cut some of the state funding as the result of that, Miller added.
Drew Batton is a normal, active 5 year old. His favorite thing at preschool is centers, he likes to read and play video games, he loves camping and fishing, and he likes to shoot ping pong balls at unsuspecting visitors from his dinosaur trash truck.

But in the last year, Drew has undergone multiple tests and two surgeries to remove tumors in his brain.

There was nothing different about him until he was about three and a half years old, said his father Andy Batton.

Thats when he started having sporadic headaches, his mother Kay Batton said. The Battons also have an 8-year-old daughter, Kami.

We went to the pediatrician, Andy Batton said. They just said the problem was headaches. I have migraines, so we thought maybe he did too. He kept passing the neuro exams at Childrens Hospital, and no one wanted to scan him.

He went to five or six doctors in that first year, said Kay Batton.

We just knew that something wasnt right, Andy Batton said. Andy Batton is a medic.

He served in the military in Iraq and worked for BJC before starting at Amazon about eight months ago.

Finally, just before the Fourth of July, Drew was diagnosed. Andy left on Sunday for training in New Jersey, Kay Batton said. Drew was sleeping all day and his eyes were droopy. He would pull up the cover and nap, and thats not normal for a 4 year old. He would sleep for hours, then get up and complain that his head hurt and throw up.

Kay Batton took him in to another pediatrician in their practice who wanted to schedule an MRI for the next week. The next day, Drew went to his grandmothers house. She called and said we need to do something because he seemed worse. We decided to take him to Childrens. They did a CAT scan. Within 20 minutes, they took me, my mom and my mother-in-law around the corner and told us that he had a brain tumor.

Andy Batton was still in New Jersey for training with Amazon. She called me and said its not good news. At this point, I had been with Amazon for five days. They flew me home. Theyve been incredibly supportive through this. He got to Childrens in time to see Drew before his surgery.

Kay Batton is the General Manager for Bella Milano in Edwardsville. Theyve taken fabulous care of us through this, she said. More than we ever expected. She said they were generous with giving her the time off that she needed.

After the surgery, Drew had a drain placed in his head to reduce the amount of excess fluid in his brain caused by the tumor. It was a tough surgery because of the location of the tumor and the swelling, Andy Batton said. The surgery took 14 hours. They came and gave us updates every hour or hour and a half. It was a hard wait, Kay Batton said.

Drew stayed at the hospital for two-and-a half-weeks. Both Battons said that their families were a huge help at this time. Andy Batton felt he had to return to New Jersey, and family and friends helped out during the hospital stay. Andy Battons former employer, BJC, donated an ambulance ride home for Drew.

Drew was scheduled for another MRI three months after the surgery. The doctor was confident after the surgery that she got it all, so we thought it would be a routine MRI, Kay Batton said. The MRI showed another tumor, and Drew was diagnosed with Juvenile Pilocytic Astrocytoma (JPA).

It was smaller, but it was close to the brain stem, so the doctors decided to go back in before it could get any closer, Andy Batton said. They say that they respect the brain stem enough not to touch it, he said.

The second surgery, in November, was ten hours long. The brain was displaced by the first tumor, Andy Batton said. Because of this, there was no way to tell if it was new growth or hidden by the compression. For this surgery, Drew had the same surgical team, but they performed the surgery at Barnes Hospital so they could perform an in-surgery MRI. They determined during the MRI that they got all of the tumor.

The surgeon came in with a huge smile, but she looked exhausted, Andy Batton said. Drew was in the hospital for three days after this surgery. After the surgery at Barnes, he was moved to Childrens to recover. He was put in the same room he was in after the first surgery. Everyone was so nice, and welcomed us back, but we dont want to have a favorite room on the neuro floor at Childrens Hospital, Kay Batton said.

Drew had another scan three months later on Feb. 21. It showed another tumor. The doctors recommended that we wait and do another scan in three more months, Kay Batton said. This one is in a good location. Its not near the brain stem. His next scan will be in May.

If the tumor is in the same spot, hell have another surgery, and this time the surgeon will take more tissue around it, Andy Batton said. If its in another spot, then hell have chemo. If its the same size, well wait. My medical mind is preparing me for the worst, he added.

I think the doctor is trying to prepare us for chemo, Kay Batton said. The family was meeting with an oncologist soon.

The tumors have not affected Drew very much, his parents said. Hes a little weak on his right side, Andy Batton said. His fine motor skills on that side diminished, but that should get better with time. Hes been using his left side to color and write.

All the surgeries and tests have come with a financial cost. When I picked an insurance plan, we were all healthy, Andy Batton said. Our pediatrician and our doctors were in network, so I picked a plan that required in-network doctors. Unfortunately, not all of the doctors Drew needs now are in the network. Weve had $27,500 for out-of-network expenses, Andy Batton said.

The owners of Bella Milano came to me and said we want to throw a benefit, Kay Batton said. We just want a down-to-Earth, kid-friendly event. Well have a spaghetti dinner.

The benefit, called Pasta with a Purpose, will be catered by Bella Milano. It will be held on Sunday, April 23, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Leclaire Room on the N.O. Nelson Campus in Edwardsville. Tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for children. There are still sponsorships available. For more information or to purchase tickets, see the groups Facebook page at www.facebook.com/SuperHeroesEatSpaghetti.
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Linkedin Vincent Lingga (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Has anyone seen our financial intelligence agency? The whereabouts of the Financial Transaction Report and Analysis Centre (PPATK) is a big question prompted by the fact that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) took about three years and questioned almost 300 witnesses to build a case on the suspected Rp 2.3 trillion (US$170 million) corruption within the Rp 5.9 trillion electronic identification card (e-ID) project.

Yet the KPK has so far indicted only two defendants.

How could such a huge amount of money  the Rp 2.3 trillion that was allegedly stolen from the project  be moved around between 2011 and 2012 without being detected by the PPATK through its anti-money laundering radar, which is supposed to monitor suspicious transactions in all financial services companies?
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Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

New momentum to place the countrys corrupt political party system in purgatory awaits the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)  as dozens of politicians from various parties have been named in the indictment of two former Home Ministry officials standing trial for allegedly accepting bribes in the procurement of e-ID cards nationwide.

The KPK has no choice but to seize the opportunity, although it could lead the commission to another episode of living dangerously, marked by political parties joining hands at the House of Representatives to realize long-held plans to revise the KPK Law to their benefit.

Since the term of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2004 to 2014, the House has several times drafted amendments to the 2002 KPK Law, aiming to paralyze the antigraft body. Both Yudhoyono and his successor President Joko Jokowi Widodo have repeatedly rejected the political exercise, forcing parties from both the ruling coalition and opposition to shelve their draft revisions.
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Linkedin Kundhavi Kadiresan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Indonesians consume fewer fruits and vegetables than any other country in ASEAN save Cambodia. And for the bottom 70 percent of the population it is even worse  they spend only half as much on fruits and vegetables and just one-third as much on meat, fish and dairy, when compared to the top 30 percent.

These micronutrient-rich foods are essential for physical and cognitive development  people should not live on rice alone. The low consumption of fruits and vegetables by so many Indonesians is one major reason for the high prevalence of stunting among children below the age of five (in both urban and rural areas).

In fact, Indonesia has the second highest stunting rate in ASEAN (Lao PDR has the highest). The bottom line is adults who were stunted as children earn 20 percent less than adults who were not, putting a brake on economic growth and preventing the country from reaching its full potential.

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Linkedin Nurkholis Hidayat (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Today, we see that the dispute between the government and Freeport McMoran over contractual arrangements has mainly focused on unsettled tax concessions.

This little piece will analyze why taxation is a hotspot in every dispute between giant mining companies and governments in extractive industries and why there has been so much drama and scandal.

There are two reasons why mining companies including Freeport McMoRan stubbornly try to obtain preferential fiscal treatment and favor a stable tax regime.

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Linkedin Djono Subagjo (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) recently announced that it planned to issue a guideline on internal recovery planning for 12 systemic banks as part of its efforts to shield the economy from a major bank failure.

A recovery plan sets out actions that a bank will take to restore its viability in the case of significant deterioration of its financial condition. The OJK rule on this subject  expected to be issued in April  is a supporting regulation mandated by the 2016 Financial System Crisis Prevention and Mitigation (PPKSK) Law.

The law effectively gives clarity and space to authorities handling a banking crisis or the threat of one. Nonetheless, despite the improved legal protection and clearer protocols, the PPKSK committee is unlikely to have a comfortable time when a situation calls for its resolution authority to be exercised.

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Numerous Indonesians choose to go to the United Kingdom to pursue higher education, attracted to the countrys multicultural landscape as well as its universities robust intellectual prowess. Many of them have come back to craft great achievements in their home country.

Thousands of Indonesians are now pursuing their higher education in the United Kingdom, attracted to the countrys ethnic and cultural diversity as well as its reputation for excellent higher education standards.

According to British ambassador to Indonesia, ASEAN and Timor-Leste Moazzam Malik, currently there are approximately 3,500 Indonesian students pursuing university degrees  from bachelors to doctoral  in the UK, making the country one of the most sought after higher education destinations among Indonesians.

In fact, one-third of the students sent abroad by Indonesias Endowment Fund for Education [LPDP] choose to go to the UK, Malik said, referring to one of Indonesias most prestigious scholarship bodies.

Malik added that the number was just a start, expecting an increase of Indonesian students in the years to come.

According to data from the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia and Londons educational attache Aminudin Aziz, as quoted by tempo.co, technology remains at the top of Indonesians preference list when studying in England, followed by natural sciences and social and political sciences.

Indonesian National Commission of Human Rights commissioner Roichatul Aswidah, who earned his Masters Degree in human rights from Essex University, said the national and ethnic diversity among UK university students became one of the most valuable aspects of the countrys higher education.

According to data from the UK Council for International Student Affairs, from the year 2015 to 2016, there were a total of 438,010 international students in the countrys universities, constituting 19 percent of its total student numbers (link: https://m.tempo.co/read/news/2016/11/21/079821795/apa-kota-terfavorit-mahasiswa-indonesia-di-inggris).

Non-European students hail from countries like China, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, among others.

Essex University is the best place to study human rights. The professors and lecturers are human rights practitioners, some of them are working on this issue in the United Nations [] with students coming from all over the world. It is very exciting to exchange experiences with these international students, all the while expanding our network, Roichatul, well known for her work in advocating the rights of victims of the 1965 massacre, said.

She added that she was deeply humbled when she heard stories from her fellow human rights advocates who hailed from countries with extremely difficult social and political situations.

So many friends came from conflict-laden countries like Palestine and the former Soviet Union. I learned a lot from them, by understanding how they had to endure very difficult times in their lives, she explained.

Samiaji Adisasmito, a financial technology (fintech) practitioner who earned his Masters degree in business and information technology (IT) from Aston University, said that by studying with international students from all over the world, he has expanded his network enormously, something which has helped him greatly in advancing his career in a global setting.

He also lauded the UKs strong academic tradition, saying that he was taught by the best academics while studying there, paving the way for his current success as an entrepreneur.

It is truly enjoyable to learn from these people. I am able to learn deeply about my subject by having discussions with them on almost a daily basis, while being encouraged to conduct my research autonomously at the same time, Samiaji, the founder of Jojonomic, a pioneer for mobile reimbursement applications in Southeast Asia.

The application has helped almost 40 companies and over 2,000 employees to save more time and up to 40 percent of their costs through a more efficient, transparent and accountable method of cash reimbursement.

Roichatul and Samiaji are just two examples of Indonesians who benefitted from their UK education and are currently enjoying successful and impactful careers in their home country, giving back by applying their knowledge into practice.

Other prominent Indonesian figures who have earned their degrees in the UK include senior journalist Desi Anwar and presidential staff office deputy for priority programs research and development Yanuar Nugroho, as well as best-selling writer and education activist Ahmad Fuadi, among others.

In order to honor their distinguished achievements, Roichatul and Samiaji have been included in the Study UK Alumni Awards 2017, along with seven of their contemporaries.

Following the success of conducting the UK Alumni Awards 2016 for the first time last year, the British Council recently held the second edition of the awards this year in Indonesia, to honor high-achieving and outstanding Indonesian alumni from UK Higher Education Institutions.

This year, the awards are also being held in 13 other locations: Egypt, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey and the United States.

In Indonesia, the event was held on March 2 at the Fairmont Jakarta in Senayan, Jakarta.

Like last year, the awards were divided into three categories: professional achievement, entrepreneurial and social impact.

The professional achievement award recognizes outstanding alumni who have shown exemplary leadership and distinguished achievements in their profession, while consistently demonstrating the highest level of integrity and character in their career.

Finalists for the category included Yogyakartas Gadjah Mada University lecturer and medicinal chemistry laboratory head Dr. Ritmaleni; law firm Jakarta International Law Office owner and Indonesian Bar Association vice president Tahir Musa Luthfi Yazid; as well as Indonesias leading photosynthesis researcher and director of the photosynthetic pigments research center at Ma Chung University in Malang, East Java, Tatas Hardo Panintingjati Brotosudarmo.

The entrepreneurial award, meanwhile, honors alumni who are actively involved in initiating or contributing to innovative new ideas or business opportunities with strong growth prospects.

Finalists for the award were kravasia.com founder Ignasius Ryan Hasim, expense reimbursement mobile application Jojonomic cofounder Samiaji Adisasmito, as well as university examination preparation courses provider EduLabs founder Oki Earlivan Sampurno.

Last but not least, the social impact award acknowledged alumni who have made an exceptional contribution and commitment to creating positive social change and improving lives.

Finalists for the social impact category comprised the University of Indonesias (UI) English department lecturer Herlin Putri Indah Destari, who is also active in promoting literacy among Indonesians through her non-profit community-based programs English Art Lab and Theater for Life; human rights activist pushing for the abolition of the death penalty Ricky Gunawan; as well as National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) commissioner Roichatul Aswidah.

The judging panel for the awards included British Council in Indonesia Director Education and Society Teresa Birks and British Embassy to Indonesia in Jakarta Political Counselor Theresa OMahony-Heer.

There were lead judges for each category: the entrepreneurial award was headed by retailer Alun-Alun Indonesia Experiences Managing Director Catharina Widjaja; writer Ahmad Fuadi, also a winner of the previous years social impact award, led the social impact category; and Bank Indonesias FinTech Deputy Director Junanto Herdiawan ran the professional achievement award.

According to Ahmad, the judges found it very difficult to determine the award recipients as all of the candidates had made great achievements in all aspects of their work.

We then agreed to use some benchmarks [in judging the finalists], including how their work has impacted the lives of others, through community outreach or nationwide influence or perhaps their work extends internationally? We also assessed the durability of their impact: is it short-term or long-term? Finally, we came up with a list, Ahmad told The Jakarta Post regarding the assessment method.

Catharina, meanwhile, explained that for a finalist to win the entrepreneurial category, their business had to demonstrate strong growth prospects.

Assessment difficulties aside, the panel of judges ultimately decided on three winners for this years awards. They were Tatas Hardo Panintingjati Brotosudarmo for the professional achievement award, Samiaji Adisasmito for the entrepreneurial award and Ricky Gunawan for the social impact award.

According to Country Director of British Council in Indonesia Paul Smith OBE, the awards seek to celebrate the great things that happen when great minds gather and learn together.

Like the students from the US who study in the UK to bring back the entrepreneurial spirit of the country back to the US, these great Indonesian minds and talents who were fortunate and privileged to experience the best universities in the UK are also bringing back impactful actions to Indonesia, Smith said in his opening remarks during the event.

Smith said he hoped that all the great minds who gathered during the awards ceremony were able to continue to contribute more to Indonesias socio-economic trajectory as Indonesia was heading toward what he called its great future.

Malik, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of international education in a globalized world rife with tension.

We now live in a highly interconnected world, where bad things go across borders, so do good things. Therefore, in order to solve problems, we have to go across borders, not just physically but also mentally by being able to understand other peoples experiences, Malik said.

Study UK Alumni Awards 2017 winners:

What makes them tick?

Tatas Hardo Panintingjati Brotosudarmo

Winner of the professional achievement award

Tatas studied for his PhD in molecular and cellular biology at the University of Glasgow. He is a leading researcher of photosynthesis pigments in Indonesia. He is currently a lecturer and director of the research center for photosynthesis pigments at Ma Chung University, Malang, East Java. While pursuing his doctoral degree at the University of Glasgow, he had the opportunity to study under one of the most respected scientists in his field, Richard Cogdell, with whom he had regular intense discussions daily. This has enabled him to enjoy more international exposure and research collaboration. Tatas says that what he learned from his UK study experience has been invaluable and has shaped his perspective about building a nation through research and science. He was invited to attend the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany in 2013, and is the president-elect of the Indonesia Chemical Society. Tatas research results influenced government policy on the use of synthetic food coloring to ensure a more environmentally sustainable solution. We can extract natural pigment from plant leaves, flowers and roots. Indonesia, unfortunately, has long abandoned the use of natural dye because it is expensive to extract. Synthetic coloring, however, is very dangerous as it can make children hyperactive or cause certain types of tumors, Tatas told the Post upon receiving the award. There are optimistic signs that Indonesians will ultimately turn to natural coloring again, since people are becoming more and more health-conscious, Tata said. Tatas is currently studying the use of natural pigments as indicators of the health of herbs and plants on a plantation. He said the method utilizing the multi-spectral digital pigment assessor is much more efficient and accurate than the manual work done by plantation workers to assess plant health. He said that a lack of proper facilities remained the biggest challenge for Indonesian researchers to advance science in the country. Indonesians have an abundance of intelligent people who study abroad. When they come back to the country, it is unfortunately almost as though they are being disarmed from their duties due to the lack of adequate facilities, he explained.

Samiaji Adisasmito

Winner of the entrepreneurial award

Samiaji earned his masters degree in business and information technology from Aston University. In 2015, he co-founded Jojonomic, a pioneer in fintech for the Southeast Asia region, being the first expense reimbursement mobile application in the region. A similar solution already exists in the US, Concur and Expensify mobile applications. However Jojonomic Pro is the only one in the market with cash advance feature helping employees on business trips to constantly update their expenses accordingly to the initial disbursement. Therefore, companies no longer have to manually record employees cash advances, which are inefficient, he explained to the Post. According to Samiaji, the application also has custom approval flow management, enabling employees to provide real-time information on their expenses by taking selfies with their bills and uploading them to the system. In 2016, he was invited by Google to participate in the first Google Accelerator program in Silicon Valley, the US. The application has helped almost 40 companies and over 2,000 employees save time and up to 40 percent of their costs. It has also encouraged companies to go paperless. The application has been updated with a digital attendance feature, allowing employees who are required to be mobile and move around outside of the office to upload proof of their work activities, giving them little room to shirk their job responsibilities. Encouraged by the applications easy adoption by Indonesians, Samiaji said that he planned to expand his pioneering business to other countries in the Southeast Asia region, such as Malaysia and Singapore. Hopefully, winning this award can help me gain even more international exposure, making it easier for me to expand my business to other areas, he said.



Ricky Gunawan

Winner of the social impact award

Ricky earned his masters degree in theory and practice in human rights from the University of Essex. His work focuses on abolishing the death penalty, revising drug laws and protecting the rights of Indonesias most vulnerable communities. His work seeks to improve lives and restore hope. Thousands of people globally have become aware of unfair trials experienced by prisoners on death row. In 2016, he delivered an emotional plea at the UN General Assembly, demanding that states abolish the death penalty. He says that studying at the University of Essex gave him an unparalleled opportunity to study and work under professors who are experts in their fields. The most difficult challenge of abolishing the death penalty in Indonesia is the states lack of political commitment, he said. As long as the powers that be view the death penalty as a panacea to solve complex problems, such as drug trafficking, the public will be blindingly guided into accepting this form of punishment. He mentioned several countries, such as the UK, the Netherlands and France, where society eventually accepted the abolition of the death penalty after initially resisting it. The government has to be aware that in order to solve complex issues like drug trafficking, we have to examine the root of the problem: has the country been successful in providing welfare and a sense of security to its citizens? Many other problems, like prison overcrowding, also need to be tackled to solve this drug issue instead of using the death penalty as a shortcut approach, he said.

The finalists: high achieving Indonesians

Professional achievement award

Dr. Ritmaleni

University of Bristol

Dr. Ritmaleni earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of Bristol. She is now a lecturer at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, as well as the head of the universitys medicinal chemistry laboratory. She was selected to join the ASEAN science leadership program in 2016 in Thailand. She was also the director of UGMs curcumin research center. Her research on synthetic organic chemistry has received many national and international awards. She has developed products for medicine in the areas of cancer and TB prevention, as well as anti-aging products that will soon be commercialized. Dr. Ritmaleni says that while studying in the UK she learned how to be a smart researcher, particularly benefiting from the strong scientific environment and the wide access to publications available in the University of Bristol. As a graduate of a UK university she notes that it is easier for her to work in international laboratories, such as in the Netherlands and Japan.



Tahir Musa Luthfi Yazid

University of Warwick

Tahir earned a masters degree in law from the University of Warwick. He now owns the Jakarta International Law Office, a law firm based in Jakarta. He also serves as the vice president of the Indonesian Bar Association. Additionally, Tahir was one of the members of the Presidential Advisor office to select judges for the Constitutional Court in 2008. Thanks to his intensive and extensive professional experiences, he was invited as a visiting professor to Gakushin University in Tokyo. Tahirs legal training from the University of Warwick proved essential when he worked on an international case in Singapore, where he defended an Indonesian worker in a murder case. This case was a landmark case for Indonesian workers abroad.

Entrepreneurial award

Ignasius Ryan Hasim

University of Bath

Ignasius Ryan Hasim earned a masters degree in accounting and finance at the University of Bath. Ignasius created kravasia.com, a tech-based start-up company connecting local batik craftspeople with potential customers. Previously, he was involved with ruangguru.com, a marketplace connecting tutors and students. Ignasius hopes that technology can help in tackling the challenges faced by local craftspeople, by helping them tap into a potential and strategic market niche. His start-up also aims at providing additional services, such as free product photo shoots and digital marketing assistance, to help the local creative industry thrive in the marketplace. Ignasius says that studying in the UK is a life-changing experience that broadened his horizons and was fundamental to his career as an entrepreneur. The UKs multicultural and dynamic environment strengthened his understanding of the economic potential that could be produced by synergizing culture and creativity, something that inspired him to help craftspeople through kravasia.com.

Oki Earlivan Sampurno

Royal Holloway, University of London

After completing his Masters degree in business and management at Royal Holloway, University of London, Oki was able to expand his business, EduLab, which offers university examination preparation courses. Currently, EduLab has 25 branches in 14 cities with thousands of students. Oki also owns a private school, Edu Global School, offering primary and secondary education. The schools have expanded to three cities Oki believes that studying in the UK has taken him to a different level of academic comprehension regarding his study field, while equipping him with necessary applicable skills. Both things have changed the way he thinks and makes decisions for the better. According to him, his study time in the UK does not provide him with theories only, but also the skills to apply them into business practices through practical experiences. These practical skills are gained through numerous consultation projects with various companies during his study time.

Social impact award

Herlin Putri Indah Destari

University of Warwick

Herlin pursued a masters degree in drama and theater in education at the University of Warwick. Herlin currently lectures at the English Literature department of University of Indonesias (UI) school of culture. She established the English Art Lab, a community-based non-profit movement that aims at empowering children and young people through creative education. She also initiated English Without Borders, a social program focusing on teaching English for vulnerable and underprivileged children and teenagers. Her love and passion for theater also inspired her to set up Theater for Life, another organization focusing on empowering disadvantaged youngsters through activities involving theater.



Roichatul Aswidah

University of Essex

Roichatul studied human rights at the University of Essex. She currently serves as a commissioner for the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM). As a Komnas HAM commissioner, she is able to promote and protect human rights of minority communities and vulnerable groups in Indonesia. Her teams work has directly impacted the state of Indonesias human rights protection, mainly focusing on resolving past human rights abuse cases, like victims of the 1965 massacre. One of the milestones of the teams work is the establishment of criteria and procedures to enable the commission to issue up to 4,000 letters acknowledging the status of the 1965 massacre victims, enabling them to access the national healthcare program and other social protection programs granted by the government. Roichatul says that she benefited greatly from learning directly from her professors, who have intensive and extensive experience in the field of human rights, at the University of Essex. Combining theory with practical experience has enormously enhanced her study time. She adds that she appreciated the UKs tolerance and multicultural atmosphere.

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Linkedin Thomas Buckley (Bloomberg)  Tue, March 14, 2017 11:14 2064 a291276806121264c0bd211cde486da1 2 Food vodka,caviar,food,alcohol,#alcohol,premium-vodka,caviar-infused-vodka Free

Caviar and vodka are the ultimate luxury food-and drink pairing, but putting the sturgeon eggs into the spirit spells disaster. The caviar explodes and whitens the liquid, which eventually smells of rot.

Pernod Ricard SA has just introduced a new vodka in London that aims to deal with the problem -- at 175 pounds ($213) per 20-centiliter bottle. The French distiller turned to a patented technology from the skin-care industry, allowing it to safely place caviar coated with an aqueous film into the bottle, infusing it with notes of butter and hazelnut.

Its the first spirits innovation from a Pernod Ricard skunk works tucked away on a cobblestoned side street in Paris. In a startup-like office where water drips from the ceiling and shelves are lined with manuals on blending cocktails with cannabis, eight researchers are pressing ahead with a Silicon Valley-inspired task: disrupt the future of the alcoholic drinks business.

Pernod Ricard is trying to revive a vodka business that centers on the Absolut brand it acquired from Swedish parent Vin & Sprit in 2008. In recent years Absolut has lost the cult status it commanded in the 1980s, when the brand turned to Andy Warhol to illustrate its advertising and rose to become the best-selling imported vodka in the U.S. In 2015, as sales slipped to 11 million cases of a dozen 75-centiliter bottles from about 11.5 million cases two years earlier, Pernod Ricard wrote down the value of Absolut.

The new brand, called LOrbe, reflects the challenges of innovating in an industry where basic production methods have changed little over the years. As sales of mass-market liquor brands slow in developed markets and economic headwinds mount in the emerging world thats driven growth, Pernod Ricard and other distillers are pursuing premiumization, seeking to sell their drinks at a higher price.

Read also: Going halal in fine dining

Cognac, whiskey

Vodka remains the largest spirit in the U.S., accounting for around $18 billion in annual sales, but darker drinks such as cognac and whiskey are growing faster. Vodka is suffering from what a former executive at Smirnoff owner Diageo Plc in 2014 termed flavor fatigue. Smirnoffs dozens of offshoots have included Fluffed Marshmallow and Pineapple Coconut Sorbet, while Pernod Ricard dabbled in Electricity and Fresh-Cut Grass vodkas under the Oddka label.

In the U.S. brown spirits have gained market share partly due to perceived greater authenticity, while fruit-based flavored innovation in vodka seems to have run out of steam, Trevor Stirling, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said by phone.

It hasnt stopped distillers from trying. Last year, Diageo began paying record producer DJ Khaled to promote its Ciroc mango vodka. The company annually wraps its Red, White and Berry Smirnoff bottles in stars-and-stripes packaging in the run-up to U.S. Independence Day celebrations. Camparis Skyy vodka line counts 17 flavors, including Bartlett Pear and Texas Grapefruit.

Now distillers are seeking more sophisticated innovations. Diageo, Pernod Ricards larger competitor, last year turned to a former pharmaceutical chemist to fine-tune the formula for an offshoot of its Johnnie Walker scotch.

Pernod Ricards Breakthrough Innovation Group, in a lab across town from the companys Paris headquarters, previously developed a system for home bartenders that houses spirits in special cartridges linked to a mobile app that measures liquid levels and suggests cocktails to mix. Future projects could rethink glassware or lean on digital innovation, though the company is tight-lipped about its plans.

For its caviar-infused vodka, Pernod Ricard patented a technology developed by Capsum, a cosmetics contractor based on the French Riviera. By 2020, Pernod Ricard aims to sell 100,000 bottles of LOrbe, made at its Absolut distillery in Sweden and flavored with sturgeon eggs from French brand Sturia. While that wont immediately move the needle on the 130 million Absolut bottles sold annually, its an important step in proving that the company is embracing new thinking to breathe life into ailing categories, said Alain Dufosse, who leads the Paris innovation team.

Erwan Castain poses with a bottle of LOrbe vodka.(Bloomberg/Marlene Awaad)

Read also: This job requires you to travel the world and drink cocktails

Niche space

Compared to premium vodka or even the ultra-premium, we are really in a very niche space, Dufosse said in an interview, declining to comment on the innovation groups budget. Vodka is very crowded. Its becoming extremely competitive, but this is an infusion nobody is able to perform unless they have the technology.

In LOrbe, the enrobed caviar sits at the center of the bottle in a narrow column perforated with half a dozen tiny holes. Erwan Castain, a 30-year-old Cornell University masters degree candidate who manages the brands sales, marketing and supply chain, suggests mixing the vodka with Champagne and jasmine syrup, a concoction in which he says the taste of caviar helps soften the spirits hard edges. LOrbe, introduced at London restaurant Sexy Fish, can also be used to glaze seared seafood.

In coming months, Castain will travel to London, New York and Hong Kong to promote the vodka among bartenders and restaurateurs. Pernod Ricards Chief Executive Officer Alexandre Ricard visits the innovation group every few weeks to green-light or mothball projects.

It was easy to pitch the concept of gastronomic drinks to Alex, Castain said. He loves caviar and were bringing spirits back to tables.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017 09:34 2064 a291276806121264c0bd211cde4800a9 1 Science & Tech Google,#Google,Internet,security,password,CAPTCHA Free

To the joy of internet users everywhere, Google has announced that because of evolving spambots and technology, they will never have to input another captcha again.

The captcha system, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, is used by websites to verify whether a user is human. But, as of late, machines have been getting better at reading them than people are.

The last big update was in 2013, when Google implemented the Im not a robot checkbox, which worked by analyzing the click style of a user. If something seemed off and the captcha thought there was a chance of the user being a bot, another test would come up.

But now, with Googles Invisible reCAPTCHA, the program will be able to see that a user is human by analyzing their browsing habits.

Read also: Google Hangouts now competes with Slack, Skype

In a video, the tech giant explained that powering these advances is a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis that adapt to new and emerging threats.

As captchas were also previously used by Google as a crowdsourced transcription system to specify words and numbers that were illegible to Googles own automated system, some people are wondering what the company's incentive for the change might be.

Former Google employee Shuman Ghosemajumder told Popular Science that Google in general  and this is certainly a philosophy that we adhered to when I was there  believed that anything that is good for the internet, is good for Google. (sul/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017 11:03 2064 a291276806121264c0bd211cde484407 1 Lifestyle live-interview,bbc,viral,controversy,#controversy,Racism,South-Korea Free

What began as a lighthearted video has sparked an internet-wide discussion about gender and racism.

It started when a video of international relations professor Robert Kelly's interview about South Korea on BBC began circulating online. While the grainy video was unremarkable at first, in the middle of the interview, Kellys two young children entered the room before a South Korean woman came rushing through the door and tried to guide the children back outside.

As people shared the video, a trend quickly emerged. Commenters and news outlets alike assumed that the woman, Jung-a Kim, was a nanny.

While it is common for families in South Korea to hire nannies, some people feel the assumption that Kim was the nanny rather than the childrens mother and Kellys wife was racist and sexist.

Read also: An ex-employee is calling out a luxury house for racism

Some argued that they were just concerned for Kim and her assumed job, arguing that panic was clearly etched on her face as she pulled the children out of the room. But others challenge the claim, saying she was only acting the way a mother would and was panicked as she naturally did not want the children interrupting her husbands interview.

Kim is not the first Asian woman to face such bias.

A journalist of Indian descent told BBC that while going to work at a regional newspaper, a receptionist mistook her for a custodian and asked her if she was here to clean the kitchen?

"I was surprised when chatting about street harassment with my friends who are white -- they had quite different experiences," said Kumiko Toda, an academic of Japanese descent. "I wonder whether my ethnicity and the perception of East Asian women as being submissive has something to do with the frequency and the nature of the harassment I experience." (sul/kes)
SETUP & DESIGN

The Epson Home Cinema 3900 has an amazing 3LCD chip that provides an excellent picture. It comes with a 250-watt lamp, which brings a big level of brightness that will allow the image to remain bright and clear when lights are on in the viewing room or when windows are open. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is the most portable unit, though. The 3900 is at about 15 pounds and is 16.1" x 12.0" x 6.4" (W x D x H), meaning this is a fairly big unit. I don't see myself or anyone else carrying this in their bag to a friend's house to watch the latest 'Walking Dead' season. The unit has a sleek, curvy off white and gray design with an off center lens that gives ample room for ventilation and fans. Fan noise is very soft when in normal or cinema mode, but when in dynamic mode, the fan ramps up and is a bit noticeable if it isn't mounted to your high ceiling.

The unit has a sleek, curvy off white and gray design with an off center lens that gives ample room for ventilation and fans. Fan noise is very soft when in normal or cinema mode, but when in dynamic mode, the fan ramps up and is a bit noticeable if it isn't mounted to your high ceiling.

That being said, the amount of light this unit produces is well worth the slight noise in certain picture modes. There are also two adjustable knob feet that will give more height to your unit if need be. The lens shift is easy to use and has a 60% vertical shift and a 24% horizontal shift with 1.6x zoom capability, which will allow you to virtually put this unit anywhere and get the best picture. The zoom and focus ability are on the lens itself and is amazingly sharp. Around back, there are two HDMI inputs, one in which has the MHL capability for all of your mobile devices; a USB port for photos, videos, and documents, as well as a mini USB (service only) port; a VGA port for computer hookups; a RS-232C input for controller integration; and a wired LAN connection for internet service.

In addition to that, there is a Trigger Out port and a 1000mA port where you can use an adapter to hook up your favorite devices. The remote itself does not feel cheap in anyway and is nicely backlit. There are individual input buttons and other selectors that go straight to the 3D option. There are color and image enhancement buttons and navigation controls as well. The remote is very easy to use and very responsive. The unit does NOT include 3D glasses, which is unfortunate given the $2000 price tag, but, luckily, my Samsung 3D glasses worked just fine.

All Epson projectors have an excellent and extensive setup menu, where you can toggle with just about every aspect of the image and all of its capabilities. Every setup tab is here from calibration, 3D, signals, inputs, screen position, network and more. After plugging in the Epson 3900 unit in my viewing room and hooking up my Denon via HDMI port with all of my devices, I began setting up the unit. If you want to calibrate your unit, you will find white balance, gamma settings, and all of the color options very easy to toggle. Since Epson did such an excellent job with the 3900, there is very little to adjust here right out of the box. The color modes are Auto, Dynamic, Living Room, Natural, Cinema, 3D Dynamic, 3D Cinema.

Auto is the preferred method, with Dynamic looking the brightest (however, it made the internal fan blow at full blast). There are also a few Image Preset modes and settings where you can adjust tint, color, and sharpness. Frame Interpolation gives you an excellent glossed-over look if that's how you like to watch your films and tv programs. The bulb itself also has three power settings. If you have it on the Eco setting, the bulb will last much longer and have almost zero fan noise. If you go higher than that, you will lose bulb life and gain fan noise. Even on Eco, the brightness is very powerful. The contrast ratio goes up to 120,000:1, which is fantastic. Lastly, there are no internal speakers here. You will have to hook up your own receiver that is connected to your devices and speakers, or connect your speakers directly in, using the correct cord. Otherwise, you won't get any sound with your picture.
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Linkedin Severianus Endi (The Jakarta Post) Pontianak, West Kalimantan  Tue, March 14, 2017

Two orangutans were taken to a rehabilitation center in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, on Monday after residents handed them over to the provinces Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA).

The local residents obtained the two endangered species that they had kept as pets from illegal wildlife traders. They handed them over to the conservation agency voluntarily.

The first orangutan, which is male and now four years old, had been kept as a pet for three years by Yudas, a Jelutung resident in Matan village, Simpang Hilir district, North Kayong regency. Yudas said he bought the orangutan for Rp 400,000 (US$29.92) from a trader in Hulu Sungai village, Menyumbung district. When he bought it, Yudas said, the orangutan was thin and poorly treated by its previous owner.

Hold me tight: A boy holds an orangutan that will be handed over to the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) officials in Ketapang on Monday.(Courtesy of the BKSDA West Kalimantan/File)

The second orangutan is a female and only one year old. Syarif, a Pagelaman resident from Sandai Kanan village, Sandai district, Ketapang regency, had kept her for one month when he handed her over to the BKSDA officers. He bought the orangutan for Rp 500,000 from a resident in Central Kalimantan.

An official from the BKSDA West Kalimantan said the two orangutans were both healthy and they were now treated in a shelter belonging to conservation group Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI) in Ketapang. In the shelter, they will be rehabilitated until they are ready to be released into their natural habitat, he added.

This was the fifth evacuation of orangutans conducted by the BKSDA West Kalimantan in 2017. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Some 20 schools in Bekasi have been prone to brawls with the latest incident claiming three lives, police stated on Monday.

Bekasi Police chief Sr. Comr. Hero Bahtiar said that the police had put the schools under surveillance to prevent the violence from recurring.

"We have mapped schools that are hostile toward each other," Hero said on Monday as quoted by Antara.

Both public and private schools made it on the list as their locations were not too far from each other, he said, but refused to elaborate. "I cannot disclose the names of the schools due to safety reasons.

The surveillance includes having police officers assigned to patrol the schools. "For students who drive themselves, [for instance], we monitor their trips between home and school as they are often found carrying weapons in their vehicles," Hero said.

Aside from the surveillance, the police will also disseminate information about the dangers of brawls to the schools in the city. (dea)
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Despite a claim by a business lobby group that the timber legality assurance system (SVLK) hampers competitiveness in the furniture industry, some furniture producers say it has improved their sales significantly.

Small furniture producer UD Romansa Jati can now export directly to the European Union without using a second party after it obtained SVLK certification in 2013, said the firm's operational manager, Wibi Hanata, during the Indonesian International Furniture Exhibition (IFEX) 2017 on Monday.

He said the company had enjoyed an up to 40 percent profit margin since 2013 from the 10 percent previously.

(Read also: Furniture expo IFEX aims to attract 10,000 visitors)

With the SVLK, buyers from the EU have more confidence in us and we can sell directly to them without using trading companies, and so we enjoy a higher profit margin. Moreover, we can sell products under our own brand and excel faster, Wibi said.

The SVLK has also enabled the firm to participate in more exhibitions, leading to around Rp 1.2 billion (US$89,887) in annual gross revenue in recent years from only Rp 500 million before.

Big exporters like PT Farindojaya Persada have also benefited from having SVLK certification, saying buyers in the EU and the UK always ask about certification and so without it, the firm could not send samples, let alone export.

I think its important for us to ensure buyers that theyre buying products from a wholly legal chain: from upstream to downstream, the firm's director, Robin Lai, said Monday. (bbn)
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Linkedin Mike Stobbe (Associated Press) New York  Tue, March 14, 2017

Men from three Florida counties shouldn't donate sperm because of a small risk of spreading Zika, US health officials said Monday.

The guidance had previously applied to Miami-Dade County, the only place in Florida where there's evidence the virus was spread by mosquitoes. But infections were reported in people in South Florida who couldn't clearly be linked to Miami-Dade.

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the advice should extend to two counties north of Miami  Broward and Palm Beach. The recommendation applies to men who lived or traveled in those counties since June 15.

Zika is mainly spread by mosquito bites but it can also be spread through sex. People can be infected without getting sick, and the virus can remain in semen for months.

There is no evidence of a pregnant women being infected by Zika through a sperm donation, and such a risk is considered low, CDC officials said. Infection during pregnancy can lead to severe brain-related birth defects

The Food and Drug Administration regulates sperm donations, and previously advised sperm banks they shouldn't accept donors if they had been diagnosed with Zika or had been to an area with widespread Zika within the past six months. Sperm banks should consider the CDC's new advice discouraging donations from men in the three counties, an FDA spokeswoman said.

There are 12 sperm donor banks in the three south Florida counties, CDC officials said. While blood donations can be tested for Zika, there's not a good test for semen, according to the FDA.

The last case of mosquito transmission of Zika in Florida was in December. But officials think it's possible the bugs will start spreading it again this summer. Some 221 people got Zika from mosquitoes in the continental US last year, most in the Miami area. There were six case in Texas.

There's no evidence that mosquitoes in Broward or Palm Beach were spreading it, said Dr. Denise Jamieson, who is leading CDC's Zika emergency efforts. She said officials suspect the local infections occurred in Miami-Dade.

"A lot of times people may not realize when they crossed the county line," she said.

Since a large outbreak in Brazil, would-be moms and their sex partners have been told to avoid travel to Zika areas, use condoms or abstain from sex. (**)
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14 2017

The Jakarta administration and the Jakarta Police are investigating the erection of banners in the city warning Muslims not to vote for incumbent Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

In the heated campaign season ahead of the runoff Jakarta gubernatorial election on April 19, several mosques in the city had put up banners emblazoned with messages calling on Muslims not to perform funeral prayers for deceased Muslims found to have supported Ahok, who is a Christian of Chinese descent.

On March 7, a family in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, reported that the authorities of a local mosque near their house had refused to hold burial prayers for their mother, Hindun, because their neighbors knew the 78-year-old woman had voted for Ahok on Feb. 15.

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Linkedin Alan Fram and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (Associated Press) Washington  Tue, March 14, 2017

Fourteen million Americans would lose coverage next year under House Republican legislation remaking the nation's health care system, and that number would balloon to 24 million by 2026, Congress' budget analysts projected Monday. Their report deals a stiff blow to a GOP drive already under fire from both parties and large segments of the medical industry.

The Congressional Budget Office report undercuts a central argument President Donald Trump and Republicans have cited for swiftly rolling back the 2010 health care overhaul: that the insurance markets created under that statute are "a disaster" and about to implode. The congressional experts said the market for individual policies "would probably be stable in most areas under either current law or the (GOP) legislation."

The report also flies in the face of Trump's talk of "insurance for everybody," which he stated in January. He has since embraced a less expansive goal  to "increase access"  advanced by House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans.

Health secretary Tom Price told reporters at the White House the report was "simply wrong" and he disagreed "strenuously," saying it omitted the impact of additional GOP legislation and regulatory changes the Trump administration plans.

In a signal of trouble, Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., leader of a large group of House conservatives, said the report "does little to alleviate" concerns about the bill including tax credits considered too costly.

The budget office's estimates provide a detailed, credible appraisal of the Republican effort to unravel former President Barack Obama's 2010 overhaul. The office has a four-decade history of even-handedness and is currently headed by an appointee recommended by Price when he was a congressman. Trump has repeatedly attacked the agency's credibility, citing its significant underestimate of the number of people who would buy insurance on state and federal exchanges under "Obamacare."

On the plus side for Republicans, the budget office said the GOP measure would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the coming decade. That's largely because it would cut the federal-state Medicaid program for low-income Americans and eliminate subsidies that Obama's law provides to millions of people who buy coverage.

The report also said that while the legislation would push premiums upward before 2020 by an average of 15 to 20 percent compared to current law, premiums would move lower after that. By 2026, average premiums for individuals would be 10 percent lower than under Obama's statute, it said.

The GOP bill would obliterate the tax penalties Obama's law imposes on people who don't buy coverage, and it would eliminate the federal subsidies reflecting people's income and premium costs for millions. It would instead provide tax credits based largely on recipients' ages, let insurers charge more for older people and boost premiums for those who let coverage lapse.

It would phase out Obama's expansion of Medicaid to 11 million additional low earners, cap federal spending for the entire program, repeal taxes the statute imposes and halt federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year.

Administration officials took strong issue with the budget office's projections of lost coverage.

"We believe that our plan will cover more individuals and at a lower cost and give them the choices that they want," Price said.

Ryan, R-Wis., said the GOP legislation "is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage. It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford." In fact, he said on Fox News Channel that the CBO report "exceeded my expectations."

Not in a good way, Democrats said. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the projections show "just how empty the president's promises, that everyone will be covered and costs will go down, have been."

"I hope they would pull the bill. It's really the only decent thing to do," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

The American Medical Association, which has opposed the Republican bill because it would reduce coverage, said the report shows the legislation would cause "unacceptable consequences."

Two House committees approved the legislation last week, and Ryan wants to bring it to the full House next week. Though many Republicans back the bill, conservatives say it doesn't go far enough in repealing Obama's law, while moderates whose states used the statute to expand Medicaid don't want people losing coverage.

GOP leaders hope the Senate will consider the measure before breaking for an early April recess. Opposition from both ends of the Republican spectrum suggests senators might demand significant changes.

The budget office attributed projected increases in uninsured Americans to the GOP bill's elimination of tax penalties for people who don't buy insurance, reduced federal subsidies for many people who buy policies and the Medicaid reductions.

By 2026, the office estimated, a total of 52 million people would lack insurance, including 28 million expected to lack coverage under Obama's statute.

Though Republican tax credits would be less generous than Obama's, the combination of those credits and other changes to lower premiums would attract enough healthy people to stabilize markets under the new plan, the report said.

The budget office sees federal spending on Medicaid declining by $880 billion over the coming decade  about 25 percent lower than current projections. That would push about 14 million low-income people off the program.

Average premiums are ultimately expected to fall, but that would vary for people of different ages because, contrary to Obama's law, Republicans would let older people be charged more.

The report estimates that individuals' out-of-pocket costs under the GOP bill "would tend to be higher than those anticipated under current law." That runs counter to another claim from the president  that his health care plan would offer "much lower deductibles."

CBO had predicted 23 million people would enroll in online marketplaces under Obama's law but the actual number was 12 million, largely because it overestimated how the individual mandate would prompt them to buy coverage.

___

AP reporters Julie Pace, Ken Thomas, Erica Werner and Matthew Daly contributed to this report. (**)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

The South Jakarta District Court rejected a pretrial motion filed by former state-owned enterprises minister Dahlan Iskan challenging his suspect status in a graft case. Judge Made Sutrisna read out the courts decision in a hearing on Tuesday.

[...] declare that the objection filed by the plaintiff cannot be accepted and have decided to reject his pretrial motion, said Made as quoted by kompas.com.

In its consideration, the courts panel of judge said the naming of Dahlan as a suspect by the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) was in accordance with the law. The judges also concluded that the minimum requirement of two pieces of evidence had been fulfilled. The fulfillment had been stated in a Supreme Court ruling on a cassation request filed by Sarimas Ahmadi Pratama director Dasep Ahmadi, the convict in the case.

The suspect naming conducted by the defendant [AGO] referred to the courts ruling on convict Ahmadi, which is valid and legally binding, said Made.

The AGO named Dahlan a suspect on Jan. 26 in a corruption case revolving around the procurement of 16 electric cars. The 16 cars were used as passenger shuttles during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Bali in 2013.

The AGO also named Ahmadi and Agus Suherman, former partnership and environmental program head at the SOE Ministry, suspects. Ahmadi was later found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Dahlan has also been named a suspect in another graft case related to the sale of the assets of an East Java province-owned company. (dis/ebf)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14 2017

Around 70 houses and three motorcycles owned by garbage collectors were razed in a fire in Pondok Bambu, Duren Sawit, East Jakarta, on Monday morning.

The fire was allegedly caused by an electrical short circuit.

The incident occurred when the garbage collectors were out sorting trash at temporary trash disposal sites (TPS) on Jl. Kejaksaan, also in East Jakarta. No casualties were reported in the incident.

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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

After being delayed for more than two years, negotiations for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) between Indonesia and Chile resumed on Monday and will run until Tuesday.

Iman Pambagyo, international trade negotiations director general with the Trade Ministry, said the negotiations were important for Indonesian trade to penetrate the Latin American market.

It is crucial to penetrate Chile and other third-world countries in the Latin America region because Chile has dozens of FTAs [free trade agreements] with more than 60 countries worldwide, he told reporters after opening the second round of negotiations on Monday.

The first round of the negotiations took place on May 23-24, 2014 in Santiago, Chile, but could not be immediately followed up after the change in government.

Iman said both governments wished to see negotiations conclude this year.

Indonesia aims to export more of its crude palm oil (CPO), margarine, vegetable oil, rubber and furniture, besides its current export of footwear and automotive products to the country. Chiles main exports to Indonesia, meanwhile, are copper and fishery feed.

Total trade between the two countries stands at US$227.15 million. Exports from Indonesia have declined 2.4 percent to $143.81 million, while imports from Chile have decreased drastically by 52.06 percent to $83.34 million, Trade Ministry data shows. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

The government is holding an event to attract foreign investors called Indonesia Investment Week Singapore Chapter 2017, which started on Monday and will end on Wednesday.

It is the first Indonesian Investment Week organized outside Indonesia.

The event at Marina Bay Sands will feature various activities, including an exhibition, a business forum and one-on-one meetings with businesspeople, said Zaidin A. Zaiti, the president director of PT Eksibit Internasional, which organized the event, as reported by tempo.co.

The event is expected to welcome more than 5,000 international business people in Singapore, Zaidin said on Tuesday, adding that it was expected to speed up infrastructure development in Indonesia.

Indonesian Ambassador to Singapore Ngurah Swajaya said the two countries would soon commemorate their 50th year of diplomatic relations and the Indonesian Embassy would organize various events to mark the occasion.

The Indonesian Embassy in Singapore welcomes Indonesia Investment Week with the hope that it will be integrated into events to commemorate the 50th anniversary, Ngurah said.

Ngurah said the event was supported by a number of institutions including the National Economy and Industrial Commission, the Trade Ministrys Export Development Directorate General, the Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry, the Investment Coordinating Board, Agriculture Ministry and Industry Ministry. (bbn)
Seems the man who writes the New York Times best-selling Longmire mystery books is a bit of a mystery himself.

Craig Johnson rode out of a ranch somewhere in Montana to deliver some horses near Ucross, Wyoming, and fell in love with the Bighorn Mountains area.

He scraped together the money to buy some land, he said in a phone interview from Los Angeles last week, and built a 24-by-36-foot log cabin, where he pens his popular tales about Sheriff Walt Longmire and his memorable sidekicks.

Johnson speaks at 6:30 p.m. today (Tuesday, March 14), at St. Pauls United Methodist Church. The event is sponsored by the Lewis & Clark Library.

Somewhere in the past, Johnson picked up some life experiences and a few writing classes, which have served him well, garnering him a number of writing awards for the Longmire books.

Among them, the Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/BibliObs, the Wyoming State Historical Associations Book of the Year, Frances Le Prix 813, the Western Writers of Americas Spur Award, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Book of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, the Watson Award for a mystery novel with the best sidekick, and the Library Journals Best Mystery of the Year.

As to where Johnson grew up: I bounced around a lot all over the place, Johnson said, adding that his father worked for AT&T.

I didnt see myself as a writer at all, he said of his youthful ideas about his future career. But one day in Ucross he ran out of excuses and started writing, which became his first Longmire novel, The Cold Dish.

Johnson credits some of his interest in writing to his family, saying his parents loved to read and that he comes from a long line of storytellers.

This could be where he got his ear for scintillating dialog and the distinctive voice of each character, something Johnsons readers have particularly come to appreciate.

Its really important for me to understand the way that people talk, he said. Writers need to pay close attention to that or an awful lot of their characters sound alike.

Whenever youre writing a novel, its kind of like conducting a choral group, each one of the voices is there for a specific purpose.

You have to make sure you get the right characters with the right voices to tell the story you want to tell.

Hes also tuned into the natural world around him.

You tend to forget how epic, and beautiful and romantic the high plains can be, and the whole area of Wyoming and Montana, he said. Its very important for me to be able to convey that ... and capture whats really spectacular and unique about where it is we live."

Tuesday night he will likely read a little bit from one of his books, talk a little and tell stories, he said. Hell also show a few clips of the hit A&E drama, "Longmire," and open up the talk for questions.

As to authenticity in his mysteries, Johnson often finds crime stories in small town newspapers. An awful lot of the cases come from actual cases, he said, particularly if they have something culturally or sociologically to say.

Hes not interested in just stacking up bodies like cordwood.

He also does ride-alongs with Montana and Wyoming sheriffs to get a feel for what the job is like.

One of the joys of the process is actually doing the research, he said. The books have to stay real.

He doesnt want Walt chasing al-Qaeda through Wyoming. I want him dealing with things that Western sheriffs deal with. Thats a key element.

Longmire isnt what most readers picture as a western sheriff. He was an English major at USC. His office is the towns former Carnegie Library, and he likes to read.

Johnson decided if he was going to be in Walts head for 350 pages, Walt should be smart, well read and have a sense of humor.

In fact, Walt is often thinking about the book hes reading at the time, which is then somewhat woven into the story line. So you will likely find quotes by Shakespeare, Dickens, Dante, Steinbeck and more.

Johnson refuses to pick his favorite Longmire title, joking that hed have to ask all his other books to leave the room.

He has a knack for skillfully weaving humor and sometimes hilarious dialogue throughout -- particularly spilling from the lips of Walts longtime buddy, Henry Standing Bear, and of course the irreverent and sometimes incendiary quips of Deputy Victoria Morretti.

Another element Longmire readers have come to admire is how Johnson weaves in Native American spirituality.

Johnson takes guidance on this from his Cheyenne and Crow friends.

Its very important that I get that right, he said, and navigate that world with knowledge and respect.

His next book, The Western Star, will be out in September. It pays homage to Agatha Christie.

Its a story that goes back in time to Walts earliest days as a deputy.

Twenty-four armed sheriffs start out on a steam locomotive train ride as part of a junket by the Wyoming Sheriffs Association, but not that many will return.

Adult Services Librarian Suzanne Schwichtenberg said she's delighted that Lewis & Clark Library is hosting Johnsons visit.

His books arent only popular, hes internationally acclaimed, she said, and theyre liked by men and women.

Hes been the One Book One City choice for multiple cities around the country. Wyoming picked him as their One Book Wyoming a few years back.
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Linkedin Francis Chan (The Straits Times/ANN) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

The Indonesian commander of Southeast Asian militants among the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was killed on Monday in a botched suicide attack on Syrian troops.

Bachrumsyah died after the explosive-laden car he was driving towards a Syrian Arab Army unit in Palmyra blew up prematurely, according to Al-Masdar News.

ISIS confirmed the death of Bahrumsyah on Tuesday but claimed in a post on social media that the attack by "Abu Muhammad al Indonesi" was successful in causing damage on their enemy.

Abu Muhammad al Indonesi, is the nom de guerre of Bachrumsyah.

He had gained notoriety in 2014 after appearing in a recruitment video, calling for militants in his native Indonesia, Malaysia and others in the region to join ISIS.

This came after the Indonesian was reportedly hand-picked by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to lead the battalion of foreign fighters from Southeast Asia.

The United States had put him on its terrorists watchlist due to his links with ISIS in January - the same month rumors surfaced in Syria that he had been killed in combat.

His third wife, Nia Kurniawati, was among 17 Indonesians deported from Turkey in January after trying to enter Syria, said Indonesian police last month.

Nia has since been placed in a deradicalization program in a shelter located in East Jakarta.

Indonesia has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks after four militants struck in downtown Jakarta on Jan 14 last year.

ISIS had directly funded the hit on Jakarta, according to the Indonesian police.

Some analysts believe Bachrumsyah may have communicated the order from ISIS central command to mount the attack on Jakarta.

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

The Supreme Court is murder convict Jessica Kumala Wongso's last resort to avoid a prison sentence of 20 years now that the Jakarta High Court has turned down her appeal.

Jessicas lead counsel Otto Hasibuan said his client was frustrated over the courts decision, which was read out in a hearing on March 7. He emphasized that, however, both Jessica and her legal team believed a miracle could still happen at the Supreme Court.

Otto said he was currently preparing a cassation dossier for Jessicas case that he would file within the next two weeks. He said, however, he had not yet received the copy of the Jakarta High Courts verdict.

Definitely, we will file a cassation request. My experience has shown me it is very unlikely for us to get good results in a high court, so I did not put a lot of hope on my clients trial at that court, Otto said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

On Oct. 27, the Central Jakarta District Courts judge panel declared Jessica guilty of murdering her friend, Wayan Mirna Salihin. The ruling was controversial because of a lack of evidence from eyewitnesses that could prove Jessica put cyanide into Mirnas coffee when they shared a table at the Olivier Cafe in Central Jakarta on Jan. 6.

Judge Partahi Tulus Hutapea said the judges decision to use circumstantial evidence to determine Jessica's guilty was legitimate due to the fact it was Jessica who had ordered the Vietnamese iced coffee and she was the only one who had access to the coffee before Mirna drank it. (idb/ebf)
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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo assembled on Tuesday dozens of leaders of state institutions at the State Palace in Jakarta to discuss various challenges the government faced.

Leaders of the House of Representatives, the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and the Judicial Commission, among others, arrived at the State Palace at 11:30 a.m.

It was the first time this year that President Jokowi held such a meeting.

The meeting took place just several days after the Jakarta Corruption Court started the trial of an e-ID card graft case, in which several high-ranking officials have been implicated, including Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly and House Speaker Setya Novanto. Both were present at Tuesdays meeting.

In his opening speech, Jokowi said communication among state institutions was the key in their work to support government programs.

Unity is also important in tackling global challenges the government faces, he added.

The e-ID case, which caused Rp 2.3 trillion (US$172.09 million) in state losses, was not mentioned in Jokowi's opening speech.

The President said in an earlier statement the case had prevented the Home Ministry from finishing biometric data recording of 230 million people on time.

The meeting was closed to reporters after Jokowi made his two-minute opening remarks to participants of the meeting. On Oct.26, Jokowi gathered leaders of state institutions to brief them about his plan on legal reform. (ebf)
A plan to alter the powers of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is lurking behind a high-profile corruption case, raising concerns that efforts to weaken the antigraft body will weaken the countrys fight against corruption.

The House of Representatives has been conducting workshops at several universities after disseminating information on the planned revision.

Mounting pressure from the public and anticorruption activists halted the deliberation of the amendment of the 2002 KPK Law last year.

However, the House apparently had something up its sleeves as it had been conducting workshops at several universities as an initial step of formal discussions on the proposed law revision. The revision is not among 49 priority bills to be discussed this year by the House and government.

The Houses expert body, tasked with studying a bill before being discussed, held the workshops at Andalas University in West Sumatra and National University in Jakarta. It plans to hold two more workshops at the University of North Sumatra and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta by the end of the month.

House deputy speaker Agus Hermanto of the Democratic Party said there was no ill-intent posed by the workshops, as the House held the events to assess whether people supported an amendment to the law.

He also denied the revision had anything to do with the e-ID graft case currently be heard at the Jakarta Corruption Court. The first hearing of the trial last week revealed not only the alleged detailed scheme arranged by lawmakers to plunder the state budget but also several big names allegedly involved in the case that caused Rp 2.3 trillion (US$172 million) in state loses.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo agreed in February last year with then House speaker Ade Komaruddin to postpone discussions on the proposed revision of the law on account of widespread protests across the country. The bill itself had been raised by lawmakers since 2015.

The proposed revisions of the law included provisions considered to be aimed at weakening the KPKs power. They include: the formation of a KPK supervisory body, the revocation of the agencys sole right to wiretap, restrictions on hiring independent investigators and requirements to drop a case.

Last year, seven factions backing the government, including the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), supported the revision, with three factions, the Gerindra Party, the Democratic Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) having opposed it.

The KPK has lambasted the House for its efforts to promote a revision that would curb the agencys power in combating corruption.

We do not need the amendment. The KPK can do its job with the authorities stated in the prevailing law. And we use those authorities to handle [corruption] cases, including the recent e-ID case, KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said on Monday.

He said the provisions in the bill would wane the KPKs efforts to eradicate rampant corruption in the country.

If the bill becomes a law, the KPK will no longer be capable of carrying out stings.

The revision plan has been opposed by a number of civil society organizations, including the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), which recently published a study of the bill in which it found that it would hamper anticorruption efforts in Indonesia.

Some observers have also suggested that the House focus on discussing other bills deemed more crucial and urgent. Of the 51 priority bills listed last year, the House only finished discussing 10 of them. The latest global corruption report by Transparency International Indonesia (TII) released last week listed the House as the institution judged by Indonesians to be the most corrupt. (mrc)
They betrayed my trust, Santa said when The Jakarta Post visited the 43-year-old father-of-one at the Salemba detention center in Central Jakarta, recently. He repeated the phrase several times throughout the conversation, expressing strong disappointment in his business colleagues, several Chinese nationals whom Santa believes put him on death row.

It all started in April last year when Santa, who ran a small business offering driving services, got an order to pick up four Chinese nationals at Jakartas SoekarnoHatta International Airport.

One order led to another, and the Chinese men became his business partners in distributing childrens toys imported from China.

One of the men, whom he referred as Jia Bo, called him on the evening of June 3 last year, asking him to come to a toy warehouse in North Jakarta for a Mandarin-Indonesian translation job.

Alas, 12 police officers from the Jakarta Police were waiting when he arrived and immediately arrested Santa over allegations of possessing 20 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, locally known as shabu-shabu. The police also arrested four other Chinese men that evening, Tan Weiming aka Aming, Shaoyan aka Xiao Yan Zi, Shi Jiayi aka Jia Bo and Qui Junjie aka Junji.

The West Jakarta District Court sentenced Santa to death on March 3, but the court sentenced the four Chinese citizens to life imprisonment.

All of them were indicted under articles 112, 113 and 114 of Law No. 35/2009 on narcotics. The law stipulates sentences of a minimum of six years and a maximum life sentence for drugs trafficking. Santas lawyers from the Jakarta-based Community Legal Aide Institute (LBH Masyarakat) slammed the sentence as blatant injustice.

LBH Masyarakat decried the sentence due to several irregularities, one of which was the absence of a lawyer during an interrogation by the Jakarta Polices investigator on June 4. Santa was allegedly forced to admit that he imported the meth and that he had consumed the drugs. A urine test later showed that Santa was clean, said one of his lawyers, Muhammad Afif.

Afif said the trial was illegitimate because so many hearings had been delayed due to the failure of prosecutors to present witnesses and translators. We were given only 30 minutes to prepare our final defense statement, Afif added, elaborating that the defendant would normally have at least seven days to prepare the final defense statement. It seems like the trial was a mere formality and that the judges had made their decision before the end of the process.

Human rights campaigners have called on the government to impose a moratorium on capital punishment due to the countrys corrupt legal system and have denounced President Joko Jokowi Widodos decisiveness on the policy.

In a recent hearing with the House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs, Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo reaffirmed that Indonesia would continue to use death penalty.

Prasetyo admitted that the government had temporarily put executions on hold to avoid criticism while Indonesia was vying to be a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Over the weekend, at least seven death row convicts were transferred to the secluded prison island Nusakambangan in Cilacap, West Java, along with 50 convicts from various penitentiaries in the country.

An authority in charge of Nusakambangan, Abdul Aris, confirmed this. Its true. Fifty prisoners from Salemba [penitentiary] and six from the Magelang [penitentiary] were transferred here on Friday [last week], he said.

The last time death row convicts were executed on Nusakambangan was in July 2016. Four drug convicts were executed from the 14 listed at the time, including an Indonesian man and three Nigerians.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

A team from the Environment and Forestry Ministry is set to examine the damage caused to coral reefs in Raja Ampat, Papua, when a UK cruise ship, the MV Caledonian Sky, ran aground in shallow waters in the area.

Our team will dive to check the level of the damage, said Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya as quoted by kompas.com at the State Palace in Jakarta on Monday. The minister said she could not yet confirm how many square meters of the coral reefs had been damaged by the cruise ship.

Siti said the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministry would coordinate the handling of the incident, in which the Environment and Forestry Ministry would specifically handle the damaged coral reefs and prepare measures to bring the environmental destruction case to justice.

(Read also: Cruise ship smashes into coral in Raja Ampat)

As there was still no clear data on the extent of the damage to the coral reefs, Siti said, the ministry did not yet know how large a fine it would seek from the MV Caledonian Skys owner.

I do not yet known exactly. I will let you know if there is progress [in the investigation]. Actually, its not only about the extent of the damaged coral reefs. We have to truly consider the value of its natural richness, said Siti.

The Caledonian Sky passed through Raja Ampat waters on March 4 to bring 102 tourists on board to enjoy birdwatching on Waigeo. The ship became trapped in shallow waters. A rescue boat attempted to pull the ship out of the waters when it was not yet in high tide, causing damage to the coral reefs in the area. (dis/ebf)
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Linkedin Edith M. Lederer (Associated Press) United Nations  Tue, March 14, 2017

North Korea on Monday tried to shift the blame for the deadly attack in Malaysia on the estranged half- brother of its leader Kim Jong Un to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea's deputy UN ambassador, Kim In Ryong, told a news conference that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system.

Malaysian authorities say Kim Jong Nam died after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feb. 13, but North Korea  which is widely suspected to be behind the attack  rejects the findings.

Ambassador Kim said the cause of Kim Jong Nam's death "has not yet been clearly identified, but the United States and the South Korean authorities are groundlessly blaming the DPRK," using the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

He asked why the person who applied the VX agent, which is fatal if a tiny amount is inhaled, is still alive while the man it was applied to died.

The ambassador asserted that the US is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX and that it has stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

"It is a final aim sought by the United States to store up the international repugnancy towards the DPRK," he said of the attack, with the intention of provoking a "nuclear war against DPRK at any cost."

"So the US and South Korea were starting the political chicanery to bring down the social system in DPRK," the ambassador said.

He said the DPRK will respond by continuing to bolster its defenses "and the capability for the pre-emptive strike with a nuclear force."

The North Korean envoy held a press conference at UN headquarters in New York after the DPRK boycotted a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which was addressed by its special investigator on human rights in the reclusive northeast Asian nation.

Tomas Ojea Quintana told the council that tensions caused by North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear tests are jeopardizing efforts to improve human rights in the secretive country.

"Military tensions have brought human rights dialogue with the DPRK to a standstill," he said.

The council report was the first by Ojea Quintana, who is from Argentina, since he took the post last year.

He also pointed to concerns about the "human cost of sanctions" by the UN Security Council that have aimed to block North Korea's access to ballistic and nuclear weapons technology.

Ambassador Kim reiterated the DPRK's claim that the six progressively tougher sanctions resolutions imposed after the North's nuclear and missile test are illegal.

He accused the UN Secretariat of failing to respond to a DPRK request nearly three months ago to organize a forum of legal experts to clarify the legal grounds for the sanctions resolutions.

Kim reiterated claims that the United States and South Korea are conducting joint military drills "for a real war aimed at a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the DPRK by mobilizing lots of strategic assets and armed forces."

The ambassador was asked at the press conference whether the DPRK was open for talks with the Trump administration, either bilaterally or through a resumption of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks which have been stalled since 2009.

Kim didn't reply but sent the mission's spokesman Jo Jong Chol out afterward to say: "We are not interested in any kind of talks ... which is aiming to make the DPRK to abandon its nuclear program."

"We regard the lifting of the (US) hostile policy toward the DPRK is the fundamental issue to address all kinds of issues ... between the two countries," Jo said.

___

Associated Press Writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report from Geneva (**)
After weeks of screening, a government-appointed committee announced on Monday a shortlist of candidates for the Financial Services Authority (OJK) board of commissioners,

The nine-member selection committee, sanctioned by President Joko Jokowi Widodo and chaired by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, announced that 21 candidates, mostly government bureaucrats, had made it to the shortlist.

President Jokowi will select 14 names from the list before handing it over to the House of Representative, which will then conduct hearings to pick seven OJK commissioners.

The list of candidates proposed to the President, comprises individuals whose backgrounds include Bank Indonesia (BI), the OJK itself as well as the banking industry. A smaller number of candidates are from the Finance Ministry, academia and government institutions.

Prominent candidates with backgrounds in the banking industry include former chairman of the National Banks Association (Perbanas) Sigit Pramono and and current president director of state-owned pawnshop Pegadaian Riswinandi.

The shortlist, however, contains no candidates who have experience in the non-bank financial sector or capital markets. The strongest contender for future commissioner for capital market supervision is Nurhaida, the only OJK incumbent to make it to the list.

The committee did not do a good job in selecting candidates from the non-bank financial sector. From what I see, the government has only focused on developing the banking sector, said Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) economist Bhima Y. Adhinegara.

Bhima said he was concerned that the absence of non-bank financial sector and capital market figures would provide no incentives for the two sectors amid the fast-changing environment and the need to push financing for micro, small and medium businesses.

Compared to the banking industry, the non-bank sector comprising, among other fields, insurance, multifinance and pension fund, continues to have large untapped potential to grow with a limited number of players, said SKHA Institute for Global Competitiveness chief economist Eric Sugandi.

Ideally, a future commissioner for non-bank supervision should have adequate knowledge [of the sector]. It would be better if they had experience in that sector either as a practitioner or regulator.

The 21 names on the shortlist, were selected from 30 candidates who made it to the last selection phase, a face-to-face interview, after five candidates flunked the third stage in the screening process; the medical checkup and managerial assessment.

The President has 12 days until March 29 to pick 14 individuals he can recommend to the House for confirmation hearings, which are expected to wrap up on June 6.

The Supreme Court is expected to swear in appointees approved by the House on July 20.

Members of the selection committee acknowledged the lack of candidates from the sector, which was the result of the small number of candidates from that background applying in the first stage of selection. Despite their lack of exposure to the industry, some candidates have expressed their willingness to take any position related to non-bank supervision.

Committee member Tony Prasetiantono, an economics professor with the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) said he had even asked some of his friends from the non-bank financial sector to join the selection process, but none responded.

All committee members, including Sri Mulyani, said they were satisfied with the whole selection process as the parties involved in helping their task, such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) as well as the public, had provided complete historical and current data on the candidates backgrounds.

----

Anton Hermansyah contributed to this story
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

A Jakarta city councilor has criticized authorities and political parties for their late response to hate banners placed across the capital.

Gembong Warsono, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the banners had been around the city since the campaign period ahead of the first round of the Jakarta gubernatorial election.

"Where were you? The banners had been there all this time and you are just taking them down now. That is too late," Gembong said during a meeting with the Jakarta administration in relation to preparations for the second round of the election on Tuesday.

He also criticized fellow councilors for their silence over the messages on the banners that discredited incumbent candidate Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who is a Christian of Chinese descent.

The messages have affected a family that claimed the authorities of a mosque in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, denied their request to hold prayers for their deceased mother on March 10. The deceased was found to have voted for Ahok in the Feb. 15 election.

The city administration removed 266 hate banners across the city on Tuesday.
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Criminal law expert from Gajah Mada University, Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, testified on Tuesday that the prosecutors decision to indict Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama under alternative charges showed their doubts about the validity of the blasphemy case.

According to the indictment, by commenting about Surah Al Maidah 51 during his visit to Thousand Islands on Sept. 27, Ahok violated either Article 156 or Article 156, section A, of the Criminal Code, which carry maximum sanctions of four years and five years in prison, respectively.

The alternative indictments show the prosecutors doubts in determining the appropriate charge [against Ahok]. Therefore, theyve handed it over it to the judges, Edward said.

Edward, who during the investigation was a prosecution witness, said that he was unsure about the blasphemy element in this case.

Based on the law, someone who committed blasphemy should have the intention to do so, Edward said.

In this case, to prove the defendants intention, the court should not only consider Ahoks speech but also his behavior in his daily life to see whether he had ever shown hostility toward Muslims, he said

To prove hostility, [I] suggest the court listen to gestures experts to reveal the defendants expression [while he commented on the Quranic verse]. The hearing should be holistic and involve interdisciplinary approaches, he said.

(Read also: Criminal expert, witnesses to testify at Ahok's hearing)

Edward said that if the judges doubted the blasphemy element, in this case, they should uphold the principle of in dubio pro reo, which meant they should rule in favor of the defendant. (dan)
To Sen. Daines:

During your recent visit to Helena, you took the time to visit private, tuition-paid schools.

If you really support education for all children, a visit to a public school should have been included in your schedule.

Eighty percent of Montana students receive an education in public schools. All children need an excellent education, including the children of residents who voted for you.

Your next visit to Montana should include a public school.

These students and their parents would benefit from knowing that you care about their future as well.

Judy Grebenc

Helena
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Tue, March 14, 2017

After losing in a pretrial hearing, Medan Police released the chairman of North Sumatra Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia (PHDI), Siwaji Raja, from police detention only to immediately arrest him again on Tuesday.

The rearrest triggered protests from dozens of Siwajis relatives, who had been waiting for his release. Amid the unrest, the police were able to take Siwaji away from the crowd and send him back to police detention.

Siwaji had previously filed a pretrial motion against investigators decision to name him a suspect in the murder of businessman Indra Gunawan, who was shot dead in front of his shop on Jan. 18.

During the pretrial hearing at the Medan District Court on Monday, sole judge Erintuah Damanik ordered the police to immediately release Siwaji and annul his suspect status. The judge said he accepted Siwajis petition because the witnesses presented by the police were considered weak.

In addition, Damanik said, the death of the prime suspect, Kuna Rawi Indra, who was shot dead by police during his arrest last February, had also weakened the polices investigation.

(Read also: Murder suspects shot dead)

Police chief Sr. Comr. Sandi Nugroho said they respected the courts decision hence the brief release. However, investigators held a case screening overnight that concluded Siwaji could be named a suspect again.

We have made a whole new case dossier and named him a suspect again. Therefore, after we released him, he arrested him again, he said, adding that he was confident the police now had stronger evidence.

Siwaji had been detained since February. The police have also arrested six other suspects in the murder. (dis)
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Linkedin Seto Wardhana (The Jakarta Post) Raja Ampat, West Papua  Tue, March 14 2017

A local initiative in Raja Ampat, West Papua, is finding a solution for how to conserve nature through tourism.

The communities on the Fam Islands and Mayalibit Bay, Raja Ampat regency, West Papua, seem to believe in the idea of nurturing Mother Earth instead of destroying her as conservation efforts will bring so much more to the people.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Sharia-compliant lenders have agreed to disburse Rp 3 trillion (US$224.6 million) in syndicated loans before the end of the first quarter to finance the capital expenditure of state-owned electricity firm Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) in 2017.

The syndicated loans will involve at least six lenders, namely Bank Syariah Mandiri (BSM), Bank BRI Syariah, Bank BNI Syariah, Bank BCA Syariah, Bank BJB Syariah and Aceh Regional Development Bank (BPD). BSM will act as the lead arranger of the loans.

BRI Syariah, a subsidiary of state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), is expected to disburse Rp 750 billion of the total syndicated loans.

(Read also: Government mulls setting up sharia economic zone in Jakarta)

BNI Syariah, a subsidiary of state-owned lender Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), will disburse Rp 500 billion, while BCA Syariah, a subsidiary of the country's largest private lender Bank Central Asia (BCA), will disburse Rp 200 billion.

PLNs total capital expenditure stands at around Rp 5 trillion, said Dhias Widhiyati, BNI Syariahs senior executive vice president for commercial and medium businesses, as reported by kontan.co.id on Sunday.

However, the loan portion of each bank is still tentative, as it depends on the approval from PLN.

Last year, the number of PLNs consumers rose by 5 percent to 64.3 million people. The total consumption of electricity among subsidized consumers also increased by 5.3 percent to 75.6 terawatt hours (TWh) on the backdrop of a fall in the price of electricity by 4 percent to Rp 998.47. As a result, PLNs net profits plummeted by 30.9 percent to Rp 10.76 trillion. (vir/bbn)
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Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta, Central Java  Tue, March 14, 2017

The mayor of Surakarta in Central Java, FX Hadi Rudy Rudyatmo, has said he is ready to participate in the campaigns of candidate pair Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat in the second round of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election.

The mayor said he would come to Jakarta every Saturday and Sunday to drum up the support of voters who were from Surakarta.

Its a party assignment, so I have to implement it. Fortunately, many residents of Surakarta and its surrounding areas currently hold a Jakarta resident identity card, said Rudy, on Tuesday, referring to his party the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Rudys participation in the runoff election campaign is based on an instruction from PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri. All regional members are requested to depart for Jakarta to support Ahok-Djarot, he said.

Rudy said he personally would cover all Surakarta-Jakarta transportation expenses, insisting that he would not take a penny from the Surakarta regional budget (APBD) to support his activities.

No APBD funds will be used. As a party officer, Im ready to campaign for the election of the Ahok-Djarot pair as the Jakarta governor and deputy governor, he said.

Rudy said his campaign activities would run from March 18 until polling day scheduled for April 19. During the campaign, he would not take leave. I guarantee this campaign will not disrupt my tasks as mayor because it will be conducted only on weekends, he said, claiming he had special strategies to get Ahok-Djarot elected. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Tax collection has reached Rp 134.6 trillion in January and February, 10.29 percent of the 2017 target, says Finance Ministrys taxation directorate general.

Taxation directorate general's tax compliance director Yon Arsal said on Tuesday that the figure was higher than 8.15 percent of the January and February target collection or Rp 124.4 trillion.

It is a good signal, Yon said on Tuesday, as reported by tribunnews.com, adding that last year, his office could collect 9.18 percent from the annual target.

(Read also: Government to reform tax to fight widening inequality)

This year, the government expects to collect a total of Rp 1,498.8 trillion of tax revenue.

Previously, Faisal Basri, a University of Indonesia economist, said the governments target was too ambitious. He said that in 2016, the government set a target of Rp 1.529 trillion, which was 24.11 percent higher than the tax revenue in 2015.

He said in 2016, the government could only collect Rp 1,284 tax revenue, including Rp 103.3 trillion from tax amnesty.

With the slow global economy, it is unlikely that the 2017 target could be achieved, Faisal added. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto has said US Vice President Mike Pence will visit Indonesia and meet with President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

He said the information was conveyed by US Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph R. Donovan Jr. during a meeting at Wiranto's office in Central Jakarta on Monday.

Wiranto explained that during the meeting, he and Donovan discussed matters that would be highlighted during the Jokowi-Pence meeting, kompas.com reported.

He said several strategic issues that would be discussed involved relations between the two countries. He could not give details on when the meeting would take place.

What we discussed was not about the time of the planned visit but more about the substance of matters the US vice president could use as a guideline in his talks with President Jokowi. It is related to strategic matters that could be discussed in their meeting, said Wiranto. (dis/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

Construction services firm PT Waskita Beton Precast, a subsidiary of state-owned general contractor PT Waskita Karya, plans to spend Rp 1.9 trillion (US$142.07 million) this year mainly on two new factories.

Waskita Beton Precast president director Jarot Subana said Tuesday that it would build a new precast factory in Paser Penajam regency, East Kalimantan, as well as acquire a local precast company in Medan, North Sumatra. The expansion would be funded by capital expenditure sourced from the remaining funds of its initial public offering (IPO) last year, he added.

The two factories will raise the firms production capacity to 3.5 million tons of precast each year.

At present, with 10 factories, we can produce 2.65 million tons [of precast] a year and theres extra output from our two temporary factories in Palembang, South Sumatra, and Sidoarjo, East Java, totaling 200,000 tons each, Jarot said.

(Read also: Waskita Beton eyes Rp 12.3 trillion contracts in 2017)

This years expansion is part of Waskita Betons plan to strengthen its business outside Java by expanding new facilities until 2018, which will require Rp 4 trillion in total.

It aims to gain Rp 1.1 trillion in net profits this year, up 73.3 percent from Rp 634.81 billion in 2016.

An extraordinary shareholders meeting agreed that half of the firms 2016 net profit would be given to shareholders as dividends, while 45 percent would be kept as retained profit and the remaining 5 percent would serve as reserve profit. (yon/lnd)
Villagers in West Papua have vowed not to let their forests be encroached by logging and palm oil companies, like what happened on Sumatra and Kalimantan where massive deforestation has posed threats to the natural environment.

Although Papua is still home to vast forests, which provide a livelihood for many villagers, the island is not free from the palm oil industry or illegal logging.

In recent years, West Papua saw expansion of the palm oil industry as business boomed in certain regencies. However, villagers have been fending off the expansion of the palm oil industry in several regions, like Sira village in South Sorong regency.

We cant live peacefully if companies enter our area. This is where we live. If companies expand into our area, sago plantations will be closed and destroyed, 54-year-old Yoel Semere said while sitting on a hill overlooking a large swath of pristine forests.

The village, home to 37 households and 186 people living on 2,000 hectares with 1,850 ha making up the forest area, is no stranger to industry expansion. The villagers recorded that from 1995 to 2003 a logging company was in the villages forests, which are home to merbau trees, the number one timber commodity on the island.

The villagers successfully campaigned against the company with the help of several non-governmental organizations, forcing the company to stop its operation in the region.

Still, the villagers cannot rest easy as palm oil companies have started to expand operations in the region in recent years.

The villagers rely on the forests. Besides growing sago as their main food, the villagers sell nontimber products, such as rattan, at the market at Tanembuan, the capital of South Sorong, some 10 kilometers away from the village.

Data from Greenpeace Indonesia shows there are about 48 palm oil companies that have permits in Papua and West Papua, with the size of each concession ranging from 25,000 to 45,000 ha.

After fighting to keep companies out of their areas, the villagers of Sira along with the neighboring Manggroholo village became the first villages on Papua to have their rights to manage their forests acknowledged by the government.

The South Sorong administration handed over the permits to manage the forests, called hutan desa (village forest) permits, to the village representatives on Thursday.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry defines a village forest as a state forest managed by a village to improve its welfare.

Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Kiki Taufik heralded the acknowledgment as a landmark decision as it marked the first time villagers in Papua received rights to manage their own forests under the village forest scheme. The scheme was part of President Joko Jokowi Widodos land reform plan, which included the distribution of 12.7 million ha of land to local communities. He said the two villages had been targeted by palm oil companies that wanted to claim the land to be converted into oil palm plantations since 2013, and he commended the fight by the villagers to manage about 3,500 ha of government-acknowledged forests.

The Environment and Forestry Ministrys chief of social forestry department in the Maluku and Papua region, Sahal Simanjuntak, said the government hopes to grant more forest permits to villages in the future.

We are planning to approve 58,000 ha this year in Maluku and Papua, he said. (**)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017

State-owned precast concrete maker PT Wijaya Karya Beton (Wika Beton), a subsidiary of Wijaya Karya (Wika), will distribute Rp 81.7 billion (US$6.12 million) or Rp 9.8 per share in dividends in 2017 after the company earned a higher net income.

The dividends to be distributed equal 30 percent of the 2016 net income worth Rp 281.57 billion or a 63.91 percent increase from the figure in 2015, which was Rp 171.78 billion, said Wika Beton corporate secretary Puji Haryadi in Jakarta on Monday.

"We will distribute the dividends in April," Puji said during a shareholders meeting as reported by kontan.co.id.

The company's revenue rose 31.26 percent last year to Rp 3.48 trillion from Rp 2.65 trillion in 2015.

(Read also: Wika Beton net income soars 63.91 percent in 2016)

In 2017, the company hopes to sign new contracts worth Rp 6.29 trillion, which is 4.8 percent higher than last year's figure, which was Rp 6.01 trillion.

Newly appointed marketing director Kuntjara said 30 percent of the contracts would be in the energy sector. "We will target power plants and refinery projects," he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Wika Beton is also eyeing the Tuban refinery expansion project and the New Grass Root Refinery (NGRR) in Bontang. The company has already signed contracts on the expansion of steam power plants in Cilacap, Tanjung Jati, Muara Karang and Banten Lontar.

The Cilacap project is worth Rp 125 billion, Tanjung Jati project Rp 50 billion, Banten Lontar project Rp 40 billion and Muara Karang project Rp 30 billion," (Anh/bbn)
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Linkedin Fachrul Sidiq (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 15 2017

More than 9,000 members of the Santa Clara Catholic Church congregation in North Bekasi, West Java, resigned themselves recently to the fact that they might never have their own place of worship.

For nearly 20 years, their efforts to set up a church in the area have been blocked by local people, which have demanded that the city administration not issue a permit for the construction of a church, fearing that it could be a haven for proselytization in the majority Muslim community.

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MISSOULA -- Missoula police arrested a higher than average number of drivers for alleged DUIs over the weekend, and see the potential of a repeat this weekend with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday.

Sgt. Travis Welsh said police made eight arrests in city limits for driving under the influence since Friday, higher than the four to six they typically see.

Court records show another eight people made appearances in Missoula County Justice Court for weekend DUI arrests in the county.

The last weekend of February, Missoula police arrested what Welsh believes was a record high 12 people for alleged DUI in the city alone. Like that weekend, Welsh said Monday he couldnt point to any specific reason for the higher than usual number of DUI arrests over the past few days.

While final plans for the St. Patricks Day weekend still are being decided, Welsh said it likely will include foot patrols of the downtown area and additional officers looking for impaired drivers. He said the department will not be using designated checkpoints where all drivers have to stop.

DUI arrests over the past weekend included 39-year-old Mathew Thomas Seidensticker, who was charged with felony criminal endangerment and misdemeanor driving under the influence after being arrested Friday night. Seidensticker was stopped on U.S. Highway 93 South after allegedly being seen drifting out of his lane.

When he was pulled over, the deputy saw a 9-year-old child who was not wearing a seat belt in the vehicle, according to an affidavit. Seidensticker was arrested. At the jail he gave a breath of a 0.125 blood-alcohol content, above the legal limit of 0.08.

Missoula County chief financial officer Andrew Czorny was arrested Sunday around 1 a.m. Welsh said Czorny, 60, was pulled over after driving past a stop sign at the intersection of First and Orange streets. According to his citations, Czorny refused a breathalyzer test and was arrested for misdemeanor DUI and a pair of traffic offenses.
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Linkedin Panca Nugraha and Luh De Suriyani (The Jakarta Post) Mataram/Denpasar  Wed, March 15 2017

Success stories of Indonesian migrant workers (TKI) also come with bitter tales, such as Sarafiyah Binti Muhammad Saleh who died after allegedly being tortured by her employer in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection and Recruitment Office (BP3TKI) helped return Sarafiyahs body to her family in Dompu regency. Her body was sent from Dubai on Tuesday and would arrive in Mataram on Wednesday.

We received a report that Sarafiyah died from being tortured by her employer, the NTB office head Mucharom Ashadi said on Tuesday adding that the case was being processed in Dubai.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 15 2017

MRT president director William Syahbandar said underground drilling work for the first phase of the MRT project had been completed last month.

The drilling work was done as per Feb. 23. Currently, we have lifted most drilling machinery, leaving only one drilling machine on site, William said as quoted by kompas.com.

On Tuesday, William reported the progress to acting Jakarta governor Sumarsono, City Council chair Prasetio Edi Marsudi and City Council deputy chair Triwisaksana, who visited the MRT site.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 15 2017

Indonesia is deepening its cooperation in the security sector with Melanesian countries by agreeing to provide a training-of-trainers program for the proposed Regional Police Academy located in the Fijian capital of Suva.

Having been an associate member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) since 2015, Indonesia is hosting a three-day meeting of police ministers and commissioners from MSG member countries from Monday until Wednesday at the Borobudur hotel.

Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have sent representatives, but Vanuatu cannot attend the meeting. However, Vanuatu has stated that it will accept all decisions made in the meeting.

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Linkedin Agnes Anya, Indra Budiari and Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Surakarta  Wed, March 15 2017

Senior political figures from the regions are being fielded by political parties in the campaign to win Jakartas highest office in the runoff round of the gubernatorial election.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has summoned the popular and outspoken mayor of Surabaya, East Java, Tri Rismaharini, and mayor of Surakarta, Central Java, FX Hadi Rudyatmo, to lead the campaign targeting specific groups in Jakarta on behalf of incumbent pair Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Saiful Hidayat.

The Jakarta political race is highly competitive. We need our best efforts to reach our targets, the chair of the PDI-Ps Jakarta branch, Gembong Warsono, told The Jakarta Post.

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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 15 2017

Indonesia is stepping up efforts to gain wider access to the South American market by reviving trade talks with Chile that it expects to complete within the year.

The countries recently started a second round of negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

There were several sectors discussed, such as trade and goods, before moving on to others, like services [and investment], Iman Pambagyo, the Trade Ministrys international trade negotiation director general, said during a second-round meeting on Monday.

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Linkedin Wimar Witoelar (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 15 2017

Most Indonesians are not generally aware of the real value of our forests. In fact, only the current government has given forests their rightful place in the Cabinet structure, placing it as a function of the environment strategy.

As in many developing countries endowed with tropical forests, Indonesia has always seen forests in the perspectives of security. The dense foliage of tropical forests allows concealment of activities that could be sensitive and detrimental to government oversight.

Modern satellite technology and sophisticated aerial monitoring have made forests less opaque, but still governments do not feel secure, especially when the forests are in border areas. Forests have been seen as sources of wealth to be allocated to politicians or military officials in return for political loyalty.

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Linkedin Seto Wardhana (The Jakarta Post) Raja Ampat  Tue, March 14, 2017 13:40 2064 a291276806121264c0bd211cde4924cb 4 News raja-ampat,ecotourism,tourism,travel,destination Free

Environmentalists and academics estimate that Indonesia might suffer losses of US$18.6 million from damage to coral reefs in Raja Ampat, West Papua, caused by the Caledonian Sky cruise ship earlier this month.

Conservation International Indonesia (CII), Papua State University and the Regional Technical Implementing Unit (UPTD) conducted research to analyze the damage to the coral reefs.

Ricardo Tapilatu, who headed the research, said that several endemic reefs that were unique to that part of the world were damaged.

The types of reefs that were damaged by the ship are Genus Porites, Acropora, Poicilopora, Tubastrea, Montipora, Stylopora, Favia and Pavites. It will take decades to restore the reefs, he said on Monday.

He added that the damaged area reached 13,532.60 square meters and was estimated to cause losses of $18.6 million.

CII spokesman, Albert Nebore, said the cruise ship allegedly entered the area without consulting local guides. He added that the ships crew only relied on GPS without considering the tide.

The skipper forced the ship to enter the area, which was not open to cruise ships, he said.

(Read also: Ministry to check damage to Raja Ampat coral reefs)

Indonesias Environment and Forestry Ministry sent staff to identify the damaged coral reefs and to collect evidence to use later to demand compensation from the travel company Noble Caledonia, which operated the cruise.

Ministry spokesman Djati Witjaksono said, we will discuss with experts the amount of compensation the company must pay [to Indonesia].

The 90-meter Caledonian Sky cruise ship  which weighs 4,200 tons and carried 102 passengers  entered the Dampir Strait in the maritime conservation site in Raja Ampat on March 4. It sailed from Papua New Guinea to the Philippines.

Land, ho!: A group of residents of Mayalibit Bay ride in a boat.(JP/Seto Wardhana)

The world-famous diving site has been proposed by the Indonesian government as a United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site.

Head of Raja Ampat Professional Divers organization, Ruben Sauyai, said the coral reefs had been badly damaged.

The area is a popular diving spot for tourists because it has lots of beautiful coral. Now, I am afraid we cannot take tourists here because nothing is left due to the incident, he said.

Ruben hoped the government would draft regulations on prohibiting cruise ships for entering sensitive areas, like the Dampir Strait, to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

Coral reef expert from the Indonesian Coral Reef Foundation, Safran, said if the government received the compensation, it must be used to rehabilitate the reefs.

(Read also: Scientists race to prevent wipeout of world's coral reefs)

The reefs should be carefully observed during the first year of planting because the coral could easily die in the first year, he said.

The British Embassy in Jakarta expressed its position on this problem. Faye Belnis from the embassy said they were aware of the report and hoped that the local authorities and the travel company could resolve the problem as soon as possible.

The British-owned company described the incident as unfortunate and said it was cooperating fully with the relevant authorities, the Guardian reported.

National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Martinus Sitompul said the police would wait for instruction from related parties before taking action. He added that the police could investigate the case by using the Environment Protection and Management Law.

In a statement sent to The Jakarta Post on Monday night, Noble Caledonia, the operator of Caledonian Sky, said that the company and their insurers would be working with the government and specialists to come to an agreement in relation to the damage to the reef.

The company is firmly committed to the protection of the environment and as such deeply regrets any damaged caused to the reef, it states.

Shake it: Residents of the Fam Islands dance during the declaration of the Network of Seascape Conservation Zones.(JP/Seto Wardhana)

The communities on the Fam Islands and Mayalibit Bay, Raja Ampat regency, West Papua, seem to believe in the idea of nurturing Mother Earth instead of destroying her as conservation efforts will bring so much more to the people.

Once a nickel mining area, Raja Ampat did not seem to have a future. The local communities realized that they could not go far with this industry. Once the reserves were gone, there was nothing they could do.

(Read also: What to do in Raja Ampat beyond diving, snorkeling)

American environmental organization Conservation International then came up with an idea to develop the local economy through tourism.

Since 2004, the organization has been promoting tourism as a promising industry for Raja Ampat. Under its program, Conservation International has been trying to convince central and regional governments to build the local economy through tourism and fisheries rather than mining.

In another recent breakthrough, the organization managed to convince Raja Ampat regency and the people from the Fam Islands, Saukabu and Saupapir villages to declare their waters a traditional conservation zone last month.

Time to go home: The sun sets at Waigeo Island in Raja Ampat.(JP/Seto Wardhana)

This acknowledgment of the territory, called the Network of Seascape Conservation Zones, is another big success for Conservation International to change Raja Ampat from being a nickel mining center, as its previous economic pillar, into a worldclass tourist destination.

In addition to the Fam Islands, Saukabu and Saupapir villages, the community of Mayalibit Bay has also declared a similar zone in their 53,100-hectare area that includes Piaynemo Island  a major tourist spot for enjoying the scenic island group.

If we wish to manage the sea properly in order to produce maritime economic gains over the long term through biodiversity, fisheries and environmental services, it should be designed in a network of marine conservation zones so as to offer longterm ecological and economic functions in a very effective way, said the vice president of Conservation International, Ketut Sarjana Putra.

Blue is the warmest color: Children play on a beach on one of the Fam Islands, one of Raja Ampat's conservation zones.(JP/Seto Wardhana)

The traditional conservation zones are meant to prevent over-fishing and unsustainable catching practices using poisons and explosives, as well as to determine harvest opening and ending times for local fishermen. However, such customary rules are inadequate. The abundant fish stocks in Raja Ampat waters have made the region a target for illegal fishing. Therefore, a surveillance system set up by the authorities is also needed.

A recent incident of a cruise ship smashed into and destroyed coral reefs in Raja Ampat is believed to be caused by the lack of monitoring and coordination among local authorities.

Despite the importance of the zones and its surveillance system , the local government has not yet recognized.

So far no regulation has yet been issued to recognize their ownership rights to the communal property, said Raja Ampat Regent Abdul Faris Umlati.

The local communities declarations in Raja Ampat wont be observed as they should be unless the local government gives its recognition in a binding regulation.

The recognition of the zones by the local government will maximize the protection of sea biodiversity and the environment, which is expected to attract more tourists to the region.

About 15,000 tourists (including 6,000 domestic vacationers) visited Raja Ampat in 2016. Foreign tourists must pay Rp 1 million (US$74.72) and local visitors Rp 500,000 in levies to visit the Raja Ampat territory.

Despite the figures, the region still suffered a deficit of at least $1.4 million annually on average for monitoring the area.

Income from tourist visits is expected to meet the deficit from the surveillance costs for the traditional conservation zones.

Therefore, several nongovernmental organizations like Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy strive to cover the shortage by forming a perpetual fund called the Blue Abadi Fund. So far, they have collected $23 million of their target of $38 million from donors, philanthropists and central and regional governments.

But water conservation is not sufficient without land protection.

Indonesia will never succeed in managing its waters without seriously protecting its landscape as well, indicated Ketut. According to him, gorgeous marine zones with their lavish features of biodiversity will certainly attract increasing numbers of tourists and coral reefs will continue thriving if forests are well maintained.

This year, with a planned ferry service and a direct flight from Manado by Wings Air, the total number of tourists is expected to reach 20,000.
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Linkedin Syafrizaldi (The Jakarta Post) Padang  Tue, March 14, 2017 09:33 2064 a291276806121264c0bd211cde47f147 4 Destinations mount-kerinci,travel,tourism,mountaineering Free

A new pathway was opened two months ago for visitors to have easier access to Aia Manyuruak (literally meaning hidden waters) in South Lubuk Gadang, South Solok, West Sumatra.

Aia Manyuruak is a gorgeous river with a very clear stream flowing through rocks. It is located on the upper reaches with a hillside uniquely covered by sharp karst ridges. Forest vegetation thrives along with local residents coffee and rubber plantations. The Solok regency has made the place an anglers destination.

The place is known for fish like gariang (tor tambroides), also called semah, or more popularly known as masheer. Belonging to the Cyprinidae family, the freshwater fish have become the hobbyists main target because of their big sizes and the difficulty to catch them.

Previously anglers had to traverse parak, a coffee and rubber agro-forest area. Now the access is better with the new pathway, said Dewi, a member of South Lubuk Gadangs tourism-conscious group inspecting the location.

Dewi also highlighted the need for a long-term management plan and infrastructure development.

To jump or not to jump: Four visitors enjoy the scenery of Aia Manyuruak. The place is a gorgeous river with a very clear stream flowing through rocks that has been made into an anglers' destination.(JP/Syafrizaldi)

(Read also: Five must-visit places in Komodo National Park)

Despite its potential, the South Solok regency administration doesnt put Aia Manyuruak on the list of its major destinations. Priority goes to the Tangsi Ampek Waterfall, the Seribu Rumah Gadang (traditional house) zone, the Camintoran campground and the Hot Water Boom. According to Dewi, in 2017 Rumah Gadang and the Hot Water Boom have each been allocated Rp 10 billion (US$747,245), with Tangsi Ampek and Camintoran are each getting Rp 5 billion. Meanwhile, Aia Manyuruak only gets Rp 1.5 billion.

In addition to Aia Manyuruak, South Lubuk Gadang village is also developing a village forest management model along with growing multi-purpose plants for conservation and community welfare promotion to promote its tourist spots.

At the foot of Mount Kerince right before South Lubuk Gadang village are vast tea estates managed by PT Mitra Kerinci. A group of female estate workers are plucking tea leaves. Tourists visiting the estates, while enjoying beautiful mountain scenery, if the time is opportune, can also help the women with tea picking and gathering. Within a one-and-a-half-hour ride by bicycle from the tea plantations, the Tangsi Ampek Waterfall can be seen, with its white stream falling from a height of more than 30 meters. Rizki Afrianto, one of three high school students riding to the site, said Tangsi Ampek became famous after several South Africans showed their kayaking feats from its top.

In South Solok, besides Tangsi Ampek, located about 150 km from the West Sumatra capital of Padang, there are other waterfalls that have the potential to be developed into tourist attractions.

Weve visited Timbalun Waterfall on the Pagu River, which is attractive as it forms seven separate falling streams. The others are the Talang Sepintir, Ulu Suliti, Malanca, Batang Daun, Lambe and Palangai Gadang waterfalls, he added.

ICS executive director Salpa Yanri has emphasized the necessity for various other parties to support South Solok tourism, in addition to community movements as demonstrated by the group of Dewi in Aia Manyuruak as well as domestic tourists campaign through the social media.

Hiding beauty: Nephentes, also known as a tropical pitcher plant or monkey cup, can be found during a hike to Mount Kerinci in West Sumatra.(JP/Syafrizaldi)

(Read also: Edelweiss park: Safeguarding Tengger nature and tradition)

The government should seriously handle this sector. Cultural tourism is also reviving along with nature tourism. This is the most possible to blend with nature tourism. With the governments thorough planning, tourism development can contribute to a higher regional income and at the same time serve as a source of local peoples livelihood, he indicated.

According to Yanri, tourism management and development should involve public participation like the Aia Manyuruak revival effort.

Direct community involvement should be supported with funding. Tourism-conscious groups and training courses will surely back up sustainable management. All this is integrated with community empowerment, he added.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 14, 2017 14:34 2064 a291276806121264c0bd211cde4975cc 1 News Wonderful-Indonesia,tourism,#tourism,Berlin,Germany,travel,#travel,travel-fair,exhibition,#exhibition,ITB Free

The Tourism Ministrys Wonderful Indonesia campaign received recognition as 2017 Best Exhibitor at the Internationale Tourismus Borse (ITB) in Berlin, Germany, on Sunday.

Held on March 8-12, the exhibition was attended by 187 countries, 10,000 exhibitors and 180,000 visitors.

This year, Wonderful Indonesia's 487-square-meter pavilion showcased traditional arts, such as Papuan, Balinese and Acehnese dances. The pavilion was said to have outshined South Koreas Imagine and Thailands Amazing campaigns.

(Read also: Indonesia to promote tourism in Nordic countries)

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya told kompas.com, This is a great achievement as ITB [in] Berlin is the worlds biggest tourism exhibition.

[This achievement] boosted the confidence [of Indonesian tourism players] as it proves we have the capacity and skill and can compete [in a global setting]," he said.

Prior to this, the Wonderful Indonesia tourism campaign received similar exhibitor awards at last year's ITB. (jes/kes)
The U.S. government has revoked the tax-exempt status of a group run by prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer for its failure to file tax returns.

Internal Revenue Service records show Spencer's National Policy Institute automatically lost its tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit after failing to file tax returns for three consecutive years.

Spencer didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday. But he told The Los Angeles Times, which first reported the story, that he would appeal the revocation. He blamed it on an IRS error that led him to believe his group was not required to file tax returns.

"It's a bit embarrassing, but it's not good. We'll figure it out," Spencer told the newspaper.

Spencer popularized the term "alt-right" and is a leading figure in a fringe movement that has been described as a mix of racism, white nationalism and populism. Spencer, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, hosted a postelection conference in Washington that ended with audience members mimicking Nazi salutes after Spencer shouted, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!"

IRS records indicate that, sometime in 2006 or 2007, the agency mistakenly reclassified the National Policy Institute as one that didn't need to file tax returns, according to Chuck McLean, a senior research fellow for the nonprofit watchdog Guidestar.

The IRS posted a notice of the group's revocation on its website Monday, but the loss of its tax status is retroactive to May 15, 2016, the date when its most recent tax return was due.

McLean said he suspects the group's revocation was an "automated thing."

"They handle so many of these, it's just a routine thing," he added.

Louisiana State University law professor Philip Hackney, a former IRS attorney, said it shouldn't be difficult for Spencer's group to get reinstated as a tax-exempt nonprofit. But an IRS error isn't a valid excuse for its failure to file tax returns, according to Hackney.

"They should have still been filing," Hackney added.

An Associated Press review of tax records in December found that the National Policy Institute and three other groups at the forefront of the white nationalist movement have registered as charities and raised more than $7.8 million in tax-deductible donations over the past decade. William H. Regnery II, a wealthy publisher, founded the National Policy Institute in 2005.

The National Policy Institute raised $442,482 in tax-deductible contributions from 2007 through 2012. The group used an address in Whitefish, Montana, on its 2012 tax form, but it currently uses a post office box in Arlington, Virginia, to solicit donations by mail.

Regulators in Virginia are reviewing whether Spencer's group should have registered with the state. Elaine Lidholm, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said the agency began its review in response to a reporter's inquiry about the group within the past two weeks.

Lidholm said the National Policy Institute submitted an incomplete registration form to the agency in 2006.

"It's not uncommon for someone to start a registration, not give us enough information and we never hear from them again," she said.
Here are some recommended events in the neighborhood March 14-21:

Wednesday, March 15

Award-winning author Min Jin Lee comes to the Tenement Museum with her new book, Pachinko. The story follows a Korean familys struggle through generations, beginning in the early 1900s, as they immigrate to Japan. Lee will be in discussion with Ken Chen, executive director of the Asian American Writers Workshop. 103 Orchard St., 6:30 p.m.  8:00 p.m., free, more info here.

Thursday, March 16

Host Catie Lazarus talks with acclaimed author Zadie Smith, comedian Judy Gold and Cabaret Starlet Lady Rizzo at her monthly live podcast talkshow, Employee of the Month. Lazarus and her house band keep the show down to earth yet somehow rollicking at the same time. 9:30 p.m., at Joes Pub, 425 Lafayette St., $30, more info here.

Prague-based collector Frantisek Banyai brings his collection of historic postcards to the Museum at Eldridge Street for the exhibition, Lost Synagogues of Europe. The late 19th and early 20th century postcards in reproduction form depict synagogues and communities in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and other European countries  the majority of which were destroyed during World War II. 12 Eldridge St., Opening reception 6:00p.m.  8:00 p.m., on view through June 8, more info here.

Friday, March 17

On The Rocks Theatre Company debuts its new sci-fi comedy with music, FRED, at Dixon Place. Fred is a robot with origins as a pool vacuum, who has been keeping his inventors comatose widow alive for over two hundred years. When he decides they could both use a change, he packs up their home in Phoenix and relocates to The Clama once luxurious retirement space station orbiting Pluto. 161A Chrystie St., 7:30 p.m., $22, weekends through April 1, more info here.

Saturday, March 18

Indie director Kelly Reichardt introduces (in person) two of her feature films, Meeks Cutoff and Certain Women, at the Metrograph. Reichardts gorgeous and haunting films are often about people living on the fringes of American society, in sparsely populated environments. 7 Ludlow St., screenings are at 6:45 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., $15, more info here.

Check out our CALENDAR for more events and submit your own events HERE.

Upcoming Community Events:

Wednesday, March 15  Community Board 3s Land Use Committee meets. Discussions will take place on Two Bridges environmental review and Chinatown neighborhood plan.

Thursday, March 16  Community Board 3s Parks Committee meets. Discussions will take place on renovated bathrooms in Sara D. Roosevelt Park and Basketball City parking issues.

Saturday, March 18  Yahrtzeit (anniversary) service at the Stanton Street Shul in memory of the victims of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Sunday, March 19  Womens History Month Forum at Henry Street Settlement with Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou + Constituent Resources Fair. RSVP Requested.
Olivier nominee Rafe Spall has described the theatre industry as a "closed shop", meaning it is a harder medium to break in to than television or film.

"Theatre is definitely a world which is harder to break into, he said.

It's a closed shop. I think people are very anxious about casting people who aren't trained or don't have previous experience in theatre because they are worried they might not be able to do it."

Rafe Spall alongside Ruth Wilson in Hedda Galbler at The National Theatre

He praised the Royal Court and The National Theatre for taking risks with their productions, employment and allowing for explorative, creative work.

The commercialised theatre world however is still focused on being a money making machine and therefore risks cannot afford to be taken.

It is true that going to some sort of performing arts institution is the best way to enter the theatre industry. It gives casting directors the faith that an actor has worked on their craft and received a professional training.

Theatre is an expensive business and those paying actors and creating new productions will want to ensure those they employ are up to scratch. However, the fact that only professionally trained actors are most likely to be employed it has created a class issue within the industry that has been around for years.

The cost of training can be anywhere from 9,000 - 14,000 a year, with some schools charging up to 11,000 for a non-funded one-year course. A 2015 report into the socioeconomic background of people working in the performing arts found that 77% were from middle-class backgrounds, meaning the theatre may well be a closed shop for the working classes even in 2017.

Though Spall did not attend drama school, his father, Timothy Spall, is a very successful actor meaning he was born into the business.

Spall is nominated in the best actor in a supporting role category in the Olivier Awards this year, alongside Brian J Smith, Freddie Fox and Anthony Boyle.
People love to go to Disney World. Some have been there many times. They probably don't know it, but they have a former Decatur resident and Millikin University student to thank for their great vacation.

By 1953, Herbert Ryman had made his mark on the Hollywood scene. His art was well-known from MGM favorites such as "David Copperfield" and "Mutiny on the Bounty." He had a hand in the Emerald City scenes from the "Wizard of Oz." He was prolific in pen and ink, watercolor and oils.

Ryman had also contributed to Walt Disney's "Dumbo" and "Fantasia," and had kept in touch with Disney. That paid off, when, in September 1953, Ryman received an urgent call from Mickey Mouse's creator.

Disney had a dream to develop a theme park and needed the types of drawings that would convince investors. He and Ryman worked all one weekend to devise a six-page portfolio of sketches to take to New York City. Once the moneymen said yes, Disneyland was on its way, and Disney persuaded Ryman to rejoin his team.

His pen helped give rise to Main Street, U.S.A., Sleeping Beauty Castle and New Orleans Square at the world-famous venue.

A World's Fair was coming up in 1964, and Disney intended to make his mark. "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" was the centerpiece of his contribution. A curtain parted, and there was the Great Emancipator: talking, gesturing, standing up and walking. I was one 12-year-old who was awestruck by such lifelike quality, mere feet away. Ryman contributed concepts to the making of that wonder.

He also was credited as chief designer of Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World and did concept drawings for parts of Tokyo Disneyland and EuroDisney.

A distinguished career, indeed, for a man who nearly died of scarlet fever before his college graduation. Ryman's widowed mother brought him and his two sisters to Decatur when he was 9. His mother, by the way, was Cora Belle Ryman. Not only was she a great-granddaughter of President Zachary Taylor, but was elected superintendent of school for Macon County. She served for 16 years.

Herbert Ryman attended Millikin, although his mother wanted him to get a medical degree. He eventually pursued his art studies at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

As a side note to his career, he had switched from MGM to 20th Century Fox. During the summers of 1949 and 1951, he took leaves of absence to travel with the Ringling Brothers circus. He became good friends with fabled clown Emmett Kelly, and his work chronicling the circus is among his best-loved paintings.

Ryman died in 1989, but his family was determined to preserve his artistic legacy. They formed Ryman Arts, a center for students to learn and refine their craft in the Los Angeles area. More than 26,000 students have been touched by their efforts.

Back in Decatur, Millikin hasn't forgotten about its distinguished former student. The university made him its 1976 Alumnus of the Year and placed him in the charter class of its Medallion Society.

Perhaps the most apt final comment on Ryman's impact came from Marty Sklar, a former president of Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI). Herbie was like our own little Tinker Bell at WDI. He was always sprinkling pixie dust on everyone and he never grew up. He had a tremendous curiosity for everything and everybody.
With the release of the movie fast approaching, were totally crushing over Beauty and The Beast fashion right now.

So if youre an ultimate Disney fan girl like us, be our guest and check out our favourite pieces

Boyfriend T-Shirt Beauty And The Beast Print, 18 from ASOS

ASOS are feeding our Disney obsession with this super-cute printed white tee, which is the total belle of the ball when it comes to Beauty And The Beast fashion. Were loving the affordable price tag to match too.

Disney Couture Beauty And The Beast Mrs Potts Teapot Charm and Necklace, 29 from loveheartsandcrosses.co.uk

Were going potty over this delicate gold-plated necklace from Love Hearts and Crosses. The perfect charm accessory for every-day wear- and it even comes in a special Disney Couture branded pouch!

Beauty And The Beast Coin purse, 4 from Primark

A post shared by Jessica Singer (@singitjess) on Mar 2, 2017 at 11:55pm PST

seriously adorable coin purse Everyone is after this, which is quite literally as cheap as chips! Compact and fab for on the go, this lusted after gem is everything our hearts desire.

Beauty And The Beast Ankle Socks, 3.50 from ASOS

Were literally rocking Beauty And The Beast sass from head to toe, and arent these the prettiest socks imaginable? We love the printed design and canary yellow shade so much, well be wearing em till the last petal falls

Beauty And The Beast Ring, 175 from Swarovski

Release your true inner beauty with this stunning Swarovski ring- an enchanting accessory complete with glittering red and green sparkles. In the words of Lumiere, dont be timid: you must be bold darling!
The collection - aptly named LON DUNN + Missguided- launched over the weekend at the Westfield Stratford store.

Despite walking for major labels like Balmain and Chanel, 26-year-old Dunn is keeping things cheap and cheerful with the online retailer, with prices from 12 - 70.

A post shared by MISSGUIDED (@missguided) on Mar 11, 2017 at 1:01am PST

Speaking to Teen Vogue, the model described the 96-piece collection as statement daywear, with satin joggers and bold bodysuits available.

According to Dunn, the idea to collaborate with the brand was conceived over a year ago, after Missguided released a t-shirt featuring her name alongside Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.

Inspired by her own busy life, the collection was designed to be suitable for daytime and evening wear.

A post shared by MISSGUIDED (@missguided) on Mar 11, 2017 at 4:01am PST

On choosing the style, Dunn said: I chose athleisure because I want women to feel sexy and comfortable at the same time.

The sports/loungewear combo has been taking the fashion world by storm in recent months, with fellow A-listers like Beyonce also producing their own lines.

Beyonces Topshop line, Ivy Park, has enjoyed huge success, so its little wonder Dunn is eager to follow in her footsteps.
During the promotion of his latest film, Kong: Skull Island, Samuel L Jackson commented on roles of black British actors in Hollywood films and sparked a heated debate.

The focus of this discussion is Get Out, the humorous horror film examining racism in the suburbs of America. Jackson criticised the lead role being taken by British actor Daniel Kaluuya, stating: "I tend to wonder what that movie would have been with an American brother who really feels that".

Playwright, Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour, agrees that there is an authenticity that can only be brought to these stories by US-born actors, stating its something innately in us especially with things like police brutality, how blacks are treated in America, thats something we have to live with every day.

Its not a bad point. Although racism exists all over the world and has many similarities on a societal level, its very different in America to the UK. The largest perhaps being the gun culture in the US that allows for police brutality to hit a deadly level far more frequently than it does in the UK. Black Americans experience racism in America in a very personal way that no one else can relate to, and it's important that these experiences are given a voice.

But then the question arises, why do so many Black British actors land these roles? Its not as if the US isnt full of amazingly talented black creatives that wouldnt be able to bring realism to these roles. Casting directors arent underwhelmed with the options. So why?

500% increase According to government data from 2013, there was ain one year of approved visa petitions for UK actors and directors seeking to work in the US. In recent years, weve had Chiwetel Ejiofor garnering awards for his performance in 12 Years A Slave (2013), as well as Naomie Harris being nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Moonlight (2016) and David Oyelowo being cast as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma (2014).

These are all-important stories about the experiences of black Americans being played by British actors.

According to Get Out director Jonathan Peele, Kaluuya was simply the best choice for the lead role: "He did the audition and it was a slam dunk.

When justifying the choice of British actors over American, some directors and film-makers point out the prestigious training that can be found in the UK, such as at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 2013, Spike Lee said,: Theyre well-trained. They came through on the stage, not on a music video or whatever. So their actings impeccable and then they go into films.

But isnt that another issue in itself? An issue of class between nations?

There are more opportunities to attend schools for the dramatic arts in the UK than there are in the US. This shouldnt mean that black Americans are not allowed the chance to represent themselves and their stories. Even in Spike Lees comments, you can feel the disparaging of those who have come up into the acting world through what seems to be deemed as 'less than'.

Not everyone can attend an acting school. Not everyone has those avenues open for them, especially not when paying for higher education in America can be more expensive than education in the UK, depending on what state youre in and which ranking of college you wish to attend.

The old imperial view of England allows for a rose-tinted view of those with a British accent, regardless of the colour of their skin. Whilst this has a positive impact on black British actors attempting to break into Hollywood, it can have a negative effect on African-American actors.

Dominique Toney, a Los Angeles-based actor, commented that black American actors are often forced to play stereotypes, which can make it harder for them to break out of typecasting in the future. Believing African American films can suffer as a result, she adds: Theyre missing out on the opportunity to cast actors who can pull from their own life experiences.

It is an interesting discussion, and an important one to have as it impacts Black Americans and how their stories can be told. However, is it the most important one to be having right now?

We live in a world where the light skinned Zoe Saldana was given darker make-up and a prosthetic nose to play Nina Simone in her biopic; where last years Oscars only nominated and celebrated the white people involved in the making of the two biggest films of the year, Creed (2015) and Straight Outta Compton (2015); where a black Stormtrooper in the new Star Wars trilogy is still met with abuse and disbelief and erasure of his importance within the story.

That very same Stormtrooper, John Boyega, commented on this debate with Black Brits vs African American. A stupid ass conflict we dont have time for.

Black brits vs African American. A stupid ass conflict we don't have time for.  John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) March 8, 2017

And maybe it is. In the grand scale of things, there are so many battles to be fought about correct representation in the media and so many stereotypes to be broke down within society, that adding this within the community itself just seems like a distraction from something larger.

Osei-Kuffour commented that she doesnt feel the debate about UK actors is the most pressing in the industry: When I see David Oyelowo in an American movie, Im just happy black people are being represented.

Get Out will be released in UK cinemas on March 17th.
As festivals go, Holi is definitely the most Instagram-worthy, thanks to the tradition of participants throwing brightly coloured paint on each other.

But Holi is so much more than just being aesthetically pleasing. A traditional Hindu festival with its roots in India, it celebrates the beginning of spring and the triumph of good over evil.

(Manish Swarup/AP)

Holi officially takes place today, but celebrations have already been kicking off all over the world.

Traditionally, four colours are used in the Holi festival. Red symbolises love, blue is for the Hindu god Krishna (whose skin was dark blue), yellow is the colour of turmeric and green means new beginnings.

(KM Chaudary/AP)

If you thought the festival couldnt get any messier, its also tradition for water guns to be sprayed everywhere. This is probably why London holds its Holi festival during the summer month of July.

(Channi Anand/AP)

But thats more than enough background for now, heres what we all really want to see: the amazing photos of revellers enjoying the festival.

(Bikas Das/AP)

(Niranjan Shrestha/AP)

(Manish Swarup/AP)

(Manish Swarup/AP)

The festival is also becoming more inclusive: Hindu widows were once forbidden to participate, expected to live their days in quiet worship dressed only in white. However, now widows like these ones are well and truly getting involved.

(Manish Swarup/AP)

And sure it looks pretty  but can you even imagine the clean-up youd have to do afterwards?!

(Manish Swarup/AP)

(Bernat Armangue/AP)

(Anupam Nath/AP)

But we dont know about you, we cant think of a better way to welcome spring.
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DECATUR  Researchers at Archer Daniels Midland Co. are taking part in a transformation that could help to boost the Central Illinois economy.

ADM is looking into the value of producing more bio-based products, said Paul Bloom, the company's vice president, process and chemical research.

It's not going to be across the board, Bloom said. It's going to be the ones that really drive value.

During a tour Monday of ADM's Randall Research Center in Decatur, Bloom explained how ADM is partnering on a project with DuPont to find some of the unmet needs in the industry by developing a plastic bottle using furan dicarboxylic methyl ester, or FDME. By using bioproducts for the bottle, Bloom said the shelf life of products can improve by keeping carbon dioxide in and keep oxygen out.

The material helps to meet the unmet needs the packaging industry has been interested in, Bloom said. It's finally being delivered.

FDME had not been available at commercial scale and a reasonable cost until last year.

ADM is working to scale up production of enough materials at a pilot demonstration plant in Decatur to meet the needs of all test markets, Bloom said.

The project is an example of the type of innovation that can lead to spark the development of the bioprocessing industry, said State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet.

Nearly 20,000 jobs are estimated to come from the new industry, Rose said.

We want as many of those as possible here in Central Illinois, Rose said. It's huge. It's the future.

Combining the assets in Decatur such as its agribusiness processors including ADM and Tate & Lyle and transportation network highlighted by the Midwest Inland Port with what is offered in Champaign provides a unique economic development opportunity along with the farm ground in between, Rose said.

The Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab in Champaign will equip the next generation with the knowledge, education and skills they need to be successful in the bioprocessing industry.

We have something nobody else in the world has to offer, said Rose, who helped last year to secure $26 million from the state to construct the lab in Champaign.

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Director Sean McCarthy and Illinois Department of Agriculture Director Raymond Poe were among the participants in the tour, which included ADM's intermodal rail facility and commodity trading floor.

The agriculture department is interested in supporting the initiative, Poe said.

McCarthy said economic development begins at the local level, so being able to commercialize the industrial side of the agriculture industry will continue to be important.
DECATUR  Two jury trials were delayed Monday in felony cases, after assistant public defenders asked for new jury pools because there were no African-Americans among the potential jurors.

Scott Rueter filed the motion in the case of Stephen D. Smith, a 28-year-old Decatur man facing three felony charges, including attempted first-degree murder, for allegedly shooting his girlfriend's ex-husband on July 28 in an eastside alley.

Smith is African-American; the alleged victim is white.

Thomas Wheeler filed an identical motion in the case of Shaun Dandridge, 38, who is charged with a Class X count of armed habitual criminal, for allegedly possessing a firearm while having two prior felony convictions.

Dandridge is African-American. There are no victims in the case. The key eyewitness who testified on Monday is also black.

In both cases, the judges denied the motions, after hearing arguments from defense attorneys and prosecutors and testimony from the jury manager.

There is a specific statutory requirement that the defendant meet the burden of proof that the jury panel was improperly selected or drawn, said Macon County Circuit Court Judge R.C. Bollinger.

Rueter argued in his motion that after it became clear that there were no black people in the jury panel for his trial, it was determined that there were no African-American jurors in the entire jury panel called for this week of trials.

Out of our jury pool of 23 jurors, there were no African-American jurors, Rueter argued before Bollinger on Monday afternoon, after the first four jurors were selected for the Smith attempted murder case.

Bollinger acknowledged that he had never dealt with this issue before. One of the prosecutors in the Smith case said she had also never been challenged on this specific issue, while the other one said she had some experience.

Rueter said that if the percentage of African-Americans in the community had been reflected in that pool, there would have been four black potential jurors, not to mention other minorities, who were also missing from the pool. He said he also discovered there were no African-Americans sent to the other ongoing criminal case or the civil case being tried in the courthouse Monday.

The remarkable inference is there is a systemic exclusion of this group, Rueter said.

Assistant State's Attorney Lindsey Shelton, lead prosecutor on the Smith case, argued that there were no facts to support a systematic exclusion of African Americans from the jury pool.

She read the names of six individuals in this week's pool who reported they were black on interview forms, with two others not reporting their races.

Rueter acknowledged that he had not checked the forms to determine the races of the prospective jurors in the pool.

Jury Manager Jeannie Burger testified that the jury pool for each week is drawn from five lists, which were selected without prejudice toward any group of people. The names are drawn from rosters of registered voters, licensed drivers, disabled and unemployed people and those holding state ID cards.

She said names are randomly pulled from the five lists by a software program, Judicial Systems Inc., which selects every 13th name or something like that, Burger said.

We have no control of which names are pulled, she said.

Burger testified that she did not normally see the faces of the potential jurors, because other employees checked them in while she was doing other duties. She said this week's pool included five who identified themselves as African-Americans.

Two of those individuals brought in medical notices, Burger testified. That left us with three, which were all sent to Judge (A.G.) Webber's trial.

They all ended up at the civil trial? Rueter asked. How are the jurors selected for the trials?

Burger said the computer randomly selects which potential jurors are sent to each courtroom.

Rueter said he was concerned that for a seemingly random setup there were so few African-Americans in the jury pool. He said there should have been 13 or 14 jurors in the pool, because that would be about 17 percent of the 80 potential jurors, matching the Census figures.

But Shelton argued that there was nothing that was unfair, which would create a sytematic exclusion.

It is very clear everything is computer-generated, Shelton said. They are not hand-picked at all.

In his ruling, Bollinger said the legal standard is not met just because an indentifiable group is underrepresented on a jury panel.

There is no evidence to support that the jury manager or any of her staff attempted to manipulate the selection process, the judge said.

Shortly after Burger left Bollinger's fifth-floor courtroom, she appeared as a witness in the Dandridge case, in the third-floor courtroom of Associate Judge Jeffrey Geisler.

Drawing from one of the llinois Supreme Court cases that Bollinger used upstairs, Assistant State's Atttorney Kate Kurtz said the defendant must show: the group that is allegedly being excluded is a distinctive group; the representation of this group in jury panels is not fair in relation to the population ratio in the community; and the underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion in the jury selection process.

Kurtz said the defense failed to show it was a systematic exclusion. She cited Burger's testimony, in which she said she does not receive names by race and she does not select anybody herself. The system has been in place in Macon County for 10 years.

That's exactly what we have here; it's by pure chance, Kurtz said.

Geisler said the most important requirement the defendant must show to establish a case for discharging the jury panel was that the exclusion was systematic.

I don't believe there was any evidence to show that, Geisler said. The motion is denied.

Both trials will resume today in the Macon County Courts Facility.
DECATUR  With the official start of spring just a week away, winter decided to go down swinging in Central Illinois.

About 3 inches of snow fell in Decatur on Monday, with slick roads leading to multiple traffic crashes during the morning commute. A three-vehicle crash on U.S. 36 over Lake Decatur caused the bridge to be closed for several hours.

Drivers are encouraged to use caution again Tuesday, as lower temperatures overnight could cause refreezing.

It is something that people really need to be aware of and not think, 'OK, no more snow, we're good.' It's the leftover stuff, the yucky stuff that nobody likes to drive on, said James Auten, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lincoln.

The crash that closed U.S. 36 involved a Chevy TrailBlazer that was eastbound when the 35-year-old male driver lost control and struck the side of a semitruck traveling west, Decatur police Sgt. Brian Earles said.

The impact caused a diesel fuel leak from the semi, which led to the lengthy closure of westbound lanes as crews cleaned up the area. After striking the semi, the TrailBlazer went back into the eastbound lanes and hit a Toyota Camry driven by a 37-year-old woman.

The crash occurred shortly before 7:30 a.m. Eastbound lanes of traffic reopened a little before 9 a.m., while the westbound lanes were closed until 11 a.m. The drivers of the Chevy and Toyota were taken to a hospital and treated for injuries not considered life-threatening.

Among the many drivers who experienced delays because of the crash was Jim Wilkerson, director of marketing and public relations at Brinkoetter & Associates. Wilkerson said he was more than 40 minutes late getting to work Monday from his home near Decatur Airport.

First, his westbound sedan came upon the accident minutes after it happened and later, after turning around, his progress was slowed driving north on Airport Road by other vehicles trying to avoid the scene.

I ended up getting stopped for 20 to 30 minutes on U.S. 36 and saw the ambulance arrive, Wilkerson said. One of the cars was pretty messed up with the whole front end smashed. I hope everybody is OK.

A pickup truck crashed into a barrier on the 22nd Street overpass, also known as the Staley Viaduct, about 7 a.m., causing some traffic to be rerouted, said Lyle Meador, Decatur Fire Department deputy chief. The truck had minor front-end damage, but the driver apparently suffered no injuries.

Another crash about 7:45 a.m. on Illinois 121 near Interstate 72 sent three people to the hospital with injuries, Meador said. The incident involved a car with an 18-year-old male driver and sport utility vehicle with a driver and passenger who were women in their 60s.

Decatur police were unable to provide more details of those crashes Monday evening.

City and county crews spread salt throughout the day Monday, hoping to prevent the roads from becoming slick again overnight.

City workers began at 1 a.m. Most of their work had wrapped up by the afternoon, but a few were expected to continue until 11 p.m., said Dan Mendenall, acting municipal services manager.

It's kind of a getting-close-to-spring winter storm, where it can't make up its mind what it's gonna do, Mendenall said. But, he said, we're ready for anything.

County Highway Engineer Bruce Bird said his department began work at 4 a.m., with most of the roads cleared and salted by early afternoon.

Later this week, more snow is possible Thursday night and Friday. But by later in the day Friday, the weather is expected to warm up. Highs in the 50s are predicted through the weekend.

With the mercurial nature of this season's weather patterns, who would expect anything different?

We've had such a mild winter, each snow event we've had has been on the minimal side. We didn't issue any winter storm warnings at all this winter. That's unusual for us, Auten said.

It's just been a weird, weird year. But we didn't get through March without having snow.

Theresa Churchill contributed to this story.
You know how you can tell a kid not to touch a hot stove, but theyll do it because they have to learn hot for themselves? Thats how it feels to me. Its the same with medications.

I've seen happy, otherwise normal people lose their life, their jobs, their relationships, and their minds to the use of common, popular drugs that come easily prescribed by well-meaning doctors. Benzos are a nightmare to get off of, and the tolerance withdrawal symptoms can cause major disability.

In my 25 years as a licensed pharmacist, I have seen miracles and disasters associated with medicine. Benzodiazepines are among the most prescribed drugs for the elderly, and their side effects are associated with dizziness and drowsiness, and of course, the natural consequence to that falling and hip fractures.

Benzodiazepines are widely available and account for 35 percent of drug-related visits to hospital emergency rooms and urgent care clinics. The drug companies that manufacture these drugs only recommend that they be used short-term, generally up to only a few weeks, yet many of you have taken them for years. Chronic benzos use might also cause long-term neurological damage that is so difficult to diagnose that its possible to be accidentally diagnosed with atypical forms of common neurological disorders, such as ALS, Parkinsons, MS, and Alzheimers.

Some signs of benzo abuse or dependence make you look like youre drunk, for example, slurred speech, drowsiness, dizziness, rage, fatigue and memory losss. In fact, both alcohol and benzos work by impacting the receptors of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA-a) in the brain. Youre not making more GABA, youre just making better use of the GABA you have, making it hang around longer in your brain and gut, and thus relaxing you more. GABA receptors eventually atrophy and GABA levels drop.

If youve never started, and a benzo prescription is suddenly given to you, say, No thanks doc, Suzy said not to start this! A recent study published in the journal, International Clinical Pyschopharmacology, by researchers in Finland found that among the 22 percent of study participants who had used benzodiazepines had a 20 percent increase in risk of stroke.

You cannot suddenly stop, its dangerous so do not stop your medication. But if you are at the place where a doctor wants you to begin the medication, I beg you to say no.

My opinion is youre either dealing with an ignorant practitioner, or its a flat-out lie. A quickle google search reveals benzodiazepine risks. My concern is once you begin benzodiazepines, there will be no choice but to keep raising your dosage or face tolerance withdrawal, or worse suffer the consequences that slowly claim your brain. If youre trying to get off, please see an addiction specialist, do not suddenly stop.
Govt rushes to snag tax from Thaksin

BANGKOK: Pressure is mounting on the government to find ways to collect B12 billion in taxes from former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra over the Shin Corp stake sale as the deadline for collecting the amount draws close.

crime

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 08:49AM

Some members of the government contend that ex-premier Thaksin owes B12 billion in taxes he avoided illegally when he sold Shin Corp to the Singaporean investors Temasek. Photo: Bangkok Post

The statute of limitations in the case expires in only 18 days.

While the government is struggling to explore all possible legal avenues to collect the tax, it has insisted the all-powerful Section 44 will not be used in this case.

Yesterday (Mar 13), Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the government would not invoke Section 44 of the interim constitution to obtain the tax from Thaksin over the sale of shares in Shin Corp to Singapores Temasek Holdings a decade ago.

He made the remarks after a meeting with officials handling the case including Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong, Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas, Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission Secretary-General Prayong Preeyajit, and Anti-Money Laundering Office Secretary-General Gen Chaiya Siri-ampankul.

Before the meeting, Mr Pisit told the media he would propose using Section 44 to extend the five-year statute of limitations, set to expire on March 31, to 10 years.

However, after the meeting Mr Wissanu said the National Council for Peace and Order would meet today (Mar 14) to issue some orders under Section 44, but it would not be used to deal with the tax case.

The government will not do anything that goes against the rule of law, Mr Wissanu added.

Gen Chaiya also said the meeting had reached a satisfactory conclusion. He declined to elaborate, saying the prime minister would provide details.

Meanwhile, Mr Apisak said the Revenue Department must provide the ministry with reports on the tax collection from Thaksin no matter what the outcome of their attempts to obtain the money.

He added that the department never presented any report informing the ministry if it could collect the tax from Thaksin.

Revenue Department Director-General Prasong Poontaneat could not be reached for comment.

A source at the Revenue Department said that Section 3 of the Revenue Code authorised tax authorities to extend the time frame of tax evaluation, but it cannot be applied to this case because the section is intended to help taxpayers, not punish them.

The source said that tax laws are public laws designed to limit the states authority so as to ensure the public can proceed with their normal lives.

Regarding the Office of Auditor-General (OAG)s proposal to use Section 61 of the tax code, the source said this section could not be used again because the department already cited it in a case in which the Central Tax Court ruled in favour of Thaksins children.

The section indicates assessment officials have the power to assess and charge the amount of income tax that is payable by people whose names appear in important documents showing they are the owners of properties which generate assessable income.

Previously, the Finance Ministrys tax committee, chaired by Deputy Permanent Secretary for finance Prapas Kong-ied, indicated people who have incorrectly submitted their annual earnings for tax evaluation would no longer be required to resubmit them once a five-year time frame has passed, and the time frame could not be extended.

The decision concerns the case where Thaksins children, Mr Panthongtae and Ms Pinthongta, purchased 329 million Shin Corp shares at a price of one baht each from Ample Rich, an offshore holding company controlled by the Shinawatra family.

The pair later sold the Shin shares in their name to Temasek through the Stock Exchange of Thailand for B49.25 each, reaping a capital gain of nearly B16bn. The tax on the capital gains along with the fines for not paying it totalled about B12bn.

The case went to the Central Tax Court which ruled in the siblings favour and the Revenue Department did not appeal against the ruling. According to the court, the real owner of the shares was Thaksin, not his two children.

Based on the ruling, the OAG requested the Revenue Department collect the B12 billion in tax from Thaksin instead, saying the revenue law has room for the department to extend the five-year time frame.

Read original story here.
Keep looking for my daughter on Koh Tao: Mother

SURAT THANI: The mother of a missing Russian woman is still pinning her hopes on the authorities continuing their search to find her even though she has been missing for almost a month.

tourismmarinehealth

By Bangkok Post

Monday 13 March 2017, 09:35AM

Police take Varvara Namestnikova, the mother of a missing Russian tourist, to places on Koh Tao where her daughter had visited before she went missing. Photo: Supapong Chaolan

Varvara Namestnikova said she was satisfied after getting a briefing from Surat Thani Police Chief Maj Gen Apichart Boonsrirote on the search operation yesterday (Mar 12), but was still relying on police efforts to find her 23-year-old daughter, Valentina Novozhyonova.

Police showed her CCTV footage of her daughter for the last time on Feb 15 and took her to all the places Ms Novozhyonova went to on the island before she disappeared.

Authorities are still carrying out their search until they know the reason as to why she went missing or until they find her, Maj Gen Apichart told the woman.

Mrs Namestnikova lived separately with her daughter. She learned about the disappearance from a friend of her daughter in Russia and came to Koh Tao in Koh Pha Ngan district on Saturday (Mar 11) with relatives.

The Russian holidaymaker was reported missing to police on March 4 after she did not check out at Koh Tao Hostel on Feb 16. She had visited the island for diving.

Police believe the tourist went missing while going diving but did not rule out other possibilities.

Their prime suspect location is still Chalok Ban Kao Bay and also View Point Cape.

Divers resumed their search yesterday at the two locations by diving side by side from seven metres to 17 metres deep but have not found additional evidence.

Also at a briefing held on Saturday, Ms Novozhyonovas mother was quoted as saying her daughter had limited diving skills and also suffered from chronic illnesses that would bar her from the activity.

Relatives told police that Ms Novozhyonova had taken diving lessons in Russia for four years but only in swimming pools. She never dived in the sea.

Lt Col Chokechai Sutthimek, Superintendent of Koh Tao Police Station, quoted the mother as saying that Ms Novozhyonova loved nature, diving and forest trekking. She believed that her daughter had visited Koh Tao to go diving.

Ms Novozhyonova had as many as four illnesses that disqualify people from diving, Lt Col Chokechai said.

She had asthma, epilepsy, depression and anxiety disorder and always depended on medications.

Ms Novozhyonova posted on VK, a popular Russian social network, that her regular medications were running out and she had to buy more in Bangkok, the officer said.

On Friday (Mar 10), searchers recovered human tissue and bone fragments and sent them for forensic tests in Bangkok to see if they are a match for the missing woman. Other evidence retrieved by a search team of divers included a pair of dive goggles, a goggle strap and a green vest.

Nine divers joined the search party scouring the seabed stretching a kilometre from Chalok Bankao Bay to the View Point Resort cape. The water where the evidence was located was four to five metres deep and about 400m from shore.

Forensic specialists in Bangkok will need about a week to confirm whether they match DNA samples collected from the Koh Tao Hostel where Ms Novozhyonova stayed in the Chalok Bankao area.

Read original story here.
Myanmar may be trying to expel all Rohingya: UN expert

MYANMAR: Myanmar may be seeking to expel all ethnic Rohingya from its territory, a UN rights expert said yesterday (Mar 13), pushing for a high-level inquiry into abuses against the Muslim minority community.

crimedeathmurderlandmilitarypoliticsviolence

By AFP

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 09:38AM

Up to 30,000 Rohingya Muslims have abandoned their homes in Myanmar to escape violence, the UN says. Photo: AFP

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said a full purge could be the ultimate goal of the institutional persecution and horrific violence being perpetrated against the Rohingya.

The evidence indicates the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether, Lee told the UN rights council.

The army launched a bloody crackdown against the Rohingya in October in the northern Rakhine state following attacks by militants on several border posts.

UN investigators say that during the military operation women were gang-raped by soldiers and Rohingya babies were slaughtered.

Lee wants the rights council to establish the UNs highest-level probe, a Commission of Inquiry (COI), to investigate that crackdown as well as violent episodes in 2012 and 2014.

The council could set up the commission before its session ends later this month, but key players including the European Union have not yet backed Lees call because of concern that a damning UN investigation might threaten the countrys fragile democracy drive.

Speaking to reporters after her council appearance, Lee said she believed support for a Commission of Inquiry was tepid, including within the EU.

Countries wont say they are not going to support your call, but I do hear ... (countries) say that maybe Aung San Suu Kyi needs more time, Lee said, referring to the Nobel peace laureate who leads Myanmars civilian government.

Suu Kyis government, which took charge last year after decades of oppressive military rule, has rejected Lees bid to set up a Commission of Inquiry and insisted its own national probe can uncover the facts in Rakhine.

Lee conceded to reporters that a full international probe could have a destabilising affect in that it may implicate the military in crimes against humanity, but she insisted it was in the governments interest to get the facts out.

She also told the council that the governments internal probe had already been proved inadequate.

Representatives from the EU, The Netherlands and Britain all avoided the question of a Commission of Inquiry during yesterdays discussion.

Britain's envoy to the council, Julian Braithwaite, said the international community needed to engage (Myanmar) without damaging the delicate civilian/military balance.
Phuket lures more Russian tourists than rest of Thailand combined

PHUKET: More than half of all Russian travellers to Thailand visited Phuket in 2016, letting the island welcome more visitors from Russia than all the other Thai destinations combined, reports hospitality consultancy C9 Hotelworks in its Phuket Russian Tourism Market report issued yesterday (Mar 13).

Russiantourismeconomics

By Anton Makhrov

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 11:15AM

Russian tourists in Phuket spend more, stay longer and come in families. Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot

Phuket experienced a strong recovery in its Russian tourism market in 2016, with total passengers arriving via international flights to the island up by 51% year-on-year. This is substantially higher than the growth of the total market of travellers from Russia to Thailand, which rose by 23% in the same period, writes Bill Barnett, Managing Director of C9 Hotelworks.

According to Mr Barnett, Russian tourism market to the island valued B30 billion in 2016 thanks to a row of positive factors including zero competition from Egypt, flights to which were banned by the Russian government in 2015, and strengthening of the ruble due to rising oil prices.

In 2016, Phuket International Airport hosted a total of 524,073 passengers flying directly from Russia on international flights, mostly charter (non-scheduled routes accounting for approximately 75% of total inbound flights). Over 50% of all flights to Phuket arrived from Moscow, Russias main aviation hub hosting three developed international airports.

As reported by C9 Hotelworks, inbound flights from Russia rose 42% in 2016 versus the previous year and reached 1,767 flights. The growth is based on strong uplift in charter traffic, while the number of regular flights from Russia remained barely unchanged at the level of slightly over 400 aircraft arriving annually.

Mr Barnett highlights three key trends characterising the Russian tourism market in Phuket in 2016. First, traditional brick-and-mortar travel agencies are still the most influential players in the field, accounting for approximately 80% of all Russian tourists.

Second, Russians enjoy Phuket with their family members and kids. Families make up 65% of total visitors followed by couples, friends and solo travellers. These segments favour four-star hotels and increasingly use non-traditional accommodation.

Last, but by no means least, Russians are a payable quality audience. As noted in the report, Russian tourists typically spend B5,520 per person per day, which is higher than the Thailand-wide average by 11%.

Also, Russians enjoy their Thai vacations for more than a week, with an average length of stay (ALOS) of 10.5 days per trip.

Thus an average Russian on an average holiday spends B57,960, with 34% spent on accommodation, 23% on retail, 22% on food and beverage, and 10% and 11% respectively on Spa and Excursions.

Mr Barnetts forward outlook is positive.

We foresee the momentum continuing throughout this year, as the demand pressure in 2016 allowed the island to tap into the Russian tourism market. This will broaden demand for Phuket and will help to diversify the source market profile of international visitors, he writes, stating that even when tour operators resume flights to Egypt, Phuket will continue to attract Russian tourists as it is an affordable holiday destination with favourable brand sentiment.

Among other trends of the year, C9 Hotelworks predicts growth in the FIT (Frequent Individual Traveler) segment, as younger tourists from Russia are more focused on value for money and personalised trips.

As for organized tours, C9 emphasises that wholesale agents report a trend towards basic packaged tours, which only consist of flight and accommodation components.

For the full Russian Phuket Arrivals  March 2017 report by C9 Hotelworks, click here.

The Russian tourism rebound has been a long time coming, as reported by The Phuket News and Novosti Phuketa. See also:

Russian tourist arrivals rebound in Phuket, as Chinese arrivals stutter (click here)

Russians on the rise 1.15mn tourists from Russia forecast for 2016, up 31% (click here)

Cabinet approves increase in flights from Russia (click here)

Russian arrivals to Thailand spike by 42% in August (click here)

Russia, China drive tourist arrivals up 12% in January-July (click here)

Russian arrivals ripe to rebound, says TAT (click here)
South Korean man in attempted suicide at Phuket shooting range

PHUKET: A 42-year-old South Korean man is currently in intensive care at Vachira Phuket Hospital after attempting to commit suicide at the Patong Shooting Range yesterday evening.

patongpolicesuicide

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 11:09AM

Police carry out an inspection at the Patong Shooting Range. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

A hand-written note found in the mans wallet at the scene stated that he didnt want to go back to Korea.

Lt Col Phattapee Srichai of the Patong Police received information of an incident at 7:20pm yesterday (Mar 13) where it was stated that a foreign man had shot himself at the Patong Shooting Range on Patong hill.

Lt Col Phattapee arrived at the scene to find an unresponsive man lying on the floor with gunshot wounds to his chin and face. The gun the man had been firing was lying nearby.

The man body was taken to Patong Hospital, however, he was later transferred to Vachira Phuket Hospital where he still remains in ICU.

A staffer from the range, Pharadon ThongNgam, told Lt Col Phattapee that the man had ordered a Magnum pistol together with 10 rounds of ammunition.

The man shot five rounds at the target and then request Mr Pharadon check the gun, which still had one bullet left in the barrel.

Mr Pharadon checked the gun, added a further four bullets to the barrel and returned the gun to the man.

The man then walked to check his target but suddenly pointed the gun directly under his chin.

Mr Pharadon rushed to the man and managed to move the gun away just as the man took a shot.

The man then pushed Mr Pharadon away and pointed the gun towards him. He then quickly placed the gun under his chin again, fired and collapsed on the floor.

Police were then called to the scene.

Lt Col Phattapee said that while inspecting the scene they found the mans wallet and inside discovered a hand-written note which read, I dont want come back to Korea.
Thai man in alleged suicide while in police custody in Phuket

PHUKET: A 29-year-old Thai man was found hanged in a cell at Cherng Talay Police Station in the early hours of yesterday. The man had earlier been arrested for trespassing.

deathpolicesuicide

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 01:45PM

Rotnayom Phutdee, 29, was found hanged in a cell at Cherng Talay Police Station. Photo: screengrab via Google maps

Maj Sakol Krainara of the Cherng Talay Police told The Phuket News today (Mar 14) that 29-year-old Rotnayom Phutdee was arrested for trespassing on Sunday night (Mar 12).

Rotnayom said that before leaving for work on Sunday he took half a pill of methamphetamine (ya bah). He then took a local bus to Surin where he worked as a vendor.

After he finished work he met with some friends and they sat and drank together. He then climbed a tree and climbed along the wall of a foreign mans property. This caused a dog in the property to start barking and the owner came out so he ran away to hide.

The owner of the house called the police and we later managed to arrest Rotnayom, he said.

While being questioned Rotnayom said that he only climbed onto the wall of the property and that he had no intention of entering the property grounds.

Rotnayom was smiling and laughing during our questioning and did not seem at all stressed.

His body is now at Thalang Hospital where doctors will be able to confirm the cause of death, he added.
Vietjet Thailand to launch daily Phuket - Chiang Rai flights

PHUKET: Vietjet Thailand will launch daily flights from Phuket to Chiang Rai from Mar 26 as part of its expansion in the Thai domestic travel market.

tourismtransport

By The Phuket News

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 07:31PM

Vietjet Thailand will launch daily flights from Phuket to Chiang Rai from Mar 26. Photo: Vietjet Thailand

Nguyen Thi Thuy Binh, Vice President of Commercial of Vietjet Group, said, Last year marked the official entry of Vietjet into the low-cost domestic travel sector in Thailand. Weve received very positive feedback from passengers regarding the convenience and value of these services, and we are expecting to augment existing routes with new capacity this year, especially with a direct flight from Phuket to Chiang Rai from March 26, 2017 onwards.

Other elements of our expansion plan will be to bolster domestic seat availability between Bangkok and other cities around Thailand with new connections to be announced later in the year. Our business remains extremely competitive on price and service, we believe we can offer the most affordable flight tickets of any domestic carrier in Thailand, she added.

The company also aims to increase the number of business passengers using its services.

The airline is keen to emphasize its services that are highly suited to Thai business travellers, such as the SkyBoss upgrade, which offers priority check-in and boarding, access to the Vietjet SkyBoss Lounge at Suvarnabhumi Airport, the ability to pick seats on board including premium seats with more legroom and a choice of in-flight meals, Ms Binh noted.

With the new flights from Mar 26, Vietjet Thailand will connect Bangkok to Phuket, Bangkok to Chiang Mai and Phuket to Chiang Rai.

Vietjet airline was named Best Asian Low Cost Carrier at the TTG Travel Awards 2015, which compiles votes from travellers, travel agencies and tour operators throughout Asia. The airline was also rated as one of the top three fastest-growing airline brands on Facebook in the world by Socialbakers.

The airline currently boasts a fleet of 45 aircraft, including A320s and A321s, and operates 350 flights a day. It has already opened 63 routes in Vietnam and across the region to international destinations including Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, China and Myanmar. It has carried nearly 35 million passengers to date.
Woman arrested for stealing newborn

NAKHON PATHOM: A woman was arrested yesterday (Mar 13) for stealing a newborn from his Myanmar parents after pretending to be a caretaker.

crimedeathhealthpolice

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 09:09AM

A photo of the outpatient department of Nakornpathom Hospital in Nakhon Pathom province where a woman stole a baby from his father on Sunday. Photo: Nakhonpathom Hospital Facebook

Suneeporn Sakdee was lying in bed with a five-day-old baby boy when police called on her house in Muang district of Nakhon Pathom. When asked for the birth certificate of the baby, she burst into tears and admitted she had stolen him from his Myanmar parents on Sunday (Mar 12).

Police tracked the 35-year-old woman from CCTV footage at Nakhonpathom Hospital and other locations, including roads and shops on Sunday after Myint Tat filed a complaint at Muang Police Station of Nakhon Pathom stating that a woman had stolen his baby.

The baby was born to Mynt Tat and Yin, the mother who goes by one name, at the hospital last Thursday (Mar 9).

Suneeporn hung around the baby ward since Friday (Mar 10). She told hospital staff that she was a relative while the Myanmar couple thought she was a good samaritan.

Suneeporn even paid for all expenses when the couple and the baby checked out of the hospital and returned to their house in Muang district on Sunday morning.

Later in the afternoon, she came to their house and told them that the baby needed vaccination. The mother of the baby allowed Suneeporn to take the baby back to the hospital with her husband in a taxi.

Suneeporn carried the baby and went inside the hospital while Myant Tat paid the fare. Myant Tat then went to the ward but did not find her and his baby, as Suneeporn took the baby out through another gate where she was caught on CCTV.

Suneeporn told Lt Gen Sutthipong Wongpin, Chief of the Provincial Police Region 7, that her own baby died during delivery at another hospital last Thursday.

She was afraid her husband would be heartbroken if he knew the truth and decided to come to Nakhon Pathom Hospital last Friday to look for another baby, according to Lt Gen Sutthipong.

She was charged with taking an underage child from its parents, he added.

Police took the baby back to Nakhonpathom Hospital for a medical check yesteday after his identity was confirmed by the father.

Read original story here.
SPRINGFIELD (AP)  Illinois House members are picking up education funding reform where they say a commission convened by the governor left off.

Lawmakers gathered Tuesday to discuss proposals to revise the way Illinois finances its public schools. They plan this spring to write legislation to overhaul what many say is an outdated education funding model.

A commission formed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner made recommendations last month but offered no legislation. Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan called together the 13 Democrats and 13 Republicans to deal with remaining questions and concerns.

House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie of Chicago chairs the panel. She also served on Rauner's commission.

Currie says the panel will work to "fill in the blanks" and establish a funding mechanism lawmakers can agree on.
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I am person who is uncompromisingly black and unapologetically gay. Deal with it.

I am person who is uncompromisingly black and unapologetically gay. Deal with it. Alvin McEwen

[image: 652674 origin 1]I love you, Ron. On behalf of millions of people, never stop fighting for freedom. pic.twitter.com/5wcopo041U  Casey DeSantis (@Ca...

The cannon of Black horror films is limited. The cannon of horror films featuring Black queer characters, even more so. It's a sobering reality that Black ...

Michael Luciano @ Mediaite: Kari Lake Says If She Were Governor, Arizona Police Would Arrest FBI Agents Enforcing a Policy That Doesnt Even Exist. Zacha...

The OG winner of "The Great British Baking Show" releases "Small Batch Bakes" for all of us who are swiping left and prefer to binge in moderation.

Charlie Martin seeks to end a successful season with podiums at Portimao and maybe a class championship | Jamey Price Photography Despite a first-race po...

In the closing days of the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats have been making the case that the Republican Party is putting American democracy at risk with...

Variety reports: Although for official purposes all Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees are created equal, some are bound to loom larger than others whe...
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It's our annual Labour Weekend tradition ...The Sound 'Hall Of Fame' Countdown... Where we honor the greatest 500 songs of all time as voted by you.
Hyundai has signed a deal worth three billion euros ($3.2 billion) to invest in a major Iranian oil project, it confirmed on March 13.

Hyundai Engineering plans to invest 3.1 billion euros in the second phase of the Kangan oil production and refinery project in southwest Iran, it said in a statement.

The agreement marks one of the biggest investments since a nuclear accord with world powers lifted global sanctions on Iran.

The South Korean firm will have nine months to secure financing for the project  a potential obstacle given the continued reluctance of international banks to engage with Iran.

Securing the financing through Korean banks will be "the most important and most difficult step," said Asghar Arefi, head of Iran's Ahdaf Investment Company which is partnering on the project, according to the Shana news agency, which is linked to Iran's oil ministry.

"The start and execution of this project relies on 95 percent of the project's financing coming from Korean banks (with) full support from the Hyundai Engineering Company in securing those funds," Arefi told Shana.

However, a Hyundai Engineering spokesman told AFP that 85 percent of the funding would come from Korean lenders, including Export-Import Bank of Korea and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation.

The second phase of the deal, involving the construction of four production plants at the Kangan site, is expected to take four years.

Iran has signed initial oil deals with European firms Total and Shell in recent months, potentially worth billions of euros.

But doubts persist over how these deals will be financed so long as Iran remains frozen out of the international finance system by continuing US sanctions.
Celebrating Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly elections 2017, domestic equity markets registered notable gains in the late morning trade on Tuesday with banking stocks leading the rally.

The Banking index at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was trading at 24,175, up 549 points or 2.32 per cent. All the stocks in the index were trading with small to medium jumps.

ICICI Bank and Yes Bank jumped the most, up by 6 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively while Federal Bank, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank were other notable gainers, up between 1.2-2.2%. HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank rose around 0.8 per cent each.

Meanwhile the Sensex was trading at 492 points up at 29,438 while the Nifty was trading 145 points higher at 9,079 at 11.40 am.
India's economic growth coupled with reforms like the Goods and Services Tax (GST) could help boost American exports to India in future, said the US Trade Representative (USTR).

"India's economic growth and development could support significantly more US exports in the future. India's reform of its Goods and Services Tax regime could help create a common internal market that significantly lowers transaction costs," the USTR said in its latest annual report.

"India's new National Intellectual Property Rights policy could protect US innovations," it added.

This is the first USTR report on trade after President Donald Trump took charge at the White House in January.

The report, however, also noted that existing Indian trade and regulatory policies have inhibited the development of a more robust trade and investment relationship.

"While these reforms are encouraging, there has also been a general trend of tariff increases in India, which reflects an active pursuit of import substitution policies," USTR said.

The USTR will set in motion the work plans agreed on during the US India Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in October 2016, which will include convening digital video conferences and in-person meetings on intellectual property rights, promoting investment in manufacturing, agriculture, and trade in goods and services, the report said.

"This regularised engagement will provide an opportunity to achieve meaningful results on a wide range of trade and investment issues, and allow the US and India to partner on issues of mutual interest in advance of the 2017 TPF," it said.

India and US have set a target of increasing bilateral trade to $500 billion.
Vistara on Tuesday said it has signed codeshare agreements with Singapore Airlines and SilkAir, which is a regional subsidiary of the flag carrier of the city-state.

Under the agreement, SIA will add its 'SQ' code to Vistara flights beyond Mumbai and New Delhi to 10 destinations, while SilkAir will add its 'MI' designator code to Vistara-operated flights beyond Bengaluru and Kolkata to six destinations. The Tata-SIA joint venture Vistara operates only domestic flights currently.

As a result of the agreement, four new destinations will be added to the SIA Group's India network ~ Bhubaneswar, Goa, Guwahati and Port Blair. SIA Group airlines currently serves 15 cities in the country from Singapore.

"We are very pleased with our first codeshare agreement with Vistara, which represents a strengthening of our already strong partnership," said SIA senior vice- president for marketing & planning Tan Kai Ping.

For the two-year-old airline, this is the first codeshare partnership. "As we continuously work towards eventually becoming a globally renowned airline, codeshare partnerships will play a very important role in helping us get closer to realising that aspiration," its chief executive Phee Teik Yeoh said.
BJP member Kithaganahalli Vasu has been reportedly killed in Bengaluru on Tuesday after being kidnapped by unidentified assailants. According to a national daily, the news of Vasu being killed was confirmed by Bengalurus Surya City Police station on Tuesday morning. The police is yet to confirm the assailants identities.

According to reports, Vasu was out for his morning walk when the group confronted him and hacked him to death.

The incident in Karnataka joins a list of similar incidents in the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in recent times following political instability.
Punjab Congress president and Chief Minister (elect), Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday invited Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to attend swearing-in ceremony slated for Thursday morning in Chandigarh.

Captain Amarinder after steering Congress to a decisive win in Punjab, met Rahul Gandhi at the latter's residence in New Delhi on Tuesday. During the meeting, Captain Amarinder thanked Rahul Gandhi for the support extended to him during the elections. Similarly, Rahul Gandhi congratulated Captain Amarinder for the landslide victory of their party in Punjab. This was the first meeting between the two after the Punjab elections. At the meeting, Rahul expressed the confidence that Punjab would once again rise to its true potential under a Congress government.

Captain Amarinder told mediapersons after the 10 minute meeting that it was a courtesy call. There was no discussion on cabinet formation during the meeting, he said in response to a question. To another question, Captain Amarinder said that the time was right now to elevate Rahul Gandhi as party president and added that he had been maintaining this since the past one year.

Later, Captain Amarinder lashed out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for refusing it accept its defeat gracefully. "Instead of acknowledging that his party had failed to connect with the voters of Punjab, Arvind Kejriwal was taking refuge in making allegations about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which, incidentally, his own party workers had been guarding," Captain Amarinder said.
Babus in Haryana will no longer be able to enjoy foreign trips or hospitality sponsored by a private agency or

organisation. An official spokesperson said the state government has issued guidelines regarding foreign travel by government officials and decided that privately sponsored foreign visits of officers by private

organisations should be avoided.

"It has come to the notice of the government that many departments refer matters to the government for cadre clearance where the expenses of entire foreign visit are borne by a private agency or organization

with whom the department has official dealings," he said.

The spokesman said that the provisions of the All India (Conduct) Rules, 1968 be complied with by the officers working in connection with the state.

"Every member of the service shall not place himself under any financial or other obligations to any individual or

organization which may influence him in the performance of his official duty. The rules further state that the member of the service shall avoid accepting lavish hospitality or frequent hospitality from persons having official dealings with them or from industrial or commercial firms or other organisations," he added.

A written communication to this effect has been sent to all administrative secretaries, head of departments, managing directors of Boards and Corporations, divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners urging them that the provisions of these rules must be adhered to while sending any proposal for cadre clearance to the personnel department of the State government, the spokesman said.
Nitin Dwarkadas Kapur, a brother of Bollywood actor Jeetendra and husband of Telugu actress Jayasudha, committed suicide by jumping off his flat at Andheri, police said here late Tuesday.

Police filed an accidental death report soon after the incident around 2 p.m.

Visiting Mumbai for treatment for depression for over a year, Nitin, 58, was staying at Sea Glimpse Apartment's 6th floor flat in the upmarket Four Bungalows area with his sister.

For the past few weeks, he was under treatment at the Kokilaben D. Ambani Hospital, Versova.

On Tuesday afternoon, he went to the building terrace and jumped down to his death.

His family living in Hyderabad has been informed.

Police said nothing suspicious has been found so far in the case.
An Election Commission official has rubbished the claims of BSP president Mayawati that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been rigged in favour of the BJP in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, saying EVMs are hundred per cent protected and safe to conduct polls.

Citing the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, the official, unwilling to be named, said , VVPATs is a system about which the masses are not very much aware. Its part of the electoral reform process in India. VVPAT is a printer like machine attached to every EVM that allows the voter to verify the vote has been cast correctly.

Explaining the VVPATs system, the official said, As soon as the voter casts his vote on the EVM, VVPATs throw out a slip telling the voter which part he has voted for, this slip is then dropped into a box next to the EVM.

In case of any controversy, the number of slips in the box will be matched with the number of votes for a particular party registered in the EVM, he said.

In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, VVPATs were used in 20 constituencies, which included Agra Cantt, Agra South, Aligarh, Bareily, Govind Nagar , Arya Nagar, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Allahabad North, Allahabad South, Ayodhya , Gorakhpur Urban, Jhansi Nagar, Lucknow West, Lucknow East, Lucknow North, Varanasi North and Varanasi Cantt. BJP won 17 of these 20 seats excluding Arya Nagar, Meerut, and Saharanpur.

In all these constituencies, votes polled in favour of BJP in the EVM machine would have been cross-checked with the number of slips in the box representing BJP votes.

Meanwhile, in Delhi, Ajay Maken of the Congress and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal have written to the Election Commission to conduct municipal corporation elections using ballot papers and not EVMs.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday took additional charge of the Defence Ministry after Manohar Parrikar resigned to take over the new role as Goa chief minister.

President Pranab Mukherjee had on Monday accepted the resignation of Parrikar from the Council of Ministers with immediate effect and assigned the charge of the Ministry of Defence to Jaitley, in addition to his existing portfolios.

"The President has accepted Manohar Parrikar's resignation from the Council of Ministers with immediate effect under clause (2) of Article 75 of the Constitution," a President Office statement said.

It said that the President, as advised by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has directed that Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Ministry of Defence in addition to his existing portfolios.

Earlier on Monday, Parrikar resigned from the position as MoD to head a new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa.
The political battle raging between the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress over the government formation exercise in Goa and Manipur on Tuesday intensified, with the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accusing the BJP of allegedly "stealing" the mandate of people in the two states and "undermining democracy" by money power and "misuse" of the governor's office.

The BJP on Tuesday formed its coalition government in Goa with the support of smaller parties and Independents and is all set to form its government in a similar fashion in Manipur on Wednesday, even as the Congress has emerged as the single largest party in both these states.

The BJP camp rejected Rahul's allegations as unfounded and baseless, with the Union Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley as well as the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh coming out to debunk them.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament for the first time after the results of the recent assembly polls in five states, Rahul alleged : "They are saying that it is okay for them to misuse the office of the governorIn the two states (Goa and Manipur) where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP."

Rahul said the Congress's fight with the BJP was an "ideological fight" which, he added, will continue.

"What the BJP has done in Manipur and Goa is their ideology ~ and that is what we are fighting," he charged.

Responding to questions that the Congress moved late into staking its claim to form a government in Goa, Rahul claimed, "It is not about how soon you went, but with how much money the BJP went" to allegedly "steal the mandate" of Goa and Manipur.

He said he saw the letter of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha having appointed Manohar Parrikar as the Goa CM on 12 March, a day after the poll results, before "any floor test or anything happened", charging "So it is difficult for us to stake claim if the governor is already acting in a partisan manner". Parrikar was sworn in as the new Goa CM on Tuesday.

Rajnath dismissed Rahul's allegations as "baseless", reportedly telling media persons that "These all are baseless allegations".

In his post on social media, Jaitley debunked the Congress camp's charges, strongly defending the Goa governor's move to invite Parrikar to form the BJP-led coalition government there. He cited several past precedents to back the governor's position.

In the fractured outcome of the 40-member Goa assembly elections, the Congress won 17 seats as against the BJP's 13.

"Obviously in a hung assembly post-poll alliances will be formed," Mr Jaitley said. "The BJP managed to form an alliance and presented to the governor 21 out of 40 MLAs. They appeared before the governor in person and submitted a letter of support. The Congress did not even submit a claim to the governor.In the face of claim of these 21 MLAs led by Manohar Parrikar, the governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the government."

He cited the instances of 2005 assembly polls in Jharkhand, 2002 J&K polls, 2013 Delhi assembly elections

among several precedents in support of the Goa governor's decision.

"The debate between the largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by former President KR Narayanan in his communique in March, 1998 when he invited Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the government," Jaitley stated.

He quoted the then President as having said "when no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that has won largest number of seats subject to the Prime Ministers so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the House within a stipulated time. This procedure is not, however, all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The Presidents choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support."

The row made waves in the Lok Sabha too, with the Congress staging a walk-out from the House twice in protest against the BJP's alleged bid to install its governments in Goa and Manipur by "murdering democracy".

The members of the Congress and other Opposition parties like the NCP and RJD sought to raise the issue during Question Hour and later, with the Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge attacking the BJP, but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not allow them to raise the matter on the ground that the House could not discuss the actions of a constitutional authority like the governor.
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have become a bone of contention after the results of the Assembly elections in five states were declared last Saturday and the BSP president Mayawati alleged tampering. The Congress party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have called for a probe into her allegation. Social media too is abuzz with messages and videos showing how the machines can be allegedly manipulated to sway the votes in favour of a particular candidate.

Overnight, several videos on Whatsapp have surfaced wherein people can be seen explaining the "mechanism" on how to alter the votes polled for a candidate in another candidate's favour. Several similar posts and articles are doing the rounds on Facebook.

BBC added fuel to the fire when it shared a 2010 article on how 'US "Scientists" hack India Electronic Machines' . The article details how scientists at a US university say they have developed a technique to hack into Indian electronic voting machines. While the article was posted on the BBC website a day after the election results were declared, it drew considerable flak from users on Facebook who criticised the website for its 'irresponsible' act of sharing an article with a "click bait" headline just to grab eyeballs.

Amid all this frenzy, the Election Commission of India has issued statements clarifying how the entire process is transparent and fool proof and tampering with the EVMs is a far-fetched thing given the checks and balances in place. For instance, the EVMs undergo the process of randomisation wherein which machine will go to which constituency and to which booth is not known to anyone till the last moment. Similarly, before the polling starts, mock polling takes place in the presence of representatives of all the political parties and then each of these machines are tested and a satisfactory report is generated and only after that polling begins.

However, all these checks and balances still do not ensure a fool proof system if experts are to be believed.

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director for The Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives, said: "The Electronic Voting Machines used in India are the simplest, with no large operating system requirements and are not networked. Thus, from a software design perspective, these are really good and the chances of these being tampered with are bleaker. However it doesn't mean these are fool proof. Most of the developed countries do not trust these machines and these are definitely not secure enough for democratic elections.

"While there are many advantages of using EVMs in the electoral process over the traditional ballot papers, still there are many ways in which one can tamper with these machines without any technical ingenuity. The best way is to make use of the EVMs and ensure that the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) are effectively utilised to make it an overall effective system".

Recently, the Supreme Court had mandated that VVPAT machines should be used in all the polls and thus the Election Commission had installed VVPAT machines in several constituencies. However, not sure of the efficacy of this system, the Election Commission had itself raised apprehensions regarding performance of the paper-trail machine, which gives a receipt to the voter, verifying the vote went in favour of the candidate against whose name the button was pressed on the electronic voting machine.
One day after Goa Governor Mridula Sinha invited the BJP to form the government in the state, senior Congress leaders such as Digvijaya Singh are coming under attack as they weren't quick to negotiate support from smaller parties and stake claim despite its higher numbers.

Newly elected legislators of the Congress were seen arguing loudly this morning at the Goa Congress office, while senior party leader Digvijaya Singh tried to calm them down.

The Congress had emerged as the single largest party with 17 legislators and reportedly had the support from an independent in the 40-seat assembly. It was just three short of the majority mark of 21. But it was the BJP  which had just 13 legislators  that ended up with the invite.

On Monday evening, the Congress knocked on the Supreme Court's doors in Delhi to stop Manohar Parrikar  who quit as Defence Minister earlier in the day  from taking oath on Tuesday evening.

The petition has argued that the Governor should not have invited the BJP, but the Congress by virtue of the mandate to the party.Back in Goa, state Congress leaders are not too sure if it is too late.

One of the more vocal critics of the party leadership was the Congress leader Vishwajit P Rane, the leader of opposition in the outgoing Goa assembly who many believed was in the running for the chief minister's job.

On their target was the Congress general secretary and the party's in-charge for Goa, Digvijaya Singh, who accused the BJP of buying support.

"Money power has won over people's power. I apologise to the people of Goa as we couldn't muster the support to form the government," Singh tweeted.

Digvijaya has said he will meet the governor on Tuesday. "The normal convention allows the single largest party to be invited first. The Governor should have followed this procedure," he said.

Singh said the Congress wants an opportunity to prove on the floor of the assembly that it has majority support in Goa.

Former Union Minister P Chidambaram had also accused the BJP of stealing the elections.

On Monday, Governor Sinha had invited the BJP's Manohar Parrikar to take oath as Goa chief minister. The Congress has requested her to stop the swearing in ceremony and has also petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene.

Parrikar had met the Governor on Sunday evening to stake claim to form a BJP government. He said he had the support of regional parties the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party or MGP and Goa Forward and also two independents to help the BJP across the 21-seat majority mark.
Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday sought Indonesia's partnership in cementing India's ties with the ASEAN bloc.

In a meeting here with Indonasia's Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto, Rijiju said India recognised the former's country's key role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and appreciated its strong commitment to regional peace and security.

Pointing out that the two countries share a lot of similarities, democratic set-up and common cultural and social ties, Rijiju said: "India is eager to consolidate its partnership with the largest nation in southeast Asia to cement its ties with the ASEAN bloc."

Wiranto is in the national capital and leading an Indonasian delegation.

Both the leaders shared concerns on tackling fundamentalism, extremism and the threat posed by radicalisation and the Islamic State, an official statement said.

Recalling his visit to Bali for the International meeting on counter-terrorism in August 2016, Rijiju said he was very impressed with how Indonesia has effectively tackled the threat of the Islamic State on its soil.

Both expressed hope that the two countries can deepen cooperation on counter-terrorism matters. "The two sides also evinced interest in enhancing ties in intelligence-sharing and cyber security."

The ministers discussed various issues on security cooperation and assured mutual commitment to strengthen bilateral engagement in this regard, the statement added.
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, after an ordinance had to be promulgated five times. Home Minister Rajnath Singh said though the government was against the ordinance route, the Bill could not be discussed in the House due to certain reasons and as public interest was involved, it had to promulgate the ordinance.

Though there was support for the legislation, the Opposition criticism was that the government promulgated the ordinance five times which Saugata Roy of Trinamul Congress said had created an all India record.

The legislation got Rajya Sabha clearance after amendments made on the recommendations of a Select Committee of Rajya Sabha which examined the Bill.

According to the Bill, successors of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during Partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India.

This Bill amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, and was passed by voice vote in the Lok Sabha, incorporating the amendments made by the Rajya Sabha last week in the absence of Congress members who had walked out over the issue of government formation in Goa and Manipur.

The Lok Sabha had passed the Bill earlier but certain amendments were introduced to it in the Rajya Sabha, on the recommendations of a Select Committee. Those amendments had to be approved by the Lower House. RSP member N K Premachandran had moved a statutory amendment seeking to introduce clarity with regard to those properties which had already been acquired by the heirs of the enemy property owners, a reference to nationals of Pakistan and China.

According to the Bill, Enemy property refers to any property belonging to, held or managed on behalf of an enemy, an enemy subject or an enemy firm. The government has vested these properties in the Custodian of Enemy Property for India, an office instituted under the central government. After the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965, the Enemy Property Act was enacted in 1968, which regulates such properties and lists the Custodians powers.

The purpose of the Bill is to clarify the 1968 Act. Inheritance law will not be applicable on Enemy Property This will put an end to the long pending issue which should have ideally happened in 2010 when the Bill was introduced, Rajnath Singh said while replying to a brief debate on the Bill. The government brought the amendment Bill in the wake of a claim laid by the heirs of Raja Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan, known as Raja of Mahmudabad, on his properties spread across Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The matter is before the Supreme Court.

Five ordinances were promulgated on the Bill. The last one is due to expire today. Justifying the move to amend the Act, Singh rejected the contention of some MPs that it was against the principle of natural justice and amounted to human rights violations. I wonder how it is against the principle of natural justice. Pakistan has seized the properties of Indian citizens It will be natural justice if their property (of those who migrated to Pakistan) is not returned, he said.

The minister assured the House that there will be no human rights violations following the amendments as the rights if Indian citizens are not being taken away. The law only applies on heirs of enemy property The tenants of those property will be governed by the Tenancy Act, he said.
With wrinkles appearing in the time-tested Indo-Russia relationship over a host of issues, Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending Deputy Prime Minister and his envoy to the Far East Region Yuri Trutnev to India on Wednesday

During his four-day visit, Trutnev is scheduled to visit Mumbai and Delhi and hold talks with senior Indian officials as well as top executives of Indian corporations to attract investments from India in the Far East Region of Russia. Indications are that Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar would also be soon flying to Moscow.

Trutnevs is the first high-level visit from Russia to India in recent months following certain unhealthy developments in ties between the two nations. Indian officials say the visit would provide the two sides an opportunity to hold free and frank discussions on all issues of mutual concern.

India has not taken kindly to Russia holding joint military exercises with Pakistan in September and subsequently hosting a trilateral meeting with China and Pakistan on Afghanistan in December last year. Russia had also upset India by giving broad hints that it was more inclined towards Pakistans policy on Afghanistan to court the Taliban for bringing about a rapprochement between the Afghan regime and the militant outfit. However, the rapidly changing global situation, particularly after the inauguration of President Donald Trump in the United States, has apparently influenced Moscow to realise that it could not take its traditional friendship with New Delhi for granted, especially while crafting its policy on Indias neighbourhood.

Senior Russian officials have gone on record to say that Russia would not conduct military exercises with Pakistan again. Also, after keeping New Delhi out of the meeting on Afghanistan in December, Russia invited India to the six-nation talks it hosted in February to take stock of the situation in the trouble-torn nation.

Last week, Moscow gave signs of a change in its position on the Taliban when the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strong statement, rejecting all accusations that Moscow was supporting the militant outfit. The accusations were part of the attempts to discredit Russia and were made by forces which were not interested in stabilising the situation in Afghanistan, it said.

Trutnev is likely to court Indian investment and participation of Indian businesses in special economic zones in the Russian Far East which offers tax concessions and other incentives to foreign investors. The visit is being seen as a major exercise to exploit the untapped potential of the Indo-Russian economic cooperation.
By sending a high-profile delegation to Islamabad to attend the Asian Parliamentary Assembly meet, India has given subtle hints to Pakistan that it was willing to consider putting the stalled dialogue process back on track provided Islamabad stops exporting terrorism.

A three-member Indian Parliamentary delegation is participating in the three-day meet being hosted by the Senate of Pakistan.

The Indian delegation includes Congress Lok Sabha member and former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, BJP Lok Sabha member Meenakashi Lekhi and journalist-turned nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, Swapan Dasgupta, who is considered close to the BJP leadership.

The presence of Tharoor, who tweeted a picture of the three MPs participating in the Islamabad meet, in the delegation is significant since it clearly reflects that the Congress party too would like the government to bring about certain amount of normalcy in ties with Pakistan.

Indias participation in the parliamentary meet virtually confirms the speculation that India could reopen the channels of communications with Pakistan after the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and other four states. The government has also given the go-ahead to the Indus Water Commissioner to attend the talks in Lahore on March 20-21 on the contentious Indus Water Treaty (IWT). It is to be seen whether the Indian MPs would be meeting top Pakistani politicians or officials during their stay in Islamabad.
It was no coincidence that just when the trends of vote-counting were causing rejoicing or recrimination across the so-called heartland, Maoist insurgents caused many hearts to miss a beat in the rest of the country. The message to the polity at large was that normality would never prevail until the discord that has long gripped central India, triggering a devastating insurgency, is effectively remedied. That yet another successful ambush was conducted in the Sukma region debunked the theory that the governments carrot-and-stick policy was yielding results.

The firepower unleashed against a CRPF party blasted the myth that demonetisation had crippled terrorist activity, and confirmed the capacity of the Left-wing extremists to hinder development activity intended to drive a wedge between them and the local populace. That 12 members of the paramilitary were mowed down is serious enough, yet the severity of the Maoist strike is not to be evaluated in terms of a head count: the death roll would have been higher had the jawans been moving in larger groups. The small-group operating norm does limit casualties, yet it simultaneously reduces the capacity to mount an immediate and effective counter-strike: significantly there have been no claims of heavy losses having been inflicted on the insurgents. The announcement of enhanced compensation, expressions of sympathy, and a determination to hit back do not really mitigate the gravity of the situation.

There is no evidence to suggest that the CRPF units had been thinned to make personnel available for election duties, but it would be safe to assume that the focus of security agencies (the CRPF was headless at the time of the strike) was directed toward states having elections. That apart, the CRPF leadership on the ground has been found wanting, yet again. Count has been lost of the number of times the jawans have walked into well-laid traps, and as details emerge of what took place at Sukma on 11 March the tactical competence of the paramilitary raises serious questions: the jawans are always at the receiving end. Is it not time to consider a task force totally dedicated to dismantling the Maoist machine, with its own intelligence-gathering apparatus? The CRPF has too many other tasks on hand to permit the singular attention the menace demands.

Unfortunately New Delhi has still to formulate and implement a comprehensive strategy to tackle the cause and effects of the insurgency. It is more than apparent that not only is there is no military solution, but that the insurgents display more effective tactics and better use of their weaponry than the paramilitary: raising the hard questions North Block has consistently ducked. It was, in reality, the overall policy of the Central government that was ambushed at Sukma.
The golden age of the railways was during the 19th century when the great long-distance lines crisscrossed the globe. Trains with evocative titles like the Trans-Siberian, the Orient Express, the Berlin-Basra, cast an exotic spell and remain embedded in popular memory. But war and the breakup of empires brought a halt, while changed transport technology seemed to have left the era of the railways to steam off into oblivion. However, as events have shown, the obsequies were premature: rail transport has been experiencing a remarkable revival, with networks proliferating even in unlikely places like Tibet, which earlier had been barely provided with motorable roads let alone the elaborate railway lines now to be found there.

China has been at the forefront of this new railway age. It has delved into its own history to identify trade routes across Asia and try to re-establish them as modern versions of the ancient silk roads, thereby opening up many parts of the Asian continent to new possibilities of trade and commerce. As was the case in the earlier era, the opening of new routes has a number of strategic implications: the original silk road encouraged the long-running Anglo-Russian rivalry of the 'Great Game' that dominated Asian diplomacy for a century, and the current spate of new routes has stirred up the region, as for instance through new trans-Himalayan access from remote parts of Asia to the Indian heartland. Opening up distant places brings its own challenges.

It is thus of real interest that India should have taken the lead in pioneering an effort to establish a long-range freight train service between Dhaka and Istanbul. This will knit together regions that were once bound closer together but have become separated though they still have much to offer each other. To get the project moving, it is planned as an initial step to call a meeting of experts to make a technical assessment of the proposal. Sending a train laden with containers all the way from Dhaka to Istanbul would be a journey of several thousand kilometres, which in concept and ambition is a project scarcely less demanding than the newly conceived rail route from Shanghai in China across Russia to Western Europe, that has already been put through a trial run.

Initial assessment suggests that there should be no insuperable difficulty in operationalizing the projected route. After all, for much of the way it would follow the established railway lines in India that go back to British times and need only refurbishment of neglected or disused parts. In some measure, the new route would be a parallel to the revived silk route being promoted by China, both ventures being aimed at reviving thoroughfares that once thrived but are now fallen into disuse. It is worth recalling that as late as the mid-1960s the preferred route from South Asia to the UK for economy-minded travellers was by rail, with through trains available most of the way except for a few stretches in Iran. That facility for the needy traveller did not survive the Indo-Pak war of 1965 after which passenger movement across South Asia was greatly restricted. Nor since then, despite a sheaf of bilateral agreements promising better, has the position improved.

The problems of revival are not so much technical as political. In its dealings with India, Pakistan enjoys the advantage of dominating the land routes leading out of the sub-continent, a situation from which it has derived much strategic benefit. Pakistan became a partner of choice for the West during the Cold War, and more recently, has developed a strong partnership with China, as seen in the development of the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) that grows out of the geographical proximity of the two countries. The fallout of CPEC and of other Chinese-led initiatives in the region has not been conducive to better regional understanding; especially troubling to Indian policy makers is the decision of its sponsors that CPEC should traverse POK, that is to say, pass through territory legitimately claimed by India. The problem could be bypassed by selecting an alignment for the Dhaka-Istanbul railway that takes it well clear of all contested areas; theoretically it should be possible to follow the older railway alignment to the Iranian border at Zahidan, the route preferred by indigent South Asians in earlier years.

Turning back the clock may be difficult, and to make progress with the Dhaka-Istanbul project would require the participation of Pakistan. In the present unfriendly state of Indo-Pak relations this may become the biggest obstacle, for bilateral relations are disturbed, the rhetorical levels are high, and Pakistan has progressively closed off transit routes towards India, so that the age-old passage of people and goods between Afghanistan and India has become a fading memory. In present circumstances, effective implementation of the scheme would require cooperation and participation by Pakistan, for which revival of moribund transit links would be necessary. Notwithstanding the many difficulties that lie in the way, the Dhaka-Istanbul rail transport initiative is a big idea commensurate with the need of the times and it offers advantages to all of the potential participants.

This is thus a major diplomatic challenge for India, and for other countries that have signalled interest in taking it forward. Officials of some of the countries involved are to meet before long for more detailed discussions, but even at this stage, as a result of the preliminary talks that have already taken place, it can be seen that the technical issues to be negotiated are likely to be manageable and should not hold up the project unduly. What is less predictable is the political will of the participants and their readiness to find solutions for the inevitable problems that such a far-reaching project will entail. As prime backer of the idea, India will no doubt push for it, the more so after Prime Minister Modi's sweeping electoral success which could encourage diplomatic activism.

The timing of the initiative seems to suggest that India would not wish to be left behind at a time when strong new ideas and initiatives from other sources seem to be re-shaping the world. Hence at this juncture it is interesting that some signs of re-casting ways of dealing with Pakistan are to be seen in New Delhi. After a long hiatus, India has agreed to participate in a meeting of the Indus Waters Commission, and three Indian Members of Parliament are to visit Pakistan for a meeting of Asian Parliamentary Assembly. Maybe the pendulum is swinging and we are once more beginning to edge towards re-assessment of the need for resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue.

The writer is India's former Foreign Secretary.
Narendra Modi is the winner all the way after the BJPs stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh. And with just 19 seats, Mayawati is the clear loser. She will have to go back to the drawing board if at all the BSP has to survive as a political party.

But what about Akhilesh Yadav? He is young, still in his forties, and retains a lot of popular goodwill. Travelling around UP, one didnt sense any negative feeling for him. In fact, there was more anger with his party for the goonish ways of its members and voter neglect by its MLAs than against Akhileshs performance as chief minister.

Yet, questions arise about his political future. Father Mulayam Singhs loyalists like Madhukar Jetley have started criticizing Akhilesh quite openly to demand the return of the patriarch as SP president. Although Mulayam refrained from rubbishing his son in his first statement to the media, his disapproval of Akhileshs campaign, choice of candidates and tie-up with the Congress was evident.

Akhilesh is caught between a rock and a hard place now. The tally of 47 seats is the SPs worst performance ever. It lost every seat but two on its home turf in the Yadav belt. However, the tally will entitle the party to the position of leader of opposition in the state assembly. The irony is that Akhilesh is not a member of the state assembly and therefore, cannot be LoP. He is a member of the upper house.

The position of LoP will in all probability go to uncle Shivpal Yadav who can then establish his dominance over the MLAs. There are reports that Akhilesh is trying to promote Azam Khans name as LoP but Shivpal will fight tooth and nail to grab the position for himself.

In addition, pressure is mounting on Akhilesh to step aside as SP president and restore the leadership of the party to his father. After such a disastrous performance, he may have no option but to give in.

Where does all this leave Akhilesh? The old guard will be back in command and Akhilesh will have to depend on his fathers goodwill to carve out a political future for himself. In the meantime, the buzz in Lucknow is that the former chief minister is off to London next month for a holiday. Does that sound like another young scion of a political family?

Sasikala in pocket

The transition from Jayalalitha to Sasikala is complete. AIADMK MPs in Parliament were spotted carrying Sasikalas picture in the breast pocket of their shirt when the second half of the budget session began.

AIADMK MPs always wore their loyalty on their heart. When Jaya was alive, they used to carry a large picture of her in their shirt pocket. Since the shirts they wear are made of fine khadi, the material is quite transparent and Jayas photo was very visible.

Now they are carrying a card which displays two or three pictures. Jayalalithas face still dominates of course but some have added Sasikalas photo in a smaller size while others have also added the new party general secretary Dinakarans photo to the mix. With Sasikala in jail, Dinakaran is the rising power house. MPs who are more cautious dont want to take chances which is why they have put his picture on the card. His picture is the smallest, however.

MPs who belong to the rebel camp led by former chief minister O Paneerselvam are still sporting the old card which has only Jayalalithaas picture on it.

Relief for BJP

Guess who was praying for a Congress victory in Punjab? The Congress, of course. But so was the BJP which was desperate to halt Arvind Kejriwals march to national status.

BJP leaders including prominent ministers were openly saying before the results that they hope the Congress wins in Punjab. In fact, one BJP source acknowledged that the party had tried to transfer as much of its vote share as possible to the Congress. This vote consists largely of traders, businessmen and the urban middle-classes.

Clearly, the BJP feared the emergence of Kejriwal as a national force if he managed to form a government in Punjab. With a full state under him, unlike a half state that Delhi is, he would have enlarged his national footprint. And his next stop was going to be Modis home state of Gujarat, where assembly elections are due at the end of the year.

AAP teams have been visiting Gujarat frequently for several months. Kejriwal himself has made many visits and each time, hes been received by large crowds. Even more worrying for the BJP was that Kejriwal was in touch with young Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel. That could have been a formidable alliance.

Crafty silence

It is interesting that even as she is working behind-the-scenes to craft an anti-BJP front for the 2019 polls, Mamata Banerjee decided to be cautious till the UP results were out. The West Bengal chief minister had ordered her MPs to stage a dharna in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament to protest against the BJP governments decision to deny midday meals to school kids without Aadhaar cards. The dharna was scheduled to take place on the opening day of the reconvened budget session, which was two days before the results of the five state polls.

Suddenly, on the morning of the dharna, the MPs were told that there was a change of plan. They should go ahead with the dharna, they were told, but the protest should be about the hate crimes against Indians in Trumps US.

The MPs were taken aback but orders are orders. So at the last minute, they had to change their slogans and sound bytes for TV cameras. Clearly, Mamata decided to play safe till the results were out. Wisely so, given the sweep of the BJPs victory.
The Minister of State for defence, Subhash Bhamre stated in the Lok Sabha last Friday that the combined deficiency of officers in the military was over 9,000, with the army bearing the brunt with a shortage of more than 8,000.

A report released by the UPSC last week also stated that the number of applications received for the Combined Defence Services (CDS) exam, for the military, post college, dropped by almost a third from previous years and is the lowest in four years. In a country where government jobs attract masses, lower number of applicants for the military is worrying. Deficiency in the officer category affects operational efficiency.

Serving in the military was a career of choice up to the 1990s. Youth flocked to join, many lacking qualities which the military desired. With opening of the economy, avenues for employment increased, especially in larger cities and the military as a serious career choice suffered a beating from which it has never recovered. No other central government service has been impacted in a similar manner. It is presently way down amongst choice of careers with the present generation. Every survey places it at seventh or even lower amongst choices.

The military is the only service which advertises in every form of media, desperately seeking volunteers. It offers a variety of options to suit the youth, yet faces shortfalls. Other services neither advertise, nor seek to sell, while the military goes to the level of interacting with students in most educational institutes to garner volunteers. This despite the presence of NCC in schools and colleges down to grassroots levels. The NCC which should have been a base for enhancing interest in and selling the military has been a dismal failure.

Presently, seats in training academies remain unfilled and numbers of those seeking voluntary retirement increase, thus resulting in the military struggling to maintain a minimum number of officers in every establishment, affecting efficiency. Second generation officers, who formed the bulk, now pursue more lucrative careers. This despite the military being a respected service with enviable facilities. The shortfall remains a serious concern as there is no lateral, every individual commencing his career from the lowest rung.

If the military in the eyes of the public is considered a risky choice, this may not be entirely true. Those who attempt to join even today do not consider risk to be a deciding factor. It may be for those not familiar with its functioning or single-child parents, but not for the majority.

For those seeking a life less ordinary and adventure, the military is most ideal. If it is emoluments, then it is reasonably good. The pay commission may not have been implemented, however, it remains a government service with medical, rations, housing and other social and security benefits. In fact, amongst all central services, the bonding within the military community, serving and retired, is outstanding. It is the only one which takes care of those who once wore the uniform till the end.

As far as its prestige is concerned, it remains a respected service, irrespective of adverse media publicity in recent times. The uniform, always a lure for the younger generation, distinguishes a soldier anywhere and he would always be respected. The ribbons which adorn a soldiers chest catch the eye of everyone in the vicinity. It is only a military officer, who introduces himself prefixing his rank which irrespective of what it is makes him proud and distinguishes him from the rest. The military is losing its charm in a changing society. The present generation seeks quick financial gains, a comfortable working environment with fixed timings, rather than hard work in difficult terrain under challenging conditions. Thus, we are witness to a softer generation, more accustomed to a couch than the mountains. Hence, other career options appear more lucrative.

Civil services have always indicated true power, therefore would always remain more attractive. The military has also witnessed negative publicity in recent years. High supersession, early retirement ages, lack of second career options, increased casualties in operational areas and reports of corruption are some reasons for motivated youngsters choosing alternate careers. The media which was once supportive has begun targeting the military relentlessly, further impacting its image in the public eye.

A major cause for high rejection of candidates has been the militarys selection procedures. In every other career, other than a written exam, there is an interview or at the most a group discussion. This is because the job profile does not entail special qualities of leadership and mental robustness which the military specifically desires.

It follows a four-day stringent Services Selection Board (SSB) assessment. Only those who possess the right qualities qualify and the balance are rejected. Thus, while it still chooses the best, it lacks numbers of the right quality to make the choice from. Irrespective of shortfalls, this selection system cannot and should not change.

Since there is no lateral intake, options to make up the deficiency remain limited. Common options including promoting from the rank and file, enhancing attractiveness of service conditions, enticing youngsters to join for a few years before they move on to civilian street (short service), as also increasing vacancies in the women cadre, have all been attempted. None has truly worked and the shortfall has only increased, a worrying state for the top leadership.

The military desperately needs an out-of-the-box approach, failing which shortfalls could become unmanageable. Those seeking solutions to enhance intake are the generals, while those they seek to attract are youngsters, more than a generation apart.

Hence an option could be to directly involve those present in academies to provide solutions for projection in the correct perspective. The NCC, which should be responsible for enticing the young, should be staffed with motivated officers capable of inspiring youth, rather than be a dumping ground for the disillusioned or those nearing retirement. Most importantly, it should never lower its selection standards, as its role and task require specific qualities, vastly different from every other job profile.

The writer is a retired Major-General of the Indian Army.
Social networking giant Facebook and Noida-based start-up accelerator TLabs have partnered to strengthen the mobile start-up ecosystem in India.

As part of this partnership, the two companies will co-host multiple events for solving start-ups' issues around user experience, analytics, app installs and monetisation.

"Partnering with TLabs is a progressive decision towards creating an empowered start-up ecosystem in the country," said Satyajeet Singh, Head (Product Partnerships) Facebook, India.

Facebook will also provide FbStart  a global programme designed to help mobile start-ups build and grow their apps  referral codes to TLabs for use by TLabs's mobile portfolio companies.

"It's an incredible step by Facebook for the mobile ecosystem, and start-ups would be highly benefited from being a part of the Facebook global community," said Abhishek Gupta, COO TLabs.

Under this partnership, start-ups will receive ad credits from Facebook and benefits from more than 30 partners, including AWS, Dropbox, SalesForce and MailChimp.
Thousands of people could be living in floating space colonies orbiting the Earth in 20 years time, according to the head of a project by the British Interplanetary Society.

And, while life in space might sound unappealing to some, Jerry Stone believes it could actually be healthier than on Earth, enabling people to live longer and, eventually, grow taller. Stone, author of One Small Step about the moon landings, and other members of the BIS have been updating research carried out in the US in the 1970s into how humans could start living in space in large numbers.

In a speech in Aberdeen as part of British Science Week, Stone will claim humanity is now close to the point where such colonies could be built using material taken from the Moon and asteroids. Speaking to The Independent, he said the space colonists would initially build and maintain solar panels that would be used to provide power on Earth. That, he said, was much more efficient than collecting the suns energy on the Earths surface after it has passed through the atmosphere. But other industries might later move into space to take advantage of the weightlessness and huge supply of energy from the sun.

The colonies would consist of a vast hollow cylinder, which would rotate to provide gravity for the people who would live on the inside. Stone said that much would depend on private companies developing spacecraft that provided cheap and reliable access to space. But asked when he thought the first major colony might be created, he said, If we were to say start in 10 years time, we could potentially have this up and finished in 20 years from now, which is pretty amazing, isnt it?

The research in the 1970s was led by Princeton University physicist professor Gerard ONeill, who asked his students to come up with designs for space colonies. They decided it would be better for them to float in space, rather than be attached to the Moon, for example. They came up with a number of designs, calling them Island One, Two and Three.

While the project might sound far-fetched, Stone said it could actually have been done 40 years ago. They (the Princeton team) deliberately restricted the design to the technology of the period, so nobody could say this is very nice, but it depends on this, this and this that hasnt been invented yet, he said. They could have done all this with 1970s technology.

If we were to do this now we could probably do it far more efficiently than back in the 1970s  thats why I started this project at the British Interplanetary Society.

Were not just playing around with it. Some of our group have been working specifically on the Island One design. They have decided that a short cylinder would be better than a sphere. The BIS teams adapted design has been dubbed Island Zero.

As the gravity is created artificially, this led them to question whether the colonies should have the same level as found at sea level on Earth, 1G. Do they need to rotate to give 1G? How about 0.9G or 0.8G? That would mean less stress on the structure and less stress on the inhabitants, Stone said, They would probably live longer. And over longer periods of time, the inhabitants would be taller than those on Earth.

But also at what point does lower gravity become a problem? The answer to that is nobody knows. On the International Space Station, people are completely weightless but thats not what we want. For most of the time, (the colonists) will be working and living under simulated gravity, which will be much better for them health-wise.

Stone said the BIS had looked at such plans before. What makes this different to all the other previous studies by the BIS is they have pretty much been focussed, 99 per cent, on the technology, Stone said, But when you are building a space settlement, you are also involved in a huge range of topics such as town planning, housing, offices, administration, parkland and so forth, agriculture  ecology is a huge thing.

Plus there are the political and legal aspects of it. If a consortium is set up to manufacture this settlement, will they actually be allowed to take material from the moon?

Stone said the potential to harvest solar energy in space was one of the main drivers behind the project. A number of countries are looking at the possibility of doing that, he said, Power from space is far, far more efficient than generating power on Earth.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said that forcible conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions is a crime in Islam and in Pakistan as he greeted the Hindu community on the occasion of Holi.

Addressing a function to celebrate Holi with Hindus here, he insisted that it was not anyone's job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

In his inclusive message to minorities in Pakistan, the prime minister said "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion".

"Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan," Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress and develop into an Asian tiger.

"There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and don t want to see this country develop or prosper," he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

"Pakistan didn't come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone," the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

"Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief."

The Hindu community celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm in Karachi with functions held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hinderance.

Sharif greeted the gathering with 'Happy Holi'. He also referred to L K Advani when someone mentioned his love for the famous Hindi song 'Baharo phool barsao', saying a decade ago he (Sharif) could sing this song as melodiously as Mohammad Rafi.

He also said that Health cards should be started in Sindh and announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will arrive here on 7 April on her much-anticipated four-day State visit to India, it was announced here on Tuesday.

The visit comes seven years after Hasinas last visit to India in January 2010 and almost two years after Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.

The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the leaders, the MEA said in a statement.

Hasina will hold talks with Modi on 8 April on a range of issues, followed by the signing of several key agreements between the countries, including a defence accord.

Hasina was expected to travel to India in December last year but the visit was postponed due to scheduling issues and also because it was felt that any progress on the sharing of Teesta waters was highly unlikely in view of the stand-off between the Modi government and the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal over the demonetisation issue.

It was decided then that the visit could take place in February. However, the visit was deferred again in view of the assembly elections in India.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar travelled to Dhaka last month and firmed up the dates for Hasinas visit in consultation with the Bangladesh leadership.
North Korea has tried to shift the blame for the deadly attack in Malaysia on the estranged half-brother of its leader Kim Jong Un to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea's deputy UN ambassador, Kim In Ryong, told a news conference that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system.

Malaysian authorities say Kim Jong Nam died after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport on February 13, but North Korea which is widely suspected to be behind the attack rejects the findings.

Ambassador Kim said the cause of Kim Jong Nam's death "has not yet been clearly identified, but the United States and the South Korean authorities are groundlessly blaming the DPRK," using the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Malaysian authorities have identified the victim as Kim Jong Nam, though he was using a North Korean passport under the name Kim Chol. The ambassador, like other North Korean officials, referred to him only as Kim Chol and did not say he was Kim Jong Un's half brother.

He asked why the person who applied the VX agent, which is fatal if a tiny amount is inhaled, is still alive while the man it was applied to died.

The ambassador asserted that the US is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX and that it has stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

"It is a final aim sought by the United States to store up the international repugnancy towards the DPRK," he said of the attack, with the intention of provoking a "nuclear war against DPRK at any cost."

"So the US and South Korea were starting the political chicanery to bring down the social system in DPRK," the ambassador said.

He said the DPRK will respond by continuing to bolster its defenses "and the capability for the pre-emptive strike with a nuclear force."

The North Korean envoy held a press conference at UN headquarters in New York after the DPRK boycotted a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which was addressed by its special investigator on human rights in the reclusive northeast Asian nation.

Tomas Ojea Quintana told the council that tensions caused by North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear tests are jeopardizing efforts to improve human rights in the secretive country.
North Korea on Tuesday has threatened to launch ultra-precision strikes in response to the military exercises being jointly carried out by South Korea and the US.

If the allies seek to infringe on its sovereignty, Pyongyang's "army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater", North Korean state news agency KCNA warned in a statement.

Pyongyang also warned Seoul and Washington, who are currently carrying out annual military maneuvers, that the "nuclear-powered carriers and all other strategic assets of the US imperialists are in sight of the Korean People's Army's powerful ultra-precision strike means."

The regime's statement comes after the allies began the Key Resolve simulated military exercise on Monday, which will last until March 24, as well as the Foal Eagle drills, which started on March 1 and will conclude by the end of April.

The deployment of military assets for this year's maneuvers is the largest to date as Washington is deploying its F-35B fighter aircraft as well as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson  scheduled to arrive in the Korean peninsula on Wednesday, Efe news reported.

Pyongyang, which regularly condemns the non-defensive nature of these maneuvers, on March 6 launched four medium-range ballistic missiles that fell in Japanese waters as its first response after the start of Foal Eagle drills.

The start of the installation of the anti-ballistic missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system on South Korean soil last week has also increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The US system, designed to shoot down North Korean missiles, has angered the Kim Jong-un regime and also sparked strong criticism from China, which believes Thaad can interfere with its defence systems.
Turkey will impose political sanctions against Netherlands for the moment, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said after the Dutch authorities barred Turkish politicians from holding rallies in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

The sanctions would be under the political framework at the moment, Kurtulmus told reporters late Monday after a cabinet meeting which measures against the Dutch government were discussed, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Dutch ambassador to Ankara, who is out of the country at the moment, will not be allowed enter Turkey until Netherlands meets Turkey's demands, Kurtulmus said.

The Turkish government will suspend "high-level relations and all planned meetings "with Netherlands, he said, adding that a permission given in December for diplomatic flights for Dutch officials is also cancelled.

The Turkish government will propose the Parliament abolishing a Turkish-Dutch parliamentary friendship group, the Deputy Prime Minister stated.

Diplomatic tensions between the two countries escalated over the weekend after the Dutch authorities cancelled Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's flight permission to the Netherlands and then blocked Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam on Saturday.
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. Gusty winds during the morning. High 59F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low around 35F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph.
NORTH ATTLEBORO  Assault charges against a former North Attleboro police officer involved in an apparent love triangle were dismissed and he
3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) has increased its dividend for 59 years in a row and is one of the most highly regarded stocks in the industrial sector. That said, any investment analysis of a stock's value must be forward-thinking, as well as mindful of the company's history. The key question is whether 3M can be relied upon to deliver for income investors in the future or not. Let's take a look at what it means to invest in 3M stock.

3M needs to grow

In order to judge whether 3M is worth buying for income investors, it's a good idea to start by looking at its 10-year trends. As you can see in the table below, net income only grew at a 2.4% average rate in the last decade. It's a rate similar to that of peer Illinois Tool Works (NYSE: ITW), but note that Illinois Tool Works' revenue declined slightly -- partly due to the jettisoning of lower-margin businesses.

Company Market Cap Dividend Yield Payout Ratio 10-Year Average Revenue Growth 10-Year Average Net Income Growth 3M Co.

$113 billion 2.5% 54.9% 2.8% 2.4% Illinois Tool Works

$46.4 billion 1.9% 41.9% (0.3%) 2.4%

In other words, Illinois Tool Works is doing a better job of expanding margin, and has a lower payout ratio (dividends as a proportion of earnings), meaning it has greater capacity to increase its dividend.

Time to look closer at 3M and what it can do to increase its growth rate.

Three key factors

You can see from the breakout of its revenue in 2016 in the chart below that the company is broadly diversified. As the chart demonstrates, 3M makes money from a range of industries, so the stock can be seen as a play on industrial production growth.

However, that's not the full story. In reality, 3M's ability to grow its earnings over the long term -- and let's recall that CFO Nick Gangestad believes 3M's dividend should grow in line with earnings over time -- also depends on three key factors:

Increasing demand: As GDP per capita increases, particularly in emerging markets, demand for 3M's solutions should increase by even more

Expanding margin and return on invested capital over time

The company's ability to continue to grow revenue by releasing differentiated products (implying pricing power) by using research and development (R&D).

Deeper analysis of the three drivers

Frankly, there are doubts concerning all three.

Management's argument is simple with regard to GDP-per-capita increases. As countries and their middle classes expand, they should start spending more money on things like infrastructure, healthcare, home improvement, and construction safety solutions. All of the categories play to 3M's core product strengths, and with international sales making up 59% of 3M's sales in 2016, the company is very much poised to benefit from global trends.

However, at the end of 2012, international sales made up a larger portion of total sales, at 64.8%. In other words, the evidence is that 3M isn't quite expanding internationally as it may have hoped.

As fas as margin expansion is concerned, as you can see in the first chart above, 3M has been expanding operating margin in recent years, but it's increasingly relying on share buybacks and building up debt in order to grow earnings per share (EPS). Meanwhile, its payout ratio has gone up from 34.3% a decade ago to 54.9% in 2016.

It doesn't appear that 3M is finding it easy to grow EPS significantly more than revenue without the help of buybacks and debt.

Finally, the following graph shows how R&D expenses have increased in recent years. In fact, management plans for R&D as a share of revenue to increase again in 2017, to 6%. It's an indication that 3M is finding it harder to drive sales growth through production innovation. Ultimately, if R&D expenses keep creeping up, it will constrain margin growth -- and in turn earnings, cash flow, and dividends.

Is 3M a buy for income investors?

You could do a lot worse than buy 3M, but given the doubts over its ability to significantly expand revenue and margin over time, I believe there are better ways for income investors to invest. Sure, stronger economic growth would undoubtedly help the company, but you could say that about a lot of industrial stocks -- and there are plenty of other stocks available that aren't using buybacks and debt in order to boost EPS.

10 stocks we like better than 3M

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.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and 3M wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of February 6, 2017

Lee Samaha has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Illinois Tool Works. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


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TransCanada (NYSE: TRP) appears to be a firm believer in the old saying: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." That's evident by the fact that the company didn't give up after its last open season to get gas producers in Western Canada to sign up for capacity on its mainline pipeline failed. That persistence has now paid off, with TransCanada announcing a successful open season on that system this week.

Drilling down into the problem

TransCanada has been working with gas producers in Western Canada for the past several months to find a solution to fill up the capacity of its mainline system, which ships gas from production basins in the West to market centers in the East. That system currently transports 25% of the country's gas. However, it has been operating below its maximum capacity due to increasing supplies of U.S. shale gas in the Northeast. Those rising shale supplies put Western Canadian producers at a disadvantage to their U.S. counterparts because they had to pay higher transportation fees to ship their gas across the country, causing it to be uncompetitive in Eastern markets.

The falling volumes on the mainline system were one reason why earnings in its Canadian gas pipeline segment fell last year. The company has been working on a variety of solutions to address the issue, including working to boost earnings elsewhere to offset the declines in that segment. In fact, the company even took an "if you can't beat them, join them" approach by spending roughly $14 billion to acquire a growing U.S. gas pipeline business in the Northeast.

Finding the right solution

Despite working on several outside solutions to offset sagging income from the mainline pipeline, TransCanada never gave up on the search for a workable solution with large Western gas producers like Encana (NYSE: ECA) and Canadian Natural Resources (NYSE: CNQ) to fill up the system's capacity. Last fall, for example, it proposed a significant reduction in tolls for companies that signed up for a large block of capacity under a 10-year contract. However, even after cutting tolls down to between 75 Canadian cents per gigajoule and CA$0.82 per gigajoule -- about half the costs of other tolls -- that wasn't enough to get shippers to sign up for the capacity it needed to make the deal work. Encana's CEO, for example, said at the time that his company wanted rates as low as CA$0.70 per gigajoule before they'd commit to the capacity.

However, after talking with Encana, Canadian Natural Resources, and other shippers, TransCanada decided to come back with a simplified rate of CA$0.77 per gigajoule over a 10-year term for its latest open season. That rate, along with the option for an early termination of rights after five years, proved to be the winning combination because the company was able to get enough shippers to sign binding contracts to meet its minimum capacity requirement. That success is a big win for TransCanada because it can now utilize more of the existing capacity on the mainline system, meaning that most of the incremental revenue from these new contracts will flow to its bottom line.

The deal also represents a win for Western Canadian gas producers because their production will be more competitive versus low-cost output from the Marcellus and Utica shales. Because of that, companies like Encana and Canadian Natural Resources will now have a greater economic incentive to make investments that will increase their gas production in Western Canada.

Investor takeaway

While it took more than one try, TransCanada was able to maximize the value of its mainline system by finding a solution to lock up more of the capacity. While the company had to offer a significant discount to incentivize customers, it still wins out in the end because it will start collecting some incremental income on an underutilized system. Because of that, TransCanada will have more cash flow to support its dividend and finance its robust slate of growth projects.

10 stocks we like better than TransCanada

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.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and TransCanada wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

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*Stock Advisor returns as of February 6, 2017

Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
Actor Priyanka Chopra says her life has been full of serendipitous moments, so she will let fate take control even of her love life.

In an interview to Marie Claire magazine, the 34-year-old said that she believes that her romantic life will fall into place naturally, reports dailymail.co.uk.

"I'm not someone who looks for love. I don't believe in making it happen. My life has been shaped by so many serendipitous moments so far, I feel like, 'Why screw with a good thing?'," Priyanka said.

Priyanka said she didn't even consider herself beautiful when, as a teenager, her mother entered her into the Miss India competitionwhich she won.

The actor went on to have a very successful career as a Bollywood star before moving to the US, where she earned a gig starring in Quantico, which airs in India on Star World and Star World HD.

She is also set to star in the remake of Baywatch, and covers this month's Marie Claire magazinewhich calls her "Hollywood's most bankable badass".

The Bajirao Mastani star said she wanted to have as many kids as she can, and added: "I love kids. Love, love kids. I prefer their company to the company of adults, actually."
Bollywood actor Sridevi Boney Kapoor unveiled the first look of her upcoming film MOM on Twitter on Tuesday morning. She shared the poster with a caption that read, "When a woman is challenged... Here's presenting the first look of MOM."

When a woman is challenged... Here's presenting the first look of MOM. #MOMFirstLook pic.twitter.com/taaJBeDH1d  SRIDEVI BONEY KAPOOR (@SrideviBKapoor) March 14, 2017

The dark and intense looking poster features a side profile of the 53-year-old actor, wrapped in what looks like a black shawl, with a stern and determined look on her face. The poster has the word 'mother' written in many scripts, splashed all over. It also revealed the release date as July 14, 2017.

The last time we saw Sridevi in a similar, de-glam avatar was in 2012 in Gauri Shinde's critically acclaimed film English Vinglish, in which the actor played the role of a traditional housewife who is demeaned by her husband and children for not knowing English.

While Shashi's (Sridevi's character in English Vinglish) journey to fit in the English-speaking modern world was a light, breezy ride for the audience, MOM's mysterious poster, along with Sridevi's caption, hints at it being an intense film. The filmmakers have kept the storyline and the plot tightly under wraps. Directed by Ravi Udyawar and produced by Boney Kapoor, MOM will have Akshaye Khanna and Abhimanyu Singh in important roles. Nawazuddin Siddiqui will make a guest appearance in the film. Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiqui is likely to play her husband, while Sajal Ali is expected to play her daughter in the film.

Within minutes of Sridevi's post, the poster took Twitter by storm with Twitterati going gaga over the poster and the actor's look. Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar shared the poster, with a tweet revealing that MOM is supposedly Sridevi's 300th film as an actor and is being released in the 50th year of her career. His tweet said: Her 300th film....50 year career....my favourite actor....SRIDEVI.....in and as..... pic.twitter.com/22MmyJ3qig

Meanwhile, the actor's fans are extending her a warm welcome in her new role with special messages.
Last year, the rivers on fireliterally and figurativelyas states bitterly fought each other over water disputes. A timely and much-needed bill was been introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 14, whose passage should see these fights getting resolved peacefully.

Union minister of water resources Uma Bharti introduced the Inter State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017, calling it a revolutionary step towards the resolution of riverine disputes between states.

The bill proposes a single standing tribunal instead of the existing multiple tribunals. This tribunal will consist of a chairperson, a vice chairperson and six other members. The bill also provides for technical support assessorsexperts from the Central Water Engineering Service. The bill proposes the mechanism of negotiations through a Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC).

Already, there exists a law in the form of Inter State Water Dispute Act 1956, which provides the legal framework to address disputes, but the law is outdated and has drawbacks.

For instance, it has multiple tribunals, and only three out the eight tribunals have given awards accepted by the states. Tribunals like Cauvery and Ravi-Beas have been in existence for around three decades without giving any awards.

While states have fought bitterly over the waters from Cauvery, Krishna and a host of big and small rivers in India, one of the most successful international pacts on river waters is one that India is signatory to. The Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan has worked peacefully, with the commissioners from both sides meeting each other to resolve technical issues, irrespective of the political environment or the clouds of war hovering above both countries.
Many years ago, in the small state of Haryana, the Lok Dal leader, late Chaudhary Devi Lal, and the Congress leader, the late Bansi Lal, were locked in a claim to be the chief minister on the strength of unknown numbers they had. The very Brit, B.N. Chakravarti, a retired ICS officer, was the governor.

This is not a school and I am not a headmaster. Go to the assembly and prove your strength there, he told Devi Lal who landed at the governor's residence with his horde of legislators.

MLAs are prime property when no party has a clear majority. The fight between leader of the single largest party elected by voters and the largest combination of elected representativesbefore or after the electionshas always been an issue. And always settled.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on Tuesday gave it back to the Congress that described the Goa governor's accepting Manohar Parrikar's claim to form government as a murder of democracy. Parrikar had put together 21 of the 40 MLAs, while the Congress, despite being the largest party with 17 members, did not stake its claim.

In a signed piece that he released to the media, Jaitley pointed out that the debate on whether the largest single party lacking majority or a combination of parties constituting a majority should be called to form government first, was settled by former president K.R. Narayanan in March 1998.

Narayanan had invited Atal Behari Vajpayee to form government, and the former president reasoned, When no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that has won the largest number of seats, subject to the prime ministers so appointed, obtaining majority support on the floor of the house, within a stipulated time.

Narayanan had also pointed out that this procedure was, however, not an all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The President's choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support.

Jaitely said the governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form government in Goa, and adduced examples of the Shibhu Soren government that was sworn with 17 MLAs plus support from others, while the BJP with 30 out of 81 seats could not form government in Jharkhand in 2005.

In 2002, the National Conference with 28 MLAs could not form government in Jammu and Kashmir, as the governor invited the combination of PDP and Congress with their 15 + 21 MLAs to form government.

Most importantly, when the BJP won 31 assembly seats in Delhi in 2013, they could not form a government because AAP with 28 with the support of the Congress pipped them to the post!

But as the Chakravarti direction to Devi Lal's appeal went, Bansi Lal got a reprieve, got the numbers, and became chief minister many times. Whenever he was chief minister, the beautiful lake in Karnalmidway between the national capital and the Haryana capital of Chandigarhwas named B.N. Chakravarti Lake. Devi Lal was naturally angry. Whenever he became chief minister or his party formed government after him, it was Karna Lake! The lake continues to suffer the identity crisis even now.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manohar Parrikar was on Tuesday sworn in as the new chief minister of Goa. He was administered the oath of office by Governor Mridula Sinha.

Parrikar, who resigned as the defence minister, had on Monday staked claim to form the government after the assembly elections threw up a split verdict.

Nine ministers were also sworn in during the ceremony, namely Sudin Dhavalikar and Manohar Azgaonkar of the Maharashtrawdi Gomantak Party, Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palienkar and Jayesh Salgaonkar of the Goa Forward, Francis D'Souza, Pandurang Madkaikar of the BJP and Independent legislators Govind Gawde and Rohan Khaunte.

Top BJP leaders including BJP national president Amit Shah, Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, J.P. Nadda and several other dignitaries attended the ceremony.

Earlier in the morning, the Supreme Court refused to stay the swearing-in, but asked the former defence minister to prove his majority through a trust vote on Thursday. The court decision came on a petition filed by the Congress, which had challenged the Governor's decision to invite the BJP to form the government.

In the recently held elections to the 40 member assembly, Congress bagged 17 seats while BJP won 13. The saffron party, however, managed to secure the support of small regional parties.
The National Conference and the Congress on Tuesday decided to fight the upcoming by-polls for Srinagar and Anantnag Lok Sabha constituencies jointly against the PDP. The two constituencies are going to polls on April 9 and 12 respectively.

The PDP is fielding Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's brother and award-winning Bollywood cinematographer Mufti Tasaduq Hussain in Anantnag and former Congress leader Nazir Khan in Srinagar.

The chances of NC president Farooq Abdullah contesting from Srinagar and Jammu and Kashmir Congress president G.A. Mir from Anantnag are high, sources said.

The decision to form an alliance against the PDP came after day-long negotiations between the NC and the Congress in Srinagar on Tuesday. With this, the two parties have come together again after their break up before the 2014 assembly polls.

We held a joint meeting and agreed for a seat-sharing adjustment. It will be a sincere transfer of vote from both sides,'' said Mir. ''Everybody will work hard to ensure the PDP is defeated on both the seats,'' he said, and added that a formal announcement of the alliance would be made on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, the NC had held its core group meeting at Nawa-i-Subh headquarters and authorised president Farooq Abdullah to take a decision about the alliance.

The NC-Congress alliance lost all the six parliamentary seats in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014 general elections. While NC lost all three seats of Kashmir regionSrinagar, Aanatnag, and Baramula, Congress lost two seats in the Jammu regionJammu and Udhampureand the lone Ladakh seat. The PDP and BJP had won three seats each in the polls.

The NC and Congress are hoping to cash in on the public anger against the PDP due to the separatist uprising of 2016 in which over 90 people were killed and more than 100 were injured, with many of them blinded by pellets in one or both eyes.

In another setback for the PDP, the BJP, its alliance partner in government, has decided to contest the by-polls alone.

BJP will contest by-elections on both seats. Party will announce candidates very soon. There will be no pre-poll alliance with the PDP, said Ashok Kaul, BJP state general secretary (organisation).
Keeping in mind the 2019 elections, the TRS-led Telangana government has announced several schemes for artisans and communities engaged in different traditional occupations in its annual budget.

The government has decided to procure and distribute 84 lakh sheep over the next two years to four lakh Yadava families, traditionally dependent on sheep rearing. Certain communities such as Gangaputra, Bestha, Goondla, Bantu, Mudiraj/Tenugu and Boya are dependent on fisheries and the government has promised more impetus to this sector.

Nayi Brahmins, traditionally the barber community, have been offered a special assistance to set up modern, cleaner and hygienic hair cutting saloons. Washermen in the states have been promised washing machines, driers and ironing-boxes.

Communities like Vishwakarma, Avusula, Kammari, Kanchari, and Vadrangwho are artisans and use their hands and equipment for their professionwill get financial assistance and modern tools for their work. The Gouds, whose profession is toddy tapping, will also be extended help from the government.

Interestingly, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao's pet project of two bedroom houses for the rural poor did not get any fund allocation. It was not mentioned in last year's budget either. KCR had promised to build 2.6 lakh two-bedroom houses for the poor. In December last, KCR inaugurated 500 houses with great fanfare in his adopted villages of Erravalli in Siddipet district and Narsannapet in Markook mandal.

Though the chief minister is likely to give a boost to this scheme before the elections, many builders are reportedly refusing to take up construction work due to meager profit they earn from it, though the government is offering them sand and cement at a cheaper rate and other incentives.

To discourage rural women from moving to cities for their deliveries, the government has sanctioned Rs 12,000 each to women who will get their delivery done in a government hospital. An additional amount of Rs 1000 would be given to women who have baby girls. These women will be provided with a kit consisting of 16 essential items needed to bring up a baby for the first three months. The kit, named as `KCR kit' will be in the line of Tamil Nadu's 'AmmaKit' introduced by late former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa. This will cost the exchequer a whopping Rs 605 crore.

The government has also allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and has promised that the city's trammeled roads will be soon repaired, which will cost the government around Rs 350 crore. The government has also sanctioned Rs 377 crore as part of its plan to clean the Musi river, which is more or less an open sewer.
North Korea warned the United States on Tuesday of "merciless" attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is joining South Korean forces for exercises, infringes on its sovereignty or dignity.

North Korea, which has alarmed its neighbors with two nuclear tests and a string of missile launches since last year, said the arrival of the US strike group was part of a "reckless scheme" to attack it.

"If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater," the North's state KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army," KCNA said.

A US Navy spokesman said the Carl Vinson was on a regular, scheduled deployment to the region during which it would take part in exercises with the forces of ally South Korea.

Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual US-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war.

The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to handle North Korea.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday.

Last week, the US ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy and "all options are on the table".

Exacerbating regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced US anti-missile system.

The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system is for defense against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security.

The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests.

South Korean and US troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on March 1.

The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale.

China has also repeatedly expressed concern about the US-South Korean exercises, saying they do nothing to ease tension.

The United States has also started to deploy "Gray Eagle" attack drones to South Korea, a US military spokesman said on Monday.

The USS Carl Vinson led a carrier strike group in early March to the South China Sea, amid some confusion about US staying power in the region under a Trump administration that has policies skewed heavily toward a domestic agenda.
The Act 10 protests in 2011 are the subject of the new documentary "Divided We Fall."
If Neil Gorsuch wins confirmation to the Supreme Court, he could cast the deciding vote on President Donald Trumps travel ban against immigrants from certain countries. But its far from certain how he would vote.

According to an Associated Press review of Gorsuchs rulings, he has not written extensively about immigration policy during a decade on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And the few rulings he has been involved in do not reveal how he might decide if given the opportunity to consider an immigration ban.

Many of the cases involved people challenging their prison sentences for returning to the U.S. illegally after having been deported. He has often been deferential to immigration authorities, but has also sided with immigrants.

His record on immigration is a mixed bag, so its hard to predict how he would rule on any challenge to the executive order, says Melissa Crow, legal director for the American Immigration Council, which challenged Trumps original ban.

That order, which would have banned, people from seven majority Muslim counties, was put on hold last month by a federal appeals court, but Trump signed a new version March 6. That one removed Iraq from the list and eliminated a provision to give priority to religious minorities in allowing immigrants in.

The new order is to take effect Thursday, pending the outcome of legal challenges. It would not affect current visa holders but would bar new visas for people from Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. And it would temporarily shut down the U.S. refugee program.

There have been eight justices on the court since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year. So for now theres the possibility of a tie vote, which means the lower court ruling would stand.

If Gorsuch makes the ninth vote, which way would he go?

While his rulings on major immigration policy are limited, they do offer insight into his thinking.

In a 2013 case, he wrote, No doubt, we can and will strike down regulations that defy Congress statutes or the Constitutions guarantees. We do not, however, amend, revise or undo administrative regulations just because they may not be to a litigants liking or our own.

Unless some violation of law is involved, the business of deciding the sometimes hard, often fine and nearly always contestable questions of immigration policy belongs to the legislature and executive, not the courts.

Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University, says Gorsuchs sympathy for people in religious cases, a general skepticism of executive power and a history of ruling for immigrants give some reason to think he could be sympathetic to plaintiffs challenging a ban on people from certain countries.

But, Dorf added, At this point its still sort of a guessing game.

Gorsuch has shown sympathy for religious freedom, notably siding with employers who objected to providing employees coverage for contraceptives. He also found it was wrong for a Wyoming prison to deny use of an existing prison sweat lodge to an inmate who wanted to use it to exercise his Native American religious beliefs. But its not clear how those considerations would factor into a ban on people from majority Muslim countries.

In one immigration case, Gorsuch sided with a Somalian convicted of lying under oath during grand jury questioning about his asylum application, saying the immigrant should have been provided an interpreter. In another case, he was part of a decision that found the court lacked jurisdiction to consider an appeal from Mexican immigrants who argued deportation would create an undue hardship because their teenage kids were U.S. citizens.

In one of Gorsuchs most noted immigration cases, he sided with an immigrant over the application of a law requiring some people who enter the country illegally to wait 10 years outside the U.S. before they can obtain legal residency.

In response to a Senate questionnaire that is part of the confirmation process, Gorsuch put that 2016 case at the top of a list of his most important rulings, saying it dealt with conflicting provisions in immigration law. One provision gave the attorney general power to grant residency to people who enter the country illegally, while another required the 10-year waiting period.

An appeals court had said the first provision trumped, allowing immigrants to apply to the attorney general to stay. But an immigration board said the 10-year rule took precedence. Gorsuch objected to the immigration board applying the 10-year rule for a man who applied for residency when the appeals court decision still stood.

In a concurring opinion, however, Gorsuch took aim at the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which gives deference to federal agencies interpretations of ambiguous statutes, calling it an elephant in the room.

He wrote that the doctrine and another ruling, often referred to as Brand X, allow executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers design.

Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said Gorsuchs words hold troubling portents for immigration policy, though they came in a case in which he ruled in favor of an immigrant.

He really believes agencies should not be given the deference that decades of courts have agreed they should be given and that it should be judges themselves who are the ones that are making the decisions about how those rules should be applied, she said.

In considering Trumps original order, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the administration presented no evidence that any foreigner from the seven countries was responsible for a terrorist attack in the U.S. The court also noted allegations that the order targeted Muslims.

Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law, said its hard to predict how any judge will rule in future cases, and in addition Trumps plan has national security implications.

When it comes to national security, courts are often deferential to the president, he said.

(AP)
Employers across Europe can now ban workers from wearing visible religions symbols including the Islamic headscarf, the European Unions top court ruled on Tuesday, finding it would not constitute direct discrimination.

The ruling, seen as a victory for many in the political right wing, was the first of its kind amid a series of legal disputes surrounding womens rights to wear a hijab at work.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that companies with legitimate reasons to project a neutral image could establish internal rules banning political, philosophical or religious symbols, saying the rule does not constitute direct discrimination, the Guardian reported.

However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employers services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination, the court said in a statement.

(AP)
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday postponed her trip to Washington for her first face-to-face meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump due to the late-winter storm expected on the U.S. east coast.

Merkel had been scheduled to arrive late Monday night for meetings with Trump on Tuesday but called off the trip at the last minute due to the weather, her office said.

The White House said the meeting was rescheduled for Friday.

When they do meet, the encounter between the trained physicist and veteran politician, renowned for her measured comments and reserved style, and the billionaire real-estate outsider whose off-the-cuff tweets and undiplomatic approach have rocked American politics could produce an interesting dynamic.

But despite the difference in styles, hopes are high that Europes most powerful leader will be able to use her savvy and experience to dispel some of the angst that has grown internationally over the first weeks of Trumps administration.

Though shes talked by phone with Trump, Tuesdays meeting in person with the new president will present her with a good opportunity to get a read of who is calling the shots and who has the presidents ear, said Sylke Tempel, an expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations.

You can only find that out when youre there, and this is a situation where shes particularly good because she observes things, Tempel said.

In Merkels 12 years as chancellor she worked well with both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and shes also demonstrated that she wont be pushed around by leaders who try to use what Tempel called macho tactics with her.

Putin tried that on her, Erdogan tried that and there are quite a few others, Tempel said. She has an enormous amount of patience, an internal calm and self-confidence, and the kind of personality that would say Ive seen macho characters come and go, and Ive seen men making a lot of mistakes.'

In addition to establishing a relationship with Trump and getting a firsthand read of the new White House dynamics, there are a wide range of issues that Merkel is expected to address.

With Trumps America first economic leanings, his questioning of multilateral trade deals and enthusiastic endorsement of Britains decision to leave the European Union, Merkels main goal is expected to be to impress upon the president her view that a strong EU is also in Washingtons strategic and economic interests.

Alluding to this, she told Parliament on Thursday that she plans to emphasize that even if in parts of the world we see protectionist and nationalist approaches on the rise, Europe may never isolate, seal itself off or withdraw.

Shes bringing with her a trade delegation that reportedly includes the heads of both BMW and Siemens, whose companies together employ around 120,000 people in the U.S. in their factories and related businesses.

Trade between the U.S. and Europe is advantageous for both sides, Merkel said after meeting German business leaders in Munich on Monday.

Talking directly is always much better than talking about each other, she said. That will be my motto on this visit, which I am looking forward to.

Trump has vocalized several other differences with Merkel, notably on the campaign trail last year when he called her decision in 2015 to allow 890,000 asylum seekers into Germany a disaster and said that Hillary Clinton wants to be Americas Angela Merkel.

Trump has also openly suggested that NATO is obsolete and has urged European countries to live up to commitments to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, though U.S. Vice President Mike Pence reassured Europeans in Munich last month that Americas commitment to the alliance was unwavering. Trump has elicited European concerns on multiple other issues, too, including his more friendly approach to Russia and his position on climate change.

In pointed remarks about Germany specifically, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro last month said that the country was using a grossly undervalued euro to exploit the U.S. and EU, and last week singled out the U.S. deficit with Germany as one of the most difficult trade issues Washington faces.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble scoffed at the idea Germany was somehow using currency manipulation to bolster exports, telling a group of foreign reporters in Berlin last week that the trade surplus was due to the competitiveness of German industry  in other words, Germany makes products Americans want to buy.

Despite the differences, Merkel told Parliament she would emphasize how much the U.S. and Europe have in common.

I am deeply convinced that the trans-Atlantic partnership based on common values is in all of our interests, not only for us Europeans, she said.

Ill hold my talks with President Donald Trump in this spirit. Precisely because the nature of the trans-Atlantic relationship has changed, Europe has decided to take more responsibility in the future, both in our own neighborhood and beyond.

(AP)
Poland will seek the arrest and extradition of a Minnesota man exposed by The Associated Press as a former commander in an SS-led unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians in World War II, prosecutors said Monday.

Prosecutor Robert Janicki said evidence gathered over years of investigation into U.S. citizen Michael K. confirmed 100 percent that he was a commander of a unit in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion.

He did not release the last name, in line with Polands privacy laws, but the AP has identified the man as 98-year-old Michael Karkoc, from Minneapolis.

All the pieces of evidence interwoven together allow us to say the person who lives in the U.S. is Michael K., who commanded the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion which carried out the pacification of Polish villages in the Lublin region, Janicki said.

The decision in Poland comes four years after the AP published a story establishing that Michael Karkoc commanded the unit, based on wartime documents, testimony from other members of the unit and Karkocs own Ukrainian-language memoir.

Karkocs family has repeatedly denied he was involved in any war crimes and his son questioned the validity of the evidence against him after Polands announcement, calling the accusations scandalous and baseless slanders.

Theres nothing in the historical record that indicates my father had any role whatsoever in any type of war crime activity, said Andriy Karkoc.

He questioned the Polish investigation, saying my fathers identity has never been in question nor has it ever been hidden.

In Poland, prosecutor Andrzej Pozorski said Karkoc would be given a full opportunity to tell his story.

This person has not been questioned in the capacity of a suspect so it is hard to react to his explanations, because we dont know them, said Pozorski who heads the investigative team at a state institute.

Prosecutors with the National Remembrance Institute, which investigates Nazi and Communist-era crimes against Poles, have asked a court in Lublin to issue an arrest warrant for Karkoc. If granted, Poland would seek his extradition, as Poland does not allow trial in absentia, Janicki said.

He added the mans age was no obstacle in seeking to bring him before justice.

He is our suspect as of today, Janicki said.

If convicted of ordering the killing of civilians in 1944, Karkoc could face life in prison.

The U.S. attorneys office in Minnesota declined to comment on the case.

Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, applauded the decision as an important signal even at this late stage.

Any legal step thats taken against these people is very important, he said by telephone from Jerusalem. It sends a very powerful message, and these kinds of things should not be abandoned just because of the age of a suspect.

Pozorski, in Warsaw, shared this view.

This case shows that there is still a possibility, a chance to bring those responsible before a court and I think we should never give up the chance of exercising justice.

Prosecutors in Germany shelved their own investigation of Karkoc in 2015 after saying they had received comprehensive medical documentation from doctors at the geriatric hospital in the U.S. where he was being treated that led them to conclude he was not fit for trial.

Karkocs family says he suffers from Alzheimers disease.

Zuroff urged that he be reassessed by independent doctors.

It is a very common occurrence that elderly individuals facing prosecution for World War II crimes make every effort to look as sick and as infirm as possible, he said.

The investigations in Germany and Poland began after APs story in June 2013, which established Karkoc was a commander of the unit and then lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States a few years after the war.

A second report uncovered evidence that Karkoc himself ordered his men in 1944 to attack a Polish village in which dozens of civilians were killed, contradicting statements from his family that he was never at the scene.

The Associated Press stands by its stories, which were well-documented and thoroughly reported, said Lauren Easton, director of APs media relations, on Monday.

The special German prosecutors office that investigates Nazi crimes concluded that enough evidence existed to pursue murder charges against Karkoc.

APs initial investigation found that Karkoc entered the U.S. in 1949 by failing to disclose to American authorities his role as a commander in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion. The investigation found that Karkoc was in the area of the massacres, but did not uncover evidence linking him directly to atrocities.

The second story, based upon an investigative file originally from the Ukrainian intelligence agencys archive, revealed that a private under Karkocs command testified in 1968 that Karkoc ordered an assault on the village of Chlaniow in retaliation for the slaying of the SS major who led the Legion, in which Karkoc was a company commander.

A German roster of the unit confirmed that Pvt. Ivan Sharko, a Ukrainian, served under Karkocs command at the time.

Other eyewitness accounts, both from villagers and members of Karkocs unit, corroborated the testimony that the company set buildings on fire and gunned down more than 40 men, women and children.

Other soldiers who served under Karkoc backed up Sharkos testimony about civilian killings.

Pvt. Vasyl Malazhenski, for example, told Soviet investigators that in 1944 that unit was directed to liquidate all the residents of Chlaniow  although he did not say who gave the order.

Sharko also testified in the investigative documents that Karkocs company was directly involved in a punitive mission against Poles near the village of Sagryn in 1944.

(AP)
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today declared a state of emergency across all 62 counties in New York ahead of the extreme winter storm expected to bring heavy snowfall and high winds. The Governor also directed non-essential state employees impacted by the winter storm to stay home from work on Tuesday without having to charge accruals.

At the Governors direction, MTA express subway service will be suspended after the rush hour Tuesday night in order to store trains underground on those tracks. Beginning at 4 a.m. Tuesday, above-ground service on the subway will also be suspended. Commuters traveling on New York City Transit, Long Island Rail Road and Metro North are encouraged to stay home tomorrow, if possible, as additional service changes are expected. As the state continues to prepare for the storm, New Yorkers should exercise caution, avoid unnecessary travel and pay close attention to winter storm advisories as the day progresses.

To ensure our local governments have the resources and support they need to prepare and respond quickly to the impending winter storm, I am declaring a statewide state of emergency, Governor Cuomo said. With heavy snow and blizzard-like conditions expected from upstate to downstate, we are taking every precaution to keep New Yorkers safe. I urge residents to stay informed, avoid unnecessary travel, and where possible, leave work early as heavy snowfall is expected to begin tonight.

Snow is expected to cover Upstate New York, where 12 to 24 inches of snow is anticipated in the Western New York, Finger Lakes, and Central New York regions over a 48 hour period beginning Monday night. Areas south of Lake Ontario from Buffalo to Rochester will see periods of snowfall of 2 to 3 inches per hour during parts of the day Tuesday.

The heaviest snow accumulations are expected in the south and east of the Capital Region, the Mohawk Valley, and the Mid-Hudson Valley region where 20 to 24 inches of snow is expected from late Monday night through late Tuesday night and will taper off on Wednesday. Peak snowfall will fall on Tuesday during the daylight hours and in these areas, the bulk of the snowfall will from between 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. Travel will be extremely dangerous from high rates of blowing and drifting snow.

The storm has shifted to the west and will have substantial impacts on the New York City areas. Snow will move into the lower Mid-Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island regions after midnight on Monday. Heavy snow will be begin early Monday evening and will fall at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour for the Tuesday morning rush hour. By the evening commute, there is strong potential for 16 to 20 inches of snow with whiteout conditions throughout the day. Snowfall rates may reach 2 to 4 inches per hour at intermittent periods throughout the day, which will be exacerbated by gusty winds of 40-50 miles per hour in New York City and Long Island. Highest snow totals will be in the northern parts of New York City, Orange and Putnam counties which will see 20 to 24 inches of snow during the duration of the storm. Long Island especially areas near Montauk, will see wind gusts up to 60 mph which could take down tree limbs and power lines. Driving will be especially hazardous on Tuesday for both the morning and evening commutes. Minor coastal flooding is also expected during high tide.

Weather Warnings

Winter Storm Warnings will go in effect for the Western New York region, Finger Lakes region, Central New York region, Mohawk Valley region, Southern Tier, and northern Capital Region from Monday night through Wednesday night.

Winter Storm Warnings will go into effect for the upper Mid-Hudson Valley region and the Eastern Long Island region from late Monday night through Tuesday night.

Winter Storm Warnings will go into effect for the North Country region from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning.

Blizzard Warning will go into effect for the lower Capital District region, Mid-Hudson Valley, New York City, and Western Long Island regions from late Monday night through Tuesday night.

A Coastal Flood Warning will go into effect from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesday along the South Bays of western Long Island and the Atlantic Ocean beachfront.

Governor Directs All Non-Essential State Employees to Stay Home on Tuesday

Due to anticipated weather conditions associated with the extreme winter storm, all non-essential New York State employees in all counties except Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Lewis, Franklin, Clinton and Essex do not have to report to work on Tuesday, March 14 and do not need to charge accruals for such absence. If an agency has any questions, the agencys designated representative should contact the Governors Office of Employee Relations at 518-474-6988.

State Agency Preparations for Noreaster

Representatives from the following state agencies and emergency response partners have been directed to report to the State Emergency Operation Center for storm preparation and response starting Monday evening:

Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services

Office of Emergency Management

Office of Fire Prevention and Control

Department of Transportation

New York State Thruway

State Police

Department of Public Service

Division of Military and Naval Affairs

Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

Department of Environmental Conservation

American Red Cross

Office of Information Technology Services

Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services

In addition to activating the Emergency Operations Center, the Division of Homeland Securitys Office of Emergency Management is communicating with the National Weather Service and is coordinating with local emergency managers across the state. DHSES will pre-position two six-person tracked UTVs and one eight-person tracked vehicle with staff to Brentwood Stockpile on Long Island, with two high-axle vehicles. Also, one high-axle vehicle with two six-person tracked UTVs will be pre-positioned in Mid-Hudson Valley region with personnel and one High Axle with personnel is being deployed to Buffalo. Additional six-person tracked UTVs are on standby for movement to other portions of the state as necessary.

Department of Transportation

The New York State Department of Transportation has 3,847 operators and supervisors statewide and is ready to respond with 1,600 large plow/dump trucks, 200 medium plow/dump trucks, 324 loaders, 42 truck/loader mounted snow blowers, 61 tow plows, 20 graders and 15 pickup trucks with plows. The DOT also has more than 443,000 tons of road salt on hand. Upstate regions will be providing an additional 176 operators and supervisors, 12 Storm Managers, 30 trucks, and 12 loader/snowblowers to serve Long Island and the Mid-Hudson region for the duration of this storm. The Long Island Expressway will have 100 plows servicing the road  double the normal deployment for a snowstorm. DOT continues to monitor the forecast to ensure that out-of-region resources are being deployed to the areas that are expected to be hardest-hit by the storm.

Motorists are reminded to check 511NY by calling 511, or visiting www.511ny.org before traveling. The free service allows users to check road conditions and transit information. Mobile users can download the free 511NY mobile app from the iTunes or Google Play stores. The app features Drive mode, which provides audible alerts along a chosen route while a user is driving, warning them about incidents and construction. Users can set a destination prior to departing and receive information on up to three routes.

Thruway Authority

The New York State Thruway Authoritys winter weather preparations include a 24-hour staff rotation for maintenance personnel, snow removal equipment ready for deployment, and ample salt and fuel supplies to keep the roadways clear and safe.

The Thruway Authority has more than 592 supervisors and operators ready to deploy 201 large snow plows, 110 medium snow plows and 54 loaders across the state with more than 114,800 tons of road salt on hand. Variable Message Signs, Highway Advisory Radio and social media are utilized to alert motorists of winter weather conditions on the Thruway.

The Thruway Authority encourages motorists to sign up for TRANSalert e-mails which provide the latest traffic conditions along the Thruway. Motorists can sign up for TRANSalerts by following this link: www.thruway.ny.gov/tas/index.shtml. Thruway travelers can also get real-time updates by following @ThruwayTraffic on Twitter or by visiting www.thruway.ny.gov to see an interactive map showing traffic conditions for the Thruway and other New York State roadways.

State Police

The New York State Police will deploy additional patrols for the duration of the storm, and all resources will be available as needed, including 4X4 vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles. High-axle vehicles will also be ready for deployment to affected areas as needed.

New York National Guard

The New York National Guard Joint Operations Center is active and monitoring the situation with approximately 2,000 members deployed to specific regions of the state or on standby and available as needed. The New York National Guard has 350 members with 45 vehicles deployed in New York City; 255 members with 38 vehicles deployed in the Hudson Valley; 135 members with 57 vehicles deployed on Long Island; 100 members with 35 vehicles deployed in Capital District; 50 members with 22 vehicles deployed in Central New York; and 255 members with 69 vehicles deployed in Western New York. Additional personnel will staff Joint Task Force Headquarters in New York City, Mid-Hudson and Buffalo Regions. The National Guard is also prepared to respond if needed with personnel and high-axle vehicles on Long Island, in New York City, the Mid-Hudson Valley and other regions of the state.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Check out www.mta.info and https://twitter.com/MTA for updates, including modified emergency schedules. Customers are also strongly encouraged to sign up for the MTAs various electronic notification systems  including direct email and text message alerts that can be customized for a customers specific travel  via www.mymtaalerts.com and through the MTAs social media accounts.

SUBWAYS

Express service will stop running after rush hour on Tuesday night. Starting at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, above-ground subway service will be suspended. Please check the Underground Service Map for more details.

Snow-fighting equipment for subways will include more than 2,000 snow melting devices staged along the tracks at crucial track switches and along other infrastructure, including: 1,500 third rail heaters; 80 trains with scraper shoes, which are used on in-service trains to scrape ice off the third rail as a train moves along the tracks; 10 snow throwers, which have precise directional snow throwing equipment with rotating brushes that throw snow up to 300 feet from the track and can remove up to 3,000 tons of snow an hour; 7 de-icer train cars, which are trains equipped with ice scraping shoes that scrape off ice that has accumulated on the third rail. They also use pumping equipment to dispense a stream of nontoxic, biodegradable de-icing fluid to prevent ice buildup on the third rail. If ice is permitted to build up, subway car power pickup equipment will not be able to draw electric current from the third rail and the train will stop; 4 track jet blowers, which use a jet engine to remove accumulated snow from the roadbed. This piece of equipment is used primarily to keep the yards clear.

All previously planned subway maintenance, rehabilitation and construction projects have been cancelled through Tuesday afternoon.

BUSES

Normal bus service will run on Monday. Bus service is likely to be suspended on Tuesday morning based on local road and blizzard conditions. Until service suspension, all articulated buses are being replaced by standard 40-foot buses.

Bus operations has more than 90 pieces of snow-fighting equipment to supplement the work of municipal agencies. All local buses in service will have tires chained.

RAILROADS

LIRR and Metro-North railroads anticipate a normal evening rush hour on Monday night. Both railroads anticipate the likelihood of suspended service on Tuesday as conditions worsen and deep and blowing snow interfere with operations of third rail power, creating the potential to strand trains and customers. Service announcements on Tuesday service will be made before 4:30 a.m.

Metro-North Railroad: https://twitter.com/MetroNorth

Long Island Railroad: https://twitter.com/LIRR

Anti-freeze trains have been deployed throughout the systems to spray de-icer on the third rail along LIRR, where the rail is exposed, in an effort to prevent ice-build-up; non-passenger patrol trains will operate along the right-of-way to prevent snowdrifts from forming on the tracks. At stations, extra personnel have salted and cleared platforms of snow. Waiting rooms are being kept open around the clock on Long Island to provide shelter for customers and selected rooms are kept open at Metro-North stations. Scheduled maintenance work has been canceled during the storm.

Metro-North has approximately 1,500 personnel working specifically on storm preparation and response. Metro-North has more than 270 pieces of storm-fighting equipment on hand, including: 212 snowblowers, 35 pickup truck plows, 3 rail-bound jets, 767,000 pounds of salt.

LIRR has approximately 1,500 personnel working specifically on storm preparation and response and more than 400 pieces of equipment on hand, including: 362 snowblowers, 18 pickup truck plows, 22 front end loaders, 7 rail-bound jets, 800,000 pounds of salt.

BRIDGES AND TUNNELS

Bridges and Tunnels will remain open Monday night. Pedestrian walkways will close once sustained winds reach 40mph; All bridges will close to trucks when sustained winds reach 50mph and all traffic will be barred at 60mph.

Approximately 350 maintenance and operations personnel will be deployed during the storm, including about 270 specifically for snow-fighting. Electronic weather sensors are functional at all facilities to monitor weather and roadway conditions in real time. There are more than 9,000 tons of roadway de-icer on hand and more than 100 pieces of storm fighting equipment including trucks and plows are ready.

PARATRANSIT

Paratransit service will be suspended  other than extreme emergencies  starting Tuesday morning at 5 a.m.

New York City Transit has also coordinated a procedure with New York City first responders and the Office of Emergency Management for rescuing customers on immobilized vehicles or those who develop medical needs during storms.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is making extensive preparations involving personnel and equipment at all of its facilities in expectation of the strong winter storm currently forecast to begin Monday night through Tuesday. The agencys Office of Emergency Management is in contact with other local, state and federal officials and agencies and will develop regional preparations for the upcoming storm in consultation with them.

The Port Authoritys Office of Emergency Management will open its Emergency Operation Center beginning at 9 p.m. tonight. It is staffed by key agency decision makers from all of the major facilities and will remain open throughout the duration of the storm.

The following equipment and supplies are available at the Port Authoritys major transportation facilities in the event of a major storm:

Hundreds of pieces of snow equipment at the airports, including melters able to liquefy up to 500 tons of snow an hour and plows that can clear snow at 40 mph, and dozens of pieces of snow equipment at PA bridges and tunnels;

Thousands of tons of salt and sand for airport roads, parking lots, bridges and tunnels;

Hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid chemicals at the airports to prevent snow and ice from bonding to runways and taxiways; thousands of tons of solid de-icers that break up snow and ice already on the ground; and

Plow-equipped trains and snow-melting materials to clear the agencys PATH station tracks and facilities.

There will be extensive flight cancellations on Tuesday at LGA and JFK; travelers are encouraged to check with their carriers; departing passengers should not go to LGA unless they have a reservation.

For up-to-the-minute updates on Port Authority crossings, airports and the PATH system, travelers are encouraged to sign up for Port Authority alerts at www.paalerts.com. Travelers may also call 511 or visit 511NY.org or 511NJ.org for further information on highway conditions.

Department of Public Service

The Department of Public Service is in contact with utility senior executives to ensure that the utilities are prepared for inclement weather, and it will be closely monitoring utility storm-preparation efforts to ensure that utilities stand ready to minimize outages and speed outage restorations. Electric and gas utilities, as well as telecommunication service providers, such as Verizon, are prepared to bring on additional manpower to minimize service disruptions, if they occur. Utilities are prepared to respond 24 hours a day to power disruptions and are mandated to implement their emergency response plans, when needed, which includes contacting customers on life-support equipment and other critical customers.

In light of the potential inclement weather expected, the Department will expand its Call Center Helpline hours, beginning Tuesday, March 14 from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., to assist consumers in storm response and restoration efforts, and Wednesday, March 15, if needed. The Departments Call Center Helpline can be reached by calling (800) 342-3377. Department staff will monitor and report on storm impacts and utility restoration activities throughout the event and will be present in the field, as needed.

How to Contact Your Utility:

Central Hudson: (845) 452-2700 or (800) 527-2714, or go to www.centralhudson.com

Con Edison: (800) 75-CONED (800-752-6633), or go to www.coned.com

PSEG-Long Island: (800) 490-0075, or go to www.psegliny.com

National Grid (upstate electric): (800) 867-5222, or go to www.nationalgridus.com

National Grid (upstate gas): (800) 642-4272, or go to www.nationalgridus.com

National Grid (metro area gas): (718) 643-4050, or go to www.nationalgridus.com

National Grid (Long Island gas): (800) 490-0045, or go to www.nationalgridus.com

NYSEG (electric): (800) 572-1131, or go to www.nyseg.com

NYSEG (gas): (800) 572-1121, or go to www.nyseg.com

Orange & Rockland: (877) 434-4100, or go towww.oru.com

Rochester Gas & Electric (electric): (800) 743-1701, or go to www.rge.com

Rochester Gas & Electric (gas): (800) 743-1701, or go to www.rge.com

Department of Environmental Conservation

The State Department of Environmental Conservation is mobilizing Environmental Conservation Officers, Forest Rangers and other staff assets in the Mid-Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island regions, including ATVs, UTVs, snowmobiles, and 44 trucks available to assist in any necessary response efforts. DEC coastal engineering experts are also ready to assist in monitoring for potential flooding and coastal erosion from the storm. Other public protection and spill response staff are coordinating with other state and local partners to provide additional assistance as needed.

Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Governor Cuomo also announced the closure of all state parks, historic sites, and DEC-managed facilities located within the impacted areas, including Suffolk, Nassau, New York City, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, Ulster, Greene, Columbia, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Montgomery, Saratoga and Washington counties. Park visitors should monitor www.nysparks.com or call their local park office for the latest updates.

Safety Precautions

All residents should have the following items available:

Flashlight and extra batteries.

Battery-powered portable radio or NOAA Weather Radio to receive emergency information.

Seven to ten days supply of food. High-energy food, such as dried fruit or candy, and food requiring no cooking or refrigeration is best. Also stock an emergency supply of bottled water. The recommended amount is one gallon per person per day for 7 to 10 days.

A one-week supply of essential medicines and baby items.

First aid kit and supplies.

Extra blankets and sleeping bags.

Fire extinguisher and smoke detector  test regularly to ensure they are working properly.

Safety on the Road

When winter storms strike, do not drive unless necessary.

If you must travel, make sure your car is stocked with survival gear like blankets, a shovel, flashlight and extra batteries, extra warm clothing, set of tire chains, battery booster cables, quick energy foods and brightly-colored cloth to use as a distress flag.

Keep your gas tank full to prevent gasoline freeze-up.

If you have a cell phone or two-way radio available for your use, keep the battery charged and keep it with you whenever traveling. If you should become stranded, you will be able to call for help, advising rescuers of your location.

Make sure someone knows your travel plans.

Drive Safely

The leading cause of death and injuries during winter storms is transportation accidents.

Before getting behind the wheel or your car, clear it of ice and snow. Good vision is a key to good driving.

Plan your stops and keep more distance between cars. Be extra alert. Remember, snowdrifts can hide smaller children. Moreover, always match your speed to the road and weather conditions.

Trapped in a Car

With blizzard conditions expected, here are some tips to follow:

Stay in your car and wait for help to find you.

Run your engine for short periods of time to stay warm. Keep your down-wind window open and make sure your exhaust pipe is clear of snow.

Turn on the dome light at night when you are running the engine to signal rescuers.

Hang a brightly colored piece of cloth or piece of clothing from your car.

Exercise from time to time by vigorously moving arms, legs, fingers and toes to keep blood circulating and to keep warm.

(YWN Desk  NYC)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday night the eve of 16 Adar met in Jerusalem for over five hours with Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trumps Special Representative for International Negotiations.

They reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the PA (Palestinian Authority) that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region.

The Prime Minister told Mr. Greenblatt that he believes that under President Trumps leadership, it is possible to advance peace between Israel and all its neighbors, including the Palestinians, and he looks forward to working closely with President Trump to achieve that goal.

Mr. Greenblatt reaffirmed President Trumps commitment to Israels security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations.

The Prime Minister and Mr. Greenblatt continued discussions relating to settlement construction in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security.

Mr. Greenblatt stressed how important enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians are to President Trump.

The Prime Minister assured Mr. Greenblatt that he was fully committed to broadening prosperity for Palestinians and sees it as a means of bolstering the prospects for peace.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo Credit: Kobi Gideon, GPO)
Israels entire healthcare system will be shutting down to all non-emergencies on Wednesday, 17 Adar from 8:00AM-10:00AM. This is in response the tragic murder of nurse Tova Kararo AH, who was burned to death by a disgruntled patient RL. The general strike was announced by Histadrut national labor federation head Avi Nissankoren.

The suspect in custody, a 78-year-old male, who arrived at the Holon Kupat Cholim on Kaplan Street with a flammable liquid and a lighter because he was not satisfied with the treatment he received.

When the victim, 51, passed, he RL threw the flammable liquid and ignited it and she was on fire immediately. The suspect, who is believed to be mentally ill, arrived to complain about service for him to receive a flu vaccination.

It was a chaotic horror as people looked on in fright, some running for fire extinguishers and others water while screams were heard. There were shouts and panic among the many patients and personnel present.

Unfortunately, efforts to save the victim were unsuccessful.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is promising his Justice Department will lead the charge in helping cities fight violent crime, and police chiefs are ready with their wish-lists.

More technology to trace guns after shootings. More grant money. More intelligence analysts to help dismantle gangs. More protective gear and equipment. As the head of one police officers union put it, We need more of everything.

But Sessions, who cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the height of the drug war in the 1980s, has inherited a federal government that built itself to fight terrorism since 9/11 and, more recently, to combat cybercrime.

Since taking office, Sessions has spoken repeatedly about a spike in murders. He and President Donald Trump ordered the creation of a crime-fighting task force, bringing together the heads of the major law enforcement agencies. And they seem to be counting on tighter border security to stop a flow of drugs and reduce crime.

But they have yet to detail how federal law enforcement should juggle priorities or offer new money for crime-fighting, especially in the face of Trumps plan to slash nonmilitary budgets. Some clarity could come Thursday when the administration unveils its budget proposal.

Hell find out very quickly that you cant pull people off all these other things just to go do that, said Robert Anderson, who was the FBIs most senior criminal investigator until his retirement in 2015. Anderson joined the bureau in the 1990s, when combating violence and drugs was its top challenge. Now hes walking into a much different Justice Department and FBI.

Kerry Sleeper, assistant director of the FBI office that works with local law enforcement, said that after decades of declines in violence, police chiefs are coming to grips with a new uptick and asking for federal help.

What theyd like to see:

 In Milwaukee, Police Chief Edward Flynn said he would like an expansion of the work done in that city by the Justice Departments Violence Reduction Network. It teams officers with deputy U.S. marshals and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration to target high-crime areas. Its encouraging to have an incoming administration take an interest in the spikes in violence in central cities, he told The Associated Press.

 In Baltimore, which recorded 318 homicides last year, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis has said he would like federal agencies to double the number of agents assigned to cities experiencing spikes in violence.

 In Chicago, singled out by the White House for its surge in shootings, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has said he would welcome more agents and money for mentorship and after-school programs to help kids in violent neighborhoods and, in turn, reduce crime.

Other cities want help processing evidence, tracing guns and prosecuting drug traffickers and dealers as they combat heroin and opioid addiction.

More chiefs are asking the FBI for its help with intelligence-gathering to thwart crime, said Stephen Richardson, assistant director for the FBIs criminal division.

Making violent crime a priority is a departure for a Justice Department that has viewed as more urgent the prevention of cyberattacks from foreign criminals, counterterrorism and the threat of homegrown violent extremism. And while local police say they want more help fighting violence, such a plan could put new pressure on Justice Department agencies already strapped for resources.

Our budgets been eroding, Thomas Brandon, acting ATF director, told a congressional committee last week. The ranks of the agencys special agents hit an eight-year low in fiscal year 2013 and have not grown dramatically since then.

Sessions focus fits his background. His career as a prosecutor began when there was bipartisan agreement in Washington that the best way to fight crime was with long, mandatory prison sentences. And he views todays relatively low crime rates as a sign that those policies worked. Just last week, he underscored his priority in a memo to the nations federal prosecutors that they should use all available resources to take down the worst offenders.

In contrast, the Obama administrations Justice Department focused its aid to local police on improving community relations.

The federal government has long played a role in fighting crime through grants and partnerships. Agents assigned to field offices work with local police to share intelligence on gangs and shootings, hunt fugitives and probe bank robberies, among other things. Constance Hester-Davis, special agent in charge of the ATFs field division in New Orleans, said her agents routinely work alongside local counterparts, even attending community meetings.

At the end of the day, crime is a state and local concern, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank. However, what police chiefs say is the federal government does have a responsibility, particularly when they prosecute.

Such cooperation can work. Oakland, California, police saw killings fall from 126 in 2012 to 85 in 2016, two years after FBI agents were embedded in the homicide unit. Ten agents now share an office with Oakland detectives, offering help gathering evidence, collecting DNA, chasing leads and bringing federal prosecutions that carry longer sentences in far-away prisons. Detectives solved at least 60 percent of their cases last year, compared to about 30 percent in 2010, said Russell Nimmo, FBI supervisory special agent on the Oakland Safe Streets Task Force.

Its very complementary to what our mission is, Nimmo said. Were a big organization. The challenge for our leadership is determining how many resources to allocate to each of those competing priorities.

Richardson, who formed the first FBI task force in Louisiana to combat violent criminals, said the new focus will mean shifting resources in ways that are yet to be seen. The FBI is finalizing a strategy to surge resources, including agents, in certain cities this summer.

We wont be able to do all the cities wed like to at once, Richardson said. I firmly believe it will make a difference.

(AP)
Even before a massive storm began pounding the East Coast, nearly 5,400 U.S. flights scheduled for Tuesday were cancelled  including nearly all of the planes at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Newark Airport leads the nation with more than 1,000 cancelled outgoing and incoming flights as of 6 a.m. Tuesday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website.

Though some flights were able to depart before the storm began closing in on New Jersey, Tuesdays cancellations accounted for more than 87 percent of the days flights scheduled to leave from Newark.

Many airlines are waiving fees to allow travelers to change flights for later in the week. United Airlines, Newarks largest carrier, said anyone scheduled to fly Tuesday or Wednesday can reschedule for flights through Friday for free.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that oversees the area airports, warned travelers to stay away from the airports unless they were sure their flight was still scheduled to take off.

Other area airports also had large numbers of cancellations. As of 6 a.m., the cancelled flights included 846 at LaGuardia Airport, 761 at John F. Kennedy International Airport and 439 at Philadelphia International Airport, according to FlightAware.

Port Authority officials warned travelers not to rush to the airports even after the storm winds down. They are especially concerned about crowds swamping LaGuardia Airport, where construction has caused crippling traffic problems in recent weeks.

Looking ahead, the Port Authority said passengers without confirmed reservations should not go to LaGuardia Airport even after the storm ends. The agency has made extensive plans to accommodate what is anticipated to be significant numbers of LaGuardia passengers who need to rebook flights for Wednesday and later in the week, the Port Authority statement said.

(AP)
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
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After filling in an online survey, I was offered some free anti-wrinkle cream. All I had to pay was delivery, so I accepted on behalf of my wife.

Creams then started arriving erratically. I tried to stop these even before the cost became apparent - I discovered that nearly 1,000 had been taken from my current account.

I have no idea how the firm accessed my Nationwide account and I, a 70-year-old pensioner, certainly did not sign up for a regular supply of overpriced creams.

It claims to have sent 11 sets, but I received only eight, three of which arrived damaged.

Creaming off profits: A common scam involves conning people into handing over their credit card details to cover 'postage costs' for supposedly free wrinkle cream

I contacted Nationwide, which refunded the money while it investigated. It then decided that I had entered into a contract and the withdrawals were in order.

I am very computer-savvy and did not see any long-term commitment or the exorbitant cost of these creams laid out.

J. D., by email.

I fear both my laptop and I would spend the night on the sofa if I presented Mrs H with anti-wrinkle cream  free or not!

You have, I'm afraid, fallen victim to an all-too-common scam where a supposedly 'free' offer binds you to regular payments in obscure small print.

You wondered where the firm got your account details. Well, I'm assuming you gave your debit card number to pay for the postage on your 'offer'.

An astonishing 12 payments of 89.95 were taken from your account in two months, between October 8 and December 3 last year.

You contacted Nationwide on December 10 and it raised a chargeback, re-crediting you with 1,079.40.

But the merchant then provided evidence that you had agreed to the payments, so Nationwide debited the amount again on January 27.

Nationwide should have examined this more closely. Would anyone willingly sign-up to allow 12 sporadic payments of almost 90 to be taken from their account in just two months unless they had been deliberately misled?

The building society should have smelled a rat and looked at the website. After a nudge from me it listened to your call again and decided it should have considered misrepresentation.

This would have forced the merchant to provide details on the nature of the sale and prove that the contract was agreed.

Nationwide says it can't raise a second chargeback, so the dodgy firm will get to keep the money. But because Nationwide has won similar claims in the past, it will refund your 1,079.40 and has added 100 compensation.

There's a lesson here for those caught by similar freebie scams: make sure your chargeback application is made on the grounds of misrepresentation.

YOU HAVE YOUR SAY Every week, Money Mail receives hundreds of your letters and emails about our stories. Here are some of the best from our report on which insurance policies you should avoid like the plague: The default position is always that the claim is not covered. Then comes the long uphill battle to challenge and reverse the decision, argue the reimbursement and finally get the cheque. Then your premium shoots up because youve made a claim. Absolute rip-off. F. L., Brighton. We should all write to our MPs. The more people who do this, the more likely the Government will legislate against insurance industry bad practice. We cant just sit back and do nothing. A. R., London . I agree with almost everything in the article except boiler insurance  you can now get good deals. Ive had to call on mine a couple of times and Ive saved myself a lot of money. S. E., Nottingham. I work in insurance and can tell you that a large percentage of cheap travel insurance policies will cover your luggage if you lose it on the way out but not on the way back. Always read the small print. A. N., London Last year my house got zapped by a voltage surge caused by a lightning strike. It wiped out a high-end home cinema and music system. The insurance company was brilliant  I was up and running within a month and every item was replaced. On my current premium, which didnt alter afterwards, it would take the firm 55 years to get its money back. T. C., Ipswich My friends son works for an insurance company. He is on 100,000 a year plus bonuses, and his sole job is to find ways of not paying out on claims. So the chances of you getting a hassle-free pay out are remote. C. B., Canterbury

I lost my 0% balance transfer deal, but had no statements

I transferred my credit card balance to AA. Due to a late payment I have now been moved off the 0 per cent rate and on to the standard rate of interest.

While I accept this is usual practice I do feel it is unfair as I hadn't received any statements so was reliant on my memory for the payment due dates.

M. R., London.

You provided plenty more detail in your letter but the crux of this issue is that you missed the payment date on several occasions.

AA Financial Services went into your complaint in some detail with Bank of Ireland, which administers the credit card.

In the summer, your statements were wrongly addressed. As a result, you missed a payment and a late payment charge was applied.

However, this charge was later refunded and AA confirmed that your address was correct.

At this stage, the 0 per cent promotional rate was continued.

All was well until September, when correspondence was again returned as undeliverable. For security reasons, a block was then put on your account.

Several attempts were made to contact you and you eventually got in touch in October.

You missed that month's payment, but previous payments had been made. However, as per the terms and conditions, you were taken off the 0 pc rate.

In January you settled in full and closed your account.

I'm not sure why the letters were returned and payments missed but, unfortunately, you did break the terms of the promotional rate and, therefore, Bank of Ireland and AA were within their rights to cancel it.

Can I suggest that when taking out any promotional rate, or for that matter setting up a credit card, it makes sense to pay by direct debit.

Then you can be sure that even if a statement is lost in the post, at least the minimum payment will go through each month.

STRAIGHT TO THE POINT When I switched away from Scottish Power last November, I gave a final meter reading and was refunded a small credit. Now the firm claims I owe 246.90. When I complain, no one ever calls back. H. D., London. Scottish Power was trying to bill you for another flat in your building. It has now apologised for this and given you 75 to apologise for the trouble caused. You should receive no further bills. *** I heard that if you have a faulty Whirlpool tumble dryer you can get a new machine at a discount. How do I do this? A. C., by email. Call 0800 151 0905 and register your appliance for repair. Youll be given the option of upgrading your dryer. If youve already registered, details of how to upgrade will be included in any letters or emails sent out to you. You can also register online at safety.hotpoint.eu or safety.indesit.eu. *** How can I check if a 50-year-old Premium Bond is a winner? Ive just found one. M. C., Netherlands. If you have the internet, visit nsandi.com/prize-checker and enter the serial number on the bond. Or you can write to National Savings & Investments at NS&I, Glasgow G58 1SB. Remember to include your name, address and Premium Bonds holders number. Or you can call  as you live abroad, phone +44 1253 832007. From the UK, the number is 08085 007 007. *** If I give shares to my wife, will I have to pay capital gains tax? A. H., London. You can transfer them to her name without incurring any tax charge if you use so-called Crest forms. Another option is to sell and buy back the shares under her name. If the value of the shares has grown by less than 11,100  your annual capital gains tax (CGT) allowance  there is no tax to pay. And that means when you next sell the shares, the growth will be calculated from the date your wife bought them  which will help keep future CGT bills down, too.

I can't get my excess back after being hit by a bus

On May 12 last year, my car was hit by a bus. The driver was trying to turn round after missing a turn and reversed into my vehicle.

The bus company accepted full responsibility but I had to pay a 200 excess to the nominated repairers. This was on June 24 last year.

Since then I have been chasing my insurer, More Than, for this money without success.

S. P., Leicestershire.

More Than says that when there is an uninsured loss, such as your excess, it will attempt to recover it from the third party's insurer. This can take some time.

It seems the bus company's insurer made a clerical error on the payment, making it extremely time-consuming for More Than to locate it.

The good news is that you now have your 200.
Can investors back clean energy and make a profit? Rather than develop the technologies and projects themselves, 'yieldcos' specialise in buying and operating renewable energy power stations.

Dr. Charles W. Donovan, Director of the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial College Business School, explains more about them.

YieldCos are companies that put together a collection of assets that produce green energy

These days, its easy for investors to recognise the physical evidence of man-made climate change and observe the technological disruptions playing out in energy markets.

As a result, a growing number of investors are drawing the conclusion that fossil fuels no longer have a place in their portfolios. As 2016 drew to a close, investors controlling roughly $5trillion in financial assets had pledged to divest from fossil fuels.

Yet cutting out the risks from fossil fuels isnt quite so simple. For most, its not an option to cancel ones exposure to the energy sector. Energy is one of the worlds largest industrial sectors and the price of oil and natural gas has an impact on just about everything consumers buy.

So, the question many investors are asking now is, how does clean energy investing stack up against more conventional competitors?

Is now the right time for smart investors to shift from oil and gas to alternatives?

Theres one clear reason why investment in clean energy is attracting more attention these days.

Put simply, renewables have gotten a whole lot cheaper.

According to oil giant BP, wind and solar energy are already cheaper than their fossil-fuel alternatives in many regions around the world, most notably large parts of the US. Such regional phenomenon will become global within the next five to 10 years.

If this sounds bullish, keep in mind BPs noble admission in this years outlook that past forecasts have systemically underestimated the growth of renewable energy in the world economy. Some would say they are still too far behind the curve.

Yet, its been a very bumpy ride for investors trying to ride the trend towards cleaner energy. Most of the publicly-listed pure-plays in the sector are dedicated to technology development and manufacturing. Overall, these have fared terribly for shareholders.

New model: YeldCos are are a novel way of financing clean energy as they do not hold the risks of development

The major clean energy indices are still languishing well below their peaks before the financial crisis, having endured gut-wrenching price drops.

Academic research undertaken on behalf of Norways sovereign wealth fund revealed that the most prominent tracker, the Standard & Poors Global Clean Energy Index, has a negative annual return over the eight-year period 2007-2015.

Whats worse, the index has exposed investors to twice as much volatility as more broad market indices. Negative returns and high risk: thats hardly a good way to build for retirement.

Excitingly, theres a new breed of clean energy company now out there. First launched in the UK in March 2013 and subsequently copied in North America and Asia, clean energy 'YieldCos' trade on a very different business model.

Rather than develop the technologies and projects themselves, they specialise in buying and operating renewable energy power stations.

Smart investors know that its business models, not generic industry designations that matter these days.

Consider a company like Airbnb. As an individual investor, you cant yet buy its shares. But if you could, who would you compare it to?

Airbnb can be thought of as the worlds largest hotel chain, although it doesnt own a single bed. But would Hilton Hotels be a good comparator in testing the risk-return proposition of Airbnb shares? Certainly not.

Its clear from even a cursory glance that the risks of running an internet platform like Airbnb are different to running a real estate empire. So, too, are the financial returns.

While history is not always a reliable guide to the future, it plays an important role in how investors conceptualize risk. More specifically, we know that the distribution of past financial returns shape investors expectations of future investment performance.

Like Airbnbs backers, investors in clean energy YieldCos have been flying blind over the past few years, due to the lack of a historical precedent for their business models.

In Germany, retail investors already own nearly half of renewable energy generation capacity but in the UK, they have so far tended to stick with what they know - oil and gas

How YieldCos work

A YieldCo is formed by transferring operational power generation assets into a newly incorporated company. The YieldCo then distributes the majority of retained earnings to shareholders in the form of dividends.

The model allows investors to gain exposure to a diversified set of operational assets, each backed by long-term contracts for the sale of electricity. Proponents maintain that YieldCos offer the risk profile of a government bond, but with a dividend yield comparable to FTSE heavyweights BP and Royal Dutch Shell. If so, is clean energy finally becoming a safe bet for investors?

Dr Charles Donovan is Director of the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial College Business School

Why they are attractive

At the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial College Business School, we have been considering the evidence.

Weve found that a portfolio of UK YieldCos offers superior risk-adjusted returns to a range of indices, including the FTSE 100, FTSE small cap and FTSE oil & gas.

In our analysis, we compared the performance of all six listed UK YieldCos over a three-year period, the maximum period possible with the data series. While the returns on the YieldCo portfolio were generally higher than those of the indices, what really stood out was the level of risk reduction.

Across the board, the standard deviation of returns was substantially lower in the YieldCo portfolio. Thats important because it means that investors achieved average or superior returns, while exposing themselves to less financial risk.

For governments to come anywhere close to their commitments on global warming, trillions of dollars of investment in new clean energy installations will be needed around the world

Now, for governments to come anywhere close to their commitments on global warming, trillions of dollars of investment in new clean energy installations will be needed around the world.

Individual investors hold nearly half of the financial assets worldwide. If the financial proposition is attractive, they can be an important potential source of funding.

In Germany, for example, retail investors already own nearly half of renewable energy generation capacity. In the United Kingdom, individual investors have so far tended to stick with what they know in the energy sector, that means oil and gas.

Verdict

Our ongoing review of clean energy investing indicates that this bias may be set to change. The evidence shows YieldCos to be a straightforward and profitable way for investors to gain exposure to their domestic energy sector.

For an investor seeking income with no currency risk, clean energy YieldCos are bucking the conventional wisdom that theres a trade-off between profits and the planet. Thats good news for investors of all stripes, not just those concerned about the environment.
Marks & Spencer has shut down almost all of its 10 stores in mainland China since the start of the year - less than ten years after entering the market - as it failed to reach Chinese shoppers.

The exit from the Chinese market, which M&S entered in 2008 with a store in Shanghai, was announced last November, along with a raft of international store closures.

Since January, Britains biggest clothing chain has shut down seven of its Chinese stores in Shanghai and Beijing, with the remaining three, which are all in Shanghai, set to close in April.

Closures: M&S is closing down all of its 10 Chinese stores, including this one in Shanghai

Adam Colton, Marks & Spencer managing director for Greater China, said: 'Our decision to close our Chinese stores was driven by the fact that our stores continue to make losses and we have low brand awareness. Growth in market share is also challenging.'

The stores closure plan is part of a major cost-cutting drive, with M&S having announced the closure of 52 wholly-owned stores in ten markets last year.

These included seven in France as well as in Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

M&S owns 194 stores around the world. There are a further 274 under franchise in Russia, Thailand and also France.

Marks & Spencer, however, said it will keep its stores in Hong Kong and will continue its online expansion in China through its TMall, a shopping website owned by Chinese online giant Alibaba.

Colton said: 'Online shopping continues to grow in scale and relevance as Chinese customers look for more choice and greater convenience.

'Since we launched on TMall in December 2012, weve continued to see customer demand for our products online, resulting in strong double digit growth on 11.11 including our best ever performance in Kidswear.

'Going forward we will focus on growing our business on TMall  leverage its scale, logistics and local expertise to offer customers across the whole of China access to our quality clothing products.'

M&S new chief executive Steve Rowe, who took over from Marc Bolland last year, has changed the group's strategy to shift away from owning stores, which are expensive to run, in favour of growing the network of franchise shops.

Rowe is under pressure to turn M&S around after inheriting a business that has struggled to shift womens fashion.

Scaling back the firms international expansion is the first step towards dismantling the legacy of predecessor Marc Bolland.

Rowe has already taken drastic action by scrapping more than 500 head office jobs and slimmed down layers of senior management.

Shares in Marks & Spencer fell more than 2 per cent, or 8p, to 330.p in late morning trading.
Controversial investment bank Macquarie has sold Thames Water after a decade in which it piled on debt, sucked out profits and paid virtually no tax.

The lender is thought to have raised around 1.3billion from the sale of its final 26 per cent stake to the Canadian pension fund OMERS and the Kuwait Investment Authority.

It follows years of criticism for the Australian business, which was dubbed the vampire kangaroo for its asset-stripping ways.

Macquarie bought Thames from RWE in December 2006 but has since sold most of its stake to other investors.

Macquaire is thought to have raised around 1.3bn from the sale of its final 26 per cent stake to the Canadian pension fund OMERS and the Kuwait Investment Authority

The bank has withdrawn around 1.2billion in dividends during that time, while driving up Thames's debt from 1.6billion to 10billion.

This cash has been used to fund a 1billion-a-year spending spree on treatment plants and tunnels, as well as a drive to reduce leakage.

It has also allowed Thames to pay just 100,000 in corporation tax since 2006. At the same time, the pension deficit has ballooned to 260million, though the firm has pledged to plug this black hole by 2025.

Martin Blaiklock, a former utilities director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a persistent critic of the company, said: 'I think customers have been stuffed. They've ripped customers off and they've got away with it. It's a shocker.'

Thames has a chequered history on customer service and was fined twice in the year to the end of March 2016. It was also fined 1million in January for repeated sewage pollution in the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire.

Labour MP Frank Field, who chairs the Work and Pensions Select Committee, urged the Prime Minister 'to teach these rip-off companies that they're not running one-armed bandits where they always win', adding: 'They have huge responsibilities to their pension funds, their employees and their shareholders.'

The GMB union's national officer Stuart Fegan said: 'This deal doesn't tackle the complex web of companies with a grip over our water industry or the ever-increasing levels of debt repayments shelled out to foreign based investors - this deal is more a case of 'pass the parcel'.'

'If this Government is serious about tackling offshore investments and structures potentially designed to minimise their tax responsibilities in the UK, then it could start by ensuring long-term decisions about our water supply are taken in the best interests of customers and the workforce.'

Despite its record, Macquarie's infrastructure head Martin Stanley said his company had been a responsible owner.

'We feel privileged to have been associated with Thames Water for such a long period of time and are pleased to have significantly increased investment levels and improved operational performance.

Today, Thames Water is undoubtedly a better, stronger and more customer-focused business than that which we invested in back in 2006.'

Macquarie owns a string of infrastructure assets across the world and is leading a consortium which is the preferred bidder for National Grid's gas division.

It also wants to buy the Government-owned Green Investment Bank. But deals have been heavily criticised by campaigners who fear the Australian lender will suck out profits rather than acting in customers' best interests.
Bank chiefs are secretly discussing how to strengthen trade ties between the US and UK after Brexit.

A group of financiers led by Barclays chairman John McFarlane have been examining how the transatlantic partnership can thrive when Britain quits the European Union.

Before Brexit, doom-mongers warned bankers would flee London for the Continent  but the trade talks suggests the City is already seeking new opportunities.

A group of financiers led by Barclays chairman John McFarlane have been examining how the transatlantic partnership can thrive when Britain quits the European Union

Pro-Brexit president, Donald Trump, has already backed a trade deal between the two countries and heaped criticism on the EU.

David Buik of stockbroker Panmure Gordon said: 'It appears there are going to be greater ties between the US and the UK, which would make sense.'

The banking talks are being over seen by TheCityUK, a lobby group for financial services chaired by McFarlane. Barclays' American-born chief executive Jes Staley is leading a US sub-committee on trading ties.

Wall Street giant JP Morgan's European chairman Mark Gavin is reportedly running a UK sub-committee.

One source at a leading law firm said they were seeking to do the bare minimum to keep access to the EU.

Since the referendum, only HSBC and UBS have unveiled their plans to move jobs abroad, with each saying 1,000 roles would go.

However, one former regulator claimed even this was likely to be an over-exaggeration for bargaining purposes.

'The banks will go to most financial centres and get the promise of concessions in exchange for relocation,' he said.

'Then they will come back to London and say to the Prime Minister, 'We really would like to be in London but we've been offered all these inducements, so what can you offer us?'.'
Gatemore Capital has called for French Connection to be split up

A row over the future of French Connection has intensified with investors calling for the fashion brand to be broken up.

Gatemore Capital  which owns an 8 per cent stake  had been pushing for a shake-up which would include French Connection boss Stephen Marks relinquishing his joint role of chief executive and chairman.

But after it posted a fifth consecutive year of losses, Gatemore lost patience and called for it to be split up completely.

Liad Meidar, chief investment officer at Gatemore, accused the board of making a 'mockery' of modern corporate governance after Marks refused to split his roles.

But Marks said the firm was moving in the 'right direction'.

Overall revenue fell 6.7 per cent to 153.2million, but like-for-like sales jumped 4.4 per cent.
Big banks are under pressure to throw interest-only borrowers a lifeline after a small lender launched a loan you can take into retirement.

We can reveal that Shawbrook will become the first bank to launch a retirement mortgage for interest-only customers who cannot clear their debts at the end of their deal.

These borrowers are only paying the interest on their mortgages and may be turfed out of home unless they stump up thousands of pounds when their term expires.

The mortgage from Shawbrook Bank will be available to interest-only borrowers aged between 55 and 75.

Lifeline: Shawbrook will become the first bank to launch a retirement mortgage for interest-only customers who cannot clear their debts at the end of their deal

Customers will be able to borrow up to half their property's value  150,000 on a 300,000 house, for instance  for another 15 years or until they reach age 85, whichever comes sooner.

There are no penalties for repaying early. So, if the borrower wants to downsize or comes into an inheritance, they can clear the debt at any time.

However, the new loans will be expensive. Shawbrook will charge 6 per cent on a five-year fix, or 750 a month for a 150,000 loan. Santander charges 1.89 per cent on a five-year deal, or 236 a month.

But crucially, Shawbrook will accept customers who say they will eventually repay the loan by selling their house.

Most major lenders won't accept this alone as a plan to clear the debt, making it tough to get an extension or a new deal.

Other lenders are insisting interest-only customers also start repaying some of the capital.

Around half of Britain's 2.6 million interest-only borrowers will struggle to clear their debts, according to the City watchdog.

In 2013, the Financial Conduct Authority found they will fall 71,850 short on average. Banks have begun threatening borrowers with legal action if they can't pay on time.

Banking chiefs told Money Mail that Shawbrook's mortgage would put pressure on bigger lenders to offer better deals.

Nationwide has already confirmed it is working on a retirement loan  but would not say when it will be available.

Baroness Ros Altmann, the former pensions minister, says: 'It's terrible that people can be kicked out on to the streets because they are considered too old to borrow.

'It's great that at last a company is willing to offer these people an option. It could mean thousands of people get to stay in their homes.'

Terms: Borrowers aged between 55 and 75 will be able to borrow up to half their property's value for another 15 years or until they reach age 85, whichever comes sooner

The interest-only mortgage boom that ended in tears

Interest-only loans boomed in the 80s and 90s, at one point accounting for more than eight in ten new mortgages.

They were flogged as a cheaper way of getting on to the housing ladder than a standard mortgage.

In the early days, banks forced customers to pay into an investment that would clear the debt when the loan ended.

But these so-called endowments often performed abysmally, leaving borrowers facing shortfalls. By the 90s, banks rarely asked customers to pay into an investment.

After the financial crisis, it became difficult for borrowers to extend their loan into old age.

Some lenders have allowed customers to stay on interest-only mortgages until age 75, but others have stopped offering the deals altogether.

Colin Hall, a mortgage broker, and his wife fear they will have to sell their four-bed detached home.

They took out a 217,000 interest-only loan on their house, now worth 360,000, with Mortgages Plc in 2005 with the intention of paying down the debt.

But Colin, 71, could only afford the interest as his brokerage struggled in the financial crisis.

The loan matured two years ago and they have been given until Friday to repay the money  or their home will repossessed.

Colin says: 'We're devastated. We should have paid off our mortgage, but we've lived in this house for 27 years and want to stay.' Mortgages Plc declined to comment.

Gillian and Ramsis Boulos, in their 60s, were 34,000 short of the 138,000 they needed to clear their mortgage when it ended last month. They had been told their endowment would easily pay off the debt  but it didn't.

Gillian, who works as an assistant to a retired diplomat, says: 'I have some jewellery I can sell, but we are going to need to take out a bank loan for the rest.'

The endowment was sold by Allied Dunbar, now owned by Zurich, which is carrying out a 'thorough review' of the case.

Shawbrook's deal is one of two that give struggling older borrowers more time to repay.

The other, from tiny pension firm Hodge Lifetime, lets you borrow up to 60 per cent of the property value and is only available through mortgage brokers. It also has early repayment fees.

Some borrowers have downsized or taken out equity release plans, where the interest rolls up and doubles in size every 11 to 12 years. The costly loans are repaid when you die or are taken into care.

p.thomas@dailymail.co.uk
Spencer Black: Coal's on the way out, and Trump can't bring it back
MBABANE  Contrary to the norm, where banks sue individuals for breach of contract, a Mbabane-based businessman is demanding over E35 million from WesBank.



WesBank is a division of the First National Bank Swaziland (Pty) Ltd.

The total amount demanded from the bank is E35 471 446.56.

This amount emanates from an alleged breach of contract by the bank.



In his particulars of claim, Mandla Masilela, Director of Thama  Msekelave (Pty) Ltd, alleged that his company applied for the financing of two horse and trailers trucks with the bank, to which the bank consented to and both parties signed a lease agreement to that effect.



He claimed that despite being in a contractual agreement with the bank, his company had to reapply for the financing of the two trucks with WesBank in spite of having been approved before.



Articulating the loss of income, he said this amounted to E22 933 000.

This amount, according to the plaintiff (Masilela), was to be derived from the rate of the transport agreement he had with Montigny Investments trading as NHR.



The rate was E250 multiplied by 34 tonnes per load which amounts to E8 500 and in 24 hours, it managed to do loads amounting to E17 000, submitted the businessman.

In the claim, Thama  Msekelave (Pty) Ltd further pointed out that it rendered its services on a daily basis excluding May 1, Christmas Day, Incwala Day and the New Year holidays of each year.
LOBAMBA  You are vindictive messengers who are sent to settle personal scores! This is how MPs described the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) as they called for the agency to be investigated.



This took place yesterday during the portfolio committee debate of the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

According to the MPs, there was a lot of wrong in the operations of the parastatal so much that the public had lost its confidence in it.



It was MP Marwick Khumalo who spoke strongly about the issue and said the ACC did not exist according to him as it was only made up of people he referred to as titfunywa letisasatelwako, which means people who are set up like dogs to attack certain individuals.



He was supported by other MPs who mentioned that while its duty was to prevent and combat corruption and to achieve zero tolerance on corruption, the agency was being used as a vindictive model which pounced on certain individuals and left out some.



The fact that they even admit that they arrest people anyhow is a sign that the officers working there have just been sent to settle scores. The real ACC is still going to be put in place, Khumalo said.



To stress how strongly he felt about the issue, Khumalo warned those who were at the helm of the agencys operations to be careful as things had a way of backfiring in life. He mentioned that there was no situation that was permanent and that those who were guilty of settling personal scores would face the same fate in the future.



Khumalo was supported by Dvokodvweni MP Sitezi Dlamini who made it known that he was already working on the motion that would seek the investigation of the ACC.
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By Patrick Donachie

A Queens grand jury indicted two NYPD detectives for allegedly filing false paperwork and charged one with lying under oath about the August 2014 arrest of a man falsely accused of selling crack cocaine.

The two detectives also were charged last month with filing false statements in a separate 2014 incident in which a Washington Heights man was wrongly accused of gun posession, according to the Manhattan District Attorney.

Detectives Kevin Desormeau and Sasha Neve, both 33 years old and from Long Island, are 10-year veterans of the NYPD and were previously assigned to the NYPD Gang Unit when they allegedly made the false accusation.

Queens DA Richard Brown said Desormeau and Neve arrested a man for allegedly selling cocaine to a woman near the intersection of 108th Avenue and Guy R. Brewer Boulevard in Jamaica at about 6:40 p.m. on Aug. 28, 2014. Desormeau contended in the criminal complaint that he arrested the man after seeing him exchange something with the woman, and upon searching him after he was arrested, allegedly found rock cocaine in the waistband of his pants.

Desormeau later testified before the grand jury on Jan. 16, 2015, that he saw the man exchange something with two women he did not apprehend and found a twist of crack cocaine upon the arrest. In November 2015, the DA said Desormeau testified in a court hearing that he saw the man exchange cash for drugs with an unidentified woman. The detective said he found a plastic bag of crack cocaine and $725 in cash upon arresting the man.

The accused mans attorney presented DA Browns office with a video recording taken in a pool hall at the stated time of the arrest on Aug. 28, 2014. The video showed the accused man playing pool when the two detectives entered the pool hall. The video showed them taking the man outside, which contradicted Desormeaus account.

The accused man spent 51 days in Rikers Island under arrest before the charges were dropped.

Desormeau faces up to seven years in prison if he is convicted, while Neve, who filed the false paperwork, faces as much as four years.

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance said Desormeau and Neve (whose last name is listed as Cordoba in the Manhattan indictment) arrested a 38-year-old man inside a residence on West 175th Street in Manhattan on Nov. 6, 2014 for gun possession.

Neve signed a criminal complaint and testified in a search warrant application as well as grand jury testimony. The accused man was indicted for firearm possession, but a subsequent investigation led to those charges being dropped and the indictment of the officers.

When members of law enforcement commit misconduct, they threaten the credibility of our work and the safety of the citizens whom we are sworn to protect, Vance said about the charges.
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By Mark Hallum

The 23-year-old namesake of the infamous John Gotti was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to selling prescription drugs on the black market, a scheme which banked him about $1.6 million a year, the Queens district attorney said.

Gotti is the grandson of John Gotti, known as the Dapper Dan, who was the head of the Gambino crime family and died in prison in 2002. The younger Gotti was arrested in his grandfathers home in Howard Beach. He is the son of Peter Gotti, one of the crime family heads sons.

The sentence imposed today by the court sends a strong message to all drug dealers that illegal drug trafficking in Queens will not be tolerated. Drug abuse and misuse can destroy the lives of young people and wreak havoc in our communities, Brown said. Do not expect any leniency from dealing prescription drugs rather than peddling in cocaine or heroin. It cannot be stressed enough that drugs like Oxycodone are just as addictive and dangerous.

Gotti pleaded guilty in February to second-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit a felony, sidestepping a sentence of 25 years to life, DA Richard Brown said. He was ordered to forfeit an additional $250,000 in drug proceeds on top of his prison sentence.

Seven defendants were arrested for their alleged involvement with Gotti in the illegal sale of Oxycodone and Xanax in the neighborhoods of Howard Beach and Ozone Park, the DA said. Law enforcement officers conducted an extensive investigation which employed surveillance methods, undercover buy operations, warranted wiretapping and a listening device planted in Gottis Infinity G35 sedan.

Authorities overheard a conversation in which Gotti outlined a profitable underground trade in prescription drugs. Gotti admitted to selling more than 4,200 pills a month, averaging about $100,000 in sales in that period of time, the DA said The pills cost from $21 to $30 each.

Gotti estimated that his oxycodone trafficking business generated about $1.6 million annually.

As the use of prescription drugs in this country has dramatically increased over the last 20 years, so has their misuse  killing far more people in the United States each year than illegal opioids, Brown said. According to the Centers for Disease Control, deaths from prescription opioids have more than quadrupled since 1999 and 91 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Oxycodone, in particular, is extremely potent and has a high potential for abuse and death.

Gotti was stopped by cops June 30 in Howard Beach for having windows tinted well below the legal level. It was discovered that Gottis drivers licence had expired and a search of the vehicle yielded a Gucci bag with over 200 oxycodone pills, a bottle of testosterone for body building, and an assortment of Xanax, methadone pills and marijuana, according to prosecutors. Brown said $5,600 in cash was also found in the vehicle along with $2,271 in cash from Gottis pants pocket. Of the money seized, $7,000 was traced back to that used by police in the undercover buy operations.

In August, a search of Gottis home at 160-11 85th St. found $52,000 in cash and 480 pills, the DA said.
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By Mark Hallum

The name of the late Frank Skala will be emblazoned over Bell Boulevard and 40th Avenue this summer pending City Council approval.

A motion at the Monday meeting of Community Board 11 approved the street co-naming in honor of the much-loved Bayside teacher and community activist who died of a stroke in August 2015.

Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) will present the bill to City Council for the co-naming to be approved by the proper committee.

Frank Skala was a fiercely dedicated community activist and civic leader. His enormous and lasting impact on the community is clearly evidenced by Community Board 11s unanimous vote to have 40th Avenue and Bell Boulevard co-named in his honor, Vallone said. I look forward to submitting a bill to make this co-naming a reality.

Skala, who grew up in Bayside and attended its schools, taught American History and Geography for 33 years at the now closed Campbell Junior High School 218 and Adrien Block Intermediate School 25 before retiring in 1992.

But Skalas tireless work with the community advocating for projects and organizations that preserve the quality of life of residents in the neighborhood is what he is known for outside his professional life. He founded the East Bayside Homeowners Association in 1974 to preserve the suburban nature of Bayside, and later established the New Bayside High Alumni Association in 1991 which raised money and awarded scholarships for to students.

Skala was also an advocate for no-kill animal shelters.

A spokesman for Vallone said it is still early in the process, but if the bill passes the vetting process, the estimated date for the co-naming will be in mid- to late-summer.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) wrote a letter of support for the co-naming to CB1l and Councilman Vallone on behalf of the activists daughter, Bonnie Skala Kiladitis.

It was never Dads goal to be popular. It was to be remembered, Kiladitis said, remembered for doing what was right for his beloved hometown. Anyone who knew my father knew that there was only one way! The Frank Skala Way.
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By Bill Parry

State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst), who made a controversial switch to the Independent Democratic Conference in late January, was given a leadership title Tuesday when he was appointed vice chairman of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee. The post comes with a $12,500 stipend, which is down from the $14,500 stipend he had received as minority whip with the mainline Democrats.

Peralta had insisted his move to the IDC was not for financial reasons in refuting an article in the New York Post. I joined the IDC for principles not over a pay raise, Peralta said.

In his first legislative victory since defecting, Peralta announced Monday that his bill aimed at cracking down on drivers who speed in school zones passed in the state Senate. Under the bill, drivers convicted of two or more speeding violations in school zones during school hours over an 18-month period would have their licenses suspended for 60 days.

Motor vehicle crashes is the leading cause of injury-related death for children between the ages of 5 and 14, Peralta said. The safety of our children is a top priority for me, and this bill is one more tool to protect them. This is all about saving lives and making our streets safer for all of us.

When Peralta switched to the IDC, bringing its membership to eight in the state Senate where the group is allied with Republicans to form a majority coalition, his move touched off rallies and a contentious town hall meeting in Jackson Heights. Peralta said he made the move so he could take bold action and deliver on his progressive agenda to his constituency.

Peraltas bill S.336B is an effort to protect schoolchildren and surrounding communities, holding reckless and negligent motorists who speed responsible for their actions. In 2015, according to the city Department of Transportation, more than 1,000 children under the age of 17 were injured in traffic crashes and nine children were killed.

The school speeding zone legislation will put penalties in line with the current construction and work zone rules under which drivers lose their licenses for 60 days if convicted of two or more speeding tickets in these areas.

The same way we protect the construction workers on our highways, we must also ensure that we protect the states schoolchildren, Peralta said.

Another bill introduced by Peralta last April, which would allow the city to install more speed cameras in school zones and allow them to operate 24 hours a day, is gaining support in the five boroughs. According to a Penn Shoen Berland poll commissioned by Transportation Alternatives, 64 percent of nearly 900 likely voters said they strongly support the increase in speed cameras, currently capped at 140 by state law.

These poll results send a powerful message that people across the five boroughs want greater protection from the reckless speeding that remains a leading killer of New Yorkers and is especially lethal for our children, TransAlt Executive Director Paul Steely White said. In areas where these devices have been installed, weve seen a 50 percent drop in speeding on average. We know this Vision Zero tool works. We need to be able to use it to save lives and prevent injuries in every community, at all times.

The cameras currently in operation issue tickets to motorists who are caught driving more than 10 mph above the posted speed limit with a $50 fine. Peralta has called speed cameras a crucial tool in protecting the citys one million schoolchildren.

The survey is proof of the overwhelming support the installation of more speed cameras in school zones has, Peralta said. We are not just talking about the safety of our children, but also protecting pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.
Beaver County preparing for robust Election Day turnout

As the Nov. 8 midterm election approaches, nearly 114,000 people are registered to vote in Beaver County.
Colonie

Travel is expected to get increasingly difficult Tuesday as snow begins to pile up by late morning.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a statewide state of emergency as of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and told all "nonessential" state workers to stay home.

At Albany International Airport in Colonie, Southwest and JetBlue canceled their Tuesday flights Monday afternoon while other carriers were in wait-and-see mode, with local managers hoping that early-morning flights could operate.

But travelers were advised to check their flight's status before making the trip to the airport.

Amtrak said its trains along the Empire Corridor connecting New York City, Albany and Buffalo would operate on a modified schedule, and some trains would be canceled or truncated.

Tuesday's operation of the section of the Lake Shore Limited between Albany-Rensselaer and Boston was suspended, according to an Amtrak service alert.

The rail line's advice: Check your train's status online or on your smartphone app before you head to the station.

Greyhound and Trailways canceled all service into and out of Albany beginning at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

CDTA advised passengers to consults its website or smartphone app to determine if their bus was operating, and if so, when it would arrive.

Snow is expected to taper off by Wednesday.

At a briefing Monday afternoon at the airport, airline managers and operations staff were told to expect snow falling at the rate of two to three inches an hour starting at 9 a.m.

eanderson@timesunion.com  518-454-5323
The late Gerard Lynch

The death has occurred of Gerard Lynch, Wood Road, Glenar, Cappawhite on 10th March 2017. Beloved husband of Theresa and son of Antony and Dolores. Deeply regretted by his loving family; daughters Angela, Ashleigh, Emma, Sabrina, Kelley, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, relatives, neighbours and many friends.

A Funeral Service will take place at 1.30pm on Wednesday,15th March, in The Cemetery Chapel in Glasevin Cemetery, Finglas Road, Dublin 11, with cremation afterwards.



The late Margaret Costello

The death has occurred of Margaret (Peggy) Costello (nee Shields), Barnlough, Bansha, Tipperary, on March 12th 2017. Predeceased by her sons Vincent and Morgan. Deeply regretted by her husband Timmy, daughters Michelle, Barbara and Sinead, sons-in-law, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and friends.

Reposing at Whelan's Funeral Home, Bansha Road, Tipperary on Tuesday evening, from 5.30pm with removal at 7pm to Church of the Annunciation, Bansha. Requiem Mass on Wednesday at 11.30am and burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to South Tipperary Palliative Home Care Team.



The late Paddy Dwyer

The death has occurred of Paddy Dwyer, Barnagrotty, Moneygall, Offaly / Tipperary on March 11th 2017. Predeceased by his wife, Eileen. Deeply regretted by his loving sons and daughter, sisters Betty Wynne, Manchester and Mary Larkin, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, neighbours and friends.

Reposing at Donovans Funeral Home, Moneygall, on Tuesday evening from 4pm with removal at 7.30pm to Moneygall Church to arrive at 8pm. Funeral Mass on Wednesday at 12 noon and interment in Annameadle Cemetery.



The late Maura McCullagh

The death has occurred of Maura McCullagh (nee Small), Ballinahow, Ballycahill and Tarmon Drive, Thurles. Peacefully, after a illness borne with great dignity, surrounded by her loving family,in the care of the Matron and Staff of the Community Hospital of the Assumption, Thurles. Predeceased by her loving husband Mattie, sister Eileen and brother Michael. Deeply regretted by her loving children, Margaret, Denis, Liam, Matt and Eileen, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives, neighbors and many good friends.

Reposing at Hugh Ryan's Funeral Home, Slievenamon Road, Thurles on Tuesday, 14th March, from 4pm to 7pm.Arriving at the Church of St Cataldus, Ballycahill at 7.30pm. Requiem Mass on Wednesday 15th at 11.30am. Burial afterwards in Ballycahill Cemetery.

Family flowers only. Donations, if desired, to Friends of the Community Hospital of the Assumption, Thurles.

The late Frank Fitzpatrick

The death has occurred of Frank Fitzpatrick, 17 Kennedy Park, Roscrea.

Reposing in Maher's Funeral home, Roscrea on Tuesday evening from 6.00 with rosary at 8.00. Removal on Wednesday morning at 11.30 arriving in St. Cronan's Church, Roscrea for Funeral Mass at 12.00. Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery.
An illustrated commemorative publication (quarto size) is to be launched to honour the 60th year of the Roscrea Conference.

Entitled The Carnival of Learning, it will be launched at Mt St Joseph Abbey, on Saturday 22nd April 2017. The booklet will be published by 'Roscrea People' and edited by George Cunningham, and is to be launched during the 60th Conference, at the Cistercian College in a limited edition of 300 copies of both hardback and card covers.

Sponsors, patrons and subscribers are sought.

Patrons (contribution of 200 or more) and sponsors (40 or more) will be listed in the publication and receive a signed, numbered hard back copy. For the prepublication price of 20, subscribers will receive the card covered copy. All contributing will receive a special invitation to the launch. If not collected postage/carriage will be at cost. (Ireland 7.50; all others 15). Deadline for name inclusion (sponsors and patrons) in the publication is Saturday 25th March. More details from or orders/contributions to Roscrea People, Parkmore, Roscrea, Co Tippera:parkmorepress@gmail.com.

Contents will include reflections on all aspects of the gatherings by various participants, along with articles on some aspects of themes explored or arising thereof, particularly of the most recent conferences from 2012. Also, aspects of Mt St Joseph, old and new, along with book launches, and field trips.
After hearing of reports of small bones being ploughed up in the 1980s Cllr Martin Browne of Sinn Fein has called for exhumation and respectful re-interment of young children buried in a mass grave in Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea.

Cllr Browne said: With the discovery of proof that 796 young children and babies had died and were buried unmarked in a septic tank in Tuam, our attention naturally turns to similar homes in our own locality. The Bons Secours Mother and Baby home in Tuam was only one such home, that operated in an uncaring Ireland to effectively imprison and stigmatise women who became pregnant without being married.

This went on for 4 decades, and in many parts of the country. In Roscrea, a similar home was the Sean Ross Abbey. It operated for about the same period of time as the Tuam home.

We like to think that bad things only happen in other places, and that the place down the road from us is just fine. It seems that may not be the case in Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea.

Yesterday Teresa Collins of Portroe visited the home for the first time in 53 years since she was taken from there as a baby. Her family had to pay 100 in 1963 to secure the release of Teresa and her birth-Mother.

After several years of effort, and despite the efforts of the Nuns in the home, Teresa has made successful contact with her father in the last year, and the two of them went to the home together on Sunday 12th.

While there, Council worker Mike Donovan revealed that he had worked at the home in the 1980s. When working in what is now the children burial ground, he said that the tractor he was operating ploughed up many bones, small bones, and the job they were engaged in was called off. The whole area is now changed, and this work was carried out by another contractor in the 1990s. The layout of the area in question is now very different to the 1980s. There are two other areas on the grounds where there as yet unsubstantiated suggestions of unrecorded and mass burial of babies and children.
[March 14, 2017] Actinver Securities Opens Office in South Florida to Tap Latin American Market

Actinver Securities, Inc., a U.S.-registered broker dealer, today announced the opening of a new office in Miami. The wealth management firm, a subsidiary of Corporacion Actinver in Mexico, has tapped veteran wealth manager Rafael Madan, formerly of Espirito Santo Bank and Wells Fargo Advisors, to manage the new office as executive vice president and branch manager. Madan will lead a respected team as Actinver plans to capitalize on an unprecedented market opportunity in Latin America. According to Madan and Actinver executives, many wealth managers are either pulling out or dramatically reducing their businesses in Latin America. Actinver, with current U.S. offices in Houston and San Antonio, has a long and successful track record of advising high net worth clients using customer-focused and customer-centric methodologies. "We are extremely confident that our model will be well received and will thrive in Latin America," said Madan. "We want to grow with our clients in Latin America and not shy away from the dynamic and evolving marketplace." Madan, who has represented clients in Latin America for decades, has operated in all business markets in the region and with an impeccable record. He also has held numerous positions of civic importance in Miami with organizatios including the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, Florida International University and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. Osmundo O. (Mundi) Martinez, who has more than 20 years of experience working with high net worth clients and managing complex trust arrangements, also joined the Actinver team as senior vice president. Ludwing E. Rivera, formerly with Espirito Santo Bank, joins the firm as assistant vice president.



"When the time came to move into the market, the firm selected Rafael Madan and his team to lead the effort, bringing decades of experience working in every key market in Latin America," said F. Xavier Maza, president at Actinver Securities. "We are building a team focused on the long-term as we expect to develop into a major player in the market and remain there for a long time." Actinver Securities, Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC, is a US registered broker-dealer whose objective is to offer global wealth management solutions to institutional and private investors, with a high degree of professionalism, experience and confidentiality. Actinver Securities is registered with the Securities Exchange Commission, SEC (News - Alert) and member of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, FINRA. The custody of assets is through Pershing LLC, a subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon.

For more information visit www.actinversecurities.com or contact Rafael Madan at 305-728-7066 or [email protected] Image of new Actinver team of Osmundo Martinez, Rafael Madan and Ludwing Rivera https://www.dropbox.com/s/w5iqonwtz9t9420/Actinver%20Team%20Osmundo%20Martinez%20Rafael%20Madan%20Ludwing%20Rivera%20%20.jpg?dl=0 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005964/en/

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[March 14, 2017] Casio Chosen As One Of Florida State's Newest Audio Visual Equipment Contractors

DOVER, N.J., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Casio America, Inc., the leading innovator of LampFree projectors, is proud to announce that it is one of the most recent companies to become part of the State of Florida Alternate Contract Source (No. 52161500-ACS-16-1). This contract allows Casio and its dealers to provide new audio visual equipment  specifically its LampFree projectors  to state agencies and institutions throughout the State of Florida for the next 4 years. "As a manufacturer, there is no greater honor than to provide companies with the tools they need to succeed and run their organizations most efficiently," said Joe Gillio, Senior Director Strategic Planning and Marketing of Casio's Business Projector Division. "Becoming part of the State of Florida Alternate Contract Source affirms our commitment to government agencies and the education community by enabling them to seek out the most innovative tools in the most cost-efficient way possible." The State of Florida Alternate Contract Source gives Casio the ability to work with state agencies, local governments, educational institutions, and other organizations as needed. Eligible entities are able to pool their buying power to lower total costs and reduce administrative burden while complying with Chapter 287 Florida Statutes governig the purchase of products and services. Products available under the contract include Casio's line of LampFree projectors which provide eco-friendly data projection by combining a laser and LED light source to create a high-brightness, mercury-free tool that uses half the amount of power per unit than other lamp-based projectors. Additionally, Casio's LampFree projectors come equipped with a 20,000-hour estimated operating life, eliminating the process of having to replace costly lamps. The projectors reach maximum brightness in as fast as five seconds from the time the power is switched on and can immediately power off with just a touch of the button and then be used again right away, without the need for a cool-down period. All of this makes Casio's projectors a safer and more affordable choice for organizations that are looking to not only go green but save money at the same time.



For additional information on Casio's full portfolio of LampFree projectors, visit www.CasioLampFree.com. About Casio LampFree Projectors

Casio's portfolio of LampFree projectors combines a laser, a fluorescent element and an LED light to deliver a mercury-free hybrid light source that lasts up to 20,000 hours while sustaining a high brightness and keeping maintenance costs to a minimum. Casio has a full assortment of LampFree solutions available for home, business, education and commercial applications  Core, Advanced, Slim, Pro and Short Throw. For additional information on Casio's projector series and LampFree technology, please visit www.CasioLampFree.com.

About Casio America, Inc.

Casio America, Inc., Dover, N.J., is the U.S. subsidiary of Casio Computer Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, one of the world's leading manufacturers of consumer electronics and business equipment solutions. Established in 1957, Casio America, Inc. markets calculators, keyboards, digital cameras, mobile presentation devices, disc title and label printers, watches, cash registers and other consumer electronic products. Casio has strived to fulfill its corporate creed of "creativity and contribution" through the introduction of innovative and imaginative products. For more information, visit www.casiousa.com. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/casio-chosen-as-one-of-florida-states-newest-audio-visual-equipment-contractors-300423213.html SOURCE Casio America, Inc.

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[March 14, 2017] China Telecom Allies with OpenStack with Government Support for the Open-source Software Platform

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- China Telecom (CT) was approved as the newest OpenStack Gold Member at the Foundations November 2016 board meeting. China Telecom joins some of the leading technology companies in the world  including Inspur, Cisco, Dell EMC, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Huawei, NEC and Symantec  as one of 24 founding Gold Members. Large and small businesses, telecoms, public cloud service providers, government organizations and researchers around the world use OpenStacks open-source software to build clouds, support the diverse cloud computing ecosystem and enable cloud innovation. China Telecom was selected as a Gold Member for its capability to support OpenStacks development in the rapidly growing Chinese and Asia-Pacific markets. At Chinas first Open Source & Cloud Computing Summit (COSCCS) in December 2014, the countrys officials declared the governments support for OpenStack ecosystems and plans to encourage state-owned enterprises to use OpenStack-based cloud products. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) predicted that OpenStack would contribute to business growth. Indeed, today, many Chinese organizations are engaging OpenStack across various sectors, including internet, telecom, IT, education and retail. Momentum is growing and will inspire other Chinese firms to investigate opportunities for growth. One advantage for Chinese companies is that they are using a mature version of OpenStack, mostly from 2014 onwards, and dont need to upgrade from earlier versions. As one of the largest mobile carriers in the world, with more than 500 million subscribers and over 300 data centers, China Telecom is currently migrating its CloudStack deployment to OpenStack, supporting strategic opportunities in the public cloud and contributing significant code and knowledge to the OpenStack community. China Telecom will also contribute new investment and resources to complement the many OpenStack technology vendors and users that comprise one of the best networks in APAC.



The investment and commitment of our new Gold Members underscores the global growth and evolution of OpenStack, with projects of massive scale serving millions of end users in China and other markets worldwide.

For an example of collaboration among members, telecom company Huawei works with software maker Red Hat and aims to accelerate collaboration around OpenStack for network functions virtualization, which is required by communication service providers like China Telecom. China Telecom Adds Value to OpenStack Community The China Telecom Cloud uses the OpenStack platform to provide stable, scalable cloud facilities and comprehensive customer service to end users in the Asia-Pacific region.

The China Telecom Cloud is focused on Cloud+Network Integration technology and is set to take enterprise internet in China to the next level with a combination of its range of existing telecom services and OpenStacks vast network, expanding the companys Asia-Pacific reach and enhancing service delivery to end users in the region. With centralized supersized data centers  each more than 10 million square meters  and numerous small and medium-sized data centers, China Telecom can contribute a vast practice environment and use cases to the OpenStack community. China Telecom has gained strong capabilities and rich experience through many years of hard work, says Joe Han, President of China Telecom Americas. We will contribute to the community through strengthening and improving OpenStack. We will focus on realizing telecommunication functions on OpenStack, such as NFV, SDN, Container and Big Data, and return the results to the OpenStack community. China Telecom Expands OpenStack Accessibility in Asia-Pacific The new partnership will also make the OpenStack platform readily available through China Telecoms network services, which will increase accessibility to users throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

China Telecom looks forward to working with the OpenStack open source community to speed up the development and utilization of the China Telecom cloud ecosystem, and in turn attract more private business involvement in the OpenStack community.

China Telecom is active in organizing and participating in OpenStack-related activities, including OpenStack Summit, OpenStack Day, meetups and more. We have also shared our OpenStack practice and case studies at relevant trade shows and technology forums, says Mr. Han. With our leading role in China's cloud businesses, China Telecom's full-scale and successful use of OpenStack will bring the government and more businesses into the OpenStack community. For more information, hi-res images or to organize an interview, please contact Ming Wei, Director of Solution and Delivery, at [email protected]. About China Telecom Americas China Telecom Americas is a wholly owned U.S.-based subsidiary of China Telecom Corporation, one of the worlds leading providers of integrated communications and information technology services to customers in more than 70 countries around the globe. With headquarters in Herndon, Va., and offices in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Jose, Toronto and Sao Paolo, China Telecom Americas is advancing transpacific enterprise connectivity through a suite of locally based, turnkey services from network architecture, cloud and data center services to equipment management, security, content delivery, mobility solutions and more. Discover more at www.ctamericas.com. Ming Wei [email protected]

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[March 14, 2017] Delta Dental Announces $1.5 Million Gift to Support CCCS Dental Hygiene Programs

Delta Dental of Colorado CEO Helen Drexler announced March 8 that Delta Dental is making a $1.5 million gift to support the dental hygiene programs offered by the Colorado Community College System (CCCS). Drexler made the announcement at the Phi Theta Kappa luncheon to honor the highest achieving students at CCCS colleges. Drexler was the keynote speaker at the luncheon. The gift will provide student scholarships, faculty support, and funding for state-of-the-art equipment acquisition. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006247/en/ Left to right: Adam Cermak, Executive Director of the Foundation for Colorado Community Colleges; Kathryn Albright, Vice Chair of the Foundation for Colorado Community Colleges; Helen Drexler, President and CEO of Delta Dental of Colorado; Dr. Nancy McCallin, President of the Colorado Community Colleg System; Allison Cusick, Executive Director of the Delta Dental of Colorado Foundation; Dr. Russell Meyer, Chair of the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education (SBCCOE); and, Presley Askew, SBCCOE Liaison to the Foundation for Colorado Community Colleges. (Photo: Business Wire)



CCCS offers dental hygiene programs at Colorado Northwestern Community College in Rangely (CNCC), the Community College of Denver (CCD), and Pueblo Community College (PCC). All three colleges offer Associate of Applied Science degree programs in Dental Hygiene, and CCD and PCC also offer Bachelor of Applied Science degree programs in Dental Hygiene.

The gift from Delta Dental of Colorado aims to strategically advance the field of dental hygiene in Colorado by: Attracting and retaining top faculty to work in high-quality educational facilities and programs;

Ensuring programs have current equipment, technology and supplies to foster a learning environment centered on evidence-based dental care; and

Providing scholarships for dental hygiene students, prioritizing students who are committed to career paths in public health or community clinics, education, and/or rural communities. Dr. Nancy McCallin, president of the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), said, "This generous gift from Delta Dental of Colorado will greatly enhance the dental hygiene programs in CCCS. It will help to build our workforce throughout the state and strategically advance the field of dental hygiene." "We are proud to invest in these dental hygiene programs that play such a key role in developing future public health leaders," said Helen Drexler, CEO of Delta Dental of Colorado. "Working with CCCS, we feel we can make a tremendous impact preparing students for careers in dental hygiene, especially in rural and underserved communities." Delta Dental of Colorado, established in 1958, is the largest dental benefits provider in the state. It is a nonprofit organization that serves over 1.2 million Coloradans. Delta Dental of Colorado's mission is to improve the oral health of the communities it serves. Delta Dental of Colorado is a member of the national Delta Dental Plans Association (DDPA). Delta Dental member companies serve more than 62 million people nationwide. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006247/en/

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[March 14, 2017] Enlucem Releases Findings of Calif. Consumer Cannabis Study

Enlucem, a strategic brand consultancy currently advising startups in the cannabis space, announced today the results of a detailed consumer study of Californians' attitudes toward cannabis products. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005029/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) Results of the 800-person survey found that the market potential for medical marijuana and other future cannabis products in California is staggering - between 15 million and 21 million adults over 21 years of age. While 39% of Californians already use cannabis, another 44% are non-users interested in trying it now that it's recreationally legal. Last November, California's legislature legalized cannabis in a state where nearly 1 in 8 Americans live. "These new potential customers are different than current users. They represent a different demographic, they favor alternative formats to smoking, and look for different cannabis benefits," notes Ana Hory, CEO of Enlucem. Key findings of the research include: 83% of California residents are willing to try or use Cannabis 54% of them are female, 54% are 40 years of age or younger, 40% have kids living in the household, most have incomes over $90,000

Consumers' top health issues that medical marijuana can alleviate include Pain (58%), Stress (54%) and Insomnia (49%)

Cannabis brand awarness remains very low (49% didn't know any brands)

Most consumers are interested in edible (62%) and topical products (44%), though heavy users (use daily or almost every day) still prefer smoking (75%)

The large majority of survey respondents use or plan to use medical marijuana, while a smaller group will use cannabis recreationally

Five unique persona segments have been identified for brand targeting



www.InhaleMD.com), a Massachusetts doctors group focused on medical marijuana access. "I find Cannabis to be very helpful to patients with chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression, and anorexia. In many cases, Cannabis is more successful than conventional medications, with fewer side effects," says Tishler.

The study's results came as a welcome surprise to Tripp Keber, co-founder and CEO of Dixie Brands, a large manufacturer of cannabis products in Colorado, with presence in California via a licensee. "We see California as a key market for us, but it is one that clearly needs more data and research on how best to serve its massive consumer base. Enlucem's research is some of the first and only comprehensive data we have seen coming from California and we look forward to gaining more insight into the next frontier of adult use cannabis." Brendan Kennedy, CEO of Privateer Holdings, the world's first private equity firm to invest exclusively in cannabis brands, added that, "This research is another example proving our thesis that cannabis is a mainstream product consumed by mainstream people. Individuals from all walks of life consume cannabis for all different reasons. The typical cannabis consumer is not who you might think. The research shows how critical it is for cannabis brands to evolve how they position themselves with different demographics." For more information about the study, contact Ana Hory at [email protected]. About Enlucem Enlucem is a San Francisco-based strategic brand consultancy currently advising startups in the cannabis space. The firm's services include brand positioning, persona targeting, new product development, research, advertising and digital content development. Principals bring deep consumer knowledge from over 15 years of global strategic brand development in Fortune 500 companies and startups. They've recently launched a cannabis for wellness online community, with the objective of spreading the knowledge and experiences of people like you who have used or are using cannabis to treat a wide range of illnesses. To learn more, visit www.enlucem.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005029/en/

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[March 13, 2017] Health Management Associates to Acquire Firm Founded by Seema Verma

Today, Jay Rosen, founder and president of Health Management Associates (HMA), announced the signing of an agreement by which HMA will acquire SVC, a consulting firm which is owned by Seema Verma, founder and president, and recently confirmed Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). SVC will become HMA Medicaid Market Solutions, a new subsidiary of HMA. "We are pleased to welcome the employees of SVC to the HMA family. This immensely talented group has extensive experience working closely with state officials and others in various states, including Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, and Ohio to design and implement innovative Medicaid solutions that advance alternatives to traditional Medicaid," said Rosen. Following the acquisition, the SVC staff will continue to advise and support state and federal agencies, health systems, health plans and others on efforts to create new approaches to serving Medicaid beneficiaries and other low-income and vulnerable populations, wit special emphasis on approaches that will become possible in an era of expanded state flexibility.



SVC has been central to the development of several recent Medicaid waiver initiatives, often modeled on the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP), the nation's first consumer directed Medicaid program. These waivers include elements of personal responsibility, price- and quality-conscious healthcare consumption, and a focus on healthy lifestyles. The SVC team is experienced in all aspects of this process and has assisted their clients with everything from designing and drafting waiver documents and state plan amendments, to overseeing and guiding implementation efforts, and working with both providers and stakeholders. Established in 2001, SVC is a national healthcare consulting company with experience specializing in supporting state governments and associated entities with Medicaid and health policy expertise.

Founded in 1985, HMA specializes in publicly funded healthcare reform, policy and programs. Clients include government, public and private providers, health systems, health plans, institutional investors, foundations and associations and is among the nation's leading health policy and program advisory firms. For more information about HMA, visit https://www.healthmanagement.com/. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170313006453/en/

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[March 14, 2017] Jackson Reports Record 2016 Financial Results1

Jackson National Life Insurance Company (Jackson) generated $2.8 billion in IFRS pre-tax operating income during 2016, an increase of 7 percent over 2015 and the highest in company history. Jackson, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of the United Kingdom's Prudential plc (NYSE: PUK), recorded sales and deposits of $21.1 billion in 2016. The results mark another highly successful year for the company, despite recent challenges faced throughout the industry. Barry Stowe, chairman and chief executive officer of the North American Business Unit of Prudential plc4, said the results were primarily driven by strong variable annuity net flows and the growth of separate account assets under management, which totaled a record $148.8 billion in 2016. "At Jackson, our long-term, disciplined approach to business is centered on aligning the needs of our stakeholders," Stowe said. "In 2016, this discipline enabled us to successfully manage volatile macroeconomic conditions and consistently drive positive outcomes amid adversity." "The products we provide are a crucial component of a well-balanced retirement plan," Stowe continued. "The looming retirement crisis for under-saved Americans presents an opportunity for us to provide guaranteed income solutions that will support investors into and through retirement. As a leading provider of variable annuities, we'll continue to focus our efforts on creating value for consumers and providing quality products that meet the needs of those in search of a viable retirement solution." Jackson continues to maintain its financial strength and capital position. The company increased total IFRS assets to $236.9 billion at the end of 2016, up 8 percent from year-end 2015. Jackson also increased regulatory adjusted capital to $5.3 billion, more than nine times the minimum regulatory requirement (as of December 31, 2016), while remitting a $550 million dividend to its parent company. 1Financial results from Jackson National Life Insurance Company and its subsidiaries have been included in Jackson's financial results. Jackson results exclude its separately managed account business as new deposits have been discontinued effective July 31, 2015. Fixed index annuities, life insurance and institutional products are not sold in New York. 2International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a principles-based set of international accounting standards indicating how transactions and other events should be reported in financial statements. IFRS is issued by the International Accounting Standards Board in an effort to increase global comparability of financial statements and results. Jackson's parent, Prudential plc (Group), uses IFRS to report the Group's financial results. IFRS pretax operating income is based on longer-term investment returns. It excludes short-term fluctuations in investment returns, hedge results and change in value of derivatives. A reconciliation to both IFRS net income as well as net income based on US generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP) is as follows (amounts in millions):







$ 2,778.8 IFRS basis pretax income from operations (2,321.5) Net hedge results and change in value of derivatives, net of DAC amortization 332.5 Net realized investment gains, net of DAC amortization and non-controlling interest (87.9) Normalization of longer-term investment returns, net of DAC amortization 103.2 Income tax benefit 805.1 IFRS net income (32.7) IFRS to US GAAP adjustments, net of tax $ 772.4 US GAAP basis net income attributable to Jackson

Jackson's net income was impacted by hedging losses incurred due to the equity market, which were not fully offset by the release of accounting reserves. IFRS accounting for variable annuity liabilities is not necessarily consistent with the economic value of these liabilities. Jackson continues to manage its hedge program on an economic basis and is willing to accept the accounting volatility that results. 3Jackson also has $223.1 billion of IFRS policy liabilities set aside to pay future policy owner benefits (as of December 31, 2016). 4The North American Business Unit of Prudential plc includes Jackson, its subsidiaries Jackson National Life Distributors LLC (JNLD) and Jackson National Asset Management, LLC (JNAM) and its U.S. affiliates National Planning Holdings, Inc. (NPH) and PPM (News - Alert) America, Inc. (PPMA). About Jackson National Life Insurance Company Jackson is a leading provider of retirement products for industry professionals and their clients. The company offers a diverse range of products including variable, fixed and fixed index annuities designed for tax-efficient accumulation and distribution of retirement income for retail customers, and fixed income products for institutional investors. Jackson subsidiaries and affiliates provide specialized asset management and retail brokerage services. With $236.9 billion in IFRS assets*, Jackson prides itself on product innovation, sound corporate risk management practices and strategic technology initiatives. Focused on thought leadership and education, the company develops proprietary research, industry insights and financial representative training on retirement planning and alternative investment strategies. Jackson is also dedicated to corporate social responsibility and supports charities focused on helping children and seniors in the communities where its employees live and work. For more information, visit www.jackson.com. *Jackson has $236.9 billion in total IFRS assets and $223.1 billion in IFRS policy liabilities set aside to pay primarily future policyowner benefits (as of December 31, 2016). International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a principles-based set of international accounting standards for reporting financial information. IFRS is issued by the International Accounting Standards Board in an effort to increase global comparability of financial statements and results. IFRS is used by Jackson's parent company. Jackson National Life Insurance Company is an indirect subsidiary of Prudential plc, a company incorporated in England and Wales. Prudential plc and its affiliated companies constitute one of the world's leading financial services groups. It provides insurance and financial services through its subsidiaries and affiliates throughout the world. It has been in existence for over 165 years and has $740.6 billion in assets under management (as of December 31, 2016). Prudential plc is not affiliated in any manner with Prudential Financial, Inc., a company whose principal place of business is in the United States of America. This press release may contain certain statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements which are other than statements of historical facts. However, as with any projection or forecast, forward-looking statements are inherently susceptible to a number of risks and uncertainties and actual results and events could differ materially from those currently being anticipated as reflected in such forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs or projections will result or be achieved or accomplished. Any forward-looking statements reflect Jackson's views and assumptions as of the date of this press release and Jackson disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking information. PR2622 03/17 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005836/en/

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JetPack Aviation and Georgia Tech Research Institute to Build an Advanced Soldier Vertical Mobility System (SVMS)

JetPack Aviation (http://jetpackaviation.com), the company that stunned the engineering and aviation communities with its first public jetpack flight around the Statue of Liberty in 2015, has entered into a development Agreement with Georgia Tech to design and build a Soldier Vertical Mobility System (SVMS) for military applications. (http://bit.ly/2m9iPkE)

JPA, which is currently working with the US Navy under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), will provide its proprietary jetpack technology. Georgia Tech will add advanced electronic subsystems for the new SVMS.

JetPack Aviation senior staff recently hosted Georgia Tech team members at their headquarters in Van Nuys, CA (News - Alert) where discussions took place regarding the development of an SVMS.

Uner sponsorship from a GTRI Internal Research and Development grant, the early development stage has focused on three specific subsystems: an autonomous control system for an SVMS, a pilot exoskeleton, and a Heads-Up Display (HUD) helmet for the pilot. This multidisciplinary effort is bringing together efforts from the Georgia Tech Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering schools, the ATAS and ELSYS labs of GTRI, and JetPack Aviation.







After successful public demonstrations in New York (http://bit.ly/1Rze7pd), Los Angeles, London, and Monaco (http://bit.ly/2lLcwXU), the JetPack Aviation team has begun an intensive development program towards extending their jetpack's thrust and flight duration, as well as moving towards an all electric version.

Court Bivens and Michael Mayo of the ATAS lab at GTRI have been leading the project and coordinating the integration of all subsystems into the SVMS.

The joint SVMS team hopes to move forward by soliciting R&D funds from the U.S. military. Additional funding would enable Georgia Tech and JetPack Aviation to fully integrate the described subsystems into an SVMS and tackle issues such as survivability and reliability, electrical and mechanical infrastructure, and human factor disciplines.

Note - JetPack Aviation is accepting new investors through March 31, 2017. Please visit http://jetpackaviation.com for full details.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005200/en/
[March 14, 2017] Lucid Energy Group Completes $585 Million in Revolving Credit Financing

Midstream provider Lucid Energy Group ("Lucid") announced today that the company has completed the refinancing and expansion of its two senior revolving credit facilities. The additional financing will be used to support Lucid's growth strategies in the Midland and Delaware basins. Based in Dallas, Lucid is backed by more than $860 million in growth capital commitments from EnCap Flatrock Midstream. Lucid is the largest privately held natural gas processor working in the Permian Basin with more than 660 million cubic feet of natural gas processing capacity and pipeline assets exceeding 3,300 miles in operation. The new credit facilities bring Lucid's total financing to more than $1.45 billion. Wells Fargo (News - Alert) served as sole bookrunner, administrative agent and joint lead arranger alongside Cadence Bank in a $235 million facility supporting Lucid's operations in the Midland Basin. Wells Fargo was the sole lead arranger and sole bookrunner with Cadence Bank and BBVA Compass (News - Alert) serving as co-syndication agents in a $350 million facility supporting Lucid's operations in the Delaware Basin. Locke Lord LLP served as counsel to Lucid with Tammi Niven leading the firm's legal team from its Houston office. Vinson & Elkins LLP, led y Erec Winandy, a partner in the firm's Dallas office, represented Wells Fargo as the administrative agent for a syndicate of 13 banks.



"We are pleased to have the continued support of our bank group," said Lucid Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Ryan Moss. "This expanded financing, along with the addition of new banks to the syndicate, further strengthens our ability to provide our customers with critical support for their development efforts in the Permian Basin." About Lucid Energy Group, LLC

Lucid Energy Group is a diversified energy company that provides a full suite of midstream services to producers working in the Permian Basin. Lucid is led by President & CEO Michael J. Latchem, Executive Vice President & COO Jay L. Langham, Executive Vice President & CCO Scott Brown and Executive Vice President & CFO Ryan Moss. Lucid is supported by capital commitments from EnCap Flatrock Midstream. Operations at Lucid are focused on the Midland Basin and the Delaware Basin (maps here). The Lucid philosophy is grounded in finding creative solutions for its customers, clear communications and excellence in project execution. Visit www.Lucid-Energy.com for more information.

About EnCap Flatrock Midstream

EnCap Flatrock Midstream provides value-added growth capital to proven management teams focused on midstream infrastructure opportunities across North America. The firm was formed in 2008 by a partnership between EnCap Investments L.P. and Flatrock Energy Advisors. Based in San Antonio with offices in Oklahoma City and Houston, EnCap Flatrock is led by its three Managing Partners and Founders William D. Waldrip, Dennis F. Jaggi and William R. Lemmons, Jr; Managing Partners Gregory C. King and Dave Kurtz; and Partner Dennis J. McCanless. The firm manages investment commitments of nearly $6 billion from a broad group of institutional investors. EnCap Flatrock is currently making commitments to new management teams from EFM Fund III, a $3 billion fund. www.efmidstream.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005636/en/

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South-central Wisconsin will see quiet, but cold weather following a storm that dropped only 3 to 5 inches in the area, but is dealing a far harsher blow to southeastern Wisconsin.

Lake effect snow off of Lake Michigan is dumping more than a foot in an area that includes Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, with a lake effect snow warning continuing for Racine and Kenosha counties until 10 a.m. Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

In Madison on Tuesday, look for increasing clouds, a high near 25 and north winds around 10 miles per hour producing wind chill values of zero to 10.

After an overnight low around 9, Wednesday should be sunny, with a high near 30 and northwest winds at 5 to 10 mph.

After a low overnight Wednesday into Thursday around 11, Thursday should be mostly sunny, with a high near 38 and light southwest winds becoming south winds at 5 to 10 mph in the morning.

The Weather Service said theres a 50 percent chance for precipitation overnight Thursday into Friday in the form of rain and snow before 8 p.m., rain, snow, and sleet from 8 p.m. through 11 p.m., then rain after 11 p.m.; an 80 percent chance for showers on Friday, mainly from 7 a.m. through 1 p.m., with possible rain totals of a tenth to a quarter of an inch; and a 50 percent chance for rain and snow Sunday night into Monday.

Skies over Madison should be cloudy Friday, mostly sunny Saturday and Sunday, and mostly cloudy Monday, with highs near 46, 43, 45 and 49, and lows Thursday night through Sunday night around 32, 29, 25 and 34.

27 Storm Track meteorologist Branden Borremans forecasts quiet and cold weather in the wake of the storm, a light mix to light rain Thursday night turning to all light rain Friday morning, and scattered light rain showers Monday.

Borremans said skies over Madison should be sunny becoming partly sunny Tuesday, sunny Wednesday, mostly sunny becoming partly sunny Thursday, becoming partly sunny Friday, cloudy becoming partly sunny Saturday, mostly to partly sunny Sunday, cloudy Monday, and mostly sunny next Tuesday, with highs near 25, 30, 39, 46, 45, 43, 48 and 44, and overnight lows around 8, 14, 33, 29, 25, 36, 32 and 29.

Mondays high in Madison was 25 at 2:31 p.m., 17 degrees below the normal high and 46 degrees below the record high of 71 for March 13, set in 1990 and 1995.

Mondays low in Madison was 14 at 11:59 p.m., 10 degrees above the normal low and 20 degrees above the record low of 6 below for March 13, set in 1975.

Officially, 0.08 inches of precipitation was recorded at the Dane County Regional Airport on Monday, boosting Madisons March and meteorological spring (March through May) precipitation total (rain plus snow converted to liquid) to 0.88 inches, 0.09 inches above normal. Madisons 2017 precipitation total rose to 5.58 inches, 2.11 inches below normal.

Madisons record precipitation for March 13 is 1.58 inches in 1990.

The 2.5 inches of snow on Monday boosted Madisons March and meteorological spring (March through May) total to 8.3 inches, 4.7 inches above normal. For the snow season (since July 1), Madison has received 44 inches, 0.7 inches below normal.

Madison's record snowfall for March 13 is 6 inches in 1917.

Madisons official snow depth is 2 inches.
[March 14, 2017] OrangeHook, Inc. to Aid in Colombian National Victim Repair Unit Initiative

MINNEAPOLIS, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Through a recently signed Agreement between Medsis, a U.S. based big data company, and the Colombian Governments National Victims Repair Unit, launched an initiative to modernize the entire Colombian citizens database system by means of the donation of Medsis big data management technology platform, CEREBRO. The system will convert all existing databases into a single unified civil registry. The use of CEREBRO, along with advanced state-of-the-art security protocols and algorithms, will allow identities of all registered victims to be safely verified and stored, creating efficiencies in all programs within the National Victims Repair Unit and potentially beyond. The National Victims Repair Unit was created to facilitate reparation payments which are a key component of the Colombian Governments recent peace agreement with the FARC in their efforts to achieve a conclusion of the countrys 60-year-old internal conflict. The project will provide a platform for the distribution of benefits to more than 8 million identified victims. Under terms of the agreement payments of approximately 1.2 Trillion Colombian Pesos ($400 Million USD) will be distributed annually over the next ten years, over 12 trillion pesos ($4B USD) in total. WAIV, an Australian company focused on payment applications, will be the financial bridge between the National Victims Repair Unit and the persons registered in it. Together with a known payent network for the WAIVCARD and the participation of a Colombian bank, WAIV will be responsible for integrating the MEDSIS: CEREBRO platform to accurately disburse the reparations and financial humanitarian aid to the people registered in the database. The integration with WAIV as a processor makes possible the accurate and timely procedure to manage and disburse the funds to the victims over the next 10 years.



DAX CABRERA, President and CEO of Medsis stated, This historic project, to help heal the nation of Colombia, is exactly what Medsis was designed for. The vision of Colombia and of director ALAN JARA to provide humanitarian aid throughout Colombia, is an important global goal of Medsis. John Fenga, CEO of WAIV, expressed his satisfaction at being part of this initiative that will allow relief to victims of Colombia's unfortunate internal conflict, Were excited to be a part of this incredible opportunity, said Fenga, Helping the less fortunate is a key part of the WAIV philosophy.

OrangeHook, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company, is an identification authentication company with systems and applications focused in healthcare, government, and data transfer accuracy. James Mandel, OrangeHook CEO, stated, We are delighted to be recognized as a leader in identification processes, and look forward to our continuing involvement in this historic program. For more information about OrangeHook, please visit www.orangehook.com. About the players: The Victims Unit (UnidadVictimas.gov.co) is a branch of the Colombian Government whose objective is to help and integrally repair the victims of war, with the objective of completing social inclusion and reparation of all affected victims. Medsis (Medsis.com) is an international information technology company that provides platforms for data management, integration, consolidation, and analysis. Their systems are designed to operate in environments with volatile infrastructure such as remote, rural, and conflict areas. WAIV (WAIVCard.com) is an international technology company offering a comprehensive payment system designed to make banking online safer, faster, and cheaper. Its aim is to increase global financial inclusion for the 2 billion unbanked people worldwide. OrangeHook (orangehook.com) (OTC:NUVLD) is a global leader in identity solutions. Through its suite of proprietary technologies, OrangeHook helps health, government, and corporate entities with cloud-based validation, accreditation, and verification services. Contacts OrangeHook, Inc. James Mandel, CEO [email protected] Medsis Sara Cabrera [email protected] WAIV John Fenga, CEO [email protected]

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[March 14, 2017] Public reporting of drug shortages and discontinuances by industry now mandatory

OTTAWA, March 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Many Canadians need medications to treat serious health conditions. A shortage of a drug they need or its discontinuance from sale could be a source of great worry. Prompt public notification of a shortage or discontinuance helps health care providers to make decisions and find alternative medication to prevent or reduce potential impacts on patients. Today, regulations came into force requiring drug companies experiencing shortages and discontinuances to publicly report them. Drug manufacturers are now required to report on DrugShortagesCanada.ca: an anticipated drug shortage;

a discontinuation of a drug six months in advance; and

any previously unreported shortage within five days of learning about it. As part of the regulations, a new, independent website, DrugShortagesCanada.ca, replaces the industry-run website, www.drugshortages.ca, where manufacturers have been voluntarily reporting drug shortages and discontinuances since 2012. The new website features enhanced notification features and a mobile application. As well, it provides updated information for health care providers and patients, incluing tools and guidance to help manage shortages.



Making public reporting of drug shortages and discontinuances mandatory builds on collaborative steps Health Canada has taken in recent years to help manage and minimize the impact of supply disruptions. When a critical national drug shortage occurs, Health Canada works with stakeholders from across the drug supply chain, including provincial and territorial partners, to confirm the details and status of a shortage, coordinate information sharing, and identify collaborative mitigation strategies. Quick Facts

Features of DrugShortagesCanada.ca include drug-specific email alerts, advanced search features, more comprehensive information, and the ability for users to download data subsets using third-party software. The free mobile application is available for download on iOS and Android devices.

The reporting requirements and website are being introduced as a result of feedback from stakeholders across the health system supporting mandatory reporting on a non-industry website. Quotes

"We know that timely access to reliable industry information helps the health system respond to shortages and discontinuances of medication more quickly and minimize impacts on Canadians. Mandatory reporting by industry and the new website will help to support better patient care."

The Honourable Jane Philpott

Minister of Health Related Products DrugShortagesCanada.ca (third-party industry reporting website)

(third-party industry reporting website) Drug Shortages in Canada (Health Canada web page) Associated Links Mandatory Reporting of Drugs Shortages and Discontinuances on Track for Spring 2017 Implementation ( June 29, 2016 )

) Government of Canada Moves Forward with Mandatory Reporting of Drug Shortages and Discontinuances ( May 19, 2016 ) Health Canada news releases are available on the Internet at: www.healthcanada.gc.ca/media SOURCE Health Canada

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Sacramento Press Club Considers Poverty and Health at Upcoming Lunch

Dr. Anthony Iton, senior vice president of healthy communities at the California Endowment, joins the Sacramento Press Club March 21 to discuss new research showing an unprecedented spike in death rates of rural, white Californians.

In Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties, death rates for whites were 40 percent higher than the overall death rate for whites in recent years, according to the recent study from the Endowment and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Iton is preparing to announce statewide findings, and will discuss his results as Congress is poised to repeal or reduce the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid coverage that would hit the Central Valley hardest. While President Trum largely carried the region, it also has some of the highest rates of Medicaid participation, poverty and unemployment in the state. Iton will discuss placed-based health outcomes and why your zip code is more powerful than your genetic code.







As senior vice president of healthy communities at the Endowment, Iton oversees Building Healthy Communities, a 10-year, $1 billion comprehensive community initiative launched in 2010 to advance statewide policy, change the narrative, and transform 14 of California's communities most devastated by health inequities into places where all people have an opportunity to thrive.

About the lunch:

Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Time: 11:30 registration opens, lunch 11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Where: State Building & Construction Trades Council at 1231 I St, Suite 302

RSVP deadline: Monday, March 20 at noon

Cost: $29 members/$40 non-members

Contact Sacramento Press Club at 916-288-6006, Nikki Moore.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006345/en/
[March 14, 2017] Zenefits Releases Benchmark Report on SMB Benefits in United States

Zenefits, the leading all-in-one HR solution for small and medium businesses, today released Zenefits Small Business Benefits Benchmark Report, a snapshot of the U.S. small business benefit landscape. Based on aggregate data from more than 8,000 Zenefits customers, the report examines how plan types, contributions, premiums, deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket costs differ across regions. The study is intended to help businesses make more informed decisions by providing insights into the choices of similar companies within the same region. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005547/en/ (Graphic: Business Wire) "Employee benefits are a significant investment for any business and can impact a company's ability to recruit and maintain the best talent. Yet, it can be difficult to navigate the complex options and provide a benefits package that is both good for employees, as well as the business. Now business leaders are facing increasing uncertainty - between the new administration, proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and changing state regulations. We hope the findings in our first benchmark report can help business owners make better decisions as they navigate the complexity of employee benefits," said Jay Fulcher, CEO of Zenefits. Highlights from the report include: Employers Contribute Nearly 25% More than Required to Monthly Premiums While there is some diversity in the number of healthcare plans offered based on company size (larger companies typically have more offerings), small businesses consistently contribute more than required to employer-sponsored health insurance. When deciding what to contribute, small businesses typically consider talent acquisition and retention, pre-tax considerations, and benefits packages. Average premiums: $465/month for individuals and $1,168/month for families Premium costs are lowest in the Central region and highest in the Northeast

Companies contribute an average of 73% towrd individual premiums (nearly 25% more than required) and 38% toward dependent premiums West Coast employers contribute the most toward individual premiums (80%) Northeast employers contribute the most toward dependent premiums (43%)

More information on contributions can be found in the full report



Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte (News - Alert) Consulting LLP. "Even if healthcare costs increase, the social contract between many employers and employees remains strong: employers of all sizes continue to contribute significantly to their employees' healthcare benefits." PPOs Dominate All U.S. Regions Despite Higher Costs

PPOs (Preferred Provider Organization) remain the most popular plan type for small businesses across the country, accounting for 49% of plans. Many choose PPOs despite the higher cost because they provide more flexibility in provider access, movement of care, network size, and out-of-network coverage. However, there is significant variation based on region: PPOs are more popular in Central states, accounting for 58% of PPO plans, while in the Northeast, PPOs only account for 35% of plans. These variations are perhaps based on lower average population density and/or different network providers: important considerations for small businesses to take into account when adopting a benefits package. Deductibles Increasing, but Out-of-Pocket (OOP) Stabilizing While deductibles are a key indicator when evaluating health care plans, changes in policy, including the ACA cap on out-of-pocket costs, have made OOP expenses a more prominent consideration, especially as deductibles continue to increase. Average deductibles and OOP costs vary significantly by region and generally have an inverse relationship. The Central region has the highest average deductibles, but they also have the lowest OOP limits. In contrast, the West has the lowest average deductibles, but the highest OOP limits. For small businesses, this means location and relationship between deductible and OOP are important indicators for employer-sponsored benefits. Deductibles: Average Deductible (Individual): $1,650

Average Deductible (Family): $3,520

Highest in Central region and lowest in West region (Individual and Family)

For detailed cost structure, see full report Out-of-Pocket Costs: Average OOP (Individual): $4,825

Average OOP (Family): $9,780

Highest in West region and lowest in Central (Individual) and Southeast (Family)

For detailed cost structure, see full report Zenefits' Small Business Benefits Benchmark Report is based on aggregate data from more than 8,000 businesses - providing a snapshot of small business benefits in the U.S. To download the full report, visit www.zenefits.com/get/benefits-benchmarking-report/. About Zenefits Zenefits is the leading all-in-one HCM (human capital management) solution for small and medium businesses. Designed as an interconnected ecosystem of apps, Zenefits delivers the most complete HR experience by combining its own powerful apps with dozens of best-of-breed providers on the Zenefits platform. Built on a modern technology stack, Zenefits' platform provides a comprehensive Employee Record tightly integrated with Zenefits' apps like onboarding, payroll, compliance and benefits administration and partner apps like email, expense management, 401(k) and employee engagement. The result is a powerful HCM solution that helps mid-market businesses manage their people, stay compliant and save thousands of hours in lost time. For more information, visit www.zenefits.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005547/en/

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[March 13, 2017] NASA Scientists to Discuss Findings on Mars, Pluto at Houston-area Conference

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA scientists from across the agency will present their latest findings and perspectives on topics ranging from Mars and Pluto to the dwarf planet Ceres during the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, March 20-24. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has made a geologic traverse across Gale Crater and provided new data depicting trends in the planet's mineralogy. The 2015 exploration of Pluto by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has revealed a spectacular diversity of landscapes across the planet, ranging from ancient, heavily cratered terrains to youthful regions being rapidly resurfaced by sublimation, condensation, glaciation and convection. NASA's Dawn mission is providing data about the features, composition and evolution of the dwarf planet Ceres that contrasts with pre-mission predictions. NASA will hold two briefings at the conference. A NASA Headquarters briefing will be held at 5:30 p.m. CDT on March 20, during which representatives from the Planetary Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate will update the community on the status of the division's fleet of missions and programs. The director and Research and Analysis lead will provide an update on Planetary Science Divisin research opportunities at noon on March 22.



NASA also will hold a town hall meeting, from 12:30 to 6 p.m. on March 19, to discuss the Science Definition Team (SDT) report on the NASA pre-Phase A study of a Europa lander. Pre-Phase A refers to studies that are conducted of multiple potential mission concepts and potential science investigations prior to committing to a specific concept. The town hall is intended to provide an extended opportunity to communicate the science content of the report to the scientific community and, equally importantly, to engage in constructive discussion with the scientific community. For more information on the town hall, please email Curt Niebur at [email protected]. The conference will take place at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center at 1601 Lake Robbins Drive in The Woodlands, Texas.

Media may register to attend. For more information, including links to the program, media advisories and contact information, visit: http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2017/media/press/ The conference is presented by the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. LPI is managed by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), a national, nonprofit consortium of 105 leading research universities chartered in 1969 by the National Academy of Sciences at the request of NASA. USRA operates programs and institutes focused on research and education in most of the disciplines engaged in space-related science and engineering. More information about the agenda and other activities is available online at: http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2017/ For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-scientists-to-discuss-findings-on-mars-pluto-at-houston-area-conference-300422909.html SOURCE NASA

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[March 13, 2017] Updated Food Recall Warning - Dixie Diners' Club brand Carb Not Beanit Butter recalled due to E. coli O157:H7

Product photos are available at http://bit.ly/2mTLPQb OTTAWA, March 13, 2017 /CNW/ - The food recall warning issued on March 10, 2017 has been updated to include additional product information. This additional information was identified during the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's (CFIA) food safety investigation. Industry is recalling Dixie Diners' Club brand Carb Not Beanit Butter from the marketplace due to possible E. coli O157:H7 contamination. Consumers should not consume the recalled product described below. The following product may have been sold nationally as well as through Internet sales. Recalled product







Brand Product Size UPC Codes Dixie Diners' Club Carb Not Beanit Butter 15 oz 6 16578 78105 2 All

What you should do If you think you became sick from consuming a recalled product, call your doctor. Check to see if you have recalled product in your home. Recalled product should be thrown out or returned to the store where it was purchased. Food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 may not look or smell spoiled but can still make you sick. Symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, mild to severe abdominal cramps and watery to bloody diarrhea. In severe cases of illness, some people may have seizures or strokes, need blood transfusions and kidney dialysis or live with permanent kidney damage. In severe cases of illness, people may die. Learn more about the health risks

Sign up for recall notifications by email, follow us on Twitter, or join the CFIA community on Facebook

View our detailed explanation of the food safety investigation and recall process Background This recall was triggered by a recall in another country. The CFIA is conducting a food safety investigation, which may lead to the recall of other products. If other high-risk products are recalled, the CFIA will notify the public through updated Food Recall Warnings. The CFIA is verifying that industry is removing recalled product from the marketplace. Illnesses There have been no reported illnesses in Canada associated with the consumption of this product. More information CFIA: www.inspection.gc.ca/contactus SOURCE Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)

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[March 13, 2017] Life Link III Earns Governor's Safety Award

Life Link III will be recognized for excellence in workplace safety and health at the Governor's Safety Awards luncheon on May 18, 2017, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Life Link III is one of 266 employers to be honored through the awards program, coordinated by the Minnesota Safety Council. "We thank Life Link III for its commitment to safety," said Paul Aasen, president of the Minnesota Safety Council. "These efforts protect workers, strengthen the organization and benefit the community as a whole." "At Life Link III, we are committed to achieving the highest level of safety standards in our industry," stated Edward Eroe, president & CEO of Life Link III. "We are proud to be honored with the Governor's Safety Award and will continue to set the standard for providing safe and effective air medical transport." Since 1934, the annual Governor's Safety Awards program has honored Minnesota employers with exceptional safety performance. Applicants are judged on several years of injury data as it compares with their industry's national statistics, and on their progress in implementing a comprehensive safety program. "Life Link III is pleased to be recognied with a Meritorious Achievement Award," stated Joe Hennessy, safety manager at Life Link III. "This recognition is attributed to our employees' deep commitment to safety as well the strong support from our leadership team on maintaining a robust and quality safety program."



The Governor's Safety Awards luncheon is part of the 83rd Minnesota Safety & Health Conference, coordinated by the Minnesota Safety Council. The conference is the oldest and largest gathering of workplace safety and health professionals in the region. The Minnesota Safety Council, founded in 1928, is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in Minnesota by preventing unintentional injuries ("accidents"). About Life Link III

Life Link III operates six helicopter bases that include Alexandria, Blaine, Cloquet, Hibbing, and Willmar, Minnesota, and Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The company plans to open a seventh base of operations in Brainerd (News - Alert), Minnesota, in mid-2017. Life Link III's helicopter and airplane services provide on-scene emergency response and inter-facility transport for patients requiring critical care. The company's transportation services are accredited by CAMTS (Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transportation Services), ensuring the highest standards of quality and safety are met. Life Link III is a non-profit consortium and is the air medical transport program for 45 hospitals for the following member-owner organizations: Allina Health, CentraCare Health, Children's Minnesota, Essentia Health, Fairview Health Services, Regions Hospital/HealthPartners, Hennepin County Medical Center, St. Luke's, and Sacred Heart Hospital. www.lifelinkiii.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170313006429/en/

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[March 13, 2017] Dow's Enhanced Expanded Polyethylene Foam Wins 2017 Ringier Technology Innovation Awards

SHANGHAI, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics (P&SP), a business unit of Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), has won the prestigious Ringier Technology Innovation Awards - Plastics Industry 2017 for its patented Enhanced Expanded Polyethylene (EPE) foam. The award celebrates innovation and excellence that deliver superior customer experience in a consumer-friendly and environmentally sustainable manner. As a global leader in packaging materials, Dow is committed to supporting the burgeoning e-commerce sector, particularly for the vibrant China market. Based on intensive research and development, the company has developed a range of high-performance superior-quality packaging solutions to meet the needs of this exciting market. Dow's innovative EPE technology is the perfect example of a tailored solution from a global leader who has deep understanding of the market and the customers. "Dow's Enhanced Expanded Polyethylene (EPE) technology is an innovative solution that responds to the market's expectations and sets a new benchmark for the industry. This new solution delivers outstanding performance, customizable attribute, and applicability characteristics to signifcantly improve product safety and delivery convenience of e-commerce goods," the Ringier Technology Award committee said in its citation. "This translates into a significant reduction of logistics-related losses while contributing to more sustainable manufacturing practices."



The innovative EPE solution and state-of-the-art LDPE/LLDPE technology significantly reduces consumption of raw materials for unit packaging by 10-15%, and reduces the thickness and weight of packaging materials. It also cuts down material and transportation costs, and benefits the environment by lowering energy consumption. The enhanced EPE solution reduces the number of required layers in packaging from five-six to three-four. It delivers 20% greater strength and almost twice the tear strength compared to standard EPE resin. It is even suitable for packaging objects such as jackfruit or durian; and likewise for delicate, hygienic accessories like babies' products and play mats.

Dow's new advanced EPE solution has been a key project developed by Pack Studios Shanghai, as part of its efforts to leverage the best expertise in packaging materials and equipment, to rapidly commercialize new, improved and sustainable solutions. "Dow's quest for innovation keeps pace with the growth and emerging needs of the packaging industry in China with a longstanding commitment to working with market players in the value chain", said Mark Saurin, Commercial Vice President for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastic in Asia Pacific, "As we continue to develop more innovative solutions in collaboration with industry partners, the entire industry is set to benefit from enhanced competiveness and improved performance. Our efforts to develop smarter, high-performance, environment-friendly packaging solutions will focus on reducing waste, minimizing costs and delivering a superior proposition for the customers." Dow's award-winning logistics e-commerce packaging solutions will be showcased at Chinaplas 2017, Asia's largest plastics and rubber exhibition at the China Import & Export Fair Complex, Guangzhou, China, from May 16 to 19, 2017. The Dow booth will be located at 10.2G41 (Hall 10.2).

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[March 14, 2017] Demandbase Expands Leadership Team with Two Industry Veterans

SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Demandbase, the leader in Account-Based Marketing (ABM), today announced the addition of Kelly Cook and Dom Lindars to its leadership team. They join the company as Vice President of Product, Advertising Solutions and Vice President of Product, Marketing Solutions, respectively. Together, they will support Demandbase's ambitious strategy for delivering best-in-class ABM solutions to the market and support the expansion of the company's offerings with artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Click to tweet: [email protected] expands its leadership team to advance its #ABM advertising and marketing products http://demandb.se/2mlhkzE "Kelly and Dom are great additions to the Demandbase management team. Both have stellar track records  demonstrating success in both entrepreneurial roles and public companies that have scaled," said Chris Golec, Demandbase CEO. "These are seasoned leaders who will accelerate Demandbase's technology and innovation leadership as the demand for ABM solutions continues to grow." In charge of strategy and development for Demandbase's Global Advertising Solutions, Cook is an accomplished product management executive who brings deep B2B advertising expertise to the role. Before joining Demandbase, she held senior product leadership positions at WebMD and Mobiquity, where she employed data analytics and predictive modeling to design and launch unique offerings that materially increased advertising effectiveness for more than 50 clients across a broad range of industries. Previously a software engineer, Cook possesses an in-depth understanding of product and software development best practices that contributed to her success in rapidly driving creative initiatives from concept to implementaion. She holds an MBA from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary.



"Speaking from experience, I know that B2B marketers are not satisfied with solutions that are simply adaptations of B2C technologies," Cook said. "In particular, I think Demandbase's use of artificial intelligence will dramatically help B2B companies leverage their customer data and overcome the challenges they face with their current advertising investments." Lindars brings 25 years of experience with technology companies, including SaaS and marketing automation expertise. Before joining Demandbase, Lindars spent several years at Oracle, where he led Database Cloud product management and built out the company's first generation of marketing automation tools. Beyond his marketing, product management, and sales credentials, he has deep practical experience in digital marketing and all aspects of B2B marketing from campaign design, through execution and analytics. Previously, he was CEO and co-founder of Marketbright, a SaaS marketing automation solution that enabled B2B enterprises to create and manage leads, and convert prospects into customers. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

"Demandbase realizes that every phase of the B2B buying journey can benefit from innovation and technology," Lindars said. "We're in a unique position because of our vast set of proprietary B2B company data  to which we can apply machine learning." Integrated into more than 40 marketing and CRM solutions and adopted by hundreds of leading enterprises, Demandbase offers the only end-to-end, SaaS-based ABM platform, comprising advertising, marketing, sales and analytics solutions. Demandbase accelerates revenue growth for customers by helping them identify, target, engage and sell to high-value accounts. These additions to the Demandbase team come ahead of the company's fourth annual Marketing Innovation Summit, April 5-6 in San Francisco. For more information on sessions, speakers and sponsors, please visit www.marketinginnovationsummit.com. About Demandbase

Demandbase, the leader in Account-Based Marketing (ABM), has been introducing ABM solutions to the market since 2011. The company offers the only end-to-end ABM platform account identification, account-based advertising, B2B website personalization, account-based marketing automation, sales insights, and integrations into CRM so that ABM results are optimized around sales activity. The Demandbase B2B Marketing Cloud is the only subscription-based ad targeting and web personalization solution that lets marketers connect campaigns directly to revenue. The B2B Marketing Cloud is powered by patented technology, which allows companies to identify in real-time the accounts they value most and personalize their digital marketing efforts to them. Enterprise leaders and high-growth companies such as Adobe, GE, Salesforce.com, Oracle, Box, CSC, DocuSign, Dell and others use Demandbase to drive ABM and maximize their marketing performance. The company was named a Gartner Cool Vendor for Tech Go-To Market in 2016. To learn more about Demandbase, visit us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/demandbase-expands-leadership-team-with-two-industry-veterans-300423148.html SOURCE Demandbase

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[March 14, 2017] Samsung SDI Launches New Lineup of High-capacity and High-power ESS Batteries to Expand into European Market

Samsung SDI (KRX:006400) launched its new ESS products that adopted innovative design technology. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005683/en/ Samsung (News - Alert) SDI presented new lineup of its comprehensive ESS solutions at the Energy Storage Europe 2017. New ESS products, High-capacity E2 Model and High-power P3 Model, greatly increases the capacity and energy density by deploying innovative configurations. (Photo: Business Wire) Samsung SDI presented new lineup of its comprehensive ESS solutions at the Energy Storage Europe 2017, an international exhibition held for three days from March 14, 2017 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Being an exhibition dedicated to ESS batteries and renewable energies, the Energy Storage Europe 2017 was taken part by more than 100 companies in ESS-related front and rear industries from around 50 countries, including major ESS companies such as ABB, Siemens (News - Alert) and Younicos that have operations in Europe and Global Market. The company showcased new ESS products at the exhibition, high-capacity E2 and high-power P3 models, whose energy density is sharply increased. E2 model is a high-capacty ESS battery that substantially increased the number of cells integrated in the container by adopting innovative design technology. Samsung SDI dramatically raised intensity of space in the ESS container by upgrading module design and rack arrangement technology.



The company designed a compact module by reducing its size from 42 liter to 35 liter, while configuring it to increase the number of integrated cells in the module by 10% from 20 in previous modules to 22 cells. Its design is innovated to integrate larger number of cells in a smaller space. And the container is designed to enclose larger number of ESS modules by adopting a new rack arrangement method that removed passages in the ESS container. The company prevented any problem in managing ESS by adopting improved cooling technology and installing gates on both sides of the container while removing passages. As a result, E2 model realized the high-capacity ESS battery by enclosing the capacity of 9.1MWh in the container, nearly twice larger than previous products.

E2 model is developed targeting utility ESS market that requires large capacity. Needed for storing energy during low-demand hours and using it in high-demand hours, utility ESS batteries are widely used in recent years in connection with renewable energies such as solar photovoltaic power and wind power. As a utility ESS with larger capacity can store more energy, it can supply energy to larger number of facilities. Samsung SDI also unveiled P3, a further upgraded high-power model. P3 is designed to maintain high-power for longer time by using 78Ah high-power and high energy density cells with 15% increased capacity without changing the size of 68Ah battery cells adopted for previous models. P3 model can be used for power stabilization that requires high-power ESS. An ESS for power stabilization plays the role of stabilizing quality of power at the substation by maintaining power of the generator at a certain value. ESS allows supplying high quality power by storing power when it exceeds standard value and discharging power when it is in shortage. And when power is insufficient, it needs high-power ESS that can supplement strong energy in an instant. The common feature of E2 and P3 is that their energy density is improved by increasing capacity while retaining the size of previous ESS containers. ESSs with increased energy density can save construction and facility management costs by reducing scale of ESS facilities. Eventually, this will lead to reduction in investment on the part of customers. In addition, Samsung SDI displayed two new residential ESS modules. One of them is an advanced lithium-ion ESS battery that can replace previous lead-acid battery by adopting a technology of delivering 48V, the same voltage as the lead-acid battery. The other is an ESS product that can reduce cost of ESS system by providing high voltage. "The new lineup further sharpens competitive edge of our ESS products. We will lead the world market by developing advanced ESS technologies ahead of others," said Sewoong Park, vice president for ESS Team, Samsung SDI. Navigant Research expects that the world ESS market will grow by around 50% to 4.3GWh in this year, and sharply increase by around 60% annually by 2020 to 14.8GWh. In its report on the world ESS market for 2015, B3, a market research institution, announced that Samsung SDI ranked first in the market by taking 18% of its share. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005683/en/

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Fuegos, a Spanish-style steakhouse, tapas and vegan restaurant, could open on Williamson street within the next month, its chef said.

Oscar Villarreal said construction is wrapping up this week, hopefully, and if the restaurant passes city inspections, it will start by offering a series of soft openings in the next two weeks. Fuegos has already started recruiting diners for these meals on its website.

Villarreal did his restaurant training at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and is running his soft openings or training sessions the way he learned to do them there, he said. "It's very controlled, reservation only," he said. "It's so we can work the bugs out."

His daughter, Cassandra Villarreal, owns the business with his significant other, Jordan Wegner, Villarreal said.

One of the reasons he is opening the restaurant is to help his family heal after a pair of tragedies in 2013 and 2014, when he lost two of his sons.

His son, Alfredo Emilio, was 18 and living in Janesville when he was killed by a Walworth County sheriff's deputy in 2013 at a hospital in what police called an escape attempt. Villarreal said his son was shot five times.

Officials said Alfredo, who was an inmate under guard at a town of Geneva hospital, where he was getting tests done, punched and kicked the deputy in the face multiple times. The deputy used a stun gun on Alfredo, which failed to stop him, police said in a news report.

The next year, Villarreal's 22-year-old son, Pablo, died in a car crash with his best friend. They rolled their truck in Rock County while out celebrating.

"I'm here," Villarreal said about Fuegos. "I'm trying to get everything going. I'm trying to work through the process of healing from tragic losses that were back to back."

Villarreal moved to Madison four years ago from the Lake Geneva area. He lived in Rock County before that, and did consulting in Milwaukee.

He said "everyone's working together as a family" on the restaurant, including his oldest son, Ryan Villarreal.

The loss of his two sons left five children fatherless, Villarreal said, and that is the mission behind the restaurant. "This is what's driving me here everyday," he said. "When these kids get older and they don't have their fathers there to give them the opportunities that they would have," he wants them to have the restaurant.

Money from the restaurant will go into trusts in their names, Villarreal said. "Like their fathers gave them something in return."

While Villarreal is not a partner in Fuegos yet, he said he is one of four investors, in terms of him investing his time in the creation of the restaurant and as its chef. If all goes well, he may "jump on board" in a year or so.

"I'm just getting in here, and getting everything going for them and rolling everything out for them and then we'll see what happens. We'll see if I can handle it."

Villarreal wouldn't reveal his age. "Gay men don't tell you their age," he said, laughing.

What he did say was that he's a definite carnivore, but that Wegner, his partner, "is definitely a vegetarian, going on vegan."

Villarreal, whose family is Spanish and Mexican, had some experience with vegetarian food growing up in a Catholic family where there was no meat in the house during Lent, he said.

He and Wegner saw the need for a Latin vegetarian restaurant after the two of them went to Vegan Fest and noticed there was no Latin food.

Villarreal was working as a personal chef in the area when he was approached by investors, who told him to let them know if he ever decided to open a restaurant. He eventually pitched them the Fuegos idea. And he said he did it because of his grandchildren.

He got a lot of experience with seafood by working at the famous Disney World restaurant Fulton's Crab House for five years. Fulton's is now known as Paddlefish.

Many of the tapas on Fuegos sample menu involve seafood -- there are crab cakes, shrimp, mussels, octopus, calamari, raw tuna, scallops and lobster bisque. The menu also features seafood entrees.

The steakhouse side of the restaurant, from its prototype menu, features skirt steak, ribeye, strip steak, sirloin, as well as lamb chops and pork chops.

The vegan menu is separate and lists fried yucca, fried plantains, coconut rice cakes, baked nut cheese, paella, raw vegetable pasta, pozole, among other creative-sounding dishes.

Villarreal is proud that Fuegos' vegan menu is the same size as its regular menu. "We're not just going to put a couple Vs in there for vegan options," he said.

He also promises beef from Stoughton and Northern Wisconsin. It will be local, just like it is in Spain, he said. "You go to Spain and they know where their meat is coming from."

The lunch, dinner and brunch menus on the Fuegos website aren't final, but give an idea about what to expect, Villarreal said.
[March 14, 2017] Wipro to Develop Next-Generation Enterprise Master Patient Index (eMPI) Solution for NHS Scotland

Wipro (News - Alert) Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company today announced that it has won a twelve-year contract from NHS Scotland to build a next generation Enterprise Master Patient Index (eMPI) solution. NHS Scotland is the region's National Health Board working towards reducing health inequalities and improving health conditions. This solution, which will be hosted in Scotland, will help NHS Scotland transition from its current legacy Community Health Index System (CHI) to offer cost effective, efficient, paperless and patient-friendly healthcare services in Scotland. Wipro has partnered with NextGate for this project. Wipro will leverage NextGate's award-winning MatchMetrix platform so as to enable the eMPI solution to link and manage data from patients, partner institutions and third party organizations. In line with NHS' future requirements, Wipro with NextGate will build a scalable solution to enable healthcare providers in the Scottish healthcare boards to maintain unique patient identifiers. The solution based on NextGate's MatchMetrix platform, will integrate with other existing NHS Scotland legacy systems. It has the ability to compare patient records from disparate applications, and link together multiple patient records for simplified and accurate cross-platform validation of patient data. The solution increases efficiency by reducing time spent on searching for patient information, freeing up resources to focus on providing safe treatment. "We are pleased to be working with Wipro, a leading global information technology company, and NextGate, the leader in healthcare identity management, to move our Mainframe Solutions Transformation Programme (MSTP) initiative forward," said Andy Robertson, Director of IT at NHS, National Services Scotland. He added, "The modernization of our CHI system using their technology will help us deliver the highest standards of healthcare to the people of Scotland in a cost effective and efficient manner." Jeffrey Heenan Jalil, Senior Vice-President and Global Head, Healthcare, Life Sciences & Services, Wipro Limited, said, "We are delighted to have been selected as a partner by NHS Scotland and believe that this initiative is a step twards efficient data management to provide improved quality and integrated care. Wipro understands that technology is a strategic enabler, and offers ways to improve patient outcomes, expand access, and enhance patient experience. We are investing in building next-generation data management technologies, which will form the backbone to deliver connected and seamless healthcare."



Andy Aroditis, CEO, NextGate said, "NHS Scotland is taking a visionary approach to the new CHI system. The detailed and comprehensive selection process showed their passionate interest in developing a full-featured, efficient, and supportable solution to drive better information management for the benefit of patient care. NextGate is privileged to contribute our award-winning MatchMetrix platform and industry expertise to the project, providing the most interoperable and accurate patient identity management technology to support the delivery of comprehensive care." About Wipro Limited.

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading information technology, consulting and business process services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of "Business through Technology." By combining digital strategy, customer centric design, advanced analytics and product engineering approach, Wipro helps its clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, Wipro has a dedicated workforce of over 170,000, serving clients across 6 continents. For more information, please visit www.wipro.com

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005866/en/

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[March 14, 2017] Grofers and Sodexo Partner to Delight Customers

GURGAON, India, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Now Pay With Meal Vouchers on Grocery Delivery Grofers, the on-demand e-commerce mobile and web application, is now enabling payment via meal vouchers by partnering with Sodexo. Grofers customers will now be able to pay for their groceries, fruits, vegetables and bakery items through Sodexo meal vouchers, in addition to the multiple payment options that presently exist on the app and website. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478287/Sodexo_and_Grofers_Logo.jpg )

In the first phase of this partnership, Sodexo vouchers can be used across all the 12 leading cities where Grofers super store is available. These cities are Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Lucknow, Jaipur and Hyderabad. Already a highly convenient way to buy groceries, Grofers believes that this partnership would help the e-grocer grow further. Albinder Dhindsa, Co-founder at Grofers, said, "Sodexo and Grofers had immense synergies catering to a similar audience. This partnership will benefit both of us by driving our toplines further. We can already see the positive effects of this tie-up as Sodexo meal vouchers are now contributing 1% to our daily GMV within a week of launch." "Sodexo is the preferred Employee Benefits partner for 10,000+ organizations in India since the last 20 years. The company has a 30,000+ network for meal cards and vouchers across India. This partnership with Grofers will help our 2.7 million consumers by providing a convenient way to buy food and on-alcoholic beverages and improve the quality of life of their families," said Stephane Michelin, CEO, Sodexo BRS India.



Furthermore, in the second phase of this partnership, Sodexo's meal cards would also be accepted on the Grofers platform by April this year. This card will be linked to an innovative mobile payment solution to bring further delight to users allowing for secure transactions and hassle-free ordering. Recently, Grofers has been in the news for launching in 5 new markets of Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Bhopal, Kochi and Madurai. Benefiting from the demonetization drive, the e-grocer has been in a hyper-growth mode since then and has plans to launch a range of private labels soon.

About Grofers: Grofers is a mobile and web application that allows consumers to order products online across categories like groceries, fruits and vegetables, beauty and wellness, baby care, bakery, meats and seafood, pet care, flowers and home and office needs and get them delivered to their doorstep within a few hours. The mobile applications for both iOS and Android platforms can be downloaded at grofers.com/download. The delivery service is operational in 25 cities: Agra, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Noida, Madurai, Mumbai, Pune, Ranchi, Surat and Vadodara. About Sodexo: The Sodexo group works towards improving the quality of daily life for employees, partners and customers across the world. Sodexo BRS, India's No. 1 Employee Motivation and Benefits Services provider is a partner to over 10,000 HR leaders. Our employee benefit solutions are customized to meet specific needs of organizations and help them develop their best motivated workforce. Sodexo BRS offers a range of employee benefit solutions. The meal benefit offerings include Meal Cards, Meal Vouchers and Cafeteria Cards. The company's Incentive and Recognition offerings include Gift Vouchers, Exclusive Vouchers, Customized Gift Vouchers and a unique Loyalty and Rewards platform, 'Say Rewards'. Sodexo reaches out to over 2.7 million daily consumers across 1,500+ cities servicing through over 30,000 merchants. Sodexo - India's No. 1 Benefits and Rewards Services Company, is a preferred motivation partner to over 10,000 leading organizations across the private and public sector in India.

For more information:

Grofers:

Kshitij Torka - E: [email protected]

Prashant Verma - E: [email protected] Sodexo:

E-mail: [email protected]

Mob: +91-9819773064

Sodexo SVC India Pvt. Ltd.

Twitter handle: @SodexoIndiaClub

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SodexoBenefitsIndia/



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[March 14, 2017] SCTE/ISBE Standards, MoCA Team Up on New Operational Practice for DOCSIS 3.1-MoCA Interoperability

EXTON, Pa. and SAN RAMON, Calif., March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), and the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) today announced a new SCTE/ISBE Standards operational practice that is designed to ensure interoperability between MoCA 2.0 and the cable telecommunications industrys new DOCSIS 3.1 specification for advanced broadband services.





SCTE 235, Operational Practice for the Coexistence of DOCSIS 3.1 Signals and MoCA Signals in the Home Environment, addresses the need to prevent degradation or failure of signals due to a shared frequency range above 1 GHz. The operational practice specifies the proper use of frequencies and filters that network designers, cable industry technical personnel, equipment designers, and others can employ to deliver optimal performance in environments that include both DOCSIS 3.1 and MoCA 2.0. The expansion of the DOCSIS RF spectrum above 1.2 GHz created shared frequencies and potential conflicts within the 1125-1675 MHz range for DOCSIS 3.1 and MoCA technology. SCTE 235 prescribes sufficient isolation and proper location and required performance of filters to ensure there is no signal leakage from one residence to another and to prevent overload of DOCSIS and MoCA receivers. Among key recommendations is the use of non-overlapping channels and home-run architectures whenever possible. Based on a technical study by MoCA in cooperation with CableLabs, SCTE 235 was created by the Special Working Group on HFC Readiness for DOCSIS 3.1 within the Network Operations Subcommittee (NOS) of the ANSI-accredited SCTE/ISBE Standards Program. DOCSIS 3.1 and MoCA are important enabling technologies that support more powerful, flexible services, said Rob Thompson, Director, Network Architecture for Comcast Cable, MoCA Board member, and chair of the Technical WorkGroup at MoCA. SCTE 235 is designed to create home environments in which both technologies can perform as intended to meet customer demand.



As cable system operators expand their service portfolios, a key role for SCTE/ISBE Standards is to ensure that our members can continue to leverage all available technologies, said Dean Stoneback, Senior Director of Engineering for SCTE/ISBE. By working collaboratively with CableLabs and organizations such as MoCA, we can drive solutions that can increase cables competitive edge and create value for the consumers the industry serves. Operational Practice for the Coexistence of DOCSIS 3.1 Signals and MoCA Signals in the Home Environment, a multi-year, multi-organizational effort, illustrates how our organizations have worked together to give the cable service providers the knowledge they need to position their networks to best meet the needs of their subscribers, said Charles Cerino, President of MoCA.

The multiyear effort to assure the coexistence of DOCSIS 3.1 and MoCA has successfully resulted in operational practices that enable the optimal performance of both technologies when deployed in home environments, said Ralph Brown, Chief Technology Officer, CableLabs. SCTE 235 illustrates the value of CableLabs close collaboration with MoCA and SCTE/ISBE. SCTE 235, Operational Practice for the Coexistence of DOCSIS 3.1 Signals and MoCA Signals in the Home Environment, is at http://www.scte.org/SCTEDocs/Standards/SCTE 235 2017.pdf. Complete information about the SCTE/ISBE Standards Program -- including how to become involved as an SCTE/ISBE Standards Program member -- is available at www.scte.org/standards or by e-mailing [email protected]. MoCA technology is the fastest and most reliable in-home backbone for Wi-Fi and has been adopted by cable, telco/IPTV and satellite operators worldwide. MoCA 2.0 offers actual throughputs (MAC rate) up to 1 Gbps, and MoCA 2.5 is capable of up to 2.5 Gbps actual throughput. MoCA 2.1 and MoCA 2.5 also offer an additional set of network management and security features. MoCA Access is an FTTB extension targeting MDUs worldwide. Additional applications include hospitality, education, government and other residential/business environments using existing coaxial wiring. The Alliance has 218 certified products and 45 members worldwide. Visit www.mocalliance.org for more information. The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) is part of a unique ecosystem that has the power to prepare the workforce to meet the ever-changing demands of the Telecommunications Industry. Our members can realize streamlined delivery of products and services, improved customer satisfaction, and increased employee retention rates directly impacting business results. In cooperation with our partners, CableLabs and NCTA, SCTE prepares tomorrows telecommunications leaders by communicating new Industry trends and technology, developing standards, and delivering relevant training and certification programs to enhance members expertise and professional development. SCTE and its global brand, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), build value for corporate, vendor, and individual members by creating peer networking opportunities, professional mentoring, and communication of Industry information. Visit www.scte.org. Connect with SCTE at www.scte.org/socialmedia. Contact: 800-542-5040 Joe Madagan, SCTE/ISBE Editor, Marketing & Communications, [email protected] Paul Schneider, PSPR, Inc. for SCTE/ISBE, [email protected], 215-817-4384 Visit SCTE/ISBE online at www.scte.org Rob Gelphman, VP, Marketing & Member Relations, MoCA, [email protected], 408-838-7458

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[March 14, 2017] Grubhub and the National Math + Science Initiative Partner Today to Support STEM Success

CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Grubhub, the nation's leading takeout marketplace, today announced it is partnering with the National Math + Science Initiative (NMSI), an organization whose mission is to improve student performance in the critical subjects of STEM, in honor of Pi Day. On March 14, Grubhub users will be empowered to contribute to NMSI and show their support for STEM education by entering 'PIDAY2017' at checkout. When users do so, Grubhub will donate 3.14 percent of these users' order totals to benefit NMSI, up to $40,000. As a technology company that values STEM education and the importance of preparing the next generation of leaders in the technology space, contributing and giving back to NMSI was a natural partnership for Grubhub. "We are excited to partner with NMSI to help further American education in the crucial areas of science, technology, engineering and math," said Barbara Martin Coppola, CMO, Grubhub. "By helping NMSI further STEM education, today's children will have the opportunity to become the next great engineers, mathematicians, scientists and technology leaders of tomorrow." NMSI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming math and science education in today's classrooms with proven, effective programs that can be replicated nationwide. By providing training and spport for teachers and students beginning in elementary school through college, NMSI programs have a lasting, positive impact on teacher effectiveness and student outcomes. To date, NMSI's programs have positively impacted more than 1.5 million students and 50,000 teachers at 1,000 high schools and 45 universities in 40 states coast to coast.



To find takeout restaurants available in your area, check out grubhub.com. If you are interested in becoming part of the Grubhub Delivery team, please visit driver.grubhub.com. To find out how your restaurant can join Grubhub, check out get.grubhub.com. To learn more about Grubhub and its portfolio of brands, please visit newsroom.grubhub.com. About Grubhub

Grubhub is the nation's leading online and mobile takeout food-ordering marketplace with the most comprehensive network of restaurant partners and largest active diner base. Dedicated to moving eating forward and connecting diners with the food they love from their favorite local restaurants, the company's platforms and services strive to elevate food ordering through innovative restaurant technology, easy-to-use platforms and an improved delivery experience. Grubhub is proud to work with more than 50,000 restaurant partners in over 1,100 U.S. cities and London. The Grubhub portfolio of brands includes Grubhub, Seamless, AllMenus, MenuPages, LAbite, Restaurants on the Run, DiningIn and Delivered Dish.

About the National Math + Science Initiative

Launched in 2007, the National Math and Science Initiative increases students' access and achievement in rigorous math, science and English courses through engaging programs that are rooted in local partnerships. The nonprofit organization is nationally recognized for providing programs proven to benefit students, teachers, schools and communities in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Learn more at nms.org. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/grubhub-and-the-national-math--science-initiative-partner-today-to-support-stem-success-300423065.html SOURCE Grubhub

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[March 14, 2017] Capitol Call Mobile App Now Available - the Political Activism App That Takes the Guesswork Out of Calling Congress

SEATTLE, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- New GPS-Powered Political Action App Provides Users with Federal, State, and Local Representative Contact Information Along with Call Scripts, Contact Lists, and Direct Action Guidance for Current Political Issues. Capitol Call, a political activism mobile app, has been released to the public. The purpose of this app is to take the guesswork out of direct political action for the everyday citizens and to provide a tool for grassroots organizers to direct their followers in coordinated actions. By enabling their GPS (or manually entering their home address), the app automatically determines a user's federal, state, and local government representatives, and in turn, provides the user with 1-tap access to call their representation to voice their opinions. And for users that want a little guidance with what to say or to understand who to contact for a specific issue, an Action Center provides a library of current political issues aggregated from sources across the internet; providing call scripts, contact lists, and other ways to get involved (town halls, marches, petitions, donations, social sharing and more). For organizers and community activists, Capitol Call is a platform for managing direct action campaigns. Using the Action Dashboard, these organizers can create and share their own Action Campaigns  comprised of specific steps to aid the fight for their cause - that appear in the app's Action Center. This allows volunteers or followers who use the app, to stay informed of current issues relevant to the movement, stay on message, stay coordinated and timely in their actions and also stay engaged. Founder, Brandon Peterson, started the Capitol Call project the weekend after the inauguration of President Trump, and has worked quickly to develop its echnology  launching the beta after one week  and expanding the size of its team to ride the rising wave of activism.



"The mission of Capitol Call is to provide a party agnostic tool to inform, engage, and motivate everyday Americans to direct political action through simple tangible steps," he said. "Additionally, it aims to provide a solution for organizers to reach and activate people in actions aligned with their causes." "Capitol Call is a product of its time, equally inspired from uncertainty and concerns over the election of President Trump along with the mass outpouring of activism that I witnessed following (particularly) the Women's March. Bearing witness to that uprising of hope, the sense of powerlessness that I held through the inauguration transformed and I was reminded that not only could I, but it was my forgotten duty, to contribute politically. We each contribute in our own unique way and I knew my path was through technology," said Peterson.

"But I also knew my path wouldn't be one of just resistance, but also of bridge building. Before I am a member of my political party, I am an American, and it is my belief that there exists enough opportunity in this country for us to all win. For that reason, I wanted much of the platform to be community driven, providing equal empowerment to all non-violent ideas, viewpoints, and activism. And ultimately, I think this openness will give longevity to the idea  longevity that other similar tools will fail to achieve because of their tight political affiliations," said Peterson. The app is available for free to users in the USA and is compatible with iOS and Android platforms. It can be downloaded at http://www.capitolcall.org. New features launch every two-to-three weeks and political issue information is updated daily. The Capitol Call team is continuing to develop its solution to provide creative ways to encourage citizen activism. They are also seeking collaboration with like-minded organizations and contacts who are involved with community activists to empower their movements. Media Contact:

Brandon Peterson

Founder

Capitol Call

[email protected]

http://www.capitolcall.org

107 Spring St.

Seattle, WA 98104 Related Links Website Twitter This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/capitol-call-mobile-app-now-available---the-political-activism-app-that-takes-the-guesswork-out-of-calling-congress-300423310.html SOURCE Capitol Call

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[March 14, 2017] LECTRA: Manufacturers value Lectra's fabric cutting room: 3000 Vector sold in 10 years

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Manufacturers value Lectra's fabric cutting room: 3000 Vector sold in 10 years Lectra is proud about customers' continued passion for the company's flagship solution Vector, which guarantees customers operational excellence and prepares them for Industry 4.0 Paris, March 14, 2017 - Lectra, the world leader in integrated technology solutions dedicated to industries using fabrics, leather, technical textiles and composite materials, announces the recent sale of its 3000th Vector in 10 years The Vector range has revolutionized the automatic cutting room for fabric, enjoying immediate success with fashion, automotive and furniture manufacturers. Today, Vector is the undisputed reference for the fabric cutting room, reflected by the 15% rise in sales for Vector in 2016. Manufacturers' enthusiasm for Vector, in both developed countries and emerging economies, is due to a range of competitive advantages. Vector's record machine availability-over 98%-plus its overall performance minimizes the cost per piece, bringing profitability to operations for Lectra customers. In addition, Vector's cutting precision and the capacity to produce pieces without spaces equates to significant gains in materials, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for manufacturers. A series of decisive innovations for Vector have ensured that Lectra continues to help customers reach their increasingly ambitios objectives for operational excellence. Since 2007, Vector has made true technological leaps, pushing the boundaries for speed, quality and reliability. The new generation of Vector, launched in 2012, established new standards for productivity and controlling performance which remain unrivalled today. At the end of 2016, two new models joined the Vector family: Vector iQ, whose cutting device enables a 10% rise in productivity, and VectorAuto iX6, which specializes in synthetic fabric cutting for seats and car interiors.



Vector owes its reliability to the multiple sensors with which it is equipped. Launched with 120 sensors, today Vector has 180 sensors to implement preventive and predictive maintenance. Vectors installed across the world communicate in real time with Lectra's five international call centers, where experts can immediately intervene remotely. "A pioneering solution in the Internet of Things, Vector was the first cutting solution on the market connected to the Internet and which used a system of predictive maintenance. The Vector range fully answers Industry 4.0 concepts and its innovative services are a major asset for the cutting room of the future," underlines Daniel Harari, Lectra CEO.

 Vector is a registered trademark of Lectra. About Lectra Lectra is the world leader in integrated technology solutions (software, automated cutting equipment, and associated services) specifically designed for industries using fabrics, leather, technical textiles, and composite materials to manufacture their products. It serves major world markets: fashion and apparel, automotive, and furniture as well as a broad array of other industries. Lectra's solutions, specific to each market, enable customers to automate and optimize product design, development, and manufacturing. With more than 1,550 employees, Lectra has developed privileged relationships with prestigious customers in more than 100 countries, contributing to their operational excellence. Lectra registered revenues of $288 million in 2016 and is listed on Euronext. For more information, please visit www.lectra.com Contact - Lectra Headquarters / Press Dept.: Nathalie Fournier-Christol

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 64 42 37 - Fax: +33 (0)1 53 64 43 40 Attachments: //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/de8b36ec-42fd-402f-a851-a0992425b29d

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[March 14, 2017] NASA Announces Teams for 2017 Human Exploration Rover Challenge

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ready for a race? Nearly 100 high school and college teams from across the globe will put their skills to the test March 30 to April 1 during NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Participating teams come from all over the world including 23 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and several different countries, such as Brazil, Germany, India and Mexico. The challenge highlights NASA's goals for future exploration to Mars and beyond. Inspired by the lunar roving vehicles of the Apollo moon missions, the competition challenges students to solve engineering problems, while emphasizing NASA's commitment to inspiring new generations of scientists, engineers and explorers. Rover Challenge is hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and is managed by Marshall's Academic Affairs Office. Student teams are required to design, build, test and race human-powered rovers, driven by one male and one female team member. The nearly three-quarter-mile course boasts 17 grueling obstacles that simulate terrain found on Mars, as well as other planets, moons and asteroids throughout the solar system. Teams race to finish the course with the fastest times to win prizes in several competitive divisions. The event concludes with an awards ceremony, where corporate sponsors will present awards for best design, rookie team and other accomplishments. "The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge team and its innovative partners are extremely excied to host this engineering design competition," said Diedra Williams, acting manager of Marshall's Academic Affairs Office. "The Rover Challenge allows for young talent to work together to solve complex engineering problems that include design, construction and testing. It is great fun  but also reflects the real-world complexity of problem solving with practical, hands-on experience. We look forward to seeing the enthusiasm and inventive ideas they bring to the competition."



This year's race has a new optional feature called the "Drive Train Technology Challenge." Teams can develop reliable systems such as belts, drive shafts or direct drives to replace commonly used chains. Cash awards will be given for best overall performance. Major corporate sponsors include the Boeing Co.; Lockheed Martin Corp.; Jacobs Engineering; Aerojet Rocketdyne; and Northrop Grumman Corp., all with operations in Huntsville.

Other contributors include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Greater Huntsville Section; the Tennessee Valley Chapter of the System Safety Society; Science Applications International Corp. of Huntsville; Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia; Davidson Technologies of Huntsville; Corporate Office Properties Trust, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland; the National Space Club of Huntsville; Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville; Aetos Systems of Huntsville; the University of Alabama in Huntsville; AI Signal Research Inc. of Huntsville; the U.S. Space & Rocket Center; Redstone Federal Credit Union of Huntsville; the City of Huntsville; United Research Services of San Francisco; Kids in Space of Huntsville; Cyient of Huntsville; International System Safety Society, Tennessee Valley Chapter; Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau; Currie Systems of Huntsville; McDonald Scales Inc. of Huntsville; and the National Defense Industrial Association, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Teams will arrive in Huntsville on March 30 for on-site registration, with the race taking place 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CDT both Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1. NASA will provide real-time updates on Ustream and the Rover Challenge Twitter account. The two-day event and awards ceremony will stream live online at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc For a list of competing teams, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/teams/index.html For more information on the race, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/home/index.html To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-announces-teams-for-2017-human-exploration-rover-challenge-300423466.html SOURCE NASA

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[March 14, 2017] Moroccan King Concludes Five-Country Africa Tour on Heels of African Union Decision

Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) -Morocco's King Mohammed VI has concluded a five-country tour of Africa that took him to South Sudan, Ghana, Zambia, Guinea, and Cote d'Ivoire. The tour immediately followed the African Union's (AU) decision to readmit Morocco to the continental bloc after a 33-year hiatus. Since ascending the throne in 1999, the King has made Africa a foreign policy priority, making over 50 visits to nearly 30 African countries and signing approximately one thousand bilateral agreements on economic, political, security, religious, and educational issues. From February 1-2, the King visited South Sudan, overseeing the signing of nine bilateral agreements with President Salva Kiir Mayardit in the areas of urban development, investment promotion, agriculture, industrial cooperation, mines, and vocational training. The King also committed funds to a feasibility study for the building of a new capital city in Ramciel; as well as to a field hospital in Juba operated by Morocco's Royal Armed Forces.

From February 16-19, the King visited Ghana, where he and President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo oversaw the signing of 25 governmental and public-private partnership agreements. The agreements center on investment, industrial cooperation, electricity, insurance, banking, agriculture, renewable energy, mining, tourism, and partnerships to promote business and engage the private sector in favor of climate action.

From February 19-23, the King visited Zambia - his first visit to the country. The King and Zambian President Edgar Chagwa Lungu chaired a signing ceremony for 19 political and economic partnership agreements covering air services, investment romotion and protection, finance and banking, insurance, education, tourism, agriculture, technology, industry, and mining and renewable energy.

From February 23-24, he visited Guinea-Conakry, where he oversaw the signing of eight bilateral agreements in agriculture, sanitation, fertilizers, and technical assistance; visited a vocational training complex funded by the Mohammed VI Foundation for Sustainable Development; and undertook a number of measures to strengthen religious ties between the two countries. In addition to donating 10,000 copies of the Quran to the Secretary General of Religious Affairs in Guinea, the King performed Friday prayers at the Ahl Sunna Wal Jamaa mosque, launched construction on the "Mohammed VI Mosque," and met with imams who were part of the first class of Guinean imams to receive training at the Mohammed VI Institute in Rabat.

From February 24-March 14, King Mohammed VI visited Cote d'Ivoire, presiding with President Alassane Ouattara over the signing of 14 economic agreements covering pharmaceuticals, public transportation and road security, women-managed small businesses, and the creation of a "Technocenter" in Abidjan. During the visit, the King and President Ouattara also chaired a ceremony presenting the progress of the Cocody Bay rehabilitation project, which the King launched in a June 2015 visit to the country. It was during that visit that the two countries established the Cote d'Ivoire-Morocco Economic Impetus Group to reinforce private sector cooperation; since then, Cote d'Ivoire has become a premier destination for Moroccan foreign investment and trade has increased threefold.



nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit in Marrakesh in November 2016, hosting a special meeting for African leaders at the event. "With this most recent trip, King Mohammed VI has once again put words into action and taken concrete steps to solidify his commitment to the development and prosperity of African citizens and his pledge to help bring about unity and progress on the continent," said former US Ambassador to Morocco Edward M. Gabriel.

### 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. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006253/en/

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[March 14, 2017]

NextGenTel Holding ASA: Approval of Annual Accounts 2016

OSLO, Norway, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The board of directors of NextGenTel Holding ASA has 14 March 2017 approved the annual accounts for 2016. There were no changes in the profit for the year as presented in the Q4 2016 financial report on 15 February 2017.

The annual general meeting (AGM) will take place Thursday 20 April 2017 at 15:00 at the company's premises at Harbitzalleen 2A, Skyen Oslo. A notice for the AGM will be sent to all shareholders and documents related to the AGM, including the annual report for 2016, will be available on the company's investor relations website (www.nextgentelholding.com).







This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/nextgentel-holding-asa/r/approval-of-annual-accounts-2016,c2214961
[March 14, 2017] UrtheCast Receives C$17.6 million of Funding from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to Support Development of OptiSARTM Satellite Constellation

VANCOUVER, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) ("UrtheCast" or the "Company") today announces that it will receive approximately $17.6 million in funding from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada's Industrial Technologies Office as part of its Strategic Aerospace & Defense Initiative (SADI) program. This funding will provide significant financial support for the ongoing development of UrtheCast's planned constellation of Earth Observation satellites, known as the OptiSARTM Constellation. UrtheCast believes its OptiSARTM Constellation program is leading a wave of disruptive geospatial and geoanalytics products and services that will ensure Canada remains a world leader in radar technologies, supported by thriving aerospace, space, defense and security (A&D) industries. The planned 16-satellite OptiSAR Constellation is expected to consist of eight X- and L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites and eight high-resolution optical satellites. The SADI funding will support the OptiSARTM program during critical pre-commercial design and development work over the next four years. "We are deeply honored to have been selected as a SADI funding recipient and that the potential of the OptiSARTM Constellation has been recognized by the Government of Canada," stated Wade Larson, UrtheCast's President and CEO. "This is a clear vote of confidence in UrtheCast and we believe it further validates the strategic and commercial opportunities of our SAR and optical satellite technologies. Today marks an important step forward for the OptiSAR Constellation, and we believe the technologies we are developing through this program will be beneficial, not only for UrtheCast, but for the rest of the A&D sector and high-tech ecosystem in Canada in general." UrtheCast's participation in SADI also aims to foster collaboration between research institutes, universities, colleges and the private sector. UrtheCast will be working with several academic institutions, such as the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria, as well as several private sector partners, in the OptiSARTM development program. The SADI funding is structured as a repayable contribution that will be disbursed in quarterly installments through March 31, 2021 or when the funding limit is reached, whenever is sooner, on a cost-reimbursement basis, and must be repaid by UrtheCast in annual installments over 15 years, beginning in 2023. UrtheCast expects to claim a reimbursement of approximately C$3.2 million for costs incurred between April 2016 and February 2017, as permitted by the funding agreement. Disbursement of funds is subject to customary conditions in agreements of tis nature, including covenants to perform certain work and maintain ownership of intellectual property in Canada during the term of the agreement, which expires in 2037. The total amount to be repaid, including interest, is approximately C$29 million.



About UrtheCast Corp. UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that serves the rapidly evolving geospatial and geoanalytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. The Company operates Earth Observation (EO) sensors in space, including two satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2, to produce imagery data that is displayed on UrtheCast's cloud-based web platform and sold to partners and customers. Through its subsidiary Deimos Imaging, UrtheCast processes and distributes imagery data and value-added products on behalf of the PanGeo Alliance, a network of eight satellite operators with a combined 15 medium- and high-resolution EO sensors. UrtheCast is also developing and expects to launch two EO satellite constellations: the world's first fully-integrated constellation of sixteen multispectral optical and SAR satellites, called OptiSAR, and an eight-satellite constellation designed to capture high-quality, medium-resolution optical imagery of the Earth's entire landmass (excluding Antarctica) every day, called UrtheDaily. Together, the Company believes these constellations will revolutionize monitoring of our planet with medium- and high-resolution, high-coverage and high-revisit imagery in all weather conditions. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker 'UR'.

For more information, visit UrtheCast's website at www.urthecast.com. About the Government of Canada's Industrial Technologies Office (ITO) The Industrial Technologies Office (ITO), a Special Operating Agency of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, advances leading edge research and development (R&D) by Canadian industries. The agency manages two programs: the Technology Demonstration Program (TDP) and the Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI). SADI, launched in 2007, provides repayable contributions to successful applicants in order to support R&D projects in the aerospace, space, defense and security (A&D) sectors resulting in new or improved products, services or processes and to foster collaboration between universities, colleges, research institutes, and the private sector. Forward Looking Information

This release contains certain information which, as presented, constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that relate to future events and often addresses expected future business and financial performance, containing words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", and "expect", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could" or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions and includes, but is not limited to; its receipt of the funding contribution from SADI; its ability to comply with the covenants and other obligations under the funding contribution agreement with SADI (the "SADI Agreement"); its future growth and operations plans, and . Such statements reflect UrtheCast's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by UrtheCast, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors could cause UrtheCast's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others: failing to comply with any obligation of UrtheCast pursuant to the SADI Agreement; failing to maintain certain financial solvency and similar requirements and access to revolving credit facilities required pursuant to the SADI Agreement; any changes in the funding of the SADI program by the Government of Canada or a change in applicable laws that affects UrtheCast's ability to obtain its funding under the SADI Agreement; any delays or failures in the design, development, construction, launch and operational commissioning of the proposed OptiSAR or UrtheDaily constellations; the Company being unable to convert the Memoranda of Understanding in respect of funding of the OptiSAR constellation into binding, definitive agreements; interruptions to or failures of UrtheCast's infrastructure; legal and regulatory changes, as well as those factors and assumptions discussed in UrtheCast's annual information form dated March 29, 2016, (the "AIF"), which is available under UrtheCast's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information is developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, in the AIF, and as disclosed from time to time on UrtheCast's SEDAR profile. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. SOURCE UrtheCast Corp.

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Chris Rickert | Wisconsin State Journal Urban affairs, investigations, consumer help ("SOS") Follow Chris Rickert | Wisconsin State Journal 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

It was a simple enough question, and one I thought might lead to a little more good in an already pretty good Madison School District.

That it took so long to get an answer could be a reflection of the usual public bureaucracy inertia  or a sign that the district has a problem it hasnt yet figured out how to solve.

Madison resident Eric Lewis emailed me back on Feb. 1 with a link to an Associated Press story about how people in places such as Topeka, Kansas, and Wilmington, Delaware, were organizing efforts to pay off poor students lunch debts.

In some districts, students whose lunch accounts are overdrawn are given peanut-butter or cold cheese sandwiches, which for the students is like walking into a cafeteria full of your peers with a big sign on your head saying my family is too poor or too derelict to pay for me to have a proper hot lunch.

Residents figured paying off meal debts is a way to stop punishing students for the failings  unintentional or otherwise  of their parents.

So, Lewis asked me, Is there a fund here in Madison I could contribute to (to) help pay unpaid school lunches?

It took multiple messages to district officials last month and Monday to find out that the answer is: No, but there probably should be.

The district does not have a formal fund set up for negative lunch account balances, district director of food and nutrition Steve Youngbauer told me, but we could certainly accommodate a donation of that type if someone is interested.

Someone has been interested  hundreds of someones, in fact.

District communications coordinator Liz Merfeld sent me a link to a Capital Times story from December about two Madison women who started separate online fundraising efforts to pay off student meal debt. One exceeded its $2,000 goal and raised $4,155. The other raised $1,320 of its $2,404 goal.

Thats still a long way from the total unpaid meals debt, though. In 2014, this newspaper reported it stood at about $110,000 and included some 8,700 students. Youngbauer told me Monday the total is still north of $100,000 and includes thousands of students.

Part of whats driving the deficit is that the district, to its credit, stopped shaming overdrawn students with cheese sandwiches. As of the 2014-15 school year, they got the same hot lunches as the paying students.

Youngbauer said the district makes multiple efforts to get parents to pay up, including automated phone and email messages and offers of help filling out the paperwork for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. He said it has not sent unpaid balances to a collection agency in the six years hes been with the district.

Balancing the districts meals account with donations could be a short-term fix, at best. It could also send a message to parents that its OK to stiff the district or to avoid filing the paperwork needed to get your kids into the federal lunch program.

But if good people are stepping up to lessen a problem in a district that is continually crying poor, it might be a good idea to take them up on it.

Youngbauer said those interested in making a donation should contact him directly at 608-204-4000.
[March 14, 2017] LYNPARZA (olaparib) Phase III SOLO-2 Data Demonstrated Progression-Free Survival Benefit in BRCA-Mutated Ovarian Cancer as Maintenance Therapy

AstraZeneca today presented results from the Phase III SOLO-2 trial demonstrating a significant improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) in germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCA), platinum-sensitive, relapsed ovarian cancer patients treated with LYNPARZA (olaparib) tablets (300mg twice daily), compared with placebo in the maintenance setting. The trial met its primary endpoint of investigator-assessed PFS (HR 0.30; 95% CI 0.22-0.41; P<0.0001; median 19.1 months vs 5.5 months).1 PFS as measured by Blinded Independent Central Review (BICR) evaluation, a pre-specified sensitivity analysis supporting the primary endpoint, demonstrated a median PFS of 30.2 months vs 5.5 months for placebo, representing an improvement of 24.7 months (HR 0.25; 95% CI 0.18-0.35; P<0.0001).1 Additionally, a statistically-significant benefit in time to second progression or death (PFS2) was also seen in patients treated with LYNPARZA (HR 0.50; 95% CI 0.34-0.72; P=0.0002; median not reached vs 18.4 months), compared with placebo, as well as improvements in other key secondary endpoints.1







Table 1. Progression-Free Survival by investigator and BICR assessment: Analysis Median

progression-free

survival, months Hazard ratio Investigator-

assessed

analysis LYNPARZA 19.1 0.30 (95% CI, 0.22-0.41), P<0.0001 Placebo 5.5 Blinded

Independent

Central Review LYNPARZA 30.2 0.25 (95% CI, 0.18-0.35), P<0.0001 Placebo 5.5

These results, presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer in National Harbor, Maryland, build upon prior data in this setting, demonstrating the potential of LYNPARZA as a maintenance therapy in relapsed ovarian cancer.1,2 Richard Penson, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Clinical Director of Medical Gynecologic Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital said: "The SOLO-2 data demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in outcomes for those who took olaparib. The results, which showed a delay in disease progression in the maintenance setting, highlight the impact of PARP inhibition at the forefront of the important advances we are making in targeting ovarian cancer." Sean Bohen, Executive Vice President, Global Medicines Development and Chief Medical Officer at AstraZeneca, said: "We are extremely pleased with the results from SOLO-2, which support the potential benefit of LYNPARZA tablets as a maintenance therapy for patients with relapsed ovarian cancer. The tablet formulation may offer patients a reduced pill burden for LYNPARZA and a safety profile that is generally consistent with previous trials. We will work with regulatory authorities to make LYNPARZA tablets available to patients as quickly as possible." The safety profile for patients treated with LYNPARZA tablets during the trial was generally consistent to those observed with the currently-approved capsule formulation.1 Any adverse events (AE) Grade =3 were reported in 36.9% of patients treated with LYNPARZA and in 18.2% of patients who received placebo.1 The most common non-hematological AEs reported at a frequency of =20% in the LYNPARZA arm versus placebo were nausea (75.9% vs 33.3%), fatigue/asthenia (65.6% vs 39.4%), and vomiting (37.4% vs 19.2%).1 Grade =3 non-hematological AEs reported at a frequency of =2.5% in the LYNPARZA arm versus placebo were fatigue/asthenia (4.1% vs 2.0%), vomiting (2.6 % vs 1.0%), abdominal pain (2.6% vs 3.0%), nausea (2.6% vs 0.0%), diarrhea (1.0% vs 0.0%), and constipation (0.0% vs 3.0%).1 The most common hematological AEs reported in the LYNPARZA arm versus placebo were anemia (43.6% vs 8.1%), neutropenia (19.5% vs 6.1%), and thrombocytopenia (13.8% vs 3.0%).1 Grade =3 hematological AEs reported in the LYNPARZA arm versus placebo were anemia (19.5% vs 2.0%), neutropenia (5.1% vs 4.0%), and thrombocytopenia (1.0% vs 1.0%).1 The 300mg twice-daily tablet dose potentially reduces the pill burden for patients from 16 capsules to four tablets per day. LYNPARZA tablets are an investigational formulation and are not FDA-approved for any use.3,4 LYNPARZA capsules (400mg twice daily) are currently approved in the U.S. as a monotherapy in patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated (as detected by an FDA-approved test) advanced ovarian cancer who have been treated with three or more prior lines of chemotherapy. The indication is approved under accelerated approval based on objective response rate and duration of response. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trials.3 IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS There are no contraindications for LYNPARZA. Myelodysplastic Syndrome/Acute Myeloid Leukemia (MDS/AML): Occurred in <1% of patients treated with LYNPARZA, and the majority of those reports were fatal. The duration of therapy in patients who developed secondary MDS/AML varied from <6 months to >2 years. In a randomized placebo-controlled trial, MDS/AML occurred in 2% of patients treated with LYNPARZA. All of these patients had previous chemotherapy with platinum agents and/or other DNA damaging agents, including radiotherapy, and some of these patients also had a history of previous cancer or of bone marrow dysplasia. Monitor patients for hematological toxicity at baseline and monthly thereafter. Do not start LYNPARZA until patients have recovered from hematological toxicity caused by previous chemotherapy (=Grade 1). For prolonged hematological toxicities, interrupt LYNPARZA and monitor blood counts weekly until recovery. If the levels have not recovered to Grade 1 or less after four weeks, refer the patient to a hematologist for further investigations, including bone marrow analysis and blood sample for cytogenetics. Discontinue if MDS/AML is confirmed. Pneumonitis: Occurred in <1% of patients exposed to LYNPARZA, and some cases were fatal. If patients present with new or worsening respiratory symptoms such as dyspnea, fever, cough, wheezing, or a radiological abnormality occurs, interrupt treatment with LYNPARZA and initiate prompt investigation. Discontinue if pneumonitis is confirmed. Embryo-Fetal Toxicity: LYNPARZA can cause fetal harm. A pregnancy test should be performed on all pre-menopausal women prior to treatment. Advise females of reproductive potential of the potential risk to a fetus and to use effective contraception during treatment and for six months after receiving the final dose. ADVERSE REACTIONS In clinical studies, the most common adverse reactions (Grades 1-4) in =20% of patients included anemia (34%), nausea (75%), fatigue (including asthenia) (68%), vomiting (43%), diarrhea (31%), dysgeusia (21%), dyspepsia (25%), headache (25%), decreased appetite (25%), nasopharyngitis/pharyngitis/URI (43%), cough (21%), arthralgia/musculoskeletal pain (32%), myalgia (25%), back pain (25%), dermatitis/rash (25%), and abdominal pain/discomfort (47%). Common lab abnormalities (Grades 1-4) included decrease in hemoglobin (90%), decrease in absolute neutrophil count (32%), decrease in platelets (30%), decrease in lymphocytes (56%), mean corpuscular volume elevation (85%), and increase in creatinine (30%). DRUG INTERACTIONS Anticancer Agents: Clinical studies of LYNPARZA in combination with other myelosuppressive anticancer agents, including DNA damaging agents, indicate a potentiation and prolongation of myelosuppressive toxicity. CYP3A Inhibitors: Avoid concomitant use of strong and moderate CYP3A inhibitors. If the strong or moderate CYP3A inhibitor must be co-administered, reduce the dose of LYNPARZA. Advise patients to avoid grapefruit and Seville oranges during LYNPARZA treatment. CYP3A Inducers: Avoid concomitant use of strong and moderate CYP3A inducers when using LYNPARZA. If a moderate inducer cannot be avoided, be aware of a potential for decreased efficacy of LYNPARZA. USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Lactation: No data are available regarding the presence of olaparib in human milk, the effects on the breastfed infant or on milk production. Because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in the breastfed infant, advise a lactating woman not to breastfeed during treatment with LYNPARZA and for one month after receiving the final dose. Hepatic Impairment: No dose adjustment is required in patients with mild hepatic impairment (Child-Pugh classification A). There are no data in patients with moderate or severe hepatic impairment. Renal Impairment: No dosage adjustment is necessary in patients with mild renal impairment (CLcr 51-80 mL/min). In patients with moderate renal impairment (CLcr 31-50 mL/min), reduce the dose to 300mg twice daily. There are no data in patients with severe renal impairment or end-stage renal disease (CLcr =30 mL/min). Please see complete Prescribing Information, including Patient Information (Medication Guide). NOTES TO EDITORS About SOLO-2 SOLO-2 was a Phase III, randomized, double-blind, multicenter trial designed to determine the efficacy of LYNPARZA tablets as a maintenance monotherapy compared with placebo, in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed or recurrent gBRCA-mutated ovarian cancer. 4 The trial, conducted in collaboration with the European Network for Gynaecological Oncological Trial Groups (ENGOT) and Groupe d'Investigateurs National pour l'Etude des Cancers de l'Ovaire et du sein (GINECO), randomized 295 patients with documented germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations who had received at least two prior lines of platinum-based chemotherapy and were in complete or partial response.4,5 Eligible patients were randomized to receive either LYNPARZA tablets (300mg twice daily) or placebo.4 About AstraZeneca in Ovarian Cancer In the U.S., ovarian cancer is the ninth most commonly diagnosed cancer and the fifth most common cause of cancer death in women.6 The risk of developing ovarian cancer is increased in women with specific inherited genetic abnormalities, including BRCA mutations.7 AstraZeneca is committed to the continued development of our R&D portfolio for ovarian cancer, with a focus on improved care for all patients. About LYNPARZATM (olaparib) LYNPARZATM (olaparib) was the first FDA-approved oral poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor that may exploit tumor DNA damage response (DDR) pathway deficiencies to preferentially kill cancer cells.8-10 Specifically, in vitro studies have shown that olaparib-induced cytotoxicity may involve inhibition of PARP enzymatic activity and increased formation of PARP-DNA complex, resulting in disruption of cellular homeostasis and cell death.3 LYNPARZA is the foundation of AstraZeneca's industry-leading portfolio of compounds targeting DDR mechanisms in cancer cells.8-10 LYNPARZA tablets are currently being investigated in monotherapy and in combinations in a range of tumor types including breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancer.11-14 LYNPARZA tablets are an investigational formulation and are not FDA-approved for any use.3 About ENGOT ENGOT (European Network for Gynaecological Oncological Trial groups) is a research network of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) and was founded in 2007. Currently, ENGOT consists of 19 cooperative groups from 15 European countries. ENGOT's ultimate goal is to bring the best treatment to gynecological cancer patients through the best science, and enabling every patient in every European country to access a clinical trial. ENGOT coordinates and promotes multinational clinical trials within Europe on patients with gynecological cancer. This coordination is particularly relevant for academic clinical trials, translational research, research on rare diseases, and for clinical trials sponsored by the industry.15 About GINECO GINECO (Groupe d'Investigateurs National pour l'Etude des Cancers de l'Ovaire et du sein) is the French Cooperative Group in Oncology labeled by INCA (Institut National du Cancer or French NCI) for developing and conducting gynecological and advanced breast cancer clinical trials at the national and international level. The network is nationwide over 500 specialized investigators belonging to more than 150 public or private oncology units. The GINECO group was founded in 1993 and is member of international consortia such as ENGOT and GCIG (Gynecologic Cancer InterGroup). GINECO was the ENGOT leading group for SOLO-2 trial.4,5 About AstraZeneca in Oncology AstraZeneca has a deep-rooted heritage in Oncology and offers a quickly growing portfolio of new medicines that has the potential to transform patients' lives and the Company's future. With at least six new medicines to be launched between 2014 and 2020 and a broad pipeline of small molecules and biologics in development, we are committed to advance New Oncology as one of AstraZeneca's six Growth Platforms focused on lung, ovarian, breast and blood cancers. In addition to our core capabilities, we actively pursue innovative partnerships and investments that accelerate the delivery of our strategy, as illustrated by our investment in Acerta Pharma in hematology. By harnessing the power of four scientific platforms - immuno-oncology, the genetic drivers of cancer and resistance, DNA damage response and antibody drug conjugates - and by championing the development of personalized combinations, AstraZeneca has the vision to redefine cancer treatment and one day eliminate cancer as a cause of death. About AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases in three main therapy areas - Oncology, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases and Respiratory. The Company also is selectively active in the areas of autoimmunity, neuroscience and infection. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide. For more information, please visit www.astrazeneca-us.com and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @AstraZenecaUS. References Pujade-Lauraine E., Ledermann J., Penson R., et al., Treatment with olaparib monotherapy in the maintenance setting significantly improves progression-free survival in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer: Results from the Phase III SOLO-2 Study. Presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer (SGO), March 12 - 15. National Harbor, Maryland. Ledermann J., Harter P., Gourley M., et al., Olaparib Maintenance Therapy in Platinum-Sensitive Relapsed Ovarian Cancer. N Engl J Med 2012;366:1382-92. LYNPARZA (olaparib) Prescribing Information. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Wilmington, DE. National Institutes of Health. Olaparib Treatment in BRCA Mutated Ovarian Cancer Patients After Complete or Partial Response to Platinum Chemotherapy. Available Online. Accessed March 2017. GINECO. Presentation of GINECO. Association ARCAGY - GINECO - Hotel Dieu Hospital. Available Online. Accessed March 2017. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ovarian Cancer Statistics. Available Online. Last Updated June 21, 2016. Accessed March 2017. National Cancer Institute. BRCA1 and BRCA2: cancer risk and genetic testing. Available Online. Accessed March 2017. Food and Drug Administration. FDA approves Lynparza to treat advanced ovarian cancer. Available Online. Accessed March 2017. O'Connor M. 'Targeting The DNA Damage Response In Cancer' (2015) Mol Cell. Accessed March 2017. Tutt A N J, Lord C J, McCabe N. Exploiting the DNA Repair Defect in BRCA Mutant Cells in the Design of New Therapeutic Strategies for Cancer. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Niol. 2005;70:139-48. National Institutes of Health. Olaparib as Adjuvant Treatment in Patients With Germline BRCA Mutated High Risk HER2 Negative Primary Breast Cancer (OlympiA). Available Online. Accessed March 2017. National Institutes of Health. Assessment of the Efficacy and Safety of Olaparib Monotherapy Versus Physicians Choice Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients With Germline BRCA1/2 Mutations (OlympiAD). Available Online. Accessed March 2017. National Institutes of Health. Olaparib in gBRCA Mutated Pancreatic Cancer Whose Disease Has Not Progressed on First Line Platinum-Based Chemotherapy (POLO). Available Online. Accessed March 2017. National Institutes of Health. Ph II Study to Evaluate Olaparib With Abiraterone in Treating Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer. Available Online. Accessed March 2017. European Network of Gynaecological Oncological Trial Groups. Mission Statement and ENGOT Activities. European Society of Gynaecological Oncology 2016. Available Online. Accessed March 2017. 2017 AstraZeneca. All rights reserved. 3323614 Last Updated 3/17 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006281/en/

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A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017
A Prairie du Chien couple was arrested Friday following a six-month investigation into narcotics dealing.

Steven Mahlstedt, 36, and Jessica Mahlstedt, 34, were taken to the Crawford County Jail on multiple tentative charges, including possession of methamphetamine and marijuana, Prairie du Chien police said.

A search warrant was executed at their residence at 1119 S. 11th St. Friday night, with items found and seized including the two drugs, paraphernalia and items associated with distributing narcotics.

The Crawford County Sheriff's Office and Crawford County Human Services assisted at the scene.

The case remains under investigation and more charges could be added.
Two people switching seats in a car involved in a hit and run in Monroe on Sunday didn't help their cause, with both arrested on alleged drunken driving charges.

The crash was reported at about 5:30 p.m. Sunday in the 1000 block of 17th Avenue, Monroe police said.

Jillian Thomas, 36, of Darlington, and Luke Smetters, 34, of Monroe were arrested on the drunken driving charges and Thomas also was cited for hit and run to an unoccupied vehicle.

A witness followed their car after the hit and run crash.

"The witness said the female was operating the vehicle and then saw the male passenger switch with the female," the police report said. The vehicle was stopped by police on Eighth Street.

Both Thomas and Smetters were released from jail to responsible parties, pending court appearances.
Thanks to its slim bezels and strong performance and battery life, the XPS 13 is one of the most popular laptops and our best overall laptop on sister site Laptop Mag. So it's not a surprise that there's a lot of interest around this system -- and also a lot of questions.

The Tom's Guide community team recently held a special Q&A and Laptop Giveaway with our friends at Dell. Thank you all for the tremendous turn out. We received over 500 questions in our raffle and on the forums, far exceeding many of our past Q&As.

While there were many fantastic questions submitted to the Q&A, there were definitely a few standouts. Here are some of best question and answers from our Q&A with Donnie Oliphant, Director of the XPS Group at Dell. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Dont worry if you missed our live Q&A with Dell. The Toms Guide Community has plenty of Laptop features and events planned for the future. Make sure to the check the Toms Guide forums for all of the latest community updates and discussions.

Improving the XPS Product Line

KerryT: If you could improve ONE THING about your laptops, what would it be?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: If you nailed me down and made me pick one thing, I would probably point to what our customer research has pointed to as the number one buying criteria (behind brand and price) for the last two decades  battery life. Even at 22+ hours of (benchmarked) battery life in our latest XPS 13 with FHD (opens in new tab), it always seems like we dont have an AC outlet in front of us when we run out.

Moclyop: I tend to find the keyboards on your laptops a little on the mushy side, especially on the Latitude lines. What are your thoughts on your laptop keyboards?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Over the last couple of decades, weve seen laptop keyboard key stroke or key travel go from full (typewriter-like) 3.5mm down to 0.5mm on some of the more aggressive designs in the industry. Our Latitude keyboards are award-winning and praised broadly throughout the industry and amongst our user base. We use longer-travel ISO-compliant keyboards in most Latitude products (typically 2.5mm travel), but this has a direct correlation to how aggressive we can be on the systems overall thickness. XPS has landed at the edge of what we believe to be mainstream, user-friendly travel at 1.3mm.

We have done extensive usability studies on this topic over the last 25 years and have achieved what we believe is the best optimization of user feel/comfort and typing accuracy at 1.3mm. We recently tried to move to 1.2mm travel on a product, but the usability testing didnt meet expectations, so we reverted to 1.3mm. How we support and attach the keyboard in the system also contributes to the mushiness you refer to. We strive to over-engineer our products in key customer interface areas (like the keyboard) to ensure a great experience over the life of the product  whether thats a year or five years, we want the experience to be best-in-class.

MaggNorway: I see from different sites on the net, that is seems Quality Control isn't always perfect with your XPS laptops. Is this something you are working actively to improve?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Quality is paramount and is always a focus for XPS and all of Dell. We have made pronounced advancements each year on the level of quality we deliver to our customers. The fact of life (and manufacturing) is that perfection is not possible. The thing we have to focus on is that when things dont go as planned, we have a robust service and support experience that satisfies our customers. Things will inevitably go wrong. When they do, how we solve those problems, interact with our customers, and offer support is critical.

Shavonne: Are there any plans to offer the Dell XPS 13 in finishes other than Silver and Rose Gold? How about adding a limited edition featured color, with a pattern design?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Great feedback. Stay tuned.

OhmNominal: Engineering-wise, is the nosecam really necessary? As someone with a copious number of selfie-taking friends, as I understand it the flattering angle would be a down-facing angle.

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Tradeoffs had to be made in order to implement the InfinityEdge Display. With the new XPS 13 2-in-1 you can use tent mode and have the camera at the top.

More: Tom's Guide Dell XPS 13 MegaThread

Dell vs The Competition

Parigod: What makes the Dell XPS 13 unique when compared to competitor's products?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: The XPS 13 is unique on many fronts. Everything starts with the InfinityEdge Display. With 5mm borders surrounding the top, left and right of the display, the XPS 13 is the smallest laptop on the planet. Other key areas of differentiation are the materials we choose and how we implement them. We use machined aluminum, carbon fiber and Cornings gorilla glass to provide a strong and beautiful structure which delivers amazing craftsmanship. We employ battery technology that when combined with our display technology and architecture implementation delivers class-leading battery life (up to 22 hours of benchmarked run time on the latest model). We do all of this and still deliver an entry price point of $799.

Eag1e: How does the Dell XPS 13 Laptop compare to the new Apple MacBook in terms of pricing, features, and performance?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: XPS laptops offer better performance than Macs with touch, newer processors, a better display, more available RAM, and a longer battery life in a smaller and lighter package in addition to a lighter hit on your wallet.

Ian: Do these laptops have discrete graphics cards?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Our XPS 13 and XPS 13 2-in-1 have integrated graphics while our XPS 15 offers an option for NVIDIAs latest GTX1050 graphics with a 4GB GDDR5 frame buffer.

Lisa: Is this a good laptop to purchase for a college student?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Yes. XPS laptops are thin and beautifully crafted and provide the most uncompromised experiences for work and play. XPS laptops have all of the performance you need, packed into smaller, thinner and more innovative designs. With more than 22 hours of battery life on FHD (up to 13 hours on QHD+), and the smallest 13 inch notebook on the planet, its the ideal notebook for college students on the go. The XPS 13 is a perfect companion for the college student that is writing term papers, surfing the web or streaming movies.

Debra: What makes Dell XPS products the best laptops in the market?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: XPS products are designed to be the best on the planet. We bring together the most elegant designs and premium experiences to enhance your work and personal success. This combination ultimately results in beautifully crafted products without compromise. Every material is selected to enhance performance and every design decision made is made with purpose. XPS laptops are precision-crafted from premium materials like machined aluminum, carbon fiber and hardened Corning Gorilla Glass NBT for incredible durability and a superior experience. While XPS laptops are thin and beautifully crafted, they also provide the most uncompromised experiences for work and play. XPS laptops have all of the performance you need, packed into smaller, thinner and more innovative designs.

Kat: How does the Dell XPS product line compare with other consumer options?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Our XPS 13 has won 300+ awards, more awards than any device in the companys history. They are considered the best Windows devices on the market. The latest XPS devices boast a number of firsts and bests in their respective product groups  spanning form factor breakthroughs, display prowess, battery life and more  keeping with the XPS tradition of design to deliver the best computing experience on the planet. XPS laptops offer better performance than Macs with touch, newer processors, a better displays, more available RAM, and a longer battery life in a smaller and lighter package.

Ben: Do these models come with a stylus?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: The XPS 13 2-in-1 comes with a stylus but the other XPS products do not.

Jason: Does the Dell XPS 13 have USB 3.1 port? What are the other connectivity features for the Dell XPS 13?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We offer the following connectivity options on the Dell XPS 13 Laptop: USB 3.0 (2) - 1 w/PowerShare, SD card reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC), headset jack (1), Noble lock slot (1), Thunderbolt 3 (1), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps), VGA, HDMI, and Ethernet.

Ryzen, Linux, Rugged Laptops and the Dell Design Process

Hellfire13: AMD just released the Ryzen CPU for desktops. Do you plan on offering Ryzen mobile chips in your Dell XPS laptops?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We are always considering all possibilities when it comes to technologies, commodities and features that enable better experiences for our customers. We did announce earlier this week that we will be offering Ryzen processors in select desktops and AIOs later this year.

David: Are you going to have models that use the new AMD Ryzen CPU's?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Dell will be offering Ryzen high-performance desktop processors in select desktops and AIOs later this year but I cant comment on specific product details.

MaggNorway: Will you continue to focus on making great Linux laptops, and offer Linux development editions of the XPS 13 and XPS 15?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We are committed to the development community and while I cant comment on future products, I do think an XPS 15 running Linux would be a lovely product for developers who need the ultimate in portable performance.

LutfiJ: Is the Dell XPS design team interested in introducing a series within the XPS range that is, well, more rugged? Also, what is the Dell XPS Design process?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We have an entire portfolio of fully ruggedized products that is absolutely amazing. We would never claim the XPS portfolio of laptops as ruggedized, but I can assure you that they can take a pretty good licking and keep on ticking. We test all of our laptops against the same robust specifications that we govern our commercial laptop lineup to (Latitude, Precision, etc).

As for the design process, A typical ground-up development effort for a new design language and new mechanicals / chassis is roughly 18-24 months. The actual timeline for the development of the product (once the concept is fully designed) is roughly a year. What we term mid-life kickers - where we are simply updating the architecture and other minor things like battery density - usually take about 9 months, depending on the level of changes.

Matt: Who designed the Dell XPS Laptop and what's next for the future of Dell Laptops?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We did. All of our XPS laptops are designed by an amazing group of engineers we call System Architects and our in-house Industrial Designers. We then collaborate with our strategic ODM partners to develop and manufacture them. Whats next for the future of Dell Laptops is to continue to focus on our customers needs and desired experiences and to continue to deliver the best solutions we can.

The Perfect Form Factor and Dell XPS Use Cases

Below0: Would you rather have 5 tiny computers, or one luggage sized computer?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: I would rather have one right-sized computer. Try the XPS 13 if youre highly mobile, but need mainstream performance and connectivity, or our XPS 13 2-in-1 if mobility is the most important factor for your purchase decision. If its performance that you crave, try on our amazing XPS 15. We think your laptop should fit you perfectly. Tell us what youre trying to do and well find one thats right for you.

Snorlax316: Whats your favorite type of monitor?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Ive moved to our new Dell UltraSharp 34 Curved Monitor (U3417W) with its ultrawide curved display and absolutely love it. Its like having dual displays without having two separate monitors. I can have a full-size Outlook window open next to a full-size powerpoint or browser window for easy transitions between applications and it looks bad-ass.

mhg_car_ said: If you had to choose one celebrity to represent the Dell XPS Product line, who would it be and why? What is the primary purpose of the Dell XPS Product line?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: If you can call him a celebrity, I would say Elon Musk since hes (and we are) always reaching for the stars.

The great thing about our products are that we specifically tailor each of them for a specific type of user. In almost all cases, they can be used for general use or productivity (light and heavy depending on which platform you need). Our smaller, more portable laptops are very capable primary computing devices that can tackle day-to-day usage (mail, office apps, browsing, video, etc.) without breaking a sweat, but as you move up to our larger laptop, the user can take on much more daunting activities (content creation, gaming, and development). We really believe that one size does not fit all, so depending on what you need out of your laptop, we should be able to find a good fit for you across our portfolio.

Justin: Would this be powerful enough for music production?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Depending on exactly what level of music production youre referring to, any of our products can be used to drive varying levels of production, but assuming youre a Hollywood type of guy or gal (or aspiring), I implore you to investigate our newly-introduced XPS 27 AIO. It was developed in conjunction with our Precision Workstation team and we enlisted 11-time Grammy award winning producer, Jack Joseph Puig on the audio solution. It is amazing!

Dan the Old Man: I'm a designer and small business guy, in the past I've had XPS computers that catered to that. Looking at the specs of the XPS 13 I'm not sure the Adobe CC suite would run on it very well. Do you have any recommendations for designers and the XPS product line?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: The XPS 15 is designed for Adobe's products. It offers an i7 CPU, 32GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB frame buffer. The XPS 13 has its place as well. It doesn't have a dedicated GPU so its not your best option for large Premiere projects but it's good to have on a small photography site for initial image importing and corrections.

HughGee27: Is the Dell XPS 13 proficient at 4K video editing?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: XPS 13 isnt designed for 4K video editing. We recommend the XPS 15.

LutfiJ: Are there any plans for an USB 3.1 eGPU dock for the Dell XPS series?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We already have two! With the introduction of USB type C, we can support a single point of connectivity docking solution that passes data out and power in. Our entry level dock is USB compatible and our ultimate docking solution employs a Thunderbolt 3 interface (also through USB-C). The docks are compatible with all Latitude 7000 series as well.

After764: Over the next five years, what are the major challenges to offering VR-Ready Dell XPS Systems?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Dell offers VR-ready XPS desktops today and you can expect to see more VR-ready XPS systems in the future as the technology advances and becomes more accessible.

More: Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 Review

Pricing and Part Sourcing for the Dell XPS Product Line

Velo3100: Why does the Dell XPS 13 Laptop cost so much? The reason I ask is that high end ultrabooks are always so expensive, and despite their premium price, they often have very few features. Do you plan on offering the any XPS laptops with the Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Those are both great questions. I think the really cool thing about todays ultra-portable systems are that we can do so much more with them than we were just a handful of years ago. The advances in performance and efficiency from Intels architectures has been incredible and theres more to come. One of the best parts of my job is defining products that are as uncompromised as possible.

We always strive to deliver world class product in whatever product category we participate in. This means the commodities we choose, the materials we employ (and how we implement them) as well as the maniacal pursuit of leadership form-factors and customer experiences command a high cost which translates to the higher prices. The good news is that XPS is a part of Dell and Dell is always trying to deliver a great value for the customer. With a $799 entry price point, we are very aggressively priced for the level of quality we provide. The entry configuration shares the same chassis and commodities of our higher-priced configurations.

Nismith: In the US Dell offers the XPS 13 Touch Laptop with a Full HD 1080p display, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Do you offer this model in the UK? Will I be able to upgrade the SSD myself? How about the RAM?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: Thats a great choice! I personally carry the FHD model myself for the added battery life and I chose a non-touch variant which also saves two tenths of a pound in carry weight. The 1920 x 1080 resolution is perfect for the 13-inch form factor.

The XPS 13 is a revolutionary product that required extensive integration. The memory is not upgradeable, but the SSD is. My team just checked our UK offerings and there is a new XPS 13 i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD config for 1,149.

David: I know it is difficult to have a laptop 100% American made. What percent of the Dell XPS Laptop product is made or assembled in the USA? Where do you source your parts from?

We source our parts from all over the globe and being an American-based company, we are always looking at ways to contribute to and improve our local economy. We also want to improve and contribute to the economies where our products are designed, built, sold, supported and serviced. With more than 145K global employees, Dell Technologies direct reach into 180 countries (more than 90% of the world), and our supply chain operates in more than 40 countries worldwide. While the majority of our components and manufacturing resides outside of the US, we do manufacture a large portion of our portfolio in North America (Mexico) and are proud to base our worldwide headquarters out of Round Rock, Texas.

Samfor3: What processors are available in the XPS 13?

DONNIE OLIPHANT: We offer a range of 7th Generation Intel Core mobile CPUs for our XPS 13 Laptop, including the Core i3-7100U, Core i5-7200U, and Core i7-7500U processors.
Festivals like Burning Man are absolutely legendary. With as much music as you can handle in an area where you can let yourself breathe and be free, its an amazing thing to witness or experience  but Australian punters arent being left behind.

Thanks to newer, wilder local festivals like Wide Open Space, held at the Ross River Resort in Central Australia and featuring the likes of Hiatus Kaiyote, Mojo Juju and Plutonic Lab on the bill, were managing to also hold our own when it comes to remote and fully-immersive music experiences.

With Wide Open Spaces #wishyouWOShere competition, you can score a festival pass, transport and a return ticket, as well as a merch pack and the role of official festival photo blogger for the duration, so be sure to check out their website for more details if youre craving a wild musical getaway for free.

For some inspiration, heres our list of the five best places to start your Aussie Burning Man adventures.

Wide Open Space

Wide Open Space has been going on since 2009 and, with a history of amazing bands in a stunning locatio, you know its going to be a gig youll remember forever. With a smaller crowd than youll find at a more urban bash, you can find yourself truly becoming one with the music in the intimate environment.

Held about 85km east of Alice Springs, this gig is certainly a little bit out of the way, but if youre a music lover, getting along to this one will be more than worth it  especially to see bands such as Hiatus Kaiyote, or UK bass legend Chimpo.

Mountain Sounds Festival

Located in the Central Coast of New South Wales, Mountain Sounds festival is a gig that music fans dream of. With beautiful surrounds, and killer lineups every year, Mountain Sounds continues to impress.

With this years gig seeing artists such as Dune Rats, Hermitude, and Tkay Maidza on the bill, they manage to include a breathtaking lineup with an incredible location; what more could you want?

Party In The Paddock

Lets be fair, for a Tasmanian, Party In The Paddock might not be considered too out of the way, but for anyone else who doesnt have the luxury of living in the Apple Isle, its a little bit of a trek. Located in White Hills, south-east of Launceston, Party In The Paddock manages to deliver some of the best lineups Tassie has ever seen each year.

With killer bands such as Hermitude, The Smith Street Band, and Tash Sultana flying in every year to deliver one of the best rock shows in Australia, Party In The Paddock is certainly one to add to your festival bucket list.

Pitch Music and Arts Festival

Having just wrapped up its inaugural year, Pitch festival (run by the minds behind Let Them Eat Cake and Beyond The Valley) was brilliant not only for its stacked bill of electronic talent, but also for its impressive stages and facilities, bringing some beautiful architecture to the middle of Victoria.

About a three hour drive from Melbourne, the likes of Toro Y Moi, Chrome Sparks, Julio Bashmore, Gold Panda playing among the red gums made it absolutely worthwhile.

Subsonic Music Festival

If youre ever keen to get your dance music fix in an isolated area, just like Burning Man, well, look no further than Subsonic Music Festival. Located on the Karuah River in New South Wales, Subsonic manages to deliver lineups that are a hip-hop and electronic music lovers dream.

With artists like Goldie, Horrorshow, and Spit Syndicate populating the 2016 edition of the festival, theres no better way to ring in the summer months than a festival of this calibre.

WIDE OPEN FESTIVAL LINEUP

April 28-30th, Ross River Resort, NT

Tickets: Wide Open Space

Second Announcement

Hiatus Kaiyote (VIC)

Grim Tilla & the Dead Heart (NT)

Reuben Stone (NZ)

Bass Bug presents: Roll Deep (NT)

Monkey Marc with Vida Sunshyne (VIC)

Edward Francis (NT)

Sietta Soundsystem (NT)

Skank & Shake (NT)

JPS (The Operatives) (VIC)

Common UnderGround (VIC)

Beatrice (VIC)

Stellar Sea (NT)

Altruism/Auramechanic (VIC)

Daddy LongLegs (QLD)

Drazics Girlfriend (VIC)

Take My Song & Run With It (NT)

First Announcement

Chimpo (UK)

Resin Moon (NT)

Mojo Juju (VIC)

Kodiak Kid (VIC)

J:Kenzo (UK)

Kardajala Kirri-Darra (NT)

Plutonic Lab (VIC)

Cuterly (NT)

Average Rap Band (VIC)

King Marong & The Tamala Express (NT)

Wonqi Rose (VIC)

Dinobitch (VIC)

This Way North (VIC)

Edi Donald & The Transients (NT)

Griff (VIC)

Bumble (NSW)

Red Dirt Crew (NT)

Miss Moneytoast (VIC)

Knobs (ITL)

Cooperblack (NT)
Two Madison men being investigated for alleged drug trafficking in Columbia and Dane counties were arrested in rural Poynette following a drug buy by investigators.

Joseph Thigpen, 41, and Nicholas Gordon, 23, were taken into custody on March 8 in a parking lot. They made their initial court appearances on Monday, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said.

Thigpen was tentatively charged with three counts of delivery of heroin and possession with intent to deliver heroin, and Gordon was tentatively charged with delivery of heroin.

The month-long investigation was conducted by the Sheriff's Office Drug Task Force, the Portage Police Department and the Division of Criminal Investigation from the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

Thigpen was identified as a main source of heroin in Columbia and Dane counties, so investigators used undercover agents to make controlled buys of the narcotic from Thigpen.

"During a search of the suspect's vehicle and residence, investigators found heroin, crack cocaine, Ecstasy, digital scales and cash," said Sheriff Dennis Richards. "The street value of the heroin recovered during this investigation was worth $7,000."

Thigpen could face additional charges in Dane County. He was out on federal and state probation at the time of his arrest.
TKC Late Night Question: Will another middle-class hipster beer snob place in Westport ruin the dive bar roots of this party district?!?!?

"We opened HopCat - Kansas City in historic Westport to the warm welcome of more than 300 beer and Crack Fries fanatics. Come visit us for Kansas City's best beer selection, featuring 100 craft drafts, 40+ Missouri & Kansas-made beers daily, cocktails, lunch, dinner, weekend brunch and late-night grub. Thanks to Kansas City's own The Conquerors for the tune "Turned Me to Stone" from their 2016 album, Wyld Time."

For late night news watchers, we offer a glimpse of the Kansas City drinking good life in order to offer a brief respite from so many local troubles, murders and taxes.Whilst we're interested in new local places, this is more public interest than promo . . .Check the description and you decide . . .Hopefully, more for the morning update . . .
"What if our City Government adopted a new plan of action for Animal Control? Possibly negotiate a merger with Great Plains SPCA or Wayside Waifs. These shelters are operating without any taxpayer assistance and by all appearances know what they are doing. Both are located on rural properties with room for expansion and one currently has excess capacity. This could save the Kansas City Missouri taxpayers $14,000,000 immediately plus any cost overruns on building a new facility. It would also save the $4,000,000 - $6,000,000 annual operating expense. Sure there would be some costs in consolidation but not like the $14,000,000 - $20,000,000 in the bond proposal.





"Yes our homeless pets deserve better facilities than KC Pet Project currently has and that is not their fault. Other homeless people and groups like veterans, abused women and children, etc. also deserve better facilities than some currently have. The question is what is the most efficient, practical and economical approach to get them all better facilities? Adding to home owners property taxes debt for the next 40 years is not they way the way to do this."

Question 3 and the weed decriminalization question (Question 5) are the only April ballot choices that have clear grassroots support.While tax fighters acknowledge the need, they want to develop a less expensive plan. Take a look:Money line . . .########You decide . . .
Who were Attila and his Huns? Well, as Europe was slowly transitioning from the Classical Era to more medieval times, the Roman Empire was witnessing its last years as a dominant force on the continent. Well, the western half, at least. In the east, the Byzantine Empire would endure up until the 15th century. In any case, the Western Roman Empire fell due in large part to the many internal struggles for power, but also because of the many barbaric incursions coming in from Central and Eastern Europe.

But as the Romans would soon find out, these barbaric tribes werent looking for spoils or conquests, but in fact were they themselves fleeing a threat like never before: the Huns. Appearing as if out of nowhere, the Huns descended upon Europe with a swiftness and ferocity never before seen on the Old Continent. And for a period, not even lasting one full century, the Huns would inflict so much havoc and destruction that it would forever cement their place in history.

10. Baby Head Shaping

Also called artificial cranial deformation, this is a practice almost as old as humanity itself. The practice was performed all throughout the world, from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and even in some parts of Europe. In fact, in France cranial deformation was performed up until the 19th century. Though not dangerous in any way, the process does change the physical appearance. The techniques used do vary somewhat from place to place, either by using wooden planks or pieces of fabric to achieve the desired result. Flat, elongated, rounded, and conical cranial shapes were among the most sought after around the world. From about one to six months old, a babys skull is highly malleable, and during this time its head is tightly wrapped in cloth, in order to give it its alien-looking head shape.

And according to archaeological evidence, it seems that the Huns also practiced head shaping. Together with their ethnic origins, the Huns looked totally outlandish to the various peoples of Europe  especially the Romans. Numerous contemporary descriptions attest this fact. And its no wonder that these strangely shaped heads gave the Huns a terrifying look to those they attacked and slaughtered. And in fact, the Huns were the ones who introduced the practice in the European peoples they subjugated, including the above mentioned French.

9. The Huns Scarred Their Male Children

While the above mentioned head shaping was probably done for aesthetic reasons, or maybe to differentiate between the classes, the scarring they inflicted on their male children had another purpose altogether. On the day of their birth, male babies were slashed with a sword on both their cheeks, as a means to make them endure pain. Jordanes, a Gothic historian from the 6th century AD who lived within the Byzantine Empire in a province on the Lower Danube, had this to say about this Hunnic practice: For by the terror of their features they inspired great fear in those whom perhaps they did not really surpass in war. They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearfulTheir hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds.

His words must have rung true to anyone who encountered them on the battlefield. Together with their obviously different head shape, their demeanor, as well as their brutal nature, the Huns were also waging a psychological war with their enemies. Ammianus Marcellinus, another Roman historian, also said this about the practice: At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children are deeply marked by an iron

8. The Hunnic/Paleo Diet

The above mentioned historian, Marcellinus, also makes mention of what the Huns preferred to eat. And though they do just bear the likeness of men (of a very ugly pattern), they are so little advanced in civilization that they make no use of fire, nor any kind of relish, in the preparation of their food, but feed upon the roots which they find in the fields, and the half-raw flesh of any sort of animal.

These statements can, of course, be attributed to the hatred the Romans had for the invading barbarians. But as it turns out, this story has some bearing on real fact. Just like their nomadic successors, the Mongols, who terrorized Europe some 750 years later, the Huns of the 5th century were preparing their food in a similar manner.

While mounted for most of the day, they would place some wrapped pieces of meat between the horse and their saddle, and ride on it throughout the day. Due to the constant pressure and pounding of riding, the meat would become tenderized, and together with the salt coming off of the horses back, the Hunnic delicacy would also be added a layer of preservative, as well as a bit of taste. In short, the Huns were eating salted jerky, made between a horses back and a well, Hunnic hard place. But when comparing it to the maggoty cheese they make in Sardinia, Italy, the nomadic delicacy doesnt sound so bad, now does it?

7. The Hunnic War Machine

Whether or not the once mighty Xiongnu people, or sometimes called Hsiung-nu, were the ancestors of the Huns is still a matter of debate among scholars today. Some believe them to be the ancestors of the present-day Turks. Or maybe even both. Why not? What is certain, however, is that because of the Xiongnu, the Chinese to the south were forced to build their mighty wall in the first place. And like the Huns, the Hsiung-nu originated in the steppes of Central Asia. This region of the world, as many of us already know, was a perfect breeding ground for mounted warriors. Riding on horseback is what made both the Hsiung-nu and the Huns so formidable and successful against both the Chinese and early Christians, respectively.

In any case, fighting solely on horseback had a tremendous advantage when facing a predominantly infantry-based army. Following a nomadic lifestyle, the Huns seemed to the Europeans as if they were literally glued to their saddles. Some historians mention them as doing almost everything from atop their horses: eating, sleeping, or even bartering. The Huns ware taught to ride a horse as early as they could walk, at which time they were also taught how to fire a bow from atop their mount. The Hunnic bow was an engineering marvel of the 5th century. It was a reflex bow, which means that when strung, it bent back upon itself, giving it more tension than any other bow of its time. A warrior could kill a man at 80 yards and fire an arrow three times that distance.

Another key difference between the Huns and their enemies when it came to waging war was the saddle. Unlike the other saddles used by the Romans and other Europeans, the Hun ones had a high front and rear sections. These gave the rider great stability, almost as if he was fixed to his horse. This way he could twist and turn in a 360 degree angle without the risk of falling off, all the while firing his long-range bow in all directions. The Huns also usually made use of the lasso in battle. They would usually fight and travel in relatively small numbers, no more than a few hundred riders. If they encountered an enemy, they would dash in and strike with lightning speed from atop their horses, and then retreat, only to reappear elsewhere and strike again. This, of course, doesnt mean that they didnt often band together in larger numbers  something they often did. And in case they were ever taken by surprise and attacked, they would be able to build a fort in mere moments, just by encircling their wagons together.

6. Attila the Scourge of God

Born sometime at the beginning of the 5th century AD, Attila the Hun was part of the most powerful family north of the Danube River. While he was growing up, the Huns were ruled by Octar and Rugila, two of Attilas uncles. In 434 AD, both Attila and his older brother Bleda inherited the kingdom of the Huns from their uncles. Their first rule of business was to negotiate and arrange a sort of peace treaty between themselves and the Byzantine Empire. Within this pact, the Romans were obligated to pay some 700 pounds of gold annually, so the Huns wouldnt attack the Empire. After a few years, Attila claimed the Byzantines werent paying up, and led a devastating series of attacks throughout the Eastern Empire. At only about 20 miles from Constantinople itself, Emperor Theodosius was forced to pay Attila around 2,100 pounds of gold per year in order to make him go away.

Then, in 445 AD, Attilas brother died suspiciously while on a hunt. Some say that Attila assassinated his brother in order to gain complete control over the Huns. Whatever the case may be, he did take control, and he became the only sole ruler of the Hunnic Kingdom throughout the duration of its existence. During his reign, Attila mounted many military campaigns throughout the Balkan region, Greece, Italy, Gaul, and the Baltic regions, leaving little besides death and destruction in his wake. He wasnt looking to conquer or rule over any of the peoples he defeated. Attilas main goal was to loot and pillage, taking as much as he could. Fear was one of his greatest weapons, and he would be classified today as a terrorist in every sense of the word. From this, he got the appellative the Scourge of God.

It is true that most of what we know about him comes from his enemies, and these descriptions can be called subjective at best. However, his actions and way of waging war seem to indicate the same things. Nevertheless, he is depicted as being true to his word, modest, and kind to emissaries. He died in bed during his wedding night in 453 AD. After his death, the kingdom was divided among his sons, who soon enough began fighting among themselves, leading to the Huns disappearing from the world stage.

5. The Huns and the Germanic Tribes to the East

Late in the 4th century AD, moving ever westward from Central Asia, the Huns reached present-day southern Russia. This was a land of fertile pastures and grasslands, but also home of the Goths. These were a Germanic tribe that later split in two, the Visigoths (to the west) and Ostrogoths (to the east). When the Huns appeared in Eastern Europe, these peoples were the first to feel their terrible power. Appearing as if out of nowhere, the Huns slaughtered the Ostrogoths on numerous occasions, leaving almost nobody alive to tell the tale. The ones who were fortunate enough to escape, mainly the Visigoths, did so by fleeing south of the Danube River into Byzantine territory. The Ostrogothic king, Ermanaric, committed suicide when his kingdom was being invaded by the Huns.

The remaining Ostrogoths, who werent able to escape, became subject to the Huns for the following 75 years. They went on to fight alongside the Huns in their many conquests, oftentimes as foot soldiers. After a few failed rebellions, they only managed to escape the ruthless grip of the Huns after Attilas death. Together with their former enemies, the Gepids, the Ostrogoths, led by Theodimir, managed to defeat the Huns in the Battle of Nedao in 454, and thus gain their freedom once more.

4. The Slaughter of Burgundy

The first contacts between the Huns and the Romans went better than expected. In fact, instead of fighting each other, the Romans employed the Huns to fight for them as mercenaries and hitmen. The Romans definitely recognized the military might of the Huns and they promised them great riches if they would fight for them. And knowing the wealth the Romans had at the time, their offer was something Attila couldnt refuse. In 437 AD the Huns launched a full scale attack against the Burgundians in modern-day France.

In fear of a civil war, the Western Roman Empire, in its later years at least, was reticent in using its own legions for waging war outside its own borders. And as the Emperors were steadily losing control of the integrity of the empire, many barbaric tribes took advantage of the situation, such as the Burgundians. Due to their frequent raids into Roman territory, the Roman general Aetius made use of the Huns against them. Different accounts of the incidents that followed somewhat vary between them, but one fact is definitely certain, in that the Kingdom of Burgundy was utterly destroyed. It would seem that Aetius did in fact attack them one year prior, in 436, and defeated them. A peace treaty was signed between Aetius and King Gundahar of Burgundy. This peace was short lived, however, since not even one year later the Huns would totally obliterate the Burgundians, root and branch.

Probably taken unaware because of the peace treaty, the Hunnic attack turned into an atrocity. Historical sources say that Attila slaughtered the defenders, then turned on the women and children. An estimate of around 20,000 people were killed in an ethnic cleansing of an epic scale. King Gundahar was killed in the battle, and the First Kingdom of the Burgundians collapsed. The reason for this attack was definitely not for conquering and subjugating peoples, but to instill fear in all Hunnic enemies, and to loot as much as possible.

3. The Sack of Naissus in Present-Day Serbia

Following a nomadic lifestyle, the Huns relied heavily on loot and plunder to survive. And Attila knew that in order to ensure the continued loyalty of his men, he would need to supply them with a constant influx of gold. To do so, he would have to set his sights on much bigger prizes than ever before, focusing his attention now on the Roman Empire itself. In order to extort money from the Romans, he needed to prove that he would become a big problem and a threat if they refused to pay up. And the best way to do that was basically to find a Roman city and destroy it. More like a fortress than anything else, the city of Naissus, modern-day Nis in Serbia, then part of the Byzantine Empire, was his intended target.

Birthplace for many Roman Emperors, including Constantine the Great himself, Naissus was besieged by the Huns in 441 AD. However, fighting primarily on horseback, the Huns werent especially suited to overtake a heavily fortified citadel, and Attilas first wave of mounted soldiers was easily driven back. Nevertheless, the Huns overcame this impediment by making use of one of the simplest of siege engines: the battering ram. But besides these, the Huns also made use of a few siege towers and scaling ladders. And by simultaneously attacking different parts of the wall with these rudimentary siege engines, the Huns were ultimately able to overcome the citys defenses and breach inside.

Besides being an important trade hub in the region, filled with all sorts of riches, Naissus was also an arms factory for the Byzantines. And along with the gold and supplies inside, Attila took these weapons with him, as well as all the skilled workers he could find. He massacred the rest of the citys population, set it ablaze, and then left. Several years later, when the Greek diplomat and historian Priscus of Panium went through it, Naissus was still in ruins and deserted, with the exception of a few sick people being cared for inside the church.

2. The Mob-like Extortion Racket and Ruthless Punishments

Like any other terrorist, past and present, Attilas main weapon of attack came in the form of psychological warfare waged through fear. And his terrifying acts of slaughter and unscrupulous murder had reached Constantinople far before he did. The news of him managing to take over a heavily fortified Roman city and kill everyone inside certainly frightened the citizens of Constantinople beyond measure. Moreover, on November 6, 447, a powerful earthquake destroyed large parts of the citys walls, leaving them utterly exposed to Attila and his Huns. Luckily, however, Emperor Theodosius II appointed the urban prefect Kyros of Floros to oversee the reconstruction of Constantinoples defenses. As if by a miracle, in a mere 60 days, he was able to not only rebuild the damaged sections of the wall, but to also add an extra outer wall, as well as a moat. And not a moment too soon, either, as Attila was heading in their direction.

Nevertheless, the citys inhabitants were so afraid of his reputation that they disregarded their own formidable defenses, which Attila was utterly unsuited to overcome. And so, the Emperor had little choice but to pay off the Huns with a whopping 6,000 pounds of gold (roughly $100 million) as a bribe to make him go away. Moreover, Attila demanded his deserters who fled the camp and were now residing in Constantinople. And, of course, the Byzantines were eager to please him and give them back. As punishment for their lack of loyalty, Attila had them all impaled, leaving them to suffer a gruesome death, suspended on spikes for up to two days before they finally perished.

1. The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and Attilas Subsequent Revenge

After Attila had successfully extorted literally the last penny from the Eastern Empires coffers, and its armies were all but spent, he realized there wouldnt be any more sizable riches to be had there and turned his attention west. With his back now protected from the Byzantines he set on a campaign within the Western Roman Empire, sacking and pillaging towns in present-day Belgium and France. One after the other, the cities of Metz, Cambrai, Strasbourg, Rheims, Amiens and Worms all fell to the ruthless hand of Attila. In what can only be called a heroic last stand, a sizable force of former enemies banded together in order to put a halt to the seemingly unstoppable Scourge of God.

A large force of Romans, led by the previously mentioned Flavius Aetius, joined forces with their former rivals, the Visigoths, led by King Theodoric I, as well as another barbaric tribe, the Alans under King Sangiban, all putting their differences aside in order to defeat this common threat. Attila and his Huns werent alone, either. They were joined by previously subjugated peoples like the Ostrogoths, Gepids, Franks, Rugians, Sciri, Burgundians and Thuringians. The two mighty forces first encountered each other at the town of Orlans, where the Huns were already beginning to sack and pillage. As the allies charged, the Huns retreated east, to a more favorable location.

Historians still debate the exact location of the battle, but they all agree it took place somewhere between Troyes and Chalons, in Champagne, eastern France. The location is known as the Catalaunian Plains (Campi Catalauni in Latin). The terrain there was virtually flat, with the exception of a hill being the predominant landmark around. Both armies raced to get there first and take the advantage of higher ground. The Romans and Visigoths succeeded in acquiring it, and were able to fend off wave upon wave of Hunnic onslaught. Both sides suffered great losses, and in a moment of opportunity the Visigoth heavy cavalry charged down the hill, overwhelming the Huns and driving them back. Realizing the battle was lost, Attila retreated. By the end of the battle, the blood flowed like a river down the hill, and the Visigoth King had perished in the battle. However, this victory for the Romans and their allies ensured Western Europe would be spared from the savage Huns.

One year later, in 452 AD, Attila would mount another offensive, but this time for revenge. His target was the Italian Peninsula. He and his men crossed the Alps and began ransacking the cities of Aquileia, Padua, Verona and Mediolanum (Milan) in northwestern Italy. Now, legend has it that only his Holiness, Pope Leo I (the Great) himself was able to persuade the Scourge of God to spare the city of Rome and turn back home. But the more likely scenario would be that, already laden with treasure and due to the plagues gripping the region at the time, the Huns decided to turn back home of their own accord. Whatever the case, Attila would die of a severe nose bleed one year later, after a drunken stupor during his own wedding night, and his mighty and terrible kingdom would implode due to the many internal struggles for power. And with his death, the Huns disappeared from Europe as swiftly as they appeared, not 100 years prior.

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Twelve dynamic Greek startups will have the opportunity to present their products and services in the Greek Booth of South By Southwest (SXSW)

Twelve dynamic Greek startups will have the opportunity to present their products and services in the Greek Booth of South By Southwest (SXSW), one of the largest and most important innovation and technology conferences and festivals held annually in Austin, Texas, on March 10-19.

Greeces participation is supported and funded by The Hellenic Initiative (THI) and the U.S. Embassy in Greece, with a grant of 50,000 euros.

THI supports Greek startups, reaffirming its belief that entrepreneurship is a key element in building a new generation of creative and innovative business projects that can contribute to Greeces future prosperity, the initiative said in a press release.

The startups participate in this years SXSW conference are ASN.gr, Infitheon, Aspalis Concierge, InSybio, Athlenda, SIBA Soft, Centaur Technologies, Tactical Systems, Filmografik Productions, 100mentors, Hopwave and Boardmaps.

In the three previous years, through THIs support, more than 80 Greek startups had the chance to participate in SXSW Interactive and commence a successful business course. Indicatively, online training and education company Schoox, has managed to raise a total 6.5 million dollars, further boosting and expanding its operations, currently employing over 40 employees in Thessaloniki. Gridmates, an energy donation platform, received the second prize in 2015, for the U.S. Department of Energy in clean tech startups in the US, and was granted a prize of 105,000 dollars.

Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals that celebrate the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries. Speakers and participants in the events are from the interactive, film, and music industries.

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
A9C Capital WLL Bahrain and DLR GfR, Germany a subsidiary of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and certified Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) have organized a high level workshop at the World ATM Congress 2017 in Madrid to discuss GBAS CAT III Landings in Europe: Challenges and Solutions.



The workshop which was held under the patronage of Peter Tempel, the German Ambassador to Spain, saw major stakeholders from more than 20 countries, including Bahrain and the UAE, attending the event.



For the first time a truly open discussion on satellite-based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) and ground-based Augmentation Systems (GBAS) which augment Global Satellite Navigation Systems` (GNSS) capabilities (e.g. GPS, Galileo, Glonass) for Air Traffic Navigation took place between airlines, airports, ATM organizations, air traffic regulators, manufacturer and scientific organizations.



The participants pointed out that SBAS (e.g. Waas, Egnos) was incapable of receiving a certification for CAT III low visibility precision landings and that GBAS was the only solution to the problem.



They urged the European GNSS Agency (GSA) to take a leading role in driving the GBAS CAT III capabilities to make Galileo applications truly end to end solutions for the aviation industry.



Given the fact that GBAS operation would increase the level of safety and will allow different precision landing procedures e.g. curved or steep approaches which spare noise pollution for hundred of thousand of immediate neighbours at the airports and will avoid millions of tons of green house gases the current tactical maneuvering of some of the stakeholders isnt acceptable any longer, remarked Prof Dr Bernd J. Hoefer the chairman and CEO of A9C Capital, Bahrain and former vice chairman of DLR.



A9C Capital Bahrain is one of the leading technology investment and consulting companies in the Middle East and supports the GCC countries to industrialise and to diversify their economies and ultimately becoming knowledge-based economies.-TradeArabia News Service
Qatargas, the world's premier liquefied natural gas (LNG) company, has reached an agreement with Polish Oil and Gas Company to increase the volume of its curent LNG supplies to two million tonnes per annum (MTPA).



The new sale and purchase agreement (SPA) agreement will come into effect on January 1, 2018 and will run until June 2034.



Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, the president and CEO of Qatar Petroleum and chairman of Qatargas board of directors, said: We are very pleased that we have signed this agreement, which marks another milestone for us in Qatar as we continue to meet the requirements of our customers worldwide. I would like to take this opportunity to thank PGNiG for their trust in Qatargas.



Al Kaabi said: "With more than 20 years of proven reliability, Qatargas continues to build a world-class reputation for safe and reliable LNG deliveries to our valued customers."



Commenting on the new deal, Qatargaas CEO Khalid Bin Khalifa Al Thani, said: "The Qatargas Direction Statement clearly articulates our commitment to building strong, long-term relationships with customers. This commitment is a key differentiator in a competitive market, and our customers know that they can trust Qatargas to safely and reliably meet their energy needs."



"Today, Qatargas looks forward to the next phase in our long-term relationship with PGNiG, and to the prospect of building an even stronger relationship with PGNiG as we increase our deliveries of LNG to Poland," he added.



Piotr Wozniak, the chief executive and president of the PGNiG, said: "We are firmly committed to expanding LNG portfolio and our presence in the global LNG market."



"Im very pleased that Qatargas and PGNiG have been able to achieve an agreement which contributes to the realization of the long-term goals of both companies and supports the implementation of our strategy to diversify natural gas supplies to Central and Eastern Europe," he noted.



Maciej Wozniak, the executive VP of the PGNiG Management Board, said: "This agreement is the next meaningful step in deepening our close partnership with Qatargas, the worlds biggest LNG company, and reaffirms Qatargas commitment to supporting the development of an LNG hub in Poland."



"This agreement will also contribute to building the Company's value for shareholders," he added.



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The Paris Gallery Group of Companies, a world known name for all brand perfumes and fashion, has announced plans to 30 new stores for the its various brands and subsidiaries across the Middle East.



The expansion plan will take the total number of Paris Gallery stores to 116 stores by 2021.



To date, Paris Gallerys existing stores number 86 branches across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq, Azerbaijan and other countries.



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Global Tourism Economy Forum, the leading international tourism platform designed to promote sustainable development of the global tourism industry with a focus on China, is scheduled to host its 6th edition from October 16 to 17 in Macao.



In support of the 2017 International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, GTEF 2017 will engage prominent leaders in the public and private sectors in the discussion on Regional Collaboration and how tourism stakeholders break down barriers, find common ground and grow stronger together.



The first stop of GTEF 2017s international roadshow was ITB Berlin, the worlds largest travel trade show. Entering its 51st edition, ITB Berlin provides a platform for over 10,000 exhibitors from 180 countries and regions, including the Macao SAR, to connect with global tourism peers and explore cooperation opportunities.



Capitalising on ITB Berlins long-standing and influential European-wide reach, GTEF aimed to create a compelling presence at the prestigious trade show to strengthen awareness of the Forum, Chinas critical role in global tourism and Macaos reinvented international image among worldwide tourism stakeholders, particularly stakeholders in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) which will be the Featured Partner Region at GTEF 2017 in Macao this October.



At ITB Berlin, the GTEF team pursued a full schedule of activities from March 8 to 10, including a formal presentation of GTEF 2017 to the 16 Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) at the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin, meetings with representatives from these countries, and promotional activities along with the Macao Government Tourism Office at the exhibition booth at the trade show venue. At the Hungarian Embassy on March 8, Dr. Peter Gyorkos, Ambassador of Hungary to Germany, Dr. Zoltan Somogyi, executive director of UNWTO, and Dr. Peter Princzinger, deputy chief executive officer of Hungarian Tourism Agency, generously shared their insights into how to open the China market ; and Jason Wang, chief operating officer of GTEF, and Michelle Cheng, chief executive officer of Mazarine Asia Pacific (GTEFs appointed public relations company), introduced GTEF and GTEF 2017s programme and events.



In addition to featuring the 16 diverse and culturally rich Central and Eastern European countries (namely Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia), GTEF 2017 will present the spectacular Guizhou Province as the Featured Chinese Province, bringing a truly promising tourism market mix to the Forum. GTEF will once again offer both rewarding programmes and unrivalled business networking and matching opportunities to delegates from China and around the world, so that they could capitalize on the momentum of tourism development and growth. - TradeArabia News Service


Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas has unveiled plans to open a new resort on Turkeys dramatic Aegean coast.



On May 1, Six Senses Hotels will take over the propertys management.



Over the next year, the design, environmental and wellness operations will be enhanced to bring the blessings of Six Senses to the beaches of Kaplankaya, said Bernhard Bohnenberger, president of Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas.



Located near famed Aegean archaeological sites, the resort, which is owned by Capital Partners of Turkey, has a total of 141 guestrooms and suites in the main complex, plus 154 private residences located adjacent to the resort. Each well-appointed guest room has been designed to complement the landscape using natural and responsibly-sourced materials.



We welcome Six Senses to the Aegean Coast and look forward to their contribution towards the grand vision of Kaplankaya, as the worlds premier coastal living community, said Capital Partners chief executive officer Erkan Erkek.



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Iran has already gathered around $2.35 billion in foreign investments through memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with potential investors as well as secured $650 million in firm contracts.



The most high profile MoU to date was signed with Vinci Airports to develop Mashhad and Isfahan airports. As per development plans, Mashhad will get a new 43,000-sq-m international terminal and a 25,000-sqm domestic passenger terminal.



Italian airport operator, SEA Group also signed an MoU this year for a new 80,000-sqm passenger terminal at Teheran's Mehrabad International Airport while Italian construction company Vitali SPA has signed a contract to develop Tabriz International Airport, which serves the provincial capital of East Azerbaijan Province.



Elsewhere, the government is looking for investors to develop a new 25 mppa terminal at Teheran's Imam Khomeini International Airport under the framework or either a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) or Build Lease Transfer (BLT) agreement.
A 19-year-old man was killed Monday night when he was struck by a semi truck while walking in a traffic lane on Highway 151 in Dodge County.

The crash happened at about 9:30 p.m. at Highway 33 in the town of Beaver Dam, the Sheriff's Office said.

The preliminary investigation showed Brandon Greatens of Beaver Dam was walking in the left lane of northbound Highway 151 when he was struck by a northbound truck driven by Steven Purscell, 46, of La Vista, Neb.

No other vehicles were involved in the crash, and the driver was not injured.

The victim died at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation.
ON THE MOVE: Citadel Adds in Europe; Mischler Hires Trading Pair

Mete Mustecaplioglu, previously head of trading at LaSalle, joined Citadel Securities in late February, according to a regulatory register, trading equities in London for the firm. Two traders who previously worked for Susquehanna International Group have also joined Citadel Securities - Adam Coyne as an exchange-traded funds director, and Kevin Forristal as an options trader. Both are located in Dublin, both in the Dublin office where the market-maker is growing.

Compliance and Risk Management SaaS technology firm Opus announced the appointment of Lee Kirschbaum as SVP and Head of Product, Marketing, and Alliances. Kirschbaum will be responsible for growing the firms client list. With over two decades of experience, Kirschbaum was most recently President of Kroll Compliance where he worked on accelerating Krolls growth within the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Anti-Bribery and Corruption markets. Before that, he held a number of senior leadership roles at Dun & Bradstreet.

If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com

Avant Global announced the promotions of Thomas Carroll to Chief Information Officer, and Victoria Ippolito as Controller. As CIO, Carroll will be responsible for leading research initiatives, discovery of future partnerships, due diligence on venture investments and constructing the supply chain of AG's information ecosystem. Previously, Carroll served as Avant Globals Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer.

Ippolito will be responsible for preparing financial statements, general ledger, payroll, AR/AP, budgeting and various special analyses. She will also serve as Assistant to the Chief Information Officer. Ippolito joined the Avant Global team as an intern in 2016, and took on a full-time role as the firms Junior Controller and Office Manager earlier this year. Previously, she was an Assistant Planner at Siemens Planning.

NEX Reg, a new think tank focused on regulatory and market structure issues, has hired Kay Swinburne as its Chairman. Swinburne will work with senior leaders from across NEX Group to publish regular white papers and host events for the wider market to debate and illuminate key issues.

Peter Gorra joined Nomura Securities as the Head of G10 Trading. Gorra was previously the Head of Foreign Exchange at BNP Paribas and also spent time at RBS and Credit Suisse.

Rosenthal Collins Group, an independent futures clearing firm, announced the appointment of Hilton T. Sheng to the new position of President, Structured Products Division. Sheng, who joins RCG with more than 30 years of futures industry experience, will operate out of the New York office and build on the companys newly established expertise in structured products. Prior to joining RCG, Sheng served as Senior Vice President, Structured Products, for R.J. OBrien & Associates since 2011. He was a Director and Senior Energy Marketer for Hudson Capital Energy and served as a Vice President of Refco LLC, where he managed the firms New York Institutional Energy Desk.

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NEX Launches New Regulation Reporting Platform

Led by Collin Coleman and powered by Abide Financial (Abide), a NEX Group business, NEX Regulatory Reporting brings together a suite of best-in-breed services under a single umbrella to offer clients an extremely powerful and versatile reporting solution.

In an era of rapid regulatory and technological change, NEX Regulatory Reporting enables clients to prepare for whatever is around the corner. A single connection and a sophisticated transformation layer give access to a fully resilient, cross asset and cross jurisdictional regulatory reporting solution. NEX Regulatory Reporting provides clients with tools to manage the regulatory reporting challenges of today and tomorrow.

NEX Regulatory Reporting has a unique approach to delivering a fully comprehensive reporting service which starts with the analysis of each clients reporting environment. Abides team of experts tailor a complete solution to meet the clients needs according to jurisdiction, classification and traded instruments. The platform provides regulatory change notifications ahead of time as well as hands-on help from reporting experts to manage that change.

Clients will connect once to consume multiple NEX Optimisation services, including regulatory reporting and other Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) services. They are then able to take advantage of a comprehensive data connector and ingestion service for every conceivable data type, which leverages NEXs leading connectivity services. To facilitate timely and accurate reporting, Abide operates multiple approved regulatory end points. It is an Approved Reporting Mechanism (ARM) under MiFID I, and has applied to be an ARM and an Approved Publication Arrangement (APA) for MiFID II[1].

It is a Registered Reporting Mechanism (RRM) for the Regulation of Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT), and aggregates reports for European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) as well as Asian derivatives reporting to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The company has also filed its application to become a trade repository[2] for European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). As part of the NEX Regulatory Reporting service, clients are also able to leverage NEXs extensive network to route reporting to other end point providers, while still taking advantage of the solutions rich service layer.

NEX Regulatory Reportings service includes a next-generation user interface that has been designed to offer full transparency of the transaction lifecycle process along with powerful insights into underlying reporting timeliness and data quality. The service can take data from any source system and make it reporting-ready by automatically performing the necessary data enrichments and transformations that are needed for each reporting regime, as well as performing deep data validation and reconciliation to demonstrate full compliance. The fully managed, flexible solution saves clients time, effort and cost involved in ensuring regulatory compliance.

NEX Regulatory Reporting is a key part of the solutions offered by NEX Optimisation to enable clients to meet the challenges of MiFID II. As the regulation takes effect in January 2018, clients will be able to leverage NEXs connectivity services to access a range of NEX Optimisation services so that they are able to meet their regulatory reporting obligations. NEX Optimisation continues to develop services to simplify regulatory compliance.

From ease of connection, detailed planning, enrichment and validation through to the suite of reporting endpoints, the solution makes it simple for clients to solve their compliance challenges.

Collin Coleman, CEO of Abide, said: We are delighted to introduce this powerful platform to the industry. Clients will benefit from seamless processing of large data volumes under multiple regulatory regimes and transparent delivery of final reports to regulators via a suite of in-house regulatory end points. We will also continue to deliver the high level of service which our clients recognise us for.

Jenny Knott, CEO of NEX Optimisation, said: We are proud to launch NEX Regulatory Reporting as a key component of our suite of services to help our clients meet the challenges of new regulation.

Abide is a reporting partner to over 120 clients including banks, asset managers, hedge funds, brokers and trading firms and venues.



[1] Abide Financial Ltd has been registered as an ARM under MiFID since 2011. Abide Financial DRSP Ltd filed an application to be registered as an ARM and an APA under MiFID II on 17 February 2017. [2] Abide Financial Repository Ltd is expecting ESMAs approval to become a trade repository in 2017.

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Japan isn't just about robots, skyscrapers and high-speed trains because there are still lots of places where the old ways are still practiced. One of them is Kyoto where temples, shrines and traditional ceremonies are still preserved. This city is a blast from the past and here are five things you need to know before visiting.

History

For more than 1,000 years, Kyoto was the imperial capital of Japan not until 1869 when the imperial court was transferred to Tokyo during the Imperial Restoration. It's no wonder why Kyoto is home to 2,000 Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples up to this day. The city is also the birthplace of traditional practices like flower arranging and the tea ceremony.

Culture

While Tokyo has grown into a modern metropolis, Kyoto is still rich in culture as it holds on to its traditions. According to Lonely Planet, travelers can get a glimpse of ancient Japan by visiting the streets of Nishijin or Gion and witness traditional Japanese townhouses. Or shop at an old shotengai (market street) and look for authentic Japanese food and items while white-faced geishas pass by.

Best Time To Travel

Even though Kyoto has hot and humid summers and intensely cold winters, travelers can still visit and appreciate its attractions all year round. Spring is the best time to witness the glorious cherry blossoms while Autumn is the perfect time to enjoy the mild cool weather and see the city's attractions. But Spring and Autumn are peak times so these two seasons are not suited for travelers who don't like crowds.

Traveling On A Tight Budget

According to The Telegraph, Inside Japan tours has amazing offers that provide travelers self-guided tours. It has a 9-night trip where guests can spend 3 nights in Kyoto that includes a tour guide, food and accommodation. The tour also includes stays in Hakone and Tokyo with a total of about $2000 per person

Tips and Hacks

Kyoto is a tourist hot spot so expect large crowds taking selfies everywhere. To avoid rush hours, you should visit famous attractions during opening time or closing time.

Kyoto is a beautiful place that's really worth a visit. However, travelers need to know these things first so they would enjoy more and get the most out of their trip.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Egyptian and German archaeologists have discovered a colossal statue in the slums of Cairo. It appears to resemble Pharaoh Ramses II who was a powerful ruler in Egypt about 3,000 years ago.

The artifact is hailed to be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in years. The discovery happened at the eastern part of Cairo in the ancient city of Heliopolis. According to the Daily Mail, the statue was found submerging in ground water and measured to about 26 feet.

During the statue's unveiling at the site on Thursday, Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani told Reuters: "Last Tuesday they called me to annouce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite." The Antiquities Ministry considers the statue as one of the biggest findings ever.

Ramses II, who's also famously known as Ramses the Great, was the most influential, powerful and celebrated pharaoh in the Egyptian empire. His rule lasted from 1279 to 1213 BCE and was the third pharaoh in Egypt's nineteenth dynasty.

He was one of Egypt's most powerful warriors leading military conquests that resulted to the expansion of the Egyptian empire. Being called by his successors as the "Great Ancestor," his accomplishments do live up to his name having conquered many nations but at the same time being able to establish peace with some of them.

In fact, Ramses the Great is considered as the first ruler in history to sign a peace treaty with his enemies. He made peace with the Hittites that ended years of wars.

Reuters added that lots of people watched the unearthing of Ramses II's statue on Thursday. The spectators were mostly residents, officials, archaeologists, and media personnel.

Aside from that, another discovery was also made where the joint Egyptian-German expedition unearthed an 80-centimeter statue that appears to be the upper portion of a life-sized statue of Pharaoh Seti II. This pharaoh ruled from 1200-1194 BC and is the grandson of Ramses II.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Emirates, one of the world's leading airlines, has set itself a new record once again after unveiling the planned upgrade to the onboard lounge for its A380 superjumbo aircraft. Exclusively available to first and business class, the upgrade would entail millions of dollars' worth of enhancements that will set the bar once again for luxurious, world-class airline service.

The new Emirates A380 Onboard Lounge will first serve the public on July 2017, with its first public showcase in the ITB Berlin. Set to be more opulent than ever, they are currently being installed in Emirates' new superjumbos.

Some of the cool features that will be included in the upgrade are: a new seating arrangement that will provide more seating space in the lounge while retaining its horseshoe-shaped bar, soundproof curtains to dissuade disturbance in other cabins, additional soft ambient lighting options, an upgrade of their food and beverage options, and many more.

In the new lounge, a total of 26 passengers with 8 seated passengers can relax comfortably, while enjoying world-class wine and eating gourmet food. If you are meticulous about service and doesn't mind paying for it, then this is perfect for you.

A statement by Sir Tim Clark, Emirates Airline President reads: "The A380 Onboard Lounge is hugely popular with our customers, and has become an iconic feature of Emirates' A380 offering. Particularly on long-haul flights, our customers tell us they appreciate the opportunity to stretch their legs and mingle in the relaxed, yet classy lounge area."

"Since we first launched the product in 2008, our A380 Onboard Lounge has gone through small but successive enhancements in line with customer feedback to increase the amount of space for our customers to interact in the lounge."

Clark added that some of their inspirations include private yacht cabins, and that the revamp gives way to a more conducive space for socializing.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
On March 8, Royal Caribbean International has signed an agreement with Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie that will promote the tourism further. This multi-year agreement is a sign of a more close partnership between the premier cruise line and the island nation.

Among the details of the partnership, the significant investment of Royal Caribbean to CocoCay, the private island destination of the cruise line in The Bahamas, is well sealed. Extensive hospitality training will also be given to the Bahamians so that they could get a chance of scoring jobs in the company by working on their cruise ships.

With the curriculum crafted by training experts by Royal Caribbean itself, the company ensures the Bahamian government that for the next five years, they will increase the number of Bahamian locals as their employees after they have completed training. The curriculum will entail theoretical as well as practical knowledge that will help the locals achieve the kind of service standard Royal Caribbean maintains.

The Grand Bahamas shipyard in Freeport as well is a result of the continued partnership with the cruise line and the Bahamian government. Every year, over 1.7 million visitors frequent the Bahamas courtesy of the Royal Caribbean. For the next decade, they plan to double number.

In a statement, Michael Bayley, president and CEO, Royal Caribbean International, said: "Tourism is an important engine of growth for the economy of destinations in the Caribbean and The Bahamas, and we are excited to bring more visitors on our newest and most innovative ships to this popular vacation spot."

"Our commitment to The Bahamas is multifold. It is our responsibility to contribute to the country's economic diversity, to its employment base and the training of Bahamian youth as well as the protection of the environment. We are excited about the continued growth of tourism in The Bahamas, and look forward to doing our part to keep that growth and progress moving along in the years to come."

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
China plans to build a 10,500 square-mile national park for pandas in the country's Sichuan province to help the preservation of the endangered species. However, this will also mean that they'll have to relocate about 172,000 people. Inhabitants of the area have always caused concern and even threatened panda habitats throughout the years.

The construction of the Panda National Park will further heighten the consciousness of the preservation of the animal. About seven cities and prefectures, and 19 counties will be affected by the building of the park as well as the 2,000 mines and forests in the area.

However, at the moment, the Chinese government has not given any report on where these people will be relocated, or how they will be accommodated to their new locality.

This conservation initiative is seen to have the panda population rebound in the next few years. The park will have to focus on growing and protecting bamboo groves for the animals to survive.

Craig Hilton-Taylor, Head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, told the BBC: "Just by restoring the panda's habitat, that's given them back their space and made food available to them. You need to get the bamboo back, and slowly the numbers will start to creep back."

The IUCN previously considered the animal to be endangered, but it has now updated the statues to "vulnerable" due to the recent improvement in the population of pandas in China. Currently, there are about 2,060 pandas -- 1,864 of which them are adults.

The Panda National Park is just one of the first phases the country plans to introduce the reorganization of its national parks. China will be building 20 parks within its five-year plan. The next national parks to be constructed will focus on the preservation of pandas, Asian elephants, Tibetan antelope, tigers and leopards.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Investigators are calling a house fire in Princeton early Monday morning suspicious, after a body was found inside.

The fire at 103 South Farmer St. was reported to Green Lake County 911 at about 12:50 a.m. Monday, Princeton police said.

Arriving units found an active house fire and called for fire units from other jurisdictions, with the fire eventually being brought under control.

"During the course of the fire investigation during the day on Monday, an individual was found deceased within the home," said Police Chief Matthew Bargenquast. "The individual has not been positively identified."

The State Fire Marshal, State Division of Criminal Investigation and the Green Lake County Sheriff's Office are assisting in the investigation to find the cause and origin of the fire.

An autopsy on the body was expected on Tuesday.

"This is an ongoing investigation, and at this time (the fire) is considered suspicious in nature," Bargenquast said.
The Clement Palo Alto teams up with Woodside Vineyards and its Auto Vino venue for a unique wine and wheels wine tasting experience.



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - March 14th, 2017 - Palo Alto, CA, March 14, 2017  The Clement Palo Alto teams up with Woodside Vineyards and its Auto Vino venue for a unique wine and wheels wine tasting experience.

Located only 5 miles from the hotel in Menlo Park, Auto Vino and Woodside Vineyards share the same location to produce a unique destination in the Bay Area for both car enthusiasts and wine lovers.



Auto Vino is a storage facility for exotic cars and fine wines. Its a clean and friendly place to experience some the worlds best designed and engineered automobiles while enjoying a glass of Woodside wine.



Woodside Vineyards is one of the oldest California wineries and one of the first to pioneer the boutique winery movement in the state. The variety of wines are produced from locally grown grapes in Woodside and Portola Valley. Some of the vineyards managed and harvested are from vines over 100 years old.



The car and wine experience includes:



>Wine tastings for two (4-5 wines)

>Lunch with a choice of wood-fired brick oven Neapolitan pizza or half-pound gourmet cheeseburger

>Tours of the Auto Vinos exotic car showroom and the Woodside Vineyards barrel room.



Times: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday between noon and 4 p.m. (by appointment only).



Cost: $75 for two guests.



Our Concierge can assist you in customizing your experience. We are also happy to arrange transportation of your choice for your convenience for an extra fee. We have options ranging from a Town Car, Stretch Limo, Passenger Van or SUV or a Stretch SUV Limo.



Please call one of our staff member at (650) 322-7111 to book this special package.



About The Clement Palo Alto

The Clement Palo Alto opened its doors March 2016 and is one of the most innovative, personalized and unique luxury hotels in the country.



With 23 spacious and richly appointed one-bedroom suites, The Clement Palo Alto sets a new standard for personalized luxury accommodations in a contemporary residential-style atmosphere.



While unparalleled service is key to any great luxury hotel, The Clement Palo Alto takes its impeccable service to another level with an all-inclusive concept, including personalized concierge services, breakfast, lunch and dinner in an on-premise location of the guest's choice. All wine, beer and cocktails, in-room mini-refrigerator (stocked with the guest's favorites), and fully-stocked Guest Pantry available around the clock, are just a few of the amenities included in this all-inclusive experience.



In fact, The Clement Palo Alto is more than all-inclusive, it is all-exclusive, catering exclusively to the guest's personal tastes and desires.



The Clement Palo Alto is ideally located across from Stanford University and next to downtown Palo Alto, with its award-winning restaurants, world-class shopping and upscale spas. It is just 45 minutes south of San Francisco and only 30 minutes north of San Jose, not only making it convenient, but easily accessible to the world-famous sights and myriad activities of both cities.



Overall, The Clement Palo Alto offers a unique, one-of-a-kind 6-star experience in the heart of Silicon Valley with unparalleled personal service, all-inclusive luxury and privacy in a warm, inviting and luxurious residential environment.



The Clement Hotel

711 El Camino Real

Palo Alto, California 94301

650.322.7111

www.theclementpaloalto.com



About Woodside Vineyards & Auto Vino

Located in the hills above the San Francisco Bay, Woodside Vineyards has been family owned since its founding in 1963. They are credited for being one the first wineries to pioneer the boutique winery movement in California, as well as being the oldest winery in San Mateo County. Some of their vines are over a century old. In fact, their premium Cabernet wines come from the legendary La Questa vines first planted by E.H. Rixford in 1884.



Their focus is crafting small-production vineyards located in the Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation growing region.



Woodside's founder, Bob Mullen began producing wine from little more than one acre of grapes at the original Winery on Kings Mountain Road, in 1960. Three years later the winery became bonded, or licensed, to sell Bob's creations. Woodside has grown to manage, harvest and produce wines from over 47 acres throughout the Woodside community.



Auto Vino is an exclusive event venue featuring dozens of rare and exotic cars from the past and present covering over 20,000 square feet. The space can hold up to 150 guests and offers wine tastings and onsite gourmet catered food featuring a wood-fired pizza oven with options to build your own menu.



Woodside Vineyards

205 Constitution Drive

Menlo Park, CA 94025

Call (650) 851-3144

http://www.woodsidevineyards.com/

Contact:

Marci Bracco Cain

Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901

(831) 747-7455

http://www.theclementpaloalto.com

###
Thingyan Promotion offers travelers chance to soak up Inle Lake at its best



(TRAVPR.COM) MYANMAR - March 14th, 2017 - As the Burmese count down the days before the Thingyan Festival, a traditional celebration involving a lot of water splashing just before Myanmars New Year, Sanctum Inle has rolled out an opportunity for travelers to make the most of the occasion.



The Thingyan Promotion, applicable for stays in April, allows local residents to start off a new year with a new adventure and for travelers to garner insights into the region's rich and diversified culture.

Priced at US$ 370 for up to two people, the deal features a two-night stay in a Cloister Deluxe room, daily breakfast, complimentary airport transfers, a set lunch or dinner, half day tour of Inle Lake, 10% off spa treatments and laundry bills, and free use of the Wi-fi, swimming pool, bicycles and other upscale facilities.



The Thingyan is originated from the Buddhist version of a Hindu myth. The water festival signals the end of the hot and dry season and includes a slew of activities all over the country. The most anticipated part of this holiday is throwing and splashing water, creating a fun and merry atmosphere. This year, Thingyan is celebrated from April 12 to 16 just before the New Years period from April 17 to 21.



The 94-room Sanctum Inle Resort is the first upscale hotel to come on line at Inle Lake and officially debuted October last year.

Its The Refectory Restaurant serves an outstanding selection of Western and Eastern cuisine with a focus on Shan delicacies and Burmese must-eats. Part-bar, part-lounge The Cloister Bar stocks a wide array of drinks and cocktails.

The swimming pool with tranquil views overlooking the lake and mountains is another drawcard. There is also a library for book lovers and a business center for business travelers on the go.



For enquiries and reservations, email reservation@sanctum-inle-resort.com. For further information about Sanctum Inle Resort, visit www.sanctum-inle-resort.com.

###


Search News Archive : Fast Travel News Promotion Via Search, Social Media + Email Follow Us On : NEW KATARINA LINE TRADE SHOW DATES FOR MARCH 2017 Industry: Travel Agents

Best Croatian DMC for 2016, Katarina Line Strengthens U.S. Travel Agent Partnerships



(TRAVPR.COM) UNITED STATES - March 14th, 2017 - Katarina Line, winner of the "Best Croatian DMC award for 2016", announced new U.S. trade show dates through the end of March 2017. Company representatives will participate in round-table discussions and educational seminars at the following shows and dates



Peninsula Trade Shows



Monday, March 20  Washington, DC Suburbs

Tuesday, March 21  Baltimore, MD

Wednesday, March 22  Cherry Hill, NJ

Thursday, March 23  Central New Jersey



Katarina Line will also attend the Home Based Travel Agent Show on March 26  29 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.



Company representatives will meet one-on-one with travel professions to discuss the benefits of partnering with Katarina Line. They will also be happy to prearrange meetings with participants to explore the company's rich and varied portfolio of in-land tours and small ship cruises to some of Croatia's most popular ports and attractions. Meetings can be scheduled at any time before, during and after the trade shows. Representatives can also visit agents' office for a private presentation, as well as to meet and train their staff.



For more information, call toll-free 1-800-485-3121 or visit them on the web. ### Please contact the person or company listed above for information regarding the content of this press release. TravPR.com are not the issuers of this press release and are not responsible for the accuracy of the content. Share Release :



CONTACT INFORMATION Name: Mario Almonte Company: Katarina Line Phone: 212-616-1190 Email: malmonte@herman-almontepr.com Web: PRESS RELEASE TAGS
A teacher's aide at a special needs school in Beloit was arrested Monday for allegedly exposing himself to a student.

Scott Swanson, 45, was arrested by Beloit police and officers of Wisconsin Internet Crimes Against Children in the parking lot of the Richardson School, Beloit police said.

He was tentatively charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, exposing genitals to a child, and possession of methamphetamine.

According to police, the investigation showed Swanson allegedly had exposed his genitals to a 17-year-old with behavioral and mental health disabilities.
The United Nations says it's time to overturn the myth that pesticides can feed the world and come up with better, safer ways of producing our food.

For much of the past century, chemical companies and large-scale farmers have been telling consumers that pesticides are essential for keeping crop yields high, which, in turn, is necessary for feeding the worlds growing population. Theyre partly right. These chemicals have been helpful in keeping up with unprecedented jumps in food demands, but their use has come at a steep cost that no longer appears to outweigh the benefits.

The United Nations wants this to change. In a newly released report, the UN takes a strong stance against the use of industrial agrochemicals, saying that they are not necessary for feeding the world. Continuing to use pesticides at the rate that the world currently does is, in fact, a betrayal of basic human rights because it can have very detrimental consequences on the enjoyment of the right to food.

Increased food production has not succeeded in eliminating hunger worldwide. Reliance on hazardous pesticides is a short-term solution that undermines the right to adequate food and health for present and future generations.

The UNs report outlines the many ways in which pesticides have done the opposite.

First, there are the health concerns. The majority of victims live in developing countries, usually poor agricultural workers and their families and Indigenous populations whose communities and surrounding areas have been contaminated by nearby fields. The developing world is where 99 percent of the worlds 200,000 acute poisoning deaths occur each year. Scientists have found disturbing connections to birth defects, cancer, Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases, sterility, damaged motor skills, and neurological problems. Pesticides contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals that damage male sperm.

Second, there are many environmental problems with sustained pesticide use. These chemicals persist in the soil, traveling up the food chain via a process called bioaccumulation. They degrade soil, which in turns increase the toxic burden of crops. Water runoff from fields poisons waterways, killing fish and other marine life. They damage important pollinators like butterflies, bees, and birds.

One of the report authors, Hilal Elver, told Civil Eats in an interview:

The assertion promoted by the agrochemical industry that pesticides are necessary to achieve food security is not only inaccurate, but dangerously misleading. It is time to overturn the myth that pesticides are necessary to feed the world and create a global process to transition toward safer and healthier food and agricultural production.



The agrochemical industry argues that 80 percent of world harvests could be lost without crop protection tools (a.k.a. pesticides), but, as Civil Eats points out, that extreme statement fails to take into account a transition to safer alternatives. Studies have shown that crop productivity and profitability can be maintained without the use of damaging chemicals.

The problem is, getting rid of pesticides requires a complete overhaul of the food production system. We need to move away from vast monocultures to diversified, smaller-scale production. You can support that transition by seeking out the local farmers in your area that do choose to farm that way.
When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site.
Madison School District officials on Monday said little could likely be done this school year about the recent court ruling allowing concealed weapons on Metro Transit buses  including those many students take to school.

District business manager Mike Barry said there are plans to survey parents on the issue this spring, with the possibility of ditching the city-owned Metro Transit for a private bus service that could continue to ban guns.

But any such decision wouldnt happen overnight, Barry said, given the time needed for parental input, School Board action and the conclusion of existing contracts.

It just doesnt work that quickly, Barry said. I would expect no change in the current year.

District officials say they arent happy about the ruling. Safety and security coordinator Tony Peterson on Monday called it an unfortunate decision, and Barry said the district viewed it very unfavorably.

Concealed carry is not part of the conditions in our schools, and we view the school buses as an extension of the schools, Barry said. And so this is not a decision that we welcome.

But short of dropping Metro service, its likely the district must comply with the 5-2 state Supreme Court ruling last week that struck down Madisons policy of banning guns on city buses, Barry said. The court said a 2011 state law that made it legal to carry concealed firearms in most public places superseded the citys rule banning them.

Openly carrying most guns was already legal in most public places, though both openly carried and concealed weapons are prohibited in school zones in most cases. A school zone includes the school and 1,000 feet from the edges of school property.

We have an obligation to inform our parents as to what this (court ruling) means in terms of Metro operations, Barry said. But this is an issue that may be beyond the control of the board of education or city government.

The district already pays Badger Bus Lines, a private company, to provide transportation, known as yellow bus service, for all elementary school students.

But about 35 percent of the districts high school students and 40 percent of middle schoolers, for a total of about 5,000 students, use Metro buses to get to school, either with individually purchased bus passes or through designated Metro routes set up mainly for students.

On both the designated Metro routes and main Metro routes accessed through a bus pass, students could be sharing a bus with non-student riders who could have permits to legally carry concealed guns.

The requirements for getting a concealed carry permit include being 21 or older and having no record of felony convictions or misdemeanors involving domestic violence.

It comes down to either we accept these conditions as part of using the Metro service, or the district would have to look at (private) yellow bus service as an alternative, Barry said. Whether this change rises to the level of switching students from Metro to yellow bus is the ultimate question, and thats going to depend a lot on parent and School Board input.

School officials, Metro staff and city leaders are awaiting a city attorney opinion that will spell out the court decision in greater detail before they hash out the details of whats next, according to Metro Transit spokesman Mick Rusch and district spokeswoman Rachel Strauch-Nelson.

One of those details includes whether Metro can continue to ban its own employees, including bus drivers, from carrying concealed weapons, in light of the ruling.

We have contract language against that now, Rusch said. We are reviewing everything with the city attorneys office, but we have not gotten our briefing yet.

Rusch said Metro customers also could leave comments on the guns issue at mymetrobus.com/feedback.

Nik Clark, chairman/president of gun rights group Wisconsin Carry Inc., which brought the lawsuit that led to the courts decision, said parents didnt need to fear people who carried guns with concealed-weapons permits.

Obviously thats a law-abiding person whos passed a background check, Clark said, noting permit applicants also must show proof of gun safety training and pay a $40 fee. Theres less to fear from them than from the criminals riding the buses with a gun under their shirts.
A developer wants to see an 11-story office building take the place of Madison Area Technical Colleges Downtown campus, but college officials said Monday that wont happen because its pitch was already rejected.

Beitler Real Estate Services, which is currently leading the $170 million Judge Doyle Square redevelopment south of Capitol Square, submitted a proposal to redevelop the colleges 2-acre site at 211 N. Carroll St.

Officials, though, will not consider Beitlers project as the Chicago-based developer was not among the five finalists selected in January to offer the Madison College plans for renovating the land just off Capitol Square.

Beitler Real Estate was not, and is not, being considered further for this project, Mark Thomas, MATCs vice president of administrative services, said in a statement.

Vice President John Paul Beitler III contends MATCs Board of Trustees should review and consider its plan as it is a largely public-funded institution and the opportunity should be open to all interested parties.

The colleges board selected five finalists in January from a pool of 11 companies that responded to MATCs request for plans to ground-lease its Downtown property and either renovate the existing structures or construct new ones. The board was evaluating developers at that point, not proposals, Beitler said.

Beitler was not selected but submitted a proposal anyway.

We didnt think that any of the finalists would be able to maximize the value of the land with what they were contemplating, and so we wanted to ensure that the technical college saw what we thought would be the best and highest use of the land, Beitler said.

Said Thomas: Any materials received from Beitler would not be considered officially submitted. ... A package received from Beitler today has not been opened and will not be considered in the evaluation process.

Under the proposal, a triangular, 250,000-square-foot office building would cover the block-sized parcel.

Beitler said the design creates an efficient use of floor space, offers separation between nearby buildings to allow light in and would take up about an acre, leaving about half of the site for open space.

It could either act as a headquarters for a single company or house multiple tenants.

Beitler said the company would pay MATC $500,000 in the first year of the 98-year lease with payments rising throughout the life of the proposed agreement.

The entire objective in this proposal was to create a facility that pays the highest amount of ground lease to the Madison Area Technical College, Beitler said.

Since Beitler didnt advance in the selection process, MATC spokesman Cary Heyer said, the trustees would not consider the proposal.

Were obligated to following the rules as theyre set forth to us and to offer everybody the same equal, level playing field, Heyer said.

The finalists are Alexander Co., of Madison; C.D. Smith & HKS Holdings, of Fond du Lac and Milwaukee; Hovde Development, of Madison; and Sherman Associates Inc., of Minneapolis.

A group of nonprofits dropped its bid to turn the space into work-and-living space for artists last week, citing unrealistic costs.

Beitler said that development contributed to the companys decision to offer its own plan.

The Downtown campus is blocks away from Beitlers Judge Doyle Square project, which will bring apartments, a hotel and retail space to the blocks holding the Madison Municipal Building and the Government East parking garage.

Last spring, the Board of Trustees approved the colleges proposal to start soliciting developers interested in ground-leasing the Downtown property, while expanding its offerings on the citys South Side.
Chandigarh: Real Estate body NAREDCO has urged the Haryana Government to speed up work for the completion of the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway (KMP). Parveen Jain, president, NAREDCO, said, The opening up of the Expressway will provide a plethora of socio-economic development opportunities to the entire region. The completion of the remaining stretch is the key to unlock the growth potential in the region. A number of housing, commercial and infrastructure projects have been planned along the route. It will help the region to prosper. When completed, the Expressway will vertically connect Gurugram to Sonepat and Kundli which are emerging as residential hubs on NH1. TNS
Tribune News Service

Panchkula, March 14

The police have arrested the son of a councillor from Ward No. 8, Kuljeet Kaur Waraich, for allegedly murdering a 26-year-old Saketri resident. Manmeet Singh Waraich, alias Monty, and his first cousin Harmanpreet Singh were arrested today from Samrala in Punjab in connection with the murder of Varinder Singh Sandhu at Saketri last night.

The two accused, along with 10 others, came to the house of the deceased around 8 pm and dragged him for around a kilometre after attacking him with swords and other sharp weapons. The accused also crushed him under the wheels of their cars and fled from the spot. The victims body was disfigured and his limbs and teeth separated.

Narendra Kadiyan of the CIA-1 said the murder was the result of an old rivalry, which started around six months ago. Waraich had then hit Varinders cousin Avtar with a bat, but a compromise was reached. Yesterday morning, the accused had called Avtar and they had abused and threatened each other.

At around 8 pm, the accused, along with 10 others, arrived in a Maruti Swift and a Hyundai i20 car at Avtar and Varinders house, who live together, and started calling out to them. Varinder and Avtar both came out, but the attackers caught hold of Varinder. Relatives recovered the disfigured body of Varinder and took him to the PGI in Chandigarh where he was declared brought dead.

Avtar then got an FIR registered at the Chandimandir police station under Sections 148, 149, 285, 302, 364 and 452 of the IPC and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act and named Waraich and Harman. The other 10 are still unidentified. The police tracked the accused and arrested them and will produce them in a court tomorrow to seek their police custody.

Varinder had left his job two months ago as a supervisor at the bus stand in Sector 5 and installed high security registration number plates. Avtars father and Varinders maternal uncle Nirmal Singh said Varinder had been living with him for over 20 years as his parents were separated. The accused is the youngest son of current Indian National Lok Dal councillor Kuljit Kaur Waraich, who has been a four-time councillor and senior vice-president of the erstwhile Panchkula Municipal Council for 10 years.

Villagers block traffic for over four hours

Relatives of the deceased, along with hundreds of residents of Saketri and Mahadevpur villages, blocked traffic at the Mansa Devi Complex for over four hours on Tuesday morning, starting 8.30 am. The protesters claimed police inaction as the accused was the son of a councillor and said they would not get up until the accused were arrested. Deputy Commissioner of Police Anil Kumar Dhawan, who was also present at the spot, refuted the allegations and said teams were already conducting raids to nab the accused.

Around noon, the police informed the villagers that the accused had been nabbed and convinced them to clear the road. After seeing a picture of the accused in police custody, the villagers cleared the road. BJP MLA Gian Chand Gupta reached the spot and joined the dharna along with the villagers after listening to their grievances. Later, Ranjeeta Mehta of the Congress also reached the spot and talked to Varinders family.
Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi (retd)

Speculation about the change of the current Defence Minister had been going on even before the recently held elections in many states were announced. With the Goa Governor inviting Manohar Parrikar to form the government, it is no longer speculation.

Parrikar remained Defence Minister for less than two and a half years, which, of course, is just a statistic. More important is how his tenure has been as the political head of the Indian military. Before one carries out an analysis, it may be pertinent to have a look at the task a Minister of Defence is required to perform and how his predecessors have fared.

Since Independence, the country has had a total of 25 defence ministers, of which six were also prime ministers. Like other ministers, there is no fixed tenure for the defence minister, who is appointed or removed by the prime minster. The minister is often assisted by a minister of state for defence and, less commonly, the lower-ranked deputy minister of defence. The first defence minister of independent India was Baldev Singh, who was appointed even in the Interim Government, from September 2, 1946, and then continued after Independence till 1952.

If one were to make a broad statement, it appears to a military person like me that the Indian armed forces have not been singularly lucky in having wise, efficient and professionally knowledgeable defence ministers most of the time. This is despite the fact that the minister has an extremely important role to play in the council of ministers. The reason is that a Defence Minister is a member of the powerful Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS)  the earlier avatar was the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs  and which is the highest policy making body in the country on all aspects of national security.

If one were to ask the officials of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) the same question, they will either refuse to commit themselves or express happiness at each one of them, because they continued to rule the roost irrespective of who defence minister was! That, in brief and without any further explanation, is the difference between the outlooks of military and civil officials.

Returning to who has been the most effective defence minister, I will without any hesitation take the name of Arun Singh, who was only a minister of state as Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had kept the portfolio of defence with himself. The reason was that he appreciated the nuances of security issues; was aware of the requirements of the military and what made it tick; and did not pander to the foibles and intrigues of the generalist bureaucracy.

Kicking upstairs is a well-known phrase; I wonder if there an expression such as kicking downstairs! Be that as it may, there is also no clarity relating to the inter se importance between a Cabinet minister at the Centre and a chief minister of a state. Even in the past, there have been cases of movements to and from the Centre to the states, and vice versa. Sharad Pawar was appointed Defence Minister on June 26, 1991, but in March 1993 he was moved to Maharashtra as chief minister.

When Parrikar took over as defence minister from Arun Jaitley on November 9, 2014, there was a sense of relief as well as optimism. Jaitley, then wearing two hats, had his eyes only on the North Block. The country in general and the military in particular could not understand why these two important ministries had been placed under one incumbent, especially one who had been rejected by the people in the elections and had come by the Rajya Sabha route.

The military welcomed Parrikar for being more professional and technically sound than a politician. They reposed their faith in him and expected that he would ensure a better deal for them; would assist them in regaining their pride and elan that had been severely eroded over the past two decades; and were looking forward to moves towards modernisation that had virtually stopped. However, they were disappointed to see that his party colleagues saw him as a provincial politician and he was unable to change the dispensation or the system.

Parrikars tenure as defence minister had its ups and downs; perhaps more of the latter as far as the military is concerned. At the behest of the bureaucracy, he started interfering in the internal affairs of the armed forces, instead of leaving them to the chiefs of the Services, which is rightly their domain. He made somewhat of a mess of the long-pending and highly emotive issue of granting OROP as it was meant to be, because of succumbing to the balderdash of inadequacy of funds  the excuse given by the Finance Ministry as well as bureaucrats of the MoD.

In the bargain, he not only alienated the armed forces but also affected the morale of the forces. Ultimately, while the military continued to struggle to get their dues in financial terms, the bureaucrats, police and other civil administrative services walked away smugly with all kinds of enhancements, perks and the like. Even the so-called NFU is being denied, despite a judicial ruling on the issue!

Besides financial matters, it was during the helmsman-ship of Parrikar that the plummeting of the defence budget reached a nadir, with less than 1.6 per cent of the GDP being allotted in this years budget. That brings down the military to the same level as it existed in 1962, the outcome of which is well-known to the nation. Even in percentage terms, the year-on-year growth of 5.6 per cent is ridiculously low. In the previous year too, it was equally bad. Other parameters on which the defence budget could be assessed are also dismal, e.g., it is only 12.77 per cent of the Central government expenditure (CGE). The Army, Navy and Air Force have received only 60, 67 and 54 per cent, respectively, of the funds they had sought for modernisation. In addition, out of the total outlay of Rs 2.74 lakh crore, only Rs 86,488 crore has been earmarked for modernisation. What makes it worse is that the bulk of this capital outlay will be used to pay committed liabilities of earlier arms contracts, instead of new projects.

When a Defence Minister joins the committee culture of the bureaucracy, as Parrikar has done, with recommendations of the committees either pending or extended or lying in cupboards without any action, then all is obviously at a standstill on the security of the nation.

Perhaps the worst action that Parrikar took was joining his party colleagues in grossly taking credit for the professionally competent actions of the army in its much publicised surgical strike and virtually politicising the Indian military, which takes pride in its apolitical ethos.

Parrikar is a well-meaning, intelligent and highly educated person, but he was perhaps too much of a gentleman to squarely face his well-entrenched colleagues in the party and the government. This resulted in his doing very little to assist the armed forces in many aspects, some of which have been highlighted above.

The writer is a former vice chief of army staff.
Washington, March 14

An Indian-American woman confronted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer at a local Apple store and repeatedly asked him how it felt to work for a fascist.

Shree Chauhan, 33, posted Saturdays encounter on Twitter, showing Spicers reaction as she peppers him with questions that include, How does it feel to work for a fascist? and How do you feel about destroying the country?

Chauhan also asked Spicer about Russia and accused President Donald Trump of committing treason.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

In the video Chauhan put out on various social media outlets that have gone viral, Spicer is heard saying that the US is such a great country that allows you to be here.

Chauhan describes his remarks as racist.

That is racism and it is an implied threat. Think about the sheer audacity of Mr Spicer to say that to my face with a smile, knowing that he is being recorded on video and the position of power he holds in our government, she said.

The White House Secretary told reporters at his daily news conference that the United States is a free country and people had the right to act how they wanted.

As per Chauhans social media posts, she was in the store to get her iPhone fixed when she spotted Spicer.

I realised what an enormous opportunity it was to get answers without the protections normally given to Mr Spicer. I was honestly quite nervous and wanted to come up with more cogent questions but did not have time to do so, she wrote in a post on Medium.com.

According to the video, she asked Spicer, Have you helped with the Russia stuff? Have you committed treason too, just like the president? What can you tell me about Russia....and how do you feel about destroying our country, Sean?

She said she had lived in Washington DC for about a decade and during this time she had met several VVIPs at public places, including pharmacy and grocery stores, but did not interact with them.

However, given what Mr Spicer and his boss (Donald Trump) are doing to this country, I do not believe they are entitled to these norms and customs. Donald Trump and his Klan are openly trampling on the rule of law, our Constitution and our democracy, she said.

At the news conference, Spicer said if people had questions, they should ask him.

Ask it. I interact with individuals all day long. Ninety-nine per cent of them are pleasant, even with people who may not agree with our philosophy or programmes or whatever, he said.

But its a free country and the beauty of it is that people can act how they want no matter how thats interpreted, and as long as they step on the right side of the First Amendment, were good, he added.

The incident has drawn criticism from a top Indian-American donor of Trumps presidential campaign, who called the womans behaviour as disgusting.

I assume she loved Hillary who loved Pakistan. Send her to Pakistan and then she would realise how great is our country, Shalabh Kumar, founder and chairman of the Republican Hindu Coalition told PTI.

I watched this (video) over and over too. She is behaving like a spoiled rotten kid with no respect for seniors. It is hard to make out what Sean is saying, he said.

In her blog post, Chauhan described Spicers response to her question as a threat to her citizenship.

I am still stunned by the boldness of having my citizenship threatened on camera. I was not polite. But when does being impolite mean that I should be thrown out of the United States of America? The country I was born in, the country I was raised in, the country I love despite its flaws, she said.

According to her, Chauhan is a native of Gujarat and the founder and CEO of Parents in Partnership, an education startup that empowers parents to lead positive changes in schools and communities.

Hailing from Florida, Chauhan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from the University of Miami and a Master of Public Administration degree from American University. PTI
In Prime Minister Narendra Modis ordered way of doing things, Manohar Parrikar was ordained to accomplish several radical makeovers in the Defence Ministry. Plucked from the obscurity of the politically lightweight state of Goa, the IIT graduate was brought to Delhi to wipe off the sloth and sleaze that had supposedly accumulated in the Defence Ministry during AK Antonys stewardship. There was the question of uplifting the soldiers morale that had been dented because of the UPA Governments pusillanimity; speeding up purchases held up because of Antony's indecisiveness; rearranging the higher defence management; and of course ensuring that all major weapon systems are manufactured in India. It seemed that all Parrikar had to do was to come up with approach papers and in Modis linear world of instant solutions, implementation could start straight away.

Now that Parrikar has returned to the more familiar world of Goa, were his two years in the Defence Ministry well spent? Parrikar did accomplish the larger political purpose of equating the armed forces with the BJPs concept of nationalism. So the Armys surgical strike was tom-tommed all over the country, especially in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, as the ruling partys Brahmastra to violence emanating from unresolved political questions. Any grievance against public policy was shouted down by comparing the soldiers perseverance and sense of loyalty against all odds with the citizens inability to take an inconvenience in his stride.

But in his Ministry, Parrikar will earn a C grade with the remarks, showed sincerity but needed to apply himself to the job. Indeed murmurs from the Defence Ministry all through his tenure were about Parrikar readily forsaking the perseverance required for the job for the joys of settling petty political squabbles in Goa. Was it any wonder that all through his tenure, the Ministry fell short in purchasing equipment? The suicide rate is again in the worrying range and a radical rearranging of defence management awaits another minister. Modi might have won a resounding victory in UP, but a mid-term evaluation of the Defence Ministry would indicate it has been all sound and very little actual work.
Whether the BJP has stolen the Goa election, as Congress leader P. Chidambaram claims, or rightfully claimed it, would be known only on Thursday after the floor test of the Manohar Parrikar government. The Supreme Court has brushed aside the Congress plea against Governor Mridula Sinha extending an invitation to Parrikar to form a government, and rightly refused to stay the swearing-in ceremony. The right course for the Congress, as the court too has said, was to knock at the Governors door with proof of majority support. The Governor did show distasteful haste in deciding in the BJPs favour. She could have first weighed the Congress claim, after all it was the single largest party.

The Congress is entitled to feel cheated but it has partly to blame itself and its failure to understand its rivals and their hunger for power. The established constitutional practice and certain Supreme Court judgments support its right to be called first to form a government. But apparently it did not have the required strength. Even the Supreme Court posed the same question: Where are the numbers? The Congress may cite the apex court's decision in the Rameshwar Pandit case and complain that the Governor has overlooked the Sarkaria Commission and MM Punchhi Commission reports, but it all boils down to the all-important simple question: Does the Congress with a tally of 17 have the support of at least four more MLAs to prove its majority in the 40-member Goa Assembly? If it has, still there is a chance to get rid of the BJP government; if not, its moaning would have few sympathisers.

Goa has once again shown how the slow-moving Congress high command culture can damage the partys interests. While the partys Goa in-charge, Digvijaya Singh, and legislators were struggling to find a consensus leader, the BJPs Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari moved swiftly for the kill. Whether money changed hands would remain a conjecture unless the Congress backs its charge with evidence. Despite the massive mandate in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and the Prime Ministers lofty talk of a new India emerging, the BJP sticks to the dirty old politics and treats conventions with contempt.
Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Faridabad/Palwal, March 14

The state government has accepted the request of only 15 panchayats out of 78 in Faridabad and Palwal districts against opening of liquor vends their villages.

Sources said the Excise and Taxation Department had heard appeals of 29 villages of Faridabad and 49 villages of Palwal districts recently regarding resolutions submitted by these villages against opening of the vends in 2017-18, but it was found that resolutions of only 15 villages were found to fit for acceptance.

Petitions regarding the resolutions were heard by senior officials of the department in Panchkula in which the sarpanch and panches of the village concerned were given a personal hearing, said sources.

Sources said that the demand of only those villages was accepted where there was no incident illegal supply or consumption of liquor in the village during the past one year.

Admitting that the request of only eight villages of the Faridabad have been accepted under the no vend policy, Sneh Yadav, DETC (Excise), said that the approval was given on the basis of fulfillment of certain conditions.

She said that the department was fully aware of its social obligations, but any move must not promote illicit liquor mafia in any village.

Similarly, officials of the Excise and Taxation Department in Palwal revealed that vends would not be opened in seven villages this year, though resolutions had been moved by 49 villages.

Sources said the government was likely to auction the liquor vends for the coming financial year within a week.

Sources said the hike in rates of the authorised liquor might have an adverse impact on the overall revenue collection by the department.
Attorney General Brad Schimels Office of Open Government is getting knocked by two groups  one conservative and the other liberal  for not responding quickly enough to public records requests.

Conservative government watchdog group Citizens for Responsible Government made several requests last year for records related to the job performance of Assistant Attorney General Paul Ferguson, who runs the Office of Open Government. A DOJ lawyer recently warned the group those requests bordered on harassing and retaliatory.

Liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now has waited more than a month for calendars for Schimel and department spokesman Johnny Koremenos, who also worked on Schimels campaign.

Ferguson responded that the agency processes a high volume of requests as quickly as practicable and without delay, as required by law.

The complaints come two years after Schimel opened the office to respond more promptly to records requests and help the public obtain records from local governments. When Schimel took office in 2015 he said there were 60 to 70 requests for Justice Department records that were waiting to be fulfilled.

According to DOJ records provided last week to the Wisconsin State Journal, the department has 110 records requests without response dates recorded going back to 2015. Some of the entries in the tracking log dont accurately reflect that the records were provided, Ferguson said. He said according to his latest count, the number of pending requests is 81.

It appears that the public is using the Public Records Law more frequently each year, which is a good thing, Ferguson said. And at the same time as requests have increased, our response times have plummeted. This is a success story for Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week is a national celebration of open government that began Sunday.

The departments average response time to records requests from Jan. 1, 2015 until March 11, 2016  when Gov. Scott Walker issued an executive order urging other state agencies to expedite their records request processing  was 23 work days compared with 13 work days for all agencies. Since then, the DOJs average response time has been 16 work days compared with nine days for all agencies.

Schimels office issued a press release Monday touting the agency reducing its response time.

The release suggested the average response time in the first quarter of 2017 was five days, however that doesnt account for 50 out of 124 requests filed in the first quarter not being fulfilled yet. The longer those requests take to fulfill, the higher the average first-quarter response time will be.

The Office of Open Government provided 13 trainings for state agencies, local government officials and law enforcement in 2016, Schimel said. It also received more than 400 calls to the Public Records & Open Meetings help line, which allows anyone to obtain legal assistance on the states public records and open meetings laws, and published an updated fee schedule that clarifies the basis for charging fees for records.

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders said a recent State Journal analysis and a separate report in the Appleton Post-Crescent show the DOJ responding more slowly to records requests than other agencies.

But other than Citizens for Responsible Government and One Wisconsin Now, he hasnt heard from others concerned about slow response rates.

Its important for the Department of Justice to lead in this area, Lueders said. They have an actual office of open government, which is more than what other agencies have.

Requester disputes harassment claim

Citizens for Responsible Government field operations director Orville Seymers criticism of Schimels office stems from a dispute with the Florence School District over personnel records related to a former superintendent.

Seymer filed a series of related records requests with the district, which the district combined and charged a fee for the amount of time it would take to locate them. Often such fees are waived for a single request if they are less than $50.

Seymer contacted the DOJs Office of Open Government on Feb. 9, 2016, asking for help. Ferguson, the assistant attorney general, responded on July 7 with a letter saying the school district could not combine the records requests. But the district has still not released the records and Seymer blames Ferguson for not taking action.

Seymer then filed a series of records requests seeking Fergusons emails, phone records and calendars, receiving some records in response, but not others.

On Feb. 27, a DOJ lawyer wrote Seymer saying the department had responded appropriately to his requests.

I understand you are frustrated, senior counsel Daniel Lennington wrote. On the other hand your frequent requests have bordered on harassing and retaliatory.

Lennington then cited a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court case, in which the court denied a Democratic Party of Wisconsins request for training videos in which the party believes Schimel made inappropriate remarks, saying the context and the purpose of the underlying records request may be considered.

I am very concerned about that, Seymer said. Where is the line? Theres nothing in state statute and nothing in case law that says you cant make a request every day.

Seymer made nine requests to the DOJ in less than a two-month span.

Seymer, who worked on Schimels 2014 campaign, said the agency often refers citizens seeking legal help on public records matters to local district attorneys, when he said it should be taking enforcement action itself.

Theres hundreds of people like myself who are not journalists, not media people and they want to know what government is doing, Seymer said.

Group seeks calendars

One Wisconsin Now executive director Scot Ross said DOJs delay in providing records related to Koremenos calendars creates a cloud over the office.

The group requested the calendars on Jan. 24 and hadnt received a response as of Monday, or 34 working days.

Ross pointed to a DOJ policy stating 10 working days generally is a reasonable time for responding to a simple request for a limited number of easily identifiable records.

Ross said the information is of high interest because until recently Koremenos was being paid by both taxpayers and the Schimel campaign. After the campaign stopped paying him, he received a 17.5 percent raise at the DOJ.

Deputy Attorney General Paul Connell said Koremenos was paid $18,000 for work on the campaign, but now does that work voluntarily. He received a raise from $80,000 to $93,995 in February, though Connell noted his predecessors salary was $90,000 and she didnt supervise any employees.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported Koremenos salary increase.

Maybe Brad Schimel should spend a little less time promoting himself as an open government champion and instead start abiding by the open records law and his own policy, Ross said. Fulfilling our request for copies of his and one of his employees calendar would be a good place to start.

Ferguson noted the One Wisconsin Now request is a multipart request requiring the gathering of records from different parts of the DOJ.

All requesters are welcome to contact us to discuss the status of their requests at any time, Ferguson said.
Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurugram, March 14

Tension gripped the Gwal Pahari area today as officials of the municipal corporation (MC) led by Joint Commissioner YS Gupta came to reclaim 140 acres of the land at 32 sites.

It was in 1990 when the MC lost all its land but this is the first effort to get it back. We carried out operations peacefully after a lot of legal and functional review, said MC Commissioner V Umashankar.

It was almost two weeks ago that the MC sent eviction notices to 324 persons under Section 408 of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, following a controversy over mutation.

Those served notices did not include land purchasers or builders who allegedly benefited from successive governments as they had approached courts and procured stay orders.

None of the SEZs or builders was touched because they had got stay orders from courts but common men like us have been made scapegoats. We are original plot owners who have been tilling the land for generations. We will block the Gurugram-Faridabad road to get justice. These are our farms and we will get these back, said a representative of protesters.

The MC has acted legally. Notices were served and hearings done before we acted, said Umashankar.
Lalit Mohan, Bhanu Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, March 14

The Himachal Board of School Education on Tuesday cancelled the physics and computer science paper of Class 12th after the questions papers were stolen from a government school in Kinnaur yesterday.

The physics paper was scheduled for March 14 and computer science paper on March 21.

The new dates of the examination would be announced later.

Four persons, including the principal, centre superintendent, deputy superintendent and chowkidar of Nichar Senior Seconday School in Kinnaur have been suspended.

The police has also registered an FIR of burglary and the teachers and students are being questioned.

The incident came to the notice of the education board after the principal informed that the question paper of physics and computer science of Class 12th examination have been stolen.

The board took serious note of the incident and an FIR was registered at Kinnaur.

SP Kinnaur Rohit Malpani said preliminary enquiry revealed that gate of school and lock of almirah where the question papers were kept were found broken and the chaukidar was missing for past two days.

The police have identified some suspects who are being questioned, he added.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 14

Claiming that the threat of militants is increasing, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today urged the Election Commission to ensure security of candidates in the upcoming byelections.

Omar, who is the working president of National Conference, said the militancy-related danger was on an increase.

As far the current situation is concerned, the militancy-related danger is not decreasing, it is increasing. And on the other hand, the security of my former legislator and former minister is being snatched, Omar told reporters here.

In such circumstances, the Election Commission will have to ensure that those participating in the election, in form of candidates or campaigners, should be given proper security, he said.

Omar said the state government would have to find a proper way to deal with the youths who attempt to storm the gun-battle sites. It has been happening for last two years that youths are disrupting encounter sites. There has to be a way to make them understand. Warning them has not served the purpose, he added.

The Army Chief issued a warning that they will be treated as anti-nationals, but perhaps more people have come out after the warning. The government will have to understand the emotions of the people, Omar said.

While commenting on the stunning victory of the BJP in the UP Assembly elections, Omar said the 2019 parliamentary elections were going to be a tough task. I am hopeful that we will change our way of working, increase our contact with the people and give a tough contest to the BJP in 2019, he said.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 14

The Congress today alleged that the government was neglecting the Gujjars and Bakerwals and had failed to implement developmental schemes for the communities.

In a statement, J&K Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) president GA Mir accused the government of neglecting the development of Gujjars and Bakerwals on political lines as the developmental schemes to uplift the needy were not being executed properly anywhere in the state.

Mir alleged that the PDP-BJP coalition was depriving the Gujjars and Bakerwals of their basic rights.

The negligence towards the community is not only unfortunate, but highly condemnable and unacceptablefunds allocated to the Gujjar Bakerwal Corporation stands unutilised, as reported, for the reasons known to the chairman of this corporation, who happens to be the Chief Minister of the state, he added.

Urging the government to take effective measures to ensure the development of Gujjars and Bakerwals, Mir said: When a corporation under the Chief Minister is not able to utilise the funds allocated, what will be the fate of other corporations?
Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 14

The Political Affairs Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party gave its nod to the candidatures of Chief Minister Mehbooba Muftis brother Tassaduq Mufti and Nazir Ahmed Khan for the forthcoming byelections to the Anantnag and Srinagar parliamentary constituencies, respectively.

The partys Political Affairs Committee (PAC) meeting, held on Monday evening at the Chief Ministers official residence here, unanimously approved the names of Tassaduq Mufti and Nazir Khan for the byelections.

Tassaduq, son of the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, will contest the election to the Anantnag constituency in south Kashmir, which is considered the PDP citadel. Nazir will be the party candidate for the Srinagar seat, which the PDP had won for the first time in 2014.

The polling for the byelections to the Srinagar and Anantnag constituencies will be held on April 9 and 12, respectively.

The Anantnag seat had fallen vacant in June last year after Mehbooba Mufti had resigned as Lok Sabha member following her election to the state Assembly from Anantnag.

The Srinagar parliamentary seat had fallen vacant after Tariq Hamid Karra had resigned from the PDP as well as the Lok Sabha in protest against the brutalities on protesters during the Kashmir unrest last year.

The PDPs pick for Srinagar Nazir Khan is a former youth wing president of the party. Nazir left the PDP due to some differences with party leaders in 2006. He joined the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Party Nationalist in 2008 before getting into the Congress fold in 2012. He had contested the 2014 Assembly election from the Beerwah constituency against former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and lost by a narrow margin. On February 19 this year, Nazir rejoined the PDP.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India has issued the notification for the byelection to the Srinagar parliamentary constituency. According to the notification, the last date for filing nominations has been fixed for March 21, while the scrutiny of papers will be held on March 22. The last date for withdrawal of candidatures is March 24. The voting will be held from 7 am to 5 pm on April 9 and the counting of votes will be on April 16.
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday assumed charge as Defence Minister, replacing Manohar Parrikar, who has resigned and is now set to be Chief Minister in his home state Goa.

Jaitley arrived at the South Block office of the Defence Minister around 11.15 am to assume charge.

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This will be an additional charge for Jaitley, who has in the past held the portfolio of Defence for some five months when the BJP-led NDA government was voted to power in May 2014.

Parrikars tenure as Defence Minister saw clearance of a raft of arms deals besides simplification of the acquisition process. He had also pushed for a number of stalled acquisition projects.

A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique had yesterday said that as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios.

It is not clear for how long Jaitley will keep the two key portfolios.

The deals finalised during Parrikars tenure included purchase of 21 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers from American aviation giant Boeing and the US government.

Last year, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Parrikar had approved the much delayed purchase of 145 Ultra Light Howitzers worth about Rs 5,000 crore from the US and also bulk production of 18 Dhanush artillery guns, the first acquisition of such a weapon system by the army in three decades since the Bofors scandal.

In March last year, Parrikar had come out with a new defence procurement policy with an aim to ensure transparency in defence deals, fast-track acquisition process and indigenisation of defence procurement.

In September last year, India had inked a Euro 7.87 billion (approx Rs 59,000 crore) deal with France for purchasing 36 Rafale fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons and equipped with latest missiles.

It was under Parrikar, known for taking a hard line on the issue of countering cross-border terrorism, that the Army had launched the surgical strike in PoK in September last year.

On Sunday, the Goa BJP had passed a resolution requesting the central leadership to make Parrikar the Chief Minister.

BJPs prospective allies had also made Parrikars return a pre-condition for their support.

Parrikar, an IIT (Bombay) alumni, had said some time ago he had still not settled in the national capital as he can never be a Delhi politician, indicating his fondness for Goa. With PTI inputs
Dhaka, March 14

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from April 7 to 10 to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two neighbours, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said.

The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, according to the statement issued here.

"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders," said the statement jointly issued by the two foreign ministries in Dhaka and New Delhi.

Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modi's visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.

She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said they were attaching "highest importance" to the visit, the Bdnews24 reported.

Hasina is the head of government of "a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary.

And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time," Shringla was quoted as saying.

The envoy also said President Pranab Mukherjee in an "exceptional" gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit.

"Everything is work in progress. We'll have to see what is possible and what is not possible," he said when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal.  PTI
New Delhi, March 14

The BJP today reminded Congress of instances when non-Congress governments were dismissed and governments formed in Jharkhand, Bihar, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh misusing powers and Article 356.

The Congress did not allow largest party to form the government (in the past). It has no moral right to criticise. If anyone in the country has violated democratic traditions, it is Congress, said Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.

Given that Congress failed to muster the numbers, there was no way Goa Governor Mridula Sinha could have possibly invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form government, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reasoned. Jaitley dismissed Congress complaintof it stealing the mandate in Goaas a bit too much. Jaitley, in FB post, said the debate between largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by ex-President KR Narayanan when he invited Atal Bihari Vajpayee to form the government.  TNS
Panaji, March 14

The Congress Legislature Party will meet Governor Mridula Sinha on Tuesday to stake claim to form the next government in Goa, stating that they have adequate numbers on their side.

We are holding a Congress Legislature Party meeting in the morning and then will be meeting the Governor at 10 am to stake claim to form the next government.

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We have adequate numbers. We are the single largest party and we should be invited to form the government, CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar told PTI.

The Goa Governor has already invited the BJP-led alliance to form the government and the swearing-in is scheduled this evening.

The Congress has taken umbrage to the Governors move of not inviting them as they are single largest party that has emerged in the Goa Legislative Assembly polls.

The Congress has 17 legislators followed by BJP with 13, Goa Forward Party and MGP with three each, three independents and NCP (one).

The party has also filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Manohar Parrikar as chief minister. The apex court has fixed an urgent hearing at 11 am today.

Meanwhile, the Congress party also made a representation to Governor last night, asking her to invite them to form the government.

The CLP had said that they have support of the majority of the legislature and are in a position to prove the same on the floor of the House.

Our political opponents (BJP), despite losing the mandate of the people, have tried to misrepresent to your good-self that they enjoy the majority support of legislators. This is not only opportunism at its lowest but is also not constitutionally permissible, Kavlekar had said.

Any post-poll alliance of the kind being projected by the BJP to seek the first invitation to form the government would defeat the mandate of the people which has categorically rejected the incumbent government of the BJP, the representation read.

Any invitation to the BJP to form the government at this stage without first giving an opportunity to the single largest party (Congress) would mitigate the essential democratic rights of the people of the state who have chosen the Congress as the single largest party in the state, it stated.  PTI
New Delhi, March 14

The Congress today walked out of the Lok Sabha protesting Speaker Sumitra Mahajans refusal to let them flag the role of Manipur and Goa Governors in government formation in their respective states.

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on March 12, a day after election results that saw the Congress emerge as the single-largest party, invited BJPs Manohar Parrikar to form the government. The Congress says the Governor misused her office to favour the BJP and did not even consult the single-largest party to form the government.

In Manipur too, where the Congress is the single-largest party, Governor Najma Heptulla yesterday said she was satisfied the BJP-plus had the numbers to form government.

Congress leader in the LS Mallikarjun Kharge, who gave an adjournment notice in the House to raise the matter, later led the walkout of his colleagues after the Speaker said, The Governor is a constitutional authority which cannot be discussed here. I have disallowed your adjournment notice. There is no zero hour today.

Kharge was heard saying that the Speaker had promised to let them flag the issue in the zero hour. Later, however, she dispensed with the zero hour as the House took up discussions on the Enemy property (Amendment and Validation) Bill 2016.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also joined party MPs in the walkout. Later in the day, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi, who also represented the party in the Goa matter in the Supreme Court today, said, The SC has interfered with the orders of the Goa Governor to the extent of 50 per cent. It has asked the BJP to prove its majority in the floor test no later than day after while the BJP wanted 15 days.

At 8.39 pm on March 12, Goa Governor appoints Manohar Parrikar the CM and asks him to prove the majority in the floor test. The Congress had elected its leader at 7.30 pm that very day, but could not stake a claim since the Governor had already invited Parrikar. What was the hurry about? Is there a rule that legislature party leaders have to be elected 24 hours before the results? Singhvi said.

In Manipur, the Congress is keeping all its options open, Singhvi said. The irony is. The Goa Governor does not invite us on grounds that we had not elected our leader and Manipur Governor says she is satisfied the BJP can form government even when the BJP had not elected its leader. The truth is  the BJP has mastered the art of forming governments using Governors and kill democracy.TNS
New Delhi, March 14

The Congress on Tuesday staged a walkout from the Lok Sabha after it was not allowed to raise the issue of government formation in Goa and Manipur.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) members also staged a walkout with the Congress members over the issue.

The Congress had also submitted an adjournment motion notice in the lower house over the issue of government formation in Goa and Manipur, but it was disallowed by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Congress leader in the house Mallikarjun Kharge first raised the issue during Question Hour, and said democracy was being murdered.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said since the Congress leader had used strong words, they should either be expunged or the government be allowed to respond.

The Speaker told the Congress leader to raise the issue during Zero Hour.

However, after Question Hour, the Speaker informed members that there was no Zero Hour, prompting the opposition members to stage a walkout, raising slogans against dictatorship. IANS
New Delhi, March 14

Despite reservations expressed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal about the use of electronic voting machines in the Delhi MC polls, the Delhi Election Commission on Tuesday said EVMs will be used in the polls.

Announcing the poll schedule, Delhi Election Commission said the polling for the Delhi MC will be held on April 22 and the counting will take place on April 25.

Earlier, taking a cue from BSP supremo Mayawati, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal expressed reservations about electronic voting machines and sought the use of ballot papers in the upcoming civic body polls in the national capital.

Kejriwal had directed Chief Secretary MM Kutty to write to the State Election Commission in this regard.

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The Chief Minister has directed the chief secretary to ask the state election office to hold MCD elections through ballot papers, a source in the CMs office said.

The move comes close on the heels of Mayawati questioning the reliability of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

She had alleged that they were tampered with in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, where her party suffered a debacle.

Earlier, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken also requested Kejriwal to opt for ballot papers and shun EVMs in the corporation polls.

Many are doubting EVMs-Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results; I want @ArvindKejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot Papers, he had tweeted.

AAPs Jarnail Singh, who lost to former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal from Lambi, also demanded use of ballots in the elections ahead.

Although we accept defeat, we have serious doubts over the results in Punjab. There are several villages in the Lambi constituency where we have received less votes than the number of volunteers we have there.

For the first time, voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was used in Punjab. When we asked the Returning Officer to tally the number of votes to the VVPATs, he declined to do so, Singh said.

AAP sources said there were 33 Assembly constituencies in Punjab where VVPAT was used, and that it would ask the poll panel to verify them again with the number of votes received.

They said the party had been gathering evidence before it could officially take up the matter with the poll panel.

Where a paper trail audit or VVPAT is used, the counting agent can call for a count of the paper slips in the drop box attached to the voting machine, but the final count is taken by the Returning Officer.  PTI
Surat, March 14

Police have seized demonetised currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination having a face value of Rs 28.68 lakh from Randher locality in city on Tuesday and detained five persons in this connection.

During a routine patrolling, police intercepted two cars near Randher causeway and on checking them, the cops found demonetised currency notes with face value of Rs 28.68 lakh.

Five persons were detained along with a car, an official from Randher police station said.

Police seized 3,486 notes of Rs 500 denomination and 1,125 notes of Rs 1,000 denomination, the official said.

The detained persons have been identified as Kalpesh Gandhi, Panyalal Bhavsar, Md Waji Malik, Asfaq Unani and Arun Mistry.

The seized notes were handed over to the Income Tax department which will carry out further investigation, the official said.  PTI
New Delhi, March 14

Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said that structural and organisational changes were needed in the Congress even as he stressed that the Assembly poll results were "not bad" though the party was "a little down" in Uttar Pradesh.

Breaking his silence on the party's worst-ever performance in Uttar Pradesh, where it bagged only seven of the 403 Assembly seats after a tie-up with Samajwadi Party, the Congress vice-president alleged that the BJP had won largely due to polarisation.

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On questions being raised on his leadership after the party's poor performance in UP and Uttarakhand, he called for initiating changes within and hailed the role of regional leaders who fought Assembly polls and emerged victorious.

"As far as the Congress party is concerned, we do need to make structural and organisational changes and that is a fact," he said, while replying to queries on the results of the elections to five states that were declared on March 11.

He said the Congress formed its government in Punjab and won the election in Manipur and Goa. "That is not a bad result. It is true that we lost the election in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand," he said.

There are "ups and down" for every party, Gandhi said, adding, "We had a little down in UP, which is fine, we accept it. But we have an ideological fight with the BJP and we will continue to do that."

The Congress leader congratulated the saffron party for its victory in the state but accused it of polarising voters.

"I would like to say that the BJP won the election in UP and I would like to congratulate them. Why they won it, there are multiple reasons. Large part of it is polarisation. But the fact is that they won the election," he said.

The Congress has been losing one state after another after the party's poorest ever performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when it was reduced to a mere strength of 44.

There have been demands from various quarters for initiating changes in the party for its restructuring and a change in its strategy in view of the string of defeats.

Admitting that the loss in Uttar Pradesh was "hurting", Congress leaders have said some fundamental restructuring and tough decisions on strategy were required besides introspection.

"The UP is a bad loss, it hurts...I agree that, in UP, we need fundamental restructuring thinking for the Congress as a whole. These have to be hard, tough decisions about strategy," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had earlier said.

Party chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had also said it will introspect on the reasons for the loss in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and will re-dedicate itself to strengthening the party and being the watchdog of people.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had sought to defend Rahul Gandhi over the poll debacle in UP, saying the results are not a referendum on him. "If you hold him responsible for defeat, you should credit him for winning Punjab also," he said.

Gandhi credited the regional leaders in Punjab, Goa and Manipur for the performance.

The Congress leader said both in Uttarakhand and Punjab, as well as in other states, it is the regional leaders who fought elections.

"They are the people who fight these elections and they are successful in Punjab, successful in Goa and in Manipur," he said. PTI
New Delhi, March 14

Pakistan's military has reared "good" terrorists for cross-border missions while battling "bad" militants that fail to toe its line, Vice-President Hamid Ansari said on Tuesday.

Attacking Pakistan for use of terrorism as state policy, he said the most virulent factor fuelling terrorism is state sponsorship of and collusion with terrorists.

"A case in point is Pakistan's use of extremist groups as an instrument of foreign policy is well documented...," he said while addressing the third Counter Terrorism Conference organised by India Foundation.

Ansari said the availability of financial resources is critical to the success of these extremist groups as misplaced sense of charity, or religious duty, on the part of citizens contributes to it.

"Linked to it is the misuse of institutions intended to impart faith-based education. Instances of it abound in Pakistan and Bangladesh and also in other countries of the Indian Ocean littoral.

"These misinterpret religious texts to induce intolerance which, in turn, promotes a narrow and bigoted approach that is conducive to use of violence," he said.

Ansari said essentially, the Pakistani military has reared "good" terrorists for cross-border missions while battling "bad" militants that fail to toe its line.

He also said the powers which created conditions for the rise of ISIS are the same which are claiming to be its victim.

"In recent times, the rise of ISIS or Daesh in Syria-Iraq has caught the attention of the world. Yet, even a cursory study of the factors that led to the rapid rise of such dangerous forces reveals that the very actors, who now claim to be threatened by it, have been responsible for creating the conditions--directly or indirectly--that led to its rise," he said.

Ansari said the removal of existing regimes and subsequent breakdown of governance resulted in extremist groups capturing the political initiative by exploiting the resentment and anger of the local populations and carrying out terrorist acts with impunity.

"The repeated attempts at regime change by force and with utter disregard for the local ramifications and fall-outs, had led to the quagmire- whether it be in Syria-Iraq that led to ISIS; or, Afghanistan which led to Taliban/Al Qaida; or, Libya that led to Al-Jama'a," he said.

The so-called war on terror has bred its own brand of deprivation and suffering with hundreds of people being killed or injured, even if they were not related to terrorist activities, he said.

"This has led to anger and a desire to seek justice by any means, resulting in extremist action and terrorist violence," Ansari said.

In the aftermath of wars, the impacted communities are caught in a vicious circle of population pressures, resource stress, popular discontent and political instability making them susceptible to a pervasive extremist culture, he said.

"Weak or dysfunctional states are more likely to host terrorist groups that target not only their host states but also carry out transnational attacks," he said.

According to Ansari, the stated motivation of each terrorist group related to addressing grievance of political nature, very often embedded in and seeking empowerment from ethnic, nationalist, or religious sources.

He said cross-border terrorism promoted by regimes as 'war by other means' on their neighbours is the most abhorrent which India have had to suffer for a number of years.

"Such terrorism is sustained by external agencies and states. There is now wider recognition that this is the type of terrorism which creates conditions for growth of terrorist networks into massive conglomerates with international operations," he said.

The Vice-President said neither pious denunciations nor generalised prescriptions are sufficient to combat terrorism in all its manifestations.

"A beginning has to be made in each case by understanding its operational philosophy, strategy and tactics, its targets and support systems," he said.

He said since unprovoked violence is inimical to human nature, groups and individuals resorting to terrorism or violent extremism seek to cloak their acts in motivations premised on value systems  secular, ethical or faith-based  that could be cited in justification.

"This notwithstanding, the political temptation to attribute it to individual creeds is often overwhelming and, for the same reason, must be resisted if strategies and tactics to counter terrorism are to be both credible and productive," he said.

Ansari said use of indiscriminate force and heavy handed action debases the protection of human rights and can lead to an institutionalisation of oppression  fostering a culture of impunity within state security forces and agencies.

He said at the same time, countries being taken by a surprise terrorist attack face the problem of responding swiftly without causing economic and societal disruptions.

"We need a flexible frame-work of security that respects the diversity of security perspectives and developmental choices of member states and is based on a clear renunciation by all parties of the threat or use of force against any other state, aimed at promotion of connectivity in accordance with international law to promote and protect the well-being of all peoples who inhabit the Indian Ocean region," he said.  PTI
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

Hours after the Supreme Courts refusal today to stay the swearing-in of Goa BJP legislature party leader Manohar Parrikar, Governor Mridula Sinha administered him oath as the 13th Chief Minister of Goa.

However, Parrikar will have to prove his governments majority in two days with a three-Judge Bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar requesting the Governor to convene the Assembly on March 16 for a floor test. The Governor had yesterday given 15 days to Parrikar to prove his majority in the 40-member Assembly.

Edit: The battle for goa

The Bench, also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and RK Agrawal, said: The holding of the floor test would remove all possible ambiguities and would result in giving the democratic process the required credibility.

It rejected Goa Congress legislature party leader Chandrakant Kavlekars plea that a decision on administering oath should be taken only after a composite floor test. Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that no party had a clear majority and that being the leader of the largest party with 17 MLAs, Kavlekar deserved to be invited to form the next government in Goa. Singhvis submissions were opposed by senior advocate Harish Salve and Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh.

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The BJP, which won 13 seats, claims to have the support of three MLAs each of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party as well as of two Independents, taking the number to 21.

The Supreme Court said it could not take away the Governors power to appoint the CM. It took note of the fact that the petitioner had neither staked claim to form the government, nor disputed that the numbers were in favour of the BJP. You have cited all irrelevant judgments You want a floor test before swearing-in... You dont even have the affidavits of the members supporting you, it said. Challenging the Governors decision, Kavlekar said the Governor was duty-bound to invite him, the leader of the largest party.

Only 2 BJP ministers in Parrikars team

Manohar Parrikar took oath along with nine ministers. Only two of them belong to the BJP, while three are from Goa Forward Party, two from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and two Independents. All of them will be allotted portfolios after the floor test.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

Hours after the Supreme Court refused to stay swearing-in of Goa BJP legislature party leader Manohar Parrikar, Governor Mridula Sinha on Tuesday administered him oath as the 13th Chief Minister of the state.

However, Parrikar will have prove his governments majority in two days as a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar requested the Governor to convene the Assembly on March 16 for a floor test.

The only agenda before the House on Thursday, apart from oath-taking of MLAs, will be the floor test which has to be held surely during the course of the same day, the bench said.

The Governor had on Monday given 15 days to Parrikar to prove his majority in the 40-member House.

The bench, also comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice RK Agrawal, said, The holding of the floor test would remove all possible ambiguities, and would result in giving the democratic process, the required credibility. All pre-requisite formalities for the floor test, including those required to be completed by the Election Commission, have to be completed by Wednesday, it said.

The bench rejected Goa Congress Legislature Party leader Chandrakant Kavlekars plea that decision on administering oath to anyone as Chief Minister should be taken only after a composite floor test.

On behalf of Kavlekar, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that a composite floor test was needed as no party had a clear majority. He insisted that being the leader of the largest party having 17 MLAs, Kavlekar deserved to be invited to form the next government in Goa.

Singhvis submissions were opposed by senior advocate Harish Salve and Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh.

The BJP which got just 13 seats has claimed the support of three MLAs each of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party and two independents, taking its numbers to 21.

The top court said it could not take away the Governors power to appoint the chief minister. It took note of the fact that the petitioner Congress Legislature Party leader neither staked a claim to form a government nor did he dispute that the numbers were in favour of the BJP.

You are fussy about everything. But you have cited all irrelevant judgments You want floor test before swearing-in. You don't have even impleaded the CM. You know his name. He has been the defence minister of the country. You don't even have the affidavits of the members supporting you. So sensitive is the matter that you don't do anything. You want an order at his (Parrikar) back, it said.

In a bid to stall Parrikars oath-taking as Goa Chief Minister, the Congress had on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging Governor Mridula Sinhas decision to invite him to form the government.

Kavlekar had contended that the Governor was duty-bound to invite him as the leader of the largest party in the House to form the next government in Goa.

He had contended that he was constrained to move the court as the Governor in a blatant unconstitutional act had invited the BJP, a minority political party in the state legislature, to form the government.

He submitted that constitutional convention enjoined the Governor to call upon the single largest party in the first instance and prove its majority. In a situation where no single party obtained a majority, the Sarkaria Commission provided for the order of preference the governor should follow in selecting a chief minister, the petitioner said.

Nine MLAs take oath as ministers

Apart from Parrikar, nine MLAs were also sworn in as ministers. They are: Sudin Dhavalikar and Manohar Azgaonkar of the Maharashtrawdi Gomantak Party, Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palienkar and Jayesh Salgaonkar of the Goa Forward, Francis D'Souza, Pandurang Madkaikar of the BJP and Independent legislators Govind Gawde and Rohan Khaunte.

The BJP got two ministerial berths apart from Parrikar while allies GFP got three, MGP two and Independents two.

This is Parrikars fourth term as chief minister of the state. He resigned from the position in November 2014, when he took over the defence ministry under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a position he recently resigned to come back to the state.

Top BJP leaders, including BJP national president Amit Shah, Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda, were present at the Tuesdays ceremony.

The Prime Minister extended his best wishes to Parrikar.

"Congratulations to @manoharparrikar and his team on being sworn in. My best wishes in taking Goa to new heights of progress," Modi said in a tweet.  With input from agencies
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

On a day the BJP managed to have its say in Goa, there also appeared to be a movement forward on anointing the chief ministers of two states where it did spectacularly well on Saturday  Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Sources say Home Minister Rajnath Singh had emerged as the most favoured name to assume the top post in Uttar Pradesh.

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Meanwhile, dismissing the accusation of the Congress that BJP was 'stealing' mandate in Goa, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said it's "a bit too much" as the Governor could not have invited minority of 17 MLAs to form the government.

"The Congress party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," he said in a Facebook post.

Though it remains to be seen whether Singh  officially the number two in the council of ministers  will be shifted to UP. However, if that happens it would create two vacancies at the Centre, facilitating the inclusion of some more talent from the BJP into the political mainstream.

Meanwhile, for the UP CM post, the names of top central ministers like Manoj Sinha, Mahesh Sharma, Uma Bharti and state chief Keshav Prasad Maurya and Lucknow mayor Dinesh Sharma, national secretaries Shrikant Sharma and Sidharth Nath Singh are also doing the rounds. Sources say the decision is expected tomorrow after Goa has been settled.

In Uttarakhand, the names being tossed up include that of state president Ajay Bhatt and senior leaders Trivendra Singh Rawat and Satpal Maharaj. As per sources, the CM would be an elected MLA.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the swearing-in of BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, however, requested Governor Mridula Sinha to convene the Assembly on March 16 when the only agenda before the House, apart from oath-taking of MLAs, will be the floor test.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The Governor, who had appointed Parrikar as Chief Minister on Monday, had given him 15 days to prove his majority in the 40-member House. He is likely to be administered oath on Tuesday evening.

The bench didnt agree with Goa Congress Legislature Party leader Chandrakant Kavlekars plea that decision on administering oath to anyone as Chief Minister should be taken only after a composite floor test.

On behalf of Kavlekar, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi said a composite floor test was needed as no party had a clear majority. He insisted that being the leader of the largest party having 17 MLAs, Kavlekar deserved to be invited to form the next government in Goa.

The BJP which got just 13 seats has claimed the support of three MLAs each of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party and two independent MLAs, taking its numbers to 21.

The top court said it could not take away the Governors power to appoint the chief minister. It took note of the fact that the petitioner Congress Legislature Party leader didnt dispute the numbers in favour of the BJP Legislature Party leader.

In a bid to stall Parrikars oath-taking as Goa Chief Minister, the Congress had on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging Governor Mridula Sinhas decision to invite him to form the government.

Petitioner Kavlekar contended that the Governor was duty-bound to invite the largest party to form the next government in Goa.

The CJI had on Monday agreed to hear the petition after advocate Devdutt Kamat mentioned it before him at his residence for an urgent hearing.

Kavlekar had contended that he was constrained to move the court as the governor in a blatant unconstitutional act had invited the BJP, a minority political party in the state legislature, to form the government.

He submitted that constitutional convention enjoined the Governor to call upon the single largest party in the first instance and prove its majority.

In a situation where no single party obtained a majority, the Sarkaria Commission provided for the order of preference the governor should follow in selecting a chief minister, the petitioner had said.
Felony charges of voter fraud remain possible for several Dane County teenagers who allegedly voted illegally as 17-year-olds in the 2016 election, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the state Elections Commission chairman faulted U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and poll workers for dozens of instances in which 17-year-olds voted throughout the state in the 2016 presidential primary election.

A commission report to lawmakers found as many as 70 17-year-olds in 29 Wisconsin counties voted illegally in the April primary.

An Elections Commission spokesman and prosecutors in two other counties said it appears at least some 17-year-olds mistakenly thought they could vote in the primary if they turned 18 by the November general election. Thats permitted in some states but not Wisconsin, where voters must be 18 or older to vote in any election.

Commission officials said social media postings that circulated during the campaign may have contributed to the confusion.

Ozanne told the Wisconsin State Journal that seven such cases from 2016 were referred to his office by municipal election clerks.

Four of the teens in those cases have agreed to deals to defer prosecution, Ozanne said.

Such deals typically include community service or similar requirements that must be completed in exchange for prosecutors foregoing criminal charges.

The three other cases remain under investigation, with felony charges or deferred prosecution among the possible outcomes, Ozanne said.

We take these cases seriously, Ozanne said. The information on the (voter registration) forms, the information that is given to all people is pretty clear.

The states voter registration form requires the voter to certify they are 18 or will be 18 at the time of the next election to be eligible to vote. Ozanne said that language makes clear it applies to primary as well as general elections.

Its pretty clear when you cast your ballot, youre participating in an election, Ozanne said.

Prosecutors in Brown and Kewaunee counties elected not to charge teens who voted illegally there.

Brown County District Attorney David Lasee told the Associated Press that nine 17-year-olds referred to his office genuinely believed they could vote and there was no intent to commit fraud.

State law says election fraud occurs when someone intentionally ... votes at any election or meeting if that person does not have the necessary elector qualifications and residence requirements.

Its a Class I felony punishable by up to a year and a half in prison and two years of extended supervision, a fine up to $10,000 or both.

Elections commission spokesman Reid Magney said 2016 was the first time he has seen this issue arise. Ozanne also said he viewed the spate of cases as unusual.

Andrea Kaminski, executive director of Wisconsins League of Women Voters chapter, told the commission during its Tuesday meeting that she was distressed to read about the 17-year-olds voting.

Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen, a Democrat, responded by telling her Sanders national campaign blurred the differences between states election laws in its messaging and the candidate has to have responsibility for those errors. He didnt elaborate.

Ozanne said he did not see any instances of campaigns misleading voters about whether 17-year-olds could vote  but added its impossible to track everything that might have circulated online or in social media.

If someone thinks just because you find it on the internet, its true, thats a whole other issue were trying to combat, Ozanne said.

Sanders campaign didnt immediately reply to an email seeking reaction to Thomsens remarks.

Last March, Sanders successfully sued Ohios top elections official in an attempt to allow 17-year-olds who would turn 18 by the general election to vote in that states primary.

Thomsen added its troubling that Wisconsin poll workers allowed the teens to vote and the commission will look at training to make sure were not encouraging 17-year-olds to commit crimes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
VIENNA: Austrias grand capital on the Danube river has topped consulting firm Mercers list of cities offering the highest quality of life for the eighth year in a row, while Baghdad is again considered the worst place to live. Zurich, Auckland, Munich and Vancouver followed Vienna. London, Paris, Tokyo and New York City did not even make the top 30. Singapore was the highest-ranked Asian city, at 25. Reuters
Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Lambi, March 14

In a maiden meeting with party workers after the SAD-BJP alliances poll debacle, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today asked them to stay connected with the masses.

The meeting was convened at the familys mansion at Badal village in the Lambi Assembly segment.

Those present at the meeting said the message to them was not to waste a single day and remain connected with the public. For us, the Mission 2022 has started. We have been told not to lose heart. All workers of Lambi have been told to complain to Sukhbir against party leaders creating trouble, a SAD activist said.

All candidates of neighbouring constituencies were also present, including Kanwarjit Singh Rozy Barkandi (Muktsar), Parkash Singh Bhatti (Balluana), Amit Rattan (Bathinda Rural), Parambans Singh Bunty Romana (Faridkot) and Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon (Gidderbaha).

Badal was not present in the meeting, but he met activists later.

No Holi at Badals house

The disappointing poll results for the Akalis resonated at the Badals residence with the family not celebrating Holi. Last year, Sukhbir had played Holi with his son and security guards at his Delhi residence, and shared some pictures on his Facebook page. This time, there was no Holi celebration at the Badals residence, a SAD leader said.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 14

As an austerity measure in view of the financial constraints facing the state, Chief Minister-designate Capt Amarinder Singh has decided to have a simple and low-key swearing-in ceremony.

There will be nothing ostentatious about the oath-taking programme at the Raj Bhavan on Thursday morning, when Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore will administer the oath of office to Amarinder as the new CM.

Amarinder, along with a few members of his cabinet, will be sworn in to pave the way for the installation of the new government.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Amarinder has made it clear that he did not want any unnecessary or wasteful expenditure to be incurred on the swearing-in ceremony. He said his government was committed to getting the state out of the financial doldrums into which it had been plunged by the previous dispensation. Each small step would count towards ensuring that every possible rupee is saved at this critical juncture, he added.

He requested all newly-elected MLAs to keep their personal invitations to the bare minimum. He urged them to ensure that their supporters also showed similar restraint, and did not clog the roads of Chandigarh and cause hardship to people.

While thanking the party workers and the people of Punjab for giving the Congress such a clear mandate in the Assembly polls, the CM-designate said he would visit all districts to personally express his gratitude once the immediate constitutional requirements of government formation were completed.

Amarinder appealed to the people to support his governments efforts in bringing Punjabs growth and development back on track. Pointing to the thousands of crores of rupees of debt under which the state is currently reeling, he underlined the need for collective and out-of-the-box initiatives by all government departments, backed by public support, to address the crisis.

He expressed the confidence that his government would successfully overcome the situation to revive the economic growth and restore the state to its original glory.
Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian government announced on Tuesday that the corpse of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was embalmed in Kuala Lumpur to preserve it until it is claimed by relatives. Because if it was kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose so we did this to preserve the body, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said. The embalming of the 45-year-old Kim Jong-nam comes amid a heated diplomatic row between North Korea and Malaysia over the probe into the alleged murder. IANS
Karachi, March 14

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday warned against the forced conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions, describing them as "crime in Islam" as he greeted the Hindu community, which celebrated the Holi festival with traditional enthusiasm across Pakistan.

Addressing a function in Karachi to celebrate the Holi festival with the Hindu community, he insisted that it was not anyone's job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

In his inclusive message to minorities, Sharif said "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion" in Pakistan and greeted the gathering with 'Happy Holi'.

"Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan," Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress.

"There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and don't want to see this country develop or prosper," he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

"Pakistan didn't come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone," the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

"Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief." The Hindu community across Pakistan celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm.

In Karachi, the functions were held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hindrance.

In Punjab's capital Lahore, people from the Hindu community smear each other faces with colour.

In Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Kurram and Aurakzai tribal agencies, the community celebrated Holi with great pomp and show. People threw colours on each other and later cut a cake and shared the joy.

Sharif also announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community. PTI
Washington, March 14

US Representative Steve King has stood by controversial remarks on immigration and birth rates, in which he said "our civilization" could not be restored with "somebody else's babies," drawing condemnation from Democrats and fellow Republicans.

The speaker of the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, and the leading Democrat in the chamber, Nancy Pelosi, both took exception to King's remarks.

The Iowa congressman on Sunday posted a tweet praising Geert Wilders, a nationalist, anti-Islam politician vying to become the Netherlands' prime minister in a national election on Wednesday.

"Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies," King wrote in a post that drew thousands of "likes." Pelosi on Monday called on House Republican leaders to condemn King's comments, saying they "must decide whether white supremacy is welcome in the GOP ranks."

A spokeswoman for Ryan, AshLee Strong, said, "The speaker clearly disagrees (with King) and believes Americas long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths." King, an early supporter of Donald Trump in last year's presidential election, defended his tweet in an interview on CNN on Monday. He pointed to Western Europe, where he said low birth rates were harming civilization, culture and values.

"I'd like to see an America that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same," he said. "I think there's far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years. I want to see that put behind us."

Pressed on birth rates for different groups of Americans, King said: "They contribute differently to our culture and civilization."

Some of King's House colleagues appeared to take his tweet personally.

"What exactly do you mean?," tweeted Republican US Representative Carlos Curbelo of Florida. "Do I qualify as 'somebody else's baby?' #concernedGOPcolleague." Democratic Representative Ted Lieu, who immigrated to the United States at age 3, tweeted a picture of his two sons, writing: "Dear Representative Steve King: These are my two babies -- Representative Ted Lieu."

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said, "America is a nation of immigrants," and added that King's sentiment "doesn't reflect our shared history or values." Bush was one of Trump's Republican rivals for the White House.

The tweet also drew fire from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The head of the civil and human rights law firm, Sherilyn Ifill, said King's remarks were "an explicit call to return to the shameful period when white supremacy was the norm in American public life."

Ifill said King's remarks were "particularly dangerous" at a time when violent hate crimes have reached "dangerous levels." King is from a rural state where nearly 92 per cent of the population is white, compared with 77 per cent for the nation as a whole, according to the US Census Bureau.

Jeff Kaufmann, head of the Republican Party in Iowa, said in a statement that he disagreed with King, also calling the United States "a nation of immigrants" and saying that such diversity was its strength.

Reuters
There are a limited number of fleet spots still available for the Heavy Duty Trucking eXchange, a new networking event that will bring together a select group of fleet executives -- including HDT's Truck Fleet Innovators -- and top industry suppliers.

Hosted by Heavy Duty Trucking magazine, the event will give fleets and suppliers an intimate environment to engage in discussions on topics that affect the entire industry. The event is an all-inclusive, networking retreat to be held May 8-10 at the Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona.

As active participants at HDTX, fleet executives will have the opportunity to connect and collaborate with others in the heavy-duty trucking business. HDT's 2017 Truck Fleet Innovators will be honored at the event and participate in a panel discussion sharing some of their strategies and tactics for success in a fast-changing world.

HDTX is a hosted buyer event, a concept imported from the European business market more than a decade ago. It features an informal setting in which qualified buyers, or those with the decision-making responsibilities, are paired with companies attuned to their specific industry. The idea is to open doors to business relationships that fleets and suppliers will continue to draw upon year after year.

Truck fleet managers can apply to partcipate in HDTX by clicking here.

For more information on becoming a supplier host for the upcoming Heavy Duty Trucking Exchange, visit www.HeavyDutyTruckingeXchange.com or call HDT Publisher David Moniz at 330-899-2200, or email him at dmoniz@truckinginfo.com.
Still Standing: Four the Moments legacy honoured at Nova Scotia Music Week

When a quartet of Halifax women began singing together a cappella in the name of social justice in 1982, there was little in the way of a music industry at play in Atlantic Canada. And even if there had been, its likely that Four the Moment would ...
A prank involving alcohol and bodily fluids at Charles Page High School led to the suspension of several students.

Last week, after the drama departments last show of All Shook Up, several students, who were cast members, went off campus to celebrate the end of the shows run. On the way back, the group of students found a bottle with alcohol and brought it back to school.

Reports said, a student urinated in the bottle, and a fellow student was tricked into drinking from the bottle.

We indeed have an unfortunate disciplinary incident at school last week, CPHS principal Stan Trout said in an email detailing the events above.  My two assistant principals handled the situation, to which you refer expertly, consequences were administered in accordance with district policy, and parents were fully engaged throughout the process.

Trout said the incident was not considered hazing however, all of the participants involved were students of the drama department.

The school does not have a legal obligation to report an incident like this to the police department. Only incidents involving suspected domestic abuse or child abuse must be reported to the authorities.

Speaking in generalities, Sand Springs Police Captain Todd Enzbrenner said tricking someone into unknowingly drinking bodily fluids would be considered assault. He also said no report has been filed with the police department.

One student committed a serious violation of school policy and has been disciplined to the full extent allowed by district policy. The parent of the student who was negatively affected by this violation expressed to us a desire to pursue criminal charges and we will fully cooperate with any investigation of the incident. A small number of students were implicated in the incident to a much lesser degree and those students have also been disciplined appropriately, Trout said.

Sand Springs Superintendent Sherry Durkee said she could not discuss the specifics of the incident, but said she stands by how the incident was handled as well as the discipline that was issued.

The drama department has had a tumultuous year, so far. In the fall, the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was cancelled just before the show was supposed to start production.

In an email obtained by the Leader, drama teacher Andrea Campfield informed the drama parents of the shows cancellation on Nov. 7, 2016, listing as the cause suspicion and reports of marijuana use and misconduct among some of our cast

Several long-time senior cast members quit the drama department due to the accusations of drug use and misconduct. Those seniors were not involved in the spring production of All Shook Up.

Senior Elizabeth Tate quit after the cancellation of the fall musical despite being cast as the lead in several shows during her four years in the drama department.

There were several different issues that came up during my time there, and the cancellation was the final straw, Tate said.
OKLAHOMA CITY  The Oklahoma Senate on Monday passed a measure to eliminate a trigger that could have further reduced the states top income tax rate.

Senate Bill 170 by Sen. Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, passed by a vote of 39-6 with no questions and no debate.

The measure moves to the House for consideration.

Right now, we certainly have more outstanding obligations than we have money, Thompson said.

With the decline in revenue, it would not take a whole lot to activate the trigger. Lets just stop the income tax where it is at 5 percent. Maybe future legislatures can revisit it, but we need to stabilize our revenues.

The state expects to have $878 million less in crafting a fiscal year 2018 budget. A revenue failure has been declared for the current fiscal year, causing agencies to make cuts.

Legislation in 2014 contained a two-part state income tax cut. The first lowered the states top rate to 5 percent from 5.25 percent when certain conditions were met.

The rate could be further reduced to 4.85 percent if the state sees growth revenue of about $97 million. Thompsons bill would eliminate the second trigger.

Im a firm advocate of lowering taxes because if Oklahomans can keep more of their hard-earned money, they can use it to invest and spend and spur the economy, said Senate President Pro Tem Mike Schulz, R-Altus.

Eliminating the second income tax cut trigger is something that Senate Republicans have advocated for in recent years because it provides stability to the state budget in the short term and allows future lawmakers to consider lowering taxes when the states economy has fully recovered from the last two years of contraction.

Sen. Marty Quinn, R-Claremore, was among the six voting against the measure.

Quinn said he is against doing away with what prior lawmakers voted to implement.

He said the trigger could have been better managed.

Quinn said he has a bill, Senate Bill 130, that would make it more difficult to trigger an additional cut. Quinn said he wants the measure heard by the full Senate.

Sen. Josh Brecheen, R-Coalgate, also voted against the measure.

He said voters want a lower, broad-based tax rate.

Brecheen said he believes government can be funded with existing resources.

The state needs to reduce the size of government and eliminate non-core functions, Brecheen said.

Any effort to increase taxes faces an uphill battle in the Legislature.

State Question 640, approved by voters in 1992, requires that increases receive three-fourths support in both chambers or go to a vote of the people.
Corrected: ABCs Elsternwick offices have been sold to Woolworths for between $40m -$50m according to a Fairfax article.

The 6,155 square metre Selwyn Street site, a 3 minute walk from ABCs Ripponlea Studios in Gordon Street is mixed use and largely comprises office space, storage and car park. It is home to the Melbourne publicity team and production teams for shows such as Mad as Hell, The Weekly, Hard Quiz, or previously rented by Foxtel for Open Slather.

Woolworths purchase of the property will claim a footprint in the area with Coles expected to announce an exit from its Glenhuntly Road site, as part of an apartment redevelopment.

An ABC spokesman said, The sale is a key component of a long-term strategy to integrate all of the ABC Melbournes operations at its Southbank headquarters to create a greater level of connectivity and efficiency.

Staff from Selwyn St will commence moving to the ABCs Southbank headquarters in April 2017.

ABCs historic Gordon Street studios are also being decommissioned as ABC rehouses staff and productions at its expanded site in Sturt Street, Southbank.

Elsternwick is also the rumoured location for the next season of The Block, just a stones throw from the Gordon Street building.

Note: An earlier report noted Gordon Street studios had been sold. Apologies for any confusion.
This week Murder Calls Australia explores the 1993 murder of Gabriel Gabe Meyer,

one of Far North Queenslands most cold-blooded cases.

The victim was 17-year-old schoolboy Gabriel Gabe Meyer who had his whole life ahead of him.

On January 12, 1993, Gabe did not return home. Alarm bells rang for police upon discovering the last person to see Gabe alive was Damon Calanca  a suspect in a violent assault and stabbing of a man who was dating Calancas ex-girlfriend at the time.

Now just months later, Calancas latest romance was with Gabes older sister, Fawn, but it had ended badly when she moved to the United States to go to university and told Calanca she would not be coming back and the relationship was over.

But Calancas twisted obsession with Fawn was overpowering and it became deadly after Fawn broke off the relationship. He was incapable of accepting rejection and in his deranged mind he was prepared to do anything to get Fawn to return from America to Far North Queensland  even if it meant killing a member of her family.

However, seeing Calanca as a prime suspect, and proving the textbook sociopath was the evil killer, was a difficult job for the Queensland detectives.

Their appeals to the public would lead to many significant calls that had them diving in croc-infested waters, finding eerily empty graves in a rainforest, as well as asking the object of Calancas desire  Gabes sister  to help trap him in a recorded telephone conversation.

It seemed Calanca was about to get away with murder. And then a phone call came through on Australia Day that would crack the case wide open but also break the heart of a mother.

They said a body of a young boy had been found, explained Gabes grief-stricken mother, upon learning that her sons remains had been found near Calancas parents house.

The calculated killer, Damon Calanca, was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 13 years.

Had he been convicted for his violent crime of assault, Gabe would be alive today.

Murder Calls Australia, narrated by Leila McKinnon, explores murder cases that were solved by the power of one of our most innocuous devices  the phone.

Murder Calls Australia is produced by Screentime Banijay for the Nine Network.

8.40pm Wednesday on Nine.
Netflix has renewed A Series of Unfortunate Events for a second season.

The series, featuring Neil Patrick Harris, comes two months after the debut of the novel adaptation.

A video has been posted on the shows social media platforms linking to the website vastlyfrighteningdecision.com where a letter was posted by the fictional Snicket (Patrick Warburton).

despite my repeated warnings, you have viewed the Netflix adaptation of my distressing work, known collectively as Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events. Some of you have even binged, a word which here means Watched several episodes right in a row, despite having much better things to do with your time,' he wrote.

Alas, Netflix has funnelled their ill-gotten gains into a second season.

Even as we speak, set builders, costume designers and trauma specialists are snapping into action adding, I hope youre happy, because you wont be, ever again
Projecting unrivaled combat airpower is expensive, which is why one Tyndall unit invested in smarter operations for lower training costs. They can launch a jet, fly an unlimited amount of hours and fight thousands of enemies all from a single room.

Tyndall can do all that through four F-15C Eagle training simulators that provide flexible, cost effective operations through the 337th Air Control Squadron.

The F-15C simulators, officially called Full Mission Trainers, belong to the Air Education and Training Command, and primarily support Undergraduate Air Battle Management training conducted by the 337th [Air Control Squadron], said Martin Schans, 337th ACS civilian supervisor.

Along with the 337th ACS, the simulators also provide training for the 95th and 43rd Fighter Squadrons, the 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group and various units from around the world, including foreign national partners.

One huge benefit of these simulators is the drastic price cut when compared to a real F-15C flight, less than 1 percent of the normal cost.

There are numerous ways to determine cost per flying hour, but the widely accepted methods put the cost for the Eagle at $17,000 per flying hour, Schans said. The simulators costs $1.2 million to operate each year. In 2016, that made the cost $230 per hour.

The previous visual system was over 20 years old, Schans continued. Component failure rates were increasing, and replacement parts were getting very expensive.

Being an asset that is critical to training, it was an essential investment to equip them with modern visual system, creating more realistic environment for the pilots.

The new flat-panel television screens provide more than 50 percent of the previous visual coverage, and 90 percent of the important areas, in very high resolution, Schans said. This upgrade reduces upkeep/repair costs by $400,000 each year.

The simulators are also able to provide flexible training environments.

When units use our FMTs, they can control the weather and time of day which can impact tactical decisions, Schans said, They choose whether to have all the aircraft systems working, or to have some of the systems inoperative. In the FMT we can provide countless adversary aircraft and surface to air missile threats, and in the FMT, you never have to quit because you are out of fuel.

The virtual world that these Eagles fly in can also host other simulators based around the world, including Tyndalls own F-22 Raptor simulators, allowing units from anywhere to fly together and never leave home.

The way we connect our FMTs to the F-22 simulators is through the Distributed Training Operations Center, located in Des Moines, Iowa, and run by the Iowa Air National Guard, Schans said. The DTOC allows multiple units to participate in the same simulation environment to practice integration of forces.

On a day-to-day basis, the simulators provide mission training to the Air Force ABM students that come through the 337th ACS.

In the controlled environment of simulated missions, we can control the pace at which tactical problems are introduced to the student ABMs, Schans said. The scenarios are built with command and control as the only focus. When you compare this to a live fighter aircraft training mission, the scenario is centered on the pilots training requirements, and the ABM gets whatever training he or she can along the way.

With the simulators, each mission is personalized to provide the best training for the ABM at the helm, Schans said.

There are no substitutes available for the 17 simulated missions each student accomplishes with the FMT, Schans said. [Without it], the ABM students would be far less capable when they graduate. This would increase the training burden on their follow-on units.

The Air Force trains daily to ensure it is ready to fight any challenge, anywhere and at any time. These simulators provide the training that propels Tyndalls ability to project unrivaled combat air power.
Dekow Mohamed was still buzzing days after her role model, the Nobel laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai, visited her school in the sprawling Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya last May.

You can't imagine how excited I was when I saw her, face to face," says Dekow, a refugee from Somalia. At age 18, she is a year younger than the Pakistani activist, who escaped an assassination attempt after defying Taliban bans on girls going to school.

Malala's story spread around the world and inspired millions of people. But it might have passed Dekow by if not for an innovative initiative called Instant Network Schools, or INS, which brought online education and connectivity into her refugee camp school.

Selected schools and community centres are kitted out with a "digital box" that includes a set of computer tablets, solar-powered batteries, a satellite or mobile network, and a suite of content and online learning material. Teachers receive IT support and ongoing training.

We hear from students and teachers that the programme has increased motivation on both sides."

Since the initial pilot in Dadaab in 2014, the programme has been taken up by 31 centres in four countries in the region: Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It grew organically from a partnership between UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Vodafone Foundation, which had been working in schools in Dadaab. Seeing the huge gaps in resources and connectivity in the camp highlighted how mobile technology could improve the quality of education in such remote areas.

More than 65 million people are currently uprooted by wars and persecution worldwide, including more than 21 million refugees. Half of them are children, far too many of whom are missing out on an education. According to a UNHCR report, only 50 per cent are enrolled in primary school, 22 per cent in secondary, and one per cent in tertiary education.

Students with the tablets they are learning to use.  UNHCR/Catherine Wachiaya

The Instant Network Schools programme is helping millions of refugee students across Africa to catch up with their education.  UNHCR/Catherine Wachiaya

A teacher uses a tablet from the INS kit to teach students.  UNHCR/Catherine Wachiaya

Paul uses a tablet to read at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.  UNHCR/Catherine Wachiaya

"When I started class in January, it was difficult for me to use a computer," says Nimo, 18. "I had never used one before. Now I learn how to use PowerPoint and Microsoft Access."  UNHCR/Silja Ostermann

In Africa, which hosts more displaced people than anywhere apart from the Middle East, millions of refugee students are struggling to catch up with their education. Innovations like INS help to provide as much continuity in their education as possible.

Even when they are at school, refugee children in Africa often learn in extremely tough conditions, in overcrowded classes with limited resources. UNHCR, through programs like INS, is helping to bridge some of these gaps and reaching thousands of students like Dekow.

Learners understand best what they see, rather than what they hear, and we used to hear about lots of things that we never knew, she says. But when the tablets arrived, even our teachers were wondering at how we were participating. We are in a position to respond to difficult questions without even going back to our notes.

Jacqueline Strecker, the Learn Lab Manager at UNHCR Innovation, says the idea is to take a holistic approach bringing technology into the classroom. "We wanted to use it to help improve teaching through higher access to relevant teaching material and up-to-date information that teachers could use, and add educational videos and pictures for students into the mix."

It taps into UNHCR's commitment to ensure high-quality education by enhancing classrooms."

She adds: It taps into UNHCR's commitment to ensure high-quality education by enhancing classrooms and having refugees benefit from digital material. We hear from students and teachers that the programme has increased motivation on both sides. Teachers are also more excited to come to schools, and they feel like they are supported."

Gadafi Mohamed, a teacher in Hagadera camp in Dadaab, highlights the additional interest stirred by having Information Communication and Technology, or ICT, in the classroom. Before we embraced ICT, many learners were not even coming for classes because of lack of interest, he says.

Since we started using ICT there have been a number of improvements. It is basically visualizing things other than teaching from the textbooks, and the students have really developed their interest.

The Instant Network Schools is one of eight projects from seven countries featured at Africa Shares, a three-day forum in Geneva that shows how refugees can be assets to the communities who host them. The event, which runs from March 14 to 16 and is hosted by UNHCR, emphasizes that innovation is widespread across the continent and that refugees are actively engaged in successful initiatives.

Africa Shares: Innovation transforming refugee lives

Projects include Malian refugee artisans in Burkina Faso, a childrens reading initiative in Ethiopia, a Rwandan energy-saving stove project, a Zimbabwean poultry project, a Malawian Microsoft connectivity scheme, and urbanization and subsidized gas initiatives in Niger.

What cuts across all of these projects is the community-based approach that UNHCR and partners have taken. Refugees are central to each, and they can exercise their existing skills while learning new ones.

"UNHCRs greatest asset is the fact that weve got communities that are highly resilient and very creative, says Strecker. Allowing them to use their creativity to take charge of such projects and own them is whats really important.

Equally important is the fact that refugees in Africa are inspired to use innovation to create home-grown solutions. For Dekow, innovation has not only enhanced her education experience, it has motivated her to be like her role model.

"UNHCRs greatest asset is the fact that weve got communities that are highly resilient and very creative.

Malala told us to speak up, she says. I thought that she had a great message because her message and my dream correspond to each other. My dream is to become a lawyer and convey the message of education to my society so that one day, we can all become great in this world.

'Education in Emergencies and Crises' is the theme for Mobile Learning Week, UNESCO's flagship education conference being held in Paris March 20 through 24. The conference will bring together experts and policy makers from around the world to explore how to strengthen inclusion in education and preserve the continuity of learning in conflict and disaster contexts.

This year, UNHCR is co-organizing the conference, with an emphasis on how technology can help give refugees quality education.
Remy Gakwaya, a 22 year old Burundian refugee stands outside his takenoLab centre in Dzaleka Camp, where he teaches other refugee youth to programme and code. With him are Kate Krukiel, Director of Partnerships from Microsoft and Kamel Deriche, UNHCR. Gakwaya is one of the refugee ambassadors for the Microsoft Connectivity project.  UNHCR/Amos Gumulira

Everything about computers interests me, says Remy Gakwaya, a 22 year old Burundian refugee who resides in Dzalaka refugee camp in Malawi. He currently runs the only computer lab in the in camp, called takenoLab where he voluntarily teaches other refugee youth how to programme.

Java, Python, MYSQLITE, Android Development Gakwaya lists the programming languages that he teaches his fellow refugees.

I love programming, says Gakwaya. It is inspiring to see something that I create myself. Here in the refugee camp you are not free to do anything. We arent able to work outside of the camp. However, if you do programming, you can do it from anywhere in the world and be paid for that.

Everything about computers interests me, I love programming.

After his parents were killed in Burundi during ethnic clashes, Gakwaya fled with his older brothers to Tanzania. When they saw that young people were being recruited to join a rebel movement they decided to flee to Malawi in 2008, when he was 15 years old.

After finishing secondary school in the camp, Gakwaya learned how to programme by taking a class in Lilongwe. He also learned through some courses offered at the online university run by Jesuit Refugee Services in Dzaleka, where he is enrolled as a diploma student.

He opened the takenoLab in 2016 because he wanted to help other youth in the camp also learn to programme. He first taught six students from the basics  how to use a mouse, how to use a keyboard and by the end of the year, they had learned how to programme and make apps. Because the refugees had no access to the internet, he had to teach the students offline. Initially, they also didnt have enough computers, so Gakwaya managed to print photocopies of a computer keyboard layout and students would take that sheet of paper home to practice typing and using the keys. Eventually, he received some donated computers for the students to practice on. Another major challenge is electricity in a camp which often faces frequent power cuts. When they dont have power to run the computers in the lab, Gakwaya uses the class time to teach theory.

Remy Gakwaya, un refugie burundais de 22 ans, devant son centre takenoLab du camp de Dzaleka, ou il enseigne la programmation et l'encodage a d'autres jeunes refugies. A ses cotes se trouvent Kate Kruriel, Directrice des partenariats chez Microsoft, et Kamel Deriche, du HCR. Remy Gakwaya est un des refugies ambassadeurs du projet de connectivite numerique de Microsoft.  HCR/Amos Gumulira

Quelque 30 refugies ambassadeurs ont recu des smartphones offerts par Microsoft dans le cadre du projet de connectivite numerique pour les refugies dans le camp de Dzaleka, au Malawi.  HCR/D. Kachitsa



Apps benefitting the overall refugee community are already being developed by Gakwaya and his team. One of the apps will help teachers facilitate the registration of students' enrollment and registering of their grades, which currently takes up a lot of time. They are also working on an app that will map the different tribal groups and share cultural practices so that the various ethnicities and nationalities in the camp can better understand each other.

I want to use technology to solve local problems that big software companies do not have the time to take on, says Gakwaya.

I wanted to be part of the modern world so I joined the class. I originally hoped to study law but now Im invested in learning programming, says 20 year old Gracia from the DRC who is one of Gakwayas students.

I want to use technology to solve local problems that big software companies do not have the time to take on."

This past weekend, Microsoft and C3, their contractor in Malawi installed Wi-Fi access points in Dzaleka. It is one of the pilot sites for the Connectivity for Refugees project between UNHCR and Microsoft. Microsoft also donated 1,000 smart phones, which are to be distributed to individuals or community groups chosen by UNHCR, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Plan Malawi and Jesuit Refugee Services. Some thirty refugee ambassadors have been selected to engage in the project and help establish the mechanisms to roll it out.

Gakwaya was very excited and honored to be selected along with some of his students to be part of the refugee ambassadors. He is confident that having faster and cheaper ways to connect to the internet, he will be able to complete more online training to complement the programming skills he learned so far, but he also will be able to strengthen the training he is giving to other young people.

My idea is to support knowledge so that this knowledge can help us today, tomorrow or in the future.

Dzaleka refugee camp is located some 70 km from Lilongwe and currently hosts about some 28,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Syria: Statement by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi

On the sixth anniversary of Syrias conflict, we must remember those who are suffering most from this calamity  the 4.9 million refugees, the 6.3 million people displaced internally and the millions more inside Syria living in daily fear of this war and the inhumanity it has created.

Syria is at a crossroads. Unless drastic measures are taken to shore up peace and security, the situation will worsen.

Syrias trauma goes beyond its borders. The outflow of people and the seemingly unstoppable conflict have contributed to the climate of anxiety we see today in many countries. As I have said before, if you dont solve problems, the problems come to you.

I saw for myself on a recent visit to Syria how this war is affecting people, children especially. Today, even basic infrastructure is in ruins. Healthcare, schools, water and power supplies are unreliable or being controlled by warring parties for their own ends.

All this matters, because children make up half the population  of whom a third were born since the conflict began. Syrias war has lasted longer than World War Two in Europe. This is unconscionable. Syrias children, whether at home or in refugee communities elsewhere, are its future. One of its few sources of hope.

UNHCR supports Syrian refugees and those hosting them. We must also plan for a tomorrow when refugees might safely be able to return. The resolve of the international community to support the vast joint humanitarian and development effort that is needed must not waiver, now or then.
The constant increase in the costs of higher education has led many schools to initiate free-tuition programs in their respective schools, most especially to their low-income students. The ultimate goal is to provide greater opportunities to more students to enter college and obtain a degree.

It was only last month when news about some states offering free college to their students has been widespread. One is San Francisco which declared that it would be the first state to offer free college education to their students, as reported by CNBC. Currently, numerous schools adapt to programs that will cover students' tuition and fees and most of these programs are implemented at community colleges.

Right now, there is already an increasing number of four-year institutions across the country that offer free college tuition to help the students who are in need financially, according to US News. Robert McMaster, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education at the University of Minnesota, said that these programs are gaining more popularity but it depends nationally on the contribution of the states.

Some of the four year public universities which offer tuition-free programs include Arizona State University, Purdue University, West Texas A&M University, the University of Carolina-Chapel Hill, and all the campuses for University of Minnesota and University of Nebraska.

Most of these programs require students to be Pell Grant eligible, which means that they should have demonstrated that they have financial need.

Thomas Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analyst at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said that Pell Grants and state grants will be able to cover a large amount of tuition which therefore allows colleges and universities to offer such guarantees of free tuition because the remaining amount should not be that expensive.
If college is not easy for a regular student, just imagine how difficult it would be for student veterans. Military veterans face tough challenges in school compared to their non-vet peers.

According to the American Council on Education, 4% of undergrad student vets across the country have expressed their difficulty in connecting in their campus and is one of the major reasons behind the increasing dropout rates, USA Today College reported. There is also a lower percentage of student vets who finished their college compared to the non-veteran students.

In order to address these issues, a number colleges and universities have initiated support programs to provide help and support to these military students. According to EqualEd, one school, Texas A & M University, San Antonio,became the first one in conducting a training that gives faculty and staff the insights when it comes addressing the challenges faced by both the veterans and non-traditional students.

Karen Kalmbach, who runs the program said that military vets are more likely to drop out of college because they are older, and they work during college. They are also the ones with family responsibilities and have acquired medical conditions during the service. They are not the ones who feel the normal college life like everybody else.

At Binghamton University, Zach DuBord, assistant director of student veteran services, helped Binghamton adopt a training program called the Vet Net Ally. This program is designed to train faculty and staff with the goal of reducing misunderstandings and biases that student vets encounter. DuBord said that the program intends to make sure that military students will be able to find someone in every office who is not going to make them feel uncomfortable. DuBord wants to increase the number of student veterans who stay in college by making sure that they feel valued.
Education advocates along with parents, students and educators met with state lawmakers and have demanded them to follow a 2003 law that requires the legislature to fund education first. The Oklahoma legislature has 18 days to pass an education budget. Stand for Children Oklahoma Executive Director Amber England said that schools need specific budget details to be able to make critical decisions that affect student learning.

Amber England further stresses that students and teachers deserve to be a priority in the budget process. Without the information, school districts can't develop or plan out their own budgets for the school year. They wouldn't know if they would have to lay off more teachers, have to end AP courses in high school or have to end arts and PE.

President of the Oklahoma Education Association, Alicia Priest, said teachers wait for funds for the next year and students wonder if they will get to take the classes that they have signed up for. School districts have to hire their teachers by the first Monday of June. As they wait there's

ABC 7 News reported, co-founder of Pastors for Oklahoma Kids and NorthHaven Church Reverend Dr. Mitch Randall said that providing an adequate education to children is the Oklahoma legislature's moral responsibility. Underfunding is neglect of the legislators to follow the law, and that they need to demonstrate accountability and transparency to Oklahoma taxpayers.

According to the 2003 law, the legislature has to have an education budget plan by April 1st. The lawmakers have only reached the deadline once and there are no consequences if they break the law. They have roughly $900 million budget hole to fill.

Education advocates believe that if the lawmakers really try, they can have the education budget by April 1st. England said that she knew the legislators had a meeting about the budget.

News On 6 reported that Rep. John Paul Jordan, R-District 43, said that the April deadline is probably not going to be feasible. In addition, lawmakers are taking much of the week off for spring break.
Aside from the cost of tuition, housing and textbooks, campus safety is another important factor to know about a student's prospective college or university. Parents should do their research on how safe a certain higher education institution is since they are sending their kids there for a few years.

Concerns about the safety of American campuses have heightened due to reports of increasing violence in these institutions. More and more sexual abuse survivors have spoken up against rape on campus while racism as well as several protests on controversial speakers have become rampant and violent.

According to U.S. News, colleges and universities are required by federal law to design standard protocols for several campus safety concerns. Parents and students can check a school's annual security report on the institution's official website to find data on crime, disciplinary actions and campus safety policies.

The publication noted that parents and students will need to do their research on a prospective school's campus safety policies. Here are a few questions you should ask.

"What is the college doing to cultivate a safe campus?"

Check out the school's programs, specifically on campus safety. Are they keeping up with the issues at hand? Are they making the safety of the people inside the campus their priority? Experts believe that colleges and universities need the heightened awareness of parents and students so that they will make safety a priority.

"How does the school communicate with students in an emergency?"

With social media, colleges and universities have a lot of tools at their disposal to communicate with students. Parents should also check whether a prospective institution has a plan that allows them to alert students in cases of emergencies where there is no access to cellphones or the Internet.

Does the school have its own security team or work with city or county police off-campus?

It's important to know who is providing security for the students in campus. A campus security team should be trained in responding to disorder, supporting the fire department, providing first aid and providing initial support.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has joined officials at the University of Delaware on Monday for the launch of the Biden Institute. He is an alumnus of the school, earning his Bachelor of Arts with a double major in history and political science in 1965.

It was previously reported that the new Biden Institute will be a research and policy center intent on creating solutions to several domestic policy issues. The University of Delaware confirmed that Joe Biden will serve as the institute's founding chair.

The center will be focused on developing public policy solutions on a variety of issues including economic reform and environmental sustainability to civil rights, criminal justice and women's rights, among others. It will be part of the university's School of Public Policy and Administration.

On Monday, Joe Biden revealed that the institute will focus on civic engagement and promote a spirit of bipartisanship, ABC News reported. He said forthright that Biden Institute will not be a political organization that will challenge President Trump and his policies but also made it clear that he will remain politically engaged and speak out on current issues.

The former Vice President of the United States clarified that, while he will continue to stand up for what he believes in, he will not do it using the University of Delaware. The Biden Institute will be nonpartisan.

Biden will be committing one day a week to the institute. His sister and campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, will serve as vice chair and Mike Donilon, his former White House counselor, will be managing director.

The former director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, Catherine McLaughlin, will be serving as executive director. Biden has said that they are fortunate to have McLaughlin on board.

He also expressed his hope that the Biden Institute will attract leaders and experts from various fields such as politics, business and the news media for debates and discussions. CBS Philadelphia noted that Joe Biden is set to appear at an Apr. 7 rally to meet students.
A team of researchers were able to develop a machine-learning algorithm to create a system that accurately rates a surgeon's suturing skill level. The team from the University of Georgia published their study to the preprint server "arXiv."

To begin the development of the system, the researchers filmed 41 surgeons and nurses as they sutured test boards made of foam. Each of the subjects wore accelerometers on their hands to catch all of their movements, TechXplore reported.

Afterwards, the team showed the videos to a clinician who provided the ratings for the skill level of the subjects. The video was then fed to a computer with machine-learning algorithm along with the clinician's scores. This gave the system a basis on how to rate the work.

Lastly, the researchers removed the clinician's scores from the system and tasked the computer to rate the surgeon's suturing skill level by itself. The new system was found to be 93.2 percent accurate in matching the rating of the clinician's scores.

According to New Scientist, the team found that the best surgeons, or those with high suturing skill levels, moved their hands in smooth synchronization and consistency with every stitch. Those who had low scores moved in an erratic and less predictable manner, probably similar to Doctor Strange after his car accident.

Aneeq Zia, who was from the Georgia Institute of Technology and was part of the study, noted that including accelerometer data actually had less impact on the results than what they expected. It even made the system a little less accurate at rating the task. This could be because the video included information about how surgeons moved their hands and tools but accelerometers could only track movements of their hands.

Zia added that they hope later versions of the system can give trainee surgeons better feedback on their skills, specifically in suturing. This could also remove the need of having an expert observe them every time since these doctors are busy with their patients as well.
The past decades has shown a promising development in producing humanoid robots. The divide between man and machine seem to be thinning as advancement in technology is discovered. Many robots are given anamorphic forms and are enveloped in latex and silicone skins.

A team of researchers from ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology earlier this year has designed a material that is more sensitive than actual human skin. It was patterned after the pit viper's pit organ; it is found between the eyes and nose of the reptile that can detect any prey from a distance of a few feet.

The researcher's findings in producing the material may be helpful it providing hypersensitive feedback for use in prosthetics and robotic limbs, according to Digital Trends. The study showed that pectin could be employed as an artificial sensor. However, though remarkable, pectin was found to be too rigid.

The material's rigidity was solved by project leader Rafaelle Di Giacomo and doctoral student Luca Bonanomi after developing a thin film of pectin only 100 micrometers thin. What they developed was a biometric temperature-sensing layer for artificial skins, and their work was published in the journal Science Robotics.

Following ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology findings, a team of Oxford professors proposed a provocative idea of growing human tissue on humanoid robots. Biomedical researchers Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy and Andrew Carr, are concerned with the interaction of tissue and bone.

In pursuit of studying strategies to repair injuries to tendons via tissue engineering, it was deduced that their lab-grown tissues had to undergo a series of tests as if the tissue was attached to a human body.

However, current bioreactor systems are still in the infancy stage and are quite expensive. This prompted the pair to look and design their own alternatives that would solve the dilemma. Also publishing their findings in the journal Science Robotics, they propose grafting tissue on humanoid robots, for future transplant, they say is now becoming technically possible and relevant scientifically.

According to the researchers, relevant tissue grafts need to be pushed and pulled in multiple directions to test its adaptability, and to closely mimic both structure and movements of a patient's body. Apparently, tissue created in stationary environments and grafted to patients are uncomfortable, according to the Fossbytes.

The researchers currently need to conduct proof of concept, to be able to test their proposal in the near future. Android with humanlike skins may be eerie, but if it would benefit people in the future, it is believed the cringe level can be brought down a notch.
UW Scientists Discover Hydrothermal Vents on Deep Ocean Voyage

This 12-meter-tall hydrothermal vent, named Medea, was discovered during the recent Pito Deep cruise made by the U.S. Research Vessel Atlantis and led by UW researchers Michael Cheadle and Barbara John. (Image by Lucas Kavanagh (www.lucaskavanagh.com) courtesy of Mike Cheadle, Univ. of Wyoming/NSF/ROV Jason 2017  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Two University of Wyoming researchers led a voyage to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and discovered five previously unknown active hydrothermal vents and a completely new vent site.

Crabs, shrimp, snails, Pompeii worms, small fish and bacteria flourish in an environment where sea water, as hot as 370 degrees Centigrade, flows upward through vent chimneys up to 22 meters tall.

Barbara John and her husband, Michael Cheadle, both UW professors of geology and geophysics, recently co-led a research expedition aboard the U.S. Research Vessel Atlantis. With the aid of two small submarines tasked with exploring and sampling the sea floor, the group located the new hydrothermal vents, as well as two others that were last seen 23 years ago, at Pito Seamount in the Pacific Ocean.

The two, along with Professor Jeff Gee from Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego, were the chief scientists for the 15-person research team from the U.S. and Canada. The team included four UW students. The expedition was funded by the National Science Foundation.

The big surprise is the animals that live down there. Theres no light. Its totally dark, says Cheadle, explaining that the life we know on the surface of the Earth is driven by the light from the sun. The whole animal community (in the vents) depends on chemosynthetic bacteria for food. These bacteria can use hydrogen sulfide (toxic compounds to humans) to produce organic material through a process called chemosynthesis. Its simply a completely alien ecosystem.

Until 1977, no one had discovered an undersea hydrothermal vent, Cheadle says. Since then, about 300 such vents have been found on mid-ocean ridges around the world. The new vents were found at the summit of the 1-kilometer-high Pito Seamount on the East Pacific Rise.

These vents form above fissures in the Earths crust -- roughly 2.3 kilometers or 7,500 feet below the sea surface -- and emit hot water from hollow chimneys that provide homes for a thriving community of unique creatures.

One of the reasons these vents are important is that, if people want to understand how life evolved, the vents and their biological communities are analogous for how life started, Cheadle says.

Since they (vents) were first discovered in 1977, over 750 new species of animals have been recognized, he says.

John says it would be interesting to examine the cross-over between the biological communities in the hydrothermal vents in the Pacific with those in the Atlantic Ocean.

Its the cutting edge of biology, she says. We could analyze the DNA and find out who is related to whom; look at the evolutionary history of each community; and how they might move between sites and even oceans.

The vents discovered are referred to as black smokers because they emit what looks like black smoke. The vents are essentially pumping out clouds of fine particles of sulfur-bearing minerals, which contain iron, copper, zinc and, to a lesser extent, gold. The vents ranged in height from 70 feet high to small chimlets that were only 1 meter tall, John says.

Crabs inhabit this hydrothermal vent discovered on Pito Seamount in the Pacific Ocean. Shrimp, snails, Pompeii worms, small fish and bacteria also thrive in an environment where water, as hot as 370 degrees Centigrade, flows upward and emits from hollow chimneys that form a habitat for these biological communities. (Image courtesy of Mike Cheadle, Univ. of Wyoming/NSF/ROV Jason 2017  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

To add a little fun to the discovery, the researchers bestowed names -- such as Jason and Medea  on the vents. The names were in honor of the submersible vehicles used during the expedition. In one case, a vent was named Scottys Castle, after one of the crew members. In another, a vent was named The Sniper because the crust formation resembled a head and a hand holding a rifle.

In addition to discovering, imaging and measuring temperatures from the seven hydrothermal vents, the very successful expedition also saw the science team collect important rock samples from the ocean floor (6 kilometers deep below the oceans surface) and conduct the first detailed geologic mapping of the gabbroic crust. Sixty percent of the Earths surface is the sea floor.

We did the most detailed mapping of the lower oceanic crust ever done, Cheadle says.

And accomplished all of our project goals, as well as discover the vents, John adds.

The goals included a number of educational outreach opportunities -- 34 live ship-to-shore broadcasts that reached more than 1,000 people, ranging from kindergarten children to 80-year-olds. Audiences included the UW Lab School; the Geologists of Jackson Hole Society at the Teton County Library in Jackson; the Mineral and Gem Society in Cheyenne; the Wyoming Geological Association in Casper; and the Birch Aquarium in San Diego, Calif. Other outreach locations included Cambridge University, colleges in California, and middle and high school students in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Atlantis left from Easter Island Jan. 13 to work at Pito Deep before returning to Arica in Chile Feb. 24. But, before leaving the research site, the team had one last mission.

The Jackalope, a small boat built by middle school students in Theresa Williams UW Lab School class, sails away into the Pacific Ocean at sunset. (Michael Cheadle Photo)

The Jackalope, a small sailboat built by middle school students in Theresa Williams UW Lab School class, was launched on the day the Atlantis began its trip home. The small craft, outfitted with a GPS and tracked by the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration, is making its way around the southeastern Pacific, currently sailing between the Pitcairn and Easter islands. Its movements can be tracked at http://educationalpassages.com/boats/00-172231121/.

The boat includes instructions in nearly 20 languages chosen as read/spoken around the Pacific. These include Cantonese, Chinese, English, French, Mandarin, Papa New Guinea, Portuguese and Spanish, so that anyone who finds it can correspond with the UW Lab School students. Additionally, it contains a waterproof time capsule hosting information and pictures of UW and Laramie.

It covered 120 kilometers in one 24-hour period, John says of the 5-foot-long boat.

Nobody has ever launched one of these in the Pacific, Cheadle adds, pointing to a map on his laptop that showed the current location of the Jackalope, as well as other similar tiny vessels in the Atlantic.

Neither was sure where the tiny vessel will eventually end up. Cheadle expects it may get caught in the westerlies of the Roaring Forties (strong west-to-east air currents), and eventually reverse direction to head back toward South America.

For more information and videos about the expedition, go to www.pitodeep.org/.


House of Blues Las Vegas becomes the Love Shack for a three-night engagement by legendary pop-dance band B-52s July 7-9. Featuring original members Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson.

It is well known that the B-52s are The Worlds Greatest Party Band. And nearly 40 years and more than 20 million albums into their career, there can be no doubt as to why they remain one of rock musics most beloved and enduring bands. Any mystery concerning the bands longevity and ongoing appeal is immediately solved when exposed to a B-52s concert experience. From groundbreaking songs like Rock Lobster, Dance This Mess Around and Private Idaho, to chart-topping hits like Love Shack and Roam and Deadbeat Club, to their thrilling reemergence on the pop scene with their 2008 CD Funplex, the B-52s unforgettable dance-rock tunes start a party every time their music begins.

Formed on an October night in 1976 following drinks at an Athens, GA, Chinese restaurant, the band played their first gig at a friends house on Valentines Day 1977. Naming themselves after Southern slang for exaggerated bouffant hairdos, the newly-christened B-52s (Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson) began weekend road trips to New York City for gigs at CBGBs and a handful of other venues. Before long, their thrift store aesthetic and genre-defying songs were the talk of the post-punk underground. A record deal soon followed and their self-titled debut disc, produced by Chris Blackwell, sold more than 500,000 copies on the strength of their first singles, the garage rock party classic Rock Lobster, and 52 Girls. The B-52s began to attract fans far beyond the punk clubs of the Lower East Side  galvanizing the pop world with their stream-of-consciousness approach to songwriting and outrageous performance. They had clearly tapped into a growing audience for new music that was much larger than anyone could have anticipated.

With the release of their second studio effort, Wild Planet (1980), the B-52s and co-producer Rhett Davies proved their success was no fluke with hits with Private Idaho, Give Me Back My Man and Strobe Light. In just two albums, the B-52s created a lexicon of songs, styles, phrases and images which would set the standard for the development of the alternative music scene for the next decade. The success of Mesopotamia, produced by David Byrne (1982), and Whammy! (1983) positioned the B-52s as MTV regulars as well as alternative radio staples.

Cosmic Thing soared to the top of the Billboard Album chart, sold 5 million copies and yielded their first-ever Hot 10 hits  Love Shack and Roam and a Top 40 hit with Deadbeat Club. The B-52s advanced their reputation as the greatest party band on the planet to a whole new generation of music fans. They played to sold-out audience worldwide on a tour that would last more than 18 months, including an Earth Day gig before nearly 750,000 people in New York Citys Central Park.

In 2008, the B-52s released their first new album in 16 years, the aptly titled Funplex. With its primal guitar hooks, driving drums and the B-52s unmistakable vocal style, Funplex is instantly recognizable as quintessential and contemporary B-52s.

In 2011, the band joyfully celebrated its 34th anniversary with a triumphant return to their hometown of Athens, GA. Wig-wearing, boa-draped, glitter-covered fans came from near and far to celebrate this historic event, which saw the band deliver a sizzling 90-minute set that turned Athens Classic Center into a cosmic dancehall. The concert was released on a CD, DVD and Blu-ray entitled The B-52s With The Wild Crowd! Live in Athens, GA.

As they take their party-music revolution into the 21st century the B-52s show no signs of slowing down, serving up their own unique blend of music and showmanship to millions of fans around the world.


McDonalds is hosting Eggs for Education, the annual scholarship fundraising event. During the week-long event, all participating Southern Nevada restaurants will donate $1 from every Egg McMuffin and Sausage McMuffin with Egg, a la carte sandwich, and Extra Value Meals that are purchased locally (Pictured: Nevada Pageant winners at McDonalds).

Funds raised will benefit the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Las Vegas scholarship program.

Dozens of community leaders, local politicians, and entertainers will volunteer their time to visit and greet customers at local restaurants while raising donations for the scholarship program. The volunteers are encouraged to push out social messages using the hashtag #EggsForEducation throughout the week to help raise awareness for the event.

Over the past five years, local McDonalds owner/operators have raised over $320,000 in scholarships funds as a result of the annual event, formerly named Greens for Grads. Since the RMHC of Greater Las Vegas Scholarship Program was established in 1999, local McDonalds owner/operators have helped to award more than $2.1 million in scholarships to high school seniors in both Clark and Nye counties.

Last years Eggs for Education fundraiser event generated a total of $50,000 in scholarship donations.

The Southern Nevada McDonalds franchise owners are proud supporters of the local Las Vegas community and are always willing to give back through charitable work involvement and donations. The philanthropic involvement of local McDonalds owner/operators include support of a variety of programs that focus on education, literacy, and the well-being of children including, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Las Vegas and the Make Activities Count Grant program.

For the latest local McDonalds news, promotions and contests follow us on Twitter at @McDonaldsVegas. You can also locate your favorite local McDonalds restaurants on Facebook.


Queen Bee Market debuted in Las Vegas this past weekend with a two-day craft fair hosted at The Conference Center of Las Vegas. The urban-style market, imagined as Etsy come to life, featured over 60 handmade vendors who sold their imaginative products from booths designed with flair (Pictured: Vendors from Queen Bee Market pose with sign by market entrance  Photo credit: Megan Plenge).

Photo credit: Megan Plenge.

More than a thousand shoppers, eager to fill their bags with unique handcrafted items, scoured the bustling market for everything from baby accessories to DIY pocket frames to repurposed furniture and home decor. When they werent snapping up crafty one-of-a-kind treasures, shoppers enjoyed tasty Chicago-style gyros and decadent Belgium waffles from local food trucks, Greek Delights and Waffle Luv. Many artisans on display included local Las Vegas businesses, like Kristin Smith of BB Frosch, Staysi Lee of Staysi Lee Bridal Boutique and Amber Grimshaw of Ambers Umbrella.

Photo credit: Megan Plenge.

Over $500 was raised from the event and donated to The Shade Tree.
All foreign-invested entities are required to have their annual financial statements audited before transferring profits to their respective markets.

Businesses should be aware of deadlines and reporting compliances or face penalties and fines for late payments or under-declared tax payments.

While Vietnam is a rising star in ASEAN, its tax systems can be time-consuming and complex.

Prior to transferring profits back to their home markets, foreign companies maintaining operations and taking in revenue in Vietnam must fulfill certain annual compliance requirements.

These involve a statutory audit, audited financial statements, and tax finalization filings. Annual compliance procedures are not only required by law but are also a good opportunity to conduct an internal financial health check.

Pursuant to compliance, all foreign-invested entities are required to have their annual financial statements audited by an independent auditing firm.

Statutory audits in Vietnam are performed in accordance with the Vietnam Standards on Auditing while financial reporting must be conducted in accordance with Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VAS).

Standards in Vietnam can often differ significantly from those utilized in a companys home market and should, therefore, be studied closely to ensure that all aspects of reporting and review are in compliance. During this process, the manner in which reporting and review are conducted should also be considered in the context of any and all reporting and finalization requirements that a company may have in its home market.

Filling deadlines

Audited financial statements and tax finalization filing must be done within 90 days from the end of each financial year. After fulfilling these obligations, and giving notice to local managing tax offices at least seven working days in advance, foreign investors may remit profits abroad. It should be noted that annual compliance for ROs is different from that for other foreign-invested entities. An RO is required to report on its activities to a local department of trade prior to the last working day of January of the following year.

Reporting compliance

As part of the reporting process, all of the applicable forms outlined below should be submitted in relation to the operations of a given company. The company will also be required to file forms related to any corporate income tax (CIT) incentives that are claimed or other deductions that the company has utilized during the fiscal year.

Late payment and tax evasion penalties

A taxpayer who pays tax later than the deadline is to pay the outstanding tax amount plus a fine equal to 0.03 percent of the tax amount for each day the payment is late. Taxpayers that make incorrect declarations, thereby reducing taxes payable or increasing refundable tax amounts are to pay the full amount of the under-declared tax or return the excess refund, and will also pay a fine equal to 20 percent of the under-declared or excess refunded tax amounts together with a fine for late payment of the tax.

A taxpayer that commits acts of tax evasion or tax fraud is liable to pay the full amount of tax and a fine between one and three times the evaded tax amount.

Optimizing annual compliance

While Vietnam is one of ASEANs rising stars, the nation is also stuck with among the most complex and time-consuming tax systems within the region. Although many aspects of taxation can be complex, annual finalization places a particularly significant burden upon many investors.

To the credit of Vietnams government, there have been substantial improvements to the compliance process in recent years, however, there is still significant room for improvement. On top of this, the swiftly maturing nature of tax and compliance have and will continue to add to a degree of uncertainty in the years to come.

To maintain compliance with Vietnamese law, and ensure that profits can be remitted without issue, it is advisable for companies to direct any and all inquiries to Vietnams Ministry of Finance or professional service firms operating within the country. Both parties will be able to clarify the nature of prevailing compliance and often can provide a level of practical nuance that is not available within legislation or official guidance that has been issued to date.

Note: This article was first published in March 2017, and has been updated to include the latest developments.
China is the world's largest coal producer, and deadly accidents in mines are common AFP/STRINGER

The accident occurred Thursday (Mar 9) when a cable supporting a mining cage caught fire, causing the rig to tumble down into a state-operated coal mine in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Xinhua news agency said.

An operation to extract the trapped miners from the wreckage was launched at the time but rescue workers could not reach them until Monday, finding them all dead, Xinhua said.

The mine, the Dongrong Second Mine under the Longmay Mining Holding Group, is located near the city of Shuangyashan.

Two welders have been detained by police over "allegedly serious violations" of safety regulations, Xinhua said.

The mine's manager also has been suspended from his post, it quoted the local government as saying.

China is the world's largest coal producer, and deadly accidents in mines are common.

In December, explosions in two separate coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and in Heilongjiang killed at least 59 people, according to state media reports.

Thirty-three miners were killed in a colliery explosion in October in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.
Martens then met with the American Insurance Group (AIG) team in Hanoi, who had signed an memorandum of understanding with the Vietnamese government to transform a peninsula called Dinh Vu in the northern city of Haiphong into an industrial hub. AIG invited Martens to join the project, and when he accepted, he became general director of Dinh Vu Industrial Zone (DVIZ).

With years of experience, Martens and the Belgian company Rent-A-Port saw massive potential in this region for industrial development based on an industrial hub with access to a deep seaport. The project team planned to transform this peninsula into a 1,000 hectare modern economic zone.

This was 20 years ago, and when the DVIZ team first initiated the concept of the industrial zone, very few people had faith in them.

Luckily, DVIZ received tremendous support from local leaders, who had the necessary momentum and ambition to think long-term. They knew the task would not be easy, but DVIZ was committed to lead the city into a successful new millennium.

As DVIZ/Deep C celebrates its 20-year anniversary, its founding vision is still evolving

In 1997, Dinh Vu Development Joint Venture Company, today known as Dinh Vu Industrial Zone JSC (DVIZ/Deep C), was established to develop an economic zone in this area.

Millions of cubic metres of sand were transported and hydraulically pumped to elevate and reclaim hundreds of hectares of waterfront land. Thousands of metres of sea dykes were built to protect the land from floods, erosion, and typhoons. DVIZ also built roads, power stations, and water treatment facilities.

The 164ha first phase of the industrial park was developed through persistent hard work and determination. After two years of construction, in 1999, DVIZ welcomed the first tenant of the zone, American investor Chevron Lubricants. After that, DVIZ launched its second phase, increasing the total area to 541ha. Since then, Marc Stordiau, chairman of the Board of Management of Dinh Vu Industrial Zone, continued to actualise the vision of DVIZ/Deep C.

In 2007, when AIG left the Dinh Vu project, their share was taken over by the Belgian government and by the Antwerp-based International Port Engineering & Management, a group of private investors with reclamation know-how. The majority of the shares remained in the hands of Rent-A-Port.

The hardship in the early days of development paved the way to success with the recognition of the Detailed Master Plan of DVIZ, approved by the Ministry of Construction in 2010. The industrial zone is supported by the Dinh Vu Port, the expanded Cat Bi Airport, the new expressway connecting Hanoi to Haiphong, and other expressways leading to the northeastern province of Quang Ninh, then South China, as well as other coastal provinces. Most importantly, the under-construction Lach Huyen Deep Sea Port will soon become the biggest port in northern Vietnam. The Dinh Vu/Deep C Industrial Zones are located in the middle of these mega-infrastructure developments, linking the city centre and hinterland industries to the gateway ports, opening up northern Vietnam to the rest of the world.

This success story illustrates how perseverance and collaboration between businesses and the government can turn a dream into reality. With the contributions from the Belgian government, the visionary Rent-A-Port team acts like a bridge connecting the governments of Vietnam and Belgium, making DVIZ a symbol of strong economic ties and friendship. This close relationship has been celebrated through various official visits throughout the years.

Rent-A-Port is not only doing business in Vietnam, but also conducting cultural exchange. The social and cultural ties between Vietnam and Belgium have been tightened by various activities such as the annual Belgian beer festival, performances of Belgian artists in Haiphong, and many other events.

This April, DVIZ is celebrating its 20-year anniversary in Vietnam. The event will mark an important milestone in the companys path to carry on its founders legacy. It also reflects the passion and love that Belgian employees have for Vietnam, and the involvement they have had in much more than just industrial zone development.
No people were affected in the outbreak, which was primarily of the H5N1 strain. The risk of human infection in poultry outbreaks is low, although in China people have died this winter amid an outbreak of the H7N9 virus in birds.

The flock in Bac Ninh has been placed under quarantine, along with many other poultry farms within a 10-km radius of the site, said Nguyen Nhan Lung, head of the provincial Department of Animal Health.

Other flocks in the quarantined area are being tested, Mr Lung added.

Mr Lung also noted the Department had informed the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and international trading partners of the outbreak.

According to a report from the OIE the outbreak in Bac Ninh is the second one in recent days of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu virus, raising the number of affected provinces in Vietnam so far this year to seven.

In addition to Bac Ninh, the outbreaks struck backyard birds in the southern province of Tay Ninh.

Both events began on March 3, and taken together, the virus killed 2,050 of 6,600 susceptible poultry. The surviving birds were culled, with other response steps taken, including vaccination, disinfection of the affected premises, and stepped-up surveillance.

Various strains of the virus have spread globally over the past two years, said the OIE in a report, creating concern among scientists about the next pandemic.

Forty new countries have reported avian influenza since November 2016, according to the OIE, with the total number of countries affected now standing at 77 with outbreaks of 13 different strains of the virus.

Authorities in the respective countries have culled millions of birds in affected areas to control the outbreaks, said the OIE.

Government officials across the spectrum and producers have stepped up biosecurity in response to the new cases, as well as to the ongoing outbreaks in Asia, Europe and Africa that have led to the destruction of hundreds of millions of birds and killed dozens of humans.

Bird flu viruses dont usually spread to people except by close contact with infected birds, but health authorities caution that people everywhere should always be alert to the possibility.

Vietnam government officials are advising producers to be more vigilant about keeping all people and vehicles from entering their farms unless they absolutely have a need to be there.

Farmers may want to implement a Danish entry where anyone entering or leaving the barn must sit on a bench, take their boots off, swing their legs around to the clean side, put on new boots and clothing that stay in the barn, and reverse the process when they leave.

The most effective method to rapidly eliminate the virus and its spread to humans, according to the OIE, is to rely on the principle of culling (or stamping-out) and continuous monitoring until the virus is completely gone from the flock.
Tourists will be able to travel to the island by high-speed boat, with round-trip tickets costing VND250,000 (about US$11) per person.



Located 30 km from the mainland, Con Co island, which crosses the 17th parallel, is considered an outpost watch due to its location.

Covering 2.3 square kilometres, it is one of the most magnificent islands of the central region with its diverse ecosystem.

Popular activities on the island include swimming, scuba-diving, canoeing, fishing and marine sports.



Tourists to Con Co can also visit the hall of tradition which houses items reflecting the history of the island districts army and people over the past 55 years, pay tribute to Hill 37 Monument and visit Ben Nghe  Mom Ho beach.
Dr. Milton Stokes

On the sidelines of the conference, Stokes talked to VIRs Hong Anh about how Monsantos solutions can help Vietnam decrease food loss in order to better feed its people.

As you said in your presentation, one-third of the food that the world produces ends up in the garbage, unused. What is the reason for this?

Food wasting and food loss is a global problem. Food wasting is due to people purchasing more than they can eat, which usually happens in developed countries.



Vietnam is doing very well on the consumer side. The people are not wasting food. The challenge is more around food loss, which occurs on the production side, for example due to pests, insects, diseases of plants, and challenges in transportation and distribution so that the crops may not arrive to market in high-quality condition.

At the moment in Vietnam there are still some remote and mountainous areas where people are malnourished. All the while, Vietnam is suffering from food loss. How can the country alleviate this problem and improve nutrition and food security?

First of all, I would like to recognise that Vietnam has had tremendous success over the last several years in increasing the nutritional status of its people. Its very clear that micronutrient deficiency has declined. A lot of that is due to enhancement in infrastructure, better roadways for example, and supplementation, for example providing Vitamin A supplement to children and mothers. And a big part of the improvement is due to the increased efficiency of agriculture thanks to innovations.

That being said, there is still room for improvement. And Vietnam is also facing challenges, the most significant of which is climate change. The country is at risk of flooding in some regions, and droughts in others. Part of the solution is working closely with farmers and a variety of stakeholders, including institutes and universities, to ensure that farmers help scientists and the public understand that innovation in agriculture is essential.

Which Monsanto technologies could help Vietnam?

Were working with farmers and many key stakeholders to ensure everyone has access to balanced meals through the increased availability of better crops and animal source foods (meat, milk, and fish).

To enable sustainable food security, Monsanto is striving to equip farmers with innovative and sustainable food production systems like breeding, biotechnology, crop protection solutions, and data-driven services. These can help farmers improve productivity on their land while conserving scarce natural resources.

Of these Im most excited about the digital solutions. Monsanto is engaged in a concept known as precision agriculture, or climate-smart agriculture, where farmers can use hardware to gather info from the soil and use software on their mobile phones to work with data from the soil and environment. This will help them make more effective and efficient decisions, saving time and money while bringing better yields.

Overall, Monsantos solutions will help Vietnam not only to grow enough food to feed people here but also to export. Were not just talking about food security but also economic viability.

The digital solutions you just mentioned seem really new. What is the state of adoption of these solutions?

Its spreading. At the moment millions of farmers all over the world are using our solutions, with the biggest number in India. Vietnamese farmers are eager to try new practices, so Vietnam is well-poised to be a leader in this area.

The solutions will surely help farmers produce more, but how will they help achieve sustainability?

Farmers all over the world are farming on an area approximately the size of South America. In the next few decades there will be an additional three billion people on this planet. How do we ensure there is enough food for all?

There are two solutions: one is to farm an additional South America. That means deforestation and using precious lands full of biodiversity. Nobody advocates for that.

The other, better solution is to intensify sustainability, using innovation and technology.

Over the last 20 years, arable land has collectively remained constant. With more people coming into the population, farmers have been very good farming the same amount of land.

Better seeds, better tools that can protect crops such as pesticides, and digital tools  all of these combined are how we achieve sustainability.
Sato Yoshio, head of the Hiroshima department of commerce, industry and labour, said Hiroshima has strengths in environmental treatment solutions and expects to form connection with Mekong Delta provinces having demand in the field.



The Japanese side proposed coordinating with the committee, Soc Trang province and Can Tho city in organising a business connectivity conference in September this year.



The conference will introduce Hiroshimas technologies in water purification, seawater desalination, and solid and liquid waste treatment, among others.



Vice Chairman of the Can Tho Peoples Committee Dao Anh Dung said the treatment of waste water in raising tra fish and waste in pig farms are priorities of his locality.



Urban mud and waste treatment technologies are also needed, he added.



In June this year, a delegation of representatives from the steering committee, Can Tho and Soc Trang authorities will visit environmental treatment facilities in Hiroshima.
A copy of the Brexit Article 50 bill introduced by the government to seek parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in front of the Houses of Parliament in London. (photo source: REUTERS/Toby Melville)

The House of Lords rejected a last-ditch attempt to amend a bill empowering May to begin Brexit, paving the way for it to become law as early as Tuesday.

The prime minister could then trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty at any time, starting two years of talks that will end with Britain becoming the first country to leave the bloc.

May's spokesman sought to play down speculation that she would send her notification letter to the European Council on Tuesday, when the bill is expected to receive royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II.

"We have been clear that the prime minister will trigger Article 50 by the end of March," her spokesman said ahead of the vote, heavily emphasising the word "end".

But the prospect of an imminent start to Brexit was enough to push the nationalist devolved government in Scotland into calling for a new independence referendum.

May has said Britain will leave Europe's single market in order to cut immigration, a move that the Scottish National Party (SNP) in power in Edinburgh has warned would be highly damaging to jobs and growth.

SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said since the June referendum vote for Brexit that Scotland, where a majority wanted to stay in the EU, sought a different future.

On Monday, she made good on her warning, promising to give Scotland "a choice at the end of this process" by early 2019 - before Britain leaves the EU.

The European Commission, however, quickly responded saying that Scotland would have to reapply to join the EU rather than inheriting Britain's membership.

COUNTDOWN TO BREXIT

May has the power to block the vote and said that another referendum, after Scots voted by 55 per cent to reject independence in 2014, would only cause "uncertainty and division".

But Sturgeon's call pushes to centre stage one of the prime minister's biggest concerns about Brexit - that it could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom - as she prepares to fire the starting gun.

The other 27 European leaders are prepared for Britain to trigger Article 50, which begins a two-year countdown to Brexit, this week.

However, speculation is growing that it may now be delayed until after a Mar 25 summit in Rome to mark the EU's 60th birthday - timing that would likely be welcomed in Brussels.

Once May has notified the EU of her decision by letter, the bloc will take just 48 hours to issue its first draft proposal for the negotiations, with a follow-up meeting planned on Apr 6.

The actual talks are not expected to begin for months.

The bill empowering May to begin Brexit was forced on the government by a Supreme Court ruling and was held up when the House of Lords voted for amendments demanding guarantees for EU nationals' rights and a parliamentary vote on the final withdrawal deal.

Brexit minister David Davis successfully urged MPs to overturn the changes earlier Monday, saying: "We will not enter the negotiations with our hands tied."

The House of Lords then conceded, passing the bill unamended late on Monday.

'SHAME ON YOU'

The Lords amendment demanding protections for more than three million Europeans living in Britain was defeated by 335 votes to 287 by MPs - prompting shouts of "shame on you" from protesters outside.

Around 150 people had gathered to urge MPs to back the change, including Karin Templin, a 39-year-old architect who was born in the US but is now British.

"I'm appalled at the UK government, at this stupid ridiculous game that means they won't guarantee the rights of everybody who wants to stay in their home and in their jobs. I'm disgusted," she said.

May's government says it wants to guarantee Europeans' rights to stay in Britain, but cannot until EU leaders offer similar rights to British expatriates.

The other amendment that was overturned would have given parliament the right to decide whether to accept the final Brexit deal.

May has promised lawmakers a vote on the deal but only if she accepts it - insisting her ability to walk away will strengthen her hand in negotiations.
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson (C) gives a press conference asking a federal judge to block US President Donald Trump's revised travel ban by affirming an order blocking the first ban, in Seattle, Washington. (AFP/Jason Redmond)

The state of Washington filed a request to this effect with the same Seattle judge who on Feb 3 issued a stay against Trump's first executive order on immigration.

Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson hopes to win the same kind of suspension for the new order, which the White House tweaked in a bid to make it unassailable in court.

Under the new order, the refugee programme would be suspended for 120 days. And for 90 days, no new visas would be granted to travellers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The first version of the order, signed by Trump on Jan 27, triggered howls of protest at home and abroad as well as chaos at US airports as some people were detained upon arrival and either held for hours or sent back where they came from.

The revamped travel ban explicitly exempts holders of valid visas or legal permanent residents, as well as citizens of Iraq.

Critics say the new order is still essentially a ban on Muslims coming to the United States and therefore unconstitutional because it singles out people of a certain religion for discrimination.

In his filing with Judge James Robart, Ferguson requested an emergency hearing for Tuesday. He accused the government of trying to skirt around the court's first ruling, which suspended the Trump administration's initial travel order.

"When a court enjoins a defendant from enforcing policies, the defendant cannot evade the injunction by announcing that it will continue only some of the illegal policies. Yet that is what defendants attempt here," Ferguson wrote.

Robart said there would be no hearing before Wednesday and asked the Justice Department for a response to Ferguson's motion.

California said it would join the suit filed by Washington. It also has the support of Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Oregon.

"The Trump administration may have changed the text of the now-discredited Muslim travel ban, but they didnt change its unconstitutional intent and effect," said California attorney general Xavier Becerra.

Hawaii has also filed suit against the new order, as have rights groups and immigrant advocacy associations, which filed papers with a judge in Maryland.

Federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland have already scheduled hearings for Wednesday in the latest chapter of the uproar over a measure that Trump says is necessary to keep extremists from entering the United States.

The new order hit its first roadblock Friday when a judge in Wisconsin said it could not be applied to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee who had already reached America.
The meeting was inspired by the co-operation among the Viet NamSingapore Friendship Association, the Vietnamese Embassy in Singapore and the Vietnamese Entrepreneurs Club under the Vietnamese Association of SMEs.

At the conference, Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Nguyen Tien Minh highlighted the presence of Vietnamese SMEs participating in the event for the first time, which he said indicated their ability to take advantage of opportunities overseas. Through Singapore, Vietnamese firms can better serve the regional and global market, especially Europe, a significant trade partner for both Viet Nam and Singapore, Minh said.

The diplomat also said the relationship between the two countries had grown rapidly over the past few years in all fields of co-operation such as economics, defence, education and training and citizen exchange. Singapore is currently the third-largest foreign investor and the leading ASEAN investor in Viet Nam, with over US$38 billion invested in more than 1,600 Vietnamese projects related to the processing, technology, manufacturing and real estate, as well as construction, transportation and logistics industries. In addition, Singapore is Viet Nams 12th largest trading partner, with bilateral trade doubling over the last decade to reach nearly $16 billion last year.

Singapore Business Federation (SBF) representative Thian Tai Chew told reporters that the latest survey found the ASEAN was the top region where Singaporean businesses wanted to expand their investments, while Viet Nam ranked third amongst the Southeast Asian countries for targeted investment.

He also confirmed that more than 24,000 SBF members, mostly SMEs, were interested in Viet Nams market, typically in the food, retail, e-commerce and supply chain space, as well as infrastructure and urban development. Singaporean SMEs shine in these sectors, and they want to share their experiences with their Vietnamese partners.

Besides providing information on investment and the business environment in Singapore, the conference also gave Vietnamese firms answers to their questions and granted them the opportunity to network and form alliances for co-operative projects or to expand their exports in the near future.

Recent high-ranking visits between the two countries have developed bilateral relations, promising to open new opportunities for both sides enterprises to foster trade and investment links.

The upcoming visit to Viet Nam by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the end of March is expected to promote co-ordination in a variety of areas, especially in the exchange of citizens.
Members of the Krewe of Zulu hold painted coconuts to give to parade-goers, as they march during Mardi Gras in New Orleans on March 4. A social media picture of a white woman wearing blackface makeup, traditional garb of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, has sparked a debate about race and Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
With technology becoming more and more a part of our lives, it was only a matter of time before it started to impact the way 
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North Korea lashes out as a U.S. aircraft carrier joins South Korean drills. Myanmar rejects a request for an inquiry over alleged Rohingya abuse. Plus, a former Filipino death squad member says he wants to take his president to the International Criminal Court. VOAs Steve Miller reports.
The premiere here last month of the Angelina Jolie-directed drama about a young girl growing up under the totalitarian Khmer Rouge regime was the first time Cambodians had seen a major, American-made screen production in their native language.

Jolie, best known as an actress, has said it was a goal of hers to produce the film, First They Killed My Father, in the Khmer language, which will expose an international audience to Khmer.

The film made its debut in Cambodia with recent screenings in the towns of Siem Reap, Battambang and Phnom Penh. It is scheduled to be released worldwide in September on Netflix.

Native Khmer speakers and language experts say the high-profile stage that Khmer, the language of Cambodia, will be getting globally on Netflix later this year could contribute towards a revival of the language in academia and popular culture.

Rim Tith Panha, 21, a student of Khmer language and literature at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, says that Khmer remains an unpopular subject among his peers, who he says think it only involves learning how to read and write.

I want to conserve Khmer identity and culture, which could possibly be lost one day if no-one cares to promote it, he says.

In the Internet age of instant gratification, Rim Tith Panha worries that an already sparse Khmer literary tradition will be lost in the social media revolution.

Its quicker and simpler to write Khmer in romanized script when chatting on Facebook with friends, he admits, which could lead to a wider decay of Khmer literacy and proper use of the language.

The need for more students with advanced scientific and technical skills is also eclipsing interest in the humanities and social sciences, says Sek Non, a Khmer teacher at Kampong Thoms Hun Sen Krova high school.

Sen Non, who won a government award last year for excellence in his field, says students see that they can earn more money in science and engineering. He emphasized, though, that it was too early to suggest that there was a crisis in the Khmer language.

Cambodians still mainly use the Khmer language, [and will continue to] not only for the next 10 or 20 years, but for hundreds of years, he said. He acknowledged that interest in the language generally is 'limited.'

The Khmer script is widely regarded as the largest alphabet in the world, with 74 characters. (Other languages, such as Mandarin, which have thousands of ideographic characters, are not considered alphabets.) Khmer is an Austroasiatic language spoken by an estimated 20 million people worldwide, a relatively small language group when compared to the worlds major languages, such as Spanish, Mandarin, English or Arabic.



Dr. Sok Soth, who holds a Ph.D in applied linguistics from Victoria University, Melbourne, is optimistic about the future of the Khmer language, which he claims is on the rise.



Over the last five years, Soth says the language has gained the attention of numerous scholars and researchers.



Many new words have been created, especially in the law subjects. The press also pays more attention to spelling. Among scholars and researchers, we can see that they turn to use the national language and pay more attention to it, he says.



Even though theres not much to show for it yet, its on peoples minds now.



With the rise of technology, Soth would like to see digital dictionaries playing a vital role in the promotion of Khmer and improving its accuracy.



He says many new words are being created, but they are often vaguely defined and this could lead to the language being manipulated.



Newer words are often more literal than those invented by older generations, he says. He cites the Khmer word for calculator, which literally means calculate machine, whereas the word for television, created by an older generation of linguists, combines the words for vision and from a distance, or distant vision.





As a means to help revitalize the language, Soth suggested that the government could promote projects and writing competitions. Writing, poetry and literary competitions should be arranged again, because when novels and poems are used, interest in the language also rises.



Som Srey Oun, another RUPP Khmer student, says spelling is the most challenging aspect of modern Khmer, as there are numerous inconsistencies and debates over how words are spelled correctly.



Even if you look at [government] documents, which are proofread by a lot of experts, you still notice mistakes, she said.



Chan Samnop, president of the National Council of Khmer Language at the Council of Ministers, said many people had raised concerns with his office about the state of Khmer.



But despite the concerns, he believes the language is also on the rise. By 2021, he adds, a working group will be formed with the task of creating a new Khmer dictionary, which will make the language even more prosperous.



The spelling issues will be solved ... when we have a main reference document, he says. The new dictionary will be based on a dictionary from the 1950s, and will be followed by an official grammar book if there are the resources to dedicate to the project.





Samnop says the framework for updating the Khmer language is already in place. The mechanism for correcting spelling in formal documents, as well as improving the education system, are mechanisms which we have been using to ensure that the Khmer language is still good and strong, he says. So we should not be too concerned.



Hang Choun Naron, Minister of Education, said promoting literacy was a central strategy of his ministry.



If you cant read, you cant learn anything else. Reading is a strong foundation. We try to promote it from grade 1 and 2. We plan to honor the five best teachers. We also promote writing skills, he said.



Professor Teri Yamada, chair of the Department of Asian and Asian-American Studies at California State University in Long Beach, sees a lack of support for creative writing in Cambodian schools.





Writing Khmer wellin clear and descriptive sentences with a storyline other than for passing testsis not a high priority in the public schools, she said.



He told VOA Khmer in an email that supporting writers who want to publish was also a high priority.



If the government were serious about supporting Khmer language and literature they would need to establish publication support for new writers, she said.



Despite the language getting more exposure through the Netflix release of First They Killed My Father, Yamada thinks the impact will be limited.



It is, however, a visual text, not a book that one sits down to read, she wrote.
While Peru is best known for the ancient Inca city, Machu Picchu, for certain aspiring entrepreneurs, its also home to innovative, social enterprises. But doing good isnt always enough when it comes to launching a startup in developing nations like Peru. VOA reporter Tina Trinh met with entrepreneurs who say they had to overcome their misconceptions of poverty.
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Victims of stroke often face years of grueling, physical therapy, if they can even find a qualified therapist. Now a Portuguese inventor has created a computer program that delivers high quality, monitored therapy, and its just a mouse click away. Faith Lapidus narrates this report from Kevin Enochs.
It is a year since the European Union signed a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants into Greece, in return for $6 billion in aid. Numbers arriving on Greek shores have fallen by over 90 percent, but aid agencies say the figures disguise the hardship still being felt by thousands stuck in camps or unable to find safety. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.
Seven staff members for U.S.-based Christian humanitarian aid organization Samaritans Purse were released from their detention by "armed personnel" Tuesday in South Sudans famine- stricken area of Mayendit, and have been flown from Unity State to a safe location.



Samaritans Purse vice president of programs and government relations Ken Isaacs says local officials arrested them Monday.



So I think there was some local dynamic involved, and we do not have all the those details right now, but what I can tell you very happily is that all of the staff has been released, and they are safe, that bit we know. But they have been released, said Isaacs.



Isaacs says opposition forces and those loyal to the government warned his organization two weeks ago they were preparing to fight, so Samaritans Purse then evacuated between 12 and 15 foreign and South Sudanese aid workers who were not from Mayendit.



A request for response was not immediately returned from South Sudans information minister.



Detention vs kidnapping



Isaacs also clarifies that despite prior reports to the contrary, the situation was a detention and not a kidnapping.



They were clearly held against their will, but we do not see it as a kidnapping. There was no ransom request made on us, said Isaacs.



Samaritans Purse has been working with the World Food Program to distribute food in Mayendit for more than two years. And Isaacs says they plan to return.

Oh, absolutely, yeah, we will go back, but we have got to have, we have got to work our way through it, and talk to the parties involved; we need some assurances that there is going to be civil behavior. And this war, and this factionalism, this tribalism that is going on in South Sudan, is incredibly destructive. And there is going to be no winners, there is only going to be more losers and more suffering, and more death, he said.



The United Nations and the government of South Sudan say famine in two counties of Unity State, Mayendit and Leer, is affecting more than 100,000 people and warn it could spread further. Roughly half of South Sudans population is projected to be severely food insecure by July.



South Sudans government recently stated it would increase the work permit fee from $100 to $10,000 for each foreign aid worker.



South Sudan has become Africas biggest migrant crisis, as an estimated 1.5 million people have fled to neighboring countries. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since civil war broke out in December 2013.


Hyderabad, March 13 (IANS) Two construction labourers were killed and four injured when a wall of an under construction building collapsed here on Monday.The incident occurred in Madhapur, the information technology hub. Police said the workers were buried under the debris of a wall, which suddenly caved in.Two labourers, both women, were killed.Rescue workers pulled out four labourers alive. They were shifted to a hospital, where the condition of two of them was stated to be critical.
Airline industry group IATA said it remains concerned about protectionist rhetoric from the United States and other governments, but also sees the new U.S. administration's plans to invest in infrastructure as positive for the industry.

IATA's Director General Alexandre de Juniac told reporters in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday that the group had recently held a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which he described as "positive". However, he also said the group was "heavily concerned" about plans by governments "to raise barriers on borders for trade and for travel."

He did not say when the meeting took place.

"It was the opportunity for us to meet the new administration, to express our view and to understand what the new administration had in mind for aviation," de Juniac said, adding that U.S. plans looked positive in terms of investment in infrastructure and regulation.

IATA and its members were critical of President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order that blocked refugees and nationals of seven Muslim majority countries from traveling to the United States.

Many in the industry have said the ban was rolled out haphazardly without clear communication, causing chaos and confusion at airports globally. The Trump administration's revised travel ban is due to come into effect on Thursday.

As well as in the United States, IATA is still concerned about "significant" protectionist rhetoric in Europe and other parts of the world, although it would take time before protectionist measures are felt in the industry, De Juniac said.

This year has started off better than expected, he said.

Passenger demand reached a five-year high in January.

However, IATA said in December that it expects profit in the airline industry to fall this year after a five-year rally and de Juniac said that view remained unchanged.
Brazil's former president denied in court on Tuesday that he was part of a plot to impede a massive corruption probe and likened the barrage of media attention surrounding the charges against him to a "massacre."

Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is accused, along with several others, of plotting to buy off or otherwise prevent a former state oil company executive from revealing what he knew. Silva testified that he even didn't know the former Petrobras director, Nestor Cervero, and never had contact with him.

"I have absolutely no reason to have any problem with the testimony of Cervero," Silva said, according to a video provided by the court. "No reason at all. I don't know [him]."

State oil giant Petrobras is at the center of a wide-ranging investigation into kickbacks and inflated contracts at state companies. The probe has ensnared scores of high-level politicians and executives. Cervero was convicted in connection with the probe and is cooperating with prosecutors.

At the beginning of nearly an hour of testimony, Silva was asked if he was familiar with the accusations against him and whether they were true. He responded: "The information is false."

Silva, who was president from 2003 to 2010, is also facing charges in a handful of other cases linked to the probe. He has maintained his innocence in all of them, saying the allegations are politically motivated. Despite these legal challenges, Silva is leading some polls for next year's presidential election.

The former president occasionally appeared emotional, frustrated or even angry during Tuesday's testimony, during which he described the difficulty of seeing headlines every day claiming that some businessman or politician was going to level a new accusation against him.

"For about three years now, I have been the victim of, I would say, almost a massacre," he said.

Silva, a union leader turned politician, testified that he was exceptionally careful during his eight years in office to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, saying he skipped dinners, birthday parties and weddings, so he wouldn't find himself in a situation where someone might ask a favor.

The Petrobras probe has grown into the biggest graft investigation in Brazil's history and has shocked even the most cynical of Brazilians for the scale of corruption it has revealed.

On Tuesday, as part of an investigation connected with the probe, federal police arrested two Rio de Janeiro state officials on charges of money laundering and accepting bribes in exchange for contracts for a subway line for the 2016 Olympic Games.

The two arrested were Luiz Carlos Velloso, the state's undersecretary for tourism and former deputy secretary of transportation, and Heitor Lopes de Souza, a director for Rio's subway operator.
Britain will host top officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan to discuss Afghan and regional security and try to resolve Kabuls current political tensions with Islamabad.

British National Security Advisor Mark Lyall Grant, his Afghan counterpart Haneef Atmar, and Pakistani foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz, will lead their respective delegations Wednesday at the trilateral meeting.

Border issues



The meeting is taking place at a time when Pakistan has closed its border with landlocked Afghanistan in response to a string of deadly suicide bombings in the country last month.

Islamabad alleges anti-state militants orchestrated the violence from their hideouts on the Afghan side of the border.

Last week Islamabad opened the border for only two days to allow tens of thousands of stranded Afghans to return to their country.

Afghanistan depends on Pakistani sea ports for trade, which is considered the war-torn countrys economic lifeline. The border closure has stranded thousands of containers after having left Pakistans southern Karachi port on the Arabian Sea.

Security along border



Pakistani authorities want their Afghan counterparts to boost security on the 2,600 kilometer frontier before the traffic is restored. Islamabad has also handed over a list of 76 fugitive militants to Kabul, saying they are sheltering on Afghan soil and want their extradition.

But the Afghan government in response gave Islamabad its own list of dozens of militants and 32 training centers in Pakistan, alleging they are behind years of insurgent violence in Afghanistan.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to address parliament Tuesday, a day after lawmakers gave her approval to begin Britain's exit from the European Union.

May is still awaiting one final step, the consent of Queen Elizabeth, but that could come as early as Tuesday.After that she will be free to formally notify the EU she is triggering Article 50 of the bloc's treaty, which covers how a member can withdraw.

A May spokesman said Monday that she is not likely to make that move until the end of this month.The exit process is expected to take about two years as British and EU officials negotiate exactly how to unwind the governmental and economic partnerships that come with EU membership.

Annmarie Elijah, associate director of Australian National University's Center for European Studies, says the two sides have a host of issues to work out now that the process is moving from theoretical to practical, including what happens to EU nationals living in Britain.

"The EU Council President Donald Tusk has already indicated that the EU will respond quite quickly once the UK government formally triggers Article 50," Elijah told VOA."And most people think that the process from here on in will involve a formal convening of the European Council once more in order to set forward with the negotiating mandate and so on."

The breakup began with a June 2016 referendum in which British voters narrowly chose to leave the EU.The vote appeared to be driven by anti-establishment sentiments and the feeling the EU governing structure has taken too much control away from the common British citizen.

The referendum also brought the resignation of former Prime Minister David Cameron, who during a re-election campaign had promised to hold the vote.
Health experts say more than 700 people have died of malaria so far this year in Burundi, prompting the government to declare the disease an epidemic.



The determination was based on findings of a survey by Burundian and World Health Organization experts, said Josiane Nijimbere, Burundis Minister of Health.



She said there have been 1.8 million cases of malaria registered since the beginning of the year  a huge number in a country with a population of less than 11 million.



The minister attributed the increase of malaria partly to climate change.



There is a strong association between malaria and warm temperatures, which have led to significant increase in malaria cases because of the spread of mosquitoes, Nijimbere told reporters Monday.



According to the World Health Organization, some 8.2 million Burundians  73 percent of the total population  were affected by malaria in 2016. More than 3,800 died.



The health minister said government is dispatching doctors and health care providers to villages to care for patients who cannot afford to go to hospitals.



The government says it needs at least $31 million to fight the epidemic.



Aid agencies have warned that Burundis ongoing political crisis is hurting the economy and contributing to a humanitarian crisis.



The small African country has been in turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a controversial third term in 2015. Some 400,000 Burundians have fled to neighboring countries to escape political violence and reported human rights abuses.



A U.N. report last month said the number of people in need of assistance increased from 1.1 million to at least 3 million.
China's property sales surged in the first two months of the year despite government measures to cool the market, though growth in real estate investment showed signs of easing, according to official data on Tuesday.

Property sales by area rose 25.1 percent year-on-year in January and February.

That was above the 22.5 percent annual gain in 2016, which was the strongest annual growth in seven years thanks to a property boom in top-tier cities.

It was also a marked surge from December, when property sales by area rose 11.8 percent from a year earlier, according to Reuters' calculations.

After sharp home price rises last year, China's policymakers have started to worry about overheating in the property market and the risk of a sudden and sharp correction that would knock the economy.

Many local governments in cities which have seen the sharpest price rises have rolled out a series of restrictions in the past few months on buying and ownership.

The property readings were part of a raft of data released by China on Tuesday which showed the broader economy remained on a solid growth path early in the year.

Real estate investment grew 8.9 percent in the first two months of 2017 from the same period a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

That compares with 11.1 percent in December alone, according to Reuters' calculations, and 6.9 percent in all of 2016.

Real estate investment directly affects about 40 other business sectors in China, and is considered to be a crucial driver for the world's second-largest economy.

Central bank data last week showed household loans, mostly mortgages, accounted for 25.7 percent of new loans in February, down from 37 percent in January and 50 percent in 2016, adding to signs of cooling in the housing sector.

China's banking regulator and central bank have told banks to curtail new mortgage lending, state-owned newspaper Economic Information Daily reported on Monday, citing unnamed banking sources.

Government curbs

A Reuters poll in February showed that China's housing price growth is expected to slow significantly this year due to continuing government curbs and tighter credit conditions, dampening land sales and dragging property investment growth to a median 3 percent in 2017.

China is looking to keep the property market stable this year after prices of new homes soared 12.4 percent last year, the most since 2011.

Analysts believe authorities will continue to tighten restrictions introduced last year to cool the hottest property markets.

But property speculators are betting the government will relent and ease curbs if economic growth begins to falter, as many analysts expect.

New construction starts, a telling figure of property developers' confidence in the market, were up 10.4 percent in January-February from a year ago, compared with the 8.1 percent annual gain in 2016, the NBS data showed.

But the pace of new starts did moderate slightly from a jump 12.5 percent in December, Reuters calculations showed.

China is aiming for economic growth of around 6.5 percent in 2017, a more modest target than seen in the previous year, Premier Li Keqiang said at the opening of the annual meeting of parliament last week.

That should give policymakers more room to tackle financial risks and prevent asset bubbles.

Li also said that China will continue to implement city-based policy to reduce real estate inventories, mainly in smaller third- and fourth-tier cities where a huge overhang of unsold homes has kept prices far more subdued.

Growth in inventory floor area over the two months period was 4.6 percent lower than one year earlier. The inventory floor area of commercial housing fell 3.2 percent last year.

Housing minister Chen Zhenggao said on the sidelines of the parliament meeting that he was "fully confident" of the outlook for the property market, amid strong economic fundamentals and continuing urbanization.
Lawyers with groups involved in lawsuits seeking to forestall President Donald Trump's orders to limit travelers and refugees coming to the United States said they are watching federal court hearings scheduled Wednesday in Maryland, Hawaii and Washington state for any decisions that could affect the implementation Thursday of the most recent travel order.

Three federal appeals judges last month upheld a Washington state ruling that suspended the first travel order, issued January 27, a week after Trumps inauguration. The revised version released last week attempts to bypass the lawsuits, protests and frenzied roll-out of the first order.

The most recent travel-related executive order, issued by Trump on March 6, barred visas to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days and all refugee admissions for 120 days, beginning March 16, with the government citing national security concerns.

Opponents to the order - which will affect the six predominantly Muslim countries and a refugee population awaiting resettlement that includes many Muslims - maintain that the second order is as religiously discriminatory and unconstitutional as the first, and plan to continue legal challenges to the presidents policies.

"No matter how far President Trump tries to run away from his initial statements that this was a ban on Muslims and discrimination against Muslims, he can't erase where this order originated -- in an effort to discriminate against Muslims on the basis of their religion," said Cecillia Wang, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, on a call with reporters Tuesday.

At various times while campaigning for president, Trump made sweeping statements calling to bar refugees and Muslims from entering the United States.

The White House denies that the order targets Muslims.

Because of the 10-day advance notice, rather than immediate implementation, chaotic airport disruptions are not expected if the order takes effect Thursday.

Mark Doss, a lawyer with the International Refugee Assistance Project, said attorneys will be ready to respond at airports Thursday in case there are any issues."
Dave Franco and former "Mad Men'' star Alison Brie have gotten married.

Franco's publicist has confirmed a People magazine report that the pair wed. No details were released on where or when the ceremony took place.



Franco and Brie announced their engagement in August 2015, after three years of dating.



The 31-year-old Franco is best known for his roles in the "Neighbors" and "21 Jump Street'' films.



Brie is 34 and starred as Trudy Campbell on "Mad Men.'' She also played Annie Edison on "Community.''



Franco and Brie appear together in "The Disaster Artist,'' which stars and is directed by Franco's older brother, James. It premiered over the weekend at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Texas.
The worst drought in five years has pushed 900,000 people in Sri Lanka into acute food insecurity, the World Food Program (WFP) says.

An unpublished survey conducted by government agencies and relief organizations in February found that both food insecurity and debt were rising sharply among families hit by drought, the WFP office in Sri Lanka confirmed to Reuters.

The country's rice harvest could be the worst in 40 years, charity Save the Children predicted. The just-completed harvest was 63 percent below normal, it said.

The survey found that over one-third of the drought-affected households had seen their income drop by half since September, and 60 percent of the households surveyed were in debt.

The average amount of debt was about 180,000 Sri Lankan rupees, or $1,200, WFP said.

The survey findings are expected to be formally released later this month.

Sri Lanka's government said over 1.2 million people have been affected by the country's current drought, which began last November and continues despite some occasional rainfall over the last two months.

Save the Children estimates that over 600,000 of those affected  two-thirds of the total  are children.

The Western and Northern Provinces have been worst hit, with over 400,000 people struggling with drought in each province.

Rice harvest halved

Government and WFP assessments suggest Sri Lanka's 2017 rice harvest could be less than half the 3 million metric tons recorded last year.

The government has already taken steps to increase rice imports to stave off shortages, Disaster Management Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said.

"We have a shortfall in the rice harvest. We have been taking action to prevent any shortfalls and will allow for tax-free rice imports until the harvest recovers," he said.

Worst-affected by the drought have been farmers and those relying on agricultural work for income. The joint WFP and government survey indicated that one out of five farmers and one out of four farm laborers is now classified as food insecure in the drought region.

Preliminary data in the survey also indicated that female-headed households in drought areas were faring worse than others, with almost 20 percent reporting "poor" to "borderline" ability to access enough food as a result of the drought.

Yapa said that the government was devising a plan to help those affected and "we will begin cash assistance very soon."

The initial plan is to provide 500,000 persons with cash assistance, he said. The government has so far set aside 8 billion rupees ($52 million) for cash-for-work programs in drought-hit areas.

Over 50 million rupees ($300,000) has been allocated to distribute water to affected populations in 22 of the island's 25 districts, he said.

The drought is expected to continue into April, according to seasonal forecasting by the Meteorological Department.

"The big rains will come with the next monsoon," which is expected to arrive in late May, said Lalith Chandrapala, director general of the Meteorological Department.
2 Father of Mahmoud Hassan waits for his sons release. With his hand on his heart, he says I really dont know what Im going to do when I see my son. He is innocent. Its Gods will. Hassan spent three years in jail as part of a 15-year prison term. Hes getting released under a presidential pardon, Tora prison, Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (H. Elrasam/VOA)
Companies may bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions, the European Union's top court ruled on Tuesday, setting off a storm of complaint from rights groups and religious leaders.

In its first ruling on a hot political issue across Europe, the Court of Justice (ECJ) found a Belgian firm which had a rule barring employees who dealt with customers from wearing visible religious and political symbols may not have discriminated against a receptionist dismissed for wearing a headscarf.

The judgment on that and a French case came on the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration is a key issue and weeks before France votes for a president in a similarly charged campaign. French conservative candidate Francois Fillon hailed the ruling as "an immense relief" that would contribute to "social peace".

But a campaign group backing the women said the ruling could shut many Muslim women out of the workforce. And European rabbis said the Court had added to rising incidences of hate crime to send a message that "faith communities are no longer welcome".

The judges in Luxembourg did find that the dismissals of the two women may, depending on the view of national courts, have breached EU laws against religious discrimination. They found in particular that the case of the French software engineer, fired after a customer complaint, may well have been discriminatory.

Reactions, however, focused on the conclusion that services firm G4S in Belgium was entitled to dismiss receptionist Samira Achbita in 2006 if, in pursuit of legitimate business interests, it fairly applied a broad dress code for all customer-facing staff to project an image of political and religious neutrality.

'Backdoor to prejudice'

The Open Society Justice Initiative, a group backed by the philanthropist George Soros, said the ruling "weakens the guarantee of equality" offered by EU non-discrimination laws.

"In many member states, national laws will still recognize that banning religious headscarves at work is discrimination," policy office Maryam Hmadoun said.

"But in places where national law is weak, this ruling will exclude many Muslim women from the workplace."

Amnesty International welcomed the ruling on the French case that "employers are not at liberty to pander to the prejudices of their clients". But, it said, bans on religious symbols to show neutrality opened "a backdoor to precisely such prejudice".

The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, complained: "This decision sends a signal to all religious groups in Europe". National court cases across Europe have included questions on the wearing of Christian crosses, Sikh turbans and Jewish skullcaps.

In the Belgian case, the ECJ said: "An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination."

It was for Belgian judges to determine whether she may have been a victim of indirect discrimination if the rule put people of a particular faith at a disadvantage. But the rule could still be justified if it was "genuinely pursued in a consistent and systematic manner" to project an "image of neutrality".

However, in the case of Asma Bougnaoui, dismissed by French software company Micropole, it said it was up to French courts to determine whether there was such a rule. If her dismissal was based only on meeting the particular customer's preference, it saw "only very limited circumstances" in which a religious symbol could be objectively taken as reason for her not to work.
It's been a year since the European Union signed a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants from the Mideast and Asia into Greece, in return for $6 billion in aid. On the surface, the deal appears a success, as the numbers arriving on Greek shores have fallen by over 90 percent.

But aid agencies say the figures disguise the hardship still being felt by 60,000 migrants stuck in camps or unable to find safety as the borders through the Balkans to Western Europe remain closed.

Aid groups accuse the European Union of abandoning its responsibilities.

"Certainly, when we are on the ground treating the patients, and we are seeing the suffering that is a consequence of the EU-Turkey deal, we can not say that that is a success," said Declan Barry of Doctors Without Borders, who spoke to VOA via Skype from Brussels. "In human terms, it is a failure. When these refugees are detained and held in camps, we are seeing an awful lot more people with profound mental health disorders, and that includes psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, a lot of anxiety and depression."

But European Union officials say hundreds of lives have been saved by breaking up the people-smuggling gangs.

Manageable influx

EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said results of the deal with Turkey were positive; the numbers have fallen dramatically compared with a year ago, when 10,000 people passed through Turkey onto European soil. He said the numbers had fallen to 60 people per day, a manageable figure.

Avramopoulos called on EU states to speed up the relocation of asylum-seekers. France signed a deal Tuesday to take in 500 Syrian refugees from Lebanon. It is hoped offering safe passage will ease the pressure on Europe's borders.

Valerie Regnier of the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Christian group that is taking part in the resettlement, said it is possible to offer an alternative to the deadly trip through the Mediterranean by taking these people away from human traffickers.

Meanwhile, Turkey's foreign minister has warned the migrant deal is at risk as the European Union has delayed giving Turkish citizens visa-free travel, a key part of the agreement. Brussels wants Ankara to first modify its strict anti-terror laws.
The U.S. has been relying on Pakistan as an ally in the war on terror in the region and has provided the country with billions of dollars in aid over the last 15 years.

But American military and diplomatic officials have time and again expressed concerns about Pakistan's inability or unwillingness to crack down on terrorists and extremists that are based in the country.

As the new U.S. administration is positioning itself to address some of the pressing foreign policy challenges in the region, experts offer mixed recommendations as to what approach the new administration should pursue in its relations with Pakistan.

People are much smarter about what the region needs, the challenges, where the policy works and where it doesnt, said Shamila Chaudhary, Senior Advisor to the Dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

We actually have built a pretty significant infrastructure to address what the problems are. What we don't have are any answers, and that's what I think we need to focus on when we talk about a review, she added while speaking at a panel discussion on U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Last 10 years a failure?

Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argued that U.S. policy toward Pakistan in the last 10 years has been a failure.

I would propose that as a starting point, we do look at the failure of our Pakistan policy over the last 10 years, Curtis said. I would say that we need a clear eyed approach on just how detrimental Pakistan's continued support has been to fundamental U.S. national security interests.

She added, 15 years later we still have Taliban and the Haqqani network sanctuaries inside Pakistan."

Former U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel Feldman pushed back against Curtis' analysis.

I tend to disagree with Lisa's analysis about it [U.S. policy] being purely a failure. What I believe is that there are many equities that we have with the U.S. Pakistan relationship, all of which we have tried to address in some way or another, Feldman said. Certainly over the tenure of the Obama administration we had highs of significant bilateral cooperation relationship with the strategic dialogue, with assistance and we also had lows.

Cutting aid did not work

Feldman added that at times the U.S. has gone as far as cutting all assistance to Pakistan, and none of those measures necessarily produced a result in which the U.S. has been able to influence or change Pakistan's core strategic calculus.

John Gill an associate professor at the National Defense University, argued that a review should not mean starting all over again.

It makes a lot of sense to have a new review, but that does not necessarily mean that we have to change. If there are pieces of the strategy that seem to be on track or going in the right direction, we should not be afraid to stick with those even if they are holdovers from previous administrations, Gill said.

US should take the risk

Some analysts propose that the U.S. should adopt a different approach to changing Pakistan's behavior.

I think in the past whenever we thought about imposing conditions or actually implementing conditions on Pakistan you bring up the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state and the conversation sort of ends, Curtis of Heritage said. I would argue that our counter-terrorism interests in the region are so fundamental that we need to be willing to take some degree of risk in evoking a different Pakistani response.



Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States and director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, thinks there is a two-way street when it comes to getting Pakistan to change its behavior.

I think most people agree that Pakistan needs to change its behavior on terrorism, and in relation to Afghanistan and India, and that change is unlikely to come without the rest of the world changing its policies towards Pakistan, Haqqani said.

Haqqani who co-authored a new policy paper on U.S.-Pakistan relations with Lisa Curtis, argues that American interests in the region are not in line with Pakistan's strategic thinking, which is heavily influenced by its belief that India wants to weaken and break it.

Continued U.S. assistance, offered in the hope of a gradual change in Pakistan's terrorism policies, only provides Pakistan an economic cushion and better quality military equipment to persist with those policies, argued Haqqani.

In their defense, Pakistan's military and civilian leaders have argued that they have sacrificed in the war against terror and have paid with blood and treasure. The country's State Bank published a report late last year, alleging a $110 billion loss to the country's economy since 2002.



Pakistan could do more

U.S officials acknowledge Pakistan's efforts and view U.S.-Pakistan relations as important.

"The Pak-U.S. relationship remains a very important one," General Joseph Votel, head of the U.S. Central Command, said last week during testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

However, U.S. officials continue to assert that Pakistan could do more.

We have seen progress. We have seen them take some steps to address these safe havens, but clearly the problem persists and it is something, which is part of our ongoing conversation with Pakistan, said U.S. State Department spokesperson Mark Toner.
Guatemalan authorities arrested three former child welfare officials Monday who were responsible for overseeing a youth shelter where 40 girls died from a fire.



Prosecutor's spokeswoman Julia Barrera confirmed the detentions of Social Welfare Secretary Carlos Rodas, Deputy Secretary Anahi Keller and shelter director Santos Torres on suspicion of homicide, mistreatment of minors and failure to fulfill duty.



Rodas lawyer Juan Alberto Guevara said they were evaluating his legal situation.



"As the constitution says, he is innocent until proven otherwise,'' Guevara said. "I have known him for a long time and he is a real professional.''



Earlier in the day President Jimmy Morales said he had fired the chain of command at the country's child welfare agency, but did not specify how many employees were dismissed.



Rodas resigned Saturday, Torres was dismissed the day of the fire and Keller was let go Monday.



Morales also said his government has asked the FBI to help in the investigation of Wednesday's disaster.



Guatemala's human rights prosecutor said the dismissals should have come the same day as the fire. Jorge de Leon said his agency had asked a judge to review conditions at the shelter before the fire, but the request was denied.



Authorities have said the fire that swept through parts of the institution began when mattresses were set ablaze during a protest by residents protesting conditions at the overcrowded youth shelter. Some of the victims had escaped earlier, fleeing poor food and mistreatment, but were caught and confined at the facility.



De Leon said last week that younger children fled the shelter because they were being abused by older residents.



"According to what they say, the bigger kids have control and they attack them constantly,'' de Leon said. "They also complain that food is scarce and of poor quality.''



In 2013, a 14-year-old girl was strangled by another resident at the shelter, investigators said.



Prosecutors say they are also investigating whether children were trafficked through the home for prostitution.



Four of the burn victims were flown to the Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston, Texas, on Saturday. Morales' office said the Shriners Hospitals had arranged for their transfer.
Haitis Senate has announced a confirmation hearing for the countrys prime minister-designate on Wednesday.

The hearing comes two days after Jack Guy Lafontant and his newly appointed Cabinet were left in limbo when several senators walked off the floor of parliament in an apparent demand for power sharing.

Senate leader Youri Latortue announced the rescheduled hearing on Tuesday.

Lafontant, a member of the ruling Bald Heads Party (PHTK), needed 16 of 30 Senate votes to be confirmed. Nineteen senators had shown up at the parliament building Monday, but the hearing was delayed repeatedly. Then four senators departed  including at least one from Lafontants own party  leaving the Senate without a quorum.

Meanwhile, Lafontant and his 18 Cabinet members, announced Sunday, reportedly had boarded a bus outside the national palace, anticipating the five-minute ride to the parliament building for confirmation. They were not summoned.

The lack of a functioning government is another setback for Haiti, which grappled with almost two years of political turmoil over the countrys presidency until Jovenel Moise was sworn in February 7. The country of more than 10 million is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2010, a deadly hurricane last October and a continuing cholera epidemic.

Moise, a banana exporter, previously had not held public office  nor has his pick for prime minister. Lafontant is a physician.

The pair should negotiate with the disgruntled senators, who are seeking more power  possibly cabinet posts, said two senators who did not participate in the walkout. Approving a prime minister in Haiti typically involves a lot of bargaining.

Herve Fourcand rejected the charge that his PHTK party was responsible for failing to ratify the new government.

Antonio Cheramy, a member of the opposition party Verite (French for Truth), told Haitian media that the prime minister-designate had not paid taxes for several years prior to his nomination.

Gedeon Jean, a political analyst in Port-au-Prince, raised another possibility: that Lafontant was not the person Moise ultimately intended to have as his governing partner.

Im wondering if they are not throwing him under the bus, Jean said of Lafontant. Is he the real choice of the president? I dont know.

VOA Creole Service stringer Renan Toussaint contributed to this report.
On this day in 1879, famed physicist Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany.



Best known for his theories of relativity, Einstein would toil alone with his obsessive queries of the universe for years in the Swiss patent office before gaining international recognition by winning the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921.



Space and time and E = mc 2

In 1905, Einstein addressed what he termed his special theory of relativity. In special relativity, time and space are not absolute, but relative to the motion of the observer.



In other words, Einstein posited that the universe was not static, but instead, expanding.



Thus, two objects traveling at great speeds with regard to each other would not necessarily observe simultaneous events in time at the same moment, nor agree on their measurements of space. He theorized that the speed of light, which is the limiting speed of any body having mass, is constant in all frames of reference.

He expanded on this theory, searching for a mathematical equation that could calculate his belief that mass and energy were equivalent. Einstein famously created that equation, known as E = mc 2.



General relativity



In 1916, he published The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity, which proposed that gravity, as well as motion, impact time and space.



According to Einstein, gravitation is not a force, as his longtime scientific hero Isaac Newton had argued; rather, Einstein believed gravity was a curved field in the space-time continuum, created by the presence of mass.





An object of very large gravitational mass, such as the sun, would therefore appear to warp space and time around it, which could be demonstrated by observing starlight as it skirted the sun on its way to earth.

In 1919, astronomers studying a solar eclipse confirmed Einsteins general theory of relativity, propelling him to instant celebrity.





As a world-renowned public figure, he became increasingly political, taking up the cause of Zionism and speaking out against militarism and rearmament.

In his native Germany, this made him an unpopular figure. After Nazi leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Einstein renounced his German citizenship, freeing him from military service, and left the country. He later moved to the United States and became a U.S. citizen.



The atom bomb



In 1939, despite his lifelong pacifist beliefs, he agreed to write to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of a group of scientists who were concerned with American inaction in the field of atomic-weapons research.

The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing." Albert Einsten

Like the other scientists, he feared sole German possession of such a weapon.

He played no role in the subsequent Manhattan Project and later deplored the use of atomic bombs against Japan.

After the war, he called for the establishment of a world government that would control nuclear technology and prevent future armed conflict.

Later in life, he worked on a unified field theory, which he never completed to his or other scientists satisfaction.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1999, Time magazine named him Person of the Century.
Fears are growing the mountainous Iraqi Sinjar region is becoming the focal point of a proxy conflict in the region.

The conflict turned fatal earlier this month with armed clashes between rival Kurdish groups of peshmergas of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Kurdistan Workers' Party- (PKK) backed forces.

Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani has called for the removal of PKK forces, which are designated by much of the international community as a terrorist organization. The PKK has been fighting in neighboring Turkey for greater minority rights for more than three decades, but the rebels are also Barzani's rivals for influence and control of Kurds across the region.

The PKK intervened in Sinjar to protect the local Yazidi population when the Islamic State group overran the region after Barzanis peshmergas withdrew. The jihadists killed and enslaved the local Yazidi population, calling them heretics for their Zoroastrianism-derived belief - crimes many human rights groups say are tantamount to genocide.

The PKK has trained and backs Yazidi militia in Sinjar and observers say it retains considerable local support.

Ankara is suspected of being behind this months inter-Kurdish clashes in Sinjar. The Turkish government has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate the presence of PKK forces in Sinjar, which is close to the Turkish border, fearing it will become a new base for operations against Turkey.

Ankara courts Barzani support

The Kurdish leader Barzani has agreed to help and support the Turkish initiative that Sinjar should not be a base to be held by the PKK anymore, claims Murat Bilhan, deputy chair of the Ankara-based Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies, as this is not acceptable to Turkey, and Turkey has requested the support of the Barzani regime.

Barzani visited Ankara last month, where he received unprecedented hospitality almost equivalent to a head of state, including the flying of the Iraqi Kurdish flag. The gesture provoked outrage and condemnation among Turkish nationalists, who view any such actions as steps towards recognizing an independent Kurdish state.

Even though Barzani is a frequent visitor to Turkey, having developed close ties with the ruling AK Party and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, until now, such diplomatic gestures were avoided for fear of stirring nationalist sentiments.

The Iraqi Kurdish leader is viewed by Ankara as being key to any move against the PKK in Iraq. Analysts claim such a move is of increased urgency for Ankara given the PKKs affiliate, the YPG in Syria, is continuing to make territorial gains, as it fights the Islamic State.

Ankara will be looking for alternative ways to hit the PKK, claims Aydin Selcen a former senior Turkish diplomat who served widely in the region, including in Iraqi Kurdistan, One option, which is a very difficult one, is an operation aiming at Qandil [the PKKs main base] in Iraq, another option is a military operation aiming at Sinjar, with directly, or indirectly, KDP peshmerga fighters and the Turkish army.

Ankara has warned it will militarily intervene in Sinjar if the PKK is not removed.

But any operation brings considerable risk.

It will bring Turkey into direct conflict with Shia militia and with Iraqi military and then indirectly with Iran, warns Haldun Solmazturk, retired Turkish brigadier and now head of the Ankara-based Turkey Twenty-First Century Institute.



Ankara has accused the PKK in Sinjar of conspiring with the Iraqi Shia militia, the People's Mobilization Forces, a charge it has denied.

Sinjar itself, it's an area where all these regional tensions converge, observes Selcen. There is the People's Mobilization unit nearby and we know they have close contacts if not direct contacts to Tehran, and the Baghdad army is there, also the U.S. [force] is nearby and Barzanis forces, its [a] very intricate proxy conflict.
Iraqi troops are battling for control of a bridge over the Tigris river in Mosul as civilians continue to flee the western part of the city.

Capturing the bridge, which links Mosul's Old City with the eastern side, would give Iraqis control of three of the five bridges that span the Tigris in Mosul.

Iraqi forces launched a campaign to recapture Mosul from Islamic State in October. They reclaimed the eastern part of the city before embarking on a major push on February 19 to recapture the more densely-populated western part.

Amid the shelling and machine-gun fire, a steady stream of refugees are fleeing western neighborhoods, joining some 80,000 who have left since the battle to retake the area began last month.

Iraqi troops have effectively sealed off Mosul from the rest of the territory IS controls in Iraq and Syria.

Mosul's fall would deal a significant blow to IS. It would break the militant group's hold on territory in Iraq and end its control over half the "caliphate," which once spanned from northern Syria through western Iraq.

About 600,000 civilians remain trapped with the militants in the Mosul area, according to the International Organization for Migration. IOM said the fighting in the Mosul area has displaced nearly 240,000 people.

Inside Mosuls Decimated Museum of Antiquities with VOA's Heather Murdock:

a
One year after Islamic extremists attacked an Ivory Coast beach resort and made clear their reach was growing in West Africa, this nation has tightened its security but still feels some economic pain.

Police patrols continue along the Grand Bassam beach where 19 were killed and 33 wounded, including tourists and special forces members, on March 13, 2016. Armed guards now walk the shores watching for suspicious movement, and the streets are monitored by special units at strategic points.



"We fear this type of attack will happen again," said Amadou Sangare, a local craftsman.



Ivory Coast marked a year after the attack with a walk of silence to pay respect to victims.



"The people have not backed down no matter the situation, we must continue to stand," Vice President Daniel Kablan Duncan said.



But there has been a marked downturn in tourism and hotel rooms are about 50 percent full, according to the Ivory Coast Tourism board.



National Prosecutor Richard Christophe Adou said the country is on the right path in terms of security.



"The investigation into the attack is progressing. It has already led to the arrest of 38 people in total, including 26 in Ivory Coast, six in Burkina Faso, four in Mali and two in Senegal," he said.



Only one assailant with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the extremist group
The Kenyan doctors union on Tuesday called off its 100-day strike after reaching a deal with the national and county governments.

The union and officials signed a deal on a return-to-work formula and agreed that a collective bargaining agreement signed in 2013 would be renegotiated in the next 60 days. The CBA covers doctor salaries, welfare programs and improved health facilities.

Union Secretary General Ouma Oluga signed the deal and told reporters afterward that in the wake of the protracted negotiations, the health sector needed stability.

"We are happy that the doctors union have finally put an end the strike," Oluga said. "While the strike is over, the dispute may not be, because we need to restore industrial harmony between ourselves and our employers. ... We know that the return-to-work agreement is simply an agreement and there is a lot of follow-up that will be done."

The other issues that will be discussed concern how the doctors will be working with county governments and the amended collective bargaining agreement.

Less of a pay raise?

With the amendment to the CBA, it looks unlikely the doctors will get the 180 percent salary increases they have been fighting for.

The country's health minister, Cleopa Mailu, expressed regret for the long crisis in medical care.

"Kenyans have suffered, and I am quite sure we cannot in anyway begin to fathom the extent of the pain which the ordinary Kenyans felt during those 100 days," Mailu said.

Peter Munya, governor of Meru state and chairman of the council of governors, said the parties involved were not sincere enough in their efforts to find a solution. He said he hoped that issues still to be discussed could be approached in good faith, "because what has been lacking in the whole exercise was good faith. That's why we took so long, more than three months. A strike could have been handled and ended a long time ago."

Starting Wednesday, Kenyans will be able to get services in more than 2,000 public hospitals as the parties engage in negotiations on the remaining issues in the CBA.
A two-year-long political crisis in Macedonia is entering a dangerous phase, with nationalists accused of stirring up ethnic tensions in a bid to disrupt a corruption probe.

Thousands of ethnic Macedonians have held evening protests against three ethnic Albanian parties forming a coalition government with the Social Democrats. The country's president, Gjorge Ivanov, has sided with the protesters and so far has withheld approving a coalition government that would shut out the main nationalist party.

European Union leaders and analysts say the mounting political confrontation could spin out of control, adding to increasing ethnic tensions across a destabilizing Balkans.

A group called For a United Macedonia announced Monday that it would continue to organize mass rallies in the capital, Skopje, as well as in other towns nationwide against the formation of the coalition. The group accuses the prime minister of neighboring Albania, Edi Rama, of being the true author of the coalition idea.

'People won't go home'

"The masks have fallen," Bogdan Ilievski, protest organizer and one of the group's leaders, said in a statement. "We are in favor of a united Macedonia for all, and we are against platforms written in other countries, which some of our politicians won't clearly reject. Despite their attempts to hide their true intentions, they will be met with strong resistance from the democratic public. The people won't go home."

One of the key demands of the ethnic Albanian parties is that the Albanian language be recognized as an official second language. Ivanov has called the demands for greater recognition of ethnic Albanian rights a "threat to Macedonia's sovereignty." A quarter of Macedonia's population is ethnic Albanian.

The standoff between the country's two ethnic groups worsened last December when the Macedonian nationalist party VMRO narrowly won parliamentary elections. The Albanian parties declined to enter a coalition government with VMRO, deciding instead to partner with the Social Democrats.

Social Democrats say Ivanov is stirring the ethnic dispute. They argue he is using it as a distraction to withhold giving a mandate to their leader, Zoran Zaev, because Ivanov and former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski fear the Social Democrats will open probes into illicit wiretapping and corruption allegations that have dogged the VMRO government since 2015.

2001 agreement

A dispute over ethnic Albanian rights appeared to have been settled more than a decade ago when in 2001 a seven-month-long ethnic Albanian insurgency that left more than 100 dead ended with an agreement providing more rights for the country's ethnic minority. Progress, though, on enacting the agreement has been slow.

"To avoid jail time for his friends, President Ivanov is instead inciting ethnic clashes over a nonissue such as the use of Albanian language in public institutions,'" said Gjovalin Shkurtaj, a member of the National Academy of Science of Albania.

On Monday, Zaev and his proposed Albanian coalition partners started talks on electing a new parliamentary speaker in a bid to persuade Macedonia's president to back down. Zaev is backed by 67 out of 120 lawmakers. VMRO is demanding a new election.

It isn't often a political dispute in a country of just 2 million prompts the alarm of policymakers in Brussels or Washington, but disputes in the Balkans historically have had outsized consequences for Europe  from the 1914 assassination by a Bosnian Serb of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, which triggered the First World War, to the post-Cold War disintegration of the Yugoslav state that kicked off a decade of internecine warfare drawing in NATO.

Earlier this month, the EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, visited the Macedonian capital and urged Ivanov to allow Zaev to form a government.

"I asked the president to reflect on the way forward and to reverse his decision in the interests of all citizens in this country," Mogherini told reporters.

European Union leaders already are scrambling to try to tamp down an ethnic flare-up between Serbia and its former province Kosovo. In January, Serbia's president warned he's ready to send troops to Kosovo to protect Serbian nationals there, if necessary. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said the two countries were on the verge of a conflict.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro

Other issues dividing parties and public opinion include whether to tilt geopolitically to the EU or Russia and border disputes. Ethnic tensions are on the rise also in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. Bosnia remains split among Serbs, Bosnians and Croats, and the wounds of their vicious three-year-long war of the 1990s have not yet begun to heal.

The ethnic flare-ups coincide with the Kremlin's bid to expand its influence across an increasingly unstable Balkans, say analysts. From offering help with disaster relief to supplying sophisticated weaponry, including warplanes, Moscow has been on a charm offensive in a region Russia has viewed historically as in its sphere of influence.

In Serbia, Moscow's diplomatic offensive apparently is paying off. A recent Gallup Poll suggested Serbs viewed Russia as a more dependable ally than NATO, an organization Belgrade officially wants to join.

In Macedonia, a Russian hand is also being played. Moscow is accusing the West of trying to install a government in Macedonia that would help Albania pursue expansionist policies. EU leaders say Moscow is determined to stop the Balkans from integrating with NATO.

Zaev has warned that miscalculations in the current deadlock could "set fire to the country."
Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death.

Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed Feb. 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport. North Korea  widely suspected of being behind the attack  rejects the findings.

Zahid said Kim's body was taken out of the hospital morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital for the embalmment procedure and has been returned. He declined to say when it was done.

"As it is kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose, so we did this to preserve the body," he told reporters in Parliament.

Health officials have said Kim's relatives will be given two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

North Korea has demanded the body back and objected when Malaysia conducted an autopsy. Pyongyang also has refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and has referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam were the same person, but refused to say how they confirmed that.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply since Kim's death, with each expelling the other's ambassador. Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a "fair settlement" of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Zahid, who earlier said negotiations were ongoing, said Tuesday that about 50 North Koreans detained in eastern Sarawak state for overstaying their work permits will be sent back to Pyongyang soon. He didn't give details nor say why they would be deported amid the exit ban.

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea  three embassy staff members and their family members. About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries also scrapped visa-free travel for each other's citizens.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapon.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korea on Monday sought to shift the blame for Kim's death to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, said in New York that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system.

The ambassador said the U.S. is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX, and has also stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

The attack was caught on surveillance video that shows two women going up to Kim and apparently smearing something on his face. He was dead within 20 minutes, authorities say. The women  one Indonesian, one Vietnamese  have been charged with murder but say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank.
The top U.S. Marine commander was bitterly criticized Tuesday for what one U.S. senator called the "repugnant" scandal involving nude photographs of female Marines.

General Robert Neller faced questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee over his response to pictures posted on Facebook without the knowledge or permission of the women.

"It's a serious problem when we have members of our military denigrating female Marines, who will give their life to this country in the way they have, with no response from leadership," Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York complained.

Gillibrand demanded to know how the Marine Corps expected to confront "Russian aggression" if it could not crack Facebook. She also asked why Marine leaders had done nothing, even though social media harassment of service members has been going on since 2013.

'I own this'

"I don't have a good answer for you," Neller responded. "I'm responsible. I'm the commandant. I own this, and we are going to have to ... change how we see ourselves and how we treat each other."

Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said such scandals would hurt recruitment.

A Facebook group called "Marines United" displayed nude pictures of female Marines. Most of the pictures were taken secretly, while those who willingly posed had the pictures posted without their permission.

"Marines United" had as many as 30,000 members before Facebook removed the group.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the "lack of respect for the dignity and humanity of fellow members of the Department of Defense is unacceptable."

Under the U.S. Code of Military Justice, any service member who distributes such photos could face a court-martial.
A close associate of murdered Myanmar lawyer Ko Ni says the constitutional expert was working on a plan to weaken the military's political power when he was gunned down at Yangon's airport soon after his return from a conference in Indonesia on January 29.

The revelation is likely to feed persistent suspicions  which have been denied  that the military had a role in the assassination.

Military still holds power

Despite handing over power to a civilian government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) party of activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar armed forces retain wide powers under a constitution it promulgated in 2008.

That constitution guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in parliament and gives it a veto over any constitutional amendment. It also controls the Ministry of Home Affairs, giving it authority over much of the nation's permanent bureaucracy.

But commentator Bertil Lintner, a close associate of Ko Ni who also worked with him on journalism training, told VOA in an interview that the prominent NLD adviser believed he had uncovered a "loophole" that could be used to circumvent the military veto.

"[Ko Ni] said that there is nothing in the 2008 constitution which says that the constitution cannot be abolished by a single vote in parliament," said Lintner.

He said a simple majority vote was all that is needed "to abolish the constitution and adopt a new one. He was working on it."

Lintner said Aung San Suu Kyi considered the idea "too provocative" and preferred efforts at gradual reform. But he said Ko Ni remained insistent.

Police investigating the killing have said the plot to kill Ko Ni was hatched in a tea shop last year by men who had a grudge against the lawyer. Several arrests have been made in the case.

But Lintner said he believes Ko Ni's killing was intended as a warning.

"His murder was meant to send a very strong signal to anyone else who would even dream or think of changing the constitution. And therefore it was carried out in broad daylight outside the airport," he said.

He added the killing had created a "climate of fear" within the NLD party.

NLD spokesman Win Thein denied that, while acknowledging that Ko Ni's loss was a blow for the party.

"It was definitely ... not fear. [Ko Ni's death] was a great loss, it was a great loss," said Win Thein.

He said the party's relationship with the military is "just the same" as before, and the NLD is "definitely" not nervous over the political climate. He added that the NLD would "never lose hope of amending the constitution."

'Expert' on the 2008 charter

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for the New York-based rights organization Human Rights Watch, said Ko Ni was one of only a few people within the NLD who fully understood the nation's 2008 military-backed charter.

"Let's be clear, U Ko Ni was the technician," Robertson told a briefing at the foreign correspondent club (FCCT). "The NLD has no one to replace him in terms of dealing with the constitution. And if you look at the current configuration of Burmese politics, the 2008 constitution is about central to everything."

Tony Davis, an analyst with HIS Janes, agreed that Ko Ni was widely seen as a danger to the military's influence.

"This man posed an existential threat not just to the [military's] bank accounts, their future, but to the future of the country as they and their fallen comrades and their fathers have seen it since independence [in 1948]," Davis said at the FCCT.

He said Ko Ni's killing points to a "bleak outlook" for Myanmar's political landscape.

The next general elections are in 2020.
Mainstream Dutch political parties continue to rule out a possible coalition with the Freedom Party of far-right leader Geert Wilders, despite the fact his party is predicted to come in second in Wednesdays elections.

During a debate between current Prime Minister Mark Rutte and far right leader Wilders, Rutte repeated once again that he will not work together with the Wilders Freedom Party. He added that even asking Wilders to support a possible minority coalition, as happened between 2010 and 2012, will not be an option.

The prime ministers party is not the only political party stating publicly that it will never form a coalition with the far right leader. Wilders labeled the pre-election exclusion as undemocratic but also said he doesnt believe the prime minister will shun him in the end.

Some Wilders supporters, interviewed at a campaign event say it is unfair that other political parties will not even agree to preliminary discussions. Jurgen Faber, a truck driver who supports the far-right leader, says its not fair to voters. I dont think Dutch voters will let themselves be sidelined.

Coalitions of two or three parties are needed to govern in the Netherlands as no party has ever won an outright majority. The current ruling cabinet is made up of the conservatives, liberals and the Social Democrats. More than 25 parties are fielding candidates in the upcoming elections. Due to the fragmented electorate and the exclusion of Wilders party, a new ruling coalition could possibly involve four or more political parties.

Parallels in Belgium

Parties in neighboring Belgium have ruled out coalitions with far-right parties ahead of elections since the late eighties. The so-called "Cordon Sanitaire" was introduced after nationalist party Flemish Interests, previously known as the Flemish Bloc, won big. A resolution signed by the remaining political parties read that no political agreements or arrangements would be made with the far-right movement which fails to acknowledge human rights and the principles of democracy.

Herwig Reynaert, a Belgian political science professor at the University of Ghent, says a cordon sanitaire is not undemocratic because the remaining parties forming a coalition do have a democratic majority.

Still, this is not always clear to the voter. That is why its important that political parties and political leaders clearly explain why they dont want to work together with a certain party.

One of the reasons Dutch Prime Minister Rutte gave for excluding Wilders during the Monday evening debate, was that he felt Wilders had radicalized on some issues. Wilders has called for the closing all mosques and for banning the Quran.

Reynaert says the Belgian cordon sanitaire has succeeded in excluding a far-right party, but not in excluding its ideas.

The political agenda of Flemish Interests led to themes such as security and immigrants being more prominently discussed by other political parties. So in a way, those who are excluded can still influence the ones in power.

In Belgium, many issues discussed by Flemish Interests termed too far-right years ago, are now included by other political parties. One of them, the New Flemish Alliance, is even a member of the current Belgian ruling coalition.

Situation in France



In France, the far-right party Front Nationale is expected to win the first round in presidential elections this spring. In the final round of a vote in 2002, a nationwide effort to block Front Nationale was among the factors enabling incumbent president Jacques Chirac to get reelected. This year, Front Nationale is again expected to make it to the final round but many of its priority issues are also adopted by other French politicians.

In the Netherlands, the prime minister's party has also been blamed for trying to attract Wilders supporters by using more right-wing rhetoric. A full-page ad by Rutte in several newspapers during the campaign urged people to act normal or leave the Netherlands. Last year, Rutte also called for Turkish-Dutch demonstrators to get lost, a statement he refused to renounce. Many believed these statements were made to appeal to voters supporting the Freedom Party.

The only political party that has not ruled out teaming up with Wilders is 50Plus, a party focused on pensioners and seniors. 50Plus leader Henk Krol, expected to win 10 seats, wrote in an opinion piece that Freedom Party voters shouldnt be excluded beforehand, because everyone will understand what impression that will leave and how the Freedom Party can grow stronger from this. But the two are unlikely to find common ground on the issue of allowing Muslim refugees into the country.
The New York attorney general says that while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon he used an alias in emails to talk about climate change.



The attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, made the accusation in a letter to a New York court Monday. He is investigating whether the company deceived investors and the public by hiding for decades what it knew about the link between fossil fuels and climate change.



Schneiderman said Exxon failed to disclose that Tillerson used an account named "Wayne Tracker'' to send and receive emails about issues including risk management related to climate change. Wayne is Tillerson's middle name. The account was used from at least 2008 through 2015, he says.



Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said the email account was created for secure and quick communication between Tillerson and senior executives over a range of topics.



The State Department declined to comment on the matter and referred inquiries to Exxon. Tillerson resigned as chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. at year end, after then-President-elect Donald Trump picked him to become the nation's chief diplomat.



Schneiderman said his investigators found the Wayne Tracker account on about 60 documents but that neither Exxon nor its lawyers ever disclosed that it was used by Tillerson. He said that Exxon has failed to give his office all documents covered by a court order in response to his investigation.



Exxon disputed this. "The very fact the attorney general's office has these emails is because they were produced in response to the subpoena,'' Jeffers said in a statement.



Tillerson would not be the first chief executive to use an alias in electronic communications. A notable case was John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc., who used a pseudonym to post messages on investor websites criticizing another company and suggesting that its stock was overpriced. Whole Foods later bought the rival over objections by federal antitrust regulators.
As the USS Carl Vinson ploughed through seas off South Korea on Tuesday, rival North Korea warned the United States of merciless attacks if the carrier infringes on its sovereignty or dignity during U.S.-South Korean drills.

F-18 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered carrier in a dramatic display of U.S. firepower amid rising tension with the North, which has alarmed its neighbors with two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since last year.

"While this is a routine deployment for the Carl Vinson strike group, really the centerpiece for us ... is this exercise we're doing with the ROK navy called 'Foal Eagle'," Rear Admiral James W. Kilby, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 1, told reporters, referring to South Korea as the Republic of Korea.

North Korea said the arrival of the U.S. strike group in the seas off the east of the Korean peninsula was part of a "reckless scheme" to attack it.

"If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater," the North's state news agency KCNA said. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's

Republic of Korea.

"On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army," KCNA said.

Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war.

The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to handle North Korea.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday.

Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating it North Korea strategy and "all options are on the table".

Chinese opposition

Compounding regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system.

The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system is for defense against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security.

The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests.

South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on March 1.

The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale.

The United States has also started to deploy "Gray Eagle" attack drones to South Korea, a U.S. military spokesman said on Monday.

China says the exercises do nothing to ease tension. Last week, it called on North Korea to stop its weapons tests and for South Korea and the United States to stop their drills.

"We hope the relevant side can respect the security concerns of countries in the region, can take a responsible attitude and do more to benefit the easing of tension, rather than irritating each other," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing, referring to the United States.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday poked fun at the dismissal of his foreign minister by lawmakers, delivering jokes in an American accent about a citizenship scandal that led to the downfall of one of his top loyalists.

Showing the comedic style that helped win him an election last year, Duterte mocked former Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, rejected by a house appointments commission last week over his failure to prove he was not a U.S. citizen when he took the job eight months ago.

"I don't know why I was ousted by the commission on appointments but I did not lie," Duterte, impersonating Yasay and using an American accent, told an audience of hundreds of mayors.

"If you did not lie, why are you out of the cabinet?" he said to laughs and applause.

Duterte's remark makes light of what has been one of the biggest embarrassments of his presidency so far. Yasay, a U.S.-trained lawyer, is a member of his inner circle with whom he shared a dormitory while studying law.

Yasay played a crucial role driving Duterte's policy of diversifying foreign relations beyond ally the United States, describing it as a "shackling dependency".

In scathing posts on Facebook, Yasay chided Washington for what he said was shirking its treaty obligations to protect the Philippines. He said breaking away was "imperative in putting an end to our nation's subservience to United States' interests".

Yasay was accused by critics of contradicting statements that were made under oath before the appointments commission and during media interviews about his citizenship and passports.

While the commission made no conclusion about his citizenship status, its members agreed unanimously that he was not telling the truth.

Critics say Yasay's applications to run for the Senate, vice presidency and head of the Securities and Exchange Commission - a post he won - were now in question too.

Yasay has denied lying to the commission.
Poland plans to seek the extradition of an American on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity in the World War II deaths of 44 Polish villagers, Poland's government-affiliated history institute said Monday.

The man, identified as Michael K., is suspected of ordering the killings in 1944 in eastern Poland when he was a commander in the Nazi's SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) said in a statement.

As a result of that order, several villages  including Chlaniow and Wladyslawin  were set on fire and buildings destroyed, the IPN said.

"In our investigation, Michael K. is the main suspect. We are convinced that this person, living in the United States, was the person who carried out the pacification of [the villages]," Robert Janicki, a prosecutor with the IPN, told Reuters. "All the evidence we have gathered, mainly the documents we have collected, give us this certainty."

The IPN has asked a regional court in the Polish city of Lublin to issue an arrest warrant for Michael K. as the first step toward an extradition request.

Janicki would not reveal Michael K.'s last name, due to privacy laws, but he was identified by the Associated Press as Michael Karkoc, who lives in Minnesota.

An article by the news agency in 2013 detailing Karkoc's connections to the Nazis and his move to the United States spurred investigations in Germany and Poland into Karkoc's role during World War II.

Karkoc's family had repeatedly denied that he was involved in any war crimes, the AP said. The news agency reported Monday that Karkoc, now 98, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, according to his family.

Karkoc could not be reached for comment by Reuters.

Karkoc's age would not stop investigators, Janicki said.
In Boko Haram-affected areas in Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria, a force of more than 10,000 African troops is working to degrade and destroy the terrorist group.



Boko Haram is responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 people since its fighters began their insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria. Their atrocities have caused the displacement of 2.3 million people across these four countries, known as the Lake Chad Basin, where more than 20 million people are under threat.



In 2015, the African Union authorized the Multinational Joint Task Force  or MNJTF as it is known  to tackle Boko Haram in its strongholds of northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon.



The force has slowly been reversing the terrorists gains, retaking territory Boko Haram had seized for its goal of establishing a self-described caliphate in West Africa, and pushing back its fighters to seek cover in the forests and among the hundreds of islands in Lake Chad.



But that progress has come at a price for many civilians.



In July 2015, Chads army evacuated the lake villages in order to conduct military offensives against Boko Haram, upending the lives of many fishermen and farmers. With their livelihoods gone and forced from their homes, more than 100,000 people had to find assistance at displacement camps in the countrys north.



In the past year, the MNJTF says it has killed 828 Boko Haram fighters and arrested 615 more. More than a thousand combatants have surrendered to the task force, which has freed more than 20,500 hostages in the region since January 2016 and destroyed at least 32 terrorist camps.



The enemy is now on the back-foot and being held on the back-foot, Cameroons Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo recently told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation. After Nigeria, Cameroon is the second most-affected country in the region by Boko Haram.



Assomo said Boko Haram has turned to asymmetric tactics, such as suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices.



Before they used to attack our military posts with 400 men, no more, he said.



Mandate



The force is tasked with restoring security in Boko Haram-affected areas, helping reestablish the states authority in liberated areas, and assisting with the return of the internally displaced and refugees. The troops also help to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries.



Government officials in the region and military commanders say part of their success against Boko Haram has to do with the groups internal divisions.



Last August, the group split, one faction following Abubakar Shekau and the other following Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Harams founder and a loyalist of the so-called Islamic State. Shekaus group has shifted tactics from military combat to stepped up attacks with suicide bombers (often women and children) and improvised explosive devices.



In terms of size, the force commander of the MNJTF, Nigerian Major General Lo Adeosun, told the visiting U.N. delegation that Boko Haram operates in many layers. Of the al-Barnawi faction he estimated there are perhaps 3,000 formal fighters, but said other combatants materialize for operations only, making it difficult to give an exact figure.



He added the majority of the weapons the task force has seized from the terrorists are from military posts Boko Haram has previously attacked.



Elsewhere in the region, leaders complained that conflicts in Libya and Mali are fueling Boko Haram with arms and fighters who penetrate porous borders.



It is having a destabilizing effect on all the Sahel, Nigers president Mahamadou Issoufou said of the insecurity in the two neighboring nations.



Gaps



The multinational task force needs financial, material and legal support, Chads Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke said.



At MNJTF headquarters, there was a call for more night fighting capabilities, flat-bottomed patrol boats, and helicopters to help evacuate wounded.



The task force receives backing from the United States, Britain and France, who mainly provide intelligence and training support through a small coordination and liaison team on the ground in NDjamena.



Distorting Islam



In each of the Lake Chad Basin countries, top officials made clear they do not consider Boko Haram to be an Islamic extremist group. They are not jihadists, but terrorists and bandits, Cameroons defense minister stressed.



Ideology is one of its weapons, General Adeosun said of Boko Harams manipulation of Islam. He said the group exploits the uneducated with distortions and lies to recruit them.



While the task force looks for a military solution to the problem of Boko Haram, governments are seeking to address the root causes that have made their people susceptible to recruitment.



Once we create jobs, once we engage with the youth, this madness will evaporate, said Kashim Shettima, governor of Nigerias northeastern Borno state.
In his annual work report for high-level political meetings in Beijing, Chinas top judge listed a crackdown on human rights lawyers as one of the countrys biggest achievements over the past year.

Rights activists say that could signal the crackdown on lawyers is still far from over.

They also cast doubts over his vision towards the nations future pursuit of judicial reforms and court independence.

Addressing the National Peoples Congress (NPC) on Sunday, Zhou Qiang, president and Chief Justice of Chinas Supreme Court, opened his annual work report by firstly pledging loyalty to Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Communist Partys rule.

State subversion crimes

He then touted the countrys first achievement by courts of all levels in safeguarding national security and social stability, saying that harsh punishments had been meted out against the likes of those including Zhou Shifeng, who subverted state power.

Zhou Shifeng was director of Beijings Fengrui law firm, which was at the center of the governments crackdown against more than 300 human rights defenders since July 2015 after having taken on sensitive cases for clients that challenged the authorities.

The crackdown on lawyers for doing largely what is seen as their job has sparked calls for their release from rights groups in the United States, European Union and legal groups overseas.

Lawyer Zhou was given a seven-year sentence in August of last year  a conviction based largely on confessions during his 13-month detention and reached without examination of evidence or a defense against his subversion charges.

Many observers have described the trials against the lawyer and the other defendants as sham trials, which is mostly a political charade.

With the lawyers case now bluntly labeled as an achievement in the eyes of the nations top judge, many rights activists say it shows the true nature of Chinas authoritarian rule. It also sheds some light on the governments continued crackdown of lawyers.

An alarming indication

The rhetoric in which they are saying that the crackdown of [human rights] activists is an achievement, I think its an alarming indication that this is going to continue to be a major part of the Chinese government policies in the near future, said Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.

Expressing similar worries, Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group also said in a press release that Chinas national security is so vaguely-defined that it is often used as a tool to suppress dissents and deprive them of their legal rights.

The group also called the top judges vision of enhancing oversight on lawsuit procedures and safeguarding the legal rights of defendants fat lies because the government has yet to admit its law-violating behavior in its legal actions against rights lawyers.

Future pledges

In his lengthy report, top judge Zhou laid down his vision to push forward the nations judicial reforms by establishing trial-based criminal procedures, accepting supervision from the NPC and the general public, and facilitating trial by jury to democratize the courts, to name a few. He added that the countrys 22,000 jury members had taken part in more than 3 million trials, 77 percent of first-trail cases in the past year.

But Wang found the top judges pledges simply propaganda and an illusion, which she said gives hope to ordinary people as the government is aware that there is a hunger for justice in China from those who are either victims of injustice or perceive the courts as highly corrupt.

This tweaking of part of the [judicial] system is unlikely to produce fundamental changes if the courts are not independent, she said.



Wang added that Chinese authorities have long made it clear that the rule of law is like a knife held firmly in the hand of the Communist party. Hence, any future judicial or rule of law reforms are meant to be used as a weapon against dissidents who try to turn it into a mechanism to protect individual rights.

In other words, if the countrys judicial system isnt free from political control, fundamental changes to its judicial system wont be possible, two Chinese rights lawyers said on condition of anonymity.

Heavy political control

VOA spoke with two lawyers about the speech who were among those who signed an open letter in January urging Zhou to quit his position after he had asked courts at all levels to oppose the influence of western constitutional democracy, separation of powers and judicial independence.

Although both expressed indifference about Zhous report, one argued that his pledge of loyalty to the government deviates from his role as an independent judge.



Another lawyer said the jury system, which has been enacted for a few years, will never trigger any bottom-up democracy and freedom as many jury members have proved themselves nothing but flower vases  or pawns of the court.

Although Zhou highlighted in his report that the court had acquitted more than 1,000 people in the past year, Chinas conviction rate remains high after more than 1.2 million people out of 1.1 million cases were found guilty of their criminal charges.

Meanwhile, two legal scholars contacted by VOA refused to comment, citing the sensitivity of Zhous work report. One said that he would like to speak, but didn't want to have to lie about the situation.

Online comments in response to the speech were divided.

On Sina Weibo, Chinas microblogging platform, netizens who responded to news reports on the NPCs live-steaming site gave mostly favorable comments to the top judges annual work such as thumbs-up to the supreme courts work or the court is doing a better job year after year.

However, those who responded to news reports on the Oriental Outlook weeklys website gave extremely negative comments such as calling Zhou a disgrace in Chinas judicial system while another user blamed Zhou for bringing calamity to the country and the people because of his refusal to fight for judicial independence.
Forces led by renegade Libyan General Khalifa Haftar are claiming to have recaptured two key Mediterranean oil installations in eastern Libya, after both sites were seized by an Islamist-led force early this month.

Libya broke into rival political and armed factions in 2011 after the government of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and Gadhafi was killed. Two rival governments and a host of local militia are currently battling for control of the oil-rich country.

A Haftar spokesman said Tuesday the ports of Ras Lanuf and al-Sidra were recaptured from a jihadist militia called the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB), after a daylong assault by air, ground and naval forces.

Haftar and his so-called Libyan National Army back an administration operating from the far eastern Libyan city of Tobruk that refuses to cede power to the United Nations-backed unity Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

The stalemate has left the North African Country of 6.4 million residents without effective governance for nearly six years. Many diplomats and activists describe post-Gadhafi Libya as one of the most unstable countries in the world.

Haftar, a one-time Gadhafi ally who seized control last September of most coastal oil installations, has continued to allow oil revenues to flow to the central bank in Tripoli. He has since won the backing of Russia, which insists the Libyan general must have a role in any effective unity government.

For its part, the United Nations says it is reviewing evidence of human rights violations in the latest fighting along Libya's oil coastline, while cautioning that conditions are likely to worsen in the coming days.

A U.N. spokeswomen in Geneva said Tuesday there have been "credible reports" suggesting that summary executions, hostage-taking, torture and other human rights violations have been occurring since the violence flared on March 3.
Russian lender Sberbank said Monday it was deeply concerned by protests against its Ukrainian subsidiary, which included a nationalist group walling up the entrance to one of its branches in Kyiv with masonry and cement.

Periodic protests have been held against Kremlin-owned banks operating in Ukraine since bilateral ties broke down in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea and gave its support to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Sberbank's announcement last Tuesday that it would heed a call from President Vladimir Putin to recognize passports issued by separatists in eastern Ukraine has fueled greater discontent.

On Monday, a few dozen members of a new activist group called National Corp blocked off the entrance to Sberbank's main branch in central Kyiv. The branch temporarily suspended operations and appealed to the police.

"Sberbank is highly concerned about the situation in Ukraine linked to the actions of representatives of nationalist groups," the bank said in a statement. "Our subsidiary has already appealed to law enforcement bodies and we hope that all necessary steps will be swiftly taken to ensure the safety of our workers and clients and protect property."

It said over the past week it had recorded over 26 acts of vandalism against Sberbank Ukraine's branches and bank machines.

Last week, the central bank said it could recommend the introduction of sanctions on Sberbank's subsidiary for its recognition of separatists' identity documents.

Five Russian state-owned banks are present in Ukraine, including three in the top 20, and they hold a combined market share of 8.6 percent.

The central bank has been seeking to cut that following the souring of relations between the one-time allies.

It is not yet clear how the other Kremlin-owned banks operating in Ukraine are handling Putin's order to recognize separatist documents.
The hijackers who seized an oil tanker and its eight-man crew off Somalia are demanding compensation for a rise in illegal fishing in Somali waters.

VOAs Somali service spoke by phone to one of the hijackers Tuesday, a day after men boarded and seized the ship about 30 kilometers off the Somali coast, then anchored off Alula, a town in Somalias Puntland region.

The hijacker said seven men took part in the raid. He asserted that he and his colleagues are fishermen, not pirates.



We have decided, as local fishermen, to resist illegal fishing. We have taken arms to defend ourselves, and we will continue, said the man, who declined to give his name and did not suggest any dollar figures.



Asked about the crew, he said: Its not our principle to kill them. They are healthy. We looked after them. We are after the people who sent them, to make sure they never return.

The ship, the Aris 13, is owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates and is carrying eight crew members, all from Sri Lanka.



Regional maritime officials told VOA that the ship had departed from Djibouti port and was headed for Mogadishu carrying oil and gas.



John Steed, regional manager for the NGO Oceans beyond Piracy, says the ship was approached by two skiffs, one of them asking for water.



The captain, having reported that, was not heard from again and the company could not raise the ship and the ship was seen to move into the coast of Somalia, Steed said.



Steed says he does not know if there were any gunshots or violence before the ship was seized. He said a Japanese warship responded to the hijacking but is being careful so as not to endanger the tankers crew.



The situation is reminiscent of the piracy that flourished in Somali waters between 2007 and 2011. Bands of Somali pirates, based in Puntland or central Somalia, hijacked dozens of foreign vessels during that time, often receiving multi-million dollar ransoms to free the ships and their crews.



Piracy nearly vanished in subsequent years, as ships passing by Somalia improved on-board security and international navies stepped up patrols in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the western Indian Ocean.





Maritime groups have warned that piracy could return because of increased fishing by foreign vessels in Somali waters, most of them from Yemen and Iran.



There are a lot of illegal vessels off the coast of Somalia, most without license and not paying for their license dues to Somalia, said Steed. Many of these fishing fleets are very aggressive and there has been fighting between fishing vessels. There may well have been murder among fishermen.



However, Steed said he doubted the hijackers claim to be mere fishermen, calling it highly unlikely.



Officials in the Puntland region said they are watching the hijacked ship and have put security forces on alert.



These are pirates. I have mobilized the troops in the area, Our plan is to do whatever we can in our effort to face this piracy act, said Ali-Shire Mohamud Osman, a senior official in Alula.



He said his administration has not made contact with the hijackers nor received any demands from them.
A group of states renewed their effort on Monday to block President Donald Trump's revised temporary ban on refugees and travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, arguing that his executive order is the same as the first one that was halted by federal courts.

Court papers filed by the state of Washington and joined by California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon asked a judge to stop the March 6 order from taking effect on Thursday.

An amended complaint said the order was similar to the original January 27 directive because it will cause severe and immediate harms to the States, including our residents, our colleges and universities, our healthcare providers, and our businesses.

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said it was reviewing the complaint and would respond to the court.

Januarys ban caused chaos

A more sweeping ban implemented hastily in January caused chaos and protests at airports. The March order by contrast gave 10 days' notice to travelers and immigration officials.

Last month, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle halted the first travel ban after Washington state sued, claiming the order was discriminatory and violated the U.S. Constitution. Robarts order was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump revised his order to overcome some of the legal hurdles by including exemptions for legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and taking Iraq off the list of countries covered. The new order still halts citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days but has explicit waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the country.

Refugees are still barred for 120 days, but the new order removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria.

Washington state has now gone back to Robart to ask him to apply his emergency halt to the new ban.

Robart said in a court order Monday that the government has until Tuesday to respond to the states' motions. He said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday and did not commit to a specific date to hear arguments from both sides.

Proving harm

Separately, Hawaii has also sued over the new ban. The island state, which is heavily dependent on tourism, said the executive order has had a chilling effect on travel revenues.

In response to Hawaii's lawsuit, the Department of Justice in court papers filed on Monday said the president has broad authority to restrict or suspend entry of any class of aliens when in the national interest. The department said the temporary suspensions will allow a review of the current screening process in an effort to protect against terrorist attacks.

There is a hearing in the Hawaii case set for Wednesday, the day before the new ban is set to go into effect.

The first hurdle for the lawsuits will be proving standing, which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy. With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals who would have a right to sue, in the eyes of a court.

To overcome this challenge, the states filed more than 70 declarations of people affected by the order including tech businesses Amazon and Expedia, which said that restricting travel hurts their revenues and their ability to recruit employees.

Universities and medical centers that rely on foreign doctors also weighed in, as did religious organizations and individual residents, including U.S. citizens, with stories about separated families.

But the Trump administration in its filings in the Hawaii case on Monday said the carve-outs in the new order undercut the state's standing claims.

No constitutional rights

The Order applies only to individuals outside the country who do not have a current visa, and even as to them, it sets forth robust waiver provisions, the Department of Justice's motion said.

The government cited Supreme Court precedent in arguing that people outside the United States and seeking admission for the first time have no constitutional rights regarding their applications.

If the courts do end up ruling the states have standing to sue, the next step will be to argue that both versions of the executive order discriminate against Muslims.

Change in text not enough

The Trump administration may have changed the text of the now-discredited Muslim travel ban, but they didn't change its unconstitutional intent and effect, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Monday.

While the text of the order does not mention Islam, the states claim that the motivation behind the policy is Trump's campaign promise of a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. He later toned down that language and said he would implement a policy of extreme vetting of foreigners coming to the United States.

The government said the courts should only look at the text of the order and not at outside comments by Trump or his aides.
Somali officials say pirates have hijacked an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean and guided it to the coast of Puntland region.

Sources tell VOA's Somali service that the ship is believed to be a merchant tanker flying the flag of the United Arab Emirates.

Regional officials say they are still assessing the circumstances of the hijack, which took place Monday.

Sources said at least eight suspected pirates were involved in the attack, adding that the ship moved toward the coast of Somalia in the vicinity of the coastal town Ras Asayr.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has declined in the last three years.

Last year, suspected pirates hijacked two boats  one Yemeni and one Iranian boat  thought to be fishing illegally.

However, it has been several years since Somali pirates successfully hijacked a merchant ship.

At the height of the hijacking crisis in 2010-11, Somali pirates were attacking dozens of ships each month and receiving multi-million-dollar ransoms to release hijacked vessels and their crews.

The piracy off the Horn of Africa had an economic impact of $7 billion, with more than 1,000 hostages taken.

The attacks dropped off following a coordinated international response that included naval forces from NATO, the European Union, the United States and other independent nations.

International maritime groups warned last year against the return of piracy off the coast of Somalia because of increased illegal fishing activity in Somali waters.
A former political detainee in South Sudan says more than 30 such prisoners continue to be held against their will, despite a vow from President Salva Kiir to release them.



Leonzio Angole Onek, dean of the college of applied and industrial sciences at the University of Juba, is calling on the president to stick to a recent promise and release 32 prominent detainees identified in December by rights group Amnesty International.



Onek said living up to that pledge would be consistent with the August 2015 peace deal aimed at ending South Sudans civil war.



If President Kiir really wants forgiveness, he should release all of the detainees as well as the prisoners being held by the national security service, he told VOAs South Sudan in Focus program.



The 32 men and hundreds of others were detained for opposing Kiir, the embattled president at the center of South Sudans civil war. Rebel forces have been fighting to oust him since December 2013, amid accusations that Kiir has concentrated power in the hands of his own Dinka tribe.

Kiir used a national day of prayer last Friday to order the release of General Elia Waya Nyipoch and Major General Andria Dominic, both detained since last May. Onek said he considered the gesture a good first step.

The two generals were set free Tuesday, according to government officials.

Dire conditions for detainees

In May 2016, Amnesty International released a report detailing what it described as appalling conditions for South Sudanese political detainees. The report said most of the detainees were never charged with an offense, but were being held in dire conditions and fed only once or twice a day.





Onek, who was held at the Jebel Detention Facility between December 2015 and late April 2016, corroborated that report. He said that he was housed in a shipping container-like room at the facility.



I could not sleep in the night. There was very little oxygen so my brain was kicking off and I was having nightmares, he said.



Other prisoners lived in hot, crowded quarters, eight to a room, and locked up 24 hours, seven days a week, he says.



Onek said the guards would not feed them enough.

We were eating beans and maize meal once a day and sometimes we had difficulty," he said. "We cannot even have the one-time-a-day meal, we could go without food for two days.



He said he became very ill while imprisoned, and suspects other detainees have suffered similar illnesses, but have not been treated.



Both Onek and Amnesty International said they have received information that detainees have died in captivity, but Amnesty said it could not verify any deaths.



Onek emphasized he was never given access to a lawyer or charged with a crime. He said during the five months he was imprisoned, he had no idea why he was there.



But now, he said hes ready to move on.



We do not want to dwell in the past, we want to go forward, he said. He suggests it would help if the government could accept responsibility for its abuses and pay the families of those detained, in a way admitting and saying, All of us have sinned, let us forgive each other and let us move forward, Onek said.
Two-month-old Pride Nalova cries as her mother slaughters and roasts chicken in a restaurant in Cameroon's capital, Yaounde. Beatrice Nalova, the baby's 15-year-old mother, says she was forced to drop out of school when her mother found out that she was pregnant.

"When she took me to a nearby hospital, the doctor found out that I was six months pregnant," Beatrice said. "My mother hid it from my father and tried to evacuate the pregnancy. It did not work. At last I gave birth, and my father was surprised that I was pregnant and drove me out of the house. He said it was something like bad luck in the family. I left and stayed with my aunt."

Beatrice was a student at Government Bilingual High School Nkol Eton in Yaounde. Philemon Enonchong, the vice principal, said the school does not allow pregnant girls to study alongside their peers in the school.

"When we discover that a student is pregnant, we advise the parents to come and take the child back home," Enonchong said. "We would not just drive the child away or create a scene. When it is time for exams, then this child can come and write."

Teen pregnancy abounds

The Cameroon Medical Council reports that 25 percent of pregnancies occur in girls of school age, and 20 percent of pregnant teens do not return to school.

Dr. Ndansi Elvis Noka of the Unite for Health Foundation, a group that strives to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions, said the council's figures might be low, because less than 30 percent of the population visits conventional health services.

"Their fear is that of parental ostracization, like, 'My mom is going to kill me, my dad is going to slaughter me. What are my friends going to think about me?' The 25 percent is what government has identified based on those who have already overcome the fear of parents, the fear of friends, the fear of teachers."

Contraceptives are still taboo in most communities, and poverty levels are still very high, forcing many girls into prostitution. The country's demographic health survey adds that traditional practices that encourage early marriages, especially in the Muslim-dominated northern regions, are also responsible for teenage pregnancies.

Psychologist Mireille Ndje Ndje said the increase in teenage pregnancies also is linked to increased communication and interaction between people. This is a period, she said, when the world is a global village and people can communicate at all moments, wherever they are. She sad adolescent girls have a greater challenge because they are exposed to the Internet and social media, which have videos that entice them to try having sexual relations.

Childbirth complications

Gynecologist Vivian Verbe Sale of Cameroon's Ministry of Health said severe bleeding, infections and high blood pressure before and after birth are some complications that cause death during childbirth among girls under age 15. She did not have statistics on how many teenagers die while giving birth.

"When a little girl gets pregnant at that age," Sale said, "she is likely to have what we call an obstructed labor because of the small pelvis. And because of that, if she is not having the baby in a center where the staff is qualified to identify that on time to do a C-section to save the baby, she will likely have what we call vesicovaginal fistula"  a resulting abnormal passage between the bladder and vagina that allows continuous involuntary discharge of urine into the vaginal vault.

The World Health Organization says teenage pregnancies constitute a serious health and social problem worldwide, with most of them occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson got off to a good start with the media on his first day on the job February 2, breaking the ice in front of hundreds of State Department staff members by saying Hi, Im the new guy.

But ever since then, he has doggedly ignored reporters questions at brief appearances with visiting foreign ministers and other dignitaries, never answering once and mostly not even acknowledging the reporters presence with a nod or a glance in their direction.

Veteran State Department reporter Andrea Mitchell could be seen on video being physically removed from the room while still calling out questions at a group news availability with Tillerson and the Ukrainian foreign minister March 7.

But it was Tillersons decision to break with a long established precedent on traveling with members of the State Department media corps on his first major trip to Asia that has become a major story in and of itself. Former U.S. Ambassador Laura Kennedy told VOA she finds this highly unusual.

Well, I can't give you chapter and verse on every single trip that secretaries of state have taken over the years, but in my almost 40 years with the State Department, secretaries of state valued the press, so they wanted them along for a whole variety of reasons.

Kennedy was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan in 2001 and assumed the role of Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2004. She is now retired.

She pointed out that Tillersons trip to Asia is particularly newsworthy because of worldwide concerns over North Koreas missile tests, sure to be one of the main topics on the agenda. Kennedy said the appearance of a lack of media access is especially unfortunate since China is one of the stops.

I think it is a particular opportunity when you're visiting a country like China that does not have a free press, when you don't have your own very vigorous free press along with you, I think it sends, frankly, a bad signal in terms of promoting the values of a free press that is a core value of the United States.

WATCH: Tillerson Comes Under Fire For Lack of Media Access

Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked at Mondays media briefing if Tillerson was sending the wrong signal to countries like China.

This is not a message we would intend to send.

Toner pointed out that Tillerson is holding a media availability at one of the three stops in Japan. Some U.S. media outlets, including VOA, are sending reporters on commercial airlines to cover the trip and are also filling in with reporters based in Asia, since it is virtually impossible for a reporter to keep up with a traveling secretary or president who is flying on his or her own plane.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about Tillerson not taking reporters along, and if it was President Trumps decision. Spicer repeated assertions made by the State Department that the decision was made for Tillerson to take a smaller plane to cut costs.

No, we dont get involved in the logistics for every Cabinet members trip. I would advise you to touch base with the secretary, with the State Department on this. But I know that that they, they have been made aware of some of the concerns of some of your colleagues, and they are making accommodations in the future with respect to the size of the plane.

Media organizations actually pay for their reporters seats on planes, reimbursing the State Department, White House or other agency for travel costs.

Before coming to the State Department, Rex Tillerson was the CEO of ExxonMobil for 10 years and spent his entire career with the company. Steve Coll writes for New Yorker magazine and wrote a book on Exxon, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power. Coll says that Tillerson was also averse to media contact when he was at Exxon. Colls says Tillerson has valuable skills that will serve him well in the job. But he also finds Tillersons media avoidance in his new role strange. Coll says being the face and the voice of U.S. diplomacy is a key part of his job as U.S. Secretary of State, the most important voice after the president of the United States.

Acting State Department spokesman Toner rejected any suggestion that the voice of the State Department has gone silent under Tillerson, or that he has been marginalized in the Trump administration:

"Secretary Tillerson is very engaged with the White House, very engaged with the president -- speaks to him frequently, was over there just yesterday, I believe, for a meeting. And I can assure everyone that the secretary's voice, the State Department's voice, is heard loud and clear in policy discussions at the National Security Council level."
U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Tuesday at the White House to discuss what the Saudi Press Agency said was "the strengthening of bilaterial relations between the two countries and regional issues of mutual interest."

It was the highest level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal family member since Trump's November presidential victory.

The White House has not provided details of the meeting, but key issues likely to have been discussed include global energy prices and conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, where Saudi-led coalition forces supported by the U.S. has been bombing Iran-supported Shiite rebels for almost two years.

Saudi Arabia is also part of a U.S.-supported coalition engaged in a bombing campaign against the Islamic State militant group in Syria.

Saudi-U.S. relations cooled under the administration of President Barack Obama after it reached a nuclear agreement with regional rival Iran.

Saudi officials have expressed optimism about rebuilding relations with the United States and collaborating with the Trump administration to limit Iran's influence in the region.

Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of American-made weapons and the world's top oil exporter.
U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a two-day summit next month at his palatial Florida mansion along the Atlantic Ocean, the first meeting between the two world leaders.

Neither Washington nor Beijing has confirmed the summit at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, but U.S. news outlets report the meeting between the heads of the world's two largest economies is planned for April 6 and 7.

The reports said that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to complete plans for the Trump-Xi meeting when he visits Beijing later this week. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday both countries were in "close communication" about exchanges between their leaders.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday that Trump and Xi would discuss the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons development program and test missile launches, as well as other issues.

Trump has often called on China to rein in Pyongyang's aggressive actions, pointing to Beijing's influence over the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The U.S. also has voiced its opposition to Beijing's development of man-made islands in the South China Sea, occasionally sending its warships in close proximity to the islands in international waters as a show of strength in the region.

One-China policy



Meanwhile, China voiced its irritation with the U.S. when Trump at first expressed the possibility of ending the decades-long U.S. "one-China policy" that accepts Beijing's claim on Taiwan as part of China.



In his transition to power, Trump took a pre-arranged call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen congratulating him on his November election victory, a suggestion the U.S. was not wedded to the idea of China control of Taiwan that Washington first accepted in 1979.

In a message on his Twitter account, Trump said at the time, "Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

But a month ago, Trump assured Xi in a phone call that there was no change in the U.S. acceptance of the one-China policy, easing the path to the planned summit.

Trade



During his long run to the White House, Trump often assailed China for allegedly manipulating its currency to benefit Chinese exporters. The new American president, nearing two months in office, has often complained about the wide trade imbalance between the two countries, with the $347 billion disparity between two countries the biggest in the world.

Last year, China sent $463 billion in consumer electronics, clothing and machinery to the U.S., while the U.S. shipped $116 billion in raw materials to China for low-cost assembly.

Many of the most popular U.S. consumer products sold by American technology giant Apple, including its popular iPhone, are manufactured in China.

But numerous economic analysts say it is doubtful Trump can cut in to the wide trade imbalance, despite his frequent boasts that he will bring back jobs to America that have been lost to overseas locations as manufacturers search for cheaper labor in other countries.

Trump has suggested that he will try to impose new tariffs on foreign-produced goods manufactured by U.S. companies overseas, an action that would need congressional approval and could set off a tariff war with other countries.

The reality is that many American consumers want to be able to buy cheaper foreign-produced items, though, even if it means that fewer goods are built in America and it costs U.S. workers their jobs.

Trump said during his presidential campaign that on his first day in office he would label China a currency manipulator, but he has yet to do so.
Turkey is rejecting European Union calls for restraint, as Turkey and The Netherlands remain locked in a diplomatic dispute.

Dutch authorities barred Turkish ministers from holding rallies in support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then accused The Netherlands of acting like Nazis.

On Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn called on Turkey to "refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk further exacerbating the situation."

The two EU officials said, "It is essential to avoid further escalation and find ways to calm down the situation."

Turkey's Foreign Ministry responded with a statement Tuesday saying those comments have no value for Turkey.

Turkey bans Dutch ambassador

Turkey has also suspended high-level ties with The Netherlands as part of a package of sanctions to protest Dutch actions.The measures also include banning the Dutch ambassador, who is currently out of the country, from returning to Turkey and suspending diplomatic flights.The range of sanctions did not appear to include economic measures or travel restrictions for ordinary citizens.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters the measures would remain in place until The Netherlands takes steps to "redress" its actions.Turkish officials also said the government should reevaluate its cooperation with the European Union on preventing the flow of migrants across land.

Turkey's foreign minister and home minister had planned to attend events in The Netherlands meant to boost support for an upcoming referendum that would give Erdogan wider power.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who called Erdogan's Nazi claim "a crazy remark,"faces a tough re-election battle Wednesday against the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders.

After votes, back to normal?

Joe Burton, a senior lecturer in international security at the University of Waikato, said votes are playing a role in inflaming tensions.

"I would say probably the pattern is for these crises to dissipate, and reasonably quickly, and that probably that business as normal will return after the referendums are out of the way," he told VOA.

Turkey and The Netherlands are both members of NATO.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urged Turkey and its NATO allies on Monday to "show mutual respect, to be calm and have a measured approach to contribute to de-escalate the tensions."

Burton said there has been a real consolidation of power under Erdogan since a failed coup attempt last year, and that those developments are a "deeply troubling trend for NATO."But he does not see an immediate effect on NATO operations, which are mainly focused right now on deterring Russian aggression in eastern Europe.
A U.N. investigator presenting her first report on Iran's human rights record says Iranian leaders have made some progress, but must do more to stop what she calls the "persecution" of Iranian people.

In an exclusive interview with VOA Persian in Geneva on Monday, U.N. special rapporteur on Iran's human rights situation Asma Jahangir credited Iran for boosting engagement with her office.

"They are now responding to our communications more and more, which was not the case earlier," she said.

Jahangir, an independent Pakistani rights activist who took up her post last November, spoke to VOA on the day she presented her first Iran report to the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council. "Iran gave extensive comments to my report (covering the second half of 2016)  whether I agreed with those comments is not the point. But at least there were the comments, and I learned a lot from them."

Jahangir also welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's signing of a Citizens' Rights Charter in December. The document emphasizes the Iranian people's freedoms of speech and assembly and rights to access information, health services, a clean environment and clean water.

Jahangir said Rouhani has appointed an official to pursue the aims of the charter. "We are looking at some improvements that may come about," she said. "For example we are hoping that the death penalty for juveniles will be ended and that some not-so-serious drug-related crimes will not be subject to capital punishment." Jahangir's report says Iran has executed at least 156 people since January, after carrying out at least 530 executions in 2016, mostly for drug offenses.

Jahangir also said information she has received from inside Iran indicates the charter has not been implemented effectively, so far. Iran has criticized the appointments of U.N. special rapporteurs on its rights record such as Jahangir and blocked them visiting, saying they rely on information from hostile sources. In her presentation to the Human Rights Council, Jahangir said she has relied on reports "received from Iranians living both inside and outside of Iran" as well as consultations with "civil society organizations and various stakeholders."

In a separate interview with VOA Persian's NewsHour show on Monday, exiled Iranian Nobel Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi offered a theory as to why Iran is starting to cooperate with Jahangir. "Obviously, international pressure does make a difference in how Iran responds to allegations of human rights abuses," she said. "Previously, Iranian officials would not bother to respond to queries from the rapporteur, and would heap scorn and insults on this U.N. investigator  but now they feel obliged to respond to her."



Last week, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein issued a separate report making criticisms of Iran's human rights record.

Speaking to VOA, Jahangir identified three areas in which she said Iran should make urgent changes to its policies.

On freedom of expression, she said "I'm really concerned about how people are arbitrarily detained, arrested, harassed and intimidated" for expressing themselves.

On the treatment of political prisoners, she said "torture is endemic" and sends a signal to the rest of the country that "if you don't agree or if you don't get into line, this is the treatment that you will get."

And on the independence of the judiciary, she said lawyers and judges have given "virtual impunity" to Iranian security forces and operate with an "official" mindset to the extent that "they don't seem to work independently at all."

VIDEO: Asma Jahangir talks about Iran's human rights record

Kazzem Qaribabadi, an Iranian judiciary official participating in the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, told Iran's official Fars news agency on Sunday that he will respond to Jahangir's allegations in the coming days.

Last week, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi rejected Jahangir's report, first published on March 6, as politically motivated and ignoring Iran's responses to the alleged rights violations that she raised. Earlier this month, Fars quoted Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi as telling the Human Rights Council that "Iran continues its efforts towards promotion of human rights based on the recognition of an interactive and cooperative approach at different levels."

Jahangir said her report was "not about naming and shaming" Iran. She said she recently met with members of the Iranian judiciary's human rights department and sought their input to make the report more balanced and offer "constructive solutions" to Iran's challenges.

The Pakistani activist also defended the report as "critical" to raising awareness of Iran's human rights situation among people inside and outside the country. "More importantly," she said, "it gives victims and activists inside Iran essential moral support  otherwise they are just being persecuted without any kind of an outlet to raise their voices."

Guita Aryan and Hooman Bakhtiar of VOA's Persian service contributed to this report.
There has been a "massive" increase in human rights abuses in South Sudan over the past nine months, partly because of the failure of the international community to set up a court and bring perpetrators to justice, a U.N. official said Tuesday.

The scale of human rights abuses in South Sudan, particularly sexual violence, is "so horrifying that the consequences of doing nothing are unthinkable," said Yasmin Sooka, chairwoman of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

Sooka told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that civilians had been "deliberately and systematically targeted on the basis of their ethnicity by government and government-aligned forces." She said the government had begun a campaign of "population engineering" to relocate people over their ethnicity, as civil war continues under warnings of genocide.

Unlawful arrests, rape, torture and killing have become the norm, the U.N. expert said, describing whole villages burned to ashes and hospitals and churches attacked.

The failure to prosecute atrocities in South Sudan is "appeasement" and makes the world complicit in the continuing bloodshed there, she said.

'No more excuses'

An escalation in rights violations can be prevented only if there is an immediate push to set up a court and bring prosecutions, Sooka said, adding that the court should be operational by the end of the year.

"There can be no more delay, no more excuses," she said.

South Sudan's Justice Minister Paulino Wanawilla Unango refuted the report, telling the Security Council that he didn't recognize Sooka's portrayal of his country. He said her team had visited only a few towns and had not reflected the government's views in its report.

"It will never be a fair investigation," he said.

South Sudan has been beset by violence for more than three years because of a political rivalry between the young country's two leaders.

The power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, broke out in December 2013, after the president accused Machar and 10 others of attempting a coup d'etat. The war has displaced more than 2 million people from their homes and caused food shortages in many areas.
U.S. Representative Steve King on Monday stood by controversial remarks on immigration and birth rates, in which he said our civilization could not be restored with somebody else's babies, drawing condemnation from Democrats and fellow Republicans.

The speaker of the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, and the leading Democrat in the chamber, Nancy Pelosi, both took exception to King's remarks.

The Iowa congressman on Sunday posted a tweet praising Geert Wilders, a nationalist, anti-Islam politician vying to become the Netherlands' prime minister in a national election on Wednesday.

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies, King wrote in a post that drew thousands of likes.

Pelosi on Monday called on House Republican leaders to condemn King's comments, saying they must decide whether white supremacy is welcome in the GOP ranks.

A spokeswoman for Ryan, AshLee Strong, said, The speaker clearly disagrees [with King]\ and believes America's long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths.

King, an early supporter of Donald Trump in last year's presidential election, defended his tweet in an interview on CNN on Monday. He pointed to Western Europe, where he said low birth rates were harming civilization, culture and values.

Id like to see an America that is just so homogeneous that we look a lot the same, he said. I think there's far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years. I want to see that put behind us.

Pressed on birth rates for different groups of Americans, King said: They contribute differently to our culture and civilization.

Some of King's House colleagues appeared to take his tweet personally.

What exactly do you mean?, tweeted Republican U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo of Florida. Do I qualify as 'somebody else's baby?' #concernedGOPcolleague.

Democratic Representative Ted Lieu, who immigrated to the United States at age 3, tweeted a picture of his two sons, writing: Dear Representative Steve King: These are my two babies  Representative Ted Lieu.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said, America is a nation of immigrants, and added that King's sentiment doesn't reflect our shared history or values. Bush was one of Trump's Republican rivals for the White House.

The tweet also drew fire from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The head of the civil and human rights law firm, Sherilyn Ifill, said King's remarks were an explicit call to return to the shameful period when white supremacy was the norm in American public life.

Ifill said King's remarks were particularly dangerous at a time when violent hate crimes have reached dangerous levels.

King is from a rural state where nearly 92 percent of the population is white, compared with 77 percent for the nation as a whole, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Jeff Kaufmann, head of the Republican Party in Iowa, said in a statement that he disagreed with King, also calling the United States a nation of immigrants and saying that such diversity was its strength.
As the director of the Carter Center's Conflict Resolution Program, Lebanese-born Hrair Balian had a problem at the onset of the war in Syria in 2011.

"There really was a shortage of reliable information of developments on the ground," he told VOA in an interview at the Atlanta headquarters of the Carter Center. "All we were seeing was propaganda."

The widely used quote, "The first casualty when war comes is truth," is evident today in Syria, where journalists have been killed and others forced or frightened out of the country.

Despite a gap in media coverage, however, a then-enterprising intern discovered reliable information was available, hiding in plain sight, due largely to the fact the Syrian conflict unfolded in a part of the world where many are connected, digitally.

"Syrians, and people in the Middle East in general, are two to four times more likely to share information about politics, and religious views online," said that former intern, Christopher McNaboe, citing a Pew Research Center study on social media habits of those living in the Middle East.

"In the case of Syria, there's just too much. Videos, Facebook posts, tweets, blogs, photos, you name it...Syrians are very active and passionate about getting information out," he said.

"One of the first things we started seeing online was the announcement of defections. As the conflict turned violent, people started defecting from the Syrian security forces. And they did so online."

McNaboe began documenting where those defections occurred in Syria, who the defectors aligned with, and who was joining them. It was information that started to give Balian a better understanding of the growing complexities of the conflict.

"Through this process, we've been able to document the formation of over 7,000 opposition armed groups in Syria. Not all of them remain active to this day."

From a laptop computer, McNaboe demonstrates how he has compiled and charted the information, using different colored dots on an interactive map to show the positions of a variety of groups engaged in the conflict, over different periods of time. This interactive map allows users to watch the evolution of the conflict and the changing front lines of the war. Almost all of the information that helps illustrate the map is culled from the volume of material publicly available on social media.

"The information available online ranges anywhere from political statements, and defections, and armed group formations, to footage of the actual fighting, and humanitarian relief efforts; you name it," says McNaboe.

"I think the Syrian conflict represents a major paradigm shift, a major change in the way in which conflict plays out," he adds. "Previous conflicts did not take place in connected environments like Syria. There wasn't YouTube. There wasn't Twitter."

Watching and documenting the information in that connected environment is now McNaboe's full-time job as director of the Syria Conflict Mapping Project at the Carter Center, which former President Jimmy Carter says has been particularly useful for humanitarian organizations.

"So when the United Nations needs to find the best avenue to take in relief supplies, we can tell them which way to go," he told VOA in a recent, exclusive interview.

The Carter Center also shares some of its Syria maps and reports publicly, making them available to non-profit organizations, governments and the news media.

"We give the same information to The New York Times, and to The Economist magazine, and other notable news media, so they can be accurate when they describe the location of folks inside Syria," Carter says.

Accuracy was part of Carter's motivation to share the information with Russian President Vladimir Putin when his forces entered Syria in 2015.

"When he got ready to join in, and bomb, factions within Syria, I wanted to make sure he would bomb the right ones or at least he knew what he was bombing," Carter said. "So I sent him a message through his embassy and told him we have this capability within Syria to tell you where people are located; do you want to have that? So the next day I got a response from him, 'Yes, I would like to have your maps.' So we sent our maps, on a current basis, to President Putin."

McNaboe says the intention was to engage in "direct and frank contact with the Russian government" and put the Russians on notice the Carter Center could monitor their targets in Syria; but, he stresses there is limited military value in the information the center compiles and shares.

"If you were analyzing exactly where an armed group were announcing themselves, maybe you could act upon it, but it's unlikely that it would be timely enough for actual military action," he says. "What we report on publicly, things like front lines, are widely known; but, we analyze and structure the data in ways so that we can get insights to the bigger trends in the conflict."

McNaboe says the information the Carter Center gathers is based on material publicly available to anyone with the means to compile and understand it.

"Any participant in the Syrian conflict, almost everybody has engaged online," he says.

"It happens that with these kinds of transmissions, the people are very eager to identify themselves," Carter told VOA.

Despite any perceived military or intelligence value of the information, McNaboe says the Carter Center doesnt share information they believe would put people at risk.

If you are a combatant in the conflict and you dont know where the front lines are, our information is not going to help you too much, McNaboe says. So we are careful about what we make totally public. We want our effort to pursue peace and support peace efforts, and do everything it can to reduce the risk to any civilian or participant in the conflict.

A conflict now entering its seventh year, at a time when more U.S. military forces are joining the fight on the ground, engaged in a war with no clear end in sight.
The New York Times launched the torpedo: the charge that Moscow has violated the Treaty on Medium Range Nuclear Weapons (INF by its English acronym) [1]. And this [torpedo] has struck its target: intensifying tensions in relations between the United States and Russia, slowing down or blocking negotiations of the deal that Trump alluded to even during his electoral campaign. The torpedo is etched with Obamas signature. For it was he who in July 2014 (immediately after the Maidan Square Putsch and the ensuing crisis with Russia) accused Putin of testing a nuclear cruise missile called SSC-X-8 and thus violating the INF Treaty of 1987 that prohibits the lining up of land missiles even within a range between 500 and 5,500 km.

According to declarations made by anonymous officials in the US intelligence community, two Russian battalions have already been armed, each one equipped with four mobile launchers and 24 missiles with nuclear heads.

Before leaving his office as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe last year, General Philip Breedlove warned that lining up this new Russian missile cannot be left unresponded to. However he remained silent on the fact that Nato has lined up in Europe around 700 US, French and British nuclear heads against Russia; virtually each one ready to launch 24/7. And gradually extending to the East, to include [parts of] the former USSR, Nato has drawn its nuclear forces gradually closer to Russia.

It is in the context of such a strategy that the Obama administration took the decision to replace the 180 B-61 nuclear bombs  installed in Italy (50 at Aviano and 20 at Ghedi-Torre), Germany, Belgium, Holland and Turkey with the B61-12. The latter are the new nuclear weapons, each with four power options that you can choose from depending on the target to strike. They have the capacity to penetrate the terrain to destroy the command centres bunkers. A 10 billion dollar programme given that each B61-12 will cost more than its weight in gold.

At the same time, the US has built the first land missile battalion in Romania for anti-missile defense. This will be followed by another one in Poland, composed of the Aegis missiles, already installed on board four US warships stationed in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. This is the so-called shield, which serves to attack rather than defend: if they were to be able to realize it, the US and Nato would keep Russia under the threat of a nuclear first strike, confident that its shield would be able to neutralize the reprisal. What is more, Lockheed Martins system of vertical launch (Mk 41), installed on the ships and in the base in Romania, is capable of launching (according to specific techniques provided by that construction company), missiles for every mission, including those to attack land targets with Tomahawk cruise missiles, that can also be armed with nuclear heads.

Moscow has warned that these battalions, which are also capable of launching nuclear missiles, constitute a violation of the INF treaty.

What will the European Union do in this scenario? While it harps on about its commitment for nuclear disarmament, in its political circles it is conceiving what the New York Times defines as an idea that before had been unthinkable: a EU nuclear arms programme. Under such a plan, the French nuclear arsenal would be reprogrammed to protect the rest of Europe and placed under a common European command, that would be funded through a common fund. This would be the case, if Europe was no longer able to count on protection from the US. In other words: if Trump sides with Putin and decides not to store any longer the B61-12 in Europe, the EU would consider pursuing a nuclear confrontation with Russia.
As soon as the new Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, had been nominated, President Donald Trump asked him to prepare plans which would enable him not simply to displace the jihadists here or there, or to rely on some and not on others, but to eliminate them all.

During his speech before Congress, on 28 February, he confirmed that his objective was to put an end to radical Islamic terrorism. In order to avoid errors of interpretation, he pointed out that both Muslims and Christians were victims of this form of terrorism. His position is therefore not aimed against Islam itself, but against the political ideology which uses Muslim references.

It would seem that the US chain of command will soon be rectified. Once the objective and the methods have been decided by President Trump, the military will be given free reign to lead the operation as they see fit. Responsibilites will therefore be shared in advance  the Pentagon will have to assume any blunders, and the White House will have to answer for any defeats.

This is why it is a good idea to clarify as quickly as possible the position of the United States in terms of the Syrian Arab Republic. It should be announced in Washington on 22 March, during a meeting of the anti-Daesh Coalition, in the presence of the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. The least we can say is that for the moment, nothing has changed on this subject  at the Security Council, ambassador Nikki Haley supported yet another project for a Franco-British resolution against Syria, and collected a sixth veto from China, and a seventh from Russia.

Behind the Franco-British manuvre of accusing without proof, on the simple basis of alleged witness accounts from the aggressor groups, Syrian ambassador Bachar Jaafari denounced an attempt to justify regime change, and also to absolve Israel, which is guilty of possessing a nuclear arsenal, despite the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Putting an end to jihadism would mean abandoning the joint plan by London and Washington to remodel the Greater Middle East and place the Muslim Brotherhood in power everywhere. That would be tantamount to recognising that the Arab Springs were nothing more than the re-run by the CIA and MI6 of the Arab Revolt of 1916. This would make it necessary for the United Kingdom to abandon a map that it has been developing patiently for a century; for Saudi Arabia to dismantle the Muslim World League, which has been coordinating the jihadists since 1962; for France to let go of its fantasy of a new mandate over Syria; and for Turkey to cease sponsoring their political organisations. In all probability it is therefore not a uniquely US decision, but one implicating at least four other states.

Despite appearances, this decision is a lot bigger than Syria. It could mean the end of the Anglo-Saxon imperial policy and its innumerable consequences for international relations. This is in fact the aim of Donald Trumps electoral programme, but no-one can tell if he will be able to implement it effectively, faced as he is with the extraordinary opposition of the US elites.

As for the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, he held a meeting in Ankara with his Russian and Turkish counterparts. The participants dealt with questions concerning the avoidance of interference between the different armies in a conflict with multiple actors. Iran was not invited, considering that on the ground - unlike Hezbollah - its armed forces have for a long time been limiting themselves to the defence of Chiite populations only.

While the Syrian Arab Army liberated Palmyra once again, the contingent of US military illegally present on Syrian soil had been expanded to 900 men. It crossed the North of Syria, making itself as conspicuous as possible.

The most important practical question is what troops the United States are expecting to rely on for support in an attack on Raqqa. The Press continues to claim that the Pentagon is counting on the Kurds of the YPG, but other sources are talking about a possible reproduction of the plans for Mosul - US advisors supervising the national army.

During the meeting in Ankara, General Dunford seemed preoccupied by the foreseeable Turko-Kurdish confrontations, particularly since a part of the YPG has chosen to place itself under the protection of Damascus faced with the announcement of a possible Turko-Mongol tsunami.

At best, it will be on 22 March that we find out if President Trump accepts to admit that the Obama administration lost the war against Syria, and if he is serious when he says he wants to eradicate jihadism. And what will become of those who, for a century, were the faithful executors of British policy?
The Syrian Arab Army (the government forces) is drawing in on Rakka.

At the same time, the US Forces have almost doubled and now total 900 men. They have crossed the North of Syria in a highly visible manner and have also announced that they are heading towards Rakka.

A syndicate of forces could launch the Battle for Rakka in May.

The Syrian Arab Army and the US Forces seem to have two common objectives:

 to ward off a Turkish attack against the Syrian Kurds;

 to beseige Rakka by chasing out Daesh.

Highly contradictory information is circulating on the position of the Kurds in Syria. Some seem to want to pursue a plan to create an independent State through the ethnic cleansing of North Syria, and others seem to be seeking once more to protect Syria against Turkey.

The plan adopted to liberate Mossul (Iraq), could also be used to liberate Rakka (Syria): the national army is currently supported there by the United States against Daesh. If this happens, it would be a major reversal of the US strategy, which until now, has been in favour of Daesh in Syria against the Syrian Arab Army.
Photo: VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images

Daniel Kaluuya respects Samuel L. Jackson, but he doesnt agree with the veteran actors assessment that hes any less qualified to play the African-American lead character in Jordan Peeles racial horror-comedy Get Out because hes British. After Jackson wondered what Get Out would have been with an American brother who really feels that, he clarified that he was really referring to a structural bias in Hollywood that seems to prefer black British actors over their African-American counterparts. Speaking to GQ, Kaluuya said that theres no universal black experience, but Jordan Peeles social horror-thriller about liberal white racism and microaggressions still felt relevant and true to his own life as someone who grew up abroad:

Big up Samuel L. Jackson, because heres a guy who has broken down doors. He has done a lot so that we can do what we can do.



Heres the thing about that critique, though. Im dark-skinned, bro. When Im around black people Im made to feel other because Im dark-skinned. Ive had to wrestle with that, with people going Youre too black. Then I come to America and they say, Youre not black enough. I go to Uganda, I cant speak the language. In India, Im black. In the black community, Im dark-skinned. In America, Im British. Bro!



Kaluuya recounted examples of racism faced by black people in the U.K., and insisted that he wasnt comparing racism experienced by two separate cultures, just that hes devoted to telling black stories:

Let me say, Im not trying to culture-vulture the thing. I empathize. That script spoke to me. Ive been to Ugandan weddings, and funerals, and seen that cousin bring a white girl. Thats a thing in all communities. I really respect African American people. I just want to tell black stories.



This is the frustrating thing, broin order to prove that I can play this role, I have to open up about the trauma that Ive experienced as a black person. I have to show off my struggle so that people accept that Im black. No matter that every single room I go to Im usually the darkest person there. You know what Im saying? I kind of resent that mentality. Im just an individual. You probably feel that as a writer, too. Just because youre black, youre taken and used to represent something. It mirrors what happens in the film.
J. Paul Getty III after his release from kidnapping in 1973. Photo: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis via Getty Images

Oil, art, kidnapping  the Getty family has seen it all, which makes them the perfect subject for splashy Hollywood biographies. Today, the news broke that Ridley Scott is planning to make a movie about the 1973 kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III, the then-teenage grandson of oil baron J. Paul Getty. Per Variety, Natalie Portman (go-to tragic mid-century rich woman) is in talks to play Gail Harris, J. Paul Getty IIIs mother, who helped convince his grandfather to pay the several million dollar ransom, but only after the younger Getty was held captive for five months in Italy. The kidnappers also cut off Gettys ear in order to coerce the family into sending money  its a truly chilling story.

Of course, a story that salacious is going to inspire multiple projects, and lo and behold, Danny Boyle is already working on a TV approach to the Getty history. Last year, FX ordered ten episodes of Boyles limited series Trust, which will also focus on the Getty kidnapping in its first season. Since that announcement, details about Trust have been few and far between, but in a recent interview with Collider, Boyle said he intends the series to be a five-decade family thing, with five seasons, each set in a different decade  as with the royals in The Crown, theres plenty of dramatic Getty history to go around. Boyle plans to start shooting the first season of Trust this summer, which sets the stage for a potential Scott-Boyle case of Getty Tobies. If FX is wise, it could just turn that into a new season of Feud.
The I in the ghostly documentary I Called Him Morgan is Helen Morgan, the him Lee Morgan, the transcendental bop trumpeter whom Helen (his wife) shot in the chest on a snowy night in 1972, some years after shed pulled him out of the gutter and helped him kick the heroin habit that had ended his career. The movies Swedish-born director, Kasper Collin, makes magic with ingredients that are magical to start with: a handful of contemporary interviews; black-and-white candids of Morgan and such friends and colleagues as Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, Billy Harper, and Charli Persip; and an audiotape of Helen, sounding old but firm a scant month before her death in 1996. Oh, yes, theres music, lots of it. If you dont know Lee Morgan, it will be love at first listen.

The events recounted in I Called Him Morgan are elemental, in the world of 20th-century bebop perhaps even archetypal: Morgans auspicious debut with Art Blakey; his growing fame; the drugs that led to a burn scar on his scalp from when he ODed and fell against a radiator; his rehab and new life and then evident feeling of entrapment; and his infatuation with a younger woman who now insists to Collin that Morgans sexuality was very, very limited. Not much of the above is filled in, but it hardly needs to be. The movie is like a record you could spin again and again. The musicians must be the most photogenic men alive  almost every shot evokes a freedom of spirit, a simultaneous relaxation and alertness. Collin supplies a visual motif as connective tissue: ash, smoke, snowflakes, rain, all of them swirling against winter skies or clubs like Slugs or the apartment building on the Bronxs Grand Concourse where Morgan got his chops back. The movie has the perfect soundtrack for swirling. Its mesmerizing, too vivid to be evanescent, too precious to hold.

*This article appears in the March 6, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
After yet another busy week in Washington, D.C., Seth Meyers used his Late Night Closer Look segment to catch America up on the latest controversial topics: wiretapping and health care. You see, if only President Obama had installed those secret cameras in microwaves that Kellyanne Conway warned us about then maybe wed know what U.S. representatives and President Trumps administration really think about the wiretapping allegations and Paul Ryans proposed healthcare plan. Unfortunately, we dont, but at least Seth Meyers is here to fill us in on the secret to Obamas current popularity and the hot debates, like whether Spain taxes the sun.
TNTs Animal Kingdom brought a little SoCal to South by Southwest. The gritty crime drama centered on a matriarch-led clan of thieving, womanizing brothers in Southern California returns to TNT for its second season on May 30.

Animal Kingdoms Austin popup space included a surfable wave pool (complete with pro surfers), a custom Vans bar, and more. We caught up with three of Animal Kingdoms Cody boys  Shawn Hatosy (Pope), Finn Cole (J), and Ben Robson (Craig)  after they gave surfing in the middle of Austin a whirl. We talked about the family dynamic offscreen, the upcoming season two premiere (which picks up on the heels of a murder and a massive heist), and more.

I hear some of you literally went surfing at South by Southwest. Tell me about that experience.

Shawn Hatosy: Well, Ben Robson who plays Craig, and Finn Cole, who plays J, do a lot of surfing on the show. Thus, they were the brave souls who tackled the FlowRider this afternoon. The weather was not cooperating, but I was there in support of my castmates.

Finn Cole: It was cool. It was cold today, but it was nice. We go out there, we kind of have to learn it pretty quick, and fell off a few times. But it was pretty fun.

Speaking of surfing, the whole Animal Kingdom SXSW experience was designed to bring a bit of SoCal to Austin. Why would you say the SoCal aesthetic and setting is so important to the show?

FC: I think its an identity thing. It kind of sets us apart from a lot of the other shows on TV  just to have such interesting characters, and to put them in that premise. It builds a cool story line. Also, it gives us the opportunity to explore some really cool surroundings. We can do the surfing, we can do the bike riding, we can do the boat stops, we can do all of that stuff. It gives us an opportunity in the story lines to actually have some fun, and it also gives an identity to the show.

In terms of the shows identity, how would you describe Animal Kingdom for new viewers, and what do you think makes it really stand out from other crime dramas?

FC: It stands out again because of the location that we set it in. Its about a family run by a matriarch, Smurf, wonderfully played by Ellen Barkin. She has this kind of incestuous hold over her sons, and we see it through Js eyes  hes my character. We see him come into the family after his mum overdoses. His mum was Smurfs daughter, and the twin of Pope Cody. She was kind of the outcast of the family, and when she dies, I go and live with this crazy family run by Smurf. Its kind of watching this weird family operate and live day to day, and survive, is what it comes down to. It just comes down to surviving, and not getting caught, and getting away with the jobs that theyre trying to pull. Its high-octane drama. Its fast-paced storylines are quick and detailed and well-thought-out. We have the opportunity to do some really, really cool stuff with that.

Photo: 2017 Getty Images

You guys play a family. Would you say youve become brothers of sorts offscreen? Im wondering what that dynamic is like.

Ben Robson: Well, yes, its kind of exactly that. I think when were spending that much time together as well as working through such high levels of drama, you go through everything  you really do laugh and cry together through these incredibly dramatic sort of moments that you experience. Plus, I think going down to Oceanside when we spent a week living together  we really got to know each other outside of the job. So, were all very close. We enjoy the trips like coming to South by Southwest, because we sort of grow closer as friends, and I definitely think it makes the chemistry onscreen that much more palpable as a result.

What would you say your funniest or most interesting memory of filming season one would be?

BR: Maybe the pilot? Alright, yeah, okay. So probably Craigs opening scene in the pilot  that was pretty much my first day on set with everyone. I just crawled in butt-naked and started my scene and kissed Ellen on the mouth. Basically, naked. And watched everyone elses reactions throughout the entire process.

Thats quite the icebreaker.

BR: That was it. Yeah, it was definitely an icebreaker for sure.

What would you say was the hardest scene to film?

BR: I think theres been a lot of hard moments, and Im kind of speaking on behalf of the others here, but you know I think Shawn really found the moment with Daniella [Alonso]  the climax of the end of season one  a very sort of challenging piece because it was obviously so integral to that ending. I think everyones had their moments  I think theres very challenging parts, and places to be which are very fun to explore in terms of acting. But obviously, very deep-rooted and heavy, and dark, with the scenes at times.

What are each of you looking forward to most about sharing season two with the world?

BR: I think the thing Im most excited about for the fans to see in season two is just the return of the Codys, and following on from season one. Its a new trajectory in which all the sort of brothers, the sons of Smurf, are going on and really seeing their ambitions realized, and how they want to go and achieve them. So its a very interesting dynamic to see how the family splinters after the big argument with Smurf  we all get to know the characters that much better through the way they move on.

SH: Well  its a departure from last season because we were clearly under Smurfs rule, and she was in the position of power. As she should be, shes Smurf. In season two, we push off, we break away. And for Pope, what that means is  shes managed him his whole life. With his history of mental health issues, the relationship there. I think he kind of needs her management, as much as he hates that  when they break away, Pope finds himself trying to function as a human being without her. In many ways, its a normalization of Pope, which is an interesting thing to watch.

FC: Im really looking forward to how the storylines have evolved. In this season, it gets a lot deeper. The fragmentation of the family is really interesting; Im excited to see what people think, and who people side with. I think that J is a strong character to kind of side with, and to want to win. But it will be interesting because its not clear from the way that weve been making the show  its not necessarily definitive as to who you should support and who you want to succeed. So, its quite interesting. That rarely happens in TV. Often, youve got your heroes and your villains, and in this, its the opposite of that. Theres some great stuff in there, theres some great stunts  I look forward to seeing what people think.
A former juvenile detention officer who was set to stand trial Monday in the 2014 death of his infant son was sentenced to 48 years in prison Thursday in a plea bargain with prosecutors.

Judge Ralph Strother of Waco's 19th State District Court approved the plea agreement with Anton Juel Henry, who pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of murder and injury to a child in the death of his 2-month-old son and injuries to the boy's twin sister.

Henry had been charged with capital murder but prosecutors were not going to seek the death penalty against him. Prosecutors also agreed to dismiss one count of injury to a child and reduced the other count from a first-degree felony to a state-jail felony. Strother sentenced Henry to 24 months in prison on the injury to a child count and ordered the sentences to be served concurrently.

Henry, 30, must serve at least 24 years before he can become eligible for parole. If he had been found guilty of capital murder, Henry would have been sentenced to an automatic life sentence with no hope for parole.

In a victim-impact statement after Henry was sentenced, his former wife, Rhonda Henry, the mother of his two children, told Henry that at least he still would have a chance at a life that her son, Jaden, did not have.

"I can't describe how much pain I have been in for the past three years of my life," she said. "I never thought our marriage would come to an end like it did. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. The hardest thing of all was telling our daughter what happened to her brother and her father. Every day I look at her and see you."

Thumbing through a photo album for Henry to see, Rhonda Henry said, "our happier times," while showing photos of her pregnancy and the birth of their twin children. The last photo in the book was taken at Jaden's funeral, she said.

"At the end of the day, God has the final say-so and you will have to answer to him," she said.

Henry pleaded guilty to killing his baby in June 2014 by fracturing his skull and ribs. An autopsy showed the child died from "blunt-force injury." While Henry made incriminating statements to police, he never told them exactly how he caused the injuries to the child.

Henry, who had worked at the Bill Logue Juvenile Justice Center as a detention officer since September 2013, told police he was frustrated and overwhelmed by Jadens constant crying and that he grabbed the baby by his torso, squeezing him really hard, according to court records.

He also pleaded guilty to injuring his daughter, Jaliyah, by striking or squeezing her torso with his hand or fist and and injuring her left ankle.

"I think it is sad for both Mr. Henry and for his wife because nobody won," said attorney Russ Hunt, who represented Henry with attorney Michelle Tuegel. "It was just a case where we wanted to get the matter resolved. There are no winners."
Eleven more bikers arrested but not indicted after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, alleging they were arrested without cause and their constitutional rights have been trampled on.

Daryle Walker, of Franklin County, Ohio; Michael Woods, of Bell County; Don Fowler, of Ellis County; David Cepeda, of Bexar County; Kevin Rash, of McLennan County; Richard Kreder, of Navarro County; Greg Corrales, of Bexar County; Bobby Joe Samford, of Milam County; Jimmy Spencer Jr., of Montgomery County; Craig Rodahl, of McLennan County; and Arley Harris III, of Bosque County, are the latest bikers to allege in a lawsuit filed in an Austin federal court that their civil rights were violated by their unlawful arrests and improper incarceration under $1 million bonds each.

The 55-page lawsuit, filed on the bikers behalf by Dallas attorney Don Tittle, names as defendants former Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman, Waco police Detective Manuel Chavez, McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, the city of Waco, McLennan County and unnamed government employees involved in the arrests identified only as John Does.

Unspecified damages

Unlike another lawsuit filed last week on behalf of Brenham resident Morgan English, who is seeking $350 million in damages after her arrest at Twin Peaks, the latest lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

None of these (11) individuals have been indicted, the lawsuit states. In fact, despite the passage of 22 months since the date of the incident, none of their cases have even been presented to a grand jury.

Despite the fact that no evidence whatsoever indicates that any of them were engaged in anything other than completely lawful conduct, defendants Stroman, Reyna and Chavez recently stated in legal pleadings filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas that these individuals have not been absolved of criminal wrongdoing and remain very much under investigation. This suit seeks to correct the miscarriage of justice and assault on the United States Constitution perpetrated by these defendants.

Reyna did not return a phone message left at his office Tuesday.

Reyna conferred with Stroman by telephone and with Stromans top assistants at the scene before the decision was made to arrest 177 bikers after the May 17, 2015, shootout that left nine bikers dead and more than 20 injured.

Chavez signed off on identical affidavits to obtain arrest warrants for the bikers.

McLennan County Judge Scott Felton said Tuesday he cannot comment on pending litigation.

Waco City Attorney Jennifer Richie also said she would not comment on pending litigation.

There are pending criminal matters and civil lawsuits, and the city of Waco chooses to litigate these matters in the courts, Richie said.

Tittle now has filed suits on behalf of 31 bikers arrested in the Twin Peaks incident. Of those 31, seven have been indicted. The rest have not. With the statute of limitations to file lawsuits in the case expiring May 17, Tittle said he expects to file many more suits in coming weeks.

Every time I hear Abel Reyna open his mouth, I become more and more motivated to do everything within my power to hold him and the other defendants accountable for this gross miscarriage of justice. Tittle said Tuesday.

No biker has gone to trial, and 155 remain under indictment on first-degree felony engaging in organized criminal activity charges. Some of the bikers indicted were not arrested the day of the shootout.

An effort to disqualify Reyna from overseeing the prosecution of the biker cases remains pending in Wacos 10th Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, of Austin, who is presiding over the civil litigation, lifted a stay last month that would have put the civil lawsuits on hold until after the criminal cases are disposed of. Sparks placed the stay last year, shortly after the first suits were filed.

The lawsuit alleges that authorities relied on identical, fill-in-the-blank arrest affidavits that did not allege specific facts against the plaintiffs that would in any way establish probable cause for their arrests.

Reyna and police officials decided to arrest the bikers en masse based entirely on their presence at Twin Peaks, the motorcycle club that defendants presumed an individual was associated with and/or the clothing they were wearing at the time of the incident, the suit alleges.

Conspiracy theory

Rather than investigating the incident and relying on actual facts to establish probable cause, defendants theorized that a conspiracy of epic proportion between dozens of people had taken place, and willfully ignored the total absence of facts to support their theory,  according to the suit.

The lawsuit says that one of the plaintiffs, Daryle Walker, is the father of four sons and serves as a veteran services officer for Lincoln County, Ohio. He served in the Army for more than 20 years as a military policeman and criminal investigator.

Walker was deployed twice to Afghanistan and was awarded two Bronze Stars while in the Army, the suit says. He was in Waco with friends to attend a meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents and was smoking a cigar on the back side of the restaurant when he heard gunshots. He immediately took cover and was engaged in completely lawful conduct while at Twin Peaks, the suit alleges.

Woods also served in the Army for more than 20 years and works at Fort Hood for a federal contractor, according to the suit.

Fowler was a pediatric nurse at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children for almost 25 years at the time of his arrest. Cepeda, according to the suit, holds a bachelors degree in business and information systems from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Rash, a Navy veteran, has worked many years in the pest control industry, while Samford is a lifelong electrician and Spencer lost his construction job and was evicted after his mugshot appeared with others arrested that day, the suit says.

Rodahl helped escort Twin Peaks staff members inside a walk-in cooler while taking cover from the gunfire, while Harris was a China Spring volunteer firefighter.
A parolee remained jailed on an attempted murder charge Tuesday after police say he stomped on the head and neck of a 69-year-old man at a local convenience store.

Police were called to AJ's Food Mart in the 500 block of Faulkner Lane about 5:10 p.m. Monday and found Bobby Ray Stephens lying badly injured in the parking lot.

Through witnesses and video evidence, police say they determined that Kenneth Dwayne Anderson reportedly stomped on Stephens' head, neck and throat, seriously injuring him.

Stephens suffered a spinal fracture, brain hemorrhages and other injuries, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said. He remained in critical condition Tuesday at Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center, Swanton said.

Patrol officers and detectives tracked Anderson to a home in the 400 block of Carver Avenue, where he was arrested and charged with attempted murder.

Anderson remained in the McLennan County Jail under $50,000 bond. He also was being held on a parole violation warrant. County records show Anderson was sentenced to five years in prison in 2011 for evading arrest with a vehicle and two counts of burglary of a motor vehicle.

He also has a 2009 conviction for burglary of a building.
Police arrested a Greenview Manor nursing home employee after more than $9,500 worth of prescription drugs were illegally ordered and stolen from patients between December and February, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said.

Carl Russell Rowell, 32, of Hewitt, was arrested Tuesday morning after police investigated a theft of narcotics at Greenview Manor on Feb. 20. Staff told police that an employee had been suspected of intercepting prescription deliveries and stealing hydrocodone tablets from patient deliveries, Swanton said.

Through the investigation, Rowell, a nurse, was suspected of stealing more than $9,500 worth of the drug, Swanton said. It was determined that Rowell would order the appropriate drugs for the patients, but later add hydrocodone pills, Swanton said.

Swanton said Rowell would intercept the deliveries and take the pills out of the packaging. Police tracked the thefts back to at least December.

Rowell was arrested Tuesday on a state jail felony of theft of more than $2,500. He was taken to McLennan County Jail on a $2,000 surety bond.

A phone call to Greenview Manor was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.
Its worth noting that 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most remarkable years in American cinema. The twelve months from January to December of 1992 saw the release of more excellent films (and more films worth deep conversation) than any year since.

And I am not sure I remember any year when we had as many movies that have so much to teach us today. So here is a list of 1992 films whose lessons I recommend.

For President Donald Trump and the most passionate anti-Trump protesters: Unforgiven. Not because of the title. Because of the lesson. Sometimes in the process of achieving your goals you set in motion forces you find yourself unable to control. The women who hire Clint Eastwoods gunslinger have justice and right on their side. But the horrific consequences are unstoppable.

For students and young professionals full of ambition and status anxiety: Scent of a Woman. There are lines you do not cross to succeed, even when crossing them is perfectly legal. Which is to say, there are things you do not do even to get into Harvard. Plus, extra points for Al Pacinos stirring defense of loyalty as a cardinal virtue.

For those who are always sure they know before any scandal investigation who ought to be punished, The Player. Guessing wrong can have pretty terrible costs. The costs rarely fall on the accusers, especially when the accusers are themselves powerful. They fall instead on the innocent. But who cares? The party continues.

For those who can hardly bear a moment away from social media or other forms of quick and easy stimulation, A River Runs Through It. This marvelous film, based on a book by Norman Maclean, celebrates the virtues of quiet and patience and fortitude. Some rewards take time. The vehicle through which the lessons are taught is fly fishing, but one need not have any interest in the sport. Puts you in a reflective mood. Not many movies do that these days.

For those who in this maddening political moment have formed what they imagine are alliances of convenience with those they secretly despise or even fear: The Crying Game. Not for the gender dynamics or the mid-film surprise that by now everyone has heard of, but for Forest Whitaker reciting the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog.

For both sides in the immigration debate: Housesitter will help each see the others point of view. Steve Martin walks into the dream home he built months before and finds that it has been taken over by Goldie Hawn, a waitress with whom he had a one-night stand. He demands that she leave. But it turns out that the whole town, including his own parents, have gotten used to having her around. Shes different  a bit of an acquired taste his father says  but they want her to stay. (Bonus points for the write an essay scene.)

For those who believe the troubles they face are insurmountable, My Cousin Vinny: Share your problems with a loved one. You might be surprised at what hidden talents come to the surface. (Also, always be respectful to judges, whether you like them or not, and, if youre arrested for a crime you didnt commit, confine your answers to Yes and No.)

Finally, A League of Their Own: Right now, lots of people are frustrated with the working of democracy. Up until now, especially for young people, its all seemed pretty easy. But remember: Its supposed to be hard. If it wasnt hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg columnist.
Australia's largest health insurer Medibank has been accused of "cynical" and "high-handed" conduct that misled and deceived consumers through it secretly changing policies that left sick people with large unexpected bills, a court has heard.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has accused the former government-owned entity of engaging in a cover up of its "unconscionable" behaviour which saw it put profits over people.

The ACCC is suing the company in the Federal Court with the trial starting this week, alleging Medibank made the changes to boost its profits ahead of its 2014 float. The policy change could have delivered between $20 million and $24 million in earnings to the company according to forecasts, the ACCC alleges.

Medibank denies that it misled and deceived consumers and denies it acted in an unconscionable manner.
"When profits go up, so do wages," Business Council of Australian president Grant King declared last week as he struggled to keep alive the dream of a tax cut for his members. It would be equally simplistic but a bit closer to the truth at present to turn the statement around: When wages go up, so do profits.

The reality is that higher profits aren't translating into higher wages. Higher wages are something every employer wants for all workers bar his or her own. While labour is readily available, there's no reason to pay more for it and businesses generally don't. The old, closed-system theoretical models hand-cranked by Treasury and parroted by the government and BCA are of limited use.

The government's only apparent plan for economic stimulus  corporate tax cuts  looks lonelier by the day. Sliding away in the polls, embarrassed by the WA election, locked into inaction by internal politics and with another budget looming, the idea of giving foreign companies a present isn't generating wild enthusiasm. The latest Essential poll hot off the telephones finds only 24 per cent of voters supporting the idea, down from 28 per cent last month.

No wonder the BCA feels the need to champion it. The large foreign-owned members of the council  many of them accomplished tax avoiders  are the only significant beneficiaries of the policy. Australia's dividend imputation system means the eventual wash through of a lower company tax rate makes little difference. For the majority of enterprises  small and very often unincorporated  it's nothing.
Who is your preferred source for health advice? Gwyneth Paltrow? Pete Evans? Or qualified medical practitioners  like Dr Oz?

I hate to break it to you, but if youre getting advice from any of these people, youre quite likely being misled.

For example, contrary to Gwyneth Paltrows website, experts advise inserting jade eggs into your vagina is a very bad idea.

And last time I checked, Facebook wasnt a peer-reviewed medical website, but that doesnt seem to matter to 20 per cent of people using it for health advice.
The minister charged with pulling together the Turnbull government's looming housing affordability package has suggested Australians could be allowed to use superannuation when buying their first home but that such a change would have to be a part of broader reforms. Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar, who is spruiking housing affordability as a key platform of the May budget, said any changes on the "demand side" such as superannuation reform could work if supply in the housing market was also increased.

"If all a government does is try to pump further liquidity into the residential housing market, inevitably all you do is push up housing prices," Mr Sukkar told Sky News on Tuesday.

In response to questions about super amendments being on the table, Mr Sukkar said 2014 comments from Finance Minister Mathias Cormann that allowing people to access super would only drive up house prices in isolation, were "largely correct," but any changes would be "finely calibrated to make sure we are not lazily pumping more money into the market."

"We've got to be a bit more sophisticated about it and I'm confident we will be," he said.
"We have to pack up our whole lives and move away while these people get protected by some stupid law... our lives have fallen apart." The south of Perth case comes less than a month after it was revealed a 10-year-old boy in Perth's northern suburbs had been charged with the rape of an eight-year-old boy, but continued to attend school. After learning of the boy's offences through social media, concerned parents threatened to take their children out of the school if the offending child was not removed, leading the Department of Education to find alternative schooling for the boy away from other students. A parent whose child attends the same school as the two boys accused of child rape south of Perth said she believed parents would start removing their children from the school if they were made aware of the situation. "I am really concerned they are able to return to the school without any protection for the other children," she said.

"I'm not saying let's destroy 17-year-old and 12-year-old children... there's the potential for rehabilitation  but if the legal system is not putting in place protective measure for other children, something's wrong with that. "We feel it has to change at a policy level... the education department has a responsibility with convicted sex offenders to remove them from the school." The comments echoed those made last month by a father whose child attended the same school as the 10-year-old northern-suburbs child rapist. "When it comes to someone at such a young age, everybody in the government, police etc, just really don't know how to handle it," he said during a meeting of concerned parents on February 21. "Just try to get the rules and law balanced a bit more, balanced a bit more to the victims, to the innocent and the community rather than the perpetrator."

Under state government laws, juvenile offenders' identities are protected and schools are often left with their hands tied if a child has a violent conviction against their name. A Department of Education spokeswoman has previously said it is an offence for anyone, including a school, to publish information which could lead to the identification of a child involved in court proceedings. "WA's School Education Act guarantees the right of every child to an education, irrespective of a range of factors, which may include criminal charges," she said. The nine-year-old victim's mother claims she has been unable to source much information about her son's alleged attacker and had received minimal support from government agencies. "They don't tell me anything to protect [the accused] because he is so young  it doesn't matter who I ring, they don't give me anything," she said.

"I've had to find my own private psychologist because my son was going to commit suicide. "[The only support I have had from the government] was when the Department of Child Protection rang a couple of weeks later to make sure my son was in a safe environment." Department of Child Protection director general Emma White said the agency did not have the authority to remove a child from a school if they were a risk to other students. The Department of Education also confirmed it has no authority over Catholic schools to request a student be schooled in an alternative environment. Catholic Education Western Australia executive director Tim McDonald said any alleged child protection matter in a school was distressing.

"Our schools are safe places that support each student to achieve their full potential in an engaging and supportive learning environment," he said. "It is saddening when students or parents believe this is challenged, and we are aware of the burden this places on the entire school community." Dr McDonald said WA Catholic schools were fully compliant with all mandated government requirements, backed by stringent child protection policies and staff training, but did not directly respond to questions about whether the two students were being supervised. Under the Children's Court of Western Australia Act, a child's conviction cannot be disclosed to anyone other than "a court of law, a person acting in the performance of duties under any written law, to a person who as part of the person's duties is concerned with the custody or welfare of the child" or a health department officer for use in a research project. A spokeswoman for the Department of the Attorney General said the act prevents child witness service officers from referring to the accused by name when speaking to clients.
Bali: A former West Australian bricklayer who was busted with hashish at his Sanur home has been sentenced to seven months' jail for possessing an illegal narcotic for personal use.

Guiseppe "Joe" Serafino, who had lived in Bali for five years and managed the On-On Billiard Bar in Sanur, was arrested by police on October 8 with 7.32 grams of hashish.

Guiseppe Serafino in Denpasar District Court on Tuesday, where he was sentenced to 7 months' jail. Credit:Amilia Rosa

He then helped police set up a sting on former war correspondent David Fox, whom he called begging for hashish to ease his back pain.

Fox, who was arrested at On-On Billiard Bar, was also jailed for seven months last week on the same charge.
Canada's Girl Guides have added a nation to the places they fear to tread. And it's right next door.

The organisation has called off all trips to the United States until further notice, citing a "commitment to inclusivity" in what is widely interpreted as a stand against the Trump administration's effort to restore a travel ban against six Muslim-majority countries.

The Guides did not specifically mention the US travel restrictions, which are set to take effect Thursday unless blocked again by various court challenges. But there was little doubt that the White House moves were behind the decision by the 70,000-member Girl Guides.

In a statement late Monday, the group said the "ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain" - suggesting that Muslim or foreign-born members might face difficulties at US airports and border crossings.
The 8th Session of the World Customs Organization (WCO) Capacity Building Committee (CBC) was held from 7  9 March 2017 under the theme Mercator Programme: Building Networks, Partnerships and Economies. The session brought together more than 230 delegates from Customs administrations, WCO regional structures (ROCBs and RTCs), international organisations, academia and the private sector organisations.

The first day consisted of a Joint Session with the 7th Meeting of the WCO Trade Facilitation Agreement Working Group (TFAWG). The opening address by the Deputy Secretary of WCO Mr. Sergio highlighted the significance of the joint session and stressed renewed momentum for implementation of the TFA that entered into force on 22nd February 2017. The key note address by the Ambassador of Brazil to the EU, His Excellency Ambassador Everton Vieira Vargas, on reinforcing the linkages between trade facilitation and capacity building in the context of stakeholder engagement s set the tone for subsequent discussions that focused on implementation of the TFA.

The Joint Session discussed the successes of the WCO Mercator Programme, a dedicated Capacity Building Programme to support Members in the harmonized implementation of the TFA using WCO instruments and tools such as the Revised Kyoto Convention, the WCO Time Release Study and the SAFE Framework of Standards.

The Joint Session also endorsed the Mercator Programmes future operating modalities and delivery plan to further optimize the technical assistance to Members that requested the WCO for support in implementing the TFA.

On day the second day, the CBC appreciated the progress and outcomes in WCO capacity building delivery since the last session. The WCO had delivered more than 330 capacity building missions across WCO regions resulting in an increase of 20% more missions per month compared to the last reporting period. The CBC acknowledged the importance for administrations to acquire capacities to manage development projects and programmes, particularly for initiatives that demand multi-institutional engagement. A new Project Management training package and the Maturity Model aimed at measuring Members progress towards implementation of the TFA were endorsed.

The International Womens Day on 8th March, which fell on the second day of the CBC session, was celebrated by the WCO with toasts, flowers, and speeches by H. E. Grace M. Mutale Kabwe, Ambassador of the Republic of Zambia to Belgium and the EU, the WCO Deputy Secretary General Mr. Sergio Mujica, the Chairperson of the ISC Ms. Sigfridur Gunnlaugsdottir, and the Director, Compliance & Facilitation Directorate, Ms. Ana Hinojosa.

The CBC also discussed challenges and opportunities of trade facilitation in fragile environments and acknowledged WCO initiatives aimed at contributing to strengthen the capacity and role of customs in re-establishing security and facilitating trade in these areas.

Presentations about how to achieve best possible cooperation between Customs and Tax, whether merged or independently organized, evoked a lot of interest. The results of last years survey on gender issues in Customs were presented as were new tools in the area of learning and management.

The CBC concluded on the third day with the second joint session with the Integrity Subcommittee (ISC). Collective action to Promote Integrity was a highly engaging topic of the Joint Session with the ISC.

Mr. Per-Arvid Nordli of Norway was re-elected as chair of the CBC) and Ms. Lizbal Heroe of Sierra Leone was elected as Vice-chair.
Dixon Award Goes to Two from WSU

March 14, 2017

OGDEN, Utah  Eric Amsel, associate provost for academic programs and assessment, and T. Ramakrishna (T.R.) Reddy, professor of political science, are co-recipients of the Weber State University Alumni Associations 2017 H. Aldous Dixon Award in recognition of career excellence and distinguished service to students. Amsel and Reddy will be honored at a luncheon on March 22.

Eric Amsel

Amsels lengthy resume reveals much about his innovative teaching, renowned scholarship, prolific research, numerous publications and prestigious awards. And yet, in a single line, written by the former student who nominated Amsel for the Dixon Award, we learn everything we need to know about Amsels selfless character: No matter when you [reach out to] him, he is always to the rescue! That is a powerful, honest assessment of a man who knows a lot about assessment.

Amsel currently oversees and reviews all academic programs at Weber State University. He works closely with the Center for Instructional & Institutional Effectiveness and other campus units to identify program strengths and weaknesses, and recommend changes. In simplified terms, Amsel is responsible for maintaining the quality and integrity of a Weber State education. His office must collect and provide evidence that every academic department, program and general education course at WSU is effective, and that students are learning. He also presides over the universitys regional accreditation.

Amsel skillfully negotiates the sometimes conflicting interests of WSUs 534 full-time faculty, 487 part-time faculty, 1,518 staff members, 16 executives, and 26,809 students. (Perhaps his remarkable focus and ability to put a positive spin on friction come from his many years of competitive curling.)

Amsel joined WSUs psychology faculty in 1996. An outspoken champion of undergraduate research, Amsel collaborated with scores of students on research into human cognition and development.

His outstanding chairmanship of the psychology department and leadership of the faculty senate earned Amsel the respect of his Weber State colleagues. In 2005, he and other members of the Holocaust Commemoration Committee were honored with a WSU Collaboration Award. Amsel, a 2007 Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor, was named Utahs 2006 Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Following a nationwide search in 2016, Amsel and previous Dixon Award recipient Brenda Marsteller Kowalewski were selected as WSU associate provosts.

Amsel earned a masters degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Before coming to Weber State, he taught at Vassar College and the University of Saskatchewan.

T. Ramakrishna (T.R.) Reddy

The Weber State from which T. Ramakrishna (T.R.) Reddy plans to retire at the end of spring semester 2018 is a far cry from the one he first encountered as a newly hired assistant professor in 1966. During a teaching career that will span 52 years, Reddy witnessed Weber State evolve from a small, fledgling senior college into a nationally respected university. By the time his desk is cleared, the India-born Reddy will have shared his unique perspective on American democracy and international politics with an estimated 30,000 students. He will have written more than 100 letters of recommendation for former students applying to graduate schools or seeking jobs. Many of his previous students have forged illustrious careers in medicine, education, politics, civil service, business and law; one became a Utah Supreme Court justice, and later, a federal judge.

Reddy, named Outstanding Social Sciences Faculty Member of 1980-81, infuses his classes with relevant assignments and topical guest presenters. In the wake of deadly attacks in the U.S. and abroad, Reddy invited Indias inspector general of police to speak to his students about combating terrorism. Reddy encourages his students to expand their worldviews. He was a longtime faculty adviser for WSUs Model United Nations program and was the universitys Peace Corps liaison officer.

Reddy chaired the Department of Political Science & Philosophy for more than a decade. During his leadership of the WSU Faculty Senate, Reddy helped introduce plus-minus grading criteria. He piloted a proposal to include a faculty members terminal degree, the highest possible academic degree of a given field, in the tenure process. Reddy was instrumental in establishing the Dello G. Dayton Award to recognize outstanding teaching. He also successfully advocated for employee investment options that greatly enhanced the retirement plans of those who participated.

Reddys exceptional service to Weber State students and faculty will not end with his retirement. He plans to create an endowment to support a student research and writing award established in his name.

Since 1970, the WSU Alumni Association has presented the Dixon Award to outstanding faculty and staff who have distinguished themselves professionally and taken extra measures to meet student needs. The award is bestowed in memory of former President Dixon who served as the schools chief administrator from 1919-20 and from 1937-53.

The 49th Annual H. Aldous Dixon Award luncheon is March 22 at noon in the Hurst Center for Lifelong Learning on WSUs Ogden campus. The public is invited. Cost is $18 per person. Reservations must be made before March 17 online at alumni.weber.edu/Dixon or by calling 801-626-7535.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.

For high-resolution photos, visit the following links:

https://wsuucomm.smugmug.com/Press-Release-Photos/2017-photos/March-2017/i-d9G9JNh/A

https://wsuucomm.smugmug.com/Press-Release-Photos/2017-photos/March-2017/i-LMhJ2cV/A
Astros take World Series title over Phillies in six games
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By WestKyStar & City of Paducah Staff

Mar. 13, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By WestKyStar & City of Paducah Staff Mar. 13, 2017 | 05:48 PM | PADUCAH, KY

The Paducah Parks Services Department will hold an informational meeting about summer adult softball leagues on Monday at 6:30 pm at the Paducah Recreation Center.



The team manager or a representative from each team in the mens and coed leagues should attend.



If you do not have a team and are interested in being a free agent, attend this meeting or contact Recreation Specialist Taylor Morsching to find a team to join, as Parks Services does not handle individual registrations.



In order to maintain competitiveness in each league, Parks Services reserves the right to specify which league a team participates.



Registration begins at the March 20 meeting with a registration deadline of Tuesday, April 4. The registration fee is $400 per team, and a team roster will need to be submitted during registration.



The first week of games will be April 17-19. All leagues will be slow-pitch and are on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights at Stuart Nelson Park.



For more information about the softball leagues and if you are interested in becoming an umpire, contact Morsching at tmorsching@paducahky.gov or 270-444-1331.








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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 14, 2017 | BARDWELL, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 14, 2017 | 09:45 AM | BARDWELL, KY

An investigation is underway at the Carlisle County School District by Kentucky State Police, regarding a possible incident between a school staff member and a student.



West Kentucky Star has learned exclusively that an apparent male staff member was escorted from the school campus on Monday, by troopers. Details on what prompted the start of the investigation are not yet clear.



Trooper Jody Cash confirmed to West Kentucky Star that an investigation began on Monday, but would not confirm details, or the person at the heart of the investigation, citing policies of not being able to comment about an ongoing case where charges have not been filed.



West Kentucky Star has learned through reliable sources the investigation apparently stems from an alleged inappropriate relationship which may have happened between a male school staff member and a student.



West Kentucky Star has also exclusively learned the name and other identifying factors of the school staff member being questioned through multiple reliable sources, but is withholding that and information regarding their position within the school in order to not potentially identify the individual, pending the ongoing investigation by State Police.



Trooper Cash told West Kentucky Star he does not anticipate the investigation will take a prolonged period of time, saying he believes they will be able to provide additional information in the coming days on whether any crime may or may not have been committed.



West Kentucky Star reached out to the Carlisle County School District's Superintendent's office. The person who answered the phone indicated the superintendent was at a school building for the morning and unable to issue a comment at the time of our call. This story will be updated to reflect the school's comments when or if, our call is returned.




By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 14, 2017 | 11:27 AM | GRAVES COUNTY, KY

A Mayfield mother and son were arrested Monday on drug and stolen property charges.

According to Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon, 34-year-old Justin Harrison had previously been arrested on drug and firearm charges recently and was in possession of a defaced firearm at the time of his arrest. Redmon said the results of an ATF trace was received Monday and it was determined that the firearm was stolen.

Harrison was arrested and charged with receiving stolen property-firearm and lodged in the Graves County Jail.

Later Monday afternoon, Redmon said Harrison's mother, 55-year-old Teresa Manning, was arrested at her home on KY 1710 after deputies responded to a disturbance call. During the investigation into the disturbance, a search of the home was conducted and officers reportedly found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

Manning was arrested and charged with possession of meth. She was also lodged in the Graves County Jail.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 13, 2017 | 08:00 PM | GRAVES COUNTY, KY

An arrest has been made in a recent residential burglary investigation.

According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, the break-in happened around 3 am on March 9 at a home in the Lowes/Fancy Farm area. A woman called 911 and said she and her husband awoke in the middle of the night to find an unknown man standing in their bedroom.

The husband was able to remove the burglar from the home while his wife called 911. She gave a detailed description of the suspect, who was later identified as 31-year-old Jerry Tynes of Wingo.

Tynes was later arrested and lodged in the Graves County Jail on a charge of 2nd degree burglary.
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two years ago Zach Wolff, the CEO of Exigence Technologies, was winning student entrepreneur pitch contests for his breakthrough technology, an anti-microbial surface coating.

Since then, the company has made all the big players in the global industrial coating business get very interested in what it is doing.

Last month, the company was awarded a two-year research contract worth more than a million euros from the European Commission.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILESZach Wolff is CEO of Exigence Technologies, a Winnipeg company making waves with its anti-microbial coating.

And the company may not have to wait for the conclusion of its European research. Wolff believes Exigence may be only a year away from a commercial launch of the novel technology.

Meanwhile, next month, Wolff will be in Nuremberg, Germany, speaking at the European Coatings Show. That event is attended by close to 30,000 and its considered a significant achievement just to get on the conference program.

In June, hell be at the Future Food-Tech conference in New York, where hell address investors, startups, technology companies and food and ingredients manufacturers.

Speaking recently in between meetings with lawyers and potential investors, Wolff said the European research project will help to further solidify the relationships Exigence already has with the multinational coatings companies, while broadening its internal resources by bringing on experienced European professionals for the project. Exigence already has about 13 employees in Winnipeg.

We get lots of requests from multi-nationals about how they can participate in it, he said. It will allow us to demonstrate the use of the technology in a food processing facility so we will have some of that real world pilot trial data that will support our introduction into the commercial environment.

Since launching the company a couple of years ago as MBA students at the Asper School of Business, Wolff and his partner Sheri Governo have been able to get the attention of most of the big players in the global industrial coatings business.

Many now are in the process of doing their own testing.

We are talking with all the largest coatings companies, he said. They have different business units and different perspectives about where their customers are asking for anti-microbial coating. Our technology can be used in many ways.

Part of the challenge in developing Exigence and commercializing the product  called SymbiCoat and SymbiCide  was to decide on which vertical market to concentrate on first.

The company has chosen the food-processing industry because it is the largest and is in need of additional weapons in the fight to maintain food safety and prevent food recalls.

They (Exigence personnel) have been working on a shoestring, said Darren Fast, executive director of the University of Manitobas technology transfer office. This is a hot area and a hot technology. There is great interest in this. They really did manage to find something where there is a big need in the market. And they have a solution. They have to bring it the rest of the way to the market. They are doing that. Its just going to take more time and more hard work.

Wolff believes the end may be in sight.

For instance, he said Exigence has been working with international advisers on regulatory affairs and may have found a quicker way to achieve regulatory approval by leveraging the fact its technology is powered by chlorine.

The traditional regulatory complexities likely do not apply to us, he said. The upshot is that the anti-microbial in chlorine bleach is already registered for every use under the sun. It is well-understood.

That could save the company years and also could change the way it is funded.

We are entertaining offers and interest and I have a fairly sizable term sheet that we are working through, Wolff said, musing on the possibility of venture capital investment.

Were deciding if that is the route we wish to go.

In the meantime, we are also getting more support from the Manitoba community. It is become increasingly possible that a large traditional series-A funding round will not be necessary simply because of the angel investment were getting locally.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba wont be making grades 11 and 12 sciences into mandatory credits for graduation.

Education Minister Ian Wishart said in an interview that science remains an optional subject, even though school trustees may back mandatory science credits at their convention next week.

A resolution going before the Manitoba School Boards Association on March 17 proposes that robust science programming and mandatory senior high science credits would attract more students to the field.

U.S. Department of Energy Handout Education Minister Ian Wishart won't make high school science credits mandatory even if school trustees may want them.

He wont go for it regardless how the trustees vote, Wishart said in an interview.

We want to ensure many options are available to students, he said.

Manitoba students have been performing abysmally when compared with the other Canadian provinces in reading, math and science in tests conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Council of Ministers of Education in Canada.

Almost all the attention has been focused on improving math scores, although Premier Brian Pallister is making early years literacy a priority.

Wishart said the province wants to limit mandatory credits to give students as much choice as possible and to avoid making them study subjects they dont need as prerequisites for their postsecondary studies.

If you want to go to university, you absolutely need science, Wishart told the Free Press.

Mandatory credits for a high school diploma include language arts, mathematics (one of four options) and physical education in both Grade 11 and Grade 12, as well as Canadian history in Grade 11.

Students need 30 credits in grades 9 to 12, though school divisions can also grant their own diploma with 28 credits, excluding physical education.

Changing mandatory is not where we want to go, Wishart said.

Hes urging university faculties to consider Manitobas labour market when designing their courses and establishing prerequisites.

The Department of Education will strive to offer students physics, chemistry and biology as options in each grade in every high school, he pointed out.

I cant imagine a high school anywhere that it isnt offered, Wishart said.

Neither the University of Winnipeg nor the University of Manitoba could find any science professors willing to call publicly for mandatory senior high science credits.

The U of W requires language arts and math credits for all students, while many programs and faculties also require high school science.

At the U of M, students in the faculty of education need nine university credit hours in science even to qualify to teach elementary school.

And those university courses require high school science credits, as do many faculties and programs.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The NDP spent a total of $48 million to cap kindergarten-to-Grade 3 classes at 20 students, yet there has been no significant improvement in literacy and numeracy, Education Minister Ian Wishart reported Tuesday.

Hes now giving school divisions a choice: use $16 million of annual funding to limit class size, or invest in improving literacy and numeracy.

Wishart declined to call the ambitious NDP plan a failure, but told reporters: We can honestly say we didnt see an improvement.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Education Minister Ian Wishart will free up $16 million that can be used for literacy and numeracy resources.

Unlike the NDP which, Wishart said, had never analyzed results of the five-year plan he had allowed to be completed this year, the Tories reviewed the data and found no significant improvement.

His staff based its findings on diagnostic assessments that teachers conduct with individual Grade 3 students. There are no standards tests for early years children.

The NDP had set a goal of 90 per cent of K-3 classes having 20 or fewer students. The Pallister government said Tuesday that 69.8 per cent of classes have met that goal, compared to 48.1 per cent when the capping started.

There was initial confusion Tuesday over how much money Wishart was announcing for his new early years initiative, or where it was to be found in the budget. Government communications staff later clarified that the $16 million spent this past year on small class sizes will instead be shifted into literacy and numeracy.

It will give school divisions the flexibility to focus on their needs, Wishart said.

The money will be spread among 37 school divisions, which this year have more than 54,000 K-3 students.

The NDP spent $48 million for additional new teachers over the five years of implementing capped class sizes, he said.

It (also) had a hidden cost, because we had to have more classrooms, he said.

Wishart wants schools to come up with ways to measure student performance and improvement, beginning in September. Hell use unspecified third-party assistance to evaluate outcomes over the next four years.

The schools will be asked to set realistic goals for improvements in literacy and numeracy, he said.

The NDP attacked the Tories bitterly Tuesday, accusing them of making a regressive policy decision that will re-create large class sizes. Education critic Wab Kinew said the Tories lack the proper methodology or enough years of data to decide that capping class size hasnt worked.

Premier Brian Pallister told interim NDP leader Flor Marcelino that Tuesdays launch of the new early years initiative is all about the poor academic performance of Manitoba children under 17 years of NDP government: We can do far better, declared the premier.

River East Transcona school board chair Colleen Carswell said at Wisharts announcement in the John de Graaf Elementary School library that educators welcome the chance to figure out whats best for each child.

Students dont all come in little packages, she said. The class-size capping was based on the number of students in a classroom. The composition of the classroom is very important.

By easing off on the cap, said Carswell, schools will face less space pressure.

Manitoba Teachers Society president Norm Gould said Tuesday afternoon that Wishart is ignoring widespread research conducted over the long-term that shows that small class sizes work. This is really a shortsighted decision, Gould said.

The North American data are overwhelming. Its a no-brainer for parents  parents are on board, were on board, Gould said.

What the government offers is not a valid evaluation, Gould said. Why are they exclusive? Why cant we have literacy and numeracy, and small class sizes?

Both Wishart and Carswell said they doubt the new early years plan will result in teacher layoffs; neither expects a quick dismantling of small classes.

Dauphins Floyd Martens, president of the Canadian School Boards Association, said school boards will now have more discretion in addressing student needs. A one-size-fits-all strategy does not always offer the best approach, he said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

BG-Early+Years+Grant-ET+(1)
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Monday crossing the border illegally is not a free ticket into Canada; however, it may be a long-term pass for those coming from a number of war-torn countries, including Somalia.

Canada currently has a moratorium on deporting anyone to 12 countries and locations, mainly in Africa and the Middle East, because of a humanitarian crisis, war or an environmental disaster. It will only send people back to those countries if they are convicted of a crime or human rights infractions or are deemed to be a security risk.

JUSTIN TANG / THE CANADIAN PRESS Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale says crossing into Canada does not guarantee anyone will be able to stay here.

It means many of the asylum claimants who sought refuge in Canada via the United States this year might get to stay in the country long term even if their asylum claims are rejected.

While in this limbo they can apply for work permits, receive social assistance and if-or-when Canada eventually lifts the ban on deportations, they will be allowed to apply for permanent resident status before being deported.

That includes many claimants from Somalia. There are three regions in that country, including the capital Mogadishu, where Canada will not currently deport people under what is known as an administrative deferral of removal.

While the Canada Border Services Agency doesnt yet have specific statistics on the origins of the asylum claimants coming into Manitoba, it has confirmed most are from Somalia and Djibouti. The latter has no ban on deportations from Canada.

Data provided by the Immigration and Refugee Board show 16,279 people were allowed to make a claim for asylum with the board in the first nine months of 2016. It is the most recent data available.

Of those, 3,715 or almost one in four are from one of the 12 countries or territories with one of the temporary deportation bans. It is not known how these people arrived in Canada, but the number will include those who arrived using a valid visitors visa or work visa, and those who found their way into the country illegally.

Thus far, Canada accepted the claims of 2,281 of them and rejected 452. Another 118 claims were withdrawn or abandoned before being processed. The remainder are still in the works.

John Woods / The Canadian Press Files Eight migrants from Somalia cross into Canada illegally from the United States by walking down this train track into the town of Emerson, Man.

Goodales spokesman said Monday granting temporary residence to those who cant be deported for safety reasons is not permanent residency. The deportation bans can be lifted at any time.

However, in previous instances when the bans were lifted, Canada provides people facing deportation a period of time within which to apply for permanent residency.

Canada did this for citizens of Haiti and Zimbabwe in 2014, for example.

Conservative public safety critic Tony Clement said Monday he is concerned Canada has opened the doors to refugees so widely it is now encouraging criminal elements to set up businesses charging people to ferry them to the Canadian border.

He said if people see this as an easy route to Canada, and know they likely wont be deported, it will add further fuel to the criminal business of human smuggling.

I do believe we are now in a situation where the rhetoric of this government is we will welcome anybody,  he said. The message is come on in. 

He also expressed concern that the number of deportations Canada is conducting has gone down over the past five years.

In 2012, Canada issued 15,752 deportation orders and deported 18,982 people. Last year, Canada issued 16,298 deportation orders but only deported 7,098 people.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 13/03/2017 (2065 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Steinbach is trying to overturn a Municipal Board ruling against a historic annexation that would see the fast-growing city more than double its physical size.

Steinbach struck a deal in 2015 to annex 7,300 acres from neighbouring RM of Hanover, an agreement both unique and enviable among municipalities such as Winnipeg that are locked in by their current boundaries. Steinbach is currently 6,300 acres in size.

Steinbach city council maintained the city needs the space for future growth. A report by land-use consultant MMM Group projects the city could triple its current 15,000 population by 2040, and top 100,000 people within 50 years. Thats at its average growth rate of 4.2 per cent per year from 2001-2016.

In January, the Municipal Board rejected Steinbach's friendly annexation, calling it "overly ambitious." (Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press files)

But in January, the Municipal Board rejected Steinbachs friendly annexation, calling it overly ambitious. It said Steinbach should receive only a third of the land, chiefly because the plan could mean the loss of good farmland.

The quasi-judicial board is not subject to direction by anyone within cabinet, any MLA or any government official.

The final say is up to the province, but its rare for the government to act against a board recommendation. Steinbach has been working behind the scenes to convince the government and Municipal Board of its position.

We need to plan for the future. Thats the whole point of working together with our neighbour (Hanover), Steinbach Mayor Chris Goertzen said.

When you look at how often municipalities dont get along, this is an example of two municipalities working for the betterment of a region. Hanover and Steinbach are the two largest municipalities (in population) outside of Winnipeg and Brandon, and were going to continue to grow.

Steinbach and Hanover have fostered co-operation over the years, signing numerous shared-service agreements on landfill and firefighting.

In return for the 7,300 acres, Steinbach agreed to pay Hanover nearly $1 million in compensation for tax loss on the property. As well, Steinbach agrees to lifting a freeze along its boundaries that prevents Hanover from developing there.

We are 100 per cent in agreement with Steinbach, said Luc Lahaie, the RMs chief administrator, adding the agreement took several years to negotiate, and neither side wants to see it defeated now.

However, the municipal board maintains the land deal is excessive. Steinbach should be encouraged to increase density instead of creating urban sprawl, it said. It argued Steinbach still has 1,600 acres available, equivalent to a 15-year supply of developable land.

Goertzen responded that a limited land base allows a few developers to control the communitys growth and drive up new home prices. Having more land and competition from multiple developers has helped keep new house prices lower and facilitated the citys expansion, he said.

The board felt there would be a significant impact on livestock operations outside the annexed land and potential land use conflicts are likely to emerge. There are no livestock operations in the annexation area, however, but there are some nearby.

Six of 150 people who own land in the area filed objections to the annexation, only two of whom live on the land in question, according to the Steinbach data. Opponents maintain annexation threatens their farm operations.

Goertzen argued its only a land transfer at this point, not a change in land use, but critics charge the long-term intent is urban sprawl.

Keystone Agricultural Producers and even Manitoba Agriculture have also spoken against the agreement. Sheri Grift, an agricultural land use specialist with the province, said 5,000 of the 7,300 acres is prime agricultural land.

Grift warned farmers that their land would face higher assessments because annexation will likely increase market values. As well, Hanover is running short of land for its existing livestock farms due to soil phosphorus limits, and those producers may not be able to expand, she said.

But some landowners spoke in favour of the annexation, saying it would eliminate bureaucracy and confusion, and allow zoning and urban development in a logical manner, according to the board report. It would also attract new industry and greater economic opportunity, they said.

Another problem is the land the board has approved for annexation is south of Steinbach and not currently serviceable and will require costly and lengthy extensions to infrastructure such as water and sewer lines.

Goertzen stressed an agreement like this is unique, and perhaps unprecedented in its scope.

Two years ago, rural municipalities went through the amalgamation process where small urban communities had to be put together. That was a forced amalgamation, he said.

We think communities should be working together, and we worked together on a friendly annex, not a forced amalgamation, so there should be some understanding of the effort weve made.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 13/03/2017 (2065 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba delegation is at the United Nations in New York to argue support services could save indigenous women and girls from horrendous rates of exploitation and murder in Canada.

The 16-member delegation, sponsored by the Institute for International Womens Rights Manitoba, believes indigenous women and girls wouldnt be such easy prey if Canada gave them the same support automatically extended to immigrants and refugees from everywhere else in the world.

Drawing parallels between immigrants and indigenous experiences in Canadas cities including Winnipeg may sound strange, but there are a lot of parallels between the two, noted Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson, leader of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and the provinces only female grand chief.

Supplied Northern Chiefs Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson (left) and Manitoba womens advocate Mary Scott are part of a 16-member delegation addressing the UN Monday on the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada.

I have experience with that, North Wilson said Monday. I was one of the fortunate ones who had wonderful support but many dont and being here in New York reminds me of the time I moved from Bunibonibee First Nation to Winnipeg. I felt like a foreigner and I was completely out of my element.

The delegation has been recognized with special status as consultants on economic and social issues as part of the proceedings with this years UN Commission on the Status of Women.

The emerging theme for the 61st proceedings, which lasts through next week, is empowering indigenous women. The Manitoba delegation is hosting its own event, Risks for Canadian Indigenous Women Transitioning to an Urban Environment. A group of tech-savy university of Winnipeg students travelling with them is putting together a video and digital package of the proceedings.

The group expects to return to Winnipeg in the next day or two and theyre using their time to make connections with other indigenous womens groups worldwide and to meet with the UNs permanent forum on indigenous rights, the same group that brought forward the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

North Wilson made the presentation Monday alongside two female chiefs, one from Northwestern Ontario, and another from the western Manitoba, whos representing the Southern Chiefs Organization, plus representatives from Winnipegs indigenous social advocacy groups.

Its pretty significant for a small organization from Manitoba, said Mary Scott, co-founder and board member for the Institute. The institute is the only non-governmental organization in Manitoba to enjoy the UN standing and they sought it out to put the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls on a world stage.

Theres national organizations, of course, and they do wonderful, wonderful work but I think there was a sense within the local community in Manitoba, that the closer you can get to the ground  the real lives of women  the better and the more authentic the voice will be, Scott said.

North Wilson said the socio-economic reality for many indigenous newcomers to cities isnt much different from immigrants and they would benefit from a system of supports to make the transition easier.

Im going to be pushing for transition centres to be a big presence in our cities and in our communities, before people leave, so they can have a way to understand what to expect doing all the simple things we take for granted, like getting ID, getting a job, North Wilson said.

Its important because what happens when we dont support them is we have high numbers of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Theyre the ones who are vulnerable in our cities. Theyre the ones who get preyed upon by predators who take advantage of their lack of knowledge and the lack of support that comes with it.

Winnipeg was the centre of national outrage when the remains of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine were pulled from the Red River in 2014 and the city has remained an epicentre for the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls ever since.

RCMP data show more than 1,000 indigenous women in Canada were slain from 1980 to 2012. Indigenous women account for 16 per cent of homicide victims but only four per cent of the population. More than 120 of the victims are from Manitoba.

A Statistics Canada survey in 2014 found indigenous women are more than three times as likely as non-indigenous women to be victims of violence.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The provincial government has boosted post-secondary scholarships and bursaries by $1.75 million this year as promised in the election campaign, but the money comes with catches.

This year schools must raise $2 privately for every $1 of public cash, unlike the previous system of matching dollars.

The questions on the minds of people working in the post-secondary education system are how much universities and colleges will receive in operating grants in the April 11 budget, and what Finance Minister Cameron Friesen will do with the legislated cap that limits tuition fee increases to cost of living.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The University of Manitoba will have an additiona pool of $700,000 to draw from this year.

The money is totally inadequate for students needs, said Michal Barkman, Manitoba representative of the Canadian Federation of Students.

Average student debt in Manitoba sits at $19,000 right now, and students are in dire need of comprehensive access programs to make post-secondary education more attainable, Barkman said.

Unfortunately, this investment is only a fraction of the type of public funding that is needed to make getting an education and reducing student debt possible. Scholarships and bursaries remain out of reach for many Manitobans and are not an effective tool for holistically increasing access.

Barkman said it is a weakness of the Manitoba Scholarship and Bursary Initiative that schools can award financial assistance based on academic merit as well as on financial need, reducing the pot for lower-income students.

Education Minister Ian Wishart said when schools raise matching dollars this year, all the money must go directly to students and cannot be placed in endowment funds that generate only annual interest.

University of Manitoba president David Barnard welcomed word that an additional pot of almost $700,000 will be available this year to the U of M, which has the greatest ability to raise money, and is in the middle of a $500-million capital campaign.

More students will be able to achieve their goal of attending university through financial assistance facilitated by the generous support of our government and private donors, Barnard said in a prepared statement.

The Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology (formerly Winnipeg Technical College) and four private schools Canadian Mennonite University, Booth University College, Providence University College and Steinbach Bible College  share in funding this year.

The province said Monday that the CMU will get up to $75,000.

NDP education critic Wab Kinew lauded Wishart for continuing to provide the Business Council of Manitoba with $150,000, which Kinew said goes entirely to helping indigenous students.

The elephant in the room is tuition, Kinew said. If they raise tuition, this money is a drop in the bucket.

Changing the ratio makes it harder for the colleges and universities to fundraise, said Kinew, a one-time senior administrator at the University of Winnipeg. The universities and colleges are probably close to maxed out on what they can raise.

Government officials said that when the Manitoba Scholarship and Bursary Initiative required one-for-one matching dollars, the schools were always able to access all the money available.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Recent polls show that a majority of Canadians support the federal governments refugee policy by a margin of approximately 60 to 40. Those in the minority probably consider themselves as tolerant as the others. But they are concerned about the same issues that have always troubled Canadians when it comes to refugees: will they fit in and adopt so-called Canadian values (one of which, ironically, is to be tolerant)? Will they be a burden on taxpayers? And most importantly in the post-9/11 age, will they threaten Canadian security?

The difference between attitudes now and a century ago is that then, Canadians did not worry about political correctness and were less reticent about saying no. Tolerance was not considered a virtue here until the late 60s.

Before Confederation, the victims of the Irish Famine of the late 1840s were one of the first refugee groups seeking a haven. Most were Catholic and, at the time, unwanted. But they were not turned away, despite facing prejudice and discrimination. By 1851, for example, one in four Torontonians was Irish.

In the early 1880s, the government of Sir John A. Macdonald had to deal with Russian Jews fleeing pogroms and poverty. Church leaders and charitable organizations campaigned to assist them. Yet in Ottawa, Macdonald, who shared the eras prevailing anti-Semitic attitudes, was less enthusiastic about welcoming immigrants seen by many as half-barbarians and wild Asiatics.

A meeting in London attended by Alexander T. Galt, a Father of Confederation and the countrys newly appointed high commissioner, eventually led to several hundred Russian Jewish refugees coming to Canada. The key, as Galt told Macdonald, was controlling the flow and preventing those who could not fend for themselves from making the journey. The prime minister agreed that admitting a small group, a Jew colony, as he described it, might in the long run prove useful. If they were not successful as farmers, he reasoned, they would probably take up peddling.

The first group of 260 arrived in Montreal in mid-May 1882, and over the next month a few hundred more came, settling in Ontario and Manitoba. In Winnipeg, the Free Press worried that the refugees could not speak English; the papers editor suggested it could hinder their chances of finding employment. The newcomers spent their first days in the city in the rickety wooden federal government immigrant sheds located near the present-day Forks, living under military order. Funds and supplies to help them were raised, with donations coming from local politicians and Robert Machray, bishop of Rupertsland.

While the Russian-Jewish refugees laid the foundation of the then-small Jewish community of Winnipeg and added to the already growing Jewish populations of Montreal and Toronto, their presence did not alter the unfavourable view of them as being the kind of immigrants the country should be admitting.

Fifty years later, as Canada came out of the Great Depression, there was much less welcome for German-Jewish refugees attempting to escape the Nazis. As documented in Irving Abella and Harold Tropers ground-breaking 1982 book, None Is Too Many, the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King followed the advice of Frederick Blair, director of the immigration branch from 1936 to 1943.

Blairs anti-Semitic intransigence is now legendary, and he wielded enormous power over the fate of Jewish refugees. Classically, as Abella and Troper note, he did not consider himself to be anti-Semitic, merely realistic about Canadas immigration needs and about the unsuitability of the Jew to those needs.

The country did not have an official refugee policy  and would not until 1978  so the German Jews had to be considered under the restrictive immigration regulations of the day and Jews were not preferred immigrants. As Blair put it, no country could open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who want to leave Europe: the line must be drawn somewhere.

Four decades later, in 1979, Ron Atkey was the immigration minister in the Conservative government of Joe Clark. He was trying to figure out how to handle the refugee crisis precipitated by the Vietnamese boat people fleeing from North Vietnamese Communist rule. By that point, Canada had taken in only about 6,000 of an estimated 130,000 refugees.

Atkey had read an excerpt of the book published in an academic journal and decided he was not about to make the same mistake King and Blair had. Clark agreed with Atkey and, working with a large network of volunteers, the country did open its doors wide enough for more than 50,000 people to come to Canada.

The same concerns expressed now about the expense of caring for refugees and their suitability as Canadians were voiced then. But in an important moment, tolerance won out  and continues to do so, more or less.

Now and Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context.
ALMA  The former director of Habitat for Humanity of Winona-Fillmore Counties has been sentenced to four years in prison for molesting a boy in Fountain City last summer.

Thaddeus A. Powers, 56, pleaded guilty to felony second-degree sexual assault of a child. A criminal complaint said Powers sexually fondled and abused a 13-year-old boy. The offense took place at a house Powers owned on South Main Street in Fountain City last June.

Powers came to the Winona area a few years ago from New Mexico and had served as Habitats director for a little more than two years after initially taking a part-time job with the organization. His connections with the organization were severed when the charges became public.

Buffalo County Circuit Judge James Duvall sentenced Powers to 15 years of extended supervision after his release from state prison.

Powers sold his house in Fountain City and moved to Tulsa, Okla., after he was arrested, charged and released on a $10,000 cash bond in July.

Powers and his defense attorney, Keith Belzer, withdrew right to a trial at a plea hearing in circuit court at Alma, where Duvall placed Powers under a series of sex offender restrictions.

Powers was instructed to pay restitution to the victim in an amount to be determined as well as pay for victim counseling and $518 in court assessments.

Sentencing rules included sex offender counseling and orders that Power have no contact with the boy or immediate family members.

Buffalo County District Attorney Thomas Clark prosecuted the case and investigations were done by the county sheriffs department.

Thaddeus A. Powers came to the Winona area a few years ago and was Habitats director for a little more than two years.
Students at Saint Marys University of Minnesota will soon have a five-year pathway to become a physician assistant thanks to a collaboration between Saint Marys and the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences.

Said Brother William Mann, president of Saint Marys: This collaboration continues the Saint Marys University tradition of excellence in preparing students to lead and serve in the health and sciences professions.

The Mayo Clinic board of governors recently approved plans to develop a new physician assistant masters degree program that will be available to students beginning in 2019. The program, which will also accept students from the University of Minnesota Rochester, is being created to meet future patient needs in the area.

Innovative educational collaborations will play an essential role in creating the highest quality, patient-centered care, said Fredric Meyer, M.D. and the executive dean for education at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. We are committed to developing educational pathways for students that empower them to meet the needs of area patients.

To house the physician assistant program, Saint Marys later this spring will begin adding onto its Cascade Meadow facility in Rochester.

The program will accept its first students in the fall of 2019, and a new cohort will be jointly selected for freshman admission each year.

Students will be able to become a physician assistant in as little as five years  spending three years at Saint Marys University of Minnesota in Winona or at the University of Minnesota Rochester, followed by two years of graduate study at Mayo.

Bachelors degrees will be awarded to students by their undergraduate school, and masters degrees will be awarded by Mayo.

According to Mayo, physician assistants might soon become a growing part of the medical workforce. Experts predict a shortage of 124,000 primary care physicians by 2025  a shortage expected to hit rural areas the hardest.

The new program, however, will give students the option to focus their studies on rural care settings.

Creating pathways for students in high-demand, high-growth fields is critical to ensure healthy, vibrant communities, said Lori Carrell, Ph.D. and vice chancellor for academic affairs and student development at the University of Minnesota Rochester.

This collaboration continues the Saint Marys University tradition of excellence in preparing students to lead and serve in the health and sciences professions. Brother William Mann, Saint Marys president
History repeats itself.

In this case, more than 200 students from from 12 different schools in southeast Minnesota participated in the annual National History Day fair.

They presented their projects to judges in Kryzsko Commons on the Winona State University campus Monday evening with hopes of eventually advancing to the annual National History Day fair in June in Washington, D.C.

Students in grades 6-12 based their projects on the theme Taking a Stand in History.

Some students did research and presented it on a poster board, some made documentaries and some did performances.

Sammi Jo Coryell, event coordinator, said students learn the value of research and presenting information, both skills that will be useful down the road.

They get a chance to do research and utilize primary and secondary sources, Coryell said. Students can use the power of history to transform their everyday lives.

Addyson Smith, a freshman at Casson-Manorville, presented her project on Janusz Korazak, a Jewish man who fostered children during World War II.

Smith said she has a fascination with the Holocaust, and after she stumbled across Korazak and his story, she knew thats what shed do her project on.

He took a major stand during the Holocaust and saved a lot of children, Smith said.

Smith said she hopes to take everything she learned from the project with her as she continues her education.

Three sixth-grade students from Winona Middle School  Emily Lejk, Janessa Niemeyer and Lola Mustafoska  worked together researching the work of Clara Ueland, a womens rights activist who helped fight to earn women the right to vote.

She made a group of women across the U.S. to help fight for (womens) right to vote, Mustafoska said.

The three decided to work together because they all live close to each other and have been good friends for several years.

Lejk said agreeing on a topic wasnt difficult for them, but finding a topic was the hardest part for the group.

We didnt really know what we wanted to do it on, Niemeyer said. Our teacher put (Uelands) name on the board and we decided to look her up.

It was fun putting the board together and doing all the research together, Niemeyer said.
Moraine Park Technical College is closer to purchasing property to develop a program for gas utility workers.

Beaver Dam Unified School District Board of Education approved a quit claim of property that the district would be in line for if they did not agree on giving the property to MPTC.

Beaver Dam Superintendent Steve Vessey said the land transfer is east of the softball fields at Beaver Dam High School, 500 Gould St. The city of Beaver Dam, who has already agreed to sell the land, owns the property however the school district is next in line to receive the line for a portion of the land and had to make a decision about the property.

If the property is not used by the city, it would be returned to the school district, Vessey said.

The district is fine with providing MPTC with the land they requested for the programming, however there is a portion of property the district is using the softball field that the district will be retaining ownership of but there is no concern about the property MPTC wants.

They are our neighbors and great partners, Vessey said. It is nice that we found some middle ground. We are happy to move on and see the expansion.

The portion of the land is along Highway 151 and Burnett Street, Vessey said.

The land buy comes along side a 3,800-square-foot building expansion at MPTC that includes classrooms and labs. A mock village will be completed that will be used by the students.

Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay has a gas utility technician program that will be the model of the MPTC program. MPTC will be the third gas utility technician program in the state.
An Elroy man faces a felony drug charge, including two additional charges, and a man from Necedah faces eight bail jumping charges  four felonies  along with a repeat offense for possession of drug paraphernalia, after being arrested Feb. 19.

According to a criminal complaint, Christopher L. Friis, 33, is charged with possession of dextroamphetamine, a narcotic drug, and faces a possible fine of $10,000, or imprisonment of no more than three years and six months, or both. Friis also faces a misdemeanor bail jumping charge, which carries a possible $10,000 fine, a nine-month jail term, or both and a possession of drug paraphernalia charge, which carries a fine of $500, imprisonment of no more than 30 days, or both.

On Sept. 28, 2012, Shane Plumley, 31, from Necedah, was convicted of a battery by prisoners charge in Dane County. If convicted of the paraphernalia offense, Plumley could face an additional two years if the prior convictions were misdemeanors and no more than four years for a felony. Each felony bail jumping charge carries a possible $10,000 fine, or no more than six years in prison, or both.

The misdemeanor bail jumping charges each carry a possible nine-month prison term, or a $10,000 fine, or both, while the paraphernalia offense could cost Plumley either $500, 30 days in jail, or both.

On Feb. 19, an officer from the New Lisbon Police Department stopped Friis vehicle along Highway 80 at Johnson Road in the town of Fountain. Prior to the stop, the officer ran the cars license plate and found out the owners license had been suspended.

Friis, a female passenger who owned the vehicle, and Plumley, were all in the vehicle. The officer noted both Friis and the woman would not make eye contact with him and their responses were very short and to the point. The car allegedly smelled like cigarette smoke and cologne.

Another officer from New Lisbon arrived with a K9 and the dog smelled an odor of illegal drugs emanating from the vehicle. When asked if he had illegal drugs inside the vehicle, Friis said he didnt. After the K9 sniffed and detected an odor, the New Lisbon officer called the Juneau County Sheriffs Office for backup.

The female was questioned and told police she didnt know of any illegal drugs in the vehicle. Upon investigation, police found a Mountain Dew Mango energy drink in the center counsel that was almost full. It contained three-inch plastic straw that police believe could have been used to snort drugs. Police also discovered three seemingly unused syringes in the backseat. None of the occupants said they were diabetic.

An officer also noticed a switchblade knife in the backseat near Plumley. Based on a bond condition, Plumley is not to possess knives. Police also found a glass pipe commonly used for smoking marijuana inside a Carhart coat. More syringes were found inside the coat, which was near Plumley.

The New Lisbon officer also found a razor blade tucked inside a pack of cigarettes.

As the investigation continued, police took possession of a backpack containing a pill the officer identified as amphetamine and dextroamphetamine. A small container was spotted containing two glass pipes with white powder, a plastic straw that had been cut, two razor blades, and one empty clear plastic baggie with white residue inside. A book was also identified and the inside had been cut out to possibly conceal drugs.

The female was read her Miranda Rights, but since she adamantly denied knowing there were drugs in the vehicle, and didnt possess drugs, she was released from custody.

When questioned why there was a cut plastic straw inside the Mountain Dew bottle, Friis said it was to measure but did not specify what he was measuring. Friis was also questioned about the switchblade knife and when police showed it to him he said it wasnt his.

Both Friis and Plumley were transported to the Juneau County Jail. Under conditions of a bail bond signed in January, Friis was not to possess or consume any controlled substances without a prescription or have drug paraphernalia.

Friis is scheduled to have a pre-trial conference at the district attorneys office on April 4 at 11:15 a.m. Based on a plea agreement, Plumley agrees to have the court consider the charges when sentencing for another crime, based on a state statute, and cannot be prosecuted for these charges in the future.
A Wisconsin Dells woman was charged with three counts, including possession of methamphetamine and obstructing an officer after being arrested March 10.

Tiffany Maves King, 26, also faces charges for possession of drug paraphernalia and operating a motor vehicle with a revoked license due to alcohol/controlled substance/refusal. If convicted for the first count, King could face a $10,000 fine or three years in prison and six months in prison, or both. For the obstruction charge, King may have to pay $10,000 in fines or face nine months in prison, or both. The drug paraphernalia charge carries a possible $500 fine or 30 days in jail, or both, while the operating a vehicle while revoked charge carries a possible $2,500 fine or one year in the county jail, or both.

King was stopped by a Wisconsin State trooper along Interstate 90/94 for speeding on March 10. During the traffic stop, King was allegedly trying to conceal a purse.

According to a criminal complaint, King provided false identification and appeared very nervous and evasive. She claimed the purse wasnt hers and said the reason she didnt provide her real name was because her license was suspended. She eventually told the trooper she was Tiffany King.

King was convicted of an OWI in a Jackson County case in 2014. Based on further investigation, King was on a felony bond for possession of methamphetamine when she was stopped last week.

A deputy from the Juneau County Sheriffs Office arrived with a K9 to check the vehicle and the dog detected narcotics. Two other passengers were in the vehicle, and a pipe with a strong odor of burnt marijuana was found in a juveniles backpack. The mother of the juvenile was present and said she would handle the situation with her child when they returned home.

Authorities suspected King was hiding drugs and arrested her. While she was being transported to the Juneau County Jail, she became very emotional, crying and kicking the back of the cars cage and hitting her head on a window.

While being searched at the jail, police found two small gem pack baggies and a plastic straw in Kings bra. A small crystal substance was contained in one of the packs. King denied having any drug paraphernalia on her during the arrest.

According to the report, a straw cut that way is often used to ingest crystal methamphetamine.

Based on a test by police, the crystal substance was presumed to be methamphetamine. The total weight of the drugs confiscated was less than one gram.

King is scheduled to have an initial appearance at the Juneau County Justice Center on April 5 at 9 a.m.
A months-long investigation including undercover drug buys and arrests at three levels of distribution has led to the arrest of two Madison men on suspicion of selling Ecstasy, crack cocaine and heroin.

Joseph Thigpen, 40, faces three counts of delivery of heroin, possession with intent to deliver heroin and violation of probation, while Nicholas Gordon, 23, is in custody on suspicion of delivery of heroin.

The Columbia County Sheriffs Office announced the arrests in a press release Monday, pointing to the arrests as the culmination of an extensive investigative effort involving the Sheriffs Office, Portage Police Department and state Department of Justices Division of Criminal Investigation.

We conducted a drug investigation that led to additional individuals named, and then we requested help from the Columbia County Drug Task Force, said Portage Police Department Lt. Detective Daniel Garrigan. We continued to work together investigating and arrested a low-level user which led to a mid-level dealer and user, and the investigation eventually led to Mr. Thigpen.

Following a controlled buy on Wednesday, officers arrested Thigpen and Gordon in an interstate-adjacent parking lot in Poynette, with a search of the vehicle and a hotel room where Thigpen was staying turning up heroin, crack cocaine, and Ecstasy, along with baggies, a digital scale and cash, with the recovered heroin valued at roughly $7,000.

We knew that he was a source of relatively large amounts of heroin, said Columbia County Sheriffs Office Lt. Detective Roger Brandner, who said Gordon just happened to be involved in the most recent transaction.

Thigpen is also facing similar charges in Dane County.

It really started by Portage Police Department and Columbia County Sheriffs Office, said Brandner, and as the venue changed and the jurisdiction changed, the DCI became involved.

Thigpen is on both federal and state probation, with four felony convictions in Dane County between 1994 and 2015.

In August 1994, Thigpen pleaded no contest to two counts of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, then in January 1995 he pleaded no contest to child enticement, with the first resulting in a four-year prison sentence and the second ending in a three-year sentence.

Five years later, Thigpen entered a guilty plea to one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine in an amount over 40 gramsn as a repeat offense, resulting in a seven-year prison sentence. Then in May 2015, he entered a guilty plea to two counts of third-degree sexual assault, with the judge ordering a withheld sentence and five years of probation.

Since 1995, Thigpen has served time in Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution, Fox Lake Correctional Institution, Waupun Correctional Institution and Redgranite Correctional Institution.

Gordons court records in Wisconsin only include three traffic cases in 2014 and a small-claims case with the Milwaukee Pain Treatment Center in 2014.

For us, obviously, it is a huge arrest, said Brandner, allowing the possibility that it could make a temporary dent in drug availability in the area. If nothing I hope that it shows people that there are large amounts of this drug coming through our community.
Rita A. Wicke

Rita Ann Wicke, 61, from London, Wisconsin, passed away peacefully March 12, 2017, at Agrace Hospice Care in Fitchburg, after a hard-fought battle against autoimmune encephalitis. Rita spent her last moments as she would have wanted, surrounded by her family and love.

Rita was born in Portage on April 30, 1955, to Kate and Russell Murphy. She graduated from Portage High School in 1973 and attended Madison Area Technical College. While in Madison, her red hair caught the eye of Greg Wicke. They were married in 1979 in Portage and spent the next 37 years building a life together. They had four children, and Rita was the most amazing mother. She always encouraged her children to be kind, creative and thoughtful.

Rita wore many hats in her life and she brought something special to every job that she had. Most recently, she worked for Kohls in Madison in the jewelry department, where she met many wonderful friends.

Ritas bright spirit touched everyone she met. She loved people and always made sure that others felt included and important. It was not unusual for Rita to surprise her friends and family (or pets!) with cards or gifts just to make them feel special. Rita loved to cook, and her love of entertaining brought many people together during holiday gatherings. Her delicious recipes were responsible for the growing waistbands of many. She had a wonderful sense of humor that she got from her dad, Russ, and she always had a groaner or a pun to share with anyone who would listen. A trip to the Wicke house always meant the adventure of seeing what the teddy bears in her collection were up to. She loved children, and she brought joy to many nieces, nephews, and neighborhood children with her tea parties and fiestas. She was looking forward to doing grandma things with her new grandson.

Rita is survived by her mother, Kate Murphy; her husband, Greg; her son, Jacob Wicke; her daughters, Erin Wicke Dankert (Robert), Rebecca Weirauch (Joel), and Kristin Wicke; her grandson, Henry Dankert; her brother, Steve Murphy (Lana); her sisters, Pat Scharch (Stan), Ann Dundas (John), Jean Rader (Jim), and Julie Joosten (Steve); her father-in-law, Charles Wicke; her pets, Maggie and Roxy; and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.

She was preceded in death by her father, Russell Murphy; and her mother-in-law, Pauline Wicke.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, March 17, at Lake Mills Moravian Church, 301 College St., Lake Mills, with the Rev. Barbara Berg officiating.

Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 16, at Nitardy Funeral Home, 208 N. Park St., Cambridge, and after 10 a.m. until the time of the service Friday at the church. Burial will be in Kroghville Cemetery, town of Lake Mills.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Cambridge Library, London Moravian Church, or the Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance. Nitardy Funeral Home is assisting the family with the arrangements (www.nitardyfuneralhome.com).

In the spirit of Ritas Irish heritage and her love of themes, please wear something green for her services.
John R. Cummings

On March 12, 2017, John R. Cummings of Endeavor died in the home he built overlooking his beloved farm and Angus cattle with his beloved wife at his side.

Born to Max and Alice Cummings on Jan. 2, 1932, he lived his whole life in Marquette County. John attended the Emerson School and graduated from Endeavor High School in 1950. John married Jeanne Alf on Nov. 14, 1953. They said it would never last, but they fooled everyone having been married for 63 1/2 years!

John traveled all over the world. He enjoyed visiting Germany, Italy, Ireland, Canada, Mexico and Alaska. John started raising chickens as a youngster and continued in all facets of the poultry business, and was very proud to have been asked to travel to Bosnia after their war to teach them how to start a poultry industry. John was one of a select group that mastered the art of caponizing chickens. We are still waiting to hear back from Guinness World Records to see if he holds the record for the most chickens caponized in an hour. John worked side by side with his brother-in-law, Smokie, helping run Dairy Land Poultry. When his oldest son proved to be allergic to chickens, John and his wife Jeanne started the Chicken Inn Restaurant and gas station. With the urging of his children he started raising registered Angus, which became his favorite interest.

John was the last remaining charter member of the Endeavor Lions Club, having served 62 years. Serving being the key word. When John wasnt able to help as much with the Endeavor Broiler Fest, it took three people to try to do what he did, as he spent months preparing for the big day. John also was a Scout leader, took the Cub Scouts camping, was one of the original Endeavor Fireman, and was an elder of Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee. John enjoyed gathering with the class of 1950 friends and loved a party. John was extremely proud of his children and loved his precious grandkids.

John is survived by his loving wife, Jeanne; son, Jeff (Vivian Powell) of Henderson, Nevada; son, Jerry (Tammy) of Endeavor and their children Alyson of Crystal, Minnesota, and Harrison of Sheridan, Wyoming; and son, Jack (Kathy) and their children Nicole of Madison and Shyla of Marquette, Michigan; son-in-law, Jay DeGroot of DePere and his daughter, Madison. He was also survived by his sisters, Ethelyn Wilson and Esther Rutherford; his brother-in-law, Jim (Peggy) Alf; and sisters-in-law, Phyllis Bullard and Barbara Cummings.

The saddest day of Johns life was the day he lost his precious daughter, Jennifer DeGroot. John was also preceded in death by his parents; his sisters, Cora Mae and Ruth Ann; his brother, Robert; and his brother-in-law, Donald Smokie Alf.

Jeanne would like to say thank you to her children for helping her make it possible for John R. to end life at home. Also thanks to Erin, Tammy, Eileen and all the great Agrace helpers. Thank you also to Dr. Dambach and Dr. Przbilski, and all who treated him so kindly.

From humble beginnings hard work brought much success.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 18, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Packwaukee, with the Rev. Larry Sheppard officiating. Inurnment will be private. Visitation will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, March 17, with a eulogy at 7 p.m., at Pflanz Mantey Mendrala Funeral Home (www.pmmfh.com) in Portage, and from 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the church.

John loved celebrating St. Patricks Day, so please wear green to the visitation.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made in Johns name to the Endeavor Lions Club to go toward the Lions Camp in Rosholt or the Lions Scholarship Fund, or Project Healing Waters.
Daycare, birthday parties, clothing, special food and sitters are typical requirements of parenthood. These kinds of services, events and products more frequently also are becoming the norm for those with four-legged fur babies.

Places like the Shamrock Pet Resort in Prairie du Sac, the Dells Pet Retreat in Wisconsin Dells and Lazy Js Doggie Spa in New Lisbon offer a variety of pet-pampering products and services, from high-quality food and kennel suites boasting TVs, cameras and soft cots to daycare for dogs with giant play structures, training and agility courses.

Massive industry

Americans spend billions to keep their pets happy, safe and feeling at-home even when theyre not. The American Pet Product Association says Americans spent an estimated $63 billion on pets in 2016, up from $17 billion in 1994.

I think from one standpoint we have always cared about our pets but people are now more than ever considering them part of the family, said Sauk Prairie Animal Hospital and Shamrock Pet Resort administrator Jodi Kelley. I think most often pet care is about the comfort of the pet owner.

You wouldnt believe the amount of customers who say mom and dad will see you later, Sandy Jordan, owner of the Dells Pet Retreat in Wisconsin Dells. Probably for other people to hear it sounds crazy, but to us, its perfectly normal.

Shifting views

Lazy Js Doggie Spa owner Janice Zablotski said the changes in the way pets are treated are relatively new.

When I first started out 21 years ago in this area, I noticed we were kind of switching from a farm community; people were starting to treat animals like people, Zablotski said. There was this great shift in how people were treating their dogs. In my grandparents day, they werent house pets and had to stay outside.

Mary Hamburg of All Gods Creatures Pet Sitting in Portage said people call on her to take care of everything from dogs and cats to birds, reptiles and even small farm animals.

Its really just about loving on the animals and watering and feeding them, she said.

Hamburg said her clients dont mind spending money on their pets.

When I first started out I would bring the animals into my home, and they became part of her family, even if only temporarily, she said. Thats what they looked for and expected.

A desire for the safety and security of their pets is what leads people to spend money on services such as boarding and dog daycare, Zablotski said.

I think people are realizing its safer to board or do daycare who really wants to leave their dog at home all alone? she said. Certainly its better for them. Its good for the dog to socialize.

Pet interaction

Sebastian Zang runs Naughty Paws Dog Training in Sauk City and said pet owners can get more enjoyment from their animals if they invest more time in them.

People find the more they invest in their dog, the better their relationship can be with it, he said.

Zang said time and training are important regardless of whether a dog owner spent $1,400 on a purebred or a $250 adoption fee for a rescue.

Certainly when you spend that much money on a purebred, that alone is an investment, he said. And rescue pets can sometimes come with baggage that investing a little time and money in them can help fix. Its well worth spending the money to help get them trained.

Zang said regardless of the breed or situation, training and behavior modifications help the animals and their owners live better, fuller lives.

Grooming services

Prairie du Sac resident Regina Brickl takes her two dogs Charlie and Henry to Shamrock Pet Resort for myriad services.

Brickl said her two shih tzu mixes get baths and haircuts as well as boarding services from Shamrock.

They know our dogs names when we walk in, she said. Weve never had a problem. We know they will take good care of them.

When her dogs go to Shamrock they usually stay in one of the suites. She is particularly fond of the Badger Suite, which features a Wisconsin Badgers theme and even has a TV.

Thats just what they are accustomed to, Brickl said. When our daughters were little we used to get the suite with a webcam so we could check in on them from our computer while we were away. They used to get a kick out of being able to see them.

Shamrock veterinarian Joe Kelley said one client called him to ask why her dog didnt have its favorite blanket.

She checked in on him over the camera and could see he didnt have it, he said. But I explained to her it was a Thursday and thats when we do the bedding. The reality is for some people their pets are their kids and we have to accommodate that.

Joe Kelley said when he started in the early 1990s, boarded dogs had outdoor dog houses. Most pet owners expect more when they board their animals today.

I think more people are having less children and so these animals become their whole world, he said. Naturally, then they are taking better care of them.

Growing trend

The pet humanization trend is alive and well and continues to drive growth at the premium end of the market, said Bob Vetere, president and CEO of the American Pet Products Association. As millennials prepare to take the reins from the baby boomer generation as the primary demographic of pet owners, they stand to further develop this trend.

The Association reports Americans spend nearly $5.5 billion on pet-related services such as grooming, boarding, walking, training, pet sitting, exercise and yard services. Spending on these activities saw the largest growth in pet expenditures in 2016 by more than tripling growth in any other category.

Susan Roraff owns the pet supply store Susies Petpourri in Reedsburg and said the growth in expenditures affects all kinds of pet owners.

Its the same across the board; cat people spend more on their cats and dog people spend more on their dogs, Roraff said.

Following the Great Recession, people still were willing to purchase premium products, but with an improving economy, Roraff said pet owners are more willing to try new things.

They are definitely opening their wallets more, she said.

New activities

Pets even can have their own birthday parties.

You didnt really hear about people doing that years ago, Jordan said. We make a dog-friendly cake and any dog thats here for daycare gets to participate.

Every dog gets a piece of cake and goes home with a doggie bag of treats.

Jordan said she loves seeing the animals become more confident as they become accustomed to the facility and the other animals.

We had this one little guy who started coming to daycare and was scared to death, she said. Now hes older and just charges right in. Its fun to watch and see them grow from the time theyre puppies.

Changing focus

Roraff said she has seen peoples purchases shift from what pets need to what owners want to have for their pets.

For example, Roraff said dog beds can come in a wide range of prices, and many pet owners are willing to purchase the most expensive ones.

But really does the dog care as long as it has one? Roraff said.

Roraff has also seen an uptick in the sale of pet supplements.

Right now the trend is to go grain free; whether or not that is truly necessary is still debatable, she said. People think they need to but we dont have a lot of the high-working dogs that necessarily need more protein.

Joe Kelley pointed to changes in marketing that are driving the food industry.

You see these commercials from dog food companies that liken your dog to a wolf, but lets face is, your schnauzer was never out in the wild taking down caribou, he said.

Endless options

He attributed some of the increased spending to a dramatic rise in available options for pet owners.

It used to be cats were boarded in a single, stainless steel cage, he said Now they offer kitty condos that have a separate bathroom area for the cat.

Just as options for boarding have expanded, so too have options for food.

There used to be like six dog food companies, for example, he said. Now you have gluten-free dog food, wet dog food, dry food, refrigerated food how do you choose? Sometimes people think buying more expensive is best but thats not always true.

Jordan said Dells Pet Retreat has had to grow to keep up with demand.

Weve been here for 10 years and already added on, she said. We added a big, huge daycare room and added a lot of grass for outside play. Training just came on board last year and that also seems to be really popular.

Unconditional love

Jodi Kelley said daycare is so popular because people know the dogs enjoy it.

They come home happy and exhausted, and that means you get more out of your pet, she said.

Because Shamrock Pet resort and the Sauk Prairie Small Animal Hospital are connected, Jodi Kelley said they are able to take on many special needs boarders, such as dogs and cats with seizures or diabetes.

It makes people feel better knowing their pet is safe rather than leaving them at home by themselves, she said.

Ultimately, Jodi Kelley said, people are asking for much more from their pets.

Its about that unconditional love, she said. When you are tired and youve had a bad day at work you can come home and cozy up to your cat or dog. People just want to be able to give back to them. The pet is the major part of their life. Its a constant.
Dean Kraemer

Dean Sylvester Kraemer, 59, of Prairie du Sac, passed away at home Tuesday, March 7, 2017, after a valiant battle with heart disease.

Dean was born in Reedsburg on Nov. 8, 1957, to the late Leon and Dorothy (Moore) Kraemer. He graduated from River Valley High School, class of 1975. Following high school, he attended University of Wisconsin-Madison agriculture short course. Dean was united in marriage to Janet M. Wilkinson on Oct. 28, 1978. He worked for Bindl Sales and Service until 1981 when he began farming for LaVern Harms. He and Janet then moved to Prairie du Sac in 1983 where he started his career with Fuchs Trucking. In 1991, he and Jan purchased the roller skating rink in Prairie du Sac and started Jan and Deans Rolling Wheels. While running the rink, Dean worked for Richard Construction. When they sold the skating rink in 2005, Dean followed his passion for agriculture and farming by working at the Dairy Forage Research Farm, until he retired in 2014. As a part-time hobby he drove truck for Golden Grain Farms.

Dean enjoyed NASCAR, traveling, camping, cuss marbles and sheepshead, hunting and fishing, and spending time with his family, grandkids and friends. He was proud to be a firefighter of more than 35 years, serving with both Loganville and Prairie du Sac fire departments. He was past president of Associated Roller Rinks of Wisconsin and a member of the Knights of Columbus. Dean was especially proud of his four children and their accomplishments. His never ending love for his four sweet granddaughters will live on forever.

Dean is survived by his wife Janet; children, Tiffany Kraemer, Kelli (Mike) Jacobs, Heather (Jason) Richter, Erik (Rachel) Kraemer, and a special foreign exchange student, Alba Trulls-Mendez; four granddaughters, Kylee and Morgan Richter, and Jocelyn and Evelyn Kraemer; four grand dogs, Samson, Chewie, Zues, and Prince; five siblings, Alice (Bill) Brickl, Butch (Mary Ann) Kraemer, Linda (Rod) Eberle, Reg Kraemer, and Juanita (Jack) Retrum; further survived by many relatives and friends.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his in-laws Don and Vila Wilkinson; and granddog, Kahne.

Deans family would like to extend their sincerest appreciation to the St. Marys Cardiac ICU Staff, Maplewood Staff, Dr. Barclay Shultz, Dr. John Phelan, Dr. Kartik Reddy, Deb Krueger and Kathy Holum.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, March 13, 2017, at St. Johns Lutheran Church, 100 Oak St., Prairie du Sac. A visitation will be held from 2-5 p.m. Sunday, March 12, 2017, at the church, and one hour prior to the morning of service.

A luncheon will follow at the Prairie du Sac Fire Department. A memorial will be established. Online condolences may be made at www.hooversonfuneralhomes.com.

Hooverson Funeral Home is assisting the family.
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Morgan Stanley is the 6th largest financial institution in the US. The company is ranked 61st on the Forbes Fortune 500 list and is the 39th largest bank in the world. A financial holding company, Morgan Stanley provides a full range of financial services to clients around the world.

Morgan Stanley was formed in 1935 as a result of the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking in a way that forced the then-largest bank J.P. Morgan & Co to split into two groups. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to retain the commercial side of the business while partners Henry S. Morga, grandson of J.P., and Harold Stanley took the investment end. In its first year, Morgan Stanley did 24% of the IPO business and maintains a lions share of the market to this day.

The original company existed and grew through acquisitions until 1987 when it merged with Dean Witter Discover & Co. The new Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co existed for 14 years until 2001 when the name was shortened back to Morgan Stanley.

The bank is credited in part with both beginning and ending the financial crisis of 2007/2008. The Process Driven Trading unit lost $300 million in one day due to a short-squeeze that popped the bubble in the housing market. After teetering on the brink of failure Morgan Stanley agreed to become a bank holding company regulated by the Federal Reserve, a key factor in the original decision to split from parent J.P. Morgan & Co. Ironically when given the chance, present-day J.P. Morgan refused to buy Morgan Stanley but that was for the better.

Today, Morgan Stanley operates through three segments via offices in 41 countries and employs more than 75,000 people. Revenue in 2021 topped $49 billion and total assets topped $1.15 trillion.

The operating segments are Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments. The Institutional Securities segment is by far the largest and most profitable. It offers a range of services and products for businesses, institutions, and entities that include capital raising, strategic advisory, underwriting, advice on M&A, restructuring, and real estate. The Wealth Management segment provides brokerage and investment advisory services for individuals and employers. The services include brokerage, financial planning, company stock-plan administration, insurance, mortgage loans, lines of credit, and retirement planning. The Investment Management segment provides investment products to a range of institutions, organizations, corporations, and governments.
Aetna Inc. operates as a health care benefits company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Health Care, Group Insurance, and Large Case Pensions. The Health Care segment offers medical, pharmacy benefit management service, dental, behavioral health, and vision plans on an insured and employer-funded basis. It also provides point-of-service, preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization, and indemnity benefit plans, as well as health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans. In addition, this segment offers Medicare and Medicaid products and services, as well as other medical products, such as medical management and data analytics services, medical stop loss insurance, workers' compensation administrative services, and products that provide access to its provider networks in select geographies. The Group Insurance segment offers life insurance products, including group term life insurance, voluntary spouse and dependent term life insurance, group universal life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance products; and long-term care insurance products, which provide the benefits to cover the cost of care in private home settings, adult day care, assisted living, or nursing facilities. The Large Case Pensions segment manages various retirement products comprising pension and annuity products primarily for tax-qualified pension plans. The company provides its products and services to employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups, and expatriates. Aetna Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.




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New Delhi, Mar 14 (IBNS): Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a written reply on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha the steps her department has taken recently regarding Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

She said that her department has held three meetings on Mar 17 and August 3 last year and on Feb 27 this year with various countries on the issue of FDI.

She said that meeting were held with India-based Ambassadors and High Commissioners of various foreign countries, namely, Australia, China, Canada, France, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Netherland, Poland, Russia, Singapore, UK, New Zealand, UAE, Thailand, Germany, Belgium, Brazil, USA, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.

These meetings were facilitated by the Ministry of External Affairs.

In the first two meetings, the foreign Missions were apprised about the Government's policy initiatives such as allowing 100% FDI in manufacturing under automatic route and 100% FDI in trading, including e-commerce, in respect of food products manufactured and/or produced in India.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries further explained opportunities existed in the Food Processing sector for exploring new food business tie-ups as well as expansion of their food business already existing in India. They were also asked to further disseminate the information in this regard to the investors of their country.

In the latest meeting, the minister said that Ministry of Food Processing Industries has invited all the foreign Missions present in the meeting to participate in the mega international food event, World Food India 2017, to be held in New Delhi from November 3-5, 2017, to showcase the various investment opportunities in India in the food processing and food retail sectors.

Ministry of Food Processing Industries has already sanctioned new Mega Food Parks, Cold Chains infrastructure and Food Testing Laboratories, which are normally equipped with latest technology and modern infrastructure in their units/plants.

The Ministry is also encouraging organization of seminars, workshops and conferences to exhibit opportunities in the food processing sector and Make in India initiative in all fields including latest equipment and technologies.

New policy initiatives such as Ease of doing business, Make in India and 100% FDI policy in manufacturing of food products and trading of food products manufactured/produced in India, will also help to bring latest technologies to this sector, the minister said.
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Chennai Mar 14 (IBNS): Infosys Chennai Development Center (DC) that started its operations in 1996 is celebrating two decades of learning, excellence and progress with great gusto.

From the centers first steps in the city in a two-floored office with 300+ employees, the DC has witnessed tremendous growth over the last 20 years in several respects  it has expanded to two sprawling campuses at Mahindra World City and Sholinganallur, increased the employee strength to over 20,000, and houses some of the most sustainability buildings in the world.

To commemorate this milestone of 20 years, Infosys Chennai orchestrated a series of engaging and interactive events at the campus.

Speaking about the 20-year journey of Chennai DC, Muthuvel Gajapathi, Center Head, Infosys Chennai (Sholinganallur) said, These 20 years have been an exhilarating and at the same time, a heartening ride for all of the employees who were associated with the DC. At this significant juncture, we celebrate our successes, contemplate on the challenges we overcame, and look forward to shaping the future with greater vigor and resolve.

Thothathri V, Center Head, Infosys Chennai (M City) added that, Our success story continues to progress with the unwavering support from our employees, clients, the local community, and all stakeholders who have played a central role in our transformational growth.

During the celebration, several long-serving employees of the DC were facilitated for their loyalty and immense contribution towards the organization. Mahesh S, a seasoned employee of Chennai DC spoke on this occasion and said, Ive been fortunate to watch the transformational growth of Infosys, in particular at Chennai DC. It is not just the numbers and the title of being a global leader that Ive privileged to be associated with, but the formation and evolution of the very fabric of the DC  the teamwork, leadership and camaraderie of the employees here that makes me proud to be part of Chennai DC.



The DC has been an early adopter of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and has strived hard to reach out to communities in and around Chennai. SNEHAM, the CSR arm of Chennai DC, has rolled out several initiatives to empower the society, and has successfully reached out to 20,000+ beneficiaries in areas of education, community service, monetary support and rural upliftment. Some of the flagship activities include Educare, Joy of Giving Week, SNEHAM Shiksha, Note Book Drive, among others. The DC also extended relentless support for Chennai flood relief and rehabilitation activities.

Chennai DC has also championed environmental stewardship by embarking global sustainability practices. Some of the key initiatives include smart buildings with Building Management System (BMS) for better monitoring & control of Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), Lighting & other key energy intensified systems, smart water metering and increased, focused efforts in renewable energy.
Tetraethyl lead (TEL) is an organometallic compound which is mixed with gasoline as an octane rating booster and plays an important role as engine antiknock. Tetraethyl lead has been used since the 1920s, but over the years it was discovered to be toxic and has been phased out in most areas of the world. The 2002 Earth Summit advocated for the total ban of leaded gasoline in all countries. By the year 2006, leaded gasoline was expected to be eliminated worldwide. The reasons behind the ban of leaded gasoline are the health effects of lead and its polluting effect on the environment. The majority of the countries have embraced the ban, but some countries still use leaded gasoline. These countries are Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, and Afghanistan. The switch from leaded fuel to unleaded fuel has economic ramifications, and this could be the main reason why these countries have not been able to change to unleaded gasoline.

Countries That Still Use Leaded Gasoline

Algeria

Algeria is a North African country with many oil wells. The economy of Algeria is dependent on oil which accounts for about 30% of the countrys Gross Domestic Product. Despite this, Algeria has been faced significant challenges in phasing out leaded gasoline. Refineries in Algeria produce leaded gasoline and transformation would require significant process changes in the industry. The cost of such a change would be enormous. Algeria has been importing tetraethyl lead from China, but some percentage may be coming from Innospec Limited. Algeria had committed to phasing out leaded petrol in its market by 2015. However, the current status of leaded petrol in the country is unknown.

Iraq

Iraq is an oil-producing country with the second largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia. Iraq has many refineries that have been dependent on leaded gasoline. The country had set up the transformation from lead to unleaded gasoline to be complete by the year 2014. The setbacks to transformation were the cost of changing the refinery and the cost of selling unleaded fuel. Iraq had been purchasing its tetraethyl lead from Innospec Limited which declared in 2011 that they were no longer selling TEL to Iraq.

Yemen

Yemen has had a transition from using leaded gasoline and finally phased it out in 2011. The delay in transition was caused by the oil refineries which were dependent on leaded fuel. The expenses required to manufacture unleaded gasoline weighed too heavily on the economy of the nation.

Why leaded gasoline was phased out

Lead emitted from the engine exhaust into the air and the environment particularly along the roads is readily inhaled. High concentrations of TEL results in lead poisoning. Lead is toxic and can have neurological effects even with low level exposure. Other effects include low IQ and antisocial behaviors. Neurologists have argued that phasing out of lead may have caused average IQ levels to increase particularly among children.
The globe artichoke is a thistle species variety that is cultivated as food in many parts of the world. The flower buds prior to flower blooming constitute the edible part of the plant. The blooming flower is coarse and hardly edible. Italy is the biggest producer of artichoke in the world.

The Artichoke Plant

The plant grows 4.6 to 6.6 ft tall and possesses 20 to 32 inch long glaucous-green leaves that are deeply lobed and arching. The flowers develop from an edible bud that is about 3 to 6 inches in diameter. The individual florets are colored purple.

Cultivation Of Artichokes

Artichokes can be produced by sexual or asexual reproductive techniques. The latter involves vegetative means like micropropagation, division, and root cuttings. Artichoke cultivation requires good soil, frost protection in winter, and regular soil watering and nutrient supplies. Spring is the peak season for harvesting artichokes. The artichoke buds are harvested by cutting from the plant. The artichokes have a good shelf-life and remain quite fresh for a fortnight under average storage conditions.

Production Of Artichoke

Today, the cultivation of artichoke is mainly concentrated in the nations along the Mediterranean basin, parts of North Africa, North and South America. Italy, Spain, and France are the top European artichoke producers. The United States is the ninth major artichoke producer. Here, the state of California contributed nearly 100% of the US crop of which nearly 80% is grown in the Monterey County. Peru and Argentina are major South American artichoke producers. North African countries like Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria also contribute significantly towards the global artichoke production. China is the only Asian country that features in the list of top 10 artichoke producing nations in the world.

Uses Of Artichokes

Artichokes are boiled or steamed and when cooked without seasoning, the artichoke has a flavor similar to a fried egg white. The softer parts of the vegetable are also eaten raw by dipping in vinegar or olive oil. Artichoke meat fillings are often used to enhance the taste of the dish in parts of North Africa and the Middle East. Artichokes are also used to prepare a type of herbal tea called the "Artichoke tea. The Italian liqueur Cynar also uses artichoke flavor. In medical research, the leaf extract of this vegetable has been investigated for effects on cholesterol levels. The artichoke plant is also used for ornamental purposes due to its bright floral display.
In the 6th day of October 1887, architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) was born in a French-speaking town called La Chaux-de-Fonds, found in north-western Switzerland. The city was industrial, and home to many who were watchmakers by profession, including Corbusier's father. Le Corbusier had a passion for visual arts, and at the age of fifteen, he joined the local art school in his town that taught the applied arts used in watchmaking. He was strongly encouraged by his art teacher to consider architecture.

Career

In the 1905 Le Corbusier together with other two fellow students designed and built what came to be his first-ever house, the Vila Fallet, under the supervision of their then teacher Rene Chapallaz. The house had a steep roof and was carefully crafted. Because of its success, it led to the further practice of the craft for Le Corbusier.

Le Corbusier made his first trip out of Switzerland in 1907 to Italy where he stayed for four months. After that, he traveled to Florence, Italy where he visited the great Florence Charterhouse. He then traveled to Paris where he worked in the office of architect Auguste Perret as a draftsman for fourteen months. He, later on, traveled to Germany between 1910 and 1911 where he worked for four months in the office of Peter Behrens. Throughout his traveling, he took sketches of all that he saw and reportedly filled up to nearly 80 sketchbooks.

In the year 1912 Le Corbusier began the project of building a house for his parents. The house was located on the hillside of La-Chaux-de-fonds that was majorly forested. The project became more expensive, and it took his parents ten years to move out of the house to look for a more affordable home. His prowess was being recognized and was commissioned to build a bigger house for a wealthy watch manufacturer in the nearby village.

Major Contributions

In the First World War, Le Corbusier taught theoretical architecture in his former school of La-Chaux-de-fonds. He began issuing his first journal in the year 1920 when he took the name Le Corbusier. He then concentrated in painting and Purist theory. In the year 1922, he devoted most of his time in delivering his new concept of urban planning through the publishing of articles. Between 1928 and 1932, he constructed the headquarters of Soviet trade unions in Moscow. As his reputation grew, so did his commissions across Europe and afar, such as the iconic Unite d'Habitation in Marseille. In 1947, Le Corbusier sat on the Board of Design Consultants for the new construction of United Nations Headquarters. Le Corbusier's largest project was the design of the city of Chandigarh, in India.

Challenges

Le Corbusier's theories of architecture and urban planning were heavily criticized throughout his career. The failure of vast urban-renewal projects that were championed by Le Corbusier, as well as the lack of attention to the preservation of historic structures contributed heavily to this sentiment.

Death and Legacy

On the 27th of August 1965, Le Corbusier went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea - this was against the advice of his doctor. Bathers later found Le Corbusier's body. He was thought to have died of heart attack and was buried beside the grave of his wife. The death of Le Corbusier resonated strongly throughout the world, with statements made in response by figures such as Salvador Dali and President Johnson. He is seen today as one of the most important figures of the Modernist period.
Jamshedpur, Mar 14 (IBNS): Tata Steel has been recognised by Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, as the World's Most Ethical Company for the year 2017.

The steel giant has received the coveted recognition for the fifth time.

Speaking on the recognition, TV Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel India & SEA said: Its a great privilege for us at Tata Steel to have been recognised amongst the Worlds Most Ethical Companies by the coveted Ethisphere Institute. The recognition achieved for the fifth time recognises the strong ethical practices and guidelines followed by the Company and the Tata Group."

Tata Steel has been recognised by Ethisphere Institute four times earlier, in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016. It is also one of the two companies from India to receive the honour, there underscoring its commitment to ethical business practices.

Congratulating Tata Steel on being recognised as a Worlds Most Ethical Company, Ethisphere Institutes Chief Executive Officer Timothy Erblich said: Ethisphere recognises those companies who align principle with action, work tirelessly to make trust part of their corporate DNA and, in doing so, shape future industry standards by introducing tomorrows best practices in business today. Companies rely on Ethisphere to continually raise and measure the standards of corporate behaviour. Those that demonstrate in areas of citizenship, integrity and transparency create more value for their investors, customers, communities and employees, thus solidifying a sustainable business advantage.


Man holding rapists private parts in his hands

By: Tanya Clark WorldWideWeirdNews.com

A group of angry people in Nigeria, had to resort to street justice to stop a serial rapist form attacking women and girls, according to police.

The incident unfolded earlier this week, when the rapist, who was not identified, was caught red handed raping a teenage girl.

A large group people gathered and they severely beat the rapist. Several people then pulled down his pants, and the rapists manhood was caught off.

One of the witnesses at the scene took a photo of a man holding the rapists manhood in his hands. The photo was uploaded on Twitter by One Life @Wuup24, and it went viral.

aRapist private parts cut off by some angry village youth in Niger,a One Life wrote on Twitter. Police launched an investigation into the attack, but so far, no arrests have been made.
Robin Camp

By: William Martin WorldWideWeirdNews.com

(Scroll down for video) Judges in Canada, will have to undergo training on the issue of sexual assault after at least two judges allowed rapists to walk free.

This came after federal judge Robin Camp, resigned one hour after the Canadian Judicial Council decided that he would be removed from the bench because he blamed a teenager for being raped and he allowed the rapist to walk free.

Justice Robin Camp of Alberta, was trying a case of a teenager who claimed she was raped by a man during a house party.

The 19-year-old woman called police and said that Alexander Scott Wagar Calgary, raped her on a bathroom sink during the party.

During the trial, the judge asked her why she did not do things to defend herself. Camp asked the victim questions like why she adidnt keep her knees togethera to make it impossible for the man to rape her.

He also asked: aWhy didnat you just sink your bottom down into the sink basin so that he couldnat penetrate you?a

The judge also berated the victim for not trying hard enough to escape from the 253-pound man. aIf you were frightened, you could have screamed,a he said.

Camp told the victim that awomen want to have sex particularly when they are drunk.a

He also said that asex and pain sometimes go together and that is not a bad thing.a

Wagar, who maintained that the sex was consensual, was acquitted. When dismissing the charges against the suspect, the judge called it a amisbehaviora and he then advised Wagar on how he could avoid getting himself into a similar situation in the future.

aYouave got to be really sure that sheas saying ayes,a so remind yourself every time that you get involved with a girl from now on and tell your friends, OK?a The judge said.

The Court of Criminal Appeal of Alberta, overturned the acquittal and ordered a new trial. It was during this process that the offensive comments from Camp were released in full.

Camp resigned and apologized for offending people. aI would like to express my sincere apology to everyone who was hurt by my comments,a Camp said.

In another case, Judge Gregory Lenehan of Nova Scotia, acquitted a taxi driver after he was charged with sexually assaulting a young woman who was very drunk in his cab.

Lenehan said that adrunk people can consent to having sex.a

People are now calling for Lenehan to be removed from the bench.
Scene of the landfill collapse

By: Emily Lewis WorldWideWeirdNews.com

(Scroll down for video) Hundreds of people were buried alive after a mountain of garbage collapsed on top of them, according to police in Ethiopia.

The incident unfolded on Saturday night, in the Addis Ababa.

At least 65 people died as a result of the collapse. Most of the victims were women and children.

Police are investigating why the Koshe Garbage Landfill collapsed, burying several makeshift homes and concrete buildings.

The landfill has been a dumping ground for more than 50 years.

In total, 150 people were buried under the mountain of garbage. 37 people were pulled out alive, while 65 have been confirmed dead.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers reach more of the buried people. Officials announced that they are planning to evacuate those residents living in close proximity of the landfill.
New Delhi, Mar 14 (IBNS) Rejecting the Congress petition, the Supreme Court on Tuesday, gave a go-ahead to the BJP to from Government in Goa, but asked Chief Minister-designate Manohar Parrikar to seek trust vote on Thursday, reports said

"If you had the numbers, you would have held a dharna at the Governor's house," the Supreme Court told the lawyer who appeared on behalf of the Congress.

The court observes that the Congress' petition to judges also does not evidence that it has the needed support.

Although Courts are on holiday, Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and other judges heard the petition considering the political urgency involved in it.

The Congress had challenged Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's invitation to the BJP to form Government in the state, saying it is "illegal" and a "blatant unconstitutional action" as the single-largest party should have been given the first chance.

The party also made a plea with the apex court to stop Manohar Parrikar's oath cermeony as Chief Minister, which is scheduled to be held on Tuesday at 5 pm.

In Goa elections, results for which were announced on Saturday last, the Congress won 17 seats and the BJP was second with 13. Both were short of 21, the magic figure needed in the 40-member Goa assembly to form Government.

The BJP staked its claim to form Government after securing support from regional parties Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward and some Independent legislators.

The party claimed it has the support of 22 legislators when the leaders met the Governor on Sunday evening.
Ambitious Plans to Grow North Wales Economy Will Put Wrexham in a Good Place

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Mar 14th, 2017

Ambitious plans to help boost the economy and infrastructure across North Wales will help put Wrexham in a good place.

That was the message sent out at this mornings Executive Board meeting where members were updated on the Growth Vision for the Economy of North Wales.

The aspirational document which outlines a joined-up vision for economic and employment growth for North Wales, received unanimous support from members of the Executive Board in October 2016.

It is hoped that the document will be used as the basis of negotiations with the UK and Welsh Governments over a Growth Bid Deal for the region, along with any other funding and investment opportunities identified.

Now North Wales has been formally invited to develop a Growth Bid, which, if agreed, will see national investment and the conferment of powers to North Wales by the UK and Welsh Governments.

Today Lead Member for Economic Development and Regeneration, Cllr Neil Rogers stated that the next part of the process is to work the bid up.

Cllr Rogers said: We were invited by the UK Government supported by Welsh Government as well to submit this bid. It has gone before the North Wales Economic Ambition Board and the vision has been approved by the six local authorities.

The next process now is to work this bid up. It is very ambitious and would enhance Wrexhams position geographically. It would also offer the opportunity for skills, employment and business growth.

I think Wrexham is in a good position geographically, with its partners across the Mersey Dee Alliance area. I also think that there is an opportunity for Wrexham to be a place for people to invest in and I see huge economic benefits for the whole of Wrexham.

He added: At a time where world leaders are looking to build walls to divide their countries and different aspects and other unpleasant things which have been said, I see this as a real opportunity to work with partners not just in Wales and North East Wales, but just over the border and I welcome the opportunity of this report. I think it will put Wrexham in a good place.

Such comments were echoed by Cllr Bob Dutton, who said: This is a major development in terms of control and organisation for the future.

We as an authority have partnered with the Mersey Dee Alliance which is going to be a formidable partner in terms of links with the cross border situation. It is now time we operate on a fully structural bases to argue cases for North Wales, North East Wales and Wrexham County to ensure weve got the development potential for the future.

Referencing the looming local government elections, Council Leader Mark Pritchard said: This is a massive growth bid and I would have to take this opportunity  Im sure you are all fully aware of the election in May.

Whoever comes back and runs this council, a plea from me and members of the executive board to continue on this journey as it is so important. What were doing is setting this up to continue after May.

Please continue  this is mammoth and a great project for Wrexham and North Wales.

The report was approved unanimously by the Executive Board.
Blame Culture Blamed  Despite Call To Stop Shifting Blame Over Substance Misuse Issues

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Mar 14th, 2017

First Minister questions held in the Welsh Assembly today had a query over recent Wrexham based anti-social behaviours and substance misuse images that made national front pages.

Leader of the House and Chief Whip Jane Hutt took questions on behalf of Carwyn Jones in the session, where great lengths were made to avoid multiple mentions of Wrexham.

Andrew Davies from the Welsh Conservatives spoke of the shocking images of drug abuse that circulated last week, saying: Regrettably much of that media coverage has painted a very negative image of a certain town in Wales.

Today we have the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner calling for the legalisation of drugs as a solution to this issue, on this side of the house we certainly do not believe that is the case.

Mr Davies asked what action the Welsh Government was taking following a meeting last week with some key stakeholders, on the shortcomings in this area.

In response Jane Hutt AM replied stating that in North Wales the Welsh Government provides over 4.9m of substance misuse action funds to the North Wales Area Planning Boards, which commissions needs-led services.

Speaking of the issue of paraphernalia and visibility of individuals within the as yet unnamed places town centre, a multi-agency approach to managing and solving problems was referenced involving the police, the Police and Crime Commissioner, Wrexham Council plus various voluntary organisations.

Mr Davies was unhappy with the response, pointing out that the issue came to prominence around ten days ago, and had hoped for a fuller answer, adding: In 2008 the Welsh Government brought forward a strategy on working together to reduce harm, and when we see such images that strategy clearly does not seem to be working. What evaluation has the Welsh Government taken of this strategy?

Mr Davies also queried about the support for stakeholders, including local authorities, to deal with the issues that are happening day in day out, week in week out, on the street of the towns and villages across Wales that are crying out for a solution and support from government.

Jane Hutt replied: I have identified the investment in the substance misuse action fund, and that is available to those delivering on the ground in the North Wales Area Planning Board.

When they have come together to look at the most recent issues they have developed an action plan, a comprehensive town centre action plan, it has a number of actions.

There are a number of planned projects organised by CAIS through Champions House Recovery, and also identifying hot spot areas and of course clean up has taken place. It is important to recognise this is about the substance misuse that we have to look at in terms of best practice and that is where the new substance misuse delivery plan is so pertinent.

At this point Mr Davies referred to comments by Andrew Atkinson, under the title of Chair of the Town Central Steering Group where he circulated a press released that said of the response over last weeks historic images publication and subsequent debate that the blame culture is disgraceful, should not be used as a political tool, and everyone is blaming everyone else rather than getting to grips with the problem.

Mr Davies asked for a Working Group to be setup by the Welsh Government to pull together various stakeholders, including charities, health bodies and police and crime commissioner, to get a co-ordinated approach to dealing with this issue, especially in Wrexham where there does seem to be a blame culture developing rather than the ability to get to grips with the serious issue.

On the blame and political issue, locally Andrew Atkinson has stood twice for the Conservatives, and will be standing for a third time in the forthcoming Council elections.

Mr Davies did not mention that political affiliation or context, and took the chance to blame Welsh Government for their current policies  plus an added attack on the Welsh Nationalists for their more liberal drugs policies, and of course the Police and Crime Commissioner .

Further, Wrexham.com understands that Mr Atkinson was due to stand aside from the Town Centre Forum Steering Group role as has been previous loose convention  although due to the new format of the Forum such things are unclear to those who attend the meetings. Without that title it is unlikely the point from Mr Atkinson would have been raised in the chamber, at least in that manner.

Jane Hutt AM did not give a direct yes or no to the request for a Working Group, responding instead by enquiring if Mr Davies had been speaking with the Conservative and Independent Councillors in Wrexham who are the sharp end of being responsible for this.
Bengaluru, Mar 14 (IBNS) : A BJP Councillor and Dalit leader was hacked to death after being abducted by unknown persons in Anekal, Bengaluruas rural district, media reports said.

Srinivas Prasad, popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu was reportedly taking morning walk when an armed gang accosted him near BTL college and hacked him to death.

The police have registered a case in this regard and started probing the incident.

No arrests have been made so far.

Karnataka has witnessed a number of murders of local BJP and RSS men recently.

.
At the demand of soldiers, the Petrograd Soviet on March 14 (March 1, O.S.) issued Order No. 1, which Trotsky described as the single worthy document of the February revolution.

To the garrison of the Petrograd region, all soldiers of the guards, army, artillery, and navy, for your immediate and precise execution; and to the workers of Petrograd, for your information.

The Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies hereby orders:

1) All companies, battalions, regiments, artillery depots, batteries, squadrons, and detachments of the various military services, and on ships of the navyimmediately choose committees of elected representatives from the lower ranks of the aforementioned military units.

2) All military units that have not yet elected their representatives to the Soviet of Workers Deputies shall elect one representative from each companywho will appear with appropriate credentials at the building of the State Duma by 10 am on March 2.

3) In all its political activities, each military unit will be subordinate to the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies and its committees.

4) Orders from the Military Commission of the State Duma [i.e., the Provisional Government] may be executed only in cases where they do not contradict the orders and decisions of the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies.

5) All categories of weapons, such as rifles, machine guns, armored cars, etc.shall be at the disposal and under the control of the company and battalion committees, and in no case should be issued to officers, even at their demand.

6) While on-duty and in the performance of their professional obligations, soldiers must observe the strictest military discipline, but while off-duty and in their political, civilian, and private life, soldiers in no way may be denied those rights that all citizens enjoy.

In particular, standing at attention and compulsory saluting while off-duty are abolished.

7) Likewise abolished are titles of officers: Your Excellency, Your Honor, etc., to be replaced with: Mr. General, Mr. Colonel, etc.

Rude treatment of soldiers of all military ranks, and in particular, addressing them using the [informal second-person pronoun] thou, is prohibited, and any violations of this prohibition, as well as all misunderstandings between officers and soldiers, must be communicated to the company committees.

By the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies
The European Council summit meeting of the European Union (EU) heads of government last week accused Russia of destabilising the Balkan region.

The declaration will sharply increase the worsening tension between Russia and the Western powers over Ukraine and Syria that has seen the militarisation of large stretches of Russias European frontiers and a flood of NATO troops in eastern Europe. In addition, the deepening economic and political crisis of world capitalism is exacerbating divisions between the European powers and the United States, especially since the election of Donald Trump to the presidencypresaging an escalating drift towards protectionism, militarism and war.

Under these conditions, the contemporary situation in the Balkans, like that in eastern Europe, the Middle East and South China Sea, increasingly echoes the period before the First World War over 100 years ago.

At the summit, Donald Tusk, the newly re-elected president of the European Council, said the Balkans were vital for Europe.

Tensions and divisions have got out of hand, partly because of unhealthy external influences, which have been destabilising several countries for some time, he said. I will propose to leaders that we take action.

Tusks accusations of unhealthy external influences were directed at Moscow, but it is the Western powers that are responsible for the regions destabilisation and the resulting social and economic disaster, increasing ethnic tensions and growth of militarism.

The major imperialist powers, particularly the US and Germany, deliberately engineered Yugoslavias break-up in the 1990s, in order to isolate and target Serbia as the regional power considered to be the main obstacle to the assertion of the Wests control over an area of geo-strategic interest. They were indifferent to the tragic consequences of their piecemeal break-up of the Yugoslav federation, which history has proven would inevitably lead to civil war and create new ethnically based states incapable of providing a progressive solution to the problems facing the Balkan people.

The Bosnian war of 1992-1995 and the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict both saw NATO military intervention, culminating in the deployment of 60,000 soldiers under Operation Joint Endeavour and the bombing of Serbias capital, Belgrade.

The EU first offered the promise of eventual EU membership in 2003. Croatia joined in 2013, but Montenegro and Serbia have only started formal talks and Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia are yet to begin. Then in 2014, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker declared that the EU would not accept new countries during his five-year term of office. Moreover, the concept of a union in Europe has been thrown into crisis over the impoverishment of Greece, Britains vote last year to exit the EU, and then the new Trump administrations attacks both on the EU and on Germany in particular, as a trade competitor.

But even as Berlin and Paris are proposing a two-tier/two-speed model involving a select group of countries becoming more integrated while other countries are relegated to a more peripheral relationship, the EU felt it politic to strongly suggest at the summit that the Balkan countries are tantalisingly close to membership. Indeed, in the week prior to the summit, the EUs foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, made a whistle-stop tour of the region, declaring, Im working to see every single one of the Western Balkans partners move forward on the reform path, towards the European Union, to ensure the process is irreversible. Regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations remain essential in this context.

In reality, in every country she visited, Mogherini was confronted with the fact that regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations remain further away than ever.

Serbia and Croatia are involved in what is regularly described as a mini arms race, verging on the brink of war. Both countries are renewing their military hardware and considering the re-introduction of conscription.

Mogherini found her speech to the Serbian parliament on March 3 drowned out by chants of Serbia, Russia, we dont need the [European] Union! by right-wing Serbian Radical Party nationalists who feel emboldened by the overtures of Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Of all the relationships Russia has with the Balkan countries, Serbia has been the closest. In 2013, a joint declaration on a strategic partnership was signed followed by a military cooperation agreement leading to the first-ever combined Serbian-Russian military exercise. For this reason, Serbia has refused to support Western sanctions against Russia, but there is increasing pressure to do so as a condition of EU membership. Its ability to balance between the EU and Russia is rapidly narrowing.

Serbias relations with Kosovo have deteriorated further. In January, the first train to be sent from Serbia to the Serb-populated enclave in northern Kosovo was daubed with Kosovo is Serbia slogans in 21 languages. Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has accused Serbia of attempting to use the Crimea model to annex the enclave. Last week, he introduced legislation into parliament to transform the countrys lightly armed Kosovo Security Force into a national army without a change to the constitution that would require the consent of the 11 Serbian MPs in the 120-member chamber.

At the same time the Kosovan parliament called for the suspension of the normalisation dialogue with Serbia, until France rejects a Serbian extradition request for former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Ramush Haradinaj and releases him. The KLA functioned as a US proxy force prior to and during the Kosovo war.

International recognition of Kosovos independence remains stalled. It has been recognised by 114 countries, but not by Serbia, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Spain, Greece and others.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the European Commissions latest progress report on the countrys EU membership prospects says the countrys institutions are virtually non-functioning. It is more than 20 years since the civil war there was ended by the 1995 US-brokered Dayton agreement, but the country remains divided into two semi-independent ethically based entitieseach with its own president, government, parliament and police overseen by an unelected United Nations-appointed High Representative with semi-dictatorial powers.

In Montenegro, Mogherinis speech to the parliament was boycotted by pro-Russian opposition parties opposed to the country joining NATO, probably in May. The Putin government has warned that NATO enlargement in the Balkans is one of the greatest threats to Russias interests. Tensions have soared over an alleged assassination plot following last Octobers elections against former President Milo Djukanovic, who has steered Montenegro towards NATO. The police arrested 20 people including two nationalists from Russia, accusing them of the attempted assassination. The Montenegrin special prosecutor insisted there was no evidence that the Russian government was involved.

However, by February 19, the UKs Sunday Telegraph published a front-page article quoting British government sources saying the planned coup was one of the most blatant recent examples of an increasingly aggressive campaign of interference in Western affairs.

Prime Minister Theresa May then stepped in pledging to curb Russias destabilisation of the region and increasing the UKs involvement, including hosting the 2018 Western Balkans Summit.

As Mogherini was visiting Macedonia, she was confronted by thousands of people taking part in daily protests against the formation of a new coalition government including three ethnic Albanian parties that are calling for Albanian to be designated as a second official language.

The scale of the tragedy in the Balkans has led to calls for its further restructuring along ethnic lines. Former UK diplomat Timothy Less, in his Foreign Affairs article, Dysfunction in the Balkans: Can the Post-Yugoslav Settlement Survive?, suggested the need for a new map of the region based on a Greater Croatia, Greater Serbia, and Greater Albania. Such calls can only lead to further tragedies.
Ecuadorian voters are set to go the polls again on April 2 for a second round presidential election after the first round vote on February 19 failed to produce a clear-cut victor.

The candidate of incumbent President Rafael Correas party Alianza PAIS, Lenin Moreno, came close, but ultimately failed to reach the result required under Ecuadors electoral law of 40 percent of the vote plus a 10 percent margin over the second-place candidate.

Moreno, Correas vice-president from 2007 to 2013, ended up with 39.36 percent of the ballots, while his rival, Guillermo Lasso, a banker and representative of Ecuadors political right, received 28.09 percent of the votes.

The third place went to Cynthia Viteri of the Partido Social Cristiano (Social Christian Party) with 16.32 percent. None of the other five candidates reached 10 percent of the votes. Among them was Abdala Bucaram (4.82 percent), who ruled as president between August 1996 and February 1997 before being removed by the congress on the grounds of mental incompetency amid massive strikes and protests.

Moreno, who formerly worked in the public tourism sector, was left paralyzed by a shooting in 1998 and has since been in a wheelchair. He has chaired and promoted organizations assisting the disabled.

Lasso is a multimillionaire businessman and main shareholder of the Guayaquil Bank. His political career has always been tied to the Ecuadorian right, while promoting closer commercial and political relations with the US. He founded the political organization CREO, which defines itself as a center-right movement comprised of former members of the UNO, Izquierda Democratica, Movimiento Concertacion and members of the national private sector. In 2013, Lasso lost the presidential elections to Correa, obtaining 22.68 percent of the votes.

Polls of likely voters in the second round are divided, with some favoring Lasso and others Moreno. The country is sharply polarized with the political right seeking to capitalize on the shrinking economy, widespread reports of corruption and the attacks carried out by the Correa government on workers and democratic rights.

The struggle of Correas Alianza PAIS party to hold onto political power is unfolding in the context of the series of defeats suffered by governments of Latin Americas so-called left turn or pink tide which saw the coming to power of bourgeois parties that sought to utilize the continents commodities boom to effect populist politics and minimal assistance programs for the poor. Amid the deepening crisis of US capitalism, these governments also reoriented trade and commercial ties toward US rivals, particularly China. They also benefited from the support of various Stalinist, Pabloite and other pseudo-left tendencies that sought to suppress independent workers struggles.

The slowing of the Chinese economy and the resulting fall in commodity prices has spelled economic crisis and political instability for all of these regimes. Ecuador, with oil accounting for 40 percent of its export earnings, was among the hardest hit. The World Bank projects a 2.9 percent fall in the countrys economy this year, which would give it the worst economic performance of any country in the region after the even more oil-dependent Venezuela.

With one after another of these left bourgeois governments responding to the capitalist crisis by implementing attacks on the working class, there has been a corresponding collapse in popular support and a movement by the right to fill the political vacuum.

If Lasso succeeds in the run-off, Ecuador will follow the path already taken by Argentina, with the election of Mauricio Macri another wealthy businessman-- after the Peronist years of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner and the coming to power of Michel Temer and his counter reform agenda in Brazil after the impeachment and downfall of Dilma Rousseff and her Workers Party government. Evo Morales failure in the reelection referendum in Bolivia and the collapse of support for the Chavista government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela are also part of this process.

Another important factor affecting the regions governments and the Ecuadorian election is the international bribery and corruption scandal centered around the Brazilian construction multinational Odebrecht, whose executives have confessed to having secured contracts with governments of 12 countries in Latin America by bribing high public officers with millions of dollars and then recovering its payoffs through cost over-runs on its projects.

An estimated $34 million were paid out to Ecuadorian officials during Correas time in office, according to US Justice Department documents. The courts in Ecuador have done next to nothing in terms of investigations and prosecutions over the scandal.

As in other Latin American countries, this corruption directly involves the presidents family members. According to GAN Integrity, Among the biggest corruption cases in the sector is the award of government contracts worth US$167 million to the brother of Ecuadors President Correa, Fabricio Correa, during the first two years of the presidents tenure.

Correa, who has disassociated himself from his brother, recently declared that, if Lasso wins he will stay in Ecuador in order to fight what he said would be inevitable corruption charges.

In the beginning, Correa and his Alianza PAIS movement (in office since 2007) sought to use the surpluses provided by high oil prices and loans from China to adopt a posture of independence toward Washington and to finance public projects, especially in health and education. His government also reduced extreme poverty and raised the minimum wage.

With the collapse of oil prices, Correa cut government programs, laid off thousands of employees at state-run companies and attacked pension and labor rights.

The economic crisis reached such a point in the spring of 2014 that Ecuador agreed to transfer more than half of its gold  approximately 466,000 ounces of gold worth US$ 580 million  to Goldman Sachs for three years, a move designed to bring confidence to the markets so that Ecuadorian government could confront its growing debt crisis.

In June 2012, Correa defied the US by giving Julian Assange, the leader of WikiLeaks, asylum in its London embassy. However, Correas posture as a left populist, willing to defy Washington, has evaporated in sync with the fall in oil prices. By November 2016, the Correa government ordered the severing of Assanges Internet connection under pressure from the US government.

Lasso has publicly promised to expel Assange from the London embassy once he is elected as a means of currying favor with Washington. The Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear, Lasso told the British newspaper the Guardian, during an interview in Quito.

Lasso has also vowed to take Ecuador out of the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) alliance, which was formed by Venezuela and Cuba as an alternative to Washingtons drive for a free trade agreement of the Americas. And, rather than rely on China, which had been the predominant creditor of Correas government, but whose loans have been steadily shrinking, he is expected to reorient the countrys economy to the US and the IMF.

Whoever succeeds Correa, whether it is his own man Moreno or the right-wing, pro-US banker Lasso, the next government can be expected to turn further to the right in order to defend the interests of Ecuadors capitalist ruling class, acceding to the pressure from Washington as it attempts to counter Chinese penetration of what US imperialism has long regarded as its own backyard.

Much of what passes for Ecuadors left is positioning itself to assist in this turn. Paco Moncayo, a retired military general of the Democratic Left (ID) party, who placed fourth in the first round of the Ecuadorian election, has openly called for a vote for Lasso in the second round.

Lasso represents neo-liberalism, which has done so much damage, but today he is the lesser evil and necessary to recover democracy, Moncayo said.

Similar positions have been taken by left parties and movements that supported Moncayo as part of his National Accord for Change (ANC) electoral alliance. These include the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, a Maoist party, as well as the Pachakutik indigenous party, both of which originally backed Correas rise to power.
On January 19, 1861, runaway slave Lucy Bagby Johnson, 18, was arrested in Cleveland by US federal marshals in the company of her owner, a wealthy Virginia slave owner named William Goshorn. Johnson had escaped several months earlier, making her way to Ohio, where she gained employment as a domestic. Arrested and taken to and from prison past crowds of protesters, Johnson was prosecuted under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a law that prevented her from testifying on her own behalf. She was ultimately placed on a train and sent south across the Mason-Dixon line that separated slave and free states, and back into bondage in Virginia.

On February 8, 2017, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, an undocumented worker living in Arizona, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials during a routine visit to ICEs Phoenix office. Arrested by authorities acting under President Donald Trumps new anti-immigrant executive orders, Garcia de Rayos, a mother of two teenagers and a US resident since 1996, was spirited away for deportation past hundreds of protesters, among them her friends and family. Like Johnson 156 years earlier, she had no recourse to the courts.

History doesnt repeat itself, but it often rhymes, or so the saying goes. Several commenters, among them Columbia University historian Eric Foner, have noted similarities between the Fugitive Slave Act, which was a major cause of the American Civil War (1861-1865), and Trumps January 25 executive orders entitled Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements and Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.

The infamous Fugitive Slave Act, or the bloodhound law as the abolitionists called it, enlisted local police in the North as agents of the slave owners by imposing a $1,000 penalty on any law enforcement official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave, based on as little as an affidavit of ownership from a Southern court. The law precluded the arrested individual, now bound for deportation to slavery, from having a jury trial or being able to testify on his or her own behalf in court. Its specific intent was to prevent cities and towns in northern states from providing sanctuary to runaway slaves and absorbing them into the growing wage-earning working class.

The law made Canada the ultimate destination for most runaway slaves, via the Underground Railroadthe system of safe houses and hiding places slaves used to escape bounty hunters, bloodhounds and federal marshals. In Canada, part of the British Empire, laws and court rulings had followed the famous Somerset decision of 1772 in which Lord Mansfield held that in England there was too pure an air for slaves to breathe in.

Even more consequentially, attempts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act increasingly angered masses of people in the North, leading many to believe in the existence of a Slave Power conspiracy that was intent on expanding slavery throughout the union.

Like the Fugitive Slave Act, Trumps executive orders target so-called sanctuary cities, where local authorities extend a modicum of social services to undocumented workers and their children, or turn a blind eye to their presence. Like their antebellum precursor, Trumps orders dragoon local authorities into the apprehension of immigrants, threaten punishment to anyone who would assist immigrants, and deny the apprehended due process.

They have created a new Underground Railroad, with many immigrants attempting to traverse the US in the hope of finding sanctuary in Canada. And, like the Fugitive Slave Act, Trumps orders have been met with angry protests across the US. The undocumented worker, as with the escaped slave 160 years ago, is the object of a growing sentiment of solidarity.

As striking as the parallels between the Fugitive Slave Act and Trumps anti-immigrant orders may be, there is also a direct link overlooked by Foner and other commentators. Though separated by 167 years, both are outcomes of the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.

The Fugitive Slave Act emerged directly out of that predatory war, which was provoked by the Democratic administration of James K. Polk as a means of tamping down the growing controversy over slavery beneath a wave of national patriotismand adding vast new territories for slaverys expansion. The stage for war was set by immigrationbut at that time, by slaveholding Americans following the expansion of the cotton economy westward and into the province of Tejas in Mexico, where slavery had been illegal since 1829. The central aim of the Anglo-Texan plantation elite, in declaring independence from Mexico in 1836 and then conspiring to join the US, was to secure and expand slave-based cotton production.

Polks war looked to have been a smashing success. The American military routed its weaker Mexican rival, occupying Mexico City in September 1847. In the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States took one-third of Mexicos territory, forcing Mexican recognition of the annexation of Texas, New Mexico and part of Oklahoma, and ceding what are today the states of California, Arizona and Nevada, as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

A great wave of flag-waving patriotism swept the country, as Democrats and Whigs set aside their differences to celebrate military glorythat attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood, as the young congressman Abraham Lincoln, an opponent of the war, put it. Disgusted, Lincoln left politics and returned to his Illinois law practice.

The writer Henry David Thoreau was put in prison for refusing to pay taxes in protest against the war. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose, Thoreau said.

But some observers understood the predatory war would solve nothing. Mexico will poison us, Thoreaus friend Ralph Waldo Emerson presciently warned.

History teaches again and again that wars of aggression have outcomes their plotters fail to predict. Waged to preserve slavery indefinitely, the Mexican-American War instead set into motion a series of events that led in 15 years to its destruction. In the short term, the southern elites dream of expanding its slave empire to California was thwarted by the discovery of gold there in 1848, just one week before the signing of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California quickly drew tens of thousands of prospectors, small businessmen and incipient industrialists who demanded free labor in the Golden State. It entered the union as a free state in 1850.

Shocked at the loss of Californiaand the betrayal by northern Democrats led by David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, who had attempted, unsuccessfully, to block slavery from all territories taken from Mexicothe Southern elite demanded redress. This they were given with the Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, authored by Henry Clay (1777-1852). Bowing before accomplished fact, California, and with it the agricultural bonanza promised by its Mediterranean climate and fertile valleys, would be a free state. In exchange, the South was given an aggressive new Fugitive Slave Act along with popular sovereigntythe possibility that slavery could be established in any new territory based on the vote of the free white settler population.

None of this served to appease the South or to defuse the irrepressible conflict. Just the opposite. Popular sovereignty ultimately brought a dress rehearsal for war in the form of Bleeding Kansas, as the territory filled up with armed free-staters such as abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859), who faced off against the pro-slavery guerrilla bands organized in neighboring Missouri. As for the Fugitive Slave Act, it served only to radicalize Northern public opinion against the Slave Power.

Again and again, Northerners poured out into the streets to defend their neighbors and coworkers targeted for extradition to slavery. One example was the rescue of Joshua Glover in Milwaukee in 1854 by a crowd of some 5,000 people. In this way, the Fugitive Slave Act only hastened the Second American Revolution.

The other outcome of the Mexican-American War has been incubating in American history for a much longer time. The new border imposed through Guadalupe Hidalgo attempted to divide in two that which would prove, in the long run, impossible to keep separate: the economy and the people of the southwestern portion of North America.

The treaty left behind tens of thousands of Mexican citizens in the new American states. From the 1850s until the last several decades, Mexicans could, and did, move back and forth across the border with relative ease. Their migration was encouraged in the 1920s after the US effectively prohibited mass European immigration with the National Origins Act of 1924, which imposed no quota on Mexican immigrants.

Then, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Democratic Party administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt targeted Mexicans for deportation and repatriation, including many who were US-born. This was reversed in World War II with the Bracero Program, which over the next 25 years brought several hundred thousand Mexicans to the US as low-paid and highly-exploited guest-workers.

The end of the Bracero Program in 1964, combined with the dispossession of the massive Mexican peasantry owing to the Green Revolution organized by US banks and agribusiness in collusion with the Mexican elite, fueled a large-scale labor migration. Driven from the land, their subsistence agriculture replaced by cash-crop agricultural export industries, the Mexican and Central American peasantry has been incorporated, in all but name, into the American working class.

Nowhere is the contradiction between nation-state and global economy more clear than on the US-Mexico border. California and Texas, the big prizes taken from Mexico in the 1840s, are today the two most populous American states. Were they independent, they would be the worlds sixth and 10th largest economies, respectively, each by itself larger than the Mexican economy with which they conduct several hundred billion dollars in trade.

Yet, according to a 2012 estimate, each states population is 38.2 percent Hispanica figure that is growing rapidly. From the border, the Mexican and Central American migrants have spread across the US, living and working side by side with US-born workers. Outside of Los Angeles, the largest Mexican-American population is found in Chicago, where some 700,000 reside.

This raises one other telling parallel between the Fugitive Slave Act and Trumps orders. Both are desperate bids to defend a border against disruptive social and political changesthat is, to stop the progressive advance of history.

The Southern elite had learned that in the relation between the two races, as the pro-slavery politician John C. Calhoun phrased it, wherever slaves interacted with free workers, black or white, slavery was undermined. It was not accidental that Frederick Douglass learned to read and write and came to know of the North, freedom and abolitionism by living side-by-side as a rented slave with working class boys and men in Baltimore. As the late C. Vann Woodward noted, [T]he encouragement that city conditions gave to interracial contact, familiar association and intimacy corroded the masters authority, diminished his control, and blurred the line between freedom and bondage.

In the decades before the Civil War, the Democratic Party attempted to arrest these developments by establishing the first segregation laws in the South and in the North, imposing the Fugitive Slave Act, and whipping up racism by suggesting that freed slaves would take the jobs of workers, drive down their wages and rape white womenthe very rhetoric aped by Trump and his fascist supporters today.

The failure of these politics, manifested in the election of Lincoln in 1860, required more desperately reactionary measures. Civil War historian James McPherson has described the Southern secession that year as a preemptive counterrevolution.

He writes that rather than trying to restore the old order, a preemptive counterrevolution strikes first to protect the status quo before the revolutionary threat can materialize. Yet the slaveocracys attempt to roll back the wheel of history, which can be traced back to the Fugitive Slave Act, resulted in its destruction. Seldom in history has a counterrevolution provoked the very revolution it sought to preempt, McPherson concludes.

Today, powerful historical forcesabove all, the growing social power and political consciousness of the working classthreatens Americas decadent oligarchy, personified in Trump and his ultra-right personnel, who are quite conscious that time is working against them. Michael Anton, director of strategic communications for the US National Security Council, last year warned in his pseudonymously published Flight 93 Election that the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle.

Trumps anti-immigrant measures, like the Fugitive Slave Act, are an attempt to strike out against history and prevent a gathering revolutionary threat. They will prove no more successful.
Immigrant workers are bracing for workplace raids by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Over the last several weeks, ICE agents have rounded up hundreds of undocumented immigrants in what immigrant rights groups call an unprecedented campaign by Trumps Department of Homeland Security.

Several of the raids were conducted at construction sites, manufacturing plants, restaurants and other workplaces. In other cases, immigrants were detained at traffic stops or were collateral arrests, i.e., picked up by ICE simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The claim by Trump that the mass deportation of immigrant workers is aimed at protecting the jobs and living standards of native-born workers and legalized immigrants is a grotesque lie. On the contrary, the xenophobic campaign is aimed at intimidating and silencing the lowest paid and most exploited workers as a prelude for destroying the social and democratic rights of the entire working class.

The record-breaking deportations carried out by former President Barack Obama coincided with an offensive against wages and working conditions and a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top of American society. Many employers exploit undocumented workers on construction sites, farms and factories knowing they will be too fearful to complain about wage theft, unsafe conditions and other abuses. Bloomberg News recently reported that some workers who have won wage theft cases are declining back pay checks from the Labor Department out of fear that contact with the government could lead to deportation.

This assault is being greatly expanded by the Trump administration, which has widened the criteria for who can be deported, established an expedited basis for deportations without a hearing, and is tripling the number of ICE agents. Many immigrant rights advocates believe this will give a green light to the even greater exploitation of undocumented workers. In the meantime, the Trump administration is seeking to destroy whatever safety, health and labor protections remain, thereby condemning ever larger sections of the working class to the pariah status now reserved for undocumented workers.

Immigrant rights advocates are organizing training sessions to inform workers of their rights and preparing communities for even larger ICE raids. In the last months, families have been preparing in the event of a workplace raid or if they are seized at home or while driving, Sam Robles, a spokeswoman for Workers Defense Project (Proyecto Defensa Laboral) in Austin, Texas told the World Socialist Web Site.

People are finding ways to fight back. Austin is the epicenter of the fight of immigrant families. The sheriff here announced he would not comply with ICE, the same week the federal government issued an order against sanctuary cities. There is an anti-sanctuary city bill moving fast through the state legislature that would encourage racial profiling. There is a hearing Wednesday, and many high school students are coming to speak out.

Under Texas Senate Bill 4, law enforcement in cities, counties and on college campuses would have to hold an arrested person in custody while ICE agents look into his or her immigration status. If the entities fail to do so, they could be denied state grant money.

People, including residents who have been here for years, are rushing in Central Texas to apply for relief, Robles added. They may be eligible to stay because they have a child or spouse who can be sponsored. With these attacks coming on the local, state and federal level, people are frightened and concerned.

Right after the ICE raids we saw workers not showing up to their jobs because they heard a rumor about another raid or maybe being stopped on the way to work. Others went to work because they had to feed their families but didnt know what was going to happen next.

We did a joint study with the University of Texas that showed that almost half of the construction workforce in Texas is made up of undocumented workers. Were seeing a delay in the completion of projects because workers dont feel safe on the job.

There is a labor shortage in Texas. That is why its cities, roads and schools are being built by undocumented workers who are part of our communities, our families. In Texas, we lose a construction worker every three days to an accident; one in five workers are injured on the job, and one in four suffer wage theft. Its already tough on these workers, and now they are adding an extra layer of attacks. Its already dangerous and stressful.

Keren Zwick, from the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Centers litigation practice, told the Chicago Tribune that she believes a return to worker roundups is inevitable. Were preparing for Postville-style raids, Zwick said, referring to a 2008 raid at a Kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, which was one of the largest single-site raids in US history. That raid resulted in the arrest of 389 immigrant workers, many of whom were eventually deported.

According to a 2015 Pew Research Center report cited by the Tribune, Illinois workers without legal status make up an estimated 11 percent of the workforce in leisure and hospitality, 10 percent in manufacturing and 9 percent in construction. There are about 350,000 people in the states labor force without authorization, the newspaper reported.

In Buffalo, New York, nine workers were rounded up on February 17 at a hotel construction site, while nearly two dozen were picked up at convenience store near an apartment complex building site.

There were 23 people waiting to get a job, and they were snatched up off the street, immigration attorney Michael Berger told the World Socialist Web Site. There are a lot of Central Americans and Eastern Europeans doing siding and roofing work here in Buffalo. Many of the workers in the construction unions are from Italian backgrounds. There was a time when the Italians were persecuted. And before them, the Irish. The idea that America was a perfect country always welcoming immigrants just isnt true. When labor was needed, the US would say, You can come in, but not your spouse.

There is widespread hostility to the efforts by Trump and his fascistic top aide, Stephen Bannon, to scapegoat immigrant workers. Increasing numbers of workers know that unemployment and low wages are not caused by immigrant workers but the relentless drive for profit by big business. But these conditions will not be fought by the Democratic Party, a capitalist party, which paved the way for Trump, nor by the unions, which have increasingly allied themselves with the billionaire president based on the ultra-right program of American First nationalism.

Nothing was ever won by workers outside the struggle to unite the entire working classnative-born and immigrant, black and whitein a common fight against the effort of the ruling class to divide workers along racial and ethnic lines. The entire working class must be mobilized to stop the witch-hunting of immigrant workers and to uphold the basic principle that all workers have the right to live and work in any country, with full citizenship rights.
The Trump administration has further exacerbated the extremely tense standoff on the Korean Peninsula by dispatching attack drones to South Korea and sending special forces units to participate in massive war games already underway. The military build-up takes place as the White House considers launching strikes on North Korean nuclear and military sites.

US Forces Korea announced on Monday that the company of Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) will be permanently stationed at Kunsan Air Base, south of Seoul. The UAS adds significant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability to US Forces Korea and our [South Korean] partners, it stated.

While the US announcement emphasized reconnaissance, the Gray Eagle drones can also carry up to four Hellfire missiles that have been used to carry out assassinations and strike military targets. The lethal drones can stay aloft for up to 24 hours.

The South Korean military was in no doubt as to the purpose of the deployment. An unnamed official told the Yonhap news agency: In case of a war on the Korean Peninsula, the unmanned aircraft could infiltrate into the skies of North Korea and make a precision strike on the war command and other major military facilities.

The dispatch of attack drones to South Korea coincides with the involvement of US special forces in annual Foal Eagle war games, including SEAL Team 6, the highly-trained assassination squad that killed Osama bin Laden. The SEAL team will take part in the joint exercises in South Korea along with US Army Rangers, Delta Force and Green Berets, according to Yonhap.

A military official told the news agency that bigger numbers and more diverse US special operations forces were taking part, in order to practice missions to infiltrate into the North, remove the Norths war command and demolition of its key military facilities. The joint Foal Eagle drills are the biggest ever, involving more than 320,000 troops backed by a US aircraft carrier strike group, stealth fighters and strategic bombers.

Commenting on US Secretary of State Rex Tillersons trip to Japan, South Korea and China later this week, State Department spokesman Mark Toner absurdly claimed that the US military was taking defensive measures against an increasingly worrying, concerning threat from North Korea.

Neither the drones nor the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system to which Toner was referring are defensive in character. The drones, along with the special forces units, are rehearsing for pre-emptive attacks on North Korean military sites and decapitation raids to kill North Korean leaders. This is in line with an aggressive new joint operational plan, OPLAN 5015, agreed to between the US and South Korea in late 2015.

The THAAD deployment is part of the Pentagons broader build-up of anti-ballistic missile systems and military forces in Asia, primarily for war against China. Beijing has repeatedly voiced strenuous objections to the THAAD installation in South Korea, which has a powerful radar system capable of peering deep into the Chinese mainland and giving the US military much greater advance warning of Chinese missile launches in the event of war.

The Trump administration, which is currently reviewing US strategy towards North Korea, is exploiting North Korea's test launch of four ballistic missiles last week to advance longstanding military preparations on the Korean Peninsula. According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House is actively considering regime change in Pyongyang and military strikes on North Korea.

We have to look at new ideas, new ways of dealing with North Korea, US State Department spokesman Toner blandly declared. China understands that threat. Theyre not oblivious to whats happening in North Korea.

The reference to China underscores the aims of Tillersons upcoming trip. Firstly, he intends to brief Washingtons Japanese and South Korean allies on US plans and to encourage closer military cooperation in the event of conflict. Then he will fly to Beijing, where he will attempt to bully the Chinese government into taking tougher punitive action against Pyongyang.

The mounting US threats towards North Korea are also directed against China, which the Trump administration is targeting as the chief obstacle to maintaining US dominance in Asia and internationally. Tillerson has provocatively declared that the US should block Chinese access to islets under Beijings administration in the South China Sea. The only way to carry out such a reckless plan would be through a US military blockadean act of war that could provoke conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers.

Tensions in the South China Sea have been further strained by the decision of the Japanese military to dispatch its largest warship, the JS Izumo, for three months of operations, including in disputed waters. According to Reuters, the Izumo will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and US naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July. It will also train with the US navy in the South China Sea.

Over the eight years of the Obama administration and its pivot to Asia, the US has engaged in a systematic military expansion throughout the Asia Pacific, strengthened alliances and strategic partnerships and greatly aggravated dangerous regional flashpoints, including the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea. The Trump administration, which has been critical of the pivot for not being sufficiently aggressive, is now embarking on a course that greatly heightens the danger of war.

The response of the North Korean regime to Washingtons actions is reactionary through and through. Its nuclear and missile tests, along with its bloodcurdling threats and Korean chauvinism, in no way defend the Korean people, but do provide the US with a pretext for its military build-up in North East Asia. According to the 38north.org web site, affiliated with John Hopkins University, commercial satellite imagery indicates that Pyongyang could be preparing for another nuclear test.

Confronted with an intense political crisis in Washington, the Trump administration is not simply considering, but actively preparing for reckless provocations and military moves against North Korea that have the potential to trigger a cataclysmic war that draws in the entire world.
On February 22, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee, the Fire and Police Commission and Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn over traffic stops, vehicle searches, and stop-and-frisks which disproportionately target the citys African-American and Latino population.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six African-American and Latino plaintiffs claiming they had been stopped by police with no clear reason since 2010.

The ACLU contends that Milwaukee police officers have been acting in violation of the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unwarranted search and seizure of persons and their property without reasonable suspicion, and in violation of the 14th Amendment prohibiting discrimination based on race and ethnicity, contending that the disproportionate targeting of blacks and Latinos in traffic stops amounts to targeting particular sections of the population through racial profiling.

An analysis of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) database by the ACLU showed that of all the traffic stops conducted between 2010 and 2012, African-Americans made up 72 percent of those stops even though they make up only an estimated 34 percent of Milwaukees population. Data also cited in the lawsuit shows that the total number of pedestrian and traffic stops by Milwaukee Police nearly tripled between 2007 and 2015, from 66,000 to 196,000.

Another recent study by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that African-Americans were seven times more likely to be pulled over by Milwaukee police than whites, and Hispanics were five times more likely.

Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn has flat-out denied that police actions are occurring on the basis of racial profiling or meeting a quota system, citing statistics that indicate that those who are disproportionately victims of crime and live and work in high crime areas, saying in a news conference addressing the suit, What weve been doing is using lawful traffic enforcement in public spaces to affect the environment.

In a revealing 2011 interview, Flynn said, Yes, of course, we are going to stop lots of innocent people, the point is, do folks understand what their role is as a cooperative citizen in having a safe environment? casting blame on those residents who do not fully submit to totally unwarranted and invasive traffic stops and pat-downs on the street.

Nusrat Choudhury, an attorney for the Milwaukee ACLU, remarked at a February 22 news conference, This lawsuit at its core seeks to advance evidence-based and bias-free policing as do other civil rights lawsuits challenging massive stop-and-frisk programs.

Choudhury noted that the ACLU is concerned that the MPDs racial profiling in traffic stops and stop-and-frisks is damaging the trust between police and the public central to achieving public safety. In other words, the ACLU and other critics of racial profiling are primarily concerned that it is detrimental to legitimizing police and law enforcement and will contribute to the eruption of popular anger.

In Milwaukee, Democratic Mayor Tom Barretts State of the City address on March 6 painted a rose colored picture of conditions in Milwaukee, declaring that, in fact, conditions are great. The heart of Milwaukee is thriving, Barrett proclaimed, stating further that It is clear our great city is a strong economic engine for the region and for the state.

Following Barretts speech, Flynn acknowledged the ACLUs lawsuit in underhanded fashion, remarking, We are the custodians of most of the states poor, and therefore most of its violent crime. He subsequently called for increased policing to respond to the prevalence of violent crime.

Barrett and the Democratic Party are standing on a social powder keg, and the only remedy offered by the Democrats for the conditions of immense poverty and inequality in Milwaukee is more police and stepped-up repression.

Seething social anger erupted in August 2015 during protests in the Sherman Park neighborhood over the police killing of Sylville Smith. The protests were met with the imposition of a curfew and mobilization of the police by Barrett, and the activation of the National Guard by Republican Governor Scott Walker.

The research on the extent of poverty among African-Americans in Milwaukee and its social impact is nothing short of staggering. Forty percent of African-Americans in Milwaukee live below the poverty line, with one in three living in extreme poverty, with less than half the income deemed appropriate by the US government.

According to research of 2010 Census data by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2013, Milwaukee has the highest incarceration rate of African-Americans in the United States, with nearly one in eight African American men of working age being incarcerated.

In the same study, it was found that more than 50 percent of African-American men had experienced incarceration by their 30s and 40s, with two thirds of those incarcerated residing in six of Milwaukees poorest zip codes, which includes the Sherman Park neighborhood.

The lawsuit detailing police harassment and terrorization of the citys poorest and most vulnerable residents comes as Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a Democrat and fervent supporter of the Trump administration, has recently begun a program of deputizing Milwaukee police officers to act as immigration agents in order to carrying out Trumps executive order for mass roundups of immigrants and refugees.

Clarke is a fascistic figure, who among a laundry list of law-and-order demagoguery has called for the deployment of the National Guard to suppress protests against Trump after his election and has advocated for mayors of so-called sanctuary cities to be arrested for contempt of the Trump administrations executive orders attacking immigrants and refugees.

The targeting of minority workers and the poor for daily harassment through unwarranted traffic stops, stop-and-frisks and deportations is an attack on the entire working class and a warning for the measures that will be deployed against protests and growing social opposition to the policies pursued by the Democrats and the Republicans.
A US airstrike claimed the lives of at least 11 civilians in the besieged northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday, according to Iraqi security officials.

In addition to the dead, including women and children, another four civilians were wounded in the bombing.

A suspected coalition plane struck a mobile target, which left 11 civilians dead and injured four others, a security source told Turkeys state-run Anadolu Agency. The brief description suggests that the US warplane struck a vehicle loaded with civilians attempting to flee the fighting.

The densely populated area of western Mosul has been under constant attack since mid-February when Iraqi forces--including army troops, police, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni tribesmen and Shia militias--began operations aimed at retaking that part the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which routed government forces and took control of Mosul in June of 2014.

The US-backed offensive is steadily reducing much of Mosul to rubble and there are clear indications that the Pentagon has given the green light for airstrikes that inevitably result in the killing of unarmed men, women and children.

The British-based monitoring group Airwars issued a recent report estimating that up to 370 civilians were killed in 11 separate bombing raids carried out by US and allied warplanes in the first six days of this month alone. The airstrikes have not only continued, but intensified since then.

The British daily Telegraph provided a graphic account of the carnage unleashed upon one neighborhood in western Mosul.

Samood is a hellish landscape, the paper reports. Every third house seems to either bear the scars of a fierce firefight or is completely leveled. Burned-out husks of cars and the rubble from razed houses block most of the neighbourhoods streets.

Yusuf Ahmed, a 47-year-old resident of Mosul, told the Telegraph how his brother, sister-in-law and their two daughters were killed by US bombs as they huddled in the basement of their home in the next neighborhood over.

They dropped leaflets over the city telling us not to worry about the strikes, saying that they were extremely precise and would not hurt the civilians, he said. Now it feels like the coalition is killing more people than Isil [ISIS].

Ahmed estimated that at least 300 people had been killed in US-backed siege of Samood and his late brothers neighborhood of al-Mansour alone.

Hashem Abdullah, another resident of Samood, told the Telegraph how a US warplane targeted a house opposite his own where ISIS members held meetings. At the moment an ISIS member walked out the door, the plane struck. The fighter was only injured, but 11 members of one family in the house next door were instantly killed, he said.

The murderous conditions in western Mosul have forced over 18,000 people to flee their homes in the last week alone. The total number displaced from the city as a whole since the US-backed forces first began their assault on eastern Mosul last October now stands at 293,000.

An estimated half a million people remain trapped within the city facing not only US bombs and missiles, but also lack of drinking water along with scarce food and other essential supplies.

The assault on Mosul is part of a broader US escalation in Iraq and Syria and, indeed, throughout the region. The Pentagon has recently doubled the number of troops it has deployed in Syria in preparation for a similar bloody assault on the city of Raqqa and in an attempt to prevent an all-out war between Washingtons NATO ally, Turkey, and the Kurdish YPG militia, which functions as the Pentagons main proxy ground force in Syria.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, US warplanes carried out more airstrikes during the first week of March than during any single year under the Obama administration.

According to Foreign Policy, in 2016 the Pentagon prepared plans for stepped up operations in Yemen against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has been greatly strengthened by the US-backed war being waged by Saudi Arabia to restore its puppet government to power there.

The Obama administration handed over plans for a stepped-up campaign to the incoming Trump team in January. Foreign Policy reports, There has been an immediate change in the tempo of operations. This reflects the new administrations apparent preference for prompt military action over policy deliberations, and a more dominant role for the military in decision-making.

By default, everything is going to be quicker from flash to bang than it was during the Obama presidency, a former Pentagon official told Foreign Policy .

The wave of US airstrikes in Yemen was preceded by the abortive January 29 special forces commando assault on a Yemeni village that saw dozens of civilians massacred, a Navy Seal killed and several others wounded and a $75 million aircraft abandoned.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the Trump administration is seeking to brush aside limited restrictions placed on US military operations by the Obama White House for the ostensible purpose of limiting civilian casualties. These procedures were put in place in an attempt to assuage mass popular outrage over drone assassinations and massacres carried out in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere.

Under these rules, the military was supposedly required to establish that those targeted for killing represented a threat to the US citizens and that any proposed operation would include a near certainty of no civilian deaths. Numerous strikes carried out by the US military violated these formal restrictions. Now, it appears, even the pretense is being waived.

According to the Times , Trump has signed off on a Pentagon request to designate three Yemeni provinces as areas of active hostilities and is about to grant similar approval in relation to Somalia. This is not unprecedented, as the Obama administration did the same thing in relation to Libya last August when the Pentagon launched a series of 495 airstrikes against the city of Sirt, which was under the control of ISIS. It did so as well last year in Somalia, after US troops were sent in to train Somali and African Union forces.

By declaring these areas effective war zones, the White House is lifting any requirement that attacks be vetted by national security officials in Washington and allows for any civilian casualties that can be justified as proportionate.

The shift in relation to these policies stems in part from the Trump administrations executive order calling for the Pentagon to submit a strategy for escalating the US war on terror. That order called for the plan to include recommended changes to any United States rules of engagement and other United States policy restrictions that exceed the requirements of international law regarding the use of force.

The Pentagon submitted its recommendations at the end of last month, and all the indications are that they will entail a major increase in bloodletting by the US military in the Middle East, Africa and beyond.
In a travesty of justice, an Indian court has convicted 13 victimized Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) workers of culpable homicide (murder) and 18 others of rioting and other serious criminal offenses.

Those found guilty of murder are now facing a prosecution demanding that they be sentenced to death. This includes the entire leadership of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU), an independent union formed by workers at MSIs Manesar car assembly plant to challenge a brutal cheap-labour work regime.

The workers are the victims of an outrageous frame-up involving MSI management, the police, the courts, and both of Indias main big business parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Party.

In a flagrant case of class justice, the workers have been found criminally responsible for a July 2012 management-provoked altercation at MSIs Manesar plant and the resulting fire, which destroyed part of the plant and killed a company manager.

Big business and the Indian state have targeted the Manesar MSI workforce because the plant has been a centre of militant opposition to the low wages, precarious contract-labour jobs and arduous production quotas that prevail across the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belta huge auto manufacturing centre that has sprung up on the outskirts of Delhi, Indias capital and largest city. In defiance of management threats and state repression, a company stooge union and the traditional trade union federations, the Manesar MSI workers staged a series of walkouts and sit-down strikes in 2011.

In convicting the 31, the Gurgaon District Court wilfully ignored the glaring holes and inconsistencies in the prosecution case and brazenly discounted its own finding that much of the evidence against the workers was a sham. According to Rebecca John, lawyer for many of the accused, in its judgment, which has yet to be released in full, the court had to concur with the defences argument that there had been fabrication of evidence and collusion between police and Maruti Suzuki management.

So flimsy and compromised was the prosecution case, the court, in its ruling last Friday, completely exonerated 117 other MSI workers who had been arrested and charged along with the 31 in July-August, 2012.

If 117 out of 148 have been acquitted of all charges, said John, I can only say it exposes the complete fabrication of evidence against the workers.

The defence showed that police carried out no independent investigation of the July 18, 2012 altercation. They simply arrested workers based on a company-supplied list of suspects. Prosecution witnesses were repeatedly unable to identify those they testified against. CCTV footage of the events was not supplied even when the defence asked for it.

Central to the states case was the claim that workers had set the plant ablaze, but the prosecution failed to show how the fire began, let alone identify who lit it.

The court is slated to hear sentencing arguments next Friday, March 17.

Throughout the almost five-year-long legal process, the prosecution has acted vindictively. It bitterly contested workers bail applications for years and curtly dismissed evidence that the jailed workers were abused and subjected to torture, including electric shocks, severe leg-stretching, and water-immersion.

In their interactions with the media, the prosecutors have suggested they will seek the death penalty against some or all of the 13 convicted of culpable homicideJiyalal, the worker whose confrontation with an MSI manager apparently triggered the July 18 events, and the 12 members of the MSWU executive.

The 18 other MSI workers convicted last Friday are threatened with lengthy prison terms.

The 117 workers whom the court had to exonerate have all paid a terrible price. For years, they were held in Indias notorious prison system, separated from their families and unable to provide them with any financial support. Despite the lack of evidence against them, not until March 2015 were any of them granted bail.

And all have been stripped of their jobs at Maruti-Suzuki. With the support of Haryanas then-Congress Party state government, MSI used the July 2012 altercation and fire as the pretext for conducting a purge of its workforce. Before reopening the plant, it dismissed more than 2,300 permanent and contract workers whom it deemed insufficiently subservient.

Fearing an angry response to the courts impending verdict, the government declared Gurgaon under Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code till March 15, thereby outlawing any gathering of more than five people, and mobilised 2,500 police at so-called sensitive spots. The Manesar plant was itself surrounded by hundreds of police.

In a show of solidarity with the victimised Manesar MSI workers, more than 30,000 workers in Gurgaon-Manesar, including workers at all four area MSI plants and at auxiliary auto parts plants owned by Bellsonica and FMI, boycotted lunch last Thursday, on the eve of the court delivering its verdict. Many joined plant gate meetings.

The witch-hunt against the Manesar MSI works was launched under and supported by Congress Party-led Indian and Haryana state governments and it continued seamlessly when BJP governments replaced them.

Indias big business political establishment has been determined to make an example of the Maruti Suzuki workers so as to intimidate workers in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt and reassure investors that they can count on the state to suppress worker opposition and enforce sweatshop exploitation.

In 2014, the Haryana High Court justified its rejection of workers bail requests by saying a message needed to be sent to investors. The Manesar workers agitations and the July 2012 altercation had, claimed the High Court, lowered the reputation of India in the world." The court continued, "Foreign investment is likely not to happen due to growing labour unrest.

A subsidiary of Japan-based Suzuki Motor Corp., MSI is Indias largest car maker. Like other transnational companies in India, it is notorious for enforcing a brutal work regimen. Workers toil six days a week for meagre wages, with only Sundays off. Such is the pace of work, a new car rolls off the assembly line every 12 seconds.

The company has increasingly switched to temporary or contract workers who are not protected by Indias tepid and unenforced labour laws. In 2013-2014 and 2015-2016, MSI increased its contract workforce by more than 60 percent, from 6,578 to 10,626. During the same period, it increased its permanent workforce by a mere 5.7 percent, from 12,547 to 13,259.

Although they have a significant presence in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt, the Stalinist-led trade union federations, the All India Trades Union Congress (AITUC) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), have systematically isolated the victimised MSI workers, while counselling them to focus their efforts on lobbying the big business politicians and the capitalist courts for justice.

The MSWU Provisional Working Committee issued a statement March 11 that termed Fridays judgment an anti-worker political verdict that was directed against the entire working class in India, particularly in Gurgaon-Manesar to Neemrana industrial belts.

It said the MSWU and its leadership had been  targeted  only because they were vocal for workers rights, because they challenged the contract system, the horrible working conditions, the low wages, and MSIs government-aided regime of exploitation and repression.

The authors also recommend:

The Factory: Documentary brings Indian auto workers struggle to an international audience

[25 November 2017]

Indias judiciary acts on the agenda of the capitalists

[8 January 2014]

India: Jailed Maruti Suzuki workers subjected to torture

[23 October 2012]
The repeal of Obamacare, which began last week with the introduction of legislation drafted by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, working in conjunction with the Trump administration, has become the vehicle for a much wider program of social reaction.

The new legislation, which will cut off health coverage for 24 million people, will essentially put an end to Medicaid, one of the major social reforms of the 1960s, a program that has funded health care for tens of millions of poor, blind or otherwise disabled people, as well as nursing home care for the low-income elderly. It sets the stage, as Ryan has indicated, for even more sweeping legislation that will undermine and eventually destroy Medicare, which has provided health coverage for most elderly people in the United States for more than 50 years.

The major social gains of the 1960s--the last period of significant social reform in American history--are in the final stages of liquidation. This is the culmination of a protracted historical process that began almost as soon as the American ruling elite made its decision, driven by the breakdown of the post-World War II economic boom, to shift from policies of relative class compromise to ruthless class warfare. The initial steps were taken as long ago as the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter (1977-81), which began to curb social welfare spending and targeted striking coal miners for government intervention under the Taft-Hartley Law.

The attacks were accelerated greatly under Republican Ronald Reagan, who smashed the PATCO air traffic controllers strike, giving the green light for a decade of corporate union-busting and wage-cutting, and slashed federal social spending to fuel a record military buildup. Reagan set the pace for further attacks on the programs established in the 1960s and even in the 1930s, from Clintons abolition of Aid to Families with Dependent Children to Bushs targeting of aid to public education with his No Child Left Behind legislation, co-authored by Democrat Edward Kennedy, and the first steps towards the privatization of Medicare.

The Obama administration did not mark a reversal of this decades-long process, but rather its intensification. Obamacare was not an expansion of the welfare state, as its apologists claimed, but a reactionary effort to shift the cost of health care from employers and the government to working people. The all-out support of the Democrats for this legislation, worked out in collaboration with the insurance industry and the drug monopolies, testifies to the rightward evolution of the Democratic Party over the past 40 years.

The eight years of the Obama administration--begun with promises of hope and change and filled instead with endless war, attacks on jobs and living standards, and the steady erosion of social services such as education and health care--created the conditions for the Republican takeover of Congress and finally the victory of Donald Trump.

The ideologues of capitalism claim that the free market will work wonders if only the restraints placed upon its operations by past social reforms are removed. These restraints include every social benefit won through the struggles of the working class over more than a century. Now, every one of Great Society liberalisms big four, as one historian described the laws enacted in a six-month period from April to October 1965, is targeted for destruction.

The Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965: This legislation provided the first extensive federal support for local public schools, which had become politically possible following the legal abolition of segregated public schools in the South. Funds were allocated to improve public schools in poor communities, expand libraries and take the first steps in what became known as special education. The law established the pre-school program Head Start as a permanent federal program.

Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa has introduced legislation that would rescind the Elementary and Secondary Act and bar the Department of Education from funding any educational program except state-controlled vouchers that could be used for charter or religious schools or for home schooling.

Medicare and Medicaid, established through the Social Security Act of 1965: This bill for the first time provided government-backed health insurance for those over 65, half of whom had no coverage in 1965. Medicare covered hospital care (Part A) and medical and nursing fees (Part B), but did not pay for vision, dental or prescription drugs. Medicaid covered the poorest sections of working people, including children, the disabled and the blind, as well as long-term nursing home care for the poorest elderly.

The Obamacare repeal legislation would put an end to Medicaid as an entitlement program beginning in 2020, when grants to the states would be capped, forcing them to ration care to the poor and disabled. Medicare was already significantly undermined through Obamacare itself, which cut $700 billion in reimbursements over 10 years, and the repeal legislation will set the stage for even larger cuts, based on Ryans plan to convert the program from an entitlement to a voucher program.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most radical democratic measure enacted by a US Congress since post-Civil War Reconstruction. It targeted those states, mainly in the Deep South, where denial of the franchise to minorities was widespread. Before its passage, few blacks were allowed to register and vote in southern states from Texas to Virginia. Afterwards, voter participation among African-Americans rose sharply, as the federal Justice Department continued to oversee state electoral policies to block any efforts to discriminate.

The US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act by a 5-4 decision in 2013 in Shelby vs. Holder, ruling that the targeting of the southern states for federal intervention could no longer be justified, despite repeated renewal and extension of the law by Congress, most recently in 2006. This decision was part of a wider effort led by Republicans in state after state to enact voter ID laws and other measures whose purpose was to resurrect discriminatory practices against minority and poor voters.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act after its leading Senate and House sponsors, abolished longstanding restrictions on immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and ended the preference for immigrants from Northern and Western Europe over those from Southern and Eastern Europe. It also allowed unlimited immigration of family members of US citizens and residents, encouraging the growth of immigrant communities.

Trumps travel ban on visitors from six majority Muslim countries directly violates the 1965 law, which prohibits the use of national origin as a test for restricting immigration. His executive orders on immigration as well as the proposed wall along the US-Mexico border represent an effort to turn the clock back to the period of the exclusion laws that barred Asian immigrants and the bracero program that allowed Mexican immigrants only as semi-slave labor in the fields.

There are other reforms of the 1960s, from the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, to the Clean Water Act and dozens of other anti-pollution laws, which led ultimately to the creation of the Environmental Protection Administration. All these are under attack by the Trump administration and the Republican Congress.

The Democratic Party has collaborated in one attack after another on the social reforms with which it was once identified. The Democrats have spearheaded the attacks on public education, introduced major cuts in Medicare funding as part of Obamacare, and did not lift a finger to restore enforcement after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. They oppose Trump, not in defense of social services, but on behalf of sections of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, attacking the new administration over its supposed softness towards Russia.

Even in the 1960s, Democratic Party liberalism was not a challenge to capitalism, but rather an effort, at the height of the post-World War II economic boom, to make American capitalism more palatable to the masses, and therefore safer for the capitalists, under conditions of growing mass struggles over civil rights, against the Vietnam War, and for better wages and working conditions. The measures of Lyndon Johnsons Great Society were far less ambitious than the welfare states built up in Western Europe during the same period.

As historian James T. Patterson wrote of that period: The Great Society programs were quintessentially liberal, not radical. Except in the area of race relations--a major exception--they made no serious effort to challenge the power of established groups, including large corporations. In no way did they seriously confront socio-economic inequality or seek to redistribute wealth.

Today, under conditions of the protracted historical decline of American capitalism, exacerbated by the impact of the 2008 financial crash and the massive transfer of wealth from working people to bail out Wall Street, no section of the American ruling class can or will defend any of the social gains of the 1960s.

The supposed Democratic resistance to Trumps program in Congress is merely for show. The Trump administration and the Republican Party will get nearly everything they want, while the Democrats wage a phony war and call on the victims of Trumps attacks to wait until the 2018 elections.

The Democratic Party does not represent the popular opposition to Trump and the Republicans, as congressional Democrats and political charlatans like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren claim. Rather, its function is to serve as a brake on the actual resistance to Trump, from the working class, which will take on an increasingly explosive and politically radical form.

The working class must take the lead in the struggles to defend health care, education, environmental protection, the rights of immigrants and all basic democratic rights. It must answer the capitalist program of social counterrevolution with the working class alternative of social revolution. Workers must build a mass political movement independent of and opposed to the twin parties of big business, fighting on the basis of a socialist program.
New Delhi, Mar 14 (IBNS): Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, at the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of the CRPF personnel who lost their lives in a recent attack on security forces at Sukma, Chhattisgarh.

Excerpts from his statement:

"On March 11, 2017 two companies of CRPF at Bheji in Sukma District of Chhattisgarh were providing security cover for road construction on Bheji-Gorkha-Injiram Axis.

Around 0853 hrs, when this party reached a forested area close to Bankupara village, armed Left Wing Extremists ambushed them with heavy firing and simultaneous use of IED blasts.

In this incident, unfortunately 12 personnel were martyred and 2 were seriously injured. The condition of injured personnel is stable and they are out of danger. 13 weapons and 2 Wireless Sets were taken away by the Left Wing Extremists.

I express my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of the personnel who have lost their lives and I would like to say firmly that the entire nation is with them in their hour of grief.

The nation will always remember their sacrifices. The injured personnel will be provided with the best possible treatment available. On behalf of the entire house, I pray for their health and wellbeing."

The minister said that the unprecedented success of the Security Forces of late has led to evident uneasiness among the Left Wing Extremist Groups.

He pointed out that the Forces have achieved tremendous success during 2016 in all LWE affected states and particularly in Chhattisgarh where 135 LWE cadres were eliminated, 779 arrested and 1198 surrendered.

The number of violent incidents in Chhattisgarh also dropped by 15 per cent from 466 in 2015 to 395 in 2016, the minister said.

The minister informed the Lok Sabha that the Left Wing Extremists have suffered unprecedented losses in 2016.

"They have admitted so, openly in their documents and statements. They will continue to attempt such incidents to restore the flagging morale of their cadres. I believe that our brave soldiers and officers will continue to respond with a firm resolve and contribute wholeheartedly towards elimination of Left Wing Extremism," the minister said.



Rajnath Singh said that he has directed DG, CRPF to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident so that the lapses that led to the incident can be identified, which will reduce the possibility of repetition of such incidents in the future.

The minister informed the House that the next of kin of the martyred CRPF personnel will be provided Rs 35 lacs as ex-gratia from the Central Government, Rs 20 lacs from the Risk Fund of CRPF and Rs 1 lac from the CRPF Welfare Fund. They will also get Rs 25 lacs as insurance benefits and Rs 3 lacs as ex-gratia from the Chhattisgarh Government. The next of kin will also be provided full salary till the age of superannuation of the personnel martyred under the Liberalized Pensionary Award (LPA).

Incidentally, on Monday, the day of Holi, the paramilitary forces of the country refrained from participating in the festivities as a mark of respect to their slain comrades, media reported.

Image: HMOIndia/Twitter
Over the past days, the corporate media has intensified its witch-hunt of a Sydney school principal and deputy principal, who were removed by the New South Wales (NSW) Education Department at the beginning of the month for allegedly opposing a government anti-radicalisation program which compels teachers to inform on their students.

Chris Griffiths, the former principal of Punchbowl Boys High School, a working class public school in Sydneys southwest, has been the subject of a stream of lurid reports in the Murdoch press and other media outlets. A host of articles have been published featuring entirely unsubstantiated claims that the school had become a bastion of Islamic radicalism, threatening so-called Australian values.

At the same time, the politically-motivated character of the campaign has come into sharp focus. On Sunday, the Daily Telegraph reported that Rob Stokes, the state Liberal-National governments education minister, had instructed the Education Department to take what action it felt necessary before Griffiths removal, effectively giving the go-ahead for the sackings.

Griffiths and his deputy Joumana Dennaoui had reportedly resisted the implementation of the state governments School Community Working Together program. Under the policy, introduced in 2016 alongside a federal anti-radicalisation plan, teachers and school staff are instructed to inform police of anti-social and extremist behaviour among students. Police were also reportedly seeking to attend Muslim prayer sessions at the school.

As the WSWS previously noted, the definition of extremist behaviour provided by School Community Working Together is so broad that it could cover any opposition to the status quo.

A report in the Australian last weekend underscored that the program is being used to provide the police and intelligence agencies with a vehicle to spy on working class students, in a bid to detect and stamp-out political dissent. The article stated that last year, the NSW Education Department recruited a senior counter-terrorism officer from the NSW Police Force.

According to the Australian, the unnamed officer is tasked with establishing a system to detect as early as possible schoolchildren vulnerable to radicalisation and to train staff to detect the early warning signs. In other words, the Orwellian program is targeted at students who are not yet radicalised and who are guilty of nothing more than having social and political opinions.

While the article does not spell it out, so-called warnings signs could presumably include expressions of opposition to Australias role in the imperialist wars in Syria and Iraq, the sweeping attacks on democratic rights carried out under the rubric of the war on terror and the bipartisan assault on the living standards of the working class.

The article gave a sense of the scope of surveillance, with anonymous sources complaining to the Australian that only 34 of the 155 school prayer groups monitored by the police kept rigorous attendance records. Other reports have indicated that the School Community Working Together program has been rolled out at 19 schools in New South Wales, primarily in working class suburbs of western and south-western Sydney.

Robert Patruno, who was installed by the Education Department as the new principal at Punchbowl Boys High School, immediately gave assurances, in comments to the Murdoch press, that he would promote Australian valuesa watchword for uncritical acceptance of the government-police agenda.

Patruno, who previously worked at a juvenile prison, indicated that he would welcome the police into the school, stating: All I know is that I need to rebuild the relationship with Bankstown police. The police havent been welcomed into the school. Patruno also posed for media photographs with Education Minister Rob Stokes and Education Department head Mark Scott.

Patrunos comments come amid ongoing opposition from students, parents and teachers to the removal of Griffiths and the targeting of the school by the political establishment and the corporate press. The WSWS has been informed that senior teachers within the school opposed Griffiths removal.

Seeking to placate opposition, Stokes stated on the weekend that the government would review School Community Working Together. He foreshadowed a major expansion of the initiative, however, declaring that in order to remove the stigma of the program, the government may roll it out at other schools.

Jihad Dib, state Labor MP in the seat of Lakemba, which encompasses Punchbowl, has publicly warned of the anger among local residents over the removal of Griffiths and called for a public forum. As principal of Punchbowl Boys High School until 2015, Dib collaborated closely with the police, including serving as an advisor to the NSW police commissioner, before being elevated in the Labor Party. Labor has played a central role in the attacks on democratic rights implemented on the bogus pretext of combating terrorism and in Australias involvement in the US-led imperialist wars in the Middle-East.

According to the Australian, NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) president Maurie Mulheron privately grilled Mark Scott over the sacking of Griffiths and Dennaoui. The teachers union, however, has not expressed any public opposition to the removals. The NSWTF has previously indicated support for the governments anti-democratic agenda. Early last year, the ABC reported that Mulheron said schools should be funded to deliver individually tailored counter-radicalisation programs.

Over the weekend, reporters from the WSWS spoke to a number of Punchbowl residents.

Linda, a single mother, commented: Politicians are causing division between people. They should be uniting people, not dividing people like that.

Linda said that she had been targeted by management at her former workplace, which is heavily-surveilled by counter-terrorism authorities, because she is Muslim. They were going to sack me, but I resigned before they had the chance, she said. The grounds they gave me were that they didn't believe that I had completed a course, when I clearly had. It was just an excuse. Their attitude towards me changed once I started wearing a headscarf, theres no other worker there who wears it.

Mary, a working class mother, spoke-out against the media witch-hunt targeting Punchbowl High. Everything was allegations, she said. There wasnt anything concrete that was put forward. Ive had family that worked for the school. Ive had a lot of cousins, kids that we thought would never finish school, and they actually graduated under the principal who was sacked.

Mary denounced the School Community Working Together provisions targeting so-called anti-social behaviour. Anything anyone disagrees on could be counted as anti, she noted. Any time a kid shows disagreement they will be classified as anti. Teachers arent trained to find out who is anti, theyre trained to teach our children.

When I first moved here from New Zealand, I thought it was a country of freedom where you can express your culture, your religion, without looking over your shoulder. Now the way its going and what theyre doing in the schools is taking away everyones rights. What makes it worse is that theyre targeting our kids. We teach our kids to speak up. Are we telling them that their opinions have less value?

Mary expressed opposition to imperialist wars in the Middle-East, commenting: Every single country that is being targeted has something the big countries want. At first I agreed with the wars when I was still at school. But I realised that the media arent real journalists. They never show you the full story, they push the governments agenda. And with the principal at Punchbowl, they only showed one side.

Yasmine, a homemaker and mother of two in Punchbowl said: It was only blown up into a massive thing because the principal wasnt co-operating with what the government wanted. Its disappointing. There should be some separation between what the government is doing and what the schools are doing.

They want the police to go in and watch Muslim boys on Friday prayers, but they are not sitting there in Catholic scripture and listening to what they are saying. It is deliberately targeting the lowest on the food chain at the moment. Once you create that division, and you feed it, the bigger issues of war and unemployment dont get discussed.
Train conductors at Arriva Rail North, Merseyrail and Southern Rail struck Monday to oppose the planned introduction of Driver Only Operated services (DOO). Managements proposals, backed to the hilt by the Conservative government, would lead to the loss of thousands of conductors jobs and undermine public safety.

The strike demonstrates the strength of the working class. Although the walkout involved only 2,000 conductors nationally, the rail firms were forced to cancel far more services than expectedwith well over a 1,000 scheduled train journeys halted.

At Merseyrail, many drivers belonging to the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) union refused to cross picket of conductors who are members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union. Only minimal services ran on the network, with all services ceasing at 7pm. Between 11am and 2pm, Merseyrail was forced to suspend all trains.

Merseyrail normally transports 110,000 passengers each weekday, via 67 railway stations on one of the most heavily used rail networks outside London. Whole sections of the network were halted, with no trains running between Hunts Cross/Kirkby and Liverpool Central and between Ellesmere Port and James Street. Services did not run to many stations, including Bidston, Birkenhead Park, Conway Park and Manor Park.

A Merseyrail spokesman said the firm was not able to run its previously advertised timetable, as train drivers, who are not part of the industrial action taking place on the Merseyrail network today, have decided not to cross RMT picket lines.

Arriva Rail North and Merseyrail have refused to relent on plans to introduce DOO over the next three years. Merseyrail is procuring a new 460 million fleet of trains by 2020, designed to enable drivers to entirely control the opening and closing of doors--one of the main roles of conductors who are trained in up to 35 safety critical tasks. The plan, if implemented will result in the loss of 220 conductors jobs at Merseyrail.

Arriva Rail North, which covers rail services connecting cities including Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, claimed around 40 percent of services ran Monday. However, no services ran before 7am, with trains stopping completely from 5pm to 7pm. The strikes impact resulted in Arriva Rail North having to hire 300 buses to transport passengers. The two main stations in ManchesterPiccadilly and Victoriawere much quieter than normal with Victorias concourses and platforms empty during the morning rush hour.

At Southern, conductors and drivers have been fighting plans to introduce DOO over the last year. In striking Monday, RMT members at Southern were taking their 30th day of intermittent job actions. According to Southern it ran nearly a full service, after it drafted in managers and other scabs to replace conductors.

However, Southern has constantly inflated figures during strikes. Many of its planned services to and from London did not run, with several lines completely unable to operate. The propaganda was belied by scenes of many virtually empty and quiet train stations in various towns and cities.

The RMT noted in a March 9 press release, The company claims on the number of trains that they are set to run are bogus, rigged and not borne out by the passenger feedback on strike days It added, Managers from elsewhere in GTR operations are being swung in at considerable cost, both in cash terms and disruption to work elsewhere, to try and break the strike.

Last month, Go-Ahead, which owns 65 percent of Southern's operator Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), reported that half-year profits from its rail business had fallen 35 percent to 26.9 million.

Letting the cat out of the bag as to what the rail companies eventually want to impose, Angie Doll, Southern's passenger services director said Monday, Our on-board supervisors [the job title conductors are being forced into] are now established in their roles and passengers are beginning to see the benefits of having someone whose sole job is customer service. In other words, underpaid staff will operate solely as revenue collectors, with no responsibilities for public safety.

The strike proves the willingness of transport workers to fight the destruction of their terms, conditions and livelihoods. The action by the ASLEF drivers at Merseyrail was in direct opposition to the ongoing sabotage of their struggle by the trade union bureaucracy. Since the beginning of the Southern dispute, the unions have sought to divide conductors and drivers from waging a unified offensive against DOO, which is the spearhead of attacks on gains rail workers have won over generations.

Last month, Southern GTR drivers, members of ASLEF, voted down a sell-out deal that fully accepted DOO, negotiated by the union under the auspices of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Following its rejection, Southern management and ASLEF have resumed private talks at a secret location.

Despite describing the actions of ASLEF as a historical betrayal, the RMT kept up the division of drivers and conductors by insisting that the deal was an internal affair of ASLEFs, blocking any common struggle of rail workers.

The offensive against rail workers is set to intensify with the Department of Transports announcement that DOO must be included by whichever private firm wins the next two franchises due to be awarded, South Western and West Midlands.

Opposed to the mobilisation of its more than 80,000 membership nationally in support of rail workers, RMT officials have simply called for more negotiations. Even though conductors are fighting the same attacks, the RMT issued separate press releases regarding each company. For Arriva Rail North, the union said, It is now down to the company to get that pledge back on the table and engage with the union in talks over a safe and sustainable future built around the guarantee of a guard on the trains." Regarding the Southern strike, the RMT declared, [I]t is about time Southern/GTR got out of the bunker and got back round the table with the union in serious and meaningful talks." Merseyrail management should get out of the bunker and started serious talks with the union that secure a safe future for their services and the guarantee of a guard on their trains.

As for ASLEF, the union has refused to even report on its web site or twitter account that its members struck in solidarity with conductors at Merseyrail.
Around 100 people protested outside the Summerville Presbyterian Church in Irondequoit, New York, a suburb of Rochester, on March 9 in support of Jose Coyote Perez, an immigrant dairy worker and activist. Coyote Perez was detained in Livingston County on February 24 and had spoken at a protest in Rochester on February 3only three weeks before his detention.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has held Coyote Perez at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York since then.

The event was publicized as an emergency rally to free Jose Coyote and end Trumps raids. Several immigrants rights activists spoke to the assembled crowd, which then marched to a field across from Rochesters US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office before returning to the church.

CBP and ICE both operate under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces the Trump administrations brutal anti-immigrant policies.

Despite the cold weather and recent storm that left much of Irondequoit and the Rochester area, including the area around the protest, without power, many people attended, including families with small children. Students and at least one professor from the State University of New York College at Geneseo, about an hour south of Rochester, also attended.

The signs at the rally included Free Jose, When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty and  Somos inmigrantes, no criminales  (We are immigrants, not criminals). The crowd chanted slogans demanding money for jobs and education, not for mass deportation and expressed opposition to attacks on democratic rights, immigrants and refugees. Many motorists driving past the protest honked their support.

Local police observed the protest but did not intervene.

One of the highlights of the protest was when Coyote Perez himself was able to speak via telephone from the detention center where he has been for the past two weeks. With the assistance of a translator, he addressed the crowd in Spanish and English.

Im here in the Batavia detention center, incarcerated unjustly. They told me to report here to Batavia to my deportation officer, and they deceived me. When I reported to my deportation officer they told me they were going to arrest me. They told me they were arresting me because they got anonymous phone calls about me. 

The system is hurting this country and many people because here inside of Batavia [detention center] there are so many people who only came just to work. I had to leave behind my family, I had to leave behind my work, I had to leave behind all of these protests that I was starting to do to fight. I have so much faith in the people who are in front of you, I have so much faith in the churches, in the students, in the faith community. The students are so important, [it is important that they] do something to confront this, they are the future of our country. I hope that this all works out for me, I send you all greetings. Thank you.

After Coyote Perez spoke, another immigrant threatened with deportation, Dolores Bustamante, spoke to the crowd about her impending immigration hearing. Like Coyote Perez, Bustamante is a member of the Workers Center of Central New York. She is also on the board of Alianza de Mujeres Campasinas.

The fact that both Coyote Perez and Bustamante, along with 22-year-old Daniela Vargas, face deportation indicates that ICE may be targeting activists for daring to speak out against xenophobic measures and attempting to improve their conditions of life. The terror this is spreading in immigrant communities appears to be deliberate.

Since Trump was inaugurated on January 20, hundreds of immigrants, including many who have been in the United States for decades, have been detained or deported. On March 5, 130 people were deported to Senegalmore than six times the total number of deportations to the West African country in all of 2016.

In addition to the ordinary people horrified by the anti-immigrant actions of the Trump administration, there were small contingents from pseudo-left groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America and the Workers World Party. Representatives from the Fight for 15 campaign attended as well. These groups are seeking to redirect social opposition to Trumps reactionary policies back in to the dead end of the Democratic Party.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with Crystal one of the many who participated in the protest. She said that she was really concerned about the direction the country is taking  its a scary situation. Theyre taking the leaders and trying to remove them first.

Thats what the fascists do. It affects all of us.
The Dutch governments provocative bans preventing Turkish officials from speaking publicly in the Netherlands is playing into the hands of the most right-wing political forces in Turkey.

The bans ostensible purpose is to prevent Turkish officials from advocating a yes vote in the April 16 referendum proposed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a constitutional amendment giving the Turkish president vast powers over all branches of government. Polls currently show a narrow majority of 52 percent of the electorate would reject Erdogans reactionary referendum, which would effectively turn Turkey into a presidential dictatorship.

The Netherlands and other European governments imposed the bans after the Turkish government organised rallies in countries across Europe, encouraging Turks living in Europe to vote yes on the referendum. Some 5 million Turks live in Europe, including 1.4 million eligible voters in Germany alone. These voters could determine the result of the referendum.

Now, Erdogans Justice and Development Party (AKP) government is pointing to the anti-Muslim hysteria being whipped up across Europe in order to promote a yes vote, presenting the referendum as the target of anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish hatreds.

Yesterday, after the Dutch governments provocation preventing two Turkish ministers from addressing rallies in Rotterdam over the weekend, Ankara sent diplomatic notes protesting the incidents. According to the Foreign Ministry, Ankaras first note to the Netherlands decried the mistreatment of Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya and Turkish diplomats. The second note dealt with the mistreatment of the Turkish community and citizens who exercised their right to peaceful demonstration in Rotterdam.

Speaking at the International Benevolence Awards ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday, Turkish President Erdogan described the bans in several European countries as signs of increasing fascism, racism, and Islamophobia. On his Twitter account, Turkish EU Minister Omer Celik slammed the Dutch authorities for engaging in complete fascism.

Along with the attempts to present the AKP as a champion of democracy against xenophobia and racism, Erdogan and his henchmen have also done their utmost to identify the no campaign with the European governments reactionary bans.

Speaking to Turkish broadcaster Kanal 24, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag described Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and other European countries as opponents of the proposed constitutional change in Turkey, and said that they were on the No side in this referendum.

These statements were another attempt of the Turkish government and the fascistic Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to demonize political forces calling for a no vote.

They previously claimed that the no campaign was an emanation of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) and of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The AKP and MHP denounced the HDP as the legal extension of the outlawed Kurdish separatist group, a claim designed to tar anyone voting against the presidential system as aiding or abetting terrorism.

Since the European powers began banning AKP officials from speaking in Europe, the AKPs mouthpieces in the media have wasted no time in presenting the Erdogan governments referendum as the victim of a European anti-Turkish campaign. The Turkish government, Ilknur Cevik asserted in an article of the pro-AKP Daily Sabah newspaper, is the defender of sacred supreme values that have made the continent a hub of civilisation in modern history.

Cevik pointed to last years attempted July 15 coup, backed by Washington and Berlin, aiming to topple the AKP government and murder Erdogan. In his article, titled Europe captive to jealousy and racism, Turkey the victim, Cevik stated that it was clear that the coalition of countries led by Germany are extremely unhappy with Turkey becoming a rising star under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and have tried everything to stall it including supporting a military coup, but have failed.

Appealing to Turkish nationalism, he pointed to bans on Turkish ministers speaking in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe as support to a no vote in the coming referendum in Turkey.

The fascistic Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the main ally of Erdogans government in the campaign for a yes vote in the constitutional referendum, as well as in its military intervention in Syria, also lent its support to the AKP.

On March 12, the MHPs Deputy Chair Semih Yalcin stated that Turkey should take more serious action against the Netherlands and other European countries. We have no worries about that. The MHP will side with the measures that will be taken and that have been planned. We are overtly declaring this. Our friends will show their own stance in European countries, he added.

The tirades of Turkish government officials and their mouthpieces in the media are reactionary and based on a fundamental political lie. The European powers are enforcing chauvinist and Islamophobic bans on Turkish officials as part of a broader agenda of militarism, social counterrevolution, and promotion of far-right nationalism aimed in the final analysis at the European and international working class.

Erdogans referendum is not, however, directed against nationalism, austerity, or war. Rather, it aims to concentrate full powers in Erdogans hands, so he can continue his military participation in the US-led, imperialist carve-up of Syria and moves to crush the HDP, the PKK, and any other source of political opposition inside Turkey itself.

Erdogans principal advantage, as he tries to ram through his constitutional amendments, is the bankruptcy of his bourgeois opponents. Kemal Kilicdarogluthe chairperson of the pro-European Union (EU) Republican Peoples Party (CHP), which backs a no vote in the referendumreacted to the European bans by adapting to the AKPs nationalist rhetoric.

Kilicdaroglu absurdly claimed that the European bans have nothing to do with the referendum and yes or no votes. He continued, This is a national issue. It is every political partys duty, regardless if you are rightist or leftist, to defend Turkeys rights. We are ready to fulfil our duty.

Now, I am issuing a clear call to the government, he said at a March 12 rally in the southern province of Adana. If they do not allow Turkeys minister to enter the Netherlands or they cannot go to the embassy, please suspend our relationship with the Netherlands. We will lend any support.

The CHPs nationalist rhetoric goes hand in hand with its longstanding support for the EU and its NATO military alliance with US imperialism.

The NATO powers see Erdogans possible defeat in the referendum as an opportunity to replace the AKP government with a more pro-EU one. This would be an utterly reactionary event, which would not defend, but rather threaten, democracy in Turkey. Washington and the main EU powers supported four successful military coups in Turkeyin 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997and were outraged by the failure of the July 15 coup attempt.

For now, however, amid growing popular anger in Turkey and across Europe with their policies of social counterrevolution and militarism, the EUs reactionary whipping up of nationalism is strengthening Erdogans hand in Turkey.
Lucknow, Mar 14 (IBNS): Uttar Pradesh Police, on Tuesday, detained three people in the alleged gangrape case against Samajwadi Party leader Gayatri Prajapati.

They have also arrested Prajapti's two sons on charges of giving shelter to accused.

Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested six people in the case but main accused Prajapati is still at large, media reported.

Earlier in March, Prajapati failed to get protection from arrest from the Supreme Court which said that the law should take its own course.

The 49-year-old SP leader is accused by a woman of raping her and also molesting her young daughter in 2014, according to media reports.




LIVE UPDATES - Court is back in session for day eight of the trial, and reporter Don Meyers is in the courtroom covering the case and providin
GRANDVIEW  Two Sunnyside residents and a Grandview man were taken to three hospitals after one driver failed to stop at an intersection late 
Guwahati, Mar 14 (IBNS): Three alleged poachers were killed in a road mishap in Assam on Tuesday morning, according to police sources.

he incident occurred at Baihata Chariali, on the outskirts of Guwahati, after the car they were traveling in collided head on with a bus reports said.

Security personnel recovered a blood-stained rhino horn from the car. According to the police, they may have chopped the rhino horn on Monday.

Security personnel also recovered several rounds ammunition, sharp weapons, and brown sugar packets from the vehicle.

Police said that, two persons suspected to be members of a rhino poaching racket, were killed on the spot and two others seriously injured.

One of the injured persons succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Assam police and forest department officials have started an investigation following seizure of the rhino horn.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Hosni Mubarak, overthrown as president of Egypt in 2011 and the first leader to go on trial in the wake of the Arab Spring, will walk free this week for the first time in six years.

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The 88-year-old was cleared of murder charges this month in his final court appearance, having stood trial on charges ranging from corruption to ordering the killing of some of the protesters who ended his 30-year rule.

Mubarak was initially arrested in April 2011, two months after stepping down, and has since been in prison and military hospitals.

Hosni Mubarak

"He will go to his home in Heliopolis," Mubarak's lawyer Farid El Deeb said, referring to the Cairo neighborhood where the main presidential palace from which Mubarak governed is also located. El Deeb said the aging former president could be released on Tuesday or soon after.

Mubarak still had one more jail sentence to serve, for appropriating funds reserved for maintaining presidential palaces, but time he had spent in detention in connection with the murder charges was subtracted from it, judicial sources and the state news agency said.

Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators during the 18-day revolt.

An appeals court ordered a retrial that culminated in 2014 in the case against Mubarak and his senior officials being dropped . An appeal by the public prosecution led to a final retrial by the Court of Cassation, the highest in the country, which acquitted him on March 2.

Back to the past? After the turmoil of the Arab Spring, former Tunisian President Ben Ali fled into exile in Saudi Arabia, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is fighting a civil war after stepping down.

Bashar al-Assad still holds the title of president in a Syria that lies largely in ruins after years of civil war.

Many Egyptians who lived through Mubarak's rule view it as a period of autocracy and crony capitalism. His overthrow led to Egypt's first free election, which brought in Islamist President Mohamed Morsi

In court (Photo: Reuters)

Morsi lasted only a year in office after mass protests against his rule in 2013 prompted his overthrow by then defense chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election in 2014.

Morsi is in prison and his Muslim Brotherhood has been banned as a terrorist organization.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters were killed in a single day in August 2013 and thousands were jailed, with the dragnet quickly widening to include secularoactivists who were at the forefront of the 2011 uprising but opposed Muslim Brotherhood rule.

Mubarak-era figures, meanwhile, are gradually being cleared of charges and a series of laws limiting political freedoms has raised fears among activists that the old regime is back.

Mubarak has long maintained his innocence and says history will judge him a patriot who served his country selflessly.
YANGON -- Dozens of Myanmar soldiers have been killed in several clashes between ethnic rebels and the army along the border with China, state media reported on Tuesday, threatening leader Aung San Suu Kyi's chief goal of ending decades of ethnic strife.

"There were at least 48 armed clashes with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), resulting in the deaths of dozens of soldiers," Myanmar's state-run daily, the Global New Light of Myanmar, said.
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday, Netanyahu's office said, as the new administration tries to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.

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A statement from the Israeli leader's office said Jason Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations."

Greenblatt and Netanyahu (:  ,  ''  )

X

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and the Palestinians have been concerned at the more favourable approach shown by Washington towards Netanyahu since Trump came to office in January.

The statement added that during a conversation lasting more than five hours, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel's settlement building "with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security."

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Jason Greenblatt (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO)

On Friday, Trump spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and invited him to the White House. It was the first phone call between the two leaders since Trump took office. Greenblatt is set to meet Abbas in the West Bank on Tuesday.

The Israeli statement added that "Greenblatt stressed how important enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians are to President Trump."

Before taking office, Trump named Greenblatt, his company's top lawyer, as his special negotiator for trade deals and other talks and his adviser to the Middle East and special representative for international negotiations.
The IDF is offering special rights, concessions and unique terms of service intended to aid in the effort of recruiting more ultra-Orthodox soldiers.

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Examples include 600 permits to leave the base while wearing civilian clothing and a 24-hour assistance hotline for those who feel in distress.

Haredi soldier

Furthermore, Haredi soldiers receive thousands of shekels per month from the IDF to assist their families while also receiving increases in paid study opportunities in order to provide them employment opportunities upon being discharged from the army.

Examples include study and work programs in the hi-tech sector, accounting, auto repair, construction and other fields.

"We will continue to act to increase the number of Haredi recruits because we have the need of more soldiers," said a senior IDF officer to Ynet on Monday.

"The Haredi contribution to the army is important and extensive. We see their integration as a national, strategic need. When they come to the army, they see that the demon isn't so terrible and there is infrastructure in place to preserve their way of life," said the source.

Haredi incitement against the IDF and religious soldiers (Photo: Reuters)

However, despite the IDF's best efforts, recruiting goals set by laws in the previous government have not yet come to fruition. In 2016, only 2,475 Haredi recruits were conscripted, falling short of the goal of 2,700.

2017 has a minimum target quota of 3,200, but will also likely not be met due to the cancellation of sanctions against Haredi yeshivas by the current government.

The IDF plans to continue efforts to recruit more Haredi soldiers in the coming year, despite the fierce opposition and incitement of some in the community.

In the last two year, dozens of incidents of Haredi soldiers being physically assaulted or threatened have been registered with the police.
A request submitted by former president of Israel Moshe Katsav two weeks ago to the parole board asking that a curfew clause be struck from the list of conditions of his early release , has been denied by the police.

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Katsav, a convicted rapist who was released from prison in December last year after the State Attorney's Office decided against appealing the parole board's decision to grant him early release , hoped that his request would be looked upon favorably given the fact that he had not violated any of the terms of his release thus far.

Moshe Katsav after his release (Photo: AFP)

The police, however, rejected the request, stating that Katsav is no different from any other prisoner. The discussions in the parole board are set to take place on March 26.

The request was made in accordance with the opinion of the Authority for Rehabilitated Prisoners (ARP), which was submitted to the board as part of the monitoring process following his conditional release from his prison cell.

According to the ARP, Katsav has fully abided by the terms laid out.

As a result of the ARPs conclusions, Katsavs lawyer Shani Illouz submitted the request to strike the curfew clause from the list, which requires that he remain in his home from 10pm until 6am.

Katsavs application for softening the release conditions is a regular occurrence among former prisoners who comply with their parole terms.

Katsav, who served five years and 15 days out of his seven-year sentence for rape and indecent acts, left the Maasiyahu Prison with his wife, Gila, and brother Lior. With two years left of his sentence, hew is still considered to be a parolee.
Rabbi Yigal Levinstein grew up in the southern resort city of Eilat. According to his own testimony, he was a common brat, a party animal who used to lie on the beach and look for girls. He joined the IDF, served as a combat commander in regular service, became religious and turned into a rabbi and an outstanding educator of many students and army officers.

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Several years ago, his righteous wife passed away. Only several weeks later, he married a much younger woman, a widow of one of his students, a hero who was killed in the Second Lebanon War. His community members gossiped.

I dont even want to thinkI wont dare let it cross my mindwhat the religious and Haredi media would have written had this scene taken place in the secular sector in Tel Aviv, God forbid, the city of lewdness and sins, unstoppable immorality, leftist abomination.

Rabbi Levinstein with IDF soldiers. A large and dominant group of rabbis preaching hate (Photo: Bnei David Yeshiva in Eli)

Every few months, we hear of Levinsteins sermons and preaching. Last summer, he tongue-lashed the LGBT community , insulting and offending its members. Petitions were organized at the time against him and in his defense. Last week, his comments against female soldiers serving in the army were published. He lashed out against them in full force. He ruled that they were drafted Jewish and were not Jewish in the endin other words, each of these girls is released from the army as a gentile. He recommended preventing their enlistment and marrying them off at the young age of 18-20, while they are still hot. What kind of authority does this rabbi havebiblical-halachic, gynecological, meteorological?

Dozens of pre-army academy heads strongly objected to his slander. But within two to three hours, and this is where we should start being concerned, more than 200 officers signed a petition supporting the rabbi and his comments. In other words, there is a network in the IDFlatent yet ready for actionwhich is attentive to what dark rabbis have to say and is willing to enlist to partake in divine missions.

There is a large and dominant group of rabbis in Israel, which lives off public funds, is known for its blindness and fanaticism and has a strong influence on commanders and soldiers. While they are known as the Yesha rabbis, they are deployed all over the country, from Safed in the north to Eilat in the south. They educate to hate the enemy, and just as muchto hate the other.

The Bible they profess to uphold offers a humane and egalitarian attitude towards the proselyte and the other. The Bible even contains a recipe of tolerance and peace towards the enemy and the city one is forced to fight for. But these rabbis must have been influenced by westerns. One of the greatest westerns is called The Magnificent Seven, and it says that you gotta hate what you are firing at.

Rabbi Levinstein himself can somehow be defined as an anomaly. The biggest problem is religion taking over policy. Before separating religion from the state, we must first and foremost separate religion from policy. Israel was established to fulfill the nationalnot religiousrevival of the Jewish people. The Torah protected the people of Israel quite well for 2,000 years. A clear and sober policy should protect the State of Israel. One of the basic goals of the states establishment was to take the fate from the hands of God and place it in the hands of man. To place the people of Israel back on the course of historynot on the course of religion, which it was successfully attached to for thousands of years in exile.

In the early 1950s, personal life in Israel was already placed in the hands of the religious, although they were a small minority at the time and are still a minority today. The religious dealers received a generous monopoly over the entire public space, from birth to burial, from marriage to divorce. It was part of a package deal: You run the personal life, while the secularsfrom the right and from the leftwill run the national life.

The moderate religious people of the historical National Religious Party were succeeded by the people of the Tkuma party and Rabbi Kahane. Over the years, these zealots have been impressively successful, almost as much as the seven-times-worse preachers on the Arab sideHamas, the Islamic Jihad, etc. And so, since the early 1990s, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is shrinking, but the Jewish-Muslim conflict is growing stronger.
An IDF female officer lost sight in one eye after being struck with shrapnel from a stun grenade during a drill with the Nachshon Unit of the Israel Prison Service (IPS).

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The exercise took place two weeks ago at a Nachshon base in Ramla when soldiers from the IDF's Military Police Corps visited as part of efforts to recruit them into joining Nachshon and the IPS upon their release.

The Nachshon Unit (Photo: Yariv Katz)

As first reported by Army Radio, a stun grenade was thrown during an exercise meant to showcase how Nachshon intervenes against unruly prisoners. After the explosion of the grenade, the officer was struck in the eye by shrapnel which blinded her.

The IPS and Israel Police have opened an investigation into the incident.

The IDF Spokespersons Unit issued a statement, saying, "As part of IPS training, an exercise was conducted by the Nachshon Unit which included the use of a stun grenade. During the course of the drill, an IDF officer was wounded and evacuated to the hospital. The officer was discharged the same day under close supervision. As a result of the incident, an investigation has been opened by the IPS."
Russia has deployed Special Forces units to an airbase in Egypt near the Libyan border, according to American, Egyptian and diplomatic officials who spoke to Reuters.

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American officials said that the United States is looking into what appears to be Russian Special Forces and drones deployed near Sidi Barrani in western Egypt.

Egyptian security officials said that a Russian special unit comprising 22 soldiers is active in the area, but refused to specify their mission. Officials also added that Russia used another Egyptian base near Mersa Matruh in February.

Libyan rebels in oil fields (Photo: AP)

According to these officials, it is possible that the Russian forces have been deployed to the area to provide support to the Libyan Army under the command of Gen. Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar's forces were recently defeated in a series of attacks by the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB) on oil fields under his control.

Libyan oil fields (Photo: Reuters)

An Egyptian military spokesman denied the reports and the Russian Defense Ministry has not commented. The US army has not responded to the reports either.

Egypt and Russia have been cooperating militarily over the past year. Last October, the Russian and Egyptian armies held a joint exercise in Egypt titled "Defenders of Friendship 2016."

Russia sent 800 soldiers, 15 helicopters and 100 tons of military equipment for the drill.
New Delhi, Mar 14 (IBNS): The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) said on Tuesday that it has referred the fraud being perpetuated in the name of 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme; to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for investigation.

The Ministry said that It has come to its notice that certain unauthorized elements/individuals are distributing illegal forms in the name of cash incentive under Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) Scheme.

The Ministry said that the scheme has no provision for any cash incentives for individuals.

The BBBP scheme focuses on challenging mindsets and deep rooted patriarchy in the societal system in order to value girl child, strict enforcement of PC & PNDT Act, advancing education of the girl child, or focusing on issues of women empowerment on a life cycle continuum.



The Ministry of Women & Child Development has taken up this matter with the state governments too where this illegal activity has taken place namely Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Bihar.

Repeated warnings have been publicized several times by this Ministry in print media as well as electronic media.

The Ministry has advised that no personal details should be shared in this regard and no one should subscribe to such fraudulent schemes.

However, some people are falling prey to such frauds and buying forms or disclosing personal details in name of such non-existent benefits being falsely offered in the name of BBBP scheme.



Keeping in view the public interest and gravity of the matter, the Ministry decided to refer the case to CBI for investigation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provided his testimony in the libel suit against journalist Yigal Sarna at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.

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Netanyahu's wife and former Shin Bet security head Yoram Cohen also testified.

Cohen was called to testify despite the PM and his wife's objection, after Judge Azaria Alcalay ruled that although Cohens testimony was not relevant regarding Netanyahus conduct, he was head of the Shin Bet during the time in question, and he could testify as long as he kept to the matter of Sarnas post.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at court, Tuesday (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Earlier, Alcalay, from the Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court, had rejected Netanyahu's petition to postpone his appearance for the third time. Netanyahu kept claiming that he had other obligations and could not attend, even though he and his wife were the ones who filed the suit.

The suit filed by the Netanyahus involves a Facebook post by Sarna in which he described an incident that took place on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway.

According to Sarna, during the trip, the entire motorcade stopped and the prime minister was asked to get out of the car, while Sara Netanyahu mocked the security arrangements and, furthermore, the entire country.

The Netanyahus filed a libel suit for 280,000 shekels against Sarna. They said Sarna had committed an injustice against them in a manner that was disgusting, cynical, low, mean and inordinate, in an attempt "to shame the plaintiffs, revile them and embarrass them publicly by means of ugly and false reports, which have not an iota of truth to them.

Sarna claims that the suit is an attempt to financially hurt him over a legitimate criticism made by him.

Netanyahu and former Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/PMO)

In his testimony, Netanyahu claimed that everything Sarna wrote never happened. He called Sarna's claim he bossed people around and "took control of the (motorcade) security" absurd and beyond slander.

When questioned on whether Netanyahu addressed in his suit the entirety of Sarna's writings against him, Netanyahu said that one could argue that in the past, his writings could just be considered "zealous criticism," even when Sarna called him a "poisonous mushroom that grew in Rabin's puddle of blood," but when he outwardly lied and displayed it as fact, especially in a Facebook post, he crossed a line.

When Sarna's lawyer made a comparison between Sarna's post and Netanyahu's Facebook post saying that the Umm al-Hiran driver was a terrorist, Netanyahu clarified that unlike Sarna, who didnt ask for a comment from him or even notified him beforehand, Netanyahu went over his with both the Internal Affairs Minister and the Chief of Police, and if found to be wrong he would apologize.

The prime minister's wife, Sara, claimed in her testimony that she is often targeted to make her husband look weak, pointing out that she had won libel suits in the past. She then noted that if she sued for every lie and slander against her she would have to spend all her time in court.

She claimed to be suing because, as her husband previously claimed, Sarna's post crossed a line.

When asked if she argued with her husband in the motorcade like Sarna reported, she objected to the question, asking if everything that happens during a motorcade needs to be answered for. She then added that she doesn't recall any argument.

Both husband and wife stated that even though they are not currently suing Sarna or any other journalist for any other case of alleged slander, they have not ruled it out and are even considering some.

Journalist Yigal Sarna (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Sarna then took the stand, and when asked if he is sticking to his post, boldly said, "Today I'm sure it happened, even more than before."

The prosecutor than asked him for the reason why he wrote in his defense that "the post happened even if details were not very accurate, to which Sarna explained that after deliberating with his lawyer, he decided to phrase it in that manner because he could not know for certain how accurate the details were due to the fact that he was not present at the incident."

When the prosecutor questioned Sarna's decision not to publish it in Yedioth Ahronoth, a mainstream newspaper he had been working with for 30 years and Ynet's sister publication, Sarna claimed that it was because "it wasnt a big story."

In his response to the lawsuit, Sarna said that his Facebook post was an expression of his opinion. He added that what he wrote was entirely true, published in good faith based on proper and reliable sources, and bearing characteristics similar or identical to known episodes in the Netanyahus family life.

When asked about his sources, Sarna replied that he has "a friend who is a senior official in the Shin Bet," and that he is experienced enough to distinguish between lies and truth, saying that whatever he thinks about the PM, which he admits is not favorable, did not affect his judgment and cannot effect his position in any way.
Six North African bloggers and journalists have arrived in Israel as guests of the foreign ministry at the invitation of the Deputy Spokesman for Arab Media, Hassan Kaabiya.

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This is the sixth such initiative undertaken to bring Arabic-language media representatives to Israel.

Bloggers visiting the Temple Mount

Until now, journalists from Morocco have come to Israel, but this is the first time journalists from Algeria and Tunisia have paid a visit.

Members of the delegation visited the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount Monday as part of their tour. Additionally, they visited Yad Vashem and are expected to tour the foreign ministry, the Supreme Court and the Knesset on Tuesday.

The original plan intended to see the hosting of eight bloggers. However, two pulled out at the last minute due to refusals by authorities to allow them to travel to Israel. The foreign ministry is also planning to introduce the delegation to Israeli journalists covering the Arab world.

Hassan Kaabiya with the delegation

The North African bloggers listed their first impressions of the country as appearing Western and free. "This is an opportunity to see the real Israel without the media acting as a middle man," said delegation members.

According to Kaabiya, the visit is important to potentially dispel possible myths or correct any false prepositions about Israel.

"It is of great importance to bring young people who were born with false ideas about Israel. The picture changes after these visits and their writing also changes the (international) opinion of Israel."
A Palestinian Authority government agency secretly operating in east Jerusalem was shut down on Tuesday on the order of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.

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The PA agency, operating in the Beit Hanina neighborhood, was carrying out surveillance and registering of Arabs who sold land to Jews.

The Palestinian Authority used to have a bureau in Jerusalem that dealt with "map issues." The bureau would perform registration and monitoring of Palestinian lands in east Jerusalem and record changes carried out by Israel as "land theft" by the Israeli government.

The PA agency

The Jerusalem Police Department has recently discovered the bureau had renewed its activities under the guise of a "geographic consulting firm." It is funded by the PA and is in regular contact with PA security forces.

Police investigation also learned that the names of Arabs wishing to sell homes and land to Jews were given to security services in Ramallah. PA security services investigates any suspicion of forgery or intent to sell a home or land to Jews.

"The activities of this Palestinian Authority agency are part of a plan to undermine our sovereignty in Jerusalem and terrorize Arabs who sell real estate to Jews," said Erdan. "We will continue to act with determination to prevent any Palestinian government foothold in Jerusalem."
BEIRUT -- A UN commission on the Syrian war says it believes government forces deliberately bombed a school complex in the country's northern countryside, killing 21 children, last October.

The UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said the Syrian military is the only country known to operate the jets identified in the attack.

The commission said Tuesday the attack on the Haas village school complex in the rebel-held province of Idlib constituted a war crime. The attack was widely reported at the time.
ANKARA -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday a diplomatic row with the Netherlands could not be dismissed with an apology, and that further actions could be taken, after Turkey on Monday suspended high-level diplomatic ties with the Dutch.

Speaking at an event in Ankara, Erdogan also accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of attacking Turkey the same way Dutch police used dogs and water cannon to Turkish disperse protesters outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. Erdogan said Merkel was "no different from the Netherlands", and urged emigre Turks to not vote for "the government and the racists" in upcoming European elections.
Israel's health system will strike for two hours on Wednesday morning to protest frequent attacks against medical personnel at hospitals and community clinics, in the latest of which a nurse was killed in a suspected arson attack at an HMO in Holon on Tuesday.

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The strike will last between 8am-10am on Wednesday, according to the head of the Histadrut Labor Federation Avi Nissenkorn.

"The strike is meant as an act of solidarity with all health system personnel who work day and night for the patients and their families across the country," Nissenkorn said.

Scene of the murder in Holon

According to the Health Ministry, every year there are over 800 incidents reported of verbal and physical violence against medical personnel.

Six months ago, an Arab intern was treating an IDF soldier at the Orthopedic Urgent Care unit in the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Rishon Lezion. An hour later, the soldier's father sought out the doctor in his office and started swearing at him, using racist slurs, hitting him and slapping him. The intern reported the incident to the hospital's security team.

Last year, a patient at Assaf Harofeh passed away. Upon hearing of his passing, his family members started rioting inside the hospital, vandalizing and breaking medical equipment and causing damage to the walls.

In August, a doctor at the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva was attacked by a person accompanying a patient at the Division of Surgery. He started swearing at the doctor and other medical personnel. When security guards arrived at the scene, the man slapped the doctor.

In January, a relative of a patient at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa was caught on camera destroying a portable ventilator worth tens of thousands of shekels because he felt frustrated by the overcrowding at the hospital and the long wait periods.

Officials in the health system are concerned with the growing trend. "We're all shocked by the murder today, but the writing was on the wall. Medical personnel are hurt too many times and we must not remain silent about it," a Health Ministry official said.

Nurse Tovah Kararo, who was working at a Clalit Health Insurance clinic in Holon, was killed when a disgruntled patient poured an accelerant into the room where she was sitting and set fire to the room.

Eli Dafas, Clalit's CEO, expressed his shock at the incident. "This is an unprecedented incident," he said after returning from meeting the clinics crew. "An event like this deserves to be investigated so it will never happen again."

"The health system in Israel is strong, good and caring," Dafas added. "Something like this, or even less than this, should not be allowed to happen again and we will do whatever we can to make sure of that. I want to ask all medical teams to stay strong and keep doing their job for the good of all patients in Israel."

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman also denounced the incident. "I am shocked by even the possibility of an employee at a clinic being murdered by a patient because of the treatment. This is crossing all lines of violence. I trust the police to investigate this difficult event, and we shall wait for their results."

The minister sought to "back the medical teams and give strength to the doctors, nurses and all other workers of the health system. We cannot accept violence against medical personnel and there is no reason that could justify this kind of criminal behavior. I offer my condolences to the family of the deceased."
A general middle school and high school strike will take place Wednesday from 08:00-10:00am in protest of the surging levels of violence in the education system.

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Chairman of the Teachers' Union, Ran Ezra, said that the phenomenon has long been recorded as being on the rise.

"We have long warned that violence against public teachers is increasing. Why wait, God forbid, for a teacher to be murdered? Our hearts are with the nurse who was cruelly burned and we support the strike of the health system in light of this shocking event. The blood of educators and public servants will not be in vain."

Minister of Education Naftali Bennett and Chairman of the Teachers' Union, Ran Ezra (Photo: Yuval Chen and Alex Kolomoisky)

In a letter sent to Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi), Erez announced his organization's labor dispute, accusing Bennett of not taking sufficient action to remedy the problem.

"One of the reasons for this labor dispute is that you are not doing enough to stop this serious and worrying phenomenon. Unfortunately, my attempts to formulate a solution with you and recruit you into our cause, have failed."

Erez continued to lay into Bennett, contending that he had taken an insouciant stance on the matter that had resulted in the humiliation of teachers.

"Your conduct and the indifference with which you refer to violence against educators, humiliates tens of thousands of teachers. Given that you are the minister in charge (of education), I urge you once again to act immediately to ensure that whoever raises their hand against a teacher never does so again."
Shir Elmaliach, an Israeli lingerie model, was invited to model for the lingerie brand "femi9", which is known in Arab countries such as Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

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The brand managers, who got her photos from her international agency, sent Elmaliach an invitation for a photo shoot.

Elmaliach had to unfortunately turn down the offer though, due to a slight problem though; the photo shoot is set to take place in the Lebanese audience.

Even though it is clear that she wouldn't be able to cross the countries' border due to both Israel and Lebanon considering each other enemy states, Elmaliach still would have had to turn the offer down in light of her busy schedule, working for five different fashion campaigns at the moment.
A sauna in snowy Siberia chose to refer to the Auschwitz death camp to publicize itself, stirring great anger among Jews and Holocaust survivors.

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The sauna called Abwehrwhich is also the name of the German military intelligence apparatusreleased an advertisement on its website entitled "Auschwitz is nothing compared to our sauna."

Siberian sauna

The site is located near a freezing river, and the hot sauna users are invited to bathe in the river after spending time in the sauna, a popular practice in Russia.

A local newspaper in Novosibirsk contacted the owner of the sauna, Viacheslav Boev, and asked him what the connection with Auschwitz was and why he published the offensive ad.

The sauna owner's response was quite clear as to his motives: "Girl, why do you need to know? Why not try it? Curious? Do you know what Auschwitz is? And what they did there? They burned people, yes. And my sauna is so hot it is even hotter than Auschwitz."

The newspaper contacted the local authorities and asked whether they had any intention to take action against the owners of the sauna but were met with silence.

Alex Tentzer, a Russian media specialist, said: "It is shocking how low some people are willing to go for an advertisement. The reaction of the local authorities is just as shocking. We need to file a complaint."

"Russia has enough laws against Nazi propaganda that allow handling such cases with a heavy hand and closing the place or imposing fines on the owners," Tentzer continued, then added, "I come from a family of Holocaust survivors. My wife's father was at Auschwitz, and his entire family was burned there."

Following the publication and the ensuing storm, the owners changed the sauna's name and removed the offensive advertisement.

(Translated and edited by Natanela Elias)
Israeli police on Tuesday burst into the offices of a former Palestinian peace negotiator and detained him for several hours, accusing him of conducting illegal political activity in east Jerusalem on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, before releasing him.

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It was believed to be the first arrest of its kind since Israel banned the Palestinian Authority from carrying out official business in east Jerusalem in 2001, and illustrated the deep sensitivities over the area.

Khalil Tufagji, a prominent Palestinian cartographer, said police entered his office early Tuesday and confiscated computers and files before taking him away.

Khalil Tufagji (Photo: AP)

In a statement, Israeli police accused Tufagji of conducting official research for the Palestinians on Israeli land activities in east Jerusalem and presenting them as "land theft."

They claimed that he was in "constant contact" with Palestinian security forces and that his research included details on Palestinians who intend to sell east Jerusalem properties to Israelis. Palestinians consider such land sales treasonous.

"Activity by the Palestinian cartography office is part of the Palestinian Authority's plan to harm our sovereignty in Jerusalem and even to threaten Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city," said Israel's public security minister, Gilad Erdan. "I will continue to act decisively in order to prevent a foothold of the Palestinian government in Jerusalem."

His statement said Tufagji's office would remain closed for six months. But several hours later, Tufagji was freed and told The Associated Press that he would be permitted to reopen his office later this week.

"I proved that I have no direct connection with the Palestinian Authority. We are an NGO funded by foreign donors, not the Palestinian Authority," he said.

Tufagji is a former peace negotiator and is considered the foremost Palestinian expert on Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

He said he receives funding from Arab donors, though he shares his research, including a vast database on Israeli settlements, with Palestinian officials. He said he has no contact with Palestinian security forces.

Tuesday's incident reflected the deep sensitivities on both sides over the status of east Jerusalem.

Tufagji's arrest was the first of its kind, but over the years, Israel has enforced the ban in other ways, said Jawad Bulous, a Palestinian lawyer who defends such cases.

For instance, he said Israel has arrested a handful of Palestinian policemen who lived in east Jerusalem.

In 2005, Israel briefly detained a West Bank activist who was running in the Palestinian presidential election who tried to campaign in east Jerusalem, accusing him of illegally entering the city.
Kolkata, Mar 14 (IBNS): A four-day-old baby was allegedly stolen from state government-run Calcutta Medical College and Hospital in central Kolkata on Tuesday afternoon, reports said.

According to reports, a young woman, Saraswati Naskar, gave birth to a baby boy, her first child, last Friday (Mar 10).

Both were under treatment in the Nursery Ward on the second floor of Eden Building at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.

The mother claimed that a middle-aged woman took her baby in the afternoon, saying that the newborn was being taken for a routine check up and vaccination.

Since then, the woman along with the child has remained untraceable, according to reports.

Saraswati Naskar, whose baby son has gone missing, told IBNS, "A middle-aged woman, wearing a white and green coloured saree, took me and my child for check up and directed me to bring a blood test report lying at my bed."

"When I returned with the reports a few minutes later, I found neither that tall woman with fair complexion nor my baby," the new mother, who is a resident of Kolkata's Bagmari area, said.

The incident triggered tension at the hospital premise and family members of the patient staged a demonstration and allegedly vandalized the hospital.

When policemen went to the scene, a scuffle ensued with the patient party.

Later, more police personnel were rushed to the spot who brought the situation under control.

However, a complaint of child theft has been lodged at the local police station and before the superintendent of the government hospital.

Following the incident, several mothers took early discharge and left the hospital immediately with their newborn babies.

A senior official of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital told IBNS that the authority is looking into the matter.

"We have informed the state health department and only they will talk to you further about the matter," the official said.

Police have also started a probe into the incident.

A senior official of Kolkata Police told IBNS, "We have commenced investigation into the alleged child stealing from Calcutta Medical College and Hospital."

"The the CCTV cameras could not capture the incident properly, Therefore, we are taking eye-witnesses' statements to get an idea about the matter," the officer added.

According to hospital reports, Saraswati Naskar and her son were scheduled to be released from the hospital on Wednesday.

According to reports, police personnel have been posted at the hospital campus as situation is still tense there.

"I have just been informed that the patient's family members have gathered inside the Eden Building of Calcutta Medical College and they are trying to ransack the hospital," a senior police official told IBNS.

"We are deploying a heavy police force to bring the situation under control and to avoid any untoward situation further," the official further said.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
A Palestinian doctor pleaded with Israel on Tuesday to apologize for a 2009 tank shell strike on his Gaza home that killed three of his daughters and a niece in the final days of the first Israel-Hamas war.

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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, struggling to compose himself at a news conference, urged "officials who live in denial to take responsibility."

The grief of the Gaza infertility specialist has been seared into the memory of many Israelis. On January 16, 2009, Abuelaish phoned an Israeli journalist friend live on the air, moments after the deadly strike on his home, to plead for help in evacuating the wounded, including a daughter and a niece.

Izzeldin Abuelaish (Photo: AP)

In 2010, Abuelaish sued Israel, seeking an apology, acceptance of responsibility and compensation. A court hearing is set for Wednesday.

Israel has said it bears no liability because the incident occurred during wartime.

Israel's Justice Ministry said Tuesday that the state does not dispute shells were fired at the buildinga five-story home where Abuelaish and his brothers lived with their families.

The ministry said Israeli forces spotted people in the building at the time who they believed were directing sniper fire at the troops. The forces learned only later "that the plaintiffs were also in the building," the statement said. The ministry alleged that "explosive materials of terrorist organizations" were in the building and that "it is quite possible" the girls were killed and wounded by an explosion of these materials.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported earlier this week that the Defense Ministry filed a new court document with testimony from a weapons expert in the Israeli military who tested shrapnel taken from the wounded, including Abuelaish's daughter, Shada. The tests concluded that the building contained weapons not used by the Israeli military, Haaretz reported.

Shada Abuelaish, sitting next to her father Tuesday, choked back tears when asked if she was angry about Israel's position.

"I am angry because we have to fight for this," said Shada, now 25. "The victim has to ask for justice."

Abuelaish, 62, dismissed claims of a weapons cache. "Enough lies," he said. "We need to move forward and take responsibility."

The doctor was a well-known figure in Israel even before the first of what would be three wars between Israel and Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers over six years.

Abuelaish moved easily between two worlds, living in the Gaza town of Jebaliya but working in one of Israel's biggest hospitals. During the first Gaza war, launched to end Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns, Israeli journalists often contacted him for updates, delivered in fluent Hebrew.

The doctor and his family spent the war in their apartment on the second floor of the family compound, close to the border with Israel. In early January 2009, Israeli ground forces moved into Gaza, including the doctor's neighborhood, and over the next two weeks fired heavily, demolishing homes they said were thought to serve as Hamas positions.

On January 16, tank shells hit the doctor's home, killing daughters Aya, Mayar and Bissan, along with a niece, Noor.

Close to 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the three-week war, which ended Jan. 18, 2009.

Abuelaish, who has five surviving children, moved the family to Toronto, Canada, after the war.

He said Tuesday that any damages awarded by the Israeli court would be donated to the Daughters for Life Foundation, a charity established in the memory of his three daughters and niece. The foundation promotes education for women and girls of Middle Eastern background.
Two 20- and 21-year-old lone soldiers from Ramat Gan felt so financially abandoned by the IDF that they posted signs over the weekend around their neighborhood asking for help in obtaining food. They were overwhelmed by the positive responsive.

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The two live in the neighborhood of Merom Nave, which is also where the parents of MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union) reside. The parliamentarian's father snapped a picture of one of their signs and sent it to his son.

Shmuli with the soldiers

Shmuli then showed up at the apartment that they share to pay a visit. He promised to help them with whatever they needed. He said, "As for food, they're set for the coming days, and my family has already 'adopted them.'

The IDF categorizes a soldier who either has no immediate family in the country or who has no contact with their family as a "lone soldier." The two soldiers here both belong to the latter group.

One of them serves in the Ramat Gan base of Tel Hashomer, and the other serves in the Home Front Command base in Ramla. They met at Beit Hachayal, a community center for soldiers, and chose to share an apartment.

One of the soldiers' signs

The signs they posted nearby their home read, "We are two lone soldiers who live here in the Marom Nave neighborhood.

"We don't have financial support from any source, and the army barely helps us and doesn't really provide a solution, especially regarding food.

"We would be really happy if a family could help us with hot lunches so that, at least regarding food, we'll be able to be relaxed and satiated.

"It's a bit uncomfortable for us to ask for help, but we don't have a lot of choices, and we really appreciate it!" They included their phone numbers.

In a conversation with Ynet, one of the soldiers said that since they did so, people have not stopped calling and offering to help. "People offer us money, but we're uncomfortable with that," he said. "We just wanted help with food. It's wonderful: we have a lovely and special nation.

"We were looking for a family or two who would help us with meals, but after somebody shared it on social media, people from all over the country called to ask how we're doing. Even people from abroad called us."

(Translated and edited by J. S. Herzog)
Fifty years after the Six-Day War, the majority of Palestinians believe that the Israeli "occupation" will not be over anytime soon. They also believe that the Palestinians's situation on the eve of the war was actually better than it is today and that the Arab countries and Europe are not sufficiently supportive of the Palestinians.

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The survey was conducted last week in Gaza and the West Bank by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, headed by Dr. Khalil Shikaki and the Konrad-Adenauer Center in Ramallah.

According to the survey, whose findings were published on Tuesday, 32% of Palestinians believe that the occupation will continue for at least 50 more years, while 29% believe that it will continue for 510 years or more. Only 24% think it will end soon.

Forty-four percent of respondents answered that the condition of Palestinians today is worse than it was before the war in 1967. An almost identical percentage believes that the Palestinians' condition today is worse than a mere decade ago.

Two thirds of the respondents believe that Arab and European countries are not sufficiently supportive of the Palestinians, whereas 50% of respondents hold that Muslim countries side with the Palestinians, as do most people worldwide.

Another dramatic statistic revealed that 94% of respondents believe that God is on the side of the Palestinian people; this figure may indicate an increase in religiosity amidst the Palestinian population.

The latest polls continue to bode poorly for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was perceived by respondents as a loathed and weak leader who needs to resign his post.

Two thirds of respondents answered that he should resign, and only 31% thought he should remain in office. Most Palestinians who believed that Abbas should resign are residents of the Gaza Stripa factor indicative of disappointment over Abbas's lack of involvement in the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

According to the survey, if the presidential elections were to be held today between Abbas and Ismail Haniyehboth would have garnered 47%. If one were to add Marwan Barghouti as a third contender, he would receive a plurality of the vote (40%), followed by Haniyeh (33%), and Abbas would pull up the rear with only 26% of the vote.

Despite US President Donald Trump's vague statements regarding the two-state solution, a moderate rise has been noted over the last quarter among Palestinian supporters of the idea (47% versus 44% in the previous quarter), but half of Palestinians (51%) still oppose this solution.

Reality, however, increases Palestinian skepticism regarding the feasibility of a two-state solution. Sixty percent believe that this solution is not feasible due to construction in the settlements, and only 37% believe that the solution is actually applicable. But despite these figures, there is a moderate decrease in Palestinian support for the one-state solution offering equal rights to Jews and Arabs (a third vs. two thirds).

Thirty-four percent of respondents believe that negotiation is the most effective means of achieving a Palestinian state, while 37% believe that armed resistance is the answer.

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
A deadly incident at the states maximum security prison in Tecumseh last week has once again put a public focus on the important work of reforming the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS).

In my first two years as Governor, corrections reform has been a top priority to ensure we are protecting public safety. Working with the Legislature and Courts, we have begun to address challenges with our prison population, successfully lobbied for additional investments, improved staffing and recruitment, expanded programming opportunities, and assessed security needs.

One of the first areas we worked to address during my first legislative session as Governor is our prison population. Nebraskas prisons have been full for decades. Governors and Legislatures since at least the 1980s have worked to address this challenge. In 2015, the Legislature made changes to the states sentencing laws to better utilize parole and supervised release for non-violent criminals. Instead of growing, the states prison population has started to decline falling from 5,392 in May 2015 to 5,236 last month as changes take effect.

In the last two years, NDCS Director Scott Frakes and I have successfully worked with the Legislature to secure new investments in NDCS. In 2015, we worked with the Legislature to secure an additional $37 million over two years for the agency to improve operations, hire additional behavioral health staff, and expand security staffing. In 2016, the Legislature and I agreed upon an additional $26 million to expand existing prison facilities, which will allow for the addition of 148 more beds as well as much-needed programming space.

While the $26 million expansion is built, NDCS is working in other areas to improve their facilities. A 100-bed temporary unit will help alleviate stress on our system while the expansion is under construction. Director Frakes has been working to establish mission specific housing, and is advocating for another $75 million investment in housing to help deliver better programming for elderly inmates and those with behavioral health needs.

Last summer, Director Frakes and the Council of State Governments unveiled an analysis of programming in NDCS facilities. Good news: Our corrections system provides quality programming. The final analysis recommended re-sequencing existing programming and better utilizing staff to deliver programming. Additionally, my administration has worked with non-profits to expand privately funded programming opportunities including a new program to develop entrepreneurial skills as well as faith-based programs.

Recruitment and retention of staffing has also been a focus for Director Frakes. Last year, the Legislature provided $1.5 million to assist the agency with developing new retention strategies which include paying bonuses and work-life balance initiatives. Director Frakes and I have advocated for moving to 12-hour shifts for corrections officers. Additionally, Director Frakes and I have worked to improve employee pay by negotiating pay raises with the states labor union for our corrections officers. We are now working with the Legislature to fund those increases in the upcoming budget.

Finally, Director Frakes has worked to improve the security of NDCS facilities. Last year, he worked with his wardens to conduct a system wide audit of facility security. The Legislature invested an additional $5 million in security staffing the last two years, and we have requested additional funding to improve security in my budget request under consideration by the Legislature.

The problems in corrections did not occur overnight, and they wont be solved overnight. It has taken a multi-year focus from all three branches of state government, and my office continues to prioritize reform.

The next critical step for NDCS is working with the Legislature to secure the funding needed for their budget request. As I mentioned earlier, our request includes expanding programming space and beds for inmates seeking behavioral health treatment, improving facility security, and securing additional funds for job training for inmates. Properly addressing mental health is key to successful reentry and reducing the recidivism rate. Over ninety percent of the people who enter our corrections system eventually return to our communities.

Corrections will continue to have challenges even as reform progresses. The people we house in our prisons are there because they broke the law. Nebraska is not the only state that faces these challenges. In the last several months, prisons in Florida, Michigan, Massachusetts, California, and Delaware have grappled with prison disturbances.

In this legislative session and beyond, my administration will keep our focus on transforming NDCS. This transformation matters for Nebraska because it will help to better protect public safety and help the Nebraskans leaving our prison system become a part of growing our state. If you have comments on the direction of reform, or thoughts on any other issues, feel free to contact my office at pete.ricketts@nebraska.gov or by calling 402-471-2244.
Dear neighbors, I am no poet laureate, or great philosopher or highly-acclaimed academic.

I am simply one of the sum of us, a commoner, who humbly and desperately believes Timothy Egans New York Times award-winning book, The Worst Hard Time, should be required reading for all of us  especially those in agriculture.

The book, The Worst Hard Time, is The Untold Story of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl. It is a story that has moved me like none other for several years. I have been reading this book, mostly in the darkness of night, far after the children have gone to bed as blackness covers the farm fields around the house. It has been a fitting time to read about the black earth that raged across significant portions of states such as Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and parts of Nebraska during the Dirty Thirties.

Adding to my experience reading about the blowing, earth-strewn scenes from the Depression Era in Egans book, have been the recent winds that swept across our area last week. Another eerie, whipping reminder of the story I am reading as many areas of the country still face drought and naked land with no cover leaving them open and vulnerable to the potential of wild winds. Yes, I know some scoff at the thought that our nation could experience those same harrowing times that occurred in the 1930s. Yet sometimes, when we are so close to the everyday aspects of agriculture, our minds are too steeped in the tasks to see the bigger realities that are realities whether we see them or not.

In addition to the recent windy days that impacted York County and surrounding areas, are the ongoing news stories covering wildfires that have been ravaging areas such as Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas. My heart is torn open by the stories of loss of human life, livestock and damage to the land. The earth and its fury and mans fury with earth  the tale never ends in real life and published works.

Then I hit page 133 of The Worst Hard Time, and I gulped, as I am reminded, once again, that some of the cycles are continuing today. On page 133-134 Egan writes, That son of a Carolina cotton farmer, Big Hugh Bennett, continued to rage against the killing of the land by his countrymen. . . . Most scientists did not take Bennett seriously. Some called him a crank. They blamed the withering of the Great Plains on weather, not farming methods.

Basic soil science was one thing but talking about the fragile web of life and slapping the face of nature  this kind of early ecology had yet to find a wide audience. Sure, Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir had made conservation an American value at the dawn of the new century, but it was usually applied to brawny, scenic wonders: mountains, rivers, megaflora. . . . But one of the first things Franklin Roosevelt did was summon Bennett to the White House.

Bennett said Americans in the nations midsection had farmed too much, too fast. The land could not take that kind of assault. The greatest grassland in the world had been hammered and left without cover. The dusters that were just starting to make national news were not a work of God. And they would get worse. Well then, the president asked: was it possible to undo what man had done?

Today, there are voices reaching Washington D.C. with the same message as Bennett and asking the same question Roosevelt asked, Is it possible to undo what humankind has done? There are voices, right next door to us, working vigorously to get the truths out about agricultural practices that will save our soils and not destroy them. They are smart, caring people who want to help their neighbors and the nation. Some are being balked at like Big Hugh Bennett. Some are being called enemy number one to agriculture by some in agriculture. Still, that does not make them any less correct.

I am no better than anyone else. I have much to learn the more I learn. I simply would encourage you to read Egans book and consider the historical message it has to tell us in 2017. Listen closely to the news. Read agricultural information in a discerning fashion and consider the environmental challenges we are facing today  some natural and a great amount, human-induced. Because words can be manufactured for profit and propagandas sake; but, Gods natural world does not lie.
YORK  Matthew Aunkst, 29, of York, has been sentenced to prison for a number of charges in two unrelated cases involving burglary, drugs and arson.

In the first case, he pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary (both Class 2A felonies) and second degree arson (a Class 3 felony). In return for his changes of plea in this case, charges of theft and conspiracy to commit a felony were dismissed.

According to documents filed with the court, investigators said Aunkst and two co-defendants drove to a vacant house southeast of York. They said Aunkst had a gas can in his hand when he kicked in the back door of the house and poured gas all over the interior. They said smoke was coming from the house when Aunkst left the house (according to his co-defendants).

Investigators said the three drove down the road and parked behind some grain bins. Officers said the three watched the house burn and saw the owner of the house arrive on the scene.

Investigators said that at that point, the three then went to the owners private residence while he was at the scene of the fire. It was alleged that Aunkst and a co-defendant stole a substantial number of valuable items from the house.

Investigators said the three then went to a house in Lincoln where they split the stolen cash between themselves. They were later traced to a casino in Iowa and were subsequently arrested.

Eventually, Aunkst was able to pay bond and was released from the York County Jail while this case was pending.

While he was out on bond, he was arrested for a separate burglary and was found to be in the possession of a controlled substance.

In this case, according to court documents, a woman, who was the caretaker for her deceased parents farm, had received a call from one of her friends.

The friend said that he was driving past her parents rural residence when he saw a vehicle parked near the farmhouse.

The man walked onto the property and saw that the front and rear doors had been breached and he suspected someone was in the house.

The woman called the sheriffs department.

Meanwhile, the man at the farmhouse gave out a loud verbal warning for the person inside to come out, according to the investigators report. While he was standing on the west side of the house, he saw a white male with short hair come out of the rear basement door and run north. The man followed the perpetrator and yelled for him to stop.

The person did stop and the man detained him until the sheriffs department arrived to take him into custody.

The man escorted the perpetrator, who was identified as Aunkst, to the county road where they waited for the sheriffs deputies to arrive.

While they were waiting, according to court documents, Aunkst asked the man if he could remove some dope from his truck, bury it and conceal it. The man allowed him to do so, investigators said, and Aunkst allegedly buried it in the south ditch along the county road.

After Aunkst was taken into custody, the man told investigators where the drugs were located and they allegedly found two grams of methamphetamine and marijuana.

The woman who owned the property said she did not know Aunkst and he was not supposed to be on the property.

In the second case, Aunkst pleaded guilty to first degree criminal trespassing (which was an amended complaint from the original charge of burglary) and possession of a controlled substance.

During court proceedings on Monday, it was noted by the county attorneys office that Aunkst was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance in 2007, that probation was revoked and he was sent to a term of prison of 3-5 years at that time.

Im most focused on the case involving the arson and burglaries, York County Attorney Candace Bottorf told the court. They broke into a farm house, burned it to the ground, watched the owners tend to the fire and then they went to the owners private home and burglarized that. They took firearms, a significant amount of cash, and a missing firearm was found in Aunksts hotel room where he was apprehended, and he was a convicted felon who couldnt possess firearms. This was very serious, the amount of damage was egregious. And then he got out on bond and broke into another house and was found to be in possession of methamphetamine. This is more than a controlled substance issue, these are very serious crimes that I consider to be violent in nature because a housed was intentionally burned. Separate and apart from the controlled substance issue is the criminal intent. His co-defendant, Brian Schall, got a sentence of 4-10 years. Mr. Aunkst had a prior prison term so I consider his role more serious and ask for more time. And with these new offenses, they were similar in nature to the first. This situation was more egregious. Both wanted to blame the other one, but the evidence shows that they were acting in concert. We are asking for a significant prison sentence to hold Mr. Aunkst accountable.

Thomas Henry, Aunksts attorney, addressed the court, saying, We can have disagreements on the facts as explained by the states attorney, but when you go through the police reports, it is clear that his co-defendant (Schall) had a relationship and animosity toward the victim. There was obviously animosity between the co-defendant and the victim and it would appear he had a direct motive and intent. So to say they are equally culpable is not true as the co-defendant was (motivated) by revenge. That distinguishes the participation of the two.

I also want to note that the addiction to controlled substances is a major issue, Henry continued. As I sit in this courtroom this morning, seeing one methamphetamine case after another . . . it doesnt excuse it, but however you look at him (Aunkst), drug addiction is a major issue. Ive been doing this for years and Ive represented a lot of people involved in drugs and sometimes we look at meth and other things and wonder what it takes for an addiction to end. Sometimes its environment and sometimes Ive seen people come out of a long term in prison and go right back to what they were doing.

I dont usually see a change in attitude. But, as time has gone on, Ive seen major changes. Ive noted that after he was taken into custody the second time, we started to see a difference. Hes taken a different perspective. Ive seen definite change in him, his demeanor, his attitude and his character. I see more benefit to the community to see this is really an addiction issue and he needs treatment. We are asking for probation.

Your prior record includes DUI, traffic violations, the 2007 felony in which probation was revoked and you were sent to prison, DUI, an attempted Class 3 felony, assault, Judge James Stecker said to Aunkst. You committed three separate burglaries, burning down one house. You took money to gamble and after the last one you were found with meth. You have taken some responsibility and have changed your attitude. But the court cannot overlook your prior record and the three different burglaries. You took a tremendous amount of property and damaged property. I hope that what Mr. Henry says about your attitude is correct. You need to address your chemical addiction problems and make serious changes. I wish you the best.

In the first case, Aunkst was sentenced to a term of 4-10 years for burglary and 4-10 years for another burglary (these are to be served concurrently with each other). Then he was also sentenced to a term of 1-2 years for arson, to be served consecutively with the burglary sentences.

In the second case, Aunkst was sentenced to a term of one year in prison for criminal trespassing and a term of 12-18 months in prison for possession of methamphetamine. They are to be served concurrently with each other.

The sentences for each separate case will be served consecutively.

So that means that the total prison term for Aunkst is 6-13  years in prison.
LINCOLN  Lawmakers in the nations only nonpartisan legislature are considering several measures that would remove party politics from county-level elections, but they face opposition from county officials who say voters appreciate the shorthand of an R, D or L after a candidates name.

A legislative committee will hear three bills this week that would make all county races nonpartisan or allow county residents to decide if they want nonpartisan elections. They would put county officials on the same level as most other state offices, said Sen. Matt Hansen of Lincoln, who sponsored a bill that would elect county clerks, registers of deeds, assessors, sheriffs, treasurers, attorneys, public defenders, district court clerks, surveyors, engineers and commissioners on nonpartisan ballots.

Why do we elect so many of our offices on a nonpartisan ballot but then all of a sudden elect a county engineer on a partisan ballot? Hansen asked. How does party politics fall into the structural integrity of bridges?

Thats nearly the same argument George Norris, architect of Nebraskas unicameral system, gave to argue against partisanship in the 1930s: national party lines have little to do with state-level decisions.

That sentiment was also the case for the City of York approximately 10 years ago, when the city council seats were first elected on a non-partisan basis. Prior to that change, York was the last municipality in the state to still elect council members on a partisan basis. Today, since the change, party affiliation is a non-issue with those particular elections within this municipality.

The board of the Nebraska Association of County Officials doesnt see a problem with the current system, association executive director Larry Dix said. The association might be open to nonpartisan county elections if every position, including governor, was elected on a nonpartisan basis, he said.

County government, and especially the county board, is a policy-making body, Dix said. A lot of people say that when they run for an elected office, people look at their background, their fundamental policy beliefs before voting for a county official just like they would for a governor or secretary of state.

Nearly all policy-making groups in Nebraska, from the legislature to school boards to public power districts, are elected on a nonpartisan basis. And the state-level equivalents of some other elected county officials are appointed.

In the past 20 years, most candidates running for various county positions in York County were registered Republicans. While there have been a few candidates here and there who were registered Democrats, the vast majority have typically been from the Republican party.

County officials would have a choice in whether they want nonpartisan ballots under a bill sponsored by Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue. It would allow county residents to vote on a ballot initiative requiring nonpartisan elections if the county board of commissioners or 5 percent of registered voters in the county request it.

Running for a nonpartisan position, in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party, is valuable for elected officials because it pushes them to spend time talking to voters across the political spectrum during the primary phase, Crawford said. And nonpartisan primaries allow the 20 percent of Nebraskans registered without a party preference to participate.

Its important that we are able to recruit candidates we think are the best candidates at the local level to make the decisions that are relevant at the local level, Crawford said. Making our county races nonpartisan allows them to truly be about the local issues that matter in that county and for the county races to not become referendums on national party attitudes and issues.

Paul Landow, a University of Nebraska at Omaha political science professor and former Democratic strategist, said Democrats stand to gain more from nonpartisan local elections in nearly every county. Without partisan affiliations listed on ballots, Democratic candidates in Republican counties would likely earn more votes.

In Nebraska, Republicans would generally be opposed to nonpartisan elections at the local level because there are more Republicans at the local level, Landow said. Democrats would see it as a good thing at the local level for the same reason.

A measure sponsored by Sen. Dan Hughes of Venango is nearly identical to Crawfords, but it would apply only to counties with 15,000 or fewer inhabitants. Hughes, who represents a large rural district in southwest Nebraska, said he wanted to give smaller counties the chance to hold nonpartisan races after elections in Perkins and Red Willow counties in his district were decided by primary voters in 2014.

This gives all voters the opportunity to vote, just like they do for school board and city council, Hughes said.

About two-thirds of Red Willow Countys voters are registered Republicans, said deputy county clerk Penelope Cooper, who runs the countys elections. Uncontested general election races are far from rare in the county, but in 2014, the first open sheriffs race in nearly three decades upset many voters when only four Republicans ran.

A lot of people were coming in and changing their party just so they could vote, and then changing back, Cooper said.

Nationally, a majority of counties elect their officials through partisan elections, said Brian Namey of the National Association of Counties. Surveys the group conducted of its members in 1991 and 2008 found a slight shift toward nonpartisan elections.
Guwahati, Mar 14 (IBNS): Even before the first BJP-led government has been sworn in, the Naga People's Front (NPF) has demanded that its MLAs be given ministerial berths in lieu of support.

BJP's supremacy in the Manipur Assmebly is dependent on support from the four NPF MLAs.

Nongthombam Biren Singh is expected to be sworn in as the first chief minister of Manipur's first BJP government on Wednesday.

The NPF has also demanded similar berths for four other Naga MLAs with important portfolios.

The NPF's demand came to light after its Manipur unit President Awangbung Newmai wrote an official letter to the BJP's Manipur unit President and demanded their MLAs ministerial berths with important portfolios.

In the letter, NPF demanded that its four MLAs be inducted in the the council of ministers.

The party demanded a cabinet berth for L Daiko, who was elected from the Mao constituency.

Apart from L Daiko, the NPF's Manipur unit demanded that Awangbung Newmai, who was elected from the Tamei constituency,be inducted as a Parliamentary Secretary with portfolios of Hill and Tribal development, Minor Irrigation and Works.

NPF also demandedthe induction of Khasim Vashum, who was elected from the Chingai constituency as Parliamentary Secretary with portfolios of Planning and Public Health Engineering, and K Leishio (MLA of Phungyar constituency) as Parliamentary Secretary with portfolios of Irritation, Flood Control and Rural Development.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)

Image:Google maps
New Delhi, Mar 14 (IBNS): The Election Commission on Tuesday rejected the plea of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to use ballot papers over Electronic Voting Machines in the upcoming Municipal Corporation election of Delhi.

Earlier in the day, the AAP pleaded to the Election Commission to use ballot papers over EVMs for fair election.

Rejecting the plea, the election commissioner in a press conference said: "EVMs have been used in earlier elections and they are secured. We cannot change the rules now since the elections are declared already. It needs the change of rules."

Later, the Congress too joined the plea of AAP of using ballot papers instead of EVMs in MCD elections.

The Election Commission informed that the election would take place on April 22 while the results would come out on April 25.
Wikimedia Commons

Chennai, Mar 14 (IBNS): Political parties of Tamil Nadu like AIDMK and DMK expressed concerns over the suicide of a Dalit scholar in Jawaharlal Nehru University and urged the Centre for a CBI investigation.

DMK leader and working President M K Stalin urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami to take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

MPhil scholar Muthu Krishnan of JNU, who hailed from Tamil Nadu, was found hanging in the University's hostel room on Monday.

Krishnan was associated with the movement of seeking justice for Hyderabad University Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula.

According to the media reports, JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) alleged that Krishnan was victimised for his association with the protest of seeking justice for the death of Rohith Vemula.

Rohith Vemula who was a research scholar in Hyderabad Central University committed suicide last year as his fellowship was reportedly stopped after he raised issues under Ambedkar Students Association and protested against the death penalty of a convicted terrorist Yakub Memon.

"The Delhi police cannot brush aside the fact that Krishnan was one of those who had sought justice for Vemula, and his Facebook post on inequality also cannot be ignored," DMK working President M K Stalin said according to a media report.

However, Krishnan did not leave any suicide note but the police said that they would look into some of the Facebook posts that he had written of late.

Krishnan wrote about inequality on his Facebook wall few days back.

AIDMK general secretary T T V Dinakaran said: "Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal should take special interest and order for a probe and bring facts to light. The culprit should not be spared at any cost."

Speaking about the ongoing investigation, DCP (South) said: " Reason for the suicide is yet to be known. We are investigating his recent Facebook page. His room was searched but no suicide note was found. We have sealed his room so that we can investigate more. It is too early say anything about the reason for his suicide.

JNU faculty however denied the allegations of inequality among its students.


Kolkata, Mar 14 (IBNS): Hours after a four-day-old baby boy was allegedly stolen from state government-run Calcutta Medical College and Hospital in central Kolkata, city police on Tuesday evening released the photo of a suspected woman and has announced a reward of 1,00,000 rupees to trace the lady, officials said.

"We have received a CCTV footage from Kolkata Metro Rail, where it was seen that a middle-aged lady, wearing green saree and holding a baby in her lap, boarded a Kavi Subhas bound train from Central metro station, which is very close to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital," Joint CP (Crime) of Kolkata Police, Vishal Garg, told IBNS.

"Besides examining the CCTV footage of all intermediate stations between Central and Kavi Subhas, we have announced a reward of 1 lakh rupees to find the woman," Garg further said.

Earlier in the afternoon, a young woman from city's Bagmari area alleged that a woman, who introduced herself as an attendant, had stolen her baby son, who was born on last Friday (Mar 10) from the hospital's Eden Building in broad daylight.

Nearly 26-year-old Saraswati Naskar, whose baby son has gone missing, told IBNS, "A middle-aged woman, wearing green coloured saree, took me and my child for check up and directed me to bring a blood test's report from my bed."

"Few minutes later, when I returned with blood test reports, I found neither that woman nor my baby," she further said.

Following the incident, Saraswati's family members demonstrated at the hospital and when policemen reached there, they engaged in a scuffle with the cops.

Later a heavy police force deployed to the spot to bring the situation under control.

The patient party has lodged complaint of child theft at Bowbazar Police Station nearby and before the hospital authority.

However, superintendent of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, Shikha Banerjee, told IBNS that she had informed the state health department about the incident, while no reaction has been received from the health department officials yet.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
Kolkata, Mar 14 (IBNS): Nearly nine hours after a newborn boy was allegedly stolen from Calcutta Medical College and Hospital in central Kolkata, police on Tuesday night booked a suspected woman from city's Bagmari area and rescued the baby from her home, officials said.

According to reports, the middle-aged woman, Chinmayee Beij, and her husband have been detained from their residence at Bagmari and currently they are being quizzed.

"We have rescued the stolen baby and brought him to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital," a senior official of Kolkata Police told IBNS.

Locals said that after watching the suspect's CCTV footage on TV news channels, they identified the woman and informed local councilor and police.

According to local media reports, residence of the suspect was vandalized by locals.

Earlier in the afternoon, nearly 26-year-old Saraswati Naskar, who is also a resident of Bagmari area, alleged that a woman had stolen her baby son, who was born on last Friday (Mar 10), from the hospital's Eden Building in broad daylight.

Hours after the incident, city police released a suspect's CCTV footage and had announced a reward of 1 lakh rupees to catch the woman.

However, police have started investigation into the incident, while the detained duo are being interrogated.

"We will conduct a DNA test of the baby to confirm his identity," a police official told IBNS.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
New York, Mar 14 (Just Earth News): Unless the international community provides additional resources and authorities in Yemen allow aid workers access to hungry people, families in some of the war-torn countryas most food insecure areas will die, warned the head of the United Nations emergency food programme.



Ertharin Cousin, the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), who is in Aden and Sanaa on a three-day visit, met with families struggling to feed their children and visited nutrition centres and health facilities.

It is a race against time, and if we do not scale up assistance to reach those who are severely food insecure, we will see famine-like conditions in some of the worst-hit and inaccessible areas which means that people will die, Cousin said.

Describing the situation as heartbreaking, Cousin noted that WFP reached a record number of 4.9 million food insecure people in the country in February alone.

The UN agency has plans to reach all seven million in need, but urgently needs nearly $460 million, and access by sea and land.

Humanitarians and aid workers are making a difference in Yemen as they have prevented Yemen from slipping into a famine until now, she said.

The challenge is that there are areas that are inaccessible where people are severely food insecure. These are the pockets that are at serious risk of people dying of hunger, she added.

The two-year long conflict in Yemen has worsened chronic food insecurity in the country, which was already considered one of the poorest in the world.

Photo: WFP

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Mar 14 (Just Earth News): The United Nations envoy for Somalia has strongly condemned this morningas bomb blasts at two locations in Mogadishu that reportedly killed a number of civilians.



These latest attacks come at a time when solidarity, not violence, among Somalis is badly needed, said Michael Keating, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the African country, in a press statement.

The country is grappling with a severe drought that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of people. The timing and suffering caused by on Mondays blasts are outrageous; this violent extremism cannot possibly be justified, he added.

According to the statement, the first blast occurred near the General Dhagabadan training facility of the Somali National Army, and initial accounts indicate that only the suicide bomber who was driving an explosives-laden minibus died in the explosion.

The second attack was also carried out by a bomber driving a vehicle filled with explosives who attacked the gate of the Weheliye Hotel on the Somali capitals congested Makka al-Mukarama road in a deliberate attempt to inflict a high number of casualties on hotel staff and guests, motorists and pedestrians.

Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the explosion at the hotel.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the deceased and wish a full and speedy recovery to those who sustained injuries in on Mondays attacks, Keating said.

Photo: UNSOM

Source: www.justearthnews.com
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces breached the Artsakh ceasefire 55 times on March 13 and overnight March 14, the defense ministry of Artsakh told ARMENPRESS.

The ministry said Azerbaijani forces used various caliber firearms to fire more than 630 shots at Artsakh military positions, as well as 82mm mortars in the southern direction (2 shells).

The Defense Army of Artsakh mainly refrained from taking countermeasures and carried on their service, the ministry said in a statement.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. The UN headquarters in New York has been shut down on March 14 due to an expected snowstorm which will hit the East Coast of the United States, the UN press service said.

The UN headquarters will be closed on March 14 due to severe weather conditions, it said.

Several sessions were scheduled in the HQ during the day, including discussions on slavery and human trafficking in armed conflicts.

Meteorologists said the snowstorm which is approaching New York will bring up to 45cm precipitation, and heavy winds.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. US President Donald Trump will provide his annual salary to charity, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, BBC reports.

The annual salary of the US President is 400,000 USD.

According to Spicer, Trump wants reporters to help him in choosing the spheres for the charity.

Earlier Trump has been accused of not donating anything for charity during his many years of successful business career.

Trumps net worth was listed as 3.7 billion USD by Forbes in 2016.

Among other US President who gave their salary for charity include Herbert Hoover and John Kennedy.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. The third round of talks over Syria has kicked off in Astana on March 14, RIA Novosti reported.

A number of bilateral and trilateral consultations are expected. Currently the meeting is being held between the Russian delegation and UN representatives.

The US delegation is represented by the US Ambassador to Kazakhstan and the representative from Washington. Turkey and Iran are represented by Deputy Ministers.

Issues related to the exchange of captives and creation of a working group on demining of humanitarian units will be discussed at the Astana meeting.

Earlier it was reported the Syrian armed opposition will not take part in the Astana talks.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan published an article in Russias Izvestia newspaper.

ARMENPRESS presents the unofficial translation of the article.

Armenia has reached a unique milestone in the 25th jubilee of the third republic  with a clear and valuable experience of state-building, with its achievements and mistakes, but with a confident glance towards the future. This path hasnt been easy. Despite the difficulties overcoming the consequences of the 1988 earthquake, the war which was imposed on us, refugee flows to Armenia, blockade, suspension of economic ties with the outside world, energy crisis and other issues, Armenia has taken specific steps in the direction of restoring its independent statehood. This very aspiration has united and is uniting around 10 million of our compatriots worldwide, with the desire of seeing Armenia as a secure, democratic and blooming country.

In conditions of the threat of physical destruction of the people of Nagorno Karabakh and territorial ambitions towards Armenia we focused our entire attention on the countrys defense capabilities. It isnt surprising that one of the first accomplished institutions is our army, which for a very long time now is considered to be the strongest and most battleworthy army in the region. And today, after 25 years of formation, the Armed Forces of Armenia continue to get improved, strengthening tactical possibilities, equipping with modern armaments, develop effective administration system in a complex way with international military-political cooperation and civil democratic supervision.

Armenia is consistently increasing and strengthening its defense capabilities, including in the circle of military-technical cooperation with its strategic partner Russia. We established a joint group of troops and a unified air defense system. The 102nd Russian military base is stationed in the territory of Armenia.

The visit to the 102nd military base in Gyumri with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 was a significant event in the circle of the Armenian-Russian military-technical cooperation, where issues related to modernizing the military-technical equipment of the base and raising service efficiency were viewed. For the solution of these issues it is appropriate for the Armenian and Russian sides to engage in stakeholder discussions over the project on establishing a joint military-industrial complex in Gyumri.

Along with that, the volume of the multifunctional complex should be viewed in such way that it can become a platform of establishing military-technical cooperation of bordering states of Armenia and Russia, with the possibility of entry to traditional markets for Russia for armaments, simultaneously with solving the modernization issues of the 102nd military base. Creation of jobs in Gyumri will be a factor for improving the social-economic conditions in the city.

All of this is exclusively aimed at guaranteeing providing of security and the clear democratic development of the country, proceeding from ensuring peace and stability in our fragile region, where unsolved armed conflicts exist.

Being the guarantor of security of the people of NKR, Armenia, in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, continues consistent and constructive efforts for seeking ways of peaceful settlement of the issue.

Azerbaijans new aggression against Nagorno Karabakh in 2016 significantly harmed the negotiations process and the efforts which were aimed at restoring trust between the sides.

The escalation of the situation along the entire line of contact on February 24-25, 2017, once again showed that the issue of revealing the violator of the ceasefire regime remains problematic, and underscored the actuality of the Vienna and St. Petersburg agreements on introducing mechanisms of investigation for ceasefire violations and its immediate implementation, aimed at stopping gunfire. Unlike other conflicts, the continuation of Russias, USs and Frances consensus in the process of the Karabakh conflict settlement allows to view the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship as an effective platform for constructive dialogue between these countries.

Baku must finally understand that Armenia and the Co-Chairing countries speak the same language. There is no alternative to negotiations in a civilized world. War isnt a way of solving the issue and it will be possible to reach peace only through dialogue, and not through ultimatums. We proceed from the fact that the right of nations to manage their own destiny is considered an inseparable part of the modern world. And it is only on this basis that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict should be settled.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the assessments of the international expert community, who believe that a democratic state structure is consistently being established in Artsakh. Since 1991, presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Nagorno Karabakh Republic in competitive conditions, and through the 1998 elections the local self-governing bodies were established.

According to assessments of international observers, as a step aimed at developing the civil society and strengthening democratic institutions, elections in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic pass in accordance to the Electoral Code of the country and international rights norms. By the Constitution adopted through the 2006 referendum the state-building process of Nagorno Karabakh received a systematic essence. Currently the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, which was renamed to Artsakh Republic after the recent constitutional referendum, is a stability and security factor both in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone, and the fragile region of the Greater Middle East, with its level of development of democratic institutions and political culture.

Despite the Karabakh conflict being unresolved and the objective difficulties associated with it, the unfavorable situation of the international economic conjuncture, we succeeded in creating appropriate stable macroeconomic conditions for development of the country. All of this is also highly appreciated by our international partners. Armenia has been named one of the most liberalized countries for doing business by international ranking agencies. We find improvement of the investment and labor environment to be one of the priority issues. One of the investment advantages of Armenia is that we have privileged trading regimes with many countries, free trade agreements with almost all CIS countries. Armenia uses advantages of privileged trade regimes  GSP system with USA, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, and the generalized GSP+ system with countries of the European Union.

After joining the Eurasian Economic Union our economic and commercial possibilities greatly expanded due to the fact that the 180 million strong EEU member state markets opened for us. The Union creates possibilities for the free movement of products, services, capital and labor force. This undoubtedly is a big advantage. One of Armenias important commercial-economic partners, the major investor in various branches of our economy  industry, transportation, mining, telecommunication, is Russia. This year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties with Russia and the 20th anniversary og the agreement of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance. However, we dont intend to be satisfied with what we have achieved. The potential of our cooperation is undoubtedly a lot greater. This is what motivates the governments of our countries in seeking new investment possibilities for expanding the mutually beneficial economic cooperation.

After the 2015 constitutional referendum, Armenia faces fundamental political reforms, which are aimed at forming a full parliamentary administration system. Strengthening of democratic institutions, development of an open civil society, formation of transparent and effective administration system are the strategic directions of our countrys development. The main tasks facing Armenias leadership are ensuring security and creating conditions for stable democratic development.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Ombudsman (Human Rights Defender) Arman Tatoyan held a meeting with US Ambassador to Armenia H.E. Richard Mills and Armenia Mission Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Deborah Grieser.

The Ombudsmans Office told ARMENPRESS the sides discussed both bilateral cooperation issues as well as human rights issues in Armenia.

In addition, Tatoyan briefed Ambassador Mills and Grieser on the new regulations of the constitutional law on the human rights defender and the ongoing works to initiate it.

I am glad to be here to continue our close coordination works with the human rights defender. Your office has a significant role in strengthening human rights in Armenia. The US Government remains faithful to its commitment in assisting this issue, Richard Mills said.

The sides expressed willingness to strengthen and expand the existing productive cooperation.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Armenia fights for not only the universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but also against all genocides in general, President Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview with the Spanish EFE news agency, reports Armenpress.

Yes, we consider that the denial is the continuation of the crime. And we believe that it is impunity and denial that give birth to new crimes, the President said.

He stated that the current Turkish leadership is being strictly criticized for their denial policy. Our accusation is not directed to the Turkish people. Furthermore, we didnt aim to raise anti-Turkish hysteria in our country or in the entire world. I think the commemoration ceremonies of the Armenian Genocide didnt have any influence on the Armenian-Turkish relations since those relations exist directly, President Sargsyan said.

The Armenian President recalled the promotion of contacts and long-lasting talks between the Armenian and Turkish diplomats in 2008. Then we signed two documents, and this signing was held with the presence of Foreign Ministers of three countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and we waited until the Turks ratify the documents. Ratification was planned both in the Turkish and the Armenian parliaments. We wait for it till now. And we are confident that Turkey will not ratify the documents since it is known for quite a long time that the Turks very clearly and loudly expressed their opinion: today they link the Armenian-Turkish relations with the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. They propose preconditions to us. We dont announce the Genocide recognition by Turkey as a precondition, we ourselves are not ready to accept any precondition by Turks. In the 21st century the states must have relations. We say lets establish diplomatic relations, then we will discuss every issue related to the bilateral relations, President Sargsyan said.
Toronto, Mar 14 (IBNS): Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in a meeting on Monday in Detroit released a joint statement in which they reaffirmed their strong partnership and discussed ways to advance their integrated economies to create jobs, a media reports said.

Wynne had tweeted, Ontario & Michigan are partners with deeply integrated economies. Terrific meeting w/ Governor Snyder on how we'll continue to work together.

Ontario had invested nearly $21 billion (US) in exports in 2016 in Michigan. More than 91 percent of Canadas trade and investment to support approximately 259,000 Michigan jobs was with Ontario, CBCNews reports said.

"Continuing our strong partnership and ensuring a seamless flow of materials between our regions is key to both Ontario and Michigan," their statement said.

The leaders were looking forward to co-hosting the next Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers Leadership Summit this fall in Windsor and Detroit.

Snyder tweeted: I'm thrilled to have been able to talk with Premier @Kathleen_Wynne about important topics that affect both MI & Ontario.

They were confident that this event will reinforce the significance of Great Lakes to our environment and economy.

They were also eager to review the progress of the Conference's Economic Task Force focusing on the regional economy, as well as updates from the Aquatic Invasive Species Task Force and the Regional Maritime Entity.

Snyder tweeted "the bridge is on track and will only make for a better stronger relationship" with Ontario

During their last meeting in June 2016 their discussion was focused on protecting the Great Lakes from algae blooms and Asian carp.

They had also discussed about the ways to support the auto and manufacturing sectors.

Snyder thanked Canada for its commitment to building a Windsor-Detroit Bridge in the future to support and reinforce trade.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)

Image: Wynne and Snyder: Twitter
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. State-private sector cooperation is needed for development of a national wine trademark in Armenia. High quality vineyards must be established in Vayots Dzor, Aragatsotn and other communities, Russias honored sommelier, author of the Armenian Wines and Russian Wines guides and President of the Union of Sommeliers and Experts of Russia Arthur Sargsyan told ARMENPRESS.

- Last week you met with Armenias minister of agriculture. How would you assess the results?

- I met with Ignati Arakelyan in the Center of Strategic Initiatives. The centers environment, the young team, contribute to the discussion of the projects. We think in the same direction over numerous issues. It is gratifying that the Armenian government has specific perceptions on the important role of viticulture and winemaking in the countrys economy. In my opinion, the state must play a main role for the development of that sector, namely the Wine of Armenia Fund and the winemaking community. The ministry of agriculture has interesting ideas regarding preservations of grape types, mapping, and preservation of geographical naming. All these projects can and must be combined in the strategy of developing the Wine of Armenia trademark. This all will bring new investments, jobs and great increase of tourism flow to the countrys economy in 3-5 years. A lot has been done for the development of winemaking in Armenia: liberalized laws in the justice sector, no banns are implemented on advertising. But all this is passive assistance. The state-business cooperation is needed for development of a national trademark of Armenias wine. This requires development of public structures in the wine market, development of unions of winemakers and viticulture.In winemaking states winemakers themselves decide the boundaries of wine circles, permitted kinds and issues related to agricultural equipment. The state only assists in formulating the laws and supervises their realization. Today we see similar process in Russia. I am sure the development of Armenias winemaking will take a path similar to this.

- What position does the Armenian wine have in Russias market, as well as others?

- Now, it is a unique moment in the history of Armenian winemaking. Armenia has a zero image in the winemaking field. At the same time there are unique advantages, like the endemic grape types, the 6000 years old traditional winemaking. These are wines which amaze people during the first try. People tend to say wow upon trying them. If we realize this potential correctly, Armenia will go with the path like Austria, which became a supplier of high quality and pricy wines during 30 years, he said.

The full interview is available in Armenia.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Turkeys Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag accused the Venice Commission on partiality in the report on the Turkish constitutional changes, Anadolu reported.

The Minister said the unfair and biased report includes wrong information. By the adopted report the Venice Commission is in favor of saying no in the upcoming referendum in Turkey. This complete political and biased report has no respect and value from the perspective of Turkey, the Justice Minister said.

The Venice Commission adopted a report on Turkeys constitutional changes. The report says in case of adopting the constitutional changes by the results of the April 16 referendum, the country will be transformed into an authoritarian presidential system.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. At the invitation of Russias President Vladimir Putin, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan arrived in Russia on official visit on March 14, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress.

The official welcoming ceremony of President Sargsyan was held in Moscows Vnukovo International Airport.

Within the framework of the visit, Serzh Sargsyan will be hosted at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations where he will have a meeting with the students and the faculty, will deliver speech and will answer questions of the meeting participants.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. French Ambassador to Armenia Jean-Francois Charpentier says Armenia and France need to cooperate in trade-economic field, reports Armenpress.

He said Armenian President Serzh Sargsyans recent visit to France was a good base for that.

It can be described as an excellent, high-level visit. It was also important since this year Armenia and France celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. I would like to state that since the establishment of those relations, an intense, dynamic and steady cooperation has been established. We know that during this recent meeting three documents were signed, two of which were dedicated to the cooperation in the university field. And despite such trust, there is still one field where many problems exist. That is the trade-economic field, and both sides want to reach the cooperation in this field at a high level. I want to add that the participation of Minister of Economic Development and Investments to the visit, as well as the Presidents meeting with the business representatives of the Armenian community was logical, the French Ambassador said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan who is on an official visit in the Russian Federation visited Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) on March 14. The correspondent of Armenpress reports from Moscow Serzh Sargsyan was met by rector of the Institute Anatoly Torkunov. Following the tour inside the Institute President Sargsyan met with the students and professors of the MGIMO.

At the beginning of the meeting Rector Anatoly Torkunov read the decision of MGIMOs scientific board, by which the President of Armenia was awarded with the title of Honorary Doctor of MGIMO. Introducing the guest the rector stressed that the visit of the Armenian President to the MGIMO is a sign of great respect towards the students and particularly the Institute.

Anatoly Torkunov noted that the MGIMO is historically in debt to Armenian families, particularly the Lazarians, for their contribution. He also mentioned that the Institutes ties with Armenia have been preserved also during the post-Soviet years. 150 Armenian citizens have graduated from the MGIMO since Armenias independence and currently 50 students are studying there.

Your visit takes place on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Russia. Armenia is Russias most important ally not only in the post-Soviet area but throughout the world, Anatoly Torkunov said, addressing to the President of Armenia.

President Sargsyan thanked that scientific board of the Institute for the title and stressed that MGIMO has had an essential contribution to preparing prominent diplomats, public and political figures, businessmen and journalists.

Today I would like to express my satisfaction with the key contribution the MGIMO has had in preparing cadres for the Republic of Armenia who applied and continue to apply their knowledge gained in this key educational institution, Serzh Sargsyan said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. UAEs citizens will be able to visit Armenia without visa, Armenpress reports the relevant decision is included in the Cabinets meeting of March 16.

The adoption of the decision will give the citizens of the UAE an opportunity to visit Armenia without visa and remain there for 180 days within a year.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Armenia, as the security guarantor of the people of Nagorno Karabakh has to make efforts to preserve the balance of power in the region and to prevent new escalations. The correspondent of Armenpress reports President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan announced in his speech in front of the students and professors of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

At the same time we are ready to adequately retaliate to any attempt of unleashing war. War is not a way out. There is no alternative to negotiations. Armenia, together with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair states, Russia, the United States and France will continue efforts aimed at exclusively peaceful settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the Armenian President said.

According to him, security issues remain actual topics for Armenia.

Our partners used to assure us until 2016 that by militaristic rhetoric and anti-Armenian hysteria Baku tries to solve its domestic political issues. The 4-day military adventurism launched by Azerbaijan in April, 2016 against Nagorno Karabakh was the materialization of the propaganda, which came against the wish of the people of Artsakh to decide their fate freely in their motherland, the President of Armenia stressed.

Serzh Sargsyan reminded that during the Vienna and St. Petersburg summits following the April war the strict abidance to the trilateral agreements of 1994/95 was highlighted.

Another agreement was reached over installing mechanisms investigating ceasefire violations in the conflict zone and expanding the number of OSCE observers. But Azerbaijan, as in the past, evades from the implementation of these agreements, the Armenian President noted.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Armenia cannot remain indifferent to the developments in the Middle East, Armenpress reports Defense Minister of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan told Russian RT TV channel. First, the Middle East has been home to a large part of Armenian Diaspora for a long period. Fleeing the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians they found new shelter in Syria, Lebanon and other Arab states. They were very well receives in these countries. Therefore, no Armenian can remain unconcerned over what is going on in Syria, Vigen Sargsyan said.

He stated that one of the largest Armenian communities still operates in Aleppo. Armenia remains the only country that continues to preserve its consulate in Aleppo. Despite all the hardships we, together with Russia, implement a humanitarian program by sending aid to Syria. We consider it our obligation and think the Syrian people needs this help, the Armenian defense Minister said.

The Minister reminded that in the recent years Armenia receives many refugees from Syria. We received nearly 20 thousand people from Syria. The majority of them are our compatriots but there are also representatives of other Christian minorities. We implemented a program for their fast intergration, granted them citizenship and all the necessary documents, the Defense Minister said.

According to Vigen Sargsyan the Middle East is not so far from Armenia and the developments taking place there cannot leave no impact on the security system of our region.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. The continuous deepening and expansion of allied partnership with the Russian Federation is among Armenias foreign policy priorities. In the last two years bilateral relations have reached the top level in terms of intensity and content, correspondent of Armenpress reports President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan announced at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) on March 14 in a meeting with students and professors. According to him these relations are based on mutual confidence and bilateral conviction of prospects and firmness of the partnership. President Sargsyan reminded that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Russia, as well as the 20th anniversary of the great treaty signed on August 29, 1997 of Friendship, partnership and mutual assistance.

For centuries Armenia and Russia have been united by the friendly relations between our peoples. We have together passed through the challenges of history and time, which paved the way for the development of inter-state relations leading to strategic partnership. The unprecedented high level of Armenian-Russian cooperation is today demonstrated by the top level active political dialogue, Serzh Sargsyan said.

According to the President of Armenia, Armenia and Russia develop a productive multilateral cooperation in the sidelines of the CIS, EAEU and the CSTO. In this context Serzh Sargsyan recalled the statement adopted by the CSTO in 2000, which says Military-political relations between the Member States of the Treaty are a priority compared with military relations with the 3rd countries that are not member to the Collective Security Organization treaty.

I have to mention that breaching these principles does not promote the reputation of the Organization. Treaties must be abided and fully implemented but not by choice depending on the conjuncture, the Armenian President emphasized.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. The developments of the recent years show that Armenioa was able to create a flexible economic system under the condition of limited resources, the correspondent of Armenpress reports President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan announced at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) on March 14 in a meeting with students and professors.

I will bring the sphere of Information and Communication Technologies as an example, which in the recent years has become one of the propellers of our economy. The share of this sphere in our GDP is about 4% which is comparable with many developed countries. Our Cabinet has presented a serious agenda of reforms aiming to raise the efficiency of governance, attractiveness of the country for investments and to foster public-private cooperation, Serzh Sargsyan said.

The President of Armenia emphasized that the consistent policy aimed at attracting foreign investments is among Armenias key priorities. One of the comparable advantages of Armenia for investments is that our country has privileged trade regime with many countries, the President said. He reminded that Armenia has a GSP regime with the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Japan and Norway, and GSP+ regime with the EU member states.

We pay great attention to the development of tourism. Starting from February 23 the citizens of the Russian Federation are able to enter Armenia with internal passports. I am convinced it will have a very positive impact on the rise of the flow of Russian tourists. But this agreement has a more important meaning, which demonstrates the high level confidence between our states, President Sargsyan stated.

He added that he sees Armenias economic development also by its active involvement in regional integration entities. In this context he attached a particular importance to the EAEU. Despite all the economic hardships, positive achievements are evident, Sargsyan said, adding that it was thank to the 180 million strong market that the EAEU member states were able to mitigate the negative consequences of external economic developments. This is a large market for Armenia and we successfully use it, he said.

Serzh Sargsyan was satisfied to record that global interest towards the EAEU rises. Cooperation issues with China, Iran, India, Singapore and a number of other states are intensively discussed. This undoubtedly expands EAEUs international reach, the Armenian President said.

President Sargsyan also talked about the completion of talks between Armenia and the EU over the new framework agreement. It allows us to outline the prospects for our mutually beneficial cooperation considering Armenias commitments within other integration entities, Serzh Sargsyan said, adding that Armenia develops cooperation also with the USA, and Asian-Pacific, Latin American regions. We see significant potential in the Silk road economic zone for the implementation of major infrastructural projects, which will give an opportunity to develop the logistic capacities of not only Armenia but also the Eurasian economic Union, Serzh sargsyan emphasized.
Toronto, Mar 14 (IBNS): A free event was organized by the Indigenous Studies Student Union at the University of Toronto (U of T) featuring dancing, singing, food, and workshops, media reports said.

Besides celebrating past and present indigenous students, the main motive of the event was to educate people about Indigenous traditions.

When Eileen Antone, an indigenous person came to the University of Toronto (U O T) in the early 90s, there was only one other Indigenous student.

"My mantra became, 'Where are the aboriginal students? Where are the aboriginal faculty? Where are the aboriginal staff?", Antone was quoted as saying by CBCNews reports said.

Her goal was to see the growth of Indigenous community at the university and after years of hard work there was the first 500-person in the school gymnasium on Saturday, said Antone.

Julie Blair, the finance coordinator of U of T said the powwow celebration enabled everyone to gather together to share their culture

One of Blairs post in her Facebook reads: What a great day! I kept looking around in awe at what we accomplished by working together in a good way. Thanks to everyone who came out to the Honouring our Students Pow Wow and Indigenous Festival at U of T! Indigenous Studies Students' Union

Yet another post by Indigenous Studies Students' Union (ISSU) - University of Toronto reads,ISSU will be forever grateful to everyone who helped make this event happen. We are all still in awe from yesterday. We'll see everyone next year! #HOSPW2017 #IndigenizeURCampus.

Following the 2014 federal Truth and Reconciliation Report (TRC), the University of Toronto released its own report in January recommending more spaces for Indigenous people and promotion of Indigenous employees.

Since the TRC report came out, there had been more awareness on campus about Indigenous issues, said Blair

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and a U of T alumna was also present at the powwow and said, "We never had anything that really taught us about, not only this history of Indigenous people in our country, but the presence of Indigenous people right now," CBCNews reports said.

While stressing the need of the personal cultural identity for Indigenous students to succeed, it was also important, Bennett said that non-Indigenous people recognize and learn about Indigenous culture in Toronto.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)

Image of Indigenous people in Canada: Wikipedia


"We informed the Canadian government of Bombardier's investments and interests in Russia when Canada was considering imposing sanctions," Bombardier spokesman Mike Nadolski told the Globe and Mail

Canadian train manufacturer Bombardier pressured Ottawa to exclude a former Russian railway boss with close ties to the Kremlin from sanctions levied over the annexation of Crimea, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported Tuesday.

Vladimir Yakunin -- a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin and head of Russia's railways from 2005 to 2015 -- appeared in documents filed last week by Swedish prosecutors in a bribery case against Bombardier employees in Russia related to rail deals in Azerbaijan.

"We informed the Canadian government of Bombardier's investments and interests in Russia when Canada was considering imposing sanctions," Bombardier spokesman Mike Nadolski told the Globe and Mail.

"Our main concern was ensuring that our rail business would not be placed at a competitive disadvantage against our global competitors.

"Including Mr. Yakunin on Canada's sanctions list could have unilaterally harmed a Canadian business."

Bombardier presumably worried that putting sanctions on Yakunin would harm their business in Russia.

The Globe and Mail noted that "Bombardier's fortunes in Russia improved after Mr. Yakunin took over the top post of Russian Railways in 2005."

Yakunin, 68, had also not been targeted by EU, Chinese, Japanese or South Korean sanctions.

But he did figure on a US list of Russian individuals facing financial restrictions and travel bans in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Ukraine.

Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent, had lambasted the former Tory government for not including Yakunin in its sanctions, calling it "hypocritical."

But since coming to power, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has not amended the list to include him.

Bombardier did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
South Australia will build Australias largest battery to store renewable energy and a new 250 megawatt gas-fired power plant.

South Australias premier Jay Weatherill announced on Tuesday the governments plan to build, own and operate the plant which will cost $360 million.

He said it was part of a plan to spend $550 million to take control of the state energy market.

Mr Weatherill said the plan would put downward pressure on electricity prices.

Well get reliable, affordable and clean power, he said.

Also read: Musk Bets He Can Fix Aussie Power Woes in 100 Days or Its Free

Our state has built its reputation on a clean, green environment and this plan recognises that clean energy is our future.

Were taking charge of our energy future with a plan that will deliver South Australian power for South Australians.

South Australians have been let down by a broken national energy market that puts profits before people. Were going to put people first. 

The plant will provide emergency back-up power and system stability services for South Australians, in the meantime procuring temporary back-up generation if necessary.

The strategy will also include legislation to give the energy minister direct power to intervene in the electricity market and the establishment of a $150 million renewable energy fund to encourage investment.

Also read: National power shortages looming: regulator warns

The government will also be able to use its purchasing power through its own electricity contract to attract a new power generator, increasing competition in the market, the announcement said.

The plan is expected to create at least 630 new jobs.

The government will set an energy security target to enforce electricity retailers to use more locally-generated power.

This is a plan that puts control of our energy system back in South Australian hands, energy minister Tom Koutsantonis said.

For too long South Australian households and businesses have been at the mercy of private companies seeking to maximise their profits and a national operator that manages our grid from Melbourne and Sydney.

Story continues

It is unclear whether the announcement was linked to an offer from Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk on the weekend to install $25 million worth of battery storage within 100 days.

Also read: 5G data is coming, and it will supercharge your internet connection

We cant rely on this broken national market any longer.

Our plan will deliver increased local generation and powers to help prevent outages and more competition to put downward pressure on power prices for families and businesses.

Mr Musk tweeted that if he couldnt do it within the time limit the technology would be free.

Mr Weatherill said he would examine the offer.

Todays announcement follows a string of power outages in South Australia, including a blackout that left industry crippled for up to two weeks and sparked fears of more outages across the national electricity market due to tight supplies.
pharmaceuticals

It hasn?t been a good couple of years for billionaire investor Bill Ackman.

In 2016, Ackman?s hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management lost 13.5% of its value. The S&P 500 was up 11.9% in the same period of time. And 2015?s results were even worse with Pershing Square losing 20.5% versus the S&P 500?s gain of 1.4%.

In Ackman?s defence, he did kill the market in 2014; Pershing Square increased 40.4% that year versus a S&P 500 return of 13.7%. Pershing Square has also still significantly outperformed since its debut on January 1, 2004, increasing 503.1% versus a total return for the S&P 500 of 163.4%.

Several of Ackman?s large positions had a miserable 2016. Shares of Mondelez International, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Nomad Foods Limited all sank in 2016, and his well-publicized Herbalife short position spent much of the year under water before shares cooperated.

But none of those losses come close to Ackman?s Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc. (TSX:VRX)(NYSE:VRX) debacle. Shares of the controversial drug maker nosedived in 2016, falling from a high of $134 each on the Toronto Stock Exchange to a low of $18. Shares have fallen even further thus far in 2017; they closed on Monday at $16.21.

After the markets closed on Monday, sources confirmed that Ackman has thrown in the towel on his Valeant position and sold every last share. Valeant shares promptly tanked on the news, losing some 8% in after-hours? trading.

Should investors join Ackman and dump their shares? Or are things bound to get better? Let?s take a closer look.

The case for selling

Perhaps the biggest issue facing Valeant today isn?t the fallout from its much-publicized 2015 accounting scandal, nor the accusations of price gouging. It?s the company?s massive US$30 billion debt load.

Yes, the company is taking steps to reduce its obligations. It recently announced the sale of two different non-core divisions, which should free up about US$2 billion to throw towards debt. CEO Joseph Papa has pledged to pay down US$5 billion by the middle of 2018 as well.

Story continues

There are two problems with this plan. The first is it just isn?t happening as fast as Wall Street would like. And second, the company is forced to sell assets to pay for the debt. This impacts its long-term profitability.

In short, once the debt is at a favourable level, much of the company?s good assets may be gone.

The case for buying

Valeant?s bull scenario comes down to two words: adjusted earnings.

In 2016, the company reported adjusted earnings of US$5.47 per share, or a loss of US$6.94 on a GAAP basis.

Why such a difference? Valeant has a number of moving parts, of course, but much of the gap comes down to the amortization of intangibles from its many acquisitions. Remember, amortization is an expense, but not a cash expense. This means that Valeant delivers plenty of cash flow, despite posting big losses on an income basis. The company highlights adjusted earnings for just this reason.

Many investors don?t trust Valeant?s earnings, especially after the accounting scandal involving Phildor. This is why shares have a current market cap of US$3.75 billion, despite generating US$2.1 billion in cash flow in 2016. Shares are exceptionally cheap as a multiple of cash flow.

The bottom line

With Valeant shares likely to make new lows during Tuesday?s trading, it?s easy for investors to throw in the towel. After all, Bill Ackman, one of Wall Street?s most respected investors, just did the same.

But those investors are ignoring an important point: Valeant shares are incredibly cheap on a price-to-cash flow basis. It also has other potential upcoming catalysts, including more asset sales, a potential settlement with the SEC, and further debt repayment.

Ultimately, Valeant is incredibly risky. It could declare bankruptcy in 2017 if things don?t go right, or it could end the year much higher than today. It?s just too tough to call.

Six "pro" strategies for today's highly uncertain market

Motley Fool Canada's $250,000-real-money-portfolio service, Motley Fool Pro, is currently closed to new members. But lead advisor Jim Gilles is doing something special for investors who are worried about the market and where it will head in 2017.

He's revealing the six strategies he uses in Pro to help members guardrail their portfolios and make money in up, down, and sideways markets.

For a limited time you can download this "Pro 2017 Survival Guide" free of charge by simply clicking here.

More reading

Fool contributor Nelson Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. David Gardner owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Tom Gardner owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Chipotle Mexican Grill is a recommendation of Stock Advisor Canada.



Six "pro" strategies for today's highly uncertain market

Motley Fool Canada's $250,000-real-money-portfolio service, Motley Fool Pro, is currently closed to new members. But lead advisor Jim Gilles is doing something special for investors who are worried about the market and where it will head in 2017.

He's revealing the six strategies he uses in Pro to help members guardrail their portfolios and make money in up, down, and sideways markets.

For a limited time you can download this "Pro 2017 Survival Guide" free of charge by simply clicking here.

Fool contributor Nelson Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. David Gardner owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Tom Gardner owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Chipotle Mexican Grill is a recommendation of Stock Advisor Canada.


Its going to snow on Tuesday.

As of 5:00 p.m. ET, the National Weather Service was forecasting 12-24 inches of snow in New York City and had issued a blizzard warning for most of the region stretching from just north of Philadelphia through southeastern Maine.

As a result of the storm, markets should be a bit quieter on Tuesday.

There will be some economic data out, with the headline report from the National Federation of Independent Business, which will release its small business optimism index in the morning. This report has been among the most consistently bullish since Donald Trumps election as the presidents focus on cutting regulation has been seen as an immediate and positive development from smaller business owners.

Elsewhere in economic data, the February reading on import prices is also due out in the morning.

On Monday, markets were little-changed as investors await the latest policy announcement from the Federal Reserve  due out on Wednesday afternoon  though market pricing has, for almost two weeks now, been indicating a 0.25% rate hike is all but a formality.

As Neil Dutta, an economist at Renaissance Macro, said in a note on Monday, The FOMC meeting already happened.

Trumpcare, scored

On Monday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its report on the American Health Care Act, the Obamacare repeal bill proposed by House Republicans.

The headline numbers are, of course, going to get most of the play.

Twenty-four million more Americans  a projected 52 million vs. 28 million  will be uninsured by 2026 than had been forecast under Obamacare. In the next two years, premiums are expected to rise 15%-20%. In 2020, these will begin falling.

Additionally, the deficit would be decreased by $337 billion over the next ten years, which as my colleague Ethan Wolff-Mann points out would come largely from cutting Medicaid and subsidies for those buying insurance on the individual market.

The spin on this is likely to be three-fold  opponents wont like uninsured numbers rising, proponents will like the deficit falling, and those in the middle will note this bill is just the first in a series of changes that will be needed.

Story continues

And that final point is made clear in a table near the bottom of the CBOs report. This table shows that in 2026, 62-year-old Americans with an annual individual income of $26,500 would face healthcare premiums totaling $14,600 per year. Certainly, this is not feasible.

Premiums for older Americans are set to spike in a decade under the proposed Obamacare repeal bill. (Source: CBO)

How this bill proceeds through Congress remains to be seen, though the prospects appear dim.

In initial comments following the CBOs report, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Monday following the CBO reports release that the administration disagrees strenuously with the report. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Monday, This report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care.

But the initial discord among lawmakers following the CBOs report belies the real trouble that a flubbed healthcare package presents for Republicans.

As Max Nisen, a columnist at Bloomberg Gadly, noted on Twitter on Monday, an underrated part of this report is that for the next two years, premiums will still increase. Higher costs, along with underserved insurance exchanges, are often fingered as the reasons that Republicans insist Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight.

Speaker Ryans statement on Monday added that the bill scored by the CBO on Monday is the first of a three-pronged approach to addressing healthcare and stressed a focus on thinking long-term about reforming healthcare in the U.S. This is a process, and potentially a long and slow one.

Over the last few years, business leaders have increased calls for a focus on long term thinking over short-termism. Its unclear how well this message has been received.

This is, however, exactly the kind of message that Ryan and others are trying not only to get across to colleagues in the Senate and the President himself, but voters. And while the seemingly interminable 2016 election cycle ended just over four months ago, in a year well be talking about midterms.

And at least as the CBO sees it, voters will still be facing higher costs.



Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland

Read more from Myles here:
By Simon Jessop

LONDON (Reuters) - A consortium of Canadian and Kuwaiti investors has agreed to buy a minority stake in Britain's Thames Water from funds managed by Macquarie, ending the Australian group's 11-year investment in Britain's largest water firm.

The deal is the latest high-profile acquisition of British infrastructure by overseas investors, as pension schemes, sovereign wealth funds and others look to tap into stable returns tough to find in other financial markets.

Canadian pension fund investor Borealis Infrastructure and the infrastructure investing arm of the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) are buying a 26 percent stake in Kemble Water Holdings, the holding company of Thames Water.

Borealis, infrastructure investment manager for OMERS, the pension plan for Ontario's municipal employees, and Wren House Infrastructure Management, the infrastructure arm of the KIA, said they had agreed to buy the stake from Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets.

No financial details were disclosed.

Thames Water is Britain's largest water and wastewater services provider, with 15 million customers across London, the Thames Valley and surrounding areas. It supplies 2.6 billion liters of drinking water per day.

"The Consortium has met with Thames Water's existing management team and... will support Thames Water's ongoing 4.5 billion pound capital investment program - for the 2015 to 2020 regulatory period - the largest in the UK water industry," Borealis and Wren House said in a joint statement.

Macquarie, in a separate statement, said its Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 2, which held most of the stake, was divesting as it approaches maturity and the deal would end the group's involvement with Thames Water.

During its tenure, Thames Water invested more than 11 billion pounds, or around 1 billion pounds a year, more than twice that invested during the five-year period before privatization in 1989, it said.

"Today, Thames Water is undoubtedly a better, stronger and more customer-focused business than that which we invested in back in 2006," said Martin Stanley, global head of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.

(Reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by Lawrence White and Jason Neely)
A shopper (L) browses for health products in an aisle stocked with vitamin supplements at a Mr Vitamins store in Sydney, Australia, March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Reed

By Swati Pandey and Muyu Xu

SYDNEY/BEIJING (Reuters) - Australian retailers and manufacturers are rejigging their business models and reviewing strategies to sell goods into China amid confusion over a threatened government crackdown on e-commerce platforms.

Supermarket giant Woolworths Ltd late last year sacked an Australian online retail specialist it had hired specifically to spearhead its drive into online sales in China, a source told Reuters, replacing it with a Shanghai-based firm.

Other retailers, including supplement provider Mr. Vitamins, are also reconsidering their options after a move by China last April to raise taxes on goods bought on overseas e-commerce platforms failed to put the anticipated dampener on China's booming e-commerce market.

While the April decision initially led to panic dumping of products and sent some producers' shares tanking, normal business has largely resumed.

An army of informal traveling shopping agents, known as "daigou", meanwhile has continued to grow, catching some firms which pursued new sales channels on the hop.

"Many Australian e-commerce companies have had to change their business models completely," Genevieve Carrier, a director at Sydney-based healthfoods company Halo Foods, told Reuters.

Halo canceled a plan to sell products to China following the April crackdown but was now reviewing a more "fool-proof" strategy to make it work, Carrier added.

CRACKDOWN CONFUSION

Australian online exports to China have been one of the first markets to explode since a free trade agreement between the two countries took effect in December 2015.

Online cross-border purchases made in China are expected to reach $111 billion in 2017, up 30 percent on last year, according to United States researcher eMarketer Inc.

But the great prize remains distant for many in a market susceptible to consumer fickleness, nuanced regulatory changes and the whims of tens of thousands of "daigou" shoppers.

"Companies and brands need to be very proactive about how they do business in China otherwise it's very easy to become outdated," said Livia Wang, director at Sydney-based consultancy Access CN which advises Australian retailers on their China strategy. "The market moves very quickly."

Story continues

Woolworths hired eCargo Holdings Ltd in December 2015 to sell its wares on China's Tmall store, the consumer site of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, just months before the April crackdown.

But Woolworths terminated eCargo's contract late last year, the source cited earlier told Reuters. Australia's biggest company by sales confirmed the move, saying the change followed regular analysis of "ways to improve our offer."

Woolworths declined to name the replacement contractor or comment on the new arrangement. Sydney-listed eCargo did not respond to requests for comment.

Infant formula maker Bellamy's Australia was also burned by the unpredictability of the Chinese market, issuing a profit warning in December after the Beijing directive that sent its shares tumbling.

The company said it had sold to too many daigou and other dealers who were competing for the same consumers.

Bellamy's and vitamins manufacturer Blackmores Ltd, which blamed challenges in China for a 41 percent slump in first-half profit, both say they are pursuing a more stable arrangement with trusted wholesale dealers or larger daigou in order to get a reliable direct channel in to China.

FROM DAIGOU TO WESHANG

While some companies were stung by daigou shifts, New Zealand formula maker a2 Milk Co Ltd stood out last month when it posted a near 300 percent jump in half-year profit.

The company, which has embraced daigou sales, has lifted its online brand recognition among Chinese parents to over 40 percent, double that of Bellamy's, according to February report by UBS.

Meanwhile daigou, who were initially spooked into dumping products at airports last March, say it's very much business as usual.

"When the policy came out last year, all of us were worried that our business might be affected," said Perth resident Zhang Jingyi, a college student and daigou, who shops in Australia and ships products to China.

"But the policy is more talk than real action," she added. "Nothing has changed."

China's General Administration of Customs did not respond to requests for comment about the implementation of the rule changes.

But a customs agent in Jiangsu province said daigou were still operating to meet massive demand for imported goods, despite the practice being technically illegal in China.

"Normally customs will ask daigou people to pay taxes - if they are caught - or send them to smuggling suppression department if they carry huge amount of money," said the agent, who was not authorized to speak to media. "But considering the amount of luggage every day, it is impossible for customs to check all the daigou."

The five-year-old daigou business model is also evolving. Rather than buying products in Australia and transporting them over, a new breed of shopper-sellers now base themselves in China, where they can engage with customers more easily.

These intermediaries, now known as "WeShang" shoppers, or "social media-driven business", then send instructions to all-in-one "pack-and-send" offices in Australia for delivery.

"This is a safer way to do business in China and is very well appreciated in China too," said Access CN's Wang.

(Additional reporting by Byron Kaye and Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, and Adam Jourdan in SHANGHAI; Editing by Jane Wardell and Lincoln Feast)
gold

Growing concerns over the health of the global economy coupled with a range of geopolitical fissures continues to backstop the price of gold. Higher precious metals prices sparked a massive rally among beaten-down gold miners in mid-2016, but growing optimism about the health of the economy has seen them give the majority of those gains back.

One gold miner that failed to benefit from the rally and now appears attractively priced is Eldorado Gold Corp. (TSX:ELD)(NYSE:EGO).

Now what?

The primary reason for Eldorado?s failure to benefit from higher gold was market concern over the performance of its operations. Gold production during the third quarter 2016 dropped because of declining ore grades and the decision to sell its operations, including three operating mines in China.

As a result, 2016 production fell drastically. For the full year 2016, Eldorado reported output of 468,025 ounces, which was 33% lower than 2015.

Lower production accompanied by declining ore grades also caused costs to spike. All-in sustaining costs, which are probably the best measure of the total expenses associated with gold mining and sustaining production, spiked by almost 7%, further denting profitability.

In fact, for 2016, Eldorado reported a US$344 million loss, but this was less than a quarter of the loss reported for the previous year.

What many investors failed to grasp was that the sale of its Chinese assets netted Eldorado an impressive US$882 million ? well in excess of what some analysts believed those assets to be worth. The sale also reduced the level of risk associated with the miner?s portfolio.

You see, by selling those properties Eldorado divested itself of mature assets that required considerable investment to sustain production and were operating in a difficult and risky jurisdiction.

This massive cash injection couldn?t have come at a better time. It allowed Eldorado to bulk up its balance sheet, ending 2016 with US$1.1 billion of liquidity made up of cash on hand and a US$250 million line of credit. This will provide the financing required to develop its lower-risk, higher-quality mines located in Greece, Brazil, and Turkey. These projects, on completion, will create a significant increase in gold output; Eldorado is expecting them to boost production by up to 300,000 ounces annually.

Story continues

The higher-grade ore mined will lead to lower operating expenses, which, in conjunction with higher production, will give Eldorado?s earnings a healthy bump. Eldorado has forecast that these mines will help to reduce all-in-sustaining costs to a mere US$650 per ounce by 2020, making it one of the lowest-cost miners in its industry.

Nevertheless, investors should expect further short-term pain as Eldorado continues to reposition its mining portfolio and operations. Gold production for 2017 is forecast to be up to 25% lower than 2016, but, on a positive note, all-in sustaining costs are expected to fall by up to 6%, boosting Eldorado?s profitability and bottom line.

So what?

In a surprising turnaround, given that Eldorado had suspended in dividend payments after a stunning $1.2 billion fourth-quarter 2015 loss, the company reinstated its dividend. Eldorado announced that it would pay a $0.02 dividend per share in March 2017, and if the miner maintains this payment, it will yield a handy 1% over the course of 2017.

While this may not be a massive yield, it does illustrate the advantage of investing in gold miners rather than physical bullion or a gold exchange-traded fund, which are non-income-producing investments. With Eldorado being attractively priced and the progress being made with transitioning its operations, now is the time for investors to add Eldorado to their portfolios.

Canada's answer to Amazon.com

You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario...

But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year.

And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy.

More reading

Fool contributor Matt Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Canada's answer to Amazon.com

You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario...

But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year.

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The Ottawa-based maker of a smart sex toy has agreed to a $5 million settlement after two people sued, alleging the vibrator collected some very personal information.

A Chicago-area woman, identified in legal documents as N.P., launched the lawsuit against the company back in early September 2016, alleging the company was "selling adult sensual lifestyle products that secretly collected and transmitted highly sensitive information about consumers without their knowledge or consent." Another plaintiff, identified as P.S., joined the suit in February 2017.

The company in the case, Standard Innovation Corp., produces a line of vibrators that can be controlled by a user or a partner through a downloadable app and a smartphone.

The lawsuit claimed the app collected data on use of the vibrator, including the date and time of each use as well as vibration settings, without the user's knowledge. The suit also alleged the data and the user's personal email address were transmitted to company servers in Canada.

Under the terms of the settlement reached last week, the monetary award will be divided between two groups. People in the U.S. who bought the device, downloaded the company's app and used it to control a Bluetooth enabled We-Vibe product prior to Sept. 26, 2016, will be eligible for up to $10,000 US each in compensation. Meanwhile, those who only bought the device will be eligible to get back up to $199 US.

Standard Innovation has insisted that none of the collected user information has been compromised.

In an email to CBC News, a company spokesman said Monday the business was pleased to reach a "fair and reasonable" settlement.

"At Standard Innovation we take customer privacy and data security seriously," Denny Alexander said.

"We have enhanced our privacy notice, increased app security, provided customers more choice in the data they share, and we continue to work with leading privacy and security experts to improve the app," Alexander said.
Uber has had a brutal start to 2017, and its CEO Travis Kalanick has borne the brunt of the backlash. But five peers of Kalanick, CEOs of hot private tech companies, speaking to Yahoo Finance under condition of anonymity, all say Kalanick should not resign.

At the end of January, more than 200,000 people reportedly deleted the Uber app from their phones after the company promoted its service while New York City yellow cab drivers were striking in solidarity with protests of President Trumps travel ban. In the wake of the backlash, Kalanick stepped down from a Trump business council just before it was set to meet at the White House.

Then, in February, Uber found itself at the center of multiple separate scandals involving harassment allegations, aggressive workplace culture, surreptitious masking programs, and Kalanick getting caught on camera speaking harshly to an Uber driver.

Kalanicks latest public response to the storm was to say, in an email to Uber employees, I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time Ive been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.

In the days that followed, Kalanick announced he is seeking to hire a COO. Many critics think that isnt enough. Rafat Ali, founder and CEO of travel site Skift, predicted that Kalanick would resign because there is no way forward from here. Mashable came right out and said, in a headline, that Kalanick needs to resign. One Uber investor told Dan Primack of Axios that Kalanick should give up the CEO role and become chairman.

The five tech CEOs Yahoo Finance spoke to think otherwise.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick at the Vanity Fair Summit in 2016

Credit to Kalanick for building Uber

While everyone Yahoo Finance spoke with agreed that Uber has been aggressive and that it has a negative reputation at the moment, they all credit Kalanick for building the company into the highest-valued unicorn ($66 billion, at last valuation) in the world.

Hes a phenomenal entrepreneur, he created a phenomenal business extremely quickly, says one sports-tech CEO. The business that he is in, theyre going up against car companies, Google, so many big giants, and to actually build a successful startup in that sphere is really impressive. The negative is that theyve created an incredibly hard-charging public persona, and it wouldnt surprise me at all if thats what its really like internally. Too often, when youre hiring to scale quickly, youre not often managing for culture. And before you know it, youve hired a lot of people who dont match the culture you want.

Story continues

Indeed, Kalanick is the face of Uber and the person who has been credited with its successbut that in itself is part of the problem.

I think Uber is a really special company, says the CEO of a finance-related tech platform. Being able to grow it so fast and scale it so much was really hard, and people dont appreciate that enough. On that level, Id give Travis a lot of credit. On the other hand, Too much to me, it feels like the only leader at Uber is Travis. I dont think thats true, but thats what it looks like to people. He does need a COO to help him run the day-to-day execution. I like how [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg has done ithes still in charge, its his vision, but it also feels like Sheryl Sandberg and the other great leaders around him are making the day-to-day happen. Im not sure if that exists at Uber.

Kalanick must be the one to fix Uber

Most of the leaders we spoke to were angered by the video, but pleasantly surprised by Kalanicks response.

I thought hed say, That was a really bad moment, it doesnt reflect who I am, but instead he said, I need help. That was certainly a non-PR trained response to it, says a second sports-tech CEO. And I dont think it would make sense for him to come out and say that and then not to change, or to just leave.

In other words, Kalanick built the company into what it is today, so Kalanick is the one who needs to fix the culture, rather than stepping down and handing off the mess to someone else.

Id be surprised if anyone whos a CEO or founder would say he should step down, says the CEO of an events-related tech platform. If theyre saying that, theyre not putting themselves in his shoes. Despite all the backlash, hes still responsible for building an extremely successful company. If I were in his shoes, I would not step down.

That being said, the video of Kalanick raising his voice at an Uber driver, and swearing, I was bothered by it, says the exec. Its kind of crazy for him not to be awarehes in his own companys car, more or less, and in his position, everything you do might be repeated or recorded. Its like, heres this CEO, a billionaire, and you just hope he sets an example, and its disappointing. It helps people say, See, the smartest, most successful people are aholes.

The finance-tech exec agrees. I do not think he should step down. That is not the right advice. I think he has to right the ship himselfand become a little bit more empathetic.

And a sports-tech CEO puts it this way: Him stepping down would be the worst outcome, because the only person that could really change it is him. If they put in someone else, does that person really have the power to change the culture? I think thats unlikely.

How to change Ubers culture

Four of the five CEOs we spoke with expressed serious doubt that Kalanick himself could actually change his demeanor.

Two of them both brought up the same example of another hard-charging, pugnacious business leader: Steve Jobs. He wasnt exactly known for being a nice guy, right, says one CEO; I dont think Apples been a super cuddly corporation, because of its founder, and Uber is like that, says another. And two brought up the same example of a company that often alienates employees and finds itself in the news for negative reasons, but thrives nonetheless: Comcast. Most of us dont feel good about Comcast, but that doesnt stop us, says one CEO. Uber is a utility. Am I going to switch to Lyft just because the CEO of Uber is a bit of an ahole? Probably not. (Indeed, many Uber customers are unlikely to delete the app, despite scandals, because they see the product as so reliable.)

It may not be necessary for Kalanick to change, his peers reason, if he can improve the culture of the company.

So, how can Uber fix its culture?

Corporate culture is based on what you allow to go on, reasons one sports-tech CEO. If somebody behaves against your culture and you accept it, that will become your culture. So, what has Uber accepted in the past and what will it now say it wont accept anymore?

An enterprise tech CEO suggests Uber start by releasing its diversity stats, as an effort to address the male-dominated culture that a recent New York Times investigation painted. (The Times reports that Kalanick has promised to deliver a diversity report to better detail the number of women and minorities who work at Uber.)

After releasing those numbers, Tap someone who is in charge of these solutions, the exec says. That is: rather than appointing an outside board member to investigate, appoint a new people officer or diversity chief. The current HR department, according to former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, did nothing when Fowler reported repeated acts of harassment at Uber, because the alleged harasser was a top performer.

Another exec suggested something similar: release statistics with full transparency, and make public decisions and stick to them.

I think a lot of people respect when businesses just make decisions, even if they disagree. It just needs to be a clear decision. So Uber needs to figure out what their values are, and then share that message externally to the media and in their marketing, and internally in their recruiting They need a north star.



Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports, tech and media.

Read more:
DUBAI (Reuters) - A Bahraini court on Tuesday delayed a ruling in the trial of the spiritual leader of the country's Shi'ite Muslim majority on charges of collecting funds illegally and money laundering, local media reported. Ayatollah Isa Qassim, who is in his mid-70s, faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted in the trial that has ratcheted up tensions in the Western-allied Gulf Arab state where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. The kingdom had been convulsed by occasional protests since authorities crushed 2011 protests mainly by Shi'ites demanding a bigger share in running the country. The court had been expected to issue a ruling on Tuesday. But the Arabic-language al-Wassat said that, after convening under heavy security, it postponed the ruling in Qassim's case until May 7, giving no reason for the decision. Overnight, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Qasim's village west of the capital Manama, to show their support for the elderly cleric, according to videos and pictures posted online by activists. Qassim also faces expulsion from the kingdom after authorities revoked his citizenship last year for alleged foreign links and fomenting violence, charges he had denied. The charges emanate from the collection of an Islamic tax called Khums, which in Shi'ite Islam is collected and spent by a senior cleric in the interest of the needy. Qassim's defense lawyers have refused to attend the hearing, which they saw as an attack on the country's Shi'tes. State news agency BNA, which also reported the postponement, quoted the public prosecutor as saying Qassim and two other co-defendants are accused of collecting donations without permission and "conducting operations with the aim of hiding its source and to render it legal". "It is a strictly an organizational matter that has nothing to do with religious duties," he added, according to BNA. The trial is part of a wider crackdown on dissent that included a ban last year on the main Shi'ite Muslim group Wefaq. Authorities accuse it of fomenting sectarian unrest and having links to a foreign power, an apparent reference to Iran. Bahrain's justice ministry took steps last week to dissolve the secular National Democratic Action Society (Waad) it accuses of supporting terrorism. (Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; editing by Sami Aboudi and Dominic Evans)
'In the picture of my life, I don't exist': Calgary city councillor shares struggles with depression

Calgary city council voted eight to seven to donate $25,000 towards repairing infrastructure in Haiti, which suffered severe damage in a hurricane last fall.

The idea, which was proposed by Coun. Brian Pincott, left council sharply divided. It voted eight to seven in favour of Pincott's motion.

Last fall, Pincott had suggested Calgary could put $100,000 towards a program that's overseen in Haiti by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to help after Hurricane Matthew killed at least 1,000 people and sent cholera gallooping through rural communities lacking clean water, food and shelter.

However, Pincott dialled back his request to $25,000.

Pincott said a number of smaller communities in Canada have already donated money and Calgary should join them.

"It changes people's perceptions of who we are. It says, 'Wow, Calgary's a great place. Wow, look at what they did.' So I want to be selfless. I want to be compassionate. I want to be sharing and giving," said Pincott.

Not everyone likes idea

Other councillors agreed with Pincott's idea to put in the smaller amount of money.

"I can't imagine why we would say no. We can't do everything but the things that we're doing, let's do them right," said Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, indicating he backed the proposal.

Other councillors were more critical. Coun. Andre Chabot called it a tough one because while the needs are great, such a donation is beyond the city's mandate.

"Foreign aid not a municipal responsibility," said Chabot. "It just goes to the whole argument of: why is it we're taking on financial responsibility for something that's ultimately not our responsibility?"

Pincott has no problem with questions

Pincott said he's pleased with council's decision  even if he was expecting some tough questions about whether this is a good use for city tax dollars.

"Out of this, hopefully, we will have a broader discussion and try to put some policy in place. But disasters and the need to respond don't wait for policies," said Pincott.

Story continues

The veteran councillor, who announced earlier this year he wil not be seeking re-election this fall, said he plans to make a $500 donation himself to the cause.

He suggests anyone else thinking of making a donation can get in touch with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Although such donations are not tax deductible, Pincott said 100 per cent of the money will go directly to work on the ground in Haiti.

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While Vancouver is in the midst of its own opioid epidemic, two hours away the town of Everett, Washington is tackling the same problem  and they say Purdue Pharma is partly to blame.

The city has filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company alleging the corporation allowed its OxyContin pills to be funneled into the black market.

Everett is the epicentre of the opioid crisis in Washington state  the city has the highest overdose rate in the state. Many of the issues faced by the city are similar to the ones in B.C., namely not enough treatment beds and overloaded response workers.

Hil Kaman, the director of public health and safety for the City of Everett, said there is no set amount the city is seeking in damages but he estimates it will be in the tens of millions.

"We feel that the cost of this in our city, in terms of lives, in terms of treatment, in terms of housing, in terms of policing and our fire department, should be born by that company that is responsible for what we're seeing," said Kaman to guest host Stephen Quinn on The Early Edition.

Allegations 'inaccurate': Purdue

OxyContin, a brand name for oxycodone, was patented by Purdue's Ontario office in the early 1990s.

Kaman claims Purdue Pharma was under an obligation to monitor whether their product was entering and being sold on the black market.

He said the City of Everett possesses internal e-mails showing efforts to alert the company to its pills being sold on the street. Kaman asserts the company failed to contact the authorities once the e-mails came to their attention.

Purdue Pharma said the allegations in the lawsuit were inaccurate.

"While we are deeply troubled by the abuse and misuse of our medication, this lawsuit paints a completely flawed and inaccurate portrayal of events that led to the crisis in Everett, Washington," said Purdue Pharma in an official statement.

The company said the suggestion that failing to report suspicious activity to law enforcement somehow led to the criminal diversion of OxyContin pills was contrary to court records detailing an ongoing investigation into a known drug ring.

Story continues

Past lawsuits

Kaman said Purdue has previously had lawsuits filed against them for fraudulent representation of the drug.

In 2007 American Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in a U.S. lawsuit that said the company mislead regulators and the public about OxyContin's addictive properties.

In 2012 OxyContin was taken off Canadian pharmacy shelves, with some physicians saying they were unaware of its extremely addictive qualities.

In Canada, following the 2012 recall, OxyContin was replaced with OxyNeo. The replacement pill is much harder to consume intravenously as it can't be crushed or liquefied.

Kaman said this lawsuit is unique because it is the first to say the company failed to stop its product from entering the black market.

Counterfeit pills resembling OxyContin and Percocet have been found in B.C.'s Lower Mainland and police have said the counterfeit pills contain fentanyl.

There has been no evidence to suggest Purdue knew about any illegal pill trafficking in Canada.

With files from The Early Edition

To listen to the full interview, click on the audio labelled: Everett, WA sues pharmaceutical company for alleged role in opioid crisis
By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Lin Noueihed WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) - Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, U.S., Egyptian and diplomatic sources say, a move that would add to U.S. concerns about Moscow's deepening role in Libya. The U.S. and diplomatic officials said any such Russian deployment might be part of a bid to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who suffered a setback with an attack on March 3 by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) on oil ports controlled by his forces. The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States has observed what appeared to be Russian special operations forces and drones at Sidi Barrani, about 60 miles (100 km) from the Egypt-Libya border. Egyptian security sources offered more detail, describing a 22-member Russian special forces unit, but declined to discuss its mission. They added that Russia also used another Egyptian base farther east in Marsa Matrouh in early February. The apparent Russian deployments have not been previously reported. The Russian defense ministry did not immediately provide comment on Monday and Egypt denied the presence of any Russian contingent on its soil. "There is no foreign soldier from any foreign country on Egyptian soil. This is a matter of sovereignty," Egyptian army spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said. The U.S. military declined comment. U.S. intelligence on Russian military activities is often complicated by its use of contractors or forces without uniforms, officials say. Russian military aircraft flew about six military units to Marsa Matrouh before the aircraft continued to Libya about 10 days later, the Egyptian sources said. Reuters could not independently verify any presence of Russian special forces and drones or military aircraft in Egypt. Mohamed Manfour, commander of Benina air base near Benghazi, denied that Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) had received military assistance from the Russian state or from Russian military contractors, and said there were no Russian forces or bases in eastern Libya. Several Western countries, including the U.S., have sent special operations forces and military advisors into Libya over the past two years. The U.S. military also carried out air strikes to support a successful Libyan campaign last year to oust Islamic State from its stronghold in the city of Sirte. Questions about Russia's role in north Africa coincide with growing concerns in Washington about Moscow's intentions in oil-rich Libya, which has become a patchwork of rival fiefdoms in the aftermath of a 2011 NATO-backed uprising against the late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was a client of the former Soviet Union. The U.N.-backed government in Tripoli is in a deadlock with Haftar, and Russian officials have met with both sides in recent months. Moscow appears prepared to back up its public diplomatic support for Haftar even though Western governments were already irked at Russia's intervention in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad. A force of several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until February in a part of Libya that is under Haftar's control, the head of the firm that hired the contractors told Reuters. The top U.S. military commander overseeing troops in Africa, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, told the U.S. Senate last week that Russia was trying to exert influence in Libya to strengthen its leverage over whoever ultimately holds power. "They're working to influence that," Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Asked whether it was in the U.S. interest to let that happen, Waldhauser said: "It is not." REGAINING TOE-HOLD One U.S. intelligence official said Russia's aim in Libya appeared to be an effort to "regain a toe-hold where the Soviet Union once had an ally in Gaddafi." "At the same time, as in Syria, they appear to be trying to limit their military involvement and apply enough to force some resolution but not enough to leave them owning the problem," the official added, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Russia's courting of Haftar, who tends to brand his armed rivals as Islamist extremists and who some Libyans see as the strongman their country needs after years of instability, has prompted others to draw parallels with Syria, another longtime Soviet client. Asked by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham whether Russia was trying to do in Libya what it did in Syria, Waldhauser said: "Yes, that's a good way to characterize it." A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was looking to back Haftar, although its initial focus would likely be on Libya's "oil crescent." "It is pretty clear the Egyptians are facilitating Russian engagement in Libya by allowing them to use these bases. There are supposedly training exercises taking place there at present," the diplomat said. Egypt has been trying to persuade the Russians to resume flights to Egypt, which have been suspended since a Russian plane carrying 224 people from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh to St Petersburg was brought down by a bomb in October 2015. The attack was claimed by an Islamic State branch that operates out of northern Sinai. Russia says that its primary objective in the Middle East is to contain the spread of violent Islamist groups. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged this month to help unify Libya and foster dialogue when he met the leader of the U.N.-backed government, Fayez Seraj. Russia, meanwhile, is also deepening its relations with Egypt, which had ties to the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1972. The two countries held joint military exercises - something the U.S. and Egypt did regularly until 2011 - for the first time in October. Russia's Izvestia newspaper said in October that Moscow was in talks to open or lease an airbase in Egypt. Egypt's state-owned Al Ahram newspaper, however, quoted the presidential spokesman as saying Egypt would not allow foreign bases. The Egyptian sources said there was no official agreement on the Russian use of Egyptian bases. There were, however, intensive consultations over the situation in Libya. Egypt is worried about chaos spreading from its western neighbor and it has hosted a flurry of diplomatic meetings between leaders of the east and west in recent months. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington and Lin Noueihed in Cairo; additional reporting by John Walcott in Washington, Ahmed Mohammed Hassan in Cairo, Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe in Moscow, Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi, Aidan Lewis in Tunis; editing by Grant McCool)
Girl Guides of Canada has announced it will not be taking any trips to the United States in the near future, citing concerns about inclusivity.

"While the United States is a frequent destination for Guiding trips, the ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain," international commissioner Sharron Callahan and director of provincial operations Holly Thompson wrote in a joint advisory issued Monday afternoon.

"This includes both trips that are over or under 72 hours and any travel that includes a connecting flight through an American airport," the advisory says.

The statement does not directly mention  but appears to be a reaction to  the executive orders U. S. President Donald Trump has signed restricting travel to the United States.

Trump's first travel ban temporarily prohibited people from seven Muslim-majority countries from coming to the U.S. It was subsequently halted by the courts, prompting the president to issue a second executive order. The second order removed Iraq from the list of banned countries, but visa processing for travellers from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya will be suspended for 90 days once the ban goes into effect on March 16.

The travel bans have led to confusion about who can and who can't travel to the United States  some Canadians and permanent residents living in Canada have reported problems gaining entry to the U.S.

'No girl gets left behind'

Sarah Kiriliuk, national manager of marketing and communications for the Girl Guides of Canada, said the decision is a precautionary move.

She said that trips are planned months in advance and it would be disappointing if anyone got to the border and was turned away.

"We wanted to make sure there was zero risk," she said.

Kiriliuk said that until now, no trip to the U.S. has been cancelled or delayed because of the travel ban.

Community reaction

Kristin Maier, a Brownie leader in Penticton, B.C., said she's happy to hear about the advisory.

Story continues

"The ability of our members to equally enter the United States is uncertain under new laws set by president Donald Trump," she told CBC News. She said she is "beyond happy to be part of an organization that takes such a clear stance on equal rights and equal opportunities."

Other people on Twitter shared their thoughts:

As a result of the decision by Girl Guides Canada, a nationally-sponsored trip to a camp in California that was scheduled for this summer has been changed to a different destination.

"This was a very difficult decision to make," wrote Callahan and Thompson.

"We hope that members will appreciate this reflects our commitment to inclusivity and equal opportunities for all girls and women."
By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Companies may ban staff from wearing Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions, the European Union's top court ruled on Tuesday, setting off a storm of complaint from rights groups and religious leaders. In its first ruling on an issue that has become highly charged across Europe, the Court of Justice (ECJ) found a Belgian firm which had a rule that employees who dealt with customers should not wear visible religious or political symbols may not have discriminated against a Muslim receptionist it dismissed for wearing a headscarf. The judgment on that and a French case came on the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration is a key issue and weeks before a similarly charged presidential vote in France, where headscarves are banned in public service jobs. French conservative candidate Francois Fillon hailed the ECJ ruling as "an immense relief" to companies and workers that would contribute to "social peace". But a group backing the fired employees said the ruling may shut many Muslim women out of the workforce. European rabbis said the Court had added to rising incidences of hate crime to send a message that "faith communities are no longer welcome". The judges in Luxembourg concluded the dismissals of the two women may, depending on the view of national courts, have breached EU laws against religious discrimination. They determined that the case of the French engineer Asma Bougnaoui, fired by software company Micropole after a customer complaint, may well have been discriminatory. Reactions, however, focused on the findings that services firm G4S in Belgium was entitled to dismiss receptionist Samira Achbita in 2006 if, in pursuit of legitimate business interests, it fairly applied a broad dress code for all customer-facing staff to project an image of political and religious neutrality. "BACKDOOR TO PREJUDICE" The Open Society Justice Initiative, a group backed by the philanthropist George Soros, said the ruling "weakens the guarantee of equality" offered by EU laws: "In places where national law is weak, this ruling will exclude many Muslim women from the workplace," policy office Maryam Hmadoun said. Amnesty International welcomed the ruling on the French case that "employers are not at liberty to pander to the prejudices of their clients". But, it said, bans on religious symbols to show neutrality opened "a backdoor to precisely such prejudice". The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, complained: "This decision sends a signal to all religious groups in Europe". National court cases across Europe have included questions on the wearing of Christian crosses, Sikh turbans and Jewish skullcaps. In the Belgian case, the ECJ said: "An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination." It was for Belgian judges to determine whether Achbita may have been a victim of indirect discrimination if the rule put people of a particular faith at a disadvantage. But the rule could still be justified if it was "genuinely pursued in a consistent and systematic manner" to project an "image of neutrality". (Additional reporting by Waverly Colville in Brussels and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris; Editing by Catherine Evans and Pritha Sarkar)
By Maria Tsvetkova and Raushan Nurshayeva MOSCOW/ASTANA (Reuters) - Russian-led peace talks on Syria were derailed on Tuesday as rebels backed by Turkey boycotted a third round of meetings in Kazakhstan and the Kremlin indicated there were international divisions over the process. Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, said the rebels' reasons for staying away were unconvincing and their decision came as a surprise. Describing the rebels as Turkish proxies, the Syrian government envoy said Ankara had broken "its commitments" to the Astana process. The rebels said they would not attend the talks, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, because of what they called Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes on rebel-held areas and its failure to get the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militia to abide by a ceasefire. Russia has sought to revive diplomacy over Syria since its air force helped government forces defeat rebel groups in eastern Aleppo in December, Assad's biggest victory of the war. The cooperation of Turkey, one of the main backers of rebel groups fighting in northern Syria, has been crucial to the Russian diplomatic effort, helping to broker a ceasefire in December after the rebels' Aleppo defeat. Two previous rounds of Astana talks have sought to consolidate that ceasefire, reflecting an improvement in Russian-Turkish ties that had been strained to breaking point by the Syrian war. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russian Defence Ministry was in touch with Syrian rebel leaders who boycotted the talks, the Interfax news agency reported. He said Russia was dealing with the situation. The Kremlin spokesman described the talks as hugely complex. "Sometimes the situation at these talks is really complicated because of substantial differences in approaches of various countries," Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call. Alexander Lavrentiev, the head of the Russian delegation in Astana, told reporters the opposition's absence was "sad" but there was still "many things to discuss and make decisions about". SYRIAN ENVOY ACCUSES TURKEY Russian President Vladimir Putin had credited the Kazakhstan talks, which focus on reducing the fighting, with jumpstarting U.N.-led peace talks in Geneva seeking a political settlement to the six-year conflict. The Geneva talks broke off without any progress as seemingly unbridgeable divisions persist, chiefly over the future of Assad who seems militarily unassailable in the areas of western Syria under government control. The previous Astana talks had been attended by rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner. A spokesman for the rebels on Monday accused Russia of "continuing its crimes" against civilians in Syria - a reference to Russian air strikes - and of supporting "the crimes of the Syrian regime". The spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, which groups armed and political opponents of Assad, suggested the rebels could yet go to Astana, though the decision was so far not to. "They are waiting to hear a response from Russia, but until this moment nothing came," Salem al-Muslat told the al-Hadath news channel in an interview. The rebels say Russia has failed to live up to its commitments as a guarantor of the ceasefire, saying government and allied forces continue to press attacks on remaining rebel-held areas in western Syria. The Syrian government envoy to the talks said his delegation was in Astana to meet Syria's Russian and Iranian allies, not the rebel factions. "When one of the three guarantors breaks their commitment - and I mean Turkey - this means that Turkey must be the one that is asked about the non-attendance or participation of these armed groups," Bashar al Ja'afari, the envoy, said in broadcast remarks from Astana. Last week, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was in Moscow seeking to build cooperation with Putin over military operations in Syria. Turkey is attempting to create a border "safe zone" in northern Syria free of Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG militia. The Russian-backed Syrian army has advanced to the frontier of YPG-held areas, but is not fighting the Kurds. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones)
Research

Undergrad Research Experiences Can Deliver 'Value-Add' in STEM

Undergraduate research experiences are undergoing a surge of popularity among institutions. What used to be summertime internships working with a given faculty member on his or her own research have blossomed into course-based activities, work outside of academia and practices that emphasize collaboration and teamwork and involve questions that are significant and relevant to the participants.

A new National Academies Press book examines the successes, challenges and opportunities for undergraduate research experiences, specifically for STEM students. According to the researchers, STEM research projects for undergraduates share characteristics, although approaches vary from one to the next:

They focus on generating "novel information with an emphasis on discovery and innovation" or they attempt to replicate "recent preliminary results";

The scale of the problems tends to be "significant" and "relevant" to STEM researchers and  in some cases  a broader community;

The work almost always incorporates collaboration and teamwork;

Iterative refinement of experimental design, questions or data is involved;

The projects allow students to master specific research techniques;

They're intended to help students engage in reflection about the problems being investigated and the work being undertaken to address those problems;

Communication of results through publication or presentation is expected; and

They're structured and guided by a mentor, but students take on "increasing ownership" of parts of the project as time passes.

A review of the research on undergraduate research experiences found "evidence" of a causal relationship between students' participation and their subsequent persistence in STEM, particularly among underrepresented groups. Here, however, the authors of the book suggested that additional studies are needed.

The report also noted that the people in charge of designing these experiences tend to go at it without training or reference to existing research about what works. Likewise, evaluations related to the activities may be done for program providers or funders but are rarely shared with others, which means the "accumulated experience of program providers" rarely gets into the hands of those who could use the insights to improve the design of their experiences for students.

Another point in the report: "The quality of mentoring can make a substantial difference in a student's experiences with research." Yet, most faculty or other potential mentors don't have access to professional development in how to be a good mentor.

The authors offered a number of recommendations, including:

Designers of undergraduate research experiences should base their design decisions on sound evidence and in consultation with education and social science researchers;

Institutions should collect data on student participation in the research projects to inform their planning and to look for opportunities to improve quality and access; and

Schools should make sure that those mentoring undergraduates in their research work have access to professional development to help them get better at that role.

Undergraduate research experiences "can add an important dimension to undergraduate STEM education, in particular providing students with an opportunity to test and reaffirm their interest in a STEM career," wrote James Gentile, chair of the Committee on Strengthening Research Experiences for Undergraduate STEM Students and emeritus dean for natural and applied sciences at Hope College in Michigan, in his preface. The report, he added, "provides unique and informed insight into the 'educational value-added' that accrues to students engaged in undergraduate research, either through a faculty-mentored research experience in a laboratory or in the field, through active engagement in research that was embedded within a course [or both]."

The book is available in pre-order as a paperback for $40 or as a free PDF download on the NAP website here.
TUESDAY, March 14, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Millions of older Americans live out their final hours alone in a hospital bed.

But at some hospitals, a comforting presence at a patient's bedside is considered essential end-of-life medicine. So, if there are no friends or loved ones to keep vigil, a volunteer might fill the void.

"It's amazing how much just having someone hold a hand makes a difference," said Rebecca Hixson, a registered nurse at Vanderbilt Hospital Medical Center in Nashville.

Americans are living longer, with more seniors living alone -- and dying alone. They may be single, childless, or getting treatment long distances away from their loved ones.

A trauma patient who was flown to the Vanderbilt medical center is a case in point.

"His family lived two states away. Once they left, they didn't have the money for gas to come back," said Hixson, clinical staff leader in the hospital's palliative care department.

"The last thing he said to his wife was, 'I just don't want to die alone,' " she recalled.

When he was told the hospital had someone who could sit with him, "he seemed to be very comforted by that," Hixson said. "Just knowing there would be a human presence calmed him down."

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 18 million men and women aged 65 and older move through their golden years alone, either never married, divorced or newly widowed.

And the American Psychological Association estimates that more than three-quarters of Americans will die either in a hospital bed or a long-term care facility, rather than at home.

All of this means many more older adults find themselves without "someone there to advocate for them, or simply be with them in the hospital, when the time comes," said Dr. Mohana Karlekar, director of palliative care at Vanderbilt.

The point of palliative care is to provide relief from the stress of serious illness, and improve quality of life for patients and families.

Vanderbilt launched its vigil volunteers program in 2016. It was modeled after a program begun 15 years earlier at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Ore.

The Oregon program -- titled No One Dies Alone -- has gained a hold in various hospice and hospital settings across the country.

The idea is to carefully screen and train volunteers who can befriend these solitary patients as they enter their waning hours.

Because Vanderbilt is a Level 1 trauma center, "we see the sickest of the sick," Hixson said. "People are often flown in from rural areas, from places where their family members -- if they have family members -- have no way to get to them once they come to us. Their support system just isn't there."

The program's goal, she said, "is not only to show respect, but really to help make someone's final moments as meaningful as possible."

The Vanderbilt pilot program started off small, with 25 volunteers attending to roughly 15 patients in its first six months. Soon it will expand from palliative care to the medical intensive care unit, Hixson said.

One of the program's committed hand-holders is Todd Havens, of Nolensville, Tenn.

Havens has a background in service as a volunteer fireman and first-aid instructor. He's also vice president of the medical center's office of internal audit.

"I work here, and I know I'm supporting an organization whose mission is to care for our community," he said.

His first vigil was last September. The patient was "an elderly woman whose only relative was a brother who was suffering from dementia," Havens said. "He wasn't able to even care for himself. And she was well into her 80s, so she literally had nobody."

Havens said he engages with patients -- whether they're communicative or not -- by playing soothing music or reading books or prayers.

"It's the right thing to do to give them some sort of peace, during such a critical moment in their lives," he said.

Karlekar said it's important to have a formal system in place.

"We can try and cope by flying by the seat of our pants in some non-systematic fashion," she explained. "Or we can step up and do what needs to be done in an organized but humane way."

More information

For more on end-of-life care, visit the U.S. National Institute on Aging.
TUESDAY, March 14, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Despite widespread use, antibiotics are not an effective treatment for milder cases of the skin condition eczema in children, a new study contends.

One pediatrician who reviewed the findings called them "terribly important" for eczema care.

"This is a good example of a common situation in medicine," said Dr. Michael Grosso. "A particular intervention 'makes sense,' becomes common practice -- and often becomes the so-called 'standard of care' -- only to be proved ineffective when the therapy is subjected to scientific investigation."

Grosso is chair of pediatrics at Northwell Health's Huntington Hospital in Huntington, N.Y.

Eczema is an immunological condition affecting both children and adults, where patches of skin become inflamed, red and itchy.

Dr. Craig Osleeb explained that "children with eczema have an overabundance of the bacteria normally found on skin." He is a pediatric allergist at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y.

"The excessive colonization of bacteria can exacerbate symptoms by causing infection and/or triggering inflammation," Osleeb said. So, "antibiotics have often been used to quell eczema exacerbations."

But Osleeb noted that the overuse of antibiotics can lead to dangerous drug-resistant "superbug" infections, and prior studies have never settled the issue of whether antibiotics help ease eczema flare-ups.

The new study, led by Nick Francis of Cardiff University in Wales, sought to settle that debate. The study included 113 children with non-severe, infected eczema who were randomly selected to join one of three groups. The children received either an antibiotic pill plus a "dummy" placebo cream; a placebo pill and an antibiotic cream; or placebo pill plus placebo cream (the "control" group).

After watching outcomes for two weeks, four weeks and then three months, the British team found no significant differences between the three groups in terms of easing of eczema symptoms.

According to the researchers, the findings suggest that antibiotics given as either a pill or cream do not benefit children with non-severe infected eczema. The study authors added that such use may even promote antibiotic resistance or additional skin sensitization.

Still, the study focused only on kids with a milder form of eczema, so the results may not apply to children with more severe infected eczema, Francis and colleagues said.

Osleeb agreed. For children battling milder eczema outbreaks, "corticosteroid creams alone will suffice," he said, but "this study does not eliminate the potential role of antibiotics in more moderate to severe eczema exacerbations."

The study was published March 13 in the journal Annals of Family Medicine.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more on eczema.
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Someone set veteran Brazilian political reporter Rodrigo Limas car on fire outside his office at the daily newspaper Diario da Regiao on March 3, 2017, according to the journalist, witnesses, and video of the incident. The reporter, who has worked at the newspaper for 17 years, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he believed the arson attack was meant as retaliation for his reporting and as a warning.

It was an attack on the newspaper, Lima told CPJ by telephone. I have no idea who was behind it; its very difficult to make any declaration about that. But I do think it was linked to my professional activities. I write a lot about politics and recently wrote stories about vote-buying in municipal elections and irregularities in the disbursement of funds for the auxilio atleta (a program that funds promising young athletes).

Lima spoke by phone from Sao Jose do Rio Preto, a city of around 375,000 people roughly 275 miles northwest of Sao Paulo. He said he had received anonymous, threatening telephone calls and letters several times in the past.

Such threats have also been sent to other journalists at the paper, and to other reporters in the region, Daniele Jammal, the head of the Union of Northwestern Paulista Journalists, the regional professional association, told CPJ.

An employee of the paper said she saw a man emerge from a silver vehicle and pour gasoline over Limas car before setting it on fire, jumping back in his own vehicle, and fleeing the scene, the newspaper reported.

A video published on the newspapers web site showed the car going up in flames at 6:15 p.m. local time. The video shows two newspaper employees dousing the fire with extinguishers before firefighters arrived to put out the blaze and investigate.

Lima said he gave a statement to state police and added that Brazils Federal Police were also involved in the investigation because of the possible links to his stories on vote-buying, which is a federal crime.

Officers told Lima they were reviewing security camera footage of the area but that no arrests have been made.

EDITORS NOTE: The text has been updated to correct the date of the arson attack.
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New York, March 13, 2017Authorities responsible for overseeing implementation of Ethiopias state of emergency today released Ethiopian commentator Anania Sorri.

Anania told CPJ he was released unconditionally today, four months after his November 17, 2016, detention without charge under a state of emergency the government declared the month prior. He told CPJ that he planned to continue writing. Anania posts critical commentary on a public Facebook page followed by some 11,000 people.

Todays release of Anania Sorri is welcome news, CPJ Africa Coordinator Angela Quintal said. We urge Ethiopian authorities to free all other journalists and bloggers still imprisoned simply for doing their jobs.

After Seyoum Teshome and Befekadu Hailu, Anania was the third Ethiopian journalist to be released since December 1, 2016, when CPJ last conducted its annual census of journalists jailed around the world.

[EDITORS NOTE: The second paragraph of this statement has been updated to reflect the date of the journalists detention.]
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Editor sentenced to nine years in prison

The 7th Court for Serious Crimes in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakr yesterday sentenced Aydn Atar, former news editor for the shuttered Kurdish-language daily newspaper Azadiya Welat, to nine years, four months, and 15 days in prison on charges of propagandizing for a [terrorist] organization, the news website Dihaber reported. The journalist is free, pending appeal.

He has been fighting the charges since 2011.

Court dismisses terrorism charges against press freedom advocates

Istanbuls 22nd Court for Serious Crimes yesterday dismissed charges of propagandizing for a [terrorist] organization against Hakk Boltan and Nevin Erdemirco-chairs of the shuttered, pro-Kurdish Free Journalists Association and previous co-editors of the shuttered pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem, the leftist daily newspaper Evrensel reported. The two were among dozens of journalists, activists, intellectuals, and artists who symbolically acted as co-editor of Ozgur Gundem for a day in order to protest authorities persistent judicial harassment of the newspapers staff.

The court also dismissed charges against Hasan Sanl, a religious leader from the Alevi sect, for his participation in the campaign, Evrensel reported.

The court found that the criminal investigation into the three had not begun within the legally prescribed period of four months from publication, the report said.

The same court also acquitted Boltan, Erdemir and Reyhan Capan, former responsible news editor for Ozgur Gundem in a second trial for the newspapers coverage, Evrensel reported.

[March 17, 2017]

Police detain journalist from home

Anti-terrorism police detained Hayri Demir from his home in Ankara this morning, his employer, the news website Dihaber reported today. The police took the journalist to a sports arena in the Bestepe neighborhood which has been used as a detention center since the failed July 2016 military coup.

Dihaber reported that because the investigation is subject to a court order of secrecy, Demirs lawyers will not know anything about it until it produces an indictment.

Demirs family home in the southeastern province of Bitlis was also damaged by police there in a simultaneous raid, the report said.

[March 16, 2017]

Pro-government hackers deface BBC Twitter account

Pro-government hackers took control of several high-profile Twitter accounts, including that of BBC North America, according to wire reports.

#NaziGermany. #NaziHolland. This is a small #Ottomanslap for you. See you on #April16. I wrote what? Learn Turkish, the hacker wrote. The French Economy Ministry and a German sporting club were also affected, according to Agence France-Presse.

[March 15, 2017]

Court refuses to release imprisoned editor, publisher

Istanbuls 23rd Court for Serious Crimes today refused to release Inan Kzlkaya, the former responsible news editor for the shuttered pro-Kurdish daily newspaper Ozgur Gundem, and Kemal Sancl, the newspapers former publisher, pending the conclusion of their trial on terrorism charges, the news website Bianet and the daily newspaper Ozgurlukcu Demokrasi reported.

Kzlkaya, whose position at the newspaper made him legally responsible for everything it published, faces more than 100 criminal cases in connection with the newspapers coverage. Sancl appeared via videoconference from prison, according to news reports.

The court also refused to lift travel bans imposed on formerly jailed members of the newspapers board, or to lighten the requirements of their probation, according to media reports.

German officials not allowed to meet imprisoned Die Welt correspondent

A German Foreign Ministry spokesman told journalists in Berlin that German consular officials have not been allowed to visit jailed Die Welt Turkey correspondent Deniz Yucel, a dual citizen of Turkey and Germany, Deutsche Welles Turkish service reported yesterday. The correspondent has been jailed since February 14.

Deutsche Welle also reported yesterday that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said that Yucels continued detention is among factors complicating greater economic cooperation between Germany and Turkey. The minister said he was in contact with his Turkish counterpart regarding some opportunities, but that strained relations between the countries were making it extremely difficult to continue working on them.

[March 14, 2017]
Suthar and Rames Batumalai PETALING JAYA: The two brothers who received a last-minute reprieve from a scheduled execution in February will now face the gallows on Wednesday [March 15], said Amnesty International Malaysia (AIM). PETALING JAYA: The two brothers who received a last-minute reprieve from a scheduled execution in February will now face the gallows on Wednesday [March 15], said Amnesty International Malaysia (AIM).





If the executions take place, it will be the first time that it will take place on a Wednesday morning, said AIM executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu.





"Malaysia carries out executions on Friday mornings and this double execution will be the first ever execution that we are aware of to take place on a Wednesday morning at 5.30am Malaysia time (9.30pm tonight London time). This is symbolic of the rushed nature of this particular execution," she said in a statement Tuesday.





The family members of Rames and Suthar Batumalai were handed a letter on Monday notifying them of the imminent execution and asking them to visit the two at Kajang Prison for the last time on Tuesday.





The brothers were sentenced in April 2010 for murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code after they were found guilty of killing Krishnan Raman on Feb 4, 2006.





The brothers have always maintained their innocence.





They were scheduled to be executed on Feb 24, but they received a last-minute reprieve after their lawyers sent in a clemency application a day before.





The clemency application submitted by their lawyers, Haresh Mahadevan and Co, included a statutory declaration from Krishnan's widow appealing to the Pardons Board for the brothers not be executed and instead be allowed to serve life imprisonment.





"If the victim's family has moved to intercept the execution, the Pardons Board should consider this and allow for every avenue to be exhausted before the state even considers taking a life," said Shamini.

Brothers on death row set for hasty executions on Wednesday, NGO to hold vigil

KUALA LUMPUR  Two brothers who are on death row for murder in Malaysia are set to face a hasty execution on Wednesday morning (March 15, at 5.30am Malaysia time, 9.30pm tonight London time), merely two days after prison authorities notified their kin about the execution, Amnesty International Malaysia.





Amnesty also said that it will be organising a candlelight vigil at the main entrance of the Kajang prison at 8pm on Tuesday night in solidarity with Rames and Suthar Batumalai.





Amnesty International Malaysia condemns the decision to execute the brothers, which seems to be made in a hurried and secretive manner, it said in a statement.





Malaysia carries out executions on Friday mornings and this double execution would be the first ever execution that we are aware of to take place on a Wednesday morning. This is symbolic of the rushed nature of this particular execution, Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni Kalimuthu said on Tuesday.





The NGO also believes that the brothers were convicted based on circumstantial evidence alone, and pointed out that the Pardons Board did not consider their pardon appeal even though their appeal included a statutory declaration from deceaseds wife.





This application includes a statutory declaration from the wife of the deceased, appealing to the Pardons Board for the brothers not be executed and instead be allowed to serve a life sentence, Amnesty said.





If the victims family has moved to intercept the execution, the Pardons Board should consider this and allow for every avenue to be exhausted before the State even considers taking a life, Ms Shamini said.





Their family has been asked to pay their last visit to the duo on Tuesday ahead of the execution.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

Source: The Star Online , March 14, 2017Source: MALAY MAIL ONLINE , March 14, 2017
Suthar Batumalai (left) and B. Rames Batumalai

MARCH 14 UPDATE:



The two brothers who received a last-minute reprieve from a scheduled execution in February will now face the gallows on Wednesday, March 15 , said Amnesty International Malaysia (AIM). More information here .



Brothers Suthar Batumalai and B. Rames Batumalai whose execution was originally scheduled for 24 February 2017, have been informed that their execution has now been set for 17 March. Brothers Suthar Batumalai and B. Rames Batumalai whose execution was originally scheduled for 24 February 2017, have been informed that their execution has now been set for





On 24 February, the execution of brothers Suthar Batumalai and B. Rames Batumalai did not proceed.



The brothers were sentenced to the mandatory death penalty in April 2010 under section 302 of the Penal Code after they were found guilty of a murder committed on 4 February 2006.





On 13 March, their family received an official letter signed by the Director of Kajang Prison, in Selangor State, informing them that they can pay the brothers a final visit, as their execution will take place on Friday, 17 March.





The brothers lawyers submitted a new clemency petition for the consideration of the State of Negeri Sembilans Pardons Board on 23 February. The application requested a stay of execution, pending the hearing of this new petition. The lawyers say the clemency petition contains new evidence and documents which have not been provided to the Pardons Board on any previous occasion.





To date, the Board has not yet responded to this request for clemency. In light of the new evidence and the application to the Pardons Board remaining unheard, the execution must be halted and the brothers application be given full consideration.





Please write immediately in Malay, English or your own language urging the authorities to:





Immediately take all the necessary steps to halt the execution of Suthar and B. Rames Batumalai, including by accepting their new clemency appeal;

Immediately establish a moratorium on executions and commute all death sentence as first steps towards abolition of the death penalty;

Move forward with legislative reforms on the mandatory death penalty and abolish this punishment from national legislation.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS TO:

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Suthar Batumalai and B. Rames Batumalai are brothers who first faced execution by hanging in Malaysia on 24 February 2017.





They were sentenced to the mandatory death penalty in April 2010 under section 302 of the Penal Code after they were found guilty of a murder committed on 4 February 2006. The brothers, who were represented at trial by the same lawyer, were convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone. The final sentence was handed out on 30 October 2012 by the Federal Court.





In Malaysia, the Federal Constitution provides for the King to grant a pardon for any offence committed in the Federal Territory and to the ruler or governor of a state if the offence is committed in a state. The constitution also established a Pardons Board for each of the states including the Federal Territories to advise the relevant ruler on pardon applications.





There is very limited public information on Malaysias use of the death penalty. The authorities do not for the most part provide public notification of any scheduled executions, neither before nor after they are carried out. Detailed information including the names of the prisoner, the offence(s) of which they were convicted, the legal and clemency appeal status and the execution date is made public only for the extremely limited number of cases in which the families contacted Amnesty International or other human rights monitors, often seeking publicity against the imminent execution.





Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, the guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution.





As of today, 141 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice; in the Asia Pacific region, 19 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes and a further eight are abolitionist in practice. Mongolia is poised to give effect to its new Criminal Code abolishing this punishment in July 2017.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Mohd Najib RazakOffice of The Prime Minister of MalaysiaMain Block, Perdana Putra BuildingFederal Government AdministrativeCentre, 62502 Putrajaya,MalaysiaFax: +603-88883444 or +603-88883904Email: ppm@pmo.gov.my Salutation: Dear Prime MinisterAzalina Othman SaidPejabat Menteri, Tingkat 15Bangunan Parlimen50680 Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaFax: +603-20781719Email: through this website:Salutation: Dear MinisterDirector of Kajang PrisonNarander Singh Chand SinghMalaysia Prisons DepartmentPrisons Complex, 43000 Kajang,Selangor, MalaysiaFax: +603-87367449Email: narander@prison.gov.my Source: Amnesty International , March 13, 2017
At first glance, the documents the retiree had spread out on a table in Tucson looked as if they could have been keepsakes from just about anyones career: a company magazine, a timeline, letters of commendation and congratulation.





But Armin Walser had one item, elegantly printed and secure in a handsome folder, that was particularly uncommon: a certificate citing the work that led to his discovery of midazolam, a drug that became one of the most popular sedatives in the world.





Midazolam is not new; Dr. Walser helped invent it in the 1970s. But after the State of Arkansas announced plans to execute eight prisoners over 10 days in April, it became a subject of fresh reporting that led to a front-page article on March 14. Although Arkansas says little about executions, officials in Little Rock were candid about the rationale behind the scheduling: The states supply of midazolam, one of the drugs that it needs to carry out the executions, will expire at the end of April.





After Arkansass announcement of an execution schedule that death penalty researchers said was without equal in the modern history of capital punishment in the United States, a brainstorming session among reporters who cover the South for The Times led to an idea for an article that would focus on the drug as a central character. The idea held immediate appeal for reporters in Atlanta and editors in New York: An article would require a new line of investigation about how a common drug was again going to be used for lethal injections. It was an idea that would reach beyond the story in Arkansas, into states where executions have been botched.





The reporting turned out to be as fruitful as it was complex.





Database searches and a review of an aging patent led to a name, a phone number and a call to Dr. Walser, who is many years into his retirement in Tucson. He was astonished to hear from The Times decades after his groundbreaking work, but was willing to be interviewed at his home, about an hours drive from a prison where Arizona officials used midazolam for an execution in 2014. Unlike most doctors who turn to midazolam for their patients, Dr. Walser would know important details about the drugs development.





In an interview on his back patio, he offered significant insights about the drug, including explanations of its chemistry and effects. He also talked, only occasionally and with visible discomfort, about how midazolam had been used in at least 20 executions nationwide.





I wish they would not, but if there is no law against it, Dr. Walser said, his voice trailing off.





Despite his clear preference to talk chemistry instead of executions, he never wavered in his commitment to be interviewed.





But for all of Dr. Walsers intimate knowledge of midazolam, he could speak only to part of its history. Quickly mapping midazolams transformation into a lethal injection drug required other reporting strategies, including lengthy interviews with people like Dale A. Baich, an assistant federal defender who witnessed an execution that involved midazolam.





There was also a time-intensive, old-fashioned and absolutely crucial reporting tool: a dive into documents.





There were thousands of pages of court filings and depositions. There were hearing transcripts and independent reports. And there were affidavits, emails, letters and news media accounts.





The stockpiles of records, shared by sources and also located independently, helped to build a complex narrative in less than a week. The documents proved essential since, unsurprisingly, states either ignored queries or provided no substantive response to questions.





Now the drug is scheduled to face nine tests in a month: eight executions in Arkansas , and one in Virginia . Soon after the article went online before dawn on Monday, editors and reporters began discussing plans for more coverage and more questions.





The conversation needed to resume quickly. If Arkansas keeps to its schedule, the next execution involving midazolam is just over a month away.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: The New York Times , Alan Blinder, March 13, 2017 When a Common Sedative Becomes an Execution Drug , March 13, 2017
It has been reported that Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo was arrested by men of the Nigeria Police Force over a controversial statement she made earlier in March about ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Kemi Olunloyo picked by police for questioning

Controversial journalist Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo was arrested on Tuesday for statements she made on Twitter against former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The notorious Twitter troll had alleged that her father, a former governor of Oyo state Victor Omololu Olunloyo and Obasanjo used her younger brother Oyeleke for rituals in 1999.

READ ALSO: Kemi Olunloyo calls Seyi Laws daughter fat

Kemi wrote this in an Instagram post on March 5, Obasanjos 80th birthday. She warned the former president to stay away from her family and stop taking her father to ritualists.

The controversial critic, who always boasts of her investigative skills, also vowed to upload the video of the ritual on YouTube soon for all to see.

The post that allegedly put Kemi Omololu Olunloyo in trouble

On Tuesday morning, Omololu-Olunloyo had announced on her Instagram page that men of the Nigerian Police Force had stormed her Ibadan home to pick her up for questioning.

Though the reason for her arrest was initially unknown, the foremer Oyo state governors daughter said she was told it was not for criminal reasons.

PAY ATTENTION! Never miss a single gist! Download Legit.ng news app for android

See her post below:

#BREAKING 7.56am #Ibadan. The NPF just stormed my house arresting me taking me to CID for questioning. They say its NOT a criminal matter. Pls share!! KOO

FREE SPEECH RULES!

READ ALSO: Ex-governors daughter, Kemi Olunloyo is an allegedly wanted criminal in the US (see document)

In February, 2017, Nollywood actress Georgina Onuoha had gone to Ibadan to arrest Kemi at an agreed point where the ex-governor daughter refused to turn up.

Has she finally overstepped her bounds?

Source: Legit.ng
Kristy Shen

If you aspire to achieve financial independence or retire early, consider this piece of advice from Kristy Shen: Track your money.

That's how Shen says she and her husband Bryce were able to bank $1 million by age 31 and quit their jobs as computer engineers in Canada to travel the world.

"I think tracking is absolutely paramount. That's one of the things that would help people a lot financially," Shen told So Money podcast host Farnoosh Torabi.

But the couple, now both 34, not only tracked their spending to lay out a practical path to a million-dollar net worth, she told Business Insider. They also tracked their savings activity, recording all significant, and unexpected, hits or bumps to their savings to predict its affect on their long-term financial plan.

Shen explains:

"At the beginning of each year, we sat down and try to project our own monthly savings: 'We know our paycheck, we know our normal expenses, so I think we should be able to save X amount per month.'

"We would also account for retirement account contributions, 401(k) and RRSP [a Canadian retirement account], as well as any irregular income that we could expect, like, say a bonus or commission from our job. This allowed us to project how much our net worth would grow for the year.

"But, as the year went on, at the end of every month we would update the spreadsheet with our actual net worth increase, as well as put a note explaining any differences. So for a month that we ended up underneath our target, we might put a note that says 'Took awesome vacation' or 'Spent too much eating out.' And for months that ended up above our target, we'd write 'Got unexpectedly higher bonus' or 'Decided to cook more' or whatever."

Here's what Shen's saving spreadsheet looks like (these are not her actual numbers):

Kristy Shen spreadsheet

Over time, the spreadsheet generates a chart that shows how projected net worth and actual net worth compare:

Story continues

Kristy Shen

"This is useful because it visualizes how decisions you make or events that happen affect your financial future," Shen says.

"If you start cooking more, for example, you can see the long-term effects of your decision by seeing your net worth curve get steeper. And if you keep getting smacked by, for example, car maintenance costs that keep causing you to miss your projection, you start to ask yourself, 'Hmm, OK, is this a good idea to own this car? Because it's really screwing up my retirement date,'" she said.

Shen told Torabi that this method has helped them budget and stay on track during their travels as well.

"Even if you blow the budget once or twice, it's not a big deal. Everybody makes mistakes. I made mistakes too. Being able to track it allows you to see, 'Hey, look! I'm going in the wrong direction. It's not going towards my financial goal,' so then you just move back towards the right path and then you're good to go."

Access a test copy of Shen's saving spreadsheet here. Click "File" and then "Make a copy ..." to download a version of the spreadsheet that you can edit with your own information.

NOW WATCH: Here's how Google Maps knows when there is traffic





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By Se Young Lee and Jane Chung SEOUL (Reuters) - The head of South Korea's Samsung Group [SAGR.UL], Jay Y. Lee, may be languishing in a jail cell but he is allowed plenty of visitors, which may allow him to play a key role in corporate decisions even if he isn't running the conglomerate like he did before. Lee, who didn't attend last Thursday's preparatory hearing for his trial on bribery, embezzlement and other charges, is kept well away from other inmates at the Seoul Detention Centre. Some, such as top former presidential advisors, are also defendants in the corruption scandal that led to the removal from office of South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Friday. Under South Korean regulations, though, Lee can meet any of his battery of attorneys without time limits and as often as he wants during business hours from Monday to Saturday. One of those lawyers told the first day of what special prosecutors described as potentially "the trial of the century" that Lee denies all charges against him. Lee, like others in detention centers awaiting trial, is also entitled to one 30-minute visit per day from someone else, including executives from one of Samsungs affiliates, or at least 12 hours of such meetings a month. At the discretion of the warden of the detention center, he could have additional special meetings in a visiting room that doesn't have partitions, allowing detainees to review documents and receive phone calls. By comparison, in the United States, a defendant in federal custody on corporate crime charges is generally allowed unrestricted access to attorneys during regular business hours but can only receive other visitors for a maximum four hours a month. In the U.S., though, major white collar defendants are usually allowed to post bail so they can live at home before trial. NO NEED FOR "ALTERNATIVES" South Korean media have photographed former Samsung Group Vice Chairman Choi Gee-sung and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd President Rhee In-yong visiting Lee following his Feb 17 arrest. Samsung declined to confirm those visits or comment on the level of Lee's involvement in management affairs since he was detained. It did say that he is meeting regularly with his defense team, though declined to be more specific. In a statement it said: "Mr. Lee's priority is preparing the legal defense so the truth can be revealed in future court proceedings." Samsung hasn't named a replacement for Lee, who company insiders say did not manage day-to-day affairs but was instead acting as the key decision maker on major initiatives such as new investments, acquisitions, personnel decisions and restructuring. "There is no plan B," said an executive at a Samsung affiliate, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. "We believe the vice chairman will be proven innocent, and if he walks free after the first trial there's no reason to talk about alternatives." Samsung Group has disbanded its corporate strategy office, the conglomerate's nerve center controlled by Lee and his lieutenant Choi Gee-sung, who is also a defendant in the case. It has also been moving in the past year to give more power over decisions to the boards of its affiliates such as Samsung Electronics. THREE MEETINGS A DAY In the recent past, some top South Korean businessmen who have been in custody while on trial have used the lenient visitation regime to the full. For example, Justice Department data obtained and then released by an opposition party lawmaker shows that Chey Tae-won, the head of chemicals to telecoms and semiconductors conglomerate SK Group, had 171 "special" meetings with non-attorney visitors, when he was detained between February 2013 and July 2014. Chey also had 1,607 meetings with his lawyers during that time, or three times a day on average, and the regularity of the meetings allowed him to review and comment on major decisions for the conglomerate while being detained, according to people familiar with the matter. While Lee wont have access to a computer in his 6.56 square meter (71 square foot) cell, he can view documents during those meetings with his lawyers and Samsung executives. Lee is not allowed to take documents back to his cell. He can also make phone calls with permission of the warden, but calls can be recorded or listened to by the authorities, according to South Korean correctional rules. Lee may remain at the detention center until at least September should the case end up in the Supreme Court and he does not seek bail. Samsung said Lee has not decided yet whether to seek bail. Despite the access to attorneys and executives, it isn't easy for business leaders to participate fully in company affairs once they are in jail, according to those who have had previous experience of such dealings. "In jail, it's difficult to communicate smoothly. So we couldn't do much of the big things, especially M&As," said one person with direct knowledge of a chaebol leader's incarceration. "Operating a conglomerate from within a jail is difficult. It's not like they have a computer, they can't receive things with ease." (Reporting by Jane Chung, Joyce Lee and Se Young Lee; Additional reporting by Ju-min Park and Hyunjoo Jin; Editing By Martin Howell)
Press Release

Project is key part of the establishment of the new SBK line covering 51 km and serving 1.2 million residents in the Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley region

Backbone network will deliver a range of services including security, passenger information, wireless transmission as well as operational support subsystems

14 March 2017

Espoo, Finland - Malaysia has launched its first Mass Rapid Transit line with the help of Nokia and LG CNS. Nokia supplied a mission-critical communications network to LG CNS - a Korea-based systems integrator - that is providing essential support for railway operations on the new SBK line that will ultimately cover 51 km and serve the 1.2 million residents in and around Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. The Northern section of the SBK line (phase 1) has been in operation since December 2016, and the Southern and underground section (phase 2) is planned to be operational by the end of July 2017.

For the project, Nokia is providing a backbone transmission network based on Internet Protocol/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) technology to support a variety of both passenger and operational services, including passenger information and security systems, wireless transmission and operational support subsystems such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), maintenance management system (MMS), automated fare collection (AFC) and more.

The IP/MPLS network consists of the 7750 Service Router and 7210 Service Access Switch, satisfying the stringent requirements of reliability and security. The network provides scalable Layer-2 and Layer-3 virtual private network (VPN) services to support the different railway sub-systems. End-to-end network and services management is handled by the Nokia Network Services Platform, enabling efficient provisioning, maintenance and troubleshooting. Nokia also provided a range of professional services for the project, including network design, installation, test and commissioning and training.

This agreement builds on Nokia's substantial track-record providing mission-critical networks for railway operations. The company has deployed IP/MPLS networks in more than 30 railways worldwide. It also highlights the growing momentum behind Nokia's strategy of expanding its customer base to organizations outside of the traditional telecommunications sphere.

Stuart Hendry, head of Global Enterprise & Public Sector for Asia Pacific & Japan at Nokia, said: "Nokia's IP/MPLS solution for railways is designed to address railway operators' demanding requirements in terms of performance, reliability and, most importantly, safety. We are pleased to play such an important role in helping ensure safe, on-time and connected journeys for Kuala Lumpur's residents."

Byung Il Park, Project Director of LG CNS said: "Nokia's strong solutions for the railway industry, deep local presence and global experience in delivering sophisticated solutions and services made them an ideal partner for this large and complex project."

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TORONTO, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Loraxian is pleased to announce the completion of a series of Memorandums of Understanding between the Company and SAS Sunrise to develop significant renewable energy projects in Southeast Asia, with an initial focus on the Philippines.



It is anticipated that over the 20-year life of this agreement, a minimum of two gigawatts of new clean renewable power will be produced, providing both environmental and economic benefits.

I am absolutely thrilled to move forward in partnership with SAS Sunrise, said Roland Kielbasiewicz, Founder and CEO of Loraxian. As a proven global leader in the renewable industry, coupled with a track record of success in the region, they are the perfect long-term partner for us.

While the joint venture agreement is designed to support positive growth in South-East Asia, Loraxian intends to maintain and expand its Ontario-based work force rather than relocate its corporate headquarters overseas.

Over the last decade, Ontario has supported the creation of an incredible knowledge base of skilled engineers with deep experience in the renewable industry, said Albert Ferrer, COO of Loraxian. We at Loraxian want to harness that passion and skill rather than relocate  thats why we have decided to significantly expand our Canadian operations to support our growth in international markets.

Over the next twelve months, Loraxian intends to hire more than 50 new senior level specialized employees, based in Oakville, who will virtually manage significant elements of the new projects as they come online. It is further anticipated that these employees will be supported by over 150 local workers in Loraxians new Manila regional office, as well as other target markets.

This partnership agreement clearly demonstrates the international reputation that Ontario has earned in the renewable sector, said the Hon. Glenn Thibeault, Ontario Minister of Energy. Im proud to say that Ontario has become a breeding ground for some of the best talent in the renewables sector. This agreement assists us in our goal of developing a 21st century low-carbon economy.

About Loraxian:

Loraxian, an Ontario-based corporation, is a rising leader of energy and infrastructure solutions. Specializing in renewable energy production and energy conservation, the company can meet the needs of large and small scale projects utilizing its propriety project management system which consistently delivers on time and below budget for our partners.
Lithuanian English

Alytus, Lithuania, 2017-03-14 15:55 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On 5 April 2017 the ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Snaige AB, the address of head office Pramones str. 6, Alytus, the company code 249664610 (hereinafter, the Company) is convened the ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (hereinafter, the Meeting).

The place of the meeting at AB Snaige office, at the address Kareiviu str. 6, Vilnius, Lithuania.

The Meeting commences  at 10 a.m. (registration starts at 9.45 a.m.).

The Meetings accounting day  29 March 2017 (the persons who are shareholders of the Company at the end of accounting day of the General Meeting of Shareholders or authorized persons by them, or the persons with whom shareholders concluded the agreements on the disposal of voting right, shall have the right to attend and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders).

The Rights accounting day  20 April 2017.

The Board of directors of the Company initiates and convenes the meeting.

Agenda of the Meeting:

1. Consolidated annual report of Snaige AB on the companys activity for 2016

2. Auditors conclusion on the companys financial statements for 2016.

3.Approval of the set of financial statements of the company for 2016.

4.Approval of distribution of profit (loss) of Snaige AB for 2016.

5. The Board member(-s) election;

6.Election of the audit firm for auditing purposes of financial statements and establishment of terms regarding the payment for audit services;

The Company shall not provide the possibility to participate and vote in the Meeting through electronic communication channels.

Draft resolutions on agenda issues, documents be submitted to the General Meeting of Shareholders and other information related with the exercising of the shareholders rights are available on the website of the Company www.snaige.lt on menu item For investors. This information will be also available for the shareholders at the head office of the Company (Pramones street 6, Alytus) on business days from 9:00 am. till 16:00 pm. (on Fridays till 14:00), tel. +370 315 56206, +370 5 2361970.

Shareholders holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes shall have the right of proposing to supplement the agenda of the Meeting by providing the Meeting draft resolution on each additionally proposed issue or in case no resolution is required - the explanation. The proposals to supplement the agenda shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals shall be presented in writing to the Company on business days or by sending it by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175 Alytus, Lithuania. The proposals submitted via the e-mail shall be sent on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The proposals to supplement the agenda with the additional issues shall be submitted till the 20 March 2017, 4:00 p.m. In case the agenda of the Meeting is supplemented the Company will report on it no later than 10 days before the Meeting in the same ways as on convening of the Meeting.

Shareholders holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes shall have the right of proposing new draft resolutions on the issues already included or to be included in the agenda of the Meeting, audit firms for auditing purposes of financial statements. The proposals shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals shall be presented in writing to the Company on business days till 4 April 2017, 2 p.m. or by sending it by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175 Alytus, Lithuania. During the Meeting the proposals shall be submitted to the Chairman of the Meeting after he announces the Meeting agenda and no later than the Meeting starts working on the issues of agenda. The proposals submitted via the electronic mail shall be sent on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The proposals submitted on this e-mail till 4 April 2017, 2:00 p.m. will be discussed during the Meeting.

The shareholders shall have the right to present questions related to the General Meeting of Shareholders' agenda issues to the Company in advance in writing. The shareholders shall present the questions not later than 3 business days before the Meeting via the electronic mail on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The Company undertakes to respond to the submitted questions via the electronic mail till the Meeting day, except the questions related to the Companys commercial secret and confidential information.

During the registration to attend the Meeting the shareholders or the persons authorized by them shall submit a document which is a proof of his identity. The shareholders' authorized persons shall submit the power of attorney confirmed by the established order. The power of attorney issued by the natural person shall be notarized. A power of attorney issued in a foreign state must be translated into Lithuanian and legalized in the manner prescribed by law. Representative can be authorized by more than one shareholder and shall have a right to vote differently under the orders of each shareholder. The shareholder holding shares of the Bank, where the shares have been acquired on his own behalf, but for the benefit of other persons, must disclose before voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders to the Company the identity of the final customer, the number of shares that are put to the vote and the content of the voting instructions submitted to him or any other explanation regarding the participation agreed upon with the customer and voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders.

Shareholder shall also have the right to authorize through electronic communication channels another person (natural or legal) to participate and vote in the Meeting on shareholder's behalf. Such authorization shall not be confirmed by the notary officer. The power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels must be confirmed by the shareholder with a safe electronic signature developed by safe signature equipment and approved by a qualified certificate effective in the Republic of Lithuania. The shareholder shall inform the Company on the power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels by e-mail vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt no later than the last business day before the meeting at 2:00 p.m. The power of attorney and notification shall be issued in writing. The power of attorney and notification to the Company shall be signed with the Electronic Signature but not the letters sent via the e-mail. By submitting the notification to the Company the shareholder shall include the Internet address from which it would be possible to download free of charge software to verify an Electronic Signature of the shareholder.

Each shareholder or representative thereof shall have the right to cast his/her vote in advance in writing by filling in a general ballot paper. The general ballot paper form is on the Company's website www.snaige.lt on menu item For Investors. Upon the written shareholders request, the Company no later than 10 days before the Meeting shall send a general ballot paper by registered mail or hand it in person against signature. The general ballot paper filled shall be signed by the shareholder or his/her representative. In case the ballot paper is signed by the shareholder's authorized representative, such person along with the filled ballot paper shall submit the document to confirm the voting right. The ballot paper filled and the document confirming the voting right (if required) shall be submitted in a written form to the Company by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175, Alytus, Lithuania, or by submitting it to the Company. Validated will be dully filled-in ballot papers, received until the meeting.

The following information and documents are available on the website of the Company www.snaige.lt on menu item For Investors:

- report on the convening of the Meeting;

- the total number of the Companys shares and the number of shares with voting rights on the convening day of the Meeting;

- draft resolutions on each agenda issue (in general ballot paper) and other documents to be submitted to the Meeting;

- general ballot paper form.

Additional information on the stock event is provided by telephone: +370 5 2361970.

Draft resolutions of the General Meeting of Shareholders are attached.
MINNEAPOLIS, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Through a recently signed Agreement between Medsis, a U.S. based big data company, and the Colombian Governments National Victims Repair Unit, launched an initiative to modernize the entire Colombian citizens database system by means of the donation of Medsis big data management technology platform, CEREBRO. The system will convert all existing databases into a single unified civil registry. The use of CEREBRO, along with advanced state-of-the-art security protocols and algorithms, will allow identities of all registered victims to be safely verified and stored, creating efficiencies in all programs within the National Victims Repair Unit and potentially beyond. The National Victims Repair Unit was created to facilitate reparation payments which are a key component of the Colombian Governments recent peace agreement with the FARC in their efforts to achieve a conclusion of the countrys 60-year-old internal conflict.

The project will provide a platform for the distribution of benefits to more than 8 million identified victims. Under terms of the agreement payments of approximately 1.2 Trillion Colombian Pesos ($400 Million USD) will be distributed annually over the next ten years, over 12 trillion pesos ($4B USD) in total.

WAIV, an Australian company focused on payment applications, will be the financial bridge between the National Victims Repair Unit and the persons registered in it. Together with a known payment network for the WAIVCARD and the participation of a Colombian bank, WAIV will be responsible for integrating the MEDSIS: CEREBRO platform to accurately disburse the reparations and financial humanitarian aid to the people registered in the database. The integration with WAIV as a processor makes possible the accurate and timely procedure to manage and disburse the funds to the victims over the next 10 years.

DAX CABRERA, President and CEO of Medsis stated, This historic project, to help heal the nation of Colombia, is exactly what Medsis was designed for. The vision of Colombia and of director ALAN JARA to provide humanitarian aid throughout Colombia, is an important global goal of Medsis.

John Fenga, CEO of WAIV, expressed his satisfaction at being part of this initiative that will allow relief to victims of Colombia's unfortunate internal conflict, Were excited to be a part of this incredible opportunity, said Fenga, Helping the less fortunate is a key part of the WAIV philosophy.

OrangeHook, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company, is an identification authentication company with systems and applications focused in healthcare, government, and data transfer accuracy.

James Mandel, OrangeHook CEO, stated, We are delighted to be recognized as a leader in identification processes, and look forward to our continuing involvement in this historic program.

For more information about OrangeHook, please visit www.orangehook.com.

About the players:

The Victims Unit (UnidadVictimas.gov.co) is a branch of the Colombian Government whose objective is to help and integrally repair the victims of war, with the objective of completing social inclusion and reparation of all affected victims.

Medsis (Medsis.com) is an international information technology company that provides platforms for data management, integration, consolidation, and analysis. Their systems are designed to operate in environments with volatile infrastructure such as remote, rural, and conflict areas.

WAIV (WAIVCard.com) is an international technology company offering a comprehensive payment system designed to make banking online safer, faster, and cheaper. Its aim is to increase global financial inclusion for the 2 billion unbanked people worldwide.

OrangeHook (orangehook.com) (OTC:NUVLD) is a global leader in identity solutions. Through its suite of proprietary technologies, OrangeHook helps health, government, and corporate entities with cloud-based validation, accreditation, and verification services.
Re: Should I retake the GMAT again before an interview? [ #permalink

which country?



this is speculation on my part (backed up by thorough research), but i would suggest that if you are the best 1-3 applicant(s) from your country, you will get in even with your current low stats (no offense - it is what is). they want people from as many countries as possible and are willing to admit those with lower scores to hit their target "diversity." if you are not amongst the best of the best out of your country, then your low stats could knock you out of the running.



i think the fact that you got an interview suggests that you are at the top of what your country has to offer in terms of applicants (there may have been only 5-10 applicants, who knows?). you probably have a very good chance of getting in because unusual country + female = the win. i am not trying to downplay your qualifications, but i suspect that if you were male and from the USA, you would be a longshot and probably wouldn't have gotten an interview. no offense, that's just the way the process seems to work -- more power to you if you do get in.
Correct choice with the template demand, the connector that and the base form of the verb provide

That --- is missing

childs Russian language and culture, and actions--- depicts actions as part of the childs doings.

-The intervening semi colon is wrong. What follows the semi colon is not an IC

present tense form of the verb --- provides --- is wrong in a command subjunctive

Thank you Daagh for your time on GMAT Club and all your contributions! Thank you for everything you did!

Your work will remain a great tribute to you here on GMAT Club !

-bb -bb Signature Read More

This is essentially a test of the use of the command subjunctive(A) may demand that an American adoptive parent provide his or her child with an environment that preserves the childs Russian language and culture; some argue that such actions could sacrifice children's lives to a phantom national interest. -----(B) may demand an American adoptive parent provide his or her child with an environment that preserves the childs Russian language and culture; some argue that such actions could sacrifice children's lives to a phantom national interest. ------ ---(C) may demand that an American adoptive parent provide his or her child with an environment that preserves the childs Russian language and culture, and actions could sacrifice children's lives to a phantom national interest. ---(D) may demand that an American adoptive parent provide his or her child with an environment that preserves the childs Russian language and culture; actions that could sacrifice children's lives to a phantom national interest. --(E) may demand that an American adoptive parent provides his or her child with an environment that preserves the childs Russian language and culture; some argue that such actions could sacrifice children's lives to a phantom national interest. ----_________________
Quote:

This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

Quote:

(A) Smithtown Universitys fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.

Quote:

(B) This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the universitys fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before.



Quote:

(C) This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the universitys fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.



Quote:

(D) The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.





Quote:

(E) More than half of the money raised by Smithtown Universitys fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.



On strengthen, weaken, and assumption questions, I generally start with the conclusion, stated exactly in the passages own words. In this case, the conclusion is basically the second and fourth sentences of the paragraph:Great, and whats the evidence to support this conclusion? Well, we know that fund-raisers have succeeded in getting donations from 80% of the potential donors they contacted, and since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base.Bottom line: the argument is accusing Smithtowns fund-raisers of being lousy, lazy fundraisers who just keep contacting people who have donated in the past. The correct answer will support the conclusion that the fund-raisers were not doing a good job and that the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.On to the answer choices:This looks pretty good! Again: were trying to find support for the idea that the fund-raisers were not doing a good job and that the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.(A) is telling us that the Smithtown fund-raisers were no better than those of other universities  so that supports the idea that they were not necessarily doing a good job. Plus, if Smithtowns fund-raisers were just as unsuccessful with potential new donors as other universities, then it must be the case that the exceptionally high 80% success rate came from targeting previous donors.Its hard to imagine that well beat (A), but we always want to find four wrong answers - so lets go through the rest of them:Nope. If this is true, perhaps the fund-raisers deserve a cookie, but its not terribly relevant to the argument. Were trying to support the idea that the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort. The SIZE of donations from new donors tells us nothing about canvassing effort.This is pretty much irrelevant to the conclusion. It just tells us that a lot of people donated without being contacted. This doesnt tell us anything about the fund-raisers canvassing efforts with new donors, or whether they were doing a good job in general.Nope. This would definitely weaken the argument. If this is true, then the fund-raisers must have contacted a lot of new potential donors, with a high degree of success.If anything, this one weakens the argument. If (E) is true, it would be awfully hard to argue that the fundraisers were not doing a good job with new donors.So (A) is our winner!_________________
A note left by the Nigerian air force officer, Lieutenant Kalu, who shot his colleague/lover dead over suspicion that she was cheating on him with another man has been found.

Read last words of NAF officer who killed his girlfriend

He left a note explaining his actions, adding that he would also kill himself after he kills his girlfriend. Kalu who must have changed his mind at the last moment out of fear, was arrested and detained at the air force base in Benue state.

PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ Gossip App

Read note below:

Read the note below:

"Its a privilege for me writing this note because it would be read by most of men."

"Its a love story of a guy falling in love with a wrong witch who pretended to be good in my eyes and in the eyes of my loving mother. Am a simple guy who never partake in name various (nefarious) activities. Most individuals say I have a future here it is. Am a guy who pull two rounds in a witch and one round to my f*cking body."

"For it is said he who kill by the sword shall die by it."

"Most idiot would insult me, yes! If I were to be in there shoes I would do the same likewise if they were to be in my shoe, they would even pull more than three rounds on the witch."

"Call me crazy lover who died for heartbreak."

Meanwhile, the man, Sunday Akoji, who obtained Kalus note and shared it on social media has made his opinions on the matter known.

Akoji expressed that he hopes Kalu would by sentenced to death by firing squad for killing a fellow officer.

READ ALSO: NAF officer who killed his girlfriend undergoes psychiatric test, to be dismissed and handed over to the police (photos)

He also shared the story of how the couple met. In his post, he explained that the couple met and fell in love at a boot camp in 2016.

Last words of NAF officer Kalu

READ ALSO: Beautiful Nigerian Air Force officer allegedly shot dead by jealous lover in Benue state (photos)

Read post below:

Yesterday while my account was still under suspension, I posted a story of a Nigerian Air Force Airman who shot and killed his girlfriend, a fellow Air Woman for allegedly cheating on him.

Both of them met at the boot camp and fell in love in 2016 when they joined the Air Force. They were posted to the Nigerian Air Force Tactical Air Command in Makurdi. Airman Kalu aka Mr LoverMan put a bullet in the neck of Air Woman Sholape at 4:36am on Sunday morning in his apartment where the lovebirds spent the night. He then proceeded to update his Facebook status speaking incoherently like the lunatic that he is.

He left a note, but the coward wasn't man enough to put a bullet in his own neck. Don't dignify this act of stupidity and callous murder of an innocent soul by a deranged, unhinged lunatic who can also pass for Lucifer himself, as an act of love by comparing it with Williams Shakespeare fictional character, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, as some idiots I see on blogosphere are currently doing. As the sage puts it, do not underestimate the power of STUPID people gathered in large crowds. How anyone will justify killing a lover because of infidelity in the 21st century is beyond my comprehension.

I have read the note left by the murderous coward who is so lily-livered and chicken hearted that he cannot even put a bullet on his own head, and it made no sense to me. Biko read and tell me if you can make sense of the hogwash he penned down as part of his carefully planned murder and failed script?

Airman B.A Kalu was arrested after killing his girlfriend with his service pistol and updated his Facebook page. He actually misled the public because he is worse than a coward and didn't have the nerve to kill himself. He is currently under Air Provost Detention at the Makurdi Air Force Base and awaiting Orderly Room Trial in a military court according to Military law. Hopefully he will get a bullet in the neck after a verdict of GUILTY for killing Service personnel is handed over to him, with death by FIRING SQUAD. As they say in law, Res Ipsa Loquitor - The facts speaks for itself!

This unequal and unparalleled act of brutal savagery cannot be found in history. Not even in the Hobbesian state of nature described by Thomas Hobbes, where man survived in the wild, ravaged by hunger and diseases as he gather woods and hunt for games in order to survive the element.

Do you agree with him?

Nigerians who were moved by the story of the NAF officer who shot his girlfriend have reacted. Some people believe the officer had a mental breakdown while others defended him, saying he did it for love.

Read below:

Watch video below:

Source: Legit.ng
By Press Trust of India: Patna, Mar 14 (PTI) The police arrested 705 persons and seized 6,366 litres of country liquor and Indian Made Foreign liquor as part of a stepped up campaign against liquor consumption during Holi in Bihar.

This was the first Holi in the state after a total prohibition was clamped from April, last year, presenting a major challenge to the police and excise officials to enforce alcohol ban during the festival.

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The Director General of Police control room said today that in an intensified campaign for three days, including the festival day, the police seized 6,366 litres of both country liquor and IMFL.

The police also seized 1,568 litres of "Mahua" (spiced brew) during the anti-liquor campaign from March 11-13, the control room operating under direct supervision of the state police chief said.

Giving a break-up of the seizures, it said, on the occasion of Holi yesterday the police had seized 241 litres of country liquor, 286 litres of foreign brand and 264 litres of spiced brew from different parts of the state.

A total number of 140 persons were arrested on March 13 under the new liquor law.

On the eve of Holi, on March 11, the police had arrested 276 persons and seized a total amount of 1,342 litres of country liquor, 2,608 litres of IMFL and 752 litres of spiced brew from various places in Bihar.

Similarly, on March 12 the seizure list included 524 litres of country liquor, 1,365 litres of IMFL and 552 litres of spiced brew. The police had arrested 289 persons on that day, the control room said. PTI ANW SNS SBN MD

--- ENDS ---
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By Press Trust of India: Panaji, Mar 14 (PTI) With the Supreme Court asking the BJP to prove its majority in the Goa assembly on Thursday, new CM Manohar Parrikar today said another independent MLA has supported his coalition government, raising its tally to 22.

"There has been a speculation for the last two days if the BJP has really got the majority required to form the government and here we are; we have 22 legislators with us," Parrikar told reporters after taking oath at Raj Bhavan.

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Earlier on a Congress plea for a stay on Parrikars swearing-in ceremony, a bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar, in a special sitting, requested Goa Governor Mridula Sinha to summon the House for the floor test for which the session will commence at 11 AM on March 16.

Led by Parrikar, the Goa legislature party had staked its claim on Sunday to form the government claiming support of 21 MLAs, including 13 of the BJP, three each of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP) besides two independents.

Responding to reporters query, Parrikar said another independent MLA has given support to the coalition, taking its tally to 22, two more than the halfway mark of 20 in the 40-member House.

While independents Rohan Khaunte and Govind Gawade have already backed the BJP-led coalition and even took oath with Parrikar as ministers today, the third independent MLA Parrikar referred to is Prasad Gaonkar (Sanguem).

"Our alliance partners took this decision to support us in the larger interest of Goa. Three independents have given us the support. Their support is only for the sake of Goas development and states speciality which is called goenkarponn (Goanness). I am very thankful to them.

"Though the mandate is fractured, all the alliance partners have come together to take (our) number in assembly to 22," Parrikar said.

When contacted, Gaonkar said, "I have given my letter of support to the BJP-led government. And my support is unconditional."

Parrikar exuded confidence that the BJP would prove its majority on the floor of the House on March 16.

"The day after tomorrow the procedure of proving majority on the floor of the House would be completed. Let everyone be very clear that this government will last its full term," the CM said.

He said the portfolios would be allocated to the nine MLAs, who took oath with him, after the majority is proved on the floor of the House.

In the 40-member House, the Congress is the single largest party with 17 seats, followed by the BJP 13, GFP 3, MGP 3, NCP 1 and three independents.

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While the MGP is the erstwhile ally of BJP, the GFP has won three seats in the debut contest, interestingly against the BJP candidates.

All three GFP MLAs Vijai Sairdesai, Vinod Palyekar and Jayesh Salgaonkar took oath as ministers today.

Among three MGP candidates who are backing BJP, Sudin Dhavlikar and Manohar Ajgaonkar were sworn-in.

"We have the numbers to form the government. We have more than 21 MLAs with us with the support of alliance partners," Goa BJP unit General Secretary Sadanand Tanawade said.

When asked about the numbers the Congress had mustered to reach the magic figure of 21, the Congress Goa Chief Luizinho Faleiro refused to elaborate and said, "the strength would be shown on the floor of the House." PTI RPS GK NSK RAX

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By Press Trust of India: Jammu, Mar 14 (PTI) Bharti Airtel, India?s largest telecommunications services provider, today announced the launch of its 4G services in Jammu & Kashmir, completing a national rollout.

With the latest launch, Airtel 4G service is now available in all 22 telecom circles of the country.

Raveendra Desai, COO ? J&K, Bharti Airtel said, ?We are pleased to launch our 4G services in Jammu & Kashmir and look forward to delighting customers with best-in-class services on India?s best smartphone network."

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"We invite customers to avail the exciting data offers and get on to the digital superhighway.

We remain committed to the government?s digital vision for the state and will continue to invest in expanding our services,? he said.

The company plans to expand its 4G footprint to over 100 towns across J&K, he said adding that Airtel 4G has been rolled out in the state using FD LTE technology in the 1,800 MHz band.

Airtel 4G will allow customers to experience uninterrupted HD video streaming, superfast uploading and downloading of movies, music and images, he said.

Airtel 4G services are available at 3G prices, he said adding that the customers can upgrade to 4G SIM for free and choose from a range of exciting prepaid and postpaid plans that offer generous dollops of high speeds data.

List of towns where 4G is currently available in J&K include Jammu, Akhnoor, Nagrota, Kathua, Katra, Samba, Udhampur, Reasi, Rehambal, Bari Brahamana, Billawar, Ghomanhasan, Miran Sahib, Misriwala, Raipur Domana, Bashohli, Hiranagar, Rajauri, Sunderbani, Thanamandi, Jyotipuram, Talwara, Badlirakh, Garnai and Vaishno Devi. PTI AB JM

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On 3-5 October 2017 Kyiv is going to host the Space and Future Forum to network international experts and youth, many of whom will also participate at the first CosmoHack in the world. Joinfo provides media coverage of the Forum, and some of its topics were already discussed ...
Lawmakers in Canada are working on legislation that would put an end to high heel requirements for female employees in the workplace, Joinfo.com reports with reference to Independent.

Christy Clark, the premier of the western province of British Columbia, on Sunday tweeted her support for a private members bill put forward by Green Party leader Andrew Weaver that pushes to make it illegal for businesses to enforce footwear requirements based on gender.

She said that she agrees 100% with the idea of not forcing women to wear heels at work.

Well move to end this, she added.

Separately, on her Facebook page, Ms Clark wrote: In some workplaces in BC, women are still required to wear high heels on the job. This isnt just old-fashioned; in 2017, its unacceptable.

Mr Weaver last week, on International Womens Day, proposed a bill designed to prevent employers from setting varying footwear and other requirements based on gender, gender expression or gender identity. 

According to local news reports, Ms Clark told a news conference her government is looking at the quickest and simplest way to implement the change.

The Canadian province isnt alone in taking on the issue.

In the UK, MPs recently debated a ban on employers demanding that women wear high heels in the workplace, in response to a petition started by receptionist Nicola Thorpe.

The petition asked for dress code laws to be changed so women have the option to wear flat formal shoes in the workplace. It came after Ms Thorpe was sent home from work in December 2015 for not wearing high heels.
By Press Trust of India: Gurdaspur, Mar 14 (PTI) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) workers led by former education minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan today staged a sit-in protesting against the murder of a district vice president of their party here yesterday.

The district vice president of SAD Gurbachan Singh (80) was shot dead allegedly by a retired Colonel at Pheochichi village under Bhaini Mian Khan police stationlast night.

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Sekhwan, former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Gurbachan Singh Babbehali and a large number of Akali supporters staged a dharna for nearly two hours at the post office chowk here.

Gurbachan was returning home after getting fodder for cattle when Surjit Singh Pherochichi, a retired Colonel, allegedly shot him dead with his licensed pistol, police had said.

The protesters lifted the dharna only afer Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Gurdaspur Jasdip Singh assured them that action would be taken against the culprits.

SSP Singh said a case had been registered against Pherochichi, his son Sumit, both of whom were absconding and a third person who has been arrested. PTI COR CH ADS

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The Yemeni war is on the verge of taking a new dimension as units of the Pakistani army will be deployed to Saudi Arabias southern border with war-torn Yemen.

The decision was made following heated debate at the Pakistani parliament.

The reason for the deployment is still unclear but a source has stated that the forces will not be used beyond Saudi borders. The move is believed to have been discussed with the Pakistani Chief of General Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa during his visit to Saudi Arabia in December.

The Pakistani army had stated at end of last year that it was committed to the security and protection of the Holy Mosques and also to the territorial integrity of the kingdom. The statement was made after Saudi authorities accused the Houthi Movement of targeting the Holy Kabba with a missile in October 2016. The Houthis denied the claims.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a military coalition in Yemen to reinstate President Hadi as the legitimate president of the country but the process has been challenging since it was launched in March 2015.

Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed according to UN data while the warring parties have been accused of committing war crimes.

Although Islamabad has limited its involvement in the crisis, the deployment of its troops continues to be a sensitive issue because Riyadh terms the military campaign as a Sunni coalition wherein 20% of Pakistans population is Shias.

Analysts consider the war in Yemen as a proxy war between the Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia and the Shias backed by Iran.
An international research team, led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, has created the first cellular model of anorexia nervosa (AN), reprogramming induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from adolescent females with the eating disorder.

Writing in the March 14th issue of Translational Psychiatry, the scientists said the resulting AN neuronsthe disease in a dishrevealed a novel gene that appears to contribute to AN pathophysiology, buttressing the idea that AN has a strong genetic factor. The proof-of-concept approach, they said, provides a new tool to investigate the elusive and largely unknown molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the disease.

"Anorexia is a very complicated, multifactorial neurodevelopmental disorder," said Alysson Muotri, PhD, professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine, director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program and a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. "It has proved to be a very difficult disease to study, let alone treat. We don't actually have good experimental models for eating disorders. In fact, there are no treatments to reverse AN symptoms."

Primarily affecting young female adolescents between ages 15 and 19, AN is characterized by distorted body image and self-imposed food restriction to the point of emaciation or death. It has the highest mortality rate among psychiatric conditions. For females between 15 and 24 years old who suffer from AN, the mortality rate associated with the illness is 12 times higher than the death rate of all other causes of death.

Though often viewed as a non-biological disorder, new research suggests 50 to 75 percent of risk for AN may be heritable; with predisposition driven primarily by genetics and not, as sometimes presumed, by vanity, poor parenting or factors related to specific groups of individuals.

But little is actually known about the molecular, cellular or genetic elements or genesis of AN. In their study, Muotri and colleagues at UC San Diego and in Brazil, Australia and Thailand, took skin cells from four females with AN and four healthy controls, generated iPSCs (stem cells with the ability to become many types of cells) from these cells and induce these iPSCs to become neurons.

(Previously, Muotri and colleagues had created stem cell-derived neuronal models of autism and Williams syndrome, a rare genetic neurological condition.)

Then they performed unbiased comprehensive whole transcriptome and pathway analyses to determine not just which genes were being expressed or activated in AN neurons, but which genes or transcripts (bits of RNA used in cellular messaging) might be associated with causing or advancing the disease process.

No predicted differences in neurotransmitter levels were observed, the researchers said, but they did note disruption in the Tachykinin receptor 1 (TACR1) gene. Tachykinins are neuropeptides or proteins expressed throughout the nervous and immune systems, where they participate in many cellular and physiological processes and have been linked to multiple diseases, including chronic inflammation, cancer, infection and affective and addictive disorders.

The scientists posit that disruption of the tachykinin system may contribute to AN before other phenotypes or observed characteristics become obvious, but said further studies employing larger patient cohorts are necessary.

"But more to the point, this work helps make that possible," said Muotri. "It's a novel technological advance in the field of eating disorders, which impacts millions of people. These findings transform our ability to study how genetic variations alter brain molecular pathways and cellular networks to change risk of ANand perhaps our ability to create new therapies."

More information: P D Negraes et al, Modeling anorexia nervosa: transcriptional insights from human iPSC-derived neurons, Translational Psychiatry (2017). Journal information: Translational Psychiatry P D Negraes et al, Modeling anorexia nervosa: transcriptional insights from human iPSC-derived neurons,(2017). DOI: 10.1038/tp.2017.37
About 700 people have died from malaria in Burundi so far this year, the health minister said, with the authorities having registered 1.8 million infections in a rising epidemic.

"Burundi faces a malaria epidemic," Josiane Nijimbere said Monday, commenting on a World Health Organization (WHO) report.

From January 1 to March 10 this year, 1.8 million infections were registered in Burundi, according to the WHO.

According to Nijimbere, the latest figures constitute a 17 percent increase from the same period last year.

"Some 700 deaths" have been registered since January, the minister added.

In 2016, an estimated 8.2 million people were infected and 3,000 people died in mountainous Burundi, which is home to around 11 million people.

UN officials and medical sources say Burundi's stock of anti-malaria medication is nearly empty.

Nijimbere put the cost of fighting malaria at $31 million (29 million euros), as she appealed for donations to help fight the disease.

She attributed the rise in infections to climate change, increased marshland for rice-growing and the population's misuse of mosquito nets.

Burundi has been plunged into chaos since President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision in April 2015 to run for a third term.

Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others have fled the country.

The crisis also led to a 54 percent cut to the government's health budget in 2016 from the previous year.

"This malaria crisis is even more dramatic because it is striking an impoverished, hungry population that has no resources and for whom even the slightest shock can have life-or-death consequences," a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

 2017 AFP
Credit: University of Manchester

Intensive speech and language therapy can significantly help stroke patients who have been struggling to communicate for six months or more, according to newly published research.

Dr Stefanie Abel from The University of Manchester, co-author of new study, says patients with chronic aphasia need far more than they are currently getting on the health services to help them improve their everyday communication and health-related quality of life.

The multicentre RCT study  carried out in Germany and published in The Lancet - has for the first time directly demonstrated the superiority of intensive speech therapy to no treatment or treatment at low intensity in chronic post-stroke aphasia.

The project team was led by Dr Caterina Breitenstein, University of Muenster, and Prof Annette Baumgaertner, University of Applied Sciences Fresenius in Hamburg.

Currently, German patients with chronic aphasia - the inability to comprehend and formulate language because of damage to the brain's language network  usually get around 1.5 hours of speech therapy a week, as reflected in the control condition of the present project. This intensity of treatment turned out to be ineffective.

Dr Abel argues intensity should be drastically increased for treatment to be effective.

The 156 patients in the study with chronic aphasia were given speech therapy that was individually targeted at each patient's performance profile.

For example, if speaking in full sentences and word finding was impaired, therapy focused on these tasks, together with training of everyday messages.

The regime was delivered under regular clinical conditions with an intensity of at least 10 hours/week for 3 weeks, resulting in a 10% improvement on average. For patients who received therapy for at least five and up to 10 weeks, effectiveness was even higher.

The team identified significant improvements in verbal communication, linguistic abilities, and quality of life ratings in the immediate and longer-term.

However, non-verbal learning skills and executive functioning were not affected by the regime, underlining, says Dr Abel, the need for treatment to be specifically tailored to the respective deficits to be effective.

Future studies may investigate which level of intensity is required for a similar effect, to allow speech therapy to be both effective and efficient.

Dr Abel was speech therapy supervisor in the project and developed the impairment-based outcome measure, from which all linguistic exercises in the study were derived. She said: "It's one thing to anticipate that higher intensities of speech therapy will improve the verbal communications skills of stroke patients, but it's another to prove it.

"We can now be certain that this more intensive regime will work for the majority of these patients, and could provide important opportunities for them to cope better with this debilitating problem.

"We expect and hope our trial to have great impact on clinical practice and health care for people with aphasia internationally.

"Now the evidence is out there, we hope health services will take note."

More information: Caterina Breitenstein et al. Intensive speech and language therapy in patients with chronic aphasia after stroke: a randomised, open-label, blinded-endpoint, controlled trial in a health-care setting, The Lancet (2017). Journal information: The Lancet Caterina Breitenstein et al. Intensive speech and language therapy in patients with chronic aphasia after stroke: a randomised, open-label, blinded-endpoint, controlled trial in a health-care setting,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30067-3
Study authors Zhi-Dong Jiang, M.D., Dr.P.H., and Herbert DuPont, M.D. Credit: Terry Vine

Frozen and freeze-dried products for Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) are nearly as effective as fresh product at treating patients with Clostridium difficile (C-diff) infection, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health and Kelsey Research Foundation. A new study, which proves that a pill form of treatment could be effective and more convenient for patients and physicians, was published in the most recent issue of Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

C-diff is a bacterium that causes inflammation of the colon. People infected with the bacteria can have recurrent diarrhea that lasts months or even years. It is the No. 1 hospital-acquired infection in the United States and leads to 29,000 deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illness most commonly affects people in hospitals and nursing homes who are taking antibiotics and may have an underlying medical condition.

FMT is a procedure in which a doctor extracts bacteria from fecal matter from a healthy donor, mixes the bacteria in a solution and transfers the microbiota to a person with C-diff via colonoscopy, endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy or enema. The study shows that the fecal microbiota can be frozen or freeze-dried (like instant coffee). The procedure replenishes good bacteria killed by antibiotics in the microbiome.

For the study, UTHealth and Kelsey Research Foundation investigators enrolled 72 patients who had at least three bouts of recurrent C-diff in a clinical trial and treated them with either fresh, frozen or freeze-dried FMT product via colonoscopy. Fresh FMT product produced a 100 percent cure rate among participants; frozen product produced an 83 percent cure rate and freeze-dried product produced a 69 percent cure rate.

Frozen and fresh product fully restored the microbiota diversity among participants within seven days after treatment. Researchers saw some improvement in microbiota diversity among participants treated with freeze-dried product after seven days and full restoration of healthy bacteria within 30 days.

"This is the first study to show that frozen and freeze-dried microbiota are as good as fresh material, so that we never have to use fresh again. It's a logistical nightmare to use fresh product. If we were going to treat you today, a donor would have come in two hours before, we would have already isolated the sample and then we would have to administer it the same day. A pill form of the product could make all of this easier," said Herbert L. DuPont, M.D., senior author and director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at UTHealth School of Public Health.

DuPont co-directs the FMT program with Zhi-Dong Jiang, M.D., Dr.P.H., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences at the School of Public Health. DuPont is also the president and CEO of Kelsey Research Foundation.

"Freeze-dried product can be put into a pill that can be given orally, which is much more convenient for patients and physicians," said DuPont, who is currently testing the safety and efficacy of a pill version of the product.

One of the participants in the clinical trial, John Siebert, was on vacation with his family in California when he contracted C-diff in August 2014. The 66-year-old, who is a professor of agricultural economics at Texas A&M University, sought medical care as soon as he returned to Texas but was stunned that his doctors did not know how to treat the condition in a lasting way. After four months and three bouts of C-diff that left him fighting for his life, Siebert was at a loss.

"It's extremely painful and debilitating because you can't ever really be far from a bathroom. I had really bad cramps and I ate a lot less because I didn't want to aggravate things," said Siebert, who lost nearly 20 pounds and missed a month of work.

Eventually, Siebert found DuPont and Jiang, who were enrolling patients in their FMT clinical trial. Siebert immediately signed up and had the procedure done in early December. Siebert felt mostly recovered by Christmas and was back to his normal self by March 2015.

"It was a miracle! I love teaching and I can't tell you what it was like to be healthy again, to be able to do my job and not retire before I was ready," said Siebert.

Siebert's struggle to find a permanent cure to C-diff is not uncommon. Physicians typically treat C-diff with antibiotics, which can kill one form of the bacteria, the toxins. However, C-diff spores are much harder to kill and once the antibiotics have destroyed both good and bad bacteria in the gut, the remaining spores can release additional toxins. There is a 50 percent chance that a person who has C-diff will get a recurrent infection because of those toxins.
The Republican plan to ditch "Obamacare" and implement new reforms to the US health care system would leave millions of Americans without insurance. Its effect would vary depending on people's age, income and employment.

Under the new plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the number of uninsured will grow by 14 million in 2018, and by 2026 to 24 million more than the number projected to be living without insurance under the current Affordable Care Act.

"In the academic community, people were surprised at how high the figures were," Colleen Carey, an economics professor at Cornell University and an expert in health care regulation, told AFP. Next year's loss is "huge," she said.

Some people will benefit should the plan, backed by President Donald Trump, become law, while others will lose out.

Employees

About half of Americans are covered through their employer, often at relatively reasonable rates. The Republican reform should not affect them, although CBO projects that under the new law some employers may see incentives to stop offering insurance to their workers.

The elderly

Americans aged 65 and older are the other major group protected from any volatile changes in the reform. Since the 1960s they have benefited from the public health care program for the elderly known as Medicare. The Republican plan leaves Medicare untouched.

The poor

Those most affected by the plan will be the beneficiaries of Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor and people with disabilities, created in the 1960s and expanded in 2010 under the reforms implemented by then-president Barack Obama. As of last December, Medicaid covered some 69 million Americans.

Medicaid has historically covered low-income children and their parents, with eligibility varying from state to state, and Obamacare extended coverage to adults earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level. The US poverty level is set at $12,060 per year per individual.

The Republican plan rolls this expansion back in 2020, a move that would deny Medicaid coverage to millions of working poor.

It would also limit federal aid to US states, which co-manage Medicaid and may be forced to restrict eligibility criteria or coverage.

The CBO projected that by 2026, of the 24 million additional people who would be uninsured, 14 million would have been covered under Medicaid's expansion.

The individual market

Acquiring affordable coverage for people who do not receive insurance from their employer, Medicaid or Medicare is the longstanding challenge of the US health care system.

Some have part-time jobs or are employees of small businesses that do not provide coverage. Others are self-employed or entrepreneurs. Approximately 50 million people fall into this broad category, according to Carey.

Obamacare provided need-based financial assistance for these individuals to purchase coverage on the private health insurance market.

Those subsidies made it possible to limit the amount people paid for health coverage to a reasonable percentage of their income.

The Republican plan provides refundable tax credits, but in many cases the amount of assistance is sharply reduced.

At the same time, it allows private insurers greater variation of insurance premiums, according to people's age.

On average, by 2020 these insurance premiums would decrease by 10 percent compared to Obamacare, according to CBO.

This figure hides a large disparity. The impact is most dramatic on older Americans under age 65, especially in rural areas where health care costs more than in cities.

A single person age 64 and earning $26,500 a year would see their annual out-of-pocket insurance costs spike to $14,600, compared to $1,700 under Obamacare.

By comparison, a 21-year-old would see his or her costs drop under the new plan.

"The worst type of person to be is over 50, in a rural part of the country, who is relatively low-income," said Carey, the Cornell professor.

"The best type of person to be is someone young, urban and making, say, $70,000" per year.

 2017 AFP
A 3-D reconstruction of the zebra finch brain illustrates a subset of the interconnected brain regions needed for learning and producing birdsong. The O'Donnell Brain Institute is conducting a study funded by the White House's signature BRAIN Initiative research program to understand how the brain functions during vocal learning. Image courtesy of Dr. Julian Meeks of UTSW's Whole Brain Microscopy Facility. Credit: UT Southwestern

A young songbird sings an intricate melody from its caged perch, trying to echo the mating song heard so many times from his father.

A team of scientists monitor a screen nearby showing the rhythmic activity in the bird's brain cells, a highly detailed neural illustration of how the young male zebra finch is recalling a memory of the song.

Simply put, the scientists are watchingand sometimes helpingthe brain learn.

Using a broad array of techniques not commonly used in one laboratory, the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute is conducting a study funded by the White House's signature BRAIN Initiative research program to understand how the brain functions during vocal learning. By mapping the neural processes involved as birds learn mating songs, scientists hope to someday use that knowledge to target specific genes disrupting speech in patients with autism or other neurodevelopmental conditions.

"Zebra finches are a great model system because they learn one vocalization when they're young and they perfect it through adolescence. Our lab studies the neural circuits that allow them to both learn this behavior when they're young and expertly maintain it as adults," said Dr. Todd Roberts, who oversees the songbird lab and is Assistant Professor of Neuroscience with the O'Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

A Different Approach

Dr. Roberts' research provides an uncommon and essential element to the broad mission of understanding the human brain.

While many animal studies involve micewhich have almost the same set of genes as humansa different approach is needed to study vocal learning because most mammals don't learn to vocalize through imitation as people do. Songbirds are more effective because they share many of our stages of vocal development: Early in life the zebra finch hears the parent sing, eventually memorizing the notes and after practicing tens of thousands of times they learn to replicate the behavior.

But how does this learning take place? And what goes wrong in the brain when birds aren't able to learn the song? Dr. Roberts is using the latest in brain imaging and optogenetics to find out.

Brain Control

The BRAIN Initiative is funding a $100,000 study in which Dr. Roberts is implementing multiple techniques to examine how neurons rewire themselves during vocal learning.

An adult zebra finch teaches a young songbird a mating song in the lab of Dr. Todd Roberts at the O'Donnell Brain Institute. Dr. Roberts' team is conducting a study funded by the White House's signature BRAIN Initiative research program to understand how the brain functions during vocal learning. Credit: UT Southwestern

A major part of this effort involves bringing together optogenetics and cellular activity sensors, relatively new scientific tools allowing scientists to monitor and control brain activity with light. By activating light-sensitive proteins in zebra finches, Dr. Roberts' team is illuminating groups of neurons to learn how they function during vocal learning and vocal production.

Scientists can also use optogenetic proteins to control circuits deep in the brain, essentially helping the bird learn specific parts of a song shared by the father. For example, when the zebra finch hits a wrong note, a computer can activate specific neurons in its brain to tweak future performances of the song.

Dr. Roberts' studies are working to combine these techniques with multiple imaging methods to simultaneously observe and control neural activity. Among the imaging methods is two-photon microscopy, which allows scientists to peer inside the birds' brain to see the neurons in action during song learning.

"We've been pushing optogenetics and imaging as far as we can," said Dr. Roberts, a Thomas O. Hicks Scholar in Medical Research.

Human Parallels

The bridge between zebra finch research and new treatments for neurodevelopmental conditions is encouraging but long - one of many paths scientists are taking to understand how the brain works.

Still, Dr. Roberts is optimistic his lab can make a significant contribution to the effort, noting the many parallels in the genes of humans and songbirds that are implicated in vocal learning. Both share the FoxP family of genes, for instance, which play important roles in speech, birdsong and neural development.

Part of Dr. Roberts' research involves deactivating and re-activating a type of this FoxP gene that enables the bird to learn song. Specifically, he hopes to gain insight into how effectively vocal learning can be restored following developmental disruptions in song learning.

"The aim would be to eventually use this research to develop treatment strategies for people with speech disorders," he said. "When is the best time to intervene, can it be done later in life or is there a sensitive period early in life that needs to be taken into account?"

Answering such questions didn't seem feasible even a few years ago, Dr. Roberts said. But recent technological advances and increased awareness ushered in by the BRAIN Initiative have broadened the possibilities.

"There is a renewed appreciation for neural circuits that underlie the learning of complex communicative behaviors," Dr. Roberts said. "The songbird can provide new insights into how the brain is organized and how this type of learning is accomplished."
Microscopic image of zebrafish larvae: The distribution of the pigment cells (black) can be seen easily in the animals, which are only the size of an eyelash. If the function of the PSENEN gene (right) was disrupted, these collected in unusual places to form clearly visible patches  similar to people with Dowling-Degos disease. Credit: AG Betz / Universitat Bonn

Dowling-Degos disease is a hereditary pigmentation disorder that generally progresses harmlessly. However, some of those affected also develop severe skin inflammation. An international team of researchers under the leadership of the University of Bonn has now found a cause for this link. Their knowledge comes thanks to an animal that is known among aquarium owners for its characteristic pigmentation: the zebrafish. The results have now been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

People with Dowling-Degos disease have a noticeably large number of dark pigment spots. These are frequently found in certain areas of the body, such as the face, neck, torso, hands, and the bending folds of the arms and legs. The pigmentation disorder generally progresses harmlessly; however, it can have a negative aesthetic effect.

Occasionally, those affected also develop extremely unpleasant skin inflammation, called acne inversa. This is not only painful but is also associated with festering blisters that can leave scars when they burst. The colonization of microorganisms on the affected areas of skin also creates unpleasant body odor. Acne inversa has a chronic progression; a permanent solution is only provided by surgery.

"We have genetically examined 90 people with Dowling-Degos disease since 2005," explains Prof. Regina Betz from the Institute of Human Genetics at the University Hospital of Bonn. "Six of them also suffered from acne inversa." The scientists found a special characteristic in this subgroup: the patients displayed mutations in what is known as the PSENEN gene.

It has been known that PSENEN mutations can cause acne inversa. "However, we were able to show for the first time that changes in this gene primarily cause Dowling-Degos disease and around half of the mutation carriers develop acne inversa," emphasizes Damian Ralser, who is currently working on his doctorate at the Institute of Human Genetics.

To do this, the scientists used an animal that should be known to many aquarium enthusiasts due to its striking pigmentation: the zebrafish. However, the characteristic blueish black stripes, which give the fish its name, only form over time. The eyelash-sized zebrafish larvae are more or less transparent.

Fish as a model organism

Many processes in the body can thus be observed easily under an optical microscope. For this reason, the zebrafish is now used as a model organism by scientists around the globe. At the University of Bonn, Prof. Benjamin Odermatt from the Anatomical Institute is researching how zebrafish repair defective nerve tissue.

Zebrafish also have the PSENEN gene. "In order to be able to research more closely what effect PSENEN has, we, in collaboration with Prof. Odermatt, deactivated the gene in some zebrafish larvae and then compared these with normal larvae under the microscope," explains Damian Ralser.

The pigment cells  the melanocytes  usually wander in a certain direction in the zebrafish larvae. This ensures that the characteristic striped pattern develops over time. However, the pigment cells wandered back and forth aimlessly in animals in which the functioning of PSENEN was disrupted. They ultimately collected in unusual places to form clearly visible patches  similar to people with Dowling-Degos disease.

Only a small proportion of all Dowling-Degos patients carry a PSENEN mutation. "There are also other disease genes that lead to the pigmentation disorder," says Betz. She recommend that all those affected undergo testing. If a disrupted PSENEN gene is the actual cause, there is a significantly increased risk of also suffering from acne inversa. However, the scientist emphasizes that no one is exposed to this risk without protection: "This severe form of acne develops in particular in PSENEN mutation carriers who smoke a lot or who are overweight."

More information: Damian J. Ralser et al. Mutations in -secretase subunitencoding PSENEN underlie Dowling-Degos disease associated with acne inversa, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2017). Journal information: Journal of Clinical Investigation Damian J. Ralser et al. Mutations in -secretase subunitencoding PSENEN underlie Dowling-Degos disease associated with acne inversa,(2017). DOI: 10.1172/JCI90667
Parliaments portfolio committee on communications has recommended Khanyisile Kweyama to serve as SABC interim board chairperson.

The committee met on Tuesday to finalise a list of five names to be recommended to the National Assembly in its interim board report.

It will be considered for adoption in the House on Wednesday.

The five names are: Krish Naidoo, Febe Potgieter-Gqubule, Khanyisile Kweyama, Mathatha Tsedu and John Matisonn.

Kweyama and Tsedu have been nominated as interim board chairperson and deputy chairperson respectively.

Kweyama is the CEO of Business Unity South Africa.

She was previously executive director of Anglo American SA, the first woman to hold such position at the company, and also served on the Telkom board.

Names agreed to in urgent meeting

She has also served on the National Planning Commission appointed by the president. She was named as a champion of social cohesion in the fight against racism in Gauteng by the premier.

She has a Masters in management from Wits University.

The list of five names was agreed to last Wednesday during an urgent committee meeting.

The ANC nominated Naidoo, Potgieter-Gqubule and Kweyama. It also supported the EFFs nomination of Tsedu, a veteran journalist and editor.

Naidoo is a former board member who resigned publicly in October. He is a qualified lawyer with expertise in compliance.

Potgieter-Gqubule would be strong on governance and policy, the ANC said. She was recently deputy chief of staff for former African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The DA nominated Matisonn, a media studies professor and former executive editor of SABC radio.

News24
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's official visit to India will take place from April 7 to 10.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's official visit to India will take place from April 7 to 10.

Bangladesh and India have issued a joint statement announcing Hasina's visit.

"Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina, Hon'ble Prime Minister of Bangladesh, will be visiting India on a State visit from 07-10 April 2017 on an invitation extended by Hon'ble Prime Minister of India His Excellency Shri Narendra Modi," the statement read.

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The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, it said.

"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders," the statement added.

LAST VISIT IN JANUARY 2010

The Bangladesh premier last visited India in January 2010, and PM Modi travelled to Dhaka in June 2015.

Modi invited Hasina to visit India during his Dhaka visit.

The Bangladesh PM's India tour had been scheduled for December 2016, but was postponed due to a timeframe mismatch.

When India's Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar visited Dhaka in December 2016, officials in the Prime Minister's Office hinted that the visit might take place in February this year.

Akbar said that the government and the people of India were eagerly looking forward to welcome Hasina in Delhi.

MODI, HASINA MEET AT BRICS-BIMSTEC MEETING

In October 2016, Shiekh Hasina and her counterpart Modi held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Meeting in India's Goa, but that wasn't an official tour.

ALSO READ | Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina to visit India in April

ALSO WATCH | Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina slams Pakistan, calls it a 'defeated force'

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN.  Two to three potential investors from France will come to Armenia in the next one or two months.

The Minister of Economic Development and Investments of Armenia, Suren Karayan, told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am, as he commented on the results of the official Armenian delegations recent visit to France.

During his visit to France, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had met also with the representatives of major French companies.

As per the minister, after this talk, the representatives of 15 such companies wished to have a personal meeting with him. Karayan noted that these businessmen want to explore the business opportunities in Armenia. In addition, the representatives of two to three French companies agreed to visit Armenia in the next one or two months, and study the opportunities for investments and setting up production in the country.

These companies are engaged in the manufacturing of food products, including dairy products, as well as in the high-tech sector, added the minister.
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STEPANAKERT.  The adversary violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between the Karabakh and Azerbaijani opposing forces 55 times, from late Monday night to early Tuesday morning.

During this time the Azerbaijani armed forces fired more than 630 shots toward the position-holders of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) Defense Army, and with different-caliber shooting weapons, the defense army informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

In addition, the adversary fired two mortar shells, in the southern direction of the line of contact.

But the Artsakh defense army vanguard units mostly refrained from taking actions in response, and they continued confidently carrying out their military service.
Azerbaijans new aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh in April 2016 caused considerable damage to the negotiation process and the efforts to rebuild trust between the sides.

The President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, noted the aforementioned in an article published by Izvestia newspaper of Russia.

Being a guarantor of the safety of the population of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic [(NKR/Republic of Artsakh)], Armenia continues the consistent and constructive efforts toward seeking avenues for the [Karabakh] conflicts pacific settlement, with the format of the co-chairs of the OSCE [i.e. the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] Minsk Group, the Armenian President stressed, in particular. In contrast to other conflicts, the continuous consensus of the positions of Russia, the US, and France in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict enables to consider the OSCE Minsk Group troika co-chairmanship as an effective platform for constructive dialogue between these states.

Those in Baku need to ultimately understand that Armenia and the co-chair countries speak in one language: there is no alternative to negotiations in a civilized world; war is not the way for resolving the problem.

The peoples right to determine their own destiny is an integral part of the modern world order; and the Karabakh conflict shall be resolved on this very basis. At the same time, we need to consider the assessment by the international experts community, which believes that democratic state-building is consistently implemented in the Republic of Artsakh.
STEPANAKERT.  In accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission will conduct a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan.

The monitoring will be held on Wednesday, in the direction of the Martakert Region of the NKR, to the northwest of Talish settlement, the Artsakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed Armenian News-NEWS.am..

From the positions of the Defense Army of the Artsakh Republic, the monitoring will be conducted by Field Assistants to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office (CiO) Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova) and Khristo Khristov (Bulgaria), as well as staff member of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE CiO Peter Svedberg (Sweden).

From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring will be held by Personal Representative of the OSCE CiO Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, his Field Assistant Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic), and Personal Assistant Simon Tiller (Great Britain).

The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh have expressed their readiness to assist in conducting the monitoring and to ensure the safety of the OSCE Mission members.
By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, Mar 14 (PTI) Director Srijit Mukherji says he and his team had faced a lot of difficulties while shooting for "Begum Jaan" in Jharkhand but it was everybodys hard work and passion which made it possible to finish the film.

The movie, which is the remake of Bengali film "Rajkahini", features Vidya Balan in the lead role.

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"Begum Jaan is our labour of love. We were stuck while filming a month-long shoot in Jharkhand where the set was extensively damaged during storms but we rebuilt it and moved on.

"...And you will see Vidya in a very gritty role mouthing certain words and only she could pull it off," Srijit says on the trailer launch of the film.

Vidya plays the role of a brothels madam in the film, set against the backdrop of freedom struggle.

Praising her director, Vidya says without Srijit such a film would not have been possible.

"Begum Jaan has been born from the womb of Kolkata since its director himself emerged from here. Hence, the film is a tribute to women as Kolkata always showed special tribute to its women" Vidya says.

Producer Mahesh Bhatt says "Begum Jaan" shows how women always bear the brunt of riots, wars, clashes and other crisis and that they are the worst sufferers.

"Such subjects are generally avoided by directors," Bhatt says before adding he is proud to have produced a film like "Begum Jaan".

The film is set to release in theatres on April 14. PTI SUS SBN SSN SSN

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN.  The broad amnesty, which was promised by the authorities of Armenia, will be carried out after our victory in the parliamentary elections on April 2.

Head of the election campaign headquarters of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) alliance, vice-chairman of the opposition Heritage Party Board, Armen Martirosyan, on Tuesday stated the aforementioned at an assembly with voters in Yeghegnadzor town.

In his words, this amnesty will apply to all political prisoners, albeit they do not need amnesty.

The opposition politician said the members of the Sasna Tsrer armed groupwhich took over a police patrol regiment building in capital city Yerevan, but later surrendered, in July 2016also were political prisoners.

Martirosyan assured that once the Sasna Tsrer members are released from prison, the circumstances behind the deaths of the police officers, who had died during the aforesaid events, will be investigated; but this time by a just court that will replace the working judicial system which is controlled by the incumbent authorities.

The ORO bloc comprises former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and ex-FMs Raffi Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian.
I worked well, served my army well.

Former Defense Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan, who heads the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) alliances proportional representation list for the forthcoming parliamentary election in the country, on Tuesday said the abovementioned at an assembly with voters in Yeghegnadzor town.

He added that the leaders of this bloc do not need an official post, and that they wish to change the situation in Armenia and the people will see the respective improvements every day, for 365 days.

Subsequently, the ORO leaders and supporters headed for Vayk town.

I dont want to say that we made no mistakes in our work, stated Ohanyan. But the members of our [political] team have achieved some success.

Also, he expressed a conviction that the incumbent authorities can be changed through elections.

The ORO bloc comprises former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and ex-FMs Raffi Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian.

The parliamentary election in Armenia will be conducted on April 2.
Russia is Armenia's strategic partner, and relations between the countries have long history, President Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview with the Spanish agency EFE.

Speaking about intensive diplomatic activities, namely his recent visit to Paris and a visit to Moscow, the head of the Armenian state noted that each country has its own problems, each country seeks to work closely with its partners, and this cooperation is multilateral.

Active political dialogue at the highest level is the most effective way and a good message for the rest of the areas. Yes, I was in Brussels almost a week ago, yesterday I returned from a trip to Paris and on Tuesday I will fly to Moscow. I want to add that a visit to the United Arab Emirates and Malta is set for March, Sargsyan said.

Commenting on relations with Russia, the Armenian leader stressed Russias roles as the main political, economic and military ally of Armenia. He added that there is no reason to break strong and long relations with Russia.

On the contrary, we want to strengthen and expand these relations. This is based on our national interests. Our relations with Russia are developing both at the bilateral and multilateral levels. We are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and are working in other international organizations.

We are a small country, so I would not want to exaggerate our role and say that Armenia can become a bridge between the West and Russia. It would be an exaggeration. Therefore, we are constantly working to avoid creating additional problems between Russia and the West. We think that it is dangerous to use disagreements between the parties. In many cases, for small countries, this can be a fatal case. Therefore, we feel more comfortable when the relationship between Russia and NATO, Russia and the West are not tense. This is the most acceptable situation for us, the Armenian leader emphasized.

Speaking about the relations with the EU and the Eurasian Union, the President noted that there may be contradictions between these two economic and political structures, but as a member of the Eurasian Union, Armenia is at the same time is trying to work with Bruseels.

Deepening of relations with the EU is one of the priorities of our foreign policy. Every year we improve relations with the EU member states, which also meets our national interests, Sargsyan said.

President said that last week he, together with the president of the European Council Donald Tusk, announced the completion of Armenia-EU talks.

Everything is ready for signing. We do not see any contradiction in our policy. On the contrary, we are convinced that it is balanced, and none of the documents contain provisions that contradict one another. Why did I start talking about documents? Because I believe that one of the most important duties of the state is the responsibility and ability to protect their actions, he concluded.
Representatives of the local division of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) on Tuesday carried out an armed attack against the supporters of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) alliance, in Jrarat village of Armavir Province. As a result, some people were injured.

Armenian News-NEWS.am has learned the above-said from the release which the ORO parliamentary election headquarters has disseminated.

To note, on March 12, there was an argument and scuffle after the ORO blocs election campaign in the said village. And during this incident, Police General Levon Yeranosyans brother Lernik, who is a colonel of the Police Internal Troops, fired shots into the air from his personal pistol.

According to the ORO alliance, the dispute arose after serving village prefect, RPA representative Samvel Galstyan, had made threats against his fellow villagers that support the ORO bloc.

To note, Lernik Yeranosyan is the main hero of the events that occurred on July 29 of the year past, in Sari Tagh neighborhood of capital city Yerevan, as he had thrown a sound grenade at the demonstrators.

The ORO bloc comprises former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and ex-FMs Raffi Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian.

The parliamentary election in Armenia will be conducted on April 2.
YEREVAN.  Turkey will not ratify the Armenian-Turkish protocols, and today the relations between Yerevan and Ankara depend on the relations of Armenia and Azerbaijan, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview with the Spanish agency EFE.

Asked whether relations with Turkey have changed after the events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide held in Armenia and around the world, the head of state replied that these events had no effect on relations between Yerevan and Turkey, since they simply do not exist.

We did not have a goal of raising anti-Turkish hysteria. Yes, we criticized the Turkish authorities for their policy of denial. We do not blame the Turkish people. We believe that denial is a continuation of the crime, and we believe that impunity and denial lead to new crimes. We are fighting not only for international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but that of all genocides, the Armenian leader said.

Serzh Sargsyan drew attention to the fact that in 2008 he initiated the process of reconciliation with Turkey, which was not completed because of Ankara.

Protocols should have been ratified by the parliaments of Armenia and Turkey. We are still waiting for the Turks to ratify them. I am convinced that they will not do this, because the Turks have already expressed their opinion, and today the relations between Armenia and Turkey depend on the relations of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Turks are putting forward preconditions. At the same time, Armenia does not consider recognition of the Armenian Genocide as a precondition. Thus, we are not ready to accept the preconditions put forward by the Turkish side, the president said.

Armenia believe that the problems that exist between the two countries can be discussed after the establishment of diplomatic relations, he added.

Referring to the situation with refugees in Armenia, the Armenian leader stressed that Armenians do not consider those who fled the war in Syria as refugees. Most of them are of Armenian origin, Serzh Sargsyan explained.

We do not call these people refugees. They are our brothers and sister, we are one blood. We accepted 20 thousand Syrians, most of them of Armenian origin. Of course, they face many problems, but today Armenians living in Armenia are also experiencing difficulties and problems. We are trying to do everything so that they could adapt to the living conditions in Armenia, Sargsyan said.
The BJP member, who was killed on his way for morning walk, belonged to the Bommasandra municipality in Bengaluru.

By India Today Web Desk: BJP municipality member Kithaganahalli Vasu was hacked to death on Tuesday morning by unidentified assailants. Vasu belonged to the Bommasandra municipality in Bengaluru.

He was on his way for morning walk when miscreants attacked him. The reason for his murder is not known as yet but a tiff over a piece of land is possible.

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Vasu's wife is a zilla panchayat member.

"BJP councillor and Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad, popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu, was stabbed with sharp weapons around 5 am," Bengaluru rural superintendent of police Vinit Singh said.

On the motive behind the crime, Singh said, "It is too early to comment on it as we are investigating the case."

Reacting to the incident, RSS media coordinator for Karnataka, Rajesh Padmar said the state government should take strong steps to stop such politically-motivated killings.

He also demanded an immediate and an impartial probe into it.

BJP MLA from Malleswaram constituency CN Ashwathnarayan said that irrespective what the reason might be, this murder is condemnable. "It is a complete failure of the law and order," he says adding, "we have repeatedly been seeing an increase in murders, dacoities, sexual assaults on women and the government must stop all this."

KPCC President and Home Minister G Parameshwara while addressing the media said that any murder is a murder and the law will take its own course. He went on to add that it is the duty of the police to investigate any murder without any preconceived ideas and his department will definitely enquire into this particular case and once the investigation results are out, action will be taken with no compromises whatsoever.

(WIth inputs from Nolan Pinto)

ALSO READ | Kerala: 3 RSS workers hacked by CPI-M activists, 1 arrested

Watch Video: Bengaluru: Unknown attackers murder BJP leader Kithaganahalli Vasu

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN.  One of the three persons, who were hospitalized as a result of Tuesdays incident that occurred in Jrarat village of Armenias Armavir Province, is a minor.

Capital city Yerevans Erebouni Medical Center Director Mikayel Manukyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am that Arayik Melkonyan, 17, Hakob Melkonyan, 26, and Melik Melkonyan, 53, had sustained injuries in Jrarat, and they were brought to their hospital.

In Manukyans words, all three are at the intensive care unit, and once the necessary medical treatment is administered, they will be moved to the hospital ward.

Police informed that the incident had occurred between schoolchildren, and adults had intervened.

One of the parties to the dispute had an automatic weapon, which the participants in the argument had attempted to take away. According to preliminary information, a scuffle had begun, during which shots were fired, and three people were hospitalized.

As reported earlier, the parliamentary election headquarters of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian alliance had disseminated a release, according to which representatives of the local division of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia on Tuesday carried out an armed attack against the ORO supporters in Jrarat, and as a result, some people were injured.

The ORO bloc comprises former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and ex-FMs Raffi Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian.

The parliamentary election in Armenia will be conducted on April 2.
Armenia has never refused to negotiate on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Yerevan being ready to discuss the possibility of a new high-level meeting if Baku implements the agreements reached during the previous meetings.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan told the aforementioned in an interview with Spanish EFE agency, touching on the prospects for the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan.

We have never refused negotiations, including high-level meetings. We want the agreements reached during the previous meetings to be implemented at least partially only after which we are ready to think of a new meeting. Why meet if the already reached agreements are not implemented?

As an example, I can tell about the recent meetings in Vienna and Saint Petersburg. We agreed to create a mechanism for investigating the ceasefire violation cases in order to reduce the tension on the contact line. This would also serve as a basis for the further talks. But unfortunately this agreement was not implemented. Moreover, two weeks after the meeting in Vienna, Azerbaijan stated that these statements were made by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and that Baku had nothing to do with them, the President said.

Referring to the question on the recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR/Artsakh) independence by Yerevan, Sargsyan said that Armenia doesnt do this in order to continue the negotiation process.

Armenia is taking part in these negotiations, since Azerbaijan doesnt want to enter into dialogue with Karabakh. Neverthjeless, Karabakh is taking part in the negotiation process, since the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs regularly visit Karabakh and inform the Karabakh authorities on the process. Imagine what will happen if in the current conditions Armenia recognizes the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. This will put an end to the talks. As you know, war is an alternative to the negotiations, Sargsyan noted.

However, according to him, everything depends on a specific situation. Armenia can change its position. I have repeatedly said that if Azerbaijan resumes large-scale military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, we will immediately recognize the independence of Karabakh, since Armenia is the guarantor of the NKR peoples independence, the Armenian leader said.

In his words, the policy of Azerbaijan is very clear: It is trying to maintain the tense situation and put pressure on Armenia and Karabakh.

The tension reached its climax last April, when the Azerbaijanis launched an outright offense in several directions. Consequently, both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides suffered losses. The military actions served as a basis for the meeting in Vienna, the President stressed.

''The situation hasnt improved; it continues to remain tense. After these events we realized we should always be vigilant on the line of contact and buy more modern arms in order to fix any movement of the adversary. The Azerbaijanis didnt think they would suffer so many losses, and realized that they are not so strong to solve the issue in a short term, Sargsyan concluded, adding that it is unlikely to expect large-scale military actions in the near future, but it is always necessary to be ready for them.
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, who is on an official visit to Russia, on Tuesday visited the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

Along with Rector of the Institute, Anatoly Torkunov, the Armenian President watched in the institute hall the exhibition of a number of publications left as a heritage from the prominent Armenian family of Lazaryans. The exhibits kept at the university library were displayed on Tuesday on the occasion of Mr Sargsyan's visit.

At MGIMO, President Sargsyan met with the Institute rector Anatoly Torkunov, this being followed by a meeting with the institute students and faculty.

Mr Torkunov welcomed the Armenian President, introducing him to the auditorium. Following this the decison of the Instite Scientiific Council was published, according to which Serzh Sargsyan was conferred the title of ''MGIMO Honoroary Doctor.''

The rector handed the Honorary Doctor Certificate to the Armenian leader, congratulating the latter on that occasion. After the title-conferring ceremony, President Sargsyan delivered a speech before the univserity students and answered all the questions of interest to them, which related to the achievements and success recorded after Armenia's accession to the EAEU, the cooperation prospects with the EU, the impact of the constitutional changes in the country on the foreign policy, the level of the Armenian army's combat-readiness and the current efforts exerted towards the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, etc.

One of the students asked Mr Sargsyan, who is also the President of Chess Federation of Armenia, where the global chess is moving.

By the end of the meeting, the Armenian President thanked for the warm reception and wised success to the institute.
The suspect is under arrest and is being questioned by ATS and intelligence officials at an undisclosed location.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Bihar Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) on Tuesday afternoon arrested a suspect who was carrying railway maps in Begusarai district. The arrest was made on basis of intelligence inputs received by the Bihar police recently.

Shivan Soni was arrested from Khajahanpur village under Cheriya Bariyarpur police station.

According to sources in the police, Soni is a native of Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh and had eight months back married a girl in Begusarai. Villagers have informed the police that Shivam had frequented Begusarai 4-5 times after his marriage and whenever he came he used to spend huge amount of money. They also found few railway maps from Shivam's possession triggering suspicion about him. This led to villagers informing the police.

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The suspect is under arrest and is being questioned by ATS and intelligence officials at an undisclosed location. Keeping in mind the recent train incidents in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and southern states where terrorists have targeted Railways, security agencies are not taking any chances.

Also read:

Lucknow encounter: Neighbours of slain terrorist Saifullah shocked over developments

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On March 3, the wave of violence that began in eastern Libya has led to serious violations of human rights and international law. According to the UN Human Rights Office, both sides of the conflict are killing people, carrying out mass executions, illegal arrested and torture.

The UN also reported large-scale raids on the houses of the civilians. In particular, during one of such cleansing the Libyan National Army soldiers arrested about 100 men and women aged 13-70. According to Ravina Shamdasani, the UN Human Rights representative, the detainees were not allowed to communicate with their families and the outside world and their whereabouts are not known. "We have received reports that those detained have been subjected to torture and threats," Shamdasani said.

The UN has called on the conflicting sides in Libya to respect international law and human rights, and take steps to ease the tension.
As Yahoo! (YHOO) shareholders consider their votes on the $4.48 million sale of the company's operating business to Verizon (VZ) , they got official confirmation of just how drastic a price cut the telecom wanted in the wake of two massive security breaches.

Though the telecom settled on a $350 million discount, a merger proxy filed Monday states that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam initially pressed for a $925 million rebate. Reports had suggested that Verizon had wanted to slash $1 billion from the price.

Shares of Yahoo! gained about 1.3% on Monday at $46.57, while Verizon was up slightly to $49.47.

The company said Monday that after the troubled Internet icon closes the sale of its core Internet businesses to Verizon, Yahoo! Director Thomas McInerery will replace Marissa Mayer as CEO. McInerney chaired the Strategic Review Committee that engineered the sale to Verizon, and is a former CFO of Barry Diller's media and Internet group IAC/InterActiveCorp. Separately, Yahoo! financial executive Alexi Wellman will take Ken Goldman's place as CFO.

The post-sale holding company will take the name "Altaba Inc." and trade under the ticker AABA. The operation will own the company's stakes in Alibaba (BABA) and Yahoo! Japan, which account for the bulk of Yahoo!'s $44.5 billion market cap.

Yahoo! and its shareholders have been on a wild ride. As Mayer's turnaround of Yahoo!'s operations lagged, activist Jeffrey Smith's Starboard Value LP pressed for a breakup and attacked management in 2015 and 2016.

The company agreed to explore a sale, leading to the roughly $4.8 billion deal with Verizon in July 2016. However, disclosures of massive security breeches in September and December rocked the company and appeared to place the sale in range.

During an early February conference call with McInerery and strategic committee counsel Cravath, McAdam suggested that Verizon could conduct its own investigation into the breach, that Yahoo! could accept a price cut or that the parties could simply end the deal. "Mr. McAdam noted that Verizon was still formulating a view but that a purchase price reduction as high as $925 million could be appropriate," the SEC filing states.

Verizon and Yahoo! announced their revised deal on Feb. 21.

The proxy filed with the SEC on Monday does not set a date for a vote. "Our Board of Directors recommends that stockholders vote 'FOR' the sale transaction," the filing states. After Yahoo!'s prolonged struggles, the angst about how much the struggling business was worth and the threat that the Verizon deal would collapse or at least suffer greater diminution, shareholders will likely follow that advice.

Editors' pick: Originally published March 13.
By Press Trust of India: Bengaluru, Mar 14 (PTI) A BJP councillor was today hacked to death by unidentified assailants at Anekal in Bengaluru rural district, police said.

"BJP councillor and Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad, popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu, was stabbed with sharp weapons around 5 AM," Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police Vinit Singh told PTI over telephone.

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On the motive behind the crime, Singh said, "It is too early to comment on it as we are investigating the case."

On October 16, an RSS worker was hacked to death in Bengaluru, which triggered massive protests by BJP and RSS workers.

Reacting to the incident, RSS Media Coordinator for Karnataka, Rajesh Padmar said the state government should take strong steps to stop such politically-motivated killings.

He also demanded an immediate and an impartial probe into it.

"In the last two years, more than 10 RSS-VHP-BJP activists have been killed.It is a dangerous development in a democratic set-up," Padmar said.

He also said that the deceased was a soft-spoken person and has no criminal cases against him. PTI BDN ROH DV

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FILE - In this Dec.17, 2011 file photo, mannequins with headscarves are on display at an exhibition hall for the Muslim World Fair in Le Bourget, outside Paris. Private businesses in Europe can forbid Muslim women in their employ from wearing headscarves if the ban is part of a policy of neutrality within the company and not a sign of prejudice against a particular religion, the European Court of Justice said Tuesday March 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

PARIS (AP)  Private businesses in Europe can forbid Muslim women in their employ from wearing headscarves if the ban is part of a policy of neutrality within the company and not a sign of prejudice against a particular religion, the European Union Court of Justice said Tuesday.

Such a ban doesn't constitute what the court calls "direct discrimination."

The conclusion by the highest court in the 28-nation European Union was in response to two cases brought by a Belgian and a French woman, both fired for refusing to remove their headscarves. It clarifies a long-standing question about whether bans by some countries on religious symbols, in classrooms, for example, can be extended to the workplace.

The court's response fed right into the French presidential campaign, bolstering the platforms of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a leading contender in the spring election who wants to do away with all "ostentatious" religious symbols in the name of secularism, and conservative Francois Fillon, who hailed the court's decisions. France already bans headscarves and other religious symbols in classrooms as well as face-covering veils in streets.

However, critics quickly voiced fears that the decision risks becoming a setback to all working Muslim women.

"Today's disappointing rulings ... give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women  and men  on the grounds of religious belief," said a statement by Amnesty International. "At a time when identity and appearance has become a political battleground, people need more protection against prejudice, not less."

Georgina Siklossy of the European Network Against Racism in Brussels expressed concern it could have dastardly effects on Muslim women  like making them choose between working and wearing religious garments  and other minority populations in Europe, like Sikhs with turbans or Jews with kippahs.

The Open Society Justice Initiative, which submitted a brief supporting the women, expressed disappointment.

Story continues

The group's policy officer, Maryam Hmadoum, contended that the decision "weakens the guarantee of equality that is at the heart of the EU's antidiscrimination directive," which the Court of Justice cited in weighing the cases.

"Certainly, many employees who are asking themselves questions about religious signs in their companies will look at these decisions and probably put in place internal regulations," said lawyer Claire Waquet, who represents the French woman in question. "Some will certainly do this."

The EU Court of Justice made separate decisions on the cases, which were referred to them by the courts of Cassation in Belgium and France, but linked the cases.

In the Belgian case, Samira Achbita, a receptionist at a security firm, was fired in June 2006 for wearing an Islamic headscarf, banned in a new set of internal rules by her company that prohibited visible signs of political, religious or philosophical beliefs. Belgium's Court of Cassation sought guidance from the Luxembourg-based European court which rules on cases involving EU law, which applies to all EU members.

The French case differs and offers Asma Bougnaoui a reason for optimism because her dismissal as a design engineer was based, not on internal rules, but on the complaint of a customer unhappy with her Islamic headscarf. The court's response made clear that a company policy to maintain neutrality in the religious sphere was critical to ensuring non-discrimination  not a complaint by a client.

The court said that an employer's readiness to take into account the wishes of a customer, not internal policy, doesn't qualify for the measure set out by the European Union: a "genuine and determining occupational requirement."

"The question asked was, 'Is it enough for a client to say it bothers me that you are sending me a veiled employee ... The (court) answered, 'No, this is not enough,'" said Bougnaoui's lawyer, Waquet. The employer's accommodation to a client "is not an essential and decisive factor."

"The employer," she said, "has a role (and) needs to filter discriminatory requests."

Each of the two cases had gone to their respective Courts of Cassation, which sought guidance from the European court. The home courts must still rule on each case.

___

Masha Macpherson contributed to this report.
ASSE Applauds OSHA for Sustainability in Workplace White Paper

ASSE President Tom Cecich released a statement following OSHAs whitepaper

The ASSE has released a statement from President Tom Cecich in response to OSHAs white paper titled, Sustainability in the Workplace: A New Approach for Advancing Worker Safety and Health.

The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) applauds the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for recognizing, in its white paper, Sustainability in the Workplace: A New Approach for Advancing Worker Safety and Health, the great opportunity the corporate sustainability movement provides to encourage better commitment to worker safety and health.

The Center for Safety and Health Sustainability (CSHS) was founded in 2011 by the ASSE to advocate for the inclusion of worker safety and health in the efforts of corporations and other organizations to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability, according to a report.

OSHAs white paper helps raise awareness for organizations to include workplace safety and health risks in a sustainable fashion.
The latest

6 Milwaukee restaurants loved or hated by diners

Here are six local restaurants that divide diners.
Credit: Panthat Sitdatviradee / 123rf

Researchers in the Philippines are studying the genetics of local catfish to help protect them from becoming endangered.

Catfish are primarily freshwater species and are found all over the world. Some species that are native to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were also introduced to the Philippines and other countries in South-East Asia. Commonly consumed as food, and used for sport fishing and in aquariums, catfish contribute substantially to the Philippines' economy. There are nearly 3,000 different catfish species, and understanding their genetic diversity is important for developing proper management and conservation strategies, according to geneticist Jonas Quilang from the University of Philippines Diliman (UPD).

In 2015, Quilang and a colleague at UPD found significant 'genetic distances'an indicator that allows researchers to distinguish a new species from the existing genetic groupbetween the catfish Clar ias batrachus found in the Philippines and those found in Thailand and India. Their findings supported previous studies based on the fishes' morphologies that suggested that the catfish species found in India should be assigned its own binomial name, indicating it was distinct from another species found in mainland South East Asia. The researchers are now planning to assign a scientific name to a species of catfish in the Philippines pending further research.

In another study published in 2016, Quilang and his team examined the genetic diversity of Philippines' catfish. One of the Philippines' catfish species, Clarias macrocephalus , is a popular food in the country but its numbers have been declining due to pollution, urbanization and competition with other catfish species. As a result, it was listed as 'near-threatened' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2011.

The researchers analysed DNA from the tissue of 120 specimens of C. macro cephalus from Buguey, Camalaniugan on the northern coast and Agusan del Sur in the south-east of the Philippines.

They found that the species had very low genetic variation. Additionally, some specimens had deformities in their tail fins and body shape, suggesting that the fish had been inbreeding for several generations. This low level of genetic diversity is making the fish prone to extinction, requiring immediate measures to restore the population in the wild, the researchers conclude.

The team hopes its study can be used as a starting point to prevent further declines in the population of C. macrocephalus and other fish species in the Philippines.

Provided by University of the Philippines Diliman
This gif shows changes in wave energy flux on global scale over the time. Blue indicates a decrease in wave energy flux. Red indicates an increase in wave energy flux. Credit: Lorenzo Mentaschi

Massive coastal flooding in northern Europe that now occurs once every century could happen every year if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, according to a new study.

New projections considering changes in sea level rise, tides, waves and storm surge over the 21st century find global warming could cause extreme sea levels to increase significantly along Europe's coasts by 2100. Extreme sea levels are the maximum levels of the sea that occur during a major storm and produce massive flooding.

The increase in frequency of these events that are today considered exceptional will likely push existing coastal protection structures beyond their design limits, leaving a large part of Europe's coastal zones exposed to flooding, according to the study's authors.

"Unless we take different protection measures, 5 million people will be exposed to coastal flooding on an annual basis," said Michalis Vousdoukas, a coastal oceanographer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the lead author of the new study published in Earth's Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Northern Europe will see the strongest increase in extreme sea levels. Areas along the Mediterranean and the Black Sea could see these 100-year extreme sea level events several times a year. In the North Sea region, extreme sea levels could increase by nearly 1 meter (3 feet) under the worst-case scenario. The Atlantic coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland could see similar increases in extreme sea levels, while lower but still considerable increases in extreme sea levels are projected for the Norwegian and Baltic seas.

Information about the number of people at risk from flooding can be used to determine how large the social and economic impact of these events will be, said Marta Marcos, a researcher at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Spain, who was not involved in the new study.

"In terms of adaptation strategies and policymaking, it is very relevant," she said.

Considering all components

The new research considers how all components that can influence extreme sea levels, including the mean sea level, tides, waves and storm surge, will be affected by climate change. The researchers used information about these different components to project changes in extreme sea levels by 2100 under different greenhouse gas scenarios. Using all of these components provides a more accurate projection of how extreme sea levels will change this century, according to the study's authors.

Under the most extreme scenario, where greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise throughout this century, extreme sea levels along Europe's coastlines could increase by 81 centimeters, or more than 2  feet, on average, by 2100. That means 5 million Europeans who are currently under threat of flooding from extreme sea level events that occur every 100 years could face that same risk annually, according to the new study.

Even under a more moderate scenario where greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2040, 100-year extreme sea levels could increase by 57 centimeters, or nearly 2 feet, on average, by the end of the century, with these events occurring every few years, according to study's authors.

The changes in one of these components, wave energy flux, is detailed in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. That study finds that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the energy waves carry to the coast will change significantly around the world by the end of the century.

In the southern hemisphere, extreme waves could carry up to 30 percent more energy by 2100, according to the new study. This means stronger waves will become more frequent, and have a greater impact on the coast, said Lorenzo Mentaschi, also at the JRC and lead author of the GRL study. The new GRL study attributes the changes in wave energy to the intensification of weather patterns, like the Antarctic Oscillation, El-Nino Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.

The new research will be provided to EU policymakers. The data will also be made public so it can be used by scientists, engineers and coastal managers.
The Lycurgus cup is an example of ancient artisans use of nanoparticles in works of art. The gold component is thought to be responsible for the red color when illuminated from behind, and the silver particles are responsible for the green appearance when light is shining on it from the front. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

While nanoparticles sound like a recent discovery, these tiny structures have been used for centuries. The famous Lycurgus cup, made by 4th century Roman artisans, features dichroic glass, with gold and silver nanoparticles sprinkled throughout, producing a green appearance when light is shining on it from the front, and a red appearance when illuminated from behind.

In the centuries since the time of the ancient artisans, researchers have come a long way in understanding nanoparticles. The production of nanocubes has been of particular interest due to their potential applications as biosensors and gas sensors. Nanoparticles can be produced using either physical or chemical methods, though physical methods are advantageous due to the absence of organic contaminants commonly introduced by chemical methods. However, uniformly sized nanocubes are difficult to produce in sufficient quantities by physical methods. Researchers from the Nanoparticles by Design Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University have recently discovered a new approach to overcome this problem. Their research was recently published in Advanced Functional Materials.

"The cube shape is not the lowest energy structure for iron nanoparticles", explains Dr. Jerome Vernieres, first author of the publication, "thus, we couldn't rely on equilibrium thermodynamics considerations to self-assemble these nanocubes". Instead, the OIST scientists, under the guidance of Prof. Mukhles Sowwan, exploited the possibilities offered by a technique called magnetron-sputtering inert-gas condensation to create their iron nanocubes. With this method, argon gas is first heated up and turned into ionized plasma. Then, a magnet, suitably located behind a target made of the desired material, in this case, iron, controls the shape of the plasma, and ensures that argon ions bombard the target; hence the name "magnetron". As a result, iron atoms are sputtered away from the target, collide with argon atoms and with each other, and form nanoparticles. Accurate control of the plasma via controlling the magnetic field can produce uniform nanocubes. "Uniformity is key in sensing applications. We needed a way to control the size, shape, and number of the nanocubes during their production", explained Dr. Stephan Steinhauer.

Nanoparticles by Design Unit members: (from left to right) Dr. Stephan Steinhauer, Dr. Jerome Vernieres, Prof. Mukhles Sowwan, and Dr. Panagiotis Grammatikopoulos. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

To control the size and shape of these cubes, the researchers made a simple but significant observation: iron is magnetic in its own right! In other words, the researchers discovered that they could exploit the intrinsic magnetism of the target itself as an innovative way to modify the magnetic field of the magnetron. This way they managed to manipulate the plasma where the particles are grown, and thus to control the nanocube sizes during formation. "This is the first time uniform iron nanocubes have been made using a physical method that can be scaled for mass production" clarifies Vernieres. To better understand the mechanics of this process, the OIST team collaborated with researchers from the University of Helsinki to make theoretical calculations. "The work relied heavily on both experimental methods and theoretical calculations. The simulations were important for us to explain the phenomena we were observing", illuminates Dr. Panagiotis Grammatikopoulos.

Once the researchers invented a way to produce these uniform iron cubes, the next step was to build an electronic device that can utilize these nanocubes for sensing applications. "We noticed that these cubes were extremely sensitive to the levels of gaseous NO2. NO2 sensing is used for a variety of different purposes, from diagnosis of asthma patients to detecting environmental pollution, so we immediately saw an application for our work", states Steinhauer. The researchers from the Nanoparticles by Design Unit, in collaboration with researchers from the Universite de Toulouse, then built a prototype NO2 sensor that measured the change in electrical resistance of the iron nanocubes due to exposure to NO2 gas. Because exposure to even a very tiny amount of NO2 can produce a measurable change in electrical resistance that is considerably larger than for other atmospheric pollutants, the iron nanocube-based sensor is both extremely sensitive and specific. "These nanocubes have many potential uses. The fact that we can produce a relatively large quantity of uniform nanocubes using an increasingly common synthesis method makes this research highly promising for industrial applications," emphasized Vernieres.

This schematic depicts the production of iron nanocubes using magnetron-sputtering inert-gas condensation and the use of these cubes in NO2 sensors. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

More information: Jerome Vernieres et al. Gas Phase Synthesis of Multifunctional Fe-Based Nanocubes, Advanced Functional Materials (2017). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201605328 Journal information: Advanced Functional Materials
Neighborhoods where 40 percent of the population or more lives below the federal poverty level is back on the rise for all races in the United States, according to Penn State demographers. Credit: Joslyn Neiderer

Concentrated povertyneighborhoods where 40 percent of the population or more lives below the federal poverty levelis back on the rise for all races in the United States, according to Penn State demographers.

Growing residential separation and isolation of the poor in American metropolitan areas, as well as overall increases in poverty since the early 2000s, explain most of the change in concentrated poverty, they added.

In the 1980s, concentrated poverty rose, but eased in the 1990s. However, the latest figures suggest that a rise in concentrated poverty has returned, according to John Iceland, professor of sociology and demography and research associate in the Population Research Institute.

"I personally was curious about this volatilitywhat explains it? Why did we see this increase in the 1980s and the decline in the 1990s and why has it been rebounding?" said Iceland. "As a social demographer, I'm particularly interested in the changing composition of people living in certain neighborhoods and what types of broad population processes help explain the general trend."

Although the country has seen shifts in poverty concentration before, there is a recent change in the locations of poverty concentrations, according to the researchers.

"The composition of people living in high-poverty neighborhoods and their locations has changed," said Iceland. "It used to be thought of as black, inner-city poverty, but now more Hispanics and a higher proportion of whites are living in high-poverty neighborhoods. They are less likely to be just in the inner core of cities, but oftentimes in inner suburbs."

Overall poverty is different from poverty concentration, although they could be related, said Iceland, who worked with Erik Hernandez, a graduate student in sociology and demography.

"We do look at how the changes of overall poverty affect the concentration of poverty, because those are two distinct concepts," Iceland said. "There could be a certain percentage of the population in a country that is poor, but what the concentration of poverty looks at is to what extent are they concentrated in relatively few neighborhoods."

In this study, poverty concentrations followed trends in overall poverty, according to the researchers, who report their findings in a recent issue of Social Science Research. The country's recent poor economic performance, such as the deep recession of 2006-2008, has affected individual poverty, neighborhood poverty and the percentage of all people and all poor people living in high poverty neighborhoods, the researchers said.

In the 2000s about 20.5 percent of poor blacks were living in a high-poverty neighborhood. Between 2010 and 2014, that figure was up to 23.1 percent. The percentage of poor non-Hispanic whites living in high-poverty neighborhoods in the 2000s was approximately 5.8 percent, which went up to 8.2 percent between 2010 and 2014. The total of poor Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods went from 11.4 percent in the 2000s to 14.1 percent in the latest numbers.

According to the researchers, an increase in the concentration of poverty could affect government services, such as health, police and education. The trend could also have an impact on job opportunities.

"A lot of resources are tied to neighborhoodsthe quality of schooling and the amount of a school's economic resources vary across neighborhoods, for example," said Iceland. "People have talked about how there's more crime and social disorganization in places with high poverty levels. And this all has consequences for quality of life."

The researchers used data from the U.S. Census Bureau that cover 1980 to 2000 and information from the 2000-2014 American Community Survey.
The survival of the jaguar (Panthera onca) is critically endangered in Brazil. Scientists have recently found signs that there are only about 300 of these top predators left in the biomea tiny number. There are many reasons for the virtual disappearance of the largest feline in the Americas.

The first and most obvious reason is that only 7% of the Atlantic Rainforest remains. Originally the biome extended practically all the way along the coast from the Northeast to the South of Brazil, and on to northern Argentina and parts of Paraguay and Uruguay. Worse still, the tiny remnant is highly fragmented, so that to survive in this habitat each jaguar takes much longer to find food or a mate than its peers in the Amazon or Pantanal, for example.

As they wander ever farther afield because of this fragmentation, the few remaining jaguars risk increasingly frequent contact with humans, who pose multiple threats. The felines are hunted, run over by traffic, killed by ranchers in retaliation for livestock losses, and abused or murdered by fearful people who accidentally come across them.

A major international study containing some of these findings was published recently. One of the authors is conservationist Ronaldo Goncalves Morato, head of the National Center for Carnivorous Mammal Research & Conservation (CENAP), a unit of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) located in Atibaia, Sao Paulo State.

In another article, published in late December in the journal PLOS ONE, Morato and collaborators go beyond the conclusions of their research on jaguars in the Atlantic Rainforest to begin building a portrait of the jaguar's movement patterns in all five major Brazilian biomes and the risks they face in each biome.

"We set out to survey the jaguar's home range and movement parameters in each of Brazil's biomesAtlantic Rainforest, Cerrado, Caatinga, Pantanal and Amazonas well as northern Argentina," Morato said. An animal's home range is the territory it regularly covers in search of food and mates.

The researchers used GPS tracking to monitor 44 jaguars from 1998 to 2016 across different habitats representing the five biomes and an Atlantic Rainforest remnant in Argentina. The animals had previously been captured, sedated and fitted with a GPS collar.

The total number of jaguars monitored breaks down as follows: 21 in the Pantanal, 12 in the Atlantic Rainforest, 8 in the Amazon, 2 in the Caatinga, and 1 in the Cerrado. Half were male and half female. Their ages ranged from 18 months to 10 years, but the vast majority (41) were adults over 3 years old.

The GPS collars were programmed to report the animals' positions at intervals ranging from half an hour to 24 hours. Monitoring periods ranged from 11 days to 1,749 days, averaging 183 days, and the number of recorded locations ranged from 53 to 10,989, averaging 2,264. The total dataset consisted of 80,553 locations, the largest collection of jaguar movement data analyzed to date.

"The collars had batteries that lasted about 500 days, but well before they ran out, usually after about 400 days of monitoring, we activated a device that released the collar from the animal's neck. We attempted to retrieve collars for reuse but it wasn't always possible," Morato said. In some cases, he explained, the collar was not in a reusable state even if it was found.

"We know the animal has died if the GPS signal stays at the same spot for 24 hours. In that case, an automatic alarm is triggered," he said. "That's what happened in the northern Pantanal in 2010, when a jaguar attacked and killed a fisherman. There were reprisals and several jaguars were killed in the area. We suspect that was how one of the animals in our project died."

According to Morato, about 80% of the animals had their home range in the areas monitored. The others displayed nomadic movement patterns or were migrating.

Males had larger home ranges than females, a finding consistent with the hypothesis that male carnivores' tendency to range over larger territories is linked to the distribution of females and the need to increase reproductive opportunities.

"Atlantic Rainforest jaguars had the largest home ranges and often had to venture into pasture or cropland to get from one fragment to another, risking contact with humans," Morato said.

Limited mobility

The jaguar with the largest home range (1,268 km2) inhabited the Cerrado. In Brazil, the jaguar with the smallest home range (36 km2) lived in the Pantanal. As a comparison, the area of Santa Catarina Island in southern Brazil is 424 km2.

"For the first time we succeeded in comparing the movement and space use patterns of jaguars across different biomes," Morato said. "The next step is to find out how they behave in different structures and landscapes. We want to identify the factors that limit their mobility in each biome."

It is important to know what limits jaguars' mobility, he explained, because their health depends on genetic variability, which in turn depends on each individual animal's ability to find a mate from another group outside its own family. The logic is the same as the avoidance of marriage between first cousins among humans, for example.

More information: Ronaldo G. Morato et al. Space Use and Movement of a Neotropical Top Predator: The Endangered Jaguar, PLOS ONE (2016). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168176 Journal information: PLoS ONE

Provided by FAPESP
This photomicrograph of a blood smear contains a macro- and microgametocyte of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite. Credit: Wikipedia.

Two new studies from the Francis Crick Institute shed light on how the malaria parasite grows inside a host's red blood cells and breaks out when it's ready to spread to new host cells.

Our red blood cells transport oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the organs of our body. The malaria parasite is one of only a few pathogenic microorganisms that can infect red blood cells. After invading them, it multiplies inside an internal compartment called a parasitophorous vacuole.

Eventually, both the vacuole and the red blood cell membranes break, destroying the red cells and allowing the release (known as egress) of a new generation of parasites. These immediately invade new red blood cells. The clinical symptoms of malaria are caused by repeated rounds of parasite growth and egress.

To grow within its host red blood cell, the malaria parasite needs to drastically change the cell surface to promote the production of channels to import the nutrients and other molecules it needs to grow.

Mike Blackman's team at the Crick wanted to understand how it does this. Previous research has shown that one of the parasite proteins involved (called RhopH1) comes from 'rhoptries' - these are structures that the parasite discharges as it invades red blood cells. It's known that RhopH1 binds tightly to two other proteins called RhopH2 and RhopH3, but what these proteins do is unclear.

Time-lapse movie showing release of malaria parasites from a red blood cell (bottom left). One parasite immediately invades another red blood cell (top right). Credit: James Thomas, Mike Blackman group.

To understand the role of RhopH3 in the parasite's life cycle, the researchers genetically modified RhopH3 in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum so it could no longer interact with its partner proteins. The results showed that RhopH3 is essential for the function of the newly-induced nutrient import channels in the red cell. In addition, the researchers found that RhopH3 is needed for efficient invasion of red blood cells, showing that the protein has an indispensable, dual role that links invasion to formation of the channels essential for parasite survival inside red blood cells.

"It's remarkable that the malaria parasite has evolved a means of using the same protein family for both gaining entrance to host cells and then modifying them to help it grow," says Emma Sherling, first author of the work.

Christiaan van Ooij, another lead author, adds: "Most antimalarial drugs work by preventing parasite growth in red blood cells, but there is increasing resistance across the world to all these drugs. The new knowledge generated here may help the development of entirely new classes of drugs that stop the parasite from invading and establishing growth within red blood cells."

In a second independent study, Professor Blackman's team worked with Roland Fleck's team from King's College London and Helen Saibil's group at Birkbeck College London to learn how the malaria parasite escapes from host red blood cells. The group used sophisticated imaging methods to visualise the changes that take place in infected red blood cells as the malaria parasites approach the point of egress. This revealed that the parasitophorous vacuole membrane first becomes leaky, before breaking into fragments several minutes later. Over the next few minutes, the red blood cell's cytoskeleton - a mesh-like protein network that provides mechanical support to the cell - undergoes a dramatic collapse.

Professor Blackman says: "Our collaborative effort with the Fleck and Saibil groups was crucial to the success of this project, as it brought together malaria biologists with highly specialist expertise in electron microscopy and tomography. Our finding that the parasite induces an early step of vacuole membrane leakage before its breakdown, followed by the breakdown of the red blood cell cytoskeleton over the course of only a few minutes right before egress changes the way we think about how egress is controlled. Increasing our understanding of egress might help us find ways to prevent it, trapping the parasite inside red blood cells and stopping the progression of the disease."

The first paper, Plasmodium falciparum rhoptry protein RhopH3 plays essential roles in host cell invasion and nutrient uptake, is published in eLife.

The second, Parasitophorous vacuole poration precedes its rupture and rapid host erythrocyte cytoskeleton collapse in Plasmodium falciparum egress, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More information: Emma S Sherling et al. Therhoptry protein RhopH3 plays essential roles in host cell invasion and nutrient uptake, eLife (2017). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.23239 Parasitophorous vacuole poration precedes its rupture and rapid host erythrocyte cytoskeleton collapse in Plasmodium falciparum egress, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1619441114 Journal information: eLife , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
With his new novel, Exit West, Pakistan-born Mohsin Hamid illustrates once again why he is one of the most important voices of our era. Like The Reluctant Fundamentalist, his best-known work, it's a novel of the zeitgeist. But this is a subtler, and therefore more interesting book.

Its omniscient narrator, the unnamed Islamic country at its centre, and its sometimes technical style-brow-sing Facebook is described as "exploring the terrain of social media"-combine to give the novel an atmosphere of magic realism. Moreover, the story hinges on the unexplained appearance of portals that allow citizens of poor and war-torn countries to travel instantly to London or San Francisco or the Greek island of Mykonos. While the allusion to globalisation and the ongoing real-world refugee crisis initially seem overly obvious, the strength of Hamid's characters, his compelling turn of phrase and his keen sense of metaphor keep it from sinking to the level of an episode of Black Mirror.

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In the recurring trope of the burqa worn by Nadia, one of the protagonists, for instance, Hamid investigates the identities and masks of conservative Islam and the citizens living under its sway. An atheist, or at least someone who sees no reason to pray, Nadia wears her black robe to discourage unwanted attention from lecherous men, uses a spare one to smuggle her lover, Saeed, into her apartment, and later continues to wear it to send "a signal" about her identity to the nativists of London after the couple join a refugee colony there. Hamid invests Saeed's devout praying with similar nuance, punning cleverly that he "prayed even more, several times a day, and he prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and what would go and could be loved in no other way".

A meditation on exile and migration and inequality and prejudice-"when we migrate, we murder... those we leave behind", the author observes-this is a high-wire act of high art. And Hamid never puts a foot wrong.

The Impostor

I'm reading Paulo Coelho," has long been a celebrity Q+A set piece, signalling literacy-and-depth for everyone from Bollywood beefcakes to Bill Clinton and Malala Yousafzai. Meanwhile, the Alchemist himself, having single-handedly reduced a rainforest the size of Belgium to pulp-350 million copies of his books have been sold-has now gurgled out yet another double-spaced novella, The Spy, framed as a correspondence between the doomed European courtesan Mata Hari and her lawyer.

Accused of being a German spy, Margaretha van Zelle aka Mata Hari was executed by a French firing squad 100 years ago this October. Coelho's offering could therefore be read as a touching homage to a tragic figure whom he has described as "one of our first feminists", but sadly, it's a dull work, a lugubrious ramble through an outline of Mata Hari's life, interspersed with some trademark Coelhicisms on being true to yourself, etc.: "Pianos should never go out of tune. The true sin is something different than what we've been taught; the true sin is living so far removed from absolute harmony." Plink.

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For those of you who may be fascinated by the many strands of eroticism, orientalism, dance, drama and death coiled around the true fable of Mata Hari, this book will be a disappointment. It has little to add to the work of the legion of biographers, archivists, film-makers and bloggers-let alone all the hoochie coochie dancers and pornographers-who have celebrated Margaretha van Zelle's legacy over the years..

Coelho has his own global legion of admirers of course (his novel Veronika Decides to Die even inspired a Pakistani B movie, Love Mein Ghum), so go figure. For haters like me, The Spy is just a dull impersonator's book about another much more fascinating impersonator. Margaretha passed herself off as a Javanese Hindu princess, but Coelho, on the evidence of his staggering self-description as someone who "has flirted with death, escaped madness, dallied with drugs, withstood torture, experimented with magic" blablabla, may be the more accomplished self-fabulist. He's certainly earned his place in the library of wisdom kitsch, along with Patience Strong, Khalil Gibran and that Jonathan Livingstone Seagull fellow. Mata Hari may have been pretty hokey herself but she deserves better. Still, what do I know? Chances are she would have loved Coelho too. She was a celebrity after all.

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-Jabir

--- ENDS ---
A team at the Johns Hopkins University aims to determine how useful testing on dogs, mice and other animals is in predicting whether drugs and chemicals are toxic to humans.

The research, to be conducted over the next year or so, could accelerate a push to end animal testing already underway for ethical and practical reasons.

All drugs and some chemicals must be tested on animals before humans, but no one is certain how well such tests predict the toxic affects on people. The Johns Hopkins team hopes to find out by comparing standard animal tests with more modern scientific methods that use human cells or computer models.

"It's a pivotal time to provide this evidence," said Katya Tsaioun, who is leading the study as director of the Evidence-based Toxicology Collaboration in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "No one hopefully will be able to dispute the findings."

Some studies have found animal studies are not good at predicting how drugs and chemicals affect humans, and Tsaioun said her review using the latest toxicology science could provide definitive evidence.

Many researchers and regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees drug approvals, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees chemicals, still argue that animal testing is necessary. But the agencies have explored ways to support new nonanimal tests to speed up the development and approval process.

Many hope to decrease the number of drugs that show promise in animal testing but fail to prove safe and effective in human trials, failures that are costly and disappointing to pharmaceutical companies and researchers as well as to patients hoping for better therapies and cures. A drug trial for a promising Alzheimer's drug failed in a large trials last year, for example.

"We won't necessary jump completely away from animals to completely nonanimals," said Kristie Sullivan, vice president of research policy for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a medical ethics group that opposes animal testing. "It will be staged."

Data from a U.S. Department of Agriculture website that has recently been taken down showed that more than 767,600 animals were used in research in 2015. The number included dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, primates and some farm animals.

The data did not include dogs and other animals held in labs but not experimented on. It also didn't count rats, mice or birds, which are the most common test subjects.

A 2015 Pew Research Center survey shows a slight majority of Americans disapprove of animal testing. A growing number of manufacturers of home and beauty products that are not required to test on animals have abandoned the practice, Sullivan said. Medical schools, including those at the University of Maryland and at Johns Hopkins have stopped practicing surgical techniques on animals in favor of computer models.

But basic research and drug and chemical tests still rely heavily on animals, Sullivan said. In some cases animals just can't carry the load. There are more than 100,000 chemicals in consumer products but few have been subjected to significant testing because existing labs don't have the capacity to test them all, she said.

One promising replacement for animal testing is "tissue on a chip," Sullivan said. It's a small plastic stick with internal channels containing lung, gut or other human cells. By running a drug or chemical through the stick, the cells can show if they may be toxic to human organs.

"We're seeing more and more researchers trying to incorporate human-based methods into research, using human cells, stem cells or tissue on a chip," she said. "The more of those methods used, the better for human health and for animals."

For now, however, researchers must be allowed to continue research on animals, said Matt Bailey, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, which advocates on behalf of the scientific community for animal testing.

His group supports efforts to reduce the use of animals and for ethical treatment of animals in labs, but he said animals remain crucial to medical advances.

"Right now, there is no comprehensive substitute for animal testing and research," Bailey said.

"Certainly, computer models and cell cultures, as well as other adjunct research methods, reduce the number of animals used," he said. "But there is no way to completely replace animal research because the pathway to fully replicating a complete living system does not yet exist."

Meanwhile, animal advocacy groups plan to continue efforts to reduce animal testing and find homes for surviving animals.

The Beagle Freedom Project contacts more than 470 research labs a year and offers to take their dogs once studies are completed. Its officials won't disclose where the animals come from but say a few dozen labs have taken them up on the offer.

"Our mission is to see an end to animals used in experiments," said Jeremy Beckham, a research specialist for the group. "We make our case to the public on two grounds, and one is an ethical argument. These animals feel pain and suffer and experience the world much like we do. ... But we also have to make the case on scientific grounds."

That's why the group is sponsoring several research projects, including grants to study tissue on a chip and an "artificial nose" that can detect toxicity in inhaled particulate matter. It also gave $50,000 for Tsaioun's toxicity study.

While the Beagle Freedom Project hopes Tsaioun will prove that animals are bad stand-ins for people, it has agreed to allow publication of her results no matter the findings.

Tsaioun will look at data on 10 approved drugs, including some that later were found to have toxic effects on the human liver. She will compare the animal tests on those drugs with the nonanimal tests to see which more accurately predicted the drugs' potential toxicity.

Tsaioun said animal testing eventually will become "redundant" no matter her results, as more personalized tests are developed that could, for example, predict something as specific as who will have an allergic reaction to a drug or chemical or will have heart or kidney troubles.

In the meantime, animal rights groups and lawmakers are pushing a bill this year in the Maryland General Assembly to require public and private research institutions to seek homes for adoptable dogs and cats once studies conclude.

A sponsor, Del. Ben Kramer, a Montgomery County Democrat, said at least three other states have such laws, but major research universities here oppose the measure and it isn't expected to pass. Kramer intends to continue introducing the measure to draw attention to the animals.

"The bill would allow them to live out what time they have left after experimentation in a home and experience a little bit of kindness and love," he said. "They deserve that."

Audrey Huang, a spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins Medicine, said Hopkins labs comply with federal laws and ethical standards and said a state law would pose a regulatory burden that could hinder research.

A statement from the University of Maryland School of Medicine said the measure would inappropriately put adoption decisions in nonveterinary hands.

Huang said Hopkins' use of dogs also is on the decline. Researchers there used 493 in 2005 and 31 in 2016, largely because they've been replaced with mice and rabbits. And Hopkins, as well as Maryland, already have adoption programs. Maryland didn't report a number, but Hopkins has found homes for 240 since records were first kept in 1998.

2017 The Baltimore Sun

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweeds, while the adult butterflies consume the nectar of milkweeds and many other flowering species. Credit: Photos by Michael Jeffords and Susan Post

Steep declines in the number of monarch butterflies reaching their wintering grounds in Mexico are not fully explained by fewer milkweeds in the northern part of their range, researchers report in a new study.

The research, published in the journal BioScience, reviews decades of studies of monarchs and includes an in-depth analysis of milkweed populations in Illinois, a state at the heart of the butterflies' summer range.

It takes a few generations of monarchs to make the trip north from Mexico to the Midwestern United States and Canada where they summer, but the return trip is a long one. A single generation travels back to the monarchs' wintering ground in Michoacan - flying up to 2,500 miles.

Monarch numbers in Mexico have dropped from a high of 682 million in 1997 to a recent low of 42 million in 2015. Researchers are struggling to understand what is driving the decline. A popular hypothesis is that the loss of milkweeds - the only plants on which monarch larvae can feed - is to blame.

Milkweed losses are tied to the use of herbicide-resistant crops, a practice that began in the late 1990s and allows farmers to apply nonselective herbicides to their fields. Milkweeds are susceptible to glyphosate, the most common herbicide used to protect those crops from weeds.

Researchers evaluated populations of several types of milkweeds growing in Illinois, including these three. Credit: Photos by Greg Spyreas and Paul B. Marcum

The new analysis confirmed that milkweed numbers have dropped by about 95 percent in cropland in Illinois over the last 20 years, said Illinois Natural History Survey plant ecologists Greg Spyreas and David Zaya, who conducted the study with research ecologist Ian Pearse, now at the U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins (Colorado) Science Center. The INHS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.

"But we have more milkweeds in natural areas than previous studies suggested," Zaya said. "I would say the milkweeds in natural areas are buffering the loss of milkweeds in the agricultural areas."

Milkweeds in natural areas also have declined in the past two decades, primarily as a result of the conversion of pastures and other marginal sites to cropland, Zaya said. But the overall drop in the number of milkweeds in Illinois - roughly 50 percent, the researchers found - is not as large as the huge decline in monarch butterflies making it back to Mexico.

Other lines of evidence challenge the notion that milkweeds are the sole cause of monarch declines, the researchers said. Despite smaller numbers leaving Mexico each spring, once they get to Illinois, the monarchs seem to quickly rebound.

"You're talking about as many as 350 million monarchs in peak years across eastern North America," Spyreas said. "Previous studies have found that even when small numbers of monarchs leave Mexico, they're able to rebuild their populations within a couple of generations of reproduction in the summer in the Midwest. That suggests that the supply of milkweed plants here is not the primary problem."

Over several generations in their summer range, monarchs migrate north to breed -- but only one generation makes the return trip to their wintering grounds in Mexico. Credit: Graphic by Danielle Ruffatto

"There are fluctuations in the number of monarchs in the Midwest year to year, but studies suggest there is not an overall decline," Zaya said.

"Conservation efforts also need to look beyond milkweed populations to other possible causes of monarch declines," he said. Habitat loss, disease, parasites and climate change all could be playing a role.

"While boosting milkweed numbers can be part of the solution, I don't think it is the entire solution," Zaya said.

Because the population crashes tend to occur on the way to Mexico, the researchers think a lack of late-flowering nectar sources along the route also may be a significant contributor.

"Monarch adults feed on flowers, including milkweed flowers, before and during their southern migration," Pearse said. "If they are suffering from a lack of nutrition during migration, it could make them more susceptible to other stresses."

"This is what we've found in other extinctions of migratory animals in North America and elsewhere," Zaya said. "It's multiple things coming together to cause this problem. And I think this is along the same lines."

More information: David N. Zaya et al, Long-Term Trends in Midwestern Milkweed Abundances and Their Relevance to Monarch Butterfly Declines, BioScience (2017). DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biw186 Journal information: BioScience
What surprised me was that when one colony was weakened by baits -- and even before they were killed -- it looks like the neighboring colony can sense this and begins to invade, said professor Nan-Yao Su, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. How do they sense it? We simply dont know. Credit: UF/IFAS

Even after an insecticide bait weakens Formosan subterranean termites, a neighboring colony will invade the same area and meet the identical lethal fate, new University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences research shows.

The research finding is key for a pest that accounts for much of the $32 billion annual cost caused by subterranean termites worldwide.

"The good news for a homeowner is that as soon as the colony is weakened by baits, the neighboring colony would immediately invade its tunneling system, discover the baits and consume them," said UF/IFAS entomology professor Nan-Yao Su, co-author of the study. "This always results in the elimination of the invading colony. The results showed that as long as the baits are still present in the bait stations, they will continue to intercept and eliminate incoming colonies."

A study led by Su and UF/IFAS entomology graduate student Sarah Bernard showed that field colonies of subterranean termites fight against neighboring colonies when their underground tunnels intersect. In the end, the invading termites die.

For years, scientists have wondered how quickly termites would invade another colony's territory after they die. Sometimes those areas remain vacant for months; sometimes they invade in days, Su said.

Because termites are blind, Su and his cohort assumed each colony had its own odor that is recognizable by other termites.

"What surprised me was that when one colony was weakened by baitsand even before they were killedit looks like the neighboring colony can sense this and begins to invade," said Su, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. "How do they sense it? We simply don't know."

For a study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, Bernard and Su researched termite colonies in New Orleans, Louisiana, a city where Su has been trying to help control termites for about 20 years.

Bernard and Su studied how colonies of Formosan termites reacted to nearby colonies in which they had established baits. The scientists wanted to test if termites from a nearby colony would invade a baited colony even after they discovered that a chemical weakened termites from that colony.

Sure enough, the termites did invade and eventually died. This is good news for users of the Sentricon system, which has been in commercial use since 1995. Su invented the basic science behind the termite elimination system, which has been marketed in 32 countries and protects more than 3 million homes. The technology has also been used by foreign governments in large-scale projects.

More information: Response of the Formosan Subterranean Termite to Neighboring Con-Specific Populations After Baiting With Noviflumuron. OUP accepted manuscript, Journal of Economic Entomology (2016). DOI: 10.1093/jee/tow317 Journal information: Journal of Economic Entomology
This 12-meter-tall hydrothermal vent, named 'Medea', was discovered during the recent Pito Deep cruise made by the US Research Vessel Atlantis and led by University of Wyoming researchers Michael Cheadle and Barbara John. Credit: Lucas Kavanagh, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Two University of Wyoming researchers led a voyage to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and discovered five previously unknown active hydrothermal vents and a completely new vent site.

Crabs, shrimp, snails, Pompeii worms, small fish and bacteria flourish in an environment where sea water, as hot as 370 degrees Centigrade, flows upward through vent chimneys up to 22 meters tall.

Barbara John and her husband, Michael Cheadle, both UW professors of geology and geophysics, recently co-led a research expedition aboard the U.S. Research Vessel Atlantis. With the aid of two small submarines tasked with exploring and sampling the sea floor, the group located the new hydrothermal vents, as well as two others that were last seen 23 years ago, at Pito Seamount in the Pacific Ocean.

The two, along with Professor Jeff Gee from Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego, served as the chief scientists that led the 15-person research team from the U.S. and Canada. The team included four UW students. The expedition was funded by the National Science Foundation.

"The big surprise is the animals that live down there. There's no light. It's totally dark," says Cheadle, explaining that the life we know on the surface of the Earth is driven by the light from the sun. "The whole animal community (in the vents) depends on chemosynthetic bacteria for food. These bacteria can use hydrogen sulfide (toxic compounds to humans) to produce organic material through a process called chemosynthesis. It's simply a completely alien ecosystem."

Until 1977, no one had discovered an undersea hydrothermal vent, Cheadle says. Since then, about 300 such vents have been found on mid-ocean ridges around the world. The new vents were found at the summit of the 1-kilometer-high Pito Seamount on the East Pacific Rise.

These vents form above fissures in the Earth's crustroughly 2.3 kilometers or 7,500 feet below the sea surfaceand emit hot water from hollow chimneys that provide homes for a thriving community of unique creatures.

Crabs inhabit this hydrothermal vent discovered on Pito Seamount in the Pacific Ocean. Shrimp, snails, Pompeii worms, small fish and bacteria also thrive in an environment where water, as hot as 370 degrees Centigrade, flows upward and emits from hollow chimneys that form a habitat for these biological communities. Credit: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Photo

One of the reasons these vents are important is that, if people want to understand how life evolved, the vents and their biological communities are analogous for how life started, Cheadle says.

"Since they (vents) were first discovered in 1977, over 750 new species of animals have been recognized," he says.

John says it would be interesting to examine the cross-over between the biological communities in the hydrothermal vents in the Pacific with those in the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's the cutting edge of biology," she says. "We could analyze the DNA and find out who is related to whom; look at the evolutionary history of each community; and how they might move between sites and even oceans."

The vents discovered are referred to as "black smokers" because they emit what looks like black smoke. The vents are essentially pumping out clouds of fine particles of sulfur-bearing minerals, which contain iron, copper, zinc and, to a lesser extent, gold. The vents ranged in height from 70 feet high to small "chimlets" that were only 1 meter tall, John says.

To add a little fun to the discovery, the researchers bestowed namessuch as "Jason" and "Medea" - on the vents. The names were in honor of the submersible vehicles used during the expedition. In one case, a vent was named "Scotty's Castle," after one of the crew members. In another, a vent was named "The Sniper" because the crust formation resembled a head and a hand holding a rifle.

In addition to discovering, imaging and measuring temperatures from the seven hydrothermal vents, the very successful expedition also saw the science team collect important rock samples from the ocean floor (6 kilometers deep below the ocean's surface) and conduct the first detailed geologic mapping of the gabbroic crust. Sixty percent of the Earth's surface is the sea floor.

"We did the most detailed mapping of the lower oceanic crust ever done," Cheadle says. "And accomplished all of our project goals, as well as discover the vents," John adds.T

he goals included a number of educational outreach opportunities34 live ship-to-shore broadcasts that reached more than 1,000 people, ranging from kindergarten children to 80-year-olds. Audiences included the UW Lab School; the Geologists of Jackson Hole Society at the Teton County Library in Jackson; the Mineral and Gem Society in Cheyenne; the Wyoming Geological Association in Casper; and the Birch Aquarium in San Diego, Calif. Other outreach locations included Cambridge University, colleges in California, and middle and high school students in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Atlantis left from Easter Island Jan. 13 to work at Pito Deep before returning to Arica in Chile Feb. 24. But, before leaving the research site, the team had one last mission.

The Jackalope, a small sailboat built by middle school students in Theresa Williams' UW Lab School class, was launched on the day the Atlantis began its trip home. The small craft, outfitted with a GPS and tracked by the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration, is making its way around the southeastern Pacific, currently sailing between the Pitcairn and Easter islands. Its movements can be tracked at http://educationalpassages.com/boats/00-172231121/.

The boat includes instructions in nearly 20 languages chosen as read/spoken around the Pacific. These include Cantonese, Chinese, English, French, Mandarin, Papa New Guinea, Portuguese and Spanish, so that anyone who finds it can correspond with the UW Lab School students. Additionally, it contains a waterproof time capsule hosting information and pictures of UW and Laramie.

"It covered 120 kilometers in one 24-hour period," John says of the 5-foot-long boat.

"Nobody has ever launched one of these in the Pacific," Cheadle adds, pointing to a map on his laptop that showed the current location of the Jackalope, as well as other similar tiny vessels in the Atlantic.

Neither was sure where the tiny vessel will eventually end up. Cheadle expects it may get caught in the westerlies of the "Roaring Forties" (strong west-to-east air currents), and eventually reverse direction to head back toward South America.
The CauteryGuard is a safer electrocautery device, which is used by doctors, veterinarians and other medical personnel to remove unwanted tissue and to stop bleeding. The CauteryGaurd automatically retracts when not in use, and the inventors said this removes any chance of accidental injury caused by the device during procedures. It is one of six inventions competing for the 2017 InVenture Prize. The inventors are four biomedical engineering majors  Jack Corelli from Philadelphia; Hunter Hatcher from Marietta, Ga.; Devin Li from Corning, N.Y.; and Dev Mandavia, from Duluth, Ga. Credit: Rob Felt

A medical device used in more than 80 percent of all procedures is getting a much-needed make-over from four biomedical engineering majors.

Doctors, veterinarians and other other medical personnel use electrocautery devices to remove unwanted tissue and to prevent or stop bleeding. The tool heats to 1200 degrees at the touch of a button and because it remains hot after use, the tip can accidently burn patients or the doctors, said Dev Mandavia, a student in Georgia Tech's Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. The current design also carries the risk of causing fires because the exposed tip can come into contact with flammable materials, he said.

The solution: a retractable tip.

"It's pretty simple. We designed the tip so it automatically retracts back when it's not in use and that eliminates the chance of any accidental injuries," said Mandavia, who is from Duluth, Ga. "The new design allows us to improve safety without compromising usability."

The change also earned the invention, CauteryGuard, a spot in the 2017 InVenture Prize finale.

Six teams are competing in this year's annual competition, which encourages and supports students' interest in innovation and entrepreneurship. The winner will be announced Wednesday night.

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology

CauteryGuard is about the size and weight of a small flashlight. The pieces were 3-D printed and it runs on two AA batteries, said Hunter Hatcher, a team member from Marietta, Ga. Hatcher was the lead designer and built much of the device in the BME Machine Shop. He also did some construction in the Invention Studio.

The team fine-tuned the CauteryGuard design through a class called Idea to Prototype, where students are assisted by faculty mentors and receive some seed money to build prototypes. The course is part of the CREATE-X umbrella, a Georgia Tech initiative to enhance and support entrepreneurship programs for undergraduate students.

While designing the device, the team surveyed medical professionals. More than 80 percent of the clinicians interviewed had experienced some form of self-inflicted injury from an electrocautery device at least once in the past year, said Devin Li, who is from Corning, N.Y.
Cherry and other trees close to bloom are seen along the tidal basin on the National Mall on March 13, 2017 in Washington, DC

As the northeastern United States braces for the biggest snowstorm of the winter, officials in Washington had other concernsthe fate of the city's prized cherry blossoms, which draw hordes of tourists every year.

"There is no risk for the trees themselves. They've seen snow, cold temperatures, wind," National Park Service (NPS) spokesman Mike Litterst told AFP on Monday.

"The concern right now is for the blossoms, not really because of the snow but we are very concerned about the temperatures. (...) The blossoms are so far advanced," he said.

Damage begins when the temperature drops to about 27 degrees Fahrenheit (-2.5 degrees Celsius), Litterst explained.

Washington was under a winter storm warning Monday night, with the mercury possibly plunging into the 20s. Up to eight inches (20 centimeters) of snow was possible in some areas, along with strong windsalso not a good thing for the cherry blossoms.

The NPS had been predicting "peak bloom" of the roughly 3,000 cherry trees around Washington's Tidal Basinthe time when 70 percent of the Yoshino trees are in full flowerwould be sometime between March 19 and March 22.

Hundreds of thousands of people come to the US capital to see the clouds of pink flowers each year. The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a top tourist draw, bringing in tens of millions of dollars.

The Yoshino trees, one of the 12 varieties planted around the Tidal Basin, are the most at risk, Litterst said, as they are at a critical stage in the blooming process and especially susceptible to cold and frost.

Only those flowers still in their protective buds are likely to survive the storm, the spokesman said.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the 1912 gift of roughly 3,000 cherry trees to Washington by the mayor of Tokyo, as a symbol of US-Japanese friendship.

 2017 AFP
X-ray tomographic picture (false colors) of fossil thread-like red algae. Credit: Stefan Bengtson

Scientists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History have found fossils of 1.6 billion-year-old probable red algae. The spectacular finds, publishing on 14 March in the open access journal PLOS Biology, indicate that advanced multicellular life evolved much earlier than previously thought.

The scientists found two kinds of fossils resembling red algae in uniquely well-preserved sedimentary rocks at Chitrakoot in central India. One type is thread-like, the other one consists of fleshy colonies. The scientists were able to see distinct inner cell structures and so-called cell fountains, the bundles of packed and splaying filaments that form the body of the fleshy forms and are characteristic of red algae.

"You cannot be a hundred per cent sure about material this ancient, as there is no DNA remaining, but the characters agree quite well with the morphology and structure of red algae," says Stefan Bengtson, Professor emeritus of palaeozoology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

The earliest traces of life on Earth are at least 3.5 billion years old. These single-celled organisms, unlike eukaryotes, lack nuclei and other organelles. Large multicellular eukaryotic organisms became common much later, about 600 million years ago, near the transition to the Phanerozoic Era, the "time of visible life."

Discoveries of early multicellular eukaryotes have been sporadic and difficult to interpret, challenging scientists trying to reconstruct and date the tree of life. The oldest known red algae before the present discovery are 1.2 billion years old. The Indian fossils, 400 million years older and by far the oldest plant-like fossils ever found, suggest that the early branches of the tree of life need to be recalibrated.

"The 'time of visible life' seems to have begun much earlier than we thought," says Stefan Bengtson.

The presumed red algae lie embedded in fossil mats of cyanobacteria, called stromatolites, in 1.6 billion-year-old Indian phosphorite. The thread-like forms were discovered first, and when the then doctoral student Therese Sallstedt investigated the stromatolites she found the more complex, fleshy structures.

"I got so excited I had to walk three times around the building before I went to my supervisor to tell him what I had seen!" she says.

The research group was able to look inside the algae with the help of synchrotron-based X-ray tomographic microscopy. Among other things, they have seen regularly recurring platelets in each cell, which they believe are parts of chloroplasts, the organelles within plant cells where photosynthesis takes place. They have also seen distinct and regular structures at the centre of each cell wall, typical of red algae.

More information: Stefan Bengtson et al, Three-dimensional preservation of cellular and subcellular structures suggests 1.6 billion-year-old crown-group red algae, PLOS Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2000735 Journal information: PLoS Biology
ATM & Cash Innovation Europe 2017  The Event by the ATM Industry for the ATM Industry

London, United Kingdom  ATMIA has today issued a call to action to the ATM industry to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the invention of the ATM and the associations 20th anniversary through support for the original flagship European ATM conference, ATMIAs 16th consecutive annual mid-year event for the industry.

To mark this special milestone in the ATM industry, ATMIA has produced what strikes me as the greatest ever ATM conference programme, commented Mike Lee, CEO of ATMIA. I was there at the founding of this European event by ATMIA Europe back in 2001 and I have watched it grow each year to receive our highest ever attendance last year. This is the major ATM industry event centred in Europe, an event by the industry association for the industry. Its appropriate in the 50th year of ATMs and the 20th year of ATMIA to come home to the true, original European ATM event, run by its founders, ATMIA, rather than to any breakaway events the industry didnt seek or need.

Just as the ATM is busy reinventing itself through the process of the global Industry RFI for Next Generation ATMs, coordinated by ATMIA, so the associations flagship event will stay at the forefront of innovation with dynamic new conference partners, relaunching itself as the ATM & Cash Innovation Europe 2017 conference, featuring a much broader scope of financial services coverage.

Our renewed flagship ATM event for the ATMs 50th birthday is the only platform ever which has brought together the two leading visionaries of the ATM Industry, Mr Bill Nuti, CEO of NCR and Mr Andy Mattes, CEO of Diebold-Nixdorf, Lee continued. These revered speakers spearhead the finest speaker roster ever assembled in our industry, including MasterCard, speakers from some of the most important banks across the planet, including ANZ, Barclays, Caixabank, DBS from Singapore, HSBC, Santander and Standard Bank of South Africa. In addition, ATMIAs historic conference features the inspirational CEO of the worlds largest ATM operator, Cardtronics, as well as the CEO of South Americas most successful ATM operator and a senior representative of the Peoples Bank of China. In addition, the audience will gain key insights from Worldline and major software developers such Auriga, KAL and SBS.

As the only global industry association representing the whole ATM industry, with over 8,000 individual members in 66 countries, ATMIA pumps net income earned from its annual events back into its year-long industry work in advocacy, education and networking, giving its events a unique competitive industry advantage.

A historic ATM memorial display in the exhibit area will showcase 50 years of ATM history, after which the event returns to the key theme of innovation and reinvention for the future by recognising outstanding industry achievements and breakthroughs for the industry at a not-to-be-missed Gala Dinner & Award Ceremony, hosted by ATMIA and new conference partners Reconnaissance International.

Come to the original flagship ATM industry event run by your industry association which is there for the industry throughout the year in its non-profit capacity, Lee said. Ron Delnevo and the European team of ATMIA have pulled out all the stops to produce this fitting tribute to a great industry in its banner year.

The venue selected by ATMIA enables a bigger trade exhibit than that offered by other rival events so in addition to the best speaker line-up ever seen in our industry, this will be the biggest and best European ATM trade exhibit.

ATM Cash & Innovation Europe

Date: 13-14 June, 2017

Location: Lancaster London Hotel

City: London

About ATMIA www.atmia.com

ATMIA is the leading non-profit trade association representing the entire global ATM industry. ATMIA serves more than 8,000 members from over 650 participating companies in 66 countries spanning the whole ATM ecosphere, including financial institutions, independent ATM deployers, equipment manufacturers, processors and a plethora of ATM service and value-added solution providers. ATMIA provides education, advocacy and connections to help its members keep abreast of industry news and developments; increase knowledge and professionalism; improve operational efficiencies; understand and influence regulatory processes; participate in the local, regional and global ATM community; and forge new relationships to advance their businesses. Founded in 1997, ATMIA has active chapters in the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Asia, Africa, India and the Middle East focusing on the unique needs and issues of each region. For more information, please visit atmia.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.



Other Point of Sale blogs of interest:
Point of Sale Webinar: Roadmap for Unified Retail in Grocery

BOONE, NC, March 13, 2017  ECR Software Corp. is sponsoring a straight-talk webinar which provides a clear-to-follow roadmap for retailers to make the move to a unified commerce platform for grocery retailers. In the webinar, attendees will learn the benefits and organizational impact of shifting from siloed systems to a single retail commerce platform. ECRS president, founder, and CEO Pete Catoe will join other industry experts to examine the strategic decisions that grocers need to remain relevant and competitive in this new digital age.

Making the move to unified retail revolutionizes the infrastructure, architecture and applications that are currently straining to keep pace with rapidly evolving consumer technologies and behaviors. Deployed in the right way, the benefits of a unified platform include:

Consolidating a dozen or more technology platforms into one and eliminating complex integration schemes

Eliminating software pain points that hold back business development and customer satisfaction and lower profitability

Increasing touch points and raising engagement throughout a holistic customer experience

Flexibility to add new features and functions with ease of scale and increased speed to market

Join this webinar to find out why its time to make the move to unified retail and how to build a personalized roadmap for your organization.

You will gain useful insights from the industrys experts:

Pete Catoe  Founder, President & CEO, ECRS

An entrepreneur by nature and an executive in practice, Pete believes great companies are built one idea, one customer, and one employee at a time. When it comes to his business philosophy, Pete believes strongly that a unified platform is the future of retail technology, that retail platforms should be free of bulky technology stacks and messy integrations, and that retailers should strive to make a customers experience easy, seamless, and identical no matter where the transaction point may be. If you were to ask him, hes in the business of making his retail customers more competitive and their customers happier.

Rob LaBonne  VP of Marketing and IT, LaBonnes Markets

Rob LaBonne is a 7th generation grocer with his family-owned grocery chain, LaBonnes Markets. LaBonnes Markets was founded in the early 1900s as a horse and buggy operation and has grown over the last 100 years to three stores throughout Connecticut with over 300 associates. The resulting customer-experience, with the LaBonne family, remains one of consistently finding high-quality goods surpassed, only on occasion, by superior customer-care and service.

Perry Kramer  Vice President and Practice Lead, Boston Retail Partners

Perry Kramer is a leader in retail information technology, with more than 20 years of extensive experience across several types of retailers, including department stores and specialty retailers. In addition to VP and leadership positions with retailers, he has held the CIO position with a technology company and was co-chairman of the Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) board of directors. Throughout his career, Perry has managed selection and implementation projects within store systems, logistics, finance, HCM, e-commerce and merchandising.

Mark your calendars and save the date for March 23rd, 2017 at 2pm EDT. Register for the 45-minute webinar on ECRS website.

About ECRS

ECRS, founded in 1989, is a privately-held Retail Success Company driven by a desire to change the way retailers use technology in their operations. ECRS uses a value-focused, customer-centric approach to create success stories, not only through a unified commerce platform for point of sale, but also with a team of highly-experienced retail automation specialists who will help retailers extract the maximum value from their investments. ECRS has over 4000 active retail locations, with installations in all 50 states, Canada and the Caribbean.

Register: https://www.ecrs.com/resources/thought-leadership/roadmap-for-unified-retail-in-grocery/#registration_form

Other Point of sale news:
By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, Mar 13 (PTI) Family members of a middle-aged man, who died at a city private hospital reportedly due to cardiac problems, today lodged a complaint with the police alleging medical negligence.

Sunil Pandey was admitted to a private hospital last week with cardiac problems for which he underwent an operation, the police said.

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A couple of days later, Pandeys left leg was amputated after which the patients condition deteriorated and he was shifted to ventilation.

Pandey died this morning reportedly due to a cardiac failure and his family lodged a complaint with the Purba Jadavpur Police Station alleging medical negligence on the part of the private hospital.

"Hospital authorities said that he was fine after the operation but his condition started deteriorating. We were told that if we want to save his life we have to give consent to ampute his left leg because there was a blood clot in the lower portion," the patients wife Sujata Pandey said.

"But even after that his condition never improved and yesterday morning it deteriorated too much. We requested hospital authorities several times but there was no doctor to attend him and this morning he passed away," Sujata said.

She claimed that her husband was not a diabetic, nor he had high blood pressure.

"In fact, he drove to the hospital the day when he was admitted ...I want justice," she said.

A senior officer of the police station said, "We are looking into the matter... We are contacting the hospital authorities and will check the details of treatment." PTI SCH MD MD

--- ENDS ---
Just days after Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited some states of the Niger Delta in an effort to quell the crisis in the region, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has also stormed Delta state.

Ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar was received by Ayiri Emami

Abubakar, the vice president under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, arrived Delta state and was received by billionaire businessman, Ayiri Emami, and others.

READ ALSO: Vice President Osinbajo in Delta for Eco Summit

It was not known as at press time if his visit was similar to that of Professor Osinbajo who acted as president of the country while Muhammadu Buhari was away on medical leave for 52 days.

It is believed that Atiku's visit is aimed at helping him to consolidate on his political ambition to run for the presidency. He is yet to announce any plan to contest.

Atiku Abubakar had contested against Muhammadu Buhari under the All Progressives Congress (APC) platform during the primary election in 2015.

Though he lost, he is reportedly still building his support base ahead of the 2019 general election.

The Niger Delta region had, before now, been in crisis with militants and agitators attacking pipelines and other major oil installations.

READ ALSO: Niger Delta is special to President Buhari- Osibanjo

Osinbajo, during his visit to Akwa Ibom directed all international oil companies with head offices outside the Niger Delta to relocate to the area.

Source: Legit.ng
by Elsa Court

A popular summer destination on the French Riviera since the 19th century, Nices climate is warm and breezy from April until November, and rarely suffers from the scorching heat like its busier neighbour, Marseille.

Once a part of the kingdom of Sardinia, the city may disorientate international visitors who will discover there a particular hybrid of French and Mediterranean culture in the Italian-looking architecture of the vieille ville. While upmarket properties outside the city are prized for their views across the bay, many locals tend to favour the belle epoque apartments around the Place Garibaldi near the port.

For an authentic taste of ratatouille, the French peasant dish of stewed vegetables made famous by the Disney film, head to a little restaurant called La Merenda, on the doorstep of the old town.

Taking its name from the old Nicard dialect for a light meal or snack, La Merenda was opened by local chef Dominique Le Stanc when, having given the Hotel Negrescos Chantecler restaurant a couple of Michelin stars, he decided to devote himself to reviving traditional local cuisine.

Chef Dominique Le Stanc at work in La Merendas kitchen

Try the famed petits farcis Nicois (small stuffed vegetables) as an appetiser, with a glass of chilled Provencal rose wine.

Be warned though: La Merenda does not have a telephone  or card machine  and reservations are best made in person. Politicians and movie stars dont seem to complain. Its easy enough to drop by after a tour of the Marche aux Fleurs on the Cours Saleya.

Photographs: Inge Johnsson/Alamy; Emmanuel Charlat/Alamy; Maurice Rougemont/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images; Hemis/Alamy; Dreamstime

Related article: Rowley Leighs ratatouille recipe
Seventeen Chinese coal miners were killed when a lift used to move workers fell down a shaft, state media reported, the latest deadly mishap in the country's accident-prone coal-mining industry. The accident occurred Thursday when a cable supporting a mining cage caught fire, causing the rig to tumble down into a state-operated coal mine in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Xinhua news agency said. An operation to extract the trapped miners from the wreckage was launched at the time but rescue workers could not reach them until Monday, finding them all dead, Xinhua said. The mine, the Dongrong Second Mine under the Longmay Mining Holding Group, is located near the city of Shuangyashan. Two welders have been detained by police over "allegedly serious violations" of safety regulations, Xinhua said. The mine's manager also has been suspended from his post, it quoted the local government as saying. China is the world's largest coal producer, and deadly accidents in mines are common. In December, explosions in two separate coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and in Heilongjiang killed at least 59 people, according to state media reports. Thirty-three miners were killed in a colliery explosion in October in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.
Reuters

In the meantime, the pan European STOXX 600 index rose 0.5% with traders pointing out that investors are still betting China will ease its COVID restrictions, despite officials saying they do not plan an imminent reopening. Reports that China would make substantial changes to its "dynamic-zero" COVID-19 policy in coming months fuelled a risk assets rally on Friday. But on Monday the offshore yuan fell 0.8% against the dollar to 7.2347 after China said over the weekend that it will persevere with its "dynamic-clearing" approach to COVID-19 cases as soon as they emerge, giving little indication it would ease its outlier zero-COVID strategy nearly three years into the pandemic.
Macquarie has sold off its final stake in Thames Water, bringing an end to the Australian investment bank's 11 years of investment.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed but Macquarie is thought to have received between 1bn - 1.5bn from Canadian pension fund Omers and the Kuwait Investment Authority for its remaining 26pc stake.

The pair snapped up the stake in Kemble Water, the holding company behind Thames Water, through its infrastructure investment arms Borealis and Wren House.

The deal is understood to have been delayed over the summer following the economic uncertainty created by the UKs vote to leave the EU.

Peter Mason, chairman of Thames Water, welcomed the pair to the board as new investors in Thames Water and said he looks forward to working towards Thames mission to provide the essential service thats at the heart of daily life, health and enjoyment.

Interactive: UK Water companies

A joint statement from the two funds said they will continue to support Thames Waters regulated 4.5bn capital investment programme, which runs from 2015 to 2020 and is the largest in the UK water industry.

Thames is the UKs biggest water company and supplies 2.6 billion litres of drinking water to 9 million customers every day. It also treats 4.4 billion litres of wastewater per day and provides sewerage services to some 14m people.

The water giant was sold by Germanys RWE for 8bn in 2006 to Kemble Water Holdings, a consortium established by one of Macquaries infrastructure investment funds.

Kembles roster of shareholders includes pension funds and institutions from the UK and Europe, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and China.
The bitter row between Turkey and Europe in the referendum campaign on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers risks causing lasting damage to their often fraught relationship, analysts say. Once the current spate of votes in Turkey and Europe is over, the dispute will leave both sides at a historic crossroads to decide on the nature of their future alliance. Turkey is a key member of NATO and has sought to join the European Union as a strategic goal in an agonisingly long process dating back to the 1960s. There have been numerous rows over the last few years -- especially over human rights -- but none have matched the volcanic acrimony of the current clash as Turkey gears up for the April 16 plebiscite. Erdogan has said the Netherlands and Germany were acting like the Nazis for preventing his ministers from holding rallies abroad to push for a 'yes' vote in the referendum, leaving The Hague and Berlin aghast. "Such tensions leave their mark and weaken the perception that Turkey and Europe share a common fate," Ilter Turan, professor of political science at Istanbul's Bilgi University, told AFP. - 'Post-poll normalisation?' - The crisis has come about as Erdogan -- who survived a military coup bid in July -- seeks to tip the balance in a tight referendum campaign and to strike a chord with nationalist voters. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is meanwhile conscious of the need to take a hard line against Erdogan as he shapes up to face the ultra-right populist Geert Wilders in Wednesday's highly-watched election. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an election in September, while France meanwhile votes in a two-round presidential poll in April and May with Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front a serious contender. Analysts say that once the excesses of the election frenzy are calmed, there will again be a chance to put pragmatism before sensationalism. Turkey, whose economy has weakened over the last few months from the stellar heights seen in the early years of Erdogan's rule, will not want to lose the EU as its key trade partner. Turan predicted that once the rhetoric of the elections is over "both sides will work to normalise their relations". "Turkey and the EU have so far not wanted to cut their relations -- even though they were not keen to improve them," he said. - 'Little chance' - Yet the breakdown in civility in the current dispute has raised doubts over the future viability of the membership bid, which some analysts have already argued should be replaced by a more realistic partnership agreement. In public speeches ahead of the referendum, Erdogan has repeatedly raised the spectre of bringing back capital punishment, a move that would automatically end Turkey's attempt to join the bloc. Meanwhile, Ankara has moved sharply to rebuild its relationship with Moscow -- damaged after a 2015 shooting down of a Russian plane -- with Erdogan saying last week ties were now normalised. Erdogan's influential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote in a newspaper column Tuesday entitled "Turkey, Europe and a narrowing horizon" that the acts of the Dutch government showed the emergence of a "hypocrisy" on the entire continent. "Despite the reality that all sides would benefit from effective relations between the EU and Turkey, there is little chance that the crucial relationship improves in the near term," analysts at the Soufan Group said in a research note. - 'Bridges burned' - Turkish officials argue that the majority Muslim country's economic prosperity and rising power under Erdogan have not been welcomed by Europe and the country is prepared to go its own way to develop. "Turkey's growth is a hope for some and has become a nightmare for others -- like Holland and Germany," said Erdogan, who has made much to deepen links with Africa and South America over the last year, as well as Britain as it heads for Brexit. Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey and visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, said in the short term there was "no way out" of the crisis as Erdogan would do everything to win nationalist votes in the referendum campaign. "In the medium-term, one can hope that the fever will subside," he told AFP. "Yet bridges have been burned at personal level -- using a 'Nazi' narrative is the most extreme vexation one can possibly use in EU politics," he said.
By India Today Web Desk: Casting couch is an issue that is omnipresent across film industries. In the past, several actresses have exposed the ugly reality of casting couch. Now, yesteryear actor Kasthuri has levelled allegations against a leading Telugu actor.

Kasthuri, who has worked in Telugu films like Nippu Ravva, Annamayya, Chilakkottudu, Aakasa Veedhilo and Maa Aayana Bangaram, went on the record saying that the actor is a politician now.

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Speaking about her horrible experience, Kasthuri was quoted by The Times Of India saying, "There were movies I was thrown out of because I was not toeing the expected line or ready to give in to the favours that were asked of me. And, I would like to point out that most of this was in relation to this one hero - this one guy who is a hero/politician now. I think it was some kind of ego thing for him. I respect him in so many ways, but he couldn't take no for an answer. He kept harassing me for that one movie I did with him and threw me out of two."

It may be noted that the Bollywood actor Radhika Apte too revealed that she faced casting couch down South.

Last month, Tamil actor Varalaxmi Sarathkumar took to Twitter to share a disturbing issue of sexual harassment in the industry.

ALSO READ: Kamal Haasan worried about Shruti's relationship with Michael Corsale?

WATCH Baahubali 2 teaser: Prabhas as Shivudu will have his revenge on April 28

ALSO READ: Satellite rights of Rajinikanth's 2.0 bagged for a whopping Rs 110 cr

ALSO WATCH: Besides Varalaxmi, 5 actors who faced casting couch experiences

--- ENDS ---
AFP News

The UN's COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters. Just in the past few months, climate-induced catastrophes have killed thousands, displaced millions and cost billions in damages across the world. Massive floods devastated swaths of Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the western United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes in a fraught year marked by Russia's war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects from the Covid pandemic. But Simon Stiell, the UN's climate change executive secretary, said he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late-19th-century levels. "We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs," Stiell said as the 13-day summit opened. "The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis," he said. Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and Earth's surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week. Promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree. "Whilst I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year, we must be clear: as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe," said Alok Sharma, British president of the previous COP26 as he handed over the chairmanship to Egypt. "How many more wake-up calls does the world -- and world leaders -- actually need?", he said. In a dire warning, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, with an acceleration in sea level rise, glacier melt and heatwaves. "As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. - 'Loss and damage' - The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change. The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream. Delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step toward what are sure to be fraught discussions. Inclusion of the agenda item "reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy for the suffering of the victims of climate induced disasters," said COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt. "We all owe a debt of gratitude to activists and civil society organisations who have persistently demanded the space to discuss funding for loss and damage," he said to applause. Shoukry also noted that rich nations have not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He also lamented that most climate financing is based on loans. "We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat," he said, calling for solutions that "prove we are serious about not leaving anyone behind". - US-China tensions - After the first day of talks, more than 120 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday. The most conspicuous no-show will be China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress. US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change. Cooperation between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies and carbon polluters -- has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt. A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive. One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. bur-lth/fz
AFP News

The UN's COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters. An alarming UN report said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, with an acceleration in sea level rise, glacier melt, heatwaves and other climate indicators. "As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement, calling the report a "chronicle of climate chaos". Just in the past few months, floods devastated Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh also comes against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects from the Covid-19 pandemic. But Simon Stiell, the UN's climate change executive secretary, said he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late 19th-century levels. "We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs," Stiell said as the 13-day summit opened. "The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis," he said, noting that only 29 of 194 nations have presented improved plans as called for at COP26 in Glasgow last year. Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and the Earth's surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week. Promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree. Britain's Alok Sharma, who handed the COP presidency to Egypt, said that while world leaders have faced "competing priorities" this year, "inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe." "How many more wake-up calls does the world -- and world leaders -- actually need?" he said. - 'Loss and damage' - The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change. The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream. After two days of intense pre-summit negotiations, delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step towards what are sure to be difficult discussions. Stiell said inclusion of loss and damage on the agenda after three decades of debate on the issue showed progress. "The fact that it is there as a substantive agenda item I believe bodes well," he told reporters. COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt said it would be unproductive to speculate on what outcome the negotiations will lead to, "but certainly everybody is hopeful." "Anything that we do effectively has to be on the basis of our common efforts and that we leave no one behind," he said. Shoukry also noted that rich nations have not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He lamented that most climate financing is based on loans. "We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat," he said. - US-China tensions - After the first day of talks, some 110 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday. The most conspicuous no-show will be China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress. US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change. Cooperation between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies and carbon polluters -- has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt. A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive. One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. bur-lth/mh/lg
FILE - In this Sept. 24, 2016 file photo, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi addresses the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. Zahid said Tuesday, March 14, 2017, that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed in February, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported. News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death.

Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed Feb. 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport. North Korea  widely suspected of being behind the attack  rejects the findings.

Zahid said Kim's body was taken out of the hospital morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital for the embalmment procedure and has been returned. He declined to say when it was done.

"As it is kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose, so we did this to preserve the body," he told reporters in Parliament.

Health officials have said Kim's relatives will be given two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

North Korea has demanded the body back and objected when Malaysia conducted an autopsy. Pyongyang also has refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and has referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam were the same person, but refused to say how they confirmed that.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply since Kim's death, with each expelling the other's ambassador. Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a "fair settlement" of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Zahid, who earlier said negotiations were ongoing, said Tuesday that about 50 North Koreans detained in eastern Sarawak state for overstaying their work permits will be sent back to Pyongyang soon. He didn't give details nor say why they would be deported amid the exit ban.

Story continues

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea  three embassy staff members and their family members. About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries also scrapped visa-free travel for each other's citizens.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapon.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korea on Monday sought to shift the blame for Kim's death to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, said in New York that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system.

The ambassador said the U.S. is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX, and has also stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

The attack was caught on surveillance video that shows two women going up to Kim and apparently smearing something on his face. He was dead within 20 minutes, authorities say. The women  one Indonesian, one Vietnamese  have been charged with murder but say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank.
This year alone, Pakistan has provoked India by 22 ceasefire violations at the LoC till February end and 6 times at the IB where the BSF is in operational control.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The ceasefire violations by Pakistan has led to increase in casualties of soldiers at the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB), according to the latest figures stated by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in Parliament.

This year alone, Pakistan has provoked India by 22 ceasefire violations at the LoC till February end and 6 times at the IB where the BSF is in operational control.

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The figures by the MHA show a steady increase of ceasefire violations at LoC; 153 incidents in 2014, 152 in 2015 peaking at 228 in 2016. At the IB, there has been a reverse trend, the ceasefire violation peaked in 2014 with 430 incidents being recorded. In 2015, there were 253 incidents and in 2016, there have been 221 incidents.

The intense ceasefire violations have led to an increase in the overall causalities of the Indian Army personnel. The data shared by the government showed that in 2014, 1 Army personnel was killed and 11 injured. In 2015, 6 Army personnel were killed, 17 were injured. In 2016, the figure was 8 while the figure of Army personnel injured grew phenomenally to 74.

The figure in the BSF have also increased. In 2014, 2 BSF personnel were killed and 17 injured as a result of cross-border fire. In 2015, it 4 BSF personnel were killed and 9 injured, and in 2016, 5 BSF personnel were killed and 25 injured.

MHA RESPONSE IN LOK SABHA

The MHA on Tuesday told Lok Sabha that Pakistan government continued to violate ceasefire agreement and supported the continuous cross-border firing, sabotage and infiltration attempts into India. Minister of state (MoS) for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir gave a written answer to an unstarred question posed by Congress MP and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge.

The minister said that the response of Indian government to ceasefire violations has improved. Compared to maximum number of civilians being injured in 2014 when 14 were killed and 101 injured, in 2015, 16 civilians were killed, 71 injured and last year there were 13 killed, 16 injured despite government's claims of taking measures like shifting civilians to safer places.

The MHA also stated that it was taking measures of defence preparedness including strengthening of Nakas, field fortifications, high-mast lights at the IB. It added that steps including immediate and effective retaliation by the Indian Army and the BSF to unprovoked firing and ceasefire violations were also taken.

This statement comes shortly after Pakistani troops targeted the forward Indian posts along the LoC near Poonch forcing the authorities to suspend the Poonch-Rawalkote bus service and postpone examinations.

The minister said, "Pakistani troops used 82 mm mortars, automatic weapons and targeted our forward defended locations along the LoC and the fire was responded by our troops in a befitting manner, ensuing a heavy exchange of fire."

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Pakistan's firing partially damaged the Trade Felicitation Centre (TFC), Chaka da Bagh in Poonch and forced authorities to suspend the Jammu-Rawalkote bus service. The ceasefire violations has often been used as a tactic to give cover fire to infiltration bids. There has been a sharp rise in infiltration bids and encounters since last year along the LoC.

Also read: Chandu Chavan: Indian soldier who had crossed LoC to return home for Holi

Also read: J-K: Pakistan violates ceasefire in Poonch, Indian forces retaliate

--- ENDS ---
A Perfect (Twitter) Storm Posted on 14 March 2017 by Rob Honeycutt Last week an entertaining barrage of tweets erupted from Dr. Gavin Schmidt's account in response to a blog piece written by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Being that Adams' original tweet promoting his blog post makes the presumptuous claim of "saving the world" by teaching climate scientists how to communicate science, you can only imagine how this would raise the ire of more than a few actual real-life experts. Aside from the ludicrous notion that saving the world somehow pivots on convincing "skeptics", Adams' fundamental fallacy is the notion that it's the job of climate scientists to convince "skeptics" that climate change is real. What we know from research is, when someone has taken a specific position as a "skeptic" of man-made climate change, adding more information generally produces a backfire effect. They actually reject the science more in response to more information. It doesn't matter how persuasive you are. Most anyone who has already made this choice is not going to be persuaded, regardless of how the science is packaged. Schmidt's initial response suggests that he fully understands this, saying upfront that his comment would be unlikely to change Adams' thinking. And subsequent tweets from Adams confirm his expectation. But, for those who follow climate science and the public debate, Schmidt's tweets serve as an entertaining take down of Adams' untethered world-view. Down the Rabbit Hole, then a Hard Right For anyone who's spent time following Scott Adam's blog, you will know this is an utterly bizarre world of anti-logic where "persuasion" is the dog whistle of choice. I would describe his blog as an authoritarian version of Lewis Carol meets the Beatles on acid. The rhetoric is hard and absolute, not to be challenged, whilst the logic is non-linear, rejecting basic ideas like the existence of reality. None of Adams' concepts are supported in any manner. He produces no research tied to it. There is no rigorous method applied to rationalize it. It's little more than cultish ramblings validated by a small loyal following acquired through his previous success as a cartoonist. Exit the 140 Character Limit Gavin does a great job of explaining Scott's errors within the limitations of a Twitter thread. Other bloggers have also taken up the exchange at Greg Laden's Blog and at And Then There's Physics. But we can also take a little more time and look at these points individually. Adams opens with this passage... I dont know much about science, and even less about climate science. So as a practical matter, I like to side with the majority of scientists until they change their collective minds. They might be wrong, but their guess is probably better than mine. That said, it is mind-boggling to me that the scientific community cant make a case for climate science that sounds convincing, even to some of the people on their side, such as me. In other words, I think scientists are right (because I play the odds), but I am puzzled by why they cant put together a convincing argument, whereas the skeptics can, and easily do. Shouldnt it be the other way around? As a public service, and to save the planet, obviously, I will tell you what it would take to convince skeptics that climate science is a problem that we must fix. Please avoid the following persuasion mistakes. One might reasonably assume that the points that followed would make a serious attempt to demonstrate where the scientific community doesn't make convincing arguments, and one might assume examples of strong "skeptic" points. As you'll see, neither are delivered. Instead we're left with the sense Adams is not only far out of his depth relative to climate science, but he's also far removed from what actual cognitive research finds. His list of points follow: "1. Stop telling me the models (plural) are good. If you told me one specific model was good, that might sound convincing. But if climate scientists have multiple models, and they all point in the same general direction, something sounds fishy. If climate science is relatively settled, wouldnt we all use the same models and assumptions?" Here Adams show us his severely limited understanding of what climate models actually are. He fails to grasp the idea that climate models are a boundary conditions experiment rather than an initial conditions one. You can't create one really good computer model and ever expect that it will be representative of the planetary climate system when what's being modeled is a chaotic system. Even reality wouldn't operate this way! Think of it like this. If you could instantly replicate the Earth (solar system and all) and start both Earth(a) and Earth(b) in precisely the same states, within a short time the two climate systems would diverge, even though they would continue to operate within the limits of the forcings imposed on them. This is what models also do. What models and model runs are telling us is, what are the boundary conditions within which the climate system will progress given known forcings. 2. Stop telling me the climate models are excellent at hindcasting, meaning they work when you look at history. That is also true of financial models, and we know financial models can NOT predict the future. We also know that investment advisors like to show you their pure-luck past performance to scam you into thinking they can do it in the future. To put it bluntly, climate science is using the most well-known scam method (predicting the past) to gain credibility. Again, Adams does not grasp what climate models are. There is a functional difference between financial/economic models and climate models in that climate models are bound by physics (link). Financial models are statistical rather than physics based. Conflating the two is essentially a way to avoid making the effort to understand the value proposition climate modeling presents to the body of science. 3. Tell me what percentage of warming is caused by humans versus natural causes. If humans are 10% of the cause, I am not so worried. If we are 90%, you have my attention. And if you leave out the percentage caused by humans, I have to assume the omission is intentional. And why would you leave out the most important number if you were being straight with people? Sounds fishy. Anyone who follows climate science  even peripherally  will understand Adams is ignorant of human attribution research. The only thing fishy here is that Scott doesn't even attempt to research this before making an assumption and expounding on the subject in a blog post. The single most discussed part of the IPCC reports is the attribution statement! They state that most or all of the warming of the past 50 years is very likely due to human contributions of greenhouse gases. Gavin demonstrates that the likely contribution is 110%. It's not like this is hidden information. It's not like it hasn't been discussed ad nauseam on almost every climate blog around, for years. Scott merely hasn't read it yet, and has the audacity to presume he has something of value to offer to the scientific community on how to communicate this matter. 4. Stop attacking some of the messengers for believing that our reality holds evidence of Intelligent Design. Climate science alarmists need to update their thinking to the simulated universe idea that makes a convincing case that we are a trillion times more likely to be a simulation than we are likely to be the first creatures who can create one. No God is required in that theory, and it is entirely compatible with accepted science. (Even if it is wrong.) Gavin waved this one off, for good reason, but this touches on the untethered aspect of Adams' world view that I mentioned above. It's a big non sequitur dropped into this topic, for what reason, we don't know. Personally, I have no problem admitting that I do not understand quantum mechanics. I've read a number of popular books about it. I think it's a fascinating subject which I'm always eager to try to understand more. But QM is a world that is far outside of what we experience in our everyday lives. There is also an incredible void of experimental evidence that can validate what scientists say about the quantum realm. With QM there are many highly trained physicists poring through the math. They're checking the concepts. They're publishing research and arguing with each other to validate the concepts. Ultimately it all has to be testable to a level to convince the broader scientific community that there are realistic claims being made. In this, even as a non-scientist, I can simultaneously not fully understand the subject but have a strong sense that, however strange the quantum world is, the subject is scientifically valid and important. I know this is a broadly accepted theory and has been so since the early part of the 20th century. As a non-scientists I know I'm not on thin ice to discuss quantum theory. This is a complete contrast to Adams' "simulated universe." This idea has a basis in cognitive research in the work of Berkeley professor, Donald Hoffman. There's a good TED talk where he describes his research related to how our brains interpret reality. The challenge is, as with climate science, Adams is unequipped to analyze and interpret this cognitive research. Dr. Hoffman's work looks interesting. It's an area worth exploring. There were a number of logical leaps in his TED talk that I would want to know more about. But this research is definitely not established. It's a fairly new area Hoffman is exploring, and it may prove to reveal some interesting things about reality, but it also might not. What Scott has done is spin it into, as he says, "[T]rillions of times more likely..." that reality is a simulation. (In his TED talk, Hoffman specifically suggests this is unlikely.) And out of that Adams flings off into a realm of dogmatic, non-linear, anti-logic untethered to anything rational, on par with 1960's pop guru's explaining "chakras" and "planes of enlightenment." 5. Skeptics produce charts of the earths temperature going up and down for ages before humans were industrialized. If you cant explain-away that chart, I cant hear anything else you say. I believe the climate alarmists are talking about the rate of increase, not the actual temperatures. But why do I never see their chart overlayed on the skeptics chart so we can see the difference? That seems like the obvious thing to do. In fact, climate alarmists should throw out everything but that one chart. This one is particularly irksome to me because I've repeatedly done the work to show where "skeptics" are erroneously using temperature charts. I can only imagine that Scott is discussing the numerous misrepresentations of GISP2 data as global temperature data, where, in fact it's a local measure of temperature at the Greenland summit. Those charts have been "explained away" so many times that it's beyond absurdity. It's unclear what "one chart" Scott thinks he's describing here. One of the basic tenets of science is, you can't make stuff up to support your preferred conclusions. There are many charts showing the rise in industrial era temperature, millennial temperature, holocene temperature and even temperature extending back over many millions of years. This information is easily accessible to anyone interested in reading the actual published research, or even taking the time to read the IPCC reports. 6. Stop telling me the arctic ice on one pole is decreasing if you are ignoring the increase on the other pole. Or tell me why the experts observing the ice increase are wrong. When you ignore the claim, it feels fishy. What smells fishy is that Adams hasn't taken the time to read what scientists say about NH vs SH sea ice. It's easily available. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has a very clear description of what is happening. And ironically, Scott makes this claim during a season when we've just witnessed an extreme decrease in Antarctic sea ice. 7. When skeptics point out that the Earth has not warmed as predicted, dont change the subject to sea levels. That sounds fishy. I'm not sure what Scott's preoccupation with fish is, but what is abundantly obvious about this comment is... No one does this. He certainly doesn't bother to offer a citation or example of where this has happened. My experience has been that, when "skeptics" talk about this topic, scientists address it. Repeatedly. This particular stinking zombie myth has had its head removed from its body more times than there are pages in all of George R. R. Martin's novels combined. 8. Dont let the skeptics talk last. The typical arc I see online is that Climate Scientists point out that temperatures are rising, then skeptics produce a chart saying the temperatures are always fluctuating, and have for as far as we can measure. If the real argument is about rate of change, stop telling me about record high temperatures as if they are proof of something. Again, Scott presumes that adding more information is going to change a "skeptic's" position. If we just keep giving them the information that scientists 'should' be giving them, that would fix it. Research shows that Adams is deeply misinformed. Scientists are not ever going to change the minds of confirmed "skeptics" any more than Martin Luther King caused any racist to change their position. MLK was effective because he confronted the facts of a critical issue in ways that made people uncomfortable. Dr. King forced us to face reality. 9. Stop pointing to record warmth in one place when were also having record cold in others. How is one relevant and the other is not? Because there are more of the former than the latter, Scott. This is the shifting temperature distribution predicted by climate scientists many decades ago. Fewer low temperature extremes and more high temperature extremes. To even have a chance of understanding climate science would require familiarizing one's self with what a distribution curve represents. 10. Dont tell me how well your models predict the past. Tell me how many climate models have ever been created, since we started doing this sort of thing, and tell me how many have now been discarded because they didnt predict correctly. If the answer is All of the old ones failed and we were totally surprised because they were good at hindcasting, then why would I trust the new ones? Reprise #2. It's not clear how Adams concludes this would have any affect on persuading anyone since his understanding of models is essentially non-existent, nor is it clear how he even gets to "If the answer is..." Adams should trust what experts say about their models, but that involves actually taking the time to listen to what climate modelers are saying about their work. 11. When you claim the oceans have risen dramatically, you need to explain why insurance companies are ignoring this risk and why my local beaches look exactly the same to me. Also, when I Google this question, why are half of the top search results debunking the rise? How can I tell who is right? They all sound credible to me. Here we get a double barreled straw man argument. It's not clear how he concludes that anyone is saying that sea level has risen dramatically. Certainly sea level is rising. It's rising faster than in the past. SLR is accelerating. But I'm not sure that could be properly stated as "oceans have risen dramatically." And where is Scott's data coming from suggesting that insurance companies are ignoring SLR? I find that insurance companies are highly cognitive of the inherent risks. It is certainly reasonable to ask why Google delivers inaccurate information on sea level rise. If I had any Google exec standing in front of me right now, I'd be forcefully asking the exact same question. It definitely takes a certain level of skill to validate what is a reliable source of information and what isn't (I frequently have this discussion with my own teenaged kids). I have to admit, though. I'm more than a little suspicious that Scott actually does have the capacity to know a reliable source when he sees it. I think he actually prefers being confused for his own particular purposes of being (faux) incensed about climate communication. And, yes Scott, with 1 meter of SLR in 2100, your local beach will look significantly different. 12. If you want me to believe warmer temperatures are bad, you need to produce a chart telling me how humankind thrived during various warmer and colder eras. Was warming usually good or usually bad? Again here, I have my doubts that this is a genuine question, but rather just a randomly crafted point without any substance. Humans, in our current form, have only been around for perhaps 200,000 years. The last interglacial (the Eemian; 120kya) global temperature reached only, perhaps, 1C higher than today. There were precious few of us and we nearly went extinct along the way. Our early survival can easily be ascribed to luck as much as our capacity as an adaptive species. The challenge we face is that we have 7 billion people alive today. We will likely be pushing past 9 billion this century, while we're potentially going to warm the planet some 4C over the stable preindustrial temperature range that gave rise to modern human civilization. It would take an extreme level of deliberate ignorance to avoid the obvious conclusions that this implies. 13. Stop conflating the basic science and the measurements with the models. Each has its own credibility. The basic science and even the measurements are credible. The models are less so. If you dont make that distinction, I see the message as manipulation, not an honest transfer of knowledge. Reprise #2, again. We've already established that Adams is nearly clueless about what models are or what they do. 14. If skeptics make you retreat to Pascals Wager as your main argument for aggressively responding the climate change, please understand that you lost the debate. The world is full of risks that might happen. We dont treat all of them as real. And we cant rank any of these risks to know how to allocate our capital to the best path. Should we put a trillion dollars into climate remediation or use that money for a missile defense system to better protect us from North Korea? We have no way to conclude what Scott is talking about when he doesn't offer any reference here. We all know Pascal's Wager is the idea that you should believe in God because, if God is real then you go to heaven, and if he's not it doesn't matter anyway, assuming an omnipotent being wouldn't see through such a thin ruse. The problem is, no one in the climate science community makes this argument. Literally, no one. What scientists do is present the available scientific understanding. The research acts to constrain the range of what is reasonable and rational. Within the constrained range of understanding we have the opportunity to make specific and hopefully effective decisions on how to best respond to threats. Adams puts forth classic false equivalences. Usually people frame this as, should we spend money to eliminate hunger or invest in climate mitigation. That's a false choice since no one is suggesting that we address climate instead of other issues. Climate change is a threat multiplier. We can't ignore any of the many other critical human issues we face. But addressing climate change will help to ensure those other issues don't become much more critical along the way. Scott ends with this... Anyway, to me it seems brutally wrong to call skeptics on climate science anti-science when all they want is for science to make its case in a way that doesnt look exactly like a financial scam.* Is that asking a lot? People ask me why I keep writing on this topic. My interest is the psychology around it, and the persuasion game on both sides. And it seems to me that climate scientists are the Hillary Clinton of scientists. They think facts and reason will persuade the public. Even though science knows that doesnt generally work. Ironically, Scott ends saying that scientists know that facts and reason won't persuade anyone, after he's ranted on about 14 points of why the facts and reason sound "fishy" to him. Like a large number of "skeptics", Adams has amply demonstrated that he has no interest in (or is too lazy to) even starting to understand climate science topics. He demonstrates a fundamental level of ignorance related to each and every topic discussed. And somehow he believes conveying that ignorance will help to inform climate scientists how to persuade "skeptics." Throughout this piece I've used scare quotes on the term "skeptic" for the very reason that Scott Adams has embodied here. He is not  in any way, shape or form  skeptical, nor are any of those whom he purports to be speaking for. Skepticism requires the humility and self-awareness to know when you don't have a sufficient grasp of a topic to substantively discuss it. Skepticism requires that you take the time to fully inform yourself before attempting any of the kinds of conclusions he puts forth. As has been stated over and over again, this is not skepticism. This is "white walker" level denial. Scott claims that his interest here is the psychology, but there is an ample body of cognitive science that is specifically directed to the climate science issue which (a) Adams does not refer to nor intimates that he even understands exists, and (b) most certainly has not contributed to in any substantial (or even glancing) manner. Facts and reason are what scientists do regardless of what people choose to believe. That has been true since the earliest application of science. Facts and reason are what gave us modern society. What is most exciting about science is that it can tell us things that we don't know, and sometimes science tells us things we don't want to believe. It's not the scientists' job to repackage reality based on what people will be persuaded by. It is the job of individuals to have the humility to stop and listen when the scientific community is in broad agreement on critical scientific issues like climate change, and from that take appropriate informed actions. By the same right, science does need effective communication in order for more people to understand what scientific research is telling us. There is a long list of very effective communicators out there already. But these are people who actually understand the science they're communicating, or people who are working in conjunction with scientifically trained advisors. Any potential value that Scott Adams might bring to the table is significantly undermined by his lack of knowledge on the topics of climate science and cognitive science, which is further compounded by his peculiar brand of sociopathy. And... No, I don't expect Scott Adams to be "persuaded" by any of this. 1 0 Printable Version | Link to this page
Running a business is a challenge no matter where you are, but in some states operating a company is relatively easier.

According to a new report by Nav, a financial services company for small businesses, examining the average business credit scores in each state might be one way to determine which states have the best atmosphere for business growth.

A post announcing results of the study on Nav.coms official blog explains:

While personal and business credit scores are both influenced by region, new data from Nav.com reveals other factors, like local policy climate, can impact business credit scores.

Higher Business Credit Score Trends Signal Growth and Better Prospects

Unlike personal credit scores, business credit scores have a much narrower range, from only 0 to 100.

But as with personal credit scores, the higher the number the easier for business owners to obtain funds to buy equipment and hire people.

The study found Vermont (52), Nevada (49) and Iowa (49) have the best average business credit scores.

Other states that fare well include Alabama (49), Oregon (47), Utah (46), Alaska (46), Wisconsin (46), Maine (46) and Michigan (45).

Unfortunately most small business owners dont even know their business credit score according to one survey and those who do may not be aware of the outside factors might have upon it.

States with Lowest Business Credit Scores

States like Nebraska (34), Montana (37) and West Virginia (38) on the other hand have the lowest business credit scores, the study finds.

South Dakota (39), Kansas (40), Oklahoma (40), New Mexico (40), Indiana (41), Tennessee (41) and South Carolina (41) are also lagging behind.

For the report, Nav examined Experians Intelliscore Plus business credit score from 15,500 of its small business customers. Each credit score was grouped together by state and Nav averaged together each business credit in each state.
Owners of companies providing professional business services ranging from IT to architecture in California now have the option to purchase state-mandated workers compensation insurance through Hiscox (LON:HSX). The international and national small business insurer made the announcement of the new option recently. The new policy covers medical benefits, wages and access to medical professionals for workers who suffer an injury or illness as a result of their employment.

California Labor Code Section 3700 mandates that all employers offer workers compensation even if they have only one employee. The new product will be underwritten by Hiscox Insurance Company Inc in Chicago. A Hiscox Workers Compensation Insurance policy is to be sold in a package with another business insurance product covering professional or general liability and/or a business owners policy from the company. Presently, the policy is available only in California.

The kind of work-related accidents and illnesses that are included under California workers compensation insurance include employee injuries suffered while lifting heavy objects and accidents that occur when a staff member is traveling to a clients office.

Companies that will be covered under a Hiscox Workers Compensation Insurance policy include IT/Technology firms as well as Architects and Engineers and a variety of others offering professional business services.

Although these policies are state-mandated, the annual premiums a firm pays from a private insurance company depend on several factors such as payroll, industry classification and the number of past work-related injuries on record. A Hiscox Workers Compensation Insurance policy will offer flexible monthly payment options with no additional fees.

Kevin Kerridge, Executive Vice President of Small Business Insurance at Hiscox USA, explains the companys focus and future plans in the space.

One of the key insights behind us launching our US small business operation in 2010 was just how underserved small business owners have been by the insurance industry, Kerridge told Small Business Trends. Were proud to add another product offering to what we already provide to those customers. Weve started in California as a first step, and over the next 12 months well selectively expand our geographic footprint in this new product line.
Microwaves spying on people? It might sound ridiculous. But its a possibility within the pretty near future  at least in theory.

Similar to other smart appliances like refrigerators, TVs and thermostats that have appeared in recent years, some tech companies have suggested the idea of a smart microwave. One idea that was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter last year featured a smart microwave with a built-in microphone. But that product has yet to actually come to fruition.

However, even if smart microwaves start hitting the shelves tomorrow, any data they collect will likely be used by companies that want to make more personalized products  not for things like government surveillance. In fact, any government entity would likely need a court to sign off on them receiving any such data.

Smart Devices Still Need to Overcome Internet of Things Privacy Issues

In the end, companies that offer these smart appliances or any product or service that gathers data about consumers still have to walk a fine line. People are sensitive about privacy issues, especially now that there are so many different devices that can potentially gather data about them. So being up front about what each product can do and how any potential data might be used is paramount for businesses of all sizes.
Robert Gilpin, R.I.P. - The Washington Post : His greatest book was written in 1981, but the main theory in it is perhaps more trenchant now...
Prima Banka will then become the number three on the Slovak market in terms of the number of its branches.

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At the end of July the number of banks operating in Slovakia might be one less as Prima Banka may complete the takeover of Sberbank Slovensko by this date. The latter then being withdrawn from the market as a brand, Prima Banka general director Jan Rollo has confirmed.

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Penta Investments group announced in July of last year the acquisition of a 99.5-percent stake in Sberbank Slovensko. The deal was earlier okayed by the European Central Bank and Slovakias Anti-monopoly Office (PMU).

The projected date for the takeover of Sberbank is July 31, 2017, with Prima Banka then becoming the number three on the market when it comes to the number of branches, said Rollo as cited by the TASR newswire. We will continue to expand our network of branches in the regions, as this makes sense for us from the business viewpoint.

Rollo specified that developments in recent years have confirmed that banks without a proper network of branches cannot be successful long term.

Read also:

Read also: Penta becomes majority owner of Sberbank Slovensko Read more

The Penta financial group has been active on the banking market since 2007, when it became the sole owner of Privatbanka. In 2011, it gained a majority stake in Dexia banka, which focused mainly on retail customers and the funding of municipalities. This bank was later renamed as Prima Banka.

Disclaimer: Penta financial group has a 45-percent ownership share in Petit Press, a co-owner of The Slovak Spectator.
The low-cost airline celebrates one year of operations at Bratislava airport.

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Wizz Air, the largest low-cost airline in central and eastern Europe, continues to add new routes from Bratislava. On March 10, when it celebrated the first year of its operation at Bratislava airport, it announced a new low-fare route from Bratislava to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. Its service will commence on June 30 and will be operated four times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

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Sofia is a dynamic European capital and it is becoming a very attractive destination, said Sorina Ratz, communications Manager at Wizz Air, at a press conference on March 10, as cited by the TASR newswire.

The route may be interesting to business passengers as well as tourists.

We really wanted to launch this route and for us it is a completion of the southern-eastern sector on which Bratislava airport is focused in the development of its routes, said Ivan Trhlik, general director of the Bratislava airport.

Last March Wizz Air started operations from Bratislava International Airport, launching its first flight to Skopje.

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Read also: Bratislava has a direct air link to Skopje Read more

In just one year, the airliner expanded its low-fare network from Bratislava to six routes in six countries. On March 10 it launched the route from Bratislava to Cluj-Napoca in Romania. On March 27 it will commence the service on the route from Bratislava to Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina and on June 30 the route from Bratislava to Warsaw will start.

Read also:

Read also: Wizz Air to boost flights to Bratislava Read more

Wizz Air started its operations in Slovakia from Kosice in 2013 and since then has continuously invested in its ever-growing network. In 2015, Kosice airport became the 20th Wizz Airs base with one based new Airbus A320 aircraft and 42 local crew employees. During 2016 Wizz Air had a 25 percent growth year over year, carrying over 300,000 passengers to and from the three Slovak airports: Bratislava, Kosice and Poprad, which supported nearly 230 on-site jobs in the aviation and tourism industries. Wizz Air is currently offering a total of 10 low-fare services to nine destinations in seven countries from three Slovak airports.
By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Mar 14 (PTI) China today called for a "package solution" accommodating "concerns and interests" of all parties to reform the UN Security Council after India along with other G4 nations offered to initially forgo veto powers to secure a permanent seat on the world bodys top organ.

In a guarded reaction to the G4 countries offer, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said China supports UN Security Council (UNSC) reform and maintains that developing countries should have more representation and voice.

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"Security Council reform concerns issues like membership categories, regional representation, veto power," Hua said in a written response to PTI.

She was responding to a question related to a joint statement delivered by Indias Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin on March 7 at an inter-governmental negotiations meeting of the G4 nations -- India, Brazil, Germany and Japan.

These issues "can only be addressed by reaching a package solution that accommodates all parties interests and concerns through broad-based democratic consultations," Hua said.

Pakistan, a close ally of China, opposes any additional permanent members. Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group has proposed a new category of members -- not permanent -- with longer duration and a possibility to get re-elected once.

China is part of the veto-wielding permanent five members which also include the US, Russia, France and the UK.

On March 7, the G4 members in a bid to get the UN reform process moving said they were open to innovative ideas and willing to forgo veto power as permanent members of a reformed Security Council until a decision on it has been taken.

The G4 joint statement emphasised that an overwhelming majority of the UN member states supports the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent membership in a reformed Security Council.

As India pushed hard for the reform of the UNSC in the last few years staking its claim for the permanent membership, China struck an ambivalent stand saying that it understands New Delhis aspiration to play a bigger role in the UN.

Other four permanent members -- the UK, the US, France and Russia -- backed Indias quest to become a permanent member.

On the issue of the veto, Akbaruddin said the question of veto has been addressed by many from differing perspectives but the G4 approach is that the problem of veto is not one of quantity (of extending it immediately to new permanent members) but of quality -- of introducing restrictions.

The bloc had warned that the issue of veto was important but member states should not allow it to have a "veto over the process of Council reform itself."

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While the new permanent members would in principle have veto powers that the current five have, Akbaruddin had said, "they shall not exercise the veto until a decision on the matter has been taken during a review". PTI KJV NSA AKJ NSA

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In its efforts to introduce musical pieces never performed before, the Slovak National Theatre (SND) has recently offered the Triptych by Giaccomo Puccini.

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It is composed of three one-act operas, of which the first one is being premiered for a historic first time  not just in the SND, but also in Slovakia.

The opera team is trying to fill in the blank spots on the dramaturgical map, art director of SNDs opera section, Slavomir Jakubek, said. We are a relatively young culture  SND is less than one hundred years old  so it is our duty to handle the great operatic works which have never been played here. And with this approach, we have also chosen Puccinis Triptych, although two of the three parts have already resounded in Bratislava: the one-act Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi. However, as a complete triptych, this has never been played  neither in Bratislava, nor in Slovakia; so this is the Slovak premiere of the complete staging of this exceptional triptych, he summed up.

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How the Triptych works

All three parts of the opera are individual, complete works, and can be performed separately, although usually two or all three of them are combined. The opera that has been chosen as the initial part in the SND, Suor Angelica / Sister Angelica, is an intimate, spiritual almost mono-dramatic story, with a toned-down atmosphere and a single  but very strong  dramatic scene.

Angelica was sent to a cloister by her noble after she bore an extramarital child. The idea of her son living a nice life and maybe one day bonding with her gives her the strength to survive behind the gloomy walls. However, when her aunt comes after years of rejection by the family, the prospects become even gloomier

The middle piece, Il Tabarro / The Cloak, is closest of the three to the classical verism-style opera, with a strong dramatic storyline, escalated crisis of relationship and a catharsis that mars all hopes, emotions and outlook of a change for better.

The marriage of Michele, a tug-boat owner, and his wife Lauretta is hapless, especially after they lost their single child. Their lack of communication that burdens especially the wife ensues in her feelings focusing on the poor employee of her husband, Luigi, with whom she shares memories of a happier childhood and also hopes for a better, common, future. However, by accident  if ever anything like that has existed  all her aspirations come to nothing in the most horrible way possible.

The third piece, Gianni Schicchi, is based on a story from Dantes great work, Inferno. The libretto author Giovacchino Forzano (who also wrote Suor Angelica) developed it into a fine sketch about the death of a rich burgher whose heirs fight for the inheritance and even resort to a trick that ultimately turns against them, as the sly villager Gianni Schicchi outwits them. Puccini made a buffa (comedy) of this libretto that is rare in his work but shows the composers potential in this genre. The bitterly ironic comedy shows the funnier side  with black humour  of death.

The middle part, Il Tabarro, was written as the first, and by a different author, Giuseppe Adami.

Neutral but nice

Visitors of the Bratislava theatre can enjoy the different character of each of the works: the fine, toned-down feeling evoked by Suor Angelica, with a dramatic scene between Angelica and the Countess that sends chills down ones spine; the quasi-romantic atmosphere of a boat on the Seine in Il Tabarro that, however, hides skeletons in the closet, including the melodic duets of potential lovers and/or married couple. Gianni Schicchi sends, rather than chills or romantic feelings, fits of laughter among the audience.

The connecting phenomenon of Triptych is, apart from the stage design, the death in all its forms and perceptions, from an escape from dire straits, through a drama in relations, to a family event that starts funny, parodic behaviour. Also, a child appears in all three parts - in one as a fantasy symbol, in another as the spirit of a deceased child, and in the third as a live boy, singing and messing around in the heavy, pretentious world of adults.

As the theatre-makers wanted to stress the universal, timeless character of Puccinis stories, the stage  the work of Pavel Borak  is non-descript and neutral, although visually positive; as are the costumes by Peter Canecky. In each of the works, something is added to characterise it: light-bringing fountain in Sister Angelcia, the boat on Paris embankment in Il Tabarro, and the trendy, period antique-style furniture  that becomes the core of the fight among relatives  in Gianni Schicchi. The costumes are not individualised and timeless, too (it cannot be specified to which order Sister Angelika belongs), save for the third part, where they are obviously taken rather from the beginning of the 20th century than from the early renaissance, as originally meant.

Music and more

We have not left out a single note from the score, Rastislav Stur, the musical director and conductor  alternating with Martin Leginus  said at a press conference. He stressed how difficult it is to conduct all three of them, with the order being suited rather for viewers than for the performers, as Gianni Schicchi, the last piece, is the most difficult. Stur said that SND is playing the last version of this piece whose world premiere took place in 1918, in the Metropolitan opera in New York, and in January 1919 in Rome, Italy.

The cast  in two alternations includes Miroslav Dvorsky, Daniel Capkovic, Sergej Tolstov, Adriana Kohutkova, Eliska Weissova, Monika Fabianova, Denisa Hamarova, Jan Durco, Roman Krsko, Jozef Kundlak, Ivan Ozvat, Eva Hornyakova, Katarina Juhasova-Sturova, Maria Porubcinova, Jitka Sapara-Fischerova, Denisa Slepkovska, Martin Malachovsky, Jan Babjak and others, including the Bratislava Boys Choir (Bratislavsky Chlapcensky Zbor).

Triptych, staged in co-production with the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, Czech Republic, is directed by head of the SNDs Drama Section Roman Polak  who has seemed to divert more often into the realm of music recently. and to enjoy especially the comical operatic works, which the audiences feel and react to.
Only few people used electronic bracelet as an alternative sentence last year.

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The introduction of electronic bracelets in the prison service has not solved the problem of the low rate in imposing alternative sentences and insufficient capacity of the Slovak prisons. Controllers of the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) came to this conclusion after checking the Electronic System of Personal Monitoring (ESMO). The expected benefits of ESMO have not been achieved yet, they concluded in the report published on March 10.

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It was the then justice minister Tomas Borec (a candidate of Smer) who pushed through the new system. In this way he wanted to reduce costs to the prison service by widening the imposition of alternative sentences.

Electronic bracelets were given minimal scope when the amount of alternative sentences stayed almost the same as in the past, the NKU stated.

Based on control results, the system is ineffective, its basic goals and benefits to society were not fulfilled.

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In 2016 only 25 people were monitored through ESMO, 1.25 percent of the targeted 2,000 people yearly. From this number only eight people were sentenced to house arrest. The Ministry showed todays numbers  30 people are being monitored and nine out of them are under house arrest.

NKU appreciates that the Ministry is trying to solve the insufficient use of the bracelets. The Justice Ministry Lucia Zitnanska (Most-Hid) decided last year that convicted people working outside prison will wear them. A total of 270 prisoners were monitored via ESMO altogether, according to the NKU.

We lowered our payment for support services by one third with the operation of this system, said Zitnanska for the TASR newswire.

The NKU stated that the former budget of the project, 26.7 million from EU funds for 2,000 monitored people per year increased by costs of 358,800 on hardware and software licences. Thus the total cost was 27.3 million.

The robustness of the system did not meet actual needs even in the feasibility study, stated the NKU. By not using the system within the expected scope it becomes significantly overpriced. The costs of its service are almost 3.9 million per year.

Minister Zitnanska stated that she will try to fulfil the steps which the NKU advised in its report  increased use of alternative sentencing. The ministry should change the laws to allow the increased use of ESMO. NKU also recommends training judges, attorneys and officers and also spreading the knowledge to the public. Otherwise, this project will end up labelled as an ineffective spending of public sources.

Borec does not see the report of the NKU as a criticism of the project, but of its weak and missing implementation. The project was unique in Slovakia and the preparation was carried out by a big working group using the available knowledge from abroad.

The implementation in countries, where the system is used, lasted several years," said Borec refuting the idea of an overpriced project. In his opinion instead of waiting for the NKU results, the ministry would do better to invest its energy working on project implementation.
There are 203 small hydropower plants in Slovakia producing less than 3 percent of consumed energy.

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The surroundings of a ranch in the Novy Tekov village are serene this time of year. The weather is still cold and prevents children from using the local playground. Instead, they make fun of a young pony that desperately tries to pull a branch through a fence, but constantly fails.

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The ranch is conveniently placed between Novy Tekov and Stary Tekov villages and divided by the Hron river, yet visitors may get the impression that they are somewhere at the edge of a forest. The heavy sound of the Hron strengthens this impression.

After moving closer, however, it is clear that the sound is not created by waterfalls or natural whitewater, but the Small Hydropower Plant Tekov (MVE Tekov). Locals have gotten used to the sound. When asked about it, many of them are unaware of the odd way in which the investor named MVE Tekov was allowed to build the plant that has been active since 2014.

A few years ago, the Environment Ministry, together with local authorities, did not see any reasons for assessing the structures impact on the environment. They refused to carry out the process even though MVE Tekov is the third of such plants in the area. Moreover, Mochovce nuclear power plant (EMO) warned officials that the slowed stream of water could not sufficiently filter EMOs wastewater, including radioactive Tritium, which is released into the river.

Investors come prepared, while citizens are usually surprised and unable to respond as promptly as they should, Mario Urbanec of Novy Tekov who organised a petition against MVE Tekov told The Slovak Spectator. They always have the advantage; this is how it is going here.

This is just one example of numerous firms that have appeared in Slovakia over the last few years and build small hydropower plants that, when not professionally built, endanger the environment and make life more difficult for people living nearby. In total, there are 203 small hydropower plants in Slovakia of various sizes, and there are at least 15 constructed or planned MVEs which have received a permit in a suspicious way, according to a report by Ombudswoman Jana Dubovcova published on March 9.

Unprofessional and, in some cases illegal proceeding of public administration organs have resulted in insufficient assessment of the structures impacts on the environment and subsequently in decreased quality of the environment and biodiversity, the public rights defender writes in her report.

Small hydropower plants have been doing good business for years. Investors can get EU funds to construct them, the state then procures the permit, and later on, even buys the energy produced in a guaranteed way. It is enough just to learn about it in advance, according to approached experts.

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Two projects, two approaches

In 2003, a different investor wanted to construct an MVE in Novy Tekov. The Environment Ministry decided that the planned MVE should undergo an environmental impact assessment (EIA) process which is stricter than standard assessments by various offices, while also relevant institutions have the possibility to comment on it.

The ministry then respected the objections of activists that another MVE in this section of the Hron river would create a cumulative barrier effect which would impede the migration of fish. An MVE would also slow down the river's current, thus hindering its self-cleaning ability.

The character of the river changes totally, the water stops being filtered, the pollution rises and the fish are not able to reproduce, Martina Paulikova of Slatinka environmental NGO told The Slovak Spectator.

Slovakias largest electricity company Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) which owns EMO, also demanded an assessment of the fact that the water would be dammed and may not be able to filter and clean EMOs wastewater.

The investor subsequently withdrew and the MVE slot remained open for other firms.

When MVE Tekov introduced a similar project, the ministry changed its behaviour. Despite similar objections against the new MVE proposal, the ministry saw no reason to assess it via an EIA process.

Both situations were assessed separately and both firms offered different technical solutions, the ministrys spokesperson Tomas Ferencak told The Slovak Spectator.

This is sick. The impact of such a power plant on the environment should always go though the EIA process, Urbanec says. And this should apply not only to individual projects but to all power plants on the river because their impact is cumulative.

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Avoiding a nuclear power plant

Moreover, the comments by SE are lacking in the ministrys official decision and the ministry fails to explain why it did not ask the company about its opinion.

On February 18, 2010, the Novy Tekov municipality established the site of the power plant. One day later, MVE Tekov got a permit for its construction.

This deserves our attention, reads Dubovcovas report None of these documents contain argumentation or deal with these objections and comments.

The municipality granted a permit to MVE Tekov because at the time no one was able to assess how EMO wastewater would affect the environment, according to Novy Tekov Mayor Ladislav Nagy.

The process was too fast. An environmental activist cannot participate in every municipal meeting or check the board in the local office on a daily basis, therefore, they did not learn about the project, according Urbanec.

Both Novy Tekov and Stary Tekov villages, SE and MVE Tekov, claim that the water in the Hron is checked regularly and the amount of tritium in it is not at a dangerous level.

After meeting with Dubovcova and learning from previous experiences, the ministry is preparing new rules for the entire process, according to Ferencak.

Expensive energy

The reason why Slovakia has 203 active MVEs is that they are subsidised and have the purchase of energy secured for 15 years, according to Martin Vlachynsky, INESS think-tank analyst.

The Regulatory Office for Network Industries (URSO) ruled in May 2015 that the price for this type of energy will be 90.12 per Megawatt-hours until May 2029. The current price on the market is just 30.35.

It motivates businessmen to construct power plants even on water courses with small potential which would be nonsense from an economic point of view, Vlachynsky told The Slovak Spectator.

After Dubovcova published her report, media outlets found that owners of several power plants are close to Interior Minister Robert Kalinak.

Aside from the 203 existing MVEs, the state has planned to use 375 other river areas for their construction. In 2016, the government has re-evaluated the whole plan and pointed out only 58 areas. This could slow down the boom of MVEs.

Investors may also be discouraged by the recent governments decision to not plug renewable energy sources into the network. However, the amount of purchased energy from MVEs has not been showing such a trend so far, according to Matus Zeleny of Krotitelia energii, the energy-focused news portal.

MVEs produced 2.3 percent of consumed energy in 2013 and if all possible river areas were occupied by them, they would produce around 3 percent of energy, according to Vlachynsky.

This makes the entire MVEs concept useless, according to Ondrej Matej of the Institute of Transport and Economy think-tank.

It is not worth the interventions in the environment, Matej told The Slovak Spectator. We have such power plants here only because several officers learned that eurofunds flow through them.
It will unveil details on Wednesday, March 15.

Andrej Danko (SNS), Robert Fico (Smer) and Bela Bugar (Most-Hid), from left, announced agreement on a way to scrap Meciar's amnesties (Source: TASR )

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The coalition will submit its own constitutional solution to revoke Vladimir Meciars amnesties at the cabinet session to be held on Wednesday, March 15, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer) said after the Coalition Council session on March 13.

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The governing coalition has decided to tackle the revocation of Meciar's amnesties in a constitutional manner, said Fico as cited by the TASR newswire adding that the coalition wants the amnesties scrapped. I would expect the opposition to show a constructive solution as well.

Fico claimed that the ruling coalition is prepared to vote for abrogating the amnesties after they first make a relevant amendment to the Slovak Constitution.

The agreed solution calls for parliament and the Constitutional Court to be invested with powers that will enable them to act, thus opening the door for lawmakers to annul the amnesties. The coalition will release details of the plan on Wednesday, with legal experts summoned at the moment to work on the motion. Also to be revoked is the amnesty of former president Michal Kovac used to grant legal pardon to his son, who was suspected of economic criminal activities in the Technopol case.

We want to do this in a legally clean way, said Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko (SNS), who rejected the notion that he has taken advantage of the issue for politicking.

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Danko maintains that the coalition is attempting to arrive at a compromise, a sentiment also echoed by Most-Hid chair Bela Bugar, who voiced his full satisfaction with the agreement.

We found a compromise that will enable us to scrap Meciars amnesties, said Bugar. Parliament can take action in accordance with the constitution and we can vote for the revocation at the next session. We are nearing the conclusion. If no politicking ensues, the whole of parliament can lend its support to the abrogation of these amnesties.

Fico stated that the plan championed by the opposition does not represent a constitutional approach for scrapping the amnesties.

That is our view, he said.

Danko hopes that the coalition-sponsored motion will also secure support from President Andrej Kiska and the opposition.

Meciars amnesties relate both to the 1995 kidnapping of Michal Kovac Jr. and the murder in 1996 of Robert Remias, who served as a contact for a key witness of the abduction.
The Nations Memory Institute still disagrees with the verdict of the Supreme Court concerning listing Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis as an StB agent.

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The Nations Memory Institute (UPN) has turned to the Constitutional Court over its dispute with Czech Finance Minister of Slovak origin Andrej Babis.

The institute calls for cancelling the verdict issued by the Supreme Court in February with which it turned down the extraordinary appeal of the UPN. If the Constitutional Court accepts the complaint, the whole case will return to the Constitutional Court, the SITA newswire reported.

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As UPN chair I cannot allow our past to be redrawn by controversial court rulings, chair of the UPN board Ondrej Krajnak said, as quoted by SITA.

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The UPN considers the Supreme Court ruling illegitimate and claims the court should have discussed the appeal and cancelled the rulings issued by the lower-instance courts in the dispute with Babis, who was allegedly listed as an agent cooperating with the communist-era secret police StB.

The institute points to several non-standard events and circumstances that occurred at the Supreme Court before dismissing the appeal.

On its own initiative, the Supreme Court asked the Interior Ministry to exempt former StB agents who testified in Babiss favour at the district court from the pledge of confidentiality, the UPN claimed in an official statement, as quoted by SITA. With such a move, the Supreme Court wanted to additionally rectify the illegal testimonies of these witnesses.

Moreover, the UPN claims the court did so without offering the institute the ability to comment on it. The Supreme Court closed the case only two working days after receiving the controversial decision on exempting the former StB agents from confidentiality.

The UPN has already lost the dispute with Babis in June 2015, after the Bratislava Regional Court had confirmed the ruling of the district court.

The appeal will now be discussed by a Constitutional Court senate composed of Ladislav Orosz, Ludmila Gajdosikova and Lajos Meszaros, the TASR newswire reported.
Both the financial group and the ruling Smer party refuse the claims.

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Slovakias health care sector is being privatised on the quiet in a process overseen by the governing Smer party, the opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party said on March 13.

The financial group Penta has acquired control of over 12 hospitals since 2006, claimed SaS chair Richard Sulik.

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This has been thanks to Smer members, he added, as quoted by the TASR newswire, and denounced what he called the kidnapping of the Slovak health care sector.

The year 2006 is no coincidence, according to SaS, as it was in that year that both Smer chairman and Prime Minister Robert Fico and Penta co-owner Jaroslav Hascak reportedly visited an apartment on Vazovova Street in Bratislava that was mentioned in the notorious Gorilla file.

Prior to 2006, this financial group controlled only one hospital, said SaS MP Jozef Rajtar, as quoted by TASR.

Penta, however, has deflected these accusations, viewing them as a senseless attack against one of the few things in the Slovak health care sector that is positive and actually works. The groups investments in the hospitals constitute a commitment over the long haul to radically improve the function and quality of health care, the company claimed, as reported by TASR.

Smer responded by calling the SaS claims outrageous.

Its disgusting on the part of SaS to implicate Smer with Pentas business activities in the health care sector, said partys spokesperson Lubica Koncalova, as quoted by TASR. It is this very party (SaS) that employs Rudolf Zajac, who made it possible, surreptitiously as health minister, for Penta to enter the health care sector.

Suggesting a conflict of interests

SaS MP Lucia Duris Nicholsonova meanwhile criticised the fact that in addition to the hospitals, Penta also owns the private health insurer Dovera, over 240 pharmacies, several clinics and several rescue service stations.

This is an enormous conflict of interest, said Duris Nicholsonova, as quoted by TASR, and urged Health Minister Tomas Drucker (a Smer nominee) to address the situation.

The MP is unaware of anything similar occurring in another EU member country, as reported by TASR.

SaS singled out the recent takeover by Penta of the hospital in Topolcany (Nitra Region), a move that was okayed by the Antimonopoly Office. Penta pays an annual rent of 100,000, which the party regards as being out of keeping with the hospital's annual profits of more than 1 million.

It is outright misleading and borders on lying to compare the profits of individual hospitals and rentals in a situation when our investments in hospitals are reaching tens of millions of euros, said Gabriel Toth, spokesperson of Penta Investments, as quoted by TASR.

The group plans to invest 9.7 million in the hospital in Topolcany in the next few years. Penta has to date spent over 75 million on hospitals that it has acquired, said Toth, urging SaS to direct its attention to the enormous ineffectiveness in state-owned hospitals instead, as reported by TASR.

Disclaimer: The Penta financial group has a 45-percent ownership share in Petit Press, a co-owner of The Slovak Spectator.
By Alissa de Carbonnel BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators said on Monday concessions by Russia's Gazprom aimed at avoiding fines should allay concerns of market abuse, signalling a thaw in business ties between Moscow and Brussels despite tensions over Ukraine and Syria. The provisional deal, which is subject to feedback from some EU states and market players, moves closer to ending one of Brussels' longest-running antitrust probes that began with raids on offices in 10 countries in 2011 and culminated in charges Gazprom, which supplies a third of the EU's gas, had abused its dominant position. If the deal comes into force, Russia's state gas exporter will escape fines of up to 10 percent of its global turnover - an outcome likely to anger Poland and eastern EU countries which have sought a tougher line from Brussels. Eight member states in the east at the centre of the case, all formerly dominated by Moscow, now have until May 4 to object to the European Commission's view and could seek changes in the deal. Europe's Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has brought actions and levied fines against major multinationals such as Google , said Gazprom's offer met concerns and provided "a forward looking solution". "Combined, we think that these measures are important improvements to ensure the free flow of gas at competitive prices," Vestager said The legally-binding deal would entail Gazprom bowing to EU conditions to do away with terms barring countries from exporting its gas to other countries; tying contracts to investments in pipelines; and monopoly pricing in the three Baltic states, Bulgaria and Poland. The fight over pricing and destination clauses have been the toughest issues in high-level talks between Vestager and Russian officials that have dragged on for years to find a compromise. As part of the deal, Gazprom pledged greater transparency on prices. It will allow clients to renegotiate decades-long, oil-indexed contracts - opposed by the Commission. Prices would be linked to benchmarks such as European gas market hubs and border prices, including in Germany. Gazprom deputy head Alexander Medvedev said in a statement the commitments "demonstrate our willingness" to soothe the concerns of EU regulators and to closing the case soon. 'APPEASE RATHER THAN CONFRONT' Within a bloc divided over its stance on Russia, some EU nations see the move towards a settlement as running counter to calls for more sanctions on Russia over its bombing in Syria. "The fundamental question is how friendly are we going to be with Gazprom," one senior EU diplomat said, voicing dismay that Vestager had chosen to fine Google but not Gazprom. Vestager said during a news conference that her view was purely based on enforcing EU law and not influenced by politics. With a settlement, Russia would accept EU authority in applying competition law - something it has long balked at. If Gazprom fails to comply, the EU could resort to fines without reopening its case as it did when it imposed a 561 million euros ($731 million) penalty on Microsoft for breaking its promises. One EU official described the attitude in Brussels as "it's better to appease than confront" its eastern neighbour. But EU officials said they were bracing for tough feedback from some nations, with Poland already locked in a court battle with the Commission over what it views as lenient treatment of Gazprom in another case. In the so-called "market test", Gazprom's competitors and governments in Poland, the three Baltic states, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have the right to weigh in. They will have seven weeks, almost twice the normal time, in part due to elections in Bulgaria, officials said. In recent years, Gazprom has changed some of its more contentious behaviour under pressure from increased competition from liquefied natural gas imports, price arbitration cases brought by western customers and more liquidity on Europe's energy markets. But EU regulators say those do not extend to the region, where some countries are almost 100 percent dependent on Russian gas imports. In addition to the antitrust case, the Commission has proposed legislation that will allow Brussels to vet bilateral energy deals between EU nations and countries such as Russia - as such agreements are not covered by competition law. That is why EU regulators said they had no power to tackle disagreements over the Yamal pipeline between Russia and Poland. However, Gazprom has offered not to seek damages from Bulgarian partners over the cancellation of the planned South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea. (Editing by Susan Thomas and Mark Potter)
Marmite maker Unilever (NYSE: UL - news) has called for rules governing takeovers to be made fairer on companies facing overseas corporate raids - after it resisted a 115bn offer from Kraft Heinz (Swiss: KHC.SW - news) .

Chief (Taiwan OTC: 3345.TWO - news) executive Paul Polman called for a level playing field for "national champion" companies targeted by overseas corporate raids.

Anglo-Dutch Unilever - which makes well-known brands such as Persil, Dove, Pot Noodle, PG Tips and Marmite - thinks firms facing offers should have more time to defend themselves.

Mr Polman said: "We're not talking about protection; we are saying that when you have a situation like this, with a national champion, there should be a level playing field."

His remarks were first reported by the Financial Times.

:: Kraft withdrawal cleans up potential mess for Theresa May

Unilever wants takeover rules to be changed to consider the wider interests involved in a company, beyond shareholders, the FT reported, and pointed to such rules already existing in the Netherlands.

It also said the 28-day deadline for firms eyeing a takeover - known as "put up or shut up" - gave little time for a target company to prepare its defences when its suitor might have spent a year or more preparing a bid.

Kraft Heinz's abortive attempt to swallow up Unilever could have produced a headache for Theresa May after she pledged to introduce a "national interest" test for takeovers.

But the offer was abandoned just days after being made public last month.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) The Congress and the BJP today clashed over government formation in Goa and Manipur with the opposition party accusing its rival of "stealing" the mandate of people using money power, drawing a sharp reaction that it complains "a bit too much". Crying foul, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi joined the chorus of party leaders denouncing the BJP, accusing the saffron party of "undermining democracy" in Goa and Manipur by use of money power. The Congress emerged as the single largest party ahead of BJP in the two states in the Assembly polls.

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Gandhi also alleged that the Goa Governor acted in a "partisan" manner. Dismissing the accusation of Congress that BJP was "stealing" the mandate in Goa, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said its "a bit too much" as the Governor could not have invited minority of 17 MLAs to form the government. Besides BJPs 13 MLAs, three each from MGP and GFP and two independent members have pledged support for government formation under Parrikar taking the total number to 21 in a Hose of 40. Congress is the single largest party with 17 MLAs. "The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of stealing the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," Jaitley said in a Facebook post. "When there is clear alliance of 21 MLAs who appeared in person before Governor, how could Congress be invited to form the government," Jaitley later said in a media interaction. "There is no reason for Governor to call Congress to form the government in Goa as BJP had given letters of support of 21 MLAs," Jaitley said, adding that the Congress 17 MLAs had not even chosen a leader or staked claim for forming government in Goa. Congress and its UPA allies staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha during Question Hour to protest over government formation by BJP in Goa and Manipur despite it having the numbers. The Congress again walked out during the Zero Hour. Members of Congress, NCP and RJD first raised the issue during Question Hour. Congress leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that democracy is being murdered. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu questioned the Congress protest on the issue of government formation in Manipur and Goa and said the "party has no moral right to do so". In Manipur, the BJP, which is the second largest party behind incumbent Congress, has claimed that it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member assembly. "They are saying that it is okay for them to misuse the office of the Governor...In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP," Rahul Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament.

Speaking out for the first time after the results of the elections to five states were declared on March 11, Gandhi said, "Our fight with the BJP is an ideological fight. What the BJP has done in Manipur and Goa is their ideology - and that is what we are fighting."

"It is a question of how much the BJP has thrown to steal the mandate of people of Manipur and Goa. That is the question. It is not about how soon they went, but with how much money the BJP gave to steal the mandate of Goa and Manipur," Gandhi said on queries as to why Congress "delayed" staking claim for government formation. Alleging that the Goa Governor acted in a "partisan" manner, he said a letter was issued in favour of Manohar Parrikar even before the Congress staked its claim. "(Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun) Kharge ji showed me a letter of the Governor appointing Mr Parrikar as Chief Minister before any floor test or anything happened. So it is difficult for us to stake claim if the Governor is already acting in a partisan manner," he said. With its moves failing to yield results, Congress took all its 17 MLAs to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, seeking an opportunity to prove majority in the Assembly but could not elicit any assurance from her.PTI ARU SKC BKS DP JD RPS GSN GSN

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At least one woman has been killed and nearly 20 other people wounded after a huge blast in the Afghan capital Kabul. The powerful explosion ripped through a minibus. The vehicle was carrying employees from one of Afghanistans biggest telecoms firms. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility an Interior Ministry spokesman said via Twitter that three suspects had been arrested. Kabul Police have arrested 3 suspects related to an explosion in Taimani in which 19 civ including 4 women wounded and one women killed. Sediq Sediqqi (@moispokesman) March 13, 2017 Officials now believe that the deadly blast was caused by a roadside device, rather than a suicide bomber, as was initially thought. It comes less than a week after dozens of people were killed and wounded by gunmen at one of the countrys biggest military hospitals. That attack was blamed on ISIL.
After five decades of fighting, and an estimated 260,000 deaths, the conflict between Colombia and the rebel group FARC is at an end. A peace agreement that was narrowly rejected in a referendum has been revised, amended and approved. But now the process moves to the delicate post-conflict phase  implementing the agreement in pursuit of lasting peace.

One major part of the peace agreement focuses on the difficult task of providing justice for victims. Allowing impunity for serious crimes committed during the conflict would jeopardise attempts to build a stable future. Post-conflict war crimes trials strengthen a societys political identity as a state which abides by the rule of law. They also provide a measure of accountability for crimes suffered by the Colombian people.

But this kind of transitional justice process takes place in the context of a fragile political balance of power. In these circumstances, states may appear unwilling or unable to punish those most responsible. In Colombia, there are signs that following the referendum, certain provisions of the transitional justice agreement have been made ambiguous or watered down.

To this end, Colombia has been given a rare warning by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Fatou Bensouda, the courts prosecutor, said that only by adhering to the promise of accountability can Colombia reap the full dividends of peace.

One of Colombias obligations as a signed up member state of the ICC means punishing those most responsible for international crimes. Often these will likely be military commanders or superiors, rather than the direct perpetrators of violence. For the ICC, a person will be considered criminally responsible if they order, solicit or induce the commission of international crimes.

Military commanders will be criminally responsible for crimes committed by forces under their effective command and control. This includes occasions when they knew or should have known that their forces were committing or about to commit crimes. Non-military commanders will be criminally responsible when they knew, or consciously disregarded, information which clearly indicated the commission of crimes.

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The parties involved in the Colombian peace process have agreed that international law is directly applicable to post-conflict disputes over human rights and criminality. But Bensouda correctly highlighted apparent confusion over how the law of command responsibility will be interpreted.

As Bensouda noted, the ICC definition allows prosecution of a military commander as long as they have information that would have put them on notice. This is the interpretation that the ICC adopted when it found the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jean Pierre Bemba, guilty of international crimes committed by his subordinates.

But some aspects of the Colombian peace agreement cast doubt over whether this interpretation will be followed, especially in relation to commanders of FARC. The agreement states that criminal responsibility of FARC commanders will be engaged only if they have actual knowledge based on information available to them, before, during and after the relevant criminal activity. This is a much higher standard of guilt than that which the ICC usually requires. As a result, it may be much harder to prove  and potentially allow those most responsible for international crimes to escape punishment.

The amendments to the Colombian peace agreement cast doubts on whether the government and FARC are fully committed to prosecuting those most responsible for international crimes.

Colombian justice

If the newly formed Colombian Special Tribunal for Peace does indeed adopt an interpretation of the law which is at odds with the ICC, it may be declared unwilling or unable to prosecute those most responsible for perpetrating international crimes. There would then be a strong case for the ICC itself to issue the relevant arrest warrants.

There have been calls for the ICC to broaden its geographical scope. The Colombian case may serve as an opportunity to reinvigorate the ICC which has come under sustained criticism as an Afro-centric court. It would be only the second time the ICC had opened an investigation outside of Africa.

Much depends now on the people selected to sit in the relevant courts. A five-member committee will choose over 100 judges who will oversee the diverse chambers of the Special Tribunal for Peace. They should select brave judges who recognise that the prospects of long-lasting peace are harmed when only low-ranking soldiers are charged with crimes of the past. The whole point of transitional justice since the post-World War II Nuremberg trials is that those most responsible for the horrors of the past face justice. Individual criminal justice for international crimes rings hollow unless it is brave enough to pursue the people at the top.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Seb Eskauriatza 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.
Regardless of international concerns, Eritrea continues to pursue a policy of indefinite military conscription that compels the young and the old to serve their country while paying them a pittance. Eritreans are continuing to leave in large numbers to find work to support their families and to find a greater degree of freedom than is possible at home.

In October 2016, a UN inquiry into human rights abuses in Eritrea reported that crimes against humanity have been committed in the country since 1991. Sheila Keetharuth, presenting the findings of the inquiry, appealed for UN member states to grant Eritreans access to their territory and asylum procedures and to refrain from any forced repatriation to Eritrea or to third party countries where they may still be at risk or unwelcomed.

The EU acknowledges that the reliance of the Eritrean regime, run by President Isaias Afwerki, on indefinite military conscription and authoritarian policies has led tens of thousands of Eritreans to flee. Yet, it is still working with Eritrea to find ways to stop Eritreans from entering Europe. In 2016, Eritreans were the seventh largest group of asylum seekers entering Europe.

Co-operation with Aferwerkis regime

The failure of the EU to agree a common policy approach to the migrant crisis has been coupled with efforts to work with refugee-producing countries to stop the flow of new migrants entering Europe. In July 2014, the Italian deputy foreign minister went to Eritrea to negotiate on behalf of the EU. These talks were rapidly followed by visits to the capital Asmara in late 2014 by Danish, Norwegian and British officials whose principle concern was to stop Eritreans from leaving their country and to return Eritreans who had applied for asylum in Europe.

Officials in Asmara welcomed these European initiatives by promising to end indefinite military conscription and to pay conscripts a living wage. In return, Eritrea was given an EU grant of 200m in January 2015. However, it soon became apparent that Eritrea had no intention of introducing the promised reforms.

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Nevertheless, European officials continue to rely on the assurances provided by senior Eritrean politicians that if its nationals were returned to Eritrea they would not be subject to human rights abuses and would not be conscripted into the military. On this basis, in 2014 the Danes, followed quickly in early 2015 by the British, revised their asylum policies and abruptly refused all Eritrean asylum applications.

A remarkable fight back occurred in the UK against this policy. This culminated in October 2016 when an immigration tribunal overturned Home Office policy, which forced the government back to its 2014 position granting status to most Eritrean asylum applicants. Few Eritreans had actually been deported back to Eritrea during the period of the change in policy, but many were living in destitution awaiting a decision on whether they would be deported. Other countries, such as Switzerland, have also begun changing their policies towards protecting Eritrean refugees.

EU efforts to stop journeys beginning

The EU has funded several initiatives in recent years with African partners, including Eritrea, have also sought to address the migration issue. Up for grabs are funds from a 2.5 billion EU Emergency Trust Fund to address the root causes of irregular migration in Africa, intended to promote economic development, migration management, stability and governance.

In the meantime, irregular migration to Europe continues apace, fed in no small measure by the repressive policies pursued by Eritrea, Sudan and Libya and by a failure of other partners such as Nigeria to reduce conflict and promote more inclusive development. While the EU thinks the partnership deals are having some success, it measures that success in terms of border management. However, without substantial improvements in regional economic development coupled with conflict resolution these successess will prove to be ephemeral.

Dismal track record

All this raises the question of whether the EU is simply throwing money at the problem in an attempt to make it go away. Given Eritreas track record on human rights and political reform it is doubtful whether this approach will achieve its objectives. Assisting repressive African states to erect efficient border controls that would prevent genuine refugees from fleeing clearly violates the basic tenets of European law. EU member states are also bound by the 1951 Refugee Convention to offer protection to genuine refugees.

UK migration policy is also confused. Despite setbacks in the courts, the Home Office continues to refuse asylum to genuine applicants and return some so-called failed asylum applicants to possible harm in Afghanistan and elsewhere. A policy of granting humanitarian visas which offer temporary protection to people fleeing violence and persecution is a positive first step, but the UK must pursue other measures to bring an end to violence and human rights abuses before sending people back to their country of origin.

The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office is in the middle of a major review of its policy on Eritrea, but it is not informed by a considered analysis of Eritrean domestic politics or its destabilising activities in the Horn of Africa. With its asylum and foreign policy in something of a shambles, the British government lacks a coherent approach to the Horn of Africa or towards forced migration in Africa  and as a result it is dependent on EU migration policy initiatives to reduce migration. But as the British government leaves the EU, its influence in Africa and on migration will wane and it will be increasingly dependent on EU policies to improve border management in Africa and migration into the UK.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

John R Campbell receives funding from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council.
The UNs most senior official for humanitarian affairs has proclaimed the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, a complex of conflicts, famines and refugee crises unfolding across several countries from the Middle East to West Africa. Alongside the catastrophes playing out in Yemen, Somalia and north-east Nigeria, he also mentioned one of the most beleagured countries on the African continent: South Sudan.

The UN has been trying to sound the alarm on whats happening there for some time, recently issuing a formal famine declaration for the countrys Unity state. Around 5m people in South Sudan are suffering from extreme hunger, and without further intervention, the crisis may well spread to other parts of the country.

On the international scale used to gauge food security, the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), famine is the most serious level, and its figures from South Sudan found that in 23 counties on which it holds recent data, acute malnutrition levels are shockingly high. In February 2017, the IPC South Sudan Technical Working Group issued a warning that in the southern part of Unity state, one in three children is acutely malnourished  an unprecedented crisis in the area. And it promises to get worse.

As Philippe Guiton, humanitarian director at the NGO CARE International, put it:

20m people at risk of famine would be like the entire country of Australia facing potential starvation  The common denominator in all these countries that are at risk of famine is conflict. In places like South Sudan, humanitarian aid is what has prevented famine from ravaging the country. The areas that have been declared famine, are areas where aid groups cannot reach people with food supplies due to insecurity from the conflict.

Coming apart

The scale of the disaster should not be underestimated. And one of its various tragedies is that like the famines unfolding places such as Somalia and Yemen, its not some random calamity, but the man-made consequence of a disastrous internal conflict.

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South Sudans current war began as a political rift between two leaders: the South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, and his vice-president, Riek Machar. The unity government they formed fell apart in 2013 over allegations that Machar had planned a coup against Kiir. The country quickly returned to violent conflict, and since then, the war has spiralled out of control. It is now clearly patterned along ethnic lines, with Machar (a Nuer) and Kiir (a Dinka) mobilising their respective groups.

The government has all but collapsed, while the countryside is full of young men with weapons who are familiar with violence. Various forces are resisting the government, which is duly responding with extreme violence. At the end of 2016 the UN warned that South Sudan was on the brink of genocide, but a scheduled arms embargo was blocked by a divided UN Security Council. And so the war continues.

Stepping in

In many parts of South Sudan, humanitarian aid alone has so far kept people alive, but its becoming extremely dangerous for those distributing it to operate in the areas most seriously affected. Aid workers and convoys have been obstructed and attacked by all sides as order has gradually fallen apart.

The outside world is pitching in from various angles. The EUs commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management and Pope Francis are both exhorting both the government and the opposition to stop blocking aid deliveries, but also calling on the international community to step up efforts to provide additional food aid.

As things stand, the UN is the only organisation keeping many South Sudanese people alive, but its gradually being squeezed out of the countrys most desperate areas. Internal displacement and increased numbers of refugees in neighbouring areas are also exacerbating the fragile security and food situation and spreading the crisis. The UNs declaration of famine is therefore nothing so much as a cry for help from the world at large.

But the fundamental problem runs far deeper than the logistics of aid delivery, however important that is. Until security is established and a ceasefire signed, no solution to the catastrophic famine will be found. So long as its too hazardous for most humanitarian organisations to operate, people will continue to starve. There is as yet no attempt to construct an inclusive dialogue that could, for example, lead to a credible or sustainable power-sharing agreement between the two sides, one that would give both sides some confidence that their ends might be met.

South Sudan also has very few, if any, centralised security services capable of maintaining or enforcing peace. This demands boots on the ground, wherever they come from. In Somalia, the continuing African Union mission, AMISOM, at least provides some security to some of the country. South Sudan requires the same at a miniumum, and probably also an ongoing peacekeeping mission to keep the increasingly ethnicised warring factions apart.

South Sudan is unlikely to find any peace without significant international support. In the long term, that will require a reconstructed domestic government that can act in good faith  and that seems a long way off.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Paul Jackson receives funding from the Economic and Social research Council. He is also currently the Programme Leader for the British Academy's Sustainable Development Programme
By Press Trust of India: JNU suicide: Victim not associated with any pol group, says police

New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) A day after a 28-year-old dalit student allegedly committed suicide at Jawaharlal Nehru University here, police today said he was not part of any politically active group on the campus.

The deceased Muthu Krishnan, who had named himself Krish Rajini on Facebook, hanged himself at his South Korean friends house in Munirka using a blanket yesterday.

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While the JNU students shared Krishnans Facebook posts condemning the Hyderabad varsitys alleged role in dalit scholar Rohith Vemulas suicide last year and criticism of JNUs new admission policy, police ruled out any political affiliation of the victim.

"It is too early to comment on his association (with Rohith Vemula). But so far, we know that he (Krishnan) was not associated with any student groups active in JNU. He neither made any complaint to the JNU administration nor was there any complaint against him by the administration," DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

The reason why the student took the extreme steap is not known yet since no suicide note has been recovered, said the officer.

"It is an unfortunate incident. We conducted a search of his hostel room and the room where his body was found. But no suicide note has been recovered. We have sealed both the rooms. Forensic teams will be examining the rooms again," he added.

Krishnans body was discovered by his friend Gomen Kim, a South Korean national, and two other students ? Lakshyajeet and Issac-- at Kims home where they had gone for lunch.

The victim had retired to a room, saying that he had slept at 3 AM the day before and wanted to rest, police said.

Around 4.30 PM, his friends called him and when he did not respond, they tried to break open the door and saw him hanging following which they alerted the police.

Police said they will be scanning Krishnans Facebook posts and call records to ascertain what could have triggered such an extreme step.

We have requested for a medical board to carry out his postmortem, they added.

Krishnan, a native of Tamil Nadu, had joined JNU in October last year. PTI SLB SRY

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Turkey has barred the Dutch ambassador to Ankara in the deepening row between the two countries. It is in response to a ban on Turkish ministers speaking at political rallies in the Netherlands. The sanctions include the closure of Turkish airspace to all Dutch diplomats but dont appear to affect the travel of ordinary citizens. In an interview on Turkish television, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed the Netherlands must atone for its actions: Sooner or later, they will pay for this, but we will rapidly bring The Netherlands to account by diplomatic means. We cannot let this go adrift, said President Erdogan. Turkey has accused several EU countries of allowing Islamophobia and anti-Turkish sentiment to flourish. President Erdogan later added in the televised interview that he will pursue legal remedies: We will go to the European Court of Human Rights as well. Our ministers will make the necessary applications. I already know the answer we will get. But we will do what is necessary. We will take those steps and they can go their way. In addition, Turkeys deputy Prime Minister, Numan Kurtulmus, announced that Ankara might re-evaluate its deal with the EU to halt the flow of migrants from Turkish shores to Europe. On the Dutch side, Prime Minister Mark Rutte is demanding an apology from Turkey after it made comparisons with Nazi officials, saying such remarks were unacceptable. On Saturday the Dutch government prevented Turkish ministers from campaigning among expatriates living in the Netherlands ahead of a controversial referendum which will extend Turkish presidential powers. Turkey bans Dutch ambassador as diplomatic crisis escalates https://t.co/sgtzHRt7IS Muhammad A. Soomro (@92a312) March 13, 2017 But the Dutch police treatment of President Erdogan supporters in Rotterdam at the weekend further outraged Ankara. Meanwhile Austrias chancellor has also said he will ban Turkish ministers from campaigning in his country.
A multiple-alarm fire broke out in a home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday, killing a 3-year-old girl. Officials traced the blaze to a hoverboard that caught fire while plugged in to an electrical socket on the three-story houses first floor.

They heard some sizzling and crackling in the hoverboard and shortly thereafter, it exploded in flames, Brian Enterline, the city of Harrisburgs fire chief, told the Associated Press.

A spokesman for the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, Scott Wolfson, told NBC News that the fire was the first fatal incident linked to hoverboards. The agency has probed 60 cases of hoverboard fires in the past year and a half, NBC News reported. The investigation into the fire is ongoing.

After the scooters emerged as one of the hottest gifts of the 2015 holiday, reports of hoverboard fires soon began to surface. The devices rechargable lithium-ion cells contain a potentially flammable solution, which can explode if the battery is damaged or defective.

Ying Jiawei, chief executive of Chic, one of the first companies to sell hoverboards in Asia, lamented to Fortune last year that Chinese factories were cutting corners with the devices, subbing in cheaper batteries. We have licensed to 30 factories, but only a few follow our rules, Ying told Fortune.

By February 2016, hoverboards had caused two homes to burn down, as The Washington Post reported. By the middle of 2016, the Consumer Products Safety Commission warned that consumers should stop using hoverboards made by certain manufacturers. One hoverboard seller, Swagway, recalled more than 500,000 of the self-balancing boards. Major airlines banned the boards, citing the fire danger.

The Harrisburg blaze was the first hoverboard fire to be reported as lethal. Three-year-old Ashanti Hughes died in a hospital Saturday, the Lehigh County coroners office said. Two other girls remained in critical condition, according to the AP. Hughes father and a male teenager were treated for inhaling smoke and have been released from the hospital.

My granddaughter, I cant replace her, Mark Hughes, Ashantis grandfather, said to Fox43. The pain is so deep. Im so hurt. My soul is hurt.

A firefighter also died while responding to the blaze. Lt. Dennis Devoe, a 21-year veteran of the Harrisburg department, was killed en route to the fire station when another car struck his vehicle. Officials said that Khanyae Kendall, a 19-year-old woman who they say was driving a stolen car while intoxicated, was responsible for the crash. She has been charged with aggravated assault by motor vehicle, according to Penn Live, as well as driving under the influence and other traffic offenses. It was unclear whether Kendall, who was not able to post a $200,000 bail, had an attorney.

Fox43 reported that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ordered flags at the states capitol to fly at half-staff in DeVoes honor.
As first-year elections go, the race for governor of New Jersey looks brutal for President Donald Trump and the GOP. Just 41 percent of the states voters backed Trump in the 2016 election, and his favorable numbers are even lower now. Departing Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., once a national star, has seen his favorable ratings sink into the 20s. The best-known Republican candidate, Christies lieutenant governor, polls just as low  29 percent  in a trial heat with Democratic front-runner Phil Murphy.

The GOPs surprising strategy to dig out, so far, has been to pummel Murphy for his criticism of Trump. For the second time, the Republican Governors Association has accused Murphy of being unhinged, because the Goldman Sachs banker-turned-ambassador to Germany keeps comparing Trumps early days to the rise of the Nazi Party.

Murphys comments show that he lacks necessary judgment to lead New Jersey, said RGA spokesman Jon Thompson in an email. Murphy compares the sitting President of the United States to a mass murdering dictator that committed genocide, and its beyond normal for a far-left partisan attack. Its unbecoming of a statewide office candidate, and it directly disrespects the office of the presidency.

Trump, who won the presidency despite low favorable ratings, threatens to be an anchor in 2017s only major races. In Virginia, Democrats are trying to retain the governors mansion; in New Jersey, to reclaim it. Not only do midterm elections tend to break against the party that holds the White House, but both states voted solidly for Hillary Clinton last year. While the 2018 Senate race map is a struggle for Democrats, and that years House map is slanted against the party thanks to tough gerrymanders, these years elections look close to ideal for comebacks.

The GOP has tried to take advantage of that, by exploiting the dark language Democrats use to describe Trump  often in front of Democratic audiences for whom too much red meat is never enough.

Murphys been the main test case. On Feb. 21, trackers released a video of Murphy citing his knowledge of German history to warn that Trumps first moves had historical resonance.

I know what was being said about somebody else in the 1920s, he said, in a clip filmed late in 2016. And you could unfortunately drop in names from today into those observations from the 1920s, and the moves that have been made early on only aide and abet that argument.

Republicans went ballistic, with five RGA statements condemning Muprhy; Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the GOP front-runner, demanded an apology. But Murphy didnt play along. Its not surprising that Kim Guadagno would stay silent when Donald Trump appointed alt-right leaders like Stephen K. Bannon to high posts in his administration, and when he responded to repeated questions about the rise of anti-Semitism by talking about his electoral college victory, a Murphy spokesman told the Star-Ledger.

Theres been no polling since the comment, but over the weekend, local public affairs host Steve Adubato pressed Murphy to defend it. Murphy did so.

We have to be on the edge of our seat, the comparison, at least in the early stages, and Ive also said  please God, Im not suggesting it ends like it ended in Germany,  said Murphy. But one thing you realize, when you start discriminating against people, based on whatever you want to fill in the blank, in this case religion, based on how they worship  a Muslim ban in this case, when that train gets going down the tracks, the one lesson I know from Germany is it can get out ahead of you and you can never catch that train.

That earned a fresh RGA condemnation, and once again, Murphy framed it as a fight he was perfectly willing to have.

If the RGA would like to spend 2017 litigating Donald Trumps xenophobia, we would welcome that debate, said Murphy senior strategist Julie Roginsky. When they are finished defending Donald Trumps message of exclusion, perhaps we could next ask them to devote some time to defending Governor Christies economic record in N.J.

Republicans have tried something similar in Virginia, where the presidential race was closer last year. Tom Perriello, the former congressman now running as a pragmatic progressive, told one audience at a town hall that the election of Donald Trump was a little bit like, you know, a political and constitutional September 11 for us, if I can be honest. Ed Gillespie, the Republican front-runner, pounced not long after the conservative Washington Free Beacon ran the clip. Perriello apologized right away. Then, he pivoted.
BRIDGEPORT, Neb.  A Nebraska man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a Colorado man and then hiding his body in a barrel.

A Morrill County judge on Monday sentenced Zachary Mueller to life in prison after a jury convicted him in January of first-degree murder in the death of 33-year-old Pedro Adrian Dominguez, of Greeley, Colorado. Mueller also was sentenced to 20 to 40 years for using a firearm to commit a murder and 20 to 40 years for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Authorities say Mueller shot Dominguez in the back of the head while riding in a car in Bridgeport on Nov. 22, 2015. The body of Dominguez was discovered in a barrel on a Morrill County farm in December 2015.
SANTA FE  A former Wells Fargo vice president at a Santa Fe branch maintains he was fired after raising concerns about sales practices that have rocked the banking giant with scandal over the past two years.

Marc A. Tupler, who was fired in December 2014 after nearly fours years at Wells Fargo, says in a state court lawsuit that local and regional bank officials were aware of the schemes, including opening bank and credit card accounts without customer authorization to meet lofty sales goals.

Tupler says that his authority to reverse improper transactions was revoked after he had reversed many based on angry complaints from customers in the commercial loan division. He continued to refer complaints to his supervisors but Tuplers requests were either minimized, dismissed or rejected, his complaint states.

The suit says that Tupler once told Pat Sanchez, his supervisor at the Wells Fargo bank on Washington Avenue, that if no one was going to respond to the complaints by customers, perhaps they should contact Larry Barker at Channel 13,' an investigative reporter.

Tupler says he was fired without any notice or explanation and maintains that it was his referral of customer complaints to his supervisors and the Barker comment that caused them to perceive Tupler as a threat to their illegitimate practices.

Asked about the suit, a Wells Fargo spokesman Monday provided a statement saying, Wells Fargo is taking a series of steps to address improper sales practices. Our Board is conducting an independent investigation and we are undertaking a top to bottom review of all sales practices throughout Wells Fargo. Changes include eliminating all product sales goals for retail bank team, the statement said.

Wells Fargo acknowledged in September that its employees opened up to 2 million bank and credit card accounts without customer authorization in order to meet lofty sales goals. Federal and California regulators fined Wells Fargo $185 million for the practices.

Tuplers suit names as defendants Sanchez and Bruce Beebe, identified as another supervisor of Tupler; Wells Fargo; and Lisa Riley, the banks regional president for New Mexico and El Paso.

Riley, asked about the Wells Fargo scandal in a December interview with the Journal, said, We havent seen a lot of fallout here. Thats because I hope that weve always done it right.

One of the things Ive always said about New Mexico is I talk about 90 locations (within the state), were in really small towns, she said. We need the customers that we deal with; theyre family members, theyre neighbors, she added.
A bill seeking to make changes to New Mexicos Whistleblower Protection Act has been shelved for this years 60-day session.

Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, asked Monday that the bill be placed permanently on the presidents table, a move that essentially puts it on hold indefinitely.

But Candelaria said he would continue working on the legislation in the coming months, with the intention of possibly bringing it back  with some changes  for the 2018 session.

His bill, Senate Bill 299, had proposed sweeping changes to the whistleblower law, including a higher standard for proving retaliation against those who report government corruption or wrongdoing.

The proposal drew fierce opposition from some ethics groups, but was backed by groups representing New Mexico cities and counties. They claim the current 2010 law is so broad that government entities frequently settle claims to avoid litigation.

 Dan Boyd, dboyd@abqjournal.com

Veto override: A Republican senator could move forward with a veto override attempt today after talks about a teacher attendance bill yielded no compromise agreement.

Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, said he and teachers union leaders met Monday for more than an hour with Public Education Department officials, but could not strike a deal.

Were at an impasse, Brandt told the Journal. Nothing has been resolved.

Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed legislation that would have allowed teachers to take more of the allowable sick leave time in their contracts  10 days per year in most districts  without being penalized on their state-sanctioned evaluations.

Brandt initially vowed to launch a veto override attempt, but said later that he would try to strike a compromise before moving ahead on the rare procedural move.

He said one idea discussed Monday involved attaching the teacher attendance provision onto a bill enshrining the states teacher evaluation system into law.

 Dan Boyd

School grades: A council would be created to study and propose changes to New Mexicos school grading system under a bill approved Monday by the state Senate.

The A-F grading system was adopted in 2011, and grades are assigned annually to all elementary, middle and high schools.

However, the system has come under fire, with Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, saying Monday that its methodology is too confusing even for experts to understand.

The proposed council, which would be made up of school principals, superintendents and others, would make recommendations that would go into effect for the 2019-20 school year.

Senate Bill 40 was approved by a 23-15 vote. It now goes to the House.

 Dan Boyd

Womens history: Gov. Susana Martinez delivered a keynote address in Austin, Texas, on Monday as part of an event celebrating Womens History Month.

She was invited by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a fellow Republican, and she returned to New Mexico later in the day.

Martinez met with a variety of Texas officials to discuss the importance of women in office, according to a spokesman.

 Dan McKay, dmckay@abqjournal.com
SANTA FE  With just five days left in the session, a key House committee rejected legislation Monday that would have required background checks for people buying firearms online or at gun shows.

Democrat Eliseo Lee Alcon of Milan joined Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to block the bill from moving on. A motion to table the legislation won approval on a 7-6 vote.

The bill isnt dead, but reviving it and moving the proposal through committees and the full House and Senate by noon Saturday  the end of the session  would be incredibly difficult.

Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace said the tabling motion was the right move.

It looks like were targeting law-abiding citizens through the legislation, he said after the vote.

Supporters of the bill vowed to press on, even if they must wait for a future legislative session.

Were disappointed, said Michael Greene, a Santa Fe resident and volunteer who supported the legislation. Weve put in  many of us  hundreds and hundreds of hours working on this. But were undaunted.

Mondays proposal was less expansive than an earlier version, which also called for background checks when someone lends a gun to another person. That measure was debated intensely during the first half of the session, before Democrats put it on hold to work on changes.

Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, a Los Alamos Democrat and sponsor of the legislation, said the version unveiled Monday was intended as a compromise to close loopholes allowing strangers to sell guns to one another without a background check.

I said from the beginning that I was interested in striking a balance between public safety and convenience, Garcia Richard said Monday. I believe this bill gets us the closest to that goal that weve been.

Opponents described the bill as unenforceable and easy for criminals to ignore.

District Attorney John Sugg  who oversees local prosecutors in Otero and Lincoln counties  said theres no database that law enforcement can check to determine who obtained a gun without a background check. And the Constitution prohibits forcing people to testify against themselves, he said.

We dont know how we would compel people to provide the evidence wed need to secure a conviction, Sugg said. I see this more as an anti-gun bill than an anti-crime bill.

The latest version of Garcia Richards proposal, House Bill 548, would have required background checks when someone bought a firearm at a gun show or through an online or print advertisement.

Federally licensed dealers already have to check a buyers criminal background before a sale. But theres no such requirement for unlicensed people who sell guns to one another in less formal circumstances, such as through online ads.

The House Judiciary Committee did pass another a gun bill Monday  a proposal to allow a court to order someone to give up his or her firearms in cases of domestic abuse. Senate Bill 259, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces, won a recommendation of passage on a 9-4 vote.

Consideration of the bills has pushed New Mexico to the center of the national debate over gun control.

Everytown for Gun Safety, a New York-based group backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, says it spent more than $250,000 on New Mexico campaigns last year, when Democrats won back a narrow majority in the state House and expanded their edge in the Senate.

Groups affiliated with the National Rifle Association, based in Fairfax, Va., contributed about $18,000 last year, and an NRA lobbyist reported spending about $44,000 this session.
The recent Academy Awards ceremony turned into a monotony of hate. Many of the stars who mounted the stage ranted on cue about the evils of President Donald Trump.

Such cheap rhetoric is easy. But first, accusers should guarantee that their own ceremony is well run. Instead, utter bedlam ruined the event, as no one on the Oscars stage even knew who had won the Best Picture award.

Stars issued lots of rants about Trump, but were apparently unaware that one of the ceremonys impromptu invited guests was a recent parolee and registered sex offender.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used to offer all sorts of cosmic advice on the evils of smoking, and the dangers of fatty foods and sugary soft drinks. Bloomberg also frequently pontificated on abortion and global warming, earning him a progressive audience that transcended the boroughs of New York.

But in the near-record December 2010 blizzard, Bloomberg proved utterly incompetent in the elemental tasks for which he was elected: ensuring that New Yorkers were not trapped in their homes by snowdrifts in their streets that went unplowed for days.

The Bloomberg syndrome is a characteristic of contemporary government officials. When they are unwilling or unable to address premodern problems in their jurisdictions  crime, crumbling infrastructure, inadequate transportation  they compensate by posing as philosopher kings who cheaply lecture on existential challenges over which they have no control.

In this regard, think of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuels recent promises to nullify federal immigration law  even as he did little to mitigate the epidemic of murders in his own city.

Former President Barack Obama nearly doubled the national debt, never achieved 3 percent economic growth in any of his eight years in office and left the health care system in crisis. But he did manage to lecture Americans about the evils of the Crusades, and promise to lower the seas and cool the planet.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, likewise ran up record debt during his tenure, culminating in a $25 billion deficit his last year in office. Schwarzenegger liked to hector state residents on global warming and green energy, and brag about his commitment to wind and solar power.

Meanwhile, one of the states chief roadways, California State Route 99, earned the moniker Highway of Death for its potholes, bumper-to-bumper traffic, narrow lanes and archaic on- and off-ramps. During Californias early-February storms, the states decrepit road system all but collapsed. A main access to Yosemite National Park was shut down by mudslides. Big Sur was inaccessible. Highway 17, which connects Monterey Bay to Silicon Valley, was a daily disaster.

Schwarzeneggers successor, Jerry Brown, warned of climate change and permanent drought, and did not authorize the construction of a single reservoir. Now, California is experiencing near-record rain and snowfall. Had the state simply completed its half-century-old water master plan, dozens of new reservoirs would now be storing the runoff, ensuring that the state could be drought-proof for years.

Instead, more than 20 million acre-feet of precious water have already been released to the sea. There is nowhere to put it, given that California has not build a major reservoir in nearly 40 years.

The crumbling spillways of the landmark Oroville Dam, the tallest dam in the United States, threaten to erode it. Warnings of needed maintenance went unheeded for years, despite the fact that some 20 million more Californians live in the state (often in floodplains) than when the dam was built. Meanwhile, the state legislature has enacted new laws regarding plastic bags and transgender restrooms.

We have become an arrogant generation that virtue-signals that we can change the universe when, in reality, we cannot even run an awards ceremony, plow snow, fix potholes, build a road or dam, or stop inner-city youths from murdering each other.

Do our smug politicians promise utopia because they cannot cope with reality? Do lectures compensate for inaction?

Do we fault past generations of Americans  who drank too many Cokes and smoked too many cigarettes  because we are ashamed that we lack their vision, confidence and ability to build another Oroville Dam or a six-lane freeway, or to stop criminals from turning urban weekends into the Wild West?

Governors who cannot build a reservoir have little business fantasizing about 200-mph super trains.

And dense celebrities who cannot open the right envelope should not be sought for cosmic political wisdom.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; email: author@victorhanson.com.
Die-hard partisanship and an indefensible lack of due diligence have likely derailed a much-needed wellness center for foster children who, along with their foster parents and taxpayers, will ultimately pay the price for governmental incompetence.

At the request of Gov. Susana Martinezs administration, Sen. Steven Neville., R-Aztec, introduced Senate Bill 430, which would have bypassed usual procurement rules to allow the state to continue leasing space in the iconic high-rise on the northeast corner of Central and San Mateo NE, formerly known as Bank of the West Tower and, before that, as the First National Bank building.

The bypass was needed to get around the states looming 20-year limit on lease agreements for private property. The building in question, and a smaller high-rise just north of it, currently lease about 228,000 square feet of office space to the state, and the 20-year deadline  two years out  is fast approaching.

Nevilles bill would have extended the state leases for seven years and required construction of a new 20,000-square-foot building adjacent to the buildings to temporarily house a wellness center for foster children under the care of the state Children, Youth and Families Department.

In a legislative committee meeting on Feb. 23, state General Services Secretary Ed Burckle told lawmakers the buildings were owned by ICO Central San Mateo LLC. In the same meeting, Neville assured fellow legislators there had been no campaign contributions made by the owners of the buildings. The Senate subsequently approved Nevilles bill last Tuesday on a 30-10 vote and sent it to the House.

But Burckle and Neville were wrong; the LLCs manager, Alexander Moradi, gave $20,800 to Martinez and her political committee in 2014 and 2015, and a minority owner, Aaron Hazelrigg, gave Martinezs political committee $5,400 in 2015.

Because those campaign contributions were readily available on the states online campaign contribution database, nobody  not Burckle, Neville, and especially the governor  should have been in the dark about such a blatant conflict of interest. But it appears no one checked  until after the Senate took action.

To his credit, once Neville learned of the campaign contributions, he took the unusual step Saturday of recalling the bill.

Senate Democrats are now calling the proposed bill an ethics violation and sweetheart deal. And they arent buying Burckles explanation that it was a simple oversight that Moradi and Hazelriggs contributions to the governors campaign werent found before the bill was introduced.

What seems lost in the rhetoric is that a presumably needed facility to assist foster parents and foster kids could be lost and, even if another bill surfaces to accomplish the same thing this late in the session, the entire deal is now suspect, tainted beyond redemption.

Its hard to imagine that this was a pay-to-play type situation given the fact that the donations were so publicly displayed.

But the governor  whose office unwisely sought to bypass important procurement procedures without doing its homework and offering full disclosure  owes all parties an apology. She also needs to tell the public how she plans to provide the wellness center in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, this take-back occurred in a state where a former state senator resigned in disgrace for making a buck (actually 50,000 of them) and is facing trial for brokering the 2014 sale of a historic state-owned building in downtown Santa Fe. In a state where the Senate president pro tempore ended up in federal prison for a construction kickback scheme. In a state where the secretary of state stepped down after spending thousands of dollars of campaign money fueling a gambling habit.

And a state that is finally seriously considering ethics reforms that would set up a bipartisan panel to examine these types of oversights.

If last weeks drama shows anything, its that New Mexicos citizen legislators need some help ensuring that the is are dotted and the ts are crossed in legislation they approve.

And, while the Governors Office flubbed it this session, there is still time next session to present a bill that gets it right from the start.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
The Open Society Justice Initiative, a group backed by the philanthropist George Soros, said the ruling "weakens the guarantee of equality" offered by EU non-discrimination laws.

By Reuters: Companies may bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions, the European Union's top court ruled on Tuesday, setting off a storm of complaint from rights groups and religious leaders.

In its first ruling on a hot political issue across Europe, the Court of Justice (ECJ) found a Belgian firm which had a rule barring employees who dealt with customers from wearing visible religious and political symbols may not have discriminated against a receptionist dismissed for wearing a headscarf.

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The judgment on that and a French case came on the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration is a key issue and weeks before France votes for a president in a similarly charged campaign. French conservative candidate Francois Fillon hailed the ruling as "an immense relief" that would contribute to "social peace".

But a campaign group backing the women said the ruling could shut many Muslim women out of the workforce. And European rabbis said the Court had added to rising incidences of hate crime to send a message that "faith communities are no longer welcome".

The judges in Luxembourg did find that the dismissals of the two women may, depending on the view of national courts, have breached EU laws against religious discrimination. They found in particular that the case of the French software engineer, fired after a customer complaint, may well have been discriminatory.

Reactions, however, focused on the conclusion that services firm G4S in Belgium was entitled to dismiss receptionist Samira Achbita in 2006 if, in pursuit of legitimate business interests, it fairly applied a broad dress code for all customer-facing staff to project an image of political and religious neutrality.

"BACKDOOR TO PREJUDICE"

The Open Society Justice Initiative, a group backed by the philanthropist George Soros, said the ruling "weakens the guarantee of equality" offered by EU non-discrimination laws.

"In many member states, national laws will still recognise that banning religious headscarves at work is discrimination," policy office Maryam Hmadoun said.

"But in places where national law is weak, this ruling will exclude many Muslim women from the workplace."

Amnesty International welcomed the ruling on the French case that "employers are not at liberty to pander to the prejudices of their clients". But, it said, bans on religious symbols to show neutrality opened "a backdoor to precisely such prejudice".

The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, complained: "This decision sends a signal to all religious groups in Europe". National court cases across Europe have included questions on the wearing of Christian crosses, Sikh turbans and Jewish skullcaps.

In the Belgian case, the ECJ said: "An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination."

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It was for Belgian judges to determine whether she may have been a victim of indirect discrimination if the rule put people of a particular faith at a disadvantage. But the rule could still be justified if it was "genuinely pursued in a consistent and systematic manner" to project an "image of neutrality".

However, in the case of Asma Bougnaoui, dismissed by French software company Micropole, it said it was up to French courts to determine whether there was such a rule. If her dismissal was based only on meeting the particular customer's preference, it saw "only very limited circumstances" in which a religious symbol could be objectively taken as reason for her not to work.

Also read:

EU favours allowing Indian IT professionals in their region, credits sector's growth to them

Rights groups slam Donald Trump's plans on Muslim immigrants, refugees

--- ENDS ---
SANTA FE  Its running short on time, but a bill that would allow terminally ill New Mexicans to seek help from a doctor to end their own lives is headed to the Senate floor.

The measure cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday evening, after the panels chairman, Sen. Richard Martinez, D-Espanola, changed his vote and allowed it to advance with no recommendation.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this particular bill, said Martinez, who previously voted no on a motion to advance the bill with a positive recommendation.

The legislation, officially known as the End of Life Options Act, has been one of the most emotional issues at the Roundhouse during this years 60-day session, which ends Saturday.

Backers have urged lawmakers to approve the legislation, many of them sharing intensely personal stories about relatives who died after prolonged suffering.

But critics, who describe the issue as assisted suicide, have voiced concern about a perceived lack of safeguards in the bill and the potential for undue influence on ailing individuals. During Mondays debate, one person urged senators not to play God by approving the legislation.

If this is ever going to come to pass, it needs to happen in a way thats effective for people, said Sen. Ron Griggs, R-Alamogordo.

Sen. Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, who first sponsored similar legislation during her first stint in the Senate in 1995, said Monday she and other proponents are willing to keep trying to improve the bill.

Stefanics acknowledged the bill might face long odds this year  a similar measure has stalled in the House Judiciary Committee  but said supporters will not give up their quest.

If we cant get it through this year or in two years, well be back again, Stefanics said after Mondays vote.

This years debate was prompted by a state Supreme Court ruling last year that said terminally ill patients dont have a right to a physicians help in dying under the law as it stands now.

The bill approved Monday, Senate Bill 252, would allow competent, terminally ill adult patients to obtain prescriptions from doctors for drugs the patients would have to self-administer. Death certificates for patients opting to use the program would list their underlying illness as the cause of death, not the prescribed medication.
ST. LOUIS  The tiny babies typically arrive at Jill Bundschuhs foster home in Rock Hill, Mo., around dinner time.

Social workers bring them on short notice, with maybe some formula and a few diapers. There are no extra onesies. No swaddling blankets. No car seats.

The paperwork is usually sparse beyond a name and maybe a few clues about the babys first few days or weeks of life. Bundschuh knows from experience to quickly read the hospital notes before the caseworker leaves with the file.

Even when there is no medical history, this relatively new foster parent knows what to expect in the long night ahead.

The baby will constantly fidget. There can be sudden tremors in the arms and legs. The buttocks might bleed from open sores caused by runny diarrhea. The sucking reflex is off, so feeding can frustrate the baby.

Lullabies and cuddling rarely soothe the child who arches his or her back and cries in a high pitch. So Bundschuh will find a quiet spot away from the bedrooms where her husband and three boys are sleeping. She will rock the baby in her arms with his or her body vertical. Being cradled agitates the baby.

Mostly she will pace with the baby through the dark house because, in her experience, babies withdrawing from heroin, methadone, morphine or other opioids may be consoled by movement.

Bundschuh has cared for four babies in opioid withdrawal since she and her husband became licensed foster parents in Missouri two years ago. The most recent arrival came in late January  a newborn preemie. The previous baby was agitated for six months, a fairly typical course for full withdrawal.

There would be two to three hours every night where he just screamed; he was very hard to calm, she said.

Bundschuh made no special request to care for these cases when she signed on to be a foster parent.

Nonetheless, she has wound up on the front lines of Missouris opioid epidemic, which is sending children at an alarming rate to a state foster care system that is straining to serve them.

Its not just newborns  though the system is seeing far more of them. Its also older siblings who need care after Childrens Division investigators find severe neglect in a household disrupted by opioid addiction and the often unsafe parental behaviors that go with it.

We are in desperate need of more foster parents for the first time in a decade and a half, said Melanie Scheetz, executive director of the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition of St. Louis. We need them for both newborns and older children.

Scheetz said foster parents need to be trained about dealing with trauma in these children:

We had a case where two kids were found in Fairground Park behind a bridge because their mother was turning tricks for drugs. Its just devastating for these families.

Bundschuh received no special training on how to care for babies in drug withdrawal after being exposed to opioids in the womb or given morphine in the hospital to taper the symptoms of their withdrawal. Shes learned on her own.

Along with the risk of burnout and frustration with an inconsolable baby, there is constant worry. She knows, for example, that babies in withdrawal are at a higher risk for seizures or sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. If something happens, she could be legally liable.

The first week is very exhausting because Im constantly checking their breathing, she said. I didnt go through that with my own.

The numbers climb

Last year, more than 650 people died from opioid overdoses in the St. Louis region, more than four times the number in 2007. Recently, the Post-Dispatch chronicled the toll those fatalities are taking on the regions families and communities.

But the epidemic is also measured in the delivery rooms of Missouri hospitals, which have seen more than a fivefold increase in the number of infants born with symptoms of opioid withdrawal in the past 10 years, according to the Missouri Hospital Association. St. Louis stood out with one of the highest rates in the state, surpassed by just two counties in rural south-central Missouri.

The number of children going into foster care in Missouri began to climb in 2012, following years of a general decline. Last year, 7,505 children entered foster care. That is a leap from 6,432 in 2013.

In the past five years, St. Louis County saw a 29 percent jump in the number of children entering foster care, peaking at 521 children last year. In St. Louis city, entries increased by more than a third. Jefferson County saw a 20 percent increase; St. Charles County, 14 percent.

The state lacks data to directly tie the spike in foster care to opioids.

But data from the St. Louis Family Court show the link.

Of the 46 children who have entered foster care in the city this year, 17  or 39 percent  were due to drugs, either involving drug exposure to newborns, or issues of abuse or neglect because of substance abuse by parents.
A District Court judge handed down a 6-year sentence for a man convicted of inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl after luring her into his yard with a puppy.

Chad Deignan, 23, pleaded guilty in January to criminal sexual contact of a minor and tampering with evidence and under the terms of his plea agreement, he faced a sentence of between 3 and 7 years.

In a hearing Monday before Judge Briana Zamora, he apologized to the child and to her family.

I know I have put you guys through a lot of stuff and it wasnt good, he said. I wasnt able to have a supportive family in my young life and I do very sincerely apologize.

His attorney, Jason Wheeless, argued that credit for time served and probation would be the most appropriate sentence. He said his client, who was 19 at the time of the incident, has spent about 40 months in custody on the charge.

Wheeless said his client lost his mother at a young age and went on to live with his abusive father, leaving him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He called his client a damaged kid who at his core wanted a better life and wanted to gather the skills necessary to build that life. He said that Deignan needed counseling and supervision.

A 7-year sentence on charges like this, Wheeless said, is going to produce a person that we dont particularly want in society.

Alternately, prosecutor Brittany Duchaussee argued for the maximum sentence.

Duchaussee said Deignan asked the girl and her 8-year-old friend if they wanted to see his dog and the two followed him into his backyard where Deignan forced the 7-year-old to sit on his lap before inappropriately touching her over her clothes.

This incident caused them to feel unsafe in their home, Duchaussee said. They felt fear, they felt anxiety, not to mention the trauma that being touched inappropriately causes on a person, a girl, so young.

Following the completion of his sentence, Zamora ruled, Deignan must spend between five and 20 years on probation, and he will be required to register as a sex offender for the entirety of his life.
Sandoval County has agreed to a $1.8 million settlement that will resolve a lawsuit alleging that the time Raynbow Gignilliat spent in solitary confinement at the county jail led to her suicide.

Sidney Hill, spokesman for Sandoval County, said the countys out-of-pocket cost for the case is a $15,000 deductible paid to its insurance company.

Gignilliat, 39, a mother of three, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had managed her mental health for years without medication. But her mental health declined amid a divorce and custody dispute, according to the lawsuit her family filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. She was living with her mother in Sandoval County. In late October 2013, she was arrested on a domestic battery charge.

After about two weeks in custody, Gignilliat was moved into segregation, though it is not clear why, which meant she was kept alone in a cell for 24 hours per day.

Jails know that, every day, a significant portion of their population has mental illness, said Jack Jacks, the attorney representing Gignilliats family. The easy choice is to merely lock them in a small cell and leave them there, because at least they arent creating problems.

Gignilliats mental health deteriorated rapidly.

After just six days, correctional officers noted that Gignilliat was throwing feces around her cell, according to the lawsuit.

She pounded on the window, punched herself, splashed herself with water from the toilet, hallucinated and screamed.

The suit alleged that employees were aware of her mental health deterioration, but made no effort to find treatment for her.

After watching her health decline for six weeks, according to the lawsuit, Gignilliat was taken to a hospital emergency room. A doctor recommended that Gignilliat be moved to a facility offering psychiatric care and that she receive psychiatric medication, or she will die, the lawsuit argues. She was released from the hospital and returned to segregation, according to the lawsuit.

In January 2014, she was moved to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute and, with treatment, was able to do normal activities, according to the lawsuit.

She was released from the institute in the spring, Jacks said, and the charges against her were dropped, but, in June 2014, she committed suicide.

She just was never the same after being released from the jail, Jacks said.

The $1.8 million settlement will be distributed into separate trust funds for each of Gignilliats three young sons.
PREWITT  A flood of condolences poured in Monday for the Navajo Nation tribal police officer killed on a domestic violence call after he encountered two people in a vehicle on a rural road in the middle of the night, and a woman who saw he was wounded used his radio to call for help, authorities said Monday.

Navajo Nation officer Houston James Largo, 27, came across the vehicle early Sunday while responding to a report of domestic violence at a rural address about nine miles north of the town of Prewitt, about 82 miles west of Albuquerque. He was shot and critically wounded, McKinley County Sheriffs Deputy Roberta Jaramillo said.

A female saw that the officer was down and called dispatch over his radio, she said.

A decorated officer, Largo was flown to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque and died hours later Sunday. Messages of sympathy came in from across the country on social media, many from other police agencies around the country.

James Tierney, acting U.S. attorney for New Mexico, said in a statement that Largo was dedicated to his job and touched many through his work on the Navajo Nation and his commission as a special federal officer with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services.

His loss is a tragic reminder that the work of our law enforcement officers is profoundly heroic and deserving of our most emphatic support, Tierney said.

Largo was the first officer killed this year in New Mexico and one of seven shot in the U.S. while on duty. This follows a year in which the number of law enforcement officers shot and killed increased sharply, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Authorities quickly identified one of the people in the vehicle as the suspect, and the search intensified as daylight broke. Footprints helped officers track the suspect, who was taken into custody later Sunday morning.

Authorities did not immediately release any information about the suspect, the circumstances of the arrest or what led to the shooting. They also provided no details on the woman who called for help.

Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said tribal officers are well-trained but constantly face danger on the job.

They are the ones who stand guard over our nation and protect us, Begaye said in a statement.

There are roughly 225 sworn officers in the Navajo Police Department, which covers more than 27,000 square miles in portions of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. With Largos death, the tribe has lost 13 officers in the line of duty since 1975.

In 2015, Navajo officer Alex Yazzie was shot and killed while pursuing a suspect who had fired at another officer who had responded to a domestic violence call near the Arizona-New Mexico state line. Two other officers were wounded in that shootout.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez also said Sunday shes confident the person responsible for killing Largo will face the full measure of justice.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

A former Texas Tech University surgeon accused of botching a Curry County womans gastric bypass surgery in 2004 cant be sued for malpractice in New Mexico, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

The states high court issued its decision Monday.

We reverse the Court of Appeals and the district court, Justice Edward L. Chavez wrote in his majority opinion, which was signed onto by Justices Petra Jimenez Maes and Judith K. Nakamura and Judge Linda M. Vanzi, a Court of Appeals judge designated to hear the case. The district court shall dismiss Montanos suit without prejudice.

The case has garnered significant attention in both New Mexico and Texas, with three dozen doctor groups and hospitals in both states signing on to a friend of the court brief in 2015. They argued that allowing the lawsuit to move forward could have a disastrous effect on patient care in eastern New Mexico  where doctors are scarce  because it might make Texas providers reluctant to care for New Mexico patients.

Its clearly the right result, said Alice T. Lorenz, one of the Albuquerque attorneys who worked on the friend of the court brief filed on behalf of the hospitals and doctor groups.

Attorneys for Kimberly Montano, the woman who filed the malpractice suit, and the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association had countered that if Texas law were to prevail, Montano would have no forum in which to pursue redress for the permanent harm she suffered. The Trial Lawyers Association also accused the medical groups of engaging in scare tactics.

Obviously, were disappointed for Ms. Montano, said Jerry Wertheim, one of Montanos Santa Fe attorneys. I understand the courts ruling. It was an important issue of comity, how one state respects another states laws.

Wertheim said the instances in which Texas law allows malpractice lawsuits against hospitals like Texas Tech University Medical Center are so narrow that it would not be possible to file suit against it, and that was probably never a possibility under the facts of Montanos case. He said Texas has very restrictive laws when it comes to medical malpractice lawsuits.

Thats something all New Mexicans should consider, he said. Wertheim added that Montanos lawyers need to evaluate how Mondays ruling impacts the portion of the lawsuit against Lovelace Insurance Co.

Dana Simmons Hardy, one of the Santa Fe attorneys representing Dr. Eldo Frezza, praised the ruling. Frezza is the former chief of bariatric surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center who performed Montanos surgery.

I think its a good decision for New Mexico in several ways, she said. I think it protects New Mexico citizens who have to travel to receive medical care in other states.

At issue in this case was whether Montano, who underwent gastric bypass surgery in Lubbock, Texas, could pursue her malpractice lawsuit in New Mexico courts under New Mexico law. Texas law bars lawsuits against individual state employees. Frezza was a state employee.

Montano has said she had the surgery in Texas because that was the only way her insurer would cover it.

Montano filed her lawsuit in Albuquerque in 2011. The suit states that she complained of abdominal pain soon after the 2004 surgery and returned to Frezza, who told her discomfort was normal and all was well. Her pain became so severe that she was admitted to various other medical centers multiple times.

The suit contends that in 2010, she had a procedure by a different doctor who found that Frezzas surgery had left a tangled network of sutures that caused the pain.

Montano alleged that Frezzas negligence left her with an infection, the need for lifelong care from a gastroenterologist and a shortened life expectancy. She had been seeking recovery for lost wages, medical costs and punitive damages.

Frezzas attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Texas law should apply.

A New Mexico district judged ruled that the New Mexico case should move forward, and the state Court of Appeals agreed.

In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court undertook an exhaustive analysis on whether respecting Texas law would undermine New Mexicos own public policy. In the end, most justices agreed that New Mexicos public policy wouldnt be undermined by deferring to Texas law.

Access to cross-border health care for individuals living in rural parts of New Mexico is an additional consideration that tempers New Mexicos interest in applying its law to this case, Justice Chavez wrote in his majority opinion.

Justice Barbara J. Vigil issued her own opinion, dissenting in part, from the court majority.

New Mexico has a strong interest in enabling its residents to recover for medical negligence, particularly those who have limited options, Vigil wrote.
SANTA FE  A proposal to require New Mexico lawmakers to wait at least a year after leaving the Legislature before returning as paid lobbyists passed a key Senate committee Monday, but only after senators reworked the bill to essentially grandfather in lawmakers current occupations  even if theyre advocacy jobs.

The amendment approved in the Senate Rules Committee would allow legislators to keep their day jobs after leaving the Legislature  as long as theyd had the job for at least two years  even if they fell under the definition of lobbying.

Simply having served (in the Legislature) wouldnt disqualify them from the work they were doing, said Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque.

Several current and former legislators have held jobs at groups that advocate for and against certain legislation, including Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, who helped craft the amendment and is the executive director of the New Mexico Clerks, a group representing county clerks.

He said the amendment would allow legislators to keep their current jobs but prohibit them from accepting new lobbying work immediately upon leaving the Roundhouse.

I do think the public doesnt want (legislators) to cash in on their service, Ivey-Soto said after Mondays hearing.

However, backers of the proposal to close a perceived revolving door  that of legislating to lobbying  said carving out the exemption amounted to a watering down of the measure.

We feel it was weakened today, and we hope the exemptions can be narrowed before it reaches the Senate floor, said Heather Ferguson with Common Cause New Mexico, a group thats been pushing for cooling-off legislation for years.

The measure, House Bill 73, is the latest attempt to enact a cooling-off period for legislators-turned-lobbyists. While most states have such laws, efforts to add New Mexico to the list have been unsuccessful in recent years.

The Senate has traditionally been a quagmire for such bills, as some senators have argued the legislation would deny lawmakers  who do not receive a salary in New Mexico, but do get per diem payments while the Legislature is in session  a valid career path after leaving the Legislature.

But backers of the legislation say the revolving-door practice erodes public trust in government by allowing former legislators to cash in on their expertise and connections with former colleagues.

This years bill is sponsored by Reps. Jim Dines, R-Albuquerque; Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, and Joanne Ferrary, D-Las Cruces. It passed the House 58-2 last month.

The idea is also backed by Gov. Susana Martinez. The Republican governor has banned administration officials from lobbying executive state agencies or the Legislature for two years after leaving their jobs.

After amending the measure Monday, the Senate Rules Committee voted 6-1 to send it on to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
SANTA FE  Dark-money groups that spend to influence New Mexico elections would face new disclosure requirements under a bipartisan proposal that won House approval late Monday.

The bill is close to reaching Gov. Susana Martinez for her consideration.

The state Senate passed the measure last month, but it will have to go back to that chamber for approval of amendments adopted by the House.

Rep. James Smith, R-Sandia Park, said most states already have enacted similar disclosure requirements  after the U.S. Supreme Courts Citizens United decision, which cleared the way for unlimited spending by some political action committees.

Smith  who co-sponsored the bill with Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe  said the public deserves to know whos donating to independent groups that flood the airwaves with advertisements during election season.

This is just sunlight on whos making donations, Smith said.

Some of his Republican colleagues said the bill went too far. They said the disclosure requirements would discourage people from exercising their First Amendment rights.

Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Logan, said that, as an example, a teachers boss might retaliate against the teacher if he or she donated to a group that opposed increased funding for school districts.

Were providing information that people can use against us, said Roch, an educator himself. This is a pathway to thought crime accusations. I promise you thats what it is.

Under the current system, independent groups that spend on elections  but for whom electioneering isnt a primary purpose  dont have to disclose where theyre getting their money and what theyre using it for.

This category includes nonprofit groups, unions and business associations. Some do provide voluntary reports.

Senate Bill 96 proposes that when independent spending climbs above a certain threshold near an election, the group would have to report the spending and the source of donations used to make it.

The bill would also raise the limit on donations to candidates  to $5,000 for each primary and general election cycle, with some exceptions. Thats twice what legislative candidates can now accept and a small decrease from the $5,400 limit to statewide candidates.

The proposal won approval on a 41-24 vote, drawing most of its support from Democrats but also picking up some backing by Republicans.

The bill passed the Senate by an even wider margin: 36-6.

The proposal is also aimed at modernizing New Mexicos campaign rules to make them easier to understand and to remove parts that have been struck down in court, supporters say.
BISMARCK, N.D.  Two Native American tribes who are suing to stop the Dakota Access pipeline have asked a judge to head off the imminent flow of oil while they appeal his decision allowing the pipelines construction to be completed.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg last week rejected the request of the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes to stop construction of the final segment of the pipeline under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota from which the tribes get their water. The pipelines developer, Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, expects to have the work done and the pipeline filled with oil as early as this week.

The tribes maintain that an oil pipeline under the lake they consider sacred violates their right to practice their religion, which relies on clean water. In his decision last week, Boasberg said the tribes didnt raise the religion argument in a timely fashion and he questioned its merits.

Cheyenne River attorney Nicole Ducheneaux on Friday appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She also asked Boasberg to prevent the flow of oil through the Dakota Access pipeline until the appeal is resolved.

Should construction continue during the appeals process, the last opportunity for Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to defend its tribal members free exercise of religion will be lost, Ducheneaux wrote.

Boasberg on Monday gave ETP and the Army Corps of Engineers until today to file their responses to the request. The Corps is a defendant in the lawsuit because it manages the Missouri River system and authorized the Lake Oahe work last month at the urging of President Donald Trump.

Government attorneys didnt immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. ETP spokeswoman Vicki Granado declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal case.

The 1,200-mile pipeline would transport oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.

The tribes filed their lawsuit last summer, after which hundreds and sometimes thousands of pipeline opponents began camping on federal land near the Lake Oahe drill site. Many clashed with police, resulting in about 750 arrests from August to late February, when the main camp and two others were shut down in advance of spring flooding season.
WASHINGTON  Democratic members of New Mexicos congressional delegation said the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Republican health care bill showed that it would be harmful to New Mexico, which has a high rate of low-income and uninsured residents.

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said his staff projects that all New Mexicans who gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Acts Medicaid expansion could lose their insurance under the Republican plan. New Mexicos enrollment in Medicaid, a joint federal-state health insurance program for people with low incomes, has been brisk, with nearly 260,000 New Mexicans joining the rolls under President Barack Obamas expanded Medicaid eligibility terms.

https://abqjournal.com/967695/republicans-set--bill-cost-study.html

In all, more than 888,000 New Mexicans  or nearly half the states population  were enrolled as of the start of December, according to the state Human Services Department.

My biggest concern is how this bill would hurt New Mexico families and our economy, particularly working families who qualify for Medicaid because it was expanded under Obamacare, Udall said. The Republican bill resorts to hocus-pocus when it comes to these families, claiming to provide care, but actually slashing an estimated $880 billion over the next 10 years, and cutting Medicaid for an estimated 14 million people by 2026, including the millions of people whose eligibility fluctuates from year to year.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., also cast the Republican health care proposal and the related Congressional Budget Office analysis in bleak terms.

The Republican plan would mean a schoolteacher pays more for their health care so that a hedge fund manager can get a six-figure tax break, Heinrich said. Thats unconscionable.

Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., said, The impact of lost Medicaid funding will be a disaster in New Mexico, where more than 900,000 people rely on Medicaid for their health care. Thousands of New Mexicans, including the poorest and sickest people, will return to emergency rooms for basic care, costing taxpayers more money and doing nothing to actually treat chronic illnesses.

And Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., said, At the hands of congressional Republicans, states will be forced to increase taxes on their people, ration care, or drop people from their care.

Keeley Christensen, a spokeswoman for Rep. Steve Pearce, the delegations only Republican, said any repeal of Obamacare must protect and improve New Mexican families access to care and increase affordability for all. She said the budget office report leaves questions about the plans ability to improve access, while reducing prices for New Mexican families.
Fawad Khan's daughter looks adorable in this new picture.

By India Today Web Desk: It was only two months ago that Fawad Khan introduced his little girl Elayna to the world. Fawad's wife Sadaf shared a picture of her little one on Instagram and the photo went viral. The adorable picture of Fawad holding his little munchkin melt many hearts.

And the five-month-old Elayna keeping her parents busy with her cute antics. Sadaf yet again posted a picture of Elayna on Instagram where she looks cute as a button.

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Sadaf captioned the photo, "The light in our lives -Elayna !!!!", where Elayna is seen putting on a mask as if she is all set to take on the Catwoman.

The light in our lives -Elayna !!!! A post shared by Sadaf Fawad Khan (@sadaf.f.k) on Mar 11, 2017 at 1:24am PST

The Pakistani actor, who was last seen in Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, returned to Pakistan in July last year to spend some quality time with his wife during her pregnancy.

Fawad and Sadaf welcomed their second child in October 2016. Fawad had earlier ordered 112 custom-made red velvet floral-themed cakes to announce the his baby girl's name.

Fawad and Sadaf got married in 2008 after dating for almost 8 years. The couple also has a 6-year-old son Aayaan.

ALSO READ: Fawad Khan's wife Sadaf shares the first picture of their daughter Elayna

ALSO READ: Here's what Fawad Khan and Sadaf Khan have named their baby daughter

ALSO WATCH: Pakistani actor Fawad Khan clears his stand on Uri attacks

--- ENDS ---
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

An administrative assistant in the Bernalillo County Human Resources Department claims she at times devoted up to 80 percent of her work week doing tasks on behalf of the Martin Luther King Jr. Multicultural Council, where until recently she also held the title of executive secretary.

The county has halted its involvement with the council after legal staff determined it was in violation of the anti-donation clause of the state Constitution, as well as the countys employee code of conduct and conflict of interest regulations.

In addition, the county believes the employee may have used county funds to pay for MLK council office supplies.

Jewel Hall, a founder of the MLK council, past president and current director of communications, said there isnt enough work to take up 80 percent of someones workweek  that, at most, an employee may have spent a total of 40 hours a year helping the council  and she was unaware of any supplies purchased for the nonprofit by the county.

She was surprised when notified of the countys decision, saying a cooperative arrangement between the county and the MLK council has been ongoing, in some form or another, for decades.

Bernalillo County Manager Julie Morgas Baca told the Journal she was only recently made aware of the countys involvement after the HR employee went to the county Compliance Office to discuss the matter.

After conferring with the countys legal department, Morgas Baca said that, although she supports the mission of the council, she immediately stopped the practice and asked county officials to determine if there was a memorandum of understanding, written agreement, contract or procurement method used to justify why the county was providing the services. None could be found, she said.

Asked the value of the county employees contribution to the MLK council, Morgas Baca said it was difficult to determine, but the employee, who began working for the council last July, earns $13.73 an hour.

Clause not clear-cut

When informed that the county was discontinuing the arrangement, Hall responded with a letter to the County Commission in which she wrote: It is very surprising that after 27 years and under six different county managers that Bernalillo County now cites the anti-donation clause as a reason to terminate what has been a very productive partnership.

Under the anti-donation clause, the county cannot legally or financially subsidize or commit resources to private corporations or nonprofit organizations without anything in return, no matter how noble or worthy the venture, Morgas Baca said.

According to the MLK Multicultural Council website, among those listed on the board of directors are Vice President Renetta M. Torres, who, following an internal nepotism investigation earlier this month, resigned as Bernalillo Countys director of human resources; and executive secretary Rhiannon Montoya, who works as an administrative assistant in the Bernalillo County Human Resources Department.

The county and other sponsor agencies who provide in-kind services receive recognition by the MLK council in all of its publications, materials and on its website, Hall said. It has been the understanding of the council that the recognition of the sponsors is deemed to be the consideration called for, and satisfies the provisions of the anti-donation clause.

She pointed to another governmental sponsor, the Albuquerque City Council, which donated $15,000 for 2016 and $15,000 for 2017. According to a Sponsorship Agreement, the MLK council agreed to include the City of Albuquerque City Council and logo on all signage, press releases, and conference programs as a sponsor. A finance officer with the City Council said the agreement was vetted by the citys legal department to make sure it was not in violation of the states anti-donation clause.

County spokeswoman Tia Bland said it was fair to acknowledge that perhaps the anti-donation clause isnt as clear-cut as it could be and finding the line to determine whats appropriate and inappropriate might be challenging for some.

However, Bernalillo County believes assigning a full-time county employee to serve as executive secretary to a nonprofit crosses the line.

Other in-kind sponsors, such as the University of New Mexico, Central New Mexico Community College and Albuquerque Public Schools, provide volunteers for the MLK scholarship reception, or help in screening scholarship applications, or reading and scoring the essays, Hall said.

All-volunteer organization

The mission of the MLK Multicultural Council is to educate the public on the ideals and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Each year, the organization sponsors a competition in which college-bound high school students submit essays detailing how Kings philosophy and works impacted their own lives. Last year, 29 students were each awarded $1,000 scholarships.

The council is an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff. The county employee in question could not possibly have volunteered more than 40 hours for the entire year, and most of that time was probably attending monthly meetings and taking minutes, Hall said. We dont have that kind of structure or workload  period.

She added that she was unaware of any supply purchases paid for by the county and noted that the organization doesnt have an office. We meet once a month at Congregation Albert from 3 to 4:40 p.m. Most communications are done via email by Hall.

Renetta Torres was assigned to the MLK council by then-County Manager Juan Vigil, replacing county employee-designate Richard Silva when he passed away, Hall said. Montoya was assigned to perform MLK duties by her then-supervisor, Dorothy Astorga, now an executive assistant at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Astorga told the Journal on Monday that she was simply continuing a practice that had been going on for many years.

Morgas Baca said there did not appear to be any criminal intent involved, but as county manager Im responsible to the taxpayers and have to make sure we follow procurement codes and make sure that taxpayer dollars are used in a fair and responsible manner, consistent with our obligation to the public and within the law.

She also said that the county supports the mission of the MLK Multicultural Council. We stand with them in the advancement of the ideals of Dr. King, and still desire to cultivate a positive relationship with them, and want to work with them in ways that are consistent with policy and law.
SANTA FE  A proposal to block New Mexico cities and counties from adopting certain kinds of local labor ordinances stalled tonight in a Senate committee.

A motion to advance the legislation, Senate Bill 415, out of the Senate Judiciary Committee failed on a 4-5 vote, meaning its likely dead for the 60-day session that ends this weekend.

The vote came despite backers attempt to narrow the measure to apply only to local government ordinances regulating employee scheduling and leave. The bill as initially drafted would have also applied to benefits.

Business groups and other supporters argued that a proliferation of different local ordinances could make the state a regulatory patchwork of sorts.

We need continuity when we do business around the state, said Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup, the bills sponsor.

But critics, including various nonprofit groups, called the legislation an attack on the authority of cities and counties to pass their own ordinances.

Several attempts to enact labor ordinances have been launched in Albuquerque, including a failed 2015 push to pass a Fair Workplace Act that contained requirements regarding work schedules and sick leave.

This year, Albuquerque voters will decide on a ballot measure covering sick leave benefits.

The pre-emption bill ultimately failed tonight on a party-line vote, with four Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voting for advancing the bill, and five Democratic members casting no votes.
WASHINGTON  Attorney General Jeff Sessions is promising his Justice Department will lead the charge in helping cities fight violent crime, and police chiefs are ready with their wish-lists.

More technology to trace guns after shootings. More grant money. More intelligence analysts to help dismantle gangs. More protective gear and equipment. As the head of one police officers union put it, We need more of everything.

But Sessions, who cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the height of the drug war in the 1980s, has inherited a federal government that built itself to fight terrorism since 9/11 and, more recently, to combat cybercrime.

Since taking office, Sessions has spoken repeatedly about a spike in murders. He and President Donald Trump ordered the creation of a crime-fighting task force, bringing together the heads of the major law enforcement agencies. And they seem to be counting on tighter border security to stop a flow of drugs and reduce crime.

But they have yet to offer new money for crime-fighting, especially in the face of Trumps plan to slash nonmilitary budgets. More clarity could come Thursday when the administration unveils its budget proposal. Sessions also has not said how federal law enforcement will be able to juggle priorities.

Hell find out very quickly that you cant pull people off all these other things just to go do that, said Robert Anderson, who was the FBIs most senior criminal investigator until his retirement in 2015. Anderson joined the bureau in the 1990s, when combating violence and drugs was its top challenge. Now hes walking into a much different Justice Department and FBI.

Kerry Sleeper, assistant director of the FBI office that works with local law enforcement, said that after decades of declines in violence, police chiefs are coming to grips with a new uptick and asking for federal help.

What theyd like to see:

 In Milwaukee, Police Chief Edward Flynn said he would like an expansion of the work done in that city by the Justice Departments Violence Reduction Network. It teams officers with deputy U.S. marshals and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration to target high-crime areas. Its encouraging to have an incoming administration take an interest in the spikes in violence in central cities, he told The Associated Press.

 In Baltimore, which recorded 318 homicides last year, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis has said he would like federal agencies to double the number of agents assigned to cities experiencing spikes in violence.

 In Chicago, singled out by the White House for its surge in shootings, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has said he would welcome more agents and money for mentorship and after-school programs to help kids in violent neighborhoods and, in turn, reduce crime.

Other cities want help processing evidence, tracing guns and prosecuting drug traffickers and dealers as they combat heroin and opioid addiction.

More chiefs are asking the FBI for its help with intelligence-gathering to thwart crime, said Stephen Richardson, assistant director for the FBIs criminal division.

Making violent crime a priority is a departure for a Justice Department that has viewed as more urgent the prevention of cyberattacks from foreign criminals, counterterrorism and the threat of homegrown violent extremism. And while local police say they want more help fighting violence, such a plan could put new pressure on Justice Department agencies already strapped for resources.

Our budgets been eroding, Thomas Brandon, acting ATF director, told a congressional committee last week. The ranks of the agencys special agents hit an eight-year low in fiscal year 2013 and have not grown dramatically since then.

Sessions focus fits his background. His career as a prosecutor began when there was bipartisan agreement in Washington that the best way to fight crime was with long, mandatory prison sentences. And he views todays relatively low crime rates as a sign that those policies worked. Just last week, he underscored his priority telling the nations federal prosecutors they should use all available resources to take down the worst offenders.

In contrast, the Obama administrations Justice Department focused its aid to local police on improving community relations.

The federal government has long played a role in fighting crime through grants and partnerships. Agents assigned to field offices work with local police to share intelligence on gangs and shootings, hunt fugitives and probe bank robberies. Constance Hester-Davis, special agent in charge of the ATFs field division in New Orleans, said her agents routinely work alongside local counterparts, even attending community meetings.

At the end of the day, crime is a state and local concern, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank. However, what police chiefs say is the federal government does have a responsibility, particularly when they prosecute.

Such cooperation can work. Oakland, California, police saw killings fall from 126 in 2012 to 85 in 2016, two years after FBI agents were embedded in the homicide unit. Ten agents share an office with Oakland detectives, offering help gathering evidence, collecting DNA, chasing leads and bringing federal prosecutions that carry longer sentences in far-away prisons. Detectives solved at least 60 percent of their cases last year, compared to about 30 percent in 2010, said Russell Nimmo, FBI supervisory special agent on the Oakland Safe Streets Task Force.

Its very complementary to what our mission is, Nimmo said. Were a big organization. The challenge for our leadership is determining how many resources to allocate to each of those competing priorities.

Richardson, who formed the first FBI task force in the Western District of Louisiana to combat violent criminals, said the new focus will mean shifting resources in ways that are yet to be seen. The FBI is finalizing a strategy to surge resources, including agents, in certain cities this summer.

We wont be able to do all the cities wed like to at once, Richardson said. I firmly believe it will make a difference.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump could issue a sweeping executive order aimed at reversing his predecessors climate policies any day this week, a measure that energy industry officials and environmentalists have been anticipating for weeks.

The directive will instruct members of the Cabinet to rewrite regulation restricting carbon emissions from both new and existing power plants, lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and revise the way climate change is factored into federal decision-making  all key elements of the Obama administrations effort to address climate change.

While the exact timing of the executive order remains in flux, administration officials are under pressure to address a pending lawsuit before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That legal challenge  originally mounted by several Republican attorneys general, including Oklahomas Scott Pruitt, who now heads the Environmental Protection Agency  argues that the EPA exceeded its legal authority in imposing carbon emission curbs on operators of existing plants. The restrictions aim to cut carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.

Pruitt is no longer a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The directive would instruct Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask the D.C. Circuit to hold the lawsuit in abeyance while the EPA revisited the rules it authored during President Barack Obamas tenure. If the court agreed to that request, the agency would have to establish an administrative record on why it had decided to pursue a different path.

Jeffrey Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell LLP who advises utilities opposed to the Obama-era regulations, said in an interview that while he does not think its a heavy lift at all to legally justify the switch, that rulemaking record needs to be very robust, they have to justify why they have changed.

It could take as long as a year and a half to rewrite the rule on existing plants, known as the Clean Power Plan. Environmentalists argue that the regulation, which allows utilities to use measures such as energy efficiency and renewable energy production to reduce their overall emissions, is well within the law. Opponents say the agency only has authority to dictate what steps a utility takes inside the fence of its own operations.

Essentially, its a mandate that EPA rules follow the Clean Air Act, instead of creating their own new programs, said Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton & Williams and represents multiple utilities.

Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown University Climate Center, said in an email that any effort to undo the previous administrations work to cut greenhouse gas emissions would take time.

While its painful to watch a rollback of standards that took significant effort and input to put in place, the Trump administration will need to follow laws and regulations such as the Clean Air Act and Administrative Procedure Act before knocking down regulations, Arroyo wrote. Its not as simple as kicking over toy building blocks.

Asked about the prospect of an executive order Tuesday morning, White House spokeswoman Kelly Love replied, We do not have an announcement at this time.

Other aspects of the executive order can take effect immediately after its issued, though it is unclear how quickly they will translate into greater coal extraction. One provision tells the Interior Departments Bureau of Land Management to lift a freeze on federal coal leasing. That moratorium has been in effect since December 2015, and in January, Interior proposed that the program guiding coal exploration and production across 570 million publicly owned acres be updated to factor in the climate impact of such activities and provide a bigger return for U.S. taxpayers.

Separately, Trump will instruct federal officials in the directive to abandon Obama officials practice of factoring in the impact of climate change  what is dubbed the social cost of carbon  in their policymaking decisions. That calculus, which is set at $36 per ton of carbon dioxide, aims to capture the negative consequences of allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise. But some conservatives  including both House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who held a hearing on the issue last month, and senior members of Trumps Energy Department and EPA transition teams  have criticized it as too sweeping.

Federal officials will be allowed to return to a more traditional regulatory analysis, according to individuals briefed on the order who asked not to be identified in advance of the announcement. That analysis, which dates back a couple of decades, includes a much lower cost associated with carbon emissions.

The directive will also include other language applying to the Interior Department that affects oil and gas development, according to these individuals. Those provisions will address the flaring of methane on oil and gas operations on federal land, and the kind of energy exploration that can take place on land managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands  Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte prides himself on his optimism. He has had it tested repeatedly in six years in office as his country has plumbed the depths of economic crisis, been plunged into mourning by the downing of a passenger jet in eastern Ukraine and, just days before national elections, descended into the worst diplomatic row in years, with NATO ally Turkey.

The 50-year-old leader of the increasingly right-wing Peoples Party of Freedom and Democracy, known by its Dutch acronym VVD, admits he is carrying scars from his two terms in office, but insists he is the leader his country needs in turbulent times.

Just days before Wednesdays election for the 150-seat lower house of Dutch Parliament, Rutte was embroiled in a diplomatic row with Turkey after refusing to let two Turkish ministers campaign in the Netherlands ahead of Turkeys referendum on constitutional reforms that will give more power to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The decision triggered rioting in Rotterdam and a furious reaction from Turkey, but was seen as strengthening Ruttes image as a strong leader ahead of his own election.

Rutte is a key player in this because he is prime minister, Amsterdam Free University political scientist Andre Krouwel said in a telephone interview. So he and the VVD can say: We are the ones who really protect your interests; we are the ones who go down into the trenches to defend the Netherlands.

A history graduate and former human resources manager at Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, Rutte is a classic Dutch consensus-builder who has worked with opposition parties to help steer reforms through Parliament that have seen the Netherlands rebound strongly from recession.

Since 2012, his coalition with the center-left Labor Party has had a narrow majority in the lower house of the Dutch Parliament but has constantly sought the support of opposition parties both in the lower house and the Senate for new legislation.

Calmly solving crises and building bridges has become a hallmark of his time in office.

The power of banging your fist on the table, saying this is what were doing, there is where were going, The Dutch prime minister doesnt have that, he said in a wide-ranging television interview last year.

Rutte took over the leadership of the VVD in 2006, beating hard-line former immigration minister Rita Verdonk in a bruising leadership battle. He cemented his position by kicking Verdonk out of the party in 2007 after she criticized him for being silent on the immigration issue.

However, as anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders popularity has grown in recent years, Rutte, too, has shifted to the right on issues of national identity and immigration.

Rutte even enlisted Wilders to support his first minority coalition in 2010, agreeing to a tougher immigration policy in return for Wilders support on crucial votes. Wilders brought down the government just 18 months later when he refused to back a tough austerity package Rutte wanted to push through Parliament to drag the Netherlands out of the economic crisis.

Wilders was punished by voters at the ensuing election, while Rutte returned to power in a coalition with Labor and has now vowed not to work with Wilders after Wednesdays election, accusing him of walking away when the going gets tough.

The emotional deep point of Ruttes second term in office came with the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board, nearly 200 of them Dutch citizens, were killed.

The worst thing I experienced in my time as premier  and my suffering is minimal compared to that of the relatives  was the terrible disaster with flight MH17 and decisions we had to take afterward, he said in the TV interview. Do we send troops or not? Can we get into the region to bring our people home?
On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorists murdered 3,000 innocent civilians on American soil while under the sanctuary of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In response to that attack, U.S. and NATO forces deployed to Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible and ensure that Afghanistan would never again be a haven for terrorists. Since then, more than 2,000 Americans and more than 1,000 troops from our NATO allies have given their lives to that mission.

But after more than a decade-and-a-half of war, Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that the war in Afghanistan is in a stalemate. President Donald Trump and his administration must treat Afghanistan with the same urgency as the fight against the Islamic State, or this stalemate risks sliding into strategic failure.

This month, two simultaneous suicide attacks by the Taliban in Kabul killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 40. In northern Afghanistan, the Taliban overran another district. These setbacks came on the heels of disturbing losses across the country. Nicholson recently confirmed an inspector general report that the Afghan government controls or influences just 57 percent of the countrys districts, down from 72 percent just over a year ago.

Make no mistake: Afghans are fighting ferociously to defend their country from our common enemies. At the same time, we must recognize that the United States is still at war in Afghanistan against the terrorist enemies who attacked our nation on Sept. 11 and their ideological heirs. We must act accordingly.

Unfortunately, in recent years, we have tied the hands of our military in Afghanistan. Instead of trying to win, we have settled for just trying not to lose.

Time and time again, we saw troop withdrawals that seemed to have more to do with U.S. politics than conditions on the ground. The fixation with force management levels in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq and Syria, seemed more about measuring troop counts than measuring success.

Authorities were also tightly restricted. Until last summer, our military was prohibited from targeting the Taliban, except in the most extreme circumstances, taking the pressure off the militants and allowing them to rebuild and reattack. Indeed, while we were fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, authorities in Afghanistan were so restrictive that it took an entire year before U.S. forces were finally given authority to strike the groups fighters in Afghanistan.

While we have settled for a dont lose strategy, the risk to U.S. and Afghan forces has only grown worse as the terrorist threat has intensified.

The Taliban has grown more lethal, expanded its territorial control and inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan forces. And it is reportedly doing so with help from Iran and Russia, who want nothing more than to see the United States fail in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida and the Haqqani network continue to threaten our interests in Afghanistan and beyond.

The Islamic State is trying to carve out another haven from which it can plan and execute attacks.

Moreover, U.S. efforts to confront these terrorist threats are continually frustrated by terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan used to attack across its border and kill U.S. forces. Deteriorating relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan only make this problem more difficult.

Trump has an important opportunity to turn the page, seize the initiative and take the fight to our terrorist enemies. To do this, the United States must align ends, ways and means in Afghanistan.

The U.S. objective in Afghanistan is the same now as it was in 2001: to prevent terrorists from using the countrys territory to attack our homeland.

We seek to achieve this objective by supporting Afghan governance and security institutions as they become capable of standing on their own, defending their country and defeating our common terrorist enemies with less U.S. assistance over time.

Doing this successfully requires the right number of people in the right places with the right authorities and the right capabilities. Our assessment, based on our conversations with commanders on the ground, is that a strategy for success will require additional U.S. and coalition forces and more flexible authorities. It will also require sustained support of the Afghan security forces as they develop key capabilities, especially offensive capabilities such as special operations forces and close air support needed to break the stalemate.

The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for nearly 16 years. Weary as some Americans may be of this long conflict, it is imperative that we see our mission through to success. We have seen what happens when we fail to be vigilant. The threats we face are real. And the stakes are high  not just for the lives of the Afghan people and the stability of the region, but for Americas national security.



McCain, R-Ariz., is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Graham, R-S.C., is a member of the committee.
Once again, Big Bird is on the chopping block, threatened by the loss of federal funds that sustain public broadcasting stations. But the big yellow fella been there before, and survived each time.

Is there any reason to think the outcome will be different this time around?

People in public broadcasting expect President Donald Trump to propose zeroing out the governments subsidy of noncommercial radio and TV stations when he presents his first federal budget to Congress this week. Such a proposal would eliminate the $445 million that Congress now sends to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the private entity that passes the money to nearly 1,500 stations affiliated with NPR, PBS and other public-media sources.

The loss of federal money would be nearly catastrophic, particularly for small stations in remote communities, public broadcasters say. Those stations rely on federal funds for as much as half or more of their annual budgets. A number of those stations would go off the air, said Paula Kerger, PBS president. Its an existential question for many of them.

Stations that survive the cut would have to raise even more money through pledge drives and sponsorships to make up for the loss of dollars from Washington, added Roger LaMay, the chairman of NPRs board and general manager of WXPN-FM in Philadelphia. It would weaken the entire public radio system, he said.

Then again, public broadcasters have been to through the budget wars many times before and have always received the money that helps them broadcast Sesame Street and All Things Considered. In fact, no matter the rhetoric or momentary crisis, CPB has often ended up with a slight increase in its federal funding each year.

Presidents as far back as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan have discussed or proposed zero funding, only to have congressional allies come through to save the day. President George W. Bush proposed zero funding in all eight years of his administration; CPBs appropriation actually grew 14 percent during the Bush years.

Which makes Big Bird more like Dracula; he keeps coming back from the dead.

The CPBs share of the $4 trillion federal budget is microscopic  typically around 0.01 percent. But it has long been a cultural pinata and symbol of government excess for conservatives, whove been critical of the alleged liberal bias of public radio and TV programming.

Among public broadcastings many budget scraps was one in 2005 when Bushs education secretary, Margaret Spellings, complained that an episode of an animated childrens program, Postcards from Buster, had featured two families headed by lesbian parents. She demanded the return of federal funds that had subsidized the program; PBS decided to stop distributing the episode, heading off the impasse.

Public broadcasters expect more goose eggs in Trumps first budget proposal, but theyre optimistic that history will repeat itself when the budget process is completed.

Until we hear from the president, Im hoping for the best, said Patrick Butler, the president of Americas Public Television Stations (APTS), which represents most of the 171 public TV licensees in the country. But were prepared to defend ourselves.

Public broadcasting enjoys wide political support, primarily because public radio and TV stations are spread throughout big communities and small ones in both red and blue states. Over the years, people in public media have argued that many of these communities would lose irreplaceable educational and local news programs without federal support.

They have also mobilized the public at times, such as a 2011 lobbying campaign that brought Big Bird to the halls of Congress (that bit of theater may have been blunted by a 2015 deal between Sesame Streets parent company, Sesame Workshop, and HBO, in which Sesame produces first-run episodes for the pay-TV network; PBS gets the reruns).

The pro-subsidy forces typically have strong Democratic support, but theyre also counting on some powerful Republican allies. They include Senate appropriations committee chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., whose father was chairman of the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Commission in the 1960s, and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees CPB funding.

The House appropriations committee and subcommittee chairmen, Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., have also previously supported CPBs funding.

On the other hand, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., proposed eliminating the funding when he was chairman of the House Budget Committee.

We only need a few Republicans to win the day on either side of the Capitol and we have more than a few of those, said Butler. I hope President Trump will review the record  and realize our funding is a tremendous bargain for the American people. I feel optimistic, but I dont want to get ahead of things.



Video: President Trump promised to slash government spending and taxes, but also made costly promises for military and infrastructure funding. As preliminary budget proposals leak out, some government agencies are very, very worried. (Jenny Starrs, Danielle Kunitz / The Washington Post)

URL:

http://wapo.st/2mv1tRj
Republicans had cause for consternation Monday when Congresss budget referee scored their proposed health-care overhaul. Fourteen million fewer Americans would have health insurance next year if the plan were enacted, according to the analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and that figure would swell to 24 million within a decade. A typical working-class 64-year-old who makes $26,500 annually would pay nearly $13,000 more in premiums every year.

But while the report could set back Republicans efforts to sell their bill to the public, it did make it easier for them to move their measure through the Senate.

Thats because analysts projected that the bill would not increase federal borrowing in the long term  an official deficit-reduction forecast makes it easier for the legislation pass through the Senate without a filibuster from Democrats.

To get around a filibuster, Republicans are using a special congressional procedure known as reconciliation. It is a powerful parliamentary tactic, especially these days, when filibusters in the Senate have become routine and nearly all major legislation requires at least 60 votes  rather than a simple majority  to pass the chamber.

Reconciliation has limitations, though. Specifically, under Congresss parliamentary rules, it cannot be used for legislation that would increase the federal deficit in the long term (after 10 years). The task of projecting how bills advanced through reconciliation would affect the budget in the distant future typically falls to the Congressional Budget Office.

Before Republicans introduced their bill last week, it was clear that their plan would reduce the number of Americans with insurance and cut subsidies that the Affordable Care Act had extended to help many working-class Americans buy their own insurance plans.

Although the Republican bill would clamp down on spending, it also contains massive tax decreases  particularly for health-care companies and high-income households. And so it remained in doubt whether the GOP bill would meet the requirements for reconciliation.

A draft of the bill obtained by Politicos Paul Demko and dated Feb. 10 probably would have increased borrowing, said Avik Roy, a former health-care adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Since then, however, Republican lawmakers revised the legislation, calling for even more severe reductions in Medicaid spending.

But the CBO analysis settled the matter Monday. The bill proposes $883 billion in tax cuts over a decade, but, per the CBO, those will be outweighed by a colossal $1.2 trillion reduction in spending over that time, for a total reduction of $337 billion in the deficit. (The spending cuts generally come out of programs aimed at helping poor and working-class health-care users, while the tax cuts generally benefit businesses and those further up the socioeconomic scale.)

The report did not include detailed estimates for the decades to follow, but stated that the bill was not likely to increase federal borrowing for at least 50 years.

Without the CBOs seal of approval, Republicans would have had several options, none of them especially attractive.

The GOP leadership could have rejected the CBO analysis in favor of some other forecast  perhaps one produced by President Trumps Office of Management and Budget. The director of that agency called the CBO report just absurd on Monday.

Republican leaders in the Senate could have changed the rules of that body, expanding the scope of reconciliation or eliminating the filibuster altogether. These approaches would have involved substantial departures from established congressional protocol, and senior GOP lawmakers have avoided fundamentally changing how the legislative branch operates.

Most likely, Republicans would have been forced to make changes to the bill to balance its effects on the budget, wasting valuable time on the congressional calendar.

Now, Republicans pushing the legislation have a different challenge: selling their fellow lawmakers, and the public, on a measure the CBO said would leave more than 20 million more people without health insurance.

Some moderate Republicans on Monday, including Sen. Susan Collins, Maine, suggested that the projection should push the party to redesign some aspects of the bill.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News Channel on Monday that the CBO report exceeded his hopes.

And in more conservative parts of the party, the big spending cuts could work in the bills favor, including to the small-government Republican lawmakers whose votes the bills proponents will need to advance the measure through the House.

I would expect that the speakers office is pretty happy about that, Roy said. There are conservative holdouts out there, and thats the big battle that Paul Ryans been fighting.
DENVER  A state Senate committee approved a bill Tuesday to modernize Colorados Open Records Act and left intact a Republican amendment to have it apply to the judiciary, which courts have determined is not covered by the act.

That decision by the Appropriations Committee could jeopardize the bills chances of passing. Both the judicial branch and majority House Democrats oppose expanding the act to cover the judicial branch, which has its own rules for public disclosure. They say the amendment complicates a bill designed to expedite records requests, not to change the rules for which types of records can be disclosed.

Democratic Sen. John Kefalas bill would allow citizens to obtain and analyze public documents by requiring state agencies to provide them, with some exceptions, in their original, computer-friendly electronic formats, rather than forcing requesters to pore over paper or PDF documents.

That makes it easier for citizens to search through data, using spreadsheets or other tools to analyze salary information for public workers, budget items and crime statistics.

Some Colorado jurisdictions and agencies already provide electronic data under the open records law. But theyre not required to, meaning records requesters must frequently settle for paper records that are difficult to sort through and, under state law, cost 25 cents per page to copy, plus possible labor costs.

Under the bill, agencies receiving the requests could be exempted when they dont have the technical ability to do so.

More than 15 states and the federal government have made it easier for the public to obtain computerized data.

Kefalas tried to remove the Republican amendment to his bill Tuesday. The GOP-led committee declined and voted 4-3 to refer it to the Senate floor for debate.

The committee recommended that more than $50,000 from the states general fund is needed to pay for a new position to handle the requests and other costs at the Office of the State Public Defender, which would oversee open records requests for the judiciary.

Both state supreme court justices and majority Democrats in the House oppose incorporating the judicial branch under the open records law, citing court rulings to that effect.

The amendment was introduced at an earlier hearing by Republican Sen. Ray Scott of Grand Junction. Scott said he felt it was time to reconsider what is and isnt covered by the act. Backers of Kefalas bill say they only intended to expedite records access under the act.

The intent was never to undermine CORA, Kefalas said Tuesday. The intent has always been to strengthen CORA to make sure that digital data files are made available to the public.

The bill was inspired by a 2015 investigation by The Coloradoan newspaper into pay equity among employees at Colorado State University. CSU refused to provide a computerized database of salaries but told the newspaper it could inspect documents containing nearly 5,000 employee salaries. Reporters spent weeks creating their own database so they could chronicle university salary disparities.
JAKARTA, Indonesia  Indonesias government said Tuesday it will take strong action after a cruise ship destroyed coral reefs in a popular tourist area known for its extensive marine biodiversity.

The 4,200-ton cruise ship M.V. Caledonian Sky entered the waters of Radja Ampat in West Papua province on March 4 after visiting the surrounding islands for bird watching and art performances. When it started to sail to Bitung off Sumatra island, it ran aground on coral reefs, the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs said.

It said the ship then sailed to Bitung without waiting for an assessment of the damage, and is currently in the Philippines.

The ministry described the damage to the reefs as irreparable. A preliminary investigation found that the ship destroyed about 1,600 square meters (17,200 square feet) of coral in the heart of Radja Ampat, an archipelago with more than 1,500 small islands, cays, and shoals known as a center of marine biodiversity.

The destruction of the Radja Ampat coral reefs, which were developed by nature over hundreds of years, occurred in less than one day, the ministry said in a statement. It is simply impossible to restore that part of Radja Ampat. Fish that were normally seen in that particular area are all gone.

Ministry official Arif Havas Oegroseno said a task force has been has been formed to deal with both civil and criminal aspects of the damage.

We are ready to take any possible steps to address the issue, Oegroseno said.

Under Indonesian law, destruction of natural resources such as coral reefs, peatland and forests are criminal acts punishable by three years in jail.
By Press Trust of India: London, Mar 14 (PTI) Scientists have determined the first 3D structures of intact mammalian genomes from individual cells, showing how the DNA from all the chromosomes intricately folds to fit together inside the cell nuclei.

Researchers from University of Cambridge in the UK used a combination of imaging and up to 100,000 measurements of where different parts of the DNA are close to each other to examine the genome in a mouse embryonic stem cell.

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Stem cells are master cells, which can develop - or differentiate - into almost any type of cell within the body.

Most people are familiar with the well-known X shape of chromosomes, but in fact chromosomes only take on this shape when the cell divides.

Using their new approach, the researchers have now been able to determine the structures of active chromosomes inside the cell, and how they interact with each other to form an intact genome.

This is important because knowledge of the way DNA folds inside the cell allows scientists to study how specific genes, and the DNA regions that control them, interact with each other, researchers said.

The genomes structure controls when and how strongly genes - particular regions of the DNA - are switched on or off. This plays a critical role in the development of organisms and also, when it goes awry, in disease.

The structure shows that the genome is arranged such that the most active genetic regions are on the interior and separated in space from the less active regions that associate with the nuclear lamina.

The consistent segregation of these regions, in the same way in every cell, suggests that these processes could drive chromosome and genome folding and thus regulate important cellular events such as DNA replication and cell division.

"Knowing where all the genes and control elements are at a given moment will help us understand the molecular mechanisms that control and maintain their expression," said Professor Ernest Laue, whose group at Cambridges Department of Biochemistry developed the approach.

"In the future, we will be able to study how this changes as stem cells differentiate and how decisions are made in individual developing stem cells," said Laue.

"Until now, we have only been able to look at groups, or populations, of these cells and so have been unable to see individual differences, at least from the outside.

"Currently, these mechanisms are poorly understood and understanding them may be key to realising the potential of stem cells in medicine," Laue said.

"Visualising a genome in 3D at such an unprecedented level of detail is an exciting step forward in research and one that has been many years in the making," said Tom Collins from Wellcome-MRC Stem Cell Institute.

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The research was published in the journal Nature. PTI SAR SAR

--- ENDS ---
LONDON  U.K. diplomats should boost the economy after Brexit by ditching champagne, cava and prosecco in favor of British bubbly at embassy receptions, a lawmaker said Tuesday.

Conservative legislator Nusrat Ghani was seeking to pass a law requiring U.K. diplomatic missions to serve British wines and sparkling wines.

As the country prepares to leave the European Union, she says that it must be imaginative in supporting and promoting British businesses.

What better way, she asked, than to give the world a taste by serving U.K.-produced wine and sparkling wine in our 268 embassies, High Commissions and consulates around the world?

Long derided, English wine is now a growing industry, with more than 5 million bottles produced last year. English sparkling wines have won several awards  and Ghani said English fizz was even mistaken for champagne at a reception in Paris.

Ghani, who represents a southern England wine region, introduced her bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Its scheduled for further debate but is unlikely to become law unless the government decides to support it.
DENVER  Gov. John Hickenlooper is rejecting calls for an independent investigation of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment breath testing protocol amid claims of forgery by a former worker.

KCNC-TV reports (http://cbsloc.al/2nAuU22 ) that former lab worker Mike Barnhill told the station last Friday that his signature was repeatedly forged on documents certifying the accuracy of breath testing machines.

Since Barnhills statement, defense attorneys have asked Hickenlooper to order an independent investigation based on the whistleblowers account.

On Monday, Jacki Cooper Melmed, the governors chief legal counsel, said in a statement that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has conducted a complete investigation of this issue and found no evidence supporting the allegations.

___

Information from: KCEC-TV, http://kcectv.com/
Offering statues as gifts to other nations has long been a subtle way of extending politics into the realm of arts. New Yorks Statue of Liberty, for instance, was funded by France to celebrate freedom and enlightenment.

But a similar gift from China is now putting Germans in a rather awkward position. The influential German trading partner wants to buy the town of Trier a statue of Karl Marx to honor him as one of the co-authors of the Communist Manifesto, a political text written with Friedrich Engels in 1848. Another German town accepted a similar offer two years ago.

To some in Trier, the gift is a welcome expression of Chinese-German partnership. To others, however, the free Karl Marx is a provocation, given that Eastern Germanys own communist experiment resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people who tried to flee from the communist east into the west before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. They also think accepting such a gift from China, which is frequently criticized for violating human rights, would send the wrong message at a time when Western liberalism is under attack by right-wing populists and authoritarian regimes.

The council of Trier accepted the gift Monday evening, paving the way for a permanent bronze statue, erected in the city center ahead of the philosophers birthday 200 years ago in May next year.

It is a decision that is likely to surprise those who witnessed the early days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Across Eastern Europe, statues of communist heroes such as Marx and Vladimir Lenin were toppled during the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. In 2014, during the Ukraine conflict, more than 200 remaining Lenin statues were destroyed within days in an expression of anger toward the Kremlin.

Although Lenin statues have long been hard to find in Germany, a number of Marx monuments continue to surprise visitors in cities such as Berlin and Chemnitz in east Germany. The latter used to be called Karl Marx City until one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when officials decided it was time for Marx to assume a more subtle role.

Chemnitzs Marx statue was not taken down, though, and it has once again become the citys landmark  its head alone being 23 feet tall. In Trier, the Marx monument will probably be much smaller.

City officials refrained from making a final decision on its height Monday evening, probably making it the citys next talking point. Some think that a tall statue standing on a plinth overlooking tourists and city residents would imply Marxs intellectual incontestability, whereas in reality his theories remain contentious in Germany. Critics want the Chinese statue of Marx to be of real-life height so that tourists can confront the communist theorist eye to eye.

Take him down from the plinth, one resident told a German radio station. I like that compromise  [Marx being] on an equal footing [with everyone].
ANCHORAGE, Alaska  Mitch Seavey won his third Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, becoming the fastest and oldest champion at age 57 and helping cement his familys position as mushing royalty.

The Seward, Alaska, musher brought his dogs off the frozen Bering Sea and onto Front Street in the Gold Rush town of Nome after crossing nearly 1,000 miles of Alaska wilderness.

He outran his son, defending champion Dallas Seavey, and lapped the oldest musher record that he set at age 53 in 2013. He previously won the race in 2013 and 2004.

Seavey also set a time record of 8 days, 3 hours, 40 minutes and 13 seconds, the Iditarod said. That shaved several hours off the record his son set last year: 8 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes and 16 seconds.

Sweet was the first thing Mitch Seavey said after getting off the sled at the finish line under the famed burled arch. It was broadcast live statewide.

His wife, Janine, greeted him with a hug. Oh, my gosh, look at what youve just done, she told him. Youve changed the sport.

After talking to his wife, Seavey greeted each of his dogs and thanked them with a frozen snack. He later posed with his two lead dogs, Pilot and Crisp.

They get frustrated when they go too slow, so I just let them roll, which was scary because Ive never gone that fast, that far ever, but thats what they wanted to do, he said.

Seavey said the dogs know only one thing  9 to 10 mph.

They hit their peak, they hit their speed, and thats what they do, Seavey said at the finish line. They trusted me to stop them when they needed to stop and feed them, and I did that, and they gave me all they could.

Seavey picked up $75,000 and the keys to a new pickup truck for winning the worlds most famous sled dog race.

The Seaveys have now won the last six races. Dallas Seavey won four, and his father finished second the last two years. The two are close but competitive.

He and I have such a great relationship, Mitch Seavey said. Theres no malice, we just love running sled dogs. No question.

Dallas Seavey finished in second place, five minutes ahead of France native Nicolas Petit.

The familys ties to the race go back to the first Iditarod, held in 1973, when Mitch Seaveys dad, Dan, mushed in the event. The younger Seavey, who is 30, had wins in 2012 and from 2014 to 2016.

The race started March 6 in Fairbanks, with 71 teams. Five mushers scratched.

Fans lined the finish, clapping and cheering on Seavey. As his team finished the last few blocks of the race, Seavey yelled, Good boys! Hep!

Just before reaching the chute, he got off his sled and ran with the dogs a bit.

Four dogs associated with the race have died this year, including a 4-year-old male named Flash who collapsed on the trail early Tuesday when his musher, Katherine Keith, was about 10 miles outside the checkpoint in Koyuk.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)  This is one cosmically cool sax  and saxophone player.

France's musical astronaut Thomas Pesquet is enjoying a special birthday present delivered to him up at the International Space Station. The saxophone arrived in a SpaceX cargo ship on Feb. 23, and his crewmates kept it hidden until his 39th birthday on Feb. 27.

He revealed the birthday surprise this week via Twitter.

Totally pumped to hear @Thom-astro rock his sax on orbit! Happy belated birthday buddy! future space station crewmate Jack Fischer tweeted Monday. The NASA astronaut is scheduled to blast off next month from Kazakhstan.

You might reconsider when you hear the cacophony. Now ace those final exams and get up here! Pesquet replied Tuesday.

Pesquet has been in orbit since November and has three months remaining in his mission. He's a former pilot for Air France.

This isn't the first time a sax has flown in space. Shuttle astronaut Ronald McNair took one up in 1984, two years before he died aboard the Challenger.

Other out-of-this-world musical instruments: piano keyboard, flute, guitar, bagpipes and even an Australian didgeridoo.

Online:

NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission-pages/station/main/index.html

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
LONG BEACH, Calif.  The Queen Mary is so corroded that its at urgent risk of flooding or collapse, and the price tag for fixing up the 1930s ocean liner could near $300 million, according to a survey done by experts.

It would likely take five years to rehab the ship, a tourist destination docked permanently in Long Beach Harbor south of Los Angeles, according to documents obtained by the Long Beach Press-Telegram (http://bit.ly/2npGoX8 ).

During its heyday, the Queen Mary carried Hollywood celebrities, such as Bob Hope and Elizabeth Taylor, royalty, such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and dignitaries, such as Winston Churchill. It also spent several years ferrying 765,000 Allied troops during World War II, when it was nicknamed the Gray Ghost.

But now, naval architects and marine engineers who compiled the survey warn that the vessel is probably approaching the point of no return.

The hull is severely rusted and certain areas, including the engine room, could be prone to flooding, according to the newspaper report published Monday. And because the bilge system is inoperable, large amounts of water cant be pumped out and could cause the ship to sink to the lagoon floor.

In addition, the pillar supports for a raised floor in an exhibition space are corroded throughout and could face immediate collapse under the weight of just a few people, the survey said.

Roughly 75 percent of the repairs were deemed urgent.

The Queen Mary made Long Beach its permanent home in 1967. Now a floating hotel with shops, restaurants and event spaces, the ship attracts some 1.3 million visitors annually.

City officials said the findings are being discussed with the ships current leaseholder, Urban Commons, and both sides are committed to preserving the historic asset and making sure it can safely remain open to the public. In November, Long Beach approved $23 million to address the ships most urgent repairs, and Urban Commons is working to secure additional funding.

We have a timeline in which the engineers believe they can complete those immediate projects, said John Keisler, economic and property development director. These are major challenges we can only address over time; it cant all be done at once.

The condition has become so dire that politicians in Scotland, where the Queen Mary was built, have called for an international fundraising campaign to restore the former Cunard liner. Theyve urged Prime Minister Theresa May to put pressure on the U.S. government to step in and save their architectural treasure, according to a recent report in Scotlands national newspaper.

___

Information from: Press-Telegram, http://www.presstelegram.com
AMSTERDAM  When Ahmed Marcouch flew 1,400 miles from a small village in northern Morocco to this European capital in 1979, he felt he had not just moved a long distance but also traveled through time.

It was like being in a time machine, like traveling 100 years into the future, he said. Everything was light, even in the streets. There were screens everywhere  in the village there was only one television. And women with all the differences in their hair and their clothes.

Fast forward another 38 years to the present, and Marcouch is a Labour politician fighting for another term in the Dutch parliament, in an election that has become a referendum on his countrys orientation toward immigrants and refugees.

That Geert Wilders, the populist provocateur who has called Moroccans scum and pledged to de-Islamize the Netherlands, is poised to make a strong electoral showing here Wednesday testifies to the depths of anti-immigrant sentiment ascendant not just in the Netherlands but across the West. Wilderss party, the Party for Freedom, is expected to be among the top vote-getters, and its success, even short of putting its leader at the helm of the country, could buoy far-right parties making a bid for power in elections later this year in France and Germany.

Marcouchs path out of Morocco to the streets of the Netherlands, which he patrolled as a police officer before entering parliament in 2010, offers a counterpoint to the story of nationalist uprising in which foreigners feature only as a talking point of the far right. His is a story, shared by many migrants here, about the historic openness of the Netherlands, which first summoned his father as a guest worker but provided little by way of services and protections. An education and a more secure job gave Marcouch a platform to seek more active involvement in Dutch society and lay claim to Dutch identity.

He knows that problems remain, both in the discrimination ethnic minorities still face, especially in the labor market, and the disproportionate share of the crime they commit. But he sees fellow immigrants  whether first-generation or Dutch-born  seizing opportunities unavailable to previous generations. There are structural factors, such as the relatively low level of spatial segregation, that make this easier in the Netherlands than in other European countries, said Hein de Haas, a sociologist at the University of Amsterdam.

This progress, Marcouch said, is also where new forms of resentment originate, especially given the pace of change. To feel like you no longer recognize your surroundings  that can be wrenching, he said, drawing a parallel to his own experience of time travel as a small boy arriving at the Amsterdam airport. The population of the Netherlands grew by more than 110,000 in 2016, driven by a net migration of 88,000, mostly from Syria, according to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics. People with a foreign background now represent 22 percent of the population.

In a way, then, Dutch society is being remade along new ethnic lines. The chairwoman of the Dutch parliament, Khadija Arib, is a Dutch-Morrocan Labour MP. Ahmed Aboutaleb, the mayor of the port city of Rotterdam, is a dual citizen.

We have boys in military positions, we have specialists in the hospitals, we have businessmen, Marcouch said. The majority of Moroccan girls and boys are doing very well. Theyre better at taking positions, at assuming they can belong.

Over the past 15 years, integration  measured by education, employment and language proficiency  has progressed, said Borja Martinovic, a scholar of immigration and intergroup relations at Utrecht University. Immigrants are having more contact with the native population, particularly among the second generation, she said, and it is often in areas with the fewest immigrants that anti-immigrant views are most potent.

When there is integration without full assimilation, Martinovic said, minority groups begin to assert themselves  they want to have their voices heard, they might even want some power in society. This threatens a sense of collective ownership, she said, this sense that we as a dominant group are entitled to run this country, to decide on who comes in and who is left out. If you look at the campaign of Donald Trump or the Brexit campaign, they were all about us taking control of our borders, giving the country back to our people. That seems to have a lot of electoral appeal.

The appeal is not new in the Netherlands, said Gijs de Vries, a former counterterrorism coordinator for the European Union who left the ruling Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy in favor of Democrats 66. These sentiments have existed for a number of years, de Vries said, particularly since two high-profile political murders, in 2002 and 2004, that roiled the country in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

What is new, he said, is the emulation of this discourse by more mainstream parties, pulling prevailing political attitudes to the right. A signal moment came in January when Mark Rutte, the center-right prime minister, published an open letter telling newcomers to behave normally, or go away.

This pivot has opened up space for more minor parties to proclaim an adamantly pro-immigrant message. Not just Labor but also the Greens have taken up this message, as have members of Denk, or think, a renegade party that rails against the establishment, but from the opposite pole of Wilders.

But the Greens appear to be reaping the rewards, with their support surging in the days before the election.

We are among the few parties who say that with 65 million refugees worldwide, of which 95 percent is taken care of in the poorer countries of the world, we should do more instead of less, said Bram van Ojik, a former leader of the Greens who is seeking to return to the House this year. That is not a common position. Most parties say no, we are toward the limit of what we can deal with, and people dont want it. We try to shed light on the other side of the coin.

The position has resonated with two medical students at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Salima Talib and Duygu Talan, both 27. Both were born in the Netherlands to Moroccan-born parents. They were drawn to the Greens because of their health-care plan and because of the charisma of the partys leader, Jesse Klaver, who projects tolerance, they said.

Talib said Wilderss insults do not frighten her. She feels secure in this country, more so, she knows, than did her grandfather, who first came here for work and found little more.

That generation, they were workers. They didnt talk about things, she said. We have a voice. We are well educated. Mr. Wilders is threatened by how well we are participating in our communities.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, sent his now-infamous tweet Sunday about our civilization lacking the power to be restored with someone elses babies at 1:40 p.m. Eastern.

King tweeted: Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO

It took House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., 28 hours to directly comment on it, and then, only when Fox News host Bret Baier asked him.

Ryan is in the middle of a contentious debate on reforming the nations health care. But time delay is just one example of how Ryan and the GOP establishment are struggling with how to handle King, one of the most controversial members of the House of Representatives. King represents a rising element of the Republican Party, one that its leaders would rather not exist.

In his interview Monday night with Baier, Ryan didnt mince words disagreeing with Kings tweet: I dont think that statement reflects what is special about this country, he said. But then Ryan added this: I would like to think  and I havent spoke to Steve about this  I would like to think he misspoke, and it wasnt meant the way it sounds, and I hope hes clarified that.

Actually, Kings tweet was meant exactly the way it sounds. We know this because King said as much on CNN earlier Monday: Of course I meant exactly what I said, as is always the case, King told CNNs Chris Cuomo.

CNN tweeted: Rep. Steve King defends his controversial tweet: Im a champion for Western civilization

The problem with Ryans response  to disagree with Kings statement but give him the benefit of the doubt  is it ignores a basic reality. King is going to be King, a congressman who often uses code words like Western civilization to convey one overarching theme of his world view: that white people are superior to other people.

In that CNN interview, King defended his tweet in part by saying its not about race. But, as a quick Google search reveals, for King, its ALL about race. Pretty much since getting elected in 2002, King has been spouting views of people, their skin colors and cultures that make the Republican Partys establishment cringe.

On the same night King got elected to his redistricted Sioux City-area district, Mitt Romney lost Hispanic voters by nearly a 3-to-1 margin  and the presidential election. Since then, Republican leaders have been working hard to strike a balance between the partys professed colorblindness and the country growing less white.

Kings insistence on talking about white people in the context of their perceived superiority isnt helping. Nor is the fact that some of his views have had an elevated platform in the form of Trumps presidential campaign.

As I wrote in July after King mused on live TV which subgroup other than white people had significantly contributed to civilization:



Its all too easy to connect the dots between him and the person Republicans are on the verge of nominating as their presidential nominee. King said in 2010 that racial profiling is an important law enforcement tool; Trump endorsed broad racial profiling after the Orlando attack, calling it common sense. In 2008, King questioned how a president with the middle name Hussein would play in the war on terror; after Orlando, Trump questioned the presidents commitment to fighting terrorists by seemingly suggesting his loyalties could be compromised.

For all the ways in which Trump has made life difficult for his party, this might be among the most stressful. King sometimes seem to have more in common with Trump than the rest of the party.



And perhaps vice versa  especially during the campaign, Trump sometimes seemed to have more in common with King than the rest of the party.

In June, reporters asked Ryan what he thought of then-candidate Trumps comments that a federal judge couldnt be impartial because of his Mexican heritage. Ryan said it was the textbook definition of racism.

Ryan had endorsed Trump five days earlier. Five months later, he would break up with Trump by refusing to defend him. Ryan never once campaigned with Trump, and at one point during the campaign, he publicly disagreed with Trump on average once a week.

Now, Trump is president. And the Steve Kings of the world continue to say what they say. And there are still no easy answers for members of the Republican Party who would like for the partys narrative on race to very much go in the opposite direction.
SANTA FE  The New Mexico Senate voted decisively Tuesday to override Republican Gov. Susana Martinezs veto of a teacher sick leave bill, as tensions simmered at the Roundhouse amid high-stakes budget negotiations.

The 34-7 vote easily cleared the two-thirds threshold needed to override a gubernatorial veto. It also marked the first time either the House or Senate has voted to override a Martinez veto.

A Martinez spokesman described the vote as the petty action of a bitter Senate, suggesting senators were upset the governor had balked earlier in the day at signing off on a $350 million-plus tax package thats awaiting final approval in the House.

Sen. Craig Brandt of Rio Rancho, also a Republican, led the override effort. He acknowledged the effort was politically perilous, but said it wasnt driven by political motivations.

It was hard to do, but it was the right thing to do, Brandt told reporters after Tuesdays vote. This was about making sure our teachers arent penalized for being out sick.

He also urged House GOP members to follow the lead of Senate Republicans, saying, Weve completed half the journey  hopefully the House will do the other half.

However, a prominent House Republican indicated later Tuesday that his caucus would likely not support any override push. With Democrats holding a 38-32 majority in the chamber, at least some Republican backing would be needed in order to reach the two-thirds minimum.

If a motion to override the governors veto is made in the House, I am very confident that it will fail, House Minority Leader Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque, told the Journal.

If the House does not join the Senate in voting to override the governors veto before the legislative session ends Saturday, the governors veto will stand.

Martinez last week vetoed House Bill 241, sponsored by Brandt and others, which would have allowed teachers to take all their contractual free time  10 days annually in most school districts  without facing a deduction on their evaluations.

Under the current system, educators can be absent from the classroom for three days without penalty but lose points on the fourth unexcused day.

The second-term governor said in her veto message that she understood the desire to help teachers, but the proposal went too far. The attendance component of evaluations, she said, had resulted in a substantial drop in teacher absences, which saves money by decreasing spending on substitute teachers and helps students learn.

In the days following the veto, Brandt and teachers union representatives met with Public Education Department officials to try to strike a compromise.

But those talks ended without a deal, and Brandt, along with Senate leaders, ultimately decided to move forward with the veto override effort.

In the final Senate vote, seven Senate Republicans joined with Brandt in voting in favor of the veto override, while seven other Republicans cast no votes. All 26 Senate Democrats voted yes, while Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque, was not present for the vote.

After the vote, Brandt told reporters he had faced pressure to abandon the veto override push  he wouldnt say from whom  but said he felt compelled to see it through, even though it meant publicly challenging a governor from his own political party.

I doubt if Ill have very many bills signed in the next two years, Brandt added, referring to the fact Martinez has nearly two years left in the four-year term she was elected to in 2014.

Meanwhile, teachers union leaders, who have long clashed with the Martinez administration over education policies, were quick to trumpet the Senates action.

In a strongly bipartisan manner, New Mexico senators recognized HB 241 is good policy for our public educators, our schools, and our students, said Stephanie Ly, the president of the American Federation of Teachers-New Mexico.
WASHINGTON  The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times EDT):

8:35 p.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump made more than $150 million in income in 2005 and paid $38 million in income taxes that year.

The acknowledgement comes as MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says she has obtained part of Trumps 2005 tax forms.

The White House is pushing back pre-emptively, saying that publishing those returns would be illegal.

It says, You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago.

The White House adds that it is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns and is bashing the dishonest media.

Trump refused to release his tax returns during the campaign, claiming he was under audit.

__

7:35 p.m.

Labor secretary nominee Alexander Acosta has a Democratic supporter in the Senate.

A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson says the Florida lawmaker will vote to confirm Acosta, who was born in Miami.

Nelsons support for Republican President Donald Trumps choice is notable because Trumps original pick for the post couldnt get support from enough Republicans to be confirmed. Fast food CEO Andrew Puzder withdrew from consideration after criticism over his personal and professional life.

Acostas Senate hearing is March 22. He is the dean of the Florida International University law school.

Nelsons support for Acosta was first reported by the Miami Herald.

___

5:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump will travel to Michigan Wednesday, where he is expected to roll back federal fuel-economy requirements that would have forced automakers to significantly increase the efficiency of cars and trucks built in the next decade.

The fuel-economy standards were a key part of former President Barack Obamas strategy to combat global warming.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt are expected to join Trump on the visit to Ypsilanti, Michigan, a Detroit suburb.

Automakers asked Pruitt to discard a decision by the Obama administration requiring cars to average a real-world figure of 36 miles per gallon in model years 2022 to 2025. The automakers said the rule could add thousands of dollars to the price of new cars and cost thousands of jobs.

___

3:55 p.m.

The federal agency that oversees health insurance programs for tens of millions of American consumers has a new leader.

Vice President Mike Pence has sworn in Seema Verma as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The $1 trillion agency oversees health insurance programs for everyone from nursing home residents to newborns.

Verma is taking over the agency as a Republican health care bill moving through the House thats backed by President Donald Trump has reopened the debate over the governments role in health care.

Verma is an Indiana health care consultant and protege of Pence, who is a former Indiana governor.

The Senate confirmed her nomination Monday by a vote of 55-43, largely along party lines.

___

3:05 p.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump is extremely confident that the Justice Department will produce evidence backing up his claim that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election.

The comments from spokesman Sean Spicer come one day after the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to produce that evidence. The House intelligence committee gave the department until March 20, the first day of its hearings on Russias interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump advisers and Russians.

Spicer says the president is confident that information yet to be released will vindicate him.

Earlier this month, Trump accused President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower during the campaign. Obama has denied the explosive allegations and there has been no evidence backing up Trumps claims.

__

1:35 p.m.

President Donald Trump is sitting down for lunch with Saudi Arabias second-in-line to the throne at the White House.

Trump shook hands with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the State Dining Room before joining several White House and Saudi officials for lunch.

The Saudi royal is the highest-level visit to Washington since Novembers presidential election. The prince is leading the kingdoms economic overhaul to become less dependent on oil.

Trump is expected to spend the rest of the day focused on the Republican health care overhaul. Hell be speaking by phone with Health Secretary Tom Price, Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish and two Republican lawmakers: House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

__

1 p.m.

President Trump is meeting with the Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.

The pair met in the Oval Office Tuesday before a scheduled lunch.

The prince is Saudi Arabias second-in-line to the throne and his trip marks the highest-level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal since Novembers presidential election.

The prince is currently spearheading an economic overhaul aimed at helping the country become less dependent on oil as well as investments in U.S. technology firms.

He is also his countrys minister of defense.

The president had originally been scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, but that visit has been pushed back to Friday because of the snow.
Vidya Balan had a weird experience at the Kolkata airport recently, an incident that left her livid with a man.

By India Today Web Desk: Vidya Balan had an apt response for a man who misbehaved with her at the Kolkata airport recently. The actor, who is currently busy promoting her upcoming film Begum Jaan, was at the airport when a man asked her if she could click a selfie with her.

Till this point, everything was fine, says a report in Spotboye.com. When Vidya agreed to the selfie, she realised the man had put his arm around her. She objected to it, saying, "Don't." The man took off his arm but put it back around her again before clicking the photo.

advertisement

This is when Vidya lost it. The Kahaani actor screamed, "What do you think you're doing?", says the report.

To this, the man pressed for a selfie yet again. An angry Vidya responded, "No, you can't! Behave yourself."

When the website spoke to Vidya about this, she said, "When a stranger puts an arm around you, be it a man or a woman you get uncomfortable because they are intruding into your personal space. We are public figures, not public property."

The actor was in the West Bengal capital with her Begum Jaan director Srijit Mukherji and producer Mahesh Bhatt.

ALSO READ: Vidya speaks about working with Rajinikanth in his next film, says they will know in a while

ALSO SEE: Vidya looks intriguing as madam of a brothel in first poster of Begum Jaan

ALSO WATCH: Vidya Balan's Kahaani 2 - Movie Review

--- ENDS ---
A proposal to block New Mexico cities and counties from adopting certain kinds of local labor ordinances stalled late Monday in a Senate committee.

A motion to advance the legislation, Senate Bill 415, out of the Senate Judiciary Committee failed on a 4-5 vote, meaning its likely dead for the 60-day session that ends this weekend.

The measure would apply to local government ordinances regulating employee scheduling, benefits and paid and unpaid leave.

Business groups and other supporters argued that a proliferation of different local ordinances could make the state a regulatory patchwork of sorts.

We need continuity when we do business around the state, said Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup, the bills sponsor.

But critics, including various nonprofit groups, called the legislation an attack on the authority of cities and counties to pass their own ordinances.

 Dan Boyd, dboyd@abqjournal.com

VETOES: Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed a pair of bills and signed two more on Tuesday.

She rejected a bill that would have allowed a unit of computer science to count toward a high-school students math requirement and a proposal to require county treasurers to be notified about the creation of tax diversion districts.

Each bill had passed the Legislature with broad bipartisan majorities. Martinez didnt explain her vetoes.

Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, said the public deserves an explanation. The computer science proposal, he said, had support from unions, business groups and state education administrators.

I want to know why, he said. Everyone supported this legislation.

Martinez also signed two bills  one to provide more flexibility for race tracks that are combined with casinos and another bill that allows medium-size cities and counties to restrict early-morning liquor sales.

 Dan McKay, dmckay@abqjournal.com

CAMPAIGN FIXES: Two bills dealing with New Mexico campaign spending are headed to Gov. Susana Martinezs desk, after winning final approval Tuesday in the Senate.

One of the measures, Senate Bill 96, would increase disclosure requirements on dark money groups and modernize definitions in the states Campaign Reporting Act.

It would also double the cap on campaign contributions for legislative candidates  from $2,500 per election cycle to $5,000 per cycle.

Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, one of the bills sponsors, described the increase as necessary in order for legislative candidates to combat the unchecked fundraising ability of independent expenditure groups, or Super PACs.

The other bill, Senate Bill 97, is also sponsored by Wirth. Its aimed at clarifying appropriate uses of public campaign funds for candidates who qualify to receive them.

 Dan Boyd

PREGNANT: The state House agreed Tuesday to send over to the Senate a bill that would prohibit employment discrimination against pregnant workers.

House Bill 179 also requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant women.

It passed on a 51-14 vote  picking up some bipartisan support  and how heads to the Senate with just four days left in the session.

Three Democratic representatives are sponsoring the proposed Pregnant Worker Accommodation Act: Gail Chasey and Deborah Armstrong of Albuquerque and Joanne Ferrary of Las Cruces.

 Dan McKay

GUNS: The proposal to require backgrounds on firearm sales arranged online or at guns shows is alive, but just barely.

The House Judiciary Committee narrowly agreed to revive House Bill 548 on Tuesday morning, but without making a recommendation on whether it should be passed.

The proposal will be referred to another committee, House Consumer and Public Affairs, which doesnt have a hearing scheduled later this week.

The session, of course, ends at noon Saturday. The bill dies if it isnt acted on by then.

 Dan McKay

LOTTERY: A House committee on Tuesday endorsed a proposal to lift the requirement that at least 30 percent of the revenue generated by the New Mexico Lottery go into a scholarship fund for students.

The bill has already passed the Senate, and its now headed to the House floor.

Supporters say the extra flexibility would allow the lottery to make changes that attract more players, which would, in turn, boost the amount of money going to scholarships.

Opponents said theres no guarantee of increased revenue, among other concerns.

Senate Bill 192 is sponsored by Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming. It cleared the House Appropriations and Finance Committee on a 10-3 vote.

 Dan McKay
Congressman Steve Pearce plans to hold a town hall in Las Cruces on Saturday.

The Republican representative for New Mexicos sprawling second district held a rowdy town hall in Ruidoso attended by nearly 300 people earlier this month  the first since the election of President Donald Trump in November. Last weekend, he held a second event in Hobbs.

Republicans nationwide have faced large crowds at town halls, many voicing concerns about the fate of health care.

Democrats in Las Cruces staged a fake town hall at Pearces office last month, asking the congressman to come to town.

Im fortunate to represent a district that is so passionate and engaged in issues that affect the livelihoods of themselves, their families and that of New Mexico, Pearce said in a statement on Tuesday.

Districts across the nation are facing a difficult political climate right now, which is why I have invited leadership from Indivisible Groups of Southern New Mexico to co-host this town hall with me, he said, referring to a progressive movement that is employing tactics akin to the Tea Party to rally the Democratic base.

The town hall scheduled for noon Saturday at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum will be Pearces third in-person town hall this month.

The second congressional district is the fifth-largest in the nation, spanning from Silver City to Hobbs, Socorro to Las Cruces and the length of the states border with Mexico.

In Ruidoso, concerns about the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, plans for public lands and education policy dominated the two-hour event.

I enjoy having a direct yet respectful conversation about the priorities of New Mexico, and I look forward to doing so this weekend in Las Cruces, Pearce said.
Every Bachelor season finale is its own special kind of cringeworthy TV  its only natural for a show in which two people who barely know each other get engaged on national television. Monday nights episode was no exception, as the franchises live after-show, After the Final Rose, really cranked up the awkwardness.

Viewers had just watched Bachelor star Nick Viall, a 36-year-old software salesman from Wisconsin, propose to Vanessa Grimaldi, a 29-year-old special education teacher from Canada. The runner-up was Raven Gates, a 25-year-old fashion boutique owner from Arkansas. It was an interesting decision, considering Vanessa frequently expressed her doubts about the relationship, while Raven eagerly claimed she was ready for marriage.

Anyway, as is tradition on After the Final Rose, the winners, Nick and Vanessa, sat down for interviews with host Chris Harrison and tried to show the world they were a happy couple. How did it go? Here, well let Twitter chime in:

Nick and Vanessa could not look more uncomfortable and unhappy if they tried

This is brutal. Nick and Vanessa sound like a couple who grew to despise each other over the last 25 years

Call me a psych major, call me a skeptic, but Nick and Vanessa look absolutely miserable together

 and many more. What went so awry? Essentially, the episode played out like an uncomfortable therapy session. First, Harrison brought out Nick by himself, who uttered an unconvincing assurance that he was very happy and everythings good. Then, Vanessa got a solo interview, and Harrison grilled her about the relationship. Vanessa echoed Nick: Its been good, she sighed.

Has it? Harrison asked suspiciously, noting her hesitance. As you take a deep breath?

I mean, you know, Im not going to sugarcoat things, she admitted. Some days are tougher than others. Like any relationship, Im sure people here could understand that and relate to it. Ours is just televised.

Translation: Not so good! Vanessa quickly got reflective as she told Harrison that she wished she had seen an entire season of the show before signing up so she would know what she was getting herself into. (Pro tip: Before you sign up for a reality show, watch an entire season.)

I think I treated this relationship as if it was a real relationship in a very unrealistic world, Vanessa said. There were moments where I had to understand Nick the bachelor and Nick the guy that I was dating and the individual relationship that I had going with him. So, it was hard sometimes to separate the two.

Vanessa went on to say that the distance was also tough; until now, shes been living in Canada while Nick was in Los Angeles prepping to go on Dancing With the Stars. Plus, Nick, who was the runner-up on two previous Bachelorette seasons, felt guilty over breaking up with Raven. There have been moments where I wanted him to be a little bit more empathetic toward my feelings, Vanessa added. Weve had our challenges with that.

Harrison also got Vanessa to admit that they have had some knockdown, drag out fights. (Because you are both so open and honest, he clarified.) Vanessa agreed. But at the end of the day, we love each other, and even when things get hard, were both willing to make it work. Were not going to call it quits because things get difficult, Vanessa said.

Time to bring out Nick! The two cuddled up next to each other and it was  awkward. Were they truly unhappy? Or was it just exhaustion coupled with a very surreal situation? Either way, the Twitter memes started in earnest as they both looked like they would rather be anywhere else: is it just me or do Vanessa and Nick look like they already hate each other?

Harrisons interview veered into therapy session territory again. How scared were you? he asked Nick. And are you still a little scared about things working out, just because youve been down this road before? (Nick also appeared on Bachelor in Paradise last summer, making this his fourth appearance on the franchise.)

Ive always been a realist, and even as the bachelor, I was a realist. Thats why you saw me have some of those fears and emotional moments, Nick said. As Vanessa mentioned, theres been those moments, weve had our struggles. But were good communicators and we talk.  I think were still looking forward to having that first normal moment.

Harrison pointed out that Bachelor viewers on social media have very high expectations. Its tough in the real world, he said. Now you guys are really fighting for this and really trying to make it happen. So, Im sure you guys are feeling that pressure that every couple goes through.

There was a long pause. Yeah, Vanessa ventured. Like I said, our relationship is televised  but at the end of the day, like, we know what we have, and we dont really have to prove anything to anyone.

Have you guys been able to kind of insulate yourselves, and will you be able to continue to do that? Harrison pressed.

All weve done is insulate ourselves! Nick shot back, a bit desperately, as there was uncomfortable laughter from the studio audience. I think were looking to kind of, you know, get out there  were just really looking forward to any type of normalcy.

After Harrison urged Vanessa to reveal her biggest fear (spoiler: Its the relationship not working out), he asked the $1 million question: Are you guys going to get married?

Were taking baby steps, Vanessa replied smoothly. Were still in the process of really getting to know each other. We still have things to figure out, but were very optimistic about what the future holds.

Finally, Harrison brought up one possible point of tension: That Nick is going on Dancing With the Stars, which means hell be in Los Angeles for weeks, and puts even more pressure on the couple. In addition, people will judge Nick for yet another reality show appearance.

Vanessa did not look pleased with his comment. I feel like in this world, you choose door A, people will still say something. You choose door B people will still say something, she said. Im excited for this chapter in our life that were starting together. Its not like hes done Dancing four times.

Thats true. Good point  you cannot please everybody, Harrison agreed. He turned to Nick. I asked her this, and Ill ask you the same of you. Do you feel like youre a team? Do you feel like shes got your back, and vice versa?

Absolutely, Nick said. There was a stretch of silence as Harrison waited for him to follow-up  but he didnt say anything else.

The show then moved to a surprise segment, as producers brought out new bachelorette Rachel Lindsay, as well as the first group of men who will compete for her love this summer. Immediately, people speculated that it was a planned distraction:

I like how theyre starting #TheBachelorette right now to take away the spotlight from how unhappy Nick and Vanessa are

Good move, ABC. Move on from the awkward Nick/Vanessa struggle and onto better things with Rachel!!
On the same day that Paul Ryan was on his heels from the Congressional Budget Offices brutal assessment of the Republican health-care plan, Breitbart.com launched a missile at the speaker of the House. Under the headline Audio Emerges of When Paul Ryan Abandoned Donald Trump, the site released a tape of Ryan on a conference call with other Republican members of Congress, recorded just after the release of the video of Trump bragging about sexual assault.

On the call, Ryan says: I am not going to defend Donald Trump  not now, not in the future.

Which isnt a shock, because that was the reaction of many Republicans at the time. Whats much more interesting is what this says about the battle going on right now within the Republican Party.

Breitbart, the former fiefdom of Stephen K. Bannon and platform for the alt-right, has become one of the most influential media outlets for conservatives. And it hates, hates, hates Paul Ryan. The site features articles with titles like Paul Ryan Betrays America and Hes With Her: Inside Paul Ryans Months-Long Campaign to Elect Hillary Clinton President. Breitbart has also been intensely critical of this health-care plan.

But its not just Breitbart: Many conservative groups are also coming out against the GOP plan, as The Posts David Weigel reports:



Ryancare leaves the fundamental architecture of Obamacare in place, Heritage Action chief executive Michael Needham said on an afternoon call with reporters. Needham was referring to the bill with the name of one of its biggest backers, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan. We have one chance right now to pass a bill on a 51-vote Republican threshold. We can either use that to repeal Obamacare or not.

Needham was among the conservative leaders invited to meet with Trump at the White House last week, a sit-down that the presidents social-media team promoted as a step toward calming the AHCAs opposition.

But none of the groups present at the meeting  including Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots and the Club for Growth  have backed off their campaign to stop the bill and demand a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have been activating their grass-roots membership to lobby individual members of Congress; Heritage Action, Needham said, was ringing alarms for its 19,000 Sentinels.



Youll notice that even though the GOP bill has the full support of the Trump White House, the conservatives are calling it Ryancare as a way of tarring him with what they think will eventually be seen as a failure. The contrast with how liberal Democrats acted while the Affordable Care Act was being debated is striking. Some of the provisions they wanted, like a public option and a Medicare buy-in for those over 50, were dropped along the way to keep the bill alive. But as angry as liberals were about those compromises, they never threatened to sabotage the entire bill. Their position remained that while they were less than happy about precisely how things had turned out, the ACA was still a vast improvement on the status quo, and it might be the only chance Democrats would have to pass meaningful reform for who knows how long.

Why is it that key players on the right like Breitbart, Heritage Action and the House Freedom Caucus (the most conservative members of Congress) arent following the same course? Perhaps because they were created or came of age at a particular moment  during the Obama years  and adopted a political style suited to that moment, which they arent changing. Some of these actors may explicitly associate with the tea party while others dont, but they all incorporate at least part of that tea party ethos, which defines itself in opposition to power. They dont view themselves as people with specific practical goals who are willing to negotiate and perhaps compromise to reach those goals  thats for the corrupt insiders. Instead, theyre heroic revolutionaries, rousing the rabble and terrifying the establishment.

Which was an effective stance when Democrats held the White House. Now, however, if youre going to shake your fist at the powerful, it means youre taking on your fellow Republicans. They arent going to go after President Trump, since hes in many ways the apotheosis of everything they embraced and stood for. So its natural to take on the other locus of power in Washington: Congress. And that means Ryan, and eventually also Mitch McConnell (who has been laying awfully low in the past few months).

Even if conservatives can make a substantive case that Ryans health-care bill is Obamacare lite and criticize it for not being cruel enough to the poor, ideology is really incidental to this conflict. Its true heart lies in the fact that the tea-party right has no purpose or identity if its not fighting the power.

Were probably going to see this dynamic repeat itself again and again as Republicans bring up major legislative initiatives. After health care itll be cutting taxes, relieving Wall Street of the burden of government oversight, undermining abortion rights, and down the list of conservative priorities. Every time Ryan comes up with a plan, those on the fist-shaking right will call it a spineless establishment betrayal of conservatism  not because it isnt actually conservative but because thats the only way theyre comfortable engaging the debate. They need an enemy to rebel against, and for now, Paul Ryan is it.
PHOENIX  A woman suspected of being the so-called SOS Bandit who robbed four banks in the Phoenix metro area since January has been arrested.

FBI officials announced Tuesday that 46-year-old Cornetta Newton was taken into custody on March 7 after an attempted bank robbery in Scottsdale.

They say Newton is facing charges in connection with four bank robberies between Jan. 30 and Feb. 16 in Scottsdale, Chandler and Tempe in addition to being charged with the attempted bank robbery in Scottsdale.

The robber was called the SOS Bandit because she worn slip-on shoes during most of the heists.

It was unclear Tuesday if Newton has a lawyer yet.
For more than a decade, Sen. James M. Inhofe has raged against the scientific consensus that humans are fueling climate change, calling it the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on Americans. The Oklahoma Republican has blasted the Environmental Protection Agency as an activist organization that has unfairly burdened everyone from farmers to fossil-fuel companies.

Now the man critics once dismissed as a political outlier has an unprecedented opportunity to shape the nations energy and environmental policies. And he has helped populate the upper ranks of the agency he has derided with several of his closest confidants.

At least half a dozen former aides to Inhofe  and counting  have been hired into top positions at the EPA and the White House. The chief of staff and deputy chief of staff to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a fellow Oklahoman and longtime friend of Inhofe, spent years working for the senator. Pruitts senior advisers on air, climate and legal issues are Inhofe alumni. In addition, two former Inhofe aides have become top domestic and international energy and environmental advisers to President Trump.

It gives me a level of comfort to know that we have a bureaucracy thats actually going to be serving instead of ruling, Inhofe said in an interview this week, describing his former staffers as qualified professionals who will protect the environment. They are going to be very realistic. Theyre going to do it in a way that will not be punitive. The previous administration was almost looking for ways to punish people.

Comforting is not how many of Inhofes longtime opponents would describe the changes.

Inhofe was like the original climate-denier in chief. He was one of the first people spouting this gibberish  fact-free but dangerous gibberish, said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. Now he and his cronies have far more reach and are far more dangerous than theyve ever been. . . . Thats good news for the polluters but horrible news for public health.

Inhofe, 82, has been in the Senate since 1994 and has served as the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for 12 out of the past 14 years. For much of that time, he has been one of the nations most powerful climate-change skeptics, even writing a book in 2012 attacking the science around global warming, which most of the world has accepted as a serious and urgent threat.

His most high-profile assault on climate science  one President Barack Obama mocked multiple times  came on a cold day in February 2015, when he stood on the Senate floor, fresh snowball in hand, to suggest that Earth couldnt be warming in any dangerous way, given the winter weather outside.

Ryan Jackson, Inhofes former chief of staff, helps account for part of why so many of the senators aides are now helping guide the administrations policymaking. Jackson, who helped shepherd Pruitts nomination, then became the administrators chief of staff and started tapping his former colleagues for top agency posts.

While nearly every federal department has been undergoing major changes since Trump took office in January, few have seen as rapid and dramatic a shift as the EPA. It has already scrapped a request for data about methane emissions that could have paved the way for tighter restrictions on more than 15,000 U.S. oil and gas firms, and Trump has directed the agency to roll back a rule designed to protect 60 percent of the nations water bodies.

On Wednesday, Pruitt is set to announce plans to revisit fuel standards the Obama administration set for cars and light trucks that will be built five years from now. And his staff is preparing to unwind the centerpiece of Obamas effort to combat climate change  the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants.

To carry out the changes Trump has promised, namely setting the EPA on a more minimalist course that will constrain federal authority over the environment, the new administration has recruited a group of conservative stalwarts who have spent years working to advance Inhofes objectives. At times, some of them have worked directly for the mining, oil and utility companies that they are now charged with regulating.

The Inhofe brigade has landed, secured the beach and is moving inland with precision as well as speed, said Stephen Brown, vice president for government affairs at Tesoro, a major oil refiner.

What exactly will that invasion look like?

Those behind it are, for the most part, not nearly as colorful or outspoken as their former boss, even as they share many of his views and objectives.

Congressional aides of both parties described Jackson as one of the most soft-spoken managers on Capitol Hill. Amanda Gunasekara, who will advise the EPA administrator on air and climate issues, had been working for Inhofe less than a month when he asked her to hand him a snowball on the Senate floor two years ago to prove that global warming had not snuffed out winter altogether. Andrew Wheeler, a front-runner to serve as Pruitts No. 2, served the senator for 14 years before going on to lobby for the coal giant Murray Energy, Xcel Energy and the Nuclear Energy Institute. A few former Inhofe aides  Wheeler, as well as George Sugiyama and Michael Catanzaro, who is now in the White House  have worked at the EPA before.

Inhofe and his aides have shown legislative savvy. Even as the senator decried the Obama administrations work on carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, mercury pollution and smog as burdensome for business and possibly illegal, Inhofe and his staff struck major deals on bipartisan issues including chemical safety, transportation and water infrastructure.

Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton & Williams, said the combination of Republicans electoral success last year and the Obama administrations aggressive use of executive authority has given conservatives a rare opening.

Its a real confluence of there being a philosophical alignment between Sen. Inhofe and the administration, the Republicans holding both branches of government and there being, for lack of a better word, opportunity created by the prior overreach, said Stanko, whose clients include Koch Industries, Southern Co. and the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.

Opponents see the Trump administration and the influx of Inhofe staffers to the EPA as the early steps in the dismantling of crucial regulations Obama put in place to combat climate change.

The EPA was a staunch defender of the environment and supporter of climate action under the Obama administration, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who has been accused by Inhofe of manipulating climate data, a charge he has vehemently rejected. It is now instead being wielded by the fossil-fuel interests who are running the Trump administration as just another weapon in their war on environmental protection and climate action.

Trump wasnt Inhofes first, or even second, choice for president last year. Initially Inhofe endorsed his Senate colleague Marco Rubio (Fla.) in the GOP primary, then, after he dropped out, Ohio Gov. John Kasich. But Inhofe then pivoted to Trump and began forging ties with the campaign through his friend and fellow senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., advising Trump on defense and regulatory issues.

The dominance of Inhofes staffers reflects not just an ideological shift but the fact that even an administration of outsiders needs some insiders to help run the place. Inhofe remains extremely close with his former aides, whom he teasingly calls has-beens.

Pruitt, like Inhofe, is determined to transfer some of the power his agency has amassed to the states. Earlier this month, a Wall Street Journal columnist described Pruitt, in a nod to the constitutional bent of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, as an EPA originalist. Privately, according to aides, the administrator relished the moniker. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sued the agency he now heads numerous times, often making the argument that the Obama administration had overstepped its legal authority.

Pruitt, who caused an uproar last week in a CNBC interview when he questioned whether carbon-dioxide emissions are the primary driver of climate change, has made it clear he plans to focus the agency on more-traditional pollutants. His goals include minimizing lead exposure from drinking water  an issue on which Inhofe joined forces last year with then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., despite opposition from House Republicans  and cleaning up contamination in Superfund and contaminated industrial sites.

Finally, we have someone in there thats not going to be harassing the public with punitive regulations, Inhofe said of Pruitt and his former staffers. What I want them to do is to do what they are supposed to be doing  be concerned about the environment, the water, the air. . . . Id like to see an EPA there to actually serve people and make life better for them.

While it will take months to finalize the EPAs budget for the coming fiscal year, the White House is contemplating significant reductions that could complicate Pruitts task and gut the agency. Two people briefed on the matter said the EPA budget proposal could be as low as $5.6 billion, down from the most recently enacted budget of $8.1 billion, a roughly 30 percent cut. Deep cuts could prompt unrest among employees, many of whom remain skeptical of the new administration and its motives, and eliminate staffers Pruitt and his senior advisers would need to accomplish their priorities.

Those include not just redoing Obama-era rules but possibly reexamining the way the EPA conducts its scientific assessment of health risks and other factors that underpin the regulations it issues.

When I talk to people on the left, they are both happy that all these Inhofe people are there but also simultaneously scared, said Dimitri Karakitsos, who left his post as Inhofes senior committee counsel in October to join the firm Holland & Knight as a partner.

They are relieved, he said, because the new appointees have shown a willingness to broker compromises on thorny issues. But, Karakitsos added, the reason why I think they are scared is because its a really smart thoughtful group thats over there, one that is not going to put out rules on a whim that are easily undone.

A Senate Democratic aide who has worked with many of the former Inhofe staffers agreed. These are folks who are very capable. They know the agency and its programs, said the staffer, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly. Theyre smart and hard-working, and they certainly could dismantle the programs if they were asked to do that. But the question is how they will react if theyre asked to do that.
SAN ANTONIO  A former guard at a private immigrant detention center in San Antonio has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detainee.

Barbara Jean Goodwin worked at the Central Texas Detention Facility, which The GEO Group operates near downtown San Antonio for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The 35-year-old woman entered her plea Tuesday before a federal magistrate in San Antonio. She could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for having sex with a federal inmate between February and August 2016.

Goodwin is scheduled to be sentenced June 12.
PREWITT  The man suspected of gunning down a tribal police officer on the Navajo Nation was found hiding on a ridge not far from his rural home in western New Mexico, according to local authorities.

The McKinley County Sheriffs Office in a report obtained by the Navajo Times identified the suspect as Kirby Cleveland. He is in federal custody, but no charges have been filed.

The FBI has not commented on the suspect and its ongoing investigation.

The sheriffs office was among the law enforcement agencies that responded early Sunday when Navajo Nation Officer Houston James Largo, 27, was shot on a county road after stopping a vehicle north of the community of Prewitt. Tribal authorities have said Largo was responding to the area in reference to a domestic violence call.

Authorities have yet to say what might have prompted the shooting.

Sheriffs deputies reported that Largo was found lying about 50 yards from the vehicle with his duty pistol by his feet. He had been shot twice. His bullet-proof vest stopped one shot to his abdomen, but he suffered a gunshot wound to the forehead.

Largo was flown to an Albuquerque hospital, where he died later Sunday.

According to the sheriffs office, a woman who came upon the scene used Largos radio to call for help.

When deputies arrived, the driver of the pickup truck that Largo had stopped was handcuffed to the steering wheel and the vehicles keys were found in the trucks bed. The driver provided information to authorities about the suspect, including where he lived, but no one was at the home.

Authorities learned of a cave about one-third of a mile away, so deputies and Navajo police searched the area once day broke and found Cleveland hiding on a ridge west of the cave.

Largo had been with the Navajo police force for nearly five years. He also was a volunteer firefighter for McKinley County.

Family and friends told Albuquerque television station KOAT that Largo was passionate about his job and had dedicated his life to helping others.

Largo and two colleagues were recognized last year for their heroics during a 2015 domestic dispute that prompted a police pursuit, and ended with one Navajo officer being killed and two others wounded. Largo and another officer worked to save the life of one of their own during the gunfight.

Funeral services were pending for Largo, who was from Thoreau, just west of where Sundays shooting occurred. He is survived by his mother, sister and two brothers.
WASHINGTON  A D.C. Superior Court judge overseeing the cases of more than 200 protesters arrested during the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump said Tuesday that prosecutors must begin informing each defendant of the precise allegations against them  and how the government intends to prove each persons involvement in the chaotic riots.

During an arraignment in D.C. Superior Court for 16 people charged with felony rioting, Judge Lynn Leibovitz told prosecutors she expected each defendant and their attorney will be provided with detailed evidence. Though the government has alleged some specific crimes, it so far has largely lumped the protesters together as a group.

I want you to provide each video and how the government identifies each defendant and point to where that defendant is being identified, Leibovitz told Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff. The judge said the prosecution should begin handing over that evidence by next month.

Kerkhoff said prosecutors were uploading multiple hours of police body camera footage of the riots. Leibovitz reiterated that defense attorneys need specific information on their clients alleged roles by any means necessary.

Last month, prosecutors indicted 214 people on felony rioting charges. One of those people also was charged with assaulting police officers. Others were linked to specific damage, including the torching of a limousine and smashed windows at a McDonalds restaurant and a Starbucks coffee shop. Six police officers were also injured.

In coming weeks, dozens of those indicted will appear in court for their arraignments.

Leibovitz has not set a trial date, but did schedule hearings for April.

In court Tuesday, 16 defendants  sitting in the jury box  pleaded not guilty. Several of those charged asked if they could waive their appearance at their next court hearing because they live far from the District, including in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Vermont, and traveling to Washington is challenging.

Leibovitz denied their request and ordered each defendant to return for all hearings. You are charged with a serious offense, a felony, and it is important that you are here for all proceedings, she said.

Identifying and proving each defendants purported role in the riots, defense attorneys have long argued, will be a challenge for the prosecution. Many of the protesters were wearing masks or scarves over their faces.

According to the indictment, some protesters were armed with hammers, crowbars, bricks, rocks, flares and firecrackers. The group, prosecutors said in the indictment, cheered and celebrated the violence and destruction.

One attorney, Patrice Sulton, repeatedly requested that the judge require prosecutors to share evidence on behalf of her client. It is physically impossible for every person charged to have engaged in all of the wrongdoing alleged in the indictment, Sulton said.

Of the 231 people arrested during the inauguration, 214 have been indicted. Prosecutors dropped charges against 16 people, including some journalists. Felony rioting carries a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
ad:tech, Worlds largest digital marketing event successfully concluded its 7th edition of Digital Marketing & Advertising Conference & Exhibition in India which was held at The Leela Ambience Hotel, Gurgaon. ad:tech 2017 delivered two action packed days with keynotes from industry veterans and enlighting sessions for the adverting marketing community. The event witnessed a footfall of more than 6500 registrations which included exhibitors, marketers, and industry leaders among others with more than 100 companies and an Innovation Zone with the latest disruptive technology in digital marketing.

The second day of the action packed digital marketing event saw keynote from Gautam Sinha, Times Internet on Re-inventing digital engagement followed by Rob Norman, GroupM who engaged the audience with a dynamic session on Facebook and Google duopoly and the challengers to that. These introductory keynotes were followed by spotlight sessions on topics like Ecommerce companies as media platforms, Vernacular on Mobile and others. The second day concluded with the keynote by Bharat Anand, HBS Professor and author-The Content Trap who shared his insights on Reflection of marketing in a digital age.

The Next Big Thing Challenge

SilverPush and IOTPOT walked away with the coveted The Next Big Thing title along with a fully funded pilot with Nestle. This year ad:tech brought its global initiative 'The Next Big Thing' to India in partnership with Nestle India with the aim to build a platform that brings entrepreneurs and marketing leaders together and kick start collaborations. This proves to be a great platform for start-ups to prove their mettle by showcasing their indigenous ideas in front of Nestle and digital media professionals and thereby walking away with a fully funded project. Commenting on this, Jaswant Singh, Country MD at Comexposium India said, We are overwhelmed with the phenomenal response we have received for ad:tech this year. The 7thedition brought together more than 100 companies from across the globe to exhibit whats new and whats next. Over the years ad:tech is developing as a coveted platform for the community to deliver content which is relevant in this fast changing dynamic industry. In the coming years we will look to create conversations that become trends of the future

This years event witnessed phenomenal additions of companies like IBM, CRITEO, ACCENTURE, APPLIFT, CAKE, GAMELOFT, ICUBESWIRE, MOMAGIC TECHNOLOGIES, TABOOLA, STARTAPP, GSK, SAP, YES BANK, MARUTI SUZUKI, PEPSICO INDIA, JUBILIANT, OLX, TUNE, WATCONSULT, XAPADS and more.
I don't see any reason in not aligning with Goa Forward on a Common Minimum Programme for the betterment and development of Goa, said Parrikar. Goa Forward had called Parrikar a fixer and said that the BJP was a party of Narakasurs.

By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: After being sworn in as the Goa Chief Minister for a fourth term on Tuesday, Manohar Parrikar said that the BJP alone, not the Congress, could bring stability to the state and rubbished the Congress' charge that the BJP's coming to power was immoral.

He now has to take the trust vote on Thursday (March 16) to prove he has the support of the majority to run the government.

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Speaking to India Today, Parrikar while conceding that the mandate given by the electorate was fractured went on to add in the same vein that the BJP had a higher percentage of votes.

BJP won 13 seats as opposed to Congress' 17 in the 40-member Goa assembly, but managed to win over support from small regional parties to get to the required mark.

COMING TO GOA A MATTER OF COMPULSION: PARRIKAR

The BJP leader said that coming back to Goa was a matter of compulsion for him. Two parties had agreed to support BJP on the precondition that I take over as the chief minister. "They felt that I could lead a coalition government well."

Rubbishing the Congress' charge that the BJP's forming the government in Goa was immoral, Parrikar said that while the BJP got fewer seats, no party had got a majority in the state. "We did not lure anyone. The smaller parties did not offer support the Congress because they were not sure how Congress would treat them. This is what their reputation is. Congress is a conglomerate of vested interests."

Parrikar said, "The support extended to BJP to form the government is only for Goa's development. No MLA wanted to support Congress. If Congress had the support, why did they not go the Governor to stake their claim to form government."

India Today's Rajdeep Sardesai spoke to Parrikar in an exclusive interview. Excerpts:

Rajdeep: Mr Parrikar, one of your allies is the Goa Forward. This party attacked you right through the campaign. They even called you a fixer and said that the BJP was a party of Narakasurs and dictators on Facebook posts. Today you have aligned and given them three ministerships?

Parrikar: I don't see any reason in not aligning on a Common Minimum Programme for the betterment and development of Goa. This is basically a coalition government, not a government of BJP alone.

Rajdeep: Isn't it a government of compromise?

Parrikar: Not at all. Ultimately you have to run a government. It was they who requested me to become the chief minister. They approached us with the condition that if Parrikar is coming in as CM, they are ready to support. Because they know in Congress, there are so many small groups that fight with each other, that Congress will virtually make a mess of the situation.

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Rajdeep: Rahul Gandhi says that both governments in Goa and Manipur are being run by the BJP through money power?

Parrikar: No. Probably he has the experience of doing so. When I was Defence Minister, all the scams that came out happened during their government. There's no financial deal anywhere. You know very well my reputation on this.

TOP COURT SLAMS CONGRESS

Earlier on Tuesday, Supreme Court criticised the Congress' challenging of BJP government's claim to form government, saying its petition to judges had no proof to suggest that it had the numbers that were needed.

Moreover, rejecting Rahul Gandhi's charge that the BJP had "stolen the mandate" in Goa, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said, "The Congress complains a bit too much. It accused the BJP of "stealing" mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. The Congress did not even submit their claim to the governor."

Also read | Manohar Parrikar takes oath as Goa Chief Minister for fourth term, 8 other ministers sworn in

WATCH VIDEO

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Babita Baruah, Senior Vice President & Managing Partner and Head, PO1 JWT Delhi, has put in her papers. She is now set to helm a senior position at WPPs Global Team Blue, industry sources have confirmed. Global Team Blue is WPPs dedicated agency for the Ford business in India.

Baruah has been associated with J. Walter Thompson India for over two decades. She was recently entrusted with independent charge of JWTs business unit  Power of One (PO1)  that handles a large number of PepsiCos flagship brands.

As reported earlier, Varun Channa recently came aboard JWT and will be stepping into Baruahs shoes. He will be based in Gurgaon and will report to Tarun Rai, CEO, J Walter Thompson South Asia.

Baruah was Business Head, JWT Mumbai till July 2010, before moving to JWT Delhi. Her portfolio has been extensive  Unilever brands, Godrej brands, Kotak brands, Aditya Birla Capital, Kingfisher Airlines, Diageo, Kelloggs, Wills, Bata, Emami, World Gold Council, De Beers, and Nokia, among others. She worked on the Nestle business for two years before moving on to head PO1. From being an avid blogger to a published author, a roadie, a mother, and an advertiser, Baruah is an epitome of todays women leaders and trend-setters.
Two decades ago, McDonalds began its incredible journey of introducing the concept of burgers to India. And today, as the company moves into its 21st year of operations in India, it has embarked on a brand revolution in the quick service restaurant industry with the launch of its first Experience of the Future restaurant (EOTF) in Mumbai.

Enhancing digital capabilities and the use of technology to dramatically elevate the customer experience.

Redefining customer convenience through Table Service.

Broadening our menu to provide balanced & wholesome choices.

Caring for the environment to contribute to a better planet, strengthen the communities and help maintain a world that can carry all of us well into the future.

This new concept restaurant, at CR2 Mall in Nariman Point, is the brands boldest move yet and will re-write the rules of the QSR industry with customizable menu options, new technology and a best-in-class customer experience. As part of its brand transformation, the company has evolved its menu, ordering processes and staff roles to bring greater control, convenience and personalization to its customer.

Using self-order kiosks, customers will be able to customize and build their own perfect burgers and skip the front counter entirely, with their food being served right at their table. Customers will also be able to enjoy interactive table-top games whilst they share a meal and even charge their smart phones using wireless charging devices in a contemporary and stylish ambience. The result is a more comfortable and personalized experience.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Amit Jatia, Vice-Chairman, Westlife Development Limited said, We have always listened to our customers, and this ambitious plan is exactly what theyve asked us to do. This is the next phase of brand transformation for McDonalds in India. Were innovating and evolving for the future, and were excited to bring our customers along on this journey with us. With the EOTF restaurant, we are kicking off a bold and progressive plan to transform the customer experience. We want our customers to walk in and be wowed by the experience thats modern and personalized, but still the McDonalds they know and love. Over the past 20 years, we have constantly strived to bring more innovation and convenience to our customers. With the launch of EOTF, we want to provide customers with utmost convenience and brand new menu choices.

The new McDonalds Experience includes:

Enhanced Customer Experience

The Guest Experience Leaders will provide customers the warmth and genuine hospitality McDonald's is known for. From hello to goodbye, the Guest Experience Leaders will help customers to choose between self-order kiosks or counter service, assist with finding their seats, and provide table delivery service.

Advanced Customer Convenience

The introduction of Self-Order Kiosks at the restaurants will give customer a modern and convenient opportunity to try their own hand at personalising their menu and order at their own pace. Various payments modes, high speed wi-fi, air-chargers and tablets will provide consumers with more convenience and give them more reasons to visit McDonalds.

Sustainability

The Company has enhanced its efforts in the area of sustainability by installing smart hand wash systems which will enable the restaurant to save approximately 400,000 litres of water per year. Additionally, the restaurant will save upto 6,000 units of energy with the LED lighting. Besides this, the restaurant will use bio-degradable cutlery, reusable cups and recycle its waste with the vision to send zero waste to landfill.

Wholesome Food Choices

For the first-time ever, McDonalds India is launching farm fresh salads and transitioning its existing wraps into whole grain wraps. The launch follows consumer demand for more variety, lighter and wholesome balanced choices. Additionally, customers will have the choice to opt for milk based beverages (chocolate milk, smoothies or shakes) with their Happy Meals or simply replace their fries with a bowl of salad.

Table Service

Customers can now experience table delivery complete with the warm and genuine hospitality. Once an order has been placed, customers can take a seat while they wait for their order, guided by a Radio frequency identification device (RFID) right to their table.

McDonalds India is driving the customer experience forward at full speed and bringing unrivalled innovation to the Quick Service Restaurant industry. The changes announced today allow for the brand to deepen its customer experience, build on its employer of choice reputation and keeping Indians loving it.
The dominance of Google and Facebook in online advertising globally was discussed at length by Rob Norman, Chief Digital Officer, GroupM, in a keynote fireside chat with Shilpa Kannan, Business Correspondent, BBC News, at the two-day ad:tech conference in Gurugram on March 9 and 10, 2017. Norman explored the Google/ Facebook duopoly, what their dominance meant, whether it is good for advertising, technology, publishing and society, as well as the challengers to that.

It is something thats a lesson to everyone, noted Norman. Facebook and Google have created services with fabulous consumer utility, and they have done it with the minimum use of bandwidth and zero cost to the consumer. As a result, they have achieved massive network of fans. With the user agreements working as it is, they have an enormous amount of consumer data and when you apply that value, the attraction of advertisers becomes enormous speculating something with achievers value, like I said, generally is a good idea.

Meanwhile, Kannan felt that dominance and that much data and power in the hands of a few looked scary. She mulled over the implications.

Norman added here, Today, China and India are two of the worlds most populous countries, but if you look at the number of daily users on Facebook, it is more than the population of even these countries. While Google is operating seven platforms with a billion or more users today, Facebook is operating three platforms with a billion more users. One of my favourites is that if we take the members of Amazon Prime and you reorganise them as an economic block, then it would be the third biggest economic block after the US and China.

According to Norman, it was an interesting situation, where co-operation is in some ways becoming more influential and powerful than even the nation, but at the same time, it was a troubling one, too, for some people in terms of content and the information ecosystem. There are many who believe that the revenue balance between Google, Facebook, Twitter and themselves is out of stack and there is a tipping point to all of this. Because those platforms are in turn oxygenated by content and real world reporting and when one stops that oxygen, then the problem starts circling back to the platforms.

Amazon is a trusted product with trusted pricing and logistics delivery. As a consequence people here are committed Amazon users and more committed members of Prime. Yes, there were product searches on Google to compare the prices, which does not happen today. And there are challenges, because some people say that for information related to travel, they would go to Expedia, or if it was something related to medical, they would go to medical healthcare. So, Google is finding new ways to monetise curiosity. Amazon and Netflix are becoming the biggest spenders on original content in the world. Amazon also rules the transaction data that they have and they have a lot of it in the markets where they operate. If they decide to take their Amazon media system and data and move them into the spaces that cant be occupied, then it represents a threat. Google remains the outstanding science company in the world with what they are doing with their data signals, creating more and more data about behaviour patterns and data in a way that it creates value to advertisers, observed Norman.

While stating that he is a big fan of Pinterest, Norman added that other than creating inspiration with its amazing design, it also creates demands. There is an argument which says that much of the action on Facebook and Google is really capturing among the audiences generating new demands. The more data connections you can build, the higher is your ad systems relevance, he pointed out.

According to Norman, in some ways, Twitter is the best thing that has happened to television and vice versa. Twitter offers real-time interaction and engagement. And hence, gives real time insights for businesses. Things to watch and things to see get shared instantly through Twitter.

Speaking on the raging phenomenon of fake news, Norman noted that it is a big issue and added, Open platforms which are uncurated will always carry a risk for advertisers. Continuing further, he said, Snapchat stories have more curation than any other platform and can be a new avenue for advertisers to look at.

Do we think that Facebook and Google are going to fall off anytime soon? No. But there is still opportunity, noted the 30-year industry veteran. When asked whether he thought there would be a time when there wont be a duopoly because more and more advertisers are looking for niche markets, Norman replied, If you are a niche marketer, Facebook and Google are fantastic for you. They enable segmentation of audiences, behaviours and geographies that is actually greater than anybody elses. They are enormously powerful in that regard. On the other hand, if what you are looking for is relationship between consumers and media, then I think there is enormous opportunity outside the Google and Facebook world. If you want to take on Google and Facebook, dont fight them on the grounds of either volume or granularity of data. You have to fight in a different way.

What does this all mean for publishing? Is this the inflexion point for video? In markets like India, where content is data heavy, how accessible is that going to be?

Norman noted, It is a very common narrative to describe how the world has shifted from heavy broadcast to desktop to mobile. With the world shifting to apps, a highly consolidated app ecosystem is emerging. The mobile phone is optimised for the app experience; the smartphone is the key to the development of video in a market like India, where content consumption is dependent on the availability of bandwidth and devices. While referring to Reliance Jios free data offer, he said that when somebody starts to democratise a market such as India, where the consumption is relatively high, you see the market moving forward.
We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
The British manufacturer and retailer of extremely high-end luxury smartphones, Vertu, was just sold to Baferton Ltd, a Cyprus company owned by exiled tycoon Hakan Uzan for about $61 million. The Vertu legacy founded in 1998 and owned by Finnish mobile-phone maker, Nokia. In 2012, Nokia sold Vertu to a private equity group EQT VI for an undisclosed amount of money but retained a 10-percent share. In 2015, it was sold to a Hong Kong-based holding company, Godin Holdings, and now Baferton is its third buyer and fourth owner.

Vertus existence was to design and manufacture a smartphone for the wealthy and famous with its most expensive model costing close to $50,000 with an average selling price of about $6,000. Even at those prices by the end of 2013, the company had around 350,000 customers, 500 retail outlets in 66 countries, including 70 run by the company. By the year 2015, Vertu had sold about 450,000 phones, so while this is an insane price to pay for a smartphone, there is a market for them around the world. What is more insane is that Vertu phones do not even run the latest and greatest processors or GPUs, nor have large amounts of RAM or memory and they are usually running an older version of Android and no guarantee of a software update to a newer version. Buyers of these phones are collectors or people that just want to make an impressive phone call at a party or international function. They look beautiful and are made from titanium, with exotic leathers, including crocodile or ostrich, and adorned with precious jewels or diamonds. If you want to spend more money, you can even get a Vertu made from gold.

Vertu has had trouble grabbing profits in the world of smartphones  however, Gordon Watson, Vertus chief executive said, Baferton shares our vision: 1.5 billion smartphones are sold each year, and there is demand for a high-quality, exclusive product with associated services. Working with Baferton, well be equipped to develop the Vertu business, the brand and the service. Besides the extremely expensive device, as a customer, you get an on-demand concierge service to help you answer any questions you may have concerning your device or finding you help on just about any topic. If you live in the US and are dying to pick up a Vertu, there are three Vertu Boutiques located on Madison Avenue in New York City, Wynn Las Vegas resort, and on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California.
Facebook added an anti-surveillance clause to its platform policies for Facebook and Instagram, the Menlo Park-based social media giant announced on Monday. The changes were made to the policies for third-party developers that are creating services for Facebook and Instagram and specifically prohibit the use of personal data for any kind of surveillance purposes. Facebook noted that this change isnt its first attempt to fight surveillance, adding that its been sanctioning developers of surveillance tools for months now. However, by changing its platform policies, the social media company is hoping to clearly define the type of activity that its not going to tolerate.

The new policies explicitly state that third-party developers arent allowed to use personal data from Facebook users to develop and market surveillance tools or indulge in any kind of similar activities. The changes apply to developers worldwide, a Facebook representative told TechRadar. However, this latest set of changes may have been prompted by a country-specific issue as industry watchers speculate that Facebook was forced to implement it following accusations that it was helping authorities in the United States track protesters. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently publicly appealed to Facebook to change its policies and the companys announcement even mentions the ACLU in the context of a certain panel on social media surveillance.

Facebooks new platform policy changes designed to combat surveillance come shortly after WikiLeaks prompted a huge discussion on the matter by publishing thousands of controversial documents originating from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The contents of the documents alarmed a wide variety of privacy advocacy groups as theyve revealed a plethora of hacking methods that the CIA uses to compromise communications channels and Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Some media outlets even concluded that the Facebook-owned WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging apps were also compromised by the CIA, though cyber security experts later refuted those claims. As the debate on mass surveillance and the role social media plays in it gets more heated, Facebook may introduce a number of other changes designed to protect its users from such practices, though some industry watchers remain skeptical regarding their efficiency.
A bug in Google Allo can reveal your search history to your recipients, Recodes Tess Townsend uncovered. The issue is not only connected to Google Allo but also the Google Assistant that the company recently started rolling out to more users. The fully fledged version of the Google Assistant can be activated during any conversation in Google Allo, which is whats probably causing the bug thats raising some major privacy-related concerns.

As it turns out, the Google Assistant may share your search history with your recipients in Google Allo in case it doesnt fully understand a query and tries to answer it with some of your previous inquiries. In this particular scenario, one user asked the Google Assistant to start identifying itself as a bot in the future, to which the voice-enabled companion answered with a link to Pottermore, a Harry Potter fansite. The link in question led to some passages from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and while it may seem unrelated to the command given to the Google Assistant, the AI companion didnt provide it at random. Instead, the link was pulled from their search history as they later revealed that they were looking at that particular page several days prior to the conversation which uncovered the bug. The Google Assistant posted that link automatically and both participants were able to see it. A screenshot of the conversation that led to this discovery can be seen below.

While the Mountain View-based tech giant added some privacy mechanisms to its voice-enabled digital helper that were meant to prevent this type of situations from happening, they obviously arent perfect and are still prone to lapses. Another screenshot in the gallery below shows how the Google Assistant is supposed to handle potentially sensitive information that users ask it to share in a conversation with another party. When asked about the name of its owner, the companion responds with a question regarding whether its allowed to share that information in a conversation and only does so when given explicit permission. Its unclear why the Google Assistant didnt ask the same thing before sharing a part of a users search history in the aforementioned example and why it displayed identical behavior when asked about its owners workplace address, but hopefully Google sheds some light on this issue soon.
LG may equip its future phones with FullVision displays similar to the one thats featured on the LG G6. The company recently applied for a FullVision trademark in its home country of South Korea, as well as the United States and Europe, possibly signaling that the unconventional screen of the LG G6 isnt just a one-time feature meant to temporarily differentiate its latest flagship from its competitors.

The FullVision display of the LG G6 has a diagonal of 5.7 inches and boasts a resolution of 1440 by 2880 pixels. The pixels are displayed in an unconventional aspect ratio of 18:9, i.e. 2:1, making the phone look extremely thin and tall. Coupled with slim bezels, the LG G6 has a unique look and is rather compact considering the size of its display. Seeing how the South Korean tech giant recently secured the FullVision trademark on three continents, its possible that LG is looking to emulate the look of the LG G6 with its future smartphones and turn it into a hallmark of its high-end product lineup like Samsung is currently trying to do with a dual-curved edge display.

This report coincides with the companys recent statement on its design philosophy that led to the creation of the LG G6 and what this flagship device means for the future. During this years Mobile World Congress (MWC), LGs design team explained that its currently planning to use the LG G6 as a reference for designing its future handsets, even non-flagship models. While manufacturing costs will likely keep the look of the LG G6 from trickling down to mid-range smartphones in the near future, thats what LGs ultimate goal seems to be. The companys design philosophy underwent some major changes in the last two years  as evidenced by the differences between the LG G4, G5, and the G6  but it seems that the Seoul-based phone maker has now finally decided on the general look of its future handsets. While announcing the LG G6 at MWC, the firm repeatedly stated that the 18:9 aspect ratio is the future of multimedia consumption, but an almost bezel-less design seems just as important to what FullVision entails. Overall, it remains to be seen whether LG will truly stay loyal to this design philosophy for the foreseeable future, but as things stand right now, thats exactly what the tech giant is planning to do.
Taiwan-based semi-conductor chip-maker, MediaTek, may have come a long way since starting off as a small-time designer of inexpensive chips for household appliances, but the company is still struggling to give American semi-conductor giant, Qualcomm, a run for its money at the premium-end of the smartphone market. According to a report released earlier today by Taiwanese business publication DigiTimes, demand for Qualcomms latest top-end smartphone SoC, the Snapdragon 835, is still outpacing shipments of MediaTeks flagship offering in the segment, the Helio X30. The Taiwanese company will reportedly be unable to ramp up shipments of its Helio X30 SoCs until the second quarter of this year, helping Qualcomm gain an upper hand in their battle for market share, even though both are reported to be struggling with unfavorable 10nm FinFET yields.

One of the major reasons attributed to Qualcomms continuing success against MediaTek is its software and firmware support that is said to be significantly better than that of its Taiwanese rival. According to industry insiders quoted by DigiTimes, the Snapdragon 835 ecosystem has already managed to outpace the Helio X30 ecosystem thanks to superior support, resulting in better economies of scale for global OEMs. While most observers and tech enthusiasts may have already expected as much, the unnamed industry sources quoted in the DigiTimes report also seem to have indicated that the Snapdragon 835 will dominate the high-end smartphone market this year, with the Helio X30 expected to power relatively more affordable, mid-range offerings. While the Snapdragon 835 will power upcoming smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S8, devices like the Vernee Apollo 2 will come with the Helio X30 under the hood.

Qualcomm and MediaTek have been locked in a well-documented battle for market dominance over the past few years, with the latter making giant strides to become one of the leading names in the global smartphone industry in recent times. While larger and more celebrated companies like Intel, NVIDIA, and Texas Instruments have failed to make any significant headway into the highly lucrative mobile market until now, the smaller and unfancied MediaTek has managed to emerge as the leading stand-alone semiconductor company to compete against the might of Qualcomm. However, with more and more smartphone vendors like, Samsung, Huawei and now, even Xiaomi, starting to design their SoCs in-house, it will be interesting to see the strategies of companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek going forward.
According to a new report which draws on information provided by an unnamed source, Nokia (via HMD Global) is currently testing two top mid-ranges which are at the moment being referred to as the Nokia 7 and Nokia 8. The reason these are being considered as top/mid-range devices is that they apparently are both expected to come powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC. Which interestingly, is an SoC which was very recently spotted being benchmarked on AnTuTu, through the help of an unannounced smartphone. While it could be, at the moment there is no reason to believe that the unannounced smartphone spotted on AnTuTu, is either of these new Nokia devices.

Snapdragon 660 aside, the report picks up on some of the other rumored features that will be on offer with these two new Nokia-branded smartphones. Firstly, both smartphones are expected to come with a metal unibody design, along with thin bezels, and a design which will see an altering to the placement of the rear-facing camera. Secondly, that one of them will come sporting an FHD display, while the other will sport a QHD display. It is also being said that the FHD-equipped smartphone will be the smaller of the two smartphones, albeit only slightly smaller. Additional notable features mentioned, include both smartphones coming equipped with a fingerprint sensor, improvements in the camera department, and fast charging capabilities.

In spite of the Nokia 7 and 8 names being dropped here, there is no guarantee that these are the Nokia 7 and 8, or at least, they will be the names when they are announced. Although, reports have come through before signalling the same names and in particular, for the Nokia 8. In either case, if these smartphones are positioned higher up the market ladder, this will be welcomed news by Nokia enthusiasts and will be in line with other reports that have come through suggesting that Nokia is working on more higher-end options, compared to their already-announced Nokia 3, 5, and 6, smartphones. While there is no confirmation on when these new smartphones will come through, a report from back in January did suggest that Nokia could release as many as seven smartphones in 2017. Which does lend support to these two latest smartphones arriving before the year is out.
"The Congress complains a bit too much. It accused the BJP of "stealing" mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court," Jaitley wrote.

By India Today Web Desk: Rejecting Rahul Gandhi's allegation of the BJP "stealing people's mandate" in Goa, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the Congress "complains a bit too much" when post-poll alliances are always formed following a hung Assembly.

In a blog on his Facebook page titled 'Largest Single Party vs A Combination with Majority Support', Jaitley wrote, "The Assembly Elections in Goa produced an inconclusive verdict. There was a hung Assembly. Obviously in a hung Assembly post-poll alliances will be formed. The BJP managed to form an alliance and presented to the Governor 21 out of 40 MLAs."

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"The Congress did not even submit a claim to the Governor. It had only the support of 17 MLAs. The Congress Party protested at the Governor's decision to invite Mr Manohar Parrikar to form the Government with support of 21 out of 40 MLAs and described it as 'a murder of democracy'," he added.

"The Congress complains a bit too much. It accused the BJP of "stealing" mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court," Jaitley wrote.

Earlier today, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of using money to "steal the mandate" in Manipur and Goa following the party's bid to form governments in both the states despite being the runner-up.

"It's not a question of soon enough, it's a question of how much money the BJP has thrown to steal the mandate in Manipur and Goa. That's the question," Rahul said.

The Supreme Court today ordered a floor test in the Goa Assembly on Thursday as it refused to interfere with the Goa Governor's decision to appoint Manohar Parrikar as Chief Minister.

The court direction came on a plea by leader of the Congress legislature party in the state assembly Chandrakant Kavlekar who has sought stay of Governor Mridula Sinha's decision appointing Parrikar as Chief Minister and fixing his swearing in for Tuesday evening.

FULL TEXT OF ARUN JAITLEY'S FACEBOOK BLOG:

LARGEST SINGLE PARTY vs A COMBINATION WITH MAJORITY SUPPORT

The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha. What are the facts?

The Assembly Elections in Goa produced an inconclusive verdict. There was a Hung Assembly. Obviously in a Hung Assembly post-poll alliances will be formed. The BJP managed to form an alliance and presented to the Governor 21 out of 40 MLAs. They appeared before the Governor in person and submitted a letter of support. The Congress did not even submit a claim to the Governor. It had only the support of 17 MLAs. The Congress Party protested at the Governor's decision to invite Mr Manohar Parrikar to form the Government with support of 21 out of 40 MLAs and described it as 'a murder of democracy'.

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In the face of claim of these 21 MLAs led by Mr Manohar Parrikar, the Governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the Government.

There are several precedents which support this decision of the Governor.

? In 2005, BJP won 30 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand. The JMM leader Shri Shibu Soren with a support of 17 MLAs of his Party plus others was invited to form the Government .

? In J&K 2002, the National Conference won 28 MLAs but the Governor invited the PDP & Congress Combination of 15 + 21 MLAs to form the Government.

? In 2013 the BJP won 31 seats in Delhi, but the AAP with 28 MLAs with support of Congress was invited to form the Government.

There are other precedents on the same lines available in 1952 (Madras), 1967 (Rajasthan) and 1982 (Haryana).

The debate between the largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by the former President Shri KR Narayanan in his communiqu in March, 1988 when he invited Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the Government.

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The President had said "when no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that has won largest number of seats subject to the Prime Ministers so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the house within a stipulated time.

This procedure is not, however, all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The President's choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support."

The Governor in Goa had only one claim of 21 MLAs out of 40 elected MLAs with Shri Manohar Parrikar as their leader. The 17 MLAs of Congress did not even make a claim nor elected their leader. How could the Congress ever be invited to form the Government?

WATCH: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi accuses BJP of misusing money for power

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ALSO READ:

BJP misusing money for power, buying MLAs: Rahul Gandhi on saffron party staking claim in Goa, Manipur

Hours before Parrikar's swearing in, Congress to parade MLAs before Governor

Knives out in Congress: Sonia loyalist questions Rahul Gandhi after Uttar Pradesh election disaster

--- ENDS ---
Samsung is set to announce the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus on March 29th at simultaneous events in London and New York City. The company has been working overtime to drum up some hype for the upcoming devices, as they are looking to make a strong comeback after the countless issues the company experienced with the Galaxy Note 7 late last year. Now it appears that Samsung has outed a few of the unique selling points of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus on their own website.

The company has put up a pre-registration page on their website which asks for the usual information from the user, like their name, e-mail address, phone number and gender. But it also asks which features they are looking for in their next Galaxy. As you can see from the picture below, Samsung has included A superior camera, A premium and stylish design, Enhanced battery life, Powerful gaming performance and Enhanced virtual reality experience. These are all things youd expect in an upgraded smartphone anyways, and based on the leaks that have already appeared for the two devices, it definitely appears that Samsung is touting some of the new features of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus.

Samsung has always had great cameras on their smartphones, so it wouldnt be a surprise to see a superior camera on the Galaxy S8 in a couple of weeks. Samsung is slated to have the latest processor and GPU from Qualcomm, so powerful gaming performance appears to be a lock as well. Not to mention the other three are things that Samsung already strives for in every flagship device. Unfortunately, Samsung did not mention any specs here  although thats not surprising, as they have been steering away from specs when touting new devices  but they are showing off some rather impressive features here. The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus are due to be announced two weeks from tomorrow, and many people are definitely excited to see what Samsung does with these two devices. They are slated to be going on sale in mid-April at all four of the major US carriers, and possibly available unlocked at launch  as opposed to landing several months later.
It seems Sony is having trouble with its recent Android Nougat 7.0 update that was released in February. It has taken nearly a month for Sony to respond to complaints that mostly focused on the Xperia Z5 device to which customers seem to be having a problem with low volumes while in their calls. However, the response is not likely the one that owners of the device want to hear. Sony has said in a post on Sonys support forum, it is aware that there is a problem and a fix is in the works, but it will take about a month which pushes that release to sometime in mid to late April. Of course, history has proven that to be more difficult when it comes to updates. Sony also stated that the software will be rolled out so the timing and availability will be different depending on your market and carrier.

Aside from the release update, the support representative did offer the default workaround that would fix the issue. The same workaround that almost all OEMs offer to fix software problems, backup your data and do a factory reset. This, of course, has done little to reassure the customers. One user reported they had done the reset twice and yet the issue is still there, while others have reported freezes, crashes, and problems with the camera opening after the Android Nougat 7.0 update. Sony has not yet addressed any of these or other issues that have popped up in the forum.

This isnt the first problem Sony has had with its Android Nougat 7.0 update. It first as it attempted to release it back in January to the Xperia Z3 Plus, Z4 tablet, and Z5. After three days problems began to surface with audio playback, battery life, and SD card data read performance problem. Sony pulled the update and tweeted that it was still working on inconsistencies in Nougat and the priority is user experience. In the meantime, if you are one of the users with the low volume while in call problem and factory resetting didnt work, then the best you can do is hold on till the update hits your phone.
The body of the woman was found this morning by police. Police is suspecting it to be a case of rape and murder.

By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: A 25-year-old woman was found dead at Deobagh beach in Canacona, Goa on Tuesday. The victim is believed to be an Irish national.

The body of the woman was found this morning by police. Police is suspecting it to be a case of rape and murder.

The case is being investigated.

The murder is being seen as a stark reminder of the Scarlett Keeling case in which a 15-year-old British girl, who was in Goa on a six-month family holiday, was raped and left to die at Anjuna beach on February 18, 2008. Her bruised body was found on the beach the next day.

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Further details awaited.

Also read: Gruesome murder jolts Chandigarh: Municipal Councillor's son tortures man to death

WATCH | Irish woman found dead in Goa beach, suspect detained

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. The Rescue Service said an explosion occurred in the entrance of a building in Tigran Mets Avenue 77, Vanadzor city, Armenia.

The ministry of emergency situations told ARMENPESS emergency response units were dispatched to the scene.

The explosion occurred in the post box located in the first floor of the building, no one has been hurt by the blast.

Rescue teams evacuated the residents of the building, as well as the staff of a nearby beauty salon.

Bomb disposal units and military engineers arrived at the scene and searched the area. No explosives have been discovered.
Most read of the week
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. On March 20 the world Francophonie community celebrates the International Francophonie Day.

On this occasion the French Embassy in Armenia organizes 15 Francophonie days series of festive events from March 15 to 30, Armenpress reported.

The events, to be held during these 15 days, will cover various spheres, including cinema, publishing, economics and etc. This years main topic are the innovative and digital technologies, 5 of the events will be dedicated to this, there will be a conference on e-platform, a concert of smartphones and etc.

French Ambassador to Armenia Jean-Francois Charpentier hopes the series of events will greatly contribute to increasing the role and significance of French among the Armenian public.

The celebrations dedicated to Francophonie in Armenia became a good tradition. It is already several years the Francophonie Day is celebrated in Armenia. These ceremonies are being held not only with the help of France, but also a number of Armenian partners, the diplomatic representations of Canada, Switzerland, Greece, Lithuania and Lebanon accredited in Armenia joined this ceremony. You know that Armenia as a full member of International Organization of La Francophonie assumed the commitment to try to propose an alternative to that monolingual version of globalization, in other words, promotion of French. Armenia demonstrated no less important responsibility, by expressing readiness to host the Francophonie summit in 2018, and I hope it will be held properly, the French Ambassador said.
The Japanese premium brand will get its new leader starting with the first day of July 2017. Karim Habib used to be the head of BMW s design department.In the past, he used to work for Daimlers premium brand, Mercedes-Benz , but his career started at BMW.Karim Habibs previous work includes the BMW Concept CS, the previous generation of the 7 Series, the CSL Homage Concept, the X2 Concept, and the X1. He also coordinated the design cues of the ongoing Mercedes-Benz C-Class, along with the current smart fortwo.As Infiniti notes, the new lead designer of the premium brand will report directly to Alfonso Albaisa, the newly-appointed Senior Vice President of Global Design for the Nissan Motor Corporation.Mr. Albaisa noted that he and his colleagues are happy that Karim Habib has joined their team, and he described Karim as being very skilled at capturing the heart and passion of a brand. At the same time, Mr. Habib is described as being capable of giving each design its unique character.The Nissan Motor Corporation decided to reshuffle its design teams after Shiro Nakamura, its current senior vice president and chief creative officer, has decided to retire.Mr. Nakamura spent 17 years at the helm of Japans second-biggest automakers design department. Nissan and Infiniti announced the new appointments in separate statements.Habib was educated at the McGill University In Montreal, Canada. From there, he followed the classes of Pasadenas Art Center College of Design. His first stint at BMW began in 1998, but he left for Mercedes-Benz in 2009.After almost three years with Daimlers three-pointed-star, Habib came back to BMW, where he was an exterior designer. He moved on through the ranks at the blue-and-white roundel, but it appears that Infinitis proposition was more attractive than sticking with the Germans.
Wallmart

We can count on one thing: one of the 700 units of the STI Series.HyperBlue that have come to the US was totaled over the weekend in Ohio. And you can check out a video showing the aftermath of the impact below.As for how the Dayton-driven Scooby ended up in such a horrible situation, Redditor Harmonicon provides a story that definitely needs to be taken with a grain of salt."Hi, everyone. I'm Bryan Washington and I'm creating this for my roommate, Greg Potts. Greg and I were out celebrating St Patty's Day last night [post written last Sunday] with friends.Our roommate also went out last night, met a guy who was freezing outside the bar at the end of the night, offered him a ride in his Uber to wherever he needed to go...thus finding out the guy had nowhere to go because he was homeless. He was welcomed into our home by our roommate where he slept in Greg's bed. Upon waking up, our roommate discovered that the guy was gone...along with Greg's 2016 WRX STI Series Hyperblue, some of Greg's credit cards, and personal belongings," the Redditor explains.As if this hadn't been enough, later on Sunday, the STI owner discovered that the man who had run away with his car ran a red light, thus getting t-boned by a minivan, with the Subaru ending up hitting a pole at speed.New details of how the crash happened came from another car aficionado in Dayton, who took to his Facebook page to explain what happened.We're talking about Kyle Richardson, who reportedly noticed the STI while coming out ofWalmart. The man said he had learned about the stolen vehicle from a dedicated Facebook page in the area and decided to record the vehicle when he noticed the driver stalling the engine."When he saw me recording he took off. Once he saw us following him he [STI driver] just went crazy, running in and out of traffic. Jumping lanes to miss curbs . Doing 80+ on street roads. So he came up on the right-hand turn on south Dixie and I think central right next to the Frischs. He ended going over the right-hand median, and he kept going on South Dixie towards the on ramp of I-75 north towards Dayton (West Carrollton area) as its blowing smoke all over the road he ran through the intersection and the grey mini-van t- boned your car," Kyle says on Facebook.Together with a friend who had been on the phone with the police during the chase, Kyle headed out to the accident scene and captured the clip below (the video underneath is the one recorded before the chase).Bryan, the Redditor who brought us the story of Greg's stolen STI has set up a GoFundMe campaign to help Greg, the owner of the Subaru , with a few things. It seems that, while the insurance of the car will cover most of the problem, the mods that had been installed aren't included, while the owner also has to handle the deductible and well as some of his other stolen items.While the accident is obviously real, we can't confirm the story behind it is true. Even so, 80 people on the fundraiser website decided to play along, with the campaign having gathered $2,721 at the time when this article was published (the goal is $3,000).The latest GoFundMe updated mentions that the family who was inside the said minivan is ok, so at least this part of the story seems to be positive.
The feature allows us to play with the exterior finish of the $2.4 million Huayra Roadster , involving bare carbon, full-color as well as mixed approaches. We can also select between multiple wheel designs, as well as choose the cabin hue of the twin-turbo V12 animal.Sure, the online feature only offers a small fraction of the customization possibilities an actual Huayra customer enjoys, but, given the level of eye candy displayed here, we won't complain.Once your configuration is complete, you can enjoy a number of beauty shots, which might just serve as desktop wallpapers. Then there's the leatherboard section, which promises to deliver the "most sought after configurations". We see the online competition potential here and yet some Pagani enthusiasts might consider that coming up with a popular configurations means they got something wrong. Oh yes, the ways of the supercar spec game are never simple...The configurator was supplied by British-headquartered specialist ZeroLight, which lent its real-time 3D platform to the San Cesario sul Panaro-based carmaker.While some might see Pagani's online partnership as a compromise, we applaud the initiative. In fact, we'd like to see Koenigsegg following suit - we've been waiting for Angelholm to introduce an online configurator for quite a while now.With the Swedes having teased us using employee-specced Regeras earlier this year (here are three examples: 1 3 ), we hope the K brand will deliver such a tool by the end of the year, but we have no official details on the matter.




First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

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The Supreme Court is also scheduled to hear a petition by Congress legislative party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, who has challenged Sinha's decision to unilaterally invite Parrikar to form a government.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The spirit of Monday's Holi celebrations are expected to spill over today, with a series of colourful political developments poised to play out over the issue of government formation in the coastal state, which has thrown up a fractured mandate.

While former senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Parrikar is scheduled to be sworn in as Chief Minister by Governor Mridula Sinha, the Congress is also expected to meet Sinha today morning, demanding that the Congress be granted an opportunity to form a government, because it has emerged as the single largest party in the February 4 elections with 17 MLAs.

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SUPREME COURT TO HEAR A PETITION BY CONGRESS

In the national capital, the Supreme Court is also scheduled to hear a petition by Congress legislative party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, who has challenged Sinha's decision to unilaterally invite Parrikar to form a government.

The Congress, which was late off the blocks in staking claim to form government, also faces an internal threat with at least five of its MLAs, openly expressing frustration and disenchantment with the delay by the party's senior leadership and central overseers in making the formal pitch for formation of government on Monday.

Meanwhile, Parrikar, who resigned as Defence Minister on Monday, cautioned the 13 BJP MLAs against demanding ministerial portfolios because of the concessions which need to be made to accommodate allies.

"Supporters of two of our MLAs were expected to demonstrate near out state party office demanding ministerial berths for them on Tuesday. But Parrikar has warned us that ministries for all senior MLAs are just not possible," a BJP MLA who attended the meeting in Panaji told IANS.

SWEARING-IN TODAY

When Parrikar arrives for the swearing-in at Raj Bhavan at 5 pm today, he is reportedly expected to swear-in eight other ministers, two each from the alliance partners Goa Forward and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, two Independent legislators and four from the BJP.

But Parrikar's tryst with his fourth stint as Chief Minister could hang in balance, with the Congress' petition challenging the invitation to the BJP, likely to be heard by the apex court at 10.30 am

"We were the single largest party. The Governor should have invited us to form government according to established constitutional practice. Governor overlooked Sarkaria commission report and M.M. Punchi Commission Report," All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Girish Chodankar said.

INTERNAL CONFLICT WITHIN CONGRESS

While the Congress is scheduled to hold a CLP meeting, before visiting the Governor's palace to demand an invitation to form government, seething internal differences would end up giving a tough time to the party's minders.

At least two legislators from Valpoi and Taleigao Vishwajit Rane and Jennifer Monserrate respectively, have openly dissented against the slow-paced decision-making.

"I am pained at the manner in which our party leaders acted on Monday. We had the chance to form government on Monday because we had the biggest numbers. But our senior leaders squandered their chances because they could not even elect a legislative party leader in time," Monserrate said.

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Rane also said that he felt that he "was in the wrong party".

"People in my constituency are extremely disappointed. They have threatened not to vote for the Congress anymore, because we have squandered our best chance to form government," he added.

AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh has already accepted the blame for the party's inability to stake claim to form a government on Monday.

Goa governor appoints Parrikar as chief minister, asks him to prove majority in 15 days

Goa Election Results: BJP wins 13 seats, claims support of nine MLAs

Also watch: Congress moves Supreme Court against appointment of Manohar Parrikar as Goa CM

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Ahmedabad, Mar 14 (PTI) A woman from Ahmedabad district, who has allegedly been tortured by a family in Riyadh, has been rescued with the help of External Affairs Ministry, state Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said today.

Hafijabanu Rajabhusen (30) is set to return to her hometown Dholka in the district this week, he said.

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The minister, who represents Dholka seat as MLA, tweeted that he learnt about her plight through a newspaper report and subsequently took up the matter with the district Collector and State Home Ministry.

"Hafijabanu Rajabhusen, trapped in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, was being exploited and tortured by a local Arabia family every day," Chudasama stated.

The minister said the state Home Ministry informed the Ministry of External Affairs about the matter, following which the Indian embassy in Riyadh was contacted.

"The woman has been rescued from the culprits and is returning to India. With the joint efforts of the state administration and External Affairs ministry, the victim has been rescued from the house of the Arabic family, and her tickets for Ahmedabad from Riyadh are booked for March 16," he posted.

The woman went to Dubai on a tourist visa in May 2016 and was subsequently taken to Riyadh.

"I was also informed that an agent had approached Hafizabanu with a job offer in Saudi Arabia and had sought Rs 2.5 lakh to get her back. The agent is questioned," he said. PTI KA PD NSK NSK

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Aamir Khan, who turned 52 today, interacted with the media at his residence and spoke about his recent meet with Shah Rukh Khan, nepotism, and his upcoming film Thugs of Hindostan.

By Piya Hingorani: Superstar Aamir Khan turns 52. And as a customary ritual, the Khan spent his birthday morning with the media, at his plush sea-facing, Carter road residence in Bandra.

"Thank you so much, my friends from the media for coming over on my birthday, my day is incomplete without you all," started Aamir Khan.

The actor was in a jovial mood when he teased the media, "I haven't got any birthday gifts yet, I hope you have brought some for me."

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Fondly known as 'Mr Perfectionist', the actor is hosting a birthday bash this evening - a Dangal reunion of sorts, with the Phogat girls, Geeta and Babita flying down to Mumbai for the celebrations.

"Like every year, I will celebrate my birthday with my family and friends, my mother makes seekh kebabs for me every year. It's my all-time favorite," admits Aamir.

Having taken up a lot of social causes, from corruption to female infanticide and even honor killings and domestic violence on his issue-based chat show Satyamev Jayate, Aamir Khan is now focusing on water conservation and watershed management, across 30 talukas in Maharashtra. But does this social work, and community service encourage him to delve into politics?

"No no no politics is not for me I feel that there is a lot I can contribute staying in the creative field that I am in and as an artist, as a creative person, there is a lot I can contribute to society, to the nation, and I would like to do that from where I am. I don't want to change that," confessed Aamir.

Photo: Milind Shelte

Photo: Milind Shelte

Photo: Milind Shelte

Aamir who used to be a regular at Salman Khan's residence, Galaxy apartments has now been spotted hobnobbing with King Khan instead. The two recently met socially at PVR's head honcho, Ajay Bijli's birthday party in Dubai, and two days ago Shah Rukh Khan invited Aamir to his mansion Mannat which also saw Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in attendance. Their pictures were quick to go viral on social media, but Aamir insisted that no film collaborations are on cards.

"I've met Shah Rukh Khan twice in the the past few months, first at Bijli's party and it was so lovely to meet him, and spend time with him. Recently he invited me home, for a get-together, we met as friends. We met casually, we haven't discussed work," the 52-year-old actor said.

With the recent war of words between Aamir Khan's good friend Kangana Ranaut and filmmaker Karan Johar who she accused of being the 'flag bearer of nepotism', Aamir Khan quipped, "I feel that that's a very natural human emotion. But wait, are you asking me about nepotism in general or specifically to that issue? Let me speak about it in general: I think it's a very normal human nature to try and help people who you love and you care for, it's a very natural thing, it doesn't have to be someone who's part of your family, it can be someone who you care for so that's a very natural emotion. I try and make sure that in my work I try not to allow that to interfere because I think my duty as a creative person is to keep the audience happy, that is something I give utmost importance to, and I try not to bring emotions in my work."

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Apart from Secret Superstar, Aamir Khan's upcoming production, the actor has Thugs of Hindostan, co-starring Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. The film which is all set to go on floors this June, will be directed by writer-filmmaker Vijay Krishna Acharya of Dhoom 3 fame and produced by Yash Raj Films.

This is the first time Aamir will be sharing screen space with Bachchan Senior, a dream come true for the actor.

"I've been a huge fan of Amit ji all my life and this is the first time, I am getting an opportunity to work with him. I am so excited, that I will get to learn so much from the legend and that experience I will cherish forever. I am really looking forward to that this year."

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The makers are looking at a Diwali 2018 release.

ALSO SEE: Papa Kehte Hain to Haanikaarak Bapu, 20 greatest songs from Aamir Khan movies

ALSO SEE: These rare photos of Aamir Khan will take you back in time

WATCH: Aamir Khan discusses his acting journey with Ranveer Singh

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Modified On Mar 14, 2017 03:36 PM By Rachit Shad for Toyota Corolla Altis

Apart from a few styling updates, it is likely to get an updated feature list too

Have you been searching for a car that costs between Rs 15-20 lakh, doesnt break down all the time, and is surprisingly elegant? The Toyota Corolla Altis facelift might just be the car you are hoping for! The Japanese carmaker will most likely launch the revamped Corolla Altis in India tomorrow. Heres what we know about it so far.

This being a midlife update, the Corolla Altis will surely raise its standards, both inside and outside the cabin. In terms of exterior styling, the updated Altis will feature a more aggressive front end, thanks to a sporty new bumper, sharper grille design and modified front headlamps. At the rear, the car will get a restyled bumper and tail lamps. Inside, the refreshed D-segment sedan is expected to receive a more exhaustive list of features.

Under the hood, the car will, in all probability, carry the same choice of engines and transmissions from the current model. That means, customers opting for a diesel powerplant will have to settle for the 1.4-litre engine which churns out 88PS of power and 205Nm of torque. For others, the 1.8-litre petrol-powered mill, which produces 140PS of power and 173Nm of torque, will do the job. While the petrol engine is paired to a six-speed manual box or a seven-speed CVT, the diesel mill will be offered with a six-speed manual transmission only.

Bookings for the updated Toyota Corolla Altis began a while back. Once launched, it will fight harder for the throne of the D-segment sedan category in India. Its direct rivals include the feature-rich Hyundai Elantra and the powerful Skoda Octavia, which recently got a facelift and will make its way to India this year.

Read More on : Toyota Corolla Altis
Shortly after he was elected, Donald Trump observedwith self-described surprisethat the president is exempt from ethics laws. Even if that is technically true, approaching ethics from this perspective will only undermine Trumps own efforts to implement his agenda. In a climate of intense media scrutiny and partisanship, the president must go beyond mere legal requirements to eliminate avoidable controversies over his administrations integrity.

In an essay last week at the Daily Beast, law professor Jack Goldsmith urges White House counsel Donald McGahn to take a proactive role in policing ethics issues in the White House. Prompting Goldsmiths essay were recent revelations that Michael Flynn, Trumps initial national security advisor, failed to register as a foreign agent for work that he performed on behalf of Turkish business interests last year.

According to the Washington Post and the Associated Press, McGahn knew during the transition that Flynn might have needed to register as a foreign agent for this work; but instead of directly resolving the issue himself, McGahn advised Flynn to seek the opinion of personal counsel. Goldsmith allows that McGahns White House Counsels Office may have had good reasons for taking this hands-off approach. If so, Goldsmith notes, the White House should make clear those reasons immediately.

Goldsmith is no naive pundit. He served at high levels of government in the George W. Bush administration, first as Pentagon general counsel, and then as chief of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel under Attorney General John Ashcroft. He knows as well as anybody the challenging legal, political, and ethical issues that arise in any administration. Nevertheless, we should not be surprised if the Trump White House resists Goldsmiths constructive criticism. Because Trump has endured months of criticismfriendly and hostileon ethical questions, he and his staff seem to have adopted a posture of reflexive defensiveness to any hint of reproach.

Criticism of the Trump White Houses ethics began even before Trump moved into the White House. From the Trump campaigns alleged connections to foreign influence to arguments that Trumps ownership of domestic and foreign properties inherently raises problems under the Constitutions emoluments clause, the White House has been besieged with criticism. And when the presidents most aggressive critics go so far as to argue that Trumps presidency will be legitimate if and only if he immediately sells off his entire business, then you can understand why the White House might tune out criticism altogether.

It would be a mistake to take such a hard line, however. And it would be a mistake to think of these ethical issues as simply a matter of doing what the law requires and nothing more. Rather, it is in any administrations interests to go above and beyond the requirements of law to minimize even the appearance of ethical lapses.

On this point, White House officials need to read Energy in the Executive, a 1992 book by Terry Eastland, a veteran of Ronald Reagans Justice Department. Eastland makes two important points: first, that an energetic Executive is a virtue in our constitutional system, not a vice; and second, that the president must make ethics a high priority, for its own sake.

Eastlands first point is now conventional wisdom, by and large, among conservatives. While in 1992, many conservatives were still wary of praising executive power even after Reagans vigorous presidency, todays conservatives have largely come to recognize the wisdom of Alexander Hamiltons argument in Federalist 70namely, that [e]nergy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government, and that it is not just essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks but also that it is equally essential to the steady administration of the laws. The presidents exercise of authority is not necessarily good in every instance, of course; but presidential passivity is a vice of its own.

The need for energetic executive power leads to Eastlands second point: if we need presidential energy, then we also need the presidents administration to be supremely ethical. Because if the president allows himself to become entangled in disputes with Congress, the courts, and the press over ethical questions, then he will find his own energy depleted. Here is how Eastland himself explained it in 1992, on C-Spans Booknotes:

[I]ts important that a president understand that there is an independent measure, if you will, of conduct and he ought to be willing to apply it. And he ought to set an example by saying, Look, I expect the highest kind of behavior, compliance not only with the civil and criminal laws that might apply to the executive branch, but even to go beyond that and to make sure that none of us, at any time, do anything that might be called into question. And again, one of the really important reasons for having this kind of standard in a presidency, I think, is that otherwise you lose the crucial ingredient, the energy, in the executive thats needed for good government. Again, energy is the precious commodity, and it can be drained away . . . by all kinds of behavior.

The crucial point here is that if Trump does not demand high ethical standards of everyone in his administration, he will find his presidencys energy drained away by press muckraking, lawsuits, and congressional investigations. And achieving high ethical standards requires more than just complying with the narrowly defined limits of law. Trump must ensure that his White House is not tainted with even the appearance of ethical impropriety.

Of course, some controversies are unavoidable, even when the administration is acting ethically and legally, because a presidents most heated critics will persist in launching unreasonable attacks at him. But President Trump, White House Counsel McGahn, and the rest of the administration should try to make their unhinged critics work as hard as possible.

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, by James Kirchick (Yale University Press, 288 pp., $27.50)

James Kirchicks The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age is an engaging meld of journalism and history. The product of six years of living in and reporting from Europe, Kirchicks book is essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of the upcoming elections in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, which will take place amid economic stagnation, jihadist attacks, and Vladimir Putins attempts to undermine NATO by subventing philo-Russian populist/nationalist parties.

Across the continent, but particularly in those three countries and in Sweden, its almost impossible to discuss immigration and Islamism without being accused of racism. Free discussion is confined to what Europeans call the opinion corridor, and dissidents step outside it at their own risk. Rising support across Europe for xenophobic, populist parties, writes Kirchick, is partly the result of a constricted political discourse in which decent, ordinary people are told not only that plainly visible phenomena dont exist but also that voicing concerns about these allegedly nonexistent phenomena is racist. It is as if Islam were a racial category.

Just five years after winning the Nobel Prize and being championed as a model for the world, the European Union, says Kirchick, is crumbling. Its unable to police its borders, stimulate economic growth, afford its generous welfare state, and halt its demographic declineand unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge the failures of multiculturalism. The attempt to create a European super-state by way of a common currency, the euro, has produced an increasingly bitter divide between prosperous northern Europe and southern neighbors such as Greece, Italy, and Spain. Nonetheless, for the ideologues of the European Commission, led by its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, former prime minister of Luxembourg, the only good answer to every problem has been to expand further the already-overextended powers of the European Uniona body heartily detested by a good portion of Europeans. The one thing that the unelected bureaucrats of the German-dominated EU are good at is policing free speech and denouncing the nationalism that grows out of their arrogant and unaccountable failures.

Some of the best sections in The End of Europe deal with all-too-vivid memories of World War II. In Estonia, a Baltic nation that borders Russia, citizens think of the Soviets as the occupiers who displaced the Nazi occupiers. Putin, who says that the collapse of the Soviet empire was the great tragedy of the twentieth century, insists that Estonia should be eternally grateful for the Soviet defeat of the Nazis. Anti-Russianism in Estonia, on this view, is only a cover for the philo-fascism that accompanied the Soviet occupation. Estonians are understandably more ambivalent. In 2007, Estonia decided to move the Bronze Soldier monumentdedicated to fallen Soviet soldiersand its surrounding graves from the capital, Tallinn, to a more peripheral site. The move set off two days of riots by Estonias substantial Russian-speaking minority and a cyber-attack on Tallins thriving technology industry (Estonians created Skype) by Moscow.

Putins barely concealed aim is to dismantle NATO, a goal he could achieve in various ways. He might invade Estonia or Latvia, claiming, as per Ukraine, that he was coming to the defense of an oppressed Russian minority. Toomas Ilves, president of Estonia from 2006 to 2016, points to perhaps an even more vulnerable location: the Suwalki Gap, located in a narrow sliver of land, notes Kirchick, between Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Kalingrad (the heavily militarized Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania). Should Russia seize that sliver, it could seal off the Baltic States from Europe.

Military options aside, the great danger to NATO lies in Germanys historic attraction to Russia. Both have seen themselves as alternative cultures to the Anglo-French civilization of Western Europe. The Germans were drawn to Dostoevsky, the Russians to Nietzsche. More recently, during the Cold War, Germanys Social Democrats, led by Willy Brandt, pursued a deal to reunite East and West Germany in return for German neutrality. This is more than an academic point. Christian Democrat Angela Merkels predecessor as chancellor, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, declared Putin a flawless Democrat. Shortly after leaving office in 2005, Schroeder became chairman of Nord Stream, a Kremlin-run subsidiary of Gazprom. When the Estonian government relocated the Bronze Soldier in 2007, Kirchick writes, Schroeder saw fit to emerge from retirement and condemn Tallin for violating every form of civilized behavior. At his lavish 70th birthday party, Schroeder embraced Putin, and he stayed silent about the Russian conquest of Crimea.

The dangers of Putinism and Islamism have intersected in Germany. Seeking reelection after 11 years in office, Merkel faces a stiff challenge from Social Democrat Martin Schulz, the president of the powerless European parliament from 2012 to 2017. Merkel, who has described multiculturalism as a failure, had once been seen as a shoo-in, but her ill-conceived proposal to admit 1 million Muslim refugees into Germany has dramatically weakened her political standing, especially in light of the sexual assaults committed by Muslim arrivals. If Schulz wins what is now a tight race, the Social Democrats will no doubt adopt a position opposing sanctions against Russia for its imperial adventuresand a softening of sanctions will shake NATO further.

The End of Europe offers a readable but historically grounded view of a deeply troubled continent.

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Various news, rumors and notes as heard by the Cruise Industry News editorial team on Tuesday in Ft. Lauderdale.

New Canada/NE Player: A cruise line will make a long-awaited deployment move in 2018 and 2019, spending fall foliage season in the Northeast for the first time.

Cuba: All four major cruise companies are looking at investing in Cuban ports.

No Ships: There are two North American cruise ports that have cruise calls booked and may not care less. One port, on the West Coast, simply doesn't want ships in the summer. A new player in the mid-Atlantic said they prefer cargo calls.

Snapchat: Follow the Cruise Industry News editorial team this week on Snapchat for behind-the-scenes content. Find the links on the CIN Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Body Cams: Royal Caribbean has added body cameras to its security teams, said Richard Fain, chairman and CEO.

Moves: With South Korean ports off the table for now on ships sailing from China, cruise lines are racing to replace calls in South Korea with port stops into Japan and more days at sea. This may create a back-lash, however, with the travel agent community in China which is responsible to close to 100 percent of cruise sales through the charter model. Chinese cruise passengers have not been happy with deployment changes and skipped ports in the past, often hosting sit-ins onboard and demanding refunds.

Step Down: While the orderbook is at all time record highs, the latest classes of ships are not breaking any records. Call it the "step-down" size - between 120,000 and 160,000 tons.

Hotel Gouging: Hotels in Ft. Lauderdale have realized they own the supply/demand matrix this week; a quick check of year-over-year pricing shows room rates up nearly 100%.

Henna Back: Is HNAs Henna heading back to service after the company pulled the plug on its own cruise operation? The ship was reportedly sold to be scrapped but now there is another option  and its picking up steam for a new brand  to deploy the vessel back into China service sailing to Japan for a new brand.

One Industry; Many Voices: Over 150 media members have registered for press access to the South Florida event.

VIP Parking: For the busy cruise line decision maker, and those with huge stands in Ft. Lauderdale, even the parking garage had a cordoned off special area.
The Legend of the Seas departed Dubai on March 13 on her final cruise with Royal Caribbean International, marking the end of her Royal career before her transfer to the Thomson Cruises brand under the TUI Group. She will re-launch in June as the TUI Discovery 2.

During her career she has been based in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the South Pacific, Alaska, Central America, Caribbean, the Baltic, Mediterranean and the Middle East.

"Since its inaugural sailing, Legend of the Seas has created many wonderful memories for hundreds of thousands of guests, and we expect this successful history to continue as she transitions to Thomson Cruises," said Richard D. Fain, chairman and chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. "While she will be missed, her transition supports our objective of moderate capacity growth."

The Legend of the Seas departed Dubai Cruise Terminal at 8pm local time, with events planned onboard to mark her last ever sailing under Royal Caribbean colors.

Legend of the Seas was in port in Dubai at the same time as the Vision of the Seas.
Industry leaders came together on Tuesday morning in South Florida to discuss the state of the global cruise industry, which is expecting record capacity growth through 2026.

Among the panelists were Arnold Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation; Richard Fain, chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Cruises; Frank del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings; and Pierfrancesco Vago, executive chairman of MSC Cruises.

"It's the greatest vacation experience there is, we just need to get more people to know about it," said Donald.

Fain said the cruise offering value proposition was taking hold not only in the United States, but also in Europe. "Asia is just exploding," Fain said.

The overall challenges revolve around the Caribbean, Capacity and China, as well as diversifying the product.

"Answering the question of where is critical to the success to every voyage and to the ultimate success of the cruise line," said del Rio of itinerary planning. "Where is truly critical. This is why itinerary planning and destination planning is so important. To this day, I review every itinerary for every ship before it goes on sale.

"Guests determine what a cruise sells for and price, or yield, will determine a cruise line's profitability," del Rio said.

He pointed to an example of summer deployment, where a ship in the Baltic would earn nearly double the yield of a ship in the Caribbean.

So far, 2017 has been robust, according to the executives, who said it would be a good year and bookings and pricing were positive. Del Rio even referred to the all-time-high stock market as the "Trump effect."

"The Trump administration is a pro business government and we're all going to benefit from a basket of initiatives," del Rio said.

In 2016, earnings were largely driven by increased passenger capacity and reduced operating and fuel costs, as well as increased onboard spending per passenger day, while ticket revenue per passenger day was down year-over-year

Del Rio said shore excursions were the number one source of onboard revenue.

"Destinations not only sell tickets, but generate the most amount of onboard revenue," he said.

After several cost conscious years, it will be increasingly hard to find any more savings to squeeze out and with fuel prices starting to pick up, it will be more difficult to maintain the earnings momentum, which has also benefitted from share buy-back programs.

Carnival Corporation recently told investors to expect $70 to $80 million cost savings annually.

One way to meet that challenge is to build new ships that are more cost efficient than previous generations while also offering more onboard revenue options.

Another way is to tap into new markets, such as China, and offer new premium destinations, such as Cuba.

In China, record growth in 2016 is being backed up by another strong year of capacity growth, but the curve is moving down, although new ships from Star Cruises and Carnival Corporation will move the needle again in the early 2020s.

In the Caribbean, things are again heating up as capacity is being pulled out of Europe due to various issues.

"Our assets move, and we will follow the trends of where our customers want to go, whether its China or Cuba," said Vago.

With some 82 ships on order, destinations must prepare for more and bigger ships, and cruise lines must keep an eye on the supply/demand scenario.

"Never in the history of cruise shipping have we had an orderbook going out 10 years," said Vago.

"(Capacity growth) is constant," del Rio added. "The result has become congestion in some of the world's visited destination. As a result, the industry has looked to new source markets to deploy its ships ... and new destinations in such heavily trafficked areas."

Cruise lines are also investing in their own ports, and spending money on homeport infrastructure development, del Rio said.

Fain said it was important to continue educating local and national governments on how much the cruise industry contributes in terms of jobs and local economic impact.

"When you have that kind of economic impact, governments tend to what to encourage it," Fain noted.

Capacity growth will be the underlying story for the next decade, with the average new ship coming in at the 3,000 passenger mark. Some of these ships will replace older vessels, although those cruise ships are generally smaller and less efficient.

For consumers, this means better prices, new destinations and new and exciting ships.
By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Mar 13 (PTI) Hong Kongs outgoing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who stonewalled pro-independence protests last year, was today elected as vice chairman of Chinas top political advisory body.

Leung was declared elected as vice chairman of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the closing meeting of the annual session of the top political advisory body. He was greeted by top Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping.

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"We congratulate him. He will be able to play a bigger role in exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong in the future," CPPCC spokesman Wang Guoqing said.

His appointment makes him to play a dual role of state leader and Hong Kongs top official, which some argued violate the one country two systems formula agreed with the British during the merger of the city with China in 1997.

Leungs elevation to the vice-chairmanship has raised questions over whether his dual role contravenes the "one country, two systems" principle.

Article 22 of the Basic Law, Hong Kongs mini-constitution, states that no mainland Chinese authority shall meddle in the citys internal affairs, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Complicating the situation is the Hong Kong anti-graft investigation into a HK dollar 50 million payment that Leung received from Australian engineering firm UGL.

Some CPPCC delegates expressed concernregarding the probe when Leung was voted in as a CPPCC delegate earlier this month, the report said.

In Beijing he received full support.

Jonathan Choi Koon-shun, a CPPCC National Committee member from Hong Kong, said the election result is well-deserved for Leung, who has implemented the "one country, two systems" principle and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

In dealing with the illegal "Occupy Central" movement, opposing "Hong Kong Independence" and addressing other major issues, he has been firm in stance and resolute in action, effectively safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as Hong Kongs overall interests, Choi was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency. PTI KJV AJR

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CFPBs Credit Union Advisory Council, which includes several NAFCU-member representatives, will discuss alternative data and consumers access to financial records during a public meeting March 30 at the bureaus headquarters in Washington.

NAFCU will attend the meeting, which is slated to begin at 3:15 p.m. Eastern.

The CFPB is currently requesting comments on the use of unconventional sources of information, called alternative data, as a way for consumers to gain access to credit, such as cell phone bills and rent payments. Comments are due by May 19.

Regarding consumer access to financial records, NAFCU told the CFPB last month that access to consumer data to power better personal finance products should focus on ensuring the security of consumers data and should not create new data-collection burdens and costs for credit unions. In November, the CFPB asked for stakeholder input into how consumer financial records can be shared safely with third parties, such as personal budgeting apps and tools.
The NCUA announced last month that it banned six former employees from participating in the affairs of any federally-insured financial institution for stealing money and other crimes.

Fuataina Afutiti, the former president/CEO of Veterans Health Administration Credit Union, was sentenced in December to two and half years to up to 20 years in state prison for stealing nearly $2 million from the Detroit-based credit union, which had $2 million in assets. With the stolen funds from 2012 to 2016, she leased or bought several cars, including a 2013 Mercedes Benz and a motorhome. Afutiti also used the credit unions money to pay for vacations.

Phillip Webb, a former manager of network services for St. Paul Postal Employees Credit Union, now the $650 million Ideal Credit Union in Woodbury, Minn., pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 2010. He was sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay $169,932 in restitution in 2011. After illegally obtaining computer components from a vendor, Webb sold the replacement parts and delivered them through a package delivery company.
Chinas Intelligent Weaponry Gets Smarter

Chinese companies are making big commercial advances in artificial intelligence and this is translating into superiority in defence technology.

Robert O. Work, the veteran defense official retained as deputy secretary by President Trump, calls them his AI dudes.

The breezy moniker belies their serious task: The dudes have been a kitchen cabinet of sorts, and have advised Work as he has sought to reshape warfare by bringing artificial intelligence to the battlefield.

Last spring, he asked, Ok, you guys are the smartest guys in AI, right? No, the dudes told him, the smartest guys are at Facebook and Google, Mr. Work recalled in an interview.

Now, increasingly, theyre also in China. The United States no longer has a strategic monopoly on the technology, which is widely seen as the key factor in the next generation of warfare.

The Chinese-designed multicore processor of the Sunway TaihuLight, the worlds fastest supercomputer. The new supercomputer is thought to be part of a broader Chinese push to begin driving innovation.

The Pentagons plan to bring AI to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the nascent technology field. And that shift is reflected in surprising commercial advances in artificial intelligence among Chinese companies.

Last year, for example, Microsoft researchers proclaimed that the company had created software capable of matching human skills in understanding speech.

Although they boasted that they had outperformed their United States competitors, a well-known A.I. researcher who leads a Silicon Valley laboratory for the Chinese web services company Baidu gently taunted Microsoft, noting that Baidu had achieved similar accuracy with the Chinese language two years earlier.

That, in a nutshell, is the challenge the United States faces as it embarks on a new military strategy founded on the assumption of its continued superiority in technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence.

First announced last year by Ash Carter, President Barack Obamas defense secretary, the Third Offset strategy provides a formula for maintaining a military advantage in the face of a renewed rivalry with China and Russia.

Well into the 1960s, the United States held a military advantage based on technological leadership in nuclear weapons. In the 1970s, that perceived lead shifted to smart weapons, based on brand-new Silicon Valley technologies like computer chips. Now, the nations leaders plan on retaining that military advantage with a significant commitment to artificial intelligence and robotic weapons.

But the global technology balance of power is shifting. From the 1950s through the 1980s, the United States carefully guarded its advantage. It led the world in computer and material science technology, and it jealously hoarded its leadership with military secrecy and export controls.

In the late 1980s, the emergence of the inexpensive and universally available microchip upended the Pentagons ability to control technological progress. Now, rather than trickling down from military and advanced corporate laboratories, todays new technologies increasingly come from consumer electronics firms. Put simply, the companies that make the fastest computers are the same ones that put things under our Christmas trees.

As consumer electronics manufacturing has moved to Asia, both Chinese companies and the nations government laboratories are making major investments in artificial intelligence.

The advance of the Chinese was underscored recently when Qi Lu, a veteran Microsoft artificial intelligence specialist, left the company to become chief operating officer at Baidu, where he will oversee the companys ambitious plan to become a global leader in AI.

And last year, Tencent, developer of the mobile app WeChat, a Facebook competitor, created an artificial intelligence research laboratory and began investing in United States-based AI companies.

Rapid Chinese progress has touched off a debate in the United States between military strategists and technologists over whether the Chinese are merely imitating advances or are engaged in independent innovation that will soon overtake the United States in the field.

The Chinese leadership is increasingly thinking about how to ensure they are competitive in the next wave of technologies, said Adam Segal, a specialist in emerging technologies and national security at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In August, the state-run China Daily reported that the country had embarked on the development of a cruise missile system with a high level of artificial intelligence. The new system appears to be a response to a missile the United States Navy is expected to deploy in 2018 to counter growing Chinese military influence in the Pacific.

Known as the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, it is described as a semi-autonomous weapon. According to the Pentagon, this means that though targets are chosen by human soldiers, the missile uses artificial intelligence technology to avoid defenses and make final targeting decisions.

The new Chinese weapon typifies a strategy known as remote warfare, said John Arquilla, a military strategist at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif. The idea is to build large fleets of small ships that deploy missiles, to attack an enemy with larger ships, like aircraft carriers.

They are making their machines more creative, he said. A little bit of automation gives the machines a tremendous boost.

Whether or not the Chinese will quickly catch the United States in artificial intelligence and robotics technologies is a matter of intense discussion and disagreement in the United States.

Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Baidu, said the United States may be too myopic and self-confident to understand the speed of the Chinese competition.

There are many occasions of something being simultaneously invented in China and elsewhere, or being invented first in China and then later making it overseas, he said. But then US media reports only on the US version. This leads to a misperception of those ideas having been first invented in the US.

NYTimes:

Overconfident: US Will Win A Cyber War With China In 2017:

Chinas Quantum Satellite Changes Cryptography:
1.4 million Pennsylvanians asked to vote by mail. How fast will ballots be counted?
Sweeping changes in environmental markets made 2015 a pivotal year for the voluntary carbon credits, according to respondents in Environmental Finance's annual Voluntary Carbon Market Survey.

A landmark agreement at the 2015 UN Climate Summit (COP21) in Paris, to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, included new support for developing countries in tackling climate change.

2015 also saw European leaders agree to the Market Stability Reserve (MSR), a reform that would remove surplus emission allowances (EUAs) from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)  the world's largest compliance market for carbon  in a move designed to bring supply and demand back into balance after the 2008 financial crisis.

However, despite these changes, prices in the voluntary carbon market have stubbornly continued their decline.

Figures from Ecosystem Marketplace's 2015 State of the Voluntary Carbon Market report show that average annual prices, fell to an all-time low of $3.30 per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) from $3.80 in 2014.

"There has been a decline in demand for voluntary offsets," says Martijn Wilder a partner at Baker & McKenzie, which was voted Best Law Firm in the survey for the seventh year. "This has resulted in less capital flowing to support the development of voluntary offset projects, such that only the very high quality projects are prospering".

The average price of voluntary carbon credits is now less than half of the peak of $7.30 reached in 2008.

However, despite prices falling for an eighth year in row, most market participants remain optimistic, citing possible demand-side drivers.

The cause of the persistently low prices, according to Toby Janson Smith, chief innovation officer at VCS, which was voted Best Voluntary Standard, was historical oversupply.

despite damnd falling, he argues that, for the second year running, buyers of offsets have redeemed more verified carbon reductions than were issued.

"We saw more retirements in the last couple of years, which is great sign," says Janson Smith. "There is still a fair bit of supply but it's getting used up, which is a good thing, especially when you take market signals like the Paris Agreement, into account."

A record 39 million tonnes of verified carbon offsets were redeemed in 2015, according to Ecosystem Marketplace.

Demand for offsets seems to have turned a corner just as world leaders reached an agreement on new targets for global emissions reductions.

As part of the COP21 agreement, rich countries can choose to offset their carbon emissions by purchasing carbon offsets from poorer countries.

"The reintroduction of a market-based mechanism implied in the Paris Agreement cannot be overestimated," says Thomas Schroder, director of marketing and communications at South Pole Group.

He argues that the previous market mechanism  the Clean Development Mechanism, which was introduced by the UN to help poor countries produce carbon offsets that could be used in large emissions trading schemes  was struggling to keep up with the economic development of India and China.

The market also saw a 10% increase in overall volume, and this trend has continued into 2016, according to some market participants, who see it is a sign that the market is picking up, despite the low prices.

Reasons for optimism

Another key development for the market was the inclusion of climate change into the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

The SDGs are designed to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals, which were launched in 2001, and served as a focus for international aid and development finance from UN member countries.

Revised up to 17, the new goals not only take account of the effect that climate change has on achieving the original goals, but explicitly list tackling climate change as one of the goals.

This means climate change projects that generate strong social 'co-benefits'  so called because they are considered additional to carbon emissions reductions  may attract more financing as countries and companies use them to show their commitment to the SDGs.

"When the UN SDGs came out in September, we began matching the project 'co-benefits' according to these goals to help illustrate their impact in terms of economy, ecology and society in general," says South Pole's Schroder. "These projects have the potential to obtain a premium price in the market."

Countries are not the only drivers of demand in voluntary carbon markets. There has been a renewed interest from corporates, according to offset retailer Natural Capital Partners formerly known as CarbonNeutral. Indeed, the increase in volumes last year was partly driven by corporations taking proactive steps to reduce emissions ahead of expected regulations, according to the Ecosystem Marketplace report.

"The COP21 agreement crowned a very good year for carbon credits," says Simon Brown, managing director at Natural Capital Partners. "We saw renewed interest in carbon offsetting, with companies making commitments to reduce carbon emissions through science-based targets and becoming carbon neutral."

Companies have not only increased their commitments, they have also 'deepened' them, according to EcoAct, which was voted Best Advisory Service, Best Project Developer - Energy Efficiency and Best Project Developer Overall.

"Traditionally, buyers of offsets were companies and individuals trying to offset their travel, but that market expanded to include some buyers who began to show more concrete commitments to offsetting their Scope One and Two emissions," says William Theisen, a director at EcoAct.

His views were echoed by K. Sudheendra director and head of operations at Epic Sutainablity.

"There is some upward traction with the number of projects we verify, " says Sudheendra. "Verifications for renewable energy, forestry and community based projects have increased."

2015 also saw Gold Standard, another voluntary carbon credit standard setter, launch a consultation on how to include the revised SDGs into the third iteration of its standards.

The inclusion of environmental issues in the UN SDGs also helped to support the argument that projects should do more to quantify the non-carbon benefits they provide.

The price premium for quantifying these 'co-benefits' is increasingly being seen by developers as a valuable new source of capital for projects.

This is leading to a larger gap between the part of the market that is interested only in purchasing carbon offsets and the part that is interested in the full spectrum of benefits, according to Edward Hanrahan, a director at ClimateCare, which was voted Best Project Developer - Public Health.

"All of the different development outcomes from these projects need to be considered as separate at the very beginning and planned into the project," says Hanrahan.

"It is increasingly becoming recognised that the valuable outcomes from these projects are not just environmental, but also the health and development aspects."

The renewed commitments by world leaders at COP21 to use environmental levers to help developing countries achieve sustainable growth are seen a boon for voluntary carbon markets.

The number of commitments made by countries increased ahead of the Paris Agreement, as countries sought to rise to the occasion, according to Markit, which was voted Best Registry Provider.

"We saw renewed vigour in the market in the lead up to COP with the expectations of an agreement being reached," says Kathy Benini, managing director at Markit. "Peru built their REDD+ registry, Mexico also launched theirs. Colombia also created a domestic voluntary market in 2015. All of this was done in advance of COP."

Things heating up for cook stoves

Cookstove projects were popular with corporate offset buyers in 2015, and credits issued for these projects saw a big uptick.

According to the Gold Standard's first quarterly report on offset supply, published earlier this year, credits from cookstove projects saw 2.2 million retirements in 2015, compared with 1.5 million issued.

Another key area where developers remain optimistic are forestry projects.

Projects such as this year's winner of Best Offsetting Project  The International Small Group Tree Planting Initiative (TIST)  have proved a big hit with companies. These types of project recognise the fact that around 17% of global GHG emissions are from forestry-related emissions. Projects associated with reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), in particular, are seen as prime candidates for inclusion in mandatory offset markets. (See box)

High hopes for aviation offsetting

However, the biggest source for optimism in 2015 was the aviation industry.

Transport  aviation and shipping in particular  is the only major GHG emitting sector to be excluded from mandatory national and international emissions reduction schemes. This is because of the difficulty of setting national targets for these international industries.

However, following the success of the COP21 negotiations, these industries have come under renewed pressure to produce their own plans for reducing their GHG emissions.

Industry groups from the voluntary carbon market have been lobbying the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), ahead of its triannual meeting in September, to allow companies to use voluntary offsets as part of any mandatory compliance model it develops.

"What's on the table is a proposal for VCS and other global standards to submit an application to be recognised so that airlines such as Delta and British Airways could submit a VCU [a type of voluntary carbon credit] in order to comply with the ICAO ruling," says VCS' Janson Smith.

Baker & McKenzie's Wilder argues that both an aviation industry scheme and the inclusion of REDD+ in mandatory markets, like those of California and Australia, are too far off to be felt in prices.

"There is a great hope that the aviation industry will pass a mandatory carbon offsetting scheme and that it will include voluntary carbon credits," says Wilder. "But this, as well as the inclusion of REDD in mandatory markets, are unlikely to materialise in the next year or so."

Despite these reservations, he accepts that the voluntary market continues to play a vital role in helping bring about a low-carbon economy.

To go back to the awards page click here.

Voluntary Carbon Market Rankings 2016 1ST 2ND Best Trading Company South Pole Group Natural Capital Partners Best Advisory/Consultancy EcoAct Natural Capital Partners Best Law Firm Baker & McKenzie Norton Rose Fulbright Best Verification Company EPIC Sustainability SCS / Rainforest Alliance Best Wholesaler South Pole Group First Climate Best Broker Numerco Evolution Markets Best Project Developer, Renewable Energy South Pole Group EcoAct Best Project Developer, Energy Efficiency EcoAct South Pole Group Best Project Developer, Forestry and Land-Use Clean Air Action Corp South Pole Group* / Terra Global Best Project Developer, Public Health Climate Care South Pole Group Best Project Developer, Overall EcoAct South Pole Group / Terra Global Best Offset Retailer Natural Capital Partners South Pole Group Best Registry Provider Markit APX Best Voluntary Standard VCS Gold Standard Best Offsetting Project TIST Kulera Best Corporate Offsetting Programme Livelihoods Carbon Fund Deutsche Post *Note that many votes in this category were cast for Climate Friendly - but they are owned by South Pole.

Wood from the trees  potential in forestry credit offsets Forestry credits have long been a staple of the voluntary carbon market. However, 2015 saw several key developments that stand to make such projects even more important. REDD+, a methodology for measuring the carbon sequestration and other environmental benefits of projects that prevent deforestation and forest degradation, has long been linked with potential inclusion in mandatory markets. In 2010, the then governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a memorandum of understanding for the inclusion of REDD+ credits from two South America states in its mandatory cap-and-trade system. The plan, which was halted twice due to political instability in Brazil and a lack of clarity on jurisdictional issues around redemption of the credits, again hit the headlines in 2015 when a new proposal put in front of California's Air Resources Board (ARB) suggested that offsets from REDD+ projects could be included in the scheme as soon as 2018. "Having jurisdictional REDD+ credits included in compliance markets could be a really good thing for the market as a whole," says Kathy Benini, managing director at Markit, which was voted Best Registry Provider. The increased demand for such carbon credits from mandatory carbon markets, will help keep prices high for these types of projects, many believe. However, after COP21, each country now has its own national emissions reduction targets. Those with REDD+ credits must therefore decide whether or not they want to allow their credits to be sold into another jurisdiction. If the California planis adopted, emitters in the programme may choose to purchase offsets from the state of Acre in Brazil or Chiapas in Mexico to meet their mandatory targets. Other regions producing forestry credits are expected to follow. Elsewhere, REDD+ and other forestry standards such as the Gold Standard are in the running to be included in a Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). This scheme, which is being voted on at the International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) annual meeting in October, would be mandatory but could include offsets from jurisdictional sector-specific carbon credits such as REDD+. Outside of these developments, forestry credits continue to be a major force in the voluntary carbon market. According to Ecosystems Marketplace's 2015 State of the Voluntary Carbon Market report, credits from forestry projects represent a third of all carbon credits in the market. A better understanding of climate change means that forestry and land-use credits are more highly sought after, according to Ben Heneke, president of Clean Air Action Corporation, which won Best Offset Project. "The biggest change since we launched in 1999 is that people get it now," he says. "We no longer have to explain climate change to people anymore, and we especially don't have to explain its effect to small farmers across the world, and forestry projects need the least explanation of all."
WASHINGTON, DC -- Massive coastal flooding in northern Europe that now occurs once every century could happen every year if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, according to a new study.

New projections considering changes in sea level rise, tides, waves and storm surge over the 21st century find global warming could cause extreme sea levels to increase significantly along Europe's coasts by 2100. Extreme sea levels are the maximum levels of the sea that occur during a major storm and produce massive flooding.

The increase in frequency of these events that are today considered exceptional will likely push existing coastal protection structures beyond their design limits, leaving a large part of Europe's coastal zones exposed to flooding, according to the study's authors.

"Unless we take different protection measures, 5 million people will be exposed to coastal flooding on an annual basis," said Michalis Vousdoukas, a coastal oceanographer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the lead author of the new study published in Earth's Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Northern Europe will see the strongest increase in extreme sea levels. Areas along the Mediterranean and the Black Sea could see these 100-year extreme sea level events several times a year. In the North Sea region, extreme sea levels could increase by nearly 1 meter (3 feet) under the worst-case scenario. The Atlantic coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland could see similar increases in extreme sea levels, while lower but still considerable increases in extreme sea levels are projected for the Norwegian and Baltic seas.

Information about the number of people at risk from flooding can be used to determine how large the social and economic impact of these events will be, said Marta Marcos, a researcher at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Spain, who was not involved in the new study.

"In terms of adaptation strategies and policymaking, it is very relevant," she said.

Considering all components

The new research considers how all components that can influence extreme sea levels, including the mean sea level, tides, waves and storm surge, will be affected by climate change. The researchers used information about these different components to project changes in extreme sea levels by 2100 under different greenhouse gas scenarios. Using all of these components provides a more accurate projection of how extreme sea levels will change this century, according to the study's authors.

Under the most extreme scenario, where greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise throughout this century, extreme sea levels along Europe's coastlines could increase by 81 centimeters, or more than 2  feet, on average, by 2100. That means 5 million Europeans who are currently under threat of flooding from extreme sea level events that occur every 100 years could face that same risk annually, according to the new study.

Even under a more moderate scenario where greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2040, 100-year extreme sea levels could increase by 57 centimeters, or nearly 2 feet, on average, by the end of the century, with these events occurring every few years, according to study's authors.

The changes in one of these components, wave energy flux, is detailed in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. That study finds that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the energy waves carry to the coast will change significantly around the world by the end of the century.

In the southern hemisphere, extreme waves could carry up to 30 percent more energy by 2100, according to the new study. This means stronger waves will become more frequent, and have a greater impact on the coast, said Lorenzo Mentaschi, also at the JRC and lead author of the GRL study. The new GRL study attributes the changes in wave energy to the intensification of weather patterns, like the Antarctic Oscillation, El-Nino Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.

The new research will be provided to EU policymakers. The data will also be made public so it can be used by scientists, engineers and coastal managers.

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The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no. 603864 (HELIX: "High-End cLimate Impacts and eXtremes)."

The American Geophysical Union is dedicated to advancing the Earth and space sciences for the benefit of humanity through its scholarly publications, conferences, and outreach programs. AGU is a not-for-profit, professional, scientific organization representing 60,000 members in 137 countries. Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and our other social media channels.
When in Rome you do as the Romans do, right? Not necessarily. When it comes to fitting in with foreign cultures, "just be yourself" might be the more appropriate mantra, according to Brigham Young University professor Stephen Moody.

Looking at language specifically, Moody's research shows that you don't have to speak like a native to be accepted by natives; in fact, trying too hard to fit in might just set you back. Instead, he found, you can actually use your status as a foreigner to advance yourself socially or professionally.

"A lot of language teaching focuses on doing things according to local conventions," said Moody, a professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages. "Our research kind of challenges the idea that this is always necessary by noticing that there are times when a visiting foreigner is not expected to follow conventions and, in such situations, following conventions too closely can actually be seen as unusual."

For the research, published in Applied Linguistics, Moody tracked American students interning at Japanese firms, analyzing how they used formalities of Japanese language to assimilate -- or not -- into their workplace culture.

Honorifics, elements of Japanese used to convey politeness and formality, help construct identity, establish roles and define social relationships. By analyzing this specific aspect of the language, Moody was able to identify what does and doesn't work when it comes to fitting in.

The biggest takeaway? Regardless of how well you speak, there are still circumstances where you will be seen as a foreigner. Don't resent it; accept it and use it.

"It's not always about whether or not you're using the language correctly, but if you're comfortable being who you are," Moody said. "If you try to fit into the local convention so much that you step away from who you are, you're not going to fit in as well, even if you're using the language 'correctly.'"

One group of interns, he said, was so determined to "become Japanese" that they overused honorifics to the point of unnatural politeness.

"It would be like someone coming in and saying, 'Um, excuse me, I'm sorry, could I perhaps impinge on your time for a brief moment?'" Moody said. "If you're talking like that all the time it's a little too much."

Another group of interns was all business; they used honorifics appropriately and could maneuver through the professional world effectively, but they were stiff and formal and continually seen as outsiders on a social level.

In contrast, one intern intentionally used the language incorrectly -- but with positive results. "He went in and just played up the fact that he's a foreigner," Moody said.

According to Moody, this intern used exaggerated honorifics to play the role of goofy foreigner. His ironic and playful humor allowed everyone to laugh and connect on a more personal level, and his boss told Moody, "He's one of us; he fits right in."

Different situations will call for different approaches to assimilating into a foreign culture, but Moody hopes that this research will provide insight into understanding the context-specific challenges of being in a foreign workplace.

At BYU, which recently ranked 30th for global university employability, approximately 65 percent of students speak a second language. And, said Moody, "The role that language plays in facilitating relationships in the workplace is becoming more important. As more cultures combine in the workplace, employees are going to have to relate across cultures and build relationships."

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CINCINNATI - Intestinal stem cells rejuvenate daily so bowels will stay healthy and function normally, but a new study in Cell Reports suggests they also age along with people and lose their regenerative capacity.

Reporting their data online March 14, researchers suggest that reactivating the signaling of a key molecule lost in aging intestinal stem cells could restore healthy intestinal function in older people. The study was conducted in mice and human intestinal organoids by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the Institute for Molecular Medicine, Stem Cells and Aging at the University of Ulm in Germany.

Researchers say their study is the first to indicate that intestinal stem cells - which allow different intestinal cell types to renew themselves - age as people do. It also is the first to provide clear evidence that diminished signaling in intestinal stem cells (ISCs) by the Wnt protein - which is important to cell proliferation and renewal - drives the aging process and loss of ISCs' ability to rejuvenate intestinal tissues.

"Deterioration of Wnt signaling in aging intestinal stem cells may help explain imbalances in food and nutrient absorption in older people, but our paper also shows that biology allows us to reverse this process by restoring Wnt signaling," said Hartmut Geiger, PhD, senior investigator of the study. "Pharmacologic interventions will still need to be designed based on this finding, but we know now where to start."

Geiger is a member of the Division of Experimental Hematology and Cancer Biology at Cincinnati Children's.

Old vs. Young

In tests that compared the intestines of young mice (2 to 3 months old) with those of aged mice (approaching 2 years old), researchers noticed significant differences in the structural architecture of intestine.

Intestines from older mice showed a reduced number of crypts (mucosal glands), and the structures were longer and wider than in younger animals. Older intestines also had longer villi (absorptive tissues) and an elevated number of cells. But the researchers also noticed there were fewer numbers of actively dividing cells in the intestines of the older mice.

Study authors then looked for different characteristics in the ISCs of young and old mouse intestines. Although they did not observe differences in the numbers of ISCs, they did see a decreased presence of molecular markers that denote ISC function. This led them to conclude that ISC function diminishes in older intestines.

Finding Wnt

To identify genetically driven molecular processes that prompt aging and diminished function in ISCs (and in Paneth and goblet cells they form) the researchers subjected ISCs to RNA sequencing analysis. These tests showed significant reductions in gene expression in the older cells, including the down regulation of molecular pathways involving the genes PPAR, SMAD and Wnt.

Because Wnt plays a particularly prominent role in regulating ISCs, the researchers focused on this pathway. In young and old mice they tested the presence and strength of the Wnt signaling pathway in cells of the mesenchyme - which forms connective and skeletal tissues. The mesenchyme has recently been identified in other studies as providing a supportive environment for ISCs to form.

The authors also tested Wnt signaling in different intestinal cells from young and old mice, specifically goblet and Paneth cells that secrete proteins and antimicrobial peptides that are important to sustaining healthy intestines. In both instances they observed a decline in Wnt in intestinal tissues from the older animals.

In testing on lab-generated human and mouse intestinal organoids, the researchers also observed declines in Wnt signaling in older intestines along with altered intestinal structures and indications of diminished function.

Molecular restoration

Researchers concluded their study by testing the restoration of Wnt signaling in intestines by adding Wnt3a (an inducer of Wnt signaling) in aged mouse and human organoid models, which were generated with donated human cells. This rejuvenated the regenerative potential of ISCs in the mouse and human modeling systems. It also boosted the generation of Paneth and goblet cells and prompted an increase in the number of intestinal crypts and other critical structures.

The scientists are following up the current study by trying to define the extent to which therapeutic intervention to rejuvenate ISCs might be beneficial to humans.

###

Collaborating on the study along with first author Kodandaramireddy Nalapareddy, PhD, a member of the Geiger lab, was an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Cincinnati Children's divisions of Pathology; Laboratory Medicine; Pulmonary Biology; Pediatric General and Thoracic Surgery; Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition; the Perinatal Institute; and the University of Cincinnati.

Funding support came from National Institutes of Health (R01DK104814, AG040118).
"Revolutionary" is a word you hear often when people talk about the GRACE mission. Since the twin satellites of the NASA/German Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) launched on March 17, 2002, their data have transformed scientists' view of how water moves and is stored around the planet. "GRACE enabled tracking the movement of water via its mass, a field which was not available in spaceborne remote sensing and which opened new options to monitor and quantify climate change," said Reinhard Huttl, the Chairman of the Board and Scientific Executive Director of the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

Like many other revolutions, GRACE began with a radical idea. Principal investigator Byron Tapley (University of Texas Center for Space Research (UTCSR) at Austin) said, "The completely new idea about GRACE was the perception that measuring and tracking mass gives you a way to probe the Earth system." Measuring changes in mass has been a key to discovering how water and the solid Earth are changing in places humans can't go and can't see.

The weight of water

The greater an object's mass, the greater its gravitational pull. For example, the Alpes exert more gravitational pull than the flat North German Plain. Humans don't notice the tiny difference, but satellites do. While orbiting Earth, satellites accelerate very slightly as they approach a massive feature and slow down as they move away.

The vast majority of Earth's gravitational pull is due to the mass of Earth's interior. A small part, however, is due to water on or near Earth's surface. The ocean, rivers, glaciers and underground water change much more rapidly than the Earth's interior does, responding to changing seasons and to storms, droughts and other weather and climate effects. GRACE grew from the recognition that a specially designed mission could actually observe these changes from space and reveal the hidden secrets of the water cycle.

GRACE measures changes in mass through their effects on twin satellites orbiting one behind the other about 220 kilometers apart. The spacecraft are constantly beaming microwave pulses at each other and timing the arrival of returning signals, which translates to the distance separating the twin satellites. Changes in gravitational pull alter that distance very slightly -- by as little as a few microns' width, that is, a fraction of the diameter of a human hair. GPS keeps track of where the spacecraft are relative to Earth's surface, and on-board accelerometers records forces on the spacecraft other than gravity, such as atmospheric drag and solar radiation. Scientists process all these data to produce monthly maps of the regional variations in global gravity and the corresponding surface mass variations.

"When NASA selected this complex, high-precision mission for launch under its Earth System Science Pathfinder program and I entered the GRACE project end of last century as Germans GRACE project manager, I thought it is maybe a bit unlikely that this could ever work and will ever produce such an incredible long time series of monthly maps of global mass transport," remembers Frank Flechtner (GFZ), todays co-principal investigator and successor of orginal Co-PI and former director of GFZs Department "Geodesy" Christoph Reigber.

Flechtner credits the mission success to a close running and very smoothly US/German collaboration between NASA, UTCSR, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Airbus Defense and Space in Friedrichshafen and GFZ. "It's as if we are one family on both sides of the Atlantic".

The GRACE satellites were built in Germany at Airbus D&S under contract of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena. Mission operations is performed at DLRs German Space Operations Center (GSOC) in Oberpfaffenhofen and DLR procured a Russian "Rockot" as the launch vehicle. GFZ is part of the GRACE Science Data System with partners at JPL and UTCSR and is contributing to mission operations via its own satellite receiving station in Ny-Alesund, Spitzbergen, and providing the deputy mission operations manager. Todays mission operations funding is jointly secured by GFZ, DLR and ESAs Third Party Mission program.

What has GRACE seen?

Over GRACE's 15 years of operation, researchers from institutions worldwide have developed innovative techniques to use the data set and to combine it with other observations and models for new insights into the Earth system. Here are a few highlights.

Underground water. Water stored in soil and aquifers below Earth's surface is very sparsely measured worldwide. Hydrologist Matt Rodell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, did his doctoral research on GRACE's hydrological uses. Rodell said no one guessed before launch that GRACE would reveal unknown groundwater depletion, but over the last decade, JPL's Jay Famiglietti, Rodell and other researchers have found more and more locations where humans are pumping out groundwater faster than it is replenished. In 2015, Famiglietti and colleagues published a comprehensive survey showing a third of Earth's largest groundwater basins are being rapidly depleted.

Dry soils can add to drought risk or increase the length of a drought. Rodell and his team provide GRACE data on deep soil moisture and groundwater to the U.S. Drought Monitor each week, using a hydrology model to calculate how the moisture is changing throughout the month between one map and the next.

Flood forecasting systems need near-real time (NRT) information to estimate the probable generation and development of the flood event in terms of river discharge and flood stage with typical lead times of a few days for larger river basins. The EU funded European Gravity Service for Improved Emergency Management (EGSIEM) has developed such daily NRT gravity products and corresponding flood indicators to be used within DLRs Center for Satellite-based Crisis Information in an operational test run starting on April 1.

Ice sheets and glaciers. Antarctica is, hands down, the worst place in the world to collect data, and Greenland isn't far behind. Yet we need to know how fast these ice sheets are melting to understand rate and variations of sea level rise around the world. Scientists studying the cryosphere were among the first to start working with GRACE data to extract the information they needed. Ice losses from Greenland and Antarctica were dramatically larger than previously estimated using estimates of the changing height of the ice sheets and other types of data. Since GRACE launched, its measurements show Greenland has been losing about 280 gigatons of ice per year on average, and Antarctica a bit under 120 gigatons a year. GFZ's scientists Ingo Sasgen (now at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Bremerhaven) and Henryk Dobslaw where moreover able to relate interannual variations in snow fall and thus mass accumulation at the Antarctic Peninsula as monitored by GRACE to the strength of an atmospheric low pressure system situated over the Amundsen Sea. Since that low pressure system itself is particularly strong during tropical La Nina conditions, the GRACE data allowed for the first time to quantify the effectiveness of an atmospheric teleconnection process that links the tropical climate even to very remote and rather isolated regions as Antarctica. There are indications that both melt rates are increasing.

But also for inland glaciers, GRACE provides large-scale evidence for the rapid ice mass loss in many mountain areas worldwide, putting at risk the long-term water supply in their forelands. For Central Asia, an international research team led by the GFZ researchers Daniel Farinotti and Andreas Guntner estimated from GRACE data that currently the Tien Shan is loosing ice at a pace that is roughly twice the annual water consumption of entire Germany. Combining this with glaciological modelling, they estimate that half of the total glacier ice volume present in the Tien Shan today could be lost by the 2050s. See here for the press release in English.

Ocean Dynamics. The sea level is rising as ice melts and as seawater warms and expands. Scientists have a very precise, continuous measurement of the height of the sea level worldwide beginning 1992 with the NASA-French Topex-Poseidon mission and continuing through the Jason series of missions. The altimeter sea level measurements, however, see only the full effect of ocean height changes due to both, the ocean temperature and added water through ice melt and land runoff. To get an in-depth view of what processes are behind these changes, scientists need to look at the causes: is the ocean mainly getting warmer or is there more water added to the oceans? With GRACE, we are able to distinguish between water mass redistribution and temperatures changes. Inga Bergmann from GFZ demonstrated that GRACE is able to monitor the time-variations of water mass transport in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current down to even sub-monthly periods, thereby providing a much better large-scale view on the dynamics of the strongest oceanic current on Earth than previously available from oceanographic in situ data.

Solid Earth changes. The viscous mantle under Earth's crust is also moving ever so slightly in response to mass changes from water near the surface. GRACE has a community of users that are calculating these shifts for their research. JPL scientists Surendra Adhikari and Erik Ivins recently used GRACE data to calculate how not only ice sheet loss but groundwater depletion have actually changed the rotation of Earth as the system adjusts to these movements of mass.

GRACE's planners didn't have much hope that the mission's measurement could be used to pinpoint the abrupt changes in mass associated with earthquakes because of the difference in scale: earthquakes are sudden and local, whereas GRACE's monthly maps average over an area twice the size of Bavaria and an entire month of time. However, by devising new data processing and modeling techniques, researchers have found a way to isolate the earthquake effects. "We're able to measure the instantaneous mass shift in an earthquake, and we've found there's a very measurable relaxation that goes on for one or two months after the earthquake," Tapley said. These measurements provide unprecedented insights into what is happening far below Earth's surface.

Atmospheric Sounding. The secondary science objective of the GRACE mission is to obtain about 150 very precise globally distributed vertical temperature and humidity profiles of the atmosphere per day using the GPS radio occultation (RO) technique. "These measurements are of extreme interest for Weather Services and climate change related studies. Therefore we are providing these profiles on an 24/7 basis with maximum two hours after the measurement aboard the satellites to the world-leading weather centers, e.g., ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), MetOffice, MeteoFrance, NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) or DWD (Deutscher Wetterdienst) to improve their global forecasts." said Jens Wickert, GFZs RO manager.

The future

At 15 years, GRACE has lasted three times as long as originally planned. Project managers have done everything possible to extend its life, but the spacecraft will run out of fuel soon -- probably this summer. NASA and GFZ have been working since 2012 on a second GRACE mission called GRACE Follow-On, with Germany again procuring the launch vehicle, mission operations and the twin satellites built again at Airbus D&S in Germany.

GRACE-FO is scheduled for launch between Dec. 2017 and Feb. 2018. The new mission focuses on continuing GRACE's successful data record. The new satellites use similar hardware to GRACE and will also carry a technology demonstrator that uses a new laser ranging interferometer (LRI) for tracking the separation distance between the satellites. The LRI is a joint US/German development and has the potential to produce an even more accurate inter-satellite measurement and resulting gravity map.

With GRACE-FO to continue the revolutionary legacy, there are sure to be more innovative findings ahead. Most importantly, though, scientists can continue to monitor changes in our precious global water resource.

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For more information on GRACE: http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/grace

http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace
How do you know if that colleague is just being friendly or crossing a line?

By Somya Abrol: Seventy per cent of women do not report sexual workplace harassment in India. Seventy is a huge number.

We're sitting here and reading this while it's happening all around us--that colleague you thought was rude to you the other day, maybe she was fighting an internal battle she was trying to cope with through anger; the boss' receptionist who smiles a little too often, is maybe trying to veil her discomfort, because smiles are convenient.

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Women, and even a few men, face this debacle of workplace sexual harassment a little too often in our country. Actually, we don't realise when that seemingly nice, friendly colleague/boss turns into a predator who eventually threatens to put your job at risk.

Since it's always better to be safe than sorry, here's a checklist of behavior that constitutes sexual workplace harassment, as defined by the Government of India's Handbook on Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace:

1. Making sexually suggestive remarks or innuendos.

2. Serious or repeated offensive remarks, such as teasing related to a person's body or appearance.

3. Offensive comments or jokes.

4. Inappropriate questions, suggestions or remarks about a person's sex life.

5. Displaying sexist or other offensive pictures, posters, mms, sms, whatsapp, or e-mails.

6. Intimidation, threats, blackmail around sexual favours.

7. Threats, intimidation or retaliation against an employee who speaks up about unwelcome behaviour with sexual overtones.

8. Unwelcome social invitations, with sexual overtones commonly understood as flirting.

9. Unwelcome sexual advances which may or may not be accompanied by promises or threats,explicit or implicit.

10. Physical contact such as touching or pinching.

11. Caressing, kissing or fondling someone against her will (could be considered assault).

12. Invasion of personal space (getting too close for no reason, brushing against or cornering someone).

13. Persistently asking someone out, despite being turned down.

14. Stalking an individual.

15. Abuse of authority or power to threaten a person's job or undermine her performance against sexual favours.

16. Falsely accusing and undermining a person behind closed doors for sexual favours.

17. Controlling a person's reputation by rumour-mongering about her private life.

So, what do you do when you find yourself at the receiving end of such behavior? The first thing is to report it to an internal body, most likely the HR. And make sure you have this communication with the HR in black and white (on email or paper) for proof.

If the HR refuses to act upon it, or puts it off as just another case, your local police station is the next best bet. Acting in time in cases of sexual harassment is as essential as realising that it's happening to you. Do not let the predator get away with blackmail or personal threats. If we don't speak up, they will keep suppressing our voices. The call is yours to make.

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FRANKFURT am MAIN. Two Americans, Yuan Chang and Patrick S. Moore, will receive the 2017 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize today in Frankfurt's Paulskirche for their discovery of the tumor viruses HHV-8 and MCV by means of a clever subtraction strategy. HHV-8 is the human herpesvirus 8, and MCV stands for Merkel cell polyomavirus. "With their decision to search for the viral genes rather than the viral particles, the prizewinners have taken a major step forward in the hunt for new human tumor viruses and have laid the foundation for further discoveries. The discovery of further human tumor viruses in future remains a distinct possibility," wrote the Scientific Council in substantiating its decision. One in every six cancers in the world is related to a viral infection However, the risk of cancer from a viral infection is lower in the Western industrial countries than in the developing world. Yuan Chang is Professor of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Patrick Moore is Professor and Director of the Cancer Virology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. They are a wife and husband team.

HHV-8 causes Kaposi's sarcoma, a tumor of the blood vessel cells, which can be seen on the skin with the naked eye owing to its pronounced red or purplish spots. The tumor occurs mainly in AIDS patients. In their search for HHV-8, Chang and Moore subtracted the entire human genome from the genomic DNA of the tumor cells. The idea behind this approach was that the remaining sequences would, in the best case, belong to the tumor virus and not to the human genome. Following this strategy, the prizewinners isolated two small DNA fragments that they were eventually able to assign to a new herpesvirus. When they published their findings in 1994, they named the virus Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV). It was later given the official name HHV-8.

MCV is responsible for causing Merkel cell carcinoma, an extremely rare, malignant skin cancer. Chang and Moore refined their strategy in the search for the virus causing Merkel cell carcinoma. Fourteen years after the discovery of HHV-8, their approach was no longer to subtract the entire human genome from the tumor DNA but only the RNA sequences, thereby greatly simplifying the search. In addition, the sequences were not subtracted in a laboratory experiment but computationally, for which they used the published human genome sequences.

Chang and Moore not only discovered the viruses but also showed that they are in fact responsible for the two types of cancer. All Kaposi's sarcomas everywhere in the world contain HHV-8, in other words, not only those that occur in the context of AIDS but also the rare sarcomas that occur sporadically in the USA, Europe and Africa. The infection also precedes the tumor development. It was more difficult to demonstrate that MCV is the culprit in Merkel cell carcinoma because the virus is present in humans' normal skin flora. Chang and Moore showed that in all cells of a given Merkel cell carcinoma the virus is located at the same site in the genome -- although the sites will differ between different Merkel cell carcinoma patients. The tumor must therefore have developed from a single cell with integrated MCV, and this fact, along with further findings, confirmed its causal role.

If some tumor viruses are ubiquitous, why does not everyone fall ill? The tumor viruses first have to overcome the cell's defenses -- either by means of cancer genes that they bring with them as with HHV-8 or through mutations as with MCV -- and the immune system has to be weakened for cancer to actually develop. Is there a vaccine or treatment for HHV-8 or MCV? "The situation with Kaposi's sarcoma is disappointing for us," says Moore. "Although the community of researchers has found candidates for a vaccine and target molecules for therapy, there is little commercial interest in developing a vaccine or a specific drug therapy." Chang adds: "For Merkel cell carcinoma, however, we're optimistic. Many patients respond to checkpoint inhibitors, some even go into complete remission." Checkpoint inhibition is a promising new therapeutic principle in cancer treatment.

###

The 120,000 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is among the most prestigious international awards granted in the Federal Republic of Germany in the field of medicine. The Prize will be presented by Professor Harald zur Hausen, Chairman of the Scientific Council.

Short biography of Prof. Yuan Chang

Yuan Chang (57 years of age) is a virologist and pathologist. She was born in Taiwan and grew up in Salt Lake City. She studied medicine at the University of Utah and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Stanford University. Chang worked at Stanford University Medical Center, at the DNAX Research Institute of Molecular Biology in Palo Alto, and at Columbia University`s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, before moving to the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. She is currently American Cancer Society Research Professor, Distinguished Professor of Pathology, and UPMC Endowed Chair in Cancer Virology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Yuan Chang has won numerous awards. This year she will receive the 2017 Passano Foundation Award together with her husband Patrick Moore.

Short biography of Prof. Patrick S. Moore

Patrick S. Moore (60 years of age) is an epidemiologist and virologist. He studied biology at Westminster College in Salt Lake City and completed his master's degree in chemistry at Stanford University. He studied medicine at the University of Utah and obtained a Master of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked in Ghana in 1985 and then in Liberia in 1986. He then joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he was involved in international public health interventions in Chad, Ethiopia, Saipan, Nigeria, Nepal and Somalia. He worked for a short time as Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health in 1993 before moving with his wife to Columbia University in New York. Moore was Professor of Public Health Division of Epidemiology at Columbia University until 2002, when he took up a position at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the Director of the Cancer Virology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society Research Professor, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and the Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Innovative Cancer Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Patrick S. Moore has won numerous awards.

The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize

The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is traditionally awarded on Paul Ehrlich's birthday, March 14, in the Paulskirche, Frankfurt. It honors scientists who have made significant contributions in Paul Ehrlich's field of research, in particular immunology, cancer research, microbiology, and chemotherapy. The Prize, which has been awarded since 1952, is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Health, the German association of research-based pharmaceutical company vfa e.V. and specially earmarked donations from companies. The prizewinner is selected by the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation.

The Paul Ehrlich Foundation

The Paul Ehrlich Foundation is a legally dependent foundation which is managed in a fiduciary capacity by the Association of Friends and Sponsors of the Goethe University, Frankfurt. The Honorary Chairman of the Foundation, which was established by Hedwig Ehrlich in 1929, is the German Federal President, who also appoints the elected members of the Scientific Council and the Board of Trustees. The Chairman of the Scientific Council is Professor Harald zur Hausen, and the Chair of the Board of Trustees is Professor Dr. Jochen Maas, Head of Research and Development and Member of the Management Board, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH. Professor Wilhelm Bender, in his function as Chair of the Association of Friends and Sponsors of the Goethe University, is Member of the Scientific Council. The President of the Goethe University is at the same time a member of the Board of Trustees.

Further information

You can obtain selected publications, the list of publications and a photograph of the laureates from the Press Office of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation, c/o Dr. Hildegard Kaulen, phone: +49 (0)6122/52718, email: h.k@kaulen.wi.shuttle.de and at http://www.paul-ehrlich-stiftung.de
Scientists have uncovered a method for improving short-term working memory, by stimulating the brain with electricity to synchronise brain waves.

Researchers at Imperial College London found that applying a low voltage current can bring different areas of the brain in sync with one another, enabling people to perform better on tasks involving working memory.

The hope is that the approach could one day be used to bypass damaged areas of the brain and relay signals in people with traumatic brain injury, stroke or epilepsy.

The brain is in constant state of chatter, with this activity seen as brainwaves oscillating at different frequencies and different regions keeping a steady 'beat'.

In a small study, published today in the journal eLife, the Imperial team found that applying a weak electrical current through the scalp helped to align different parts of the brain, synchronising their brain waves and enabling them to keep the same beat.

"What we observed is that people performed better when the two waves had the same rhythm and at the same time," said Dr Ines Ribeiro Violante, a neuroscientist in the Department of Medicine at Imperial, who led the research.

In the trial, carried out in collaboration with University College London, the team used a technique called transcranial alternating current stimulation (TACS) to manipulate the brain's regular rhythm.

They found that buzzing the brain with electricity could give a performance boost to the same memory processes used when people try to remember names at a party, telephone numbers, or even a short grocery list.

Dr Violante and team used TCAS to target two brain regions - the middle frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule - which are known to be involved in working memory.

Ten volunteers were asked to carry out a set of memory tasks of increasing difficulty while receiving theta frequency stimulation to the two brain regions at slightly different times (unsynchronised), at the same time (synchronous), or only a quick burst (sham) to give the impression of receiving full treatment.

In the working memory experiments, participants looked at a screen on which numbers flashed up and had to remember if a number was the same as the previous, or in the case of the harder trial, if it the current number matched that of two-numbers previous.

Results showed that when the brain regions were stimulated in sync, reaction times on the memory tasks improved, especially on the harder of the tasks requiring volunteers to hold two strings of numbers in their minds.

"The classic behaviour is to do slower on the harder cognitive task, but people performed faster with synchronised stimulation and as fast as on the simpler task," said Dr Violante.

Previous studies have shown that brain stimulation with electromagnetic waves or electrical current can have an effect on brain activity, the field has remained controversial due to a lack of reproducibility.

But using functional MRI to image the brain enabled the team to show changes in activity occurring during stimulation, with the electrical current potentially modulating the flow of information.

"We can use TACS to manipulate the activity of key brain networks and we can see what's happening with fMRI," explained Dr Violante.

"The results show that when the stimulation was in sync, there was an increase in activity in those regions involved in the task. When it was out of sync the opposite effect was seen."

However, one of the major hurdles for making such a treatment widely available is the individual nature of people's brains. Not only do the electrodes have to get the right frequency, but target it to the right part of the brain and get the beat in time.

Dr Violante added: "We use a very cheap technique, and that's one of the advantages we hope it will bring if it's translatable to the clinic.

"The next step is to see if the brain stimulation works in patients with brain injury, in combination with brain imaging, where patients have lesions which impair long range communication in their brains.

"The hope is that it could eventually be used for these patients, or even those who have suffered a stroke or who have epilepsy."

Professor David Sharp, a neurologist in Imperial's Department of Medicine and senior author on the paper, added: "We are very excited about the potential of brain stimulation to treat patients. I work with patients who often have major problems with working memory after their head injuries, so it would be great to have a way to enhance our current treatments, which may not always work for them.

"Our next step is to try the approach out in our patients and we will see whether combining it with cognitive training can restore lost skills."

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INDIANAPOLIS -- Millions of intensive care unit patients in the United States experience delirium, an acute brain failure resulting in confusion and long-term memory problems. Researchers from the Indiana University Center for Aging Research have developed and validated a novel easy-to-administer tool to score and track delirium severity in the ICU, enabling clinicians to make better decisions about the brain health of ICU patients.

Typically ICU patients are evaluated twice daily to determine whether they have delirium, however the universally used "yes" or "no" tests do not indicate severity of the delirium. Existing tests to determine delirium severity are cumbersome and are seldom administered because they are difficult to use in ICU patients on ventilators and require advanced staff training. IU Center for Aging Research investigators have developed and validated the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit 7--the CAM- ICU-7 for short -- an easy-to-use delirium severity instrument that scores delirium on a scale of 0 to 7--mild to severe delirium -- and is useable with all ICU patients, including those on mechanical ventilation.

Clarification of delirium severity can indicate whether the therapeutic regime that the ICU clinicians have implemented is effective or not and can have implications for a patient's prognosis. Scores of 1 to 2 indicate no delirium; 3 to 5 represent mild to moderate delirium and 6 to 7 signify severe delirium. Scores can be followed over the course of the patient's ICU stay. The tool was named CAM-ICU-7 in recognition of its derivation from the highly regarded original "yes" or "no" test -- the CAM-ICU -- and of the most severe score that can be assessed.

"Not enough emphasis has been placed on assessing delirium severity in the ICU because there is a lack of understanding of how significant outcomes of delirium are for patients," said IU School of Medicine, IU Center for Aging Research, and Regenstrief Institute faculty member Babar A. Khan, MD, who led the study. "The CAM-ICU-7 provides needed objectivity to brain failure assessment and information necessary for current and future brain health management.

In the absence of a scale to easily assess delirium, clinicians saw only black and white and there was no gray area. Having an instrument that can further define the "yes" of delirium into severe or mild to moderate delirium can provide an indication of whether the treatments are working for the patient and offer insight into prognosis.

"This new tool has the potential to essentially revolutionize the way delirium care is practiced in the ICU," said Dr. Khan, a critical care medicine physician and an implementation scientist with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute's IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science. "Nobody had previously cracked the code of how to assess delirium severity in the ICU efficiently and we have come up with an innovative instrument that is easily doable. Adding it to and augmenting what clinicians are already comfortable with makes the quick adoption of the CAM-ICU-7 seamless.

"When a patient experiences acute renal failure, clinicians can see if urine output is improving or if serum creatinine is decreasing. But until the CAM-ICU-7 there were no similar ways to monitor disease progression in acute brain failure."

Delirium is a rapid change in brain function that occurs in approximately three-quarters of ICU patients. Delirium is associated with longer ICU and hospital stays, increased costs of care and higher death rate. Known risk factors for developing delirium in the ICU include age, pre-existing cognitive impairment and sedation which is often used in conjunction with mechanical ventilation.

"In order to shorten the inefficient discovery to delivery translational cycle, our clinical scientists need to become disruptive innovators who think like implementation scientists enabling them to discover and design tools that can rapidly be implemented in a scalable way in the real world," said Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, senior author of the study. "The CAM-ICU-7 is one of these innovative, simple, scalable and clinically relevant decision support tools that are ready for implementation from Day One." Dr. Boustani is the founder of the IU Center for Innovation and Implementation Science, deputy director of the IU Center for Aging Research, an IU School of Medicine professor and a Regenstrief Institute investigator .

The study was conducted in medical, surgical and progressive ICUs at hospitals in the Eskenazi Health and Indiana University Health systems. Average age of the 518 study participants was 60; 55 percent were women and 45 percent were African-Americans; 58 percent required mechanical ventilation. The average length of ICU stay was 14 days.

"The CAM-ICU-7 Delirium Severity Scale: A Novel Delirium Severity Instrument for Use in the Intensive Care Unit" is published online ahead of print in the journal Critical Care Medicine.

###

Authors, in addition to Drs. Khan and Boustani, are Anthony J. Perkins, MS, of the IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science; Noll L. Campbell, PharmD, of the IU Center for Aging Research, Regenstrief Institute, Purdue University and Eskenazi Health; Sujuan Gao, PhD, and Mark O. Farber, MD, of the IU School of Medicine; Siu Hui, PhD, of the Regenstrief Institute and Linda L. Chlan, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic.

The study was funded by grants R01AG034205 and K23-AG043476 from the National Institute on Aging.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet collaborating in the large-scale Karolinska Schizophrenia Project are taking an integrative approach to unravel the disease mechanisms of schizophrenia. In the very first results now presented in the prestigious scientific journal Molecular Psychiatry, the researchers show that patients with schizophrenia have lower levels of the vital neurotransmitter GABA as well as changes in the brain's immune cells.

Schizophrenia is one of the most disabling psychiatric diseases and affects approximately one per cent of the population. It commonly onsets in late adolescence and is often a life-long condition with symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and anxiety. The disease mechanisms are largely unknown, which has hampered the development of new drugs. The drugs currently available are designed to alleviate the symptoms, but are only partly successful, as only 20 per cent of the patients become symptom-free.

The Karolinska Schizophrenia Project (KaSP) brings together researchers from a number of different scientific disciplines to build up a comprehensive picture of the disease mechanisms and to discover new targets for drug therapy. Patients with an acute first-episode psychosis are recruited and undergo extensive tests and investigations. Cognitive function, genetic variation, biochemical anomalies as well as brain structure and function are analysed using the latest techniques and then compared with healthy peers.

The first results from the project are now presented in two studies published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. One of the studies shows that patients with newly debuted schizophrenia have lower levels of the neurotransmitter GABA in their cerebrospinal fluid than healthy people and that the lower the concentration of GABA the more serious their symptoms are.

GABA is involved in most brain functions and along with glutamate it accounts for almost 90 per cent of all signal transmission. While glutamate stimulates brain activity, GABA inhibits it, and the two neurotransmitters interact with each other.

"Over the years, animal studies have suggested a link between decreased levels of GABA and schizophrenia," says Professor Goran Engberg at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. "Our results are important because they clinically substantiate this hypothesis."

The other study used the imaging technique of positron emission tomography (PET) to show that patients with untreated schizophrenia have lower levels of TSPO (translocator protein), which is expressed on immune cells such as microglia and astrocytes.

"Our interpretation of the results is an altered function of immune cells in the brain in early-stage schizophrenia," says Senior lecturer Simon Cervenka at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

The results of the two studies provide new clues to the pathological mechanisms of schizophrenia, but it is unclear if the changes are the cause or the result of the disease. Follow-up studies are now underway to examine what causes the anomalies and how these biological processes can be influenced to change the progression of the disease.

KaSP is a collaboration between clinical and preclinical research groups at Karolinska Institutet and four psychiatric clinics under Stockholm County Council.

###

The study led by Goran Engberg was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Brain Foundation, Ahlen-siftelsen, the Swedish Society of Medicine, Petrus och Augusta Hedlunds Stiftelse, Torsten Soderbergs Stiftelse, the AstraZeneca-Karolinska Institutet Joint Research Program in Translational Science, Soderstrom Konigska fonden, Professor Bror Gadelius Minne, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs stiftelse, Stockholm County Council and KID-funding from Karolinska Institutet.

The study led by Simon Cervenka was supported by grants from The Swedish Research Council, Stockholm County Council, the Swedish Society of Medicine, PRIMA Barn- och Vuxenpsykiatri AB, Torsten Soderbergs Stiftelse, Soderstrom Konigska fonden, the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme, and Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet. One of the co-authors is employed by AstraZeneca, a couple of them have received grant support from AstraZeneca and served as one-off speakers for Roche and/or Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, and one has participated in workshops organized by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals.

Publications:

"CSF GABA is reduced in first-episode psychosis and associates to symptom severity". Orhan F, Fatouros-Bergman H, Goiny M, Malmqvist A, Piehl F, Karolinska Schizophrenia Project (KaSP) Consortium, Cervenka S, Collste K, Victorsson P, Sellgren CM, Flyckt L, Erhardt S, Engberg G. Molecular Psychiatry, online 14 March 2017. doi:10.1038/MP.2017.25.

"Lower levels of the glial cell marker TSPO in drug-naive first-episode psychosis patients as measured using PET and [11C]PBR28". Collste K, Plaven-Sigray P, Fatouros-Bergman H, Victorsson P, Schain M, Forsberg A, Amini N, Aeinehband S, Karolinska Schizophrenia Project (KaSP) consortium, Erhardt S, Halldin C, Flyckt L, Farde L, Cervenka S. Molecular Psychiatry, online 14 February 2017. doi: 10.1038/mp.2016.247.
Large groups practicing the advanced Transcendental Meditation program were associated with significant reductions in rates of drug-related death and infant mortality during the period 2007-2010

The rate of US drug-related fatalities fell 30.4% nationwide from 2007 to 2010 due to the reductions in societal stress and increased alertness in the individuals in society created by a large group practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique and its advanced program, the TM-Sidhi program, a new study shows.

The hypothesis: the reduction comes not from drug abusers using meditation to get off drugs, but from a TM-Sidhi group large enough to create an effect in the environment due to a hypothesized "field effect of consciousness."

"It's a bold claim," said lead author Michael Dillbeck, "but there are now 14 peer-reviewed published studies that suggest that one's individual consciousness is directly connected to an underlying, universal field of consciousness, and that by collectively tapping into that universal field through Transcendental Meditation, we can have a positive effect on the environment."

26,425 drug-related fatalities averted

The surge in drug-related deaths began in 1990, fueled by skyrocketing rates of drug overdose, largely from prescription painkillers and anxiety drugs. Drug deaths exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing more than 37,000 people a year nationwide.

The study found that during the four-year period 2007 through 2010 this upward trend in the rate of drug-related deaths was interrupted by a highly significant shift to a greatly reduced, flatter trend. As a result, the drug-related fatality rate was reduced 30.4% relative to the 2002-2006 baseline average. The researchers estimated that 26,425 drug-related fatalities were averted by the significantly reduced trend in fatality rates.

The probability that the reduced trend in rates of drug-related fatalities could simply be due to chance was reported to be 3.1 in 10 billion.

During 2007-2010, the size of the TM-Sidhi group located at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, was above or near 1,725 participants, the size predicted to have a positive influence on the US quality of life. This predicted threshold represents the square root of 1% of the US population.

Time series analysis shows a reduction

The researchers first calculated a baseline trend for monthly fatality rates during 2002-2006, and then used time series intervention analysis to compare that baseline with the corresponding trend for the intervention period 2007-2010. A rapidly rising trend in the drug-related fatality rate (see Figure 1) during the baseline period leveled out and slowed significantly when the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi group exceeded 1,725 participants beginning in January 2007 (vertical dashed line). This flatter trend continued through 2010. (The irregular ups and downs of the fatality rate shown in the graph are largely due to seasonal fluctuations around the trend.)

Change produced by enlivening "field of pure consciousness"

How could this change in society be produced by the meditation practice of participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi group? Published research has shown that Transcendental Meditation creates a state of restful alertness, increases brain integration, reduces individual stress, and enables greater use of one's inner potential.

"These benefits are the natural by-product of the experience during Transcendental Meditation practice of a silent, wakeful state of the mind known as 'pure consciousness'," Dr. Dillbeck said.

According to coauthor Kenneth Cavanaugh, the basis for the effect on society is that pure consciousness has a field-like character and is a universal field at the basis of everyone's thought and behavior. When the participants in a group equal to or exceeding the square root of one percent of the entire population are experiencing pure consciousness during group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program, the field of pure consciousness is enlivened in the entire population.

"This field effect positively influences the quality of consciousness in the individuals in society in much the same direction as that experienced by those practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique," Dr. Cavanaugh said. "It's as if the non-meditating populace experienced the same benefits of those meditating."

Reduces social stress

This research tests the hypothesis that practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program by a group of sufficient size will result in reduced stress and increased alertness in the individuals in society, thus contributing to reduced trends of these two stress-related public health indicators.

"Chronic stress contributes to increased likelihood of illness as well as to the use and abuse of illicit and prescribed drugs," Dr. Dillbeck said. "Stress can reduce the degree of conscious alertness and vigilance necessary to avoid drug misuse, especially highly potent and potentially addictive narcotic painkillers."

Alternative explanations ruled out

The authors noted that reductions in the trends of both fatality rates occurred at the predicted time and in the predicted direction, and neither reduction could be predicted from baseline trends or seasonal cycles. The researchers also were able to rule out other alternative explanations. For example, the reduction in drug-related death rates could not be explained by such factors as unemployment and national economic conditions, increased public and professional medical awareness of the hazards of opioid painkillers, and sales of such painkillers.

Reduction in infant mortality

This study of stress-related public health indicators also found that during the same period the rate of infant mortality was reduced by 12.5%. The researchers found a highly significant shift from a flat or slightly declining trend in 2002-2006 to a substantially faster declining trend in 2007-2010. An estimated 992 infant deaths were averted. The probability that the reduced trend in rates of drug-related fatalities could simply be due to chance was reported to be less than 2.1 in 100,000.

Third study in a series

The study, titled "Group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program and reductions in infant mortality and drug-related death: A quasi-experimental analysis" was published in the social science journal SAGE Open, Mar 2017, 7(1).

This article is the third in a series that comprehensively evaluates the impact of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi group on US quality of life and public health. The first in the series, published in 2016 in SAGE Open journal, reported a highly significant 21.2% reduction in US homicide rates during the same 2007-2010 period, resulting in the prevention of an estimated 8,157 homicides. A reduction of 18.5% in violent crime rates in 206 urban areas was also found, thus averting an estimated 186,774 violent crimes.

The second article in the series, published in the January/February 2017 issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, found a highly significant reduction of 20.6% in the rate of US motor vehicle fatalities and 13.5% in the rate of all other accidental fatalities during the same experimental period. The study estimates that 19,435 motor vehicle fatalities and 16,759 other accidental deaths were averted by the significantly reduced trends in fatality rates.

A total of fourteen peer-reviewed articles have now been published validating the prediction by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, that a TM-Sidhi group of this size would lead to reduced societal stress, as reflected in reduced crime, violence, accidents, illness, and increased positive trends in society.

The authors call for governments to implement and evaluate this approach as the natural next action step.

###

Group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program and reductions in infant mortality and drug-related death: A quasi-experimental analysis. Michael C. Dillbeck and Kenneth L. Cavanaugh, Institute of Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Maharishi University of Management. DOI: 10.1177/2158244017697164
Concentrated poverty -- neighborhoods where 40 percent of the population or more lives below the federal poverty level -- is back on the rise for all races in the United States, according to Penn State demographers.

Growing residential separation and isolation of the poor in American metropolitan areas, as well as overall increases in poverty since the early 2000s, explain most of the change in concentrated poverty, they added.

In the 1980s, concentrated poverty rose, but eased in the 1990s. However, the latest figures suggest that a rise in concentrated poverty has returned, according to John Iceland, professor of sociology and demography and research associate in the Population Research Institute.

"I personally was curious about this volatility -- what explains it? Why did we see this increase in the 1980s and the decline in the 1990s and why has it been rebounding?" said Iceland. "As a social demographer, I'm particularly interested in the changing composition of people living in certain neighborhoods and what types of broad population processes help explain the general trend."

Although the country has seen shifts in poverty concentration before, there is a recent change in the locations of poverty concentrations, according to the researchers.

"The composition of people living in high-poverty neighborhoods and their locations has changed," said Iceland. "It used to be thought of as black, inner-city poverty, but now more Hispanics and a higher proportion of whites are living in high-poverty neighborhoods. They are less likely to be just in the inner core of cities, but oftentimes in inner suburbs."

Overall poverty is different from poverty concentration, although they could be related, said Iceland, who worked with Erik Hernandez, a graduate student in sociology and demography.

"We do look at how the changes of overall poverty affect the concentration of poverty, because those are two distinct concepts," Iceland said. "There could be a certain percentage of the population in a country that is poor, but what the concentration of poverty looks at is to what extent are they concentrated in relatively few neighborhoods."

In this study, poverty concentrations followed trends in overall poverty, according to the researchers, who report their findings in a recent issue of Social Science Research. The country's recent poor economic performance, such as the deep recession of 2006-2008, has affected individual poverty, neighborhood poverty and the percentage of all people and all poor people living in high poverty neighborhoods, the researchers said.

In the 2000s about 20.5 percent of poor blacks were living in a high-poverty neighborhood. Between 2010 and 2014, that figure was up to 23.1 percent. The percentage of poor non-Hispanic whites living in high-poverty neighborhoods in the 2000s was approximately 5.8 percent, which went up to 8.2 percent between 2010 and 2014. The total of poor Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods went from 11.4 percent in the 2000s to 14.1 percent in the latest numbers.

According to the researchers, an increase in the concentration of poverty could affect government services, such as health, police and education. The trend could also have an impact on job opportunities.

"A lot of resources are tied to neighborhoods -- the quality of schooling and the amount of a school's economic resources vary across neighborhoods, for example," said Iceland. "People have talked about how there's more crime and social disorganization in places with high poverty levels. And this all has consequences for quality of life."

The researchers used data from the U.S. Census Bureau that cover 1980 to 2000 and information from the 2000-2014 American Community Survey.

###

The National Institutes of Health and the Population Research Institute Center supported this work.
Among patients with osteoarthritis undergoing total knee replacement and who have not experienced a significant early complication, the use of inpatient rehabilitation compared with a monitored home-based program did not improve mobility at 26 weeks after surgery, according to a study appearing in the March 14 issue of JAMA.

From 1980 to 2010, the prevalence of total knee replacement in the United States increased 11-fold. Formal rehabilitation programs, including inpatient programs, are often assumed to optimize recovery. Inpatient programs, however, have not been compared with any outpatient or home-based programs. Justine M. Naylor, Ph.D., of the University of New South Wales, Liverpool, Australia and colleagues randomly assigned patients with osteoarthritis undergoing total knee arthroplasty (replacement) to receive 10 days of hospital inpatient rehabilitation followed by an 8-week clinician-monitored home-based program (n = 81) or the home-based program alone (n = 84). There were 87 patients in an observational group, which included only the home-based program.

Among the measures analyzed, there was no significant difference in the 6-minute walk test between the inpatient rehabilitation and either of the two home program groups, nor in patient-reported pain and function, or quality of life. The number of postdischarge complications for the inpatient group was 12 vs nine among the home group, and there were no adverse events reported that were a result of trial participation.

"These findings do not support inpatient rehabilitation for this group of patients," the authors write.

###

(doi:10.1001/jama.2017.1224; 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.
Immune responses to Ebola vaccines at one year after vaccination are examined in a new study appearing in the March 14 issue of JAMA.

The Ebola virus vaccine strategies evaluated by the World Health Organization in response to the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa included a heterologous primary and booster vaccination schedule of the adenovirus type 26 vector vaccine encoding Ebola virus glycoprotein (Ad26.ZEBOV) and the modified vaccinia virus Ankara vector vaccine, encoding glycoproteins from Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, and Tai Forest viruses nucleoprotein (MVA-BN-Filo). These vaccines both used a 'viral-vector' approach, where a benign virus is modified to safely express key proteins of the target virus, in this case Ebola. This schedule has been shown to induce immune responses that persist for eight months after primary immunization, with 100 percent of vaccine recipients retaining Ebola virus glycoprotein-specific antibodies. A vaccine that provides durable immune responses is important in maintaining sustained protection against disease, both during outbreaks and outside of an outbreak for at-risk populations.

Matthew D. Snape, M.D., of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a trial that was performed in Oxford and enrolled healthy participants ages 18 to 50 years, who were randomized to four groups, each with 18 participants (3 placebo and 15 active vaccine).

Of 75 active vaccine recipients, 64 attended follow-up at day 360. No serious adverse events were recorded from day 240 through day 360. All of the active vaccine recipients maintained Ebola virus-specific immunoglobulin G responses at day 360. To the authors' knowledge, this is the longest duration follow-up for any heterologous primary and booster Ebola vaccine schedule.

"Immunity after heterologous primary and booster vaccination with Ad26.ZEBOV and MVA-BN-Filo persisted at 1 year. Although no correlate of protection has yet been established, Ebola virus glycoprotein-specific antibodies appear to play an important role in immunity. A strategy of preemptive use of an AD26.ZEBOV followed by MVA-BN-Filo immunization schedule in at-risk populations (where durability of immune response is likely to be of primary importance) may offer advantages over reactive use of single-dose vaccine regimens," the authors write.

The researchers note that a limitation of the study is that it was conducted in a European population. "Immune responses may differ in a sub-Saharan African population; these vaccine candidates are being assessed in this region.

###

Additional research is also warranted to explore the persistence of immunity beyond 1 year following immunization and response to booster doses of vaccine."

(doi:10.1001/jama.2016.20644; 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.

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.2016.20644
The use of two measures, fetal fibronectin (a protein) levels and transvaginal cervical length, had low predictive accuracy for spontaneous preterm birth among women who have not given birth before, according to a study appearing in the March 14 issue of JAMA.

Preterm birth, affecting approximately 1.2 percent of the deliveries in the United States, was responsible for 35 percent of the world's 3.1 million annual neonatal deaths in 2006. Current strategies to identify women at risk are largely based on prior pregnancy outcomes, but risk assessment in women pregnant for the first time is difficult. The combination of transvaginal cervical length and fetal fibronectin levels to identify women at risk has been studied, with conflicting results.

M. Sean Esplin, M.D., of Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, and colleagues conducted a study that included 9,410 women without prior childbirth who had transvaginal cervical length and vaginal fetal fibronectin levels reviewed at two study visits four or more weeks apart.

Among these women, 474 (5 percent) had spontaneous preterm births, 335 (3.6 percent) had medically indicated preterm births, and 8,601 (91 percent) had term births. The researchers found that fetal fibronectin levels and transvaginal cervical length had poor predictive performance as screening tests for spontaneous preterm birth before 37 weeks. The most commonly used clinical cutoff for transvaginal cervical length (threshold of 25 mm or less) identified a minority (23 percent) of spontaneous preterm births before 37 weeks. The addition of fetal fibronectin levels to transvaginal cervical length measurement did not increase the predictive performance of transvaginal cervical length alone. Fetal fibronectin levels of 50 ng/mL or greater at 16 to 22 weeks identified 30 of 410 women (7.3 percent) with spontaneous preterm birth and 31 of 384 (8.1 percent) at 22 to 30 weeks.

"These findings do not support routine use of these tests in such women," the authors write.

###

(doi:10.1001/jama.2017.1373; 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.
Inadequate use of anticoagulation therapies was prevalent among patients with atrial fibrillation who experienced a stroke, according to a study appearing in the March 14 issue of JAMA.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an independent risk factor for stroke, increases stroke risk by a factor of 4 to 5, and accounts for 10 percent to 15 percent of all ischemic strokes. While the burden of AF-related stroke is high, AF is a potentially treatable risk factor. Numerous studies have demonstrated that vitamin K antagonists, such as warfarin, or non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs), reduce the risk of ischemic stroke. Based on these data, current guidelines recommend adjusted-dose warfarin or NOACs over aspirin for stroke prevention in high-risk patients with AF.

Ying Xian, M.D., Ph.D., of the Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., and colleagues conducted a study that included 94,474 patients who had an acute ischemic stroke and known history of AF admitted to hospitals participating in the Get With the Guidelines-Stroke program.

Of these patients:

84 percent were not receiving therapeutic anticoagulation prior to stroke

30 percent were not receiving any antithrombotic treatment prior to stroke

7.6 percent were receiving therapeutic warfarin

8.8 percent were receiving NOACs

40 percent were receiving antiplatelet therapy only

Therapeutic anticoagulation was associated with lower odds of moderate or severe stroke and lower odds of in-hospital mortality.

###

"Atrial fibrillation is a highly prevalent and important, but treatable, risk factor for stroke. Despite numerous international guideline recommendations, many patients fail to receive proper treatment for stroke prevention," the authors write. (doi:10.1001/jama.2017.1371; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website)

Editor's Note: This work was supported by an award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, etc.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) India and Afghanistan today held discussions on key bilateral and regional issues in the backdrop of continued terror-related violence in the war-torn country.

"Honoured to be hosted by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar at his home for a stimulating conversation covering bilateral and regional issues," Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Hekmat Khalil Karzai tweeted.

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Todays meeting comes just a week after the deadly terror strike on a hospital in Kabul in which more than 30 people were killed. India had termed it as most "deplorable" expression of the diabolical designs of terrorists and those who continue to provide safe havens and sanctuaries to them.

After the terror strike last week, the External Affairs Ministry had assured Afghanistan that India will continue to support it in fighting all forms of terrorism and bringing perpetrators of terrorist violence to justice, wherever they may be. PTI PYK ZMN

--- ENDS ---
-- Authors warn that the weaponisation of health care in Syria - a strategy of using people's need for health care against them by violently denying access - sets a dangerous precedent that the global health community must urgently address.

Marking six years since the start of the Syrian conflict (15 March), a study in The Lancet provides new estimates for the number of medical personnel killed: 814 from March 2011 to February 2017. With nearly 200 attacks on health facilities in 2016 alone, medicine denied in besieged areas, and indispensable young medics forced to deliver care in extreme conditions, the study describes the extent to which health has been weaponised in the conflict, in what human rights organisations have described as a war-crime strategy.

The study brings together data from multiple sources to analyse the impact of the crisis on health workers. It is the first report by The Lancet Commission on Syria led by the Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut (AUB) [1].

The weaponisation of health care, a strategy largely used by the Syrian government and its main ally Russia, threatens the foundation of medical neutrality as laid out in international humanitarian law. The authors say the conflict has revealed serious shortcomings of global governance and call for a new role for global health organisations in responding to health needs in conflicts. This includes systematic documentation of attacks on health workers and their perpetrators via WHO, greater protection for health workers by strengthening the procedural mechanisms behind the UN Security Council Resolution 2286 condemning attacks on health workers, and greater accountability for breaches of international law.

"2016 marked the most dangerous year to date for health workers in Syria, and attacks on health workers continue. Rampant violations of international humanitarian law, and particularly the systematic attacks on health facilities and workers with intention to shut down care, to control the population set dangerous precedents." says Dr Samer Jabbour, one of the lead authors of the study, co-Chair of the Commission, and Associate Professor of Public Health Practice at AUB's Faculty of Health Sciences.

"The international community has left these violations of international humanitarian and human rights law largely unanswered, despite their enormous consequences. There have been repudiated denunciations, but little action on bringing the perpetrators to justice. This inadequate response challenges the foundation of medical neutrality needed to sustain the operations of global health and protect health workers in situations of armed conflict." [2]

In 2012, the Syrian government passed a law effectively criminalising medical aid to the opposition, despite the explicit protections for health workers afforded by International Humanitarian Law. Attacks on health workers have included executions, imprisonment, abduction and torture.

Bringing together data from multiple sources, the authors report new estimates for the number of medical personnel killed in the conflict - estimated at 814 between March 2011 and February 2017. "We know that this number is a gross underestimate of medical personnel killed, limited by difficulties of evidence gathering and corroboration in conflict," says Dr Jabbour.

The authors also update estimates on the numbers of attacks on health facilities, 199 in 2016 (an increase from 91 in 2012), with the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, responsible for at least 94% of attacks.

A feature of weaponisation has been repeated targeting of facilities to shut them down. Kafr Zita Cave Hospital in Hama has been bombed 33 times since 2014, including 6 times to date in 2017. M10, an underground hospital in eastern Aleppo, was attacked 19 times in 3 years and completely destroyed in October 2016.

"Over time, targeting has become more frequent, more obvious, and more geographically widespread. To the best of our knowledge, this level of targeting health facilities has not occurred in any previous war, and the data we were able to collect overwhelmingly show intent to target, which falls under the definition of a war crime," says Dr Jabbour.

Estimates suggest that between 2011 and 2015, at least 15000 doctors, or half of the pre-war numbers, had left the country. In Eastern Aleppo, approximately 1 doctor remained for every 7000 residents, compared with 1 in 800 in 2010. The only population survey conducted during the war estimated that two thirds of the population live in areas where health workers are insufficient or entirely lacking. The majority of areas without health workers were under military siege.

The exodus of older, more experienced doctors has left critical gaps. Younger, less experienced medics - many of whom are students - have become indispensable. They are left to fill gaps, often with no experience in trauma management or emergency medicine, and forced to interrupt their training. Not only does this mean increased risk for patients, but also warns of a serious shortage of skilled medical doctors in years to come.

In non-government controlled areas, the few health workers left face massive numbers of trauma victims, shortages of medicines, epidemics of infectious disease and chemical attacks. In areas under siege, surgical supplies and essential medicines are rarely allowed in, patients rarely evacuated, and public health measures such as water chlorination and measles vaccination blocked.

The bulk of Syria's remaining health workers are in government-controlled areas where they also face mortar attacks from rebel areas, heightened security risks, limitations on travel, and reduced training opportunities. Some health workers report being forced to breach ethical principles under pressure.

The study also highlights the resilience and resourcefulness of health workers who have mobilised on an unprecedented scale in response to the Syrian war - providing care under extreme conditions, creating networks to provide aid, organizing training and medical education, and gaining a political platform for advocacy and international support.

The report sets out a list of actions for policy makers. Although WHO has begun monitoring attacks, the tools implemented report only on the attacks, not the perpetrators responsible, undermining accountability efforts. The authors call on WHO and other UN agencies, the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly to review and strengthen their policies and practices, in terms of reporting breaches of medical neutrality, maintaining independence, resisting pressure by governments to follow the official line, providing undeterred advocacy for health workers under duress including in non-government controlled areas, and strengthening operational capacity to deliver health aid and support to health workers across conflict lines.

They also call for global solidarity for health workers in conflict, including the need for training and support, greater awareness on the global political agenda, and stronger donor attention.

The paper is published alongside a Comment from WHO and an Editorial in The Lancet, which states: "By their own definition, WHO's commitment to meeting the health needs of Syrians has been inadequate. The summits and intergovernmental meetings organised in the face of Ebola have not been matched by a response to this very different human catastrophe. If the USA is withdrawing from its role as a champion for a peaceful and democratic Syria, it is even more important that multi-lateral organisations step in to fill the vacuum and show leadership. WHO must now focus every effort on supporting the health structure and health workers in Syria, raising the finances needed to meet this challenge, and mobilising international support to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Syria, as they acknowledge in a Comment."

###

NOTES TO EDITORS

The report was conducted by authors from the American University in Beirut (Lebanon), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (USA), the Syrian American Medical Society (USA and Lebanon), Cambridge University (UK), Imperial College London (UK), and Multi-Aid Programs (Lebanon).

[1] The Lancet-American University of Beirut Commission on Syria will collect and analyse data on the conflict and make recommendations to address current and future unmet health needs, including those related to rebuilding and strengthening the global health response to political conflict. The Commission will produce a global report in 2018. Find out more about the Commission http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32583-1/fulltext or https://www.aub.edu.lb/lcs

[2] Quote direct from author and cannot be found in the text of the article.

IF YOU WISH TO PROVIDE A LINK FOR YOUR READERS, PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING, WHICH WILL GO LIVE AT THE TIME THE EMBARGO LIFTS: http://www.thelancet.com/commmissions/syria?elsca1=tlpr
Without major efforts to rebuild Louisiana's wetlands, particularly in the westernmost part of the state, there is little chance that the coast will be able to withstand the accelerating rate of sea-level rise, a new Tulane University study concludes.

The study by researchers in Tulane's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and published in the open-access journal Nature Communications shows that the rate of sea-level rise in the region over the past six to 10 years amounts to half an inch per year on average.

"In the Mississippi Delta, about 65 percent of study sites are probably still keeping pace, but in the westernmost part of coastal Louisiana, more than 60 percent of sites are on track to drown," said Tulane geology professor Torbjorn E. Tornqvist, a co-author of the study.

Tornqvist conducted the research with lead author and PhD candidate Krista L. Jankowski and co-author Anjali M. Fernandes, a former postdoc in Tornqvist's group who is now at the University of Connecticut.

The researchers used an unconventional method to measure sea-level change that integrated information from different data sources. They analyzed measurements of shallow subsidence rates at 274 sites across the coast and combined these with published GPS-measurements of deeper subsidence rates. Adding published satellite observations of the rise of the sea surface in the Gulf of Mexico, they were able to calculate how rapidly sea level is rising with respect to the coastal wetland surface.

"The bottom line is that in order to assess how dire the situation is in Louisiana, this new dataset is a huge step forward compared to anything we've done before," Tornqvist said.

Justin Lawrence of the National Science Foundation, which provided funding for the study, agreed.

"These researchers have developed a new method of evaluating whether coastal marshes in Louisiana will be submerged by rising sea levels," Lawrence said. "The findings suggest that a large portion of coastal marshes in Louisiana are vulnerable to present-day sea-level rise. This work may provide an early indication of what is to occur in coastal regions around the world later this century."

A link to the research article can be found here.

###

The research was made possible through publicly available data collected under the auspices of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the US Geological Survey.
(BERGEN, Norway) - Today, The Holberg Prize -- one of the largest international prizes awarded annually to an outstanding researcher in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, law or theology -- named British author, scholar and Philosophy Professor Onora Sylvia O'Neill as its 2017 Laureate. O'Neill is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of Cambridge, and a crossbench member of the House of Lords. She will receive the financial award of NOK 4,500,000 (approx. USD 525,000) during a formal ceremony at the University of Bergen, Norway, on 8 June.

O'Neill will receive the Prize for her distinguished and influential role in the field of philosophy and for shedding light on pressing intellectual and ethical questions of our time. Her contribution to our understanding of Immanuel Kant is regarded as transformative and has led to a renewed interest in his work. In particular, O'Neill has explored the requirements of public reason and how they relate to international justice and to the roles of trust and accountability in public life.

For almost half a century, O'Neill has combined writing on political philosophy and ethics with a range of public activities, and her work has influenced generations of scholars, policy makers and practitioners alike. She has written extensively on political philosophy and ethics, bioethics and international justice, and is highly regarded as a specialist on human rights. She has applied a rigorous philosophical thinking when discussing major contemporary issues and her scholarship has had an immeasurable impact on the wider public sphere.

O'Neill describes the central question in her early works on Kant as "how reasoning could bear on action." "This seemed," she says, "and still seems to me the elephant in the room that is all too often ignored or pushed into the margins in philosophical work in ethics and political philosophy."

To date, O'Neill has published more than a dozen books and more than a hundred articles. Many of these confront some of the deepest moral and political challenges of our age. Her works on Kant include Acting on Principle (1975), which explores the relationship between morality and rationality, and Constructions of Reason (1989), which argued that Kant saw reasoning as requiring that we make it possible for others to understand what we say and to grasp what we do. In books such as Faces of Hunger (1986) and The Bounds of Justice (2000), she deals with the structural conditions of oppression and how global inequality may be understood through a concept of justice that is cosmopolitan rather than civic. Her most recent book, Justice across Boundaries: Whose Obligations? (2016), deals with human rights and responsibilities and poses the question: Who ought to do what, and for whom? O'Neill argues that sovereign states often lack competence and will to secure justice and universal rights, and a progression towards global justice requires that obligations be held by both states and non-state actors. Complex questions of morality and public policy are also discussed in O'Neill's work in bio-ethics: Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics (2007), co-authored with Neil Manson. In this book, they defy current practice and opinion by rejecting the widespread policy premise that informed consent sufficiently protects patients and research subjects.

"O'Neill has an extraordinary ability to blend questions of morality, with an account of psychological plausibility and institutional legitimacy that makes her a powerful guide to the most profound ethical questions of our time," says Chair of the Holberg Academic Committee, Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta. "Not only has she transformed our understanding of Kant, she has also demonstrated how to do philosophy in a way that measures up to the complex moral demands of the world. Her philosophical work is rigorous, yet gracious in its articulation and profoundly moved by a deep and abiding concern for humanity."

###

O'Neill studied philosophy, psychology and physiology at the University of Oxford before she received her PhD from Harvard University in 1969. In 1970 she became Assistant Professor at Barnard College, the women's college at Columbia University. In 1977 she returned to Britain and took up a post at the University of Essex, where she became full Professor of Philosophy in 1987. From 1992 until 2006 she was Principal of Newnham College, University of Cambridge, where she is now Honorary Fellow. O'Neill was created a life peer as Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve in 1999 and has served as a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2000. She has won a number of awards, and was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in 1995 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2014. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious International Kant Prize.

O'Neill was President of the Aristotelian Society from 1988 to 1989 and President of the British Academy between 2005 and 2009, where she became a Fellow in 1993. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign member or honorary member of several non-British academies. O'Neill was the founding President of the British Philosophical Association in 2003, and she became an honorary Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007. In 2013 she held the Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. O'Neill was Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2012 until 2016, and she has been a member of many other policy committees and public advisory boards, including the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 1996 to 1998 and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission from 1996 until 1999. As a crossbench member of the House of Lords, she has served on various Select Committees, particularly on Science and Technology. Furthermore, she has been Chair of the Nuffield Foundation since 1997, and she is since 2016 a member of the Banking Standards Board, tasked with improving banking culture and accountability in the UK. O'Neill holds a great number of honorary doctoral degrees. She was elected to the German order Pour le Merite in 2014, and was awarded the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2016.

About the Holberg Prize

Established by the Norwegian Parliament in 2003, the Holberg Prize (@holbergprisen) is one of the largest annual international research prizes awarded to scholars who have made outstanding contributions to research in the arts and humanities, social science, law or theology. The Prize is funded by the Norwegian Government through a direct allocation from the Ministry of Education and Research to the University of Bergen. Previous Laureates include Julia Kristeva, Jurgen Habermas, Manuel Castells, Bruno Latour and Marina Warner. This year, the Holberg Prize received 109 nominations, for a total of 99 candidates, from universities and other academic institutions across the globe. To learn more about the Holberg Prize and the call for nominations visit: http://www.holbergprisen.no/en

The Holberg Prize is named after writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Holberg was born in Bergen in 1684 and played an important part in bringing the Enlightenment to the Nordic countries.

Visit http://www.holbergprisen.no/en/press for press photos, biography, Committee citation and more.

Expert contact for the press: Dr. Angela Breitenbach, ab335@cam.ac.uk, +46-0-18-565467-5214

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University of Helsinki researchers have uncovered a novel gene associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in dogs. The new research on this fatal disease may also help us understand the mechanisms of respiratory diseases in humans.

A new genetic study has uncovered the cause of acute respiratory distress in Dalmatian dogs. ADRS has an early onset, with puppies or young dogs experiencing difficulty in breathing, which rapidly leads to death. The gene study used material which was previously collected at the University of Helsinki Veterinary Teaching Hospital as well as canine biobank samples.

New gene sheds light on the causes of lung injuries

"There are many causes for lethal acute respiratory distress. In humans, the underlying cause is often pneumonia, inflammation or pulmonary fibrosis. In Dalmatians, the cause is a genetic lung tissue disorder. Our study indicates that the disorder results from a defect in an anillin protein which binds to actin, the supporting microfilaments in the cell," explains Professor Hannes Lohi.

"Anillin has an important role in cell division and growth. The lung injury in the affected dogs seems to be related to an abnormal regeneration capacity of the bronchiolar epithelium. The ANLN gene discovery is in line with this manifestation of the disease. In addition, some of the affected dogs only had one kidney, while some had hydrocephalus. This suggests that ANLN has broader significance for the development of the epithelium in different organs," states Dr Marjo Hytonen.

"This gene discovery provides new insights into the mechanisms of lung injuries. Typically, lung injuries in the affected Dalmatians are associated with disorders in the cellular regeneration and intercellular junctions. The lack of anillin, the actin-binding protein, can perfectly explain the changes which we see on the cellular level. Due to the malformed epithelial structure, inhaled air is trapped in the alveolar level, over-extending the alveolar walls," explains veterinary pathologist, LicVetMed Pernilla Syrja.

Gene test to provide exact information for diagnostics and breeding

In the future, the research results can help diagnose the illness and eradicate it from the breed.

"We tested more than 180 Dalmatians and 30 Pointers to find the mutation associated with the disease. Less than 2% of the Dalmatians carried the mutation, while none of the Pointers did. ARDS has been known for a long time in the breed, and breeders have learnt to avoid risk lines, which is likely the cause of the low carrier frequency. However, it is challenging to eradicate a condition from the breed in recessive disorders such as ARDS without genetic testing, as the carrier dogs do not have the disease. Both parents must be carriers for the disease to manifest, so affected puppies will have inherited the mutation from each parent," states LicVetMed Saila Holopainen.

The gene test will be made available as part of the MyDogDNA test.

###

The research group, led by Professor Hannes Lohi, is based at the Veterinary and Medical faculties of the University of Helsinki and the Folkhalsan Research Centre. The study received support from the Academy of Finland (1268091), the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Biocentrum Helsinki, the Integrative Life Science Doctoral Programme and the Finnish Foundation of Veterinary Research.

The study was published on 21 February 2017 in the PLOS GENETICS journal: http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006625

Saila Holopainen*, Marjo K. Hytonen*, Pernilla Syrja, Meharji Arumilli, Anna-Kaisa Jarvinen, Minna Rajamaki, Hannes Lohi. ANLN truncation causes a familial fatal acute respiratory distress syndrome in Dalmatian dogs. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006625, *equal contribution

Contact details: Hannes Lohi; hannes.lohi@helsinki.fi, tel. +358294125085
Observations in the past decade have demonstrated that extremely massive supermassive black holes were already in place when the Universe was less than 800 million years old. Supermassive black holes found at the centres of galaxies typically have masses of millions up to even billions of solar masses, whereas the black holes formed in the collapse of massive stars have masses around 5-20 solar masses.

- The observations of extremely massive black holes in the very early Universe are somewhat surprising, since it is not straightforward to grow the mass of black hole from tens up to billions of solar masses in the limited time available, says Associate Professor Peter Johansson from University of Helsinki, who has developed a new simulation model to describe in more detail the formation of supermassive black holes in the early Universe.

A black hole grows most effectively through the accretion of gas, but when the gas hurls towards the black hole it heats up strongly due to friction forces and the strong gravitational field. The resulting hot gas radiates strongly and some fraction of the radiation couples with the infalling gas exerting strong radiation pressure, preventing further gas infall.

Thus black holes cannot be force-fed, as too much accretion results in a strong burst of radiation that pushes back the infalling gas.

When very large gas clouds collapse directly to seed supermassive black holes

During the last years an alternative model for the formation of supermassive black holes in the early Universe has been developed. In this so called "Direct collapse black hole model" very large gas clouds with masses of 10 000 -100 000 solar masses collapse directly to seed supermassive black holes.

A prerequisite for this direct collapse is that the gas cooling is very inefficient, as otherwise the collapsing gas cloud would fragment and result in star formation. In the very early Universe the only way of cooling gas at low temperatures was by emission from molecular hydrogen.

An article titled "Rapid formation of massive black holes in close proximity to embryonic protogalaxies" published in the prestigious Nature Astronomy journal on March 13th, 2017, shows for the first time that the near simultaneous formation of two galaxies can lead to a situation in which the radiation from the first galaxy can destroy the molecular hydrogen in the second galaxy just at the right time.

- In this way a massive direct collapse black hole seed can form in the second galaxy, which can evolve rather quickly to a billion solar mass black hole by the time they are observed in the Universe, Peter Johansson says.

The new simulation model describing the formation of supermassive black holes in the early Universe in more detail was developed at the University of Helsinki by Peter Johansson in close collaboration with Irish and American researchers.

###

The main author of the article, Dr. John Regan (Dublin City University) was formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki

The research article published on the Nature Astronomy website, http://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0075 and the open access version published on the ArXiv website: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.03805

Image:

An artist impression depicting the formation of a supermassive black hole with a mass of tens of thousands of solar masses in close proximity to a protogalaxy. The primordial black hole is surrounded by an accretion disk and it has launched two symmetrical jets, whereas a large cluster of bright massive stars can be seen in the protogalaxy. The picture depicts the simulation at redshift z=24 corresponding to about 140 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: J. Wise (Georgia Tech) & J. Regan (Dublin City).

Contact information:

Peter Johansson, University of Helsinki, peter.johansson@helsinki.fi, +358 50 318 3930

Minna Merilainen-Tenhu, Press Officer, University of Helsinki, @MinnaMeriTenhu, +358 50 415 0316
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Steep declines in the number of monarch butterflies reaching their wintering grounds in Mexico are not fully explained by fewer milkweeds in the northern part of their range, researchers report in a new study.

The research, published in the journal BioScience, reviews decades of studies of monarchs and includes an in-depth analysis of milkweed populations in Illinois, a state at the heart of the butterflies' summer range.

It takes a few generations of monarchs to make the trip north from Mexico to the Midwestern United States and Canada where they summer, but the return trip is a long one. A single generation travels back to the monarchs' wintering ground in Michoacan - flying up to 2,500 miles.

Monarch numbers in Mexico have dropped from a high of 682 million in 1997 to a recent low of 42 million in 2015. Researchers are struggling to understand what is driving the decline. A popular hypothesis is that the loss of milkweeds - the only plants on which monarch larvae can feed - is to blame.

Milkweed losses are tied to the use of herbicide-resistant crops, a practice that began in the late 1990s and allows farmers to apply nonselective herbicides to their fields. Milkweeds are susceptible to glyphosate, the most common herbicide used to protect those crops from weeds.

The new analysis confirmed that milkweed numbers have dropped by about 95 percent in cropland in Illinois over the last 20 years, said Illinois Natural History Survey plant ecologists Greg Spyreas and David Zaya, who conducted the study with research ecologist Ian Pearse, now at the U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins (Colorado) Science Center. The INHS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.

"But we have more milkweeds in natural areas than previous studies suggested," Zaya said. "I would say the milkweeds in natural areas are buffering the loss of milkweeds in the agricultural areas."

Milkweeds in natural areas also have declined in the past two decades, primarily as a result of the conversion of pastures and other marginal sites to cropland, Zaya said. But the overall drop in the number of milkweeds in Illinois - roughly 50 percent, the researchers found - is not as large as the huge decline in monarch butterflies making it back to Mexico.

Other lines of evidence challenge the notion that milkweeds are the sole cause of monarch declines, the researchers said. Despite smaller numbers leaving Mexico each spring, once they get to Illinois, the monarchs seem to quickly rebound.

"You're talking about as many as 350 million monarchs in peak years across eastern North America," Spyreas said. "Previous studies have found that even when small numbers of monarchs leave Mexico, they're able to rebuild their populations within a couple of generations of reproduction in the summer in the Midwest. That suggests that the supply of milkweed plants here is not the primary problem."

"There are fluctuations in the number of monarchs in the Midwest year to year, but studies suggest there is not an overall decline," Zaya said.

"Conservation efforts also need to look beyond milkweed populations to other possible causes of monarch declines," he said. Habitat loss, disease, parasites and climate change all could be playing a role.

"While boosting milkweed numbers can be part of the solution, I don't think it is the entire solution," Zaya said.

Because the population crashes tend to occur on the way to Mexico, the researchers think a lack of late-flowering nectar sources along the route also may be a significant contributor.

"Monarch adults feed on flowers, including milkweed flowers, before and during their southern migration," Pearse said. "If they are suffering from a lack of nutrition during migration, it could make them more susceptible to other stresses."

"This is what we've found in other extinctions of migratory animals in North America and elsewhere," Zaya said. "It's multiple things coming together to cause this problem. And I think this is along the same lines."

###

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources supported this research.

To reach David Zaya, call 217-244-1946; email dzaya1@illinois.edu.

To reach Greg Spyreas, call 217-300-4023; email spyreas@illinois.edu.

To reach Ian Pearse, call 970-226-9145; email ipearse@usgs.gov.

The paper "Long-term trends in Midwestern milkweed abundances and their relevance to monarch butterfly declines" is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biw186
URBANA, Ill. - Change is never easy. But when it comes to adopting new agricultural practices, some farmers are easier to convince than others.

A group of researchers at the University of Illinois wanted to know which farmers are most likely to adopt multifunctional perennial cropping systems--trees, shrubs, or grasses that simultaneously benefit the environment and generate high-value products that can be harvested for a profit.

"We surveyed farmers in the Upper Sangamon River Watershed in Illinois to learn their attitudes about growing MPCs on marginal land. We then looked at their demographic data to classify people into different categories related to their adoption potential," says University of Illinois agroecologist Sarah Taylor Lovell.

Using statistical clustering techniques, the team discovered that survey respondents fell into six categories. The "educated networkers" and "young innovators" were most likely to adopt MPCs. On the other end of the spectrum, survey respondents classified as "money motivated" and "hands-off" were least likely to adopt the new cropping systems.

The goal of categorizing farmers was to tailor strategies for each group, given their general attitudes. "If they're very unlikely to adopt at all, we probably wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about those groups," Lovell explains.

However, Lovell thinks some low-likelihood adopters could be swayed. "One of the groups--the one we called "money motivated"--was really connected with GPS in their yield monitoring, so we thought we could target that. We could review high-resolution maps of their farms to point out the areas that are unproductive for corn and soybeans. We'd try to make the case that alternative perennial systems could bring in profits," Lovell says.

High-likelihood adopters were motivated by environmental concerns, and were especially interested in converting marginal land to bioenergy crop, hay, or nut production systems. "Farmers were probably most familiar with bioenergy grasses and hay," Lovell explains. But it was important to them that an existing market was in place for MPCs products.

Another major factor was land tenancy. Considering that most MPC crops don't mature for years after planting, rental contracts would need to account for the long-term investment.

"The person leasing the land might be really interested in agroforestry or perennial cropping systems," Lovell says. "The lease arrangement has to be long enough that the farmer will get back their investment in that period. For example, some of the nut crops take a long time to mature. But if you integrate some of the fruit shrubs, they'll become productive in maybe 3-4 years. You could get an earlier return on investment in those cases."

Lovell's graduate students -- housed in the crop sciences department at U of I -- are now following up with several of the farmers who were interested in MPCs and offering custom designs to establish the new cropping systems on their land.

"That was part of the overall goal for this study. We wondered if the barrier to adoption is a lack of information about design options and the economic potential," Lovell says. "If we overcome that barrier by developing good planting plans, projecting the market economics, and providing them with that information, will that help them implement the change?"

###

Stay tuned.

The article, "Identifying barriers and motivators for adoption of multifunctional perennial cropping systems by landowners in the Upper Sangamon River Watershed, Illinois," is published in Agroforestry Systems. Lead author Chloe Mattia and co-author Adam Davis are also in the Department of Crop Sciences at U of I. Funding was provided by the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
New research from the University of Pittsburgh shows that nearly 40 percent of reproductive-aged women in the United States--approximately 25 million--have limited or no nearby access to assisted reproductive technology (ART) clinics, which provides services that are vital to many women aiming to become pregnant. Results of the study were published today in Fertility & Sterility.

While basic infertility evaluations and ovulation induction treatments can be performed by a woman's obstetrician/gynecologist, advanced procedures such as in-vitro fertilization are provided only by more specialized providers in ART clinics. Study authors John Harris, M.D., M.Sc., and Marie Menke, M.D., M.P.H., both assistant professors of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Pitt's School of Medicine and Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, together with co-authors from the University of Michigan, used federal data on infertility clinics and where women live to evaluate/assess women's access to infertility care in the U.S.

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to locate 510 ART clinics in the United States and population data from the 2010 U.S. Census, the research team determined that 18.2 million women 20 to 49 years old--about 29 percent of that population--live in metropolitan areas with no ART clinics. Another 6.8 million women--or nearly 11 percent of the 20 to 49 year old population--live in areas with only a single ART clinic, and are without choice of a provider. The remaining 60 percent of the population, or 38.1 million women, live in census regions with multiple ART clinics, allowing them to seek ART services from a provider of their choice.

"Infertility is by itself a difficult issue for couples to face emotionally and financially," said Harris. "Based on geography, many couples who are trying to start families may have only one clinic nearby where they seek these services, and many women with infertility do not have any nearby access to these services at all, adding additional anxiety during an already stressful time of life."

The findings from this study raise additional questions about access to ART services that warrant further consideration and research. It is not known how far patients would be willing to travel for these services, or if the U.S. Census metropolitan areas used in the study accurately reflect where patients would consider seeking treatment. It also is not known how much time and money patients are willing to invest into reproductive services, and how these barriers interact with other demographic disparities, including race, socioeconomic status and age.

###

Investigative support for this study was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

As one of the nation's leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998. In rankings recently released by the National Science Foundation, Pitt ranked fifth among all American universities in total federal science and engineering research and development support.

Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region's economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see http://www.medschool.pitt.edu.

http://www.upmc.com/media
A University of Queensland-led international study has revealed how one of the world's most feared types of snakes -- cobras -- developed their potent venom.

Associate Professor Bryan Fry of UQ's School of Biological Sciences said cobras were killers in Africa and Asia, and caused crippling social and economic burdens through the number of survivors who needed amputations due to the snake's flesh-eating venom.

"While we knew the results of their venom, how the cobra's unique defensive venom evolved remained a mystery until now," he said.

"Our study discovered the evolutionary factors shaping not only cobra venom, but also the ornate markings on their hoods, and the extremely bright warning colourings present in some species."

The research team studied 29 cobra species and related snakes, finding that the flesh-destroying venom first evolved alongside the broad hoods that make cobras so distinctive.

Dr Fry said further increases in the potency of the toxins subsequently occurred parallel to their warning strategies such as hood markings, body banding, red colouring and spitting.

"Their spectacular hoods and eye-catching patterns evolved to warn off potential predators because unlike other snakes, which use their venom purely for predation, cobras also use it in defence," he said.

"For the longest time it was thought that only spitting cobras had these defensive toxins in high amounts in their venoms, however we've shown that they are widespread in cobras.

"These results show the fundamental importance of studying basic evolution and how it relates to human health."

Dr Fry said the next step in the team's research was to conduct broad antivenom testing.

"Globally, snakebite is the most neglected of all tropical diseases and antivenom manufacturers are leaving the market in favour of products that are cheaper to produce and have a bigger market," he said.

"Antivenom is expensive to make, has a short shelf life and a small market located in developing countries.

"Therefore, we need to do further research to see how well those remaining antivenoms neutralise not only the toxins that kill a person, but also those that would cause a severe injury."

He said there may also be a benefit to this research in cancer treatment.

"Any kind of compound that selectively kills cells could be a good thing," Dr Fry said.

"These chemicals may lead to new cancer treatments if we can find ones that are more potent to cancer cells than normal healthy cells.

"Cobras are a rich resource of novel compounds in this way so there may ultimately be a silver lining to this very dark cloud."

###

The study, published today in the journal, Toxins, involved scientists from UQ's Venom Evolution Lab; QIMR Berghofer Institute of Medical Research; UQ School of Medicine; Swansea University, UK; Monash University; working groups for Adder Research and Venomous Bites in the Netherlands; Leiden University, Netherlands; Snakebite Assist, Pretoria, South Africa; Pretoria University; Venom Supplies, South Australia; and Planet Exotica, France.
A researcher at The University of Texas at Arlington has used mathematical modeling to demonstrate that negative peer pressures can spread in a high-risk setting, influencing students' decisions to drop out of school.

"This study postulates that social behavior can spread interpersonally through social interactions and influences, just as infectious diseases can," said Christopher Kribs, UTA professor of Mathematics and Curriculum & Instruction. Kribs is also an expert in mathematical epidemiology with research supported by the National Science Foundation.

The study showed that students who are failing at two or more subjects are at risk for dropping out, largely due to their increased interactions with other failing students.

"Positive parenting is clearly very important for students but the study discovered that there is a point where negative peer influences overcome positive parental influences," Kribs said.

"We feel there is a real opportunity to intervene at the school level to reduce dropout rates by controlling negative influences," he added.

The study looked at 125 students at a struggling high school in Chicago. The researchers surveyed the students on whether they were failing in core subjects such as mathematics, English, science and social sciences, the degree of parental involvement in their life and the number of failing and dropout friends of each student during the last year.

The mathematical model they developed defined students as being in one of two environments: a non-risky environment, where they are passing all core subjects or failing one and considered vulnerable; or a risky environment, where they are failing two or more core subjects and could drop out.

The data suggests that as the degree of parental involvement in a vulnerable student's life increases, the number of their failing friends decreases.

If the student is already failing two core courses and in the risky zone, the effectiveness of parental involvement changes: the number of their failing friends initially decreases, but then increases again. This may occur if students become more rebellious to a sudden increase in parental involvement at the same time they are receiving negative peer pressure from other failing students.

"Parental guidance is a significant factor only when students are under a low level of negative social influence at school," Kribs said. "If negative social influence increases beyond a critical value, the impact of parental influence becomes negligible. To manage dropout levels, we need to manage social influences at school."

The paper concludes that making sure that vulnerable and failing students are not only mixing with other failing and dropout students could achieve a sustained reduction in dropout rates.

Jianzhong Su, UTA mathematics chair, emphasized the importance of this project within the strategic theme of data-driven discovery within UTA's Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions, Global Impact.

"Dr. Kribs' work shows the relevance of mathematical studies to real-life social issues and demonstrates the importance of cross-disciplinary studies on social problems," Su said. "The next step would be to roll the model out with larger groups of students to further demonstrate its accuracy and efficacy to education policymakers to make a real difference."

###

Kribs collaborated on this study with Anuj Mubayi, assistant professor of applied mathematics in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change as well as in the Simon A. Levin Mathematical Computational Modeling Science Center at Arizona State University-Tempe; Bechir Amdouni, developmental mathematics instructor at Northeastern Illinois University and Marlio Paredes, mathematics professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey.

The full study, "Why do students quit school? Implications from a dynamic modelling study," was published in the Royal Society Journal Proceedings A.

About The University of Texas at Arlington

The University of Texas at Arlington is a Carnegie Research-1 "highest research activity" institution. With a projected global enrollment of close to 57,000, UTA is one of the largest institutions in the state of Texas. Guided by its Strategic Plan 2020 Bold Solutions|Global Impact, UTA fosters interdisciplinary research and education within four broad themes: health and the human condition, sustainable urban communities, global environmental impact, and data-driven discovery. UTA was recently cited by U.S. News & World Report as having the second lowest average student debt among U.S. universities. U.S. News & World Report lists UTA as having the fifth highest undergraduate diversity index among national universities. The University is a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is ranked as the top four-year college in Texas for veterans on Military Times' 2017 Best for Vets list.
By Adete Dahiya : Going from a city like Delhi, which offers a multi-cultural food experience, to one that is associated with a more traditional palate has its fair share of apprehensions attached when it comes to trying dishes that fall outside of that preconceived ambit. Meraaki Kitchen, however, silences all such thoughts.

The success of Meraaki's popup stall at the Jaipur Literature Festival, which was a part of their pre-launch promotion, was proof enough of the quality of dining experience that one could expect at their main setup, which was just unveiled a couple of weeks ago at the Civil Lines area in the city.

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Brought together by MasterChef India finalist Neha Deepak Shah and entrepreneur Shivika Kothari, the fine-dine restaurant seeks to offer city residents a change from the over-visited cafes that tend to produce the same food over and over again.

The interiors. Picture courtesy: Meraaki Kitchen

"Our philosophy was to get food from all over the world and present it in a way that is accepted by the people here. Couple that with the molecular gastronomy trend and you've got yourself a winner," says Kothari. To this, Shah adds, "The food scene in Jaipur is very different from that in a city like Delhi or Mumbai where people have very evolved palates. People here are just starting to experiment. And while a lot of standalone restaurants have popped up in the past couple of years, almost all of them offer similar food items. There's no change. We want to change that culture."

The aim here is to provide people with a place where they can come to relax and enjoy good food.Inspired by nature and set against contemporary-yet-rustic surroundings, Meraaki provides a soulful experience, not only in terms of the food but also the surroundings.

Homemade pancakes. Picture courtesy: Meraaki Kitchen

The food on the menu is not just a delight for the palate but also a visual treat. The Hong Kong style Waffles, Biryani Arancini, Spiced Pumpkin Coconut Soup and Khausuey Noodle Curry are absolute must-haves.

The best part is that it is pure vegetarian. And their use of rennet-free cheese proves that unlike a number of other restaurants in the city and across the country, they know the meaning of the word "vegetarian".

A must-try if you're in Jaipur. The authenticity of the ingredients and food is difficult to find even in cities like Delhi and Mumbai.

--- ENDS ---
HOUSTON - (March 13, 2017) - Frozen and freeze-dried products for Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) are nearly as effective as fresh product at treating patients with Clostridium difficile (C-diff) infection, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health and Kelsey Research Foundation. A new study, which proves that a pill form of treatment could be effective and more convenient for patients and physicians, was published in the most recent issue of Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

C-diff is a bacterium that causes inflammation of the colon. People infected with the bacteria can have recurrent diarrhea that lasts months or even years. It is the No. 1 hospital-acquired infection in the United States and leads to 29,000 deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illness most commonly affects people in hospitals and nursing homes who are taking antibiotics and may have an underlying medical condition.

FMT is a procedure in which a doctor extracts bacteria from fecal matter from a healthy donor, mixes the bacteria in a solution and transfers the microbiota to a person with C-diff via colonoscopy, endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy or enema. The study shows that the fecal microbiota can be frozen or freeze-dried (like instant coffee). The procedure replenishes good bacteria killed by antibiotics in the microbiome.

For the study, UTHealth and Kelsey Research Foundation investigators enrolled 72 patients who had at least three bouts of recurrent C-diff in a clinical trial and treated them with either fresh, frozen or freeze-dried FMT product via colonoscopy. Fresh FMT product produced a 100 percent cure rate among participants; frozen product produced an 83 percent cure rate and freeze-dried product produced a 69 percent cure rate.

Frozen and fresh product fully restored the microbiota diversity among participants within seven days after treatment. Researchers saw some improvement in microbiota diversity among participants treated with freeze-dried product after seven days and full restoration of healthy bacteria within 30 days.

"This is the first study to show that frozen and freeze-dried microbiota are as good as fresh material, so that we never have to use fresh again. It's a logistical nightmare to use fresh product. If we were going to treat you today, a donor would have come in two hours before, we would have already isolated the sample and then we would have to administer it the same day. A pill form of the product could make all of this easier," said Herbert L. DuPont, M.D., senior author and director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at UTHealth School of Public Health.

DuPont co-directs the FMT program with Zhi-Dong Jiang, M.D., Dr.P.H., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences at the School of Public Health. DuPont is also the president and CEO of Kelsey Research Foundation.

"Freeze-dried product can be put into a pill that can be given orally, which is much more convenient for patients and physicians," said DuPont, who is currently testing the safety and efficacy of a pill version of the product.

One of the participants in the clinical trial, John Siebert, was on vacation with his family in California when he contracted C-diff in August 2014. The 66-year-old, who is a professor of agricultural economics at Texas A&M University, sought medical care as soon as he returned to Texas but was stunned that his doctors did not know how to treat the condition in a lasting way. After four months and three bouts of C-diff that left him fighting for his life, Siebert was at a loss.

"It's extremely painful and debilitating because you can't ever really be far from a bathroom. I had really bad cramps and I ate a lot less because I didn't want to aggravate things," said Siebert, who lost nearly 20 pounds and missed a month of work.

Eventually, Siebert found DuPont and Jiang, who were enrolling patients in their FMT clinical trial. Siebert immediately signed up and had the procedure done in early December. Siebert felt mostly recovered by Christmas and was back to his normal self by March 2015.

"It was a miracle! I love teaching and I can't tell you what it was like to be healthy again, to be able to do my job and not retire before I was ready," said Siebert.

Siebert's struggle to find a permanent cure to C-diff is not uncommon. Physicians typically treat C-diff with antibiotics, which can kill one form of the bacteria, the toxins. However, C-diff spores are much harder to kill and once the antibiotics have destroyed both good and bad bacteria in the gut, the remaining spores can release additional toxins. There is a 50 percent chance that a person who has C-diff will get a recurrent infection because of those toxins.

###

Jiang was first author of the paper. Co-authors from UTHealth included Goo Jun, Ph.D.; Craig Hanis, Ph.D.; Andrew DuPont, M.D.; Shi Ke, M.D., and Manasi Shah, Ph.D.
Two University of Wyoming researchers led a voyage to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and discovered five previously unknown active hydrothermal vents and a completely new vent site.

Crabs, shrimp, snails, Pompeii worms, small fish and bacteria flourish in an environment where sea water, as hot as 370 degrees Centigrade, flows upward through vent chimneys up to 22 meters tall.

Barbara John and her husband, Michael Cheadle, both UW professors of geology and geophysics, recently co-led a research expedition aboard the U.S. Research Vessel Atlantis. With the aid of two small submarines tasked with exploring and sampling the sea floor, the group located the new hydrothermal vents, as well as two others that were last seen 23 years ago, at Pito Seamount in the Pacific Ocean.

The two, along with Professor Jeff Gee from Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego, served as the chief scientists that led the 15-person research team from the U.S. and Canada. The team included four UW students. The expedition was funded by the National Science Foundation.

"The big surprise is the animals that live down there. There's no light. It's totally dark," says Cheadle, explaining that the life we know on the surface of the Earth is driven by the light from the sun. "The whole animal community (in the vents) depends on chemosynthetic bacteria for food. These bacteria can use hydrogen sulfide (toxic compounds to humans) to produce organic material through a process called chemosynthesis. It's simply a completely alien ecosystem."

Until 1977, no one had discovered an undersea hydrothermal vent, Cheadle says. Since then, about 300 such vents have been found on mid-ocean ridges around the world. The new vents were found at the summit of the 1-kilometer-high Pito Seamount on the East Pacific Rise.

These vents form above fissures in the Earth's crust -- roughly 2.3 kilometers or 7,500 feet below the sea surface -- and emit hot water from hollow chimneys that provide homes for a thriving community of unique creatures.

One of the reasons these vents are important is that, if people want to understand how life evolved, the vents and their biological communities are analogous for how life started, Cheadle says.

"Since they (vents) were first discovered in 1977, over 750 new species of animals have been recognized," he says.

John says it would be interesting to examine the cross-over between the biological communities in the hydrothermal vents in the Pacific with those in the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's the cutting edge of biology," she says. "We could analyze the DNA and find out who is related to whom; look at the evolutionary history of each community; and how they might move between sites and even oceans."

The vents discovered are referred to as "black smokers" because they emit what looks like black smoke. The vents are essentially pumping out clouds of fine particles of sulfur-bearing minerals, which contain iron, copper, zinc and, to a lesser extent, gold. The vents ranged in height from 70 feet high to small "chimlets" that were only 1 meter tall, John says.

To add a little fun to the discovery, the researchers bestowed names -- such as "Jason" and "Medea" - on the vents. The names were in honor of the submersible vehicles used during the expedition. In one case, a vent was named "Scotty's Castle," after one of the crew members. In another, a vent was named "The Sniper" because the crust formation resembled a head and a hand holding a rifle.

In addition to discovering, imaging and measuring temperatures from the seven hydrothermal vents, the very successful expedition also saw the science team collect important rock samples from the ocean floor (6 kilometers deep below the ocean's surface) and conduct the first detailed geologic mapping of the gabbroic crust. Sixty percent of the Earth's surface is the sea floor.

"We did the most detailed mapping of the lower oceanic crust ever done," Cheadle says. "And accomplished all of our project goals, as well as discover the vents," John adds. T

he goals included a number of educational outreach opportunities -- 34 live ship-to-shore broadcasts that reached more than 1,000 people, ranging from kindergarten children to 80-year-olds. Audiences included the UW Lab School; the Geologists of Jackson Hole Society at the Teton County Library in Jackson; the Mineral and Gem Society in Cheyenne; the Wyoming Geological Association in Casper; and the Birch Aquarium in San Diego, Calif. Other outreach locations included Cambridge University, colleges in California, and middle and high school students in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Atlantis left from Easter Island Jan. 13 to work at Pito Deep before returning to Arica in Chile Feb. 24. But, before leaving the research site, the team had one last mission.

The Jackalope, a small sailboat built by middle school students in Theresa Williams' UW Lab School class, was launched on the day the Atlantis began its trip home. The small craft, outfitted with a GPS and tracked by the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration, is making its way around the southeastern Pacific, currently sailing between the Pitcairn and Easter islands. Its movements can be tracked at http://educationalpassages.com/boats/00-172231121/.

The boat includes instructions in nearly 20 languages chosen as read/spoken around the Pacific. These include Cantonese, Chinese, English, French, Mandarin, Papa New Guinea, Portuguese and Spanish, so that anyone who finds it can correspond with the UW Lab School students. Additionally, it contains a waterproof time capsule hosting information and pictures of UW and Laramie.

"It covered 120 kilometers in one 24-hour period," John says of the 5-foot-long boat.

"Nobody has ever launched one of these in the Pacific," Cheadle adds, pointing to a map on his laptop that showed the current location of the Jackalope, as well as other similar tiny vessels in the Atlantic.

Neither was sure where the tiny vessel will eventually end up. Cheadle expects it may get caught in the westerlies of the "Roaring Forties" (strong west-to-east air currents), and eventually reverse direction to head back toward South America.

###

For more information and videos about the expedition, go to http://www.pitodeep.org/.
DALLAS - March 13, 2017 - A young songbird sings an intricate melody from its caged perch, trying to echo the mating song heard so many times from his father.

A team of scientists monitor a screen nearby showing the rhythmic activity in the bird's brain cells, a highly detailed neural illustration of how the young male zebra finch is recalling a memory of the song.

Simply put, the scientists are watching -- and sometimes helping -- the brain learn.

Using a broad array of techniques not commonly used in one laboratory, the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute is conducting a study funded by the White House's signature BRAIN Initiative research program to understand how the brain functions during vocal learning. By mapping the neural processes involved as birds learn mating songs, scientists hope to someday use that knowledge to target specific genes disrupting speech in patients with autism or other neurodevelopmental conditions.

"Zebra finches are a great model system because they learn one vocalization when they're young and they perfect it through adolescence. Our lab studies the neural circuits that allow them to both learn this behavior when they're young and expertly maintain it as adults," said Dr. Todd Roberts, who oversees the songbird lab and is Assistant Professor of Neuroscience with the O'Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

A Different Approach

Dr. Roberts' research provides an uncommon and essential element to the broad mission of understanding the human brain.

While many animal studies involve mice -- which have almost the same set of genes as humans -- a different approach is needed to study vocal learning because most mammals don't learn to vocalize through imitation as people do. Songbirds are more effective because they share many of our stages of vocal development: Early in life the zebra finch hears the parent sing, eventually memorizing the notes and after practicing tens of thousands of times they learn to replicate the behavior.

But how does this learning take place? And what goes wrong in the brain when birds aren't able to learn the song? Dr. Roberts is using the latest in brain imaging and optogenetics to find out.

Brain Control

The BRAIN Initiative is funding a $100,000 study in which Dr. Roberts is implementing multiple techniques to examine how neurons rewire themselves during vocal learning.

A major part of this effort involves bringing together optogenetics and cellular activity sensors, relatively new scientific tools allowing scientists to monitor and control brain activity with light. By activating light-sensitive proteins in zebra finches, Dr. Roberts' team is illuminating groups of neurons to learn how they function during vocal learning and vocal production.

Scientists can also use optogenetic proteins to control circuits deep in the brain, essentially helping the bird learn specific parts of a song shared by the father. For example, when the zebra finch hits a wrong note, a computer can activate specific neurons in its brain to tweak future performances of the song.

Dr. Roberts' studies are working to combine these techniques with multiple imaging methods to simultaneously observe and control neural activity. Among the imaging methods is two-photon microscopy, which allows scientists to peer inside the birds' brain to see the neurons in action during song learning.

"We've been pushing optogenetics and imaging as far as we can," said Dr. Roberts, a Thomas O. Hicks Scholar in Medical Research.

Human Parallels

The bridge between zebra finch research and new treatments for neurodevelopmental conditions is encouraging but long - one of many paths scientists are taking to understand how the brain works.

Still, Dr. Roberts is optimistic his lab can make a significant contribution to the effort, noting the many parallels in the genes of humans and songbirds that are implicated in vocal learning. Both share the FoxP family of genes, for instance, which play important roles in speech, birdsong and neural development.

Part of Dr. Roberts' research involves deactivating and re-activating a type of this FoxP gene that enables the bird to learn song. Specifically, he hopes to gain insight into how effectively vocal learning can be restored following developmental disruptions in song learning.

"The aim would be to eventually use this research to develop treatment strategies for people with speech disorders," he said. "When is the best time to intervene, can it be done later in life or is there a sensitive period early in life that needs to be taken into account?"

Answering such questions didn't seem feasible even a few years ago, Dr. Roberts said. But recent technological advances and increased awareness ushered in by the BRAIN Initiative have broadened the possibilities.

"There is a renewed appreciation for neural circuits that underlie the learning of complex communicative behaviors," Dr. Roberts said. "The songbird can provide new insights into how the brain is organized and how this type of learning is accomplished."

###

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty includes many distinguished members, including six who have been awarded Nobel Prizes since 1985. The faculty of almost 2,800 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide medical care in about 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients and oversee approximately 2.2 million outpatient visits a year.

###

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Welcome to the News Release Wire Selection Control Panel.

Instant News Wire
The European Commission has confirmed that the EU milk production reduction scheme has been under-spent by around 20 per cent.

Ulster Farmers Union dairy chairman, William Irvine, says the confirmation will not surprise most dairy farmers.

However, he says any unspent funds must still be used to support the dairy industry through a recovery that remains fragile.

The EU Commission confirmed that of the 52,000 farmers who applied last September, only 44,000 will receive a payment for reducing their production.

The reduction actually achieved was 0.85m tonnes, around 80 per cent of the 1.06m tonnes target.

This emerged at a meeting in Brussels of the European farm lobby organisation COPA-COGECA's dairy working party.

Mr Irvine represented the UK farm unions at a Commission stakeholders meeting on dairy and other issues. He said: The uptake of the voluntary milk reduction scheme has fallen well short of what was originally expected.

At the time the scheme was launched, the UFU argued that dairy farmers needed support from the EU, but questioned the effectiveness of doing this by cutting production.

Our assessment has been proved correct. When the scheme was introduced production was already falling and the market was starting to turn. That we now face an under-spend and the prospect of losing this financial support is a big disappointment. This money was set aside to help dairy farmers and we still want to see it used for that, said Mr Irvine.
British farmers could gain a financial advantage after Brexit by increasing exports of chicken feet to China, farming minister George Eustice has explained.

Eustice said farmers had the opportunity to increase exports of the popular snack to China and other regions where parts of the bird are rejected by British shoppers.

Ministers have previously agreed a deal to export pigs' trotters to China to increase access to new markets.

The comments came during a Commons debate led by DUP MP Ian Paisley (North Antrim) about the effect of Brexit on poultry producers.

Mr Eustice told MPs: "It never ceases to amaze me that chicken feet are a delicacy in China and can attract a high value, far, far higher than they can get here in the UK.

"But there are real opportunities to create value from parts of the carcass for which there is no market in the UK or indeed in Europe.

"The other point I would make is there has always been quite a worldwide trade in poultry because we consume more white poultry meat than we produce, so we import white poultry meat traditionally but we have also had to export dark poultry meat which is in demand in other parts of the world."
New research commissioned by the campaign right Waste, right Place shows that almost a third of agriculture businesses claim to have had illegal waste dumped on their land in the last three years.

Agricultural businesses and rural land owners throughout the UK are bearing the brunt of waste crime with almost a third (32%) suffering incidents of fly-tipping on their land.

The new survey shows the number of those falling victim in the last three years rose to 43% in some areas such as London and the South East, with owners turning to councils for help or being forced to deal with the fallout themselves.

The clean-up cost has been previously estimated to be 100m-150m per annum by the CLA.

The research, based on telephone interviews with over 500 rural businesses, showed that the fundamental problem is to do with a lack of understanding - with many leaving themselves open to fines, prosecution and imprisonment due to lack of awareness of their obligations under Duty of Care law.

Farmers and landowners can also be the victim of illegal waste operators using their land to store waste which is subsequently abandoned, leaving landowners with costly clean up bills.

'Duty of Care'

Depending on the region of the research, up to 100% of survey respondents believed they were compliant with Duty of Care law, whereas previous research reveals that only half are likely to be compliant.

The campaign believes that this lack of understanding of Duty of Care is directly contributing to waste being illegally dumped in rural areas.

Sam Corp, Head of Regulation at the Environmental Services Association (ESA), commented: Our survey shows that the effects of people not doing the right thing with their waste are very real for agricultural businesses. Almost a third told us they had experienced fly-tipping on their land, which is not only a costly inconvenience - it can be a major health hazard to people, livestock and livelihoods.

However it is clear that despite their vulnerability many businesses are running the risk of inadvertently contributing to waste crime by believing they are complying with the legislation when the evidence is there that they are not. We believe this is a particular issue where the waste is handed from one party to another.

Wed urge businesses to join in alliance with the right Waste, right Place campaign to tackle this issue together. We can provide practical support through easy-to-understand reference guides and are keen to work in partnership with businesses to establish best practices and raise awareness of this issue throughout the industry.
The Scottish government has been asked to create a new crofting bill which "fully meets the needs of crofting communities in the 21st Century".

In a new report, the Scottish Parliaments Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee said "comprehensive" updates to legislation were needed.

Among calls being made by the committee are that the new bill should fit with the "reality of modern crofting practices", and be relevant to the "needs and aspirations" of crofters and those who wish to be involved in crofting.

Farming union NFU Scotland has welcomed the publication of a review into the priorities for crofting law reform.

NFU Scotland has previously insisted that the legislation surrounding crofting must be fit for modern crofting practices, something that is reflected in the report.

'Fit for modern-day crofting'

Sandy Murray, NFU Scotlands Crofting Highlands and Islands Committee Chairman commented: The report will help the Scottish Government with its plans for reforming crofting law legislation to ensure it is fit for modern-day crofting, and that is something which we fully support.

However, reforming the legislation is only a small part of what is needed to take crofting forward in Scotland.

The work that NFU Scotland has been doing, along with the Crofting Stakeholder Forum, on the other priorities for crofting includes common grazings, crofting development, supporting new entrants, affordable housing and support payments for crofters. That work is still ongoing and the need for a strategic approach and a National Development Plan are imperative.

Last month, the Scottish Government asked Scotland's Crofting Commission to take urgent action to improve performance in 'crucial' areas, describing some of them as 'worrying failures'.

'Should not be rushed'

However, Mrs Murray said that any new Crofting Act 'should not be rushed through'.

She continued: It needs to be well-thought out and crofters fully consulted to avoid any late amendments that are not supported by crofters being added.

Just this week NFU Scotland held a workshop with members of the Scottish Governments Crofting Bill Team to highlight the issues and concerns that our members have. This ranged from differentiating between inactive and active crofters, and also how we ensure the use and management of common grazings.

Committee convener Edward Mountain said: Several crofting acts have been passed in recent years, making some useful changes but without fully dealing with all of the issues the crofting communities are keen to see addressed.

A lot of work has already been done by crofting stakeholders to identify what the priority issues are, and the committee feels that a new bill is required which deals with these in a comprehensive manner.

We also agree with many of our witnesses, who told us that before identifying what should be delivered from legislative reform, the Scottish government needs to develop a clear policy setting out the role crofting is expected to play in the 21st Century.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) has hosted UKIP MEP Roger Helmer on farm last week to support the union's campaign for the reauthorisation of glyphosate.

Roger Helmer met farmers and growers at Chris Wrays farm at Donington, South Lincolnshire to discuss the industrys call for glyphosate to be re-authorised.

Glyphosate is coming up to potential re-authorisation by 31 December 2017, when the European Commission decides its fate.

Mr Helmer saw first-hand how the weed blackgrass can affect wheat production, emphasising the damage losing plant protection products would have on both the industry and the environment.

'Huge blow'

NFU chairman for Holland (Lincolnshire), Chris Wray, said: Glyphosate is crucial to my business. Its loss would be a huge blow for our whole industry and the environment. It would bring into question the viability of wheat production on blackgrass infested land with very few alternatives, allowing certain fast breeding weeds to spread unchecked.

Glyphosate also allows us to operate a minimum tillage system, where we carry out minimum cultivations, using cover and catch crops to help with soil biology and the glyphosate for weed control. Simply put, this is a product that we cant afford to lose.

NFU members urged Mr Helmer to help the industry retain glyphosate for use across all UK farming types and sectors.

Responding, Mr Helmer said: I am absolutely 100 per cent behind you on glyphosates future use. I am fully aware of the issues and how much more difficult life would be for you without glyphosate.

Mr Helmer said he would also oppose any attempt to prevent the use of this important tool for the farming industry.

Petition

Farmers across the UK have joined efforts in showing politicians and the public why glyphosate is critical to agriculture.

A petition has been started to help stop the removal of glyphosate as a result of "anti farming groups spreading false science and misinformation" to the wider non-farming public.

Glyphosate is the worlds most widely used herbicide, and also is amongst the most thoroughly tested herbicides on the market.
58-year-old Nitin had been unemployed for 18 years and for the past one-and-a-half years had been suffering from depression.

By Ashish Pandey: Bollywood actor Jeetendra's cousin Nitin Dwarkadas Kapoor, who had been undergoing treatment for depression, committed suicide by jumping off the terrace at his sister's flat on JP Road in Andheri West in Mumbai, where he'd been living for some time.

58-year-old Nitin had been unemployed for 18 years and for the past one-and-a-half years had been suffering from depression.

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For a month, he had been undergoing treatment in the psychiatric department at Kokilaben Hospital.

Nitin went to the terrace of the six-storey building and jumped off from there.

NITIN'S FAMILY IN HYDERABAD INFORMED

Family members of Nitin, who reside in Hyderabad, have been informed of his demise. Nitin got married to Jayasudha in 1985.His body has been sent for post-mortem.

According to the police, no suicide note was recovered from the spot. There was nothing suspicious to hint at a conspiracy.

A case of accidental death has been registered with the Versova police station.

What prompted Nitin to take the extreme step is yet to be ascertained, police said.

Speaking to India Today over the phone, actor Jeetendra said, "He was my first cousin. I had not met him for a long time. I don't know why he was not meeting me. He was avoiding me. His father was really close to me. He was like a father for me. I was away for a meeting. It was when my flight landed at around 8.40 pm that I came to know about this. I am in Delhi and am depressed to learn about this."

(WITH INPUTS FROM SHIVANGI THAKUR)

--- ENDS ---
Bird flu: Poultry in England must now be housed indoors
Healthcare imaging company, Pro Medicus Ltd, has signed a 5-year contract with Primary Health Care LtdUnder this deal, Pro Medicus will install its Visage RIS (radiology information system) throughout Primary Health Cares Healthcare Imaging Services network  which comprises 141 sites across all states and territories in Mainland Australia.The major function of Pro Medicus software include patient scheduling, billing and back office practice management functions.Pro Medicus says implementation is scheduled to commence toward the end of the second half of FY 2017, and is estimated to take 12 - 24 months.This morning, Pro Medicus shares traded 9.47% higher at $4.74 per share.
The Centre should hand over the cases of AIIMS student Saravanan and JNU student J Muthukrishnan to the CBI and nab the culprits, DMK leader M K Stalin said.

By Pramod Madhav: DMK working president M K Stalin today said the Centre should hand over the case of JNU scholar J Muthukrishnan's death to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

"The Centre should hand over the cases of death of AIIMS student Saravanan and JNU student J Muthukrishnan to the CBI and nab the culprits," Stalin said.

Muthukrishnan was found hanging from the ceiling fan at a friend's place in South Delhi's Munirka Vihar. Delhi Police had said he was suffering from depression.

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ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CASE: Muthukrishnan belonged to Salem, Tamil Nadu and his death has shocked the state. The JNU PhD scholar, who was known as Krish Rajini on Facebook, was a big fan of Tamil superstar Rajinikanth. His friends remember him as a hardworking student. DMK leader Stalin called to attention Muthukrishnan's father calling his son's death a murder. The father, Jeevanandam, had asked how his son could go to a friend's place for lunch and then kill himself. Stalin said the Delhi Police's argument that Muthukrishnan was depressed for a while is unacceptable. "His Facebook post of March 9 in which he spoke of the discrimination he faced in the university cannot be ruled out by the Delhi Police," he said. Stalin also brought up the death of AIIMS student Saravanan who died under mysterious circumstances on July 10 last year. While Delhi Police called it suicide, the post-mortem report ruled out suicide. According to the police, Saravanan had killed himself by injecting poison into his bloodstream. "We cried foul and five months after the AIIMS student's death, a murder case was registered and a chargesheet was filed," Stalin said. Stalin urged the Central government to hand over the two cases to the CBI and nab the culprits immediately.

ALSO READ:

JNU scholar's death: Here's everything you need to know

PhD student from JNU found dead, police say he suffered from depression

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---




Haiti - Security : Jovenel Moses dismayed





President Jovenel Moise, dismayed by the terrible accident that occurred on Sunday, March 12, in Mapou, at the northern entrance to the city of Gonaives (Artibonite), where a truck from Cap-Haitien successively struck 3 rara bands expresses his deep sadness.



The provisional assessment prepared by the Directorate of Civil Protection is 34 dead and 17 wounded including several seriously https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20343-haiti-flash-terrible-road-drama-in-gonaives-at-least-34-dead.html



"The Head of State conveys, on behalf of the Government, his sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims of this too much drama on our ational roads.



President Moise , while urging road users to be vigilant, calls on the competent authorities to investigate as soon as possible to shed light on the tragedy."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20343-haiti-flash-terrible-road-drama-in-gonaives-at-least-34-dead.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















By Sandeep Balakrishna

Yet another ghastly revelation emerging from the sanctified walls of the Syro-Malabar Church relates to the rape and impregnation of a minor girl by Fr Robin Vadakkumchery, vicar of the St. Sebastians Church at Kottiyoor, which falls under the Catholic Diocese of Mananthavady.

What is truly sickening in this case is how both the girl and her father were pressured by the Church authorities into falsely admitting that she was raped by her own father. As the long and documented history of rampant paedophilia in the Catholic Church across the globe shows, the typical modus operandi includes a combination of psychological and authoritarian pressure and monetary allurement exerted upon the victim. Its no different in this case as well, as this Indian Express report shows:

The police said the priest had promised money to the girls father for accepting the paternity of the child.

The priest gave money to pay the hospital bills after the delivery. The victims parents are farm workers and have five children, all minors. The priest also assured them he would look after the familys future financial requirements. The girls father was not aware of the harsh laws and what was in store for him, said the officer, adding that the fathers loyalty towards the priest also prompted him to shoulder the blame of the vicars alleged crime.

In other words, the victims family was poor, helpless, and looked up to the Church authorities as figures of trust and authority. Indeed, not only was Fr Robin a vicar, he held several influential positions in the diocese. He was Director of the Church-run daily paper, Deepika as also the Director of its TV channel, Jeevan TV. Unfortunately for the girl, he was also the manager of the IJM Higher Secondary School, Kottiyoor, where she was studying in Class 12.

As that Indian Express report mentions, but for an undercover police investigation, Fr Robin wouldve never been apprehended because he was all set to flee to Canada. More fundamentally, the investigation was itself put in motion thanks to an anonymous letter received by a child helpline in Kerala.

Indeed, the Catholic Church in Kerala seems to have set a record of sorts for pervasive sexual abuse of nuns as well as paedophilia. Consider these:

The bestselling autobiography Amen by Sister Jesme reveals the widespread sexual abuse of nuns by the priests.

The excommunicated and defrocked former priest, Shibhu Kalamparampil in his autobiography, Oru Vaidikante Hrudayamitha (Here is the Heart of a Priest), likens nunneries to brothels as we shall see.

A rector of a Catholic seminary in Kannur was arrested by the Irritty police in 2016 for sexually assaulting a 21-year-old seminarian.

In January 2017, a 65-year-old priest was arrested for abusing a 11-year old boy in the dormitory of the school of which he was Principal.

In December 2016, Fr. Edwin Figarez was sentenced to double life imprisonment under the POCSO Act for raping an underage girl multiple times in his capacity as the priest of a local church.

In August 2016, a Catholic priest and four clergymen were arrested for raping and murdering a college student in the Palakkad district.

In 1992, Sister Abhayas dead body was found in the well of a convent and subsequent investigations revealed that she had chanced upon Fr Puthrakkayil, Fr Kottoor, and Sister Seffi engaged in a three-way sexual activity, which led to her murder.

In 2015, Sister Anita who publicly protested against sexual harassment by a priest was hounded out of the Church, and after much determined fighting, was eventually given twelve lakh rupees in an out-of-court settlement and defrocked.

It goes without saying that these are merely the cases that were reported or somehow came to public attention and that the number of the unreported ones is far greater.

But whats worse than the actual crime is the cover up which happens inevitably, and almost immediately in each such case. Indeed, the constant refrain is about the Church pressure on the victims to stay silent and the motions initiated to protect the perpetrators. Apparently, it appears that the higher in the Church hierarchy the perpetrator is the greater is the protection he enjoys. This phenomenon reveals three key elements:

The first is the swiftness on the part of the Church to protect the perpetrator, which stems from its ever-vigilant attempt to preserve the global Catholic Church apparatus intact.

The second is the vise-like hold that it maintains over the flock of its faithful who although aggrieved, have practically no redressal.

The third is its ability to influence and manipulate the state and the legal system in its favour.

Indeed, its not inaccurate to say that perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the global Catholic Church has been the manner in which it has continued to emerge almost unscathed over the centuries despite being tainted by innumerable sexual crimes. This feat is truly unparalleled in the history of mankind.

If that sounds harsh or farfetched, one only needs to read the comprehensive and damning expose by the Spotlight team at The Boston Globe of how for over three decades, numerous clergymen sexually exploited underage boys in the Roman Catholic Church in the Boston area. One of the victims of the notorious priest, Fr Geoghan, was just four years old. The expose was later made into the award-winning and highly acclaimed movie, Spotlight.

First published as a series in 2002, the expose apart from generating massive public outrage against the Catholic Church, also eroded the traditional deference to church. Yet, the same pattern of cover-up was repeated in that case as is now occurring in Kerala as we shall see.

.as documents started flowing from the church in 2002 and more alleged victims came forward, it soon became clear that clergy abuse wasa systemic problem in the Boston Archdiocese, involving scores of priests and hundreds of victims across the metropolitan area.

For decades church leaders kept horrific tales of abuse out of the public eye through an elaborate culture of secrecy, decepetion, and intimidation. Victims who came forward with abuse claims were ignored or paid off, while accused priests were quietly transferred from parish to parish or sent for brief periods of psychological counseling By the end of 2002, some 1,200 priests had been accused of abuse nationwide, according to a study by The New York Times.

This isnt really different in whats unfolding at present. The same Shibhu Kalamparampil has this to say:

I strongly believe that the family may have tried to hush up the rape after pressure was mounted on them from top echelons in the Church. A priest alone will not be able to cover up such a serious crime Many believe this and never report incidents of sexual abuse to the authorities. This has been encouraging priests to continue with their immoral activities. The bishops turn a blind eye as it will affect the very survival of the Church

Shibhus remark is consonant with the aforesaid note on preserving the global Catholic Church apparatus intact. It also resonates with the late Christopher Hitchens who waged a lifelong crusade against rampant sexual abuse in the Catholic Church from Ireland to Germany to Australia to Belgium to the United States, and scathingly remarked how

the Roman Catholic Church holds it better for the cries of raped and violated children to be ignored, and for the excuses and alibis of their rapists and torturers indulged, and for a host of dirty and wilful untruths to be manufactured wholesale, and for the funds raised ostensibly for the poor to be paid out in hush money and shameful bribery, rather than that one tiny indignity or inconvenience be visited on the robed majesty of a man-made church or any limit set to its self-proclaimed right to be judge in its own cause.

Indeed, its a travesty of sorts that in the wake of each scandal emanating from the Catholic Church, the clergy authorities dont think it fit to hand over their errant underlings to the law of the land but institute their own internal inquiries, a euphemism for cover up. In the case of Fr. Robin,

Curiously, the Mananthavady diocese had not taken any action against the priest until the police registered the case against him. Mathew Perumattikunnel, vicar general of the diocese, claimed that the matter had come to their notice only after the police took the priest into custody.

However, the Church activists take the claim with a pinch of salt since the victim had given birth to the child in the Church-run hospital the priest had announced during the mass on Sunday that he was going on leave.



Ultimately, theres a cruel irony in every such episode of child abuse emanating from the Catholic Church. Since the beginning, the Catholic Churchs position on homosexuality, contraception, and abortion between consenting adults has remained absolute and unflinchingthat they are sinful. Yet when a crime as depraved as paedophilia is committed by one of its owna Man of God no less, far from regarding it even as a sin, it closes ranks and protects him.

One is reminded of these timeless lines of Shakespeare:

Let the great gods

That keep this dreadful pudder oer our heads

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch

That hast within thee undivulged crimes

Unwhipped of justice.

(King Lear: Act 3 Scene 2)

Source : Hindupost
In an incident which has sent shockwaves throughout the state of Assam, 8 armed Bangladeshi intruders crossed the border at Jaarapata village in Karimganj district and raped a woman and her two daughters. 7 other villagers are reported to be injured in the attack, some in critical condition.

The victims have been admitted to the Karimganj civil hospital. The Bangaldeshis decamped after committing the crime which took place at 2 AM in the night. As per sources, one woman is battling for life as the rapists repeatedly beat her up and inserted a metal rod into her private parts.

The intruders reportedly announced that they will make this Assam village into a Sharia Village.

As per local media reports, law & order has been gradually deteriorating in the area, which is very close to the Bangladesh border, and this gruesome crime has acted as a trigger for exodus of around 40 Hindu families.

Is Karimganj becoming a hub of jihadis?

Just last week, there was a media report of Assam Police arresting 38-year-old Alamgir Hussain in Karimganj district, suspecting that he could be a sleeper agent of Islamic radical groups 

Hussain came under police scanner after he bought properties worth crores at Badarpur in Karimganj district. He visited Singapore frequently on a Bangladeshi passport between 2001 and 2013.

We have taken him into seven-day custody. We have doubts on his source of income going by the wealth he has amassed within a short period of time. He could be a member of some Islamic radical group. We will get all the facts only after a thorough investigation, said SP (Karimaganj) PR Kar.

The doubts of police are based on Hussains illegal entry into Bangladesh in 1998 without any passport. He obtained a Bangladeshi passport there and went to Singapore in 2001. He came to India on a tourist visa in December, 2008 and got married. He returned to Bangladesh after 20 days, said Kar.

Police said Alamgir visited Singapore from Bangladesh on a Bangladeshi passport till 2013 when he decided to come back to his home town Badarpur. He returned in 2013. But this time, he did not travel legally on his Bangladeshi passport because he would have to come on a tourist visa and return to Bangladesh again. He choose the illegal way to enter India, the SP said.

Alamgir would have gone unnoticed had he not gone on a property-buying spree in the last four years. Police said he built a two-storey building and also purchased land. When police asked him about his source of money, he said he used to work as a daily wager at a construction company in Singapore and was getting $2 a day.

Hindus under threat in North East

Illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are not the only threat facing the Hindus of North Eastern states like Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal etc. As HinduPost has reported earlier, Maoist-Christian terror groups have also issued a threat to Bengali and Hindi speaking Hindus of Assam and Tripura.

Will Delhi media & secular politicians who are currently outraging over an alleged rape threat directed at a pacifist, care to cover this gruesome crime against a mother and her two daughters ? Or will the tyranny of distance again come into play, especially since this is a secular crime ?

Source : Hindupost
Four years ago, the British liberal newspaper, The Guardian, ran a story about the survivors of Guantanamo, the victims of Americas icon of lawlessness', Britains survivors of the detention centre that has been called the gulag of our times'. The article featured a photograph of Jamal al Harith.

Al Harith, born Ronald Fiddler, a Christian convert to Islam, returned to Manchester from detention at Guantanamo Bay thanks to activism of David Blunkett, Home Secretary of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Al Harith was immediately welcomed in England as a hero, the innocent victim of the unjust war on terror after September 11. The Mirror and ITV gave him 60,000 ($73,000) for an exclusive interview about his experience at Guantanamo. Al Harith was also compensated with one million pounds by the British authorities. The victim of the gulag of our times bought a very nice house with the taxpayers cash.

A few weeks ago, al Harith made his last journey: he was blown up in Mosul, Iraq, on behalf of the Islamic State. Al Harith had also been recruited by the non-governmental organization CAGE (formerly known as Cageprisoners) as part of its testimony advocating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Celebrities such as Vanessa Redgrave, Victoria Brittain, Peter Oborne and Sadiq Khan appeared at CAGEs fundraising events. The NGO has been funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, a fund created by the chocolate magnate, and by the Roddick Foundation, the charity of Anita Roddick. Al Harith was also invited to the Council of Europe, to give testimony against retaining Guantanamo.

Al Hariths story reveals the depth of one of Europes biggest scandals: the jihadis use of European cradle-to-grave entitlements to fund their holy war. Europe gave them everything: jobs, homes, public assistance, unemployment benefits, relief payments, child benefits, disability payments, cash support. These Muslim extremists, however, do not see this Dependistan, as Mark Steyn called the welfare state, as a sign of generosity, but of weakness. They understand that Europe is ready to be destroyed. They have no respect for it. From Marseille to Malmo, many Muslim children have been raised to despise the societies that have made them so comfortable. Most Islamists in Europe are now living on support payments from the nations they had vowed to destroy.

A few days ago, the Danish press revealed that the Danish government has been paying sickness and disability benefits to Muslim extremists fighting in Syria for the Islamic State. It is a huge scandal that we disburse money from the welfare fund in Denmark for people who go to Syria, said Employment Minister Troels Lund Poulsen. The terrorists who struck Paris and Brussels have also used the generous British welfare system to fund their jihad. It is emerging from a trial in the UK that Mohamed Abrini, known as the man with the hat after the deadly attack at Brussels airport, received 3,000 in benefits before flying to Paris and disappearing.

It is not the first time that the role of the welfare state emerges in the Islamic infrastructure of terror:

The family of Omar Abdel Hamid el Hussein, the terrorist behind the attack in Copenhagen in February 2015, which killed two people, received money from Danish social programs.

British Islamist Anjem Choudary, convicted of encouraging people to join the Islamic State, urged the faithful to leave work and to seek unemployment benefits to devote full-time to war against the infidels. Choudary himself pocketed 25,000 a year in benefits.

In Germany, when the newspaper Bild ran an analysis of the 450 German jihadists fighting in Syria, it found that more than 20% of them have received benefits from the German state.

ran an analysis of the 450 German jihadists fighting in Syria, it found that more than 20% of them have received benefits from the German state. In the Netherlands, a jihadist named Khalid Abdurahman appeared in a video of the Islamic State in front of five heads just cut off. The Dutch newspaper Volkskrant revealed that he had been declared unfit for work and was paid for a treatment of claustrophobia.

Europes welfare system has created a cultural toxin for many in a sullen, unproductive Muslim underclass who live in the segregated enclaves such as the banlieues of Paris or Londonistan. Filled with religious certainty and ideological hatred for the West, not required to assimilate to Europes values and norms, certain of these European Muslims seem to feel as if they are destined to devour an exhausted civilization.

Public policy goals instead need to be to move people off welfare  shown to be basically a disincentive to looking for work  except in extraordinary cases, and toward personal responsibility. There need to be legal limits on the uses to which welfare funds can be put  for example, welfare funds should not to be used for purchasing illegal drugs, for gambling, for terrorism or, as there is no free speech in Europe anyway, for promoting terrorism. One could create and fine-tune such a list. Disregarding the limitations could result in losing the benefits. Measures such as that would will help fight against the ghettoization and Islamization of Europes Muslims.

Who is winning here? Democracy or Islamic extremism? The cycle of welfare and jihad needs to be stopped. Now.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Source : Gatestone Institute
Upper-Funnel Search Trends and How Hoteliers Can Influence Them

Sojerns 2017 Hotel Report, From Search Engine to Booking Engine, is out with valuable insights and actionable takeaways for hoteliers and travel brands. Through our collaboration with Google, weve garnered a view of the guests journey over the entire path to hotel booking.

By and large, trip planning starts with a search engine, as most travelers dont know where they want to go or who they want to fly or stay with. In fact, 67% of all hotel searches start on Google. Here, we take a look at our findings from this upper funnel activity, and how hoteliers can influence this important phase.

Finding #1: Kimpton, part of the Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), is the fastest growing hotel brand for searches year-over-year, at 88%.

Takeaway: While more generic search terms, like New York hotels may be tough to win via SEM or SEO, this highlights the importance of bidding on your own brand, at the very least. Owning your own brand can ensure that you stay at the top of the search results, and top of mind.

Finding #2: Searches for vacation rentals and casinos rose the most year-over-year at 28% and 8% respectively, more than other destination types.

Takeaway: It may not be surprising that vacation rentals are getting more interest with the rise of the sharing economy, many are interested in experiential travel that promises fun with their hotel. For hoteliers, use this opportunity to play up your best offerings. If you have an excellent spa, or are within close proximity of outdoor activities, make sure those experiences are crystal clear in your messaging.

Finding #3: As much as a third of people search and book hotels very far in advance, 30 days or more, and we know they are brand agnostic/and hotel agnostic.

Takeaway: If your marketing plan only focuses on those lower in the funnel, looking to book last minute, youre missing out on a third of people. Dont miss an opportunity to reach people looking well in advance of their travel, prospecting new users with beautiful imagery or video to inspire them to visit your property.

For more insights and actionable takeaways, get the report now.

About Ashley

Ashley is Sojern's Marketing Manager, EMEA & APAC and works in the London office. Originally from Canada, she's been living in London for over four years, and is actively trying to fill all the pages in her passport. She has never met a cheese she didn't like.
305 Room Holiday Inn Sydney Central Hotel Announced for 2020

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Linzhu (Australia) Pty Ltd announced the signing of an agreement to open the Holiday Inn Sydney Central in the city's CBD.

Adding 305 rooms in Sydney by 2020, the flagship hotel is the largest midscale property in the Sydney CBD pipeline and will embrace the joy of dining with its design-led restaurant, terrace bar and 120 seat meeting space. The hotel will be part of a mixed use development that will include a 1,000m2 private art gallery and a retail concourse.

Holiday Inn Sydney Central will be located in the highly anticipated 430 Pitt Street development, which boasts a seventeen storey tower with a sloping roof and "green waterfalls". Convenience and guest experience will be key, with guests enjoying an enviable location next to Belmore Park and the Capitol Theatre, and with easy access to George Street light rail, Central Station and Sydney's new Convention Centre.

Jing Wen Lin, Director at Linzhu commented: "The property will be a jewel in the Sydney CBD landscape with its unique wedge-shaped design and green flowing rooftops. Sydney continues to experience significant demand so it's a great time to be opening a new hotel, and I can't imagine a better partner than IHG nor a better brand than Holiday Inn to make the most of this rare space."

Karin Sheppard, Chief Operating Officer at IHG added: "We pride ourselves on bringing joy to travel by putting guests at ease, being accessible for all and proactively looking for ways to make every guest's stay more memorable. The Holiday Inn Sydney Central will be a place of joy, relaxation and conversation for visitors to Sydney, whether they are on the trip of a lifetime, a family holiday or just business."

"The Holiday Inn brand has been a story of success for IHG in Australia, so we are excited to be building on our portfolio that already includes six Holiday Inn hotels in Sydney."

The first Holiday Inn globally opened its doors in 1952 and today the Holiday Inn Brand Family is the largest hotel brand in the world, with the largest development pipeline. The first property in Australasia was the Holiday Inn City Centre Perth, which opened on 2 March 1998.

IHG currently has 26 hotels operating under four brands in Australia: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.
Owned by Sunsine Inc. and managed by Kaival Hospitality Management LLC, Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland offers all-suite accommodations with fully-equipped kitchens and modular furniture, providing guests the flexibility to customize their suite to their style and preference.

Home2 Suites by Hilton announced yesterday its newest property, Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland. Designed for travelers who want to maintain their normal routine, the hotel features 111 suites and a range of value, tech-focused and eco-conscious amenities. Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland will contribute to Ohio's booming tourism, where visitors spent about $36 billion in the last recorded year*.

"Ohio's tourism has grown significantly within the last several years, and the Greater Cleveland area accounts for much of the state's visitors. Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland is a great fit for those visiting the area on either business or leisure trips," said Jason Badertscher, general manager. "Home2 Suites offers spacious accommodations and unique amenities where guests experience a whole new way of traveling."

Owned by Sunsine Inc. and managed by Kaival Hospitality Management LLC, Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland offers all-suite accommodations with fully-equipped kitchens and modular furniture, providing guests the flexibility to customize their suite to their style and preference. The hotel also features complimentary Internet, inviting communal spaces, and trademark Home2 Suites amenities such as Spin2 Cycle, a combined laundry and fitness area, Home2 MKT for grab-and-go items, and the Inspired Table, a complimentary daily breakfast that includes more than 400 potential combinations. Guests can also enjoy an indoor saline heated pool, outdoor grill with a fire pit and designated patio area. Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland is pet-friendly.

Located at 7355 Engle Road, Home2 Suites by Hilton Middleburg Heights Cleveland offers guests convenient access to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the International Exposition Center, Big Creek Reservation and downtown Cleveland.
Police, however, is claiming that he was not associated with any of the politically active groups on JNU campus and there is no prima facie evidence indicating the university administration's role in the issue.

By Press Trust of India: A Dalit JNU scholar, who allegedly committed suicide last evening, was said to be at the forefront of a student's movement following Rohith Vemula's death and had severely criticised the varsity's admission policy in a Facebook post days before taking the extreme step.

In his post which has gone viral, 28-year-old student Muthu Krishnan had also slammed the recent prohibitory order by JNU authorities banning protests at the administration block.

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"There is no equality in MPhil/PhD admissions, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad-block, denying education to the marginals.

"When Equality is denied everything is denied," he had written in the Facebook post on March 1.

Police, however, is claiming that he was not associated with any of the politically active groups on JNU campus and there is no prima facie evidence indicating the university administration's role in the issue.

Krishnan, who was from Tamil Nadu's Salem district, completed his MPhil from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 before joining JNU for his PhD.

The student, a resident of JNU's Jhelum hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan at a friend's residence in South Delhi's Munirka area yesterday.

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) is alleging that Krishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Rohith Vemula, who had committed suicide last year, and that depression had made him take the extreme step.

VC REACTS

While JNU authorities are tight-lipped on any allegations of discrimination, Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar took to Twitter to express condolences.

"JNU community is grief stricken at untimely & sad demise of Shri Muthukrishnan J. We pray that God be with his family at this critical time," he tweeted.

According to senior police officials, no suicide note has been recovered and the investigation is underway.

"It is too early to comment on his association (with Rohith Vemula campaign). But so far, we know that he (Krishnan) was not associated with any student groups active in JNU.

"He neither made any complaint to the JNU administration nor was there any complaint against him by the administration," DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

The reason why the student took the extreme step is not known yet since no suicide note has been recovered, said the officer.

Meanwhile, political parties in Krishnan's home state Tami Nadu, including AIADMK and DMK, have expressed concern over the incident and demanded a thorough probe into the issue.

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Also read:

JNU scholar's death: Here's everything you need to know

PhD student from JNU found dead, police say he suffered from depression

Also watch:

JNU student found dead, probe on

--- ENDS ---
Tags : success hire employees

All of your locations are up and running. Youve done all you could do to advertise and get a jump on your competition. So now, the only thing you have left to do is the hiring. Plus you must retain good employees. Success includes retaining good employees. Turnover creates inefficiencies that cost companies major dollars every year, so it's important to pay employees for the efficiencies they create and by staying with the company. Success is hiring and retaining good employees and training them. Treasure your Best Employees In 1994, Cary Albert and his wife Jacquelyn began Schlotzskys. At Albert Enterprises, the owner claims labor costs as a percentage of his business are some of the lowest in the Schlotzsky's system, but that he pays some of the highest hourly rates. Why? "Because we retain great people and reward them with higher pay. You can't put a price tag on this." Albert Enterprises, which landed at No. 1,372 on Inc.'s list of the fastest growing companies in America. It grew to 845 employees and annual revenue of $21 million in 2015, up 280 percent from $5.5 million in 2012 when it employed 125. Teamwork The Albert's are actively involved in all facets of their businesses. Having grown at an eye-popping 100% over the past few years was a remarkable feat. This is a testament to the amazing TEAM assembled by this ownership. Our PEOPLE truly DO make the difference....
While Irish designers can spend a lot of time and money each season promoting their new season collections, one unlikely source of free PR is gaining momentum as March offers a high point in the calendar for the founder of the #WearingIrish campaign Margaret Molloy.

Margaret left Ireland more than 20 years ago for Manhattan but still retains close ties to her homeland.

As chief marketing officer of Siegel + Gale, Margarets strong point is branding and, as one of Forbes Magazines most influential CMOs on Twitter with more than 30,000 followers, she is well placed to make some significant noise around the talents of our fashion designers.

For quite a number of years, Margaret had been wearing green in the run-up to St Patricks Day, but last year she decided to change tack and to really put the green into Irish design by spending her dollars on Irish designer clothing, by promoting her outfits on social media with the hashtag #WearingIrish, and by inviting others to do the same.

Margaret Molloy wearing a dress by Karyn Moriarty Couture, necklace by Christina Belle and carrying a bag by Paul Costello on the streets of New York.

Check out Margarets social media channels and youre likely to see pictures of her at events or on the streets of Manhattan wearing designs by Jennifer Rothwell, Manley, or Lennon Courtney with jewellery by Melissa Curry, Mary Enright, or Elaine de Roiste.

Showcasing these designs with the hashtag #WearingIrish is born out of passion, not pennies, and she is not sponsored to promote these brands. She has purchased the vast majority of the clothes she wears but also says that some designers have gifted her items or provided discounts.

Ireland is the only country in the world that owns a month. Unique asset and influence. #WearingIrish #irelandday #brandireland  Margaret Molloy (@MargaretMolloy) March 13, 2017

Ive purchased the majority of the pieces, she says. Various designers have provided discounts or donated pieces, which has been a great way for me to discover new brands. Often when I experience a brand via a gift, I end up buying multiple other items from that collection.

While many of us in Ireland are aware of the talent of our fashion, accessory, and jewellery designers, one wonders what consumers in the US and further afield know about Irish design and whether their perception is that it is all coarse tweed and Aran jumpers.

To those people Id say look again, says Margaret. There is something for every taste and budget, from traditional textiles and heraldic jewellery to couture dresses, contemporary jewellery, sumptuous scarves and bags for men and women. Whats more, some of the traditional designs now have a very modern twist.

As an Irishwoman living in America, I ask Margaret whether she feels the year-long campaign highlighting Irish design, ID2015, went far enough in promoting Irish design in the US.

Day 7: #wearingirish Busy day with meetings across the city and a stop to check email and  https://t.co/d5gCvofs1S pic.twitter.com/xgjE7HzXcv  Margaret Molloy (@MargaretMolloy) March 8, 2017

ID2015 put a focus on Irish design and thats a powerful starting point, says Margaret. There is plenty to be done to build and sustain a contemporary narrative around Irish design in the USA. I believe that grassroots initiatives like #WearingIrish can complement programs like ID2015.

Margaret has been away from Ireland for many years, yet she still retains a close connection with her home soil. The eldest of six children, she grew up on a farm in Co Offaly and left for New York in 1994 having graduated with a first class honours degree in business and Spanish from the University of Ulster.

Ireland has real charisma, she says. Im attracted to Irish design, in particular, because it visually represents Irish creativity. Your outfit is the first image in your personal story. When I wear Irish design its more than a fashion statement, its an embrace of my Irish heritage.

As a specialist in marketing and a very active participant in social media, Margarets posts on Twitter and Instagram not only serve to highlight her personal interest in design but also provide a taste of her life in the city of New York and of the Irish American events she frequently attends.

While I typically share posts about branding, design and marketing, I also provide updates on Irish affairs from a New York perspective, she says. Ive built an engaged following on social media. Using my social media platform to promote #WearingIrish is a natural extension of that and my followers have been very responsive.

In her posts, Margaret can be seen wearing a multitude of Irish designers and not just during the month of March, her wardrobe is brimful of Irish contemporary design. She says asking her to pick a favourite is like asking a parent to choose which of their children is their favourite.

I wear pieces that I treasure from dozens of Irish designers, she says. As a marketer, I appreciate designs that cater to everyday needs like Canopi sleeves and Holden Leathergoods as well as brands that tell great stories like BYOS by Melissa Curry.

Blue long dress by Tina Griffin; pendant by Newbridge Silver.

One wonders if Margaret has noticed a common thread running through Irish design. Is there something distinct that sets it apart as Irish among all the other products on the market?

I think that Irish design draws inspiration from nature and the Irish landscape as reflected in the abundance of vibrant colours and motifs. Sometimes theres a subtle nod to heritage and legends in flourishes of fancy. However, what strikes me is that the commitment of the designers is omnipresent its clear they take personal pride in every creation.

Its also abundantly clear that Margarets passion for Irish design goes far beyond her own wardrobe.

My ambition is to create a movement around #WearingIrish. That men and women around the world will choose to buy at least one item of Irish design to wear every March. Ultimately, its about building Irelands reputation as a design haven.

@margaretmolloy #WearingIrish
World UN Rapporteur to Burma Reports to Human Rights Council

Yanghee Lee pictured after her report to the Human Rights Council at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland on March 13, 2017. / Denis Balibouse / Reuters

GENEVA, Switzerland  Burma may be using bureaucratic means to get rid of its Rohingya Muslim minority after a security crackdown against them caused an international outcry, the UN human rights investigator on Burma said on Monday.

The UN human rights office said last month that the campaign of killings and rapes probably amounted to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing.

UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee told the UN Human Rights Council that Burma was still making Rohingyas lives difficult by dismantling homes and conducting a household survey.

Conducting a household surveywhere those absent may be struck off the list that could be the only legal proof of their status in Burmaindicates the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether. I sincerely hope that that is not the case, she said.

Burmas military launched the crackdown in the north of Arakan State after nine policemen were killed on Oct. 9. Some 75,000 Rohingya have since fled to Bangladesh, where Lee said she had heard harrowing account after harrowing account.

I heard allegation after allegation of horrific events like theseslitting of throats, indiscriminate shootings, setting alight houses with people tied up inside and throwing very young children into the fire, as well as gang rapes and other sexual violence, she told the Council.

Lee visited Burma twice in the past year, including Arakan State. But she was blocked at the last minute from Kachin State, another area of ethnic violence.

I must confess that there were times that I had seriously questioned the nature of the cooperation, she said.

Burmas ambassador U Htin Lynn called the allegations of crimes against humanity unverified and one-sided. He said security operations in Arakan had stopped and the curfew was eased earlier this month.

The situation in Arakan State is very complicated in nature and thus requires complicated answers. It also requires greater understanding by the international community, he said.

Human rights challenges could not be solved within a year, he said, referring to the year-old government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But Lee said Burmas number of political prisoners had doubled to 170 in that time.

UN human rights chief Zeid Raad al Hussein has said treatment of the Rohingya merits a UN commission of inquiry and review by the International Criminal Court.

But Burma is unlikely to face international scrutiny because a Human Rights Council resolution drafted by the European Union would leave the country itself to investigate.
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Reuters is reporting that some 22 Russian special operations forces have set up a base in Western Egypt near the Libyan border in preparation for an intervention in Libya.

Other recent reports have suggested that Russian mercenaries have been active in eastern Libya. The Russian government denied the Reuters report and denied any knowledge of a Russian unit operating in Libya. Likewise the Egyptian government denied that any foreign forces were based on its soil.

The warlord of eastern Libya is Khalifa Hifter, whose military forces serve one of Libyas two parliaments, the House of Representatives in Tobruk. Hifters forces expelled fundamentalist religious militias from Benghazi, which his forces now control. His men had asserted control of the oil triangle, including Ras Lanuf. Obviously, whoever controls Libyas oil would reap a massive windfall, making them even more powerful over time.

But Hifters forces in the oil triangle have recently been expelled by the very same radical fundamentalist militias, prominently al-Qaeda and the Benghazi Defense Brigades, that he had kicked out of Benghazi. And after they build up their coffers by smuggling some petroleum out, they talk about marching on Benghazi and taking it from Hifter, making it a base for Muslim radicalism.

It is these reverses in the oil triangle for Hifters forces and the threat that radicals could attack Benghazi that likely alarmed the Russian military enough to cause them to intervene. Obviously, 22 commandos are not very many, but maybe they will be spotters for the air force.

Washington is worried that Russia plans to repeat its Syrian tactics in Libya and that it wants to recover Libya as a Russian sphere of influence, as it had been under deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Despite Russian denials, it is plausible that Russian forces are trying to intervene covertly in Libya. Any such intervention appears for the moment to be targeted and small, unlike the situation in Syria.



Related video:

VOA from last month: Italy Seeks Russias Help in Stabilizing Libya
      .    , : - !  : - !   : - !  : - !    .  ,   : - ,  ? -          :      !  !
According to sources in Delhi Police, Krish's last Facebook post mentions different incidents, hence, "We are examining it to connect all dots".

As per preliminary enquiry, it appears that the scholar mentioned about a childhood incident which he and his friends might have encountered.

Statements of people including Krish's friends, teachers and head of department will now be recorded for a clearer picture.

Krish's last post on Facebook mentions the long struggle he faced as a Dalit boy.

The post, which was published on March 10, also mentions JNU's professor emeritus and former UGC chairman professor Sukhadeo Thorat denying permission for a protest at the university admin block.

Incidentally, an FIR was filed by JNU administration against students for carrying out a month-long protest.

JNU had witnessed protests after UGC gave more weightage to viva-voce and less to examination. The Left students were named as suspects.

One of Krish's posts mentions discrimination in academic evaluation especially viva-vice, while another talks about the new UGC policy.

Krish was an active member of the Justice for Rohith Vemula Movement.

There are photographs of Krish comforting missing JNU student Najeeb's mother as well. Najeeb went missing in October 2016.

Another photograph in his Facebook profile shows him standing next to PM Jawaharlal Nehru's statue near the admin block.

As per the investigations, it appears no personal reason can be attributed to his suicide.

Cops are keeping an eye on Left students as they fear these students may carry out protests both within and outside the campus.

Police is trying to reconstruct the sequence of events of the last 24 hours, including who he called up and met before the suicide.

According to DCP (south) Ishwar Singh, no suicide note has been recovered while Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) will conduct a thorough search.

Postmortem of JNU student has been stuck for two reasons. Firstly, the family demands that whenever they file a complaint, it is converted into an FIR. Secondly, a forensic expert from Chennai police says that unless the post-mortem is not completed, they can't register the FIR.
Brossard, Quebec / TheNewswire / March 14th, 2017 Nippon Dragon Resources Inc. (the "Company" or "Nippon") (TSX-V Symbol: NIP) is pleased to announce that the commissioning phase has begun of its 75 tonne per day treatment plant in Arizona. To date, all the equipment has been checked, adjusted and/or replaced. Currently, we estimate that we generate more concentrate per tonne milled than our laboratory studies, which is positive. The goal is to achieve a recovery rate of 90%. Nippon's management and its customer Horseshoe llc are satisfied with the work carried out to date and are confident that the plant will be well managed by the team in charge, a total of approximately 250 tonnes of ore will be used to complete the commissioning phase which should be completed by the end of March.

"The plant's 75 tonne per day capacity with thermal ore is equivalent to between 300 and 375 tonnes of conventional ore. The extraction accuracy reduces the dilution to a minimum and thus increases the plant's actual capacity by a factor of 4 to 5 times, "said Donald Brisebois, President and CEO of Nippon

Additionally, Nippon and its customer have decided to mobilize a second thermal unit and drill to increase the tons produced. The decision was made following the discovery of another mineralized structure identified close to one that is currently being fragmented.

The UMCO 75 F is the fruit of many years of research and development, this concept is a viable solution for small scale mining.

With the thermal fragmentation mining method developed by Nippon Dragon Inc., gold is extracted directly and solely from within the vein. The size of the feed ore could range from 0 - 3 inches (0 - 75mm) then ground to obtain a granulometry of 80% passing 200 mesh that will supply a series of flotation cells and a gravimetric concentrator in order to obtain a high-grade gold ore concentrate that will then be refined by a specialised company. This technology is supported by an understanding of the metallurgy of the ore which allows for constant control and sequential analysis of the different parameters of the process. A truly new innovation in the mining industry, this new concept has many advantages: easy to install, fully automated, mobile and especially profitable.

Please follow the link below to view a complete overview of our treatment plant. https://youtu.be/kyN70LbdXcQ

About Nippon

Nippon is active in the exploration and the development of gold resources in Quebec. The Corporation holds a gold property with resources recognised in accordance with NI43-101, a modular treatment plant and also an exclusive license for the Thermal Fragmentation mining method.

The company's growth strategy is based on:

The development of its gold deposits with the objective of producing revenue from its operations;

Increasing the value of its mining assets by prioritizing the exploration targets; and

The commercialisation and employment of its thermal fragmentation technology.

For additional information:

John Stella, Investor relations (514) 718-7976 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Donald Brisebois, President & CEO (450) 510-4442 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
VANCOUVER, March 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Lithium X Energy Corp. ("Lithium X" or the "Company") (TSXV: LIX) (OTCQB: LIXXF) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced bought deal public offering of 7,900,000 common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a price of C$1.90 per Share for aggregate gross proceeds of C$15,010,000 (the "Offering"). The Shares were sold by a syndicate of underwriters led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. and GMP Securities L.P.

The Shares issued under the Offering were offered by way of a short form prospectus dated March 8, 2017 (the "Prospectus") in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Copies of the Prospectus and documents incorporated by reference therein are available electronically under the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

As described in the Prospectus, the Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering to continue the development of the Sal de los Angeles lithium brine project (the "Sal de los Angeles Project") in the Salta province, Argentina including: (i) the completion of a work program with a view to providing an updated mineral resource estimate for the Sal de los Angeles Project; (ii) the completion of a feasibility study on the Sal de los Angeles Project; and (iii) the construction of an initial ponding facility. The Company also intends to use a portion of the net proceeds for general working capital purposes.

The Shares sold pursuant to the Offering are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") under the Company's trading symbol LIX.

This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), and such securities may not be offered or sold within the United States absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements thereunder.

About Lithium X Energy Corp.

Lithium X Energy Corp. is a lithium exploration and development company with a goal of becoming a low-cost supplier for the burgeoning lithium battery industry. The Company holds properties in Salta, Argentina and Nevada, USA. The Company's flagship project Sal de los Angeles lithium brine project as well as the Arizaro Lithium Brine Project are located in the prolific "Lithium Triangle" in mining friendly Salta province, Argentina. Lithium X owns 50%, and has the option to acquire up to 80% of the Sal de los Angeles lithium brine project. Lithium X's Arizaro project consists of 33,846 hectares located in one of the world's largest salars thought to contain elevated lithium brine values. Lithium X 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.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - March 14, 2017) - Sama Graphite Inc. (TSX VENTURE:SRG) ("SRG" or the "Company") today announced the signature of a consulting agreement with ProGraphite GmbH ("PG") for advanced graphite testwork on the Company's 100%-owned Lola Graphite deposit in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa. Laboratory work and analysis on the Lola Graphite concentrate will include, among others, purification testing, expandability and fraction analysis. A comprehensive final report along with deducible conclusions regarding the potential market and industry applications for the test material is expected in early May 2017. PG is a highly regarded firm with professional expertise in natural graphite and other carbon products that has been acquired during several decades of working in the industry worldwide.

"We called upon the expertise of ProGraphite GmbH mainly because of their cutting-edge testing and graphite characterization methodologies," said Marc-Antoine Audet, President and Chief Executive Officer, SRG, "The results of this advanced testwork will provide our Company with the precise characteristics of our graphite, thereby allowing us to target the most appropriate industry applications for our product."

PG will work in close collaboration with Activation Laboratories Ltd., Ontario ("Actlab"). Previous analysis performed by Actlab on samples from SRG's Lola Graphite deposit, including geochemical, mineralogical and metallurgical testing, yielded excellent results (reference SRG's press release dated February 21, 2017). These tests returned purities of 99.7% and 99.1% graphitic carbon ("Cg") for +48 mesh (>0.31 millimeters ("mm") and the -48+80 mesh (between 0.18 mm and 0.31 mm), respectively using a light caustic acid wash (10% concentration). The majority of the concentrate, 89%, is made up of flake sizes greater than 0.18 millimeters. Super-jumbo flakes (>0.50 mm) account for 29% of the concentrate with purities of 96.6% and 95.9% Cg obtained using the basic floatation process.

SRG also announced that it has entered into a consulting agreement with Contact Financial Corp. ("Contact") to provide investor relations and communication services, subject to TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") approval. The Company has selected Contact as an experienced arm's length firm to share Sama Graphite's compelling story with brokers, analysts and portfolio managers.

Contact is a broad-based strategic marketing and communications firm with experience in creating exposure for small- to mid-cap companies. Contact Financial headed by Kirk Gamley, is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with core strengths in Vancouver, Montreal and affiliates in Europe. Contact's services will include providing advice to the Company with respect to corporate development, production and distribution of investor-focused communication tools, and increasing awareness of the Company within the financial community.

Contact has been retained for an initial term of three (3) months, with service to be provided on a month-to-month basis thereafter. Contact will be paid a monthly fee of CAN $5,000.00 (plus GST) and has been granted options to purchase up to 200,000 common shares of the Company, with an exercise price of CAN $0.365 per share that shall have a life of 2 years from the date of issue, with vesting restrictions in accordance with TSX Venture Exchange policies.

Other than 650,000 common shares held directly and indirectly by Kirk Gamley and Contact Financial, none of Contact Financial group has any interest, directly or indirectly, in Sama Graphite or its securities, or any right or intent to acquire such an interest, other than the above-referenced proposed stock options.

About ProGraphite

ProGraphite GmbH is specialized in natural graphite and other carbon products. Based on more than 20 years of professional experience and passion for graphite and carbon, ProGraphite offers expert consultancy for most aspects of natural graphite projects. Furthermore ProGraphite offers a wide range of specialized lab services and extended geological and mineralogical services for graphite and other minerals. ProGraphite is also involved in trading of carbon products. The company is located in Germany. For additional information on ProGraphite: www.pro-graphite.com.

About Contact Financial

Contact Financial is a broad-based strategic marketing and communications firm with experience in creating exposure for small to mid-cap companies. Contact Financial's services include providing advice with respect to corporate development, production and distribution of investor-focused communication tools, and increasing awareness within the financial community. Contact Financial has offices in both Vancouver and Montreal, and is owned by Kirk Gamley. For additional information, please visit Contact's website at www.contactfinancial.com

About Sama Graphite Inc. (SRG)

SRG is a Canadian-based company focused on developing the Lola Graphite deposit, located in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa. SRG is committed to operate in a socially, environmentally and ethically responsible manner.

For additional information, please visit SRG's website at www.srggraphite.com.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - March 14, 2017) - John Cumming, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stellar AfricaGold Inc., (TSX VENTURE:SPX) ("Stellar" or the "Company") is pleased to announce:

SALE OF EASTMAIN RIVER CLAIMS

Stellar has agreed to sell its Eastmain River claims, Quebec, to Amex Exploration Inc. for 350,000 shares and a 1.5% Net Smelter Return royalty of which 50% (0.75%) may be bought back for $750,000. The transaction is subject to required TSX Venture Exchange approvals.

BALANDOUGOU ACQUISITION CLOSED

The Company has issued 750,000 shares completing the acquisition of UltraGold Holding LLC's ("UltraGold) 49% interest in the Balandougou Gold Project properties. The shares are subject to a four-month hold period expiring July 14, 2017. (see news release January 25, 2017)

COMMENTARY

"Stellar's primary focus is and will continue to be its now wholly-owned Balandougou gold project in Guinea where the 15,000 tonne bulk sample program (news release March 1, 2017) is proceeding on time and on budget" said Stellar president John Cumming. "The two Eastmain River claims blocks, the 1,950 hectares 37 claim Eastmain South and the 840 hectares Eastmain North, are a non-core asset that competes for available exploration funds with our core project, Baladougou. The conversion of the Eastmain River claims into marketable securities will strengthen Stellar's balance sheet. Finally, Stellar retains a royalty and will participate in any ultimate exploration success at Eastmain."

ABOUT STELLAR AFRICAGOLD INC.

Stellar AfricaGold Inc. is a Canadian gold exploration Company based in Montreal, Quebec, with operations concentrated mainly in West Africa and in Quebec.

The Company is currently developing the promising gold potential of the Balandougou project in Guinea, which is at an advanced exploration stage, as well as of the Namarana project in Mali.

In Quebec, the Company owns 100% of the Opawica Project in the Chibougamau mining camp.

The technical content of this press release has been reviewed and approved by independent consultant Greg Isenor, P. Geo, a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101.
ROK Air Force's fighter jets, including F-15Ks, fly in formation over the West Sea during the Soaring Eagle exercise, Monday. The large-scale combat exercise, aimed at striking North Korea's key nuclear and missile facilities, began last Friday for a one-week run. / Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye

The Air Force is currently conducting a large-scale combat exercise aimed at striking North Korea's key nuclear and missile facilities.

Soaring Eagle, a week-long drill that began last Friday, involves 50 aircraft including F-15Ks, KF-16s and FA-50s fighter jets as well as 500 troops.

This is taking place in conjunction with the joint annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises by South Korea and the United States, which are aimed at improving the combined forces' operation and combat capabilities to deter threats from the North.

"The Soaring Eagle exercise is designed to practice the Air Force's readiness against possible provocations from North Korea and counterattack operations," the Air Force said in a statement, Monday.

"By carrying out the exercise in tandem with Key Resolve, we expect the ROK Air Force to enhance its combat capability in the event of war."

During a drill scheduled for Thursday, the Air Force will apply the concept of the Kill Chain preemptive strike system that the military is planning to establish in the early 2020s.

"Thursday's drill will focus on strengthening our ability to strike the enemy's core facilities and its time-sensitive targets (TSTs) including missiles," the Air Force said.

The drills are taking place amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea fired four ballistic missiles, March 6, 22 days after it fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile.

There has also been speculation that Pyongyang will conduct another major provocation such as a sixth nuclear test or launching an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at the U.S. mainland.

The Air Force noted that Soaring Eagle has been taking place twice a year since 2008, adding that the exercise, together with ongoing joint military drills with the U.S., is expected to further improve anti-North Korea combat readiness.

Key Resolve starts

The allies also began the Key Resolve exercise, Monday, which will run until March 24, according to the South Korea and the U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC).

Like last year, the allies will apply their joint wartime Operation Plan (OPLAN) 5015, which reportedly includes a contingency for preemptive strikes against the North's leadership, sources said.

They added that the allies would also carry out drills to train troops on intercepting North Korean missiles using the concept of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense system scheduled to be deployed to U.S. Forces Korea within the year.

In a show of force against Pyongyang's potential provocations, the U.S. is sending the Nimitz-class super carrier USS Carl Vinson and its strike group, and F-35B stealth fighter jets.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is due to arrive in Busan, Wednesday.

On March 1, South Korean and U.S. troops began Foal Eagle, a two-month exercise involving the two allies' ground, air and naval forces.

The Ministry of National Defense said South Korea and the U.S. were keenly monitoring the movements of North Korean soldiers in preparation for possible provocations.

The repressive state has long been claiming that the exercises are "dress rehearsals" for a northward invasion with nuclear weapons, and has threatened harsh retaliation against "hostile" forces.

But the allies have stressed the exercises that have been held regularly are defensive in nature, aimed solely at bolstering readiness against a possible invasion from North Korea.
By Doug Bandow



One of the most stunning geopolitical transformations in recent years has been the warming relationship between South Korea and the People's Republic of China. Yet Beijing is putting those ties at risk in a fit of pique over Seoul's decision to participate in the THAAD anti-missile system. American policymakers are enjoying the spectacle of the PRC pushing Seoul back toward the U.S.



Beijing's relationship with the Republic of Korea began inauspiciously, with China backing North Korea's Kim Il-sung after his campaign to conquer the South in June 1950 faltered.



Although combat was halted by an armistice in July 1953, formal peace never came. Throughout the Cold War the PRC backed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Only in 1992 did the PRC and Republic of Korea finally initiate diplomatic relations.



Even then, economic links long predominated. The DPRK retained the PRC's primary political affection. Indeed, the North Korea-China relationship was managed by the Communist Party's International Department and the People's Liberation Army retained particular interest in bilateral ties.



Today China trades more with the South than do the U.S. and Japan combined. Moreover, the political relationship has shifted as well, as Pyongyang ignored China's advice and admonitions against proceeding with nuclear and missile programs.



The result has been precisely the sort of instability and controversy that the PRC does not want on its border. Beijing long has been unhappy with the antics of its nominal friend and in recent years warmed its relationship with Seoul.

However, Chinese officials fear that taking tougher measures, such as cutting off energy and food assistance, would promote a North Korean collapse, which could spread refugees, conflict, and nukes, to the PRC's obvious detriment. Moreover, reunification might yield a united Korea allied with America and hosting U.S. troops, precisely what Mao Zedong's China sought to forestall more than 66 years ago.



Fear of North Korean missile and nuclear capabilities caused the ROK to agree last year to participate in America's anti-missile system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense). Beijing denounced the decision, fearing that the program also would be directed against China.



So Beijing now is targeting commercial and cultural ties between the two countries. China has prohibited package tours to the South. Beijing also has blocked streaming of ROK television shows and K-pop music videos in China.

Concerts by South Korean pop groups and fan meets by television stars have been cancelled. Chinese consumers are organizing online to boycott cosmetics from the South. Chinese hackers have attacked websites for the Lotte Group, which sold land to the South Korean government for deployment of THAAD.



Such activities, however, won't change Seoul's policy. Certainly PRC officials would not surrender to a similar campaign against Beijing.



Indeed, China's aggressive response is particularly myopic given politics in the South. If President Park Geun-hye is ousted in ongoing impeachment proceedings, early presidential elections may bring the left-wing opposition to power. Then South Korea might take a more accommodating position the PRC.



Moreover, by interfering with ROK cultural exports Beijing is targeting the part of the South Korean population most likely to want a closer relationship with the PRC. Younger ROK generations came of age as China expanded its role in the South. At the popular level the PRC is gaining on America.



However, by lashing out at South Koreans of all sortswhat do K-pop stars have to do with missile defense?Beijing reminds its potential friends that it remains an authoritarian state which subjugates individual choice to political ends. Cutting off group tours imposes an economic price on the ROK, but on average South Koreans, not government officials. In contrast, flooding the South with Chinese tourists would be more likely to win hearts and minds for the PRC.



Ironically, in launching its economic campaign Beijing is effectively doing Washington's bidding. U.S. policymakers long have worried about the PRC's economic draw on the South. Now China is voluntarily curbing those ties.

Ultimately the problem is North Korea. Beijing, Seoul, and Washington should develop a concerted approach to promote denuclearization in the Northproviding the latter a greater sense of security while simultaneously applying greater pressure. It's the only strategy likely to yield positive results.



In the meantime, the PRC should rethink its self-defeating strategy of trashing its new friend. China and South Korea should cooperate to promote regional stability and peace. The sooner they start working together, the better.





Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of "Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World" and co-author of "The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relationship with North and South Korea."




Hyundai Engineering CEO Sung Sang-rok, right, and AHDAF CEO Asghar Arefi hold contracts after signing an agreement in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, for the construction of a second phase petrol refining complex at the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf. / Courtesy of Hyundai Engineering



By Park Jae-hyuk

Hyundai Engineering Co. (HEC) has clinched a 3.8 trillion won ($3.2 billion) project in Iran, which is the largest deal ever for a Korean construction company operating in the Middle East country.

According to the company, Monday, its CEO Sung Sang-rok signed an agreement in Tehran, Sunday, with CEO Asghar Arefi of AHDAF, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), for constructing the second phase of the Kangan Petro Refining Complex project at the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf.

It was HEC's first deal in Iran after the company jointly constructed the fourth and fifth phases of gas treatment facilities there in 2005 with Hyundai Engineering & Construction (Hyundai E&C) which participates in the latest project as well.

HEC has also become Korea's first big constructor to sign a deal with Iran, after the lifting of economic sanctions on the country last year. Since then, the government has backed the company, while policy finance institutions in Korea have guaranteed financial support.

HEC itself has also bolstered its friendship with organizations and affiliates in Iran since August 2015. The company sent its employees to Iran to visit those affiliates every day even before the lifting of sanctions.

Therefore, HEC could gain an advantage over its rivals in the country with great economic potential. Iran has the world's largest amount of natural gas and the fourth largest amount of crude oil.

The South Pars field, where HEC will expand the size of a refining complex, is known as the biggest gas field in the world. For about 48 months, HEC will build facilities there for producing 400,000 tons of heavy polyethylene and 350,000 tons of light polyethylene a year.

"We tried our best to win the deal," a HEC official said. "Using our technology and human resources, we will work hard to enhance our competitiveness and to get additional orders."
The deceased Muthu Krishnan, who had named himself Krish Rajini on Facebook, hanged himself at his South Korean friend's house in Munirka using a blanket yesterday.

By Press Trust of India: A day after a 27-year-old dalit student allegedly committed suicide at Jawaharlal Nehru University here, police on Tuesday said he was not part of any politically active group on the campus.

The deceased Muthu Krishnan, who had named himself Krish Rajini on Facebook, hanged himself at his South Korean friend's house in Munirka using a blanket yesterday.

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While the JNU students shared Krishnan's Facebook posts condemning the Hyderabad varsity's alleged role in Dalit scholar Rohith Vemulas suicide last year and criticism of JNU's new admission policy, police ruled out any political affiliation of the victim.

"It is too early to comment on his association (with Rohith Vemula). But so far, we know that he (Krishnan) was not associated with any student groups active in JNU. He neither made any complaint to the JNU administration nor was there any complaint against him by the administration," DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

The reason why the student took the extreme step is not known yet since no suicide note has been recovered, said the officer.

"It is an unfortunate incident. We conducted a search of his hostel room and the room where his body was found. But no suicide note has been recovered. We have sealed both the rooms. Forensic teams will be examining the rooms again," he added.

Krishnan's body was discovered by his friend Gomen Kim, a South Korean national, and two other students Lakshyajeet and Issac -- at Kim's home where they had gone for lunch. The victim had retired to a room, saying that he had slept at 3 am the day before and wanted to rest, police said.

Around 4.30 pm, his friends called him and when he did not respond, they tried to break open the door and saw him hanging following which they alerted the police.

Police said they will be scanning Krishnan's Facebook posts and call records to ascertain what could have triggered such an extreme step. We have requested for a medical board to carry out his postmortem, they added.

Krishnan had joined JNU in October last year.

Also read: JNU scholar's death: Here's everything you need to know

--- ENDS ---
Manhattan Institute scholars evaluate the confirmation of Seema Verma as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Seema Verma, a health care consultant and the architect of Indianas successful Healthy Indiana Plan, is a strong choice to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Currently, Medicaids open-ended federal matching formula encourages states to allocate money to health services that could be better spent on safety net supports elsewhere, including by beneficiaries themselves. I hope Verma comes to CMS with the same commitment to state innovation and beneficiary responsibility that she demonstrated in Indiana.

Paul Howard, Director of Health Policy

Read Paul's testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's hearing on Medicaid and his op-ed, Asking More From Medicaid Than Just an Insurance Card.

With Seema Vermas confirmation as Administrator, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now has a leader who understands the need for Medicaid reform and the importance of giving states a central role. The current system misallocates over $100 billion per year by rewarding states that grow their Medicaid rolls and their spending on each recipient instead of focusing cost-effective support on the neediest populations. As a result, Medicaid now dominates Americas social safety net spending and has shoved aside other strategies that would better serve low-income households. If the federal government lets states decide how to spend their anti-poverty dollars, they will spend much less on Medicaid but have much more success.

Oren Cass, Senior Fellow

Read Oren's report, Over-Medicaid-ed: How Medicaid Distorts and Dilutes America's Safety Net.

Seema Verma is a thoughtful leader with experience designing unique approaches to Medicaid reform. Upon taking the reins at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Verma should put this experience to work in protecting the Medicare program. In particular, CMS should lead the way in designing and testing Medicare reform approaches that build on the success of private plans in the program, while still protecting beneficiaries and offering taxpayers high value for their money.

Yevgeniy Feyman, Adjunct Fellow

Read Yevgeniy's report, Three Reforms That Can Help Balance Medicare Finances.

______________________

"MI Responds" features real-time commentary from MI scholars on breaking news and developing issues.
Veteran actor Kamal Haasan is concerned about his daughter Shruti, who is rumoured to be dating a London-based artist Michael Corsale.

By India Today Web Desk: Much has been said about diva Shruti Haasan, her mystery man Michael Corsale, and their rumoured relationship.In fact, rumour mills were abuzz that Shruti and Michael have been seeing each other for quite sometime after they were spotted together at Mumbai airport last month.

If reports are anything to go by, it seems like Kamal Haasan is a bit wary of Shruti's relationship with Michael, and that he's worried about his li'l girl. A source from Haasan's side was quoted by the DC as saying, "Kamal is a bit worried about his daughter roaming with her alleged boyfriend in public."

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"He's concerned with the kind of stories coming out in the press these days, which made him think this is maligning their image. Kamal has also spoken to Shruti regarding this, recently," the source adds.

Earlier to this, a picture of Kamal Haasan with Michael Corsale at UK-India Culture of 2017 went viral on the internet.

Michael Corsale graduated from the famous Drama Centre London. On the work front, Kamal Haasan will be next seen in the trilingual comedy Sabash Naidu, which has now been postponed indefinitely. Recently, Haasan revealed that his much-anticipated Vishwaroopam 2 is likely to release this year.

Meanwhile, Shruti Haasan is wrapping up her Telugu film with powerstar Pawan Kalyan titled Katamarayudu, which is slated to release on Ugadi.

ALSO READ: Satellite rights of Rajinikanth's 2.0 bagged for a whopping Rs 110 cr

WATCH Baahubali 2 teaser: Prabhas as Shivudu will have his revenge on April 28

ALSO READ: Logan stunt choreographer roped in for Dulquer Salmaan's CIA

ALSO WATCH: Kamal Haasan backs Panneerselvam, says he has proved his mettle till now

--- ENDS ---
Bayer Aktiengesellschaft, together its subsidiaries, operates as a life science company worldwide. It operates through Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Health, and Crop Science segments. The Pharmaceuticals segment offers prescription products primarily for cardiology and women's health care; specialty therapeutics in the areas of oncology, hematology, and ophthalmology; and diagnostic imaging equipment and contrast agents, as well as cell and gene therapy. The Consumer Health segment markets nonprescription over-the-counter medicines, medical products, medicated skincare products, nutritional supplements, and self-care solutions in dermatology, nutritional supplements, pain and cardiovascular risk prevention, digestive health, allergy, and cold and cough. The Crop Science segment offers chemical and biological crop protection products, improved plant traits, seeds, digital solution, and pest and weed control products, as well as customer service for agriculture. This segment also provides breeding, propagation, and production/processing of seeds, including seed dressing. The company has a collaboration agreement with MD Anderson Cancer Center to develop oncology drugs; research and license agreement with Dewpoint Therapeutics, Inc. for the development of new treatments for cardiovascular and gynecological diseases; collaboration agreement with Exscientia Ltd, Foundation Medicine Inc., and Evotec AG; research collaboration with Arvinas Inc.; strategic research partnership with University of Oxford to develop novel gynecological therapies; and Kyoto University to identify new drugs candidates for the treatment of pulmonary diseases. It distributes its products through wholesalers, pharmacies and pharmacy chains, supermarkets, online and other retailers, and hospitals, as well as directly to farmers. Bayer Aktiengesellschaft was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany.
A toll assistant deducted Rs 4 lakh from a doctor's debit card instead of charging Rs 40. Doctor, who got the shock of his life seeing such a huge amount being deducted from his account, called the toll plaza officials out on their mistake, and ensured a settlement. In cash!

By India Today Web Desk: Bank messages after transactions are a regular affair, but the message a doctor from Mysuru received could have end up in him getting a heart attack. To his luck, he didn't.

Dr Rao, hailing from Mysuru, got the shock of his life when he realised that a toll assistant at the Gundmi toll gate situated on the Kochi-Mumbai National Highway had deducted a whopping 4 lakh from his debit card instead of Rs 40.

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Also read: Air India flight loses ATC contact over Hungary, escorted by fighter jet

Dr Rao was passing through Gundmi toll as chose to pay it with his debit card. He noticed that there was some discrepancy on the receipt so he decided to check with the toll assistant.

The toll booth assistant denied that there was any error from his end even when Dr Rao showed him the message from the bank saying Rs 4 lakh has been deducted.

Also read: Cost of stolen humour: Man copies joke, pays Rs 51 to the one who originally posted it

Rao sough help from police after which the toll plaza officials decided to reimburse the money.

The toll plaza officials offered Rao a cheque but he insisted he want the settlement in cash. The matter was solved by 4 AM after the toll booth folks finally gave in and returned the money in cash.

Now, that's making the most out of the situation, doc!

Also watch: Black magic teacher arrested for using dead bodies stolen from cemetery to teach

--- ENDS ---
Rapper Quata has rubbished claims that he is trying to ride on Sarkodie to get back into the music scene.

In recent weeks, Quata has released two diss songs directly addressing Sarkodie, leading to fans descending on him with some accusing him of trying to use Sarkodie to revive his music career.

In an interview with Hit FMs Dr Pounds on Hitz High Table, Quata denied that assertion and accused Sarkodie of starting the whole beef with him.

If I were the first person who diss him (Sarkodie) that means am using him to get back into the scene. But if me I dey my one corner and the person diss me first, do you expect me to go and give him a cake saying Sarkodie thank you for dissing me and go home? he quizzed.

I am a beast emcee (rapper); I am a battle emcee, so when you come to my door knocking looking for trouble we will have trouble but if you are looking for respect, I will give that respect, the rapper added.

Quata, born Jacob Kwame Etroo also stated he has no personal qualms with Sarkodie and will say hi when they meet because they are friends; it is just a lyrical battle and nothing personal.

He also disclosed that he has worked with Mafikizolo which is yet to come out and confirmed having a song with Jamaican sensation Gully Bop titled Grateful.

Quata also revealed that he is bringing South African group Uhuru to Ghana soon.


Top Ghanaian fashion designer Ophelia Crossland has been named West African ambassador for international brand, Swarovski.

She becomes the first Ghanaian and West African designer to represent the world brand in West Africa.

It is a great opportunity to align with a brand like Swarovski. It is an honour and I like to say thanks to Gizela Gagakuma, the African representative of Swarovski and the entire team at Swarovski for making this possible, she confirmed the deal over the weekend.

Swarovski is a world leading producer of cut lead glass. The company is split into three major industry areas  the Swarovski Crystal Business which primarily produces crystal jewellery and accessories; Swarovski Optik which produces optical instruments of high precision such as telescopes and binoculars; Tyrolit, a leading manufacturer of grinding, sawing, drilling, and dressing tools, as well as a supplier of tools and machines.

Swarovski Crystal Business is the highest grossing business unit with a global reach of approximately 2,680 stores in around 170 countries, more than 26,000 employees, and a revenue of about 2.6 billion euros (in 2016).

The celebrated Ghanaian fashion designer and chief executive of Ophelia Crossland Designs was chosen because of her unique designs and the quality of designs she produces. She uses Swarovski crystals to do amazing designs.

She was made ambassador for the brand a year ago and the deal was renewed weeks ago.

As part of the deal, she will also be using Swarovski's tags and labels on her designs and she is the only Ghanaian and West African with the right to do so.

Ophelia Crossland is leading fashion brand in Africa. She has been around for over a decade and she has designed for some high-profile personalities, including former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and a lot of Ghanaian celebrities.

She designer makes clothes for different individuals based on their personality and figure. She was one of the first fashion brands in Ghana to have done the whole merging of African fabrics and contemporary styles. Her company was one of the companies that started doing that before it became popular for other fashion houses to join in.

Our signature is entirely based on fit-in dresses. This is because we are pretty particular about fit-in and finishing. We don't compromise on our quality. There is one thing we stand out forour finishing. It is one of the reasons we export to some parts of Europe, Ivory Coast and Angola, she once said about the quality of her work.

By Francis Addo (Twitter: @fdee50 Email: [email protected] )
Akua Adwubi Ketey Opoku Bandoh (2nd right) in a pose with her mother, Amankwa Agyeman, CEO of Royal TV and other crew members of Royal TV

Akua Adwubi Ketey Opoku Bandoh, a pupil of Froebel Education Centre in Kumasi, winner of Nyansapo, a cultural reality show for children from selected primary schools in Kumasi, has returned home from South Africa, where she had a time of her life.

The cultural reality show was organised by Royal TV to imbibe Ghana's rich culture and tradition into the children.

The pupil spent five days visiting interesting and historical places in South Africa with her mother, Lovia Opoku Bandoh, Royal TV CEO, Amankwa Agyeman and Akwasi Asamoah, aka Big Akwess, Eric Ampofo, all workers of Royal TV.

Akua Adwubi was also given a cash sum of GH 5,000 and other souvenirs by Royal TV. Her school was not left out, as they also took home drums and advertising airtime on Royal TV worth GH10,000.

The Nyansapo winner and her mother, whilst in South Africa, were based in Johannesburg and they visited interesting places such as the Nelson Mandela Square, Lion and Safari Park, Monte Casino and other historical places.

The reality show which is an annual programme lasted for 10 weeks, with two representatives of each selected school competing in areas such a cultural dance, poetry recital, cultural performance, story-telling, among others.

Akua Adwubi and her mother commended the management of Royal TV for keeping their promise by flying them to SA.

Mr Agyeman of Royal TV added that the station would collaborate with the Otumfuo Charity Foundation for the 2017 edition of Nyansapo so as to make it grand.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr.,Kumasi
14.03.2017 LISTEN

As part of measures to strengthen bilateral cooperation, the Government of Ghana has signed a Double Taxation Avoidance agreement (DTA) with the government of Mauritius.

That notwithstanding, the two countries have also set up a Ghana-Mauritius Permanent Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation, as part of measures to facilitate trade between both countries.

As well, Ghana and Mauritius have agreed to collaborate on an investment promotion and protection agreement, to better channel investment into each other's country, possibly via Special Investment Zones.

The Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, signed the agreement on behalf of Ghana, while Seetanah Lutchmeenaraidoo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, signed on behalf of Mauritius. The DTA is subject to ratification by Ghana's Parliament.

The agreements were signed on Saturday March 11, 2017 at Port Louis, Mauritius, in the lead up to the celebration of the Indian Ocean nation's 49th Independence Anniversary, which falls on March 12.

Speaking at a joint press conference after the signing ceremony, Ghana's Vice President, Alhaji Dr Bawumia, who was the Special Guest for the celebrations, explained that the agreements form part of Ghana's quest for greater cooperation with the rest of the world, especially Africa, in order to boost trade.



We have seen the manifestation of the first fruits of this Joint Permanent Commission, with the signing of the historic double taxation agreement between Ghana and Mauritius, and we believe that this will provide a platform to give confidence to investors both in Ghana and Mauritius, to undertake investments in our respective countries, and not be taxed twice by our respective governments. We believe this is just the beginning of our cooperation, Vice President Bawumia indicated.

Dr Bawumia emphasised the need for greater intra-African trade to better the lives of Africans. Our government believes very strongly there has to be more trade within the African Continent, and among countries of the South. There has to be more investment and more cooperation.

We are happy to note that this type of cooperation that we seek is being manifested, especially recently in our relationship with Mauritius, in the area of trying to set up Ghana as an International Financial Services Centre in the West African Sub region, Dr Bawumia indicated.

The Prime Minister of Mauritius, H. E. Anerood Jugnauth, announced that a number of framework agreements have also been reviewed, including the setting up of a Technology Park at Dawa in the Greater Accra Region, and investments in the energy and tourism sectors.

We have also agreed to pursue consultations on two project proposals submitted by Mauritius, namely, the setting up of a solar energy power generation, and a tourism and hospitality project, providing for the construction of a coastal resort in Ghana.

Cooperation between the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission and Mauritius was also discussed, Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth disclosed.

By Maxwell Ofori
14.03.2017 LISTEN

Some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have vowed since December 9, 2016 that never would they allow President Akufo-Addo have any peace, but keep him always out of focus, so that he will not achieve his campaign promises.

After a good budget statement was read to all Ghanaians, and the business world got alive with strong reawakening and energy to do better than ever, we hear comments from the opposition condemning what they claim was a 419 Budget Statement.

Interestingly enough, while the NDC business community and investors are in a joyous mood over what they acknowledged as the revival of big time business and investments in the country, the NDC politicians are singing a different tune.

I had several calls from some NDC friends who applauded the new regime for saving their businesses. A few, actually added that from the look of things, many converts will cross over from the NDC to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) if the visions of this new business environment are achieved.

This budget read on behalf of the President by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, abolished what were called nuisance taxes, and reduced some to very low levels.

For example, the daily toll paid by female head porters, Kayayei, has been scrapped, and interestingly too, the VAT regime of 17.5% paid by traders was reduced to 3%.

This was joyous news, and it looks like everybody must go home rejoicing, however, this was not to be, since some NDC members went on bounty hunting.

Led by the immediate past mayor of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Okoe Vanderpuye, these NDC members went to the traders in the markets and convinced them that they should refuse to pay their daily tolls, if the Kayayei will enjoy exemption from tolls.

On the surface, it looked a good demand, since both head porters and traders generally work in the markets. So, since the tolls are meant to be used to clean up the markets and improve upon sanitation and safety, it will be fair for all to pay.

However, looking at the reliefs given to the two groups, it is obvious the trader stands to gain more than the head-porter, who is now asked not to pay the daily toll of GH0.50, or a weekly of GH3. The trader is to continue to pay GH3 a week.

Now, assuming that the trader used to pay a monthly VAT of GH100, plus toll of GH12 totaling GH112 pre-NPP budget, she is now going to pay about GH30 (GH18 on VAT and GH12 on toll, all things being equal)  a whooping GH82 savings, which could be reinvested into the business, so why should the market traders arise against the Kayayei?

One will assume that they are yet to realise the huge savings they will make on VAT, when the budget is implemented. And so, one would understand why they were so easily misled by people who know what these traders will enjoy, but just want to create bad blood between the citizens and government, after all, we are talking equal rights here.

The plights of the Kayayei are truly lost on the general public, even including the traders who are their close associates. Most of them would have been nurses, doctors, bankers, office clerks and what-nots, had it not been that their fates turned bad.

Running away from outlawed bad culture practices like female genital mutilation and child marriage, these young women, some of whom were very brilliant pupils and students, end up in a Catch 22 situation, a mid-distance between the devil and deep blue sea.

Back home, they were sure to undergo the trauma of living with a husband about the age of their fathers or even grandfathers. Or worse still, have some crude blade cut off parts of their genitals. But, at least, they would still have a place to sleep in the comfort of their homes.

Far from home they gained liberty from these crude culture practices, but only to meet the worse: no decent accommodation and exposure to gangs who have sex with them for free, and even steal the little money they earned carrying head pans of wares from dawn to dusk. At least, the traders have homes and places to safely keep their daily sales.

The Kayayo who wants protection would actually pay for that protection. She will enter into contract marriage with this or that other man, who will feed from her, collect stipends from her, as and when, and also come as he pleases to have sex with her, all in exchange for protection rights.

The Kayayo cannot go back home, for it is risky and deadly to do so. When caught, the journey back home in itself could be life threatening. Ghanaians may recall one occasion when one of these vulnerable ladies was drugged and tied and bundled like a sheep and put in the baggage compartment of a commercial vehicle going up North. Had she not been rescued, she would have been history.

The Kayayo, on the average, can make GH3 a trip carrying wares of buyers, and assuming each trip lasts an hour, it will mean at least for ten hours a day she can take home GH30. How much of this will be stolen before dawn, or taken by the contract husband, is anybody's guess.

The NPP, in its manifesto, has promised to build secured shelters for these vulnerable women. If that is done, then the next step will be to give them some training in various trades and vocations, while, at the same time, measures need to be taken to fully apply the law to protect our girl-child.

Until this is done, the Kayayei are still worse off, even with the exemption of paying tolls. Until this is done, we shall one day wake up and find our neighborhood flooded with street children, who were born in the streets and live off the streets, and have no culture to guide their conducts. They will come to steal and kill, and perhaps, we can only protect ourselves by killing them like they do in Brazil, where the police hunt down young street children like wild animals.

The NDC group leading this crusade to cause unrest among the traders should bow its head down in shame and allow the Kayayei to be. What benefits did the NDC give to these unfortunate vulnerable women?
The Abeka Magistrate Court in Accra has remanded into police custody, Jihad Chaaban, the Lebanese supervisor of the Abelenkpe branch of Marwako Fast Foods, who allegedly splashed blended pepper on the face of a Ghanaian worker, Evelyn Boakye.

The court rejected a plea from the lawyers of the accused to grant him bail, after Chaaban had pleaded not guilty to three counts of assault, offensive conduct and causing harm, when he appeared before the court on Wednesday, and remanded him to reappear on Thursday, March 16.

Chaaban is alleged to have forced the face of Evelyn Boakye into blended hot pepper on Sunday, February 26, after which he locked her up to prevent her from receiving help, because he alleged that she spoilt a blender she was using to grind the pepper.

The Chronicle is very much interested in the case, and as such, would follow it to its logical conclusion, to see what the outcome of the whole episode would be.

This is, because, this is not the first time such an incident, where an expatriate supervisor or superior officer of a foreign company has subjected a Ghanaian worker to such cruel treatment in the country, has occurred.

Without traveling deep into the past, there are recent incidents where such inhuman treatments have been meted out to some Ghanaians.

The Chief Executive Officer of Peterpan Restaurant, a Korean eatery operating in Accra, Young Gyu Lee, was charged recently with assault by police in Accra for allegedly slapping one of his Ghanaian employees with hot pizza.

Another incident is where an employee of Gateway Logistics was chained to a tree weeks ago by his Italian supervisor, Manlio Maggiorotto, for loitering around during working hours.

It is refreshing, however, to hear that Gender Minister Otiko Afisa Djaba has ordered a probe into the inhumane treatment inflicted on Evelyn Boakye by her Marwako Lebanese supervisor.

The Labour Minister, Ignatius Baffuor Awuah is also said to have issued a one-week deadline for a report on the incident.

Meanwhile, The Chronicle is reminding Otiko Djaba that this incident should be a test case for her and her party to see the government's readiness to handle human rights cases during its tenure.

We, at The Chronicle, do not know how the first two maltreatment cases ended, but we insist that government must get to the bottom of this one, not only to hand a kid's glove punishment to Chaaban, if he is found guilty, but most importantly, he must be jailed in a Ghanaian prison to serve as a deterrent to others.

We believe that one of the major reasons why Ghanaian workers are are subjected to such inhuman treatment by their foreign bosses is the way we handle such cases when they come before the authorities: we must enforce our investment laws.

It is sad to note that in Ghana today, when a foreigner and a Ghanaian are involved in a case, the foreigner always invariably walks home a free person, while the Ghanaian counterpart gets put in the cooler.

Foreigners do whatever they like, and most of the time, they go scot free. Consequently, it has emboldened them to mete out whatever kind of treatment they like to their Ghanaian workers, knowing very well that at the end of the day, they are likely to walk home free.

The Akans say, While advising the cat, do well to also advise the salted fish. It is in line with this that we are advising our brothers and sisters to work diligently when they are employed, whether by government or private companies.

Our worry stems from the fact that sometimes, when you visit certain companies, especially the receptions, and see how some of our Ghanaian ladies laze about, and even the way they handle customers of the company, it leaves much to be desired.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Monday said it was disturbed by reports of torture and forced disappearances in Burundi but ignored calls from rights groups for sanctions.

A French-drafted statement was adopted unanimously after some wrangling with Russia, China and Egypt, which oppose sanctions.

The council noted that the security situation in Burundi "has remained generally calm," but said it was "alarmed by the increasing numbers of refugees leaving the country and disturbed by reports of torture, forced disappearances, and killings."

Hundreds have died and 390,000 people have fled since the country descended into violence in April 2015 after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans to run for a third term, which he went on to win.

The council threw its weight behind a proposal by mediator Benjamin Mkapa, the former president of Tanzania, to hold a regional summit to press the government and the opposition to open up negotiations.

Council members called on Burundi's neighbors to "contribute to a solution to the crisis" and "refrain from supporting the activities of armed movements in any way," in an apparent reference to Rwanda.

They urged the government in Burundi to sign an agreement with the African Union to fully deploy human rights observers and military experts. Only a handful have been allowed into the country.

The council in July authorized the deployment of up to 228 UN police to Burundi to monitor security and human rights, but the government has blocked progress on that force.

In a report sent to the council last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "very concerned" by statements from Nkurunziza, in power since 2005, suggesting he could seek a fourth term of office.

Guterres said such a move "would risk intensifying the crisis."
Nationally, it is a common public knowledge that the NDC government and former President Mahama were corrupt in every interpretation or aspect of the word. They abused their Executive powers to favour themselves and their family members, friends and cronies. Their degree of infatuation with corruption culminating in embezzlement of public funds through dubious government projects awarded to contractors at inflated sole sourcing and/or tender-contracts at three or more times their actual costs was overwhelming and still beats my gumption.

It is for the blatant institutional corruption openly practised by the NDC government and the President coupled with their encouragement of lawlessness, practice of selective justice and utter disrespect for the citizenry where their human rights were trampled upon that Ghanaians at the opportune time on Wednesday, 7 December 2016, voted massively for NPP to oust the NDC from power using their thumbs (KOKROMOTIE POWER).

Barely had President Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP taken over power when there were signs of corruption creeping into the infant government that all Ghanaians have hailed as saintly and had come to redeem them from the injustices that characterised the NDC administration that robbed many a poor Ghanaian of their human rights.

There is no smoke without fire, so also it is said, there is the slightest truth in every rumour. Prophet Owusu Bempah has said some people in the NPP government have started accepting bribes and that should they not desist from that untoward attitude, he would not hesitate to name them. I pray he names them so that we can take them to the cleaners straightaway.

Bad nuts are not to be entertained since they have the potential to contaminate the whole lot if left to continue to rot among the other good ones. Therefore, the earlier they are exposed and dealt with, much the better. We did not spend our time, money and efforts to campaign to bring in a better government only to see them start to become like the NDC just on assumption of power.

Check this web link on what the prophet has said as reported on Ghanaweb under their General News of Thursday, 9 March 2017 as sourced from dailyguideafrica.com

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Stop-working-against-President-Akufo-Addo-Prophet-Owusu-Bempah-516981

Then again, Pastor Kwasi Awuah also queries what President Nana Akufo Addo is doing as peoples trust in his ability to govern as a man of integrity, incorruptible and fearsome is waning the more he delays proving to people who he is claimed to be now that he has the power of the people to govern Ghana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH30SZugNSc

I am personally beginning to have my doubts but I shall reserve my critical comments for a later date. How on earth should the President look on unconcerned when his soldiers and police are assaulting the innocent people of Kumawu and Bodomase; raiding peoples homes to beat and arrest them all to appease the queen of Kumawu and the alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua?

The queen, Nana Abenaa Serwaah Amponsah, is a diehard NDC person but for her diabolic aims, she has wormed herself into the NPP and has got the backing of some NPP Government Ministers who are allegedly goading her to cause the arrest of the popularly accepted Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V and his sub-chiefs and supporters.

The hush-hush advice given to her to suppress the other party in the ongoing Kumawu chieftaincy dispute by some NPP top persons is currently being treated by me as rumours but when the truth emerges which I hope it will, I shall then make my views known.

We did not vote, spent our time, money and efforts to campaign for Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP only for them to come to perpetrate acts of injustice right from the very inception of the formation of their government.

I now see myself as a citizen more than an NPP member. After elections, we should not camp ourselves into parties but to come together as citizens to pursue the common goal of achieving things of collective interests to all by policing and holding our politicians accountable for whatever they do.

Kumawuhemaa easily promises land and money to people but as long as the people of Kumawuman are suffering with Kumawu fast deteriorating without befitting her status as a warrior town and a commendable District head office, I shall not take it kindly to anyone or any acts that will seek to compound the suffering of the people through corrupt practices.

Unless President Nana Akufo Addo comes out to say he has now been corrupted on assumption of power because power is sweet and absolute power corrupts absolutely, he has a duty to stop his military cum police personnel terrorising the people of Kumawu and Bodomase only to satisfy the whims and caprices and the insatiable greed of the Kumawu queen and her numerous accomplices of whom Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II stands out prominently.

Many are those that are expressing disappointment in this infant NPP government but I have not bothered myself yet to know their reasons why. Is it because things are not turning out as faster as they expected or they have detected the usual Ghanaian politicians symptoms/syndrome of corruption in some of the government appointees? Has it become the case of NDC and NPP the value is the same? I dont know yet.

Rockson Adofo

Dated: Tuesday, 14 March 2017
14.03.2017 LISTEN

In years past, the economies of West African countries were marred with large scale uncertainties. The preponderance of corruption, bribery, counterfeiting and many other unwholesome criminal acts had ebbed the confidence of investors in bringing their hard-earned capital into our countries.

With such low level of participation in international trade, West African countries had low development index. In such a dire situation, many citizens of West African countries are mired in poverty, therefore becoming more susceptible to manipulations of drug lords, money launderers and financiers of terrorism and of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

However, with the introduction of anti-money laundering (AML) enforcement and monitoring in the region, especially with the establishment of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), the murky waters are becoming clearer and West Africa is becoming more acceptable to the international world as being open, and in fact, good for business.

This is in no small measure due to the vigorous monitoring of AML regimes in ECOWAS member States, and the instituting of measures to deter money launderers and criminals from exploiting loopholes in our countries to carry out their nefarious activities.

What has made the success more enduring is the prevalence of a system that periodically evaluates countries anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes. When such evaluation occurs, it usually measures two key components: One: Are there laws that criminalise money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? Two: To what extent are AML/CFT policies effective in combating money laundering and terrorist financing crimes?

The mutual evaluation process assesses countries level of compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations, and thus enables GIABA and its development partners to determine the type of technical assistance required by Member States to improve measures against money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Mutual Evaluation exercise is, therefore, of immense benefit to the assessed country as it provides information to the international community about the countrys financial, governance and legal frameworks, and therefore creates a platform for inflow of foreign direct investment.

At the forefront of the global anti-money laundering campaign is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). In February 2012, FATF reviewed its erstwhile 40+9 Recommendations into a consolidated FATF Recommendations, which addresses new and emerging threats, clarify and strengthen many of the existing obligations while maintaining stability and rigour in the Recommendations.

The FATF Recommendations set out a comprehensive and consistent framework of measures which countries should implement in order to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Additionally in 2013, the FATF adopted a new Methodology for Assessing Technical Compliance with the FATF Recommendations and the Effectiveness of AML/CFT Systems. Both the Recommendations and Methodology are the yardsticks against which countries level of compliance to international standards and efficacy of their AML/CFT regimes are measured.

The Mutual Evaluation is the peer review mechanism by which countries systems are assessed on an ongoing basis, regarding levels of implementation of the FATF Recommendations, providing an in-depth description and analysis of each countrys system for preventing criminal abuse of the financial system.

From 2007 to 2013, GIABA conducted the First Round of Mutual Evaluation Cycle of ECOWAS countries. The results of the first round of Mutual Evaluation showed deficiencies in member States AML/CFT systems. Since then, different actions have been taken to buoy up the political goodwill, legal framework, and human capacities needed to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

These actions have shown palpable improvement in West Africas AML/CFT regimes. For instance, Financial Intelligence Units of thirteen (13) West African countries have been admitted into the Egmont Group of FIUs, while Ghana and Nigeria were removed from the FATF Public Statement. Nigeria is currently seeking full membership of FATF. These are few of the achievements recorded between the end of the first round of the Mutual Evaluation and the commencement of the Second Round.

Many countries of West Africa are now due for the Second Round of the Mutual Evaluation Cycle of their AML/CFT regimes. At its meeting in Niger in 2014, the GIABA Ministerial Committee, comprising the three ministers of Finance, Justice and Interior from each member State approved the calendar of the Second Round of Mutual Evaluation. Republic of Ghana is starting the process with an on-site visit conducted in September 2016. Others would follow in due course.

At the end of the exercise, each evaluated country is rated depending on the efficacy of measures put in place to detect, prevent or sanction cases of money laundering and terrorist financing. Ratings range from compliant, largely compliant, partially compliant, to non-compliant. A report is issued after completion of the mutual evaluation. It is then discussed and adopted at GIABA Plenary.

Key to the high standard of mutual evaluation is the training of assessors who would form the core of the panel to review the evaluated countrys level of compliance of international AML/CFT standards, and the efficacy of those measures. This is why the planned regional training workshop on Revised FATF Methodology for Mutual Evaluation Assessors to hold at the Holiday Inn Airport Hotel Accra, Ghana from Monday March 20 to Friday March 24, 2017 is a step in the right direction.

The training workshop, a second in the series, which will be jointly delivered by GIABA and FATF hopefully will ensure a consistent high standard of training across the Global Network to enhance the quality of potential mutual evaluation assessors, such that West African assessors will conduct mutual evaluations within West Africa, and if possible participate in mutual evaluations of FATF and other FATF Style Regional Bodies (FSRBs).

Such training will expectedly provide West Africa with a pool of efficient and effective assessors for the GIABA Second Round of Mutual Evaluation; increase the number of trained assessors in ECOWAS member States; improve the quality of on-site mutual evaluation assessment; as well as ensure the production of objective and accurate mutual evaluation reports of high standard in a timely manner.

If as many West African states can get a rating of as much compliant and largely compliant as possible in their Mutual Evaluations, then it may be said that the successes of anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes in the region can only be enhanced.

Gbola Adiamoh is a Communication Assistant with the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA). He can be reached on [email protected] .
The Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance is the latest to advocate for a collaboration between government and IT giant, Subah Infosolutions Ltd, to improve the countrys digital addressing system.

Chairman of the Committee, Dr Mark Assibey Yeboah, said Subahs National Digital Mapping and Addressing System holds immense potentials for revenue generation for the country.

Its been an eye-opener for committee members, he said after a tour of Subahs facilities in Accra.

The visit was aimed at studying Subah Infosolutions National Digital Mapping and Addressing System which has the capability to provide a robust addressing infrastructure to the whole country.

The system, currently at a pilot stage in parts of Accra, uses state-of-the-art technology for a property, household, street and address information.

Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Osei Akoto, who was part of the delegation that toured Subah said the visit was important to ensure that Subah, which also works with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), was adequately equipped to carry out its responsibilities.

Last month, a delegation from Parliaments Select Committee on Communication also visited Subah to appraise the National Digital Mapping and Property Addressing System.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | GN
Bollywood actress Konkona Sen Sharma spills beans talking about censorship, books and movies.

Q: We'd better keep this frivolous. Did you try your burkha off-set?

A: No, it was warm in Bhopal. But I'd love to have a uniform to wear every day and not have to worry about expressing myself with my outfits- which is also fine once in a while. Surely that's a little frivolous?

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Q: The censor's notice for Lipstick Under My Burkha-"the story is lady oriented"- made many giggle. Were you amused?

A: It's not the English that's problematic-I know what they mean when they say 'lady-oriented'. Women of various ages taking control of their own bodies and desires-they have a problem with all of this. I'm not amused, just fed up.

Q: What's your favourite film by your mother?

A: It keeps changing. At the moment it would be Parama [1984].

Q: I'm a little scared that you might disappoint me, but what are you reading?

A: I might disappoint you? Oh my god. Wow!

Q: Go on, tell me...

A: I'm reading Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. They are amazing. I feel like she gets the entire experience of being a woman.

--- ENDS ---
As U.S. President Donald Trumps revised travel ban takes effect, an upcoming Fault Lines documentary on Al Jazeera highlights the consequences of a blanket policy that closes Americas doors to those with the most to lose. Last week, Trump suspended Americas entire refugee program for 120 days and signed a revised 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

His initial travel ban was suspended on legal grounds within a week, but for some families, the damage was already done.

The Ban tells the stories of a pair of siblings in Turkey, aged six and two, in need of life-saving medical treatment, and a two-year-old cut off from his parents.

Abdul Ghani Abdul Jawads six-year-old son, Yahya, had a rare genetic disorder called Omenn Syndrome, a severe immunodeficiency, which can be cured with a bone marrow transplant. The Syrian family were due to travel from Turkey to the U.S. in December for treatment but at that point, Abdul Ghanis youngest son, two-year-old Abdul Jawad, was too sick to fly. Their trip was postponed to 1 February 2017, but then cancelled. Some sources suggest the familys security clearance may have lapsed, but Trumps executive order would have stopped their trip anyway.

Days later, Yahyas health took a turn for the worse. He got sicker after he heard he wasnt traveling anymore, says his father. He was badly affected. Very badly affected.

Yahya passed away during the making of the documentary, a child in an adult ICU at a hospital that lacked a pediatric ward.

According to medical records, Yahyas brother Abdul Jawad probably has the same condition. His health is deteriorating as UNHCR looks to move the family to Germany instead.

Wheres the terrorism in them? Look at them, an emotional Abdul Ghani says about his sons in the documentary.

The Ban also tells the heart-rending story of Dilbireen, a two-year-old Iraqi burn victim in Michigan, separated from his parents by the ban. He needs surgery for up to a year, says Adlay Kejjan, the 29-year-old paramedic who took care of him during this time. So to separate the parents after he suffered so much, I think thats inhumane. Dilbireens parents finally got their visas and reunited with their son on 20 February 2017, after two members of Congress intervened. His parents hadnt held him in three months.

When asked what he would say to the likes of Abdul Ghani and his family, Republican congressman Lou Barletta toldFault Lines Sharif Abdel Kouddous, I sympathize. Yeah, sure I do, but I sympathize with American victims. So we cant just give examples on one side and be ignorant to the Americans, innocent Americans who expect their government to protect them first My question would be, so who are you arguing on behalf of? Those outside of America or the American people? Arent you worried about the American child and the American family who has done nothing wrong in their own country - that we have allowed people to come into America to slip through this program or any other program and do harm?

A Department of Homeland Security report obtained by Associated Press found insufficient evidence that citizens from the seven countries affected by the original immigration order posed a terror threat to the U.S. Similarly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the Trump administration had shown no evidence that anyone from the affected nations had committed terrorist acts in the US.

The Ban premieres on Al Jazeera English at 2230 GMT / 2330 WAT on Wednesday, 15 March 2017 and repeats on Saturday, 18 March 2017 at 1630 GMT / 1730 WAT / 1830 CAT / 1930 EAT.

Watch and embed the promo:


Kumasi, GHANAUnited States Agency for International Development (USAID) Ghana Mission Director Andrew Karas traveled to the Ashanti Region February 28 to March 3 to visit USAID programs and activities in the areas of economic growth, governance, and health. The objective of the visit is to strengthen USAIDs partnerships in Ghanas Ashanti Region to achieve positive development results.

While in the Ashanti Region, Mr. Karas met with the Ghanaian Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to discuss collaborative efforts to address the issue of child labor in Ghanas cocoa sector. Since 2015, the U.S. government has supported the Government of Ghana in the Ashanti and Western Regions through the Mobilizing Community Action and Promoting Opportunities for Youth in Ghanas Cocoa-Growing Communities (MOCA) project to diminish child labor at the community level. The project will target 3,200 youth, ages 15-17 who are engaged in or at risk of becoming victims of child labor. Additionally, Mr. Karas met with the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service in Kumasi, where he learned about their successes and challenges of countering human traffickers.

Mr. Karas toured Farmers Hope, an organic fertilizer producing company , as well as Vesta Oil Mill, a soybean oil and cake processing planjointly supported by the U.S. governments global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future. In Ghana, Feed the Future works to increase the competitiveness of the maize, rice and soy value chains.

Through USAIDs Ghana Strengthening and Accountability Mechanism project, which works to increase local government accountability and give communities a voice, Mr. Karas observed a district assembly performance audit in Fomena and delivered remarks. USAID seeks to bridge this information gap and improve citizens knowledge in order to hold public officials accountable, stated Mr. Karas. When citizens play a bigger role in the design, implementation and monitoring of capital development projects, these projects will better serve their needs.

Mr. Karas also met with the Ashanti Regional Minister and participated in a domestic resource mobilization workshop with district assembly members at the Ashanti Region Coordinating Council. The workshop highlighted topics such as public financial management and tax policies to encourage the spending of public funds in an accountable and transparent manner.

On March 3, Mr. Karas ended the trip with a visit to Ejisu Juabeng Government Hospital, where USAID, through the Presidents Malaria Initiative, provides training to health workers in malaria case management and diagnosis. While there, he observed clinical training on preventative and curative malaria interventions for malaria control in Ghana.

USAID/Ghana works in four key areas: economic growth, education, health and democracy. USAID works with the Ghana Government to boost agricultural productivity, increase access to education, improve health services and promote good governance.
It was Friday, in a very sunny weather at UDS, Wa campus to be specific. After several failed attempts by myself and some other students(Bsc planning, 2013 year group) to have a feel of lectures as Freshers, at last, it happened.

A lecturer came in, greeted us, and with a sparkling smile, started enlightening us on university life. You can imagine how concentrated we were.

After thoroughly engaging us in what looked like a joyful but hectic and tiresome university life ahead of us, he ended with this statement in response to a question from Anaba Valentine (Bsc planning, UDS): "University life is a mixture of everything, the good, the bad, the ugly. The joy, the struggle and the Sorrows. If you can strive for the good be strong, but if you experience the bad, don't lose hope, "Afterall, what's first degree"

Forgive me for the long retrospective analysis, but I felt this was necessary in such a moment in our lives as students where most of our colleagues don't see life worth living anymore.

As humans as we are, we can't always be perfect and exceptional, because after everything, we are just dust. Striving to be that first-class student, that top student. Striving to be in that lovely university relationship, Striving to constantly maintain some standard of Academic performance: Is all good. But if you don't achieve any of these, You don't wail or take your life, but you simply pat yourself for the effort, for the try and for the dedication, and look up to the goodies of the future.

There have been several instances where the best students from the start, ended up at the bottom and vice versa. There have been so many situations where the best of relationships created enmity, hatred and greed. There are uncountable models and simulations of degree holders struggling with SHS students for jobs. The list goes on and on and on.... So why should you kill yourself for any of this?.

I'm not trying to insinuate that any of these ambitious dreams of university students are not good. Neither I'm I trying to kill the spirit of the numerous ambitious young men and women on the campuses of KNUST, UDS, UG,UCC,UEW,UMAT, etc. But I'm simply trying to let us know that, our life is too precious than any of these. There are greater things we can do without necessarily holding the best of degrees. There are greater relationships we can attain without necessarily having one at the tertiary. If you can get them that's great, but if you don't, it doesn't mean you are failure.

Let's all try as much as we can to make the best out of our life. But in that process, should we fail, or be destructed. Let's not lose hope, but let's stay focused and determined like never before. Suicide is not the way to go. Life is worth more than first degree. As long as there is life, there is hope. If many people can make it without even sitting in the classroom, why should you take your life because of your inability to make the best of grades or relationships?

Society will always judge us, our colleagues will always put pressure on us. Some will even mock us in the most challenging moments of our lives. But if we can smile at the storm, and sail through the oceans of pain, We'll definitely prove them wrong.

*our life is too precious to lose*. After all, what's first degree?

May God help us all.

Forward this to any Tertiary page

SAY NO TO SUICIDE

By:

BIOH DANIEL

UDS, Wa, Campus

+2330240124031

[email protected]
14.03.2017 LISTEN

In the last decade, Ethiopia has been the poster boy for the Africa-Rising story. The country seem to have got almost everything right: fastest growing airline, high investment inflow, Africas aviation hub, security on its borders, one of Africas fastest-growing economy, rising middle class, great infrastructural revolution from the Great Renaissance Dam to the Addis Ababa Light Rail project and Addis-Djibouti international rail line. Most African countries were urged to emulate the Ethiopian development strategy for economic growth. But news coming out of Ethiopia in recent times is not that palatable, in fact most investors are worried, even those not directly affected. Nobody thought the country will descend to a level where existing investment agreements will be cancelled at the shortest possible notice without a care on the likely effects such action will on both the investors and the economy in general.

That is why the recent approval by the Oromia Regional Government of a mining proclamation which gives the it unquestionable right to take back the mining leases and licenses from any investor and hand them over to the youth of the area has set tongues wagging. The Oromia Regional State, unarguably one of Ethiopias biggest autonomous regions came up with what analysts see as a populist measure pandering to public sentiment. The sectors affected are all extraction of Red Sand, Sand, Stone, Pumice and Tantalum.

The Regional State started this process of dispossessing genuine investors of mines and extractive sites that were legally and rightly acquired from the government after due process and diligence were followed. This ill advised moved according to the Regional State is part of its economic redistribution strategy where the said mines will be reallocated to unemployed youth as part of a wider job creation programme to fight unemployment. A move critic say is a masked effort by those in positions of authority to lay their hands on the public pie using the youth as fronts. The companies that will lose their mines to this policy are Derba Midrock Group, Muger Cement Factory and Dangote Cement.

Experts are of the view that Ethiopias Oromia Regional State may end up causing investor fright and flight thereby crippling the countrys economy if nothing is done fast to mitigate the situation. These decisions they say will not only have an overall negative impact on the Ethiopian economy but will out-right create a very bad impression for the country and Africa in general as incapable of abiding by investment laws, according to international norms. Sources say the countrys investor confidence have already taken a dip, hitting an all time low for the first time in two decades.

An official of the Oromia State was quoted as saying that the process has started in East Showa area of the region. The plan according to him is to force the investors who initially acquired rights to these mines to now buy products extracted from the youths who will be running the mines. Mr. Abiy Ahmed, Vice President of Oromia Region who also double as head of urban development and job creation who said the intention of the programme was not to disrupt the operations of the investors but to find a solution to the regions bulging unemployed youth population. He also threatened investors that the decision of the regional government cannot be influenced by the federal government over this issue. Warning that those who fail to abide by it will have themselves to blame as the State will not guarantee the safety of their investment going forward, a veiled threat that their premises will be attacked, says close watchers of the development.

The Oromia State did not stop at that. They even told the companies at the receiving end of their obnoxious law to train the youth on how to operate the mines and also release their equipment to the youth to use in operating in the mines they confiscated from them. They also threatened to review compliance from time to time to ensure all the companies adhere to this arrangement. A development discerning voices within and outside Ethiopia have decried as draconian, obnoxious, and archaic with no connection to the 21stCentury.

Reacting to the development, an Ethiopian national with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) lamented that I have never seen such brazen disregard to international investment laws and norms of engaging with investors, he said. The UNECA official who pleaded anonymity because he does not want to be dragged into the issue noted that this decision will not only send the wrong signal to investors all over the world about Ethiopia, it will also lead to price increment of cement because the companies are being forced to go through another layer of middlemen which will add to cost of production, and may eventually lead to chaos because the so called youth lack organization and requisite skills to run and exploit the natural resource being handed to them on a platter. This, he said, is the most archaic way of empowering youth. He noted that instead of finding ways to make the youth employable because most of them are not, the State government is adopting this strategy, sacrificing investment and efficiency on the altar of political expediency.

In a similar vein, Dr. Ahmed Mawiya of the African Union Commission said that the new policy goes against the grain of efforts by the African Union to create a friendly environment across Africa. Commenting on the development, he warned that such policies though appear popular is unsustainable, and by the time the government realizes it, much damage would have been done. He warned that it will work against the Commissions efforts to boost intra-African trade relations and make Africa even less competitive within the global economy. He opined that the regional state should have explored other avenues of getting jobless youths productively engaged instead of outright economic empowerment for a large number of unskilled, uneducated young people.

These young people first need skills acquisition while those with skills can be absorbed by the investors, he added. He lamented that the Regional government is not considering the overall effect, the huge cost implications of their actions will have on investors, and the wrong signal it will send out there not only about Oromia region or Ethiopia, but Africa as a whole. World over, governments are working hard to create enabling environments to attract investors not bottlenecks that chase investors away, he added.

Another challenge being faced by the companies in Oromia region is that this measure will create an unfair market where only companies operating in the region will suffer while those in other regions of Ethiopia will have an unfair advantage because they are not being made to go through such conditionalities. This create imbalance in the market and prices of products. This much has been highlighted by the CEO of Derba Midrock Group Mr. Haile Asegde who warned that problems will arise in competitiveness unless the same strategy is adopted country wide. If not, companies in Oromia Region will suffer the effect adversely.

Analysts are calling on the Oromia State to have a rethink and resend this action while exploring more sustainable avenues of engaging the youth productively and making a dent on rising unemployment which is not only a national problem but a continental one. Africa they say needs to work out better ways of turning its demographic dividend into an advantage.
14.03.2017 LISTEN

In part one of this article of same title published on www.moderghana.com . I roundly lamented on Africa's challenges and traced some of the causes of our problems through chronologically historic antecedents. I humbly refer you to the link below if you missed the earlier rendition so as to enable you get the line of my opinion.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/760617/africa-keeps-on-selling-its-dignity-part-one.html

In this part 2, I intend to suggest some solutions to some of the problems we face as a continent. I always have the strongest conviction that Africa is potentially rich and can be the world's economic power house if we accept to live by our own culture, fabulously fantastic in diversity and strength.

The former President of South Africa believes strongly that "African solutions to African problems..." This is where I think our culture as a people plays a pivotal role in any meaningful development. I hold same philosophy that we should learn how to solve our problems within our economic parameters. I'm not unaware of the overall impact of globalisation and global economic ties between countries but must be original in drawing any useful economy strategic plans and burry our usual economic mimics that continue to direct our economy into a "wonderland".

The most paramount step of making Africa a better continent must begin with advocating for effectively creative political leadership. It is quite obvious that Africa is bedeviled with a very worrying leadership conundrum or if you like, call it leadership paralysis. Leadership characterized with corruption, abuse of power, dictatorship, greed and above all, divide and rule. I can boldly state without mincing words that more than fifty percent of our challenges are caused by leadership nemesis.

Yinka Oyinlola(2014) is of the view that "Africa's future will be determined by African leaders". I share in his view because Africa can be reconstructed or destroyed by the actions and inactions of our leaders. We must develop an effective democratic leadership systems that can bring all our people together, inspire them and reinvigorate our penchant to creating a more desirous economic empire to salvage the growing poverty levels of the vast majority of our people. The current leadership is uninspiring because the winner takes all system, too much polarisation and the tendency of those in government only to work in the interest of their political parties and their surrogates are only worsening our plights.

The whole process of producing credible leadership must start from the family, school and the church. It is always my believe that when society holds on its values, then it can produce credible leaders with African virtues well fitted to ameliorate our suffering.

African countries need development plans, strategically earmarking the following thematic areas; education, poverty eradication, industrialisation and modernisation of Agriculture. Such master plans must be linked to the political systems to ensure continuity and sustainability.

According to J. Peter Pham, 2015 "sustainable development is inextricably linked to social and political progress" I will explicitly digress on political progress in the next paragraph. The above thematic areas are intertwined and hold the fundamentals of the African economy that can improve the living conditions of the people through massive employment with its' accompanying gains.

More importantly, peace and political progress are fundamentally important in sustaining economic progress and prosperity. If there is war or violence in a country, the economic prospects of that country perishes. The manpower is frustrated and the whole social and economic fibre is absolutely annihilated. It is not an uncommon fact that the slow pace of our development was also precipitated by the wide spread of political instabilities in the continent. Where there are military takeovers, there is no political progress, confidence and largely lack of continuity in policy directives.

One may say that the continent is relatively politically stable but what about the threatening military insurgencies and the recent political violence in countries such as Egypt, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Sudan and others?

Going forward, African countries must truly join hands in the area of security and peace to work out a master plan of arresting such occurrences with urgency instead of sitting aloof awaiting the intervention of western powers. We cannot keep on doing same things when we keep getting the same unpleasant results. We can do it in our own ways.

Interestingly, education continue to take a gargantuan portion of the national budgets in various African countries but from where I sit, the educational systems operated across the continent do not address our challenges and hence we continue to wallow in underdevelopment. We must restructure our educational systems to take care of faculty training, critical thinking, positive change of attitude, patriotism and self confidence. When these are effectively integrated in the curricula, we can churn out responsibly educated manpower to turn around the fortunes of this continent.

The abundant natural resources that we have are being tapped by foreigners who owe larger shares to the detriment of indigenes. Look at the mining companies, construction companies, oil companies and you will only see few indigenous companies. We lack the confidence in ourselves and continue to empower other continents. We must find a better way of linking our education to industry to make our graduates technical "perfectos".

As long as we think of the creativity, education, industrialisation, technological advancement among others, we must not downplay the need for change of attitude. We must all accept that there is something fundamentally wrong so that we can start at fresh after all, there is a common saying that " he who laughs last, laughs best". There is certainly light at the end of the tunnel if we all remain committed to creating a progressive and prosperous society.

Africa is our only homeland.

Denis Andaban.

[email protected] .

+2330549734023

Source: denisandabanblog.blogspot.com
Two parents who had frightening experiences at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi have given a grim account of how babies are exposed to deadly infections at the hospital.

Mrs Arthur and Mr Owusu Ansah shed tears when they recounted the struggle their families had to go through during and after the birth of their children and the incidences that led to their deaths.

Both parents were speaking on the special edition of Joy FMs Super Morning Show and Joy News' AM Show which are being broadcast from KATH to mark the screening of the maiden edition Special Assignment, titled Next to Die.

The documentary tells the story of how pregnant women in labour who patronise the countrys second biggest referral centre, queue and wait for their turn to deliver babies they might never even see.

Mrs Arthur had her baby at the Magazine Clinic in Kumasi. Her baby got burnt after a nursing assistant nurse defied a doctors instruction not to give the baby a bath.

Initially, she was not informed about the development, when she inquired about the whereabout of her child, she was told the baby was unwell.

The baby was transferred to the Mother and baby unit of KATH for treatment before she was informed about it.

They didnt tell me anything on the first day but they told me the baby wasnt well, so they had sent him to the MBU [Mother and Baby Unit] at KATH.

I had the surgery on Wednesday, Thursday evening the doctor summoned me and said he had something to discuss with me, it was only then that she was told that the baby had gotten burnt while a nurse gave him a bath.

The shocked mother asked how this could have happened, especially when she overheard the doctor give specific instructions that the baby should not be bathed.

Why, what happened, she asked bewildered. The doctors response was, Well, I dont know, the nurse gave the baby a bath and now the baby is burnt.

Mrs Arthur, who was yet to heal from a Caesarean section, now had to make a daily trip to the MBU  all by herself  to feed her baby who had been bandaged from neck to waist  including hands.

It was tears all over, I couldnt just open my eyes, she recalled.

There was no bed for her at the MBU. Upon instructions from doctors, she had to stay and feed her baby, exclusively, all day in a sitting position.

Her situation was treated with some form of urgency because the incident occurred at the hands of a doctor who worked with KATH.

The place was just too much, even getting a chair to sit on and breastfeed was difficult. I had to stay throughout the day and sometimes when I am tired, I will come to where the nurses sat to rest.

You have no place to lay your head, I sat the whole day for 11 days. You couldnt have a shower and there was no restroom, she added.

Because Mrs Arthur did not have a ward or a bed at the facility, she would always return to the Magazine Clinic when she retires at night.

She did not lose her baby but she said she is always thankful anytime she relives the moment.

Sometimes she drove back to the Clinic at midnight. No accompanying nurse, no ambulance.

Mr Ansah, on the other hand, lost two babies at the MBU of KATH.

He told hosts Kojo Yankson and Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye his first child was a baby girl, delivered on February 16, 2013.

His wife was unable to go through normal delivery due to the weight of the child, so she had to go through a caesarean session.

After the delivery, the baby was kept at the MBU and he could visit every three hours.

Mr Ansah said on his first visit, he could not recognize his child. She had been put into an incubator with seven other babies.

He complained but nothing was done about the situation. The next day, on his visit, he was told that his child had picked up an infection that needed to be treated.

I did not understand, he said, adding that he complied regardless and ensured that all the necessary medications were purchased for the child.

On the fifth day, I asked about the condition of the baby and I was told that the baby would be discharged.

That very day that we were discharged, I travelled but later I got a call informing me that the baby had died, he recounted.

Mr Ansah and his wife were blessed with another fruit after a year. However, due to the past experience he decided not to take his wife to KATH.

When his wife was in labour, he took her to the South Suntreso Hospital. Upon arrival, doctors at the facility told them, they could not handle the situation and referred them to KATH again.

At that particular period, I was in a dilemma, to go or not to go because what I saw at the MBU was very worrisome.

But he went to KATH anyway, and after a normal delivery, the baby was transferred to the MBU again.

The now very apprehensive father was uncertain of his childs fate. But in the absence of any options, he obliged and prayed that the story would be different.

It wasnt. He recalled that the first day he went to the MBU with his child, he saw bed bugs in a babys cot.

Again, the baby was kept in a cot with six other babies.

On the third day, I was told again that my baby has had an infection and I asked why. So initially, I thought it was negligence on the part of the staff, but it was later that I realized that the place was choked.

But I realized there were about 100 babies in that room and I asked myself how could the nurses take care of all of them.

Mr Ansahs child was discharged after a week. They were supposed to report periodically to the hospital for observation.

A day before their appointment, he said he noticed a change of behaviour in the baby.

I realized that the temperature of the baby was very high. So when we sent the baby the next day, she was admitted.

She was sent to a separate ward and given a cot. But after a while, he was asked out of the ward to allow other women time with their children.

Later that night, Mr Ansah was called and informed that his child had died.

He was given no reasons.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected]
Nairobi (AFP) - Suspected pirates boarded a Sri Lankan-flagged tanker and forced its crew to change course towards the northeastern Somali coast, an expert on piracy in Somalia said Tuesday.

If the hijackers' identity is confirmed, the attack would be the first by Somali pirates on a commercial ship since 2012.

"What we know for sure is that a small tanker has been attacked and has diverted course," said John Steed, a former British army officer who heads the Horn of Africa section of the Oceans Beyond Piracy NGO.

"Whether this is a pirate attack needs to be confirmed. For example, we do not know what the demands of those men are. But this looks pretty much like the old piracy attack scenario," he added.

With eight crew members on board, the Aris 13 is run by an Emirati company and flies the Sri Lankan flag.

It was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu.

Its crew sent a distress signal on Monday afternoon, Steed said.

"Yesterday (Monday) afternoon, the ship reported that it was followed by two skiffs. After that, it went silent and the owner of the ship was not able to get into contact," he explained.

A search for the ship was under way off the Somali coast on Tuesday.

The Aris 13 was forced to dock near the town of Alula, in northeastern Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

"There has not been an attack of a commercial ship by Somali pirates since 2012," Steed said.

Attacks by Somali pirates raged from 2005. At the peak of the piracy epidemic in January 2011, 736 hostages and 32 boats were held.

Though anti-piracy measures ended attacks on commercial vessels, fishing boats continued to face assaults.
Former National Security Advisor to former President John Mahama, Mr Baba Kamara, diverted for himself huge amounts of money donated to Mr Mahama by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote for campaign purposes, former Salaga MP Ibrahim Dey has been heard alleging in a leaked phone conversation with a fellow NDC member in the Salaga constituency.

I learnt Dangote gave money to be brought to the president for the campaign, he (Kamara) took all, Mr Dey is heard saying to his interlocutor on the tape.

According to him, Mr Kamara diverted some $5million given to him by the president as well.

The voice is also heard accusing Mr Kamara of doing certain shady deals while in office, for which he must be investigated and jailed.

I learnt he (Kamara) was saying that his office cannot be audited. I learnt he (Kamara) and Samson-Oje (immediate past Chief of Defence Staff) did a lot of deals, so, [Dominic] Nitiwul (Defence Minister) will go through them. And Nitiwul is not a pushover. I say Nitiwul will go after him. Seriously! he said in the recording.

He must go to prison, seriously. Even five years is too small, they should lock him up for 20 years, seriously, so that the next four elections, before he comes out, he is old. He can even die and get rotten in prison, an obviously angry Dey is heard saying.

What is painful is that, according to [Usman], one day John [Mahama] came to him in London and John was rather telling him that Baba Kamara is a criminal. I said: 'So you knew the guy was like that yet he was with you, and you never did anything about it. The more you think about it the more you get mad.

And he was telling me when I was appointed to become the Minister of Local Government, Baba Kamara refused it, it was an argument.  And John you allowed him when you are the president? You appoint somebody and how can somebody, a sheer advisor, refuse it. As a president, you should stand your grounds.

Several attempts by ClassFMonline.com to reach Mr Dey for comments on the leaked tape proved futile.

Meanwhile, the Salaga South constituency of the NDC has petitioned the Prof Kwesi Botchwey-led committee that is probing the defeat of the party, to question Mr Kamara, who they accuse of deliberately and maliciously orchestrating and masterminding the NDC's defeat in the constituency.

PETITION BY SALAGA NDC ON WHY THE PARTY LOST THE SALAGA SOUTH SEAT

We the underlisted concerned members of the Salaga South constituency of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), wish to bring to the notice of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, the Kwesi-Botchwey fact-finding committee, the Council of Elders, and all the other organs and stakeholders of the party, the causes of our unexpected defeat in the 2016 parliamentary election at the constituency.

First of all, we need to make it clear that the defeat of the party in the constituency in last year's elections was deliberately and maliciously orchestrated by the former National Security Adviser, Alhaji Baba Kamara and his paid agents at the constituency.

The simple reason he gave for masterminding the defeat of the parliamentary candidate in the Salaga South constituency in his own words is to show the then MP and parliamentary candidate Alhaji Ibrahim Dey 'where power lies'.

The NDC has since the inception of democratic rule in 1992 enjoyed tremendous support from the Salaga South (formerly Salaga) constituency, winning the parliamentary seat on four out of the seven elections so far.

But on almost all the seven elections since 1992, the NDC has been able to win the presidential elections by big margins, a clear indication that with the right strategy the party should be able to always win the parliamentary seat too.

It must be made clear and unequivocal that while he made little or no contribution to the party's sustenance and victories in the constituency, Baba Kamara has on almost all the three occasions single-handedly masterminded the party's parliamentary elections defeat especially in the years 2000 and 2016.

The simple reason is to satisfy his ego and punish those candidates or MPs he thinks are working hard for the people or showing some signs of independence and resistance to the corrupt systems he wants to put in place at the constituency.

Again, since 1992, he has sought to create and institute the twin British-style of Indirect Rule and 'divide and rule tactics' in the Salaga South constituency, using intimidation, financial inducement, character assassination and other negative Machiavellian political strategies. He practises Indirect Rule in the sense that he hardly comes out to campaign or even do anything to help the party or the people of the constituency in their developmental agenda. In fact, one even hardly sees him in any gatherings or any meetings in the constituency and actually many party people even hardly know him in person.

But he always finds a way of using some few selected 'shadowy' but selfish individuals in the constituency to carry out his negative, selfish and destructive activities against the party, the constituency and the people in general.

While Larry Gbevlo Lartey and General Nunoo-Mensah used their offices as National Security Coordinator and Adviser respectively to help build schools and provide water (boreholes) and other amenities for their people and Ghanaians in general, Baba Kamara has used his position as national security adviser to destroy others for his selfish and egoistic interests. It must be noted that, since 1992, Baba Kamara has never built or initiated or even lobbied for one single project for the constituency. He will not also allow people who would want to help to have peace of mind. He always undermines them either by knocking their heads with others or furtively working against them using his paid agents at the constituency.

Again, as part of the divide-and-rule tactics of the constituency, he has always knocked the heads of the MPs and the DCEs together since 1992. For instance, in 2013 when he handpicked Mr Lukeman Aminu as the DCE, despite overwhelming protestation from party people and the general population of the district, he oriented him to always confront the sitting MP, Alhaji Ibrahim Dey. The battle between the DCE and the MP needlessly raged till the NDC eventually lost the 2016 elections with both the DCE and the MP losing their positions. He has also created a wide division within the party executives, with constituency chairman on his side working for the defeat of the party's parliamentary candidate and others also working for victory.

We in Salaga, his hometown, are not surprised that many party activists and supporters nationwide are complaining about Baba Kamara's negative and destructive roles in ensuring that the party and the President lost the 2016 polls. We have been living witnesses and have been at the receiving end of his wickedness and viciousness since 1992. We, therefore, agonised at the political fate of President Mahama when he brought him closer and later appointed him as his National Security Adviser. We knew from the beginning that it was just a matter of time that disaster would strike our affable and innocent President and his well-performing government. In the Eastern Corridor of the Northern Region that he claims he controls, only one constituency (Salaga North) has been won by the NDC. The Salaga South, (his hometown); Bimbilla, Wulensi, Kpandai, Yendi, have all been lost.

Here in Salaga South, while he hardly supports the party on the ground, he has always stymied our efforts towards building strong structures and always using intimidating tactics against leading members of the party who are willing to support the party.

In the 2016 elections, he sponsored two independent parliamentary candidates from the Salaga South constituency in order to deliberately divide the party's support base and implant a seed of division to cause the defeat of the party.

Baba Kamara again set up a counter NDC campaign team led by the constituency chairman of the party, Mr Fuseini Yussif, and one Dan Saaka Ahmed, a political turncoat who entered into NDC and contested its parliamentary primary in 2016 ostensibly to cover for his roles in the infamous SADA scandal and seeks political protection from looming prosecution. Baba Kamara gave these two individuals and others resources meant for the party to actually campaign secretly against the party and its parliamentary candidate. As the party lost, we uncovered that they had set up an elaborate and effective underground campaign structure calling for 'skirt and blouse,' at mainly NDC strongholds.

In addition, Baba Kamara personally flooded torrent of cash on the NPP parliamentary campaign at the constituency using known NPP supporters. So, in the final analysis, the NPP was able to maintain its support base on the ground while that of the NDC was fragmented with some votes going to the two independent candidates.

Furthermore, campaign materials and resources meant for NDC parliamentary campaigns were diverted to the NPP. This was done according to Baba Kamara in order to teach the NDC parliamentary candidate some important lessons of life for disrespecting him, as the political Overlord of the constituency.

Again, agents of Baba Kamara, led by the constituency chairman and Mr Dan Saaka Ahmed, used financial inducement to compromise some of the party agents selected to protect the party's votes across the constituency. Some of the agents have since confessed their sins and regretted their actions.

Last but not the least, the then Police Commander at the East Gonja district and some military men deployed to ensure law and order at the constituency intimidated and later ordered most NDC agents at the Salaga Community Centre where the constituency results were being collated to leave the scene. When confronted, the commander confirmed that he was taking an order from above, while he, Baba Kamara (the national security adviser), was staying in his house less than 400 yards from the collation centre. This paved the way for massive irregularities and rigging against the incumbent MP. In fact, the constituency secretary, Mr Thomas Langba, who was leading the party at the collation centre, was told that his safety could not be guaranteed by the security forces and had to immediately vacate the place.

Despite all these machinations by Alhaji Baba Kamara and his paid agents, the parliamentary candidate for the Salaga South constituency, Alhaji Ibrahim Dey, lost the elections by less than 30 votes, with the case pending in court.

While we write this petition to reveal the negative roles played by Baba Kamara and his agents, we also need to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the party the important positive roles Mr Ibrahim Mahama, President Mahama's brother, played towards the 2016 elections in the Salaga South constituency. It is his singular and dedicated support that brought us far and we would like to thank him for his support.

With all the issues raised above, we are calling on the NEC and the Dr Kwesi Botchwey-led fact-finding committee to institute a full-scale investigation into the circumstances leading to the loss of the important Salaga South constituency and the (negative) roles played by Alhaji Baba Kamara. The party should work hard to provide a long-lasting antidote to the perennial problems caused by the political activities of Mr. Kamara. In our opinion, this is the only way the party can ever regain the seat and maintain it at the constituency.

SIGNED

Dramani I. Wisdom (0247809142)

Mohammad Awal

Mohammad Umarana

Jafaru Mahama

Shiibu Babamu

Abu Yakubu

Muhammed Ibn Hafiz

Aminu Haruna

Muhammed Taaha
A former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor has advised the government to focus on stabilizing the economy this year rather than pursuing growth, since the economic fundamentals are weak.

Although he lauded the governments initiatives introduced in this years budget, he said it was necessary for care to be taken in ensuring that the fiscal and the macroeconomic environments were more conducive.

Dr. Duffuor, who is the Founder of policy think tank Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), was sharing his views on the 2017 Budget Statement and Economic Policy in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

He was contributing to issues raised at a press briefing organized by the IFS on the 2017 Budget Statement and Economic Policy in Accra.

We agree that accelerated growth of the economy is critically needed, but that cannot be achieved in adverse fiscal and macroeconomic environments.

Once the economic fundamentals become stabilized and strong, it is easier to achieve growth. In fact, growth becomes automatic, he said.

The 2017 Budget

Government has announced major tax cuts in its maiden budget presented to Parliament. The tax cuts are in fulfilment of promises made by the Akufo-Addo-led government ahead of the 2016 elections. In some cases the government has completely abolished some taxes introduced by the previous Mahama administration.

Among the abolished taxes announced Thursday to Parliament by Mr. Ofori Atta are:

 The 1 % Special Import Levy  ABOLISHED

 Kayayei Market Tolls  ABOLISHED

 17.5 % VAT/NHIL on financial services  ABOLISHED

 17.5 % VAT/NHIL on selected imported medicines, that are not produced locally  ABOLISHED

 17.5 % VAT/NHIL on domestic airline tickets  ABOLISHED

 5 % VAT/NHIL on Real Estate sales  ABOLISHED

 Replaced 17.5% VAT/NHIL with 3 % flat rate for traders

 Tax credits and other incentives for businesses that hire young graduates from tertiary institutions

 Tax Incentives for Young Entrepreneurs

 Duty on imported Spare parts Abolished

 Corporate Income Tax to be progressively reduced from 25% to 20% in 2018

Excise duty on petroleum abolished

Special Petroleum Tax Rates reduced from 17.5% to 15%

National Electrification Levy reduced from 5% to 3%

Public Lighting Levy reduced from 5% to 2%

The tax cuts according to the Finance Minister is expected to bring relief to Ghanaians and help transform the economy.

The government in its 2017 budget also announced 456 million cedis for the fulfilment of its one district-one factory campaign pledge.

The government has also announced a 94 million cedis for the commencement of its one-village one dam campaign pledge expected to take off later this year.
Nairobi (AFP) - A Kenyan court on Tuesday remanded a suspect in custody over the murder of a British man who was shot dead on his ranch earlier this month.

Samson Lokayi, 25, was detained on Sunday. He will remain behind bars until March 28, pending investigation into Tristan Voorspuy's killing on March 6.

Thousands of herders -- some armed with spears, others with AK47s -- have invaded private ranches and wildlife parks with their livestock, slaughtering animals and destroying property in central Kenya's Laikipia, as they go in search of pasture in the drought stricken-country.

Voorspuy, a British citizen who was born in South Africa, had gone to inspect damage on his ranch caused by the raiders when he was killed.

"We have strong reason to believe that the man we have in custody was involved in the killing of the British rancher," a senior police officer told AFP Monday.

"We want more time to carry out investigations on his involvement because there are two others out there whom he must have worked with," he added.

The judge had to postpone the suspect's first hearing because he only speaks his tribe's Pokot dialect, and no translator was available.

Voorspuy spent three years in the British army before moving to Kenya and founding a company specialising in horseback safaris, according to his website.

He and several other shareholders also restored the once derelict Sosian ranch.

In January herders swept into the nearby 44,000-acre (17,600-hectare) Suyian ranch, burning thatched huts for tourists.

Fear and siege

Elephants, lion, buffalo and zebra have been slaughtered by the herders who come with tens of thousands of livestock, and black and white landowners alike speak of invasions, fear and siege.

The reasons behind the invasions are complex.

While some point to the drought gripping the country, and a spike in human and livestock populations, others say the looming election in August and long-running land gripes have sparked tensions.

Local media have reported that votes are being offered in exchange for land grabs.

The government has done little to stop the invasions and with elections around the corner, few expect vote-costing action against the illegal grazers.

And the ethnic logic of Kenyan politics means some candidates stand to benefit from a favourable shift in population dynamics ahead of the vote.

An MP for the region, Matthew Lempurkel, was charged on March 8 with inciting violence for allegedly encouraging the wave of land invasions.

Since December, eight people have been killed and 10 others injured in these invasions.
By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, Mar 14 (PTI) Not only domestic industry, foreign countries like Finland too are awaiting the rollout of the landmark Goods and Service Tax (GST)as it would help "ease of doing business."

"We are looking forward to GST," Ambassador of Finland in India, Nina Vaskunlahti said today at an interactive session with members of Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

advertisement

"This will help remove multiple layers of taxes and state specific tax laws and we understand GST will help towards ease of doing business," she said.

She said there had been reports of inadequate number of judges in courts and added that she expected legal infrastructure would be adequate which was also important for ease of doing business.

Currently, some 100 Finnish companies are active in India and the diplomat hoped this number will increase given the opportunity India offers.

In 2016, Finnish exports to India were estimated at 490 million Euros with a 10 per cent growth over previous year involving products like pulp, paper, wood, heavy machinery, telecom equipment.

Indian exports to the Nordic country during last year was estimated at 330 million Euros with exports including textiles, pharma, raw material and plastics besides, tools and machinery. PTI BSM CR

--- ENDS ---


First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, on Sunday made a donation to Chance for Children Home at Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region as part of the celebration of her 66th birthday.

She donated bags of rice, gallons of cooking oil, boxes of biscuits, cartons of drinks, bags of diapers, shoes, cartons of milk and milo and sardines to the orphanage.

The First Lady has made several donations over the years to support the vulnerable in society.

Mrs Akufo-Addo also toured the facility and interacted with the children and staff of the home.

In a brief message to the workers and children, she encouraged the children to learn hard and remain hopeful.

Awuley Nartey, Director of the home, thanked the First Lady and wished her a fruitful long life.

Chance for Children is an international NGO established by a Ghanaian and Swiss- Amon Kotey and Daniela Ruedisueli Sodja- to assist children living on the streets and empower them.

It reunites them with their families and support them when necessary.
14.03.2017 LISTEN

It's deja vu in South Africa. The murderous xenophobic mobs are out again in the streets with their machetes, iron bars, and sticks hunting down fellow African migrants, killing them and looting and burning down their businesses and homes. It is a chilling reprise of the blood-curdling events of 2006 and 2015, when many African migrants were brutally murdered. Naturally, the South African government is facing a storm of criticism from other African countries for failing to adequately protect their nationals living in South Africa.

In fairness to South Africa, however, it should be pointed out that other African countries have also been guilty of xenophobic excesses in the past, albeit less vicious and dramatic.

Throughout the years as the economies of various African countries deteriorated, it became fashionable for these countries to make migrants the scapegoats for their intractable unemployment woes. As a result, in the early 70s and 80s countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast, ostensibly in order to create more economic opportunities for their own citizens, adopted measures that led to the mass expulsion of migrants, mostly fellow West Africans living and working within their respective borders. In The Gambia, the fate of Ghanaian migrants was even direr: 40 of them were murdered in cold blood in 2006.

Yes, a number of otherAfrican countries have also gone through xenophobic eruptions at one time or another in their histories, but South Africa is in a class by itself because of the recurring nature of the problem in that country as well as the raw brutality of the xenophobic maniacs who seem to get away with all the horrendous crimes they commit against the poor and innocent migrant communities. The persistence of the attacks creates the impression that the South African government is not doing enough to protect its African guests.

It takes two to tango, as the saying goes. Xenophobia invites retaliation, and the South African government could soon find itself reliving the bitter experience of its Apartheid predecessor - the boycott of its goods and services and diplomatic isolation - unless it makes an effort to get a handle on the situation. We should all hope that things do not unravel to that extent because African countries need each other in order to survive. Even relatively rich countries like South Africa still need to do business and co-operate with their less fortunate neighbours for the common good.
You are welcome as the new health minister for the Republic of Ghana. In fact, it was all joy when i heard of your nomination into this ministry. I wish to congratulate you and i think it's worthwhile that people thronged to your residence to celebrate your success with you. I would have been very disappointed if people including those in the opposition parties had not joined you in the celebration.

I however seek to state emphatically that, do not pave the way for your joy of you being in this enviable position overcome your enthusiasm to transform the ministry into an extra ordinary one.

Honourable minister, the news of your nomination came as no suprise to some ose us because we knew you are a man of your words, a man of zeal and a man of substance. From your days as the chairman for the Public Accounts Committee coupled with your over a decade experience in the parliament will be enough for you to handle this ministry. Some section of the Public were however of the view that you should have been nominated into the finance ministry because to them, you are an accountant by profession. But in all, this is where you have been nominated to head and we have to give you the needed support.

Sir, immediately you were approved by the appointments committee and sworn in by the president, your first action was to revoke the recruition of Eight Thousand Six Hundred And Thirty Four health professionals who were recruited by the previous government. You further went on to say that it is necessary for you to suspend their employment because their financial clearances has not been released and that they should wait a bit because your government will capture the issues relating to their postings in hee maiden budget.

Sir, the budget has been read for almost two weeks now yet still, these nurses do not know the way forward. Thus, they are still confused as to whether they'll be posted or not. Sir, it is very sad for you to complete school and sit in the house for almost three years waiting to be posted, and all of a sudden you hear that your posting has been suspended. Some of these people have to beg before they eat. Others have been branded as toothless bull dogs in their various homes and some have become objects of ridicule and stuff. These are people who were bonded by the government and this simply means government is mandated to post them after their completion.

I am humbly appealing to you to kindly reconsider this issue and treat it with the diligence it needs. Sir, one thing is that each year, we get new graduates so it is pertinent for you post these people in order to pave way for the trainees who will be completing in a few years to come.

Sir, with the allowances, most trainee nurses were overjoyed when they heard your government has finally restored the allowances. Even though the allowances has been restored, trainees are still murmuring as the exact amount of money they'll be receiving. Some are saying the amount is GH192,others are saying its GH150. Some are even of the view that the continuing students are not even part of these allowance because to them, your finance minister failed to hit the nail on the head by telling them exactly the batch of students who will be benefiting from the allowance. I am therefore appealing to you to kindly come out and clear the doubts on the minds of these trainee nurses.

Sir, i know that these are part of the issues that that you need to tackle as early as possible in order to make your stay in this ministry successful.

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana.

Asante Richard

Health Promotion Intern

Fiaso CHPS Compound

Techiman Municipal Health Directorate.
The Vision for Alternative Development (VALD) a Road Safety non-government organization is worried over the rise in the number of recent road crashes on our streets. The incidence is getting out of control amidst the education by the National Road Safety Commission, civil society organizations and other relevant institutions.

Over speeding, wrong overtaking, no seat belt wearing, no helmet wearing, inattentiveness, keeping children below 5 years in front seat and gross indiscipline is known to be the causes of most of these accidents. The National Road Safety Commission as of the end of November 2016, had recorded a total of 11, 378 road crashes nationwide involving 17,746 vehicles, of which the total number of casualties stood at 12,154 comprising of 1, 990 deaths and 10, 154 injuries.

VALD cannot understand why this continue to happen, as such we are calling on government to invest in road safety by equipping the Motor Transport and Traffic Directorate (MTTD) and other agencies to be able to function effectively. The inadequate/lack of speed cameras, breathalyzers , speed guns, bad road, fade or no markings etc. are some key causes of road crashes.

The onus however falls on all of us as citizens to rise up and change the status quo. It will take a collective effort from everyone to check these menace that is fast destroying our nation. We must learn to play a watchdog role, express a concern to a driver when he is over speeding or doing something that will endanger your life and lives of others.

2016 recorded more road traffic death than 2015 and child death as a result of road crashes also increased substantially. This is unaccepted, it could be you so please don't seat in a vehicle unconcern.

Ghana needs you!

For more information contact:

Labram Musah; Programmes Director: Vision for Alternative Development

Mobile: 024-4057950 Telephone: 030-3938058

E-mail: [email protected]
A father who lost two babies at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital two years ago has shared a harrowing experience of how they died, and how, through a miracle, his wife survived and finally gave birth after a third attempt.

Mr Owusu Ansah wept when he recounted the ordeal he went through with his wife at the Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) of the hospital.

Speaking on the special edition of Joy FMs Super Morning Show held in Kumasi, Mr Ansah said had it not been for God, he would have lost his third child and his wife.

Mr Owusu Ansah believes he and his wife were simply lucky. She took seed again after the two losses and this time, he ensured that she attended ante-natal services at the South Suntreso Hospital and not at KATH.

He said he wanted to do everything possible to avoid going to KATH. But the worse was yet to come.

He said his wife went into labour at midnight, he drove her to the South Suntreso hospital, only to be told by nurses that there was no doctor available to attend to her. They were therefore informed about a referral to KATH.

Unable to withstand the impact of this news, Mr Ansah said his legs gave way, and he almost fell to the ground.

Why me? All the pain, trauma and agony that we have been through, why, he asked himself.

But the deal was already done, so he had no choice than to accompany his wife, again, to KATH.

Their situation was treated as urgent, unlike the previous deliveries where his wife had to queue and wait her turn, he said they were attended to immediately they arrived at KATH.

This time, his wife went through a normal delivery and was delivered of a baby girl who again weighed 4.5kg.

This meant that she needed to be sent to the MBU, where she will be given medication and monitored. Again she was put in a cot with seven other children.

The news didnt go down well with Mr Ansah when he was informed, and it was no surprise when he was again told that his child had picked up an infection.

So it means I cannot go home?, he asked, with all hopes dashed and the fears of losing another child beginning to set in.

His wife also picked up an infection from the MBU on the third day.

When I came to see her the following morning, she looked pale and her demeanour was not the best, so she was admitted.

They wrote prescriptions for me to buy for the baby and the mother, at this point, Mr Ansah could not take it anymore. He broke down in tears while he shared the experience, he has had to relive.

When he managed to pull himself together, he continued and said when I climbed the stairs after getting the medication, at this point, I was in a dilemma. I didnt know who to go to first, the mother or the baby.

But as a husband whose wife had been through the unbearable, he chose to go to her first. On his return to the MBU, he could not find his baby in her cot.

When he inquired, he was told that she was with one of the doctors. The doctor upon seeing Mr Ansah warned him to be swift in attending to the child because her breathing pattern was not normal.

Related: I saw bedbugs in my baby's cot, dead babies lying around; parents tell frightening stories at KATH

He asked him to keep his eyes on her and be vigilant otherwise the unimaginable could happen.

I did not know what he meant by that, the baffled man who was only a father, not a doctor wondered how he could keep his eyes on his child when he had no medical training and there were no doctors and nurses present.

Mr Ansah could only stay at the MBU until 10:00 PM. Normally, men wouldnt even be allowed to stay that long, but due to the nature of his case, he was allowed.

Before he left the hospital, he was assured by doctors that a nurse will be designated to attend to his baby, so he should go home and rest.

Even with this assurance, he said he could not sleep, he kept asking himself so is my baby alive?

Until today, Mr Ansah believes that, but for divine intervention, his wife and daughter would not have survived.

Until today, I dont know how my wife and baby survived. I will describe this situation as paranormal, supernatural. I thought I was going to lose both of them, he said.

The baby girl turned one on the 21st of February this year and Mr Ansah described the feeling as incredible.

He called on government and concerned stakeholders to immediately put measures in place to complete a 43-year-old uncompleted structure meant to augment the maternity ward at KATH.

Where is the money that is supposed to be used to complete this building, because there is a lack of space and our wives and babies are dying. Our nieces and nephews are dying at the MBU and it is not supposed to be so.

He added that Whatever needs to be done for this building to be completed, they should put their heads together and find an antidote to the solution.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected]
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister-designate has proposed the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms to address the decades-old conflict in Bimbilla.

Solomon Namlit Boar argues ADR has a way of making feuding factions commit to peacemaking instead of the peacekeeping process that has characterised previous attempts to resolve the conflict.

Speaking before Parliaments Appointments Committee Tuesday, the Bunkpurugu Member of Parliament (MP) said the time is ripe for residents of the Region to understand that we have to make peace.

Related Article: Bimbilla clashes: More residents flee town as death toll rises to 10

Northern Region has played host to numerous conflicts which experts blame on poverty and underdevelopment.

Ghana's poverty average is estimated at 39 percent with the three Regions of the North recording the highest. Northern Region is 69 percent, Upper East Region 88 percent and the Upper West Region 84 percent.

This is followed by Central Region which is the next poorest region with an estimate of 48 percent.

Related Article: Tension builds up in Bimbilla; residents ready to flee

Policy think tank, Savannah Development has said media sensationalism contributes to the recurring nature of conflicts in the Region.

A chieftaincy dispute on February 9 in Bimbilla, the capital of Nanumba North District led to the death of at least 10 people largely women and children.

Some people feeing Bimbilla

The Interior Ministry imposed a curfew on the town and despatched a joint military and police forces to keep the peace in the area.

Related Article: You betrayed Bimbilla - Regent chides Regional House of Chiefs

Joy News has gathered more residents are leaving the area to neighbouring towns for fear of possible reprisal.

But Mr Namlit Boar who is an expert in ADR said a lasting solution to the Bimbilla conflict should be all-inclusive, involving feuding factions as well as residents.

He explained that once they are able to own the process of peacemaking, it becomes easy for all of them to accept it.

This, he believes is the way to go if government wants to bring an end to the constant conflict in the Region.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected]
14.03.2017 LISTEN

The newly appointed Acting Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Paul Ansah, has served notice his administration will review all contracts signed during the administration of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Some of the contracts according to the then administration, were largely aimed at expanding the capacity of the Ports and Harbours Authority.

But speaking on the sidelines of a working visit to the Tema Port by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Mr. Paul Ansah assured that the contracts signed at the Authority will be reconsidered.

I proposed the Port Infrastructure Development Fund in 2001, but it did not receive any attention. Thank God I am now the Director General and it will be implemented. If we had implemented in 2001, I believe we could have generated funding for this project and we will not need any money.

All agreements, all contracts will be taken a second look at. Where there is the need to review, it will be reviewed, where there is the need to let it go; it will be let go. So we will look at the totality of all the package of all the projects, and see whether the conditions that are spelt out are entirely in our interest or not. If they are not ,what has to be done to secure the interest of our country better than it is, will be done.

Gov't to review PPA agreements

President Nana Addo had earlier indicated that government will conduct an audit of all Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) signed between the Electricity Company of Ghana(ECG), and Independent Power Producers(IPPs) under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.

According to him, the erstwhile John Mahama government had signed 43 PPAs, while a further 23 were under discussion.

Government is conducting a review of all the Power Agreements entered into by the previous government in order to prioritize, renegotiate, defer or cancel outright, if necessary, in the national interest, the President said.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Abuja (AFP) - The leader of Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru appeared in court in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Tuesday charged with the abduction and murder of 10 foreigners.

Khalid al-Barnawi, one of three Nigerians listed by the US government as a "specially designated global terrorist", appeared alongside six other defendants, including his second wife.

All pleaded not guilty and all seven were remanded in custody until a further hearing on April 11.

The charges relate to the abduction and murder of foreign workers in Nigeria between 2011 and 2013, including Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and his British colleague Chris McManus.

Both were killed by their captors in the northern city of Sokoto just moments after the start of a joint British-Nigerian rescue operation at the compound where they were being held.

Barnawi is also accused over the kidnapping of Frenchman Francis Collomp and German national Edgar Raupach.

Collomp was kidnapped in December 2012 and held by Ansaru for nearly a year before he managed to stage a dramatic escape in November 2013.

Raupach's abduction was initially claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to which Ansaru has been linked. He was killed during a military raid in Kano, northern Nigeria, in May 2012.

The other kidnapping and murder charges relate to seven foreign nationals -- two from Lebanon, two Syrians, an Italian, a Greek and a Briton -- who were seized in the northern state of Bauchi in 2013.

Ansaru also claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

According to the charge sheet, the seven were taken to the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, in northeastern Nigeria, and held for about 10 days before they were killed.

They were then buried in a shallow grave, the charge read.

Halima Haliru, Barnawi's second wife, faces only one charge -- failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

Nigeria's military announced in April last year that Barnawi was arrested in the capital of Kogi state, in central Nigeria, and described him as "on top of the list of our wanted terrorists".

The group, also known as Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladissudan ("Vanguard for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa"), specialised in high-profile killings and attacks on foreigners.
By Hafsa Obeng, GNA

Accra, March 14, GNA - Mr Ebenezer Asante, Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, on Monday said the company was going to focus more on its customers, because they are a formidable force behind the company.

He said transforming the operational model, coupled with enhanced customer experience, improved operation efficiency, network modernisation as well as rich digital service would be the focus of the company in 2017.

Mr Asante made this observation at a forum to brief the media and stakeholders on the performance of the company in the year 2016, as well as the way forward for the current year.

He said in 2016, there was consistent growth by the company as subscriber base increased from 15 million people to 19.2 million.

Mr Asante said the factors that contributed to driving sustainable growth included building the data base, building their UBA system, increasing width and depth distribution, among others.

He said the company created a distinct customer experience by enhancing its relationship with customers, and bringing its services closer to them.

'With distinct customer service, enhancement of customer touch points, continues investment for improved network quality and coverage and relevant service offers,' he added.

It also delivered a bold new digital service by driving financial inclusion through its mobile money services.

Mr Asante said with its mobile money services, the company received ISO certification, registered 57,000 active agents, partnered 16 banks, registered 8.5 million subscribers, and made 45 million interest payments.

He said the company in 2016 also boosted business growth with transformative technology and increased business efficiency, adding that the company launched the 4G with high speed data service as well as the fibre to home and businesses.

'We launched 3G in 2009, and as at 2016, we have 1,713 sites on air with voice and data service. And with the launch of 4G in 2016, we have 475 sites on air with high speed data services.'

The CEO said the company also gave back to society through the MTN Ghana Foundation in the areas of health, economic empowerment, and community support programmes totally to 142 projects within nine years.

He noted that some challenges the company faced in the year 2016 included fibre cuts, load shedding, unpredictable cost, uncertainty with businesses operating permit rate, price competition, protracted permitting, over taxation, high escalating cost, and SIM registration.

Mr Asante, however, noted that going forward in 2017, MTN Ghana hoped to expand and improve projects by accelerating network rollout, increase network capacity, and redundancy.

'Investment would be 143.7 million CAPEX, fibre rollout, 410KM, 2G network, 245 new site rollout, 3G network, 561 new site rollout, network modernisation 2600+ modernized BTS's, and LTE rollouts, 475 sites live and 197 sites in 2017 in all regions,' he added. GNA
14.03.2017 LISTEN

Nigeria is not yet a failed state. We have a government in control of its borders that has put Boko Haram on the run and put looters on notice that their days of impunity are numbered. However, the same cassava basket and major agricultural zone that fed West African countries is lately included among UNICEF 20 million people of Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria facing starvation and famine. How low can Nigeria go?

When the British, the French and the Portuguese were forced to leave African countries after independence, they were asked who would replace their teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers since they were not ready or had enough. They proudly answered that Nigerians would take their places. The same Nigerians that other Africans were proud of, have become the butt of their jokes, figure of hatred, desperadoes and hustlers that have overstayed their welcome.

Most Africans old enough in the sixties and early seventies have a special memories of Nigeria, as a big brother. Nigerias failure is the story of that big brother that is looking for favors based on its past glories; hoping to reap rewards from struggling children of other African countries that benefited from its goodwill, the same African countries Nigeria failed to lead. We cannot preach past goodwill to those children as a privilege to camp our tents and live there forever.

In terms of proportional wealth and champion of African causes, Kwame Nkrumah is second to none. It does not give Ghanaians an open invitation or credit to other African countries. Indeed, the children of Nkrumah were kicked out of Nigeria in the early eighties. Not even the fact that Prime Minister Kofi Busia had done the same to Nigeria could have justified what Nigeria did. This was why Nnamdi Azikiwe cried out loud.

If Nigerians cannot not rescue Nigeria; Africans around the world cannot feel sorry for Nigeria, and will continue to humiliate Nigerians. Nobody owes Nigeria or Nigerians anything. We have an obsession for forex beyond need. Eager to sell dear local goods, expensive at home, at dictated price, half or nothing just to get foreign cash: cement, garri, beans, tomato. There are more brains in our Government than in the richest countries on earth, not only our natural resources but in skills and technical know-how that are being wasted by greed and selfishness.

A lecture by Vice Admiral Michael Franken, Deputy Commander of Operations for US Africa Command (AFRICOM) at Fletcher Maritime Studies Program in the School of Government at Harvard wondered why a country with more brainpower in cabinet than any country including United States could not put its acts together. We can, if our administrators are accountable.

This history is important in order to realize how Nigeria called the Giant of Africa, lost its status. Unfortunately not only in other African countries but more pertinent here, at home. It was a country flowing with milk and honey. General Gowon actually claimed, wrongly or rightly, that Nigerias problem was not money but how to spend it. Despite the devastating effect of the war to unity of the country, the economic was so well managed we did not borrow a penny for war!

However, it all came with a warning when Chief Obafemi Awolowo resigned as the Finance Commissioner and Vice to Gowon. He warned that if Nigeria continued to waste its resources outrageously through unprecedented corruption, Nigeria would fall. Today, not even Awolowo could have predicted how far Nigeria has fallen at home and among its African brothers. Our children have become economic migrants running from the poorest to richest Africa countries!

Awo, the man who built industrial, agricultural and housing estate in the West, was called the prophet of doom by Richard Akinjide, Umaru Dikko & Co. But the Economic sustainability and continuity that failed us then, are still problems for successive governments. Neglect of projects became our cross of arrested development because new foreign contracts benefit politicians.

Nigeria was the great black hope in the sixties, even in early seventies the world hoped would be a regional power to save the rest of Africa. It has been called the curse of oil. Unfortunately, we have become burden from one of the smallest country like Cape Verde to one of the biggest like South Africa. If it is not oil, Africans have killed one another over gold, diamond and every stimulus and blessing that other countries have used as a lift-off for economic development.

Nigerians are crying that they have being humiliated and turned back to their country when at exorbitant cost try to give birth in rich countries or killed on the streets without provocation for trying to make a living. After relegating our own country, they cant allow us to destroy theirs. If the problem is xenophobia, jealousy and discrimination in every country; inside and outside of Africa: which part do we assign a country that has betrayed its responsibility and trust at home?

Would Nigerians be crying about being denied access to smuggle the birth of their children into another country or the effect of xenophobia, if their country is capable enough? Nobody wants to be disrespected, maimed and killed because they are out of their comfort zone. Humiliating, disgusting, brutal pictures rob us of dignity. This is what we get when the best and the richest among us, no matter how they come about their glories exchange them for vanities in shadows.

The same Nigeria we cannot wait to get back to after educational pursuits and sojourns abroad has become the place we run away from just to get into any country, no matter how small, no matter how many deserts and seas to cross. It used to be that if you do not go back home on time, that would kill your mother. Now your mother says there is nothing to come back to. Yet, this is the same country that exports U.S dollars, British pounds and Euro as if it prints them!

Africans that used to look up to you would disrespect you and call you vagabond like a husband without respect at home that failed to shoulder the responsibilities of the family. Yes, Africans are members of the same family and Nigerians are the husbands that shed its responsibility. How dare you demand respect from the same family you left uncared for and failed to lead?

There is nothing wrong with Nigerians and there is nothing wrong with Africans, we just refused to carry our mantle. What many Nigerians do is pray to God, who to dispossess or swindle while celebrating selfishness of looters. We welcome them from prison if they are ever caught, with prayers in Mosque and Church glowing in palm trees like the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Malavika Mohanan has replaced Deepika Padukone in the lead role in Beyond The Clouds, directed by Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Theatre actor Malavika Mohanan has bagged the lead role in Iranian auteur Majid Majidi's India-set film Beyond The Clouds.

Daughter of renowned cinematographer KU Mohanan, Malavika was considered to be apt for the character in the tale of human relationships, read a statement.

A spokesperson on behalf of Zee Studios and Eyecandy, said, "Malavika is on board for the film and Majidi has already begun shooting with her since a week in Mumbai."

advertisement

Beyond The Clouds is being described by the makers as a beautiful story centered around a brother-sister relationship.

A source in the know of developments said, "Majidi found his leading lady in Malavika as he was looking for a face, that could fit the character."

Earlier, there was speculation that Deepika Padukone had auditioned for the role, but things did not work out. Malavika is said to have been handpicked by Majidi himself.

Known for masterpieces like Children of Heaven, The Color of Paradise and Baran, Majidi has a knack of weaving magic on screen with new faces. The film also marks the debut of Shahid Kapoor's brother Ishaan Khatter.

While Ishaan started shooting for the film last month, Malavika has just started shooting for her part a few days ago.

ALSO SEE: Shahid's brother Ishaan shares first poster of Majid Majidi's Beyond The Clouds

ALSO SEE: Deepika's drastic transformation for Majid Majidi's Beyond The Clouds

--- ENDS ---
14.03.2017 LISTEN

A member of the New Patriotic Party(NPP) at Atwima Nwabiagya south constituency in the Ashanti Region Asare Bediako a.k.a Yes Man has written a petition to the presidency not to consider appointing the constituency secretary and aspiring District Chief Executive, (DCE) for Atwima Nwabiagya South Mr. Michael Amoah Awuku as DCE for the district because he is a thief.

Speaking on Maakye on Hot FM, Asare Bediako indicated that, Mr. Awuku is unworthy to be the DCE for Atwima Nwabiagya south because of his bad conduct in the district. He claims Mr. Awuku defrauded him of 2,000 Ghana Cedis when the latter was an assembly member of the district with which he was sent to court and remanded in police custody for one week.

He alleged that, Mr. Awuku demanded sex from girls and money from young men before offering them jobs when he was a coordinator at MASLOC in the district.

"One party official in the district,Mallam Issah took his daughter Hajarah to Amoah Awuku when he was a coordinator at MASLOC to secure a job for his daughter but Amoah Awuku demanded to have sex with the girl and when she declined, she did not get the job" he alleged.

He stated that Mr. Awuku is not qualified to be the DCE of the district because he is not even a resident of the district hence their petition is to urge the president not to appoint Michael Amoah Awuku as the DCE of Atwima Nwabiagya south.

However in a rebuttal, Mr. Awuku denied all the allegations leveled against him by Asare Bediako referring to it as mischievous and a deliberate attempt to ruin his reputation.
Ghanas Energy Policy (2010) seeks to develop an Energy Economy to secure a reliable supply of high quality energy services for all sectors of the Ghanaian economy and possibly become a net exporter of oil and power. Renewable Energy, acknowledged as one of the key sub-sectors in the policy is also aimed at increasing the proportion of renewable energy in the total national energy mix and ensure its efficient production and use. On this score, 350 Ghana Reducing our Carbon (G-ROC) unreservedly applauds governments effort in pursuing Renewable Energy (RE) as a key measure in mitigating the current energy crises looming in Ghana which has come to be known as dumsor.

However, based on the firm belief also that RE is that solution, 350 G-ROC recommends the following:

1. In pursuing the local content policy of the Power and Renewable Energy, government should ensure that businesses established by young entrepreneurs under the Youth Enterprise Fund (YEF) are participating in bidding for the 30% of the required 70% of Government-funded contracts, as pledged in the governments manifesto.

2. As a practical way of dealing with the swelling rate of youth unemployment, government is encouraged to provide detailed information on employment opportunities that the youth stand to gain from the various RE programs and/or initiatives as seen in the case of Rwanda.

3. With the vast employment opportunities that RE is eliciting, government should ensure that all the youth skills development programmes such as the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Development of Skills for Industry Project (DSIP), Ghana Skills Development Initiative (GSDI) and Youth Employment Agency (YEA) are providing relevant knowledge and capacity development to young people for the emerging market.

4. Government should be more proactive in showcasing the benefits so far accrued in promoting RE as part of deepening public awareness leading to the desired behavioural change. For example, just as governments National Compact Fluorescent Exchange Programme in August 2007, led to peak load savings of 124MW or 172.8GWh/annum, C02 savings of about 112,320 tons per annum, energy cost savings estimated at US$33.3million per annum among others, so must all other interventions be evaluated.

5. Government should be more open and not to relent in actively engaging the public in conducting the required Environmental Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) on all RE projects. Information on past or previous RE ESIAs processes conducted is either limited or unavailable.

6. Governments manifesto promise to review the Renewable Energy law to regulate and incentivise investments in renewable technologies is plausible thus we strongly recommend the active participation of young people such processes as embedded in the National Youth Authority Act, 2016 (ACT 939).

7. As part of demonstrating its commitment to RE, government should as a matter of urgency stipulate how it intends to operationalize the adoption of a distributed solar energy solution for all government and public buildings.

Regarding Governments pledge in its 2017 Budget Statement

Government intends to increase renewable energy in the supply-mix to 10% by 2020 but as at December, 2015, the Installed Grid Electricity Generation Capacity operational was hydro, 5,845 GWh (50.86%); Thermal, 5,643 GWh (49.10%) and Renewables, 4GWh (0.4%). This means that all the RE measures proposed by the NPP government in its manifesto are expected to at least make up for the quite ambitious 9.6% RE supply deficit by 2020.

Already, the Energy Commission of Ghana has initiated the Rooftop Solar Programme which seeks to reduce the daily national peak load by 200 MW through self-generation using solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. This is certainly remarkable!

In his maiden State of the Nation Address, President Akufo-Addo acknowledged that the marginal price charged for businesses is an effective 42 cents, more than ten times the average tariff in West Africa. This makes it very difficult to start or run a business here and be competitive. The cost of energy destroys businesses large and small. It is the bane of the vulcanizer, the tailor, the dressmaker and the hairdresser, the carpenter and the wayside fitting mechanic. It destroys jobs. It compounds poverty. The current state of the energy situation in our country is unsatisfactory. Also, a World Bank report stated that, electricity is the second most important constraint to business activities in the country and that Ghana lost about 1.8% of GDP during the 2007 power crisis. This therefore goes without saying that a solution-based approach to meeting the ever-growing electricity demand is extremely crucial. In its 2016 Manifesto, the NPP government presented a plan to pursue Renewable Energy, part of which featured in its maiden budget statement. Some of the immediate measures include working out implementation modalities of the local content policy for the Power and Renewable Energy, increasing access to improved lighting solutions in deprived off-grid homes and increase solar lantern in rural non-electrified households to two million, continuing the Ghana Energy Development and Access Project (GEDAP) Phase 3 projects among others.

While these measures obviously will increase energy generation, it is unclear how much in real terms they will contribute to the targeted 10% RE mix.

The Increasing Feasibility of RE in Ghana

It is a fact that years ago, solar cells and wind turbines for example were very expensive. But as countries like the United States, Germany, Japan and China invested heavily in wind and solar capacity over the past two decades, improvements in technology and economies of scale have driven prices down dramatically. In just the past six years, the cost of solar photovoltaic panels has dropped 80 percent, and the cost of wind turbines has fallen by a third. That means more power for more people at a much lower cost. These renewable resources are rapidly becoming the energy of the 21st century. In 2015, nearly half of all new power-generation capacity installed worldwide came from wind and solar energy. Infact, a single large wind turbine, which converts wind energy to electricity, can provide enough energy to power more than 1,000 homes. And a single hectare of solar panels, which harness the power of the sun, can power 200 homes as shared by Stephen Koopman, Energy Center Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa.

In 2011, the South African government launched the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Program (REIPPPP). This program allowed wind and solar energy companies to develop renewable generation facilities for the national power grid. As at 2016, more than 50 of those projects were already operational and generating more than 2 gigawatts of power for the grid. Thats 2 billion watts  enough to provide energy to more than a million homes. Should all 64 Independent Power Producers (IPPs) projects come online, it will yield just over 4GW. So,

when all duly procured RE power comes onstream, the contribution will be around 6.3GW, more than tripling South Africas current renewable generation capacity. And the government has committed to doubling that number again by 2025. Again, the case is no different from Rwanda where an 8.5 megawatt (MW) power plant is been constructed to increase the countrys generation capacity by 6%, powering more than 15,000 homes. This project is critical to a nation that, 21 years after the genocide, is expanding fast and aims to give half of its population access to electricity by 2017. Quite interestingly, the Gigawatt Global Cooperatief U.A conducted a Socioeconomic Impact analysis of this project where its findings include:

 Increase in Economic Output (GDP): USD $9.27 million  $10.81 million per year (0.12%  0.14% increase to estimates)

 Direct Increase in Employment: 50 jobs for long-term maintenance and servicing

 Indirect Increase in Employment: 4,900  5,800 jobs (0.11  0.13% increase to employment estimates)

 Households to be provided with electricity: 15,000  18,000 households

 Time saved from biomass fuel collection (firewood and charcoal): 10.95 million  13.29 million hours per year

 Additional income per year due to the reallocation of time: $834,000 to $1.79 million per year

 GHG savings vs. other sources of energy: 7,500  8,400 tons of CO2e/ year

 Number of children with increased school performance: 35,550 - 43,100 school students

In Ghanas case, the Energy Commission states that provisional licences issued for wholesale power supply from Renewables rose from 64 in early 2015 to over 80 by early 2016. However, only one solar project is completed and connected to the grid, i.e. the 20 MW solar photovoltaic grid. The Provisional Wholesale Electricity Supply Licences had been issued to potential Independent Power Producers (IPPs) proposing to develop a total of about 5,547 MW of electricity from various renewable energy sources.55 of the licences issued are for solar photovoltaic (PV) generation with a total capacity of about 2,749 MW. As at the end of 2015, 44 licences were issued for a total capacity of 2,472 MW, compared with 29 with total capacity of 2,155 MW in 2014.

350 G-ROC calls for expedited action in showing verifiable results of the governments RE commitments.

About 350 G-ROC

350 G-ROC is an informal network of youth groups and individuals formed with the aim of mobilizing and empowering young people to actively champion the need to reduce our carbon emissions and promote renewable energy systems as a key effort in combating climate change.
Washington (AFP) - Moscow has apparently deployed military forces to a base in western Egypt, a US official said Tuesday, a sign Russia could be increasing its involvement in nearby Libya.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Russia appears to have deployed special operations forces to an air base at Sid Barrani, which is located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the Libyan border.

The official said the American military is monitoring the situation closely.

A Western diplomat, who also requested anonymity, confirmed reports that Russian forces are now at a western Egypt army "facility."

The move comes after forces of eastern Libya's military strongman Khalifa Haftar this month conceded the loss of a key oil export terminal they seized last year in ongoing fighting for the country's resource wealth.

The capture of Ras Lanuf and the other three eastern oil ports in September enabled Haftar to keep up his challenge to the authority of the UN-backed government in Tripoli and demand a major role in a replacement administration.

The Russian Defense Ministry denied special forces were in Sidi Barrani.

"There are no Russian special forces units in Sidi Barrani in Egypt," the ministry said in a statement.

"This is not the first time such leaks from anonymous sources in the Western media have excited the public."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had "no information" on any Russian troops being sent to Egypt, and he also denied Moscow had interest in deepening its activity in Libya.

Still, he added that Russia is interested in Libya's stabilization so the country "does not become a breeding ground for terrorist recruits."

Following the ouster and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, an array of rivals has been vying for control of Libya.

Adding to the chaos, the Islamic State group also established a presence in the North African country, though US-backed local forces expelled the jihadists from Sirte, the coastal city they once held.
Tripoli (AFP) - Troops commanded by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar announced the recapture Tuesday of two key oil installations, as fighting raged in Tripoli where a rival government has struggled to assert its authority.

Libya has experienced years of violence and lawlessness since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival parliaments and governments trading barbs and militias fighting over territory and the country's vast oil wealth.

Forces loyal to Haftar mounted a day-long assault by land, sea and air to retake the oil export terminals of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra, after both sites were seized by a rival, Islamist-led force earlier this month.

"The armed forces... have liberated the whole of the oil crescent," said a spokesman for pro-Haftar forces.

The head of the oil installation guards, General Meftah al-Megaryef, also said the two terminals had been recaptured.

Basset al-Shairi, a commander of the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) which had seized the two sites on March 3, said Ras Lanuf had fallen without specifying the outcome in nearby Al-Sidra.

In September, pro-Haftar forces had already captured the terminals and two other eastern oil ports in a blow to the authority of the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli.

Haftar backs a rival administration in the country's far east that has refused to cede power to the Government of National Accord (GNA) working in the capital since last year.

Oil accounts for more than 95 percent of Libya's revenues.

Haftar's forces, which call themselves the Libyan National Army (LNA), have battled jihadists in second city Benghazi for more than two years.

Tanks 'under our balcony'

In Tripoli, fresh fighting raged on Tuesday between rival armed groups, authorities in the capital said, causing UN Libya envoy Martin Kobler to call for an "immediate ceasefire".

"Civilians at grave risk in ongoing clashes," he wrote on Twitter.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard in two neighbourhoods west of the city centre, witnesses said, and several key thoroughfares were blocked, leaving many trapped in their homes.

Witnesses said tanks had deployed in the neighbourhoods of Hay al-Andalus and Gargaresh, after the fighting broke out late Monday.

"Early this morning, several tanks and vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft weapons passed under our balcony," Abdel-Nur Bachir, a retired 80-year-old businessman living in Gargaresh, told AFP.

It was not immediately clear who was involved in the clashes.

The Tripoli police, who are loyal to the GNA, said they were "purging" the area of "outlaws", but did not announce any casualties.

A resident of Hay Al-Andalus, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was trapped indoors.

"We have nowhere to go to escape the fighting. All we can do is pray that no shelling hits the house," she said. "People are holed up indoors. Schools are closed."

'Complex' ties

Since Kadhafi's fall, several armed groups have battled for control of the capital in the absence of a regular army or police force.

The GNA has denied having any connection to the takeover of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra earlier this month.

A Libya expert, in a briefing released last week, described the relationship between the GNA -- and the Presidential Council (PC) that heads it -- and the BDB that led the attack on the oil terminals as "complex and somewhat unclear".

"While the GNA's Minister of Defence, Mahdi al-Barghati, supports the group, as do some members of the PC, the PC has officially condemned the attack and stated it had no ties to the BDB," Claudia Gazzini of the International Crisis Group think-tank said.

The GNA said last week that it had ordered oil installation guards who are loyal to it to secure the two terminals.

Last month, Haftar and GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj agreed to form a committee to explore amending the UN-backed agreement that gave rise to the unity government.

But the pro-Haftar eastern parliament, which was elected in 2014, last week suspended its participation in political dialogue and called for presidential and legislative elections to be held before next February.
Addis Ababa (AFP) - Chad's former foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat assumed office as head of the African Union Commission on Tuesday, pledging to reform the institution and tackle the continent's many crises.

Faki takes over leadership of the 54-country continental bloc days after the United Nations announced that the food emergencies in four countries, including Somalia, South Sudan and northeast Nigeria, constituted the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

"The famine that ravages vast areas of Africa these days is a real humiliation for us," Faki told delegates at the commission's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

"The immense potential of our continent and the enviable rate of economic growth of many member states of the union leave us no justification for this hideous human tragedy".

An ally of Chadian President Idriss Deby, Faki, 56, campaigned on putting "development and security" at the top of his agenda.

As foreign minister, he was seen as taking a strong position against Islamic extremism in Mali, Nigeria and the Sahel.

Faki was elected AU chairman in January after seven rounds of voting, triumphing over Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed and candidates from Senegal, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.

In his speech, Faki embraced what he said was an "enlightening" report by Rwandan President Paul Kagame that recommended ways to reform the AU.

The report called for the institution to better distinguish itself from other regional blocs and focus its efforts only on key areas like political affairs and peace and security.

Faki takes over from Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who championed the commission's Agenda 2063 development program but was seen as being weak on peace and security issues and distracted by her own political aspirations in her home country South Africa.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has appointed Dr Samuel Annor as the new Chief Executive Officer for the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).

Announcing the appointment in a letter dated 10th March, Mr Akufo-Addo said: Pursuant to section 14 (1) of the National Health Insurance Act 2012, (ACT 852), I hereby appoint you to act as the Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority pending receipt of the constitutionally required advice of the governing board of the Authority, given in consultation with the Public Services Commission.

I take this opportunity to congratulate you formally on your appointment. Kindly indicate your acceptance or otherwise of this appointment within 14 days of receipt of this letter.

Dr Annor is a consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist and a partner of Lister Hospital  a leading international Private Hospital. He is the General Manager of the Birim Oil Mill, an oil palm factory at Kade in the Kwaebibrem district of the Eastern Region. He was the first Board Chairman of Ghana Airport Company Limited in 2007.

-Classfmonline
14.03.2017 LISTEN

The Majority in Parliament is demanding an apology from the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government for overspending its 2016 budget.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Members of Parliament (MP) said former President John Mahama's government broke the Appropriation Act (2016) when it spent over GHC51 billion instead of the approved GHC43 billion.

Ayawaso West Wuogon NPP MP, Emmanuel Agyarko, who made the claim on the floor of the House Tuesday described recent outcry by NDC MPs over governments 2017 budgetary allocation to the presidency as misguided.

If you look at the total expenditure with the revised version, it came out with GHC43 billion, but it [NDC government] spent well over GHC51 billion, he told Evans Mensah on Joy FMs Top Story.

Parliament approved, under a certificate of urgency, the Appropriation Act for the 2016 fiscal year committing GHa50,109,851,734.00 from the Consolidated Fund for government to carry out its financial obligations for the year.

Out of the GHa50.1 billion, GHa14 billion was earmarked for wages and salaries, pensions, gratuities and social security.

Mr Agyarko said available documents before the House showed the previous government outspent its budget by whooping GHa8 billion without Parliamentary approval.

Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin

But former Deputy Finance Minister, Casiel Ato Forson, described the NPP MP's claim as unsound and without any basis.

I can say on authority that as a deputy Minister of Finance, the then administration never broke the appropriation Act," he said. "We stayed within the appropriations Act."

The Ajumako Enyan Essiam MP said the expenditure Mr Agyarko is making reference to has to do with commitment of the previous government and not cash spent.

"The appropriation is on cash bases so you cannot compare the two and draw the conclusion that we broke the law," he offered.

Meanwhile, second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has appealed to his colleagues to collaborate to put an end to the practice of governments overspending their budget.

The issue that the MP for Ayawaso is raising is that over the years, we have allowed governments to spend beyond what we approve in the Appropriation Act. So we need to look at it as a House," he said.

He explained that if at any time any government needs to overspend its budget, Parliament has to be notified for an additional money to be approved for it.

"We need to look at this as a House if not that it is eroding the authority of the House," he added.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected]
The 37 military hospital, as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations has organised a two-day blood donation exercise.

The aim of the project is to restock the blood bank and provide support for persons who require blood during this period.

The exercise under the caption, 1 pint can save 3 lives is to encourage as many blood donors who are in the capacity to do so, to do it to save lives.

The commander of the 37 military hospital, Brigadier General Ralph Kojo Ametepi who was present at the opening ceremony of the exercise called on the military high command, corporate bodies, organisations and philanthropists to seriously consider the blood bank expansion project to get the blood bank unit a befitting and spacious accommodation to operate in.

The first day saw many people come from all walks of life, some from as far as the Eastern region.

Few people Citi News spoke to explained that they were encouraged by the plight of the hospital to improve the stock levels at the blood bank .

One of the donor Beatrice Gavor said she was giving back because she once benefitted from a donation exercise.

Another donor, Edward Amponsah Afari stated I have the passion of donating blood. We must help one another

However the head of the blood bank at the 37 Military Hospital, Captain Nana Yaa Snyper bemoaned the challenges the department is confronted with including the lack of space for the blood bank and called on individuals and organisations to help put up the blood bank expansion project.



By: Zoe Abu-Baidoo/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @ZBaidoo
The Chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA) has entreated the African Development Bank (AfDB) to refocus its intervention in the continent towards the empowerment of entrepreneurs.

Tony Elumelu said a comprehensive investment support for entrepreneurs in Africa will help realize African Union (A.U.)'s dream of reducing poverty.

The renowned entrepreneur made these remarks when he delivered a lecture themed 'Africapitalism and Entrepreneurship' at the University of Ghana Tuesday.

Mr Elumelu a Nigerian philantropist is in Ghana for a two-day working visit which will afford him the opportunity to meet some business leaders in the country.

African leaders have committed to reduce poverty in the continent to below 20 percent by 2030, but the UBA Chairman said this cannot be achieved if entrepreneurs are not empowered.

Mr Elumelu with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

He explained his foundation - Tony Elumelu Foundation - which seeks to promote Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) has been facing challenges due to the overflow of applications it receives yearly.

Am having a discussion with the African Development Bank to support this initiative of entrepreneurship, we have to fund entrepreneurs if we want the continent to grow, he said.

He nonetheless expressed optimistic that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will lead the way for the continent with the introduction of measures to create an enabling environment for businesses.

Mr Elumelu said this about the President when he visited him for a closed door discussion on business development in the country.

Through the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP), the entrepreneur has committed $100 million to identify, support and grow 10,000 emerging African entrepreneurs over the next decade.
The United Naga Council (UNC) has been continuing its indefinite blockade of the Imphal valley in protest against the previous Congress government's decision to carve out seven new districts from tribal-dominated hill areas in the north-eastern state.

By Indrajit Kundu: On the eve of his swearing-in as the new Manipur Chief Minister, BJP leader N Biren Singh has told India Today that he will fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise to lift the ongoing economic blockade in the state imposed by the United Naga Council.

During an election rally in Imphal last December Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that if a BJP government was formed in the state the new administration will lift the blockade immediately.

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The new Manipur CM-in-waiting on Wednesday said, "Let the protest be finished, we will do as per the promise of the prime minister".

This comes in the backdrop of the Naga People's Front announcing their support for the BJP-led coalition to form government in the state. The support of the Nagaland-based party was crucial for BJP to ultimately get the magic number.

BLOCKADE ON FOR FOUR MONTHS

The United Naga Council (UNC) has been continuing its indefinite blockade of the Imphal valley in protest against the previous Congress government's decision to carve out seven new districts from tribal-dominated hill areas in the north-eastern state.

The UNC has been vehement in its protest against the Manipur state administration and has even sought complete separation from the state, a demand which is also backed by the NPF.

Thus the BJP's tie-up with the NPF remains a weak straw in the coalition as the majority Meitei community in the valley remains apprehensive about a possible Naga domination over the state government. However, the new Chief Minister in-waiting has allayed all such fears by stating that the NPF support was "unconditional".

In the run up to these elections there was a constant tug-of-war between the previous Congress-run state government and the BJP ruled Centre over the blockade.

While the BJP blamed the Ibobi Singh administration for failing to lift the blockade, the Congress has put the onus on the BJP stating that the Centre was holding Naga peace talks with the NSCN (IM) and therefore could pressurise the UNC to quit its protest.

Thus speaking on the issue, Biren Singh expressed confidence that the Centre will provide full support to normalise the situation in Manipur.

Also read:

How BJP got the better of Okram Ibobi Singh in Manipur: All you need to know in 10 points

BJP's late night coup in Manipur leaves three-time CM Ibobi stunned

Also watch:

Manipur Governor invites BJP-led coalition to form government

--- ENDS ---

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Do you know the origin of the Sharia law in Nigeria? Where did it come from? What place does it have in the constitution of the state today? You can learn it all from our article.

Sharia law in Nigeria constitution

The issue of sharia law place in the Nigerian constitution was raised so many times that we have decided to answer it once and for all. However, before we get to explaining its current place, we believe that we have to define the notion of sharia law. So, lets get down to business.

What is sharia law?

The origin of sharia law can be found in the Islamic tradition. Basically, it is one of the religious laws the whole Islamic culture stands on. The basic rules of sharia law root back to the main written law of Muslims also known as the Quran and Hadith.

Sharia law was formulated and developed by different religious groups from all over the Islamic world including Hanbali, Maliki, and Jafari. They helped the Muslims to apply sharia law in daily life, jurisprudence, public services and religious traditions.

Sharia law in Nigeria constitution

It is important to say that sharia law has different applications in various countries. Thus, for instance, Sharia law is only applicable to the Muslim population in Israel and many other African and Asian countries. Meanwhile, the adherents of other religions cannot be punished or fined in agreement with Islamic jurisdiction.

There are five types of sharia rulings. Some of them are mandatory, while others are either recommended, permitted, prohibited or abhorred. The good thing is that some of these laws are similar to the general understanding of human rights and responsibilities, which the rest of the world sticks to.

Now as you know the meaning of sharia law lets move on to exploring its history in the world as well as in Nigeria in particular.

Sharia law in Nigerian constitution

History of Sharia law

Long before this law came to Nigeria, it was established and developed for ages by so-called muftis, who served as lawyers or lawmakers in places where Sharia originated from. However, they did not implement the punishment or reward according to this law themselves.

There were special bodies which defined and administered this law and the legal system in general. There were two different types of courts where one might have gotten to for breaking the divine will of God written in the form of sharia.

Later in its history, this law was substituted by the western jurisprudence and legal procedures. Since Muslims lived together with adherents of other religions many compromises were made aiming to pay respects to people from different religious background. Thus some of the sharia laws remained for the Muslim population only.

People who fought for human rights insisted that punishments like stoning are canceled. As a result of their efforts, most countries agreed to this despite the claims of Muslims to leave it.

However, lets look into details of the development of this law in Nigeria as this is our primary focus.

Sharia law in Nigerian constitution

History of sharia law in Nigeria

Given the diversity of Nigerian population, one cannot be taken by surprise with the fact that some states where the majority is Muslim chose to establish sharia law as their primary rule. Out of thirty-six, Nigeran states at least nine use have sharia law applied to different individuals from the Muslim population on the special occasion.

Apart from those nine states three other ones which have a lot of Muslims living there also stick to applying sharia law.

According to the official information, Islamic sharia law in Nigeria is enforced in the following states:

Zamfara State

Kano State

Sokoto State

Katsina State

Bauchi State

Borno State

Jigawa State

Kebbi State

Yobe State

Kaduna State

Niger State

Gombe State

Unlike other twenty-four states, these ones have a unique legal system, which means that legal issues can be overlooked in two different types of courts. One of the courts is known as customary while the other one is sharia.

Sharia law in Nigerian constitution

Nigerian constitution and sharia law

Unfortunately, there is no peace between those demanding this type of law applied and those opposing it. In fact, the Nigerian history is packed with riots and protests against sharia implementation on the level of the state. The sad news is that in 2001 almost a hundred people died fighting against the system in Kano State.

Meanwhile after a woman in a Northern State was stoned for made up adultery the publicity became outrageous. They protested against such laws and sought professional help from international organizations supporting the human rights.

READ ALSO: Sharia: Nigerian Christians threaten showdown

Today some of the states stick to using sharia and Islamic courts as an established legal system. Moreover, a well known fact states that one Nigerian was sentenced to death penalty.

From what we know today there are federal courts of appeals, which rule and administer different cases in agreement with Sharia law. Unfortunately, some say that the system there is biased and controversial. Employees of this establishment control over using their personal interpretations of the religious law. However, Nigeran authorities also demand that they use the general laws, which are applied elsewhere in the country.

Thus, instead of using just the one system, they are to use two. This causes lots of controversies and conflicts of interests.

Sharia law in Nigerian constitution

Blasphemy law in Nigerian courts

It is interesting enough that there is one area in which two legal system do not contradict each other. Both customary and Sharia laws view blasphemy as a law-breaking action. Here is a quote from the criminal code of Nigeria, which describes the attitude of both of these systems to this act:

Any person who does an act which any class of persons consider a public insult to their religion, with the intention that they should consider the act an insult, and any person who does an unlawful act with the knowledge that any class of persons will consider it an insult, is guilty of a misdemeanour and is liable to imprisonment for two years.

READ ALSO: Dogara asked me to pass Sharia bill quietly - Hon Salame

It is important to understand the meaning and place of sharia law in Nigeria since this country is home to the biggest Muslim population in the western part of Africa. To tell the truth, around half of the people living in Nigeria consider themselves the adherents of the Islamic religion.

Sharia law in Nigerian constitution

According to the Pew Research Center as well as BBC the approximate amount of Nigerians who call themselves Muslim is a bit more than fifty percent.

Muslims in Nigeria are predominantly Sunni in the Maliki school, which is also the governing Sharia law. However, there is a significant Shia minority, primarily in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Sokoto State; (see Shia in Nigeria). A smaller minority follow the Ahmadiyya, a reformatory sect originating in nineteenth century India. In particular, Pew Forum on Religious diversity identifies three percent as Ahmadi Muslims and twelve percent as Shia Muslims

We hope that you found this information useful. Sharia law is an enormous deal in Nigeria, so it is important to be aware of the area of its influence. Make sure you shared it.

Source: Legit.ng
The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled to take place at 1 pm tomorrow, according to a statement released by Raj Bhavan.

By India Today Web Desk: Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla has invited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the government in the state led by the party's N Biren Singh.

The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled to take place at 1 pm tomorrow, according to a statement released by Raj Bhavan.

The BJP has selected Nongthombam Biren Singh as its chief ministerial candidate and he has staked claim to form the government.

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Although the BJP won 21 seats in the 60-member Manipur Assembly, 7 less than the Congress, the former claims it has support of 33 legislators.

Earlier today, the two parties clashed over government formation in the state, with Congress accusing the BJP of "stealing" the mandate of people using money power, drawing a sharp reaction from the latter that it complains "a bit too much".

CHORUS OF RESENTMENT AGAINST BJP'S GOVT FORMATION BID

Joining the chorus of voices of resentment accusing BJP of "undermining democracy" in Manipur and also Goa by use of money power was Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Accusing the BJP of horse-trading, the Congress has claimed that it should have been instead invited to form the government by the Governor but it suffered a setback when the National People's Party (NPP) denied that it had sent any letter of support to the Congress Party.

Congress and its UPA allies staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour today to protest against government formation by BJP in Goa and Manipur despite its having the numbers. The Congress again walked out during the Zero Hour. Members of Congress, NCP and RJD had first raised the issue during the Question Hour.

When asked why Congress delayed staking its claim for government formation, Rahul said, "It is not about how soon they went to the Governor to stake claim to form the government, but how much money the BJP gave to steal the mandate of Goa and Manipur."

Meanwhile, Najma Heptullah has said that according to the Supreme Court's ruling, it was her responsibility in her capacity as Manipur's governor to see who had the majority and would work for the state's stability.

Ruling of SC says responsibility of Governor is to see who has majority & will work for state's stability: Najma Heptulla, Governor Manipur pic.twitter.com/AR8cu38mWT- ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

VENKAIAH QUESTIONS CONG's PROTEST

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu questioned the Congress protest on the issue of government formation in Manipur and Goa and said the "party has no moral right to do so".

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In Manipur, the BJP, which is the second largest party behind incumbent Congress, has claimed that it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member assembly.

Even Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has slammed the Congress for alleging that BJP stole the mandate of the electorate in Goa.

Also read | On Goa, Arun Jaitley rejects Rahul Gandhi's 'stolen mandate' charge in Facebook blog

(WITH INPUTS FROM PTI)

WATCH VIDEO

--- ENDS ---
- Militants terrorising Isawo area of ikorodu, Lagos state are reportedly back in the area

- Residents of the area are calling of the government to help save them

After several attacks in 2016 that led to casualties on both sides of militants and residents of Isawo in Ikorodu, Lagos, the militants are reportedly back with a vengeance.

NAN reports that the residents say they now live in fear following the return of militants who have been terrorising them in the area.

A female resident of the area who preferred to remain anonymous said: They brandish guns openly during the daytime and rob people at night; many residents are now living in fear. The men are boasting that they are back to revenge the killings of their people in Isawo last year.

Militants

READ ALSO: Ex - militants express happiness over the return of Buhari

Olusola Oke street, near Majidun, is one of the militants meeting points where they smoke Indian hemp openly.

Residents dont go out until 7 a.m. every day, and before 6 p.m., everyone is back home."

She added that some residents had relocated from the area for their safety since the return of the hoodlums.

Another resident called on the military and the police to come to the aid of the residents before the militants will unleash more terror in the communities.

Lagos state police spokesperson, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, said the command was re-strategising the security arrangements in the state, including the Ikorodu area.

He added that more police patrol teams would be deployed in the area, urging residents to provide useful information on the activities of the hoodlums.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest News on Legit.ng News App

The Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Fergusson Bobai, said: I dont have any report yet to suggest that militants are back in the area.

But the Lagos State Governor has approved the return of swamp buggies to open up the creeks in the area to enable us to carry out in-depth patrols.

Meanwhile, the militants from four groups in Niger Delta region have demanded that oil production ceases until the conclusion of dialogue with the federal government.

The threat was issued in a statement released on Sunday, March 12 by the quartet of Adaka Boro Avengers, Niger Delta Creek Warriors, Ogunuma Camp of Niger Delta and Niger Delta Revolutionary Crusaders.

Source: Legit.ng
- The former minister of aviation Femi Fani-Kayode on Monday, March 13, promised to reveal how the former national security adviser Andrew Azazi was killed in a plane crash

- Fani-Kayode said he believes that the Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) founded by Pastor T. B Joshua was remotely brought down

- He said he has been researching on the circumstance and forces behind both incident and will soon reveal his findings

Fani-Kayode has promised to reveal how former NSA Andrew Azazi was killed in a helicopter crash

The former minister of aviation Femi Fani-Kayode on Monday, March 13, promised to reveal how the former national security adviser Andrew Azazi was killed in a plane crash.

Fani-Kayode said he believes that the Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) founded by Pastor T. B Joshua was remotely brought down by a control device and not a faulty foundation as widely claimed.

On a Facebook post made on Monday, Fani-Kayode said he has been researching on the circumstance and forces behind both incident and will soon reveal his findings.

READ ALSO: Buratai, Biafra and the guardians of empire Nigeria (part 1) by Fani-Kayode

He also said the same people who perpetrated these acts - the fifth columnists in former president Goodluck Jonathan's intelligence agencies - are now after the founder of Omega Fire Ministries Apostle Johnson Suleman.

Recall that Azazi was killed on December 15, 2015, alongside the Kaduna state governor Ibrahim Yakowa and four others in a naval plane crash in Okoroba village, Bayelsa state.

They were on their way back to the Port Harcourt AIrport from the funeral of Oronto Douglas' father in Bayelsa state.

Subsequently, on September 12, 2014, a guest house housed by T. B Joshua's church popularly known as the Synagogue collapsed in Ikotun-Egbe area of Lagos state.

READ ALSO: Buratai, Biafra and the guardians of empire Nigeria (part 2) by Fani-Kayode

Hundreds of worshipers were killed in the incident which the founder was remotely control after an helicopter was seen hovering above the church building.

Below is the full post made by Fani-Kayode:

"There are strong speculations that Prophet TB Joshua's Church was brought down by a remote control device and not a faulty foundation.

There are strong speculations that General Azazi and Gov. Yakowa's helicopter was brought down by a similar device and by the same people and not by pilot error.

I intend to write more on both of these terrible events later and I have almost completed my research.

READ ALSO: Stop wearing dirty pampers! Fani-Kayode unleashes insults on Lai Mohammed over Jonathan

For now I will say this much: it appears that those behind both events were fifth columnists in President Goodluck Jonathan's intelligence agencies and they were inspired, sponsored and encouraged by certain forces from outside government.

The objective was to weaken Jonathan and ultimately to get him out of power.

It appears that the same group are now after Apostle Suleman for daring to challenge their friends in high places and for taking on those that they are using to commit mass murder, genocide and other hideous crimes.

Nigerians pray hard and beware!

Source: Legit.ng
The war against corruption and the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from his medical vacation in London has been one of the most talked about topics since Friday, March 10. This is what some Nigerian newspapers are focused on this Tuesday, March 14.

Vanguard reports that President Buhari resumed duties on Monday and he wrote to formally notify the National Assembly that he has resumed his functions as the president with effect from Monday, March 13.

He later had a long meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who had been standing as acting president in his absence.

Osinbajo briefed the president, bringing him up-to-speed on recent happenings.

After relinquishing power formally to Buhari, Osinbajo and other presidential aides received briefs from the president.

READ ALSO: President Buhari spends 3 hours in office on first day of resumption

Buhari gave Osinbajo a few directives on what we should be doing on so many areas; the North-East, budget, the economy and a wide range of issues.

Apparently pleased with Osinbajos performance while he was away, Buhari gave Osinbajo the task of heading the special presidential delegation which is to resolve the crisis in the Niger Delta region.

In other news, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is investigating the N19billion which was illegally deducted from the London-Paris Club loan refund, The Nation reports.

The federal government released N388.304billion of the N522.74 billion refund to 35 states as over-deductions on the London-Paris Club loans.

States on top of the list with huge reimbursements are those controlled by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The big earners are Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Katsina, Kaduna, Lagos, Imo, Jigawa, Borno, Niger, Bauchi and Benue.

Seven governors have been accused of playing key roles in diverting part of the N388.304billion refund into two accounts opened by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest news on Legit.ng News App

A source who spoke on condition of anonymity said: The details of how the refunds were diverted will soon be made public, especially those involved.

Also, the commission has traced about N500million to the account of a governor. Operatives of the anti-graft agency are investigating how the money, which was meant to pay a consultant, found its way into the yet unnamed governors account.

Meanwhile, The Punch reports that the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) discovered 165 rounds of ammunition, a pump action rifle and other weapons in properties belonging to one Sanusi Mohammed, a former aide to ex-Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi state.

The commission also seized 220 flats, located in 20 estates, allegedly belonging to Mohammed.

The discovery was said to have been made following a tip-off by a whistle blower.

It was learnt that Mohammed was arrested by the ICPC and quizzed but was later released on administrative bail.

Watch Nigerians reactions as Buhari returns.

Source: Legit.ng
Zahra Buhari, one of President Muhammadu Buhari's daughters has said that her father's love Nigeria and its populace is deep.

President Muhammadu Buhari on his first day at work on Monday, March 13

Zahra who was recently married to Borno billionaire's son, Ahmed Indimi said she cannot explain the magnitude of love her father has for Nigeria and the Nigerian people.

She said: "The love daddy has for Nigeria and her people, I can't describe....I can never explain the depth and the passion he speaks with about our dear country."

Recall that President Buhari returned from United Kingdom on Friday, March 10, after a 51-days medical vacation.

He has since resumed work after the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who acted as president in his absence, formally handed power over to him on Monday, March 13.

Meanwhile, the president in a recent post, thanked Nigerians for the prayers while he was away.

He also said he was delighted to be back to work.

See a screenshot of Zahra's post on Instagram below:

See photos from Buhari's return and resumption at the Presidential Villa below:

President Buhari with Yemi Osinbajo upon his return from United Kingdom

President Muhammadu Buhari with families and well-wishers on his return

Buhari with Osinabjo on his first day at work, he said he was delighted to be back to work

Buhari with Osinabjo on his first day at work, he said he was delighted to be back to work

On Monday, March 13, Buhari said he is delighted to be back to work

See videos of Nigerians reacting to President Buhari's return and its effect on prices of goods in the market bel

Source: Legit.ng
Good Dutch girl Margaretha, gone bad as Mata Hari, a Javanese Hindu temple strip-tease dancer in Belle Epoque Paris, 1903, was executed on charges of being a German spy in October 1917.

Good Dutch girl Margaretha, gone bad as Mata Hari, a Javanese Hindu temple strip-tease dancer in Belle Epoque Paris, 1903, was executed on charges of being a German spy in October 1917.

Uday Shankar

His renditions of Hindu mythology in dance were the toast of Paris in 1923. This was just seven years after Mata Hari's brutal death.

Laura Gemser

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An Indonesian-Dutch actress, the dark mirror of Mata Hari's racial self-fabulism, starred in a series of Black Emmanuelle movies and reclaimed the snake dance in Black Cobra, 1976.

Debra Paget

In 1959, she played a white devadasi in Fritz Lang's Der Tiger von Eschnapur. It was a defining moment in cinematic 'Hindu temple dance'-in Technicolor.

Dutch National Ballet

In 2016, it performed Mata Hari, a major production inspired by our heroine's torrid life.

Sylvia Krystel

The Dutch star of Emmanuelle, 1974 (ask your father) brought Mata Hari to life in a 1985 biopic. It wasn't the last.

Ruth St Denis

American dance pioneer who choreographed an Indian inspired piece, Radha, in 1905. She went on to perform a series of Indic tableaux, The Cobra, Incense, The Nautch and The Yogi with Sufi musician Inayat Khan.

Greta Garbo

Portrayed Mata Hari in a 1931 biopic. It wasn't the first.

Helen

Occidentalised oriental exotic dance for generations of Indians and somehow made cabaret a desi thing (pictured: Sunehri Nagin, 1963).

--- ENDS ---
- OPC founder, Frederick Fasehun, says the insistence by the comptroller general of the customs service, Hameed Ali, to force motorists to pay duties and tariffs for vehicles bought from importers is an act of impunity

- Fasehun calls on customs authorities to rather put their house in order by identifying and sanctioning corrupt officers who collude with smugglers to allow smuggled goods into the country

- The OPC leader says the customs order would subject vehicle owners to double jeopardy for vehicles they bought at exorbitant costs and for which they had procured necessary particulars

Frederick Fasehun has said it will amount to an act of impunity for customs to begin to seize vehicles whose owners failed to present import duty papers.

The founder of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Frederick Fasehun, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to compel the comptroller general of the customs service, Hameed Ali, to obey the Senates order and suspend the plan to force motorists to pay duties and tariffs for vehicles bought from importers.

READ ALSO: Your directive on old vehicles is unrealistic, NLC to Custom boss

Fasehun, who made the call on Monday, March 13, in Lagos, said Alis insistence to carry on with the April 12 deadline despite the Senates disapproval was an act of impunity, the Punch reports.

He said: We urge the President and the Minister of Internal Affairs to immediately compel the Comptroller General to obey the Senates order. Hameed Ali must obey the Senate. Furthermore, the Nigeria Customs Service should be barred from raiding the warehouses and shops of rice merchants, an action that has resulted in unnecessary loss of lives. Such high-handed actions by the customs will cause uncertainty and scare away foreign investors.

Customs authorities should rather put their house in order by identifying and sanctioning corrupt officers who collude with smugglers to allow smuggled goods into the country. We urge the Federal Government to stop further harassment of poor traders.

READ ALSO: Customs seize container of fish worth N22.1m from Turkey

If the customs service is interested in shoring up its revenue, it should convince the government to repudiate many draconian, ill-advised and insensitive policies that this regime has rolled out and which have negatively impacted on the revenue accruing from imports.

Recall that customs had warned that beginning from April 12, its officers would begin to seize vehicles whose owners failed to present import duty papers.

But Fasehun said the customs order would subject vehicle owners to double jeopardy for vehicles they bought at exorbitant costs and for which they had procured necessary particulars.

Meanwhile, the Senate has asked the Colonel Ali to appear in plenary in uniform on Wednesday, March 15, unfailingly.

Part of the problem is the refusal of the Comptroller General to suspend action on the proposed clamp down on vehicles without duty payment, as ordered by the legislature.

Also he has been asked to appear before the lawmakers in the chamber in Customs uniform, which the NCS boss had refused to wear.

If he refused to comply, the lawmakers called for Alis removal if he failed to comply with directives from the Senate.

Source: Legit.ng
Editors note: Mary Ajator is a final year student of Mass Communication at the National Open University. She was a newscaster at Nigeria Television Authority channel 5 Awka while she was undergoing her Industrial Training.

In this article, she explains the need for people suffering from High Blood Pressure to take their drug as prescribed by their doctors.

Mary is also a blogger whose interest in blogging is to help people get the latest happenings on health, politics and other topical issues in the country.

She could be contacted via: maryajatorblog@gmail.com.

More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest bloggers.

High blood pressure (hypertension) can quietly damage your body for years before symptoms develop. If it is left uncontrolled, you may wind up with a disability, a poor quality of life or even a fatal heart attack. Roughly half the people with untreated hypertension die of heart disease related to poor blood flow (ischemic heart disease) and another third die of stroke.

Treatment and lifestyle changes can help control your high blood pressure to reduce your risk of life-threatening complications.

READ ALSO: 5 Health Benefits Of Garlic

Only 20 percent of patients seeking care for stubborn high blood pressure take all the medicine they're supposed to, a new Dutch study has revealed.

Another 20 percent are not taking any of their blood pressure medications, so with this, patients sought care for a condition they could have addressed by simply following their doctor's orders.

The researchers didn't set out to determine whether people with resistant high blood pressure were following doctors' prescriptions. Instead, the investigators wanted to know if those patients could benefit from a treatment in which nerves between the brain and the kidney are destroyed by radio waves or ultrasound.

The study looked at 95 patients who were randomly assigned to undergo the procedure and 44 who only continued their medications. The researchers concluded that the procedure wasn't better than normal treatment for resistant high blood pressure. But following doctors' orders is the key, the study authors stressed.

Adherence to me*dication greatly affects the ability to assess the value of another treatment, so researchers need to measure adherence and do what they can to improve it.

Patients must tell their doctor if they don't want to take their medicine for any reason. Patients and doctor can discuss options for changing the type of pill or the dose if needed.

PAY ATTENTION: Nigeria News Legit.ng - Android Apps on Google Play

There are many effective blood pressure pills and the majority of patients with high blood pressure can be successfully treated. High blood pressure increases a person's risk of heart attack, stroke and other health issues.

Mary Ajator

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Legit.ng.

Legit.ng welcomes writers, bloggers, photographers and all sorts of noise makers to become a part of our Bloggers network. If you are a seasoned writer or a complete newbie  apply and become Nigerias next star blogger.

Send us some info about your career, interests and expertise and why youd like to contribute to the Blogger Network at blogger@corp.legit.ng Also, please send us the link to your blog and three examples of your work.

More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest bloggers.

Source: Legit.ng
- Ex-president Obasanjo says ex-justice minister Adoke should leave him out of the infamous Malabu oil scandal that is still unfolding

- He said he never assented to the deal to return the oil block to Malabu oil and that anybody with proof that he did should come forward with it

- Obasanjo said Dan Etete deserved to be punished for trying to enrich himself from the country's coffers which is an abominable act

Obasanjo says he never assented to any deal in the Malabu oil scandal

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has denied that he played any role in the infamous Malabu oil scandal rocking past Nigerian government administrations.

READ ALSO: Child trafficking: Niger court sentences exiled politician to 1 year in prison

Obasanjo made the denial in an interview with Premium Times on Monday, March 13 and warned ex-attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice Mohammed Adoke to leave him out of the unfolding scandal.

Adoke and others should not drag me into a matter I know nothing about.

If they have been asked to answer questions over decisions they took while in office, they should do that honourably.

They should not bring Obasanjo into an Etete deal. I was not part of any such deal.

Obasanjo said it was wrong for any government functionary to appropriate to himself or herself what he or she is in charge of.

If I hold that view, I could not have approved a deal with Dan Etete. What Etete did is the height of corruption. He appropriated the asset to himself illegally, illegitimately and immorally, Obasanjo said.

He added: I cant remember giving approval that the block be given back to Etete.

Obasanjo challenged anyone to produce proof that he took part in returning the oil field to Malabu.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest news on Legit.ng News App

He said: We gave it back to Malabu? On what ground? Do you have any such evidence?

Ask Bayo Ojo and Edmund Daukoru what really happened because the stand I took at the time was unassailable.

If Daukoru has evidence that I approved that the block be given back to Malabu or Etete, let him produce it.

If it is proven that I indeed approved the deal, I would be willing to apologise to Nigerians. But we have to get to the bottom of it all.

Legit.ng recalls that Adoke petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation Abubakar Malami and implored the nations number one law enforcement official to call the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to order.

Adoke said the anti-graft agency allegedly singled him out for persecution when other former high-level government officials, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, took some of the critical decisions that culminated in the controversial $1.1 billion Malabu transactions.

Source: Legit.ng
The Nigerian Senate has read the letter of President Muhammadu Buhari signifying his resumption of office after spending about 50 days in the UK on vacation.

The letter was read by Senate President Bukola Saraki on the floor of the upper house of legislation during plenary on Tuesday, March 14.

A copy of the letter presented to Speaker of the House of Representatives

The President cited Section 145 of the Nigerian constitution to inform the Senate of his resumption of office from March 13, 2017.

READ ALSO: President Buhari spends 3 hours in office on first day of resumption

He sent a similar letter to Yakubu Dogara, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (pictured above).

Recall that President Buhari, on Monday, March 13, resumed work at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest news on Legit.ng News App

He returned to work a few minutes after 10 am immediately the car of his Aide-de-Camp Lawal Abubakar was seen parked at its official designated location at the forecourt by the Council Chamber.

On his part, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday, also confirmed that he had handed over to the president.

Speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with the president, Osinbajo said he has formally handed over power to Buhari.

The vice president noted that his meeting with the president which lasted for over one hour was focused on economy, budget, North-East, and many other national issues.

Source: Legit.ng
- President Muhammadu Buhari resumed back to work on Monday, March 13 after a long medical vacation in London

- International finance newspaper, Financial Times seem unhappy about the president's return

- They expressed doubt about his ability to govern effectively because of his ill-health

Financial Times has weighed in on President Buhari's return to work, expressing doubts about the 74-year old leader's ability to govern effectively because of his ill-health.

President Buhari disembarking from the plane on his return to Nigeria on March 10

Although FT admitted that President Buhari is honest and humble, traits in short supply in the self-enriching world of Nigerian politics, the newspaper however added that the Buharis presidency so far has been a triumph of reality over spin.

That has been brutally underlined in the past two months as the Nigerian president has languished in London receiving treatment for a mystery illness.

While in London, Buhari received senior government officials

READ ALSO: 7 notable things President Buhari said as he arrived Nigeria

After seven weeks and one day out of action, Buhari stepped gingerly down the steps of his aircraft and back on to Nigerian soil on Friday, March 10.

He had the good humour to joke that he had arrived that day so he could continue to rest over the weekend before restarting his presidential duties on Monday.

Yet such are the complexities of Nigerian politics  not to mention the seeming, if undisclosed, gravity of Buharis condition  that it is not clear how much governing he will be able to do.

Only hours before he arrived back from his lengthy absence, the electoral commission fired the starting gun on the next election by announcing the date of the 2019 presidential poll, already less than two years away.

There are still doubts about Buhari's fitness to lead Africa's most populated nation

After a ponderous period in office and with the as-yet-unacknowledged reality that Buhari is unlikely to run for a second term, the danger is that the next weeks and months will be consumed by political intrigue rather than the business of running the country. And Nigeria is in desperate need of being run.

It faces its worst economic crisis in 25 years as weak oil prices expose the reality of politicians utter dependence on oil revenue  both to govern and to line their own pockets.

Buhari has struggled to make sense of the economy, partly because his ideas were formed in a different era when the enemy was the International Monetary Fund and partly because he lacks coherent proposals. The irony is that the presidents extended London sojourn has revealed what can be done.

In his absence, the self-effacing vice-president, Yemi Osinbajo, has injected real energy into policymaking. During his time in charge, some progress was made towards a coherent foreign exchange policy, without which nothing much else can get started.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo held sway in Buhari's absence

READ ALSO: Nigerians must emulate President Buhari's honesty and openess - Aide

Under him, too, the government issued a promising  if necessarily wish-list-heavy  economic recovery document. Osinbajo has held lengthy cabinet meetings, something to which Buhari has displayed scant interest, as well as showing his face around the country, including in the troubled Delta region.

Source: Legit.ng
Kejriwal has written to Chief Secretary asking to direct the state Election Commission to use paper ballots instead of the EVMs in the upcoming MCD election.

By India Today Web Desk: Days after Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati raised questions over Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) following her party's dismal show in Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has appealed the Election Commission to use the ballot paper system in soon to be held civic election.

Kejriwal has written to Chief Secretary asking to direct the state Election Commission to use paper ballots instead of the EVMs in the MCD election.

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CONGRESS ADVISES KEJRIWAL TO GO FOR BALLOT SYSTEM

Kejriwal's letter comes shortly after the Congress advised the Delhi CM not to use EVMs in MCD election. "Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results, I want Arvind Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot papers," Congress leader Ajay Maken had said on Monday.

Elections for the three municipal corporations in Delhi are due in April.

ELECTION COMMISSION RUBBISHES MAYAWATI'S CLAIMS

The Election Commission (EC) had earlier refuted the allegations of tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), as levelled by BSP supremo Mayawati.

The EC said that the EVMs could not be tampered with and that candidates are allowed to randomly check the machines before the actual voting.

"The machine is both mechanically and electronically protected to prevent any tampering/manipulation. The programme used in these machines is burnt into a one time programmable chip so that it cannot be altered or tampered with," the EC said in its reply to Mayawati.

"These machines are not networked either by wire or by wireless to any other machine or system. Therefore, there is no possibility of its data corruption," it added.

Mayawati had alleged that the EVMs used in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections had been tampered with in a way that every vote goes to the BJP.

In a letter to the EC, Mayawati asked the poll panel to hold the results of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkahand assembly elections and do re-polling using paper ballots.

Even former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that if a political party is levelling such serious allegations, the EC should look into it.

(With inputs from IANS)

WATCH: In a 5-page reply, EC rubbishes Mayawati's 'EVM tampering' charge ALSO READ:

EVMs: Mayawati has a point, many countries have banned them since they can rig elections

EVM machines were manipulated, claims BSP supremo Mayawati daring Modi, Shah for re-elections

--- ENDS ---
- The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials accused of corruption in Rivers state have been charged to court

- They were accused of collecting the sum of N350 million naira from Rivers state governor, Nyesome Wike

- The twenty-three officials are facing charges of money laundering and bribery

The INEC officials accused of corruption in Rivers state appeared in court on Tuesday, March 14.

Some of the indicted INEC officials entering the court

The 23 officials of the electoral body are facing charges of money laundering and bribery before the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Some of the INEC officials leaving the vehicle that brought them to court

They were alleged to have collected, converted, and concealed he sum of N350m bribe in violations of various provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011 and the Economic and Financial Crimes (Establishment, etc) Act, 2004 between December 10 and 26.

READ ALSO: INEC announces date for 2019 presidential election

One of the officials shields his face from Legit.ng camera lens

The officials served as returning officers in various local governments in the controversial legislative re-run elections in Rivers state late last year.

INEC officials accused of corruption arraigned in court

They were brought to the court by a white bus, accompanied armed policemen and members of the investigative panel set up by the Inspector General of Police to investigate the matter.

INEC officials accused of corruption arraigned in court

READ ALSO: APC ready for 2019 general elections - Bolaji Abdullahi

Meanwhile, the Rivers state government has since denied that Governor Nyesom Wike spent N100 million to bribe the officials.

Dr Austin Tam-George, the commissioner for information and communication, in a statement described allegations of the police as shameful, defamatory and reckless.

Source: Legit.ng
- Benue is one of the states in Nigeria that have been mostly affected by attacks allegedly caused by Fulani herdsmen

- The state governor, Samuel Otorm, has now taken a strict action with an ultimatum to the herdsmen to vacate a community

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state has reportedly given Fulani herdsmen in Tombo-Mbalagh, Buruku local government area, a two-day ultimatum to leave the area.

The ultimatum followed a fresh clash between the herdsmen and inhabitants that resulted in the killing of eight persons.

Governor Otorm says he has ordered the police to evacuate the herdsmen from the community

The governor's order came just when 30 bodies of inhabitants of a community in the state were recovered from a river.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ortom gave the order on Monday, March 13 in Tombo-Mbalagh during a visit to ascertain the damage inflicted on the community by herdsmen.

READ ALSO: Herdsmen and farmers clash in Abia, one feared dead

The report said apart from those who were killed, three persons were declared missing as revealed by the sole administrator for the council area, Justina Sorkaa.

In his version of the incident, the commissioner of police in the state, Bashir Makama, however said six persons died in the attack.

Mr. Ortom said he had directed security agencies as a matter of urgency to lead herdsmen out of the area for peace to reign adding that the cattle rearers must leave since they were not welcomed by the unarmed inhabitants of the area.

Ortom pleaded with the people of the state to remain law-abiding by reporting any breach of peace by the herdsmen to the appropriate authority.

READ ALSO: Audu Maikori collapses for the second time

Mrs Sorkaa explained thus: Some of the displaced persons have moved in with their relations in Buruku town and those who do not have anywhere to go are with us in an improvised IDP camp here at St Peters Anglican Primary School, Imenger."

Source: Legit.ng
The Election Commission rejected calls from AAP, Congress to use ballot paper system for the civic election and said Electronic Voting Machines will be used on all polling stations.

EVMs will be used during MCD election, the Election Commission said. (File Photo: PTI)

By India Today Web Desk: Voting for the three municipal corporations in Delhi or MCD will take place on April 22 and results will be announced on April 25. Nominations for the civic election will begin from March 27, the Election Commission announced today.

More importantly, the Election Commission also rejected calls from various parties to use ballot paper system during the civic election, saying Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) would be used in all poll booths.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had written to Chief Secretary asking to direct the state Election Commission to use paper ballots instead of the EVMs in the MCD election.

His letter came days after Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati raised questions over EVMs following her party's dismal show in Uttar PradeshAssembly election.

The Congress had also advised the Delhi CM not to use EVMs in MCD election. "Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results, I want Arvind Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot papers," Congress leader Ajay Maken had said on Monday.

ELECTION COMMISSION REJECTS MAYAWATI'S CLAIMS

The Election Commission (EC) had refuted the allegations of tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), as levelled by BSP supremo Mayawati.

The EC said that the EVMs could not be tampered with and that candidates are allowed to randomly check the machines before the actual voting.

"The machine is both mechanically and electronically protected to prevent any tampering/manipulation. The programme used in these machines is burnt into a one time programmable chip so that it cannot be altered or tampered with," the EC said in its reply to Mayawati.

"These machines are not networked either by wire or by wireless to any other machine or system. Therefore, there is no possibility of its data corruption," it added.

Mayawati had alleged that the EVMs used in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections had been tampered with in a way that every vote goes to the BJP.

In a letter to the EC, Mayawati asked the poll panel to hold the results of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkahand assembly elections and do re-polling using paper ballots.

Even former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that if a political party is levelling such serious allegations, the EC should look into it.

(With inputs from IANS)

WATCH: MCD election: Parties raise concern over EVMs

ALSO READ:

For MCD election in Delhi, use ballot paper, not EVMs: CM Arvind Kejriwal to Election Commission

EVM machines were manipulated, claims BSP supremo Mayawati daring Modi, Shah for re-elections

EVMs: Mayawati has a point, many countries have banned them since they can rig elections

--- ENDS ---

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Former aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode has lamented the recent killings across Nigeria which were reportedly carried out by Fulani herdsmen.

The former media director of the Goodluck Jonathan campaign organisation from 2014 to 2015 said that for Nigeria to remain one is becoming very hard.

Fani-Kayode is concerned about the growing attacks of Fulani herdsmen

In series of tweets on Tuesday, March 14, Fani-Kayode condemned the killings and wondered how long the murders by people suspected to be Fulani herdsmen would continue.

Fani-Kayode decried the killings and said they are unacceptable even for the sake of Nigerias unity.

READ ALSO: Boko Haram releases new video, executes alleged government spies

In yet another reference to his support for pro-Biafra agitators who are seeking breakaway of eastern Nigeria from the federation, Fani-Kayode fired indirect shots at the government and the Nigerian Army chief Tukure Buratai.

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He tweeted:

Fani-Kayode recently came under fire for attacking Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai over his comments about defending Nigeria's territory from the secessionists group in South East demanding for the state of Biafra.

Source: Legit.ng
Senate president, Bukola Saraki has spoken on his perception the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari, shortly after emerging from a meeting with the president.

President Buhari, Senate president Bukola Saraki and speaker Yakubu Dogara in state house on 14th March, 2017.

Saraki said Buhari is doing very well, noting that the meeting he and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, had with the president lasted for 40 minutes, Premium Times reports.

READ ALSO: What we discussed with Buhari  Saraki, Dogara

He said: I was not talking to myself.? He is doing very well, we discussed issues of national interest.

On his part, Dogara said they were not at the villa to assess the presidents health.

He said the journalists who are always there surely knew the president was doing well.

On the relationship between the executive and legislature, Mr. Dogara said it was not in the place of the legislature to fight the executive.

We fight on issues but mostly issues of national interest. We fight on behalf of the people for the purpose of progress.

READ ALSO: Breaking: EFCC boss Ibrahim Magu to appear before Senate again tomorrow

There is one government and no division. If he fails, we all fail, so it is in realisation of this that we always extend the needed support to ensure that he succeeds, so that the government will be rated as a success, he said.

In other news, the Nigerian Senate has rejected a letter by the comptroller-general of customs, Col Hameed Ali requesting to be excused from the Senate's invitation on Wednesday, March 15.

Hameed Ali had informed the Senate that he would not appear before the lawmakers on Wednesday as the date coincided with the routine management of the NCS.

The Customs boss requested that the upper chamber of the National Assembly fix another date for his appearance.

But the senate dismissed the letter and told Hameed he must appear tomorrow, March 15, in uniform.

The Senate was also angry that the letter was written and signed by a deputy comptroller-general, a situation the Senate considered to have undermined their resolution.

Source: Legit.ng
- The three suspects and a company were arraigned in a court in Lagos for allegedly engaging in an oil scam

- The suspects have been remanded after they were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned the trio of Emmanuel Onubogu, Onyeka Godday and Mamudu Musa alongside their company, Zirconafrik Limited, before Justice OA Taiwo of the Lagos High Court sitting in Igbosere area of the state.

The three suspects and their companies

They were arraigned on a two-count charge bordering on conspiracy and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of $10, 000.

READ ALSO: EFCC to commence prosecution of 22 former governors

It was learnt that they allegedly approached the complainant, Adewale Olaiya, requesting the sum of $10, 000 as 'authentication fee' for one million barrels of crude oil purportedly allocated to them by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

However, the defendants allegedly became elusive after receiving the money from the complainant.

That you, Emmanuel Onubogu, Onyeka Godday, Mamudu Musa and Zirconafrik Limited sometime in November, 2013 within Lagos in the Lagos judicial division, with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of USD10, 000.00 from Mr Adewale Olaiya through Zirconafrik Limiteds Guarantee Trust Bank account number: 0023950101 under the false pretence that the money represented the authentication fee for one million barrels of crude oil onboard MT Patroclus allocated to you for sale by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which pretence you knew was false," one of the charges read.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges while the counsel to the EFCC, MS Usman, asked the court for a trial date and urged that the defendants be remanded in prison custody.

However, counsels to the defendants, pleaded with the court to grant their clients bail, an application the prosecuting counsel did not oppose.

READ ALSO: Breaking: EFCC boss Ibrahim Magu to appear before Senate again tomorrow

Consequently, Justice Taiwo adjourned to March 22, 2017 for hearing on bail applications and ordered the defendants to be remanded in the EFCC custody.

Source: Legit.ng
The mysterious death of an 18-year-old student shook Kerala on March 6. A week since Mishel Shaji's dead body was recovered, people in Kerala demand justice for Mishel's family who believes their daughter cannot commit suicide. Here is all you need to know about the case.

By India Today Web Desk: December 16, 2012 was a wake up call for Indians.

The brutal rape and murder of a Delhi woman sent shock waves across the country and the nation saw an uprising from the common man, a first of its kind in many years. Gang rapes continued to happen in Delhi and in every other state, but ever since the Nirbhaya case, there are millions who have made a choice to not stay silent. The steady rise in women speaking up about facing sexual harassment and campaigns organised by normal people, people who make a living working very hard, both on social networking platforms and on the ground, are proof.

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Mishel Shaji Varghese was just an 18-year-old girl. She went missing on March 5, and was last spotted at St Antony's Church in Ernakulam's Kaloor in Kerala that day. The next day, her body was found drowned in Kochi's Willington Island. Preliminary investigation by the Kerala police suggested Mishel committed suicide, but her family believes their strong daughter wouldn't resort to killing herself.

The case that initially did not garner enough attention soon became the most spoken about issue after people on social media campaigned to ensure justice to Mishel's family. Malayalam actor Nivin Pauly became one of the first influential people to call for a thorough investigation through a Facebook post. Other actors followed suit. A week since her death, Mishel Shaji case has now taken the state by storm.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF MISHEL SHAJI VARGHESE

Mishel Shaji Varghese, 18, was a chartered accountancy student. Originally from Ernakulam's Piravom, she was living in a hostel in Kacheripady. On March 5, Mishel left her hostel and was last spotted alive at St Antony's Church in Kaloor. CCTV footage confirmed this. Her family filed a man missing case at the Central Police Station after learning Mishel has not returned to her hostel. Next day morning, Mishel's dead body was found drowned in Willington Island in Kochi. The post-mortem report said she died due to drowning and reports say there were no suspicious wounds on the body. The preliminary investigation by Kochi police suggested Mishel committed suicide, but her family believes their daughter is too strong to do that. Family's stand led to people on social media calling for further investigation. #JusticeForMishel hit the Kerala internet and even movie stars demanded a clearer picture. An online petition has been filed on Change.org seeking thorough probe on the case. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan ordered an investigation by a special Crime Branch team and assured perpetrators will be severely punished. Cronin Alexander Baby, Mishel's distant relative, was arrested by the police yesterday night and has been booked for abetment of suicide. Cronin and Mishel are believed to have been in a relationship for the past two years. Police got a statement from a friend of Mishel who claims to have seen Cronin hitting Mishel. Investigating officers believe the couple were going through a rough patch and that Mishel was to take a final call on their relationship the day she was found dead. A Malayala Manorama report says Cronin sent 57 messages to Mishel on March 4 and 32 messages the day she went missing. He called Mishel four times on March 4 and six times on March 5.

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CELEBRITIES SEEK JUSTICE FOR MISHEL

The Malayalam cinema fraternity had come out in full force against those who were accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a leading south Indian actress, and were then blamed by people for not taking a stance when common people encounter such horrific incidents. Putting an end to double-standard foul cries, young star Nivin Pauly was the first actor to seek justice for Mishel's family through a Facebook post. Saying "our small voices might help and make a world of difference", Niving asked the authorities to "wake up".

Actor Tovino Thomas shared a post seeking justice for Mishel saying, "let's join our hands to make this world a better place to live."

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Actor Unni Mukundan made a Facebook post saying "names of the victims keep changing, but crimes keep happening".

KERALA CM ORDERS CRIME BRANCH PROBE

CM Pinarayi Vijayan informed the public that a special investigation team from the Crime Branch will prove Mishel Shaji case and assured that the perpetrators, if any, will be punished by law. He also specified that there will be an investigation into the inefficiency of Kerala Police after a man missing case was filed for Mishel and said there will be strict action against the department if this is proved.

ALSO READ | JNU scholar's death: Here's everything you need to know

ALSO WATCH | Bengaluru: Unknown attackers murder BJP leader Kithaganahalli Vasu

--- ENDS ---
- The Senate slams the federal ministry of trade and Industry for not knowing the quality and quantity of crude oil and gas export on daily basis

- The lawmakers describe as shameful, the manner of fraud in the industry even as a monolithic economy to have allowed expatriates to rip off Nigerias economy

The Senate committee on trade and Industry is to investigate quantity of oil and gas produced daily in Nigeria.

The Senate has moved to carry out a holistic investigation to know the quantity of oil and gas produced daily in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: President Buhari is doing well - Saraki

The Senate on Tuesday, March 13, slammed the federal ministry of trade and Industry for not knowing the quality and quantity of crude oil and gas export on daily basis.

The Senate wondered why the processes that was exclusively the responsibility of the federal ministry of trade and industry was left in the hands of expatriates, Daily Post reports.

Senator Fatima Raji-Rasaki (PDP), commenting on the issue said: I observe that the designation, Procurement, measurement, and calibration of equipment are being handled by expatriates and the equipment used for the measurement are not manufactured I Nigeria."

The lawmaker insisted that expatriates were responsible for huge loss of revenues in the oil and gas industry as a result of sharp practices as they would not disclose actual weighs and measures.

READ ALSO: What we discussed with Buhari  Saraki, Dogara

Similarly, Senator Hope Uzodinma described as shameful, the manner of fraud in the industry even as a monolithic economy to have allowed expatriates to rip off Nigerias economy.

He advocated that government could procure measurement equipment from anywhere in the world to carry out its activities.

In his remark, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu sustained the prayers that committee on trade and Industry should investigate and revert in two weeks time to the Senate.

Source: Legit.ng
Stephanie Otobo has finally petitioned the Nigerian police against Apostle Suleman based on the alleged pregnancy she had for him.

The development is a new twist in the scandal between the apostle and his alleged lover, Stephanie Otobo.

Recall that Otobo, who goes by the stage name, Kimora has enlisted Nigerian top law chamber, Festus Keyamo chambers to help in her lawsuit against the Suleman and this has degenerated into another faceoff on its own.

Several disturbing allegations have emerged since the news broke out.

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Part of Otobo's petition reads: "Sir, my name is Miss Stephanie Otobo, and I wish to bring a formal complaint to you against one Apostle Johnson Suleman as follows:

"That sometime in June 2015, Apostle Suleman Johnson and I started an amorous relationship in far away Canada. The relationship was nurtured by Apostle Suleman who inundated me with cash gifts and pleasure trips all over Europe.

"In particular, I was invited by Apostle Suleman to join him for his crusade that was held in 2015 at Napoli, Italy, the full expenses for the trip was paid for by the gentleman. While in Napoli, Apostle Suleman would preach and do miracle in the day time and take the much needed rest in my bosom at night.

"Napoli was our love nest for three (3) good days and after the crusade Apostle Suleman left Napoli and I also returned to Canada.

"Shortly after the Napoli experience, I discovered that I was pregnant for Apostle Suleman. I called my lover to inform him of the pregnancy but Apostle Suleman was not particularly excited about the news rather he requested that I should come to Nigeria.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Nigeria's inflation rate finally falls for the first time in 15 months

"Based on Apostle Sulemans instruction I left Canada for Nigeria to meet Apostle Suleman. It is important to note that despite the amorous relationship, I saw Apostle Suleman like a father figure who takes care of me and to whom I was extremely obedient to.

"I arrived Nigeria on the 25th of August, 2015 and clandestine arrangement was made for the two (2) of us to meet and consequently, I met Apostle Suleman at Definite Destiny Hotel, beside Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos State. It was at the hotel that I was given a concoction to drink by Apostle Suleman who told me that the concoction was for my spiritual fortification. But in less than ten (10) minutes after drinking the concoction, I started vomiting blood and passing out blood. Apostle Suleman then gave me pills to stop the blood though the blood did not stop immediately but the pain subsided and the pregnancy was gone," the petition read.

Here is the full petition.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng in the video below asked Nigerians if they believe women can become Nigerian president. Here is their answers.

Watch video

Source: Legit.ng
- Nigeria will soon begin exportation of gas to Morocco

- Other countries along the sub-Saharan region region may also benefit from this new deal

- Nigeria also has an agricultural deal with Morocco

Nigeria is expected to begin the exportation of gas to Morocco and other countries along the sub-Saharan region.

The nation reports that the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fertiliser Initiative, Muhammed Abubakar, disclosed this on Tuesday, March 14 when the president of Fertiliser Producer and Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN), Mr Thomas Etuh, paid him a courtesy visit during the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative tour in Dutse.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: EFCC intercepts cash at Kaduna airport

Abubakar who is also the governor of Jigawa explained that the plan will include signing an agreement with other nations who may need the natural resource along the Sub-Sahara region to the final destination country.

He said: The Sahara gas pipeline is a project we are planning to transport gas from here down to Morocco, then passing through so many countries and opening up use of gas in those countries across sub-Sahara.

He was asked if this would affect the initial agreement on the supply of phosphate from Morocco but responded that it was a different deal entirely.

The supply of phosphate for fertiliser blending is a different agreement and the trans-Sahara pipeline is another project.

The governor said it was unnecessary to push for any law even though he acknowledged that legislations for agriculture were good.

It is always good if there is the need for legislation. But this is purely a business venture. I dont believe it requires a legislation. We will do whatever agreement expected of us according to the Nigerian law and the government of Morocco will do theirs. The countries that our pipelines will pass across, we will also use our gas and agree with us according to their rule.

I dont believe there is any special legislation for us to sell our product,

READ ALSO: Ex-NNPC GMD Andrew Yakubu reveals how he got seized N3bn

Etuh applauded the committee but lamented the fertiliser firms downgrading the quality of the locally-processed fertiliser for their own gain.

He said: Today, farmers are getting fertiliser at N5,500. The war has not stopped. You will hear complaints that the quality of fertiliser is not good. They wanted it bad for their own interest. Meanwhile, farmers are not complaining,

Source: Legit.ng
Women who are considering trying to become pregnant with semen from sperm banks in the Miami-Dade County area of Florida should consider the possibility that sperm collected as far back as mid-June might be infected with the Zika virus, federal health officials said Monday.

The officials said the new warning was driven by caution, not by any evidence of infected semen from sperm banks or of babies with Zika-linked brain damage who were conceived with donated sperm.

The officials said a recent analysis of Zika cases in Florida found some cases in which Health Department investigators could not determine the exact place infection occurred. And since Zika has been found to persist in semen for up to six months, there is a small potential risk of Zika virus transmission associated with exposure to semen from male residents in the Florida tri-county area of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward Counties since June 15, 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

At a news briefing, Dr. Peter W. Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administrations Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said, When semen is donated, it can be stored frozen for significant periods of time, and that doesnt necessarily inactivate the Zika virus.
The Uttar Pradesh election results showed that the 2014 general elections were not an "aberration". Same is the case with Punjab, Adam Ziegfeld, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University said.

By Press Trust of India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a clear favourite for the 2019 general elections after the BJP's landslide victory in Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, top US experts on India have said.

While one of the expert noted that the electoral results of the just concluded Assembly polls in five states show that the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were not an aberration, another noted that Modi would continue to lead India after 2019.

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The Assembly elections do not signal much of a change. The Uttar Pradesh election results showed that the 2014 general elections were not an "aberration". Same is the case with Punjab, Adam Ziegfeld, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University said.

BIG WIN FOR BJP

"It was a big win for the BJP. Its candidate won with much larger margin of victory than compared to the two previous winners, BSP and Samajwadi Party," he said.

Modi has been established by this election as the "clear and favourite winner" for the 2019 elections, Sadanand Dhume, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said. "Modi is the front runner (for 2019)," he said.

Irfan Nooruddin, a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at the Georgetown University predicted that in 2019, the BJP is unlikely to be get a simple majority and Modi would rather be heading a coalition government.

BJP is running a disciplines election campaign state-by-state, while the Opposition fails, he said.

The party does not do good in a state where it faces a direct opposition. BJP is beatable if the Opposition comes together, Nooruddin said, adding that the party gains where it faces a fragmented opposition and in 2019, anti-incumbency would kick in.

CASTE CARD

In this election, the BJP played the cast card while pretending to be above it, Dhume who was in Uttar Pradesh during the elections, said.

"Demonetisation is extremely popular. Indian people who have suffered themselves in the wake of the policy, it won their heart and mind. Here is this man of sincerity who struck a principled blow to corrupt and the rich," he said referring to his conversation with people in the state.

Dhume, however, noted that Modi after this historic victory in Uttar Pradesh is unlikely to go for the kind of economic reforms the private sector would like to have. India is going to bump up its economic reforms that directly effects the people of the country, said Alyssa Ayres, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Picking up four governments in states all across India, and having future prospects, it is unlikely to have an impact on foreign policy. Like demonetisation #IamNewIndia is the pledge that the Prime Minister is asking citizens to be part of his new India campaign.

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BJP will now pick up a lot of seats in Rajya Sabha which would help the ruling party to carry out its long pending reform like the land acquisition reform and labour reforms. They would tart picking up seats is early as 2018. BJP is looking at 2019 and beyond. ALSO READ | After UP victory, PM Modi vows to transform India by 2022

Modi wave sweeps the state as BJP storms to power with more than three-fourths majority

--- ENDS ---
The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.

The Regents also moved forward with a proposal that would allow some students who failed another test, aimed at evaluating practical skills like lesson planning and assessment, to be certified as teachers based on their grades and professors recommendations.

Together, the steps signal how much the Regents approach has changed under the current chancellor, Betty A. Rosa, after several years of efforts to raise the bar for entering the profession.

Under the previous chancellor, Merryl H. Tisch, the state created a set of more rigorous licensing exams. Among them was the Academic Literacy Skills Test, or ALST, which was intended to assess reading and analytical writing skills, and the edTPA, which requires candidates to submit a portfolio of work, including unedited videos of them interacting with students.
And for what? To give a gigantic tax cut to wealthy Americans.

According to the C.B.O. the loss of health care coverage under the Republican plan stems largely from gutting Medicaid for low-income Americans, even though Mr. Trump has said he would not cut Medicaid. Coverage would also be lost in part because insurance would become unaffordable for millions as subsidies are withdrawn, despite Mr. Trumps claim that coverage would become much less expensive and much better.

Older people would be hard hit. The Republican plan repeals the penalty for not buying insurance. One predictable result of this change is that premiums will rise as younger, healthier people refuse to buy insurance. To hold down the cost of average premiums, the proposal would allow insurers to charge five times more for older enrollees than younger ones, rather than three times, as permitted under Obamacare. The outcome would be reduced premiums for young adults, essentially paid for by charging substantially higher premiums for older people  and higher deductibles and other cost-sharing for everyone.
FRONT PAGE

Because of an editing error, an article on Feb. 18 about a European Union plan to train Libyan Coast Guard members to intercept and rescue migrant boats near the Libyan coast referred incorrectly to a professor emeritus at the Institute for International Affairs in Italy. The professor, Natalino Ronzitti, is a man.

INTERNATIONAL

An article last Tuesday about two positive campaign developments for Francois Fillon, a center-right candidate for president of France who is battling allegations of corruption, misstated the location of Bordeaux, whose mayor, Alain Juppe, decided not to challenge Mr. Fillon. Bordeaux is in southwestern France, not southeastern.



An article on Feb. 25 about the VX nerve agent, the chemical weapon that the Malaysian authorities say was used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Koreas leader, referred incorrectly to the mechanism by which atropine functions as an antidote to VX. The drug counteracts VXs effects on a particular neurotransmitter; it does not prevent VX from blocking an enzyme that allows glands and muscles to relax.



An article on Feb. 17 about Rex W. Tillersons first trip abroad as secretary of state misstated the year that President Barack Obama traveled to China. It was 2014, not 2013.
Most government shutdowns occur not because of specific funding issues but because of emotions around them, said Stan Collender, who has worked for Democrats on the House and Senate budget committees. A border wall, he said, is one of the issues that has the potential for creating those kinds of emotions.

After promising repeatedly during the presidential campaign that Mexico would pay for the construction of a border wall, Mr. Trump has remained vague since taking office about the actual mechanics of funding it through the budget. A border wall could cost $25 billion to construct, some experts say.

Mr. Trump still insists that Mexico will pay for it eventually, but Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, suggested in an interview last week that he would make a supplemental request to get construction started in 2017 and ask for more funding in 2018 and 2019. Despite Mr. Trumps other promises to make the wall big and beautiful, the details remained rough.

It just depends on the kind of wall that you want to build, and I dont think weve settled yet on the actual construction, Mr. Mulvaney said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. So its a complicated program. I dont know what the answer is on the cost, but we will have one shortly. Mr. Mulvaney orchestrated a government shutdown in 2013 as a Republican member of Congress.
WASHINGTON  President Trump blamed the news media on Monday morning for making Obamacare look so good as he spoke at a listening session with nine people he characterized as victims of the health care law.

Mr. Trump repeated his declaration that Obamacare is a disaster  a sentiment echoed more specifically by White House and cabinet officials in the past few days.

While it is undeniable that the law has not been universally beneficial, many of the criticisms from Mr. Trump and his team are cherry-picked or misleading.

Mr. Trump pointed to high premium increases.

You represent the millions of American who have seen their Obamacare premiums increase by double digits and even triple digits.

This needs context. In 2017, premiums for the benchmark plan increased by 22 percent on average across the states that use the federal marketplace or have their own exchanges, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Some places had higher increases (116 percent in Arizona, the only state with a triple-digit increase) and some lower (9 percent in Wyoming).
WASHINGTON  Long before Donald J. Trump took aim at immigrants, there was Representative Steve King of Iowa.

Since Mr. Kings election to the House in 2002, and before that in the State Legislature, where he first tried out his English-only trademark talking point, Mr. King, a Republican, has injected himself into the immigration debate with inflammatory and at times boorish statements.

Against the backdrop of an emboldened white nationalist movement in the United States, his Twitter post over the weekend  We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies  suggested that Mr. King was sliding from his typical messages to something far darker. It was praised by both the white supremacist David Duke and The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.

But it was also quickly criticized by many Republicans, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan, whose office said he clearly disagrees with Mr. King, and Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida, who is of Cuban descent. Mr. Curbelo responded on Twitter: What exactly do you mean? Do I qualify as somebody elses baby?
But Rhode Island reached a milestone in January when unemployment fell to 4.7 percent  the first time it had dipped below the national average in almost 12 years. At the same time, private-sector employment has reached its highest ever.

Ms. Raimondos critics say her use of tax incentives  about $130 million so far, according to the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation  amounts to corporate welfare for some of the nations richest companies. Former Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican turned independent turned Democrat, said last month that these giveaways had turned the state into a candy store.

Ms. Raimondo has defended her use of the incentives, saying that other states offer them and that to stop would be to unilaterally disarm. She says they are handled in a fiscally responsible way and are only part of her economic strategy, which also includes abolishing the energy sales tax on businesses, putting computers in schools and investing in work force development, including for people who do not have college degrees. She has also proposed allowing residents to attend two years of public college free.

Moreover, she says, Rhode Island, long eclipsed by the economic powerhouses of Boston and New York, has a lot more to offer than tax incentives. She boasts of its easy access to Boston and New York, as well as to the ocean, while offering a lower cost of living, more affordable real estate and an emerging pool of young talent.

Indeed, after Boston won the sweepstakes last year for General Electrics headquarters (Boston and the state of Massachusetts gave G.E. $145 million in incentives), the company acknowledged that Rhode Island had been a strong competitor. Six months later, it announced that it was putting its GE Digital division in Providence.
At first glance, the documents the retiree had spread out on a table in Tucson looked as if they could have been keepsakes from just about anyones career: a company magazine, a timeline, letters of commendation and congratulation.

But Armin Walser had one item, elegantly printed and secure in a handsome folder, that was particularly uncommon: a certificate citing the work that led to his discovery of midazolam, a drug that became one of the most popular sedatives in the world.

Midazolam is not new; Dr. Walser helped invent it in the 1970s. But after the State of Arkansas announced plans to execute eight prisoners over 10 days in April, it became a subject of fresh reporting that led to a front-page article on March 14. Although Arkansas says little about executions, officials in Little Rock were candid about the rationale behind the scheduling: The states supply of midazolam, one of the drugs that it needs to carry out the executions, will expire at the end of April.

After Arkansass announcement of an execution schedule that death penalty researchers said was without equal in the modern history of capital punishment in the United States, a brainstorming session among reporters who cover the South for The Times led to an idea for an article that would focus on the drug as a central character. The idea held immediate appeal for reporters in Atlanta and editors in New York: An article would require a new line of investigation about how a common drug was again going to be used for lethal injections. It was an idea that would reach beyond the story in Arkansas, into states where executions have been botched.
The United Nations investigator of human rights violations in North Korea inserted himself on Monday into the mystery over the assassination of the North Korean leaders half brother, calling for an independent inquiry and possible protection of other persons from targeted killings.

The remarks by the investigator, Tomas Ojea Quintana, at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, essentially expanded the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged older sibling of Kim Jong-un, into a human rights issue.

Mr. Quintanas remarks also intensified the international pressure on North Korea, which has been accused by South Korea and the United States of orchestrating the assassination a month ago at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. The Malaysian authorities have made clear that they believe that North Koreas government may have been involved.

North Korea has denied responsibility, has described the assassination as a smear plot by Malaysia and North Koreas enemies and has not even acknowledged the identity of the victim.
LONDON  New battle lines were drawn over Britains future on Monday, when the government secured unrestricted authority to negotiate withdrawal from the European Union while confronting the possibility that in doing so, it may bring about an independent Scotland.

In a day of Ping-Pong, as the back and forth between the House of Commons and the House of Lords is known, Prime Minister Theresa May finally won her parliamentary battle to start talks on Britains exit from the European Union, unhindered by any legislative constraints.

But the votes in Parliament came hours after the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, raised the stakes by demanding a new referendum on Scottish independence. While acknowledging that the Scots had rejected independence in a referendum just three years ago, she said the country found itself at a hugely important crossroads because of the withdrawal, known as Brexit.

After Monday nights votes, David Davis, the cabinet minister responsible for negotiating Brexit, said Parliament had supported the government in its determination to get on with the job of leaving the E.U. and negotiating a positive new partnership with its remaining member states.
Here's a poser: if you have to design a museum about Mughal architecture, how far should you try and reflect the subject itself in the style of the building? Sprinkle on a few onion domes and sandstone jaalis? Or go to the opposite extreme and seal it all in a glass and concrete box?

The question is by no means hypothetical, as just such a project is now under construction in Agra, less than two kilometres from the Taj Mahal-a location that adds some weight to the question. One of the two principal architects involved-Alexander Schwarz, who runs the Berlin office of the international company David Chipperfield Architects-is quite clear: "I think it should definitely not be visually Mughal," he says. That answer is unsurprising coming from him, in the light of an earlier museum project of his, which includes modernist additions to the mid-19th century neoclassical Neues Museum in Berlin.

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Any attempt at a pastiche of the Taj or Fatehpur Sikri would be unwise if not absurd, though historical approaches have worked in the past. The late 19th-century Albert Hall in Jaipur was conceived as a museum to the industrial arts of its own time, and Rajasthani architecture is successfully reflected in the building's fabric. But that was dealing with a living tradition, not a past historic style. The approach adopted by Schwarz and co-architect Sourabh Gupta-head of Studio Archohm in Noida-has been to look at Mughal architecture, to abstract its chief qualities and embody them in a modern idiom.

This has been a theme among architects globally for some decades now. But one may ask: how do you identify the chief qualities of a past style? How do you re-interpret them? How do you convey this to an audience if not 'visually'? How are they supposed to get it if they can't see it?

"Our approach is not that of an art historian," they insist. "One doesn't have the stress of historic truth." Well, good for you, chaps, that you relieve yourselves of the burden of learning, but what takes its place? They studied Mughal architecture "in an intense 10-day sequence", and came up with the perception that it is all about "light, proportion? the harmony of repetition". It certainly has these qualities. So does the architecture of the Bauhaus and Gothic cathedrals. They may feel that such comparisons prove Schwarz's claim that "Mughal architecture is international". But a museum about it should show us its unique qualities as well as its universal ones.

Perhaps that will be achieved by the museum's contents. But there is reason to doubt this, as it is not clear what those contents will be. The architects gamely admit that the design process was "particularly complicated" by the fact that the client-UP Tourism-does not have a collection of Mughal artifacts to house. The museum is intended as "a platform to educate people about the Mughal Empire through its architecture and art". But they don't actually have any, so "we are building up on the storytelling" rather than creating "a repository of inanimate historical fragments". A telling phrase, that, from the architects of a museum.

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Turning the lack of a collection into a virtue, they conceive the Mughal Museum as an "experience" and "a vibrant public space". The drawings also promise an airy and elegant space, enclosed by slender columns and an arresting contrast of concrete and marble surfaces. What all this does for Mughal architecture we shall see when it opens, next year.

Giles Tillotson's books include Taj Mahal

--- ENDS ---
BERLIN  The bicentennial of the birth of Karl Marx was supposed to bring his hometown, Trier, Germany, an important exhibition about his life and an increase in tourism.

But an offer from China to present the city with a nearly 20-foot-tall bronze statue of Marx, the 19th-century intellectual who was one of the writers of The Communist Manifesto, is overshadowing the festivities a year before they begin.

After months of discussion and more than an hour of lively debate, the City Council in Trier, in western Germany near the border with Luxembourg, decided on Monday to accept the gift from the Chinese government, by the sculptor Wu Weishan. However, the Council left open the thorny questions of how large it would be and where in the city it would stand.

Karl Marx is one of the most important citizens of this city, and we should not hide him, the mayor of Trier, Wolfram Leibe, told the public broadcaster SWR before the vote.
In 1951, The Cage shocked the world. Prickly and intense, this Jerome Robbins ballet concerns a female-dominated world where acts of violence are everyday occurrences. A Novice is born into an insect tribe, led by a Queen. Instinctively, the Novice knows what to do when a male intruder enters: She crushes his neck between her knees. She falls in love with a second intruder, but in the end, kills him, too. Her backup is a 12-strong corps de ballet whose killer instincts and hair  so teased that it stands on end  give the ballet a spooky, feral pulse.

Some nights, Robbins must have known, you just dont feel like watching another swan.

Set to Stravinskys Concerto in D for String Orchestra, The Cage remains a favorite of the dancers at New York City Ballet, for which Robbins created it. On March 19, the Bolshoi Ballet will perform it for the first time, but you dont have to go to Moscow to see it. That premiere performance, part of the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema broadcasts, will be screened in movie theaters worldwide. The program, A Contemporary Evening, also features another City Ballet creation, Alexei Ratmanskys glorious Russian Seasons.

Jean-Pierre Frohlich and Glenn Keenan, ballet masters from City Ballet, staged the Robbins ballet. This is the first time Mr. Frohlich, who worked closely with Robbins for many years, has mounted a work at the Bolshoi.
Inside the Frick Collection, known for its Vermeers and its regal Carrere & Hastingsdesigned mansion, is a vast photography archive.

Some 20,000 green boxes  each about the size of a large coffee table book  are neatly lined up, row after row, stacked high on shelving and packed with folders that are, in turn, filled with pictures of artworks. Immaculately typed pages of information about each work are tucked alongside the photographs. The room smells exactly as its supposed to: musty but clean, and reassuringly proper.

More than one million works  far beyond whats in the Fricks own collection  are documented in the archive, and although the public isnt allowed in the stacks, any of the contents can be requested and viewed in the wood-paneled Frick Art Reference Library.

Now the venerable museum is taking this antique, analog system and putting it into the internet cloud. Already in beta format, Pharos (pharosartresearch.org) is a collaborative effort among 14 art institutions, including the Frick, the National Gallery of Art and the Yale Center for British Art. Essentially, it is a mega-size, searchable scholarly database and web portal that will eventually hold 22 million images, 17 million of them artworks and the rest supplemental material.
But the family-owned company Dr. Oetker, which makes baking products and other foodstuffs, has identified four looted paintings in its possession out of about 200 so far researched in an effort that stretches back several years.

One of the works, The Portrait of Adriaen Moens, was painted in 1628 by Anthony van Dyck and hung for many years in a quiet corridor leading to the executive suite at Dr. Oetkers modest, red-brick headquarters in Bielefeld. It depicts Moens, an Antwerp theologian, in profile, with a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee and a voluminous black gown, resting his fingers lightly on the yellowing pages of a large, leather-bound book.

The company announced this year that it was returning the painting to Marei von Saher, the sole heir of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch dealer who fled the Nazis in 1940. The portrait was forcibly sold and passed through the hands of the Luftwaffe commander in chief Hermann Goering, the Dutch government and a London old masters dealer before being acquired in 1956 by Rudolf-August Oetker, then chief executive of Dr. Oetker.

Tracking down the original owner is part of a long process to confront a dark chapter of the company history that Mr. Oetkers children could only begin after his death in 2007. An untersturmfuhrer in the Waffen-SS, Mr. Oetker took over the firm in 1944 from his stepfather, a committed Nazi. After the war, he defended the companys record during the Third Reich and venerated his stepfathers achievements.

But Dr. Oetker had profited from its SS and Wehrmacht connections and had Aryanized Jewish property, as a comprehensive study by three historians revealed. After the study was published in 2013, it became clear a second step would require a scholarly approach to research the provenance of objects in the art collection, said Jorg Schillinger, a historian and spokesman for Dr. Oetker.
For the last three years, a consortium of six French companies has been developing the robot, which now looks more like an industrial vacuum cleaner topped by a screen and equipped with three computers, a camera and a microphone. A human guide always trails at its side to offer running commentary while visitors direct its path. Laser technology brings it to a halt when obstacles loom.

The eventual goal is to use mass production to bring down the price of the robots to about 2,000 euros, or around $2,100, from about 20,000 euros, or approximately $21,300, according to Didier Sansier, the manager of Another World, a French technology company and one of the partners in the French project. Its the future, but it doesnt replace the emotions of a visit, said Mr. Sansier, as he stalked a test robot by a trench to the piped music of French soldiers singing La Marseillaise.

Museums have been experimenting with robots since the 1990s, but it is only in the last five years that new companies have produced telepresence robots that can be exploited as guides or electronic showmen to attract visitors  especially during hours when the institutions are closed or underused.

Two years ago, the Tate Britain deployed four robots and four human guides for visitors to explore its galleries after dark, via computer, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., while its art was usually sleeping. The American Museum of Natural History has also used robots powered by distant tour guides: indigenous people from Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the north coast of British Columbia, for an exhibition involving their culture.

Last year, the Quai Branly, the museum of indigenous art in Paris, tried something even more sophisticated. With its exhibition Persona Strangely Human, it featured a robot critic  with a bowler hat, scarf and googly eyes  that was programmed to record visitor reactions to artworks through a camera in its right eye. Then it used the data to develop its own taste, which it expressed with colors  green for a positive impression, red for a negative view.
As visitors strolled through a recent display of Madame de Pompadours coffee grinder, an 1840s Sevres porcelain coffee set, tea canisters, sugar bowls and other European decorative arts at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the scent of roasted coffee beans arose in one room. Bachs Coffee Cantata played in the background.

Not far away, cocoa pods were not only on display but also meant to be touched. In the final gallery, a tasting station offered two kinds of liquid chocolate, one adapted from an Aztec recipe and the other from an 18th-century French formula.

Museums usually aim to offer a feast for the eyes, but this Detroit museum had much more in mind for Bitter|Sweet: Coffee, Tea & Chocolate, which just closed at the institute. Officials, who used art objects to illustrate how the introduction of those beverages to Europe in the 16th century from Africa, Asia and the Americas changed social and consumption patterns, wanted the exhibition to be a banquet for all five senses.
For decades, the fitness guru Richard Simmons was Hollywoods most accessible celebrity. He was a talk show fixture, a leader of weight loss cruises and an instructor of $12 classes at his Beverly Hills workout studio, Slimmons. He greeted tour buses in front of his mansion and called fans to support their weight loss attempts. Then, three years ago, he abruptly retreated from public life. Dan Taberski, an acquaintance of Mr. Simmons (and a Slimmons regular), wants to know why.

Enter the latest prestige podcast obsession, Missing Richard Simmons. Thanks to Mr. Taberskis blend of pop culture and pulp  think an aerobic Behind the Music but with a winking noir plot that proffers theories about Mr. Simmonss mysterious disappearance  the show is instantly engaging. But soon, the podcasts draw becomes disturbing. As Mr. Taberski digs deeper into Mr. Simmonss personal life, the question becomes not What happened to Richard Simmons? but Is it any of our business?

The podcast has been compared to Serial, the real-time murder investigation (and podcastings breakout hit). But while Serial dug into a serious crime and possible miscarriage of justice, Mr. Taberski instead relentlessly pesters Mr. Simmons and friends for personal details pertaining to his mental and physical health. Its not quite a public shaming; Mr. Taberski is careful to express respect for Mr. Simmons. Call it a public hounding.
Misha Mengelberg, a Dutch pianist and composer who approached the jazz tradition with an adventurous spirit and an antic sense of humor, died on March 3 in Amsterdam. He was 81.

His death was announced by the Instant Composers Pool, the Dutch experimental jazz collective that he helped found in 1967. No cause was given, but Mr. Mengelberg was known to have dementia and had not performed in public for several years.

American jazz fans know Mr. Mengelberg best as the pianist on the saxophonist, flutist and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphys album Last Date, recorded in concert shortly before Dolphys death in 1964. He was much better known in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands, where he was one of the leading figures in a thriving avant-garde jazz scene.

Mr. Mengelbergs dissonant harmonies and unorthodox phrasing were reminiscent of Thelonious Monk, an acknowledged influence. But he also drew inspiration from many other sources, including the composer John Cage and the interdisciplinary art movement known as Fluxus.
Books on the 1971 Attica prison uprising, the enslavement of Native Americans, and the health care system have won this years Bancroft Prize, considered one of the most prestigious honors in the field of American history.

Andres Resendez, a professor at the University of California, Davis, won for The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), which argues that it was mass slavery at the hands of Spanish conquistadors, rather than epidemics, that devastated the Native American population.

Heather Ann Thompson, a professor at the University of Michigan, won for Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (Pantheon), which drew on extensive documentation, including some that had never been seen before by scholars, to reconstruct the violent retaking of the prison and its decades-long legal aftermath.

Nancy Tomes, a professor at Stony Brook University, won for Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients Into Consumers (University of North Carolina Press), which examined the origins of the notion that patients should shop for health care.
Onora Sylvia ONeill, a British author, scholar and professor known for her research on political philosophy and ethics, has won Norways Holberg Prize, an annual award for outstanding research in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law or theology.

Ms. ONeill, an honorary professor of philosophy, emeritus, at the University of Cambridge, received the prize for her distinguished and influential role in the field of philosophy and for shedding light on pressing intellectual and ethical questions of our time, the Holberg board wrote in a statement. The prize comes with a financial award of 4.5 million Norwegian kroner (about $525,000).

In the announcement, the board described Ms. ONeills work on the pioneering philosopher Immanuel Kant as transformative, and highlighted her exploration of the relationship between the requirements of public reason and trust and accountability in everyday life. Ms. ONeill elaborated on this topic in a 2013 TED Talk, What We Dont Understand About Trust.

Not only has she transformed our understanding of Kant, she has also demonstrated how to do philosophy in a way that measures up to the complex moral demands of the world, said Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, chairman of the Holberg Academic Committee. Her philosophical work is rigorous, yet gracious in its articulation and profoundly moved by a deep and abiding concern for humanity.
The two parties will announce the decision formally in a press conference tomorrow noon.

By Ashraf Wani: The National Conference and the Congress have decided that the two parties will contest Parliament by-polls together through a seat sharing arrangement in the Kashmir valley.

While NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah will contest from Srinagar, Congress state president G A Mir will contest from Anantnag Lok Sabha seat, political sources said.

The two parties Tuesday held a meeting in which they decided to contest polls together on seat sharing arrangement.

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Sources said that senior leaders of NC including its general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar, former ministers Choudhary Muhammad Ramzan, Sakina Itoo, and provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani and senior leaders of Congress including JKPCC Chief G A Mir, former minister Taj Mohiddin, MLA Sopore Haji Abdul Rashid, MLA Devsar Amin Bhat held meeting today and decided to go for pre-poll alliance on seat sharing basis.

Confirming the development, JKPCC chief G A Mir said both the parties have decided to go for pre-poll alliance to defeat its opponents in the by-polls.

FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW

The two parties will announce the decision formally in a press conference tomorrow noon.

NC provisional president Nasir Aslam Wani also said that the two parties will contest elections together.

Meanwhile, PDP has decided that Tasaduq Mufti will contest from Anantnag and Nazir Khan will contest from Srinagar parliament seats.

PDP

PDP senior leader and PWD minister Naeem Akhtar said the party has decided to field Tasaduq Mufti from Anantnag and Nazir Khan from Srinagar for the parliament by-elections.

Akhtar said the government will provide security and peaceful atmosphere during the polls to the contesting candidates, campaigners and voters.

Meanwhile a notification was issued today for Srinagar Lok Sabha by-polls which are scheduled on 9th of April.

Also read:

Kashmir: Militants murdered former sarpanch to create fear among political workers, cops say

Kashmir separatist leaders detained to prevent sit-in

--- ENDS ---
Brown grew up 15 miles from this looming brick institution, which since 1983 has been known as the Central Virginia Training Center. Recalling how she would drive past it with her mother, she writes, in this volumes only autobiographical poem:

I am my own kind of damaged there,

looking out the right-hand window.

Spastic, palsied and off-balance,

Im taking crooked notes about this place.

Anyone who has followed her poems and essays in small magazines will know, though its stated nowhere in this book, that the author has cerebral palsy, a congenital disorder she has described in an essay as a little like a stroke that happens when you are born.

The crooked notes she began taking while young blossomed into a historical obsession. This book of poems is a feat of research worn lightly. Most of it is set in the mid-1930s, during the Depression, and the point of view moves among patients, caregivers, priests and harried others.

Image Molly McCully Brown Credit... Kristin Teston

Havent you heard the news?/There is no longer enough in the world, one caregiver declares about this era of want. She continues, while dreaming hungrily about the carrots and sardines she imagines floating down the river to her:

Sometimes, when were bringing

in a girl, I catch her face before we shut

the door and she looks almost lovely:

a useless barge lit up,

bearing away on the water.

In its formal design this book resembles a slender ghost version of James Agees text for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1940), his tangled epic about Alabama sharecroppers. Agee and the photographer Walker Evans made their trip to Alabama about the same time Browns book is set.

Browns table of contents has echoes of Agees. Where his book repeats sections titled On the Porch, she gathers her poems under headings like In the Field (Winter 1935-1936) and In the Infirmary (Summer 1936). Where Agees text included a section titled Intermission: Conversation in the Lobby, Browns book includes a cluster of poems presented as an Interlude.
Dormehl starts with the 1964 Worlds Fair  held only miles from where I lived as a high school student in Queens  evoking the anticipation of a nation working on sending a man to the moon. He identifies the early examples of artificial intelligence that captured my own excitement at the time, like IBMs demonstrations of automated handwriting recognition and language translation. He writes as if he had been there.

Image

Dormehl describes the early bifurcation of the field into the Symbolic and Connectionist schools, and he captures key points that many historians miss, such as the uncanny confidence of Frank Rosenblatt, the Cornell professor who pioneered the first popular neural network (he called them perceptrons). I visited Rosenblatt in 1962 when I was 14, and he was indeed making fantastic claims for this technology, saying it would eventually perform a very wide range of tasks at human levels, including speech recognition, translation and even language comprehension. As Dormehl recounts, these claims were ridiculed at the time, and indeed the machine Rosenblatt showed me in 1962 couldnt perform any of these things. In 1969, funding for the neural net field was obliterated for about two decades when Marvin Minsky and his M.I.T. colleague Seymour Papert published the book Perceptrons, which proved a theorem that perceptrons could not distinguish a connected figure (in which all parts are connected to each other) from a disconnected figure, something a human can do easily.

What Rosenblatt told me in 1962 was that the key to the perceptron achieving human levels of intelligence in many areas of learning was to stack the perceptrons in layers, with the output of one layer forming the input to the next. As it turns out, the Minsky-Papert perceptron theorem applies only to single-layer perceptrons. As Dormehl recounts, Rosenblatt died in 1971 without having had the chance to respond to Minsky and Paperts book. It would be decades before multi-layer neural nets proved Rosenblatts prescience. Minsky was my mentor for 54 years until his death a year ago, and in recent years he lamented the success of his book and had become respectful of the recent gains in neural net technology. As Rosenblatt had predicted, neural nets were indeed providing near human-level (and in some cases superhuman levels) of performance on a wide range of intelligent tasks, from translating languages to driving cars to playing Go.

Dormehl examines the pending social and economic impact of artificial intelligence, for example on employment. He recounts the positive history of automation. In 1900, about 40 percent of American workers were employed on farms and over 20 percent in factories. By 2015, these figures had fallen to 2 percent on farms and 8.7 percent in factories. Yet for every job that was eliminated, we invented several new ones, with the work force growing from 24 million people (31 percent of the population in 1900) to 142 million (44 percent of the population in 2015). The average job today pays 11 times as much per hour in constant dollars as it did a century ago. Many economists are saying that while this may all be true, the future will be different because of the unprecedented acceleration of progress. Although expressing some cautions, Dormehl shares my optimism that we will be able to deploy artificial intelligence in the role of brain extenders to keep ahead of this economic curve. As he writes, Barring some catastrophic risk, A.I. will represent an overall net positive for humanity when it comes to employment.
1. Snow, sleet and ice slammed the eastern United States, but New York City escaped the worst of the powerful late-winter storm.

Most of the city got four to six inches of snow, as much of it gave way to sleet.

Far more snow fell north and west of the city, with more than two feet expected in some places. Follow snowfall totals around the region with our live map.
LONDON  A senior Bank of England official who had been named a deputy governor at the central bank has resigned after a Parliament committee found that her failure to disclose a potential conflict of interest showed she lacked the competence to take on a new role overseeing banks and financial markets.

The official, Charlotte Hogg, offered her resignation on Monday and it was accepted on Tuesday morning, the central bank said.

Ms. Hogg, whose family has deep roots in British politics, had been named the banks deputy governor for markets and banking. But she faced opposition after admitting she did not disclose that her brother held a senior position at Barclays during her time at the central bank, despite her having a role in drafting a code of conduct policy that required a disclosure of such conflicts.

Her resignation is the latest controversy to face Bank of England as some politicians have questioned whether it had become politicized under the banks governor, Mark J. Carney, in the run-up to Britains referendum last June on whether to leave the European Union.
The general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said last week that everyone should be concerned with culture in financial services. This has been a theme raised by banking regulators the world over.

Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, has said that we expect the firms we oversee to follow the law and to operate in an ethical manner. Too often in recent years, bankers at large institutions have not done so, sometimes brazenly.

Dutch bankers must now swear an oath to, among other things, not misuse their banking knowledge and to put the interests of customers first. The oath concludes with a so help me God.

The Group of 7 leading industrial nations has also weighed in to favor ethical codes for bankers.

It is a strange regulatory tool. The Environmental Protection Agency does not spend a lot of time worrying about the ethics of oil refiners or power utilities. It just regulates their emissions. Nor are the countrys workplace safety rules structured around requirements for employers or co-workers to act ethically.
TOKYO  Toshiba of Japan had big dreams for global expansion when it bought the American nuclear company Westinghouse 11 years ago. To make them come true, it seemed willing to pay almost any price.

At $5.4 billion  double initial estimates  the amount Toshiba paid to take control of Westinghouse took many aback. Japanese companies were known for splurging on foreign deals, then coming to regret it. Toshiba was put on the defensive from the start.

I want to make this an example of a successful foreign acquisition, said Toshibas president, Atsutoshi Nishida, who was all too aware of corporate Japans shaky deal record. He insisted Toshiba had paid the correct price.

Mr. Nishida is long gone now, Japanese officials are openly discussing bankruptcy for Westinghouse, and Toshiba is fighting for its future. Botched foreign deals are a big reason.
As a result, it has been criticized as creating an unaccountable fourth branch of government. And it has become the target of conservatives intent on reducing the power of regulators. The House even has a pending bill intended to get rid of Chevron deference.

The doctrine is now in the spotlight because one of its most prominent critics is none other than Judge Gorsuch.

His view is very different from that of the conservative giant he would replace on the bench, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year. Justice Scalia loved Chevron deference, arguing that in the long run Chevron will endure because it accurately reflects the reality of government, and thus more adequately serves its needs. Judges, in his view, are just not as capable as administrators in interpreting laws that the regulators themselves put into effect and know on a daily basis.

Judge Gorsuch, however, came out swinging against the doctrine in an opinion last year on the grounds that it gave too much power to federal agencies.

Whatever the agency may be doing under Chevron, the problem remains that courts are not fulfilling their duty to interpret the law and declare invalid agency actions inconsistent with those interpretations in the cases and controversies that come before them, Judge Gorsuch argued.

The odd thing about this is that the Chevron doctrine was a creation of conservative government.

In the case where the doctrine emerged, the National Resources Defense Council had challenged an Environmental Protection Agency rule during the Reagan administration, which had reversed a rule under the Carter administration that required all new plants at a single site to get a new permit under the Clean Air Act even if the plant did not increase overall emissions. The Reagan administration decision was made by no other than Judge Gorsuchs mother, Anne M. Gorsuch, who then headed the E.P.A.

The argument relied on the agencys interpretation of a statute. A deputy solicitor general at the time, Paul Bator, argued that the court should defer to the administration, which favored a lighter regulatory touch. And the unanimous opinion by John Paul Stevens agreed  deregulation was off to the races.
That group held on to the company through the economic downturn. In 2013, the group sold it to Ares Management L.P., another private equity firm, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in a $6 billion leveraged buyout that saddled the company with debt.

By that time, Neiman Marcus had largely stopped expanding into new markets and was focused on developing its e-commerce business.

But the deal did not do enough to help the company stave off threats from online and low-cost competition. Neiman Marcus abandoned its plans to go public in January, a month before the ratings agency Standard & Poors downgraded it to a CCC+.

Troubles across the industry have forced department stores, including Neiman, to re-evaluate their relationships with their lower-priced affiliates. Not long ago, for example, department stores banished their outlets miles away from their full-priced locations. Now, those same chains rely much more heavily on their discounted cousins, and it is not uncommon to find them within striking distance of each other.

Neiman Marcus operates 42 stores in the United States, and two Bergdorf Goodman stores in Manhattan, according to its website. There is one Last Call, Neiman Marcuss cheaper option, in Brooklyn.

The move to lower-cost stores, and lower prices over all through promotions, has eaten into department stores bottom lines. E-commerce has been a particular focus of Richard A. Baker, the chief executive of Hudsons Bay, in recent years. In addition to investing about $1 billion into renovating Hudsons Bay stores, Mr. Baker has infused money into expanding the companys online business. In November, the company opened a highly automated warehouse for shipping online orders at a cost of 60 million Canadian dollars, about $45 million.

Mr. Baker has had success with the Bay, as it is commonly known in Canada. But the company has been weighed down by a parallel project, which has made the chain a holding company for its assets in the United States, Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, as well as European holdings that include Galeria Kaufhof.
AUSTIN, Tex.  How much brisket are you having?

Thats the first question the man with the knife behind the counter will ask when you reach the front of the line at Franklin Barbecue. He wont stab you if you dont have an answer ready, but I might.

By that point, you or another person who is either being paid by you or who just likes you very much will have been waiting outside for two hours or more  sometimes a lot more. The line starts earlier and grows faster on weekends and during South by Southwest, the festival of music, film and technology that metastasizes here each March and runs, this year, through Sunday.

Nobody reaches the front of the line accidentally. If you havent managed to work out how much brisket to buy when you get there, you are beyond my help.

I wont blame you, though, if you double your order after the man with the knife cuts off a little block of meat and hands it to you. Look at it, the way it shades from nut-brown at the inside to cherry-jam around the border to black at the crust, stained by carbon and stubbled with coarse pepper. Smell it while the steam is still carrying the smell of burning post oak. Taste it, the way it combines the fat-bathed richness of fresh beef with the tight focus of meat cured by salt and smoke. Still want just half a pound?
Many readers wrote in with comments, mostly positive, about our Committed series, which explored 165 years of articles on love and marriage in The New York Times. A few of these comments prompted us to try, with differing degrees of success, to tie up two loose ends.

165-Year-Old (or Older) Portraits

Several clothing historians expressed concerns about the first article in our series, which told of the wedding announcement of Sarah Mullett and John Grant that was published on Sept. 18, 1851, in the The New-York Daily Times. Accompanying the article were photos of two oil portraits, presumably of the newlyweds, that now hang on a wall of the home of Wendy Grant Haskell, the Grants great-great-granddaughter.

The historians said the clothing worn in the portraits indicated a painting date of about 20 years before the Grant wedding. That would mean that the portraits were not of Sarah and John, but more likely of earlier Grant ancestors.

Of particular note is the womans low neckline, puffed sleeves, cap and hairstyle, Kathryn Squitieri wrote. The mans high neckline and very tight cravat are also consistent with fashion in the late 1820s to early 1830s.
By Press Trust of India: seats: BJP

Srinagar, Mar 14 (PTI) The BJP ? alliance partner in the PDP-led government in Jammu and Kashmir ? today ruled out a pre-poll alliance with its coalition partner for elections to two Lok Sabha constituencies in the Valley, saying the party would contest the polls independently.

"Asking the workers to gear up for scheduled by-elections for two Lok Sabha seats of Anantnag and Srinagar, BJP State General Secretary (Organisation), Ashok Kaul, today made it clear to the workers that the party will field its candidates to fight on the two seats," a statement from the party said here.

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Addressing a workers convention at Dooru in south Kashmirs Anantnag district, Kaul said "there will be no pre-poll alliance with PDP in these two seats".

"The party has decided to contest the elections independently by fielding its party candidates. Keeping in view the upcoming by-election in these two important Lok Sabha seats, a high-level meeting was held and party leaders have geared up for discussing probable candidates to contest the by-elections on party ticket," he said.

The BJP leader said a high-level committee would very soon announce the candidates for the two seats.

"There is no proposal to go for seat adjustment with the coalition party ? PDP," he said.

Kaul said the BJP has a "huge party cadre" in central Kashmir and in south Kashmir as well, "so we have decided to contest these elections independently as party, rather than entering into pre-poll alliance with PDP".

He asked the party workers to have faith on party leadership in the state for the better functioning of the party.

While Srinagar constituency will go to polls on April 9, polling in Anantnag seat will be held on April 12.

Anantnag Lok Sabha seat fell vacant in June last after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti won the Assembly bypolls, as required by law to continue as the Chief Minister.

The Srinagar Lok Sabha seat was vacated by former PDP leader Tariq Hamid Karra who had resigned last year in September in protest against alleged "brutalities" on Kashmir protesters. PTI SSB MIJ IKA

--- ENDS ---
From TEDx: I tend to believe that whatever you decide to look for, you will find.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the childrens book author who died on Monday at age 51 spent much of her too-short life bringing the lovely things around us to the attention of her fellow humans, young and old. You might have read her heartbreaking ode to her husband in a recent Modern Love column. In this TEDx talk, from 2010, she speaks about seeing the magic in the world and leaving behind some of our own.  Lori Moore, senior staff editor

_____

The Marked Woman
Its one of the many curiosities of this presidency that the commander in chief whose administration has little connection to Lawfare has also given the blog its biggest moment in the sun. In February, Trump tweeted LAWFARE and quoted a line Wittes wrote criticizing the Court of Appeals ruling that blocked the administrations Jan. 27 refugee-and-travel ban. The president was probably reacting to the MSNBC program Morning Joe, which aired the same quote on-screen just before the presidents tweet. Trump presumably didnt realize that in that piece and an earlier one, Wittes shredded the January ban as the product of incompetent malevolence and supported the courts decision over all. You decide whether the POTUS is quoting me in context, Wittes tweeted back, linking to his post on the court ruling.

Lawfare has already generated more traffic in 2017 (about 3.5 million page views) than it did in all of 2016. In January, Ira Glass invited Wittes on This American Life to talk about the January refugee-and-travel ban. Two days ago, Id never heard of you, and now youre my new best friend, Glass wrote to Wittes. Theres something very unlikely about liberals embracing Lawfare: Before Trump, the blogs closeness to the national-security community made it somewhat disreputable to the left, Wittes told me, half-kiddingly. Lawfare observes rules that most publications dont, including a pledge never to publish classified information. Contributors generally tend to be hawkish and more sympathetic to the executive, and more accepting of the seriousness of the counterterrorism threat and the need for tools like targeting and surveillance, than a lot of writers in the national-security space, Goldsmith says.

Lawfare writers criticized aspects of Obamas policy on drone killings but also explained and defended the surrounding legal arguments. Reproving Edward Snowden for exposing the broad spying powers of the National Security Agency, Wittes called him a civil liberties violator. Before that, in 2012, the journalist and lawyer who published many of the Snowden revelations, Glenn Greenwald, derided Lawfare and Wittes in The Guardian for expressing a courtier Beltway mentality devoted to serving, venerating and justifying the acts of those in power. Inside Lawfare, the insult was converted into an ironic self-description: Handmaiden of Power. As a joke gift, a former Lawfare editor gave Wittes a Handmaiden of Power plaque, which now hangs on his office wall next to a framed copy of Trumps tweet. We realized it was a pretty great visual depiction of the changing times, Lawfares managing editor, Susan Hennessey, emailed me.

In the Trump era, Lawfare has found itself in the unfamiliar position of airing an outpouring of fury at the government. The blog covered with alacrity the leaks that led to the resignation of Mike Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, along with criticizing them. In a couple of widely circulated posts, Goldsmith flayed the administration (in particular the White House counsel, Don McGahn) for what he called the Flynn imbroglio. The blog was the first to publish the (nonclassified) dissent memo, objecting to the Jan. 27 refugee-and-travel ban, which was signed by a thousand State Department employees. Consider this a major bureaucratic uprising on the part of career foreign service officers against the president, Wittes wrote with Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic, an associate editor.
Can carefully constructed lies heal the emotional wounds of war? That unsettling question goes to the heart of Frantz, Francois Ozons sleek, somber adaptation of Ernst Lubitschs 1932 antiwar film, Broken Lullaby, set in Germany and France in the aftermath of World War I.

I wont reveal the lie that propels the story except to say that its a whopper: a big one invented to comfort the aggrieved at a moment when the Great War seemed to have undermined the sanity of a world thrown into chaos by mass slaughter.

For an antiwar film, Frantz is low-key. It doesnt rub your face in gore or stir your adrenaline; there are no battle scenes, and only fleeting images of ruined cities and wounded soldiers; and a mood of bitterness, despair and exhaustion prevails. The movie even goes out of its way to evoke the cultural similarity of two warring nations, geographical neighbors, who appreciated the same music and art. Parallel scenes show Germans and Frenchmen bellowing patriotic anthems even after the Armistice.

The title character (Anton von Lucke), seen in flashback, is a handsome German in his 20s who died in the trenches and is memorialized throughout the movie. You feel the anguish of his parents, Hans and Magda Hoffmeister, a doctor and his wife in Quedlinburg, Germany, and his depressed fiancee, Anna (Paula Beer), who lives with them. Another mourner, unknown to them, is his French friend Adrien (Pierre Niney). A willowy mustached French soldier with doe eyes and a timid manner who traveled from Paris to Germany, this mysterious stranger is first spotted by Anna while laying flowers at Frantzs grave.
LONDON  Daniel Kaluuya, the star of the satirical horror movie Get Out, this week countered Samuel L. Jacksons comments that he would have preferred to see a black American actor in the movies lead role.

Get Out stars Mr. Kaluuya, who is black and British, as a young African-American man who visits his girlfriends family and quickly discovers that their antipathy toward black people extends beyond subtle jabs.

I love all my black brothers and sisters worldwide, and thats my position, Mr. Kaluuya told the BBC in an interview, which was partially published online on Tuesday. Ive lost out on a lot of roles because Im black, he added.

In an interview with GQ that was published online on Monday, Mr. Kaluuya praised Mr. Jackson  he has done a lot so that we can do what we can do  but found fault with his critique.
Mr. Ancaranis calm, fixed gaze serves as its own commentary, whether its trained on dozens of S.U.V.s massing in the desert or on men lovingly tending to their falcons. In one scene, men sit in tents next to enormous monitors showing a falconry contest in which falcons chase down other birds while they in turn are chased by still other men. Throughout, women are notable by their absence. Despite all the feathery swooping and gunning motors, the flashing gold and pounding sun, these immaculately framed, balanced and photographed images have a tableaulike quality, characterized by a stillness (perhaps cultural or situational) that suggests a memento mori. (M. D.)

WHITE SUN Set in the wake of the Nepal civil war, White Sun turns on a series of fraught, at times violent oppositions that emerge after the death of a village paterfamilias. Its a seemingly ordinary event that sets off a series of minor and major dramas, as well as a touch of comedy, and which speaks to the nations lingering schism. At center is the increasingly angry confrontation between the dead mans sons: one, a former Maoist soldier who returns home for the funeral; the other, a political opposite who stayed behind. Each has his reasons, his grudges, his wounds, as well as a shared messy romantic history. Even as the director, Deepak Rauniyar, turns opposition into a structuring principle, he creates a satisfyingly holistic work. (M. D.)

THE SUMMER IS GONE A memory movie about once upon a time in Inner Mongolia, The Summer Is Gone takes place sometime after Tiananmen Square and before the advent of smartphones. It pivots on a 12-year-old boy, Xiaolei, who drifts through the languid summer days and nights, but its emotional focus are the adults who whisper and fret about larger changes. In one scene, Xiaolei visits his filmmaker father at his work and stares rapt at a film strip as a voice on a loudspeaker announces: Lifelong jobs will no longer exist. What youll earn depends on your ability. The future is near. The director, Dalei Zhang, dedicated the movie to the generation that birthed ours, and while he wraps it in nostalgia, most overtly through the black-and-white cinematography and lush music, theres real sting here. (M. D.)
A winter snowstorm can be serene. It can be lovely. It can be invigorating. And it can be an unexpected respite from the daily hustle.

Tuesdays storm was none of those things. It was a big sloppy mess of sleet and snow, marked by fierce winds and falling temperatures that threatened to turn wet roads and sidewalks into slick sheets of ice.

At least that was the case in the major coastal cities of the Northeast, where fears of a record-setting blizzard dissolved into a slushy mix of rain, snow and sleet.

New York City and the region did not come to a halt under a blanket of snow. Instead, they skidded through the day in a muck of ice and slush.
Everyone had prepared for the worst on Tuesday: another Snowmageddon of heavy snow and heavier winds, because of a mid-March blizzard predicted to stretch from West Virginia into the upper reaches of Maine, leaving the East Coast battered, like a fortress under siege.

And then, a bit of unexpected relief, comic relief, even, after a rather ordinary snowstorm came and left much of the East Coast mostly undamaged, but not unaffected, as government officials shut down schools, mass transit, and, in some areas, just about all forms of unnecessary movement.

That, however, did not deter those who found delight in an impromptu day off.

There were the indoor folks, who chose to cocoon in place, immersing themselves in cooking projects and movies on the couch, a lazy afternoon spent near crackling fireplaces, long reads and short naps at hand. Intentionally or not, they took the advice of the New York City Mayors office, which noted it was a good day for nesting.
As snow blanketed New York City on Tuesday, more than a third of the citys subway stops suddenly disappeared from the map.

For only the second time, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shut down the subways aboveground stations for a snowstorm. Underground routes, protected from the snow, kept running.

For a city largely dependent on the subway, there were two New Yorks on Tuesday: one where people could get around with relative ease, and another where residents had to either stay put or find another way to trek to work. The partial shutdown left huge slices of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn without subway service, especially working-class neighborhoods farther from Manhattan.

While many who live in the no-subway zone decided to stay home, others had to report to work. They bundled up and waited endlessly at bus stations, used Uber or walked through the wintry mess.
When Stephanie Jorge reported to a federal jail in Brooklyn last year to begin a three-month sentence for bank larceny, she brightly announced that she was pregnant.

The correctional officers showed little interest. Later, on the occasions she began to hemorrhage, the officers would typically refuse to call an ambulance until they could summon three officers to take her to the hospital  apparently the required number to guard an inmate, even one pregnant and bleeding. That often took an hour or two, Ms. Jorge recalled.

At the hospital, doctors recommended bed rest and that she avoid exertion, a common directive for women with high-risk pregnancies. But Ms. Jorge said that was ignored the moment she was discharged back to the Metropolitan Detention Center, as Brooklyns federal jail is called.

Back inside, Ms. Jorge said she was made to strip, squat, and cough. A guard watched to see if contraband fell from her vagina. The bleeding worsened, she said.
Many Americans have been marveling at the bald racism of Steve King, Republican member of Congress from Iowas Fourth District, who said this over the weekend on Twitter:

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies.

He was praising Geert Wilders, a far-right Dutch politician who wants to close his country to Muslims, whom he calls scum. What Mr. King said about civilization and babies was a little cryptic. On Monday, on CNN, he elaborated:

Theres an American culture, American civilization. Its raised within these children in these American homes. Thats one of the reasons why we require that the president of the United States be raised with an American experience. Weve also aborted nearly 60 million babies in this country since 1973.

Theres been this effort were going to have to replace that void with somebody elses babies. Thats the push to bring in much illegal immigration into America, living in enclaves, refusing to assimilate into the American culture and civilization.

Earth to Mr. King: Illegal immigration is not an abortion-linked repopulation scheme. Immigrants in America do assimilate. They have for centuries, and the latest newcomers will do the same, given the chance, as will their children and grandchildren. And if by American culture and civilization you mean a Christian, English-only whitopia, then a lot of Americans will object to your framing. Some might even wonder whether your hostility to American values reflects your own failure to assimilate. But thats America for you.
By Press Trust of India: Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 14 (PTI) Noisy scenes were today witnessed in the Kerala Assembly over the Tanur violence with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan blaming it on the "politics of intolerance" and Congress-led UDF staging a walkout over the matter.

As the House erupted into uproar when opposition MLAs rushed to the well of the house and raised slogans against the chair, irked by certain remarks made by the Tanur MLA, the Chief Minister said there should be a lakshman Rekha.

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Replying to the notice for an adjournment motion on the violence, moved by N Shamsudeen (IUML), Vijayan said 31 persons have been arrested so far in connection with the violence between CPI(M)-IUML workers in Tanur in Malappuram district on Sunday last and cases had been registered against 2000 odd persons.

He said the area had been witnessing violence since the 2016 assembly polls as an LDF supported independent candidate, V AbduRahiman, had won from Tanur.

"The Tanur violence is the result of politics of intolerance of some people", he said.

"Houses and vehicles of both groups have been burnt and destroyed. At least 12 police personnel have been injured, one of them seriously, in stone throwing. About 200 police personnel are camping in the area and a special control room has been opened," the Chief Minister said.

Shamsudeen said houses and fishing equipment of several fishermen in the area had been destroyed and women and children had to move out of the area.

"The incidents were worse than what was happening in Kashmir", he said.

He alleged that ruling CPI(M) workers hurled petrol bombs at a IUML workers house, which was completely destroyed and alleged that even pregnant women and students had not been spared by police.

AbduRahiman levelled some charges against IUML, which provoked UDF members to rush to the well of the house.They raised slogans, demanding an apology.

On a plea from the Opposition leader in the house, Ramesh Chennithala, Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan expunged the remarks of AbduRahman and said they should have been avoided.

Vijayan attacked the opposition, saying they had challenged the chair, which was a new trend.

"We all have heard the slogans raised in front of the Speaker. Can MLAs insult the Speaker? There is need for a Lakshman Rekha for everything," he said.

Reacting to this, Chennithala said the house had witnessed unruly scenes on March 13 last year when CPI(M) led opposition had overturned the Speakers chair andvandalised his podium.

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There should be a "give respect and take respect policy", he said before staging a walkout after permission was not granted for a discussion on the matter. PTI UD LGK APR DV

--- ENDS ---
Theres no such thing as completely normal. I mean, theres some people with holidaysiac. That would mean somebody who is addicted to holidays, birthdays, death dates, and other anniversaries. Impersonitis. Somebody who is addicted to different voice impersonations and they cannot find their home voice and some people may be stuck with it. I mean, theres some people with disabilities who want to try to be normal and to fit in. But being a person with Aspergers, they may have some very clever ideas that may become unheard of in the normal world. Well, in terms of growing up I preferred to mostly play on my own. When I was at kindergarten I preferred to be rocking on the rocking horse. And the teachers were trying to encourage me to interact with the other children. The horse then was taken away. But I preferred, even without the horse to, sort of, play or do things on my own. Autism affects my life in several ways. I have to, sort of, know on a repetitious level, like, how to do things accordingly. Change is very difficult in a routine. Its hard to interact with people, even though Id like to get to know people better. I try to listen very hard and try to become interested and gradually be friends. Sometimes it does work, but sometimes I know the subject matters are sort of limited with normal individuals. Ive had cases where I felt turned down, but silently. I sometimes feel disappointed and hurt, then I retreat and go back into my own indifferent world. I may daydream and sometimes wish of certain fantasies, things I sort of make up as a way to try to hide from reality. Something to make me happy and to absorb into my head, such as, music and the arts. I tell you, Im not the Rain Man. Try scatting with me. [scatting] Boy, Jordan. Thats really great how you play the piano. Thank you very much. Yeah youve worked very hard playing the piano. Thank you. Am I a lousy girlfriend? Not at all. Dont put yourself down. Youre the best, Jordan. You, too. You are. It is very special to really have Toni around. And at times I could not have gotten by, I know, without Toni. Its  I mean, shes sort of brought in the reality and, like, into to me. Jordan? She does bring structure into my life. I mean, cooperativeness is a very important point that I learned from her in dealing with relationships in order to make it work. Jordan, can you come here? I love you. Love you, too. O.K. Jordan? Yeah? I love you. I love you, too. Jordan? I know. I love you. I know. I know. Jordan, will you come here? Yeah? I love you. Now look, I know your game. Come on. Jordan? I heard. Come on. Lets go. I love you. Love you. O.K. O.K. Toni has Tourettes Syndrome, which involves twitches and she does take medications for them. She has also a learning disability. I learned to, of course, accept this thing and to accept who she herself is. I got sent to my room and I lost my TV too, so I couldnt watch Little House on the Prairie. So its right, you really were a brat, I see that. Then the cat sleep with me for two days. Yeah, he remained awake for those two days, I guess. I try to do fine things that will get me with Toni, I mean, relief for both of us. And for me, as an example, the pet shelter is a place that does give Toni, and for me, our relief. Mommys here. Oh, yes. How about a little kiss. Here, Boppy. Oh, heres Rachelle. Shes a nice cat. She likes attention. Come here, Rachelle. Aw. I notice when I pet another cat she gets jealous. Well we all need to know that. Very few get along in their breeds. Oh, yeah. Kissy, kiss. Kiss her. On the lips. Reality is an existence and it is not fictional. Maybe your father or mother could have become one of those cats. No, not that I know of. My mom was into birds and my dad   What it is is format. Every time, Jordan, when I see   Its hard to stay in reality. I think of her watching over us. Sometimes, like, you make plans but, again, these promises and plans always go into chaos. Its like  I think according, like, to Nietzsche, that life you think has one circle, but no, there are added circles added to extra added circles, which create chaos. And then you sort of  looks like youre drowning. Oh, yeah. I see. It could have been reincarnated [inaudible]. Cream cheese, or this cheese? Because youre a cheesy person. Im afraid so. Sometimes you have to tread on water like that and then come back to reality. And to face it instead of hiding from the present. You cant go back to the past or do the things that you enjoyed much. You just have to keep going forward, always forward. See what I mean? Were already gonna go over. Wow. Over $80. O.K., thats it? So in order to make  to put the things back, this is what  some of the things we may have to do without. Sorry. No, its O.K. Its O.K. This goes back. This goes back. The potatoes have to go back. Let me see. And the  yeah but you can do without  maybe one of the [inaudible], maybe one of them. No, Im keeping both. Sorry, the peanut butter has to go. No, no, no. The peanut butter, we would still pay that  make it my choice. But then well make the fettuccine  we have other pastas. We have other pastas. Thats fine, one, we could take one out. Take one out? Thats fine. Because we have no choice. Yes. And then that will leave us with? That we can afford. Here, Kate. Well, theres change. Where did everybody go? I bet they left. O.K. O.K., I see, so its only in one bag. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. With these type of disorders, I mean, and with that understanding of what she has, it has brought us close together. We learned, just like on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, not to run away from our troubles, which can have a bad effect on the relationship. I dont mind eating this at 5:00 in the morning. Neither do I. Well everybody does have something  everybodys not completely normal, I mean, in their ways of life. Disabilities are secondary, but we are people first. You dont say a disabled person, you say, a person with a disability. Theyre swimming   Theres one. Oh, and theres some over there, too. Just like the song Imagine. Its, like, They say Im a dreamer, but Im not the only one. I hope someday youll join us, and the world will be and live as one. Which is kind of, anyway, my hope for the future for everybody so that people with disabilities can be treated equal just like what we are. Isnt that nice when you hear the church bell ringing? Yes, the Big Ben sounds. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. It reminds me of you. Sure. I dig you. Sure. Self advocacy, you see it all happen, with self advocacy, cy, cy, cy, cy, self advocacy, self advocacy, self advocacy. Yeah, come on people from California theres a conference for you to attend. With speeches and workshops and keynote speakers, this is the meeting place youll never forget. Dreaming and achieving with self advocacy. In lower California. Self advocacy, [inaudible] with self advocacy. Self advocacy, self advocacy. Yeah. Now.
And so it begins. With the Dutch election on Wednesday, Europe embarks on a yearlong test of how far its ready to realign itself as an anti-immigrant, pro-Russian continent marked by ascendant nationalism, alt-Right intolerance and the fragmentation of the European Union.

The worst could happen. Nobody who has watched the British decision to quit the European Union in a strange little-England huff, or the election of Donald Trump with his America First anti-Muslim jingoism, can think otherwise. The liberal order has lost its center of gravity. People without memory are on the march. They have no time for the free world if the free world means mingling and migration.

In the Netherlands its the rightist Geert Wilders who personifies European unease with large-scale Muslim immigration. He understood early the uses of fear. He wants to close mosques and close borders to asylum seekers. Like Trump he marshals his movement through Twitter rather than traditional party organization. His tweets speak of an asylum tsunami and the Islamization of the Netherlands, where Muslims make up about 6 percent of the population but more than 15 percent in big cities like Rotterdam.

Wilders has been around for a long time. A dozen years ago, in a piece about his rise, I wrote: Pour Islamic immigrants from remote villages into Europes most liberal culture, replete with sex palaces, drugs and ever more explicit Dutch-invented TV reality shows  and the chances something might go haywire were real. They did.
Faith seems to come in two personalities, the purist and the ironist. Purists believe that everything in the world is part of a harmonious whole. All questions point ultimately to a single answer. If we orient our lives toward this pure ideal, and get everybody else to, we will move gradually toward perfection.

The ironists believe that this harmony may be available in the next world but not, unfortunately, in this one. In this world, the pieces dont quite fit together and virtues often conflict: liberty versus equality, justice versus mercy, tolerance versus order. For the ironist, ultimate truth exists, but day-to-day life is often about balance and trade-offs. There is no unified, all-encompassing system for correct living. For the ironists, like Reinhold Niebuhr or Isaiah Berlin, those purists who aim to be higher than the angels often end up lower than the beasts.

Throughout history weve seen a lot of purist religious faiths, from the Spanish inquisitors to the modern Islamic radicals, who believe in a single true way of living. Today we see a lot of secular purists: the students at Middlebury who want to shout down differing opinions, the legal activists who want to force Orthodox Christian bakers to work at gay weddings, against their conscience.

This movement has led many Christians to conclude that they are about to become pariahs in their own nation. One of these is my friend Rod Dreher, whose new book, The Benedict Option, is already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade.
So Democrats slowly moved their proposals to the right, relying more on private insurance rather than government programs. As they shifted, though, Republicans shifted even farther right. Bill Clintons plan was quite moderate but still couldnt pass.

When Barack Obama ran for president, he faced a choice. He could continue moving the party to the center or tack back to the left. The second option would have focused on government programs, like expanding Medicare to start at age 55. But Obama and his team thought a plan that mixed government and markets  farther to the right of Clintons  could cover millions of people and had a realistic chance of passing.

They embarked on a bipartisan approach. They borrowed from Mitt Romneys plan in Massachusetts, gave a big role to a bipartisan Senate working group, incorporated conservative ideas and won initial support from some Republicans. The bill also won over groups that had long blocked reform, like the American Medical Association.

But congressional Republicans ultimately decided that opposing any bill, regardless of its substance, was in their political interest. The consultant Frank Luntz wrote an influential memo in 2009 advising Republicans to talk positively about reform while also opposing actual solutions. McConnell, the Senate leader, persuaded his colleagues that they could make Obama look bad by denying him bipartisan cover.

At that point, Obama faced a second choice  between forging ahead with a substantively bipartisan bill and forgetting about covering the uninsured. The kumbaya plan for which pundits now wax nostalgic was not an option.

The reason is simple enough: Obamacare is the bipartisan version of health reform. It accomplishes a liberal end through conservative means and is much closer to the plan conservatives favored a few decades ago than the one liberals did. It was the ultimate troll, as Michael Anne Kyle of Harvard Business School put it, for Obama to pass Republican health reform.

Todays Republican Party has moved so far to the right that it no longer supports any plan that covers the uninsured. Of course, Republican leaders are not willing to say as much, because they know how unpopular that position is. Having run out of political ground, Ryan, McConnell and Trump have had to invent the notion of a socialistic Obamacare that they will repeal and replace with  something great! This morning they were also left to pretend that the Budget Office report was something less than a disaster.

Their approach to Obamacare has worked quite nicely for them, until now. Lying can be an effective political tactic. Believing your own alternative facts, however, is usually not so smart.
As Mr. Sisi cracked down on the Islamists  including a 2013 massacre of protesters that killed more than 800 people  the Obama administration and Congress reassessed Washingtons alliance with Egypt.

To register its alarm over Egypts worsening human rights abuses, the United States suspended delivery of a modest amount of military aid and rescinded a preferential form of financing that allowed Cairo to submit orders for costly items under the assumption that Congress would continue to authorize $1.3 billion in yearly military assistance aid in perpetuity.

Now the Egyptian government is likely to find friendlier interlocutors in Washington. Egypts foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, was in Washington recently to lay the groundwork for a visit Mr. Sisi is hoping to make soon. American officials anticipate that Egypts wish list will be ambitious. The Sisi government wants the financing system restored and the modest amount of military funding that is still being withheld disbursed soon.

The Trump administration may see Mr. Sisi as an ideal partner in fighting the Islamic State and other extremists. The White House is reportedly considering designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist group. Mr. Sisi, a former military general, has vowed to reform Islam from within through a religious revolution that purges extremists. But his tactics have been draconian and counterproductive. His government has persecuted violent and nonviolent Islamist groups with equal zeal and without due process. It has maligned and harassed human rights activists, rendering their work all but impossible. And it has smothered what remains of the political opposition. Last week, Egypts Parliament, which is subservient to Mr. Sisi, expelled a prominent lawmaker who had been critical of the governments crackdown on civil society  Anwar Sadat, the nephew of the former Egyptian president assassinated by Islamists.

The United States needs to be able to work with Egypt. But Washington should not make any more concessions without real reforms in Egypts approach to human rights and governance.
Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has escalated an ugly war of words against his countrys NATO allies Germany and the Netherlands. The reason is obvious: Mr. Erdogan hopes picking a fight with Europe will increase support among nationalist-minded Turkish voters for a constitutional referendum on April 16 that, if passed, will expand his already considerable autocratic powers.

On March 5, Mr. Erdogan outrageously accused Germany of Nazi practices after two Turkish ministers had to cancel appearances at two pro-Erdogan campaign events in Germany when the government said it could not assure their safety. Now Mr. Erdogan has trained his ire on the Netherlands, calling the Dutch Nazi remnants after the Dutch officials stopped the Turkish foreign minister from landing there on Saturday for a rally in support of Mr. Erdogan and escorted Turkeys family minister out of the country on Sunday to prevent her from campaigning. Mr. Erdogan then warned that the Netherlands would pay the price for its shameless treatment of Turkeys foreign minister. Turkey has advised the Dutch ambassador, who was out of the country, not to return to his post in Ankara.

Mr. Erdogans belligerent tactics may well benefit anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim candidates in the Netherlands as voters in that country go to the polls on Wednesday, followed by elections in France in April and May, and elections in Germany in September. On Monday, the Dutch far-right candidate Geert Wilders called for Turkeys ambassador to be expelled from the Netherlands, and he accused people waving Turkish flags at a rally on Saturday of showing they are not Dutch, but Turkish. That view is antithetical to the open society Europe has long stood for.
NEW ORLEANS  Two weeks ago, at the invitation of Senator Bob Corker, I testified before the Committee on Foreign Relations at a hearing on Venezuelas current crisis of governance. It was a remarkable meeting at a remarkable time in Washington.

Although the hearing started with senators expressing their willingness to add to the list of sanctioned Venezuelan officials, by the end of the session all discussion was about the need for vigorous multilateral diplomacy. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican like Mr. Corker and one of the authors of existing sanctions legislation, suggested that the Trump administration should support the invocation by the Organization of American States secretary general, Luis Almagro, of the O.A.S.s Inter-American Democratic Charter, which lays out standards for democratic rule in the hemisphere.

This is a constructive development. There is a world of difference between the unilateral imposition of sanctions by the United States and the invocation of the O.A.S. democratic charter. The charter has legitimacy of origin  it was written and signed by members, including Venezuela. It also has legitimacy of use, having been invoked in 2002 to help the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and in 2009 in an attempt to stop a coup that forced a president of Honduras, Jose Manuel Zelaya, into exile. Finally, it has the legitimacy of contemporary consensus. The debate and negotiation required to invoke it necessarily reduce the grievances and chauvinisms inolved in bilateral conflict.

Invoking the charter does not, as is commonly thought, amount simply to a vote to suspend a country from the O.A.S. and, as a result, isolate it. Rather, the charter provides a road map for engaging a country. This engagement can entail fact-finding missions and good offices to facilitate dialogue and negotiation, as well as diplomatic initiatives. Only if two-thirds of the organizations General Assembly finds that the situation is unresolvable would a country be suspended from the O.A.S.
These were not the first cases of cybervulnerability. In the mid-1990s, the Pentagon uncovered an astonishing firewall breach that could have allowed outside hackers to gain control over the key naval radio transmitter in Maine used to send launching orders to ballistic missile submarines patrolling the Atlantic. So alarming was this discovery, which I learned about from interviews with military officials, that the Navy radically redesigned procedures so that submarine crews would never accept a launching order that came out of the blue unless it could be verified through a second source.

Cyberwarfare raises a host of other fears. Could a foreign agent launch another countrys missiles against a third country? We dont know. Could a launch be set off by false early warning data that had been corrupted by hackers? This is an especially grave concern because the president has only three to six minutes to decide how to respond to an apparent nuclear attack.

This is the stuff of nightmares, and there will always be some doubt about our vulnerability. We lack adequate control over the supply chain for nuclear components  from design to manufacture to maintenance. We get much of our hardware and software off-the-shelf from commercial sources that could be infected by malware. We nevertheless routinely use them in critical networks. This loose security invites an attempt at an attack with catastrophic consequences. The risk would grow exponentially if an insider, wittingly or not, shares passwords, inserts infected thumb drives or otherwise facilitates illicit access to critical computers.

One stopgap remedy is to take United States and Russian strategic nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert. Given the risks, it is dangerous to keep missiles in this physical state, and to maintain plans for launching them on early indications of an attack. Questions abound about the susceptibility to hacking of tens of thousands of miles of underground cabling and the backup radio antennas used for launching Minuteman missiles. They (and their Russian counterparts) should be taken off alert. Better yet, we should eliminate silo-based missiles and quick-launch procedures on all sides.

But this is just a start. We need to conduct a comprehensive examination of the threat and develop a remediation plan. We need to better understand the unintended consequences of cyberwarfare  such as possibly weakening another nations safeguards against unauthorized launching. We need to improve control over our nuclear supply chain. And it is time to reach an agreement with our rivals on the red lines. The reddest line should put nuclear networks off limits to cyberintrusion. Despite its allure, cyberwarfare risks causing nuclear pandemonium.
 Alissa J. Rubin on how this weeks election in the Netherlands is serving as a test of its tolerance for Muslim immigrants.

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MANCHESTER, N.H.  The 19th-century brick mill buildings lining the Merrimack River in this city of 110,000 seem an unlikely choice for the headquarters of Dyn, an internet performance company whose clients include Twitter, Netflix and Zappos.

Kyle York, Dyns chief strategy officer, is from New Hampshire but moved to San Diego after college. His California friends thought he was crazy when he returned home in 2008 to help his high school friend Jeremy Hitchcock, then Dyns chief executive, expand the start-up.

Everybody said, Youll never build a tech company there, Mr. York said.

But Dyn has thrived in what is known as the Manchester Millyard, gradually expanding to 350 workers from an initial 15. Work goes on in a historic factory that hasnt seen such industriousness since the citys pre-World War I height as a textile capital of the world. And that expansion will continue, given Dyns recent acquisition by the tech giant Oracle. Were recruiting like crazy, Mr. York said.
Sharif chaired a high-level security meeting at the PM House where participants reviewed the operation Radd-ul-Fasaad - which translates roughly to 'elimination of discord' - and resolved to continue their action against terrorists. The recent initiatives on better management of Pak-Afghan Border were also reviewed.

By Press Trust of India: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today vowed to completely eliminate terrorism from the country as he reviewed the progress made in the recently-launched nationwide military campaign 'Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad'.

Sharif chaired a high-level security meeting at the PM House where participants reviewed the operation Radd-ul-Fasaad - which translates roughly to 'elimination of discord' - and resolved to continue their action against terrorists.

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Sharif expressed satisfaction on the progress made by the army and other law enforcement agencies and gave directions for the pace of the operation to be expedited further.

"It was reiterated unanimously that elimination of extremism and terrorism are policy imperatives for Pakistan's security," said a statement issued by the PM Office after the meeting. Operation Radd-ul-Fassad was launched last month after a series of militant attacks in the country killed more than 125 people.

Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif, Advisor to PM Sartaj Aziz, National Security Advisor Lt Gen (R) Nasser Khan Janjua and DG ISI Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar and other top civil and army officials attended the meeting.

Various laws governing the anti-terrorism efforts were also reviewed, and ways and means to make these laws more effective were discussed.

It was emphasised that enemies of peace and development will never be allowed to disrupt the attainment of peace and security across the country. It was also decided to further energise efforts on implementation of National Action Plan and ensure its better implementation by the federal and provincial governments.

The recent initiatives on better management of Pak-Afghan Border were also reviewed.

Also read: No land's man: 58-year-old with Pakistani passport, Indian voter ID languishes in Delhi detention centre

Also read: US lawmaker's radical reset: Declare Pakistan state terror sponsor

Also read: J-K: Pakistan violates ceasefire in Poonch, Indian forces retaliate

--- ENDS ---
In 1974, the young Bill Viola, then 23 and fresh out of art school, spent 18 months working at a video art studio in Florence. When he arrived, he encountered a city in the throes of cultural experimentation: Performance art and conceptual architecture there echoed the social and political upheaval in Italy. When youre 23 and you live in a place like this for a year and a half, every experience is going to be influential, says Kira Perov, the artists wife and creative partner, who also co-curated an exhibition on Violas Florence connection that opens at the Palazzo Strozzi and nearby sites this week.

After he left the city, Florences Renaissance artworks, its light and architecture (as well as its wine-fueled avant-garde) all had a lasting impact on Violas work. Even today, there are moments when the city streets appear to resemble one of his lush, large-scale video works. Clear spring sunlight picks out crisp details of the passers-by in stately procession; womens skirts in cobalt unfurl in a light wind; the geometry of the streetscape offers frames, apertures and deep vistas. All are echoed in Violas stately, emotionally charged works such as The Greeting, 1995, an ultra-slow-motion video of an encounter between three women, and The Path (Going Forth By Day), 2002, a 36-foot-wide projection showing 150 extras slowly making their way along a quiet path in Californias Angeles National Forest. In these works, Viola draws less on the Florence of today than on artworks created in the city some six centuries ago: paintings and frescoes by Pontormo, Paolo Uccello and Botticelli, some of which are included in the exhibition.

Already using video in his own work, Viola was hired as the technical director of the experimental video studio art/tapes/22 following a period assisting the artist Nam June Paik. One of the first such facilities for artists in the world, the studio was housed in the home of its founder, Maria Gloria Bicocchi. Visiting artists  including Paik, Vito Acconci and Terry Fox  were given carte blanche with the video and editing facilities. (Carte blanche up to a point: A rejected proposal from Paik apparently involved the destruction of all three of the facilitys functioning video cameras.) Images of the period show Viola  bearded, smiling and bespectacled  assisting Chris Burden, Daniel Buren and other luminaries in the studio. He can also be seen on the streets of Florence performing his own work Free Global Distribution, in which he inserted himself into the background of tourists photographs. (On this evidence, one might argue Viola was the pioneer of photo bombing.)
What makes a creative couple successful? Sometimes its symmetry  thinking the same thoughts, finishing one anothers sentences, growing into each other until they are essentially two minds acting as one. Other times its a productive friction that allows a pair to create something together that neither could have dreamed up alone. The latter reflects the working relationship of Alessandro DOrazio and Jannicke Krakvik  interior designers, stylists and owners of one of Oslos most beloved boutiques.

The differences between the two, who have been living together for 13 years, are conspicuous: Hes a bushy-bearded Italian, steeped in architecture, with a wide knowledge of European art history. Shes a fair and strawberry-blond Norwegian, especially attuned to materiality, with a razor-sharp focus on color, volume and details, like the way a mud-hued Japanese ceramic might reflect light. He often works on the computer; she works with her hands.

Shelter magazines and swank furniture companies routinely commission the couple to create beautiful tableaus (for advertisements, editorials or exhibits) that can send a design aficionado into wild fits of envy. In these still lifes, which have a serene painterly quality, even a little piece of tableware seems to take on the significance of a Modernist building  without losing its sense of scale. The purity of the final image belies the long and complicated process of trial and error that led to it. We always start by filling up a room and taking things away piece by piece, until it almost hurts, Krakvik says. Then, suddenly, it will just feel right. For years, the meticulous sets the pair designed were deconstructed as soon as a project was finished. Eventually, this ritual of destruction made them long to create a lasting space. First, they designed a few bars and cafes in Oslo for friends. Then, in 2013, in partnership with the Danish homeware brand Frama, they opened Kollekted By.
BERLIN  Social media giants including Facebook and Twitter are not doing enough to curb hate speech on their platforms and could face fines of up to $53 million if they do not strengthen their efforts to delete illegal posts, a German government minister said on Tuesday.

The move by the countrys authorities comes as technology companies face increasing scrutiny worldwide over how they police online material including hate speech, possible terrorist propaganda and so-called fake news. The debate has been particularly acute in Germany, which has become a case study for combating such material because of its stringent laws on what can and cannot be published.

For tech companies and free speech campaigners, this global regulatory push could limit how individuals communicate online by restricting peoples digital activities and allowing governments to expand their control over vast parts of the internet.

Yet for a growing number of policy makers in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, social media companies have a responsibility to block harmful content from their digital platforms, and they must respect national rules that often run counter to Silicon Valleys efforts to operate across borders.
Combining a work trip with a vacation  often called bleisure  can be a win-win situation, said Kendra Thornton, the president of the Chicago travel agency Royal Travel & Tours and an expert on planning such trips. Youre already at your destination, and your employer has likely picked up the tab to get you there, she said. So why not tack on a few days for fun?

She offers the following advice on how to mix business and leisure into one successful getaway:

Maximize Your Hotel Stay Your employer probably paid a corporate nightly rate for your hotel room, which is almost always lower than the hotels regular published rate. Ms. Thornton suggested asking the hotels reservations manager if the lower rate could be extended for your personal stay. Many hotels want to inculcate client loyalty from their corporate travelers and are amenable to giving you the discount, she said. She also suggested asking for extras that help you save money such as free breakfast and airport transfers. In a bid to win clients, some hotels are open to throwing in perks.

To Save Money, Pick the Right Time If youre traveling to attend a conference, keep in mind that they are often held in desirable destinations during that destinations off-peak season  such as Orlando, Fla., in August and Miami in June. This timing makes it more economical to turn your work trip into a leisurely stay because hotel prices are as much as 50 percent lower than during peak season. Also, certain cities tend to have higher hotel rates on weekdays, such as Chicago and New York, whereas others like Las Vegas command higher rates on weekends.

If youre strategic about which business trips you want to extend into a vacation, that vacation will be easier on your wallet, Ms. Thornton said.
Im a fairly big guy  6-foot-3 with plenty of mass to soak up alcohol  but I was being particularly careful as I hopped (no pun intended) from brewery to brewery in San Diego. Touring the dozens of worthy beer options in the sprawling, beautiful city requires a car, and I was being conservative with my intake. But this Electric Youth coffee pale ale from Thunderhawk Alements was just too good. Id never had a coffee beer that tasted so intensely and convincingly of coffee. There was a sweetness to the coffee component that tasted of berries and flowers, juxtaposed with the hoppy, bitter malt of the ale.

Even better? A small pour was only $3. Delicious drinks played a significant role during my trip to San Diego, but they certainly werent the only thing I enjoyed. You may have already heard of A-list attractions like Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, but the city also has great nightlife, scenic cliffside hikes, and boardwalks and beaches as welcoming as you will find anywhere in the country. My challenge: to take it all in as inexpensively as possible.

Today, San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the country, but at the turn of the 20th century, its population stood at under 20,000. That changed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when the military expanded San Diegos naval operations, and the city hasnt stopped growing since. People know about San Diegos surf breaks, but fewer know that it has the largest concentration of military personnel in the nation, with around 100,000 active-duty members.

I drove into town from the Salton Sea in my $30-a-day rental from Hertz as the last leg of a fun Southern California road trip. I headed to the Lafayette Hotel, on El Cajon Boulevard  a good location, right near the border of University Heights and North Park. My room on the second floor of the well-loved 1946 building was adequate, and a good deal for the $85 per night I paid through Hotels.com  room rates on the hotels website range from $109 to $289 per night. My experience was marred only by the fact that I left my coat in the room  completely my fault, but my attempts to get assistance by calling and emailing were met with rather strong indifference by the staff.
Good morning.

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When Portos Bakery & Cafe added a location in Buena Park this month, more than 1,500 people got in line. Some waited hours to get the Cuban restaurants cheese rolls and potato balls.

That got us wondering: What is it about some restaurant openings that turn eating out into a phenomenon?

Using CrowdTangle, an analytics tool, we identified five of the buzziest restaurant openings of the past year, according to cumulative likes, shares and comments on Facebook posts by California news publications. They are:

1. Trejos Tacos, Los Angeles

Danny Trejo, the actor known for his menacing onscreen portrayals, opened his restaurant on La Brea Avenue a year ago. More than 80,000 people liked a Facebook post about it by KTLA.

Mr. Trejos celebrity certainly played a part, but so did the menu. Along with traditional meat tacos, it offered vegetarian fare  kale salads, a roasted cauliflower bowl, a seared carrot and tofu chorizo taco.
On his last day in office, the chief federal prosecutor in Chicago made an impassioned plea for big changes to combat the citys soaring violence, departing from the Justice Departments usual button-down tone to criticize the local political culture, federal budget cuts and would-be reformers.

In a five-page statement issued as he resigned on Monday, Zachary Fardon, the United States attorney for Northern Illinois, outlined a plan for taking on crime and the ills of the Chicago Police Department, including a pattern of excessive force that was documented by the Justice Department in January. Most of all, he said, the Chicago police need a major increase in resources and a court-ordered consent decree, with a monitor, to make sure change occurs.

For decades, C.P.D. has been run on the cheap, Mr. Fardon wrote. Officers dont have the training, the supervision, the equipment or the culture they need and deserve.

If you leave correcting those deficiencies to the vagaries of city politics, then you likely lose the long-term fight.
A man who in 2006 became the first person in the United States to be convicted of female genital cutting was deported on Monday to his home country, Ethiopia, after serving 10 years in prison, federal authorities said.

The man, Khalid Adem, 41, used scissors to remove the clitoris of his 2-year-old daughter in his familys Atlanta-area apartment in 2001, prosecutors in Gwinnett County, Ga., said. He was convicted of aggravated battery and cruelty to children.

The case led to a state law prohibiting the practice, which was already prohibited by a federal law and is a common social ritual in parts of the world but is broadly condemned.

A young girls life has been forever scarred by this horrible crime, Sean W. Gallagher, a field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Jonathan Moore, who devoted his eclectic career as a public servant and academic to accomplishing lofty goals, including saving refugees, reducing nuclear proliferation and making government more responsive, died on March 8 in Weston, Mass. He was 84.

The cause was complications of a degenerative muscle condition, his son, Charles F. Moore IV, said.

Mr. Moore served six presidents, mostly in the State, Defense and Justice Departments and at the United Nations. He became the first full-time director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and he was involved in establishing the schools Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

At the United Nations, he helped conceive what became its coordinator for humanitarian affairs. As a Senate aide, he lobbied for the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore. He advised the 1968 Republican presidential campaigns of Gov. George W. Romney of Michigan and Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York.

A lifelong Republican, Mr. Moore switched parties last year to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary in Massachusetts.
It came as a bolt from the blue. On Aug. 7, 1946, Father Divine, the charismatic leader of the International Peace Mission Movement, introduced his new wife as the Spotless Virgin Bride to a gathering of stunned followers at a Philadelphia banquet.

The Rev. Major Jealous Divine, regarded as God incarnate by his disciples, had further news. Sweet Angel, as his 21-year-old former stenographer was known to the movement, had taken into herself the spirit of Father Divines first wife, Peninnah, or Sister Penny, who had died in 1943. The two women were one and the same, he announced. Moreover, his union with the woman henceforth known as Mother Divine would be chaste  a marriage in name only, he said  because God is not married.

When Father married me, he symbolically married everyone else, Mother Divine told Newsday in 2005. Its not a personal marriage. Its Christ married to his church.

Mother Divine, who led the movement after her husbands death in 1965, died on March 4 at Woodmont, the Peace Missions estate and headquarters in Gladwyne, Pa., outside Philadelphia, the organization announced. She was 91.
A FIR was registered against Nikhil, his father Krishna Bihari and his brother Manish Priyadarshi on December 22 last year in SC-ST police station for molesting the former Congress Minister's daughter.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: The Special Investigation Team of Patna Police has arrested the prime accused Nikhil Priyadarshi in the high profile molestation case of daughter of a former Congress Minister in Bihar. Priyadarshi was arrested with his retired IAS officer father Krishna Bihari from Rishikesh in Uttrakhand on Monday. Nikhil is a renowned automobile dealer in Patna.

A FIR was registered against Nikhil, his father Krishna Bihari and his brother Manish Priyadarshi on December 22 last year in SC-ST police station for molesting the former Congress Minister's daughter. Manish was arrested in this case later, however, Nikhil and his father remained on the run for almost more than two and half months before being tracked by the police and arrested in Rishikesh.

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"We were in touch with Uttrakhand police and both have been arrested from a guest house in Pauri Garhwal's Lakshmanpur area. We are in the process of bringing them to Patna", said Manu Maharaj, Patna SSP.

The arrest of the son-father duo was made on the basis of the tracking mobile and emails of Nikhil. Police has also recovered Nikhil's Audi car the registration number of which is HR-51 AK2222. The Patna Police is now making arrangements to bring Nikhil and his father to Patna to speed up investigations. Both, will be produced in a local court in Uttrakhand today and after securing transit remand, they will be brought to Patna.

A senior Congress leader Brajesh Pandey is also an non-FIR accused in this case and he is also absconding in this case. Pandey was vice-president of Bihar Congress but had to resign from his post after allegations were leveled on him for molesting the victim.

--- ENDS ---
Mr. Trump was left to strike a balance between siding with House Republicans while also distancing himself from the details, with top aides conceding that the legislation needed modifications before it could pass the full Congress.

On Tuesday, the president talked with House leaders about revisions to address the concerns of the most conservative members, and to Republican senators who fear the measure headed to the House floor would be too costly for older residents.

The C.B.O. report clarified just who stood to lose the most under the Republican plan, which in effect would shift health insurance costs from younger, healthier Americans to older, sicker Americans.

Under current law, insurers cannot charge older adults more than three times what they charge young adults for the same coverage. The House bill would allow insurers to expand that to 5-to-1.

Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, noted that Americans over 60 who earn a little too much to qualify for Medicaid would have a hard time affording insurance under the House plan, since insurance premiums would rise far higher than the modest tax credits on offer. Thats not good, he said.

The House bill includes large transition grants to the states that can be used to help cover people with pre-existing medical conditions, subsidize insurance purchases beyond the bills tax credits, or other interventions; some Senate Republicans would seek to make those bigger as well. Mr. Thune wants to revise the tax credits so that they would be focused more on lower-income people.
MOGADISHU, Somalia  Pirates off the coast of Somalia have seized an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankans on board, in what is believed to be the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel in the region since 2012, officials said on Tuesday.

The merchant ship was intercepted while en route to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, from Djibouti, and was diverted toward Alula, a port in the semiautonomous Puntland region in northeastern Somalia, Ali Shire Mohamud Osman, the district commissioner in Alula, said in a telephone interview.

The ships crew sent a distress signal on Monday evening, saying the vessel was being approached by high-speed boats.

Abdikamil Moalin Shukri, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and Security, said the agency was awaiting more details.
MEXICO CITY  A mass grave discovered in the Mexican state of Veracruz contained more than 250 human skulls, most likely the victims of criminal drug cartels, the states attorney general said on Tuesday.

For many years, the drug cartels disappeared people and the authorities were complacent, Jorge Winckler, the state attorney general, said in a television interview with the Televisa network.

Veracruz, on Mexicos Gulf coast, has been the epicenter of battles among the countrys drug gangs. The remains found at the site indicated that the victims might have been killed years ago, Mr. Winckler said.

Describing the crime-ridden state as a giant grave, Mr. Winckler said the state authorities would match D.N.A. samples at the scene to a database from the relatives of the missing.
MANILA  President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines defiantly rebuked human rights groups and international organizations on Tuesday, pledging to continue his deadly antidrug crackdown despite mounting calls for a criminal investigation into his actions.

Human rights, United Nations, thats fine. If you have complaints, O.K. You want to file charges, fine. Look for evidence, Mr. Duterte told a gathering of mayors in Manila, the capital.

But still, I will kill you, he warned the criminals and drug users who have been the focus of his crackdown.

The president spoke just weeks after a retired police officer said he would be willing to testify in domestic and international courts that Mr. Duterte had ordered him and other hired hit men to routinely carry out killings when Mr. Duterte was mayor of Davao.
SEOUL, South Korea  Prosecutors on Wednesday summoned former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea for questioning in a corruption scandal, only days after she was removed from office in a historic court ruling.

Ms. Parks presidency formally ended last Friday, when the Constitutional Court approved the National Assemblys vote to impeach her in December.

She was the first South Korean leader ousted under popular pressure since the countrys founding president, Syngman Rhee, fled into exile in Hawaii in 1960.

Although prosecutors have identified Ms. Park as a criminal suspect accused of bribery, extortion and abuse of power in recent months, they could not indict her or even summon her by force while she was president. But now that she has become an ordinary citizen, prosecutors moved swiftly.
TAIPEI, Taiwan  Prosecutors in Taiwan announced on Tuesday that the islands former president Ma Ying-jeou had been indicted over the handling of classified information in a 2013 wiretapping case.

If convicted, Mr. Ma faces a maximum of three years in prison.

Post-presidential legal troubles are something of an occupational hazard for leaders of Taiwan. After leaving office in 2008, Mr. Mas predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, was convicted on corruption charges. Mr. Chen was released on medical parole in 2015 after serving six years of a 20-year sentence.

Upon assuming the presidency in 2008, Mr. Ma was viewed by many as a steady hand after Mr. Chens unpredictable tenure. But when Mr. Ma stepped down as president in May, he was highly unpopular after eight years of poor economic performance, numerous scandals and accusations of selling out to China.

During his tenure, Mr. Ma focused on improving relations with China, which claims self-ruled and democratic Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to attack the island if it formalizes its independence.
WASHINGTON  When President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China sit down for their first meeting next month in Palm Beach, Fla., they could use the balmy breezes and tranquil views at the Mar-a-Lago resort: Relations between the United States and China are as complex and chilly as they have been since the early days of the Reagan administration.

The list of issues that could open a new rift between these two men is long, such as the deployment of American antimissile batteries in South Korea, Mr. Trumps campaign threats of a trade war or escalating tensions over the South China Sea and Taiwan.

The debate over where to hold Mr. Trumps meeting with Mr. Xi captures the underlying angst. Chinese officials pushed for an invitation to Mr. Trumps private resort, American officials said, because it would be more relaxed and informal than a summit meeting at the White House. Equally important, it would reduce the pressure on the two leaders to produce any agreements, which in the current environment is viewed as unrealistic.

Inside the Trump administration, the visit lays bare the unsettled nature of policy toward China. The White House is divided into camps, with a fiercely ideological, anti-China faction vying against more pragmatic elements. Mr. Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has emerged as an influential, moderating voice. He is heavily involved in planning the presidential visit, a senior official said, and took part in a National Security Council meeting on Monday at which North Korea and China were discussed.
LONDON  The European Unions highest court waded into the politically explosive issue of public expressions of Muslim identity on Tuesday, finding that private employers can ban female workers from wearing head scarves on the job.

The ruling comes as Europe is beginning a critical election season, with races in the Netherlands, France and Germany, and with anti-immigrant, anti-Islam populism rising in many countries. Dutch voters go to the polls on Wednesday, and the far-right party of the anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders is expected to fare well.

In its ruling, the European Court of Justice found that company regulations banning the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign did not constitute direct discrimination  so long as such prohibitions applied to religious garb from all faiths, a requirement that legal experts say could also encompass a Sikh turban and a Jewish skullcap, among other religious symbols.

It is a very bold step, said Camino Mortera-Martinez, a research fellow at the Center for European Reform in Brussels, describing the ruling as a landmark decision, if also a political and pragmatic one. Recently we have seen the court being much more attentive to the political winds rather than being so legalistic, because of the recognition that the E.U. is at risk of collapse.
BUDAPEST  Dozens of people seeking asylum in Hungary continued their hunger strike for a second day on Tuesday, demanding to be released from detention, the authorities said.

The protest coincided with a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in favor of two refugees from Bangladesh seeking asylum who were found to have been detained and deported illegally by Hungary in 2015.

The 80 detainees on a hunger strike are part of a group of 102 people, mostly from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria, being held at a closed reception center in Bekescsaba, a city in southeastern Hungary.

Images broadcast on Hungarian state television showed some of those inside the reception center holding a sheet saying We are refugees, we are not terrorists through a barred window.
The commission, which is part of the countrys Institute of National Remembrance, a body that has prosecutorial powers and is tasked with investigating Nazi- and Soviet-era crimes, filed a request on Monday to a court in Lublin for a temporary arrest warrant for the man. The warrant would be the first step toward requesting extradition, Mr. Janicki said.

In Washington, Nicole Navas, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said that while the department took all credible allegations of participation in World War II Nazi crimes very seriously, it did not comment on extradition requests.

The charges carry a potential term of life in prison. Mr. Janicki rejected the argument that prosecuting Mr. Karkoc would be pointless given his age and health. First of all, age is not a factor when it comes to bringing anyone to justice, he said. As for the state of his health, that will be for expert witnesses to determine.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights organization, has criticized Poland for not doing more to track down those who committed atrocities during the Nazi era. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Germans killed 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during the war, along with at least three million Polish Jews.

Mr. Janicki acknowledged the criticisms, but said it took time to assemble evidence. Its incredibly difficult to gather the necessary evidence to put someone on trial today, he said. It requires international cooperation, and it takes years to reconcile all the efforts. But it doesnt mean that its not worth pursuing.

Some say that its too late to hunt the criminals down, but I dont think it is, he added. The case of Michael K. proves that. Besides, try telling its too late to a woman who as a girl was hiding in a field, watching her parents being executed.

Mr. Karkocs son and spokesman, Andriy Karkoc, said in an interview on Tuesday in Minneapolis that his father was not guilty.
By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Mar 14(PTI) Pawan Goenka, Managing Director of diversified business conglomerate Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, will continue as Chairman, Board of Governors of IIT Madras.

President Pranab Mukherjee in his capacity as visitor of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras has approved the nomination of Goenka as Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT-Madras for another three years, a press release said here today.

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Goenkas term as Chairman, Board of Governors ends in June 2017 and Mukherjee has allowed him to continue for another three years with effect from June 9, 2017, the release added.

Goenka, an alumni of IIT Kanpur has a Ph.D from Cornell University, New York.

He is also an alumni of Harvard Business School, Advanced Management Programme. PTI VIJ ROH

--- ENDS ---
LONDON  Scotlands nationalists wasted no time: Just minutes after the countrys leader, Nicola Sturgeon, called on Monday for a new independence referendum, a website went live asking people to show their support on Twitter and donate to the campaign.

By Tuesday morning, 204,345 pounds, or about $249,000  more than a fifth of the 1 million target  had been raised; pro-independence banners in Scotlands blue-and-white colors had gone up across the country; and celebrities were offering support, including the actor Alan Cumming, who shared a Twitter post by Ms. Sturgeon, with the comment Its showtime!

It was an early glimpse of the Scottish nationalists formidable campaign machine, evidently little diminished since the last referendum, in 2014. Support for independence rose from about 27 percent at the start of that campaign to 45 percent at the final count.

Since then, opinion polls suggest, support for independence has edged up again, leaving Scots split almost evenly. Nationalists seem convinced that they can win this time, thanks to Britains vote to leave the European Union, known as Brexit. And unlike Prime Minister Theresa Mays government in London, which is already stretched by the monumental task of negotiating a divorce settlement with 27 other European governments, Ms. Sturgeons troops are ready: Party membership quadrupled after the last referendum and increased further after the decision to quit the European Union.
JERUSALEM  President Trumps new envoy to the Middle East met on Tuesday with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, striving in the administrations first diplomatic undertaking here to maintain a public evenhandedness amid the deep distrust between the Israelis and Palestinians.

In a joint statement released by the American Consulate, the envoy, Jason Greenblatt, a real estate lawyer turned diplomat, underscored President Trumps commitment to working with Israelis and Palestinians to achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations.

No breakthroughs or new approaches were reported on Mr. Greenblatts second day in the region after his meeting with Mr. Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian government. Nor were there expected to be. All sides have stressed that Mr. Greenblatt is, for now, taking in the endless complexities of the conflict here. He met for five hours on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

Mr. Greenblatt has arrived as tensions are pushing in on many sides: Fifty years have passed since Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and leaders and people on all sides are deeply skeptical about the possibility of two states existing side by side here.
GENEVA  Syrian military airstrikes on rebels were responsible for severing water supplies to 5.5 million people in the Damascus region for weeks starting last December, the United Nations said on Tuesday, rebutting government claims that insurgents were to blame.

In a bombing campaign to drive rebel forces from the Barada Valley north of Damascus, Syrian air force jets launched multiple strikes on their positions around the al-Feijeh spring, which supplied water to the capital, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry monitoring the conflict in Syria said in a report.

The airstrikes amounted to a war crime, the commission said, because the effect of the attack  denying water to so many people  was grossly disproportionate to the military advantage that the government could have anticipated or achieved.

When water supplies to the capital were halted in late December, the government blamed rebels, first saying that they had poisoned the water and later that they had damaged the infrastructure. Water service was not restored until February.
In 2011, war broke out between the Sudan government and the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. Today, outsiders rarely venture to this region. Humanitarian aid has been blocked, and Sudanese journalists are banned from covering the war, facing potential imprisonment for doing so.

In collaboration with Emblematic Group and Nuba Reports, the Times presents We Who Remain, an immersive virtual reality film that takes the viewer into the heart of this forgotten conflict amid an active fighting season. The film weaves together the lives of four people  a student, a rebel soldier, a journalist, and a mother  who struggle to improve their lives in the midst of a relentless war.

Jordania, a student who has survived repeated bombings, takes us inside her school. Al-Bagir, a father, left university to become a mobile unit commander on the front lines. He hopes his son will not have to follow the same path. The journalist Musa John, who earned the nickname Mosquito because he buzzes here and there, is recovering from an injury suffered in a recent bombing. And Hannan, a mother who is struggling to feed her children, shelters in a makeshift home on the mountainside after her town was destroyed by the fighting.

The film is a co-production of Emblematic Group and Nuba Reports in collaboration with The New York Times. This 14-minute film is available to watch in a V.R. headset with the NYT VR app for Android or iPhone.
India-born federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, who was fired by the Trump administration on Saturday after refusing to resign, was cheered and applauded as walked out of his office for the last time.

Preet Bharara was greeted cheers and applause as walked out of his office for the last time. Source: AP

By India Today Web Desk: Fired US Attorney Preet Bharara returned to his office on Monday to say his goodbyes and tell the staff of one of the highest-profile groups of prosecutors in the nation to keep up their good work.

Bharara, an India-born federal prosecutor, went back to his office one last time two days after he was fired. He was terminated after refusing to submit his resignation along with 45 other appointees, of Democratic former President Barack Obama, who were asked to step down Friday.

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Inside the Manhattan building, Bharara spoke to dozens of employees who had worked for him since his summer 2009 appointment to an office that has proved to be a hotbed of future leaders in government and the law. He told them that he hoped his children would grow up with the moral code and character of those who inhabit the office and that the workers would continue the quality of work they had done for generations, according to several people who heard him speak.

The workers later formed parallel rows behind barricades outside the building before Bharara, wearing only a suit in freezing temperatures, walked through the column to steady applause, shaking hands and hugging employees.

A hero's exit for fired US Attorney Preet Bharara as he leaves his office for the last time today. pic.twitter.com/kRuHHOOKcW- Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) March 13, 2017

A small group of reporters approached him, and he was asked if he had a message for Republican President Donald Trump. It was unclear if he heard the question.

"I love New York. And this is the best, the best prosecutor's office you've ever seen," the misty eyed prosecutor said, pointing toward the workers as he headed back their way.

The request to resign from the office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions came as a surprise to federal prosecutors after Bharara had been asked by Trump and Sessions during a meeting at Trump Tower in late November to continue his work.

But the firing of prosecutors appointed by previous presidents is common when a new administration takes over, though it does not always occur abruptly before new prosecutors can be put in place.

Some legal observers have suggested that Bharara may have been responsible for overseeing probes that touched on the Trump administration, including how the Russians might have tried to affect last year's presidential election.

Preet Bharara hugs a well-wisher as the crowd cheers him. Source: AP

Bharara, after announcing his firing on his Twitter account on Saturday, sent a tweet Sunday saying: "By the way, now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like."

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In 2013, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo formed the Moreland Commission to investigate public corruption, but then in 2014 he abruptly shut it down.

After Bharara's walk outside Monday, he greeted his deputies, including Deputy US Attorney Joon H Kim, who will serve as acting U.S. attorney, at the building's front door.

(With inputs from AP)

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, Mar 14 (PTI) Keeping in mind reservations of some quarters over a bill to regulate functioning of private hospitals, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today explained that her government never wanted them to shut down, but reminded them that they were not profit-making ventures.

"We never said private hospitals and nursing homes should shut down here. We never wanted treatment there to stop. But we must not forget about people. We must guard against turning medical facilities into profit-making organisations. Medical facilities are places to provide seva not make money," Banerjee said.

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"If one dreams of making profit by pushing injections like one selling Chinese food, then one is wrong," she said.

Urging private hospitals not to charge patients exorbitantly, Banerjee explained that she was not against those who were able to pay hefty amounts for their treatment.

"Take from them who are capable of paying such bills if the treatment is genuine. We have never said anything. But remember dont go for over billing and negligence in treating them," she said.

She was apparently referring to the death of Sanjay Roy allegedly because of medical negligence and delay in his release at the Apollo Gleneagles hospital in the city.

"One has to submit property papers, fixed deposit documents... because he was getting treatment will not happen in West Bengal," she warned.

Referring to the West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) Bill, now waiting to turn into a law, Banerjee at the same time urged people not to damage hospital property but instead lodge complaints.

"We have brought a bill. If someone has done something wrong then he or she must be punished," Banerjee said. PTI SCH MD MD

--- ENDS ---
From To The Point Analyses

Balfour Declaration

(Image by jewishmag.com) Details DMCA

Part I -- The Balfour Declaration British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that Britain will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration later this year. The Conservative Party leader addressed her party's "Friends of Israel" faction and declared that the Balfour Declaration was "one of the most important letters in history" while pledging that her government would celebrate it "with pride." Her determination to do so is a clear indication that those who control national politics also control official interpretations of history. In the case of the Balfour Declaration's centenary, it is the ongoing alliance of Zionist special interests and British political power that is about to turn what has been a disaster for Britons, Jews and Palestinians alike, into a source of national pride. I have told the story of the Balfour Declaration in documented detail in my book America's Palestine. Here is a brief synopsis: The November 1917 declaration was a World War I expedient undertaken by the then British government to enlist the aid of worldwide Jewry (mistakenly believed to be led by the fledgling World Zionist Organization) to the British side. In exchange, the British government promised to create a "Jewish National Home" in Arab Palestine after the war. In so doing it sought to buy Jewish assistance with someone else's currency -- that is, with territory then belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Key members of the war cabinet in London, such as the Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, were believers in the myth of worldwide Jewish power, and on that basis were convinced that Jewish influence in Washington could help bring the United States into the war as a British ally, and at the same time keep their eastern front ally, the Russians, from leaving the war. Though the U.S. did soon enter the war, it had nothing to do with Jewish influence, and the Russians, now led by the Bolsheviks, proceeded to make a separate peace with the Germans. At the end of World War I the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Britain found itself in military control of Palestine. The government in London then proceeded to follow up on its promise to the Zionists. It did so by allowing the massive immigration of European Jews into Palestine. At this point the policy was driven by a blend of religious and racist beliefs, along with imperial ambitions. First there was the fact that the Jews were seen as European allies who would allegedly help secure a strategic part of the Middle East for the British Empire, and second there was a mesmerizing mythic belief that a Jewish National Home was somehow in line with the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. In the end none of this played out well for the British. In 1948 they were driven out of Palestine by both violently hostile Zionists and Arab nationalists. They left with their tails between their legs. It appears that Prime Minister May and her party's "Friends of Israel" reject this history. Or, perhaps they don't care about documented facts because all that now matters is keeping for the Conservative Party the financial backing of the Zionist lobby. Such is democratic politics in the West. Part II -- A Disaster All Around It is worth repeating that the consequences of the Balfour Declaration have proven to be disastrous. British hegemony lasted but 30 years and, as just mentioned, ended in an ignominious withdrawal. The Palestinians have suffered decades of dispossession and ethnic cleansing. And the Jews, religious and secular, of the resulting state of Israel, now officially tied to the Zionist ethos, have been politically seduced and culturally converted to a racist ideology. Today, for many Jews, Zionism and Judaism are two sides of the same coin. One way you can demonstrate this latter point is by calling the ideology of Zionism into question. In doing so you will be labeled an anti-Semite. Why has this situation come to pass? Certainly the history of European anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, has a lot to do with it. Anti-Semitism always constituted a threat for the Jews of the West. However, traditionally, that threat was mostly local. That is, even as the Jews of a particular shtetl in, say, southern Russia were being slaughtered, those elsewhere might be prospering. So, the danger was always there but only sporadically realized. But then came the Nazis and the dimensions of the threat changed radically. As a result, there was a total breakdown of European Jewish life. And, for a significant number, the old Torah-based insights and philosophies that explained the world no longer sufficed. So what did those Western Jews who managed to survive do in such circumstances? Their customary social order was gone. They were adrift in a world which did not make sense except in terms of its mortal danger. Under such conditions an applicable single idea that appeared to be historically logical could serve as a life preserver -- and that idea was Zionism. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

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During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump claimed to have opposed the Iraq war, wanted better relations with Russia, and even briefly put his hand on the hot stove of the Arab-Israeli conflict, calling himself "neutral" on Palestine.

On the other hand, he called for "rebuilding" the US armed forces, which hardly need it (they're already the most expensive and bloated war machine on the planet). And he yanked his hand off the stove when he got his fingers burnt, turning 180 degrees to announce that he'd be "the most pro-Israel president ever," when he decided that's what it took to win the election.

Clearly candidate Trump was a mixed bag on foreign policy, but he was marginally better than most of his opponents. Some antiwar activists took heart at the possibility that he might, as president, cut back on US military adventurism.

No such luck.

The first major post-inauguration evidence that Trump is just a typical political con man came in February with a raid in Yemen resulting in the murder of an 8-year-old American girl and dozens of other civilians by US Navy Seals (one of whom also died). The raid was planned under and approved by then-president Barack Obama prior to Trump's inauguration, but instead of condemning the action he defended it. He invited the widow of the fallen SEAL, but not the surviving members of young Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki's family, to attend his speech before Congress.

Now he's deployed 400 artillery and infantry troops from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and 100 US Army Rangers to Syria, effectively doubling the number of US military boots on the ground there.

Mainstream American media outlets seem to consider it novel, perhaps even controversial, that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad refers to the US troops as "invaders." I'm not sure why. Sending troops into a country against the will of its government is, by definition, an invasion.

Apart from a few bitter-enders still trying and failing to get the words "I was wrong" out of their mouths like Fonzie in Happy Days, antiwar Trump supporters seem to understand that they got played.

Perhaps Trump will change course yet again and start pulling American troops out of the Middle East when (not if) things blow up in his face, as Ronald Reagan did after the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing. But I wouldn't bet on it. His temperament and, so far, his actions scream "war president."
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall's book Bottom-Up: Tapping the Power of the Connection Revolution is both a welcomed manifesto and a guide for rethinking the power of human agency, understanding the connections that both make us human and legitimate human planetary relations. Moreover it is a powerful call for providing the ideas, social practices, and relations that make human connections possible, enable them to work together from the bottom up, and to transform such connections into a powerful movement in which people take control of their lives and create a better future for everyone."



Henry Giroux, Director of the McMaster Centre for Research in the Public Interest, author of Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, Americas Education Deficit and The War on Youth, and dozens more.
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To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here.
ON SUNDAY'S Face the Nation, Sen. Rand Paul was asked about President Trump's accusation that President Obama ordered the NSA to wiretap his calls. The Kentucky senator expressed skepticism about the mechanics of Trump's specific charge, saying: "I doubt that Trump was a target directly of any kind of eavesdropping." But he then made a broader and more crucial point about how the U.S. government spies on Americans' communications -- a point that is deliberately obscured and concealed by U.S. government defenders.

Paul explained how the NSA routinely and deliberately spies on Americans' communications -- listens to their calls and reads their emails -- without a judicial warrant of any kind:

"The way it works is, the FISA court, through Section 702, wiretaps foreigners and then [NSA] listens to Americans. It is a backdoor search of Americans. And because they have so much data, they can tap -- type Donald Trump into their vast resources of people they are tapping overseas, and they get all of his phone calls. "And so they did this to President Obama. They -- 1,227 times eavesdrops on President Obama's phone calls. Then they mask him. But here is the problem. And General Hayden said this the other day. He said even low-level employees can unmask the caller. That is probably what happened to Flynn. "They are not targeting Americans. They are targeting foreigners. But they are doing it purposefully to get to Americans."

Paul's explanation is absolutely correct. That the NSA is empowered to spy on Americans' communications without a warrant -- in direct contravention of the core Fourth Amendment guarantee that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause" -- is the dirty little secret of the U.S. Surveillance State.

As I documented at the height of the controversy over the Snowden reporting, top government officials -- including President Obama -- constantly deceived (and still deceive) the public by falsely telling them that their communications cannot be monitored without a warrant. Responding to the furor created over the first set of Snowden reports about domestic spying, Obama sought to reassure Americans by telling Charlie Rose: "What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls ... by law and by rule, and unless they ... go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause."

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"The first and most important thing to understand about politics is this: forget Right, Left, Center, socialism, fascism, or democracy. Every government that exists -- or ever existed, or ever will exist -- is a kleptocracy, meaning 'rule by thieves.'" -- Author L. Neil Smith

The American kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) continues to suck the American people down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry is powerless to defend itself against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

Case in point: in the same week that Wikileaks dropped its bombshell about the CIA's use of spy tools to subject law-abiding Americans to all manner of government surveillance and hacking--a revelation that caused barely a ripple of concern among the citizenry--the government quietly and with little fanfare continued to wage its devastating, stomach-churning, debilitating war on the American people.

Incredibly, hardly anyone noticed.

This begs the question: if the government is overstepping its authority, abusing its power, and disregarding the rule of law but no one seems to notice--and no one seems to care--does it matter if the government has become a tyrant?

Here's my short answer: when government wrongdoing ceases to matter, America will have ceased to be.

Just consider the devastation wrought in one week in the life of our American kleptocracy:

On Monday, March 6, police were given the go-ahead to keep stealing from Americans who were innocent of any wrongdoing.

In refusing to hear a challenge to Texas' asset forfeiture law, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Texas police to keep $201,000 in ill-gotten cash primarily on the basis that the seized cash--the proceeds of a home sale--was being transported on a highway associated with illegal drug trade, despite any proof of illegal activity by the owner.

On Tuesday, March 7, hacked information about the surveillance state was met with a collective shrug by the public, a sign of how indifferent the citizenry has become to living in an electronic concentration camp.

According to the Wikileaks Vault 7 data dump, government agencies such as the CIA and the NSA have been spying on the citizenry through our smart TVs, listening in on our phone calls, hacking into our computerized devices (including our cars), and compromising our security systems through the use of Trojan horses, spyware and malware.

On Wednesday, March 8, police were given further incentives to use the "fear for my life" rationale as an excuse for shooting unarmed individuals.

An Alabama police officer shot a driver exiting his car, mistakenly believing the wallet in his hand to be a gun. Although the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals concluded "that a reasonable officer " would have feared for his life," the video footage makes clear that the courts continue to march in lockstep with the police, because no reasonable person would shoot first and ask questions later.

On Thursday, March 9, police were given even more leeway in how much damage they can inflict on those they serve and the extent to which they can disregard the Constitution.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a police officer who allowed a police dog to maul a homeless man innocent of any wrongdoing. Incredibly, not only did the court declare that the police officer was protected by qualified immunity, which incentivizes government officials to violate constitutional rights without fear of repercussion, but it had the nerve to suggest that being mauled by a police dog is the equivalent of a lawful stop in which police may stop and hold a person for questioning.

On Friday, March 10, the military industrial complex continued to wage war abroad, while government agencies, including members of the military, remained embroiled in controversies over sexual misconduct.

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From The Nation

Donald Trump has made no secret over the years of his regard for Iowa Congressman Steve King, and of his determination to embrace most if not all of the incendiary Republican representative's crude "know-nothing" politics of Muslim bashing and immigrant blaming. In the fall of 2014, when he was still just considering a presidential run, Trump traveled to Iowa to headline a private fundraising event for King.

Hailing the congressman as a "special guy, a smart person, with really the right views on almost everything," Trump said then that if he did not seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, "I want to see someone who is going to make our country great again, which is basically the same thing as Steve."

The Des Moines Register reported that Trump said his ideology was so in sync with King's that "We don't have to compare notes."

Now Trump is a crude "know-nothing" president who engages in Muslim bashing and immigrant blaming. And King is tweeting about his enthusiasm for Geert Wilders, the Dutch extremist who is the darling of white nationalists in Europe and the United States.

Ahead of this week's election in the Netherlands, where the fiercely anti-immigrant Wilders is waging an aggressive campaign as something of a "Dutch Trump," King tweeted:

"Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

Rhode Island Democratic CongressmanDavid Cicilline responded appropriately: "This Tweet is an open endorsement of white nationalism. Shameful."

King's tweet was too much even for the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, Jeff Kaufmann, who said: "First of all, I do not agree with Congressman King's statement. We are a nation of immigrants, and diversity is the strength of any nation and any community."

Republicans in Washington need to join Democrats and King's own state party chair in formally condemning the congressman.

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From Consortium News



A scene from 'Dr. Strangelove,' in which the bomber pilot (played by actor Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet Union.

(Image by Photo courtesy: Dr. Strangelove/Columbia Pictures) Details DMCA



The anti-Russian McCarthyism that has spread out from the United States to encompass the European Union, Canada and Australia has at its core an implicit recognition that neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy have failed.

When I recently asked a European journalist why this anti-Russian hysteria had taken root among mainstream European political parties, he answered with a question: "Do you think they can run on their success in handling the recession and the refugees?"

In other words, European voters are angry about the painful economic conditions that followed the Wall Street crash of 2008 and the destabilizing surge of immigrants fleeing from Western "regime change" wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.

So, like the Democratic Party that doesn't want to engage in a soul-searching self-examination about Donald Trump's victory, the European "establishment" parties need a handy excuse to divert criticism -- and that excuse is Russia, a blame-shifting that has allowed nearly every recent criticism of an establishment government official to be sloughed off as "Russian disinformation."

It doesn't even matter anymore that the criticism may be based on solid fact. Even truthful information is now deemed "Russian disinformation" or Russian-inspired "fake news."

We saw that in the Canadian mainstream media's denunciations of Consortiumnews.com for running an article that pointed out that Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland had misrepresented her family history to white-out her maternal grandfather's role editing a Nazi newspaper in Poland that demonized Jews and justified the Holocaust.

Virtually every mainstream outlet in Canada rallied to Freeland's side when she dismissed our article as Russian disinformation. Only later did a few newspapers grudgingly acknowledge that our story was true and that Freeland knew it was true. Still, the attacks on us continued. We were labeled "Russian disinformationists," with no evidence needed to support the slander and no defense allowed.

Though arguably a small example, the Freeland story reflects what is happening across the Western mainstream news media. Almost every independent-minded news article that questions the establishment narratives on international affairs is dismissed as "Russian propaganda." The few politicians, academics and journalists who don't march in the establishment's parade are "Moscow stooges" or "Putin apologists."

The Russian Resistance

This anti-Russian hysteria began some years ago when Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear that Russia would no longer bow to dictates from Washington and Brussels. Russia bristled at the encroachment of NATO on its borders, rejected the neoconservative agenda of "regime change" wars in Muslim countries, and resisted the U.S.-backed putsch ousting Ukraine's elected president in 2014.



Hillary Clinton speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, March 21, 2016.

(Image by (Photo by Gage Skidmore)) Details DMCA



But the anti-Russian frenzy gained unstoppable momentum with the U.S. election in 2016. The Democrats, liberals and neoconservatives were horrified at the shocking upset of their presidential choice, Hillary Clinton, by the boorish and buffoonish Donald Trump.

After this bitter defeat, the losers looked for scapegoats rather than order up a serious autopsy on how they lost to the "unelectable" Trump, i.e, by choosing a corporate candidate who was associated with neoliberal economics and neoconservative war policies. Blaming Russia became the easy excuse that could unify the various pro-Clinton camps.

So, the Obama administration -- in an unprecedented step -- sought to poison the well for its successor by having the U.S. intelligence community put out evidence-lacking allegations about Russian "meddling" in the U.S. election to elect Trump.

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In launching its highly customizable second generation smartwatch, Tag Heuer killed off one of the most popular features of the original Connected watch that made it a household name in Silicon Valley. At an event in San Francisco, California ahead of the global launch of the Modular 45 in Switzerland, Tag Heuer announced that it is moving away from its discounted mechanical upgrade strategy.

When the original Connected launched about a year and a half ago, Tag Heuer wanted to meld the digital with the mechanical, allowing smartwatch owners the ability to purchase its artisan-crafted smartwatch for $1,500. Come two years time when the technology is obsolete, Connected owners can trade in their tech model for a similarly designed mechanical watch for $1,500. While this may sound pricey, Tag hopes that the combined $3,000 outlay offers an affordable way for tech users to get into the mechanical wristwatch market, and the final watch that youll get has a value north of $3,000.

With the second version of the Connected, Tag representatives in San Francisco informed me that such an upgrade strategy is no longer neededinstead, the personalization and customization achieved from the Modular 45 series modular approach means wearers can choose between mechanical or digital module at purchase, along with options for straps, lugs, case finishes and even a diamond-encrusted version.

Unfortunately, the price of entry is also creeping up. Even though Tag Heuer will offer up to 56 different combinations of the Modular 45 for purchaseits a strategy that falls somewhere between Motorolas phone personalization with Moto Maker and luxury Vertus assortment of premium metals and leathers in luxury smartphone market. Pricing starts at $1,650, unless of course you want diamonds on your watch (and who wouldnt?), which will bump up the Connected Modular 45 to $6,750.

Like its predecessor, the Modular 45 is powered by Googles Android Wear software, making it compatible with Android and iOS smartphones, and runs on Intels wearable chipset.

On its surface, the Modular 45s modular approach offers an unusual level of customization for an Android Wear device. On the watch module itself, you can choose from Tag Heuers Connected smartwatch, a simple Calibre mechanical module or a mechanical Tourbillon module at the premium end. And while you can get the basic Connected Modular 45 module with rubber straps and titanium bezel (the ceramic bezel option costs more) and a buckle for $1,650, the mechanical module retails for the same price but doesnt come with straps, lugs or a buckle.

The pricing and customization compares favorably against Apples premium Watch lineup. The Apple Watch Edition in ceramic starts at $1,249, for example, but doesnt offer the option to swap in a mechanical module that will delight Tags loyal watch-wearing customers.

The Connected Module itself, for example, is available in several different options, with price varying depending upon what you choose. The module is enclosed in a sturdy, but surprisingly lightweight titanium construction with options such as steel, ceramic or rose gold bezel finishes. Unlike smartwatches like Samsungs Gear S2 and Gear S3 watches, the bezel doesnt rotate.

Instead, there is a digital crownlocated at the 3 oclock positionthat allows you to scroll through menus without having to flick through the screen. Its a similar implementation that LG used on its most recent watches. No matter what option you choose, a Tag spokesperson informed me, the Connected comes in a full titanium metal case and sapphire glass screen for durability. The $17,000 COSC-certified chronograph Heuer 02T Tourbillon mechanical edition, I was told, includes the Connected module along with a second set of black rubber straps.

In handling all the various modules, I was impressed at how well balanced the Modular 45 felt in the hand. I had expected the digital module to weigh more than its mechanical counterparts, but I was surprised to feel that all three modules weighed roughly the same on my wrist. For watch wearers, you wont be able to discern, at least by weight, if you have on a $1,650 digital Tag watch or the $17,000 collectors dream. Its a bold strategy, but one that will serve Tag Heuer well if it intends for its buyers to swap between different modules depending on the wearers mood.

In terms of customizability, Tag Heuer executives showed off a range of options. Wearers can choose the strap materials and colors, the lugs and deployment buckles. Straps are available in choice of leather colors, ceramic band and rubber bands. You can choose between various lug finishes to complement your module or watch faces, with a darker PVD coating, a lighter titanium option, rose gold tone or even a module embedded with small diamonds to match the diamond-finished face. There are also buckle options to give the whole package a put-together look.

The downside with the removable lug system on the models I tried at Tags event is that constant attachment and removal can scratch the the watch case at the connection point. When the lugs are attached, you wont see these scratch marks, but perfectionists should beware.

Like the Apple Watch bands, changing between the various options doesnt require any tools a push button mechanism found on the underside of the watch where the band meets the module allows you to quickly swap bands and lugs. The deployment buckle slides onto the band, so you can change things on the go. The first generation model required watch tools to change the straps.

Compared to Tags first generation smartwatch, the Modular 45s design takes on an evolutionary approach. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, as its based on Tags Calibre design, a pretty timeless face in the Swiss watchmakers lineup.

This year, however, the face is just a hair smaller, measuring 45mm rather than its predecessors 46mm. Even though it doesnt look or sound much smaller, it feels a bit more comfortable on my smaller wrist. Still, theres no hiding the fact that this is a larger watch, and like the Gear S3, I feel like the Modular 45 is more geared towards male users. Female users who dont mind a larger face can opt for options like a diamond-emblazoned bezel surrounding the face and rose gold lug accents, for example.

On the face itself, the second generation Connected swaps out its TFT LCD screen from the first model for a bright circular OLED panel, which Tag claims offers more contrast and is brighter. I found that this is largely true, and the AMOLED screen is still visible even outdoors under the bright California sun. The move also allows Tag to extend battery life on the Connected. A Tag spokesperson confirmed that the watch can now last up to 30 hours on a single charge, up from 24 hours on the first model.

The switch to an OLED screen means that the display is a lot more vibrant this year, and the resolution has been increased to 400400 pixels on the 1.5-inch circular panel. One of the big complaints with the first version is that the screen appears pixelated up close, and fortunately, I can attest that this isnt the case with the second generation model.

Tag executives were also quick to point out that it had worked closely with partners like Intel and Google to design an all-metal watch case that can still transmit radio waves. The Connected Module 45 comes with WiFi support, which allows the watch to be used independent of a smartphone, and also has an NFC radio for wireless Android Pay on the watch.

The all metal case feels sturdy and is a nice refinement thats lacking on some notable smartwatches available for Android phones. For example, both the Android Wear-powered LG Watch Urbane LTE 2nd Edition and the Tizen-powered Samsung Gear S3 comes in a stainless steel case, but the back of the case is plastic. Even Tags first generation Connected comes with a plastic back. This isnt the case with the second generation Connected.

I didnt have a chance to test WiFi reception or reliability from the watch during my hands-on time to evaluate Tags claims, but the upgrade to an all-metal design makes the watch feels a lot more elegant, with a feel that rivals mechanical watches.

The return of titanium as the metal of choice on Tags second generation wearable is a smart choice. Even though the metal is sturdy, it is lightweight. Even at a larger 45mm dial size, the watch didnt feel awkwardly heavy on my wrist. And while it is a lighter weight material, Tag still created a balanced watch that feels as substantial as it is light when worn, a testament to the companys heritage in mechanical watchmaking.

On the rear of the metal case, youll find metal charging prongs, allowing the watch to interface with a charging cradle on top, along with Intel and Tag Heuer logos. On the bottom of the case is a discrete proximity sensor, which works as a security layer for Android Pay. If the watch detects that you have taken it off, it will prompt you for a PIN to safeguard against unauthorized Android Pay purchases at tap-to-pay NFC terminals.

At the San Francisco pre-launch event, Intel Senior VP and General Manager of the New Technology Group Josh Walden was quick to promote some of the features of Googles Android Wear 2.0 that will feel right at home on Tags watch design. Specifically, with Android Wear supporting expanded fitness tracking options, Intel said that the Connected Modular 45s water resistance of up to 50 metersroughly half the 100m rating on the mechanical modelmeans you can swim with your watch. The built-in GPS can also help track your runs.

This compares favorably well to Samsungs Gear S3, which is rated for just 5m of water resistance! Intel says that Tags water resistance claims is with the microphone fully open.

Yet, despite the improvements made to Android Wear as a fitness-centric platform and hardware innovations made by Tag Heuer on the watch side, there is still one big missed opportunity. Contrary to Tags hype, the second generation Connected is still missing a heart rate sensor, which could be a useful tool to make it a serious competitor to fitness-geared trackers from Fitbit, Garmin and others. The sensor is found on most of Tags popular competitors from Apple, LG, Motorola and Samsung.

Hardware isnt the only thing that you can customize with the Modular 45. If you opt for the Connected experience, Tags second generation smartwatch ships with a number of standard dials that allow you to replicate the analog experience of the companys Calibre Carrera line.

Colored white, black, light grey, anthracite grey, chocolate brown, navy blue or gold, with sunray finish, skeleton dial, 3 hands, GMT, a chronograph with 1, 2 or 3 counters, plus a date and day window are among the many digital customizations you can make to the Connected, Tag said in a prepared statement.

However, if you want even more refinements, you can head to the Tag Heuer Studio app, which is available natively on the watch or as a companion app on your phone. Tag Heuer Studio adds even further customization options to your watch face, allowing you to choose the dial color and markings, the color and luminance of the watch hands and additional windows in the watch for complications.

For example, with Tag Heuer Studio, you can have a dial with a three-window face, like a traditional chronograph. However, you can customize the windows to show different complications, like the number of steps you have taken, the weather and any other important notifications.

Walden said that Google Assistant will be available for your wrist, but Intel is also creating a new experience for the Connected, which will debut in a few months. While the Intel executive stopped short of calling this experience Intels own virtual smart assistant, it sounds like the chip-maker is ready to take on Google Assistant, Siri and Amazon Alexa in the AI space.

Walden describes the Intel effort as bringing contextual awareness to your reminders, allowing you to have a smarter wrist-worn experience. In an example, Walden said that the Intel-created experience will be able to remind you to not only buy eggs, but the reminder can be set to occur when you leave work, adding location as a context.

Intel didnt offer any more insight on the experience, but it said that this will launch in the coming months.

According to Tag executives, the second generation Connected will have more expanded retail availability at launch than the first model. There will be 11 standard configurations that will be available to Tag Heuer authorized retailers, like Macys and Bloomingdales department stores along with Tourneau, among others, and Tag Heuer offers an additional 45 built-to-order configurations for the ultimate in personalization for a connected wrist watch.

Representatives for the Swiss horologist were quick to point that the first generation of the watch exceeded Tag Heuers expectations and that theyre fully invested in the future of the wristwatch, which is the Connected smartwatch, according to CEO Jean-Claude Biver.

However, with rising prices and the affordable trade-in option towards a mechanical piece gone, Tags strategy means that youre buying into the companys legacy and experience. Unlike smartwatches from technology companies, Tags unapologetically Swiss-made branding on the watch is really what youre paying forthe privilege of buying art. There is no denying that there is an emotional connection to Tags pride heritage when you don something so well made on your wrist.
Just another day, just another stunning Priyanka Chopra magazine cover.

By India Today Web Desk: After smearing multiple magazine covers with her gorgeousness last year, India's hottest export to the West, Priyanka Chopra, has graced the cover of yet another international magazine.

From primetime television talk shows to world's most coveted movie and fashion events, PeeCee has been pretty much everywhere in the past one year. And this time around, the Quantico star is on the cover of Marie Claire looking as stunning as ever.

My new cover...April #vibes @marieclairemag AAA story link in bio, on stands March 21st! A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Mar 13, 2017 at 6:54am PDT

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Dressed in a red Gucci outfit with a dramatic harness for company, Priyanka stars on the cover which hails her as Hollywood's 'Most Bankable Badass'.

An interview for this Marie Claire issue has Priyanka talk about Bollywood, children and why she doesn't believe in seeking out for love.

On the work front, Priyanka will appear as a baddie in Hollywood's big release, Baywatch, that also stars Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron among others.

Have a look behind the scenes from my @marieclairemag cover shoot A???@marieclairemag A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Mar 13, 2017 at 2:26pm PDT

--- ENDS ---
The civil war in Yemen has plummeted the country into a humanitarian crisis similar in many ways to the tragedy in Syria. Up to 10,000 people have been killed in the war, 21 million peopleor 80 percent of the population on the brink of starvation according to the United Nations, and three million others have been displaced and forced to leave their homes.

The perpetual combat, the invasion of terrorist fundamentalists, the threat of disease, devastating famine, and historic drought have all led to what is essentially a failed state. What came first has its roots deeply embedded in the ancient Yemeni tradition of chewing an obscure drug called khat (qat). Since many Yemenis are devout Muslims prohibited from drinking alcohol, nearly every man, most women, and many children chew the plant to get their buzz, with 97 percent of its production being consumed inside the country.

Yemen may run out of water within a decade, some experts even say by the end of the year. And khat, a mild narcotic plant similar to amphetamines that give the person chewing it an energized euphoria similar to drinking a lot of caffeine, uses even more water to farm than the beans that made the country famous for its coffee. The word Mocha even derives from the Yemeni city of the same name. If you were to walk the streets of Yemens capital city Sanaa in the late afternoon, you would see the ubiquitous plant in the bulge of civilians cheeks as they passed by.

Khat also takes up precious land instead of using it for agriculture, which comprises a significant portion of Yemens GDP. While their economy is hopelessly dependent on the distribution of the drug, Yemen is also currently the poorest country in the Arab world. The cultivation of khatthe countrys most lucrative cropconsumes around 30 percent of the total water according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and that water is extremely scarce. This is a conservative estimate, other reports indicate it uses more than half of Yemens water.

The increasingly dry, riverless land of Yemen has failed to meet the demands of the exploding population in the country. In 1990, the population was 11 million people, but is at 25 million today, more than doubling over the last 25 years according to figures reported by the WHO and UNICEF. Today, only 13 million people have treated water to drink and even less have unimproved or surface water.

As khat continues to suck up the countrys water in its underground aquifers, the allocation of resources is one of the largest contributing factors for the uprising of Houthi rebels and the endeavors of revolution. With no food, water, or the means to obtain these basic necessities of life, the sectarian rebels essentially took up arms in complete desperation. The civil war is mostly an attempt at a change, any kind of change, in order to achieve a government that provides the essentials for life to the people.

Really they are all about sharing and participating in the resources of the country, said Abdulrahman Al Eryani, Yemens Minister of Water and Environment. Either oil, or water and land.

In addition to the poor distribution of resources on the part of the government, the Houthis also critique the regime for its corruption, which also ties into the allocation of land, crops, and water. Critics have pointed out the government is intimately involved with khat production, accusing the elite politicians of owning much of the land the plant is produced on including the substantial portion of state-owned property in the south of the country. Khat production takes up one-third of agricultural GDP in Yemen according to the World Bank, and agriculture is the countrys literal and proverbial life source. There is also a staggering 20 percent consumption tax on the narcotic, as the vast quantities rake in substantial revenue for the government.

As with any uprising, people are desperate for solutions. With Al-Qaeda and ISIS finding a safe haven in war-torn Yemen, the possibility for the terrorist organizations to garner new recruits is high. Attacks from the terrorists have caused further unrest, even killing a governor in an attack in December 2015. The intrusion of terrorist extremists has also had political repercussions, landing Yemen on the list of both versions of President Donald Trumps travel ban. With the focus on Syrian refugees and the imminent need to escape the situation in Yemen, the citizens of the country are desperate to gain asylum somewhere else now more than ever.

As children starve and die of thirst, the civil war shows no signs of coming to a close and the production of the mild narcotic shows no indication that it is slowing down, as use of the drug is on the rise. Though the country has imposed a weekday ban on sale of the drug, production has steadily increased 12 percent every year.

The production of khat, the lack of water, and the brutality of starvation culminated in the civil war the United States is complicity engaged in. Supporting the Saudi-led coalition, the campaign has bombed weddings, botched on-the-ground raids, andpurposefully or otherwiseattacked the Houthis, who are backed by the Iranian government. All of which has led to the brutal humanitarian meltdown, the collapse of a rich culture, and the destabilization of yet another Middle Eastern state.

Still, most Yemenis are not capable of seeing the connection between the drug and the brutality of the situation in their country. Not only does the drug invigorate them, heal them, and keep their spirits up in these trying times, it is a tradition dating back much further than the conflict or the climate-change-induced drought. As the custom of taking the drug depletes water, uses up the already sterile land, and is a driving factor of both the debilitating starvation and incessant warfare, the Yemeni people still use khat, which keeps them cripplingly poor, hungry to the point of famine, dying of thirst, and without a semblance of hope.
Who knew a selfie could attract attention to an entire species? Thats exactly what happened when Naruto, a crested black macaque living in the Tangkoko-Batuangus-Duasaudra Nature Reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, stole a photographers camera and snapped a photo of himself.

Naruto belongs to the species Macaca Nigra, known locally as yaki, which the International Union for Conservation of Nature has placed as one of the worlds 25 most endangered primates. The playful monkeys selfie not only sparked a copyright lawsuit, but also put his species, and the dangers he faces, into the limelight.

Antje Engelhardt, of Englands Liverpool John Moores University, has been studying the yaki for over a decade with her colleagues through the Macaca Nigra Project. She and her team observe the monkeys in their natural habitat on Sulawesi and study their behavior within their complex social groups.

Macaques are very territorial animals and the Tangkoko reserve is home to three main groups, each with about 80 members and an alpha male whose dominance is often challenged by other males. Though disputes are common, the animals rarely kill challengers, opting instead for quick, theatrical fights.

Scientists are eager to study these amazing creatures as threats to their existence are always rising. Surveys from 2009 to 2010 put their numbers at about 2000 within the reserve and Engelhardt says that their population has dropped in recent years.

Land clearing, road construction, hunting and trapping all work to diminish their population, despite efforts made by conservationists to protect their habitats. The market for exotic pets is thriving and macaques are still hunted for their meat.

A rapidly changing environment on the island has forced these monkeys into smaller and smaller areas and poachers are often able to avoid being caught by law-enforcement. Though Indonesia is dedicated to preserving its wildlife, controlling and stopping trappers and hunters is challenging and many monkeys are still killed or trapped every year.

Centers like the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre work to save the wildlife in the region from being illegally sold and hopes to revitalize their population by releasing them back into the wild and allowing them to rebuild social groups.

Like so many endangered species, the future of the crested black macaque rests in the hands of those who hope to protect them and understand how to preserve their behavior.

Top photo by Pavel Kirillov, CC BY-SA 2.0

Lauren Leising is a freelance writer based in Athens, Georgia.
The 2017 PokerStars Festival Rozvadov has crowned it's champion in the 118-entry strong 2,200 High Roller and Boris Kuzmanovic emerged victorious in heads-up against Aviv Meiri and claimed a payday of 37,791 as well as the elusive golden trophy in the poker arena of the King's Casino.

Down to the last three players, Kuzmanovic and Meiri cut a deal with 2016 EPT Barcelona Main Event champion Sebastian Malec, in which 3,000 were left to be played for, and the 29-year old poker pro and cash game player from Zagreb was the last man standing at just after 1 a.m. local time. Kuzmanovic already came close to a title in the predecessor series of the PokerStars Festival, the Eureka Poker Tour, when finishing runner-up to Achilles Bozso in the Eureka3 Dubrovnik Main Event in 2013.

Result of the Final Table

Place Winner Country Prize (EUR) 1 Boris Kuzmanovic Croatia 37,791* 2 Aviv Meiri Israel 36,428* 3 Sebastian Malec Poland 37,637* 4 Anestis Anagnostidis Greece 20,914 5 Michael Uguccioni Italy 15,863 6 Pietro Errante Parrino Italy 12,032 7 Robert Zipf Germany 9,126 8 Zoltan Ban Czech Republic 6,922

The final day saw 29 players return to the tables and just 20 of them made the money. In one of the first hands, Michael Uguccioni almost mucked his winning hand in an all-in showdown and walked away from the table for a while to regain composure.

Among those to run out of chips with nothing to show for were [Removed:197] and 5,300 King's High Roller runner-up Eugene Katchalov before the money bubble then burst in spectacular fashion.

There was an all in on each of the three remaining tables and two of them went into showdown. Jean Paul Zaffran three-bet shoved with pocket eights out of the blinds and initial raiser Guccioni isolated with pocket nines to eliminate Zaffran.

While David Urban folded to the shove of Malec over on table two, Santosh Srinivas was awaiting his fate on table three. Zoltan Ban had called the shove of the player from India with king-queen and Srinivas had a flip with pocket eights. A king appeared on the flop and the bubble burst.

Oren Rosen and Leonardo Mancuso were eliminated at almost the same time on different tables and PokerStars Team Online Pro Randy Lew also had to settle for a min-cash as well.

Lew three-bet shoved with pocket threes and Ban called with pocket fives. There was no help on the board and Lew was gone in 18th place for 3,437. Stefan Schulze, Phillipp Teipel and Mirko Willsch, three Germans, were sent to the rail in a row and the field was reduced to the last 14 hopefuls.

Start-of-day chip leader Daniil Kiselev was unable to keep the momentum going and shoved his short stack in with jack-ten suited. Ban called with king-jack suited and a jack on the flop was followed by a king on the turn. Antoine Vranken and Paul Skipper were next to fall, before Ban also claimed the remaining chips of Martin Bartos with pocket jacks versus ace-three.

Until then, things were running extremely well for Ban, but that quickly changed when Anestis Anagnostidis and Sebastian Malec doubled through the Czech. Over on the other table, Boris Kuzanovic dominated the action and the Croatian busted Dorin Rauta and David Urban in the same hand.

Rauta shoved for just over three big blinds with ace-six and Kuzmanovic called with deuces on the button. Urban reshoved with ace-jack suited in the small blind and Kuzmanic called, then spiked a deuce on the flop and dodged the straight and flush draw of both opponents.

That double elimination set up the eight-handed final table with Kuzmanovic in the lead:

Seat Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Robert Zipf Germany 208,000 10 2 Pietro Errante Parrino Italy 255,000 12 3 Aviv Meiri Israel 335,000 16 4 Anestis Anagnostidis Greece 256,000 12 5 Zoltan Ban Czech Republic 176,000 9 6 Sebastian Malec Poland 793,000 39 7 Michael Uguccioni Italy 467,000 23 8 Boris Kuzmanovic Croatia 1,055,000 52

The first casualty of the final table was Ban, who was blinded out the same day in the PokerStars Cup and finished 77th. Ban also grabbed one of the spade trophies during the festival by taking down the Stars Fun Side Event. The Czech got it in with ace-jack suited only to see Anestis Anagnostidis look him up with ace-king suited. A king-high board left Ban drawing dead on the turn.

Next to fall was the last remaining German in the field. Robert Zipf was reduced to less than two big blinds and his shove was called by Anestis Anagnostidis and Sebastian Malec. The latter bet the river of a ten-high board with five-four and bested the queen-nine of Zipf thanks to a five on the river.

Pietro Errante Parrino, who was one of three players eliminated on the bubble of the 1,100 Main Event to split the minimum payout, had to settle for sixth place. Parrino shoved short with king-six suited and Sebastian Malec called with ace-seven suited. The ace was good enough to claim the pot.

Parrino's countryman Michael Uguccioni followed soon after when his ace-ten failed to improve against the ace-jack of Aviv Meiri. Down to the last four, Anestis Anagnostidis was the shortest stack and managed to double once before falling back to the bottom of the counts again. Anagnostidis got it in with ace-king offsuit and Aviv Meiri looked him up with ace-ten of spades. By the turn, there were three spades on the board and the Greek was gone in fourth.

The final three players looked into ICM numbers and agreed to a deal within a few minutes, leaving 3,000 and the trophy up for grabs. While Sebastian Malec had the most chips when the deal was struck, he was the next to fall.

Malec three-bet shoved with queen-jack off and Boris Kuzmanovic quickly called with ace-king. After a jack on the flop, a king on the turn and an ace on the river, the better hand kept the lead preflop and Kuzmanovic entered heads-up play with a decent lead over Meiri.

The lead changed several times and Aviv Meiri got short, then doubled up only to run out of chips a few minutes later. Kuzmanovic raised and called the shove of his opponent for seven big blinds with pocket jacks. Meiri, a businessman from Israel, had a flip with ace-queen but the board ran out jack-high to crown a champion.

That marks the end of the PokerNews live reporting from the High Roller event, but you can still check out the updates of the record-breaking Main Event by clicking this link.
Both familiar and original stories are hitting the Broadway stage looking to be the next Hamilton

Even while a chunk of the country faces a burst of winter fury, it's important to remind ourselves that spring is just around the corner. One area of the country where this is particularly clear is New York's Broadway theater district, where several massive Broadway musicals are hitting the stage in time for Tony Awards consideration. Rather than risking getting overwhelmed by the options, we decided to do a run down of this spring's biggest productions.

Groundhog Day

Based on the beloved Bill Murray film of the same name, the musical tells the story of Phil Connors, a vain jerk of a weatherman whose life is turned upside down when he's forced to live out the same day over and over again. Boasting the same creative team as the acclaimed Matilda, the production comes from an acclaimed London run and carries with it a good deal of Tony hype. While we'll have to wait and see if it can make good on that buzz, don't be surprised if word of mouth turns this into a hot ticket.

Anastasia

Adapted from the 1997 animated film, the musical tells the story of the missing daughter of Tsar Nicholas II in 1920's Paris teaming up with two con men as she tries to uncover the secrets of her past. Coming from the Tony-winning writing team of Ragtime and the Tony-winning director of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, the musical certainly has the talent at its disposal to tell its grand story. Hopefully it will be able to live up to the caliber of its creative team and give fans that grew up with the movie and new first timers alike something to sweep them off their feet.



Come From Away

While not boasting the advance hype or familiarity of other shows on this list, Come From Away has earned rave reviews and seems in position to claim the title of Broadway's feel good hit of the year. Inspired by true events of a small town in Newfoundland, Canada that opened itself up to thousands of strangers whose flights were thrown into chaos after 9/11 and the unexpected community that formed. While far from conventional Broadway musical premise, this sweet, touching, and often funny musical about kindness may be the exact type of show the country needs right now.



Amelie

Based on the Oscar Nominated French film comes a new adaptation starring Phillipa Soo, the Tony nominated female lead of Hamilton. Just as the film did, the musical tells the quirky romantic story of a kind young woman seeking to help the world who ends up finding unexpected love along the way. Given both the film's acclaim and the attention Soo will have in her first role since Hamilton, the musical will have some lofty expectations, but if it can pull it off Amelie could end up being the perfect date night musical.



Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

What happens when a kindhearted young boy finds a golden ticket to visit an eccentric candy tycoon's chocolate factory? Well if you read Roald Dahl's book or one of it's film adaptations you may already know the answer, but starting this spring audiences will get the chance to see a whole new look at the story. Featuring new music by the song writing team responsible for Hairspray and starring two-time Tony winner Christian Borle as Wonka, the musical is poised to be the family friendly spectacle of the spring for those seeking a little pure imagination in the big city.
Advance Battery Technologies Market

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Energy storage is a key factor leading towards technological advancements primarily in energy and power sector. Thus, demand for batteries, which are efficient, low cost and safe is anticipated to record significant growth in the coming years. This is further supported by investments by public as well as private sector for projects on energy storage. Advance battery technologies are majorly used in power-intensive applications. Conventionally, batteries were used in used either in consumer products or automobiles. Technological advancements have led towards development of advance batteries including metal hydride, lithium-ion and zinc-air designs. Advance battery technologies are expected to witness upsurge in wind-power energy storage, utility-load leveling systems and plug-in vehicles. Advance battery technologies are anticipated to have a significant transformation in the transportation industry as well as energy markets globally. In addition, development of combination batteries equipped with renewable sources of energy might lead towards a shift from non-renewable sources such as coal, gas and oil. Thus, leading towards attainment of energy efficiency across the globe. Battery manufacturers are focused towards development of high performance products, which cater to the demand for high energy storage, better speed and energy optimaisation.Advance Battery Technologies Market Segmentation:Advance Battery Technologies market is segmented on the basis of battery type and applications. On the basis of battery type, the segmentation includes nickel-cadmium batteries, lead acid batteries, lithium-ion batteries, lithium-polymer batteries, metal-air batteries, nickel-zinc batteries, silver cadmium secondary batteries, silver-zinc secondary batteries, nickel-hydrogen secondary batteries and others. On the basis of application, the advance battery technologies market segmentation includes automotive, UAV, wearable electronics, hybrid and electric bus, military/aerospace batteries, residential energy storage, industrial electric and others. Military/aerospace industry is expected to witness upsurge in adoption of advance battery technologies in the next five to six years, which is further anticipated to lead towards high competition among players in this sector.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2604 Geographically, the advance battery technologies market is segmented into seven regions namely North America, Western Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.Advance Battery Technologies Market Dynamics:Demand for better speed, reliability and energy is expected to fuel the demand for advance batteries and thus, growth of advance battery technologies market. In addition, battery manufacturers need to focus on development of batteries catering to the need of specific application. For instance, in case of hybrid vehicles, high-power lithium batteries are used to offer better electricity stability when compared to other conventional batteries. Increasing demand for electric boats, aircrafts, wearable electronic devices and other consumer electronics have led towards development of advance battery technologies for the same. This is further expected to fuel the advance battery technologies market growth in the near future. However, increasing number of manufacturers in the battery technologies is a concern for development of efficient products, which is restricting the advance battery technologies market growth. In order to achieve competitive advantage, key areas for manufacturers to focus and invest in for battery manufacturers comprise battery life, cost, range, power density, charging time and battery thermal management. Moreover, commercialisation of certain advance batteries is at nascent stage, which ultimately restricts adoption of advance battery technologies among end users.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2604 Advance Battery Technologies Market Key players:Some of the players in the battery market include Exide Corp., Hitachi Maxell Corp., Honda Inc., American Battery Charging Inc., Sony Corp., China Bak Battery, Inc., General Electric Co., Fujitsu Ltd and Honeywell Batteries. Players on the advance battery technologies are engaged in continuous research and development in order to offer better and efficient battery solutions across the varied end use applications worldwide.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Home Wi-Fi Security Solutions Market: APAC Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2016- 2026" report to their offering.

Home Wi-Fi Security Solutions Market

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CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

APAC home Wi-Fi security solutions market revenue is expected to expand at a year-over-year rate of 9.3% in 2016 over 2015 and surpass US$ 8,824.9 in revenues. India, the largest market for home Wi-Fi security solutions in APAC, will continue to witness strong growth rates in 2016.Growing subscriber base for internet usage and smart devices will continue to fuel the growth of Wi-Fi security solutions market in the region. In addition, increasing internet penetration, and development of cyber-crime networks and commercial-scale toolkits that create malignant malware are influencing individuals to install home Wi-Fi security solutions. Mounting concerns over growing cybercrimes are also anticipated to play a key role in driving the growth of the home Wi-Fi security solutions market in APAC.On the basis of home network architecture, Wi-Fi routers will dominate market revenues, accounting for a 47.7% share in 2016. Modem and router (combo) devices will grow in popularity owing to their advantages, such as lower space requirement and necessity of fewer cables. Constant innovation in functionality of Wi-Fi router services and production of cost-effective devices is expected to further drive the growth of the market. By components, the hardware segment will continue to account for the highest share in terms of revenue.Request For Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-ap-1723 India will maintain its position as the leading APAC home Wi-Fi security solutions market, accounting for over 74.5% revenue share in 2016. Affordable service availability and pervasive wireless connectivity will support the growth of the market in the country. Malaysia and Indonesia will also exhibit healthy growth rates owing to an increasing adoption of cloud in IoT services and growing market for M2M communication in these countries.Key participants identified in the APAC home Wi-Fi security solutions market include Koalasafe Inc., Keezel, Securifi, Cujo LLC, eero Inc., and Luma Home Inc.Long-term Outlook: The APAC home Wi-Fi security solutions market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 12.7% during the forecast period 2016-2026. India will continue to witness exponential growth during the forecast period.Send An Enquiry@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-ap-1723
Cheese Ingredient Market

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Cheese is a milk product which is formed by the coagulation of casein, a milk protein. Cheese is consumed everyday all over the world. The global cheese ingredient market is expected to change rapidly due to fast changing patterns of eating across all the globe. The use of cheese is increasing day by day because people all over the world are consuming more fast foods like pizza and burger on daily basis, which is expected to drive the cheese ingredient market in the forecast period. The basic cheese ingredient which is required to make cheese are milk, bacterial culture, enzyme and additives such as cheese salt. The bacterial culture which is used as cheese ingredient are probiotic in nature which is very essential for our body, so the selection bacterial culture has high importance fro he production of cheese. Recently, consumers have also been preferring healthy cheese products with good taste, availability at convenience and use of quality ingredients. Companies are also investing heavily in research and development to innovate new cheese products in order attract the consumers.Market Segmentation:Cheese market is segment on the basis of cheese type, ingredients and region. On the basis of cheese type market is segmented into processed cheese and natural cheese. The demand for natural cheese is more due to the benefits it offers such as, it is rich in vitamins, proteins, minerals, healthy bacterial culture (probiotic) and enzymes. On the basis of cheese ingredient the market is segmented into bacterial cultures, milk type (milk cream, powdered milk and fresh milk), milk additives (food colors, cheese salts and others) and enzymes (lipase and rennet). The market of ingredient segment is led by milk, followed by enzyme. The demand for enzymes is high due to the increased shelf life of the enzyme modified cheese makes it a preferred option for the manufacturers. On the basis of region cheese ingredient market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, MEA and Japan.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2609 Market Regional Outlook:Regional segment for the market of cheese ingredient is divided into seven different regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, MEA and Japan. Among these segment North America is expected to have the major market share globally, as it is the largest exporter and producer of cheese.In North American region the United States is generating the major revenue followed by Canada. In terms of revenue Asia Pacificis also one of the prominent contributor in the cheese ingredient market. New Zealand and Australia has the largest cheese ingredient markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Large scale milk production in countries like India and china has led to low cost production of cheese.Market Drivers:Rising demand of enzyme modified cheese with longer shelf life coupled with lower price is pushing the growth of cheese ingredient market during the forecast period. Factors such as rapid urbanization and increasing food budget have also increased the demand for cheese ingredients. The growing demand from the emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil among others, the market of cheese ingredient is expected to grow at a faster pace in the forecast period. Moreover, the market is also driven by the increasing awareness among the consumers about the health benefits associated with the ingredients used in the manufacturing of natural cheese.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2609 Market Key Players:Some of the key players in cheese ingredientmarket areArla Foods, Fonterra Co-operative Group, CSK Food Enrichment, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Chr. Hansen Holding A/S, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Almarai, Koninklijke DSM N.V., Saputo Inc. and Alpura.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 10:23:01

New mandate supports Citis commitment to invest and facilitate projects that address and combat the effects of climate change

Citi Appointed by the OGCI as Sole Banking Provider for Cash Management and Commercial Card Services Globally

Citi Media Contacts:

Belinda Marks

+44 20 7508 3082

belinda.marks@citi.com

Citi today announced that it has been appointed by the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) investment arm, as its sole bank provider for cash management and commercial cards services globally.

Citi will provide OGCI Climate Investments LLP (CI) with an end-to-end cash management and commercial card solution, which will assist the operational requirements of CI itself, as well as supporting the ongoing activities related to CIs investments in the development and deployment of low carbon emissions technologies.

OGCI will not only benefit from Citis UK cash management platform, but also Citis cross border currency solution, WorldLink, allowing payments to be made in over 130 currencies, to over 180 countries. Citis travel and expense card solution will also provide OGCI with maximum global acceptance, whilst also simplifying the management of the program.

Citi already holds a long standing relationship with all of the OGCI Founding Members, made up of the worlds major oil and gas companies, who came together to collaborate on action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2016, the OGCI announced an investment of one billion dollars over the next decade to accelerate the development of innovative technologies to reduce greenhouse gases on a significant scale.

Dominic Emery, Interim CEO of OGCI Climate Investments explains: The positive impact of the billion-dollar investment will multiply as technology we develop is deployed across the global operations of our OGCI member companies and throughout wider industry. Its an exciting step forward in collaborative climate action. We are delighted to be supported in this effort by global partners such as Citi who share our commitment to sustainable growth.

Naveed Sultan, Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi commented: The OGCI is a key initiative for the Energy and Oil and Gas Sector, and also supports Citis Sustainable Progress strategy globally. Our existing partnership with the founding companies, combined with Citis ongoing commitment to the sector itself, allows us to be able to provide the necessary support to this exciting and dynamic venture. This partnership is a true reflection of Citis commitment to sustainable growth and combating climate change, and we look forward to working closely on this project.

Citis Sustainable Progress Strategy, launched in 2015, focuses on combating climate change, championing sustainable cities and engaging with people and communities. The OGCI initiative supports Citis activities to reduce the impact of climate change and create environmental solutions in partnership with its clients.

About Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions

Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS), provides integrated cash management and trade finance services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations across the globe. With a full range of digital and mobile enabled platforms, tools and analytics, TTS continues to lead the way in delivering innovative and tailored solutions to its clients. It offers the industrys most comprehensive suite of treasury and trade solutions including cash management, payments, receivables, liquidity management and investment services, working capital solutions, commercial and prepaid card programs, trade finance and services.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://new.citi.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi

About OGCI

The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) is a CEO-led initiative which aims to show sector leadership in the response to climate change. OGCI is made up of ten oil and gas companies that collaborate on action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Combined, OGCI members produce over one-fifth of global oil and gas production and over 10% of energy supply.

Additional information can be found at www.oilandgasclimateinitiative.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201703140056
Critical Care Diagnostics Market Value

PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 05:12:10

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# 841 Words

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Critical Care Diagnostics also known as point of care are the approved tests that are done near to the patient and provides quick result. The self-testing or over the counter test are also comes under critical care diagnostics. The pathology labs require certain time to provide results depends upon type of test, while critical care tests are the sophisticated test which provides result earlier to detect the disease for better treatment plan.Critical care diagnostics provides quick diagnostics tests to the patient and where the results can be obtained immediately, while the pathology labs requires hours or sometime days to provide results. The critical care diagnostics includes cancer biomarker test, cardiac markers diagnostics, blood glucose testing, pregnancy testing, blood gas and electrolyte analysis, drugs of abuse, urine stripe testing, food pathogens screening, cholesterol screening, haemoglobin diagnostics and infectious disease testing. The critical care diagnostics are used in hospitals, research centres, clinical laboratories as well as home. These diagnostic tests are cost effective and provides appropriate and rapid diagnosis. These test are used for diagnosis of life threatening diseases occurring in patients.Critical Care Diagnostics Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe Critical Care Diagnostics Market is expected to grow exponentially during the estimated period. The rising awareness about these test among physicians and patients and its associated benefits, increasing geriatric population, increasing prevalence of chronic disease like diabetes, heart disease, cancer will drive the market of critical care diagnostics in forecast period. However, the increasing cost of molecular diagnostics and less technological adoption in some developing countries may affect the growth of market. The critical care diagnostics test are easy to use and provides results and minutes. Theses test also provides mobile connectivity and hand-held system.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2542 Critical Care Diagnostics Market: SegmentationThe global Critical Care Diagnostics Market is segmented on the basis of types of product, by mode of prescription, by End User, and regional presence.Segmentation based on Type of Product:Glucose monitoring kitsCardiometabolic monitoring kitsInfectious Disease testing kitsCoagulation monitoring kitsCancer markers testing kitHematology testing kitsPregnancy and fertility testing kitsCholesterol test stripsDrugs-Of-Abuse testing kitsFecal Occult testing kitsOther critical care diagnostics testing kitsSegmentation based on Prescription Mode:Prescription-Based Testing KitsOTC Testing Kits MarketSegmentation based on End User:HospitalsAmbulatory surgical centersResearch LaboratoriesHomeSegmentation based on Distribution Channel:North AmericaLatin AmericaWestern EuropeEastern Europesia Pacific Excluding JapanJapanThe Middle East and AfricaRequest For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2542 Critical Care Diagnostics Market: OverviewThe market of critical care diagnostics is segmented as by type of product of product, mode of prescription, by end user and geographically. The product type includes type of kits for various type of disease such as blood glucose test, cancer biomarker test, infectious disease such as HIV, STDs, hepatitis, respiratory infections, influenza testing kits etc. some of critical care diagnostics test are prescription base and some are Over the counter tests. The test like biomarker test, infectious disease test, hematology test etc. are prescription test. These test are prescribed by physician to detect the cause of disease and other factors. Test like blood glucose test, pregnancy test are OTC tests. These test are done at home by patient himself to monitor and to check the level of disease states and other things.Critical Care Diagnostics Market: Regional OverviewGeographically, the global Critical Care Diagnostics Market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, Middle East and AfricaNorth America is expected to be the most lucrative market for critical care diagnostics owing to the presence more sophisticated instruments and technology in the region. The product awareness among the people of Europe is high and evolution of more physicians office labs and this will fuel the market of critical care diagnostics in the region. The large presence of geriatric population, improving health care service due to positive support of government to provide treatment in rural regions, increasing prevalence of chronic disease such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes are the key factor responsible for growth of critical care diagnostics in Asia pacific. The increasing healthcare expenditure in Japan will drive the market growth in the country. The epidemiology and mortality due to severe disease like cancer, heart disease is more in the Latin America due to less facilities available in the country. The insurance plan by government of region will help in the critical care diagnostics market.Critical Care Diagnostics Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players operating in the market for Critical Care Diagnostics Market are Abbott Laboratories, Beckman Coulter, Inc., Beckman Coulter, Inc., Roche Diagnostics, Becton Dickinson & Co., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Nanomix Inx., Sysmex Corporation, Nova Biomedical, Siemens AG, Biosensors Japan etc. In 2015, stat profile prime, the blood gas analyzer, new generation product of Nova Biomedical got U.S. FDA approval for point of care diagnosis. In 2016, Abbott laboratories acquires Alere, the leader in point of care diagnostics.
Sources told India Today that all 20 AAP MLAs from Punjab would be in Delhi. A decision on choosing the Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly is likely to be taken in this meeting itself.

By Ankit Tyagi: After faring poorly in Punjab Assembly election, Aam Aadmi Party's newly-elected legislators will be meeting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at his residence on Wednesday.

Sources told India Today that all 20 AAP MLAs from Punjab would be in Delhi.

A decision on choosing the Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly is likely to be taken in this meeting itself.

HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW Being the second largest party in Punjab election, AAP will be the principle opposition to the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government. Sources also informed that senior AAP leader and lawyer H.S Phoolka who won from Dakha constituency and former Congressman-turned-AAP MLA from Bholath constituency Sukhpal Singh Khaira were the frontrunners to be chosen as the leader of AAP legislators and Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly. Kejriwal-led AAP, which made its electoral debut in Punjab, was left stunned after it failed to win a significant number of seats in the state, especially in Malwa region. Despite AAP's high-decibel campaign, the party came a distant second to Congress, which won the elections comprehensively with 77 seats. Senior party leaders and Punjab MLAs will also brainstorm about the reason behind their below-par performance and the way forward for the party in Punjab.

--- ENDS ---

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Digital Phase Shifter Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 07:50:54

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# 693 Words

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Digital phase shifter is a type of control device that changes the phase of RF, microwave or millimeter wave signals with practically negligible attenuation. These devices are programmable or can be controlled via a computer interface. Digital phase shifters have a variety of applications, including RF power amplifier linearization/RF distortion, amplitude and phase modulation, variable attenuators, and fiber optics. Different types of digital phase shifters such as 4-bit, 5-bit, 6-bit, and 8-bit digital phase shifters, etc. are used for telecommunication, VSAT communications, navigation, and radar. A digital phase shifter consists of high performance GaAs switches, low/high pass filter, and integral TTL driver. GaAs switches have little power consumption, fast switching time, and extremely low switching transients. Depending on their end-use, different kinds of digital phase shifters are used for different applications. For example, 8-bit digital phase shifters are designed to be used in a broad range of applications including beam forming networks, active antenna systems, distributed antenna systems, and phased array applications.Global Digital Phase Shifter Market: DynamicsDigital phase shifter is an essential device used across various end-use industries such as telecommunication, aerospace and defense, weather, etc. An increase in demand from various end-use industries including aerospace, mobile, mobile broadband, internet, satellite, and fixed broadband sector is one of the crucial factors boosting the demand of digital phase shifters, which in turn, is propelling the overall growth of the global digital phase shifter market. That apart, continuous development in information technology sector is pumping their growth in the global market.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2608 One of the key challenges faced by the digital phase shifter is that it is difficult to maintain linearity which provides near constant phase shift over an octave in these devices. Usage of technologies such as UltraCMOS technology, an advanced form of SOI, is the key trend observed in the global digital phase shifter market. This technology has proved to be quite effective at solving digital phase shifter market's biggest challenge, which is linearity. Digital phase shifters, with phase range of 90, are used in wireless communication for single side band generation, image rejection, and IQ modulation. Hence, 90 digital phase shifters are in high demand.Global Digital Phase Shifter Market: SegmentationThe global digital phase shifter market can be segmented on the basis of number of bits, phase range, applications and end use industries. On the basis of number of bits, the global digital phase shifter market can be segmented into 4-bit, 5-bit, 6-bit, 8-bit and others (1-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit, etc.). On the basis of phase range, global digital phase shifter market can be segmented into less than 45, 45, 90, 180 and 360. On the basis of applications, the global digital phase shifter market can be segmented into communication, microwave instrumentation and measurement, navigation, electronic warfare and phase cancellation, and radar systems. On the basis of end use industry, global digital phase shifter market can be segmented into aerospace & defense, network infrastructure (telecommunication, radio, television, weather radar system, etc.), and other industrial applications (e.g. healthcare).Global Digital Phase Shifter Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global digital phase shifter market is segmented into 5 key regions. These are categorized as -- North America, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe. North America and Europe are anticipated to remain the key regions in the global digital phase shifter market throughout the forecast period. Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America are expected to be the emerging markets as the large population in these areas will increase the pressure on the existing telecommunication infrastructure, which in turn, will lead to an increase in demand for global digital phase shifters.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2608 Global Digital Phase Shifter Market: Market ParticipantsSome of the well-known market participants involved in the manufacturing of digital phase shifters include MACOM, Analog Devices, Inc., Peregrine Semiconductor Corp., TriQuint Semiconductor, GT Microwave Inc., Pulsar Microwave Corporation, Mercury Systems, Inc., Planar Monolithics Industries, Aelius Semiconductors Pte. Ltd., Astra Microwave Products Limited, Crane Aerospace & Electronics, Custom MMIC, Dbwave Technologies CO.,LTD , Lorch Microwave, Pasternack Enterprises, Inc., Qorvo, Inc, SAGE Millimeter, Inc., Telemakus LLC., United Monolithic Semiconductors, Vaunix Technology Corporation,etc.
Konjac Flour Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 07:53:03

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Konjac flour can be defined as a Glucomannan Powder which is pure soluble fiber with no calories, no starch, no sugar, no fat and no protein which is wheat free and gluten free. Konjac flour is used as an ingredient as a thickening agent in food preparation and additives in food & beverage industry. Konjac flour is made from konjac plant roots, when konjac plants roots are matured, the roots are removed from the ground and peeled. Peeled roots are cut into pieces and dried by warm air, dried roots are then refined into a powder which separates the lighter components from the heavier flour, left glucomannan is used in noodles and other dishes. Konjac flour is an odorless, natural soluble fiber, which is found in the konjac plants.The food made from the corm of the konjac plant is widely known as konnyaku (yam cake) which is being cooked and consumed on daily basis in Japan. Research has found that konjac lowers down serum cholesterol levels and helps to delay the glucose absorption.Konjac Flour Market Segmentation:Konjac flour market can be segmented on the basis of applications, function, and by regions. Based on application, konjac flour is segmented into food & beverages, agriculture, medical & pharmaceutical industry. Konjac flour has gelling property which acts as a fat replacer in various types of processed foods. Konjac flour used as a thickener for smooth soups, gravies, bakery products, carbonated beverages, confectionery, desserts, noodles, yogurt, sauces, stews, glazes and casseroles. It is also used in cake fillings, puddings, pies and custard as a thickener. Konjac flour is odorless and is gluten-free, which is a perfect substitute in cooking and baking when flour and glutinous starches is to be avoided. On the basis of function the market of konjac flour is segmented into gelling agent, thickener, film former, emulsifier and stabilizer. The market on the basis of use is led by gelling agent segment followed by emulsifier. On the basis of region Konjac flourmarket is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, MEA and Japan.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2610 Konjac Flour Market Trends and Market Drivers:Konjac flour market is expected to witness sustained growth over the forecast period increasing demand for gelling, thickening and stabilizing agent is expected to grow the demand over the forecast period. Other factors attributable to the high growth includes rising health consciousness, increasing purchasing power, rise in per capita health expenditure. Konjac flour has special properties which provide various health benefits such as better immune system and better digestion. In addition, government bodies for example, FDA supports the use of konjac flour in numerous drugs and foods which is expected to push the growth of the market. Konjac flour is anticipated to witness relatively high share in the food & beverage segment. Pharmaceutical segment is also expected to expand at higher rate owing to the wide use of Konjac Flour in pharmaceutical segment for the treatment of constipation, weight loss and help in improving cholesterol level.Regional Outlook of Konjac Flour Market:On the basis of geographical market segment, it is segmented into seven different regions: North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific region, Japan and Middle East and Africa. In regional segments, Asia-Pacific is expected to hold a relatively high share in terms of market value. China has the largest konjac flour markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan region is expected to witness relatively higher growth in the Konjac Flour market. People in japan havethe habit of consuming konjac foods on daily basis which is the key factor to drive the market in this region.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2610 Konjac Flour Market Key Players:Some of the key participating players in konjac flour market globally are Hubei Yizhi Konjac Biotechnology Co., Ltd, Zeroodle, Miracle Noodle, NAH Foods, Shanghai Brilliant Gum Co. Ltd and Henan Xin Industry Co. Ltd. And Baoji Konjac Chemcial Co., Ltd., NOW Foods among others. Companies in the konjac flour market are heavily investing in research and development activities to enhance the functional profile of konjac flour.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 17:53:01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Manufacturers value Lectra's fabric cutting room: 3000 Vector sold in 10 years

Lectra is proud about customers' continued passion for the company's flagship solution Vector, which guarantees customers operational excellence and prepares them for Industry 4.0

Paris, March 14, 2017 - Lectra, the world leader in integrated technology solutions dedicated to industries using fabrics, leather, technical textiles and composite materials, announces the recent sale of its 3000th Vector in 10 years The Vector range has revolutionized the automatic cutting room for fabric, enjoying immediate success with fashion, automotive and furniture manufacturers. Today, Vector is the undisputed reference for the fabric cutting room, reflected by the 15% rise in sales for Vector in 2016.

Manufacturers' enthusiasm for Vector, in both developed countries and emerging economies, is due to a range of competitive advantages. Vector's record machine availability-over 98%-plus its overall performance minimizes the cost per piece, bringing profitability to operations for Lectra customers. In addition, Vector's cutting precision and the capacity to produce pieces without spaces equates to significant gains in materials, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for manufacturers.

A series of decisive innovations for Vector have ensured that Lectra continues to help customers reach their increasingly ambitious objectives for operational excellence. Since 2007, Vector has made true technological leaps, pushing the boundaries for speed, quality and reliability. The new generation of Vector, launched in 2012, established new standards for productivity and controlling performance which remain unrivalled today. At the end of 2016, two new models joined the Vector family: Vector iQ, whose cutting device enables a 10% rise in productivity, and VectorAuto iX6, which specializes in synthetic fabric cutting for seats and car interiors.

Vector owes its reliability to the multiple sensors with which it is equipped. Launched with 120 sensors, today Vector has 180 sensors to implement preventive and predictive maintenance. Vectors installed across the world communicate in real time with Lectra's five international call centers, where experts can immediately intervene remotely.

"A pioneering solution in the Internet of Things, Vector was the first cutting solution on the market connected to the Internet and which used a system of predictive maintenance. The Vector range fully answers Industry 4.0 concepts and its innovative services are a major asset for the cutting room of the future," underlines Daniel Harari, Lectra CEO.

 Vector is a registered trademark of Lectra.

About Lectra

Lectra is the world leader in integrated technology solutions (software, automated cutting equipment, and associated services) specifically designed for industries using fabrics, leather, technical textiles, and composite materials to manufacture their products. It serves major world markets: fashion and apparel, automotive, and furniture as well as a broad array of other industries. Lectra's solutions, specific to each market, enable customers to automate and optimize product design, development, and manufacturing. With more than 1,550 employees, Lectra has developed privileged relationships with prestigious customers in more than 100 countries, contributing to their operational excellence. Lectra registered revenues of $288 million in 2016 and is listed on Euronext.

For more information, please visit www.lectra.com

Contact - Lectra Headquarters / Press Dept.: Nathalie Fournier-Christol

E-mail: n.fournier-christol@lectra.com

Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 64 42 37 - Fax: +33 (0)1 53 64 43 40





This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: LECTRA via Globenewswire


Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 07:56:34

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Diabetes has evolved as one of the primary healthcare epidemic characterized by high sugar levels and principle cause of mortality worldwide. In 2014, World Health Organization (WHO) estimated 8.5% of adults living with diabetes. A diabetic person cannot either synthesize enough insulin (type 1 diabetes) or either does not make enough insulin or cannot effectively use the insulin produced by the body (type 2 diabetes). Another type of diabetes that occur in women during her pregnancy is gestational diabetes. However, gestational diabetes is usually resolved after delivery but can precede towards type 2 diabetes later in a womens life. Most of the continuous glucose monitoring devices are invasive and involves use of needles leading to increased chance of infection. Furthermore, the invasive glucose monitoring device is considered to be discrete glucose measurement system which cannot be practically used for continuous monitoring of blood glucose. Certain evidences of hyperglycemia between measurements are however not recorded thus resulting in false or no representation of the blood glucose pattern. Noninvasive monitoring of glucose levels eliminates the need of painful pricking with increased risk of infection, and amount of damage caused to the finger tissue.Therefore, non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring devices are being widely investigated and studied over the past few years for their ability to monitor glucose continuously under highly controlled (e.g. in-clinic) conditions. Various techniques that involves measurement of blood glucose levels non-invasively includes, Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), Mid -Infrared Spectroscopy (Mid-IRS), Raman Spectroscopy, Photo-acoustic Spectroscopy (PA), Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and many more.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2613 Non- Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring DevicesMarket: Drivers & RestraintsRising prevalence of diabetes globally is expected to result in greater use of noninvasive blood glucose monitoring devices among the prevalent population. Owing to the several disadvantages imposed by the use of invasive blood glucose monitors and growing need to develop noninvasive glucose monitoring diagnostic techniques, the market for non- invasive blood glucose monitoring devices is expected to rise at a greater pace during the forecast period. For instance, in June 2015, researchers in U.K. developed blood glucose device that utilizes low-powered lasers in order to measure the blood glucose levels on the skin surface. Also a bench-top version of the system is currently in clinical trials studies which might land in the market over the next few years. This includes, a finger-touch device similar to a computer mouse and a wearable version for continuous blood glucose monitoring. In addition, increasing efforts by several startup manufacturers, for example, Prediktor Medical- a Norway based manufacturer is developing a wearable device for estimation of blood glucose levels based on the combination of several principles determining the noninvasive glucose monitoring including, advanced multivariate analysis and dynamic models for insulin or glucose interaction. The device is expected to be in the form of a watch or bracelet communicating with the mobile phone or a tablet for data presentation. This would enable patients monitor their glucose levels continuously without the need for an implant. Currently available blood glucose measuring devices lacks specificity and sensitivity due to the substantial physical and chemical interference. Non-invasive glucose monitoring devices use multivariate regression analyses converting optical signal to glucose concentration. Hence the device should be designed in such a way that it leads to accurate detection of blood glucose levels imperative for optimum therapy and disease management.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2613 Non- Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices Market: SegmentationNon- invasive blood glucose monitoring devices marketis segmented by technology, modality end user and geography:By TechnologyMIR/NIR (Mid/Near Infrared Spectroscopy)Raman SpectroscopyOcclusion SpectroscopyOptical Coherence TomographyThermal Emission SpectroscopyPhotoacoustic SpectroscopyImpedance/Dielectric SpectroscopyElectromagneticPolarimetryFluorescenceBy ModalityWearable Blood Glucose Monitoring SystemsNon-wearable /Table top Blood Glucose Monitoring SystemsBy End UserHospitalsHome Care SettingsClinicsNon- Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices Market: OverviewRising prevalence of diabetes worldwide imposes significant economic consequences on the individuals life. Currently, there are 350 million people worldwide estimated to live with diabetes. Thus continuous monitoring of blood glucose levels is essential in order to manage the ever increasing prevalent population living with diabetes currently. For this reason manufacturers are focusing on developing diagnostic techniques that are highly reliable and monitors individuals blood glucose levels with greater accuracy with the capability to improve glycemic control and patient wellbeing. By integration of sensing elements, electronics along with a reliable power source in a single unit, noninvasive blood glucose monitors are offering immense opportunity for all the device manufacturers along with patients and various healthcare providers across the world. Accelerated regulatory approvals of blood glucose monitors is one of the another important factor leading to increased revenues of noninvasive blood glucose devices over the forecast period.Non- Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of region presence, Non- Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia pacific excluding japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa. Growing number of diabetic population in U.S. is the leading factor contributing towards higher adoption of noninvasive blood glucose monitoring systems. Center of Diseases Control and Prevention estimated 29.1 million of U.S. population with diabetes in the U.S. The data also estimated adult population with diabetes are at 50% higher risk of death. Furthermore, growing need of continuous non-invasive method of blood glucose diagnosis among patients is expected to create higher demand for noninvasive blood glucose monitoring systems worldwide. The incidence of diabetes is higher in regions such as Asia Pacific, North America and Western Europe. Presence of several pipeline blood glucose monitoring systems and their expected launch is expected to drive the market for noninvasive blood glucose devices over the forecast period.Non- Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in the non- invasive blood glucose monitoring devices market are, Abbott, Animas Technologies, Bayer Healthcare, Cercacor, Pendragon Medical, OrSense, and Bayer Healthcare.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 12:39:01

Conflict of interest professional statement, March 2017

New mandatory requirements on conflicts of interest for land, property and construction industry

New conflicts of interest requirements for RICS professionals launched following extensive industry consultation.

New global rules launched with mandatory requirements for UK commercial property investment market that bans controversial practice of dual agency

All RICS Regulated firms and members will be required to meet the new standard to be effective from January 1 st 2018.

2018. Major UK REITS, Land Securities and SEGRO commit to adopting new requirements ahead of 2018 deadline.

RICS Unveils Plans to Get Tough on Conflicts of Interest

For media enquiries, please contact:

RICS East Asia Public Relations Representatives

Ms Penn Leung / Ms Peggy Mak

T: 3159 2986 / 3159 2982

E: penn.leung@creativegp.com / peggy.mak@creativegp.com

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is tightening up requirements for professionals and Regulated Firms working in the land, property and construction sector, with the publication today of a new global professional statement on conflicts of interest.

Following on from this, in April, RICS will be publishing an additional UK-specific professional statement for the commercial property investment market that bans the controversial practice of dual agency - known colloquially as double-dipping. Both of these standards will be effective from January 1st 2018.

The new global professional statement, which will become mandatory next year, is being launched today at MIPIM, (a major international real estate exhibition and conference held in Cannes, France) having been developed as the result of an extensive consultation that saw industry professionals and regulatory experts offer their views.

The key findings from the global consultation showed that respondents would like to see RICS address:

definitions of confidentiality

full disclosure and transparency between parties

the practice of dual agency in the UK commercial property investment market

tighter rules around multiple agency relationships

The new requirements aim to address these concerns, providing both greater confidence for investors and increased clarity for RICS professionals.

The new UK professional statement will now see the controversial practice of dual agency, whereby agents act for both sides in an instruction, banned in the UK.

On a global level, multiple agency relationships will now only be permissible with informed consent and, the professional statement introduces better processes for managing that consent and promoting transparency. The professional statement will also offer clearer guidance on confidentiality, building greater understanding of where the information gained during a transaction should not be used.

Following launch of the global statement and the UK-specific statement, RICS will seek to review the practice of dual agency outside of the UK market and consult on the requirement for further market specific standards. Already, some of the best-known commercial property firms, such as SEGRO, JLL and Land Securities have indicated their support for the new standards.

David Sleath, CEO of SEGRO plc said:

It is vital that agents and real estate professional advisers are seen to adhere to the highest standards, conducting themselves with the greatest integrity. For too long public trust in the industry has been blighted by concerns around conflicts of interest. Action urgently needed to be taken and Im pleased to see that RICS has taken the lead in banning the practice of dual agency or double-running. Across our industry, we should view this as a very welcome move.

RICS believes that it is uniquely placed to provide world-class standards for a global profession in land, property, construction and infrastructure. Regulating the profession in a way that holds it to this promise is vital to inspire confidence among clients and the public.

The RICS professional statement on Conflict of Interest, which is being launched today at MIPIM by RICS CEO, Sean Tompkins.

Mr Tompkins said:

Issues around conflict of interest continue to risk undermining the reputation of a world-class profession. As the leading professional body in the land, property and construction sector, it was our job to take action. I am extremely proud of our new professional statement, which I believe will rebuild trust, ensuring that RICS professionals and regulated firms provide confidence to investors and clients alike.

For further details on the professional statements, please view: www.rics.org

About RICS

Confidence through professional standards

RICS promotes and enforces the highest professional qualifications and standards in the development and management of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure. Our name promises the consistent delivery of standards  bringing confidence to the markets we serve.

We accredit 125,000 professionals and any individual or firm registered with RICS is subject to our quality assurance. Their expertise covers property, asset valuation, real estate management; the development of infrastructure; and the management of natural resources, such as mining, farms and woodland. From environmental assessments and building controls to negotiating land rights in an emerging economy; if our members are involved the same professional standards and ethics apply.

We believe that standards underpin effective markets. With up to seventy per cent of the worlds wealth bound up in land and real estate, our sector is vital to economic development, helping to support stable, sustainable investment and growth around the globe.

With offices covering the major political and financial centres of the world, our market presence means we are ideally placed to influence policy and embed professional standards. We work at a cross-governmental level, delivering international standards that will support a safe and vibrant marketplace in land, real estate, construction and infrastructure, for the benefit of all.

We are proud of our reputation and work hard to protect it, so clients who work with an RICS professional can have confidence in the quality and ethics of the services they receive.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201703140057
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-14 18:51:05

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Supreme Metals Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Sudbury, Ontario (FSCWire) - Supreme Metals Corp. (CSE:ABJ). has issued a press release with the following headline:Supreme Metals Corp. European Operations UpdateTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Supreme Metals Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Supreme Metals Corp.Source: Supreme Metals Corp. (CSE: ABJ)Date: March 14, 2017Time: 12:01 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Supreme Metals Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for VNUE Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---New York, NY (FSCWire) - VNUE Inc. (OTCQB:VNUE). has issued a press release with the following headline:VNUE, Inc CEO Pens Op-Ed for Music Industry Blog Hypebot.com To view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on VNUE Inc., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/VNUE Inc.Source: VNUE Inc. (OTCQB: VNUE)Date: March 13, 2017Time: 1:10 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of VNUE Inc. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Ximen Mining Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Ximen Mining Corp. (TSX Venture:XIM). has issued a press release with the following headline:Ximen Mining Announces Results of Annual General MeetingTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Ximen Mining Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Ximen Mining Corp.Source: Ximen Mining Corp. (TSX Venture: XIM, WKN: A1W2EG, ISIN: CA98420B1013)Date: March 13, 2017Time: 7:16 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Ximen Mining Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2017

By Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy Tweet this

March 14, 2017

Press release

Wait, does the United States have 1.3 million or more than 2 million people in prison? Are most people in state and federal prisons locked up for drug offenses? Frustrating questions like these abound because our systems of confinement are so fragmented and controlled by various entities. There is a lot of interesting and valuable research out there, but varying definitions make it hard  for both people new to criminal justice and for experienced policy wonks  to get the big picture.

This report offers some much needed clarity by piecing together this countrys disparate systems of confinement. The American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 901 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 76 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.1 And we go deeper to provide further detail on why people are locked up in all of those different types of facilities.

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While this pie chart provides a comprehensive snapshot of our correctional system, the graphic does not capture the enormous churn in and out of our correctional facilities and the far larger universe of people whose lives are affected by the criminal justice system. Every year, 641,000 people walk out of prison gates, but people go to jail over 11 million times each year.2 Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails3 have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail in the next few hours or days, and others are too poor to make bail and must remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (187,000 on any given day) have been convicted, generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year.

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With a sense of the big picture, a common follow-up question might be: how many people are locked up for a drug offense? We know that almost half a million people are locked up because of a drug offense.4 The data confirms that nonviolent drug convictions are a defining characteristic of the federal prison system, but play only a supporting role at the state and local levels. While most people in state and local facilities are not locked up for drug offenses, most states continued practice of arresting people for drug possession5 destabilizes individual lives and communities. Drug arrests give residents of over-policed communities criminal records, which then reduce employment prospects and increase the likelihood of longer sentences for any future offenses.

All of the offense data presented comes with an important set of caveats. A person in prison for multiple offenses is reported only for the most serious offense6 so, for example, there are people in prison for violent offenses who might have also been convicted of a drug offense. Further, almost all convictions are the result of plea bargains, where people plead guilty to a lesser offense, perhaps of a different category or one that they may not have actually committed.

And many of these categories group together people convicted of a wide range of offenses. For example, murder is generally considered to be an extremely serious offense, but murder groups together the rare group of serial killers, with people who committed acts that are unlikely for reasons of circumstance or advanced age to ever happen again, with offenses that the average American may not consider to be murder at all. For example, the felony murder rule says that if someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved can be as guilty of murder as the person who pulled the trigger. Driving a getaway car during a bank robbery where someone was accidentally killed is indeed a serious offense, but many may be surprised that this is considered murder.7

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This whole pie methodology also exposes some disturbing facts about the youth entrapped in our juvenile justice system: Too many are there for a most serious offense that is not even a crime. For example, there are almost 7,000 youth behind bars for technical violations of the requirements of their probation, rather than for a new offense. Further, 600 youth are behind bars for status offenses, which are behaviors that are not law violations for adults, such as running away, truancy, and incorrigibility.8

Turning finally to the people who are locked up criminally and civilly for immigration-related issues, we find that 16,000 people are in federal prison for criminal convictions of violating federal immigration laws. A separate 41,000 are civilly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) separate from any criminal proceedings and are physically confined in federally-run or privately-run immigration detention facilities or in local jails under contract with ICE. (Notably, these categories do not include immigrants represented in other pie slices because of non-immigration related criminal convictions.)

Now, armed with the big picture of how many people are locked up in the United States, where, and why, we have a better foundation for the long overdue conversation about criminal justice reform. For example, the data makes it clear that ending the War on Drugs will not alone end mass incarceration, but that the federal government and some states have effectively reduced their incarcerated populations by turning to drug policy reform. Looking at the whole pie also opens up other conversations about where we should focus our energies:

What is the role of the federal government in ending mass incarceration? The federal prison system is just a small slice of the total pie, but the federal government can certainly use its financial and ideological power to incentivize and illuminate better paths forward. At the same time, how can elected sheriffs, district attorneys, and judges slow the flow of people into the criminal justice system?

Are state officials and prosecutors willing to rethink both the War on Drugs and the reflexive policies that have served to increase both the odds of incarceration and length of stay for violent offenses?

Do policymakers and the public have the focus to confront the second largest slice of the pie: the thousands of locally administered jails? And does it even make sense to arrest millions of poor 9 people each year 10 for minor offenses, make them post money bail, and then lock them up when they cant afford to pay it? Will our leaders be brave enough to redirect corrections spending to smarter investments like community-based drug treatment and job training?

people each year for minor offenses, make them post money bail, and then lock them up when they cant afford to pay it? Will our leaders be brave enough to redirect corrections spending to smarter investments like community-based drug treatment and job training? Can we implement reforms that both reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. and the well-known racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system?

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And once we have wrapped our minds around the whole pie of mass incarceration, we should zoom out and note that being locked up is just one piece of the larger pie of correctional control. There are another 840,000 people on parole (a type of conditional release from prison) and a staggering 3.7 million people on probation (what is typically an alternative sentence). Particularly given the often onerous conditions of probation, policymakers should be cautious of alternatives to incarceration that can easily widen the net of criminalization to people who are not a threat to public safety.

Now that we can see the big picture of how many people are locked up in the United States in the various types of facilities, we can see that something needs to change. Looking at the big picture requires us to ask if it really makes sense to lock up 2.3 million people on any given day, giving this nation the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Both policymakers and the public have the responsibility to carefully consider each individual slice in turn to ask whether legitimate social goals are served by putting each category behind bars, and whether any benefit really outweighs the social and fiscal costs.

Were optimistic that this whole pie approach can give Americans, who are ready for a fresh look at the criminal justice system, some of the tools they need to demand meaningful changes to how we do justice.

Acknowledgments

All Prison Policy Initiative reports are collaborative endeavors, but this report builds on the successful collaborations of the 2014, 2015 and 2016 versions. For this years report, the authors are particularly indebted to Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez and Mary Small of the Detention Watch Network for their feedback and research pointers on immigration detention, Stephen Raher for general research assistance, Jordan Miner for upgrading our slideshow technology and Elydah Joyce for helping edit one of the graphics.

We thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge for their support of our research into the use and misuse of jails in this country. We also thank the Public Welfare Foundation and each of our individual donors who give us the resources and the flexibility to quickly turn our insights into new movement resources.

About the authors

Peter Wagner is an attorney and the Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative. He co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative in 2001 in order to spark a national discussion about the negative side effects of mass incarceration. His research and advocacy on the issue of prison gerrymandering have led four states and more than 200 local governments to end prison gerrymandering.

Some of his most recent work include Following the Money of Mass Incarceration, uncovering that prisons are disproportionately built in White areas, and working with Josh Begley to put each states overuse of incarceration into the international context.

He is @PWPolicy on Twitter.

Bernadette Rabuy is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative. Bernadette produced the first comprehensive national report on the video visitation industry, Screening Out Family Time: The for-profit video visitation industry in prisons and jails, finding that 74% of local jails that adopt video visitation eliminate traditional in-person visits. Her research has played a key role in protecting in-person family visits in jails in Portland, Oregon and the state of Texas.

In her other work with the Prison Policy Initiative, Bernadette has worked to empower the criminal justice reform movement with key but missing data through the annual Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie reports, Detaining the Poor: How money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time, and Following the Money of Mass Incarceration.

Bernadette is on Twitter at @BRabuy
Earlier today, the Patiala MLA met Rahul Gandhi in Delhi to personally thank him for the support extended to him during the polls by the party high command.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will attend Captain Amarinder Singh's swearing-in ceremony in Chandigarh on March 16.

Singh will take oath as Chief Minister of Punjab along with few cabinet ministers on Thursday.

Earlier today, the Patiala MLA met Rahul Gandhi in Delhi to personally thank him for the support extended to him during the polls by the party high command, particularly by the vice-president and president Sonia Gandhi. It is during this meeting that Punjab's CM designate invited Rahul Gandhi to attend his swearing-in ceremony, which is scheduled for Thursday morning in Chandigarh.

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This was the first meeting between the two after the Punjab election.

Earlier, Singh while talking to India Today said that time was right now to elevate Rahul Gandhi as party president and added that he had been maintaining this since the past one year.

After the party's massive debacle in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Congress leaders are debating about the much talked about revamp of the party.

RAHUL GANDHI AS PRESIDENT

Commenting on this, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Renuka Chaudhary while talking to India Today said that it is high time that Rahul Gandhi should be given a 'free hand' to make his own team. "Rahul Gandhi should get a free hand to make his team and be allowed to function in his own style," she said.

Recently, party's General Secretary BK Hari Prasad resigned from the party stating that it will help Rahul Gandhi to make his own team.

"If BK Hari Prasad has resigned, then that is a clue for others too. They should also understand and resign so that Rahul Gandhi is able to form his own team."

Asked about Amethi MP's elevation, Chaudhary replied, "That Sonia ji and Rahul have to decide. But my personal view on his elevation is that Rahul is our young leader. If his hands are set free, then he can work properly and party can move forward."

She added that the leaders and workers of the Congress also have to work hard so that it emerges as a strong Opposition party.

Watch the video here:

Also read: Knives out in Congress: Sonia loyalist questions Rahul Gandhi after Uttar Pradesh election disaster

Also read: Punjab election 2017: Captain Amarinder Singh to be sworn in as Chief Minister on March 16

--- ENDS ---
Green REIT has signed an agreement for lease with DFS Trading Limited, the furniture retailer, at Horizon Logistics Park at Dublin Airport. The unit comprises 3,060 square metres (33,000 square feet) and is due for completion by the end of April. The annual rent payable by DFS will be 300,000,

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Modern office markets in the four core Central European capitals (Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava and Budapest) are benefiting from booming economies and strong demand. Warsaw with over 5 million sqm of modern office space is the largest market in Central Europe*, followed by Budapest with 3.36 million sqm in second position,

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The IT company Avensia has signed a lease for 1,700 m in Wihlborgs new-build project Posthornet in central Lund. Avensia currently leases premises in Wihlborgs property in Gasverksgatan in central Lund. As the company is now growing, it has chosen to move to Posthornet, which is under construction adjacent to

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PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move.
Altice USA and i24NEWS have announced an experiential media programme for local NY tri-state area high schools, dubbed Altice Connects Global Voices.





The programme invites students from local high schools to engage with the i24NEWS team to discuss current events, develop informed opinions, and understand the importance of global awareness, tolerance and journalistic integrity. Students will also participate in the creation of media content that they can share via social media and on AlticeConnects.com Altice USA is the fourth largest cable operator in the US. i24NEWS, available on Optimum TV Channel 102, is an international television news organisation with studios in Tel Aviv, New York City and Paris.Now, more than ever, we need to empower students to think critically about the events within their communities and across the globe, said Lee Schroeder, SVP, government and community affairs, Altice USA. Through Altice Connects Global Voices, high school students will be exposed to a variety of perspectives as they form their own opinions on current events and actively engage in dialogue on global issues with i24NEWS.To kick-off the programme launch, Lawrence High School students participated in a behind the scenes experience at the i24NEWS studio in Times Square, New York City. The students produced short video pieces that include interviews with the i24NEWS talent and leadership teams, learned about the inner workings of a live broadcast, and conducted interviews on the value of the global perspective and non-partisan news.As the media landscape changes rapidly, it is critical to emphasise the importance of well-informed, unbiased journalism and we are thrilled to work with Altice USA to help shape the next generation of journalists and leaders within our communities, said Frank Melloul, CEO of i24NEWS.
Dr Rao from Karnataka was in for a rude shock when he found that his debit card was swiped at the Gundmi toll gate on Kochi-Mumbai National Highway for INR 4 lakhs instead of the mandatory INR 40.

Dr Rao was travelling in his chauffeur driven car to Mumbai when he stopped at the toll gate around 18 kms from Udupi to pay off the toll charges. The incident occurred at 10.30 pm when the doctor handed over his debit card to the toll attendant.

Apparently the toll attendant was sleepy and punched in INR 4 lakhs instead of INR 40. He then handed over the card and POS receipt to the doctor who was about to proceed on his way when he noted a text message that read that INR 4 lakhs was debited from his account.

The doctor brought this to the notice of the toll gate staff that refused to take note of the issue and blatantly refused to own responsibility for their mistake. The arguments went on for 2 hours as the doctor tried desperately to retrieve his lost money. Failing to get any attention from the toll attendants, the doctor went on to the police station at Kota, 5 kms from the toll stop where he lodged a complaint at 1 am.

The doctor and police constable then returned to the toll plaza where the attendant finally admitted his mistake of entering the wrong amount. He offered to pay the doctor by cheque but relented when the doctor demanded the entire amount in cash. A sum of INR 3,99,960 was paid in cash at 4 am from the collection of toll fees of around INR 8 lakhs that is collected each day at the Gundmi gate toll plaza.

It is to be noted that the Doctor is also at fault here. He should have checked the amount before entering his PIN and allowing the toll booth operator to swipe his card. Let this be a lesson for all of out there. Drive / Ride safe.
"Of the five states, the BJP won two and we won three. In two of the states, we won but democracy is being undermined by them using money power," the 46-year-old leader said in his first reactions since the March 11 counting of votes.

By India Today Web Desk: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today accused the BJP of undermining democracy by using money power in Goa and Manipur to buy MLAs in order to stake claim to form the government in the two states, which have thrown a hung verdict.

"Of the five states, the BJP won two and we won three. In two of the states, we won but democracy is being undermined by them using money power," the 46-year-old leader said in his first reactions since the March 11 counting of votes.

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"Our fight is against the BJP's ideology. What they did in Manipur and Goa is exactly the ideology we are fighting against," the Congress leader told reporters outside Parliament.

In Goa, the Supreme Court has ordered a floor test on Thursday after the Congress challenged Governor Mridula Sinha's invitation to the BJP's Manohar Parrikar to form the government. Parrikar will take oath later today.

In Manipur, the BJP, which got 21 seats, has staked claim to form the government. The Congress got 28 in the 60-member Assembly, while the Naga People's Front (NPF) and the National People's Party (NPP) got four seats each.

Breaking his silence on the party's rout in Uttar Pradesh, Rahul said the party had "a little down" and they accept it.

"We are in the Opposition. You have ups and downs and we had a little down in UP. It's fine. We accept that," he said.

ALSO READ | Knives out in Congress: Sonia loyalist questions Rahul Gandhi after Uttar Pradesh election disaster

ALSO READ | Rahul Gandhi to Narendra Modi: Congratulations. PM's reply: Thank you. Long live democracy!

--- ENDS ---
President meets WFP Executive Director

div style="text-align: left;">SANA'A, March 13 (Saba) - President of the Supreme Political Council Saleh al-Sammad met on Monday with the Executive Director of the World Food Programme Ertharin Cousin and the Regional Director of the Programme Muhannad Hadi Ibrahim.



They reviewed the WFP's efforts to minimize the impact of the worsening humanitarian situation food in Yemen because of the continued US-Saudi aggression and siege against Yemen and its targeting the air and sea ports, roads and bridges.



In addition, the US-Saudi aggression tightens the commercial movement, private sector and food imports into the country.



They reviewed the digital information that represents the WFP's estimates for the food situation in Yemen as 17 million people in the country are in need for food assistance, including famine threatens seven million. The Programme announced the assessment of the situation is the greatest globally emergency food.



The President reaffirmed its support for the program's efforts, especially in the current situation.



Al-Sammad pointed to the negative effects on the people, criticizing the aggression and its tools with regards to employees salaries which also affects more than 1,200,000 employees that also caused severe and human suffering to all social classes.



He noted to the security and stability as well as the flexibility of movements in areas that controlled by the army and popular committees.



Executive Director of the World Food Programme explained what was done in the current round of her work, confirming that she would continue humanitarian conditions in Yemen to support the humanitarian aspect.



She pointed to the previous state of the humanitarian situation of the seven million who had reached to the malnutrition, now they reached famine.



Cousin confirmed that Yemen needs only for peace, and the programme hopes to help Yemeni society to achieve peace.



HA



[13/March/2017]Saba
Thanks to a national initiative, salad bars are showing up in public schools across the country. Now a Brigham Young University researcher is trying to nail down how to get kids to eat from them.

BYU health sciences professor Lori Spruance studies the impact of salad bars in public schools and has found one helpful tip: teens are more likely to use salad bars if they're exposed to good, old-fashioned marketing. Students at schools with higher salad bar marketing are nearly three times as likely to use them.

"Children and adolescents in the United States do not consume the nationally recommended levels of fruits and vegetables," Spruance said. "Evidence suggests that salad bars in schools can make a big difference. Our goal is to get kids to use them."

Some 4,800 salad bars have popped up in public schools around the country according to the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative. About 50 percent of high school students have access to salad bars at schools, 39 percent of middle school kids and 31 percent of elementary school children.

Spruance's study, published in Health Education and Behavior, followed the salad bar usage of students in 12 public schools in New Orleans. Spruance and coauthors from Tulane University administered surveys to the students and tracked the school environment through personal visits.

Not only did they find better marketing improved salad bar usage among secondary school students, but they also found female students use salad bars more often than male students, and children who prefer healthy foods use them more frequently.

"The value of a salad bar program depends on whether students actually use the salad bar," Spruance said. "But few studies have examined how to make that happen more effectively."

Some examples of successful salad bar marketing efforts included signage throughout the school promoting the salad bar, information in school publications and newsletters, and plugs for the salad bar on a school's digital presence.

Spruance suggests that schools engage parents in their efforts to improve the school food environment -- such as reaching out to parents through newsletters or parent teacher conferences. Of course, she says, offering healthy options at home makes the biggest difference.

"It takes a lot of effort and time, but most children and adolescents require repeated exposures to food before they will eat them on their own," Spruance said. "If a child is being exposed to foods at home that are served at school, the child may be more likely to eat those fruits or vegetables at school."

Spruance's research builds off of previous studies that show students are more likely to use salad bars if they are included in the normal serving line.

There have now been 2,401,500 kids served from salad bars in public schools nationwide. However, only two Utah public schools currently have salad bars funded by the Let's Move initiative.
There is an old axiom among cell biologists meant to caution against making assumptions about how certain proteins function, and it involves a hypothetical Martian. If that Martian came to Earth and looked down at a school from its spaceship, it would assume the main job of the school buses is to sit in a parking lot all day, because except for a few hours in the morning and afternoon, that's all they do.

Likewise, if someone (whether Martian or Earthling) looked through a microscope for proteins that help control organ growth, they would assume they only functioned at the edges, or junctions, of cells, because that's where they mostly accumulate. But a new study from the University of Chicago suggests that while these proteins do accumulate around the edges of cells, they actually function at a different cellular site.

'Tumor suppressors' are genes that normally function to restrict tissue growth. When these genes are inactivated by mutations, cancerous tumors can result. Researchers have taken advantage of the power of genetic experimentation in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to exhaustively identify all of the tumor suppressor genes in flies. In the early 2000s, researchers determined that most of these genes were all part of the same system, dubbed the Hippo signaling pathway. Remarkably, these genes are not exclusive to flies and function similarly in a host of other organisms, including humans, suggesting that the system goes far back in evolutionary time as a critical controller of cell function. Early returns also indicate that the Hippo pathway is a likely contributor to human cancers and other tumor syndromes, including neurofibromatosis.

While the Hippo pathway has been firmly established, scientists are still looking for how elements upstream turn the pathway on and off. Three different proteins associated with the cell membrane -- Kibra, Merlin and Expanded -- regulate pathway activity, but scientists aren't sure how. The conventional wisdom is that all three operate together at the intracellular junctions, but using a combination of advanced imaging and genetic tools to observe and manipulate these proteins in live tissues, UChicago postdoctoral researcher Ting Su, PhD, discovered that Merlin and Kibra work together to activate the Hippo pathway in a separate area called the medial apical cortex. Meanwhile, Expanded works independently to activate the pathway at the junctions.

"There has been some evidence that these components interact with one another biochemically, but genetically they seem to form two independent inputs into the pathway," Su said. The results of this work were published Mar. 13, 2017 in the journal Developmental Cell.

Su said that the key to understanding the activity of these proteins was being able to observe them endogenously, or as they occur normally in living epithelial tissues that form the wing of the fly, fused to fluorescent protein tags. Using a high-sensitivity, confocal microscope, Su and his colleagues could see a honeycomb-like mesh of circles, where the glowing proteins gathered at cell junctions -- i.e. the school bus parking lots -- as expected. But looking carefully, they also saw clusters of activity at a non-junctional site called the medial apical cortex, meaning that the proteins were functioning in another cellular region at the same time.

The downstream results seem to be the same whether the process is initiated by the proteins in the center of the cell or those at the junctions -- when the Hippo pathway is activated, it acts as a throttle, signaling that it's time for organs to stop growing. What's not clear are the upstream inputs, or what causes one means of activating the pathway to be triggered over the other. One possibility may be mechanical tension in the cells. As tissues grow, cells stretch and squeeze against each other, generating tension across the tissue that cells might sense through junctions with their neighbors.

"The current thinking is that might be one way the tissues sense how big they are. As they grow, that generates mechanical tension, and it's clear that tension feeds into pathway activity through the junctions," said Rick Fehon, professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, and senior author on the study.

At the same time, each cell can generate internal tension using a motor protein called myosin, a mechanism cells use to change shape. "We're interested in the possibility that this medial localization might be a way to sense tension generated within cells," he said.

Tissue growth is an inherent part of developmental biology, but only recently have researchers focused on understanding the cellular mechanisms that regulate it.

"The really great thing about working with flies is the genetic tools that make this possible," Fehon said. "It's the ability to combine those with new, advanced microscopy approaches to figure out whether the school bus functions when it's in the parking lot, or when driving around."
New research by Professor Beth Shapiro of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute and University of Alberta Professor Duane Froese has identified North America's oldest bison fossils and helped construct a bison genealogy establishing that a common maternal ancestor arrived between 130,000 and 195,000 years ago, during a previous ice age.

Shapiro, Froese and colleagues used new techniques for ancient DNA extraction and sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of more than 40 bison, including the two oldest bison fossils ever recovered. Comparing these genomes to additional Siberian and North American bison clarifies the earliest parts of the bison family tree.

"There has long been a controversy about the timing of bison arrival in North America," said Shapiro. Bison arrival in North America marks the beginning of what geologists call the "Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age," which is used to discriminate between different ecological periods in the continent's history. "Until recently, the fossil records from different parts of North America disagreed with each other, with a few fossil localities suggesting that bison arrived millions of years ago, but most old fossil sites showing no evidence of bison at all," Shapiro said. As new methods to date fossil localities emerged, the ages of the sites in North America with purportedly very old fossil bison have all been questioned, leaving the timing of bison arrival a mystery.

The new study explored fossil locations in Northern North America -- the entry point for bison into the continent -- and extracted DNA from two of the oldest bison fossils known on the continent. One from Ch'ijee's Bluff in the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in northern Yukon, and another from Snowmass, Colorado.

"Bison used what is called the Bering Land Bridge -- a vast connection of land between Asia and North America -- to cross from Asia into North America. The land bridge forms during ice ages, when much of the water on the planet becomes part of growing continental glaciers, making the sea level much lower than it is today," explained Shapiro. "After they arrived in Alaska, they spread quickly across the continent, taking advantage of the rich grassland resources that were part of the ice age ecosystem."

While bison were not introduced by humans to North America, their rapid spread and diversification are hallmarks of an invasive species -- and part of what make bison's role in the Great Plains ecosystem so significant. "Bison arrived in North America and quickly came to dominate a grazing ecosystem that was previously reigned over by horses and mammoths for one million years," said Shapiro.
Antibodies are the foot soldiers of our immune system. These specialized, Y-shaped proteins attach to bacteria and viruses, where they either block the pathogen's activity directly, or signal the immune system's cells to destroy the invader. The second function -- the ability to target invaders for destruction -- makes antibodies a tempting target for cancer and disease therapies.

But not all antibodies are created equal. Due to subtle but important differences in the structure of their sugar groups, two otherwise identical antibodies that attack the same invader might not be equally good at recruiting immune cells to finish the job. Researchers from the University of Maryland and Rockefeller University have previously developed a method to modify an antibody's sugar group structure, which opened the door for biochemists to create antibodies with consistent sugar groups.

The researchers have now taken their method a step further, by determining which specific sugar combinations enhance -- or suppress -- an antibody's ability to signal the immune system to attack an invader. The results, published in the March 13, 2017 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are an important step toward the development of highly effective antibodies to fight cancer and other diseases.

An antibody's ability to send killer signals depends on the configuration of sugar chains attached to the protein. In naturally occurring antibodies, these sugar chains have a lot of variability. Even in antibodies currently used for disease therapy, a given dose might contain a wide variety of antibody variants, also known as "glycoforms," distinguished by their sugar groups.

Although prior methods tried to sort out these glycoforms and collect the most effective ones, these methods are time-consuming, expensive and not 100 percent effective. The method used in the current study enables the researchers to create a given antibody with identical glycoforms using biochemical techniques. Each glycoform can then be tested independently to see whether it enhances or suppresses the immune response.

"Our first major step forward was to develop a method to produce homogeneous glycoforms," said Lai-Xi Wang, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UMD. "With this, we can now look at how individual different sugars affect the properties of antibodies. Until this study, we didn't have an efficient way to know how individual sugars in various glycoforms affect suppression or activation of the immune response."

Most therapeutic antibodies on the market are designed to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. For example, Rituximab is an antibody-based drug used to treat lymphoma, leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis. Rituximab and other similar antibody drugs are usually produced in cultured cell lines.

"These processes are not optimized at all. There is no easy way to control glycosylation," Wang said. Glycosylation is the process by which sugar groups are added to a protein such as an antibody. "Our method could be used to improve antibodies already on the market because it modifies the antibodies directly instead of working at the genetic level."

Wang's group, which specializes in the biochemistry of protein glycosylation, developed the methodology to modify the antibody sugar groups. They partnered with Jeffrey Ravetch's group at Rockefeller University, which specializes in immunology and animal models, to test the effects of various glycoforms on the immune response. The new findings will help guide the development of future antibody-based therapeutics.

"Our method would be generally applicable because it can be used on a wide variety of antibodies," Wang said. "It's an important step forward in the effort to engineer therapeutic antibodies that can target specific cancers, inflammation and other diseases. Soon we will be able to build customized antibodies."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2017-64

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two former executives at a credit card processing company with masterminding a fraudulent scheme to steal millions of dollars through phony expense reimbursements, inflated invoices, and other improper accounting tactics.

The SECs complaint alleges that iPayments then-senior vice president of sales and marketing Nasir N. Shakouri and then-executive vice president and chief operating officer Robert S. Torino routinely reimbursed themselves for payments that were never actually made to third-party vendors using their personal credit cards. They also allegedly conspired with vendors to inflate invoices and receive kickbacks from the overpayments, and claimed improper commissions and bonuses related to other corporate funds they improperly diverted in various ways.

The SECs complaint also charges three other iPayment executives  Bronson L. Quon, John S. Hong, and Jonathan K. Skarie  with participating in the scheme and helping Shakouri and Torino falsify books and records to hide the thefts of corporate funds. Quon, Hong, and Skarie were allegedly rewarded for their assistance with misappropriated iPayment funds.

As alleged in our complaint, these executives manipulated iPayments internal accounting systems, lied to the external auditor, and caused approximately $11.6 million in losses to the company, said Sanjay Wadhwa, Senior Associate Director of the SECs New York Regional Office.

In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of California today announced criminal charges against Shakouri and Torino.

The SEC is seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest and penalties as well as officer-and-director bars.

The SECs investigation has been conducted by Kristin M. Pauley, Melissa A. Coppola, Maureen P. King, Roseann Daniello, Diego Brucculeri, Richard Hong, Nicholas Pilgrim, Scott B. York, and Valerie A. Szczepanik in the New York office. The litigation will be led by Mr. Hong and Ms. Pauley along with John Bulgozdy, who works in the Los Angeles office. The case is being supervised by Mr. Wadhwa. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of California, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service.
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Krishna would be inducted into the party in the presence of BJP National President Amit Shah and other central leaders.

By Press Trust of India: Karnataka BJP President B S Yeddyurappa today said former Congress leader S M Krishna will join the BJP on March 15. "Krishna will join BJP fold on March 15 in New Delhi," Yeddyurappa told reporters here after addressing a rally in the run up to the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls.

Yeddyurappa also mentioned about Krishna's induction in the BJP in his speech during the rally. He said Krishna would be inducted into the party in the presence of BJP National President Amit Shah and other central leaders. Krishna, on the other hand, has neither commented nor denied reports of Yeddyurappa claiming that he would be joining the saffron party.

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The 84-year-old Krishna had announced his resignation from the Congress on January 29, saying the party was in a "state of confusion" on whether it needs mass leaders or not. Krishna, who was Karnataka chief minister from 1999 to 2004, had returned to state politics after stepping down as the minister for external affairs in 2012.

He had also served as Governor of Maharashtra. The bypolls are scheduled to be held on April 9. The Nanjangud seat fell vacant after the resignation of veteran Congress leader V Srinivas Prasad in December 2016 as he was disgruntled with the Congress after he was dropped from Siddaramaiah's cabinet. Prasad later joined the BJP.

The Gundlupet seat fell vacant after the death of MLA H C Mahadeva Prasad on January 3, who was Cooperation and Sugar Minister. Yeddyurappa said he would be in New Delhi on Wednesday to attend an internal party meeting.

ALSO READ: Goa: Congress MLA Vishwajit Rane quits party in disgust over post-result fiasco, slams inaction

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Saudi Arabia has completed equipping its National Guard troops with their own air force. This consists of 48 helicopters, half of them UH-60M transports and the rest gunships. Twelve of these gunships are AH-64s but the other 12 are AH-6Is, a somewhat novel gunship version of the OH-6 scout helicopter. The AH-6I has night sensors and laser designator, and most of the other electronics that equip the latest version of the AH-64. This particular helicopter model has an interesting history.

U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has long used the MH-6 (and the AH-6) version of the 1960s era OH-6. Developed in the early 1980s, the AH-6, or "Little Bird" is a 1.4 ton helicopter with a crew of two, top speed of 280 kilometers an hour and sorties is 3-3.5 hours long. It can be armed with two 7.62mm or 12.7mm machine-gun pods, or two 70mm rocket pods (seven or 12 rockets each) or four Hellfire missiles. Without weapons, the MH-6 can carry six troops (usually Special Forces operators) externally. The new AH-6I can also carry a day/night targeting system, including a laser designator. The AH-6I also carries four Hellfire, or a dozen or more of the 70mm guided rockets (which weigh a quarter of what the Hellfire does.)

The new AH-6I enables nations to have helicopter gunship capability at a cost of only about six million dollars per aircraft. That's about a tenth of what an AH-64D would cost, and a third of what a Russian gunship goes for. The Saudis apparently want them because the National Guard spends a lot of time guarding important locations and the AH-6I is easier and cheaper (than the AH-64) to keep in the air for long periods and has enough firepower to deal with Islamic terrorists or other irregulars the National Guard was designed to guard against..

The Saudi National Guard occupies a special place in Saudi Arabia and is the main reason the king does not have to worry much about a rebellion in the army, This is because Saudi Arabia has two armies and a system of foreign technicians, trainers, and advisors who are largely immune to any revolutionary thoughts. One army (the National Guard) exists mainly to protect the royal family, the others (the usual three services) are there to protect Saudi Arabia.

Overall, the Saudi military has about 240,000 troops. But about 40 percent of those belong to the National Guard. These are organized into eight brigades (three mechanized and five infantry, for a total of 32 battalions). There are also another 24 battalions of National Guard reservists. About 75 percent of the National Guard troops spend most of their time guarding oil facilities and other important government assets. The rest provide security for the royal family and key government officials. The most loyal, and able, members of the royal family hold senior commands in the National Guard. This is an organization that puts a lot of emphasis on loyalty.

The National Guard is well armed and trained, all of them. But most of all, they are loyal to the royal family. But being that the country is called Saudi Arabia, after the ruling Saud family, the National Guard also protects the government. Since the Sauds see themselves, first and foremost, as the protectors of the most holy places in Islam (Mecca and Medina), the National Guard also serves God. So the National Guard is far more than tribal warriors loyal to a wealthy and generous family. The National Guardsmen are holy warriors, who serve the protectors of the Islamic holy places. That's a big deal in Arabia and the Islamic world. While the National Guard recruits first for loyalty, next comes bravery and willingness to die for the cause (the royal family and Islam). Then comes military aptitude. This often bothers the foreign trainers brought in to show the guardsmen how to use new equipment or carry out new tactics. But foreigners who have been in the kingdom for a while come to understand the need for loyalty above all.

Foreign trainers also note that many of their students are not well educated but nearly all are eager to learn new ways to fight. The National Guard gets the best equipment and gets it quickly. The National Guard is not armed to fight foreign enemies but internal ones. It has no tanks or jet fighters. It has lots of wheeled armored vehicles, some artillery plus helicopters, and light recon aircraft. The National Guard is equipped to get where they are needed quickly and suppress any unrest before it can grow.

The communications of the National Guard connects directly to the royal family and is set up to coordinate with the regular army. There is a paid tribal militia of 25,000 warriors, who are armed and equipped by the king. This is considered a National Guard reserve. These militiamen are organized into 24 battalions and are basically light infantry.

Nearly all the National Guardsmen troops are Bedouins, usually from tribes that have been historical allies of the al Saud family. The king considers the Guardsmen his boys and takes good care of them. If a Saudi needs a favor from the king, he's much more likely to get it if he is, or was, a National Guardsman.

About a third of the National Guardsmen are especially selected from the most loyal (to the royal family) tribes. This is the "White Army" (for the traditional white robes of the Bedouins). The most loyal force is the 2,000 man Royal Guard Regiment. These, as the name implies, are responsible for the day-to-day security of the king and his immediate family. When Saudi Arabia was put together in the 1930s many tribes were encouraged to join the new kingdom by force, or lots of verbal coercion. These groups continue to hold a grudge (a venerable Middle Eastern custom), and the most hostile of these are not recruited for the National Guard.

The National Guard has been called out several times and has always managed to get the job done. In 1979, it was the National Guard who took down the Islamic radicals who had invaded the Grand Mosque in Mecca. In 1990, it was the National Guard that went in and chased Iraqi troops out of a Saudi border town. During the battle with al Qaeda from 2003-6, it was the National Guard that was called out when large numbers of troops were needed (usually to blockade an area terrorists were believed to be in). The loyalty of the National Guard was one reason al Qaeda was never able to make a successful attack on an oil facility. Al Qaeda often relies on bribes to penetrate heavy security. The National Guardsmen protecting those sites were largely incorruptible. The current unrest in the Middle East has not manifested itself in Saudi Arabia in part because Saudis realize that the National Guard will fight to the death to protect the royal family.

The National Guard has about a thousand wheeled armored vehicles and some artillery. In recent years nearly $9 billion was spent on new wheeled armored vehicles and lots of neat gadgets, like night vision gear and new communications equipment. Bedouins love this stuff and adapt quickly to it. The National Guard commanders noted the experience of American troops in Iraq and have requested, and generally been able to purchase, all the weapons and gear Americans used successfully in Iraq. If the National Guard goes to war it will be against Islamic radicals similar to those encountered in Iraq. The National Guard troops have also noted how Iraqi troops adopted American weapons and techniques and been successfully fighting terrorists.
News that Kim Jong Nam, the older brother of Kim Jong Un was murdered in Malaysia on February 14 th took about a week to get into North Korea and after a month had spread to most of the country. By mid-February the government ordered the arrest of anyone caught talking about the Kim Jong Nam death or the subsequent dispute with Malaysia. Or the fact that Japan supplied Malaysia with Kim Jong Nams fingerprints to legally confirm his identity. Japan obtained those fingerprints in 2001 when Kim Jong Nam was caught trying to enter Japan using a false passport so that he could visit the Japanese Disneyland. North Korea doesnt want the Disneyland incident back in circulation.

There never seemed to be any doubt among North Koreas that Kim Jong Nam was killed by North Korean assassins. North Korea has regularly used commandos and secret agents to kill enemies of North Korea who were outside the country. Since the 1960s there have apparently been about ten such efforts, most of which succeeded. Failures have been more frequent of late, in part because South Korea has more intelligence and special operations resources. But this latest killing was directed more at China (a first) than South Korea or the West in general.

Ironically the news of the assassination leaked into North Korea via illegal Chinese cell phones and legal Chinese traders operating inside North Korea. Kim Jong Nam was more respected by Chinese (traders, officials and the population in general) than the younger Kim Jong Un. This was because for many years Kim Jong Nam was his fathers trusted representative in arranging illegal banking deals outside the country. The older brother was also more pro-Chinese while also seen as more Korean by most North Koreans (because Kim Jong Nams mother was born in North Korea while Kim Jong Un was born in Japan). In general Kim Jong Nam was more fun to be around and that was one reason why his father decided to make the younger brother his heir. But Kim Jong Il came to power in 1994, when the impact of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union (and the end of its vital economic aid) hit North Korea hard and nearly ten percent of the population died from starvation or hunger related diseases. Kim Jong Il left his heir a legacy of failure which is why neither of his sons were eager to succeed him. Kim Jong Nam, his wife and two children all have citizenship in Macau (a former European colony with similar status to nearby Hong Kong). There is also believed to be an ex-wife (and one child) living in northern China. Thus Kim Jong Nam was under the protection of China and killing him is a direct assault on China. This is very bad behavior and reflects poorly on Chinese leadership and how the increasingly troublesome former ally, North Korea, has been handled.

Meanwhile in North Korea the only official response to the news of Kim Jong Nams death was to announce that the 75th anniversary of Kim Jong Ils birth would be celebrated by a three day holiday. At the same time government media told North Koreans that North Korea was too dependent on China and that there would be less economic cooperation with China. Instead North Korea would rely more on itself. This attitude is nothing new. In the 1970s North Korea declared that it had developed its own unique form of communism called juche. This development was partly to extricate itself from the ideological battles going on between its two conventionally communist neighbors (China and the Soviet Union). Juche was described as a nationalistic form of communism (which in its pure form is very international). Juche stresses making North Korea economically self-sufficient and strong enough to defend itself from anyone. Juche still depends on a command economy, where the state owns all commercial enterprises, but uses all this for the benefit of Korea (north and, eventually, the south), not anyone else. Communist purists in China and Russia (the Soviet Union) protested but were overruled by their political bosses who saw this as a clever way for North Korea to disengage itself from the growing political tensions between China and the Soviet Union. While these two large neighbors have since become friendlier, juche continues to be the state religion of North Korea. Juche gives the government an excuse to legalize the growing market economy and encourage the new entrepreneurs to do whatever it takes to make North Korea economically strong. An example of that can be seen in how North Korea has already managed to get around the Chinese imposition of sanctions on the coal trade. Entrepreneurs on both sides of the border cooperated to continue exporting some North Korean coal to China. This involved the coal that was moved via ship to a Chinese ports. These ships have been recently seen continuing to unload North Korean coal but doing so with falsified trade documents stating that the coal was from somewhere else or not coal at all.

Another side effect of the entrepreneur (donju) class is that a growing number of donju are openly providing luxury goods for the North Korean upper class. This is seen mostly in the capital, where most of the senior officials and their families live. Although this helps keep the senior leadership and their families loyal it is causing less affluent (95 percent of the population) North Koreans to talk about the need for another communist revolution. This is reminiscent of what happened in the Soviet Union towards the end, where there were several jokes about members of ruling families discussing their continued high-living standards until the most elderly member of the family, who remembers why and how the original 1917 revolution broke out, asks but what if the Reds (communists) come back?

THAAD Rage

China continues warning the U.S. of a new arms race because of THAAD. South Korea wants THAAD for protection from North Korean missile attack and the United States notes that China has been spending heavily on weapons since the 1990s and has been forced to cut back because of economic problems. An arms race by is not likely. The Chinese never admit it but they object mainly because THAAD would also make South Korea less vulnerable to intimidation by Chinese ballistic missiles and encourages other Chinese neighbors (Japan, Taiwan, and so on) to do the same. South Korea openly refused to comply with the initial Chinese threats in 2015 and South Korean public opinion became even more enthusiastic about the high tech and very expensive (over $100 million per launcher and associated equipment) THAAD system. China sees South Korea more of an ally of the United States and a potential wartime foe than as an ally in efforts to keep North Korea from doing anything that would cause major economic and diplomatic problems (like starting a war using a few nukes). South Korea ignores the Chinese threats noting that China has backed (militarily and economically) Kim family rule since 1950 and is the one country in the world that could shut down the Kims quickly. China has been getting closer to doing just that. Popular opinion in China, despite government efforts to control it, has become increasingly hostile to North Korea and pro-South Korea. That is having an impact because now the Chinese government is openly pointing out to North Korea that even with nuclear armed ballistic missiles they would quickly lose any war with South Korea, the U.S. and Japan because all of them are linked by mutual defense treaties.

North Korea had already been told in 2014 that China would not come to the aid of the current North Korean government if the government collapses or starts a war. Since 2014 China has cracked down on North Korean use of China for illegal imports and exports. Nothing seems to work for China when it comes to North Korea (or South Korea for that matter). This is humiliating for the Chinese leaders and while the government does not discuss this, many Chinese do talk about this disrespect and the Chinese leaders pay attention to that. But what can China do about an increasingly troublesome and disrespectful North Korean leadership? North Koreas traditional allies China and Russia, have found that, unlike in the past, they now have little sway over the North Korean government. The Russians can ignore all this but China cannot. To make matters worse China has found itself being publicly insulted by North Korea, something that was unknown before Kim Jong Un came to power. In response China began publicly criticizing things that were wrong in North Korea (mismanagement, nuclear weapons, criminality in general). China sent senior officials to North Korea in late 2015 to spell out the consequences of continued bad behavior in some detail. That did not fix the problem. As usual with North Korea this could get very interesting. Especially since China offered a carrot as well as a stick. Following the 2015 warning Chinese censors were ordered to suppress popular criticism of North Korea and to have state controlled media say nice things about Kim Jong Un for a while. Thus China offers North Korea a choice; cooperate and be rewarded or keep disrespecting their elder brother and suffer the consequences. North Korea has not cooperated and China is reluctant to deliver consequences (the removal of Kim Kong Un) that will work.

South Korea has another solution. Since 2015 South Korea has been adapting its military organization and strategy to deal with the rapidly changing situation in North Korea. For example South Korea has organized six special operations teams that are trained to attack and destroy key targets inside North Korea. This represents a major change in special operations in Korea because since the 1950s it was North Korea that was constantly sending commandos and spies into South Korea where not all of them were quickly caught or caught at all. At the same time until recently it has proved nearly impossible to get foreign agents into North Korea, which had been turned into the ultimate police state since its creation right after World War II. Since the 1990s the lack of Russian aid (which kept North Korea afloat since the 1950s) caused the North Korean military to gradually (and almost imperceptibly) fall apart. This accelerated because of growing economic problems and corruption, even spreading to the secret police and other security agencies. As a result South Korea considers North Korea vulnerable and is preparing to take advantage of that during the next military emergency. If nothing else it compels the North Koreans to spend a lot more on protecting their nuclear weapons. The latest revision of South Korean strategy specifically mentioned plans to go after North Korean nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and key leaders. Much of this will be done with the new strike aircraft (F-15Es) carrying stealthy cruise missiles and smart bombs. South Korea also has obtained more missiles that can hit the North Korean forces concentrated near the border (DMZ or Demilitarized Zone). But some of the attacks will use commandos.

South Korea has revealed more and more about the targets in the north and it now includes the senior leadership, even if they are in their fortified and, until recently, carefully hidden refuges. Letting that information go public is another blow to the morale of the North Korean leadership and the special operations troops that now guard them.

March 13, 2017: The U.S. Army is sending a company (12 UAVS) of its MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAVs to South Korea and will station them there permanently. The MQ-1C, which is based on the MQ-1 Predator, weighs 1.5 tons, carries 135.4 kg (300 pounds) of sensors internally, and up to 227.3 kg (500 pounds) of sensors or weapons externally. It has an endurance of up to 36 hours, a top speed of 270 kilometers an hour and can carry four Hellfire missiles (compared to two on the Predator) or a dozen smaller 70mm guided missiles. The U.S. Army currently has about a hundred MQ-1Cs and has had them in Afghanistan since 2011 (two years after it entered service) and now Iraq as well.

March 11, 2017: In Malaysia local media report that North Korea has offered to exchange nine Malaysians detained (prevented from leaving) North Korea for the two North Koreans Malaysia has arrested as suspects in the murder of Kim Jong Nam. Malaysia also wants to arrest two North Koreans who fled the country shortly after the murder. Two North Korea diplomats are believed involved in the murder plot and one of them is hiding out in the North Korean embassy (along with a North Korean airlines official who is also a suspect). When North Korea banned the eleven Malaysians in North Korea from leaving Malaysia responded by barring the 300 or so North Koreans in Malaysia from leaving. This could get ugly because North Korea is desperate to avoid a trial in Malaysia that would present detailed proof that North Korea carried out the murder of Kim Jong Nam. The Malaysians are not inclined to cooperate and are furious at North Korea for their recent actions in and against Malaysia.

March 10, 2017: South Korea has, for the first time, officially removed from office its president via impeachment. Today the Constitutional Court approved the impeachment vote by the legislature. This impeachment was a popular move because president Park had been found guilty of corruption, something she pledged to fight against while campaigning for office. The impeachment just adds to a pile of ironies coming from the Park family. In 2012 South Korea elected its first female president; Park Geun Hye. Her father, an army general, staged a coup in 1961. While this was unpopular with many South Koreans, general Park Chung Hee introduced reforms that got the economic boom going. Fifty years later South Korea is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. General Park was assassinated by an aide in 1979 and eight years later democracy returned. The new president Park was a conservative, like her male predecessor and was expected to continue dealing with North Korea as a potential foe, not a wayward brother in need of endless handouts. That policy, called the Sunshine Policy, lasted from 1998 to 2008 and was considered a failure. Since 2008 the South Korean government has been stricter towards North Korea and demanded honesty and fair dealing. The North Koreans have not changed and still threaten to invade South Korea. News that 60 year old Park Geun Hye had won the 2012 South Korean presidential election spread quickly through North Korea and what amazed most northerners was that a woman, and the daughter of a disgraced dictator at that, could become leader of South Korea. Now the amazement continues.

March 9, 2017: North Korea allowed two of the eleven Malaysians in North Korea to leave. These two are UN officials working on the UN food aid program in North Korea. Apparently the UN quietly mentioned to North Korea that abuse of its aid officials usually results in aid being halted. Since few other countries or organizations will supply food aid to North Korea, an exception was made for these two Malaysians. The other nine Malaysians, four diplomats and their families, are in the Malaysian embassy.

March 8, 2017: China openly asked North Korea to stop its nuclear and ballistic missile tests and implied that if North Korea complied China would persuade the United States and South Korea to halt their military preparations to deal with a North Korean attack. North Korea was apparently not impressed.

March 7, 2017: The United States revealed that it had delivered the first THAAD components to South Korea. The THAAD battery may be operational in the next month or so. China, Russia and North Korea immediately protested and made threats, like they always do when it comes to a neighbor defending themselves.

March 6, 2017: North Korea fired another four ballistic missiles off its east coast and said this was a test of using missiles to attack Japan, specifically American bases in Japan. These missiles travelled 1,000 kilometers and landed within 200 kilometers of Japanese territory. That was within the Japanese EEZ (exclusive economic zone). This had happened once before, in mid-2016 when North Korea fired three similar missiles towards Japan. The EEZ is anything within 380 kilometer of the coast. Nations can claim, via an international treaty, that EEZ areas are their coastal waters for economic and some military purposes. This includes fishing and potential underwater oil and gas fields but not, generally, a destination for ballistic missiles. Left unsaid (at least by North Korea) was that these missiles were fired while a meeting of the senior Chinese leadership was going on. The Chinese leaders noticed and were not pleased. Adding to that displeasure was North Korea also (later in the day) ordered all Malaysians in North Korea be prevented from leaving the country in an attempt get Malaysia to stop investigating the death (apparently by North Korean assassins using nerve gas in a cream form) of the older brother of North Korean leader Kim Jing Un. Chinese were angry about this as well because the older brother (and his family) had received sanctuary in China.

March 2, 2017: UN investigators revealed that they had uncovered evidence that North Korea is continuing to smuggle weapons out of the country and do business despite the many economic sanctions placed against it. The report detailed the North Korean use of contacts in Africa and other areas with lax law enforcement to handle their clandestine smuggling and financial activities. Since early 2016 China has shut down a lot of those activities within China but the North Koreans were apparently quick to adapt.

March 1, 2017: In northeast China (Jilin province) police near the North Korean border were put on alert because of reports that six armed North Korean soldiers had deserted yesterday and crossed into China. There was a time, a few years ago, when China and North Korea kept incidents like this quiet. No longer, mainly because it is happening more frequently and China believes the North Koreans are losing control with desertions in their military and security services on the rise. The last such confirmed incidents of armed deserters were in July 2016 and December 2014 and the deserters committed crimes (robbery, assault and murder) before being found. There are often no announcements of these crimes in Chinese media but the Chinese diplomatic protests are usually big news outside of China and despite Chinese Internet censorship the details of these crimes spreads rapidly into North Korea and throughout China. Since at least 2008 North Korea has been trying to do something about the growing number of soldiers who are deserting and fleeing to China. There are always some troops who desert and just disappear inside North Korea. But more of these deserters are being found in China, and South Korea. The worst desertion incidents are the ones where the deserters take firearms with them and rely on robbery to survive. This is especially bad if they do this while still wearing their North Korean uniforms. Both China and North Korea have increased their border security but the number of people, armed or not, trying to get out of North Korea increases faster and the escapees are more desperate and resourceful. China is forming a civilian militia along the North Korean border to watch the border and promptly alert border troops if anything suspicious is seen.

February 28, 2017: Kim Won Hong, the head of the North Korean secret police, was fired and five if his senior deputies were arrested for reporting false information to Kim Jong Un. These five were then executed, allegedly with a large caliber machine-gun. This investigation into secret police corruption continues and there have apparently been more arrests of senior officials, especially along the Chinese border, which was always a hotspot for corruption.

February 24, 2017: Russia generally follows Chinese policy regarding North Korea and to that end Russia is preparing to break diplomatic relations (and most trade agreements) with North Korea in light of the recent North Korean use of VX nerve gas to assassinate Kim Jong Nam. Russia, like China, was already angry about continuing North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile development. Russia also joined with China to try and halt South Korean plans to obtain and put into service the American THAAD anti-missile system.

February 22, 2017: North Korea has launched another propaganda campaign to deal with the growing drug addiction. The theme of this campaign was the spread of addiction to high schools. One high school was used as an example and it was revealed that about 16 percent of the students were using drugs and some of the girls had turned to prostitution to pay for their new habit. This is all about the market economy making it possible for more North Koreans to afford drugs. Although the North Korean government has long produced methamphetamines for export there is a growing problem with northerners obtaining meth and becoming addicted. This is a serious problem because most of the people with enough money to support a drug habit are from the small ruling class and the growing number of market entrepreneurs. The government has ordered the security forces to crack down on drug dealers. Peddling this stuff is very lucrative, as a gram of meth goes for over $250 on the street and it costs a lot less than that to get it from corrupt officials in the meth production operation. Addicts within the government are more prone to steal government assets, or even sell information to foreigners. Meth has become hugely popular in China and throughout East Asia. China wants to keep the North Korean and Burmese meth out and is having more success on the heavily guarded North Korean border. This means non-government North Korean meth producers have to find another market and some have put more meth into circulation within North Korea.
VeriFone Systems, Inc. provides payments and commerce solutions at the point of sale (POS) worldwide. It offers countertop solutions that accept payment options, including contactless, NFC, mobile wallets, and EMV; PIN pads that support credit and debit card, EBT, EMV, and other PIN-based transactions; and multilane consumer facing commerce devices. It also provides portable payment devices, including small, portable, and handheld devices that enable merchants to accept electronic payments wherever wireless connectivity is available; and mobile solutions that attach to and interface with iOS or Android based smartphones and tablets. In addition, it offers integrated electronic payment systems that combine electronic payment processing, fuel dispensing, and ECR functions, as well as secure payment systems for integration with petroleum pump controllers; unattended and self-service payment solutions designed to enable payment transactions in self-service, high-transaction volume, and public transportation environments; and network access solutions. Further, it provides installation, deployment, training, and application development and delivery solutions; project management, client education program, and consulting services; helpdesk support, equipment repair and maintenance, and software post-contract support services; and application libraries and development tools. Additionally, it offers omnichannel commerce, terminal management, and security solutions; and cloud-based managed, transaction payment, and other value added services. It sells its products directly; and through third party and channel partners. It serves financial institutions, payment processors, government organizations, and retailers; petroleum, transportation, and healthcare companies; and quick service restaurants. The company was formerly known as VeriFone Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to VeriFone Systems, Inc. in May 2010. VeriFone Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California.
D'Yaria was probably terrified as she rode in the back of a pickup truck. Not only had the 11-month-old jaguar been taken from her home in the Ecuadorian forest, she was also badly injured. Last October, people had shot her several times - 18 shotgun pellets were lodged inside her tiny body. D'Yaria could move her head and neck a bit and she could definitely still growl, but the rest of her body had become paralyzed.

Andres Ortega

Farmers in Shushufindi, Ecuador, had shot D'Yaria - at least that's what Maria Cristina Cely, a veterinarian with Darwin Animal Doctors, an organization that helps animals, believes happened. "This is an area where people have cattle, and jaguars are known for going into farms and killing cattle, so what the locals do is just kill the jaguars to preserve the cattle," Cely told The Dodo. "It's very sad." Cely believes that D'Yaria's mom was shot too, and killed. Otherwise, she'd still be with her baby.

Andres Ortega

After being shot, D'Yaria probably ran into the forest until she couldn't run anymore. Then she collapsed. She might have felt safe there for a while, but D'Yaria was in bad shape. "If she had not been found and she had not been treated, she would have not survived," Cely said. "She was paralyzed and she would not have been able to drink water and not be able to hunt or find food for herself." Luckily for D'Yaria, help quickly came. Local people walking through the forest found her, and they figured out exactly what to do - they loaded the jaguar onto the back of a pickup truck, and transported her to an animal hospital at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador's capital, which was a five-hour drive away.

Dodo Shows Cat Crazy Fluffy Cat Wants To Sit On His Dad At All Times

Andres Ortega

When D'Yaria arrived at the hospital, a vet team led by Dr. Andres Ortega worried that D'Yaria wouldn't make it - she was just too badly injured. If she pulled through, they didn't think she'd ever walk again.

Andres Ortega

Despite the odds being stacked against D'Yaria, the vet team tried their best.

Andres Ortega

"She needed two main surgeries to remove the pellets and the areas that were damaged in her spine," Cely said. "That damage was able to be fixed by removing the little cushion between the two vertebrae in the neck."

Andres Ortega

After the surgeries, the vet team watched D'Yaria carefully. When they noticed that she was able to move her legs, they knew she was going to be OK.

Andres Ortega

"She stood up and she started showing signs that she would not stay still, and that's when everyone realized that she was going to make it," Cely said.

Andres Ortega

Each day, D'Yaria got a little stronger. While her injuries healed, she had to stay in a small cage at the vet hospital. But the staff kept her entertained by giving her shredded paper, which she had fun playing in, according to Cely.

Andres Ortega

After about a month, D'Yaria was moved to a large outdoor enclosure at a nature park in Lago Agrio, Ecuador. "At this point, she's 95 percent recovered and she runs around," Cely said. "She's running like it's the last day of her life."

D'Yaria's current outdoor enclosure | Andres Ortega

The vet team is certain that D'Yaria will be able to be released back into the wild. This is good news for D'Yaria, but also good news for her species, which is currently listed as "near threatened" on the IUCN Red List for Threatened Species. In anticipation of D'Yaria's release, the team has been careful not to get her used to people.

Andres Ortega

"Her contact with humans will be very controlled in the way that she does not recognize a human as a benefactor or as a carer," Cely said. "In fact, during her time in the hospital, she hated humans. She would growl every time she got checkups."

Andres Ortega

"Now, at the enclosure in the jungle, every time somebody gets close, she throws herself against the cage and pretends she's going to attack that person," Cely added. "This is a very good sign." "D'Yaria means brave tiger, and that's what she's shown," Cely said. "She's everything that her name says. She's a very brave little jaguar. She fought all the way. The team has a lot of hope that she was recover 100 percent, and that she will be set free. And everyone is looking forward to seeing her grow up and being a full-grown jaguar and having little jaguars."

Andres Ortega
A group of kindhearted ladies at one Boston-area retirement home have begun putting their knitting skills to some very good (albeit unexpected) use  by crafting custom sweaters for a flock of local chickens who've been feeling the chill this winter. And the results are adorable.

Facebook/Prince Peep

The idea was hatched late last year during a holiday craft sale held by a knitting club at the Fuller Village senior living community in Milton, Massachusetts. One of the visitors was Erica Max, the program director for the nearby Wakefield Estate, an educational facility for school kids which also happens to be home to around two dozen chickens. "We got into a conversation about the chickens being cold because they were molting. When they molt, they lose their feathers, and end up being in serious peril if it gets really cold," Max told The Dodo. "So, one thing led to another, and they volunteered to knit our chickens some sweaters."

Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Rescued Wild Horse Loves To Play With A Little Donkey

Facebook/Prince Peep

Chicken sweaters aren't your conventional sort of garment, but the volunteer knitters didn't have to start from scratch; they were able to find knitting instructions available for free online. Even then, getting them to fit just right took a bit of trial and error.

Facebook/Prince Peep

"One particular knitter was determined to knit a sweater that would fit our smallest rooster, Prince Peep," Max said. "He's so small, the other sweaters were huge on him. She kept bringing me sweater after sweater, until she got the perfect fit."

Facebook/Prince Peep

Not only have the chickens of Wakefield Estate been as cozy as ever on the chilliest of winter days, thanks to the knitting club's thoughtful gifts, it seems to have inspired them to be even more productive. "The birds are, in fact, laying more eggs," Max said. "It may be a coincidence, but we're getting many, many more eggs now."

Facebook/Prince Peep
By AP: Somali hijacked an oil tanker in what is the first instance of pirates seizing a commercial ship off Somalia's coast since 2012.

The pirates men are demanding a ransom for the release of an oil tanker they have seized off the coast of Somalia and the crew is being held captive, the European Union anti-piracy operation in the region announced late Tuesday.

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An EU Naval Force statement said the operation had finally made contact with the ship's master, who confirmed that armed men were aboard the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13.

Monday's hijacking was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012. It came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile and that Somali pirates "possess the intent and capability to resume attacks." One expert said some in the region had let down their guard as the situation calmed. NATO ended its anti-piracy mission off Somalia in December.

A Somali pirate who said he was in touch with the armed men aboard the tanker said the amount of ransom to demand had not yet been decided.

Bile Hussein told The Associated Press that the armed men have locked most of the crew in one room and cut off communication lines. "Their main concern now is a possible rescue attempt, so that's why all communications were cut off in the afternoon," he said.

8 SRI LANKANS HOSTAGE

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, the director of Oceans Beyond Piracy. The EU statement said the ship's master issued a mayday alert.

An official in Somalia's semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off the country's northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

The ship was anchored Tuesday off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. "The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship," he told the AP by phone.

The EU Naval Force said it had passed the information from its contact with the ship's master to the oil tanker's owners and an investigation was underway.

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Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was in touch with shipping agents and officials abroad for more information to help ensure the crew's "safety and welfare."

A UN shipping database shows the Aris 13 is owned by Armi Shipping SA, whose address is listed in care of Aurora Ship Management FZE, a company based in the United Arab Emirates. Calls and emails to Aurora went unanswered.

Australian government records from 2014 list the ship's owner as Flair Shipping Trading FZE in the UAE. An address listed for Flair Shipping in Dubai was for a company called Flair Oil Trading DMCC. A woman there told an AP reporter the firm wasn't connected to the ship and directed him to another office.

When no one answered there, the reporter returned to find Argyrios Karagiannis, the managing director of Flair Shipping, entering the first office. "We will not be releasing any information," Karagiannis said before shutting the door.

FIRST COMMERCIAL PIRATE ATTACK SINCE 2012

The incident involving the Aris 13 represents the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Steed of Oceans Beyond Piracy said.

"The pirates never went away, they were just doing other forms of crime and if any of the measures reduce (which they have, or ships take risks) the pirates are poised to exploit the weakness," he said in an email.

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Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom. They don't normally kill hostages unless they come under attack.

Piracy off Somalia's coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter-century of conflict. In that time, concerns about piracy off Africa's coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.

But frustrations have been rising among local fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.

Nur, the local elder, told the AP that young fishermen including former pirates have hijacked the ship.

"They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it," he said. "Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing."

ALSO READ | China may station Marines in Gwadar, say PLA insiders

--- ENDS ---

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LONDONThe Bank of Englands newly appointed deputy governor, Charlotte Hogg, has resigned amid criticism that she broke internal rules by failing to declare that her brother held a senior position at London-based Barclays.

The central bank released Hoggs letter of resignation Tuesday as a parliamentary committee published a report challenging her professional competence in light of her failure to meet the banks internal requirements. The problem was compounded by the fact that her role would have required monitoring transparency.

The central bank monitors conduct of those in banking, and some in the industry claimed that they too would demand leniency in reporting if she had been forgiven without penalty. In her resignation letter, Hogg said she made a mistake, and had not won any financial gain as result of the error.

However, I recognize that being sorry is not enough, she wrote. We, as public servants, should not merely meet but exceed the standards we expect of others. Failure to do so risks undermining the publics trust in us, something we cannot let happen. Furthermore, my integrity has, I believe, never been questioned throughout my career. I cannot allow that to change now.

The central bank said Tuesday that Hoggs resignation was voluntary. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says he respects her decision, but deeply regrets she chose to resign.

The Bank of England today is stronger, more diverse, secure and effective in large part because of Charlotte Hogg, he wrote. We will do everything we can to honour her work for the people of the United Kingdom by building on her contributions.

The bank also outlined a number of steps it would undertake because of the Treasury committee report, including an effort to more effectively safeguard the governance of the code of conduct.

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NEW YORKBill Ackman has finally conceded defeat on Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.

After waging a costly and outspoken public defence of the controversial drugmaker, its once-biggest champion sold his entire stake in the company at a loss and said he will leave the board.

Precise figures are hard to come by, but public filings suggest that Ackmans Pershing Square Capital Management may have lost $2.8 billion (U.S.) just on the Valeant shares it owned at the end of 2016, with overall losses likely to be much higher. The shares have plunged more than 90 per cent from their peak.

Read more:

Valeant turnaround efforts undercut by sales slump

Valeant to sell $2.1B (U.S.) in assets to pay down debt

Billionaire Ackmans big, concentrated bets and brash personality have made him one of the most polarizing names in investing. His decision to give up on Valeant, a favourite among hedge-fund types before probes into its business practices, accounting and drug pricing caused a collapse in the shares, comes after a lengthy campaign to turn around the company and salvage his investment.

The sale ends a near three-year saga that first saw Ackman team up with Valeant in a hostile bid for a rival, before later making a direct investment. Over the same period regulators intensified scrutiny of the drugmaker, its management and the board were overhauled, and its value was decimated.

Pershing Square sold its entire stake in Valeant Monday and said that Ackman, along with fellow Pershing Square representative Steve Fraidin, will leave the board at the next annual meeting. The investment, which represents about 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent of Pershing Squares funds, required a disproportionately large amount of time and resources, according to a statement Monday.

We appreciate the support and guidance that Bill and Steve provided during a challenging time, Joe Papa, Valeants chief executive officer, said in an emailed statement. Serving on the board of a company undergoing a transformation requires a significant commitment and we accept their decision not to stand for re-election.

As of mid-December, Pershing Square held 18.1 million Valeant common shares along with call options to purchase another 9.1 million shares, according to regulatory filings. Pershing Square paid an average of $166.11 a share for the Valeant stock that it purchased outright, not counting proceeds received for subsequent stock sales or options transactions.

Based on the average price paid, Ackmans hedge funds would have lost about $2.8 billion on the sale of the 18.1 million shares that they held outright. That assumes the stock was sold at $11.25 a share, the midpoint of the offering price.

Jefferies Group LLC offered Pershing Squares 27.23 million Valeant shares Monday for $11.10 to $11.40 apiece, according to a person familiar with the process who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

Though Pershing Square only disclosed its investment in Valeant in March 2015, the relationship between the two goes back a year earlier. In 2014, Ackmans fund had teamed up with the drugmaker in a hostile bid for Allergan Plc, which was thwarted when Allergan agreed to be acquired by Actavis Plc. Valeant and Ackman are now facing a shareholder lawsuit over alleged insider trading involving the failed deal for Allergan.

Valeant, once a darling of Wall Street, has seen its shares plummet more than 90 per cent since August 2015 amid a spate of investigations involving its pricing strategy and the use of a now-defunct mail-order pharmacy to help sell drugs. Until now, Ackman has stood by Valeant, at times being its most vocal advocate. In 2015, he held an hours-long conference call to defend his investment, and even predicted the stock would reach $448 by 2019.

Yet Valeants management, which underwent a complete overhaul as the scandals unfolded, has been struggling to tame its debt and rebuild investor confidence.

While the company has started looking to asset sales as a way to relieve its debt burden, analysts have expressed doubt that will be enough. Valeants Papa said last year the company could sell about $8 billion in non-core assets.

The new management team refinanced the companys debt burden last week, asking lenders for more breathing room and seeking new loans and bonds that would extend the maturities on part of its $30 billion debt load.

Ackmans Valeant exit follows earlier high-profile losses in retailers J.C. Penney Co. and Target Corp. He has also amassed losses in an ongoing short battle over nutrition products group Herbalife Ltd.

Pershing Square sold out of J.C. Penney and resigned from the board in 2013 amid a public spat with the companys board over its direction and management. That followed more than two years of changes at the retailer, including replacing the CEO and ending discounting  a move that alienated customers.

Ackman raised a $2 billion fund to invest in retailer Target in 2007, and then lost 90 per cent of the money in the next two years. At the time he called it one of the greatest disappointments of his career.

Pershing Square, which usually holds about 10 positions, made billions investing in big winners such as General Growth Properties Inc. and Restaurant Brands International Inc. It recently  and profitably  exited investments in animal-health company Zoetis Inc. and long-time railroad holding Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. The hedge fund has two new as-yet unidentified holdings.

Pershing Square posted its worst annual performance in 2015, with a net loss of 20.5 per cent  largely blamed on Valeant  after delivering a 2014 net return of 40.4 per cent. Last year Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., the publicly traded security of Ackmans activist hedge fund, was down 13.5 per cent, and as of March 7 had lost 1.5 per cent this year, according to the latest weekly data posted online. The public fund began trading in Amsterdam in October 2014 with a similar portfolio to the hedge fund.

Ackman typically buys large stakes in a handful of big companies and agitates  usually loudly  for changes and transactions. The funds current holdings include burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., food group Mondelez International Inc., and industrial gas supplier Air Products & Chemicals Inc. He is also suing the U.S. government over ownership of mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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Neiman Marcus is in talks to sell itself to Canadian retail giant Hudsons Bay Co., according to a person briefed on the discussions. A deal would put the struggling high-end retailer Neiman Marcus under the same umbrella as its luxury rivals Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord &s Taylor.

Hudsons Bay had also been discussing a potential merger with Macys. Discussions with Neiman Marcus, however, appear to be a bit more serious, the person said.

In a statement, Hudsons Bay said it did not discuss market rumours. But it added: Generally speaking, as we have previously stated, we selectively evaluate opportunities to accelerate the companys strategic growth while maintaining or enhancing its credit profile.

Read more:

Hudsons Bay making bid to take over Macys, report says

Hudsons Bay lowers outlook after lower-than-expected sales

Hudson's Bay plans 17 stores in Netherlands

News of the potential acquisition was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

As part of its most recent financial disclosure, Neiman Marcus said on Tuesday that it was evaluating its strategic options. Burdened by about $5 billion (U.S.) in debt and slumping sales, the retailer said that a potential sale was among the avenues being explored.

The company said it had not set a timetable to evaluate all of its options.

The companys announcement came as the retailer, which also operates Bergdorf Goodman, reported a loss in its second fiscal quarter that ended Jan. 28 and its sixth consecutive quarterly drop for a key revenue measure.

Neiman Marcus didnt specify which retailers it was looking at and didnt immediately respond when asked for comment. The chain is known for its lavish holiday catalogue.

The disclosure of the Hudsons Bay talks highlights wider troubles at department stores, which have struggled to adjust as quickly as the rest of the retail industry to the new ways that people shop  increasingly online and away from brick-and-mortar stores. Neiman Marcus, Macys and others have been unable to keep apace with Amazon, which has conditioned shoppers to expect low-cost goods delivered quickly.

Like many department stores, Neiman Marcus has been wrestling with declining customer traffic and sluggish sales. Even in the world of luxury, affluent shoppers are dramatically changing their habits and are buying designer bags and clothes online on places such as eBay or consignment shops.

The high-end brands are losing momentum, says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group Inc., a market research firm. He said the average price for a luxury item dropped 5 per cent last year from the prior year.

Neiman Marcus abandoned its plans for an initial public offering in January. The private equity firms Ares Management LP and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board purchased Neiman Marcus in 2013. At the time, the company had largely stopped expanding into new markets, and was focused on growing its e-commerce business. The company operates 42 stores in the United States and two Bergdorf Goodman locations in Manhattan, according to its website.

With files from The Associated Press

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TAG Heuer, a Swiss watch brand that has bucked the industrys slump, expects to build on last years double-digit sales growth in 2017, supported by an upgraded smartwatch and healthier demand in China, the biggest market for luxury timepieces.

Chief Executive Officer Jean-Claude Biver said on Tuesday his cautious forecast is for TAG Heuers sales to rise 8 per cent to 10 per cent in 2017. He was speaking as the watchmaker introduced its $1,650-and-up Connected Modular 45 timepiece, which carries the Swiss-made label.

TAG Heuer, owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, is one of the few Swiss watch brands that has introduced a high-end smartwatch to compete with the Apple Watch. The company started up an office in Silicon Valley last month, with about 8 employees so far, Biver said. The new model comes as the Swiss watch market has been showing tentative signs of a recovery from its longest slump on record.

Mainland China is much better and Europe is recovering from last year, Biver said in a phone interview.

Read more:TAG Heuer releases first Swiss luxury smartwatch

In 2016, the 157-year-old watchmaker sold out all 60,000 of its first smartwatch, which cost $1,500 and was modelled after its classic Carrera model, though didnt carry the Swiss-made label. The brand aims to sell some 150,000 units of the new version, Biver said.

The Modular 45 comes in 56 different versions, available in titanium, rose gold, ceramic and with diamonds. For an additional $1,650, TAG Heuer will sell a module that can replace the smartwatch face with a traditional one.

You can change the watch, Biver said. The mechanical module you can acquire will never be obsolete.

The new timepiece features a larger screen and is powered by an Intel processor and operates on an Android and iOS systems. In addition to memory of 4 gigabytes and a battery that lasts more than a full day, it comes with Wi-Fi, GPS and can make mobile payments.

Biver also oversees LVMHs other watch brands, Hublot and Zenith. He said Tuesday he aims to have a new CEO for Zenith by the end of June following the departure of Aldo Magada from that position in January.

Read more about:

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WASHINGTONIn a possible preview of upcoming NAFTA negotiations, U.S. lawmakers Tuesday urged a get-tough approach with Canada in several areas, including the supply-management systems that limit imports of poultry and dairy.

Lawmakers who will be involved in the negotiating process made clear at a confirmation hearing for Donald Trumps trade czar that they envision more substantive changes than the minor tweaking the president recently spoke of regarding Canada.

Senators from both parties pressed trade nominee Robert Lighthizer on softwood lumber, intellectual-property protection and, with respect to the NAFTA negotiations, for freer trade in dairy and poultry.

What was notable about Tuesdays event was that it was a rare public exchange between actors with a legal role in trade negotiations: American law says the U.S. trade representative must consult the Senate finance committee  before, during, and after trade talks.

They were all there Tuesday.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

One complained that the president should have been tougher when Canadas prime minister visited Washington. The committees top Democrat, who hails from the lumber-producing state of Oregon, wanted stronger language on softwood.

I thought it was unfortunate that the president missed an opportunity when Prime Minister Trudeau was here, when he said, Gee, all we need with Canada is a tweak,  said Sen. Ron Wyden.

How are you gonna get tough with Canada with respect to softwood lumber? asked Wyden.

While Mexico is usually the most frequent target of trade complaints in the U.S., another lawmaker said that, when it comes to a key industry in his state, he actually has bigger problems with the northern neighbour.

Mexico is now maybe our top customer for American poultry  in the whole world. And Canada maybe is among the last. Among the worst, said Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware.

(In Canada) they slap a tariff  I think its something like a 200- to 250-per-cent tariff  on poultry. It takes away a lot of incentive to try (our) Delmarva chicken when you have that kind of a tariff.

Your thoughts on fixing that kind of imbalance if we have the chance to renegotiate NAFTA?

Lighthizer appeared to say that supply management would be raised in the negotiations. He offered no firm guarantees or specifics, however.

I hadnt realized they have that high a tariff (on poultry). I agree its something we should look at, the trade nominee replied.

When we sit down with Canada, we should raise that and a variety of other subjects which have been raised by various members of the committee in the course of this process.

The Republican chair of the committee, Orrin Hatch, got the event started Tuesday and urged the trade nominee to get more aggressive in screening cargo from Canada for counterfeit or pirated products.

Lighthizer replied that there are several trade issues involving Canada after he was asked about softwood.

Ive had a variety of issues with respect to Canada that have been raised by senators. . . . Certainly (softwood) is at the top of the list, said Lighthizer, who is vying to become the United States trade representative.

A Pennsylvania Republican complained about Canadian dairy. Pat Toomey bemoaned Canadas restrictions that severely limit the amount of cheese and milk that can be imported without tariffs.

However, another committee member, Republican Pat Roberts urged the administration to steer clear of reimposing country-of-origin labels on meat, an issue which almost started a trade war and caused international court fights. Roberts led the battle to dump mandatory labelling in 2015.

U.S. trade deals begin and end with Congress.

At the start of the process, the administration must spend at least 90 days gathering input from members of key committees in the Senate and House of Representatives  which hasnt started yet and which could last into summer.

At the end of negotiations, lawmakers vote on the final deal.

On NAFTA, Lighthizer was asked general questions; he offered general answers.

Read more:

Lengthy NAFTA fight would only hurt investment, Canadas ambassador to U.S. says

NAFTA could get several new chapters: U.S. commerce secretary

But Lighthizer was adamant that he supports Trumps more nationalist approach. The former Reagan administration official and steel-industry lawyer has frequently expressed frustration with modern trade deals, and derided the idea of completely open trade.

I agree with President Trump that we should have an America First trade policy.

Lighthizer used to work on that same Senate committee as a young staffer several decades ago. He was introduced by his former boss, ex-presidential candidate and one-time Senate finance chair Bob Dole.

The 93-year-old Dole credited his former proteges integrity and toughness.

If you need someone whos aggressive and whos a bulldog, hes seated on my right. Bob Lighthizer, Dole said.

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LOS ANGELESThe Big Bang Theory is getting a spinoff about genius Sheldons early years.

CBS said Monday that Young Sheldon will air this coming season.

The comedy is set during the childhood of Jim Parsons character on the original series. The precocious 9-year-old Sheldon is living with his family in Texas and attending high school.

Young Sheldon stars Iain Armitage, whos appeared on Steve Harveys Big Shots and in the Nicole Kidman-Reese Witherspoon miniseries Big Little Lies.

Parsons, as the adult Sheldon, will serve as narrator.

Chuck Lorre, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, created Young Sheldon with Steven Molaro. Filmmaker Jon Favreau (The Jungle Book, Iron Man) is directing the first episode.

An air date for the spinoff was not announced.

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By Press Trust of India: The incident has drawn criticism from a top

The incident has drawn criticism from a top Indian-American donor of Trumps presidential campaign, who called the womans behaviour as disgusting.

"I assume she loved Hillary who loved Pakistan. Send her to Pakistan and then she would realise how great is our country," Shalabh Kumar, founder and chairman of the Republican Hindu Coalition told PTI.

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"I watched this (video) over and over too. She is behaving like a spoiled rotten kid with no respect for seniors. It is hard to make out what Sean is saying," he said.

In her blog post, Chauhan described Spicers response to her question as a threat to her citizenship.

"I am still stunned by the boldness of having my citizenship threatened on camera. I was not polite. But when does being impolite mean that I should be thrown out of the United States of America? The country I was born in, the country I was raised in, the country I love despite its flaws," she said.

According to her, Chauhan is a native of Gujarat and the founder and CEO of Parents in Partnership, an education startup that empowers parents to lead positive changes in schools and communities.

Hailing from Florida, Chauhan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from the University of Miami and a Master of Public Administration degree from American University. PTI LKJ ASV

--- ENDS ---
Watching Mondays Bachelor finale was kind of like Nick Vialls and Vanessa Grimaldis second last date on the show: cosy warmth followed by a cold blast of reality.

You may recall that the couples fantasy suite date started with time spent in a sauna followed by dips in a freezing cold pool.

If Nicks heartfelt, tear-filled proposal to Vanessa on Monday was the sauna, their appearance on After the Final Rose was the icy pool.

We barely had time to savour their delirious post-proposal happiness before the ATFR chill set in.

It started with Nicks solo appearance. Happy? asked host Chris Harrison. Very happy, said Nick. Everything good? Everythings good, replied Viall and yet Harrison looked happier than he did.

Then Vanessa came out on her own and almost immediately told Harrison, Im not gonna sugar-coat things. Some days are tougher than others.

Uh oh.

Related:Fan response to Nicks pick is a mixed bag

When Nick and Vanessa were finally onstage together, their awkward body language didnt scream couple madly in love; it screamed couple in trouble. They couldnt even definitively say theyre going to get married.

I repeat: Uh oh.

Still, well always have Finland. Lets revisit the finale and then well get back to After the Final Rose.

Meet the Parents:Bachelor tradition dictates that each of the final two meet the mans family while he pretends that he still has no idea which woman hes going to propose to in a couple of days, and his relatives pretend they believe him and give him advice, which usually adds up to, We like them both. Good luck.

Vanessas and Raven Gates meetings with Nicks fam essentially stuck to the script with the bonus of his folks also fretting that maybe Nick would end up with no one, which was also part of this seasons script. Because, ya know, Andi Dorfman and Kaitlyn Bristowe both rejected him as weve been reminded ad nauseam.

Anyway, Raven went first and was her usual perky self. She assured Nicks dad Chris and mom Mary that she loved Nick and was ready to accept a proposal.

Then Vanessa came and was her usual intense self. She told Mary she loved Nick and couldnt picture not ending up with him, but she also wondered if they were ready for the next chapter seeing as they still had lots to learn about each other.

She asked Chris if love was enough to make a relationship last. No, not just love. You have to be willing to give up, you have to sacrifice, you have to know that it cant be you first, he answered.

Something about that made Chris cry (the tearing-up apple clearly doesnt fall far from the tree) and then Vanessa cried too, saying, I just never thought I was gonna meet anyone like your son.

When all was said and done, more time was devoted to Nicks family speculating that Nick might get rejected again than to vetting Raven and Vanessa.

Nicks Final Date With Vanessa: Vanessa said she was going to try to relax on her last official date with Nick and she kept her word during their horse ride through a winter wonderland and their visit with Santa. Heck, Im not sure weve seen Vanessa as excited as she was when a man in a red suit and big white beard came out of a teeny tiny log cabin chuckling and speaking Finnish.

But by the time Nick and Vanessa were alone again, having hot drinks by an outdoor fire, Vanessa was pensive and dissatisfied.

Nick tried to assure her that if they ended up together it will be because its a love Ive never felt before, but Vanessa was wary of Nick choosing her just because my relationship was slightly greater than someone elses.

She was still fretting about it when Nick came to her hotel suite later. Bottom line: Was Nick ready to propose? I think the weeks not over and I have to use every moment to get there, said Nick, reminding her that Raven was still around.

I dont like that answer, said Vanessa, who ended up lying on the sofa crying while Nick comforted her.

Nicks Final Date With Raven: Youve heard the expression like night and day? These dates were like that. Vanessas date was clouds of doubt and the gloom of insecurity. Ravens was sunshine and rainbows and puppies. Yes, for real, adorable husky puppies.

She and Nick skated and laughed and smooched. And Raven focused on putting out positive energy and reassuring Nick she loved him and was ready to get engaged.

The next time I see Nick he will become my fiance instead of my boyfriend, said Raven confidently.

The Final Rose: On proposal day, Raven was still Happy to Vanessas Grumpy. We had footage of Vanessa worrying about leaving her students and family in Montreal juxtaposed with scenes of Raven saying she was ready to believe in fairy tales.

This, of course, was all intended to make us think Raven would get the proposal, but, unsurprisingly, it was she who stepped out of the first SUV, sealing her romantic doom.

With the show continuing its sadistic tradition of having the person whos about to get their heart broken tell the soon-to-be heartbreaker how much they adore them, Raven made a speech about Nick being the easy love her father had always wanted for her.

Nick answered with his own little speech about how much hed enjoyed his time with Raven and how much love I have for you.

But . . . I just dont know if Im in love.

Nick was all tears and sorrys. Raven calmly nodded and a single tear ran down her cheek. Ill never regret standing here telling you how I feel, she said before Nick walked her back to her SUV, coatless in a sleeveless gown as the cold wind whistled through the trees.

Then it was Vanessas turn and, in her voice-over, she was still talking about not being sure she was ready to be engaged.

That melted away once Nick started talking, telling Vanessa that he started falling in love with her at the second rose ceremony, that hed been falling more and more in love every moment since. Theres been plenty of times where Ive tried to fight it and I dont want to fight it anymore because I do love you. Im in love with you.

And Im glad I dont have to try not to say it. So much about me being here has to do with the past, but when I look at you all I see is my future.

Nick, when Im with you Im the happiest Ive ever been, said Vanessa. I knew this kind of love existed. I just never thought it was gonna happen for me until I met you, so thank you for taking another chance on love.

By this point they were both crying and so was I, frankly.

Nick proposed. Vanessa accepted, blubbering. She took his final rose. They kissed and hugged and rode off in a horse-drawn sleigh, looking as happy as two people can.

After the Final Rose: First off, Raven said she has no hard feelings for Nick and Vanessa. And shell be taking another shot at TV love on Bachelor in Paradise this summer. But she hedged when Harrison asked if she thought Nick and Vanessa would get married. I think both Nick and Vanessa are very passionate and I can obviously see theyre very passionate about each other so I can definitely see the church bells ringing and really solidifying their relationship.

As for the state of that relationship, well, Nick and Vanessa are still living in two different countries but are leaning toward Vanessa moving to the U.S., Nick said. Both still worry about things not working out. Vanessa said theyre taking baby steps toward getting married. Were still in the process of really getting to know each other.

That process will undoubtedly be even harder with Nick spending hours rehearsing for Dancing With the Stars, which starts next Monday.

Good luck to them, I say, theyre going to need it.

Finally, Harrison promised throughout ATFR that wed witness the most shocking, dramatic moment in Bachelor history.

He was pulling our legs. The big surprise was a crew putting up a photo backdrop of the Bachelor mansion and Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay being introduced to four of her suitors in front of the live studio audience.

First impressions: Eric, who danced with Rachel, seemed sweet. Dean, who blurted out, Im ready to go black and Im never gonna go back, did not.

The Bachelorette debuts May 22. Ill be back with more recaps then.

In the meantime, you can email me at dyeo@thestar.ca , tweet me @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.

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The identities of the provinces top-billing physicians must be disclosed to the court, a Toronto judge has ruled, adding that details about some of them must also be made available to the public.

In a seven-page decision released Monday, Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer denied a request to keep the court and public in the dark about the doctors, pending a judicial review of an order from the provinces privacy commissioner to make the names public.

The court must always have access to the entire (record of proceedings), for the purposes of the hearing of these applications for judicial review, he wrote.

His decision is the latest development in a three-year quest by the Toronto Star for information on the 160 highest paid fee-for-service doctors.

In 2014, the Star filed a Freedom-of-Information request to the provinces Health Ministry about the largest billers to the taxpayer-funded Ontario Health Insurance Plan.

The ministry provided information about medical specialties and payments, but denied access to physician names, reasoning the release would be an unjustified invasion of privacy.

(Payments to physicians are not the same as income as they do not take into account expenses for office rent, staff salaries and supplies.)

The Star successfully appealed that decision to the privacy commissioner. Now three separate groups of doctors are seeking a judicial review of the privacy commissioners order. It will be heard before a three-judge panel on June 19 and 20.

Last Friday, Nordheimer heard procedural motions, mostly related to how much of the court record should be kept under wraps, pending the outcome of the review.

Though it is unusual for anyone who commences a court proceeding to do so anonymously, in this case all parties agree the doctors should be permitted to proceed without publicly revealing their identities, otherwise the case would be moot.

Lawyer Chris Dockrill, representing a group of doctors described only as Several Physicians Affected by the Order, argued that the names should also be withheld from the judges.

He said their identities are not relevant to the judicial review and expressed a concern the judges could be compromised if they came across the names of any doctors they recognize.

But Nordheimer concluded the court must have access to the same material that the privacy commissioners office used to reach its decision. The relevance of the information cannot be determined until the judicial review is conducted, he said.

Nordheimer turned down a request from lawyers for two of three groups of doctors to proceed without revealing to the court the names of their clients or making public any details about them.

To date, the two applicants have used pseudonyms: Several Physicians Affected by the Order and Affected Third Party Doctors.

(The third group is the Ontario Medical Association, which represents the provinces 34,000 physicians and medical students.)

In my view, no person should be able to utilize the courts process without revealing their identity to the court. It is fundamentally inappropriate for the power and authority of the court to be invoked by an unknown person, Nordheimer wrote.

He granted the Stars request for public disclosure of details about the two groups using pseudonyms, namely the number of doctors seeking the judicial review, their specialties, gender, and general information about where they work.

On this issue, I start with the basic proposition that proceedings in our courts must be open to the public, Nordheimer said.

Such information should be publicly available unless there is good reason to keep it private, he said.

The question is not why the information should be made public. Public is the default position. The question is why the information should be made private, he wrote.

Nordheimer said the information should be provided in a generalized and categorized way so as not to identify any individual. He suggested, for example, that a breakdown be provided showing the total number of males, total number of females, total from each involved medical specialty and total from each geographic region.

Nordheimer denied a request from the doctors to prevent the Stars two lawyers on the case from having access to the names.

He said he did not see the need at this point for the Stars managing editor and in-house counsel to have access to the names in order to give instructions to the lawyers. The request could be raised again if the need presents itself, he said.

Star lawyer Paul Schabas said he is happy with the decision:

We're pleased that Justice Nordheimer has treated the doctors like all other litigants and rejected their extraordinary demand to be secret  even to the court and counsel. His decision confirms the basic principle that if you want to use the courts, you have to tell the courts who you are.

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OTTAWAMichel Coulombe, a career spy who joined the fledgling Canadian Security Intelligence Service more than 30 years ago before rising through the ranks to its top job, is retiring.

Coulombe told CSIS employees Monday that he will leave as director of the countrys spy agency at the end of May in order to move on to the next stage of his life and spend more time with his family.

Coulombe, an engineering graduate from Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, joined the agency in 1986, just two years after it was created.

In 2013, he became its eighth director, the first time the top job had been filled from inside the service.

After 36 years with the federal government, including more than 30 years with CSIS, I feel it is time for me to move on to the next stage of my life with my family, Coulombe said in a statement posted on the agency website.

It has been an honour to work with the dedicated professionals of the national security community and a privilege to serve all Canadians. I thank all CSIS employees for their support and the work they do every day to keep our country safe.

Before he was appointed director, Coulombe filled a number of key roles in the organization.

From 2010 to 2013, he was deputy director of operations. Before that, he was assistant director of foreign collection, overseeing operations abroad, and assistant director of intelligence, responsible for intelligence analysis and the security screening program.

He also served in CSIS regional offices, including as director general of the Quebec region.

His tenure covered almost all of the agencys existence. He joined as the service went through the process of moving away from the RCMP, splitting intelligence services from the national police force for the first time.

He watched security threats evolve. He saw the Cold War end with the collapse of the Soviet Union, only to see other dangers loom, including terrorism both homegrown and imported and a resurgent, post-Soviet Russia.

He had some touchy moments, including a case last year in which a Federal Court judge ruled that the agency illegally kept potentially revealing electronic data about people over a 10-year period.

Justice Simon Noel said the service breached its duty to inform the court of its data-collection program, since the information was gathered using judicial warrants.

Coulombe at the time said his agency had halted all access to  and analysis of  the data in question while the decision was under review.

I deeply regret the courts serious concerns with respect to meeting our duty of candour and I commit to continuing my efforts, with the deputy minister of justice, to address this concern, he said.

But it was also under Coulombes tenure that the agency demonstrated that it had a sense of humour. Yes, were on Twitter, CSIS tweeted when it joined the social media platform. Now its your turn to follow us.

Coulombes departure marks the second high-profile retirement this month: RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson announced last week he would step down from his role as top Mountie at the end of June.

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Health Canada plans to release reams of confidential documents that detail the clinical trials of prescription drugs and medical devices.

Much of this information, which the government relies on to assess the efficacy and safety of everything from popular heart pills to cancer medications, has never been seen by patients, the doctors who prescribe the treatments, independent researchers, or the trial participants who volunteered their bodies for science.

People took on the risk of taking an experimental drug so we could all benefit, said Matthew Herder, an expert in Canadian health policy and professor at Dalhousie University. This could be the start of fundamental change in terms of the regulator making information that ought to have been public in the first place available for public consumption.

Health Canada aims to make this information, submitted by companies looking to get their drugs and devices approved, readily accessible to the Canadian public, said a spokesperson for the regulator, which has been reviewing how it handles what it calls confidential business information since early 2016.

Health Canada recognizes that opening up access to clinical data can have widespread benefits throughout the health-care system.

The proposed policy still needs to go through consultations before it is made official through new regulations.

Researchers have long struggled to access these kinds of records from Canadas historically secretive drug regulator.

Dr. Nav Persaud, of Toronto, has fought for several years to get clinical trial records from Health Canada about a popular morning sickness drug. He was initially given mostly censored documents, and the regulator told him much of the information was confidential and belonged to the drug maker.

Persaud finally got 9,000 pages of information about a clinical trial of the same morning sickness drug he had been researching, but only after he signed a confidentiality agreement with Health Canada.

Even though he has said his reanalysis of the trial raises questions about the drugs efficacy and could change clinical practice, Persaud said the confidentiality agreement has made it difficult for him to get his research published and into the hands of doctors and patients. The maker of the drug, Diclectin, has said its product has been proven safe and effective.

Drug companies and doctors run clinical trials for new drugs and at any given time there are thousands across the country. Typically, an application is made to operate a trial for a new medication or a vaccine. Study subjects are selected and clinicians perform tests using the proposed drug, then study the results and record any side effects. If the trial is deemed successful, a drug company may make an application to Health Canada to get the drug approved for a certain treatment.

Experts have told the Star that the public should be made aware of all the results of the clinical tests, not just whether the drug has been approved. Each year Health Canada receives hundreds of new clinical trial applications for testing new drugs, or new uses of already approved drugs, on humans.

The trials allow Canadians to take part in research that could improve their health but can carry risks as there is often limited information about the safety and efficacy of the drug being studied, Health Canada says on its website.

Reports from these trials are written but not made public, and critics say transparency is needed so the drugs efficacy and side effects are better understood.

Access to trial reports can lead researchers to re-analyze the data collected from patients and publishing new findings, which could change how doctors prescribe drugs to their patients.

Under its proposed new policy, Health Canada not only wants to make future clinical trial reports public, but also release reports of drugs that are already on the market, as well as trial reports submitted by companies whose drug approval applications were ultimately rejected, the regulator said.

It may take years for this proposed policy to come into force, Herder said.

In the meantime, medical researchers and doctors who want to know more about the medications must fill out an application form and sign a confidentiality agreement, as Persaud did, if they want the regulator to consider releasing the information to them.

Several researchers, including two in the U.S. who have recently tried to get information deemed confidential from Health Canada, say the devil will be in the details of any new policy and that for now questions remain unanswered:

How much will be censored from the publicly released reports?

Will the regulator be able to keep up if there are many requests for these reports?

Under the proposed policy, drug companies and medical device manufacturers would still be able to propose censoring certain clinical information that may have ongoing commercial value, a Health Canada spokesperson said.

The policy proposal also calls for proactively releasing clinical trial information from new drug approval submissions, while demand for old clinical trials would dictate how those confidential documents would be disclosed.

Persaud questions whether a new policy and regulations are even needed.

Health Canada can and should release this information right now. No new regulations are required, said Persaud, who also teaches at the University of Toronto and is a researcher at St. Michaels Hospital.

Today, Health Canada is in the habit of keeping this information secret when pharmaceutical companies ask them to. That is what has to change.

Nevertheless, Persaud said he hopes the regulator adopts the policy as proposed and not a watered-down version, so that everyone has access to important information about the effects of medications, so that patients can make informed decisions, and so that clinicians and researchers can carefully examine the evidence.

David Bruser can be reached at dbruser@thestar.ca or 416-869-4282.

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OTTAWADisgraced Sen. Don Meredith, under fire for his sexual relationship with a teenage girl, was scheduled to attend a United Nations conference on the status of women this week before internal protests scuttled the trip.

Delegates from around the world have convened in New York for the annual meeting of the Commission on Status of Women, which began Monday. The organization is dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, according to the United Nations.

A Conservative senator had originally been scheduled to attend but was forced to cancel. The Independent Senate Group, a group of senators, named Meredith, one of their members, as a last-minute substitution, Conservative Sen. Don Plett told the Star.

At the time, Meredith was under an ethics investigation after the Toronto Star revealed his sexual relationship with the teenage girl.

I found out about it and put an immediate stop to it, Plett told the Star.

There is no way on this Earth that Don Meredith is going to a status of women conference when hes under investigation for unethical activity with regards to a young woman, Plett said.

It would be absolutely, entirely inappropriate for him to go on his trip, Plett said.

Last week, the Senate ethics overseer published a report that concluded Meredith violated the highest standards of dignity of the Senate when he lured a teenage girl into a sexual relationship. Several of his colleagues have since called for his resignation, including the leader of the government in the Senate, members of the independent group and Conservatives.

Merediths office turned down an interview request on Tuesday and declined to comment on the report and multiple calls for the senator to step down.

The Senates ethics committee, which has the power to recommend sanctions on Meredith or potentially compel him to step down if he refuses to resign, is scheduled to hold an in camera meeting on March 22.

Committee clerk Shaila Anwar said its not unusual for meetings to be held behind closed doors, and would only say that the senators will discuss upcoming business.

Read more:

Pressure mounts on Sen. Don Meredith to resign his seat

Senator calls on Don Meredith to quit over sexual relationship with a teen

Don Meredith tried to censor Senate report on relationship with teen

The Ontario senator and church leader was appointed by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2010. He resigned from the Conservative caucus soon after the Star first revealed details of his relationship with the young woman last year. But he was taken in by the Independent Senators Group.

Alberta Sen. Elaine McCoy, facilitator of the Independent Senators Group, blamed an administrative error for her decision to ask Meredith to attend the womens conference.

A clerk told her that her group could send two senators to the conference, and Merediths name was simply the next one on her list of people who had offered to go, she said.

When she learned that she could only send one senator  and after speaking with Sen. Plett  she spoke to Meredith and he agreed to gracefully back away, she said.

McCoy said she was aware of the allegations against Meredith, but felt that he should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Now that the ethics report has been released, McCoy is now one of many senators calling on Meredith to resign.

It all happened before I had any idea of what the ethics report was going to say, said McCoy.

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OTTAWAA stunned silence blanketed the room at the Edmonton convention centre. Did they hear that right?

The vote was 52 to 48 for a leadership review. Thomas Mulcair had lost his bid to lead the New Democrats into the 2019 election.

A small group cheered, but mostly people just milled around, exchanging shocked glances, trying to make sense of what just happened. A visibly shaken Mulcair took the stage, flanked by the NDP caucus, and managed a few words.

The disappointment from the election is obviously something were now going to be able to leave behind us with a change at the helm, Mulcair told the people who just gave him his walking papers.

And thats fine.

One year after that Sunday morning, New Democrats are still trying to make sense of what happened that weekend at the Edmonton NDP convention. And its not just historical curiosity driving the soul searching  understanding the forces that combined to take down Mulcair will be crucial for whoever ends up replacing him.

The Star talked to more than a dozen NDP insiders, activists, MPs and staff from across the country for this article, some insisting on anonymity while others spoke on the record. The consensus is that no one group or issue led to Mulcairs loss, but a number of factors that came together  in some cases unintentionally or unwittingly  to cut short his tenure as leader.

The 2015 election was crushing for New Democrats, who saw Mulcair and the party in the lead for much of the campaign only to lose to a Liberal party promising progressivism. After the loss, Mulcair embarked on a cross-country tour to listen to the partys grassroots.

The tour seemed to work for Mulcair. According to two sources, Mulcairs office was tracking support with delegates signing up to attend the Edmonton convention. In February, his office estimated only 40 per cent supported his continued leadership. By April, just days before the vote, that number increased to 57 per cent. They could work with that.

But outside the party, another movement was gaining steam and headlines. The Leap Manifesto, a progressive rallying cry backed by activists, intellectuals and artists, was gaining traction amongst some NDP riding associations.

There was a need for this expression of this return to traditional left-wing values. And I think that needed to be aired, said Avi Lewis, a Toronto-based film maker who became the lead spokesman for Leap, in an interview with the Star last week.

The manifestos language of transitioning to a clean energy economy and a moratorium on new energy infrastructure was (unfairly, according to proponents) given a shorthand in the media and by partisans: leaving the oil sands in the ground.

With Leap gaining traction amongst some party members, including former MPs like Megan Leslie, Libby Davies and Craig Scott, Mulcair had to field questions about it. And with the dominant narrative about Leap being anti-oil sands, and the convention taking place in Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notleys backyard, it was political trouble for the embattled leader.

Two days before the convention, CBC aired an interview Mulcair had done with anchor Peter Mansbridge. Mansbridge pressed Mulcair repeatedly on Leap, asking if NDP members voted for the manifesto would he commit to leaving Albertas oil in the ground.

If the party decides (Leap is) the way, as leader of the party Ill do everything I can to make that a reality, Mulcair said.

Mulcair was heading into an Edmonton convention after expressing an open mind on a manifesto vilified  fairly or unfairly  as anti-oil sands and anti-Alberta. Most insiders who spoke to the Star agreed that was not a great scenario.

Notley gave a televised address the following night, on the eve of the federal convention.

We cant continue to support Canadas economy unless Canada supports us. That means one thing: building a modern and carefully regulated pipeline to tidewater, Notley told Albertans.

Delegates awoke on the conventions opening day to copies of the Edmonton Journal with Notleys words in a front page headline. Almost all sources were adamant Notleys party didnt organize to oust Mulcair  although one Mulcair loyalist bluntly dismissed that as bull----  but the tension between Leap and Notley certainly didnt help Mulcair.

Notley gave a rousing speech on the Saturday of the convention, defending her position and the benefits of responsibly developing Canadas natural resources. Delegates gave standing ovation after standing ovation. The crowd was no less enthusiastic for Stephen Lewis, the former Ontario NDP leader and father of Avi Lewis, who argued in his lyrical way the opposite position.

Its time to put to bed the understandable but misplaced skepticism about the transition to renewables, Lewis told the crowd.

As always, its a matter of political will. Do you want to transform the economy? It can be done.

Notley and Lewis represented two diametrically opposed sides at the convention, and were showered in applause from NDP members in attendance. Matching those performances would be a significant enough task, but Mulcairs mission was even more difficult  he had to bridge the divide between the two, or at least convince a strong majority of delegates that he could.

Mulcair, his voice breaking slightly, began his speech the following morning by joking no pressure. A year later, the consensus was Mulcairs speech didnt accomplish what it needed to.

Though there is a lot of respect for Tom  clearly that convention speech was an expression of the desire to turn the page and move forward, said Rick Smith, a former chief of staff to Jack Layton who now works with the Broadbent Institute.

I was surrounded on the convention floor by people who were looking forward to Toms speech and for whatever reason  Im not sure that speech gave them what they were hoping for.

Later that morning, delegates voted to launch a leadership contest.

Most sources who spoke to the Star agreed a number of different factions wanted to send Mulcair a message, but nobody suspected that there were enough votes to actually reject his leadership outright.

Even though they had very different and opposite political objectives, (the two sides of the convention) ended up voting together to bring down Mr. Mulcair, said Karl Belanger, who was national director of the party at the time. And Im not sure either side knew this would happen.

Belanger said that a number of NDP donors, in his opinion upset with the Edmonton delegates decision, cancelled or delayed their donations in the wake of the vote.

Despite some early rumblings from caucus members like Vancouver MP Don Davies, Mulcair has been allowed to stay at the helm of the party until his successor is chosen, likely in October. Shay Purdy, who worked with both Mulcair and Jack Layton, said there was a real sense of shock in the days following the convention.

I think that when Parliament came back, and people saw Tom in that arena that he enjoys and is really good at, people thought uh oh, what have we done, Purdy said.

But its important to note that the broader political arena has evolved quite a bit, and in a way that maybe doesnt favour the type of politician that Tom is. Its outside of Parliament. Jack was able to do both  Tom just couldnt move with it.

Several people suggested Mulcair promised the party in his leadership bid that he could deliver the 2015 election. When that didnt happen, some turned on him.

Sally Housser, an NDP activist who helped manage the partys last leadership convention, suggested Mulcair always had a difficult task in replacing the revered Layton.

Obviously the death of Jack Layton was such a tragedy to so many New Democrats when we came so far, that the desire for everybody to continue on that same path maybe overshadowed our new leader and current leader, Housser said.

But multiple sources said that Mulcair, for whatever reason, didnt work the room at the convention and sway fence-sitting delegates to his cause. One anecdote, related by several sources, is on the Saturday of the convention while delegates were deciding his fate, Mulcair was dining with his family at the posh Edmonton Fairmont hotel just down the street.

Others point the finger at labour leaders abandoning Mulcair  including leaders at the Canadian Labour Congress, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Alberta Federation of Labour.

While its not clear which of these factors sealed the fate of Mulcairs bid to hang on to the NDP leadership, whoever assumes that mantle later this year will have to bridge these divides  between the Leapers and the Alberta NDP, between Toronto environmentalists and blue-collar union organizers, between the so-called progressive and pragmatic sides of the party.

The Star requested an interview with Mulcair for this article. As of Friday, Mulcair was not available.

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Mayor John Tory was the main attraction at a Scarborough town hall Monday evening that felt more like a rally where he directly implored residents to support the plan to build a single subway stop extension costing at least $3.35 billion.

Im going to try and make the case to you for why what were doing is the right thing to do, Tory told the room of more than 150 at the Centennial Recreation Centre in Scarborough. He asked them to contact his council colleagues with that message.

We are ending years of indecision and waffling with transit across the city.

Tory framed an upcoming vote at council to advance the subway plan as the last stand in an ongoing war waged by advocates of an alternative light-rail plan that would see a network of LRTs built across the region  including a seven-stop LRT that was to be fully funded by the province to replace the aging Scarborough RT.

He was joined by local politicians from both city hall and the province who also pushed support for a subway, citing projected future job growth in a region that has fallen well behind other urban centres in both commercial and residential development.

I think weve waited long enough, said Scarborough Centre MPP and Ontarios Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid. The time for talk is over.

Those arguments received raucous applause from the local crowd. But when it came time for questions, the politicians were met with anxiety from residents over access to new transit. Many asked about the commitment to a 17-stop LRT along Eglinton Ave. East that was promised as part of the revised subway plan, whether it could be built at the same time, and if the city would ensure it would be funded.

Last month, a staff report announced the cost of the one-stop extension had increased to $3.35 billion, not including financing and other necessary costs that staff calculations show could push the cost above the allotted $3.56 billion in funding from all three levels of government.

Tory and senior staff originally promised both the subway extension and the Eglinton East LRT could be funded within that envelope. But with increases to cost estimates of the subway  what is still less than 5 per cent designed and at risk of further cost fluctuations  the LRT has been effectively priced out.

The mayor has said he will look to the provincial and federal governments to make up the $1.6-billion funding shortfall, and earlier on Monday said without that line we cannot truly serve the people of Scarborough.

On Monday evening he said the major impediment to building both lines was money.

Duguid  who told Tory the subway will be cancelled over his dead body  earlier told the Scarborough Mirror there is no additional money available from the province for the LRT. He made no pledges to finance the LRT Monday night.

The city has applied for federal funding for the LRT line in the next round of infrastructure spending, which has yet to be announced. The list of funding requests forwarded from the city includes the TTCs stated top priority project, the relief line for the overcrowded Yonge-University subway  which is estimated to cost at least $6.8 billion for the first leg and is thus far completely unfunded.

One woman asked if there would be a new transit stop at Centennial College, which sponsored the event and whose Progress Ave. campus is located less than two kilometres from the recreation centre where the town hall was being held.

Local councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38 Scarborough Centre) explained a station would not be built there.

What was left unsaid is that the original plan to build a seven-stop LRT would have included a station at the Centennial College campus. With the subway, there is no plan to connect the school to rapid transit.

FACTS ON THE ONE-STOP SUBWAY EXTENSION

How many stops is the Scarborough plan?

After council flip-flopped on a plan for the province to fully fund a seven-stop LRT, it approved a three-stop subway from Kennedy Station to Sheppard Ave. in 2013. That was revised in January 2016 to a one-stop extension to the Scarborough Town Centre. The city is also now proposing to build a 17-stop LRT extension of the Crosstown line currently under construction from Kennedy Station to the University of Toronto Scarborough campus.

How much does it cost?

Three levels of governments originally dedicated $3.56 billion to the three-stop subway plan, funding that remains in place today. It was originally stated that a one-stop subway and 17-stop Eglinton East LRT could be funded in the same envelope. Now that the subway is estimated to cost at least $3.35 billion on its own, the LRT is at least $1.4 billion short on available funding.

Whos paying for it?

The province committed $1.48 billion (in 2010 dollars) originally pledged to the LRT; the federal government committed $660 million; and the city is meant to contribute $910 million. Of that city contribution, the majority is being raised through a special property tax from all Toronto residents that began in 2014 and will continue for the next 30 years.

How many people will ride the extension?

Ridership during the rush hour in the busiest direction is expected to be 7,400 per hour in 2031  well below the accepted minimum threshold for a subway of 15,000 people and the maximum capacity of 36,000 people. The capacity of an LRT is 2,000 to 15,000 people per hour depending on the configuration. The daily ridership of the planned subway extension is expected to be 30,800 in 2031  less than the SRTs current daily ridership of nearly 39,000.

Will I get where Im going faster?

City staff have estimated up to five minutes will be saved by replacing the existing Scarborough RT with a one-stop subway extension. That doesnt include the elimination of a transfer at Kennedy Station. It also doesnt factor in the bus trips for individual users, who may spend more time on a bus getting to a rapid transit station with the one-stop plan. It also doesnt consider or compare the travel time of the original plan to build a seven-stop LRT to replace the SRT.

Hasnt council already voted on this?

Since May 2013, there have been at least seven key votes on Scarborough transit. Though subway proponents have tried to blame a delay on LRT advocates, the delay has been exclusively related to staff reports not being ready on time, additional review of subway options recommended by staff, and regular processes involved with billions-dollar infrastructure projects.

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The federal governments $8.6 million investment in a city youth employment program is a great example of how governments can work together to build a great city, Mayor John Tory says.

Its also a hopeful sign of things to come for Toronto in next weeks federal budget, Tory said, reiterating his fervent hope to see substantial investments  for housing and transit.

Tory joined federal Employment, Workforce Development and Labour Minister Patty Hajdu and Liberal MP Adam Vaughan, who represents Spadina-Fort York, at Toronto City Hall for the announcement Tuesday.

In total, the Toronto Youth Corps will receive $11.6 million in funding over three years, including $2 million from the city and $1 million from the private sector, to provide job and skills training for more than 1,300 youth. Ottawa hiked funding by 50 per cent and extended the funding agreement from one to three years.

There is nothing more tragic than watching a young person lose hope of all success, Hajdu told reporters.

There are often significant barriers preventing todays youth from continuing their education or finding work, leading to a cycle that can be very difficult to overcome, she said.

With support and positive work experiences, young people can thrive and move from a very difficult situation to one of hope and a sense of a positive future.

Okeima Lawrence, project manager for the Toronto Youth Corps, called the long-term investment significant. Last year, the total program budget was $2.2 million.

We now have stable, predictable funding for the next three years, which is fantastic, so it continues to help support young people in neighbourhoods with high rates of unemployment, he said Tuesday.

A bridging program like this helps a lot of young people through the door and helps them get those opportunities they need for success in life.

Tory contrasted this federal-municipal collaboration to the citys strained relations with the province after Premier Kathleen Wynne rejected councils request to impose road tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.

On Monday, Tory emerged from a meeting with provincial Finance Minister Charles Sousa warning that underfunding Torontos transit and housing needs would be a grave mistake.

Tory on Tuesday acknowledged the province has made significant investments in transit.

But he took note of the federal governments unprecedented step of investing money in the citys transit system that allowed the purchase of 300 new buses this year, with more funding promised.

Vaughan, a former city councillor, said his party has changed the conversation by partnering with cities to make sure that we deliver long-term, robust funding over the long haul to make sure these services dont fall to local taxpayers alone.

He noted that 25 Liberal MPs represent Toronto.

All of us are committed to getting Toronto a better deal out of this budget, Vaughan said.

He has reason to be optimistic, I have reason to be optimistic, the city of Toronto, more importantly, has reason to be optimistic, as do the people waiting for housing, waiting for housing repairs or waiting for a bus.

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Toronto Police are asking for the publics assistance in the search for 32-year-old Shawn General after an alleged assault and breach of probation in North Toronto.

Police were called to a home near Lawrence Ave. and Avenue Rd. at 2:15 a.m. Monday morning where a 26-year-old woman was allegedly assaulted.

General is wanted for four counts of assault causing bodily harm, four counts of unlawfully causing body harm, assault, mischief under $5000, obstruction of justice, failure to comply with a condition of judicial release, and two counts of breaching probation.

Police described General as 62, 200 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a black bomber jacket with a fur-trimmed hood, blue jeans, and grey and black Jordan shoes.

Police say General is known to be violent and are advising not to approach him. Theyre asking the public to immediately call 911 if spotted.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call police at 416-808-5300

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The judges at Torontos 311 Jarvis St. courthouse  all of whom are family court judges  are absolutely, 100 per cent opposed to having paralegals in family court, one of the jurists told the Star.

Ontario court Justice Marion Cohen, appointed to the bench in 1993, was speaking just days after the release of a report last week from former Ontario court chief justice Annemarie Bonkalo that urges the provincial government to allow unsupervised paralegals into the family court system, where the majority of litigants are self-represented.

Cohen said if the laws are ultimately amended to allow paralegals into family courtrooms, where they are currently barred, the judges at 311 Jarvis will of course respect them without any apprehension bias.

These recommendations are not the solution, Cohen said of the problems facing the family justice system, expressing particular concern with allowing paralegals to handle complex child custody and access issues.

Whats at stake (in these cases) is of great magnitude, she said in a rare interview in her office at the courthouse. This is the most important work that we do.

The solution, she said, is a properly funded, properly resourced legal aid system. Its what the people of Ontario have a right to expect. . . . This is your legal system and you expect to get the same access to your legal system as everybody else gets.

Cohens statements would not come as a surprise to many in the legal community, as Bonkalo herself noted in her report that many lawyers and judges are against allowing paralegals into family court, leaving the government and the Law Society of Upper Canada to figure out how to implement what are clearly divisive recommendations.

Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi has said the government is committed to working on changes that will have a real, positive impact on people's lives, like allowing paralegals to be trained to provide family law services.

He told the Star in a statement that continuously expanding financial eligibility for legal aid is part of the plan to improve access to justice. A previously planned increase for financial eligibility will happen April 1, though critics have said that the threshold will still be far too low for many people to qualify.

The current income cut-off to qualify for legal aid in family law for a family of four is about $29,000. Increases to the plan were notably not part of the recommendations in Bonkalos report.

Recommendations like expanding legal aid to cover existing gaps are not practicable. Moreover, I do not agree that the solution to any crisis in access to legal services lies solely with (Legal Aid Ontario) or the government, Bonkalo wrote.

She recommended the law society, which regulates both lawyers and paralegals, develop a specialized licence for paralegals wanting to practise in family law.

Bonkalo said they should be allowed to work on services including custody and access, simple child-support cases and restraining orders. She also recommended that they be allowed to appear in court, other than at trials.

The family law bar has come out strongly against Bonkalos recommendations.

Justice Cohen is an experienced and highly respected judge of the Ontario court of justice. We wholeheartedly support and share the views of the 311 Jarvis bench on this important issue, said Katharina Janczaruk, chair of the Family Lawyers Association. The issues identified by Justice Cohen are of critical importance and must be addressed to improve access to justice.

Stephen Parker, president of the Ontario Paralegal Association, said he appreciates Cohens position, but said there was a time when other areas of the law were considered too complex for paralegals, but it has proven not to be the case.

Madam Justice Bonkalo agreed, and has consequently recommended further education and licensing for family law, Parker said.

Cohen said custody and access issues are complicated endeavours in which the judge has to ensure everything is being done in the best interests of the children.

She said one judge at 311 Jarvis highlighted that it is specifically recommended that paralegals not handle family cases involving property, which are dealt with in the Superior Court of Justice.

 Paralegals cant assist on the question of who gets the Rolex, but they can assist on who gets the kids?  is how the judge put it, Cohen said.

And she wondered what will happen to individuals whose child-support cases transform from simple to complex and who may not be able to afford a lawyer. One example of this would be if one partner says the other is making far more money than what is indicated on their tax returns.

Bonkalo specifically recommends against paralegals working on complex child-support cases. Cohen worries that an individual in such a case could decide to abandon the child-support issue because all they can afford is a paralegal. These are disincentives, Cohen said.

Then theres the argument of something is better than nothing, as indicated in the Bonkalo report.

It is the opinion of the judges of this court (at 311 Jarvis) that something is not better than nothing, Cohen said.

She explained that there is plenty of case law on self-represented litigants, and judges know how to treat them. But the idea of having a paralegal next to them is concerning, she said.

Its going to seem like they have somebody to represent them, but because its an inadequate form of representation in family law because its not a trained lawyers representation, the appearance is not going to be the reality, she said.

There is the possibility that the issues will be inflamed and courts will be less able to get information from the clients, and that increases the risks of making the bad decision in a custody case.

She said the recommendations in the Bonkalo report are ultimately directed at the individuals who come into her court, the Ontario court of justice, as anything dealing with property would go to the Superior Court, where paralegals are still barred.

But their custody and access cases are as complex as anybodys, she said of the individuals who come into her court.

What will happen is paralegals will squeeze the lawyers out and the quality of justice in the Ontario court of justice will suffer, she said. We have a court system that is premised on lawyers. We need lawyers. This is law. Not only is this law, it is profoundly important law, and we need lawyers to represent these people.

A legal education is an education in being a lawyer, in doing legal research, in identifying legal issues, in knowing how to read a legal statute, and understanding rules of evidence. That is a legal education.

The family law system has become far more complex since Cohen became a criminal and family lawyer in the 1970s, she said, with greater understanding of issues facing families including domestic violence and sexual assault.

As complexity and demand have gone up, resources, especially legal aid, have gone down, she said, adding that this environment has led people to be prepared to expect to come to court without a lawyer and represent themselves because theres no reasonable cost alternative.

We need a properly funded legal aid plan and thats always been the answer.

Note  March 14, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version to clarify the words of Ontario court Justice Marion Cohen.

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By Press Trust of India: Colombo, Mar 13 (PTI) Sri Lanka has sought two more years from the UN Human Rights Council to probe the alleged war crimes committed during the conflict with the LTTE, the foreign ministry said today.

Sri Lanka was granted 18 months by a UNHRC resolution in October 2015 to initiate a credible investigation into the nearly three-decades long civil war with the LTTE.

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The foreign ministry said it has sought more time to deliver on accountability mechanism.

"What Sri Lanka will undertake at the current 34th session (of the UNHRC), is a two-year extension of the timeline for fulfilment of commitments made in Resolution 30/1 (in October 2015)," the ministry said.

According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during former president Mahinda Rajapaksas regime that brought an end to the conflict with the defeat of LTTE in 2009.

Earlier this month, the UNHRC had criticised Sri Lankas "slow" progress in addressing its wartime past and reiterated its earlier call for hybrid court of international and local judges to investigate allegations of rights violations.

However, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe rejected the demand, saying it was impractical.

The countrys main ethnic Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), has taken a stance that Sri Lanka be given more time by the UN to meet all obligations. However, TNAs rival groups are opposed to giving more time by the UNHRC to implement the 2015 resolutions accountability mechanism.

"The TNA has excluded the opinion of the majority of Tamils. After one and a half years, the government has not done anything, disappeared people have not been found," Tamil National Peoples Front spokesman S Kajendran said.

"TNA leader M A Sumanthiran is not speaking for the suffering Tamils," he told reporters in Jaffna.

The TNA and its moderate group headed by the main opposition leader R Sampanthan and Sumanthiran are accused of trying to appease the majority Sinhala government by giving more time to implement the accountability mechanism.

President Maithripala Sirisena government is opposed to the international hybrid court as the UNHRC has insisted on a credible war crimes probe with foreign judges. PTI CORR CPS

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People will use Siri to find almost anything. She just might not give them the right directions.

Apples voice-activated search function has been directing Toronto users who ask about prostitutes to a Little Italy bar that, owners say, is definitely not a place to find them.

Alvin Acyapan, co-owner of Meltdown eSports Bar on College St. near Ossington Ave., says he began receiving mysterious late night calls shortly after the establishments grand opening in November 2016.

Each time Acyapan answered, there was a voice on the other end, asking for an escort.

I thought people were getting the wrong number or maybe it was a prank by someone listing our phone number on some unscrupulous website, said Acyapan, whose personal cell phone doubles as the businesss main phone line.

Finally, on Sunday, a caller asking after prostitutes revealed that Siri had given him Acyapans number.

In a series of tests, the Star asked Siri to find prostitutes, escorts, and hookers, and was given Meltdowns name, address, phone number and location on a map, each time.

Meltdown is a so-called eSports bar, a place where patrons play and watch video games and compete in tournaments.

Acyapan said he and the other owners guessed the mix-up may have been caused by the similarity of the words eSports and escorts.

Its only one letter difference, he said.

Acyapan contacted Apple tech support via email and on Twitter but had not heard back as of Tuesday afternoon.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment from The Star.

How exactly Siri works is purposefully kept a mystery, said technology analyst Carmi Levy.

The algorithm that powers Siri is very much like the algorithm that powers Google, and the secret spices KFC uses in its chicken. If they give those recipes up, what makes those products and services special will no longer be special, Levy said.

It reinforces the dangers that we face as these products become more pervasive.

As services like Siri and Google become more pervasive, glitches are going to have a greater impact, Levy added.

Unfortunately, our only resource is to identify them, submit them to Apple and then hope that the company does something about them.

Acyapan said hes not ready to change his number yet.

I see the humour in it, Acyapan said of Siris slip-up. I always thought of it as a funny anecdote to share with my friends: Hey, we run a bar and sometimes I get this kind of call.

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Laura Hesp was appalled when she heard about a Toronto clothing brand selling shirts with words such as homeless and change please written across.

Trevor Nicholls, founder of the Homeless Toronto brand, said he aimed to raise awareness surrounding homelessness through his clothing line and give back to worthy causes, but was accused of exploiting poverty in the process.

It was especially troubling for Hesp, who has spent the past year organizing and holding fundraisers, meal deliveries and rallies for those living in shelters and on the street.

Her main fundraising technique has been clothing sales, through her brand called Inclusive Love Inc.

For $30, Hesp sells T-shirts with the wording Toronto Loves Everybody, a spin-off of the Toronto vs Everybody brand, to promote inclusivity while raising funds for her efforts. She said shes also donated many of the shirts to those in shelters too.

When I saw that Homeless TO thing, it was pretty much a slap in the face because thats what I actually do for real, said Hesp, 26.

For her, its personal.

Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary of her father Dougs death. For a period of time before he died, Doug was homeless but his daughter didnt even know.

Hesp is hosting a gathering Wednesday at Yonge-Dundas Square. She and a group of at least 20 people will be there after 5 p.m. wearing Inclusive Love Inc.s T-shirts, holding up signs that say free hugs and handing out stickers.

On this occasion, shes not selling the T-shirts, but rather handing them out for free. The caveat is that if you want one, you have to join her cause and stand with the group spreading love at Yonge and Dundas.

The idea is to have as many people as possible gathering to talk about homelessness in a positive, inclusive atmosphere.

Its more about showing people that it takes more than just money to get involved, she said. You have to get off your computer, come out, help us.

Hesp said her father died last year at age 62 when he was found alone in a motel room. She was told it was due to natural causes.

My dad hid it (homelessness) from me for a couple years, said Hesp. I think that there was a lot of guilt and shame from him that he tried to hide it, which really makes me so sad because he was just living in shelters and on the street and didnt tell anybody.

Ever since, shes been working to rid the stigma associated with homelessness. Shes pledged to donate $20 from all sales through April and May to Evas Initiatives for Homeless Youth and is also raising money for the organization through an online campaign.

I decided to just try and do something positive for them, said Hesp. I really just wanted to show that people dont always just exploit homeless people. There are good people, there are good organizations. Theres good stuff happening in the city.

Last month, Nicholls said he planned to donate 40 per cent of proceeds from his sales to organizations such as Evas. But Evas said it didnt have any arrangements with the Homeless Toronto brand and wouldnt enter into a partnership with it unless its messaging was more respectful of people experiencing homelessness.

If you speak with young people with experience, young people will say that one of the hardest things to deal with is the stigma of homelessness and that theres a perception that if you are homeless its because youve done something wrong, said Evas executive director Jocelyn Helland.

That cant be further from the truth. Its actually about circumstance.

Helland said the donations brought in from Hesps fundraiser would be used to support youth who have experienced homelessness through counseling, employment programming and education programming.

Hesp said her work with the homeless community since her fathers death has taught her how easy it is to relate to someone without a home.

These people are so kind and humble. Theres just so much stigma around this community when everyone is so polite, she said. Thats my whole point. I want people to see that its not intimidating, there should be no stigma. These are real human beings.

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After months of public pressure and scrutiny, the York Region District School Board has released two reports describing the learning that took place when staff and trustees went to Europe on taxpayer-funded trips last fall.

The reports, posted on the board website under jurisdictional learning, are part of the disclosure the board promised to the Ministry of Education in January, after concerns were raised by the ministry about the boards lack of transparency around foreign travel.

The reports, posted months after the trips took place, offer some rationale for the international travel to high-performing jurisdictions of the Netherlands and Finland. But, observers say, the reports fall short on both transparency and making the case for why the travel was necessary in the first place.

There is a lot of information that is missing: who went where, and how much it cost, said parent Todd Silverman, who has long been a critic of travel at the board. It looks like they are rushing to meet their mandate for the province  but its not really thought out.

The board is now under investigation by the ministry over concerns around its handling of racism, discrimination and trustee travel.

In a letter sent to the province in January, trustees pledged to improve transparency around travel and to create a web page to highlight our most recent learnings.

The first report details the trip to Finland last September to mark a 10-year partnership with the city of Espoo. According to the report, three trustees and five senior staff travelled at a cost of about $2,600 per person. The report gives general descriptions of what staff observed in local schools in the areas of math, mental health and modern learning.

The trip to the Netherlands in September doesnt specify who travelled as part of a small delegation to participate in an exploratory learning opportunity with a focus on advancing student achievement and well-being.

Among things highlighted in the report is a picture of a quiet room that was available for students  throughout the day. The space was designed for the purpose of supporting student well-being.

The Star obtained documents about the travel under Access to Information legislation. The documents are heavily redacted for privacy, but fill in some of the information left out of the boards reports:

The total cost of the 7-day trip to Finland was $21,500 and included a formal dinner to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of co-operation, according to the expenses and itinerary obtained by the Star.

In September, director J. Philip Parappally travelled to Zwolle, in the Netherlands with then-chair Anna DeBartolo, and Wanda Muirhead, the boards superintendent of business and finance, for a professional learning session. The six-day trip cost taxpayers $8,620, according to documents.

Charles Pascal, a former Ontario deputy minister of education, says the reports read like an after-the-fact justification of their travels.

Why didnt they provide the upfront board requests for these trips to the minister months ago? said Pascal, now an education professor at the University of Toronto. They should have provided detail including why they couldnt learn from experts in Toronto about these two jurisdictions? If there was no documented request to the board for these trips, thats a problem.

Parappally, who didnt answer questions as to why information was not shared prior to departure, said the experience of going to the Netherlands was valuable.

Seeing the benefits to students of a focus on well-being was educational and helpful. Afterwards, we put a detailed presentation online  and I gave a full debrief to a committee of staff members and trustees, as well, he said in an email. The main objective in benchmarking ourselves with other jurisdictions is learning things that can help our students.

But Markham trustee Susan Geller, who has been a vocal critic of travel, said its been hard to get answers.

Im not comfortable this was done months and months later, she said. I was never given answers as to who went where and what we did there when I asked back in the fall.

According to board policy, trustees are allocated $8,490 for the four-year term that they can use to participate in professional development activities  which trustees are able to take, as long as they stay within their budget. One type of activity is jurisdictional learning, when an organized group from the board attends another high-performing educational jurisdiction.

York chair Loralea Carruthers acknowledges there is no official way of sharing what people learn through professional development, but they are working on it. She said since she became chair, she has encouraged trustees and senior staff to share upcoming professional development opportunities, so we are all in the loop. She added that all policies around foreign travel are under review.

For every great learning opportunity, we need to ensure there are strict policies in place to enforce accountability, transparency and frugality. This is an area we will be reviewing to ensure we are meeting the publics expectations.

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Kellyanne Conway, U.S. President Donald Trumps senior adviser, amplified Trumps claim that president Barack Obama had tapped his telephone, suggesting on Monday that the former presidents surveillance effort could have employed any number of devices, even including a microwave oven.

Conway quickly clarified that she was not, in fact, accusing the former president of spying via a kitchen appliance, arguing that her comments had been taken out of context.

Im not Inspector Gadget, she said Monday on CNN. I dont believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

But in an interview on Sunday with a columnist for The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, she said that Obamas spying efforts against Trump could have been far more extensive than a simple telephone wiretap.

What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other, Conway told the paper. You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets  any number of ways.

Surveillance can even be carried out with microwaves that turn into cameras, she added. We know this is a fact of modern life.

The comments added fuel to the incendiary charge Trump made in a series of posts on Twitter last weekend accusing Obama of tapping his telephone at Trump Tower and calling him a bad (or sick) guy.

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Neither Trump nor anyone at the White House has presented any evidence for the claim, instead asking Congress to investigate it as part of its inquiry into Russias interference in the presidential election, and vowing not to comment further until that examination is completed.

Conway told CNN that she had not been referring to the presidents charges when she talked about microwave surveillance, nor could she offer any proof of his allegations.

Im not in the job of having evidence, she said. Thats what investigations are for.

Conway said she had never meant to imply that Obama had used a microwave to spy on Trump, saying headlines asserting as much were misleading.

Response to Bergen Record was about surveillance articles in news & techniques generally, not about campaign, Conway said in a post on Twitter.

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WASHINGTONDemocrats and some Republicans on Monday criticized a veteran GOP congressman for saying America cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies and warning of a liberal effort to destroy Western civilization through immigration.

On Twitter Sunday, Rep. Steve King of Iowa paid tribute to a Dutch politician who opposes immigration and has spoken against Islam. It came as the Dutch prepare for an election.

King, who has served in the House since 2003, said Geert Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies.

In an interview Monday on CNN, King said he stood by his remarks. King said, I meant exactly what I said, and noted that he delivers the same message to countries in Europe.

We need to get our birth rates up or Europe will be entirely transformed within a half a century or a little more, King said.

A spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called on GOP leadership to condemn Kings statements, saying they must decide whether white supremacy is welcome in the GOP ranks.

Republican Congressman Steve Kings vile racism has no place in decent society, much less in the U.S. Congress, said spokesman Drew Hammill. But once again, disgusting hatred has been met with deafening silence from Speaker (Paul) Ryan.

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, subsequently responded that Ryan took issue with Kings comments.

The speaker clearly disagrees and believes Americas long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths, Strong said.

When asked whether he is promoting a kind of white nationalism, King said the debate isnt about advancing a particular race but rather advancing American culture and Western civilization.

This is an effort on the left, I think, to break down the American civilization, the American culture and turn it into something entirely different. Im a champion for Western civilization, he said.

In defending his remarks, King told CNN said theres been too much focus on race and wants to see Americans bonded together.

If you go down the road a few generations or maybe centuries with the intermarriage, Id like to see an America that (is) so homogenous that we look a lot the same from that perspective. I think theres far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years. I want to see that put behind us, King said.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, took issue with Kings comments.

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First of all, I do not agree with Congressman Kings statement, Kaufmann said in a press release. We are a nation of immigrants, and diversity is the strength of any nation and any community.

Most members of the House were still back in their home districts Monday, muting reaction from Kings colleagues. But a couple of Florida Republicans took to Twitter to voice displeasure at his remarks.

Get a clue, @SteveKingIA. Diversity is our strength. All looking alike is such a waste. A travesty. I wanna be me. All others are taken, said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who was born to Cuban exiles who fled Fidel Castros regime in the 1960s, asked King via Twitter: What exactly do you mean? Do I qualify as somebody elses baby? #concernedGOPcolleague

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil-rights leader in the 1960s, said the United States is a melting pot of cultures, traditions, appearance and languages.

Rep. Kings statement is bigoted and racist. It suggests there is one cultural tradition and one appearance that all of humanity should conform to, Lewis said. These ideas have given rise to some of the worst atrocities in human history, and they must be condemned.

King is known for making racially charged commentary. Last year, at the Republican National Convention, King questioned contributions to civilization by visible minorities. In 2013, he described children in the country illegally as having calves the size of cantaloupes because theyve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.

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LONDONBritains Parliament has told Prime Minister Theresa May she can file for divorce from the European Union. She will send the formal letter by the end of March. Then comes the hard part  the arguments, the lawyers, the squabbles over money.

Heres a look at the main issues and what happens next.

What is the EU and why is Britain leaving?

The EU is a bloc of 28 nations sharing relatively open borders, a single market in goods and services and  for 19 nations  a single currency, the euro. Britain joined in 1973 but has long been a somewhat reluctant member, with a large contingent of euroskeptic politicians and journalists regularly railing against regulations imposed by the EUs headquarters in Brussels.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron offered voters a referendum on EU membership, and in June they voted by 52-48 per cent to leave.

How does Britain file for divorce?

The bill passed by Parliament late Monday authorizes the British government to invoke Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty, which says a member state may notify the European Council of its intention to leave the bloc.

Read more:British government must get Parliaments approval on Brexit, top court rules

Later this month, May is expected to send the notification in a letter to Council President Donald Tusk and then announce the news, probably to Parliament.

That sets a clock ticking: Article 50 says that two years from the moment of notification, the Treaties shall cease to apply and Britain will no longer be an EU member.

Whose move is it now?

The timing of Article 50 was up to Britain. What happens next is up to the EU.

Tusk says that that once EU officials get Britains notification, they will respond within 48 hours, offering draft negotiating guidelines for the 27 remaining member states to consider. Leaders of the 27 nations will then meet to finalize their negotiating platform; if Article 50 is triggered this week, the meeting will be on April 6.

Then we meet and we start, U.K. Brexit Secretary David Davis said Sunday. And I guess the first meeting, bluntly, will be about how we do this? How many meetings, you know, whos going to meet, whos going to come.

Substantial talks may have to wait until after Frances two-round April-May election for a new president. Another hiccup could be Germanys September election, which will determine whether Chancellor Angela Merkel gets another term.

Who conducts the negotiations?

On the British side, Davis will take the lead, reporting to May. Britains ambassador to the EU, Tim Barrow, will also play a major role, and the Foreign Office will talk to individual member states to try to get them on its side.

On the EU side, its complicated. As Britains Institute for Government recently pointed out, the U.K. is negotiating with 27 member states, not a unified bloc.

French diplomat Michel Barnier is the chief negotiator for the European Commission, the blocs executive arm. Hell receive direction from the Council, which represents the leaders of the member states.

The European Parliament also wants a say, and will have to approve the final deal between Britain and the bloc.

What is the most pressing issue?

Britains vote to leave the EU has meant uncertainty for 3 million EU citizens living in the U.K., and 1 million Britons who reside in the 27 other nations of the bloc. Both sides agree that providing a guarantee that they will be able to stay where they are is a top priority.

What will be the main conflicts?

The first major battle is likely to be about money. The EU says Britain must pay a hefty divorce bill of up to 60 billion euros ($64 billion), to cover EU staff pensions and other expenses the U.K. has committed to. Britain hasnt ruled out a payment, but is sure to quibble over the size of the tab.

Read more:The U.K. really is choosing to make itself poorer to block immigrants

Theres also likely to be friction over Britains desire to have free trade in goods and services with the bloc, without accepting the EUs core principle of free movement of workers. Britain has said it will impose limits on immigration, and so will have to leave the EUs single market and customs union. That makes some barriers to trade seem inevitable.

When will it be over?

Under the terms of Article 50, Britain will cease to be an EU member in March 2019.

But EU negotiators warn it could take two years just to settle the divorce terms; agreeing a new relationship between the U.K. and the EU could take years longer. If the rest of the EU agrees, the two-year negotiating period can be extended, with Britain still in the EU. Or, the two sides could agree on a transitional period.

Theres also a chance Britain could walk away early without a deal if it thinks talks are going nowhere.

Is Brexit a one-way ticket?

The British government has said firmly that it will not backtrack on Brexit. But its unclear whether Article 50 is legally reversible. Former British ambassador to the EU John Kerr, who wrote Article 50, says it is not irrevocable. You can change your mind while the process is going on.

However, domestic political pressures make it unlikely that the British government would try a U-turn. May will probably take her cue from a catchphrase of predecessor Margaret Thatcher: The ladys not for turning.

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LOS ANGELESIt would seem all but impossible to sum up one of the most distinguished careers in photojournalism in only four words, but thats just what Nick Ut does when he says, From hell to Hollywood.

And the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, who is retiring this month after 51 years with The Associated Press, has the pictures to prove it, the most famous being a stunning black-and-white image from the Vietnam War thats come to be known simply as Napalm Girl.

Its the photo of a terrified child running naked down a country road, her body literally burning from the napalm bombs dropped on her village just moments before Ut captured the iconic image.

That photograph illustrated dramatically what had become a regular occurrence in Vietnam over the years  napalm on distant villages, civilians killed and scared by the war, pictures wed rarely had in the past, said Peter Arnett, a distinguished network news war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner himself. This picture revealed the kind of details that were an integral part of what the war had been about, which made it so significant and important to be published.

Ut was only 21 when he took that photo on June 8, 1972, then set his camera aside to rush 9-year-old Kim Phuc to a hospital, where doctors saved her life. He would go on to take tens of thousands more over the next 44 years, including images of practically every A-list celebrity who walked a Hollywood red carpet or entered a courtroom on the wrong side of the law.

Every star who has trouble, they will see me, jokes the friendly 65-year-old photographer who, although his thick, dark hair has greyed over the years, retains both a boyish charm and irrepressible enthusiasm for his work.

On a recent morning in a conference room of the APs Los Angeles bureau, Ut clicks through a portfolio showing a few of his most famous images.

Theres one of a sobbing Robert Blake, the actors head on a courtroom table moments after he was acquitted of killing his wife. In another, Michael Jackson is dancing on an SUV outside a courtroom where he would be acquitted of child molestation. Perhaps the most ironic of all, of a tearful Paris Hilton headed to jail for driving violations, was taken on June 8, 2007, the 35th anniversary of the day he took the Napalm Girl picture.

Warren Beatty once called Ut aside at a Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony to spend 30 minutes talking about the Napalm Girl photo. After learning he was the one who took it, actress Joan Collins opened a bottle of champagne for Ut during a shoot at her home. It was a much friendlier reaction, he says, than the one he got when he previously photographed her heading into a courtroom to settle an acrimonious divorce.

That picture changed my life. It changed Kims life, he says of the pairs chance meeting in a dusty Vietnamese village called Trang Bang. Hed just finished photographing four planes flying low to drop the napalm that would set Phucs village ablaze when he saw a terrified group of men, women and children running for their lives from a pagoda.

After getting that perfectly framed photo, he set aside his camera, gave the badly burned girl water, poured more on her wounds, then loaded her and others into his AP van to take them to a hospital. When doctors refused to admit her, saying she was too badly burned to be saved, he angrily flashed his press pass. The next day, he told them, pictures of her would be displayed all over the world, along with an explanation of how the hospital refused to help.

I cried when I saw her running, Ut once told an AP reporter. If I dont help her  if something happened and she died  I think Id kill myself after that.

Now a 53-year-old wife and mother of two who lives in Canada, Kim Phuc remains Uts close friend.

But her photo, dramatic as it was, represented only a small slice of the horror Ut saw during those war years.

As he flips through photos of villages destroyed, dead bodies piled everywhere and parents grieving over dead children, Ut tells how he came to be a combat photographer.

Read more:

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The 11th of 12 children, he grew up idolizing one of his older brothers, Huynh Thanh My, an actor whose good looks seemed to have him destined for movie stardom until the Vietnam War got in the way. Huynh was hired by the AP and was on assignment in 1965 when he and a group of soldiers he was with were overrun by Viet Cong rebels who killed everyone.

At his brothers funeral, Ut approached the late Horst Faas, photo editor for APs Saigon bureau, to ask for a job. But Faas, a two-time Pulitzer winner, turned him down cold. He didnt want the Huynh family losing another son.

After weeks of Uts pestering, Faas finally relented, hiring him on Jan. 1, 1966, but giving the 15-year-old strict orders: Under no circumstances was he to carry his camera into a war zone.

So Ut spent the next couple of years working in the darkroom and shooting feature photos around Saigon until one January morning in 1968 when the war came to him.

I remember Nick coming in later that morning very excited and saying, The Viet Cong are fighting near my house. I have pictures of Vietnamese troops attacking them, great pictures, Arnett, who worked for the AP then, recalled in a recent interview.

From that day forward, 17-year-old Huynh Cong Ut was a combat photographer.

Over the coming years he would be wounded four times and have a rocket come so close to his head that it parted his hair. His closest friend in the Saigon bureau, noted photographer Henri Huet, died in 1971 after volunteering to take the weary Uts place on an assignment during which the helicopter he was in was shot down.

It was Huet, Ut says, who gave him his nickname, Nick, after others in the bureau had trouble getting his given name straight.

Thats why I keep the name Nick Ut. In Henris honour, he says in a voice momentarily thick with emotion.

When Saigon fell to the rebels in 1975, two years after the U.S. military pulled out, Ut had to flee Vietnam like thousands of others. After a brief stay in a California refugee camp, the AP put him to work in its Tokyo bureau.

It was there he met his wife, Hong Huynh, another Vietnamese ex-pat. She even hailed from the same neighbourhood as Ut, but the two had never met. They moved to Los Angeles in 1977 when Ut began the Hollywood chapter of his photo career. They have two grown children and two grandchildren, ages 8 and 10.

He plans to spend retirement helping take care of those grandchildren and, oh yes, taking more pictures.

Ill take pictures until I die, laughs the diminutive photographer who is instantly recognizable around Los Angeles for his 5-foot-3-inch frame and his ear-to-ear grin. My camera is like my doctor, my medicine.

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On Wednesday, the Dutch will vote in parliamentary elections that, unlike most events in the Netherlands, are being closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic. It is the first major electoral contest in the West since U.S. President Donald Trumps shock victory. And in the form of Geert Wilders  the far-right, peroxide-blond populist whose party might gain the biggest share of seats in parliament  theres a globally-recognized protagonist (or antagonist) through which to tell the tale.

Wilderss anti-Islam politics have shadowed his country for the better part of a decade and now seem to have captured the wider anti-establishment discontent sweeping the West. But he could ultimately be as relevant, if not more so, outside his nations borders than within.

There are two very different stories about next Wednesdays Dutch elections, explained Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper last week. A foreign story, which is all about Wilders and whether he can complete the populist treble after Brexit and Trump; and a Dutch story, in which Wilders isnt even the main character.

As my colleague Adam Taylor lays out, the fragmentation of the Dutch political scene means Wilders is unlikely to become prime minister even if his Freedom Party, or PVV, comes first or second in the election. The winning party will need to entice several others into a governing coalition, and none of the mainstream Dutch parties is willing to include Wilders.

Read more:

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Wilders may also be uninterested in the horse-trading that traditionally characterizes coalition politics  nor is it clear that he should be. With a larger group of MPs behind him, and a new narrative of an election stolen from the people, he will have even more ammunition to attack from the side lines, said Dina Pardijs of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Wilders can stay compromise-free until the moment where something fundamentally changes in the Netherlands.

Its not clear what something fundamental could be, but Wilders has made political hay out of terrorism fears and Muslim integration in Europe. His vehement opposition to Islam has won him strong support in the United States, too. In 2010, I watched Wilders in New York City as he addressed a motley crowd of American Islamophobes and European ultranationalists opposed to the construction of an Islamic community centre a few blocks away from where the twin towers once stood. He warned darkly  and, it seemed then, hysterically  of the city that was once New Amsterdam turning into New Mecca.

That message has gained traction in recent years in the United States. The blood-and-soil ethnic nationalism espoused by Wilders is taking root in a country that has long defined itself in opposition to the old world of Europe and its petty tribalisms. Right-wing American activists, such as conservative provocateur David Horowitz, have helped funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into Wilderss movement. According to the New York Times, a $120,000 donation made by Horowitz in 2015 was the single largest individual contribution in the Dutch political system that year.

Wilders, in other words, knows where his bread is buttered.

If he compromises in order to join a coalition government, he becomes almost a standard Dutch politician, and therefore less interesting to the Horowitzes, Kuper wrote. More exciting to stay pure, and remain the only Dutch politician who is heard abroad, better known than Mark Rutte, the prime minister since 2010. Wilders radicalism, like his dyed blond swept-back hair, gives him an international brand.

That brand was championed in Washington over the weekend by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who, in a tweet that sparked headlines, celebrated Wilders as a defender of the West.

King included an image of Wilders with his finger in the proverbial dike, holding off the toxic tide of Islam. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke applauded the Iowans comment, and alt-right leader Richard Spencer referred to Kings declaration as the 15 Words, placing it on par with the 14 Words  the guiding motto of white nationalists.

Kings tweet is a powerful sign of the times. The United States has always had a tradition of xenophobic nativism stalking its politics, but it has taken a sharper edge in recent years, adopting the rhetoric of far-right parties in Europe.

American political commentator Josh Barro mused over why this is the case, especially considering how the social conditions that fuel Wilderss ire  in particular, the growth of large, ghettoized Muslim communities  simply do not exist in the United States.

I think the answer is that American nationalists tend to oppose immigration for reasons that are fundamentally racist. They want white people to have more babies and fewer minorities to come here, Barro wrote. But the facts on the ground in the United States are not useful for arguing that case without explicit appeals to racism. So obsess over Europe, where immigration has created more problems and birth rates are more dire.

Today, King, who has a long history of racial demagoguery, is hardly a fringe figure. His white nationalism is embraced, in various degrees, by some of Trumps top advisers  and breezed over by other Republican leaders. I meant exactly what I said, King told CNN on Monday. Hours later, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., said of Kings comment, Id like to think he misspoke and it wasnt really meant the way it sounds.

Kings statement is, at bottom, a particularly explicit expression of the white nationalist ideology that fuelled the Trump campaign  and shaped the worldview of top Trump advisers Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, journalist Sarah Posner wrote. Advocates for that ideology are now directing strategy and policy from the West Wing.

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The prospect of Geert Wilders emerging as the winner of Wednesdays Dutch election was thrown into doubt by two polls on the eve of voting that showed his anti-Islam, anti-European Union Freedom Party slumping to fifth place in one survey and third in another.

The final poll from I&O Research showed Wilderss party at 16 seats in the 150-member lower house of Parliament, down four seats from a survey released just the day before. The last Ipsos survey before the election gave the Freedom Party 20 seats, a drop of three from last week. Both polls showed Prime Minister Mark Ruttes Liberals gaining three seats  to 27 and 29 respectively.

The bulk of the polling by both companies was conducted after a diplomatic dispute erupted over the weekend between the Netherlands and Turkey, which Rutte was deemed to have handled well. While polling has a mixed reputation after failing to predict the outcome of the Brexit referendum and Donald Trumps election as U.S. president, the Dutch findings are the culmination of a trend in the past couple of weeks that has seen Rutte gradually overturning the clear lead that Wilders previously held in the polls.

Read more:

Dutch election muddied by political party fragmentation

Geert Wilders and the mainstreaming of white nationalism

Turkey imposes sanction on Netherlands over treatment of government ministers

There is support among voters of all parties for the performance of Mark Rutte in the Turkish crisis, I&O said in a commentary to its poll. It found 62 per cent of voters backing the way Rutte acted, including 59 per cent of Freedom Party backers, with only 10 per cent of all voters supporting the way Wilders performed.

The Freedom Partys 16 seats in the I&O poll compared with a high of 33 seats in December. It fell behind the centrist D66 party, the Greens and the Christian Democrats, all of which are possible partners for Rutte in the multiparty coalition that will have to be formed after the election to govern the Netherlands for four years. All the other main parties have ruled out working with Wilders.

The Ipsos poll saw the Christian Democrats moving into second place ahead of the Freedom Party. But there are differences of as many as five seats between the estimates for some parties in the two latest surveys, and voters may still be swayed by party leaders performances in the final televised debate Tuesday evening.

A third poll released Tuesday  by Kantar Public  showed less dramatic movements, but still had the Liberals extending their lead over the Freedom Party to four seats from two seats last week.

The diplomatic dispute saw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing the Dutch government of Nazi-like behaviour after Rutte refused to let Turkish ministers address a pro-government rally in Rotterdam. Rutte sought to de-escalate the spat, while Wilders said he should have taken tougher action against Turkish diplomats.

When Wilders and Rutte faced off on national television Monday evening, the Freedom Party leader told the prime minister that we must directly expel the Turkish ambassador and the rest of his staff from the country, otherwise we accept that we are being insulted.

Ruttes response was to tell Wilders: Thats the difference between tweeting from your couch and governing the country. If you govern the country, you have to take sensible decisions and that isnt sensible.

For I&Os final poll, 2,248 voters were questioned, mostly online, from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning. Ipsos polled 1,163 voters online Monday afternoon through Tuesday, while Kantar interviewed 2,141 adults online Sunday through Tuesday. The margins of error vary according to the size of the party.

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BERLINGermanys justice minister is proposing fines of up to 50 million euros ($53 million U.S.) for social networking sites that fail to swiftly remove illegal content, such as hate speech or defamatory fake news.

The plan proposed Tuesday marks a further step in Germanys attempt to impose its strict domestic laws against incitement on the free-wheeling world of online chatter.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, said social media companies had already taken voluntary steps to crack down on hate crimes that have resulted in improvements.

Read more:

Twitter announces new measures to tackle abuse

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This isnt sufficient yet, Maas said, citing research that he said showed Twitter deletes just 1 per cent of illegal content flagged by users, while Facebook deletes 39 per cent.

The proposal would require companies to provide a round-the-clock service for users to flag illegal content, which would have to be removed by the site within seven days. All copies of the content would also have to be deleted and social media companies would need to publish a quarterly report detailing how they have dealt with such material.

Sites would also have to nominate a person responsible for handling complaints, who could face fines of up to 5 million euros personally if the company fails to abide by mandatory standards.

Maas said the measures, which will become part of a bill to be put before Parliament, wouldnt restrict freedom of speech that already exists in Germany and there were no plans to create a truth commission against so-called fake news.

But he noted that fake news could constitute illegal content if it constitutes slander, defamation or libel.

Facebook declined to comment directly on the new proposal, but insisted that tests the company had commissioned showed higher rates of removal than those cited by Maas. Facebook also said it had taken measures to train staff in how to deal with the legal situation in Germany and expects to have 700 people in Berlin examining flagged content by the end of the year.

Twitter, too, declined to comment on the proposal. However, the company noted a number of measures taken in recent months that it said are designed to prevent abuse and allow users to filter unwanted content.

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By Press Trust of India: Dhaka, Mar 13 (PTI) A 55-year-old Sufi spiritual leader and his daughter were today brutally murdered by unidentified attackers in Bangladesh, police said.

Farhad Hossain Chowdhury and his adopted daughter Rupali Begum were found murdered in a Khanqah -- a building designed specifically for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood -- close to the mans home in Dinajpurs Bochaganj upazila, about 350 kilometres north of Dhaka, police said.

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Both of them had bullet marks and the womans throat was slit with a sharp-edged weapon, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Farhad, a Pir or Sufi spiritual leader, was also the former president of Setabganj municipality unit of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which is headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia.

Bochaganj police station Oficer-in-Charge Habibul Haque said the case was under investigation.

"We are carrying out an inquest and then the bodies will be sent to the morgue," the officer added.

Police said there was a power cut in the area when the incident took place. PTI CPS

--- ENDS ---
NAIROBI, KENYAThousands of doctors at Kenyas public hospitals have agreed to end a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care, an official with the doctors union said Tuesday.

The strike was blamed for dozens of deaths, as the majority of Kenyans cannot afford private health care.

The government and union officials signed a deal to address pay and other issues in dispute, said Dr. Ouma Oluga, the secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union.

Doctors will resume work Friday even though the agreement says they should resume immediately, he said.

It is regrettable that it took so long. Kenyans have suffered ... we cannot fathom the extent of pain which Kenyans felt in the 100 days, said Kenyas health minister, Cleopa Mailu.

President Uhuru Kenyatta last week threatened to fire the 5,000 doctors if they didnt return to work, but doctors defied him. Earlier, seven union officials were jailed for a month for contempt of court for not ending the strike.

Oluga said the biggest achievement in the agreement is that doctors now will work just 40 hours a week and will be compensated for extra hours. Previously, doctors in public hospitals were on call at all times.

Its a win-win for everybody, Oluga said.

Doctors had pushed for the implementation of a 2013 collective bargaining agreement that committed the government to increase pay, restore dilapidated public health facilities and consistently train doctors, among other issues. It also set out measures to address the East African countrys huge shortage of doctors.

The government has said it does not recognize the 2013 collective bargaining agreement.

Now the labour court will oversee the implementation of the agreement in 60 days, Oluga said.

Kenyas public doctors, who train for six years at universities, earn a basic salary $400-$850 (U.S.). Thats similar to some policemen who train for just six months.

Kenyas doctors also went on strike in 2012 to protest the bad state of public health care. Emergency rooms in some public hospitals frequently dont have gloves or medicine, and power outages sometimes force doctors to use their cellphones to provide adequate light for a surgical procedure.

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WASHINGTONSyrias civil war began six years ago this week as a popular revolt against the brutal regime of President Bashar Assad.

Now a domestic uprising that has left an estimated 500,000 dead and millions homeless has morphed into a global war, sucking major powers into a conflict growing more volatile by the day.

The United States, Russia, Turkey and Iran  as well as foreign terrorists  have joined the fray with an array of forces, often with conflicting objectives. Overhead, the airspace is crowded with Russian and coalition aircraft, sometimes flying within sight of one another, as they pursue separate air campaigns.

Read more:

Turkish, Russia, U.S. generals meet to discuss tensions over Syria operations

Russia, America and the case for war: Burman

Russia, Iran, Turkey ready to broker Syria deal as hundreds more evacuate Aleppo

In the shadows, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East have secretly backed armed fighters to overthrow Assad.

Rivalries and alliances are constantly shifting. Its the most complicated environment and situation Ive been in in my life, said Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Syria.

Here is how one countrys civil war turned into an international crisis:

The start

The powder keg was lit in March 2011, when a group of boys were tortured by Assads agents for having written graffiti supporting the Arab Spring, a string of popular uprisings against autocratic regimes throughout the Arab world.

Thousands protested the boys treatment and the regime responded by killing dozens. Revolts against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, began to spread, as some of his officers defected to opposition forces.

The Obama administration called for Assad to step down because of his brutal crackdown against dissidents, but it did not support the rebels at a time when it could have made a difference, said Mustafa Alani, director of national security for the Gulf Research Center in Geneva. There was no clear decisive attitude from the Obama administration.

Iran and Russia, by contrast, did not hesitate to throw support behind their long-time ally, Assad. Even so, the rebellion spread and Assad lost control of large swaths of territory, particularly in the north.

Daesh is born

The growing chaos attracted terrorists, including remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq. An Al Qaeda offshoot, which came to be known as Daesh, ISIL or ISIS grew in power as it battled Assads forces.

By 2014, Daesh began seizing terrain, including Raqqa and the oil region Deir ez-Zor. It emerged as the most powerful of the forces battling Assad.

Later that year, the militant group launched a lightning strike into Iraq, capturing Mosul, the countrys second-largest city, and nearly made it to the outskirts of Baghdad. The attack caught Iraq and the rest of the world by surprise.

U.S. forces enter

In August 2014, the United States responded with a bombing campaign against Daesh targets in Iraq to blunt the militants expansion. A month later, U.S. warplanes began striking targets in Syria, where the militants were headquartered.

Today, 5,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq to train and advise Iraqi forces. Another 500 Americans in Syria support a coalition of 45,000 Arab and Kurdish forces battling Daesh.

Airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition have helped local ground forces drive Daesh out of a number of towns in northeastern Syria and are now intensifying efforts on Raqqa, the militants headquarters.

Russia, Iran save Assad

As Daesh has lost ground, Assad has strengthened his position. Assad appeared to be on the verge of defeat until Russia entered the battle in September 2015.

When the Russians first started bombing, Assad was losing territory. The Russian intervention stopped the potential collapse of the regime and it led to a not insignificant recapture of territory, said Chris Chivvis, associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at Rand Corp.

While Russia dropped bombs, Iran provided critical ground forces that included Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia based in Lebanon.

Last year, Russian-backed Syrian forces seized Aleppo, once the countrys largest city and a rebel stronghold. That battle was a major victory for Assad and a huge loss for the prospect that a moderate opposition would come to power.

That really marked the destruction of the last bastion of acceptable opposition groups in northern Syria, said Christopher Kozak, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

Today, most of the remaining opposition to Assad is made up of radical groups, including Daesh and Al Qaeda affiliates.

Turks vs. Kurds

Turkey, once one of Assads fiercest opponents and a key U.S. ally in the region, is increasingly focused on what it sees as a greater threat: Kurdish fighters who may try to seize parts of Syria, Iraq and Turkey for an independent enclave.

The Kurds, who have tenacious ground forces, have been one of Americas most reliable partners against Daesh. When Iraqs army was still in disarray, it was the Kurds who were holding out against the militants onslaught.

With U.S. help, the Kurds have rolled up successes in much of northeast Syria, along the Turkish border. But their battlefield prowess worries the Turkish government that they will unite with Kurdish separatist groups inside Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the United States would damage its relations with Turkey if it allows the Kurds to participate in the offensive to oust Daesh from Raqqa.

Coalition commander Townsend said the U.S. military is discussing with Turkey and the Kurds how both can help in the Raqqa campaign.

Battlefield gets smaller

As Daesh loses territory, the potential for mishaps among the foreign forces grows, raising worries that a mistake could lead to a wider war. Last month, for example, Russian aircraft accidentally struck U.S.-backed Syrian forces near Manbij, a town near the Turkish border. U.S. advisers were nearby, but not hurt.

Last September, U.S. aircraft mistakenly targeted Syrian regime forces in Deir ez-Zor, killing dozens. The Pentagon said it was a series of errors that led the U.S. military to believe they were targeting Daesh.

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Much has changed in the Netherlands since the last parliamentary elections in 2012  but much more has changed elsewhere. The Arab Spring has turned into the Arab Winter and the Syrian civil war has worsened dramatically, leading millions to seek refuge.

Russia under Putin has invaded eastern Ukraine and outright annexed Crimea. Turkey slides towards authoritarianism and its bid to join the European Union (EU) looks stalled at best, as the Erdogan government jails and sidelines opponents with impunity.

Resurgent nationalism mixed with populism leads governments in Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere to oppose immigrants and the EU. Similar dynamics drove the votes for Brexit and Trump, which have heightened geopolitical uncertainty.

In the 2012 elections, the anti-immigrant and anti-EU party (PVV) of Geert Wilders dropped from 24 to 15 seats in the 150-seat lower house, and lost its role supporting the governing coalition. The defection of more than one-third of its voters was a bitter defeat made all the more dramatic because it was Wilders himself who forced the elections by withdrawing his support from the government formed after the 2010 elections: a minority coalition of the conservative VVD (31 seats) and the Christian democratic CDA (21 seats), which depended on the PVV to pass legislation.

Wilders has been a member of parliament since 1998, initially for the VVD; he had been a VVD employee and speech writer since 1990. As a member of parliament, he left the VVD to form his own group in 2004 after refusing to accept the VVDs position that Turkey could join the EU if it fulfilled the criteria for membership.

After breaking with the VVD, Wilders gained nine seats in the 2006 elections, then 24 in the 2012 elections, only two less than the similarly anti-immigrant List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) partys 26 seats in the 2002 elections (which included a large sympathy vote for Fortuyns murder by a Dutch environmental activist nine days before the elections). Since breaking with the VVD, Wilderss pronouncements have become ever more stridently anti-EU and anti-Islamic.

The current government of the Netherlands is a coalition between the VVD and the Labour party (PvdA), which won 41 seats and 38 seats respectively in the 2012 elections  more than the 76 seats required for a majority. Such a two-party coalition government seems impossible today.

The reason that Wilderss PVV may become the largest party has less to do with rising anti-immigrant and Euroskeptic sentiment (some polls have Wilders winning more than 30 seats; but this is not a huge increase from the 24 seats he won in 2010, or the LPFs 26 seats in 2002) than with the fragmentation of the Dutch political party system.

The VVD will almost certainly win less than the 41 seats it won in 2012, and the PvdA looks set to lose even more. Until recently, the largest three or four Dutch parties regularly won the vast majority of seats in parliament, with the largest two usually each winning 50 or more.

But the traditional parties have been riven by internal discord and breakaway members. Such is the case of Wilders or that of dissident PvdA members who started the immigrant-oriented party Denk (which may win 2 or 3 seats).

Meanwhile, upstart movements siphon voters to new parties, which are often narrow in scope. For example, an animal rights party and a party for retirees will likely win five or so seats each; and many other smaller parties will take votes. The environmentalist leftist party GreenLeft looks set for its best showing ever while the Socialists may also increase their seat count.

A record number of 28 parties are on the ballot and, if the polls are to be believed, over a dozen will win seats. This is largely because elections for the lower house of parliament apply pure proportional representation with no electoral threshold: only 0.67 per cent of the votes  usually around 60,000 votes  are needed for a seat in parliament. Proposals to introduce a threshold of 2 per cent, or 5 per cent as in Germany, have so far failed.

If the standings in the polls are replicated in the actual elections, the process of forming a new government will likely take months and the resulting coalition will consist of at least four and probably five or more parties.

The new government will almost certainly exclude Wilders, both because of his extreme positions and because of his volatility in supporting the government from 2010 to 2012; most parties want nothing to do with him, and he too seems to relish opposition more than governing.

Willem Maas chairs the political science department at Glendon College, York University.

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Video transcript:

Once in a while something comes along to remind us we really arent almost the same as Americans. At the moment its their debate over health care and what to replace Obamas half-assed program with. For most comparable nations, health care is a human right. For many Americans, especially their leaders, its more like a shopping opp. Take Republican congressional speaker Paul Ryan:

We dont shop like this for anything else in our life, why should we shop like this for health care?

Because decent health isnt a La-Z-Boy or a phone?

Its easy to overlook these differences since on the surface we tend to think we look and sound the same. Though if you watch more closely you start noticing distinctions, like carrying handguns casually in public.

But that ability to view all life through the shopping lens is special. Right after 9/11 George W. Bush told Americans to respond by buying something and going to Disney World. It wasnt a slip of the tongue. Five years later it was still his advice.

Bush: And I encourage you all to go shopping more.

Personally, I like shopping, but theres also a fateful decision here. If you can reduce even health to an item on the shelf, all of life becomes a trip to the mall. And if you dont, as places like Canada havent, other visions open up.

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Before Toronto city council debates the Scarborough subway again they should engage a qualified consulting firm to prepare an updated, value-for-money comparison of the subway and LRT options. The ballooning cost and falling ridership forecasts for the subway makes it essential that council base their final decision on facts, rather than on expensive political pandering to Scarborough voters.

City, provincial and federal taxpayers will all be on the hook for the runaway subway costs, which could reach $3.93 billion  up from $2 billion only a year ago. We should insist through our MPs, MPPs and city councillors on knowing the results of an objective comparison before the mayor and council stumble further down this road.

Its been five years since an expert panel created by city council provided an objective cost-benefit-analysis of the two options. They found a modern LRT to be superior to a subway extension on all counts: funding, transit service, economic development, sustainability and social impact.

In 2013, Metrolinx recommended replacing the aging RT with a modern LRT at a cost of $1.8 billion. The province committed to paying the cost of an LRT as part of the larger light rail network across the city.

See also:More evidence the Scarborough subway extension makes no sense: Editorial

The Pembina Institute also concluded that an LRT offered the best value for taxpayer money. It found that a three-stop subway option would cost twice as much as a seven-stop LRT, but would attract only 23 million riders a year compared to 31 million for an LRT.

When council debated this issue last June they were presented with a briefing note from TTC CEO Andy Byford. It left the false impression that the LRT would cost $2.97 billion instead of the actual figure of $1.8 billion. Its impossible to know how many councillors were swayed by this misleading information.

The Scarborough Transit Action group has complained about this decision-making process. They maintain that Byfords actions allegedly breached the Toronto Public Service bylaw. Their complaint went first to the city ombudsman. She called the allegations very serious and has referred them to the citys auditor general for a determination of possible wrongdoing.

The action group stressed there should be an objective and complete comparison of costs, delivery dates and funding commitments from higher levels of government for the seven-stop LRT option. They added that solid evidence-based decision-making must be used for all significant infrastructure sending. Amen to that.

The latest city staff report makes the need for a fact-based comparison even more necessary. Last year council approved reducing the subway to one-stop from three in order to reduce the price to $2 billion. That would have freed up $1.6 billion for an 18-stop LRT along Eglinton Ave. East.

That council decision is no longer viable. The cost of the subway alone is now forecast to balloon to $3.93 billion. This exceeds the total government approved funding envelope of $3.56 billion.

The report also concluded the number of new riders attracted by a subway has fallen by half to only 2,300. Every new rider attracted by the subway will now cost a staggering $1.45 million.

When Tory talks about his SmartTrack plan he stresses it will go though a rigorous examination process. He says the express purpose of what we are doing here is to move forward with a fact-based, transparent process.

So why a fact-based approach for SmartTrack but not for a Scarborough subway? Tory has been shameless in courting Scarborough ratepayers by conditioning them to think they deserve a subway simply because other parts of Toronto have one.

But the escalating price and dwindling ridership of his option must be weighing on the mayor. He acknowledged as much last June when he tried to defend a subway extension in a Star opinion piece.

Now, instead of doubling down, he should call for a value-for-money comparison. The results could provide Tory with the political coverage he needs to reconsider his indefensible position.

In the same op-ed, Tory acknowledged that the original decision to cancel the planned LRT in Scarborough and extend the subway instead was made without enough information and process.

The worst transit boondoggle in the citys history can be avoided by asking for the comparative analysis missing since council began debating this issue. Tory should also make sure the next council vote is not flawed by a misleading TTC report.

R. Michael Warren is a former corporate director, Ontario deputy minister, TTC chief general manager and Canada Post CEO. r.michael.warren @gmail.com

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Today, much of our country and the larger Western world is a more dangerous, less productive, sadder and generally more unpleasant place than it was just a few days ago. Cars are crashing, risk of illness spiking, workplaces grinding to a halt. Its that time of year again, when for a few days every spring, the switch to Daylight Saving Time (DST), which serves no discernible purpose, wreaks havoc with our mood, our economy and our health  and it has to stop.

You will likely have heard at least one of two stories about why Daylight Saving Time is necessary. Both of them are bogus.

The first is a myth of unknown origin: namely, that the extra spring sunlight is somehow necessary for the work of farmers. In fact, the opposite is true. Farmers actually formed an organized lobby against the policy when it was first adopted in the United States during the dying days of the First World War. They argued that it left them insufficient daylight in which to get their crops to market.

The second reason is more sensible, but still wrong: specifically, that more sunlight means less energy use. Thats why Canada, the United States and other Western countries, beginning with Germany, adopted daylight saving in the early part of the 20th century. Its also why the spring-forward date was moved up by a month in 2005. But study after study has shown that the energy savings are negligible at best. It seems that whatever we save in electricity is negated, or worse, by additional heating and cooling costs.

The case for DST, then, is essentially non-existent. Not so, unfortunately, for the costs, which are significant, various and well-documented.

For one thing, daylight saving is demonstrably hazardous to our health. Many studies have shown that, by messing with our sleep patterns, time changes significantly increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, depression and sleep disorders in the days following the switch to and from DST.

Time changes are also associated with a steep rise in various kinds of fatigue-fuelled accidents. Fatal car crashes, for instance, consistently rise in the days following the spring shift; so do serious workplace injuries.

Then theres the economic impact. We lose, on average, 40 minutes of sleep on the night after we move our clocks forward, creating in the words of one German study, non-negligible losses of utility. In the fog following the time shift, we are far more likely to waste hours on the Internet and less likely to work effectively. One study from 2013 put the annual cost of time changes to the U.S. economy at $434 million.

Its no wonder, then, that the vast majority of the world shuns Daylight Saving Time. Only about 1.6 billion people live in places where DST applies, which means about 79 per cent of the global population is mercifully exempt. Many countries, such as India, China and South Africa tried out daylight saving before ultimately rejecting it as the bad idea it is. Even Saskatchewan and parts of British Columbia have abandoned it.

But why, you might reasonably ask, are we just getting around to making this case now, several days after DST sank its teeth into us?

Perhaps its because we, like many of you, are a bit lethargic during this annual days-long government-imposed dystopia, which serves no purpose and comes at a great cost. In any case, daylight saving has got to go. Its past time that we left time alone.

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The Peel District School Board is right to speak up strongly against attempts to stop Muslim students from holding a prayer service each Friday.

The prayer services have been going on without controversy for the past two decades in Peel. Similar Friday services, called Jummah, are routinely practised in other school boards across the GTA.

But a group in Peel has launched a campaign against the prayer meetings, with an online petition and a protest march in Mississauga last Saturday ostensibly aimed at keeping all religious practices out of schools.

Presenting themselves simply as concerned parents, they demand that the board immediately discontinue religious clubs and religious congregations of any religion.

In fact, its clear they are targeting Muslims  and only Muslims. Their spokesman acknowledged to the Star that their actions are motivated by concerns about the Jummah.

And Saturdays protest March had links to a group that seems obsessed with supposed Muslim influence in Canada. Flyers advertising the march included contact information for Canada First, a group whose stated mission is to protest the motion presented by a Liberal MP from the area condemning Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination.

To its credit, the Peel board has been forthright in calling out the protest against Muslim prayers as something a lot more sinister. It has been frustrating and disheartening to see hatred and prejudice toward a single faith group disguised in a supposed campaign about religion in our schools, says board spokesman Brian Woodland.

Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey has also been quick to condemn what she calls misinformation and hateful speech coming from the anti-Muslim protesters.

There shouldnt be a controversy here. As Jeffrey points out, the Ontario Human Rights Code mandates religious accommodation. Until now, no one has voiced concern about Muslim students gathering for Friday prayers.

So why the anti-Muslim movement now?

It seems to have reared its ugly head following a board dispute with Muslim students and parents last fall over whether students could write their own sermons. Peel had tried to force Muslim students to use a limited number of pre-approved ones for Friday prayers. It wisely overturned that decision in January, letting them write their own  and the uproar began.

Its impossible to separate this protest from the controversy created when Iqra Khalid, the Liberal MP for Mississauga-Erin Mills, introduced a motion calling on MPs to condemn Islamophobia and quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear against Muslims. The backlash against that simple and sensible gesture has been fierce.

The protest against students praying in Peel shows that anti-Muslim feeling can erupt quickly, and its important for community leaders to shut it down just as fast. There is no room for such prejudice anywhere, especially in one of countrys most diverse regions.

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(This column originally appeared at 11:37 a.m. ET on Real Money, our premium site for active traders. Click here to get great columns like this from Jim Cramer and other writers even earlier in the trading day.)

Rarely if ever have I had so much blowback on a piece that I've done on Mad Money than my pro-and-con segment on investing in Caterpillar (CAT) after the big federal-government raid of their shop.

A lot of the concern stems from the huge move that CAT has had from the $60s, saying that it isn't worth it to mess with a stock of a company that's moved up so mightily anyway. Who needs this additional headache? But most of it centers on the notion that you simply can't own any stock where there are accounting irregularities (even if there's a compelling story to own it).

My thesis had been that Caterpillar has not been entirely forthcoming about the investigation. The firm's central defense, outlined by CEO Jim Umpleby, is pretty simple: The company is fully cooperating with the government. The issue I have with that, having been trained as a lawyer and having many friends on both the defense and the prosecution side of things, is that Caterpillar may think it is cooperating, but obviously the government doesn't think so or it wouldn't have raided the company's offices.

The hard part about this is that as opaque as Caterpillar has been, the government has been worse. First, we don't even know what part of the government is pursuing Caterpillar. Is it the IRS? If so, then keep in mind that when the IRS takes you to court, you are guilty until proven innocent -- something most people do not realize. Therefore, there's a pretty good chance you're going to lose. If it is the Justice Department, then we know that it no longer wants to put companies out of business. Ever since the government sued the gigantic accounting firm Arthur Andersen in the wake of Enron, (effectively closing Andersen), officials have been loath to enact what's known as the "death penalty."

Now this weekend, Preet Bharara, the aggressive U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was fired after believing he wasn't supposed to be because of a handshake deal he had made with then-President-elect Trump. The story then had been that while Bharara knew that all U.S. attorneys are asked to resign in a change of the president, he thought he would be excluded from the order that demanded the resignation of 46 holdovers. That was wrong.

But I bring him up because he would never have done to CAT what this branch of the feds are doing, which is to let them twist slowly in the wind without revealing the charges simultaneously with the raid, because the raid is a per se admission that CAT is a wrongdoer.

But to pull it all back to the investment side, let's say CAT owes a ton of money to the IRS -- say, $4 billion. As large as that is (and that's twice the rumored amount), it wouldn't dent the company's coffers. And the large institutional buyers of the stock would use any weakness to buy, betting that if CAT's guilty, it won't impact future orders or earnings.

I think that's a reasonable thesis, which is why even as my historic view has been "accounting irregularities equal a sell" -- a posture I came up with (that you can read about in my book Real Money) after being betrayed too often -- the institutions will no doubt ignore the imbroglio and buy the stock. And I wanted people to know why, so if they wanted to get on board, they could.

I agree there are better companies with cyclical exposure, including United Technologies (UTX) , where CEO Greg Hayes just told us things are getting much better than even three months ago, especially with elevators and heating, air conditioning and ventilation. Suffice it to say, though, if you think China is coming back, mineral demand is returning and construction could soon boom, then the weakness caused by this investigation is giving you a chance to get into CAT, not a reason to get out.

Technical analyst Bruce Kamich of Real Money, our premium site for active traders, checked out this three-year weekly CAT chart and seems to agree:

Bruce's take: "CAT is likely to be vulnerable to headline shocks in the days and weeks ahead [and] prices might erode further into the $90-$85 area. But without a major top formation, it is hard to envision much further downside."

So, debate the piece all you want -- and boy, was it every debated on Twitter -- that's the entire thrust of the "Buy Caterpillar" piece. It wasn't really the "buy" story, just an explanation of why you should expect the big institutions to buy: because this is the stock they want for the big cyclical turn.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.
Anheuser-BuschInBev (BUD) partnering with Keurig Green Mountain coffee to develop at-home alcoholic pods is a "potential game changer," Jefferies analysts Edward Mundy and Cole Hathorn said in a note Monday.

"Around a century ago, if you wanted to drink beer at home you took your jar to a pub, it was filled from a draught keg, you took it home and had to drink it immediately," the analysts said in a note sent to TheStreet. "With the end game in beer M&A largely complete, we detect a shift in ABI's business model towards top line growth; the Keurig-JV represents first-mover advantage in the next shift in beerland."

There are still several issues the Budweiser maker will face with this venture, as TheStreetlaid out earlier this year, such as will the alcoholic pods taste any good? And, what's going to happen to the Earth when it's trashed in non-biodegradable Keurig pods?

Anheuser-Busch and Keurig announced in January that they were developing a product to serve beer, liquor, cocktails and mixers at home in the same fashion as Keurig makes its coffee pods. Details on the transaction were unclear.

Jim Cramer sat down recently with four market experts to talk about how to play the Trump tax plan. Click here to check out their recommendations.

If the "Keurig BEER platform can deliver a superior tasting cold beverage to packaged glass/canned beer," it could have an advantage over the Keurig KOLD soft drinks machines, Mundy and Hathorn said in the note, explaining that if successful, the in-home alcoholic system could add value of up to $5.33 a share in the U.S.

Keurig Kold machines - a similar partnership between the coffee maker and beverage giant Coca-Cola (KO) - hit stores in September 2015 at the hefty price of $369.99. The machines allowed consumers to create their own soda pods.

The soda pods didn't go over so well as in June, Keurig discontinued sales of the Kold machines. Maybe once alcohol is added to the mix, the machines will be better received.

Jefferies predicts that the beer machines could be ready for market in two to three years, compared to the six years it took Coca-Cola and Keurig to develop their system.

Still, whether the boozy pods are a success or not, the major "headwind" that still persists for Anheuser-Busch, according to Jefferies, is that millennials are generally disinterested in its beer. Sales of domestic beer are losing out to craft and imported beers in the U.S., while sales of beer in general are declining in comparison to spirits and wine.

Mundy and Hathorn estimated in their note that Anheuser-Busch's North American division - its largest market, making up 28% of profits - will continue to decline at a pace of 1% per year.

Bring on those beer machines.

Editor's Pick: Originally published March 14.
Here's what Jim Cramer had to say about some of the stocks in the Mad Money Lightning Round:

AbbVie (ABBV) : "That company is doing very well. I'll throw in Abbott Laboratories (ABT) as well."

Amplify Snack Brandsundefined : "The food business has gotten tough. It's OK for a spec, but that's it."

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) : "Maybe take some profits, but I like that stock."

Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS) : "They just received a downgrade and we need to get to the bottom of this one."

Sonic (SONC) : "I like Sonic but right now restaurants are struggling. We can't push that one aggressively right here."

Exxon Mobil (XOM) : "I'd wait until it yields 4%, then pull the trigger. Get in at the right price."

Meanwhile, on Real Money, Cramer says he wishes we could get past the blizzard and the Fed. Check out his strategies with a free trial subscription to Real Money.

Cramer and the AAP team look at General Electric (GE) and say don't trade the rumors. Find out what they're telling their investment club members with a free trial subscription to Action Alerts PLUS.

Why Cramer loves Facebook (FB) , Alphabet/Google (GOOGL) and Adobe (ADBE) (but not Snap SNAP).

Cramer loves these stocks for their dividends and so should you.

Search Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" trading recommendations using our exclusive "Mad Money" Stock Screener.

To read a full recap of this episode of "Mad Money," click here.

To watch replays of Cramer's video segments, visit the Mad Money page on CNBC.

To sign up for Jim Cramer's free Booyah! newsletter with all of his latest articles and videos please click here.

At the time of publication, Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS had positions in GE, FB, GOOGL, ADBE.
The master of Hindi detective fiction, with about 300 titles to his credit, remembers the first time he ever read a murder mystery. It was in Delhi, in 1954, when Surender Mohan Pathak was a teenager. A rich classmate used to conceal crime fiction thrillers-rented from a lending library-in his textbooks so that he could read them during class. One day, he asked Pathak to return a novel he'd just finished to the library. Instead, Pathak took it with him, stopped at a gaushala near his house, sat under a neem tree, and read the novel-by the legendary Ibn-e-Safi-from cover to cover.

Pathak had tasted blood, and soon became an obsessive consumer of pulp fiction, spending much of his time in the mean streets of 'Rajnagar', the setting of many Hindi detective novels by several authors. When he began writing in the early 1960s, his protagonist was Sunil, an investigative journalist in the fictional coastal Indian town. Sunil has appeared in 120 titles by now, but as Pathak matured as a writer, he moved out of Rajnagar. "I write for money. I want to give my reader his money's worth," says Pathak. His later protagonists occupy real cities: Sudhir, featured in 21 titles, is a private investigator in Delhi; Vimal (42 titles) is a criminal from Mumbai. An English translation of the latest in the Vimal series, Framed, was recently published by HarperCollins.

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"Pathak's plots are as credible as they are imaginative. His language is fluid and attractive," says journalist Mubarak Ali, a keen follower of popular fiction. In conversation, Pathak never veers from his thick Punjabi accent: "I've blended my own lassi of Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and English." He has made lasting contributions to language; notably the term 'company' for a criminal gang-as in D-company. Now there's even a mobile app of his works: SMP Catalogue.

Pathak averages four books a year: "Two months to prepare a book and one month to write it up." His notebooks are full of scraps of research, with diagrams of weapons and the chemistry of narcotics. "For me, writing is labour, not an indulgence. I never tire of work," Pathak says. And he's never wrestled with writer's block in his 57-year career. He says he has nurtured his readership; he responds to each letter he gets. "Corresponding with readers-admirers and critics-teaches you," he says. "One reader showed me how to revive a dead protagonist in a forthcoming book." His is a simple story of humility, hard work and success.

Mainstream acceptance is a more complicated story though: Mubarak Ali points out that the Hindi literati tend to look upon popular writers like Pathak with extreme condescension. Today, Pathak's Hindi readership may be stagnating, but he's finding a new following. India's English-speaking world-also wary of the Hindi literati-has a taste for vernacular kitsch, even a desire to curate it. With five of his titles available in English translation, Pathak is a bankable author in two languages. Never mind the literary gatekeepers of Hindi, Pathak and the citizens of Rajnagar are now welcomed at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

--- ENDS ---
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tilerson will travel to Asia this week as rising tensions with North Korea continue to threaten stability in the region.

Tillerson will begin his tour in Japan Wednesday before making stops in South Korea and China.
Correction: Tesaro's PARP inhibitor niraparib demonstrated a median PFS of 21 months in recently presented clinical trial, not 25 months as a previous version of this story stated. The story below has been updated and corrected.

AstraZeneca's (AZN) PARP inhibitor Lynparza delayed the recurrence of ovarian cancer by more than two years compared to a placebo, according to results from a phase III study presented Tuesday.

The strong benefit observed with Lynparza as ovarian cancer maintenance therapy exceeded investor expectations and bolsters AstraZeneca against a competing PARP inhibitor from Tesaro (TSRO) .

The new Lynparza study results are also likely to impact the way investors view the market value of Clovis Oncology (CLVS) and its recently approved PARP inhibitor Rubraca.

Tesaro shares were down 14% to $148.50 in reaction to the Lynparza study results. Clovis was up 12% to $67.67. AstraZeneca rose 1% to $30.38.

AstraZeneca, in the phase III study known as SOLO-2, enrolled 295 women with ovarian cancer containing a mutation to a tumor suppressor gene known as BRCA. All the women entered the study having achieved a complete or partial tumor response to platinum-based chemotherapy. The women were then randomized to receive Lynparza tablets or a placebo as maintenance therapy and followed to determine the length of time before their cancer started to grow again.

The results: Treatment with Lynparza reduced the risk of ovarian cancer tumor progression by 75% compared to placebo, according to a blinded and independent review of the patient scans.

At the median, the ovarian cancer patients treated with Lynparza went 30 months before their tumors started to grow again compared to 5.5 months for placebo-treated patients -- a benefit of just over two years.

"The magnitude of this benefit for patients is really quite impressive," said Dr. Richard Penson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an investigator in the Lynparza clinical trial. Penson spoke by phone about the Lynparza study results Tuesday in advance of a presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology annual meeting being held in National Harbor, Maryland.

The most serious adverse events reported by Lynparza patients were anemia (19.5%) and neutropenia (5%.) Mild thrombocytopenia was reported by 14% of Lynparza patients with 1% of the cases considered serious. Eleven percent of Lynparza patients dropped out of the study due to side effects.

Last fall, Tesaro presented results from a clinical trial assessing its PARP inhibitor niraparib as an ovarian cancer maintenance therapy. In that study, known as NOVA, among the women with tumors containing mutations to the BRCA gene, niraparib reduced the risk of tumor progression by 73% compared to placebo.

At the median, niraparib delayed tumor progression by 21 months compared to 5.5 months for placebo -- a difference of 15.5 months. The most widely reported serious adverse event was a 34% rate of serious thrombocytopenia.

The AstraZeneca and Tesaro clinical trials were not identical, complicating the comparisons investors are wont to make between the competing PARP inhibitors. From an eyeball's perspective, however, AstraZeneca's Lynparza appears to be equally effective, if not a tad more potent, than Tesaro's niraparib in the slice of patients with BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer.

Heading into Tuesday's Lynparza data, Tesaro's enterprise value had grown to almost $8.5 billion on the view that niraparib could have the broadest efficacy among all the competing PARP inhibitors. Tesaro's stock price has soared on speculation the company could be a prime acquisition candidate for a larger drug or biotech company seeking a PARP inhibitor for their oncology portfolio.

If the PARP inhibitors are more similar than investors had previously anticipated, Clovis Oncology, with an enterprise value of just $2.7 billion, might benefit the most.

PARP inhibitors are pills which work by blocking an enzyme, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase, that cancer cells use to repair their DNA after being damaged by chemotherapy. Mutations in the BRCA gene are correlated with a higher risk for breast and ovarian cancers. But BRCA mutations also inhibit DNA repair, which is why PARP inhibitors are thought to work better in these types of tumors.

Lynparza is already approved in the U.S. as a treatment for ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutant tumors no longer responsive to three or more prior therapies. In Europe, Lynparza is approved as a second-line maintenance therapy for ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutated tumors.

AstraZeneca's plan is to expand Lynparza's marketing label in the U.S. to include maintenance therapy for ovarian cancer, a larger commercial opportunity, based on the data from the SOLO-2 phase III study presented Tuesday. The company has not offered a timetable for when the data will be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Tesaro has already submitted niraparib to the FDA with an approval decision expected on or before June 30. The company is seeking a broader ovarian cancer maintenance therapy label that includes patients with ovarian cancer that lacks the BRCA mutation.

Last December, Clovis secured FDA approval for Rubraca to treat BRCA-mutant ovarian cancer no longer responsive to two or more prior therapies.

Pfizer (PFE) also has a PARP inhibitor in clinical trials, acquired through the purchase of Medivation last year.

Adam Feuerstein writes regularly for TheStreet. In keeping with company editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, although he owns stock in TheStreet. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. Feuerstein appreciates your feedback; click here to send him an email.
United States Trade Representative nominee Robert Lighthizer is on board with the president's America first approach to trade.

Lighthizer, who served as deputy U.S. Trade Representative under the Reagan administration, said in prepared remarks delivered at his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he agrees with President Trump's approach to trade and will seek to "do better" in negotiating trade agreements and achieving stronger enforcement of trade laws. He also gave nod to the bilateral trade agreements the Trump administration has indicated it plans to seek.

"I agree with President Trump that we should have an America first trade policy and that we can do better in negotiating our trade agreements and stronger in enforcing our trade laws," he said. "I further believe we need an international trade system that functions the way it was negotiated and that the United States must be ready to work with like-minded trading partners to ensure fair trade and to encourage market efficiency."

Lighthizer, 69, spoke of his experience in both the public and private realms.

He talked about "exciting times" negotiating trade agreements, most of which were bilateral, under the Reagan administration and his work on agricultural issues, industrial issues, services and trade policy. He also discussed his most recent experience as a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

"The vast, vast majority of my work has been representing U.S. manufacturing companies opposing unfair trade in this market and opposing the noneconomic expansion of production capacity around the world," he said. "As many of you know, I have written and talked often about the challenges facing U.S. companies and workers and have espoused strong enforcement of our trade laws."

Former Senator Bob Dole spoke to the committee on Lighthizer's behalf, calling it a "singular honor" to introduce Lighthizer, who worked for him in the 1970s and 1980s and on his presidential campaign in 1996. "I've always felt that the trade representative was a little underrated in the pecking order of the cabinet," he said. Dole, 93, also joked he is "older than the total age of all of the committee."

During the hearing, Lighthizer fielded questions on a number of matters from committee members.

He acknowledged that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the Trump administration withdrew from, would have benefitted the agriculture industry and vowed to help the sector in other ways. He also said he believes Trump will "change the paradigm" on China and batted down concerns raised by Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow regarding Trump's business interests in China and around the world.

He also discussed NAFTA when pressed by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. He said he fully understands "what's at stake" in renegotiating the deal and said the administration had not yet decided whether it prefers a trilateral agreement or two separate bilateral ones.

"The United States and Mexico both need each other economically a lot," he said.

Lighthizer declined to weigh in on the Export-Import Bank when asked by Washington Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell about the matter. He said he was waiting for instructions from the administration on the "sensitive issue."

Trump announced his intention to appoint Lighthizer as U.S. Trade Representative in January, a maneuver applauded by former trade reps under Obama and Clinton. If confirmed, Lighthizer will work alongside Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, and Peter Navarro, the head of the White House Trade Council, to develop and implement trade policies.

Cantwell on Tuesday asked Lighthizer who would be in charge among the three. He told her they would work collaboratively. "I fully expect to have the full statutory authority that the Congress provides," he said.

You're Invited ...

Wall Street Goes to Washington. In the first of a series of conversations with President Trump's economic advisers, acclaimed author and columnist Michael Wolff will sit down with Trump insider Anthony Scaramucci, co-founder of private-equity firm Skybridge Capital. They'll discuss the Trump administration, Scaramucci's thoughts on the policies and regulations under debate and his outlook for the next four years. Join us for this cocktail party on Monday, March 27, at The Metropolitan Club in New York. The event is free, but seating is limited and reservations are required. For more information or to RSVP, email events@thestreet.com.

--Updated with comments from Dole, hearing Q&A.
Observers of social media and other online services companies have considered revenue generated from advertising a key to the companies long-term success.

A report by the research group eMarketer has found that no company is likely to do better in this regard than Alphabet (GOOG) . The search engine company will earn more than double the U.S. ad revenue of its closest competitor, Facebook (FB) .

Google is projected to generate more than 40% of the total domestic digital ad market. That comes as a rapidly increasing number of Americans rely their mobile phones to search for information and to manage their lives.

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eMarketer analyst Monica Peart said "consumers" are turning to their smartphones to look up everything from the details of a product to directions."

"Google and mobile search as a whole will continue to benefit from this behavioral shift," she added.

Still, the report found that Facebook is beating Google and major social media platforms in display advertising, garnering a nearly 40% market U.S. market share.

That reflects consumers' growing use of Facebook and is vindication of the company's strategy to become a central part of people's lives. Over the last few years, the company has pushed to include more engaging content, particularly video, which tends to draw users and keep them returning. Facebook

The company has also benefited from its acquisition of Instagram. The photo sharing service will produce about 20% of Facebook's mobile revenue this year. That's up from 15%, Peart said.

Google's display ad revenue will drop to 13% this year.

Meanwhile, Twitter (TWTR) will continue to struggle generating enough ad revenue. The company has been hotly criticized for its inability to draw ad dollars, despite the major role it plays for celebrities to reach wide swathes of the public. Twitter fired its previous CEO, Dick Costolo, largely for his inability to solve the ad revenue challenge. Founder Jack Dorsey has been unable to do much better since returning as CEO. eMarketer, which said it had "significantly lowered its U.S. outlook for Twitter this year, based on flat user growth and guidance from the company."

The company's domestic ad revenue will fall about 5% this year, and its U.S. digital ad Market will continue languishing below 2%.

Alphabet and Twitter shares rose slightly in Tuesday trading, while Facebook shares fell slightly.

Microsoft (MSFT) will be making its business communications and collaboration platform, Teams, more broadly available in an effort to challenge Slack, the leader in this burgeoning space.

The company is integrating with third-party business communication services companies like Zendesk and Hootsuite, along with providing chat, security and other services that Slack also offers.

The app is free to the company's 85 million users of Microsoft 365, its cloud-based service that provides access to office applications and related tools.

Microsoft has enjoyed a favorable response to Teams since introducing the service late last year on a limited basis. The company says that more than 50,000 organizations have tried out the service, including such big brands as Accenture, Deloitte, Alaska Airlines, Trek Bicycle and Conoco Phillips (COP)

The number of people who use the service within an organization may range from a few to larger groups.

On Monday, Okta filed for a $100 million IPO.

The eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company provides identity security services that lowers the risk for users connecting with multiple devices. Okta counts Adobe and LinkedIn among its highest profile customers. It lost more than $76 million last year and doesn't expect to turn a profit "for the foreseeable future," an SEC filing said, but the company's revenue doubled last year.

The filing is part of a small uptick in technology IPO activity that follows a sluggish 2016.

New York-based Yext announced its own $100 million IPO on Monday. The company helps clients maintain their listings on search engines and related services. Yext closed a $50 million round of funding in 2014 and at the time was valued at $525 million.

Meanwhile, Mulesoft is expected to have its own IPO on Friday. The San Francisco-based startup's software helps users connect applications, data and devices in one network. The company hopes to raise $239 million.

At the beginning of the month, the message and photo sharing service Snaphad its trading debut. Shares rose 44% above its IPO price but have fallen 27% since then. Snap closed Tuesday trading at $20.58 a share.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.
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With Intel's (INTC) $15 billion purchase of Mobileye (MBLY) , the chipmaker gains a leading position in advanced driving assistance systems that are already in cars today. Intel also enters a race with challenger Nvidia (NVDA) for the next generations of autonomous driving technology as cars get smarter and take on greater responsibility behind the wheel.

Mobileye is the leader in advanced driver assistance systems, having signed partnerships with 27 automakers from Audi AG to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Ltd.'s Volvo.CFRA Research estimates that Mobileye has about a 65% share of the market for ADAS systems.

"It's Mobileye's to lose especially with these partnerships," CFRA analyst David Holt said of the company's leading position. "We think Intel helps make a compelling case for client retention."

As connected cars progress towards full autonomy, areas such as high definition mapping, machine learning and computing architecture will become more competitive, however. Nvidia's heritage in graphic processing units could give it an advantage in reading the road. Intel's backing of Mobileye can't be taken lightly. The competition should be intense.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich discussed the evolution of autonomous driving during the Monday call announcing the Mobileye purchase. Levels 1 and 2 are already present. In the former, one system like automatic emergency breaking or technology that helps you stay in your lane can work at a time. In the latter, multiple technologies can work together. "What you see as we move through the next decade or so is that it moves from this Level 1 and Level 2 to Level 3 and Level 4," Krzanich told investors.

True autonomy begins in Level 3. The car can take over all driving functions in less complex scenarios, such as traveling on a highway without pedestrians or intersections, with traffic heading in the same direction. The driver becomes a passenger in Level 4, ceding control to the car itself. We reach fully scifi, look-Ma-no-hands autonomy in Level 5 vehicles that do not have steering wheels.

High-definition mapping is one of the keys. Intel, Mobileye and Nvidia are involved with Dutch mapping power HERE. Intel bought a 15% stake from owners AUDI, BMW AG, and Daimler AG in January, while Mobileye and Nvidia have announced parterships with the private outfit in recent months.

Through high-definition mapping a camera at the front of the car can extract visual data about, say, a construction site or other objects and relays it to the cloud. New updates can create a "crowdsourced" map incorporating the new data that all driers could access. The new technology has much greater detail, as well. HD mapping precisely measures to 10 to 20 centimeters, CFRA Research reports, versus 5 to 50 meters with Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google Maps.

Alphabet is a holding in Jim Cramer'sAction Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells GOOGL? Learn more now.

Machine learning is another area of differentiation. Nvidia's PilotNet machine learning technology could help it stand out in further levels of autonomous driving, as technology helps smart cars distinguish between people or objects in the road.

Computing architecture could also play to Nvidia's favor, given the company's heritage with graphics processing units that can process images from cameras that provides more useful data than radar can provide. Nvidia's PX2 self-driving computer has the computational power of 150 Apple Inc. (AAPL) MacBook Pros, CFRA reports. Cost and power consumptions are concerns. However, Nvidia is updating the PX2's Parker systems on a chip with a new generation dubbed Xavier that is more economical. "Nvidia could have the upper hand as autonomous features become more advanced if cost and power consumption are kept in check," Holt said.

Intel's backing will strengthen Mobileye's position, however. "Given the high growth stage that Mobileye has been in for some time, a common investor concern has been the lack of R&D to retain market share when transferring to more advanced autonomy," Holt said, regarding levels 4 and 5 of autonomous driving. "We think Intel will be able to provide necessary resources, not only with funding, but fusing existing assets in cloud/data infrastructure for HD mapping and deep machine learning."

Mobileye still has a sizable lead in ADAS. As smart cars attain higher levels of sophistication, Intel's backing and Nvidia's heritage should keep the competition lively.
Kamaraj also said that Rs 5,500 crore have been allotted to implement PDS and SPDS to see that everyone benefits from it as per Jayalalithaa's vision.

By Pramod Madhav: Tamil Nadu's minister of food R Kamaraj on Tuesday blamed former CM O Panneerselvam for the shortage of food supplies in ration shops.

Kamaraj explained, "Under the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS), rice, sugar, wheat and kerosene are distributed and under the Special Public Distribution Scheme (SPDS), dal and palm oil are distributed. PDS does not need a period extension but SPDS needs a period extension relatively for 3 to 6 months. OPS did not sign on the extension that was supposed to be implemented in the beginning of 2017 which lead to all the discomfort."

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Kamaraj also said that Rs 5,500 crore have been allotted to implement PDS and SPDS to see that everyone benefits from it as per Jayalalithaa's vision. He alleged that the glitch was only because of OPS. "A meeting was held on January 2 in which OPS, State's Chief Secretary, Minister Sellur Raju and myself were present. I asked OPS to give an extension period for SPDS for which he obliged but later I came to know that no extension period was given. Now I understand that he has done it deliberately to cause bad name to Amma's government as he joined hands with the DMK," he alleged.

DMK PROTEST

While speaking on DMK's state-wide protest in front of fair price shops on March 13, Kamaraj said that the DMK knew that tenders to procure 15,000 metric ton of dal and 1.5 crore litre palm oil were floated on March 3 after acquiring extension period from CM Edapadi K Palanisamy and only after knowing this fact DMK's working president Stalin called for the protest. "Just to create an illusion that they were responsible for solving the issue, the DMK staged this protest. This is just a stunt to gain political browny points and the weird part is that OPS also indirectly blessed the DMK by releasing a statement on the same day seeking the government to implement SPDS as per Amma's wish. What rights does he have?" he questioned.

The minister, however, did not answer to the claim that even rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene which was supposed to be distributed under PDS was not done citing shortage since January.

Kamaraj was also unable to give a clear answer to the DMK's claim that items were procured as mentioned but not distributed, though he stated that 950 men have been arrested under Goondas Act for trying to sell, smuggle or hoard ration goods and boasted that the number was twice from that of the culprits arrested during the DMK regime.

Food ministry has not given a reply yet to the claim of DMK leader Kanimozhi, who had earlier raised doubts over how the state owned liquor shop (TASMAC) website could give exact details about the availability of stocks on liquor brands but the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation failed to do so.

Also read: Tamil Nadu: Kanimozhi, DMK workers hold state-wide protest over govt 'sabotaging' fair price system

Also read: JNU scholar death case should be handed over to the CBI, demands M K Stalin

--- ENDS ---
National Retail Properties is a REIT focused on retail-oriented properties across the United States. The company invests in high-quality retail properties subject to long-term leases that generate stable, consistent, predictable income. The company laid claim to 3,305 properties enclosing 33.8 million square feet of space in 48 states leased to 380 tenants engaged in 37 trades as of October 2022.

National Retail Properties was formed in 1984 as Golden Corral Realty Corporation. The company was intended as a means for employees to invest in Golden Corral but it soon took on a life of its own. The company split from its parent in 1993 and then became a REIT in 1998. Since then a number of mergers and acquisitions resulted in the company that is traded today.

National Retail Properties seeks to generate returns for shareholders through capital appreciation and dividends and is one of the most stable dividend payers in the REIT universe. The company made its 33rd consecutive distribution increase in 2022 ranking it 3rd on the list of REITs with sustained annual dividend increases. In regard to all publicly listed companies, there are less than 90 which have increased their payout for as many years or more as National Retail Properties. The compound annual growth rate runs in the range of 4% to 5%.

National Retail Properties is not limited in scope to the type of business it will lease to. The top four sectors occupying its space, however, are convenience stores, automotive-related, full-service, and limited-service restaurants which command a lions share of retail dollars. These segments made up nearly 49% of the portfolio in 2022 with no tenant making up more than 5% of the total income.

The top three tenants at the time are 7-11, Mister Car Wash, and Camping World followed by L.A. Fitness, GPM Investments (convenience), and Dave & Busters. The firm's average lease runs in the range of 10.6 years and occupancy runs high and above 99%. Properties are all single-occupier and leased on a net basis. Most properties are leased on a triple-net basis which means National Retail Properties is insulated from taxes, maintenance, and insurance costs. Other notable tenants include Yum! Brands and Wendys.

National Retail Properties uses leverage to enhance its returns. The companys debt ratio is low however and its debt carries an investment-grade rating from Standard & Poors and Moodys.
BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) Tata Power Solar today said it has expanded the capacity of its cell and module manufacturing facility in Bengaluru. "The two-stage expansion doubled the companys module capacity to 400 MW from 200 MW, and increased its cell manufacturing capacity by 65 per cent from 180 MW to 300 MW," the company said in a statement. Tata Power Solar, as part of this process, modernised and fully automated entire manufacturing facility, it said.

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Tata Power Solar Chairman Anil Sardana said, "We are happy to see our team responding to Government of Indias call of Make in India... The gradual turnaround of the company and its expansion in capacity has been a hallmark achievement of Team Tata Power, when other sector players are still facing challenges of sustained economics."

Tata Power Solar has shipped 1 GW modules to over 30 countries, of which more than 60 per cent was shipped in the last five years, the statement said. PTI KKS SBT MR

--- ENDS ---
Now in its 15th year, Routes Asia brings together airlines, airports, tourism authorities and governments to plan new flights and increase existing services. Over 930 route development professionals from 110 airlines, 170 airports and 20 tourism authorities are expected to attend this year's event at OkinawaConvention Centre.

Okinawa will host the first Japanese Routes Asia air service development forum this weekend (19-21 March) to boost international transport connections.

Now in its 15th year, Routes Asia brings together airlines, airports, tourism authorities and governments to plan new flights and increase existing services. Over 930 route development professionals from 110 airlines, 170 airports and 20 tourism authorities are expected to attend this year's event at OkinawaConvention Centre.

Japan has become a more affordable tourist destination in recent years due to the emergence of low-cost carriers and the depreciation of the Japanese yen. Between 2011 and 2016 the number of overseas visitors surged from 6.2 million to over 24 million, while Japan's international market capacity grew by 43% to 52.5 million seats.

Okinawa has also experienced a tourism boom with over eight million people travelling to the prefecture every year to enjoy the subtropical climate, serene beaches, crystal clear sea, lush forests, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and unique culture.

Okinawa's Naha Airport has more than trebled its international flight capacity in the last three years from an average of eight to 23 a day. New links include Hangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Kaohsiung and Bangkok.

Hosting Routes Asia will give Okinawa the opportunity to showcase its many attractions to the aviation industry. The airlines that have signed up include Air China, Air Asia, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Hainan Airlines, Norwegian and Qatar Airways.

The conference element of the event, the Strategy Summit, will give delegates the chance to hear from industry leaders. The high profile speakers include the CEO of Hong Kong Express, Andrew Cowen; the president of Spring Airlines, Steven Wang; and Etihad Airways' vice president international affairs, Vijay Poonoosamy.

Steven Small, brand director of Routes, said: "This is the first year that Routes Asia will be held in Japan, so it's an exciting landmark for us. The event will help Okinawa Prefecture to reach its target of 10 million tourists a year by 2021.

Takeshi Onaga, Governor, Okinawa Prefectural Government said: "As the host of Routes Asia, Okinawa Prefecture is looking forward with great excitement to showing our guests around these beautiful islands.

"Okinawa is Japan's southernmost island, and I am certain that our guests will be fascinated by their experiences of Shuri Castle, which has been registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as by our crystal seas, beautiful sandy beaches, glittering coral reefs, traditional dance performance and Okinawan cuisine."

More information about Routes can be found at routesonline.com

Routes Asia 2017, 19-21 March, Okinawa Convention Centre, Okinawa, Japan.

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 2022 Travel Industry Wire
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) Regulator TRAI today stressed the need to identify bottlenecks that make the functioning of telecom business difficult in India and listed out processes such as licence acquisition, spectrum allotment and mergers that can be reviewed.

"...the Authority is of the opinion that various processes that a telecom licensee is required to go through should be simplified and combined to the extent possible to economise on efforts on part of the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) as well as the government," TRAI said.

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The regulator said it is important to identify the "bottlenecks, obstacles or hindrances" that are making it difficult to do telecom business in India and thus, require "regulatory intervention".

Some of the processes that could be up for review as part of "ease of doing telecom business" include procedures related to unified licence, including acquisition of licence, compliance with commercial, financial, technical conditions, and compliance with roll-out obligations, payment of licence fee, financial bank guarantee and performance bank guarantee, adding and surrendering authorisations under the licence.

Other issues outlined by TRAI include spectrum allotment and use, assignment and clearance process for the airwaves, approval process for spectrum trading and sharing.

As part of the process overhaul, TRAI would also look at the merger and acquisition policy, significantly so as the Indian telecom industry has been in a midst of consolidation drive.

Last month, telecom operator Bharti Airtel announced it will acquire Norwegian Telenors India unit, signalling a fresh round of industry consolidation that has intensified in the wake of disruptive entry of newcomer Reliance Jio.

Vodafone and Idea have already said that they are considering merging their businesses in India, a move that would create the biggest telecom operator in the country with about USD 12 billion in sales.

Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications has already signed a pact to merge its wireless business with smaller rival Aircel.

Besides mergers and acquisition, TRAI will also consider streamlining processes for telecom services using satellite media, including clearances from INSAT Network Operations Control Center, and obtaining clearances from various authorities.

"In addition, there can be processes in other areas which may be requiring simplification...the stakeholders are requested to identify such areas of concern and review the existing processes and suggest mechanisms that ease the business activity," TRAI said.

The industry will have to submit views by April 11, after which TRAI will "analyse them and if required, take further necessary action for simplification of processes". PTI MBI MKJ

--- ENDS ---
The extension of the UNIFIER Canadas military training mission to Ukraine for another two years is the firm and decisive signal to the aggressor showing that Ukraine cannot be broken by any pressure.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated this in his commentary on the ratification of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, published on the website of the Head of State.

"In this regard, I would like to express my gratitude to the Canadian side for the recent decision to extend the UNIFIER Canadas military training mission to Ukraine for another two years  until 2019. It is the firm and decisive signal to the aggressor which shows that Ukraine cannot be broken by any pressure," he said.

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The Government of Kenya has stated it intends to purchase 450 thousand tonnes of Ukrainian corn, according to a letter of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs addressed to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry.

"The Government of Kenya decided to purchase 450,000 tonnes of yellow corn in Ukraine in March-May 2017," reads a report posted on the Ukrainian governments official website.

The Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry calls on companies, which are interested in the supply of corn to Kenya, to inform the Ministry so that consolidated commercial offers from Ukrainian enterprises can then be sent to the Kenyan side.

The main requirement for corn imports to Kenya is the absence of GMOs and the availability of an EU certificate or the compliance with standards of the Kenya Bureau of Standards.

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Land reform in Ukraine will be launched this year.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk said this on the air of ICTV Ukrainian TV channel on Monday evening, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Indeed, we plan to launch the land reform this year, as it was envisaged in the previous memoranda," the Minister said.

According to the Minister, the reform is needed to give new impetus to the development of domestic agrarian sector so that it would be possible to attract investments and people could manage their own land.

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The Ukrainian-Turkish agrarian expert consultations were held on March 9, 2017 with the support of the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Turkey and the State Agency for Fisheries of Ukraine.

In particular, Turkish fishing industry experts shared their experience in raising flounder and trout, and the Ukrainian experts  the experience in raising sturgeon, the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine reports.

Experts determined priority areas of cooperation  a fishery fleet and the exchange of experience in the sphere of raising flounder and trout (from the Turkish side), sturgeon (from the Ukrainian side). Consultations should promote preparations for holding a sitting of the joint Committee under the Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Republic of Turkey on cooperation in the area of fishing industry," the Agrarian Policy Ministry reports.

A reminder that the Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Republic of Turkey on cooperation in fishing industry has been in effect since 2011.

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The Verkhovna Rada has adopted the Law "On ratification of the Agreement on Free Trade Area between Ukraine and Canada".

As Ukrinform correspondent reports, 272 MPs voted for this adoption.

The agreement on creation of the free trade area between Ukraine and Canada was signed on July 11, 2016 in Kyiv.

The implementation of the law will allow completing all the internal procedures necessary for the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement between Ukraine and Canada, which will promote the development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation between Ukraine and Canada.

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Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu held a phone conversation on Monday, March 13, the governments official website reports.

During the conversation, it was agreed on an official visit of Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman to the State of Israel in March, reads a report.

In addition, the prime ministers agreed that the negotiation process on concluding a Free Trade Agreement between two countries must be completed by the end of 2017.

Also, the parties discussed priority issues of bilateral relations, particularly in trade and economic sphere, in science and technology, education and culture.

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Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze held meetings with State Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office of Finland Paula Lehtomaki, Deputy State Secretary of the Finnish Cabinet of Ministers for EU Affairs Jori Arvonen and Secretary General of the Security Committee of Finland Vesa Valtonen.

This has been reported by the Governments portal.

Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze has informed the State Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office of Finland about the progress of Ukrainian reforms, in particular judicial, anti-corruption, banking and public administration reforms. The parties discussed the GDP growth by 2.2% in 2016, which gave a clear signal about the gradual recovery of the Ukrainian economy.

Separately, the parties discussed strengthening of Russian aggression in the east of Ukraine in recent months, in particular, the Russian attacks on Avdiivka.

At the meeting with Jori Arvonen, the parties spoke about creation in Finland of a center to counter hybrid attacks. 16 countries have already agreed to join the center, the headquarters of which will be located in Helsinki.

ish
By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 14 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has reportedly given CIA necessary authorisation to carry out drone strikes against terror groups, a move that could have implications for Pakistan.

This is a change from the policies of the previous Obama Administration under which the Department of Defence was authorised to carry out such strikes and the CIA used drones to gather intelligence information, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

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The White House and the CIA have so far not responded to the news report.

According to the daily, Trump gave such an authorisation to the CIA not long after he visited its headquarters on January 21.

"The Trump administration is also giving the military more authority to conduct operations on its own without first getting a sign off from the Pentagon or the White House," the report said.

The report said Trumps unexpected decision to give the CIA the strike authority created ferment inside the US government within days of his visit, as US military officials scrambled to respond to the new directive.

According to New Americas research -- a Washington DC based think-tank -- before Obama changed his policy and only authorised the Department of Defence to carry out drone strikes, CIAs drone strikes were mostly used in Pakistan.

It has resulted in the death of at least 1,904 people and the figure could be as high as 3,114, US scholars Peter Bergen and David Sterman wrote in CNN on January 21, a day after Trump was sworn in as the US President.

US drone strikes were halted in the last eight months of the Obama Administration.

In recent weeks, top Pentagon generals have expressed concerns over the continued presence of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan.

CIA drone strikes were quite successful in elimination of high profile terrorists from the safe havens of Pakistan.

"The United States has killed more than 50 al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Pakistan since the beginning of the CIA drone campaign," Bergen and Sterman wrote in the CNN op-ed.

At the same time they warned that before taking a decision on reviving drone strikes in Pakistan, the Trump administration should take into account that the US is quite unpopular in Pakistan.

"Under Obama, the drone war in Pakistan reached its height, and Trump, should he choose to do so, can easily bring that war back," the two American scholars said and had predicted that Trump may well escalate the drone war in Pakistan and there is not much to stop him if he chooses to do so. PTI LKJ ASK ASK

--- ENDS ---

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The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Canada and Ukraine will particularly promote foreign direct investments in the Ukrainian economy at the level of $36 million.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated this when commenting on the ratification of the FTA between Ukraine and Canada, the presidents official website reports.

"This agreement launches a symbolic transatlantic bridge of free trade. Thus, the Ukrainian businesses will get the access to the North American market. And it is the growth of Ukrainian exports. And the growth of direct foreign investments in Ukraine - at the level of 36 million dollars, President Poroshenko said.

Besides, the agreement will create new jobs in construction, industry and trade. It is also the duty-free access to 98% of commodity items to the Canadian market," said President Poroshenko.

The Ukrainian president thanked Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau for his cooperation and commitment to strengthening relations with Ukraine, and he also expressed gratitude to Ms. Chrystia Freeland - Minister of International Trade, who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada.

"This is a historical moment for our bilateral trade with Canada. The Country that systematically, permanently supports Ukraine and assists in developing the economic potential of our country, he said.

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Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman says that ratification of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement opens new opportunities for business and Ukrainian economy in general.

The premier wrote this on his Facebook page.

"Friends, my congratulations! MPs of the Verkhovna Rada have approved a bill on the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement between Ukraine and Canada. Thank you for your support! This decision opens new prospects for businesses and creates new opportunities for economic growth of our country, the prime minister wrote.

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Ukrainian and German legal departments have agreed to strengthen and deepen current friendly relations between the states and cooperation in the field of law.

This has been noted in a statement posted on the website of the Justice Ministry of Ukraine.

"A joint statement on legal cooperation between the Justice Ministry of Ukraine and the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection of the Federal Republic of Germany was signed by Head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice Pavlo Petrenko and his German colleague Heiko Maas," the report says.

"For us, the experience of Germany is very important, which we will be able to use in further reforms. That is why we aim to strengthen and deepen the current friendly relations between our countries and cooperation in the field of law," Petrenko said.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko had a meeting with Minister for European and Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn.

This has been reported by the press service of the Head of State.

The parties discussed ways to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine, particularly the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Jean Asselborn shared his impressions from his yesterday's trip to Donbas.

The parties underscored the necessity of full compliance with the ceasefire regime. They also noted the importance of future coordinated international efforts aimed to counter Russian aggressive actions.

The President thanked the Government of Luxembourg for the support of sanctions against the aggressor. Poroshenko also thanked for the decision of Luxembourg to allocate 500,000 euros for the implementation of humanitarian projects.

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Ukraine and Turkey have signed the intergovernmental agreement on mutual trips of citizens with national ID cards.

The document was signed during the official visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to Turkey, the Government portal reports.

The provisions of the agreement stipulate that citizens of Ukraine and citizens of Turkey who are holders of passports in the form of ID cards containing a bio chip, shall be able to enter, exit, transit and stay without visas on the territory of Turkey and Ukraine for up to 90 days within 180 days, the statement reads.

The implementation of the agreement is expected to promote the development of bilateral relations between the two countries, intensification of contacts in social, economic, cultural, humanitarian and other areas.

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Two days since the controversial blog post by an anonymous writer, accusing The Viral Fever Founder and CEO Arunabh Kumar of molesting her multiple times, went viral, many TVF employees have come out in support of their boss. Mumbai Police has not launched an investigation yet.

By Vidya : It is been over 48 hours since the blog post made by an anonymous writer, who goes by the name The Indian Fowler, accusing The Viral Fever Founder and CEO Arunabh Kumar of molesting her multiple times during her two-year-stint at the firm, went viral.

In these 48 hours, many celebrities spoke about the issue. Standup comedian Aditi Mittal slammed the comedy community for being silent about the issue, and called out their double standards.

Silence from the comedy community is deafening.EVERYONE still"texting contacts"/"verifying facts" inspite of hearing stories abt it for yrs?- Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) March 13, 2017

The fact that the diggaj-log of comedy who make videos & even take money from brands for their saleable feminism are quiet today is telling- Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) March 13, 2017

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Meanwhile, many TVF employees have come out and spoken about the issue, defending their boss, and asking the accusers to take the matter forward legally.

After working for two straight nights, I wake up to an unverified article written by a non-existent person. People sharing, calling us names- Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

Mumbai Police has the same stand.

In an official statement, TVF rubbished all the allegations calling the blog post ludicrous and defamatory against the company and its team. The management also categorically denied the allegations and demanded the person behind the article to be brought to "severe justice".

An internal inquiry into the issue has begun, sources said. The company stands by their stance that they never hired anyone from Muzaffarpur and that the other accusations against Kumar should be addressed by him personally, and not the company.

Arunabh Kumar, on the other hand, responded saying he compliments women saying they're "sexy" if they are and asks whether that amounts to harassment. This statement he made is getting him a lot of flak on social media networking platforms.

Talking to India Today, Mumbai Police Commissioner Dutta Padsalgikar said that in such cases, there should be a formal complaint for an investigation to be launched. When asked whether cases could not be filed taking into consideration the attention it has gotten, he said, "it would not be a complete case without an aggrieved person registering a case. We have been asking the victims to come forward so that law can take it's course."

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Hyderabad, Mar 14 (PTI) Two ward boys of a state-run hospital were suspended today for allegedly demanding bribe from the family members of a tuberculosis patient, who died during treatment last night.

The family members of the patient, who was in his mid-30s, alleged that the ward boys and other hospital staff demanded bribe to provide oxygen to him after he was admitted to the city-based TB and Chest Hospital yesterday morning.

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"The ward boys demanded Rs 150 for oxygen. Neither the doctors nor any nurse attended him (the patient)," the family members of the deceased alleged while holding a protest at the hospital premises last night.

They also alleged negligence on part of the hospital staff "leading to their kins death".

The family members of the patient lodged a complaint with the hospital authorities in this connection.

According to the hospitals Superintendent, Dr Sai Kumar, the patient was suffering from chronic TB and he died last night in the hospital while undergoing treatment.

"The patient did not come for treatment on a regular basis. He was given treatment (after being admitted yesterday morning) but did not respond to the same and died," he told PTI today.

Refuting the allegations of negligence by hospital staff in discharging their duties, Sai Kumar said that he has suspended the two ward boys for allegedly demanding bribe.

"I have appointed an inquiry committee which will look into the whole matter and based on the report further action will be initiated," he said adding that plenty of oxygen is available in the hospital.

The hospitals Resident Medical Officer also said, "There is no scarcity of oxygen." PTI VVK GK RYS

--- ENDS ---












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Society of Robotic Surgery 2017: State-of-the-Art Lecture: Robotics in Renal Surgery, Whats the Next Frontier? - Session Highlights Miami, Florida USA (UroToday.com) Raju Thomas, MD, Tulane University, presented a state-of-the-art lecture highlighting renal surgery. The role of robotics in urologic oncology has confirmed that for most renal masses requiring nephron-sparing surgery, the robotic approach must be considered. The availability of the robot has increased the ability of surgeons to perform partial nephrectomy (PN). Selecting arterial clamping with early unclamping has improved preservation of nephrons while not sacrificing oncologic outcomes. The use of firefly or indocyanine green technology has enabled the identification of the exact extent of tumor/normal parenchymal interface and decreased warm ischemia time. Cryoablation is appropriate in certain small renal masses and in patients with significant comorbidities who are unable to undergo PN. Radiofrequency ablation is an alternative to PN as well, and both techniques can be performed percutaneously by radiologists or laparoscopically by urologists. Fewer probes and tumors smaller than 3 cm are predictors for success. Follow-up with appropriate imaging to document treatment success is important. High-intensity focal ultrasound is being explored, but it is not standardized at present, although centers such as the University of Indiana are examining this option.



Immunologic therapy and angiogenesis-inhibiting drugs have emerged in treating renal tumors. Targeted therapies such as pazopanib in a recent phase III study can be used in advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Minimally invasive surgical techniques such as radical nephrectomy and PN have become the mainstay in the management of renal masses, and particular robotics have resulted in the increased use of PN.



Presented By: Raju Thomas, MD, Tulane University



Contributed by Stephen B. Williams, MD, Assistant Professor, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, TX



at the 2017 Society of Robotic Surgery - February 24 - 26, 2017  Miami, Florida USA
The aim of this study was to assess the scientific accuracy and the readability level of websites on kidney and bladder cancers. The search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing were searched independently by assessors in November 2014 using the following keywords: "bladder cancer", "kidney cancer", "patient bladder cancer", "patient kidney cancer" and "bladder and kidney cancer". Only English-language websites were selected on the bases of predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Assessors independently reviewed the findings and evaluated the accuracy and quality of each website by using the DISCERN and the LIDA instruments. The readability of the websites was calculated using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Index and the Coleman-Liau Readability Index. Sixty-two websites were finally included in the study. The overall accuracy scores varied; for the DISCERN, the range was 28 to 76; out of 80 (mean  SD, 47.1  12.1; median = 46.0, interquartile range (IQR) = 19.2), and for the LIDA, the range was 52 to 125; out of 144 (mean  SD, 101.9  15.2; median, 103; IQR, 16.5). The creators of these websites were universities and research centres (n = 25, 40%), foundations and associations (n = 10, 16%), commercial and pharmaceutical companies (n = 13, 21%), charities and volunteer work (n = 4, 6%) and non-university educational bodies (n = 10, 16%). The readability scores (mean  SD) were 11.2  2.2 for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Index and 11.2  1.6 for the Coleman-Liau Readability Index. The accuracy and the quality of the websites on kidney and bladder cancers varied. In most websites, there were deficiencies in clarity of aims, presenting symptoms, investigations and treatment options. The readability matched grades 10-11 literacy levels-a level above the public readability level. The study highlights the needs for further improvement of the online information created for public and patients with kidney and bladder cancers.

Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education. 2017 Mar 09 [Epub ahead of print]

Samy A Azer, Maha M Alghofaili, Rana M Alsultan, Najla S Alrumaih

Curriculum Development and Research Unit, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. ., Curriculum Development and Research Unit, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28281091
UK Parliament might have passed the Brexit authorisation bill but in a blow to Theresa May's government the prospect of Scotland's exit from the United Kingdom suddenly appeared nearer.

By AP: Britain lurched closer to leaving the European Union Monday when Parliament stopped resisting and gave Prime Minister Theresa May the power to file for divorce from the bloc.

But in a blow to May's government, the prospect of Scotland's exit from the United Kingdom suddenly appeared nearer, too. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a referendum on independence within two years to stop Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will.

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Amid Britain's divorce from EU, Scotland wants Independence

In an announcement that took many London politicians by surprise, Sturgeon vowed that Scotland would not be "taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice." Sturgeon spoke in Edinburgh hours before the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed its final hurdle in Parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords.

The House of Commons approved the bill weeks ago, but the 800-strong Lords fought to amend it, inserting a promise that EU citizens living in the U.K. will be allowed to remain after Britain pulls out of the bloc.

They also added a demand that Parliament get a "meaningful" vote on the final deal between Britain and the remaining 27 EU nations.

Both amendments were rejected Monday by the Commons, where May's Conservatives have a majority. A handful of pro-EU Conservatives expressed their unhappiness, then abstained from the vote. The bill returned to the Lords, in a process known as parliamentary ping pong. Faced with the decision of the elected Commons, the Lords backed down and approved it without amendments.

Labour peer Dianne Hayter, who proposed the amendment on EU citizens, said the Lords had done their best, but "our view has been rejected in the elected House of Commons, and it is clear the government is not for turning."

Once the bill receives royal assent - a formality that should be accomplished within hours - May will be free to invoke Article 50 of the EU's key treaty, triggering two years of exit negotiations, by her self-imposed deadline of March 31.

May was forced to seek Parliament's approval for the move after a Supreme Court ruling in January torpedoed her attempt to start the process of leaving the bloc without a parliamentary vote.

Debate between House of Commons and House of Lords

The House of Commons and House of Lords battled over the bill's contents, with the status of EU nationals in Britain - and Britons in fellow EU member countries - drawing especially emotional debate. Both British and EU officials have said such residents should be guaranteed the right to stay where they are, but the two sides have so far failed to provide a concrete guarantee, leaving millions of people in limbo.

Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry told the House of Commons that one constituent, a Lithuanian, had told her "the uncertainty caused by this government and this Parliament is making her feel worse about her personal situation in Britain than she did in Lithuania under the Soviets."

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Brexit Secretary David Davis told lawmakers the government had a "moral responsibility" to the 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and the 1 million Britons in other member states, and intends to guarantee their rights as soon as possible after exit talks start.

"That is why we must pass this straightforward bill without further delay, so the prime minister can get to work on the negotiations and we can secure a quick deal that secures the status of both European Union citizens in the U.K. and also U.K. nationals living in the EU," he said.

Pro-EU lawmakers accused the government and Brexit-backing lawmakers of running roughshod over the concerns of the 48 percent of Britons who voted to stay in the EU.

Conservative legislator Dominic Grieve called the government's opposition of handing Parliament a final vote on Brexit "deranged," and the Green Party's Caroline Lucas said lawmakers should not just hand ministers a blank check.

"We were not elected to be lemmings," Lucas said.

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Euroskeptics accused pro-EU legislators of trying to frustrate the will of voters who passed a June referendum to leave the EU.

"The simple truth is this - deal or no deal, vote or no vote, positive vote or negative vote, this process is irreversible," Conservative legislator Edward Leigh said. "We're leaving the EU, and that's what the people want."

May is now free to trigger Article 50 as early as Tuesday, but the government signaled the move would come much closer to the March 31 deadline. May spokesman James Slack repeated the government's position that it would happen by the end of March.

"I've said 'end' many times, but it would seem I didn't put it in capital letters strongly enough," he said.Political union under threat

The government's satisfaction at victory in Parliament was tempered by the prospect of an independence vote that threatens the 300-year old political union between England and Scotland.

Sturgeon said she would seek to hold a referendum between the fall of 2018 and the spring of 2019 so Scottish voters could make an "informed choice" about their future. While Britons overall voted to leave the EU, Scottish voters backed remaining by 62 to 38 percent, and Sturgeon said they should not be forced to follow the rest of the U.K. into a "hard Brexit" outside the EU single market.

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In a 2014 referendum, Scottish voters rejected independence by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent. But Sturgeon said the U.K.'s decision to leave the EU had brought about a "material change of circumstances."

May - whose government would have to approve a legally binding referendum - accused Sturgeon's Scottish National Party of political "tunnel vision" and called her announcement "deeply regrettable."

Also read: Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon demands new independence vote before Brexit

Also read: Does Brexit matter for India?

Also read: Brexit: What is UK's referendum about today? Here's what you need to know

--- ENDS ---
The New York Giants continued to be active in free agency as they made another move on Monday afternoon. The team agreed to a three-year, $10 million deal with veteran John Jerry who joined the team in 2014 and started in all their games last season. The deal includes $4.25 million dollars in guarantees.

Good move for Jerry and the Giants

John Jerry practicing with the Giants. (NJ.com)

The 30-year old right guard joined the Giants in 2014 following his release from the Miami Dolphins due to his role in the infamous bullying scandal. Since coming over to New York, Jerry has fit in exceptionally starting in 40 games since joining the team. In his 17 starts last season (regular season and the wild card game) Jerry missed just two snaps and gave up just two sacks on Eli Manning. His impressive play contributed to the Giants making the playoffs last season for the first time since 2011.

Other moves

The move comes just two days after the Giants added D.J. Fluker into the mix at the offensive line position. Fluker spent the previous four seasons in San Diego with the Chargers but was released in a cost saving move. Both moves give the Giants more depth and versatility along the offensive line going into next season. If Jerry and his line mates can protect Eli Manning, the Giants should have a good shot at making a return to the playoffs next season.

Some of the other moves the Giants have made this offseason include the addition of wide receiver Brandon Marshall, fullback/tight end Rhett Ellison, D.J. Fluker and now John Jerry. They also re-signed backup running back Orleans Darkwa who plays primarily on special teams. With free agency less than a week old, these are likely only the first moves made by the Giants with a few more to come.
Theres no doubt that online shopping is a wave that is roiling the retail industry  and our culture, for that matter.

But its wave thats not sweeping up all shoppers in quite the same way.

According to new data, the rise of online shopping across the United States is rather uneven, with more affluent states marching more quickly toward a lifestyle in which buying happens on a screen instead of at the mall.

Adobe, whose software runs under many retail websites, analyzes data on billions of website visits to create its Digital Price Index, a real-time snapshot of online consumer spending. Analysts there studied digital shopping patterns over the one-year period ended February 2017. At a state level, they measuring the growth in total e-commerce spending, as well as the online spending per person.

Looking first at the year-over-year growth rates in total spending, you see the choppiness. For example, coastal states such as New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey and California have some of the strongest surges in online shopping. But big pickups are not limited those geographies, with Texas and Mississippi also posting robust e-commerce growth.

Maryland saw an 8 percent increase in spending, while Virginia saw a 7 percent increase.

Meanwhile, online spending actually retreated or held steady in a handful states, including Idaho and South Dakota.

But things get especially interesting is when you look at per-person online spending in relationship to the states affluence.The second chart below plots per-person online spending against the most recent Census Bureau figures for state-level median income.





As you can see, there is a noticeable correlation that suggests affluent shoppers are adapting to online shopping especially quickly. Luiz Maykot, a data science analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said a number of factors could be shaping the difference, including that low-income shoppers are less likely to have credit cards, which are table stakes to participating in online shopping.

There are other interesting lessons embedded in this chart, too. Look, for example, at Alaska and Hawaii, which are affluent states that dont fit the pattern of having strong per-person online spending. Maykot said this likely reflects the fact that shipping to those states can be pricey and relatively slow  factors that make online shopping less attractive.

The data also offers hints that perhaps our varied adoption of online shopping is not just about relative affluence, but other lifestyle factors.

Take, for example, how much the District of Columbia stands out in the data set. Its a city, and its growth and spending look much different than in any of the 50 states.

The Districts growth in per-person online spending was 38 percent during the one-year period. The next-largest growth rate, recorded in New Hampshire, was significantly lower: 20 percent. Plus consumers in the District spent a whopping $3,353 per person online. That is dramatically higher than the per-person rate in any state. (New Jersey was the highest, with $1,736 per person.)

So perhaps the gap is telling us that urbanites, in general, have migrated to online shopping much faster than their counterparts in less densely populated areas.

Maykot said that while he cant say for sure because Adobe doesnt yet perform city-level analyses, this is a credible hypothesis for why D.C. is an outlier.

After all, there are unique pain points to brick-and-mortar shopping in cities: Checkout lines at high-traffic stores can be excruciatingly long. Nabbing an on-street parking spot can feel like a miracle. Many city residents dont own a car, and it can be hard to lug purchases on public transit or on foot. All these factors may be pushing them to adopt online shopping more quickly than those in smaller towns.

Taken together, this data helps provide valuable context for how we should think about the business strategies of some of the biggest names in retail. For example, Amazons same-day delivery service is largely concentrated in affluent cities. Sure, thats in part because the economics are better when customers are clustered close together. But this information also suggests that Amazon is first trying to make this a habit among the kinds of shoppers who are already the most dependent on e-commerce. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)

Similarly, people sometimes ask me how Walmart, for example, could possibly be sustaining over 4,000 U.S. stores in the digital era. This data helps explain that: You may see a tower of Amazon boxes in your big-city condo building each evening, but that isnt a good proxy for how people are shopping in, say, rural Tennessee. Even if youre personally doing less of it these days, there is still enormous appetite for shopping in brick-and-mortar stores.

And yet Adobes research suggests there are ways to attract different kinds of shoppers  including low-income ones  to the digital channel. Take, for example, what Adobe observed during the holiday season when it came to purchasing TVs. Researchers looked at how many televisions were bought online during November and December in each state, and then looked at what share of those purchases were made during Black Friday week  the time period when discounts were running highest. States with lower median incomes tended to see a larger share of TVs bought during Black Friday week, suggesting value pricing was important in getting these consumers to fill their digital shopping carts.

If retailers want to bring more low-income people into the online space, that week is very important for you, Maykot said.


Mary Myers as Karl Marx in Howard Zinns Marx in Soho, from Nu Sass Productions. (Tori Boutin )

Karl Marx is in the house, and the gleam in his eye says, I told you so. The show is Marx in Soho, but the vibe is pure Washington throughout the fierce political diatribe unfolding in a small art gallery near the White House.

Do you resent my coming back and irritating you? Marx says at the end of a 90-minute rip through his life, his theories and  thanks to a whimsical bit of time-travel  our own class-driven discontents. That this is opening as Congress wrestles over capitalist free-market principles (a.k.a. choice) and national health-care policy makes the moment especially rich.

Marx in Soho is a 1999 solo play by the late firebrand leftist historian Howard Zinn, who still so incenses some conservatives that a new bill in the Arkansas legislature  H.B. 1834  has been introduced to ban books or any other material authored by or concerning Howard Zinn from public schools. That would include the text of this fervently performed piece thats the most effective show Ive seen from the emerging Nu Sass Productions.

Marx is played by Mary Myers, who thoroughly convinces you that she knows each historical twist and theoretical turn in this monologue. It undervalues Myers to say she commands the living-room-size Caos on F, with seating for 30. Yet command it she does, roving the space as her Marx recalls writing Das Kapital while observing the rising rift between workers and industrialists in Londons Soho district. Myers looks you in the eye and expects answers whenever she asks questions. Her lively give-and-take brings wit and personality to what could be a highly wonky talk.

After all, this is Marx, who rhapsodizes over the 1871 Paris Commune and blusters about his arguments with the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. But there also are tender passages about his wife, Jenny, and daughter Eleanor, both apparently incisive critics. These are strands of feeling that Myers  who never loses her crisp intellectual edge  plays compellingly.

But of course this is mainly an indictment, an act of solidarity with specific recent movements that this 1999 script could not have anticipated, from Occupy to whatever the current notion of resistance is. Director Angela Kay Pirko underlines this resonance with torn-from-the-

headlines images on screens neatly camouflaged among bookshelves. These images are so small you almost miss them.

Thats okay: Myers gets the point across, jabbing her finger at you, shouting about how the outrageous crimes of Stalin and other dictators have wrecked his (Marxs) reputation, and still insisting that we examine our own situation frankly. You understand completely that if this Marx knew whom Americans had just elected to the Oval Office, his head would explode.



Kiernan McGowan, from left, David Mavricos and Jenny Donovan in Fiona Doyles Coolatully, at Solas Nua. (DJ Corey Photography)

A block away on another small stage, Irish writer Fiona Doyles earthy 2014 Coolatully is dramatizing another economics lesson as her nations roaring Celtic Tiger period whimpered into something close to depression. The stress is eating the locals alive, especially young Kilian. The former hurling hero is now a twitchy, brooding mess  cant find work, doesnt want to emigrate like the rest of his generation.

Solas Nua, D.C.s Irish arts organization, puts a melancholy air on this U.S. premiere, directed by Solas Nua head Rex Daugherty in Flashpoints 50-seat Mead Theatre Lab. David Mavricos is morose and hangdog as Kilian, but the more interesting figures are the nurse Eilish (a sensible Jenny Donovan), who is leaving for work in Australia, and the wild lad Paudie (the bright Kiernan McGowan), just out of jail for petty theft from a church. Brian Hemmingsen persuasively finds the pathos and the power in a weakened, agitated pensioner with his savings tucked under his floorboards.

Doyles plot isnt fresh, but her details keep you interested as these withering working-class characters fret about how jobs have dried up and how its key to get a visa for the opportunities in Australia, Canada or New Zealand.

Solas Nua and Nu Sass didnt team up to time Coolatully and Marx in Soho together, yet these allied plays add up to a natural double bill.

Marx in Soho, by Howard Zinn. Directed by Angela Kay Pirko. About 90 minutes. Through April 2 at Caos on F, 923 F St. NW. Tickets: $30. Call 315-783-6650 or visit nusass.com.

Coolatully, by Fiona Doyle. Directed by Rex Daugherty. About 100 minutes. Through March 26 at Flashpoint, 916 G St. NW. Tickets: $38. Call 202-315-1317 or visit solasnua.org.
Capt. David Lausman speaks on the deck of U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington in 2012. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)

The Justice Department unsealed a fresh indictment Tuesday charging eight Navy officials  including an admiral  with corruption and other crimes in the Fat Leonard bribery case, escalating an epic scandal that has dogged the Navy for four years.

Among those charged were Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, a senior Navy intelligence officer who recently retired from a key job at the Pentagon, as well as four retired Navy captains and a retired Marine colonel. The charges cover a period of eight years, from 2006 through 2014.

The Navy personnel are accused of taking bribes in the form of lavish gifts, prostitutes and luxury hotel stays courtesy of Leonard Glenn Fat Leonard Francis, a Singapore-based defense contractor who has pleaded guilty to defrauding the Navy of tens of millions of dollars.

The indictment lists page after page of bribes allegedly provided to the defendants including $25,000 watches, $2,000 boxes of Cohiba cigars, $2,000 bottles of cognac and $600-per-night hotel rooms.

According to the charging documents, Francis also frequently sponsored wild sex parties for many officers assigned to the USS Blue Ridge, the flagship of the Navys 7th Fleet, and other warships.

Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless (Navy)

During a port visit by the Blue Ridge to Manila in May 2008, for example, five of the Navy officers attended a raging multi-day party, with a rotating carousel of prostitutes, at the Shangri-La Hotel, according to the indictment. The group allegedly drank the hotels entire supply of Dom Perignon champagne and rang up expenses exceeding $50,000, which Francis covered in full.

On another port visit by the Blue Ridge to Manila in February 2007, Francis allegedly hosted a sex party for officers in the MacArthur Suite of the Manila hotel. During the party, historical memorabilia related to General Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts, according to the indictment.

In exchange, according to federal prosecutors, the officials provided Francis with classified or inside information that enabled his firm, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, to gouge the Navy out of tens of millions of dollars.

Federal agents fanned out across six states Tuesday in a coordinated operation to arrest the defendants, authorities said.

Loveless, the retired admiral, was arrested at his home in Coronado, Calif. The Navy had announced in November 2013 that he was under scrutiny by the Justice Department and suspended his access to classified material. He was allowed to retire last fall.

Navy officials have said that about 30 admirals are under investigation, although only a handful have been named publicly.

Robert Gilbeau, a one-star admiral, was convicted last June after he pleaded guilty to making false statements to investigators about his contacts with Francis. He has since retired. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month in federal court.

Separately, the Navy has censured or disciplined three admirals for ethics violations after they accepted lavish meals and other gifts from Francis.

Others taken into custody Tuesday included David Newland, 60, a retired captain from San Antonio; James Dolan, 58, a retired captain from Gettysburg, Pa.; David Lausman, a retired captain from The Villages, Fla.; and Donald Hornbeck, a retired captain who lives in Britain.

Agents also arrested Enrico de Guzman, a retired Marine colonel from Honolulu; Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Shedd, an active-duty officer from Colorado Springs; and Robert Gorsuch, 48, of Virginia Beach, a retired chief warrant officer.

None of the defendants could be reached for comment Tuesday. The charges against them include bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators.

All of the accused officers formerly held key positions on the command staff of the Japan-based 7th Fleet and were bribed by Francis because they could help steer business to Glenn Defense Marine Asia, according to court papers.

The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. attorneys office in San Diego with the assistance of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

This is a fleecing and betrayal of the United States Navy in epic proportions, said Alana W. Robinson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. She said the defendants worked together as a team to trade secrets for sex, serving the interests of a greedy foreign defense contractor and not those of their own country.

The new indictment brings the number of people charged with crimes in the Fat Leonard investigation to 27. Ten current and former Navy officials have pleaded guilty so far.

Prosecutors say the case is still unfolding and that more than 200 people have come under scrutiny.

The scandal is the worst corruption case in Navy history and has rocked the service since Francis was arrested in September 2013 in an international sting operation that lured him from Singapore to San Diego. Francis pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges two years ago. and court papers indicate he has been cooperating with authorities.

Over time, the investigation has revealed the ease with which the 6-foot-3-inch, 350-pound defense contractor was able to penetrate the senior ranks of the 7th Fleet and recruit moles to work on his behalf.

Court papers portray Francis as a master manipulator who persuaded Navy officials to feed him classified information about ship movements and confidential contract information that he used to undercut his competitors.

Corrupt Navy personnel have also pleaded guilty to leaking Francis sensitive law enforcement files that he exploited for years to thwart dozens of failed criminal investigations into his company.

Despite rising signs of widespread fraud, the Navy kept awarding business to Franciss company to resupply its ships and submarines throughout Asia. In 2011, Glenn Defense won deals valued at $200 million to service U.S. vessels at ports stretching from the Russian Far East to Australia. The contracts were canceled after Franciss arrest in 2013.

While Francis was already legendary within the Navy for his hedonistic parties, the indictment unsealed Tuesday provided fresh details of how senior officers with the 7th Fleet allegedly became accustomed to living the high life at ports throughout Asia, at Franciss expense.

In February 2007, for example, Francis splurged for $50,000 worth of shopping, dining and luxury hotel rooms for Newland, de Guzman and others during a port visit to Singapore, prosecutors allege.

The next month, in Tokyo, the defense contractor allegedly took Newland, de Guzman, Hornbeck and others to the luxurious Oak Door restaurant, according to the indictment. The meal included foie gras, lobster thermidor, Sendai tenderloin, cognac and cigars.

For dessert: the Liberte Sauvage, the winning cake at the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie, a prestigious international baking contest.

During a four-day visit by the Blue Ridge to Hong Kong in January 2008, Francis provided rooms for Dolan, Hornbeck, Loveless and Shedd at the J.W. Marriott hotel at a price of $626 per night, court papers say.

Then he took all of them  plus Lausman  out for an extravagant dinner in a private room at the Petrus Restaurant overlooking Hong Kong harbor, according to the indictment.

That eight-course meal featured black truffle soup, rock lobster salad, osetra caviar, pan-seared duck liver with pear and sunchoke, Dover sole, grilled Wagyu beef tenderloin, fine cheeses and baked Alaska for dessert, court papers show.

Each course was paired with wine or Champagne. The total bill: $18,371.

Afterward Hornbeck, who at the time served as the 7th Fleets deputy chief of staff for operations, emailed Francis a thank-you note, according to the indictment. The food, music and wine were wonderful, he wrote.

Hornbeck, who was preparing to retire from the Navy, also sounded out Francis to see if he might be willing to hire him. If you are still considering opening an office in San Diego in the near-future, I would very much be interested in being a part of that, he wrote.

The job never materialized. But court papers show that Francis showered the Navy captain with other gifts, including $13,000 to pay for a culinary internship for a relative of Hornbecks at the Chalet Suisse restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Forget about keeping up with the Joneses. This time of year you want your house to be as crummy as possible. Why? Because its property tax assessment time, which means its also assessment appeal time. And if you can successfully argue that your house isnt worth as much as the government says it is, you can save a bundle of money on your property taxes.

Josh and Alicia Green embraced the concept of trashing their own house, writing a description for their appeal that was the polar opposite of a real estate agents gushing ad. We reminded them we lived on a busy road, Western Avenue, Josh Green said. We also told the city about costly repairs we needed, like a new roof. In addition, the Greens noticed that the District listed their house as having three bedrooms. But we alerted them that the previous owner had knocked out a wall and made it two bedrooms, thus lowering the value more, Green said.

[How to figure out the value of your home]

According to the National Taxpayers Union, less than 5 percent of homeowners do what the Greens did, even though the union estimates that between 30 and 60 percent of properties in the United States are over-assessed. The vast majority of assessors are not malicious or careless; they are simply making judgment calls about how to utilize limited resources in tackling a big job, said Pete Sepp, the unions president. Homeowners shouldnt take it personally, but they shouldnt assume the government is right, either. Sepp says that when well-prepared homeowners take the time to appeal, most win at least a partial victory. Heres how to improve your chances of being one of the winners:

Meet the deadline. Tax assessments in the District, Maryland and Virginia are mailed out January through March. (In some parts of the country, they arrive in the last quarter of the year.) Once you receive your assessment, you typically have just 30 to 120 days to file your appeal. Check the rules for your jurisdiction and make sure your paperwork is postmarked by the deadline.

Understand assessment ratios. Some jurisdictions tax your house based on 100 percent of its value, but others assign a lower assessment ratio, such as 60 percent. This means a house with a market value of $100,000 would have an assessed value of $60,000. If you see a number thats lower than your homes true value, check the assessment ratio before assuming you dont have a case. You can find that ratio on your actual tax assessment notice or on the assessors office website.

Look for errors on your property work sheet. Contact your tax assessors office and request the internal notes and data the assessor used when setting a value for your property. Different jurisdictions call this paperwork different things, including property work sheet and property card. What youre requesting are the internal notes and data the assessor used when setting a value for your property. Study these documents, checking for lot size, house age and dimensions, number of bedrooms and baths, most recent purchase price, and anything else that could affect your homes value. If you find mistakes that make your property seem more valuable than it is, that is strong ammunition. This is the tactic the Greens used when they pointed out that their house had two bedrooms, not three.

See if the comparables are really comparable. The governments internal notes will also include comparable properties the assessor used to help determine the value of your house. Look for reasons the properties the assessor chose are not appropriate. Are they bigger? Newer? Newly remodeled? Do they have watertight roofs, while your house needs a new one, as the Greens did? Next, identify three to six alternative comparables that are more favorable to you. You can find them free using such websites as Redfin, Trulia and Zillow. Or you can consult a real estate agent or appraiser.

[Grocery shopping in person or online: Which is best?]

Escalate as needed. Some property tax disputes can be settled through informal discussions with the assessors office. For example, Fairfax County, Va., encourages homeowners to call. More commonly, you will be asked to fill out forms and the entire process will be done on paper. If your initial appeal fails, most jurisdictions offer an in-person hearing as the next step. Tip: Attend somebody elses hearing first to get a feel for the process.

Hire help if you must. If you dont have time to follow the steps above, you can hire help. Some real estate lawyers take property tax appeals on a contingency basis, which means you dont pay unless you win. If you prevail, a typical fee is one-third to one-half of the first years savings.

The Greens ended up appealing their property tax assessment several years in a row and won every single time. Fighting our tax assessment was less time-consuming than filling out my kids summer camp forms, Alicia Green said. And for the time invested, you get money back instead of forking it over. The Greens estimate that they spent about five hours and saved at least $5,000 in property taxes over the seven years they lived in that house. We made a strong, truthful argument, and it was effective, Green said.

Sepp says the Greens got it right by sticking to nuts-and-bolts information about their property, rather than complaining that their assessment was unfair. A homeowner who marshals proper evidence, sticks to facts rather than make political statements and follows procedure is more likely to meet with success because theyve made their own luck, Sepp said. You wouldnt go into traffic court to challenge a parking ticket by arguing the mayor is corrupt. Rather, youd provide evidence you were parked there properly during nonpaying hours.

Another benefit of appealing your assessment: When you successfully lower your property tax rate, it resets from that lower rate for years to come. By the way, it did not affect the value of our house when we sold, Alicia Green said. I imagine people would wonder that. Its a common misconception, but think of it this way: Lower property taxes are a benefit for potential buyers as well.

Elisabeth Leamy is a 13-time Emmy winner and 25-year consumer advocate for programs such as Good Morning America and The Dr. Oz Show. Connect with her at leamy.com and @ElisabethLeamy.
James Madison didnt see the need to protect individual freedoms when he helped write the Constitution in 1787, but later he agreed to add a Bill of Rights. (National Gallery of Art)

When you think about the Founding Fathers, you probably think of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and, these days, Alexander Hamilton. Theres another founder whose legacy isnt a monument, memorial or Broadway musical.

Hes James Madison, and he left behind words that protect U.S. citizens  the Bill of Rights.

To mark Madisons 266th birthday, which is Thursday, we decided to examine one part of his legacy: a free press. Lets look at why Madison included free press guarantees in the Bill of Rights.

Truth wins

As a British subject, Madison knew it was a crime for newspapers to criticize the kings government. This was called seditious libel, and in England it didnt matter whether the criticism that the newspaper printed was true.

That was the baseline that the American colonists were working with, said Lata Nott, executive director of the First Amendment Center at the Newseum Institute in Washington.

But even before Madisons time, American laws had begun to change. In 1735, a New York newspaper publisher had been found not guilty of libel because what he had printed about that colonys governor was true.

Thats probably where the idea of free press was born, Nott said. If you say something true, you shouldnt be charged with any sort of a crime.

Ensuring freedom

As the colonies were separating from Great Britain, there was a lot of talk about freedoms. Just before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, fellow Virginian George Mason championed a free press in that colonys Declaration of Rights. He said it was something that can never be restrained but by despotic governments. (In a despotic government, one or a few leaders have all the power.)

Madison didnt see the need to protect individual freedom with a bill of rights when he and others wrote the Constitution in 1787.

Madisons feeling was the checks and balances would keep authority in check, Nott said, referring to the separate powers of the three branches of government.

But some lawmakers, including Mason and Jefferson, strongly supported the idea of guaranteeing freedom of the press.

In 1789, Jefferson wrote to a fellow lawmaker: Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

So Madison agreed to come up with amendments to protect citizens rights. He included this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Congress approved this amendment, and by December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the states ratified, or agreed to, it and nine others, adding them to the Constitution.

An early test

It didnt take long for some lawmakers to decide they didnt like a free press. In 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act, which made it a crime to publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government and President John Adams.

More than a dozen newspaper editors were fined or jailed, and even a member of Congress, Representative Matthew Lyon, was arrested for writing that Adams had an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp.

People were being thrown in jail for expressing opinions, Nott said.

The law expired when Adams left office in 1801, but that challenge to the First Amendment intensified Madisons support for an independent press, according to Hilarie Hicks, a research associate at Montpelier, Madisons home in Orange County, Virginia.

I would definitely say that the freedom of the press was always important to him, but he didnt see it challenged until the  Sedition Act, she said.

Thick skin

Presidents before and after Madison werent entirely supportive of the press.

As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers, Jefferson wrote while in office.

But theres nothing in Madisons papers to suggest that he changed his opinion about a free press, Hicks said. I dont think things got under his skin.

Even after two terms as president, Madison didnt waver. As he wrote to a former senator from Kentucky, A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with power which knowledge gives.
Flowers stick up from the snow as a woman stops to gaze out at the White House from Lafayette Square in Washington on Tuesday after a late-winter snowstorm moved through the area. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

A sloppy, blustery late-season storm lashed the Northeast with sleet and more than a foot of snow in some places Tuesday, paralyzing much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor after a remarkably mild February had people thinking the worst of winter was over.

The powerful noreaster grounded nearly 6,000 flights, knocked out power to nearly a quarter-million customers from Virginia northward, closed schools in cities big and small and prompted dire warnings to stay off the roads. Amtrak suspended service, and the Postal Service stopped mail delivery.

As the morning wore on, the storm track shifted slightly, and snow switched to sleet in Philadelphia and New York, prompting forecasters to lift blizzard warnings for the two big cities and cut their prediction of a foot or more of snow by over half.

But residents farther inland got clobbered. Towns along Pennsylvanias northern tier had nearly 16 inches of snow before 9 a.m., while a foot fell in the state capital of Harrisburg and nearly two feet in the Pocono Mountains. Wantage Township, New Jersey, got at least 17 inches.

The winters seem to be upside down now. January and February are nice, and then March and April seem to be more wintry than they were in the past, said Bob Clifford, who ventured out on an early morning grocery run for his family in Altamont, near Albany, New York.

Kids sled on the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday. Most area schools closed because of the snow. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

His advice: Just hide inside. Hibernate.

The largest amount of snow in the Washington area fell north of the city. Six to eight inches fells in Frederick County, Maryland, according to the National Weather Service.

The aboveground portions of the New York subway system were shut down, and the flight cancellations included nearly 3,300 in the New York City area alone. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at airports.

In the nations capital, the federal government announced a three-hour delayed arrival for nonemergency employees, with an option to take the day off or telecommute.

The noreaster came a week after the region saw temperatures climb into the 60s, and less than a week before the official start of spring.

A few days ago, workers on Washingtons Mall were making plan to turn on the fountains.

Obviously all that has to come to an abrupt stop until we get all the snow cleared, said Jeff Gowen, the acting facility manager for the National Mall and Memorial Parks. The cherry blossoms, theyre right on the cusp of going into bloom here. I had a feeling this was going to happen.

A couple walks on a snow-covered path in New Yorks Central Park on Tuesday. The city didnt have as much snow as parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Upstate New York. (Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

In Narragansett, Rhode Island, high winds knocked down a state-owned wind turbine. In New York City, two homes under construction collapsed near the waterfront in Far Rockaway. No injuries were reported.

And two ponies broke free from their stables and roamed the snow-covered streets of Staten Island until an off-duty police officer noticed them. Employing straps normally used to tow cars, he wrangled the animals and tied them to a lamppost. They were taken back to the stables.

We want to thank our cowboy officer, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

In Massachusetts, where the forecast called for 12 to 18 inches of snow, Governor Charlie Baker encouraged motorists to stay off the roads and to take public transit only if absolutely necessary, saying the fast snowfall rates would make driving hazardous.

Good day to make brownies  and or read a book, said Governor Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, which was expecting up to two feet of snow in some areas.

The storm coincided with New Hampshires traditional Town Meeting Day, when voters in more than 100 communities elect boards of selectman, library trustees and a host of other local positions, and in some locations, set their annual budgets.

Some towns postponed their elections because of the snow. But in Hopkinton, a steady stream of voters braved the blustery conditions to make it to the polls.

You know, theyre hardy New Englanders, and theyre coming to vote, said Debbie Norris, a candidate for the Hopkinton Budget Committee.

Schools in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and much of the Washington area were closed.

The heaviest snowfall was expected Tuesday morning through the afternoon, with as much as two to four inches per hour.
(Jenny Starrs,Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)

Once again, Big Bird is on the chopping block, threatened by the loss of federal funds that sustain public broadcasting stations. But the big yellow fella has been there before, and survived each time.

Is there any reason to think the outcome will be different this time around?

People in public broadcasting expect President Trump to propose zeroing out the governments subsidy of noncommercial radio and TV stations when he presents his first federal budget to Congress this week. Such a proposal would eliminate the $445 million that Congress now sends to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the private entity that passes the money to nearly 1,500 stations affiliated with NPR, PBS and other public-media sources.

The loss of federal money would be nearly catastrophic, particularly for small stations in remote communities, public broadcasters say. Those stations rely on federal funds for as much as half or more of their annual budgets. A number of those stations would go off the air, said Paula Kerger, PBSs president. Its an existential question for many of them.

Stations that survive the cut would have to raise even more money through pledge drives and sponsorships to make up for the loss of dollars from Washington, added Roger LaMay, the chairman of NPRs board and general manager of WXPN-FM in Philadelphia. It would weaken the entire public radio system, he said.

Then again, public broadcasters have been through the budget wars many times before and have always received the money that helps them broadcast Sesame Street and All Things Considered. In fact, no matter the rhetoric or momentary crisis, CPB has often ended up with a slight increase in its federal funding each year.

Presidents as far back as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan have discussed or proposed zero funding, only to have congressional allies come through to save the day. President George W. Bush proposed zero funding in all eight years of his administration; CPBs appropriation actually grew 14 percent during the Bush years.

First lady Laura Bush joins Big Bird and Elmo in a 2002 appearance promoting reading on Sesame Street. (DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images)

Which makes Big Bird more like Dracula; he keeps coming back from the dead.

The CPBs share of the $4 trillion federal budget is microscopic  typically around 0.01 percent. But it has long been a cultural pinata and symbol of government excess for conservatives, whove been critical of the alleged liberal bias of public radio and TV programming.

Among public broadcastings many budget scrapes was one in 2005 when Bushs education secretary, Margaret Spellings, complained that an episode of an animated childrens program, Postcards From Buster, had featured two families headed by lesbian parents. She demanded the return of federal funds that had subsidized the program; PBS decided to stop distributing the episode, heading off the impasse.

Public broadcasters expect more goose eggs in Trumps first budget proposal, but theyre optimistic that history will repeat itself when the budget process is completed.

Until we hear from the president, Im hoping for the best, said Patrick Butler, the president of Americas Public Television Stations (APTS), which represents most of the 171 public TV licensees in the country. But were prepared to defend ourselves.

Public broadcasting enjoys wide political support, primarily because public radio and TV stations are spread throughout big communities and small ones in both red and blue states. Over the years, people in public media have argued that many of these communities would lose irreplaceable educational and local news programs without federal support.

They have also mobilized the public at times, such as a 2011 lobbying campaign that brought Big Bird to the halls of Congress (that bit of theater may have been blunted by a 2015 deal between Sesame Streets parent company, Sesame Workshop, and HBO, in which Sesame produces first-run episodes for the pay-TV network; PBS gets the reruns).



A supporter of President Obama holds up a message supporting Big Bird in 2012 after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he would cut funding to public television. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The pro-subsidy forces typically have strong Democratic support, but theyre also counting on some powerful Republican allies. They include Senate appropriations committee chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), whose father was chairman of the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Commission in the 1960s, and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees CPB funding.

The House appropriations committee and subcommittee chairmen, Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.), have also previously supported CPBs funding.

On the other hand, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed eliminating the funding when he was chairman of the House Budget Committee.

We only need a few Republicans to win the day on either side of the Capitol, and we have more than a few of those, said Butler. I hope President Trump will review the record . . . and realize our funding is a tremendous bargain for the American people. I feel optimistic, but I dont want to get ahead of things.
Social activist Vijay Upadhyay said that having returned to power after a long gap of 14 years, the party may not want to let this issue rock its boat.

By Siraj Qureshi: Winning 325 seats in Uttar Pradesh may have propelled the BJP into securing one of the largest electoral victories in the history of the state but it has also posed numerous challenges before the party, including the expectation that now the party will build Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

A senior local leader of the BJP told India Today that the landslide victory appears to be riding on the expectation that if the obstacle of lack of central and state coordination are removed, the long-pending issue of Ram Temple will finally be resolved forever and after some time, the demand will gain prominence.

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He said that whenever the central government was requested to start the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, they rejected the plea on the ground that the state government will not allow the construction. But the BJP will have no excuses this time as both the central and state governments are with them.

BJP PROMISED IT IN MANIFESTO

Social activist Vijay Upadhyay said that having returned to power after a long gap of 14 years, the party may not want to let this issue rock its boat since one of the primary reasons for this landslide victory for the BJP is the promise made in its manifesto that the party will strive to build the Ram Temple within the limits prescribed by the Constitution of India.

He said this government has primarily been formed on majority votes and has proved that a majority government can be formed without religious appeasement.

Earlier when the Modi government was formed in the Centre the demand for Ram Temple was raised but the central government had given the excuse of not having a majority in the Rajya Sabha, but now the situation has turned in the party's favour and now the people may not be in the mood to take any more excuses on this issue.

Talking to India Today on the condition of anonymity, a senior priest of a prominent Agra temple said the majority voters have elected BJP into power because they wanted the temple to be built and now that all conditions are finally favourable for the construction of the temple, the demand for the construction to begin will rise soon.

He expressed hope that the central and state governments will coordinate on this matter now and instead of giving more excuses, will work together and find a way to build the temple. He said BJP knows what people want in the state and the VHP will also stand in full support of the state government if it begins the construction of the temple.

Also read:

Ram Mandir will be built in Ayodhya, BJP's Giriraj Singh asserts ahead of UP third phase polling

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People of UP have rejected the politics of appeasement of Muslims: BJP MP Yogi Adityanath

Also watch:

Ram temple will be constructed in Ayodhya when BJP comes to power: Vinay Katiyar

--- ENDS ---


The author looks out from the 7,080-foot Coronetas saddle toward the next days hike up the steep ridge leading to the Anisclo pass. (Margaret Brown)

Nineteen years ago my wife, our 14-year-old daughter Cate and I set out from the little principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees mountains and headed west on the long-distance Spanish hiking route called GR 11. With optimism born of ignorance, I had bought a dozen detailed trail maps  enough to get us 200 miles closer to the Atlantic. At the end of our allotted 19 days, we had used six of the maps and covered 86 miles  kind of like Lewis and Clark getting as far as Nebraska. I wrote about that bare-bones excursion in The Washington Posts Travel section.

A lot happens in 19 years. Not, obviously, to the Pyrenees; they endure. But how about us humans? Creakier, to say the least. Hey, how old are you, anyway? a younger man  well, who the hell isnt younger  asked as he breezed by us last summer on our way up to Collata Anisclo, an 8,000-plus-foot pass in the heart of the High Pyrenees along the northern tip of Spains Aragon region.

Daughter Cate was long gone from the nest, but my wife, Margaret, and I set off on the GR 11 from the same Spanish village where we ended the trip 19 years ago. In addition to finally using those surplus maps, the two of us were going to find out to what extent we had endured.



The rooftops of the small-but-busy village of Torla in the evening. Torla sits just below the impressive Ordesa Canyon and is a popular stopover for tourists. (Margaret Brown)

In truth, there was another, more powerful force pulling us back. The Pyrenees, that massive chain of soaring peaks separating Spain and France, offer the walker a constantly changing mix of visual pleasures.

Nineteenth-century explorer Henry Russell was downright lyrical on the subject: It is to the Pyrenees that the smiles of the artist and the heart of the poet will always turn. Im neither artist nor poet, just an old newspaper hack, but in those intervening 19 years I often daydreamed about taking up where we had left off.

Almost daily, the High Pyrenees trekker makes his or her way through a valley village of small stone houses, up green pastures punctuated by patches of blue wolfsbane and streaks of cascading streams, and then up more steeply across the gray scree to a notch in a wall usually of limestone or granite but always with a top-of-the-world view. The distant peaks may be a glistening white if the sun is shining or dark, even forbidding if it is not. The whining of the wind, the whistle of a marmot and an occasional bleat from sheep somewhere in the distance are the only sounds.

It is a magnificent experience, but a challenging one. Not as tall as the better known  and more heavily visited  Alps to the north, the Pyrenees nevertheless are plenty steep and rugged, especially for someone with crying knees. Mine were absolutely bawling as we inched up the almost impossible Anisclo incline  almost impossible for us but not for Franco, the speedy Italian who inquired about our age as he zipped by.

Maybe it was our less-thanrapid pace  indeed, the use here of pace is debatable  that informed his question; no doubt Margarets white hair and the scarcity of mine contributed. The answer, which we gladly shared with our new and fast-disappearing acquaintance, was that I was at the tail end of my 73rd year and Margaret was early in her 72nd.



This stone structure is one of many huts along the GR 11 that can serve hikers as overnight accommodations, albeit primitive ones, in bad weather. (Margaret Brown)

The Pyrenees stretch a little over 250 miles from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. But the GR 11 covers twice that distance as it twists and turns to find gaps and avoid summits.

Its part of Europes GR network of long-distance footpaths, GR for Grande Randonnee in French, Gran Recorrido in Spanish, meaning great excursion or tour.

Except for one brief skip across the French border and a short section in semi-independent Andorra, the GR 11 is entirely in Spain, running from near the resort city of San Sebastian on the Atlantic to the Mediterranean shore of Catalonia at Cap de Creus, mainland Spains easternmost point. The High Pyrenees, where we were, cover the trails 235-mile middle section. Peaks there top 9,000 feet, and hikers cross a 7,000-plus-foot pass almost daily.

Not to confuse things, there is also a GR along the Pyrenees French side  GR 10. Its a bit longer than the Spanish version but not as rough, according to Brian Johnson, author of guidebooks on both for the British publisher Cicerone. Johnson makes two other comparisons of interest to anyone weighing the options: GR 11 is generally sunnier and drier, and spends more time above the tree line. Neither requires technical climbing know-how or equipment  just some stamina and, every now and then, free hands. On particularly steep ups and downs, I needed all four extremities and would have welcomed a fifth. Hiking poles were definitely a must.

We started last summers trip  and ended our previous one  in Benasque, an attractive tourist village not far from Aneto and Posets, the Pyrenees two highest peaks. The bus ride there was itself an adventure. The first leg from Barcelona to Barbastro was uneventful. But the second into the mountains was on a narrow, sharply curving road, and as we were going up, one large, heavily loaded truck after another was coming down. That our driver and his co-pilot managed to get past each without a scratch seemed a small miracle, and that they did it in continuing good humor a large one. It definitely took both of them, one inside slowly turning the wheel, the other outside negotiating with the oncoming trucker and measuring inches between vehicles.



Guests at the Refugio de Goriz in the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park lather on sunscreen and get ready to head out for the day. (Margaret Brown)

We picked up the GR 11 just north of Benasque, and had an easy walk up to the Refugio dEstos, one of the routes numerous backcountry hostels offering meals and overnight accommodations. Like the refuges scattered through the Alps, these are informal, lively establishments but on the spartan side, which is to say you can expect to be packed away for the night on a wooden platform in a tightly spaced dormitory  a little too cozy for us claustrophobics. One fellow sufferer, a Dutch backpacker, showed me his coping strategy: Bose headphones that numbed him through the night with musical meditations.

We carried a tent and used it five of our 10 nights out, our other accommodations ranging from a small hotel to a fancy parador. But when a storm threatens, as it did that first afternoon, a refuge  no matter how sardine-like  is a welcome sight. Given that we arrived at the facility in prime vacation season without reservations, we were lucky to get in for the night.

Thankfully, the storm turned out to be merely raindrops, and the next morning the sun was out in force as we headed up to our first pass, the Puerto de Chistau at 8,438 feet. As throughout the GR system, the GR 11 is blazed with red and white stripes painted on rocks and trees. Where there are no such surfaces  only loose dirt and stones, as on the approach to Chistau  there are cairns to show the way. We had serious trouble divining the trail at only one spot: a high pasture where a herd of summering cows had obliterated the waymarks.

Conquering Chistau boosted our confidence, which was promptly shaken by the descent. As with a number of passes, the terrain was rockier and steeper on the downside. But I dont want to overemphasize the physical difficulties. We spent much of the trip tramping contentedly along forested valley paths and shaded farm tracks. Cruising down the gently sloping pasture above the deep Ordesa Canyon in the soft, late afternoon sunlight was bliss itself. The next day, we would descend to the canyon floor and into the throng of tourists attracted by this spectacular chasm. But up here, on top of the canyon walls, it was just the two of us  and sheep, literally hundreds of them.



Campsite near the Refugio de Goriz, looking down into the deep Ordesa Canyon; the flat land near the refuge is one of the few places tenting is allowed, making it a popular spot for backpackers. (Margaret Brown)

Our end-of-trip stats wont knock you over: In 10 days we covered 77 miles. But, as they say, whos counting? We had learned 19 years earlier about expectations and this time had none, at least not for distance. The only requirement was to end up somewhere with enough time to get back to Barcelona for our flight home. That turned out to be a resort complex five miles north of Panticosa, a mountain village with bus connections south to the major city of Huesca.

Rather than mileage, our main goal was internal: to find out if we had endured sufficiently to complete a Pyrenees trek, whatever the length. Simply put, could we do it? The answer, we concluded the final night at a celebratory dinner in our hotel above Panticosa, was a resounding yes. To experience the High Pyrenees and emerge exhausted but whole  that is the very definition of success.

Brown is a writer based in Arlington.

More from Travel:

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Still finding kicks on Route 66
The snow forecast for D.C. was shrinking Monday afternoon, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser was growing less concerned about its potential impact when her senior adviser received an unexpected call: President Trump wanted a briefing from Bowser on storm preparations.

To say the request came as a surprise at City Hall, two blocks from the White House, would be an understatement.

Presidents have over the years invited D.C. mayors to ceremonial and political events, but no one could recall a D.C. mayor being summoned to the Oval Office to brief the president  not for Noreasters that paralyzed the city; not when a 2011 earthquake damaged city landmarks; not even after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

I dont think Ive ever heard of such a thing, said D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D), who has represented Ward 2 since 1991.

The Oval Office discussion  about a storm that ultimately dropped just 2.5 inches of snow on the White House lawn  remained the source of intense debate Tuesday among city leaders.

Did the leader of the free world really need a storm briefing from the D.C. mayor? Was it a genuine attempt to coordinate with District officials? Or was it a condescending swipe at the city, raising doubts about whether it was prepared to handle snow?

It may be benign, but it certainly has the impression of Whos in charge here? and Wed like you to inform us of what youre doing because were superior to you,  said D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), whose committee oversees snow removal.

[Dvorak: Washingtons unnecessary snow day ought to be called a faux day]

There is no official record of the meeting. White House pool reporters were not informed, and no transcript was released. The event was announced 20 minutes after it ended, in a pair of tweets from Trump:

Meeting w/ Washington, D.C. @MayorBowser and Metro GM Paul Wiedefeld about incoming winter storm preparations here in D.C. Everyone be safe!

Reached by telephone Tuesday as they traveled the city inspecting road conditions, Bowser and her aides filled in some gaps, and said they are pleased that the White House reached out.

The request for the presidential briefing was made about 4 p.m., aides said, and seemed hastily arranged. The invitation came about 45 minutes after Politico posted an article on its website with the headline: Will Trump bungle first big snow threat like Obama did?

Bowser was told that she needed to be at the White House at 6 p.m., and that she could bring one guest.

She chose Paul J. Wiedefeld, the general manager of Metro, hoping for an opportunity to remind the White House of the importance of the D.C. area transit system, which says it needs a major federal investment.

When Bowser sat down opposite Trump in the Oval Office, she said, she got the impression that Trump and his aides were earnestly trying to get their bearings ahead of the storm.

(Jayne Orenstein,Whitney Leaming,Whitney Shefte,Lee Powell,McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)

It was a new administration that was dealing with its first storm of the East Coast and its first decision around federal workers, she said. His intent was making sure that all of the players knew each other and we have the right contacts and that if there were things the [federal] government could be doing, that they were being done.

Bowser, whose mostly Democratic constituents overwhelmingly oppose Trump, has been carefully modulating her posture toward the new administration, mindful that the White House and Congress hold unusual sway over her city.

[A tough forecast with a mix of successes and failures]

She has lobbed indirect criticism of Trumps policies, including his approach to illegal immigration, by pledging to use city funds to help immigrants fight deportation and Tweeting Our values didnt change on Election Day but some of them have come under attack. She attended Trumps inauguration, but also the massive womens march the following day that was billed as a protest of his election. Bowser, who Tweeted a steady stream of messages about the snow to her 34,000 followers, did not include anything about her visit to the Oval Office.

The mayor said she told the president that his team had been attentive, noting that she had received a call earlier in the day from the regional coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Trumps homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, also attended the Oval Office meeting.

Bowser said she thought Wiedefeld did a good job of stating the importance of the Metro system, which transports more than 40 percent of the federal workforce in the region.

That introduced another part, which they might not have recognized was so integral, she said. And for the president, it put a face to Metro.

Evans, who is also the Metro board chairman, said that he spoke with Bowser and Wiedefeld after the Oval Office briefing and that he thought the impromptu meeting was terrific.

I said to Paul, You got in front of the president on Metro. How did that happen?  Evans said.

It wasnt the first interaction between Metro officials and the Trump team. A controversy erupted last year when Trumps image was not included on a special SmarTrip card issued for the inauguration. Metro said at the time that Trumps transition team did not respond to its request for permission to use a photo. Eventually a compromise was reached: Metro offered commemorative sleeves that featured a photograph of the president and the text Make America Great Again!

Another point of contention came in January when White House spokesman Sean Spicer gave out false Metro ridership numbers as the White House incorrectly claimed that record crowds had attended the inauguration. Spicer later said the inaugural committee had provided incorrect information.

Metro operated on a weekend schedule Tuesday morning, with minimal reports of delays, while Bowser kept city government and schools open on a two-hour delay.

Evans said he thought the experience of D.C. and Metro would provide a new base to discuss Metro funding with the executive branch.

Its terrific, now when we circle back with the White House, theyll see were competent and we can do a good job running things.
The nonprofit organization run by prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer has been stripped of its tax-exempt status after failing to file financial returns for three years.

The Washington Post reported in December that Spencers think tank, the National Policy Institute, had been allowed by the federal government to operate in financial secrecy since 2013. The IRS, Spencer said Tuesday, told him a few days ago that his Virginia-based organization had lost tax-exempt status because it hadnt submitted the necessary records when it was supposed to.

Spencer blamed the mistake on a former bookkeeper and said he had already begun the reapplication process, which could take months.

[The financial secrecy behind white-nationalist group known for Hail Trump, Nazi salutes]

The institute, which promotes a form of American apartheid, has functioned as a public charity that relies heavily on contributions. The IRS almost always requires such organizations to file returns that detail where the money comes from and how it is spent. For reasons the agency still hasnt explained, Spencers group had been categorized among those not obligated to file any returns whatsoever, according to an examination by the Post.

Tax experts asked to review the case by The Post last year said they believed the classification was erroneous and should be fixed  and, when it was, they predicted that the institute would lose its tax exemption.

Despite the IRSs miscue, the experts added, Spencer still had a duty to provide the documents, known as Form 990s. The error allowed the institute to avoid public scrutiny at a time when the alt-right  the term Spencer coined to describe a movement seeking a whites-only state  had garnered international attention.

When Spencer was first asked about the issue, he said he didnt even know that his organization hadnt been filing returns. The blunder and its fallout, he said, led him to fire the firm that handled his accounting.

[Lets party like its 1933: Inside the disturbing alt-right world of Richard Spencer]

 The people I delegated this task to really screwed up. Ill take responsibility, he said. We solved the issue, but now were facing the consequences.

The institute, he said, will temporarily halt its fundraising until we get all of our is dotted and ts crossed. He predicted that it could take anywhere from one to six months to find out if theyll regain the tax-exempt status.

The setback, Spencer said, shouldnt devastate the institutes fundraising efforts, in part because many donors wish to remain anonymous and wouldnt claim the tax deduction anyway.

The IRS has given him no reason to believe that the revocation, first reported this week by the Los Angeles Times, was politically motivated, Spencer said, adding that he would only question the agencys motivation if it rejected his reapplication.

Im obviously going to respect their decision because mistakes were made on our end, he said.

Before this years presidential campaign, Spencer and his fellow alt-right members had promoted their pro-white ideals mostly in online obscurity. But President Trumps rhetoric on undocumented immigrants, Muslims and political correctness helped introduce their cause to the mainstream.

Spencer drew international attention in November when video of him shouting Hail Trump! at a white nationalist conference  and the Nazi salutes his declaration elicited  went viral. The night before, at a private dinner for conference attendees, Spencer had joked that they should party like its 1933, referencing the year Adolf Hitler was appointed Germanys chancellor.

Groups that monitor Spencer and other white supremacists were unaware that the IRS had not demanded that his organization file returns, and they objected when they were informed by the Post last year.

If theyre going to claim tax breaks for their donors, we should know where the money is coming from and what the money is being spent on, said Southern Poverty Law Center spokeswoman Heidi Beirich. Its important for the IRS to hold them to the same standard they hold the rest of us.
It has not been a good couple of weeks for people nominated by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to lead state agencies and serve on state boards.

On Monday night, Hogan withdrew Wendi Peterss name as his choice to head the Department of Planning, opting not to have the full Senate consider the nomination after a Senate committee rejected her as unqualified. That same committee approved Day Gardner to serve on the state Board of Physicians, but only after grilling her about whether her advocacy against doctors who provide abortions would affect her work on the board, which authorizes physicians licenses and investigates complaints against them.

And last week, Brandon Cooper, the governors selection to join the state Board of Education, withdrew his nomination after he took a hammering from state senators over his legal and financial history, which includes drunk-driving charges and state liens for nonpayment of taxes.

Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said that neither Peters nor Cooper was treated fairly. He also expressed frustration that the committee has not yet considered the nomination of Dennis Schrader to head the Department of Health, where he has been acting secretary since December.

There is no reason Schrader hasnt had a hearing, Mayer said.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

The Senate committee voted 11 to 6 against Peterss nomination Monday night, with members saying that she lacked the planning and managerial experience to lead the state agency.

Peters was a paralegal before becoming deputy secretary of planning in 2015, and she previously served on the Mount Airy Town Council in Frederick County and on the towns Board of Appeals and Planning Commission. She became acting secretary in July.

Policy expertise was not a strong part of her portfolio, said Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore), chairman of the Senate nominations committee.

Mayer said Peterss time in the department made her as qualified, if not more, than her predecessor, David Craig, who had been a lawmaker in the General Assembly for nine years when he first took the position.

There seems to be a double standard, Mayer said.

During a hearing last month, Peters was peppered with questions about her planning experience and her management style. Ferguson said the senators received letters from employees who questioned her ability and said she lacked experience.

Amelia Chasse, a spokeswoman for Hogan, called Peters eminently qualified and accused the committee of conducting an unfair hearing that was an insult to Peterss decades of service to her community and the state.

Also Monday, the Senate committee threw tough questions at Gardner before voting 12 to 3 to approve her nomination as a consumer member of the Board of Physicians.

Gardner, a Bowie resident, is founder of the National Black Pro Life Union. She was asked by Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery) about complaints that she has filed or supported against doctors who perform abortions.

In response, Gardner said she believes that any doctor who performs abortions and harms people probably should have their licenses revoked or be investigated.

She later added that she would love to see abortion not be available at all  but there is a law that we follow.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland and the Womens Law Center of Maryland asked the committee to oppose Gardners nomination, arguing that her advocacy raises questions about her ability to serve objectively on the physicians board if it is considering cases involving doctors who perform abortions.

As far as this board is concerned, I didnt see anywhere in the requirements that I had to side on one side of this issue or the other, Gardner said at the end of the hearing.

Ferguson said the questions about her position on abortion were not being used as a litmus test but instead to better understand Gardners experience and how she would approach her work on the board.

On Tuesday, Diana Phillips, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, called Gardners nomination absolutely unacceptable and said her organization will be pushing for the full Senate to vote against it.

Her activities, along with her colleagues, have created a culture of fear and intimidation for abortion providers, Phillips said. There is nothing in her history that leads us to believe that she can be unbiased when it comes to setting standards of care for abortion providers or reviewing any disciplinary cases.

Sen. Edward R. Reilly (R-Anne Arundel) said he thought the questioning was inappropriate.

The questions that are being asked are personal views, he said. I dont think that carries any bearing on the requirements to this board.
Montgomery County residents socked with a hefty property tax hike last year would get a reprieve from further increases this year under the operating budget proposed Tuesday by County Executive Isiah Leggett (D).

The $5.4 billion spending plan for fiscal 2018, which begins July 1, holds the line on taxes while increasing spending on schools, affordable housing, libraries and code inspections in apartment buildings.

Last year, Leggetts budget included an 8.7 percent boost in the average residential tax bill  the largest since 2008  citing the needs of the fast-growing school system and revenue losses triggered when the Supreme Court ruled that Marylands income-tax system was unconstitutional. He later trimmed the proposed increase to about 6 percent, but the County Council, which has the final say on budget matters, added new spending and ultimately approved a boost of nearly 9 percent.

The boost in taxes added to a brewing anti-incumbent sentiment among county voters, who approved a term-limits ballot measure in November.

Leggett, whose third and final term ends in 2018, said last years big increase should rule out any hikes over the next two years.

My view is that such a significant tax increase in one year means we should not ask the taxpayers to again pay at a greater rate to fund the FY 18 and FY 19 budgets, he said Tuesday in his budget transmittal letter to Council President Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda).

The proposed budget holds property taxes essentially flat. The median bill for a $400,000 home would increase by about $20, from $4,106 to $4,126, due entirely to increased property values. With home assessments growing, Leggetts budget reduces the property tax rate by 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed value, from $1.025 to $1.00.

The proposed 2018 budget includes a moderate amount of new spending compared with last years plan. Leggett urged restraint in light of economic challenges and uncertainties at the federal and state levels.

President Trumps budget, which will be released Thursday, is expected to include historic shrinkage in the federal workforce that could hit hard in Montgomery, where more than 45,000 federal workers reside.

The county will also feel the continuing effects of the Supreme Courts decision in the Wynne case. The court ruled that a state law denying residents a full credit for taxes paid on income earned outside Maryland constituted illegal double taxation and ordered refunds issued to residents who had filed claims.

The ruling means that the county will receive about $30 million less in state income tax revenue each year. It must also pay $27 million a year in refunds between 2019 and 2023.

The uncertainties we are facing at the federal and state levels are a necessary backdrop to your consideration of the FY 18 Operating Budget, Leggett said in his letter to Berliner.

Montgomery Public Schools continue to claim about half of county spending. The 159,000-student system would receive $2.3 billion under Leggetts proposal, about $25 million over state-mandated funding levels. That is significantly less than last years increase, which was nearly $90 million more than the state minimum. Montgomery College would receive $2 million over state requirements, bringing its annual operating budget to $309 million.

Leggetts plan increases spending on affordable housing by $53 million and expands county library hours. It also provides an additional $1.6 million to fund improvements in landlord-tenant relations, required by new legislation. The money would also underwrite a more robust code-inspection program.

The budget includes an additional $4 million for the new publicly funded campaign-finance system that will debut in 2018. Leggett said in an interview Monday that he views the legislation creating the system as poorly drafted and included the money grudgingly.He said his main concern is that there is uncertainty over how much the system, which had already been slated for $6 million in funding, will actually cost.

The council will review Leggetts proposal and pass a final budget in May.
The murder prosecution of Joaquin S. Rams, which took a winding four-year route to the opening of his trial Monday, had another twist when Prince William County prosecutors elected to call their most controversial informant  a triple murderer with a lengthy psychiatric history  as their first witness. And he promptly refused, repeatedly, to testify.

The prosecutors claimed in their opening statement that Rams, now 44, drowned his 15-month-old son in Manassas City in October 2012 because he was deeply in debt and had $524,000 in life insurance policies on the toddler. The defense contends that the boy, Prince McLeod Rams, had a series of febrile seizures in the weeks before his death and that Prince was not murdered.

Also Monday, Ramss older son took the stand to describe how his father burst into his room on the afternoon of Oct. 20, 2012, shouting Princes name, then rushed the toddler to a bathroom and began splashing cold water on his chest. Joaquin Rams Jr., then 13, said he hadnt noticed anything unusual as his brother slept in a crib nearby, but he said he was wearing a headset and playing a first-person shooter video game with three friends online when the uproar started.

Ramss capital murder trial is being decided by a judge rather than a jury, both sides having agreed to let Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows issue the verdict. The prosecution has removed the death penalty from the case, but Rams still faces life in prison without parole if convicted of killing his son.

[A toddler died. Was it a tragic illness or murder?]

Joaquin Shadow Rams. (AP /Manassas City Police Department)

Prosecutors often begin complex murder trials by building a chronology of events for the jury. But with Bellows already well aware of the facts of the case, veteran Prince William Commonwealths Attorney Paul B. Ebert chose to open the prosecution by calling Jose Reyes Alfaro, one of four jailhouse informants identified as possible witnesses against Rams.

He may or may not testify, Ebert said, after summoning Reyes Alfaro.

In February 2011, Reyes Alfaro shot and killed a woman he had been dating and her adult son, then went to another house and fatally shot a friend and slashed the throat of a 77-year-old woman, who survived. Court records show he later falsely accused another man of a separate murder, which resulted in that mans arrest, and told authorities that he knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and had served in a secret elite military unit in El Salvador.

The use of jailhouse informants has become a heated topic across the country. The conviction of a man accused of killing government intern Chandra Levy was thrown out after a jailhouse informant was found to have lied on the witness stand. In Orange County, Calif., numerous murder cases are being revisited after it was discovered that the county jail managed a squad of informants.

[Va. murder trial may become part of national debate on jail informants]

In Prince William in 2011 and 2012, a judge found Reyes Alfaro incompetent to stand trial. A psychologist wrote in 2012 that Reyes Alfaros reporting of past events, actions and relationships give me pause to question his ability to distinguish memories from fantasy. He eventually was restored to sanity and pleaded guilty to the attacks in 2014, receiving seven life sentences.

Reyes Alfaro testified that he had been in the same cell block as Rams in the Prince William jail, where Rams has been since January 2013. But when Ebert asked him what Rams told him, Reyes Alfaro said through an interpreter, I have nothing to say about that.

Ebert pressed him, but Reyes Alfaro responded, I dont wish to testify.

Reyes Alfaro eventually asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Ebert offered him immunity for his testimony. I have nothing to say, he responded.

Bellows ordered the witness to testify or face contempt-of-court charges. I have nothing to say, Reyes Alfaro repeated. The judge held the witness in contempt of court, to remain in jail until he agrees to testify, in addition to his seven life sentences.

It was not clear what information Reyes Alfaro had provided regarding the case. Ebert said in court that Reyes Alfaro had testified before a grand jury, but he did not elaborate.

Joaquin Rams Jr., now 17, had some difficulty remembering the events surrounding Princes death, and he avoided eye contact with his father throughout his time on the stand. But he recalled going with his father to pick up Prince, who lived with his mother in Maryland, and playing with him once they returned home to Manassas City for a seven-hour visitation.

Joaquin testified that after lunch his father placed the toddler in a crib in the teenagers room, but poked his head in a couple of times to check on Prince. The teen had a headset on, covering one ear, and said he would have been able to hear any cries from the toddler.

He barged into the room and picked up Prince and started saying his name, the teen recalled of his father. He was acting like Prince was dying.

Joaquin said he followed his father and Prince to the bathroom, where he saw his father taking the boys clothes off and splashing water on Princes chest and stomach, with Princes feet closest to the faucet.

The teen said his father told him to go get Roger Jestice, a roommate, and Joaquin did so, and Jestice called 911.

Defense attorney Joni Robin said in her opening statement that the tape of that call is evidence of Ramss agony when his son suddenly stopped breathing, not that he was drowning him.

Chief Deputy Commonwealths Attorney James Willett said in his opening statement that Rams was deeply in debt, unable to pay a $500,000 mortgage, a $50,000 line of credit and other bills, and that created a perfect storm when Rams took out $524,000 worth of life insurance on Prince in the fall of 2011.

Greed, debt, sloth and apathy combined to create the opportunity for Rams to kill the boy and lift himself out of debt, Willett said.
With President Trumps new entry ban set to kick in at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, lawyers and volunteers are mounting a last-minute campaign to halt the executive order in federal courts, mobilize protests and aid any travelers who might be stranded this time around.

On Wednesday, federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland will hear arguments on whether to halt Trumps revised executive order, which suspends the U.S. refugee program, temporarily bars the issuance of new visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries and slashes refugee admissions to the United States this fiscal year from 110,000 to 50,000.

Late Tuesday, the federal judge in Seattle who stopped Trumps first entry ban was to review legal briefs in that case.

Time is of the essence, said Peter Lavallee, spokesman for the Washington state attorney generals office, which filed the lawsuit in Seattle with the support of several other states. Well just wait to see what happens.

The American Civil Liberties Union and others have called Trumps orders discriminatory, while federal officials say the actions seek to protect the United States from terrorism.

(Bastien Inzaurralde,Jayne Orenstein,Alice Li/The Washington Post)

U.S. District Judge James L. Robart had ordered Trump administration lawyers to submit a brief by 4:30 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday in the Seattle lawsuit. He could rule that his injunction on the ban remains in effect, despite changes in the revised order.

Either way, lawyers said the hearing in Greenbelt, Md., will be critical to the part of the executive order that deals with refugee programs, because Robarts ruling did not apply to that section.

Refugee rights organizations in the Maryland case are seeking to halt the presidents entire executive order and warn the United States is already nearing Trumps new refugee limit.

As of last week, more than 37,000 refugees had been admitted to the United States, according to the State Department. Lawyers say Trumps order leaves 60,000 other refugees  and the organizations that help them  in the lurch this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

That makes their ability to carry out their mission nearly impossible, said Melissa Keaney, a lawyer with the National Immigration Law Center, which is arguing the Maryland case with the ACLU and others. They have to basically scramble to try to find safe housing for individuals who are in very dangerous and precarious situations.

In February, Robart suspended Trumps Jan. 27 entry ban, a broad executive order that suspended the refugee program, halted travel for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including those who already had been issued visas, and triggered chaos and protests at airports worldwide.

When Robart froze Trumps original executive order, the president criticized him on Twitter, declaring him a so-called judge and deeming his ruling ridiculous. But a three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously upheld the judges decision and kept Trumps entry ban on hold.

Instead of appealing, Trump issued a revised order on March 6. The Justice Department has said the new measure supersedes the restraining order imposed on the initial ban, and will be enforced starting Thursday.

[What Trump changed in the new travel ban]

Trumps new order reduces the list of affected countries from seven to six  removing Iraq, while keeping Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria. The order blocks the issuance of new visas for 90 days  exempting those with green cards or visas in hand  and spells out a robust list of people who could apply for exemptions. The order maintains a 120-day freeze on the refugee program and slashes the number to be admitted this year.

On Monday, the state of Washington asked the court to stop the administration from carrying out the latest executive order.

Injunctions are not suggestions, lawyers for the state of Washington wrote. When a court enjoins a defendant from enforcing policies, the defendant cannot evade the injunction by announcing that it will continue only some of the illegal policies.

The new order undoubtedly reduces the number of people with standing to sue. But civil liberties advocates and others say it is still legally problematic. Washington and other states have said the order imposes economic harm on them, and that, like the first ban, it is unconstitutional because it is intended to discriminate against Muslims.

The problem is that this administration from the beginning has said that its intent was to discriminate against Muslims and shut out Muslims, said Cecilia Wang, the ACLUs deputy legal director.

Federal officials have disputed that characterization and said the order is necessary for national security. The administration also argues that there is no need to freeze the order while people challenge it in court because it does no imminent harm.

No visa is revoked. No lawful permanent resident traveling abroad is barred from returning, the Justice Department said in a brief filed Monday in the Maryland lawsuit. Nobody lawfully in the United States loses any prior ability to leave the country to travel and later return. . . . Plaintiffs, in short, identify no cataclysm that will befall them on March 16 or any time soon thereafter.

Sirine Shebaya, a civil rights lawyer and member of the Dulles Justice Coalition, a group of mostly lawyers who mobilized after Trumps initial ban in January, said the organization is preparing for another wave of chaos and confusion at airports around the world.

The group has maintained a skeleton staff at Dulles International Airport since the first order, but Shebaya said it will return in larger numbers Thursday. Other groups are planning protests at the airport on Saturday.

Were planning to ramp up our presence, she said.

Refugee rights organizations say Trumps executive orders are putting families fleeing war and other dangers at risk.

Essentially the door is slamming shut, said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service , the second-largest refugee-resettlement agency in the United States. Who knows what cues other countries will take if we just shut the door?

Abigail Hauslohner contributed to this report.
More than six dozen Alexandria residents told the City Council on Monday night to spend more money on local schools. (Patricia Sullivan/The Washington Post)

Advocates for fully funding Alexandrias public school operations and long-term construction needs swarmed into the citys budget hearing Monday, calling for more spending, even if it requires more tax hikes and additional debt.

More than six dozen people, mostly parents of public school students, told the council that a proposal by City Manager Mark Jinks to add $373 million for construction and repairs of deteriorating schools was far too short of the $611 million that the school superintendent said is needed over the next decade.

One after another, residents described leaky ceilings, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate cafeterias and cracked foundations in some schools.

When it comes to a childs education, its not enough to do the best we can. We have to get the job done, said Karen McManus, president of Jefferson-Houston Schools PTA. The time for half-measures is over.

The council members listened to four hours of testimony with little comment. Jinks last month proposed a budget with a tax-and-fee increase that would boost the tax rate by 2.7 cents. The combined tax-and-fee hike could cost the owner of an average home in Alexandria an additional $400 in fiscal 2018.

Completely funding the school districts requests would require a tax-rate increase between 5.6 and 8.6 cents, making the average tax bill jump between $493 and $651 per year, depending on the cash-debt split and the length of time the debt is financed, Jinks said.

School advocates said the city should consider raising taxes and borrowing money to finance repairs and new construction for the school system, which doesnt have enough space for a booming enrollment.

Supporters of other spending priorities also pressed the council to restore money that had been taken out of the budget.

Affordable-housing advocates had expected $4.3 million from the city to help them buy land from the Church of the Resurrection in the West End that would be turned into a 113-unit rental complex. The city has already allocated $4 million for the purchase. Without the additional $4.3 million in fiscal 2018, the project is dead, officials said, despite a sharp decline in affordable units in the city.

Those who have been working to get a 50-meter swimming pool at the Chinquapin Park Recreation Center decried Jinkss decision to cut the $15.4 million project from the budget proposal, saying it was the third time since 1985 that funding for the pool had been eliminated.

The outpouring of parents seeking more money for schools was frustrating to residents advocating for other priorities.

Retiree Jack Sullivan, who pressed council members last year to spend more money to resolve the citys combined sewer system, which overflows into the Potomac River when it rains, charged that school officials encouraged parent activists to show up in force to pressure the council for full funding of their budget request.

This is unconscionable behavior. If those people were in the federal government, they would be subject to sanctions, Sullivan said, arguing that fully funding the school systems capital request would cost too much for taxpayers on fixed incomes. Resist those pressures. Do the right thing. Vote the managers proposal and not a dime more for the ACPS.

Others promised to remember during next years city elections how council members voted on the school issues.

The council has not yet set the maximum advertised tax rate for the coming year. A final budget and tax rate adoption is scheduled for May 4.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, left, and U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman appear together in Virginia in 2012 when Ryan was Mitt Romneys vice presidential running mate. (Peter Cihelka/AP)

Three of Virginias seven Republican members of Congress have come out against House Speaker Paul D. Ryans plan to revise the Affordable Care Act  and the other four have yet to take a position.

The dissent, from two hard-line conservatives and one moderate, illustrates the challenge House leaders face in pushing a proposal that the Congressional Budget Office said would reduce the deficit but also leave 24 million more Americans uninsured.

For weeks, Reps. Dave Brat and Thomas Garrett, both members of the Freedom Caucus, have warned that Ryans plan would not go far enough to roll back former president Barack Obamas health-care law.

Then on Monday, Rep. Rob Wittman announced that he, too, opposes the plan, saying that it is clear that this bill is not consistent with the repeal and replace principles for which I stand.

The move was unexpected because Wittman has a moderate voting record, and, without the support of mainstream members like him, experts say, the bill will not pass in its current form.

Wittman represents the traditional Mid-Atlantic Republican. Hes not a tea partyer, hes not Freedom Caucus Republican. He is a legislator, said David Wasserman, who is House editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Through a spokesman, Wittman declined interview requests. Messages of thanks flooded his social-media accounts.

The rest of the states Republican congressional delegation has not responded to requests about their positions on Ryans plan: Reps. Bob Goodlatte, H. Morgan Griffith, Barbara Comstock and Scott W. Taylor. The only Republican in Maryland's delegation, Rep. Andy Harris, said in a radio interview Friday that he opposes the bill in its current form. Democratic members of Congress from Maryland and Virginia want to defeat the plan.

Republican plans to revise the Affordable Care Act present a political minefield for members such as Comstock, who represents a Northern Virginia district where Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had a 10-point edge over Republican Donald Trump in November.

The legislation is a work in progress, and we continue to talk with constituents, medical professionals, and other stakeholders on their concerns and needed reforms, Comstock spokesman Jeff Marschner said in a statement.

Goodlatte, the senior Republican in the delegation and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a message to constituents last week that he was still reviewing Ryans plan to make sure its a better way forward for Virginians than our current course.

Griffith, in his weekly newsletter to constituents on Monday, said he expected the bill to change before it reaches the floor and plans to offer an amendment requiring able-bodied Medicaid recipients without young or disabled children to work or be retrained.

In an interview Tuesday, Taylor said he was undecided but leaning toward supporting the bill because this is what I campaigned on and leadership is not about getting 100 percent of what you want.

The CBO predicts premiums would increase up to 20 percent in the first year under Ryans plan, called the American Health Care Act, but decrease by 2026.

Wittman did not explain which provisions of the plan he rejects, but he maintains that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed. He has said he would only favor a plan that preserves Medicare and Medicaid and does not grow government.

I do not think this bill will do what is necessary for the short- and long-term best interests of Virginians, and therefore, I must oppose it, he said.

I do believe that we can enact meaningful health-care reforms that put the patient and health-care provider back at the center of our health-care system, but this bill is not the right answer, he added.

If Wittman, who was first elected to Congress in a 2007 special election, decides to run for higher office, his early opposition to Ryans American Health Care Act could distinguish him from other Virginia Republicans.

In 2016, Wittman was building a campaign for Virginia governor and eyeing a run for the Senate if Clinton had won the White House and installed Sen. Tim Kaine as her vice president. Instead, Kaine stayed put, and Wittman dropped out of the governors race to focus on Congress.

He was named chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on sea power and projection forces, which oversees the U.S. Navy fleet. Wittman joined Trump this month at the Newport News shipyard, which builds the nations aircraft carriers, and both men have said they want to increase military spending.

Republicans say Wittman is a potential contender to challenge Kaine in the 2018 midterm elections.

The congressmans sprawling Republican district means he must appease independent voters in Prince William County who favored Clinton and die-hard conservatives in the suburbs outside Richmond.

Hes caught between two Republican worlds, Wasserman said, and two kinds of voters who view this legislation with skepticism for very different reasons.
A snow splattered sign along Sligo Creek Parkway just outside Washington, which all but shut down from very little snow. (Bill OLeary/The Washington Post)

Are you enjoying your snow day Washington? The one that was absolutely unnecessary?

New year, new administration, new world order, same old snow spaz.

Our annual snow freakout did not disappoint. On Tuesday, the nations capital basically shut down for a big two inches of wintry mix. The city is a little snowy and icy and about as quiet as parts of the Mall on Inauguration Day.

Not only did the region wig out and raid all stores of milk, bread and toilet paper as the satellite maps got more colorful, but the bananas were also totally gone from one Maryland Wegmans. Whose snow plan was that?

Nearly all the schools in the region closed. Day cares shut down. The federal government was on a three-hour delay. Even schools on Quantico base called it a day. If the Marines cant defeat Winter Storm Stella, what hope do we have?

(Claritza Jimenez,Angela Fritz/The Washington Post)

President Trump summoned the District, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and the head of the Metro system, Paul J. Wiedefeld, to prepare for the blizzard and tweeted the awkward photo.

Isnt this the point in a young presidency when  as Barack Obama did his first winter in D.C.  the president coming from a snowier state brags on their home towns flintiness and mocks D.C. wimpiness?

Instead, the White House postponed a meeting between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in anticipation of the Slushzilla. Germany must be laughing all the way to Garmisch over that one.

In Washingtons defense, D.C. public schools were the only ones in the region that stayed open, with a two-hour delay.

And wow, did the kids howl. I really cant post their tweets. A lot of profanity went down.

But parents were also upset and took it upon themselves to make the call.

@NOTcheckn4U let them have it: I told my kids to stay home, its still snowing out here in dc. To hell with DCPS.

(The Washington Post)

So here we are, in a country filled with people prepping for the coming Apocalypse, and we apparently cant dig our way out of two inches of snow.

Where are the shovels? demanded Angela Fritz, my colleague at the Capital Weather Gang. She is among those who suspect Washington is filled with slackers eager to seize any excuse for a snow day. Its an annual ritual  the D.C. version of Mardi Gras  and we didnt get to play hooky from work and school during our creepy warm winter.

[Freaky February: The warmth feels fabulous and frightening all at once]

Maybe were like the plants that Scott Aker, head of horticulture at the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Arboretum, cares for.

He told me last month that flora need a deep, long freeze to come back full of vigor. And a lukewarm winter doesnt give them the rest they need  or we need.

Humans need time to shut down, to stop feeling obligated to go, go, go.

This winter has been exhausting. The election, the inauguration, the resistance, the presidential tweetstorms, the deep state confrontations. No wonder the nations power center shut down the moment a flake was spotted.

With climate change, real snow days are going to become more sparse and pretend snow days are going to be harder to justify. The whole ritual will become even fake newsier, like that Obama/Trump meeting after the election. Ick.

So lets just call it what it is  Faux Day.

Go ahead people: flick on the Netflix, make the hot chocolate, admit defeat. Recharge. Just dont blame it on the weather.

Happy Faux Day.

Twitter: @petulad
By Press Trust of India: London, Mar 14 (PTI) Children who watch TV or use smartphones or tablets for more than three hours a day may be at a higher risk of developing diabetes, a new study has warned.

Daily screen time of three or more hours is linked to several risk factors associated with the development of diabetes in children, researchers said.

advertisement

These include adiposity, which describes total body fat and, crucially, insulin resistance, which occurs when cells fail to respond to insulin, the hormone produced by the pancreas to control levels of blood glucose.

Researchers, including those at St Georges, University of London, assessed a sample of nearly 4,500 9-10 year old pupils from 200 primary schools in the UK for a series of metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors.

These included blood fats, insulin resistance, fasting blood glucose levels, inflammatory chemicals, blood pressure and body fat. The children were also asked about their daily screen time to include TV, and use of computers and games consoles.

Boys (22 per cent) were more likely than girls (14 per cent) to say they spent three or more hours on screen time, as were African-Caribbean (23 per cent) kids compared with their white European (16 per cent) or South Asian peers (16 per cent).

Trends emerged between screen time and ponderal index - an indicator of weight in relation to height, and skin-folds thickness and fat mass - indicators of total body fat.

These levels were all higher in children reporting more than three hours of daily screen time than in those who said they spent an hour or less on it.

There was a strong trend between a daily quota of three or more hours of screen time and levels of leptin, the hormone that controls appetite; fasting glucose and insulin resistance.

The associations between screen time and insulin levels, insulin resistance, ponderal index, skinfolds thickness and fat mass remained significant even after taking account of potentially influential factors, such as household income, family background, puberty stage and physical activity levels.

"Our findings suggest that reducing screen time may be beneficial in reducing type 2 diabetes risk factors, in both boys and girls and in different ethnic groups from an early age," researchers said.

"This is particularly relevant, given rising levels of type 2 diabetes, the early emergence of type 2 diabetes risk, and recent trends suggesting that screen time related activities are increasing in childhood and may pattern screen-related behaviours in later life," they said.

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The research was published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. PTI SAR SAR

--- ENDS ---
Ashley Hermit, left, sleds with Julia Preston, 9, center, and her mother Caroline Preston, right, on a hill at the U.S. Capitol.

March 14, 2017 Ashley Hermit, left, sleds with Julia Preston, 9, center, and her mother Caroline Preston, right, on a hill at the U.S. Capitol. Matt McClain/The Washington Post

A powerful Noreaster delivers every type of winter precipitation imaginable across the metro region.

A jogger and his dog navigate a snow-covered path on the Mall in Washington.

A jogger and his dog navigate a snow-covered path on the Mall in Washington.

The first major winter storm in the Washington region closed some schools Tuesday, delayed the opening of others and the start of the day for federal workers, but fell short of the paralyzing impact it had from New York to New England.

Every major school system in the region closed Tuesday, with the exception of D.C. schools, which opened late. Several systems announced they would open late on Wednesday, and public schools in Prince William County and Manassas City will be closed. Officials warned that snowy slush could turn to ice during colder overnight temperatures.

The Washington Teachers Union criticized the decision to remain open Tuesday, saying it put faculty and students at risk.

Over 2,000 of our teachers live outside of the District, primarily because their salaries do not allow them to buy or rent homes in D.C., President Elizabeth A. Davis said in a statement. Its unfair to ask them to travel from places like Fairfax, Gaithersburg, Waldorf and other towns and cities outside of D.C. to make it to work on a day like today.

What message are we sending our children and their parents when city leaders use their authority to decide to close their own offices and stay home where they are safe, but then refuse to close the D.C. schools, thereby forcing children and DCPS school workers to report to school under these same risky and unsafe road conditions? Davis said.

(The Washington Post)

The decision to open schools two hours late was made by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) in consultation with school officials and city agencies, said D.C. Public Schools spokeswoman Michelle Lerner.

Our priority is to open schools whenever possible, Lerner said, pointing to the 77 percent of the school districts 48,000 students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals and rely on school for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.

The weather created travel chaos affecting almost every city in the Northeast, with nearly 7,000 flights canceled. Amtrak and other rail lines  including Metro  reduced service, and there were flood warnings along the coast from Delaware to Massachusetts.

The outlook for air travel Wednesday was much brighter, with fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations. Officials at American Airlines said they resumed flights from Philadelphias airport at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. The airline expected to resume flights out of New York, New Jersey and Boston by noon Wednesday.

Metro will resume normal rail service Wednesday, but Metrobus will begin the day on a moderate service schedule because of potential refreezing overnight, which could create slick conditions on roads.

Bus routes that run on a moderate schedule can be seen here.

The ice and heavy snow brought down trees and power lines, knocking out service for more than 5,000 customers in the Washington region, but utilities moved quickly to restore power.

Our crews have been working around the clock and have already made significant progress to restore power to customers, said Pepco President Donna Cooper.

However, Smeco, which serves Charles County, reported about 2,000 homes and businesses there without power about 8:30 p.m.

[Wintry mix tapering off in D.C. region; scattered snow showers likely this afternoon]

Snowfall amounts varied. The Washington Posts Capital Weather Gang reported snowfall totals of 10 inches in Frederick County, Md.; four inches in northern Montgomery County; 6.5 inches in Loudoun County, Va.; and three inches inside the Beltway.

Powerful wind gusts were felt throughout the region. All three major airports measured gusts of more than 40 mph on Thursday.

Many in the D.C. region were surprised to be dealing with winter in March.

For some, the bus was a refuge.

Wearing a blue lanyard around his neck, a middle-age man tucked his roller bag, duffle bag and carefully folded comforter into a couple of seats by the back door of the S4 Metrobus.

It was cold out there, but it could have been worse.

The decision by District schools to open two hours late did not bother Amy Duarte Feehan, but the calls timing did.

Im from the Midwest, so Im totally fine with school being open and support that decision, said Feehan, who teaches literacy at Brightwood elementary. My frustration is that they told us at 5 a.m. Its really hard to plan your day at 5 a.m., and to wait that long feels somewhat disrespectful to parents.

Highways and major roads in Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs were passable fairly early in the day, state officials said. But crews continued to shove aside slush from between lanes.

Virginia and Maryland state police said they handled more than 100 calls for crashes Tuesday morning because of icing., and officials said many drivers continued to drive too fast for the conditions

The likelihood of remaining slush refreezing before Wednesday mornings commute worried road crews, particularly as ramps and overpasses freeze first.

The high potential for black ice is even more concerning than if there was just snow on the roads, said Jennifer McCord, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation. People need to take that seriously.

The storms primary challenge was its vast mix of precipitation, from a wet, slushy snow to freezing rain and sleet. Charlie Gischlar, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration, said there were about 20 reports Tuesday of large limbs falling onto roads and power lines in Prince Georges and Anne Arundel counties and southern Maryland. Snowfall was heaviest in upper Montgomery and Frederick counties.

Even when the storm moved on, Gischlar said, crews would continue to treat icy spots overnight.

Its not over yet, he said.

Like many hardware store managers, Eric Hardy of Old Takoma Ace Hardware in Takoma Park had already made the switch to spring inventory. At the end of a mild February, he had stashed the unsold shovels at an off site storage unit. His three pallets of leftover ice melt were buried underneath bags of mulch and topsoil.

I looked at the forecast three weeks ago and didnt see anything like this, Hardy said as two men stood in line to buy the suddenly coveted shovels. We had to dig it all out on Saturday.

By midmorning Tuesday, his sales had been brisk. One pallet of salt was gone by the time the first flakes fell Monday evening. So were the sleds that had gone unwanted all winter long.

We still have some toboggans, Hardy said.

They were right next to the grass seed.

[Federal government and school closures and delays in the D.C. area]

Lori Aratani, Emma Brown, Peter Hermann, Steve Hendrix, Michael Laris, Antonio Olivo, Katherine Shaver, Joe Heim, Martin Weil and Angela Fritz contributed to this report.
For more than a decade, Sen. James M. Inhofe has raged against the scientific consensus that humans are fueling climate change, calling it the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on Americans. The Oklahoma Republican has blasted the Environmental Protection Agency as an activist organization that has unfairly burdened everyone from farmers to fossil-fuel companies.

Now the man critics once dismissed as a political outlier has an unprecedented opportunity to shape the nations energy and environmental policies. And he has helped populate the upper ranks of the agency he has derided with several of his closest confidants.

At least half a dozen former aides to Inhofe  and counting  have been hired into top positions at the EPA and the White House. The chief of staff and deputy chief of staff to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a fellow Oklahoman and longtime friend of Inhofe, spent years working for the senator. Pruitts senior advisers on air, climate and legal issues are Inhofe alumni. In addition, two former Inhofe aides have become top domestic and international energy and environmental advisers to President Trump.

It gives me a level of comfort to know that we have a bureaucracy thats actually going to be serving instead of ruling, Inhofe said in an interview this week, describing his former staffers as qualified professionals who will protect the environment. They are going to be very realistic. Theyre going to do it in a way that will not be punitive. The previous administration was almost looking for ways to punish people.

Comforting is not how many of Inhofes longtime opponents would describe the changes.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Inhofe was like the original climate-denier in chief. He was one of the first people spouting this gibberish  fact-free but dangerous gibberish, said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. Now he and his cronies have far more reach and are far more dangerous than theyve ever been. . . . Thats good news for the polluters but horrible news for public health.

Inhofe, 82, has been in the Senate since 1994 and has served as the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for 12 out of the past 14 years. For much of that time, he has been one of the nations most powerful climate-change skeptics, even writing a book in 2012 attacking the science around global warming, which most of the world has accepted as a serious and urgent threat.

His most high-profile assault on climate science  one President Barack Obama mocked multiple times  came on a cold day in February 2015, when he stood on the Senate floor, fresh snowball in hand, to suggest that Earth could not be warming in any dangerous way, given the winter weather outside.

Ryan Jackson, Inhofes former chief of staff, helps account for part of why so many of the senators aides are now helping guide the administrations policymaking. Jackson, who helped shepherd Pruitts nomination, then became the administrators chief of staff and started tapping his former colleagues for top agency posts.

While nearly every federal department has been undergoing major changes since Trump took office in January, few have seen as rapid and dramatic a shift as the EPA. It has already scrapped a request for data about methane emissions that could have paved the way for tighter restrictions on more than 15,000 U.S. oil and gas firms, and Trump has directed the agency to roll back a rule designed to protect 60 percent of the nations water bodies.

On Wednesday, Pruitt is set to announce plans to revisit fuel standards the Obama administration set for cars and light trucks that will be built five years from now. And his staff is preparing to unwind the centerpiece of Obamas effort to combat climate change  the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

The Inhofe brigade

To carry out the changes Trump has promised, namely setting the EPA on a more minimalist course that will constrain federal authority over the environment, the new administration has recruited a group of conservative stalwarts who have spent years working to advance Inhofes objectives. At times, some of them have worked directly for the mining, oil and utility companies that they are now charged with regulating.

The Inhofe brigade has landed, secured the beach and is moving inland with precision as well as speed, said Stephen Brown, vice president for government affairs at Tesoro, a major oil refiner.

What exactly will that invasion look like?

Those behind it are, for the most part, not nearly as colorful or outspoken as their former boss, even as they share many of his views and objectives.

Congressional aides of both parties described Jackson as one of the most soft-spoken managers on Capitol Hill. Amanda Gunasekara, who will advise the EPA administrator on air and climate issues, had been working for Inhofe less than a month when he asked her to hand him a snowball on the Senate floor two years ago to prove that global warming had not snuffed out winter altogether. Andrew Wheeler, a front-runner to serve as Pruitts No. 2, served the senator for 14 years before going on to lobby for the coal giant Murray Energy, Xcel Energy and the Nuclear Energy Institute. A few former Inhofe aides  Wheeler, as well as George Sugiyama and Michael Catanzaro, who is now in the White House  have worked at the EPA before.

Inhofe and his aides have shown legislative savvy. Even as the senator decried the Obama administrations work on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, mercury pollution and smog as burdensome for business and possibly illegal, Inhofe and his staff struck major deals on bipartisan issues including chemical safety, transportation and water infrastructure.

Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton & Williams, said the combination of Republicans electoral success last year and the Obama administrations aggressive use of executive authority has given conservatives a rare opening.

Its a real confluence of there being a philosophical alignment between Senator Inhofe and the administration, the Republicans holding both branches of government and there being, for lack of a better word, opportunity created by the prior overreach, said Stanko, whose clients include Koch Industries, Southern Co. and the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.

War on environmentalism?

Opponents see the Trump administration and the influx of Inhofe staffers to the EPA as the early steps in the dismantling of crucial regulations Obama put in place to combat climate change.

The EPA was a staunch defender of the environment and supporter of climate action under the Obama administration, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. It is now instead being wielded by the fossil-fuel interests who are running the Trump administration as just another weapon in their war on environmental protection and climate action.

Trump wasnt Inhofes first, or even second, choice for president last year. Initially, Inhofe endorsed his Senate colleague Marco Rubio (Fla.) in the GOP primaries, then, after he dropped out, Ohio Gov. John Kasich. But Inhofe then pivoted to Trump and began forging ties with the campaign through his friend and fellow senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), advising Trump on defense and regulatory issues.

The dominance of Inhofes staffers reflects not just an ideological shift but the fact that even an administration of outsiders needs some insiders to help run the place. Inhofe remains extremely close with his former aides, whom he teasingly calls has-beens.

[Which Washington Post reporters are covering the agencies you care about? ]

Pruitt, like Inhofe, is determined to transfer some of the power his agency has amassed to the states. Earlier this month, a Wall Street Journal columnist described Pruitt, in a nod to the constitutional bent of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, as an EPA originalist. Privately, according to aides, the administrator relished the moniker. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sued the agency he now heads numerous times, often making the argument that the Obama administration had overstepped its legal authority.

Pruitt, who caused an uproar last week in a CNBC interview when he questioned whether carbon dioxide emissions are the primary driver of climate change, has made it clear he plans to focus the agency on more-traditional pollutants. His goals include minimizing lead exposure from drinking water  an issue on which Inhofe joined forces last year with then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), despite opposition from House Republicans  and cleaning up contamination in Superfund and contaminated industrial sites.

Finally, we have someone in there thats not going to be harassing the public with punitive regulations, Inhofe said of Pruitt and his former staffers. What I want them to do is to do what they are supposed to be doing  be concerned about the environment, the water, the air. . . . Id like to see an EPA there to actually serve people and make life better for them.

While it will take months to finalize the EPAs budget for the coming fiscal year, the White House is contemplating significant reductions that could complicate Pruitts task and gut the agency. Two people briefed on the matter said the EPA budget proposal could be as low as $5.6 billion, down from the most recently enacted budget of $8.1 billion, a roughly 30 percent cut. Deep cuts could prompt unrest among employees, many of whom remain skeptical of the new administration and its motives, and eliminate staffers Pruitt and his senior advisers would need to accomplish their priorities.

Those include not just redoing Obama-era rules but possibly reexamining the way the EPA conducts its scientific assessment of health risks and other factors that underpin the regulations it issues.

When I talk to people on the left, they are both happy that all these Inhofe people are there but also simultaneously scared, said Dimitri Karakitsos, who left his post as Inhofes senior committee counsel in October to join the firm Holland & Knight as a partner.

They are relieved, he said, because the new appointees have shown a willingness to broker compromises on thorny issues. But, Karakitsos added, the reason why I think they are scared is because its a really smart, thoughtful group thats over there, one that is not going to put out rules on a whim that are easily undone.

A Senate Democratic aide who has worked with many of the former Inhofe staffers agreed. These are folks who are very capable. They know the agency and its programs, said the staffer, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly. Theyre smart and hard-working, and they certainly could dismantle the programs if they were asked to do that. But the question is how they will react if theyre asked to do that.
Lloyd H. Conover, a scientist who had the simple idea of exchanging an atom in one antibiotic to create a new, better one  tetracycline  that became one of the most widely used drugs of its kind and heralded a new era in the treatment of infection, died March 11 at a retirement community in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 93.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, Katharine Meacham Conover.

Dr. Conover helped spark a revolution in the development of antibiotics while working as a research chemist with the Pfizer pharmaceutical company in the early 1950s.

His creation, tetracycline, is used to treat conditions ranging from acne to pneumonia to Lyme disease to sexually transmitted disease. Beyond its clinical applications, the drug revealed vast new potential for man-made antibiotics.

According to the Lemelson-MIT Program honoring invention, tetracycline was the first antibiotic made by chemically modifying a naturally-produced drug. It eventually was used in farm animals as well as in humans.

Dr. Conover died March 11 at 93. (Family Photo)

When Dr. Conover began his career, naturally occurring antibiotics were commonly prescribed to combat bacterial infections. The best known of those drugs was penicillin  the marvelous mold that saves lives, as Time magazine dubbed it  discovered by the Scottish biologist and future Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming in 1928.

Dr. Conovers insight  near-heresy at the time  was that a chemically altered version of an antibiotic might be more powerful than the existing one. To test the theory, he and his colleagues tweaked the structure of aureomycin, another common antibiotic, by replacing a chlorine atom with a hydrogen atom.

To the surprise of many scientists, the new drug did prove more effective in fighting bacteria, particularly bacteria that had developed resistance to antibiotics already in use. It also produced fewer side effects in the patient.

Reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1953, the discovery was patented in 1955 and swiftly became a mainstay of medicine, despite decades-long legal wrangling and licensing battles.

I had essentially a second career, preparing for and giving depositions and testifying, Dr. Conover wrote in a journal article cited by the New York Times.

Lloyd Hillyard Conover was born in Orange, N.J., on June 13, 1923. His mother was an artist, and his father was a lawyer.

After Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he received a bachelors degree in chemistry from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1947 and a doctorate, also in chemistry, from the University of Rochester in New York in 1950.

Dr. Conover served at times as Pfizers director of chemical research on chemotherapy and as research director at the companys laboratory in Sandwich, England. He was credited with helping develop Pyrantel and Morantel, drugs used to eliminate worms and other parasites. He retired from Pfizer in 1984.

Dr. Conovers first wife, Virginia Rogers Kirk, died in 1988 after 44 years of marriage. His second wife, Marie Strauss Solomons, died in 2003 after 13 years of marriage.

Survivors include his wife Katharine Meacham Conover, whom he married in 2005, of St. Petersburg; and four children from his first marriage, Kirk Conover of Little Falls, N.J.; Roger Conover of Freeport, Maine; Heather Conover of Washington; and Craig Conover of Evanston, Ill.

He also had six surviving stepchildren, Suzanne Love of Afton, Va., Virginia Karpovich of Paia, Hawaii, Walter Solomons of Sarasota, Fla., Katharine Meacham of Asheville, N.C., and Andrew Meacham and Laura Meacham Keane, both of St. Petersburg; 16 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. His stepson Robert C. Meacham Jr. died in 2000.

Dr. Conover was a 1992 inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame in North Canton, Ohio. His innovation six decades ago, according to Lemelson-MIT, prompted an industry-wide search for superior structurally-modified antibiotics, which has provided most of the important antibiotic discoveries made since then.
For the past six years, Mardi Chadwick has run a violence prevention program at Bostons Brigham and Womens Hospital. The programs goal is to address broader, community-based health issues and social problems that make people ill or expose them to injury.

In Chadwicks view, this endeavor has made a big difference in neighborhoods. But its profile in administrators eyes got a boost from an Affordable Care Act provision that requires nonprofit hospitals to conduct triennial assessments of local health needs and devise strategies to address them. Falling short triggers a financial penalty.

Everyone, all of a sudden, cares about the social determinants of health, she said. Our expertise is being brought in. . . . We have a bigger seat at the table.

But will programs such as this one continue to receive such attention? As the Republican-controlled Congress works to scrap the Affordable Care Act, the answer is uncertain.

Requiring community health needs assessments was part of a package of rules included in the 2010 law to ensure that nonprofit hospitals justify their tax exemption.

Another was that such facilities establish public written policies about financial assistance available for medically necessary and emergency care and that they comply with limits on what qualified patients can be charged.

These directives are caught up in an ongoing controversy about whether all nonprofit hospitals do enough to deserve a tax break. People on one side of the issue view the assessment as an undue, unfunded burden, for example; others say it demands too little.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has long urged greater scrutiny of nonprofit hospitals tax status. His spokeswoman said he will continue to advocate for the requirement to remain in whatever new health legislation is passed. But the financial uncertainty surrounding an Affordable Care Act overhaul could undermine some hospitals efforts.

[Sleeper issue of Medicaids future could prove health-care plans stumbling block]

The decades-old nonprofit tax status, granted by the Internal Revenue Service to institutions that meet a community benefit standard, spares hospitals from paying federal taxes and is collectively worth billions of dollars. Nonprofit hospitals have generally cited the uncompensated or charity care they provide, as well as initiatives they undertake to promote public health, as sufficient proof that they earn their exemption. But for-profit hospitals, which do pay taxes, have cried foul, saying they make similar contributions.

The Affordable Care Act requirements were meant to hold nonprofits to a higher standard  and penalize those that did not deliver. Under the law, hospitals that fail to complete the assessment and implementation strategy face a $50,000 fine, a penalty that could accumulate and jeopardize their tax exemption.

As of 2011, the most recent federal data show, nonprofit hospitals provided less than 10 percent of their operating expenses as community benefit  including charity care, unreimbursed costs from Medicaid and other government programs, and medical research and education. Less than 1 percent went to community health improvement services such as Chadwicks.

Advocates hoped the health law would change this. The idea was to push these facilities to invest more in public health initiatives that do not directly earn them money. But it is hard to gauge whether that has happened.

You can find hospitals that have done this. But . . . are we seeing a real shift in the hospital community? Or are these a few hospitals that are outliers? asked Gary Young, director of the Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research at Northeastern University. Weve asked them to make a sea change in how theyre doing things. And that cant happen overnight.

Analysts say part of the problem is that the underlying idea  reaching into the community to help people navigate the social and economic factors that can influence health  goes beyond what hospitals have traditionally viewed as their mission. Administrators tend to focus on the immediate questions: How many beds are full? What medical services are being provided? How are they doing with their operating budget?

Its a new world out there in terms of the hospital not being the center of the universe, said Lawrence Massa, president of the Minnesota Hospital Association, which has been tracking responses to the health assessment requirement.

[Doctors, hospitals and insurers oppose Republican health plan]

Initially, the association found that the money the states nonprofit hospitals put toward community needs went up: from about $355 million in 2011 to $459 million in 2013. (The needs assessment requirement took effect for the tax year starting after March 2012.) But the increase leveled off in 2014  the most recent year for which data are available.

Massas conclusion: Caring for the health of people before they come into the hospital is unfamiliar territory. Not everyone took naturally to it. We saw some communities that embraced this and did a nice job. . . . In other communities, theres been friction between public health and the acute setting  and lack of understanding.

With continued time and sustained emphasis, that could evolve, said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University.

But even if the community benefit requirements remain intact, she and others fear this accountability effort could take a hit. Repeal of the health-care law is likely to create fresh financial challenges for hospitals. For instance, although the House GOPs American Health Care Act would restore some of the uncompensated-care funding cuts that hospitals absorbed under the Affordable Care Act, the coverage changes proposed in Republicans plan could mean tens of millions more uninsured people.

That scenario, policy experts and trade groups say, would increase the amount of free care that nonprofit hospitals provide, creating new budget pressures that could lead them to tamp down on efforts to promote community health work.

The health assessments impact has been evident at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital. There, administrators used it to devise an intervention strategy around drug abuse, partnering with local schools and community organizations and hiring former addicts to help patients navigate recovery.

Theres no question, said Joan Quinlan, the hospitals vice president for community health, the Affordable Care Act required us to bump up our game.

Yet without the resources to continue such efforts, she added, its going to be hard.

Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
NATIONAL SECURITY

Woman charged in Jerusalem bombing

U.S. authorities have added a Jordanian woman to the FBIs list of most wanted terrorists and unsealed charges against her in a 2001 suicide bombing attack at a crowded Jerusalem pizzeria in 2001 that killed 15 people, including two Americans.

A U.S. official indicated that the Justice Department on Tuesday unsealed a July 2013 complaint against Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi, also known as Khalti and Halati, because law enforcement officials no longer thought that keeping it secret would aid U.S. efforts to obtain her custody.

Tamimi pleaded guilty in Israel in 2003 and was sentenced to 16 life terms for assisting the bomber in the Aug. 9, 2001, attack on a Sbarro restaurant, according to charging documents.

Among the 15 dead were a pregnant American, Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, 31, and U.S. citizen Malka Roth, 15. Four U.S. citizens were among more than 120 injured.

A former student working part time as a television journalist, Tamimi met with and drove the bomber to the target after pledging to carry out attacks on behalf of the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas, according to an FBI affidavit included with the complaint.

Tamimi served eight years in prison before being released in October 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, and returned to Jordan, which forbids extradition of its nationals, Justice officials said.

In 2012, then-U.S. Reps. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) and 50 other members of Congress backed by relatives of terrorism victims and pro-Israel groups called on the Justice Department to prosecute Tamimi and others.

 Spencer S. Hsu

SOUTH CAROLINA

Hearing in connection to church shooting

A new sentencing hearing has been set for a man who police say failed to warn authorities about his friends plans to kill black worshipers at a Charleston church.

Court records show Joey Meek, 22, is due in court March 21. Meek has pleaded guilty to failing to report Dylann Roofs plans and lying to federal authorities.

Prosecutors sought a stiff sentence for Meek. They argued that his failure to tell authorities about Roofs plans to start a race war by killing black churchgoers prevented police from possibly thwarting the massacre.

But a judge on Monday ruled that Meek can be sentenced only for what he did after the June 2015 slayings of nine parishioners at Emanuel AME, not before. Federal guidelines allow for a sentence of from 27 to 33 months.

 Associated Press

Man sentenced for forcing daughter into prostitution: A Houston-area man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for forcing his teenage daughter to work as a prostitute. The Harris County district attorneys office says a 46-year-old resident of Baytown was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to aggravated compelling of prostitution. Authorities say the man took his daughter to truck stops to offer sex in exchange for money that he then took from her. The girl, who was 16 at the time, told investigators she would have multiple customers in a night. Authorities say the father also placed an online ad featuring his daughter as an escort.

The Associated Press and The Washington Post are not naming the man because it could identify his daughter, a sex-crime victim. The Associated Press and The Washington Post are not naming the man because it could identify his daughter, a sex-crime victim. Man sentenced in deputys killing: A man who admitted killing a Kansas police detective has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Curtis Ayers was sentenced Tuesday in the May 9 shooting death of Detective Brad Lancaster during a confrontation near the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty when Ayers, 29, pleaded guilty in January to capital murder. Ayers also was sentenced for nine other felonies, including burglary, robbery, battery, kidnapping, assault and weapons counts, all committed after Lancaster was shot. He was arrested in Kansas City, Mo., after he was shot by a police officer while allegedly trying to steal a womans car.

 From news services
SOMALIA

Freighter reportedly hijacked off coast

Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, local officials and an expert said Tuesday, the first seizure of a large commercial vessel on the crucial global trade route since 2012.

The reported seizure Monday of the Aris 13 came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that Somali pirates possess the intent and capability to resume attacks.

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalias capital when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, director of Oceans Beyond Piracy.

An official in the semiautonomous state of Puntland said more than two dozen men boarded the ship off Somalias northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and the al-Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabab.

An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the reported incident said no ransom demand had been made.

Piracy off Somalias coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country.

 Associated Press

LIBYA

Eastern forces say they have retaken oil ports

East Libyan forces said they had regained control Tuesday of the major oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Sidra from a rival faction that seized them this month.

A military spokesman said the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) had taken back the ports and was pursuing fighters from the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB) toward the town of Bin Jawwad, about 20 miles west of Sidra.

The claim could not be independently verified.

The BDBs advance on Sidra and Ras Lanuf on March 3 set off a fresh round of fighting for control of the ports in Libyas oil crescent, a strip of coast southwest of Benghazi, raising fears of an escalation of violence and a reversal for the states efforts to revive its oil output.

The LNA and the BDB are on opposite sides in a stop-start conflict between factions based in eastern and western Libya that erupted in 2014.

Since the BDB overran Sidra and Ras Lanuf, national oil production has dipped because of a disruption of operations at the ports, two of the largest in Libya.

 Reuters

TAIWAN

Ex-president indicted over secrets leak

Prosecutors in Taiwan on Tuesday indicted China-friendly ex-president Ma Ying-jeou over the leaking of classified information involving suspected influence peddling by a powerful opposition lawmaker.

The Taipei District Public Prosecutors Office found after a six-month probe that Ma broke laws on the protection of personal information, release of secrets, and communications security and surveillance, a spokesman said.

Ma, 66, has denied the charges.

Ma was credited with improving Taiwans relations with China during his two terms in office from 2008 to 2016. However, his push for closer ties sparked a backlash, especially among young Taiwanese wary of Chinas intentions toward the island, which it considers its territory.

That led to his Nationalist Party losing both the presidency and its parliamentary majority to the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in January 2016.

The charges against Ma stem from a 2013 lawsuit brought by DPP lawmaker Ker Chien-ming, who accused the then-president of leaking information taken from a wiretapped conversation.

 Associated Press

Kenyas doctors to end 100-day strike: Thousands of doctors at Kenyas public hospitals have agreed to end a 100-day strike, their union said. The strike was blamed for dozens of deaths, as most Kenyans cannot afford private health care. The government and union officials signed a deal to address pay and other issues in dispute, said the secretary general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union. Doctors will resume work Friday.

Detained South Sudanese aid workers released: South Sudanese staffers with the U.S.-based aid group Samaritans Purse were freed a day after being detained by armed personnel, the organization said. No ransom demand had been made, the group said. Rebels had earlier confirmed that the workers had been recovered during fighting with government forces in the Mayendit area .

 From news services
By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 14 (PTI) The firing of the prominent India-born prosecutor Preet Bharara and demanding the resignation of 45 other attorneys by the Trump administration was a "standard operating procedure", the White House has said, defending the abrupt move.

"This is a standard operating procedure for a new administration around this time to ask for the resignation of all the US attorneys," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.

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He made the remarks while responding to questions on firing of Bharara after he refused to resign following the Department of Justices order asking him and 45 other attorneys, who were appointed by former President Barack Obama, to quit.

"We had most of them -- or a good chunk of them had already submitted their resignation letters. This is just the final swath of individuals who had not at this time. But this is common practice of most administrations," Spicer argued.

He said President Trump had wanted to call Bharara to thank him for his service.

"The President was calling to thank him for his service. This is, a standard action that takes place in most administrations," he said.

"Then-Attorney General Reno sent out an almost identical letter in 1993. The Bush administration sent out a similar one, as well. So this is a very common practice for all political appointees -- not just in the Department of Justice -- but throughout government when theres a turnover administration to ask for all individuals to do that," he said.

Bharara, 48, who was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, left his office yesterday. He got an emotional farewell from his colleagues.

"I love New York. This is the best prosecutors office youve ever seen," he said.

Meanwhile, a media report said that Bharara was fired because he was conducting a probe of Fox News channel and whether the Rupert Murdoch-owned company hid from its investors payments it made to employees who alleged sexual assault. The allegation was denied by the White House.

"The commonality and the uniformity of the resignations is the key here," White House Counselor Kellylanne Conway said.

"This is just not a news story, its a lot of noise, not much news because its very uniform and its very common for presidents to ask for the resignations of political appointees like ambassadors and like US attorneys, the past few presidents have done this," she told Fox News.

"We made it uniform, the President made it uniform, so that there were no carve-outs, there was no special treatment. The only two people who are kind of exempted, if you will, are people who are having a different role in the administration, Mr Rosenstein and Dana, whos the acting deputy attorney general. But other than that, its uniform across the board," Conway argued. PTI LKJ ASK AKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---

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Call her Seo-yeon. Shes an infant, cute as could be, and she will be born in the city of Busan, South Korea, in 2030. When she emits her first cry, this statistical abstract will have a life expectancy of about 90. Maddison, on the other hand, born the same year but in, say, Kansas City, will die seven years earlier. The cause of death? Being an American.

Being an American is life- threatening. For various reasons, men and women here dont live as long as men and women in about two dozen other countries, including the ones we defeated in World War II  Japan, Germany and Italy. Americans have high rates of obesity, drug addiction and car accidents. Moreover, were more apt to use guns to settle disputes and not, as we are all told in nursery school, our words. There is yet another reason, and it is mentioned in reports on longevity: the American health-care system. It stinks.

The Lancet, the British medical journal, came up with some longevity projections. In a study published last month, it found that life expectancy is expected to increase in 35 industrialized nations over the next few decades. In South Korea, as in much of the affluent world, if you get sick, you see a doctor. There is no worrying about money, and you cannot go broke on account of illness. You could call this South Korean exceptionalism, except that it is America that is exceptional when it comes to health care.

Now we are engaged in a great health-care debate. For reasons having nothing to do with either health or care, the Republican Party, under the indifferent guidance of President Trump, is attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. The president doesnt know what he is doing because he doesnt care what he is doing. He just wants to win  or, actually, claim victory. In May 2015, he vowed, Im not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid. You dont hear that now if for no other reason than it seems cuts are coming.

One reason that cute kid in South Korea is going to live longer than that just-as-cute kid in Kansas City is infant mortality. Among the richest countries, the United States has an infant mortality rate of 5.8 per 1,000 births. Thats very low compared with the rate of, say, Afghanistan (112.8) but not so good compared with the rate of Canada (4.6), France (3.3), Britain (4.3), Israel (3.5) or, as you might have guessed, South Korea (3.0). Our infant mortality rate, a function of available health care, ought to be a national embarrassment. Yet, if it has been mentioned in the current health-care debate, I havent noticed.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

It has been years  maybe going back to Lincoln  since the Republican Party gave much thought to the poor, but this year its indifference has turned to cruelty. Clearly, whatever emerges from the current bill, the poor will not be the beneficiaries. Indeed, according to various accounts, they will suffer. This is particularly poignant because many of them voted for Trump, believing his cockamamie promises and admiring his cock-of-the-walk strut.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was on to something when he suggested that the poor made dumb choices. His bizarre example was their choosing a cellphone over health insurance. This was Chaffetz at his let-them-eat-cake best since, I bet, hes emotionally attached to his own cellphone. But he is right about the poor. The electoral choice so many of them made is going to cost them plenty. Trump does not care about them. Let them eat Mar-a-Lago.

Some years ago, T.R. Reid, my former Post colleague, went around the world with a bum shoulder. What would it cost to fix it? he asked in various countries. In all of them  Japan, Britain, Germany, India, Taiwan, France, etc.  he got amazing answers: very little and sometimes nothing. He learned that in almost any affluent nation, health care was guaranteed. Some of these countries have socialized plans, some dont, but what matters is that they work. None of these plans is perfect, and they are not cheap. But in all of them, health care is a right. You get sick, you get better  often on the house.

Republicans and others who are in anguish over the possibility of socialized medicine ought to have to explain their ideology to a mother with a sick newborn. They ought to have to explain how this nation can debate health care and not mention how abysmal ours is. Finally, they ought to picture themselves explaining to Maddison why she will die sooner than Seo-yeon. Its because shes an American.

Read more from Richard Cohens archive.
IF THERE is an Exhibit A for how the ascent of the Trump administration is leading to the deterioration of human rights in other countries, it is Bahrain  an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf that is the host of the U.S. 5th Fleet. Since 2011, when its majority-Shiite population revolted during the Arab Spring, the Sunni monarchy has engaged in serial campaigns of repression, interspersed with gestures at liberalization aimed at appeasing the United States.

In September, fed up with Bahrains backtracking on the imprisonment of dissidents and refusal to engage with peaceful opposition parties, the Obama administration conditioned a $3 billion sale of 19 F-16 warplanes to the country on a private list of human rights concessions. They were steps U.S. officials believed Bahrain could fulfill without risk  such as the release of prominent human rights advocate Nabeel Rajab.

The regime of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa did not comply. Instead it waited for the results of the U.S. presidential election. When Donald Trump won, it appealed for the F-16 sale to go forward without conditions  and meanwhile launched a new crackdown on opponents at home. In the past few weeks, the government moved to dissolve a moderate, secular opposition party, restored the power of a domestic intelligence agency to make arrests, and pushed a measure through parliament authorizing military trials of civilians.

Despite these brazen measures  the last two of which reverse reform steps Bahrain previously took in response to U.S. criticism  the Trump administration appears to be preparing to go forward with the F-16 sale. Congressional sources say they believe that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have agreed to divorce political conditions from military cooperation with Bahrain and other Persian Gulf allies, and that the State Department may soon send notification of the F-16s to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That would please Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has publicly called for the deal to proceed without conditions.

Other members of the committee, from both parties, remain disturbed by Bahrains behavior and by the prospect of an unconditional sale. Ranking Democratic member Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland raised the issue in a recent phone call with Mr. Tillerson. They are right: The United States has considerable leverage over the Gulf emirates, and it is wrong not to use it to check abuses of human rights. The problem is not just a moral one; the Bahraini regimes abuses risk further destabilizing the country and triggering a sectarian conflict that nearby Iran could exploit.

It is difficult for Congress to block an arms sale  it must pass a resolution within 30 days of a formal notification. But Mr. Cardin and other Foreign Relations Committee members should insist that before going forward with the Bahrain deal, the administration come up with a strategy to reverse the ongoing repression. Mr. Rajab and other nonviolent opponents should be released and peaceful opposition political parties allowed to organize. If the Trump administration signals toleration for the crackdown, it will betray liberal reformers across the region.
Of all the promises Donald Trump made as a candidate, perhaps none was more important than his pledge to the working-class voters who flocked to his campaign. Under a Trump presidency, he said, the American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.

But since his election, Trump has made a mockery of that promise. He put Goldman Sachs bankers in charge of the economy. He blocked a plan to reduce mortgage premiums for millions of families. He issued a budget blueprint that slashes funding for vital social programs. And he put his weight behind an Affordable Care Act replacement bill that guts health coverage for working people while providing tax cuts for the wealthy and health insurance executives.

In response, Democrats, riding a wave of grass-roots energy fueling the progressive resistance to Trump nationwide, have adopted a strategy of fierce opposition to the presidents agenda. A tireless commitment to fighting Trumps disastrous policies and support for the activists marching in the streets are important. But there is also a natural danger of falling into the default mode of opposing Trump, and merely defending existing policies, without offering the serious solutions that people so desperately need. Rebuilding the party requires Democrats to speak boldly about what they are for and not just what they are against. Otherwise, they risk replicating the failed campaign strategy of 2016, when the Clinton campaign hammered away at Trump without appealing to working Americans with a clear and bold alternative vision of its own.

To that end, it has been encouraging to see progressive leaders recently taking their message straight to working-class voters across the country, including in red and purple states where Trump maintains solid support.

This month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) visited the small town of Canton, Miss., to attend the March on Mississippi in support of Nissan workers who are facing bitter opposition in their attempt to unionize. The march was supported by not just the United Auto Workers and other labor unions, but also the NAACP, Sierra Club, and an array of social justice and progressive groups. By embracing the link between civil rights and workers rights, the march was a perfect demonstration of the fusion politics that will help progressives build a sustainable coalition for the future.

(Alice Li/The Washington Post)

Sanders  who has also recently visited in Kansas, Michigan and, just this past weekend, West Virginia  didnt mince words about the failure of some progressive leaders to protect the interests of the working class. Some of the poorest states in this country, where large numbers of people have no health insurance and have experienced stagnating wages, have not had the support from progressives that they need, he declared. Its time we change that. It means standing up for working men and women.

In that mission, Sanders has a strong ally in Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who just a day earlier was in Columbus unveiling a progressive populist economic blueprint that hes been developing since late 2015. At the heart of Browns plan is the fundamental principle that its not businesses who drive the economy  its workers. He proposes a passel of bold measures designed to empower workers, from a $15 minimum wage and paid family and medical leave to protections against wage theft and expanded collective bargaining rights.

And like Sanders, Brown has also been honest about what his party is missing. I think the Democrats need to speak more plainly about what we want to do for the middle class and for people who aspire for the middle class, he said.

Meanwhile, progressives have been aggressively pushing a pro-worker agenda at the state level as well. State Innovation Exchange (SiX) Action, which advocates for progressive policies in state legislatures, responded to Trumps congressional address by spearheading a week of action that brought together progressive lawmakers and grass-roots organizations in more than 30 states to advocate for some 130 pieces of pro-worker legislation. As part of the effort, state legislators introduced, advanced or highlighted paid sick leave in Michigan and Maryland, equal pay in Oklahoma and Colorado, and minimum wage hikes in New Mexico and North Carolina, among other bills.

Of course, progressives can and should continue calling attention to Trumps broken promises and combatting his barbaric policies. But regaining the trust of working-class voters who supported Trump will take more than opposition. As Sanders recently argued, it will take a forward-looking message and a real commitment to addressing the challenges that working people face. You cannot just be defensive, Sanders said. You need a proactive agenda that brings people together to fight for a new America.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter.
The role of conspiracy theories has been consistently underestimated in the rise and appeal of President Trump.

Trump came to the political attention of most Republicans by alleging a conspiracy to cover up President Barack Obamas supposedly foreign birth. How amazing, Trump tweeted in 2013, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obamas birth certificate died in plane crash today. All others lived. In conspiracy thinking, implausibility is merely the sign of the enemys subtlety.

Children sitting in Professor Trumps history class would learn that Obama was Americas first Muslim president; that his co-religionists celebrated in the streets following the 9/11 attacks; that their vaccination schedule is the dangerous scam of greedy doctors; that Ted Cruzs father might have been involved in the death of John F. Kennedy; that Hillary Clinton might have been involved in the death of Vince Foster; that unnamed liberals might have been involved in the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

More recently, Trump has claimed  based, so far, on nothing  that Obama ordered the bugging of Trump Tower. And Trumps allies, with the White Houses blessing, have alleged the existence of a deep state, conducting what talk radio host Mark Levin calls a silent coup.

[Kellyanne Conway is spinning again]

(Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

If the deep state refers to a cadre of federal employees who are unhappy serving an ethno-nationalist president who apparently hates them, then many would gladly claim such citizenship. But this is not what Trumps most loyal supporters are talking about. The de facto coup is allegedly being conducted by a conspiracy of national security professionals who wish to overturn the results of the 2016 election. Radio host Rush Limbaugh recently claimed that the latest WikiLeaks dump showed the CIA has the ability to mimic Russian hackers. He went on to claim that there isnt any evidence of Russian involvement in the Democratic National Committee breach. But we have all kinds of supposition that the American deep state is deeply involved in whatever sabotage is being conducted on the Trump administration.

This accusation is made by a disturbing collection of overlapping interests and voices: Vladimir Putin, Julian Assange, Nigel Farage, Breitbart News, a variety of talk radio hosts and much of Trumps inner circle of advisers. They share the goal of defanging American intelligence services and having America accept a shrunken global role. Leaking from the CIA is the context in which Trump once asked, Are we living in Nazi Germany?

Does Trump himself believe the conspiracy theories he so effectively employs? It is the wrong question. In these cases, Trump does not support things because they are true; they are true because he supports them. And he expects everyone who works for him to publicly and vocally embrace his version of reality.

What is the harm in all this? First, we are seeing the corruption of the Republican Party, as it tolerates, excuses and absorbs Trumps conspiratorial thinking. Consider the most recent WikiLeaks hack. The data breach caused serious damage to American security. And some conservatives cheered. It is a funhouse-mirror reflection of the New Left in the 1960s  led by ideology to root against the interests of their own country.

Second, these attacks on the intelligence community continue Trumps campaign to delegitimize institutions that offer a view of reality different from his own. To maintain his version of daily events, the mainstream media must be discredited as fake news. On economic policy, the Congressional Budget Office must be discredited as biased. To tilt foreign policy toward Russia and away from traditional friends, the intelligence community must be discredited.

[The Trump administration dons a tinfoil hat]

Third, talk of a silent coup encourages frightening, extraconstitutional thinking. If this is more than a metaphor, an existential threat to democracy has been raised. And an administration actually believing this might go beyond leak investigations and feel justified in scarier, Nixonian remedies.

Trump does not face a coup, just a government he has attacked and refused to lead. It is one challenge for Trump nominees to run departments they think should not exist. It is another for a president to declare that Americas intelligence community is plotting against him and comparable to the Nazis. You cant declare war on people you should be providing with inspiration and direction. This is the only effective, long-term answer to leaks.

Day by day, Republicans are lowering their standards of sanity to defend an administration seized by conspiracy thinking. If they do not stand up to this trend, they will be defining lunacy down.

Read more from Michael Gersons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .
President Trump and Vice President Pence meet with House of Representatives committee leaders to discuss the American Health Care Act at the White House on March 10. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As pediatricians, we often explain health and wellness to families in simple terms. And simply, the current rhetoric about Medicaid is bad for kids. About 40 percent of American children are enrolled in Medicaid, but they represent about 20 percent of Medicaids costs.

Also, through the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment benefit in Medicaid, these children are able to receive appropriate, evidence-based care. We know that because of Medicaid, children do better in school , become healthier adults and earn higher wages.

The changes to Medicaid being currently discussed would reduce access and services for children. We must remember Fredrick Douglasss plea, It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

Daniel Levy, Columbia

The writer is national officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Ankoor Shah, Washington

The writer is vice president of the D.C. chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Trump repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, besides reducing benefits of the ACA for many, also contains tax gains for the very rich and cynicism verging on deceit. The bill would repeal more than $200 billion of taxes assessed on the very rich, which helped to pay some of the costs of the ACA.

The bill neglects to mention that federal employees are covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, a government-run and government- administered program. A government program that negotiates with private insurance companies regarding which insurance plans are available and limits insurance prices and coverage, FEHB has been successful for decades. It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel.

Bernard Singer, Springfield
Time to trade in those red #MAGA caps, Trumpkins. If you want your headgear to fit in with the latest White House fashions, invest in some tinfoil.

From top to bottom, this administration has been infested with conspiracy theorists. Most appear to be true believers. Take Stephen K. Bannon and his anxieties about the deep state, or the recently ousted Michael Flynn and his propagation of suggestions that Hillary Clinton was tied to a child sex ring run out of a D.C. pizza parlor.

Others, such as Kellyanne Conway, appear to just be paranoiacs for pay.

Conway seems convinced that the best way to stay in her bosss good graces is to spread parody-defying crackpot theories, or at least add a dash of color to President Trumps own crackpottery.

You may recall that Trump, with zero evidence, accused President Barack Obama of having the wires tapped at Trump Tower. Trump then called for a congressional witch hunt to find proof that the unfounded allegation is true. Over the weekend, Bergen Record columnist Mike Kelly asked Conway point blank, Do you know whether Trump Tower was wiretapped?

Conways response: What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately. . . . There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, through their  certainly through their television sets, any number of different ways. And microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera.

[Republicans are defining lunacy down]

Yup, Conway suggested that Team Trump may have been surveilled via microwaves and televisions. To be fair, though, if one were to spy on Trump, through the TV would be a good place to start.

In subsequent interviews, Conway acknowledged that she had no evidence for this claim and that she is not in the job of having evidence and is not Inspector Gadget.

Sadly, Conway is not the only White House official to spread conspiracy theories. Shes not even the only White House official to spread conspiracy theories this past weekend.

On Sunday, budget director Mick Mulvaney added his own screwball spin to the latest jobs report.

Weve thought for a long time, I did, that the Obama administration was manipulating the numbers in terms of the number of people in the workforce to make the unemployment rate, that percentage rate, look smaller than it actually was, Mulvaney told CNNs Jake Tapper. Mulvaney declined to say exactly how the numbers were being manipulated, saying the explanation might bore people.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been calculating the unemployment rate the same way since 1940. But Mulvaney nevertheless supports the theories of his tinfoil-hat-wearing boss, who throughout the presidential campaign called the unemployment rate a hoax and totally fiction. Most recently Trump relayed through his press secretary that the jobs report may have been phony in the past, but its very real now.

As with Trump, Mulvaneys data trutherism goes back a ways. During the 2015 State of the Union address, for example, then-Rep. Mulvaney (R-S.C.) tweeted that Obamas math on the jobless rate doesnt add up.

Just a few days before Mulvaneys latest bout of irresponsible conspiracy theorizing, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt suggested that  despite the overwhelming scientific consensus  carbon dioxide may not be a primary contributor to climate change.

[Clintons unexpected new ally in the email investigation: President Trump]

Its hardly just coincidence that the Trump executive branch is rife with beliefs that are wholly disconnected from reality. Such beliefs were a foundation of his campaign. Of course this would be the talent he attracts. Not scientists, experts or others who believe in weighing evidence, but people who heard Trumps many malicious lies and reckless insinuations  that vaccines cause autism, that Ted Cruzs dad was connected to the JFK assassination, that Mexicans are flooding over the border to rape and kill, that Antonin Scalia and Vince Foster may have been murdered, that 3 million people voted illegally, that our first black president was born in Kenya  and said: Sign me up!

That includes people such as Curtis Ellis, a Labor Department appointee who previously argued that Democrats were engaged in ethnic cleansing of working-class whites. Or Sid Bowdidge, the massage therapist with no relevant experience who landed a job as a political appointee at the Energy Department, despite tweeting that Muslims ought to be exterminated and Obama was related to radical Islamist terrorists.

As Conway has demonstrated, the darker and more sensational your conspiracy theories, the better. For this administration, only one political premise is beyond the pale: that the Russians maybe, just maybe, intervened in the 2016 election to help put Trump in the White House.

Whoa, lets not get carried away.
THE HARD part may be over for Sonny Perdue, President Trumps nominee to be secretary of agriculture. A former governor of Georgia with extensive business interests and land holdings, Mr. Perdue required roughly seven weeks to pull together the requisite financial disclosure documents in support of his candidacy; he handed them in on March 10. Now he is expected to meet with relatively easy confirmation, if the nice comments so far from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as endorsements from major farm lobbies, are any indication.

Does he deserve it? Well, it at least appears that Mr. Perdue has dealt appropriately with his private-sector activities. He has agreed with the Office of Government Ethics to resign his positions atop holding companies through which he operated various enterprises in his home state, including a grain export business . (In a protectionist-minded administration, his involvement with global markets may make Mr. Perdue one of the few pro-trade voices.) He will put his assets in a blind trust. Mr. Perdue did not do so during his tenure as governor of the Peach State, a decision that exposed him to multiple conflict-of-interest charges over eight years in office, which he dismissed as politically motivated. The State Ethics Commission fined him $1,900 in 2005 after finding that Mr. Perdue failed to report a campaign-related trip on a private airplane owned by one of his familys businesses. The commission also ordered his campaign to return more than $18,000 in donations. At the time, Mr. Perdues lawyer described the infraction as minor and suggested that he had accepted the punishment to elevate the standards for office holders in the state, even if that means for him personally doing things that cost him money.

Senators can and should explore Mr. Perdues ethics. Equally, if not more, important are the policy issues ahead. The Agriculture Department performs two main roles: feeding 44 million people at a cost of roughly $70 billion in fiscal 2016, via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and distributing billions to American agribusiness via various outmoded subsidy programs. (Mr. Perdue himself was a recipient of a quarter-million dollars of this largesse prior to his governorship, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group.) Needless to say, we regard the departments support for the poor as far more important than its support for agribusiness, which should long ago have been required to fend for itself in the free market. Yet it is SNAP that has drawn the ire of Republican budget-cutters on Capitol Hill  even though SNAP spending has cost less than projected since the 2014 farm bill, while spending on commodity support programs has run nearly $14 billion over what was originally projected.

Mr. Perdue should not be allowed through the confirmation process without explaining his record in Georgia. We would also like to hear him justify the continuing expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars each year to help mostly well-off agribusiness owners  though we admit we dont see how he can.
White supremacism was never banished from American political thought, just shoved to the fringe and hushed to a whisper. Now, in the Age of Trump, its back in the mainstream and ready to roar.

Witness the words of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on the subject of immigration: Culture and demographics are our destiny. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. King offered these sentiments Sunday in a tweet expressing solidarity with Geert Wilders, an openly racist and Islamophobic Dutch politician who has a chance of becoming prime minister in elections this week. Wilders is someone who understands, King wrote.

And we understand just what King meant. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke certainly got the message, using his vile Twitter account to proclaim, GOD BLESS STEVE KING!!!

Just so theres no confusion, King went on CNN Monday to say that I meant exactly what I said. He added: Ive been to Europe and Ive spoken on this issue and Ive said the same thing as far as 10 years ago to the German people and any population of people that is a declining population that isnt willing to have enough babies to reproduce themselves. Ive said to them, You cant rebuild your civilization with somebody elses babies. Youve got to keep your birthrate up and you need to teach your children your values.

Why am I hearing faint strains of Deutschland uber alles? And why am I not hearing a loud chorus of condemnation from Kings Republican colleagues?

King told CNN that he is merely a champion for Western civilization, which he called a superior civilization. Which means, of course, that he considers other civilizations inferior. But we knew that.

After all, King has a history of inflammatory immigrant-bashing. In 2013, he said that for every undocumented immigrant who becomes a valedictorian, theres another hundred out there that  they weigh 130 pounds, and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.

And as for race, a guy from Iowa who keeps a Confederate battle flag on his desk is definitely sending some kind of message. He tried unsuccessfully to block the federal governments plans to remove Andrew Jacksons image from the $20 bill and replace it with that of Harriet Tubman. King says he is proud that some of his ancestors were abolitionists. One wonders whether he knows what the word means.

We should pay attention to his lexicon, however, because todays white supremacism tends to shy away from overtly racial terminology. Listen instead for words such as culture and civilization.

The idea is that the United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave because its civilization is European or Western  euphemisms, basically, for white. According to this view, immigrants have been assets to the country only to the extent that they have fully assimilated into the dominant culture. And while previous waves of immigrants may have become part of the fabric of our society, recent Latino immigrants are not blending in. And as for Muslims, well, forget about it; the Constitution may forbid the establishment of any official religion, but our civilization is resolutely Christian. African Americans are okay so long as they accept the foregoing as true  and do not assert any sort of distinct African American identity.

I think thats a fair reading of modern white-supremacist doctrine. Of course, its a bunch of racist, ahistorical claptrap.

Immigrants  both voluntary and involuntary  have shaped this nation since long before its founding. The first Africans were brought here in bondage in 1619, one year before the Mayflower. Americans have never been a single ethnicity, speaking a single language, bound by the centuries to a single patch of land. We have always been diverse, polyglot and restless, and our greatness has come from our openness to new people and new ideas.

Kings distress about birthrates can be read only as modern-day eugenics. If he is worried about the coming day when there is no white majority in the United States, he has remarkably little faith in our remarkable society  or in the Constitution that he, as a member of Congress, is sworn to support and defend.

President Trump played footsie with the white supremacist movement during his campaign. His chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, waged civilizational war when he ran the Breitbart News site. Trump could definitively denounce Kings racism with a statement or a tweet, but so far his silence is deafening.

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.
President Jimmy Carter, center, with Rep. Eligio de la Garza (D-Tex.), right, and Rep. Edward Roybal (D-Calif.) in 1977 at the White House. (Associated Press)

Eligio de la Garza, a Texas Democrat who served 32 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and became Agriculture Committee chairman, died March 13 at a rehabilitation center in McAllen, Tex. He was 89.

His wife, Lucille de la Garza, confirmed the death but did not disclose the specific cause.

Mr. de la Garza, known as Kika, was in 1965 elected to Congress from his heavily Hispanic, largely agricultural South Texas district.

He was immediately assigned to the Agriculture Committee and retained that seat for his entire House tenure, becoming its chairman in 1981. He held the chairmans gavel until the Republicans took control of the House in 1995, and he retired two years later, having shepherded major farm bills through Congress. He also backed passage in 1993 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it was vital to commerce.

He was once described by the Associated Press as a staunch defender of farm programs, civil rights and equality for minorities. He was a founder of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Rep. Eligio de la Garza, right, with President Ronald Reagan (Eligio Kika de la Garza Congressional Papers/Special Collections & Archives, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX)

Mr. de la Garza was born in Mercedes, Tex., on Sept. 22, 1927. He served in the Navy from 1945 to 1946 and in the Army from 1950 to 1952.

He received a law degree in 1952 from St. Marys University in San Antonio and was elected that year to the state House of Representatives. He served there until his election to Congress in 1964 after the retirement of incumbent Joe Kilgore (D).

In the early 1990s, Mr. de la Garza was accused of 284 overdrafts on his account at the House Bank  ranking No. 23 of all House members with such overdrafts. In 1992, the Justice Department absolved him of criminal wrongdoing, and he went on to crush his Republican opponent that year by a sizable margin.

He and his wife, the former Lucille Alamia, had three children. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.
The White House launched an intensive effort Tuesday to salvage support for the Republican plan to revise the Affordable Care Act, even as a growing number of lawmakers weighed in against the proposal.

One day after the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis showing that 14 million fewer Americans would be insured next year under the GOP plan, Vice President Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price went to Capitol Hill to rally backing for the proposal.

But widespread dissatisfaction among House and Senate lawmakers  conservatives and moderates alike  showed no signs of dissipating, increasing the chances that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) will have difficulty passing the bill if it goes to the House floor in the next two weeks, not to mention whether it can collect a majority in the Senate.

I have serious concerns about the current draft of the House bill, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said in an interview Tuesday. As written, I do not believe the House bill would pass the Senate.

The White House is putting its political capital behind the Ryan proposal, however, sending emissaries to the Hill and meeting with skeptical lawmakers  including Cruz, who went to the White House on Tuesday along with a small group of conservatives.

(Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

Trump has enthusiastically backed the GOP plan in various statements and tweets, and its failure  or the failure of a similar measure  would probably tarnish his promise to replace Obamacare with a better system.

The president also planned to speak about health care with Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) by phone Tuesday afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) attempted to play down the severity of the GOP split after a closed-door party lunch attended by Pence, Price and some of the architects of the House bill, including Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.).

Following the lunch, McConnell tried to shift the focus from the coverage numbers to more favorable terrain for Republicans: the CBOs projection that Ryans plan would reduce the federal budget deficit over the next decade and produce a 10 percent average decrease in premiums after that.

Regarding the projection of fewer people purchasing, I think thats the inevitable result of the government not making you purchase something you may not want, McConnell told reporters. And so we are hoping to have a more vibrant market that will attract a greater number of people to actually be able to buy, at an affordable cost, insurance that actually makes sense for them rather than one prescribed by the government.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is normally chatty with reporters, was more guarded than usual coming out of the meeting. He declined to discuss specifics but said House leaders and the White House were making a good-faith effort to hear the concerns of Republican senators.

They really are taking input. So I dont think they would be over here unless they really do want to take input from folks, Corker said.

View Graphic Whats next for the Obamacare replacement bill

The GOP legislation faces an important test Thursday, when the House Budget Committee will meet to combine pieces passed by separate committees into a single bill and advance it to the House floor. The budget panel cannot make substantive changes to the bill, but it can make nonbinding recommendations before it goes to the floor for a final vote.

Several members of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has expressed serious concerns that the measure does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare, are on the Budget Committee and could decline to support the bill there.

Republicans hold an eight-vote advantage over Democrats on the Budget Committee, and if four GOP members oppose it, the bill could stall. Three of the 22 Republicans on the panel are members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Aides to those three members  Reps. Dave Brat (Va.), Gary Palmer (Ala.) and Mark Sanford (S.C.)  did not respond to inquiries Tuesday about whether they intended to support the legislation in committee. Three other Budget Committee Republicans, Reps. John Faso (N.Y.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.) and Bruce Westerman (Ark.), said Tuesday that they were undecided on their committee votes.

Near the close of the Tuesday Senate lunches, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the head of the Freedom Caucus, was seen walking down a hallway near the room where the lunch was held.

Weve got some work to do, still, said Meadows, adding that he had received no assurances from the White House or anyone else about changes to the bill that would attract his support.

Among the commitments that White House staff members have pledged to support is a series of amendments at the budget panel this week, according to one senior White House official. But special budget rules established more than four decades ago make that plan impossible to fulfill.

Budget Committee members do not have the authority to offer any substantive or binding amendments to the legislation. Their sole job is to combine the recommendations of previous committees  which have passed the GOP proposal  and send the legislation to the House Rules Committee.

House Budget Committee Chairman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) said Tuesday that she is in talks with her members about potential motions to ask the Rules Committee to modify the bill when it takes it up, probably early next week. Really our role and responsibility is to take the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce bills and put them together, Black said in an interview.

Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), the Budget Committees vice chairman, said Tuesday that while the panel cannot directly make changes to the bill, members can suggest recommendations.

I think that is fair game if youre trying to be an honest broker and better the bill, and I think we should welcome that kind of discussion, he said. If youre doing it because you want to sabotage the bill, youre going to find guys like me swat that down pretty vehemently.

Rokita said he has attempted to persuade the bills skeptics by asking: Do they not have the courage to do the big thing? And thats how Im framing it with them.

The House Republicans legislation would keep a few of the ACAs most popular features, such as forbidding insurers from denying coverage or charging more to people with preexisting medical problems, and allowing young adults to stay on their parents insurance policies until age 26.

The plan would erase penalties the ACA imposes on people who do not buy health coverage and, instead, would have a deterrent: a 30 percent surcharge on premiums that insurers could levy for a year if consumers let their coverage lapse. The bill would remove the ACAs subsidies, replacing them with new tax credits and insurance rules that, together, would provide more help to younger people than older ones. The tax credits could be used for any plan sold in a state as long as it didnt provide coverage for abortion.

The legislation would gradually eliminate an expansion of Medicaid, the public insurance program for lower-income Americans, that was accepted by 31 states under the ACA and would give states an annual fixed sum based on the number of people in the program.

Moderate Republicans from states that expanded Medicaid have voiced concerns that the bill would not do enough to protect those who obtained coverage through that expansion.

They worry that the projected deficit reduction would not be enough of a benefit to compensate for the number of people who stand to lose coverage.

These kinds of estimates are going to cause revisions in the bill, almost certainly, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Tuesday of the CBO report.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician and strong ACA critic, sounded apprehensive about the CBO reports implications.

President Trump said that he wants as many people covered as under Obamacare, Cassidy said Monday. He said that health care should be affordable. If theres 14 million people losing insurance, of course its concerning.

On the right, conservatives have complained that the bill is not a forceful enough rollback of the Obama administrations health-care law. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Cruz, has been a chief conservative critic of the law.

There is a solution for House Leaders that conservatives have offered: abandon Obamacare Lite now, Paul wrote Tuesday on Twitter. It is bad law & it cant pass.

In a later tweet, he added: If House leaders try do a little less using the same basic framework as the failed Obamacare experiment, then it will fail too.

Lee also raised concerns in an editorial for the conservative Daily Signal that the House bill contains policy changes that would violate strict Senate rules.

One such worry involves a provision that would forbid the use of insurance tax credits for coverage of health-care providers that offer abortion services.

But moderates warned that addressing the conservatives concerns would threaten their own support. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) said Tuesday that they would oppose the bill, while Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.)  a leader of the moderate GOP faction  said he has serious concerns and reservations about supporting the measure without changes.

Amy Goldstein, Abby Phillip, Ed OKeefe, David Weigel and James Hohmann contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost
A cop found her when she was 17-month-old and handed over to a NGO. She was later adopted by a Swedish couple and now years later 36-year-old Jessica Lindher is back in India, with her Australian husband and their two children, to find her biological parents.

By Mustafa Shaikh: A 36-year-old teacher from Sweden has till now visited India three times in quest of her biological parents.

On the ocassion of Holi, Jessica Kamalini Lindher met the cop who found her lying in the vicinity of Sion hospital when she was 17-month-old. She was adopted by a Swedish couple from a Sion-based orphanage, Shree Manav Seva Sangh in February 1982.

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Jessica first came to India in 1999 with her adoption papers and visited the NGO from where she was adopted. But the rules regarding adoption did not give her the authority to get information about her biological parents. She paid a second visit in 2016 when the rules had changed. Now, back for the third time to trace her roots Jessica is accompanied by her Australian husband and their two children.

"I want to know my roots and my parents. The language my parents speak. I was told my some that I look like a South Indian. I don't want my children to be disconnected with the culture and language", she said.

Jessica's life events are quite similar to the Oscar nominated movie Lion. She was adopted by a Swedish couple and now has returned to find her biological parents, however her parents did not support her quest and even told her that India is a country where children get stolen.

"It's all just too convenient. And the film is made to pander to the Westerners' belief that they are 'saving' the poor and needy by adopting from India," Jessica said about the film and her life. She is now being helped by Advocate Anjali Pawar who had traced Gaonkar, then cop and now police sub inspector posted at secuirty and protection branch.

"I only had Gaonkar's batch number on the adoption papers. I was helped by Mumbai police who gave me his current details. After which I met him and showed him Jessica's pictures as kid and he recognised her. After which I got Jessica to meet him," said Pawar.

On Monday, Jessica came to the security branch along with her family to meet Gaonkar which turned out to be a quite emotional experience for her. Till now Jessica lived under the assumption that maybe she was lost and was put up for adoption before her parents could come and search for her. Although, Gaonkar told her that it seemed she was abandoned.

"I tried to trace for her parents first in the nearby area then a message was sent to all the police stations, but no missing complaint was found. After which I handed her over to the NGO," said Gaonkar.

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Life for Jessica was not easy, she was made to feel 'brown' is 'dirty' and 'ugly'. The difference in the appearances of her parents and her also invited "a lot of personal questions from strangers" which she didn't want to address, especially since she didn't have any answers.

Also read: All child adoptions violating 2017 regulations to be considered illegal, say new guidelines

Also read: Surrogacy a joke, Johar could have adopted a poor child: Azmi

Also read: Centre wants judges to be sensitised on adoption laws

--- ENDS ---
This is the all-hands-on-deck moment of the health-care fight, MoveOn.orgs Washington director, Ben Wikler, told the 26,373 listeners who tuned into the organizations Sunday night strategy call, a weekly event that has drawn vast audiences of progressives seeking solidarity and guidance. We have a plan.

Determined to defeat the fast-paced Republican overhaul of the Affordable Care Act, Wikler called for protests Thursday and Friday at the offices of nine GOP senators and 23 House members. He said demonstrators should bring props: crutches, stretchers, slings.

Suddenly were in this turbo mode, this race where theyre going to try to torpedo health care for millions of people and we have three weeks to stop them, Wikler said. This is a full-on health-care emergency. But we actually have, I think, a really good shot at stopping these guys.

The Obamacare rewrite by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and the Trump administration is presenting progressive organizations with a clear target and a powerful challenge as they labor to channel the diffuse grass-roots opposition to President Trumps agenda. Beating back the effort became more urgent on Monday after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the GOP proposal would lower the number of Americans with health insurance by 24 million while reducing the federal deficit $337 billion by 2026.

The energy of the anti-Trump forces since Jan. 20 has surprised even his most fervent opponents. The question is whether Democrats can turn activism into policy victories and success at the polls. Defeating the GOP proposal is shaping up as a defining test, with significant implications for policy and politics alike.

Advocacy organizations have been racing to catch up with the unprecedented grass-roots energy, said Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn.org, whose history stretches to battles against the Iraq War and President Bill Clintons impeachment. We just need to present clear, strategic actions that can make a difference. Thats our end of the bargain.

MoveOn.org and a series of partners, including Indivisible and the Working Families Party, have held six Sunday night conference calls for supporters since Trumps inauguration. On the hurriedly arranged first call, the day after the Jan. 21 Womens March, MoveOn.org organizer Vicki Kaplan hoped to get 1,000 participants. It drew more than 59,000. The fourth call, directing strategy for protests during the congressional recess, drew 46,000.

Sundays session was a mix of policy tutorials and calls to action, ending with a few questions from participants and a stress-reducing breathing exercise  practice for sustaining ourselves over the next four years, explained Amanda Johnson of the Working Families Party.

The heart of the call was a pitch to defend the ACA. The peril, framed by Wikler, is the prospective loss of health insurance for millions of people. He decried Trumpcare as a terrible, terrible, terrible plan and said the GOP push to approve a bill by the end of March is a Hail Mary pass.

Why are they doing all these terrible things? Like with so much Republican policy, theres a simple explanation: tax cuts for the rich, Wikler said. So the very rich get very richer and 15 million people cant afford their health insurance. That is the core of Trumpcare.

The search for a compelling message is an essential component of MoveOn.orgs effort to pressure Republicans  and to mobilize spine-stiffening support for elected Democrats. In answer to a caller who asked how to be of use in districts and states represented by Democrats, Wikler said to watch for an email about how to recruit supporters in GOP states.

He also said, however, that calls to Democrats are needed.

Its always good to call, even if you have great, progressive senators, Wikler said. Ive been speaking to progressive senators over the last week. Theyve reported that the number of calls theyre getting to oppose the Republican health-care assault is really low. People havent been mobilizing around this.

The stakes stretch beyond the health-care bill, he said, adding that defeating the Republican health law means stopping the momentum for Trumps agenda.

Calling for protests to begin on Thursday, he identified 23 GOP House districts won by Hillary Clinton in November, along with nine Senate seats held by Republicans, from Alaska through Nevada and Arizona to Ohio, West Virginia and Maine.

Next up was Planned Parenthoods deputy organizing director, Kelley Robinson, who noted that the Ryan bill would block Medicaid recipients from seeking care at their clinics, including Pap smears, STD screening and contraceptives.

Robinson told listeners that more than half of the organizations clinics are in rural or underserved areas, and that 2.5 million people seek care annually.

Amaha Kassa, executive director of African Communities Together, warned of the harm the could result from Trumps crackdown on undocumented immigrants and a sharp reduction in refugee resettlement. Asylum seekers already in the United States stand to lose their full opportunity to be heard in court if the administration speeds the pace of hearings.

A Los Angeles organizer spent 10 minutes discussing ways to remain calm and healthy during a long protest campaign. Mark-Anthony Johnsons wellness regimen involved lots of deep breaths and loud exhales.

Take a moment and just breathe with me, began Johnson, who represents the group Dignity and Power Now. Whatevers in your body right now, whatever frustrations, excitement, joy that youve experienced in this call, give it a sound on the exhale.

He encouraged listeners who might be nervous at a rally or talking with a member of Congress, to develop a strategy.

Planned for Trumps first 100 days, the Sunday calls will continue if useful, said MoveOns Kaplan. Every week has a new twist, she said. Part of the rhythm of these calls is to try to stay in tune with what people are feeling and needing. We are how far into the Trump administration? Not quite 50 days? It feels like forever.

Read more at PowerPost
The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that employers can prohibit the Muslim headscarf in the workplace. Although nonbinding, the decision sets an important precedent for the continent amid a fraught political climate.

As strong anti-immigrant sentiment spreads into the political mainstream and right-wing parties soar in popularity ahead of several key elections this year, the ruling is bound to fan the flames of long-simmering culture wars in Europe, especially in France.

The court addressed complaints from two Muslim women  one from France and one from Belgium  who alleged that their employers had discriminated against them for wearing the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, to the office.

The judges concluded otherwise: An internal rule . . . which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination.

Courts in France and Belgium will be left to settle the disputes in question.

In France, which is still reeling from terrorist attacks in the past two years perpetrated mostly by Islamic State militants or sympathizers with French and European passports, the far-right National Front party is on the rise.

Marine Le Pen, the partys contender for president, is almost certain to qualify for the second and final round of the vote in May.

[What French Muslims think about Frances secular laws]

The particulars of the two cases considered in Tuesdays ruling were different. In the absence of official internal regulations prohibiting what employees can wear to work, the court suggested, Muslim women have a stronger case for wearing the hijab to the office.

According to the court, this was true in the French case.

The plaintiff in that case was Asma Bougnaoui, a Muslim woman who worked as an engineer at Micropole, a French IT firm. She had worn the headscarf when she was hired in 2008, but a client subsequently complained to her supervisors, insisting that there be no veil next time. Bougnaoui refused to take it off and was fired in June 2009.

Because there was no official policy banning the headscarf at Micropole, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the services of that employer provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered a genuine and determining occupational requirement, the court said.

But the Belgian case presented a different scenario.

In that case, Samira Achbita, a Muslim woman, was hired in 2003 as a receptionist by G4S, a British multinational security company. Unlike her French counterpart, Achbita had not worn the hijab at the time of her hiring by the firm, which has a clear neutrality policy.

Only in 2006 did she request that she be permitted to wear the headscarf. Because of the companys policy prohibiting political, philosophical or religious signs in the workplace, Achbita was dismissed.

In strongly secular Europe  home to a growing Muslim minority that is especially sizable in France and Belgium  the cases highlighted two often contradictory liberties: the freedom of religion and the freedom of enterprise.

The tension between the two is particularly high in France ahead of the presidential election, in which much of the debate has focused on identity and culture, with the place of Islam in French society becoming a fixation.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands will vote Wednesday in parliamentary elections in which the far-right populist Geert Wilders has brought his openly anti-Muslim views into the center of public discourse. And in Germany, where parliamentary elections are looming, a far-right party is poised to make considerable gains amid populist fears about immigration and Islam.

According to some estimates, France is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe, and among the most visible signs of that community is the headscarf, a source of long-standing controversy in a secular country that bans overt religious signs from public life.

Since the late 1980s, France has systematically policed what Muslim women can wear in public.

[Frances burkini debate: About a bathing suit and a countrys peculiar secularism]

In 2004, for instance, it banned the headscarf from its public schools, and in 2010, it became the first European country to ban the burqa  the head-to-toe covering. This past summer, after a terrorist attack in the Riviera city of Nice, local authorities in the south of France attempted to ban the burkini, a swimsuit not unlike a divers wet suit designed to allow Muslim women to enjoy the beach while respecting traditional codes of modesty.

The rules for public and private enterprises differ, with private enterprises often offering employees more freedoms. Although Frances ban on religious signs and symbols in public places is technically intended to cover other religions as well  barring, for example, the wearing of crosses and the Jewish kippah, or yarmulke  critics say the prohibitions are disproportionately directed against Muslims, especially Muslim women.

Basically, the question is now for corporate groups to decide if they will be inclusive of all religious groups, or whether they want to integrate into the current political climate, which is targeting specifically one community, said Marwan Muhammad, president of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, which supports Bougnaoui.

Muhammad sees the verdict against her as yet another attack on Muslim women in French and the wider European society. Her space is always being restricted, over and over again, he said. There is a reality from which Muslim women are repeatedly expelled.

Read more:

Swedens feminist government criticized for wearing headscarves in Iran

Germanys potential burqa ban has a problem: Where are the burqas?

Map: Where Islamic face veils are banned around the world

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Dutch Green-Left party leader Jesse Klaver campaigns outside a train station in Leiden, Netherlands, on March 14. There will be 28 political parties vying for power in the nations elections on March 15. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

Just hours before Dutch voters went to the polls Wednesday in an election whose results will ricochet across Europe, many people couldnt make up their minds.

Faced with a dizzying 28 political parties and worried that the Netherlands coalition-driven system means that both center-right and center-left leaders push the same policies, as many as 40 percent of voters were still undecided heading into the elections.

It might be a campaigners dream: a true last-minute opportunity to capture ballots. But the unsettled political arena is also a warning sign that voters across Europe are deeply dissatisfied with the status quo ahead of pivotal votes this year in France, Germany and possibly Italy. The outcomes will shape the direction of the continent for years to come.

(Video: Anna-Maria Magnusson / Full Story Media for The Washington Post)

[The peroxide-blond crusader who could soon top Dutch elections]

Anti-Muslim leader Geert Wilders, who recently called some Moroccans scum, is poised to come at or near the top of the polls Wednesday, a development that would hearten anti-immigrant leaders in neighboring nations. But he is unlikely to find enough partners to govern, so a patchwork constellation of smaller parties will probably have to form an alliance instead.

If I want to vote, its for social security, the welfare state, said Amel Elbali, 28, a teacher who stopped to chat with campaigners from the surging pro-European Union Green-Left party in front of the main train station in Utrecht on Tuesday. He was debating between two left-wing parties, both of which could help blunt anti-immigrant concerns, he said.

People are angry about the social welfare state. And the Muslims and Moroccans, theyre blamed for everything, said Elbali, whose mother is Dutch and father is a Moroccan immigrant. He said that if economic problems were fixed, integration problems would probably ease across the nation of 17 million.

The tumult has created opportunities for insurgent parties such as the Green-Left party, an environmentally focused group that supports making changes to the European Union to make it more accountable to voters. The party  led by a charismatic 30-year-old, Jesse Klaver  has risen to fifth place in recent polls, enough support to make it a potential kingmaker in coalition talks. Those are expected to drag on for months.

You see that people like Trump win, that there is Brexit, and meanwhile you hear that people here are afraid they can't pay for the doctor, Klaver said Tuesday at the final debate.

Even as the debate got underway late Tuesday, party volunteers were still winning over on-the-fence voters as they campaigned door-to-door in Utrecht  an unusual, U.S.-style innovation for Dutch politics.

Right-wing leader Geert Wilders gestures during a debate Monday in Rotterdam. (Yves Herman/AP)

Still, if the fragmentation opens the doors for new parties to join the government, the likely exclusion of Wilders from power could strengthen him in the long run, analysts say.

He can make the argument that all the parties are the same, said Matthijs Rooduijn, a sociologist at Utrecht University who researches far-left and far-right parties. Convergence is good news for him because that provides him with more space.

Utrecht has a powerful part in Wilderss own account of his evolving views about Islam, which he boiled down in this campaign to a single-page platform that calls for the banning of the Koran and the closure of all mosques. The firebrand politician got his start in political office here in 1997 as a city council member, living in a low-income, increasingly immigrant area of the city. He said there were no-go zones in his own neighborhood that were plagued with high crime.

[Ahead of pivotal European elections, rightist websites grow in influence]

The reality, observers say, is more complicated. The proportion of Dutch municipalities with between 10 percent and 25 percent non-Western migrants doubled between 2002 and 2015, according to the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, a government research agency, fueled in part by the arrivals of asylum seekers from Middle East conflicts in recent years. Overall, non-Western immigrants rose from 7.6 to 12 percent of the Dutch population between 1996 and 2015.

In Utrecht, the large new Ulu Mosque, built 300 yards from the central train station in 2015, has turned into a local Rorschach test about whether the city is integrating its immigrants or being overrun by them. The mosques twin minarets can be seen from around the city, which has historically been the heart of Christianity in the Netherlands. Wilders and allies in parliament tried unsuccessfully to stop the construction.

Its a symbol of immigrations success, said Fleur de Bruijn, a campaigner for the Green-Left party in Utrecht who on Tuesday was handing out fliers on a plaza within sight of the mosque. The movement in Europe and America is that you have right-wing populists. But people are saying, Enough. Stop being afraid. 

That may be a winning message for Susanna Groenendijk, 19, a social work student  at least if she makes up her mind to vote for the Greens.

I didnt expect Id be so interested in the election, she said, as she chatted with de Bruijn. She said she was waffling between the Green-Left party, which she thinks would do a better job on the environment, and the Labor Party, which she favors for its policies on funding university educations.

For now, Groenendijk said, Im undecided.

Annabell Van den Berghe contributed to this report.



Read more:

Trumps calls for Europe to increase defense spending could force other upheaval

Europes leaders gather amid fears Trump is campaigning for their breakup

This Belgian bar is boycotting U.S. products because of Trump

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Mohammad Mohiedine Anis, 70, smokes his pipe as he sits in his destroyed bedroom listening to music on his vinyl player in Aleppo's formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)

Aid deliveries have all but stopped for hundreds of thousands of Syrians living under siege, a medical group said Tuesday, raising the risk of death from starvation, malnutrition or a lack of basic medical care.

As Syrias war enters its seventh year, President Bashar al-Assads forces have recaptured all the countrys major urban centers while continuing to pressure what remains of once sizable rebel-held enclaves around the capital, Damascus, despite a nationwide cease-fire.

Caught in the crossfire are tens of thousands of civilians, most of them heavily dependent on United Nations aid deliveries that require approval of the Syrian government.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a New York-based group monitoring humanitarian conditions in Syria, said the flow of lifesaving humanitarian supplies has slowed to a trickle since the start of the year.

Only one U.N. convoy reached its destination in January, while two arrived in February, according to the group.

Mohamed Ataya, a 31-year-old Syrian man known as "Abu Maher", tends to his plants on the rooftop of his damaged building in the Syrian rebel-held town of Arbin, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on March 3, 2017. Ataya, who used to be a professional football player before the war, cultivates seeds for sale. (Amer Almohibany/AFP/Getty Images)

Aid groups say that more than a million Syrians now live under siege without access to sustained humanitarian assistance.

Our findings show a clear pattern of obstruction and manipulation by Syrian authorities, who ensure that approved aid rarely reaches its intended targets, and when it does, it is wholly inadequate, said Elise Baker, the organizations lead Syria researcher.

[How the Syrian revolt went so horribly, tragically wrong]

Humanitarian access was meant to accompany a cease-fire brokered in December by Russia and Turkey. But in January, Jan Egeland, a senior U.N. adviser, blamed the stoppage on a complete, hopeless, bureaucratic quagmire.

While the United Nations usually works at the invitation of the governments that host it, critics say the organizations reliance on the approval of Assads security apparatus has allowed aid to be used as a weapon of war.

In the besieged rebel-held town of Madaya, dozens of civilians starved to death last year after months without any aid deliveries. Although convoys have reached the area since then, doctors say their contents are often ill-suited to needs. Food deliveries have sometimes carried carbohydrates but no protein, leading to malnutrition among the areas residents. Government soldiers have also removed antibiotics, anesthetics and burn treatment kits from trucks bound for areas where operating theaters had run dry, according to U.N. officials.

On Monday, a coalition of 81 relief groups, most of them Syrian, called for an end to the sieges, with full and unhindered humanitarian access and passage for civilians.

A man walks inside a damaged school in the rebel held besieged city of Douma, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria, on March 2. (Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

Husam AlKatlaby, a representative of the Violations Documentation Center, a Syrian human rights group, said the Syrian army had cut off aid to an estimated 450,000 people in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta, an area that attracted global attention in 2013 after a deadly chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government.

Patients are already dying due to lack of medicine, food is becoming more expensive, and every day brings fresh casualties from conventional or chemical weapons. We fear that eastern Ghouta will be the next of many more Aleppos yet to come  cut off, strangled, and bombarded while the world watches, said AlKatlaby, referring to the city retaken by Syrian forces at the end of last year after a punishing months-long siege and bombing campaign.

In a report released Monday, the U.N.s Commission of Inquiry on Syria accused Assads army of launching a fresh round of chemical attacks on eastern Ghouta, this time involving chlorine.

Fears are also growing for Syrian civilians trapped in the countrys northern provinces. One of the largest aid operations to Syria, run by U.S.-based Mercy Corps, was closed last week by Turkey, citing irregularities in the groups paperwork.

But humanitarian workers in the southern Turkish town of Gaziantep, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists, said they feared the closure is part of a broader crackdown on aid groups operating there, and that it could affect hundreds of thousands of displaced and struggling Syrians across the border.

The situation could deteriorate very quickly, said one aid worker. These groups support bakeries, schools, and medical supplies. They support everything the people there are using to survive.



Wednesday marks the sixth anniversary of the Syrian revolt, which began as a peaceful antigovernment uprising before turning into one of the deadliest armed conflicts of the 21st century. Almost a half-million people have been killed in the intervening years, while much of the country has emptied out.

The U.N. childrens agency, UNICEF, said Monday that 2016 had been the worst on record for Syrian children, with more killed, maimed and recruited as child soldiers in a sharp escalation of violence.

That fighting ebbed at the start of the year, after Turkey and Russia brokered a nationwide cease-fire between Syrian government forces and most of the rebel groups it is fighting.

But the fighting has ticked steadily up once again as the Syrian army and allied Iran-backed forces press offensives against rebels around Damascus, the southern city of Daraa and the western city of Homs.

Syrias shaky cease-fire has been accompanied by several rounds of largely fruitless peace talks. The latest meeting was derailed Tuesday, after the rebel delegation said it would not be in attendance, citing the governments continued airstrikes across the country.

The stuttering peace process has also caused the rebels to turn in on themselves. An alliance of al-Qaeda-linked militants opened attacks on armed groups that initially agreed to join the process. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry said Monday that the fighting had caused hundreds of casualties, with serious repercussions for the rebels ability to fight pro-government forces in future.

Read more:

This makeshift hospital clung on through 4 years of Syrias war. Now its closing.

Turkey closes U.S. aid group that helped Syrians

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Jason Greenblatt, the New York real estate lawyer appointed by President Trump as his special representative for international negotiations, sounded out Israeli and Palestinian leaders on prospects for Middle East peace, garnering generally positive reviews from both sides Tuesday despite his lack of diplomatic experience or defined goals.

Greenblatt met Tuesday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, following a five-hour meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday night.

The visit marked the first time that Trump has sent one of his key envoys to the region to probe the possibility of solving an intractable conflict  one that has bedeviled his predecessors in the White House and flummoxed even more experienced U.S. diplomats for decades.

A handout photo made available by the U.S. Embassy on March 13, 2017, shows U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt (L), meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) at Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem. (Matty Stern / Us Embassy / Handout/EPA)

Since taking office, Trump has indicated a departure from previous U.S. administrations that were solely committed to the concept of a two-state solution, and he has signaled interest in exploring a regional approach to reaching a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

[U.S. official: Trump will not press two-state peace track]

Last month, in a news conference with Netanyahu in Washington, Trump appeared determined to find a solution that would be acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians, although he did not make clear exactly what that meant.

A U.S. Embassy official, speaking anonymously in keeping with protocol, said the goal of Greenblatts visit was primarily to hear their views and perspectives on the current situation and how progress towards peace can be made.

Despite low expectations for the visit, hopes were high on both sides  although for quite different reasons.

For Israel, the meeting was viewed as a chance to present its arguments for strengthening Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including the construction of a new community to replace Amona, a Jewish outpost demolished last month after Israels Supreme Court ruled it was built on private Palestinian lands.

Among Palestinians, Greenblatts visit was an encouraging sign  after what was described as a positive telephone call between Abbas and Trump on Friday night  that the U.S. president is committed to providing them with an acceptable solution.

Following his meeting with Netanyahu, Greenblatt tweeted that the two had discussed settlements, the regional situation and how progress toward peace with Palestinians can be made.

In a joint statement, Netanyahu and Greenblatt said they were both committed to advancing a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu said that under Trump's leadership, he looked forward to the prospect of peace with all of Israels neighbors, including the Palestinians.

[Israeli intelligence minister: Trump created new path to peace]

The two, however, did not seem to have resolved differences over Israels desire to expand its controversial settlements, built on land Palestinians hope to use for a future state. In Washington last month, Trump asked Netanyahu to hold back on settlements for a little bit.

The settlements issue seemed to be a rare point of contention between Israel and the Trump White House. After his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu told reporters that while the two agree on most matters, they do not see eye to eye on everything.



Speaking Tuesday night, Netanyahu said the two administrations were trying to reach an understanding on the issue. He said his meeting with Greenblatt was positive.

Netanyahu is under immense pressure from the right flank in his coalition, including his coalition partner and rival Naftali Bennett, leader of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party. Bennett and his party have been pressuring Netanyahu to declare sovereignty over certain settlement blocs and move ahead with building a new settlement even without Trumps direct consent. Both Netanyahu and Bennett constantly vie for the support of thousands of ideological and politically motivated Jewish settlers.

In Ramallah, the de facto headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, feelings toward Trump and his intentions have been positive since the Friday phone call between the two presidents. They were further buoyed by Tuesdays meeting with Greenblatt.

We received Greenblatt as a representative of the U.S., and we appreciate and welcome the fact that he is open and wanting to listen to the Palestinian side, said Husam Zomlot, a senior adviser to Abbas. This is a good start. Zomlot will take up the post of the Palestinian Authoritys ambassador to the United States next month.

Zomlot said Greenblatt was attentive and spent hours in Ramallah meeting with the Palestinian president and many of his senior advisers.

It is crucial that they are consulting, and that is why we believe this is an opportunity for us, he said. The road to peace is well known, and we are all willing to give it a chance.

[Netanyahu thinks a state-minus is enough for Palestinians]

Local media reported that Trump has invited the Palestinian leader to Washington, a trip he is likely to undertake sometime next month. The belief is that the U.S. president will likely propose a peace deal that would include the resumption of direct negotiations with Israel, in exchange for a halt to settlement expansion and an American pledge not to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

The U.S. administration has made various statements on the peace issue, and one can understand the president is taking a businesslike approach to the problem, as opposed to a diplomatic approach, said Michael Oren, an Israeli member of parliament and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States. That is a breath of fresh air from the previous eight years.

Oren said that when Barack Obama took office as president, he immediately appointed George Mitchell as a special envoy to the Middle East and told the sides what peace would look like. The result, Oren said, was an impossible situation that did not give either side room to negotiate.

What I hear from Netanyahu is that this president is open to different ideas. It is not about ideology but what stands a chance of succeeding, he said. We have an opportunity now to regain a level of intimacy and trust that has been lost, that is vital for moving ahead with the peace process.

Read more

U.S. official: Trump will not press two-state peace track in first talks with Israels Netanyahu

Israeli intelligence minister says Trump created a new path to peace

Netanyahu thinks a state-minus is enough for the Palestinians

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

[]

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will discuss and coordinate strategy to address the advancing nuclear missile threat from North Korea during his visit, a State Department official said Monday. (Susan Walsh/AP)

When President Trump told an interviewer last month that former president Barack Obama had warned him of a grave military problem from a certain place, there was little doubt that the place was North Korea.

And that was before the military dictatorship launched missiles in a perceived challenge to the new Trump administration or allegedly ordered a bizarre assassination in a busy international airport.

The threat from North Korea  nuclear-armed, impoverished and deeply suspicious of a potential U.S. attack  is the centerpiece of Secretary of State Rex Tillersons visit to Asia beginning Wednesday. It was also the main topic for Defense Secretary Jim Mattiss Asia trip last month  his first as the Pentagon chief.

The top State Department diplomat for Asia, acting assistant secretary Susan Thornton, told reporters Monday that Tillerson would discuss and coordinate strategy to address the advancing nuclear missile threat from North Korea.

In Japan and South Korea, that means reassuring U.S. allies most at risk from an unprovoked North Korean attack. In China, which is Tillersons last stop, it means leaning on the Norths protector and only ally to use its economic power to choke Pyongyangs missile development.

The No. 1 issue will be North Korea just because its so present for each of the countries Tillerson will visit, said Victor Cha, a former top adviser on Asia under President George W. Bush.

Among the key issues related to North Korea will be a restatement of U.S. commitment to defend Japan and South Korea after Trumps suggestions during the presidential campaign that the United States could save money by having those allies develop their own nuclear weapons.

We remain very concerned about the aggressive posture of the Kim Jong Un regime, said Tamaki Tsukada, spokesman for the Japanese Embassy in Washington.

We welcome the U.S. announcement that all options are on the table. The recent provocations from North Korea show we cannot be complacent or have a business-as-usual scenario. We need to consider a new mode.

Ongoing annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises and deployment starting this month of a U.S. missile shield in South Korea will be the backdrop for Tillersons assurances. China strongly opposes the system, known as THAAD, as well as the joint military exercises. The United States has dismissed what U.S. officials suggested was an unserious Chinese proposal to do away with the exercises in exchange for North Korea suspending missile tests.

The potential for conflict with North Korea appears higher than in recent years as the dynastic regime edges closer to the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to U.S. shores and confronts a new U.S. administration it perceives as antagonistic.

The United States has set a red line against a North Korean inter-continental ballistic missile but has not said exactly what the consequences would be for a program Pyongyang has trumpeted as a national achievement.

North Korea wont be the only topic, of course, especially in China, where Tillerson is charged with calming ruffled feathers from Trumps repeated assertions during the campaign that China was cheating the United States on trade and stealing its jobs.

Trump compounded Chinese anger by breaking decades of diplomatic protocol when he spoke directly to Taiwans elected leader. The December telephone conversation cast doubt on the incoming U.S. administrations commitment to the one-China policy that is a bedrock of wary but mostly stable U.S.-Chinese relations. Trump and his aides have been backpedaling ever since, but it will fall to Tillerson to make the first high-level U.S. assurances in Beijing and set the tone for an expected visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States next month.

The Trump administration has junked the Obama-era diplomatic catchphrases pivot to Asia or rebalance to Asia but not the diplomatic and security imperatives that drove that policy, Asia experts said.

It seems clear that when it comes to foreign policy, the Trump administration wants to make Asia first, said Harry J. Kazianis, an Asia security specialist at the Center for the National Interest. This is an administration that has been very clear since Day One that a tougher line on China was going to be a key part of their Asia strategy, including on trade, he said.

Asian nations will be watching Tillersons engagement closely for clues to the new administrations next moves on Asian trade policy after Trump, as promised, walked away from Obamas signature Trans-Pacific Partnership omnibus trade package. Japan, especially, was rattled by the collapse of the TPP.

The United States is expected to seek new bilateral trade deals with some of the Asian nations that were party to the TPP, as well as outside Asia.

Tillerson made an unusual and perhaps unprecedented decision to travel without a complement of State Department reporters on this first extensive solo trip. Past secretaries of state have used a big marquee trip early in their tenures to underscore U.S. commitment to a region, set out new positions or reset relations after periods of suspicion or animosity, and to ensure that the U.S. message is heard both overseas and at home.

Tillersons deliberate choice means that seasoned American diplomatic reporters cannot cover all of his engagements, even if they travel independently. It could also undermine U.S. statements about press freedoms and government accountability around the world and step back from U.S. insistence that Chinese officials face and take questions from visiting American reporters.

This is the secretarys decision, to travel with a smaller footprint, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday.

David Nakamura contributed to this report.
Zachary T. Fardon was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois until last week, when the Trump administration asked 46 U.S. attorneys to resign. (Teresa Crawford/AP)

Chicagos top federal prosecutor  one of the 46 U.S. attorneys asked to resign last week  released a letter Tuesday as he leaves office urging the city and the Justice Department to quickly move forward to reform the Chicago Police Department as a way to address soaring violence.

In the five-page letter, Zachary T. Fardon, the outgoing U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said Chicagos violence cannot be stopped without a top-flight police department that has the resources and training needed to combat entrenched street gangs.

For decades, [the Chicago Police Department] has been run on the cheap, wrote Fardon, who became a U.S. attorney in 2013. Officers dont have the training, the supervision, the equipment or culture they need and deserve. . . . If you leave correcting those deficiencies to the vagaries of city politics, then you lose the long term fight.

Chicago, the nations third-largest city, has seen a dramatic increase in violence and shootings recently. In 2016, the city had 762 homicides, its deadliest single year in two decades, eclipsing the combined tolls in New York and Los Angeles. There were also more than 4,000 shooting victims.

This bloodshed has regularly been invoked by President Trump, who during the campaign and since taking office has repeatedly singled out Chicago as an example of how the entire country has been besieged by dangerous crime. While a number of cities have experienced a recent increase in homicides, levels of violent crime nationwide remain far below what they were a quarter-century ago.

Shortly before President Barack Obama left office, the Justice Department released a scathing report accusing the Chicago Police Department of using excessive and unreasonable force. The report concluded that the pattern was largely attributable to systemic deficiencies in the city and the police force, which it said had inadequate training and routinely violated the constitutional rights of minority residents. Federal investigators also said they found that officers felt unsupported and lacking in morale.

The 13-month investigation of the police department was launched amid a firestorm prompted by video footage of a white officer fatally shooting Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old. That video, released in November 2015, sparked intense protests in the city and led to the ouster of Chicagos police superintendent.

[Chicago police officers have pattern of using excessive force, scathing Justice Dept. report says]

The departure of Fardon, 50, comes at a time when Trumps Justice Department appears less likely to impose change on local police departments  and it is unclear what will happen to the police reform agreement between the Justice Department and Chicago city officials.

The same day the Justice report was released, city officials said they would negotiate with the federal government on a court-enforceable order to reform the police department. A week later, Trump took the oath of office, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has not addressed the future of the Chicago accord under his Justice Department.

Sessions has generally been critical of consent decrees that force reforms on police departments. During his confirmation hearing, he said that consent decrees undermine the respect for police officers.

Under Obama, the Justice Department investigated a number of local police departments and forced significant reforms through consent decrees. In a speech two weeks ago, Sessions tied the recent increase in violent crime to a lack of respect for police officers and promised that his Justice Department would be more supportive of local law enforcement.

[Sessions vows crackdown on violent crime in first major speech as attorney general]

Last week, Sessions told federal prosecutors that a top priority is to use every tool we have to investigate and prosecute violent criminals. But Fardon wrote in his letter that the Chicago U.S. Attorneys Office is woefully understaffed and needs to be immediately assigned 15 to 20 additional federal prosecutors for more violent-crime prosecutions.

Its a travesty that the office remains understaffed, Fardon wrote. . . . If you want more federal gang and gun prosecutions, we need more full-time, permanent federal prosecutors in Chicago. Thats simple math.

Trump has suggested sending the feds to Chicago to help, although he has not elaborated on what that would mean. Federal agents are already on the ground in Chicago, coordinating with local police. But Fardon said federal law enforcement and local police need to greatly increase their presence in crime-ravaged neighborhoods.

We need to flood those neighborhoods, Fardon wrote. . . . Not just to arrest the bad guys but also to be standing on that corner where shots otherwise might get fired, to be breaking up those corner loiterers, and to be meeting and learning and knowing the kids, the people, and the truth of who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and who isnt yet formed and can be swayed.

Read more:

Trump says he may send the feds to Chicago. Federal agents are already there.

Chicago police officer charged with murder for shooting black teenager

Chicagos staggering rise in gun violence and killings
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn retired senior diplomat Anne W. Patterson as his choice for undersecretary for policy after the White House indicated unwillingness to fight what it said would be a battle for Senate confirmation.

U.S. officials said that two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), were strongly opposed to Pattersons nomination because she served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013, a time when the Obama administration supported an elected government with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that was ultimately overthrown by the Egyptian military.

The withdrawal leaves Mattis with a bench still empty of Trump-appointed senior officials, a situation that stretches across the administration as Cabinet secretaries have not chosen or the White House has not approved nominees. Although Obama administration holdovers remain in a few jobs, after eight weeks in office, President Trump has not nominated a single high official under Cabinet rank in the Defense or State departments.

In the service branches, former Republican congresswoman Heather Wilson has been named, but not confirmed, as Air Force secretary, while picks for Army and Navy secretaries have withdrawn from consideration.

The White House plans this week  perhaps as early as Tuesday  to announce a handful of approved nominees proposed by Mattis for senior Defense Department positions, but Patterson will not be among them, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal decision-making.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry sits next to Anne Patterson, left, U.S. ambassador to Egypt, during a meeting with members of nongovernmental organizations in Cairo on March 3, 2013. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool photo via Reuters)

[How to reach The Washington Post with tips on federal agencies]

Mattiss acquiescence to Pattersons withdrawal came after he fought and won a major battle with the White House to remove Iraq from the list of majority-Muslim countries whose citizens are barred from U.S. entry under Trumps executive order on immigration.

Although he reportedly insisted that he be able to select his own team when he accepted Trumps offer to head the Defense Department, Mattis has skirmished repeatedly with the White House over appointments. His initial choice for deputy secretary, Michele Flournoy, withdrew from consideration after meetings with White House officials. Flournoy served as the departments undersecretary in the Obama administration.

The current defense deputy, Robert Work, is an Obama holdover who has agreed to remain in office until his successor is in place. The deputy slot remains vacant at the State Department, where Secretary Rex Tillersons reported choice, Elliott Abrams, was rejected by the White House because of comments he made during the campaign that were perceived to oppose Trump.

Patterson retired from the State Department in December as assistant secretary for Near East affairs, the top official on the Middle East, with the highest rank, career ambassador. She also served as ambassador to Pakistan, Colombia and El Salvador.

But it was primarily her service in Egypt, as the public face of Obamas support for the Muslim Brotherhood-backed government of then-President Mohamed Morsi, that led to her rejection by the White House, officials said.

Morsi was ousted by the Egyptian military in 2013, leading to strained relations between the Obama administration and Egypt under the installed president, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi.

Although Patterson was said to be supported by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and was seen as likely to have garnered a majority of votes from Republicans and Democrats, the Trump administration has voiced strong support for Sissi as a strong counterterrorism ally and largely dismissed criticism of his repression of human and civil rights.

While the administration has denounced the Muslim Brotherhood, its plans to issue an executive order designating it a terrorist organization appear to have fallen at least temporarily by the wayside as a number of Middle East experts and U.S. allies in the region have warned against such a step.

A Sunni Muslim organization founded in Egypt early last century, the Brotherhood is now a widespread, loosely organized religious and social movement across the Arab world. While current governments in some countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, consider its adherents terrorists, its chapters operate openly, in some cases with members holding elective office, in countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan.

The Brotherhood has been a longtime target of the U.S. far right. Cruz recently reintroduced legislation calling on the State Department to consider a terrorist designation and saying that the Brotherhood espouses a violent Islamist ideology with a mission of destroying the West.

Cotton, who has compared the Brotherhood to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, has called on Muslims around the world to lead a reform movement to reject the organization.

A number of Muslim groups, however, have said the real aim of the proposed legislation is to allow the U.S. government to target American Muslims.

The Defense Department declined to comment on the withdrawal of Patterson. A White House spokesman said, Typically, we do not comment on personnel matters.

A spokeswoman for Cotton said that his opposition to the nomination was less about Pattersons time as ambassador to Egypt than about her lack of DOD-specific experience. The undersecretary job has frequently been filled by diplomats and nonmilitary figures in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
The Justice Department on Monday asked for more time to respond to a request from the House Intelligence Committee to turn over any wiretapping applications, orders or warrants related to President Trump and his associates.

In a one-paragraph statement, spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said the Justice Department had called the top Democrats and Republicans on the committee to ask for additional time to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist. The committee had set a deadline of Monday to turn over the information.

[House Intelligence Committee chiefs ask Justice Dept. for proof of wiretaps]

President Trump earlier this month asserted that President Barack Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before Trumps victory in the presidential election. He has not provided any evidence to support his claim. Obama and former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. have denied that such wiretapping took place, and U.S. officials told The Washington Post that FBI Director James B. Comey asked the Justice Department to issue a statement refuting it.

Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee nonetheless said they will investigate Trumps claim, and last week they asked the Justice Department for copies of any applications submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, any orders that court released, and any copies of warrants issued by federal judges or magistrates regarding Trump or his campaign surrogates, business associates, employees, family and friends  if they exist. The heads of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism made a similar request.

Jack Langer, a spokesman for the Intelligence Committee, said Monday that the legislators now want a response by March 20, when a hearing is scheduled, and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered.

The White House, meanwhile, has offered evolving explanations for why the president said what he did. The White House initially asked Congress to investigate the claim as part of a larger inquiry into Russian interference in the election, and press secretary Sean Spicer said he would let the presidents tweet speak for itself. But on Monday, Spicer seemed to hint that Trump was using wiretapping to encompass conduct broader than wiretapping.

[Sean Spicer just explained why wire tapping is different from wiretapping]

If you look at the presidents tweet, he said very clearly, quote, wire tapping  in quotes, Spicer said, gesturing with his fingers to symbolize quotes. Theres been substantial discussion in several reports. . . . Theres been reports in the New York Times and the BBC and other outlets about other aspects of surveillance that have occurred. The president was very clear in his tweet that it was, you know, wiretapping  that spans a whole host of surveillance types of options.

Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
Angelina Jolie has several meaningful tattoos, but her latest inking was designed to protect her marriage with now-ex Brad Pitt. (Photo: Getty)

Mere months before filing for divorce from Brad Pitt in September 2016, Angelina Jolie took drastic measures  even for her  to save the union: She had her entire back covered in mystical tattoos meant to save her troubled marriage.

While in Siem Reap, Cambodia, directing the upcoming movie First They Killed My Father, the 41-year-old mom and filmmaker flew in Ajarn Noo Kanpai, an ex-Thai monk and renowned tattoo artist, from from Bangkok, Thailand, to perform the elaborate inking. Jolie was also joined in Cambodia by Pitt. The traditional tattoos, called Sak Yant, are composed of lines of script, geometric patterns, and animal shapes, according to the Daily Mail.

The three designs Kanpai etched into Jolies skin include ancient Thai Buddhist symbols and mantras and were meant to symbolically bind them as husband and wife, reported the Daily Mail. They were applied as additions to a series of tattoos Jolie already had on her back, including Know Your Rights, a traditional Thai tiger, and Cambodian writings, noted the publication.

The new tattoos are linked to a mystical tradition of body art that was used to protect warriors and grant them magic powers associated with healing, luck, strength, and protection against evil, according to the Daily Beast.

Jolie has several magical Sak Yant tattoos on her back. (Photo: Splash News)

But this wasnt just your run-of-the-mill tattoo procedure. Kanpai used the handheld method, an application that is intense and quite painful, according to the Daily Beast. Instead of using a standard tattoo gun, Kanpai used steel rods mounted with a surgical needle  a technique thats apparently more accurate, perfect for Jolies thinly outlined and elaborate work. In addition to love voodoo, the tattoos might also be homage to the thousands who lost their lives during the countrys Khmer Rouge reign, according to the Daily Mail.

One blogger who received a Sak Yant tattoo claims the needle is dipped into ink and repeatedly jabbed through your flesh by hand, and that when the needle first punctured my skin, it felt like a bee sting. Followed quickly by a swarm of bees launching a full-scale attack.

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Jolie getting tattooed by a former Thai monk and tattooist artist Ajarn Noo Kanpai. (Photo: Splash News)

Painful, yes, but worth it for spiritual seekers and fans of body modification. The Sak Yant represents to the wearer magical and spiritual reminders that are much more profound than a normal tattoo, according to the website of Sak Yant Chiang Mai. If a customer cannot choose from the traditional Sak Yant designs, a monk will often choose a meaningful one for him or her. Sak Yant tattoos represent everything from cleaning out unwanted spirits, gaining success and fortune, and protection from black magic and curses.

According to Sak Yant Chiang Mai, this type of body art takes less time to heal than traditional tattoos, as the surgical needle does not pierce as deeply as the needle on a tattoo gun. After-care is the same, though, and the tattoos are just as permanent.

Allegedly, Pitt also had Kanpai brand him with a protective tattoo  a Buddhist symbol on the left side of his stomach, which was applied using the same ink as the one for Jolies body art.

This isnt Jolies first encounter with the tattoo artist. In 2003 and 2004, Kanpai inked Jolies shoulder blade and gave her a tiger tattoo, according to the Daily Mail. Kanpai has also applied magical tattoos to celebrities including Cara Delevingne and Michelle Rodriguez, according to the Daily Beast.

Brad Pitt also got a tattoo from artist Ajarn Noo Kanpai. (Photo: Splash News)

Among the other significant tattoos Jolie has been acquiring since she was a teen are the letter M on the palm of her hand (an homage to her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand), as well as the geographical coordinates of the birthplace of her six children: Maddox, Zahara, Pax, Shiloh, and twins Vivienne and Knox.

Despite the purported magical powers of her Sak Yant tattoos, though, Jolie and Pitt have been embroiled in messy and very public divorce proceedings, which culminated in a joint statement in January that indicated the pair would keep future details of their divorce confidential by utilizing a private judge in order to protect their privacy and that of their children.

However, in an interview to promote the movie shes directing in Cambodia, which will air on Netflix, Jolie finally broke her silence on the breakdown of her marriage and her longtime relationship to Pitt, saying, It was very difficult. Many people find themselves in this situation. My whole family have all been through a difficult time. My focus is my children, our children. We are and forever will be a family and so that is how I am coping. I am coping with finding a way through to make sure that this somehow makes us stronger and closer.

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(Photo: Corbis Images)

Ben Carson lambastes Obamacare as much as the next Republican presidential candidate, but the neurosurgeon-turned-politician has a history of health care ideas that puts him outside mainstream conservative thought on the issue.

Private insurance companies, he has said, should be little more than non-profit service organizations, with government capping their profit margins. Meanwhile, the federal government could offer catastrophic care coverage akin to the National Flood Insurance Program, paid for with taxes on insurers profits.

He has called for government regulators to determine  with the help of medical professionals  what providers can charge for care, ensuring fair and consistent payments throughout the country.

Once he declared his candidacy, Carson said hed scrap Medicare and Medicaid  two longtime targets of conservatives  and spend the money instead on giving every American $2,000 a year for a health savings account. Then he hedged and said Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries could choose whether they wanted the stipend or their existing government coverage, though he has not explained how to pay for both structures at once.

Now, three months from when Iowa and New Hampshire voters cast ballots, Carsons campaign is promising a policy announcement that will clarify just where the candidate stands on health care. Once we issue our paper, there will be no more questions, said Carson adviser Doug Watts.

Carsons posture on health policy is an ideological mishmash that highlights his unconventional style, which hes ridden to the top of several national and early-state polls. Yet it also raises questions about whether Carson can sustain that strong standing as he draws more scrutiny in a deep field.

His rivals have yet to criticize his health-care record aggressively, but at least one prominent conservative group has taken notice  the same organization whose super PAC has spent $1 million in Iowa going after another GOP front-runner, businessman Donald Trump, for supporting tax increases and the use of eminent domain for private development.

Story continues

Club for Growth accuses Carson of philosophical fuzzy-mindedness and says many of his health care ideas come straight out of the lefts playbook.

David McIntosh, the groups president, said Club for Growths PAC has no plans to advertise against Carson, but he said Carsons record makes it seem like hed still be learning on the job if he were elected.

Weve wondered, does he have an appreciation for how a market works and whether people benefit from competition? McIntosh said.

Watts said Carson has always been consistent in arguing that government and the insurance industry together have acted as inappropriate middle men between providers and patients. He said any Carson policy would curtail that with a nuanced approach.

Carsons previous statements on health care are indeed nuanced.

In a 2012 book, America the Beautiful, he cited his Christian faith  every time Jesus arrived in a new area, he first healed the sick  in arguing that society perhaps should make sure that the basic needs of the most helpless among us are taken care of. He said the rest of the population  including people of modest means  should pay something for their care.

He delighted conservatives in 2013 when he declared: Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And his proposal for health care savings accounts is standard fare among Republicans advocating free-market health insurance policy.

Yet the subsidies he has proposed for health savings accounts could end up as another version of existing subsidies that, under Obamas health care law, help working-class citizens buy private coverage. The question, McIntosh argues, is whether Carson would, in turn, try to dictate coverage standards of private policies, as Obamas law does.

Some of Carsons commentary on insurers echoes criticisms Obama used in arguing for the 2010 law.

Carson has blamed for-profit insurers for squeezing out providers ability to offer more indigent care because hospitals and physicians spend so much money getting claims paid by insurance firms, which give providers low reimbursements. Insurance companies call the shots on what they want to pay, to whom, and when, Carson wrote in 2012.

Before he was a declared politician, Carson acknowledged that his views defy Washingtons typical ideological and partisan wrangle.

Who is right? Carson wrote three years before his campaign. Those who feel that it is our moral obligation to treat everyone regardless of cost, or those who feel that rationing and other means of cost containment make more sense.

Carson went on: As with virtually all controversial issues, the answer usually lies somewhere in between, and compromise can be very helpful.

Carson supporter Paige Mitts, a Georgia financial planner who worked previously in health care administration, said Carsons statements do not worry her. Hes trying to solve complicated problems, she said. Maybe we should consider it a good thing that hes hard to put in an ideological box.

Read This Next: Why Ben Carsons Transgender Bathroom Idea Is So Potentially Dangerous
The best cooking happening in Lima, the gastronomic hub of Peru these days, is likely at Maido . Chef-owner Mitsuharu Tsumura is the leading proponent of Nikkei cuisine. The buzz about this singular cuisine has been building, leading to the recognition of Nikkei as a bona fide culinary concept in...

The best cooking happening in Lima, the gastronomic hub of Peru these days, is likely at Maido. Chef-owner Mitsuharu Tsumura is the leading proponent of Nikkei cuisine. The buzz about this singular cuisine has been building, leading to the recognition of Nikkei as a bona fide culinary concept in the last decade. Peru is a unique melting pot of cultures with migrant populations from China, Japan, Italy, Africa, Spain, and Mexico, resulting in a cuisine with nuances and flavors from all these areas. The Japanese-Peruvian fusion, Nikkei, owes its origins to the Japanese farm workers who migrated here to work in the sugarcane fields. It masterfully blends Peruvian ingredients with traditional Japanese techniques.

There are many critics of Best Of lists, but in the case of a country like Peru, phenomenal culinary talents like Mitsuharu Tsumura would have remained hidden from most food enthusiasts if not for them. Along with food events such as Mistura (the biggest annual food festival in Lima) or the cultish Gelinaz, these lists serve to introduce such talents to the international dining scene. I am your father after all and I dont care what you think. I also call on my friends who are chefs or food critics for their opinion on menus or dishes.

How do you handle negative comments?

It depends not only on what is said but how it is said. I really listen to people and if they criticize my food I reflect on it unless they are just being obnoxious. In weekly meetings with my kitchen team, I tell them that usually people are right. If you dont taste the dish they taste and see if its really undercooked or over-salted then you cannot do a good job. There are things like if the customer wants a steak medium rare and it doesnt come to the table that way, then as a chef you cannot insist that you are right. I appreciate feedback not because I doubt my capacity as a chef, but I feel if, out of ten people, seven comment about the same dish, then its a sign that something needs to change.

Are Peruvian chefs working together to promote the countrys cuisine?

Its not just chefs, the government, or journalists who help promote Peru but also Peruvians. Out of the 32 to 33 million people in our country at least one third  that is around 10 million  are Peruvian ambassadors around the world. I am just pulling out numbers but out of that 10 million at least two million are able to travel abroad and have the resources to do so. When they travel, they talk about Peru and spread the word. Its all teamwork and very unique to Peru.

Other chefs like Joan Roca, Ferran Adria, Alain Ducasse, and Massimo Bottura who have been here, as well as visitors who fall in love with Peru, talk about it and have focused the eyes of the culinary world on us. That exposure has been very beneficial for us. We Peruvians are very easygoing and like to share our country and show our best. It is no longer just a tourist destination with Machu Picchu but a culinary destination.

Besides the new openings around the world and in Peru, what are the other dreams you want to realize maybe 10 years down the road?

I am going to share something I have not shared before. Ten years from now my dream is to have one restaurant that will not be Maido because I feel that Maido has a cycle, like everything else, that will run out at some point.

The restaurant I envision right here in Lima will have a concept focused on casual, comfort food. I want to bring Nikkei back towards home-style cooking while restaurants I open abroad will continue. My biggest passion is to cook, and the most important thing for me personally is to be happy all the time and right now my happiness lies in Maido. Right now, life is hectic with one or two day trips to Europe or Asia, but I honestly dont want to have this stress of the lists, stars, or reviews. I am 35 years old now and hope to keep my energy for the future. I love what I do and am very happy right now but want to be able to have people come in to a casual place, have fun, and share the joy. I want to enjoy the ride in my life  after all, we are here for a very short time.

Cheers to that Chef Mitsuharu!
Is it wrong to put breast milk in the work fridge? (Photo: Topshop)

Mia Birdsong has been breastfeeding her infant son for six months and had been storing her breast milk in her offices communal fridge after pumping at work.

However, Fox 47 reports Birdsong was told she was no longer allowed to do so by her employer, Hope Network Neuro Rehabilitation Facility in Lansing, Mich.

Birdsong said she was told she could no longer store her breast milk in any of the refrigerators on campus because it was against OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) regulations and that she could either use a thermos or put the breast milk in the biohazard refrigerator, which contains blood and human waste.

It was never a problem in the past, Birdsong said. I am placed in a situation where it is very disrespectful.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusively breastfeeding for about six months and then continuing to breastfeed for 12 months or more, as long as its mutually desired by mother and baby.



Hope Network, which has not responded to Yahoo Beautys request for comment at this time, released the following statement to Fox 47:

At Hope Network we fully embrace and support a womans right to breastfeed and have dedicated space among our statewide locations to accommodate that need. According to state health department regulations, we are required to label and date all items in refrigerators used by our patients when in an adult foster care home.

The staff member who came to you placed her breast milk in an unlabeled bag, which violates state health department regulations. We asked her to label all future breast milk per health department regulations. If she was not willing to label her breast milk for any reason, she would have the alternative option to place the breast milk in an alternative, non-patient refrigerator.

The statement from Hope Network continued: We never received a response from the staff member regarding the solutions we provided to her. However, if the employee remains uncomfortable labeling her breast milk to comply with state health department regulations, we are absolutely willing to add another refrigerator to the building she works in.

Story continues

The organization added: Hope Network has made it clear to this employee that we are fully supportive of her choice to breastfeed, but our nonprofit organization must comply with state health department regulations.

However, Michigans Department of Licensing Regulatory Affairs said that theres no specific law regarding breast milk storage.

Fox 47 followed up with Birdsong, who said Hope Network has provided her with a new refrigerator to store her breast milk in.

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Father Who Killed Twin Daughters In Murder-Suicide Told Wife: I Want You to Live and Suffer Like I Did Illinois Murder-Suicide: 911 Call Tape Released

Police have released disturbing audio from a pair of 911 calls made Friday evening from the Illinois home where a 48-year-old man fatally shot his twin teenage daughters before killing himself.

Oh my God! My husband shot my kids!, Anjum Coffland, the estranged wife of shooter Randall Coffland, cries to dispatchers following the killings of her 16-year-old daughters, Brittany and Tiffany Coffland. He shot me my girls are dead, my girls oh my God!

Throughout the nearly 8-minute recording, which was obtained by PEOPLE, a grief-stricken Anjum cries over the loss of her two daughters. The 46-year-old mother, who was shot in both legs by her estranged husband, can be heard calling out to both girls, in hopes they might respond. But they never do.

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.

One of the daughters was found shot in the head on a couch inside the St. Charles condominium while another was found dead in her bedroom. Randall Coffland died from a single self-inflicted gunshot to the head, according to police.

Investigators say the Cofflands were living apart after separating months ago. Last month, officers responded to a domestic disturbance involving the couple, but they have said no crime was committed and therefore no one was arrested.

Targeted His Wifes Legs

Police believe that Randall Coffland targeted his wifes legs so she would survive Fridays shooting, leaving the mother behind to deal with the emotional aftermath. Coffland called 911 before his wife and can be heard telling her, I want you to live and suffer like I did, in the audio.

I just shot and killed my two kids and I shot my wife and Im going to shoot myself now, he tells the dispatcher. My two girls are dead and Im killing myself.

Detectives are still trying to determine a motive for the killings, police say.

Story continues

Anjum Coffland can be heard breathing heavily throughout much of her call to 911. At one point, she even begins to hyperventilate as she awaits the arrival of police.

Over the course of the call, the dispatcher tries to keep the grieving mother calm, asking her questions as she cries.

He killed my daughters, he killed my daughters, she yells. He shot me. Im going into shock. He killed my girls. He fing killed my girls. Ive lost a lot of blood.

Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBent Ramsey and more.

Towards the end of the call, officers can be heard entering the house. The injured woman provides police with information about her husbands whereabouts before begging officers to check on her daughters.

My girls! she screams over tears. One of them is in the bedroom, I think. I need my girls to be checked. Please check my girls!

Autopsies on all three bodies were being conducted Monday.

Anjum Coffland is listed in stable condition at a nearby medical facility, according to police.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
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.

When pro spective b-school students are exploring their options, they often decide where to apply by looking at the average scores on the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, for a certain school.

The exam is used as part of the admissions process for more than 6,100 graduate programs around the globe, according to a report from the Graduate Management Admission Council, which tracks business school data and administers the test.

[See photos of the 20 top-ranked business schools.]

During the 2016 test year, which ran from July 2015 to June 2016, 261,248 GMAT exams were taken by prospective MBA students, a GMAC study found. Of those exams , less than 30 percent of score s were 650 or higher.

Among the 10 schools with the highest GMAT scores in the U.S., incoming full-time students for fall 2016 had an average score of 725; the GMAT has a maximum score of 800.

Stanford Graduate School of Business, which is tied at No. 4 in the U.S. News Best Business Schools rankings, had the highest average GMAT score at 737, according to the data submitted by 127 ranked business schools in an annual survey to U.S. News. The average GMAT score at the California b-school also rose by four points compared with the previous year.

[Explore the 2018 Best Graduate Schools rankings.]

While the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School is tied at No. 1 with Harvard Business School in the Best Business Schools rankings, the school had the second-highest average GMAT score: 730.

Among all the MBA programs that provided data on GMAT scores, the average was 632 -- much lower compared with the 725 average among the top 10.

Story continues

Below are the 10 business schools with the highest average GMAT scores for incoming full-time students in fall 2016. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find GMAT data, 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 471 schools for our 2016 survey of business 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 Business 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 comes 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 applicant pool and score data above are correct as of March 14, 2017.

Farran Powell is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering paying for college and graduate school. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at fpowell@usnews.com.
An upstate New York teen has been charged after allegedly beating the 2-year-old he was babysitting until the toddler was brain dead on Friday.

Devon Vanderwege, 17, has been charged with first-degree assault, but authorities say they are looking at additional charges now that the toddler, Ethan Bigham, has been taken off life support, according to Buffalo News.

Read: Grandmother Convicted in Death of Slain Granddaughter Who Kept Diary of Her Abuse

Ethan was taken off life support at Women & Children's Hospital after organs from his body were donated for transplant to other children, authorities said.

Ethan was reportedly attacked in the family house trailer in Marilla, the police official said, but the Erie County District Attorneys Office declined to give additional details.

"Ethan's entire face was mutilated, he was beaten so badly," a family friend told the paper. "His back is black and blue. We're told he was not only punched but some type of blunt object was used."

Read: Boy, 4, Gets Beating Because He Can't Pronounce a Word: Cops

Law enforcement officials have said that future charges against the teenager could range from manslaughter to second-degree murder.

Vanderwege is being detained without bail at the Erie County Holding Center.

He is set to appear in court on Thursday.

Watch: Parents Charged in Baby's Beating Visit Her Before She's Taken Off Life Support

Related Articles:
These days, it's entirely possible for teens to earn a graduate degree by 22.

A variety of programs make this possible. There are dual-enrollment programs, where students can take courses for high school and college credit. At early college high schools, students may be able to earn a diploma and an associate degree in the time it would normally take to earn the former.

[Find out why some teens are staying at high school for 13th Grade.]

Students at Saint John Vianney High School, a private school in New Jersey, may be able to earn their MBA by the time most people earn a bachelor's degree through a new partnership with Georgian Court University, a local news publication reported last month.

There are slew of accelerated bachelor's and master's degree programs nationwide.

"Societal norms don't always make the best use of young people's time," says John B. Weinstein, dean of the early colleges for Bard College. The four-year liberal arts college operates a nationwide network of public and private early colleges, including private Bard College at Simon's Rock and public Bard High School Early College Manhattan.

Bard's early colleges aren't just for students to earn high school and college credentials quickly, Weinstein says. They want students to do something effective, useful and engaging with their time. They are not trying to rush students through their education, he says, but some young people are ready to take on more than others might think.

Here are a few reasons why teens should learn about graduate school.

1. Knowing about career pathways is helpful: Some teens don't necessarily know graduate school is required for certain occupations, such as for physicians, says Weinstein.

Talking about graduate school in high school is one way to help students think about what career might be right for them and what steps teens will need to take to get there, he says.

Many faculty members at Bard's early colleges hold a Ph.D. or other terminal degrees in their field, which is a good way for students to meet someone with these types of credentials, he says. That can help students see the possibilities, he says.

Story continues

Neal Conley, director of the Academic Resource Center at Temple University in Pennsylvania, which offers advising to undeclared students, among others, agrees it's beneficial for teens to know about all the options out there. Temple, for instance, offers a range of accelerated programs.

2. Talking about graduate school may help with high school coursework: Connecting high school coursework to graduate school can help some teens see the relevance of what they are studying, Weinstein says.

For example, sometimes students want to be a lawyer and think they need to study law, he says. Educators can show students that the kind of arguments they are learning to write using evidence in a literature paper is the kind of skill they will use later as a lawyer.

[Learn how to prepare for medical and law school in high school.]

3. Getting a head start on higher education can be beneficial: Conley says Temple's accelerated programs offer a great value. But students may need to start the graduate school process earlier than some of their peers.

If students start thinking about graduate school earlier, then by the time they need to decide on a program, they have enough experience and exposure to have a sense of the path they want to take.

Plus, graduate degrees may give young adults a leg up on landing a job, he says.

Weinstein says some students are excited about earning two years of college for free, so they have more money to go to graduate school.

A lot of adults take gap years after college to earn work experience prior to graduate school, Weinstein says. If early college students do that, they are still ahead of their peers.

"It's a good exercise for any student to consider the big picture, in terms of what they want for their life," says Conley, and the earlier the better. But at the same time, he says, it's important for students to know they are going to be OK.

Have something of interest to share? Send your news to us at highschoolnotes@usnews.com.

Alexandra Pannoni is an education digital producer at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at apannoni@usnews.com.
Mounting tensions between an estranged couple fueled an apparent murder-suicide Friday in Illinois, when police saya 48-year-old fatherfatally shot his twin teenage daughtersbefore turning the gun on himself.

The killings left only one survivor, according to authorities: the girls mother, who was shot in both of her legs by her husband.

Police in St. Charles, Illinois, say the murder-suicide waspreceded by months of domestic distress between Randall Coffland and his wife, Anjum Coffland, who were separated and living apart. According to investigators, Randallkilled himself after shooting his 16-year-old daughters, Brittany and Tiffany Coffland, in the head.

Here are five things to know about the case.

1. DadCalled 911 to Say He Killed His Daughters

Police have released audio from a call they sayRandallmade to 911 on Friday not long after fatally shooting his daughters.

During the call, a copy of which was obtained by PEOPLE, Randallconfessed to killingboth girls and said he had also shot his wife, who can be heard in the background screaming in terror.

Im going to kill myself now, too, Randalltold the dispatcher. My two girls are dead, and Im killing myself.

At one point during the call, he toldhis wife, I want you to live and suffer like I did.

Moments later, silence replacedthe chaos and the call cut out just prior to Randall apparentlyshootinghimself.

2. Mom Also Called 911 to Report Fridays Shooting

Soon after her husbands death, Anjum Coffland called police, begging for help for her two daughters.

Oh my God, my husband shot my kids, the mother frantically told authorities. (A copy of her call was also obtained by PEOPLE.) Anjum was in such distress that she couldnot remember her own address for dispatchers.

At one point in the call, she yelledboth of her daughters names. My girls are dead! she said.

When asked if she was hurt, Anjum acknowledged she was shot but didnot seem to know where. I dont know my legs, she said.

Story continues

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Anjum is being treated at the localDelnor Community Hospital, where she is listed in stable condition.

The body of one of the girls was found on a couch while the other was shot in her bedroom, police said. A 9mm handgun was found near Randalls body, but investigatorsare still trying to determine if he owned the gunor borrowed it from someone else.

Randall Coffland and his wife Anjum Coffland picture,shot dead and injured https://t.co/lzyNgVidWc pic.twitter.com/vy1Qr2eOpn  infowe (@infowe) March 12, 2017

3. Police Responded to Previous Domestic Call with the Family

Whilestill married, the Cofflands were legally separated and living apart, authorities said: Randall and his daughters were stayinga luxury condominium while Anjum was livingin her own apartment in a different partof St. Charles.

According to police, officers had responded to a report of domestic trouble involving the Cofflands on Feb. 9, just weeks before the killings. A report filed soon after the incident indicates nothing physical happened and that no arrests were made.

Authorities have declined to release the February report and are not providing any additional details about the call

4. CommunityRemembered Twin Victims as Amazing, Kindhearted and Vibrant

Friends of Brittany and Tiffany Coffland are remembering the two teens with candlelight vigils and makeshift memorials which have popped up not far from the scene of the killings.

Its kind of unnerving to realize that someone you were so close with, and could see in a day, could be gone in a matter of hours, Ally Siebrasse, a friend of the slain sisters, told WGN.

Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBent Ramsey and more.

Tiffany would just absolutely light up a room with her smile, Siebrasse said. Her personality. She was an amazing young girl. You could tell made everyone better just by knowing her.

Brittany was kindhearted, their friend said.

Brittany, a cheerleader, also worked in the bakery department at a local food market, where the management said she was a vibrant part of our team and a loving part of our family.

We are beyond sad, they said. We are confused and devastated and mad and hurt.

Tiffany worked at a pet store and friends saidshe had a passion for animals.

5. The Girls Were Days Away from Their Birthday

The twin sisters, students at St. Charles East High School, would have turned 17 on Tuesday, according to police.

Their Fridaykillingsoccurred just three hours after the girls left school for the weekend.

In a statement to Facebook, school officials wrote that Brittany and Tiffany were true Saints undeserving of this tragedy. Students are wearingpurple or blue in their memory.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
It can take a lot of work to prepare a home for the market, and the number one piece of advice for homeowners who are getting their home ready for showings and open houses is to get organized. You've cleaned. You've made repairs, freshened the landscaping, brought in fresh flowers and you're ready for your photo shoot. At last, you're ready to list your home.

The problem for most sellers, however, is that it can be almost impossible to keep your home in this condition at all times. And there will inevitably be last-minute showing requests that will leave you scrambling to accommodate them. The best way to keep your sanity and always make sure you're putting your best foot forward is to get organized and make a plan ahead of time.

[See: 10 Tips to Sell Your Home Fast.]

Here are five things you can do to get your home in shape for a showing.

1) Do a walk-through of your home. Identify all of the items that need to be put away. You've probably already decluttered and moved some items into storage, but there are still things you need on a daily basis that you won't necessarily want on display for showings and open houses.

Clear off countertops and tables of personal items particularly in the kitchens and bathrooms. These could be an overabundance of countertop appliances, tooth brushes, cosmetics or family photos that you aren't quite ready to pack up yet. Make room in your pantry, cabinets or storage areas so you can quickly and neatly tuck these items away, and pull them back out again when the showings are over.

If you have kids, you might want to invest in a few extra storage bins so toys can be easily tossed in and then hidden out of sight.

2) Keep a stash of clean linens handy. A set of clean white towels for each bathroom can be set aside and brought out right before a showing or an open house. You can even keep a fresh, neutral bed spread and extra throw pillows in the linen closet to be ready at a moment's notice. A freshly made bed with crisp white linens makes bedrooms feel more welcoming to potential buyers. You may have just rolled out of bed and ran out the door to make way for a showing request, but you definitely don't want potential buyers to know that.

Story continues

[See: Weird Home Features That May Confuse Homebuyers.]

3) Stay on top of general cleaning. If you put off regular cleaning, it can be overwhelming when you're in a time crunch. Showing a clean home is of utmost importance. Nothing can turn off a buyer faster than a home that's dirty and disorderly. If you're able to keep up with general maintenance it will save you time and headaches. When your agent calls for a showing, you'll just need to wipe down the counters and throw the dirty dishes in the dishwasher before you're ready to go.

4) Lock up your valuables. You never want to have to worry about your possessions going missing during a showing or an open house; although, unfortunately, it can happen. Even the most experienced and diligent real estate agent may not be able to keep her eye on everyone and everything at all times. For peace of mind, it's always best to lock up your valuables including jewelry, small electronics and items of sentimental value.

5) Put on the finishing touches. Fresh flower arrangements, a bowl of colorful fruit in the kitchen or a crisp white orchid in the bathroom can actually make a difference in the way your home shows by adding color and personality in a very neutral way. If you have time, open doors and windows to bring in fresh air, or light a few fresh-smelling candles. Keep everything neutral and avoid strong smells that could turn some people off.

[See: 10 Unorthodox Ways Your Real Estate Agent May Market Your Home.]

Selling your home can be stressful but you'll be better prepared to tackle the unexpected and present your home in the best light if you are organized and have a plan.

Sally Forster Jones is recognized as one of the top real estate brokers in Southern California. Sally is an expert in the luxury real estate market in Los Angeles and internationally. Her extensive knowledge ranges from residential sales, luxury and architecturally significant properties to new developments and commercial transactions. Sally is currently President of Aaroe International Luxury Properties with John Aaroe Group in Beverly Hills, California, where her team, Sally Forster Jones Group, is comprised of a full-service team of agents and real estate and marketing professionals.
As Virtual Reality is making its bid to become more mainstream, an ever-growing number of experiences are being created. They range in length, aesthetics, narrative style, purpose, interactivity and subject matter. What they do have in common is an unmistakable experimental feel.

The grammar of the medium is still being written and debates over best practices can be heated. Last year, at SxSW, Chris Milk, the VR pioneer behind with.in (formerly VRSE), chastised the audience for still using the codes of filmmaking. With VR, youre not interpreting the medium: youre in it; which means that the medium is disappearing, that your consciousness becomes the medium, he claimed.

In fact, theres no consensus over what qualifies as virtual reality. For some, its any 360 degrees world that you can enter via a headset. Others argue that the audience needs to have more agency than merely looking around; that they need to be able to move through the virtual space. In which case, VR is not restricted to the use of a headset, but can also be an installation where projections transform the room the visitors are in.

Wondering where to start? Look no further. Every month, well suggest a few recent experiences to try out.

The Most Memorable of 2016: Notes on Blindness

Though hailed as an empathy machine when it made its first rounds, VR has proven to have a more complex relationship with eliciting compassion than originally promised. The audiences response is contingent not merely on the medium used, but also, and mostly, on the story being told and whether or not the technology employed suits it. Notes on Blindness, based on the recordings made by Australian author John Hull after he lost his sight and learn to cope with it in the early 1980s, is a prime example of how to harness the unique qualities of VR. The immersive environment is inspired by a scene from the movie Daredevil, where the blind superhero is able to find and fight his enemy thanks to the different sound water drops make as they land on different objects.. Unlike many immersive projects, ours is entirely predicated on sound, explains Amaury La Burthe, one of the creators. The only visuals are contours of what you hear: a dog, a choir, kids playing in a park. Particularly unsettling is the moment where you, as John Hull, step out of the house after a heavy snowfall and all the noises that youve come to depend on are muffled. Notes on Blindness is an effective way to give the viewers a sense of what its like to rely on your other senses to orient yourself.

Duration: 20 minutes

Cost: Free

Platforms: Samsung Gear, iOS and Android

From the Page to the Phone: Lincoln in the Bardo

To accompany the release of Georges Saunders latest novel Lincoln in the Bardo, a fictitious account of the night President Lincoln went to visit his sons, Willie, final resting place, The New York Times has produced an immersive narrative short. Not every book would make sense in VR. This one did because theres a strong sense of setting a haunted cemetery over the course of one night in which you could situate the viewer. Also, the original story is structured in such a way that you have different ghosts interacting and theres a lot of dialog. This created the opportunity to imagine a piece with multiple points of interests, where specters appear from different angles to surprise and engage the viewer, explains Graham Sack, the director. He approached the project with immersive theater in mind. In both you dont control where the audience looks; rather, you have to rely on persuasion tactics, adds the 35 year-old. He casted live-performance actors and directed them as one would within a play, with the notable exception that the scene was broken down into hundreds of singular parts. While some of it was shot on location, each of the spirit where filmed independently in front of a green screen to allow for special effects to be added in post-production. The challenge then became ensuring that everyone lined up perfectly, physically and emotionally, in the finished unified piece. The result is impeccable. As youre introduced to the inhabitants of Georgetowns Oak Hill Cemetery, youre left feeling like one of them; an uncanny, almost out-of-body experience.

Duration: 10 minutes

Cost: Free

Platforms: iOS and Android via the NYT VR App

A Mixed Media Approach: Bashirs Dream

From Clouds Over Sidra to The Displaced, Forced From Home or Four Walls, to name but a few high profile ones, many VR experience focus on the lives of refugees. Still, theres always room for new, compelling ways to share these stories. When filmmaker Angel Manuel Soto sought to share Qusai Bashir Masaamas story, he was confronted with the challenge of telling the harrowing account of the Syrian teenager being confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the back by a sniper while retaining the 14-year-olds jaunty nature. When he was telling us about the incident, it was very descriptive. He could recall every detail. How it looked. How it felt. It was terrifying to imagine everything he went through. Yet, he spoke about it the way a child does, with innocence and a smile, recalls the director of Bashirs Dream. The solution: to combine footage of Bashirs current living situation in Jordan with animations that speak of past events and future dreams. The transitions between the two are clever and harmonious. Each scene is just the right length and pace, giving you time to fully take in both what is shown and what the narrator is saying. The whole comes across as beautifully simple and effective.

Duration: 4.45 minutes

Cost: Free

Platforms: iOS and Android via the Jaunt VR App

A New Take: Bear71

When it initially came out in 2012, the interactive documentary Bear 71 made quite a stir. It juxtaposed the biography of a female grizzly bear, labeled 71, with an abstracted 3D interpretation of its habitat, Banff National Park, and surveillance footage that captured other animals whereabouts. The goal was to make the audience empathize with the situation wildlife face: their lives are put at risk as their roaming grounds are taken over by human infrastructures. Given the intent, its no surprise that its creators would eventually release a VR version. In fact, the project was always conceived to be an immersive experience, but the technology at the time only allowed us to display it on flat screens, says Loc Dao, Chief Digital Officer at the National Film Board of Canada, which produced the piece. Indeed, moving through the 3D rendered space feels much more natural in VR than it did on a computer monitor. Still, it took imagination to tailor the existing standard footage to 360 degrees displays. For the trail cams, we were inspired by Hunger Games, where the information is projected above the world in a somewhat omniscient way, explains Dao. An apropos reference, since Bear 71 is very much about the intersection of humans, nature and technology. Beyond the compelling narrative, it proves to be an interesting study in how to adapt an interactive story for different platforms.

Duration: 20 minutes

Cost: Free

Platform: Google Daydream, with upcoming releases for Oculus, HTC Vive, Sony Playstation VR

History Steps into the Future: My Brothers Keeper

To hype the debut of the second season of Mercy Street, a tv-drama that takes place during the Civil War, PBS released an original VR experience in which two estranged brothers are fighting on opposite sides. When we were in Virginia producing the show surrounded by re-enactor, we thought it would be great to shoot them in 360 degrees to bring history to life in a new way. But we quickly realized that having our crew and cameras amongst them would be too disruptive, recalls Don Wilcox, Executive Producer at PBS. Instead, they crafted an original story and hired to independent filmmakers with experience in VR, Connor Hair and Alex Meader, who deployed different cinematographic techniques in an exceptionally deliberate way. They set the tense atmosphere through wide shots of wheat fields and sparse woodlands in which some of the 150 hired re-enactors appear walking towards the frontlines; resorted to close-ups of the leads as they reflect on their uneasy situation to establish who the protagonists are and make them more relatable; captured battle scenes in slow motion to dramatize combat. And, in a bid to steer the gaze of the viewer when the siblings meet on the grounds of Antietam, the directors, opted to narrow the field of vision using a blur that is supposed to represent the smoke of gunfire. However, its heavy-handedness initially makes it seem like a mistake. A more subtle haze would have felt more real. VR being in its infancy, it comes as no surprise that theres still a lot of room for improvement, but its nice to see what creators are experimenting with.

Duration: 9 minutes

Cost: Free

Platform: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, GearVR, iOS, Android, Sony Playstation VR, Google Daydream

Laurence Butet-Roch is a freelance writer, photo editor and photographer based in Toronto. She is a member of the Boreal Collective.

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By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - A South Dakota state judge has ordered ABC Broadcasting to face a potential $5.7 billion defamation lawsuit claiming it damaged Beef Products Inc by referring in a series of reports to a meat product it sold as "pink slime." Judge Cheryle Gering of the Union County Circuit Court in Elk Point, South Dakota, dismissed claims against anchor Diane Sawyer, but said ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co, and reporter Jim Avila must defend against such claims. "A jury could determine that there is clear and convincing evidence that ABC Broadcasting and Mr. Avila were reckless, that defendants had obvious reason to doubt the veracity of informants, and that they engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth," Gering said during a hearing last month. The judge said Sawyer was different in part because "her actions as anchor, which limits her involvement in doing research," were not sufficient to establish defamation. Gering did not rule on the case's merits. Reuters obtained a transcript of the Feb. 8 hearing on Tuesday. The decision was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. "We are pleased that the court dismissed all claims against Diane Sawyer," ABC said in a statement. "We welcome the opportunity to defend the ABC News reports at trial and are confident that we will ultimately prevail." BPI's lawyer, J. Erik Connolly, said his client looks forward to proving how ABC "engaged in a disinformation campaign against a company that produces safe and nutritious beef, leading to billions of dollars in damages and hundreds of lost jobs." A jury trial scheduled for June 5 could last eight weeks. Lean, finely textured beef is made from beef chunks, including trimmings, and exposed to tiny bursts of ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria. BPI said ABC's reports in March and April 2012 implied that the South Dakota-based company's product was not safe, not nutritious and not even meat. The network has called BPI's lawsuit an attempt to chill media coverage of the industry and inhibit free speech. BPI has claimed up to $1.9 billion of damages, which could be tripled to $5.7 billion under South Dakota's Agricultural Food Products Disparagement Act. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has called BPI's product safe. But some retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc, stopped selling ground beef containing it after the ABC reports. Several other defendants were previously dismissed from the case, including a former Agriculture Department microbiologist said to have coined "pink slime" in a 2002 email. The case is Beef Products Inc et al v. American Broadcasting Cos et al, First Judicial Circuit Court of South Dakota, Union County, No. 12-292. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Airbnb is pushing Trips hard, and further into more countries in Asia.

The San Francisco-based company on Monday launched Trips across two new cities in the region, Singapore and Bangkok.

This brings the Trips to four cities in Asia, including Seoul and Tokyo, which was in the original roll out late last year.

SEE ALSO: Airbnb isn't just about booking a room anymore

Trips is an Airbnb a feature which allows users to find and book local tours and activities while on holiday.

Joe Gebbia, co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb, told us in an interview that the concept was born back in 2012, in order to elevate Airbnb from a place to book accommodations, to "end-to-end" holiday firm.

But for Airbnb to beat travel agencies which have been doing this for longer, it needs to offer one thing: convenience.

"If you book with us you can discover these [activities] very easily over the same app, you don't have to find a local service or dig through to find out what the local options are," said Gebbia.

"[We want] to really answer the question 'What can I do now that I'm here?'"

Joe tries his hand at making dumplings in Singapore

Image: airbnb

'Making travel magical again'

Airbnb's Trips consist of multi-day "immersions" or "experiences" lasting several hours.

With Asia being Airbnb's fastest growing market for inbound travellers, at 177 percent growth year-on-year, it's no surprise that the company is targeting the region.

In Singapore, you'll be able to try making dumplings and pottery, for instance.

However, the company's plan is not without its fair share of roadblocks.

Singapore had earlier last month passed a law making it illegal for home owners to rent out entire apartments and rooms for less than six months.

"I'm disappointed with the way the government went about putting this law in place," Gebbia said.

"But we want to sit and really talk about how to make fair and progressive laws that can properly regulate the industry and economy, like we've done with almost 200 cities worldwide."

Story continues

Trips is currently available across London, Miami, Nairobi, Havana, Florence, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, Tokyo, Seoul, Cape Town and Paris. It's expected to go live across 50 cities by the end of this year.

"The sharing economy is out of the bag  and it's not going to go back in," he said.
ATLANTA (AP)  A noted jewel thief who discussed her six-decade criminal career in a documentary has been arrested after authorities said she failed to appear in court.

The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office says 86-year-old Doris Marie Payne Monday was arrested at her Atlanta home. She was taken to the DeKalb County Jail.

It was not immediately clear whether she has an attorney who could speak for her.

Payne was sought after missing an arraignment March 6 in an alleged 2016 jewelry theft at Perimeter Mall, about 13 miles north of downtown Atlanta.

A judge deemed her too ill to stand trial Feb. 21 in the 2015 theft of a pair of designer earrings from a Saks Fifth Avenue.

Payne, her family and friends discuss her life in the 2013 documentary "The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne."
Photo credit: John Stephenson/USFWS

From Popular Mechanics

Have you seen California's only resident wolf pack? Because nobody else has.

Gray wolves were missing from California for nearly a century, as the last native residents were killed in 1924. But in 2015, a single pack crossed state lines and made their home in northern California. The pack, consisting of two adults and five pups, was named the Shasta Pack. Many believed this wolf pack was the first step in bringing the species back to the Golden State.

But in May, the pack simply disappeared. State biologists have not seen any trace of the pack in their prior territory, and haven't picked up their trail anywhere else either. Scientists aren't sure what happened, but they don't believe the pack has been killed. It's possible the pack is simply roaming far from their traditional home due to the lack of other packs nearby.

There is a possibility that the wolves fell victim to poachers or overzealous farmers. Although wolves are an endangered species, some farmers can mistake wolves for coyotes and kill them anyway. The wolves are also suspected in the death of a calf in November 2015, so it's not out of the question that angry farmer may have killed the pack intentionally.

California does have two individual resident wolves which are still accounted for, but neither of them have sired pups. The Shasta Pack is crucial for reintroducing wolves to California, so we can only hope that someone will find them soon.

Source: San Fransisco Chronicle via Washington Post

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President Donald Trump may have backed away from a critical promise to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Democratic former New York Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman said Monday.

"From my point of view, it appeared that the president had given his word to Preet, saying you're going to stay on. We didn't hear that from the president, we heard it from Preet," Holtzman, also a former district Attorney of Kings County, New York, said on " Squawk Box ."

"In politics, your word is critical," she said.

Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whom many regard as the Justice Department 's most powerful prosecutor, said the Trump administration fired him on Saturday after he refused to step down.

Preet told reporters late last year that Trump had asked him to stay in his post .

Bharara and his office are known for their successful prosecutions of Wall Street figures, such as securing the guilty plea of Bernie Madoff 's brother, Peter, for his role in the infamous Ponzi scheme.

Holtzman said it is "hard to think" the Trump administration would fire Preet because he could undermine the president in the future.

"Nobody really knows the answer. Could've been to get rid of Preet? Could be,'" she said.

The White House has not officially commented on Bharara's departure.

 Reuters and CNBC's Christine Wang contributed to this report.
By Luc Cohen BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - It was not just the heavy rains that left the streets of the Argentine town of Pozo del Molle flooded for three months last year. Nearby farmers built small canals without authorization to drain their fields of surface water, redirecting flows toward urban areas and worsening the impact of flooding, said Carlos Salvatico, the mayor of the 7,500-person town in the key agricultural province of Cordoba. "Each producer tries to use as much of his land as possible, without realizing the ecological problems he's causing," Salvatico said by phone on Friday. "That creates a large volume of water that ends up causing problems." So-called clandestine canals built by farmers to protect their crops are often blamed for exacerbating devastation across Argentina's naturally flood-prone pampas grains and cattle belt. Flooding this summer has prompted evacuations and left 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of highly productive land either underwater or cut off from markets because roads are flooded, said Pablo Bereciartua, undersecretary for hydraulic resources in the government's Interior Ministry. The floods' increased severity comes after decades of financial crises limited investment in roads, bridges and proper canals, despite substantial growth in population and farm output in the world's No. 3 corn and soy exporter. Recent rains have deepened flooding in low-lying areas while boosting yields in dryer parts of the country. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange sees soy and corn production in the 2016/17 harvest at 54.8 million tonnes and 37 million tonnes, respectively. Flooding in Argentina caused soybean and soymeal prices to hit six-month highs in January, though they have since fallen. A WATER PLAN Center-right President Mauricio Macri, who took office 15 months ago after more than a decade of leftist rule, hopes to ease the problems and boost farm exports by prioritizing infrastructure. The budget of the Interior Ministry, responsible for public works, grew by 52 percent from last year, more than any other ministry. Public works spending could create construction jobs and boost growth ahead of midterm elections in October. Bereciartua's team plans to invest $10 billion over four years in projects including canals, storm drains and warning systems to mitigate the impact of floods and other extreme climate events. That includes a 771 million-peso ($49.75 million) tender published on Monday for improvements to the San Antonio canal, aimed to protect towns and improve drainage in Cordoba and neighboring agricultural powerhouse Santa Fe. ROOT CAUSE Nicolas Bertram, a researcher at Argentina's public National Agricultural Technology Institute, said investments in hydraulic infrastructure are a stopgap measure and that only changes in land use can address the root cause of floods. A gradual switch from cattle ranching to soy, which absorbs less water than grass, has increased flood risk, he said. Bereciartua said land use changes and more intense storms tied to climate change are two major factors in the rising frequency of damaging floods, but that a lack of infrastructure investment and planning has left populations and farms vulnerable. "It's no coincidence that the San Antonio canal ... was built in 1939, when Argentina was still a country with the capacity to plan, with the capacity to do public works," Bereciartua said in a late February interview. "And afterwards, nothing was done for decades." His words reflect the sentiments of many Argentines who believe their country, one of the world's richest a century ago due to its large swathes of fertile farmland, has since been on a steady decline. The top three grains producing provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Santa Fe ranked at the bottom in per-capita infrastructure investment between 2005 and 2014, according to a 2016 report from IERAL, a think tank. Once waters receded last June in Pozo del Molle, provincial authorities built a canal encircling the town. While the surrounding farmland is still at risk of floods, Salvatico said the canal will protect the urban zone. "There had never been substantial public works done in the area," he said. "But beginning last year they've started taking the situation very seriously." ($1 = 15.4970 Argentine pesos) (Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Matthew Lewis)
JACKSON, Mississippi (AP)  Daniela Vargas, the young Argentine immigrant detained after speaking out in Mississippi, is talking about her time behind bars.

The Clarion Ledger reported (http://on.thec-l.com/2n5RR0F ) that she was one of 70 women held in a facility in Jena, Louisiana, where she was barked and whistled at on arrival. She refused to eat at first, and it took her days to summon the courage to take a shower. She made friends, only to see them deported.

Vargas, 22, was arrested after immigration agents detained her father and brother, all Argentine nationals who violated a visa waiver program when she was 7. She said she didn't think she'd be detained as well after speaking out at a press conference.

"I wanted to freely say what I wanted to say and mean it," she said. "I wanted this country, or the president, to know that we are an asset to this country. We're not just here to steal jobs. We're here doing nice things. We're working. We're contributing. We're doing the best we can."

She said immigration agents asked about her mother's location. The paper reported that her father has been released, but her brother's status is uncertain. A bright moment in detention came when Vargas saw her father and brother through glass. They touched fingertips as her father called her "Champ."

She made friends after some women made her Ramen noodles, mixed with leftover lettuce.

"That touched my heart," she said. "I realized they were all my age. We all wanted the same things. We all wanted this dream to be here."

One woman gave her a rosary that belonged to her deceased father. Another gave her a book about trusting God. Both were deported.
The epidemic of opioid addiction continues to plague the nation, with the number of people killed by overdose in the United States quadrupling since 2000  an average of 91 opioid-related deaths each day.

The crisis was on display during an MSNBC town hall with Bernie Sanders in West Virginia televised on Monday night, when host Chris Hayes asked those in the audience who had lost loved ones to opioids to raise their hands.

Nearly half of the room did.

.@chrislhayes asks WV town hall audience how many have lost loved ones to opioids #AllInwithBernie #inners https://t.co/1utiFGseK1  All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) March 14, 2017

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 725 people died from opioid overdoses in West Virginia in 2015, a rate of 41.5 per 100,000  the highest in the country.

Opioids  including prescription drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone, as well as heroin  killed more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record, according to CDC data, and almost as many as died in car crashes. And nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths involved a prescription opioid.

Sanders argued that the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare would result in even more.

I happen to believe that health care is a right, and we should move to Medicare for all, Sanders said. If Obamacare is repealed, we are looking at hundreds of thousands of people who got Medicaid losing that. How many of those folks will die? How many will lose the opioid treatment theyve now got?

A show of hands and a reminder of the human toll of opioid addiction. (MSNBC)

Turning to another issue  mining jobs  Sanders said that unlike President Trump he believes climate change is real. But he doesnt hold individual coal miners responsible for it.

Story continues

These guys are heroes, Sanders said. I remember. I grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y. And I will never forget the piles of coal  I dont know if it came from here, or wherever it came from. It kept my house warm. So thank you. You are not my enemy.

The town hall took place in McDowell County, in the states so-called coal country. The Vermont senator called for creating more renewable energy jobs to help mitigate global warming while putting former coal miners back to work.

We are the richest country in the world, Sanders said. We can do this.

He also criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents part of coal country in Kentucky, for putting the interests of coal company executives ahead of their workers.

If you think of all the miners who have suffered and died from black lung disease, Sanders said, I would say as a nation we owe these folks a great deal.

Read more from Yahoo News:
A baby jaguar found paralyzed in an Ecuadorian jungle after being shot 18 times is now making a remarkable recovery, thanks to a veterinary team who refused to give up.

Read: Dog Found With Ears, Nose and Tail Cut Off Will Make Full Recovery Thanks to Reconstructive Surgery

DYaria, an 11-month-old jaguar, was discovered badly injured by locals hiking through a remote forest. Veterinarians guessed she had been shot by cattle farmer looking to protect their herd, and dashed into wooded area looking for shelter.

They also believed farmers must have shot her mom, since DYaria was discovered alone and believe she is an orphan.

The baby jaguar was transported to a veterinary team in the nick of time at Darwin Animal Doctors, where they discovered 18 shotgun pellets lodged inside her body.

Other than some movement in her head and neck, DYaria was paralyzed.

Despite the grim diagnosis, Dr. Andres Ortega and Dr. Cris Cely were able to remove the pellets pressing down on her spine, and as DYaria began healing from the surgery, her ability to move came back.

After a month of rest and relaxation under round-the-clock supervision, DYaria was ready to move to a nature preserve nearby.

Read: Abandoned, Emaciated Dog That Could Barely Walk Makes Incredible Recovery

Officials say she is about 95 percent recovered, but Darwin Animal Doctors president Tod Emko told InsideEdition.com he hopes her story will spread awareness on the importance of taking care of the species.

The goal of all the vets and Darwin Animal Doctors is to get the satellite tracking collar, as D'Yaria will go from victim and survivor to a champion for jaguar conservation, Emko said.

To help researchers purchase satellite tracking collars for other jaguars, visit the Darwin Animal Doctors website.

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A Barcelona restaurant that serves transparent, gelatin macaroni and invites guests to wash their hands in whisky as they eat their deconstructed whisky tart has been named the 2017 restaurant to watch by a group of gastronomical tastemakers.

Disfrutar, helmed by a trio of El Bulli alumni, has been named the recipient of the Miele One to Watch award by the same group that organizes The World's 50 Best Restaurants awards.

Chef Ferran Adria's restaurant El Bulli restaurant in Catalonia, Spain shuttered in 2011 at the height of its popularity was, perhaps, one of the most exclusive dining destinations in the world at the time.

Since leaving the now legendary restaurant, chefs Mateu Casanas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch teamed up to open their own ventures.

Disfrutar, which means "to enjoy" in Spanish, is their second restaurant after Compartir ("to share) which is located in the coastal town of Cadaques. Their sophomore effort earned the chefs their first Michelin star in 2016.

True to their El Bulli training, the menu at Disfrutar upholds the principles of modernist cuisine and is described as "avant-garde, theatrical and inventive."

One of their signature dishes includes curiously transparent penne pasta made from gelatin, tossed in truffle foam and Parmesan, served tableside.

A deconstructed whisky tart also invites guests to wash their hands in whisky and inhale the scent as they eat.

"Being named this year's winners of the Miele One To Watch Award is a huge recognition of our collective work," said chef Xatruch in a statement.

"In addition, this award helps Disfrutar, which is a very young project, to become established and obviously encourages us to continue working and challenging ourselves."

The One to Watch award shines the spotlight on emerging talent and recognizes a restaurant outside the 50 Best list, which has potential to rise through the list's ranks in the near future.

Previous winners include Den in Tokyo, Sepia in Sydney, Saison in San Francisco and The Tasting Kitchen in Cape Town.

The World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards takes place in Melbourne, April 5.
A large beer company is dealing with the wrath of both bars and consumers, angry at its involvement in one country's marriage equality debate.

The company behind some of Australia's most popular "craft" beers, Coopers Brewery is alleged to have sponsored a video by the Bible Society of Australia, where two politicians of opposing sides debated whether the country should legalise marriage equality.

SEE ALSO: This powerful marriage equality ad just wants politicians to 'do their job'

The "very warm chat" is all over a frosty Coopers Premium Light beer, which features prominently in the video called Keeping It Light. Okay then.

The video "puts two people together who would normally disagree. And shows how the Bible can help us all listen to each other," reads the description.

The brewery has also produced commemorative cans for the Bible Society's 200th anniversary, which features verses from  you guessed right  the Bible.

Naturally, people are p*ssed.

lol @coopersbrewery way to alienate an enormous demographic of people that consume yr products \_()_/ https://t.co/kDW7x7NS5E  feelings haver (@allisongallaghr) March 12, 2017

Sorry @coopersbrewery we are beyond being nice to those denying #marriageequality. I'll find a more supportive beer https://t.co/KIjHrUWwyO  sarahjane (@sazzajay) March 12, 2017

Coopers wants and has every right to spread the word of God. I will just respectively spread my money to other beers https://t.co/6aZshcgiLV  Dale Roberts (@ozdale) March 11, 2017

Coopers said in a statement on Monday that it did not "sponsor" or give permission for its beer to appear in the Bible Society's video.

Story continues

The cans it produced featuring Bible verses weren't trying to "push a religious message," it said but celebrate the Bible Society's charitable work. "We respect the beliefs of our community and do not wish to try and change them," the statement reads.

It didn't matter. Numerous pubs and bars around the country have stopped serving Coopers beer, or are throwing them the beers out.

The Hollywood Hotel  in Surry Hills  #BoycottCoopers pic.twitter.com/yi88JvVhp3  James Breko Brechney (@breko) March 13, 2017

Bottles of Coopers beer were unceremoniously thrown into a bin by workers at Sircuit, a gay bar in Melbourne.

"Sircuit and Mollies, like beer companies, have choices. I have made mine. If Coopers wish to discuss, they have my number," reads a Facebook post from the bar's general manager, Chris Driscoll.

As a nation that loves beer, aggrieved consumers turning their back on the beverage has proven a powerful act in the past.

The huge Carlton United Breweries faced a widespread boycott of its products when it fired 55 workers, then offered them jobs at significantly reduced pay. The company caved into pressure following the boycott, allowing the workers to return on their original pay and conditions.

Now, let the Coopers "p*ss takes" begin.
- Kawhi Leonard shrugged off the after-effects of a recent concussion to score 31 points as the San Antonio Spurs downed Atlanta on Monday to go level with Golden State at the top of the NBA's Western Conference. Leonard, who had been concussed after a clash with Oklahoma City Thunder guard Victor Oladipo last Thursday, showed no sign of the knock as he led the Spurs to a 107-99 victory over the Hawks. The win gave San Antonio an identical 52-14 record to Western Conference pace-setters Golden State, who host Philadelphia on Tuesday. Leonard was backed by an all-round scoring display from his Spurs team-mates with David Lee, Danny Green, Patty Mills and Pau Gasol all posting double figure points tallies.

AFP
The family of Professor Robert Kelly, whose children interrupted him while he was giving an interview to the BBC about the impeachment of South Koreas President, is now speaking out about the video that made them a global viral sensation  and say they were overwhelmed by the attention.

The entire reason the children were able to get into the room where Kelly was giving the interview in the first place, he says, is because he simply forgot to lock the door to his office.

Most of the time they come back to me after they find the locked door, Kellys wife, Kim Jung-A, told the Wall Street Journal. But they didnt. And then I saw the door was open. It was chaos for me.

I made this minor mistake that turned my family into YouTube stars, Kelly told the Wall Street Journal. Its pretty ridiculous.

When the kids crashed dads BBC video: In first interview, the family describes the chaos, aftermath https://t.co/AddXPu0ARb (Corrects link)  Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 14, 2017

Immediately after the interview though, Kelly told the Wall Street Journal, he and his wife were concerned he would never be asked to appear on the BBC again. He even emailed the channel an apology, but the broadcaster just responded and asked if they could post the clip with the children on the internet. They initially declined, but ultimately decided to give consent.

After they did so, however, they were overwhelmed; at one point, Mr. Kelly said he had to put his phone on airplane mode.

We stonewalled because we didnt know what to do, he said.

The couple also did not reprimand the children for interrupting their fathers interview.

I mean it was terribly cute, Kelly said. Yes I was mortified, but I also want my kids to feel comfortable coming to me.
Three new species of massive, furry "birdeater" spiders have been discovered, with dozens more stricken from the grouping.

In a new paper published in the open-access journal ZooKeys, researchers cleaned house on the genus Avicularia, a group of hairy tarantula spiders that was, in the words of lead study author Caroline Sayuri Fukushima, "a huge mess."

Fukushima, a researcher at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and her colleagues sorted out the genus, which was first described in 1818. They narrowed the number of Avicularia species from more than 50 to 12, including three new species of Avicularia that hadn't been noted before. They named one of these species after Maria Sibylla Merian, a naturalist born in 1647 who famously painted an illustration of an Avicularia spider eating a bird. [See Amazing Photos of Goliath Birdeater Spiders]

"This illustration gave origin to the name of the genus and the popular name birdeater spiders," Fukushima told Live Science in an email. "People [in] that time did not believe in her observations, saying that a spider eating a bird was a female fantasy. But now we know she is right!"

A tangled web

A 1705 illustration by naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian shows a tarantula eating a bird. Merian's observation was disbelieved at the time, but Avicularia tarantulas really do eat birds, bats and other small vertebrates. Maria Sibylla Merian/Wikimedia Commons

The first Avicularia spider species was described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy himself. In 1818, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, another influential name in early biology, took the first stab at describing Avicularia as a genus. He included three species in his grouping.

Over the years, other scientists added more and more spiders to the genus, but no one ever had a good sense of what made a tarantula an Avicularia, other than that they are large and fuzzy, and live in trees, feasting on everything from insects to bats to small birds. Most Avicularia species grow around 5 or 6 inches (12 to 15 centimeters) in length, and many are popular pets for tarantula enthusiasts. [Ewww! See Photos of Bat-Eating Spiders]

"The reasons to do this work were the necessity of solving the many problems of the genus (which were causing confusion to other genera, too), but also the chance to do something hard, big, important and new regarding tarantula taxonomy," Fukushima wrote.

Story continues

And hard it was. The project took years, Fukushima said. The researchers had to track down ancient specimens from museums around the world, puzzling out original descriptions in Latin, French, Dutch, Portuguese and German. The scientists compared the anatomical characteristics of these old identifications with those of spiders from modern zoos and museums.

Naming new spiders

Untangling the mess of Avicularia required creating a new genus, Ybyrapora, to encompass certain Brazilian spiders that dwell in rainforest trees, the scientists said. Researchers also moved two species of Caribbean spider that were previously in the Avicularia genus to a new genus called Caribena. Finally, the scientists established a new genus called Antillena for a species of Dominican Republic tarantula identified in 2013 as Avicularia rickwesti. The spider is large and mostly reddish, with a distinctive red "oak leaf" pattern on its black abdomen.

Ybyrapora diversipes was once considered to be in the Avicularia genus, but new research establishes a new genus for this iridescent specimen from the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest. Rogerio Bertani

The discoverers of A. rickwesti wrote in the journal Zoologia at the time that the species was quite different, anatomically, from other Avicularia spiders, but noted that it didn't fit in any other genus, either.

The researchers also named three new species of spider in the Avicularia genus. One, A. caei, is found only in Brazil. Another, A. lynnae, can be found in Ecuador and Peru. A. merianae, found only in Peru, was given its name in honor of the naturalist Merian.

"Despite her great work for natural science, she is poorly recognized when compared with male naturalists of that time," Fukushima explained.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
Washington (AFP) - The world's biggest fund manager BlackRock is urging large companies to be transparent about climate risks and increase boardroom diversity.

The guidelines released Monday could have wide-ranging effects in a number of industries considering the broad influence of BlackRock, which holds and manages $5.1 trillion in stakes in a number of US and foreign corporations.

In its "engagement priorities" for 2017 and 2018, BlackRock is calling on companies to better inform the public and investors of risks that climate change poses to their businesses.

"Given climate risk is a systemic issue, we believe disclosure standards should be developed that are applicable to listed companies across each market and, ideally, that are globally consistent," the documents published on BlackRock's website read.

The US giant is endorsing the findings of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) -- the body of central bankers and experts in financial regulation -- which in late 2016 called on companies to draw up projections on the long-term impact of climate risks.

BlackRock said it will "engage companies most exposed to climate risk" and "encourage them" to implement recommendations formulated under the auspices of the FSB.

The fund manager said it expects the entire boards of these companies to "have demonstrable fluency in how climate risk affects the business and management's approach to adapting and mitigating the risk."

BlackRock said it will also look into how companies are improving boardroom diversity: "Diverse boards, including but not limited to diversity of expertise, experience, age, race and gender, make better decisions."

The fund giant vowed to hold accountable those companies who do not make "progress within a reasonable time frame."
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A blast on a bus in Syria's Homs on Tuesday killed one person and injured two others, a witness told Reuters. Syrian state news agency SANA reported that what it called terrorists were behind the blast in the Wadi al-Dhahb district in the southeast of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, also said there were casualties. The explosion follows a coordinated attack by jihadist insurgents in Homs city center last month that killed scores including a senior security official, and an agreement on Monday for rebels to leave their last enclave in the city. The attack in Homs on Feb. 25 was carried out by Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist alliance whose main group is Fateh al-Sham, the former al Qaeda offshoot in Syria. The same group also said it was behind a double suicide bombing in Damascus on Saturday that killed dozens of people, mostly Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims. Analysts who follow Syria have predicted that as rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad suffer military reverses they will increasingly turn to guerrilla attacks in territory controlled by the government. (Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
The unmanned submersible known as Boaty McBoatface.

A year ago todayon March 13, 2016the British Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), asked the public to help it name a new ship. The web responded enthusiastically, hundreds of thousands of people voted, and there were 32,000 suggested names, some more dignified than others.

Within days Boaty McBoatface had become a runaway favorite, a social media sensation that cropped up on panel shows and hit headlines across the world, NERC explains on its blog. The organization was delighted with the online engagement, but not so much the peoples choice. Whatever name was chosenwould need to stand for decades to come as the ship took researchers to the extremes of the Earth.

NERC ultimately announced that the ship would be named for the British broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough. As a concession to voters, however, the organization used the Boaty McBoatface name for another one of its sea vesselsa little yellow remote-controlled submarine. It would have been a travesty to cast aside a name that had captured the imagination of so many people around the world, writes NERC.

It's great they have used the name 'Boaty McBoat Face' but I can't help thinking they should be called 'Subby McSub Face'. #BoatyMcBoatface  Rob Bunce (@Garvaos) March 13, 2017

This week, the sub will set out on its maiden voyage aboard the James Clark Rossa large boatto explore a deep current running between between Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Boaty McBoatface will collect information and navigate underwater waterfalls and rapids on a two-month mission to study how global warming impacts oceans.

Story continues

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in light of the publics enthusiasm for its name, the yellow submersible is getting lots of internet attention ahead of this mission.

As #BoatyMcBoatface leaves for her first expedition, we wish her all the best from our very own #FireyMcFireface. https://t.co/0hIglFiLnl pic.twitter.com/JBDfS0Joky  HampshireFireService (@Hants_fire) March 13, 2017

Boaty mcboatface is now a sub and is doing its job just wish they put a face on it #BoatyMcBoatface pic.twitter.com/dM1L05LBSD  Jon K  (@JCK_89) March 13, 2017

But there are also some who see the story of the vote fiasco metaphorically. Many have suggested that that British officials should do with the Brexit referendum results what was done with the Name Our Ship campaignbasically, just ignore what the public asks for and give the people something to keep them happily distracted.

If we can ignore the result of the #BoatyMcBoatface vote, can we stay in Europe?  Pasta Master (@AmannPaul) March 13, 2017

Meanwhile, others are worried NASA is about to discover the internets silly sense of humor, too.

Oh @NASA, surely you should know better than asking the internet to name those 7 new planets. Do you not remember #BoatyMcBoatface?! pic.twitter.com/06REgUqNL7  Capital NW & NW (@CapitalNW) February 27, 2017

All jokes aside, NERC is insistent the public remember that Boaty McBoatface is engaged in serious and important business. Cute though it sounds, this unmanned submarine is part of a fleet of some pretty intrepid explorers, NERC states.

The internet may be hard to convince.

This will never be not hilarious! :') Try reading the mission details and taking them seriously. #BoatyMcBoatface https://t.co/n3NORoMHFe  Aastha (@inkroutes) March 13, 2017

Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news.

More stories from Quartz:
Photo credit: Mike Meredith

From Popular Mechanics

With it's name settled, Boaty McBoatface is now getting down to the business of climate change in the Antarctic.

Boaty McBoatface will be flying through the submarine valley that connects the Atlantic to the Weddell Sea as part of the #DynOPO project. https://t.co/xY47MMKQGB - NERC (@NERCscience) March 13, 2017

The yellow submarine captured the heart of the internet by having its name become the runaway favorite in an innocent poll by the British Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) which asked the public to suggest names for its new polar research ship. A radio host suggested the moniker, and it caught fire across the Internet. Despite winning the online vote by millions of votes, the RRS Boaty McBoatface was not to be.

But in the spirit of feeding excitement about science instead of shutting it down, NERC split the difference: They would name the ship the RMS David Attenborough, a fitting tribute to the legendary nature documentarian behind Planet Earth and so many others. But Boaty lives on as the Attenborough's autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) which will be dispatched from the ship to collect data and samples. And now it's time to get to work.

Departing from Chile on March 17, the Attenborough and Boaty show will travel through the Orkney Passage, described by lead scientist Prof Alberto Naveira Garabato, from the University of Southampton as "a key choke-point to the flow of abyssal waters in which we expect the mechanism linking changing winds to abyssal water warming to operate."

By measuring these streams, including how fast they flow and their responses to changes in wind speed from the Southern Ocean, Garabato says, the mission will hopefully help us "learn enough about these convoluted processes to represent them in the models that scientists use to predict how our climate will evolve over the 21st century and beyond."

Story continues

Boaty's role will be a crucial one, capturing data on the speed of the flow of Antarctic Bottom Water (ABW), the densest water mass in the world with higher oxygen rates than the rest of the world's seas. Some call the ABW ventilation on the deep ocean, and understanding how climate change is affecting it is of crucial importance. Professor Garabato says that Boaty is better suited to the mission than any other ship "because it can follow the pathway of Antarctic Bottom Water away from Antarctica while it directly measures how quickly the water flows and how rapidly it mixes."

And that's not all that's in store for the enterprising young McBoatface. By 2019, the AUV plans to be fitted with acoustic and chemical sensors and sent into the North Sea to "sniff out" signals associated with the artificial release of gas in the ocean. And then, there's the hope that someday Boaty will attempt the first-ever crossing of the Arctic Ocean under ice.

The National Oceangraphy Centre has set up a website promoting Boaty for kids, complete with cartoon illustrations that look straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. If this mission is a success, who know where's Boaty's fame will take it next.

Source: The Guardian

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Abuja (AFP) - Nigeria on Tuesday charged the leader of Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru with the abduction and murder of 10 foreigners, in one its highest-profile cases yet against Islamist militants.

Khalid al-Barnawi, one of three Nigerians listed by the US government as a "specially designated global terrorist", appeared in court alongside six other defendants and denied the charges.

The charges relate to a series of kidnappings and killings of foreign workers between 2011 and 2013, including Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and his British colleague Chris McManus.

Both were killed by their captors in the northern city of Sokoto just after the start of a joint British-Nigerian rescue operation at the compound where they were being held in March 2012.

Barnawi is also accused in connection with kidnapping Frenchman Francis Collomp and German national Edgar Raupach.

Collomp was kidnapped in December 2012 and held by Ansaru for nearly a year before he managed to stage a dramatic escape in November 2013.

Raupach's abduction was initially claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to which Ansaru has been linked. He was killed during a military raid in Kano, northern Nigeria, in May 2012.

The other kidnapping and murder charges relate to seven foreign nationals -- two from Lebanon, two Syrians, an Italian, a Greek and a Briton.

They were seized from a construction site in the northern state of Bauchi in 2013.

According to the charge sheet, the seven were taken to Sambisa Forest area of northeaster Borno state and held for about 10 days before they were killed and buried in a shallow grave.

Halima Haliru, Barnawi's second wife, faces only one charge -- failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

- Most wanted -

Nigeria's military announced in April last year that Barnawi -- who is also known as Mohammed Usman -- had been arrested in Lokoja in central Nigeria.

He was described as "on top of the list of our wanted terrorists" because of his alleged links to the wider jihadist network in west and north Africa.

Story continues

Barnawi assumed the leadership of Ansaru following the death of the group's founder Abubakar Adam Kambar in a military raid on his hideout in Kano in March 2012.

Both Barnawi and Kambar were former close allies of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009, which then saw his deputy Abubakar Shekau take over.

Under Shekau's leadership, at least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million forced from their homes.

Ansaru, whose members trained in AQIM camps in the Algerian desert, broke away in protest at Shekau's indiscriminate violence and targeting of civilians.

Also known as Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladissudan ("Vanguard for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa"), it specialised in high-profile killings and attacks on foreigners.

Omar Mahmood, of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said the charges were significant and made Barnawi "perhaps the highest profile Nigerian jihadist to go on trial" in recent years.

He was a "prominent leader" and "represented a more internationally focused and connected wing of the Nigerian jihadist movement", he added.

The trial will be closely watched because Nigeria has failed to bring many captured jihadists to trial, possibly because of the sheer numbers involved or lack of evidence.

- Boko Haram video -

Boko Haram meanwhile published a new video online on Monday evening, depicting a gruesome execution similar to propaganda images from the Islamic State group to which it is affiliated.

The video, seen by AFP, shows masked militant fighters accusing three men dressed in knee-length orange kaftans of spying for the Nigerian government.

They are questioned in front of an IS flag, after which at least one of them is beheaded with a sabre.

Boko Haram has previously released videos of executions, including one of a captured Nigerian Air Force pilot who was decapitated, as well as amputations and beatings of civilians.

Yan St-Pierre, from the Modern Security Consulting Group in Berlin, told AFP the video could be an attempt by Shekau to show the group "is still a force to be reckoned with".

Nigeria's military has repeatedly said Boko Haram is weakened and divided, particularly since IS last year announced it had appointed Yusuf's son Abu Musab al-Barnawi as leader.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP)  A Nigerian court on Tuesday charged the leader of a Boko Haram splinter group with the murder of several foreigners.

Nigerian High Court documents obtained by The Associated Press say Khalid al-Barnawi and six others face charges that include hostage-taking and conspiracy to commit terrorism.

They pleaded not guilty at the court in the capital, Abuja. The judge ordered that they be remanded to Kuje prison in the capital.

Al-Barnawi is accused of kidnapping and killing British national Christopher McManus and others working in Nigeria. McManus, a construction worker, was killed in March 2012 as Nigerian and British forces attempted a rescue operation. Also killed was Franco Lamolinara of Italy. They had been held for almost a year.

Al-Barnawi also is accused of kidnapping and killing a French national and German national. In addition, he and others are accused of killing seven other foreigners in 2013 at a forest hideout in northeast Nigeria and burying them in a shallow grave.

Al-Barnawi's wife, Halima Haliru, is charged with concealing information about the Ansaru organization, a splinter group of the Nigeria-based Boko Haram Islamic insurgency.
Montreal (AFP) - Canadian train manufacturer Bombardier pressured Ottawa to exclude a former Russian railway boss with close ties to the Kremlin from sanctions levied over the annexation of Crimea, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported Tuesday.

Vladimir Yakunin -- a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin and head of Russia's railways from 2005 to 2015 -- appeared in documents filed last week by Swedish prosecutors in a bribery case against Bombardier employees in Russia related to rail deals in Azerbaijan.

"We informed the Canadian government of Bombardier's investments and interests in Russia when Canada was considering imposing sanctions," Bombardier spokesman Mike Nadolski told the Globe and Mail.

"Our main concern was ensuring that our rail business would not be placed at a competitive disadvantage against our global competitors.

"Including Mr. Yakunin on Canada's sanctions list could have unilaterally harmed a Canadian business."

Bombardier presumably worried that putting sanctions on Yakunin would harm their business in Russia.

The Globe and Mail noted that "Bombardier's fortunes in Russia improved after Mr. Yakunin took over the top post of Russian Railways in 2005."

Yakunin, 68, had also not been targeted by EU, Chinese, Japanese or South Korean sanctions.

But he did figure on a US list of Russian individuals facing financial restrictions and travel bans in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Ukraine.

Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent, had lambasted the former Tory government for not including Yakunin in its sanctions, calling it "hypocritical."

But since coming to power, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has not amended the list to include him.

Bombardier did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
Montreal (AFP) - An Ivory Coast migrant was found suffering from severe hypothermia and near death after jumping the border from the United States into Canada, his lawyer told AFP Tuesday.

The man, whose identity has been withheld by Canadian authorities, was found "unconscious" in the snow nearly two weeks ago, "his clothes frozen stiff" after he fell through ice while crossing a river and a lake near the US border, his lawyer Eric Taillefer said.

"He still feels a residual cold and can barely move his fingers. He can't put on shoes because his feet are still swollen and his (frostbitten) skin has turned black," Taillefer said.

The man, who had worked as a taxi driver in New York since fleeing his native Ivory Coast in 2006, is among a wave of arrivals risking life and limb by trudging through snow and the wilderness in the dead of night to make a refugee claim in Canada.

Fearing deportation by the United States to his birth country amid a crackdown by President Donald Trump, he had first tried to make an asylum claim at a Canadian border checkpoint.

But he was denied.

An agreement with the US prevents asylum seekers from lodging claims in Canada if they first landed stateside. It only applies, however, to arrivals who pass through checkpoints.

Taillefer said he would plead for his client to be allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds, adding that a decision could take up to two years.
Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's prosecutor general sought to open probes against scores of politicians in a dramatic widening of an already vast graft scandal shaking Latin America's biggest country.

Although the names of those being targeted remained sealed, Brazilian media quoted anonymous sources confirming expectations that the list contained a Who's Who of the political elite.

Several Brazilian news sites said at least five ministers in President Michel Temer's government were in the crosshairs, including his recently appointed new foreign minister Aloysio Nunes, as well as the presidents of both houses of Congress.

Leftist ex-president Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor and mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a huge figure on the Brazilian political scene, were also on the list, Brazilian media reported.

Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot sent a request to open a total of 83 corruption probes to the Supreme Court, which handles cases involving serving members of Congress or the government, his office said in a statement.

Janot also asked the court to unseal the cases so that the details can be made public, "considering the necessity to promote transparency and to safeguard the public interest."

It was not clear how quickly the Supreme Court would give its response.

- Plea bargain testimony -

The complaints against the politicians ramp up the so-called Car Wash probe, which has uncovered massive embezzlement and bribery based on state-oil company Petrobras.

The accusations in Janot's list are based on a deluge of testimony given in connection with plea bargains struck with 77 former executives of the giant Odebrecht construction firm, which was at the heart of the Petrobras scheme.

The former Odebrecht employees, including ex-CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, have confessed to systemic bribery of politicians in exchange for inflated contracts with Petrobras and favorable legislation in Congress. The money went either directly into politicians' pockets or into party campaign slush funds.

Story continues

Speculation has been mounting over possible damage to Temer's center-right government. Several ministers have already had to resign due to involvement in the Car Wash scandal since Temer took power last year.

Temer himself has previously been implicated in Odebrecht testimony for allegedly asking for unregistered campaign donations to his PMDB party. He says that he did nothing illegal and there was no immediate indication that he would face a probe by Janot.

Temer is also involved in a separate case at the Supreme Electoral Court which is looking into whether his 2014 election as vice president on the ticket with then president Rousseff benefitted from campaign slush funds.

The court could, in theory, annul the election's result, creating yet another wave of instability for Brazil, which is mired in its worst recession in history.

- 'End of the world'? -

After seemingly endless revelations of high-level corruption connected to Petrobras, political parties and major contractors, the Odebrecht testimony has been likened in the capital Brasilia to the end of the world.

Tension has been rising since last week as Brazilian media continuously reported that Janot was on the point of making his bombshell request to the Supreme Court, only for another day to pass without incident.

Now that Janot has pulled the trigger, the focus will shift to the political fallout at a time when the deeply unpopular Temer is trying to guide market reforms through Congress in a bid to put Brazil's economy back on its feet.

In addition to the 83 cases against politicians handled by the Supreme Court, Janot requested the opening of 211 cases against others under the jurisdiction of regular courts.

The stipulation that the Supreme Court handles any serving member of Congress and the cabinet is seen as a form of protection for politicians, since the highest court works slowly. Estimates are that it could take years for the court to pronounce a sentence in the current cases -- if they get to trial at all.

Many of those outside the Supreme Court's jurisdiction -- including Lula, as an ex-president -- face Operation Car Wash's implacable chief judge Sergio Moro.

Lula is already accused of taking bribes from Petrobras contractors in separate investigations and faces five trials. He denies any involvement in corruption and says the legal onslaught is designed to stop him seeking re-election in 2018.
Brazil's first and only chef to unlock two Michelin stars for his Sao Paulo restaurant D.O.M. will be opening a new, casual, healthy organic restaurant in the city.

After teasing the opening on Instagram one week ago, chef Alex Atala has revealed more details on his latest project set to open next month.

In an interview with Eater, the chef said his next restaurant will feature a mix of table service, counter service and take-out.

Like his culinary philosophy at D.O.M., the menu will promote and highlight traditional ingredients indigenous to Brazil, including tapioca, Brazilian cheeses, acai berries and traditional fruit juices.

Atala is often described as the unofficial ambassador of native Brazilian cuisine.

In 2013, D.O.M. took the second spot on Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants awards, and Atala received the lifetime achievement award.

Gastronomes around the world may also be familiar with Atala who was most recently featured in the Netflix series "Chef's Table," which spotlights some of the most innovative and exciting chefs in the world.

Aside from his flagship restaurant, Atala's other projects include restaurant Dalva e Dito, and Acougue Central (Central Butchery), a butcher-restaurant that specializes in Brazilian steak and beef.

His casual eatery is expected to open in April.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has been defending Donald Trump ever since his formal endorsement of him two days before the November 2016 presidential election.

But in a conference call in early October, Ryan told fellow House Republicans he would not defend Donald Trump  not now, not in the future, according to an audio recording published by Breitbart News on Monday.

Ryans abandonment of Trump, which came in response to the publication of Trumps lewd remarks about women on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, had been reported at the time.

The world is well aware of this history, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the House speaker, said Tuesday in a statement to Yahoo News. And obviously a lot has happened since then.

Buck added: As everyone knows, they came together toward the end of the campaign and the speaker vocally supported him.

But the publication of the news by Breitbart, a far-right, pro-Trump website that was formerly led by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, puts Ryans sometimes difficult relationship with the president into stark relief.

His comments are not anywhere in keeping with our partys principles and values, Ryan said during the Oct. 10 call. There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your speaker. I am not going to defend Donald Trump  not now, not in the future.

The same day, Trump responded to reports about Ryans comments.

Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee, Trump tweeted.

Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2016

The remarks followed months of Ryan trying to determine his exact public relationship with his partys nominee. In June, shortly after Ryan endorsed Trump, he condemned the moguls comments about a Mexican-American judge, calling them racist. The Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump was recorded years ago boasting about groping and forcibly kissing women, resulted in Ryan distancing himself somewhat from Trump just weeks from Election Day.

Story continues

Ryan disinvited Trump to a GOP event in his home district in October, and pledged not to campaign on his behalf. In the leaked audio, he urged GOP members to do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do.

Im not going to be campaigning with [Trump], Ryan said, adding: Im going to spend the next 28 days working hard with all of our members to get reelected because we need a check on Hillary Clinton if she wins the presidency.

President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan take part in a leadership lunch at the White House in Washington, D.C., this month. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

This week, Ryan has been out selling the House GOP replacement for Obamacare, a key part of Trumps agenda.

And Breitbart has taken the opportunity to blame the House speaker for what some Republicans see as the bills shortcomings.

[Ryan] has pushed now President Donald Trump to believe his healthcare legislation the American Health Care Act would repeal and replace Obamacare when it does not repeal Obamacare, Breitbarts Matthew Boyle wrote. Ryan has also, according to Trump ally Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), misled President Trump into believing that Ryans bill can pass Congress. Paul and others believe the bill is dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate since a number of GOP senators have come out against it, and there are serious questions about whether it can pass the House.

Breitbart has a history of torching Ryan and accusing him of being insufficiently conservative.

This is the first major initiative that Trump has worked on with Ryan, Boyle continued. And the fact it is going so poorly calls into question whether Speaker Ryan, the GOPs failed 2012 vice presidential nominee who barely supported Trump at all in 2016, really understands how Trump won and how to win in general.

Read more from Yahoo News:
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May is committed to engaging with the Scottish government on Brexit plans, her spokesman said on Tuesday, a day after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a new independence referendum. "We have made clear our commitment to engage the Scottish government throughout that process and that commitment remains," the spokesman told reporters. May's spokesman also said the prime minister had told her top team of ministers earlier on Tuesday that while leaving the European Union is a big project, they must also press on with plans for economic and social reform in Britain. He also said that May would not attend an EU summit in Rome on March 25, the 60th anniversary of the treaty that laid the bloc's foundation. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, writing by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Nairobi (AFP) - A Kenyan court on Tuesday remanded a suspect in custody over the murder of a British man who was shot dead on his ranch earlier this month.

Samson Lokayi, 25, was detained on Sunday. He will remain behind bars until March 28, pending investigation into Tristan Voorspuy's killing on March 6.

Thousands of herders -- some armed with spears, others with AK47s -- have invaded private ranches and wildlife parks with their livestock, slaughtering animals and destroying property in central Kenya's Laikipia, as they go in search of pasture in the drought stricken-country.

Voorspuy, a British citizen who was born in South Africa, had gone to inspect damage on his ranch caused by the raiders when he was killed.

"We have strong reason to believe that the man we have in custody was involved in the killing of the British rancher," a senior police officer told AFP Monday.

"We want more time to carry out investigations on his involvement because there are two others out there whom he must have worked with," he added.

The judge had to postpone the suspect's first hearing because he only speaks his tribe's Pokot dialect, and no translator was available.

Voorspuy spent three years in the British army before moving to Kenya and founding a company specialising in horseback safaris, according to his website.

He and several other shareholders also restored the once derelict Sosian ranch.

In January herders swept into the nearby 44,000-acre (17,600-hectare) Suyian ranch, burning thatched huts for tourists.

- Fear and siege -

Elephants, lion, buffalo and zebra have been slaughtered by the herders who come with tens of thousands of livestock, and black and white landowners alike speak of invasions, fear and siege.

The reasons behind the invasions are complex.

While some point to the drought gripping the country, and a spike in human and livestock populations, others say the looming election in August and long-running land gripes have sparked tensions.

Story continues

Local media have reported that votes are being offered in exchange for land grabs.

The government has done little to stop the invasions and with elections around the corner, few expect vote-costing action against the illegal grazers.

And the ethnic logic of Kenyan politics means some candidates stand to benefit from a favourable shift in population dynamics ahead of the vote.

An MP for the region, Matthew Lempurkel, was charged on March 8 with inciting violence for allegedly encouraging the wave of land invasions.

Since December, eight people have been killed and 10 others injured in these invasions.
Prince Harry who?

Since the British prince confirmed that he's officially off the market, we've already got our eyes on another royal  Brunei's Prince Abdul Mateen.

SEE ALSO: Prince Harry Takes the Throne as Most Regal Photobomber

The 25-year-old prince who happens to be single, is pretty much like your average guy, except he plays polo, flies private jets and has a killer jawline.

Trompo A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Nov 12, 2016 at 6:57am PST

Brunei polo  A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Jun 8, 2016 at 12:11am PDT

Naturally, he's killing it on Instagram, where he has nearly 400,000 followers.

The prince graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2011 as a Second Lieutenant.

Not a bad winter day  A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Nov 16, 2016 at 3:40am PST

Hey what's up hello  A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Jul 17, 2016 at 5:04am PDT

He was also awarded a Master's Degree in Arts from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies last year.

Face of a master #SOAS A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Jul 27, 2016 at 5:13am PDT

Prince Mateen is the fourth son of Brunei's ruler, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who has an estimated fortune of $20 billion.

The Sultan has seven daughters and five sons.

"I have a really big family, but I'm closest to my elder brother and two sisters. We do everything together," Prince Mateen told GQ.

 A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Jul 27, 2016 at 5:22am PDT

He also appears to be fond of animals, though we're not entirely sure how legal it is to own tiger and leopard cubs.

Home #heykawan A post shared by Mateen (@tmski) on Dec 25, 2016 at 5:43am PST

Needless to say, most of the comments left on his photos are by swooning girls.

But what does he look for in a partner?

"I would say someone who is genuine and real. Someone who is very simple, that's what I like," he said.

Form a queue behind me please, ladies.
The Daily Beast

GettyIt only took a few hours after Russias Vladimir Putin hailed his mobilization as a sparkling success Friday for a torrent of humiliating reports to emerge that suggest the war effort has been more successful in turning the country against him than defeating mythical Nazis in Ukraine.The most staggering contradiction to the Russian presidents boastful claims came perhaps in Kazan, where dozens of drafted troops were captured on video late Friday berating military leadership outside a colle
ORANGE, Calif. (AP)  California police shot and killed a shirtless, knife-wielding man whom they had forced out of his locked minivan with a firehose after witnessing him pouring gasoline on a rag and lighting a cigarette, authorities said.

"We felt this guy was going to light himself on fire or blow the car up," Orange police Lt. Fred Lopez said Monday, the day after officers fatally shot 33-year-old Michael Anthony Perez.

Parts of the strange-then-violent standoff were captured on close-up, professionally shot video aired by KABC-TV, (http://bit.ly/2mDxpTR ), though Perez is partially blocked from view by another vehicle.

The video shows the water spraying as police use batons to break the van's windows then shows Perez climbing out head-first through the driver's side window. He then struggled with officers.

No weapon is seen but a voice is heard yelling "knife" moments before two shots rang out.

A non-lethal round of rubber projectiles was ineffective so officers used lethal force, Lopez said.

Perez was hit by a single bullet and pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.

"We try to use less lethal rounds, but it is not always possible," Lopez said.

Police said Perez had a criminal record that included weapons and drugs violations. Online court listings show convictions for charges including drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Thorsen said an active warrant was out in connection with the minivan.

The man was pulled over for a broken tail light and the incident played out over a 20- to 30-minute span near a 24-hour laundry and other businesses in a surrounding strip mall, police said.

"I had never seen anything like that," said Fabian Huerta, who watched with surprise as police started spraying water into the van. "I thought he was going to surrender."

Huerta, who works cleaning businesses at the strip mall, said in Spanish that he saw an officer grab the suspect by the hand before he heard gunshots.

Story continues

The shooting was being investigated by the Orange County district attorney's office.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
While a national policy on higher education has yet to be decided, its clear where California stands. On Monday, the states Democrats released a financial-aid plan that covers both tuition and living expenses, with the end goal of eliminating student loans among 400,000 students enrolled in the University of California and California State systems.

In a statewide survey conducted last year, nearly three-quarters of Californians identified college costs as a major barrier to higher education. Another 82 percent expressed support for additional scholarships and grants.

The proposed plan satisfies this desire by providing grants to community-college students and subsidizing their first years tuition. In addition, all college students will retain access to Cal Grants, federal Pell Grants, university grants, and Middle Class Scholarships. With this additional aid, lawmakers say they hope students will have enough funding to cover the cost of textbooks, transportation, and overall living, which make up the bulk of attendance costs at UC institutions.

Recommended: Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?

Although students are expected to contribute by working part-time, the proposed scholarship takes care of the average cost of tuition: around $21,000 a year at Cal State schools and $33,000 a year at UC schools. Parents who earn over $60,000 annually are expected to help with their childs education.

Overall, the plan offers students around $1.6 billion in annual aid, with scholarships being released in phases over the next five years. In a statement to The Los Angeles Times, Lupita Cortez Alcala, the executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, called it by far the most comprehensive and wide-reaching proposal in the country.

Critics say they fear the plan would fail to aid students who need it the mostnamely, those at community colleges. In many regions across the state, community-college students face higher college costs than UC or CSU students, Debbie Cochrane, the vice president at the Institute for College Access and Success, told The Los Angeles Times.

Story continues

In addition to these concerns, theres still the issue of getting the plan past budget negotiations with Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat. As it stands, most of the plans funding would come from Californias general fund, with the expectation that the states tax revenues will come in higher than projected. But whether the proposal will end up in Californias final budget plan in June is unclear, especially given Browns cautious spending record.

Despite these obstacles, eliminating college debt remains a priority for many Democrats, who will likely have more success realizing this goal in California than they will on a national scale.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
By Prak Chan Thul KANDAL, Cambodia (Reuters) - New Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha began a pre-election tour to rally support on Tuesday after his veteran predecessor resigned in fear that his party could be dissolved by the state. Kem Sokha became leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) this month after the resignation of Sam Rainsy, who said he wanted to save the party in the face of a legal change to allow authorities to dissolve any party whose leader has been convicted of an offense. Sam Rainsy has been convicted of a series of defamation charges and has lived in France since 2015 to avoid them. Rivals accuse Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge cadre who has brought Cambodia close to China, of unfair maneuvering to keep his three-decade-old grip on power at local elections in June and a general election next year. At a meeting of around 1,000 local party leaders, Kem Sokha said the CNRP would avoid getting caught up in fights with Hun Sen. "We focus on policies, we don't fight and we look to the future," Kem Sokha said in Kandal province, outside Phnom Penh. It is the first time the party has contested the communal elections, putting up 25,304 candidates for 1,646 communes across Cambodia. Miguel Chanco, regional lead analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the change in leadership might not harm the party's prospects. "Over the long run, we think that the formal elevation of Kem Sokha could bolster the CNRP's support in rural Cambodia, thereby potentially posing a greater threat to Hun Sen's rule," he said. (Editing by Nick Macfie)
While President Donald Trump recently made nice with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House, one Canadian group is having none of it.

The Girl Guides of Canada (Canada's equivalent of America's Girl Scouts) have announced they're putting a stop to travel to the U.S., including "trips that are over or under 72-hours and any travel that includes a connecting flight through an American airport."

In a statement, the Girl Guides say their primary concern is the ability of members to enter the United States, a reference to Trump's travel ban.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk throws subtle shade at Trump over travel ban

Sarah Kiriliuk, national manager of marketing and communication, told the Toronto Star, It also has to do with safety. We want to make sure that if our girls are traveling that they are not going to be in a risky or unsafe situation.

Depressing if understandable https://t.co/DXHmdZ8ARo  Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) March 13, 2017

The Girl Guides aren't the most notable group or persons to cancel a trip to the U.S. since Trump's inauguration; that honor (probably) goes to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who backed out of a planned trip because of Trump's plan to spend billions of dollars building a wall between the two nations.

But the Canadian group's decision certainly reflects an overall trend. The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) noted recently that one poll they conducted showed 47 percent of European business travel professionals expected some sort of reduction of travel to the U.S. for their companies in the wake of the ban.

Tourism could also suffer, according to one report that estimated over 6 million visits would be lost to the U.S. by the end of 2018 which could result in nearly $11 billion in lost tourism spending for the U.S.
Girl Guides of Canada said Monday that it is canceling all trips to the United States in the near future, citing potential problems at the two countries border.

The scouting organization, which frequently arranges trips to the U.S., worries that some of its members may face difficulties in entering the country, CBC reports.

The ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain, a joint-advisory from the organization read.

The move has been interpreted as a reaction to President Donald Trumps executive order restricting travel to the U.S. for nationals from six Muslim-majority countries. Implementation of the order has led to confusion about who can and who cant travel to the U.S., with some Canadians reporting problems crossing the border.

National manager of marketing and communications for Girl Guides of Canada, Sarah Kiriliuk, told CBC that the organization wanted to make sure that no girl gets left behind.

[CBC]
By Krisztina Than VAC, Hungary (Reuters) - Hungarians should overcome prejudice and help refugees to settle in the country, the Catholic bishop of Vac said trying to ease a hostile attitude towards migrants. Miklos Beer, whose comments are a rare show of support for migrants among high clergy in Hungary, has backed up his stand by housing two asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and one from Cuba in his church quarters situated in the quaint town north of Budapest. Now the 73-year old bishop is afraid that under a new law passed last week, they will be taken to container camps on Hungary's border with Serbia, where all migrants will be detained until their asylum requests are processed. Migrants whose applications are not immediately approved will not be allowed to move freely around Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been a vocal opponent of the wave of migration into Europe, which he says threatens the socioeconomic makeup of the continent, and his government is now building a second barrier to keep migrants out. "I still hope and I am convinced that even if we have a double fence (on the border), the door is still open," Beer, who will soon celebrate his 14th Easter in Vac, told Reuters in an interview. "It is up to us, and I have the entire Hungarian society in mind, that we should accept those who knock on the door, and should not humiliate them ... but we should ensure that they feel at home here as soon as possible." Beer said he was following the teachings of Pope Francis. The pontiff last month called for a radical change of attitude towards immigrants, saying they should be welcomed with dignity and denouncing the "populist rhetoric" he said was fuelling fear and selfishness in rich countries. "When someone comes through the door, and based on the latest parliamentary decision ... arrives in the transit zone (on the border) and asks for asylum, we should help those who get the refugee status," Beer said. "We should not have prejudices against them." He said parishes and local communities should offer empty homes in Hungary's depopulated villages to refugee families. Based on data from the immigration office, this year 51 migrants had been granted refugee or protected status. A total of 1,920 asylum requests, some of them filed last year, had been rejected and 1,488 applications had to be terminated as asylum seekers had left Hungary. Last year Hungary received 29,432 asylum requests, but most people decided to move on to western Europe. The office of the Catholic Church did not reply to emailed Reuters questions asking for an official statement on migrants. Beer said he would continue to provide shelter and food for the three asylum seekers who he has put up for a month, but admitted he would not be able to prevent their transfer to a detention camp, if police came. "I won't have any means to stop that," he said. (Editing by Pritha Sarkar)
Disney's Beauty and the Beast is easily one of the greatest and gayest children's movies of all time.

The company recently made headlines after deciding to include a single gay character in their latest live-action version.

Critics called their inclusion of one gay character groundbreaking  which it was  but as any unhealthy obsessed fan of the movie knows, the original Beauty and the Beast was rich with queer subtexts and characters (or at least, ones we could dream about).

SEE ALSO: 'Beauty and the Beast' director reveals Disney's first openly gay character

Listen: the movie came out (hardee-har) in 1991. Few people were openly queer on television, and certainly not in Disney princess movies. And animated tea cups can't *technically* have hypothetical sexualities, because they're . . . animated tea cups.

No matter. Queer representation was and remains limited. All the queer community had were beautiful and technically unsupported fan theories, theories I would now like to advance as fact.

SEE ALSO: Malaysia holds off screening 'Beauty and the Beast' after scene involving 'gay moment'

Below is list of characters from Beauty and the Beast who are very likely queer but who just haven't come out yet, and may in future versions.

1. Cogsworth

Image: disney

Face it: Cogsworth is one gay clock. A caring, tidy clock who just so happens to be in love with a charming candelabra named Lumiere. Of course, neither Lumiere nor Cogsworth can go public with their relationship and risk the wrath of an insecure buffalo literally named the Beast. But just look at how they look at each other throughout the entire movie. If only we could all find animated love like this.

Image: disney

2. Lumiere





Lumiere may want you to believe he's a lady's candelabra having a fling with a French mop, but she's just his beard. Do you honestly see them developing a real relationship?

Story continues

His true love has always been Cogsworth, and he's not afraid to shower him with affection in front of Mrs. Potts and Chip, who is too young and innocent to know what's going on. Lumiere is only able to help the Beast precisely because he knows what it's like to love in an atmosphere of shame. This is no bromance. Lumiere is no bro. This is love.

3. Belle

Yes, fine, Belle loves the Beast, a sputtering Buffalo with an intermittent rage disorder and a George W. Bush-level of skill in art. We've all had no choice but to accept that inconvenient truth. But Belle spent years single by choice before she decided to form a relationship.

Do you really think there was no one available in her "small" little town? How could she go that long without intimacy? Educated, independent, feminist Belle must've had at least one queer fling in her teens before she met the Beast.

4. Gaston





Gaston's entire purpose in life is to let us know he's not gay. He's literally slept with every woman in town, or so he's bragged via song.

Perhaps Gaston over-performs his masculinity precisely because he lives in such a homophobic French small town/fictional Disney movie. If only he could freely express his gender and sexuality, maybe he wouldn't feel the need to constantly assert it. As the nation's leading unlicensed Disney psychologist, I find it very convenient that Gaston went after Belle, one of the few unavailable women in town.

5. The town hairdresser





Image: youtube

Obviously, stereotypes aren't real and not all male hairdressers are gay, but this one is. While everyone else logically obsesses over Belle, he remains completely indifferent. Look at the clip. This guy could give AF that there's a beautiful woman skipping past his door literally leading a whole horrible town in song. He's either not that interested in women or not that interested in town sing-a-longs.

The latter is, we all know, impossible.

6. LeFou





Oh, poor LeFou. It's a little disappointing that he's the only out gay character in Disney's newest version of Beauty and The Beast, and not a particularly positive one. But regardless of what we think of LeFou as an animated person, we're all very happy for him. LeFou is so queer Disney could barely disguise it in the original. If only Gaston could come to the same conclusion, what a beautiful romance would develop, if only in our minds.

Will any of these characters come out and make so many us happy in future versions of the Beauty and the Beast? Definitely not. We're probably going to have to settle for LeFou.

Alas, that's what the internet's for. A fan theory is a wish your heart makes.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Political tension between China and Taiwan has affected cooperation on safety standards leading to a large number of cosmetic and food imports being stopped from entering China, the head of China's quality watchdog said on Tuesday. China deems Taiwan a wayward province to be taken back by force if necessary, though proudly democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being ruled by autocratic China. China is deeply suspicious of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office last May, believing she wants to push for the island's independence, a red line for Beijing. Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China. Beijing has cut off official communication with Taipei because Tsai has refused to accept China's view that the island is a part of China, and has put pressure on the trade-reliant island diplomatically and economically. China's quality chief Zhi Shuping told reporters on the sidelines of China's annual meeting of parliament that, although cosmetic and food imports do not account for a large percentage of China's imports from Taiwan, a large number of imports of those products were substandard. "Originally we had lots of cooperation, but now certainly it has been obstructed. Some information is not as smooth as it had been in the past," Zhi said, referring to the period after Tsai took office. Things would get better if Taiwan recognized the "1992 consensus", he said. The "1992 consensus", agreed with Taiwan's previous China-friendly Nationalist government, acknowledges Taiwan and China are part of a single China, but allows both sides to interpret who is the ruler. "Communication would be a lot smoother," Zhi said. "We all belong to one China, and blood is thicker than water." Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists. Some Taiwanese companies also don't really understand China's standards, Zhi said, and Taiwan's own quality standards have weak points and loopholes. "We give feedback on each batch, but rectification is not good enough," he said. "We treat everyone in the world the same when it comes to safety. Brothers are brothers, but principles are principles. Just because you're a brother doesn't mean we make things easier for you," he Zhi said. There have been repeated safety scandals over made-in-China goods, from tainted baby milk formula and rotten meat to fake rice and toxic toothpaste, unsettling consumers around the world, including in Taiwan. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday it was waiting for an official word on why Japan plans to send its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea, but that it hopes Japan can be responsible. China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fueled concern in Japan and the West, with the United States holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation. The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July, sources told Reuters. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she did not know if the ship was going to visit countries in Southeast Asia or if there was another aim. "We have not yet heard what Japan says officially," she told a daily news briefing. "If it's only a normal visit, going to several countries, and passing normally through the South China Sea, then we've got no objections, and we hope this kind of normal exchange between relevant countries can play a role promoting regional peace and stability," Hua said. "But if going to the South China Sea has different intentions, then that's a different matter," she added. Japan had been stirring up trouble on the South China Sea issue of late, and China hoped it can play a constructive role in peace and stability, Hua said. Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei also claim parts of the sea which has rich fishing grounds, oil and gas deposits and through which around $5 trillion of global sea-borne trade passes each year. Japan does not have any claim to the waters, but has a separate maritime dispute with China in the East China Sea. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)
BEIJING (Reuters) - Patriotism is the "mission" of religion in China, but greed is tainting Tibetan Buddhism, says the government-appointed second-highest spiritual leader of the faith, who was chosen by Beijing to win the hearts and minds of Tibetans. Although officially atheist, China in 1995 selected Gyaltsen Norbu as Tibet's 11th Panchen Lama, the number-two spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Tibet's current spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing brands a dangerous separatist, had announced his own choice of a six-year-old boy to replace the previous Panchen Lama, but he was taken away by authorities and has since vanished from public view. Speaking at the yearly meeting of the advisory Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing on Saturday, China's Panchen Lama said that "as the retail economy grows, Buddhism has come under attack from commercialization". "Some places use monasteries as money trees, turn them into family temples, turn them into shopping malls; while some fake living Buddhas and fake monks use dubious Buddhist teachings to swindle believers," he said, according to state media. "The historic mission for religion at this time is: to love the nation and love faith... and to contribute to achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people," he said, referring to a political goal of the ruling Communist Party. His remarks come amid China's controversial work to "reconstruct" southwest Sichuan province's Larung Gar monastery, one of China's largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Rights groups say the plans represent an assault on faith in China. A Sichuan official, Yeshe Dawa, told the official China Daily that the plan was not to "demolish" the monastery but to "improve the messy surroundings" so as to turn it into a "formal Buddhist academy," the paper said on Tuesday. According to state media, the Panchen Lama made no mention of the monastery in his speech. China has gradually raised the public profile of its Panchen Lama, hoping Tibetans will come to respect him as they do the Dalai Lama. Chinese troops "peacefully liberated" Tibet in 1950. China routinely rejects criticism of its rule there, saying it has brought much needed development to a remote region and that it respects Tibet's culture and religion. After the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, the 10th Panchen Lama stayed on and was initially seen as a collaborator. It later emerged that his criticism of Beijing had earned him more than a decade spent either in prison or under house arrest. Freed in 1977, he was politically rehabilitated the following year, and died in 1989. (Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Michael Perry)
Officials from China's ruling Communist Party warned citizens the rising influence of Islamic extremism in China would result in the country losing its traditional identity.

Addressing a group of Chinese politicians at a regional meeting, Ningxia Communist Party secretary Li Jianguo pointed to U.S. President Donald Trumps recent travel ban as an example of a way to prevent religious extremism from seeping into all of American culture.

"What the Islamic State and extremists push is jihad, terror, violence. This is why we see Trump targeting Muslims in a travel ban," Li reportedly said in reference to Trumps executive order barring citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. on national security grounds. "It doesn't matter whether the anti-Muslim policy is in the interests of the U.S. or it promotes stability; it's about preventing religious extremism from seeping into all of American culture."

Read: Is China Going To War With ISIS? Philippines President Duterte Asks Beijing For Military Aid To Combat Islamic State

Because the "international anti-terror situation" was destabilizing China, a "people's war" by Chinese citizens is needed to safeguard the country's national identity, Shaerheti Ahan, a top party official in the predominantly Muslim Xingjian region, told a group of political leaders in Beijing Sunday.

Municipal lawmakers in the western Xinjiang region, which is home to China's minority Uighur Muslim community, implemented greater surveillance measures and police patrols after a number of attacks, which Beijing blamed on Uighur separatist fighters linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State, killed hundreds of Chinese citizens. The Islamic State released a video in February allegedly showing Uighur fighters training alongside Islamic State militants in Iraq. In the video, the terrorists threatened to launch attacks on China.

Story continues

A number of high-profile anti-terror rallies have been conducted by law enforcement officials in Xinjiang to demonstrate China's military capability to Islamic militants. These demonstrations, which often featured police and armored vehicles parading through the regional capital, were intended to declare war against terrorists, to showcase the party and the governments resolve to fight terror, resolve to preserve public safety and [Chinas] mighty combat strength, Ahan told government officials gathered in Beijing.

The Chinese federal government allegedly has tried to stop Uighurs from practicing Islam through a law preventing anyone under the age of 18 from entering a mosque, Alim Seytoff, president of the Uyghur American Association, told Al Jazeera in October 2012. The roughly 20 Muslims living in China make up 1.5 percent of its entire population.

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By Toby Sterling AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch election has centered on the fight between the two hard right candidates, anti-Islam maverick Geert Wilders and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, but the leader of the Christian Democrats has crept to within striking distance of topping the poll. Sybrand Buma's Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) is all but certain to participate in the next governing coalition, regardless of who wins, and Buma even has a long-shot chance of becoming prime minister after Wednesday's vote, given other parties' refusal to work with Wilders. The latest polls show the right-leaning, low-profile Buma trailing Rutte's VVD by 4 percentage points and just 1 point behind Wilders' PVV, on a rising trend. He could command around 20 seats in a fractured 150-seat parliament. Since Feb. 24, the CDA has gone up in every one of the 11 polling updates in a poll of polls - the only party to do so. Buma told Reuters all the pre-election talk had been that "this campaign would be about a rivalry between Rutte and Wilders. What's left of that dual? We are getting stronger every day and the chance that we are the biggest on election day is very real, and no one is expecting it." Buma has gained ground by adopting a tough line similar to Rutte's on immigration, adding a focus on communal values and a touch of nationalism to tap voter concerns about Dutch identity. He has proposed introducing singing the national anthem in schools and mandatory community service, but supports remaining in the European Union and keeping the euro currency - albeit with some reluctance. The CDA campaign is "very much about moral issues rather than economic issues", Buma said. Compulsory social service for youths, he said, would help them see that society is "not only what's in it for you ... but also what you give back". But while the CDA presence in government would ensure a conservative stamp on any coalition, Buma said it endorses freedom of religion "and that's a great difference. We won't govern with the PVV." TURKISH ROW Buma supported Rutte's decision to block Turkish politicians from addressing supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan among immigrants in the Netherlands ahead of a Turkish referendum. Both Rutte and Wilders have seen a bounce in the polls from the row. Buma said Erdogan's remarks referring to the Dutch as "Nazis" and "fascists" were behind the diplomatic crisis, in which Turkey said on Monday it would suspend high-level diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. "That goes deep into the heart of the (Dutch) people," he said. "My own grandfather died in a German concentration camp." Buma responded by calling for Turks with dual Dutch-Turkish nationality to give up their Turkish passports, a response that played well with voters. "They have two passports, which is a problem indeed," he said, adding that Erdogan's assertions that he represents second and even third generation immigrants "has to stop". "We want to integrate Turkish Dutch people into our society," Buma said. Despite its support now, the CDA, a traditional powerhouse in Dutch politics, began suffering setbacks in 2006, as parts of its traditional voter base in the south and rural areas flocked to Wilders and his anti-Islam Party of Freedom (PVV). In 2012, Buma was left leading just 13 members after commanding 41 in 2006. But in opposition, Buma proved himself a good debater with an unexpected flair for humor and has played up the parts of the Christian Democrat platform that appeal to voters who defected to the PVV. "In my view that's because the themes that have come to the surface, identity, values and norms, immigration and immigration, are our themes," he said. He said he was focusing on the more rural south and southwest of the country, where the CDA has a strong presence at a local level and leftist and secular parties hold little appeal. "They are disappointed in Wilders there and people like to choose candidates that come from their own area," he said. "I have the impression that we could have a huge bump there." (The story was refiled to show Buma's grandfather died in a concentration camp, not his father) (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Alison Williams)
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)  Lawmakers in Colombia have approved the creation of special courts for the prosecution of war crimes, a key component of the historic peace agreement reached with the country's largest rebel group.

The Senate voted 61-2 in favor of the tribunals after hours of debate on Monday.

The peace tribunals have been one of the most hotly contested elements of the accord.

Conservative opponents complain that rebels behind scores of atrocities will be spared jail time if they confess their crimes while human rights activists contend that modifications introduced into the legislation will prevent military officials from being punished for extrajudicial killings of civilians.

President Juan Manuel Santos hailed the tribunals' creation as "a great step in consolidating peace."
Bogota (AFP) - Colombia's senate late Monday approved a constitutional reform to set up special war crimes courts, a key component of the historic peace agreement with FARC guerrillas that ended five decades of war.

The court system will be made up of three sections: a truth commission, a unit to search for missing people, and a temporary, autonomous body to try crimes committed during the armed conflict before December 1, 2016.

Establishing the courts was the backbone of the peace deal Bogota reached in November with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels.

President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his efforts to end his country's 53-year conflict, which has drawn in numerous leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitary units, drug cartels and the army.

The FARC launched its guerrilla war against the Colombian government in 1964, after a peasant uprising that was crushed by the army.

Under the peace deal negotiated by the Santos administration, the FARC will transform into a political party and its 5,700 fighters will demobilize over a period of six months.

The group began disarming in early March, a process overseen by United Nations monitors.

According to the peace agreement, clinched after four years of talks in Cuba, fighters who confess their involvement in atrocities can avoid prison and receive an alternative punishment.

If they don't confess and are found guilty, they face prison terms of eight to 20 years.

The conflict has killed some 260,000 people while 60,000 have vanished, and 6.9 million have been displaced within Colombia.

- 'Irreparable blow' -

Colombia's senate has 102 members. Of those present late Monday, 60 voted for the measure and two voted against it.

Noticeably absent were the members of the Democratic Center, a right-wing party led by former president -- and current senator -- Alvaro Uribe, a fierce opponent of the peace plan.

Senator Ivan Duque, speaking on the party's behalf, said during the debate that "in the name of peace ... an irreparable blow is being delivered to constitutional order" and to the judicial branch.

Story continues

Uribe and his supporters argued that the peace deal grants impunity to rebels guilty of war crimes, giving them seats in Congress rather than sending them to prison.

Santos was Uribe's defense minister and a key player in several military operations under the former president that shattered the FARC's strength.

But since Santos followed the still-popular Uribe as president in 2010, the two have clashed on issues ranging from the peace deal to relations with the leftist regime in Venezuela.

Pope Francis, scheduled to visit Colombia in September as "a messenger of peace and reconciliation," brought Santos and Uribe together at the Vatican in December in an unsuccessful bid to persuade them to overcome their differences.

The constitutional reform, which has already been approved by the lower chamber, still must survive a review by the constitutional court before Santos signs it into law.
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos on Tuesday acknowledged that his 2010 election campaign received illegal payments from Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA and asked the country's forgiveness. Without specifying amounts, the Colombian attorney general's office has alleged Santos' successful 2010 and 2014 campaigns received money from Odebrecht, which is engulfed in a region-wide corruption scandal. Santos said he had no knowledge at the time of the illegal payments and did not authorize acceptance of them. He said he "rejects and condemns" them. "I am deeply sorry and ask forgiveness from Colombians for this shameful act that should never have happened and that I have just learned about," Santos said in a statement. It is illegal in Colombia to receive campaign financing from overseas companies. Santos, who won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, did not mention Odebrecht in his statement. The revelation is likely to put corruption front and center in next year's election. While Santos, whose popularity is at near record lows, is barred from running for another term, the candidate of his U Party may well be damaged. His campaign manager Roberto Prieto told local Blu Radio on Tuesday that Odebrecht paid $400,000 for election posters in 2010. He said Santos had no knowledge of the payment. Prieto could not be immediately reached for comment. In Colombia, political parties may be disbanded and prevented from backing candidates if a campaign is found guilty of electoral violations. The statute of limitations is three years, so only the 2014 campaign would be at issue. The funding scandal will remind Colombians of cash paid to the 1994 campaign of former President Ernesto Samper by the Cali drug cartel. Samper was impeached, but Congress cleared him. U.S. prosecutors contend Odebrecht paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes in association with infrastructure projects in 12 countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, between 2002 and 2016. Santos's 2014 rival is also facing investigation by electoral authorities for allegedly receiving Odebrecht money. Oscar Ivan Zuluaga was the candidate of the right-wing Democratic Center opposition party. (Reporting by Helen Murphy; Editing by Richard Chang and Cynthia Osterman)
Bogota (AFP) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos apologized Tuesday over funding for his 2010 election campaign from scandal-plagued Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, saying he had been unaware of the payments at the time.

Santos, the winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, posted an angry video on Twitter after the campaign's finance director said Odebrecht had paid for two million Santos posters.

Odebrecht is caught up in a series of kickback scandals across Latin America that originated during an investigation into massive corruption at Brazilian state oil company Petrobras.

In Colombia, an ongoing probe into Odebrecht payments to the Santos campaign threatens to tarnish the president just as he seeks to implement his signature peace deal to end a half-century conflict with the FARC guerrillas.

"I did not authorize or have any knowledge of (the payments), which were made in direct violation of the ethical norms and accounting procedures I demanded be put in place for the campaign," Santos said from his office.

"I apologize to all Colombians for this shameful incident, which never should have happened and of which I have only just learned," he said in the video, sporting a white dove lapel pin.

Santos, 65, called for an investigation and said "those responsible for any act of corruption must be punished."

The comments came just after the airing of a radio interview with Roberto Prieto, the finance director of Santos's first presidential campaign in 2010 and manager of his 2014 re-election campaign.

Prieto told Blu Radio that Odebrecht paid for Santos campaign materials in 2010.

"They told me, 'We need to purchase two million posters.' I said, 'Who's paying for that?' 'Odebrecht will pay. Send the bill to Odebrecht.' And that's what I did," he said, without specifying with whom he had the alleged conversation.

He said that Santos "had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with" what he called the "irregular transaction."

Story continues

He added that the president's 2014 campaign -- the current target of the prosecutors' investigation -- had taken no money from any company.

The probe was opened after a former senator alleged Odebrecht paid a $1 million bribe to the president's 2014 campaign in hopes of securing a lucrative road-building contract.

Santos denied the allegation at the time.

Odebrecht, the largest construction company in Latin America, agreed in December to pay a record $3.5 billion settlement over revelations that it paid massive bribes to win juicy contracts in 12 countries in Latin America and Africa.
It's a quiet but cozy workspace, designed to promote focus and creativity while providing an alternative to a traditional desk or office.

It's also a bright pink cubby covered in comfy cushions.

The pink seating is the brainchild of Karen Bala, Jen Taylor and Michelle Bristol of Dyer Brown, an architectural firm. It was one element of Dyer Brown's Boston office space design for Criteo, a tech company that works with retailers to personalize online ads for consumers.

The cubbies are "a very welcoming, inviting space that you want to be in," said Taylor. "As people spend more time in the office, comfort is a priority. Creating these informal amenity spaces that replicate the comforts of home can help companies attract and retain talent."

The comfy cubbies  three in all  are located in a lounge area. Each consists of a rectangular space recessed into a wood-paneled wall. The front of the cubbies are open but the top, sides, floor and back are lined with pink foam bolsters covered with FilzFelt, a type of felt. The soft materials increase comfort and absorb sound.

The bold color contrasts with the cozy vibe, and ties in with "the energy and excitement" of the company's fun, young office culture, Taylor said.

"The rest of their office is heavily packed with work stations," said Bristol. "We wanted to make sure that this worked with their office culture of being very vibrant and energetic."

The color  actually a magenta  matches a hue in some of the company's branding documents. And there was no concern that pink might be off-putting to men: "We've seen the trend move away from pink as a gender-specific color," Taylor said.

Each nook has a single overhead light fixture but no electric outlet. "We wanted it to be an unplugged zone," Bristol said. "We wanted them to use it for heads-down work, where someone has to write something or make a phone call." Employees do take laptops in the cubbies, but the lack of outlets helps "keep the spaces open so nobody is hogging them," Taylor said.

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The feedback, they said, was extremely positive, with workers telling them, "I want to try it out! I want to be in that place!"

How could the concept be adapted for home design?

A simple reinterpretation would be to cushion a window seat or convert a closet by removing a door and adding a bench.

An unused corner, or space between furniture and a wall, might also work. Do-it-yourselfers might consider building a pod-like structure with plastic or wooden panels. Wrapping the material in foam and fabric for comfort and sound insulation would be key to maintaining the cozy aesthetics.

Bright colors work well in a kid's bedroom or playroom, lending a sense of energy even if the cubby is designed to be more of a quiet spot. Calmer colors might work best in a home office, especially if the space is intended to help users disconnect a bit from technology so they can dig into a book or craft.

An inexpensive stick-on light could easily illuminate the space.

Dimensions will depend on the intended user and available space. The office cubbies are 3  feet deep, 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall.

Cushioning the space is important not just for comfort and mood but also to increase the quiet. Bristol said that even in an office with hundreds of employees, the padding muted background noise.

In a home environment, a quiet nook could promote concentration on a task like doing the taxes or organizing recipes, even if kids were playing nearby in a family room.
Companies in the European Union can ban the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign as it does not constitute direct discrimination, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.

Europes highest courts ruling was sparked by Samira Achbita, a Muslim woman working for the security company G4S, who was told that her wearing of a headscarf would not be tolerated because the visible wearing of political, philosophical or religious signs was contrary to the companys position of neutrality.

About three years later, Achbita was dismissed from her job because of her continuing insistence on wearing the Islamic headscarf at work, a dismissal she then challenged in the Belgian courts.

But the ECJ ruled that it is not illegal for companies to have an internal rule prohibiting the wearing of a religious symbol. However, the court added that the ban cannot be based on the wishes of a customer. The rule treats all employees of the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally, an ECJ press release explained.

The human rights group Amnesty International said bans on religious symbols to show neutrality opened a backdoor to precisely such prejudice, Reuters reports.
Dan Dillard, now 35, quit his job in radio in Indianapolis to pursue an MBA at Indiana University--Bloomington's Kelley School of Business in 2014. He submitted his applications to Kelley and a few other schools the week his first child was born.

Leaving stability, a home, a community, a known income and everything else was a huge hurdle and consideration, says Dillard, who now works in consumer market knowledge -- market research -- for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. He thought long and hard about the decision -- especially since he was becoming a father.

[Get tips for applying to b-school after years in the workforce.]

Pursing an MBA is a significant investment. The average tuition for the 2016-2017 school year was $57,218 at the top 25 private MBA programs ranked by U.S. News. At the top 25 public programs, the average tuition was $32,181 for in-state students and $45,151 for out-of-state students. This doesn't include fees, which can be significant.

Professionals should weigh the following pros and cons related to finances when making a decision to leave a job for an MBA program.

Pro: Full-time students are focused on school and may get more out of the experience. "It being such a massive transition, I felt like I'm either all in or I'm not, and I decided obviously to go all in and do the two years and to really immerse fully," says Dillard, though he considered online, part-time and other alternatives to keep his job and family life rooted in Indianapolis.

[See photos of the top 20 full-time MBA programs.]

Full-time MBA students have more time to build a network, says Jeff McNish, assistant dean of the Career Development Center at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. And since they are likely not working, students have time for extracurriculars and cocurriculars that add value.

Kim Truong, a 2016 graduate of the full-time MBA program at the University of Wisconsin--Madison's Wisconsin School of Business, says she learned some companies mainly recruit full-time MBA candidates.

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"I wouldn't get the same companies recruiting me if I went through a part-time program," says Truong, now 32 and a compensation specialist at Starbucks in Seattle.

Con: Most full-time students won't have a steady income for a couple years. Thirty-year-old Terry Evans Jr. rented out his house in Pittsburgh and lived in his aunt's basement so he wouldn't have to work while attending the two-year MBA program at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business.

Because he was switching from a sales-driven job to something completely new to him, he wanted to focus on school, says Evans, now working in corporate development for aviation, defense and building organization United Technologies Corp. in Florida.

The 2015 Katz graduate also used savings, loans and merit-based scholarships to support himself and pay for his degree.

Be conservative when calculating how much an MBA will cost and the potential return on investment, says Jeremy Shinewald, founder and president of mbaMission, an MBA admissions consulting firm. Don't assume financial aid will be offered, he says. Factor in the opportunity cost, too.

[Calculate the return on investment for an MBA.]

Pro: Adults can earn their degree in a relatively short amount of time. "I wanted to get in, get out and get done with it," says Brandon Earle, a 24-year-old student in the one-year full-time MBA program at Florida State University.

Graduate school is like taking on a mortgage -- the credential appreciates, says Karen Dowd, assistant dean at the University of Rochester's Simon Business School.

"You will start at a higher level when you graduate and you'll be able to have more opportunities for advancement because of your degree," she says. Think about the costs not over a couple of years, but a longer period of time, she says.

The sooner students earn their degree, the less risk, hardship and inconvenience there will be, she says.

Con: There's no guarantee professionals make more money after they earn an MBA. About 88 percent of 2016 full-time MBA graduates from ranked business schools seeking employment had a job within three months, according to U.S. News data. The mean base salary and bonus among 2016 graduates of these programs was $133,971.

Dillard is making about twice as much in his new job than he was at his old one.

Truong, previously an alumni recruiter at the University of California--Los Angeles, is making 78 percent more in base salary at Starbucks, she says. That doesn't include annual bonuses and stock.

Still, getting a higher-paying job -- or one at all -- is not guaranteed upon graduation.

Prospective students can look at salary data from websites like Glassdoor and Indeed to get an idea of income prospects, Dowd says.

Money wasn't a main motivator or concern for Dillard.

He and his wife had faith the financial aspect would work out, he says. "Getting me into a more satisfied position from a professional standpoint was the ultimate compass."

Searching for a business school? Get our complete rankings of Best Business Schools.

Alexandra Pannoni is an education digital producer at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at apannoni@usnews.com.
When the ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit against Missouris struggling public-defender system on Thursday, Michael Barrett wasnt surprised.

We've been jumping up and down trying to call attention to this matter for the last two years, telling the state, This is coming, this is coming, although we didn't know precisely when it would come, Barrett, the director of the Missouri State Public Defender Office, told me Friday. It was inevitable, just given all the studies that have been done regarding our caseload and the limited number of lawyers the state gives us.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of five Missourians in the states criminal-justice system, accuses public defenders of failing to provide poor defendants with their constitutionally guaranteed right to legal counsel. The 53-page complaint depicts an overwhelmed system in which a too-small cadre of lawyers is burdened with too many cases and, as a result, too little time to properly defend their clients in court.

For more than two decades, Defendants have failed to provide the resources required to adequately represent poor people accused of crimes in Missouri, leading to the actual and constructive denial of counsel for, and ineffective representation of, indigent defendants across the State, the lawsuit claims.

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Barrett echoed similar sentiments on the problems facing his office. A lawyer can probably only handle 40, maybe 50 case at any one time, he explained. Our lawyers have three times that amount, and people are taking pleas because they're sitting in local jail waiting for their lawyer to get to them. With so little time spent on each of their many clients, lawyers are often unable to conduct interviews, review evidence, or pursue avenues of investigation that could be crucial to their defense.

Under the Sixth Amendment, everyone who enters the American criminal-justice system has the right to adequate legal counsel. Two landmark decisions by the Warren Court in the 1960s gave force to that promise. First, the justices unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must provide a lawyer if a defendant cannot afford one, effectively mandating the creation of modern public-defender systems. Four years later, in In re Gault, the Court held that juvenile defendants are entitled to the same due-process rights as adults, thereby imposing the same requirement on the juvenile-justice system.

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But more than a half-century after the Warren Courts revolution in criminal justice, the plaintiffs stories offer a window into how Missouris system falls short of that promise. A public defender told Shondel Church, one of the plaintiffs, hed have to wait six months in jail before his lawyer could help him beat his felony theft charge. Church pled guilty to misdemeanor theft after three months instead. Brian Richmans lawyer waived Richmans right to appear before a judge with counsel for some hearings in a felony drug-charge case without consulting Richman first.

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One of the most startling cases cited in the lawsuit is that of Randall Lee Dalton, who was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance after police raided the nursing home where he lived in January. Officers found a single pill of Lorazepam and arrested him for it, then discovered he had an outstanding warrant for writing a bad check and had failed to register as a sex offender in his county. (He was given a suspended sentence for misdemeanor sexual contact in 1994, according to the lawsuit.)

Dalton, who is described as physically disabled and mentally impaired, was then held on a $30,000 bond without seeing either a judge or his public defender, according to the lawsuit. He also did not have access to medication, nor did he meet his assigned public defender until he was brought into a courtroom for a bond hearing this month. He remains in jail while proceedings unfold as of the complaints filing.

The plaintiffs fleeting interactions with their own lawyers arent isolated incidents, according to the ACLU. Public defenders [in Missouri] average just 8.7 hours on the most serious non-homicide felonies, amounting to less than 20 percent of the minimum time recommended by the American Bar Association, the lawsuit said. Overall, they are forced to devote fewer than the minimum hours recommended by the ABA in more than 97 percent of their cases.

Nor are Missouris problems unparalleled across the country. When state legislators push for budget cuts, funding for programs that help impoverished defendants can be a more politically palatable target than public schools or state health-care systems. A similar class-action lawsuit is also underway in Louisiana, where declining traffic-fine revenues and a billion-dollar budget shortfall at the state legislature have hamstrung indigent-defense funding. Public defenders throughout Kentucky often take more than twice the caseloads recommended by the ABA. The district attorney for New Mexicos Lea County asked the state supreme court to intervene in December after the states chief public defender ordered his lawyers to stop taking new cases there.

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But even amid a nationwide crisis, Missouri stands out: The state ranks 49th out of 50 states in indigent-defense funding, Barrett said. Only neighboring Mississippi ranks lower. Mississippi's excuse is, we're the poorest state in the Union, he added. I'm not quite sure what Missouri's excuse is, beyond that we're just not interested in this particular constitutional rightalthough we're quite fond of some of the other constitutional amendments.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court has taken notice of the funding crisis for indigent defense, albeit only in passing. In Luis v. United States last year, the justices mulled whether federal agents could seize a defendants untainted financial assets if that seizure would prevent the defendant from hiring a lawyer of their choice. The justices sided with Sila Luis, who had $2 million in assets at issue, in a 5-3 decision.

Most of the decision focused on a legal balancing act between a defendants right to counsel and the states power to punish criminal actsa battle ultimately won by the Sixth Amendment in this case. But Justice Stephen Breyer also raised a practical concern in his majority ruling. Seizing Luiss assets would render her indigent and force her to rely upon underpaid and overworked public defenders, he noted. If the Court had accepted the federal governments side in the case, Breyer surmised, it would render less effective the basic right the Sixth Amendment seeks to protect.

Breyers observation about the nations public-defender systems unnerved some of Breyers colleagues, especially when taken to its logical conclusion. Given the large volume of defendants in the criminal justice system who rely on public representation, Justice Kennedy wrote in his dissent, it would be troubling to suggest that a defendant who might be represented by a public defender will receive inadequate representation.

For Missouri, that suggestion appears to be a reality. The ACLU lawsuit describes a crisis for impoverished juvenile defendants, who are even less equipped to defend themselves in court. The lawsuit cites a 2015 Justice Department report on the St. Louis County Family Courts in which federal officials found routine violations of childrens rights in juvenile delinquency proceedings. Many of those violations sprung from the assignment of a single public defender to the countys juvenile-court system, who took 394 cases in 2014 alone. And Missouris problems arent limited to St. Louis County. A 2013 report by the National Juvenile Defenders Council cited by the lawsuit found that 60 percent of states young defendants come before its courts without legal counsel.

Barrett said hes tried reaching out to the governor and to state legislators to increase funding without success. Some of those attempts have been more dramatic than others. In one episode that received national attention, Barrett used a provision of the states indigent-defense law in an attempt to compel former Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat and a trained lawyer, to represent a defendant last August. (A judge subsequently allowed Nixon to step aside.) His experience with Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican who replaced Nixon in November, hasnt been much better, Barrett said.

I've sent several letters to the new governor and multiple phone calls, none of which have been returned, Barrett said. I'm very interested in sitting down and trying to figure out a resolution to this, but I'm not getting a lot of interest reciprocated. Greitenss office did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
A Miami police officer has been fired from his job following his arrest for allegedly stealing from drivers he pulled over while on the job.

Miami Police Department Deputy Chief Luis Cabrera confirmed at a press conference that 22-year-old Officer Jose Acosta was arrested after allegedly stopping drivers for no apparent reason and ordering them out of their vehicles.

Watch: Police Chief Writes Himself Ticket for Parking on Sidewalk

The officer was charged with one count of armed burglary of a conveyance and one count of armed grand theft, Cabrera told reporters Monday.

According to Cabrera, complaints against Acosta, who joined the department in May of 2016, first prompted an investigation.

Then, on Friday, cops say Acosta was caught in the act.

After first allegedly putting a driver in the back of his cruiser, "Acosta entered the drivers vehicle and took $940 from the drivers wallet and bank envelope," Cabrera said.

Acosta, however, let the man go and reported nothing to dispatch, Cabrera said.

Later, Acosta allegedly took $1,250 from another car. However, this car was an undercover detective.

Acosta was arrested and police reportedly said the he admitted to stealing up to $6,000 over two months.

Watch: While On Duty Police Officer Gets Drugged by Teenager Working at Subway: Cops

Acosta has since been fired.

It appears that Officer Acosta sold his integrity and sold out on his community, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Monday. Instead of seeking to rid Miami of crime, he became a criminal himself.

Watch: Ex-Cop Explains Why He Opened Fire on Texting Moviegoer: 'It Was His Life or Mine'

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On this day in 1793, young inventor Eli Whitney had his U.S. patent for the cotton gin approved, an invention that would definitely have an impact on social and economic conditions that led to the Civil War.

cottongin536

Original Patent Drawing

How much of an impact the gin (which is short for engine) had on the retention of slavery in the South is still being debated. To be sure, the value of cotton as a cash crop grew astronomically in the decades following Whitneys patent went into effect. By some estimates, the United States supplied three-quarters of the global cotton supply by the start of the Civil War.

Link: See The Approved Patent

Much of that cotton made its way to Northern manufacturers to be made into clothing and other products. But slavery, in addition to the cotton gin, was a key component of the cotton business. Whitney got the idea for the gin while working as a tutor near the estate of Catherine Greene in Savannah. Greene, the widow of General Nathaneal Greene,also may have suggested some of the concepts behind the gin to Whitney, according to one 19th century author.

The gin separated the sticky seeds from the fibers in short-staple cotton, which was easy to grow in the Deep South but difficult to process. The gin improved the separation of the seeds and fibers by a factor of 50, but the cotton still needed to be picked by hand. The demand for cotton roughly doubled each decade following Whitneys invention. So cotton became a very profitable crop that also demanded a growing slave-labor force to harvest it.

During the constitutional debates of 1787, an end to the importation of slaves by the year 1808 was one of the compromises agreed to in Philadelphia. Some Founders may have believed that slavery would fade away in the United States because of social reasons or the unprofitability of slave-produced crops before the gin was invented.

In 1807, Congress passed an act to make the slave-importation ban official. During the first cotton boom, the slave population in the South swelled to 4 million people, leaving slave owners with an ample population to maintain a workforce as the children of slaves were born into slavery. By 1820, the nation was divided into Northern and Southern regions based on the legality of slavery in states and territories.

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Whitney never really profited from the invention that had a direct role in maintaining slavery as an institution. Although the Constitutions Article 1, Section 8, gave Congress the power to create patent laws, the rules were difficult to enforce due to loopholes, and other planters started to build their own cotton gins. (Whitney later invented a process for interchangeable manufacturing parts for guns, which was very profitable.)

One question that has been debated was the fate of slavery, independent of Whitneys invention, and in particular, the idea that the cotton gin suddenly made slavery profitable. Alfred H. Conrad and John R. Meyer in their classic 1958 study about the issue argued that slavery depended on its economic survival for the spread of the institution to the Southwest in the 1860s.

Recently, professor Paul Finkleman argued in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities that the common perception of slavery as a dying institution before the cotton gins invention is misguided. Slaves were a profitable investment before the cotton gin and an even more profitable investment after its invention, he wrote in 2013.

Regardless, the cotton gin was one of the significant inventions that changed American history in broad, generational ways.

Scott Bomboy is the Editor In Chief of the National Constitution Center.
A couple involved in the death of a policeman in Bali were sentenced to prison Monday.

Sara Connor, 46, was found guilty of group assault and given four years in the slammer, while her partner, David Taylor, 34, was found guilty of group assault and sentenced to six years behind bars, ABC News reported Monday.

Taylor, a British man from Halifax, and Connor, an Australian woman from Byron Bay, were arrested following the death of Bali police officer, Wayan Sudarsa, last August. A fight broke out between Taylor and the officer when Taylor accused Sudarsa of stealing a bag. The assault led to Sudarsas subsequent death and his body was found on Kuta Beach, a popular beach destination, Aug. 17.

Read: Who Was Karina Vetrano?

It was later determined he sustained dozens of wounds to his body, some of which were caused by binoculars and a glass bottle, according to BBC News.

Connor, a mother-of-two, claimed she attempted to break up the fight between Taylor and Sudarsa. Taylor said the violence was in self-defense. Connors two children will be looked after by her ex-husband in Australia.

Taylor was formerly known as a DJ who used to perform as DJ Nutzo. His parents were present at the Monday sentencing.

Concerning the tragic events of that night on Legian Beach back in August and the subsequent trial, we are immensely saddened and our hearts go out to the widow of officer Wayan Sudarsa and his family to whom we extend our deepest condolences, Taylors father, John, said in a statement following the verdict, via ABC News. However, we do believe that our son David feared for his own life that night and his actions reflect that. At the end, he said, we are content with the sentence.

The couple both faced eight-year sentences, originally. Taylor had admitted to beating the man, while Connor had said she was present but did not participate in the violence. Connor's lawyers had originally pleaded with the court to throw out the case, according to SBS TV. Following the sentence, Taylor decided not to appeal and Connor will deliberate with her lawyers.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  Members of a Native American tribe in California who were temporarily banned from tribal land  one for 10 years  cannot challenge that decision in U.S. court, a divided federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.

The federal Indian Civil Rights Act does not give U.S. courts the authority to review such temporary bans, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling.

Writing for the majority, Judge M. Margaret McKeown said the court's decision "bolsters tribes' sovereign authority to determine the makeup of their communities and best preserves the rule that federal courts should not entangle themselves in such disputes."

Andrew Stroud, an attorney for four members of the United Auburn Indian Community who filed the case, said he's heartbroken for his clients.

"The majority reinterpreted the civil rights statute in a manner not argued by either side and designed to get the result that they desired rather than the result that was just," he said.

United Auburn owns the Thunder Valley Casino Resort outside Sacramento. In 2011, the tribe banned Stroud's clients from the casino and other tribal facilities for fixed periods of time after they publicly accused the tribal council of financial mismanagement and said tribal elections were rigged.

The Indian Civil Rights Act gives Native Americans the right to challenge detentions by a tribe in federal court. The United Auburn members argued that their temporary exclusion from tribal facilities amounted to detention under the act  an argument the 9th Circuit rejected.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Kim Wardlaw said the 10-year banishment order against one of the members  Jessica Tavares  "severely restrains her liberty and constitutes 'detention' under the Indian Civil Rights Act."

"Tavares presents us with precisely the kind of case over which Congress intended to establish federal jurisdiction," she wrote.

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The tribe also withheld casino profits and other benefits from the members. The 9th Circuit said the loss of economic benefits does not trigger the federal court provision in the Indian Civil Rights Act.

The case did not directly raise another contentious issue that tribal members have faced: disenrollment. Some casino-owning tribes have expelled members in what critics say is an effort to concentrate casino profits.

The 9th Circuit has previously ruled that federal courts cannot get involved in tribal membership disputes.
If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, then Cyprus is the graveyard of diplomacy. The Mediterranean island has been bitterly divided between ethnic Greek and Turkish sides since 1974. Successive generations of emissaries have tried, failed, and tried again to reach a reunification deal between the two camps. In case after case, the deep distrust between the two sides has swamped any attempts at progress.

But theres a whiff of cautious optimism swirling around the latest round of U.N.-brokered talks. Observers detect a new tone and a measure of resolve on both sides to move beyond a conflict that has defined the island for more than four decades. Skeptics and cynics alike agree: Theres a rare window of opportunity to reunify Cyprus.

At the center of the buzz is Espen Barth Eide, the U.N. envoy to Cyprus, whose short stature and poindexter glasses belie a diplomatic heavyweight. Norways former minister of both defense and foreign affairs, Eide is an articulate and seasoned professional who is known for his unflappable optimism. Hes now injecting that spirit into resolving a diplomatic dilemma that has chewed up and spat out so many before him.

Eide has overseen peace negotiations between the islands Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot north since 2014, when the latest round of talks began. We are in the final mile of negotiations, he said in an interview with Foreign Policy. And making the deal is a heroic thing.

A lot is at stake. The European Union has spent years trying to solve a conflict that has thwarted productive relations with NATO. Turkey, a member of NATO but not the EU, doesnt recognize the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus; that hampers EU relations with NATO. The Republic of Cyprus, a member of the EU but not of NATO, doesnt recognize the Turkish Cypriot north (no one other than Ankara does), so it blocks NATO-EU engagement from its seat at the EU.

A reunified Cyprus would also provide Brussels a much-needed lift as it grapples with an otherwise bleak landscape of rising populism, Russian revanchism, and a chillier relationship with the United States under President Donald Trump. Companies, too, are eagerly watching the negotiations, hoping a reunified Cyprus will provide business opportunities and unlock undeveloped energy reserves off the Cypriot coast. (Unification would make it easier to divvy up, auction off, and drill offshore deposits. It would also be the key to exporting the gas to any neighbors.)

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The picturesque island has been divided for more than four decades, since Turkish troops invaded to protect the northern part from a Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece. The two sides settled into a frozen conflict, a tense standoff largely devoid of any violence, with around 35,000 Turkish troops stationed in the north.

Talks in the past have been two steps forward, two steps back. In 2004, Greek Cypriots firmly rejected a peace deal approved by Turkish Cypriots after their president urged them to vote no. This time, it could be different. Thats partly because Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci both seem genuinely invested in achieving a unification deal, Eide said, literally writing the terms of the deal themselves. He said another good sign is that every issue is on the negotiating table now, including contentious issues related to property rights, political representation, and the presence of Turkish troops on the island.

But reunification is still not in the bag. Rather, the mantra repeated among diplomats, experts, and the two sides themselves is cautiously optimistic. After a 22-month grind with a few stops and starts, the talks ran into trouble in February. Turkish Cypriots left the negotiating table, angered that Greek Cypriot lawmakers voted to honor Enosis, a 1950 referendum proclaiming Cyprus part of Greece.

Tahsin Ertugruloglu, the Turkish Cypriot foreign minister, said the February vote had dealt a severe blow to trust between the two parties. This decision was taken at a time when the negotiations were at a critical juncture, he told FP. Hurt feelings were exacerbated in the aftermath when Greek Cypriot President Anastasiades said the majority ethnic Greek community on the island should not be equated with the minority ethnic Turkish community, he added.

The basic principle of the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus was that the two co-founders, namely the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots, were political equals, Ertugruloglu countered.

The Greek Cypriots fired back that the Turkish Cypriots overreacted on the February Enosis vote in an effort to stall the talks ahead of Turkeys constitutional referendum in April. Turkey comes up as a repeated powerbroker, able to make or break the negotiations. If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wishes to smooth over relations with the EU, helping a Cyprus deal come to pass could be a potential boon. And any final settlement will need to resolve the issue of Turkish troops stationed on the island. Turkish Cypriots, scarred by violence against their community in the 1950s and 1960s, wish to keep a significant contingent of Turkish troops in the north and Turkeys right to intervene on the island. But Greek Cypriots are unlikely to accept a deal without a drastic reduction.

Andreas Mavroyiannis, the Greek Cypriot negotiator, said Turkish Cypriots were trying to block negotiations because they dont have any moral ground to justify keeping a large contingent of Turkish troops on the island. We want them to come back to the table without preconditions to continue where we stopped, he told FP, adding a warning: If they dont come back very soon, they are going to run out of time.

Ertugruloglu echoed the same testiness. Numerous windows of opportunity have been missed in the past, due to the Greek Cypriot sides uncompromising stance, he said. After years of standstill, patience is wearing thin. This current process of negotiation is considered by all parties as the last chance to reach a settlement, he said.

Despite the tense exchanges, Eide remains optimistic that theres too much at stake for a complete breakdown in negotiations. I know that we will be sitting down again and their personal relationship will be rebuilt, he said.

One wild card is the involvement of the United States. During former President Barack Obamas administration, Cyprus was a pet issue for Secretary of State John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden, and Victoria Nuland, the top diplomat for Europe, who all traveled to the island and expressed support for unification.

Rex Tillersons State Department seems to be continuing the trend. The secretary of state already called the leaders of the two sides in his first weeks in office, and Cyprus received special mention at the State Departments first press briefing in early March, reaffirming strong U.S. support for the reunification process.

Amanda Sloat, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean affairs, said involvement by Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence could be just the thing to push talks forward.

A well-placed call for encouragement from them at key points in the process could be very effective, she told FP.

But theres worry that U.S. attention to Cyprus could slip through the cracks in the Trump administration, which has been distracted by leaks and infighting. The administration has proposed sharp budget cuts at the State Department, where numerous top-level posts have yet to be filled.

Another threat is quietly simmering: Russia. Unblocking NATO-EU cooperation could be bad news for Russia in its standoff with the West. A unified island could also tap offshore gas reserves, potentially competing with Russian gas to supply southeastern Europe. Meanwhile, Cypriot banks, a traditional hub of Russian money (including some shadier investments), could wean off their Russian ties under any new deal as they embed themselves deeper into EU regulations.

I think weve seen Russia engaged in disinformation across Europe, Sloat said. Its a very real possibility they could do the same thing in Cyprus.

But the drive for an agreement isnt coming just from diplomats. Business leaders who see opportunities in a unified Cyprus are jumping into the fray. John Harkrider started One Cyprus Now, an alliance of economic development experts and business leaders, to sell Cypriots from both sides of the island on their unified potential.

Most Cypriots are not even aware how much money is ready to pour in if a deal were achieved, he told FP. Its very clear that international players want to invest in this economy, especially in a very low-risk European economy, Harkrider said.

Despite his enthusiasm, he agreed that the window for a reunification deal wouldnt last much longer. If [negotiations] keep going further out to sea  at some point you have to stop swimming, he said, adding U.S. involvement is the only way it is going to happen.

The winds of cautious optimism around Cyprus waned a bit in recent weeks, but they still swirl. A former British diplomat, David Hannay, once famously observed, Nobody ever lost money betting against a Cyprus solution.

Eide laughed when reminded of the quote. Maybe this time they might, he said.

Photo credit: PHILIP MARK/AFP/Getty Images
Prague (AFP) - A Czech zoo said Tuesday it would use a chainsaw to remove the horns from its herd of rare rhinos after a brutal attack last week in a French zoo where poachers shot dead a white rhino and hacked off its horns.

"It's for the sake of rhino safety," Andrea Jirousova, spokeswoman for the zoo in the central Czech town of Dvur Kralove nad Labem, told AFP.

"The attack (in France) put us on alert, the danger is really intense," she said, but declined to reveal when the surgery would take place.

On March 7, the zoo in Thoiry near Paris said unknown intruders had broken security barriers and killed a male rhino of the critically endangered southern white subspecies for its horns.

The Dvur Kralove zoo currently has a herd of 21 black and southern white rhinos, including three calves who will not undergo surgery.

Black market rhino horn sells for up to $60,000 (56,400 euros) per kilo -- more than gold or cocaine -- with most demand from China and Vietnam where it is coveted as a traditional medicine and aphrodisiac.

Jirousova said vets would put the rhinos under anaesthesia before removing their horns with a chainsaw and filing the sharp edges.

"We have never done this because of poachers. We did it for other reasons like transport or health concerns," she added.

Dvur Kralove is the world's only zoo to have succeeded in the captive breeding of the extremely rare northern white rhino.

In 2009, it placed three northern white rhinos -- one male and two females -- in the Ol Pejeta reserve in Kenya.

They are the last survivors of this subspecies, but they are not capable of breeding.

The zoo said Tuesday experts would try to remove eggs from the two females at Ol Pejeta this year to save the subspecies by means of in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer to surrogate mothers.

The northern white rhinoceros has been nearly wiped out by hunting and poaching for their horns, and by wars in Africa, according to the World Wildlife Foundation.
New York (AFP) - On Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, a mixed community where Jews and Muslims interact with ease, sits a Jewish center for the elderly.

Last week, the center was the victim of a bomb threat -- one of more than 150 targeting American Jewish institutions since the start of the year. Swastikas have appeared on walls: cemeteries have been desecrated.

But the recent spike in threats has not shaken the community. Many Jews in the United States -- which has been largely spared from anti-Semitic attacks over the past 50 years -- say they feel safe.

Stuart Gourdji, a 25-year-old who runs Yachad Gifts, a shop specializing in Kosher gift baskets, had to evacuate when the bomb threat to the community center was received. "It was scary," he admitted.

He says he has lost count of the reports of threats he has seen on television, but he and his employees are not worried, and Gourdji would never think of removing his yarmulke in public for safety reasons.

"You have one stupid person probably ringleading this thing," he told AFP. "He will end up being arrested -- it will pass."

But not everyone is as calm as Gourdji.

"I have seen an enormous amount of anxiety," especially among the parents of children who attend schools that have been targeted, explains retired rabbi Jack Moline.

The 64-year-old Washington resident says he has never seen such a wave of anti-Semitic threats in his life.

"The clear purpose of those acts is to unsettle Jewish life in this country," he said.

Like Gourdji, Moline says the threats experienced in the United States pale in comparison to those experienced in Europe and especially in France, where there have been deadly attacks -- notably on a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 or the siege of a Kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015.

Both also agree that the threats should serve as a wake-up call to the nearly six million Jews in America.

"Anti-Semitism exists," Gourdji said.

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- 'Thing of the past' -

Many had believed that anti-Semitism was a thing of the past because of the "tremendous improvements" made since the end of World War II, said Kenneth Jacobson, the deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The group, one of the oldest battling anti-Semitism and discrimination, has been the target of several recent threats.

In the period between the world wars, anti-Semitism was not uncommon -- and such views were vocally expressed by auto industry baron Henry Ford in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent.

Aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh and controversial priest Charles Coughlin also delivered anti-Semitic screeds to millions to Americans.

There also were unofficial quotas at universities and for housing, and even restrictions on Jews getting certain jobs, Jacobson explained.

"All of that is a thing of the past," he said.

"In the 2,000 years of the Jewish diaspora, there has never been a Jewish community that has felt as comfortable and equal citizens as American Jews have felt for the last 50-60 years, and we still believe that to be true."

Since 1964, the ADL has regularly gauged the level of anti-Semitic sentiment in the country.

Once as high as 29 percent, that figure has dropped to 12 or 13 percent in recent years -- a major improvement, though "that still means 30 to 35 million Americans" feel that way, he noted.

- Hate speech liberated? -

For Jacobson, the other major victory for the Jewish community in recent years has been the stigmatization of racist and anti-Semitic speech.

"When public figures would engage in hate speech of any kind, they would have their reputation ruined, they would sometimes lose their jobs," he said.

But the ADL official says that progress is now under threat -- and he points the finger of blame at President Donald Trump.

Jacobson does not consider Trump to be anti-Jewish -- the Republican leader has strong support among a certain part of the community for his fierce support of Israel.

But by targeting Muslims, women and Mexicans for criticism and sometimes ridicule, and by winning the presidency despite all that, Trump has helped liberate those "who may have harbored hatred" to speak out, he said.

"There is a feeling of empowerment... and so the anti-Semites felt it was their moment to come out," Jacobson said.

Some like Moline are angry at the Trump administration for not being "more diligent in separating themselves from groups" like far-right nationalists who supported the billionaire's candidacy.

Jacobson said the ADL recently "suggested five or six different things" to the White House as possible ways to improve their communications.

In the face of racism and anti-Semitism, "there needs to be more of a consistent kind of articulation from the bully pulpit -- and the president has the number one bully pulpit in the country," he said.
On Monday night, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that the European Union had not kept up its side of a deal whereby Turkey worked to help halt the flood of Syrian refugees into Europe, in exchange for aid and a shot at visa-free travel. He reportedly said that means the deal is dead.

The spat has a little to do with refugees and a lot to do with Turkeys troubled relationship with Europe. More broadly, this speaks to Turkish frustrations with the EU  and with domestic political concerns ahead of a big April referendum to expand the powers of the Turkish president.

The deal was dead from day one, David Phillips, director of Columbia Universitys Program on Peace-building and Rights and author of An Uncertain Ally: Turkey Under Erdogans Dictatorship, told Foreign Policy, because the EU never intended to implement visa-free travel.

Turkeys candidacy for the EU was never a realistic prospect given European attitudes towards Turkey. The European Parliament suspended negotiations in response to Turkeys egregious human rights abuses after the failed coup of July 15. There is zero chance of this turning around in the near term. No chance of singing kumbaya with Erdogan, Phillips said.

Last March, a deal between the European Union and Turkey concerning refugees came into effect. Essentially, it said that irregular migrants who came to Greece from Turkey would be sent back. For every Syrian refugee returned to Turkey, a Syrian would be resettled from Turkey into the European Union. The deal also promised renewed talks on Turkish accession to EU; visa liberalization provided certain conditions were met by Turkey; and a substantial aid package from the EU to Turkey.

The deal may not be over just yet. Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, pointed out that Turkey would also lose leverage by pulling out of the deal  and gain virtually nothing in return. Theres no decision yet on the Turkish side, Ulgen said.

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But if Turkey does make good on its threat to end the deal, what does that mean for refugee flows? Its not entirely clear. Turkey did stop, or at least slow down, the flow of migrants from Turkey to nearby Greek islands, said Jeff Rathke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But refugee numbers were shrinking, anyway, since migrants couldnt advance farther than Greece, thanks to the closure of the Balkan route.

Times have changed significantly, Rathke said. Even if you had massive numbers going to Greece right now, they wouldnt be able to go further.

Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund noted that Turkey, too, would feel the impact of the end of the deal, since it would also mean the end of billions of euros in aid to Turkey. But he also said that Kurtulmus may simply have been restating a long-held Turkish position. If he was saying that the deal will die if theres no movement on visa liberalization, this is really just a restatement of a view Ankara has held for some time.

But this isnt just a matter of putting diplomatic pressure on the EU. Its also meant to drum up Turkish nationalism and patriotism ahead of the April referendum intended to increase the powers of the president  a referendum for which Turkey has been trying to campaign in the Netherlands and Germany, where authorities have withheld permits for rallies (and where general elections will be held tomorrow and in September, respectively).

The focus inside Turkey is all on the upcoming referendum. And so youve got to look at it in that context, Rathke said. Even after the referendum, Turkey and the EU will remain at loggerheads.

Its very difficult to fix that, even if the rhetoric can be cooled down, Lesser said.

That is bad news for already dicey Turkish-EU relations. And its not great for the fate of refugees. But the refugee deal was only dealing with a symptom, not the underlying problem, Phillips said.

It never addressed the root cause of the problem, which is the ongoing conflict in Syria. Until the EU and U.S. are willing to address that, he added, that problem is going to be ongoing.

Photo credit: ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images
DURBAN (Reuters) - South Africas government has expressed disappointment at the decision to strip Durban of the right to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, saying the budget it had guaranteed for the event was sufficient. The Commonwealth Games Federation said on Monday it was seeking a new host because the coastal city had failed to deliver on the promises it had made in its bid, including on governance, venues, funding and risk management. But South Africas Minister of Sport, Fikile Mbalula, said the financial demands of the CGF were excessive, and that in a tough economic climate the country would not leave itself exposed to an "open-ended guarantee" on the event's budget. He said the government disagreed with the CGF's statement, while respecting its decision as the rights holder. "Our country is regrettably not in a position to make huge financial commitments given the current competing socio-economic needs and global economic downturn," he told reporters on Tuesday. "In the interests of fiscal discipline and financial prudency, our government has considered all options and remains confident that we have acted in the best interest of South Africa." Durban missed deadlines last November to sign the host city contract, establish an organising committee and make contracted payments to the CGF. Mbalula said the government had approved a budget of 4.32 billion rand ($327.5 million) which it believed was ample, using the countrys hosting of the All Africa Games 18 years ago as a yardstick. "The 1999 All Africa Games are comparable in size, the number of athletes, the number of technical officials and the duration, to the planned Commonwealth Games of 2022," Mbalula said. "South Africa successfully hosted the All Africa Games with a budget of 252 million rand. Should it be compounded at 6 percent per annum over a period of 21 years, it will amount to 808 million rand in 2022. "The actual cost of the [All Africa] Games is an illustration that a multi-code sport event can be successfully hosted within an affordable budget." Birmingham and Liverpool have expressed an interest in stepping in to replace Durban in 2022. The 2018 event will be held on Australia's Gold Coast. ($1 = 13.1915 rand) (Reporting by Nick Said; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Disney has indefinitely postponed the release of Beauty and the Beast in Malaysia after censors there axed a brief gay scene in the movie.

The live-action reboot of the classic cartoon has made history for including the first known LGBTQ characters in a Disney princess film. But as scenes promoting homosexuality are forbidden in predominantly Muslim Malaysia, according to Film Censorship Board chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid, the small segment was removed from the movie.

We have approved it but there is a minor cut involving a gay moment. It is only one short scene but it is inappropriate because many children will be watching this movie, Abdul Hamid told the Associated Press, adding that there was no appeal from Disney about the decision to cut the gay scene. However, Malaysias two main cinema chains said the movie, due to begin screening Thursday, had been held indefinitely, and did not give a reason.

The movies opening date was postponed due to an internal review, Disney told Malaysian newspaper The Star in an email.

Malaysia is not the only country that has seen a backlash to the movies inclusion of a homosexual scene. Earlier this month, a Russian lawmaker pushed for a ban of the remake, which stars Emma Watson, arguing that the film is a blatant, shameless propaganda of sin and perverted sexual relationships.

According to the Russian news outlet Ria Novosti, State Duma deputy Vitaly Milon wrote a letter to culture minister Vladimir Medinsky urging him to take action against the remake if it is found to have elements of propaganda of homosexuality.

[Associated Press]
There is an understandable temptation to want greater investigation into the January 29 raid in Yemen. It was the new presidents first such authorization and thus may give indications of his leadership of the war against radical Islamic terrorism. Heres what we know: Casualties were suffered  by our military, Yemeni civilians, and an American child. An expensive military aircraft had to be destroyed to prevent it falling into enemy hands and becoming an intelligence windfall for the possessors or whichever country they might sell it to. President Donald Trump reportedly authorized the raid over dinner with Secretary of Defense James Mattis, rather than being thoroughly briefed in the White House Situation Room. Some in the intelligence community suggest the information retrieved did not merit the effort. Faced with criticism, Trump blamed former President Barack Obamas administration and the generals for the raid and then made outsized claims of success and showcased a grieving military widow in his speech to a joint session of Congress.

Despite all these reasons, we should resist the temptation to take the investigation out of routine military channels.

The truth is that we dont really know how valuable the intelligence gleaned from the raid is, or will be, in understanding how to fight al Qaeda. But we do know that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has for several years been the most dangerous branch of that terrorist organization, boasting the most advanced bomb-making skills and the most outsized ambition to attack U.S. targets.

We also know that Americas allies in the Persian Gulf are deeply concerned about the danger al Qaeda in Yemen poses and the increased strength it has gained with support from Iran and the fracturing of Yemeni society during the civil war. Those allies are taking most of the risks of defeating al Qaeda and pushing back against Iranian subterfuge. The Obama administration had been stingy in the support it provided to our allies; Trump appears inclined to be more helpful. The raid and an accelerated pace of drone strikes in Yemen would seem to be part of that approach.

The presidents critics bewail the decision over dinner as a proxy for lack of seriousness in evaluation. This is unfair. The president was evidently having dinner with the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn  the three most qualified people in the government to assess the likely risks and benefits of the operation. The operation did not commence planning in the Trump administration; it was briefed to Obama and conditionally approved, awaiting more suitable (blackout) lunar conditions.

It is probably true that Obama subjected military operations to greater scrutiny than has Trump; the question to ask ourselves is whether more scrutiny is always better. The Obama administration treated approval of operations as a demonstration of moral seriousness. That symbolism is not cost-free, however.

Is carefully assessing every company-sized military operation really a good use of the presidents time? Is there no way to set policy parameters that provide the commander in chiefs intent? Does the time lag of presidential approval reduce the operational effectiveness of the raids? Does having approval held at such a high level send a message of caution to our ranks or prejudice the case against approval? Might it suggest to our allies and to our adversaries that we are only hesitatingly committed to winning the war we are fighting?

Trump passing the buck was unseemly. In the military, it is axiomatic that a commander may delegate authority but not responsibility. That is, you can give to subordinates the latitude to take action, but you cannot evade responsibility for the actions your subordinates take. The same ought to hold for our commander in chief.

But this would be just one of many norms of American political life Trump casually waives off. The American military has broad enough shoulders to defend its own judgments and a much higher level of public trust than the president  or any other elected official, for that matter. Research conducted for my recent book (co-edited with Mattis), Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military, indicates that the American public has outsourced its approval on military issues to the military itself. In that regard, Trump is actually no different than other political leaders in hiding behind uniforms to justify his policy choices.

The most important thing to consider is that we clearly want our Gulf allies to win the war in Yemen. The Obama administration sent confusing signals on that count, not only leading from behind but seeming to give allies just enough support for them not to lose but never enough for them to win. What it told allies is that we would only support them when there was little cost to our involvement  they could not count on us. Obamas careful parsimony allowed al Qaeda to continue sinking roots in Yemen while emboldening Iran. It discouraged allied efforts to combat threats in their neighborhood and caused them to question our commitment to their security. And it signaled to our service members that they needed to avoid taking risks, even though we were putting them in danger.

Even if the raid turns out to have been of questionable value, not every operation succeeds in war. Soldiers die, civilians die. Approving the raid sent an important message to our military forces, to our allies, and to our enemies that the new administration is serious about the wars we are fighting. We should let that message stand.

Photo credit: MARK WILSON/Getty Images
Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman, the world's most notorious drug kingpin, is chilly and lonely inside his Brooklyn jail cell, according to his attorneys.

The infamous head of the Sinaloa cartel "never goes outside" and because of "erratic air conditioning, he has often lacked enough warm clothing to avoid shivering," his lawyers said in a motion filed in the Eastern District of New York, seeking his release from solitary confinement.

Read: Donald Trump Calls FBI After Mexican Drug Lord 'El Chapo' Threatens Him

"His meals are passed through a slot in the door; he eats alone. The light is always on," read the motion filed Monday.

Guzman, 59, was extradited to the U.S. in January. He faces at least six federal indictments from California to New York, accusing him of murder, torture and drug trafficking.

He had twice escaped from maximum-security prisons in his native Mexico, where he was the globe's most-wanted drug lord. Federal authorities in the U.S. had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

He has pleaded not guilty in New York to 17 counts, including murder, corruption and drug smuggling, occurring over more than two decades.

While incarcerated in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, Guzman's health has deteriorated, his lawyers said. "He has difficulty breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches," the motion said.

Read: Sean Penn Reveals His 'Terrible Regret' Over Interviewing 'El Chapo'

"He has recently been experiencing auditory hallucinations, complaining of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off," according to the document.

He has not been allowed to speak to his wife or other family members, and is prevented from making phone calls, the motion said.

Guzman is also "prohibited from communicating with the news media and has no ability to contradict negative and false media reports," while books and documentaries are being made about him, his lawyers said.

Story continues

Watch: El Chapo Extradited to U.S. to Face Charges

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By Toby Sterling AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch will vote on Wednesday in an election that was seen as a test of anti-immigrant sentiment even before a rift with Turkey at the weekend put immigration and nationalism at the top of the political agenda. Geert Wilders, who wants to "de-Islamicise" the Netherlands, hopes clashes between Turkish-Dutch protesters and the police, along with Ankara's accusations of Dutch "fascism", will help bolster his chances of finishing first. Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) has virtually no chance of forming a government, given the splintered political landscape. Other parties have ruled out a coalition with a party they view as racist, but a PVV win would nevertheless send shock waves across Europe. The French presidential election begins next month, with the far-right Marine Le Pen ahead in one poll on Monday, and in September, Alternative for Germany, a right-wing, euroskeptic party, is likely to win seats for the first time in the German federal parliament. After Britain's unexpected vote to quit the European Union and the election of EU-skeptic Donald Trump in the United States, Europe will soon know whether a wave of anti-establishment sentiment threatens the survival of the EU. The more immediate question in the Netherlands is whether the Turkey row will favor Wilders or Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose cabinet banned Turkish ministers from holding a rally in the Netherlands. A snap poll Monday evening showed a boost of three seats for Rutte's VVD and two for Wilders's PVV in the 150-seat parliament at the expense of smaller parties to the left, said pollster Maurice de Hond. The Turkish government wants to lobby Dutch Turks to support plans to hand sweeping new powers to President Tayyip Erdogan in a referendum in Turkey on April 16. "In times when the nation is hit by something like this, there's the inclination for people to get behind the government," said Hans Gosling, a political commentator at the Dutch newspaper Trouw. HARD LINE Rutte's hard line on Turkey is seen by many voters as part of an effort by mainstream parties to appeal to concern about immigration and dissuade them from voting for Wilders. The head of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDA) on Sunday urged Turkish immigrants to give up dual nationality and integrate. Rutte and Wilders went head-to-head in a debate Monday evening, clashing mainly over how to stem immigration. Rutte dismissed Wilders' plan to close borders and mosques and ban the Koran as "fake solutions". "While we are focusing on the causes of the refugee crisis, you're wasting all your attention on your Koran police," Rutte said. Wilders accused Rutte of providing better healthcare for newcomers than the Dutch themselves. "We need to chose for our own people, for our own parents, and not for the asylum seekers. You are not the prime minister of the Netherlands, but of the foreigners." Niels van Baalen, a PVV voter who owns his own plumbing company near The Hague, said the events in Rotterdam illustrated the failure of Muslim immigrants to adopt Dutch norms. "The problem is: do you want to be a Turkish immigrant, or do you want to be a naturalized Dutch person?" he said. The latest Reuters poll of poll puts Rutte's conservative VVD Party top at 16.2 percent, ahead of Wilders' PVV on 13.4 percent. The CDA is close behind at 12.5 percent on a rising trend. Earlier, Rutte called on voters to reject Wilders. "We've seen it with Brexit, we've seen it with Trump, when we thought it wouldn't happen the night before. The chance is still large as life that we wake up on March 16 and Wilders' (party) is the biggest," he said. With just four percentage points separating the top four parties, any of them could win, and then would have to persuade at least three other parties to form a coalition. "You already know how the new government is going to look, roughly," said University of Amsterdam professor Rens Vliegenthart. He predicted a center-right coalition would emerge after lengthy talks, led by the VVD and CDA together with the centrist Democrats 66 (D66), and probably the Green Left party for the first time. But the events of the weekend, which escalated on Monday with Erdogan threatening legal action against the Dutch, meant opinion polls would be unreliable as perceptions of the conflict change, experts said. Wilders could yet be the main beneficiary, said Professor Joop van Holsteijn of Leiden University. "Immigration and integration, and the relationship of the Netherlands with Turkey, will be rather salient suddenly, and Wilders can be considered the issue owner here," he said. (Additional reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
By Philip Blenkinsop AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch go to the polls on Wednesday in an election seen as a test of anti-immigrant and nationalist feeling magnified by a deepening dispute with Turkey. The center-right VVD party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, 50, will vie with the PVV (Party for Freedom) of anti-Islam and anti-EU firebrand Geert Wilders, 53, to form the biggest party in parliament. Wilders, who has vowed to "de-Islamicise" the Netherlands, has virtually no chance of forming a government given that all the leading parties have ruled out working with him, but a PVV win would still send shockwave across Europe. The vote is the first of three this year seen as a test of anti-establishment sentiment in the European Union and the bloc's chances of survival after the surprise victory of EU-skeptic Donald Trump in the United States and Britain's 2016 vote to exit the union. France chooses its next president, with far-right Marine Le Pen set to make the second-round run-off in May, while in September right-wing euroskeptic party Alternative for Germany, which has attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy, will probably win its first lower house seats. In the Netherlands, opinion polls indicated a three percentage point lead for Rutte's party over Wilders', although these did not fully take into account a rupture of diplomatic relations with Ankara after the Dutch banned Turkish ministers from addressing rallies of overseas Turks. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the Dutch of behaving like Nazis. Early indications are that the dispute may have helped both. NO CLEAR WINNER, WEEKS OF BARGAINING Unlike the U.S. or French presidential elections, there will be no outright Dutch winner, with up to 15 parties having a realistic chance of winning a seat in parliament and none set to gain even 20 percent of the vote. Rutte's last government was a two-party coalition with the Labour Party, but at least four parties may now be needed to secure a majority in parliament. It would be the first such multi-party alliance since three in the 1970s. Two of those fell apart within 12 months. Political risk consultants Eurasia Group said government formation was likely to be lengthy and could result in a weak coalition that would determine European Union policy at a critical time for the bloc. Rutte, who is hoping Dutch economic recovery will win him backing, has been insistent on one thing - that he will neither accept the PVV as a coalition partner nor rely on Wilders to support a minority government, as was the case in 2010-2012. The prime minister accuses Wilders of treachery for withdrawing support and creating a political crisis at a time of deep economic troubles. "I will not work with such a party, Mr Wilders, not in a cabinet nor with you supporting from outside. Not, never, not," Rutte told Wilders in the only TV debate between the two, which was watched on Monday by 2.28 million viewers, the most for any election event.
To hack into your Samsung TV, the CIA isn't breaking into your house. They're hacking it when you order on Amazon.

That's what Edward Snowden pointed out during an interview on Tuesday with The Intercept. The interview was taped live at SXSW for the podcast Intercepted.

The CIA's efforts to hack the microphones of voice-connected Samsung TVs was one of the most widespread takeaways of Wikileaks' Vault 7 document dump a week ago. But the hack wasn't the fault of the vulnerable Internet of Things. Instead, it required hacking TVs with a USB stick.

"People say, the CIA's not going to be breaking into my house," Snowden said via video from Russia. "That's true  but they don't go into your house. They wait for when these devices are being shipped to you, when you order them on Amazon or whatever. They go to them at the airports, they get the box, they used a little hairdryer to soften the adhesive, they open the box, then they put the USB stick in. They seal the box back up all nice and perfect, and then they ship it on to you. And now your router, your computer, your TV is hacked. This is a very routine thing that happens."

Snowden added that the hack could be used on a device on its way to a region with a nuclear facility, to an office or location connected to a political party, or to a newsroom.

"This is a method they apply to many different things," he said. "These are the kind of causes for concern."

Snowden also discussed President Donald Trump's unsupported claims that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower  which he said could be true in some roundabout way, given the extent of government surveillance  and why these sorts of claims are nothing new, even though it seems worse now.

"This is actually not new. What is different is they are so inept that we see it," he said of the Trump administration.

Story continues

And even though Snowden said the Obama White House could have wiretapped Trump associates, he didn't side with Trump.

"The problem is not poor Donald Trump," he said. "You're the president. You should be asking, 'Why is this possible in the first place?'"
Australia is about to find out whether a tweet storm can result in real change.

Tesla founder Elon Musk made some big promises about renewable energy battery storage in the state of South Australia on Twitter Friday  that the company could build 100 megawatts of capacity in 100 days or its money back, to be precise  and now the government is giving him the chance to prove it.

SEE ALSO: Vibrator company will delete the personal data it snooped from you

On Tuesday, the South Australian government announced it would fund a grid-connected battery project to provide the state with 100 megawatts of storage as part a wide-ranging energy plan. The government will also create a $150 million fund to support renewable energy projects.

At a press conference, the state's premier, Jay Weatherill, said that while a range of providers have spoken to the government about battery projects, Musk would be "directly invited" to participate in the tender process.

Today South Australia is taking charge of our energy future. Find out more: https://t.co/nZMuYIdVLE  Jay Weatherill (@JayWeatherill) March 14, 2017

A Tesla spokesperson said the company would work with stakeholders over the coming days on "how best to deliver on this exciting opportunity."

"Tesla are excited by the enthusiasm shown by stakeholders in the Australian energy market to the commitment by Tesla to deploy large scale storage facilities in South Australia to increase network reliability and affordability for consumers whilst accelerating the transition to a sustainable energy future," he said.

The Musk saga began at a press event for its home battery product the Powerwall 2 on Thursday, where vice president for energy products at Tesla, Lyndon Rive, boasted the company could build battery storage capacity in 100 days that would prevent a major power outage similar to the state-wide one experienced in Sept. 2016.

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"We had a similar challenge in southern California," he said. "We got 80MW up in 90 days. That's unheard of. You just don't get power plants running up and down that fast."

The idea was seized upon by the cofounder of Australian software giant Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes, who quickly tweeted at Musk asking if he was serious about the bet of 100 megawatts in 100 days. He was, apparently.

@mcannonbrookes Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2017

A flurry of tweets followed, resulting in discussions between Musk, Weatherill and Australia's prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

"Mr Musk made a dramatic intervention the other day which was welcome," Weatherill commented Tuesday. "He certainly put us on the international road map in relation to clean energy technologies."

For Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton, the "high-profile Twitter chat between billionaire tech entrepreneurs" proved such ideas can move quickly.

"Energy storage is obviously going to be a huge part of Australias energy future, and the SA government's funding for new large-scale battery technology will help accelerate its adoption," he said in a statement.

@mcannonbrookes Just spoke with @JayWeatherill, Premier of South Australia. Very impressed. Govt is clearly committed to a smart, quick solution.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2017

You're most welcome. Very exciting to discuss the future of electricity. Renewables + storage arguably biggest disruption since DC to AC. https://t.co/7uXoUQf29f  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2017

Local companies may also want to get in on the action. South Australian-based Zen Energy, for example, won a $1 million tender in July 2016 to install lithium-ion batteries around the state's capital of Adelaide as part of a battery storage demonstration.

Zen Energy chairman Ross Garnaut told the Guardian Monday his company was already working on a battery project in South Australia to supply baseload renewable power.

"Zen Energy has funded it all so far, and there has been a lot of technical work and economic modelling done to see what is required in the market," he said.

The attraction of a big name like Tesla may prove persuasive, however, despite Garnaut's comment that "we have a world where nothing is real until an American billionaire tweets about it."

"We also need to put in the balance the reputational [sic] effect of attracting an international player of the size of Elon Musk to South Australia," Weatherill said. "These are all things we are going to balance in the choices that we make. Remember we have a $150 million fund. For us to attract a range of players into South Australia is very exciting."

Zen Energy has been contacted for comment.
What Were Following

The Dutch Elections: On Wednesday, Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, will lead his center-right party into a narrow contest against far-right populist Geert Wilders for control of the government. Wilders, whose platform centers on effectively banning Islam in the Netherlands, seems like a surprising choice in a country thats historically known for tolerancebut the story behind Wilderss rise illustrates where those principles can break down. On a similar note: Back in the U.S., Congressman Steve King sent a racist tweet this weekend in support of Wilders. King has made similarly offensive comments in the past, but in the populist climate that fueled Trumps rise, his extreme views are now harder to write off.

The Bill for the Bill: The Congressional Budget Office today released its much-anticipated report on the GOP health-care bill. The results arent promising: Although the new plan would reduce the federal deficit, 24 million Americans would lose health insurance, and those who keep it would see an increase in premiums. Most of those losing coverage would do so because of cuts to Medicaidbut even people who get health care through their jobs would be affected by the bills repeal of the employer mandate. With points stacking up against the bill, its looking more and more like the plan to repeal Obamacare will failand that might be best for the health of the Republican Party.

Recommended: Kellyannes Alternative Universe

Climate Science: Early reports suggest that Trump will sign an executive order tomorrow repealing Obamas Clean Power Plan, which restricts power plants greenhouse-gas emissions. It will be the first step in whats expected to be a thorough campaign to dismantle the U.S. regulations aimed at slowing climate changenot to mention cutting funding for scientific research and for states environmental programs. What are environmentalists to do? They may have science on their side, but EPA Director Scott Pruitt denies itand heres why facts alone arent enough to fight peoples false beliefs.

Story continues

Snapshot

A girl gets doused with colored water while celebrating Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors, in Mumbai, India, on March 13, 2017. See more scenes from the celebration here. (Shailesh Andrade / Reuters)

Evening Read

Kate Robertson on the recent films starring female cannibals:

Having spent the last five years studying the female cannibal (an admittedly odd subject even in academic circles), Ive been fascinated by how the subject has gained more mainstream visibility of late. While the female cannibal isnt new to pop culture, shes relevant in ways that go beyond shock value, by capturing ever-present social anxieties about gender, hunger, sex, and empowerment. These new works center on women who, in addition to eating humans, negotiate and subvert expectations for how women should look and behave. Theyre motivated by physical hunger but also by sexual desire, making them an extension of the femme fatalethe beautiful woman who deceives and ensnares men. In eating flesh, characters like Justine simply redirect this fear from the metaphorical to the physical. Theres a persistent stereotype that women will suck men dry; well, these ones will literally devour you.

Keep reading here, as Robertson explores what cannibal women represent in pop culture.

Recommended: Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?

What Do You Know?

1. The success of the 2012 film The Hunger Gamesreleased unusually early in the year for an action movieopened the way for Hollywood to start its summer-blockbuster season in the month of ____________.

Scroll down for the answers, or find it here.

2. Between 1964 and 1972, the percentage of African American kids attending all-black schools in the South went down from 98 to less than ____________.

Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.

3. The most powerful corporations in South Korea are controlled by families that own, on average, less than ____________ percent of the company shares.

Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.

Look Back

The astronomer Percival Lowell was born on this day in 1855. In our August 1895 issue, he outlined his belief that the surface markings on Mars were constructed canals and described what that would mean:

The evidence of handicraft, if such it be, points to a highly intelligent mind behind it. Irrigation, unscientifically conducted, would not give us such truly wonderful mathematical fitness in the several parts to the whole as we there behold. A mind of no mean order would seem to have presided over the system we see, a mind certainly of considerably more comprehensiveness than that which presides over the various departments of our own public works.  Quite possibly, such Martian folk are possessed of inventions of which we have not dreamed  Certainly, what we see hints at the existence of beings who are in advance of, not behind us, in the race of life.

Read all of Lowells four-part series on Mars here. He was wrong about the canals, but in 2015, scientists did confirm that water flows on Marsone of many similarities that make the Red Planet into a mirror for Earth.

Recommended: Republican Efforts to Repeal Obamacare Are Fizzling. That's the Best Possible Outcome for the GOP.

America by Air

Rick Nunziati has a wonderful view of the Windy City at sunset:

Coming back from Huatulco, Mexico, our charter flight circled over Lake Michigan coming into Chicago on the first weekend of February. I got this shot with an iPhone 7 from the last row of the plane: a view from the north looking back south over the lakefront with the cityincluding Lake Point Tower, where we livein the background.

See many more aerial photos from around the U.S. here, and send us your own via hello@theatlantic.com (guidelines here).

Reader Response

Last week, we asked you to tell us about the benefits of a long life. Heres Jim today:

I turn 65 in a couple of months, but I dont expect to retire at 65or ever. Im fit and healthy and having the greatest fun of my life at the head of a fast-growing business. In a quarter century, if still alive, I might have to slow down a bit, but there will still be something useful for me to do.  Not everyone can continue working, but there is a huge need for volunteers in areas that do not require physical agility. Unless totally senileand thats something that will never happen to most of uswe all have something to offer.

Read more perspectives from other readers here. Well consider a very different stage of life with this weeks question: When does childhood end? Check out many decades worth of different answers from our archives, and then tell us your own via hello@theatlantic.com.

Verbs

Spies spotted, murder case mockumented, Fearless Girl faces off, burnt forests bounce back.

The newsletter dated March 6, 2017, misstated the date of a poll that found nearly 20 percent of Americans didnt know what a TV was. In fact, this statistic dates to 1945two years before the first TV broadcasts of the World Series and the State of the Union.

The Atlantic Daily is written by Rosa Inocencio Smith. To contact us, email hello@theatlantic.com.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Los Angeles (AFP) - It is a tale as old as time (or one dating back to the 1990s, at least): Disney dusts off an animated classic, adds bells, whistles and real people, and everyone makes a fortune.

Since Jason Scott Lee annoyed purists as a grown-up Mowgli in "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book" (1994), the company has churned out numerous big-screen live-action remakes of its hand-drawn favorites, recouping $4 billion worldwide.

The latest to get the Mouse House makeover is "Beauty and the Beast," set for release on Friday with an all-star cast led by Emma Watson, 26, who grew up playing Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" films.

No movie will arrive in theaters this year weighed down by as much expectation, in the wake of a 90-second trailer that generated a record 92 million views in its first day online.

"Beauty and the Beast" -- which revisits the smash hit 1991 cartoon starring the voice of Paige O'Hara as Belle -- had a whopping $300 million production and marketing budget but shouldn't struggle to turn a profit.

It is already the fastest selling family film in history, outpacing previous record-holder "Finding Dory," according to online ticket seller Fandango, with analysts projecting a $150 million opening weekend.

It could also be the most controversial Disney remake in history -- and the bar is higher than you might think -- having weathered all manner of social media storms over its production and stars.

Among the more trivial controversies was an angry fan reaction to the design of teapot character Mrs Potts, who doesn't have a spout for a nose in the new version as she did in the animated classic.

- Capturing hearts -

More recently, critics made snarky remarks about a revealing Vanity Fair photo shoot by Watson, claiming that exposing flesh wasn't in keeping with the United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador's feminist image.

And then all hell broke loose when it emerged that Le Fou, the sycophantic sidekick to antagonist Gaston, was being portrayed by comedian and actor Josh Gad as a gay man, making him Disney's first ever out LGBT character.

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The move sparked an international controversy, with at least one theater in Alabama refusing to show the film and the Russian government considering a ban before settling on an adults-only rating.

"What has this story always been about for 300 years? It's about looking closer, going deeper, accepting people for who they really are," director Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters," "Twilight: Breaking Dawn") told journalists in Beverly Hills last week.

"In a very Disney way, we are including everybody. I think this movie is for everybody and I think on the screen you'll see everybody, and that was important to me."

Six years after the last of her eight "Harry Potter" movies, Watson -- who turned down Emma Stone's Oscar-winning role in "La La Land" -- is taking on by far her largest role as an adult.

"The tagline of the movie is 'a tale as old as time' and it's true," said the actress -- a fan of the 1946 Jean Cocteau version as well as the 1991 film -- at the star-studded US premiere in Hollywood on March 2.

"It's been retold in so many different ways... but I think there's just something about the Disney version that was really a telling of it that was so inspiring and really captured people's hearts."

- Activist -

She and co-star Dan Stevens ("Downton Abbey") as the Beast lead a stellar cast including Oscar winners Kevin Kline and Emma Thompson as well as Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen and Stanley Tucci.

Watson told the Beverly Hills news conference that the character from the 1991 movie had helped shape the adult she became, and she wanted her version to embody the same spirit and values.

"I love that in our version Belle is not only odd and doesn't fit in -- you see her reading and you see her not really a part of the community. In our film, she's actually an activist within her own community," she said.

If you're not a big fan of Disney's live-action remakes, you might want to crawl under a rock for the next few years, as another 13 are in various stages of production.

"Cruella" and "Mulan" are both scheduled for release next year, and Tim Burton's "Dumbo," Guy Ritchie's "Aladdin" and Jon Favreau's "The Lion King" are due to follow.

"The Little Mermaid" will see Lin-Manuel Miranda of "Hamilton" fame collaborating with legendary Disney composer Alan Menken, while two remakes of "Peter Pan" are in the works along with new versions of "Winnie the Pooh," "Fantasia," "Pinocchio," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "The Sword in the Stone."
Companies may bar their employees from wearing headscarves and other religious symbols in the workplace, the European Unions highest court said Tuesday, in a pair of rulings that could further aggravate tensions between Muslims and the European communities they live in.

The European Court of Justice (EJC) issued separate rulings to address claims brought by two women, from France and Belgium, both of whom had been fired for refusing to remove their headscarves. Company rules prohibiting the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign do not constitute discrimination, the court said. Yet the court also said an employer cannot ask workers to remove such symbols at the request of a customer.

The headscarf has long been a battleground pitting European secularists against Europes Muslim communities and advocates for religious tolerance. Tuesdays ruling comes against the backdrop of rising anti-Muslim, nativist movements in Europe, fueled by unease surrounding large flows of immigrants and refugees coming to Europe from Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East.

It also comes at a tense time for relations with Turkey  where headscarves, once banned under secular rule, are now even permitted in the armed forces under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans Islamist government. Turkey is holding a referendum to expand the powers of its president this April. Germany and the Netherlands, home to large populations of Turkish citizens, have banned campaign rallies in favor of the referendum. In a tweet, Erdogans spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the EJC ruling would serve to bolster anti-Muslim and xenophobic trends in Europe.

While European countries such as France have long argued for the strict separation of church and state, human rights activists say austere policies that banish religious symbols from the public sphere are a form of discrimination.

Todays disappointing rulings  give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women  and men  on the grounds of religious belief, said Amnesty Internationals Europe Director John Dalhuisen in a statement.

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Center-right French presidential candidate Francois Fillon, author of the tome Conquering Islamic Terrorism, hailed the judgement as one that would contribute to social cohesion and peace throughout Europe. Terrorism experts, on the other hand, argued the move might fuel extremism by increasing a sense of isolation among Muslims living in Europe and handing jihadists a recruiting tool.

Banning headscarves, along with burqa bans and travel restrictions, are simply grist to the mill of jihadist organizations and bolsters their propaganda and recruitment efforts, Reinier Bergema, an analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, told Foreign Policy.

Perhaps unhelpfully for the EU, the headscarf debate is now associated with Frances far-right National Front whose leader, Marine Le Pen, has compared Muslims praying in the the streets to Nazi occupation. Last month, Le Pen refused to wear a headscarf in a meeting with Lebanese religious leaders, walking away instead.



Non-Muslim religious leaders agreed that the ruling only served to ostracize religious communities in Europe in the wake of rising hate crimes against such groups. With the rise of racially motivated incidents and todays decision, Europe is sending a clear message  its faith communities are no longer welcome, said Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis. Goldschmidt warned Europe not to isolate its religious minorities. Whether Tuesdays ruling will do exactly that is still to be seen.

Photo credit: SEAN GALLUP/Getty Images
Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The EU should deny funding to far-right parties that want to "destroy" the bloc, a top European Parliament figure urged on Tuesday.

The shock idea comes as anti-EU candidates in the Netherlands and France are expected to make inroads in elections over the coming weeks.

Many of these parties, including the pro-Brexit UKIP formerly headed by Nigel Farage, have a considerable presence in European Parliament, which has become a crucial source for funding.

"The question is whether Europe is stupid enough to fund its enemies," said Manfred Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party, the biggest in the European Parliament.

Weber, who is affiliated to Angela Merkel's ruling CDU party in Germany, said he sent his proposal for new legislation in a letter to European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker.

The details would be hammered out over the next couple of months, Weber said.

Europseptic parties bristled at the proposal, which is part of a revamp launched last year on how European parties are funded.

"Raging Europhiles such as Weber have lost the argument and popular support and in their despair now wish to utilise finance as a weapon to hamper patriotic parties," said current UKIP leader and MEP Paul Nuttall.

"There is no such thing as EU money, it's taxpayers' money and Eurosceptic parties have a mandate from their voters who pay tax," he said.

Opposed to a united Europe, major eurosceptic parties have had success winning seats in European Parliament and securing the EU funding that comes with that.

UKIP and France's Front National, headed by presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, have been targeted for allegedly siphoning off EU funding to pay for national campaigning.

Le Pen has refused to repay nearly 300,000 euros ($325,000) in EU funds that the European parliament, which is based in both Strasbourg and Brussels, said were paid illegally to a party assistant in Paris.

MEPs will hold a debate on the topic during a plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

"What we are concerned with right now are the basic principles: we have got parties hostile to Europe that are enjoying European funding." Weber said.
Paris (AFP) - European media groups voiced concern Tuesday that the European Union could ditch plans to force search engines like Google to pay them when their content is used.

A proposed European directive on authors' rights prepared by the European Commission included plans to create a so-called "neighbouring right" to such payouts from search engines.

But a European Parliament report on the proposal does not contain neighbouring rights, a move the board of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) "deeply regrets", Agence France-Presse (AFP), a member of the alliance, said in a statement echoed by various other European media groups.

The 32 news organisations -- which also include Britain's Press Association, Germany's DPA and Spain's EFE -- called on the parliament to reinstate the plan.

AFP noted that search engines and other internet aggregators have been making a profit using content "that they have not created or financed", which makes neighbouring rights crucial to protecting the content of news agencies and publishers.

"The non-authorised use of media content by search engines and aggregators threatens citizens' access to quality information and is worrying at this time of 'fake news' and disinformation that can distort elections," the EANA said in a separate statement.
Rouhani and his colleagues have maintained that the judiciarys independence prevents them from being able to step in to reduce the number executions, particularly of drug offenders and persons who were under the age of eighteen when they committed their crimes. This claim of independence ostensibly also accounts for the contradiction between some of Rouhanis public statements and the actual conduct of the regime, as in the case of arrests of expatriates who have returned to Iran after the president promised that they would face no legal consequences for their dual national status.

But Jahangir insists that the judiciary in Iran is neither independent nor free from influence from the executive. Meanwhile, other critics of the clerical regime have emphasized that the judiciary appears also to be very much under the influence of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which have been leading instigators of an ongoing crackdown on Iranian journalists, activists, social media users, and so on.

In Mondays session, Jahangir also reported that as of December, at least 24 journalists and bloggers were being held in political imprisonment. By most accounts, the figures are a great deal higher. For instance, the website Journalism is Not a Crime says that there are currently 55 professional journalists in Iranian prisons, to say nothing of other persons who have been accused of vague national security crimes. The Committee to Protect Journalists consistently ranks Iran as one of the most prolific jailers of reporters in the world.

Among other political prisoners are the leaders of the 2009 Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. According to Iran Press Watch, Jahangir also called attention to the persistence of this situation, as well as the arbitrary nature of detention and punishment in the Islamic Republic. Both Mousavi and Karroubi, as well as Mousavis wife Zahra Rahnavard have been kept under house arrest for nearly six years without ever facing trial or even being given formal charges.

Their continued detention also highlights the differences between Rouhanis public commentary on human rights issues and his actual record as president. The release of these political prisoners was among his major campaign promises in 2013, but he has failed to take any noticeable initiative on this or other progressive-sounding promises, and has continued to contradict independent analysts and human rights activists who maintain that the president can wield considerable influence over the judiciary on these issues.

His apparent unwillingness to do so  or as Jahangir suggested on Monday, his desire to influence the judiciary only in the direction of further repression  once again highlights the longstanding argument by the regimes harshest critics that internal moderation is not a realistic possibility. Upon his election, Rouhani was regarded by a range of Western policymakers as a compromise between Irans hardline leadership and the demands of the Green Movement. But opposition groups like the National Council of Resistance of Iran only regarded Rouhani as a pragmatic regime insider who would utilize new tactics in pursuit of the same repressive policies.

If this is true, there is little hope for progressive change in human rights or other areas following the forthcoming presidential elections, which are scheduled for May 19. Iran Front Page News reports that Irans reformist politicians have formally endorsed Rouhani as a candidate for reelection. He will face an as yet unnamed challenger drawn from the ranks of acknowledged hardliners.

There was previously some speculation that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose disputed 2009 reelection touched off the Green Movement protests, might seek a return to the presidency, but this was effectively blocked by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Nevertheless, Khamenei has also spoken out against the notion of national reconciliation between his hardline allies and the supporters of the Green Movement. In fact, at various times, the regime appears to have doubled down on its criminalization of that movement and other serious reform advocates.

In fact, this occurred once again on Monday when Irans semi-official ILNA news agency announced that it had sentenced Mehdi Karroubis son Hossein to six months in prison for publishing the letter his father had written to President Rouhani asking for an open trial. In reporting on this, the Washington Post gives no indication of a response by the Rouhani administration to Hosseins arrest or prosecution, or even to Mehdis letter.

The Post also notes that the latest incident comes in the midst of a major campaign of arrests focusing in particular on dual nationals and garnering no apparent pushback from the supposedly moderate presidential administration.
By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Lin Noueihed WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) - Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, U.S., Egyptian and diplomatic sources say, a move that would add to U.S. concerns about Moscow's deepening role in Libya. The U.S. and diplomatic officials said any such Russian deployment might be part of a bid to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who suffered a setback with an attack on March 3 by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) on oil ports controlled by his forces. The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States has observed what appeared to be Russian special operations forces and drones at Sidi Barrani, about 60 miles (100 km) from the Egypt-Libya border. Egyptian security sources offered more detail, describing a 22-member Russian special forces unit, but declined to discuss its mission. They added that Russia also used another Egyptian base farther east in Marsa Matrouh in early February. The apparent Russian deployments have not been previously reported. The Russian defence ministry did not immediately provide comment on Monday and Egypt denied the presence of any Russian contingent on its soil. "There is no foreign soldier from any foreign country on Egyptian soil. This is a matter of sovereignty," Egyptian army spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said. The U.S. military declined comment. U.S. intelligence on Russian military activities is often complicated by its use of contractors or forces without uniforms, officials say. Russian military aircraft flew about six military units to Marsa Matrouh before the aircraft continued to Libya about 10 days later, the Egyptian sources said. Reuters could not independently verify any presence of Russian special forces and drones or military aircraft in Egypt. Mohamed Manfour, commander of Benina air base near Benghazi, denied that Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) had received military assistance from the Russian state or from Russian military contractors, and said there were no Russian forces or bases in eastern Libya. Several Western countries, including the U.S., have sent special operations forces and military advisors into Libya over the past two years. The U.S. military also carried out air strikes to support a successful Libyan campaign last year to oust Islamic State from its stronghold in the city of Sirte. Questions about Russia's role in north Africa coincide with growing concerns in Washington about Moscow's intentions in oil-rich Libya, which has become a patchwork of rival fiefdoms in the aftermath of a 2011 NATO-backed uprising against the late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was a client of the former Soviet Union. The U.N.-backed government in Tripoli is in a deadlock with Haftar, and Russian officials have met with both sides in recent months. Moscow appears prepared to back up its public diplomatic support for Haftar even though Western governments were already irked at Russia's intervention in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad. A force of several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until February in a part of Libya that is under Haftar's control, the head of the firm that hired the contractors told Reuters. The top U.S. military commander overseeing troops in Africa, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, told the U.S. Senate last week that Russia was trying to exert influence in Libya to strengthen its leverage over whoever ultimately holds power. "They're working to influence that," Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Asked whether it was in the U.S. interest to let that happen, Waldhauser said: "It is not." REGAINING TOE-HOLD One U.S. intelligence official said Russia's aim in Libya appeared to be an effort to "regain a toe-hold where the Soviet Union once had an ally in Gaddafi." "At the same time, as in Syria, they appear to be trying to limit their military involvement and apply enough to force some resolution but not enough to leave them owning the problem," the official added, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Russia's courting of Haftar, who tends to brand his armed rivals as Islamist extremists and who some Libyans see as the strongman their country needs after years of instability, has prompted others to draw parallels with Syria, another longtime Soviet client. Asked by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham whether Russia was trying to do in Libya what it did in Syria, Waldhauser said: "Yes, that's a good way to characterize it." A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was looking to back Haftar, although its initial focus would likely be on Libya's "oil crescent." "It is pretty clear the Egyptians are facilitating Russian engagement in Libya by allowing them to use these bases. There are supposedly training exercises taking place there at present," the diplomat said. Egypt has been trying to persuade the Russians to resume flights to Egypt, which have been suspended since a Russian plane carrying 224 people from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh to St Petersburg was brought down by a bomb in October 2015. The attack was claimed by an Islamic State branch that operates out of northern Sinai. Russia says that its primary objective in the Middle East is to contain the spread of violent Islamist groups. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged this month to help unify Libya and foster dialogue when he met the leader of the U.N.-backed government, Fayez Seraj. Russia, meanwhile, is also deepening its relations with Egypt, which had ties to the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1972. The two countries held joint military exercises - something the U.S. and Egypt did regularly until 2011 - for the first time in October. Russia's Izvestia newspaper said in October that Moscow was in talks to open or lease an airbase in Egypt. Egypt's state-owned Al Ahram newspaper, however, quoted the presidential spokesman as saying Egypt would not allow foreign bases. The Egyptian sources said there was no official agreement on the Russian use of Egyptian bases. There were, however, intensive consultations over the situation in Libya. Egypt is worried about chaos spreading from its western neighbour and it has hosted a flurry of diplomatic meetings between leaders of the east and west in recent months. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington and Lin Noueihed in Cairo; additional reporting by John Walcott in Washington, Ahmed Mohammed Hassan in Cairo, Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe in Moscow, Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi, Aidan Lewis in Tunis; editing by Grant McCool)
By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will write to European Council President Donald Tusk by the end of this month to trigger Britain's withdrawal from the European Union under Article 50 of the EU treaty. The country should be out in two years. Here is a possible timeline: THE ARTICLE 50 LETTER March 25 - The other 27 EU leaders meet in Rome to mark 60 years of founding treaty. May wants to avoid spoiling the party. March 27-30 - Last four days of parliament, where May says she will announce her move. A spokesman has stressed she planned to send the trigger letter at "the end" of the month. SUMMIT, GUIDELINES, RECOMMENDATIONS March 29-31 - European Council President Donald Tusk will, within 48 hours of receiving May's letter, distribute to the 27 member states his draft negotiating guidelines. May 4 - Tusk needs about four weeks to prepare a summit he will chair of the 27 to agree final guidelines and mandate the EU executive's Michel Barnier to negotiate. With Easter on April 16, the first round of French presidential voting on April 23, public holidays on May 1 and the French runoff on May 7, May 4 is a possible date. May 5 - Barnier will quickly reply to leaders with his detailed "recommendations" of how to structure talks. Holidays on May 8-9 may push him to get them to Council within a day. DIRECTIVES May - Ministers in the EU's normally low-key General Affairs Council will be called, again excluding Britain, to agree legal "negotiating directives" that will bind Barnier and his team. FACE TO FACE After nine months of phoney war since the June 23 referendum vote to quit, British negotiators led by Brexit Secretary David Davis will sit down with EU, possibly still in May. Talks may start with what to discuss first and how to split up topics. THE DIVORCE DEAL December 2017 - Brussels wants a basic deal on Withdrawal Treaty by year's end, e.g.: exit bill for Britain's outstanding commitments; treatment of British and EU expats; dealing with outstanding EU legal cases; new border rules. TRANSITION TO FUTURE RELATIONSHIP 2018 - May wants a comprehensive free trade deal. Few see two years as enough time to agree one and Brussels wants to hold off starting talks until after a divorce deal. But London and some EU states may push for parallel trade talks. An idea of customs plans may be needed to resolve eg. Irish border problem. October 2018 - Barnier's target for Withdrawal Treaty, to give time for ratification by the European Parliament and a majority in the European Council by March 2019. November 2018 - Just to make things complicated, Scottish government wants independence vote once Brexit deal clear. B-DAY March 30, 2019? - Britain will leave the EU. At any rate, it should leave two years after May writes. It happens to be a non-working day, a Saturday. And avoids April Fool's Day, April 1. The date could be fine-tuned. Britain could leave earlier if it gets a deal, and the two-year deadline can be extended if all agree. But Brussels wants Britain out before EU elections in May 2019. Despite mutual threats of no deal, few want such chaos. A PERIOD OF TRANSITION May and EU leaders say transitional arrangements may well be needed, to give more time to agree a future trade deal and give people and businesses time to adjust to the divorce. Many see another two to five years after Brexit for a final settlement. If Scotland votes for independence, expect more years to negotiate its split from London and possible re-entry to EU. (Editing by Catherine Evans)
A company owned by the family of President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is set to receive more than $400 million from a Chinese firm that is investing in its Manhattan office tower, Bloomberg reported Monday.

The Kushner Companies deal with Anbang Insurance Group for the property at 666 Fifth Avenue is worth $4 billion, with real estate experts calling it an unusually favourable deal for the Kushners, the report said.

It would value the 41-story tower at $2.85 billion, the most ever for a single building in wealthy Manhattan.

The investment deal gives Kushner Companies a cash payout, an equity stake in a new partnership and refinancing of $1.14 billion in existing mortgage debt, said Bloomberg, which obtained details of the agreement which is being circulated to attract other investors.

A large chunk of a $250 million loan will be forgiven, allowing it to be cleared for $50 million, the report said.

"This is a huge, huge exit strategy for an office building," lawyer Joshua Stein told Bloomberg.

"It does sound like a home run of a transaction for Kushner and his group.

Anbang has "murky links to the Chinese power structure" and its previous investments in the United States have raised concerns over national security, Bloomberg said.

But Kushner Companies spokesman James Yolles was reported as saying that Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka and a senior advisor to the president, had sold his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue so there was no conflict of interest.

But the deal raises the possibility of a "sweetheart deal" for the Kushners, said Larry Noble, general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.

"A classic way you influence people is by financially helping their family," he told Bloomberg.

Trump's own business links with China -- he holds at least 72 trademarks in the country and has as many as 45 such applications pending -- have prompted warnings that he could potentially violate the US constitution and leave himself exposed to charges of conflicts of interest.

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Anbang's ownership is unclear. It has no publicly listed units and does not name its shareholders on its website.

Established just 13 years ago, Anbang has grown from a domestic seller of property insurance into a financial services powerhouse, making a name for itself abroad by buying New York's historic Waldorf Astoria hotel for a record $1.95 billion in 2014.

Last year, Anbang paid hedge fund Blackstone $6.5 billion for 16 luxury properties. It also made a $14 billion dollar bid for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, but suddenly rescinded the offer last April citing "market considerations".

At the time, respected Chinese business magazine Caixin reported that China's insurance regulator opposed Anbang's multi-billion-dollar bids for Starwood and the Blackstone properties

It remains to be seen whether Anbang's campaign to become an international hotelier will be stymied by Beijing's current efforts to stem capital outflows.

China has urged domestic companies to avoid "irrational" overseas investments, citing real estate and hotels among those fields being closely monitored by regulatory departments.
What if Uber could not only help you get somewhere but suggest where you should go

And what if it wasn't Uber but another ride-hailing app that isn't riddled with controversy?

As of today, there is an option (for SXSW): Fasten released Tuesday a website called "Fasten Vouch." Instead of relying on just recommendations from friends or random reviews online, Fasten users, or anyone, can rely on this website to understand where people (locals and visitors) are actually going.

SEE ALSO: This Uber executive sure sounds defensive about not taking the fall for Uber's harassment crisis

Timed with the rest of the South by Southwest conference, the feature is only available in Austin, Texas. But the company, which positions itself as the third major ride-hailing player in the United States under Uber and Lyft, is hoping to expand to other cities as they grow.

Image: fasten

The website is powered by Google's Places API. But it adds the layer of Fasten's data for users, now up to 2 million rides in Austin. For now, the website is the same for everyone, but in the future, the company plans to release personal recommendations.

"Ride-sharing companies are the only folks that know where people are actually going," said Fasten CEO Kirill Evdakov. "First step is to share data and give decent recommendations, but moving forward we will allow destinations to sponsor rides to them."

It's the first step to a much bigger ambition to partner with restaurants and other businesses and create a new form of advertising. Instead of paying for clicks or impressions, as businesses do on Facebook and Google, Fasten says they can charge business owners for having actual people come to an establishment.

This effort could also eliminate the "necessary evil," Evdakov said, of consumers having to pay for a ride somewhere and simultaneously increase a business's activity.

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"If you want your bar to be filled in at a specific time for people who are going to your competitors, whatever you want, we have the settings," Evdakov said. "We know the power of free rides. If you give away free rides, people will take them. We're trying to find more ways to make rides more affordable."

For now, Fasten riders only have access to a $5 voucher off their first ride.

Uber and Lyft have yet to release a real-time website similar to this nor talk publicly about such a marketing strategy. Though, Uber did redesign its app to show Foursquare and Yelp data and could easily do the same. Lyft also publicly releases the most trending places each year.

"If the idea is great, people will copy it. But Google and Yelp haven't yet. First you have to build a great ride-sharing app, and that isn't easy," Evdakov said. "That's why the big three, Uber, Lyft, us will pretty much have same approaches."

But where Fasten wins, Evdakov said, is through its complete dedication to drivers. "So far, a lot of [work in the ride-hailing industry] has been done at the expense of drivers. Thats what we have general beef with," he said.
Paris (AFP) - France's rightwing presidential candidate Francois Fillon was charged Tuesday with misusing public funds over a fake jobs scandal that has crippled his campaign.

AFP explains the scandal, dubbed "Penelopegate" by the French media, in five questions:

- Who is Francois Fillon? -

Fillon, 63, was prime minister from 2007 to 2012, the high point of a political career spanning nearly four decades. He entered parliament aged just 27.

The devout Catholic, formerly with a reputation as "Mr Clean", emerged in November as the surprise nominee of the conservative Republicans party after promising to slash public spending and cut bureaucracy.

Before the fake jobs scandal emerged at the end of January, voter surveys consistently showed him as the likely winner of the two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7.

He married his Welsh-born wife Penelope, who is 62, when they were in their twenties. She has retained a low profile over the years, until the fake jobs scandal erupted and threw the spotlight on her.

- What is he accused of? -

Between 1986 and 2013, Penelope was paid a total of 680,000 euros ($725,000) net from public funds available to lawmakers to run their offices in the national parliament.

She was employed as an assistant either directly by Fillon or by the man who replaced him in parliament while he was a cabinet minister, Marc Joulard.

Fillon also employed two of his five children, Charles and Marie, as assistants for various periods between 2005 and 2007.

While employing a family member is not illegal, Fillon has apparently failed to convince investigators that Penelope earned her salary, which exceeded 10,000 euros a month in 2007.

From May 2012 to December 2013, while employed at the parliament, Penelope was also paid 3,500 euros net a month by the magazine La Revue des Deux Mondes which is owned by Fillon's friend, the tycoon Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere.

In the most recent scandal, which came to light only last week, Fillon is accused of receiving an interest-free loan of 50,000 euros from Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2013 that he failed to report to a state transparency watchdog.

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- What have they said? -

Fillon has apologised for employing his wife, which he said was a longstanding parliamentary practice deemed unacceptable by French people nowadays, but he has forcefully denied any illegality.

He believes the Socialist government, the media and the justice system are colluding to try to torpedo his campaign in an attempted "political assassination".

Fillon, who initially pledged to step aside if he is charged, overcame widespread unease within his party to carry on with his bid for power.

In a March 5 interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Penelope said she had handed over documents showing that she edited her husband's work and handled mail for him.

But she had neither a security pass for the parliament building in Paris nor a work email account.

French media have found few witnesses to her work and have unearthed previous interviews given last year and in 2007 in which she says she plays no role in her husband's political life.

- What happened on Tuesday? -

Fillon announced on March 1 that he was to appear before the magistrates on Wednesday, but he brought the meeting forward a day so that it could take place "in a calm manner", according to his lawyer.

The candidate was "mis en examen", a French legal term with no direct equivalent in English.

Under the British or US systems, it is best translated as "charged" and means investigating magistrates deem there is sufficient evidence to justify deepening the probe.

The alleged fake jobs in parliament have led to a charge of misuse of public money, while Penelope's stint at Ladreit de Lacharriere's magazine could represent the misuse of corporate assets.

The undeclared loan from the billionaire friend meanwhile led to a charge of failing to declare assets fully to a public transparency watchdog.

Penelope has been summoned before the magistrates on March 28.

- What about the election? -

Fillon's standings in the polls have plummeted and he is now credited with around 20 percent of the vote in the first round of the election in April, meaning he would be eliminated.

The top two candidates are currently shown as far-right leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron. The 39-year-old Macron is shown as the clear winner of the second-round run-off if the election were held now.

But Fillon remains convinced he can make up the ground in the next six weeks, building on the loyal core of voters who have stuck with him despite his troubles.

His determination to stand has exposed old divisions in his party, however, and led some parliamentary colleagues to fear for their seats in national assembly elections scheduled in June after the presidential vote.
Hamam Al-Alil (Iraq) (AFP) - A sea of tents stretches to the horizon at a camp for displaced near Mosul but Ahmed Hassan says he and 17 relatives have to sleep outside because there is no room.

Tens of thousands of civilians have poured into camps set up around Mosul as Iraqi forces battle to retake the city from Islamic State group jihadists.

"It's a nightmare. No camp will take us in. They're all full," says Hassan, a short man in his fifties who wears a traditional headdress and a grey coat over his white robe.

Instead, Hassan, two cousins and their families -- 18 people in all -- have set up camp with other displaced Iraqis inside the concrete shell of an unfinished building just outside a camp in the Hamam al-Alil area.

White and blue tarpaulin sheets stretch between the building's naked columns to block the battering wind. Clothes are hung to dry.

Women and children wearing dirty pyjamas sit on dusty blankets on the ground, surrounded by their meagre possessions: a few chickens, sacks of rice and bottles of water.

"We don't know where to go. It's cold here. Children and women are in the street," says Hassan, who fled fighting in the Badush area northwest of Mosul.

Aid groups working in the nearby camp have brought him and his family food, blankets and grey mattresses.

But, says his neighbour Abdullah Khidr, tents have run out.

"We eat well here, but there are so many displaced people -- so many -- that there are no more tents," says the man in his sixties who also fled Badush.

Khidr, his wife and their seven children were escaping fighting for the second time after fleeing west Mosul just three months before.

Iraqi forces launched an assault to retake Mosul from IS in October, more than two years after the jihadists took control of the northern city, Iraq's second largest.

- 'Lost dreams' -

After recapturing the east of Mosul, Iraqi forces last month set their sites on the west, where hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped.

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More than 68,000 people have fled west Mosul since February 25, streaming to camps around the city, according to the International Organization for Migration.

"We have not got to that stage yet where there is no capacity whatsoever in the camps," says Hala Jaber, IOM spokeswoman for the Mosul crisis, who says there are 17 camps in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.

"Large numbers of people are arriving on a daily basis," she says. "Some procedural checks needed to be undertaken by the government before people are moved. Things may be getting slightly backlogged and people ending up staying more than a day or two."

Melany Markham, spokeswoman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which recently took over the management of Hamam al-Alil, says an extension to the site is planned in coming weeks.

"There will be room for around 30,000 people with about 4,000 tents," she says.

Behind her, a stream of buses ferries in hundreds more displaced Iraqis, who wait for someone to look after them in a vast muddy area outside the camp.

Omar Ahmed, 22, is among the lucky ones to have made it inside.

"There are four or five families per tent. Men sleep outside while women and children are inside," he says.

When IS overran Mosul in mid-2014, Ahmed still had a year left of secondary school, shattering his hopes of heading to university to become a teacher.

"Before we could have dreams. Now they're lost," he says.

Rain gushes down on the Hamam al-Alil camp, transforming its alleyways into slushy swamps.

In one, three children in their pyjamas try to clean their muddy plastic sandals by dipping them in a puddle.
By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - Seven former felons sued Florida Governor Rick Scott and other state officers on Monday seeking to have their voting rights restored, claiming their disenfranchisement in the state is unconstitutionally arbitrary.

Florida is one of four states that strip all former felons of their voting rights. The class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. Northern District of Florida by the non-partisan Fair Elections Legal Network takes aim at the process by which they can seek to regain their voting rights.

Measures adopted in 2011 by Scott and other Republican state leaders require ex-felons to wait for five to seven years after completing their sentences before they can apply to regain their vote.

Fewer than 2,500 petitions for voting rights restoration have been approved since Scott took office in 2011, while the backlog of applications stands around 10,500, the lawsuit said.

Florida's approach has disenfranchised an estimated 1.6 million people, more than any other state, research shows.

The state has maintained some of the nation's toughest voting rights restrictions, while many other states have taken steps to help convicted criminals regain access to the ballot after the completion of their sentences.

Racial minorities are disproportionately impacted by the felon voting restrictions in Florida, which is the largest battleground state in U.S. presidential elections.

"Floridas voting rights situation has become just an unmitigated crisis," said Jon Sherman, senior counsel with the Washington-based Fair Elections Legal Network, which is working with the firm Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll.

State rules give Scott the deciding vote in serious cases on felon voting rights restoration that are heard in person before a clemency board composed of the governor and state cabinet officers.

He has denied petitions over traffic tickets incurred after sentences were completed, the lawsuit said. It noted that he asks some, but not all, petitioners to account for histories of alcohol and substance abuse.

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Scott's office said it was reviewing the lawsuit.

"When it comes to the restoration of voting rights for felons, Governor Scott believes that they have to demonstrate that they can live a life free of crime, show a willingness to request to have their rights restored, and show restitution to the victims of their crimes," spokeswoman Jeri Bustamante said in a statement.

Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida are working on a ballot initiative to restore many felons' voting rights, barred for more than a century in the state constitution.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Over this span of time, we have seen vanguard women who rose up and proved their competence in various arenas despite the reigning culture and policies of tyranny and misogyny. This phenomenon was most significantly demonstrated in womens courageous participation in the anti-dictatorial struggles over this period, she said.

To measure the advances of a society towards real progress and development, the struggle of women is perhaps the most comprehensive indicator of progress, as this displays the extent the society endeavors to achieve freedom and equality for all.

Mrs. Rajavi said that, In the absence of gender equality, any political, economic or social progress would be ineffective, fleeting, or reversible. She points out that, From this vantage point, the uprisings which led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah in Iran marked a major leap forward through womens remarkable and extensive participation in street demonstrations. This new phenomenon unveiled the Iranian peoples widespread desire for progress. At the same time, it revealed a shocking contradiction:

One the one hand, the ruling regime quickly adopted regressive and despotic policies and caused appalling backwardness. On the other hand, the Iranian society was broadly seeking freedom and democracy, and sought to make social progress and advancements. Such contradiction led in the first step to a major clash. The barbarity and savagery of the new regime drenched the Iranian revolution in blood.

She spoke about the Role of Women in the Iranian Resistance, Womens active participation in confrontation with the mullahs religious fascism formed the corner stone and foundation of resistance against the regime.

Women participated in the Resistance extensively, and since the outset. These women were brave, efficient and selfless. During the 1980s, tens of thousands of women were tortured or executed in the struggle against the ruling fundamentalist regime.

These women were powerfully motivated, and had their sights set on a bright and magnificent horizon. Otherwise, they would certainly have been intimidated by the most unprecedented tortures and massacres in our contemporary history. Instead, they became more determined and resolute.

She explained, Today, women hold key and leadership positions in the resistance movement. They make up more than 50 percent of the members of the Resistances parliament-in-exile. The guiding principles of womens role in the Iranian Resistance can be summarized as the following:

 First, the struggle of the women of this movement for equality has been deeply intertwined and connected to the broader struggle for freedom in Iran. Therefore, it has targeted the ruling dictatorship, which is a religious tyranny, while combating its forced religious edicts, misogyny and inhumane discriminations.

 Second, they have waged a foundational struggle against objectification of women while defying the gender-based ideology that forms the central tenet of inequality.

 Third, women have recognized their mission and mandate in leading this movement while discovering and subsequently implementing in practice the fact that the hegemonic role of women in this perseverance provides a liberating force and propeller.

 Fourth, the pioneering women have linked their struggle to the efforts and struggle of the resistant and equality-seeking men of the movement. They see it as an important part of their responsibilities to support the men of the movement in the struggle against inequality and against patriarchal thinking and culture.

Mrs. Rajavie explained the emergence of Islamic Fundamentalism beginning with a cursory review of the history of the origins of fundamentalism.

She told the participants in the roundtable discussion that, Since the late 18th century and early 19th century, in the geographical region that hosts most of the Islamic countries  extending from North Africa to the Caucuses, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean  under the shadow of major political, social and technological developments in the world, the people engaged in struggles to change their destiny. They sought to gain freedom, independence, rule of the law, as well as economic and social progress. Why did this wave wash over Islamic countries? In such a setting, several destructive factors set the groundwork for the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism. Ignorance, lack of education and backwardness are, of course, some of the contributing factors. Additionally, however, one can mention the interventions and mistakes committed by western governments in these countries, whose catastrophic effects, including invasions and the displacement of peoples and destruction of national social institutions of the countries of the region produced deep antipathy and a sense of resentment toward western countries.

Many politicians, as well as quite a few western thinkers will verify this fact, according to Mrs. Rajavi, who added, Western governments gave support to dictatorial regimes and thus destroyed the middle class, produced an uneven economic and social growth, and eliminated nationalist parties and freedom-loving movements in these countries.

She defined the impact of the Iranian Regime by describing the unique historical circumstances that marked the moment when Islamic fundamentalism, in the form of the ascendance to power of Khomeini and his allies.

This was a horrendous power-thirsty and profoundly misogynous force founded on religious discrimination. It instituted its backward sharia laws as a mechanism to establish a religious tyranny, and became a model of governance for fundamentalist groups. In reality, dictatorships like the previous regime of Iran were too weak and corrupt to be able to stand against the waves of people who demanded freedom and particularly against the power of women and youths. So, instead, religious fundamentalists undertook the mission to crack down on and suppress them, she said.

Mrs. Rajavi questioned the essence of Fundamentalism, asking exactly what Islamic fundamentalism wants to oppose, at its core.

She asks, Is it the world of Islam lining up against the West or in particular against Christianity and Judaism?

The answer is NO, according to Mrs. Rajavi.

The truth is that the real dispute is not between Islam and Christianity, Islam and the West, or Shiites and Sunnis. It is, rather, a confrontation between freedom and subjugation, and between equality and injustice, she said, and added, Islamic fundamentalism, in essence, represents a backlash against the overwhelming tendency of the peoples of the region, especially women and youth, towards freedom, democracy and equality.

Mrs. Rajavi then addressed the reasons why fundamentalism bears such great enmity against women.

Women emerged as a new force in the 1979 revolution in Iran and played a remarkable role. This is one reason why the role of women rapidly evolved and became prominent in the course of the developments after the revolution. As womens emancipation became a central theme of the demands of the enormous tide of people who sought a new order, freedom and equality, they became a pivotal force of movement and struggle.

Mrs. Rajavi proclaimed:

They were in the frontlines of resistance in torture chambers; they were in the front lines of demonstrations during the 2009 uprising; and they were in the front lines of the command structure in the National Liberation Army of Iran.

In contrast to this, enmity to women lies at the heart of Islamic fundamentalism and suppression of women is the central component for the suppression of the entire society.

She asks:

Why did the mullahs need to revive the laws of past millennia in the final years of the 20th Century?

Why did they commit such inconceivable crimes under the name of Islam?

The answer is because they faced a widespread and general desire that could only be confronted and contained by naked oppression.

The Iranian Resistance and its vanguard women have been warning the West for three decades, that Islamic fundamentalism is a global threat, and during the past 15 years, the threat has emerged in the form of terrorism and conflicts in the Middle East.

European capitals have experienced terrorist crimes carried out by fundamentalists.

In conclusion, Mrs. Rajavi said, I would like to underscore the imperative and necessity for the entire world to confront this ominous phenomenon.

The mullahs of Iran and their fundamentalist disciples are not only the enemy of the people of Iran, but also the enemies of all Middle East nations and the entire world.

In particular, in so far as it concerns women, fundamentalism targets and jeopardizes all the achievements that women have made to date.

Therefore, confronting the Iranian regime should be the immediate goal of womens struggle all over the world. Womens international sisterhood and solidarity demands that they support the fight against the fundamentalist regime of Iran.

I thank you very much.

The entirety of Maryam Rajavis speech may be found in this article, published by the NCRI.
Welcome to 2017, a year when supporting journalism essentially means you hate the President of the United States.

According to a Fox and Friends clip that aired Tuesday morning, to fight against Trump's war on the media, newspapers are cashing in on apparel that displays "anti-Trump rhetoric."

What are these offensive, Trump-hating words, you ask?

"Journalism Matters." Oh the horror.

SEE ALSO: Fox News' Shep Smith attempts to explain 'Fake News' to Donald Trump

It appears that since Donald Trump has been so outwardly open about the media  aka the "enemy of the American people"  along with his dislike of "fake news" spreading journalists, any shirt supporting journalism must be considered anti-Trump.

While The LA Times' "Journalism Matters" shirt includes the hashtag #nottheenemy, clearly in response to Trump, it doesn't say anything directly negative about him.

Image: la times

According to the caption on the Fox and Friends tweet, those wearing the supportive shirts are showcasing "Media bias on full display!"

Here are two other examples of the anti-Trump apparel Fox and Friends included:

The Washington Post's "Democracy Dies in Darkness" shirt

Image: washington post

The Chicago Tribunes "Speaking Truth to Power" tank

Image: The chicago tribune

Judging from the responses on Twitter, no one could really comprehend how the shirts warranted the anti-Trump label, but does anything really make sense anymore?

@itsYourGrace @foxandfriends @FoxFriendsFirst the shirt says "journalism matters" and you think it's anti-Trump.



Let that sink in.  Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul) March 14, 2017

@henryle74 @Ike_Saul @itsYourGrace @foxandfriends @FoxFriendsFirst Also anything seen as pro democracy, pro immigration, pro human rights etc etc are automatically seen as an attack on Trump. What a world.  JW (@jwilkesauthor) March 14, 2017

@foxandfriends as a journalist, explain how "journalism matters" is biased or anti-trump? Or does ur tweet prove u are "anti-journalist"?  Don Harris (@DonHarris4) March 14, 2017

@foxandfriends journalism has no side. The truth is the only agenda. Opposite of both your right wing & ur competition's left wing motives.  Don Harris (@DonHarris4) March 14, 2017

@foxandfriends @FoxFriendsFirst Is this a joke? "Journalism Matters" is now considered anti Trump rhetoric? Get your head out of your ass.  Matthew Parvis (@MatthewParvis) March 14, 2017

Though pro-journalism shirts appear to be a rising trend lately, other outlets have definitely taken Trump-related marketing approaches in the past. After Trump called Buzzfeed a "failing pile of garbage," the company had custom shirts and a nifty trashcan made up.

Trump is truly changing the political and fashion world.
Paris (AFP) - Francois Fillon, the French rightwing presidential candidate charged over a fake jobs scandal, is a career politician whose image as a steady and unblemished leader has been shattered during the campaign.

As he sought the nomination for the rightwing Republicans party last year, he talked up his reputation as "Mr Clean" -- in contrast to his rivals, former president Nicolas Sarkozy and ex-PM Alain Juppe.

Prospective presidents needed to be "irreproachable," he said, while ministers facing charges could not serve in his government "while being dogged by suspicion."

In late January, in an interview aired on national television, he declared that "there is only one thing that would stop me being a candidate: if my honour was called into question, if I was charged."

That is now a reality as Fillon was charged on Tuesday with misuse of public money and corporate assets over the employment of his wife as a parliamentary assistant for 15 years.

Though an MP employing a family member is not illegal in France, Penelope Fillon is accused of doing little for the 680,000 euros (725,000 dollars) she received in salary.

Fillon has denied all wrongdoing and says low-key Penelope worked with him doing constituency work from his home in the Sarthe region of northern France during his nearly four-decade political career.

The ex-prime minister has backtracked on his promise to withdraw his candidacy and is now running as an anti-system rebel determined to thwart the media, the government and magistrates who he says are working against him.

The transformation has left many former allies stunned.

"Some people hoped to bring me down, and bring down your voice with me, but you're here!" Fillon told cheering supporters in a now-typical display of defiance in the south of France last Thursday.

"It's you and only you who are the sovereign power, the guardians of democracy!" he said.

Story continues

But the scandal has cost him credibility and support among his party and the electorate.

After being the clear frontrunner at the beginning of the year, polls currently suggest he would be eliminated in the first round of the election on April 23.

- Low-key Penny -

Silver-haired Penelope, from Wales and known as Penny by friends and family, was a university student in France when she met Fillon in their early twenties.

They soon married and live in an imposing manor house near Le Mans in northern France where they brought up their five children.

She was until recently a low-key political wife, a keen horse-rider who once described herself as a country "peasant" who preferred the countryside to the bright lights of Paris.

In examining Fillon's claims that his wife has "always" worked to help his career, the French media have also honed in on her past words.

"Until now, I have never got involved in my husband's political life," Penelope told regional newspaper Le Bien Public last year, echoing a similar statement to Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper in 2007.

- 'Mr Nobody' -

After five years as prime minister under President Sarkozy from 2007-2012, Fillon emerged from his shadow during the campaign for the Republicans party's presidential nomination.

The long-time outsider accelerated past Sarkozy and former prime minister Alain Juppe in the final weeks, giving assured performances in a series of debates and opening up about his family.

In a widely watched television series, Fillon laughed about his "boring image" and talked about his private passion for mountains, racing cars and drones.

He won the rightwing nomination pledging radical economic reform for a country he said was "on the verge of revolt" after decades of chronic overspending, mass unemployment and a series of terror attacks since 2015.

Supporters also cheered his hardline stance on immigration.

He raised eyebrows when he told immigrants "when you enter someone else's house, you do not take over."

His outspokenness stood in contrast to his image as premier, of a quiet and urbane man whose steady temperament was in stark contrast to the impulsive Sarkozy.

Sarkozy once dismissed him as "Mr Nobody".

Once the youngest member of parliament at age 27, he is a devout Catholic who voted against gay marriage when it legalised in 2013.

The self-declared "Gaullist" -- a form of nationalism that proposes an independent and strong France -- also has a close bond with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The two men overlapped as prime ministers from 2008-2012 and their closeness has led to questions about his foreign policy.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's largest association of mosques needs to undertake fundamental reforms to ensure its independence from Turkey after reports that its clerics spied on people in Germany, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Tuesday. The association of mosques, Ditib, brings clerics from Turkey to serve the three million people with a Turkish background who live in Germany. In January, Germany's chief federal prosecutor opened an investigation into possible spying by clerics sent by Ankara. "Concrete steps are needed to clearly and transparently ensure the autonomy and independence of the national association and the state associations" of Ditib, de Maiziere said after a meeting of the German Conference on Islam. De Maiziere's comments came as tensions rise between Turkey and European countries like Germany and Netherlands, where concern has grown about an increasingly authoritarian tone from Ankara. They also follow a warning from Germany's domestic intelligence agency last week about a big increase in Turkish spying in Germany before an April 16 referendum in Turkey on increasing the powers of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey's Diyanet religious authority denied any involvement by its imams in illegal activities and said investigations over alleged espionage defamed the organisation. De Maiziere expressed concern the reports of possible spying by Ditib clerics and said such actions would be unacceptable if proven true. He said an organisation influenced to such an extent by another country could not meet the conditions required to be considered a religious community. Only clear steps to shore up its autonomy would allow Ditib to maintain its status as religious organisation in Germany, the minister said. He said German states were correct to examine whether they wanted to continue working with Ditib in shaping Islamic religious studies in their schools. (Reporting by Thorsten Severin; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Larry King)
BERLIN (AP)  A German appeals court has ruled a 20-year-old man convicted in the death of a German-Turkish women, in a case that drew national attention, can be deported to his native Serbia.

The man, known as Sanel M. because his last name wasn't given in line with privacy laws, was sentenced to three years in prison over the death of 23-year-old Tugce Albayrak. He was convicted in 2015 of causing bodily harm resulting in death.

Witnesses said Albayrak helped two young women being harassed by the defendant and another man at a fast-food restaurant. He hit her in the face outside and she died two weeks later.

The Kassel state administrative court on Tuesday confirmed a lower court's ruling that Sanel M. can be deported, the dpa news agency reported.
In 1990, former President Ronald Reagan gave a moving speech to mark the end of the Cold War. I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I dont know why he chose to write it, but Im glad he did, Reagan said. He wrote that you can go to live in France, but you cant become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you cant become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan, and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.

Reagan endorsed that view and went on to point out: If we take this crowd and if we could go through and ask the heritage, the background of every family represented here, we would probably come up with the names of every country on Earth, every corner of the world, and every race. Here is the one spot on Earth where we have the brotherhood of man. And maybe as we continue with this proudly, this brotherhood of man made up from people representative of every corner of the Earth, maybe one day boundaries all over the Earth will disappear as people cross boundaries and find out that, yes, there is a brotherhood of man in every corner.

So much for the brotherhood of man. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has a very different vision. On March 12, he posted a tweet praising the Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, who wants to close mosques, ban the Quran, and end Muslim immigration. Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny, King wrote. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. The next morning he was given a chance on CNN to back off this revolting statement, which has been praised by David Duke and which led the neo-Nazi newspaper the Daily Stormer to exult: Steve King is basically an open white nationalist at this point.  He is our guy. King didnt flinch, saying, Well, I meant exactly what I said.

Of course he did. Because King has said similar things many times. Last year he said that no subgroup other than white people has contributed more to civilization. (That will come as news to the Chinese, who invented, among other things, paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass, tea, silk, and rockets  or to the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, where the very first civilizations arose thousands of years ago.) King has also dismissed the contributions made to America by immigrants who were brought here illegally as children. For everyone whos a valedictorian, theres another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert, he notoriously said in 2013.

He has opposed putting the noted African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill in place of Andrew Jackson because he thinks its pure political correctness, as if Tubman is not a personage worth honoring. He has said that radical Islamists would be dancing in the streets following the election of Barack Hussein Obama, because his middle name does matter. He proudly displays a Confederate flag on his desk even though Iowans shed their blood for the Union.

The list of Kings asinine, bigoted, and offensive words and acts is too long to recount. But heres the thing. Its not really possible anymore to dismiss him as a fringe player in legitimate policy debates, as the New York Times notes that many Republicans would like to do. That may have been true at one time, in the days when the Republican Party was defined by Reagan. But those days are long past. Today its Donald Trumps party, and there is not much breathing room between King and Trump when it comes to white nationalism. Indeed, after initially supporting Ted Cruz in last years primaries, King has become an avid Trump supporter.

The echoes between the two men  the Iowa contractor-turned-congressman and the New York real estate magnate-turned-president  are uncanny and disturbing. As Amber Phillips of the Washington Post pointed out last year:

The ideological links between King and Stephen Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, are even closer. In a 2015 Breitbart radio interview, Bannon lauded King as a great mentor to all of us and a great friend of the site, and a true warrior.

It is no surprise to learn that Bannon and King have repeatedly praised what the conservative writer Linda Chavez has described as a shockingly racist 1973 novel  The Camp of the Saints by the French author Jean Raspail. Its plot concerns an attempt by hundreds of thousands of poor Indians, who are described as wretched creatures, to sail to France. The Huffington Post summarizes what happens next: The French government eventually gives the order to repel the armada by force, but by then the military has lost the will to fight. Troops battle among themselves as the Indians stream on shore, trampling to death the left-wing radicals who came to welcome them. Poor black and brown people literally overrun Western civilization. Chinese people pour into Russia; the queen of England is forced to marry her son to a Pakistani woman; the mayor of New York must house an African-American family at Gracie Mansion. Raspails rogue heroes, the defenders of white Christian supremacy, attempt to defend their civilization with guns blazing but are killed in the process.

This is how the Bannons and Kings view the modern world: The West is threatened by hordes of swarthy outsiders, especially Mexicans and Muslims, and they are lonely defenders of the white Christian race against this insidious threat. There is no evidence that Trump has given this matter as much thought as they have, but, based on his public pronouncements, he has reached similar conclusions. That helps to explain why the administration is building a border wall, expanding deportations, and trying to keep out citizens of as many Muslim countries as possible. This isnt about fighting terrorism or crime; its about fighting changing demographics. And its premised on an unspoken assumption that only white Christians are true Americans; all others are somebody else.

This is ugly stuff. It is directly at odds with the way the Founding Fathers defined our country  as a nation bound together not by common blood but by common ideals. They thought it self-evident that all men are created equal. Of course that vision was always contested; even the Constitution initially enshrined slavery and throughout our history organizations such as the Know-Nothings, the Ku Klux Klan, and the America Firsters have anathematized racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. (Ironically, Catholics like Bannon and King were often victims of discrimination in the past.)

That is not to say that a desire to maintain a mainstream culture, built around a shared language and shared values, is misplaced. But each wave of newcomers  German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European, Latino, Asian  has faced handwringing about whether they would become fully American, and each in turn has done so. America, for its part, has become more welcoming to people of all colors and creeds than it once was. Over the past half-century, we have made impressive strides in fighting rank racism and institutionalized intolerance without reducing the imperative to assimilate.

The Bannons and Kings appear intent, with Trumps help, on undoing much of that progress toward a more inclusive society. They are pursuing a vision they share with foreign far-right leaders such as Wilders and Marine Le Pen. They want to turn the Republican Party into a blood and soil nationalist party and the United States into a white-supremacist stronghold.

Sadly, their worldview has become so mainstream that, while a few Republicans are willing to decorously disagree with King (Id like to think he misspoke and it wasnt really meant the way it sounds, House Speaker Paul Ryan said), none is willing to champion a motion to censure him or even expel him from the House Republican caucus. As the Des Moines Register notes, the Republican establishment in Iowa has supported King for re-election in the past and will likely do so again in 2018. The de facto acceptance of King as a mainstream Republican speaks volumes about what the Republican Party is becoming  and how far removed it is from Reagans vision of a borderless world and the brotherhood of man.

Photo credit: SCOTT OLSON/Getty Images
A Texas congressman told a constituent to shut up in a heated moment caught on video. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, was holding a town hall last weekend in the city of Frost, the Dallas Morning News reported, when a man confronted him about his voting record pertaining to violence against women.

Given your voting record opposing protecting women from violence, will you make a commitment to us today  make a promise  that you will reach out to Congresswoman Jackie Speier and work with her to see this bill successfully through Congress? the man asked, drawing applause from the crowd.

Speier, a Democrat, recently introduced a bill that would prohibit military service members from sharing intimate photos without the subjects permission. The bill was introduced in response to the Marines United scandal, in which a private Facebook group made up of Marines was being used to share nude photos of servicewomen.

Referring to a previous bill he had voted against, Barton said, I voted against it because I think thats a state issue, not a federal issue.

In the video, some in the crowd in the conservative state applaud Barton, while others jeer him.

Its violence against women, thats a national issue. That is an issue that impacts everyone, everywhere  not only in this country, but everywhere, one man says.

Its civil rights, another adds.

The simplest comment is what set Barton off. A man calls out, You represent Texas first.

You, Barton says, pointing to the man, who is not seen on camera, you, sir, shut up.

Many in the crowd seem bewildered, and a man can be heard saying, What is that? You dont tell anybody to shut up. You work for us! as the video ends.

The video spread across the Web on Tuesday, becoming the latest in an ongoing series of viral moments sparked by Republican House members town halls. In the aftermath of Democrats wide-ranging 2016 losses, critical constituents have flooded many GOP town hall events.

Story continues

A spokesman for Barton did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an appearance on MSNBC on Tuesday addressing the incident, Barton skirted his volatile reaction to his constituent and instead reiterated his states rights. My opinion is that there are some issues that are totally federal issues and there are some issues that the proper jurisdiction is at the state level, he said.

Most laws with domestic violence are state issues and handled by the state of Texas, he continued. We had the Navarro County district attorney in the audience, and I dont believe you caught that on your  what you just showed, but I asked him did he prosecute the domestic violence cases in Navarro County every year, and the answer was, obviously, he did. So, the fact that somebody wants to make it a federal issue  thats one of the problems, in my opinion, that too many times, were now looking to the federal government and making it a federal issue.

Read more from Yahoo News:
The U.S. hospital industry is irate about provisions in the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare that would freeze spending on expanded Medicaid coverage for 10 million people in 31 states in 2020 followed by sharply reduce federal assistance to Medicaid.

Joining forces with physicians, nurses, some insurers and advocates for the elderly and poor, top executives of the American Hospital Association complained last week that GOP efforts to transform Medicaid from an entitlement program to a fixed per capita allocation system would shortchange vulnerable people while continuing to reimburse providers below the actual cost of their services.

Related: Republican Health Plan: Good for the Budget, Bad for the Poor and Elderly



Those concerns were more than confirmed on Monday with the release of the much-anticipated Congressional Budget Office analysis of the GOPs American Health Care Act: There would be 24 million fewer Americans with health care coverage than there would be under the current Obamacare law between 2018 and 2026, and the bulk of those losses  fully two-thirds -- would be among Medicaid beneficiaries.

CBO estimates that several major provisions of the GOP plan adversely affecting Medicaid would decrease spending on the program by $880 billion over the coming decade. That reduction would be due mainly to lower enrollments throughout the period, culminating in 14 million fewer Medicaid enrollees by 2026.

Related: GOPs Repeal of Obamacare Taxes Could Put Medicare Closer to Insolvency

Some of that decline would be among people who are currently eligible for Medicaid benefits while others would be people who subsequently were made eligible by states that decide to accept the expanded Medicaid coverage before the ax starts to fall on the program.

Some decline in spending and enrollment would begin immediately, but most of the changes would begin in 2020, when the legislation would terminate the enhanced federal matching rate for new enrollees under the ACAs expansion of Medicaid and would place a per capita-based cap on the federal governments payments to states for medical assistance provided through Medicaid, CBO reported.

Story continues

Federal spending on Medicaid has increased more than on Medicare over the past few yearsto an average rate of 7.5 percent annually. That means Medicaid costs this year would be about $638 billion. But by 2026, Medicaid spending would be about 25 percent less than what CBO projects under current law.

As spending on Medicaid plummets, hospitals and other medical providers will incur steep losses to provide emergency treatment and services to those least able to pay for them.

Related: Ryan--We Dont Know How Many We Will Cover or How Much It Will Cost

Under Obamacare, states that chose to participate in Medicaid expansion, which opened the program to single, able-bodied adults, broadened their programs to cover people making up to 138 percent of poverty-level income. States could decide whether to participate in accordance with a landmark June 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

If the Republican replacement plan is ultimately enacted, the states would continue to receive expanded Medicaid benefits until 2020. After that, the federal government would pay 90 percent of the cost of existing eligible beneficiaries while new beneficiaries would be funded at a much lower level. Eventually, the expanded program would be phased out.

Prior to the ACA, hospitals throughout the country struggled to cover the cost of charitable treatment of low-income patients, bad debts or inadequate reimbursement from Medicaid because of regional disparities in health care costs. Medicaid payments to hospitals and other providers amounted to 90 percent of the costs of patient care in 2013, according to estimates by the American Hospital Association.

Related: Medicare Could Save Nearly $16 Billion a Year Negotiating Drug Prices

Many studies  including one by researchers at Northwestern University -- have shown that reductions in uncompensated care costs almost exclusively occurred in states that expanded Medicaid, according to the Healthcare Financial Management Association.

The uninsured has gone from 18 percent to 11 percent of the population. It's been very beneficial, particularly to my [hospital] members who are in lower-income neighborhoods and lower-income parts of this country and rural hospitals, too, Thomas Nickels, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, told National Public Radio on Monday. So it will be a burden on the hospitals to have to have additional uncompensated care.

Unfunded care in Medicaid expansion states fell from 4.1 percentage points of operating costs to 3.2 percentage points, said a report by the Healthcare Financial Management Association last August. In non-expansion states, uncompensated care costs continued close to their existing trend, remaining at about 5.7 percentage points of hospitals operating costs, the report stated.

Related: The GOP Health Plan: A Giant Step in the Wrong Direction or Merely Step One?

The Healthcare Financial Management Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Department of Health and Human Services, and Kaiser Family Foundation all found dramatic reductions in unfunded care resulting from both the ACAs cost-saving mandates and Medicaid expansion.

The reports generally defined uncompensated care costs as the sum of losses on charity care and bad debt. Nickels warned that hospitals throughout the country would suffer a serious financial setback if the Republican Congress succeeds in rolling back expanded Medicaid.

We would definitely want to continue that Medicaid expansion into the future.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Much of the focus around the Obamacare repeal debate has centered on what would happen to people who buy insurance on their own, but about half of Americans are insured through their jobsa situation that has shielded them from many of the concerns around Obamacare and its repeal.

But by 2020, about 2 million fewer people would get insurance through work if the GOPs proposed Obamacare replacement bill, the American Health Care Act, passes, according to a scorecard report released today by the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that tracks the financial impact of legislation.

The CBO projects this will happen because the AHCA would repeal Obamacares individual mandate, so some people might not sign up for their employers health plan, with no threat of being fined later. But also, the GOP bill might induce more employers to stop offering health insurance.

Recommended: Why Dentistry Is Separate From Medicine

Thats because the bill would also repeal the employer mandate, which requires businesses above a certain size to offer health coverage to their workers. The AHCA would also offer tax credits to buy insurance to people making up to $75,000 a year, so more upper-middle-class workers could shop for insurance for themselves than under the current system, in which the cutoff for subsidies is around $48,000.

The CBO projects that employers would decide to drop coverage gradually, and that those who would opt to do so would have younger, higher-income workforces.

There is one thing serving as a check on businesses dropping coverage, though. Businesses are legally obligated to cover their rank-and-file employees if they want to insure their executives, and not offering health insurance would make it harder to recruit people at the managerial level and above, according to Rob Shapiro, a former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce and cofounder of Sonecon, an economic and security advisory firm.

Story continues

If businesses did stop offering coverage, the plans that people found on the individual market might not be as cushy as the ones they were offered through their jobs. The AHCAs tax credits are considered to be less generous than Obamacares for most people, and the available individual-market plans would be skimpier.

The CBO also projected that in 2018 and 2019, average premiums for single people buying insurance on their own would be 15 percent to 20 percent higher than they are now. By 2026, the agency projects, premiums would be 10 percent lower than they are nowbut thats in part because plans under the new law would cover a smaller percentage of peoples health-care costs.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
To prepare for the Law School Admission Test the summer before senior year at the University at Buffalo--SUNY, James Ingram hired a tutor, worked through prep books, and even acquired a special LSAT w atch to practice keeping track of the exam's six strict 35-minute time intervals, five devoted to testing his ability to comprehend and analyze complex material and one to an unscored but important essay.

Not satisfied with his score of 158, Ingram doubled down on doing practice tests and took the LSAT again. His 166 impressed several top law schools, including those at Boston University, the University of Iowa, Emory University and George Washington University Law School, where he is a first-year student.

[Don't let low grades keep you from applying to grad school.]

Ingram's belief that a strong LSAT score is essential to "get your foot in the door" at the best schools has long been true. But people pondering a law degree now stand to benefit by an across-the-board softening in scores accepted, says Anna Ivey, former dean of admissions at the University of Chicago Law School and founder of Ivey Consulting, an admissions advising company.

The top schools do remain extremely competitive, but overall the number of applicants is down considerably since law jobs began disappearing during the recession.

At GW Law, applications are off 21 percent since 2011, prompting a drop in median LSAT scores from 167 to 165. Boston College Law School and the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill School of Law, both of which accepted Ingram, have seen decreases in applications of 36 percent and 44 percent, respectively, and a similar drop in median scores.

There's little doubt that your test scores can have a big impact on your competitiveness in many disciplines, experts say; graduate programs still use scores as their top indicator of an applicant's likelihood to succeed. And great scores improve your odds of landing scholarships: Ingram earned a merit scholarship at GW that covers half of his $56,000 annual tuition.

Story continues

How much scores count is the No. 1 question applicants ask him, says Stanley Dunn, vice provost and dean of graduate education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI looks at test scores as a starting point, Dunn says, and if scores are on the low side, checks to see if the applicant makes up for it in other ways.

Grad school advisers say it's essential to get to know the test you are taking and to prep for it carefully. Here's what to expect of the various other exams .

[Evaluate needs and goals before picking grad school test prep.]

The Medical College Admission Test: Future doctors need the ability to master new information rapidly and the communication skills to succeed in a patient-centered system. Thus the MCAT overhaul in 2015, which added questions on sociology and psychology as well as biochemistry and now tests skills in scientific reasoning and problem-solving, research design and data analysis.

The test nearly doubled in length, with four multiple-choice sections each lasting 90 or 95 minutes. Instead of zeroing in just on scores and grades, reviewers also are increasingly doing a holistic review, looking at applicants' backgrounds and experiences.

The Graduate Record Examination: Th e GRE tests verbal, quantitative reasoning and writing skills and is required for most programs in the arts and sciences. The three sections last 30 or 35 minutes each.

Many graduate programs look for balanced verbal and quantitative scores. Alexander Wiseman, associate professor at Lehigh University's College of Education, says many applicants have strong verbal scores, but students who also show strength on the quantitative side have an edge.

Engineering schools typically look for strong quantitative scores. But given the need for engineers with communication skills, a low verbal score can really hurt, Dunn notes.

[Learn how to decide between submitting the GMAT or GRE.]

The Graduate Management Admission Test: Students weighing business school generally take the GMAT, a 3 1/2-hour online exam with writing, integrated reasoning, verbal and quantitative sections. B-schools are continuing to track very high GMAT scores for incoming classes.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management saw an eight -point increase in its 2016 average, and among the top 10 business schools there was a 3.4-point average increase, according to the latest U.S. News data. Most business schools also accept the GRE.

It's important to know, too, Dunn says, that reviewers look for signs that the program and applicant are a good "fit." He wishes more people obsessed with the tests would focus first on whether a program is the right match.

This story is excerpted from the U.S. News "Best Graduate Schools 2018" guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
Photo credit: Gradythebadger / Wikimedia Commons

From Popular Mechanics

Just because there are no blank spots left on the map doesn't mean every spot on the map is created equal. There are places on the surface of this planet yet untouched by human foot, as this video from Real Life Lore explains.

Remote islands without airstrips are among the least accessible places in the modern world. There are inhabited ones like British-owned Pitcairn in the South Pacific, where the journey from London requires flights around the world and boat rides that leave just once every three months. If you're willing to wait long enough, though, far-flung islands are within reach. To find places that may not even be accessible to humans, you've got to look to the mountaintops.

You've heard of some of the famously difficult summits like Everest and K2, where relatively few people have reached the zenith-and plenty have died in the process. However, Real Life Lore argues the hardest place to get to is not these but peaks that remain unvisited by people. There's Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, where climbing would be not only insanely difficult but also forbidden by the government. And then perhaps the title holder, Muchu Chhish in Pakistan.

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Talking about the weather might be a dull move at dinner parties or over cocktails. But online, it seems there's no more captivating topic than the snow, sleet, rain or ice falling outside our windows.

The Weather Channel has capitalized on this interest by giving unofficial names to winter storms, in turn spawning hashtags and headlines that blanket the internet. As anyone on Twitter saw on Tuesday, the entire U.S. Northeast was gabbing about #StellaBlizzard.

SEE ALSO: Blizzard of 2017: What does bombogenesis mean?

The storm was expected to dump at least a foot of snow on as many as 100 million people across the northern U.S. Some meteorologists described the storm system as "bombogenesis," a fancy way of saying an area of low pressure is rapidly intensifying.

#StellaBlizzard has spared New York City of its worst, but much of the Northeast remains under warning. https://t.co/GnC46uDkXz  Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) March 14, 2017

Boom! South Salem NY. One of the sweet spots! :Erin Jacobs @WeatherInTheHud pic.twitter.com/ZvcTlNlkIY  Eweather (@Eweather13) March 14, 2017

The Weather Channel started naming winter storms in the 2013-2013 winter season  a first for a private forecasting service. While U.S. government agencies name tropical storms and hurricanes, they don't name winter storms like Stella.

Naming storms helps alert more people to winter weather warnings and enables them to better prepare, The Weather Channel has said.

"It's an attempt to focus communication on social media around either an upcoming or an ongoing storm," said Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist for The Weather Channel and one of three members on the network's storm-naming committee.

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"It's easier to hashtag something like #Stella, as opposed to 'The Northeast Winter Storm Of 2017,'" he said by phone from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Nrn. NJ 'burbs getting pummeled. This is how close this forecast was to NYC itself. Impressive bright-banding from KDIX (50+ dbz). #Stella pic.twitter.com/blbmmcM2gb  Jonathan Erdman (@wxjerdman) March 14, 2017

These names and hashtags also drive plenty of social media traffic. During "Jonas," the winter storm that buried the East Coast in snow in January 2016, The Weather Channel saw a significant boost.

Compared to the week before Jonas, The Weather Channel's Twitter handle saw a 73 percent increase in link clicks; a 76 percent boost in retweets; a 371 percent increase in likes; plus twice as many impressions per day, according to The Weather Company, the forecasting company and IBM subsidiary that owns Weather.com and shares data and expertise with the TV network.

Its daily reach on Facebook spiked on Jan. 24, 2016, reaching an audience of about 23.8 million users.

One year ago today, #WashCoMD residents began to dig out from Winter Storm #Jonas, 5th largest storm to hit countyhttps://t.co/xEqFgfv1sM pic.twitter.com/8Fl1LdP9FZ  Herald-Mail Media (@HeraldMailNews) January 23, 2017

The decision to name storms initially drew scrutiny from meteorologists and weather geeks.

In October 2012, rival forecast outfit AccuWeather said the storm-naming "has confused media spin with science and public safety" and was "doing a disservice" to meteorology and public service.

"Winter storms are very different from hurricanes,"Joel N. Myers, president of AccuWeather, said at the time.

The National Weather Service doesn't name winter storms, in part because they can be so widespread and diffuse. Impacts may vary from place to place: one town might get a light dusting of snow, while others might see dangerous winds and snowfall, or endure a gross barrage of sleet.

By 1pm, sleet and rain will be mixing in with the snow across NYC and coastal southern New England. #Stella pic.twitter.com/P2Agfq49Ft  #STELLA (@newszbreakinwx) March 14, 2017

However, the U.K. Met Office does name winter storms, including Doris, which walloped northern Ireland, Scotland and England last month.

Erdman said The Weather Channel would gladly forfeit its role to the National Weather Service, should the government decide to start naming winter storms.

"It was never meant to be something that we continue to do ad nauseam just at The Weather Channel," he said.

Along with Erdman, the winter storm naming committee includes senior weather experts Tom Niziol and Stu Ostro. Over the past four seasons, the team has named an average of about 24 winter storms per season, with 22 storms in the 2015-2016 season.

Image: The weather group

A winter storm earns a name when it meets one of two criteria: Either 2 million people are under a National Weather Service warning for a winter storm, blizzard or freezing rain event  or those warnings span an area of about 154,400 square miles.

In most cases, the trio will wait until those warnings are issued to finally label a storm. But occasionally, the experts will unveil the name before the National Weather Service alerts residents.

In the case of Stella, the team named the storm on Saturday morning, three days before Stella began pummeling the East Coast with precipitation.

A New Yorker braves Stella's wintry mix on March 14.

Image: kevin hagen/Getty Images

"Stella was such a slam dunk; we knew it was going to reach our criteria," Erdman said.

When it comes to picking the names, however, the committee relies on outside experts.

This 2016-2017 winter season, The Weather Channel collaborated with students in Bozeman High School's Latin class in Montana. After Stella, keep an eye out for these winter storms: Theseus, Ursa, Valerie, Wyatt, Xavier, Yuri and Zeno.
(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday: HEALTHCARE Trump and congressional leaders are weighing changes to their effort to dismantle the Obamacare health law, a White House spokesman says, as Republicans defend their plan following an estimate that it would cause 14 million Americans to lose insurance next year. SAUDI ARABIA Trump meets Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House for a discussion likely to touch on investment opportunities in the kingdom and efforts to stop the war in Syria. PALESTINIANS Trump's Middle East envoy holds his first talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, amid Palestinian concerns that the new administration in Washington is more favorably disposed toward Israel. TRADE Trump's nominee for U.S. trade representative tells U.S. senators he agrees with Trump's call for an "America First" trade policy with better-negotiated trade deals and stronger enforcement of U.S. trade laws. Trump's nominee to be U.S. trade representative says that he believes China substantially manipulated its currency in the past to gain a trade advantage, but it was unclear if Beijing is still doing so. Trump's nominee to be U.S. trade representative says he is "awaiting instructions" from Trump on whether to support a restoration of the Export-Import Bank's full lending powers. IMMIGRATION The White House says that Trump does not agree with a controversial tweet on immigration and birth rates by Republican Representative Steve King. AIRLINE INDUSTRY Airline industry group IATA is concerned about protectionist rhetoric from the United States and other governments but sees the Trump administration's plans to invest in infrastructure as positive for the industry. G20 A senior Canadian Finance Ministry official says there is a lot of uncertainty over what direction the United States wants to take on issues such as trade and taxation policy ahead of the upcoming meeting of G20 finance ministers. MARKETS One of the biggest mysteries in global markets so far in the Trump era is the historically low level of volatility that has prevailed despite all the turmoil and uncertainty that analysts warned his victory would unleash. Shares of hospitals and health insurers fall after the U.S. Congressional Budget Office forecasts that 14 million Americans will lose medical insurance by next year under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare. (Compiled by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis; Editing by James Dalgleish)
(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Monday: HEALTHCARE Fourteen million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare, the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office says in a report that dealt a potential setback to Trump's first major legislative initiative. A Republican plan to repeal taxes set under Obamacare would benefit the wealthiest U.S. households at more than five times the rate for middle-income families, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. WIRETAPPING ALLEGATION The U.S. Department of Justice asks for more time to respond to a request from lawmakers for evidence about Trump's allegation that then-President Barack Obama wiretapped him during the 2016 election campaign. TRAVEL BAN A group of states renew their effort to block Trump's revised temporary ban on refugees and travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, arguing that his executive order is the same as the first one that was halted by federal courts. GERMANY Trump's meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been pushed back from Tuesday until Friday because of the winter storm bearing down on the northeastern United States, the White House says. Ahead of her trip to Washington, Merkel tells business leaders in Munich that free trade is important for both the United States and Germany. CHINA Trump is planning to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at a two-day summit next month, according to media reports, as his administration seeks to smooth relations with the world's second-largest economy. ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS Trump's Middle East envoy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet in Jerusalem as the new administration tries to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. AUTO STANDARDS Trump is set to formally announce a review of vehicle fuel efficiency rules locked in at the end of the Obama administration when he meets with automaker chiefs this week, according to two sources briefed on the matter. BUDGET Trump on Thursday unveils his 2018 budget emphasizing a military buildup, and some Republicans are concerned they will be forced to choose between opposing the president or backing reductions in popular programs such as aid for disabled children and hot meals for the elderly. ADMINISTRATION The U.S. Senate confirms Trump's pick to run the government health programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, Medicare and Medicaid, filling a critical role as Republicans fight to repeal and replace Obamacare. (Compiled by Bill Trott, Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Sandra Maler)
Netflix is getting serious about upping its movie-making game  for real this time.

The streaming giant has tapped veteran film producer Scott Stuber to head the acquisition, development and production of high profile film properties at Netflix, which is positioning itself more as a full blown Hollywood studio with every move.

SEE ALSO: Netflix teases a gadget that lets you browse with just your brain

And for that effort, Stuber is a big get. He previously served as co-president of production at Universal Pictures, where he helped oversee big projects including films in the Fast and the Furious franchise and A Beautiful Mind.

He currently runs production company Bluegrass Films, which is under Universal, with Dylan Clark.

Scott is well known and respected in the film industry. His innovative work and strong talent relationships should help accelerate the Netflix original film initiative as we enter into a new phase of big global productions with some of the greatest directors, actors and writers in the film business, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said in a statement. This is an unprecedented time of change and opportunity and we look forward to having Scott lead the way as we help evolve the way films are made, distributed and celebrated around the world.

The move was expected, though Stuber was also being courted to take over for the departing Brad Grey at Paramount, which is homing in on former 20th Century Fox head Jim Gianopulos as his replacement.

The news comes just weeks after the Oscars, where both Netflix and Amazon took home statuettes for the first time.

The popular streaming platforms have spent years paying their dues  making the rounds at all the major film festivals, courting top-tier talent and generating buzz with unique originals.

Iranian film The Salesman, which Amazon is distributing in the U.S., and Netflix's documentary The White Helmets won for Best Foreign Film and Best Documentary Short, respectively. Amazon and Roadside Attraction's Manchester by the Sea also took home two Oscars for Best Original Screenplay (Kenneth Lonergan) and Best Actor (Casey Affleck).

Story continues

Last year Netflix aggressively campaigned for Beasts of No Nation, but was ultimately shut out of the Oscars race.

Its documentary division has long since reached powerhouse status; the streaming giant nabbed its first Oscar nomination in 2014 for its documentary The Square. Two years later it scored nominations for documentary features: What Happened, Miss Simone? and Winter on Fire: Ukraines Fight for Freedom. This year, Ava DuVernay's 13th was nominated for Best Documentary.

At the Sundance Film Festival this year, Netflix snatched nine films (including a handful of acclaimed documentaries), the most of any other studio (though Amazon paid the most for a single title, $12.5 million for The Big Sick).

Now the company is clearly hoping to make Hollywood its playground, and not just through acquisition or Adam Sandler-type deals.

In fact Netflix soon has two in-house productions coming to the service: War Machine, the David Michod-directed film which stars Brad Pitt, and the David Ayer-directed Bright, which stars Will Smith.

With the hiring of Stuber, those two films will soon be housed in a bona fide film division.
In just one more instance of the unpredictable events of 2017, scientists have noticed that some humpback whales are gathering in puzzling super-groups of up to 200 animals, instead of their usual small crew.

The majestic whales, known for their annual migration, are generally considered pretty solitary, even their migratory pods have tended to be small, under a dozen.

Not so any longer.

Ive never seen anything like this, said Ken Findlay, the lead author in a new study out of South Africas Cape Peninsula University of Technology analyzing their mysterious behavior in recent years. Theyve been found off the southern African coast gathering in groups between 20 and 200 whales as they devour their fishy prey.

[N]o such dense feeding aggregations have been reported elsewhere in low or mid latitudes during Southern Hemisphere humpback whale migrations. Indeed, aggregations of whales of this size have seldom been reported in the literature, with large groups often numbering in the range of 10 to 20 or less, Findlay further explained.

There are a few other weird things going on with the humpbacks, too. For starters, they werent even normally supposed to be in South Africa in the summer months; thats when they usually make their way all the way south to Antarctica. Further, despite heavy whaling that endangered their population in the 19th and 20th century, humpback populations have made a dramatic and comeback in recent years, potentially influencing their feeding habits and migration patterns.
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., slammed White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday, comparing the daily media briefing and its defenses of President Trump to self-parody.

I really dont mean to be flippant, but apparently we are in the business of creating scripts for Saturday Night Live, Quigley said on CNNs OutFront. I dont even know where the satire begins.

The comment was in reference to Mondays press briefing, in which Spicer attempted to clarify Trumps evidence-free allegation that former President Barack Obama wiretapped the phones in Trump Tower prior to the election. Spicer claimed that Trump used the word wiretapping in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities.

Quigley, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, rejected this defense, saying, These are extraordinarily serious allegations about the former president and our entire system. To think that you even begin to make that kind of allegation without the proof in front of you is an extraordinary affront to the entire democratic system.

The congressman was also on air to address the news that the Department of Justice asked his committee for additional time to provide evidence of Trumps wiretap allegations. The Justice Department was granted an extension until March 20 by the chairman and vice chairman of the committee.

Asked if he supported the deadline extension, Quigley said, I guess we dont have any choice. The informations not forthcoming. But at some point in time, they have to stop this charade.

Story continues

"At some point in time, they have to stop this charade" @RepMikeQuigley on DOJ needing more time to collect evidence https://t.co/hBL1Z4onrl  OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) March 13, 2017

And after todays rather unique White House response, I guess were going to have to expand our request to include household appliances, including vacuum cleaners, microwaves, and whatnot, Quigley quipped, referring to Kellyanne Conways recent assertion that microwaves that turn into cameras can be used to carry out surveillance.

And I guess finally, its so absurd, I suggest that the White House put their best person on this investigation themselves, Quigley suggested. At this point, that sounds like Inspector Clouseau.

Read more from Yahoo News:
For Indias biggest drug makers, the Trump administration offers a mix of promise and peril.

On one hand, these companies supply many lower-cost generics to the United States, a key advantage as President Trump accuses most brand-name drug makers of getting away with murder when it comes to pricing. But Indian drug makers also fret the Trump administration will place them at a disadvantage with any policies that favor domestic jobs stemming from products made in the US.

Read the rest...
AUSTIN, Texas  For a generation of school kids, Bill Nye is zany and fun-loving, Americas favorite scientist.

A mostly flattering new documentary about the science educator, author, and mechanical engineer, which premiered here Sunday at the South by Southwest festival, chronicles how Nye drew inspiration from Carl Sagan as well as how he sparred with creationists and climate change deniers.

Beyond Nyes determination to make science accessible, the film, Bill Nye: Science Guy, delves into more personal subjects, including his pursuit of fame and his personal relationships. Nye even seemed a bit wistful about his personal life, saying in the film: There were opportunities to get married and have babies. At point he acknowledges he keeps a distance from people: I wont commit.

After the showing, Nye, who cooperated with the project but said he was seeing the complete film for the first time, told the audience, Wow  Im flawed. OK?

Read more: In Trump era, a leading science group exhorts its members: Do not retreat to the microscope

In an interview with STAT before the screening, Nye, 61, spoke of how his interest in science education has taken on new importance with the election of President Trump. He was sporting his trademark bow tie, this one dotted with little atoms.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

Does this documentary have more relevance now that Trump is president?

We are living in an extraordinary time when people are eschewing or suppressing science. The United States was for my whole life the worlds most foremost technically advanced society, the only society that could land a spacecraft on Mars successfully. So maybe it is more relevant. And if it is, thats good. Except that it needs to be? Thats not so good. So well see.

Are you participating in the science march on Washington next month? Is it a good idea?

Yeah, Ill be there. The idea is good. Theres a lot fewer scientists than women, so itll be compared to the womens march. But thats OK. We just want to emphasize the importance of it. The reason we have this digital phone [brandishing his phone] or all these digital cameras, the reason we have these lights or textiles that youre wearing, or that youve lived this long without dying because you had healthy food and clean water, is because of science.

Story continues

Weve elected an administration thats supporting people that are anti-science. I dont know how long thatll last.

What are your thoughts on the controversial legislation in Congress that would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing?

I wouldnt be surprised if thats commonplace, eventually.

Read more: House Republicans would let employers demand workers genetic test results

Do you worry about that?

No. What you worry about is the conclusions that are drawn. When you go to a job interview, the person is sizing you up. So just think about, what is it thats going to get an employer to not hire you? To find out that you need glasses? Or something according to your DNA? I think the concern is overblown. The problem is when you start connecting insurance rates to probabilities that arent especially reliable.

Did you have a favorite in the CRISPR patent gene-editing battle? (The Broad Institute prevailed last month in a heated dispute with the University of California over gene-editing technology.)

No. No. I really didnt. Sorry. More power to them.

Is it a big deal?

CRISPR will be a big deal. Maybe not in the next 10 years but in the next 40 years, CRISPR will be everywhere.

How much are you worried about Trump and the administration?

We are trying to work with the administration in space exploration. And I think, just shooting from the hip, my understanding is that Mr. Bannon [Steve Bannon, the top White House strategist] wants to disassemble the government. That was his idea. So he has gotten the president to hire people that are  for lack of a better word  extraordinary choices to head certain agencies. But I think the agencies have inertia. And there are laws. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency. I think the bureaucrats will just roll their eyes at promoting fossil fuel expansion and extraction industries. And then I think the Department of Education people will just roll their eyes at someone who doesnt know much about their business.

But the concern is if a war is started accidentally. And the greenhouse gasses that are emitted in the interim  before the extraordinary people are replaced with regular people  that you cant get that back. You put carbon dioxide in the air now, its effect will be there for 200 years. Its hard to reverse.

Other lessons from election?

I hope people stop denying science. The big one is climate change. But also vaccinations, and that theres a problem of consuming too much for too few people and so inefficiently. Respect the science!

Your take on the documentary? (Asked before the screening.)

I signed a deal almost three years ago to have no creative control over the film. I hope its really good. I hope the film changes the world. I hope it doesnt end my career.
Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces said Tuesday they recaptured Mosul train station, once one of the country's main rail hubs and the latest in a series of key sites retaken from jihadists.

Baghdad's forces launched a major drive last month to oust the Islamic State group from west Mosul, a battle that has pushed more than 80,000 people to flee their homes in less than three weeks.

Iraqi forces have now taken back a series of neighbourhoods as well as sites including the city's airport, the Mosul museum and the provincial government headquarters since the operation began.

Some, including the museum which was vandalised by IS, have been heavily damaged, and it is likely to be a long time before trains again run to and from Mosul.

But retaking the sites has meant symbolic victories for Iraqi forces and also brings them closer to fully recapturing west Mosul, despite the prospect of tough fighting ahead.

Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, the commander of the federal police, said his forces have retaken the train station and a nearby bus station, both of which are southwest of Mosul's Old City.

The train station was the "main corridor from the north to the south and carries goods from Turkey and Syria to Baghdad and Basra", Salam Jabr Saloom, the director general of Iraq's state-owned railway company, told AFP.

Because of its importance, the station was "exposed to many terrorist attacks before the entry of Daesh", Saloom said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Built in the 1940s, it was "very important from a trade standpoint" as it was a "launch point for trains carrying goods to Syria and Turkey and back", railway company spokesman Abdulsattar Mohsen said.

"But it stopped after the Daesh attack on Mosul," Mohsen said, referring to an IS offensive that overran the city and swathes of other territory north and west of Baghdad in 2014.

Trains also once carried passengers to and from Mosul, but have not done so since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led forces in 2003, he said.

Story continues

- 'Horrendous conditions' at prisons -

Iraqi forces are operating on the edge of the Old City, a warren of narrow streets and closely spaced buildings where hundreds of thousands of people may still be living.

The area, in which they will have to advance on foot when armoured vehicles cannot enter the small streets, could see some of the toughest fighting of the Mosul campaign.

Iraqi forces are also battling IS outside the city, with the Joint Operations Command announcing that soldiers from the 16th Division had recaptured the villages of Sheikh Mohammed and Al-Jamaliyah northwest of Mosul.

More than 80,000 people have fled west Mosul since February 25, according to the International Organization for Migration.

And 238,000 people are currently displaced due to fighting in the Mosul area, while more fled but later returned to their homes, the IOM said.

Security forces are searching for jihadists trying to sneak out of the city among civilians, and according to Human Rights Watch, more than 1,200 men and boys suspected of IS ties are being held in "horrendous conditions" at sites south of Mosul.

"The Iraqi interior ministry is holding at least 1,269 detainees, including boys as young as 13, without charge in horrendous conditions and with limited access to medical care at... makeshift prisons," HRW said in a report.

"At least four prisoners have died, in cases that appear to be linked to lack of proper medical care and poor conditions and two prisoners' legs have been amputated, apparently because of lack of treatment for treatable wounds," it said.

The facilities are in Qayyarah and Hamam al-Alil, said HRW, which visited some of them earlier this month.

The rights watchdog said the makeshift prisons were under the authority of the interior ministry intelligence service, which is interrogating people handed over by security forces fighting IS.

Iraq was under heavy pressure to improve its procedures for the Mosul operation after people reported torture and other abuses during screening of those who fled Fallujah, which Baghdad's forces retook from IS last year.

While changes do seem to have been made, the HRW allegations indicate that significant problems remain with screening procedures -- problems that breed anger and resentment that drives more people into the arms of militants.
Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces said Tuesday that they recaptured Mosul's train station, which has not been operational since jihadists siezed the city but was once one of the country's main rail hubs.

Iraqi forces launched a major push to retake west Mosul from the Islamic State group last month, advancing in to the area from the south and retaking a series of neighbourhoods and sites including the provincial government headquarters and the famed Mosul museum.

Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, the commander of the federal police, said in a statement that his forces have added the train station as well as a nearby bus station to that list, both of which are located southwest of Mosul's Old City.

The station was the "main corridor from the north to the south and carries goods from Turkey and Syria to Baghdad and Basra," said Salam Jabr Saloom, the director general of Iraq's state-owned railway company, told AFP.

Because of its importance, the station was "exposed to many terrorist attacks before the entry of Daesh," Saloom said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The station was built in the 1940s, and was "very important from a trade standpoint," as it was a "launch point for trains carrying goods to Syria and Turkey and back," railway company spokesman Abdulsattar Mohsen told AFP.

"But it stopped after the Daesh attack on Mosul," Mohsen said, referring to an IS offensive that overran the city and swathes of other territory north and west of Baghdad in 2014.

Trains from Mosul once carried passengers as well, but have not done so since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led forces in 2003, he said.

Iraqi forces are operating on the edge of the Old City, a warren of narrow streets and closely spaced buildings where hundreds of thousands of people may still reside.

The area, in which they will have to advance on foot when armoured vehicles cannot enter the small streets, could see some of the toughest fighting of the Mosul campaign.

Iraqi forces launched the massive operation to retake Mosul in October, first retaking its eastern side and then setting their sights on the smaller but more densely-populated west.
It starts: US threatens to leave 'human rights council'

Tillerson, in his letter to the U.N. advocates and human rights groups, said that while the United States continues to evaluate the effectiveness of the Council, it remains skeptical about the virtues of membership in a human rights organization that includes states with troubled human rights records such as China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

We may not share a common view on this, given the makeup of the membership, Tillerson told the organizations, who have urged continued U.S. membership. While it may be the only such organization devoted to human rights, the Human Rights Council requires considerable reform in order for us to continue to participate.

If the United States ultimately were to withdraw from the Council, that would mark a victory for one of two factions within the Trump administration debating the future of U.S. policy at the United Nations.

Many who despise the Council want the U.S. to stay in and undermine efforts by others to obsesses over Israeland put the spotlight back on human rights abusers the Council regularly ignores, said a GOP congressional aide. But there are others who see that as fruitless and wasted diplomatic effort.

...

For the time being, Tillerson wrote, the U.S. will participate in the ongoing session of the Human Rights Council, to reiterate our strong principled objection to the Human Rights Councils biased agenda against Israel.

Our aim is to fix the organization, the Tillerson aide told FP .

Tillerson said U.S. priorities including renewing the mandate of a U.N. Commission of inquiry into atrocities in Syria, and underscoring U.S. support for U.N. special rapporteurs for Iran, North Korea, and Burma. He also said Washington would seek to renew the mandates of special rapporteurs investigating the use of torture and promoting freedom of expression.

UN advocates said it was unclear whether the administration is really mulling a withdrawal, or simply putting more pressure on for reform.

Sadly, the United Nations and its constituent bodies, including the 'human rights council,' exist only to give prominence to an anti-Israel agenda. They have long since outlived their usefulness, and ought to be shut down. The land that they currently occupy on the east side of Manhattan would be worth far more as condominiums or office buildings.

The times, they are a changing. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has issued a clear threat to one of the 'achievements' of the Obama administration - the decision to join the United Nations 'human rights council.' In a letter obtained by Foreign Policy Magazine, Tillerson has told the council that unless it reforms itself, the United States will leave

Labels: anti-Israel bias, Barack Hussein Obama, Donald Trump, Rex Tillerson, United Nations Human Rights Council
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraq's interior ministry is holding over 1,200 men and boys suspected of ties to jihadists in "horrendous conditions" without charge at facilities south of Mosul, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

Iraqi forces are fighting to retake second city Mosul from the Islamic State jihadist group, recapturing its east before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely-populated west.

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of west Mosul since February 25, and security forces are searching for IS jihadists trying to sneak out of the city among civilians.

"The Iraqi interior ministry is holding at least 1,269 detainees, including boys as young as 13, without charge in horrendous conditions and with limited access to medical care at three makeshift prisons," HRW said in a report.

"At least four prisoners have died, in cases that appear to be linked to lack of proper medical care and poor conditions and two prisoners' legs have been amputated, apparently because of lack of treatment for treatable wounds," the watchdog said.

The interior ministry's spokesman said he could not comment on the report until it had been reviewed by the minister.

The facilities are located in Qayyarah and Hamam al-Alil, said HRW, which visited some of them earlier this month.

The rights group said that the makeshift prisons were under the authority of the interior ministry intelligence service, which is interrogating people handed over by security forces fighting IS.

Iraq was under heavy pressure to improve its procedures for the Mosul operation after people reported torture and other abuses during screening of those who fled Fallujah, which Baghdad's forces retook from IS last year.

While changes do seem to have been made, the HRW allegations indicate that significant problems remain with screening procedures -- problems that breed anger and resentment that drives more people into the arms of militants.
By Steven Scheer JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's government will receive about 4 billion shekels ($1.1 billion) after Intel's planned $15.3 billion purchase of self-driving car tech firm Mobileye, helping the government cut more taxes, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said on Tuesday. Kahlon said that the extra revenue was small compared with the total annual tax take of almost 300 billion shekels but that it would help the government cut other taxes. The funds from the Mobileye deal will come from capital gains taxes of as much as 30 percent that top shareholders will pay when they sell their stakes in the company. Kahlon said even without the Mobileye deal, the largest technology takeover in Israel's history, he was planning tax cuts. "I am in favour of lowering taxes. I have lowered taxes in the past. It's my policy," Kahlon said on Army Radio. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and Kahlon had agreed to formulate a plan to reduce taxes to further stimulate economic activity. The Bank of Israel opposes tax cuts, believing excess revenue should go towards debt reduction. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said funds from the Mobileye deal should be diverted to bolstering the public health system. Israel's economy grew 4 percent in 2016 but growth is expected to slow to around 3.5 percent this year. In January, Kahlon said he would consider more tax cuts this year if tax revenue kept exceeding expectations. He lowered corporate tax by one point to 24 percent at the start of 2017, and the rate will drop to 23 percent at the start of 2018. Income taxes were also reduced. Kahlon declined to detail what taxes would be lowered in the next round but local media said value-added tax would fall from the current 17 percent while corporate taxes would be cut again. A spokesman for Kahlon was not available to comment. In the first two months of 2017, Israel collected 51.8 billion shekels in tax revenue, 6 percent more than a year earlier. ($1 = 3.6600 shekels) (Editing by Hugh Lawson)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel ordered the closure of an office in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday saying it was funded by the Palestinian Authority and involved with monitoring the sale of Palestinian property to Jews, police said. Israel forbids any official activity by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, saying it breaches Israel's sovereignty over the city, which it has declared its indivisible capital, although this is not recognized internationally. But a Palestinian official said that the map office run by Khalil Tafakji, who was detained briefly by Israeli police, was not funded by the Palestinian Authority and was not in breach of any agreements. Although Israel forbids the Palestinian Authority from operating in Jerusalem, in the 1990s, after the Oslo interim peace accords were signed, then-Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres promised the Palestinians in a letter not to harm their institutions in the city. Israel's internal security minister said the office, which drafts maps, was "monitoring and documenting" Palestinian-owned land in East Jerusalem, scrutinizing changes Israel has made to the terrain and passing on the names of landowners planning to sell. "Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan ordered the closure of the Palestinian map office which has resumed operations in Beit Hanina in Jerusalem," a police statement said. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called the closure a "provocative act" and part of an effort by Israel "to erase any Palestinian presence in the city". However, in a statement Erdan said: "The Palestinian map office is part of the PA's plan to harm our sovereignty in Jerusalem and to threaten Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city. I will continue to act firmly to prevent any Palestinian government foothold in Jerusalem." Police seized documents and computers from Tafakji's office, in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in the northern part of Jerusalem. A family member said he was released hours after being detained. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, together with the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel occupied East Jerusalem after capturing it in a 1967 war, a move not recognized internationally. Since annexing East Jerusalem in 1980, Israel has greatly expanded its presence in that part of the city, building settlements and major pieces of infrastructure. Private Jewish groups have also sought to buy up Palestinian homes in eastern neighborhoods to expand the Jewish presence in the east. (Reporting by Ammar Awad, and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Writing by Ori Lewis, editing by Ralph Boulton)
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel's medical services have treated more than 2,600 Syrians wounded during their country's conflict since 2013, despite the two nations being officially at war, the Israeli army said Tuesday.

"The wounded are transferred to the border where they receive first aid from Israeli medical teams before being taken to hospitals," the army said on its website.

It did not say whether rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad were among those treated.

Assad's regime regularly accuses Israel of supporting "terrorists" -- a label it applies to all its opponents.

Israel and Syria have been officially at war for decades, though the border between the two countries was largely quiet until the Syrian conflict broke out in 2011.

The Jewish state has carried out a number of strikes inside Syria, several of them targeting Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an Israeli arch-foe and ally of the Syrian regime.
TIRANA, Albania (AP)  Italy's foreign minister is urging the European Union to send a strong message of commitment to western Balkan countries to help counter the nationalist rhetoric of some leaders in the region.

Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano on Tuesday was in Albania as part of preparations for a summit of some EU and western Balkan nations to be held in Trieste, Italy on July 12.

Launched by German Chancellor Angela Merkel four years ago, the so-called Berlin process each year gives leaders in the western Balkans a chance to discuss joint projects or platforms with help from the EU.

Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo are at different stages of being integrated into the bloc.

Domestic politics and tense relations in the region have been obstacles in the process.

"Due to that situation the EU should reaffirm its role as a main partner in the region and send a strong and concrete message of cooperation and commitment to all the western Balkan countries," Alfano said.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini toured the region earlier this month, trying to reassure Balkan countries that the EU remains open to enlarging despite discord in the 28-nation bloc.

Alfano said both the western Balkan countries and the rest of Europe would benefit from cooperation.

"The EU is not at an easy moment. But it is the most achieved institutional and political experiment of the world history," he said. "There is no other case where people at war, with millions of people dead, in a few decades achieve freedom, democracy, well-being and turn into the second industrial power in the world."
On Tuesday, one day before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson begins his first visit to Asia, warships from the United States, Japan, and South Korea began two days of drills to better be able to respond to ballistic missiles.

The drills, among three Aegis-equipped ships that can intercept ballistic missiles in flight, come hard on the heels of last weeks North Korean missile launch into the Sea of Japan. They also follow the deployment last week of the first parts of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile-defense system to South Korea.

Together, the deployments and the drills have raised temperatures in the region, prompting harsh language from Beijing and Pyongyang and promising to make Tillersons Asian tour particularly interesting. He will visit Japan, South Korea, and China.

Chinas foreign ministry took all sides to task on Tuesday. On the one hand, the DPRK insists on advancing its nuclear and missile programs in violation of UN Security Council resolutions; on the other hand, the US, the ROK and Japan are conducting large-scale military exercises, a spokesman said.

This is a vicious circle and an upward spiral of tensions. It will do no good to any country, he said.

North Korea, for its part, also lashed out at the exercises, threatening merciless, ultra-precision strikes if its sovereignty is impinged.

The missile defense exercises showcase not just tactical cooperation among Aegis-equipped ships  the more ships that work together, the better they should be able to track and shoot down incoming missiles  but also warmer ties between two U.S. allies often at loggerheads with each other, Japan and South Korea.

And its part and parcel of Japans naval forces playing a bigger part in the region. This week, it was reported that Tokyo will send its biggest warship on a three-month cruise through the disputed waters of the South China Sea, before joining U.S. and Indian forces for maneuvers. Japan isnt contesting the South China Sea, but has said it wants to preserve freedom of navigation there (and perhaps wants to send a message to China regarding the East China Sea, where there are islands to which both countries lay claim).

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The Chinese foreign ministry said a normal visit by Japanese ships is fine.

But if going to the South China Sea has different intentions, then thats a different matter.

Photo credit: KIM WON-JIN/AFP/Getty Images
The real estate company owned by President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has bagged more than $400 million deal with Chinese company Anbang Insurance Group. The prominent Chinese firm will invest in the Kushners marquee Manhattan office tower at 666 Fifth Avenue, reported Bloomberg Monday.

In 2007, at the age of 26 years, Kushner had bought 666 Fifth Avenue for what was then a record-setting $1.8 billion.

Read: Jared Kushner Driving White House Foreign Policy For President

The transaction of the deal between the Kushners and the Chinese firm, is being termed as unusually favorable" for the Kushners as the Manhattan tower has struggled financially and the family's company retains an equity stake in the partnership. According to the terms of the deal, a mortgage owed by the Kushners will also be reduced to a fifth of the current amount, Bloomberg reported.

Its unclear whether the deal could initiate a federal review, similar to when Anbang bought the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. Anbang could face a review by the Chinese government, which has been pressing to stop overseas investments and which has a range of pending issues with the Trump administration.

The talks for this deal had started last year when Jared Kushner had met Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of Anbang Insurance Group. "The Anbang talks, which have not previously been reported, began roughly six months ago  Well before the president-elects victory, Jared Kushners spokeswoman, Risa Heller, had said, the New York Times had reported in January.

The proposed partnership is also seeking additional investors through a controversial federal program, EB-5, which rewards wealthy foreign investors with green cards. A White House spokesman told Bloomberg that Kushner will recuse himself from subjects such as the EB-5 visa program.

News of the deal comes after a report that Trump will host Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, next month.

Related Articles
By Jeff Mason and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice said on Monday it had asked for more time to respond to a request from lawmakers for evidence about President Donald Trump's allegation that then-President Barack Obama wiretapped him during the 2016 election campaign. Earlier this month, without offering evidence, the Republican president accused his Democratic predecessor of wiretapping him, a charge that Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said was "simply false." In response, the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to the Justice Department requesting proof for the allegation by Monday. A department spokeswoman said it needed more time "to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist." The committee replied in a statement that it wanted a response by the time of a planned hearing on March 20, suggesting it would use a subpoena if that did not happen. "If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," a spokesman said. The Justice Department is not required to respond to the representatives request for evidence or meet its deadline. Trump declined to comment on Monday when asked by reporters about the wiretapping issue. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump's original statement, which he released on Twitter, referred to other types of surveillance besides wiretapping. "The president was very clear in his tweet that it was wiretapping - that spans a whole host of surveillance types of options. The House and the Senate intelligence committees will now look into that and provide a report back," he said. In fact, Trump only referred to wiretapping in his tweet, which read: "How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Under U.S. law, presidents cannot direct wiretapping. Instead, the federal government can ask a court to authorize the action, but it must provide justification. Republicans have distanced themselves from the president over the issue. Republican Senator John McCain on Sunday called on Trump to provide evidence for his allegation or retract it. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, has said he plans to question FBI Director James Comey over Trumps wiretapping charge. Comey has called on the Justice Department to deny the allegation, according to law enforcement sources. The issue may also come up at hearing set for Wednesday by a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on the methods used by Russia and other authoritarian governments for undermining democracies throughout the world. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, Republican Lindsey Graham, and the senior Democrat, Sheldon Whitehouse, wrote to Comey and acting Attorney General Dana Boente last Wednesday asking for "any warrant applications and court orders  redacted as necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods that may be compromised by disclosure, and to protect any ongoing investigations  related to wiretaps of President Trump, the Trump Campaign, or Trump Tower." (Additional reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Peter Cooney)
LONDON (AP)  Tottenham says striker Harry Kane damaged ligaments in his right ankle during the team's FA Cup quarterfinal match against Millwall.

The Premier League club says the injury is similar to the one sustained by Kane in a league game against Sunderland in September, which ruled the England international out for seven weeks.

Spurs say "however it is not considered to be as severe."

Kane, who was hurt early in the 6-0 win over Millwall on Sunday, continues to be monitored by club doctors. Tottenham did not give a predicted timescale for the striker's absence.
[March 13, 2017] VentureApp Raises $4M in Funding to Accelerate Growth of Professional Chat Platform

BOSTON, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- VentureApp, a professional chat platform, today announced it has secured $4 million in funding, led by Ryan Moore, partner at Accomplice, with participation from Boston Seed Capital, Fullstack Ventures, and a number of prominent angel investors. Ryan Moore will also join VentureApp's board of directors. Designed for professionals in the innovation economy, VentureApp makes it easy for users to communicate with their closest business contacts and connect with new partners in their extended business network. By building a dedicated messaging platform for continuous business chats, VentureApp is filling a void for professionals to quickly and easily get business done. With the funding, VentureApp will become publicly available after previously being invite-only. To date, several thousand users from more than 2,000 companies in Boston and New York, including professionals from DraftKings, Silicon Valley Bank, HubSpot, Drizly, Goodwin Procter, and more, have chatted on VentureApp. According to a Business Insider report, messaging apps are growing faster than social networks. While consumer social networks have moved aggressively to take advantage of the rise of mobil messaging, there is a huge void in the market for chatting with your extended business network. Further, LinkedIn users are unhappy with the social network experience due to recruiter solicitations and InMail spam, which no longer makes it the platform to engage with your most valued business connections.



"VentureApp is the team to build a valuable messaging experience for professionals, and early market signals prove that the platform is well-positioned for aggressive growth and messaging adoption," said Ryan Moore, partner at Accomplice. This new funding will fuel strategic growth initiatives as VentureApp rolls out to professionals nationwide. As part of its mission to make influencers in the innovation economy more accessible, VentureApp is placing a strong focus on valuable partnerships and hosting daily digital Office Hours with top entrepreneurs, investors, and experts from organizations and businesses across the U.S. Additionally, VentureApp's iOS mobile app is currently in beta testing with hundreds of users.

"From the beginning, our team has been focused on breaking down some of the barriers to entering the innovation economy," said Chase Garbarino, co-founder and CEO. "Not only do we want to make external business communication more efficient and enjoyable, we want to make the community more accessible, which we believe is imperative to drive economic growth and positive returns for more people." About VentureApp

VentureApp is a chat platform for professionals to communicate with their closest business contacts and connect with new partners in their extended business network. Headquartered in Boston, VentureApp launched in September 2015 with a focus on making the innovation economy more accessible to all in order to drive economic growth. Thousands of professionals from DraftKings, Silicon Valley Bank, HubSpot, Drizly, Goodwin Procter, and more. For more information, visit http://www.ventureapp.com or follow VentureApp on Twitter @VentureApp. Media Contact:

Katie Sullivan

Director of Communications

Email: [email protected] Related Links Twitter VentureApp This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ventureapp-raises-4m-in-funding-to-accelerate-growth-of-professional-chat-platform-300422807.html SOURCE VentureApp

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BERLIN (AP)  The German city of Trier has decided to accept a statue of Karl Marx from China, marking the 200th anniversary of the father of communism's birth.

The city council voted 42-7 with four abstentions Monday night to accept the gift, according to news agency dpa. The statue's precise location and size are to be decided following further negotiations with China.

Initial plans by Chinese sculptor Wu Weishan called for the statue and its pedestal to be 6.3 meters (21 feet) tall, leading to criticism from some in the city.

Statues and streets named after Marx were common in communist East Germany. Many survived the collapse of communism, unlike tributes to more contemporary socialists.

Trier, near the border with Luxembourg, was in West Germany. Marx was born there May 5, 1818.
President Donald Trump may have bested the Clintons with his electoral upset victory in the 2016 presidential election, but another American political dynasty could be planning for a major comeback in 2020. The Kennedys have several Democratic candidates who could potentially announce bids for the ticket to take on the sitting-president, including Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass., businessman Chris Kennedy and environmental activist Robert Kennedy.

Joseph Kennedy burst into the national conversation following Trumps election last year, taking the president on with a series of recent speeches condemning the GOP healthcare bill set to repeal and replace former President Barack Obamas landmark initiative, the Affordable Care Act.

Videos of Kennedy slamming the controversial legislation went viral, receiving nearly 10 million views of Facebook and well over 200,000 shares.

Read: How To Stop Trump: Bernie Sanders Is Helping Liberals Take Over Conservative States

"With all due respect to our speaker, he and I must have read different scripture," Kennedy said last week, following House Speaker Paul Ryans speech on the Republican bill. "The one that I read calls on us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, and to comfort the sick. It reminds us that we are judged not by how we treat the powerful, but how we care for the least among us."

Kennedy's fiery speech immediately spurred national headlines suggesting the representative would be a formidable candidate to battle Trump in the next presidential election. But he may not be the only Kennedy up for the challenge: his relative, Chicago businessman Chris Kennedy, announced hed run for Illinois governor in February.

Meanwhile, Joe Kennedy's uncle, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a popular radio host and attorney specializing in environmental law, has also been urged to run against the president in 2020.

Joseph Kennedy has previously stated he wouldnt let his familys legacy  as well as the supposed Kennedy curse which allegedly serves as a disadvantage against the family in political races  get in the way of his own political agenda.

Story continues

"I obviously am very proud of what my family has accomplished and what they have done," the representative told the Associated Press, but "if you try to do this job and carry that weight around, you're never going to be able to do anything."

Related Articles
Nairobi (AFP) - Kenyan doctors signed a deal on Tuesday to end a strike over pay and working conditions that has crippled public hospitals for 100 days.

The government had threatened repeatedly to fire the strikers and hire foreign doctors, and union officials were even briefly jailed in a bid to end the country's longest-ever medical strike.

Poor salaries and working conditions -- such as a lack of vital drugs and equipment -- have pushed Kenyan doctors to flee the public sector or go to other countries where there are better opportunities.

The deal, signed at a ceremony broadcast on television, followed intense negotiations brokered by religious leaders.

"We have concluded a return-to-work formula between the government and ourselves bringing to an end the strike by doctors that has consumed the country for 100 days," said Ouma Oluga, the head of Kenya's main doctors union, the KMPDU.

"It has been one of the most difficult industrial relations in the country", he told a joint news conference with Peter Munya, the chairman of the Council of Governors, which comprises the heads of the 47 counties.

No details were released on the accord, but Munya said they have not yet concluded a pay deal.

"What we have signed today with the doctors' union officials is a return to work formula that will pave way for further negotiations on the pay increase demands", he said.

He described the strike, which began on December 5 in state hospitals, as "one of the most painful experiences for Kenyans".

At the root of the strike was a Collective Bargaining Agreement agreed between the government and the unions in 2013.

The document promised to triple salaries but also to improve often dire conditions in public hospitals -- which the striking doctors point to when accused of being greedy.

The KMPDU union says the country has one doctor to 17,000 patients, while the World Health Organization recommends one to 1,000.

Story continues

The government said the CBA was still being fine-tuned but doctors had argued it was a legal deal which they wanted implemented immediately.

A furious President Uhuru Kenyatta last week lambasted the some 5,000 striking doctors, accusing them of "blackmail".

University lecturers also went on strike in January, a double blow to Kenyatta's government just five months before a general election.

A series of corruption scandals -- including in the health ministry -- are fuelling the discontent, as is anger towards lawmakers who are among the best paid in the world and have voted themselves new benefits while claiming to be unable to meet the demands of doctors and lecturers.
With the release of the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools rankings, including the top law schools, prospective law school students awaiting their admissions offers are likely eagerly waiting to see which schools have risen and fallen.

Those applying in the fall will also be keenly watching so that they can make informed decisions about where to apply.

[Find out how to use rankings, statistics to narrow your law school choices.]

The overall rankings, program-specific rankings, and LSAT and GPA ranges are correctly regarded as the most important numbers that U.S. News provides annually. But prospective students can glean additional useful information from the full rankings.

For instance, students can use the bar passage rates and employment percentages to make an informed decision about where to attend law school. These numbers look beyond law school to the beginning of one's legal career.

Bar Passage Rates

The bar exam is a rite of passage for almost every law school graduate, and passing a state bar exam is generally required to be a practicing attorney. Ask any lawyer about it and you'll hear tales of a monotonous and stressful few months of memorizing legal doctrine from every area of law.

To put a school's bar passage rate into context, a bit more research is required. First, look at the ABA Employment Summary Reports to see in which states most of that school's graduates end up working.

The most popular places are New York, California, Illinois and the District of Columbia. As you work your way down the list, schools tend to be regional, and the vast majority of their graduates find work in the state where the school is located or an adjacent state.

[Determine whether bar passage rates should influence a law school decision.]

Next, look at state-by-state bar passage rates that the National Conference of Bar Examiners provides. Make sure to look at the statistics for first-time exam takers, which is the same statistic U.S. News provides on a school-by-school basis.

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Compare a school's bar passage rate with the passage rate for the state that employs the most graduates from that school. If the school's bar passage rate is significantly lower than the state rate, beware -- this indicates that the school might not prepare you adequately to take the bar exam.

Keep in mind that bar passage rates vary significantly from state to state. California's bar examination, for example, is notoriously difficult, with only 54 percent of first-time exam takers in 2016 passing.

Farther up the coast in Washington, however, first-time takers enjoyed a 74 percent passage rate in 2016. Schools that send most of their graduates to California will likely have lower passage rates than schools that send their graduates to other states.

Employment Percentages

The U.S. News Best Law Schools rankings provide two statistics regarding graduate employment: the percentage of those employed at graduation and the percentage of those employed 10 months after graduation. Each is instructive in terms of what you can expect as a graduate of that law school.

For purposes of these percentages, for a job to count 100 percent in the U.S. News ranking model, you must have "a full-time job not funded by your university or school lasting at least a year for which bar passage was required or a J.D. degree was an advantage." So if you graduate from law school and work at a management consulting firm or for your family's small business, for example, your job wouldn't count 100 percent in the U.S. News ranking, but it would still be weighted at a lower percentage.

[Consider how a law school's location can affect employment prospects.]

The first number -- those employed at graduation -- gives you a good sense of the opportunities that are available to graduates during law school. Many law students, for example, take an internship at a law office the summer after their second year and receive an offer for postgraduation employment at the end of that summer.

Others interview for permanent positions during their third year and have offers in hand before they graduate. If this number is high, you can count on having many such opportunities and likely much less stress after you graduate.

The second number -- those employed 10 months after graduation -- tells you how graduates ultimately fare in the job market. If this number is low, this likely indicates that the school doesn't have a strong reputation, alumni network or career services office.

As you look at the new rankings, don't forget to go beyond the obvious numbers and think beyond your experience as a student. The numbers discussed above will help you anticipate your experience as a graduate and practicing attorney.
President Trump, flanked by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, left, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., at a White House meeting on health care March 10. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

WASHINGTON  House Republicans apparently told antsy senators in a closed-door meeting Tuesday they may try to amend their health care bill to address concerns that it would significantly increase costs for seniors.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told reporters after the meeting that Reps. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairmen of the powerful Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees, said they realized the legislations projected premium hikes for older Americans was an issue that must be addressed.

They did seem to express sympathy for that 60-year-old who currently is making $20,000 a year who would face big premium hikes, Cassidy said. They did not give specifics of how to address that, but they did acknowledge that that was an issue to be addressed.

The concession came a day after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report projecting the GOP legislation would result in 24 million people losing health care coverage by 2026. The report seems to have increased distaste for the legislation in the Senate, where at least seven Republicans have expressed concerns about the health care overhaul since the House unveiled it early last week.

Mondays CBO report predicted that older Americans in the individual market would see their premium costs soar if the bill passes. A 64-year-old making $26,500 a year would pay $14,600 per year to buy insurance on the individual market under the Republican health care plan, the CBO projected. Thats more than seven times as much as he or she would pay under the current law.

Cassidy, a physician and one of a handful of Republican senators who have raised concerns about the bills effects even before the CBO report, said hes waiting to see the final legislation before deciding whether to support it or not. The Louisiana lawmaker introduced his own bill to replace Obamacare alongside Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Johnny Isakson and Shelley Moore Capito.

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The chairmen spoke of trying to amend it to address concerns, Cassidy said. I reserve judgment until I see the bill that comes over.

Republican Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also expressed concerns about costs for seniors, CNN reported. I dont think its right that seniors will be charged more, Inhofe said.

Spokesmen for Walden and Brady did not immediately return requests for comment on what measures they were considering to address the issue. Any changes to the House bill would likely face resistance from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has called it Obamacare Lite and casts the legislations age-based tax credits as a new entitlement. That group has called for a speedier winding down of federal Medicaid expansion funds to states and changes to the tax credits.

The powerful AARP came out against the legislation last week, citing higher costs for seniors. The groups executive vice president, Nancy LeaMond, reiterated her concerns Tuesday on Twitter.

Unacceptable. CBO numbers reinforce why AARP opposes House bill. https://t.co/dIaXRUsvM7  Nancy LeaMond (@NancyLeaMond) March 14, 2017

Democrats have seized on the health care plans effect on seniors in attacking the GOP plan. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., spoke against the bill next to a giant piece of posterboard on the Senate floor Wednesday with Senior Tax written on it. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania estimated cost hikes for 50- to 64-year-olds in each of his states counties on Twitter using the hashtag #noagetax.

In a press conference after the conference meeting, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the replace bill will go forward because the status quo is unsustainable. He defended the legislation from the CBOs prediction that millions would lose coverage under it and said he believed premiums would be lower than the office estimated. Its pretty hard to predict coverage when the government stops telling you to buy something you dont want, McConnell said.

The Senate leader said the health care bill would be open to amendments from senators if it passes the House.

The House Budget Committee will mark up the legislation Thursday before it goes to the floor for a vote.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Seoul (AFP) - South Korean prosecutors will summon former president Park Geun-Hye, whose impeachment was confirmed by the country's highest court last week, for questioning as a criminal suspect, a spokesman said Tuesday.

"We will decide Wednesday when to summon former president Park and inform her," the spokesman of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office told AFP.

"She will be summoned as a suspect," he added.

It has not yet been decided whether Park will be called in to the prosecutors' office in private, or publicly before TV cameras and photographers, he added.

The country's top court last week fired Park over a corruption scandal, stripping her of her presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

She has already been named as a suspect for bribery and abuse of power for allegedly colluding with her secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil to extort money from a raft of companies, among them the giant Samsung group.
South Korean prosecutors will summon former president Park Geun-Hye, whose impeachment was confirmed by the country's highest court last week, for questioning as a criminal suspect, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Park has been named as an accomplice to the secret confidante at the heart of a corruption and influence-peddling scandal that triggered her dramatic downfall.

Confirmation of her impeachment by the nations top court stripped her of immunity from criminal prosecution.

"We will decide Wednesday when to summon former president Park and inform her," the spokesman of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office told AFP.

It has not yet been decided whether Park will be called in to the prosecutors' office in private, or publicly before TV cameras and photographers, he added.

The country's top court last week fired Park over a corruption scandal.

Her friend and secret confidante, Choi Soon-Sil, is standing trial for using her ties to Park to force local firms to "donate" nearly $70 million to non-profit foundations Choi allegedly used for personal gain.

Park is accused of offering policy favours to businessmen who paid Choi, including the heir to the smartphone giant Samsung, Lee Jae-Yong, who has been indicted for bribery and other offences.

South Korean media and politicians have accused Park of defiance after told supporters on her return to her private residence -- following staying on in the presidential Blue House complex for several days -- that "the truth will eventually be revealed".

As president, Park refused to make herself available for questioning to special prosecutors investigating the scandal, despite multiple requests.

Similarly the Constitutional Court asked her to appear before it as it held a series of hearings while considering whether to confirm or overturn her impeachment by parliament, but she did not do so.

Park has been holed up in her high-walled house in southern Seoul, with hundreds of her diehard supporters staging sit-ins and vowing to "protect our president" from any harm.

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Clashes are expected if prosecution authorities try to force their way through the crowd surrounding the building to deliver the summons.

A demonstration by thousands of pro-Park supporters following Friday's court ruling was marred by violence, with some attacking riot police and assaulting journalists.

Three of the protestors -- men in their 60s and 70s -- died and dozens of people were wounded, including police and journalists.

- 'Witch of the century' -

Park's fall gives South Korea an opportunity to draw a line under the scandal, which has been dominating the headlines for months, but plunges the country into a period of uncertainty, with a presidential election to be held no later than May 9.

It comes as neighbouring North Korea shows increased signs of belligerence launching four missiles last week and describing them as a drill for an attack on US bases in Japan.

Pyongyang has also been widely blamed for the killing of its leader's half-brother Kim Jong-Nam in Kuala Lumpur by two women wielding a banned toxic nerve agent.

Park took a hardline stance toward the North over its nuclear and missile programmes, shutting down the lucrative Seoul-invested Kaesong industrial park in the North, the last legacy of the previous decade's inter-Korean rapprochement.

North Korea's top newspaper Rodong Sinmun rejoiced over her fall Tuesday, calling her "The witch of the 21st century without an equal in the world".

"Whoever perpetrates such sycophancy and treachery as leaving the nation's dignity and interests to the tender mercy of outside forces is bound to be cursed and buried in the grave of history," the daily said in a commentary.

"Those who seek to live in luxury and comfort at the cost of sweat and blood shed by the people.... are fated to meet their miserable end by resistance of the angry public," it proclaimed.

The current front-runner in South Korean opinion polls is former Democratic Party leader Moon Jae-In, who has advocated engagement with the North.

A Korea Research poll for Yonhap news agency and KBS TV released on Sunday put Moon on 29.9 percent, well ahead of his fellow Democratic politician, South Chungcheong governor Ahn Hee-Jung on 17 percent.

Acting president Hwang Kyo-Ahn, from Park's conservative Liberty Korea party, fell back to third place with 9.1 percent, it said.
By Jack Kim and Christine Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - The South Korean politician expected to become its next president, Moon Jae-in, called on China on Tuesday to stop economic retaliation against South Korean firms over the deployment of a U.S. missile-defence system. Moon, speaking in a debate with other presidential contenders from the main opposition Democratic Party, said South Korea must stand up to China and protest against any unjust moves, but also make diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue. "We should complain about what needs to be complained about and we should make diplomatic efforts to persuade China," Moon said. "It is also not desirable for China to harm our relationship with excessive retaliation," Moon said. "I call on China to immediately stop". China has increased pressure, and imposed some restrictions, on some companies doing business with and in South Korea, which many in South Korea perceive as retaliation for deployment of the missile system. But Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said on Monday that South Korea did not have firm evidence of Chinese retaliation and China has not directly said it is targeting South Korean firms. South Korea will hold a presidential election by May 9 after the impeachment and dismissal last week of its former president, Park Geun-hye. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system is likely to be contentious issues in the campaign. Moon, a human rights lawyer and prominent liberal politician who has been leading in opinion polls, said the government had mishandled the deployment plan by rushing into it and without public consensus. China is vehemently opposed to South Korea's agreement with the United States to deploy the THAAD system in the South against North Korea's missile threat. The United States and South Korea say THAAD is for defence against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security. The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea test-fired four missiles. Russia also worries the deployment could compromise its security, and said it would lead to a stalemate on the Korean peninsula. (Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Robert Birsel and Michael Perry)
[March 14, 2017] Internet of Coins Launches Hybrid Asset on Multiple Blockchains

DE KLOMP, Netherlands, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Internet of Coins, a non-profit cryptocurrency technology development organization has announced the launch of "Hybrid Asset", an inter-systemic, cross blockchain token. Currently, under development, the asset enables transfer of value between ledger systems without needing any update or adaptation of the existing cryptocurrency source code. As a part of its initiative, the organization has announced an upcoming Internet of Coins crowdsale on March 21, 2017. The platform has early bird options in place for investors interested in receiving a 5% discount during the crowdsale. They can avail more details about it by contacting the organization on its website. The Internet of Coins team presented a live demonstration of the transactional operating system and the graphical user interface that powers the novel hybrid asset blockchain technology. The presentation on Bitcoin Wednesday at A-Lab in Amsterdam was well received by the cryptocurrency community and industry peers. The development team has been working relentlessly on the project codes since the launch of its whitepaper in 2014. They recently announced Coinstorm, the project launch campaign. Through Coinstorm, Internet of Coins is encouraging a revolutionary collaboration among cryptocurrency enthusiasts to decentralize the alternative economy scene further. The founder of Internet of Coins, Joachim de Koning said, "Our goal is to create a coherent whole out of the decentralized economy initiatives we see today. There are more than a few decentralized exchange initiatives out there that we are bonding together to form a decentralized financial web." Internet of Coins'hybrid asset functions as a dynamic portfolio, spreading the risk from holding value on a single blockchain to storing it on multiple chains. It diversifies the technical and economic risks over multiple value systems housing the assets. Designed with a strong meta-level approach, the hybrid asset offers safety from cryptocurrency volatility and blockchain failures by providing a new vehicle for value storage.



The co-founder of Internet of Coins, Robert de Groot describing the project's aim said, "With this system, we aim to make everyone an exchange, to take away the risks of trusting a centralized third party and to connect alternative economies across geographical borders. Exchanging value should become as easy as swapping files; we aim for Internet of Coins to become the Bittorrent of cryptocurrencies and asset systems."

The founders of Internet of Coins expect the hybrid asset distribution to lead to an increase in liquidity on decentralized exchanges while ensuring interconnectivity between different cryptocurrency systems with their own values and beliefs about what decentralized value is and how it should work. About Internet of Coins Internet of Coins is a not for profit initiative created to maintain decentralization of cryptocurrency infrastructure by allowing cross-compatibility of digital assets between blockchains. The organization aims to enable the free and unlimited exchange of value among blockchain-based systems and other financial systems. Learn more about Internet of Coins at  https://internetofcoins.org

Know more about Coinstorm  https://coinstorm.net

Internet of Coins whitepaper  https://internetofcoins.org/public/uploads/whitepaper_ioc.pdf

Watch the Internet of Coins project presentation on YouTube  https://youtu.be/4hucm3y4sms Media Contact Contact Name: Robert de Groot

Contact Email: [email protected]

Location: De Klomp, Netherlands Internet of Coins is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Related Links Internet of Coins This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/internet-of-coins-launches-hybrid-asset-on-multiple-blockchains-300423136.html SOURCE Internet of Coins

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By Lynsey Eidell. Photo by: John Sciulli/Getty Images.

Kourtney Kardashian may have enlisted the help of interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard when it came to decorating her 11,500-square-foot Tuscan-style home, but the most special items were not hand-picked by the decorator to the stars. Instead, they were all given to her by various family members, as the eldest Kardashian sibling recently pointed out on her website.

Kardashian shared a peek at all of the "things she really cherishes" throughout her home, where she is raising her three children: Mason, 7; Penelope, 4; and Reign, 2. Naturally, the reality star cited artwork from her children as some of the most meaningful items. "I love to display the masterpieces that my kids make," Kardashian writes on her website. "The kids and I enjoy seeing it on the fridge all year long."

Related: Kourtney Kardashian's Tips for Designing the Ultimate Kids' Rooms

Scott Disick, the father of Kardashian's three children, also contributed to her collection, gifting her a diamond-dust skull print by artist Damien Hirst. There are also items on display from her siblings (for example, Kendall Jenner gave her a coffee-table book of Annie Leibovitz photographs), but perhaps the pieces with the most sentimental value came from her parents.

When Kardashian was much younger the family matriarch, Kris Jenner, gave her the grand piano that is now featured in her home. "I've had this Yamaha piano since I was a little girl. I took lessons on it," Kardashian writes, adding that the instrument "will always be in our family." And the star has several items throughout her home from her late father, Robert Kardashian, who died from cancer in 2003. In her living room under her coffee table she has Syrian inlaid game boxes that once belonged to her father. "They are so beautiful and so special to me," she writes. Her father's law books sit on bookshelves, next to the piece de resistance: a pair of platform shoes in a Lucite box, a present to her father from Elton John. "My dad always kept them in his closet, but I had them put into a shadow box," she writes. "They are so special."

Story continues

This isn't the first time that Kardashian has given fans a peek inside her home: She opened up her doors to AD in March 2016. "We wanted to make it sophisticated but family-friendly," Bullard told AD about her interior decorating style. "She's all about her kids."

Inside Kourtney Kardashian's Home for Her AD Cover Shoot

Related: 4 Things Kourtney Kardashian Loves to Collect

This story originally appeared on Architectural Digest.

More from Architectural Digest:

Inside Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian's California Dream Homes

See What's Inside Donald Trump's Former Superyacht

126 Stunning Celebrity Homes

Tour the Worlds Most Luxurious Submarine Superyacht

25 Ways to Paint Your Room Grey

Inside Jennifer Aniston's Gorgeous Beverly Hills Home
A company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trumps son-in-law, stands to receive over $400 million from Chinas Anbang Insurance Group, that is investing in a Manhattan building owned by the Kushners, Bloomberg reported.

Details of the agreement are being circulated to attract additional investors, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The building, a 41-floor tower located at 666 Fifth Avenue, was purchased by Kushner Companies in 2006 for $1.8 billion, which at the time was the highest sales price for a single building in Manhattan.

The planned $4 billion transaction includes terms that some real estate experts consider unusually favorable for the Kushners, the Bloomberg report said.

Kushner Companies is in active discussions around 666 5th Avenue, and nothing has been finalized, spokesman James Yolles told Reuters via email.

Anbang could not immediately be reached for comment.

Reuters reported in January that the Chinese group was in talks to invest in a project to redevelop the New York City building.

Anbang, established in 2004 as an auto insurer, has emerged as one of Chinas most aggressive buyers of overseas assets in the past two years, spending more than $30 billion buying luxury hotels, insurers and other property assets.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the Republican plan for health care (all times local):

10: 25 a.m.

The Senate's top Democrat says a new nonpartisan analysis of the Republican health care bill endorsed by President Donald Trump should be a "knockout blow" to the effort to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York also says that the Congressional Budget Office Report issued Monday proves that "Trumpcare would be a nightmare for the American people."

The CBO report found that 14 million people would lose health insurance next year, rising to 24 million after 10 years.

The analysis is giving more pragmatic Republicans pause, and the current measure appears unlikely to pass through Congress in its current form.

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said the GOP measure is "very, very cruel. It must be stopped."

__

9:25 a.m.

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of the Freedom Caucus, says he and other conservatives have been working with the White House on changes to the Republican health care plan.

Jordan tells Fox News' "Fox & Friends" that those changes will be proposed when the House debates the legislation, likely next week. He said "We have been working with the White House all along."

Jordan and other budget hawks have balked at the GOP bill as not going far enough, labeling it "Obamacare Lite" and complaining that GOP leadership is preventing them from trying to change the bill before it reaches the House floor.

Jordan said: "This bill doesn't unite Republicans. This bill doesn't bring down the cost of premiums."

He added: "I don't think it's going to accomplish what we told the voters we were going to do."

___

8:15 a.m.

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney says he doesn't trust the Congressional Budget Office's prediction that 14 million Americans will lose health care insurance in the next year under the Republican plan.

Story continues

In interviews Tuesday on MSNBC and Fox News "Fox & Friends," Mulvaney noted that the CBO was wrong in estimating coverage under former President Barack Obama's plan. Mulvaney said the office is wrong now too.

He said, "I don't believe the facts are correct." Mulvaney said the CBO is "really good at counting numbers but maybe not that good about counting coverage."

CBO had predicted 23 million people would enroll in online marketplaces when Obama's law was enacted but the actual number was 12 million, largely because it overestimated how the individual mandate would prompt people to buy coverage.

___

8:15 a.m.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, says the Republican health care plan could be "devastating" to state budgets.

Cuomo told MSNBC on Tuesday that he is concerned about the plan to dramatically reduce Medicaid funding. CBO says the plan would reduce budget deficits by $337 billion over a decade. The largest savings would come from reductions for Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income Americans, and elimination of Obama's subsidies for individuals buying coverage.

Cuomo says he's heard "rumors" that the GOP plan could cut as much as $3 billion for a state like New York. He says, "I can't make up $3 billion dollars. It would wreak havoc on the state."

___

3:45 a.m.

Critics of GOP health care legislation have gotten fresh ammunition from a report that says the bill would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 14 million people next year alone, and 24 million over a decade.

The findings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could make prospects for the legislation backed by President Donald Trump even tougher, with a few House and Senate conservatives already in open revolt and moderate Republicans queasy about big cuts to the Medicaid safety net for the poor.

But the bill's supporters at the White House and Capitol Hill show no sign of retreat. Instead, they are attacking the parts of the CBO report they didn't like while touting the more favorable findings, including smaller deficits from their bill and lower premiums over time.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP)  The Latest on Kentucky's efforts to lift its decades-long moratorium on nuclear power (all times local):

10:30 a.m.

Kentucky's Republican governor says he will not veto a bill that would lift the state's decades-old ban on nuclear power.

Matt Bevin told WKRC radio in Cincinnati he supports the proposal because it "opens possibilities to us." He said he does not think nuclear power would replace coal as the state's dominant source of energy.

Just three years ago, coal-fired power plants provided 93 percent of the state's electricity. Today, that has fallen to 83 percent, according to the Kentucky Coal Association. Older plants are being shut down and replaced by natural gas.

Bevin says he knows of no plans to build a nuclear power plant in Kentucky, adding "it is hard to predict the future."

___

2:30 a.m.

Kentucky appears to be hedging its bets on a comeback for coal.

The Republican-controlled state legislature is on the cusp of lifting its decades-long moratorium on nuclear energy, a move unthinkable just three years ago in a state that has been culturally and economically dominated by coal. Politicians from both parties have promised for years to revive the struggling industry, with Trump famously billing himself as "the last shot for miners." But as the coal industry continues its slide, even Republican lawmakers are acknowledging a need for alternatives.

A bill that would lift the moratorium has passed the state Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in the waning days of the legislative session.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times EDT):

8:35 p.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump made more than $150 million in income in 2005 and paid $38 million in income taxes that year.

The acknowledgement comes as MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says she has obtained part of Trump's 2005 tax forms.

The White House is pushing back pre-emptively, saying that publishing those returns would be illegal.

It says, "You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago."

The White House adds that it is "totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns" and is bashing the "dishonest media."

Trump refused to release his tax returns during the campaign, claiming he was under audit.

__

7:35 p.m.

Labor secretary nominee Alexander Acosta has a Democratic supporter in the Senate.

A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson says the Florida lawmaker will vote to confirm Acosta, who was born in Miami.

Nelson's support for Republican President Donald Trump's choice is notable because Trump's original pick for the post couldn't get support from enough Republicans to be confirmed. Fast food CEO Andrew Puzder withdrew from consideration after criticism over his personal and professional life.

Acosta's Senate hearing is March 22. He is the dean of the Florida International University law school.

Nelson's support for Acosta was first reported by the Miami Herald.

___

5:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump will travel to Michigan Wednesday, where he is expected to roll back federal fuel-economy requirements that would have forced automakers to significantly increase the efficiency of cars and trucks built in the next decade.

The fuel-economy standards were a key part of former President Barack Obama's strategy to combat global warming.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt are expected to join Trump on the visit to Ypsilanti, Michigan, a Detroit suburb.

Story continues

Automakers asked Pruitt to discard a decision by the Obama administration requiring cars to average a real-world figure of 36 miles per gallon in model years 2022 to 2025. The automakers said the rule could add thousands of dollars to the price of new cars and cost thousands of jobs.

___

3:55 p.m.

The federal agency that oversees health insurance programs for tens of millions of American consumers has a new leader.

Vice President Mike Pence has sworn in Seema Verma as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The $1 trillion agency oversees health insurance programs for everyone from nursing home residents to newborns.

Verma is taking over the agency as a Republican health care bill moving through the House that's backed by President Donald Trump has reopened the debate over the government's role in health care.

Verma is an Indiana health care consultant and protege of Pence, who is a former Indiana governor.

The Senate confirmed her nomination Monday by a vote of 55-43, largely along party lines.

___

3:05 p.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump is "extremely confident" that the Justice Department will produce evidence backing up his claim that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election.

The comments from spokesman Sean Spicer come one day after the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to produce that evidence. The House intelligence committee gave the department until March 20, the first day of its hearings on Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump advisers and Russians.

Spicer says the president is confident that information yet to be released will "vindicate him."

Earlier this month, Trump accused President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower during the campaign. Obama has denied the explosive allegations and there has been no evidence backing up Trump's claims.

__

1:35 p.m.

President Donald Trump is sitting down for lunch with Saudi Arabia's second-in-line to the throne at the White House.

Trump shook hands with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the State Dining Room before joining several White House and Saudi officials for lunch.

The Saudi royal is the highest-level visit to Washington since November's presidential election. The prince is leading the kingdom's economic overhaul to become less dependent on oil.

Trump is expected to spend the rest of the day focused on the Republican health care overhaul. He'll be speaking by phone with Health Secretary Tom Price, Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish and two Republican lawmakers: House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

__

1 p.m.

President Trump is meeting with the Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.

The pair met in the Oval Office Tuesday before a scheduled lunch.

The prince is Saudi Arabia's second-in-line to the throne and his trip marks the highest-level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal since November's presidential election.

The prince is currently spearheading an economic overhaul aimed at helping the country become less dependent on oil as well as investments in U.S. technology firms.

He is also his country's minister of defense.

The president had originally been scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, but that visit has been pushed back to Friday because of the snow.
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's leftist New Democratic Party urged Ottawa on Tuesday to scrap an agreement it has with Washington on divvying up refugees.

"The US is no longer a safe country for refugees, and refugees continue to risk life and limb to come to Canada," New Democratic Party MP Jenny Kwan said in a statement.

"The Liberal government must immediately suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement, so that refugees in the US can apply legally and cross safely into Canada," she said.

The comments follow a wave of border jumpers from the United States who have risked their lives trudging through snow and wilderness in bone-chilling cold to seek asylum in Canada.

The so-called Safe Third Party Agreement prevents them from lodging claims in Canada if they first landed stateside.

But a loophole in the 2004 accord -- which the opposition Tories want closed -- allows arrivals to file a claim if they have bypassed border checkpoints to get into the country.

Detractors of the accord say the agreement actually encourages border jumping.

Several of the arrivals, who number in the hundreds, have said they left the United States because of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Kwan noted the case of an Ivory Coast national who was recently hospitalized after being found collapsed in the snow after trying to cross into Canada.

He had attempted to enter Canada from New York and seek asylum at a land border crossing, but was turned away. He later slipped into Canada under the cover of night.

The man's lawyer told AFP: "I've never understood the advantage of this treaty for the signatories."

It adds layers of bureaucracy and "the only people who benefit from it are the smuggling networks," he said.
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Troops commanded by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar announced the recapture Tuesday of two key oil installations, as fighting raged in Tripoli where a rival government has struggled to assert its authority.

Libya has experienced years of violence and lawlessness since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival parliaments and governments trading barbs and militias fighting over territory and the country's vast oil wealth.

Forces loyal to Haftar mounted a day-long assault by land, sea and air to retake the oil export terminals of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra, after both sites were seized by a rival, Islamist-led force earlier this month.

"The armed forces... have liberated the whole of the oil crescent," said Ahmed al-Mesmari, a spokesman for pro-Haftar forces.

He said 10 fighters of Haftar's forces were killed and that rival fighters of the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) were being chased back to their barracks.

The head of the oil installation guards, General Meftah al-Megaryef, also said the two terminals had been recaptured.

Basset al-Shairi, a commander of the BDB which had seized the two sites on March 3, said Ras Lanuf had fallen, but without specifying the outcome in nearby Al-Sidra.

In September, pro-Haftar forces had already captured the terminals and two other eastern oil ports in a blow to the authority of the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli.

Haftar backs a rival administration in the country's far east that has refused to cede power to the Government of National Accord (GNA) working in the capital since last year.

Oil accounts for more than 95 percent of Libya's revenues.

Haftar's forces, which call themselves the Libyan National Army (LNA), have battled jihadists in second city Benghazi for more than two years.

- Tanks 'under our balcony' -

In Tripoli, fresh fighting raged on Tuesday between rival armed groups, authorities in the capital said, causing UN Libya envoy Martin Kobler to call for an "immediate ceasefire".

Story continues

"Civilians at grave risk in ongoing clashes," he wrote on Twitter.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard in two neighbourhoods west of the city centre, witnesses said, and several key thoroughfares were blocked, leaving many trapped in their homes.

Witnesses said tanks had deployed in the neighbourhoods of Hay al-Andalus and Gargaresh, after the fighting broke out late Monday.

"Early this morning, several tanks and vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft weapons passed under our balcony," Abdel-Nur Bachir, a retired 80-year-old businessman living in Gargaresh, told AFP.

It was not immediately clear who was involved in the clashes.

The Tripoli police, who are loyal to the GNA, said they were "purging" the area of "outlaws", but did not announce any casualties.

A resident of Hay Al-Andalus, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was trapped indoors.

"We have nowhere to go to escape the fighting. All we can do is pray that no shelling hits the house," she said.

"People are holed up indoors. Schools are closed."

- 'Complex' ties -

Since Kadhafi's fall, several armed groups have battled for control of the capital in the absence of a regular army or police force.

The GNA has denied having any connection to the takeover of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra earlier this month.

A Libya expert, in a briefing released last week, described the relationship between the GNA -- and the Presidential Council (PC) that heads it -- and the BDB that led the attack on the oil terminals as "complex and somewhat unclear".

"While the GNA's Minister of Defence, Mahdi al-Barghati, supports the group, as do some members of the PC, the PC has officially condemned the attack and stated it had no ties to the BDB," Claudia Gazzini of the International Crisis Group think-tank said.

The BDB were formed in 2016 by fighters including Islamists ousted from Benghazi by Haftar's forces.

The GNA said last week that it had ordered oil installation guards who are loyal to it to secure the two terminals.

Last month, Haftar and GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj agreed to form a committee to explore amending the UN-backed agreement that gave rise to the unity government.

But the pro-Haftar eastern parliament, which was elected in 2014, last week suspended its participation in political dialogue and called for presidential and legislative elections to be held before next February.
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Troops commanded by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar launched an assault on Tuesday to seize two of the country's key eastern oil terminals, a spokesman said.

"Ground, sea and air forces launched joint attacks to liberate Ras Lanuf from terrorist groups," Khalifa al-Abidi said after orders were issued early Tuesday for the offensive, which is also targeting the nearby Al-Sidra oil terminal.

Both sites were seized by a rival, Islamist-led force earlier this month.

Libya has experienced years of violence and lawlessness since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival parliaments and governments trading barbs and militias fighting over territory and a share of the country's vast oil wealth.

In September, pro-Haftar forces captured Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra and two other eastern oil ports in a blow to the authority of the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli.

Haftar backs a rival administration in the country's far east that has refused to cede power to the Government of National Accord (GNA) since it started working last year.

The UN-supported GNA has struggled to assert control since its installation in the capital a year ago.

The GNA has denied having any connection to the takeover of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra.

Fresh fighting also erupted Tuesday between rival armed groups in Tripoli, authorities there said.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard in two neighbourhoods west of the city centre, witnesses said, and several key thoroughfares were blocked, leaving many trapped in their homes.

It was not immediately clear who was involved in the Tripoli clashes.
The following material contains graphic images that may be disturbing. Parents are advised that these images may not be suitable for young children.

Gynecomastia sufferer Michael rejoins The Doctors  did solving his breast-tissue problem change his life?

Michael was a happy, healthy kid until he hit puberty. Then he suddenly began developing breasts -- and teasing, bullying, and isolation soon followed. Michael has been using duct tape and super glue to hide his problem, causing blisters and scarring. Hes avoided dating and turned to comfort eating and smoking, which just make him feel worse.

When Michael first visited The Doctors, he received a referral to Plastic Surgeon Dr. Dennis Hurwitz. Now The Doctors are eager to see the results! Is Michaels life back on track?

Watch: My Chest Is Ruining My Life

Dr. Hurwitz explains his surgical procedure to Michael. He uses a laser probe to disrupt the fat, applies ultrasound to tighten the excess skin, and removes the fat via liposuction. Because the liposuction procedure uses tiny incisions, theres no major opening in Michaels body  and because controlled radio-frequency energy is used to shrink the extra skin, recovery is easier and theres no visible scarring.

Its all about sculpturing the body, Dr. Hurwitz explains. Hes a good-looking man!

Michael says hes working out and eating well  hes thrilled with his new body. But, he admits, he still struggles with one unhealthy habit. I still smoke. I really want to quit, its an issue with me, he confesses.

Watch: What Causes Gynecomastia?

Doctor on Demand Dr. Tania Elliott has a solution! Doctor on Demand offers a comprehensive smoking-cessation program, she says, and theyre offering Michael three months of therapeutic support, behavioral and lifestyle counseling, and prescription medication if he needs it  all absolutely free!

In addition, Rivals Fitness in Youngstown, Ohio, is giving him a one-year membership and 40 sessions with a physical training, and Terras Kitchen is providing nutritional counseling and three months of pre-prepped meals delivered to his door.

Breast Surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk reminds us that although there are many causes of male breast growth, it can be a symptom of serious problems, including breast cancer  one percent of breast-cancer patients in America are men. If you notice any unusual symptoms, including abnormal breast growth, dont put off seeing your doctor!

Doctor on Demand was created by The Doctors' executive producer.
[March 14, 2017] Simpalm Launches Mobile App for GWU's Elliott School of International Affairs

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs has funded the creation of a mobile app that puts the school's entire community at the fingertips of users. Elliott 360--an app for iOS and Android mobile platforms--was developed by Simpalm, a Washington, D.C.-area mobile application development company that has built hundreds of mobile apps for government agencies, educational institutions, corporations, and the military. With Elliott 360, students, faculty, alumni, researchers and others can access internal and external news and information sources relevant to the Elliott community. From employment opportunities posted on the school's job portal, to interesting items in the Washington Post's "Monkey Cage" political science blog, the app enables users to quickly and easily stay abreast of the Elliott community on and off campus. The app is available free on iTunes and the Google Play store: iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/elliott-360/id1166541273?ls=1&mt=8 Google Play Link: https://play.google.com/store/aps/details?id=com.simpalm.elliott



Elliott 360 enables users to: Access GWU's calendar listings of upcoming events and programs.

Connect to GWU's website with full functionality in Webview.

Access Elliott's forum and read posts and comments.

Support GWU community activities and donate money.

Access the Washington Post's popular political science blog--Monkey Cage--and find posts from and about members of the Elliott School community.

Schedule appointments with school personnel and offices.

Access and apply for jobs posted on the school's job portals.

Access the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr pages of the George Washington University Community. Located in Washington, D.C., the Elliott School is one of the world's most respected schools of international affairs. The school's tight and dynamic community includes an International Council of alumni, parents, and friends committed to continued advancement of the school and its community.

Robin Khan, Director of Communications & Public Affairs at Elliott School of International Affairs, said the decision to choose Simpalm, a leading mobile app development company based in Silver Spring, Maryland, was an easy one. "Simpalm was able to build the solutions for us in no time and at a very competitive price," she said, adding that the school IS planning to upgrade the app with additional features and functions. The Simpalm team provided end-to-end design and development for Elliott 360, including its user interface and user experience features for both iPhone and Android phones, and the app's deployment on app stores. Simpalm founder and CEO, Piyush Jain, said his team enjoyed the challenge of building Elliott 360. "It gave us an opportunity to draw on some of our best experiences and expertise in mobile technology and the education field," he said, adding "it's always fun to go back to school." http://www.simpalm.com/applications/gwu-elloitt-360 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/simpalm-launches-mobile-app-for-gwus-elliott-school-of-international-affairs-300423239.html SOURCE Simpalm

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Disneys live action adventure Beauty and the Beast is a standalone film, but its stars Luke Evans and Josh Gad, who play Gaston and LeFou, respectively, have a great idea for its sequel.

The two talked to People and said it would be great for the two characters to have their own spin-off movie.

Id love to see a sequel to Disneys Beauty and the Beast starring LeFou and Gaston, said Gad. Gaston with a broken arm, and will probably be pushed on a wheelchair. The two of them travel Europe looking for other potential suitors for Gaston. Could be Weekend at Bernies-style  me and Stanley Tuccis character just holding him up.

Evans thought Gads idea is brilliant, and contributed that they could make something similar to Ferris Buellers Day off. Gaston would be nursing a broken heart, a broken ego after Belle (Emma Watson) rejects him in favor of Beast (Dan Stevens), so he leans on his sidekick LeFou for a new adventure.

Earlier, director Bill Condon said that Disney would be introducing its first gay character through LeFou.

LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston, Condon told Attitude Magazine. Hes confused about what he wants. Its somebody whos just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And thats what has its pay-off at the end, which I dont want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.

Because of this, a lot of people got upset and wanted to boycott the film.

Read: Petition created to boycott Beauty and the Beast because of gay character

Condon could not understand what the fuss is all about and told Screen Crush, Oh God. Can I just tell you? Its all been overblown. Because its just this, its part of just what we had fun with. You saw the movie, yeah? You know what I mean, he said. I feel like the kind of thing has been, I wish it were  I love the way it plays pure when people dont know and it comes as a nice surprise. To not make a big deal of it. Why is it a big deal?

Story continues

Beauty and the Beast will hit cinemas on March 17.

Josh Gad

Photo: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

Related Articles
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia and Australia will share intelligence on militants in Southeast Asia, a senior Malaysian minister said on Tuesday, as the two allies brace for the possible return of Islamic State militants from Iraq. Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition have taken 30 percent of west Mosul from Islamic State militants in an operation launched in October to drive the IS out of its last major stronghold. Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the success of the Mosul operation would drive hundreds of IS militants and sympathizers from Southeast Asia back to their home countries. "Daesh is a common foe that we need to face," Hishammuddin told reporters, using an Arab acronym for IS, after meeting Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in parliament. "If the offensive in Mosul is successful, we will see a lot of hardened returnees and sympathizers to the region, especially in Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Thailand." He said Australia had also agreed to provide technological support and equipment in efforts to deal with the rising threat of IS in the region, particularly the Abu Sayyaf militant group that has pledged allegiance with IS. Muslim-majority Malaysia arrested more than 250 people between 2013 and 2016 over suspected militant activities linked to Islamic State. On Monday, Malaysian police said they arrested seven people, including five Filipinos, for suspected links to IS. Malaysia has been on high alert since armed gunmen launched multiple attacks in Jakarta, the capital of neighboring Indonesia, in January 2016. (Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Disney has indefinitely postponed the opening of its film "Beauty and the Beast" in Malaysia after censors in the Muslim-majority nation reportedly cut out a "gay moment" in the movie.

The cuts came after the movie ran into trouble in Russia, which slapped an adults-only rating on the film last week following pressure by an ultra-conservative lawmaker who was pushing for a ban.

The film's director Bill Condon has revealed that it contains Disney's "first exclusively gay moment", although some critics have said the reference is extremely mild and fleeting.

Malaysian Censorship Board (LPF) chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid told The Star newspaper that the film "has been approved... with a minor cut".

The cut focussed on a "gay moment" in the film, said Abdul Halim, adding that it had been rated PG-13 -- which indicates that some material may be inappropriate for pre-teens.

The Malaysian release of the movie, featuring "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson, was postponed by Disney earlier this week pending "an internal review", according to theatre chain Golden Screen Cinemas which was set to show the film from Thursday.

Notices posted at the chain's cinemas in Kuala Lumpur said the film's release had been "postponed by Disney until further notice".

Disney's office in Singapore was not immediately able to confirm the censorship decision or say when the film would be released.

In a departure from previous depictions of the fairy tale, Le Fou, the sycophantic sidekick to antagonist Gaston, is portrayed by comedian Josh Gad as a gay man, making him Disney's first ever out LGBT character.

The film has also come under fire from religious figures in neighbouring Singapore, with Christian clergy attacking Disney for deviating from "wholesome, mainstream values".

"Parents are therefore strongly advised to provide guidance to their children about this re-make of 'Beauty & the Beast'," said Bishop Rennis Ponniah, president of the National Council of Churches of Singapore.

Story continues

Harussani Zakaria, the senior mufti for Malaysia's northern Perak state, said the film would "sow the seeds of destruction and negative behaviour in our society".

"We must guard ourselves from Western behaviour which has gone astray," he told AFP.

"This movie must be banned in Malaysia."

The Malaysian Muslim People Coalition NGO also called for a ban, with its president Amsah Hamzah saying the film would "promote negative values".

"Youngsters can easily become excited by the gay behaviour seen in the movie and could be influenced by it," Amsah said.

But Malaysia's minister of tourism and culture, Seri Nazri Aziz, has criticised the controversy over the film, calling it "ridiculous".

"You don't ban a film because of a gay character," he told the Malay Mail Online. "We must allow people to decide for themselves."

Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia, where laws criminalising sodomy can result in imprisonment, corporal punishment and fines.

burs-amu/eb
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Malaysia said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong-Nam has been embalmed to stop it decomposing, as it lies unclaimed in a Kuala Lumpur morgue a month after his assassination.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi also announced the deportation of 50 North Korean workers in an apparent exception to a departure ban imposed after the killing of the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un.

The assassination, carried out with VX nerve agent at Malaysia's main airport, triggered an angry standoff between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang that has seen them expel each other's ambassadors and refuse to let their citizens leave.

Pyongyang, which has never confirmed Kim's identity, has repeatedly demanded the return of his body but Malaysian authorities have refused to release it without a DNA sample from next-of-kin.

The body, currently kept in a morgue in the capital, has been embalmed to prevent it from decomposing more than a month after the assassination, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.

"It's an effort to preserve the body, because if it is kept in the mortuary it might decompose," he told reporters.

A senior official close to the investigation told AFP that the body would either need to be stored at very low temperatures or embalmed by a professional undertaker to keep it from decomposing.

In the case of ongoing investigations, however, bodies must usually be kept at higher temperatures so they don't turn to ice.

"If we keep the body below 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), it will become ice," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"At the morgue, the bodies are kept at 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius. But after one month, there will be a slow process of decomposition," he added.

"If we need to keep the body longer, we have to preserve it through embalming."

In the case of Kim, the body was apparently thawed on several occasions in the course of the probe and had already begun to show signs of decomposition, the New Straits Times reported Tuesday.

Story continues

- Sent back -

Hamidi also said that 50 North Koreans working in Sarawak state on Borneo island -- home to coal mines which often employ foreign workers -- would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban.

"We will send the North Korean workers in Sarawak who have exceeded their visa back to Pyongyang for overstaying," he said. "They will be deported soon."

He did not say why the government had decided on the expulsion despite Kuala Lumpur's bar on North Korean nationals leaving the country -- a tit-for-tat measure put in place after Pyongyang prohibited Malaysians from leaving its borders last week.

The diplomatic crisis erupted last month after North Korea attacked the Malaysian investigation into Kim's killing as an attempt to smear the secretive regime.

Three Malaysian embassy staff and six family members are stranded in North Korea as a result.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. CCTV footage shows them smearing the 45-year-old's face with a piece of cloth. Pyongyang has insisted that he most likely died of a heart attack.

Relations between North Korea and Malaysia had been particularly warm, with a reciprocal visa-free travel deal for visitors, prior to the high-profile killing.

Up to 100,000 North Koreans are believed to be working abroad and their remittances are a valuable source of foreign currency for the isolated regime.
So it looks like Malaysians won't get to watch Beauty and the Beast after all.

The Walt Disney Company has shelved the Malaysian release of the movie, despite the country's film censors eventually approving the much-anticipated film.

SEE ALSO: 'Beauty and the Beast' director reveals Disney's first openly gay character

The Malaysian Censorship Board said on Tuesday that it had approved the screening of the movie, albeit with a "minor edit concerning a gay moment in the film."

Despite this, the movie was pulled anyway, with Disney saying it had been postponed for an "internal review."

The country's two biggest cinema chains said the movie, which was originally due to begin screening on Thursday, had been postponed indefinitely.

The censor approved the movie with a PG13 parental guidance classification, according to a report by The Star.

The issue was first brought up on Monday when two major cinema chains, Golden Screen Cinemas and TGV cinemas announced refunds for the tickets purchased.

Needless to say, people were pretty mad.

A tale as old as time Homophobic as can be. Gays are forever banned. Make to not exist. Beauty and The Beast.#Malaysia pic.twitter.com/GwlraTbVNU  Effi Saharudin  (@1Obefiend) March 13, 2017

Sooo, Beauty and the beast got banned in Malaysia because there's a gay character. But, there're tons of rape scenes in local movies ??  ain. (@baellisima) March 13, 2017

Malaysia, the land of possibilities.



Beauty and the Beast banned while WWE airing on the tv. Apparently our country promote war, not love.  FranFeyn (@ravingcowmaniac) March 13, 2017

Malaysia has so many things to improve on but we choose to look at the petty stupid stuff like banning Beauty and the Beast. How disgusting.  Priyanka Laxmi (@priyankalaxmii) March 13, 2017

No words for the situation occuring for Beauty and the Beast.



Just utterly disappointed that Malaysia could be THAT sensitive.  Nadzrin Nadzer (@NadzrinIqbal) March 13, 2017

A Malaysian minister also spoke up in favour of the movie.

Story continues

"I think it's ridiculous," said Tourism Minister Nazri Aziz to the Malay Mail Online.

"You don't ban a film because of a gay character. Thousands of film showing murder, rape, robbery...how come you don't ban them?"

Beauty and the Beast is Disney's first film featuring an openly gay character.

Homosexual activity is illegal in Malaysia, a Muslim majority country. The country allows depiction of gay characters, but only if they show repentance or are painted in a negative way.

Sodomy is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and whipping.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death.

Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed Feb. 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport. North Korea  widely suspected of being behind the attack  rejects the findings.

Zahid said Kim's body was taken out of the hospital morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital for the embalmment procedure and has been returned. He declined to say when it was done.

"As it is kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose, so we did this to preserve the body," he told reporters in Parliament.

Health officials have said Kim's relatives will be given two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

North Korea has demanded the body back and objected when Malaysia conducted an autopsy. Pyongyang also has refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and has referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam were the same person, but refused to say how they confirmed that.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply since Kim's death, with each expelling the other's ambassador. Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a "fair settlement" of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Zahid, who earlier said negotiations were ongoing, said Tuesday that about 50 North Koreans detained in eastern Sarawak state for overstaying their work permits will be sent back to Pyongyang soon. He didn't give details nor say why they would be deported amid the exit ban.

Story continues

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea  three embassy staff members and their family members. About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries also scrapped visa-free travel for each other's citizens.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapon.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korea on Monday sought to shift the blame for Kim's death to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, said in New York that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system.

The ambassador said the U.S. is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX, and has also stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

The attack was caught on surveillance video that shows two women going up to Kim and apparently smearing something on his face. He was dead within 20 minutes, authorities say. The women  one Indonesian, one Vietnamese  have been charged with murder but say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysias Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each others citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kims death.

Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed Feb. 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpurs airport. North Korea  widely suspected of being behind the attack  rejects the findings.

Zahid said Kims body was taken out of the hospital morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital for the embalmment procedure and has been returned. He declined to say when it was done.

As it is kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose, so we did this to preserve the body, he told reporters in Parliament.

Health officials have said Kims relatives will be given two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

North Korea has demanded the body back and objected when Malaysia conducted an autopsy. Pyongyang also has refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and has referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam were the same person, but refused to say how they confirmed that.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply since Kims death, with each expelling the others ambassador. Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a fair settlement of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Zahid, who earlier said negotiations were ongoing, said Tuesday that about 50 North Koreans detained in eastern Sarawak state for overstaying their work permits will be sent back to Pyongyang soon. He didnt give details nor say why they would be deported amid the exit ban.

Story continues

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea  three embassy staff members and their family members. About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries also scrapped visa-free travel for each others citizens.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapon.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korea on Monday sought to shift the blame for Kims death to the United States and South Korea.

North Koreas deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, said in New York that from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities, who he said are trying to tarnish the Norths image and bringing down its social system.

The ambassador said the U.S. is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX, and has also stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

The attack was caught on surveillance video that shows two women going up to Kim and apparently smearing something on his face. He was dead within 20 minutes, authorities say. The women  one Indonesian, one Vietnamese  have been charged with murder but say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank.
A stunning natural arch that was the setting for several films and one episode of "Game of Thrones" has collapsed into the sea after storms lashed the limestone structure.

The Azure Window, found on Malta's Gozo Island, collapsed early Wednesday (March 8) after gale force winds and a heavy rainstorm roiled the area, according to news reports.

The fierce winds and rough seas erased almost all traces of the iconic sea arch.

"Suddenly, the arch collapsed into the sea with a loud whoomph, throwing up a huge spray. By the time the spray had faded, the stack had gone too." Roger Chessell, a resident of nearby Xaghra who witnessed the collapse, told the Malta Times.

The limestone arch reaches some 328 feet (100 meters) high and has been a popular platform for cliff divers, who can jump into one of the sinkholes surrounding the arch, including on its south side, the Blue Hole, according to a report published by Geoscience Consulting in 2013.

Like all arches subject to the vagaries of erosion, this one was doomed to die eventually. A 2013 study had found that it would fail eventually, but that collapse was not imminent, the BBC reported. In a press conference, the environment minister Jose Herrera said there wasn't anything that could have been done to prevent the collapse, as studies found no man-made interventions would have protected the arch, the Malta Times reported.

Originally published on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
[March 14, 2017] Research and Markets Has Announced the Launch of their Intel Corporation Market Research Portal

The new research portal will provide visitors with unparalleled access to company research on Intel Corporation, alongside comprehensive market research on their position within the global telecommunications and computing industry. Intel (News - Alert) develops chipsets for extreme power and performance, for consumers and enthusiasts, or for the enterprise. According to the IoT Device Semiconductors and Operating Systems report, the impact of increasingly interconnected IoT systems will cause acceleration in overall demand for chipsets due to the interdependency of platforms, gateways, and devices. <> After missing out on the mobile revolution, the company is also keen to expand into new areas. This week, Intel agreed to buy Mobileye, a global leader in the development of vision technology for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, in a deal worth $15.3 billion.



"Intel is a leading player within the computing market and the new portal provides easy access to information on their performance as a company and their impact on the overall industry," says Ross Glover, CEO of Research and Markets. For more information visit: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/companies/intel-corporation?cid=zlg59s

About Research and Markets Research and Markets is the world's leading market research store. With more than 1.5 million research resources, we deliver the largest collection of business information products on the market. We offer the most in-depth market analysis across a multitude of industries. Our products provide clients with an unrivalled understanding of their chosen market. No matter how specialist your field, we have the insights and market data to help you make efficient and effective decisions. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006156/en/

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London (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to open negotiations to leave the EU having finally overcome opposition in parliament, but she now faces the monumental task of thrashing out details of the divorce.

And with Scotland on the brink of making a new bid for independence and warning signs that the Brexit vote is beginning to hit the economy, political analysts warned that May still faces plenty of obstacles.

Warnings from EU leaders that Britain will have to pay a hefty exit bill and face tough conditions for leaving the bloc have added to the uncertainty.

"Things could turn pretty sticky pretty quickly," said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

On the domestic front, May has moved deftly at the start of a two-year process filled with inevitable compromises and risks.

Parliament gave final approval on Monday to a bill empowering the prime minister to begin Brexit, clearing her path to embark on the delicate task at any time.

Earlier, a threatened rebellion in the lower House of Commons over parliament's say on the final Brexit deal failed to materialise, as none of May's Conservative Party MPs voted against her, although a handful abstained.

The vote made clear how, eight months after taking office, May is enjoying an extended honeymoon, boosted by a weak opposition, relatively economic stability and an aggressively eurosceptic press.

- 'No opposition' -

Despite having campaigned to stay in the EU in last June's referendum, May has promised a clean break with Brussels, leaving the European single market in order to control mass migration from the bloc.

She has support from right-wing Conservatives and most critics of Brexit have fallen silent for fear of being accused of trying to undo referendum result.

"The thing historians will think quite strange is that, given that there's no majority in the country and no majority in parliament for a hard Brexit, how are we getting a hard Brexit?" said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform.

Story continues

"The answer is there's no opposition and the Tory party, although a lot of it is quite soft, they are very scared of the eurosceptic newspaper groups."

The Conservatives are 18 or 19 points ahead of the opposition Labour party, which is deeply divided under leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn and struggling to articulate a clear message on Brexit.

Last month the Conservatives won a by-election in a Brexit-backing, Labour working-class seat in northern England -- the first such victory for 35 years.

May's majority in the Commons is slim, however, and some senior Tories have urged her to call a snap election to bolster her support.

"As British law needs to be amended countless times to take account of leaving the EU treaties, the government could face many close votes, concessions or defeats as it tries to implement Brexit," said former leader William Hague.

Decades-old splits in the Conservatives over Europe may also resurface -- the eurosceptics are in charge now, but most Tories wanted to stay in the EU.

"The unity of the Tory party is shakier than it seems," Bale told AFP.

- 'Early days' -

May has promised to listen to ordinary voters buffeted by the winds of globalisation and her personal popularity has been riding high in polls.

But she will be sitting across the table from EU leaders who face nationalist movements in their own countries and fear Britain's exit may only be the first.

May has taken pains in recent weeks to show goodwill, stressing that she does not want Brexit to damage the EU, and her decision in January to set out her negotiating goals was welcomed for providing clarity.

She plans to take just two years to agree the divorce and a new trade deal and faces the possibility of leaving without an agreement -- a scenario that business leaders have compared to falling off a cliff.

The resilience of the economy has so far helped May, as pre-referendum warnings that a Brexit vote would spark a recession have so far failed to materialise.

But deep uncertainty lies ahead as Britain prepares to renegotiate ties with its biggest trading partner, the single European market of 500 million consumers.

"Nothing has gone wrong yet. But it's early days. If the economy turns sour, then she may get worried," Grant said.
By Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May has won the right to launch divorce proceedings with the European Union and begin two years of talks that will shape the future of Britain and Europe. May, who was appointed prime minister shortly after Britain voted to leave the EU in June, faced down attempts in both the lower and upper houses of parliament to add conditions to legislation giving her right to launch the divorce. Both houses backed the "Brexit bill" and after securing symbolic approval from Queen Elizabeth, expected in the coming days, May has the right to begin what could be Britain's most complex negotiations since World War Two. But beyond saying she will begin the formal process later this month, May has yet to answer the question of exactly when, and end nine months of guesswork as to how her government will approach the uncharted territory of leaving the EU. "I will return to this house before the end of this month to notify when I have formally triggered Article 50 and begun the process through which the United Kingdom will leave the European Union," she told parliament. "This will be a defining moment for our whole country as we begin to forge a new relationship with Europe and a new role for ourselves in the world." May hopes to negotiate terms that keep ties with the other 27 member states as close as possible but also satisfy eurosceptics in her ruling Conservative party. But after Britain's vote to leave the European Union at the referendum deepened geographical and social divisions, she will now be forced to seek a deal that defuses threats by Scottish and Irish nationalists calling for independence votes. WISH LIST May has revealed little of her strategy but has a long wish list - wanting to win a free trade deal, maintain security cooperation, regain control over immigration and restore sovereignty over British laws. The EU has balked at her demands, saying they amount to "having your cake and eating it", and May's government acknowledges it is a bold opening position. While the government has signaled areas for compromise and is keen to remind EU leaders of the benefits of cooperation, May's government is also preparing for the possibility of crashing out of the bloc with no deal. An aide at one department said last month there was a backlog at May's office as her team scrutinizes all departmental reports, leading some to question whether her team is ready for the talks which could soon get bogged down. Britain's commitments to pay into the EU budget - which officials in the bloc estimate to reach around 60 billion euros - are shaping up to be one of the first, and possibly the most contentious parts, of the divorce talks. "There will be a lot of different issues jostling for attention so I think what will happen is we will get into in a bit of a holding pattern," said Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank. "I don't know for how long, but I can't see this being resolved in the two years." (Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan and William James; Editing by Alison Williams)
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador earlier this year in Tlapanaloya, Mexico. (Photo: Henry Romero/Reuters)

By the time Mexican politician Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador arrived at Manhattans Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monday evening, every chair, pew, windowsill, stair and ladder in the churchs basement auditorium had been spoken for.

Morena, crooned the mariachi song blaring through the speakers on stage, the Spanish-language ode to a brunette, which doubles as a theme song for Lopez Obradors National Regeneration Movement, or MORENA.

I wanted to come down here to see the future president of Mexico live, Rogelio Felipe said in Spanish from atop the emergency staircase to the right of the stage. Below, nearly everyone in the room scrambled to position themselves with cameras and smartphones outstretched in anticipation of Lopez Obradors entrance.

I like him, the 32-year-old Felipe said of Lopez Obrador, who is often referred to as AMLO. He wants  to make the country for all citizens. Felipe, a native of Guerrero, Mexico, who has lived in New York for 14 years, said he plans to give Lopez Obrador his first absentee vote in Mexicos upcoming presidential election.

Although the populist former mayor of Mexico City and perennial presidential candidate is already leading preelection polls, according to Mexican laws its still too early to begin officially campaigning for 2018. So despite having plastered his face across every wall and column in the church basement, Lopez Obrador began his speech Monday by insisting that his visit to New York  part of a cross-country speaking tour of U.S. cities with large Mexican immigrant populations  was not an act of electoral politics.

We did not come here in search of votes, the white-haired Lopez Obrador stated in Spanish, his calm yet commanding tone quickly silencing the enthusiastic crowd before him. The purpose of this visit, he continued, is to express our support for, our solidarity with you, the migrants. Those who, for necessity, not for preference, have abandoned your pueblos, your places of origin, to come look for life with honest work in the United States.

Story continues

The crowd in Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Photo: Caitlin Dickson/Yahoo News)

Reflecting on New York Citys long history as a haven for the worlds persecuted, Lopez Obrador argued that Mexican immigrants have been victimized twice over by the presidents on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. He said they were first knocked around by the neoliberal policies of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his long-reigning Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Lopez Obrador argued that those policies drove Mexicans over the border by failing to create jobs and bolster security while allowing the spread of poverty, hunger and violence throughout the country.

Immigration is the clearest and most painful evidence of the exclusionary character of the neoliberal model, Lopez Obrador declared. Whats more, he continued, those who managed to escape violence and poverty in Mexico are now facing persecution by President Trump, who has vowed to aggressively crack down on illegal immigration.

I have said it in other places and Ill repeat it now: it is a [low blow] by Trump and his advisers that they [refer to] Mexicans like Hitler and the Nazis referred to the Jews, he said.

Enrique Diaz, who attended the rally with his mother, said that while neither of them can vote in Mexicos presidential election, he hopes to promote Lopez Obradors populist message on social media.

I want to influence people who can actually vote in Mexico, the 24-year-old told Yahoo News, adding that his support for Lopez Obrador is bolstered by his distaste for current Mexican President Pena Nieto, who, he said, is the face of corruption.

Diaz, who studied forensic psychology at CUNYs John Jay College of Criminal Justice, moved to New York from Mexico City with his parents at age 7 and has a work permit through former President Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. So far, President Trump hasnt taken any explicit action to dismantle DACA but, Diaz said he is pretty anxious about what could happen in the next two years, when his permit is set to expire.

His mom, on the other hand, has no legal documentation. Shes very scared, he said, vowing that if either of his parents were to be deported to Mexico, he would go with them. If my parents made the sacrifice of moving to a country they didnt know, I guess Im going to do the same for them. If they have to leave, were all going.

Though he said he personally has never felt persecuted as a Mexican immigrant in New York City, Diaz said he thought Lopez Obradors overall message was beautiful.

Lopez Obrador, from my point of view, brings hope to the country and thats what we need, he said.

The crowd in Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Photo: Caitlin Dickson/Yahoo News)

Lopez Obradors anti-Trump rhetoric was a big hit with the crowd, who applauded emphatically at such statements as America First is fallacy and it is absurd to close this great country to foreigners, because the United States of America was built with the efforts of men and women from around the world.

In reality, Lopez Obrador and Trump arent exactly polar opposites. Both have well-documented qualms about the North American Free Trade Agreement. Obrador has a history of blaming past presidential defeats on voter fraud, a topic Trump frequently visits with gusto despite winning his race. Lopez Obrador also once hired former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump ally, to help craft a zero-tolerance policy to clean up crime in the Mexican capital.

Trump and Lopez Obrador also share a populist approach to campaigning, presenting themselves as outsiders ready to take on corrupt politicians and return their respective countries to the masses.

However, if Lopez Obrador were on a mission to present himself as the Mexican anti-Trump, he closed that deal through his response to an interruption by a couple of protesters.

Lopez Obrador was attempting to tell the crowd about his plan to deliver a petition to the U.N. this week against Trumps proposed border wall, when simmering tension between a couple of protesters and the rally-goers surrounding them reached a boiling point. Rather than have the men dismissed as Trump did across countless campaign events, Lopez Obrador reminded the crowd that we are talking about liberty and they are free to express their views. He even reprimanded a supporter who grabbed one of the protesters signs, reaching into the audience to retrieve the homemade poster and return it to his critic, whod since joined Lopez Obrador on stage along with a swarm of feuding protesters and supporters.

This is OK. No pasa nada, he assured his outraged fans, making one final attempt to finish his speech before regaining control of the frenzied crowd by leading them in a closing chant of, Viva Mexico! Viva Mexico!

Read more from Yahoo News:
KENTWOOD, Mich. (AP)  State police say a trooper followed agency protocol in a high-speed chase in western Michigan that ended with a crash that killed two people.

Lt. Chris McIntire says he reviewed in-car video and talked with the trooper following the chase, which began Saturday night with an attempted traffic stop of a car going 90 mph in Kentwood, near Grand Rapids. McIntire says he believes the pursuit was justified.

Police say the fleeing vehicle slammed into a car that 21-year-old Tara Oskam of Grand Rapids was driving to Calvin College. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

A passenger in the vehicle being chased also died. He's identified as 15-year-old David Torrez of Grand Rapids.

The driver of the vehicle police were pursuing had serious injuries. His name hasn't been released.
You might have seen a story going around celebrity gossip sites over the past couple days suggesting that Mischa Barton is "shopping around" a "sex tape," but her lawyer stepped in to set the record straight.

"Ms. Barton does not consent to any disclosure of any such images," reads a statement from Lisa Bloom. "She believes that she was recorded without her consent by someone she was seeing at the time."

SEE ALSO: Marine leader says revenge porn 'allegations undermine everything we stand for'

The statement goes on to clarify that this is a case of revenge porn, "a form of sexual assault." Barton lives in California, the first state to make the practice illegal, which Bloom notes.

Mischa Barton by mashablescribd on Scribd

After clarifying the issue at hand, Bloom made a pretty badass warning to anyone looking to exploit Barton.

"I have a message for anyone who attempts to traffic in these photos or videos of Ms. Marton: we will find you, and we will come after you. We will fully prosecute you under every available criminal and civil law," reads the statement. "You proceed at your peril."

In January, Barton was voluntarily hospitalized after displaying bizarre behavior at her home and doctors discovered the date rape drug GHB in her system.

On the evening of the 25th, I went out with a group of friends to celebrate my birthday," Barton told People after she was released from the hospital. "While having drinks, I realized that something was not right as my behavior was becoming erratic and continued to intensify over the next several hours."
From Road & Track

Preston Tucker is well known today for the cars he built after World War II, but there is one vehicle he built before the war whichif it still existsmight be worth some money as well. Tucker explored the possibility of furnishing goods to the military as the war approached, and he imagined an armored vehicle driven by a powerful engine, racing around a battlefield faster than the lumbering army tanks of the day. He developed a prototype which he called the Tucker Tiger Tank. The vehicle was wheeled, not tracked, so it would more properly be considered not a tank but an armored car. It was also fast, powered by a Packard V12 engine famed engine builder Harry Miller had modified for the application.

Tucker showed the Tucker Tiger Tank to Mechanix Illustrated, which ran an article titled "Armored Tank Attains Speed of 114 M.P.H." According to the piece, published in February 1939, the vehicle's body was welded together and weighed ten thousand pounds. Heavy by automobile standards, it still weighed less than similar armored vehicles and was faster than other vehicles in its class. Tucker claimed that it attained speeds of 78 mph over rough ground and 114 mph on "level road." The accompanying photograph showed the camouflaged car, bristling with machine guns, while Tucker, whom the magazine called "an armament manufacturer," stood inside it, pointing at the gun turret on the roof. The vehicle's main punch was delivered by a 37 mm cannon mounted in it.

Although World War II had not started yet, everyone knew a European conflict was likely coming. But the US Army had already decided against buying armored vehicles like Tucker's, opting instead for lighter reconnaissance cars. They passed on Tucker's design and the restas they sayis history. Except, of course, for the prototype. We know Tucker built one. There are several photos of the vehicle and there is even film of the car being driven over an obstacle course. It spent time in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and was probably also demonstrated for the military at a proving ground. But we never heard of it again after the war started. Does it still exist? If so, where is it?

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Of Tucker's civilian automobiles, we know where 47 of the 51 credited to his company are. Those routinely sell for millions of dollars. How much would the Tucker Tiger Tank sell for if it were to surface today? Probably a lot. And it sure would be fun to take to the local Cars & Coffee.

Steve Lehto is a writer and attorney from Michigan. He specializes in Lemon Law and frequently writes about cars and the law. His most recent books include Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow, and Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird: Design, Development, Production and Competition. He also has a podcast where he talks about these things.

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The Republican health care plan is struggling to overcome a tough Congressional Budget Office score, which estimated it would remove 14 million people from health insurance coverage. The law would save the federal government over $300 billion, in large part because fewer people will be getting care subsidized by the government. Additionally, the CBO estimates that premiums will rise dramatically in the initial two years of the lawas healthier people who dont want insurance drop off the rolls before declining afterward. The GOP cant quite get its message straight on the score. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan touted the score as a positive development, while over at the White House, HHS Secretary Tom Price told reporters, We disagree strenuously with the report that was put out. In any event, the CBO only scored Phase 1 of what the GOP claims is a three-phase plan, with the final two phases respectively involving regulatory changes and the passage of new legislation with a 60-vote majority threshold in the Senate. But the CBO only scores legislation, and Republicans have been largely silent on what their complete legislative package would look likeand many Republicans doubt theyll ever get the change to complete Phase 3.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a Trump ally who has become a critic of the legislation, explained it as follows to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday morning: There is no three-phase process. There is no three-step plan. That is just political talk. Its just politicians engaging in spin. This is why. Step one is a bill that can pass with 51 votes in the Senate. Thats what were working on right now. Step two, as-yet unwritten regulations by Tom Price, which is going to be subject to court challenge, and therefore, perhaps the whims of the most liberal judge in America. But step three, some mythical legislation in the future that is going to garner Democratic support and help us get over 60 votes in the Senate. If we had those Democratic votes, we wouldnt need three steps. We would just be doing that right now on this legislation altogether. Thats why its so important that we get this legislation right, because there is no step three. And step two is not completely under our control. With friends like those, this legislation appears to be in serious trouble.

Story continues

President Trump grants the CIA new drone powers. The latest on Trump Force One. And inside Trumps Lawyers plans for a White House assault on the administrative state.

Here are your must reads:

Must Reads

President Trumps Lawyers Plan a White House Legal Attack on Federal Agency Power

Don McGahn and Steve Bannon explain [TIME]

14 Million People Could Lose Insurance Under GOP Health Care Plan

Budget Office score imperils law [TIME]

Trump Gave CIA Power to Launch Drone Strikes

New authority departs from Obama-era policy under which only the Pentagon conducted the operations [Wall Street Journal]

White House Seeks to Cut Billions in Funding for United Nations

U.S. retreat from U.N. could mark a breakdown of the international humanitarian system as we know it. [Foreign Policy]

Trump Force One Is Ready for Takeoff

After decades in the sky, the presidents fleet is finally getting an upgradeunless the new passenger-in-chief adds turbulence. [Bloomberg]

Sound Off

The president used wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activity.  White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer explaining President Trumps tweeted accusation against former President Obama

The plan is not done yet.  Spicer on the counter-ISIS strategy review ordered by Trump

Bits and Bites

President Trump Made 3 Big Promises on Health Care. The Budget Office Just Undercut All of Them [TIME]

Justice Department Asks for More Time to Prove President Trumps Wiretapping Claims [Associated Press]

Republicans Are Bashing Their Own Accountants. They Didnt Always Feel That Way [TIME]

Cuts to State will be reduced in final Trump proposal [Politico]

Rex Tillerson Heads to Asia with North Korea Tensions High [Associated Press]

President Trump Wants to Hear Your Obamacare Complaints [TIME]

White House analysis of Obamacare repeal sees even deeper insurance losses than CBO [Politico]

President Trump Will Donate His White House Salary at the End of the Year [TIME]
By Olivia Oran (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley is hiring hundreds of tech-savvy specialists at its wealth management branches to train advisers on the firm's new digital tools, the bank's co-head of wealth management Andy Saperstein said in an interview. The digital adviser associates will help advisers get up to speed on new products, such as software that recommends customised investment ideas and apps that let advisers text or video chat with clients. They will also help advisers promote their presence through social media, Saperstein added. The effort is part of a broader technology push by Morgan Stanley, which has been investing heavily in new digital tools and products, many of which will be rolled out later this year. Although the tools will not necessarily generate revenue, they will help financial advisers do their jobs better, Morgan Stanley Chief Executive James Gorman said in January. They may also attract and retain customers who prefer digital options. Weve realized that our ability to invest resources in tools and technology is only as good as the advisers ability to implement this into their practices," Saperstein said on Friday. "We need to figure out ways to support advisers in that change." The digital specialists will be trained at Morgan Stanley's Purchase, New York wealth headquarters. They will then move to branches throughout the U.S. beginning this summer. They may eventually be incorporated onto adviser teams, Saperstein said. Morgan Stanleys digital revamp reflects a broader industry effort to keep wealth management relevant to younger Americans, who are accustomed to conducting their financial lives online and may not see the need for professional advisers. The average age of a wealth management customer industry-wide is 62, according to data services company Pricemetrix, while the average age of a financial adviser is 51, according to research firm Cerulli Associates. Only 11 percent of advisers are under the age of 35. As traditional brokerages get older, several wealth-management startups have been launched, offering automated, low-cost investment advice geared at younger clients. These so-called robo-advisers, like Wealthfront and Betterment, manage clients money using algorithms and allow clients to see and alter their investments online, bypassing human advisers. Morgan Stanley plans to introduce its own digital-only investment platform later this year, geared primarily toward children of existing clients. It is also using technology to automate some of the rote processes in branches, like opening accounts, to free advisers to spend more time with clients. Morgan Stanley has made a number of key hires to build out its digital department, including Naureen Hassan, who joined as chief digital officer for the wealth business from Charles Schwab & Co Inc last year. It has also hired several technology executives from Bank of America's Corp Merrill Lynch wealth unit. (Reporting by Olivia Oran in New York)
Good morning. These are todays top stories:

GOP health care plan report is released

Under the new Republican health care plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, 14 million people would lose health insurance coverage by 2018. Thats the estimate the Congressional Budget Office revealed in a report yesterday, along with other predictions of the proposals impact.

Feds ask for more time to probe wiretapping

The Justice Department, which had until yesterday to prove President Donald Trumps claim that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign, has asked for an extended deadline to provide evidence. Federal prosecutors now have until March 20.

Northeast gets pummeled with snow

A life-threatening snow storm barreled into the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast early today, prompting school closures and flight cancellations. Predicted storm totals range from 6 inches to 2 feet of snow.

Its Pi Day for math wizards

People in the math world will recognize Pi Day today on March 14 (3/14) because the date resembles the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter  3.14159265359, or 3.14 for short. More than 1,000 Silicon Valley workers from tech companies including Facebook, Apple and Google plan to protest Trump on Pi Day. Others will also eat pie, the dessert, in honor of the annual celebration.

Also:

Poland wants to extradite a 98-year-old Minnesota man who prosecutors say was a Nazi war commander.

The woman who penned an emotional viral column titled You May Want to Marry My Husband has died of cancer.

The Anti-Defamation League is tackling online hate speech by building a Silicon Valley command center.

Obamacare helped working moms breastfeed, and its one thing Republicans might keep.

Applications for New Zealand citizenship have increased 70% following Trumps election.

In a new music video, rapper Snoop Dogg aims a gun at a clown that is dressed as Trump.

The Morning Brief is published Mondays through Fridays. Email Morning Brief writer Melissa Chan at melissa.chan@time.com.
Maputo (AFP) - Mozambique is battling a cholera outbreak that has infected 1,222 people and killed two, the country's health ministry said Tuesday, warning that it has been unable to slow its spread.

Four of Mozambique's 13 provinces have been affected since the infection spread from the capital Maputo on January 5, deputy director of public health Benigna Matsinhe told a press conference.

It is the third consecutive year that Mozambique has suffered a cholera epidemic with the two fatalities reported to be from the Maputo area.

In 2015, 41 people died in one of the country's worst ever cholera outbreaks.

"We have recorded less cases in recent days, but what worries us is that we have been unable to halt transmission of the illness," Matsinhe said.

Since the end of last week, the infection has spread in Tete province, on Mozambique's western border with Zimbabwe and Malawi, with 397 cases reported.

Cholera typically strikes during Mozambique's rainy season, between October and March, when unhygienic conditions and stagnant water cause the bacteria to flourish.

The infection can cause severe diarrhoea, dehydration and in the worst cases, death.

Mozambique has been been deluged by heavy rains since October following two years of drought.

Malaria cases have also spiked with 1.48 million diagnoses -- an 11 percent jump compared to a year earlier -- and 288 deaths since January 2017.

"We have seen an increase in cases of malaria in recent years explained by progress in our screening programme and in our community treatment projects," said Lorna Gurjal, the head of the health ministry's epidemiology department.

The number of deaths and serious cases are however decreasing, she said.
Even though it is the most similar planet to Earth in composition and size, and being the closest, Venus has not been studied nearly enough by astronomers. The main deterrent to scientific missions is the extremely harsh environment on the planet, with clouds of sulfuric acid and near-surface temperatures of about 470 degrees Celsius (almost 880 degrees Fahrenheit).

Only some probes of the Venera missions, launched by the erstwhile Soviet Union, have ever made it through to the surface of Venus, even beaming back images and other data, before being destroyed by the inclement conditions on our so-called twin planet. But now, scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences Space Research Institute (IKI) are gearing up for Venera-D  the latest mission in the Venera series. And this time, NASA is working with IKI on the missions science objectives.

Scientists sponsored by NASA are meeting their counterparts at IKI this week (March 14-16) to discuss and fine-tune the objectives of the latters Venera-D mission. As currently envisaged, the mission will have an orbiter that would operate for up to three years above the Venutian atmosphere, as well as a lander which would survive on the surface for a few hours. There may also be a solar-powered airship that will independently explore Venus upper atmosphere for up to three months.

Read: Beating The Heat On Venus For Longer Surface Missions

While Venus is known as our sister planet, we have much to learn, including whether it may have once had oceans and harbored life. By understanding the processes at work at Venus and Mars, we will have a more complete picture about how terrestrial planets evolve over time and obtain insight into the Earths past, present and future, Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement Friday.

A joint science definition team, made up of researchers from IKI and NASA, along with other NASA-sponsored scientists, submitted its report to both NASA and IKI headquarters earlier this year.

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On a solar-system scale, Earth and Venus are very close together and of similar size and makeup. Among the goals that we would like to see if we can accomplish with such a potential partnership is to understand how Venus climate operates so as to understand the mechanism that has given rise to the rampant greenhouse effect we see today, David Senske, co-chair of the U.S. Venera-D science definition team, and a scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in the statement.

The landing site for the surface lander will be decided based on data collected by NASAs Magellan mission of 1990, which used a radar to map 98 percent of the planet with a resolution of up to 100 meters (330 feet), IKI said in a statement Monday (in Russian). The statement added the mission will likely be launched in 2026-27.

Venera, the Russian name for Venus, was active between 1961 and 1984, and a total of 16 missions saw 10 probes successfully land on Venus, marking the first time a human-made object landed on another planet as well as the first instance of interplanetary communication.

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Shwe Gu Ni village (Myanmar) (AFP) - The medium spins around in a frenzy of red and gold while glugging from a bottle of whisky, part of an age old ritual to honour Myanmar's spirit guardian of drunkards and gamblers.

Every year thousands of people pour into a small village southwest of Mandalay for a two-week festival, many packed into boats clutching bags of food and bedding or pulling up on rickety old bullock carts.

The event honours Ko Gyi Kyaw, one of Myanmar's best-loved 37 "Nat" spirits and is known for his penchant for booze, dancing and cockfights.

"He is the unrivalled Nat and the king of Nats, the master of Nats," said prominent medium San Hlaing Tun, his huge diamond and ruby rings glinting.

Most people in Myanmar are piously Buddhist, but many in this hugely superstitious nation turn to mischievous local deities for help with everything from business deals to car engines.

Each day of the two-week festival worshippers hold different events to honour Ko Gyi Kyaw, from bathing and gilding his statue to raucous cockfights.

Beggars dressed up as Nats and clutching wooden bowls line the road seeking donations from the devotees.

Dozens of stalls sell his favourite food -- roast chicken -- to help sober up followers who over-indulged in their whisky-fuelled worship.

Others flock to small pop-up shrines dotted around the village to make offerings of flowers and bananas, while the rich throw handfuls of money into the air.

Inside one small hut medium Naing Naing sits dressed as Ko Gyi Kyaw in a sparkling red and gold outfit, including a headdress bedecked with pink orchids.

"I came here from Yangon to pay respects to the Nat and it was an arduous journey to get here," he said, his face caked with lipstick and eyeliner.

"I really love the Nat and I pay my respects to the Nat with all that I am. Anyone who loves and believes in the Nat will surely be looked after."

Moments later he leaves his flower-filled grotto to begin the ritual.

Story continues

Standing at the centre of the crowd in one of the shrines he begins to dance clutching Ko Gyi Kyaw's symbols: a statue of a chicken and a bowl that symbolises a gambling pot.

Soon they are discarded in favour of a bottle of whisky, which he glugs and pours into the mouths of his gleeful followers who tuck cash into his hat.

But for true believers the festival is about more than just fun and debauchery -- it is a chance to improve your fortunes for the future by making merit.

"This is our culture and custom," said Tin Hlaing, 73, who has come to the festival every year since she was six. "He (Ko Gyi Kyaw) always takes care of us."
Parents whose children are hospitalized for any reason have enough to worry about, of course, but a new national survey shows many are just as concerned about what may happen to their children while they're in the hospital.

Their fears primarily stem from accidents involving their child during hospitalization and inadvertent errors by the health care team.

Some might argue that we are all human, and that despite comprehensive precautions at every stage of patient care, errors will occur.

I don't subscribe to that line of thinking. Monday marked the beginning of National Patient Safety Week, and I want to take this opportunity to share with you the remarkable strides we together are making in eliminating instances of preventable harm when it comes to caring for children in the hospital.

First, some details about the survey.

[See: How to Be a Good Patient Wingman.]

Good News and Bad News

The Zero Hero Consumer Survey was commissioned by Nationwide Children's Hospital and conducted by Harris Poll. In all, 2,018 adults were surveyed across the United States, 542 of whom were parents of a child under 18.

The results revealed both a high level of confidence in those who care for children in the hospital setting, yet a continued concern over accidents and mistakes.

Ninety three percent of respondents agree that hospital staff, including physicians, nurses and technicians, are well-prepared to handle medical emergencies involving children. Nearly as many (91 percent) say they would trust hospitals to care for their child should the need arise.

But there are some reservations. Nearly 40 percent of those surveyed say they are somewhat to very concerned that their child might be injured in a fall during their hospital stay, or that their child will get sick due to medication errors made by medical staff members.

More than half (53 percent) say they are somewhat or very concerned about their child developing an infection in the hospital following surgery.

Story continues

Their concerns are certainly justified. Hospital-acquired conditions affect patients of all ages, at times with devastating consequences. In fact, about 1 in 25 patients acquires an infection in the hospital every day, and too many are fatal.

However, after years of increasing concern, improved practices are showing significant progress in reducing risks. In fact, in a recently published paper by Dr. Joshua Schaffzin of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, postoperative surgical site infections in children were reduced by more than 20 percent among a cohort of 33 children's hospitals by using standardized infection prevention bundles.

[See: 12 Questions to Ask Before Discharge.]

The Tide Is Turning

According to the most recent National Scorecard on Rates of Hospital-Acquired Conditions from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, such efforts saved more than 125,000 lives and $28 billion between 2010 and 2015.

Just in 2015, the scorecard estimated approximately 980,000 fewer incidents of harm occurred when compared to conditions in 2010.

More must be done, but the data show best practices are working. There are also new initiatives to help, such as the HHS Partnership for Patients that provides resources, support and guidance for patients and hospitals, alike.

Supported in part by the Partnership, more than 100 children's hospitals -- including our own -- have been reducing hospital dangers. Since 2012, overall instances of harm fell 40 percent throughout that network, with infections falling nearly 50 percent, readmission rates falling 20 percent and more than 2,500 children saved from serious harm.

Now in its seventh year, our program to reduce harm is called Zero Hero. At its core is the expectation that every employee is accountable -- from administrators to physicians, nurses to educators -- all focused on clearly defined tasks and metrics.

We've developed several layers of oversight, such as steps to ensure correct medication is administered, since so many are deceptively similar, and detailed procedures to ensure instructions are checked and re-checked to avoid error.

If an incident does occur, individuals involved at every level come together into Huddle Teams to openly discuss what happened and how to prevent the incident from recurring. For that approach to work, it must be open. We require that everyone involved is included, and all must feel free to confront accidental error without fear of retribution. The results have been dramatic: From 2010 to 2012, we reduced dangerous hospital errors by more than 80 percent.

Keeping Your Child Safe

To help support parents when a child visits the hospital, we also remind them of five principles that must guide care. While designed around our own programs, these principles are universal.

1. Do Not Harm Me. How is the hospital working to prevent medication errors, infections, falls and pressure injuries? We ensure that all employees take hand hygiene seriously. Our secret shopper audited hand hygiene compliance rate has been 95 to 99 percent for the past four years. Is there a culture of putting safety first to avoid accidents?

2. Cure Me. Care should be proactive and reliable. Don't just expect a diagnosis -- expect to meet others who have been through your situation, plus a team of experts to manage your child's condition.

3. Treat Me With Respect. A hospital should collaborate with you, with respect, dignity, unbiased information sharing and your participation in every critical decision. They should know you and your needs and create an environment where you always feel comfortable asking for help.

4. Navigate My Care. Care must be well-coordinated and efficient, especially with the most complex medical conditions. Ultimately, better coordination and open channels of communication can prevent unnecessary hospital visits and speed response time when parents have a question or concern.

5. Keep Us Well. Care does not end once a patient leaves the hospital. From diabetes to cancer, asthma to obesity, keeping a child healthy is as important as addressing an urgent emergency. Keeping your child out of the hospital is as important as providing great care while in the hospital.

[See: 14 Things You Didn't Know About Nurses.]

While every hospital has a different approach to safety, there are many ways to hold medical providers accountable and ensure your child's visit does not create new harm.

It is unacceptable that medicine is ever considered dangerous or that errors are considered routine -- we all must reach for a higher standard, and for the sake of our children, strive to become Zero Heroes -- it takes a heroic effort to achieve zero harm, and we can do it by working together toward this common goal.

Richard J. Brilli, MD, FAAP, MCCM is Chief Medical Officer at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Brilli has been a leader in the pediatric quality and safety movement for more than 15 years and is the author of nearly 100 peer-reviewed articles pertaining to quality and safety. He is currently Co-Editor in Chief of the first pediatric specific journal exclusively dedicated to children's safety and quality (Pediatric Quality and Safety). He was the first to publish a peer-reviewed manuscript about the need to eliminate preventable harm such as hospital acquired infections, medication errors and other mistakes in pediatric care. Under Dr. Brilli's leadership, Nationwide Children's was the first pediatric institution to publically aspire to zero preventable harm. Further, the hospital was the first to define, use and publish the Preventable Harm Index, a metric used to track harm elimination as part of our Zero Hero initiative.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP)  The beachfront Faena Hotel has a lobby lavish enough to greet a pharaoh, with blinding sunlight bouncing off oversized gilded columns. In the distance, a golden sculpture of a mammoth's skeleton is framed by palm trees, the aqua blue sky and gleaming Atlantic Ocean.

The hotel is the centerpiece of Faena District, a once-neglected strip of Miami Beach where decaying structures and empty lots have given way to opulent hotels, condos and a performing arts center. The $1 billion project, which began in 2013, was developed by Argentine hotel magnate Alan Faena in partnership with billionaire Len Blavatnik. The cluster of buildings is located 2 miles north of South Beach, on a narrow strip of land between a waterway and the ocean.

The 169-room Faena Hotel maintains the Art Deco structure of the original Saxony Hotel, built on the site in 1947, but Faena's over-the-top renovation combines Belle Epoque splendor with tropical flair. Faena hired everyone from a Hollywood director to a Mexican shaman to contribute to the hotel's ambience. Elements include tiger sculptures, golden palm tree lamps and red roses.

Faena assigned the hotel's interior decor to Baz Luhrmann, director of "Moulin Rouge" and "The Great Gatsby," and costume designer Catherine Martin.

"For me, this is like cinema. Here I come to offer my heart and tell my story," said Faena, a former fashion designer, in an interview from his trailer studio.

He tapped the Argentine painter Juan Gatti to fill the hotel with mosaics of marine life and exuberant murals with flamingos, peacocks and tigers. The artwork is intended to depict the impressions of the first explorers to reach Florida.

And he wanted the spa to be a Latin American experience, so he recruited a Mexican shaman for rituals, and imported indigenous ingredients from the Amazon for treatments.

"The architecture, design, art, culture it all allows me to have this place to raise people up, so that people come here and feel somehow happier," Faena said.

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Rooms start at $745. Less expensive lodging is offered nearby at Casa Faena, a Spanish beach guesthouse with 50 rooms, tall ceilings, skylights and stained glass windows. The name Claridge can be seen in the casa's facade, preserving the name of the site's original hotel, which had fallen in disrepair.

"I like places that are forgotten because you can listen to them and listen to what they have to tell you," Faena says.

It's not the first time abandoned sites have inspired Faena.

He started his partnership with Blavatnik developing an abandoned pier in Buenos Aires and turning old mills and warehouses into skyscrapers and luxury hotels and apartments. In Argentina's Puerto Madero, away from the historic center, the construction straddled seven city blocks and has become a cultural hub in the capital city.

In Miami Beach, Faena Forum, the events venue, opened in time for the prestigious Art Basel last November. The white building is a 43,000-square-foot structure of an asymmetrical cube embracing a cylinder, inspired by Rome's Pantheon. The center features a dome with an oculus and an amphitheater of pink marble expected to house concerts and seminars.

Charles Bohl, head of University of Miami's graduate program in real estate development and urbanism, says he'd like to see more done to make the area pedestrian-friendly. But Bohl said the district contributes greatly to developing arts and culture in Miami Beach, which attracts most of the 15 million tourists Miami sees every year.

"The developers brought a vision that has created a unique environment," Bohl said. "It's one of the places everyone wants to hold events in."

It has attracted celebrity visitors such as Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ariana Grande.

On a recent evening, visitors lined up outside restaurants while others sipped martinis and wine on a deck cooled by the ocean breeze.

At the hotel theater, the cabaret-style show "C'est Rouge" drew an audience of couples and friends, some dressed in shimmering cocktail gowns. They watched acrobats and trapeze artists, followed by musicians doing numbers like Gloria Estefan's "Conga" and the Spanish version of "Love Me With All of Your Heart."

One spectator, Alexandria Corral, an event planner, brought two friends from out of town to celebrate her 25th birthday.

"Of everything else I've seen, this would be the fanciest place. It tops everything else that Miami Beach has to offer," she said.

___

If You Go...

FAENA HOTEL: 3201 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. Nightly $745 but rates vary by season; http://www.faena.com/ . Tickets for "C'est Rouge" from $95, with dinner $250. Los Fuegos Restaurant at the hotel, lunch 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; dinner 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and until midnight Friday-Saturday.

CASA FAENA: 3500 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. Rooms start from $295; http://www.faena.com/casa-faena

FAENA FORUM: 3300 Collins Ave., http://www.faenaart.org/exhibitions/
Nepal police Tuesday demolished the largest remaining settlement of people displaced by a powerful earthquake that struck nearly two years ago, a move that will leave hundreds homeless.

Around 100 families were still living in the camp in Kathmandu when police wearing riot gear used bulldozers to flatten the bamboo and tarpaulin structures.

"The gods will curse the government. We don't have our home and can't rent a room from our earnings in Kathmandu," said Kabita Limbu, tears rolling down her face.

Limbu's husband fainted when their tent was destroyed before the couple were able to retrieve their processions.

Apsana Tamang, 19, was breastfeeding her one year-old baby in her makeshift home when the authorities arrived early morning.

"I have nowhere to live as my parents' house in Kavre district was also damaged in the earthquake," said Tamang, who was pregnant when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal killing more than 9,000 people.

"We have received nothing from the government or other organisations except food and tarpaulins."

About 2,000 people lived in the camp at its peak, but many had left in recent weeks after authorities gave residents a one month eviction notice.

Despite the prior warning, residents were taken by surprise and rushed to gather their belongings from their homes as the bulldozers moved in.

The government has faced mounting criticism for the slow pace of reconstruction following the earthquake, which destroyed more than one million homes.

International donors pledged $4.1 billion after the earthquake -- the strongest to hit the impoverished Himalayan nation in 80 years.

But political wrangling over control of the funds and formation of the government body to oversee the reconstruction effort meant the first instalments of a housing grant were only paid out in March 2016.

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has now distributed the first 50,000 rupees ($460) of a promised 300,000-rupee grant to around 550,000 households.

Story continues

The head of the NRA Govind Raj Pokharel told AFP he had forwarded a proposal to the government to provide an extra 200,000 rupee grant to families who now needed to be relocated from the camp.

But he acknowledged that the extra cash was not a panacea.

"The main problem is there are limited options (to earn a) livelihood for the earthquake victims in their villages so they don't want to return to their village," Pokharel said.
Nicki Minaj doesnt need to be on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to prove that shes winning just like what the lyrics of her Come On A Cone track say. All she needs is a black backdrop, her cellphone and Celine Dions Its All Coming Back To Me song to show the world that shes won yet another fight  her feud with shETHER rapper Remy Ma.

On Monday, Minaj took to Instagram to post a video of her lip-syncing Dions 90s hit backstage at Drakes Boy Meets World Tour. In the clip, Meek Mills ex can be seen playfully mouthing the words to the song while in her revealing diamond-encrusted outfit. Minaj was obviously enjoying her performance as she stops to grin from time to time and eventually loses it toward the end of the video.

Many of Minajs fans were pleased to see Queen Barbz happy, especially after the rough time she went through during her public feud with Remy Ma. Such positivity. Yes Nicki. Show them and HER whose [sic] queen, a fan wrote. Another demanded that she should collab with Dion. Please do a collab with Celine Dion. That would be epic, a comment from another fan read.

READ: Nicki Minajs feuds from past to present

Minaj appears to be in high spirits after Remy Ma failed to respond with a diss track within 72 hours after she posed a challenge following the release her songs, No Frauds and Changed It. Papooses wife also did not manage to accomplish Minajs dare of booking a show or an interview without having to talk about their beef.

All that Remy Ma did over the weekend was promote her Plata O Plomo album with Fat Joe and turn a blind eye to her fans requests on social media to clap back at Minaj. She did ask Minaj Are you dumb? after the latter dropped her new songs with Drake and Lil Wayne, but she didnt go beast mode on the Young Money artist just like what she did in shETHER.

Though Minaj seems to have had the last laugh in their feud, Remy Ma is ahead of her nemesis when it comes to having a man who would stick by her side no matter what. In a new Instagram post, Remy Ma revealed that she just had a date night with her longtime husband Papoose. Previously, the Whuteva rapper made a subtle dig at Minajs failed relationships with Mill and Safaree Samuels by giving a shout-out to her baby daddy on his birthday.

Story continues

Nicki Minaj

Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

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Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory , who was defeated in his reelection campaign this past November, now says hes having trouble finding jobs in the private sector because of the backlash against the states controversial bathroom bill.

Even after I left office people are reluctant to hire me, because, oh my gosh, hes a bigot which is the last thing I am, McCrory said in a podcast on World Radio on March 10. Im in some ways actually liberal on some of these issues. Im a libertarian, on many of these issues but I dont think the city government, a state government, a federal government should be able to tell the private sector what the new definition of gender is.

The bill, known as HB2, passed the North Carolina state legislature in 2016, and required people to use the public bathrooms that match the sex on their birth certificate, provoking an outcry about discrimination against transgender people.

Despite an attempt to repeal the law in December, it is still on the books in the state. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who defeated McCrory, urged the state to repeal it in an address Monday, calling it the dark cloud hanging over our state of promise.

In an interview with the Raleigh News & Observer, McCrory said he had accepted positions in consulting and on advisory boards, but that he had explored positions in academia and university leaders were nervous because of student protests.

Thats not the way our American system should operate  having people purged due to political thought, he told the N&O.
When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a news conference during the annual session of the National Peoples Congress on March 8, he warned that the United States and North Korea were behaving like accelerating trains coming toward each other, and wondered whether the countries were ready for a head-on collision.

Wangs remarks and the accompanying imagery certainly drew the attention of the international media. But as Wang surely knew, this proverbial train wreck would also do grievous damage to Sino-U.S. relations: China would inevitably be dragged into a military conflict, should one erupt as a result of North Koreas provocations. Indeed, as Pyongyang continues ratcheting up tensions through its repeated nuclear and missile tests, Beijing faces stark strategic choices, each of which comes with its own fraught trade-off.

China could, of course, always elect to maintain its current policy of pushing the United States to talk (and offer concessions) to North Korea while applying only modest pressure on its client state across the Yalu River to roll back its nuclear and missile programs. But the long-term feasibility of this approach appears doubtful. Circumstances may well eventually draw the Trump administration back to the negotiating table with North Korea, but it is unlikely to be blackmailed by Pyongyang into making any substantive concessions, like a peace treaty coupled with economic aid, without a credible commitment to nuclear disarmament.

Barring such a miracle, the status quo, as Wang argued, is untenable. North Korea is on the brink of a nuclear breakout. With its recent advances, the Kim Jong Un regime may acquire a large number of powerful nuclear warheads and the long-range missiles to deliver them, posing a direct threat to America. A burgeoning nuclear arsenal would also tempt a cash-starved North Korea to proliferate nuclear materials and missiles in exchange for foreign currency.

Recommended: How an Anti-Islam Party Became Possible in the Netherlands

Such developments would force the United States and its regional allies, Japan and South Korea, to beef up their deterrence and even consider pre-emptive strikes to defang Pyongyangs nuclear arsenal. The military deployment required for such efforts, such as the recent installation of Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), an advanced anti-missile system, will raise fears in China. Beijing, as is widely reported in the Chinese press, believes that the United States wants to use the brewing crisis on the Korean peninsula as a pretext to introduce capabilities that will make the Chinese military more vulnerable. As a result, China regards the U.S. response, not North Korean provocations, as the primary threat to its security. This underlying dynamic could eventually spark a collision between China and the United States.

If Beijings current policy risks such a disaster, the alternatives are hardly more palatable. China may be tempted to increase its aid to North Korea in hopes of bribing Kim Jong Un to slow his nuclear and missile programs. But the chances of success for such a strategy are slim. Relations between Beijing and Pyongyang are at an all-time low, with the Chinese and the North Koreans barely on speaking terms. And an increase in Chinese support would risk violating UN sanctions. The Kim regime would also view such an about face by Beijing as an acknowledgement that its policy of penalizing Pyongyang for its provocations was wrong headed, and fresh Chinese aid as compensation for its mistake. In any case, North Korea has a track record of taking Chinese aid without moderating its behavior. The Kim dynasty knows perfectly well that China values North Korea as a strategic buffer so much that it simply cannot afford to lose it.

Recommended: Welcome to the Future Range of the Woolly Mammoth

Another alternative would be a complete reversal of Chinas current stance. Under this scenario, rather than keeping North Korea on life support, China would work with the United States to force Kim Jong Un to abandon his nuclear ambitions. This revolutionary shift in policy would require that Beijing demonstrate it is prepared to tolerate the collapse of the Kim dynasty, whatever the costs or consequences.

In practical terms, executing such a policy would necessitate strategic trust between China and the United States. Both sides would have to engage in a serious dialogue on the endgame in North Korea. Negotiations over that endgame would include the restoration of peace and security in the event of the Kim regimes collapse. North Koreas nuclear weapons and materials would have to be secured through a combined American, Chinese, and South Korean effort. This would require joint planning over issues such as demarcation lines, temporary settlement of refugees, and disposal of Pyongyangs nuclear arsenal.

In such a scenario, the United States would have to address Chinas long-term security concerns over the Korean peninsula. Beijing would almost certainly demand that Washington end its military alliance with Seoul and withdraw its troops from the peninsula. China may sweeten this deal by proposing that the United States work to jointly guarantee the security of a neutral unified Korea.

Recommended: Holi 2017: The Festival of Colors

But given the strategic distrust between America and China and their great-power rivalry, its hard to imagine either government embracing this radical alternative. There is good reason why they have not yet engaged in official or semi-official discussion on the future of the Korean peninsula (no such meeting has ever been reported in the media, and my colleagues both in China and America know of no such discussions). In Beijing, a regime collapse in Pyongyang is a taboo subject the Chinese official media has never broached. At the same time, Washington would likely reject the idea that it should accommodate Chinas security concerns and withdraw its forces after the reunification of the two Koreas (leaving aside whether a reunified Korea would want the U.S. troops to leave). An obvious concern of Washingtons is that an American exit from the Korean peninsula could perhaps fatally undermine the U.S.-led system of alliances in East Asia. Once the U.S.-Korea military alliance dissolves, Washington would be left with Japan as its sole treaty ally in northeast Asia.

If Beijings current policy risks such a disaster, the alternatives are hardly more palatable.

With the alternatives appearing either infeasible or unthinkable, China is likely to stick with its current policy for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that this is unlikely to reverse the dangerous dynamics on the Korean peninsula. In the short term, the political turmoil in South Korea may give China a chance to complicate the life of the Trump administration. The impeachment of President Park Geun-hye has created an opening for South Koreas leftists, who favor a softer line toward North Korea.

In the event that Moon Jae-in, the leader of the opposition Minjoo Party, wins the special presidential election in May, China is expected to pursue two immediate priorities. First, it will push Seouls new government to back out of the THAAD deal with the United States. Second, it will throw its weight behind Moons more conciliatory approach to Pyongyang, thus raising the pressure on Washington to reengage Pyongyang diplomatically.

The combination of Chinas continuation of its current policy and South Koreas political uncertainty has made Secretary of State Rex Tillersons upcoming trip to the region a challenging task. In all likelihood, the most he can hope for is some non-committal reassurance from Chinese leaders about working with the United States. To be sure, the just-announced summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago in April should be welcomed as a positive indicator of potential improved U.S.-China cooperation on the Korean peninsula.

But we should also temper expectations. Unless the upcoming summit reaches a grand bargain that stabilizes U.S.-China relations across the board, the risks that the Trump administration will push back against China on trade and security will remain high and China will have little incentive to help America out where North Korea is concerned. If anything, the unfolding crisis in North Korea could get far more dangerous.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
In yet another blame game, the isolated country of North Korea accused the United States and South Korea of unnecessarily censuring the country for the death of Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of leader Kim Jong Un.

"From A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," Kim In Ryong, North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters Monday, adding that it was not yet clear how Kim Jong Nam died.

The United States and the South Korean authorities are groundlessly blaming the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]," the ambassador said, according to the Associated Press.

Malaysian authorities have concluded that Kim Jong Nam, who died Feb. 13 at the Kuala Lumpur airport, was killed using a banned VX nerve agent. In fact, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak squarely accused North Korea of orchestrating the murder.

"What we are facing now is the result of their action in assassinating their own citizen in Malaysia, on Malaysian soil, using a strictly banned chemical weapon," Najib told state media last Wednesday.

However, ambassador Kim In Ryong claimed that the U.S. is among the few countries that can manufacture the banned nerve agent, and that it had enlisted the help of South Korea. He also alleged that the U.S. and South Korea intend to create conditions that could give them reasons to wage a nuclear war against DPRK at any cost."

"It is a final aim sought by the United States to store up the international repugnancy towards the DPRK. ... So the U.S. and South Korea were starting the political chicanery to bring down the social system in DPRK," he added.

Relations between Malaysia and North Korea soured following the incident. The diplomatic row worsened as North Korea banned Malaysian citizens from leaving the country. Malaysia followed suit and introduced a similar travel ban for North Koreans. Currently, nine Malaysians  three diplomats and their family members  are stranded in North Korea. Malaysia said Monday that it was working with the reclusive nation to secure the release of its people.

Story continues

Read: Malaysia Slams North Korea Over Temporary Travel Ban

"The negotiations with the North Koreans are ongoing," Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said, according to Reuters. "Our main priority is the safety of the nine Malaysians who are in Pyongyang."

Malaysian police have charged two women  an Indonesian and Vietnamese  with Kim Jong Nams murder. Eight North Koreans, believed to be absconding and allegedly hiding in the North Korean embassy in Malaysia, have also been identified by the police for questioning.

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By Hongji Kim and Sang-gyu Lim ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON (Reuters) - As the USS Carl Vinson plowed through seas off South Korea on Tuesday, rival North Korea warned the United States of "merciless" attacks if the carrier infringes on its sovereignty or dignity during U.S.-South Korean drills. F-18 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered carrier in a dramatic display of U.S. firepower amid rising tension with the North, which has alarmed its neighbors with two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since last year. "While this is a routine deployment for the Carl Vinson strike group, really the centerpiece for us ... is this exercise we're doing with the ROK navy called 'Foal Eagle'," Rear Admiral James W. Kilby, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 1, told reporters, referring to South Korea as the Republic of Korea. North Korea said the arrival of the U.S. strike group in the seas off the east of the Korean peninsula was part of a "reckless scheme" to attack it. "If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater," the North's state news agency KCNA said. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army," KCNA said. Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war. The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to handle North Korea. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday. Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy and "all options are on the table". CHINESE OPPOSITION Compounding regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system. The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system is for defense against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security. The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests. South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on March 1. The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale. The United States has also started to deploy "Gray Eagle" attack drones to South Korea, a U.S. military spokesman said on Monday. China says the exercises do nothing to ease tension. Last week, it called on North Korea to stop its weapons tests and for South Korea and the United States to stop their drills. "We hope the relevant side can respect the security concerns of countries in the region, can take a responsible attitude and do more to benefit the easing of tension, rather than irritating each other," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing, referring to the United States. (Additional reporting by Hyunyoung Yi, Ben Blanchrd in BEIJING; Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez)
By Hongji Kim and Sang-gyu Lim ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON (Reuters) - As the USS Carl Vinson ploughed through seas off South Korea on Tuesday, rival North Korea warned the United States of "merciless" attacks if the carrier infringes on its sovereignty or dignity during U.S.-South Korean drills. F-18 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered carrier in a dramatic display of U.S. firepower amid rising tension with the North, which has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since last year. "While this is a routine deployment for the Carl Vinson strike group, really the centrepiece for us ... is this exercise we're doing with the ROK navy called 'Foal Eagle'," Rear Admiral James W. Kilby, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 1, told reporters, referring to South Korea as the Republic of Korea. North Korea said the arrival of the U.S. strike group in the seas off the east of the Korean peninsula was part of a "reckless scheme" to attack it. "If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater," the North's state news agency KCNA said. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army," KCNA said. Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war. The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to handle North Korea. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday. Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy and "all options are on the table". CHINESE OPPOSITION Compounding regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system. The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system is for defence against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security. The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests. South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on March 1. The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale. The United States has also started to deploy "Gray Eagle" attack drones to South Korea, a U.S. military spokesman said on Monday. China says the exercises do nothing to ease tension. Last week, it called on North Korea to stop its weapons tests and for South Korea and the United States to stop their drills. "We hope the relevant side can respect the security concerns of countries in the region, can take a responsible attitude and do more to benefit the easing of tension, rather than irritating each other," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing, referring to the United States. (Additional reporting by Hyunyoung Yi, Ben Blanchrd in BEIJING; Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez)
Tunis (AFP) - The body in charge of organising elections in Tunisia on Tuesday proposed November 26 as the date for holding the first municipal polls since the country's 2011 revolution.

"It is still possible to hold the elections in 2017," said the president of the electoral body, Chafik Sarsar, at a meeting with Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and party officials.

He proposed November 26, a date which he said could be delayed until the first half of December, while calling for the timing to be decided this week.

It could even be pushed back to March 2018, he said.

But Sarsar warned that delays could be "a bad sign for Tunisia", whose revolution toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and signal "an incapacity to move forward with the democratic transition".

Chahed said it was "necessary for the elections to take place in 2017", but the different party officials disagreed on a date at Tuesday's meeting.
Washington (AFP) - The head of the Organization of American States called on members to suspend crisis-hit Venezuela's membership unless the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro quickly holds credible elections.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro called on Venezuela "as soon as possible" to hold "free, just and transparent" elections that can be observed by international monitors.

If not, "it would be the right time to suspend Venezuela from OAS activities in accordance with Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Almagro said in a 75-page letter to the group's Permanent Council.

Venezuela has been rocked by protests as it struggles to emerge from a deep crisis under Maduro, who was elected with a razor-thin majority in 2013.

The leftist regime -- which Maduro inherited from the late Hugo Chavez, who came to power in 1999 -- has systematically thwarted efforts by an emboldened opposition to hold a recall referendum.

Venezuela's economic plight is largely due to falling prices for its oil exports, contributing to food shortages and economic disarray.

Maduro however says the crisis is a US-backed capitalist conspiracy, and claims the opposition is working on their behalf. Several opposition leaders have been jailed, while others have been harassed or forced into exile.

- 'Torture ... drug trafficking' -

Almagro said diplomatic efforts to broker government-opposition talks "have not resulted in any progress."

Venezuelans have "lost even more faith in their government and in the democratic process," said Almagro, a former Uruguayan foreign minister.

He said the Venezuelan government "violates the rights of its nationals with impunity," holds political prisoners just for showing dissent, and engages in "torture, theft, corruption (and) drug trafficking."

Almagro demanded "concrete results" from the 34-member Permanent Council to "restore democracy" in Venezuela. Anything less would make the organization an "accomplice" with the Venezuelan government.

Story continues

"The voice of the Venezuelan people has been silenced and jailed, and corruption and drug trafficking has spread across the country," the letter read.

In years past leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina and Peru were reluctant to criticize Venezuela. With new, more conservative governments these countries are now stepping up their criticism.

Almagro's letter is an updated version of a report he presented to the Permanent Council in June 2016. There was plenty of debate over that report, but no agreement on what to do.

- 'Sad evildoer' -

In Caracas, the Venezuelan foreign ministry reacted by claiming that Almagro's goal was to encourage foreign intervention.

"Almagro, a known enemy of the people of Venezuela, has forged false assumptions against the republic with the sole objective of encouraging international intervention... heightening the economic war," the foreign ministry said.

The statement claims that Almagro's actions are guided "by his hatred towards Venezuela" and his alleged support for the "pro-coup, extremist and anti-democratic" Venezuelan opposition.

It then dismissed the OAS head as a "sad evildoer."

Venezuelan presidential elections are scheduled for December 2018, while a vote to elect state governors, originally set for late 2016, was postponed to an undetermined date this year.
CHARLESTON -- The Charleston Reading Circle will meet at the Charleston Country Club at noon Friday for the final meeting of the spring. Meetings will resume on Oct. 20.

At the last meeting, Donna Karbassioon reported on "Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured" by Katheryn Harrison. Joan of Arc, a young uneducated peasant girl from Domremy, France, became a visionary heroine in the Middle Ages. She defies the limitations placed on her and becomes a warrior and fearless leader. This results in her being found guilty of heresy and burned at the stake.

Renee Roster reported that Joan Biskupic's book, "Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice," is about the life of the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. She was born in 1954 to Puerto Rican immigrants in the Bronx, N.Y. She excelled in her studies and earned a scholarship to study at Harvard, where she majored in history and graduated summa cum laude.

She earned her law degree at Yale. During the administrations of presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, she was appointed to federal judicial positions. In 2009, President Obama nominated her to fill David Souter's seat on the Supreme Court.

For more information, contact Marilyn Dudley, Charleston Reading Circle, at 217-345-7706.
Former President Barack Obama was in Silicon Valley meeting with tech leaders on Monday, though the nature of that meeting was not immediately made public, according to multiple reports. But before he landed in San Jose, he took time to have a quick bite with one of the Democratic Party's most generous supporters: billionaire Warren Buffett.

The former two-term commander in chief has shown no signs of shunning a public life since leaving the White House, as evidenced by his meeting in Northern California on Monday on his first non-presidential trip there, NBC Bay Area reported.

Read: Trump And Obama Advisers Spoke After Wiretapping Claims

Details surrounding his lunch with Buffett and his wife at a country club in Omaha, Nebraska, on Sunday were equally as elusive as those surrounding his meeting with tech leaders, although local news outlet the Omaha World-Herald did report that Obama snacked on a taco salad. But when asked, Buffett's wife was light on the specifics.

"I'm not going to talk about the meeting," Susie Buffett

told the World-Herald. "The three of us ate lunch."

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently said Obama would be making a return to politics, so perhaps his meetings Sunday and Monday had something to do with that. "Its coming. Hes coming," Holder told reporters late last month about Obama's involvement with the Democratic Party. "And hes ready to roll."

Read: Michelle Obama Surprises Students On International Women's Day

However, if his meetings were not inspired by politics, Obama very well could have just been enjoying his rock star status. In fact, he and former first lady Michelle Obama just had lunch with an actual rock star  Bono from U2. The trio dined in style in New York City on Friday, prompting revelers to show respect for the former president.

"The whole restaurant stood up and applauded and cheered for them. Barack Obama waved at everyone upon leaving," People magazine reported.

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ISLAMABAD (AP)  Pakistan vowed on Tuesday to work to prevent non-nuclear states from gaining the technology that would put them on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons  even though both Islamabad and neighbor New Delhi have defied non-proliferation treaties to become competing nuclear powers.

The pledge was delivered by Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan's prime minister on foreign affairs, at a multi-nation conference on non-proliferation in Islamabad, attended by representatives of South and Central Asia, as well as China and Russia.

Pakistan is signatory to the 13-year-old United Nations resolution aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, with a particular emphasis on preventing non-state actors from getting their hands on massively destructive technology as well as materials.

But Islamabad has had a sketchy history in this area, with the architect of its nuclear weapons program, Qadeer Khan, accused of clandestinely giving North Korea nuclear weapons technology.

When India started down the nuclear road by launching its program in the early 1970s, Pakistan was quick to follow. The tensions between the two countries  neither of which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement  have raised the specter of a nuclear confrontation between the two hostile neighbors.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947 when majority Muslim Pakistan was created from the larger South Asian subcontinent.

Aziz, the prime minister's adviser, told participants at the Islamabad conference that Pakistan has implemented regulatory precautions to avoid siphoning off technology into the wrong hands.

The international community has expressed fears militants could lay their hands on nuclear and other destructive materials, particularly as various al-Qaida-linked and other militant groups and the rival Islamic State group are still able to stage large-scale attacks in both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.

Story continues

Pakistan has come under sanctions in the past because of its nuclear weapons program and as a result has run into shortages of spare parts for its nuclear reactors that provide energy. It has also been critical of U.S. support for India's inclusion in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which devises guidelines for nuclear exports and nuclear-related exports.

The two-day conference also includes representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Interpol.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Pakistan and India are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
By Joseph Sipalan KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was embalmed this week in Kuala Lumpur, with no family member coming forward to claim the remains and as a diplomatic spat with Pyongyang drags on. It's been over a month since Kim Jong Nam was murdered on Feb. 13, when Malaysian police say two women smeared super toxic VX nerve agent on his face at the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Kim died within 20 minutes of the attack, before reaching the hospital. Since then, his body has been at a Kuala Lumpur morgue, and police say they will only hand it over to his next of kin. No one so far has come forward to claim the body, Malaysian authorities have said. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters outside parliament on Tuesday the body has been embalmed so it can be preserved longer. "It's an effort to preserve the body, because if it is kept in the mortuary it might decompose so we did this to preserve the body," Zahid said. The body was secretly taken out of the morgue for the embalming on Sunday night, avoiding the attention of dozens of media representatives stationed outside. DIPLOMATIC MELTDOWN The murder, and Malaysia's attempt to investigate North Koreans inside Pyongyang's embassy in Kuala Lumpur, has sparked a diplomatic meltdown between two countries with once strong ties. North Korea is preventing three Malaysian diplomats and their six family members from leaving the country, sparking tit-for-tat action by Malaysia. Zahid said the two countries are still negotiating, but did not elaborate. Zahid also said Malaysia will soon deport 50 North Korean workers who overstayed their visa in the Borneo state of Sarawak. They were among 176 North Koreans working in Sarawak. The workers were employed in mines and construction sites in the state. Zahid has said about 315 North Koreans remain in the country with valid visas. Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in the Chinese territory of Macau under Beijing's protection, had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed North Korea. South Korean intelligence officers say Kim Jong Un had issued standing orders for the elimination of his elder half-brother. Video footage of a man claiming to be the son of Kim Jong Nam appeared last week, in which he said he was lying low with his mother and sister. Malaysia has refused North Korea's request to release the body without an autopsy and investigation. It expelled the North Korean ambassador over his remarks questioning the investigations. This angered North Korea, who then barred Malaysians from leaving the country. In response, Malaysia briefly blockaded the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur last week. Malaysian police have identified eight North Koreans wanted for questioning in connection with the killing of Kim Jong Nam, some of them hiding in the North Korean embassy. A Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman have already been charged in the case. (Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
Monica Crowley was once U.S. President Donald Trumps top pick for a top White House national security role. After being caught up in a plagiarism scandal, she backed out of the job. But now she has a new one: lobbying for Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.

Her move comes right on the heels of a scandal involving former national security advisor Michael Flynns belated registration as a foreign agent for work he did for Turkey while advising the Trump campaign. While Crowley never served in the administration, her move to lobby for a Ukrainian oligarch further clouds Trumps campaign pledge to drain the swamp of Washington.

Crowley registered as a foreign agent for Victor Pinchuk according to documents submitted to the Department of Justice on March 10. According to the files, the conservative news commentator will be providing outreach services on behalf of Mr. Pinchuk including inviting government officials and other policy makers to attend conferences and meetingsto engage in learning and dialogue regarding issues of concern to Mr. Pinchuk.

Pinchuk is a controversial political figure in Ukraine. The son-in-law of former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Pinchuk made over $1 billion off his steel company and other ventures in the rough-and-tumble business landscape of post-Soviet Ukraine. He backed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and became a vocal opponent of Russias actions in Ukraine. He also gained notoriety for forging close ties with the Clinton family, pouring between $10 and $25 million into the Clinton Foundation as of 2016, according to the New York Times.

Pinchuk came under fire in 2015 when a Newsweek investigation revealed his businesses had trade links with Iran in 2011 and 2012 when Iran was under sanction  a claim Pinchuk denied. He also found himself in legal trouble when the Commerce Department investigated his steel company, Interpipe, Ltd., for illegally dumping steel tubes used in natural gas production into the United States.

Story continues

Pinchuks foundation also donated $150,000 to Trumps foundation after the real-estate mogul delivered a speech on Ukraine in 2015 to a meeting organized by the foundation.

Pinchuk emerged as a potential conduit to Trump for the Ukrainian government, as Foreign Policy reported in February. He caught flak at home for penning a Wall Street Journal op-ed in December arguing that Ukraine should make painful compromises with Russia, though he hasnt backed off his denunciation of Russias antics in stoking the crisis. His new business relationship with Crowley indicates he could be seeking new inroads with the White House after years of forging ties with the Clintons.

Crowley plagiarized over 50 sections of her 2012 book, What The (Bleep) Just Happened, from sources including Wikipedia, Investopedia, news outlets, and think tank reports. She withdrew herself from the running to be senior director of communications for Trumps national security council when revelations of her plagiarism first broke in January. Her publisher, HarperCollins, subsequently removed the book from shelves.

Doug Schoen, another news commentator and political analyst, is listed in the documents as the primary registrant for Crowleys work with Pinchuk. Schoen arranged multiple meetings for Pinchuk with top State Department officials while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, and as recently as 2014 earned $40,000 a month for advising Pinchuk, according to the New York Times.



Flynn, who served less than one month in office, retroactively registered as a foreign agent in March for lobbying on behalf of a company with ties to the Turkish government while advising Trumps presidential campaign. He resigned in February for misleading White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, on meetings he held with the Russian ambassador.

Photo credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Paris (AFP) - OPEC said Tuesday oil producers have kept their promise to cut output in accordance with a landmark deal designed to lift petroleum prices.

As a result, prices rose in February as last year's accord between OPEC members and some non-members gained traction, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its monthly oil report.

The oil price recovery was, however, under threat from fresh supply as high-cost producers in the United States started drilling again, encouraged by the price upswing, as well as from rising Canadian production.

An OPEC oil price reference basket rose by about two percent to an average of $53.37 in February, the organisation said.

"High compliance with supply adjustments by OPEC and some non-OPEC producers supported gains," it said.

In December, OPEC agreed with 11 non-members, including Russia, to cut output in the first half of this year to push prices higher.

- Placing bets -

Looking at the oil futures market, a key gauge of pent-up demand, OPEC said a record number of investors were placing wagers on price increases.

"Bets on crude oil prices rising have hit a new record high for the third month in a row, giving additional support to oil prices," OPEC said.

"Investor optimism over the effectiveness of the production adjustments encouraged record bets on a sustained rally," it said, adding however that "growing US output and stubbornly high stockpiles kept price gains in check and contained prices within a tight range".

The oil price has seen a strong recovery from 2016 lows and is currently more than 30 percent up from levels a year ago.

But the rally has been stuttering in recent weeks as a cocktail of threats to the recovery has emerged.

Investors are nervous because of a surprisingly big jump in US stockpiles reported last week, increased US shale production and concerns about implementation of the OPEC-led deal to cut output.

On Tuesday, WTI oil stood at $48.59 per barrel and Brent at $51.77. Both contracts were up on the day, but between four and five percent lower than three months ago.

Story continues

- Demand also rises -

OPEC does not predict oil prices, but the organisation did revise up its supply outlook for this year in an acknowledgement that fresh drilling in the US was having an impact on efforts to reduce a glut in the market.

"An improving outlook for Canadian oil sands and US supply were the main contributors to the revision" it said.

In February, "growing US output and stubbornly high stockpiles kept price gains in check and contained prices within a tight range", it noted.

Citing a survey by Baker Hughes, an oil firm, OPEC said the number of American oil rigs had risen for seven consecutive weeks and was now 55 percent higher than a year ago.

Oil investors have been wondering whether OPEC might extend its current output deal to counter rising production elsewhere, but the report did not address that question.

Meanwhile, rising global demand for oil will help rebalance the market, OPEC projections showed.

The cartel boosted its 2017 outlook for demand growth to 1.26 million barrels per day, an increase of 70,000 barrels a day from last month's outlook.

"The upward adjustments were due to more optimistic expectations for oil demand in OECD Europe, as well as Asia Pacific," OPEC said.

OPEC's 13 member countries together produce one-third of the world's oil.
Paris (AFP) - OPEC said Tuesday oil producers have kept their promises to cut output, but the oil price plunged as traders doubted that they are doing enough to offset a global supply glut.

Prices rose in February after a landmark deal between OPEC members and some non-members gained traction, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its monthly oil report.

The oil price recovery was, however, under threat from fresh supply as high-cost producers in the United States started drilling again, encouraged by the price upswing, as well as from rising Canadian production.

An OPEC oil price reference basket rose by about two percent to an average of $53.37 in February, the organisation said.

"High compliance with supply adjustments by OPEC and some non-OPEC producers supported gains," it said.

In December, OPEC agreed with 11 non-members, including Russia, to cut output in the first half of this year to push prices higher.

- Placing bets -

Looking at the oil futures market, a key gauge of pent-up demand, OPEC said a record number of investors were placing wagers on price increases.

"Bets on crude oil prices rising have hit a new record high for the third month in a row, giving additional support to oil prices," OPEC said.

"Investor optimism over the effectiveness of the production adjustments encouraged record bets on a sustained rally," it said, adding however that "growing US output and stubbornly high stockpiles kept price gains in check and contained prices within a tight range".

The oil price has seen a strong recovery from 2016 lows and is currently close to 30 percent up from levels a year ago.

But the rally has been stuttering in recent weeks as a cocktail of threats to the recovery has emerged.

Investors are nervous because of a surprisingly big jump in US stockpiles reported last week, increased US shale production and concerns about implementation of the OPEC-led deal to cut output.

Story continues

And following the OPEC's report Tuesday, oil prices went into a "mini free fall", as Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada put it.

In the European afternoon, WTI oil stood at $47.63 per barrel, down 1.6 percent on the day, and Brent at $50.60, down 1.4 percent.

Both contracts are now trading more than six percent lower than three months ago.

- 'Serious question marks' -

Razaqzada said traders were blaming a higher OPEC forecast for oil supply from outside the cartel for Tuesday's price downturn.

"In the US, shale producers have ramped up drilling activity and increased oil output in response to higher prices," he said. "This has put serious question marks over the OPEC's attempts to balance the oil market."

There were also mutterings about OPEC's own members breaking ranks over the new production targets, including kingpin Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter of oil.

According to a table in the report, Saudi Arabia actually reported an increase in oil production for February, saying it pumped 10.011 million barrels per day last month, up from 9.748 million in January.

"Oil is under renewed pressure as Saudi Arabia's production increased to over 10 mbpd again, according to OPEC report," Shawn Koopman, an analyst with trading firm Ava, said in a tweet.

OPEC does not predict oil prices, but the organisation did revise up its supply outlook for this year in an acknowledgement that fresh drilling in the US was having an impact on efforts to reduce a glut in the market.

"An improving outlook for Canadian oil sands and US supply were the main contributors to the revision" it said.

- US rigging up -

In February, "growing US output and stubbornly high stockpiles kept price gains in check and contained prices within a tight range", it noted.

Citing a survey by Baker Hughes, an oil firm, OPEC said the number of American oil rigs had risen for seven consecutive weeks and was now 55 percent higher than a year ago.

Oil investors have been wondering whether OPEC might extend its current output deal to counter rising production elsewhere, but the report did not address that question.

Meanwhile, rising global demand for oil will help rebalance the market, OPEC projections showed.

The cartel boosted its 2017 outlook for demand growth to 1.26 million barrels per day, an increase of 70,000 barrels a day from last month's outlook.

OPEC's 13 member countries together produce one-third of the world's oil.
Seoul (AFP) - Ousted South Korean leader Park Geun-Hye was assailed by newspapers and politicians Monday for her defiance over the court ruling that ended her tenure as president.

Park left Seoul's presidential complex on Sunday, two days after the Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment by parliament and stripped her of executive power and privileges.

"It will take time but I believe that the truth will eventually be revealed," she said through a spokesman after arriving at her private home in Seoul -- her first remarks since the ruling.

TV footage showed a broadly smiling Park waving to hundreds of supporters who gathered around her home, taking selfies with some as many chanted "Our president forever!"

The conservative Dong-A Ilbo daily, which long supported Park, said in a front-page headline: "To the last... there was no word of acceptance" of the ruling.

Thousands of her supporters staged protests in Seoul after the court verdict, with violent clashes leaving three protesters dead and dozens including police and journalists wounded.

In an editorial, the centre-right JoongAng Ilbo daily accused her of trying to incite her remaining supporters and hampering an impending probe into allegations against her.

"Park Geun-Hye's defiance -- is she trying to break the nation into two?" it asked.

Park has been named as an accomplice to the secret confidante at the heart of the corruption and influence-peddling scandal that triggered her dramatic downfall.

The friend, Choi Soon-Sil, is standing trial for using her ties to Park to force local firms to "donate" nearly $70 million to non-profit foundations Choi allegedly used for personal gain.

Park is accused of offering policy favours to businessmen who paid Choi, including the heir to the smartphone giant Samsung, Lee Jae-Yong, who has been indicted for bribery and other offences.

A new presidential election must be held by early May, and opposition politicians urged Park's investigation.

Story continues

"To the last, Park did not say a single word of apology and only talked of the so-called truth in apparent disobedience of the ruling," said Choo Mi-Ae, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party (DP).

She call for a "swift and resolute" investigation into Park and "stern punishment" if she was found guilty.

Moon Jae-In, a former DP lawmaker and the presidential frontrunner, described Park's remarks as an "unacceptable" bid to paint the court as flawed.

"This is an unacceptable behaviour, after her scandal left the country's reputation deeply tarnished and South Koreans deeply traumatised," he said.

Another opposition group, the People's Party, slammed Park for "showing zero willingness" to honour the Constitution and urged her to cooperate with prosecutors.

As president, Park repeatedly refused to make herself available for questioning, but has now been stripped of the executive privilege that gave her immunity from prosecution.

The prosecutors are reportedly mulling imposing a travel ban on the 65-year-old daughter of late former dictator Park Chung-Hee.
Baghdad (AFP) - More than 80,000 people have fled west Mosul since the battle to retake the area began last month, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.

Iraqi forces launched a major push to retake west Mosul -- the most populated urban area still held by the Islamic State group -- on February 19.

The IOM began recording displacements from the area six days later, and 80,568 people have fled since then, it said on its official Twitter account.

But that is still a small fraction of the 750,000 people who were estimated to still reside in west Mosul at the time the operation began.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since retaken most of the territory they lost.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to recapture Mosul from IS in October, retaking its east before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely-populated west.

According to the IOM, more than 238,000 people are currently displaced due to fighting in the Mosul area, while more fled but later returned to their homes.
Paris (AFP) - Parents, take courage. If you survive the sleep deprivation, toddler tantrums and teenage angst, you may be rewarded with a longer life than your childless peers, researchers said Tuesday.

Fathers gained more in life expectancy than mothers, a team wrote in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health -- and particularly in older age.

"By the age of 60, the difference in life expectancy... may be as much as two years" between people with, and those without, children, they concluded.

Researchers tracked the lifespan of men and women born between 1911 and 1925 and living in Sweden -- more than 1.4 million people in total.

They also gathered data on whether the participants were married and had children.

Men and women with at least one child had "lower death risks" than childless ones, the team concluded.

"At 60 years of age, the difference in life expectancy was two years for men and 1.5 years for women" compared to peers with no kids, the researchers wrote.

By age 80, men who fathered children had a remaining life expectancy of seven years and eight months, compared to seven years for childless men, said the team.

For mothers, life expectancy at 80 was nine years and six months, while for childless women it was eight years and 11 months.

The study merely pointed out a correlation, and cannot conclude that having children is the cause of the life expectancy gains, the researchers admitted.

But they theorised that parents may benefit from social and financial support from their children in older age, which childless people lose out on.

It could also be that childless people live unhealthier lifestyles than parents do.

The association between having children and longer life was found in married and unmarried people, but appeared to be strongest in single, older men, said the study.

This could be because unmarried men relied more heavily on their offspring in the absence of a partner.

The study did not echo previous research which found that having daughters is more beneficial for longevity than sons.

Fewer and fewer people are having children in Sweden at the same time as older people are spurning old age institutions to receive care at home -- often by their children.

"Therefore, to further investigate health and survival consequences for childless older individuals is of importance," wrote the team.
Paris (AFP) - Paris's overworked rat-catchers staged a one-day strike Tuesday, protesting outside city hall to demand reinforcements and bonuses two months after carrying out a massive cull in the French capital.

Laying a dead rat under a giant banner reading "The staff are angry", some 50 workers -- nearly the entire staff of the city's pest control unit -- turned out for the protest.

The staff has shrunk by 14 in the past year and a half and only three dozen workers are deployed for rat-catching, according to the CGT union.

Their contribution is "central to the city and they only want to be recognised," the workers' union representative Olivier Garret told AFP.

"They are the ones exposed to the most difficult tasks... They have always been forgotten, and they have always been the ones to do the dirty work."

In addition to more staff, the workers are demanding payment of a 2,000 euro ($2,125) bonus that they say was lost in the shuffle during an administrative reorganisation.

During the December "war on rats", several of the French capital's parks and green spaces were sealed off from the public for the rat-catchers to bait traps with powerful poison.

The Champ de Mars park around the Eiffel Tower became one of many battlegrounds in the fight against the furry invaders. Most tourists remained blissfully unaware of the battle unfolding at their feet.

Paris's rat population is unknown but biologists calculate that a single pair of rats could have some 15,000 descendants by the end of a year.

The distressed pest control workers have an additional grievance dating to the terror attacks that hit Paris on November 13, 2015.

They say they were never properly thanked for their help cleaning up the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people lost their lives in a jihadist bloodbath.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo will address personal thank you letters to each staff member, her office said.
SHELBYVILLE -- On March 8, five FFA from members from Shelbyville High School traveled to Sullivan High School to compete in District Proficiencies.

Each student had previously competed with their record books at the section contest and advanced to districts. Judges look at a students ability to keep accurate records, the growth and scope of their enterprise, and skills and tasks they have learned. Students are also interviewed and asked questions about their record books.

Samantha Hatfield, a senior, has a supervised agriculture experience (SAE) in goat production. She breeds and shows her boer-cross and pygmy goat herd and has grown her herd since her freshman year. Samantha was selected as the Section 19 Star Farmer which allowed her to interview for District IV Star Farmer as well as the District IV winner for Goat Production Entrepreneurship. Samantha was selected as the District IV Goat Production Entrepreneurship winner.

Hallie Horsman, a junior, has a supervised agriculture experience (SAE) in equine science. She shows her horse competitively at both the state and national level. Hallie was selected as the District IV Equine Science Entrepreneurship winner.

Ryan Laskowski, a junior, has a supervised agriculture experience (SAE) in poultry production. Ryan has layers and broilers but his main source of income from his chickens is selling the eggs.

Sarah Throneburg, a junior, has a supervised agriculture experience (SAE) in specialty crop production. Sarah cash rents 10 acres from her dad which she uses to produce organic corn. Sarah was selected as the District IV Diversified Crop Entrepreneurship winner.

Chase Trainor, a junior, has a supervised agriculture experience (SAE) in diversified ag production. Chase has a beef cattle herd that he breeds and manages with the goal of growing his herd in quality and size. Chase competitively purchases, shows, and sells pigs as part of his swine record book. In addition, Chase cash rents land from his family that he uses to produce alfalfa hay that he feeds to his beef cows and sells for income. Finally, Chase has a 12-acre test plot that is in rotational corn/soybean production.

District winners will advance to the state competition at University of Illinois on March 25 where they will compete against four other district winners from the state of Illinois.
In newly released audio by Breitbart News from October of 2016, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., is heard saying, "I am not going to defend Donald Trump  not now, not in the future." The comments are from two days after the lewd "Access Hollywood" tape was released by the Washington Post. The release of the audio by Breitbart comes as Ryan's health care law is under fire by both the right and the left. Breitbart News was formerly run by President Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was known to be critical of Ryan.
New York (AFP) - Folk rock legend Paul Simon has announced a US tour to promote biodiversity efforts as fears mount for the long-term survival of life on Earth.

The 75-year-old songwriter, who a year ago had been mulling retirement, said all proceeds from his 17-date tour would fund the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.

Started by the Harvard scientist of the same name, the foundation supports education and research into biodiversity -- the interconnected lives of the planet's vast array of species.

Wilson, one of the foremost experts on ants, has warned that the planet is in the midst of a sixth great extinction as the destruction of rain forests, climate change and other human actions cause species to die out at a fast-accelerating rate.

Simon, announcing the tour through an interview with the environmental site Mongabay on Monday, said he met Wilson in 2007 and was struck by his phrase that "Earth's a jewel, but it's endangered."

"It's going to take a little while, maybe 100 years, maybe 200 years, to fix it. But we can, and then it would be like living in paradise.

"But he said it's only going to take 75 to 100 years to make it into a desolate place," Simon said.

With some officials in President Donald Trump's administration denying the scientific consensus on climate change, Simon described Wilson's message as optimistic.

"It is more inspiring in this particular way than fear. It's not always the case in human nature, but in this particular case, predictions of dire consequences for our actions tend to produce denial," Simon said.

Simon will open his tour on June 1 in St. Augustine, Florida and play 16 solo shows across the country, mostly in open-air venues.

The 17th show will come when he headlines Eaux Claires, the festival in Wisconsin launched three years ago by Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon.

Simon, formerly in a duo with Art Garfunkel, released a string of classic hits including "Bridge over Troubled Water" and "Mrs. Robinson" and helped shape the genre of world music fusion with his 1986 album "Graceland."

Simon spoke of retirement before two shows last year at the Forest Hills stadium in his home of Queens, New York. But he returned soon afterwards, singing at the Democratic National Convention and touring Europe.
From the March 2017 issue

Tony Kanaan debuted the Hitoe technology during the 2016 IndyCar Series.

Hitoe Sensor Shirt

With most big-time series now regulating the amount of testing, teams use every on-track moment as an opportunity to collect data. Even the driver has now become a data point. A Japanese electronics and textile firm jointly developed Hitoe, or one layer, a flexible, breathable material in which the fabric nanofibers are coated with a conductive polymer able to transmit electrical signals. A fireproof version has been tested in IndyCar and was able, despite g-loadings and copious perspiration, to transmit data to the team on the drivers heart rate and regularity. The shirt also delivered a continuous electromyogram, which measures the neurological activation of the muscles. The data showed that, at times, a driver is working about as hard as a sprinting runner, information that could help drivers extract even more performance from their g-loaded bodies. With wider tires coming to Formula 1 in 2017, the g squeeze is on more than ever. Such clothing may someday tell your Toyota Camry about your fading pulse rate and drowsy eyes and prompt it to act.

1. Copper "fire rings" nestled into machined grooves at the top of the cylinder seal the combustion chamber.

2. Small channels lead out to pressure sensors. When cylinder pressure exceeds the ring's sealing ability, the engine-control computer dials back turbo boost and spark advance.

3. Once the leakage stops, the rings are able to go on with their job of sealing, unlike a traditional head gasket that fails only once. The malleable rings also act as detonation dampers, helping cushion the blow of premature fuel ignition.

Prodrive Head-Gasket-less Engine

We all know that head gaskets seal the cylinders of an engine block where it meets the head. But once the gasket is blown, its game over. Englands Prodrive, which builds and fields rally cars and built a special Subaru boxer-four for an Isle of Man TT time-trial car, wondered if it could create a smart head gasket that recognized imminent failure and was able to tell the computer to dial back the boost and spark advance accordingly. Its solution is an engine with no head gasket at all. The idea may someday find its way into mass production as automakers try to extract ever more performance from smaller turbocharged engines.

Story continues

Materials to know

What comes after carbon fiber? Nobody is sure, but racers are looking at some new materials such as graphene, a latticework of carbon atoms that is both immensely strong and also highly electrically conductive, making it ideal for battery terminals, semiconductors, and possibly structural elements. Also, advanced electric motors are increasingly dependent on hyper-exotic steel alloys that are both strong and highly magnetic. Produced in sheets no thicker than tissue paper, the steel gets its required shape by being stamped from the sheet and then layered up by the thousands into ultra-efficient rotors and stators that generate more torque for a given current. The costs are high, however; one Formula E team says it takes about 100 pounds of such steelat $140 per poundto make each motor.



Candid cameras

NASCAR isnt known for tech innovation, but its new Pit Road Officiating (PRO) video system substitutes a crowd of pit-lane officials with 40 to 50 cameras, depending on the venue, which monitor the pits during a race. The video feeds to a single trailer where computers can detect potential rule violations and flag them for closer examination by race officials. Instead of dozens of officials risking their safety in the pits, eight stewards in the trailer plus some sophisticated software handle the officiating in a fast-moving sport where there are no timeouts for review.

Porsche 911 RSR

Last year at Le Mans, Porsche could only stand by helplessly as Ford invaded its turf and cleaned up in the production-based GTE Pro class with a, ahem, barely legal purpose-built racer. Well, Porsche aint taking it lying down. It has unleashed the 911 RSR, which at this point it wont even talk about. Why are we talking about it? Because it looks amazing in pictures, and its almost as if its powered by half a Porsche 917, with its naturally aspirated mid-mounted flat-six. Also, it has a radar-based anti-collision system that should help the driver avoid nasty interclass accidents, a common phenomenon at Le Mans. The 911 RSR takes advantage of radar, video, and computer-analysis tech that is increasingly deployed in road carsthere as steppingstones to future autonomy, here as a way to avoid becoming a bug splat on an LMPs windshield.

TAG-320 Controller

A glimpse into one way that automotive electrical systems will change is provided by the TAG-320, a three-pound electronic megabrain that is required equipment in Formula 1, with similar controllers required by IndyCar and NASCAR. In 2008, F1 helped initiate the wave of race series moving to spec controllers by mandating that all teams use a common computer, then the TAG-320s precursor, the TAG-310B. Made in England (where else?) by McLaren Applied Technologies, the TAG takes its name from Techniques dAvant Garde, the meaning of the acronym in TAG Group S.A., a private investment firm long associated with McLaren and racing. The TAG box does what many automakers are looking to do in the future: integrate the proliferating number of black boxes in a car into as few units as possible to save weight, packaging space, and cost. Before the first TAGs arrived, F1 teams had to spend time integrating powertrain controllers from their engine suppliers with the body controllers they purchased separately, exactly what automakers do now when they try to get one suppliers seat-control module to talk to the touchscreen controller from another supplier. The TAG, and especially the newer 320 that arrived in 2013, which must operate an F1 cars enormously complex 1.6-liter turbo V-6 with its twin energy-recovery units, is powerful enough to run everything. The company lists its processing speed as over 4000 MIPS or millions of instructions per second. Not as impressive as, say, the 64-bit Apple A10 processor in an iPhone 7, but the 32-bit TAG-320 will crunch through somewhere north of 400 million calculations between now and the end of this sentence. Why is such computing power important? An F1 gearchange takes 0.001 second, says McLaren Applieds Tim Strafford, and to do it right, the computer must know the exact position of every rotating component in the drivetrain. Get it wrong and its catastrophic failure for the gearbox, he says. Why is the TAG-320 shaped like half a stop sign? Because its first user, McLaren Mercedes, wanted it to fit on the floor under the drivers thighs, and the shape stuck.

Electrifying racing

Highlights in the brief history of modern electric racing

 1998: Panoz Esperante GTR-1 Q9 electric hybrid, nicknamed Sparky, finishes second in class and 12th overall at the Petit Le Mans.

 2006: FIA chief Max Mosley says F1 cars should adopt regenerative-braking systems.

 2007: Toyota wins the Tokachi 24 Hours with its Supra HV-R hybrid, which uses in-wheel electric motors and supercapacitors.

 2008: Peugeot shows a hybrid-diesel Le Mans prototype, the 908 HY, but abandons plans to campaign it in the 2009 season.

 2009: FIA permits use of kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) in Formula 1. It recovers braking energy and returns it as an 80-hp boost. Some teams use it, others dont.

 2011: After 2010, in which no F1 teams used KERS, rule changes make it more attractive, and most teams adopt it this time.

 2011: New rules at Le Mans open the door to hybrids.

 2012: Audi and Toyota become the first big factory teams to field hybrids at Le Mans. Today, hybrids dominate the top LMP1 class.

 2014: First Formula E race held in Beijing. Entrants use a spec Dallara chassis and common 28-kWh battery and motor based on components from the McLaren P1 road car.

 2015: Formula E rules open up, allowing teams to develop their own powertrains.

 2016: Audi cancels its Le Mans program, moves to Formula E. Likewise, BMW jumps in and Jaguar announces I-type Formula E racer.

E-Future

The car industry is undoubtedly heading in one direction. Automakers are choosing different alleys to get there, but its still a common direction toward electric technology. . . . But just as it is for the road-car industry, it is hard to guess the timeline in motorsport, which will take longer to adapt.

Looking at Norways stance on sales of petrol cars from 2025 as one example [the country has proposed a ban on internal-combustion cars by then], government legislation and business in general will play a major role to create the framework for this shift to happen sooner rather than later. And motorsport will gradually and necessarily follow thereafter. Renato Bisignani, director of communications, Formula E
Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo will address attendees at the 60th annual meeting of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs via a video message that highlights human-rights abuses in President Rodrigo Dutertes so-called war on drugs.

In the video  recorded in February to be aired at a side session of the Vienna conference on Thursday  Robredo references the more than 7,000 people killed since the drug war began on July 1. That toll is reportedly now north of 8,000. Our people have fought long for our rights and freedoms, she says. We are not about to back down now.

Robredo goes on to detail lesser known human-rights abuses that occur behind the red-ticker slaughter: people beaten for requesting search warrants, police detaining relatives in lieu of absconded drug suspects. She also questions inconsistent figures on drug addiction reported by the President. Rather than a problem to be solved with bullets, Robredo concludes, drug abuse must be regarded as it truly is: a complex public-health issue linked intimately with poverty and social inequality.

Read More: Exclusive: Inside the Cell of Leila de Lima, Dutertes First Political Prisoner

Robredos address comes at a time when opponents of Duterte are under intense scrutiny. Last month Senator Leila de Lima  an ardent critic of the President, recently detained on drug charges  told TIME that she was Dutertes first political prisoner. Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, another fierce critic, has claimed Duterte wants him dead  a charge the President denies.

Robredo will not attend the Vienna meeting in person but other Philippine human-rights advocates are scheduled to be there. President Duterte is scaling up the same playbook that he utilized as mayor of Davao City for 23 years. He was unable to make Davao drug-free by pursuing this approach, yet he is convinced that it will create tangible results by applying the same on a national basis, Chito Gascon, chair of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, said in a statement.
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday poked fun at the dismissal of his foreign minister by lawmakers, delivering jokes in an American accent about a citizenship scandal that led to the downfall of one of his top loyalists. Showing the comedic style that helped win him an election last year, Duterte mocked former Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, rejected by a house appointments commission last week over his failure to prove he was not a U.S. citizen when he took the job eight months ago. "I don't know why I was ousted by the commission on appointments but I did not lie," Duterte, impersonating Yasay and using an American accent, told a audience of hundreds of mayors. "If you did not lie, why are you out of the cabinet?" he said to laughs and applause. Duterte's remark makes light of what has been one of the biggest embarrassments of his presidency so far. Yasay, a U.S.-trained lawyer, is a member of his inner circle with whom he shared a dormitory while studying law. Yasay played a crucial role driving Duterte's policy of diversifying foreign relations beyond ally the United States, describing it as a "shackling dependency". In scathing posts on Facebook, Yasay chided Washington for what he said was shirking its treaty obligations to protect the Philippines. He said breaking away was "imperative in putting an end to our nation's subservience to United States' interests". Yasay was accused by critics of contradicting statements that were made under oath before the appointments commission and during media interviews about his citizenship and passports. While the commission made no conclusion about his citizenship status, its members agreed unanimously that he was not telling the truth. Critics say Yasay's applications to run for the Senate, vice presidency and head of the Securities and Exchange Commission - a post he won - were now in question too. Yasay has denied lying to the commission. (Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick Macfie)
The Hague (AFP) - Dutch politicians traded barbs late Tuesday in a televised debate just hours before keenly-watched elections, as final opinion polls hinted support for far-right leader Geert Wilders was slipping.

Tuesday night's showdown, which followed Monday's head-to-head clash between Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his main rival Wilders, could prove crucial in swaying a large number of undecided voters in The Netherlands, which is embroiled in a bitter row with Turkey.

"I'm going to watch the debate closely in order to be clear about my decision and whom I'm going to choose," first-time voter Giorgio Frans, 20, told AFP.

Surveys released just hours before polling stations open on Wednesday at 0630 GMT appeared to show Rutte pulling well ahead of Wilders, predicting his Liberal VVD party would come first with 24 to 28 seats.

Wilders, who late last year was leading the polls with forecasts of more than 30 seats, was seen barely clinging on to second place with between 19 and 22 MPs in the 150-seat parliament, with more traditional Dutch parties such as the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the Democracy party (D66) snapping at his heels.

After last year's shock Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election, the Dutch polls will be a measure of the strength of far-right and populist candidates ahead of other votes in Europe this year.

Rutte, bidding for a third term at the helm of the country of 17 million people, has been highlighting his six years as premier overseeing growth and stability, in one of the leading economies in the eurozone, and a founding father of the European Union.

- Leadership -

"When people look for leadership, they look to me," Rutte told Tuesday's debate.

Analysts said Rutte's handling of the crisis with Turkey, which erupted at the weekend, appeared to have boosted his image. He told AFP after the debate: "I think this evening we've convinced the voters."

Story continues

Wilders has also leaped on the row in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hurled abuse at the Dutch accusing them of being like "Nazis" and raising the spectre of the Srebrenica massacre, when Bosnian Serb forces overrun a Dutch UN-protected enclave killing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Wilders -- who has pledged to close the borders to Muslim immigrants, shut mosques and ban sales of the Koran -- has sought to capitalise on the chaos which rocked Rotterdam at the weekend when hundreds of Dutch-Turks protested a Dutch ban on Turkish ministers speaking at a pro-Erdogan rally.

"Netherlands does not belong to all. Do you hear me? The Netherlands belongs to the Dutch," Wilders said.

Referring to Saturday's scenes in the port city, he added: "Turks stood there with the Turkish flags, not waving a Dutch flag -- if they did that, then you could say The Netherlands belongs to us."

While Wilders was buoyed last year amid Europe's refugee crisis, many Dutch find his views unpalatable and most of the leading parties, including Rutte, have vowed not to work with him, which would complicate the formation of a new coalition government.

- Angry tweets, no solutions -

The leader of the Labour Party, Rutte's coalition partner in the outgoing government, hit out at Wilders in some of the fiercest exchanges of the night.

"You've been a member of parliament for 20 years, you've sent thousands of angry tweets, but you have provided zero solutions. You weaken and divide The Netherlands," said Labour leader Lodewijk Asscher.

A record 28 parties are vying for seats in parliament. Amid such a fragmented political landscape, observers say the next coalition could include four or five parties, meaning cobbling the next government together may to take months.

Jesse Klaver, the young and charismatic left-wing leader who heads GroenLinks, urged it was "time for a new leadership" and called for The Netherlands to welcome more refugees.

He denounced Rutte, accusing him of "enormous cynicism" for helping to strike a EU deal with Ankara to return migrants back to their own countries.

"I don't want to be proud of a country, which is proud of abandoning people, of closing its borders," said the 30-year-old whose party could win some 16 to 18 seats, handing him a powerful role as a kingmaker.
NAPA, Calif. (AP)  Police shot and killed a man in California who was armed with a knife and acting "high" or "crazy" in a parking lot, authorities said.

Isidro Zarate, a homeless man who stays in the area, told KTVU-TV (http://bit.ly/2nkxI7o) that the man appeared angry as he waved a foot-long knife and confronted two of Zarate's friends.

A police statement said numerous people called 911 Monday evening saying a man was "walking around near the front of the Home Depot with a knife in his hand and acting 'high' or 'crazy.'"

He then walked across the street to a parking lot.

Two officers were responding to the 911 calls when they encountered the man and fired their guns at him, the Napa Police Department said.

The officers were placed on paid administrative leave as the Napa County Sheriff's Office reviews the incident.

Napa police Capt. Jennifer Gonzales said Tuesday she had no details on the man who was killed. Zarate described him as being in his 20s.

The two officers were not wearing body cameras.

___

This story has been corrected to say the shooting took place across the street from a Home Depot store, not in the Home Depot parking lot.
The world faces the prospect of more tension with China over trade, security and human rights after Xi Jinping awarded himself another five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party and called for self-reliance in technology, a stronger military and protection of core interests abroad. At a party congress, Xi gave no sign of plans to change the "zero-COVID strategy that has frustrated Chinas public and disrupted business and trade. He called for faster military development and announced no change in policies that strain relations with Washington and Asian neighbors. Xi is tightening control at home and trying to use Chinas economic heft to increase its influence abroad.
Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The European Parliament punished a Polish extreme-right MEP on Tuesday after he said women should be paid less because they are "weaker and less intelligent" than men.

Parliament President Antonio Tajani said Janusz Korwin-Mikke had received an "unprecedented" sanction, including the forfeit of his daily MEP allowance for 30 days, totalling 9,210 euros ($9,800).

The 74-year-old Korwin-Mikke was also suspended from parliamentary activities for 10 days and will be prohibited from representing the parliament for one year.

The Polish MEP has previously been punished by the EU assembly for making racist comments and remarks about the Holocaust.

"I will not tolerate such behaviour, in particular when it comes from someone who is expected to discharge his duties as a representative of the peoples of Europe with due dignity," Tajani said in a statement.

Campaign group Avaaz welcomed the sanction, which came after almost one million people signed a petition asking that the European Parliament punish Korwin-Mikke.

"Nearly one million Europeans are calling for a parliament that promotes equality and unity, not one that becomes a megaphone for hate speech," said Avaaz campaigner Patricia Martin Diaz.

Tajani launched an inquiry following a bitter exchange in the chamber earlier this month in which the bowtie-wearing, moustachioed Korwin-Mikke interrupted female Spanish MEP, Iratxe Garcia-Perez.

"Of course women must earn less than men, because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent, they must earn less, that's all," Korwin-Mikke told parliament.

He then added: "Do you know how many women are in the first 100 of chess players? I tell you: no one."

Garcia Perez then shot back: "According to what you are saying... I would not have the right to be here.

"I think I have to defend European women to men like you," she said.

Korwin-Mikke has previously courted controversy by claiming Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was "not aware of the extermination of the Jews", calling refugees "human garbage" and using a racist term to refer to black Americans.
Indian parliamentarian and renowned author Shashi Tharoor wants museums to be built to chronicle Britain's "two centuries of looting and exploitation" of India, its erstwhile colony, that reduced the country to one of the "poorest, illiterate and diseased places on earth".

SEE ALSO: Writer-turned-politician amuses a nation in his quest to coin the world's shortest pangram

In a searing piece in Al Jazeera, Tharoor stressed upon the need for an "enduring reminder" of the atrocities meted out to 35 million Indians "in totally unnecessary famines caused by British policy, or the 'divide and rule' policy that culminated in the horrors of Partition in 1947."

Tharoor has proposed that the iconic Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, (earlier Calcutta) which incidentally was Britain's first capital in India, be converted into a museum demonstrating the British Raj's atrocities.

He writes: This famous monument stands testimony to the glorification of the British Raj in India. It is time that it be converted to serve as a reminder of what was done to India by the British."

The Victorial Memorial in Kolkata, India.

Image: Amos Chapple/REX/Shutterstock

Calling Britain's exit from the subcontinent "shambolic and tragic" he said that the "lack of such a museum" across either India or the UK "is striking".

Tharoor, who's co-authored a book titled An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, has been making demands for Britain's apology for a while now.

Two years ago, at an explosive Oxford Union debate, he had called for reparations from Britain to its former colonies. The speech went viral, clocking nearly 4 million views on YouTube.

He has also in the past referred to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as "a thoroughly unpleasant scoundrel" and highlighted how grains and food supplies were shipped out of India even as people were dying on the streets during the 1943 Bengal famine.

Story continues

Tharoor had earlier recommended that 2019 would be a good time for Britain to apologize for all wrongdoings during its 200-year rule in India.

The year marks the centenary of the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre, one of the most horrific chapters of Indian history, where over 1,000 non-violent protesters were butchered by British soldiers under the orders of Brigadier Reginald Dyer.

History has always been written by the victors. Tharoor wants that changed now!
Residents riding out Tuesdays winter storm were surprised to spot a pair of miniature horses trudging through sleet and snow after they managed to get loose from their owners property in New York, officials said.

The duo was seen plodding through the streets near Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenues on Staten Island, capturing the attention of locals who took to social media about the unusual sight.

Staten Island has it all, one Twitter user mused.

Only in Staten Island would two horses get loose during #StellaBlizzard, another person wrote.

The fearless ponies were eventually corralled by police, officials said.

Read: Snowed In? The Power of Comfort Food During a Winter Storm

The NYPDs Emergency Services Unit helped in wrangling in these runaway ponies, NYPD Chief of Special Operations Division Harry Wedin wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

The pair was safely returned to their owners by 10:44 a.m., authorities said.

The ponies had gotten loose earlier in the morning after gusting winds blew open their stable's barn door, police said.

They were spotted by a quick-thinking, off-duty officer who used a tow strap he had in his truck to grab the horses, DNAinfo.com reported.

Read: House Completely Covered by Ice in Astonishing Viral Images

He tied the horses to a lamppost until a vehicle could transport them home, Chief of Police Terrance Monahan said at an unrelated press conference.

"We got a radio car there and we were able to return them back to the stables," Monahan said, DNAinfo.com reported. "Theyre safe, theyre in great shape."

Watch: Snowboarder Freaks Out When Moose Chases Her Down Slope

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President Donald Trumps personal lawyer thinks the clowning around went a little too far in the Lavender music video depicting the mock assassination of a Trump-like clown figure.

Its absolutely disgraceful, said Michael Cohen in a TMZ interview Tuesday, in response to the remix of the BadBadNotGood song featuring Kaytranada. Snoop owes the president an apology. Theres nothing funny about an assassination attempt on a president.

He added that he didnt consider the video artistic. The music video showed all human figures aside from the artists as clowns. It should also be added that Snoop in the music video did not kill off the Trump-like clown figure, but instead revealed the weapon pointed at the character dubbed Ronald Klump as a toy gun.

Cohen added that he would raise the same objections had former President Barack Obama been on the receiving end of Snoop Doggs video.

You know whats really sad is that there is so much more that Snoop can do for this country, Cohen continued. Maybe there are other things he can do to help the inner cities get past the violence, the drugs, and the killings going on instead of showing more killings.

Sen. Marco Rubio also condemned the video, calling it dangerous.
Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The European Parliament on Tuesday urged Brussels to help improve the lives of 340 million rabbits raised for food in Europe every year, mainly in cramped cages.

"There are regulations for pork, veal, and poultry chickens, but nothing at all for the protection of rabbits," said MEP Stefan Eck who tabled a law on rabbits that was easily approved by the parliament in Strasbourg.

The beret-wearing Eck, an independent from Germany, joined the European Parliament as a member of an animal rights party and spoke passionately about the plight of rabbits.

A rabbit in Europe is "kept in old-fashioned cages" that leave a space per rabbit "that is less than the area of two ordinary A4 sheets of paper," his directive said.

The directive is not a law but effectively a plea to the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to take action to protect the rabbits.

Rabbits "are extremely sensitive animals and can suffer from a wide range of welfare problems and diseases caused by inappropriate breeding conditions, including fatal viruses, respiratory diseases and sore hocks from sitting on wire-mesh cage floors," said the directive.

The European Commission denied that there was a need for a special treatment for rabbits as exists for other farm animals.

"The Commission does not consider it appropriate to propose an initiative on the welfare of farm rabbits," said Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova at a debate on the topic.

She said rabbit production in the EU "is essentially concentrated in a few member states mainly Italy, Spain and France", and therefore should remain a national concern.
BANA, Burkina Faso  This small village of mud-brick homes in West Africa might seem the least likely place for an experiment at the frontier of biology.

Yet scientists here are engaged in what could be the most promising, and perhaps one of the most frightening, biological experiments of our time. They are preparing for the possible release of swarms of mosquitoes that, until now, have been locked away in a research lab behind double metal doors and guarded 24/7.

The goal: to nearly eradicate the population of one species of mosquito, and with it, the heavy burden of malaria across Africa.

These scientists are planning to release mosquitoes equipped with gene drives, a technology that overrides natures genetic rules to give every baby mosquito a certain trait that normally only half would acquire. Once such an insect gets out into the wild, it will move indiscriminately and spread its modified trait without respect for political borders.

No living thing  no mammal, insect, or plant  with a gene drive has ever been set free. But if all goes as planned, it might happen here, in a remote village of about a thousand people, where the residents dont even have a word for gene.



Despite such barriers, this is in some ways the most logical place to carry out the experiment. Nowhere does malaria exact a higher toll than here in sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of thousands die from the disease every year. And Burkina Faso already houses one of Africas highest-profile malaria research laboratories.

It may be six years before the gene drive mosquitoes are actually released in Burkina Faso, but scientists are already working around the clock to prepare the community for their release. Researchers in Mali and Uganda are also working toward the same goal under the banner of the Target Malaria project, propelled by $70 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and support from research laboratories in England and Italy.

Story continues

Speaking through interpreters, residents across Burkina Faso told STAT that they are grateful for the scientists work, and are eagerly looking forward to eliminating the dreaded disease.

But scientists still face a challenge: making sure that people understand and accept the newfangled genetic technology behind it all. That means building trust and doing basic education  explaining not only the impact of genetically engineered insects arriving in their homes, but also what genetics is in the first place.

Driving west from Bobo-Dioulasso, the sleepy regional capital that is Burkina Fasos second-largest city, the pavement fades away into an undulating dirt path. Traffic dissolves into a trickle of motorbikes whose drivers wear surgical-style masks to protect them from the dust. Donkey carts plod along under the weight of flattened grass, outpacing camels weighed down by saddlebags.

At the height of the dry season in late December, eight scientists and social scientists pulled off the dirt road, carrying a box of a hundred adult mosquitoes and a 1-liter bottle filled with wriggling larvae.

For the past few years, the scientists from the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Sante (IRSS) in Bobo-Dioulasso, where the countrys Target Malaria team is based, have been teaching Bana residents basic mosquito facts, including that the bugs transmit malaria. Many in Burkina Faso believe that malaria can be spread by eating too many greasy or sweet foods, said Lea Pare, the anthropologist who is leading a national effort to engage local citizens in Target Malaria.

Beyond live mosquitoes, the team also uses pictures to help explain the complicated scientific information: a set of thirteen cards, laminated like giant placemats, which detail the different phases of the project. In Bana, they talk through the first four of these cards, which show gigantic female mosquitoes biting humans, with small red squiggles flowing through the proboscis and into the persons body. On the fourth card, a scientist wearing a white coat is looking at those mosquitoes under a microscope.

White coats are very familiar to residents of Bana. For the last three years, a team of researchers has lived part-time in the village, sleeping in an old cement house retrofitted into a scientific base camp. These technicians, with the help of local volunteers, count the number of mosquitoes in the homes, observe the mating swarms at dusk, and dust mosquitoes with colored powder to track where they travel around the village.

They are gathering data on the mosquito population to feed into intricate computer models that will help them determine how the gene drive mosquitoes should be released.

When the technicians stepped into one home on a recent day, they laid thick sheets across the floor of a bedroom and filled it with acrid-smelling insecticide spray. After 10 minutes, they hauled the sheets out, opened them up, and crouched over a small pile of dirt specks: only one male mosquito.

For low mosquito season, it wasnt surprising. During the rainy season, however, which starts in June, there might be a few hundred mosquitoes in each room, said technician Ibrahim Diabate.

Men living in the treated homes were excited, even jubilant, that the researchers were working in the village. They understood that the scientists had a longer-term plan to battle the mosquitoes, but they were also happy for the insecticide spray in the present moment.

Since you started this work, praise God, malaria has been reduced, because mosquitoes dont bite us anymore, said Ali Ouattara, one elder in the community.

In the next phase of the project, scientists will have to explain to Ouattara why theyre actually releasing more mosquitoes.

Going straight from zero to gene drives would be too extreme, so scientists are planning to release regular genetically engineered mosquitoes first  either here in Bana or in one of two other villages nearby.

Those mosquitoes, which could be released next year, are sterile males: Most of them are male, and they cannot have offspring. A field release is not intended to reduce the prevalence of malaria; rather, it is to prepare the scientists and the locals for the eventual arrival of the gene drive mosquitoes, said Delphine Thizy, who directs the work of engaging local, national, and international leaders for the project.

The outreach teams have started talking about DNA with their flash cards. But they arent saying anything yet to the locals about the much more powerful, and complicated, idea of a gene drive.

Partly thats because researchers didnt want the residents of Burkina Faso to expect that a miracle solution to the malaria epidemic is just around the corner, Thizy said. Scientists in London havent yet created the gene drive mosquitoes that would be used, and field trials of such mosquitoes are years away.

Also, she said, gene drives are hard to understand.

To be fair, even in Europe and in North America, its complex to understand gene drives in one shot.

If gene drive mosquitoes arrive in Burkina Faso, it will be thanks to the vision of Abdoulaye Diabate, a soft-spoken medical entomologist with a singular mission: to stop malaria.

The disease is ever-present in this country  mosquito nets hang for sale by the roadside, and hotel proprietors lay out smoldering coils in the courtyards to ward off mosquitoes as dusk falls.

Diabate, who is deeply involved in malaria eradication efforts worldwide, became dismayed when, in the 1990s, he realized that mosquitoes were building up resistance against the insecticide used on bed nets here.

If this is the only tool we have in hand, then forget about malaria elimination, Diabate said.

But, in 2012, he received an invitation to a meeting about the Target Malaria project, which was focused on solutions involving genetic engineering. He jumped at the chance.

Today he is leading the Burkina Faso team, trying to get the whole world  from remote villages to international diplomats  on board with his ambitious research.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in the United Kingdom, geneticists at Imperial College London are working on designing the gene drive mosquitoes. Specifically, theyre studying two different ways to disrupt the reproductive system of one particular species, Anopheles gambiae: reduce the number of female babies (only females bite and spread the disease) or stop the mosquitoes from having offspring in general.

To make the population predominantly male, Austin Burt, Target Malarias primary investigator, and collaborators are studying an X shredder  a gene that destroys the X chromosome in sperm, making all offspring males. Alongside that, theyre looking at reducing the number of mosquitoes of both sexes by creating genes that make them sterile.

Either approach might lead to massive population collapse within two to eight years, according to Charles Godfray, a University of Oxford professor and biologist who works on modeling for the Target Malaria project.

But the insects wouldnt go extinct, scientists say. The gene drive mosquitoes currently under consideration would only reduce the population of Anopheles gambiae enough to stop the transmission of malaria.

The foundation is not interested in eliminating Anopheles mosquitoes, said Dr. Scott Miller, who leads malaria research and development for the Gates Foundation. Were interested in eliminating malaria.

It will take years to reach the point that scientists will be ready to test the gene drive mosquitoes in the wild. In the meantime, they are facing the challenge of winning over local residents who might be wary of these new creatures.

Mariam Pare was initially frightened. A commanding woman who teaches in a Koranic school, Pare lives across the street from the IRSS in Bobo-Dioulasso. She said that when she first heard about mosquito research going on at the lab, she feared that the scientists were breeding mosquitoes to let loose on the locals. But after meetings and discussions with project staff, she came to understand that they are instead trying to fight against the mosquito.

She even took a tour of the insectary that currently holds the gene-edited sterile male mosquitoes, and could eventually hold the gene drive ones. She saw fans that would suck away mosquitoes if they happened to escape from their cages, and a hot water bath where unnecessary mosquitoes go to die.

Because I saw what was going on in there, I believe and trust the people that work in there, she said.

Earning Pares trust was particularly important for the team  because she lives so close to the insectary, her consent was required to import the sterile male mosquitoes. That requirement isnt a legal one, but one that the Target Malaria project has put in place. The Gates Foundation has also said that gene drive mosquitoes will only be released if the host country agrees.

Lassina Diarra, a tailor whose turquoise-walled shop is down the road from the research lab, also had to give his consent. Sitting on the corner of a table among scraps of fabric and hand-tailored suits, he said that he was impressed by the scientists transparency and reliability. Two outreach workers recruited him to serve on a group of 12 local leaders who communicate information about the project to the citys residents, dubbed the relay group, along with a different committee to address community grievances. Every few weeks, he knocks on doors up and down the streets, updating his neighbors on the scientists progress.

In June, Diarra and Pare both signed off on the arrival of the sterile males. So did Kadidia Ouattara, one of the relay group members and the president of multiple neighborhood associations. She recalled a joyous gathering filled with dance and song.

Ni fonyon douma ni bora mi? they sang in Dioula. Ni fonyon douma ni bora mi?

The song translates to, Where did this good air come from? and, more colloquially, means, This is too good to be true!

Ouattara said that it is a traditional song commemorating good news  a wedding, the birth of a baby, the success of a student in her exams. And on that day, it was celebrating the impending arrival of genetically modified mosquitoes.

Burkina Faso has experience with genetically modified organisms. One of the first associations some residents make with genetic engineering is Monsanto, which has been selling genetically modified cotton seeds to Burkinabe farmers since the 2000s. But the countrys growers association stopped buying the seeds in 2016 in the wake of concerns about the cottons quality and country-wide protests against the company.

One resident of Bobo-Dioulasso complained that genetically modified food rots quickly, and said that he hopes the mosquitoes suffer the same fate: an early death.

The fight against malaria is a big concern, but the solutions are sometimes scary, said Sylvestre Tiemtore, the director of an organization that represents over half of the nongovernmental organizations in Burkina Faso. The group met with Target Malaria in July, a discussion which was very heated, he said.

In movies  he cited Jurassic Park  weve seen some research that went out of control, he said.

Scientists familiar with the effort here say defining the idea of genetically modified to residents here might be of limited use, because it wont help people understand what the mosquitoes are or what they will really do, said Javier Lezaun, deputy director of the Institute for Science, Innovation, and Society at the University of Oxford, who is not involved in the Target Malaria project. In fact, the phrase might just serve to distract and scare  he spoke of another community in Tanzania who thought that a swarm of mosquitoes that invaded a hospital were genetically modified (they werent), and of others in Brazil who thought that Zika arrived as a result of genetically modified mosquitoes (it didnt).

As long as you explain something about the specific capabilities of the mosquitoes, or the limitations of these particular mosquitoes and how theyre supposed to behave in the wild or in the facilities, I think that serves the purpose of explaining genetic modification, Lezaun said.

And thats what many people are curious about. At the July meeting with NGOs, hosted by the Secretariat Permanent des Organisations Non Gouvernementales (SPONG for short), attendees wanted to know: What would happen to the local ecosystem? And might these engineered mosquitoes be able to transmit other diseases?

Some of these questions dont yet have answers, but others do. A risk assessment commissioned by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, a US nonprofit that supports the federal agency, found that the risk of the sterile mosquitoes currently in Bobo-Dioulasso transmitting other diseases was incredibly low; the modified mosquitoes probably wont spread more malaria than their wild cousins; and the genetic modification probably wont spread from the mosquito to other animals.

Outside scientists, convened by the FNIH in May, had previously concluded that Anopheles gambiae is not a keystone species, meaning that if its population shrank dramatically, the ecosystem would not be substantially impacted.

But the meetings continue. Tiemtore, SPONGs director, said that he would like to have a meeting with representatives of different health-related NGOs that are based in Burkina Fasos 13 different regions, to educate them about the project. But that requires money  to bring them to the capital, and to cover the costs of the meeting itself.

They might need to rent a room, Tiemtore said. They might need to offer some coffee breaks. That costs money. Who pays for that? If you dont do all of those things, your mosquitoes are going to come out, but they wont be released in the regions, because the people will not agree with it, because they didnt have enough information on it, and they will have the right to be afraid.

The development of powerful new genetic engineering technologies, often outstripping regulators ability to keep up, is forcing scientists to reckon with the ethics of their work in a new way.

Of course, humans have been making potentially irreversible changes to our environment for a long time: clearing forests for farming, building power plants that change the composition of the atmosphere, and producing untold tons of synthetic materials like plastic that will stay in the environment for hundreds of years.

But gene drives lend these questions a different sort of urgency. The genetic technology can quickly change the properties of an entire population of a species, undoing millennia of evolution in a handful of years. And once you let them out of the cage, theres no going back  other world-altering technologies have not been self-perpetuating like gene drive animals would be.

So scientists are treading carefully and doing what they can to keep the rest of the world involved. This has led to difficult questions: Who needs to give them permission to do certain things? What does it mean for residents to be fully informed?In answering them, there arent a lot of models to follow. There are only a few gene drive projects underway in the world, and none has yet resulted in the release of the animals into the wild.

Academic research on how to effectively include non-scientists in global health decisions is also lacking, said Jim Lavery, an Emory University professor of global health and ethics who has worked with the Target Malaria project in the past.

Right now, Lavery said, scientists can count the number of phone calls they make and the number of people who show up at community meetings, but we dont even have an understanding at a proxy level of what those things are supposed to represent in terms of effectiveness of engagement.

While researchers like Lavery are trying to determine how to measure success, research is plowing ahead. Some scientists are thinking about releasing gene drive mice halfway across the world, in New Zealand, to eliminate invasive species. And Kevin Esvelt, a gene drive guru based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is flying to Argentina in September to talk about using gene drives to get rid of flesh-eating flies.

He has said that gene drives are more important as a societal tool to change the way that science is done  it should be open to and inclusive of the people it will impact. To that extent, he praised Target Malarias community work. I honestly dont see how you could do it any other way, he said, citing the language and cultural barriers that the project is working to overcome.

How the project is going to introduce gene drive mosquitoes, though, is an open question. National regulators and international organizations like the World Health Organization are still working on developing guidelines for introducing gene drive animals.

And in Burkina Faso, Thizy said she hasnt even yet put a lot of thought into what it will mean for local leaders to understand a release of gene drive mosquitoes. She said it will probably include knowing that the modified mosquitoes will stay in the environment and grow in number, until some point at which the population of Anopheles gambiae will be reduced.

But, said Thizy, exactly how the gene drive works may matter less to the people than the impact it will have on them and their lives.

She pointed, by way of analogy, to her previous work as a consultant for a mining company in the Ivory Coast: It wasnt how big is the hole, how many holes, and how does the machine work that the area residents were worried about, she said, but rather how they would be compensated and what jobs would be created.

On a dusty Wednesday morning earlier this year, Kadidia Ouattara arrived at an outdoor market, eager to chat with the vendors about genetically engineered mosquitoes.

As a woman spooned tomato sauce from a gigantic aluminum can onto plastic sheets for individual sale, Ouattara told her about the insect lab just a few minutes walk down the street.

The researchers who work there are trying to reduce the population of mosquitoes, she said. Dont be afraid  I saw the inside of the lab and all of the research. There are public meetings where they explain what they are doing, and if there is another one, I will let everybody know.

The woman was delighted. May God help the project be a success, she said.

Farther along, she came upon a butcher who she knew to be particularly recalcitrant. He thinks were getting money from the white people, Ouattara said. But thats not true  shes a volunteer.

Ouattara walked up to the man, who was hacking at a piece of meat with a foot-long knife, bits of gristle flying everywhere and flies swarming. Rivulets of blood ran along the dusty ground.

If there is a meeting about the project, I am begging you to come, she said.

Scarcely taking his eyes off of the meat, the butcher mumbled some kind of assent.

Ouattaras enthusiasm was undimmed; she strode off to a woman selling onions. And shed be back soon with more news to share.

Eric Boodman and Kate Sheridan contributed reporting.

Special thanks to Housmane Sereme and Steve Sanou for translation services.
The backlash to Rep. Steve Kings incendiary comments about immigration continued Tuesday, hours after the Iowa Republican appeared to double down on a tweet critics said was his open endorsement of white nationalism.

At the White House, press secretary Sean Spicer said Kings comments were not a point of view that President Trump shares.

He believes hes the president for all Americans, Spicer said.

Kings sparked a firestorm on Sunday by suggesting that Western civilization is threatened by the influx of immigrants and refugees.

We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies, King tweeted.

What exactly do you mean? Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican and son of Cuban immigrants, replied. Do I qualify as somebody elses baby? #concernedGOPcolleague.

.@SteveKingIA What exactly do you mean? Do I qualify as "somebody else's baby?" #concernedGOPcolleague  Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) March 13, 2017

Im an American no less than you are, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., an Arab-American, wrote on Twitter. I love our Constitution and traditions. Am I somebody elses baby because my parents are immigrants?

I'm an American no less than you are. I love our Constitution and traditions. Am I "somebody else's" baby because my parents are immigrants? https://t.co/TAnBggfnhl  Justin Amash (@justinamash) March 13, 2017

Asked to clarify that tweet on CNN Monday, King replied: I meant exactly what I said.

King explained that his tweet was inspired by his visits to Western Europe and witnessing the growing diversity there.

Story continues

Ive said to them, You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody elses babies. Youve got to keep your birthrate up and  you need to teach your children your values and in doing so, then you can grow your population and you can strengthen your culture, you can strengthen your way of life. And thats not happening in any of the Western European countries.

Related: Steve King wants border wall to build to protect our superior civilization

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose wife, Columba, is a Mexican-American from Leon, joined Curbelo in condemning Kings rhetoric.

America is a nation of immigrants, Bush wrote on Twitter. The sentiment expressed by Steve King doesnt reflect our shared history or values.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann also distanced themselves from Kings remarks.

In an appearance on Fox News Monday night, though, King received support from host Tucker Carlson.

Everything you said I think is defensible, Carlson assured King. And probably right.

In a radio interview earlier Monday, King was asked about Univision anchor Jorge Ramos assertion to Carlson that by 2044, whites will become a majority-minority demographic in America.

Hes adding up Hispanics and blacks into what he predicts will be in greater number than whites in America, King replied. I will predict that Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before that happens.

Read more from Yahoo News:
MATTOON -- The Lake Lake College Board of Trustees heard Monday evening that the campus farmland had a record soybean yield in 2016.

The board also voted to accept a $14,000 grant from the Illinois State Board of Education for a program that serves high school and Lake Land students who are interested in becoming agriculture education teachers.

Regarding the campus farmland, agronomy instructor and farm manager Mark Niemerg presented the 2016 report on the 10 plots that the Lake Land agriculture division farms around campus as part of its education and research programs.

For the 2016 growing season, Niemerg said their corn averaged 205.6 bushels per acre and the soybeans set a new farm record of 68.6 bushels per acre. He said, over the last three years, their corn crop has averaged 199.8 bushels per acre and the soybean crop has averaged 63.1 bushels per acre.

"Obviously I am thrilled with the yields during the past two years, but I can only wonder how long this good weather can continue," Niemerg said. He noted earlier in his report that drought conditions in 2012 led to corn and soybeans averaging the same yield of 47 bushels per acre.

Niemerg also reported that the agriculture division's cover crop research project is underway. He said they sowed cereal rye grass this fall on field D, on the southwest side of campus.

Their plan is to use a no-till management system and to utilize various cover crops for the next five years. They will monitor this system's impact on plant performance during this time, as well as the physical and chemical changes of the soil.

Regarding the grant, the goal of this Growing Agricultural Science Teachers program is to promote the profession of agriculture education through recruitment and retention activities. This is the ninth year that the State Board of Education has offered this grant and the ninth year Lake Land has received funding.

Vice President for Academic Services Jon Althaus reported that, with this funding, the college will provide paid internships for nine Lake Land and district high school agriculture students to gain relevant work experience in the agriculture education field.

These nine student interns will also be enrolled in a 2.5 semester hour supervised occupational experience course, which comes with a tuition waiver to eliminate financial barriers for students seeking a career in agriculture education.

"These experiences give students an early glimpse at the profession to help determine if such a career is a right fit for them," Althaus said. He added that several Lake Land agriculture students have gone on to teach in this field at area high schools.
By Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump and congressional leaders are weighing changes to their plan to dismantle the Obamacare health law, a White House spokesman said Tuesday, as Republicans defended their effort following an estimate that it would cause 14 million Americans to lose insurance next year. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said White House officials and leaders in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives were considering whether to tweak their bill, which faces growing doubts within party ranks. The nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Monday estimated that by 2026, the plan would boost the number of people without health insurance by 24 million. Those findings prompted a few Republican defections and made it tougher for the Republican president to sell his first major piece of legislation. Trump hopes to deliver on a longtime pledge by his political party to undo Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement. Trump spoke by phone on Tuesday with House Speaker Paul Ryan and with Joseph Swedish, chief executive of managed care company Anthem Inc. He also has hosted Republicans at the White House recently. "Part of the reason we are engaging with these individuals is to hear their ideas," Spicer said. "We are obviously in talks with House leadership about the contents." The debate comes as voter interest in the issue rises. Healthcare was a top priority for Americans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,747 people in March. Sixteen percent picked healthcare as their No. 1 issue, compared with 14 percent for the economy and 11 percent who chose terrorism. It was the first time healthcare topped the list since the poll started in 2012. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points. Republicans' plan to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, would repeal a penalty against Americans who do not buy health insurance and slash spending on the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled. It would also revamp tax subsidies that help people buy insurance if they do not get it from work. The amounts would be based on age, not income. Democrats say the Republican plan would hurt the elderly, the poor and working families but give tax cuts to the rich. Doctors, hospitals and advocates for patients and senior citizens also have panned it. After the CBO report, some House Republicans pulled support. Representative Leonard Lance of New Jersey, who said the report "modified the dynamic," said the bill could not pass the Senate. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is from south Florida, tweeted: "As written the plan leaves too many from my district uninsured." Spicer said the CBO struggles to estimate insurance coverage. Before the 2010 law passed, the office projected more people would buy individual insurance plans through new online marketplaces than actually did. The White House has, however, promoted the CBO's estimate of the plan's effect on federal deficits. The report said it would cause deficits to fall by $337 billion between 2017 and 2026. CHANGES POSSIBLE Trump's administration must heal divisions in his party. Moderates, particularly in the Senate, worry about causing people to lose coverage, while conservatives do not think the bill goes far enough in undoing Obamacare. House leaders have resisted a conservative push to bring a quicker end to Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid. But they are considering changes to tax credits to help older, lower-income Americans. The CBO said that group could see higher premiums because the Republican plan would let insurers charge older enrollees more than they can under Obamacare. "We're examining different options for how we can improve that," Representative Kevin Brady, who heads a key tax-writing committee, said on Tuesday, without providing details. Republican senators had lunch on Capitol Hill with Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to discuss possible changes. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill could be amended in the Republican-controlled Senate. SHARES FALL Shares of hospitals and health insurers slipped, partly on worries the plan would mean fewer insured patients. Among insurer stocks, UnitedHealth Group Inc closed down 0.7 percent, and Aetna Inc and Humana Inc each dipped 0.5 percent. It looks like it's going to be the dismantling of the individual insurance market, which again means lower revenues, said Vishnu Lekraj, an equity analyst at Morningstar. Hospital shares were also lower. Tenet Healthcare Corp finished down 3.3 percent and HCA Holdings Inc ended down 1.5 percent. (Additional reporting by Caroline Humer, Alistair Bell, Chris Kahn, David Morgan, Mike Erman and Natalie Grover; Writing by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)
Impeachara.com screenshot (Yahoo News)

TRUMP-INDUCED ANXIETY DISORDER. In 2003, columnist Charles Krauthammer accused liberals of having Bush Derangement Syndrome, which he described as the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency  nay  the very existence of George W. Bush. Now Democrats have Trump-induced anxiety disorder, according to writer and director Sam Friedlander, who worked on the dishy summer medical drama Royal Pains, about concierge doctors in the Hamptons. And hes released a parody ad for a new medication to relieve these intense psychological symptoms, which some liberals have been experiencing since the election.

Do you find yourself feeling depressed? Hopeless? Having trouble sleeping? Struggling with frequent panic attacks? Irritability? Constant arguments with family, friends or even friends of friends on Facebook? Yelling at your phone or computer screen? And the constant urge to pull out your hair? asks a soothing voice-over on the spot, as a man with a mustache calls people names on social media.

Impeachara may help! chirps the ad, which suggests the imaginary medication will allow liberals to function normally again by creating the illusion Trump has already been impeached.

GUIDED TO TENNESSEE. President Trump is heading to Nashville on Wednesday, and the Southern Democrats have announced a protest will follow him there.

There will be a protest on March 15, when Trump goes to Nashville, TN! #resist pic.twitter.com/YgYKLuLL8w  Southern Democrats (@SouthernDems_) March 9, 2017

They also plan to protest outside his visit to Freedom Hall in Louisville, Ky., on March 20.

The protests following Trump since his election have spread to include the travels of Vice President Mike Pence as well, as in this anti-Pence rally in Louisville over the weekend, reports the Courier-Journals Joe Gerth.

Story continues

Crowd at anti-pence rally stretches out along Plantside Drive, waiting for Pence to leave. pic.twitter.com/EnD3wB81OT  Joe Gerth (@Joe_Gerth) March 11, 2017

I counted about 650 anti-Trump protesters and 4 Trump supporters. pic.twitter.com/eh1WUk2WJA  Joe Gerth (@Joe_Gerth) March 11, 2017

DISTRICT DISRUPTIONS. MoveOn has announced two days of actions outside the district offices of nine U.S. senators and 23 of the more vulnerable members of the House of Representatives  all Republicans. The Stakeouts to Save Our Health Care commence at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, and unlike the town hall protests of the first congressional district work period, they dont depend on the representative in question being there. The effort is part of a suite of actions in response to the House Republicans Obamacare-repeal bill that the Congressional Budget Office has said would cause 24 million people to lose insurance over the next decade, as well as the upcoming March 23 anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act by President Obama in 2010.

I CANT KEEP QUIET. The song that went viral after the Womens March on Washington, becoming the anthem of the day and the movement, continues to be performed across the globe. On Sunday, the American Civil Liberties Union featured the musician behind the phenomenon, MILCK, at its Miami activist training streamed live online to small groups across the country. And on International Womens Day, it was performed live in a square in Goteborg, Sweden, in a Sangmanifestation by hundreds of women wearing pink knit pussy hats as the snow fell. Its perhaps the most powerful rendition of the song since the original a cappella performance in Washington, D.C., was captured on Jan. 21. More than 1,315,809 people have watched the Goteborg performance on Facebook over the past week.

There was also a flash mob performance of the song in Central Station in Stockholm, Sweden, that day.



(Click here for the six-minute version, if youre into that kind of thing.)

Its extraordinary to see the music and craftivist hat designs that began in the United States just a few months ago taking this kind of international hold  though, to be fair, culture is one of Americas most significant export industries  especially as U.S. Womens March organizers on the same day abandoned their homegrown look and wore red in solidarity with a global womens general strike called overseas.
By Marty Graham

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A retired U.S. Navy admiral appeared in federal court in San Diego on Tuesday on charges that he took bribes, including expensive meals, hotel stays and prostitutes in exchange for sharing classified information and steering the Navy's 7th Fleet to a defense contractor in Asian Pacific ports.

Bruce Loveless, 53, is one of eight current or retired naval officers and one U.S. Marine charged with bribery in an indictment unsealed last week, the latest in a long-running criminal probe known as the Fat Leonard case, in reference to a nickname for Malaysian businessman Leonard Glenn Francis, at the center of the scandal.

In return for the bribes, the officials are accused of sharing information on ship movements and sending ships to a half dozen Glenn Defense Marine Asia port locations. The Singapore-based company was contracted to clean, stock and refuel the Navy ships.

Another retired admiral, Robert Gilbeau, pleaded guilty last year to making false statements to investigators. Loveless, Gilbeau and a third admiral were all reprimanded by the Navy and retired in 2016.

In 2015, Francis and the company pleaded guilty to bribing navy officials over 10 years while billing the Navy $200 million for work in a half dozen ports, according to court documents. As part of his guilty plea, Francis agreed to pay $35 million in restitution and cooperate with federal prosecutors in the probe.

The latest indictment claims that in 2007 Francis hosted a "raging multi-day party, with a rotating carousel of prostitutes in attendance, during which the conspirators drank all of the Perignon available at the Shangri-La" (hotel), running up a $50,000 bill.

So far, 25 people have been indicted in the case, including two Glenn Defense employees and a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent who prosecutors say kept Francis informed about the investigation.

The new indictment includes the admiral, four captains and a commander, a lieutenant commander, a chief warrant officer and a Marine Corps colonel. All are charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud and face a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Captain David Lausman is also charged with obstructing the investigation and making false statements.

(Reporting by Marty Graham in San Diego; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Dan Grebler)
(WASHINGTON)  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plunges this week into the increasingly volatile situation in North Asia with visits to Japan, South Korea and China, the regions central players for dealing with North Koreas missile launches and nuclear tests. Complicating the mission are Chinese concerns about how the U.S. has responded so far.

Beijing strenuously objects to the initial deployment to South Korea of a U.S. missile defense system. One of Tillersons chief tasks will be to assuage Asias biggest country and arrange a much-anticipated visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States.

Tillersons four-day trip will be closely watched for signs of how the Trump administration will approach the escalating tensions with North Korea, whose leader has disregarded international appeals to disarm and accelerated weapons development. The North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests last year, deepening concern in Washington that it could soon develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

Last week, North Korea launched four missiles into the ocean off Japan as the U.S. and South Korea began annual drills. The allies call the drills routine. Pyongyang regards them as an invasion rehearsal.

The Trump administration is searching for new ideas to stop North Korea in ways that years of international sanctions and diplomatic isolation have failed to do.

Read More: Whoever Becomes South Koreas New Leader Has Three Options for Dealing With Kim Jong Un. None Are Great

While administration officials say all options are on the table, including military ones, early signs indicate the U.S. wants to ensure current sanctions are properly applied, targeting the governments revenue sources and ability to import sensitive technology usable in nuclear weapons and missiles.

For now, there appears to be no desire to negotiate with North Korea  a holdover stance from the Obama administration, which demanded the North first commit to the goal of denuclearization. But U.S. officials have been vague about what their new approach might entail.

Story continues

All eyes are now on Tillerson as he tries to navigate the complex and sometime acrimonious relationships necessary for formulating a regional strategy. Its a task President Donald Trump complicated last year by challenging Japan and South Korea to contribute more to their own defense and questioning the fundamentals of four decades of U.S. diplomacy with China. But since taking office, Trump has sought to allay those concerns.

Tillerson will travel on a small plane without a contingent of journalists or a designated pool reporter who would send reports to the broader diplomatic press corps, departing from 50 years of practice and even from Tillersons earlier official overseas trips to Germany and Mexico.

Read More: Kim Jong Nams Murder Likely Means Dangerous Times Ahead for Members of North Koreas Ruling Family

The State Department says it will accommodate U.S.-based reporters traveling to Asia commercially by providing them access to Tillersons public events at each stop. But commercial flights dont easily align with Tillersons schedule, making such coverage more difficult.

Reporters have traveled with the secretary of state to report quickly on developments in foreign negotiations. They also question U.S. diplomats in front of their counterparts. Such practices allow immediate and comprehensive coverage of the diplomacy at hand. Journalists also are present if something untoward happens to the secretary of state. In 2015, John Kerry fell off his bicycle outside Geneva, breaking his leg at a delicate moment in Iran nuclear negotiations.

Some U.S. lawmakers are concerned Tillerson risks letting foreign governments shape coverage and sending a message that Washington isnt committed to supporting a free press. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, urged Tillerson last week to reconsider. It wasnt clear if the decision might be amended.

Tillerson arrives Wednesday in Japan and will meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the next day. Abe has courted Trump, visiting the presidents Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month. North Korea marked the occasion by test-launching a new type of solid-fuel missile.

Tillerson then visits South Korea, caught up in political upheaval after last weeks ouster of its president, Park Geun-hye, over a corruption scandal. Park had been in lockstep with Washingtons efforts to isolate Pyongyang. The favorite to succeed her is Moon Jae-in, a moderate who wants to engage North Koreas government.

Tillersons final leg involves meetings with several senior Chinese officials in Beijing. Relations are delicate after the U.S. and South Korea began the deployment last week of a missile defense system they say targets North Korea. Beijing claims the radar can range inside Chinese territory and weaken its nuclear deterrent.

The dispute threatens Washingtons effort to get Beijing to exert more economic pressure on its traditional ally, North Korea. China recently suspended North Korean coal imports, a major source of revenue for Pyongyang. China now wants the U.S. to restart nuclear talks with the North.
He may have left his illustrious job at Givenchy, but fashion designer Riccardo Tisci has not wasted any time in pursuing creative opportunities.

The renowned talent has been working on a 30th anniversary version of the Nike Air Max 97 sneaker, which is set to launch on March 23.

Tisci has unveiled the revamped Nineties classic shoe on Instagram, revealing a mid-rise, cushioned design in navy and white. The sneaker is the latest born from the Tisci/Nike footwear partnership that began back in 2014.

"I gave the shoe more height," he told WWD. "I think it's much more street. It's a new kind of stance, one which I would want in my wardrobe."

Tisci isn't the only one celebrating Nike's fashion milestone; designer Marc Newson has also offered his take on the sneaker, which utilizes the sportswear giant's sockliner and combines it with a velvet strap. Architect Arthur Huang also created a version, using recycled materials to result in the lightest Air Maw 1 model yet.

Nike hit the headlines earlier this month when it revealed plans to launch a head covering for Muslim women, named the "Pro Hijab", next year.
Actor Robert Blake is giving marriage another try and will walk down the aisle once more, 12 years after a jury acquitted him of murdering his second wife.

Read: Will the Juice Get Loose in 2017? O.J. Simpson Could Make Parole This Year

Blake's life is a far cry from his heyday when he was a star on TVs Baretta in the 70s. He lives in an apartment in a working class neighborhood, close to the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles.

He and his new fiance, Pamela Hudak, applied for a marriage license last week.

The 83-year-old actors second wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, was shot to death as she sat in a car outside an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles in 2001.

Hudak, 55, has known Blake for decades and actually testified on his behalf during his murder trial.

"It is true that many people think Robert Blake is responsible for the death of Bonnie Lee Bakley," Beth Karas, a legal analyst who covered the murder trial told Inside Edition. "Should [Pamela] be worried? This is a woman who has known Blake for years, much longer than Bonnie Lee Bakley. Given that Pamela has known him for so many years she has nothing to worry about."

Read: O.J. Simpson's Forgotten First Wife: Who is Marguerite Whitley?

Prosecutors claimed Blake killed her because she tricked him into marriage by getting pregnant. However, the jury found him not guilty in 2005.

Bakley family attorney, Cary W. Goldstein, told Inside Edition: "I can't say that he pulled the trigger and killed her, but I believe he probably arranged her death."

Goldstein had advice for Blake's new fiance, saying: "I [would] tell her to keep her cell phone handy and be ready to dial 911. I am still astounded that anybody would consider still marrying him knowing what they know about him now."

Blake was ordered to pay Bakleys four children millions of dollars in a civil lawsuit for the wrongful death of his second wife.

Story continues

Watch: O.J. Simpson's Sister Believes He Is Innocent: 'I Know He Did Not Kill Nicole and Ron'

Related Articles:
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  Croatia and Romania's foreign ministers say they support the enlargement of the European Union in eastern Europe as a tool for regional stability.

Croatian Foreign Minister Davor Ivo Stier, on a visit to Bucharest, said the two countries agree on the need to "continue the support for enlargement policy of the EU," after talks on Tuesday with Romanian counterpart Teodor Melescanu.

The ministers also discussed Moldova, which signed an association agreement with the EU in 2014, and the situation in Ukraine.

Stier said Romania and Croatia, both NATO members, share "views about the eastern partnership and how to bring these countries (closer) to" Europe.

Melescanu said there was a common interest in "anchoring the region irrevocably and irreversibly on the European path."
Astana (Kazakhstan) (AFP) - The Syrian regime and key powerbrokers on Tuesday tried to shrug off the absence of rebel groups as they gathered for talks on the six-year conflict, but the opposition's refusal to attend appeared a body blow for any hopes of progress.

The third round of negotiations sponsored by regime allies Russia and Iran and rebel-backer Turkey come as other diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed have proved fruitless.

Regime negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari slammed the rebels' decision to snub the talks in the Kazakh capital Astana after attending two earlier rounds but insisted that there was still a point in going ahead with the event.

"We are eager to ensure the success of the Astana path... whether or not the armed factions attend," Jaafari was quoted as saying by Syria's SANA news agency.

"The failure of the armed factions to attend Astana shows the indecency of their politics."

Jaafari said the regime delegation had come to the two-day talks primarily to meet with Russia and Iran, and not armed opposition groups.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow thought the rebels' refusal to show up stemmed from a "misunderstanding", local news agencies reported.

But the rebels said earlier that they were skipping the Astana talks in protest at regime violations of a shaky ceasefire in place since the end of last year.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said Tuesday that the Syrian conflict was the "worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II".

- 'War crime' -

Two previous rounds of talks in Astana were focused on bolstering a frail nationwide truce brokered by Moscow and Ankara in December that has been jeopardised by fighting across swathes of Syria.

Story continues

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday that the talks were "from time to time truly complicated by the existing differences in the different sides' approaches".

A new round of negotiations in Geneva is set to begin on March 23 and will focus on governance, the constitution, elections, counter-terrorism and possibly reconstruction, according to the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.

Russian mediator Alexander Lavrentiev said the Astana talks were meant to "facilitate" de Mistura's task of finding a solution to the conflict.

"If this brings any good, we think this will benefit the Geneva process," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrentiev as saying.

As officials met in Kazakhstan, a UN probe accused the Syrian government of intentionally bombing the Ain al-Fijeh spring outside Damascus in December, leaving more than five million in the capital without access to water.

The UN branded the strike a "war crime" and dismissed regime allegations that the rebels had contaminated the water.
UPDATE: 5:32 a.m. EDT  Both Russian and Egyptian ministries of defense denied media reports Tuesday of "Russian special forces" units in Egypt.

"There are no Russian special forces in Sidi Barrani. Certain Western media have been stirring the public with such mud-slinging from anonymous sources for years," Russian Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said, according to Sputnik.

Original story:

In a bid to make its presence stronger in the oil-rich Libya in northern Africa, Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, U.S., Egyptian and diplomatic sources said. The move has added to Washington's concern about Moscow's increasing role in Libya, Reuters reported Monday.

Pentagon's top Africa official warned the Senate a few days back that Moscow was trying to "do a Syria" in the North African nation, according to Fox News. The report of Russian forces near the war-torn country raises questions about Russian President Vladimir Putins intentions in Libya and its United Nations-backed government. The international community, including the U.S., only recognize one government in Libya  the Government of National Accord (GNA) formed by a U.N. resolution.

Read: Can Washington Defeat ISIS Before Russia, Turkey?

Although Egyptian security sources said there was a 22-member Russian special forces unit, they did not divulge any details about the Russian forces' mission. The security sources added that in early February Russia also used another Egyptian base farther east in Marsa Matrouh, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Russian leaders are also playing a role to resolve the political crisis in Libya. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov reaffirmed Monday its continuing support for the efforts to help resolve the crisis situation in Libya. "The Russian side reaffirmed its strong support of the political process, based on the imperative to ensure the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Libya," the ministry said in statement, Sputnik International reported.

Story continues

Read: Is The Syrian War Over? Russia, US Team Up Against Turkey

Many European Union countries fear that Putin might cripple their efforts to strengthen the fragile government in Tripoli and instead install a pro-Russian government there, according to Politico.

In fact, the U.S. might lose Libya to Russia if it does not develop a new strategy that prioritizes resolving the civil war in Libya. In an article for American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research's Critical Threats, discussing the U.S. strategy toward Libya, analyst Emily Estelle wrote: "It is not too late for U.S. policy in Libya to succeed. ISIS is on its back foot, and many Libyan stakeholders are looking for paths to resolution. We must seize this opportunity to support a sustainable solution to the Libyan conflict so that recent success in Libya will stand the test of time. We otherwise risk watching Libya return to chaos and allowing ISIS and al Qaeda (and possibly Russia) to secure an enduring safe haven on Europes doorstep."

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CHARLESTON -- A woman was able to plead guilty to a reduced charge and avoid prison time because she had a "significantly lesser role" in an armed robbery of an Eastern Illinois University student at his apartment.

Monique C. Williams was present during the Oct. 16, 2015, break-in and robbery but her co-defendant was the one actually behind the crime, according to her case's prosecutor.

Williams, 19, for whom records list an address in Chicago, pleaded guilty to a burglary charge that accused her of taking part in the theft of the student's van, cellphone, TV and other items.

With the agreement reached in her case, she received the maximum probation sentence for the conviction that could also have resulted in a prison sentence of three to seven years.

The agreement also included dismissal of a home invasion charge, an offense that requires a prison term of six to 30 years with a conviction.

Williams was also ordered to share in payment of $6,000 in restitution to compensate for the stolen items.

Her co-defendant, Royce D. Hughes, was also ordered to pay restitution when he pleaded guilty in January and received a prison sentence.

The break-in took place at an apartment at 1429 Seventh St. in Charleston.

The man who was robbed identified Hughes and Williams as possible suspects because they were part of a group of people he'd recently met and who'd visited his apartment, according to the case's records.

Williams had a "significantly lesser role" in the robbery than Hughes, according to Coles County State's Attorney Brian Bower, who prosecuted the case.

Bower said Williams was with Hughes at the time but Hughes was the one who had the gun that was used, hit and threatened the robbery victim and took his property.

Probation terms for Williams included a substance abuse treatment evaluation and payment of about $1,100 in fines and court fees.

Jail time was also part of the sentence but it was stayed, meaning she won't have to serve it if she follow her sentence's other requirements.

Circuit Judge Brien O'Brien sentenced Williams based on the terms of the plea agreement that was presented. Public Defender Anthony Ortega represented Williams.

Hughes, 23, whose address on record is in Chicago, was sentenced to eight years in prison with the agreement that included his pleading guilty to a home invasion charge.

Also, another woman was arrested for reportedly providing police with false information about what she knew about the others' plans to commit the robbery.

Brittany L. Bush, now 24, also with an address on record in Chicago, was originally charged with obstructing justice, a felony offense.

With a plea agreement reached in December 2015, Bush pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor resisting police charge and was sentenced to probation.

According to Bower, Williams and Bush were roommates in Charleston and Williams and Hughes were in a relationship together at the time.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian Defence Ministry is in touch with Syrian opposition generals who boycotted a third round of peace talks due to begin in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, the Interfax news agency cited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. The Syrian opposition said it would not attend the talks because of what it called Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes against civilians and its failure to put pressure on the Syrian army to abide by a widely violated ceasefire. Interfax cited Lavrov as saying those reasons were "unconvincing," that the opposition's refusal to attend had come as a surprise, and that Russia was dealing with the situation. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)  Amid unprecedented international attention, the Dutch go to the polls Wednesday in a parliamentary election that is seen as a bellwether for the future of populism in a year of crucial votes in Europe.

With the anti-Islam, far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders running just behind two-term right-wing Prime Minister Mark Rutte in polls, the Dutch vote could give an indication of whether the tide of populism that swept Britain toward the European Union exit door and Donald Trump into the White house has peaked.

The election in the Netherlands comes ahead of polls in France and Germany over the next half year, when right-wing nationalists will also be key players.

During a final election debate among leaders from the parties vying for seats and control of the government, Wilders piled on the anti-Islam invective while Rutte sought to underscore his leadership experience.

None of the party representatives made a critical faux-pas or scored points that should alter campaign dynamics established over months.

The final days of campaigning have been overshadowed by a diplomatic crisis between the Dutch and Turkish governments over the refusal of the Netherlands to let two Turkish government ministers address rallies about a constitutional reform referendum next month that could give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more powers. It showed Rutte as refusing to bow to pressure from outside, a stance which has widespread backing in the nation.

"It is my task to keep the nation safe and stable and deal with these kind of people," said Rutte.

Rutte has driven through unpopular austerity measures over the last four years, but as the election approaches the Dutch economic recovery has gathered pace and unemployment has fallen fast. So the prime minister is urging voters to stick with him.

Rutte is casting the election as a two-horse race between his VVD party and the Party for Freedom led by Wilders. The choice, Rutte says, is simple: Chaos or continuity.

Story continues

The prime minister says Wilders' one-page manifesto  which pledges to take the Netherlands out of the European Union, shut its borders to all immigrants from Muslim countries, shutter mosques and ban the Quran  would lead to chaos. Wilders fired back in a debate Monday that it would allow the Dutch "to become the boss in our own country again."

"The Netherlands does not belong to all of us," he proclaimed.

Wilders also is tapping into discontent among voters who say they are not benefiting from economic recovery in this nation of 17 million.

Ruud van Dongen, a 49-year-old chauffeur, said he would vote for Wilders' PVV as a protest against more flexible contracts that mean fewer people have jobs for life which used to be a staple in Dutch welfare state.

"Do you know what's the deal with jobs? They last for two years and then people are on the street," he said.

Even if Wilders wins the popular vote Wednesday, the Dutch system of proportional representation for the 150-seat lower house of Parliament will likely keep him out of government since all mainstream parties, with Rutte leading the way, have rejected working with Wilders in a coalition.

"Wilders will play no role in the formation of a government," said Amsterdam Free University political analyst Andre Krouwel. "But Wilders plays a major role in the tone and content of the campaign and Wilders  even if he doesn't win a single seat  has already won because the two biggest right-wing parties have taken over his policies."

While Rutte's ruling VVD party holds a narrow lead over Wilders in most polls, other parties are also still in the running and well placed to play a role in forming the next coalition.

Leader Sybrand Buma has moved the traditionally center-right Christian Democrats to the right to counter Wilders, while the pro-European Union liberal democrats D66 are also on track to win more seats. On the left, 30-year-old Justin Trudeau look-alike Jesse Klaver is on course to lead the Green Left party to its best ever electoral result.

The diplomatic crisis with Turkey and Rutte's tough reaction to it appears to have cast the prime minister in a positive light on the eve of the election.

"Our prime minister did a very good job at the right moment for the elections," said Albert Busch, an entrepreneur from Limmen. "The chance he will be chosen tomorrow is much bigger than it was last week."

With such a knife-edge vote expected, only one thing appeared certain: Talks to form the next ruling coalition will take a while.

"The longest coalition formation was seven months," Krouwel said. "It wouldn't surprise me if this results leads to a very complicated and long formation process."
Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia is committed to stabilising the global oil market, the energy ministry of the world's biggest oil exporter said on Tuesday, as prices fell below $48 a barrel.

OPEC and non-OPEC countries last year pledged to reduce output by around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) as part of a concerted effort to curb a global oil glut.

Saudi Arabia "is committed and determined to stabilise the global oil market by working closely with all other participating OPEC and non-OPEC producers", the energy ministry said in a statement.

An OPEC report released Tuesday said that Saudi Arabia reported an increase in oil production for February, saying it pumped 10.011 million bpd last month, up from 9.748 million bpd in January.

But the energy ministry said the amount of crude it supplied to the market in February was 9.9 million bpd, down from 9.99 in January.

"The difference between what the market observes as production, and the actual supply levels in any given month, is due to operational factors that are influenced by storage adjustments and other month to month variables," it said.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouk, head of a committee overseeing the decreases in oil production, said last week that OPEC compliance with the output reductions had exceeded the target because of higher Saudi cuts, but non-OPEC compliance has been modest.
A local school board in Virginia urged a federal appeals court on Tuesday to give the Trump Administration until June 1 to sort out its position on the civil rights of transgender students. A high-profile case on those rights should not be rushed, but instead should be put on a schedule that would allow a hearing in September, lawyers for the Gloucester County School Board argued.

Gavin Grimm (credit: Geoff Livingston)

In a brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the school boards attorneys opposed a request by the 17-year-old transgender youth involved in the case to speed it up so that a decision could be made before he graduates from high school on June 10.

Since the Fourth Circuit Court has to start the case all over again, to confront the basic issue of what federal civil rights law means about transgender rights, there would not be time for the case to develop fully on an expedited schedule, the boards filing said.

The Trump Administration, the document noted, has abandoned the former Obama Administration view that transgender students have a right to use the restroom at school that matches their gender identity, but the Trump team has not yet developed its own interpretation of Title IX  the 1972 law that bars discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs.

The Obama Administration had taken part in the case to support the legal claim of the student, Gavin Grimm. But the Trump Administration so far has taken no specific position on the case, other than to notify the Supreme Court that no longer following the Obama view and that it is re-thinking the scope of Title IX.

In a prior ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court, in Gavin Grimms favor, the decision relied solely on the Obama Administration view, rather than an explicit declaration of the Circuit Courts own view. That was the result that the Supreme Court had planned to review at its current term. It passed up that chance after being told of the switch by the Trump Administration, and chose instead to send the case back to the Circuit Court to reconsider.

Story continues

Last week, the youths lawyers asked the Circuit Court to speed up its new review, setting it up for an early May hearing. In response, the school board suggested that the Circuit Court must make a fresh start, and added that it would only be fair  and would aid this courts deliberations  to give the United States adequate opportunity to weigh in again now that the merits question is squarely posed.

The Trump Administration has not yet been fully staffed, the filing said, so it is unlikely that the United States would be able to participate on the timeline that [the student] requests. Presumably, if the government were to take part in the case, it would do so in the role of friend of the court.

In the timetable proposed by the school board, its new brief on the Title IX issue and that of the student would be filed by May 1, with friend-of-court briefs due on June 1, and the two sides reply briefs on July 3. The Circuit Court, the board suggested, could then hold a hearing in a sitting planned for mid-September.

Although Grimm would have graduated from high school by then, his case would not lose its status because he would still have a claim for money damages from the school board for enforcing its restroom policy against him.

Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston is Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent. Denniston has written for us as a contributor since June 2011 and has covered the Supreme Court since 1958. His work also appears on lyldenlawnews.com, where this story first appeared.
By Kristina Cooke (Reuters) - A Seattle federal judge on Tuesday recommended that his court hear the case of a Mexican immigrant with a work permit who is challenging his arrest by U.S. immigration authorities in February. In a report filed in district court, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohue recommended denying the U.S. government's motion to dismiss the case brought by Daniel Ramirez Medina, a so-called Dreamer who came to the United States illegally with his parents when he was about 10 years old. The term Dreamers refers to some 750,000 immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, who have been afforded some protection from deportation under an Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Under U.S. law, deportation cases must be heard by immigration courts, which are administered by the Department of Justice. But Ramirez's attorneys say he is entitled to challenge the circumstances of his arrest in federal court. The judge noted in his report that Ramirez's claims relate to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers' conduct during his arrest and detention, before deportation proceedings were initiated. Donohue did not weigh in on the merits of the case, but recommended that the case proceed on an expedited schedule, with Ramirez remaining in custody pending court action. The report was not a final ruling and the judge required that objections to its recommendations be filed by March 28. Ramirez's legal team will file an objection to the judge's recommendation that he remain in detention, one of his attorneys, Theodore Boutrous, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said in an emailed statement. "Daniel has already been wrongfully detained for too long." The Department of Justice said in a statement it was reviewing the judge's report and recommendation and would respond to the court by March 28. Ramirez, who turned 24 last week, was detained in February by immigration officers who went to his house to arrest his father. They alleged Ramirez had gang ties and should be deported. Ramirez's lawyers have denied their client has any gang involvement or criminal record, and called his arrest unconstitutional. The case is being closely watched by other Dreamers who worry that they could be swept up in more aggressive immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump. Immigration enforcement guidelines released last month left in place protections for childhood arrivals. Trump has said the issue is "very difficult" for him. (additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Richard Chang)
It's been five months since an Upper Darby man was one of two people killed in a triple shooting in Northern California, allegedly by a Philadelphia couple who are still on the lam.

Robert Lee Randolph, 31, and his girlfriend, Maria Teresa Lebron, 29, remain fugitives from the law in the Oct. 15 shooting. They may be hanging out in the Badlands of North Philadelphia, a Sonoma County Sheriff's Office spokesman said last week.

John "Jessie" Mariana, 28, of Upper Darby, and Nathan Proto, 36, of Sebastopol, Calif., were gunned down during a drug-related deal in Proto's home, authorities have said. Proto died that night; Mariana died three days later in a hospital. A 23-year-old female friend of theirs was also shot in the house. She survived.



Camera icon

Courtesy of Family



John "Jessie" Mariana.

For Mariana's family, the grief is still palpable, especially given that the suspects have not been arrested.



"What makes it worse is theyre still on the loose," Mariana's aunt, Diane Mariana O'Connor, 54, of Drexel Hill, said last week.



Sgt. Spencer Crum of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said last week that detectives in his office believe Randolph and Lebron, who are alleged drug dealers, are somewhere in the Badlands section of North Philadelphia. But "the trail is fairly cold right now," he said.



"Theyre criminals selling marijuana on the streets," he said.



The FBI Violent Crimes Task Force in Philadelphia is looking for Randolph and Lebron, FBI spokeswoman Carrie Adamowski said Friday. She said the couple's photos have been posted in a "Wanted" sign on digital billboards in the Philadelphia area, including on Interstate 95, since November. The couple has also been featured twice in the "Week's Most Wanted" fugitive notices that appear in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Camera icon

FBI



The digital sign that has been posted by the FBI's Philadelphia office on highway billboards in the Philadelphia area.

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The FBI's Philadelphia office is offering a reward, the amount of which the agency is not disclosing. Separately, as is standard in Sonoma County, there is a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of each suspect, Crum said.



According to the Sheriff's Office, on Oct. 13, Randolph and Lebron flew from Philadelphia to San Francisco. On the evening of Oct. 15, Mariana, who was recently living in California and who had arranged a large marijuana transaction, took the couple to Proto's rural Sebastopol home, where Randolph and Lebron were to buy 100 pounds of marijuana in exchange for about $100,000 to $200,000 in cash, authorities have said.



But about an hour into the meeting, authorities said, Randolph pulled out a handgun and shot Mariana, Proto and their friend.

Randolph and Lebron then stole a large amount of marijuana and an undisclosed amount of cash from Protos home and flew back to Philadelphia on Oct. 17, the Sheriff's Office said. It's believed they stashed the drugs and cash at another location to be later transported back to Philadelphia, authorities said.

Detectives from the Sheriff's Office went to Philadelphia and South Jersey in late October looking for the couple in several homes, but did not find them. Authorities had last known addresses for the couple on the 1800 block of Placid Street in Northeast Philadelphia, near Pennypack Park, and the 3200 block of F Street in Kensington. In addition to Philadelphia, the couple is believed to have ties to Burlington County.



O'Connor has said her nephew was a standout wrestler at Upper Darby High School and used to travel around the country following music festivals, and that's how he ended up in California. He had been living in California for about six years and last returned home to Delaware County in August to visit his family, she said.



Mariana was working as a carpenter in California, his aunt said. He was "very family-oriented, the sweetest kid in the world," she said. She acknowledged, as authorities have said, that he was involved in a marijuana transaction.

Anyone with information about Randolph and Lebron's whereabouts is asked to call Detective Jeff Toney in the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office at 707-565-2185, or the Philadelphia FBI at 215-418-4000.

Randolph is black, about 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds. His right arm is covered in tattoos and he also has the words "Only God Can Hold Me" tattooed on his left bicep, and a large winged creature inked on his back.



Lebron is Hispanic, about 5-foot-3 and 140 pounds. She sometimes wears glasses and has a number of tattoos on her upper body.

Most Popular on Philly.com
With Adam Rawnsley

New rules. A slew of new reports detail how the Trump White House is looking at rolling back some of the checks and balances installed by the Obama administration that added a level of centralized control and a degree of transparency  some would say frustrating micromanagement  to the fight against terrorist organizations.

The administration has already loosened rules of engagement in parts of Yemen (As FP has noted), and is expected to soon do the same in areas of Somalia in order to give U.S. drones and Special Operations Forces a freer hand to hunt al Qaeda-linked groups.

Lowering the threshold. The administration is also wrapping up a review of how to grant the Pentagon the authority to launch counterterrorism strikes anywhere in the world while lowering the threshold on acceptable civilian casualties and scaling back other constraints imposed by the Obama administration, senior U.S. officials told the Washington Posts Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung. The new rules would allow the Pentagon to take strikes without the authority of the White House, and scrap the near certainty rule of avoiding civilian casualties put in place by then-president Obama.

Spies like drones. And its not just the Pentagon that may see some rules go away. The CIA has already been given new authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, U.S. officials said, changing the Obama administrations policy of limiting the spy agencys paramilitary role and reopening a turf war between the agency and the Pentagon. Thats according to the Wall Street Journals Gordon Lubold and Shane Harris, who write that the new authority represents a significant departure from a cooperative approach that had become standard practice by the end of former President Barack Obamas tenure: The CIA used drones and other intelligence resources to locate suspected terrorists and then the military conducted the actual strike.

Story continues

The not so old way. While the Obama administration imposed rules on the drone program, it still held on to some controversial  and very deadly  programs, including the signature strike effort that allowed strikes on groups of unidentified men thought to be terrorists. FPs Dan De Luce and Paul McLeary took a hard look at the issue in the final months of Obamas tenure, finding that the tactic had sparked fierce criticism from human rights groups and some lawmakers, who said it effectively gave the CIA carte blanche to bomb groups of men in countries ranging from Yemen to Pakistan simply because of where they lived and whether they showed any behavior commonly associated with militants.

In 2013, Obama suggested he wanted to curb the program, but by 2016 the administration had abandoned any pretense of reining in its use of signature strikes, and was dispatching drones to strike at targets in Yemen and Somalia.

State of the state. These possible changes to Washingtons counterterrorism program come amid White House plans to cut the State Department budget by 37 percent  a proposal that prominent Republicans and Democrats in Congress vow to oppose.

State of the U.N. State Department staffers have been instructed to seek transformative cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for United Nations programs, FPs Colum Lynch reports in an exclusive get. The plan signals an unprecedented retreat by President Donald Trumps administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen, according to three sources.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Regicide

U.S. Army Europe is dethroning Burger King from its perch, ditching the fast food joint when troops deploy to bases near the Russian border in Poland. The Wall Street Journal reports that Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges is banning creature comforts like fast food from U.S. facilities in Poland in order to instill a wartime mindset among troops deployed there. Command Sgt. Maj. Muhlenbeck also says that having larger bases with greater accommodations risks creating divisions and resentment among troops deployed farther afield and in harsher conditions. In the meantime, Hodges told troops to be ready for potatoes three meals a day for six months.

Franchise

Iran has built an underground weapons factory for Hezbollah in Lebanon so that the group can crank out missiles, rockets, and drones away from the reach of Israeli bombs. The sourcing on the story is a little hazy. Haaretz reports that a little known Kuwaiti newspaper with a reputation as a backchannel for the Israeli government messages to Lebanon and Syria first carried the claim. Nonetheless, the paper claims Iran built the underground factory after Israeli airstrikes on a Sudanese arms factory and convoys from Syria disrupted its supplies to Hezbollah.

Famine

The World Food Program is warning that famine is looming as a result of the war in Yemen and its looking for $460 million in order to prevent a crisis in the country. The AP reports that 7 million people in Yemen are facing food insecurity in the absence of outside help. Yemen has been upended by a war between a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf countries and the Houthi movement as well as a long-running conflict between the U.S. and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

This again

Security researchers found a hard drive filled with sensitive documents, including the security clearance applications of two four star generals, connected to the Internet, according to a scoop from ZDNet. An anonymous lieutenant colonel left the drive exposed to the net, open for anyone who found it to peruse through gigabytes of email, security clearance applications, financial and personal information of service members, as well as a list showing the clearance levels of various senior officers. The information on the drive was not classified but experts still worry that it could be used for blackmail in the wrong hands. Its still not clear how many or who else may have accessed the drive while it was connected to the Internet.

Photo Credit JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty

From Popular Mechanics

Six years ago, tragedy struck Japan when the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was hit by a tsunami wave, leading to three nuclear meltdowns. But now, several hundred former residents of the destructive "hot zone" are planning to return to the area.

Namie, a small town that once had a population of around 18,000, is the closest area that has been cleared for the return of residents since the disaster of March 11, 2011. Naime is only two and a half miles from the Daiichi plant, but on February 28, 2017, the former town hall showed a reading of only 0.07 microSieverts per hour, putting it in line with areas in Japan unaffected by the disaster. The government has been lifting evacuation orders on towns that fall below 20 milliSieverts per year, which gives Namie the greenlight.

Photo credit: Yusuke Harada / Getty

However, that doesn't make it an easy sell. Over half of its former residents have said in a poll last September that they would not want to move back while only 18 percent showed interest. More than three-fourths of all people under the age of 29 expressed no interest in moving back, and nobody's blaming them. Only some parts of the town will open, radiation contamination has still left areas off limits. "Young people will not go back," said Yasuo Fujita, a former Namie resident who runs a restaurant in Tokyo, to Reuters. "There will neither be jobs nor education for children."

But those who do return are finding jobs they never imagined. Shoichiro Sakamoto, 69, describes to Reuters his new life as the head of a 13-man team dedicated to hunting radioactive wild boar with traps and air guns.

Photo credit: Kyodo News / Getty

There are also plans for more traditional industry: a lumber mill has restarted and a hospital now has an eight-person staff. There are plans to open a joint elementary and high school to attract families, though only twenty students are expected initially, and also vague plans to recruit tech and robotics industries to the area. It will take another five years, scientists say, until more of the town will be habitable.

Story continues

Of course, Naime isn't the only site of a former nuclear disaster hoping to rebuild. Future plans hope to turn Chernobyl into a solar energy farm, 30 years after its own reactor meltdown. Hopefully Naime won't have a similar wait.

Source: Reuters

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For the first time in its 258-year history, stout maker Guinness will hand over the keys of its Guinness Storehouse in Dublin to a pair of guests who will become the first to sleep over at the historic landmark in a partnership with Airbnb.

Announced ahead of St. Patrick's Day, the one-off event will open up the seven-story visitor attraction -- a former brewery plantation plant and the most popular attraction in Ireland -- and transform the top-level bar into the most exclusive room in the country.

Led by a Guinness expert, the experience starts at No. 1 Thomas Street, the family home of founder Arthur Guinness, and takes visitors on a historical journey of the brewery, including access to underground tunnels and historic railway lines normally closed off to the public.

No tour to the Guinness Storehouse would be complete without a lesson on how to pour the perfect Guinness pint, which is also on the agenda.

After the tour, guests will sit down to a six-course Guinness-inspired menu in the Gravity Bar, which offers 360-degree panoramic views of the city.

Guests will also spend the night at the bar in a special 'pint-shaped' bed, and will be able to divert themselves with a pool table, life-sized Jenga game, and telescope for star-gazing.

After breakfast the next day, brewer Peter Simpson will teach guests about the basics of brewing.

Meanwhile, other travel and short-term vacation rental sites have also taken a page out of Airbnb's marketing handbook to offer unique, once-in-a-lifetime stays.

Last week, TripAdvisor launched an event with online home retailer Wayfair to host a sleepover on the London Eye, while HomeAway transformed a floor on the Eiffel Tower into a luxury hotel room last year.

To enter the competition, would-be guests must answer the question "What makes you the world's biggest Guinness fan?"

The competition closes March 22 and takes place April 24.

For details visit airbnb.com/night-at/guinnessstorehouse.
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been postponed from Tuesday until Friday due to a major snow storm closing in on the US East Coast, the White House said.

"The president spoke to the Chancellor of Germany. They agreed due to the weather that the meeting should be postponed, rescheduled to March 17th," Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Monday.

"The president and the chancellor look forward to reaffirming their shared determination to stand together in confronting mutual challenges," the White House said in a later statement.

The Oval Office tete-a-tete, expected to be followed by a joint press conference, is highly anticipated, as the two leaders are far apart on a host of issues, from immigration to climate change.

In the run-up to the meeting, the White House has emphasized the strength of ties between the two nations, and said that Trump is hoping to learn from the chancellor's depth of experience.

The US president will also be "very interested in hearing her insights on what it's like to deal with the Russians" and Merkel's views on resolving the Ukraine conflict, said a senior administration official.

The reserved German leader has underlined that she is travelling to Washington not only as Germany's leader, but also as an envoy of the European Union.

"I will of course point out that for us, our country and our membership in the European Union are two sides of the same coin," Merkel said in Brussels ahead of the visit.
New York (AFP) - How to spend a snow day in New York? America's ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has a tip: treat yourself to a TV series on Soviet spies undercover in Washington.

The newly-minted envoy -- who hails from warmer South Carolina -- tweeted a picture of the snowy city on Tuesday, calling it "a great day to binge watch 'The Americans.'"

Her post triggered a stream of online mockery, in light of the controversy over Russian meddling in last year's election that has dogged Donald Trump's young presidency.

The present political moment has lent new relevance to the Cold War drama set in 1980's Washington suburbia -- and the diplomat's tweet left some social media users rolling their eyes.

"You do know that The Americans is about Russians secretly running covert ops in the United States, right?" tweeted one user, @TinzRules.

"Trying to learn more about your boss by watching The Americans?" quipped another, @BeaAnneD.

Trump has repeatedly denied having any ties to the Kremlin, but revelations of undisclosed contacts between his team and Russia have rocked the new administration.

Michael Flynn was forced to step down as national security advisor over meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, while Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from election-related investigations over his own encounters with the envoy.

Tuesday was not the first time Haley had lauded the spy show, having tweeted earlier this year: "Loving the Americans!"

The critically-acclaimed thriller series follows a husband-and-wife team of KGB operatives who spy and kill under the nose of their FBI agent neighbor.

Starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, the show's fifth season began March 7.
TOKYO (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp <9984.T> Chairman Masayoshi Son will meet Saudi King Salman on Tuesday in Tokyo, a person briefed on the matter said, as the kingdom and the Japanese tech and investment firm proceed with plans to create a $100 billion technology-investment fund. The source did not have further details on the meeting between the billionaire entrepreneur investor and the king, who is on a state visit to Japan this week. The Saudi embassy did not immediately respond to a telephone request for comment. Saudi Arabia and SoftBank agreed in October to pursue the SoftBank Vision Fund, which would be one of the world's largest private-equity investors and a potential kingpin in the industry. (Reporting by Yoshiyasu Shida; Writing by William Mallard; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)
(MOGADISHU, Somalia)  Armed men are demanding a ransom for the release of an oil tanker they have seized off the coast of Somalia and the crew is being held captive, the European Union anti-piracy operation in the region announced late Tuesday.

An EU Naval Force statement said the operation had finally made contact with the ships master, who confirmed that armed men were aboard the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13.

Mondays hijacking was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012. It came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile and that Somali pirates possess the intent and capability to resume attacks. One expert said some in the region had let down their guard as the situation calmed. NATO ended its anti-piracy mission off Somalia in December.

A Somali pirate who said he was in touch with the armed men aboard the tanker said the amount of ransom to demand had not yet been decided.

Bile Hussein told The Associated Press that the armed men have locked most of the crew in one room and cut off communication lines. Their main concern now is a possible rescue attempt, so thats why all communications were cut off in the afternoon, he said.

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalias capital, Mogadishu, when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, the director of Oceans Beyond Piracy. The EU statement says the ships master issued a mayday alert.

An official in Somalias semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off the countrys northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Story continues

The ship was anchored Tuesday off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship, he told the AP by phone.

An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident told the AP that the vessels captain reported to the company it had been approached by two skiffs and that one had armed personnel on board. The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as no one was authorized to speak publicly about the incident.

The EU Naval Force said it had passed information to the ships owners and an investigation was underway.

Sri Lankas Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was in touch with shipping agents and officials abroad for more information to help ensure the crews safety and welfare.

A U.N. shipping database shows the Aris 13 is owned by a company called Armi Shipping SA, whose address is listed in care of Aurora Ship Management FZE, a company based in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. Calls and emails to Aurora went unanswered.

Australian government records from 2014 list the ships owner as Flair Shipping Trading FZE in the UAE. Argyrios Karagiannis, the managing director of Flair Shipping, declined to comment.

An address listed for Flair Shipping in Dubais high-rise neighborhood of Jumeirah Lake Towers was for a company called Flair Oil Trading DMCC. A woman who answered the door Tuesday told an AP reporter the firm wasnt connected to the ship and directed him to another office.

When no one answered the door at that office, the AP reporter returned to find Karagiannis entering the office of Flair Oil Trading DMCC.

We will not be releasing any information, Karagiannis said before shutting the door.

The incident involving the Aris 13 represents the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Steed said.

The pirates never went away, they were just doing other forms of crime and if any of the measures reduce (which they have, or ships take risks) the pirates are poised to exploit the weakness, he said in an email.

Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom. They dont normally kill hostages unless they come under attack.

Piracy off Somalias coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter-century of conflict. In that time, concerns about piracy off Africas coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.

But frustrations have been rising among local fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.

Nur, the local elder, told the AP that young fishermen including former pirates have hijacked the ship.

They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it, he said. Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing.
By Katharine Houreld NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew onboard, a Somali official said on Tuesday, the first time they have successfully taken a commercial ship since 2012. The Aris 13 sent a distress call on Monday, turned off its tracking system and altered course for the Somali port town of Alula, said John Steed of the aid group Oceans Beyond Piracy. "The pirates hijacked the oil tanker and they brought it near Alula," Mohamud Ahmed Eynab, the district commissioner for Alula, told Reuters on Tuesday by phone. Pirates in the town confirmed they were expecting the ship. The tanker was believed to have eight crew on board, said Steed, an expert on piracy who is in contact with naval forces tracking the ship. "The ship reported it was being followed by two skiffs yesterday afternoon. Then it disappeared," he told Reuters. Aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship's progress and to try to determine what was happening, he said. The Sri Lankan government said it had eight Sri Lankan crew onboard and flew a flag from the Comoros islands. Data from Reuters systems showed it made a sharp about turn just after it passed the Horn of Africa on its voyage from Djibouti to Mogadishu. The 1,800 deadweight tonne Aris 13 is owned by Panama company Armi Shipping and managed by Aurora Ship Management in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Equasis shipping data website, managed by the French transport ministry. The ship was being monitored by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation (UKMTO), which coordinates the management of all merchant ships and yachts in the Gulf of Aden area, the head of the International Maritime Bureaus piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, Noel Choong, said. The UKMTO in Dubai said it had no further information. In their heyday five years ago, Somali pirates launched 237 attacks off the coast of Somalia in 2011, the International Maritime Bureau says, and held hundreds of hostages. That year, Ocean's Beyond Piracy estimated the global cost of piracy was about $7 billion. The shipping industry bore roughly 80 percent of those costs, the group's analysis showed. But attacks fell sharply after ship owners tightened security and avoided the Somali coast. Intervention by regional naval forces that flooded into the area helped disrupt several hijack bids and improved security for the strategic trade route that leads through the Suez Canal and links the oilfields of the Middle East with European ports. (Additional reporting by Keith Wallis in Singapore, Abdiqani Hassan in Bosaso, Rangi Sirilal in Coloumbo and Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by Louise Ireland)
By Katharine Houreld NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew on board, Somali authorities said on Tuesday, the first time a commercial ship has been seized in the region since 2012. Security forces have been sent to free the Aris 13, a regional police official said late on Tuesday. "We are determined to rescue the ship and its crew. Our forces have set off to Alula. It is our duty to rescue ships hijacked by pirates and we shall rescue it," Abdirahman Mohamud Hassan, director general of Puntlands marine police forces, told Reuters by phone. Puntland is a semi-autonomous northern region of Somalia. Alula is a port town there where pirates have taken the tanker. Experts said the ship was an easy target and ship owners were becoming lax after a long period of calm. The Aris 13 sent a distress call on Monday, turned off its tracking system and altered course for the Somali port town of Alula, said John Steed of the aid group Oceans Beyond Piracy. "The ship reported it was being followed by two skiffs yesterday afternoon. Then it disappeared," said Steed, an expert on piracy who is in contact with naval forces tracking the ship. Aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship, he said. The force declined to comment. The pirates brought the ship to the port town of Alula, district commissioner Mohamud Ahmed Eynab told Reuters by phone. A pirate called Abdullahi told Reuters by telephone: "We are now heading on boats toward our colleagues holding the ship at Alula. We are carrying water, food and weapons for reinforcement." The Sri Lankan government said eight Sri Lankan crew were onboard and the ship flew a flag from the Comoros islands. Data from Reuters systems showed it made a sharp turn just after it passed the Horn of Africa on its voyage from Djibouti to Mogadishu. The 1,800 deadweight ton Aris 13 is owned by Panama company Armi Shipping and managed by Aurora Ship Management in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Equasis shipping data website, managed by the French transport ministry. MOTHERSHIP Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, the head of private maritime security company Dryad Maritime Intelligence, said the vessel was an easy target because it was low, slow and close to the coast. Crews were beginning to relax their vigilance after a period of relative security for shipping, he said. Now that the ship was captured, Somali authorities must ensure it was contained and not used as a mothership, he said, referring to a hijacked vessel used to launch attacks. "The way that the authorities react now is crucial," he said. In their heyday in 2011, Somali pirates launched 237 attacks off the coast of Somalia, data from the International Maritime Bureau showed, and held hundreds of hostages. That year, Ocean's Beyond Piracy estimated the global cost of piracy was about $7 billion. The shipping industry bore roughly 80 percent of those costs, the group's analysis showed. But attacks fell sharply after ship owners tightened security and vessels stayed further away from the Somali coast. There had only been four attempted attacks by Somali pirates in the past three years, the bureau said. Intervention by regional naval forces that flooded into the area helped disrupt several hijack bids and improved security for the strategic trade route that leads through the Suez Canal and links the oilfields of the Middle East with European ports. Before Tuesday's hijacking, only one crew remained captive in Somalia. The crew of 17 Iranians was taken two years ago, but four are believed to have died, four were rescued and one escaped, Steed said, so only eight remained. "They're from Baluchistan in Iran," he said, referring to a violent and restive eastern province. "No one really cares about them." For a graphic on track of suspected hijacked tanker, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/3/868/868/ARIS13.png For a graphic on attacks by Somali pirates, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/SHIPPING-PIRACY-SOMALIA/010030FL0YS/SOMALIA-PIRACY-01.jpg (Additional reporting by Keith Wallis in Singapore, Abdiqani Hassan in Bosaso, Ranga Sirilal in Columbo and Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by Alison Williams)
Somali pirates seized an oil tanker with a crew of eight on Monday in the first successful piracy raid on a commercial vessel since 2012.

The Aris 13 oil tanker, with a crew of eight Sri Lankans, sent out a distress signal Monday while on its pre-planned route to ship fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu, the Maritime Herald reported. The vessels captain reported to the company they were approached by two skiffs and that one of them they could see armed personnel on board, said Louise Tagg, spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force operation off Somalia. The pirates hijacked the oil tanker and they brought it near Alula, Mohamud Ahmed Eynab, the district commissioner for the Somali port town of Alula, told Reuters Tuesday.

The attack on the Aris 13 shows counter-piracy efforts curbed, but never completely stamped out Somali piracy. Still, its too soon to tell if this is the beginning of a new wave of attacks, said Claude Berube, a maritime security expert with the U.S. Naval Academy. Its just one data point. Is this the beginning of a trend or a single action? he told Foreign Policy.

Somali piracy was once a major thorn in the side of the global maritime trade industry. At their height from 2009 to 2011, Somali pirates attacked hundreds of ships a year along the major maritime shipping route off the Horn of Africa. In 2011 alone, suspected pirates carried out 176 attacks on ships, though only 47 of those were successfully pirated, according to EU Naval Forces in Somalia.

It took a toll on maritime trade. The global cost of piracy in 2011 was estimated at $7 billion, according to maritime security watchdog group Oceans Beyond Piracy. By the end of 2010, pirates around the world held some 600 seafarers from 18 countries, OBP found. The Horn of Africa was the epicenter of this threat.

But the number of raids in the region dropped dramatically in recent years. Commercial shipping companies stationed private security contractors on their ships and governments boosted their naval presence, including deploying a NATO and EU mission to the region to ward off attacks.

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Since then, shipping companies and governments have pulled back their efforts. NATO ended its Horn of Africa mission, Operation Ocean Shield, in December, 2016 due to the sharp decline in piracy.

NATOs decision was completely premature, said Dr. Assis Malaquias, a maritime security expert with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. The equation is pretty straightforward: with no naval presence, the attacks will continue, he told FP.

Still, experts and officials agree that until the international community solves the underlying issues wracking Somalia, from poverty to instability, pirates will continue to wait for navies to turn their backs on commercial ships. Ultimately, the problem of Somali piracy will not be resolved until stability is restored in Somalia, a State Department official told FP.

Shipping companies likely wont resume their previous levels of vigilance after Mondays hijacking, according to Berube. Shipping companies are relatively conservative and play the numbers. Right now the numbers dont show any threat, he said.

The only other recorded piracy attempt off Somalia this year was on Jan 1. Two Chinese naval escort flotillas prevented four suspected pirate skiffs from approaching a commercial vessel. China has boosted its naval presence off the Horn of Africa to protect its growing trade interests on the continent.

Governments and the private sector are also grappling with an uptick in piracy in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. Like the Gulf of Aden, its a strategic chokepoint for maritime shipping and key gateway for oil shipments between Nigeria and Angola, two of Africas biggest petro-states.

Update: This article was updated to include comments from the State Department official.

Photo credit: AYMERIC VINCENOT/AFP/Getty Images
A herd of cattle associations are pushing to get Charles Herbster, a Nebraska farmer, rancher and businessman, nominated as deputy secretary at the U.S. Agriculture Department.

The 14 trade groups, including the Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska, recently sent a letter to the White House urging President Donald Trump to pick Herbster as the right hand to Agriculture Secretary nominee Sonny Perdue.

The only way to improve upon the tremendous opportunity that Mr. Perdue will bring as your Secretary of Agriculture would be to include the entrepreneurial talents and production-agriculture knowledge of Charles W. Herbster on Mr. Perdues executive team -- as Mr. Perdues Deputy Secretary, the letter says.

Herbster declined to comment on the letter or his job prospects citing respect for the nomination process.

One of the things they request of you when youre in a group of the finalists is that you dont make any comment to the press. I want to be respectful of the Trump presidency for that, he said in a phone interview. The most important thing would be to get the nomination of the secretary, Governor Sonny Perdue, which hopefully will take place here soon.

The Senate Ag Committee has received all the necessary paperwork for the Perdue nomination -- nearly eight weeks after Trump announced his pick -- and plans to schedule a confirmation hearing after reviewing the documents, a spokesperson in the office of Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said on Monday.

Herbster has known the Trump family for 11 years and got to know Perdue during the 2016 presidential campaign when the two-term former Georgia governor served on Trumps agriculture and rural advisory committee, which Herbster headed.

Hes going to be a fantastic, great, great, secretary of agriculture for us. Im a great promoter of Governor Perdue. He is a great individual, a great friend, has a lot of agricultural experience, Herbster said.

Herbster, who has farmland and ranchland in Nebraska and Colorado, amassed a fortune through several agricultural enterprises, including Herbster Angus Farms near Falls City, North American Breeders in Berryville, Virginia, and Kansas City-based Conklin Co., which sells a wide range of products including pesticide additives, farm fertilizers, probiotics for livestock, industrial roof coatings and motor oils.

Conklin sells its products through independent distributors, a model called multilevel marketing or network marketing also used by the likes of Avon.

The news website Politico dubbed Herbster A kingmaker from the plains" for his lavish contributions and fundraising for Republican candidates like Mitt Romney and Trump. In 2014, Herbster briefly ran for Nebraska governor but bowed out after a few months citing his wife's health. When he stepped back from the race, Herbster gave his war chest, $2.7 million, to state Sen. Beau McCoy's unsuccessful gubernatorial bid.

When Dave Heineman left the governor's mansion, Herbster gave him a seat on the Conklin board of directors.

Dave Wright, president of the Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska, said his group is backing Herbster for his support of country of origin labeling, which requires meat to be labeled by the country it came from. Congress repealed the county of origin labeling law after the World Trade Organization said Mexico and Canada could impose upward of $1 billion in tariffs on U.S. products in retaliation for the damage caused by labeling requirements.

Once we lost country of origin labeling, the cattle market absolutely collapsed, Wright said. Weve lost $1,000 a calf. Thats significant. Thats money I dont spend on main street.

Nebraska Cattlemen, the states largest cattle association, did not sign the letter, but fully supports Herbster being named to a prominent national position, said Jessica Herrmann, the Cattlemens director of legal and regulatory affairs.

He is very knowledgeable, and I think it would be wonderful to have a Nebraskan at USDA that high up, especially a Nebraska Cattlemen member. You cant get much better than that, Herrmann said.

While Nebraska Cattlemen supports the nomination of Perdue, Herrmann said, he hails from Georgia and likely is more familiar with predominantly southern crops like cotton and rice than he is with soybeans and corn.

Herbster would bring a regional balance to the top echelons of the Ag Department and federal farm policy, she said.

Other names being discussed by national media as in the running for the deputy ag secretary position include former California Ag Secretary A.G. Kawamura, Indiana Ag Director Ted McKinney and Kip Tom, an Indiana businessman and farmer.
Mabhoko (South Africa) (AFP) - Esther Mahlangu's colourful geometric artwork is exhibited in galleries around the world, but she remains in her South African village unfazed by fame and determined to preserve her ethnic Ndebele culture.

The 81-year-old painter and mural artist earned an international reputation with her Ndebele motifs at a time when the art scene in her home country was focused on contemporary styles.

Now Johannesburg is hosting a major exhibition for Mahlangu, an elderly black woman with no art training who rose to global acclaim using a skill passed down for generations.

With just a chicken feather, Mahlangu first painted mud huts and chipboards before moving on to luxury cars, vodka bottles, skateboards and footwear as her intricate patterns became huge commercial hits.

At home in a dusty village in South Africa's eastern province of Mpumalanga, the sprightly great-grandmother looks nothing like an artist who has exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the 5th Biennale in Lyon, France, and London's British Museum.

She goes about her daily chores, sweeping the courtyard in front of her hut and worrying about crying babies.

Unlike many locals, she still dresses in the distinctive Ndebele traditional attire, with heavy beaded necklaces and dozens of copper rings around her neck and legs.

- 'I'm not intimidated' -

"Working with famous people has not changed me," she told AFP.

"I am not intimidated by anything and not even once have I changed who I am to fit in with their culture."

The only change she has incorporated into her work is replacing natural pigments of cow dung and soil with acrylic paint.

Mahlangu's first big international break came in 1989, when she was 54.

Her ornately decorated house had caught the eye of French researchers who invited her to the Pompidou Centre.

In Paris, she painted a replica of her hut for an exhibition.

Mahlangu's heavily wrinkled face lights up in disbelief when showcasing what she had been doing since she was a child.

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"I only used chicken feathers, no brushes," she told AFP taking a break from her chores.

"I am an ordinary Ndebele woman, doing what I was taught by my mother and grandmother," she chuckled.

She said she was amazed by the interest her work attracted, an experience that prompted her to teach the age-old Ndebele skill to youngsters in her village.

"My aim is to preserve the Ndebele culture. I don't want it to get lost with civilisation," she said.

German carmaker BMW has collaborated with Mahlangu on two occasions, when she painted the body of their luxury sedans with her iconic Ndebele shapes.

Her first collaboration with the company in 1991 made her the first woman to be invited to take part in the Art Car project, following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

"Painting the car was exciting. I never felt under pressure," she said.

The car has been displayed in major exhibitions around the world, and in February ended a four-month show at the British Museum.

- Recognition at home -

South Africa was not quick to recognise Mahlangu's talent, though she has had solo exhibitions in Cape Town.

In 2006 she was given a presidential award.

"I had to travel to Pretoria to accept it," she said. "It made me proud to be seen as doing something for the people."

In her cramped two-room thatched roof hut that doubles as a makeshift gallery stands a wooden cabinet displaying some of her many accolades.

"A lot of people have looked at Esther's work as being more on the craft side," said Craig Mark, director of The Melrose Gallery in Johannesburg.

"She hasn't been really recognised in the visual arts side in South Africa until very recently."

The gallery is showing a collection of Mahlangu's latest work, a series of paintings paying tribute to the late freedom icon Nelson Mandela.

The paintings were created by embellishing prints of drawings created by Mandela in 2001.

At the opening of the exhibition, the painter said she had no intention of slowing down despite her age.

"I may no longer have the same energy as I used to, but I can still do everything."
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean prosecutors will summon ousted president Park Geun-hye for questioning as a suspect in a corruption case that led to her impeachment, a prosecution official said on Tuesday, amid a political crisis that has gripped the country for months. The prosecutor's office would notify Park on Wednesday when she will be summoned and would not negotiate on the timing, said the official who declined to be identified. There was no immediate comment from Park. Her legal representatives were not available for comment. The Constitutional Court dismissed Park from office on Friday when it upheld a parliamentary impeachment vote over an influence-peddling scandal that has shaken the political and business elite. Park has denied any wrongdoing. She became the country's first democratically elected president to be removed from office. Park left the Blue House presidential palace in Seoul on Sunday to return to her private home in the city as an ordinary citizen, stripped of her presidential immunity that has shielded her from prosecution. Park said through a spokesman that she felt sorry about not being to complete her term but added that the truth would come out, striking a defiant tone about the prospect of facing an investigation. A special prosecution team had earlier accused Park of colluding with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses into contributing to foundations set up to support her policy and allowing her to exert influence on state affairs. Park and Choi both denied wrongdoing and while she was president, Park declined to answer prosecutors' questions. (Reporting by Ju-min Park, Christine Kim and Se Young Lee; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie)
By Jack Kim and Christine Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - The South Korean politician expected to become its next president, Moon Jae-in, called on China on Tuesday to stop economic retaliation against South Korean firms over the deployment of a U.S. missile-defense system. Moon, speaking in a debate with other presidential contenders from the main opposition Democratic Party, said South Korea must stand up to China and protest against any unjust moves, but also make diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue. "We should complain about what needs to be complained about and we should make diplomatic efforts to persuade China," Moon said. "It is also not desirable for China to harm our relationship with excessive retaliation," Moon said. "I call on China to immediately stop". China has increased pressure, and imposed some restrictions, on some companies doing business with and in South Korea, which many in South Korea perceive as retaliation for deployment of the missile system. But Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said on Monday that South Korea did not have firm evidence of Chinese retaliation and China has not directly said it is targeting South Korean firms. South Korea will hold a presidential election by May 9 after the impeachment and dismissal last week of its former president, Park Geun-hye. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system is likely to be contentious issues in the campaign. Moon, a human rights lawyer and prominent liberal politician who has been leading in opinion polls, said the government had mishandled the deployment plan by rushing into it and without public consensus. China is vehemently opposed to South Korea's agreement with the United States to deploy the THAAD system in the South against North Korea's missile threat. The United States and South Korea say THAAD is for defense against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security. The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea test-fired four missiles. Russia also worries the deployment could compromise its security, and said it would lead to a stalemate on the Korean peninsula. (Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Robert Birsel and Michael Perry)
REUTERS - Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, on Tuesday delayed the launch of a rocket set to carry a commercial communications satellite into orbit, because of high winds at its Florida launch site. Wind gusts of up to 25 mph (40 kph) at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida forced SpaceX to scrub the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket that was to have put into orbit EchoStar XXIII, a commercial communications satellite for EchoStar Corporation, the privately owned company said on social network Twitter. "Standing down due to high winds; working toward next available launch opportunity," the company messaged moments after the launch window opened. SpaceX said it had a 2-1/2 hour window from 1:34 a.m. to launch the rocket that was to have deployed the satellite about 34 minutes after lift-off. A backup launch window opens at 1:35 a.m. on Thursday, SpaceX said. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) - - A woman who worked as a stripper in a Denver nightclub has sued her former employer, a company with clubs around the country, claiming systematic labor violations including denial of wages.

Georgina Santich said in a complaint filed on Friday in Colorado District Court that she was paid only tips, had to pay fees out of her tips to dance in the club, and had to buy drinking water from the club and pay for mandatory services like valet parking.

The complaint named PTs Showclub, the Denver club where Santich worked, and the clubs owner VCG Holding Corp, which also owns clubs in seven other states, as defendants.

Mari Newman, a Colorado civil rights attorney representing Santich, said by phone Tuesday that she was in contact with strippers who had worked for the company in the seven other states where it operates. A federal judge has to grant the lawsuit class status, but as many as 500 other dancers across the eight states could be affected, the lawsuit asserts.

A VCG representative declined to comment when reached by telephone Tuesday, and declined to make company owner Troy Lowrie, whom the lawsuit specifically names, available for an interview.

At the heart of the lawsuit is the question of whether dancers are employees or contractors. Under federal law, contractors are exempt from some labor protections, including minimum wage and overtime pay rules.

Instead of paying dancers a wage, VCG clubs required dancers to pay for access to the stage via a per-song charge and for access to private dance rooms, fees for which ranged from a quarter to a third of the dancers tips, the lawsuit alleges. According to the complaint, dancers also have to pay a $50 fee for every hour of their shifts that they do not dance.

The lawsuit also alleges that the clubs illegally forced dancers to give a quarter of their tips to bouncers and DJs. Under federal law, so-called tip pooling is generally only allowed among workers who would usually receive tips.

Story continues

In 2009, VCG was placed under nationwide audit after labor violations, and in 2014 faced a similar lawsuit from dancers in Illinois.

Federal judges nationwide have ruled that strippers are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act in a series of wage-and-hour lawsuits since 2010. Last year, a three-judge panel in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously confirmed a ruling classifying strippers as employees.

(Editing by Patrick Enright, Bernard Orr)
Supporters of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan have mistakenly burned a French flag after confusing it with a Dutch one.

They set fire to the tricolore while demonstrating against The Netherlands in the Turkish city of Samsun.

It is the latest example of rising tensions after Dutch officials refused to permit two Turkish ministers into the country for campaign rallies.

MORE: Somali pirates suspected of hijacking first tanker for 5 years

MORE: Stranger stops drunk man from driving by taking his keys away and calling the police

The protesters burnt the wrong flag and sang the Turkish national anthem.

While both the Dutch and French flags share the same colours of red, white and blue, the stripes on the Netherlands one run horizontally not vertically.

This didnt matter to the supporters of Mr Erdogan, who proceeded to burn it using lighter fluid and a cigarette lighter.

On Tuesday, Mr Erdogan directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, saying he held it responsible for Europes worst mass killing since the Second World War.

In a televised speech, Mr Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Mr Erdogan said: We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre.

We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.

The supporters burn the wrong flag (Picture: Ruptly)

It was Mr Erdogans latest war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend.

There were violent clashes on the streets of Rotterdam at the weekend because of the impasse.

The two ministers had sought to campaign in an April 16 referendum on expanding Mr Erdogans powers, courting the votes of Turks in the Netherlands that are eligible to vote.

The French flag  not a Dutch one  lies in ashes (Picture: Ruptly)

About 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

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The Turkish leader previously called the Netherlands Nazi remnants and also accused it of fascism.

Earlier, Turkey criticised the European Union for siding with the Netherlands in the row.

The EU has called on Turkey to cease excessive statements.
While Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is under the glare of Senate questioning next week, the eight Justices at the Court will be hearing three days of case arguments.

The Court returns from a respite on March 20, the same day that the Senate Judiciary Committee begins considering testimony about Gorsuchs nomination to the bench. Three significant cases are scheduled for arguments that week, including cases about eminent domain, class-action lawsuits, and the immunity of police officers from prosecution.

On Monday, the Court hears arguments in Murr v. Wisconsin. The Murr family has owned two riverfront lots since the 1960s; one of the lots contained a vacation cottage; the other lot wasnt developed. A zoning law established in 1975 barred family members from selling the empty lot separate from the cottage. Two landmark Fifth Amendment takings cases will be in play here: Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), the Penn Central v. New York City case (1978).

On Tuesday, the Court then considers Microsoft v. Baker, where a group of consumers in Washington State have sued Microsoft, complaining that its Xbox 360 device had a defect. The group sued as a class, since their individual claims would have been for small amounts, and pursuing them individually wasnt feasible. The group then lost the lawsuit in a trial court but they also used a legal option called a voluntary dismissal of a claim with prejudice to keep the case alive. The court accepted the Microsoft appeal to clear up a conflict among lower courts on the legality of the dismiss-then-appeal question.

And on Wednesday, Los Angeles County v. Mendez centers on a legal rule that one federal appeals court has adopted, but others refuse to follow. It takes away the legal immunity of police officers for the use of excessive force  here, the shooting two homeless people in the shed they occupied  if the officers actions provoked a violent response. The response at issue, in this case, was that one of the individuals who was shot and wounded raised a BB gun and pointed it at officers after they had broken into the shed without a search warrant.

Also on Monday, March 20, the Court could accept more cases for its fall docket, after considering cases in private conference on March 17.
Leon (Spain) (AFP) - A Spanish man charged with killing an American woman on a pilgrims' hiking trail and then cutting off her hands refused Tuesday to answer questions at his trial.

"I will not make a statement. I won't answer any questions from prosecutors or my lawyer either," Miguel Angel Munoz told the court in the northern city of Leon on the second day of his trial.

Munoz is accused of robbing and killing Denise Pikka Thiem, 41, of Arizona, whose mutilated body was found on his land five months after she disappeared in April 2015.

She went missing while walking the Camino de Santiago, or Way of Saint James, a popular pilgrim trail in northwestern Spain.

The authorities suspect Thiem was diverted from the trail by marker signs Munoz painted to confuse pilgrims and send them towards his farm.

Prosecutors say Munoz hit Thiem three times on the head with a stick and then slit her throat with a knife.

He then cut off her hands in what prosecutors allege was an attempt to disguise her identity before burying her body. The missing hands have never been found.

Munoz is also accused of stealing $1,132 (1,209 euros) which Thiem was carrying and which he exchanged for euros at a local bank after she disappeared.

He originally confessed to having killed Thiem, but he has since retracted the confession and says he only found her body.

Munoz's lawyer Vicente Prieto said his client was not able to take questions because he had suffered a breakdown due to a recent string of problems. Prieto also said his client suffers from a psychiatric illness which he did not name.

"First his house was robbed, then it was burned down and reduced to ash, all of this when combined with the psychiatric illness he has, produced a serious breakdown," Prieto told reporters.

Public prosecutors have called for a 25-year jail sentence -- 20 years for homicide and five years for theft with violence.

The trial is expected to last until April 4. The court appointed a jury of eight women and one man during the first day of the trial on Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists and Roman Catholic pilgrims hike the Camino de Santiago each year, staying at hostels on their way to the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela and the shrine of St. James.

Its popularity with Americans took off after the release of the film "The Way" in 2010 made by Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez.
By John Miller ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's NDB intelligence service ratcheted up scrutiny of asylum requests for signs of Islamist militancy last year as it sought to better identify refugees who pose a threat, a government report showed on Tuesday. NDB agents reviewed 5,202 asylum dossiers for possible threats to Swiss internal security, from the pool of 27,200 people who submitted asylum requests last year, the report said. The NDB recommended rejecting 14 of those cases, as well as stripping refugee status from one other person who had already been granted asylum. That compared with 4,910 dossiers being reviewed in 2015, from 39,500 asylum requests. Of 24,000 asylum requests in 2014, the Swiss intelligence service reviewed only 2,488 files. The report, by a multi-agency task force called Tetra formed in 2014 to address "jihad travelers" moving between Switzerland and the Middle East, concluded that Switzerland remains an target for militants despite so far avoiding attacks like those in Germany and France. "The most likely threat for our country are attacks that require little logistical planning and are carried out by lone attackers or small groups," the report concluded. Overall, asylum requests in Switzerland are trending downward after authorities closed the Balkan land route used by thousands to flee hot spots in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Requests are forecast to fall to about 24,500 this year. Through 2016, the NDB had identified 497 Internet users it said were spreading extremist propaganda online. Of 70 total cases being investigated by federal police, the report said, about 60 are the subjects of a criminal proceeding. Additionally, 81 people motivated by extremist ideologies had traveled from Switzerland to conflict areas including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001 through February, up from 78 a month earlier. Twenty-two of those have been killed or are believed to be dead, the report said, while 14 have returned to Switzerland. Last year, Swiss voters approved extending the national spy service's authority to monitor Internet traffic, deploy drones and hack foreign computer systems, in large part to counter extremist threats. The government is reviewing whether an update is needed to require employees of private companies who manage asylum cases to report clients' possible extremist behavior to authorities. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
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By Silke Koltrowitz BRUNNEN, Switzerland (Reuters) - Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer, owned by LVMH, sought to appeal to tech geeks and traditionalists alike on Tuesday by launching a connected watch that lets wearers switch between a smart watch head and a traditional mechanical movement. Watch exports fell some 10 percent last year as sales of traditional Swiss timepieces slowed. But Jean-Claude Biver, head of LVMH's watch business, said: "We're seeing a really spectacular rebound in mainland China, and this, thanks to tourism, is helping other markets as well." TAG Heuer's connected watch looks traditional. But the round watch case, containing the module that displays the time and information from the applications installed, can be unfastened from the watch strap and replaced with a separately sold watch case which looks almost identical, but has a traditional dial instead of a screen and contains a traditional mechanical watch movement. TAG Heuer is trying to overcome the apparent contradiction between Swiss mechanical watches -- powered by gearworks invented centuries ago and designed to last decades -- and the latest technology to win new customers. Biver, launching TAG Heuer's second-generation connected watch in Brunnen, was echoing comments by Swatch Group Chief Executive Nick Hayek in a newspaper interview. Biver said TAG Heuer aimed to sell 150,000 pieces in 2017 and would launch a smaller unisex version in October. Despite an investment of over 10 million Swiss francs ($10 million), the connected watch was profitable, he said, adding TAG Heuer had sold 56,000 pieces of the first-generation connected watch. Thanks to a technology transfer from partner Intel Corp, the watch can be assembled in Switzerland, thus qualifying for the traditionally coveted "Swiss Made" label. The basic TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 will cost $1,650 for a watch module based on Google's Android Wear 2.0, with a built-in GPS and NFC contactless payment chip. An extra $4,000 can buy a mechanical watch module and a more expensive version is also available. Market research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that 21 million smartwatches were sold in 2016. During the fourth quarter, Apple Watch took 63 percent of the smartwatch market, or 5 million devices. Samsung was second with 10 percent, down from 16 percent in the year-ago quarter. ($1 = 1.0086 Swiss francs) (Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in Frankfurt. Editing by Michael Shields/Ruth Pitchford)
The video you may have watched but don't remember paints Michael Brown  the unarmed teen whose 2014 death sparked protests  as something of an aggressor. At first, he waits at a convenience store counter, hands behind his back. He seems to talk with the person behind the counter, then leans forward and appears to grab a box of cigarillos. When the person behind the counter walks around to confront him, Brown, 18, shoves him and walks out of the store. Brown would later be fatally shot by a police officer, his body would lay on the street for hours.

Now a documentary that premiered at South By Southwest this weekend is trying to put the old video into a new context. Stranger Fruit shows another video of Brown in that same store, but it has a very different story to tell.

SEE ALSO: Los Angeles' LGBTQ pride will be replaced by a protest march

The new video shows Brown at the Ferguson, Missouri convenience store during the early morning hours of the day he would be killed. He appears to exchange a small bag with cashiers for two boxes of cigarillos. Brown takes the bag of cigarillos from one of the men behind the counter, then heads for the door before stopping short. He turns back and gives the bag to the same man behind the counter, who appears to store it away. The documentary suggests Brown left the cigarillos until he could return to pick them up. The filmmaker, Jason Pollock, has suggested Brown was trading a bag of marijuana for the cigarillos, according to the Associated Press.

The police officer who killed Brown, Darren Wilson, was responding to a call from the convenience store about stolen cigarillos.

A lawyer for the convenience store doesn't agree with the documentary's conclusions about the video.

"There was no transaction," Jay Kanzler, the lawyer, told The New York Times. "Those folks didnt sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise, and they wanted it back.

Story continues

St. Louis County police condemned the video, calling it heavily edited. Police also told the New York Times they did not release the video because it wasn't relevant to the case.

That's difficult to believe given the case was pulled apart from every angle. But no matter what this new evidence says about the moments before Brown encountered Police Officer Darren Wilson, it says little about what happened after.
Geneva (AFP) - The UN rights chief warned Tuesday that a "tidal wave of bloodshed" over more than six years of war in Syria had effectively turned the country into a "torture chamber".

"As the conflict enters its seventh year, this is the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II," said Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.

In an address to the UN Human Rights Council, Zeid said that his office had been refused access to the country and that no international human rights observers had been admitted to places where "very probably tens of thousands of people are currently held. They are places of torture."

"Indeed, the entire conflict, this immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity, began with torture," he said, citing as an example the torture of a group of children by security officials over anti-government graffiti six years ago.

- 'Savage horror' -

"Today, in a sense, the entire country has become a torture chamber, a place of savage horror and absolute injustice," he said.

The UN and other organisations have repeatedly accused the Syrian authorities of widespread torture.

Amnesty International said in a report last August that an estimated 17,700 people had died from torture in custody since the beginning of the conflict, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number at at least 60,000.

Many others have been executed, and far more have simply disappeared, according to the reports.

"We're speaking of a daily continuous massacre that has been going on for six years," Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer who was detained for more than three years, told the UN rights council.

Story continues

"While we are here today, there are civilians, women, children, innocent people who are being killed under torture," said Darwish, one of several Syrian victims and activists who spoke to the council during a special session on Syria.

Zeid criticised international leaders for failing to act decisively to ensure accountability for the abuses.

"Vetoes have repeatedly pushed back hope for an end to this senseless carnage and for referral of alleged international crimes to the International Criminal Court," he said.

He was referring to a blocked UN Security Council, where Russia in particular has vetoed several attempts to bring a case against Syria before the ICC in The Hague.

But Zeid welcomed the UN General Assembly's agreement in December to set up a body to gather evidence on war crimes in Syria, which would build up "the basis for criminal proceedings against individual perpetrators."

"Ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations must happen if the Syrian people are ever to find reconciliation and peace," he said.
Geneva (AFP) - The Syrian government intentionally bombed the Ain al-Fijeh spring in December, leaving more than five million people in Damascus without access to water, a UN probe said Tuesday, branding the strike a "war crime".

"The information examined by the Commission confirms that the bombing of (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring was carried out by the Syrian Air Force," the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report.

The report, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council Tuesday, dismissed regime allegations that rebels had contaminated the water.

Around 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs were cut off from water when fighting intensified in Wadi Barada near the Syrian capital in late December.

The regime accused the rebels of poisoning water resources and cutting off the mains, while the armed opposition said regime bombardment had destroyed the infrastructure.

The UN commission, which has never been granted access to Syria and bases its reports on interviews and documents, said it had found no "indications that the water was contaminated" before the spring was bombed on December 23.

"On the contrary, interviewees say that Wadi Barada residents used water up until the bombing of 23 December and no one experienced any symptoms of contamination," the report said.

Following the bombing, the water was contaminated after shrapnel damaged fuel and chlorine storage facilities, it said.

The bombing itself indicated that the "spring was purposely targeted," said the commission, headed by Brazilian academic Paul Sergio Pinheiro.

"While the presence of armed group fighters at (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring constituted a military target, ... the damage caused ... was grossly disproportionate to the military advantage anticipated or achieved," it said.

- War crime -

"The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks," the report concluded.

Story continues

At the end of January, Syria's army regained control of Wadi Barada, which rebels first seized in 2012.

Syria's representative to the rights council, Hussam Aala Edin, on Tuesday reiterated accusations that the commission was politicised, and slammed its "amateurish approach" and "naive conclusions".

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.

Tuesday's report also detailed a range of other war crimes committed in Syria since last July, including a series of attacks last October on schools in Haas, in Idlib province, that killed 36 civilians, 21 of them children.

Two weeks ago, the commission also released a report on the regime's five-month siege of eastern Aleppo, describing war crimes by all sides, including chemical weapons attacks, civilian executions and forced displacements following the rebel defeat.

"The government's siege tactics proved repulsively successful: eastern Aleppo is reduced to rubble, while survivors have been forced to leave their homes and face an uncertain future elsewhere," Pinheiro told the council.

Earlier Tuesday, UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein described the Syrian conflict as an "immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity," and "the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II".

Related Video: 350,000 Civilians Trapped in Syrian City Are Running Out of Food (2016)

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By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian opposition will not attend peace talks due to start on Tuesday in the Kazakh capital Astana, blaming Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes against civilians in rebel-held areas and its failure to put pressure on the Syrian army to abide by a widely violated ceasefire. Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the rebels said they had taken a final decision not to go to the talks as a result of Russia's failure to end what the opposition says are widespread violations of a Turkish-Russian brokered ceasefire last December. "Currently the decision is not to go as a result of Russia continuing its crimes in Syria against civilians and its support of the crimes of the Syrian regime," he said, adding that they had informed Turkey, a main backer of the rebels, of their decision. Colonel Ahmad Othman, who heads the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad rebel brigade, earlier said rebels were awaiting a Russian response to a letter that demands Moscow acts as a guarantor and ends violations of the ceasefire. "Nothing has been implemented so far," said Othman, complaining of Russian strikes on civilians and assaults by the Syrian army in rebel-held areas. Syrian rebel groups on Saturday called for the postponement of the Russian-backed peace talks in Kazakhstan and said further meetings would depend on whether the Syrian government and its allies adhered to a newly declared March 7-20 ceasefire. Russia backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict, and has launched a diplomatic peace initiative after its air force helped the Syrian government defeat rebels in Aleppo in December - Assad's biggest victory of the war. The rebels said the government and its Iranian-backed militia allies were continuing to bombard opposition-held areas near Damascus, Homs, Deraa and Idlib, and preparing to storm two districts on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. "Moscow has not lived up to its commitments. The main demand is stopping the bombardment and displacement of people," Othman added. Rebels said an evacuation deal reached on Monday that forces rebel fighters to leave the opposition-held besieged Homs district of al-Waer dealt a blow to Russia's attempts to portray itself as a credible guarantor of the ceasefire deal. The evacuation deal was seen as a surrender forced upon rebels after relentless bombing by Syrian jets of the teeming neighborhood with Moscow's seal of approval. "It seems Russia invites us to Astana and then imposes forcible displacement of the people of al-Waer ... Moscow has not kept its promises," said Mohammad Alloush, the head of the armed factions' delegations participating in the past two Astana rounds. Alloush later confirmed they were not attending saying Moscow had not kept its promises to stop the bombing of civilian areas or ending displacement of people in rebel pockets near Damascus. "We want to show the world that the Russians want a political solution that is only in the media. They have to change their policies if they are seeking a solution," Alloush added. Separately, Salem al Muslet, a spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, the mainstream opposition body, said Russia's unwillingness to put pressure on the Syrian government and its allies was behind the hesitation to come to Astana. He said the factions were so far resisting pressure to go. "There is intense pressure on the factions but they are holding on to their position which is not different from the situation inside where people are suffering and they cannot override their wishes," Muslet told Al Hadath TV channel. "If they go to Astana and the shelling is continuing this would be problem, so if the Russians wanted the success of Astana, the guarantor has to take steps, he added. "There are just hours left before the conference and something could happen," he added without elaborating. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Alison Williams and Mary Milliken)
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The state of Texas on Tuesday executed a man for launching a 1987 crime spree in which four people were killed, including a 4-month-old boy he drowned in a sink.

After more than 25 years on death row, James Bigby, 61, was put to death by lethal injection at the state's death chamber and pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m. CDT, a prisons official said.

The execution was the 542nd in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state. It was also the sixth this year in the United States, and four of those execution have taken place in Texas.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz, Editing by G Crosse and Peter Cooney)
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai customs have confiscated 21 rhino horns with an estimated value of nearly $5 million in the biggest such seizure in Thailand for years, officials said on Tuesday. Thailand has become a major transit point for the trade in endangered species to other Asian countries. The seizure of the nearly 50 kg (110 lb) of rhino horn came days after 300 kg of elephant ivory was impounded and a month after the discovery of almost 3 tonnes of pangolin scales destined for Laos. "It's the biggest confiscation of rhino horns in 5 to 10 years," said Somkiat Soontornpitakkool, director of Thailand's Wild Fauna and Flora Protection division. The rhino horns were found in luggage sent from Ethiopia to Thailand. Two Thai women who traveled from Vietnam and Cambodia to pick up the luggage ran off when it was subject to a random check, police said. Warrants are now out for their arrest. Global trade in rhino horn is banned by a U.N. convention, but in some fast-growing Asian countries it is prized as an ingredient in traditional medicines to treat everything from fever to cancer. It is estimated that only some 29,000 rhinos are left in the wild today compared to 500,000 at the start of the 20th century, according to the International Rhino Foundation. Africa is home to 80 percent of the world's remaining rhinos. (Reporting by Jutarat Skulpichetrat; Editing by Matthew Tostevin and Nick Macfie)
WASHINGTON (AP)  Attorney General Jeff Sessions is promising his Justice Department will lead the charge in helping cities fight violent crime, and police chiefs are ready with their wish-lists.

More technology to trace guns after shootings. More grant money. More intelligence analysts to help dismantle gangs. More protective gear and equipment. As the head of one police officers' union put it, "We need more of everything."

But Sessions, who cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the height of the drug war in the 1980s, has inherited a federal government that built itself to fight terrorism since 9/11 and, more recently, to combat cybercrime.

Since taking office, Sessions has spoken repeatedly about a spike in murders. He and President Donald Trump ordered the creation of a crime-fighting task force, bringing together the heads of the major law enforcement agencies. And they seem to be counting on tighter border security to stop a flow of drugs and reduce crime.

But they have yet to offer new money for crime-fighting, especially in the face of Trump's plan to slash nonmilitary budgets. More clarity could come Thursday when the administration unveils its budget proposal. Sessions also has not said how federal law enforcement will be able to juggle priorities.

"He'll find out very quickly that you can't pull people off all these other things just to go do that," said Robert Anderson, who was the FBI's most senior criminal investigator until his retirement in 2015. Anderson joined the bureau in the 1990s, when combating violence and drugs was its top challenge. "Now he's walking into a much different Justice Department and FBI."

Kerry Sleeper, assistant director of the FBI office that works with local law enforcement, said that after decades of declines in violence, police chiefs are coming to grips with a new uptick and asking for federal help.

What they'd like to see:

 In Milwaukee, Police Chief Edward Flynn said he would like an expansion of the work done in that city by the Justice Department's Violence Reduction Network. It teams officers with deputy U.S. marshals and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration to target high-crime areas. "It's encouraging to have an incoming administration take an interest in the spikes in violence in central cities," he told The Associated Press.

Story continues

 In Baltimore, which recorded 318 homicides last year, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis has said he would like federal agencies to double the number of agents assigned to cities experiencing spikes in violence.

 In Chicago, singled out by the White House for its surge in shootings, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has said he would welcome more agents and money for mentorship and after-school programs to help kids in violent neighborhoods and, in turn, reduce crime.

Other cities want help processing evidence, tracing guns and prosecuting drug traffickers and dealers as they combat heroin and opioid addiction.

More chiefs are asking the FBI for its help with intelligence-gathering to thwart crime, said Stephen Richardson, assistant director for the FBI's criminal division.

Making violent crime a priority is a departure for a Justice Department that has viewed as more urgent the prevention of cyberattacks from foreign criminals, counterterrorism and the threat of homegrown violent extremism. And while local police say they want more help fighting violence, such a plan could put new pressure on Justice Department agencies already strapped for resources.

"Our budget's been eroding," Thomas Brandon, acting ATF director, told a congressional committee last week. The ranks of the agency's special agents hit an eight-year low in fiscal year 2013 and have not grown dramatically since then.

Sessions' focus fits his background. His career as a prosecutor began when there was bipartisan agreement in Washington that the best way to fight crime was with long, mandatory prison sentences. And he views today's relatively low crime rates as a sign that those policies worked. Just last week, he underscored his priority telling the nation's federal prosecutors they should use all available resources to take down the worst offenders.

In contrast, the Obama administration's Justice Department focused its aid to local police on improving community relations.

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

The federal government has long played a role in fighting crime through grants and partnerships. Agents assigned to field offices work with local police to share intelligence on gangs and shootings, hunt fugitives and probe bank robberies. Constance Hester-Davis, special agent in charge of the ATF's field division in New Orleans, said her agents routinely work alongside local counterparts, even attending community meetings.

"At the end of the day, crime is a state and local concern," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank. "However, what police chiefs say is the federal government does have a responsibility, particularly when they prosecute."

Such cooperation can work. Oakland, California, police saw killings fall from 126 in 2012 to 85 in 2016, two years after FBI agents were embedded in the homicide unit. Ten agents share an office with Oakland detectives, offering help gathering evidence, collecting DNA, chasing leads and bringing federal prosecutions that carry longer sentences in far-away prisons. Detectives solved at least 60 percent of their cases last year, compared to about 30 percent in 2010, said Russell Nimmo, FBI supervisory special agent on the Oakland Safe Streets Task Force.

"It's very complementary to what our mission is," Nimmo said. "We're a big organization. The challenge for our leadership is determining how many resources to allocate to each of those competing priorities."

Richardson, who formed the first FBI task force in the Western District of Louisiana to combat violent criminals, said the new focus will mean shifting resources in ways that are yet to be seen. The FBI is finalizing a strategy to "surge" resources, including agents, in certain cities this summer.

"We won't be able to do all the cities we'd like to at once," Richardson said. "I firmly believe it will make a difference."
The Trump administration is threatening a withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council if it does not undertake considerable reform, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned a group of nine non-profit organizations in a letter this week.

The correspondence, obtained by Foreign Policy, explains the Trump administrations rationale for considering a departure from the 47-member organization. An immediate withdrawal from the Council, however, is not imminent, multiple State Department aides told FP. The Council has a small window of time to redeem itself in the eyes of Washington.

If they dont make these reforms, were going to question the value of our membership, said a senior aide to Tillerson. Were not taking withdrawal off the table.

A move to pull out of the Council is strongly opposed by humanitarian advocates and activists, who are concerned that it would diminish the U.S. role on human rights in the Trump era.

Tillerson, in his letter to the U.N. advocates and human rights groups, said that while the United States continues to evaluate the effectiveness of the Council, it remains skeptical about the virtues of membership in a human rights organization that includes states with troubled human rights records such as China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

We may not share a common view on this, given the makeup of the membership, Tillerson told the organizations, who have urged continued U.S. membership. While it may be the only such organization devoted to human rights, the Human Rights Council requires considerable reform in order for us to continue to participate.

If the United States ultimately were to withdraw from the Council, that would mark a victory for one of two factions within the Trump administration debating the future of U.S. policy at the United Nations.

Many who despise the Council want the U.S. to stay in and undermine efforts by others to obsesses over Israeland put the spotlight back on human rights abusers the Council regularly ignores, said a GOP congressional aide. But there are others who see that as fruitless and wasted diplomatic effort.

Story continues

The nine groups advocating continued U.S. membership  which include the Better World Campaign, Freedom House, the Committee For Human Rights in North Korea, and the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights  argued in a February 9 letter to Tillerson that the United States can more easily shield Israel from unfair attacks if it has a seat at the table. The Council, they say, has also provided a venue for holding the worlds worst rights abusers, including Syria and North Korea, accountable for their crimes.

The George W. Bush administration refused to join the Council in 2006, the year it was created, due to concerns about the treatment of Israel. The Obama administration reversed that decision in 2009, viewing membership as a way of reforming the organization from the inside and not letting the Israel issue diminish U.S. influence in a range of other areas.

American leadership in the Council over the last seven years has helped shift that dynamic, the group wrote. Since 2009, the Council has increasingly trained a spotlight on rogue regimes and terrorists, commissioning independent investigations that have exposed serious human rights abuses in North Korea, Iran, Syria, ISIS, and Boko Haram.

For the time being, Tillerson wrote, the U.S. will participate in the ongoing session of the Human Rights Council, to reiterate our strong principled objection to the Human Rights Councils biased agenda against Israel.

Our aim is to fix the organization, the Tillerson aide told FP.

Tillerson said U.S. priorities including renewing the mandate of a U.N. Commission of inquiry into atrocities in Syria, and underscoring U.S. support for U.N. special rapporteurs for Iran, North Korea, and Burma. He also said Washington would seek to renew the mandates of special rapporteurs investigating the use of torture and promoting freedom of expression.

UN advocates said it was unclear whether the administration is really mulling a withdrawal, or simply putting more pressure on for reform.

Im afraid this seems to signal that they want to pull out, Felice Gaer, of the Jacob Blaustein Institute, told FP. If you want to change the Councils disproportionate focus on Israel it is by being present that it will happen, not by being absent.

Peter Yeo, the President of the Better World Campaign, said he is not convinced the U.S. is ready to pull the plug. I think the administration is signaling its intention to pursue far reaching reforms of the Human Rights Council, including reducing the disproportionate focus on Israel, he said.

The move comes as a time when the U.N. is facing the prospect of a new confrontation from Israel and the United States.

In March, 2016, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution requiring the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid al Raad, to compile a database of companies that are doing business in Israeli settlements.

Israel denounced the move at the time as another example of hostility by the Council that could aid the anti-Israeli boycott movement. It warned the U.N. High Commissioners office that it could jeopardize its ability to carry out its work in Palestinian territories.

Under the terms of the resolution, Zeid was scheduled to provide a report, including the list of companies, in Geneva next week. But he secured an agreement to kick the issue down the road until September.

This is a major crisis and we dont know how to handle it, said one U.N. official.
Photo credit: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael Needham

From Popular Mechanics

In 1942, the U.S. Army was expanding rapidly as it pressed to fight and win World War II. The Army needed all the help it could get, and so it decided to open the draft to four-legged draftees. The result was the Army's K-9 Corps, which has faithfully served the nation ever since. Today marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the K-9 Corps.

The K-9 Corp was founded after the Army decided to use dogs as sentries at supply depots. The Army was assisted by civilian organization founded by the American Kennel Club, Dogs for Defense, and formed dog training centers at Front Royal, VA, Fort Robinson, NE, the ironically named Cat Island, Mississippi, Camp Rimini, Montana, and San Carlos California.

Photo credit: Getty

More than 10,000 dogs from 18 different breeds underwent two- to three-month training periods to serve as sentry dogs, scout or patrol dogs, messenger dogs, or mine dogs. After the war 1,500 dogs served in the Korean conflict, and 4,000 dogs served in Vietnam. By 2014, 578 dog teams had served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like their fellow two-legged soldiers, many have retired to civilian life.

Photo credit: Major Allie Payne, US Army.

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BEIJING (AP)  Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for all parties to return to talks amid rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs. Li on Wednesday reiterated Chinese support for U.N. Nations resolutions aimed at nudging the North toward ending its programs and returning to negotiations. He acknowledged the rising tensions and said the nations concerned need to return to talks to "find proper solutions." China is Pyongyang's most important ally and economic partner, and has been under pressure from the U.S. to use its influence to rein in actions by the North seen as provocative. China followed the latest round of missile launches by the North last month by suspending imports of North Korean coal, depriving Kim Jong Un's regime of a crucial source of foreign currency.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Korean prosecutors said Wednesday they plan to summon and question ousted President Park Geun-hye next week over a corruption scandal that removed her from office. Park lost her presidential immunity from prosecution after the Constitutional Court ruled Friday to formally end her rule over allegations that she colluded with a longtime confidante to extort money from businesses and allowed her pull government strings from the shadows. Prosecutors said they told Park's lawyer that they'll summon her next Tuesday as a suspect in the scandal. No further details were provided. Dozens of high-profile figures including some top Park administration officials and Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong have already been indicted over the scandal.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  When the Constitutional Court removed President Park Geun-hye from office last week, there were waves of social media messages thanking students at one South Korean university for sparking the historic change. Last summer, months before the public learned about a shadowy adviser behind Park, Ewha Womans University students gathered on the Seoul campus to protest something that initially seemed unrelated to national politics: the school administration's decision to create a new degree program. Ewha, considered the country's top women's university, soon withdrew the plan, but the students did not stop there, pressing on with their sit-in to urge the school president's resignation.

Story continues

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported. News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death. Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed Feb. 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport.

UNITED NATIONS (AP)  North Korea on Monday tried to shift the blame for the deadly attack in Malaysia on the estranged half- brother of its leader Kim Jong Un to the United States and South Korea. North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, told a news conference that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system. Malaysian authorities say Kim Jong Nam died after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feb.

WASHINGTON (AP)  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plunges this week into the increasingly volatile situation in North Asia with visits to Japan, South Korea and China, the region's central players for dealing with North Korea's missile launches and nuclear tests. Complicating the mission are Chinese concerns about how the U.S. has responded so far. Beijing strenuously objects to the initial deployment to South Korea of a U.S. missile defense system. One of Tillerson's chief tasks will be to assuage Asia's biggest country and arrange a much-anticipated visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States. Tillerson's four-day trip will be closely watched for signs of how the Trump administration will approach the escalating tensions with North Korea, whose leader has disregarded international appeals to disarm and accelerated weapons development.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  Conservation groups in Indonesia have returned 17 critically endangered orangutans to their natural forest habitat in the past month, airlifting some by helicopter to a remote area of Borneo where they hope the rehabilitated great apes will be safe from human encroachment. Orangutan Foundation International released 10 orangutans into a privately leased peatland forest the size of Singapore in Central Kalimantan in late February. All 10 were born in the wild but half were orphaned by deforestation and the others had been kept as pets before being rescued. Another group, BOS Foundation, freed seven orangutans in early March, releasing them into the 86,000 hectare Kehje Sewen Forest in East Kalimantan, which it controls though a long-term permit from the Indonesian government.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Walt Disney shelved the release of its new movie "Beauty and the Beast" in mainly Muslim Malaysia after refusing to cut a gay scene to mollify film censors. The studio said late Tuesday that the film "has not been and will not be cut" for release in Malaysia. Screenings of the live-action re-telling of the animated classic was scheduled to begin Thursday. But the country's two main cinema chains said the movie has been postponed at Disney's request and it would refund patrons who had bought advanced tickets. Film Censorship Board chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid earlier Tuesday said the film has been approved by the board after a minor gay scene was axed.

SOUTH ARI ATOLL, Maldives (AP)  There were startling colors here just a year ago, a dazzling array of life beneath the waves. Now this Maldivian reef is dead, killed by the stress of rising ocean temperatures. What's left is a haunting expanse of gray, a scene repeated in reefs across the globe in what has fast become a full-blown ecological catastrophe. The world has lost roughly half its coral reefs in the last 30 years. Scientists are now scrambling to ensure that at least a fraction of these unique ecosystems survives beyond the next three decades. The health of the planet depends on it: Coral reefs support a quarter of all marine species, as well as half a billion people around the world.

KREERI, India (AP)  After former fighter Syed Bashir Bukhari gave up the rebellion against Indian rule in his home territory of Kashmir, he faced trouble. His family was denied Indian citizenship after returning from the Pakistan-controlled side of the disputed Himalayan territory. His teenage son was refused school admission, and his Pakistan-Kashmiri wife and five daughters felt ostracized. After two years of struggle, he'd had enough. On a hot summer day in 2014, Bukhari set himself on fire in the main square of the western village of Kreeri and died the next day in a hospital, according to his wife, Safeena Bashir.
Toshiba on Tuesday won approval again to delay releasing its earnings, averting an embarrassing delisting, while it said it would try to sell a US nuclear division hit by massive losses and allegations of accounting fraud.

Japanese financial regulators have given the company until April 11 to publish results for the October-December quarter, which were originally due in mid-February.

Toshiba said it needed more time to probe claims of misconduct by senior managers at Westinghouse Electric and gauge the impact on its finances.

"An additional four weeks will be necessary to finalise the investigation," Toshiba said.

The company's top executive also said it will move to offload its controlling stake in Westinghouse, but did not elaborate.

President Satoshi Tsunakawa also declined to comment on earlier reports that it was mulling bankruptcy protection for the troubled nuclear business.

"Nothing has been decided yet," he told a news briefing Tuesday.

The Tokyo-listed stock dived nearly nine percent in early afternoon trade, as news that Toshiba would not release its numbers Tuesday raised fears it could be yanked from Japan's premier stock exchange.

The green light from regulators pushing back the deadline eased concerns about a delisting and Toshiba recovered to end at 215.9 yen ($1.90), up 0.46 percent.

However, after markets closed, the Tokyo bourse said Toshiba still risked being delisted unless it improved internal controls.

Toshiba shares have been hammered this year, losing more than half their value since late December when it first warned of multi-billion-dollar losses at Westinghouse.

The probe was started after a whistleblower complained that one or more Westinghouse executives exerted "inappropriate pressure" on its accounting.

The crisis comes less than two years after Toshiba's reputation was badly damaged by separate revelations that top company executives had pressured underlings to cover up weak results for years after the 2008 global financial metldown.

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Investors "will be watching how the group plans to turn itself around and how quickly. They've been in a mess for years now so they need to act quickly," Mari Iwashita, chief market strategist at SMBC Friend Securities, told AFP.

Toshiba has previously warned it was on track to report a net loss of 390 billion yen in the fiscal year to March, as it faced a writedown topping 700 billion yen at Westinghouse.

The vast conglomerate -- which has about 188,000 employees globally and annual revenue topping 5.6 trillion yen -- once touted its overseas nuclear business as a future growth driver, filling a hole left after the 2011 Fukushima crisis slammed the brakes on new atomic projects in Japan.

But cost overruns have hit Westinghouse's finances hard.

Toshiba is now dramatically reducing its nuclear ambitions overseas and plans to stop building new atomic power plants, but said it will keep making related equipment.

The cash-strapped company has sold off a number of assets, including a medical devices unit and most of its home appliance business. Its prized memory chip business is now on the block.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump does not agree with a controversial tweet on immigration and birth rates by Republican Representative Steve King. "The president believes that this is not a point of view that he shares. He believes he's the president for all Americans," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing. The Iowa lawmaker drew condemnation from Democrats and fellow Republicans after his tweet on Sunday praising Geert Wilders, a nationalist, anti-Islam politician vying to become the Netherlands' prime minister in a national election on Wednesday. "Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies," King wrote in a post that drew thousands of "likes." House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday called on House Republican leaders to strip King of his chairmanship of the constitution subcommittee for "his latest disgusting and racist statements." On Monday, she said they "must decide whether white supremacy is welcome in the GOP ranks." A spokeswoman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, AshLee Strong, said on Monday, "The speaker clearly disagrees (with King) and believes America's long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths." King, an early supporter of Trump in last year's presidential election, defended his tweet in an interview on CNN on Monday. He pointed to Western Europe, where he said low birth rates were harming civilization, culture and values. "I'd like to see an America that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same," he said. "I think there's far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years. I want to see that put behind us." (Reporting by Eric Walsh)
(Reuters) - President Donald Trump is set to sign an order to greatly reduce the role climate change plays in decision making across the U.S. government, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the administration's plan. The order, which could be signed this week, aims to reverse former Democratic President Barack Obama's broad approach for addressing climate change, the report said. (http://bloom.bg/2nkDvKo) The directive will urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to undo the Clean Power Plan, the Bloomberg report said. The Clean Power Plan is Obama's centerpiece initiative to combat climate change, requiring states to slash emissions of carbon dioxide, but it was never implemented due to legal challenges launched by several Republican states. According to the report, the measure would direct U.S. regulators to rescind Obama-era regulations limiting oil industry emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The order will also involve a reconsideration of the government's use of a metric known as the "social cost of carbon", which weighs the potential economic damage from climate change, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Trump has long signaled his intention to reverse Obama's climate-change initiatives, but the Republican president has vowed his planned overhaul of green regulation would not jeopardize America's water and air quality. Reuters reported earlier this month that the White House had proposed to slash a quarter of the EPA's budget, targeting climate-change programs and those designed to prevent air and water pollution like lead contamination. The Bloomberg report said that some of the changes could happen immediately, while others could take years to implement. (Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - US President Donald Trump's administration waded into the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Tuesday as one of his top advisers held his first meeting with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

After five hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday night, Jason Greenblatt met Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting that "we had a positive, far-ranging exchange about the current situation".

"President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement," he wrote.

US officials have described the visit by Greenblatt, Trump's special representative for international negotiations, as a fact-finding mission as the White House seeks a way forward in restarting long-deadlocked peace efforts.

But it comes after Trump cast uncertainty over years of international efforts to foster a two-state solution to the conflict when he met Netanyahu at the White House last month.

At that meeting, Trump broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to the conflict and would be open to one state if it meant peace.

He has also sparked concern among Palestinians and others by pledging during his campaign to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the status of which is one of the thorniest issues of the conflict.

Trump has since backed away, with US officials saying the decision-making process on the issue was in the early stages.

There have been mixed signals over how Trump will approach his efforts to restart negotiations, with the conflict having confounded US leaders for decades.

Trump spoke with Abbas in their first phone call on Friday, inviting him to visit the White House soon.

The US president has also asked Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit", and there have been warnings that unilateral action by Israel such as moving to annex the West Bank would provoke a crisis with Trump's administration.

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There has been growing concern that Israeli settlement building is eating away at prospects for a two-state solution, the basis of years of negotiations.

Settlements are seen as illegal under international law and a major stumbling block to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

- Palestinians pessimistic -

In a rare move, former US president Barack Obama, in the waning days of his administration, declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building, allowing it to pass.

Trump had called on Obama to veto the resolution.

After Monday night's meeting, Netanyahu's office and the US embassy issued a joint statement saying he and Greenblatt discussed settlement construction and ways to reach peace.

The two "continued discussions relating to settlement construction in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security".

According to the statement, Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations".

The statement cited Netanyahu as telling Greenblatt he believed "it is possible to advance peace" while Trump is in the White House.

Greenblatt himself wrote on Twitter that he had a "very positive and productive meeting" with Netanyahu during which they discussed the "regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements".

There is widespread pessimism among Palestinians.

Poll results released on Tuesday showed only nine percent of Palestinians believe Trump's administration will lead to a renewal of the peace process.

At the same time, 50 years after Israel's occupation began, 44 percent of Palestinians believe that "the standing of Palestine today is worse" than half a century ago, according to the poll.

Sixty percent say that a two-state solution is no longer viable because of Israeli settlement expansion.

On the Israeli side, Netanyahu has found himself caught between maintaining relations with Washington and holding together his governing coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history.

On Tuesday, pro-settlement members of the coalition sought to advance a bill to annex a large Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem of some 37,000 people called Maale Adumim.

The bill was on the agenda for a ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday, but was put off for another week.

Netanyahu has reportedly been seeking to delay the bill due in part to concerns over how it will affect US relations.

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UPDATE: 6:04 a.m. EDT  Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, tweeted Tuesday morning claiming that Donald Trumps alleged decision to give authority to the CIA to conduct drone strikes on terrorists "signals that bullying, disloyalty & incompetence pays."

Original story:

Shifting from the drone policy of the Obama administration, President Donald Trump has given the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) new authority to conduct drone attacks against suspected militants, anonymous U.S. officials said. The new policy is in contrast to that of former President Barack Obama that limited the CIA's paramilitary role, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Under the Obama administration, the CIA used drones and other intelligence resources to locate suspected terrorists and then the military conducted the actual strike.

Read: Trump May Reopen CIA Black Site Prisons With Executive Order

Although Obama pushed for the use of drones, he kept the military in place to conduct the actual strike. During Obama's two terms, a total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen compared to 57 strikes under George W. Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Obama's aim to keep up the war against al Qaeda while releasing the U.S. military from war grounds in the Middle East and Asia gave way to the use of drones.

Trump wants to accelerate the fight against Islamic State group and other militant groups. The CIA's new authority, which was provided by Trump soon after his inauguration, was first used in February in a strike against senior al Qaeda leader in Syria, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, according to the Journal. Although officials said that the new authority under Trump is only for CIA's operations in Syria, it is likely the CIA may be able to conduct drone strikes in other areas as well.

Critics have pointed out that even if drones are used to target terrorists, the final decision should rest with the military.

Story continues

There are a lot of problems with the drone program and the targeted killing program, but the CIA should be out of the business of ordering lethal strikes, said Christopher Anders, deputy director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. He said that doesn't mean the CIA can't "have a role in assisting in the use of fore in location targets."

"But that decision on whether to strike or not to strike and that order should be coming from through the military chain of command," he added, the Journal reported.

Under the Obama administration, the military was in charge of promoting transparency and accountability. The CIA, which operates under secrecy, wasn't required to disclose the number of suspected terrorists or civilians it killed in drone strikes. As U.S. officials have pointed out earlier, the ultimate goal is an integrated model under which the CIA continues to hunt targets, but lets the military pull the trigger, according to the Dawn.

Related Articles
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's administration has given new powers to the CIA to conduct drone strikes against extremist targets in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The move would represent a change from Obama-era policies that limited the spy agency's role in conducting paramilitary strikes, pushing responsibility for these to the Pentagon.

Obama had insisted on a more cooperative approach in drone strikes, with the Pentagon using intel from the CIA before the Pentagon conducted the attack itself.

According to the Journal, the CIA first used its new powers in February when it apparently killed Al-Qaeda leader Abu Khayr al-Masri in a strike in Syria.

US officials have not confirmed the strike, but Al-Qaeda said Masri was killed "during a Crusader drone strike" in Syria.

The CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment on the Journal report.

Typically, the Pentagon details its strikes, but it has said nothing about the Masri killing.

Separately, The New York Times this week reported that the Trump administration is also working to loosen Obama-era rules that aimed to limit civilian deaths in drone strikes.

Trump has already granted a request to declare parts of Yemen to be areas of "active hostilities," where the rules around strikes require less coordination with Washington, the Times said.

That paved the way for a botched January 29 special operations raid which resulted in the deaths of a Navy SEAL and multiple civilians -- including women and children.

Trump is also weighing a request for a temporary loosening of rules in Somalia, the Times said.

On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said the ongoing authorities for strikes in Yemen were granted at the same time as the approval for the ill-fated raid, the first under Trump's presidency.

In July, the administration of Barack Obama provided fatality estimates for 473 strikes between 2009 and 2015 that were conducted outside principal war zones.

Officials claimed anywhere from 64 to 116 civilians were killed in the strikes, and up to 2,581 combatants -- but critics have constantly said the government underestimates civilian deaths.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump met with Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday for a discussion likely to touch on economic relations and efforts to stop the war in Syria. Trump, who took office in January, and Prince Mohammed, who is also the kingdom's defense minister, kicked off their talks in the Oval Office, where they posed for a picture in front of journalists and did not take questions. The meeting was the first since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration with the prince, who is leading the kingdom's efforts to revive state finances by diversifying the economy away from a reliance on falling crude oil revenues. Also expected to be on the agenda were the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led military campaign has failed to end a rebellion by Houthi militias, and cooperation against Islamic State. Gulf Arab officials have appeared optimistic about the Trump presidency. They see in him a strong president who will shore up Washingtons role as their main strategic partner and help contain Riyadh's adversary Iran in a region central to U.S. security and energy interests, regional analysts said. The Saudis have appeared particularly relieved at the departure of Barack Obama, who they felt considered Riyadhs alliance with Washington less important than negotiating a deal in 2015 to neutralize Irans nuclear program. Obama late last year also suspended the sale of U.S.-made precision-guidance munitions to the Saudis, a reaction to thousands of civilian casualties from Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen. U.S. officials said Trump was considering ending that ban and approving the sale of guidance systems made by Raytheon Co. The State Department has approved the move, which awaits a final White House decision, the officials said. A source close to the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a main topic of the meeting would be Saudi investment in the United States, which could help the U.S. president fulfill his promises of job creation. "It's the creation of jobs through investments - President Trump wants results and statistics matter for him," said Ingrid Naranjo, an expert in U.S.-Saudi relations. "It makes a lot of sense for the diversification strategy of Saudi to invest abroad and especially in the U.S." U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon were also present at the Oval Office meeting with Prince Mohammed. (Reporting by Jeff Mason, Yara Bayoumy, Warren Strobel and Reem Shamseddine; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump hosted Saudi Arabia's powerful Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House Tuesday, for talks expected to focus on the economy and rolling back Iranian influence.

Trump welcomed the young prince to the Oval Office, as both countries expect to improve ties that were frequently strained under Barack Obama's administration.

Saudi Arabia is likely to welcome Trump's harder line on its arch-rival Iran and there is likely to be less friction over Riyadh's war against Iranian-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia viewed Obama as being too accommodating towards Iran -- particularly amid negotiations on a nuclear deal -- while Washington held grave misgivings about civilian deaths in Yemen.

Trump's 50-plus days in office have given little indication about his stance on Saudi Arabia's war, but have seen a dramatic uptick in US action against Al-Qaeda's Yemen offshoot -- AQAP.

Second in line to the throne, Prince Mohammed is the son of King Salman and holds the post of defense minister, although much of his focus is on economic issues.

He is the chief proponent of Vision 2030, a wide-ranging social and economic reform plan begun last year to diversify the oil dependent economy.

He has also played a key role in the Yemen campaign.

Trump has expressed hope that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies can be helpful across a range of issues, from creating safe zones in Syria to solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Riyadh is also seen by the White House as pivotal in any effort to constrain Iran's influence across the Middle East.

But that strategy has been widely questioned.

"Anyone experiencing these visions ought to lie down and wait quietly until the sensation passes," warned Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky -- foreign policy advisors to Republican and Democratic administrations.

The pair warned in a Washington Post opinion editorial that "the president is likely to find that his vision of US interests, let alone strategy, doesn't mesh with that of the Arabs on whom he's relying."

Experts familiar with the region have also warned that any robust effort to counter Iran must be well thought through -- as Tehran is likely to hit back at US interests asymmetrically and in a non-attributable way.
President Donald Trump and longtime German leader, Angela Merkel, are set to meet for the first time Tuesday. The meeting between the West's two pre-eminent leaders will be closely studied as both have contrasting views on a range of issues from Russia policy to refugees.

In a press briefing by White House press secretary, Sean Spicer Friday, he said: "Theres a lot of excitement on both sides of the ocean for this trip. I know that we are looking forward to meeting with the Chancellor and her team...Theres a lot of trade and economic interests on both sides, and obviously theres an element of national security that we share."

Read: Islam Is Peaceful, But Only Muslims Can Stop Terror, Angela Merkel Says

Trump has been vocal about his opinions about Merkel, whose support for accepting Syrian refugees had been called as "insane," and "ruining Germany" in a tweet by Trump.

For months, Trump has been critical of Merkel's immigration policies and has accused her of ruining Germany by accepting refugees. He even predicted that voters would overthrow her but simultaneously described her as a great world leader.

Although, Trump has been disapproving of Merkel's policies on many issues in the past, administration officials have indicated in a press briefing, the goal of Tuesday's meeting will have a positive interaction." They said: "The level of interaction between this administration and the German government has so far been frequent and robust." "Germany is one of NATO's strongest member states, and the President looks forward to talking with the Chancellor about how to strengthen the NATO alliance, including by ensuring that all allies shoulder the proper share of the burden for maintaining our collective defense."

The officials said: "The United States is committed to strengthening our political defense, security and economic relationship with Germany and with Europe more broadly."

Story continues

Although as a candidate, Trump had promised to do away with multilateral trade deals, and he withdrew the U.S. too from the Trans-Pacific Partnership as one of his first acts in office, but when it comes to Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), officials have expressed uncertainty over its withdrawal as Trump is considering to continue it as a two-party deal because of the European Union's structure, the press briefing stated.

The other issues to be discussed will be taking steps to fight terrorism and resolve the conflict in Ukraine, White House officials had said Friday.

Related Articles
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday, Netanyahu's office said, as the new administration tries to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. A statement from the Israeli leader's office said Jason Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations." Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and the Palestinians have been concerned at the more favorable approach shown by Washington toward Netanyahu since Trump came to office in January. The statement added that during a conversation lasting more than five hours, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel's settlement building "with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security." One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel's building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip. On Friday, Trump spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and invited him to the White House. It was the first phone call between the two leaders since Trump took office. Greenblatt is set to meet Abbas in the West Bank on Tuesday. The Israeli statement added that "Greenblatt stressed how important enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians are to President Trump." Before taking office, Trump named Greenblatt, his company's top lawyer, as his special negotiator for trade deals and other talks and his adviser to the Middle East and special representative for international negotiations. (This version of the story was refiled to remove extraneous word in paragraph 1) (Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Peter Cooney)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump plans to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at a two-day summit next month, according to media reports, as his administration seeks to smooth relations with the world's second-largest economy. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 6-7 at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, U.S. online media outlet Axios reported on Monday, citing officials familiar with the plans. CNN also reported the planned summit, citing an unnamed administration official. It said the plan was tentative and that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was expected to finalize plans during a trip this week to Asia, which includes a stop in China. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday the White House was preparing for a meeting between the two leaders but was not ready to announce a date. "Planning is ongoing for a visit between President Trump and President Xi at a date to be determined," Spicer said, saying any meeting would cover North Korea and other issues. In previewing Tillerson's Asia visit, U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton told reporters it would "to some extent be paving the way for future high-level meetings between our two presidents." In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said both countries were in "close communication" about exchanges between their leaders, and that information would be issued in a timely manner. A summit would follow a string of other recent U.S.-China meetings and conversations aimed at mending ties after strong criticism of China by Trump during his election campaign. Thornton said the United States was "pursuing a results-oriented relationship with China; one that benefits the American people and one that remains faithful to our allies and presses China to abide by international rules and norms." She said Tillerson had urged China in previous meetings to do all it can to rein in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and "to create a level playing field for trade and investment." "We want to be able to pursue a constructive discussion with China that enables us to get at problem areas," she said. China's top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi, visited Washington last month and met Trump and Tillerson. During his campaign, Trump accused China of unfair trade policies, criticized its island-building in the strategic South China Sea, and accused it of doing too little to constrain its neighbor, North Korea. Trump incensed Beijing in December by taking a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and later saying the United States did not have to stick to the so-called "one China" policy. Trump later agreed in a phone call with Xi to honor the long-standing policy and has also written to Xi since seeking "constructive ties." Tillerson, making his first trip to Asia as secretary of state, will visit China on Saturday and Sunday and meet Xi and other leaders. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will visit Japan and Indonesia as part of an Asian tour next month, sources said on Monday, amid concerns that the Trump administration is rolling back former President Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia." Thorton said the United States was a Pacific power and would "certainly be remaining active and engaged in Asia," whether or not the terminology remained the same. (Reporting by Susan Heavey, Roberta Rampton, Emily Stephenson, David Brunnstrom and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington, and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis)
Making the first defense in court of President Trumps revised executive order limiting immigration from Mideast nations, the Administrations lawyers have argued that they have met all of the legal objections to the policy and so should be allowed to put it into full effect nationwide after midnight Wednesday.

Photograph of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security logo.

In filings in federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland, likely to be duplicated Tuesday in a federal court in Washington State, the government team on Monday contended that state government and immigrants rights organizations have no right to have the new presidential directive stopped in its entirety all across the nation.

If any individual U.S. citizen or foreign national can prove that they or their family would be harmed by any specific provision of the travel restrictions, the new briefs said, they could file their own challenges in court and have them decided one at a time. The new order, the documents said, gives government officials wide authority to grant waivers of the restrictions on a case-by-case basis. That is the only option open, without interfering with the presidents broad power to decide who can and who cannot enter the U.S. from overseas, according to the filings.

In rewriting the original restrictions that had been blocked in court last month, the government lawyers said, they had addressed the possible scenarios that had concerned the courts, and those changes have eliminated any occasion to consider emergency relief in the form of a temporary enforcement ban.

Aliens subject to the order face no injury unless and until they are denied a waiver, the filing added. The new order, it said, applies only to aliens outside the United States who lack a visa  individuals who have no constitutional rights regarding their admission.

The revision has eliminated any preference for religious minorities, the government document said in attempting to counter the challengers claim that the new order, like the first one, amounted to a Muslim ban. Both orders were aimed at stopping immigration from a list of Mideast nations, each of which has a Muslim majority population. The original order had seven nations on the list; one of those, Iraq, was dropped in the new order.

Story continues

The challengers argue, the briefs said, that the revised order targets Islam not because of what it says or does, but because of inferences they claim can be drawn from the background of the original version and statements by President Trump and his associates, mostly before taking office. The order clearly states a non-religious purpose  countering terrorism  so such statements about a Muslim ban cannot displace that purpose, the briefs said.

Searching for governmental purpose outside official pronouncements and the operative terms of governmental action is fraught with practical pitfalls and hazards that courts should avoid, the federal lawyers argued.

Federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland have scheduled hearings for Wednesday on the challenges in their courts, hours ahead of the planned implementation of the new order just after midnight. No hearing has yet been set in the Washington State case.

Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston is Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent. Denniston has written for us as a contributor since June 2011 and has covered the Supreme Court since 1958. His work also appears on lyldenlawnews.com,.

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Lilianne Ploumen didnt intend to be the face of the European resistance to Donald Trump. But the headlines she triggered by her efforts to counter one of Trumps first decisions in the White House have thrust her into that role. On social media, in meetings, on the street, and in local and international media, the Dutch minister of foreign trade and development cooperation has been showered with thanks from supporters heartened by her work to counteract the effects of Trumps reinstatement of the Mexico City rule, which bans funding for any international NGO that performs or provides information about abortion as part of family planning.

Worldwide support for anti-Trump action wrote the leading Dutch daily de Volkskrant. Lilianne Ploumen takes on Trump cheered the Post Online, a Dutch news website. The New York Times, Time, and the Guardian, to name but a few, have written about Ploumen in recent days.

The energetic ministers story highlights how a continent wracked by doubts about the European project is adapting to the new uncertainty about U.S. leadership caused by the Trump presidency. With the Netherlands, France, and Germany set to hold elections in the next few months, politicians are worried about the transatlantic alliance, roiled by Brexit and trying to find their footing amid a populist wave. The Netherlands will go first, holding elections on March 15, with flamboyant anti-Muslim provocateur Geert Wilders leading the charge and drawing inspiration from Trumps victory.

For Ploumen, a longtime advocate of womens issues, the moment to stand up came with Trumps decision on Jan. 23 to bring back the Reagan-era Mexico City Rule, also known as the Global Gag Rule. The original executive order prohibits any NGO that receives funding from USAID from using other sources of funding to provide abortions, or even give counsel and information about safe abortions and family planning. Experience has shown that cutting access to abortions doesnt decrease the number of abortions; it only forces women into unsanitary, unsafe procedures. Yet, Trump took the rule further by extending the ban to all federal funding. Moreover, while George W. Bushs administration made sure to protect efforts to fight AIDS, Trump did not make that exception in his executive order.

This decision will impact all or most of the $600 million that the United States spends yearly on foreign assistance for family planning. Some estimates put the potential funding gap even higher, at several billion dollars.

The day after Trumps memorandum was issued, Ploumen set out to fill the funding gap. She launched the SheDecides fund; the Netherlands immediately pledged $10 million. Ploumen and her team at the Dutch Foreign Ministry then organized a conference co-hosted by Belgium. Fifty-two countries showed up in Brussels on March 2, where $190 million was raised. Money in this international fund will be disbursed through existing channels, such as U.N. health and womens organizations.

I wanted to get the message out that my country wanted to stand up for womens rights, and even if no one had followed suit, we would still be there and created a fund, Ploumen told me last week, speaking on the phone from the Netherlands after a televised debate with female politicians from other major parties. Ploumen, a member of the Dutch Labor Party, PvdA, is running for a seat in Parliament. I do think that people are very worried about our values and the way that we stand tall for these values.

The risk, of course, is that the Netherlands and other countries that donated to the fund could ruffle the new U.S. administration. At a panel on U.S.-Dutch relations in Washington in late January, the American Enterprise Institutes Danielle Pletka delivered a scathing rebuttal to Ploumens actions. Its not a very helpful thing that the Dutch minister did, and it smacked of politicking. If the Dutch government wants a better relationship with the new White House, then spitting in the face of the new White House is not a great plan in my estimation, she said.

Some countries declined to attend the Brussels conference out of fear it could jeopardize their ties with the new administration. For developing countries that rely on U.S. aid, support for the initiative could be a costly stance. Some countries and organizations donated anonymously  including one donor who gave roughly $50 million. But Ploumen told me shes not afraid of a backlash in ties with the United States.

I dont think that standing up for womens right can be a slap in anyones face, she said. The [U.S.] administration is entitled to make their own decisions; they are democratically elected. But I am democratically elected, too, and the Dutch government has a different vision.

Speaking to contacts in the Netherlands, I got the impression that as the Dutch government and Foreign Ministry were still working out how to approach the new U.S. administration, not everyone was pleased with Ploumens move. But she felt that quick action was important.

I did think we had to act quickly because the impact would be felt quite soon by organizations. And if [we] want to be able to counter the impact, we couldnt wait till the summer or the end of the year, she said.

Just over a month after Ploumen launched the SheDecides initiative, Belgium hosted the conference, with Denmark and Sweden as co-hosts. Ministers and ambassadors from countries as diverse as Portugal, Germany, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates attended, as well as several international organizations. Needless to say, the United States was absent. Ploumen described it as a global movement, with ministers from Chad and Ethiopia telling her, Those are our values.

The European Union has never been known for its assertiveness when faced with U.S. policies it disapproves of, but could SheDecides mark a new spirit of resistance in the face of Trump?

We have accepted leadership by the U.S., and that leadership has achieved great things, said Sophie in t Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament from the social liberal D66 Party. When Trump says that European partners should pay their fair share to NATO, hes quite right. But we should also do our fair share to defend our values on the world stage.

But the usual partners are wanting. The vacuum wont be filled by Britain, which is busy with Brexit. There is no replacing the United States as the superpower  for now. But multilateralism requires a leader, and Europe is clearly feeling a void. Trumps secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has yet to make a mark on the world stage, and the State Departments budget looks set for dramatic cuts. Steep reductions to U.S. funding for the United Nations are also expected.

In 2009, when Hillary Clinton went to Brussels for her first NATO meeting as secretary of the state, she was greeted with thunderous applause by diplomats relieved to see the end of the George W. Bush administration. Now, Ploumen told me, Dutch diplomats are being applauded and getting standing ovations in meetings with counterparts.

The Netherlands isnt about to become the leader of the free world. But European fears that the United States will no longer be a partner on human rights issues or the wider liberal order have created an opportunity for centrist and liberal politicians in Europe, where the upcoming elections have become less about the economy and more about values.

In France, for example, presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron  who will probably face populist, right-wing leader Marine Le Pen in the second round  has become increasingly vocal about his support for a stronger EU, rather than hedging his position because the union doesnt poll well.

Its about much more than one election in one country, Ploumen said. Its about standing up when the time is there. I do think these values need stronger advocates that in [previous] years.

So how does that translate in the polls in the Netherlands? There has been no real bump for Ploumens party, PvdA, but after seven weeks of Trumps presidency and a perception of chaos in Washington, theres certainly a slump for Wilders, whose lead is narrowing as five other parties vie for first position. There is probably more interest in the elections than there has been in a while in the Netherlands.

Maybe people are thinking, Hmm. If thats what you get when you vote for Trump, thats also what you get when you vote for Wilders. Thats maybe not what I really believe in, Ploumen said. I do hope that people go out and vote.

All the main parties have ruled out governing with Wilders, so theres almost no scenario in which he could become prime minister or part of a governing coalition. How many seats he picks up, however, will help gauge the strength of the anti-establishment wave.

If the Netherlands is the first country that really takes action to counter Trump, it will also be the first country to test whether the wave of Trumpistas and populist leaders can be contained. France will be watching closely.

Photo credit: OLAF KRAAK/AFP/Getty Images
Los Angeles (AFP) - President Donald Trump's revised travel ban faced a trio of legal challenges in federal court Wednesday before judges who could conceivably halt the order a day before it is due to take effect.

A 90-minute hearing was held in Greenbelt, Maryland near Washington and Judge Theodore Chuang said afterward he hoped to announce a decision later Wednesday.

Another federal court hearing on the travel ban targeting all refugees and people from six mainly Muslim countries was underway in Hawaii, officials said, while a third was due to start in Washington state later Wednesday.

The judge in Hawaii said he will issue a decision before the new travel ban takes effect at 6 pm local time (0400 GMT), media reports said, while the judge in Washington state could also make a decision later in the day.

Chuang heard a complaint filed by a coalition of advocacy groups that included the American Civil Liberties Union, the most powerful US human rights organization. They argued that Trump's amended order, like his first one, discriminates against Muslims.

"In his mind, the danger of Muslims and the danger of refugees is all combined danger," Omar Jadwat, a lawyer for the ACLU, said of the president.

Justin Cox, another attorney for coalition of plaintiffs, said "We are very hopeful that by 12:01 tomorrow, when this executive order is supposed to be in effect, we will have an injunction blocking it for the reasons we have argued."

Under the US legal system, a federal judge can suspend all or part of the Trump executive order, with nationwide effect.

"Our claim is the executive order in purpose and effect is intended to discriminate against Muslims and it condemns their religion," Cox added.

- No 'religious distinction' -

The first version of Trump's order triggered protests at home and abroad as well as chaos at US airports as people were detained upon arrival and either held for hours or sent back to where they came from.

Story continues

The Trump administration narrowed the restrictions in its revised order to try to ensure it will be unassailable this time around -- after the initial ban was put on hold by the federal courts.

"This order doesn't draw any religious distinction at all," said Jeffrey Wall, a government attorney.

Questioned about tweets that Trump sent and statements he made during the presidential campaign in which he promised to enact a "Muslim ban," Wall said: "There is a difference between a president and a candidate."

Several states along with refugee assistance programs and rights groups have brought suits over the Republican leader's revamped version of the order he issued on January 27.

A group of 58 companies, including Lyft, Airbnb and Dropbox, submitted documents backing the Hawaii lawsuit, saying it would "inflict significant and irreparable harm on US businesses and their employees."

Trump's new measure aims to bar all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travelers from six mostly-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days.

Iraq was dropped from the list in the second order, which also explicitly exempts legal permanent residents and valid visa holders.

Trump's administration says the travel ban is necessary to keep extremists from entering the United States.

But critics say the new order essentially remains a ban on Muslims coming to the United States, and therefore unconstitutional because it singles out people of a certain religion for discrimination.

- Coast to coast -

Since September 11, 2001, the worst attacks in the United States have been committed either by radicalized Americans or by people from countries not on the Trump travel ban list.

Critics also argue that it will have a very negative effect on schools and universities and the business world, mainly the high tech sector, which employs many highly skilled immigrants.

The new battle against Trump's order is being played out on several geographical fronts, but mainly on the west coast, which tends to be pro-Democrat.

The state of Washington, joined by five other states, filed a complaint Monday with the same Seattle judge who stayed Trump's original travel ban in February.

Trump responded by insulting that federal magistrate, James Robart, calling him a "so-called judge."

It is Robart who will oversee the Washington state hearing on Wednesday and he could once again suspend all or part of the new order.

Hawaii has also filed its own, separate request for an injunction. The far flung Pacific state is home to many people of non-US origin.

The US government filed an opposing motion in Hawaii, saying the travel ban is "a valid exercise of the president's broad statutory authority to 'suspend the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens.'"
Istanbul (AFP) - The bitter row between Turkey and Europe in the referendum campaign on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers risks causing lasting damage to their often fraught relationship, analysts say.

Once the current spate of votes in Turkey and Europe is over, the dispute will leave both sides at a historic crossroads to decide on the nature of their future alliance.

Turkey is a key member of NATO and has sought to join the European Union as a strategic goal in an agonisingly long process dating back to the 1960s.

There have been numerous rows over the last few years -- especially over human rights -- but none have matched the volcanic acrimony of the current clash as Turkey gears up for the April 16 plebiscite.

Erdogan has said the Netherlands and Germany were acting like the Nazis for preventing his ministers from holding rallies abroad to push for a 'yes' vote in the referendum, leaving The Hague and Berlin aghast.

"Such tensions leave their mark and weaken the perception that Turkey and Europe share a common fate," Ilter Turan, professor of political science at Istanbul's Bilgi University, told AFP.

- 'Post-poll normalisation?' -

The crisis has come about as Erdogan -- who survived a military coup bid in July -- seeks to tip the balance in a tight referendum campaign and to strike a chord with nationalist voters.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is meanwhile conscious of the need to take a hard line against Erdogan as he shapes up to face the ultra-right populist Geert Wilders in Wednesday's highly-watched election.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an election in September, while France meanwhile votes in a two-round presidential poll in April and May with Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front a serious contender.

Analysts say that once the excesses of the election frenzy are calmed, there will again be a chance to put pragmatism before sensationalism.

Story continues

Turkey, whose economy has weakened over the last few months from the stellar heights seen in the early years of Erdogan's rule, will not want to lose the EU as its key trade partner.

Turan predicted that once the rhetoric of the elections is over "both sides will work to normalise their relations".

"Turkey and the EU have so far not wanted to cut their relations -- even though they were not keen to improve them," he said.

- 'Little chance' -

Yet the breakdown in civility in the current dispute has raised doubts over the future viability of the membership bid, which some analysts have already argued should be replaced by a more realistic partnership agreement.

In public speeches ahead of the referendum, Erdogan has repeatedly raised the spectre of bringing back capital punishment, a move that would automatically end Turkey's attempt to join the bloc.

Meanwhile, Ankara has moved sharply to rebuild its relationship with Moscow -- damaged after a 2015 shooting down of a Russian plane -- with Erdogan saying last week ties were now normalised.

Erdogan's influential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote in a newspaper column Tuesday entitled "Turkey, Europe and a narrowing horizon" that the acts of the Dutch government showed the emergence of a "hypocrisy" on the entire continent.

"Despite the reality that all sides would benefit from effective relations between the EU and Turkey, there is little chance that the crucial relationship improves in the near term," analysts at the Soufan Group said in a research note.

- 'Bridges burned' -

Turkish officials argue that the majority Muslim country's economic prosperity and rising power under Erdogan have not been welcomed by Europe and the country is prepared to go its own way to develop.

"Turkey's growth is a hope for some and has become a nightmare for others -- like Holland and Germany," said Erdogan, who has made much to deepen links with Africa and South America over the last year, as well as Britain as it heads for Brexit.

Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey and visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, said in the short term there was "no way out" of the crisis as Erdogan would do everything to win nationalist votes in the referendum campaign.

"In the medium-term, one can hope that the fever will subside," he told AFP.

"Yet bridges have been burned at personal level -- using a 'Nazi' narrative is the most extreme vexation one can possibly use in EU politics," he said.
By Daren Butler ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey on Tuesday rejected a European legal report calling its proposed constitutional changes a big setback for democracy, saying the experts who compiled it had become politicized and the report stained their prestige. Ankara, stuck in a deepening row with the Netherlands over a ban on its ministers speaking at rallies there ahead of Turkey's referendum on the changes, says the reforms are needed to guarantee stability in the NATO-member state of 80 million people. The Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts at the Council of Europe, said on Friday the proposed changes, which will sharply boost the powers of President Tayyip Erdogan, represented a "dangerous step backwards" for democracy. Erdogan's opponents say the changes would push Turkey towards one-man rule and erode basic rights and freedoms. "From the Turkish perspective, this completely political and subjective report has no esteem or value," Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag wrote on Twitter. "With this report, the Venice Commission has abandoned its objectivity and expertise, lost its impartiality, become politicized and stained its prestige," he said. The legislation enables the president to issue decrees, declare emergency rule, appoint ministers and state officials and dissolve parliament. The two largest opposition parties say it will remove checks and balances to Erdogan's power. "The Venice Commission has taken the side of 'No' in the referendum," Bozdag said. He said that the report reflected the views of Turkish opposition parties and that the people would give their response to it by voting 'Yes' in the referendum. The Commission said it had concerns about provisions allowing the new president to exercise executive power alone "with unsupervised authority to appoint and dismiss ministers." It saw it as weakening the "already inadequate system of judicial oversight of the executive". Erdogan says political change is needed to tackle security threats ranging from Islamic State and Kurdish militant bombings to a coup attempt in July in which at least 240 people died. The Council of Europe panel's legal opinion has no binding power over Turkey, which joined the 47-nation body in 1950. (Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Hugh Lawson)
By Ercan Gurses and Humeyra Pamuk ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned the Netherlands that he could take further steps in a deepening diplomatic row, while a government spokesman in Ankara said economic sanctions could be coming. Incensed by Dutch and German government bans on his ministers from speaking to rallies of overseas Turks, Erdogan also accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of siding with the Netherlands in the fight between the NATO allies. Turkey suspended high-level diplomatic relations with the Netherlands on Monday, banning the Dutch ambassador from the country and preventing diplomatic flights from landing in Turkey or using its airspace. Those steps were taken after Erdogan branded the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" at the weekend for muzzling his ministers. "The cabinet took action yesterday but there are many other things that could be done against the Netherlands," Erdogan said in a speech broadcast live on television. "We will show those who think they can get away with an apology that they are making a mistake," said Erdogan, who is campaigning for an April 16 referendum on boosting his powers and has been looking to the large number of Turks living in Europe to help secure victory. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus later told broadcaster CNN Turk that economic sanctions could be in the works. "Pressure will continue against the Netherlands until they make up for what they did. We've started with the political, diplomatic sanctions, and economic sanctions may follow," he said. Erdogan has threatened to take the Netherlands to the European Court of Human Rights over the ban on his ministers, which both the Dutch and Germans have imposed citing fears of unrest. Dutch police used dogs and water cannon on Sunday to disperse hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags outside the consulate in Rotterdam. Some protesters threw bottles and stones and several demonstrators were beaten by police with batons, a Reuters witness said. Mounted police officers charged the crowd. SAARLAND, BELGIAN BANS The small western German state of Saarland said on Tuesday it would ban political campaigning by foreign politicians. "Internal Turkish conflicts have no place in Germany. Election appearances which put at risk domestic peace in our country must be banned," State Premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in a statement. "The atmosphere that has been created by Nazi comparisons and insults must not be allowed to escalate," she said. The Belgian city of Antwerp said it would not allow a politician from the nationalist MHP party to speak at an event, although Ali Guler was still set to appear on Sunday at a Turkish restaurant in Genk, in the east of the country. While Turkish law forbids election campaigning abroad and in diplomatic missions, ministers are circumventing the ban by holding what they say are cultural events with Turkish citizens. Erdogan has said that those who oppose the referendum, are aligning themselves with terrorists. He has also accused European states, including Germany, of harbouring terrorism, an allegation they deny. SHARP WORDS FOR MERKEL EU states are also unhappy with what they see as an increasingly authoritarian tone from Turkey and the spat is likely to further dim Ankara's prospects of EU membership. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn called on Turkey to moderate its language and avoid further escalating the dispute. Erdogan renewed his attack on Merkel after she criticised his "Nazi remnants" jibe against the Dutch. "The countries that have embraced this thuggery have lost all their credibility. The Chancellor of Germany has come out and said she supported the Netherlands. We know that you are no different than them," Erdogan said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Turkish sanctions, while "not too bad", were inappropriate as the Dutch had more to be angry about. Ankara's foreign ministry said the European Union was exercising democratic values selectively. "It is very grave for the EU to hide behind member country solidarity and stand by the Netherlands, which has clearly violated human rights and European values," it said. (Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul; Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Jon Boyle and Toby Davis)
Agencies that provide behavioral health services in Lincoln and Southeast Nebraska say the conversion by the state to three health care companies rather than one for managed care has given them their own management headache.

On Jan. 1, three companies -- United Healthcare, Nebraska Total Care, and WellCare of Nebraska -- took over managed care for Medicaid clients, called Heritage Health, each one able to provide integrated services for medical, behavioral health and pharmacy.

What that means for agencies is having to file claims with three companies, depending on the enrollment of clients, who do things three different ways, said Jon Day of Blue Valley Behavioral Health, a private nonprofit organization that provides outpatient behavioral health services in 16 rural counties in Southeast Nebraska.

Authorizations for medications? Three different ways. Enrollment and certification of counselors and other mental health workers? Three different ways. Claims for residential services? Three ways.

One company is underpaying the agencies' claims, Day said. Or claims have to be resubmitted several times.

Some agencies have racked up unpaid claims over a two-month period of well over $100,000.

"You only have so many resources, and so your staff has to end up doing three times the work," he said.

The reimbursement for services is slow, and some agencies are way behind getting paid for the claims they've submitted.

Topher Hansen, CEO of CenterPointe, said his agency has been trying to contract with all three managed care companies since October, but as of the end of February he had a contract with only one of the three.

For selected services, different companies are paying at highly reduced rates. They've also asked the agencies to submit claims to commercial insurers for Medicaid services, which the commercial insurers never have covered.

"It's just making us go through a ridiculous process that's going to end up taking time and back in the same place and submitting our bills to the (managed care companies)," Hansen said. "I cannot for my life understand why they're making us do this."

On claims for residential care to one of the companies, he said, CenterPointe hasn't been able to figure out how to submit them in a format the company will accept.

"And we work at this. I mean, we want this to smooth out. We've got to get our bills paid, and we need the money to do it," he said.

State Medicaid Director Calder Lynch said Monday that generally the implementation of the new managed care program has gone well. He acknowledged it has become more complex for mental health providers to work with three managed care companies, rather than one.

"We're working with them on a daily to weekly basis to address issues that are arising," Lynch said.

For some agencies that are struggling with the new claims processes, the managed care companies are providing cash advances when necessary.

The companies, collectively, have made about $10 million in payments for behavioral health services since Jan. 1, he said.

"But I do think that there probably are some providers who are being disproportionately impacted for a variety of reasons," Lynch said.

The companies are working individually with them, he said. And the state has made some adjustments to fee and service schedules, and claims will be reprocessed.

The state last week published an advisory telling the managed care companies which claims should not first require a denial by a commercial insurer.

Lynch said he believes it's just a handful of providers having problems.

"It's not to discount the importance of addressing it and getting it fixed," he said, "but I'm very confident we're going to work through these issues and things will be in stable operations very quickly."

It's important, he said, that clients have choice, and that they can get services that treat the whole person -- mental and physical health.

Jon Day said Monday some problems had improved, but only because of the hard, hard work agencies are doing, talking to the companies several times a week. And even with that, some problems are not resolved, he said.

"We bring our A-game," he said. "We bring our A-plus A-game. ... We should not have to be struggling this hard."

And the cash advances Lynch said companies are offering up?

"I've never heard that before," Day said. "That hasn't been offered to us yet. ... If they need (to offer) cash advances, tell me how messed up that is."

It's not just a handful of agencies, Day said. It's practically all of them.

There has to be better accountability, because just saying it's going to get better isn't enough, he said. The managed care companies should be penalized if they don't start making their benchmarks.
Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey on Tuesday attacked a ruling by the EU's top court that European companies can ban employees from wearing religious or political symbols including the Islamic headscarf, saying it would intensify anti-Muslim sentiment.

"The European Court of Justice decision on the headscarf today will only strengthen anti-Muslim and xenophobic trends," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a tweet

"Quo vadis Europa? (Where is Europe going?)" he added.

The response came as Turkey is locked in a mighty row with Germany, the Netherlands and other EU states over the blocking of Turkish officials from holding rallies abroad in the campaign for a referendum on expanding Erdogan's powers.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said it does not constitute "direct discrimination" if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of "any political, philosophical or religious sign."

The Luxembourg-based court was considering the case of a Muslim woman fired by the security company G4S in Belgium after she insisted on wearing a headscarf.

Turkey last month said it was lifting a historic ban on female officers wearing the Islamic headscarf in the country's officially secular armed forces, the last institution where the wearing of the garment was forbidden.
ANKARA, Turkey  In a half-destroyed temple overlooking the Turkish capital, there is a carved inscription of a text known as The Deeds of the Divine Augustus. It is the most complete surviving version of the funerary inscription of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Following its hagiographic accounts of wars won, gladiatorial spectacles commissioned, and money showered upon the populace, it concludes with a line that would later be echoed by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: Augustus, it says, was considered by the people of Rome as the father of the country.

Two millennia after Augustus, the conspiracies and political machinations of ancient Rome have nothing on modern Turkey. Today, the debate revolves around whether its current ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is echoing Augustus once again  this time by gutting the countrys democratic institutions and concentrating all power in his own hands. On April 16, Turks will vote in a referendum over a package of constitutional amendments meant to concentrate more power in the office of the presidency, the position currently held by Erdogan.

The vote serves as a stand-in for the countrys views on Erdogans 14 years of rule. The rest of the world, meanwhile, is staging its own informal referendum on Erdogan.

Over three days of meetings last week in Ankara, government officials defended the amendments as commonsense measures to ensure administrative stability and reform an undemocratic constitution devised by the countrys former military dictators. The opposition leaders spearheading the no campaign in the referendum, meanwhile, warned that the country was sliding into authoritarianism  in some cases, comparing Erdogans style of governance to dictators like Saddam Hussein.

Its too soon to predict whether Erdogan will win the upcoming referendum, but his government is already proving incapable of making its case to the West. The referendum has already sparked a new rift between Turkey and several European states. Both Germany and the Netherlands, which are both approaching their own elections amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment, recently banned demonstrations by Turkish officials seeking to drum up the yes vote among expatriate Turks. Erdogan responded by accusing both countries of Nazism, warning that the Netherlands will pay the price for its decision.

Story continues

The spat with Germany and the Netherlands is just one example. On a range of issues  from the state of Turkeys democracy to the Turkish role in Syria to Turkeys extradition request for the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of planning last summers coup attempt  Western countries have refused to adopt Ankaras views.

Ankara is partially responsible for its own alienation. Consider last weeks trip to Turkey organized for more than a dozen American journalists from outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal by Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek. The event was billed as a chance to meet with the countrys top officials, including President Erdogan, to hear their narrative of the coup attempt and why the United States should extradite Gulen.

The meetings, however, failed to materialize, and reporters were treated to a four-hour meeting with Gokcek himself. The majority of reporters left the meeting in protest. During the talk, Gokcek failed to present a single piece of evidence implicating Gulen in the coup and instead laid out his own conspiratorial worldview.

A recent earthquake in the gulf [off Turkeys western coast] was triggered by the United States and Israel with a ship. With a little bit of energy, they tried to trigger the fault line, Gokcek said.

The Ankara mayor, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has warned before that foreign and domestic enemies were causing earthquakes in Turkey. He also mused that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had founded the Islamic State, citing the statements of U.S. President Donald Trump as corroboration.

I investigate a lot, he said, when asked for further evidence. I have the largest intelligence service in the world. You know what it is? Google.

Other officials made the governments case more successfully. Several argued for a yes vote by pointing to the instability of governing coalitions  the republic has had 65 governments in its 94-year history  as a key factor in blocking much-needed reforms and empowering a cadre of unelected bureaucrats and army officers.

I genuinely believe that the current system is not sustainable. [It] is prone to crises and conflicts, said Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek. I would fully recommend that instead of just focusing on fears and theories about President Erdogan, just look at the text.

The constitutional amendments would concentrate executive power in the hands of the president, a position that until now has been largely ceremonial. The amendments would give him the power to appoint and fire ministers, as well as design state budgets. The president would be able to serve two five-year

terms and, unlike now, continue to serve as the head of a political party. With the changes going into effect in 2019, this would potentially allow Erdogan to stay in power until 2029.

Government officials, however, contend that the package would actually enhance the separation of powers in Turkey by dividing parliaments existing powers with the office of the presidency. Parliament would maintain the power to approve the presidents budget, ratify international treaties and declarations of war, and overrule a presidential decree through legislation.

The legal merits of the constitutional changes aside, government officials also portray a yes vote as a victory against their domestic opponents  most prominently, the supporters of Gulen and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the state.

Im convinced that April 16 may serve as a closure, Simsek said. Because Turkeys efforts against the religious cult [the Gulenists] are largely done. The cases are at the court; its up to the courts to decide. And the PKK, their strategy once they got emboldened with gains in Syria, it backfired, because Turkey is no ordinary country.

But closure is precisely what Turkeys opposition fears. They think it means they would lose any remaining political influence they have held on to since last summers coup attempt, and Erdogans subsequent domestic crackdown, by entrenching his position as the countrys preeminent political figure.

We dont want one-man rule, which is an authoritarian regime, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the largest opposition party, told Foreign Policy from his office in parliament. The authority to enact laws will be given to one man with this draft change, and we find it very dangerous.

Kilicdaroglu, the head of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), is leading the campaign for the no vote. But he argues that he is doing so while the playing field is tilted against him.

The state of emergency governing Turkey since last summers coup attempt has had a chilling effect on public debate, he said, preventing civil society and business associations from expressing their opinion on the referendum for fear of the government. He also contended that the vast majority of Turkeys media is sympathetic to Erdogan after a crackdown on the press over the past year. Amnesty International recently reported that more than 160 press outlets have been shuttered since the coup attempt and more than 120 journalists are currently imprisoned, making Turkey the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.

There is no press freedom in Turkey, Kilicdaroglu said bluntly. Erdogan, he said, had brought the country to the edge of the abyss.

The second-largest opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), has the most reason to fear a post-referendum government crackdown. Thirteen of the pro-Kurdish partys parliamentarians are currently imprisoned, accused of links to the PKK. The partys co-leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, have both been jailed, and Yuksekdag was stripped from her seat in parliament after being convicted on terrorism charges.

Among those arrested was the partys spokesman, Ayhan Bilgen. At the HDP headquarters in Ankara, Osman Baydemir, a former mayor of the majority-Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, has been thrust into the role.

If you come here next month, Im not sure who you will meet as a party speaker. I hope Ayhan Bilgen gets out of jail. But it looks like, unfortunately, I will go to prison, too, Baydemir said. This is actually Figen Yuksekdags room we are using now. Im pretty sure that in just this hour, at just this time, [Turkeys security services] are listening to this room.

However the referendum turns out, the war between Erdogan and his domestic and international foes only seems poised to escalate. As Turkeys president accuses his antagonists in Europe of Nazism, his political enemies at home are only too happy to throw equally bombastic accusations back at him.

Erdogans political style looks like Saddam Husseins or Bashar al-Assads style, Baydemir said. They want to make a one-party state  this is like the example of North Korea.

ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images
By Ercan Gurses and Humeyra Pamuk ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned the Netherlands that he could take further steps in a deepening diplomatic row, while a government spokesman in Ankara said economic sanctions could be coming. Incensed by Dutch and German government bans on his ministers from speaking to rallies of overseas Turks, Erdogan also accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of siding with the Netherlands in the fight between the NATO allies. Turkey suspended high-level diplomatic relations with the Netherlands on Monday, banning the Dutch ambassador from the country and preventing diplomatic flights from landing in Turkey or using its airspace. Those steps were taken after Erdogan branded the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" at the weekend for muzzling his ministers. "The cabinet took action yesterday but there are many other things that could be done against the Netherlands," Erdogan said in a speech broadcast live on television. "We will show those who think they can get away with an apology that they are making a mistake," said Erdogan, who is campaigning for an April 16 referendum on boosting his powers and has been looking to the large number of Turks living in Europe to help secure victory. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus later told broadcaster CNN Turk that economic sanctions could be in the works. "Pressure will continue against the Netherlands until they make up for what they did. We've started with the political, diplomatic sanctions, and economic sanctions may follow," he said. Erdogan has threatened to take the Netherlands to the European Court of Human Rights over the ban on his ministers, which both the Dutch and Germans have imposed citing fears of unrest. Dutch police used dogs and water cannon on Sunday to disperse hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags outside the consulate in Rotterdam. Some protesters threw bottles and stones and several demonstrators were beaten by police with batons, a Reuters witness said. Mounted police officers charged the crowd. SAARLAND, BELGIAN BANS The small western German state of Saarland said on Tuesday it would ban political campaigning by foreign politicians. "Internal Turkish conflicts have no place in Germany. Election appearances which put at risk domestic peace in our country must be banned," State Premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in a statement. "The atmosphere that has been created by Nazi comparisons and insults must not be allowed to escalate," she said. The Belgian city of Antwerp said it would not allow a politician from the nationalist MHP party to speak at an event, although Ali Guler was still set to appear on Sunday at a Turkish restaurant in Genk, in the east of the country. While Turkish law forbids election campaigning abroad and in diplomatic missions, ministers are circumventing the ban by holding what they say are cultural events with Turkish citizens. Erdogan has said that those who oppose the referendum, are aligning themselves with terrorists. He has also accused European states, including Germany, of harboring terrorism, an allegation they deny. SHARP WORDS FOR MERKEL EU states are also unhappy with what they see as an increasingly authoritarian tone from Turkey and the spat is likely to further dim Ankara's prospects of EU membership. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn called on Turkey to moderate its language and avoid further escalating the dispute. Erdogan renewed his attack on Merkel after she criticized his "Nazi remnants" jibe against the Dutch. "The countries that have embraced this thuggery have lost all their credibility. The Chancellor of Germany has come out and said she supported the Netherlands. We know that you are no different than them," Erdogan said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Turkish sanctions, while "not too bad", were inappropriate as the Dutch had more to be angry about. Ankara's foreign ministry said the European Union was exercising democratic values selectively. "It is very grave for the EU to hide behind member country solidarity and stand by the Netherlands, which has clearly violated human rights and European values," it said. (Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul; Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Jon Boyle and Toby Davis)
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was at one time known for articulating a foreign policy of zero problems with our neighbors. If that always seemed perhaps overly ambitious given the unpredictability of international affairs, some of Turkeys recent problems originate with Erdogans own mouth. These days, Turkeys diplomacy is perhaps better known for how faithfully its leaders rhetoric conforms to Godwins law.

Over the past few years, the Turkish president has gotten into highly personal foreign-policy disputes with his foes and friends alike, describing the events that followed the toppling of the Morsi regime in Egypt as state terrorism; likening Israels operations in Gaza to Hitlers barbarism; accusing the U.S. of supporting terrorists; and, most recently, describing the Netherlands and Germany as Nazis for their barring of Turkish political campaigning on their soil.

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Here is a list of countries whose leaders Erdogan has has likened to Nazisalong with other choice epithets the Turkish leader favors.

GERMANY

The insult: Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past.

The provocation: Erdogans remarks in Istanbul on March 5 followed Germanys decision, citing security concerns, to block Turkish political rallies on its soil ahead of a referendum next month in Turkey that, if it goes the governments way, would expand Erdogans power. Turks in Europe are a key part of Erdogans constituencyand though overseas campaigning is illegal under Turkish law most political parties in the country flout this rule. More than 1 million Turks in Germany alone are eligible to vote in the Turkish referendum.

The consequences: German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the remarks particularly grave, but her spokesman was more forthright, calling them absurd. Merkel had pinned on Erdogan her hopes on resolving Europes refugee crisis. Its unclear how this latest flare-up will affect the agreement Turkey reached with the EU last year, though Erdogan has threatened to scupper the deal during previous spats with the EU.

Story continues

THE NETHERLANDS

The insult: Nazism is alive in the West.

The provocation: Over the weekend, Dutch officials prevented Turkish ministers from holding rallies related to the referendum. They too cited security concerns. Erdogans Nazi reference came almost immediately. On Tuesday, he escalated, saying the Dutch had been spineless and ignoble during the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. A Dutch court found in 2014 that the Dutch government was liable for the deaths of about 300 victims, saying the peacekeepers didnt do enough to stop the killings. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told the BBC on Tuesday that Erdogans remarks are a vile falsification. Rutte also told the BBC that Erdogan was becoming increasingly more hysterical hour by hour and I want him to... calm down.

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The consequences: In theory Turkey and the Netherlands are allies. They both belong to NATO. Turks make up about 2.4 percent of the Dutch population and Turkey is a top tourist destination for the Dutch, and an important trading partner. Erdogans strong language could strengthen his position ahead of the referendumthough it seems likely the Turkish leader will win regardless. But the spat could also have consequences in Wednesdays Dutch parliamentary elections, in which issues of immigration and Islam have dominated the campaigning. Most polls show Ruttes ruling center-right Peoples Party (VVD) for Freedom and Democracy neck-and-neck with Geert Wilderss far-right Dutch Freedom Party (PVV). Neither party is expected to win an outright mandate to govern, but, because of how the Dutch political system is structured, the VVD is more likely than the PVV to be part of the next Dutch government.

ISRAEL

The insult: Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.

The provocation: Erdogans remarks came during Israels Operation Protective Edge against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in 2014. The longtime allies were then experiencing a low point in relations. Turkey is one of three countries in the region (the others are Jordan and Egypt) that has diplomatic relations with Israel. But ties suffered in 2010 after Israel raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters, killing 10 people, all Turkish activists.

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The consequences: Israel warned its citizens not to travel to Turkey in light of rising anti-Israeli sentiment at the time. It also reduced staff at its embassy in Ankara and consulate in Istanbul. But last year, the two countries announced a thaw. Israel said it would pay out $20 million to the bereaved and injured from the 2010 raid and Turkey said it would deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. The two countries enjoy relatively normal relations now.

SYRIA

The insult: Fighting your own people until the death is not heroism, its cowardice. If you want to see someone who fights his people to the death, look at Nazi Germany, look at Hitler.

The provocation: These comments, made in 2011, were directed by Erdogan to his onetime friend, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, at the start of the Syrian civil war.

The consequences: Turkey opened its doors to millions fleeing the fighting in Syria and is the country hosting the most Syrian refugees in the world, but its involvement in Syrias conflict has also resulted in Erdogan clashing with countries that are allies. He fell out with Russia over the shooting down of a Russian fighter jet that Turkey alleged strayed into its airspace in the course of Syria operations (the two countries have since made up), and has experienced tensions with the U.S. for its support of what Turkey regards as Kurdish terrorist groups. Meanwhile, six years after the war began, Assad is still firmly in charge of his countryand Erdogan no longer publicly calls for him to either step down or be ousted.

EUROPEAN UNION

The insult: Without any shame, ignoring their own blood-stained hands and without considering their own callous hearts, they draw comparisons between us and the Nazis. If there are any Nazis, it is you who are the Nazis.

The provocation: The remarks last November followed criticism in Europe of Erdogan's crackdown in Turkey following the coup attempt against him last July. That crackdown prompted Jean Asselbor, Luxembourgs prime minister, who compared the crackdown on the Turkish media and opposition, to events in Nazi Germany.

The consequences: Relations between the EU and Turkey have remained tense since the coup. Erdogan has said EU countries did not condemn the coup harshly enough, and, in fact, he says, condemned his government for cracking down on those who he suspected of organizing it.

Erdogan uses the Nazi insult quite liberally, but also employs it when describing the kind of state he wants to create in Turkey using next months referendum, which would give him vastly expanded powers.

There is nothing to say that you cant have a presidential system in a unitary state, he said last year. There are already some examples in the world today, and also some from the past. You see it when you look at Hitlers Germany.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Istanbul (AFP) - A Turkish court on Tuesday kept a foreign travel ban in place against a top novelist charged with "terror propaganda" in a controversial case that has intensified concerns over freedom of speech.

The Istanbul court maintained the restriction on Asli Erdogan, who was released from jail last December but remains on trial, despite her pleas to be allowed to leave Turkey temporarily.

"I am asking for the removal of the overseas travel ban temporarily, so that I can participate in award ceremonies abroad," she told the court.

Erdogan, 49, was initially held for 132 days on terror propaganda charges during a probe into the now-closed Ozgur Gundem newspaper, which Ankara condemned as a mouthpiece for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Her detention sparked an international outcry, with critics saying freedom of expression has been drastically curtailed in Turkey following the crackdown in the wake of July's failed coup which sought to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

She was charged over three articles written for Ozgur Gundem last year on the situation in the Kurdish-majority southeast where Turkish armed forces are battling the PKK, which is listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

If convicted, Erdogan -- no relation to the president -- could face life imprisonment.

The next hearing is due on June 22.

"She is an author and receiving a lot of awards," her lawyer Erdal Dogan told the court, saying ceremonies were planned in Vienna, Amsterdam and Stuttgart.

"Writers and journalists are peace envoys," he said, adding that her participation could help alleviate Turkey's mounting tensions with several European countries including Germany and the Netherlands.

- 'Against dialogue' -

Erdogan expressed deep disappointment at the ruling, saying she would not be able to attend the award ceremonies in Europe.

She is among the laureates of the 2017 Princess Margriet Award for Culture and the prize winners are due to receive their award in Amsterdam on May 9, Europe Day.

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"It is a European prize given to a writer whose country is not a member of the European Union. Turkey in a way refused the little flower that was handed to us," Erdogan told AFP.

"I guess this is in a way a symbolic answer against dialogue and reunification," she said of the ruling.

Erdogan has published several well-received novels including "The City in Crimson Cloak", which has been translated into English.
By Stefanie Eimermacher and Daniel Felleiter BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's push to expand his powers in an April 16 referendum is causing deep divisions in Germany's already fractured three million-strong Turkish community, splitting families and turning friends into enemies. Emotions are running especially high after German authorities banned several planned rallies by Turkish ministers, citing public security concerns. Erdogan has branded such bans "fascist", infuriating the German government. "My father is pro-Erdogan. When he turns on the television, I have to leave the room," one 22-year old German man of Turkish descent told Reuters in Berlin, where he is completing a year of voluntary work before starting his university studies. Many of his friends' families have also been split by the looming referendum, said the man, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from ardent pro-Erdogan supporters or a ban on visiting Turkey. Just down the street in Berlin's multicultural Kreuzberg district, bright red signs proclaiming "Hayir" - 'No' in Turkish - and "No to dictatorship in Turkey" have been ripped from a fence and now lie on the pavement. Others are shocked by the efforts of German, Dutch and other authorities to prevent Turkish politicians rallying support on European soil for the referendum. "It's completely right-wing and radical how the Turks are being treated here," said Ergun Gumusalev, another Turkish man, told Reuters in Cologne. "I'm actually opposed to Erdogan, but how can this be? Where are we living? We've been here for 50, 60 years, exploited like pigs ... and here's the thanks we get." THREATS Many Turks came to Germany as "Gastarbeiter' (guest workers) in the 1960s and 1970s and contributed to the country's postwar "economic miracle". But the latest conflict has reignited debate about the integration of Turks in German society, and Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians are anxious not to import internal Turkish conflicts into Germany. Ismail Kupeli, a political science professor at Ruhr-Bochum University, said he expected about 60 percent of the 1.4 million Turks in Germany who are eligible to vote in the referendum to back Erdogan, roughly the same percentage that backed the Turkish leader in the last presidential vote. "Erdogan is trying to shore up support for the referendum here because polls show a narrow majority is against the measure in Turkey," Kupeli told Reuters. "People are being told, 'Either you're for the president or you're terrorists ... Either you're for a strong Turkey under Erdogan or a weak Turkey that is under the thumb of the West.'" Ahmet Daskin, project manager with the Foundation for Dialogue and Education, said his members had recently seen a big increase in hate messages on social media. The foundation is close to Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric accused by Erdogan of orchestrating last summer's failed coup in Turkey. "It's much worse than it was a few months ago," Daskin said. The group's leader, Ercan Karakoyun, is currently on a book tour across Germany, but his appearances must be coordinated with local police since he has received over two dozen death threats since the coup, Daskin said. "Every time Erdogan ratchets up his rhetoric, the threats and harassment increase over here," he added. A ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Tuesday that said companies in the European Union may bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves or other visible religious symbols could further exacerbate tensions in the Turkish community. "I think it's discriminatory and unnecessary because my headscarf doesn't limit my ability to work at all," Beyda Kokluce, a Turkish woman in Cologne, told Reuters. "It will only make the situation worse," said a second woman, Gokalp Cerci. "Every person is free to decide what he wears at work, and setting up general bans for people won't accomplish anything." (Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Reuters TV; Editing by Gareth Jones)
In the age of stickiest-of-ickiest-and-rising THC percentages, it appears the United States government still supplies researchers with low grade brick weed you probably smoked in high school. Actually, it's worse than the weed you smoked in high school.

According to reports from PBS and the Washington Post, all marijuana used in research must be supplied by the federal government, and the pot that the government has been handing out looks like trash.

Government marijuana looks nothing like the real stuff. See for yourself. https://t.co/UKNSYwqPWQ pic.twitter.com/IbQv8p5NWu  Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 13, 2017

Though it's relatively simple to grow, the quality of cannabis you can purchase (legally or illegally) in the United States can vary greatly. Lighting, air quality, humidity and pests can all play a massive role in the end product, so growing weed may be pretty easy, but growing great weed can be pretty taxing.

As the Post points out, when researchers are testing the effects of marijuana, they need to test the real thing that people are actually growing, buying and consuming. But the cannabis being supplied to researchers currently is far from something you'd typically buy in a dispensary in Denver. Or getting from an illegal delivery service in New York City.

Some decent weed. Not the bad stuff.

Image: Jon Santa Cruz/REX/Shutterstock

And while weed comes in plenty of colors, shapes, densities and sizes, the pot analyzed by PBS and the Post looks extremely yellow and filled with stems.

Sue Sisley, a researcher with MAPS studying the medical effects of marijuana on U.S. veterans suffering from PTSD told PBS the weed supplied to them for the study doesn't even smell like weed.

It doesnt resemble cannabis. It doesnt smell like cannabis," she said.

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Not only is the weed bad, but Sisley claims it was moldy as well. So the government clearly doesn't have it together when it comes to growing pot.

All of the cannabis provided for medical research comes from a 12-acre farm located at the University of Mississippi. The farm is run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and is the only facility licensed by the DEA to grow pot for research, since marijuana remains a schedule 1 drug to the DEA. (It's classified in a category with heroin and ecstasy, which also makes a lot of sense.)

Rick Doblin, MAPS director, blasted NIDA's capabilities by telling PBS, Theyre in no way capable of assuming the rights and responsibilities for handling a drug that were hoping to be approved by the FDA as prescription medicine. 

Some more very pretty cannabis.

Image: F. Bukaty/AP/REX/Shutterstock

When confronted about the mold and potency, NIDA and the University of Mississippi told PBS that neither test the samples for mold before they're shipped.

Sisely had the samples provided by the government tested by an independent lab in Colorado as a part of typical protocol. There they found high levels of total yeast and mold in some samples, as well as potency that didn't match what they had ordered. One sample was supposed to contain 13 percent THC  it reportedly had just 8 percent.

Shockingly, 13 percent THC is the highest percentage NIDA offers. In Colorado you can walk into a dispensary and buy weed that is easily 20 percent, sometimes upwards of 30 percent.

NIDA blamed the mold problem on the lab, saying they didn't handle it properly when they left it in a refrigerator for two days instead of freezing it. MAPS fired back, saying the weed with elevated total yeast and mold counts "were found in samples that never left the freezer before testing," according to PBS.

While it was determined the mold variety in the cannabis was not harmful to adults, it's clear that the United States needs to form better quality control and standards testing for cannabis, be it medical, recreational or for research. Regardless of how you feel about marijuana, the effects of the plant deserve to be properly researched, and right now, it appears they aren't.

Though there way may be hope on the horizon: The DEA announced in the summer that it would start to allow other bulk growers the ability to provide cannabis for medical research, though none have yet been approved.
(LONDON)  Britain lurched closer to leaving the European Union Monday when Parliament stopped resisting and gave Prime Minister Theresa May the power to file for divorce from the bloc.

But in a blow to Mays government, the prospect of Scotlands exit from the United Kingdom suddenly appeared nearer, too. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a referendum on independence within two years to stop Scotland being dragged out of the E.U. against its will.

In an announcement that took many London politicians by surprise, Sturgeon vowed that Scotland would not be taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice.

Sturgeon spoke in Edinburgh hours before the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed its final hurdle in Parliaments upper chamber, the House of Lords.

The House of Commons approved the bill weeks ago, but the 800-strong Lords fought to amend it, inserting a promise that E.U. citizens living in the U.K. will be allowed to remain after Britain pulls out of the bloc.

They also added a demand that Parliament get a meaningful vote on the final deal between Britain and the remaining 27 E.U. nations.

Both amendments were rejected Monday by the Commons, where Mays Conservatives have a majority. A handful of pro-E.U. Conservatives expressed their unhappiness, then abstained from the vote.

The bill returned to the Lords, in a process known as parliamentary ping pong. Faced with the decision of the elected Commons, the Lords backed down and approved it without amendments.

Labour peer Dianne Hayter, who proposed the amendment on E.U. citizens, said the Lords had done their best, but our view has been rejected in the elected House of Commons, and it is clear the government is not for turning.

Once the bill receives royal assent  a formality that should be accomplished within hours  May will be free to invoke Article 50 of the E.U.s key treaty, triggering two years of exit negotiations, by her self-imposed deadline of March 31.

Story continues

May was forced to seek Parliaments approval for the move after a Supreme Court ruling in January torpedoed her attempt to start the process of leaving the bloc without a parliamentary vote.

The House of Commons and House of Lords battled over the bills contents, with the status of E.U. nationals in Britain  and Britons in fellow E.U. member countries  drawing especially emotional debate.

Both British and E.U. officials have said such residents should be guaranteed the right to stay where they are, but the two sides have so far failed to provide a concrete guarantee, leaving millions of people in limbo.

Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry told the House of Commons that one constituent, a Lithuanian, had told her the uncertainty caused by this government and this Parliament is making her feel worse about her personal situation in Britain than she did in Lithuania under the Soviets.

Brexit Secretary David Davis told lawmakers the government had a moral responsibility to the 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and the 1 million Britons in other member states, and intends to guarantee their rights as soon as possible after exit talks start.

That is why we must pass this straightforward bill without further delay, so the prime minister can get to work on the negotiations and we can secure a quick deal that secures the status of both European Union citizens in the U.K. and also U.K. nationals living in the E.U., he said.

Pro-EU lawmakers accused the government and Brexit-backing lawmakers of running roughshod over the concerns of the 48% of Britons who voted to stay in the E.U.

Conservative legislator Dominic Grieve called the governments opposition of handing Parliament a final vote on Brexit deranged, and the Green Partys Caroline Lucas said lawmakers should not just hand ministers a blank check.

We were not elected to be lemmings, Lucas said.

Euroskeptics accused pro-E.U. legislators of trying to frustrate the will of voters who passed a June referendum to leave the EU.

The simple truth is this  deal or no deal, vote or no vote, positive vote or negative vote, this process is irreversible, Conservative legislator Edward Leigh said. Were leaving the E.U., and thats what the people want.

May is now free to trigger Article 50 as early as Tuesday, but the government signaled the move would come much closer to the March 31 deadline.

May spokesman James Slack repeated the governments position that it would happen by the end of March.

Ive said end many times, but it would seem I didnt put it in capital letters strongly enough, he said.

The governments satisfaction at victory in Parliament was tempered by the prospect of an independence vote that threatens the 300-year old political union between England and Scotland.

Sturgeon said she would seek to hold a referendum between the fall of 2018 and the spring of 2019 so Scottish voters could make an informed choice about their future.

While Britons overall voted to leave the E.U., Scottish voters backed remaining by 62 to 38%, and Sturgeon said they should not be forced to follow the rest of the U.K. into a hard Brexit outside the E.U. single market.

In a 2014 referendum, Scottish voters rejected independence by a margin of 55% to 45%. But Sturgeon said the U.K.s decision to leave the E.U. had brought about a material change of circumstances.

May  whose government would have to approve a legally binding referendum  accused Sturgeons Scottish National Party of political tunnel vision and called her announcement deeply regrettable.
The U.N. Human Rights Council was urged Monday to establish a commission of inquiry into the persecution of Myanmars Rohingya minority, a mostly stateless Muslim group living in apartheid-like conditions in the countrys western state of Rakhine.

Addressing the council in Geneva, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, warned that the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether. Lee called for a full U.N. inquiry into the systematic, structural, and institutional discrimination and long-standing persecution against the Rohingya and other minorities in the state, which has seen several waves of deadly violence over the past five years.

The council is expected to rule on a wide-ranging resolution on human rights in Myanmar on Thursday. A preliminary draft does not include a full commission of inquiry, but urges the government to cooperate with the rapporteurs efforts to investigate. Riots in 2012 displaced more than 100,000 Rohingya, who still live in squalid camps near the state capital Sittwe, while military operations late last year displaced an estimated 94,000 others, most of whom fled to neighboring Bangladesh.

Read More: Myanmars Rohingya Displacement Camps Are Feeling Ever More Permanent

There are an estimated 1.1 million Rohingya in Myanmar. The latest exodus began after the Myanmar armed forces launched counterinsurgency operations in the states northern Maungdaw township in response to a deadly attack on border patrols by suspected Rohingya insurgents on Oct. 9. State security forces have been accused of collective punishment in the wake of the attack; refugees poured into Bangladesh telling accounts of gang rape, torture and extrajudicial killings.

Lee visited Maungdaw in January, but emerged with concern that people she spoke with would be subject to reprisal by security forces. The rapporteur also recalled harrowing accounts she heard from refugees who had fled across the border; in one case a woman thought that her son had been taken out of the familys burning house. She heard him screaming for her and managed to save his life but scars have been seared into him  scars which I saw with my own eyes, Lee recalled for the council. The truth about whether all, or some, or any of these allegations are correct needs to be established.

Story continues

Read More: This Will Be the Worst War: Fears of Mass Displacement as Thousands Flee Conflict in Myanmars Northeast

In December, Lee told TIME that the situation in Rakhine state is getting very close to what we would all agree are crimes against humanity, and the reports she had received painted a different picture to the governments official version of events.

The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied allegations of wrongdoing. A government-backed commission was established to probe the allegations, but the rapporteur and other experts said it is neither credible nor impartial. Lee enumerated a number of other serious human-rights concerns in the country at large, also calling for prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into escalating conflict in the countrys northeastern Shan and Kachin states, where tens of thousands of people have been recently displaced.
Going to graduate school requires people to bet on their own potential for professional growth -- and it's a move that can dramatically increase annual salaries.

The median annual earnings of a full-time worker with a professional degree is $49,500 higher than the median income of an individual who only has a bachelor's degree, according to a 2016 report by the College Board. In addition to financial benefits, a graduate degree can also lead to professional advancement or a career change.

Calculating the potential return on investment for graduate school is one necessary step in deciding whether to attend, and it can also clarify what type of degree would be most marketable. Prospective students can refer to the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools rankings, released today, for guidance on identifying the right program to accelerate their career.

The 2018 edition of the rankings evaluates graduate schools of business, law, medicine, nursing, engineering and education. These schools are rated based on a variety of factors, including acceptance rates, standardized test scores and grade-point averages of incoming students, and academic experts' opinions about program excellence.

For the business, law, medicine, education and engineering rankings, U.S. News also incorporated feedback from hiring managers who assessed how well those programs prepared students for the working world. Each discipline's ranking methodology varies to take into account program differences.

[Video: See three ways graduate school can pay off.]

Business: Harvard Business School tied for the No. 1 spot in the full-time MBA program rankings with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which moved up from No. 4 last year. This in turn bumped the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago down one spot to No. 3. Stanford University fell from a tie at No. 2 last year to a three-way tie at No. 4.

The Stern School of Business at New York University, whose rank was negatively affected last year due to omitted data on the U.S. News survey, jumped up eight spots this year, rising from No. 20 to a tie at No. 12. The Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University also rose in the rankings, soaring 18 spots from a tie at No. 83 to a tie at No. 65.

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Among part-time MBA programs, the Haas School of Business at the University of California--Berkeley once again claimed the No.1 title, followed by Chicago's Booth School of Business. The NYU Stern School of Business and the Anderson School of Management at the University of California--Los Angeles are tied at No. 3.

[See photos of the Best Business Schools.]

Law: The hierarchy of the top law schools shifted slightly this year. Yale Law School is No.1 again, and Stanford Law School is still No. 2, but Harvard Law School, which was previously tied for No. 2, dropped to the No. 3 spot.

Both Duke University and the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University cracked the top 10 this year, tying at No. 10. The University of California--Berkeley fell out of the top 10, landing at No. 12. Farther down the list, Washington and Lee University climbed 12 spots, rising from a tie at No. 40 to a tie at No. 28.

Among part-time law programs, the No. 1 school is Georgetown University, as it was last year, but George Washington University and Fordham University switched places this year, with the former taking second place and the latter taking third place.

[Explore photos of the 2018 Best Law Schools.]

Medicine: In the research-based medical school rankings, Harvard was once again No.1, followed by Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University. The University of California--San Francisco and the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, which both tied with Johns Hopkins for third place last year, are now ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.

In the rankings of primary care medicine programs, the top three schools remained the same, with the University of Washington at No.1, the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill at No. 2 and UC--San Francisco at No. 3. Duke University fell in the primary care rankings, dropping from No. 8 to a tie at No. 34, and so did Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, which went from No. 15 to No. 33.

Nursing: Among nursing master's programs, there were significant changes at the top of the rankings. Duke took the No. 1 spot this year, climbing three spots from last year, when it was tied at fourth place.

Johns Hopkins, which was No. 1 last year, is now in second place and the University of Pennsylvania, which was No. 2 last year, is now in third place.

In the rankings of Doctor of Nursing Practice programs, Duke claimed the No.1 title, swapping spots with the University of Washington, which is now in third place.

Engineering: The top four spots in the graduate engineering rankings were claimed by the same schools as last year with the Massachusetts Institute Technology at No.1, Stanford at No. 2, Berkeley at No. 3, and the California Institute of Technology at No. 4.

Education: Harvard took the No. 1 title from Stanford, which is now in second place among graduate education programs. The University of California--Los Angeles now ties for third place, eight spots higher than where it ranked last year.

Searching for a grad school? Access our complete rankings of Best Graduate Schools.

Ilana Kowarski covers graduate schools for U.S. News. You can reach her via email at ikowarski@usnews.com.
Supporters of legislation to scrap the requirement that all motorcycle riders wear helmets in Nebraska fell one vote short Tuesday of ending a filibuster that has trapped the bill (LB368) at the first stage of floor consideration.

As a result, Speaker Jim Scheer of Norfolk will remove the bill from this year's legislative agenda.

However, the proposal may not be dead yet.

The lone senator who was absent for Tuesday's vote, Sen. Tyson Larson of O'Neill, conceivably could file a motion to reconsider the cloture vote. Larson has been a supporter of prior legislation to wipe out the helmet mandate.

The cloture motion failed on a 32-12 vote; under current legislative rules, at least 33 votes are needed to invoke cloture, end debate and allow a bill to move forward.

Tuesday's tight vote also raised questions as to whether it might be a factor in a forthcoming decision on whether to change the Legislature's filibuster rule that's designed to protect the rights of senators in the minority on an issue.

Under terms of a previous agreement, the filibuster rule could be back on the table for consideration next week when the temporary rules under which this session has been operating are scheduled to be revisited.

While the current rule requires at least 33 votes to end a filibuster, alternative proposals have included changes that would reduce that figure to 30 votes.

A change in that minority protection has been championed by senators who are Republicans.

The current composition of the nonpartisan Legislature is 32 Republicans, 15 Democrats, one Libertarian and one independent.

Sen. Robert Hilkemann of Omaha led the filibuster targeted at the motorcycle helmet bill, which would remove helmet restrictions for riders who are 21 or older. Sen. John Lowe of Kearney is the bill's sponsor.
KOBOKO, Uganda (AP)  South Sudan's government has begun a campaign of "population engineering" to relocate people over their ethnicity, a United Nations expert said Tuesday, as civil war continues under warnings of genocide.

Yasmin Sooka told the U.N. Human Rights Council that a government redrawing of state borders has depopulated ethnic Shilluk and Nuer inhabitants of the Upper Nile region.

Aid workers estimate that 2,000 mostly Dinka people were transported to Upper Nile after fighting in Wau Shilluk town there caused Shilluk people to flee, Sooka said. President Salva Kiir is Dinka.

The government then asked that the new arrivals get international humanitarian aid "while at the same time denying access to citizens who are starving in opposition areas," Sooka said. South Sudan's army has refused the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission access to the Wau Shilluk area, Sooka said

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013, and a peace deal backed by the United States collapsed in July. Fighting has spread to new parts of the country since then, and the U.N. has warned of ethnic cleansing.

Sooka reported a "massive increase" in human rights violations over the past nine months in the East African nation. "What's chilling is that they are occurring in many more parts of the country than before."

Unlawful arrests, rape, torture and killing have become the norm, the U.N. expert said, describing whole villages burnt to ashes and attacks on hospitals and churches.

Spokespeople for South Sudan's government and army were not immediately available for comment.

Last month, First Vice President Taban Deng told the Human Rights Council that the decision to redraw the state borders in South Sudan has created peace between the Shilluk and Dinka tribes, according to his statement obtained by The Associated Press.

"I can state with confidence that the notion of a looming genocide and possible ethnic cleansing is fading away," Deng said.

Story continues

South Sudan's government has committed to a hybrid court to investigate war crimes. The African Union has been tasked with creating the body, but progress has been slow.

Ken Scott, a member of the U.N. commission of inquiry on South Sudan, told the Human Rights Council on Tuesday that some officials in the region say the hybrid court will never be created.

Jacob Enoh Eben, a spokesman for the AU, told the AP earlier this month that the court will be created "as soon as the conditions for its establishment are set," but he declined to say what actions were being taken.

Sooka said the deterioration of human rights in South Sudan is directly attributable to the impunity that continues unabated.

"Alleged perpetrators still occupy senior political and military positions," she said.
China and South Korea will be joining trade talks with member states of the now-scuttled Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this week, raising fears that Beijing may dominate the meeting as it looks to benefit from Washington's absence.

Neither South Korea nor China are TPP members, but they are expected to focus on broad Asia-Pacific trade integration at the two-day event in Chile beginning Tuesday. Discussions there are expected to have a three-fold focus: the possibility of a TPP agreement without the U.S., the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Free Trade Area for the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

China has stressed that its participation in Chile is strictly focused on Asia-Pacific co-operation, not joining the TPP. The Chile meeting is not an TPP meeting, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying insisted on Monday, according to local media reports. Beijing, in fact, has never explicitly said it wanted to enter TPP talks, having previously called the entire deal too complex.

Still, the mainland is looking to gain more economic partnerships and fill up a predicted American vacuum in global trade .

President Donald Trump's exit from the TPP had disappointed many Asian members, for whom the deal represented profitable exports and imports in an environment of slow global growth. In response to Trump's policies, Beijing has repeatedly promoted itself as a champion of free trade .

China won't be taking the lead on the Chile talks, Deborah Kay Elms, executive director at Asian Trade Centre, told CNBC. "The onus is on the current members, particularly Japan, to decide if they want to continue promoting the gold standard agreement or consign it to the dust bin."

Alternative deals

If the Chile talks concentrate on RCEP instead of the TPP, that could actually speed up trade integration, Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit, said in a recent note, deeming RCEP a less complicated than TPP.

Story continues

At least two TPP member countries, Chile and Peru, have also expressed interest in joining RCEP talks.

But if the 11 existing TPP members  Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru  were to go ahead with the ambitious pact, that would require more time-intensive talks, Biswas noted.

"The original TPP deal required the ratification of TPP members comprising at least 85 percent of the GDP of the entire TPP grouping. Therefore, without the U.S., a new version of the TPP agreement would be needed."

A focus on RCEP would also work out in Beijing's favor ; the mainland has long preferred the alternative deal over TPP.

"The US withdrawal from the TPP will help to strengthen China's economic leadership position in the Asia Pacific with its key role as a member of trade negotiations on RCEP and the FTAAP," said Biswas.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.
Washington (AFP) - Senior US lawmakers on Tuesday blasted the leader of the Marine Corps over a "repugnant" scandal involving the nonconsensual posting of nude photos of women Marines online.

The scandal has rocked the Marines, which tout their "core values" of honor, courage and commitment, and have built a proud legacy in the American psyche of iconic moments such as the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

General Robert Neller, the Marine Corps's commandant, faced withering criticism from the Senate Armed Services Committee over his handling of the case that saw pictures of female Marines in various stages of undress shared via a secret Facebook group called "Marines United."

Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said it was a "serious problem" that there had been "no response" from Marine leadership.

"Your answers today are unsatisfactory. They do not go far enough," said Gillibrand, who highlighted that the Corps had been aware of the "online exploitation" of other Marines since 2013.

"Who is being held accountable for doing nothing since 2013? Who? Which commander?" she asked.

During a hearing before the panel, Neller offered what he described as a "lame" answer and accepted responsibility for a "problem" within Marine culture.

"I'm responsible. I'm the commandant, I own this and we are going to have to ... change how we see ourselves and how we treat each other."

Senator Jack Reed said the matter was "repugnant and just plain wrong and inexcusable."

- 'Misogynistic culture' -

Women have long been part of the US military, and last year under former president Barack Obama, all branches opened up all jobs to women, including combat units.

Of all the services, however, the Marines have been most resistant to accepting women in combat roles.

In an opinion piece in USA Today on Monday, Rachel VanLandingham, a law professor and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, called for Neller's head.

Story continues

"Not only does Neller's dereliction of duty warrant his firing, subordinate Marine Corps leaders need such an unequivocal signal that failure to exercise their command to safeguard their female members will not be tolerated," she wrote.

"This latest Marine Corps nude photo scandal -- not the first -- demonstrates the lamentable misogynistic culture that still exists in the Corps."

Membership in the "Marines United" group was restricted to current and former Marines, but it had as many as 30,000 members before it was taken down.

The story was first reported by The War Horse, a news group run by Marine veteran Thomas Brennan.

He said some of the photos were taken surreptitiously, while others had been taken by the women themselves but shared without their consent.

The pictures, often accompanied by lewd commentary, gave the women's names and units in some cases.

Another report last week, said hundreds of pictures of naked women from all the military services were being shared on another image-sharing site, AnonIB.

Because the Marine Corps is part of the Navy Department, the scandal is being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

"We will prosecute the matter of Marines United to the full extent of our abilities," Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley told lawmakers.

He said "every resource" would be made available to victims, and vowed to "eradicate this cancer" via a task force working on the issue.
New York (AFP) - Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International plunged Tuesday following news that activist investor Bill Ackman exited the controversial drug company.

Shares of the Canadian company dived 10.9 percent to $10.80 by midday after an announcement that Ackman's hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, sold its investment in the drug firm at a loss.

In addition, Ackman and fellow Pershing executive Stephen Fraidin said they would step down from the Valeant board.

The investment in Valeant accounted for just 1.5 to 3.0 percent of the value of Pershing's funds, but "required a disproportionately large amount of time and resources," the firm said in a statement.

"As a result, we elected to sell our investment and realize a large tax loss which will enable us to dedicate more time to our other portfolio companies and to new investment opportunities."

Analysts at BMO Capital Markets expressed surprise that Pershing Square opted to sell its entire stake in the company, saying the "throwing in the towel" stance "sends a poor signal regarding the road ahead for Valeant."

Pershing Square, which held about 5.3 percent of Valeant shares at the end of 2016, had stood by the drugmaker when it came under fire for hefty price increases and criticism over its accounting and business practices.

The company disclosed investigations by about a dozen government agencies in its most recent annual securities filing.

Valeant has taken steps to remake itself in response to critics, replacing its chief executive, divesting some divisions to reduce debt, and taking steps to advance a number of new drugs for regulatory approval.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Veteran U.S. diplomat Anne Patterson is out of the running to under secretary of defense for policy, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, depriving Defense Secretary Jim Mattis of his choice for his top policy adviser. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said Patterson ran into resistance on Capitol Hill that might have made it hard for her to win confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The Washington Post first reported that Patterson, who had previously served as the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East and as ambassador to Egypt, Pakistan, Colombia and El Salvador, was no longer a candidate. The newspaper reported that Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, both Republicans and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that would have reviewed her candidacy, opposed her selection. Aides to both did not respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately clear whether Patterson also faced opposition from the White House, though one Trump administration official said there has been a tug-of-war between Mattis and the White House over who should fill the top slots at the Pentagon. "The White House is being met with resistance from Secretary Mattis on almost every single one of our suggestions of who we would like in senior DoD jobs," said the official, saying "we are basically at a gridlock" but he hoped this would end soon. As under secretary of defense for policy, Patterson would have been the top policy adviser to the defense secretary as well as one of the primary links between the Pentagon and the rest of the U.S. national security apparatus. It was unclear how soon Mattis might offer an alternative for that or other key senior posts that, like many at the State Department, remain empty. (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed, Phil Stewart and David Brunnstrom; Editing by David Gregorio)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Vienna, Austria's grand capital on the Danube river, has topped consulting firm Mercer's list of cities offering the highest quality of life for the eighth year in a row, while Baghdad is again considered the worst place to live. The survey of 231 cities helps companies and organizations determine compensation and hardship allowances for international staff. It uses dozens of criteria such as political stability, health care, education, crime, recreation and transport. Global centers London, Paris, Tokyo and New York City did not even make the top 30, lagging behind most big German, Scandinavian, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian cities. Singapore was the highest ranked Asian city, at 25 while 29th-placed San Francisco was the United States' highest entry. Top of the list in Africa was South Africa's Durban at 87. Vienna's 1.8 million inhabitants benefit from the city's cafe culture and museums, theaters and operas. Rents and public transport costs in the city, whose architecture is marked by its past as the center of the Habsburg empire, are cheap compared with other western capitals. Switzerland's Zurich, New Zealand's Auckland, Germany's Munich and Canada's Vancouver followed Vienna in the top five of most pleasant cities to live in. Baghdad was again ranked lowest in the world. Waves of sectarian violence have swept through the Iraqi capital since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Six years into Syria's bloody war, Damascus was ranked seventh from bottom, with Bangui in the Central African Republic, Yemeni capital Sanaa, Haiti's Port-au-Prince, Sudan's Khartoum and Chad's N'Djamena filling out the end of the list. (Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Hanoi (AFP) - Vietnam police seized more than 100 kilograms of rhino horn smuggled into the country in suitcases from Kenya on Tuesday, the latest illegal haul in the wildlife trafficking hub.

Vietnam is a hot market for rhino horn, believed to have medicinal properties and is in high demand among the communist nation's growing middle class.

The country is a popular transit point for illegal animal products, which often move from Africa through Vietnam to other parts of Asia.

The latest haul of the prized animal parts at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport were found hidden in luggage on a flight from Nairobi, according to the official publication of the Hanoi police department.

"After scanning and checking, customs officials discovered the two suitcases of 57 kilograms (125 pounds) and 61 kilograms were full of suspected rhino horns," the online Capital Security Newspaper reports said.

Photos showed the huge haul in suitcases and stacked on tables.

Conservationists have warned that rampant demand for rhino horn in China and Vietnam, where it is falsely believed to cure cancer and treat hangovers, is decimating African rhino populations.

A single kilogram of rhino horn can fetch up to $60,000 on the local market, according to reports.

Britain's Prince William delivered an urgent plea in Vietnam in November to end wildlife trafficking to save critically endangered species such as rhino, elephants and pangolins.

Wild rhino populations have dwindled to just 29,000 from half a million at the beginning of the 20th century, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

Trade in rhino horn was banned globally in 1977 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Washington (AFP) - The US State Department on Tuesday urged North Korea to pardon an American student who was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a political banner from a hotel.

The call for the "immediate release" of Otto Warmbier, who is in his 20s, came as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on his way to Japan, South Korea and China to discuss Pyongyang's drive to field a nuclear-armed missile.

"We believe his sentence of 15 years hard labor is unduly harsh for the actions that Mr. Warmbier allegedly took," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

"And we urge North Korea to pardon him and grant him special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds."

Toner also asked that the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which offers limited consular services to US nationals incarcerated in North Korea, be allowed regular access to the student.

Warmbier was handed the tough sentence on March 16 last year by North Korea's supreme court after he admitted stealing a propaganda banner from a staff area of the Pyongyang hotel where he was staying on an organized tour.

On Tuesday, the State Department again discouraged US citizens from visiting the communist country, with which it has no diplomatic relations.

In addition to Warmbier, who was a student at the University of Virginia, Korean-American pastor Kim Dong-Chul, in his sixties, was sentenced last April to 10 years of hard labor for espionage.

Pyongyang has in the past used the detention of US citizens as a bargaining tool.

Former president Bill Clinton in 2009 and then director of national intelligence James Clapper in 2014 travelled to North Korea to negotiate and bring back convicted and jailed Americans.
Late Night host Seth Meyers got back to delivering his nightly satire as he unpacked the debate surrounding the new proposed healthcare plan on his A Closer Look segment on Monday. After playing a clip of Rep. Jason Chaffetz comparing buying healthcare to buying technology, Meyers had a very dry response.

Yeah, Americans need to cool it with the gadgets, he deadpanned about the Utah Republican. They always want the hot new iPhone, or Pacemaker, or crutches when a good ol stick will do.

He also discussed an unusual comment that had popped up on the congressional floor: the question of whos responsible for paying for prenatal care. Rep. John Shimkus had pushed back against the idea that men should be on the line for that particular responsibility.

Yeah, why should men pay for prenatal care? Meyers asked, mocking the Illinois Republican. For that matter, why should women? Prenatal care is for the fetuses. The fetuses should pay for it! Theyll just have to give up their precious iPhones, Meyers joked.

To see how Meyers lampooned Rep. Jason T. Smith of Missouriwho asked why we dont levy a tax on the sun for causing skin canceryoull have to watch the full clip, above.
From Delish

Happy Pi Day! March 14 used to be a holiday for just mathematicians, but in recent years it's turned into a pie free-for-all, and we couldn't be happier. These are the best deals and freebies of the day.

Achatz Homemade Pie Co.

Celebrate Pi Day with slices of pie (of course). All slices will be on sale for $3.14.

Bertucci's

From Tuesday, March 14 to Thursday, March 16, buy any large brick oven pizza and get a small pizza for only $3.14.

Bojangles'

Enjoy three of Bojangles' Sweet Potato Pies at the Pi Day appropriate price of $3.14.

Blaze Pizza

Blaze will be offering $3.14 whole pizzas all day long, at all locations on March 14. Look out for behind-the-scenes coverage on Facebook Live and Snapchat, and a special Snapchat Pi Day filter.

Pi Day, Pi Day, gotta get down on Pi Day-join us on 3/14 for $3.14 pies. *Limit one per order, in-restaurant only.*  #HowDoYouBlaze pic.twitter.com/2YGkKfHpcc - Blaze Pizza (@BlazePizza) March 9, 2017

Boston Market

On Tuesday, March 14, bring in a Pi Day coupon available on BostonMarket.com (or show it on your phone) and enjoy a free Rotisserie Chicken Pot Pie with the purchase of any individual meal and drink.

Story continues

Dickey's Barbecue Pit

Dickey's is honoring Pi Day by offering a free slice of pecan pie with a $10 purchase. Redeem the offer online by entering promo code PIDAY.

Hungry Howie's

Hungry Howie's is celebrating Pi Day on March 13 AND 14 by offering customers a medium one-topping pizza for $3.14 with any purchase of Howie Bread. The offer is available at all Hungry Howie's locations, with the exception of those in Florida (Sorry, Sunshine State).

Marie Callender's

Marie Callender's has teamed up with 10Below Ice Cream and Andy Cohen to create a limited-edition, pie-infused ice cream creation. The new Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frozen Pie features tea-flavored ice cream and is topped with some of Andy's favorite foods, like strawberries and chocolate. The first 314 people to come through 10Below's 132 Allen St. location on March 14 with the golden ticket will receive the pie for free.

Pi Pizzeria

The fun at Pi Pizzeria starts on March 13. Enjoy Happy Hour specials and Pi Memorization Contest for ages 15 and younger, with the winner receiving a $50 Pi gift card and Pi Pizzeria T-shirt. Additionally, you can buy one large pizza and get another pizza for just $3.14. On March 14, that deal will still be available, and if you have the birth date of March 14 and have the ID to prove it, you'll get a free large pizza. There will also be a Pi Memorization Contest for adults, with the winner receiving a $100 gift card.

Pieology Pizzeria

All day long, pizzas will be sold for just $3.14. To claim the deal, all you have to do is become a PieLife member. After joining, you'll receive an email confirmation and a coupon for the $3.14 pizza, which you will then show at the register.

Pi Day is coming! Join Pie Life & get one custom pizza for $3.14 at participating locations on 3/14. Sign up here: https://t.co/4qtGhIL9oa pic.twitter.com/UzS8Cyzv5I - Pieology Pizzeria (@pieology) March 8, 2017

Schlotzsky's

Pi Day also coincides with National Potato Chip Day. In honor of the double celebration, Schlotzsky's is offering a free bag of chips with the purchase of a medium sandwich on drink at all of their restaurants nationwide.

The Pizza Press

Celebrate Pi Day with The Pizza Press by getting a $3.14 pizza with purchase of any drink. To redeem, show the coupon at the register.

Our favorite day of the year is here! Come celebrate Pi Day with The Pizza Press by gettin https://t.co/pr9qCTnTrF pic.twitter.com/JeL1F2OpUP - The Pizza Press (@thepizzapress) March 11, 2017

Villa Italian Kitchen

Participating Villa Italian Kitchen locations nationwide will celebrate Pi Day by offering full-size Neapolitan Cheese Pizzas to guests for just $3.14 each. Just download the coupon on their website.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods will be celebrating Pi Day with a $3.14 off discount on large bakery pies and large take-and-bake pizzas. Note that frozen pizzas and pies are not included in promotion.

Your Pie

Your Pie is offering $3.14 pizzas, $3.14 pints of craft beer and $3.14 combos for all of their customers. Also, Your Pie diners will have the chance to win all sorts of SWAG by snapping and sharing a picture of their Pi(e) Day experience on social media using the hashtag #YourPieDay.

Follow Delish on Instagram.

You Might Also Like
With White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sitting nearby in the briefing room, press secretary Sean Spicer insisted she was joking when she made her infamous comment about microwave surveillance.

I will just say the president has tweeted about this, said Spicer when asked to clarify whether Trump thought he had been betrayed by his microwave during Tuesdays briefing, hes pretty clear there was surveillance, conducted during the 2016 election; going to wait for the conclusion of that. I think theres pretty sound evidence that the microwave is not a sound way of surveilling someone, and I think that has been cleaned up; it was made in jest, so I think we can put that to rest.

Spicer was attempting to play off comments Conway had made in a Sunday interview with the Record, a New Jersey newspaper. The publication asked Conway about President Trumps evidence-free assertion that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower before the election.

There are many ways to surveil each other, said Conway. There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, through certainly their television sets  any number of different ways. Microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. So we know that is just a fact of modern life.

The theory didnt seem to be a joke at the time, instead apparently referring to documents leaked by WikiLeaks stating that the CIA was purportedly spying by hacking household devices. In morning show interviews on Monday, Conway admitted she has no evidence to back up either Trumps wiretapping claim or her home-appliance spy theory. She did not claim she was jesting.

I wasnt making a suggestion about Trump Tower, Conway said on ABCs Good Morning America.

Im not Inspector Gadget, she said on CNNs New Day. I dont believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. However, Im not in the job of having evidence. Thats what investigations are for.

Story continues

Classifying Conways comment as a joke comes a day after Spicer said that you could always trust what the president said as long as he wasnt speaking in jest.

If hes not joking, of course, said Spicer during Mondays briefing. Every time that he speaks authoritatively, that he speaks, hes speaking as president of the United States.

Conway suffered through a series of flubs and inaccuracies in the early days of the administration, coining the much-mocked phrase alternative facts, inventing the fictional Bowling Green massacre and urging Fox News viewers to buy first daughter Ivanka Trumps products, an apparent violation of ethics rules.
Flyers promoting white nationalism were found Sunday on the George Washington University campus in Washington D.C., making it the latest school to fall victim to such an incident.

One poster, addressed to all white Americans, encouraged people to report undocumented immigrants to federal officials. THEY ARE CRIMINALS. AMERICA IS A WHITE NATION, the sign said, according to the Washington Post.

The flyers advertised Vanguard America, a group that, in its online manifesto, calls for a nation exclusively for the White American peoples. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The incident at George Washington mirrored similar occurrences across the country, as several colleges have also found posters advocating for white supremacy or white nationalism on their campuses in recent months  and many of those posters have also advertised Vanguard America.

The Anti-Defamation League last week released a report warning that hate groups are engaged in an unprecedented outreach effort on college campuses. The ADL counted 104 incidents of white supremacist flyers being posted on campuses since the beginning of the school year in September 2016, noting a surge in 2017, when most of those incidents (63) have taken place. The group did not provide data comparing this school year to previous years.

We are aware that some fliers were posted without authorization on campus. We are in the process of removing them, George Washington spokesperson Candace Smith said in a statement. GW Police are investigating to determine the identity of those who have defaced our property. The language used in the fliers is offensive and is counter to our values as an open and inclusive community.

Smith said the university has previously received reports of similar incidents mostly post-election, including the use of racial epithets. But she said the campus had not previously been targeted with fliers, as it was this week.
The news on Monday that Poland will request the extradition of 98-year-old Michael Karkoc, who is believed by authorities to have been a commander of a Nazi-led unit that was responsible for war crimes during World War II, is the latest development to arise from years of questioning about the Minnesota mans past.

It is also a fresh reminder that the hunt to find and prosecute the perpetrators of the war crimes of that era, the period that gave the world the word genocide, is ongoing  including within the United States.

When Karkocs case came to light in 2013, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told New York magazine that there could be hundreds of Nazi war criminals currently living, undetected, in the United States. (Karkocs family, meanwhile, insists that he is not one of them.) Per a 2008 report from the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), a bureau TIME once described as Nazi-hunting branch of the Justice Department, in the quarter-century after its founding in 1979 its work had already led to 83 war criminals losing their naturalized U.S. citizenship, 62 leaving the U.S. and about 200 being barred from entry.

Unsurprisingly, one of the substantial obstacles faced by the OSI was that more than 30 years had passed between the end of the World War II and the establishment of the office. People had moved, names had been changed, faces had aged, documents had been lost or destroyed, memories had faded. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the push to prosecute Nazis had been a major world movement  so what had happened to create a decades-long gap in the U.S.?

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

According to a recent report from the agency itself, which became public in 2010, several incidents in the 1970s  such as the much-publicized discovery that an infamous Majdanek concentration camp guard was living a quiet life in Queens, N.Y.  led the American public to demand that the government change the way it did business in this area, leading to the formation of the OSI. (The OSI later merged with another department to become the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.) Though the office was originally intended to investigate those who committed war crimes and other violations on that level, not to investigate the U.S., it naturally ended up facing questions of how those war criminals had gotten to the U.S. in the first place and why it took so long to go after them.

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The answer, as the report found, was that the presence of war criminals in the United States was no accident:

OSI did not originally conceive its mission as including the need to answer these questions. But it was inexorably drawn to the issues when subjects argued that they were in the country at the behest, or with the knowledge, of the United States  allegedly in return for information or services supplies to the government during or after the war. OSI learned that some persecutors were indeed knowingly granted entry. America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became  in some small measure  a safe haven for persecutors as well. Some many view the governments collaboration with persecutors as a Faustian bargain. Others will see it as a reasonable moral compromise borne of necessity.

In essence, the U.S. admitted that, during the Cold War, war criminals were allowed immigrate if they were deemed useful by Washington in the struggle against the old Soviet Union, as TIME put it when the report came out. Some were even specifically recruited by various agencies for the intelligence or research knowledge they could bring.

Moreover, even when war criminals were not knowingly brought to the U.S. for Cold War purposes, the immigration system in the postwar years was set up in a way that allowed them to relatively easily slip in. Facing a huge number of refugees and a world in which that concept was only just being defined, the immigration system, with its non-refugee quotas that favored Western Europeans and its mandate to focus on helping people fleeing communism, was not equipped to deal with the issue. As the OSI reported, in the interest of speed laws were passed that in effect acknowledged that the U.S. couldnt keep out those who had been enemies, though the government reserved the right to send them away later.

Several cases of Nazi trials in Germany have made news recently, particularly in 2016, at which point Eliza Gray explored the factors leading to that confluence in a story for TIME. As she explained, for decades the German (and previously West German) penal code was effectively treating deaths in the Holocaust like any other murder, meaning that a guilty verdict required proof of personal culpability in a specific killing. Though investigations continued, those who argued that they had only been following orders often got off in Germany, though in other countries perhaps 1,000 camp personnel faced trials. In recent years, however, German law has changed. After the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, in which it was held that he had come to the U.S. after serving as a guard at Sobibor, prosecutors saw that they could successfully go after those who had participated in the Holocaust for facilitating death, even if their personally committing a particular murder could not be proved. That legal change has matched a more widespread evolution of thinking about genocide, by which the idea that following orders is essentially an excuse has faded.

Different justice systems have different standards as to what is required in order to prosecute and convict in such cases. (For example, though Poland seeks Karkocs arrest German authorities investigated him too, the Washington Post reports, but determined that due to his health he would be unable to stand trial anyway.) But the sense of urgency in the matter is bigger than any one justice system.

Though the Washington Post estimated in 2014 that, given the age someone would have had to have been at the time and average life expectancy, the hunt might continue into the 2040s, U.S. authorities  including historians  as well as those in other countries know that the time is running out to find and prosecute these people.

As the number of Holocaust survivors and witnesses dwindles  it was estimated in 2016 only 100,000 survivors are still alive  the urgency of the cases for which they are crucial witnesses increases, and of course the criminals aging lends its own kind of rush to the situation.

Some say that its too late to hunt the criminals down, Robert Janicki of the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes Against the Polish Nation told the New York Times in response to the news about Karkoc, but I dont think it is.
Washington (AFP) - The US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed a Jordanian woman who assisted in the 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizza parlor on its "Most Wanted Terrorist" list on Tuesday.

The Justice Department unveiled charges against Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, who was jailed in Israel for eight years in the attack that killed 15, before gaining release in an Israeli prisoner swap with Hamas in 2011.

US authorities had hoped to have Tamimi extradited from Jordan but said they were frustrated by laws that ban extradition of Jordanian nationals.

The Justice Department said Tamimi, now in her mid-30s, escorted a Hamas suicide bomber to Jerusalem on August 9, 2001, where he detonated a bomb, hidden inside a guitar, in a Sbarro pizza shop.

The bomb killed 15, including two Americans, and wounded another 122.

After her capture, Tamimi pleaded guilty at trial and was sentenced in 2003 to 16 life prison terms.

But she was released in 2011 in the prisoner swap.

The US indictment unveiled Tuesday charges her with "conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals outside the US, resulting in death."

She faces a possible execution or life in prison if she is captured, tried and convicted in the United States.

"Al-Tamimi is an unrepentant terrorist who admitted to her role in a deadly terrorist bombing that injured and killed numerous innocent victims," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord.

"The charges unsealed today serve as a reminder that when terrorists target Americans anywhere in the world, we will never forget," she said in a statement.
March begins Nebraskas official yearlong celebration of its 150th anniversary of statehood. From a day trip to Willa Cathers hometown of Red Cloud, to an excursion through the Nebraska Sandhills, to learning about immigrants who have settled in the state, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (OLLI at UNL), a program for adult learners 50 years and above, is offering dozens of opportunities designed to explore Nebraska and its history.

The sesquicentennial is the perfect time to reconnect with the Nebraskas past and visit the states unique places.

American author Willa Cather is recognized for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers and The Song of the Lark. She spent her childhood in Red Cloud and used the town as inspiration for several of her novels. A day trip to Cathers Red Cloud on May 5 will include a tour of Cathers home, exhibits at the Cather Foundation and a visit to other historic buildings in the town.

Red Cloud, Nebraska, is one of the most famous little towns in American literature, said Kim Osmond, OLLI event coordinator and one of the trips planners. If there is time and the weather cooperates, we may even be able to enjoy a glass of wine in downtown Red Cloud.

The Visions of Nebraska tours began last August with a trip to western Nebraska. The second tour to the Nebraska Sandhills and Niobrara Valley will take place in June. The wide expanses of the states north-central region with its sand dunes and grass prairies are Nebraska landmarks and treasures. The final tour to Nebraskas northeast occurs in October.

The tours are offered by Valden Tours, Inc., OLLIs travel partner. Lee Rockwell, owner of Valden Tours, has been arranging OLLI tours for almost 10 years.

In recognizing our states sesquicentennial, the OLLI travel committee and I wanted to provide an opportunity to recognize the geographical diversity of Nebraska as well as highlight significant cultural elements of our past, Rockwell said. On our trip to the Sandhills, we will recognize the importance of the region to our agricultural heritage, survey grassland management, observe the large bison herd at the Niobrara Valley Preserve, visit some of the newer businesses that call this area home and enjoy time on the Niobrara River and its beautiful environs."

* Pioneer spirit -- What challenges have immigrants faced in settling in Nebraska? What have been their enduring cultural influences? The OLLI course, The Beginning of our Nebraska Pioneer Spirit: Part II, examines the history of immigration in Nebraska from the 1800s to the early 1900s. Part II looks at immigrants from Mexico, Japan, Denmark and Germans from Russia.

This course gives us an opportunity to talk and learn about the push and pull experienced by immigrants to Nebraska, said De Tonack, a retired UNL educator and OLLI instructor. There are commonalities and there are distinct and unique experiences, she said. Each session will also feature food and drink samples from the various cultures and countries."

* Media and democracy -- Accuracy and truthfulness, or lack of it, is at the heart of fake news. Separating fact from fantasy may be becoming more difficult in an age of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. How should the public deal with false stories that begin on social media and are then picked up by the mainstream media? Fake News and Alternative Facts will look at the medias role and their obligations.

During the presidential campaign and the first months of the new administration, the media have been both praised and blamed for their role in Americas democratic system, said Charlyne Berens, retired professor of Journalism at UNL and OLLI instructor. Social media have had a huge impact on distributing information. During the campaign, some individuals in the U.S. and abroad were simply making up news stories and posting them on social media sites where they were often passed along as if they were legit. This class will help us learn how to figure out whats true and what isnt."

* Storytelling -- How does storytelling differ between newspapers and television? How are they the same? Joe Geyer, documentary filmmaker, and Matthew Hansen, Omaha World-Herald columnist, will discuss the art and craft of storytelling in a talk on March 21.

Joel and Matthew will talk about the differences and similarities in the way each of them practices his craft. Joel tells stories via audio and video; Matthew tells stories via the written word, Berens said. The two storytellers will also offer tips on how to improve the next story you tell while perched on a bar stool or crowded around a kitchen table.

OLLI spring Term 4 begins on March 27 and runs through May 6. Membership is required to take courses and attend special events. A mid-year membership, January through July, is $50 and includes a $30 credit to be applied to a course or event.

For more information, visit olli.unl.edu or call 402-472-6265.
Paris (AFP) - Melanie Segard, a 21-year-old woman with Down's Syndrome, broke new ground for the disabled on Tuesday by presenting the weather forecast on French national TV.

Segard provided a summary of the weekend weather on France 2, achieving a personal goal that she hopes will also boost awareness for people with Down's.

She soared to prominence after an advocacy group, UNAPEI, launched an awareness campaign ahead of World Down's Syndrome Day on March 21, entitled "Melanie can do it."

On her Facebook page, Melanie announced that her dream was to present the weather, and vowed to do it if she scored more than 100,000 "likes."

Within 10 days, she had picked up 200,000 "likes" and drawn a following of thousands on Twitter.

France 2 heard of the buzz and gave her a chance.

Before her broadcast, the channel showed her rehearsing her lines and being made up for the cameras.

Segard, shy and clearly moved by the event, was flanked by the channel's forecaster, Anais Baydemir, who paid tribute to her flawless delivery, as did her fans on Twitter.

"A magical television moment," said one. "Bravo, Melanie, we are all equal," said another.

Melanie herself tweeted, "That's it, I've done it, I'm finally a weather girl," adding: "I am different, but I can do lots of things."

Down's syndrome is the most common genetic form of intellectual disability.

Also known as trisomy 21, the condition is caused by the presence of an extra, or third, copy of chromosome number 21.

Humans normally have 23 pairs of chromosomes, which together contain up to 25,000 protein-coding genes.

Around one in 1,000 people have Down's, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In France, there are an estimated 65,000.

Segard's achievement comes on the heels of a 19-year-old Down's woman, Laura Hayoun, who presented the headlines on news channel BFMTV in 2013.

Last month, Madeline Stuart, a 20-year-old Australian model with Down's, took part in a fashion show in New York and debuted her own label, called "21 Reasons Why."
It seems Peter Thiel may be on to something as there's been a surge in American interest in immigrating to New Zealand in the wake of the election of Donald Trump.

The Associated Press dug into some data via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and found that in the 12 weeks following Donald Trump's election (November 8, 2016 through January 31, 2017), 170 Americans applied for citizenship to New Zealand.

That's, admittedly, a low number, but it marks a 70 percent increase over the same time period from 2015.

SEE ALSO: Let #GandalftheGuide show you New Zealand in this photo series

Additionally, according to data the AP received from the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, in the two days after the U.S. election in November (November 8-10, 2016), the number of Americans who visited its website to find out about citizenship rose to 4,146 from 305 on the same two weekdays a month earlier (October 4-6, 2016).

And, depending on your skill set, you could be eligible to participate in the country's Looksee Wellington program, an attempt to import tech savvy workers. Overall, New Zealand seems pretty welcoming to Americans, at least on the web.

But there are drawbacks to living on the beautiful island at the bottom of the world. There are 6,000 miles between New Zealand and the U.S. and a non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Auckland will run you around 13 hours, ruling out any quick weekend getaways to see the parents.

And those numbers pale in comparison to, say, the surge that the Canadian immigration site experienced on Election Night. Tens of thousands of people flocked to Canada's immigration website in November, enough traffic to crash the site.

According to Migrant Policy, the most popular countries for immigrants from America are Mexico (877,000) and Canada (343,000). New Zealand has 22,000 American expats, according to the website. That's more than, say, Argentina (5,000) and North Korea (1,000), but it still trails many more popular countries like Japan (50,000), Spain (40,000), and the U.K. (212,000).

Story continues

Still, New Zealand has a lot of cachet and it's not too hard to get into, but it'll effort and energy to get there and you'll be isolated from friends and family (but not sheep).

So, basically, New Zealand is the indie rock country for people looking to flee America.
Protestors call out Canada Goose for its use of coyote fur at a recent protest. (Photo: Getty Images)

After voicing consistent public objection to the fur-trapping and down-harvesting practices of Canada Goose  the decades-old company whose $900 hooded parkas reached peak popularity this year  animal-rights activist group PETA plans to take a different tack towards policy change: by becoming a Canada Goose company shareholder on Thursday, on the companys first day of its initial public offering.

We will be buying around $4,000 worth of shares so that we can attend and speak at the companys annual meetings and submit shareholder resolutions asking for policy changes, a PETA spokesperson has exclusively shared with Yahoo Style.

For some time now, PETA has spoken out against Canada Gooses ethical fur and down claims  producing fact sheets taking the companys stances to task, staging several protests outside of the companys Toronto headquarters and New York City flagship store, issuing an action alert to contact CEO Dani Reiss, and producing a (very disturbing) video of a coyote stuck in a leg trap and being shot that has since gone viral.

Now the organization will be pressuring the company directly  as activist groups do on a fairly routine basis  by buying shares, specifically to gain the right to stand up and protest in front of executives. Shareholder activism is a tactic PETA has employed in the past as a way to make its case at companies including Hermes, Lululemon, Prada, LVMH, Revlon, Whole Foods, Restoration Hardware, Miami Seaquarium, McDonalds, and GE.

In the past, PETAs spokesperson notes, weve obtained the stocks either through donations from members or the direct purchase of shares. As a shareholder in these companies, PETA has the right to ask questions and submit resolutions using graphic language to inform other shareholders about the connection between their investments and the abuse of animals.

While PETAs success rate varies, he adds, Resulting dialogs have brought about a range of benefits, from eliminating the worst factory-farm abuses to implementing new laboratory testing methods that dont use animals, including the development of a strategy accepted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that saves tens of thousands of animals from government-mandated testing. Additionally, at Tesla, PETA discussions brought about all-vegan-leather interior options on its Model X and Model S vehicles.

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The coat manufacturer will be PETAs next target because of how, the organization says, Cruelty can be found in every stitch of Canada Goose jackets and other clothing items. Coyotes trapped in the wild  solely for that strip of fur trim on the parkas hoods  can suffer for days while facing blood loss, shock, dehydration, and frostbite, some of whom attempt to chew off their own limbs to escape. Those who survive are often strangled or bludgeoned to death when the trapper returns.

Canada Goose has responded to protestors through a statement on its website. We understand and respect that some people think animal products should never be used in any consumer products, however we do not share that view, it reads in part. The company also claims that it can certify that our down only comes as a by-product from the poultry industry and has not come from live-plucked or force-fed birds.

Regarding the use of fur trim, the website notes that it both has a purpose beyond decoration because it disrupts airflow and creates turbulent air which helps protect the face from frostbite, and also could be doing the world a favor by killing the animals. In fact, in many regions of North America, coyotes are considered a pest as they attack livestock, endangered prey species, pets and sometimes even people, it asserts.

Yahoo reached out to Canada Goose for further comment on its claims about animal uses and was referred to Alan Herscovici, former executive director of the Fur Council of Canada and now senior researcher/writer for TruthAboutFur.com, an information portal supported by the International Fur Federation. And as Herscovici often points out basic facts about PETA meant to sound absurd  such as how the organization is as equally opposed to using leather or wool or even silk as it is to coyote fur on parkas  it becomes clear that there is massive chasm between the overall philosophies of each side.

Herscovici stands firmly behind the idea of killing coyotes for the hoods, noting, Thanks to more than 30 years of scientific research, many coyotes are now taken in quick-killing traps. Others are taken in live-holding traps, but these have been greatly improved to minimize injuries to the animals. He adds, allegedly as a positive, that the most common method of dispatching coyotes taken in live-holding traps is with a firearm (i.e., a quick-killing shot to the head. In fact, this is precisely the method shown in a video recently circulated by PETA.)

Further, the fur advocate points out, PETA is an animal-rights group. As explained on their own website, this means that PETA is completely opposed to any use of animals, even for food. It is important to understand this distinction when evaluating PETAs criticisms of fur or any other animal product.

It certainly is an important point, as PETA would surely agree, albeit for different reasons. Its a point the organization is determined to make through a variety of approaches. And whether PETA has reached its ultimate goals or not through shareholder activism, notes the PETA spokesperson, Our efforts have still helped animals by shedding light on the abuse that takes place behind these industries closed doors.

But in an attempt to really drive the point home on Thursday, PETA will be joined by animal advocacy group DxE (Direct Action Everywhere) in a protest outside of both the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. Signs will read, Trading Lives is Bad Business, and Indecent Public Offering.

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
The dress that meteorologists love. (Photo: Homeyee)

While some of us are celebrating Pi Day by  eating pie, female meteorologists are taking a more meaningful approach. Across the country, local weather nerds are banding together to spread a message to encourage women to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields  and theyre doing it through fashion. Today female meteorologists are showing up to work in blue, or in that dress  the $23 colorblock dress from Homeyee that went viral after folks noticed that so many meteorologists were wearing it  in order to make a statement.

A few meteorologists have shared photos of themselves rocking the dress on social media, explaining their mission and raising awareness for the cause. Its one thats near and dear to Jennifer Ketchmark, morning meteorologist for WCPO in Cincinnati. Growing up, female meteorologists were few and far between on my local TV screen. I didnt even realize that my passion for weather as a child was a realistic and achievable career until I went to college, she told Yahoo Style via a Facebook message. I want young women like myself who are self-entitled nerds in math, science, technology, and engineer to embrace their inner nerd and run with it. Reach for the stars!

Women are underrepresented in STEM. According to Million Women Mentors, an organization that aims to use mentorship in order to advance the interest of women and girls in STEM fields, women make up 26 percent of the STEM workforce, even though they make up about half of the overall workforce.

The Homeyee dress is so favored by women in local news TV because of its flattering but professional look and its reasonable price point. Many women who work at local news stations are responsible for buying their own wardrobes, which is part of the reason why the dress became so popular. According to WCPO Cincinnati, a discussion in a private Facebook group for female meteorologists was the start of the initiative.

The dress symbolizes the community of lady broadcast mets who support and encourage each other, Bree Smith, a meteorologist for WTVF in Nashville, said. Wearing the dress or the color blue is our collective effort to extend this support and encouragement to all women in STEM and young girls we hope will pursue STEM.

Story continues

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow@YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
Dr. Tania Elliot, from Doctor on Demand, is here to showcase cell-phone apps that help you win at the hardest job of all time  being a mom.

Tania describes Mommy Nearest as like Yelp but for families. The app helps moms find kid- friendly restaurants and other locations and includes user reviews. It also showcases events and special savings for kids. Tania says its especially helpful when youre in an unfamiliar area and need something to do with the little ones!

Watch: Dating App Dangers

Next up is Urban Sitter  it takes the hassle out of finding a last-minute babysitter in your area. All sitters are tested. You can handle the whole transaction online. Like babysitter Uber! says Plastic Surgeon Dr. Andrew Ordon.

Doctor on Demand lets you avoid waiting rooms. Kids get sick at inconvenient times, but Doctor on Demand is available 24/7. The app lets you make a real-time video visit with a board-certified physician, including primary-care physicians and pediatricians. If a prescription is needed, its sent electronically to a local pharmacy  it will be waiting when the call is over. Its like you have a doctor in your pocket, available at all times! Tania explains.

Watch: Doctor on Demand: Prescriptions on Speed Dial!

Doctor on Demand was created by The Doctors' executive producer.
(Reuters) - Canada's government said on Monday that it shut down its website for filing federal taxes after hackers broke into a web server at the nation's statistics bureau last week by exploiting a newly disclosed software bug. Statistics Canada, which said it stopped the intrusion before hackers stole any data, is the first high-profile organisation to say it was hacked due to a new security bug in software known as Apache Struts 2. The software is commonly used in websites of governments, banks, retailers and other large organizations. Other victims have not yet come forth, although security firms said they expect more attacks to surface after details on the easy-to-exploit vulnerability were posted on security forums and hacking websites last week. Technicians at big corporations and government agencies around the world spent the weekend combing their networks for vulnerable software and patching it, said Chris Camacho, chief strategy officer with cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint. He said the vulnerability was actively being exploited by hackers, but declined to provide details, citing client confidentiality. The impact of the vulnerability surfaced in Canada late Friday when the federal government shut down the tax agency's website to prevent attacks after it identified that it was running vulnerable software. We went after this one specifically because we recognised there was a specific and credible threat to certain government IT systems, John Glowacki, a government security official, said at a press conference. Glowacki said he that he understood some other countries "are actually having greater problems with this specific vulnerability, but declined to identify the nations or discuss the problems. The vulnerability surfaced last week when the Apache Software Foundation released an update to fix the bug, saying it could enable hackers to gain remote control of a web server. That could allow them to steal data, secretly gain access to a victim's network or shut down a website, said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer with security software maker Veracode. This vulnerability is super easy to exploit," Wysopal said. "You just point it to the web server and put in the command that you want to run." (Reporting by Alastair Sharp, David Ljunggren and Jim Finkle; editing by Grant McCool and Phil Berlowitz)
After over 48 hours of anticipation, warnings, and constant forecast updates, Winter Storm Stella is currently slamming the East Coast of the United States with snow, ice, and plenty of wind. Its a full-blown blizzard for millions of people in Northeast, but some spots are getting hammered harder than others, and some havent yet experienced the storms wrath. Here are the cities getting the absolute worst of the storm already, as well as those that are directly in its path.

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New York City has managed to just barely escape the absolute worst of the storm, at least so far. Much of the rest of the state and surrounding area, however, is already seeing snow piling up towards the one foot mark, with much more to come.

Syracuse, NY

Albany, NY

Burlington, Ontario

Utica, NY

Worcester, MA

Boston, MA

Stella is headed northeast, which means Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and parts of Canada are about to see similar results. The National Weather Service currently forecasts up to two feet of snow for the vast majority of those states, with local snowfalls possibly exceeding 24 inches by a significant margin.

As CNN reports, states of emergency have already been declared in Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and theyre not even close to the center of the storms impact. Over 6,200 flights into and out of the storms affected areas have been cancelled, and schools and public services are almost entirely shut down.

Forecasters expect the worst of the massive storm to have moved on by late Wednesday evening and into Thursday, though winds will continue to cause drifting and other issues for a while after that.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
By Dave McKinney CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois' state comptroller has suspended $27 million in payments for a computer technology initiative launched by Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, according to a letter seen by Reuters, opening a new front in an ongoing feud over finances. The move by Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza targets one of the governor's priorities and comes as Illinois faces a record $12.3 billion backlog of unpaid bills that has more than tripled in the 21 months the state has gone without a full operating budget. In a letter to the Rauner administration, Mendoza's office said halting payments, including $21.6 million owed to consultants working on Rauner's $250 million technology upgrade, is warranted because of uncertainty over how the program will produce long-term savings for the state. The letter asked why those consulting firms should be paid before services like senior centers, hospice care and universities. "The comptroller wants assurances that resources are being allocated toward our most critical needs and not toward discretionary initiatives," Mendoza's senior policy adviser, Patrick Corcoran, wrote. Mendoza and Rauner clashed in state court this month over paying state employees without an appropriation from the legislature. The state comptroller refused to process payments for nearly 600 state workers from Illinois' cash-strapped general fund, as Rauner wanted. Instead, she wanted to tap other budgetary lines flush with more than $93 million. The court ruled Mendoza could tap the funds but Rauner has appealed the decision. Rauner's office said Mendoza's suspension of payments to information technology contractors would hobble the state's computer modernization, known as the Enterprise Resource Program (ERP). "If Comptroller Mendoza disrupts the ERP implementation process, she will put our state, residents and sensitive data at risk by forcing us to function under the current outdated systems," Rauner's spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said in a statement to Reuters. McKinsey & Company is owed the most -- $12 million -- among firms caught in Mendoza's move. The company did not respond to questions submitted after business hours on Monday about whether it would continue performing work for the state if it is not paid on a timely basis. Kelly said the state continues to expect the upgrade to cost $250 million, and that vendors have billed $63 million over the past three fiscal years. Of that amount, the state has paid $12.6 million so far. (Reporting by Dave McKinney; Editing by Jo Winterbottom and Lisa Shumaker)
HICKMAN -- Twelve employees at the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office remain from the group of people who worked with Deputy Craig Dodge.

But his memory and legacy continues to shape the deputies who came after him.

Dodge was killed 30 years ago, on March 14, while responding to a domestic disturbance. A woman called the sheriff's office at 5:21 a.m. to report her daughter's husband had beat her, then left. Dodge was the closest deputy. While en route, a second call came in from a separate witness who said the man was back and had his wife at gunpoint.

Dodge arrived at 5:30. The couple's two children -- ages 3 and 5 weeks old -- were inside the apartment. Dodge decided he couldn't wait for backup.

The woman answered the door and the man stood behind her with a .38-caliber revolver at her back.

Then he shot Dodge.

"Craig Dodge placed the welfare of that mother and her children before his own," Sheriff Terry Wagner said at a memorial service in Hickman Tuesday morning.

Dodge -- a husband and father -- was 43.

Young deputies know the stories of his service, and older deputies always have that day in the back of their minds.

The department's newest addition, a Belgian malinois, was named Dodge in the deputy's honor. The dog stood watch over his namesake's statue during the ceremony at 421 Main St. in Hickman.

Dodge's son, David, of Fresno, California, thanked the community for its support over the last three decades. He was 13 when his father was killed.

Asked what he thought about his father's legacy living on, David Dodge said, "It makes me proud."

"It doesn't get any easier to deal with, but time helps me figure out better ways," he said.

Dodge was the last officer killed while working in Lancaster County, Wagner said.

"I hope we can say 30 years from now that Craig Dodge was the last deputy killed in the line of duty," he added.

Dodge's killer, Terry Reynolds, 56, is serving a life sentence, plus 20 years, at the Omaha Correctional Center.
Samsung is already preparing its new flagship phone, the Galaxy S8, for launch later this month. However, Apples biggest rival is also hard at work in finalizing the larger brother of the Galaxy S7 successor. This week, a photo of a battery pack that could be powering the Galaxy S8+ surfaced online, and it seems the big phone will be housing the same battery as the now defunct Galaxy Note 7.

On Monday, SamMobile revealed that it has spotted a leaked image of what could be the 3,500mAh battery that will likely be powering the Galaxy S8+. This corroborates previous speculations that the South Korea tech giant is preparing a battery with the said capacity for the new device thats rocking a 6.2-inch display.

The photo was leaked on the Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo, but the battery pack was found to have been assembled in Vietnam by Samsung SDI. Though it is indicated on the body of the battery that its cell was made in Korea, it was not stated who manufactured it. But given the fiasco that the Note 7 caused, the company is said to be doing everything to ensure that the new phone batteries would be safe for use by consumers.

Leaked Galaxy S8 Plus battery

Photo: Sina Weibo

Another thing that is noticeable on the leaked battery is the EB-BG955ABA part code, which is consistent with the expected model number for the larger Galaxy S8 variant, SM-G955. The battery in the leaked photo is also marked with the manufacturing date of Feb. 21, which was just over a week since it was reported that the new Galaxy flagship phone, the S8, entered mass production, as pointed out by Android Central.

While a 3,500mAh battery is considered a tad small for a storage cell for a large phone with 6.2-inch screen, there have been reports suggesting that the two Galaxy S8 models will come with super efficient CPUs built on 10nm process. Furthermore, the RBG SuperAMOLED display panels for the new phones are expected to be energy-efficient as well.

Story continues

Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

Photo: YouTube/eTube Tech

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French tech executive Nicolas Thibaut has been working for a few years now on a concept thats morphed a bit in response to changing digital security challenges and in service of a pretty straightforward agenda: To bring business-level security, as he puts it, to as many people as possible.

Contained in his story are a few thematic cross-currents, everything from having to adapt as security threats and breaches come with bigger stakes and scarier implications to the imperative to move beyond a small market (in his case, a home base of Eastern Europe) to be able to do more and be more.

He talked with BGR about his journey from tinkering in his free time to founding Uppersafe, which his team describes as an easy to use cloud-based protection solution the team has especially been focused on adapting for new smart objects like TVs, fridges and coffee machines that dont have much or anything in the way of protections of their own.

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It started in late 2014. It was a side project at the time, says Thibaut, one of a small group that manages the service which counts more than 80,000 users worldwide. Also on the team are commercial and marketing manager Didier Thibaut and IT security consultant Lucas Philippe.

At the time, I was a freelance pentester, so it was just about discovering a bit how VPN technology works, Thibaut said. I quickly built a VPN service  NolimitVPN  that was available for free.

A few months later came some welcome attention. The service got written about by a French tech blog. In a few days, the service picked up more than 20,000 users, while the bills for infrastructure started to mount, especially for the servers.

Thibaut decided to turn it into a paid service instead of shutting it down. The following year, his service got chosen in 2015 in Singapore by Kaspersky to participate in the Security Startup Challenge. During that competition, he said, I decided to build a firewall from scratch on top of the VPN service to innovate and differentiate from other VPN providers. In a few months, I developed and integrated that firewall to the service to offer an extra level of protection to the users.

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Late last year, Thibaut got tapped by Startupupbootcamp Barcelona to join their acceleration program specializing in Internet of Things and data tech. Before joining that program, he was already thinking about how to make his service compatible with IoT devices.

From that came the idea for an intermediate solution of some kind, since its often almost impossible to secure those IoT devices directly thanks to a lack of screen or other interface and the like.

Thats when the companys Upperbox was born. Its essentially a router that plugs into a modem or Internet box, and then the user just connects all their devices either through Ethernet wire or via WiFi. The Upperbox, according to the company, creates a secure Internet tunnel or VPN towards its service and ensures protection for your whole IT environment.

At the moment, the company is working on the next version of the Upperbox. Over the long term, the company plans to do some machine learning on network traffic of users to detect unusual activities so that threats can be blocked in real-time. That, Thibaut says, would not only help block massive attacks but also more advanced attacks.

Hes also thinking beyond his home country, looking out at the users beyond his borders and the threats that likewise span the globe and are multiplying.

With this in mind, we are trying to build a community around our service in order to democratize this subject, which is often complex and difficult to understand, he says. We are convinced to be able to make IoT devices owners realize that it is important to secure themselves because the risk of being hacked or spied on are bigger than ever.

Theres a French community around tech startups called La French Tech. Its a good way to promote French startups around the world. They are also partners of the event dedicated to startups called 4YFN hosted in parallel with the Mobile

World Congress. So France is a good place to start a project, but we need to move out of the borders to develop our company.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
The truth about microwave ovens is not that they can be used for spying. As you're about to see, it's quite the opposite.

But in this brave new world where world leaders forcefully insist that left is down and right is up  often by distorting something they saw on a TV screen moments ago  it's not too much of a stretch to think that Kellyanne Conway may have recently screened Snowden.

SEE ALSO: Edward Snowden doesn't just endorse 'Snowden.' He's in it.

In an interview with her hometown paper published Sunday, the senior counselor to President Donald Trump was asked point-blank whether she had any evidence that Trump Tower had been "wiretapped."

Her now-infamous answer:

There was indeed that WikiLeaks dump earlier this month suggesting that smartphones and TVs could be hacked. But it mentioned nothing whatsoever about microwaves. Where could Conway have possibly gotten the kernel of an idea about microwaves that she would later misrepresent, whipping up another nonsensical viral moment.

Have a watch of this clip from Snowden, which comes courtesy of Open Road Films. Yes, it features a paranoid Edward Snowden and there's a microwave, but as you probably have guessed, the microwave isn't doing any spying:

Snowden puts his visitors' cell phones in the nuker not to make iHotPockets, but because "It blocks UHF frequencies." If someone was hacking the journalist's phones, there's no way to get a signal in or out.

Pretty clever. And based in fact.

That's because a standard microwave oven acts as a Faraday cage, the fancy name for any enclosure that blocks the passage of electromagnetic fields. A little home test proved this to be effective.

I called my cellphone from Google Voice on my laptop, and it worked as usual:

Lose my number.

Image: mashable/josh Dickey

And again, inside the microwave, as my Google Voice dials it. Nothing doing  in fact, it went straight to voicemail, every time, as if I were off the grid:

Story continues

Who is photographing whom here?

Image: mashable/josh dickey

Now then, a senior White House adviser boning up on the ins and outs of wiretapping for a big interview by watching Snowden on a DVD or streaming service like iTunes  where it's been available since Dec. 27  and still not getting it would have seemed like a ridiculous thing, oh, 50 or so days ago.

But nowadays you serve up the most rubbery, undercooked stuff in a flash and some folks will just eat it up.
TAG Heuer is fully embracing smart watches, with the launch of its new second-generation connected watch, the Connected Modular 45.

The Swiss heritage brand teamed up with Google and Intel on the accessory, which blends smart technology with the watchmaker's long-standing tradition of expertise. It is being marketed as the first Swiss-made Certified Connected Watch.

The watch, which is 45 mm in diameter, can be completely tailored to suit the wearer's tastes, as it is interchangeable with an Haute Horlogerie mechanical module. This offers the user a choice of materials, colors and combinations regarding the watch itself, as well as the lugs, straps and buckle.

Tech features include an Intel Atom processor Z34XX series and an Android Wear 2.0 operating system. The watch comes with Wi-Fi, GPS, and an NFC sensor for payments, in addition to customizable TAG Heuer dials and a new 'Companion' app. It is water-resistant to 50 meters, and can be synchronized with phones operating on both Android 4.3+ and iOS 8.2+ systems. The accessory is fabricated from materials including titanium, ceramic and rose gold.



The TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 is available from $1,650 USD, or 1,600.
We already know that legendary comedian Dave Chappelle was headed to Netflix for a pair of hour-long specials this month, but up until now weve only had a very brief, audio-only teaser to get us hyped up. Today, Netflix released a much more satisfying trailer that showcases plenty of the humor, wit, and edgy observations weve come to expect from the funnyman.

Don't Miss: Leaks reveal the 10 most exciting new features coming to Samsungs Galaxy S8

As all of Dave Chappelles many fans have come to expect from him, there doesnt appear to be any topic that is off limits in the new material. Chappelles jokes address terrorism, racism, modern culture, and even O.J. Simpson.

The shows were filmed in two locations  Austin, TX, and Los Angeles  and contain material that is, at Netflix describes it, from his personal comedy vault. The specials will be the first for Chappelle since 2004s For What Its Worth, and a full 17 years since his all-time classic Killin Them Softly special in 2000.

Both new features are Netflix exclusives, and will be available on March 21st. A third special, which was announced back in November, is also still presumably in the works, though the release date remains unknown.

Trending right now:

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The Justice Department this evening asked the House Intelligence Committee for more time to produce evidence that then-President Barack Obama wiretapped then-candidate Donald Trumps office during the 2016 campaign.

Today was the deadline for the Department of Justice to turn over to the committee any evidence to support Trumps unsubstantiated claim, via Twitter, that Obama ordered Trump Tower phones tapped.

DOJs request was granted, but it must cough up answers before the March 20 hearing during which the House Intelligence Committee is holding its public session from leading intelligence officials to talk about Russias influence on the election. If they dont have the information by then, the committee might subpoena members of the Trump administration.

Apparently we are in the business of creating scripts for Saturday Night Live. I dont even know where the satire begins, exasperated committee member Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) told CNN. These are extraordinarily serious allegations about the former president and our entire system. To think that you would even begin to make that kind of allegation without the proof in front of you is an extraordinary affront to the entire democratic system.

Nine days ago, Trump made the accusations in a series of tweets, calling Obama a bad (or sick) guy!

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Is it legal for a sitting President to be wire tapping a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! Id bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election! How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

On deadline day, at his press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had begun walking back Trumps claim:

Story continues

Trump does not really think that President Obama went up and tapped [Trumps] phone personally, he said at todays White House briefing, but there is no question the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election.

But various media outlets insisted after the briefing there were not widespread reports of such surveillance and other activities, though there were some reports in some far-right media outlets.

At some point in time they have to stop this charade, Quigley said, noting his committee would have to expand its request to include household appliances. Over the weekend, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway was asked if she had proof Obama wiretapped Trumps office and responded: What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other.  You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets  any number of ways, including microwaves that turn into cameras, adding, We know this is a fact of modern life.

Related stories

Stephen Colbert Reaches Out To Obama Via 'Late Show's Microwave Camera

Trumpcare Friends And Foes Scramble To Get In Front Of TV News Cameras After CBO Lobs Grenade At Plan

President Donald Trump Set For Tucker Carlson Sit-Down On Fox News Channel
A 30-year-old York man has gone to prison for his plot to steal a safe by setting a fire and luring a man away from his home.

York County District Judge James Stecker sentenced Matthew Aunkst on Monday to 10-23 years for two counts of burglary, second-degree arson and possession of methamphetamine.

Aunkst's co-defendant, Brian Schall of Grand Island, already is serving 5-12 years for his role in the crime. And the lookout, Emily N. Anderson of York, got five years of probation and 100 hours' community service.

In court records, York County Sheriff's investigators said Schall and Aunkst torched a nearby vacant rental house on Feb. 21, 2016, to distract the 49-year-old victim while they stole a safe, $30,000 and a cache of guns from his home near Interstate 80.

He got home later to find a large John Deere gun vault containing at least four shotguns, a 9mm handgun, cash, gold coins and legal documents missing from the house.

Law enforcement arrested Schall and Aunkst at a casino hotel in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
A common thread that unites all Nebraskans is the desire to make sure all children in the state are equipped to succeed academically and prepared to pursue their dreams.

Lawmakers in the Nebraska legislature are considering two proven tools that can help students, parents and teachers achieve that path to success: A-F school grading and an emphasis on early literacy.

Based on how students are learning and progressing, an A-F grade for each school is a powerful instrument for increasing academic achievement. Just as parents and students understand the A-F grading system on a report card, this clear measurement provides a quick snapshot of a schools success in educating children.

When parents are empowered with this information, they are better equipped to ask the right questions of educators and administrators. When lawmakers have this information, they can evaluate how well funding is being used at the school and district level. In turn, those discussions can lead to data-based investments of resources that target student achievement. For example, school grades can help determine if new programs and supports in struggling schools are having an impact by helping students learn more.

Across the country, 17 states have adopted A-F school grading. In Arizona, Florida, Utah, Mississippi, New Mexico, Louisiana, Indiana and Oklahoma, states where A-F school grading has been in place long enough to track long-term results, students have made larger gains in reading and math than the national average.

Just as accurate grades can help schools, reading assessments and targeted instruction of all young students can literally change lives.

For many years around the country, children were passed from grade to grade before they were prepared for the next level. Many were ultimately doomed to failure because they lacked the basic skills needed to succeed in the classroom and in life.

Studies have made it clear: Being able to read by the end of third grade can make an incredible difference. Not being able to read by the end of third grade has lasting negative effects on both students and society. Nearly 90 percent of students who fail to earn a high school diploma were struggling readers in third grade. And high school dropouts make up 90 percent of Americans on welfare and 75 percent of citizens receiving food stamps.

Improvements in third-grade reading can be met through strategies such as improved teacher training and certification, kindergarten literacy screening, reading intervention in grades K-3, and, as a last resort, retention with more intensive intervention.

In Florida -- one of the first states to establish laws and guidelines to ensure all students can read on grade level by the end of third grade -- students have improved at a rate double the national average for reading. Twelve other states have followed Floridas lead, adopting variations of comprehensive K-3 reading policy.

With these two policies in place, Nebraska families and students will gain the framework and accountability to increase student success.
Republican governors in Nebraska have become accustomed to relying on support from voters who live in the sun-dappled, wind-swept fields of farm country.

This year its much different. When it comes to tax reform, farmers are engaged in a stare-down with Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Both the Farm Bureau and the Farmers Union, and their ally, the Nebraska State Education Association, want the governor to focus on property tax relief. The governor is pushing for income tax cuts, with an accompanying proposal for modest property tax relief.

The governors proposal for changing the valuation method for agricultural land was termed smoke and mirrors by Bruce Rieker, Farm Bureau vice president of governmental relations at a meeting at the Schuyler fire station last month.

After talking to Ricketts I came to the conclusion that he will never do anything major on property taxes, and furthermore, I no longer believe he cares to, wrote Dennis Schuster of Steinauer, a retired farmer and member of the Lewiston School Board (LJS, Local View, Feb. 26).

This uncustomary face-off has some people scratching their heads. The complexities of modern farming can be baffling, considering the interplay between taxes, commodity prices, government programs, crop yields and the vagaries of weather.

Perhaps it would help to focus on just a few sets of figures.

First, take a look at recent changes in the valuation of agricultural land, according to the annual Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market survey by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In 2011 the weighted average of agricultural land went up 22 percent. In 2012, it was up 32 percent; 2013, 25 percent and 2014, 9 percent.

Finally, there was a reversal. In 2015 the average went down 2 percent. In 2016 the average went down 4 percent.

Next take a look at the prices that farmers get for the grain they sell to pay the bills. Starting in 2011, farmers had three great years. In 2011 the calendar year average price for a bushel of corn was $6.01. In 2012 it was $6.67, and in 2013, $6.14. Then the price fell back to earth, $4.11 in 2014, $3.71 in 2015 and $3.48 in 2016, about 52 percent of the high in 2012.

Soybean prices went through a similar cycle: $12.53 in 2011, $13.96 in 2012, $14.07 in 2013 and $12.47 in 2014. Then prices dropped to $9.49 in 2015 and $9.40 in 2016, about 67 percent of the high in 2014.

So when farmers say they are being squeezed in a vice, they have a valid point. The increase in the price of their land, and the taxes they must pay on it, are not even remotely close to the changes in the price of the products they sell.

To the uninitiated, a rise in the value of land means the owner has become wealthy. However, to access that wealth, the owner has to sell. Most farmers want to keep farming, and the high taxes are just another cost of production.

Now that many farmers think the governor is standing in the way of property tax relief, the mere fact that he has an R behind his name doesnt provide automatic protection.
I am writing regarding the "Choose Life" license plates being considered in the state Legislature ("Choose Life plates get nod," March 1). If Nebraskans need "another way to express support for pregnant women and unborn children," as Sen. Dan Watermeier disingenuously claims, then they can buy bumper stickers to that effect. Of course, that's not what the anti-choice forces really want. What they want is for the state to officially sanction their personal convictions. The Legislature should be above this sort of nonsense. What's next, "Choose Jesus?"
What does this large number -- 40,610 -- represent? According to the American Cancer Society, 40,610 women in the U.S. are expected to die in 2017 from breast cancer. The American Cancer Society also states that in 2016, there were more than 2.8 million women with a history of breast cancer. This includes women currently being treated, and women who have finished treatment.

Women are being diagnosed constantly with breast cancer, and with little to no help from a mammogram. Mammograms are not cheap, and insurance companies are not required to pay for one until after the age of 40, if at all. With breast cancer death rates being higher than any other cancer, besides lung cancer, why are mammograms not free, or insured yet for all ages?

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. It's a well-known fact that a womans risk for being diagnosed nearly doubles if she has a close relative, such as a mom, sister or daughter, who has been diagnosed. So, when my mother was diagnosed, I was not only concerned for her, myself and sister as well. I knew that at that time the Affordable Care Act required our insurer to pay for an annual mammogram at the age of 40, with no deductibles or co-insurance.

Come to find out that even with our mother being diagnosed, we still could not be covered for a mammogram until the age of 35. The age dropped only 5 years but risks doubles! Why is a mammogram not free or covered yet?

Kaylee Aksamit, Ashland
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry ran the gauntlet of health care reform Monday evening at an overflow town hall gathering that attracted a boisterous and largely critical crowd of a thousand constituents.

Fortenberry patiently managed a 90-minute question-and-answer session despite constant interruption and shouting, delivering a message that the Affordable Care Act is "deeply, deeply flawed and broken" and needs to be replaced by a better health care system.

"This is the start of an open process" of considering new reform, the Republican congressman said in answering a direct question from Barbara Keating of Lincoln asking whether he will vote for the replacement bill now pending in the House.

"I do not find the current system acceptable," the 1st District congressman said.

If the proposed Republican replacement proposal clears the House, it still has to go to the Senate where it could be revised, Fortenberry noted.

"We have to start," he said. "We cannot sustain the current system."

Fortenberry avoided a second question from Keating asking whether the congressman, father of five daughters, is comfortable with Donald Trump serving as president.

Monday night's confrontation occurred on the same day that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million Americans would lose health care coverage during the first year under the proposed new Republican plan and 24 million would be without health insurance by 2026, a decade from now.

Some participants in the gathering at Lincoln Southwest High School came armed with that information. Fortenberry told them that is the same CBO that once stated "prices would come down" as a result of the earlier health care reform.

The town hall session was loud and confrontational, but never appeared to be on the verge of veering out of control. Six Lincoln police officers were on hand to keep watch over the event.

There was so much shouting at one point that it prompted a small child in the back of the room to begin yelling non-stop on his own.

Opponents of the Republican health care reform proposal held up small signs declaring "you represent all of us" and most of the people in the room appeared to cheer a call for a single-payer health care system.

Fortenberry maintained his composure throughout the event, occasionally asking people to "please stop, please stop (so) we can have a conversation."

"You're accountable to us whether we voted for you or not," one man shouted.

"That's part of the reason I'm here," the congressman replied.

"It's clear the community needed additional conversation about what's going on in America," he said.

"This is a time of deep philosophical divide" in the country, Fortenberry said. "Look at the divide in this room."

Health care is both a right and a responsibility, he suggested, but the issue is complex and the goal needs to include lower costs and improved health care outcomes.

"The current market is broken," he said.

A number of questioners told Fortenberry their personal stories about challenges in their lives that require dependable and affordable health care coverage. Some said they and their families would lose coverage under the Republican plan.

"There should be support systems in place for those who cannot help themselves," Fortenberry said.
A 59-year-old Plattsmouth man pleaded guilty in federal court in Omaha Monday to bank fraud that prosecutors say resulted in almost an $800,000 loss.

Mark A. Tincher faces up to 30 years imprisonment and a $1 million fine at his sentencing in June, Acting U.S. Attorney Robert Stuart said in a news release.

Between April 2010 and June 2010, Tincher had separate checking accounts at Plattsmouth State Bank, Arbor Bank, Murray State Bank and Glenwood State Bank, Stuart said.

FBI investigators found Tincher used a fraudulent scheme called check kiting to manipulate checks between the four banks, Stuart said.

This manipulation created artificially inflated bank balances that Tincher used for business purposes, the release said.

Because of Tincher's scheme, Plattsmouth State Bank lost about $700,000, and Glenwood State Bank lost about $90,000, the release said.

Tincher had previously run Tincher Chevrolet Oldsmobile. The dealership in Plattsmouth closed in July 2011 after opening in 1993.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Tincher, alleging he abandoned responsibility for the business' 401(k) plan and left participants with no access to the money.

The lawsuit was settled later that year when a federal court appointed an accounting firm in Missouri to oversee the 401(k) plan and provide access to its contributing members.
The Seward man involved in a public art project celebrating the state's 150th birthday got jail time Monday for violating the Clean Air Act in 2013.

Chief U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp sentenced Patrick Keough, 59, to six months' imprisonment, plus a year of supervised release.

Despite a federal indictment, which had been lingering against him since 2014, Keough's company now based in Seward was chosen to manufacture 6-foot fiberglass heart sculptures designed as part of the state's sesquicentennial celebration.

According to court records, the Environmental Protection Agency learned after a fire at Keough's business, America's Fiberglass Animals, that he had been using gel coats and Hazardous Air Pollutant paints and solvents to make the fiberglass animals he was selling at the time.

Prosecutors said Keough transferred a number of fire-damaged and spoiled drums of fiberglass gel coat resin to a farm near Clarks and later to a storage facility in Seward in May 2013.

He continued operating his business in Shelton and later Minden, without getting the permits he needed from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality or installing fabric filters in enclosed areas, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Norris said in the plea agreement.

Norris said Keough placed workers in danger of serious bodily injury through the emissions used in the manufacturing process.

In November, he pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Clean Air Act.

After Monday's sentencing in federal court in Omaha, Keough was released on conditions of supervision and will be allowed to turn himself in to the Bureau of Prisons to serve his time.
RACINE COUNTY  Regional leaders say they are alarmed over a proposal that would virtually eliminate a Great Lakes cleanup program.

Under President Donald Trumps budget plan, annual funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative would reportedly be cut 97 percent  from $300 million to $10 million.

The program has helped clean up several old industrial sites, which has benefited not only the environment, but economic development, said state Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine. The initiative also works to control invasive species, protect native species and prevent harmful algal blooms, according to its website.

Are beaches going to be as clean for kids to swim in? No. Are we going to have more potential problems with invasive species? Yes. Are you going to have trouble with navigating waters? Yes, Mayor John Dickert said on UpFront with Mike Gousha, which aired Sunday on WISN-TV. All of these things are related and all of them will be dramatically impacted.

Mason chairs the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus, a group of state legislators from eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces. The opposition to the cut among members of the group has been broad and bipartisan, he said.

(The program) has been a real win for the lakes and cleaning up, particularly the areas of concern that have been identified, Mason said. Its also been a real boon to the local economies where theyve done this cleanup work, because it allows them to redevelop their waterfront for the new century.

The federal government previously identified about 30 areas of concern around the Great Lakes, four of which have since been de-listed through the restoration initiative. Another 10 could be de-listed by 2019, according to the initiatives action plan.

None of those areas are in Racine County, although grant money has been directed to the area, Mason said.

Officials also fear funding cuts could impact endeavors like bluff stabilization efforts in Mount Pleasant, where about 20 homes and infrastructure have been threatened by severe erosion. Gov. Scott Walker last year requested federal assistance for the project, though a funding determination has not been made.

Broad budget cuts

The proposed cuts would be part of a plan to cut Environmental Protection Agency funding by 25 percent and staffing by 3,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press report.

The budget also cuts the climate protection budget by nearly 70 percent and environmental justice programs by 79 percent, according to the AP report, which said the EPA and White House declined to comment. More details could come later this week when the president releases his federal budget proposal.

Mason was hopeful funding will be restored, noting the proposed Great Lakes Restoration Initiative cut has seen bipartisan opposition. Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, have joined Democrats in opposing the cut.

I dont think people understand the fragility of these lakes in why these funds are important. Once you take them away, those issues start to erode, they erode, Mason said.
RACINE  A Racine man was temporary locked in the place he was allegedly robbing, while apparently trying to abscond with dish detergent and a bar of soap.

Michael R. Jeter, 53, of the 1600 block of Douglas Avenue, is charged with robbery with use of force, a felony, and two counts of misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct.

According to a criminal complaint:

On Sunday, Racine Police officers were dispatched to the Better Day BP, 2100 Douglas Ave., for a report of a fight between an employee and a customer.

Reportedly, the employee saw Jeter take and conceal items near the back of the store. As Jeter attempted to leave, without paying, the employee locked the front door and blocked his exit.

Jeter allegedly became aggressive and punched and scratched the employee and a customer, who was trying to help the employee.

Eventually, according to the report, Jeter was able to leave the store and police located him in the backyard in the 2000 block of Douglas Avenue, with Joy liquid soap and Irish Spring bar soap in his possession.

If convicted, Jeter could face up to 11 years in prison with six years supervision. He has been assigned a March 22 preliminary hearing in Racine County Circuit Court.
RACINE  Racine Police investigated a reported stabbing at a house in the 1600 block of Morton Avenue Tuesday that sent a man to the hospital with a head wound.

Dispatchers received the emergency call at about 7:30 p.m. from the victim, who told them he was bleeding from the head after a woman hit him in the head with a kitchen knife.

The 66-year-old victim reportedly had a 2-inch cut on the right temple when he was taken to a local hospital. His condition was not released but Racine police said he is expected to be ok.

A female suspect detained at the scene was taken into custody but what charges she could face, if any, was not released as of Monday night.

Morton Avenue is located south of 16th Street and east of Taylor Avenue.
RACINE  A heavy snowstorm did not stop a few hundred people from protesting the proposed health care law outside House Speaker Paul Ryan's Racine office on Tuesday.

The noontime rally came a day after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated 24 million fewer Americans would have health coverage over the next decade under House Republicans' plan, of which Ryan was a driving force.

The protesters, many of whom arrived on a bus from Illinois, said the American Health Care Act would hurt lower-income people while helping those better off.

"The Republican plan doesn't really repeal or replace, but it aims to make the rich get richer and it cuts the health care for all the rest of us," said Pastor Fred Kinsey of Chicago.

In a statement Monday, Ryan said the CBO report showed the legislation will lower premiums and improve access to care while reducing the federal deficit by $337 billion.

Ryan's office attributed much of the drop in coverage to the proposed repeal of the individual mandate, which requires people to purchase insurance.

"Paul appreciates hearing the opinions and feedback of his constituents, he fully respects their right to voice their concerns, and he hopes any future demonstrations will continue to be conducted in a peaceful and civil manner," Ryan spokesman Ian Martorana said in an email.

The fate of the bill is unclear. President Donald Trump backs the legislation but several Republicans in the Senate do not. With Republicans' Senate majority at 52-48 and all Democrats lined up against it, the GOP cannot afford many defections.

Regional protesters

Liberal advocacy groups Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Fair Economy Illinois and People's Action organized the rally, which went on despite blistering wind and lake-effect snow that blanketed Downtown. The groups estimated 250 people attended.

"It shows how important this is to people," said Robert Kraig, Citizen Action executive director. "It is a life-and-death issue and people don't want anyone left out in the cold when it comes to health care."

Protesters marched from Olympia Brown Unitarian Church, 625 College Ave., down Sixth Street to Monument Square, stopping to demonstrate in front of Ryan's constituent service center, 216 Sixth St.

The protest drew people from around the region because of Ryan's role as speaker, Kraig said.

"He's become a national figure, but what comes with that is national responsibilities," Kraig said. "It will impact people in Racine just as much as it does in Chicago."

Tammy Wolfgram of Hartland said she and her daughter could not get insurance prior to the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have long sought to repeal.

She's worried about both of them losing insurance under provisions of the new bill, particularly her daughter, who is lower income. The Republicans' plan ties tax credits for insurance to age, instead of income like under the ACA.

"This will do damage," Wolfgram said. "There's no question about it."
A heavy snow band that affected Racine County, Milwaukee and areas in Sheboygan, headed out over Lake Michigan overnight into Tuesday and is forecast to bring a couple more inches.

As of 7 p.m. Monday, the National Weather Service reports showed that snow totals for Racine County reached 5.28 inches in the city and 8 inches from an area 2 miles west to southwest of the municipal area.

Marc Kavinski, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Sullivan, said the lake-effect snow warning for Racine County was to remain in effect until 1 p.m. today.

Racine will get a couple more inches overnight (Monday into Tuesday), Kavinski said. You are going to have some bands of heavier snow showers move through Racine overnight into Tuesday. A low pressure system is moving from the south.

North of Racine, Oak Creek reported 7.5 inches of snow, while Somers, to the south, reported 5 inches earlier Monday. The NWS said the highest snow total in southeastern Wisconsin was in Washington County, where a snow total average of 15.5 inches was reported in Newburg.
A Chicago-based developer pushed ahead Monday with its proposal to build an 11-story office building on the block currently housing Madison Area Technical Colleges downtown campus despite not being formally asked by MATC to submit a plan.

Beitler Real Estate, the same real estate company that is leading the massive Judge Doyle Square redevelopment project just a few blocks to the southeast, submitted a proposal to MATC to develop the block. However, MATC Vice President of Administrative Services Mark Thomas said the college will not consider applications except those that MATC formally requested.

"The bottom line is that theyre not being considered and won't be considered," Thomas said. "Were going to follow what was a clearly outlined public process and were going to consider the responses."

Though Beitler responded to MATC's request for qualifications, only Madison-based Alexander Company, CD Smith and HKS Holdings out of Fond du Lac, Madison-based Hovde, Sherman Associates out of Minneapolis and Baum Development in Chicago were asked to continue in the proposal process. The college plans to move many programs to a south side campus by 2019 and lease the 2-acre 211 N. Carroll St. property.

Despite reports last week that Baum would drop its bid, a spokesman for the consortium of nonprofits behind the proposal said Tuesday it planned to move forward.

Beitler's Vice President John Paul Beitler III maintains they can submit the proposal because the bid process is public.

"The RFP is a public bid, and it is incumbent upon MATC as a fiduciary of public funds to consider all viable options," Beitler III said. "After the Board reviews our proposal, we believe it will be their best option."

Earlier Monday, Beitler shared sent its proposal to MATC Board directors, the college's president and Key Commercial Real Estate, the agent with which MATC is working. The Beitler teams proposal would include demolishing the existing structure and constructing a triangular 250,000-square-foot office building that it says would maximize the buildings footprint, allow for more natural light in the building and separation from neighboring structures. Beitlers proposal estimates its building would be open for occupancy in October 2020.

Our lease will begin at $500,000 a year, and thats a very big number, company president J. Paul Beitler said. The only way we can reach that number is to have something that generates that kind of revenue. An office does that.

Beitler III said the goal is to attract a large company to rent out the entire space, but the buildings design would also allow for individual tenants.

The city would benefit most from attracting a large headquarters to the building, and it would be a full building occupancy that would generate the most short and longer term jobs and taxes, but it does have the flexibility to be a multi-tenant building, Beitler III said.

Beitler added that a major corporation considering moving to downtown Madison would be able to name the building.

Plans call for the building to have amenities such as a fitness facility, conference center and a full wall LED display in the lobby that can be programmed to show scenes like a flowing waterfall. Additionally, plans also include a 200-car underground heated parking ramp.

What this allows is the technical college can have one big asset on their land paying a strong maximized value ground lease for 98 years, Beitler III said.

He said the proposal calls for the development to enter into a 98-year ground lease with payments of $500,000 per year that would provide MATC with cash flow and the ability to sell the lease at any time for a lump sum. The project also does not require any city, state or federal funding and will be financed privately.

Beitler said Associated Bank has already expressed interest in financing the project if selected.

The triangle design also allows for nearly one acre of land that would be turned into a green space plaza, described by Beitler as a breath of fresh air.

MATCs arch, the only historic piece remaining from the original Madison Central High School, would be preserved in Beitlers designs but moved from along Wisconsin Avenue to the proposed North Carroll Street entrance.

Where it just stands and is sitting there exposed, now it becomes a functioning piece that people will enter through and exit through on a daily basis and get noticed and remembered, Beitler III said.

Beitler said proposals are due Wednesday, but the team is submitting its proposal Monday to MATCs Board of Trustees. Final Board approval is scheduled for May 3.

We feel very confident, Beitler said.

The Beitler presentation includes this video:
Judge Claims to Support Second

Amendment, Just not the "Bear" part

By Dean Weingarten. March 12th, 2017

Article Source

In a recent article in Military.com, senior federal judge Walter H. Rice was quoted. The judge has been with the District Court since 1980. His opinion about federal jurisdiction over legal carry on federal facilities is correct as to the state of current law, as far as I have determined. At the moment, federal officials can bar the carry of private arms at their facilities with proper signage.

But it was the statement of the judge's personal opinion about the Second Amendment that was interesting. Judge Price said he supported the Second Amendment. He then said that open and concealed carry laws were a danger to any community.

From Military.com:

Employees and others also cannot bring their guns to the federal court building in Dayton, said U.S. District Court Judge Walter H. Rice.

"Federal installations are not bound by the state law except in certain situations which I don't think are relevant," Rice said. "My opinion is that it is not applicable to federal facilities unless the federal installation decides to adopt that portion of the law. What I said applies to the parking lot as well."

Rice said Ohio's expansion of open carry and concealed-carry laws concern him.

"I think open carry (and concealed-carry) laws, with all due deference to the Second Amendment, which I support...are dangerous to any community because of the epidemic of mental health issues throughout this country," he said. "Putting guns in the hands of mentally incompetent people is a recipe for disaster."

Judge Rice was appointed in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. He is 80 years old. Judge Rice entered senior status in 2003, when he was 66. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Dayton School of Law. Senior status means he receives full salary, but can have a reduced workload at the District Court.

Judge's may have there personal opinions, of course. Perhaps Judge Price could put aside his personal opinion that actually being able to bear arms under the Second Amendment is the same as "Putting guns in the hands of mentally incompetent people..." and rule on the law instead of what he wishes it to be.

It is likely a long held view. The evidence that restoring Second Amendment rights make communities more safe, has only been widely published for 20 years. The facts are disputed in liberal circles, but evidence is lacking to reinforce their talking points.

Judges are sometimes asked to recuse themselves, because their comments, rulings, or conduct would cast doubt on their ability to hear the case without bias, or that a reasonable observer would think they would be biased.

The chances of Senior Judge Rice ruling in a Second Amendment case are not insignificant. Perhaps knowledgeable readers can let us know if there are grounds to ask for recusal in such an event.

2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Link to Gun Watch.

It would seem that Judge Rice belongs to the club that likes to interpret and rule on the 2A selectively, according to their personal opinion. No one will see within the 2A, any restriction on "bearing" of arms to be confined perhaps to just one's dwelling with no right to carry outside of that. The judge also seems to suggest that anyone wishing to carry their means of personal self defense could be by default, mentally impaired. "To bear arms" should not be location limited, which only expands the reach of 'gun-free-zones' - something of course criminals readily support.

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BJPs UP victory wont change Nepal policy

A surprise and thumping win by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indias most populous state of Uttar Pradesh can be a bellwether of Indias internal politics, but it is unlikely to trigger any major change in Delhis Nepal policy, observers said on Monday.
Brexit bill: Parliament clears way for talks with EU

Parliament has passed the Brexit bill, paving the way for the government to trigger Article 50 so the UK can leave the European Union.
Dahal prepares to visit China for Boao conference

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is scheduled to visit China to participate in the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, which will take place in Hainan Province on March 23-26.
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.
Defuse the tension

Last month, the Nepali people were confronted by two crucial announcements simultaneously.
Dhikurpokhari wants to become part of metropolis

The residents of Dhikurpokhari have started a protest demanding that their village should be included in Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan City.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Fish farming gets boost with Rs540m funding

Bara and Rupandehi districts in the southern plains have seen a new investment wave in aquaculture due to high returns and growing demand. Farmers have been switching to raising fish and giving up growing their traditional crops.
Hand over all weapons to security committee

The District Police Office (DPO), Chitwan, on Tuesday has urged one and all to hand over any weapons  licensed or unlicensed  and explosive devices to the District Security Committee.
India should apologise for Kanchanpur incident, says UML leader Rawal

CPN-UML Vice-Chairman Bhim Rawal has said that India should apologise for the death of a Nepali in firing by Indian security personnel at Kanchanpur.
Madhesi Morcha boycotts Parliament meeting

The agitating Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha boycotted the Legislature-Parliament meeting on Tuesday.
Nepal to seek DFQF access to more goods

The third joint council meeting of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (Tifa) between Nepal and the US is scheduled to be held on April 20 in Nepal.
Nidhi calls for resolute intl action in fight against terrorism

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi has called for resolute international actions in the fight against terrorism.
North Korea warns of "merciless" strikes as U.S. carrier joins S.Korea drills

North Korea warned the United States on Tuesday of "merciless" attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is joining South Korean forces for exercises, infringes on its sovereignty or dignity.
Orange production jumps 28pc in Arghakhanchi

Orange production jumped 28 percent in Arghakhanchi district in the current fiscal year driven by favourable weather conditions and decline in pest attacks.
Provision requiring license to sell tobacco products comes into force from today

The government has enforced the provision of acquiring a license to sell tobacco and tobacco products from Tuesday. With this, sale of tobacco products will be allowed only from license-holding outlets.
Rs9m Japanese grant for KU

Japan has decided to extend grant assistance of Rs8.82 million to the Kathmandu University under the Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP).
Security forces mobilised to remove snow in Manang

Nepal Army and Nepal Police personnel have been mobilised to remove snow from the road to smoothly operate vehicular movement in Manang, Assistant Chief District Officer of Manang Dhirendra Raj Pant informed.
Syria govt says Turkey breaks commitments as rebels boycott talks

The Syrian government accused Turkey of breaking its commitments to peace talks as Ankara-backed rebel groups boycotted a third round of meetings due to begin in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.
The halo effect

On March 2, leaders of top three political parties shared the platform of the Nepal Investment Summit 2017 to declare they were on the same page about increasing inflows of foreign investment into the country.
Turkey bars Dutch envoy as rift deepens

Turkey has announced a series of measures in retaliation for a Dutch decision to block its ministers from campaigning for a referendum.
Two Nepalis die, one missing in India avalanche

Two Nepalis have died and one other is still missing in an avalanche at Budi, Pithoragarh, in the Uttarakhand state of India on Saturday.
WB to provide additional support for reconstruction activities

The World Bank has decided to provide additional support to Nepal for the post earthquake reconstruction activities.
1. Yes. Taxpayers are funding its operation; they should have a voice in the naming process.

2. Yes. The city should operate with a spirit of inclusivity. Residents will be responsive.

3. No. Public input can be problematic; rejection of suggestions can be divisive for residents.

4. No. Residents elect council members to make decisions on their behalf. No input is needed.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether public input would be more of a benefit or a hindrance.

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The European Head of Delegation to Uganda Ambassador Kristian Schmidt has asked Kampala capital city leader to reserve all public grounds that are now under attack.

The call come at the time when many private investors have taken over the would-be public spaces for their selfish use, including the Constitutional square that has been under police siege for long and other green vegetation

He said that much green vegetation has been fenced off by private developers and thus KCCA must be empowered by law and political will from central government to protect this vegetation.

He said that if no step is taken now kamala is set to face dare calamities few year to come.
BY JULIUS OCUNGI & JAMES OWICH

A former representative of Gulu district local government has dragged Gulu University council and Vice Chancellor Prof Jack Nyeko Pen-Mogi citing irregularities in the recent re-appointment of the VC.

In his application filed at Gulu High Court on February 25th , 2017, before Gulu High Court Deputy Registrar, Henry Twinomuhezi, Kenneth Nyeko argues that the extension was illegal and should be nullified.

Nyeko through his lawyers Ms M Oyet & Co. Advocates, outlined that an order of prohibition be issued directing the University Council to halt the implementation of its resolutions until the matter is disposed.

Prof Pen-Mogi, 69, was controversially reappointed on November 18 last year on a two year term by a section of the Universitys council, a move that sparked discontent among some of the Universitys academic staff, students and district representatives.

Universitys Deputy Spokesperson Mr Mahmoud Khalid in a telephone interview with Daily Monitor on Monday acknowledged receiving the lawsuit from Gulu High court.
By Anderah Ruth

The International Crimes Division of the High Court is holding a pre-trial session in which the formal reading of charges against the Former LRA commandant Thomas Kwoyelo is taking place.

Kwoyelo who is appearing before Justice Susan Okalany is however not permitted by the rules of this court to plead to the charges at this stage.

He faces 93 counts which the prosecution from the DPP office says were committed between 1993 and 2005 during the insurgency in Northern Uganda.

Kwoyelo who was captured in 2009 from the Democratic Republic of Congo faces several counts of murder, hostage taking, kidnap with intent to murder, robbery by aggravation among others.

Prosecution States that between 1993 and 2005 in the present day Amuru district in Northern Uganda, Kwoyelo with others still at large being a commander of the LRA directed an attack to murder and kidnap civilians who were taking no active part in the hostilities.

At this stage, prosecution discloses its intended evidence and exhibits against the accused which the judge examines and determines whether its sufficient to sustain the charges at trial.

The judge will then proceed to confirm the charges and send the file to the trial panel of three justices.
By Moses Kyeyune

Parliament has tasked the minister of Information and Communications Technology Hon. Frank Tumwebaze to investigate utterances by former state house intelligence operative Charles Rwomushana alluding to female legislators as prostitutes.

The directive by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Rt Hon.Jacob Oulanyah follows complaints by female members of parliament that Rwomushana made the utterances while appearing on a local television.

Lira Woman Member of Parliamnet Hon.Joy Atim told the deputy Speaker that Rwomushanas allegations bring the members reputations into contempt.

Meanwhile, Tumwebaze has asked parliament to allow room for procedural undertakings by the Uganda Communications Commission.

Rwomushana has on several occasions been summoned by the Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department of police over various statements, although no case has been brought against him.
By Ritah Kemigisa

The Human Rights Network for Journalists has asked the police to dismiss former Old Kampala DPC Joram Mwesigye who was last week convicted of assaulting television journalist Andrew Lwanga.

On Friday, Buganda Road Grade One Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu found DPC Mwesigye guilty of assaulting Lwanga and causing bodily harm to him in 2015 and ordered him to compensate the victim with Shs 5M in addition to paying a Shs 1M court fine within 30 days or he serves one year in jail.

Addressing journalists, the groups National Coordinator Robert Ssempala says police using its mandate under the Police Act Section 40 should dismiss Mwesigye for his discreditable conduct to act as a lesson to other officers.

He says that they will also write to the police council and the public service commission to ensure the affected journalist gets fair justice.
No

Yes, a light case

Yes, two or more light cases

One serious case

Two or more serious bouts

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ANGOLA  Weather conditions are being blamed for a fatal wreck that occurred Monday morning in Steuben County, the Steuben County Sheriffs Office reports.

A 2005 Toyota Matrix driven by Alicia Christine Treat, 40, Fremont, was eastbound on C.R. 750N east of C.R. 700E when she lost control of her vehicle on the snow covered roadway and struck two trees on the drivers side of the vehicle, a news release said.

When police arrived at what was reported as a property damage accident, they found Treat dead from blunt force trauma. The wreck occurred at about 8 a.m.

Treat was wearing a seatbelt and the air bags did deploy. Alcohol is not considered to be a factor. The crash remains under investigation.

Steuben County Deputies were assisted at the scene by Fremont Fire Department and the Steuben County Coroners Office.

Winters revenge as some forecasters were calling the weather to start this week will be rearing its head come midweek as bitter cold temperatures set in to serve as a reminder that no matter what February might have felt like winter is still here.

A storm that was predicted to bring up to 4 inches of snow fizzled somewhat, but not before its presumed wrath forced schools to close across the four-county area. All but one northeast Indiana school closed, Westview in LaGrange County, on Monday.

AccuWeather, which provides weather for KPCNews.com, reports winter shows no signs of releasing its grip.

Highs at midweek will be held below freezing throughout the Great Lakes and Northeast, a news release from AccuWeather said.

Temperatures will not rise out of the 20s today and Wednesday, with a gradual warming to near normal temperatures on Saturday and Sunday, information from the National Weather Service said. More snow is possible on Friday.

A fresh blast of arctic air will plunge southward in the wake of the noreaster, encompassing nearly the entire eastern half of the nation by midweek, said Max Vito of AccuWeather.

Highs at midweek will be held below freezing throughout the Great Lakes and Northeast. Temperatures will not rise out of the lower and middle 20s in the Appalachians, including in Binghamton, New York, and Burlington, Vermont.

Theres been numerous slide-offs and many property damage accidents, said Randy Brown, Steuben County Emergency Management director.

Weather wise, Brown said, We really lucked out this time and we knew it was coming. We had too many nice days.
TWO HARBORS, Minn.  Earlier this winter, Duluth photographer Michael Furtman was driving along the North Shore of Lake Superior in search of great gray owls. Several of the giant, elusive birds had flown down from Canada in search of food.

He pulled off on a dirt road where he had seen an owl the night before. One was there, perched in a spruce tree, but so was a pair of videographers, so Furtman backed off. I was going to let them have their time with the bird, he said.

Then he saw one of them run out and put a mouse on the snow. Quickly the owl dove down in front of the camera and snatched up the easy meal. At first Furtman was so angry that he drove away, but then he returned and confronted them.

You know, there are a lot of people who would actually like to photograph this bird hunting, he said to them through his car window, and its not going to hunt the rest of the day after you stuff it to the gills.

Later, Furtman posted the interaction on Facebook. Were not hurting this bird in any way, shape or form, one of the videographers responded. Absolutely not. Maybe were hurting the photographers, and Im sorry if thats the way people feel.

Furtman is a longtime nature photographer and writer. Recently hes made it his personal mission to stop the practice of owl feeding  or baiting, as he and other detractors call it  which he said is not only unethical, but can harm owls by habituating them to humans.

The issue has become so contentious in recent years that its brought photographers to blows, sparked a proposed state law a couple years ago, and led to more and more confrontations, in person, and on-line.

I compare it to the election, said Terry Crayne, a longtime hobby wildlife photographer from the Iron Range who has used mice to entice owls. You dont want to talk about Trump, because you get jumped on. You dont want to talk about feeding owls, because its the same atmosphere.

In short, the arguments break down this way. Those opposed to feeding say its dishonest. It doesnt capture owls behaving naturally. And they argue it habituates owls to humans.

Youre essentially training the owl to lose its fear of humans and associate food with humans, said James Duncan, a Canadian biologist who directs Manitobas wildlife and fisheries branch who has written several books on owls.

So then they become bolder, to the point where youll often see them perching on the ground with humans, or as soon as a car pulls up to an area, where theyve been baited, they come out of the forest and perch nearby, increasing the likelihood of getting hit by a vehicle, he explained.

But others say they dont see any damage in feeding owls. They point out there havent been any studies documenting how owls have been harmed.

Its a nasty battle, but as far as I know, theres no data to back up any of the negative, said Terry Crayne, who added that many of the photographers yelling the loudest about feeding owls have no qualms about feeding other wildlife.

Most of the people I know who are against feeding owls are actually feeding deer, he said. The deer are associating humans with food. So which is worse? In my mind, if youre against feeding one animal, you should be against feeding them all.

Photographers say they first saw widespread feeding in Minnesota in 2004, when hordes of great grays flew south to Minnesota. Furtman said thats when he was first introduced to the technique by a friend, and he used it for a week before souring on the practice.

But he saw how effective it was. I have to admit, its really cool to watch an owl fly in and grab something, he said. How often do you get to see a predator pounce on prey?

The issue really exploded a couple winters ago, when a large number of snowy owls visited southern Minnesota. Aided by social media, where owl sightings are quickly posted, photographers flocked to see them.

With rain and snow falling, Mary and Dan Dreher of Bloomington stop to photograph a northern hawk owl from inside their car Feb. 22 inside the Sax-Zim Bog. Derek Montgomery for MPR News

We call them owl jams, said photographers Dan and Mary Dreher of Bloomington, likening the throngs of shooters to the bear jams that can occur with tourists at Yellowstone National Park.

The retired couple visited the Sax-Zim Bog area of northeast Minnesota recently, where they photographed a northern hawk owl through the window of their car on a cold, rainy evening. They recalled a confrontation they witnessed while photographing a snowy owl perched on a piece of farm machinery.

One guy was baiting. Another guy objected to the guy who was baiting, and told him to stop. He threw out another mouse, and the next thing you know, they were punching each other!

The popularity of wildlife photography has exploded in the past decade with the advent of high speed, digital technology. Thats helped spark intense competition, said Keith Crowley, a professional wildlife photographer based in Hudson, Wis.

Youll have five people photographing the same owl, two will want to bait, and three wont, he said. And there will be shouting matches. I watched someone grab someone elses box full of mice and drive away with them, screaming obscenities. Its a heated issue. People feel very strongly on both sides.

There are a lot of ethical gray areas when it comes to wildlife photography. People will drag carcasses into the woods to attract scavengers, photograph animals on game farms, and use vocal calls or recordings to lure birds and animals.

Photographer Mary Dreher said that practice concerns her even more than feeding owls, since she sees it occurring much more frequently. And the next thing you know the owls are so confused, theyre just flying all over, she said.

But its owl feeding that has generated the most passion. Several magazines and photo contests have begun to reject baited photographs of owls and other predators. Many photographers now label their shots with the hashtag ethical owl photo.

Michael Furtman and others have taken to aggressively outing those who feed owls online. If youre going to do it, and youre not going to tell people you do it, then Im going to call you out on it, because this is not wildlife photography, he said.

Thats led to accusations of cyber-bullying. Even some who fervently oppose the feeding of owls, like photographer Keith Crowley, dont see the benefit in confrontation.

I dont think outing people is the right tact to take, he said. That cements people into their position, and they dont want to budge then.

He said education and possibly legislation are needed. The province of Manitoba has a law prohibiting the feeding of wildlife next to roads.

The Minnesota DNR twice supported legislation that would have made feeding owls illegal. It didnt pass, and hasnt been reintroduced.

Carrol Henderson, the DNRs nongame wildlife supervisor, said demand for photographs of owls that have been fed has cooled now that several magazines, including the DNRs own Conservation Volunteer, wont accept them.

But he said it can still affect the experience of birders and photographers who travel from hundreds of miles away to see owls in Minnesota in winter.

Its a real dilemma in terms of people who are just trying to enjoy the owls or photograph them passively, he said, without having to make them perform.
The public will have opportunities meet the three finalists for president of Western Technical College during their visits to campus this week and next.

The first will be Roger Stanford, Westerns vice president for academic affairs, on Wednesday. Rebekah Woods, provost of Jackson College in Jackson, Mich., will visit on Monday, with Rick Pearce, vice president for learning and student success at Heartland Community College in Normal, Ill., visiting campus on Wednesday, March 20.

Public forums with the candidates will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Room 128 of the Coleman Center, 368 N. Sixth St. Last week, Western staff said the campus visits and forums would not be open to the public but changed that stance on Monday.

Stanford came to Western in 2015 from Chippewa Valley Technical College, where also received his associates degree in marketing management. He spent nine years as adjunct faculty teaching for University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and UW-River Falls masters level education programs, and spent 10 years teaching in K-12 prior to moving into higher education.

He said he decided to come to Western because of the colleges solid reputation and the community support that was apparent when voters approved the $79.8 million Vision 2020 referendum funding renovations and expansions at the campus locations in La Crosse and throughout the region.

The college has some outstanding faculty and some of the best programs in the state, Stanford said. It was a draw to come here and to lead at the next level.

Stanford said if chosen he felt he could lead what he called Vision 2020 Phase II. He also felt he could bring a strong focus on data analysis and strategic planning to the position.

You have to fit the college and the (district) board, he said. I feel that Western connection, and this is the right time to go for the next level.
During his visit to Aquinas High School, Taiki Kudoh was surprised at how American teenagers dress.

The University of Teacher Education Fukuoka graduate student has been in La Crosse on a three-week trip in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse English as a Second Language Institute. He and the other 13 students from the university visited area schools to learn about the educational system in America.

Kudoh, 25, said that in Japan everyone wears a school uniform, starting in junior high school. The culture also places importance on hygiene and footwear, with students slipping between outdoor and inside shoes.

Everyone is usually wearing school uniforms, Kudoh said.

UTEF professor Todd Jay Leonard said his campus has a good sister relationship with UW-L. Faculty from UW-L will visit the campus in Fukuoka, the largest city on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, and the three-week, short-stay program provides education students a chance to see how teachers conduct their lessons at schools such as Emerson Elementary School, Logan Middle School, Northwoods International School and UW-La Crosse.

Students are very interested in the U.S. educational system, he said. There are so many differences.

In Japan, Leonard said, students often eat in their classrooms rather than a common area. Japanese students saw the difference as they met with Aquinas students during the lunch period Tuesday, demonstrating the Japanese art of origami and traditional calligraphy.

At the end of lunch, the Japanese students demonstrated and then led the Aquinas students in performing the coal miners dance, a traditional folk dance from Fukuoka. Students wearing their origami sailor hats joined in the circle as they danced about, miming the actions of coal miners shoveling and loading coal into a cart.

Moe Hirokado, 21, said she also noticed the differences between school in Japan and America. Japanese schools tend to start later she said, and the classes are taught differently, with students quietly taking notes as the teacher, a person of authority, lectures. Grades are also more standardized, with all elementary schools hosting grades one through six, followed by three years of junior high school and three years of high school.

Hirokado said she really enjoyed the visit to America and even had learned some new techniques she wanted to bring back with her to Japan. Classrooms in America are more vibrant, she said, with students speaking up and asking questions.

I think student-centered learning is much more important, she said. I think having more students speak during class is important.
June Kjome doesnt want to be a bossy old lady.

Despite her 96 years of experience, Kjome thinks people need less advice and more role models.

Its a great temptation when youre older to tell everyone how to do it, she said. I dont think people need advice as much as they need examples.

To her friends, the missionary, nurse and social justice activist is the embodiment of living  and aging  with grace, and they have put her thoughts into a new book, June Kjome: Reflections on Aging.

Shes a role model to me, said author Susan T. Hessel. We talk about people having a courageous fight about cancer, but we dont talk about them having a courageous fight about aging. She is the Eveready bunny. She keeps on going.

Born in Decorah, Iowa, and raised in Austin, Minn., Kjome said she was enthralled by missionaries who spoke at her church about their experiences abroad. When she graduated from nursing school at the University of Minnesota Kjome volunteered.

When the mission board called and asked if she would go to Zululand, Kjome recalls her response: Yes. Where is it?

In 1945, Kjome sailed aboard a cargo ship to the South African province, where she spent the next 17 years treating patients in back country clinics. She said she was appalled by the institutionalized racism but didnt dare to speak out for fear her visa would be revoked and the mission shut down.

After returning to the United States, Kjome got a job at Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse and began speaking to church groups about her work  and the injustice of apartheid.

Kjome eventually became head of nursing education at what is now Gundersen Health Systems but retired in 1985 to devote herself to social justice.

She served on the board of the YWCA, which led her to eventually found a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. In the late 1980s she became an advocate for gay and lesbian rights. She fought hunger, racism, domestic violence. In 2002, she co-founded the anti-war group known as Women in Black and as recently as June was still attending their weekly vigils for peace.

It was just one thing after another, Kjome said.

All of us want to be like her when we grow up

The idea for the book originated in a bathroom stall.

In 2010, Susan Schmidt was attending an an annual gala hosted by the LGBT Resource Center for the Seven Rivers Region where June was the featured speaker. In the Radisson banquet hall bathroom, Schmidt overheard someone say they needed to find someone to read to June, whose eyesight was failing.

Schmidt didnt know Kjome, but she immediately volunteered.

I was a teacher for years, she said. And its one of my favorite things to do.

Once a week, Schmidt visits Kjome at her South Side apartment, where she reads her the newspaper and helps her pay her bills. Schmidt later recruited her friend Kate Mayer to fill in for her. Mayer now visits once a week to read books.

The friends started talking about how much they learned from Kjome, and Mayer suggested they find a way to share it with others.

It all started with both of us appreciating  she has so much insight, Mayer said.

Mayer and Schmidt recruited Hessel to write the book, which is organized into chapters on Kjomes values and the lessons shes learned over the years.

Hessel said she and her friends, all in their 60s, aspire to be like Kjome.

All of us want to be like her when we grow up, Hessel said.

Kjome said three things make life worth living: faith, family and friends. She also learned theres no sense complaining or worrying.

Get off your duff and do something, she said. There are many things you can do.

Growing old isnt easy, but Kjome jokes that the alternative isnt all that much fun.

Shes outlived her parents, siblings and most of her peers. There are fewer people who can share old memories, though shes grateful for the many new friends whove taken their place.

A combination of glaucoma and macular degeneration have taken most of her sight. Ten years ago she sold her car so she wouldnt be tempted to drive. Now she relies on a network of friends to ferry her to church and the store and regular meetings of the half dozen or so groups shes still involved with.

You have to get over that, she said of asking for help. Otherwise youll never get anywhere.

Kjome said she has no regrets, though shes frustrated that age has limited her ability to serve.

Im just glad I had an opportunity all those years to be active, she said.
MADISON, Wis.  Wisconsin election officials on Tuesday blamed undertrained poll workers and Sen. Bernie Sanders social media posts for dozens of instances in which 17-year-olds managed to vote in last years state presidential primary.

A commission report found that as many as 70 17-year-olds in nearly 30 Wisconsin counties, including La Crosse County, voted illegally in the April election. Sanders won the Democratic side of the primary; Ted Cruz won the Republican side.

Many states allow 17-year-olds who will be 18 by Election Day to vote in their primaries, but Wisconsin requires voters to be 18 to vote in its.

In its report, the commission determined that some political campaigns provided false information about 17-year-olds being able to vote in primaries and it circulated on social media, creating confusion and driving the Wisconsin teens to the polls.

The report doesnt name a specific candidate or provide examples of the alleged false information. But commission officials on Tuesday said it was primarily Sanders campaign, though a commission spokesman acknowledged that staff didnt see anything misleading from Sanders about Wisconsin laws, specifically.

Andrea Kaminski, executive director of Wisconsins League of Women Voters chapter, told the commission she was distressed to read about the 17-year-olds voting, saying voters and poll workers need to be better educated about voting laws.

Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen responded by telling her that Sanders national campaign blurred the differences in states laws in its messaging and the candidate has to have responsibility for those errors.

Asked during a break how Sanders could be held responsible for internet users misinterpreting his messages, Thomsen said he thinks candidates for national office need to keep in mind that election laws vary from state to state.

Its your obligation to tell your campaign people and the voters what the rules are in your jurisdiction, Thomsen said. You can just sit in D.C. and say here it is. I would hate to see youthful exuberance end up in criminal prosecution.

Sanders campaign didnt immediately reply to an email seeking reaction to Thomsens remarks. The Vermont senator enjoyed strong support among young voters and he pushed for the inclusion in primaries of 17-year-olds who would be eligible to vote on Election Day, successfully suing for that right in Ohio just weeks before Wisconsins primary.

Commissioner Ann Jacobs said during Tuesdays meeting that its unclear whos responsible for what appears online. Sanders may have said 17-year-olds could vote in one state and his supporters or kids twisted the message as it spread across the internet, she suggested.

To say the campaign itself promulgated it may be the case, or it may not be the case, she said.

Commissioner Julie Glancey said she didnt want to point fingers at any campaigns. The panel ultimately voted unanimously to remove the phrase some political campaigns from the report and simply say false information spread through social media.

Thomsen added that its troubling Wisconsin poll workers allowed the 17-year-olds to vote. The commission will look at training to make sure were not encouraging 17-year-olds to commit crimes.

The commission consists of three Republicans and three Democrats. Thomsen, Jacobs and Glancey are all Democrats.

The 17-year-olds who voted were referred to local prosecutors. District attorneys in counties with the most underage voters told The Associated Press they chose not to charge them because they genuinely believed they could vote and didnt intend to commit fraud.

La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke said he decided not to charge a 17-year-old boy who voted in La Crosse, noting he provided poll workers with his actual date of birth and identity.

We found there was no intent to defraud, Gruenke said. He honestly believed he could vote in the primary if he was 18 by November.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported Tuesday that Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne reached deferred prosecution agreements in four of the seven cases that were referred to his office. He hasnt decided whether to charge the remaining three teens. Ozanne didnt immediately reply to messages from The AP.

Gov. Scott Walker told reporters in Milwaukee that 17-year-olds voting is all the more reason why voter photo identification is so important. He said he anticipates poll workers will probably make a point of checking birthdays as well as names on the cards from now on.

President Donald Trump has called for a major investigation into voter fraud and alleged, without any evidence, that 3 million to 5 million people may have voted illegally in the November general election. The commission report lists no instances of underage voters casting ballots in Wisconsins general election.
ST. PAUL  Minnesota lawmakers have derailed legislation to give the state Department of Agriculture authority over seeds treated with insecticide.

Seeds treated with neonicotinoid insecticides are widely used on corn and soybean crops. Research has shown the insecticide can harm bees when insecticide dust is released during planting.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency does not consider the treated seeds subject to pesticide regulation. But as part of a pollinator plan announced last fall, Minnesota agriculture officials sought authority to regulate seed treated with insecticide.

The systemic insecticide is effective against pests that eat seeds before they sprout, and because the insecticide is taken up by plants along with nutrients and water, it is also effective against pests that might attack the plant.

But the insecticide can also be absorbed by flowering plants near treated fields, exposing bees and other pollinators to the chemical.

Since treated seeds are widely used, the Agriculture Department considers this an important part of the pollinator protection initiative.

The original language would give us the same authority that we have over other pesticides and what we do with other pesticides is we track their use and we know how much is being used where its being sold and were also able to research, study them and develop best management practices, said Susan Stokes, an assistant commissioner in the department.

Committees in the House and Senate stripped the language from legislation.

In a recent hearing Rep. Paul Anderson, who chairs the House Agriculture Policy committee, expressed concern about giving the Department of Agriculture regulatory authority over neonicotinoid treated seeds.

And I think thats what concerns people in agriculture, that the department would regulate, and I assume that to mean cut down on the use of, this chemical that at least as far as raising corn is very necessary, said Anderson, R-Starbuck.

A Senate committee also added legislation to weaken the Department of Agricultures enforcement of pesticide label requirements.

Environmental groups, beekeepers and some farmers supported the treated seed legislation. Pesticide Action Network organizer Lex Horan called it a missed opportunity to help pollinators.

Seed treatments are the most common use of neonicotinoids in our state, and the state agency that oversees pesticide use in our state has its hands tied in addressing their use, he said. Its disappointing to see ongoing inaction by our decision makers as pollinator declines continue to worsen.

Without legislative authority the Agriculture Department cant even monitor how widely treated seeds are used in the state or effectively develop best management practices to reduce exposure to bees, said Stokes.

I think farmers and users really want this information, and I think its important that at a minimum the department get the authority to conduct research and try to develop the best management practices because that will guide all of the users and the purchasers of treated seed, she said.

Stokes is still hopeful the treated seed regulatory authority will be restored in the legislative process, but says it is likely an uphill effort.

Without legislative authority the Agriculture Department cant monitor how widely treated seeds are used in the state or effectively develop best management practices to reduce exposure to bees.
Law enforcement and other first responders to emergency calls in La Crosse County are learning about signals that a person has dementia so they dont mistake erratic behavior for criminal activity and react in the wrong way  such as tasing an elderly man.

Although such extreme reactions from law officers are rare  having been inflicted on a 91-year-old man in a Punta Gorda, Fla., assisted living facility last month and a 91-year-old in a Minneapolis, Kan., nursing home last year  they illustrate the potential for harm when officers dont recognize the symptoms.

Thats the main reason the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Western Wisconsin received a $77,000 Dementia Capable Crisis Response grant from the state last year. Center staffers have trained nearly 150 La Crosse County and city law enforcement officers, first responders and others since it received the grant in January 2016, said Cheryl Neubauer, who supervises the center.

Increasing need as baby boomers age

The need for such awareness will become increasingly important as baby boomers age, she said.

A person with dementia who is driving may appear intoxicated when they actually are just confused, Neubauer said.

The appropriate response can save time and energy not only for the person who as Alzheimers disease or other forms of dementia but also their families and law enforcement, Neubauer said.

Officers always are watching for the safety of themselves and others, so being able to see the signs is helpful to the person and the family, said Sgt. Brandon Penzkover, a member of training unit of the La Crosse County Sheriffs Office.

We brought it into the in-service training, learning the best practices of dealing with (distressed individuals) and guiding other members of the families, he said.

We deal with so many members of the community, and it is so diversified, we need to know how to deal with all members, said Penzkover, who cited a personal experience in which the training helped him.

During a break one day, he went home for lunch and saw an ambulance in the neighborhood. Checking into the situation, he was able to identify what was going on, he said.

Through the class, I was able to contact a family member and provide resources, Penzkover said. It was a good thing all around, because I was able to talk to another neighbor about it.

Much of the time, the response includes pointing people toward resources and assistance they often dont know exists, he said.

Most dementia patients live at home

Roughly 70 percent to 80 percent of the people who have dementia live at home, and the program aims to keep them in their homes as safely as possible for as long as possible, Neubauer said.

The Aging and Disability Resource Center, headquartered at the La Crosse County Health and Human Services Department, serves La Crosse, Jackson, Monroe and Vernon counties.

Some of the topics taught in the classes include:

Employ talk tactics, talking slowly, asking simple questions and maintaining eye contact.

When speaking to a caregiver, determine whether there are firearms in the home. If so, advise removing them altogether or, if not possible, store unloaded guns in a locked container.

Recognize wandering, with clues including blank or confused facial expression, inappropriate attire or lack of awareness of unsafe situations. Wandering often is the result of someone becoming disoriented and merely searching for home  sometimes a home they occupied years ago or even as a child.

When a call involves alleged abuse or neglect, recognize that these can be complicated cases requiring the utmost caution. If someone is injured, take that person to a hospital. If uninjured but in danger, move the individual to a safe place.

When a person with dementia unknowingly walks out of a store without paying, attempt to resolve the issue with the store manager instead of arresting the person and filing charges. Inform the persons caregiver and recommend that the person be accompanied on future shopping trips.

Some people with dementia used to be detained in a hospital under a Chapter 51 hold, but a hospital often isnt the best option, Neubauer said.

The training demonstrates to law enforcement how to defuse crises instead of taking a person to a hospital or jail, she said.

One interesting thing we learned during training is that lots of law enforcement people have neighbors who have dementia, Neubauer said. Who these days doesnt know somebody who has dementia?

Avoid crisis, plan for future

Once a crisis has been averted, another result is planning to avoid such incidents in the future, she said.

After the dust settles, what can we put in place to help the caregivers? she said.

Perhaps most important, she said, is to erase the stigma that causes people to ignore, run from or be embarrassed by people who have dementia  the way people once talked of cancer only in whispers.

Its like its a communicable disease  like youre going to get dementia, she said.

As for those tasing incidents in Florida and Kansas, part of the problem was lack of training, according to authorities involved in the cases.

In Punta Gorda, police responded to an assisted-living facility where a 91-year-old man was agitated.

The man told the officers he wanted them to hurt him, saying, Go ahead and shoot me and Give me your gun and Ill shoot myself. He also threatened police, saying, I want to kill every one of them.

After trying to calm the man, an officer decided to take him into custody to protect other residents and staff members. The man tried to bite an officer, and thats when an officer used a stun gun on him. He was sent to a hospital for medical clearance and later transported to a behavioral health center.

In the Kansas case, a 91-year-old Alzheimers disease patient in a nursing home refused to go to a doctors appointment. In an attempt to get him to cooperate, police tased him, handcuffed him and carried him out on a stretcher, according to news reports.

Police initially told the public that the taser was becoming violent with police. But video from a police body cam released months later showed that he was not being violent, and he crumbled to the ground when tased.

Workers from other nursing homes who reviewed the video said the main problem was lack of training that would have taught the officers that they should have just stepped back and tried to calm him.

A news report quoted one as saying that a de-escalation approach would have worked, saying, The best way to deal with that would have been to back off, give him time to relax, re-approach and explain to him first of all who they are, what theyre coming here for and what theyre doing for his best interest.
WASHINGTON  President Trump, during the campaign, famously said he gets his military advice from the shows.

He wasnt kidding. Now, as leader of the free world, he gets up in the morning and, long before receiving his intelligence briefing (if he receives one at all), he flips on cable news and starts tweeting. His comments are in the style of a guy in a La-Z-Boy shouting at the television, except the guy in the La-Z-Boy has 26 million Twitter followers and controls a nuclear arsenal that could destroy the world many times over.

Fox News morning show flashes a graphic alleging that 122 released Gitmo prisoners reengaged in terrorism. Within an hour, Trump tweets from the White House: 122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision! (As The Washington Posts Jenna Johnson pointed out, 113 of the 122 were released during the George W. Bush administration.)

A Fox & Friends host calls for Trump to block federal funding to universities that try to silence conservative voices, after violent protests at the University of California at Berkeley over a speech by conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Half an hour later, Trump tweets: If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view  NO FEDERAL FUNDS?

Fox News OReilly Factor cites statistics about crime in Chicago. An hour later, Trump tweets the same statistics: If Chicago doesnt fix the horrible carnage going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24 percent from 2016), I will send in the Feds!

Fox News labels Chelsea Manning an ungrateful traitor who had called President Barack Obama a weak leader. Fourteen minutes later, CNNs Brian Stelter notes, Trump tweets: Ungrateful TRAITOR Chelsea Manning, who should never have been released from prison, is now calling President Obama a weak leader. Terrible!

Fox News Tucker Carlson airs a report alleging that Sweden has been trying to cover up an outburst of violence caused by Muslim immigrants. The next day, Trump tells a crowd in Florida: You look at whats happening last night in Sweden. Sweden? Who would believe this?

Swedes have no idea what Trump is talking about; an international incident ensues.

Trumps virtual shouts at the television arent limited to Fox News (NBC, MSNBC and CNN have fired him up, too), and they have been about everything from Russia to Obamacare to flag burning.

Clearly we are not going to get Trump to turn off the idiot box and do his homework. But perhaps somebody could change the channel in the residence? This way, Trump could still get his frustrations out, La-Z-Boy-style  and the republic would not have to fear that the commander in chief might at any moment start World War III because of something he just heard on Fox News.

With some guidance from Hank Stuever, the Posts TV critic, I searched the proverbial dial for shows that might prove useful distractions for Trump. Following, with the necessary SPOILER ALERT, are examples of how Trump could be occupied with fictional drama to prevent him from creating real crises.

Instead of dire warnings of terrorist threats, he could tweet about Showtimes Homeland: Ungrateful TRAITOR Carrie Mathison, whose law firm helps Radical Islamic Terrorists, has daughter taken away. We are already winning again, America!

He could channel personal animosity not at Democrats but at the contestants of Discoverys Naked and Afraid: CHOKER Jason, highly overrated with 6.8 PSR, drops out on Day 11 because of parasites. Weak! Too much pixelation covering Lacey. Sad.

His unnerving rants about crime and violence could find an outlet in recent actions on CMTs Nashville: Rayna escapes knife attack but then killed after car crash. Carnage stops right now!

He might direct his conspiracy theories about rigged elections into demanding an investigation into how crooked Blake Shelton won five of 11 seasons on The Voice. His curious fondness for Russia could find a healthy outlet by watching FXs The Americans; everybody roots for Russian spies Philip and Elizabeth. And he could work through his issues with women and minorities by focusing them on HBOs Girls: Shocker! Total zero Lena Dunham gets pregnant by the foreign Muslim, Riz Ahmed.

And  who knows?  maybe watching the Weather Channel now and then might get him to reconsider climate change: Winter Storm Reggie coming followed by 2 more storms  and 49 Midwest tornadoes. I INHERITED A MESS!

Who wouldnt retweet that?
I read with interest the front page article (Sunday's Tribune) headlined, "Every child needs Jesus." Consider what the headline might have been if it had been written elsewhere.

Had she been born and raised in Baghdad, her poster would be praising Mohammed, not Jesus; if born in Jerusalem, she would be praising Yahweh; if born in Calcutta, she likely would be honoring Sheva or Vishnu.

On the other hand, if this young girl was teaching those children about mathematics, chemistry, physics or biology, her message would have been identical no matter where she lived.

Knowing that her message depends entirely on the randomness of her birth, what does that say about its truthfulness?
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About Larry Dablemont Outdoors

Larry Dablemont earned his B.S. in Wildlife Management from the University of Missouri. He is not only a Naturalist and avid outdoorsman, but a talented writer and author.




Monday, March 13, 2017

A stayed four month suspension with conditions has been imposed by the the Maine Supreme Judicial Court for billing misconduct.

The victim

On July 10, 2015, John D. Pelletier, Esq. Executive Director of the Maine Commission On Indigent Legal Services (MCILS) filed a grievance complaint against Attorney Fethke. The complaint followed Attorney Fethke's suspension from the MCILS Roster of Eligible Attorneys for receiving new assignments due to "billing misconduct. MCILS allowed Attorney Fethke to complete his existing cases, and assigned additional cases involving existing clients to him. Although Attorney Fethke's period of suspension has run, he has not reapplied for appointment to the MCILS Roster...

Attorney Pelletier alleged that during that time period Attorney Fethke had submitted payment vouchers to MCILS that did not accurately reflect the dates on which he performed the work detailed in the vouchers; that he entered time into the billing system in advance for work which had not yet been performed by him; and that his billings generally reflected disregard of his obligation to accurately document his work and a cavalier, attitude about the need to accurately respond to MClLS inquiries about that work.

In response to Attorney Pelletier's complaint Attorney Fethke admitted that his "timekeeping and billing practices were sloppy," and that he "did not appreciate the need to consistently and accurately reflect the work actually being done in terms of dates and time of billing." Attorney Fethke recognized that his practices needed to "change and improve," but denied that his billing errors were intentional.

Findings

Attorney Fethke fully acknowledges that as a result of his unorthodox and inappropriate billing practices in relation to MCILS, the resulting bills contained knowing misstatements regarding the dates and times that he performed services for his clients. While he acknowledges that his inaccurate record keeping resulted in material misrepresentations of facts to MCILS, Attorney Fethke believes that his bills nonetheless accurately reflected the actual number of hours that he spent on the specific cases to which he was assigned, and that his misrepresentations did not result in overbilling of MCILS.

The complainant and the Board agree that while the evidence does establish that Attorney Fethke's billing practices resulted in material misrepresentations of fact to MCILS, the evidence does not establish that those misrepresentations were the result of deliberate or intentional attempts on the part of Attorney Fethke to overbill MCILS for the services he performed for those clients.

The Complainant and the Board agree that there is no evidence that the services for which Attorney Fethke billed were not in fact provided, or that Attorney Fethke's representation of his clients through MCILS was substandard.

Attorney Fethke has testified that his attempts to run a high volume practice with minimal staff resulted in his being overwhelmed by attempting to balance the administrative tasks inherent in such a practice with the professional obligations of meeting his clients' legal needs and providing high quality representation. He further testified that the filing of this complaint, and the issues raised within it, have caused him to dramatically re-think his approach to his practice and to re-evaluate his work-life balance. In particular, Attorney Fethke testified that he has revised his entire office operation. He has hired additional staff, arranged for more full time staff coverage, and adjusted his work load such that the administrative requirements inherent in his practice are met.

Attorney Fethke further testified that he has consulted with other attorneys in similar practices, reviewed materials available with regard to law office practice, taken practice-related CLE, and worked to recognize office practices and procedures that will streamline his billing and insure its accuracy. Attorney Fethke testified that he sets aside time at the end of each day to make sure that all of his time is recorded. In the event that he is out of town and unable to record his time, he makes entries via computer and then makes sure that those entries are appropriately inputted the following day prior to beginning any further work. Attorney Fethke testified that he has his office staff check on his billing so that he is accountable not only to himself and his billing software, but also to a personal check by his staff. Attorney Fethke clarified that although his staff checked his billing on a daily basis following the filing of the grievance complaint, that practice is now performed monthly.

Mr. Fethke completed all of his pending cases with MCILS, and his billings after this matter arose were accepted and were paid by MCILS. MCILS has not discovered any further difficulties with regard to Mr. Fethke's billing in the completion of his existing cases, or in subsequent appointments by the court as counsel for indigent clients with the permission of MCILS. In those matters, his billings have been reviewed and no further issues have been noted by MCILS.

Mr. Fethke expressed his deep remorse and embarrassment as a result of the conduct giving rise to the complaint. He apologized to MCILS and to the Court for the difficulties, confusion and time expended by others as a result of his mistakes.

His practice will be monitored for one year. (Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/03/a-stayed-four-month-suspension-with-conditions-has-been-imposed-by-the-maine-for-billing-misconduct.html


The European Unions highest court has ruled that employers can ban some religious symbols, including headscarves, in the workplace.

The European Court of Justice, however, said such a ban must be part of a companys policy for all employees to dress neutrally. If such a policy is followed, workers can be barred from wearing visible signs of political, philosophical or religious beliefs.

The court said it does not consider such bans direct discrimination by companies when carried out in this way.

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on two cases involving women who were fired from jobs for refusing to remove headscarves.

The headscarf is an important religious symbol for Muslim women.

One woman lost her job in France because a customer complained to the company about her Islamic headscarf. In that case, the court ruled that a customers complaint alone does not meet the requirement for a company to ban religious symbols.

In the other case, the court found that a company in Belgium may have correctly exercised its right to dismiss an employee. The court found the company had fairly applied a dress code policy for all employees in an effort to project an image of political and religious neutrality.

Both cases were referred from their home countries to the Court of Justice of the European Union for legal guidance. Courts in those countries must still rule on those cases.

Rights group Amnesty International called the rulings disappointing. In a statement, it said the decisions give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women - and men - on the grounds of religious belief.

Wearing religious symbols, especially the Muslim headscarf, has become a big political issue in some European nations.

French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has said she wants to ban all ostentatious religious symbols in France.

France already bans headscarves and other religious symbols in classrooms. It also bans face-covering veils in public. Some other European countries have put restrictions on full-face veils in public, while many others have proposed bans.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn adapted this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Mario Ritter was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

neutrally  adv. not supporting any side of an issue or argument

dress code  n. rules for what clothing can be worn in school or work

headscarf  n. piece of cloth worn over a womans head

leeway  n. freedom to do something the way you want to do it

ostentatious  adj. displaying money or power to attract attention

veil  n. thin piece of material that covers the face
Criminals have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean.

Pirates hijacked the large ship called the Aris 13 on Monday.

The hijacking surprised the global shipping industry. It was the first attack on a large ship by East African pirates since 2012.

Naval patrols carried out by members of the NATO defense alliance and also China, India and Iran, had decreased Somali pirate attacks for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that the situation was not secure. It said Somali pirates still have the ability and the will to restart attacks.

John Steed is director of Oceans Beyond Piracy. He said the Aris 13 has a crew of eight Sri Lankan sailors. It was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, before it was seized.

An official in the semiautonomous state of Puntland said the ship was approached by two small boats off Somalias northern coast. More than 20 men then boarded the ship.

Weapons smugglers and members of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab are known to be in the area.

Ship is anchored off the coast of Somalia

The ship was near the town of Alula on Tuesday, said Salad Nur, a local elder. "The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship," he told The Associated Press by telephone.

"They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it."

An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident said no demands for money have been made. The captain reported that when the two small boats came near the ship, crew members could see armed men on the boats.

"The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored," the official said.

A Britain-based spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force operation of Somalia, Flight Lieutenant Louise Tagg, said an investigation was taking place.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain. It oversees anti-piracy efforts in the area, but it did not immediately answer a request for comment.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had contacted shipping agents and foreign officials for more information. It said it is seeking to help ensure the crew's "safety and welfare."

The pirates never went away

Although the incident is the first major pirate attack near Somalia since 2012, John Steed said the pirates did not leave.

"The pirates never went away, they were just doing other forms of crime.

Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom, or payment of money. They do not normally kill hostages unless they come under attack.

Piracy off Somalia's coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. However, an international effort to patrol the oceans near Somalia has reduced the threat.

Recently, local fishermen, including former pirates, have grown angry about the continued presence of illegal foreign fishing boats in Somalias waters.

Salad Nur, the local elder, told the AP that young fishermen, including former pirates, have hijacked the ship.

"Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing," he said.

However, John Steed doubts the pirates are only fishermen. He called the claim highly unlikely.

Im Phil Dierking

Abdi Guled and Jon Gambrell reported this story for AP. Phil Dierking adapted it for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

Do you think the Somali pirates actions are justified by illegal fishing? Whats a better response to the situation? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

anchored  adj. held firmly in place.

deprived  adj. not having the things that are needed for a good or healthy life

livelihood  n. a way of earning money in order to live

hostage  n. a person who is captured by someone who demands that certain things be done before the captured person is freed

pirate  n. someone who attacks and steals from a ship at sea

semiautonomous  adj. a country, state, or community that has a degree of, but not complete, self-government.

smuggler  n. someone who moves items from one country to another illegally and secretly
President Donald Trump wants to change United States immigration policy by tying admission to job skills.

In his recent speech to Congress, Trump said changing the way America decides who can immigrate can help the economy.

It's a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet, in America, we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon.

Trump said such a system is used successfully in Canada and Australia. Basing immigration on job skills is sometimes called a merit-based system. Under the current system, immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans by agreeing to work for lower pay, he said.

It would be a major change in U.S. policy, which now gives a preference to spouses, children and parents of American citizens. In 2014, family-based immigrants made up 64 percent of all new legal permanent residents in the United States, reports the Migration Policy Institute.

Marie Price, an immigration expert at George Washington University, said if the U.S. moves to a merit-based immigration system, it needs to do so carefully.

She noted that in Canada admission is based largely on a point system giving higher scores to people with special skills and advanced degrees. But she said many of those admitted ended up driving taxis or delivering food because they could not find jobs to meet their education skills. In some cases, professional licenses from other countries were not accepted in Canada.

Since then, the point system has been changed so that people who can show they have job offers in Canada are given preference, said Sharyn Aiken of Queens University Law School in Canada. In addition, Canada looks at who can fill a range of jobs for which there are shortages of workers  such as child care, not just those requiring advanced college degrees, Aiken said.

A new U.S. immigration bill

Senator Tom Cotton is a Republican from Arkansas. He has proposed a bill that would move the United States to the merit-based system proposed by Trump. His proposal would also reduce legal immigration by half -- from about one million a year to about 500,000.

Under Cottons bill, people with legal status in the U.S. could continue to get a preference for their children and spouses. But their parents will not get a preference.

Cotton said many Americans believe the current immigration system helps businesses and not people. These Americans see cheap immigrant labor as a way to enrich the wealthy while creating a near permanent underclass for whom the American dream is always just out of reach, he said.

William Stock is president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

He disputes Cottons argument that the U.S. is allowing too many immigrants into the United States. Stock said the U.S. admits about one million legal immigrants a year, a lower percentage of Americas population than at any time in history.

Stock also said it would be unfair to change to a merit based system for new immigrants without allowing those who have already applied for family members. He said some have been waiting 15 years or longer for a decision on their relatives.

Stock added people calling for a merit-based immigration system should know that a promise of better wages in America will be not enough to get people to fill job openings in America. Many people will not want to move to the United States without their families -- making continuation of a family preference system important, he said.

Trump has also followed through with his campaign promises of extreme vetting for immigrants and of building a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and share your views on our Facebook Page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

principle - n. a basic truth or theory

ought  v. used to say or suggest what should be done

strain  v. something that is very difficult to deal with and that causes harm or trouble

preference  n. an advantage that is given to some people or things and not to others

score  n. points awarded for some achievement

advanced  adj. beyond the basic level
Vietnam is seeking a trade deal with the United States to replace the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement.

Official media in Vietnam say Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc spoke to a delegation of American business people last week. He told them that he was ready to visit the United States. He added that he hopes to meet President Donald Trump for talks on trade and other issues.

Some observers say Prime Minister Nguyen has a good chance to reach a trade deal with the U.S.

American companies looking for markets

Rahul Bajoria is an economist with the bank Barclays in Singapore. He says Vietnam hopes to increase exports to the U.S. with a trade deal. But he suggests that U.S. companies are also seeking access to Vietnams markets.

It could be the case there might be some pressure from the large (American) industrial manufacturers like the aircraft manufacturers or train companies. All of them may be much more interested in exporting to Vietnam, [Bajoria said.]

As much as nineteen percent of Vietnams $200 billion in economic activity comes from exports. Last year, the Southeast Asian nation exported $38 billion in goods to the U.S. and imported almost $9 billion in goods and services in return.

Vietnams imports, however, increased by more than 14 percent in January with popular American products from Apple and Dell. In the financial center of Ho Chi Minh City, even Starbucks is becoming easy to find.

Vojislav Milenkovic is with the business adviser BDG Insights. He said from Ho Chi Minh City, You can see this every day on the street. You can see that people are trying to save and to buy high-quality products from foreign countries.

Could more two-party trade deals be possible?

After the U.S. presidential election, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen spoke to Trump by telephone. Trump told Nguyen that he wanted to strengthen ties with Vietnam and that he was willing to meet in the United States.

Oscar Mussons is with Dezan Shira & Associates, a business consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City. He says Trump might ask for Vietnams support in the South China Sea, an important waterway where the U.S. is pushing freedom of navigation.

Without the TPP, Vietnamese leaders have been looking for other trade deals to lift the countrys economy. They include a free trade agreement with the European Union reached in 2015.

The deal is to take effect next year if Vietnam meets the EU parliaments conditions.

Im Mario Ritter.

Ralph Jennings reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Send us your comments below or on Facebook.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

consultancy n. a company that gives advice to businesses for a cost
On Nov. 1, Linn Benton Food Shares warehouse in Tangent received two truckloads of food and household supplies arranged by the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
LEXINGTON  Heldt & McKeone is pleased to announce that Brian Copley has joined the firm as a partner after being an associate for almost three and a half years. Copleys addition is now reflective in the firms name change to Heldt, McKeone & Copley.

Copley, a Syracuse native, joined the Lexington law firm in August 2013. He is the son of William and Brenda Copley. He graduated from Syracuse High School in 2006 and attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, where he earned a degree in political science and history in 2010, with highest distinction. Copley graduated with distinciton from the University of Nebraska Law School in 2013.

Im grateful for the opportunity Steve Heldt and Tod McKeone gave me and grateful for the clients we have. I look forward to continuing to serve them in the coming years, said Copley.

McKeone said there is a statewide problem of getting young professionals into rural communities. We are very pleased that Brian has become instrumental in our firm, he said.

Since coming to Heldt & McKeone, Copley has focused on the general practice of law, including estate planning, business law, real estate law, criminal defense, family law and civil litigation. Additionally he serves as city attorney for the City of Lexington.
Phillip Araujo, Jr., 64, of Lexington, died Sunday, March 12, 2017, at the University Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Phillip had requested cremation, the family will honor his wishes. There will be no visitation or rosary service.

A Memorial Mass will be held Friday, March 17, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. at St. Anns Catholic Church in Lexington with Father Jose Chavez celebrating. Inurnment will be in the St. Anns Catholic Cemetery at Lexington.

He was born Oct. 20, 1952, in Lexington, to Phillip and Josephine (Hernandez) Araujo, Sr. He attended school at Lexington.

Phillip spent most of his working years working the Hay Mill, farming, and Monroe Auto.

He was a member of St. Anns Catholic Church.

Phillip had quite a few hobbies. A few included, his beloved 1975 Trans Am, old cars, old music (Elvis and Dolly Parton), westerns, driving around, spending time with his family and friends. His most precious time was taking care of his mom after his dad passed away. He was very private, but his brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews knew how much he loved them.

Phillip is survived by his siblings, Jeffrey (Joanna) Araujo of North Platte, Marty (Cindy) Araujo of Lexington, Cynthia (Michael) Moats of Omaha, Peggy Jo Hubbard of Lexington and Christine (Rafael) Villalpando of Lexington; many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, cousins, extended family and friends.

Phil was preceded in death by his parents; niece, Deanna Davis, and other relatives.

Memorials are suggested to Dawson County Relay for Life.

Reynolds-Love Funeral Home in Lexington is assisting the family with arrangements. Please share online condolences with the family by visiting: reynoldslovefuneralhome.com.
Brexit. Its coming, but no one knows what form it will take. Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to fire the starting pistols within days, leading to at least two years of complex negotiations between Britain and 27 other European Union nations with competing interests.

The results will redefine Britains role outside the EU, transform immigration and trade laws, and affect everything from intelligence sharing to the classification of bananas.

Brexit hasnt happened yet. The formal process is about to begin. But the June 23 referendum in which Britons voted to leave the EU is already having an immense impact on peoples lives. Not because of what they know about Brexit, but because of what they dont.

Five people  three in Britain, two in continental Europe  tell how they are coping with the uncertainty:

THE GERMAN ACADEMIC

German-born Henning Meyer and his German wife have lived in London long enough to easily qualify for British nationality. And its likely the British government will eventually decide to allow EU nationals already living in Britain to stay even after the split, so they could probably live here even without U.K. passports.

But the Meyers are leaving. They are building a small home in Berlin and selling their place just north of London. They no longer feel welcome here and they believe Londons role as a vital international hub will soon shrivel.

If youre not allowed to live here as Germans, there is no reason for us to be here, says Meyer, 38.

They took six months to decide to abandon Britain  a move shaped by the belief that something fundamental had been altered in the tolerant, multi-cultural society they had embraced.

Its not just the immediate reaction after the referendum, he said. You know everybody knows what happened to  not me personally  but Polish citizens or others who have been subject to abuse or even worse. So what also changed is how the referendum campaign altered the public discourse in this country. Because it was a shameful campaign and it has made stereotyping xenophobia mainstream.

He said some friends no longer feel comfortable speaking German with their children on London streets, and others try to conceal their Polish or German identities. Meyer doesnt want to live that way.

THE LATVIAN STUDENT

Katrina Rubinas dream is almost in her grasp. She fears Brexit will snatch it away. The 18-year-old high school students cherished goal  call it an obsession  is to study in Britain, a country with a proud tradition of academic rigor that regularly turns out skilled graduates who can compete in Europes tight job market.

Ive been dreaming about studying in the U.K. for a long time, Rubina says. Since I was 6 years old, purely because of Harry Potter. At first I imagined everything there is like that, but of course it is not. But I never lost that dream. U.K. symbolizes for me a new beginning. I can leave everything I did here in Latvia and take only the things that I want with me to the U.K.

Her fear is that Brexit will shortly make it much harder for students from other European countries to study in Britain. She anticipates many roadblocks: New visa rules, rather than the border-free travel Latvians and other EU citizens now enjoy, a hike in tuition for non-British students and, most importantly, a sharp cut in scholarships for EU students.

Thats made getting to Britain a now-or-never proposition. She and many other Latvian hopefuls are flooding British universities with applications  academic officials note a marked increase since the referendum.

She has been provisionally accepted at the Royal Holloway in London to study international business, but needs an excellent showing on her final round of exams. Her counselor has told her she must study still harder  competition has increased because so many students are trying to get to Britain before the rules change.

Im not going to give up all my hard work just because there is Brexit, she says. Im going to find a way to get there anyway.

THE MAN OF STEEL

John Reid & Sons is looking to hire six people at its steel fabrication plant in southern England  and managing director Simon Boyd thinks the 98-year-old companys expansion is a Brexit blessing.

He has argued for years that membership in the EU was holding Britain back because of a welter of regulations. The day Brexit comes into full force, he says, will be the day when Britain is liberated from unwanted workplace rules and the capricious dictates of the European Court of Justice.

He knows that in a legal sense nothing has changed, that the implementation of Brexit is at least several years away, but thinks the business climate has dramatically improved now that the end of EU regulation  overregulation in his view  is in sight.

The midsize firm he runs is already reaping benefits  the falling value of the British pound since the Brexit vote has helped its exports  and the companys largest ever expansion project is being planned in consultation with local officials. The 56-year-

old Boyd, who started his career making tea and sweeping floors, says orders and inquiries for major projects increased after the referendum vote and should shoot still higher in the coming years.

I think government is in an excellent position to negotiate a really good deal with our European friends, and we can get out of this really damaging European Union, says Boyd, who chafes at the way European workplace rules hamper his flexibility in a business that is cyclical by nature.

I cant see anything other than positive possibilities, Boyd says.

THE BRITISH RETIREE IN SPAIN

If Brexit means that retirees Karen and Peter Watling have to leave the Mediterranean coast of Spain to return to the British Midlands, expect them to be kicking and screaming on the plane back home.

I would hate it. He would hate it, says Karen Watling, 70. Its not what we chose to do.

Their decision to retire in Spain after long careers in England made perfect sense  before Brexit. They enjoy a reciprocal health care arrangement between Britain and Spain that allows them to receive free medical care and medication, which is crucial because Peter, also 70, has a serious ailment.

Karen Watling doesnt expect the health care agreement between the two EU countries to survive Brexit, which would force them to seek government-sponsored health insurance in Spain or reluctantly move back to England.

For us it would be a disaster because it would be well over 300 euros a month plus medication, she says of the insurance she would need in Spain. We wouldnt be able to afford it.

Brexit has already hit their purchasing power. Their pensions are paid in British pounds, which have, since the referendum, dropped by about 15 percent in relation to the euro.

Karen Watling says she has been anxious and tearful since June 23. She is angry at the government  believing that Britons living in other EU countries are being used as a bargaining chip  and mortified by what the referendum results say about the country where she worked as a teacher for decades.

Im certainly not proud of what Britain seems to have become, she says. Britain is never going to be Great Britain again.

THE ITALIAN LONDONER

Brexit has cost Marco Vineis money, plenty of money each month as the cost of importing meats and cheese from Italy has risen because of the drop in value of the British pound. But the founder of Gastronomica seems most upset by Brexits emotional pain, not its financial toll.

I feel myself quite a Londoner, even if I wasnt born here, says Vineis, 52, in his salami- and cheese-filled deli, where the aroma of rich Italian espresso lingers. Now I feel myself a bit of a foreigner. So, this feeling I dont like it a lot. This is after 25 years Ive been here.

He expects his business to survive, even if he has to start selling English cheddar rather than pay the high cost of importing Italian pecorino. But he is baffled  and hurt  by Britains decision to break away.

Before Brexit, we didnt think it would change so much, he says. People didnt realize how many rights people living in Europe get. The freedom to go from country to country without a border. It is a moment to reflect about our condition. It means that after years of war and conflict and fighting we reach this wonderful system, and we should not lose it. I dont know why they are doing this. Gregory Katz, London, AP
Scotlands leader will seek authority to hold a new independence referendum in the next two years because Britain is dragging Scotland out of the European Union against its will, she said yesterday.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that she would move quickly to give voters a new chance to leave the United Kingdom because Scotland was being forced into a hard Brexit that it didnt vote for. Britons voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the EU, but Scots voted by 62 to 38 percent to remain.

Scotland must not be taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice, Sturgeon said.

She spoke in Edinburgh as Britains Parliament was on the verge of approving a Brexit bill that would allow the U.K. to start the formal withdrawal from the EU within days.

She said she would ask the Scottish Parliament next week to start the process of calling a referendum, to be held between the fall of 2018 and the spring of 2019. She said by then, details of Britains post-Brexit deal with the EU would be clear and Scottish voters would be able to make an informed choice.

The British government must agree before a legally binding referendum can be held. There was no immediate response from British Prime Minister Theresa Mays office.

In a 2014 referendum, Scottish voters rejected independence by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent, but Sturgeon said that the U.K.s decision to leave the EU had brought about a material change of circumstances.

Sturgeon said that she had sought compromise with Mays government, but had been met with a brick wall of intransigence.

Sturgeon has been seeking a deal that will allow Scotland to stay in the European single market and customs union. But she said she has become convinced May is pursuing a hard Brexit that would leave Britain outside those arrangements, which many U.K. businesses see as crucial.

I am not turning my back on further discussions should the U.K. government change its mind, she said.

Sturgeon is taking a big gamble. Although the prospect of Brexit has likely boosted support for independence, polls do not indicate it has majority backing. And there is no guarantee that the EU would allow an independent Scotland to remain a member.

Sometimes youve got to do what you think it right in politics, Sturgeon said. And I think its right for Scotland to have a choice. AP
Chief Executive Chui Sai On has issued a pair of executive orders which set September 17 as the date for elections to the Legislative Assembly (AL). As well as fixing the day of the elections, the executive orders also establish the ceiling for each candidates expenses regarding the election campaign at a little over MOP3.5 million (MOP3,549,622.00). Both the executive orders were published last Friday in the governments official gazette.

Polytec Group confident on projects completion

Or Wai Sheun, president of Polytec Asset Holdings, says that he is confident in the timely completion of Polytec Groups current project before July, according to a report by TDM. The current project is located on the T and T1 areas at the landfill of Areia Preta, occupying an area of 66,630 square meters. He said that the current project has been conducted day and night, and is expected to be completed in May. He further informed that the current project will not become another Pearl Horizon (the troubled Polytec Group project) and will not become another of societys problems.

GTET roadshow kicked off at ITB Berlin

Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) is scheduled to host its 6th edition in Macau from October 16 to 17. The first stop of GTEF 2017s international roadshow was in ITB Berlin. There, the GTEF team pursued a full schedule of activities from March 8 to March 10, including a formal presentation of GTEF 2017 to the 16 Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) at the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin. GTEF 2017 will engage prominent leaders in the public and private sectors in the discussion regarding regional collaboration and how tourism stakeholders are able to break down barriers, find common ground and grow stronger together.

Ho finds new lawyer Ho finds new lawyer

Following Leong Weng Puns withdrawal from the case last week, former prosecutor general Ho Chio Meng reportedly hired a new lawyer to defend him. According to Radio Macau, Oriana Pun will lead the defense from now on. Oriana Pun has been a lawyer since 2005 and is currently a member of the board of directors of the Macau Lawyers Association. The Court of Final Appeal issued a statement last week indicating that Ho Chio Meng had five days to find a new lawyer, or the court would have appointed a lawyer to defend him.

MAF: 5,000 + tickets sold

More than 5,000 tickets were sold before 7 p.m. on Sunday, making it a successful first day of sales for the 28th Macao Arts Festival (MAF). A statement issued yesterday by the Cultural Affairs Bureau states that tickets for more than 14 performances were sold out. This edition of the MAF will be held from April 28 to May 31.

Exhibition about Shanghai refugees in Macau opened in Portugal

The opening ceremony of the exhibition Shanghai Portuguese Refugees in Macao (1937-1964), organized by the Macau Archives, as well as the launching of a publication about Shanghai Refugees by Portuguese historian Professor Alfredo Gomes Dias, were held at the Alfredo Pimenta Municipal Archives of the Municipality of Guimaraes, Portugal, on March 3. The exhibition was previously held at the Macau Archives in 2015 and in the Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre in Lisbon in 2016. It showcases a selection of over one hundred records that illustrate the historical background of the Macanese diaspora around the world, the social inclusion of the Macanese in Shanghai, the journey of Portuguese refugees to Macau and the aid they received in Macau. It will also show the documentation and materials of one of the Shanghai Portuguese refugees, Clementina Fernandes. The exhibition will be held in Guimaraes until September 1.
The German city of Trier has decided to accept a statue of Karl Marx from China, marking the 200th anniversary of the father of communisms birth.

The city council voted 42-7 with four abstentions Monday night to accept the gift, according to news agency dpa. The statues precise location and size are to be decided following further negotiations with China.

Initial plans by Chinese sculptor Wu Weishan called for the statue and its pedestal to be 6.3 meters tall, leading to criticism from some in the city.

Statues and streets named after Marx were common in communist East Germany. Many survived the collapse of communism, unlike tributes to more contemporary socialists.

Trier, near the border with Luxembourg, was in West Germany. Marx was born there May 5, 1818.
The publishing of the upcoming books by Barack and Michelle Obama will be a global event.

Penguin Random House announced yesterday that it has lined up publishers from Ireland to South Africa for the two books, to be released by the Crown imprint in the U.S. and Canada.

The advance from Penguin Random House for the former president and first lady, whose popularity extends well beyond the U.S., is widely believed to be tens of millions of dollars.

Penguin Random House acquired the books jointly last month.

The publisher has Spanish-language editions planned for Spain, Mexico and several countries in South America. English editions will come out in the United Kingdom, Australia, India and elsewhere.
The Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) added into its work report, for the first time, a firm opposition to Hong Kong independence, according to Chinese press.

The closing meeting of the 12th Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was held yesterday morning in Beijing and was presided over by CPPCC Chairman, Yu Zhengsheng.

The meeting approved three drafts regarding CPPCCs work over the past year and this year.

In the drafts, besides a new entry referring to strongly held opposition to Hong Kong independence, it is also written that the CPPCC will assist Hong Kongs CPPCC members in convincing more schools to adopt the national education curriculum.

As usual, the work report reaffirmed Chinas stance on its one country  two systems policy in both Hong Kong and Macau.

During another previous CPPCC meeting session, many of Macaus CPPCC members proposed that the mainland should allow more cities to be included in the free travel scheme to Macau.

CPPCC members, including lawmaker Jose Chui and the president of the Association of Returned Overseas Chinese Macau, Liu Yiliang, suggested that these additional cities, along with Macau, should have a common development direction, which would in turn benefit the diversification of Macaus industry.

In their joint proposal to the CPPCC, the Macau delegates said that the free scheme would bring more advantages than disadvantages to Macau. In addition, they suggested that these additional cities should only open to Macau, not Hong Kong.
Two cases of embezzlement were reported yesterday by the police during a press conference. One of the cases goes back to March 2015 and involves two victims, both Macau residents, who had presented on separate occasions complaints over a third woman, a 20-year-old resident, that allegedly had the capability of buying jewelry and watches from a local shop for well below market prices.

The first victim had contacted the Judiciary Police (PJ) in March 2015 claiming to have made a MOP21,000 payment to the suspect in order to buy a pair of rings that would cost the general public MOP28,000. The suspect accepted the payment and was from that point uncontactable to the customer. The customer claimed to have been deceived and filed a complaint at the PJ.

A couple of months later, in May, another woman also made a similar complaint regarding the same suspect.

In this second case, the victim said to have handed the sum of MOP114,330 to the suspect for her to get a pair of watches priced at HKD420,000.

As in the first case, after handing the money to the suspect she lost contact with her.

After two years of investigation, the PJ have reported that they finally detained the suspect, on March 8, when she was preparing to leave the territory by the Border Gate Checkpoint.

With the help of the immigration authorities she was taken in custody and handed to the PJ for further investigation. Questioned by the force, the suspect admitted to having received the money from the two women while she was working at the shop as a salesperson between January and May that year.

She said that since she had left the job, she could no longer provide the sales with discounts to the women and since she needed the money to face daily expenses she retained it for herself. She was conducted to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) where she was charged with the crime of breach of trust.

In a separate case, the police received a complaint in September 2015 from a mainland woman, who claimed to have been also scammed by a friend while both were playing in a local casino.

Because the victim needed to go to the toilet, she handed her handbag and one gaming chip in the value of HKD100,000 to her friend. After using the toilet she saw her handbag left alone in the restroom and no signs of the friend.

On March 10, the suspect was caught while trying to enter Macau. She denied the crime but according to the PJ, the review of the surveillance video shows clearly that after she got the chip from the friend, she went straight to the cashier to change it into cash and promptly left the casino.

As she did not provide any information on the whereabouts of the money, the PJ continues to investigate the case. The suspect was already presented to the MP where she was charged with the crime of breach of trust.

Elderly man caught stealing at airport

A man from Shanghai, aged around 60, was caught by a Duty Free shopkeeper at the local airport trying to sneak a black cup into his backpack. The case happened on March 11 and was reported by the shopkeeper, who found the mans behavior suspicious. When he was approached by the shopkeeper the man returned the cup to the shelf and left the shop. The shopkeeper was unconvinced by his actions and the woman decided to review the surveillance footage of the shop where she saw the man taking many other items prior to being caught. She informed her supervisor and the police were called. Officers in the venue started to look for the man and found him standing near another duty free shop in the departure hall. After being asked to open his backpack the man complied and the PSP officer found inside a number of sweets, magnets, key chains and coasters, all belonging to the duty free shop. The theft, in total, amounted to MOP337 and the man was taken into custody by the police and charged with theft.
A celebratory 101-gun salute has been fired in Monaco after Princess Grace  formerly film star Grace Kelly  gave birth to a son.

In spite of elaborate arrangements made for announcing the birth, the world learnt about the babys arrival when a woman at a palace window shouted to waiting journalists: Its a boy, its a boy.

The 8lb 11oz baby who was born at just before 1100 local time is to be named Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre.

He will be known as Prince Albert.

The baby takes automatic precedence over his one-year-old sister, Princess Caroline.

The young princess appeared on a palace balcony in the arms of her father, Prince Rainier III, shortly after her brother was born.

Prince Rainier later broadcast an address to the nation announcing the Crown Princes birth.

Speaking to journalists, the princess mother, Margaret Kelly said both her daughter and the baby were doing well.

It is a bonny, bonny prince, Mrs Kelly said.

Flags and flowers have been put up all over the principality and tomorrow has been declared a public holiday.

It is also expected that Prince Rainier will pardon all six prisoners in Monacos jail.

The new baby makes doubly sure control of Monaco will not pass to its neighbour France after the death of Prince Rainier.

A treaty between the two countries in 1918 stipulated if there was ever no heir to Monacos throne the principality would become subject to French laws.

Prince Rainier, 35, has ruled Monaco since 1949.

He succeeded his grandfather to become the countrys 31st ruler.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

Seven years later Princess Grace had her third child, Princess Stephanie.

Grace Kelly appeared in her first film in 1951.

She made 11 films before giving up her career when she married Prince Rainier in 1956.

Princess Grace was killed in a car crash in September 1982 after her car went off a cliff road in Monaco.

Princess Stephanie, who was in the car with her mother, was injured in the crash but survived.

Prince Rainier died in April 2005. His son Albert took over as head of state in July, following a three-month period of mourning.
A court on the tourist island of Bali yesterday sentenced a British man charged with attacking a traffic police officer and causing his death to six years in prison and his Australian girlfriend to four years.

David Taylor, a dreadlocked DJ who adopted a more sober appearance for the trial, said he accepted the judges decision.

During the trial, his girlfriend, Sara Connor, who faced the same charge, said she wasnt an active participant in the attack. But the judges found that her role prevented the officer, Wayan Sudarsa, from defending himself.

Prosecutors sought eight-year prison terms for Connor and Taylor, who were arrested last August in the death of Sudarsa, whose bloodied body was found on the beach outside the Pullman Hotel in the popular tourist area of Kuta.

They were charged with committing violence leading to death, which carries a maximum 12-year prison term under Indonesian law.

Erwin Siregar, a lawyer for Connor, said an appeal was being considered.

It seems she doesnt accept the sentence, but has not yet decided whether to appeal, Siregar said. My position is that we have to appeal. We will meet in next two or three days to decide.

The 34-year-old Taylor,

who promoted himself as DJ Nutzo, admitted hitting the Indonesian man repeatedly with a cellphone, binoculars and a broken beer bottle, leaving him face down and unconscious. But he said he didnt realize Sudarsa would die.

Connor, 46, and Taylor were drinking beer on the beach in the hours before the late-night incident. AP
Malaysias health minister said yesterday that the government will give relatives of North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns estranged half brother two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

Malaysian authorities say Kim Jong Nam died after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpurs airport on Feb. 13, but North Korea  which is widely suspected to be behind the attack  rejects the findings.

North Korea has demanded the body back from Day One and objected to Malaysias autopsy. Pyongyang also has refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and has referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

On Friday, Malaysian police confirmed that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam was the same person, but refused to say how they identified Kim.

Now with the positive identification of the body, we are told that he had a wife or wives and children, Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam told reporters yesterday. So we hope that those people will respond and come forward to claim the body. In the absence of that, then we will address it as a government [] in trying to find how we are going to take the next step.

I think after identification, well give ourselves about two to three weeks to solve the problem, he said.

The body is being kept at a morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital.

Since Kims death, relations between the two countries have steadily deteriorated, with each expelling the others ambassador. Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a fair settlement of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said yesterday that negotiations with North Korea were taking place, but he did not give details.

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea  three embassy staff members and their family members. Some 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries have also scrapped visa-free travel for each others citizens.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapons.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three suspects, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in hiding at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

The attack was caught on surveillance video that shows two women going up to Kim and apparently smearing something on his face. He was dead within 20 minutes, authorities say. Two women  one Indonesian, one Vietnamese  have been charged with murder but say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank. Eileen Ng, Kuala Lumpur, AP
In Syria, last year was the worst yet for the countrys rising generation, with at least 652 children killed in 2016, the United Nations child relief agency said yesterday.

There was no letup to attacks on schools, hospitals, playgrounds, parks and homes as the Syrian government, its opponents and the allies of both sides showed callous disregard for the laws of war.

UNICEF said at least 255 children were killed in or near schools last year and 1.7 million youngsters are out of school. One of every three schools in Syria is unusable, some because armed groups occupy them. An additional 2.3 million Syrian children are refugees elsewhere in the Middle East.

The figures came in a UNICEF report released ahead of the sixth anniversary later this week of the 2011 popular uprising against President Bashar Assads rule. The uprising, which was part of the Arab Spring movements across the Mideast, quickly escalated into full-blown civil war.

Children were among the first victims of the governments brutal crackdown.

On March 15, 2011, a small demonstration broke out in the capital of Damascus and three days later, residents in the southern Syrian city of Daraa marched to demand the release of teenage students arrested for writing anti-government slogans on their schools walls. They were tortured in detention.

The UNICEF report warns that for Syrias young generation, coping mechanisms and medical care are eroding quickly, driving children into child labor, early marriage and combat. Dozens of children are also dying from preventable diseases.

A report released a week ago by the international charity Save the Children said Syrian youngsters are showing signs of toxic stress that can lead to lifelong health problems, struggles with addiction and mental disorders lasting into adulthood.

The use of child soldiers is on the rise in Syria, UNICEF also said. At least 851 children were recruited by armed factions last year  more than twice compared to the year before.

Children across the country are at risk of severe injury while playing around land mines and cluster munitions. Demining operations in opposition-held areas have been severely hampered by inaccessibility to outside experts.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Refugee Council said that as the sixth year of Syrias conflict nears its end, 13.5 million people remain in need of aid in dire and deteriorating conditions. Half as many are displaced in their own country, with almost 5 million refugees in neighboring countries where conditions keep getting increasingly desperate.

Over the last year in Syria, all parties involved have blocked vital aid supplies and millions have become poorer, hungrier and more isolated from assistance and from the world, said NRCs Mideast director, Carsten Hansen.

We join the rest of the international humanitarian community on this milestone of shame to voice outrage at the plight of millions of civilians living in a downward spiral of despair, the organization added.

It said parties to the conflict continue using siege and starvation as a weapon of war. Around 5 million people remain trapped in areas of active fighting, including almost one million in besieged areas who have no access to sustained humanitarian assistance. AP
King Salman and hundreds of business leaders from Saudi Arabia are in Japan for talks this week mainly expected to focus on economic ties.

The visit is the first by a Saudi king in 46 years, though Salman visited more recently as crown prince.

Saudi Arabia is one of Japans biggest suppliers of crude oil, accounting for about a third of its total imports of oil from the Middle East.

The kingdom is striving to diversify its economy away from its heavy reliance on oil exports, and Salman is on a month-long tour of Asia to advance his kingdoms economic and business interests.

Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters yesterday that Japan is willing to provide support for the economic power in the Middle East.

We will discuss growth strategy, including our Saudi Vision project, he said, referring to Japanese collaboration with Vision 2030, a roadmap adopted by the kingdom last year for its development and economic objectives.

He did not confirm reports that the countries would agree to set up a special economic zone in Saudi Arabia.

Salman met with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and later with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Reports say Japan plans to urge that Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil company that is being partially privatized, seek a share listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Separately, Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund and Japanese telecoms provider and energy company Softbank have joined forces in setting up a USD25 billion private fund for technology investments.

Trade between the countries fell overall last year as oil prices dropped. Japans 2.1 trillion yen ($18.6 billion) in imports from Saudi Arabia in 2016, mostly oil and gas, dwarfed its exports of 546.3 billion yen ($4.8 billion).

The delegation arrived late Sunday on about 10 aircraft. Officials said top hotels and car hire services would be busy handling the unusually large group during its four-day visit.

Salmans stop in Japan follows visits to Indonesia and Malaysia. He is due to travel on to Brunei, China and the Maldives.

While seeking investment and help with Saudi industrialization and development of its services sector, Salman has also offered help. Earlier, he pledged $1 billion in development finance for Indonesia and closer cooperation for combating transnational crime such as human trafficking, terrorism and the drugs trade. Elaine Kurtenbach, Tokyo, AP
President Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday he has told the military to assert Philippine ownership of a large ocean region off the countrys northeastern coast where Chinese survey ships were spotted last year, in a discovery that alarmed Philippine defense officials.

Duterte said he ordered the military to assert ownership of Benham Rise in a friendly way, repeating that his country has no option but to be diplomatic because I cannot match the might of China.

My order to my military, you go there and tell them straight that this is ours, but I say it in friendship, Duterte said in a news conference when asked about the issue in the waters facing the Pacific Ocean.

Beijing and Manila have a separate long-running territorial feud in the South China Sea west of the Philippines, but tensions have eased considerably since Duterte took office in June and began reaching out to China. He has placed the dispute on the backburner while seeking Chinese trade and economic aid.

The Philippine military spotted the Chinese survey ships crisscrossing the Benham Rise waters suspiciously from July to December last year, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said last week. He said the government is considering an increase in patrols and the building of territorial markers in the offshore region.

The Chinese ships presence in the area was to be discussed late yesterday at a meeting of National Security Council executive members and Duterte.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it asked China through its embassy Friday to clarify what the survey ships were doing in Benham Rise.

In 2012, the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf declared Benham Rise to be part of the Philippine continental shelf, where the country has exclusive rights to fish and exploit resources, including undersea deposits of oil and gas, Philippine officials said.

The Chinese foreign ministry has said its ships have a right to pass through the area under international law.

In the South China Sea, Duterte has scuttled plans made under his predecessor for joint Philippine patrols with the U.S. Navy in disputed waters to avoid offending China. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, has been sailing on a mission to ensure freedom of navigation in the sea, claimed virtually in its entirety by China.

America wants to pick a fight there, said Duterte, who has openly criticized U.S. security policies. Why would I get into a trouble in that area? AP
The senior advisers to ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye offered to resign yesterday, news reports said, three days after the countrys Constitutional Court formally ended her rule over a corruption scandal.

Park, whose power had been suspended in a parliamentary impeachment vote in December, was formally removed from office Friday after the court dismissed her from the top post. Park vacated the presidential office on Sunday.

Nine senior presidential advisers tendered their resignations to acting leader Hwang Kyo-ahn, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unidentified government officials. Other South Korean media carried a similar report.

Hwangs office could not immediately confirm the report, and calls to the presidential Blue House werent answered.

Parks Blue House had 10 main presidential advisers on foreign policy, economy and other issues, but one position has been vacant since the arrest of one adviser over the scandal.

After being removed from office, Park has lost her presidential immunity and will likely face a direct investigation over allegations she colluded with a longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, to extort money from businesses and allow Choi to meddle in state affairs though she has never held an official post.

Dozens of high-profile figures, including Choi, Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong and top government officials are already facing criminal trials.

Park has expressed defiance about the corruption allegations, raising worries about a further deepening of the national divide over her fate. Three people died and dozens were injured in violent clashes between Parks supporters and police following the courts ruling.

Although it will take time, I believe the truth will certainly come out, Park said in a statement read by her former presidential spokesman, as hundreds of her supporters chanted her name and waved national flags.

She had previously apologized for putting trust in her jailed friend, Choi Soon-sil, but denied any legal wrongdoing.

South Koreas main opposition party has called Parks statement shocking and very regrettable because she did not express remorse.

Parks departure from the Blue House came a day after tens of thousands of opponents and supporters divided the streets of downtown Seoul with massive rallies, reflecting the deep split in the nation.

South Korea now has to elect a president by early May. Opinion polls show the Democratic Partys Moon Jae-in, who lost to Park in 2012, as the favorite to become the countrys next leader. AP
PAKISTAN vowed yesterday to work to prevent non-nuclear states from gaining the technology that would put them on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons  even though both Islamabad and neighbor New Delhi have defied non-proliferation treaties to become competing nuclear powers.

MYANMAR Clean-up work has begun as aftershocks continue to rattle villages near Myanmars biggest city a day after a 5.1 magnitude earthquake injured more than two dozen people and shook homes and temples. The epicenter of Monday nights quake was about 70 kilometers northwest of Yangon.

THAI authorities say they have seized 21 rhinoceros horns smuggled from Ethiopia worth almost USD5 million. The bags carrying the horns were discovered Friday in a random customs search at Bangkoks main airport. The bags owners fled as officers searched their bags and have not been apprehended.

ETHIOPIA The death toll has risen to 72 after Saturdays collapse of a mountain of garbage in a landfill outside Ethiopias capital. Many victims were women and children as makeshift homes inside the Koshe landfill were buried in debris. It is not clear how the collapse occurred.

BURUNDI Reports of mutilated corpses are again emerging as Burundis political crisis continues, a UN expert on the East African nation says. Such corpses were seen in 2015 and early 2016 but reports have resumed in recent months. In many cases neither victims nor suspected perpetrators could be identified.

EGYPTs ousted president Hosni Mubarak was ordered to be freed from detention on Monday, according to the prosecutor who signed his release order. The decision ends nearly six years of legal proceedings against Mubarak and seems certain to revive the ongoing debate over whether the goals of the 2011 uprising that ended his reign were ever realized.

GERMANY Ground staff at Berlins two airports walked off the job for the second consecutive day yesterday in a wage dispute, again forcing the cancellation of most flights to and from the German capital.

SPAINs Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said Scotland will be at the back of the queue if it wants to become a member of the European Union if it decides to leave the United Kingdom.

IRELAND has mounted a major search off the County Mayo coast after a sea rescue helicopter with four crew members crashed overnight in the Irish Sea. Coast Guard director Eugene Clonan says one crew member has been found and is hospitalized in critical condition, while hopes are fading of finding the other three personnel following yesterdays crash.
The Idaho Senate has passed a memorial calling on Congress and other western states to work together to fight invasive mussels.

The memorial already passed the House. It is one of a number of invasive species-related measures making its way through the statehouse this year, deriving from the work of an Invasive Species Working Group of lawmakers who studied the issue before the session.

Quagga and zebra mussels, which are native to the Ukraine and southern Russia, have become a major problem in the Great Lakes area since having been introduced into North American via ships in the St. Lawrence Seaway at the end of the 1980s and have been found in a few western states, putting Idaho at risk if an out-of-state boater were to bring them accidentally on a boat that had been in another body of water where the mussels live. Most recently, they turned up in a couple of bodies of water in Montana, not far from the Columbia Basin drainage area that covers most of the state of Idaho.

Sen. Lee Heider, R-Twin Falls, who sponsored the bill in that chamber, painted a frightening picture of what could happen if the fast-reproducing mollusks were to make it into the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, getting into hydroelectric plants and into the canals farmers use. In its five-year lifespan, he said, a single quagga or zebra mussel can produce 5 million eggs, of which 100,000 reach adulthood.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, I just cant imagine in my mind how we get our hands around these kind of numbers, he said.

Heider said the state has sought federal funding to try to combat invasive species, but today I know of no federal money thats come our way, and its been very concerning to me.

Sen. Jim Rice, R-Caldwell, said U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson did get some funding appropriated but it hasn't been disbursed to the states yet. The Spokane Spokesman Review reported last November that Congress had allocated $4 million for Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington to expand prevention efforts but it had not been given to the states yet.

None of it has reached the ground, Rice said. None of it has reached where we need to be using it and its been over two years.

Rice said invasive mussels aren't something a state can fight on its own, since water flows into a state from its neighbors.

Sen. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, said he is glad the state is being proactive in dealing with invasive species, comparing the state's stance favorably to the way people reacted during the early days of fascism, although he quickly added he doesnt view fascism and invasive mussels as the same thing.

This will not be the first invasive species crisis or the last that we face, he said. It is a highly important issue.

A few hours later, the full House passed a bill to create an administrator of invasive species policy, an executive-department post whose job it would be to advise other state agencies on invasive species issues and coordinate with other states, Canadian provinces and the federal government.

The administrator would also chair an invasive species council that would consist of the heads of or designees from departments that are affected by the issue such as the state Agriculture, Water Resources, Environmental Quality, Fish and Game and Lands departments.

Rep. Terry Gestrin, R-Donnelly, who co-chaired the Invasive Species Working Group, said this would help to further enhance and step up our game to keep quagga mussels out of the state of Idaho.

If this ever got into the Columbia Basin it would be devastating to our economy and cost Idaho over $100 million annually, he continued.
TWIN FALLS  TechHelp invites manufacturers to attend a Lean Six Sigma green belt certification course beginning April 20 at the College of Southern Idaho.

The course will teach the principles of lean manufacturing and the Six Sigma approach. There will be four full-day training sessions, one every three weeks, with project work between sessions.
HAILEY  Power Engineers welcomed nearly 300 electric utility managers and engineers to the Power Delivery Design Conference March 1-2 in Sun Valley.

The conference had 52 speakers, including guest speaker Rob Stephen, the current president of CIGRE, the International Council on Large Electric Systems. Wade Smith, senior vice president of transmission grid development for American Electric Power, presented the keynote address.

The conference has grown since the first gathering in 1992.

We continually develop new ideas to make the conference more valuable to participants, said Randy Grass, the conferences emcee and Powers vice president of the power delivery production division.

Topics covered this year included energy storage, high voltage direct current technology, submarine cables, and communication interference.

The 2018 Power Delivery and Design Conference will be Feb. 28 through March 1, 2018, in Sun Valley. Utility managers and engineers who would like to attend should email Sara McClarin at sara.mcclarin@powereng.com.
MOUNTAIN HOME  Fish and Game officials are seeking the publics help to find the poacher who wasted five Canada geese in mid-February at Mountain Home Reservoir.

Citizens Against Poaching is offering a reward for information in the case.

The geese were discovered Feb. 17, but Idaho Department of Fish and Game conservation officer Greg Milner determined they were killed with a shotgun sometime the week before at another location and later dumped at the reservoir.

No part of any bird was taken by the poacher, and a canine tooth mark indicated the shooter used a retrieving dog. Evidence was collected at the scene, but Fish and Game officials want to speak with anyone who has information about the incident.

Im hopeful, Milner said in a statement, Someone will make a call and provide information to move this case forward.
TWIN FALLS  Across the Magic Valley, six school districts are going to voters Tuesday with funding requests.

Polling places are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Absentee ballots must be turned in by 8 p.m. to your county clerks office.

The Twin Falls, Jerome, Gooding, Hansen and Camas County school districts are each seeking renewal of a supplemental levy.

The vast majority of Idahos school districts have a supplemental levy, often referred to as a survival levy. Money is used for basic operational expenses such as utility costs and programs for students.

The Murtaugh School District is seeking a new plant facilities levy for building maintenance projects, technology upgrades and school buses.

Supplemental levies need a simple majority vote  more than 50 percent  to pass. Murtaughs plant facilities levy needs 60 percent approval.

Heres what you need to know about Election Day:

Register to vote

If youre not registered to vote, its not too late. You can register at your polling place on Election Day.

Bring photo identification. If your current address isnt shown on your ID card, bring proof of residence such as a utility bill, bank statement or pay stub.

If you dont bring an ID, you may be asked to sign an affidavit before voting.

Whats on the ballot?

Twin Falls School District: Renewal of a supplemental levy, a two-year measure totaling $8.5 million. Its $500,000 less than whats currently in place.

The levy makes up about 10 percent of the districts operating budget.

Murtaugh School District: Plant facilities reserve fund levy of $175,000 annually for 10 years.

If voters approve the measure, it will replace an existing $70,000 yearly levy, which was originally slated to run through 2019.

Money would address facility needs such as a new roof, air conditioning and new classroom carpet at Murtaugh Junior/Senior High School, asphalt repair, continued technology upgrades and school buses.

If the measure passes, property owners would see a yearly tax increase of $65.79 per $100,000 in valuation.

Gooding School District: Renewal of a supplemental levy for $1.3 million over two years  or $650,000 each year. Thats an increase compared with the $510,000 annual amount currently in place.

But tax rates are expected to remain steady. Thats because the school district will levy less on its current bond in the fall.

Jerome School District: Renewal of a two-year supplemental levy for $650,000 per year. The amount has remained the same for 14 years.

Camas County School District: Renewal of a two-year supplemental levy for $250,000 each year.

Hansen School District: Renewal of a two-year supplemental levy for $290,000 each year.

Polling places

Visit www.idahovotes.gov to find out which precinct you live in.

You can also call your county clerks office:

Twin Falls County: 208-736-4004

Jerome County: 208-644-2715

Gooding County: 208-934-5479

Camas County: 208-764-2242

Heres a list of polling places:

Twin Falls

Precincts 1 and 2: Heritage Alliance Church, 401 Sixth Ave. N.

Precincts 3 and 4: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 667 Harrison St.

Precincts 5 and 6: Immanuel Lutheran Church, 2055 Filer Ave. E.

Precincts 7 and 9: Valley Christian Church, 1708 Heyburn Ave. E.

Precincts 8 and 12: Our Savior Lutheran Church, 464 Carriage Lane N.

Precincts 10 and 11: Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 371 Eastland Drive N.

Precincts 13 and 14: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 541 Orchard Drive

Precincts 15 and 16: Twin Falls County West, 630 Addison Ave. W.

Precincts 17 and 18: Church of the Nazarene, 1231 Washington St. N.

Precincts 19-21: Twin Falls Reformed Church, 1631 Grandview Drive N.

Precincts 22-24: Amazing Grace Fellowship, 1061 Eastland Drive N.

Precincts 25 and 26: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 541 Orchard Drive

Absentee: Twin Falls County West, 630 Addison Ave. W.

Murtaugh

Murtaugh City Hall, 106 Fourth St.

Hansen

Hansen Assembly of God, 319 Second St. E.

Camas County (Fairfield)

Camas County Public Library, 607 Soldier Road

Jerome

Precinct 1 (Bishop-Court): Episcopal Parish Hall, 201 South Adams St.

Precinct 2 (Canyonside): Jerome Recreation District, 2444 South Lincoln Ave.

Precinct 4 (Falls City): Ascension Priory, 541 East 100 South

Precinct 6 (Northeast): Jerome City Library, 100 First Ave. E.

Precinct 7 (Northwest) and Precinct 10 (Southwest): Jerome School District administration building, 125 Fourth Ave. W.

Precinct 8 (Shepherd-View): Jerome Middle School, 520 10th Ave. W.

Precinct 9 (Southeast): Senior Citizen Center, 520 North Lincoln Ave.

Gooding

Precinct 2 (Gooding City): Gooding County Extension office, 203 Lucy Lane

Precinct 3 (Gooding Rural): War Memorial Hall, 203 Third Ave. W.
TWIN FALLS  This discussion may help another from suffering in silence.

The public is invited to the Times-News Community Forum on Domestic Violence from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday at the theater at Marilyns Bar, 233 Fifth Ave. S. The event is a collaboration between the Times-News and the cast of The Vagina Monologues and CSI Pride Alliance.

The forum will feature a roundtable discussion with local experts in domestic violence. Panelists are Lori Stewart, victim services coordinator at Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office; Jason Beard, co-owner of Preferred Child and Family Services; Lynda Brennen, Advocates Against Violence in Burley; Craig Kingsbury, Twin Falls Police Chief; Anne Tierney with St. Lukes CARES; Karen McCarthy, an attorney with Idaho Legal Aid and Marisol Towell with Voices Against Violence womens shelter.

The public can submit questions to the panel ahead of time by emailing frontdoor@magicvalley.com. Question cards will also be provided at the forum and all submissions will remain anonymous. The forum will be moderated by Times-News Managing Editor Alison Smith.
BOISE  A bill to hike fees for hunting, fishing and trapping fees while freezing fees for loyal customers and directing more money to compensate landowners for depredation is having an easier time of it in the Senate than it did in the House.

The Senate Resources and Environment Committee voted unanimously Monday to advance the bill, which hikes in-state fees for the first time since 2005, to the full Senate.

It passed the House last week by a 43-26 vote after a lengthy debate with some lawmakers opposed to raising the fees and others saying they would like to see a bill that does more for landowners with depredation issues.

The bill increases in-state fees by about 20 percent but includes a price lock to exempt people who buy a license every year from the higher rates for at least five years, bringing in an extra $3 million a year to spend on various Fish and Game programs and needs.

It also tacks on a new surcharge, paid by everyone, of $5 for Idaho residents and $10 for nonresidents. This is expected to bring in another $2 million a year, of which $1 million would go to depredation  half to compensate farmers for crop damage caused by animals, half for programs designed to prevent such crop damage  and $1 million to providing access to land from willing landowners to hunt and fish. This was added to the bill because House Resources and Conservation Committee Chairman Marc Gibbs, R-Grace, wouldnt let an older version of the fee hike bill move because he wanted Fish and Game to improve its depredation programs.

We believe it takes significant steps to address the depredation concerns and delivers important outcomes for sportsmen and landowners, Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore said.

The public testimony was mostly from lobbyists for sportsmens groups and the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, all of whom back the bill. The sportsmens groups they think the money is needed to help the department better manage the states fish and wildlife, and the Farm Bureau likes what the bill does for landowners with depredation problems.

We think this is a big step forward for the Idaho Fish and Game department, said Farm Bureau lobbyist Dennis Tanikuni. We think its a paradigm shift.

The committee also voted unanimously Monday to move forward two anti-invasive species measures that have already passed the House. The first would raise from $22 to $30 the sticker fee paid by out-of-state boaters, raising an additional $70,000 to $80,000 a year that would go toward invasive species prevention efforts, and the second is a resolution to encourage other western states and the federal government to work together to stop the spread of invasive quagga and zebra mussels, which have been reported in a few states bordering Idaho but arent here yet.

These bills stem from the recommendations of a group of lawmakers who studied the issue over the interim before the session.

During our working group, what we really found was the out-of-state boaters who come into the state from other locations are really the greatest risk to our waterways, said Rep. Terry Gestrin, R-Donnelly, who co-chaired the group.
BOISE  A bill to let drivers exceed the speed limit by up to 15 mph while passing on some roads passed the Senate Monday despite the attempts of some lawmakers to throw up roadblocks.

Introduced into the House by Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, the bill legalizes speeding while passing on a two-lane road where the speed limit is already 55 mph or higher. It passed the House on a 60-5 vote last month.

The bill passed the Senate 24-10. Sen. Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, voted against it, while the rest of the Magic Valleys senators supported it.

Sens. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, and Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, the latter of whom is a retired police officer, debated at length against the bill, worried it would lead to more reckless driving and accidents.

If we pass this bill, people will die because of it, Foreman said. And I know thats not our intent. But we need to stop this bill before it stops us.

The bills supporters said it just codifies using the safest way to pass  as quickly as possible  and what people are already doing.
KIMBERLY  A Kimberly woman was killed Monday in a four-vehicle crash when a semitrailer crossed into oncoming traffic, sideswiped two vehicles and smashed into her pickup head-on.

The crash happened about 3:30 p.m. at 3375 East and 3700 North west of Kimberly when Adam Christensen, 40, of Twin Falls crossed from eastbound 3700 North into the westbound lane in a 2003 Peterbilt semitrailer, Idaho State Police said. The semi sideswiped a Ford SUV and the Ford pickup it was towing and collided head-on with a Dodge Ram 3500 pickup.

The driver of the Dodge, Ernestine Bill, 66, of Kimberly was killed. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and the roadway was blocked for more than seven hours as emergency crews cleared the crash and police investigated its cause.

State troopers are still trying to figure out why Christensen crossed into oncoming traffic, ISP Lt. Robert Rausch said Tuesday.

On face value, being out of your lane is a problem, Rausch said. But were trying to figure out if there was a mechanical issue, a medical issue, something another vehicle did that made him cross the lane; you have to examine all the evidence. Was there a defect within a vehicle that caused something?

Rausch did not say if there are early indications of what caused Christensen to cross into oncoming traffic, but said in these types of crashes, its common to investigate whether the driver was intoxicated, drowsy, distracted or suffering from a medical emergency.

We get one chance to do an investigation correctly, Rausch said. We owe it to the families involved not to make any conclusions. It may end up being straightforward, but we have to take a look at it.

Christensen was injured and taken to the hospital by ambulance, Rausch said. A hospital spokeswoman reported he was in serious condition as of noon Tuesday.

Danny Connolly, 56, of Twin Falls was driving the Ford Explorer that was towing the Ford F-350 driven by Donald Connolly, 58, of Twin Falls. Neither man was reported injured.
William Taylor

KIMBERLY  William Taylor of Kimberly, service at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 14 at Parkes Magic Valley Funeral Home. A viewing will be held from 5 until 7 p.m. Monday, March 12 at the funeral home.

Colleen Barnes

BURLEYColleen Barnes of Burley, funeral at 12 noon Tuesday, March 14 at the Malta LDS Church, 280 N 1st St.

Irene Fredrickson

PAUL  Irene Annie Fredrickson of Paul, funeral at 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 15, at the Rasmussen Funeral Home, 1350 E. 16th St., in Burley, where friends may call from 10 until 10:45 a.m. prior to the service.

Francis Bergin

TWIN FALLSFrancis Bergin of Twin Falls, services at 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 15 at the First Baptist Church, 205 E 5th in Shoshone. A visitation will be held from 6 until 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 14 at Parkes Funeral Home, 2551 Kimberly Road, Twin Falls.

Marvin Hirsch

RUPERTMarvin Hirsch of Rupert, funeral service at 11 a.m. Thursday, March 16 at Trinity Lutheran Church of Rupert. A viewing will be held from 6 until 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 15 at the mortuary and for one hour prior to the services at the church.

Martha McRill

TWIN FALLSMartha McRill of Twin Falls, memorial service at 1 p.m. Friday, March 17 at the Parkes Funeral Home, 2551 Kimberly Road, Twin Falls.

Terry Bailey

WYOMINGTerry Bailey formerly of Twin Falls, celebration of life from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Friday, March 17 at the Southwest Sublette County Pioneers Senior Center at 111 Rakestraw Ave, Marbleton, Wyoming.

Earl Bird

CALIFORNIAEarl Bird,formerly of Jerome, memorial service at 11:30 a.m. Friday, March 17 at Demarays Jerome Memorial Chapel, 629 3rd Ave E.

Gene Kincheloe

TWIN FALLSGene Kincheloe, service at 10 a.m. Friday, March 17 at Parkes Magic Valley Funeral Home, Twin Falls.

Cheryl Ringenberg

TWIN FALLSCheryl Ringenberg of Twin Falls, celebration of life 11 a.m. Saturday, March 18 at the Rock Creek Community Church, 262 Fifth Avenue East, Twin Falls.

Marie Simpson

JEROMEMarie Simpson of Jerome, funeral services at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 18 at the Carey LDS Chapel. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service.

Robert Miller

JEROMERobert Miller of Jerome, celebration of life at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 18 at the Snake River Elks Lodge, 412 E 200 S, Jerome.
Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead at his home in Southern California. He was 34. Representatives for Carters family confirmed the singers death Saturday. They did not provide any immediate further comment. A sheriff's official says deputies responding to reports of a medical emergency found a person deceased at the home in Lancaster. Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brothers boy band, and appeared on the familys reality series, House of Carters.
I dont need data to tell me flying a combat jet is tougher than hosting a radio show. When I was growing up we were also taught to respect people who put on a uniform and served their country. Especially in wartime. For many years I lived on a narrow piece of land wedged between multiple airbases, and flyovers were routine in my neighborhood. Every morning at 11 oclock sharp a pair of A-10s would come from the west to the east. At 1 oclock in the afternoon two (possibly the same) jets would fly north to south. The A-10 is old in terms of technology. Its still in service because it works. It plays an important role on battlefields. Known affectionately as the Warthog it supports ground troops and eliminates enemy armor. The A-10 is a slow, lumbering beast and it takes courage to fly because the slower and closer to the ground means its an inviting target for the enemy.

A member of the Idaho Legislature has some experience with the ungainly beast. She had three overseas tours flying A-10s after graduating from the Air Force Academy. Major Priscilla Giddings spent nine years on active duty and now is with the Air Force Reserve. After working on the staff of U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo she decided herself to take the political plunge. She was elected as a state representative this past November, winning by a 42 percent cushion. Many of her constituents already knew her character. She graduated at the top of her high school class and was and remains a star athlete.

Rep. Giddings is a true American hero and success story. A shame many of her fellow Republicans in Boise, some of whom from what I gather are real estate salesmen and party clerks, have no respect for the woman.

Last week I read an online column from a Spokane newspaper. A day after Giddings had legally demanded a bill be read aloud before a vote. The GOP establishment, looking to embarrass or intimidate the newcomer, had her stand before her colleagues and read the measure for over an hour. Maybe she can next make a sandwich for Mike Moyle. Strange, from a public relations perspective, how Republican leadership out to punish its own, has primarily worked to shame women. Giddings doesnt see herself as an extremist. Yesterday I had a long conversation with her mother. The family has a history of military service and fealty to constitutional ideals. It doesnt appear the representative campaigned on a pledge to go to Boise and build relationships or to go along and get along. Come to think of it, Im not sure anyone campaigns on such slogans, but its rare when someone actually keeps political promises.

In the comments section following the online story out of Spokane the former liberal party leader in the state Senate mocked Giddings. He lost his seat last year to another Air Force veteran. So much for having the pulse of the electorate. Whats not shocking is Democrats are in league with moderate Republicans. Im telling you right now when it comes to God, constitutions and country Im not in any form a moderate. Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, is an echo down the generations from the first great Western Republican (also a pilot). Unfortunately, the public at large has been fed Pablum instead of patriotism by squishes in the Republican Party, Democrats and liberal propagandists in mainstream media for so long that many are conditioned to view Giddings as dangerous. For making a legal request of her peers!

From what I can see, the representative, pilot and veteran generally votes with her partys majority. The so-called Republican factions still have more in common with party regulars than with liberals. Mainstream media reports a very different narrative. A couple of weeks ago a publication Id never heard of before reported some nasty accusations against Speaker of the House Scott Bedke. The allegations appear to have been made by a woman regrettably not very stable. Prior investigations turned up nothing. I also know the so-called radical Republicans in the House were also appalled by the accusers claims. And yet some newspaper editorialists tied the constitutionalists to the website reviving the allegations. Then an editorialist railed if thats what conservatives are really like he wants nothing to do with conservatives. Is he making a tacit admission his paper is an appendage of the liberal party? I guess it must be. I make a statement linking the two on as much evidence as he has in making his wild assertion.

Democrats and fellow travelers in news media talk a good game about making government more accountable. Unless a conservative or conservatives make the effort. What the lefties really mean is they want everybody on the liberal bandwagon because they so much know liberalism is a self-evident truth! Im not bashing all Republicans. There are some very good and well-meaning legislators of my acquaintance in southern Idaho. Most have accepted the blemishes in the House and Senate as acceptable losses. It doesnt make it right, and whats really wrong are the efforts to bring down the courageous whove already done far more for the people of Idaho than a lot of dead weight currently serving in office. In some cases quite sadly theyve been in Boise far too long and grown too comfortable and really should consider retirement. But then they may not get a position in leadership! For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? Mark 8:36
Six weeks into a new administration, with unified Republican government for the first time in a decade, the GOP should be busy enacting a bold reform agenda. Instead, the party is wracked by internal divisions on key issues from health care to taxes.

After House Republicans released their long-awaited bill to repeal and replace Obamacare it was attacked from all sides of the GOP spectrumwith conservatives calling it Obamacare lite and moderates openly worrying it wont do enough for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion population or those who will lose their Obamacare subsidies.

Democrats are refusing to cooperate with any GOP initiatives, which means all these reforms must be passed with Republican votes alone using an arcane process called reconciliation.

Sounds like a hopeless situation? Not to Scott Walker. For the Wisconsin governor, it seems like deja vu all over again. In 2011, after winning the governorship and control to both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, Walker faced a divided Republican caucus and 100,000 protesters marching on and occupying his state capitol to protest his collective bargaining reform legislation. His polls were so low, he says, TIME magazine declared him Dead Man Walker. Yet he managed to unite his party and overcome Democratic obstruction (including 14 Democratic legislators who fled the state to prevent a quorum). (Disclosure: I have co-authored a book with Walker.)

Result? His legislation passed, and voters rewarded him at the polls. Weve now won three cycles in a row12, 14 and 16where Republicans have gained seats in the legislature and have moved the state so far that we not only got Ron Johnson reelected, but, obviously, we for the first time since Reagan carried the state for a Republican presidential candidate, he says.

Walker recently met with the House Republicans to share the lessons of his experience in Wisconsin. And he gave them a clear message: ignore the protests and do what you promised. If you do, voters will reward you as well.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are urging their leaders to slow down, but Walker says that is a mistake. On Obamacare and tax reform, its a mistake to push it off until later this year or next year, he says. This is for two reasons. First, Walker says, the longer you wait, the more excuses there will be. Squeamish legislators begin complaining that its too close to the next election. We cant do these things. Members of Congress dont get more courageous with time.

Second, he says, You need time to show that it works. If Republicans act now, the positive effects of their legislation will be felt before voters go to the polls in 2018 and Democrats wont be able to demagogue their reforms. All the protests in the world dont have the kind of effect that the protesters want if people see their lives getting better, Walker says. Tax reform will be like pouring jet fuel into our economic engine. And then, no matter what people think about some of these other issuesbuilding the wall, the travel issues and other thingssuddenly people start seeing things that are having a positive impact in their life. And even if they dont care as much about the other issues, they see progress, and thats what people want. They want progress.

Once Republicans pass health care and tax reform legislation, they need to keep reforming. You dont get political capital by hoarding it. You get it by reinvesting it. So every time you have a political victory and you get one reform done, instead of sitting back, you need to reinvest that to the next one youve got teed up and keep ahead of the curve. If they do so, voters will say these guys are leading. They are actually getting things done. Theyre pushing reforms. I may not agree with every one of them, but theyre doing the things they said theyre going to do.

The left will protest, but ultimately those protests will backfire, Walker says. The trend we saw in Wisconsin, which appears to be happening nationwide, is they overreact ... because theyre just blinded by their rage. If opposition is just rage, I think everyday citizens see that. People start to look at them and say, thats not who we are.

The worst possible outcome will be for Republicans to break their word and do nothing. Voters are sick and tired of people who they think talk a lot, but they dont get anything done, Walker says. If Republicans dont deliver, he warns, then the protests will only grow biggerbecause they will be populated not just by angry liberals, but angry conservatives furious that Republicans failed to keep their promises.
Former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak has been allowed by Cairo criminal court to walk free to home, his lawyer told the media Monday.

The former leader early this month was cleared of the death of hundreds of protesters in the 2011 revolution which toppled him after a 30-year long rule.

His lawyer Farid Al-Deeb told media that the criminal court approved his clients release and allowed Mubarak to quit the military hospital where he has been held.

He will go to his home in Heliopolis, Al-Deeb said.

After the mass demonstrations forced him to step down in 2011, he was accused in 2012 of ordering murder of 864 demonstrators along with another indictment for corruption.

The cassation court ruling early this month cleared the former leader of all indictments as his three-year in prison sentence for corruption was observed.
Head of Libyan rival government based in the East, Abdullah Al-Thinni travelled Monday to Cairo to marshal Egypts military support for the affiliated army attempting to retake two oil terminals taken several days ago by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) said supported by the UN-backed Government of National Accord.

For Thinni, Egypts support was urgent, Libya Herald reports.

The Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar and Thinni lost 11 days ago control of Ras Lanuf and Sidra oil terminals to the BDB, forces opposed to Haftar.

Despite heavy shelling and forces mobilisation, the LNA has not managed to retake the terminals.

Although Cairo has been lending support for the LNA and supplying arms and equipment to the Libyan self-style army commander Haftar, Thinni received a cold shoulder in Cairo and failed to be received by Egypts Defense Minister Sedki Sobhy, according to Libya Herald.

The BDB reportedly blamed Cairo for pounding its position around the two oil export terminals.

Thinnis visit followed Haftars flying visit to Cairo last week. The reasons of Haftars trip were not spelled out, but it is reported that Cairo is at odds with the army commander. Cairo accuses Haftar of starting another front though the fight against terrorists in Benghazi is not over.
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.
About 30 people were killed and 28 others injured in a landslide accident near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa this weekend.

The accident occurred at the Koshe Garbage Landfill on Saturday night after a landslide swept through a giant rubbish dump.

According to the mayor, some 37 people had been rescued from the rubble and were receiving medical treatment while rescue operations, with the help of several excavators, were continuing for the missing people.

Officials have estimated that about 150 people were at the site when the incident occurred.

Most of the victims were women and children who either live in shacks at the Koshe dump or dig through it every day, looking for anything to sell, local media reported.

About one third of Ethiopias population lives below the poverty line.

The Horn of Africa nation has experienced decades of political turmoil and the impoverished country is now under further stress due to the influx of refugees from South Sudan.

According to the BBC, rescuers are using bulldozers and even bare hands to move tons of debris as the search for survivors and dead bodies continues.
The Tanzanian ruling party has sacked 12 senior officials, demoted six members and warned four others over a sabotage scandal in the East African nation.

The disciplinary action comes as a big shake up of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party chaired by Tanzanias President John Magufuli.

The partys publicity secretary, Humphrey Polepole indicated that the penalties meted out by the NEC (National Executive Committee) are final and there is no room for appeal.

Those who are on their way to attend the Special General Congress will not be allowed to participate although they will be given all the upkeep costs, he added.

President John Magufuli has called on members to accept changes including the removal of regional secretaries as part of measures to reduce committee members.

In his words, We should think of our partys interests  There is no cause for alarm. The proposed changes are a normal thing to giant institutions like ours.

Magufuli said the changes were also aimed at bringing people closer to the party, adding that CCM was formed as the party for the oppressed.

We should return to our roots and basics. This party is for the poor and the oppressed, he said.

Magufuli, a former chemistry teacher who served as works minister in the previous administration, became the countrys fifth president two years ago.
The United State this weekend slammed the republic of Congo leaders for gross human rights violations that occurred in the Central African nation in 2016.

A 40-page report released by the US state department indicated that almost all the fundamental rights protected by the Congolese constitution, the code of criminal procedure and international treaties have been violated.

The report mentions such violations as forced disappearance, torture and rape by Congolese state and intelligence agents.

The countrys President, Denis Sassou Nguesso, 73, is accused by critics of rampant corruption and nepotism and of stifling democracy.

He has been president of Congo Brazzaville for 19 consecutive years, and was re-elected in March 2016 for another seven years.

The long-serving leader has reportedly ordered internet shut, supposedly to keep people from using social media to organize protests to challenge authorities.

Since the results of the election were rejected by the opposition, Congolese authorities have conducted a series of arrests against leading opposition figures and managers of candidates campaigns. Most of them were released later.

However, opposition leader Okombi Salissa who ran in the 2016 election has been arrested again in January 2017. The charges brought against him remain unknown.

The oil- and timber-rich nation remains in dire straits, with the vast majority of the population living in abject poverty
Parliament VS President

By Messenger Staff

Georgias Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze has accused President Giorgi Margvelashvili of deliberate misleading the public over the activities of the 73-member State Constitutional Commission, which is tasked with making key changes to the country's constitution this year.Kobakhidze stressed the Presidents statement that the commission wasnt focused on genuine changes and only aimed to more diminish President's role was deliberate discrediting of the commissions work.Kobakhidze stressed if the president continued making of such statements the majority may change its current solution over the presidents direct elections for 2018 and the president could be appointed for the next time and not for 2022.Its not right to con the public with such statements, Kobakhidze said, and added that if the commission wished to make subjective solutions as the President stated, they wouldnt have taken Margvelashvilis view into account and the new President would be appointed in 2018.In his previous statements, Kobakhidze said the president should be an arbiter and not a political figure in a parliamentary republic.He said in order to avoid political speculations, the next presidential elections should be held in within a direct election format; however, afterwards the system should be changed.Kobakhidze stated that minimal changes were planned in the renewed version of the state constitution in terms of the presidential institution, as the changes put in the constitution under the United National Movement Government in 2010 reduced the powers of the president significantly.The current constitution really requires changes and the changes must be adopted through the large scaled consensus.The current authorities say the draft law of the changes should be ready for April 30 this year.There is absolutely no need to rush any changes being made to the country's constitution, and such comments made by senior figures only serve to further muddy the process and raises questions over the competence of the commission.
@amysherman1

Fearing that President Donald Trump will cut off funding to Broward, the county commission considered a resolution Tuesday arguing that it is in compliance with federal law and isn't a so-called sanctuary county for undocumented immigrants.

The commission tabled the vote after immigrant and Democratic activists called for its defeat and commissioners couldn't agree on the wording or whether such a resolution is necessary.

The resolution proposed by Mayor Barbara Sharief, a Democrat, stated that the county has never labeled itself a "sanctuary." The resolution called for the county attorney to take legal action if the county is denied federal funds based on immigration policies. Some commissioners argued that the resolution is unnecessary since the county attorney already has the power to defend the county if necessary. The commission didn't set a future date to revisit the resolution.

Trump issued an executive order in January directing the Attorney General's office and the Department of Homeland Security to cut off grant funding from local jurisdictions that shield undocumented immigrants from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement. Broward expects to get funds this year through the U.S. Department of Justice funneled through the state. The grant criteria states that the county must prove it complies with Section 1373 of federal law which essentially bans governments from restricting federal access to information about a person's immigration status. Broward officials argue that the county already complies with the law.

There is no definition in federal law of sanctuary cities or counties which has left some communities scrambling to avert any such label. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors restricting immigration laws, named six counties in Florida including Broward that have policies limiting cooperation with ICE specifically by placing conditions on honoring immigration detainers. (Miami-Dade County was previously on that list until the county changed its policy in response to Trump.)

Broward County never declared itself a sanctuary county but landed on that list because the Broward Sheriff's Office issued a policy in 2014 stating that personnel would only honor ICE detainers when they are accompanied by a warrant. That policy was issued following federal court rulings.

Broward officials are lobbying against a Florida house bill which passed a committee March 13 seeks to crack down on jurisdictions that pass such sanctuary policies.

Broward County has never adopted any law, any regulation, any practice, any custom  at all  limiting our cooperation with ICE officials, the federal government or anything having to do with enforcing federal policy, said Edward Labrador, the county's intergovernmental affairs director, in Tallahassee Monday.

In February, the Broward County Commission passed a resolution honoring diversity without mentioning sanctuary cities or counties. Some local governments in South Florida have passed or proposed resolutions declaring their facilities "safe zones" for undocumented immigrants.
















@PatriciaMazzei

National Republicans are coming to the aid of Miami Rep. Carlos Curbelo to support the House GOP's healthcare plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.

American Action Network, a group affiliated with House Speaker Paul Ryan, on Tuesday kicked off a $1.5 million, two-week TV ad campaign in 15 congressional district, including Curbelo's. He represents Florida's swing 26th district, which spans Westchester to Key West and has one of the highest number of Obamacare enrollees in the country.

"Republicans are keeping their promise with a new plan for better health care," the ad says. "More choices and lowers costs. Putting doctors and patients in charge again. No more big government penalties or job-killing mandates. New tax credits to make insurance cheaper. And real protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

"Thank Congressman Carlos Curbelo for keeping his promise, and replacing the Affordable Care Act with the better health care you deserve."

Curbelo voted to advance the legislation last week on the Ways and Means Committee, and immediately got bashed by Democrats, who consider him a top target for the 2018 elections. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday that some 14 million people would lose or drop insurance coverage in the first year of the House replacement plan.

In earlier ads airing in solidly conservative districts, including for Florida Reps. Ron DeSantis, Bill Posey and Ted Yoho, American Action Network used different language, urging the congressmen to "vote with President Trump." There's no mention of Trump in the spot airing in Curbelo's far more moderate district, which voted handily for Hillary Clinton.
@MichaelAuslen

One year ago, Hillsborough Sheriff's Deputy John Kotfila Jr. was killed by a drunk man driving the wrong way down the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway.

It's a death that rocked the Tampa Bay law enforcement community -- and one that could have been prevented, his family and anti-drunk driving advocates said in the state Capitol Tuesday.

"I can't tell you what it's like," Kotfila's mother, Terry, said of losing her son at 30 years old. "It's my first thought in the morning. It's my last thought in the evening."

Alongside the Kotfilas, representatives of Mothers Against Drunk Driving urged the Legislature to require first-time DUI offenders to have an ignition interlock device installed in their cars for six months. The devices essentially operate as a breathalizer test that prevents a car from starting if the user is intoxicated.

Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, and Rep. Cord Byrd, R-Neptune Beach, have sponsored legislation (SB 918/HB 949) to do that this year. Neither has had a single hearing, and the Senate bill has to clear four committees, a requirement that usually signals a tough road to passage.

Current Florida law requires interlock divices for repeat offenders and those convicted of DUI with a blood alcohol level above .15 or with a minor in the car.

Upping the requirement would stop thousands of drunk drivers, said Colleen Sheehey-Church, national president of MADD. In the last 10 years, ignition interlock devices prevented 68,236 people driving drunk in Florida.

"There is never ever going to be a silver bullet to stop this, but I have to tell you that the ignition interlock is the best, strongest, fastest way that we can help prevent a 100 percent preventable crime," she said.

The man who killed Kotfila, Erik Thomas McBeth, was more than three times the legal blood alcohol limit during the crash, which killed both men.

The ignition interlock bill is limited only to people who have been convicted of DUI.

Photo: Terry and John Kotfila speak in the Florida Capitol to advocate for new requirements for first-time drunk driving offenders. (Michael Auslen | Times/Herald)


via @jenstaletovich

A growing chorus of scientists is raising the alarm over reports of Trump administration budgets cuts that would affect climate change research and hurricane forecasting.

On Monday, 32 Florida scientists sent a letter to the president voicing worry over reports that the Department of Commerce, which overseas the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has proposed cutting 17 percent from its budget, with the nations network of satellites taking the biggest hit. The satellites include a system of polar orbiters that provide critical data from the top and bottom of the planet and help scientists understand two of the biggest threats facing the peninsula.

It would be like looking at the world with a half-blind eye and not two good eyes, said Frank Muller-Karger, a University of South Florida oceanographer who was appointed to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy by President George W. Bush.

Last week, the Washington Post obtained a four-page budget memo outlining the cuts. The cuts were so steep and in such critical areas that scientists immediately sounded the alarm. Cuts also included the popular and bipartisan Sea Grants program, which matches local money for coastal research.

A Department of Commerce spokesman said Monday that agency would not comment.

A spokesman for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said his office had not been provided any details. But in a statement, Nelson said, Were not going to allow that to happen. NOAAs mission is too important.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubios staff declined to comment on the record about the reports.

More here.

Photo credit: Joe Raedle, Getty Images
@ByKristenMClark

The superintendent of Floridas largest school district says he has grave concern about state lawmakers proposed reforms in how charter schools get taxpayer funding for maintenance and construction projects.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Miami-Dade public schools stand to pay $83 million the district hasnt accounted for if the Legislature goes through with its plan to force school districts to share their local tax revenue for capital projects with charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed.

Carvalho first expressed those concerns in a letter to a Senate committee chairman last month and he elaborated further in speaking with the Miami Heralds editorial board on Tuesday.

More here.


@PatriciaMazzei @learyreports

Miami's three Republican lawmakers in Congress have said nothing about the GOP's plan to replace the Affordable Care Act since the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded Monday that some 14 million people would drop or lose insurance coverage in 2018.

The legislation is the biggest policy proposal in the House right now. And the districts represented by Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have among the highest number of Obamacare enrollees in the country. Yet none of the legislators' offices responded Tuesday afternoon to requests for comment.

UPDATE: Ros-Lehtinen has now said she opposes the replacement plan. And a spokeswoman for Diaz-Balart said he is still reviewing the legislation and CBO report. "He has concerns about the legislation, and is looking into those," Katrina Valdes said in an email.

Only Curbelo has had to cast a vote on the proposal so far, last week on the House Ways and Means committee. He then defended his support for the law -- and on Monday, a group linked to House Speaker Paul Ryan started airing TV ads on Curbelo's behalf in Miami.

A slew of Florida lawmakers have issued statements or answered questions about the proposal. Democrats are universally opposed:

Republicans

Sen. Marco Rubio (on Pensacola News Radio 1620 Tuesday morning)

"I started reading the CBO report last night. When it gives this number of all the people that are going to be uninsured, remember, they are saying that because without the mandate, they are estimating that a lot of people are not going to buy insurance by their own choice. Not that it won't be available, except they'll choose not to buy it because they don't have to. They'll want to spend it on something else. Thats a significant percentage of the numbers that they're calling out as being uninsured. That said, I have some problems with that bill and I'm going through it every single day. I want to make sure Florida is treated fairly when it comes to the Medicaid situation because we didn't expand and we shouldn't be treated unfairly or punished for that. I want to make sure the tax credit issue works well. I want to make sure we're getting rid of all those elements of Obamacare that did damage to the access to health insurance. I think the House bill is a work in progress and certainly we're not just going to take it up and pass it as is."

Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor

"The American Health Care Act is a necessary step to getting our nation's health care system on a sustainable path. The CBO report reflects many of our core goals: lowering premiums, reducing the tax burden, and making major entitlement program reforms. It also shows a significant cut to our federal deficit. I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress and the President on additional steps to further lower costs and increase access to quality care, ensuring a system that works for everyone."

Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland

"The American Health Care Act will not only put patients and doctors back in charge of their healthcare decisions, but it will also allow for a stable transition so no one has the rug pulled from under them. This legislation will provide affordable coverage and choice for all, eliminate crushing taxes, regulations and individual and employer mandate penalties, allow children up to 26 years old to stay on their parents' plans, and ensure individuals with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage. This is a beginning, not an end. Congress and the Trump Administration are open to suggestions and working with others, something President Obama and Democrats were unwilling to do when they rammed Obamacare through Congress. This legislation is only phase one of three to further lower costs and increase choice for families. By repealing and replacing Obamacare, we are keeping our promise to the American people. We are putting patients first."

Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City

With increasing premiums and skyrocketing deductibles, its clear that the Affordable Care Act has become anything but affordable. Residents on the exchanges in St. Lucie County and Martin County currently have no choice  with only one insurer offering plans on the exchange  and nearly 4.7 million Americans have been kicked off their healthcare plans altogether. We need a system that decreases costs for families, increases choice and gives people more options when it comes to their health. We also need to ensure that patients with pre-existing conditions wont be denied coverage and that those who rely on Medicaid have access to quality care. The framework bill is far from perfect. The only way we can fix the failures of Obamacare is through a fully transparent process that engages voices all across the country to revise and improve upon this plan."

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota

This is an important first step toward restoring choice and affordability to health care for all Americans, Buchanan said. This bill ends a failing government-run program that forces people to buy insurance and replaces it with a system based on choice, free markets and competition. And it will protect coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, allow children to stay on their parents plans until age 26 and eliminate lifetime caps on coverage.

Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Gainesville

He spoke Tuesday on MSBNC

I would not support it in its present form today. But were working in the right direction  The CBO, if you look historically theyve been way off on certain things. ... It's not a finished product."

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach

"Congressman Gaetz believes legislation should be read and fully understood. He is actively engaged in that process now."

Rep. Dan Webster, R-Clermont

His comments via a constituent newsletter that also addressed a plan from Rep. Mark Sanford and Sen. Rand Paul



"While I am strongly committed to repealing the failed Affordable Care Act and adopting real healthcare reform, I have concerns with both proposals. For one, I am very concerned about the impact proposals will have on the demand for Medicaid beds in Florida nursing homes. This is critical to the access some of our senior population has to our hospitals and nursing homes. I also believe the final plan must provide the care we need, at a price we can afford, from the doctor we choose. These bills will continue to be the subject of much discussion and debate. I anticipate changes will be made before a bill comes up for a final vote in the House. It is my desire that the final proposal will, restore Medicaid to the original intent of the program - providing health care services to low income children, their caretaker relatives, the blind, and individuals with disabilities. Additionally, the following protections should be included in any final proposal: Protect patients with pre-existing conditions: Ensures you will never be denied healthcare coverage regardless of their health status. Protect coverage for young people: Allows dependents up to age 26 stay on their parents plan. Prohibits insurers from turning away patients when you renew your plan simply because you may be sick."

DEMOCRATS

Sen. Bill Nelson

It is wrong to take away health insurance for 24 million people, as well as increase the cost to seniors.

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa

It is unconscionable that Republicans are cutting health care for millions of Americans while proving massive tax breaks to the wealthy few. Fourteen million more Americans will be uninsured under the Republican repeal scheme than under current law in 2018. By 2026, 24 million more of our neighbors will be uninsured. The impartial CBO report also shows that the Republican repeal bill would gut Medicaid -- forcing states to reduce benefits and cut payments to providers, limiting access and coverage for millions to the program. Five million fewer people would be covered under Medicaid by 2018, and 14 million fewer people would enroll in the program by 2026.

Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg

"The score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirms our worst fears. The Republicans' 'Don't Care' health plan means fewer Americans with access to lifesaving care, doubling the uninsured rate across the country, and raising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. This legislation is terrible for those in their golden years, our seniors. And most distressing is how this bill treats the poor and the disabled of our society.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston

"Under Trumpcare, older Americans could be charged five times more than younger people, up from three times under the current law, increasing costs for those already on a fixed income who can least afford it. The Trump Administration is already trying to discredit this non-partisan analysis, but lets face it, no matter how you slice it, the numbers would be appalling in terms of the toll on human health. An important note is that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is led by a director who was appointed by Speaker Paul Ryan and former Congressman Tom Price, who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We now have a non-partisan analysis confirming that Trumpcare will deliver higher costs, less care and more pain to millions of Americans who are already struggling to get by. Ill do everything I can to stop this health care train wreck.

Rep. Val Demings, D-Orlando

This report from the non-partisan CBO confirms what we already knew to be true, millions of Americans will lose health insurance, hardworking families will be forced to pay higher premiums, and Medicaid recipients will suffer greatly. As Republicans recklessly work to push through this plan, the people who need it the most, working families, seniors, and children stand to lose the most. The GOP plan is not better than the Affordable Care Act and Republicans know it."

Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park

Every American deserves access to quality, affordable health care, and I will not vote for a bill that falls short of that principle. Today the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said an alarming 24 million Americans will lose their health insurance under the American Health Care Act. Older Americans will bear the brunt of the bills impact with skyrocketing premiums and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, which is why groups like the AARP strongly oppose the bill  and among the many reasons why I also oppose the bill in its current form. House Republican leaders are rushing this process with closed-door meetings and midnight committee sessions. We need to slow down, bring both parties together, and get health care reform right so there arent any unintended consequences that hurt families, seniors, and small businesses.

Photo credit: C.M. Guerrero, el Nuevo Herald


@PatriciaMazzei

Sen. Bill Nelson plans to support President Donald Trump's nominee for labor secretary.

That's according to a Nelson spokesman, who we'd asked for comment. Alex Acosta is a Miami native and the dean of Florida International University's law school.

Acosta's confirmation hearing is next week.

Photo credit: Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam joins Gov. Rick Scott in his defense of Visit Florida funding during a rally in Tallahassee on Tuesday. (Jeremy Wallace/Tampa Bay Times)

@JeremySWallace

For well over a month, Gov. Rick Scott has been traveling the state slamming House Republicans for their attempts to cut and reform the states tourism marketing agency Visit Florida.

But Tuesday was different.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater all joined Scott at a rally on Tuesday in the Capitol aimed at fighting a House plan that would dramatically cut the states investment into Visit Florida. That additional political muscle - all Republicans - was a show of force illustrating just how alone the House is politically in attempting to pull back support for Visit Florida.

I find it so hard to comprehend that all of you needed to leave your businesses to come here to fight for the most obvious brand that Florida is, which is a family friendly tourist destination, Putnam told about 200 tourism industry officials at the rally.

Putnam, considered a leading contender for governor in 2018, repeated a line of reasoning Scott has used frequently, noting that big companies like Coca-Cola and McDonalds dont stop advertising because they know they risk losing market share if they pulled back. Its the same for tourism marketing Putnam warned. To make his point, Putnam pulled out a quote from late-Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat who was governor from 1990 to 1998.

As Lawton Chiles used to say, its a poor frog who wont even croak in his own pond, Putnam said.

But House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, was undeterred by the show of force from Scott and the rest of the Cabinet.

"We've said it 1,000 times," Corcoran said. "We don't care how big the crowd is against us, or how difficult the fight, we will always do what is best for the taxpayer."


@PatriciaMazzei

Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen plans to vote against the House GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, becoming the first Florida Republican to reject the legislation outright.

After studying the impact of this proposed legislation on my district and speaking with many of my constituents, I have decided to vote no on the bill as currently written," she said in a statement to the Miami Herald. "The bills consequences for South Florida are clear: too many of my constituents will lose insurance and there will be less funds to help the poor and elderly with their healthcare."

I plan to vote NO on the current #AHCA bill. As written the plan leaves too many from my #SoFla district uninsured (1/2)  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen) March 14, 2017

As #AHCA stands, it will cut much needed help for #SoFla's poor + elderly populations. Need a plan that will do more to protect them (2/2)  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen) March 14, 2017

Ros-Lehtinen's 27th district, which includes Southeast Miami-Dade County, had the largest number of Obamacare enrollees in the country -- about 96,300 -- as of January, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday that some 14 million people would lose or drop coverage by 2018 under the proposed American Health Care Act, which has been endorsed by President Donald Trump.

With her opposition, Ros-Lehtinen is breaking with fellow Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who last week voted for the bill in the House Ways and Means Committee. Both lawmakers represent Democratic-leaning districts won by Hillary Clinton.

Florida Democrats have universally opposed the plan  It is wrong to take away health insurance for 24 million people, as well as increase the cost to seniors, Sen. Bill Nelson said  but the party accused Ros-Lehtinen of political pandering.

After voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act dozens of times without a replacement plan  including as recently as January  its clear that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen makes her decisions in Washington D.C. based on political calculation and self-preservation, not what is best for the people of South Florida, Javier Gamboa, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman, said in a statement.

Curbelo hasn't commented on the CBO report. On Monday, American Action Network, a Republican political group linked to House Speaker Paul Ryan started airing TV ads in Miami to give Curbelo cover for his support.

The third Miami Republican in the House, Mario Diaz-Balart, is still reviewing the legislation and CBO report and has some "concerns," his spokeswoman said.

Some Florida Republicans have questioned the House plan on conservative grounds, arguing it remains too interventionist in its approach to the insurance market. Others have said it's a good first step that still needs work.

Ros-Lehtinen is still not a fan of the existing law but said its replacement needs to be bipartisan and more humane.

"I voted to repeal Obamacare many times because it was not the right fix for our broken healthcare system and did not live up to its promise to the American people but this plan is not the replacement South Florida needs," Ros-Lehtinen said. "We should work together to write a bipartisan bill that works for our community and our nation without hurting the elderly and disadvantaged among us."

Photo credit: Matias J. Ocner, for the Miami Herald

This post has been updated.
Florida Power & Light's paid nearly $2,000 in flights, food and beverage for Sen. Frank Artiles to travel to Daytona Beach and Disney's Epcot theme park last month, an expense the senator reported late Monday on his political committee's web site only after questions by the Herald/Times.

Artiles, a Miami Republican who as a freshman is chairman of the Senate's Energy, Communications and Public Utilities Committee, was invited by FPL parent company, NextEra, to wave the green flag at the ceremonial start of the NASCAR event on Feb. 24. The next day, he was seen at Epcot, touring the theme parks' Drinking Around the World Showcase with FPL lobbyist and others.

Artiles' travel "was an in-kind contribution to Veterans for Conservative Principles by Florida Power & Light,'' said his aide, Alina Garcia in an email after the Herald/Times asked how the expenses were paid.

Artiles traveled on a plane owned by Dave Ramba, who also lobbies for FPL. Ramba uses his aircraft to provide legislators with air travel around the state and to and from Tallahassee. It is known as "the caravan" because it is a Cessna Caravan and can seat up to 8 people.

Ramba had parked the caravan at the Kissimmee Jet Center, the fixed base operator closest to Disney, during the weekend of the Daytona 500, which Ramba attended on Sunday. The NextEra-sponsored truck race on Friday night was the opening event of the Daytona International Speedway weekend, which culminates in the Daytona 500.

Also accompanying Artiles was John Holley, who has been director of state legislative affairs for Florida Power & Light since August 2011 and previously worked for three months as a lobbyist with Ramba's Tallahassee lobbying firm. Artiles said he has known Holley for seven years and considers him a loyal friend.

When the Herald/Times asked how he paid for the trips on Ramba's aircraft, and whether he included payment for others Artiles identified as staff, Artiles refused to speak to a reporter.

"Everything in writing from this moment forward and I'll get you answers from my staff,'' he said, repeating four times that he wanted questions in writing.

In response to questions, Garcia told the Herald/Times that "there were no legislative interns or interns on the plane or traveling with the senator" and that "Sen. Artiles was traveling unaccompanied."

Senate rules require that senators receive prior written approval from the Office of the Senate President if they are seeking to have their cost of traveling on chartered aircraft reimbursed by taxpayers and Senate staff is not allowed to travel on charter aircraft. Artiles accepted the travel as an in-kind gift to his political committee and it is the only in-kind gift listed since September 2013. The Senate president's office said that Sen. Artiles does not employ any interns through his state office.

Artiles said that a fundraiser he held in conjunction with the NextEra-sponsored truck race raised $10,000. He acknowledged that before the event he did not know that NextEra was the parent of FPL. On March 2, Artiles' political committee reported receiving $5,000 from FPL and $5,000 from Florida Prosperity Fund, a political committee controlled by Associated Industries of Florida to which FPL contributes.

Artiles' committee also reported writing two checks to Ramba on March 2: one for $900 to the Ramba Law Group for "legal" and another for $1,800 to Ramba Consulting for "consulting." Senate rules require members to report all contributions and expenses to their political committees on their web sites. Artiles updated his political committee with the in-kind contribution on Monday, after the Herald/Times inquiries.

UPDATE: Ramba said his firm received the "in kind letter on the 24th; it was dated and sent to the committee on the 22nd. Unfortunately, it was sent to me and didn't copy my staff so it was a clerical error it was not put on the PC website."

Photo: Miami Senators Frank Artiles and Rene Garcia being sworn in to the state Senate in November. Photo by Scott Keeler, Tampa Bay Times.

Here are the screen shots from the web page for Veterans for Conservative Principles first on Monday morning and next on Tuesday morning:
@MichaelAuslen

For the first time Tuesday, a Senate committee approved legislation that would take away local governments' ability to regulate ridesharing businesses like Uber and Lyft, a signal that the bill could finally pass this session after years of lawmakers and the companies themselves attempting to push it through.

The House has already teed up a version of the legislation (SB 340/HB 221) for a vote on the floor. That chamber passed similar legislation in 2016 and was poised to take it up in 2015.

In recent years, the Senate has refused to pass it. On Tuesday, the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee gave it a 7-2 nod of approval.

If passed, the legislation would end the patchwork system of city and county laws regulating the companies, which allow users to request a ride from a for-hire driver on their smartphone. It would also prevent individual communities from banning Uber and Lyft, as has happened in Hillsborough, Broward and other counties.

"We need this type of statewide framework," said Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, who sponsored the legislation. "It would be very difficult to operate a business in that (less centralized) type of environment."

Two senators objected: George Gainer, R-Panama City, and Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point. Farmer said he thought companies like Uber and Lyft should have to contribute to the "financial burden" of maintaining streets and providing public transportation to people with disabilities.

Gainer, a former county commissioner said he opposed the state stepping in and taking control from counties, which generally regulate taxicabs and similar vehicles.

"I saw big value to having local control of taxis," he said. "I can't imagine why Uber would have any problem being under county control."

Earlier Tuesday, a House subcommittee approved legislation (HB 647) that would disband the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission, which in recent years feuded publicly with ridesharing companies.

Photo: Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg talks to reporters about the Uber bill during the 2016 legislative session. (SCOTT KEELER | Tampa Bay Times)


@PatriciaMazzei

Elias Seife made his first trip to the White House on Monday -- not as a mere tourist but as a guest of President Donald Trump's.

The Miami-area computer programmer was one of 11 people who met with the president to share their stories about frustrations with the Affordable Care Act.

Seife told the Miami Herald he got his invitation after going to his state representative, Republican Jose Felix Diaz of Miami, about his Obamacare concerns. To then expand on them to the president, Seife said Tuesday, was "a true privilege."

Congrats to #District116 resident Elias Seife @FloridaTwits for being invited to the White House to share his and his family's story pic.twitter.com/fLZemVmuNs  Rep. Jose Felix Diaz (@josefelixdiaz) March 13, 2017

Seife, who has his own small business since 1993, said his individual insurance plan was canceled because it no longer met coverage criteria once Obamacare went into effect. Since then, he's had to change his family plan -- which also covers his wife and their 10-year-old daughter -- every year due to rising premiums and deductibles. Last year, he paid $1,400 a month for coverage; this year, he switched plans after the premium climbed to $1,900.

"I can't pay that," he told the Herald. "It's unsustainable."

Meeting in the Roosevelt Room along with Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, each of the individuals invited by Trump talked about losing insurance coverage and facing higher costs to cover themselves and their employees.

Seife, sitting two seats from Trump, mentioned that his parents immigrated from communist Cuba.

"They know what socialism is all about," he said. "I know what socialism is...and this whole system was meant to have one single provider."

"It'll get better. If we're allowed to do what we want to do, it will get better. Much better," Trump said at the meeting. "Hopefully it will get very good."
Miamis part-time MBA program ranks No. 25.

Four Miami University graduate programs are in the top 100 of U.S. News and World Reports 2018 edition of Best Graduate Schools rankings. Miamis part-time MBA program ranks No. 25.

Other Miami graduate programs ranked among the top 100 in their respective program areas include speech-language pathology at 69, English at 77, and history at 98.

Part-time MBA

The Farmer School of Businesss MBA program, launched in 2009 at Miamis Voice of America Learning Center, ranks as the top part-time program in Southwest Ohio for the sixth straight year. It is a two-year program offered on weeknights for experienced professionals.

The program jumped three spots to 25th in the country, tying with Emory University and Santa Clara University. It is second in the state only to Ohio State University.

The U.S. News part-time MBA ranking is based on five factors: average peer assessment score (50 percent of the overall score); average GMAT score and GRE scores of part-time MBA students entering in fall of 2016 (15 percent); average undergraduate GPA (5 percent); average number of years of work experience (15 percent); and the percentage of the fall 2016 total MBA program enrollment that is in the part-time MBA program (15 percent).

Speech-language pathology

Graduate students in Miamis speech-language pathology program develop both theoretical and applied scientific skills in the prevention, assessment and treatment of communication disorders.

English

Miami's English graduate program offers three masters degrees with concentrations in creative writing, composition and rhetoric, and literature; an MAT through the Ohio Writing Project; two doctoral programs in composition and rhetoric and literature, and a low residency masters of fine arts in creative writing.

History

The master's program in history is selective and flexible. Students benefit from opportunities offered by the Humanities Center, the Havighurst Center for Russian & Post-Soviet Studies, interdisciplinary programs such as American studies and womens and gender studies, overseas language programs, and strong humanities departments.

Other Miami graduate programs noted for quality in the rankings include education, 101; clinical psychology, 102; earth sciences, 106; psychology, 112; fine arts, 114; chemistry, 131; biological sciences, 139; and social work, 141.
Cormorant (Phalcrocorax carbo)

On seaweed:cockle shell black-limbed slacks offgelatinous red ghosts goutedby the tide are sealed the salt airmending [...]there must be a keyin the writing of barnacles where fibonaccimakes sense of the spread of bladderwrackat the height of spring tide blackenedeven in meagre sun wrack taken as a wordin a wider universe not portentbut principle of addition or in a briny manualdiscovered A Dreadful Alarm upon the Cloudsof Heaven, Mix'd with Love sharedwith crows whipgrass the barking of gullsthe busying sands and fingering watersreadying to come again to keep oraginous order(from Wrack, poem 1)On seashells:[...]the shell in your palm a child's milk toothabandoning infancy to the bulls and bearsa nocturnal calculus not yet establishedin the fold of what is inanimate and lastingin us but found in a line on the sandfetched up by the night tide I shall treasure italways tracking a parallel economyshells etched with lines frequencies litlike the bloom of flesh ringed and grained [...](from Wrack, poem 4)Coming to this book from Occasionals (2011) , I might have anticipated this brilliance of nature writing and this flow of new discoveries connecting nature, economy and identity.But Wrack (2007) is not just about wandering along the shoreline. It's also a salty smuggling, merchandising and wrecking book based on an actual Devon wreck of 1772 and a single woman passenger.Which makes it a marvellous companion to the other book I'm in the middle of right now, J. Meade Falkner's 1898 adventure yarn Moonfleet, set in Dorset in 1757-ish. (Both books being, besides the related subject-matter, incredibly creative in the language department...)And as Carol's book co-opts a touch of the boy's-book excitement of the seafaring yarn in order to pursue a meditation about women's experience in the western urban capitalist world of today, well there's a bit of a parallel there with another poem I've spent a lot of time with in the past year, Lisa Samuels' Tomorrowland (2009)...[Image source: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/c/cormorant/ When I was a landlocked child in Kent, I thought of the cormorant as a rather exotic creature confined to seafaring yarns, or perhaps seen just once, on that caravan holiday to cream-tea country.In those days Phalocrocorax carbo bred on western coasts in the spring. Outside of the breeding season they sometimes ventured inland, for example they could be seen in winter in parts of the west midlands and northern Ireland. But not elsewhere.Things have changed. Fifty years later, the whole of the British Isles (apart from high Scottish mountains) play host to the winter cormorants. For example here in Swindon, a long way from any coast. Whether it's because our inland waterways are so much cleaner and they once more "teem with fish" (Bede's description of England) ; or because we've now ruined the sea-fishing ; or because inland winters are now as mild as coastal ones used to be ; I don't know - but I suspect it's the first reason, given the similarly dramatic increase in herons and egrets over the same period. Cormorants being superb fishers, this has rattled the angling community, who want the freshwater fish stocks all to themselves.The cormorants fly around in small flocks of half-a-dozen birds, and they spend a lot of time perching companionably but clumsily in the bare crowns of trees above the water -- I mistook them for crows or rooks until I looked more closely. (Webbed feet are not really much good for perching.)Last Sunday I watched a cormorant fishing on a calm stretch of the River Avon in Bath. (I've also noticed them at Midford, south of Bath.) Its body sat very low in the water, reminding me of the great northern divers that I used to watch in Sweden. And now the cormorant seemed graceful, not clumsy. The long snaky head and bill were extremely impressive. So were the long dives. I held my own breath, wondering that it could stay down so long. Then I'd find it again, twenty yards away.

Labels: Carol Watts
For picture posts from 2010 and earlier, see the Earlier Picture Posts Page
BUTTE  The snow geese die-off in the Berkeley Pit late last year inspired Montana artist Nolan Salix to create a painting he hopes will encourage an in-depth look at all that happened.

Two weeks before the incident, Salix, who teaches art at the University of Montana Western in Dillon, began mapping out a painting about snow geese dying in the Berkeley Pit. But his plan was to commemorate the 342 snow geese that died there in November 1995.

Then history repeated itself.

As many as 10,000 or more snow geese are estimated to have landed in the Berkeley Pit ahead of a snow storm the night of Nov. 28. Due to an unusually warm fall, the birds left their nesting ground in the Arctic later than usual, but found their normal resting spot  Freezout Lake in northern Montana  frozen. This perfect storm of events forced a landing on the pits metal-laden water that ended with between 3,000 to 4,000 geese dying within about a week, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

When Salix read about the birds fate, he was so upset his students picked up on his dismay.

I dont know what I can teach you guys today, he told them, then explained what hed read online.

Salix channeled his emotions into the painting hed already planned.

I was just so angry. There were thousands of animals dying. I think they (his art students) could see that complex inspiration, that it doesnt have to be beautiful to be impactful. Perhaps beauty isnt the correct response to a stimulus, Salix said.

Salix painted  on 80 pieces of scrap copper  an image of snow geese landing and dying in the Berkeley Pit. Using copper nails, he attached the copper to plywood and used oils to paint the geese. Acid chemicals and a lot of grinding on the copper panels created the image of the pit.

Salix believes some of the copper, which came from old construction sites in Bozeman, could have been pulled from the earth in Buttes underground mining operations during the 1930s and 1940s. The 10,000 miles of underground tunnels beneath Uptown Butte have slowly been sending groundwater to the pit since Atlantic Richfield Co. shut off the underground pumps in 1982.

University of Montana-Western professor Jack Kirkley, who studies birds and sits on the board of Montana Audubon Society, visited Salixs classroom to see the 4-foot by 8-foot work as it was developing. Kirkley called Salixs process of painting on copper innovative.

He used copper as a medium. Its poignant that he did that, Kirkley said Monday. Copper is what put the pit where it is; it gave us that legacy.

But Salixs reaction, through his art, to the geese die-off is not anti-mining or judgmental, said Salix, who specializes in industrial landscapes.

Its really about being connected to a place, to see whats going on and be mournful, Salix said Monday. Mining and sometimes oil processing are so common here in Montana. It shapes our landscapes and our values; I just want to look at it in depth.

The work will be exhibited at U.S. Bank, 10 S. Main St., Uptown Butte, in June. Salix hopes he can find additional venues around Montana that will be interested in showing it.

Im hoping to keep our community and society looking at these things, he said.
HELENA  A state senator on Monday introduced a bill that that would prohibit the abortion of an unborn child that can feel pain.

The legislation from Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, says a doctor may not perform, induce or attempt an abortion on a fetus capable of feeling pain unless it is necessary to prevent a serious health risk to the mother. The bill defines a fetus as being able to feel pain at 20 weeks.

The need for this bill is brought by the increased scientific evidence abortion is painful for the unborn, Regier told the Public Health, Welfare, and Safety Committee, which took no action on the bill Monday. We have all heard stories of babies delivered between 20-30 weeks of development. They survived because they had all the body parts needed, all the physical structures necessary to experience pain have developed.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said a woman has the right to choose an abortion before a fetus is considered viable, generally at 21-23 weeks. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down an Idaho law similar to Regiers that banned abortions at 20 weeks, saying it categorically banned pre-viability abortions, according to a legal note attached to the bill.

Because the legislation prohibits abortion entirely after a fetus is 20 or more weeks post-fertilization, the bill may raise potential conformity issues with the requirements of the United States Constitution and Montana Constitution, the note said.

Regier responded by saying there are children that have survived after only 20 weeks of gestation, so when viability occurs comes into question. The unborn experiencing pain should be a compelling interest for the state.

Performing an abortion that violated the bill would be a felony homicide.

The bill also allows for civil remedies to stop an abortion. Injunctive relief may be maintained by the woman who had the abortion, a spouse, parent, sibling, guardian or current or past doctor of the woman who had the abortion, a county attorney or the attorney general. It would be up to the court to determine if the woman's identity would remain private.

Those who testified in support of the Montana Pain-Capable Unborn Child Prevention Act said states can interject themselves into a womans pregnancy in the interest of protecting viable life. Opponents said it was a dangerous bill that violated a womans right to medical access and privacy.

Both sides were limited to 15 minutes of testimony Monday.

In support of the bill Jeff Laszloffy, president of the Montana Family Foundation, said lawmakers should have an honest debate.

If a child feels pain I just cant believe theres anybody here in this room that would intentionally inflict pain on a child and think thats OK, he said. The debate needs to be around whether a child feels pain in utero. Its incumbent upon the Legislature and the people at the state to make sure pain is not intentionally inflicted upon a child.

In opposition, Jessica Peterson, NARAL Pro-Choice Montana, called the bill another attempt to limit access to safe, legal abortion and a womens ability to make her own health care choices.

Peterson told the committee abortions after 21 weeks account for only 1.3 percent of all abortions and are often a medical necessity to protect the life of the mother

She said the bill is unethical, dangerous and further traumatizes women and families already facing complicated decisions.

Earlier this session Sen. Albert Olszewski, R-Kalispell, introduced a bill to establish viability at 24 weeks and not allow abortion after that point. Olszewski's bill says if a women's life is at risk, a doctor would induce labor and do everything possible to support the fetus. A violation of that law would also be a felony. That bill has cleared the Senate and will be heard by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
HELENA  Montana's Republican U.S. senator joined the state's top Democrats in criticizing the Republican health care plan Monday after a nonpartisan analysis showed the legislation would lead to millions losing their coverage and insurance premiums continuing to rise over the next several years.

The Congressional Budget Office report said 14 million Americans would lose health care coverage next year under the Republican legislation, and 24 million by 2026.

Insurance premiums would rise until 2020, but end up lower compared to premiums under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act by 2026, according to the analysis.

"We need to do better," U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, said in a statement in response to the CBO report. "I want to see costs and premiums go down to make health care more affordable for Montana families."

Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock said the CBO analysis shows the GOP health proposal would be a "troubling step backwards."

"Ripping health care away from thousands of Montanans, cutting off the lifeline to our hospitals, and keeping our taxpayer dollars back in Washington, D.C., is a sucker-punch to rural states like Montana," Gov. Steve Bullock said in a statement.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, called the Republican bill reckless and said Congress should work together to improve the Affordable Care Act instead of dismantling it.

State-by-state breakdowns detailing projected coverage losses were not immediately available. Bullock spokeswoman Ronja Abel said the governor's budget office was analyzing the report and the potential impact to the state.

Montana's uninsured rate has fallen from 22 percent to 7 percent since the Affordable Care Act became law. Much of that came when the state expanded Medicaid in 2015, and 71,000 people now have health coverage through that program.

The Republican health proposal would seek to cap federal spending on Medicaid expansion, eliminate subsidies for others and eliminate the mandate that people purchase coverage.

The effect would be to reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the next decade. Montana Securities and Insurance Commissioner Matthew Rosendale, a Republican, is encouraged by the positive effect on the federal budget, but is concerned about improving health care access and lowering costs, spokesman Kyle Schmauch said.

"Matt has been supporting legislation at the state level that can help improve access to health care and lower costs regardless of what action the federal government takes," Schmauch said.
Missoula police arrested a higher than average number of drivers for alleged DUIs over the weekend, and see the potential of a repeat this weekend with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday.

Sgt. Travis Welsh said police made eight arrests in city limits for driving under the influence since Friday, higher than the four to six they typically see.

Court records show another eight people made appearances in Missoula County Justice Court for weekend DUI arrests in the county.

The last weekend of February, Missoula police arrested what Welsh believes was a record high 12 people for alleged DUI in the city alone. Like that weekend, Welsh said Monday he couldnt point to any specific reason for the higher than usual number of DUI arrests over the past few days.

While final plans for the St. Patricks Day weekend still are being decided, Welsh said it likely will include foot patrols of the downtown area and additional officers looking for impaired drivers. He said the department will not be using designated checkpoints where all drivers have to stop.

DUI arrests over the past weekend included 39-year-old Mathew Thomas Seidensticker, who was charged with felony criminal endangerment and misdemeanor driving under the influence after being arrested Friday night. Seidensticker was stopped on U.S. Highway 93 South after allegedly being seen drifting out of his lane.

When he was pulled over, the deputy saw a 9-year-old child who was not wearing a seat belt in the vehicle, according to an affidavit. Seidensticker was arrested. At the jail he gave a breath of a 0.125 blood-alcohol content, above the legal limit of 0.08.

Missoula County chief financial officer Andrew Czorny was arrested Sunday around 1 a.m. Welsh said Czorny, 60, was pulled over after driving past a stop sign at the intersection of First and Orange streets. According to his citations, Czorny refused a breathalyzer test and was arrested for misdemeanor DUI and a pair of traffic offenses.
Montana senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines have rounded up a lengthy list of supporters for a bill to overturn a federal court decision on lynx protection.

Republican Daines and Democrat Tester join Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, and Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minnesota, on the bill to reverse the Cottonwood decision, which found that the U.S. Forest Service must do a top-level review of new critical habitat for lynx under the Endangered Species Act.

The decision name refers to the Bozeman-based Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, which won the case before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year. The ruling was essentially confirmed when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a Forest Service appeal in October.

This bipartisan legislation enjoys the support of diverse stakeholders and will protect Montana jobs and common-sense collaborative forest management projects that have been harmed by this court decision, Daines wrote in an email.

The Cottonwood decision could lead to endless red tape for folks working on timber projects, trail maintenance and conservation efforts, Tester added in the same email. To restore certainty for Montana mills and folks who work in the woods, we need to eliminate these hurdles created by the court and get this bipartisan bill signed into law.

I wish they had consulted me first, replied John Meyer, the lead attorney at Cottonwood Environmental Law Center. They are seeking to completely overturn or deform part of the Endangered Species Act. That should be of concern to all Americans.

The list of 33 supporters includes 10 timber products groups such as the Montana Woods Products Association and Washington Contract Loggers; eight conservation groups including the National, Montana and Idaho Wildlife Federations and Wildlife Management Institute; and three agricultural groups including the Montana Stockgrowers and the National Cattlemens Beef Association. It features a number of hunting and fishing groups, such as Trout Unlimited, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Boone and Crockett Club.

Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation in Missoula added that the legislation was a product of widespread consultation. He disagreed with Meyer about how much change it might impose on the Endangered Species Act.

Both Daines and Tester have been very careful in crafting a very targeted bill, France said. The conversations weve had with them are very responsive. And when you see a bill that really proposes significant changes in the ESA, you will know it. Its not going to sneak up on anybody. The National Wildlife Foundation is very concerned about weakening protections and well oppose that.

The Cottonwood decision found that the Forest Service has to take a big-picture look at how it protects lynx critical habitat across 12 million acres touching 11 national forests. It grew out of a controversial mishandling of lynx policy dating back to the predators original ESA listing in 2000.

A 2006 critical habitat map left out all national forests, but an investigation found that former George W. Bush administration official Julie MacDonald improperly excluded millions of acres of federal, state and private lands. MacDonald resigned and FWS redid its lynx habitat analysis, increasing the cats critical territory from 1,841 square miles to about 39,000 square miles.

Daines office consulted with the Obama administration Justice Department in crafting the bill, which takes the same position the Forest Service argued before the 9th Circuit. The agency claimed it was more effective to address lynx habitat concerns on a project-by-project basis, rather than redoing full consultation with the FWS.

When they say theyre upholding the Obama Forest Service, thats different than the Obama Fish and Wildlife Service, Meyer said. And the Fish and Wildlife Service told the Forest Service if new critical habitat is put in place, you need to consult at the agency level.

Not quite, according to American Forest Resource Council attorney Lawson Fite. While he acknowledged that the critical habitat maps from the original consultation were flawed, the on-the-ground protections for lynx remain in place. Those include checking snowshoe hare prey populations, winter snowpack levels, potential denning sites and the matrix of habitat connectivity.

Any project that might affect lynx must be analyzed for effects on those elements, Fite said. Thats going to happen whether or not you do plan-level consultation. The bill basically insures that those procedures are still followed, but made in way that you dont do things that dont have meaningful conservation benefit.

The Forest Service estimates 80 forest projects are on hold because of legal challenges based on the Cottontwood decision in Regions 1, 2 and 4. Region 1 challenges include the East Reservoir Restoration Project in the Kootenai National Forest and the Colt-Summit Restoration and Fuels Reduction Project in the Lolo National Forest.

Those Region 1 challenges in lynx critical habitat accounted for about 29 percent of the planned fiscal year 2017 timber harvest volume, amounting to 95.3 million board-feet of lumber on 17,764 acres.
It turns out there isnt an over-saturation of casinos in Missoula. At least not from a legal perspective.

Missoula City Council approved Big Sky Casinos request to turn the old Radio Shack store into a bar and casino Monday night, though Ward 6 representative Michelle Cares had hoped to find a way around it.

I can see no reason to object to this, but I just kind of want to, Cares said during a committee discussion March 8. I was wondering, is there like a saturation clause in any of our like there are too many casinos, no more for you? 

City Attorney Jim Nugent told the council Monday night that tavern licenses are doled out using a mathematical formula per state law.

It falls under a land use regulation more than a city council decision, he said.

We dont have a choice of how many casinos and taverns there are, we just have a choice of where theyre located, Ward 4 representative John DiBari clarified.

Cares, and the rest of the council, approved the casino.

The council also established Bettys Fund, a donation-based property tax relief account, proposed by Ward 5 representative Julie Armstrong.

People who apply to the fund have to also receive help from one of four state-based tax relief programs: the Property Tax Assistance Program, the Elderly Homeowner Credit, the Disabled Veteran/Surviving Spouse Credit or the Low Income Energy Assistance program.

The main purpose of this program is to make sure that people who are eligible for the state tax rebates are getting them, Armstrong said, adding that, according to the state, 40 percent of eligible Montanans dont receive help from those programs.

Cares thought the fund would draw donations from other local groups, and felt uncomfortable with the city wading into a fundraising role.

Ward 4 representative Jon Wilkins disagreed.

If it just helps one person, its done its job, he said. This is an important thing to do.

The council voted 10-2 in favor, with Cares and Ward 1 representative Heidi West voting against.

***

Due to the City Councils approval of ward redistricting Monday night, some Missoulians may not be able to vote to keep  or kick  their incumbent council representatives in November.

Three wards, 2, 4 and 6, either have too many or too few people in them, based on the citys population estimates.

The council voted to move a section of Ward 4 into Ward 6  a triangle of land from Russell Street to the Bitterroot Trail that includes the mall, as well as switch seven blocks along Cooper Street from Ward 2 to Ward 1.

In a recent committee meeting, Ward 4 representative John DiBari hoped to leave the Southgate triangle land in place, as it would likely just have to move again in the next redistricting.

Although Im not completely thrilled with this option, it is certainly the most easy for the time being, DiBari said.
Why would Russia have interfered in America's 2016 elections? More to the point, in a country where little happens without the nod from President Vladimir Putin, what could have driven Putin to authorize cyberattacks that US intelligence agencies assess Moscow carried out against the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton -- hacks that many believe contributed to Clinton's November 2016 defeat?

CNN's Fareed Zakaria examines that question in "The Most Powerful Man in the World," airing Monday at 9 p.m. One important point he makes in his answer: "In order to understand why Putin likes (President Donald) Trump, the key to it is not that he loves Trump. It's that he hates Hillary Clinton."

CNN Politics sat down to talk with Zakaria about that enmity and other aspects of Putin's worldview. An edited version of the conversation follows.

There's a lot of energy being directed to finding out what Russia has done -- in terms of interfering with the US election and possibly wielding some influence over our president. Why is it important for Americans to consider why Putin might have done this?

Ever since the end of the Cold War, we've lived in a world where we've had a lot of international problems, but they've been problems that came out of small dysfunctional countries, collapsing countries, terrorist groups -- and those things tend to be, on the scale of history, relatively small problems.

We are now in an increasingly adversarial relationship with a huge world power, with a country that has thousands of nuclear weapons, that has a veto in the UN Security Council, that spans 11 time zones, that borders on the Middle East, East Asia and Europe. So we need to understand what is happening. What is this new world in which we have a major world power that seems to be directing a lot of energy, attention to influencing events within the United States? Why is it doing it and how can we respond?

Your documentary looks at the historical forces that have shaped Putin. There's a harrowing event he lived through in East Germany as a young KGB officer followed by his experience of the end of the USSR -- how did those events affect him and shape the way he approaches the world today?

It's a great question. Everything you need to know about Putin at some level you can understand by understanding where he was when the Berlin Wall came down. This moment that for most of the world is seen as this historic, heroic new birth of liberty was not viewed as such by Vladimir Putin.

He was a KGB officer in Dresden, East Germany, one of the least reform-minded satellites of the Soviet Union -- and then the Wall comes down. Suddenly there are all these demonstrations and people start crowding around the KGB offices because they know this is where the KGB is, and they essentially start threatening to break in.

He at that point starts destroying all the documents he has because they are documents about KGB operations, secrets, things like that. The crowd starts getting louder and louder and he calls Moscow and says: What should I do?

And he basically gets the response: "Moscow is silent. We have no support to offer you." So he's out there on his own.

So he makes a decision at that point that he's going to go out there and bluff. He tells the crowd there are guards inside with guns and they're going to shoot: "Disperse!" And the bluff works.

I think that what this tells you is that for him, as he has admitted, the death of the Soviet Union was a terrible tragedy, not just because it upended his world, but because it created a situation for him personally that he has then tried to deal with as president.

What do I mean by that? The end of the Soviet Union left outside the Soviet sphere of influence millions and millions of Russian-speakers who think of themselves as Russian, who identified as Russian, in Ukraine, in Belarus, in the Baltics. Even in places like Poland, Putin clearly thinks about those people because in a sense he was one. He was this Russian guy stuck in East Germany when the wall came down, totally unprotected, exposed, vulnerable.

So part of what he's been doing is extending the influence of Russia to, in his mind, take care of all those Russians all over. But the second piece, of course, is that he saw what crowds can do, how they can upend a system, how they can destroy order, how they can create chaos. And when he comes back to Russia, he comes back to a Russia that's in total chaos: Boris Yeltsin's Russia, with its gangster capitalism.

He looks at that and says, "Crowds are bad, popular uprisings are bad, order is good." And that's what he's really set out to do as president -- restore order, restore stability in Russia.

And then it looks like history might repeat itself almost 20 years later when the Arab Spring is sweeping the Middle East, unrest begins to percolate in Russia and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighs in on the Russian elections in late 2011 -- saying there are problems and that the Russian people should be heard.

In order to understand why Putin likes Trump, the key to it is not that he loves Trump. It's that he hates Hillary Clinton.

You have to go back to early 2011, the start of the Arab Spring. Imagine you're in Moscow watching and all of a sudden you see these uprisings, these popular uprisings, people coming out into the streets as they did in Dresden, Germany, and all of a sudden these regimes that have been in power for decades -- Mubarak's regime in Egypt, Assad's regime in Syria, Qaddafi's regime in Libya -- start teetering. And then you see that there are demonstrations beginning in Russia. It's a very peculiar moment in Putin's history. He's prime minister, doesn't have quite all the control he's used to (as president), he's watching these demonstrations, and at that moment Hillary Clinton steps out and supports the demonstrators and says Russia needs real democracy and real elections. To him this was like a dagger, like a thrust, an attempt to do regime change in Russia, to do what -- in his view -- the West was doing in Libya, in Egypt and now in Russia: to dislodge the current regime.

You argue that is the genesis of his desire to exact revenge on Clinton.

Exactly, and I think the way he would probably look at it is: "You tried to mess with my election, my ascension to power. I will mess with yours. But I'll be successful."

He actually managed to beat back the demonstrations obviously, in large part because of the use of very powerful repressive measures, but I think he also decided he wanted to settle scores, to take revenge. And the election of last November was his opportunity to do that.

Clinton had been publicly tough on Putin for a long time. In the course of your research, did you learn why she was skeptical of Putin for so long? He didn't seem to have much love for her either, even before 2011. What was at the root of that mutual hostility?

I think that the fairest thing to say is that Hillary has always been something of a foreign policy hawk. Her views on foreign policy are closer to John McCain's than to Barack Obama's. When Obama became president she, of course, followed his lead as secretary of state. But her own instincts are hawkish, if you look at the people who advise her, the people she talks to, the stuff she reads.

It's fair to say she was always skeptical of Putin's Russia and felt that you had to be tough with these guys. And Putin, I think, sensed that. And so even before 2011 -- when there was this personal grudge, which is really at the heart of the election interference -- I think that he always regarded her as somebody who was hostile to Russia and Russian interests.

You touch on Trump's affinity for Putin and -- for a while -- Russia's admiration for Trump. What's that about?

The puzzle about Trump is, either there are very strange coincidences about his whole attitude toward Russia, where this is the one country he doesn't think is screwing the United States, is always taking advantage of us, is always beating us, is always hostile to us -- a view he holds about the Japanese, the Chinese, the Europeans, the Middle Eastern states -- so either there's this one exception, or there's some kind of affinity relationship, there's something going on.

It's a little too weird that there's just this one country about which Trump has always said nice things. I don't pretend to know what the answer is, but it's difficult to come up with a philosophy or foreign policy strategy that regards Germany, Japan and Britain with suspicion and Russia with equanimity.

Well, there is a philosophy, and it's the Russian one.

Yes, exactly! There's a Russian strategy you can imagine, but not an American one.

Putin comes from a chess culture, a game in which there's never just one move. Is Putin's interference in the US election a prelude for other moves? If so, what's next?

It's a very good question because it gets at a fundamental, which is, what is Russia's strategy here? What is it trying to do?

With Putin, you have somebody who is a very clever player. The chess player idea is right because he doesn't have unlimited ambitions. He's not trying to conquer the world, or even make Russia a superpower again. He understands the limitations of Russian power. I think what he's trying to do is control his environment, make sure that surrounding him there's a ring of compliant or friendly countries --

The "near abroad," the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union, the countries that many Russians still think of as within their sphere of influence.

The near abroad, yes. That's why Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova are so important. This is something deep in Russian strategy -- and Russian DNA, one might even say.

But then I also think that it's very important that Russia be treated with respect, that Russia be treated as one of the great powers of the world.

We have this line in the documentary that struck me as very important. His first words, when he became president, he said to the Russian people: "We live in a competitive world and Russia is not one of its leaders." That is what he was trying to restore.

So I think he wants a situation where nobody messes with Russia. He's messing with the EU and Washington to say, "Guys, you have to take us seriously, you have to pay attention. No believing you can just waltz in here and spread democracy, no believing you can expand NATO to our borders." I think there's an attitude of "treat us with respect -- hands off."

It's probably fair to say that there is a kind of limit to what the Russians are trying to do, but they have found this very successful strategy of cyberattacks that I think we have not seen the last of -- the cyberattacks and the propaganda, these social news sites and fake news outfits, that combination of what the intelligence community in America calls the "full spectrum hybrid war."

I think that sometimes we don't recognize it even as it's happening.

It's partly so brilliant because it understands the vulnerabilities of open societies. Because these things are difficult to detect and they play into internal divisions and discord, there's a way it plays into the openness and divisions of a free society so that it becomes very difficult to figure out what exactly is going on here and how should we respond.

Fareed Zakaria's "The Most Powerful Man in the World" premieres Monday, March 13, at 9p ET on CNN and CNN International. Russian analyst Jill Dougherty contributed to this report.
Hunger is an unrecognized and growing problem for many seniors in Montana. Seniors experiencing hunger often fall under the radar and rarely speak out about their situations.

There are 175,000 seniors age 65-plus in the state, of which 8 percent are living below poverty and 9 percent face the threat of food insecurity. Seniors accounted for 22 percent of total visits to agencies of the Montana Food Bank Network in 2016. A survey of clients in Montanas senior meal programs found that more than 400 seniors were concerned about food running out, and almost as many stated that they ate smaller meals or skipped meals due to lack of money for food.

Take the case of a 69-year-old widow living in the Helena area. Retired at age 65 after experiencing falls and head trauma, her medical bills leave little money for food. She goes to the local senior center for one hot meal a day. However, even with this resource, she struggles to get enough to eat.

Several seniors are homeless, with no support system. Lack of money for rent and lack of transportation leaves them with no place to shop or cook for themselves. In rural western Montana, a 70-year-old woman with a herniated disc was being cared for by her son who died, leaving her to cope in sub-standard housing.

Finally, an 84-year-old widow living outside Helena is blind and relies on the local meal program to get one hot meal a day, five days a week. Beyond that, she is unable to go to the store, has difficulty cooking and eating on her own and struggles to get around.

Throughout Montana, including reservations, there are thousands of seniors living alone, many with debilitating illnesses and limited ability to move around, even at home. A lack of support systems and limited transportation can further impair seniors ability to shop and cook for themselves. Seniors coping with hunger often water down their food, skip meals and buy cheaper, poorer quality food. When that fails, they cut down their prescription doses or skip them all together.

When seniors arent eating properly, the consequences goes beyond hunger to impact health. Seniors experiencing hunger are more likely to develop diabetes, obesity, congestive heart failure, asthma and depression. The National Meals on Wheels Association found that 33 percent of seniors who are hospitalized are malnourished upon admission. Malnutrition and hunger result in higher health care costs for seniors, as well as for our nation. Medicare and Medicaid do not cover the cost of healthy food, but they do pay the greater cost of diseases and debilitation as a result of chronic hunger.

Montanas Area Agencies on Aging provide very good congregate meals and Meals on Wheels, but many seniors are not connected to these programs. Nearly 27,000 seniors received meals from these programs in 2015, including 4,500 living in poverty  yet many others live in poverty. Additionally, SNAP is underutilized by seniors in Montana, reaching just 1 in 3 of those likely to be eligible.

As our senior population grows, it is crucial that Montana makes ending senior hunger a priority. There are multiple ways to get involved including advocating for policy change that will increase access to food and other supports for low income seniors, increased funding for nutrition programs, developing local partnerships to provide transportation or meal delivery, and community outreach to ensure that seniors know how to access the programs that exist such as SNAP, senior commodities, senior nutrition programs or the local food pantry.

We must work together to end this silent suffering for our older Montanans.
Senate Bill 97 is a law that would prohibit the application of foreign law, especially sharia law, in Montana courts. The proponents of this bill claim that sharia law is being applied in American courts to protect abusive husbands and child marriage. However, almost no cases of this have actually occurred. There was one ruling in New Jersey that was reversed by an appeals court. SB 97 is a paranoid delusion based solely in fear.

ACT for America, Flathead and Helena chapters, are the main drivers behind this bill. Nationally this group has succeeded in passing anti-sharia (anti-foreign law) bills in 10 states. While it is alarming that ACT has been so successful in convincing lawmakers to legislate a non-existent problem, what bothers me even more is the precedent this creates. When we encode in our laws discrimination against one group of people we embark on a dangerous journey which can end in mass internment, or even ethnic cleansing.

It is my view that no legislature would support a bill that was blatantly anti-Semitic, or that targeted Mormons, Hindus or Catholics, and yet we are seeing this Islamophobic rhetoric amplified by our Legislature, something that should deeply sadden those who care about religious liberty and our state.

Margaret DeBona,

Huson
You can always count on U.S. Sen. Steve Daines to focus on advancing his career among elitist D.C. Republicans, while ignoring the concerns of his constituents.

In 2015, our newly elected U.S. senator cast the deciding vote on a bill that made it easier to sell off federal public lands, even though he knows that most Montanans oppose these sales.

This year, he voted to approve Betsy DeVos as superintendent of Education, a person with zero experience, or competence, in leading the education of our nations children. Im sure the $46,800 that DeVos contributed to Daines campaign had nothing to do with his vote; nothing whatsoever.

Daines is also refusing to hold any town halls where he would face his constituents and listen to their concerns. On March 8, he did hold a tele-town hall, a carefully scripted telephone conference call where he answered exactly 13 questions from the thousands of concerned Montanans who participated. During this call, he suggested that he would not vote for a Trumpcare bill if it reduces health insurance coverage for Montanans, or raises their health insurance rates.

Care to take bets on how he actually does vote on the upcoming Trumpcare health bill? Whose interests do you think he will protect?

But, hey, if you really want to meet our elusive senator face-to-face, just attend his upcoming Ski with Steve fundraiser, which costs $1,500 per person.

Steve Daines: No time for constituents; plenty of time for fundraisers. Sad!

Maureen Kiely,

Helena
Just as the Missoulian's Opinion page is diminishing and narrowing, so too are the futures of our children, as ignorant and greed-driven Republicans continue to deny climate change. Editors at the Missoulian awarded Ryan Zinke "huckleberries," fawning effusively that "whoever is elected to replace him will have quite a legacy to live up to" ( March 3 ).

What legacy? He did nothing of substance as our U.S. House representative, and the first thing he did as secretary of the Interior was to reverse the ban on lead ammunition and fish tackle on national wildlife refuges. Lead casings poison birds and other animals. They also poison people who eat these birds. There's no safe level of lead for children. Ask parents of the children from Flint, Michigan, a state headed up by another greedy, climate change-denying Republican governor. Those Flint citizens are once again being billed by their water utilities, while years away from being able to actually drink or bathe safely in their lead-contaminated water. Gov. Rick Snyder decided to poison them to save a few bucks.
Butte police are emptying as many jail cells as possible and refining their approaches to crowd control in anticipation of a St. Patricks Day they say could be the rowdiest in over a decade.

That rowdiness owes to this years celebration falling on a Friday, something that hasnt happened in 11 years and that Butte-Silver Bow County Undersheriff George Skuletich said tends to bring out the worst in revelers natures.

Friday nights and St. Patricks Day are already big nights in Butte for law enforcement on their own, and combining the two along with good weather and the last spring break weekend for Montana Tech doesnt help.

Skuletich said about 20 prisoners in the Butte jail arraigned or sentenced on state charges should be moved to detention centers in neighboring counties by the end of the week. Because those prisoners are under the purview of the Montana district court system, the jails Butte lends them to for the weekend are paid by the state to take care of them.

Patrol officers are also advised not to chase down misdemeanor warrants  common on slow days  in the days leading up to St. Patricks Day.

Additional prisoners with simple misdemeanor charges are also released right before the festivities, and police hope to have up to 30 beds open St. Pats, though theyd prefer not to use them.

Most folks we arrest on St. Patricks Day manage to bond out right away, Skuletich said, noting that they do end up with a few felony cases.

While chance has conspired against those hoping for a more modest celebration, police have refined their strategy of keeping the event as uneventful as possible through years of trial and error.

Most Uptown bars stop serving hours before the 2 a.m. cut off Saturday, a strategy that began years ago and keeps hammered crowds from spilling out into the streets and each other after last call.

Uptown Butte crowds are infamously packed shoulder to shoulder on St. Patricks Day, but Skuletich said the streets are not actually closed  something police find hard to convince revelers of at 2 a.m. when the outdoor open container laws kick in.

Police closed off some of Uptowns streets with fences one year, but they dont do that anymore.

It ended up looking like a cage fight, Skuletich said.

Skuletich said that 32 Butte police officers will be on the street in foot patrol teams of four or five from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., with another group of seven highway patrol troopers. Arrestee transportation teams will be on call to ferry gratuitous revelers up to the jail, and regularly scheduled patrol cars will still be found around Butte to respond to crimes unrelated to the celebration of the Christianization of Ireland.

An extra 25 officers will be out on Thursday evening as well, and extras on Saturday too, Skuletich said.

Foot patrols first came about in 2006, the most recent Friday festival, and werent well received by the more indulgent merrymakers, according to Skuletich. Two police cruisers had their windows smashed with beer cans, which then-Sheriff John Walsh called a new thing in recent years.

Skuletich said 100 people were arrested in 24 hours, but that folks are now used to seeing uniforms in the crowd these days and he doesnt expect arrests at such volume this year.

Although Butte police wont be rolling out the paddy wagon, the Highway Patrol will likely bring in its mobile DUI processing van to prevent jail processors from being overwhelmed by the bureaucracy of multiple suspected drunk drivers.

Because St. Patricks Day is specifically on the calendar date of March 17 and not a changing day of the week like Easter Sunday, the holiday occasionally bucks the six-year trend, doubling law enforcements Friday reprieve as happened between 2006 and 2017. Butte will see its next Friday St. Patricks Day in 2023.
9-YEAR-OLD CALLS POLICE

Police responded to a disturbance between a man and a woman in a home on the 1400 block of Sampson Street around 10:30 p.m. Sunday after the woman's young daughter called 9-1-1. Police said the victim told them her husband came how drunk, got into an argument with her, threw her to the ground and grabbed her by the neck. When police arrived they talked to the husband, Ricardo Valenzuela, 30, and confiscated a knife from him. Police said Valenzuela tried to leave the property while police were present and then resisted arrest. He was booked into jail for partner/family member assault and resisting arrest. The victim had visible injuries to her neck and said her throat hurt, according to police.
HELENA  Montana resort communities asked legislators on Tuesday for authority to increase a resort tax on luxury purchases, such as gifts and restaurant meals.

Workers, business owners and community leaders from across the state traveled to Helena or wrote letters in support of Senate Bill 343. It would allow the states recognized resort areas  such as Red Lodge, Big Sky and Whitefish  to increase their limited sales tax from 3 to 4 percent if approved by local voters. Revenues from the extra cent must be spent on specific affordable housing or community development projects approved by ballot initiative.

Affordable workforce housing is a critical need in many places in the state, nowhere more than our resort towns, Gallatin County Commissioner Joe Skinner said. Local government cannot solve the problem, but they can set the stage to alleviate and help some of these problems. Give our resort communities a choice, an opportunity, and a means to begin solving their own problems in their own community.

As tourism has grown in Montana and a record number of people visit National Parks in the state, many resort communities have struggled to develop adequate and affordable housing for local residents, such as midlevel managers, business owners, teachers and police officers who are forced to live miles away or give up their jobs altogether. The resort tax was initially created as a way to collect taxes from the millions of tourists to Montana who strain water, sewer and road systems in the often small towns they visit, especially those that are not incorporated into cities and therefore do not have any other ways to collect revenue.

Sponsor Sen. Jeff Welborn, R-Dillon, said adding affordable housing to that list of goals for resort tax revenues seems to be a logical fit.

It places the control in the hands of people living in these communities, he said before handing committee members a binder with 140 support letters.

About two dozen people testified for SB 343, although not all were able to speak because of a time limit set by the committees chairman. Four people, all from Big Sky, spoke against the bill, saying that expanding the tax was not the correct way to solve the communitys housing shortage.

Current law already allows for funding affordable housing with resort tax dollars, Lisa Knorr said, saying the Resort Tax Advisory Board should focus more energy on correctly collecting the tax from businesses and noting a 2016 crackdown on three large community employers who had skipped payments for years.

Some argued that better prioritization of existing collections would free up enough money for affordable housing projects while trimming wasteful spending. Others noted that unincorporated communities like Big Sky simply need to form a city government, which would give them more tools and revenue to control growth and address development problems such as a housing shortage. Another opponent worried the bills language was too broad and would allow the expanded tax to be spent on development projects such as road and sewer rather than housing as intended.

The committee took no action on the bill Tuesday.
The Montana Senate's refusing to pass a proposed bill furthering the safety of all people who use Montana roadways is unbelievable. The Senate's leader is reported saying he generally doesn't think bicyclists are entitled to public road safety. Why? Because he personally doesn't like them. And he got elected to represent ... who? Certainly not the whole population of Kalispell.

And what kind of logic is this in passing any kind of public legislation? Especially in a specific leadership role? What's wrong with specifying through a law that a motorist has to keep three feet away from a person on a bicycle? To argue that it would be difficult to measure three feet is irrelevant to the issue that says "Yes, we care about the safety of all people on our roadways" and this is one way we can stress this point.

Now some motorist some where is going to think, "This bicyclist doesn't belong on MY road because I pay a gas tax, so I think I'll teach them a lesson and scare them by driving really close to them and giving them the finger." That's the kind of leadership Scott Sales is giving to the public by his personal biased comments about bicyclists.

It's a representative's job is to ensure the safety of ALL its population, regardless of whether they personally pay a gas tax. It's common logic that public safety is a right of every individual. Using Sales' logic we can now argue that pedestrians don't have a right to cross the road because they aren't driving a car? If a bicyclist is injured, impaired, or killed by a driver who was not deterred by the thought of a law to keep them a safe distance away from them, maybe the Montana Senate can think about their vote that opened the way for this to happen when they had a chance to do something they all were elected to do  protect the safety of ALL, not just those who have to pay a gas tax.

 Robb Blotkamp, Anaconda
A district court case involving two dismissed members of the Louisa County Board of Health (BOH) will move forward.

Chief District Court Judge Mary Ann Brown signed the order Friday, directing the Louisa County Clerks Office to issue a writ of certiorari, which had been requested by Craig Helmick and Rita Adam, both of Columbus Junction.

The writ directs the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to produce transcripts of records and proceedings relating to its Jan. 10 dismissal of Helmick and Adam for judicial review.

Upon said records being produced, this matter can be scheduled for trial, the order continued.

In their dismissal decision, the supervisors accused Helmick and Adam of failing to communicate or meet with them, charges the pair deny. Helmick and Adam allege the supervisors were upset because the board approved wage increases last June for six of the nine Louisa County Public Health Service employees.

Steven Ort, New London, attorney for Helmick and Adam, said the writ assures the two dismissed members will have an opportunity to further plead their case in court.

The judge said the pleadings we put forth are sufficient to require the board (of supervisors) to appear and answer as to whether (its) conduct was proper or not, (but) an actual hearing on the matter will be down the road a little bit, he said.

Obviously it would have been preferable for the supervisors to have the writ denied, but the facts (and) substantive issues of the case have not been decided, Louisa County Attorney Adam Parsons said.

Both attorneys agreed they expected the case to quickly proceed.

In the meantime, the supervisors have moved to fill the vacancies on the BOH. Last week they appointed Jo Ellen Schantz to fill one of the positions and plan to advertise for the second spot.

They agreed to warn both new appointees of the pending court case and the possibility their appointments could be voided if Brown decides in favor of Helmick and Adam, whose terms were not set to expire until Dec. 31, 2018.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  LeRoy Brookhart saw the tornado warning on TV before he heard the sirens. When the sirens wailed outside, he got off his couch, put on his shoes, and headed to the basement.

When I heard that roar, I grabbed a bottle of water, I had a cell phone in case I got trapped in there and I heard a lot of weird noises, he said.

Stuff was popping and cracking, he added.

Though he does not know how long he was at the basement, Brookhart, 83, remembers coming upstairs to see what had become of his home. The roof had caved in, leaving deep cracks in the ceiling. Water poured into the kitchen, damaging the cabinets, the microwave, the stove and the floor.

The microwave was full of water, it dont work right now, he said.

There was damage to the water heater and the sliding door in the kitchen cracked. The storm ruined Brookharts tool shed, dragging it toward the pond behind the house.

Brookhart, who bought the house on Angle Street in the 1960s with his wife, who has since died. He said he has already contacted his insurance company and a contractor came out to look at the damage. The estimated cost of fixing his home, he said, is somewhere between $65,000 and $125,000.

City inspectors also visited the property, declaring the structure unsafe to live in and posting it as such.

Brookharts home is one of at least three homes in Muscatine that were declared unsafe after the storm, said the citys senior building inspector Michael Stensland.

Inspectors, he said, looked at homes with noticeable structural damage along the path of the storm.

We did not hit every house obviously, but we have a GIS map of the path of the tornado and we focused on that going in both directions, he said.

Houses were deemed unsafe if inspectors found obvious structural issues such as collapsed roofs that could have worsened with more wind or snow. The concern, he said, is occupant safety.

Limited entry is fine, its just whether the owner is there, (but occupants) living there (and) sleeping there, thats where the concern is, Stensland added.

Stensland said the city will continue to monitor structures it deemed unsafe until owners obtain building permits and inspectors see signs of construction when they drive by the property.

Obviously well give owners time because you cant do things overnight, he said.

Though the city has the authority to remove owners from unsafe homes, Stensland said, officials prefers to work with homeowners without forcing them to leave.

Were just doing our best to catch some safety issues and not overdoing it by any means, he said.

Back at Brookharts home, construction is set to begin Tuesday or Wednesday, and the contractor told him that the house will likely have a new roof by the weekend.

Im getting a new house. I didnt want one, but Im getting it, Brookhart said.
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Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
Last week, Cord leader Raila Odinga was rushed to Karen Hospital after some food poisoning.

There was panic among some of his supporters, who interpreted the headlines as an attempt on Railas life. Many Kenyans think that food poisoning literally means adding poison to food with evil intent.

Anyway, Raila came out to clarify, but our neighbours in Uganda were not convinced.

Notorious gutter newspaper Red Pepper published a very sensational headline on Friday.

Former Kenyan PM, Raila Rushed To Hospital After Viagra Overdose, screamed the headline in a huge font. Accompanying the story was a photo of Nairobi Woman Rep, Rachel Shebesh, and its clear what message they were trying to pass by including her in the story.

Well, it is now clear that the editors of Red Pepper sit down and make up stories. The very definition of FAKE NEWS.
As expected, KFCB Boss Ezekiel Mutua has lived up to his notorious reputation as Kenyas morality policeman, by coming out guns blazing on a viral poster advertising a purpoted sex party in Kahawa Sukari.

According to the ad which we showed you yesterday, the party dubbed Project X 2 is a purpoted follow up to its failed predecessor in Kileleshwa last year which was shut down by police and KFCB.

Mr Mutua has once again come out to strongly condemn the teens party that seeks to promote a culture of debauchery and immorality.

He said: We are inudated with concerns about the purported PROJECT X SQUARED teens party that seeks to promote a culture of debauchery and immorality. IT WONT TAKE PLACE. NOT UNDER OUR WATCH!

Police have been put on high alert and are searching for the organisers. We thank the police, Kenyans of goodwill who have called or alerted us about this on social media and we promise to take action to foil this satanic activity whose agenda is to destroy our children. We have already reported this to the police and a team has been assigned to work with our monitoring and enforcement department to foil this immoral gathering.

Hon Isaac Mwaura you helped us last year. Please weigh in on this. Youth PS Lillian Mbogo Omollo thank you for your support. Together we shall save our youth from these destructive and shameful foreign cultures.

In a further statement released on Monday, Mutua said the police has deployed a team to work with the Boards Film Enforcement and Compliance Officers to ensure the party is not allowed to progress.
Musician Charles Kanyi aka Jaguar has denied that an incident in which a man was killed in fight over money in Ziwani did not happen during his political rally.

Newspaper outlets report that a man was killed by a mob after he grabbed money that had allegedly been given out by Jaguar on Saturday and gave out some money to a youth group.

According to police, the deceased grabbed the money and ran away as others pursued him. He was later found dead after being beaten.

Nairobi police boss Japheth Koome said they are investigating the incident.

However, speaking exclusively to Radiojambo, Jaguar said that he neither toured the Ziwani area where the incident happened nor did he offer money to any particular group of people.

According to Jaguar, who has declared that he will vie for Starehe MP in the General Election, he was on a goodwill mission in Ziwani area through his Jaguar foundation where he donated a number of car washing machines.

He said that he never at any time gave out cash to anyone.

I was told that the man died at 7:30pm in an area where I never even set my foot in so theres no way that story is related with me. What we did we went to give out car wash machines not money and I was out of the place by 5:30pm so you see these are mere propaganda because how can you grab the said money at 5:30PM then get killed two hours later? quipped Jaguar, adding that if the alleged group would have been fighting over car wash ownership, then he would have been involved.

Listen to the phone interview with Jaguar below.


Of all the things social media could be used for, Kenya has produced one that has probably never been seen or thought of before.

A proud Luo man, identified as Duncan Odira, is the talk of social media after using Facebook to announce that his daughter is a virgin.

Mr Odira, who according to his Facebook profile is an assistant teacher at Otacho Primary School and lives in Migori, took to the popular social platform on March 9 to congratulate his daughter, Jael Atieno Odhiambo for remaining a virgin girl.

Congratulations to my daughter Jael Atieno Odhiambo for remaining a virgin girl. God bless you my daughter for taking in my advice to avoid sex before marriage, read the post.

Mr Odera further asked his friends to join him in congratulating his daughter.

Check out his post below:

It remains a mystery how Mr Odira confirmed his daughter is still a virgin.
Like we always ask, what do we as Kenyans do wrong to deserve most of our political leaders?

In addition to corruption, misuse of public funds, impunity and several other vices, Kenyan leaders can also, without any apologies, use their deep pockets to display a worrying arrogance and general unconcern for the lives of the common mwananchi.

That arrogance was best seen recently when prominent politician and billionaire businessman Ephriam Maina arrived in a chopper at a sleepy village in Kabaru Ward, Nyeri County.

With such a grand and noisy entrance, any citizen would expect a handful of gifts and goodies, right? Not the residents of Kabaru ward.

Instead, the former Mathira MP and owner of the multi-billion Kirinyaga Construction Company Ltd, fuelled one of his three choppers to fly to the ward to launch a wooden bridge.

Pictures of the grand opening which have been circulating on social media, captured fun fare as Mr Maina cut a ribbon to officially commission a bridge whose construction cost was probably cheaper than the fuel used to fly Mr Mainas chopper to the event.

It will be remembered that, prior to the death of former Nyeri governor Nderitu Gachagua, Mr Maina was instrumental and spent millions in pushing for the impeachment of the late Governor Gachagua.

In one of his bids to wrestle the seat from Gachagua, a power-hungry Mr Maina was conned millions of shillings by political brokers and wheeler-dealers from Nairobi in a well-orchestrated scheme to influence Governor Gachaguas impeachment.

Mr Maina is now one of the several billionaires looking to bag the Nyeri governor seat in August, and his trip to Kabaru ward was part of his campaign to endear himself to the voters.

Unless the bridge is exactly what the locals ordered, hii ni madharau!! And the saddest thing about it all is that there will be people who will still vote for him to be their next governor.

Mungu atuokoe!
SACRAMENTO  California Democrats are making a measure that prevents law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials less severe in an effort to make it more acceptable to police agencies.

They moved Monday to set up a full Senate vote later this month despite continued resistance to creating a statewide sanctuary for people in the country illegally. It is one of several bills that lawmakers in the nations most populous state are fast-tracking to try to impede President Donald Trumps immigration policies.

SB54 would bar police and sheriffs from arresting or detaining people just for immigration violations unless a judge issues a warrant. State and local law enforcement agencies would not be able to help investigate immigration violations, inquire about someones immigration status or provide addresses to federal immigration officers.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, recently amended the legislation to allow California authorities notify federal immigration officials 60 days before violent felons are released from state prisons or local jails so they can be deported.

The change isnt enough to lift what otherwise is a communications ban with U.S. authorities and it wont safeguard counties potential loss of millions of dollars in funding for housing federal detainees, testified Cory Salzillo of the California State Sheriffs Association.

The group remains opposed to the bill, along with other law enforcement organizations.

Sen. Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, noted that the amendment only will allow police to notify federal officials if an immigrant is convicted of about two-dozen violent crimes, while leaving out numerous serious offenses.

I think were all together in this that we dont want any violent felons to be in our community, de Leon said in promising to continue working with opponents. He denied that counties would lose significant money.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday sent the measure to the full Senate for a vote, although finance officials say they dont know the cost.

Over Republicans opposition, the committee also voted along party lines to advance SB6, which would provide $12 million to pay lawyers for immigrants facing deportation, and SB31, which would bar state officials from sharing data if the federal government creates a Muslim registry.

They advanced after emotional testimony on both sides.

Pedro Figueroa Zarceno recalled in Spanish how his 8-year-old daughter cried out to him as immigration agents led him away in handcuffs during President Barack Obamas administration when he tried to retrieve his stolen car that had been recovered.

It undermines the trust that people have in police, he said through an interpreter.
Mother and daughter Gertrude and Ann Colgin are clearly good friends, finishing each others sentences and stories, remembering times past when their family took a road trip, and talking about Gertrudes upcoming birthday party  she will celebrate her 100th birthday on Friday, March 24.

What does it take to reach 100? Gertrude said she has lived a normal life, like everybody else but beyond that, she has lived a joyful life, all of my life. We never had any arguments. Even when I was at home, we never had any thoughts of arguments. We always got along.

During an interview at Silverado Orchards, Gertrudes home for the past 10 years, she answered a question from her daughter: Of course I like living here, its a very nice place to live. I have good friends here, everybody here is a friend, we all speak to each other. Thats the nice part of it.

Gertrude is active, goes out every day and one of her favorite activities is going to lunch at Yountvilles REDD Napa Valley, owned by Richard Reddington. In fact, after she was done with this interview, Gertrude said was going to REDD for lunch.

The centenarian will celebrate her birthday next week at her daughters winery with about two dozen people, including friends from Silverado Orchards, Los Angeles and Reddington. The two share a special bond from when Gertrude first came to the Napa Valley 20 years ago.

At that time, Ann Colgin and her husband, Joe Wender, were renovating an historic home across from Freemark Abbey. When the construction was done, Gertrude moved into the mother-in-law apartment behind the main house. Ann said, My husband and I used to hire him (Reddington) to cater meals at our home when my mother was living there. And Richard was so nice, he would call up and say, Ann, I know youre having 10 people for dinner, would you like me to cook for 11 for your mother? And I would call my mother and she would say, I never eat at night, so no. Please tell Richard he doesnt need to do a thing for me.

Ann continues, While the dinner party was going on, shed sit in the breakfast room and eat all of Richards food. And she and Richard would sit there and talk and they have a great relationship.

Ann said they have had lots of birthday celebrations for her mother at REDD, but this time, were doing it at the winery and Richard is coming as a guest.

During the interview, Gertrude looked at a picture of one of those birthday celebrations and asked her daughter if it was a photo of her 99th birthday party at the winery. Anns response was unmistakable, Nope, that was your 95th. You wouldnt let me do your 99th. You told me we had to wait until the 100th. Gertrude responded: That crown I got, its nice, isnt it?

Gertrude lived in the Colgins mother-in-law apartment until she was 90, because at that time, she was race walking around the kitchen when she slipped on a rug, fell, broke her hip and shattered her shoulder. It was a hot summer night, it was the Thursday of Labor Day weekend, 10 years ago, Ann said.

Because it was so warm, Gertrude didnt want to walk in the vineyard, Ann said, so she decided to do laps around the kitchen. Gertrude added, You had a rug there and I tripped on it and hit the counter and hit a chair, which is why I hurt my shoulder. It was very hot that day and I didnt walk outside, so thats what I did.

Ann said she and Joe were in Southern California when Gertrude was taken to St. Helena Hospital. The Colgins flew home and the hospital engaged an orthopedic surgeon to care for Gertrude. The surgeon told Ann he could replace the hip but not the shoulder, because it would be very dangerous for Gertrude at her age to have two operations at one time.

Ann replied, She was powerwalking in the house. Whats going to happen, what will the consequences be if you dont replace the shoulder? The answer: Well, shell be in pain, but shes 90.

Ann asked her mother, Are you OK with that? Gertrude was not and said she wanted both surgeries, even though it meant she was four hours under anesthesia. Ann wraps up the story: She had her shoulder replaced and her hip replaced and that was over Labor Day weekend. At Christmas time, we took her to Cabo San Lucas and she was walking up and down the stairs like nothing happened. Shes very resilient.

After the operation, Gertrude went to the Meadows in Napa for rehab. Reddington surprised her more than once taking a whole meal down for her, including a Manhattan that he snuck in for her, Ann said.

That was not the end of Gertrudes medical challenges. At age 92, she fell and broke another hip. When I fell that time, Gertrude said, I just went over and the doctor said the bone must have broken.

Ann said the orthopedic surgeon predicted the recovery would be more difficult than before, because the way the bone was broken. He added that one leg was going to be shorter than the other. You would think that would be the end for some people, but not for my mother, Ann added.

Today, Gertrude uses a walker, so she wont fall again. Looking at Gertrudes shoes, one has a 2-inch lift. Ann said, Without her even asking me, she found a shoe person down in the city of Napa and went out and bought all these cute shoes, sturdy shoes. She has a whole wardrobe of shoes, pairs and pairs of them. Gertrude learned to walk again at age 93. She is very, very resilient, Ann said.

Growing up in Texas

Gertrude grew up in Bremond, Texas. She joined one sister and five brothers, one of whom was killed as he served in the 36th Division in World War II. Gertrude has outlived them all, except her brother, who is 91 and living in Houston.

Gertrude was a nurse at a hospital in Waco when she met her husband, Dr. Irwin Edward Colgin, who was a surgeon there. My mother had a career and didnt get married until she was older, Ann said. Gertrude was Colgins second wife. They were married at St. Patricks Cathedral in New York. When Ann was born in 1958, Gertrude was 41 and Dr. Colgin was 74. Their marriage lasted 16 years.

The Colgins rented a house in Covington, Louisiana and Gertrude said when Ann was little she sat in a high chair in Galatoires Restaurant in the French Quarter in New Orleans and learned to eat seafood.

Mom, I have an early childhood memory, Ann said. We would drive our 1959 baby blue Cadillac with the big fins between Waco and Covington. We would spent weeks in Covington and we would bring back ice chests full of crawfish, crabs, all this Louisiana seafood. I would have to sit in the back seat with all these ice chests.

The seafood was for the Colgins dinner parties.

Gertrude still cooks, especially for her favorite holiday: Thanksgiving, when she makes a special cornbread dressing made with turkey broth. She also makes Christmas cookies, a lemon cake for her daughters birthday and is famous for her lemon meringue pies.

My mother was a good cook, not a chef, but a good cook, Ann said, adding she also makes chicken and dumplings.

Adding to the story, Gertrude said, I have always liked the drop dumplings. I make the dough, roll it out and slice it. I get a good chicken. An old hen is best, but you cant hardly buy them now.
Authorities have identified the man who was shot and killed by Napa Police Monday evening after a reported knife-wielding outburst.

Noel Aaron Russell, a 23-year-old transient based in Napa, died in the confrontation with two police officers in a parking lot north of the Home Depot on Kansas Avenue, according to Lt. Jon Crawford of the Napa County Sheriffs Office.

An autopsy by the county Coroners Division was scheduled for Wednesday. In addition to the physical findings from the autopsy, a toxicology report could require as long as six weeks, Crawford said Tuesday afternoon.

Also on Tuesday, authorities said that Russell had been menacing drivers and pedestrians shortly before the fatal confrontation with officers.

Police were called to the scene at 6:21 p.m. after several callers reported a man outside the Home Depot, holding a knife and attacking shoppers in the South Napa Marketplace parking lot, police Capt. Jennifer Gonzales said in a news release.

Napa Police officers arrived to find Russell in a parking annex on the opposite, north side of Kansas Avenue, where they drew their service weapons and ordered him to get on the ground, according to Gonzales.

Russell did not drop down and instead turned his aggression toward the officers, who then shot him, she wrote. He received medical assistance but died at the scene.

A folding knife with the blade in the open position was found next to Russells body, police reported.

The Napa County Major Crimes Investigation Team is handling the inquiry into the shooting, with the Sheriffs Office as the lead agency.

Both police officers involved in the shooting were interviewed by sheriffs detectives and will be placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation, in line with law enforcement protocol. Napa Police said their names would be released in the coming days.

Police Chief Steve Potter did not immediately have information on whether any video footage from dashboard or body cameras captured the incident.

At least seven or eight people witnessed the shooting, according to Horacio Ramirez, a Napa resident who said he witnessed the end of the incident and heard three or four gunshots just after leaving the Black Bear Diner immediately east. Police also reported that several witnesses were interviewed by the countys major crimes unit.

Earlier at the Black Bear, an employee said he had run into the man just after arriving for his evening shift. The employee, who declined to be named, said he had seen the man around the area around 4:40 p.m., less than two hours before the shooting.

He said the man was thin and appeared to be high on drugs. The man asked the diner employee if he wanted to buy a knife, a black and yellow model with some kind of label on it.

When the employee asked if the man was OK, he said, Yeah, Im cool. I got a knife for sale, though, then added, I got a flashlight. You want a flashlight? When the employee asked the man if he wanted some food, he declined and walked away.

Its funny but not funny: if for some reason Id said yes to the knife, hed probably be alive, the employee said Monday night as police tape continued to close off much of the diners parking lot. Things can change in an hour. He was walking around here and an hour later hes dead.

This is at least the second encounter between Russell and Napa police this year. On Feb. 3, he was arrested by officers at the River Park Shopping Center after witnesses saw him using a hatchet to vandalize a vehicle, according to reports at the time. He was already wanted on two unrelated warrants, police said.

He did not explain to officers why he was damaging the car, police said, but a hatchet was found in his backpack.

Anyone who witnessed the shooting of Russell on March 13, or the events leading to his death, is asked to call the sheriffs Investigations Division at 707-253-4591.
The Congressional Budget Office has released its estimate of House Republican legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, and it highlights the tricky balance that President Donald Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan and other supporters of the proposed American Health Care Act have to strike.

On the one hand, the CBO score provides an opportunity for the bill's sponsors to bolster support amongst conservatives, some of whom have been critical of the congressional leadership's approach -- but whose backing will likely be needed if the bill is to pass the GOP-controlled House.

This conservative support may come, however, at the expense of moderates, who will be vocal when debate over the bill reaches the Senate. They might only support the legislation with changes that will improve upon CBO estimates of how many people it will leave uninsured.

For starters, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) is estimated to reduce deficits by $337 billion over the next 10 years -- an important selling point for fiscal conservatives and those concerned about the sustainability of the health care system (and particularly Medicaid) going forward.

Furthermore, the legislation includes almost $600 billion in tax cuts over the next ten years by repealing many of Obamacare's taxes.

Finally, the AHCA is expected, after an initial increase in premiums in 2018 and 2019, to lower premiums in the individual market beginning in 2020, and to contribute to a more stable marketplace for health insurance. This is because of the legislation's "Patient and State Stability Fund," which gives states assistance and flexibility to help cover those with higher health expenses and pre-existing conditions, in particular.

All in all, these facts should help counter the narrative that the bill is insufficiently conservative. It engages in the fundamental reforms that will lower federal health spending and eventually premiums and health costs for individuals purchasing coverage. The reforms will also expand choices in insurance marketplaces in the long-run. These are goals that opponents of Obamacare have long sought and should help bolster the conservative case for the AHCA.

The Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders will need to balance these benefits against the reality that some moderates cannot be won over without changes to the law designed to boost coverage. That may mean increased funding for the Medicaid program to create an even more gentle transition for states that elected to take the Medicaid expansion, such as Ohio and New Jersey -- or more generous tax credits to help those who are older or who are poorer, for example, afford private coverage.

Or perhaps provisions that require states to automatically enroll the uninsured in default, no-premium private insurance plans. Any or all of these reforms will likely boost coverage numbers. But they will cost money, eat into the budget savings currently generated by the bill, and may be viewed suspiciously by some conservatives.

The CBO estimates illustrate the difficult choices that lie ahead for supporters of the AHCA: The law puts in place a number of important structural reforms that will eventually lower costs and place federal health spending on a more sustainable pathway.

But these benefits are easily overlooked, given negative coverage around the CBO's conclusions about the effects on coverage with the GOP plan, and continued conservative criticism of it. Whatever path they choose, President Trump and congressional leaders should not squander this unique opportunity to change the American health system for the better.

CNN's Deirdre Walsh, Lauren Fox and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.
Whether you love or hate him, Donald Trump is probably the most controversial president in a lifetime. This makes it hard to write about him without evoking some kind of visceral reaction from others. If you are still reading, I respectfully ask up front for reason and open mindedness to what I am about to write (with trepidation).

I have never asked for others who disagree with the policies of a president, to not fight for what they believe in. I will, however, ask you to truly contemplate this. When Sen. Chuck Schumer said on the Rachel Maddow show that President Trump is dumb because our intelligence agencies have six ways from Sunday getting back at you. And if the longtime neoconservative Bill Kristol tweets, Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state. Might we conclude that in a true democracy (or republic), our intelligence agencies have too much power?

Recently, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald said on Democracy Now!, Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. Theyre barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it.

I hope you conclude that reeling in our intelligence agencies is as pressing an issue as resisting un-American presidential policies. Because if true, it would mean that the United States is losing representation by we, the people.

I sincerely thank you for your time.

Dale Weide

Napa
Three St. Helena Catholic School winners in speech contest

Eighth-grader Diego Nunez of the St. Helena Catholic School took first place in the Humorous Expository category in the Middle School Speech contest, recently held at Justin-Siena High School.

Nunez delivered a speech he wrote about himself and his family gatherings.

Eight students from St. Helena Catholic School competed in the contest, which had four categories: Dramatic Interpretation, Serious Expository, Humorous Expository and Social Justice.

Other winners from SHCS were: Bianca Rubio, eighth grade, who placed third in the Humorous Expository category, after delivering a speech on going shopping with her mother and grandmother; and Kevin Sosa, seventh grade, who placed third in Dramatic Interpretation. He delivered the seventh stanza of Walt Whitmans I Sing the Body Electric.
The Ol School Dance Party put on by the St. Helena Cooperative Nursery School last Saturday rocked the Native Sons Hall with old school fun and laughter, and it seemed as though the entire Napa Valley had come out to celebrate.

It was a celebration for the parents, supporters and grownup graduates of the venerable schools 50 years of serving the Napa Valley community located in the 19th century schoolhouse down the road in Rutherford.

There was live music from the California Honeydrops, fresh pizza hot from the ovens, piping hot meatballs from gourmet food trucks, homemade cookies, endless rows of cupcakes, and plenty of cold beer and vintage wines to lubricate the conversations around the fire pits.

Maureen Kelly, the schools longtime director, seemed ecstatic during the dance party. There were hugs and handshakes as she spotted old friends and grownup graduates from the school.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there was excitement of a different sort: an online auction that was reaching out to school supporters beyond the valley with an impressive array of rare Napa Valley vintages and luxury vacations to faraway places.

The online bidding in the auction had opened two nights before with a rare 3-liter double magnum of 1998 Screaming Eagle cabernet sauvignon  donated by the winerys founder Jean Phillips. It had been snatched up almost immediately for $25,000. A vertical trio of 100 point Scarecrow magnums would later be bid up over $12,000 while a 1.5L magnum of 2012 Harlan Estates sold for $2,000. Vintage after vintage, auction offerings were met with generous bids, all in support of the cooperative.

Meanwhile, the fantasy vacation offerings of the auction also exceeded expectations. One donated seven-night stay at Casa Acantilada in Mexico would bring in $10,000 by the time the auction ended on Sunday, while others would garner more than $13,000 in total.

Indeed, the proceeds from the dance party and auction combined would represent a banner fundraising event for the little school that had taught so many preschool children during its 50 years of operation.

And those early nursery school students were there to celebrate too  some now parents with children of their own enrolled.

Sitting around the fire pits outside, many were catching up on the news of former classmates, while their own parents nestled around tables near the desserts, reminiscing about those early years when they had carted off their preschoolers down to Rutherford to the co-op so many years before. For some it was a chance to rekindle old friendships and acquaintances that had diverged as their preschoolers had left the co-op and continued their educations in separate Napa Valley communities.

Joan Brookman, who had come to the party with her son Zack and Becca, was remembering those years with something akin to nostalgia. I bet Ive changed the diapers of most of these kids, she quipped with a knowing smile after spotting and recognizing several grownup parents dancing to the Honeydrops.

Indeed, in many respects the party was a testament to the founders of the school itself. In 1966, the original executive board of the Cooperative Nursery School had formulated the schools philosophy, with a goal to provide children and their families with a special environment.

We believe that each child will grow to his or her fullest potential in a setting that promotes social, emotional, cognitive and physical learning through child-directed play under the supervision of a qualified teacher, its mission statement said. We work together to create a community of relationships that will last a lifetime.

Last Saturday, as the partying continued, those rekindled relationships were on full display in proof that those community goals are still being fulfilled, one child at a time.
Wesley Gates has spent a lot of time in the hospital. Something like 20 years. But not as a patient. Wesley is a registered nurse in the cardiac unit at St. Helena Hospital.

The medical profession runs in his family. Wesleys father was a doctor in Calistoga, and his mother a nurse. His parents, still in school at the time, met at a Valentines party held at Crystal Springs, one of the facilities at the hospital. They hit it off, married and set about raising a family. They wanted to be involved in a missionary cause. Their travels took them to Idaho where Wesley was born, and then on to Guyana, South America where he grew up. Wesley was only 4 years old, but he remembers that his father helped pioneer a medical center in the capital city of Georgetown.

The family eventually returned to the Napa Valley where Wesley married a local girl who was born in St. Helena Hospital. Wesley and his new wife were both interested in disease prevention through healthy living. Their quest took them to a school in rural Alabama. He and his wife returned to the St. Helena area in 1991 to take care of his ailing grandmother.

During that time he went to work in the clinical lab at the invitation of one of the pathologists. After his grandmother passed, his father-in-law suggested he pursue a nursing career. Wesley decided it was a good idea and began to juggle school at PUC with family life while working in housekeeping at the hospital. He emerged from the nursing program, exhausted but happy. He started his nursing career at the St. Helena Clearlake campus, but after one year, he transferred to the Napa Valley campus where he has remained for almost 20 years.

Wesley and his wife have two children, a son, 26, who works in the railroad industry, and a daughter, 28, who carries on the familys medical tradition as a nurse in Tennessee. He and his wife live just below the hospital in what used to be called Pratt Valley. For several years, he walked the half-mile incline to work until increased traffic made it too dangerous. Deciding he would rather work in the hospital than be in the hospital, he now drives to work.

His future plans? Wesley wants to work a few more years and then perhaps volunteer at the hospital. He might even end up on a volunteer shift with one of his former nursing instructors, Joyce Wallace.
Tuesday, March 7

1026  Report of petty theft on Main Street. The theft was caught on video.

1704  Report of a reckless driver speeding and swerving near Main/Madrona.

Wednesday, March 8

1155  A semi got wedged into a driveway in front of Old Howell Mountain Road.

1340  Medical aid for a person passing out on Adams Street.

1508  Medical aid for a sick person on Valley View Street.

1707  Police checked on the well-being of a person whom a neighbor said was looking sick and pale.

2242  Report of a dog whining for hours on Railroad Avenue.

Thursday, March 9

1020  Report of a car abandoned in the 1000 block of Main Street.

1049  Report of an aggressive man trying to take a jukebox from its owner on Main Street.

1152  A Quail Court resident said someone poisoned her bushes, and she suspects it was her neighbor, who doesnt like her bushes.

1216  Lift assist on Crinella Drive.

1351  Non-injury accident involving a parked car on Main Street.

1730  Report of school buses speeding near Valley View/Grayson, causing the speed sign to show 32 mph.

1907  Report of juveniles drinking inside and around a car in a Hunt Avenue parking lot. Police contacted a group of 10 adults, who agreed to leave.

1937  A caller said a woman sitting on a park bench on Main Street was yelling and disturbing the peace. The caller said the more she asked the woman to move on, the louder the yelling got. Police checked the area.

2149  Report of a possible drunk driver on northbound Silverado Trail near Yountville Cross Road. Police checked the area.

Friday, March 10

0017  One of the green lights at Main/Pope was not working. Police notified Caltrans, who said they would respond tomorrow.

0556  The railroad crossing arms on Hunt Avenue were going up and down even though there were no trains in the area. Police notified the Wine Train.

0658  One of the green lights at Main/Pope was still not working. Police notified Caltrans.

1117  A fraudulent caller tried to impersonate an employee at a Napa bank. The phone call came from Mableton, Georgia.

1209  A dog found on Stockton Street was returned to its owner after being picked up by the police.

1333  Medical aid for a fall victim on Hunt Avenue.

1427  A resident reported someone had opened fraudulent cards and made charges on his account.

1816  A caller requested extra patrol at a Main Street commercial building due to a homeless woman making a mess in the area.

1905  Medical aid on Main Street.

1948  Report of a homeless woman on a bench near Main/Adams yelling at pedestrians, spitting as they walk by, and smelling strongly of urine. She was gone when police arrived.

2231  Police found a dog near Main/Pine and notified its owner.

Saturday, March 11

0441  An officer found a bike on Spring Street and brought it to the police department for safekeeping.

0904  Medical aid for an elderly woman feeling ill on Arrowhead Drive.

0935  Police were asked to check on the well-being of an elderly woman on San Lucas Court. She was OK.

1114  Medical aid for a man with shortness of breath on Pope Street.

1215  A Main Street resident reported finding a woman trespassing in his backyard after he heard his dogs barking. He said she yelled at him and flipped him off, then headed toward Pratt/Main.

1229  Non-injury hit-and-run involving a parked car in a Main Street parking lot. A witness got pictures of the other car, a gray Highlander, and described the driver as a white woman in her 30s.

1236  Report of an unoccupied car smoking on Kearney Street. Police and fire personnel responded and found smoke coming from under the cars hood, but no fire. The smoking stopped.

1716  Two boys had swum out to the structure in the middle of the lower reservoir. Officers rounded up the kids and brought them to the police department to await their parents.

1841  A homeless woman on a bench near Main/Pope had reportedly vomited all over the sidewalk.

1852  A large white German shepherd escaped from Chablis Circle through a back gate.

2022  Fireworks or gunshots were heard on the northwest side of town. Police checked the area.

Sunday, March 12

0350  A man came to the police department asking how to get a restraining order against his partners mother, who is not welcome at their home.

1056  A wooden chest containing a hide-a-key and some firewood was stolen from a porch on Madrona Avenue. The resident arranged to have the locks changed.

1456  A man in Santa Rosa reported being harassed by a woman who said she was related to a St. Helena police officer and gave him a St. Helena Police Department card with the officers name on it. The man was uncooperative and didnt want to give police his personal information. He eventually hung up.

1729  Report of a car driving at about 100 mph on the shoulder of northbound Highway 29 near Oak Knoll Avenue.

2137  Report of a prowler in a house on Voelker Court. Police checked the area.
On Feb. 7, the UpValley Partnership for Youth was one of 171 community coalitions honored during a graduation ceremony at CADCAs (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America) National Leadership Forum, in Washington, D.C. The coalitions received a graduation certificate for completing CADCAs National Coalition Academy, a rigorous training program to increase the effectiveness of community drug prevention leaders.

The UpValley Partnership for Youth works to address the problem of underage drinking and substance use in Napa Countys Upvalley communities. UVPY is a broad-based coalition made up of youth, parents, nonprofits, law enforcement, schools, faith-based groups and fraternal organizations in northern Napa County, and is led by the UpValley Family Centers and the Napa County Office of Education.

We are so proud of our coalition for investing the time and resources to take advantage of the best community coalition training in the world. To graduate from this year-long intensive course is no small feat and the UpValley Partnership for Youth is more prepared today to be an effective, sustainable coalition because of this training, said Jenny Ocon, executive director of UpValley Family Centers. We look forward to applying our knowledge and strategies to ensure the youth in our community live drug free.

Earlier this year, UpValley Partnership for Youth coordinated educational prevention activities for teens and adults in Calistoga and St. Helena during Red Ribbon Week, and will be bringing nationally known speakers to a town hall meeting in April to raise awareness locally about the impact of marijuana use on the adolescent brain.

CADCAs National Coalition Academy (NCA) is a comprehensive, year-long training program developed by CADCAs National Coalition Institute. To graduate, coalitions must complete a rigorous curriculum. They must participate in all components of the NCA and complete five essential planning products that serve as the foundation of their comprehensive plan for community change.

CADCAs National Leadership Forum is a four-day event covering strategies to address substance abuse led by nationally-known prevention experts, federal administrators, and policymakers. The Forum brings together 3,000 attendees representing coalitions from all over the US and internationally, government leaders, youth, prevention specialists, addiction treatment professionals, addiction recovery advocates, researchers, educators, law enforcement professionals, and faith-based leaders. It is the largest training event for the prevention field.

UpValley Partnership for Youth meets the fourth Monday of the month and meetings are open to the public. For more information, call Loralyn Taylor at 965-5010.
NATO does not recognise the election held on 12 March in the Georgian region of Abkhazia.

This election does not contribute to a lasting settlement of the situation in Georgia.

NATO Allies do not recognise the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia as independent states.

The Alliance reiterates its full support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders.
"We have discussed problems concerning the Ka-52K helicopter. We have completed all its preliminary trials and now we are expected to decide on the ships that will carry it," Borisov said.



The deputy defense minister highly assessed the work carried out by the Progress Helicopter Plant to fulfill the 2016 state defense contracts.



"There has been no problem. All helicopters were delivered on schedule," Borisov said, without specifying the number of helicopters delivered.



Representatives of the Progress Helicopter Plant said that the Defense Ministry had received 14 Ka-52 helicopters under the state defense contract and two more rotorcraft ahead of schedule in 2016.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



Navy Recognition Comments:

The Ka-52K helicopter is a ship-based version of the Ka-52 reconnaissance and attack helicopter. Unlike the baseline helicopter, the Ka-52K rotorcraft features folding main rotor blades and wing panels. The Ka-52K helicopter has reinforced landing gear.



The helicopter is capable of launching Kh-38 and Kh-35 cruise missiles. Previously, these missiles could be launched only from the board of Mikoyan MiG-29K/KUB (Fulcrum-D) ship-based multipurpose fighter jets or aircraft of the Sukhoi Su-30 (Flanker-C) family.
PALM BAY, Florida  A Brevard County Public Schools student was arrested Tuesday morning for bringing a 9mm Glock hand gun to school.

Earlier this morning staff was advised by other students that a student was in possession of an unloaded weapon on campus, Port Malabar Elementary Principal Cindy Whalin wrote in a letter to parents. Our protocols were immediately implemented, the item was confiscated, and Palm Bay PD officers reported to the school and are conducting a thorough investigation. At no time were student or the school threatened by the student.

I want to assure you that your students safety is always our top priority and our school administration will continue to follow our security policies to resolve such incidents. We want to thank our students for proactively reporting the incident to administration and our parents for instilling the value of honest communication.

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Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev will be visiting India from March 15 to 18, the Russian embassy announced on Tuesday. Trutnev, who is also Envoy Plenipotentiary of the Russian President in the Far Eastern Federal District, will hold several meetings in Mumbai and New Delhi, including talks with CEOs of Indian corporations, and visit a number of industrial enterprises in India, a release said. --IANS mak/ksk/sac ( 77 Words) 2017-03-14-14:40:09 (IANS)
Finova Capital, the NBFC licensed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced its target of disbursing loans worth Rs. 100 Crore in 2017 to the Indian MSME sector. Within the past one year of its launch, the company has already disbursed loans worth Rs. 20 Crores to over 220 small scale merchants, with the ticket size of Rs. nine lakh. "The MSME sector in India is a strong contributor to country's GDP, along with creating employment opportunities. Despite their efforts, the sector often finds it challenging to access the traditional financial services, due to various factors, including lack of documentation, tedious paperwork and others," said Mohit Sahney, MD and CEO, Finova Capital. The target loan will be disbursed by Finova Capital among small business owners, with primary focus on electricians, plumbers, carpenters, hairdressers and food kiosk owners. "While most banks were willing to offer me a loan, I realised that the terms for repaying the same within 2-3 years with high EMIs could become immensely difficult for me in the long run. Finally, I found out about Finova Capital and the long reimbursement tenures they offer. I availed a small business loan worth Rs. 6.40 Lakh for seven years with EMIs at half the prices. It is certainly the best decision I ever made," said Narayan Singh Negi, a Paan-vendor from Jaipur, on his experience with Finova Capital's services. Bringing about financial innovation and transforming credit delivery, Finova Capital offers flexible ticket size of the loans between a minimum of Rs. two lakh to maximum Rs. 20 lakh, depending on the requirements. Within just a year of its operations, Finova Capital has emerged as one of the most preferred financial services providers amongst MSMEs in India. (ANI)
Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha, who will be donning the judge's hat once again for the eight season of dance reality show "Nach Baliye", says this time she is going to have a different experience. "I have judged children for a singing reality show. I really get along with children so it was easy. Here it will be a different experience for me and for the contestants as well. I am going to judge a dance reality show for the first time," Sonakshi told reporters here on Tuesday. About judging the performances, the "Akira" star said, "I will look how well they do as a pair and the coordination between them. To see the equations between the couples would be beautiful." On the work front, the actress said she is excited for her forthcoming movie "Noor". "I am very excited and looking forward to promoting the movie. 'Noor' is a very special film for me." Directed by Sunhil Sippy, "Noor" features Sonakshi Sinha in the titular role. The film is based on Pakistani author Saba Imtiaz's novel "Karachi, You're Killing Me!" and follows a journalist-writer Noor's mis-adventures and love life in Mumbai. The film is scheduled for a worldwide release on 21 April. --IANS iv/vgu/ ( 217 Words) 2017-03-15-02:28:07 (IANS)
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for allegedly influencing the decision of the Governors of Goa and Manipur in government formation of their respective states, the Congress has branded the development as 'unconstitutional'. Speaking to ANI, Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit accused the BJP of indulging in horse trading in Goa and Manipur, and further said that the Governors rushed into the decision without consulting the party in lead in the recent Assembly Polls in the aforementioned states. "The Governors have made it clear that the decision has been influenced by the Centre. This is completely unconstitutional. It is an insult to the Congress' mandate given by the locals in Goa and Manipur," he added. Striking a comparison between the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the previous UPA Government, Dikshit stressed on the lack of clarity in terms of India's international policy with Pakistan, in the aftermath of the surgical strike that was carried out. "Our soldiers are losing their lives, not the Ministers," added Dixit. The recently concluded assembly elections in five states saw the Congress taking center stage in Punjab with 77 seats in the 117-seat assembly. However, the BJP established a clear majority in Uttar Pradesh, with 325 seats out of 403, and 57 seats out of 70 in Uttarakhand. In Goa and Manipur, although the Congress was ahead, independent MLAs and other regional parties in the two states have announced to enter into an alliance with the BJP, thus giving them an opportunity to form the Government. (ANI)
A few days after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was slammed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)?of India for violating the Supreme Court's regulation on expenditure on advertising, the Bharatiya Janata Party expressed its concern over the matter indicating it to be a 'misuse of Delhi taxpayers' money'. On Friday, the CAG presented its report on social sector for the financial year 2015-16 in the Delhi Assembly, where it was highlighted that over Rs. 28 crore was spent on advertisements in areas outside of Delhi, which do not fall under the government's jurisdiction. Additionally, the AAP government was also pulled up for violating the Supreme Court's 'political neutrality' clause by highlighting the name and symbol of the party in official advertisements, and also for terming the Delhi Government as 'Kejriwal sarkar' or 'Jhadu sarkar'. To this regard, BJP's R.P. Singh noted that the lack of proper documentation is a clear indicator of Kejriwal's Government indulging in promotional activities to highlight the AAP. "The AAP is only using advertisements to promote its ideologies. There are ads in Mumbai, Chennai, Ranchi and Punjab, states which have no connection with the programs being advertised. This clearly shows that the party is only interested in promotional activities rather than substantial schemes. This is how taxpayers in Delhi are being looted," Singh told ANI. The CAG's report also highlighted the presence of unverified content on the advertisement campaigns. In terms of budget allocation on Mohalla clinics, the Delhi budget highlighted that the expenditure has been reduced from Rs. five crore to Rs. 20 lakh. However, the Governemnt was not able to present any document in support of this claim. "There were advertisements regarding expenditure on flyovers which are not even built. This is a serious lapse," added Singh. The auditing body further stated that the expense report has been drafted based on assessment of estimated expenditure and not on real expenditure itself. Furthermore, the auditor highlighted the failure of Shabdarth, a registered society set up under the department of information and publicity, in rationalising the costs incurred on advertisements. (ANI)
A Delhi Court will today continue the hearing over the case of Najeeb Ahmed, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student who has been missing since October 15 last year, and also deliberate on the possibility of conducting a lie detector test. The hearing will continue in the Patiala House Court today over the possibility of conducting the test on people close to the missing student. Earlier in February, the Delhi Police was pulled up by the Delhi High Court over their slow progress in the case and was asked to explore other prospects of probe like polygraph test of other persons connected with the disappearance of Ahmed, as all other leads in this case have not yielded any good result. "The student had gone missing in October 2016; it is February now. Nearly four months have gone by and none of the leads are going anywhere. We asked for a polygraph test as the other leads have not yielded any results," the Court observed. The High Court was hearing an application by one of the nine students, who are suspects in the case, seeking recall of the High Court's order dated December 14 and December 22, 2016. The application had alleged that by means of these two orders, the court was regulating the manner of investigation which was prejudicing the probe and violating their rights under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution. The applicant had also challenged a notice issued to him by the Delhi Police to appear before the trial court on Friday to give consent for lie-detector test. The Delhi Government's counsel opposed the application, stating that the same student had moved a similar plea through another lawyer earlier and the High Court on January 23 disposed it off by asking the student to come forward. Earlier, the Delhi Police had conveyed to the high court that it has not been able to carry out lie-detector tests on nine "suspect" students, as none of them responded despite multiple notices. A habeas corpus plea was moved by Najeeb's mother, Fatima Nafees, who sought direction to trace her son who has been missing since the intervening night of October 14-15. Najeeb, 27, a first year M.Sc. student, went missing from his JNU hostel, allegedly after a row with members of RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). (ANI)
Taking a jibe at the DMK's 'corrupt' stature in Tamil Nadu, state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Tamilsai Soundrajan alleged that the party has pioneered corruption in the state, and cannot be viewed as an alternative to the AIADMK. Speaking to ANI here, Soundrajan revealed that the BJP is working towards garnering more support in Tamil Nadu, riding on the party's astounding victory in the recent assembly polls in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. "The BJP is a corruption-free party. Along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's support, we are working towards establishing a majority for the BJP in the upcoming local body elections," she said. Soundrajan further claimed that the party's victory in the two states is the people's mandate, and similar is the case in Goa and Manipur. Commenting on the status of fishermen in the state, Soundrajan assured that the fishermen have called off the apparent strike that was to take place. "Prime Minister Modi and Nirmala Sitharaman have extended their support to the community. Through their help, we will make sure that fishermen will not be mistreated," said Soundrajan, appealing to the community to support the BJP in the upcoming elections. Meanwhile, the BJP emerged victorious in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly elections by establishing a clear majority. Independent MLAs and other parties in Goa and Manipur have extended their support to the party in forming the Government in these two states as well. (ANI)
At least three people were killed when a Manipur-bound oil tanker overturned and exploded on Shillong by-pass in Meghalaya this morning, police said. Police said the accident happened at Mawpun village on the Shillong by-pass road near the Indian Council of Agriculture and Research office in State's Ri-Bhoi district. They said the identities of the driver and his helpers are yet to be identified. Police said the oil tanker was proceeding to Manipur via Meghalaya from Assam. "The driver of the oil tanker, bound for Manipur from Assam's Guwahati, reportedly lost control of the vehicle which overturned and exploded, a police official said. The official said police and rescue team have rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation. UNI RRK RN 1005 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0311-1187444.Xml
The Congress Legislatures in Goa will meet Governor Mridula Sinha in the afternoon and register its objection over her inviting the BJP-led front to form government under the chief ministership of former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. Speaking to reporters at party state headquarters in the city after attending the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary and Goa Desk In-Charge Digvijaya Singh said, ''''We had requested her excellency Goa Governor Mridula Sinha for an appointment at 1030 hrs. But we have been told by the Raj Bhavan that we can only meet her at 1330 hrs. Well its her discretion. But we would have been much happier had she met us earlier. ''''Now we will go to the Raj Bhavan so that we could meet her.'''' When asked about the numbers the party had to stake claim for forming government, he said, ''''Please wait for that.'''' Mr Singh claimed that the party wanted to stake claim for forming government since March 12 itself, but was not given opportunity. ''''We had written her a letter on March 12 night itself, but in spite of that the Governor did not give us time. Yesterday, we informed her about the petition. But our objection is that in spite of established conventions and principles without listening to us, the single largest party, she invited Manohar Parrikar for swearing-in. This is where we object. We wanted to meet her to lodge the complaint. Now, she has called us at 1330 hrs. We will go at the same time,'''' the senior Congress leader said. UNI AKM CJ RJ 1148 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1187549.Xml
"Remembering the martyrs of Nandigram on the 10th anniversary of the shameful event. We are committed to protect our farmers," Ms Banerjee tweeted,

"To mark the occasion we will honour farmers with Krishak Ratna Samman at a function at Nazrul Mancha," she added.

The chief minister Banerjee will give away 'Krishak Ratna' awards to distinguished farmers for their contribution to agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, pisciculture and allied sectors.

Ruling state government led by Mamata Banerjee observes March 14 as Krishak Dibas, the day when police had opened fire on protesting farmers in Nandigram . The awards will be given during a ceremony at Nazrul Mancha here.

In January 2007, farmers in Nandigram erupted in protest against a proposed special economic zone (SEZ).

On March 14, the then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya sent 2,500 policemen to 'recapture' Nandigram. Officially, 14 farmers died in the firing, but over 100 were declared "missing.UNI BM

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0214-1187717.Xml
He made the remarks while commenting on the alleged killing of a Nepali citizen by the Indian security force.

"Whatever happens at the border should be resolved diplomatically and politically. For this there is a joint technical team between India and Nepal," Nidhi, who is presently in New Delhi, told ANI while urging India to investigate the matter seriously and punish those at fault.

"I have said to the Government of India from Nepal and I will say it from here also that once his (the deceased's) post-mortem and forensic investigation is done the truth will be known. There should be action," he added.

India has already launched an inquiry into the death of a Nepalese citizen, Govinda Gautam, during a clash on the border.

According to media reports, the local residents said Gautam, 20, of Kanchanpur district in southwestern Nepal, was hit by shots allegedly fired by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel after a dispute over the construction of a culvert by the Nepalese authorities.

Officials from both sides have been in touch to carry on with the investigation. (ANI)
Police said here that around 20 extremists of outlawed CPI (Maoist) raided Pasewa village past midnight and abducted Kaushal Paswan (24), accusing him of being a police informer. Ultras produced the youth in their 'Kangaroo court' held nearly two kms away from the village and gunned him down after he was 'convicted' of being a police informer.

The body has been sent to Anugraha Narayan Magadh Medical College and Hospital here for autopsy.

A massive manhunt is on to nab ultras.UNI DH BM

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0214-1187901.Xml
The Supreme Court today declined to stay the oath-taking ceremony of Manohar Parikar as the next Chief Minister of Goa. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Jagdish Singh Khehar, however, asked the BJP-led dispensation to prove its majority in the Assembly on March 16 at 11am. The Supreme Court said all the formalities have to be completed by March 15 to conduct the floor test on March 16th. Congress contended that the Bharatiya Janata Party had allegedly involved in horse trading. It submitted that established constitutional practices were allegedly being violated by the BJP. The Supreme Court observed that the numbers should determine the single largest party. The Congress submitted that the Governor's calling the BJP to form the government in Goa was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court asked the Congress why it did not approach the Governor It asked, "Where are the numbers?" Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Congress, told the apex court that the BJP had allegedly involved in horse trading. Senior lawyer Harish Salve, representing the Centre, submitted that he was ready to prove his majority or for the floor test. Mr Singhvi told the court that,'' we were not even consulted on this issue even once and the Constitutional process has been violated in Goa.'' The Supreme Court asked the Congress when the BJP had said they had got the numbers to prove the majority in the state Assembly, then why did it not go to the Governor and deny it. UNI XC RP1621 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1187948.Xml
Kelakam police today arrested a 15-year-old school student for molesting 3-year-old-girl at her house in a tribal colony at Kanichar. Police said that the accused, who was also victim's uncle, on March 12, when the parents of the victim were gone to work in nearby house tried to rape her. Police further said that after listing loud scream, the mother rushed to the house and found the accused sexually assaulting her daughter. Parents took the girl to a near by hospital at Peravoor and filed a complaint. The victim had been shifted to Thalassery General hospital for further treatment. Police has registered a case under section POCSO and would be produced before the Juvenile court in the evening. UNI AK SHS SHK 1641 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1188032.Xml
Wipro Limited, a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced the launch of the Wipro HOLMESTM Cloud BOT, a continuously learning digital consultant, that leverages Wipro's BoundaryLess Data Center solution.The Wipro HOLMESTM Cloud BOT uses a gamified natural language processing (NLP)-based chat interface to have an intelligent interaction with stakeholders to enrich the data for cloud analysis.It leverages the Wipro HOLMES Artificial Intelligence PlatformTM that helps enterprises hyper-automate processes, redefine operations and enable their digital journeys. HOLMES represents Wipro's integrated automation capabilities across infrastructure, applications and business process services, delivered through a comprehensive blend of tasks, processes, and cognitive technologies.The Wipro HOLMESTM Cloud BOT leverages applications and infrastructure data residing in multiple data sources in the client's environment, and facilitates collaboration between stakeholders from IT and business teams to create a comprehensive digital repository. This helps in analyzing and predicting viable cloud placement decisions, based on rule-based algorithms and past learning to accelerate the client's cloud journey.The BOT also solves the complexities of collating undocumented information about an enterprise's technology application architectures, risk management and compliance landscape. It derives insights from this data to define cloud strategy and offer optimal application choices.Kiran Desai, Senior Vice-President and Head - Global Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited said, "We are currently seeing a convergence of technologies that is driving business value for clients. The Wipro HOLMESTM Cloud BOT combines cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and collaborative technologies, which we believe, are catalysts in accelerating transformation."Rohit Adlakha, Vice President and Global Head, Wipro HOLMES Artificial Intelligence PlatformTM, Wipro Limited said, "Wipro HOLMESTM offers state-of-the-art cognitive computing solutions that help accelerate an enterprise's digital journey by enhancing their operational efficiency, effectiveness and user experience. We believe that the Wipro HOLMESTM Cloud BOT is well positioned to deliver this advantage to our clients across various industry domains."The Wipro HOLMESTM Cloud BOT is designed to hasten cloud assessment projects for enterprises, thereby substantially reducing the time taken, from months to weeks. This ensures that clients receive high quality advisory services backed by experiential learnings.UNI ADP ADG SHK 1832 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0429-1188283.Xml
Expressing shock over the alleged suicide of JNU researchscholar Muthukrishnan at New Delhi, leaders of various political parties in Tamil Nadu,including DMK Working President and Opposition leader M K Stalin, today demanded a CBI probe into it. In a statement here, Mr Stalin pointed out to the facebook posts of the deceasedscholar and the comments made by his parents and raised suspicions about hisdeath. Recalling the suicide of dalit research scholar Rohit Vemula at Hyderabad University,he said the Delhi police could not ignore the fact that Muthukrishnan had participated in the student's agitation demanding a probe into it. Referring to the recent suicide byTiruppur based medico Saravanan at AIIMS and thelate incident of suicide of Muthukrishnan, Mr Stalin demanded a CBI probe into both theincidents. He also urged the Centre to take necessary steps to prevent suicides of Tamil studentswhile pursuing their higher education in the National capital. Mr Stalin also urged Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami to speak to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on the issue and exert pressure on the Centre to order a CBI probe intothe deaths. Expressing shock and anguish over the alleged suicide of Muthukrishnan, AIADMK Deputy General Secretary T T V Dinakaran said several doubts were being raised about the suicide theory into his death, considering his participation in the stir againstthe suicide of dalit research scholar Vemula last year. A shocking incident at a prestigious institution like JNU on 'caste ground' was extremelypainful, he said and urged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to order a thorough probeand bring the truth to light. Terming the death of Muthukrishnan as unfortunate, he also urged the Centre to take allnecessary steps and order a fair probe into the suicide. PMK leader and former Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss also condoled the death and tweeted: 'Saddened by the suicide of JNU research student Muthukrishnan from Tamilnadu. This unfortunate incident should have been prevented''. Condemning the incident, DMDK Founder and actor Vijayakanth today demanded a thorough probe to clear the doubts raised by the parents of Muthukrishnan and the students community on whether it was a suicide or not. He also urged the Centre to take necessary steps to prevent such incidents in future CPI(M) State Secretary G Ramakrishnan demanded a judicial probe into the suicide and urged the Government to provide adequate compensation to Muthukrishnan's family. Mr T Velmurugan, leader of Tamilaga Vazhvurimai Katchi also demanded a CBI enquiry into the suspicious death of the JNU research scholar.UNI GV 2145 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1188676.Xml
The Students Federation of India (SFI) today expressed its profound grief over the death of JNU research scholar from Tamil Nadu Muthukrishnan, who it said, before coming to JNU, was active in the 'Justice for Rohith' movement. A SFI statement here said, ''Muthukrishnan's sad demise has yet again brought to fore the tragic situation of our universities, where the demographic assertion of the students from socio-economically deprived sections, has met with brutal backlash from the caste forces.'' There is no government data on the number of suicides by Dalit students, it said. However, a compilation by Dalit groups showed that 18 Dalit students committed suicide between 2007-11. ''The NCRB data shows that more than 20 students committed suicide every day in India in the year 2014, with a majority of them belonging to the lower income category'', it added. ''Caste and capital are killing students. They are forcing young lives to such an alienation where life looses its meaning'', the statement said. The demise of Muthukrishnan was yet again a sad reminder of the systematic alienation which the students from socio-economically deprived sections face in the universities, it added. The latest policy offensive in the form of regressive UGC notification and insensitivity of the university administrations was creating an environment of unease and anxiety. It was in this background that the demand for 'Rohith Act' against the caste based discrimination came to fore. The BJP government at centre has been ignoring this crucial demand until now,theSFI said and demanded a proper inquiry to ascertain the reasons behind the death of Muthu. ''We express our deep condolences to the family and friends of Muthu, in this moment of grief'', it said. ''We yet again reiterate our resolve to intensify the movement for the Rohith Act'', thestatement added.UNI GV 2200 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1188682.Xml
China Academy of Urban Planning and Design in Shenzhen (CAUPDSZ) has come forward to take part in the development of capital Amaravati.The delegation of CAUPDSZ met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here today and explained on their plans to develop Amaravati. The CAUPDSZ played a key role in development of Shenzhen as special economic zone. Shenzhen, a small fishermen village before 1984 emerged as a fast developing city in China.Shenzhen emerged as sister city of Hong Kong and an important financial capital of South China. The members of the delegation said that their organisation played a key role in development of Shenzen in 2000 km radius in 5-lakh-acre of land. If an opportunity was given they would develop Amaravati on par with Shenzen.Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said that they are eager to develop Amaravati capital as economic city at par with Shenzhen. He said that the Centre was ready to develop economic zones in Andhra Pradesh in the east and Gujarat in West coast.He said there is a scope to develop several cities in the state. The Chief Minister asked the China team to come with necessary proposals. He said that the state government is committed to develop all the regions right from Chittoor to Srikakulam.He Said the GIIC has been extending cooperation for the development of City square in Vijayawada. Principal secretary Ajay Jain said that they are discussing with GIIC for Machilipatnam city development project and housing. Amaravati Development authority CMD Lakshmi Parthasarathi said that the GIIC also came forward to develop river front in Amravati.UNI DP JW SNU 2220 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1188690.Xml
The outgoing Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav today said that his party would give appropriate time to the new Government to perform and deliver results."Some leaders of the party are of the opinion to open the front against the new Government. But, we will give them ample time and keep a close watch on the functioning of the Government," said the SP chief, adding "we respect the people's mandate and right now there is no justification for dharna and agitation against the new Ggovernment.''"Let the new Government take oath of the office and Cabinet has its first meeting and decisions are taken as per the promise made by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the election campaign for waiving off the outstanding loans of the small and marginal formers,'' said Akhilesh Yadav here today.He made brief appearance before the media after having close door consultations with his close aides at the Janeshwar Mishra Trust. He is reported to have sought reports about the postal ballots and alleged irregularities in the EVMs.Akhilesh Yadav thanked the party leaders and the cadres for their hard work during the Assembly election. He said he will meet all the Legislators and the party candidates and make a detailed review for the causes of the party's debacle in the Assembly election and then the party will decide the future course of action.Endorsing the allegations by the Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, SP president said, "her allegations have a ground as I have been told by the party leaders that in many constituencies the SP was leading in postal ballots and our numbers dipped as soon as the EVMs were opened and what is most astonishing that the BJP polled big share of the votes in polling stations in the Muslim dominated areas.''Meanwhile, the Akhilesh camp is bracing up for the crucial meeting of the newly elected party legislators here on Thursday. The top most agenda before the meeting will be to elect new leader of the party in the State Assembly who will also be the leader of Opposition since the SP has emerged as the largest party in Opposition by winning 47 seats.Estranged uncle of SP President, Shivpal Yadav has already announced that he was not in the race for the leader of Opposition. Shivpal Yadav had held this post during the Mayawati regime from 2007-12. Another person in the race is the senior party leader Azam Khan from Rampur. His son Abdullah Azam has also made debut in politics and has been elected to the Assembly.The meeting of the Legislators is likely to be stormy as the old guards led by Shivpal Yadav were waiting for this opportunity to hit back at Akhilesh Yadav, who has "usurped" the post of national president of the party in a special national convention of the party here on January 1. The old guards will do their best to corner Akhilesh Yadav and hold him accountable for the worst ever performance of the party in the elections in its 25 years' history. Shivpal Yadav during the election had also threatened to float new political party after the Assembly elections.The meeting of the district presidents of the party and other front organisations is also likely to be convened within this month. SP president will also have to decide the fate of the district units and state executive of the party. As per the established tradition of the party after every election of the Assembly and Lok Sabha the state executive and district units are dissolved and fresh office bearers are appointed.UNI MB SNU 2246 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1188694.Xml
Members of Parliament on Monday night in the elected chamber rejected both amendments to the Brexit bill put forward last week in the House of Lords, Xinhua news agency reported.

By 335 votes to 287, MPs rejected the amendment guaranteeing the rights of 3.2 million European nationals to remain in Britain after Brexit.

Minutes later, the Commons voted by 331 to 286 to reject the second amendment to guarantee a meaningful vote by the Parliament before a final Brexit deal is agreed.

Ministers argued that support for either amendment would have tied the hands of Britain's negotiations with Brussels.

The focus now switches to the House of Lords, who will now have to vote on the unamended Brexit bill.

As soon as the process is completed in the Houses of Parliament, a royal assent will be formally given by Queen Elizabeth II to give May full authority to finally trigger Brexit.

--IANS vgu/

( 187 Words)

2017-03-14-05:54:07 (IANS)
The sanctions would be under the political framework at the moment, Kurtulmus told reporters late Monday after a cabinet meeting which measures against the Dutch government were discussed, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Dutch ambassador to Ankara, who is out of the country at the moment, will not be allowed enter Turkey until Netherlands meets Turkey's demands, Kurtulmus said.

The Turkish government will suspend "high-level relations and all planned meetings "with Netherlands, he said, adding that a permission given in December for diplomatic flights for Dutch officials is also cancelled.

The Turkish government will propose the Parliament abolishing a Turkish-Dutch parliamentary friendship group, the Deputy Prime Minister stated.

Diplomatic tensions between the two countries escalated over the weekend after the Dutch authorities cancelled Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's flight permission to the Netherlands and then blocked Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam on Saturday.

--IANS vgu/

( 195 Words)

2017-03-14-06:56:07 (IANS)
Branding China and Pakistan as 'plunderers', Baloch dissident leader Mir Suleiman Ahmedzai, who holds the title of "Khan of Kalat" asserted that Balochistan strongly welcomes India's assistance in stopping both nations with their nefarious plans in executing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Speaking exclusively to ANI here on Monday at the sidelines of the seminar on Systematic State Suppression on Basic Human Rights in Balochistan, Ahmedzai stated that CPEC has no developmental value whatsoever and is simply one 'occupier' taking the help of another 'occupier' in plundering the region which is rich in natural resources. "We are not going to enjoy anything, nor are we going to benefit from it. We are not even being asked as it is our land. They are coming as plunderers and we will stop them in whichever way, maybe with the help of your people and friends," he said. When asked to react on Islamabad's promise that the CPEC would open doors of opportunity and would only benefit Balochistan, the Khan of Kalat dismissed the assertion saying that Pakistan had a history of lying through their teeth since the past 70 years, which is why their promises held no value. "Since the past 70 years Pakistan has claimed a lot of things. They are big liars and will keep on lying. Even when it comes to terrorism, be it in their own country or their neighbors," Ahmedzai added. Echoing similar sentiments, President of Baloch Voice Foundation, Munir Mengal said that the CPEC was a 'strategic design' by Pakistan and China to loot Balochistan's resources and eliminate their culture and identity. "Most of the people have the same concern that is design is disastrous to the people. This conference was organised to show the international body that there will be no benefit from the CPEC project and all of us will be eliminated," Mengal told ANI. Earlier this month, the Khan of Kalat, has openly sought help from India and other western countries against Pakistan and called upon the international community to come forward to help the Baloch people in their freedom struggle. He even took his cause to the Britain's House of Lords and told the media that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a "friend of Balochistan". "We have passed on our message to Modi through the media and without the media. The only voice we heard in our support in so many years was Modi's. I am confident that we will get support from the west, India and even from China". Prime Minister Modi, in his Independence Day address last year had had referred to rights violations in Balochistan and other parts of Pakistan . Gilgit-Baltistan has been occupied since 1947, when a British-supported military coup led to Pakistani control and the construction of CPEC, which runs through the occupied nation, has evoked a cry of outrage from several forums across the globe. CPEC is a 51.5 billion dollar project that aims to connect Kashgar, in China's western province of Xinjiang, with the port of Gwadar in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. Though Gilgit Baltistan plays a key role in the CPEC project and all roads and pipelines crossing into China from Pakistan will run through this mountainous region, there are no plans for any special economic packages to support the people of Gilgit. The locals, as stakeholders in the project, have been demanding that the Pakistani government shares details of the project with them, failing which they would consider the project, being constructed through an area contested by India, as illegal. As a largely remote area with a delicate eco-system, Gilgit has been grappling with the problem of ecological imbalance due to uncontrolled deforestation. Now, with the CPEC project planning to upgrade the Karakoram highway and build a rail network in the region, there are concerns that the project will displace thousands of locals and render them homeless, and also disturb the fragile ecology of the region. (ANI)
According to sources close to the matter, the data was obtained when immigration officials detained him in 2001 at Tokyo's Narita International Airport as he tried to enter the country on a false passport, The Japan Times reported on Monday.

He told the authorities he wanted to visit the Tokyo Disneyland.

The disclosure marks the first time Japanese assistance has come to light in the investigation into the fatal poison attack, which is widely believed to have been orchestrated by North Korea.

Japan also offered data on Kim Jong-nam's physical characteristics, such as fingerprints and mug shots, the sources said.

The information is believed to have helped Malaysian investigators conclusively establish the victim's identity as that of the 45-year-old half brother of the North Korean leader.

The sources said Malaysia also made inquiries to Japan regarding the location of Kim Jong-nam's son, Kim Han-sol, who is believed to have been living in Macau.

Kim Han-sol was seen as key to identifying the body, with Malaysian authorities trying to collect DNA samples from family members to help finalise the identification procedure, The Japan Times added.

The whereabouts of Kim Han-sol and other family members remain unknown, but a video emerged online last week of a man claiming to be him, saying his father was "killed".

The footage was uploaded to YouTube by a group called Cheollima Civil Defense, which said it has been protecting Kim Jong-nam's family.

--IANS ksk

( 280 Words)

2017-03-14-09:26:07 (IANS)
According to a statement released on Twitter by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz official account, the Prime Minister directed the authorities to remove the blasphemous content from social media and to take measures to ensure that any such content is not posted in future, reports the Dawn.

"The blasphemous content on social media is a nefarious conspiracy to hurt the religious sentiments of entire Muslim ummah," Sharif was quoted as saying.

"The matter has already been taken by the judiciary," the statement added.

The Prime Minister ordered to take necessary actions in accordance with the judicial guidelines in this regard.

He also issued directions to ensure the accountability of those misusing the blasphemy law for their personal interests.

"Love and affection of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is the most precious asset for every Muslim," said the statement.

Sharif also directed the authorities to approach international social media platforms to put the blasphemous content off the internet.

The Premier directed Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to take all necessary measures against blasphemous content on social media and sought daily reports on developments in this regard. (ANI)
Iraqi troops battled Islamic State fighters for control of a bridge over the River Tigris in Mosul today as civilians streamed out of recaptured western neighbourhoods, cold, wet and hungry but relieved to be free of the militants' grip.Progress by Interior Ministry Rapid Response units had been slowed by rain yesterday but heavy fighting resumed today, with the Iron Bridge the prize at stake.Government forces also pushed into areas of western Mosul, Islamic State's last redoubt in the city that has been the de facto capital of their self-declared caliphate.The troops had advanced to within 100m of the bridge but were slowed by sniper fire from gunmen positioned in high buildings, a Rapid Response media officer told Reuters."Our forces managed to resume advancing inside the old city centre after weather improved and succeeded in retaking the Korneesh street which runs by the riverside. It's very key for our forces to secure the riverside and prevent Daesh militants from turning around our advancing forces," he said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.They expected to gain control of the Iron Bridge and the nearby area by the end of the day."Seizing the bridge will help further tighten the noose around Daesh fighters entrenched inside the old city," he said.The bridge connects Mosul's Old City with the eastern side of the city. Capturing it would mean Iraqi forces control three of the five bridges in Mosul that span the Tigris, all of which have been damaged by the militants and US-led air strikes. The southernmost two have already been retaken by Iraqi forces.Since starting the offensive in October, Iraqi forces with US-led coalition support have retaken eastern Mosul and about 30 per cent of the west from the militants, who are outnumbered but fiercely defending their last stronghold in Iraq.HEAVING SHELLINGThe boom of shelling and heavy machinegun fire could be heard from the centre of Mosul and helicopter gunships strafed the ground from above on Tuesday morning.Amid the combat, a steady stream of refugees trudged out of the western districts, carrying suitcases, bottles of water and other possessions. Some pushed children and sick elderly relatives in handcarts and wheelbarrows.Soldiers packed them into trucks on the Mosul-Baghdad highway to be taken to processing areas. Most left in the dark early morning hours or after the army recaptured their neighbourhoods. Food had been scarce, they said."We fled at 5 a.m.after the army had arrived. There has been a lot of shelling by Daesh," said Hamid Hadi, a teacher."Mostly we've been eating water mixed with tomatoes."Ashraf Ali, a nurse who escaped with his wife and two children, said mortar rounds were falling as they fled. They took advantage of the army retaking their district to get out."Daesh wanted us to move to their areas but we escaped when the army arrived," he said.As many as 600,000 civilians are caught with the militants inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces have effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi forces include army, special forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite militias.More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October, of which more than 65,000 fled their homes in the past two weeks alone, according to the International Organization for Migration."Whenever we advance there are more people coming out," said one Iraq officer directing refugee transport. "There are more people on this side of the city and people are trying to leave because there is no food and no supplies in their area."Residents also fled from the Wadi Hajjar district on Monday carrying bags and belongings through the muddy streets to areas controlled by the army before being transported out by truck."It was a nightmare and we are finally done with it. It cannot be described. There is no water and there is no food and nothing," said resident Ghanem Mohamed.Federal police forces have also been fighting pockets of militants in areas close to the Iron Bridge. At the weekend, they entered the Bab al-Tob area of the Old City, where fighting is expected to be toughest because of its narrow alleyways.The military said on Monday that elite Counter Terrorism Service troops, known as CTS, managed to retake the al-Nafut district of west Mosul.Losing Mosul would be a major strike against Islamic State. It is by far the largest city the militants have held since their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself leader of a self-styled caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from a mosque in Mosul in the summer of 2014. REUTERS SHS RK1522 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1187845.Xml
The Russian Defence Ministry is in touch with Syrian opposition generals who boycotted a third round of peace talks due to begin in Kazakhstan today, the Interfax news agency cited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.The Syrian opposition said it would not attend the talks because of what it called Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes against civilians and its failure to put pressure on the Syrian army to abide by a widely violated ceasefire.Interfax cited Lavrov as saying those reasons were "unconvincing," that the opposition's refusal to attend had come as a surprise, and that Russia was dealing with the situation.REUTERS SHS AS1616 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1187956.Xml
Russian-led peace talks on Syria were derailed today as rebels backed by Turkey boycotted a third round of meetings in Kazakhstan and the Kremlin indicated there were international divisions over the process.Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, said the rebels' reasons for staying away were unconvincing and their decision came as a surprise. Describing the rebels as Turkish proxies, the Syrian government envoy said Ankara had broken "its commitments" to the Astana process.The rebels said today they would not attend the talks, scheduled for today and tomorrow, because of what they called Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes on rebel-held areas and its failure to get the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militia to abide by a ceasefire.Russia has sought to revive diplomacy over Syria since its air force helped government forces defeat rebel groups in eastern Aleppo in December, Assad's biggest victory of the war.The cooperation of Turkey, one of the main backers of rebel groups fighting in northern Syria, has been crucial to the Russian diplomatic effort, helping to broker a ceasefire in December after the rebels' Aleppo defeat.Two previous rounds of Astana talks have sought to consolidate that ceasefire, reflecting an improvement in Russian-Turkish ties that had been strained to breaking point by the Syrian war.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russian Defence Ministry was in touch with Syrian rebel leaders who boycotted the talks, the Interfax news agency reported. He said Russia was dealing with the situation.The Kremlin spokesman described the talks as hugely complex. "Sometimes the situation at these talks is really complicated because of substantial differences in approaches of various countries," Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call."The work continues," he said.SYRIAN ENVOY ACCUSES TURKEYRussian President Vladimir Putin had credited the Kazakhstan talks, which focus on reducing the fighting, with jumpstarting UN-led peace talks in Geneva seeking a political settlement to the six-year conflict.The Geneva talks broke off without any progress as seemingly unbridgeable divisions persist, chiefly over the future of Assad who seems militarily unassailable in the areas of western Syria under government control.The previous Astana talks had been attended by rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner. A spokesman for the rebels on Monday accused Russia of "continuing its crimes" against civilians in Syria - a reference to Russian air strikes - and of supporting "the crimes of the Syrian regime".The rebels say Russia has failed to live up to its commitments as a guarantor of the ceasefire, saying government and allied forces continue to press attacks on remaining rebel-held areas in western Syria.The Syrian government envoy to the talks said his delegation was in Astana to meet Syria's Russian and Iranian allies, not the rebel factions."When one of the three guarantors breaks their commitment - and I mean Turkey - this means that Turkey must be the one that is asked about the non-attendance or participation of these armed groups," Bashar al Ja'afari, the envoy, said in broadcast remarks from Astana.He added that the rebels' decision on whether to attend or not was taken not by them, but by "their operators".Last week, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was in Moscow seeking to build cooperation with Putin over military operations in Syria.Turkey is attempting to create a border "safe zone" in northern Syria free of Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG militia. The Russian-backed Syrian army has advanced to the frontier of YPG-held areas, but is not fighting the Kurds.Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said Russian officials held intensive talks with Turkish and Iranian representatives today.REUTERS SHS BD1738 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1188181.Xml
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte today poked fun at the dismissal of his foreign minister by lawmakers, delivering jokes in an American accent about a citizenship scandal that led to the downfall of one of his top loyalists.Showing the comedic style that helped win him an election last year, Duterte mocked former Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, rejected by a house appointments commission last week over his failure to prove he was not a US citizen when he took the job eight months ago."I don't know why I was ousted by the commission on appointments but I did not lie," Duterte, impersonating Yasay and using an American accent, told a audience of hundreds of mayors."If you did not lie, why are you out of the cabinet?" he said to laughs and applause.Duterte's remark makes light of what has been one of the biggest embarrassments of his presidency so far. Yasay, a US-trained lawyer, is a member of his inner circle with whom he shared a dormitory while studying law.Yasay played a crucial role driving Duterte's policy of diversifying foreign relations beyond ally the United States, describing it as a "shackling dependency".In scathing posts on Facebook, Yasay chided Washington for what he said was shirking its treaty obligations to protect the Philippines. He said breaking away was "imperative in putting an end to our nation's subservience to United States' interests".Yasay was accused by critics of contradicting statements that were made under oath before the appointments commission and during media interviews about his citizenship and passports.While the commission made no conclusion about his citizenship status, its members agreed unanimously that he was not telling the truth.Critics say Yasay's applications to run for the Senate, vice presidency and head of the Securities and Exchange Commission - a post he won - were now in question too.Yasay has denied lying to the commission.REUTERS JW AS1827 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1188318.Xml
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus today said he rejected claims that Turkey has deliberately escalated its row with the Netherlands in order to benefit in an upcoming referendum.Kurtulmus, the government's main spokesman, made the comment in an interview with CNN Turk. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has branded the Netherlands as "Nazi remnants" for preventing his ministers from speaking to rallies of overseas Turks ahead of the vote.The April constitutional reform referendum would give Erdogan sweeping presidential powers.REUTERS JW BL2156 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1188674.Xml
Sharif on Tuesday "directed the authorities to remove the blasphemous content from social media and to take measures to ensure that any such content is not posted in future," Efe news cited a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Press wing.

Sharif also asked the authorities to find everyone responsible for posting the allegedly blasphemous content and bring them to justice, and also urged them to contact the international operators of the social networks to remove the said content.

The Prime Minister claimed that the supposedly offensive content is a "nefarious conspiracy" to hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslim community across the world.

Last week, Pakistan announced a campaign against the spread of blasphemous content on social networks and Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan even threatened to permanently block the sites if they did not cooperate with the authorities.

The controversial blasphemy law was established during the British period to prevent religious clashes, but its abuse became possible following amendments to the law in the 1980s by Dictator Zia ul Haq.

--IANS vgu/

( 218 Words)

2017-03-15-02:56:08 (IANS)
PARIS, March 13 (Xinhua) -- French scandal-hit presidential candidate Francois Fillon, weakened by alleged public fund misuse, on Monday unveiled a detailed economic project whose priorities are to "liberate, protect and reconcile."

Two days ahead a hearing by magistrates investigating into claims that he paid hefty salaries for his wife and their two children for little work, Fillon defended "a project which is based on ambition to make France a great country."

"Those who denounce a purge are all wrong...Unlike a large number of elites, the French has understood," he said.

"With ambitious and realistic measures, my project is radically different from that of my rivals," he added.

Despite critics over the "brutality" of his program, the conservative contender stuck to a series of liberal measures he announced during the primary in November 2016 such as the end of the 35 hour-working week, cut of 500,000 public services workers, tax on wealth, a reform of health insurance system.

Furthermore, he proposed a cut of 40 billion euros (42.62 billion U.S. dollars) in social spending to create a "competitiveness shock." He also targeted to double the number of medium-sized companies in a decade and create 3.5 million jobs.

Campaigning for budget rigour to put the country's economy on recovery track, ex-prime minister wants to increase working time to 39 hours, trim public spending by 100 billion euros over next five years and prolong retirement age to 65.

"I am not asking the French for their efforts, but I propose to them a return to prosperity," he said.

As terrorism risks remain high at home, the conservative candidate has promised to raise next year's defense budget with the reinforcement of the operational capacities, the modernization of the police's means and the revival of the European defense project.

Once the favorite to be France's next head of state, Fillon, 63, has been trailing in third place due to allegation of public fund misuse which threw his campaign out of track and has given a boost to the centrist rival Emmanuel Macron.

Repeatedly rejecting allegation, he promised to "prevent conflicts of interest and (ensure) the proper use of public funds," adding that ministers would be required to sign a code of conduct.

Struggling to revive a flattering campaign, Fillon's bid was likely to be dealt another blow after Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper claimed that he received gifts of suits and other clothing worth a total of 48,500 euros since 2012 from a Paris tailor.

Under French laws, lawmakers have to declare all donations or gifts worth over 150 euros.(1 euro = 1.06 U.S. dollars)
ATHENS, March 13 (Xinhua) -- An international summer school for ancient drama, the Epidaurus Lyceum, is being launched this year at the ancient theater of Epidaurus, it was announced on Monday.

According to Vangelis Theodoropoulos, artistic director of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the 2,500-year-old marble theater in southern Greece with 14,000 seats capacity, will welcome for first time students from drama schools and young actors from across the world.

The goal is to explore traditional and experimental techniques regarding the staging of ancient drama. Classes will allow up to 150 students this summer to practice at the ancient theater in July during the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, which is the largest annual cultural event in Greece since 1955.

This year's chosen underlying theme is "The arrival of the Outsider" in a reference to the dilemmas Europe faces today amidst the refugee crisis, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival said.

The deadline for applications for participation in the Epidaurus Lyceum was set for April 15, according to the announcement.
by Burak Akinci

ANKARA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a one-day visit on Friday in Moscow where he met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Both leaders announced that they were ready to strengthen ties in several fields and to overcome rifts but they still remain very divided on the most acute crisis in the middle east, Syria, according to local experts.

During a press conference after the meeting, Vladimir Putin said "we had a very trustful, very effective dialogue," while in turn, the Turkish leader expressed faith in continuing Turkish-Russian cooperation.

"As far as security matters in our region are concerned, I believe that it takes joint efforts to end bloodshed in Syria," said Erdogan.

The road to this point was long as the two leaders clashed repeatedly over the Syrian conflict and their different views on the fate of Moscow's ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

First, there was the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey in November 2015 amid Moscow's intervention into Syria, a neighbour of NATO member Turkey.

Putin imposed travel and trade sanctions on Turkey in response. A failed coup in June 2016, however, changed things dramatically. The Russian leader expressed solidarity towards the Turkish regime. Following an apology by Erdogan over the jet incident, things seemed to go back on track.

"Actually only a small portion of the punitive Russian restrictions have been lifted. They are still out there," Deniz Zeyrek, a political commentator and journalist, told Xinhua.

Hundreds of thousands Russian tourists, a major income for the tourism sector, banned from coming to the Turkish Riviera after the plane incident, have not yet returned, added Zeyrek.

As an example, the ban on the largest items such as fresh fruits, is still continuing.

Wanting to recover losses, Erdogan in this context said in Moscow, that Russia should swiftly lift all restrictions related to Turkish citizens and companies operating there.

Despite being at odds on the Syrian conflict, Moscow and Ankara began coordinating some military actions in Syria, including against Islamic State (IS) and Syrian opposition fighters holed up in Aleppo.

Yet the Russian-Turkish relationship was put to the test again last December, when Russia's ambassador to Turkey was gunned down in public by a Turkish assassin, a police officer in plain clothes, who claimed he was avenging Russia's brutal air campaign in the Syrian war.

Both sides agreed that the tragic murder will not affect the improvement of their relations.

In an unprecedented move, the heads of the Russian, Turkish, and U.S. armed forces have met last week in southern Turkey in a bid to iron out tensions between rival factions against IS in Syria.

The meeting came amid tensions around the northern Syrian town of Manbij, where troops from all three countries are now involved in a standoff.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led alliance that is backed by the U.S.-led coalition against IS has also the support of some 500 U.S. special forces advisers.

But Turkey sees the People's Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Kurdish group that dominates the SDF, as a branch of a domestic Kurdish insurgency it is battling at home and labels it as a terrorist group.

Ankara has launched last year its own operation to push both IS and Kurdish militia away from its border.

YPG now is considered by both Moscow and Washington as a reliable partner in the struggle against the IS, a position that puts Turkey in a difficult position.

"Turkey and Russia remain very divided on the future of Syria. Moscow wants Bashar al-Assad to stay and Ankara wants him gone," explains professor Togrul Ismayil from the Ankara-based University of Economics and Technology (TOBB).

YPG has an office since last year in Moscow and Turkey asked Moscow to shut it down with no results at all.

But despite differences, both countries have a lot to offer to each other.

"This cooperation will not shatter the basis of NATO. Turkey wants to be pragmatic and tries to get the support it needs in various fields such as its arm supplies," said professor Ismayil.

On his way back from Moscow, President Erdogan confirmed that talk are underway for the purchase of Russian made S-400 missiles for its program to build the country's first long-range air and anti-missile defence system, in what would be a snub to NATO.

"If we can not rely on NATO on this then we will off course take the necessary measures. Russia has made improvements on the price of the system. We aim to reach an agreement as soon as possible," Erdogan was quoted as saying to the Turkish press.

But this could be a way for the Turkish leader to admit that Turkey needs Russia more than Russia needs Turkey, argues Deniz Zeyrek.

On the economy front, several agreements have been signed during Erdogan's visit, the most prominent one being the establishment of a joint investment fund of one billion U.S. dollars between the two countries prompting warm reactions in the Turkish capital.

"The mature way that Russia and Turkey tackled the brutal murder of the ambassador (in Ankara) demonstrated that they both want increasing collaboration in every field possible and have established a diplomacy channel that can withstand crisis," said a Turkish diplomatic source to Xinhua, preferring to remain anonymous.
Kim In Ryong, ambassador of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, speaks during a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, March 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) ambassador to the United Nations on Monday denied the man assassinated in Malaysia was half-brother of the DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un, saying the United States and South Korea should be blamed.

Ambassador Kim In Ryong told reporters here that the case of the assassination "is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities aimed to ... tarnish the image of the dignified DPRK and to bring down the Socialist system."

Kim spoke in response to a question on the assassination during a news conference he had called to condemn a recent UN Security Council statement denouncing recent DPRK ballistic missile launches as a threat to international peace and security.

But he acknowledged that the victim, who was poisoned to death in Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13 by two assailants, is a citizen from the DPRK with a diplomatic passport.

Kim In Ryong, ambassador of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, attends a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, March 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

"The United States and the South Korean authority are groundlessly blaming the DPRK, asserting that he was intoxicated by a highly poisonous VX nerve substance," Kim said, referring to the victim who has been identified by Malaysian authorities as the estranged half-brother of Kim Jon Un.

The ambassador said Washington wanted to "store up international repugnancy towards the DPRK ... to provoke nuclear war against the DPRK at any cost."

He also raised the question as to where the assailants were able to obtain such a banned chemical weapon as VX, pointing out the United States has "a stockpile" of such outlawed weapons.

Kim also said U.S. and South Korean assertions the assailants were unaffected while applying VX to a victim was an "absurdity."
Photo taken on March 14, 2017 shows the "Big Ben" in central London, Britain. The British upper house of the Parliament passed the Brexit Bill Monday night, clearing the last hurdle for the government to trigger Brexit. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

LONDON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister Theresa May is finally clear to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union after peers in the unelected House of Lords backed down from challenging the elected House of Commons.

Two amendments in the House of Lords that could have delayed the progress of May's bill were finally rejected by the peers after MPs in the elected Commons rejected the amendments.

A formal royal assent from Queen Elizabeth is all that stands in the way of May informing Brussels as early as Tuesday of Britain's intention of leaving the European Union after 43 years.

The bill gives May the legal authority to trigger article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the laid down procedure within the EU for a member state wishing to leave. Once article 50 is triggered, it kick-starts a two year process for negotiating a new relationship between both sides.

In the House of Commons, MPs rejected the two amendments put forward by the House of Lords, one to guarantee the rights of 3.2 million European citizens to remain in Britain (by 335 votes to 287) and the second to insist on a meaningful parliamentary vote on a final Brexit deal (lost by 331 votes against 286).

A committee of MPs was then elected to inform the Lords of their decision, calling on them to accept their vote.

Instead attempts were made in the Lords to keep the two amendments, even though they knew that their stand would be overturned by MPs.

Lord Bridges, the government minister in the House of Lords for exiting the EU, told peers that the decision to leave the bloc was one of the "most momenteus steps ever taken in our lifetime."

Baroness Hayter, for the main opposition Labour party, said she regretted the decision of the Commons to reject the amendments, adding that her party would not stand in the way of the Commons' decision.

She said her party would seek other ways of acheiving their aim, telling EU nationals: "To the people affected, we are not giving up on you."

The amendment calling for the residential rights of European to be protected was lost in the Lords by 274 votes to 135.

Barrister Lord Pannick, who legally represented businesswoman Gina Miller in the challenge that brought the issue to parliament in the first place, last week introduced the second amendment insisting parliament being given a meaningful vote on a final Brexit deal. Although his amendment last week won by a substanial margin, Pannick said in the debate Monday night it was now time for the House of Lords to give way to the Commons.

The second amendment was rejected by 274 to 118, finally giving the government the final approval for its Brexit bill.

The focus will now switch to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday to await any announcements about May's timetable to inform Brussels that Brexit Day has arrived.
LONDON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming on Monday spoke highly of the British role in helping build the Belt and Road (B&R) to revive the ancient Silk Road.

In a signed article entitled "Britain is helping us build a new Silk Road" on the Daily Telegraph, Liu said Britain is a country of global influence and can be an important partner for China in B&R.

He said that Britain has many strengths and unique advantages that could give it a head start in B&R cooperation, referring to the country's highly internationalised financial sector, mature professional services in law and consulting, prestigious think tanks and educational institutions as well as world-class R&D and innovation platforms, among others.

He stressed that these strengths and advantages put Britain in an excellent position to secure the opportunities the B&R has to offer.

"China and the UK can continue to advance their respective development strategies in tandem, can expand trade and investment, jointly explore and develop the market along the B&R route, and deliver greater common prosperity," Liu said.

He said that the remarkable opportunities of "Belt and Road" cooperation are now up for grabs.

"With China, Britain can be a key partner, reaping the potential of these opportunities," Liu said. "By ensuring we pull together, the B&R initiative can, like the Silk Road before it, go a long way to delivering better lives for many millions of people, from Asia to Europe."
The logo of Mobileye, an Israeli developer of driverless technologies, is seen on their office building in Jerusalem, on March 13, 2017. U.S. microprocessor giant Intel said Monday that it has agreed to buy Mobileye, an Israeli developer of driverless technologies, for 15.3 billion U.S. dollars, a record sum for an Israeli high-tech firm. (Xinhua/JINI)

SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Intel Corp. and Mobileye N.V. announced Monday an agreement under which the U.S. computer chipmaker would acquire the Israeli self-driving vehicle technology developer for about 15.3 billion U.S. dollars.

Intel, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, said the deal will bring together Mobileye's leading computer vision expertise with Intel's high performance computing and connectivity expertise to create automated driving solutions from cloud to car.

The goal of acquiring the Jerusalem-based company, as the world's largest chipmaker claimed in a press release, is to position Intel to accelerate innovation for automakers and to capture fast-growing market opportunity, estimated to be up to 70 billion dollars by 2030.

Intel hailed Mobileye as a global leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. The deal is expected to be the largest exit in Israel's high-tech industry to date.

"This acquisition is a great step forward for our shareholders, the automotive industry and consumers," said Brian Krzanich, Intel's Chief Executive Officer (CEO). "Together, we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers."

In extending Intel's strategy to invest in data-intensive market opportunities, Krzanich envisions combining his company's technologies for autonomous driving including plotting the car's path and making real-time driving decisions with Mobileye's abilities to bring automotive-grade computer vision and strong momentum with automakers and suppliers.

"We expect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative. It will provide consumers with safer, more flexible, and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers," said Ziv Aviram, Mobileye Co-Founder, President and CEO. "By pooling together our infrastructure and resources, we can enhance and accelerate our combined know-how in the areas of mapping, virtual driving, simulators, development tool chains, hardware, data centers and high-performance computing platforms."

While Intel intends to fund the acquisition with cash from the balance sheet, a subsidiary of the company will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye, listed on the New York Stock Market since 2014, for 63.54 dollars per share in cash, representing an equity value of approximately 15.3 billion dollars and an enterprise value of 14.7 billion dollars.

Already approved by the Intel and Mobileye Boards of Directors, the transaction is expected to close within the next nine months. Enditem
SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Kwabena Boahen, a professor of bioengineering and of electrical engineering at Stanford University, has envisioned a new generation of computers to be brain-like, or neuromorphic, machines that are vastly more efficient than the conventional digital computers.

As conventional computer chips aren't up to the challenges posed by next-generation autonomous drones and medical implants, "we've gotten to the point where we need to do something different," said Boahen, also a member of Stanford Bio-X and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. "Our lab's three decades of experience has put us in a position where we can do something different, something competitive."

The Moore's law, an observation made by Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, has held up pretty well for five decades: roughly every two years, the number of transistors one could fit on a chip doubled, all while costs steadily declined. However, transistors and other electronic components are so small they're beginning to bump up against fundamental physical limits on their size. And there are needs for computing to be ever faster, cheaper and more efficient.

In laying out in the latest issue of Computing in Science and Engineering, Boahen believes that the future is now.

While others have built brain-inspired computers, Boahen was quoted as saying in a news release, he and his collaborators have developed a five-point prospectus for how to build neuromorphic computers that directly mimic in silicon what the brain does in flesh and blood.

The first two points of the prospectus concern neurons themselves, which unlike computers operate in a mix of digital and analog mode. In their digital mode, neurons send discrete, all-or-nothing signals in the form of electrical spikes, akin to the ones and zeros of digital computers. But they process incoming signals by adding them all up and firing only once a threshold is reached - more akin to a dial than a switch.

That observation led Boahen to try using transistors in a mixed digital-analog mode. Doing so, it turns out, makes chips both more energy efficient and more robust when the components do fail, as about 4 percent of the smallest transistors are expected to do. From there, Boahen builds on neurons' hierarchical organization, distributed computation and feedback loops to create a vision of an even more energy efficient, powerful and robust neuromorphic computer.

Over the last 30 years, Boahen's lab has implemented most of their ideas in physical devices, including Neurogrid, one of the first truly neuromorphic computers. In another two or three years, Boahen said, he expects they will have designed and built computers implementing all of the prospectus's five points.

"It's complementary," Boahen said, adding that "it's not going to replace current computers." As most personal computers operate nowhere near the limits on conventional chips, neuromorphic computers would be most useful in embedded systems that have extremely tight energy requirements, such as very low-power neural implants or on-board computers in autonomous drones.
SYDNEY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A total of 21 people were arrested by Australia's Victoria police in a series of raids across Melbourne targeting bikie gangs on Tuesday morning.

A spokesperson for Victoria Police said that drugs and cash were seized in the raids on 26 residential and commercial properties with links to the Comancheros motorcycle gang at 5 a.m. local time.

The raids were part of an operation which began in July 2016 that was investigating the firebombing of Kittens, a nightclub in Melbourne's south-east early in 2016, in addition to a host of other gang-related incidents

"We believe that they are responsible for 21 non-fatal shootings, four arson attacks and serious drug trafficking and firearm related offences," Stephen Fontana, Victoria Police assistant commissioner, told reporters on Tuesday.

"Some stem back to firebombs on Kittens Nightclub in the South Melbourne area.

"As a result of today's operation, it's anticipated up to 21 individuals will be interviewed and charged with serious offences including drug trafficking, criminal damage by fire and a number of drive-by shootings causing injury to others."

The raids were carried out by the Echo Taskforce which was established in 2011 to combat notorious bikie gangs such as the Comancheros.

Doug Fryer, another assistant commissioner, said the raids proved that Victoria would not tolerate criminal activity of the "gangsters in colors."

Police smashed a window and broke a security door at a property in Lyndhurst, south-east of Melbourne's CBD, where two high-end cars were seized.

Neighbor Stephen van Duynhoven told reporters that a man lived in the property with his girlfriend.

"He's a really nice guy, nice girlfriend," Duynhoven told reporters.

He said police had visited the property constantly.

"About three times in the last five, six weeks and that's probably why we didn't think much of it," he said.
MANILA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Twenty aides of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have been sent to Moscow to undergo a training on protecting VIPs or very important persons, a Philippine diplomat said Tuesday.

Philippine Ambassador to Russia Carlos Sorreta said that the 20-man delegation from the Presidential Security Group (PSG) was sent to Moscow from Feb. 27 to March 11 to undergo a VIP protection training program with the Federal Protective Service of Russia.

"This training in Russia is a historic first for the PSG and augurs very well for Philippines-Russia relations," said Sorreta in a statement posted on his Facebook page.

He said the training "is a manifestation of the growing trust and confidence between the two sides which in turn generates positive momentum for deeper cooperation in the field of security and other areas of mutual interest."

He said the capacity-building activity is one of the concrete results of the visit of Nikolay Patrushev, the chairman of the Security Council of Russia, to the Philippines in February.

During his visit, Patrushev met with Duterte, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon to discuss a wide range of bilateral security matters, including defense and security cooperation.

Duterte is scheduled to visit Russia in May this year to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
SYDNEY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Victorian government has announced that it will increase its investment in large-scale energy storage by 500 percent.

Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister for Energy and Environment Lily D'Ambrosio on Tuesday announced the government would invest a further 15 million U.S. dollars in energy storage on top of the 3.7 million dollars already invested.

The announcement, made at Tesla's Australian headquarters in Melbourne, came after the energy storage company unveiled its Powerwall 2 storage device in Melbourne on Thursday.

The funding will be made available to companies focused on developing batteries, pumped hydro or solar thermal technologies with the aim of boosting energy storage capacity in Victoria to 100 megawatts by the end of 2018.

If achieved, the energy storage capacity would be used to power Victorian towns of up to 200,000 people for up to four hours during peak times and avoid power outages.

"Victoria will remain a net exporter of energy, but investments like this will ensure our state stays as one of the most reliable energy producers in the world," Daniel Andrews told reporters.

"Our focus is on keeping Victoria's diverse energy system as affordable, resilient and secure as possible, particularly during peak periods and extreme weather events."

The announcement came as Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, made Australian headlines for offering to resolve the power crisis in South Australia (SA) using similar technology in 100 days.

Musk had a conversation with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull regarding the SA proposal, a conversation Musk described as "very exciting."

D'Ambrosio used the opportunity to call on Turnbull to match Victoria's investment given that the state has received just four percent of national renewable energy funding despite being home to nearly a quarter of the nation's population.

"This investment is about using all the technology available to us to ensure the security and reliability of our energy supply, while creating jobs," D'Ambrosio said.

"Given Malcolm Turnbull's new found interest in energy storage initiatives and the fact that Victoria has so far received only 4 percent of Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) total national funding, we call on Turnbull to match our state's investment in energy storage."
By Will Koulouris

SYDNEY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- World renowned economist and coiner of the term "BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China)" Jim O'Neill has said China's Belt and Road initiative could "completely transform" the global economic outlook for the better.

O'Neill, who visited Sydney last week for an economic forum, spoke to Xinhua late Monday via telephone from his office in London, praising the work of the Chinese government in actioning the Belt and Road initiative.

The initiative, proposed by China in 2013, amis to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

The initiative demonstrates China's rapid progress in becoming the centre of the global economic sphere, the economist said.

"It's one of a number of potential additional trade developments which simply add to my view that the nature of global trade is changing dramatically, and the United States does not dominate in the same way it once did," O'Neill said.

"I think the Belt and Road initiative has the potential to completely transform the economic outlook for those countries that lie between China and Europe, and result in all sorts of exciting things with respect to trade developments for China and many other countries."

China "dominates" global trade, O'Neill said, highlighting recent statistics out of Europe that show that China has become the trading partner of choice for many European nations.

"The most interesting statistic I've seen so far in 2017 was the release of the final German trade data for the whole of last year," O'Neill said.

"It shows that China has become Germany's number one trade partner, if you combine imports and exports, overtaking the United States and France."

One of the "realities" of this "new era" of trade is that China is not only becoming the number one partner of choice for commodity driven nations, but for nations that specialise in premium goods, and a wide range of services, O'Neill said, envisioning close cooperation with China by the United States in terms of continued and robust trade relations.

"As China goes further up the income stream, it's a really good market for the United States to export some of its best products and best businesses to." O'Neill said.

Free trade is crucial to the development of the global economy and O'Neill spoke of his own experiences in the British Parliament, highlighting the need for his native Britain to engage with trading partners around the world, and in particular, China.

"I certainly think for post-Brexit Britain, it's absolutely crucial to be trying to do improve its trade relationships with the likes of China and Asia," O'Neill said.

"I was in the government until last September, and I was in the middle of what seemed to be quite strong, successful efforts to develop the so called golden relationship' with China, and the reason why we did it was because of the potential for British trade and investment relationships with China."

But it is not just trade partnerships that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations are focussed on developing, with global governance and policy consensus crucial to ensuring the social development not only of the member nations, but those they are able to influence for the better.

O'Neill is hopeful that the nations will make even further strides towards becoming bigger influencers on the global scale, despite the understandable challenges they face when bridging cultural and political differences between their countries.

"The very fact they have emerged as a political group is a huge development, and I think in some ways they are still in their infancy," O'Neill said.

The world renowned economist firmly believes, however, that despite the relatively young stage of their partnership, the BRICS nations more than hold their own with the likes of the United States and the European Union in the geopolitical arena.

"They way they have emerged, and the whole advent of the G20 was done to bring the BRICS countries into global governance," O'Neil said.

"So they already are (at that level). I think it's pretty clear."

Looking ahead to the BRICS Summit set to be held in the city of Xiamen in September in China, O'Neill said he would be engaged with representatives to push for the nations to play a more active role in the global health agenda.

"I think they can play a really powerful leadership role there, as well as more conventional things like the state of the world, financial markets, and so on."
SYDNEY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Federal Police (AFP) held a ceremony in Brisbane on Tuesday to announce the retirement of one of its most celebrated canine workers.

Louie, a nine-year-old black labrador, was a drug detection dog with the AFP, who had sniffed out over 20 million dollars (15.1 million U.S. dollars) of illicit drugs since 2009 and over 2.5 million dollars of counterfeit cash.

Australian Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan presided over the ceremony and said that Louie was part of the AFP's team of "Very Good Dogs," who helped to ensure the safety of Australians by stopping the supply of drugs on the streets.

"Louie is one of the first dogs that joined cash and drug detection program in 2009 and he spent eight years protecting Brisbane Airport," Keenan said.

"In his career, Louie has prevented an enormous number of contraband from being transported around the country."

Keenan was quick to point out the capabilities of these dogs with their heightened abilities able to "detect the equivalent of one drop" of illicit substances in a swimming pool.

The minister said that dogs like Louie serve on the front line to protect all Australians. (1 Australian dollar = 0.76 U.S. dollar)
Afghan security force members take part in a military operation in Helmand province, Afghanistan, March 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Abdul Aziz Safdari)

KABUL, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A total of 32 Afghans were set free after army commandos raided a Taliban-run detention center in the southern Helmand province Sunday night, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

"Units of Afghan National Defense and Security Forces raided a Taliban prison in Cha-e-Mirza locality, Nad Ali district Sunday night and released 32 people who had been taken hostage by Taliban from the district and surrounding areas over the past months," the statement said.

Among the released were four policemen, it added.

The freed people were shifted to Shorab Camp, a main Afghan military base in Helmand, before joining their families in the province, 555 km south of Afghanistan's capital of Kabul.

Helmand, notorious for poppy growing, is also a known Taliban stronghold.
BEIRUT, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was invited on Monday to attend a Belt and Road Initiative-related conference slated for April 6 in Beirut, according to a statement by the prime minister's media office.

"We invited Hariri to sponsor the conference and deliver a speech at the opening ceremony," the statement quoted Adnan Kassar, president of the Lebanese Economic Organizations, as saying after his meeting with the prime minister.

During the meeting, Hariri was informed of the upcoming visit of a delegation from the Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce, a non-governmental organization, on April 6-7, the statement said.

"The delegation includes more than 17 persons representing the countries through which the Silk Road passes, in addition to 15 business groups from the People's Republic of China," it noted.

At the request of Kassar, the chamber chose Lebanon as the venue to launch the promotional campaign for its special project for the Arab world.

Lebanon will benefit from the plans developed within the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, particularly its infrastructure projects, Kassar said.

The chamber was established in Hong Kong, China, to promote investment, financial and logistic development, in addition to increasing the trade exchanges among the countries along the Silk Road.
SYDNEY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The chief justice of Papua New Guinea has said that the Manus Island detention centre, holding over 800 refugees, is now closed.

Sir Salamo Injia told the island nation's Supreme Court on Monday that he had accepted a submission made by the Papua new Guinean government to close the centre during a ruling that determined that 166 men that are being held there can now be deported.

More than 800 men who were detained at the facility have not been moved, but rather, have been instructed that they are now residing in what has become a government facility, with Injia declaring that the centre now constituted part of the Lombrum naval base.

"The government of Papua New Guinea complied with the court order and closed the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre (MIRPC)," Injia said.

"The transferees were allowed to move freely in and out of the MIRPC, and later when the MIRPC was shut down completely, they were accommodated at the nearby PNG Defence Force Navy base."

The chief justice went on to outline that both the Australian and the Papua New Guinean governments have in his determination, conducted the refugee screening process in a fair and just manner.

"It would seem unfair, cause great inconvenience and financial hardship and cause prejudice and complicate the rights and obligations of the government of PNG and the government of Australia under domestic and international law, for this court to compel the government of Australia and the government of PNG to do more than their share of meeting their international obligations to help asylum-seekers in addressing their plight." Injia said.
CANBERRA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers seized more than 300 kilograms of illicit drugs and 430 weapons at the nation's airports in 2016, Justice Minister Michael Keenan said Tuesday.

In a release to the media, Keenan said the haul was the biggest in four years.

"Sydney and Melbourne, as the country's busiest airports, accounted for the majority of the drug seizures."

"Stimulants, such as ice, amphetamines and ecstasy, continue to be the most commonly seized drugs. Cocaine was the second most common drug seized, followed by sedatives, opiates and cannabis," he said.

"For the first time in past four years, more than a million dollars was seized at our airports in 2016, far exceeding the past four years cash seizures combined."

Keenan said it was the AFP's K9 units which were critical in stopping hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of illegal cash from hitting the street.

"These statistics show that our multi-pronged approach to securing our borders is working. Keeping illicit drugs and weapons off our streets is one of my highest priorities as the Minister for Justice," he added.
HO CHI MINH CITY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A thermoelectricity complex with an investment of some 5 billion U.S. dollars will be built in Vietnam's southern Long An Province near Ho Chi Minh City.

The Long An Electricity Center, which will consist of at least two coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 2,800 megawatts, is expected to be operational in 2024 to solve power shortage in Vietnam's southern region, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said Tuesday.

The center is estimated to consume nearly 10 million tons of coal a year. Coal will be imported from Australia and Indonesia.

Since the planned location of the thermoelectricity complex is adjacent to Ho Chi Minh City, many officials and residents of the city are afraid that it will cause serious problems like environmental pollution.
Visitors communicate with Chanada A. Gunawardana (R1), deputy project manager of the Colombo Port City Development Project in Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka, Jan. 23, 2017. (Xinhua/Yang Meiju)

SYDNEY, March 14 (Xinhua) -- World renowned economist and coiner of the term "BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China)" Jim O'Neill has said China's Belt and Road initiative could "completely transform" the global economic outlook for the better.

O'Neill, who visited Sydney last week for an economic forum, spoke to Xinhua late Monday via telephone from his office in London, praising the work of the Chinese government in actioning the Belt and Road initiative.

The initiative, proposed by China in 2013, amis to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

The initiative demonstrates China's rapid progress in becoming the centre of the global economic sphere, the economist said.

"It's one of a number of potential additional trade developments which simply add to my view that the nature of global trade is changing dramatically, and the United States does not dominate in the same way it once did," O'Neill said.

"I think the Belt and Road initiative has the potential to completely transform the economic outlook for those countries that lie between China and Europe, and result in all sorts of exciting things with respect to trade developments for China and many other countries."

China "dominates" global trade, O'Neill said, highlighting recent statistics out of Europe that show that China has become the trading partner of choice for many European nations.

"The most interesting statistic I've seen so far in 2017 was the release of the final German trade data for the whole of last year," O'Neill said.

"It shows that China has become Germany's number one trade partner, if you combine imports and exports, overtaking the United States and France."

One of the "realities" of this "new era" of trade is that China is not only becoming the number one partner of choice for commodity driven nations, but for nations that specialise in premium goods, and a wide range of services, O'Neill said, envisioning close cooperation with China by the United States in terms of continued and robust trade relations.

"As China goes further up the income stream, it's a really good market for the United States to export some of its best products and best businesses to." O'Neill said.

Free trade is crucial to the development of the global economy and O'Neill spoke of his own experiences in the British Parliament, highlighting the need for his native Britain to engage with trading partners around the world, and in particular, China.

"I certainly think for post-Brexit Britain, it's absolutely crucial to be trying to do improve its trade relationships with the likes of China and Asia," O'Neill said.

"I was in the government until last September, and I was in the middle of what seemed to be quite strong, successful efforts to develop the so called golden relationship' with China, and the reason why we did it was because of the potential for British trade and investment relationships with China."

But it is not just trade partnerships that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations are focussed on developing, with global governance and policy consensus crucial to ensuring the social development not only of the member nations, but those they are able to influence for the better.

O'Neill is hopeful that the nations will make even further strides towards becoming bigger influencers on the global scale, despite the understandable challenges they face when bridging cultural and political differences between their countries.

"The very fact they have emerged as a political group is a huge development, and I think in some ways they are still in their infancy," O'Neill said.

The world renowned economist firmly believes, however, that despite the relatively young stage of their partnership, the BRICS nations more than hold their own with the likes of the United States and the European Union in the geopolitical arena.

"They way they have emerged, and the whole advent of the G20 was done to bring the BRICS countries into global governance," O'Neil said.

"So they already are (at that level). I think it's pretty clear."

Looking ahead to the BRICS Summit set to be held in the city of Xiamen in September in China, O'Neill said he would be engaged with representatives to push for the nations to play a more active role in the global health agenda.

"I think they can play a really powerful leadership role there, as well as more conventional things like the state of the world, financial markets, and so on."
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A Beijing court has ordered eLong.com, a digital service company, to pay 105,660 yuan (15,278 U.S. dollars) to a customer who booked fake five-star hotels via the site.

Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court upheld its first instance judgement to order the Internet firm to pay three times the customer's booking fee.

The customer, who has only been identified by his surname Li, filed the lawsuit after he found the three hotels that he booked via eLong.com in January 2016 were not five-star hotels as advertized by the site.

Previously, eLong.com had refused to pay a fine of 150,000 yuan issued by the city's industry and commerce department in June 2016 for misleading advertising.

There are 700 million Internet users in China, more than half the population. Travel sites are among the most popular services. China Internet Network Information Center said the online booking business has problems ranging from low price competition, non-standard operation and lack of supervision.
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia will deport some 50 nationals from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) working here with overstayed visas, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Tuesday.

The 50 overstayed DPRK workers, part of the 140 DPRK nationals working in the eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak, came to light after DPRK and Malaysia barred each other's citizens from leaving over the investigation into a dead DPRK man, whom Malaysian police identified as Kim Jong Nam, the elder half brother of DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un. It is reported that the DPRK workers are mainly in businesses including coal mining and construction.

Malaysia will send the DPRK workers with overstayed visas back to Pyongyang, Zahid told reporters at the parliament. He did not elaborate on when and how will the workers be deported.

Those with valid visas can stay, he said, adding that currently there are a total of 315 DPRK nationals in Malaysia.

Zahid said formal talks are ongoing to bring back the nine Malaysians stranded in DPRK. Besides, there are also 191 DPRK nationals under the Malaysia My Second Home program, which allows foreigners to enter and leave Malaysia on a long term stay in Malaysia for up to 10 years.
Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Xiong Bo gives a speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a China-funded national road in southwestern Kampong Speu province, Cambodia, on March 14, 2017. Cambodia on Tuesday broke ground for the construction of a China-funded national road in southwestern Kampong Speu province. (Xinhua/Xue Lei)

KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Tuesday broke ground for the construction of a China-funded national road in southwestern Kampong Speu province.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Xiong Bo presided over the groundbreaking ceremony, which was attended by some 5,000 people.

According to a report by Cambodian Transport Minister Sun Chanthol, the construction of the National Road 51 in the length of 37.9 km was made under the concessional loan of 40.88 million U.S. dollars from the Chinese government.

The 12-meter-wide road connects the National Road 5 to the National Road 4, he said, adding that the China Road and Bridge Corporation undertakes the project which is expected to be completed in March 2020.

Sar Kheng expressed his profound thanks to the government and people of China for having provided grant aid, non-interest loan, and concessional loan to Cambodia for socio-economic development.

"Chinese assistance has greatly contributed to rehabilitating and developing transport infrastructure which is an essential element to boost economic growth and to reduce poverty in Cambodia," he said.

He added that since 2004, China has provided more than 2 billion U.S. dollars in grant aid and concessional loans to Cambodia for the rehabilitation and development of roads, bridges, and ports.

Ambassador Xiong was confident that the road would help facilitate travel and goods transport when it is constructed.

"China is very pleased to increase cooperation with Cambodia, especially under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative," he said.
by Jesse Wieten

THE HAGUE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- One day before the Dutch elections, the Netherlands seems on its way to complete a difficult formation of a broad government coalition excluding the right wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV), experts told Xinhua.

Wednesday's Dutch parliamentary election sees a total of 28 parties bidding for 150 seats in the lower house.

The latest poll by Peilingwijzer showed that the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) (24-28 seats) of current Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the PVV (20-24) were in the lead, followed by the conservative Christian Democrats (CDA)(18-20) and the centrist Democrats 66 (D66)(17-19).

The stakes are high for Rutte's VVD to return as the largest party, although their seats could be well down from 40 in the outgoing lower chamber.

"I'm fighting very hard to win these elections," Rutte told reporters as he campaigned in The Hague on Sunday. "Now we are ahead in the polls, but still I think we should gain some more seats."

According to political historian Koen Vossen and Carla van Baalen, director of the Dutch Center for Parliamentary History, a coalition of the VVD, the CDA, the D66 and one or two more parties is the most likely combination, since the PVV of Dutch far-right populist Geert Wilders has already been excluded by others.

Rutte told media earlier that the chance of cooperation with the PVV is zero percent. Six other parties with over 10 seats in the polls also dismissed the possibility of working together with the anti-Islam and anti-Europe party.

"I do not expect a U-turn from those parties," as they disagreed with the views of the PVV and perceived it as unreliable, said Vossen.

However, ignoring the PVV is not easy, as the far-right party vowing to "de-Islamicize" the Netherlands is gaining momentum.

Wilders kicked off his campaign in mid-February by making the notorious "scum" comment about Moroccan migrants, and has vowed to shut down mosques and pull the Netherlands away from the European Union, or, as he put it, "make the Netherlands ours again."

Although Wilders' remarks have sparked heated controversy both at home and abroad, he is riding high in opinion polls in the final run-up to the election.

According to the latest polls, this one-member party could garner 15.7 percent of the votes from the Netherlands' 12.7 million voters, making this smallest party the country's second largest party.

The PVV's likely win could be a barometer for the spreading power of populism in Europe. The French presidential election will kick off next month, with the far-right Marine Le Pen ahead in a recent poll. In September, Alternative for Germany, an eurosceptic party, is likely to win seats for the first time in the German federal parliament.

But it is also certain that the PVV has virtually no chance of forming a government, given the splintered political landscape.

Even if "the PVV becomes the biggest party, the talks with other parties will be short," said Vossen. "They will not cooperate."

Meanwhile, Vossen did not believe that a revolt by its supporters, as Wilders claimed last year, would happen if the PVV was neglected in negotiations for a future government.

"It is a one-man party. The PVV is Wilders... the party is not organized in such a way as to revolt," Vossen said.

With the exclusion of the PVV, the most important remaining question is which of the three leftist parties -- GroenLinks, the PvdA and the SP -- could work with the VVD, the CDA, and thee D66 to form a government.

"A left-wing government is not realistic," said Van Baalen. "The CDA does not want to be the only right-oriented party sitting in a leftist cabinet."

Apart from the rising far-right populist, Van Baalen noticed that, unlike the election in 2012 which mainly focused on how to pull the country out of the economic crisis, this year featured a multi-themed campaign, with attention split among issues like integration, immigration, education, security, health care and the EU.

Meanwhile, no issue has transcended others.

"It seems the campaign is mainly about the coalition formation," Van Baalen told Xinhua. "About who will govern and who will be the prime minister."

Making a coalition is also a matter of mutual confidence and trust by the related parties as well as others.

The process of government formation could take a few months. The last government formation lasted 54 days, while the Dutch record after the World War II was 208 days.

Although the silhouette of a future government with the VVD, the CDA, the D66 and one or two other parties is already visible, the formation will not be easy at all.

"This time is harder than the previous one," said Van Baalen."Complicated. All parties want to bring something of themselves into a government. The negotiations will be tough."

"This could take a while," said Vossen.
United States Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton speaks at a briefing in Washington D.C. March 13, 2017. The U.S. is pursuing a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China, said Susan Thornton. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The United States is pursuing a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Monday.

"We want to be able to pursue a constructive discussion with China that enables us to get at problem areas and make progress on issues," said U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton at a briefing.

The upcoming visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will focus on "pursuing a results-oriented relationship with China," Thornton added.

"He (Tillerson) will be discussing with Chinese interlocutors all of the various challenges and also areas of cooperation that we are looking to continue to pursue and continue to discuss and make progress on," said Thornton.

According to a previous statement by the State Department, Tillerson will arrive in Beijing on March 18 after visiting Tokyo and Seoul.

"We're going to look for areas that we can expand our cooperation (between the United States and China)," said U.S. State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner on March 7 during the first State Department press briefing since U.S. President Donald Trump took office.
RIYADH, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A Saudi university warned this week its female students of immediate dismissal for imitating men in haircuts and outfits, Okaz local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh sent the warning messages on Monday, while the decision will be enforced staring next month.

The university stressed that the violated students will be suspended immediately without previous warning.

The decision covers women with very short haircuts as such styles are considered by conservative Muslims as a sin for imitating men.

Saudi Arabia follows gender segregation in all walks in life, including education and female students in different education levels study in separate buildings from males.

They are also taught by females, except at universities, while in case of male teachers they are either teach behind partitions or the students should be fully covered.

In 2002, fifteen girls killed in a fire at their school in Mecca when religious police stopped the females from leaving the building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is expected to make "creative" contributions to helping Saudi Arabia realize its "Saudi Vision 2030" plan, Saudi Ambassador to China Turki Bin Mohamed Al-Mady has said.

"Saudi Arabia attaches great importance to China's Belt and Road Initiative," Al-Mady told Xinhua in a recent interview, referring to the initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 aimed at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

"Both countries have great potential, whether in infrastructure construction or in financial innovation," he added.

In a bid to diversify its heavily oil-dependent economy, Saudi Arabia announced a "Saudi Vision 2030" growth strategy last year, which includes privatizing some state-owned companies.

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud will pay a state visit to China from Wednesday to Saturday after Xi paid a state visit to Saudi Arabia in January 2016, during which both nations agreed to lift their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

During the king's visit, the two sides will discuss enhancing cooperation in areas such as culture, economy, trade, technology, security and defense. They are expected to sign several agreements and memoranda on education, investment, transfer of technology, industry and trade.

"The king's visit shows that China and Saudi Arabia enjoy a close relationship and share broad common interests," the ambassador said.

"The good relations between China and Saudi Arabia are vigorous, fruitful and pragmatic, and are continuing to move forward," Al-Mady said, adding that he believes "the visit will further consolidate the fruits both countries have yielded."

In recent years, with great complementarity in their industrial structures and wide common interests in economy and trade, the two countries have furthered cooperation in such fields as energy, trade, investment and infrastructure construction.

In 2015, China became Saudi Arabia's largest trade partner and Saudi Arabia has been China's biggest crude oil supplier and largest trade partner in West Asia and Africa for years.

The two countries have seen a sound development of bilateral ties since they established diplomatic ties in 1990, the ambassador said, hailing the China-Saudi Arabia relationship as a paradigm of bilateral relations.

"Observing the development model of the China-Saudi Arabia relations in the past 26 years, we've found that bilateral ties have always enjoyed positive development and this is unique," he said. "We hope such momentum can be maintained."

"During the king's visit, the two countries will discuss counter-terrorism," Al-Mady said. "Both nations have common understanding about anti-terrorism and the elimination of the origin of terrorism. They are trustworthy and responsible partners in this area."

Besides, the ambassador highlighted the importance of cooperation in the spheres of education and culture, saying that "it should be conducted in parallel with bilateral economic and trade exchanges."

"In the past several years, Saudi Arabia successfully held dialogues between youth delegations from the two countries in Beijing, and it is trying to cooperate with National Museum of China to hold activities to attract more Chinese tourists," he said.

He said the two countries have also witnessed academic and technological cooperation between universities and exchanges between students.

"Saudi Arabia is one of the first countries that have responded positively to the (Road and Belt) initiative," he said. "In terms of strategic location, Saudi Arabia serves as the central hub connecting three continents -- Asia, Africa and Europe, and has been an important part of the initiative."

Al-Mady said he hopes Saudi Arabia can play a more central and positive role in promoting the initiative in the future, so as to strengthen the in-depth integration of the initiative and the "Saudi Vision 2030."

The ambassador also praised the "two sessions" -- the annual gatherings of China's national legislature and political advisory body -- held in Beijing this month.

"It's a natural thing for us to attach great importance to the 'two sessions' since China has become the engine of the global economy and plays a key role in international affairs. I expect the meetings will achieve fruitful results and thus benefit China and all other countries in the world."
SEOUL, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Kim Kwan-jin, top security adviser to ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye, will visit the United States for two days from Wednesday, the presidential Blue House said Tuesday.

During his travel, Kim will meet with U.S. national security adviser Herbert McMaster to discuss countermeasures toward nuclear and missile threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The planned visit comes after Park vacated the Blue House on Sunday night and headed for her private home in a southern district of Seoul.

Park was permanently removed from office on March 10 as the constitutional court unanimously upheld the bill to impeach her.

Kim and McMaster held telephone talks on March 1 when the annual U.S.-South Korea springtime war game was launched.

During the talks, they agreed to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in southeast South Korea as scheduled to brace for what they said was nuclear and missile threats from the DPRK.

China and Russia have strongly opposed the THAAD installation, as it breaks regional strategic balance and damages security interests of the two countries.

Two mobile launchers and part of the THAAD battery arrived in South Korea last week and were transported to an unknown base of the U.S. Forces Korea. THAAD is composed of six mobile launchers, 48 interceptors, an X-band radar and a fire and control unit.

The THAAD battery, which Seoul and Washington agreed in July last year to install, is forecast to be deployed as early as next month.
VLADIVOSTOK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Russia's Pacific Fleet has recently conducted naval drills in the Sea of Japan, with the participation of anti-submarine destroyers, the Russian military said Tuesday.

"Anti-submarine corvette crews on the Ust-Ilimsk and the Sovetskaya Gavan vessels have completed tasks to search for and detect an improvised enemy submarine. They successfully destroyed it with bombs and torpedoes," said Vladimir Matveev, spokesman for the Eastern Military District.

Apart from destroying the simulated target submarine, warship crews also carried out live firing involving naval and air targets and other tasks on board, he added.
The closing meeting of the fifth session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

Hi, here's what you need to know about China!

BEIJING -- Political advisors nationwide whole-heartedly uphold the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core, Chinese top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng said Monday.

Yu made the remarks at the closing meeting of the fifth session of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee. xhne.ws/l1Gly

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BEIJING -- National lawmakers have filed 514 bills with the secretariat of the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), an official said Monday.

According to Kong Ping, an official with the secretariat, 492 of the bills deal with legislation, 16 with NPC supervision and six with other issues. xhne.ws/iSPhG

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BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and British Prime Minister Theresa May exchanged congratulatory messages Monday on the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level between China and Britain.

Over the past 45 years, mutual integration of interests between China and Britain has kept deepening, with plenty of achievements made in mutually beneficial cooperation, while people-to-people and cultural contacts between the two countries have become increasingly closer, practically in the interest of the two peoples, Li said in his congratulatory message. xhne.ws/l9Iyc

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HARBIN -- Rescue workers have found the bodies of 17 coal miners trapped underground after an accident in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on March 9, local authorities said Monday.

The miners were in a cage which fell when its electric cable burned through at Dongrong Second Mine of the Shuangyashan branch of Longmay Mining Holding Group on Thursday afternoon. xhne.ws/AwoaM

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HANGZHOU -- Boeing and Chinese aviation manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd.(COMAC) will start to build a Boeing 737 completion center in eastern China's Zhoushan city at the end of March, scheduled to make its first delivery in 2018.

This is Boeing's first overseas facility as part of its 737 production system, and designed to deliver 100 Boeing 737 planes a year. xhne.ws/e3b1X

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BEIJING -- China's participation in a meeting among countries signed up for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and South Korea shows its resolve to promote free trade, especially at a time of sluggish global economic recovery coupled with growing protectionism.

The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in the coastal Chilean town of Vina del Mar, is the first such gathering after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 12-Pacific-rim-nation free trade deal in January. xhne.ws/0qUwY


BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The State Council on Tuesday announced the appointment and removal of several senior officials.

Sun Shaocheng was appointed vice minister of civil affairs, and Ye Jianchun was named vice minister of water resources.

Fu Ziying was appointed deputy international trade representative with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and vice minister of commerce, while Zhong Shan was removed from the post of deputy international trade representative with the MOC.

Zeng Yixin was appointed deputy head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, replacing Liu Qian.

The State Council appointed Zhang Wufeng as director of the State Administration of Grain.

Liu Haixing was removed from the post of assistant minister of foreign affairs and Kong Changsheng no longer holds the post of vice minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
SINGAPORE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Resale prices for Singapore's non-landed private residential flats rose 0.9 percent in February month-on-month, according to estimates released by Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX Property) on Tuesday.

The rise applied across all locations in February month-on-month. Resale prices for downtown area, city fringe and suburban area rose by 1.0 percent, 0.8 percent and 0.9 percent respectively on a month-on-month basis.

Year on year, SRX Property said resale prices for Singapore's non-landed private homes in February were up 1.8 percent compared to February 2016.

As for volume, an estimated 694 non-landed private residential units were resold in February, a 31.2 percent increase from the 529 units resold in January 2017. While on a year-on-year basis, resale volume in January was 77.9 percent higher compared to 390 units resold in the same period last year.

Compared with the peak in April 2010, resale volume was down by 66.1 percent compared to the 2,050 units resold at that time.

The overall median Transaction Over X-Value (TOX), which measures whether people are overpaying or underpaying SRX Property's estimated market value, decreased from -4,000 Singapore dollars (-2,826 U.S. dollars) in January to -10,000 Singapore dollars (-7,065.14 U.S. dollars) in February.

Private homes are those developed by private developers. About 80 percent of the resident households in Singapore live in public housing units built and sold by the government. The private homes are typically more expensive than public housing units.
MANILA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A notorious sub-leader of the Abu Sayyaf group was killed after resisting arrest of the military and police in Tawi-Tawi, an island province in northern Philippines on Tuesday.

Buchoy Hassan, also known as Black or Bocoi, was neutralized following a law enforcement operation launched by the Joint Task Force Tawi-Tawi and the police at his residence in Barangay Panglima Alari, Sitangkai, the military said.

Further recovered by troops in the residence of the Abu Sayyaf sub-leader were one M16 rifle, five speedboats and several outboard motors.

Hassan, 48, is one of the wanted in Malaysia for his involvement in the abduction of a Chinese at the Pom Pom Island Resort in Sabah in November 2013. Hassan's possible involvement in the kidnapping cannot be discounted and is being looked into.

He was reportedly dwelling in Barangay Panglima Alari, Sitangkai, where he used his share from ransom payment for his illegal drugs "shabu" operations in the municipalities of Sibutu, Sipangkot and Bongao, all in Tawi-Tawi.

Hassan recruited cohorts and acquired several speedboats to sustain his illegal activities and became the key facilitator in the illegal drugs trade in Tawi-Tawi.

"We are continuously conducting law enforcement support operations to assist the police and other law enforcement agencies in expediting the arrest of notorious members of the kidnap-for ransom group and in pre-empting kidnapping attempts in the province," said Major General Carlito Galvez Jr., commander of the Western Mindanao Command.

"We would also like to urge local leaders and communities to continue reporting whereabouts of these lawless elements especially Abu Sayyaf members to competent authorities," he added.

The Abu Sayyaf bandits executed a German hostage in the jungles of Sulu last month, who was abducted in November last year while yachting with his partner off Sabah in Malaysia. His partner was found killed last year.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the military to launch an all-out offensive against the estimated 500 Abu Sayyaf bandits operating mostly in the hinterlands of southern Philippine provinces of Sulu and Basilan.
JAKARTA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian and South Korean investment agencies signed on Tuesday a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at jointly promoting investment.

The document was signed by heads of Indonesian Investment agency (BKPM) and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) during the Indonesia-Korea Business Summit held here.

"The MoU would pave the way for South Korean and Indonesian firms in developing their businesses in the two countries," head of BKPM Thomas Lembong said when addressing the summit.

The joint investment promotion was highly expected to boost investments in sectors identified to be vibrant in both countries, including manufacture, infrastructure, tourism, connectivity, information technology, e-commerce and creative economy.

Besides joint promotion, the MoU also covers exchange agreement on information, publication materials, market research and cultural understanding between the two countries.

South Korea is Indonesia's third largest investor nation after Singapore and Japan. The nation's investments in Indonesia were recorded at 7.5 billion U.S. dollars from 2012 to 2016, consisted of 7,607 projects across Indonesia.

South Korea is among Indonesia's largest trade partners with two-way trade value of 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 80 percent of shoppers would like their e-payment records to be accepted as proof for refunds or exchanges, according to a newspaper survey.

Paper shopping receipts in China are usually regarded as the only evidence for refunds and exchanges. However, such receipts are easy to lose and consumers sometimes forget to ask for them.

As mobile phone payments grow in popularity nationwide, it would be more convenient for consumers to use their e-payment records as proof.

The survey, published by the China Youth Daily on Tuesday, said that of 2,000 respondents, 70 percent of people said that they had lost shopping receipts when they needed a refund or exchange, and only 16.2 percent of people regularly ask for a receipt when shopping.

Liu Junhai, professor with the Renmin University of China, said that "there is no legal ground for shopping receipts as the only evidence for refunds or exchanges."

Business owners should offer refunds or exchanges as long as consumers have proof of buying items there, Liu added.

According to a report by the Internet Network Information Center, 469 million people used their phones to pay for things in China in 2016.

In a report released by the Legal Daily in advance of World Consumer Rights Day on March 15, known as "3.15" in China, industry experts warned consumers about buying luxury goods through overseas purchasing agents.

Zhang Chen, chief examiner of luxury goods with the China Resale Goods Trade Association (CRGTA), said that 60 percent of luxury items sent to the CRGTA for authentication and bought via an overseas purchasing agent were fake.

Zhang suggested consumers be cautious and use professional services for authenticating their luxury goods.
WELLINGTON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Water campaigners on Tuesday demanded the New Zealand government suspend exports of drinking water in a series of protests around the country.

A 15,000-name petition calling for a moratorium on freshwater exports was being presented to Parliament by Bung the Bore, the group behind the rallies.

"In many parts of our country people are struggling to access clean safe water, yet at the same time billions of liters are being given away to private companies for nothing," Bung the Bore founder Jen Branje said.

Seventy-four bottling plants around the country had permits to take fresh water to bottle and sell overseas, with more consents awaiting approval, she said.

"These bottling companies pay as little as 500 NZ dollars (345 U.S. dollars) to local councils to take billions of liters of this precious resource and consent for this exploitation is often given with no public consultation at all."

The issue gained public traction last year when it was revealed that Ashburton District Council, on the east of the South Island, had started making deals to sell the right to extract 40 billion liters of artesian water to a bottled water company.

"The residents of our town were on water restrictions and our council was going behind their backs to sell off the district's most pure water. We stood up and said this is not right," said Branje.

The deal was shut down by pressure from the public and the work of Bung the Bore.

"We've come to Parliament to demand that it stops until there is acceptable legislation in place to make sure that people and their environment are protected over private profiteering," she said.

However, the government rejected proposals for any extra costs on water exports.

Environment Minister Nick Smith reportedly said in Parliament that 9 million liters of bottled water was exported each year - a fraction of the trillions of liters of water in New Zealand's lakes, rivers and streams.

He also said any charges on bottled water would create anomalies as other users - such as farmers and manufacturers - would have no extra costs.

However, opposition lawmakers said Smith's figures were misleading as they took into account all available freshwater, including floodwater, while drinkable freshwater was scarce.

The opposition New Zealand First party has backed calls for royalties to be imposed on bottled water exports.

"It is economic folly and a slap in the face to New Zealanders for mainly foreign-owned companies to be allowed to export our water and sell it at a profit, when the nation receives nothing in return," New Zealand First spokesperson for primary industries Richard Prosser said.
HANOI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's catfish exports have experienced a "hot growth" of 24.2 percent-88.7 percent in the past five years, official statistics showed on Tuesday.

In 2016, the country exported 304.7 million U.S. dollars worth of catfish to Chinese market, up 4.17 times over five years ago, reported local Vietnam Economic Times (VET) on Tuesday.

The fact that Vietnam's catfish export revenue to China in 2016 almost doubled that of 2015 signals an opportunity and a good compensation as local firms are countering obstacles in other markets like the United States and the European Union (EU).

The demand of catfish consumption in restaurants, hotels, schools, companies in China is hiking, said VET.

China is seen as a potential alternative market for Vietnamese catfish exporters in the coming years, said local analysts. At the same time, local firms also said Chinese market possesses a plenty of potentials and opportunities. Catfish prices in Chinese market stood higher than those in the EU sometimes.

Accordingly, the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department under Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will grant certificates for export batches.

"It is obvious that huge consumption in China's market is opening up more opportunities for Vietnamese catfish exporting companies and makes up a gap resulting from difficulties in other markets," said Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers.
RABAT, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri, denounced on Tuesday the Dutch government's "strained" treatment of Turkish officials.

Altwaijri deemed the treatment of the Turkish ministers as at odds with the Vienna Convention, and a deviation from the diplomatic and ethical norms governing relations between states, ISESCO in a statement on Tuesday.

ISESCO Director General also said that such act is unbecoming of a state claiming to be a defender of human rights and democracy and would only fuel extremism, racism and Islamophobia in the Dutch society, the statement added.
MANILA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine Senate ratified the Paris global climate agreement on Tuesday, making the Philippines an official signatory to the historic pact.

With a vote of 22-0, the Senate unanimously voted in favor of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the world's first comprehensive climate agreement that commits government to moving away from the fossil fuels.

"Wherefore, be it resolved, that the Philippine Senate concur, as it hereby concurs, in the Philippine accession to the Paris Agreement," said Senator Loren Legarda, the lawmaker that sponsored the Senate Resolution 320.

Legarda said the Senate's concurrence "will send a strong signal of our continuing commitment to work with the rest of the world in ensuring the survival of this generation and the generation to come and ability of the Earth to sustain life."

"Even as we complete the process, we are already moving forward in our efforts to combat climate change impacts," she added.

On Feb. 28, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed the climate pact. After Duterte affixed his signature, the "Instrument of Accession" was submitted to the Senate for concurrence.

The "Instrument of Accession" is a document signifying the Philippines' ratification of the climate change pact. Senate concurrence is the final step in the ratification process.

The pact is the first-ever legally-binding global agreement signed by 194 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December.

The Philippines has promised to cut carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2030, even if the country is not a major emitter.

Duterte, who took office in June last year, was reluctant to sign the Paris pact, saying the agreement is tilted in favor of the industrialized nations.

The pact was signed during the previous administration of President Benigno Aquino.
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) will hold its closing meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday morning.

The NPC will vote on the government work report and the draft general provisions of the civil law.

After the closing meeting, Premier Li Keqiang will meet the press at the Great Hall of the People.
HANOI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Around 66 percent of surveyed Vietnamese firms had to pay "informal fees" during 2014-2016 period, some 12-15 percentage points higher than during 2008-2013 period, a report on Vietnam's Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) 2016 showed Tuesday.

According to the report released by Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), some 9-11 percent of Vietnamese firms said the fees accounted for over 10 percent of their total revenues, much higher than that of 6-8 percent during the previous period.

In addition, "the fact that local companies still faced harassment when dealing with business procedures remains popular," said Dau Anh Tuan, head of VCCI's Legal Department at the launch of the report.

In 2016, some 58 percent of Vietnamese companies said they faced the situation.

Another worrying trend is lack of transparency, said Tuan, adding that the survey showed that personal relationship with public servants continues to play an important role in the companies' access to critical information and documents for their production and business activities.

Last year, some 66 percent of the companies said they had to use private relations to access information, 16 percentage points higher than the record low level in 2008, said the VCCI on its website.

The PCI is an annual business survey, assessment and ranking of the economic governance quality of provincial authorities, issued by the VCCI in coordination with U.S. Agency for International Development's Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative (VNCI) since 2004.
JUBA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- South Sudanese rebels on Monday revealed that they will only negotiate with the Indian government over the release of two Indian oil workers captured last week at Guelguk in the northern Upper Nile region.

South Sudan People's Liberation Army- in Opposition (SPLA-IO) spokesman Colonel William Gatjiath who admitted holding the oil workers told Xinhua late Monday that they preferred negotiations with the Indian government.

"We need Indian government to come down and negotiate with us in our (Pagak) headquarters," he said.

Pagak is located near the Ethiopian border and used to host high command meetings of the SPLA-IO led by rebel leader and former first vice president Riek Machar who has been exiled in South Africa after fleeing the renewed July clash in 2016.

Information Minister Michael Makuei earlier ruled out any negotiations with the SPLA-IO whom he accused of demanding 1 million U.S dollars in ransom for the abducted oil workers.

"The government of South Sudan will not pay anybody (SPLA-IO). This will encourage terrorism," Makuei revealed on Monday, and instead demanded for unconditional release of the oil workers.

But it remains to be seen if the Indian government will give in to the rebel demands, after the South Sudanese Minister of Petroleum Ezekiel Gatkuoth having disclosed that the latter had left the Juba government to deal with the situation.

"The Indian government told us they are not going to get enter into this," Gatkuoth said.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013, following political dispute between president Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar resulting in killing of tens of thousands and displacement of more than two million.

However, renewed July fighting in 2016 threatened to tear apart the fragile 2015 peace agreement to end the conflict.
NAIROBI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Telecommunication firms (telcos) across Africa are maximizing their return on investment from data and on monetizing emerging opportunities such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to remain competitive and afloat, experts at a global research firm said on Tuesday.

George Kalebaila, research director for telecommunications, media, and IoT at International Data Corporation (IDC) said this is due to increasing levels of competition that is forcing them to seek new methods to stem the steady decline of traditional voice services.

"We expect to see greater market consolidation as telcos increase their efforts to acquire smaller ISPs in response to the challenging marketing conditions," Kalebaila said in a statement released in Nairobi.

He said market consolidation which is mainly in West Africa is being driven by heightened market saturation, declining average revenues per user (ARPUs), increasing operating expenditure, and diminishing profit margins on services.

"As such, IDC expects some consolidation within the market, especially between local ISPs that possess 4G LTE frequencies and fibre-to-the-x (FTTX) infrastructure and multinational telcos with solid financial support," Kalebaila said.

In markets where 4G adoption is already gaining traction, discussions around fifth-generation network technology (5G) will take center stage, creating awareness and bringing the possibilities and expectations of future data networks to the forefront.

"IDC expects vendors to focus on the higher bandwidth 5G offers and the technology's potential ability to support emerging services such as IoT, seamless video on demand or IPTV, drone video recording, smart city solutions, and virtual reality applications," said Kalebaila.

"We also expect 5G to deliver gigabit connections that enable the seamless delivery of rich multimedia services and applications," he said.

Kalebaila said that telcos that take concrete steps to transform themselves internally will be best positioned to survive digital disruption.

"The key focus areas in 2017 will include business model transformation and network efficiency improvements using so-called '3rd Platform' technologies, namely cloud, big data, mobility and social business," he said.

According to IDC, as competition continues to increase in Africa's more mature telecom and IT markets, the need to attract and retain customers through differentiation has become imperative.

This, the expert said, means that telcos must move beyond traditional connectivity offerings and provide IT services such as unified communications and collaboration, cloud, and datacenter services.
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang will pay an official visit to the Philippines from March 16 to 19 at the invitation of the government of the Republic of the Philippines, said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.

During his visit, Wang will meet Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and hold talks with the economic leadership team of the country, spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a routine press briefing.

Wang will attend the opening ceremony of China-ASEAN tourism cooperation year and deliver a speech to a China-Philippines economic and trade forum, Hua said.

Wang's visit will move the China-Philippines strategic and cooperative relationship for peace and development forward, Hua said.
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese central bank's yuan outstanding for foreign exchange continued to decline in February, but at a slower pace.

The funds declined 58.1 billion yuan (around 8.4 billion U.S. dollars) in February to 21.7 trillion yuan, data from the People's Bank of China showed Tuesday.

It was the 16th straight month of decline, but the decrease was less than 209 billion yuan registered in January.

As the Chinese currency is not freely convertible under the capital account, the central bank has to purchase foreign currency generated by China's trade surplus and foreign investment in the country, adding funds to the money market.

China's outstanding foreign exchange reserve stood at a little more than 3 trillion dollars by the end of February, still the largest foreign exchange reserve stockpile in the world.
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Petronas, Malaysia's state oil and gas company, registered a net profit of 23.5 billion ringgit (5.28 billion U.S. dollars) in the year of 2016, a 12-percent rise than the previous year, though its revenues for the year dipped by 17 percent to 204.9 billion ringgit.

Describing 2016 as "one of the most challenging years in recent history," Petronas President and CEO Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin told a press conference on Tuesday that Brent prices further declined to below 30 U.S. dollars per barrel in early 2016 before averaging 44 U.S. dollars per barrel for the year, as opposed to 52 U.S. dollars per barrel in 2015.

He said better margins were due to a series of restructuring measures, such as a plan to slash capital expenditure and costs by 50 billion ringgit from 2016 to 2019. The restructuring plan also included a "manpower optimisation" plan, which saw 2,300 of its employees affected, said Wan Zulkiflee.

For the last quarter of 2016, Petronas realized a net profit of 11.3 billion ringgit, compared with a loss of 2.96 billion ringgit in the same period of 2015.

Wan Zulkiflee said he was not sure "whether the worst is over or not," adding oil prices in 2017 will remain uncertain though picking up a little bit lately.

As the only Fortune 500 company of Malaysia, Petronas said it would pay 13 billion ringgit to the Malaysian government. Wan Zulkiflee refused to confirmed whether the number was the lowest level since 2007, but said it varies from year to year as Petronas discuss with the Malaysian government.

The company said it is still studying the conditions on the Pacific Northwest LNG project set out by the Canadian government before announcing its next move.

As for the joint refinery project in Pengerang in the southern state of Johor, in which Saudi Aramco will invest 7 billion U.S. dollars, Petronas said progress is nearly 60 percent by February.
DAMASCUS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- An explosive device ripped through a passenger bus in Syria's Homs city in central Syria on Tuesday, leaving unknown number of casualties, a source in the Homs governor office told Xinhua.

The source said that an explosive device ripped through a passenger bus at the Muwasalat roundabout in the Wadi Aldahab neighborhood, near an amusement park.

Wadi Aldahab is a pro-government neighborhood in Homs, as it's largely inhabited by people of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to whom the ruling elite in Syria belongs.

Last month, six suicide bombers detonated themselves in two security headquarters in Homs, killing at least 42 people, mostly security personnel.

At the time, the the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front claimed responsibility of the series of the deadly bombings that rocked Homs.

The military commander of the Nusra Front Abu Muhammad Al-Jolani said in a video message last month that the bombings that targeted the security centers in Homs "were only the beginning of more attacks with different means, including the suicide bombings."

He added that the bombings are a lesson to the "defeated politicians" whether in Geneva, or those who participated in the Syrian talks in Astana last month.

"We hope this action (bombings) has washed the shame of the opposition meeting in Geneva," he said.

Moreover, the Nusra Front had also carried out deadly bombings in the capital Damascus on Saturday, killing 74 people and wounded tens of others.

The bombings targeted busses carrying Shiite Iraqis who were said to had been on pilgrim trip to Shiite Shrines in the Shagour neighborhood in Damascus.

The Nusra Front, which recently changed its name to the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or the Front for Conquering the Levant, has been designated as a terrorist group by the international community.

The group, regardless of its names, was also excluded, along with the Islamic State (IS) group, from any political settlement or the currently-underway ceasefire, which explains its aggressive reactions.

Tuesday's bombing coincides with the third round of Syrian talks in Astana, where representative of the government and the rebel groups are set to meet under the supervision of Turkey and Russia.
WINDHOEK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's former Health Minister, Richard Kamwi says that expanding the reach of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa is necessary towards global efforts to end the epidemic.

In a statement from the British High Commission and Wilton Park on Tuesday, Kamwi echoed the sentiments to regional experts who were in Namibia from March 8-10 to discuss sub-Saharan Africa HIV prevention response.

Participants at the event managed to identify opportunities to deliver prevention to key populations, to overcome existing barriers and to ensure prevention can be prioritized while treatment for HIV continues to be scaled-up, according to the statement.

Namibia's First Lady, Monica Geingos, UNAIDS Special Advocate for Young Women and Adolescent Girls, who was also present, spoke about the need to find the places and language to engage with those at risk of HIV, the BE FREE campaign in Namibia, and the success of developing smart partnerships for greater impact.

Executive Director of the African Sex Workers Alliance, Daughtie Ogutu, said the meeting provided a much-needed regional forum to learn and share how health systems are using new approaches to successfully bring HIV prevention to those who suffer the highest.

"We will never end HIV without dramatically escalating efforts to preventing HIV among key populations," he added.

Currently sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly 70 percent of all people living with HIV and remains the region most affected by HIV globally.
NAIROBI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Tuesday urged Africa to leverage on technology in order to boost intra-Africa trade.

Ministry of Industry, Trade and Co-operatives Principal Secretary Dr Chris Kiptoo told a regional forum in Nairobi that technology will help to improve the speed and efficiency of border procedures, thereby reducing trade costs and enhancing cross border trade.

"The share of intra-African trade remains low compared to intraregional trade in other parts of the world and so unlocking Africa's full economic potential would require deployment of technology," Kiptoo said.

He noted that as of last year, 69 percent of exports of European nations were to other countries on the continent while in Asia, that figure stood at 52 percent and in North America at 50 percent while Africa had the lowest level of intra-regional trade, at just 18 percent.

Kiptoo made the remarks during the official opening of the African Alliance for e-commerce (AAEC) 14th Executive Committee and the eighth General Assembly meetings.

AAEC is committed to enable Africa to leverage on e-commerce for sustainable growth. Kiptoo said that technology can be used to unlock the continent's trade potential by transforming customs processes and trade logistics.

"As a country, Kenya is gradually doing away with the manual and time consuming cargo clearance procedures at its borders and ports which are often associated with inefficiency, corruption, revenue leakages and costly delays," Kiptoo said.

He said that Kenya has put a premium on the use of Information Communication Technology to promote Africa's cross border and international trade.

"As a country we are committed to the total transformation of Africa's trade practices and we will continue to actively champion intra-Africa trade," he added.

The East African nation is currently reforming its trade practices and processes in order to make them more responsive to modern realities for global competitiveness.
NAIROBI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's health ministry said on Tuesday that it will roll out the new HIV intervention measure dubbed Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP).

The Head of the National AIDS and STI Control Programme (NASCOP) Martin Sirengo said the new HIV intervention measure will be rolled out in the country from April and will involve the use of PrEP among people who are HIV negative but who face the risk of contracting the disease.

"When you are on PrEP you must arm yourself with other preventive measures because no one method is 100 per cent effective," he said in a statement released by the ministry of health on Monday night.

"If you engage in sex with multiple partners please use condoms. This method is being introduced as part of a package of services; don't use it as the magic bullet," he cautioned.

The intervention seeks to lower the country's HIV transmission rate by administering oral antiretroviral medication (ARVs) to HIV negative individuals who face a substantial risk of contracting HIV.

These include HIV negative individuals in serodiscordant relationships (where one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative); people who frequently contract Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs); individuals who are unable to negotiate condom use and safe sex in situations of repeated sexual or gender based violence; people who frequently use Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) as well as HIV-negative injecting drug users.

Rigorous assessment criteria will be used to determine those who qualify for treatment with PrEP only being administered to individuals who are above 15 years of age and who are HIV negative.

They will also be screened for kidney disease and Hepatitis B and C. Those who have pre-existing kidney disease will not qualify for PrEP while those who have Hepatitis B or C will be placed on specific medication.

Kenya becomes the second country in Africa, after South Africa, to roll out PrEP. However, it is widely used in developed countries. This has been necessitated by the rate of new HIV infections in the country.

In 2015, Kenya reported 77,600 new HIV infections. Out of these, 71,000 were found to be in people aged 15 and above.

Sirengo cautioned users to combine PrEP with other preventive interventions like use of condoms and male circumcision to further reduce the risk of acquiring HIV.

He added that for PrEP to be effective users will have to take a pill every day and will be monitored on a regular basis. They shall also be required to take an HIV test every three months. In the unlikely event that they acquire HIV while on PrEP, they will be placed on ARVs.

"PrEP will be available for free in select public health facilities with the government spending between 60 U.S. dollars to 70 dollars on one individual per year. The government is similarly working on the modalities of catering for free kidney and liver tests," Sirengo said.

PrEP takes seven days to be effective and users should continue taking it for as long as they are at risk. The intervention measure works by preventing HIV from getting into the cells and multiplying.

Individuals who engage in transactional sex and other high risk behaviour are advised to go for an HIV test every three months. It is otherwise recommended that one gets an HIV test at least once a year.
COLOMBO, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it was monitoring the alleged hijacking of a Sri Lankan flagged fuel freighter by Somali pirates and was in touch with shipping agents and concerned authorities.

"The ministry is aware of media reports regarding the alleged hijacking of a reportedly "Sri Lankan-flagged fuel freighter" by pirates," the Foreign Ministry said.

"The ministry is taking action to verify the alleged incident, and initial inquiries have revealed that while the vessel involved is not registered under a Sri Lankan flag, it has a 8-member Sri Lankan crew," it added.

The ministry further said it continued to remain in touch with the shipping agents, concerned authorities, as well as relevant Sri Lanka missions overseas to ascertain further information on the matter in order to ensure the safety and welfare of the Sri Lankan crew.

"Therefore, as and when confirmed information regarding the alleged incident becomes available, the ministry will share information in a manner that would not be prejudicial to the safety of the crew."

Foreign media reports said on Tuesday that Somali pirates were suspected of hijacking the Sri Lankan-flagged fuel freighter that sent a distress call, turned off its tracking system and altered course for the Somali coast, according to a piracy expert.

The Aris 13 was believed to be carrying eight crew, said John Steed of the aid group Oceans Beyond Piracy.

Aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship's progress and try to determine what was happening, he said.

The 1,800 deadweight ton Aris 13 is owned by Panama company Armi Shipping and managed by Aurora Ship Management in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Equasis shipping data website, managed by the French Transport Ministry.
WASHINGTON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Coral reefs are facing a serious bleaching crisis, but there's hope on the horizen. Scientists are using 3D-printing technology to print artificial reefs resembling the texture and architectural structure of their natural counterparts.

Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau and founder of Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center, and his team have been working on a 3D-printed reef project to replicate natural reefs in the Caribbean.

"We're experimenting with building coral out of what coral is made of," Cousteau told science magazine Popular Mechanism.

His team conducted the experiment by putting 3D-printed reefs on the ocean floor near the Caribbean island of Bonaire.

If the fake reefs successfully trick fishes and even baby coral polyps to inhabit and multiply, this technology can be spread to rehabilitate the fragile coral reef ecosystems in other areas.

Similar experiments are in progress in many other regions.

Dutch maritime company Boskalis is working on a restoration project for Monaco and has printed six reefs to be submerged in the Monaco Larvotto Reserve. The company will then monitor these artificial reefs for two years to see how much of the marine life that occupied the natural reef returns.

"It is an interesting step forward, in terms of putting something back that is really reflective of what was there originally," said Ruth Gates, a marine scientist at the University of Hawaii. "I think it's great."

Coral bleaching is a process in which coral colonies lose their vivid color, which happens when the water is too warm for the microscopic algae living in the organisms.

Australian scientists surveyed the Great Barrier Reef last month and surprisingly found that about a fourth of its coral has been killed off due to a massive bleaching event last year.

Scientists predicted that more than 90 percent of coral will die by 2050 even if the world could halt global warming now.
by Xinhua writers Liu Xin and Li Na

BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Lu Yu of the Sino-U.S. Times newspaper is covering China's annual national legislative and political consultative sessions. He tries to actively participate in every press conference and open panel discussion.

Lu has asked questions to the State Council Leading Group Office for Poverty Alleviation and Development director Liu Yongfu, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Zhang Mao, head of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

Lu is not alone. Beijing is swarming with journalists reporting on the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) and the fifth session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). According to the press center, this year's sessions have received more than 3,000 journalist applications, including those from an increased number of foreign reporters.

"Because China now is such an influential country, no journalist wants to miss out on an event so abundant with news," Lu said.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

It's the first time Ronald Kato, journalist with Vision Group in Uganda, has been to China. "It's hard to understand what goes on here, until you see Chinese democracy in action," he said.

While Kato knows already how democracy in China differs from that in the West, he now sees that it works and puts people at the center of their own government.

He told Xinhua that Ugandans are currently fascinated by China -- the people, the culture, political system, socialism with Chinese characteristics -- and mostly how a country which was among the poorest in the world 40 years ago has grown to such a paradigm of inclusive development.

OLD CHINA HAND

Russian reporter Andrey Kirillov of ITAR-TASS Russian news agency has been reporting on the two sessions for 20 years. He is interested in economic development in general, and this year, in China's 13th Five-Year Plan in particular.

China can be seen as a growth engine in the world, Kirillov said. China has set its GDP growth target of around 6.5 percent in 2017, and Kirillov wants to see how China's growth contributes to world growth, especially in countries along the Belt and Road, a bold initiative to expand trade and development in countries along the ancient trade routes and beyond.

Kirillov also wonders about the role of his home country in the initiative and has closely followed tripartite relations between China, the United States and Russia since U.S. President Donald Trump took office.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on his March 8 press conference that China, the United States and Russia should come together in pursuit of win-win outcomes. Relations should not be a "seesaw". The three should work with, rather than against, one another.

Rafael Canas, correspondent for Spain's Efe Beijing bureau, paid attention to China's foreign policy in this year's government work report to the NPC.

Delivering the report on March 5, Premier Li Keqiang detailed the latest opening-up measures. China's door will keep on opening wider, and the country will keep working to be the most attractive destination for foreign investment, Li said.

Canas acknowledges that China's opening up, support for globalization and a strong stance against trade protectionism are the issues watched closely by the international community.

PROGRESS THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Johnny Erling, a correspondent with German daily Die Welt, has been working in China since 1998. He came to the press center to report on "Made in China 2025" and the press conference by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Chinese enterprises have invested a lot in Germany, Erling said.

On March 11, China's regulator offered clarification of "Made in China 2025," stressing equal treatment for domestic and foreign companies.

The blueprint applies to all businesses in China, be they domestic or foreign, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei told the press.

China's investment goes everywhere and means a lot to African people, Kato said. The Chinese government has helped finance huge infrastructure projects there such as roads, railways, and power dams.

"With China's help, we are building infrastructure which is good for connectivity and trade," Kato said. "It's already happening."

He said the cooperation between China and Africa must move to the next level, to help Africa industrialize and export value-added minerals and finished products to China.

EVERYONE IS WELCOME

In addition to social issues covered by foreign media, questions also touched on the prospects for relatively poor zones surrounding Beijing, rural land transfer and artificial intelligence were all raised at press conferences.

Veteran journalist Kirillov has felt more openness at the two sessions, year after year. "As foreign media, we are now welcome to attend and report on discussions by delegations from local regions."

"The deputies come to Beijing from all over the country," Kirillov said, adding the media have a convenient opportunity to interview them, especially those from remote areas.

The two sessions also allow high-level officials, such as ministers and the central bank governor, to meet the press.

Canas had the chance to ask Foreign Minister Wang Yi about China-Europe relations after Brexit, but he would like to see more interviews, all year round.

(Zhang Yuanpei and Liu Kai contributed to the story.)




People walk past the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam on March 14, 2017. Turkey rejected EU criticism of its stance in the intensifying crisis with the Netherlands as having "no value", after Ankara downgraded relations with The Hague and banned its ambassador from returning. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

RABAT, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri, denounced on Tuesday the Dutch government's "strained" treatment of Turkish officials.

Altwaijri deemed the treatment of the Turkish ministers as at odds with the Vienna Convention, and a deviation from the diplomatic and ethical norms governing relations between states, ISESCO in a statement on Tuesday.

ISESCO Director General also said that such act is unbecoming of a state claiming to be a defender of human rights and democracy and would only fuel extremism, racism and Islamophobia in the Dutch society, the statement added.
SINGAPORE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong started to visit Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar Tuesday, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in a statement.

During the visit Goh will call on Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the statement said Tuesday.

Goh and President U Htin Kyaw will witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the SMVTI Vocational Training Institute, which will see the gradual hand-over of the SMVTI to Myanmar over the next three years. This is part of Singapore's skills and knowledge transfer to support Myanmar's long term development.

Goh will also meet with former President U Thein Sein, as well as members from the Myanmar Parliament.
A girl attends the Janadriyah Culture Festival on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 11, 2017. Picture taken February 11, 2017. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

RIYADH, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A Saudi university warned this week its female students of immediate dismissal for imitating men in haircuts and outfits, Okaz local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh sent the warning messages on Monday, while the decision will be enforced staring next month.

The university stressed that the violated students will be suspended immediately without previous warning.

The decision covers women with very short haircuts as such styles are considered by conservative Muslims as a sin for imitating men.

Saudi Arabia follows gender segregation in all walks in life, including education and female students in different education levels study in separate buildings from males.

They are also taught by females, except at universities, while in case of male teachers they are either teach behind partitions or the students should be fully covered.

In 2002, fifteen girls killed in a fire at their school in Mecca when religious police stopped the females from leaving the building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.
NAIROBI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The UN will on Thursday launch an international food appeal to alleviate hunger in Kenya.

The World Food Programme (WFP) Representative in Kenya Annalisa Conte told Xinhua in Nairobi that the appeal is necessary after Kenya declared the current drought as a national disaster.

"Kenya government has pointed out that despite allocating resources to combat the ongoing drought there is still a gap in funding that partners can help to fill," Conte said on the sidelines of the Strengthening Smallholder Farmers Production forum.

The day-long event brought policy makers, private sector and non-governmental organizations to review ways to improve small scale farmers' incomes.

The UN's food appeal will include a detailed plan for a multilateral response to the drought.

"It will present the different activities and roles that each UN entity in Kenya will play in order to mitigate the effects of the drought," Conte said.

According to government data, more than 3 million people in Kenya are currently affected by the drought. The drought has been caused by poor rainfall in 2016 and has affected 23 arid and semi-arid counties in the country.

The UN food agency is also involved in improving food security in Kenya.

WFP is currently providing funding for school meals for 500,000 school children.

Conte said that it will handover its school feeding programme to Kenya in 2019.
MOGADISHU, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Pirates in Somalia's Indian Ocean are reported to have captured a commercial vessel, the first since 2012 raising fears of a possible resurgence of piracy in the Indian Ocean waters off Somalia.

A government official in Puntland region who declined to be named confirmed the incident Tuesday to Xinhua, noting the vessel was heading from Djibouti en route to Mogadishu before the pirates captured it.

"I can confirm to you the vessel is under the control of the pirates. We have information it is from United Arab Emirates. We are still following up on the development," the official said.

The development raises fears over possible return of piracy off the coast of Somalia almost five years after international interventions led to a decline and stop of capture of ships.

A report by the campaign watchdog, Secure Fisheries in 2015 warned of possible return of piracy following what it termed as increased illegal and unregulated fishing in Somali waters.

Local fishermen, the report noted, were getting a fraction of the fish while illegal foreign trawlers were making away with thousands of tonnes of fish.
JUBA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government on Tuesday dismissed as "false and baseless" local media reports that it is giving support to South Sudanese rebels seeking to topple the current government.

The U.S. Embassy in South Sudan said in a statement that Washington does not provide training, equipment or any other type of support to opposition forces seeking to overthrow the government of South Sudan.

"Recent assertions in local media that the U.S. is providing such support are false, baseless and not in the interest of peace in South Sudan," the statement said.

"The U.S. reiterates its long-held view that there is no military solution to the political crisis in South Sudan, and renews its call upon all parties to the conflict to end military operations immediately and comply with the permanent ceasefire in the peace agreement," it added.

South Sudan has had frosty relations with the administration of former U.S. President Barrack Obama with Juba accusing Washington of plotting a regime change agenda in the conflict-hit East African nation.

The world's newest country also survived a number of U.S.-led proposals at the UN Security Council calling for imposition of arms embargo and targeted sanctions on the country's leaders.

In his address to parliament last month, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir said his government is seeking to renew ties with the Trump administration.

South Sudan has been devastated by civil war that broke out in December 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup. Machar denied the accusation but then mobilized a rebel force.

A peace deal signed in August 2015 led to the formation of a transitional unity government in April 2016 but was again devastated by fresh violence in July 2016.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have been killed, with over 2 million displaced and another 4.6 million left severely food insecure, since December 2013.
DUBLIN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- While the search for three missing crew members of a helicopter continued, the hope of finding them have been fading, according to the Irish Coast Guard on Tuesday.

The Dublin-based coast guard helicopter R116 with four crew on board went missing off the west coast of County Mayo at approximately 1:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT).

One crew member was located in critical condition, while the search for the other three members was still underway around 10 km west of Blacksod in County Mayo. Wreckage was also located in the search area.

Eugene Clonan, head of operations of the Irish Coast Guard, said he was "not holding out much hope" for the missing crew.

He said the last communication with Rescue 116 was at 12:45 a.m. local time when it said it was approaching Blacksod to refuel after providing support to another helicopter, Rescue 118, and that there was no indication of any problem.

In a press release, the Irish Coast Guard said a Sligo-based coast guard helicopter, R118, completed an early morning medical evacuation of a crewman requiring urgent medical attention from a Britain registered fishing vessel approximately 150 miles west of Eagle Island in County Mayo.

"Owing to the distance involved, safety and communication support, known as Top Cover, was provided by the second coast guard helicopter, the Dublin-based R116," the Irish Coast Guard said.

A search began when Rescue 116 failed to respond, he added.

Clonan said Rescue 116, a Sikorsky S92, was a very new aircraft and had had regular maintenance checks.

Search and rescue helicopters from nearby towns were involved in the sea search, along with a plane, all weather lifeboats, and local fishing boats.

An Irish naval ship was also in the search zone to assist.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States are maintaining close contact on exchanges between their presidents and at other levels, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in the near future.

"Both China and the United States attach great importance to exchanges at the high-level and various other levels," said Hua at the press briefing.

She said the two sides are keeping in close contact on exchanges between their presidents and at other levels.

"Should we have any further information, we will announce it immediately," she said.

As for a visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Hua said the Foreign Ministry will release information soon.
Old people celebrate the Mid-autumn Festival at a nursing home for elders in Qonggyai County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Sept. 14, 2016. A total of 11,400 elders in the region's rural areas have been arranged in nursing homes for better care in recent years. (Xinhua/Purbu Zhaxi)

LHASA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Cering Yangzom, 71, begins her day at 6 a.m. with a kettle of strong buttered tea, despite her carer's frequent advice against it.

"Drink more pure tea. Too much oil is bad for you," Lhaba often told Cering Yangzom.

She easily dismisses the advice. "You kids have no idea about what I have been through. For my whole life I had to drink my tea without yak butter, and now I feel happy just at the smell of it."

The nursing home where Cering Yangzom now resides is located in Dagze County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

The hardship of which she speaks were in the days before the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951. Born into slavery in the county where she now lives in comparative luxury, her family got by on nothing but the few handfuls of tsampa -- roasted barley flour and still a Tibetan staple -- they were given every two or three days.

In order to take care of her mother, Cering Yangzom never married and had been prepared to spent her twilight years alone. She is now a part of a free program in Tibet for those who have no relatives to look after them.

She is one of 11,400 beneficiaries, previously scattered across rural Tibet, who have been provided with places in nursing homes since 2013.

China is gravely concerned with taking care of its old folks, given the size of country's rapidly graying population. China has more than 40 million senior citizens who need help in taking care of themselves. That's more than the entire population of Canada.

Another 100 elderly people share Cering Yangzom's rest home with her, all living in Tibetan-style bungalows. Each house is shared by two and has its own kitchen and bathroom. In addition, doctors are on call.

A special room in the rest home is used to hold religious rites for the deceased. Residents are often seen turning the prayer wheels set up outside the room.

Cering Yangzom sees Lhaba, who helps with all her chores, as a kind of daughter. "She often brings us snacks she has made at home. We all like her so much," she said.

Lhaba lost her mother as a child. Had she lived, she would have been around the same age as Cering Yangzom, Lhaba said. "I try my best to take care of the elderly. It's a good job, but it is also a way to make up for what I couldn't do for my mum."

Toinzhub is a senior care worker in the rest home. He has seen the organization hire more workers and improve its facilities in the past couple of years.

He has taken a course in massage to do more to make the residents enjoy their lives, but he believes the work he has done is far from enough.

"They need more than just basic care in their daily lives. They also need psychological support, and I'm not very good at that," he said.

To address this need, the Ministry of Civil Affairs will give some carers at rest home with a three-month course for psychological counseling later this year.
LANZHOU, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A 23-year-old panda living in a zoo in the northwestern city of Lanzhou will return to its hometown in southwest China's Sichuan Province due to health concerns, authorities with the zoo said Tuesday.

The panda, named Shu Lan, was born in 1994 in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. Shu Lan first moved to Lanzhou in 1996. She went back to Sichuan and lived in Chengdu and two giant panda research centers in Ya'an City between 1999 and 2016 for research and breeding.

Her current age of 23 is equivalent to about 70 human years.

Shu Lan returned to Lanzhou on April 7, 2016, but her health has aroused public concern as photos of her with an injured back and foaming at the mouth went viral in October 2016 and February 2017.

China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda sent three experts to Lanzhou from March 7 to 9 to evaluate Shun Lan's health and her living conditions in the Lanzhou City Zoo.

After evaluation, experts said Shu Lan is in normal health condition. The foaming at the mouth was caused mainly by her chewing and playing with her tongue. But they also pointed out that Shu Lan's weight has dropped from 103 kg to current 92 kg over the past year since she returned to the city, though it is still in the normal range.

Experts also concluded that Shu Lan has already shown some symptoms of aging.

Giant pandas live mainly in the mountains of northern Sichuan as well as southern Gansu and Shaanxi. According to the latest nationwide survey, there are 132 giant pandas living in the wild in southern Gansu. However, Lanzhou City, located in the middle of the province, has a different environment and climate compared with wild panda habitats.

Heating systems, air conditioners and a humidifier have been installed in Shu Lan's living area in the zoo in Lanzhou. But the zoo's panda habitat was built in 1976 and is too antiquated to accommodate Shu Lan.

The bamboo she was fed was not fresh enough as it was transported from central China's Henan Province. Moreover, the zoo lacks experience in taking care of old pandas.

Experts suggested sending Shu Lan to the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda in Sichuan to help her maintain her health.

The suggestion has been approved by the Lanzhou City Zoo, though a specific schedule has not been released yet. The decision was also confirmed by Zhang Jianlong, head of the State Forestry Administration.` "We will try our best to improve the condition of the zoo," said Lei Qinghai, director of the zoo, adding that the city is planning to move the zoo to a new site for future development.

A national survey released in February 2015 showed that by the end of 2013, China had 1,864 wild pandas and 375 others living in captivity.
VIENNA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Austrian chancellor has said he would seek a ban to stop Turkish ministers from campaigning in Austria in support of a referendum for constitutional amendment in Turkey next month.

Speaking to the Austrian broadcaster ORF on Monday, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said he would try to prohibit Turkish ministers from campaigning in Austria to gather support from Turks in Austria for the April 16 referendum.

The referendum could bring drastic changes to the country's political system, including a shift to an executive presidential system from the current parliamentary system.
MOSCOW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The new CNN documentary about Russian President Vladimir Putin brought no surprises, being part of anti-Russian propaganda, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

"This is more material in line with previous hysterical and emotional material, which is based on opinions that have nothing substantial, opinions that are most often absolutely fictitious," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian media.

"Quite odious material, part of what has already been said, there is nothing new there," he added.

Peskov said that Putin has not had time to watch the film aired by CNN early Tuesday Moscow time, but he got acquainted with the synopsis in the media.

The CNN special report "The Most Powerful Man in the World" attempts to examine the character of the Russian leader as well as his role in the world politics and relationship with the United States.
WINDHOEK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Seven years ago, 48 year old Zatrick Mbanga, a farmer from Namibia's northeast Zambezi region was attacked by a hippo and he lost his right arm and foot during the attack.

This happened as he was busy tending to his maize crops while also keeping a look out for wild animals that had been ravaging his crops, something that has become a norm for people in his area.

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a fact of life in Namibia's communal conservancies, especially in Zambezi Region, where elephants, lions, crocodiles and hippos live in close proximity to farmers' crops, livestock, and to people.

Communities living close to national parks suffer a great deal from wildlife while HWC cannot be eradicated as long as Namibia conserves its wildlife outside of national parks, and so the country has to somehow find a way to manage it.

In Mbanga's case, hippos often come to graze on freshly growing maize in his area and one night in 2010, Mbanga was out checking his crop after he had lit a fire to deter the hippos from his crop.

As he was walking home, he heard a hippo breathing close by and within seconds the hippo was chasing him. He tried to zigzag through the maize field but unfortunately he fell and was attacked by the hippo.

This was after he had telephoned the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) to report that hippos had been in his fields and an official was due to visit that day, but failed to turn up. So he lit a fire to deter the hippos.

The father of two lives in Isuswa village, wedged between Botswana and Zambia, and close to the Chobe River in Salambala Conservancy.

Mbanga is one of the lucky ones as many have not been so lucky and they end up losing their lives in the attacks.

Statistics provided by the MET show that between 2014 and 2016, 39 people were killed by wildlife, and 7 already this year while last year 545 cattle and over 200 goats were lost to predators.

Beginning of March, Namibia held a Conference on Human Wildlife Conflict Management to review the existing policy on HWC management.

Speaking at the conference, a researcher who is leading the Kwando Carnivore Project in Kavango and Zambezi regions, Lise Hanssen said that wildlife in the Zambezi Region moves between parks, through communal conservancies, and thus could not successfully survive without freedom to roam, which inevitably leads to conflict in the farming areas between the parks.

Wildlife is plentiful in Zambezi, partly because it is tolerated by farmers who see the benefits from tourism and trophy hunting, which for Salambala includes jobs, meat, and cash distribution.

Over 600 cattle were taken in the area between 2011 and 2016, mostly by hyenas while there were over 4,000 incidents of crop damage, mostly by elephants, which move between Botswana and Zambia, through Zambezi Region.

The MET provides financial offsets for losses through its Self-Reliance Scheme, topped up by conservancies, while 5,000 Namibian dollars (380 U.S. dollars) are provided for funeral.

Mbanga has a wife and two children to support. He still farms and has around twenty cattle. Planting maize has become increasingly hard work thus he gets around his farm on a prosthetic lower leg, which was paid for by a kind-hearted businessman who lives in the same area where Mbanga was treated.

Although the environment ministry does not compensate for injuries caused by wildlife, it did create a self-reliance scheme by giving each communal conservancy 60,000 Namibian dollars, to match with conservancy funds raised from trophy hunting and tourism, to offset crop and livestock losses to farmers.

The Salambala Conservancy pays farmers 1,500 Namibian dollars for a cow lost to predators, and gives fixed sums for crop losses, well below the market rate.

Although there is no compensation for injury, Salambala paid Mbanga 5,000 Namibian dollars to help him to recover.

Commercial farms also suffer from HWC. A representative of about 75 farms in the Kamanjab area between Etosha National Park and Kunene conservancies, Helmke von Bach said that it takes only a minute for an elephant to push over a windmill costing 80,000 Namibian dollars.

He estimated the average loss to each commercial farmer in the area annually at 375,000 Namibian dollars.

According to CEO of the Namibian Chamber of the Environment, Chris Brown, the cost of wildlife to each conservancy member in Sanitatas Conservancy, in the northwest Kunene region, amounts to 1,000 Namibian dollars per person per annum.
Photo taken on March 14, 2017 shows the "Big Ben" in central London, Britain. The British upper house of the Parliament passed theBrexit Bill Monday night, clearing the last hurdle for the government to trigger Brexit. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

LONDON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister Theresa May is finally clear to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union after peers in the unelected House of Lords backed down from challenging the elected House of Commons.

Two amendments in the House of Lords that could have delayed the progress of May's bill were finally rejected by the peers after MPs in the elected Commons rejected the amendments.

A formal royal assent from Queen Elizabeth is all that stands in the way of May informing Brussels as early as Tuesday of Britain's intention of leaving the European Union after 43 years.

The bill gives May the legal authority to trigger article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the laid down procedure within the EU for a member state wishing to leave. Once article 50 is triggered, it kick-starts a two year process for negotiating a new relationship between both sides.

In the House of Commons, MPs rejected the two amendments put forward by the House of Lords, one to guarantee the rights of 3.2 million European citizens to remain in Britain (by 335 votes to 287) and the second to insist on a meaningful parliamentary vote on a final Brexit deal (lost by 331 votes against 286).

A committee of MPs was then elected to inform the Lords of their decision, calling on them to accept their vote.

Instead attempts were made in the Lords to keep the two amendments, even though they knew that their stand would be overturned by MPs.

Lord Bridges, the government minister in the House of Lords for exiting the EU, told peers that the decision to leave the bloc was one of the "most momenteus steps ever taken in our lifetime."

Baroness Hayter, for the main opposition Labour party, said she regretted the decision of the Commons to reject the amendments, adding that her party would not stand in the way of the Commons' decision.

She said her party would seek other ways of acheiving their aim, telling EU nationals: "To the people affected, we are not giving up on you."

The amendment calling for the residential rights of European to be protected was lost in the Lords by 274 votes to 135.

Barrister Lord Pannick, who legally represented businesswoman Gina Miller in the challenge that brought the issue to parliament in the first place, last week introduced the second amendment insisting parliament being given a meaningful vote on a final Brexit deal. Although his amendment last week won by a substanial margin, Pannick said in the debate Monday night it was now time for the House of Lords to give way to the Commons.

The second amendment was rejected by 274 to 118, finally giving the government the final approval for its Brexit bill.

The focus will now switch to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday to await any announcements about May's timetable to inform Brussels that Brexit Day has arrived.
PHNOM PENH, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's anti-drug chief Ke Kim Yan on Tuesday sought China's assistance to combat illicit drugs and treat drug addicts, the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) said Tuesday.

NACD's chairman Ke Kim Yan, who is also a deputy prime minister, proposed to China during a meeting here with Zheng Baigang, director of the Bureau of Exit and Entry Administration of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, the NACD said in a press release.

"The deputy prime minister asked the Chinese side for drug-detection machines to install at international border checkpoints and airports in Phnom Penh City, Siem Reap province and Preah Sihanouk province," the press release said.

He also requested for drug testing tools, medication for treating drug addicts and training materials for anti-drug officials, it added.

Cambodia has about 16,575 drug addicts, according to the NACD.

The Southeast Asian country launched a six-month anti-drug campaign on Jan. 1 this year. According to the Interior Ministry's latest report, authorities had arrested 4,823 drug-related suspects in 2,065 cases in the first two months of the campaign.

The report said the number of the drug arrests in the first two months was nearly half of the total number of people arrested for drug-related offenses in the whole year of 2016.
MOSCOW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned Tuesday the blockade of the central office of Russia's largest bank -- Sberbank -- in Kiev, saying that this action would hurt the bank's Ukrainian clients.

It said in a statement that the blockade may prove to be a "shot in the foot" for the current Ukrainian government, some members of which "directly incite" far-right activists to illegal actions.

The ministry recalled that banks with Russian capital had worked successfully for a long time in Ukraine for the benefit of its economy, financial system and in the interests of numerous Ukrainian investors.

The statement questioned the ability of the Ukrainian authorities to cope with "blatant lawlessness."

A group of far-right activists bricked up the entrance to the central office of the Ukrainian subsidiary of Sberbank on Monday, in a protest against the alleged acceptance by the bank of documents issued by self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east of the country.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order on temporarily recognizing identification documents issued by authorities of the rebel regions to permanent residents.
VIENTIANE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Lao outbound travelers made more than 3.05 million trips in 2016 and more people are suggested to have made longer-distance trips in foreign countries, according to the Tourism Development Department under Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism on Tuesday.

The figure posted a slight decreased from more than 3.06 million trips and the 3.3 million trips recorded in 2015 and 2014 respectively.

Of the 2016's outbound travellers, more than 1.46 million people, or about half of the total, travelled abroad through the first Laos-Thailand Friendship Bridge's border gate. The statistics, collected from 14 international checkpoints across Laos, showed that those Lao provinces sharing borders with Thailand have registered the highest numbers in terms of people crossing their checkpoints when travelling abroad. However the statistics did not specify the destinations of the travellers.

Lao officials and tour operators have noted that the increasing incomes and well-being of Lao people has enabled them to take vacations abroad. Meanwhile, tour operators said package tours to the South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Japan have been popular destinations for Lao outbound tourists, reported Lao state-run media Vientiane Times.

A government's report showed that Laos' average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has increased to 2,027 U.S. dollars in the 2015-2016 fiscal year. The figure is expected to rise further to 2,341 U.S. dollars by 2017.

GDP per capita is expected to reach 3,100 U.S. dollars in 2020 when Lao population is expected to reach 7.3 million.

According to the Tourism Development Department, the number of Lao nationals travelling by planes increased to the highest level in 2016 compared to the previous years. Lao nationals traveling through Wattay International Airport in capital Vientiane climbed to 81,800 people in 2016, up from 81,064 people and 76,985 people in 2015 and 2014 respectively.
BUCHAREST, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu on Tuesday announced that a government team would be sent to Italy to look into the alleged workplace abuse of Romanian women in Italy.

The decision came after a Sunday report in the British weekly The Observer that revealed that thousands of Romanian women farm workers were victims of abuse, including threats and sexual assault, in the Sicilian province of Ragusa.

The delegation, including minister for Romanians abroad Andreea Pastarnac and a representative of the Interior Ministry, will have meetings from Wednesday to Friday with local officials, as well as with representatives of Romanian organizations at work in Italy, and also with NGOs involved in defending the rights of foreign workers, according to a government press release.

The prime minister "follows with concern the situation of Romanians in Italy and is waiting with interest for the report of the government's representatives," said the release.

Local police were quoted as saying by the Observer: "Up to 7,500 women, the majority of whom are Romanian, are living in slavery on farms across the region. These women are working as slaves in the fields and we know they are blackmailed to have sex with the owners of the farms or greenhouses."

According to a press statement on Monday from the Romanian Foreign Ministry, "so far, no applications for consular assistance have been filed by Romanian nationals affected by the reported incidents."
BRUSSELS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Four suspects were arrested in an investigation targeting an international criminal group involved in credit card fraud, the European Police Office (Europol) said Tuesday.

The Cypriot police, with the support of Europol and authorities of the United States and Belarus, disrupted the group. Their criminal activities had affected more than 130,000 payment of card holders.

The investigation found that the credit card fraud resulted in eight million euros (8.5 million U.S. dollars) in financial losses.

The criminal network established several fake on-line shops and a shell software company in order to make illicit credit card transactions.

Due to many low-value transactions linked with Internet services, the criminals were able to operate without detection for several months, according to Europol's press release.

Steven Wilson, head of Europol's European cyber crime center noted: "The threat from cyber fraud has continued to grow and expand into a variety of sectors."
Members and supporters of the National corp political party erect a wall of concrete blocks outside a branch of Sberbank , which is the local subsidiary of Russia's largest lender, during a protest in Kiev, Ukraine, March 13, 2017. (REUTERS PHOTO)

MOSCOW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned Tuesday the blockade of the central office of its largest bank, Sberbank, in Kiev, saying that this action would hurt Ukrainian clients of the bank.

It said in a statement that the blockade may prove to be a "shot in the foot" for the current Ukrainian government, some members of which "directly incite" far-right activists to illegal actions.

The ministry recalled that banks with Russian capital had worked successfully for a long time in Ukraine for the benefit of its economy, financial system and in the interests of numerous Ukrainian investors.

The statement questioned the ability of the Ukrainian authorities to cope with "blatant lawlessness" .

A group of far-right activists bricked up the entrance to the central office of the Ukrainian subsidiary of Sberbank on Monday, in a protest against the alleged acceptance by the bank of documents issued by self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east of the country.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order on temporarily recognizing identification documents issued by authorities of the rebel regions to permanent residents.
TEHRAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said Tuesday that Iran and Russia's Gazprom are in talks on investment in gas fields in southern Iran, semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

"Iran and Russia have made a decision to cooperate on gas and oil. Gazprom is holding talks with Iran in this regard," Vaezi said.

For the development of its energy projects, Tehran plans to hold an international tender in late March. A total of 29 foreign companies, including Russia's Gazprom and Lukoil, have been qualified to participate in the tender, according to Fars.

In December, managing director of Iran's Central Oil Fields Company, Salbali Karimi, said that he was optimistic about working with Russian companies, including Gazprom.

He emphasized that Russian companies were highly qualified from technical and technological aspects.

According to the media release, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will meet in Moscow in late March to review and discuss their bilateral politico-economic relations.

Over eleven documents will be signed between the two countries during Rouhani's visit to Russia, Vaezi said Tuesday, according to semi-official Mehr news agency.
BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The number of rural migrant workers in China hit 282 million at the end of 2016, an increase of 4.24 million from a year before, according the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) Tuesday.

The country has made remarkable progress in protecting migrant workers' rights and interests, Qiu Xiaoping, MHRSS's vice minister.

The ministry has helped retrieve 35 billion yuan (about 5 billion U.S. dollars) of back pay for migrant workers, and back-pay complaints have fallen, Qiu said.

Some 58.2 million workers are covered by pension insurance and 48.2 million covered by medical insurance. 46.6 million have access to unemployment insurance and 75.1 million are protected by work injury insurance.

Qiu said the ministry will continue to help rural migrant workers settle in cities and start their own businesses. Efforts will be made to help them enjoy equal social welfare with urban residents.

Due to the household registration system that ties people's access to social welfare to their residential status, they have previously not enjoyed the same benefits in healthcare, pensions and other social benefits as city residents.

To bridge the gap, government is gradually removing the distinction between urban and rural residents.
TEHRAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Kerman Motors and South Korea's Hyundai automaker signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday to jointly produce a car model in Iran, semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

The MoU to manufacture a new Elantra model was signed between CEO of Kerman Motors, Saman Firouzi, and director of South Korea's Hyundai Motors for Middle East and Africa Office, Mike Song, in Iran's southern Kerman city.

"In addition to Elantra model, Kerman Motors will launch a production line of Hyundai Accent in September 2017," Firouzi was quoted as saying.

The Iranian side also agreed with Hyundai at the end of 2016 to begin production of the Hyundai i10 and i20 hatchback models in Iran, the report said.

On Sunday, South Korea's Hyundai Engineering Company (HEC) signed a three-billion-euro (3.2 billion U.S. dollars) contract with Iran's Ahdaf Investment Company for construction of the second phase of Kangan Petro Refining Complex in Iran's southwestern Bushehr province, Tehran Times daily reported.
GUANGZHOU, March 14 (Xinhua) -- China's leading electronics firm BBK will invest 4.75 billion yuan (687 million U.S. dollar) in R&D and production centers in southern city of Dongguan to tackle insufficient capacity, local authorities said Tuesday.

BBK Electronics owns popular smartphone brands OPPO and Vivo. The company plans to invest 2 billion yuan in an OPPO R&D headquarters. Work is to start this year and the HQ will be operational in 2019.

A Vivo production center will cost 2 billion yuan and will also go into operation in 2019. The center will be able produce more than 90 million smartphones, 5 million telephones and 7 million educational electronic products each year.

BBK will also build a factory for educational electronic products in 2018 with investment of more than 750 million yuan.
AMMAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Jordan on Tuesday called for more aid from international community to address economic challenges and pressure imposed by Syrian refugees, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

At a meeting with a German official delegation, Jordan's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury stressed on the need that a donor conference slated for April in Brussels will focus on the needs of countries affected by the influx of Syrian refugees.

He also mentioned the focus on increasing the resilience of countries hosting Syrian refugees such as Jordan, adding that there is a need to attract investments to create new jobs.

The minister said Jordan reached "a level of saturation" in its ability to bear the pressure of hosting Syrian refugees.

Jordan is home to around 1.4 million Syrian refugees.

The delegation stressed Germany's support to Jordan in light of the ongoing circumstances in the Middle East.

In 2016, Germany pledged to provide Jordan with 308 million euros (327.8 million U.S. dollars) in aid to support host communities.
ISLAMABAD, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Senior Pakistani and Afghan officials are scheduled to meet in London on Wednesday to ease the current tensions, Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal said on Tuesday.

The meeting will be held at a time when relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is on its lowest ebb following the last month's bomb attacks in Pakistan that had killed over 100 people.

The attacks were claimed by the Pakistani militant groups, which officials say operate from the Afghan side of the border.

Pakistan closed its main border crossings on Feb. 17 over security concerns, pushing for its longstanding call on Afghanistan to agree on a border monitoring system to stop the cross-border movement of the militants.

"I will join our National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar at the high level Afghanistan-Pakistan meeting to be hosted by the British Government in London tomorrow (Wednesday)," the Afghan ambassador said in a statement.

Pakistan Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, and British National Security Advisor Mark Lyall Grant will attend from Pakistan and Great Britain respectively, Zakhilwal said on his official Facebook.

The meeting will focus on a mechanism for genuine cooperation on fighting terrorism, the current tense bilateral relations and the closures of crossing routes between the two countries, he said.

The British ambassador in Kabul had been involved in efforts to broker the talks between the uneasy neighbors in recent weeks. He had visited Pakistan and met with senior Pakistani leaders.
ADDIS ABABA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) on Tuesday held a handover ceremony between the outgoing and incoming commission at the headquarters of the 55-member pan-African bloc in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

The AU heads of states in January 2017 elected new officials including chairperson and deputy chairperson of the AU Commission as well as commissioners who will be serving a four-year term at office.

At the 28th AU summit on the 30th of January this year here in Addis Ababa, African leaders elected Moussa Faki Mahamat of Chad, as Chairperson of the AU Commission, and Ghanaian Thomas Kwesi Quartey, as Deputy Chairperson of the Commission.

Smail Chergui from Algeria was elected Commissioner for Peace and Security, Minata Cessouma Samate of Burkina Faso, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Amani Abou-Zeid of Egypt, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Amira Elfadil Mohammed Elfadil of Sudan, Commissioner for Social Affairs, Albert M. Muchanga from Zambia, Commissioner for Trade and Industry, and Correa Leonel Josefa Sacko of Angola, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture.

Speaking during the handover ceremony, the outgoing chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa, has commended all parties who have contributed support to and cooperation with the outgoing commission.

"It has indeed been a humbling privilege to serve the people of the continent in the capacity as Chairperson of the AU Commission," said Dlamini-Zuma.

"We thank the AU Partners Group and our international partners and governments, who worked with us towards building a better world for all. I am also very encouraged with the cooperation between the African Union and the United Nations over these last four and a half years. To this effect, we have agreed to work together on a single monitoring and reporting mechanism on Agenda 2063 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals," she said.

Stating that he has assumed the position at a time when Africa is facing multifaceted challenges, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the incoming Chairperson of the AU Commission, has expressed his commitment and determination to serve at best to meet expectations of African peoples.

He stated that the continent is facing many and multifaceted challenges, including among others, scourge of conflict, growing threat of radicalism, persistent poverty, underdevelopment, and environmental deterioration.

The incoming chairperson has stated that his priorities focus on areas, including among others, the reform at the AU Commission, peace and security, issues of women and youth, Africa's economic integration, and strengthening and enhancing the place of Africa in the international scene.

Reiterating his commitment to speed up the transformation of Africa, the new chairperson has called for commitment and support from AU member states in the implementation of programs and plans of the identified priority areas.

"I would like to mention very briefly the priorities that I want to deal with, with the assistance of everybody, to reform the structure of our common house, simplifies procedures, improves its effectiveness and efficiency in order to make the commission a tool that is capable of furthering and translating into deeds the vision of our leaders and aspirations of peoples; to silence the guns and also to have an Africa which has rid itself off conflicts by 2020 remains the medium term objective and my vision will be focused include to that; and to raise the women and youth, to give them the rightful place for the promotion of peace, development and African renaissance," he said.

He said he would work to strengthen partnership with UN and other international partners.
BELGRADE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Italy supports Serbia on its European path and wishes to develop cooperation further as the country progresses towards membership in the European Union, Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said here on Tuesday.

Alfano is visiting the region in preparation for the EU-Western Balkans meeting to be held in July in Trieste, Italy. He started his tour here and met with his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

Serbia is "the motor that can bring good results to the Balkans and help efforts that EU undertakes" in the region, Alfano said.

"Serbia's place is in Europe, which has a need for bigger and wider horizons," he added in a joint press conference with Dacic.

Alfano said he discussed many aspects of cooperation with Serbian leaders. A memorandum was signed between the the foreign ministries of the two countries.

Dacic said that the visit was a confirmation of good relations between the two countries.

"Next September, the governments of the two countries will hold their fourth joint session, and we see this as an important confirmation of our strategic partnership and the continuity of dialogue between the two countries," Dacic said.

He said the 2016 trade balance between the two nations reached 3.7 billion euros (3.94 billion U.S. dollars) and around 600 Italian companies employ several tens of thousands of workers in Serbia.

"Italy is the first ranked country when it comes to Serbian export, while it's the second ranked country, after Germany, from which Serbia imports," Dacic said, pointing out that Italian companies invested around 300 million euros in the past three years in Serbia.

"Serbia wishes for regional cooperation, peace and stability, while on the other hand, we are thankful to Italy for its support to our European path as well as on all efforts it makes in preparation " for the Trieste meeting which will result in concrete topics, Dacic said. (1 euro = 1.06 U.S. dollars)
A Palestinian demonstrator throws an old shoe at a poster of US President Donald Trump as they protest against his support of Israel. (AFP photo)

By Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, March 14 (Xinhua) -- As Palestinians initially concerned and Israelis elated, both sides are still testing the waters when it comes to how U.S. President Donald Trump will manage the decades-long conflict.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump a few days ago inviting him for an official visit to the White House.

The call came almost two months after Trump's inauguration concurrent with Palestinian fears of being sidelined by a supposedly new pro-Israeli administration.

Meanwhile, Jason Greenblatt, Trump's international negotiations envoy, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is scheduled to meet with Abbas.

Prior to these recent developments, media reports claimed that Palestinians were being ignored by the new American administration.

Reportedly, calls went unanswered, whereas Netanyahu spoke to Trump several times and was invited to the White House.

Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian politician and a senior lecturer at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said the fears were quite genuine.

"The Palestinian side felt neglected by the new administration," said Khatib.

Not only was there initially no contact with the Palestinian side, but in addition, "They felt they (the new administration) were more biased towards Israel."

Throughout his campaign, Trump made several statements that fomented Abbas' fears.

Following eights years of a sympathetic administration in the White House, Trump signaled he would abandon previous notions which almost became the default American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, once in the Oval Office, Trump appears to be distancing himself from his campaign promises.

He had said he would move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Once president, Trump immediately became less forceful on the issue.

Trump also had said he did not view the West Bank Israeli settlements as an obstacle to peace between both rivals.

On the other hand, Palestinians consider settlements as a severe obstacle toward their statehood goal.

After meeting with Netanyahu, the American president changed his rhetoric, asking the Israeli premier "to hold off on settlements a little bit."

This was reportedly also communicated to Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman during his recent visit to the U.S.

Reality is settling in for both sides - Israel's right-wing government was certain of a carte blanche toward settlement construction and Palestinians feared being ignored by the new administration.

Currently, both Abbas and Netanyahu need to adjust to a new reality.

For Palestinians, relief followed the invitation to the White House, although the meeting has yet to be scheduled.

"They (the Trump administration) realize they cannot address only one side of the conflict," said Khatib.

He adds that in recent weeks Palestinians have been informed to "wait and not jump to conclusions just yet as Americans study the issue."

Apparently, when Netanyahu met with Greenblatt in Jerusalem, he aspired to reach an agreement with the American administration on the extent of settlement construction Israel would be permitted in the West Bank.

A press release from the prime minister's office stated that such an agreement was not reached, indicating that Trump was not going to make life easy for the Israeli leader.

"The prime minister and Mr. Greenblatt discussed settlement construction hoping to reach an approach compatible with the goal of advancing peace and security," read the statement.

Ben Caspit, an Israeli political commentator, wrote "Netanyahu is about to realize that his narrow right-wing coalition will render it problematic for him to maneuver in the coming months."

"Any agreements reached must include construction without any restrictions," tweeted a member of Netanyahu's coalition ahead of the meeting with Greenblatt.

Settlement expansion was meticulously handled under former U.S. President Barack Obama, however Palestinians detect a regression.

Previously, any settlement construction was immediately met with American condemnation.

In December 2016, a United Nations Security Council resolution was passed judging all West Bank Israeli settlements illegal.

"The new American administration is less conscious of Israel's illegal behavior," stated Dr. Khatib.

However, Palestinians demand zero-tolerance on the issue.

"If the U.S. will tolerate (Israeli settlements), they will not be able to play a constructive role in negotiations. If they are incompatible with international legislation, then that lead to negative consequences," said Khatib.

The American administration's recent moves shows efforts to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which have been stalled for years.

For Netanyahu's right-wing government, Trump's volte-face regarding his statements is a concern.

In an op-ed in Haaretz newspaper, Chemi Shalev wrote, "once a messiah, Trump could turn out to be the Israeli right's worst nightmare."

Trump expressed his wish to reach a "deal" to solve the conflict throughout his campaign.

While Palestinians were informed to be patient, Khatib is not optimistic.

"Time is quite a problematic foe for Palestinians as Israel exploits this time to construct more settlements, therefore there is little basis for optimism," Khatib lamented, doubtful that Trump's ambiguous approach will bear fruit.
STRASBOURG, March 14 (Xinhua) -- European Parliament President Antonio Tajani opened the voting session in Strasbourg on Tuesday, announcing the decision to punish a Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) for his declarations against gender equality.

Sanctions of unprecedented severity were announced against Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a Polish MEP who said women must earn less than men because they are weaker, smaller and less intelligent during a plenary debate on the "Gender pay gap" on March 1.

The far-right Polish MEP will forfeit the daily subsistence allowance for 30 days, and be suspended from parliamentary activities for 10 days and be prohibited from representing the Parliament for one year, according to the decision.

"I will not tolerate such behaviour, in particular when it comes from someone who is expected to discharge his duties as a representative of the peoples of Europe with due dignity," Tajani declared.

The president also extended his apologies to anyone who was hurt or offended by the MEP's outburst, emphasizing that such behavior will never be permitted. The daily allowance for each MEP - to cover accommodation and other costs when travelling to Strasbourg or Brussels - is currently 306 euros (326 U.S. dollars).
A woman covers herself from rain with the Turkish national flag during a demonstration in front of the Netherlands consulate in Istanbul. (Reuters photo)

ISTANBUL, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkey froze high-level diplomatic contacts with the Netherlands on Monday evening to avenge its ban on two Turkish ministers' campaign rallies in the country, a step followed by some other European countries and seen by Turkish analysts as closely linked with upcoming elections as well as rising xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe.

Germany, Austria and Belgium are the other European countries where Turkish politicians were not allowed to address Turkish immigrants ahead of a key referendum in Turkey.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is apparently trying to win over some of the Dutch voters who may possibly vote for the far-right party by adopting a populist discourse, said Ayhan Kaya, a Turkish professor of politics and European studies lecturing in Italy.

Top Turkish politicians, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have slammed Germany and the Netherlands by describing their attitudes as fascist and Nazi-like.

General elections are to be held on Wednesday in the Netherlands and in September in Germany.

Cabinet ministers of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been the main victims of the European ban. On Sunday, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen also reportedly called on his Turkish counterpart Binali Yildirim to postpone his visit to Denmark.

The Hurriyet daily reported late Monday that Belgium banned, citing concerns about public order, two campaign rallies Turkey's opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) were to hold in Anvers.

Turkey will hold a referendum on April 16 to decide whether to replace the country's parliamentarian system with an executive presidency.

The Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), which champions xenophobia and Islamophobia, has gained popularity in recent years and led in polls until a short while ago.

Dutch Prime Minister Rutte's center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) appears in recent polls to be the leading party, according to reports.

It is argued that the populist discourse somewhat critical of immigrants Rutte has recently adopted is the reason why his party's popularity has surged in the polls.

The Dutch ruling party is expected to get in the election on Wednesday around 25 seats in parliament, while the far-right party could win just several seats less than the VVD.

The Dutch government's attitude toward Turkey is both a result of populism ahead of elections and rising Islamophobia and xenophobia, Faruk Logoglu, a former diplomat who held top posts in the Turkish Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua.

Logoglu feels Turkey's Islamist ruling party's increasing anti-Western discourse and authoritarianism at home have to do with the attitudes of the European countries as well.

A bitter war of words erupted between Turkey and the Netherlands after the latter canceled last Saturday landing permission for the plane of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The top Turkish envoy was to address Turkish diaspora at Turkey's consulate in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The Dutch government said the permission was withdrawn due to concerns about public order and security.

President Erdogan slammed the Dutch government, saying that "these are Nazi remnants, these are fascists." He also threatened that the Netherlands would "pay a price" for the ban and the crackdown on Turkish protestors by the Dutch police.

Rutte dismissed Erdogan's Nazi comment as "unacceptable," rejecting Turkish calls for an apology.

Arguing that it is Turkey which should apologize for calling the Dutch fascists and Nazi, Rutte said his government would never negotiate as long as threats by Turkish officials continue.

Many believe that the spat between the Turkish and Dutch governments serves both sides' immediate political interests and that the Turkish government may have purposefully acted to fan the flame.

The current tension is being used to increase the ruling parties' votes in the Dutch elections and the referendum in Turkey, Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations from the Middle East Technical University (METU), told Xinhua.

Putting the fault on both sides for having failed to diplomatically settle the issue, he said Turkey appears to have willingly entered into conflict with the EU countries as it has sought polarization among voters at home.

According to polls, a significant portion of the ruling AKP's voters have misgivings about the proposed shift to the executive presidency.

The AKP is trying to increase its voter support in the referendum by creating adversaries through this crisis, argued Kaya, the professor, who teaches at the European University Institute in Firenze, Italy.

Huseyin Kocabiyik, an AKP deputy, said on A Haber news channel on Sunday that he expected the crisis with Germany and the Netherlands would serve the party's cause in the referendum.

"We should not get just angry with Germany, the Netherlands. Maybe we should also thank (them) a little. They contribute at least 2 (percentage) points to our yes votes in this way," he was quoted by local media as saying.

Noting he is a former political advisor and researcher, Kocabiyik argued that the two countries' attitude would not only give a significant boost to yes votes among Turkish expats, but would also incline undecided voters in Turkey towards voting yes.

The AKP and Erdogan, who headed the party, have been pushing hard for a shift to the presidential system by campaigning for yes in the plebiscite.

"No" votes are leading the polls now with no more than a couple of percentage points, according to some recent polls published by local media.

Most opposition parties, including the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), are against changing the political system. They argue the constitutional amendments to be voted in the referendum would lead to a one-man rule, as the president is granted sweeping powers while parliamentary powers are crippled.

"This incident serves the interests of both the Dutch PM and the AKP," CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said on Star TV on Monday.

He also noted that 13 percent of the voters in Turkey are currently undecided.

In response to the Dutch government's ban on Cavusoglu, Turkey's Minister of Family and Social Policies Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, who was in Germany at the time, traveled to Rotterdam by car on Saturday evening to meet with Turkish voters at the Turkish consulate.

She was, however, not allowed by the Dutch police to get nearer than some 30 meters to the consulate and was later deported in the company of a police escort to Germany after several hours of dispute.

Kaya later said she was subjected to very rude and harsh behavior. Blasting the Dutch government's attitude as anti-democratic, she added that "the freedom of expression and right of assembly were trampled."

While Kaya was there, the Dutch riot police harshly cracked down with dogs on a crowd of Turks who had gathered near the consulate to protest the Dutch government's ban.

Erdogan described the Dutch police' behavior as bordering on banditry, declaring that "this is just a sign of the rising fascism, racism, Islamaphobia in Europe."

"The Netherlands' attitude is hard to believe. A minister of an ally country cannot be deported even when relations are very bad," commented Logoglu.

"The Netherlands looks to be in the grip of populist tendencies," he added.

Both Turkey and the Netherlands are NATO members. Turkey has also been negotiating about being admitted as a full member to the European Union, although the prospect is getting dimmer and dimmer amid unending spats over issues like human rights and democracy over the years.

Turkey announced on Monday evening that it suspended all high-level meetings with Dutch officials "until the Netherlands atones for what it did."

The Dutch ambassador who had been on leave before the outbreak of the crisis is not allowed to return to Ankara, while Dutch diplomats who come to Turkey for official visits as well as diplomatic flights are barred as well.

European countries usually say they are concerned that campaign by Turkish politicians could spread polarization in Turkey among sympathizers of the ruling AKP and opposition parties into their lands.

In the past, Turkish politicians were allowed by EU countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, to organize political rallies with Turkish expats.

Turkey's main opposition CHP canceled all its campaign programs abroad ahead of the referendum, while the MHP is campaigning for yes in the vote.

The row over vote campaign first erupted between Turkey and Germany at the beginning of the month, but seems now to have subsided.

Several Turkish ministers, among them Cavusoglu, had to cancel their campaign programs in Germany in early March, but Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci was allowed to address Turkish voters in Germany about ten days ago.

Tension with Germany, however, risks rising again as Erdogan on Monday accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of being the same mentality with the Dutch government.

The Turkish leader levelled his criticism at Merkel after she said earlier in the day that she stood in solidarity with the Netherlands against its officials being likened to Nazis, noting the Dutch were among nations that suffered most under the Nazis.

"Shame on you (Merkel). So, you are of the same mind (with the Dutch government)," Erdogan said during a live interview on A Haber.

Joining Germany's fray with Turkey, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said campaign by Turkish politicians in Europe should be banned.

Erdogan argued that the fact Turkey is getting stronger is what lies behind the Europe's negative attitude. "That's what makes them crazy," he claimed, adding, "Turkish expats should absolutely not vote for these two parties."

Most probably, Erdogan was referring to Rutte's VVD and Merkel's Christian democratic party CDU.

A considerable portion of the Turks living in Germany and the Netherlands have double citizenship and can vote in local elections.

In contrast to the Netherlands and Germany, Cavusoglu was allowed to address Turkish expats in Metz, France, on Sunday. The French government was heavily criticized by right-wing parties for its tolerance.

French Foreign Minister Jean Marc Ayrault joined Merkel, however, in denouncing as unacceptable Turkish officials' comments linking the Dutch officials with fascism and Nazism.

Many are concerned that the crisis could lead to further deterioration in ties with the EU, and that Turkish citizens in Europe could possibly feel more under pressure as a result.

All the developments will probably lead to a new solidarity in the EU against Turkey, remarked Logoglu.

METU's Bagci drew attention to the fact that EU countries have started to question the legitimacy of campaign in Europe by politicians of non-EU countries.

The AKP, which had the backing of the EU when it came to power in 2002, seems now to have lost much of their political support, Kaya stated.

"It's obvious Turkey's image in Europe will get worse," commented Bagci.
A Palestinian demonstrator throws an old shoe at a poster of US President Donald Trump as they protest against his support of Israel. (AFP photo)

JERUSALEM, March 14 (Xinhua) -- As Palestinians initially concerned and Israelis elated, both sides are still testing the waters when it comes to how U.S. President Donald Trump will manage the decades-long conflict.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump a few days ago inviting him for an official visit to the White House.

The call came almost two months after Trump's inauguration concurrent with Palestinian fears of being sidelined by a supposedly new pro-Israeli administration.

Meanwhile, Jason Greenblatt, Trump's international negotiations envoy, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is scheduled to meet with Abbas.

Prior to these recent developments, media reports claimed that Palestinians were being ignored by the new American administration.

Reportedly, calls went unanswered, whereas Netanyahu spoke to Trump several times and was invited to the White House.

Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian politician and a senior lecturer at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said the fears were quite genuine.

"The Palestinian side felt neglected by the new administration," said Khatib.

Not only was there initially no contact with the Palestinian side, but in addition, "They felt they (the new administration) were more biased towards Israel."

Throughout his campaign, Trump made several statements that fomented Abbas' fears.

Following eights years of a sympathetic administration in the White House, Trump signaled he would abandon previous notions which almost became the default American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, once in the Oval Office, Trump appears to be distancing himself from his campaign promises.

He had said he would move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Once president, Trump immediately became less forceful on the issue.

Trump also had said he did not view the West Bank Israeli settlements as an obstacle to peace between both rivals.

On the other hand, Palestinians consider settlements as a severe obstacle toward their statehood goal.

After meeting with Netanyahu, the American president changed his rhetoric, asking the Israeli premier "to hold off on settlements a little bit."

This was reportedly also communicated to Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman during his recent visit to the U.S.

Reality is settling in for both sides - Israel's right-wing government was certain of a carte blanche toward settlement construction and Palestinians feared being ignored by the new administration.

Currently, both Abbas and Netanyahu need to adjust to a new reality.

For Palestinians, relief followed the invitation to the White House, although the meeting has yet to be scheduled.

"They (the Trump administration) realize they cannot address only one side of the conflict," said Khatib.

He adds that in recent weeks Palestinians have been informed to "wait and not jump to conclusions just yet as Americans study the issue."

Apparently, when Netanyahu met with Greenblatt in Jerusalem, he aspired to reach an agreement with the American administration on the extent of settlement construction Israel would be permitted in the West Bank.

A press release from the prime minister's office stated that such an agreement was not reached, indicating that Trump was not going to make life easy for the Israeli leader.

"The prime minister and Mr. Greenblatt discussed settlement construction hoping to reach an approach compatible with the goal of advancing peace and security," read the statement.

Ben Caspit, an Israeli political commentator, wrote "Netanyahu is about to realize that his narrow right-wing coalition will render it problematic for him to maneuver in the coming months."

"Any agreements reached must include construction without any restrictions," tweeted a member of Netanyahu's coalition ahead of the meeting with Greenblatt.

Settlement expansion was meticulously handled under former U.S. President Barack Obama, however Palestinians detect a regression.

Previously, any settlement construction was immediately met with American condemnation.

In December 2016, a United Nations Security Council resolution was passed judging all West Bank Israeli settlements illegal.

"The new American administration is less conscious of Israel's illegal behavior," stated Dr. Khatib.

However, Palestinians demand zero-tolerance on the issue.

"If the U.S. will tolerate (Israeli settlements), they will not be able to play a constructive role in negotiations. If they are incompatible with international legislation, then that lead to negative consequences," said Khatib.

The American administration's recent moves shows efforts to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which have been stalled for years.

For Netanyahu's right-wing government, Trump's volte-face regarding his statements is a concern.

In an op-ed in Haaretz newspaper, Chemi Shalev wrote, "once a messiah, Trump could turn out to be the Israeli right's worst nightmare."

Trump expressed his wish to reach a "deal" to solve the conflict throughout his campaign.

While Palestinians were informed to be patient, Khatib is not optimistic.

"Time is quite a problematic foe for Palestinians as Israel exploits this time to construct more settlements, therefore there is little basis for optimism," Khatib lamented, doubtful that Trump's ambiguous approach will bear fruit.
DUBAI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Dubai announced here Tuesday the start of the first city-wide effort to implement blockchain technology in its city services.

The move, in collaboration with IBM as blockchain lead strategic partner and the New York-based firm Consensys as blockchain city advisor, is the first of its kind worldwide, said the government-controlled Smart Dubai Office (SDO).

The announcement at the media briefing "is a key execution of the Dubai Blockchain Strategy 2020," said the SDO.

Announced in October 2016 by the Dubai Future Foundation and the Smart Dubai Office, the project is aimed at developing blockchain in the city, which is a shared virtual database fed with constantly growing list of entry transactions and records.

"We are working towards our goal of making Dubai the first blockchain-powered government in the world by 2020," said Aisha Bin Bishr, director general of SDO.

Within the next three years, all Dubai ministries and government will contribute to the city's blockchain by sharing their data, but access to certain sensitive data will be restricted depending on the hierarchy within a public institution.

Bin Bishr referred to the Smart Dubai's overall vision as making every-day experiences more safe, seamless, efficient and impactful for all residents and visitors of the city.

Smart Dubai will soon conduct workshops with key government, semi-government and private organizations in Dubai to identify and prioritize the services that can be most enhanced by the application of blockchain technology.
HAVANA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 160,000 people are now suffering senile dementia in Cuba, and the figure is estimated to reach 300,000 in 2040, representing 2.7 percent of the total population, the official newspaper "Granma" disclosed on Tuesday.

Specialists and experts based their assertion on the fact that aging is the main risk factor for developing dementia, and that the island's population is aging fast, due to the low birth rates and the rising life expectancy.

Their research stressed that 19.4 percent of Cubans have already reached the age of 60, a sample of the "relatively fast" demographic aging of the population of the island, with a total population of 11,239,004, according to the National Statistics Bureau.

The research cited calculations from the Center for Population Studies, which estimated that in 2050, Cuba will have 3,598,782 inhabitants aged 60 and over, almost one-third of its total population.

According to the research, eight percent of Cubans over the age of 65 suffer from mild cognitive impairment, which poses a risk of developing mental disorder, while 10 percent suffer from some form of dementia, mostly the Alzheimer's disease.

Juan Llibre, president of the Cuban Alzheimer Section, participated in the study, and remarked that people with higher educational level have lower risk of getting the disease, which is about 30 to 40 percent.

According to the specialists, lifelong education and lifelong learning diminish the risk of contracting Alzheimer's disease, because it helps to develop a cognitive reserve allowing people to continue functioning at a normal level despite experiencing degenerative changes in the brain.
South African President Jacob Zuma (1st R) visits local communities of Mhlabuyalingana in northern KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa bordering Mozambique, on March 14, 2017. President Jacob Zuma pledged on Tuesday to combat crime that is causing tension between South African and Mozambican nationals in communities bordering Mozambique. (Xinhua/DOC/Kopano Tlape)

CAPE TOWN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- President Jacob Zuma pledged on Tuesday to combat crime that is causing tension between South African and Mozambican nationals in communities bordering Mozambique.

The president urged the local communities of Mhlabuyalingana and surrounding municipalities of Mkhanyakude, Hlabisa and Jozini in northern KwaZulu-Natal Province to renew their trust in the police and work together with them to combat cross-border crime especially car hijackings in the area.

Zuma visited the area on Tuesday to meet representatives from the communities and hear their concerns amid tensions between residents and foreign nationals, the presidency said.

The communities have been hit by incidents of stock theft and cross-border hijackings involving Mozambican nationals who allegedly hijack cars from South Africans and drive them across the border.

Mozambican police authorities bluntly refused to return the cars, local South Africans complain to Zuma.

Zuma visited the local police station which he found to be severely under-resourced and also went to inspect the borderline between South Africa and Mozambique.

The president undertook to look into the issues raised by the community, especially the suspicion that some members of the police are alleged to work with the crime syndicates.

Cross-border corruption and bribery involving police are reportedly rife in the area.

Zuma urged the communities to provide information on specific cases of police involvement and avoid generalizations.

The president crossed over the border and greeted the Mozambican police and Mozambican residents living on the borderline and was greeted warmly by the Mozambican nationals, according to the presidency.

Zuma said South African national departments particularly of the Police, Defence, State Security, Home Affairs, Social Development and others would make a strong intervention after his visit, working with the provincial government and municipalities.

Zuma said South Africa enjoys strong and warm historical relations with Mozambique and crime should not be allowed to sour these relations.

The visit was part of the government's intensified campaign against crime as tension between South Africans and foreign nationals increased.

The campaign is drawing all the spheres of government in unity towards eradicating crime and dealing with serious tension in the area between citizens and migrants or visitors from neighbouring sister countries, presidential spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga said.
LUSAKA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Refugees and former refugees are contributing positively to Zambia's economy and have the potential to contribute further to the country's development if legal and other obstacles are removed, findings of a new study seen on Tuesday have shown.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Institute of Economic and Social Research of the University of Zambia, in technical partnership with the Refugee Studies Center, University of Oxford from October last year to January this year, targeted refugees living at two refugee camps in western and northwestern Zambia and former refugees from Rwanda and Angola living in some cities.

According to a statement from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Zambia, it was the first time in Zambia's 50 years of hosting refugees to formally obtain and document "feedback" from refugees and former refugees on their livelihoods, economic interaction and technological activities.

It added that the findings will provide useful information to the stakeholders in understanding the refugee economies in Zambia.

The finding comes at a time when the government is working on a new Refugee Bill and it will enhance the bill especially on matters that relate to the economic impact of refugees' livelihood activities, the UNHCR statement said.

"The findings will help UNHCR with information as we make livelihoods interventions. Furthermore, it is our hope that the government of Zambia would consider the findings of this study to inform the future policies on refugees, especially with regard to the various reservations to the 1951 UN Convention," UNHCR Representative in Zambia Laura Lo Castro said.

According to lead researcher Dr. Mushiba Nyamazana from the University of Zambia, the study specifically looked at the refugees and former refugees' capacity to invest and employ labor, consumption patterns for goods and services, contribution to human capital formation and value chains participation at small and medium level enterprises.

It also looked at the use and impact of internet and Information Communication Technology (ICT) and challenges faced by refugees and former refugees in livelihoods activities.

According to the lead researcher, the refugees and former refuges in Zambia are doing everything possible, within the available legal and social space, to nurture a livelihood, a move that is making them contribute positively to Zambia's economy.

The study has also made some recommendations to unlock the potential of refugees and former refuges such as relaxation on freedom of movements and reduce exorbitant fees to obtain a work permit, among others.

Zambia is host to 57,200 people of concern (refugees and former refugees), domiciled in the two refugee camps, urban areas and those who are self-settled in other parts of the country, according to the UNHCR.
LUSAKA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Zambia is on the verge of discovering oil and gas after results of exploration works conducted in two provinces situated to the north of the country indicated the presence of hydro carbons, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

Minister of Mines Christopher Yaluma said a consultant engaged to conduct oil and gas exploration in Luapula and Northern Provinces has indicated the presence of hydro carbons in the two areas.

The Zambian minister said this is an indication of oil and gas in the two provinces, according to state broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation.

According to him, environmental impact assessment plans have already been done in the two provinces and that the government will soon start getting results that will be announced in the next three weeks.

He added that there is potential for oil and gas in Block 31 and 54 which runs from east Africa through Kenya and Tanzania and Zambia through Lake Tanganyika and then heads to Lake Mweru situated in Luapula Province near the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Zambian minister said the government is elated with the development.

Zambia has been conducting oil and gas explorations for years in various parts of the country.
LUSAKA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- An Israel-based firm has expressed interest in investing in Zambia's agriculture sector, a company official said on Tuesday.

ZRB Group of Companies said it is interested in partnering with local firms for the development of commercial integrated farming.

Zeez Zacharin, the leader of the company's delegation which is Zambia to explore investment opportunities following a visit by President Edgar Lungu to Israel recently, said the firm is interested in investing in a number of agro-related fields.

In remarks delivered when the delegation paid a courtesy call on Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya, the official said the company, which is also based in Angola where it produces about 250 million eggs per year, wanted to have a similar production in Zambia as well as engage in the production of 100,000 tons of vegetables per year under an outer-grower scheme with local smallholder farmers.

The firm's goal, he added, is to train smallholder farmers to produce high quality agricultural products in order to boost Zambia's food production.

On her part, the Zambian minister said more companies from Israel have expressed willingness to invest in the agricultural sector in the country following the high-level visit to that country.

She said the government is in a hurry to see more investments in the agricultural sector, adding that the investments in the sector will see more Zambian products on the local and international markets and boost businesses of smallholder farmers.
UNITED NATIONS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The United States is the newest member of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, a UN spokesman told reporters here Tuesday.

He said the treaty is a ground-breaking instrument that works to strengthen global food security by promoting the conservation, sharing, and sustainable use of agricultural plant genetic resources.

"The United States officially deposited its certificate of adherence to the treaty with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) three months ago, triggering a count-down to its entry into force for the country," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

In November 2002, the United States added its signature to the international treaty which aims to ensure better use of genetic diversity to meet the challenge of eradicating world hunger.

At present, 143 countries are now participating in the treaty, with five other countries, namely Argentina, Bolivia, Guyana, Tuvalu and Chile, becoming recently active contracting parties.

Antigua and Barbuda is poised to become so by mid-2017, the spokesman said.

The international treaty's centrepiece is its "Multilateral System" that facilitates access to a globe-spanning collection of plant genetic resources, exclusively for use in research, breeding and training efforts and which includes measures to ensure the fair and equitable sharing of any financial benefits that result.

The treaty is a unique comprehensive international agreement, the fruit of almost a quarter of a century of negotiations, which aims to guarantee the future availability of the diversity of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits.

The treaty also recognises farmers' rights and establishes a multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing for 64 crops and plants that are fundamental to food security.

To date, the treaty has disbursed almost 20 million U.S. dollars through the fund to help one million farmers stay ahead of climate change through 61 projects in over 55 developing nations, the FAO said.

More than 220 civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, universities, gene banks, national and international research institutions, rural community groups and producers' organizations have been involved in executing these projects.
ASTANA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian armed opposition cited the strikes made by Russian air forces as reasons for its refusal to attend the negotiations in Astana, while Russia said they were finding excuses.

Colonel of Free Syrian Army, representative of the Syrian armed opposition Fares al Babesh said that the strikes made by Russian air forces on their positions, as well as on the peaceful population of Syria were reasons for their refusal to come to the negotiations in Astana, Kazakh capital.

"We regret that the delegation of the Syrian opposition refused to come in. Those pretexts, under which they refused to come, we still think of them as contrived," said Head of Russian delegation, Russian President's special representative for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev.

The third round of negotiations on the Syrian settlement starts in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on Tuesday. The meeting is held in the form of bilateral and multilateral consultations. A plenary meeting is scheduled for March 15.

Representatives of the UN, the U.S. and Jordan were invited to the meeting as observers. The UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura did not come to Astana, the UN delegation will be headed, as in the previous round, by UN expert consultant Milos Strugar. The U.S. side will be represented by U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan George Krol.

"Of course, if they (the opposition) were here, maybe a process would move in their interests faster," Lavrentiev added.

He said that the absence of the Syrian opposition at Astana-3 peace talks will not affect the negotiation process.

"The ceasefire regime, in our view, is generally stable, there are some violations, but they are not at a large scale," said Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennadiy Gatilov.
ANKARA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkey and Ukraine agreed to allow their citizens to travel to each other's country without passports on Tuesday.

The agreement would enable citizens of Turkey and Ukraine to travel between the two countries with their national identities, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

"I believe that with the signed agreement, tourism, economy activities and mutual investment between Ukraine and Turkey will improve faster," Yildirim said at a news conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Ankara.

Yildirim said the two countries had "three main targets" for 2017, namely, creating a free trade zone, protecting mutual investments and preventing double taxation.

Groysman said the agreement was an "extremely important" step, and would help to achieve the targeted 20 billion U.S. dollars bilateral trade volume.
by Ronald Njoroge and David Musyoka

NAIROBI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan doctors on Tuesday ended their three-month strike after reaching a deal with both national and county governments.

Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Secretary General Ouma Olunga said the doctors will resume to work immediately even as government and union iron out the remaining provisions of the agreement.

"We are very thankful for the support we have received from Kenyans during the 100 days of the strike and we promise to offer the best health care possible," Olunga told journalists in Nairobi after signing the agreement.

"By doing so, we bring to an end the painful struggle that we have been through. Patients and doctors cannot be separated. The strike is over but we need to restore industrial harmony," he added.

Doctors are currently expected to work under the supervision of some 47 County governors, who are responsible for public health as the second tier of a devolved government structure.

The KMPDU which has been demanding a 300 percent salary increase for its members as agreed in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) says the lowest paid doctor should earn 3,450 U.S. dollars while the highest should be earning 9,450 dollars.

However, the government has offered a 500 dollar or 40 percent increase for the lowest paid doctors, which would have raised their salaries to 1,760 dollars but unions rejected it and walked out of talks.

Oluga said the doctors have concluded a return-to-work formula between them and government, bringing to an end the strike by the medics that has paralyzed the health services for more than three months.

"It has been one of the most difficult industrial relations in the country. I want to announce here that the doctors union has finally put to an end the strike," he declared at a joint news conference with government officials and religious leaders who brokered the deal.

The doctors have also been demanding improved working conditions at the public hospitals, where some 5,000 members are employed.

The doctors say the industrial action was occasioned by three year industrial dispute concerning the disputed CBA signed on June 27, 2013 and effective July 1, 2013 but the government disowned it, saying the government officials who signed it did so illegally after their tenure in government ended.

Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu lauded the doctors union for calling off the strike, terming it regrettable.

"I am glad that the strike has ended but I must say that it was a regrettable situation that will go to the black books of history," Mailu said.

The Tuesday deal whose details were not disclosed followed intense negotiations brokered by religious leaders who brought together representatives from the Attorney General's office, Health Ministry and the Council of Governors.

During the negotiations, the doctors accused the government side of failing to show any good will in the negotiation process but instead threatening them with law suits.

A deal with the government was signed in 2013, but the government disowned the agreement saying the government officials who signed it did so illegally after their tenure in government ended.

The standoff between the doctors and the government has pushed thousands of low income patients to the edge, and with no cash to visit to high cost private facilities, distressed families have flocked ill-equipped clinics found in residential areas.
JUBA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- South Sudanese rebels on Tuesday released eight aid workers of U.S.-based charity Samaritan's Purse who were captured at Mayendit, about 680 km northeast of the capital.

The charity said all the eight kidnapped aid workers are now on their way to a safe location.

"Samaritan's Purse is thankful to God for the safe release of our South Sudanese national staff, who had been detained by armed personnel in the Mayendit area of South Sudan. They were all released Tuesday afternoon local time," it said in a statement released in Juba.

Samaritan's Purse had been forced to evacuate most personnel from the country two weeks ago due to violence and called on all parties to stop hostilities and allow immediate full access to distribute emergency food supplies.

Mayendit is located where the UN in February declared famine leaving 100,000 people starving and one million on the brink of starvation.

The American evangelic group further revealed that their staff were released without paying any ransom. However, the rebels in South Sudan denied reports that their troops had abducted the eight aid workers.

"There was no ransom request and they are on the way to a safe location at this time. We are grateful for the World Food Program's support in helping us relocate our staff," it said.

The rebels had dismissed statements by the South Sudanese army (SPLA) of allegedly detaining the workers of the American evangelical group after fighting broke out at the weekend.

SPLA-in opposition (SPLA-IO) spokesman William Gatjiath told Xinhua that it is untrue that the rebels abducted the eight aid workers in Mayendit as claimed by the government.

The UN also noted that 5.5 million people are in dire need of food assistance, amid complaints of obstruction of humanitarian agencies' movement in the famine-stricken parts due to ongoing fighting in the oil-rich and yet impoverished country.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013, following political dispute between president Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar resulting in killing of tens of thousands and displacement of more than two million.

However, renewed July fighting in 2016 threatened to tear apart the fragile 2015 peace agreement to end the conflict.
Syrian security forces and locals gather at the scene of a twin bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims in Damascus' Old City on March 11, 2017, in one of the bloodiest attacks in the Syrian capital. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

by Hummam Sheikh Ali

DAMASCUS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian crisis is stepping into its seventh year, with political and military efforts being exerted, but with no clear vision so far on a political vision, rather a more obvious one on the military's.

POLITICAL SOLUTION STILL BEYOND REACH

Throughout the last six years, world powers hosted countless meetings on Syria, whether in Geneva, or the latest in Astana, with each party claiming that a political solution is the only way out of the Syrian intricate impasse.

Still, such meetings failed to draw a concrete roadmap to end the conflict, with each party exchanging blame for the lack of progress.

The Syrian government has always accused political opposition, particularly those in exile whether in Turkey or Saudi Arabia, of being puppets in the hands of regional and international backers to oust President Bashar al-Assad's government and undermine the unity and sovereignty of Syria.

To some extent there is some truth to that, as some exiled opposition groups, mainly the Saudi-backed Higher Negotiation Committee (HNC) are largely linked to agendas of countries supporting them, said Ahmad Ashqar, a journalist and political analyst.

For their part, the opposition also point an accusing finger at the government.

Hasan Abdul-Azim, head of the Damascus-based National Coordination Body (NCB), told Xinhua on Tuesday that Assad's government has for long evaded establishing a transitional governing body, as agreed upon in previous talks.

"The regime has been evading the formation of a transitional governing body over the past years, on the pretext of fighting terrorism," he said.

Forming a transitional governing body was agreed upon during the 2012 Geneva communique which never materialized.

The Syrian government always said that discussing the presidency of President Assad is a redline, and any change in establishing a ruling system in Syria is subject to the wishes of Syrian people through a referendum.

The government also rejected what it called international dictations.

Meanwhile, the government during the recent talks held in Geneva last month clarified that anti-terrorism efforts should be prioritized ahead of talks of transitional periods, whereas the opposition, mainly the HNC, insisted that intra-Syrian talks should prioritize the transition.

This is the thorniest point throughout any talks, according to analysts.

Even President Assad recently clarified that point by saying on Monday that Syria's priority is fighting terrorism, adding that talks about politics at this time are a "luxury."

Speaking to European media outlets, whose content was carried by state news agency SANA, the president said that driving out extremists is a priority and reaching reconciliation in other areas is another priority.

"It's luxurious talking about politics when you could get killed anytime by terrorist attacks," Assad said.

Commenting on the president's remarks, Munther Khaddam, a Syrian opposition figure said that Assad's remarks indicate that "the Syrian government wants a political solution befitting its direction," adding that a political solution will most likely not be reached soon.

Noteworthy, the government regards almost all rebel groups as "terrorists," while the United Nations (UN) and other world powers have only branded two groups as terrorists, namely the Islamic State (IS) group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

During the talks in Astana earlier this year, the first to gather a governmental delegation with rebel groups representatives in the same venue, the government delegation repeatedly addressed the opposing delegation as the "terrorist groups' delegation."

At first the meeting was hailed as the first of its kind, with analysts suggesting a genuine international will to end the conflict, however real results were far from promising.

The first two rounds as well as the currently round underway, are the result of a Turkish-Russian-Iranian understanding.

The understanding between the three countries was reached ahead of the Astana meeting, resulting in a fragile truce which went into effect late last December, but has been broken with renewed battles in some parts of the country, mainly Damascus's eastern countryside.

As for the rebels, particularly those who were not branded internationally as terrorists, avoiding the Nusra Front was a tough task, as they don't consider Nusra as a terrorist organization, but do regard the IS as one.

During the first round of Astana talks in January 2017, international backers and the Syrian delegation in the talks decided to separate rebel factions from Nusra and IS.

However, during the current round of talks there which started on Monday, the focus of the parties is said to be on the same point of separating rebels from terrorist-designated ones.

Opposition parties were late in arriving, indicating they are not okay with the current ongoing conference.

On Saturday the Syrian opposition called for postponing the negotiations until March 20 due to "ceasefire violations," and in response opposition delegate Osama Abu Zaid tweeted that the opposition will not attend.

The sum of these factors indicates that the path toward a political solution still needs more time.

Osama Danura, a Syrian political analyst, told Xinhua that "the political landscape is not entirely frozen or at a stalemate, but it's moving slowly compared to the lengthy Syrian crisis."

ONGOING MILITARY ACTIVITIES

The military situation in Syria is still gaining momentum, most notably against the terrorist-designated groups.

The presence of international powers, particularly those involved in the Syrian conflict, has recently become more obvious.

U.S. forces have deployed ground troops under President Donald Trump's new administration, in the largely-controlled Kurdish areas in northern Syria, in preparation for the battle against the IS's de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria.

Deployment of U.S. marines to back the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG) and the allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is part of a plan put forward by the Pentagon as per Trump's request, who said that defeating IS would be a priority.

What's more, Turkish forces have entered Syria to assist the rebels it is backing under a military campaign called the "Euphrates Shield," whose stated goal is to drive IS from northern Syrian areas.

The Turkish-backed campaign successfully dislodged IS from the key city of al-Bab and other areas on the Syrian-Turkish borders.

Yet, the covert reason behind Turkey's campaign is to also keep Kurdish groups away from Turkish borders.

Russian support was crucial to the Syrian army in driving out IS from the eastern countryside of Aleppo province in northern Syria.

It was also critical in driving IS out of the ancient city of Palmyra recently.

All in all the superpowers amass forces to drive out IS from Syria in order to secure their interests in Syria, analysts say.

The U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition also unleashed a campaign against Nusra Front leaders, killing tens of its commanders in recently, mainly in the northern city of Idlib.

Currently, for the Assad administration, the present situation is much better than before.

The government hails Russia's military intervention as crucial as it has wrestled control over key areas, with assistance from Hezbollah Shiite fighters and other likeminded groups from Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Assad recently said during an interview that the current situation in Syria is better than it was in 2012 and 2013.

Back then, government forces lost key areas to the rebels.

However that's no longer the case, with the army controlling major Syrian cities, mainly Aleppo, which government forces recaptured late last year after driving out the rebels.

Aleppo was crucial toward strengthening the Syrian government's stance, as the opposition deemed it as the "mother of revolutions."

It was their most important Syrian stronghold as Aleppo is the largest Syrian city and the economic capital, and recapturing it was militarily and psychologically significant to the army, and a huge blow to the rebels.

Last January Assad said that Syrian government forces were on their way to victory after recapturing Aleppo.

"We don't consider it (retaking Aleppo from the rebels) as a victory; the victory will be when you get rid of all the terrorists," Assad said.

He said the world will change after "Aleppo's liberation," describing it as a historic moment and a turning point in the Syrian crisis.

IS THERE ANY HOPE?

Despite the lack of any tangible progress during the meetings on Syria, analysts in Damascus said hope still exists.

Hmaidi Abdullah, a Syrian political analyst, told Xinhua that the Syrian crisis is currently closer than ever to a political solution, stressing that the military's solution is presently directed against terrorist groups such as IS and Nusra.

He said that the current regional and international military action in Syria, including Aleppo's countryside and the city of Raqqa, is what rendered a political solution to the crisis as the likeliest choice, "As the alternative would be a war between Turkish forces, allied militants, the U.S-backed Kurdish groups, Russian forces and allied Syrian military forces - a war in no one's interest."

He added that the way out of the impasse in the Syrian crisis is through implementing resolution 2254, the ultimate formula for a solution.

The resolution was unanimously adopted on 18 December 2015, calling for a ceasefire and a political solution in Syria.

It is also the foundation for the Astana negotiations convened by Turkey, Russia and Iran in Astana, Kazakhstan.

As for Maher Almounes, a Syrian journalist, he said that the political solution is "the most fortunate option" after a six year crisis, adding that the military's solution in Syria has been "widely exhausted."

"After six years of crisis, the military solution has been depleted and the shift is now toward a political solution," he said.

He explained his remarks by saying that several meetings which have recently taken place in Geneva and Astana indicate that an international will exists to help end the Syrian war as peacefully as possible.

Almounes said that there will be no major wars in Syrian cities, noting that current battles are against rebels pockets in many areas, while major battles against terrorist groups are being fought by superpowers, and Syria's government forces.

Danura, the analyst, said that the Syrian army's ground advance was a positive variable in parallel with an "international shift," regarding the Syrian crisis.

"The ground progress achieved by the Syrian army and the political shifts in parallel are a positive sign, such as the Astana and Geneva talks. Undeniably political progress was not decisive but was apparent and the talks are still in their first stages but they are paving a path for effective negotiations," he said.

He added that "We have also witnessed a change, or aspects of change, in the West's stance toward Syria, particularly America's stance which seems reliable. We also found Russian forces played a role in driving out terrorist groups, preventing Western powers from investing in this phenomenon."

Danura said that optimism levels are higher than previous, yet not to the desired extent.

"There are positive obvious signs but a more decisive role from the international community is needed in terms of battling terrorism and ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria," he said.

Speaking of the humanitarian situation, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said in a report marking the sixth anniversary of the Syrian crisis that "while there is some hope for peace, the suffering of millions of Syrians continues unabated. The Syrian War is a collective failure."

The UNHCR said that 13.5 million Syrians need humanitarian aid, and 6.3 million are internally displaced while hundreds of thousands have made perilous sea voyages seeking sanctuary elsewhere and almost 3 million Syrians under 5 have grown up during war time, with 4.9 million, mostly women and children, are refugees in neighboring states.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights placed the death toll of Syria's six-year-old conflict at over 320,000 people, including civilians, rebels, terrorists, and government forces.
WINDHOEK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's Ministry of Environment and Tourism in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Tuesday launched Project on Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Evidence for policy in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean in Windhoek.

The project, according to Head of Office at IOM in Namibia Lilian Ambuso, aims to increase knowledge and awareness about the relationship between migration and environmental change, including climate change, to inform the formulation of related national and regional policy and operational planning.

"The project will see national governments and operational partners from participating countries to have increased their capacity to streamline environmental change, including climate change into migration management policies," she said.

The project is being carried out in four countries, namely, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique and Namibia. "These four are some of the most climate-affected countries in the world, with increasingly significant impacts on population movement," said Ambuso.

Also speaking at the launch, FAO Representative Babagana Ahmadu said that the launch of the project is timely and represent a milestone in addressing climatic challenges, as the data will serve in providing evidence-based solutions as it will translate into the development of a SADC policy guiding regional document on migration, environment and climate change.

Meanwhile, Peter Muteyauli, Director of Environmental Affairs in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism said that through the project Namibia is set to gain a clear understanding and insight into issues, and have clear interventions on how to address the nexus of migration and climate change.

The project also responds to the call of CoP21 for countries to make effort and fight negative impacts of climate change.

In Namibia, the project is being implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration, Ministry of Environment and Office of the Prime Minister, with seed funding from the IOM.
By Francis Tandoh

ACCRA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Energy experts here Tuesday urged the Ghanaian government to conduct due diligence before deciding to hedge the country's crude oil, to forestall a situation where the country could lose huge sums of its oil revenue.

The country's Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), the body charged with monitoring the proper utilization of oil revenue, in its 2015 Annual and 2016 Semi-Annual Reports, urged the Ghana government to hedge the country's crude oil to maximize profit.

Hedging is the process in which when there is an anticipation of a rise in the price of a commodity in a future, the buyer places a contract to buy the commodity at a fixed price from the seller.

"In order to mitigate the impacts of the volatility of crude oil prices on the world market and following the successful hedging programs being implemented by other Jubilee partners, the government should consider resuming its hedging program on crude oil exports," the report said.

But speaking to Xinhua, Dr. John Gatsi, Head of Department at the Finance & School of Business at the University of Cape Coast in the Central Region (Province), urged the government to exercise circumspection if it is considering hedging.

"I think hedging indirectly is part of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA), Act 815. But this is an area that we ought to be very careful when we go into it. If we are not very careful and we rush into hedging for hedging's sake, that can bring more risk to the economy." Gatsi said.

The west African country lost significant amount of revenue in 2015 and 2016 largely because of crude oil price collapse at the world market.

Gatsi said the country's Jubilee Field International Oil Companies (IOCs) partners that hedged their crude and made gains did not do so in the midst of crisis.

"There are positive aspects of hedging and there are negative aspects as well, and that should be the guiding principle. Those IOCs that actually benefited from hedging, they were not doing the hedging in the midst of the crisis."

Chairman of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (CSPOG) and member of PIAC, Dr. Steve Manteaw, at a workshop on the analysis of the PIAC 2016 Semi-Annual Report, said it is dangerous for a developing economy like Ghana to hedge its crude oil at the international market.

"For a country developing country and especially one that has not developed other derivatives, it must desist from hedging."

PIAC Vice Chair Kwame Jantuah also told Xinhua the IOCs at the Jubilee Field hedged and made profit in the end and urged for proper forecasting to determine the suitability of hedging or otherwise.

"The volatility of the oil price will determine that and we should be able to forecast where the oil prices are going to be within certain duration of time. It has worked for the IOCs that hedged because it is a chicken and egg issue. If you hedge and prices shoot up to 100 dollars a barrel, then your hedging will stop you from gaining from that increased margin. However, if you don't hedge and prices drop as it dropped to 30 dollars a barrel, you also lose, so we need to be able to forecast and see where the oil price is likely to be within the next six months or eight months", Jantuah said.

Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a think tank, recently reiterated the call by PIAC on government to hedge the country's crude oil to protect the west African country from shocks in the global price of crude.

The institute says the country risks missing out on its seven percent growth target for 2017 should the prevailing conditions on the global oil market persist.

IFS Executive Director Professor Newman Kusi told the media: "We are not going to achieve the target. Clearly projections are made on two things -- the coming onboard of the Sankofa and TEN oil projects. If anything happens and the productions from the two fields do not materialize, we are not going to get the growth target."

Ghana hedged one million barrels of crude oil at 82.50 U.S. Dollars per barrel for a period of six months in November 2010 with prices at that time hovering around 75 dollars but after four months it surged past 115 dollars. Between May to December 2011, the country again hedged the sale of its oil at 107 dollars per barrel when the price of the commodity was 119.20 dollars per barrel.
TEHRAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran and Russia will consider a sketch of cooperation roadmap during the upcoming visit by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Moscow, semi-official Mehr news agency reported Tuesday.

The two sides will hopefully reach an agreement on a roadmap for medium or long-term cooperation, Iranian Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said.

In addition, over 11 documents will be signed between the two countries during Rouhani's visit to Russia, Vaezi was quoted as saying.

"Although the value of trade exchange between Tehran and Moscow had a 70-80 percent increase in 2016 as compared to 2015, the capacity for cooperation between the two sides is much higher than this," he said.

He praised the progress between the two countries on customs relations, mentioning the creation of the "green customs corridor" to facilitate the cargo transportation.

"Besides, we have had good talks on oil and gas cooperation and it has been decided that negotiations would continue to finalize the contracts in the remaining time before Rouhani's visit to Moscow in late March," the Iranian minister said.

Moreover, Vaezi said that Iran and Russia's gas giant Gazprom are in talks on investment in gas fields in southern Iran, semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Tehran plans to hold an international tender in late March. A total of 29 foreign companies, including Russia's Gazprom and Lukoil, have been qualified to participate in the tender, according to Fars.

In December, managing director of Iran's Central Oil Fields Company, Salbali Karimi, said that he was optimistic about working with Russian companies, including Gazprom.

He emphasized that Russian companies were highly qualified from technical and technological aspects.

According to the media release, President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will meet in Moscow in late March to review and discuss their bilateral politico-economic relations.
Steam rises from chimneys of a heating power plant near a monument of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, during sunset in Moscow, January 9, 2017. (REUTERS PHOTO)

MOSCOW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Russia started to recruit six to eight people scheduled to participate in flights to the moon, Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos said Tuesday.

"The goal is to select the best specialists who have the skills of working with space and/or aircraft equipment." The Roscosmos said in a transcript on its press service, adding that those who are chosen will work in accordance with the program of the International Space Station (ISS), as well as become the first pilots of Russia's new Federatsiya spacecraft and the first Russians to fly to the moon.

"Recruitment of cosmonauts will take place starting from today, March 14. The results will be summed up in the end of December," Alexander Ivanov, Roscosmos' First Deputy Director General, was quoted as saying at a press conference by Sputnik.

According to the press service of the Roscosmos, apart from multiple requirements including nationality, age limitation, education background and work experience, the contestants will have to go through a set of tests on physical fitness, psychological qualities, professional capabilities, computer skills and foreign language proficiency.
KIEV, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine and Turkey signed an agreement to mutually adopt a visa-free policy for holders of electronic national identity cards (IDs), the Ukrainian government said in a statement on Tuesday.

The deal was inked between the governments of the two countries during a visit by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to the Turkish capital Ankara, the statement said.

It said the agreement stipulates that citizens of Ukraine and Turkey holding valid electronic IDs could travel through the territory of each other without a visa for a stay of 90 days in any 180-day period.

The eased visa policy is aimed at promoting the development of bilateral relations between Ukraine and Turkey and facilitating business and humanitarian exchanges between their peoples.

Last year, about 1 million Ukrainians traveled to Turkey, while Ukraine hosted some 200,000 of Turkish visitors.
TIRANA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Italy praised Albania's persistence to advancing its European Union (EU) integration agenda, visiting Italian Foreign Minister Angelo Alfano told a joint press conference with his Albanian counterpart Ditmir Bushati Tuesday.

According to Italy's top diplomat, Albania has made progress on its path towards the EU and has contributed to stability in the region. Therefore, the EU should support the advancement of Balkan countries, he said.

Alfano visited Albania in the framework of the Trieste summit.

Bushati emphasized the implementation of justice reform which he said is fundamental to the country's progress towards the EU.

"I think that judicial reform and the vetting law are fundamental, not only for opening negotiations for EU membership, but also to return Albanian citizens' trust in state institutions and in the justice system," Bushati said.

Italy has been one of the main supporters of Albania's aspirations to join the EU family.

Italy remains one of the three main trade partners of Albania and a major source of remittances as over 500,000 Albanians live and work there.
KIEV, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday has reaffirmed his commitment to settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine through the implementation of the Minsk Peace Agreement, the presidential press service said.

Poroshenko made the remarks during his meeting with the visiting Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, said a statement on the presidential website.

Poroshenko said that Kiev's policy is aimed at returning the territories that fell beyond the government control via the peaceful means despite the recent escalation of the tensions in the restive region, according to the statement.

The situation in eastern Ukraine has aggravated earlier this month after pro-independence insurgents took over the Kiev-controlled businesses operating in rebel-held areas in the wake of a railway blockade of the region.

The Minsk agreement, which, among other things, envisages a comprehensive ceasefire and a withdrawal of heavy weapons from the frontline, is aimed at peacefully ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has claimed the lives of some 10,000 people since April 2014.
GENEVA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A total of 1,507 new asylum requests were submitted last month in Switzerland, 81 fewer than in January 2017, the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) reported Tuesday.

Representing a 5.1-percent drop, Swiss authorities indicated that most of those who sought asylum in the confederation last month hailed from three countries -- Eritrea (296 requests), Syria (167) and Guinea (105).

SEM highlighted that these relatively low figures are the result of cold weather and dangerous crossing conditions for migrants and refugees seeking to reach European shores by sea.

A total of 578 people were granted asylum in Switzerland last month and a further 668 were given temporary admission while 647 individuals left the country or were repatriated.

Official figures show that over 27,200 refugees sought asylum in Switzerland last year, down from almost 40,000 in 2015.
NICOSIA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Italy's ENI energy company plans to drill for natural gas by the end of this year in Cyprus's continental shelf, hoping for a considerable discovery, a company official said on Tuesday.

ENI chief exploration officer Luca Bertelli told reporters during a gas conference here that the company is optimistic that it can discover a gas field the size of the Egyptian Zohr find, which contains an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.

"We believe that out there lays a giant gas field. There is a big chance that this is within Cyprus' exclusive economic zone and we are confident that we may make some other discoveries similar to Zohr," Bertelli said.

ENI plans to drill in block 11 of Cyprus's exclusive economic zone which lies next to Egypt's Zohr gas field.

The Cypriot government has approved an application by French Total energy company to assign 50 percent of its interest in block 11 to ENI.

Interest for natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean region, known as the Levantine basin, was revived after the Zohr field was discovered two years ago in carbonate layers.

Drilling before the Zohr find was made only in limestone layers, as it was believed that hydrocarbons could only be found in this geological formations.

Bertelli said gas in block 11 and the Egyptian field is believed to flow from an undersea mountain formation named after Greek mathematician Eratosthenis, the man who theorized that the earth was round and accurately estimated its circumference at 40,000 km, almost 2,500 years ago.

Eratosthenis transverses both the Cypriot and Egyptian continental shelf.

The Cypriot government is expected to shortly finalize agreements for gas exploration in three more blocks of its exclusive economic zone with ENI in association with Total in block six, ENI in block eight and United States-based ExxonMobil in association with Qatar Petroleum, a leader in the gas market.
VIENNA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Neither Austria nor the EU has an interest in escalating the current dispute with Turkey, Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz said Tuesday.

Austria Press Agency reported Kurz's comments during a meeting with Bulgarian counterpart Radi Naidenov in Vienna.

Kurz said respect is however needed concerning the rules in individual member states, and what they choose to allow or not, in light of plans by Turkish officials to campaign for the votes of Turkish nationals living in the EU.

"We are hopeful that Turkey will accept and respect our stance, that Austria does not want election campaigning from Turkish officials," he added.

Naidenov, for his part, was more reserved on how he saw the position of countries on the issue, saying only that "I place emphasis on good cooperation and dialogue".
MINSK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Germany supports the intention of Belarus to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), Michael Roth, State Minister for European Affairs in German Foreign Ministry, said at the forum held in Minsk on Tuesday.

The forum was held to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Belarus and Germany.

The German Minister stressed that the best tools for globalization were to open borders as well as make fair and free trade.

"I would be glad if Belarus joined the WTO. We need this economic cooperation, fair trade, and the WTO is an important tool for this," Roth said.

He also stressed the importance of political contacts in the development of further dialogue between Belarus and Germany.

Belarus is the only country of the Eurasian Economic Union which is not a WTO member. In March 2016, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko instructed his government to intensify negotiations on the country's accession to the WTO.
RIYADH, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A Saudi policeman was shot dead by unknown culprit at a checkpoint in Qatif in the Eastern Province, Sabiq online local news reported on Tuesday.

The incident, yet to be confirmed by the Interior Ministry, was the latest of similar recent attacks in the province against security personnel and civilians in escalation of violence by Shiite youth, who are demanding more right for their minority community in the country.

In less than a week, security forces killed two fugitives in the region in two separate raids, meanwhile the concerned authority plans to demolish old and deserted homes in Al Awamiya, another disturbed area, where those fugitives took shelters.

The ministry called upon the public to report fugitives involved in the ongoing violence in the province, warning that hiding information or sheltering them would lead to legal punishment.
CAPE TOWN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini assured on Tuesday that there is no crisis at the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and that all eligible social grants beneficiaries will receive their money on April 1 and beyond.

Dlamini said she wanted to set the record straight and in the process allay the concerns and fears of social grant beneficiaries and ordinary South Africans who have been confused by the prophets of doom that "social grants may not be paid on April 1, 2017."

She was speaking at a snap debate in Parliament on the looming crisis of grant payments.

There have been growing calls for Dlamini to resign over the so-called failure to deliver grants to more than 17 million beneficiaries.

Opposition parties have severely criticized Dlamini and the government for poorly handling the SASSA and Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) saga.

They accuse both Dlamini and government of maladministration, incompetence and gross negligence.

Early this month, the SASSA launched an urgent application with the Constitutional Court, asking it to extended its contract with the CPS for another year.

The same court ruled in 2014 that the contract was unlawful, and ordered the Department of Social Development to replace CPS by the first of April this year.

This has led to speculations that no grants will be paid to pensioners next month.

President Jacob Zuma intervened last week, saying he is confident social grant beneficiaries will be paid next month.

At the parliamentary debate, Dlamini said the government has, without failure, been paying the right social grant, to the right person, at the right time and place since the SASSA's establishment 10 years ago.

"We will continue doing so without failure on April 1 this year and beyond," she said.

Today, South Africa is ranked as one of the countries with the most extensive and progressively targeted social security system. The number of people receiving grants increased from 2.4 million in 1998 to over 17 million to date, according to Dlamini.

This represents approximately 30 percent of the population. Majority of these grants are Child Support Grants (CSG) which exceed 11 million, Dlamini said.

"The opposition's claim that there is a crisis at SASSA is therefore nothing more than a mere self-serving propaganda and political grandstanding of the highest order. They must stop with their scare campaign which has caused public panic and anxiety," the minister said.

The SASSA's mandate is to ensure the provision of comprehensive social security against vulnerability and poverty within the Constitutional and legislative framework of the country, Dlamini noted.
KIGALI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A new trade facilitation tool was launched Tuesday in Kigali aimed at enhancing intra-Africa trade.

The One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) Sourcebook is expected to help governments improve cross-border and intra-regional trade across Africa.

The second edition of the sourcebook was supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), NEPAD, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

The tool was launched at a regional workshop on the OSBP. The workshop runs up to March 16.

Participants are exchanging views on further development of OSBPs in the continent.

Participants were drawn from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Sudan.

Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the NEPAD chief executive officer, said the trade facilitation tool seeks to promote a coordinated and integrated approach towards easing trade, movement of people, and consolidating security.

He pointed out one-stop border posts are crucial in facilitating trade on the continent because clearance time reduces for both travellers and goods under one roof.

Mayaki said: "It is envisaged that the OSBP project will help reduce the cost and time transporters take to ferry goods across borders."

Mayaki affirmed NEPAD's commitment to support initiatives that promote trade on the continent.

He also urged governments and key stakeholders to fully utilize the sourcebook to help them determine the best way to develop OSBPs in each region.

Snowden Mmadi, an infrastructure expert at COMESA, said studies show that time wasted clearing at ports, borders, and checkpoints is one of the big obstacles to trade growth and competitiveness in Africa.

Participants said promotion of the one-stop border post system is vital in enhancing the continent's competitiveness.

Africa still lags behind due to low levels of trade and industrialization, according to experts.

Hiroyuki Takada, the JICA chief representative in Rwanda, cited high transport cost among challenges facing regional trade in Africa.

Traders say it is about three times more expensive to transport a container from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Kigali compared to shipping costs from Yokohama in Japan to Dar es Salaam.

"High transport charges increase the cost of doing business, especially for landlocked countries like Rwanda, and discourage private investments and are, therefore, an additional barrier to trade on the continent," Takada said.

He urged African countries to strengthen intraregional trade and deepen regional integration to spur growth on the continent.
STRASBOURG, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Members of European Parliament (MEPs), meeting here for a plenary session on Tuesday, held a debate on the consequences of "global gag" rule reinstated by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 23 prohibiting U.S. financing of NGOs providing abortion or services such as counseling and training, even if they do so with their own money.

Trump's decision to reintroduce the ban has led to strong reactions around the globe. During the plenary debate, most MEPs criticized the U.S. decision, saying it could put women at risk as it might lead to more unsafe abortions.

Christos Stylianides, the European Commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid, said: "In the poorest countries of the world, this can put the lives of young women and girls at risk."

He added: "EU policies are driven by our own priorities and values, not by what others do or stop doing."

According to estimates from the World Health Organization, some 22 million unsafe abortions are carried out around the world every year, with a majority taking place in developing countries.

In 2008, 47,000 women are estimated to have died because of it. About five million women are admitted to the hospital every year as a result of unsafe abortions in developing countries and more than three million women who experience complications due to an unsafe abortion do not receive care.

"Cutting this funding does not mean fewer abortions. All the evidence from the last period when the gag was in place shows the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions increased when the global gag came in," said British MEP Linda McAvan, chair of the development committee.

Some MEPs were also concerned that NGOs and clinics providing services of reproductive health will be affected and that the reduction in funding could have an impact on the health care being offered. They urged the EU to increase funding.

"We must condemn the U.S. gag rule, take up the fight in international fora and commit more money," Swedish MEP Malin Bjork said.

"The agenda of so-called populist parties is not just about nationalism, anti-EU or national sovereignty. It's also very much about sexism and misogyny, against women's rights," said Dutch MEP Sophie in't Veld.

"The EU must not only not accept standards imposed by third countries, but set the standards and fill the funding gap," she added.

"We are not talking about being for or against abortion; we are talking about humanitarian law. Health safety, child protection and women's rights are human rights," said Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt.

Europe should step in and show leadership, she added.

In response to Trump's decision, representatives from 57 countries and private organizations met in Brussels on March 2 for a conference organized by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden to find ways to help the organizations affected.

The conference raised 181 million euros (191.9 million U.S. dollars) for fundraising initiative She Decides. Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark are reported to have pledged 10 million euros, while Finland and Sweden committed to 20 million euros and Luxembourg to 2 million euros.

However, some MEPs argued that the rights of unborn children had to be protected and did not want the EU to fund these NGOs.

Slovak MEP Branislav Skripek called abortion "barbaric" with "no health care benefit," adding: "Resources should be redirected to provide real and maternal care to women."

French ENF member Marie-Christine Arnautu said there were people who tend to ignore national sovereignty.

"It's up to the U.S. government to decide on its own criteria when it comes to financing foreign NGOs," she said.

The "global gag" rule was first announced in 1984 in Mexico City during the UN International Conference on Population by then U.S. president Ronald Reagan who was in favor of "respect for human life at its most vulnerable -- human life still unborn".

Since its introduction, it has repeatedly been lifted by U.S. Democrats and reintroduced by Republicans.
KHARTOUM, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Libyan prime minister is to start a two-day visit to Sudan on Wednesday to boost bilateral ties, said Sudan's foreign minister in a statement on Tuesday.

Prime Minister of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez al-Sarraj, is to meet Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Prime Minister Bakri Hassan Saleh.

"By the end of the visit, the Libyan delegation will sign a number of agreements, top of them the establishment of the committee of political consultations between the two countries' foreign ministries," said the foreign minister, Ibrahim Ghandour, in a statement.

Ghandour reiterated his country's support for Libya's unity and sovereignty, as well as the comprehensive consensus in Libya.

The Sudanese minister further commended the efforts being made by al-Sarraj to end the conflict in Libya.
A Palestinian demonstrator throws an old shoe at a poster of US President Donald Trump as they protest against his support of Israel. (AFP photo)

RAMALLAH, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A senior American diplomat said Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump is committed to work with both Israel and the Palestinians to make an everlasting peace through direct negotiations.

Following his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah earlier on Tuesday, Jason Greenblatt, the president's Middle East negotiator said it's important that all parties work on defusing tensions, according to a statement of the American consulate in Jerusalem.

"During the meeting, the two sides asserted that they are committed to push forward to a real and permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians," said the consulate statement.

It added that both had reiterated a common cooperation between the United States and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to fight violence and terrorism.

The statement quoted Abbas as saying after the meeting that he believes there is a possibility to reach a historic peace agreement under President Trump, "which would boost security in the entire region."

Abbas also said, according to the statement, that he looks for discussing the possibilities of peace making when he meets with President Trump in the White House soon, expressing his commitment to ban incitement.

The Palestinian president has also expressed full commitment "to create an atmosphere that leads to achieving peace and that he would intensify his efforts to communicating the Israeli audience."

"The strategic choice for the Palestinians is the two-state solution," said Abbas, according to the U.S. consulate's statement.

Meanwhile, Nabil Abu Rdineh, an aide to Abbas, said in a short news statement that the meeting with Greenblatt "was positive and encouraging."

"We will build up on this meeting throughout increasing contacts and exchange of views in order to keep a hope for peace and stability," he said.
RABAT, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The International Conference on Water and Energy kicked off in the Moroccan city of Marrakech on Tuesday.

Held under the theme "Water Storage and Hydroelectric Energy in Africa," the three-day event attracted some 650 attendants representing 66 countries.

Given its huge potential, the hydroelectric sector can be, if developed, a valuable source to boost human development in the African continent, said Charafat Afilal, the Moroccan minister of water, at the opening of the conference.

Afilal said that Africa shares 14 percent of the world's untapped hydroelectric power, adding that the sector can help Africa produce around 300 gigawatts of electricity, she added.

In this regard, she called for launching mega projects to enhance the development of hydroelectricity in Africa, namely the construction of water infrastructure, such as dams.
TRIPOLI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Libya's armed forces, led by major general Khalifa Haftar, on Tuesday took over most of the oil ports in eastern Libya, according to a spokesman.

"The armed forces have taken over the oil ports and now are perusing the terrorist groups towards Ahrawa," army spokesman Ahamd Al-Mismari posted on his facebook page on Tuesday.

Haftar has earlier launched an offensive against the group called "Benghazi Defense Brigades" that launched an attack earlier in March on the two major oil ports, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, which were controlled by the armed forces of Haftar.

The two oil terminals have a combined production capacity of nearly 600 thousand barrels per day.

Haftar's forces took control of the oil terminals in September 2016 after defeating the militias that were controlling them.
STRASBOURG, March 14 (Xinhua) -- On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaty which formed the European Economic Community that preceded the European Union (EU), leaders are scheduled to debate the future of the bloc on Wednesday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Maltese Deputy Prime Minister Louis Grech will join Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to debate the outcomes of the 9-10 March European Council meeting, and discuss the "Rome Declaration".

For many observers, the discussion will be a debate on the future of the European Union, following a similar discussion that European Council meeting earlier this month, as well as the publishing of a European Commission White Paper outlining five possible scenarios for Europe after the conclusion of Brexit negotiations.

With the British House of Lords passing the Brexit bill late on Monday evening and paving the way for Prime Minister Theresa May to formally launch the divorce negotiations, European unity has been under exceptional pressure.

In his first address to the European Council summit as President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani had underlined the need for union.

"Today more than ever we can see how important European unity is," he told fellow leaders on March 9.

On Wednesday's debate with MEPs, though, EU leaders are likely to be faced with difficult questions as parliamentarians representing all 28 current member states -- including Britain -- and the full spectrum of political parties are likely to want more detailed assurances on the future of the bloc.
VIENNA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The legalization of some narcotics is not considered and the narcotic threat is a very dangerous problem, chief of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) told Xinhua in an interview on Tuesday.

"We are not thinking about legalizing some narcotics," said SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov.

Alimov was attending the 60th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in the capital of Austria, as SCO seeks to strength cooperation with UN Office on Drug and Crime(UNODC) over the drug issue.

The SCO is an inter-governmental organization founded in Shanghai in 2001, including China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Alimov noted that all countries without exception have felt the destructive effects of the narcotic drug pandemic, and it is a great threat to international security and sustainable development.

"The alarming growth of the drug business and drug abuse in recent years has deeply affected all areas of life in all nations, undermining government institutions and social foundations and delivering a highly destructive blow to the nations' gene pool," he said.

Alimov told Xinhua that the SCO plays an important role in fighting against illicit narcotic drugs.

"Fight against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs has been a priority for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization since its establishment. The SCO member states pay a lot of attention to this issue, and can be often heard expressing concerns over narcotic threat exacerbation," he said.

The SCO chief said during SCO summits, leaders of member states reiterate the need to step up international cooperation in this area.

Leaders of member states also reaffirmed SCO's commitment to maintaining and strengthening the existing international framework for drug control based on three main international drug control conventions of the UN.

The SCO has an efficient three-level institutional mechanism for the interaction of the member states' counternarcotic agencies, which is facilitating interaction in dealing with outstanding issues at the expert and executive levels.

Alimov said the SCO made some achievements in the war against illicit drug, since the SCO has comprehensive Anti-narcotics Strategy adopted in 2011 and its Action Plan.

During the period from 2011 to the first half of 2016, counternarcotic agencies of the SCO member states confiscated some 69 tonnes of heroin, over 17 tonnes of raw opium, over 349 tonnes of marijuana and 28 tonnes of hashish, according to Alimov.

"The quantity of heroin they confiscate amounts to 14 percent of global heroin seizure. Experts will tell you that this means millions of saved lives, the loss of billions of U.S. dollars in drug barons' revenue and a heavy blow to the drug crime," he said.

According to Alimov, the high-level event titled "the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the fight against drugs: common threats and joint actions" was successfully held, which was a success within the cooperation with UN.

"This joint event became a milestone in SCO's cooperation with the UNODC, and raised awareness among target audiences and the public at large on the dedicated and consistent efforts by the two organizations in fighting the drug problem," he said.

"Cooperation with the UN is a priority for us. It is a great example of equal and mutually beneficial partnership between a global organization and a regional one. We will continue our joint efforts," Alimov added.
VALLETTA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The world must be well-prepared to face fresh challenges, including a possible backlash in the West, after the dislodgement of ISIS from their stronghold in western Iraq's Mosul, said Maltese Security Minister Carmelo Abela on Tuesday.

He was speaking at a two-day workshop organized by the U.S. State Department in collaboration with the International Institute of Justice, with its main aim to advance U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS.

The minister cautioned the impact of the development in Mosul on the terrorist group's structure, saying spillover of ISIS fighters into other countries is possible.

Participants were urged to strengthen and consolidate mutual cooperation to ensure they are well prepared to address these threats to their security and overcome this common enemy.

"It is imperative to look into models of integration, particularly in respect of young men and women and individuals from vulnerable groups in our countries who could easily get carried away by terrorist propaganda. We need to tackle the root causes that make them easy prey to radicalisation by organisations like ISIS," said Abela.

He stressed in his speech the need to ensure the progress under the two key objectives of the EU Internet Forum, one is barring accessibility to terrorist content online, and the other is empowering civil society partners to increase effective alternative narratives online.

Concern was also raised over radicalization, as an estimated 4,000 EU nationals are believed to have joined terrorist organizations in conflict-stricken countries such as Syria and Iraq.

Furthermore, it was stated that the majority of terrorist suspects implicated in the most recent terrorist attacks in the EU were European citizens, born and raised in Europe.
WARSAW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Polish and Belgian foreign ministers met on Tuesday to discuss issues including the future of the European Union (EU) and the upcoming presidential elections in France.

"A few months ago, in January, I met a couple of presidential candidates among whom was Mrs. Le Pen. When I heard her opinion regarding the current situation in Europe I realized that it is not what we fight for. We did not wish each other success as usual," said Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski during a press conference after the meeting with his Belgian counterpart Didier Reynders.

However, he reminded that it will be up to the French people who they will elect as the next president.

Reynders expressed his faith that Le Pen's victory "can be avoided," saying "I do not think that it is possible."

He also hinted that both countries should come up with plans for future EU reform. "We might have differing opinions on a series of issues but we have to think how to improve the European Union," said Reynders.

Reynders singled out common security policy, increase of employment rate and immigration issues as fields in which cooperation is possible.

The two ministers also touched upon the issue of the rights of Polish and Belgian citizens in the UK after the country leaves the European Union.

Waszczykowski said that the British government assured him that they can enjoy similar rights as the British living on the European continent. He added that the Polish side will do everything to improve the situation of Polish citizens living in the UK.

They also talked about upcoming elections in many EU countries, the directions of future reforms of the Community, current migrant crisis and transatlantic relations.
HELSINKI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Lieutenant General Esa Pulkkinen, Director General of the European Union Military Staff, said in Helsinki on Tuesday that the establishment of the "Military Planning and Conduct Capability" last week was the first concrete step into the direction of a joint defense of the European Union (EU).

Pulkkinen said the new command structure to be developed in Brussels is part of "European autonomy". "Command centers are needed so that Europe can, when it wants, lead its own operations without needing help from anyone else," he said.

"European capabilities must not be overlapping with NATO," he added. "With them, the EU can launch and run small scale operations outside Europe."

Pulkkinen briefed the Finnish parliamentary committees on defense and foreign affairs on the aims of the joint defense of the EU and on the commitments expected from Finland. Before his EU duties, Pulkkinen served in the Finnish Defence Forces.

Pulkkinen told Finnish national broadcaster Yle that once a member country joins the system, it must commit itself to the development of capabilities and their use.

Pulkkinen said the EU military units-on-duty meant for crisis management and control have remained unused for the past 10 years, but will be now revitalized.

The military units, provided by member countries on a rotating basis, have been in full preparedness since their establishment in 2007, but there has not been enough political will to use them, Pulkkinen noted.

Asked about the suspicions in some EU countries about financing "double operations" parallel to NATO, Pulkkinen said the EU operations do not overlap but rather complement NATO capabilities.

"NATO has largely returned to its basic duties and collective defense," Pulkkinen said. "That has vacated space for the EU in defending the union's outer perimeter."

Of the current 28 member countries of the EU, 22 belong to NATO.

Pulkkinen saw the realization of the fact that "the EU cannot control its outer borders" during the refugee crisis as a key motivating factor. He said further decisions on the development of the EU defense, its structures and financing can be expected later this year.
By Victoria Arguello

CARACAS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Ties between Venezuela and Peru have been strained since Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski came to power in July 2016.

Pro-business and U.S. educated, Kuczynski has more in common with the Washington elite than with Venezuela's ruling socialists.

The former World Bank economist has been outspoken about his open support for political transition in Venezuela, and recently recounted how he told Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez "that her government was unsustainable, it has to go."

He has also compared Latin America to a docile dog lying at the foot of its master, the United States. "The U.S. focuses on areas that cause trouble, right? Like the Middle East and so on. It does not spend much time on Latin America, which is like a nice dog that's sleeping on the carpet. It's not causing anybody any problems."

The exception to that was Venezuela, he added.

In response, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro instructed Rodriguez to issue a note of protest "on behalf of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean," and to summon Peru's ambassador to Caracas for consultation.

Milagros Betancourt, a former ambassador and now professor of International Law at the Andres Bello Catholic University, notes that "at this time, ties are at a very low point, there is annoyance in both countries and it does not appear as if it is going to get better in the near future."

She added, "I think ties will remain at a minimum."

In addition to Kuczynski's less than diplomatic remarks, Peru is backing an effort by Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro to increase the pressure on Venezuela's government, by reviewing a report on the "Venezuelan crisis."

The measure is a second attempt by Almagro to try to sanction Venezuela by declaring it in violation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

Political analyst Diego Sequera says "the role the Peruvian government is playing at this current regional juncture is sufficiently descriptive" to assume it has Washington's complicity.

"Pedro Pablo Kuczynski will dance to the tune that (Senator) Marco Rubio or any other U.S. senator belonging to the 'anti-Venezuelan lobby' plays," said Sequera, adding that faction "is quite impatient and in a hurry" to see political transition in the oil-rich South American nation.

Peru's unilateral actions, far from being chance events, form part of a concerted U.S. effort to impose its policies on Latin America, said Sequera.

Another motivating factor behind Kuczynski's "verbal combativeness" could be that a diplomatic spat serves as a convenient distraction at a time when he is in danger of being tainted by one of Peru's biggest corruption scandals.

Kuczynski served as economy and finance minister during the government of ex-president Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), who is accused of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from disgraced Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Toledo has refused to come out of hiding in the U.S. to face the charges in his home country, alleging the accusations are politically motivated.

As Venezuela struggles to prop up an economy devastated by two years of plummeting oil prices, these destabilizing foreign factors could be decisive, the experts agreed.

Betancourt notes Venezuela lacks the financial resources to have the regional influence it once did, and it also lacks the support of former regional allies, such as Brazil and Argentina, where right-wing governments have come to power.

"Its influence and importance have diminished considerably, so it is no longer of relevance in the region, except to several English-speaking Caribbean countries that still rely on our oil generosity," said Betancourt.

Sequera believes the recent events are just a reflection of the policies pursued by the world's right-wing factions, which seek to "dismantle" sovereignty.

Since Venezuela's homegrown conservative opposition has been unable to turn recent electoral victories into real political gains, "the only thing left are foreign maneuvers and pressures," said Sequera.
Janan Mosazai, Afghan Ambassador to China, accepts Xinhuanet's interview on Feb. 28, 2017. (Xinhuanet/Xu Xin)

BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Afghanistan looks forward to learning from Chinas experience and success in poverty alleviation and expects to see significant achievements of bilateral cooperation in 2017, said Janan Mosazai, Afghan Ambassador to China.

The ambassador made these remarks in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhuanet.

Afghanistan salutes and feels happy about Chinas achievement in lifting hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty over the past nearly 40 years, the ambassador said.

It is a historic achievement and a direct contribution to poverty alleviation and elimination globally, he added.

Afghanistan makes poverty reduction and elimination an extremely important priority, the ambassador introduced.

Afghanistan looks forward to learning from China in this field, hoping to gain help from the Chinese people and introduce Chinas poverty alleviation experience in Afghanistan, he said.

Apart from cooperation in poverty alleviation, the ambassador also put emphasis on more bilateral cooperation brought by the Belt and Road Initiative.

Afghanistan welcomes and supports the Belt and Road Initiative as it is a transformative idea in broadening cooperation in many areas, such as economy, infrastructure, people-to-people exchanges and security, he said.

Afghanistan sits on a significant location within the Belt and Road Initiative, the ambassador said.

The significant location, he hoped, will serve as a land bridge and connectivity hub in the Heart of Asia region.

The ambassador spoke highly of the achievements made between Afghanistan and China in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative in 2016.

He highlighted the launch of the cargo service train linking east Chinas Jiangsu Province and northern Afghanistans Hairatan port last year.

The train connection will allow for increase in trade between the two countries and facilitate the transportation of Afghan products to China, which is a huge market, the ambassador said.

He also pinned high hope for significant achievements to be made between the two countries this year.

The ambassador said he expected to see a comprehensive discussion between the two countries during the Belt and Road forum for international cooperation to be held this May.

The forum will inject more energy and impetus into the implementation of projects between China and Afghanistan, he believed.
Finnish Ambassador to China Marja Rislakki accepts Xinhuanet's interview on March 2, 2017. (Xinhuanet/Xu Xin)

By Liang Yurou

BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhuanet)-- The international community welcomes China's Belt and Road Initiative, especially during a time when the world is looking for new engines of growth, Finnish Ambassador to China Marja Rislakki has said recently in an exclusive interview with Xinhuanet.

This kind of initiatives can help to synchronize different development plans better together, the ambassador commented.

She also praised the "Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation" scheduled in May, saying it serves as a good platform to further discuss the initiatives content, policies and development, adding that the initiative has already aroused the discussion inside the Europe Union about how to best increase inter-regional connectivity.

In Finland we support the idea that connectivity covers a wide spectrum of issues: not only infrastructure but also energy, ICT (information and communication technology), regulatory framework and people-to-people contacts, she said.

It is very important that all the development plans and projects along the trade routes are sustainable and inclusive, she added.

Noting Chinas more active role in global governance, she further stressed that multilateral institutions and dialogue are important tools to mediate various interests and achieve better global understanding.

She also saw Chinas potential to play a major-country role in global governance to lead the world on combating climate change with its ambitious domestic climate and environmental targets and better cooperation with the EU.

The ambassador recognized Chinas hard work on improving environment by setting new environmental protection law and putting great emphasis on the green industry in the 13th Five Year Plan, while also predicted green economy to be next big thing in China, given the environmental challenges China is facing.

Finland used to face its own environmental problems but with strict legislation, it managed to create a new green industry which forms one of its strongest cornerstones of its current economy, she said.

Speaking of the bilateral relationship, the ambassador stressed Finland already has China as its most important trade partner in Asia and keeps a lively high-level bilateral communication.

The importance of China for Finlands trade is only going to increase in the years to come, especially in the sectors of digitization, clean tech, health, education, as well as sport development, the ambassador said.

She mentioned several achievements in 2016 in fields like bio-energy and bio-economy, and saw Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics as another good platform for comprehensive cooperation, from athletes training, clothing to infrastructure design.

We welcome both of these positive developments, She said.
Professor Lam Khin Yong, NTU Singapore Chief of Staff and Vice President (Research) (Source: ntu.edu.sg)

By Cui Bowen from Xinhua News Agency

A signing ceremony of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was held on March 9 in Beijing, to strengthen academic ties between Singapores Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and University of Chinese Academy of Science (UCAS).

The two parties signed a five-year cooperation memorandum, rolling out a new phase in the China-Singapore academic exchange and coordination.

Prior to the signing ceremony, Xinhua News Agency had an exclusive interview with Prof. Lam Khin Yong, NTU Chief of Staff & Vice President (Research) to discuss topics related to the rapid growth of NTU, exchange programs with UCAS and expectation for NTU-UCAS coordination.

Xinhua: What are the main contributing factors that make NTU a world top-notch university over the past two decades?

Prof. Lam: As a young and research intensive university, NTUs rapid success in the last several years can be attributed to factors such as our ability to attract top faculty and post-doctoral and high quality students, and strong support from funding agencies and the industry.

We have attracted top minds from all over the world and also nurtured many young scientists at NTU. For example, Professor David Lou from NTU School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and Professor Zhang Hua from NTU School of Materials Science and Engineering, are the only two Asian scientists to be named by Thomson Reuters among the worlds hottest researchers for their outstanding contributions to research.

Having talented faculty from all over the world is an inspiration to our students and helps to cultivate an international outlook in them, making them better prepared for the global workplace of the future.

Besides recruiting established professors, NTU has also been successful in attracting young, outstanding researchers. They bring new and exciting ideas to NTU, with many working at the frontiers of research. Clearly, people are our most important asset and play a key role behind NTUs rapid rise as a leading global university.

To generate new knowledge and research breakthroughs, NTU advocates interdisciplinary research. We also have many programs that allow students to take up another field of study beyond their core discipline, so that they are exposed to an interdisciplinary education right from the start.

Todays students will graduate into a working world where many jobs will be newly created. That is why NTU has always emphasized a broad and global education where students go beyond their core disciplines.

NTU undergraduates can deepen their knowledge beyond their core discipline by taking up another field of study from the almost 80 subject combinations across various disciplines. Students can take up double majors or alternatively pair their major with a second major or minor of their choice.

Singapore has also created a favorable environment for the growth of tertiary institutions. Research frontiers have been pushed with the support of its Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2015 Plan that committed SGD$16 billion. Just last year, the RIE 2020 Plan was announced with an investment of another SGD$19 billion. This continuous support has helped grow the local research scene.

Xinhua: Why does NTU attach great importance to exchange and cooperation with colleges and universities as well as enterprises?

Prof. Lam: NTU has more than 400 partnerships worldwide with universities and industry players such as Imperial College London, Peking University, Cambridge University, Technical University of Munich and University of California Berkeley. Such partnerships allow us to leverage our expertise and work with leading experts in areas of mutual interest. NTU also benefits from the many faculty and student exchanges from leading universities. Our students value such opportunities where they get to study overseas and be exposed to top-level research.

We also have research collaborations with leading industry players such as Rolls-Royce, BMW, Lushang and Tencent in China, NXP Semiconductors N.V. and ST Engineering. By combining our expertise with those from some of the worlds leading companies, we are in a better position to innovate and help solve real-world problems.

In the past, scientists spend years on research and then try to find a use for their research finding. Delays in finding an application may lead to findings being outdated or no longer appropriate for industrial use. However, by collaborating with industry right from the start, research findings can be put to good use as they help tackle the very problems that the industry is seeking to solve. Thus the research outcomes can be translated into commercial products and services that benefit the society. At the same time, students who join the research projects will benefit from early exposure to the industry.

Xinhua: Why does NTU decide to strengthen research and exchange ties with UCAS?

Prof. Lam: UCAS, backed by 117 CAS institutes in China, is recognized for its top-level facilities and highly-qualified faculty teams. It also spearheads science and technology research and scientific talents training in China. With NTUs strong research track record in engineering and technology and its long standing relationship with UCAS, the two institutions are natural partners.

This time both parties have embarked on an all-round collaboration for five years. Under the agreement, the two leading institutions in Asia will enhance joint research collaborations as well as ramp up visits and exchanges for students, academic and research staff.

The collaboration taps on the expertise of both institutes, and seeks to translate research outcomes in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet-of-Things (IoT), big data analytics and virtual reality (VR) into useful commercial products and services.

Xinhua: As Singapore is an important country along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, how does NTU shape itself following the Belt and Road Initiative?

Prof Lam: The 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road bridges the East and the West, and Singapore is a melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures. While the Belt and Road Initiative focuses on economic activities, research can also be part of the initiative.

We have many collaborations with Chinas universities and companies, such as the Sino-Singapore International Joint Research Institute in Guangzhou. It aims to develop new technologies ranging from electric vehicles and sustainable urban development to nutrition and food science.

We have also set up the Center of Excellence for Software Transfer in Guangzhou to give business executives from both countries a better understanding of the environment and policies in each country. As you may note, Guangzhou was also one of the starting points of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. Today, it is one of the vibrant hubs for economic activities, so it is quite apt that more research collaborations between NTU and its Chinese partners are taking place here.

In addition, we have worked with a number of Chinas leading companies. For example, we are partnering technology giant Tencent on developing image-based search tools, through a joint lab with Peking University. We are also working with Inspur in the area of cloud computing.

NTUs Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute and its spin-off companies have also collaborated with Chinese companies on agro-industrial projects spread over a number of provinces.

Research on these mutual interests will help to foster beneficial outcomes on a wider scale. The Belt and Road initiative is about connectivity, and research connects people and institutions, too.

Xinhua: Whats your expectation for NTU-UCAS cooperation?

Prof. Lam: NTU and UCAS have a lot in common, both being globally recognized institutions that are committed to building a diversified environment. We also have high-tech laboratories and facilities as well as top-tier faculty to offer an effective education platform for students.

There was an initial phase of academic cooperation between NTU and GUCAS (the Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences), the predecessor of UCAS. This time, research can also benefit from this initiative, with an important aim of translating research innovations into beneficial outcomes for society. Our ties will also be strengthened with visits and exchange programs involving students, faculty and research staff.

As the saying goes, The golden age is before us, not behind us. I look forward to NTU Singapore and UCAS working closely together to achieve greater research breakthroughs in the future.
Children protest against carrying weapons and firing in the air to cause casualties by stray bullets in Sanaa, capital of Yemen, on March 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)
TTNGL reports after tax earnings of $344.8 million

Earnings per share, according to the chairman, was $1.16. The share of profit from TTNGLs investment in Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited (PPGPL), which is the underlying asset of TTNGL, improved by 20.3 percent to $164 million in 2016, compared to $136.3 million in 2015.

Equally important, the improved performance of TTNGL (and by extension PPGPL) was directly linked to the focused efforts of the Company in rationalising expenses in the face of lower NGL production attributed to continuing gas supply challenges, and lower NGL product prices.

While prices stabilised in 2016, they were two percent lower in 2016 than in 2015, the lowest prices in a decade. Prices improvements have been noticed in 2017.

As promised, PPGPL has embarked upon several value-creating initiatives including product trading, which will diversify and enhance future revenue and profitability. Impairment reversals experienced in 2015 continued into 2016 as PPGPL accelerated its strategic initiatives to counter gas supply and price challenges in the shortest period possible.

Based on these results, the TTNGL Board has declared that based on the financial results for the year ending December 31st 2016, a final dividend of $1 per share.

Cumulatively, shareholders will have received a total of $1.50 per share for 2016. The Companys dividend yield at the end of 2016 is 7.14 percent. The dividend will be paid to shareholders on April 12 on the Register of Members as of March 28.
Body of man found in back of car identified

Relatives awaiting the results of an autopsy done at the Forensic Science Centre, St James yesterday, said Andrews, a business owner who lived at Mt Lambert, San Juan, was seen leaving his business place in St Joseph with two other men. They were apparently preparing to fix a shed for a garage.

The family was also told that one of the men was seen driving the car, while Andrews sat in the front seat eating.

Family members called him at about 11 pm on Friday, and he said that he would be returning to their home in Curepe shortly.

At about 4 pm the next day, he was found dead in his car, off Brunton Road, Curepe.

Relatives said they heard about the story on social media, but they did not know for sure whether it was Andrews or not, because no one had positively identified the body. They took it upon themselves to go to the police to confirm whether the body which was found was his. When police told relatives that he was not the man that they found, they filed a missing persons report.

But when they went to Forensics yesterday, and viewed the body, they greatest fears were realised.

I did not come here to see my familys body, I was still hoping that he was alive, said a relative, I cannot believe that he is dead. Relatives believe that the men with whom he left on Friday night, may have something to do with Andrews death.

They noted that on that same night, he was given a quantity of money to do repairs on his car and they believe he may have been killed in an attempt to steal the cash.

Andrews, a father of two, was described by relatives as a helpful and hardworking man, who did everything for his family. An autopsy yesterday confirmed that he died from a single gunshot wound to the head, but he also suffered several contusions to his face, suggesting that he was beaten.
They were not criminals

Family members of 22-year-old Terrence Patrick, who was killed on Friday in Enterprise, and 23-yearold Randy Alexander, who was killed in Diego Martin, spoke to reporters yesterday while awaiting the results of an autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

They say both men were wrongly represented in earlier reports.

Patrick was one of two people shot dead on Friday at his home at John Street, Enterprise, Laventille.

The second man killed was identified as Christian Mohammed. Two other people shot in the incident were treated at hospital and have since been discharged.

Contrary to earlier reports which indicated that Patrick was a member of a gang operating out of the Enterprise area, relatives described him as a peaceful, God-fearing, practising Muslim.

Police keep labelling Muslims in Enterprise, said one relative. As soon as they hear you are a Muslim, they assume you are in a gang.

He never interfered with anyone. Relatives yesterday told Newsday that Patrick, a self-employed man, was liming with three other friends on Friday afternoon when their house was attacked by gunmen.

They said they felt the men were sent to kill everyone in the house.

There were 15 of us in the house at the time, including six children.

We have been receiving threats for over two months. In Alexanders case, a relative said he was never charged or jailed for any offence.

Why police say he was known to them is because gangsters attacked him, said one relative.

After he was attacked in Diego Martin, he moved to Petit Valley where he was later shot and his leg had to be amputated. Relatives said he was under police protection for a number of years but grew tired of hiding and eventually moved back to Diego Martin. On Friday night at about 9.30 pm, Alexander was sitting in the gallery of his Farm Road, Richplain home with a neighbour. The neighbour got up and went inside. Just then gunshots were heard. When the neighbour returned, Alexander was found slumped over a chair. Relatives described Alexander, a father of one, as a loving man
Store breaker jailed for three years

Seedan told Gibson that the stores manager Nyron Deo had secured the premises on Thursday and, upon reopening for business the following day, discovered missing a Gould water pump, a chop saw, computer, keyboard and mouse; power pack, all together valued $29,030.

Told by Gibson that he had been in and out of jail for similar crimes, Hosein replied, Maam, do what you want. Help me. Gibson replied, No one will help you, until you help yourself
Muslim groups meet with AG on Anti Terrorist Bill

The RTDG, which includes the Anjuman Sunnat Ul Jamaat Association (ASJA); Trinidad Muslim League Inc. (TML); Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Trinidad and Tobago; Darul Uloom of Trinidad and Tobago Limited and Tackveeyatul Islamic Association met with the Attorney General at his Port-of- Spain offices last Friday.

In a statement yesterday, RTDG coordinator Hafeez Khan noted in regard to the Anti-Terror Bill, the Muslim community is cognisant of the responsibility of the Government to protect the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago including the Muslim community.

We are not sympathetic to those citizens who are choosing to jeopardise their lives and the security of our country by engaging in terrorist activity either directly or indirectly, Khan stated, adding, we commend the Attorney General and the Government for bringing this piece of legislation to Parliament at this time. Our examination of the amendments shows it would clearly strengthen the bill by making the language clearer and closing some loop holes. The anti-terror amendments are from an Islamic perspective, generally a good piece of legislation as it seeks to maintain social order and protect the society from the evil of those who would want to perpetrate terrorist acts, he stated.

However there are some doors left open that could bring harm to some. We are therefore requesting that some measures be put in to avoid and or minimise those consequences, he stated, adding that an organisation could be branded wrongfully based on the actions of one individual.

You are penalising all the persons in an organisation or business, ie other directors, shareholders, and employees, who may not have known or suported the actions of one director, manager, secretary or other officer, he stated.

He also noted that because the Act reverses the established principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty, (not being given the right to be heard or defend himself) there should be provisions to expedite the opportunity for a person who may be innocent to prove his innocence.
SC Maharaj submits to judge 2011 SoE was unjustified

In his submissions to Justice Mira Dean Armorer in the San Fernando High Court last week, Maharaj said for a SoE to be declared nationally, the threat must not be to the safety of some people only, but to the citizens generally whose safety must be guarded and more than just the police service is required to do so.

Then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar held an emergency cabinet meeting in August 2011 and then advised the president who, Maharaj told the judge, had to be satisfied in accordance with Section 8 (2) of the constitution which mandates that the threat to public safety was on an extensive scale.

Within days of the SoE, more than 1,868 persons were arrested by police under the Anti-Gang law which was passed mere months before in Parliament.

The majority of them were not charged with any offences but were kept at the Maximum State Prison then released after Director of Public Prosecutions, Roger Gaspard, petitioned the Magistrates Court in Port of Spain, San Fernando and Princes Town, to release the men on nolle pros applications.

All of the detainees were arrested in Port of Spain, the environs of San Fernando and Princes Town which was indicative of the fact that the emergency situation in the country was not widespread but sporadic. Maharaj was at the time arguing a constitutional motion filed by one such detainee, Earl Elie, who was detained for 13 days without charge and who wants the court to declare that the SoE under the Peoples Partnership government, was unlawful on the ground that at the time, no public emergency existed to empower the then president to act under Section 8 (2).

The State is challenging the motion in which Senior Counsel Russell Martineau is arguing the case on behalf of the Attorney General.

Martineau began replying to Maharajs submissions last week.

The case continues on April 11 after which the judge will fix a date for judgment.
Boy,15, charged for JOuvert murder

The teenager appeared before Deputy Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle charged with James murder.

James, 56, of 23 Gordon Avenue, Mt Lambert, died on February 27, Carnival Monday, from multiple stab wounds. He was killed during an incident at the corner of Prince and Henry Streets, Port-of- Spain. The teenager, who cannot be identified because of his age as he deemed a minor by law, was remanded to the St Michaels Boys Rehabilitation Centre.

The teenager will return to court on March 27.
Stand against sexual harrassment

In a release sent to the media yesterday, the EOC said that sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct in the workplace, and can be disturbing, worrying and psychologically harmful.

All persons have a right to be treated professionally with respect, decency, and consideration. Sexual harassment is an expression of hostility and aggression. the release read. It is important to understand that sexual harassment is abusive. It is not done in jest or good fun rather, it is done to intimidate and hurt others. The EOC described sexual harassment as the unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature in the workplace, at an unwilling victim.

While sexual harassment is often thought of in terms of a situation involving a male boss and a female subordinate, instances of sexual harassment can be in many variations.

Sexual harassment can be perpetrated by male to female, female to male and between or among individuals of the same sex. the release read, Sexual harassment may be directed towards a particular person, persons or group. An employer, a supervisor, a fellow employee, or even a client connected with the workplace can be a perpetrator. The EOC encouraged for victims of sexual harassment to stand against it. They said it must not be ignored, lest the perpetrator takes that as a sign of encouragement or consent. The release said, in several cases, where a victim of sexual harassment confronts the perpetrator, the harassment ends.

However, if it persists, then victims are advised to make a complaint, detailing what happened, where and when it happened and who witnessed the incident, if any
Fall prevention programme keeping elderly up

She said most citizens wrongly assume falling is a normal consequence of ageing.

Speaking yesterday at the launch of the National Fall Prevention Programme held at the Diamond Vale Community Centre, Diego Martin, Rauseo said it is a free programme to address the problem of falls in older adults.

During her research, Rauseo said there is no national statistic on falls.

She said falls could lead to injury and the fear of falling which leads to loss of independence, increased financial strain, depression, anxiety, and even a shorter life span.

No longer it is okay to sit in the gallery and watch life pass you by just because you are old, Rauseo said.

Getting old should be about independence, integration and mobility. Falls are not to be taken lightly, and one in every four elderly people over the age of 65 will fall each year. Falling once double your chances of falling again. Rauseo said the programme is extremely important because Trinis do not speak about falling.

The programme is expected to also enhance the quality of life for older adults by attempting to reduce their risk of falling.

You are our older adults, our source of wisdom, experience, and historical identity, not only about our country but about ourselves.

You are the bridge between how it was then and how it is now, and if that bridge collapses we are stranded into today without a sense of where we came from or who we are.

For too long our older adults have been an undeserved community and it is time to change that.

Rauseo said Total Rehabilitation Centre Limited has joined forces with the Physiotherapy Association of Trinidad and Tobago, students from the Physical Therapy Department of Springfield College, USA, and the Orange House Foundation to pool their expertise to create the programme.
No THA debt to CAL

This was the answer provided by airline representatives to members of the State Enterprises Joint Select Committee during a public hearing at Tower D of the Port-of-Spain International Waterfront Centre. Responding to questions from Chaguanas East MP Fazal Karim, CAL Acting Chief Financial Officer Marina Chase indicated that the total subsidy was $1,380,988. She explained, All of that has been paid. Nothing is outstanding by the THA. JSC chairman, Independent Senator David Small, acknowledged earlier concerns raised by DAbadie/OMeara MP Ancil Antoine about difficulties in travelling by air to and from Tobago. Noting that this is a frequent comment by parliamentarians from Tobago in addition to the wider public, Small remarked there seemed to be a continuous excess of demand above supply. He also disclosed that he went online recently and was unable to book a flight on CAL for September for the Great Race.

Small said it was curious that he could easily go online and book flights to destinations outside of TT but not do with respect to domestic flights. CAL officials indicated this was related to challenges with its booking system and those issues are being addressed.
PM appoints Petrotrin committee

The committee which is chaired by Energy Ministry Permanent Secretary Selwyn Lashley, is tasked with making recommendations for the restructuring of the company. The committee is scheduled to submit its first report by June 1. Other members of the committee are former Independent senator Helen Drayton; Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) representatives David Abdulah and Gregory Marchan; Robert Riley, head of Safety and Operational Risk, Competency and Capability Development at the BP Group in London and Professor Chandrabhan Sharma from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

Speaking in the Senate on March 7, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said Petrotrin, currently owes the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) $1,780,506,782.52. On March 6 in the House of Representatives, Imbert said that an undisclosed $4.2 billion deferred tax asset, which was not shown in Petrotrins accounts, could result in the company recording audited losses to the tune of $4.5 billion in 2016 rather than the previously disclosed estimate of $600 million. Imbert, who is also acting Energy Minister, previously indicated Government is reviewing proposals for restructuring from the OWTU and the company itself.

OWTU President General Ancel Roget has claimed that Imberts statement on March 6 was an attempt to justify Petrotrins privatisation.

Former government ministers Kevin Ramnarine and Vasant Bharath have also questioned the figures which Imbert mentioned last week in the House and Senate.
Unions call on PM to intervene in Arcelor Mittal matter

JTUM and the Steel Workers Union of Trinidad and Tobago (SWUTT) yesterday delivered a letter to the PM at his office in St Clair, calling on him to make an urgent intervention.

Speaking with reporters yesterday, Ancel Roget, President of JTUM said, We call on the Prime Minister, through written correspondence, to communicate, to instruct, to direct, to convince his ministers that they ought to meet very quickly so we can have this plant restarted and the workers and the country can benefit. He said their mission was not for money but to get the relevant government ministers to meet with the investors.

The SWUTT would have done their work and secured investors.

All we are asking for is for the relevant government ministers to meet with those investors and to do due diligence as a government and to set the framework for the type of discussions that would have allowed for the investor to go forward and purchase the plant which would benefit Trinidad and Tobago, he said.

In the letter, JTUM indicated that SWUTT on January 24 wrote to the Minister of Public Utilities Fitzgerald Hinds, Finance Minister Colm Imbert, Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste- Primus.

The responses to the requests were simply that the Minister of Labour acknowledged receipt and the Minister of Trade and industry indicated her unavailability to meet with the representatives. Subsequent to this, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Paula Gopee-Scoon set February 15, as a date to meet with the union and then cancelled the said meeting. Regrettably, the SWUTT, was not even offered a response from the other Ministers, the letter stated. Roget expressed hope that the PM acts immediately.

All we are calling for is for the relevant ministers to come together to meet with a joint meeting where the investors will be present, he said.

He warned that they were preparing, not too long from now to put tens of thousands of workers on the streets.

Nobody understands until you protest, like you have to protest everything to get some kind response in this country, he said.
Suruj calls AGs remarks frightening

The Attorney General asked the question since when is that (consultation) a feature of our Parliamentary Practice. These words of the Attorney General are to say the least, clearly frightening since it betrays a philosophy that excludes the Opposition from shared governance, Rambachan stated.

When combined with the arbitrary removal of the threefifths majority required to pass the Marriage Bill and his further statement that he will do away with such majority in future legislation as a tactic to get his bills passed, we are seeing the birth of a dangerous enemy to our democracy, he added.

Rambachan said the nation could not sit idly by and allow the Attorney General and his colleagues to undermine the Constitution and their rights. There is an obligation for right thinking people who value freedom, shared Governance and a democratic country to lift their voices against the Attorney General and the PNM.
A second federal judgethis one in Wisconsinon Friday blocked President Donald Trumps new executive order (EO) on immigration travel, while the federal judge who blocked the first EO is reserving judgment on the revised EO.

(Article by Ken Klukouki from Breitbart.com)

Trump signed EO 13780 on Mar. 6, replacing his original order (EO 13769), temporarily restricting immigration from several terror-prone nations. Judge James Robart of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the first EO. The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit kept the TRO in place.

Lawsuits have also been filed against the new EO 13780. The plaintiff states in the original TRO lawsuita growing list that currently includes Washington, Minnesota, and Oregonasked Robart to rule that the TRO blocking EO 13769 likewise applies to the new EO. Robart released an order Friday stating that none of the parties have properly filed new motions in that litigation  and that he will reserve judgment until there is a relevant motion and the legal issues have been fully briefed before his court.

However, on that same day, Judge William Connelly of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin did issue a new TRO against the new EO, holding that the plaintiff in that new lawsuit had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, and would suffer irreparable harm unless the court provided immediate relief. This new lawsuit in Wisconsin concerns a man with a family member in Syria who has applied for asylum and claims that EO 13780 is thwarting that asylum request.

Read more at: breitbart.com
Nick Herringer claps along with a metronome. He draws lines on a big screen, repeating patterns drawn by the computer. He identifies icons of cars when they flash before his eyes. This is the 22-year-olds speech and cognitive therapy, which he has been doing at least twice a week. Every wee
Tunisian coast guards have seized 31.5 kg of pure cocaine off Tunisias Mediterranean coasts, probably coming from Italy, an official of the coast guard told media on Monday.

The seizure amounts to six million euro, according to lieutenant-colonel Mohamed Walid Ben Ali.

Two men manning a speedboat off Tunisian coast were chased Sunday evening near Bon cape. The coast guards hunted them after the men displayed suspicious movements.

The two traffickers reportedly hauled the shipment contained in a red bag overboard and ran away, Ben Ali told the media.

It is the first time such a quantity of cocaine is seized in the North African country.

Ben Ali pointed out that the seizure disclosed existence of an international criminal network getting help from local ramifications in Tunisia.

The official pointed out a new phenomenon taking place for 18 month now, namely arrival on Tunisian coasts of speedboats from Italy trafficking in drugs and cigarettes but also in human beings.
Set to strengthen its foothold in a Libya beset by chaos and instability, Russia threw its weight on Libyas strongman Marshall Khalifa Haftar whose forces have made a blitzkrieg advance taking several oil fields and threatening to overtake the capital Tripoli from the UN-backed government.

A US diplomat who requested not to be named told Reuters that Russia has deployed forces in a western Egyptian airport with a view to supporting Haftar whose forces have recently endured a setback after an attack on their Benghazi stronghold.

The US source said that the Russians deployed Special Forces and drones at the Sidi Barrani air base, 100 km away from the Egyptian-Libyan borders. Russian officials rejected the news as unfounded.

Although Russian officials stress that it observes the UNs arms embargo to warring parties in Libya, media reports abound of Russias covert involvement in arming Haftar.

Few days ago, Reuters reported that a Russian private military firm has been operating in areas controlled by Haftar in Eastern Libya where it has been providing arms to his forces.

Last month a senior Algerian military official told the London-based Middle East Eye that Russia is planning to ship armoured vehicles and arms to renegade Haftar through Algeria.

Several media reports have been speculating about a potential secret deal between Haftar and the Kremlin according to which Russia will arm Haftars forces in his endeavor to gain control of the whole country in return for a Russian military base in Libya.

At the diplomatic level, Russias support for Haftar is outspoken. Since January, Russia has insisted on the UN to give Haftar a larger say in resolving the Libyan crisis.

Both Russias allies in the region, Algeria and Egypt, two authoritarian countries led by military juntas, see in Haftar a strongman that can end the chaos prevailing in Libya and establish order with a firm grip. Russia, which has opposed NATO intervention to depose Gaddafi, sees in Haftar a strong ally that can help it gain a foothold in the Mediterranean with an eye on Libyas gas and oil resources.

Despite the UN arms embargo in place since 2011 prohibiting the sale of weapons to Libyan factions, to the exception of the government in Tripoli, Haftar is also said to have received arms from Middle Eastern allies including Egypt and the UAE.

Libya has been split between two rival governments: one based in Tripoli and the other based in the eastern city of Tobruk. The government in Tripoli is backed by the United Nations, while the government in Tobruk supports Haftar.

In December 2015, a unity government, called the Government of National Accord (GNA) was founded following the Skhirate agreement, but it failed to impose its authority over the whole country.
Special Operation Forces from the US and Morocco wrapped up the joint military exercises centring on advanced communication and medical skills during Operation Flintlock 2017.

The exercises took place in Tifnit training base in Moroccos southern zone area of operations with the participation of US experts and more than 2,000 military personnel from 24 African and Western nations, US Africa Command said on its website.

The training is Africas largest special operations forces exercise aiming to enhance responses to violent extremist organizations and other regional threats, the same source said.

The exercise was supervised by a pair of Military Information Support Operations (MISO) instructors from Special Operations Command with the sponsorship of US Africa Command and led by US Special Operations Command Africa.

Previous training sessions with the Moroccan special operations forces provided familiarization with a piece of equipment, known as the Next Generation Loudspeaker System, the US Africa Command added.

Annually, the US and Morocco organize the African Lion military drills aiming at improving interoperability and mutual understanding of the techniques and procedures of the participating armies, which in the past included the U.S., Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Tunisia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Portugal.
The European Union (EU) has denounced restrictive measures imposed on bilateral trade without prior consultation with the EU, says a report released on the occasion of 10th session of Algeria-EU Association Council convened Monday in Brussels.

In January 2016, Algerian authorities required import licenses for certain European products such as cars, cement and concrete.

These protectionist measures, taken without prior consultation with the EU, have been added to the already existing restrictions and obstacles to trade and investment, stresses the EU document.

These measures make the business climate even more difficult for European economic operators, adds the report, noting that this move is not in conformity with the Association agreement sealed between the two sides.

Algeria took such measures following the fall in oil prices, which resulted in huge loss in revenues and deepened trade deficit of the North African country, member of the OPEC cartel.

Regarding the business environment, the European report says Algeria ranks 156th out of 190 countries listed by the World Bank in its Doing Business index, slamming the corruption plaguing the business milieu in the country.

According to several NGOs and analysts, corruption is a serious obstacle for companies operating or intending to invest in Algeria. A culture of patronage permeates several aspects of Algerias economy, strengthening the practices of nepotism and the use of connections to get things done.

Bribery and facilitation payments are also common practice, although they are criminal offenses, according to the law. Bribes are mainly employed to overcome bureaucratic hurdles. Though the legal framework criminalizes a large range of corruption offenses, corruption with impunity remains widespread in the country.
Jared Kushner. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

A Beijing-based investment firm with close ties to the Chinese government is giving a sweetheart deal to the real-estate company owned by Jared Kushners family for a stake in the firms flagship property at 666 Fifth Ave., Bloomberg reported Monday.

The $4 billion deal calls for Kushner Companies, where Trumps son-in-law and adviser was CEO until January, to receive $400 million in cash and have its mortgage in the mixed-use building slashed by about 80 percent.

The transactions critics tell Bloomberg that the terms of the deal are unusually favorable. The concern, as explained by Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center, is that Anbang Insurance Group is trying to curry favor with Kushner and, by extension, President Trump.

A Kushner Companies spokesman told Bloomberg that theres no worry over conflict of interest because Jared sold his ownership in 666 Fifth Ave. to family members. But as Noble, who calls this a sweetheart deal, told Bloomberg, A classic way you influence people is by financially helping their family.

Matthew Sanderson, a D.C. lawyer and Republican, told the Times earlier this year that theres nothing legally improper about the deal but it has the strong appearance that a foreign entity is using Mr. Kushners business to try to influence U.S. policy.

The problem, in addition to the apparent attempt to influence Kushner, is the company doing the influencing. Anbangs murky ownership structure has come under scrutiny before and resulted in it losing its $1.57 billion bid to take over a U.S. insurance company last summer. In January, the New York Times reported that Morgan Stanley refused to advise the company because it could not get the proper information to satisfy its know your client guidelines.

As this company edges closer to President Trump, its worth noting that in September 2015, President Obama went out of his way to avoid it. On a trip to New York City he did not stay at Anbang-owned Waldorf Astoria because of concerns that the Chinese government would spy on him.
Poor Pat McCrory cant get the kind of job to which he feels entitled. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Get out the tiniest of violins for mood music as former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory cries us a river. Having become the only incumbent governor in the country to lose last November (though it took him nearly a month to concede defeat), hes not getting the sort of job offers he expects, and for that he blames the politically correct thought police who have somehow created the impression he is a bigot thanks to his sponsorship of legislation making life difficult for transgender individuals who want to use public bathrooms. That law made his state a target of protests and boycotts. After four hard years of loyally doing the will of North Carolina GOP kingmaker Art Pope  who actually called the shots within the McCrory administration for a goodly while as the governors budget and policy director  and seeking to transform the once proudly progressive state into a conservative ideological fortress, McCrory, once considered a party moderate, probably figured he deserved the kind of lucrative no-heavy-lifting job ex-governors tend to get.

But he obeyed Tar Heel conservatives one time too many with a bill making his state the leader of a national fight for transgender rights, and now McCrory is allegedly paying the price, as the Raleigh News-Observer reports:

Former Gov. Pat McCrory says the backlash against House Bill 2 is making some employers reluctant to hire him but hes currently doing consulting and advisory board work



McCrory declined to name the companies hes working for. But the former governor said that hes been considered for part-time university teaching positions  he wouldnt say where  but that academic leaders have shown reluctance because of student protests.



Thats not the way our American system should operate  having people purged due to political thought, he told The N&O.

But according to a recent interview, his real fury is reserved for the large companies whose disdain for North Carolina after the bathroom bill (just one of a number of recent anti-LGBT efforts in the state) exerted a price:

Over and over again, McCrory blasted corporations for using their free speech rights to oppose HB2. He believes these companies vilified and victimized him, declaring that they should have stayed neutral and declined to support transgender employees who were targeted by the bill. But, he said proudly, Im having the courage to call them out on [their] selective hypocrisy.

It seems as if McCrory thinks his last hope for the kind of reward he deserves could come from Big Government, or more specifically the Executive branch in Washington:

McCrory said hes also had ongoing discussions with the Trump administration, but at this point in time nothing has come to fruition.

This is how his former political rivals reacted to word of his plight:

The N.C. Democratic Party issued a statement Monday responding to McCrorys job search troubles.

North Carolina has already lost hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity and thousands of jobs as a direct result of House Bill 2, but I guess we can start adding Gov. McCrorys career to the total as well, spokesman Mike Gwin said.

The term hoist by his own petard comes to mind.
Photo: Richard B. Levine/Corbis via Getty Images

The dream of staying home and watching Netflix on a snow day just came closer to fruition for a lot of New Yorkers as the MTA announced plans to shut down service on its aboveground lines. The changes will go into effect at 4 a.m. Tuesday morning, just as the city is expected to start feeling the brunt of this March blizzard that could dump close to two feet of snow.

All trains will run along the local tracks starting at midnight, and some lines will stop running Tuesday morning. Heres the snowstorm-abridged subway map:

Governor Andrew Cuomo also warned that, depending on how this Noreaster unfolds, commuter rails and buses will also experience service changes or temporary suspensions. The MTA says 9,700 personnel are on duty specifically for snow fighting.

Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency in the city, which goes into effect at midnight. The mayor preemptively closed all public schools, and is urging New Yorkers to stay off the roads to give emergency vehicles and the plows ample room to do their jobs. For the daytime hours tomorrow, he said, do not expect to see a lot of blacktop in New York City. De Blasio said nearly 700 salt spreaders have been sent out in advance, and about 1,600 plows will be deployed across the city.

The best thing to do is stay in if you can stay in, de Blasio added. The National Weather Service said the same: Do not travel, the agency warns, adding that, if you must, have a winter survival kit with you. Conditions, especially Tuesday morning into the afternoon, will be treacherous. Snow could fall at a rate of two to four inches per hour Tuesday. Visibility will be a quarter-mile or less, with whiteout conditions possible. Winds will be whipping with gusts at 55 miles per hour. Coastal areas also face a minor to moderate flooding risk during high tide.

Blizzard warnings have been expanded. Winter Storm Warnings continue for eastern Suffolk County pic.twitter.com/zNDVFfeazT  NWS New York NY (@NWSNewYorkNY) March 13, 2017

Plans of escaping to warmer climes have likely been foiled. Airlines have canceled more than 5,000 flights across the United States.

The blizzard warning goes into effect at midnight, and will last 24 hours. Before its all over, New York could get pummeled with a potentially record-setting 23 inches of snow. So take a cue from German chancellor Angela Merkel and postpone all engagements until the East Coast digs out.
Merciless. Photo: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

As F-18 fighter jets took off from the U.S.S. Carl Vinson in the seas off South Korea Tuesday, part of a joint military exercise staged by Seoul and Washington, D.C., North Korea issued a warning filled with its trademark bluster.

If they infringe on the DPRKs sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater, said KCNA, Pyongyangs state news agency. It went on to describe the exercise as simulating dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets.

North Korea has been particularly sensitive this year to the military exercises, which have been going on for 40 years and have been described by the Defense Department as defensive in nature. Thats not how theyre viewed in Pyongyang, where the exercises are seen as a preparation for war, and last Monday North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the East Sea to make its displeasure known.

In response to that launch, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea are testing missile defense ships in the East Sea this week in what the U.S. Navy has called a trilateral missile warning informational link exercise.

Meanwhile, China is trying to play peacemaker. North Korea has violated U.N. Security Council resolutions banning its ballistic missile launches; on the other hand, South Korea, the U.S.  and now Japan  insist on conducting super-large-scale military drills, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday.

For Beijing, this is not just about keeping the peace. The Chinese government fears the missile-defense systems powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security, Reuters reports.

As if that werent enough drama, the U.S. beat its chest again Monday with the announcement that Gray Eagle attack drones have been deployed to South Korea. In a press release, the military said the drones add significant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities to forces in Korea. More importantly, theyre one more reason for Kim Jong-un to think twice before his trigger finger gets itchy.
Ryan and other Republicans are looking less convincing than ever in defending the American Health Care Act. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The general reaction to the long-awaited Congressional Budget Offices scoring of the American Health Care Act was shock at how bad it was for the Republican congressional leaders to whom CBO reports. The estimated health-care coverage losses of 14 million in the first year alone and 24 million within ten years was flabbergasting. Axios post on the score featured a mushroom cloud. Ezra Klein opined that [t]his CBO report is so much worse for Republicans than I thought possible.

While as of this writing there has been no reaction from the president, HHS Secretary Tom Price said the administration disagreed strenuously with the report. He also previewed what we can expect to be a regular feature of GOP criticism of the CBO report: It doesnt examine future legislation and regulatory reactions that will either save costs or improve coverage. Trouble there, of course, is that such future actions will not be included in the budget-reconciliation bill that is the vehicle for AHCA, which means at least eight Senate Democratic votes will be necessary.

But the most comprehensive immediate GOP reaction was from Speaker Paul Ryan, and he chose to cherry-pick the report extensively:

This report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care. CBO also finds that this legislation will provide massive tax relief, dramatically reduce the deficit, and make the most fundamental entitlement reform in more than a generation. These are things we are achieving in just the first of a three-pronged approach. Its important to note that this report does not take into consideration additional steps Congress and the Trump administration are taking that will further lower costs and increase choices.

I recognize and appreciate concerns about making sure people have access to coverage. Under Obamacare, we have seen how government-mandated coverage does not equal access to care, and now the law is collapsing. Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage. It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. Thats what this report shows. And, as we have long said, there will be a stable transition so that no one has the rug pulled out from under them.

This is, to put it mildly, a disingenuous take. According to CBO, the AHCA will actually boost premiums in the short term, and will boost them even more for poorer and older Americans. It does not, in fact, improve access to quality, affordable care  the insufficiency of its tax credits are a big reason for the coverage losses CBO anticipates. Ryans argument that this is just part of a three-pronged approach is specious for the reason I mentioned above: The idea that any iteration of this deeply broken Republican health-care plan will conceivably command 60 votes in the Senate is pure fantasy.

The one thing Ryan got right is that the CBO estimates the $935 billion in spending reductions via smaller tax credits and Medicaid cuts  all mostly affecting the working poor  will exceed the $599 billion in tax cuts, mostly targeted to the wealthy. Thats not an argument that will fare very well once it is understood.

The argument that people losing coverage have the freedom to decide they dont want it anyway isnt a big winner, either. I would expect some reactions to Ryan to quote songwriter Kris Kristofferson to the effect that freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose.



Perhaps Republicans will regroup overnight and come up with more convincing responses. Or maybe they will respond to the mushroom cloud of this CBO report simply by going nuclear on the source.
Representative Steve King is the juvenile delinquent in the conservative schoolyard. Photo: Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Nothing upsets conservative nationalists like Stephen Bannon more than the charge that bigotry is at the center of the movement that gave us President Trump. While Bannon admits there is racism and anti-Semitism at the fringes of the alt-right, with which his old journalistic perch at Breibart has associated, he insists on treating such influences as marginal.

It is worth remembering that this is a persistent claim among right-bent political activists who may or may not themselves be bigoted, but who are clearly trafficking in appeals to bigots. When George Wallace shifted his focus from defending segregation to attacking unpopular desegregation methods like school busing, he argued he was just favoring the color-blind posture of his old enemies in the civil-rights movement. But he  and we  knew better when it came to the visceral politics of race he espoused.

The effort to marginalize the role of racial or religious bigots in cultural conservatism works best when everybodys got the memo and is refusing to say things that cross the line. But right there in Washington, within close proximity of the cameras, is at least one member of Congress who, to use a phrase sometimes said of Wallace in his heyday, just comes right out and says it: Iowas Steve King. No, King doesnt admit to racially or religiously discriminatory sentiments, as much as he flirts with them. But for years he has been closely associated (along with his very close friend, former Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado) with a brand of nativism that views both illegal and legal immigration as threats to what can only be described as European-American civilization, and who is willing to trade in crude stereotypes of people of color.

A case in point was probably Kings most infamous comment, suggesting that most Dreamers actually weigh a hundred and thirty pounds  and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert. He was careful to claim that such interlopers were a threat not to white racial hegemony, but to our culture and civilization. But its hard to see much of a difference in Kings usage.

King is back in the news this week for going out of his way on Twitter to associate with Dutch extremist politician Geert Wilders, who favors closing all mosques and banning the Koran.

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny, King wrote. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. Given a chance to walk the tweet back, King characteristically refused.

You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody elses babies. Youve got to keep your birth rate up and that you need to teach your children your values and in doing so, then you can grow your population and you can strengthen your culture, you can strengthen your way of life, King said.



King called Western Civilization a superior culture and said some cultures contribute more to American society than others.

You can guess which culture contributed the most.

After repeated requests for a comment, House Speaker Paul Ryan mildly indicated he disagreed with Kings perspective. So, too, did Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kauffman and Governor Terry Branstad, who has himself been nominated to represent the United States to the 1.4 billion nonwhite, non-Western people of China. Kauffman and Branstad also mentioned their general appreciation of Steve Kings great service to the people of Iowa, perpetuating the silly game of pretending the man doesnt say this sort of thing all the time.

But you can appreciate why Iowa Republicans wont go too far in rebuking the wiggy congressman: He is likely the most popular Republican pol in the state. He was generally conceded a Senate nomination in 2014 had he wanted it; the prize instead went to Joni Ernst. Even though he is often a poor fundraiser who takes to the campaign trail late, he is unassailable in his district, as was best demonstrated in 2012 when he defeated a well-financed and popular Democrat, former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, by a landslide despite inheriting a lot of new turf through redistricting.

And so he hangs around like a juvenile delinquent in the schoolyard, embarrassing his colleagues and giving Democrats box after box of ammunition. Hes not going to clean up his act: As a Constitutional conservative, King believes his view of the world is derived from the infallible will of the divinely inspired Founders. And as long as other conservatives and other Republicans continue to praise him with faint damn, hell be a continuing threat to the self-presentation of Trumpian nationalists as smiling equally on all kinds of people, notwithstanding their race, religion, or culture.
Theres a dark side  elitist, cruel  to his originalism. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

A trucker was stranded on the side of the road, late at night, in cold weather, and his trailer brakes were stuck, wrote appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch, last August, in a dissenting opinion that is apt to come up at his confirmation hearings next week for the open seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

He called his company for help and someone there gave him two options, Gorsuch continued. He could drag the trailer carrying the companys goods to its destination (an illegal and maybe sarcastically offered option). Or, he could sit and wait for help to arrive (a legal if unpleasant option). The trucker chose None of the Above, deciding instead to unhook the trailer and drive his truck to a gas station.

About a week later, in January 2009, the employer, TransAm Trucking, fired the driver for insubordination. In January 2013, an administrative law judge ruled that the truckers termination had been illegal, under a federal law that protects employees who refuse to operate vehicles under unsafe conditions. In November 2014 that ruling was unanimously upheld by a three-member administrative review board of the U.S. Department of Labor and then, last August, by Gorsuchs two colleagues on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Gorsuch parted ways with them because, as he explained, the trucker could have simply waited in his tractor-trailer. The problem, then, wasnt that the driver had refused to operate the truck in an unsafe way, Gorsuch explained, but rather that he had operated the truck, and had done so in a way his employer had forbidden.

It might be fair to ask whether TransAms decision was a wise or kind one, Gorsuch continued. But its not our job to answer questions like that  It is our job and work enough for the day to apply the law Congress did pass, not to imagine and enforce one it might have but didnt.

Laconic, sharp-edged, concise, and arch, the writing style has grown familiar. It is that of many conservative judges who call themselves textualists or, when interpreting constitutional provisions, originalists  jurists who believe they have found a more objective basis for decision making than their liberal colleagues, whom they deride for trying to interpret the law to achieve just results, a goal these conservative judges deem hopelessly subjective.

Yet there are other adjectives for Gorsuchs dissent. Obtuse, callous, elitist, and cruel are contenders. He displays a manner of thinking that might disappoint  if not shock  many of the white, working-class voters who turned out for Trump in November. For what follows are the facts of this case as found by the administrative law judge, which all the appeals judges, including Gorsuch, were legally bound to accept.

On January 14, 2009, trucker Alphonse Maddin picked up a load of frozen meat in Nebraska that was to be delivered to several locations, in Wisconsin and Michigan. At about 11 p.m., while traveling through Illinois in subzero temperatures, his engine began sputtering. The fuel gauge had dipped below empty and he couldnt find a gas station. (It was later determined that TransAm had misidentified the gas stations location on the map it had provided Maddin.) Maddin pulled off the road, contacted TransAm, and was informed that the driver who had been scheduled to switch out with him couldnt do so, so hed have to continue the trek himself.

Maddin restarted the truck but discovered that the trailers brakes had frozen, due to the frigid temperatures. He called TransAms Road Assist unit at 11:16 p.m., and was told to wait there for a repairman.

When the truck was being driven, it used one heating system, but when the motor was off, the driver had to rely on a bunk heater run by an auxiliary power unit. Maddins auxiliary power unit, however, had stopped working earlier in the trip. So Maddin waited in the unheated truck. After about an hour, he fell asleep.

At 1:18 am  nearly two hours after first calling Road Assist  Maddin was awakened by a cell-phone call from his cousin. The cousin became alarmed by how Maddin sounded; he seemed to be shivering, and his speech was slurred. Maddin straightened up in the cab and noticed that his skin was crackling from the cold, his torso was numb, and he couldnt feel his feet, according to the administrative review board ruling. Maddin hung up with his cousin and called TransAms Road Assist unit again. He was told to hang in there.

According to the review board opinion, Maddin tried to follow this suggestion but became fearful of losing his feet, dying, and never seeing his family again. After another half-hour with no relief, he called his TransAm supervisor, reporting his physical symptoms which, by then, also included trouble breathing. Maddin explained that he wanted to unhook the trailer from the cab and drive to a gas station. The supervisor ordered him, however, according to the review board decision, to either drag the trailer with its frozen brakes or stay where he was, warning that the company could be fined if Maddin left the trailer unattended.

Shortly after the call ended, at 2:05 a.m., Maddin detached the trailer and set off looking for the gas station, which he eventually found. Then, at 2:19 a.m.  three hours after originally reporting the frozen-brake issue  he was called by the repair truck operator, who had finally arrived. Maddin drove back to the trailer, where repairs to the brakes were completed at 3:20 a.m. A week later, Maddin was fired for having disobeyed the orders of his supervisor.

Under the federal Surface Transportation Assistance Act, an employee cant be fired if he refuses to operate a vehicle  because the employee has a reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public because of the vehicles hazardous safety or security condition. The review board found Maddin protected by this provision. Gorsuchs colleagues on the Tenth Circuit concluded that the boards interpretation was reasonable, given that the purpose of the law, explicitly laid out in its preamble, was to promote the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles and minimize dangers to the health of operators of commercial vehicles.

Gorsuch ridiculed his colleagues reasoning, and especially their appeal to the statutes stated purpose of advancing health and safety.

When the statute is plain, it simply isnt our business to appeal to legislative intentions, he wrote. After all, what under the sun, at least at some level of generality, doesnt relate to health and safety?

Gorsuchs dissent in TransAm Trucking has drawn some unadmiring scrutiny in recent weeks. An Associated Press article last month described the opinion as one that appears to defy common sense and fairness, while the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center asserted in a white paper issued Friday that Gorsuchs crabbed interpretation of the law was anything but a fair reading of a statute enacted to protect worker and public safety.

Realistically, nothing seems likely to derail Gorsuchs nomination at this point. He has the votes and, truth be told, he is qualified for the post in terms of credentials and experience.

But Judge Gorsuchs rulings do highlight the stark disconnect between Trumps populist campaign rhetoric and the gated-community elitism of his first High Court nominee.

It is in flesh-and-blood details of court cases like Maddins that the rubber of Trumps vaunted populism will meet the road. The question is how long it will take Trumps constituents to notice, and to hold him accountable.
Trumps intention is to donate his salary. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump is planning to donate his salary to charity at the end of the year and is asking the White House press corps to help determine who gets the money, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.

During the campaign, Trump promised not to take a salary, but that proved impossible. Federal law dictates that the president must be paid. With one monthly paycheck of $33,333 paid out in February and another due next week, NBC News asked the White House Sunday if Trump had donated the money yet. They wouldnt say, but took the next 12 hours to prepare a response.

Sean Spicer: President Trump will "donate his salary at the end of the year" and would like reporters to "help determine where that goes." pic.twitter.com/Csn69n6QgS  CNN (@CNN) March 13, 2017

Spicers explanation is an admission that Trump isnt living up to his promise to not take a salary. Its also pretty obvious that the White House hadnt thought about this until NBC asked.

Asking the press to choose a charity to receive the $400,000 salary is a decent gimmick. But based on the suggestions White House reporters are making on Twitter, that would result in Trump giving money to the very media he despises.

Spicer says the press corps should help Trump decide where to donate his salary. I suggest the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.  Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) March 13, 2017

WHCA was a clever suggestion. https://t.co/0XuMCf3gBN  Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) March 13, 2017

Spicer says Trump will donate salary at end of the year and is taking recs from WH Press corps on where it goes: I vote @pressfreedom  Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) March 13, 2017

Donating the salary would be good, if Trump does it, but the implication of his pledge to not take a salary was always that he was making a sacrifice to benefit the American people. Donating the money to charity is not going to save taxpayer money. You know what would? Biting the bullet and cancelling one of his weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago, each of which cost around seven times more than his annual salary.
Armed and dangerous. Photo: Isaac Brekken/Getty Images

President Trump has given the CIA new authority to conduct drone strikes in Syria, reversing an Obama-era decision to restrict the spy agencys capabilities on the battlefield, The Wall Street Journal reports.

After relying for years on CIA drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen, and killing plenty of civilians in the process, President Obama tightened the rules on the agency in 2013. Instead of conducting surveillance and launching missiles, CIA drones would do only the former. The latter would be carried out by the militarys Joint Special Operations Command.

The change was made, in part, because Obama thought the CIA should focus on intelligence gathering. But it was also a move toward transparency. Drone strikes made by the CIA are kept secret while those carried out by the Pentagon are typically acknowledged publicly.

While that change resulted in a decrease in CIA drone strikes, it didnt eliminate them. Last June, the CIA was reportedly on pace to conduct 12 strikes in the entire year. With Trump restoring the CIAs powers, it seems that number will go up in 2017.

The CIA has already gotten to work using its new power, given by Trump shortly after his inauguration. In late February an Al Qaeda higher-up was targeted in Syria. The WSJ says the CIAs restored striking authority only applies in Syria, but others have speculated that a strike that killed two men in Pakistan early this month, which the Defense Department has not acknowledged, was carried out by the CIA.

Trumps decisions to give more power to a agency he compared to Nazis may seem odd, but its all a part of an attempt to loosen restrictions on the military. As the Times reported Sunday, Trump is signing off on Pentagon requests to declare parts of Yemen and Somalia areas of active hostilities, where battlefield rules are less strict, and generally seeking to relax rules aimed at preventing civilian casualties.
Geert Wilders. Photo: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

Following the unexpected success of Brexit and Donald Trump, right-wing populism will face its next test on Wednesday when Dutch voters head to the polls. Voting in the Netherlands is based on proportional representation, so parties will be awarded a percentage of the 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the countrys lower house of parliament.

While the Dutch vote for parties, not individual politicians, the election has been dominated by Geert Wilders, a far-right, anti-Islamic candidate whos been compared to Trump. Wilders became embroiled in a U.S. controversy over the weekend when Republican congressman Steve King tweeted a cartoon endorsing him. Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny, King wrote. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies.

Who Is Geert Wilders?

Wilders has been called the Dutch Trump, and as the New York Times reported last month, they share a number of similarities:

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Wilders is unafraid to say things in the most direct, divisive, dismissive, and often disparaging and insulting of ways. Similar to Mr. Trump, many of his supporters feel buoyed and relieved that he is giving voice to what they cannot say, or feel they are not supposed to say.

Wilders even has some ties to Republicans in the U.S. During the 2016 election, he voiced his support for Trump, adopted the slogan Make the Netherlands Great Again, and attended the Milo Yiannopoulos Wake Up Party during the Republican National Convention. Hes also received contributions from U.S. conservatives.

However, there are significant differences between the two men. Wilders began working in politics in 1990 at the age of 28, and is one of the longest-serving members in the Dutch lower house. Rather than the Dutch Trump, Politico described Wilders as the man who invented Trumpism.

Hes the most strategic, smartest politician out there, Sarah de Lange, a political science professor at the University of Amsterdam, told the Times. Hes very skilled. Hes a very good debater. He has media savvy. Internationally, hes compared to Trump. But with Wilders every tweet is thought through, calculated. With Trump its emotional.

Wilderss political views are more consistent, and more extreme, than Trumps. He has called for closing all mosques in the Netherlands, banning the Koran, and taxing women who wear the hijab. In December, he was convicted of inciting discrimination with comments he made about Dutch Moroccans, but he continued insulting the group.

The Moroccan scum in Holland  once again not all are scum  but there is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland who make the streets unsafe, mostly young people  and that should change, he told journalists last month.

Wilders is the target of so many threats that hes been under constant police protection since 2004, and lives in a government safe house.

Which Parties Are Running?

Voters will choose between 28 parties, and the March 15 election is likely to produce the most fragmented political landscape in Dutch history. Four to six parties will probably have to band together to form a government. These are the major groups:

 The Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD): The party of current prime minister Mark Rutte. The liberal party has held a majority in the government since 2012, and recent polls suggest they may come in first again, though theyll lose seats.

 The Labour Party: The Labour Party came in second in the last election, and governed in coalition with VVD. Theyve been criticized for supporting austerity measures and are expected to lose seats.

 The Christian Democratic Appeal: The center-right party has participated in all but three Dutch governments since 1977.

 The Democrats 66: A progressive and pro-E.U. party, which favors legalized marijuana, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and prostitution.

 The Green Left: A party popular with young people, which is attempting to move from being a minor party to a major player in the new government.

 The Party of Freedom: The nationalist, right-wing party Wilders founded in 2004. Its anti-immigration and in favor of the Netherlands leaving the E.U.



Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Photo: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

What Do the Polls Say?

For the last year, polls showed Wilderss Party of Freedom in the lead, but in the last month Prime Minister Mark Ruttes VVD pulled slightly ahead. Reuters reported that the latest poll from Maurice De Hond had VVD winning 18 percent of the vote and 27 seats, and the Freedom Party in second place with 16 percent and 24 seats.

But on Monday Rutte warned voters not to be complacent. There is a real risk that on March 16 we can wake up in this country and Geert Wilders is leading the biggest party and that will send a signal to the rest of the world, he told reporters.

Is Wilders Likely to Become Prime Minister?

No. In the Netherlands, winning the popular vote does not mean you get to lead the country  but it has nothing to do with the Electoral College. After the election, the parties will begin negotiating to form a governing coalition, a process that could take months. All of the mainstream parties have vowed not to work with Wilders, so its highly unlikely that he will become prime minister (though he claims theyll change their tune if he wins).

Wilderss popularity is still significant, however, because hes shifted Dutch politics to the right. The leader of the Christian Democratic Alliance said that if Europe doesnt reform Brexit might not be the last exit from the E.U. Prime Minister Rutte tried to compete with Wilders rather than standing in opposition to him.

If you dont like it here, you can leave, he said on the campaign trail earlier this month  though he added that the statement applies to everyone, be it that you are an immigrant, or that your parents and grandparents were born here.

Last month the Dutch law society NoVA concluded that the platforms of all five leading parties contain policies that are openly discriminatory against certain population groups.

What Does the Election Mean for Europe?

While Wilders is in favor of Nexit, that wasnt a major campaign issue and most of the other parties are against holding a referendum on E.U. membership. On the other hand, just after the Brexit vote, a poll found 43 percent of the Dutch wanted to vote on their membership in the E.U. Several parties are in favor of reforms, even though they want to remain in the E.U.

With elections approaching France, Germany, and maybe Italy, the Dutch vote may be an indicator of whether Brexit and Trump were isolated events or the beginning of a widespread embrace of right-wing populism.
A man shovels snow in the sleet and snow on March 14, 2017, in New York City. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

New York City is getting back to normal Tuesday evening, after the blizzard that wasnt still disrupted transit, closed schools, and kept much of the city, except those snow crews, shut in or working from home.

The blizzard warning winter-weather advisory is finished, though the National Weather Service still warns of wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour until early evening. Aboveground subway service will start up again at 6 p.m., after being shut down since before dawn. Mayor Bill de Blasio promises school will be open tomorrow.

Forecasts until Monday night threatened New York City with around 20 inches of snow. The National Weather service reportedly knew by Monday afternoon that the models were calling for far less snowfall, but, for some reason, decided not to fill the public in. Either way, the noreaster shifted westward, dumping one to two feet of snow in the regions northwest of the city, and leaving the city with a nasty combination of snow, sleet, and rain.

Incredible storm. Sharp (~100mi) transition btw historic March snowfall and lots of cold rain.



Bust for major cities, but pure joy inland. pic.twitter.com/FyJcrH6XcK  Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) March 14, 2017

The snow accumulation for New York City had been downgraded to a measly four to six inches, and thats about where five boroughs ended up. Central Park logged 7.2 inches. LaGuardia Airport recorded 5.9 inches; JFK came in just shy of 4 inches. The Bronxs Parkchester neighborhood won, with 8.3 inches.

An incredible battle between warm advection and dynamic cooling is ongoing bisecting the NYC metro. Incredible snow rates just NW of city. pic.twitter.com/LG5lKimzZ1  Taylor Trogdon (@TTrogdon) March 14, 2017

At least take consolation that the storm delivered with some thundersnow.

#thundersnow spotted on radar. Video also shows the dividing line between snow in blue, sleet in purple, & a mix in #nyc. #blizzard2017 pic.twitter.com/34Po1XVof8  Andrew Pineiro (@WeatherManAP) March 14, 2017

To recap, Governor Andrew Cuomo had declared a state of emergency in all 62 counties of New York; Mayor Bill de Blasio also declared a state of emergency in New York City, and closed schools. The MTA suspended aboveground service at 4 a.m. Tuesday, and trains were running on the local track:

Heres your Winter Storm Map guide to Subway Service: https://t.co/qiuO4c2qQq pic.twitter.com/wYP4SlCys2  NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) March 14, 2017

New York City Transit buses are still operating, though definitely check for service changes before venturing out to catch one. Cuomo shut down Metro-North as of noon Tuesday because of the extreme snowfall inland; limited service has resumed as of early evening. The Long Island Rail Road is operating on a regular weekday schedule, but with some delays and cancellations. MTA officials indicated that they expect subways and commuter lines to be back to normal by Wednesday morning.

National Weather Service & #ny1snow, u can announce false blizzard alarms all u want. Plenty seats on subway 2 work. pic.twitter.com/VlzQHNUrBx  Michele W. Miller (@MicheleWMiller_) March 14, 2017

It remains bitterly cold outside, and temperatures will dip overnight into the low 20s, with windchills in the teens. Officials are still urging people to be careful venturing out on the roads; the brutal cold puts slick roadways at risk of refreezing.

Now for the people who actually got the snow downstate New Yorkers were promised. Counties such as Putnam, Rockland, and Orange saw more than a foot of snow, and some spots in northern New Jersey also got within range of a foot. Close to 13 inches has fallen in Albany so far. Roads are closed and a travel ban is in effect in upstate Broome County, which includes Binghamton. That city could see close to 30 inches, and the National Weather Service reports that snow is still bearing down at the rate of two to four inches per hour in central New York:

Persistent band of #heavysnow across central NY continues to drop snow at rates of 2-4" per hour. #NYwx #winter pic.twitter.com/9r0PLUcdxT  NWS Binghamton (@NWSBinghamton) March 14, 2017

This is what we are dealing with in Binghamton, NY! Dont just watch- listen to it as well. Its a good snow day laughter pic.twitter.com/TbvKArokh8  Sara (@Sara6072016) March 14, 2017

We're nearing 26" of snow on my Eastside yard... we're snowing at a clip of 3" an hour in Binghamton! @weatherchannel pic.twitter.com/oQQKq6lhoT  Justin (@JustinCaseNY) March 14, 2017

Parts of New England could still get hammered, though it wont be as bad as first predicted in many parts. Boston may get just shy of a foot, though the citys public schools will remain closed Wednesday. Parts of Vermont could get up to 22 inches.

Boston snow status: about ankle-deep on mini Larry Bird & David Ortiz #StellaBlizzard pic.twitter.com/k2ZTgOBghq  Jesse Haley (@jhaley617) March 14, 2017

The Washington, D.C., metro area got a couple of inches, and the federal government opened after a morning delay. Luckily, President Donald Trump was on top of it.

LIVE CAM - Washington, DC

Snow falling at the Jefferson Memorial. 32 with visibility 3/4 mile #blizzard2017 https://t.co/2rYVr2LT59 pic.twitter.com/b6DHlFhKqb  Weather Webcam (@ActiveWxCams) March 14, 2017

And though the blizzard went bust in New York City, it still looked pretty nice for awhile:

Here's a look at the snow along Broadway in Midtown Manhattan this morning. Tag your tweets with #abc7ny to send us your pics #noreaster2017 pic.twitter.com/IB8WOFLLRw  Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) March 14, 2017

Trying to walk on #CentralPark What are you doing on YOUR snow day? pic.twitter.com/3z5xS4FIPt  Thanos Niforos (@Thanos_Niforos) March 14, 2017

Eh, maybe not:

NYC Sanitation update. Since the start crews have salted 87% and plowed 96%. There are 2269 spreaders and plows out. @NBCNewYork pic.twitter.com/EANAX7MTdH  Erica Byfield (@EricaByfield4NY) March 14, 2017

Current scene outside my office in Albany. What does your view look like on this snow day? pic.twitter.com/77nnQq2vZ3  Senator Tim Kennedy (@SenKennedy) March 14, 2017

Wednesdays forecast: Slush puddles.

This post has been updated throughout.
The CAPTCHA  that little test, often of recognizing letters, that you take in order to confirm to websites that you are a human, and not an automated program  is getting another upgrade. Last week, Google rolled out a new version of its reCAPTCHA product  one that, Google claims, wont require you to do anything at all in order to tell if youre machine or human.

Some quick history: the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) in its infancy was that box in which you had to copy a string of distorted characters  historically, one of few skills that humans are on average better at than computers. (For visually impaired users, audio clues are substituted as prompts.) The point of making users fill out CAPTCHAs is to prevent automated programs making requests over and over  to spam comments on a blog, for example. The term was coined by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper, and John Langford in 2003, but CAPTCHAs have existed in various formats since the mid-90s, when the web became the domain of people and businesses other than techies. Theyre a barrier between use and abuse.

The most popular CAPTCHA provider was reCAPTCHA, which Google purchased in 2009. Google filled its CAPTCHAs not with automatically generated nonsense, but with scanned images from its Books and Maps services  specifically, words and addresses that might have been mistranslated by automatic character-recognition programs. By solving those CAPTCHAs, users were building and feeding Googles enormous database, translating visual clues like scanned books and photographs of houses into searchable, minable text. If youve ever searched inside a blurry old book in Google Books, you may have some anonymous person attempting to leave a comment on a blog to thank.

But as technology grows more advanced, so has computers capacity for reading text, and the text CAPTCHA as a tool has become less reliable for distinguishing between computers and humans. One development is the photograph CAPTCHA  the kind that asks you to click all the squares with trees in them, or something similar.

Google has gone in another direction. In 2014, Google rolled out the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, which requires you to do nothing more complicated than check a box that says, Im not a robot. On Monday, Google removed the checkbox. The new upgrade, called Invisible reCAPTCHA, functions without any clicks (really it just handles what was a one-click function automatically). Just wait a moment, and a page will determine whether or not youre a human.

Google is not particularly forthcoming about how it makes this determination. In 2013, Googles security blog described actively considering the users entire engagement with the CAPTCHAbefore, during and after they interact with it. A paper presented at a 2016 Black Hat conference outlined tactics like installing cookies, examining what browser someone is using (this is known as a user agent and can be faked), and testing whether said browser can render certain elements on the page.

In other words, when you arrive at the website and mark the CAPTCHA checkbox (or dont, with the Invisible reCAPTCHA), Google checks your behavior against its enormous set of other user behavior, and determines whether you act more like a human or a machine. The more people that use it, the larger the data set becomes, and the more the CAPTCHA system can learn.

How this whole thing works is not publicly explained in greater detail for understandable reasons (aside from it being very technical). If a tech company explains how a system works, it is also explaining how to circumvent that system. No doubt someone programming bots is already feeding them scripts that mimic human mouse and keyboard input.

Googles own copy states that the system will Help everyone, everywhere. In this, it is correct: Who could object to a free, deployable system for sorting humans from computers, especially when its so easy to use? Everyone is indeed helped, especially Google. The system makes positive use of this human effort by channeling the time spent solving CAPTCHAs into digitizing text, annotating images, and building machine learning datasets. That translates to Google using this data to build impressive AI systems that they control entirely. Even when youre not literally transcribing words for Google Books, or addresses for Google Maps, using reCAPTCHAs means helping build one of the worlds largest databases of human behavior  one thats proprietary, closed, and wholly owned by Google.

(Its important to note, however, that CAPTCHAs arent tracking individual users; they are  if I understand Googles description correctly  taking anonymized data and adding it to a much larger set. Googles developer terms allow it to retain content submitted through its API hooks, in order to improve said hooks, which is precisely how reCAPTCHA works. In this case, its whatever data signals that you are not an automated program. Weve emailed Google to clarify what sorts of efforts CAPTCHA data is used for.)

If thats not melodramatic enough for you, hows this: Weve made Google the largest  and maybe, eventually, the sole  arbiter of human and bot on the internet. And maybe thats fine  maybe were suffering from such a plague of nonhuman internet users that we need a centralized system for determining which is which. And Googles discretion regarding its filter isnt a bad thing: If it tells the world how it works, it makes it easier to game. As with most things online, there is no easy solution. A centralized, black-box system makes the web efficient and accessible.

But weve already seen numerous times that private centralized technology  even in the interest of increasing stability and lowering user costs, and an abstract sense of the greater good  can have drastic consequences. If Amazon Web Services has a glitch, hundreds of thousands of websites experience service interruptions, as they did a couple weeks ago. Facebook as a web portal has completely reshaped how people consume media, arguably for the worse. A Cloudflare bug affecting millions of sites left sensitive data accessible to the public. Letting one company or service dominate a function of the web is never a good idea. Googles CAPTCHA system is a large-scale operation for harvesting data to use however it sees fit. Is it nefarious? Hardly. But will it pose challenges in the long term? Definitely.
Blacker than black and doesnt come off until I want it to.

My journey to find Heroine mascara began when a way-too-cool Japanese girl told me, dismissively, that all the girls (and some of the boys) in Tokyo think American mascara doesnt even count as black. Its not nearly dark enough, they say. Really, it looks more like brown.

As a girl from New York  the capital of black, and also the most competitive place on Earth  I was immediately horrified by my own mascara, which suddenly looked brown and pathetic. I was desperate to get my hands on this super tube of Heroine mascara. Of course, I had been a bit turned off by the name (and the anime packaging), but that hadnt stopped me from searching all of New York to find it. I was always under the impression that you could find anything here. (Nepalese food? Yup. Organic Chap Stick that was originally intended for babies from Paris? Please.) But Heroine? Impossible. Luckily, my best guy friend was about to fly to Tokyo for a once-in-a-lifetime father-son trip, so I gave him some homework: Walk around the city, asking pharmacy after pharmacy for Heroine mascara in his nonexistent Japanese. It wasnt that easy in Tokyo either  it took my friend three pharmacies to find the brand, since the first places he visited were sold out. But after trying the three tubes of Heroine he brought home for me, Im a believer. (I feel sheepish saying this, but Ive since discovered that Heroine was available on Amazon the whole time, which I wouldve known if Id seen the Cuts roundup of Japanese-drugstore buys in 2015. Ive apologized to my friend.)

Isehan Heroine Mascara $17 Not only is the mascara the darkest black Ive ever seen, but it doesnt clump (a huge issue for most mascaras), even if you put on two coats. It has an incredible lengthening quality that expands your eyes. On top of that, its impossible to remove, which might sound like a negative  you have to go out and buy actual eye-makeup remover, rather than the basic face wash I once used  but you can take an actual swim, or sweat your face off at the gym, or get caught in a torrential rainstorm and emerge with your eyes totally intact. It almost makes you believe that badass lashes are something youre born with. $17 at Amazon Buy $17 at Walmart Buy

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Under Trumpcare, thousands of women will lose access to contraceptives. Photo: LAURA SEGALL/AFP/Getty Images

A week after the Trump administration introduced its answer to Obamacare  the American Health Care Act  the Congressional Budget Office countered with some bad news: Under the AHCA, 14 million Americans would lose health insurance next year, and 24 million would lose insurance by the end of the decade.

As predicted, the bill also strips Planned Parenthood of its federal funds by kicking the organization out of Medicaid. According to a CBO estimate, defunding Planned Parenthood will lead to thousands of new births  especially in the case of low-income women who will lose access to contraceptives, the Washington Post reports.

To the extent that there would be reductions in access to care under the legislation, they would affect services that help women avert pregnancies, the report reads. The people most likely to experience reduced access to care would probably reside in areas without other health-care clinics or medical practitioners who serve low-income populations. CBO projects that about 15 percent of those people would lose access to care.

In other words, 15 percent of low-income women would lose access to birth control, leading to an increase in births by several thousand. Republicans have defended defunding Planned Parenthood in part by pointing out that it will save money  the CBO report estimates kicking Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid will reduce federal spending on the program by $178 million in 2017, and $234 million from 2017 to 2026.

Ironically, part of those savings would be offset by the thousands of additional children born. Medicaid pays for about 45 percent of all births, and many of those children will end up qualifying for Medicaid, meaning federal spending on the program would increase by $21 million in 2017, and $77 million over the next decade.

President Trump reportedly told Planned Parenthood it could keep its federal funding if it stopped providing abortions, but the organization rejected the offer before it could be formally presented; as Planned Parenthoods executive vice-president told the New York Times, Providing critical health-care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable. Although the deal might sound like an olive branch, its more likely the president was trying to preempt the blowback that could result from defunding the organization, which is widely popular with voters.
The EUs highest court ruled employers can ban hijabs from the workplace. Photo: 2017 Getty Images

The European Unions highest court has ruled that employers can ban staff from wearing hijabs at work, the Guardian reports. The ruling was made by the European Court of Justice on Tuesday, and argues the ban doesnt qualify as direct discrimination if a company has a policy banning any political, philosophical, or religious sign. Though the ruling technically applies to any religious symbol or garment, advocates say it specifically targets Muslim women.

A ban on religious and political symbols feels to me as a disguised ban on the hijab, Warda El-Kaddouri, a columnist for a Belgian newspaper, told Al Jazeera from Brussels. I cannot think of another symbol that will affect hundreds of thousands of people in Europe.

The ruling was made with regard to two separate lawsuits: one by a Muslim woman in Belgium, and another by a Muslim woman in France. In the Belgian suit, Samira Achbita was fired from the security firm where shed worked for three years after she began wearing a hijab to work  the company reportedly said shed broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols. In the second case, another Muslim woman  Asma Bougnaoui  was fired from a tech-consultancy firm after a customer said his employees were embarrassed by the hijab she wore while giving them a presentation.

In Achbitas case, the court ruled that companies are allowed to have policies banning religious symbols from the workplace. Although the European Union has laws in place that bar religious discrimination, Achbitas firing was based on equal application of company policy and was not discriminatory. But in Bougnaouis case, the court ruled in her favor, saying that because the demand came from a client and not her employer, it cannot be considered a genuine and determining occupational requirement.

Right-wing leaders in Europe reacted enthusiastically to the ruling. Francois Fillon, the French presidential candidate, issued a statement that called it an immense relief, not just for thousands of companies but also for their workers. He added that the ruling would be a factor in cohesion and social peace in Europe. Meanwhile Germanys right-wing populist party, Alternative fur Deutschland, said the ruling sends out the right signal, especially for Germany.

The ruling comes at a time when right-wing populist candidates whove taken hard stances against Islam  such as the Netherlands Geert Wilders and Frances Marine Le Pen  are experiencing an unexpected surge in popularity.
Ashley Rosenbaum and Danielle Lombard. Photo: Courtesy of Instagram/daniellellombard; Courtesy of Instagram/ashleylynnrosenbaum

Tonight, the improbable 21st season of The Bachelor comes to a close. Only one woman will walk away with everlasting love, but all of the contestants will get the opportunity to reach for something greater: free money.

Related Stories A History of The Bachelor, by the People Who Lived It

Whether they were sent home in the first few weeks or made it all the way to the final rose ceremony, every contestant will enter the amorphous reality-TV-personality-slash-social-media-influencer economy, which, in 2017, is booming. Since contestants are not paid to appear on The Bachelor, the best chance to capitalize on their newfound visibility is right after the show. The stars and contestants do not want to appear too thirsty for fame, of course  they went on The Bachelor to find love  but time is of the essence. In a few months, a new season of the show will premiere, and there will be 25 new contestants for the public to follow. The best brand partnerships are being negotiated right now. And the only way for contestants to extend their time in the spotlight is to keep making deals and sharing their lives with the public.

So how much money can stars and contestants make? And how, exactly, do they cash in? We talked to a few members of the Bachelor franchise to find out.

Flat Tummy Tea and Teeth Whitening

Social-media endorsement deals with brands are some of the most popular ways contestants cash in on their fame. Instagram is the main platform for this, likely because that is where Bachelor stars tend to build the biggest following (you know their faces, not necessarily their names). Kaitlyn Bristowe, who served as the Bachelorette in 2015, said she was bombarded with Instagram offers as soon as she left the show (happily, in the arms of her fiance Shawn Booth).

Overnight you have this huge following, so all these brands are like, Here, do you want to work with us? she told me in a phone interview. So you get offers to do the Flat Tummy Tea and the teeth whitening and all that. For somebody who has worked a regular job before, youre like, Oh my gosh, youre going to pay me to do that? Glorious. Kaitlyn chose to partner with brands like Palm Bay cocktails, Smartfood popcorn, and TRESemme.

These kinds of ads, which have proliferated across social media over the last five years, are pretty easy to spot. They all feature slightly ham-fisted product placement, obviously pre-written captions, and specific hashtags like, #VolumeRevolution #TRESemmePartner. Reality-TV stars can reportedly make $1,500 to $7,000 for each simple photo, depending on their follower count. And Bachelor and Bachelorette leads are not the only ones to book these kinds of deals: Even contestants who were only briefly on the show can rack up multiple clients.

For example, when the current Bachelor, Nick Viall, sent contestant Danielle Lombard home just a few weeks into this season, she immediately got to work. Since her departure from the show just five weeks ago, she has posted advertisements for BootayBag panties, Weekend Vice clothing, Bombay Hair rose gold curling irons (for those Victoria Secret Voluminous Waves!), DIFF sunglasses, Muddy Body face masks, Glam Seamless hair extensions, FabFitFun subscription boxes, Away luggage, Drip Doctors on-demand IV therapy (for immunity), and the JetSmarter app.

Lucky for Danielle, she probably will not have to keep all those ads on her feed, should she later regret posting them. Oftentimes, brand contracts will stipulate that stars can delete the posts after a certain amount of time. Kaitlyn, for her part, said it takes time to find the right Instagram ad balance. I have turned down money to stay true to who I am and brands that I want to work with, she explained.

To Dance or Not to Dance With the Stars

One of the most coveted opportunities for a Bachelor star is an appearance on ABCs Dancing With the Stars. It is added exposure, and the celebrities on the show are paid well: They reportedly make six-figure base salaries and bonuses for every week they stay in the competition. In the past, three Bachelors, one Bachelorette, and one Bachelor contestant have scored placement on the show, and this season, Nick will join their ranks. His announcement about joining the show, however, was met with controversy.

When news of Nicks casting broke, Kaitlyn claimed on Twitter that Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss prevented her from doing Dancing With the Stars after her run as the Bachelorette. Actually I was offered it, had the contract & Mike Fliess [sic] told me I wasnt allowed. He said he didnt want people wanting fame after his show, she tweeted.

Actually I was offered it, had the contract & Mike Fliess told me I wasn't allowed.He said he didnt want people wanting fame after his show https://t.co/nSzricohi4  Kaitlyn Bristowe (@kaitlynbristowe) February 27, 2017

The Bachelor creator did not comment on the accusation and instead responded on Twitter, @kaitlynbristowe has my total support if she wants to appear on DWTS!!! #TheBachelor. This did not pacify Kaitlyn; she pointed out that the opportunity was no longer available to her. Thanks Ill get right on that opportunity 2 yrs ago. I wonder what changed your mind? she tweeted. (We reached out to representatives for Fleiss for comment and will update if we hear back.)

The controversy shows the fraught position Bachelor and Bachelorette stars find themselves in after the show. They do not want to seem too fame-hungry (they are supposed to be settling down with a fiance!), but if they do not aggressively pursue opportunities right away, they risk losing out on cash.

Chris Soules, a Bachelor who appeared on Dancing With the Stars in 2015, said in a phone interview that Bachelor producers have a say in almost everything you do afterwards, because stars remain under contract for a year after the show. He added that he was surprised to hear Kaitlyns story. I sort of knew that [Mike Fleiss] could approve or disapprove most anything, but I just figured its ABC  theyre a pretty important company to Mike Fleiss so I just assumed that he was indifferent if the contestants went on.

Kaitlyn told me she would still love to know why she was not allowed to dance with the stars, but she has moved on. Im going to be starting my podcast soon, and living in Nashville, Ive been songwriting and singing so thats really fun, she revealed. She said she has recorded three songs and ultimately hopes to release an album.

Televised Weddings and Couples Therapy

Dancing With the Stars is not the only reality-TV option for stars post-Bachelor. After his season of The Bachelor in 2016, Ben Higgins booked an unscripted-scripted Freeform reality show with his fiancee titled Ben and Lauren: Happily Ever After. The show was as boring and unmemorable as its stars, and it did not get picked up for a second season. Bens best chance to earn another paycheck from his Bachelor fame? Marry Lauren on television.

A televised wedding is the most logical next step for a successful Bachelor or Bachelorette couple. To date, five couples have married in front of their family, friends, and millions of ABC viewers: Trista and Ryan Sutter (The Bachelorette, season 1), Jason and Molly Mesnick (The Bachelor, season 13), Ashley and JP Rosenbaum (The Bachelorette, season 7), Sean and Catherine Lowe (The Bachelor, season 17), and Jade and Tanner Tolbert (Bachelor in Paradise, season 2). All of them stressed, in one way or another, that they just wanted to continue sharing their journey with fans, and that made getting paid to get married on TV sound a bit more romantic. Trista and Ryan, who were the first couple in Bachelor history to marry, reportedly pulled in $1 million for a three-episode wedding special in 2003, while Sean and Catherine reportedly made six figures for a one-episode special in 2014.

After a televised wedding, of course, comes televised couples therapy. Sean and Catherine and Jade and Tanner appeared on separate seasons of WeTVs chaotic couples therapy program Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars. It is a Real Worldstyle setup that involves five couples undergoing marriage counseling in the same house, while drinking a lot. When I interviewed Jade and Tanner at a Marriage Boot Camp premiere last year, they confirmed that they started filming the show just three months after their wedding. They considered it a positive experience.

I guess, you know, we didnt look at it as a negative thing like, Our marriage is in trouble, Jade said. Were more like, Lets learn from these couples now so we dont have problems later. Because both of us come from divorced families  we really want to get through everything together. And so we just felt like, why not? Weve done everything else on TV!

In a blog post after his season of the show aired in 2015, Sean was more direct. Ill admit it: I did it for the money, he wrote. Both couples are still married, so maybe it was worth it.

Brand-Friendly Babies

Five married Bachelor couples have stayed together long enough to have children, and those babies have become part of the social-media-influencer economy, too. Last year, I met Sean and Catherine at a baby shower for their first child, and the whole event was sponsored by Dreft baby detergent. Like fellow Bachelor parents JP and Ashley, Sean and Catherine have featured their baby in Instagram ads for brands like HelloFresh and Teami Blends tea.

Desiree and Chris Siegfried, who married after season nine of The Bachelorette, recently placed their son in an ad for Pace Salsa. (Caption: #ad Its Ashers first Taco Tuesday!)

Jade and Tanner, meanwhile, just became pregnant with their first child. Immediately after announcing the good news on Instagram, Jade posted an ad for the Ava fertility tracker, which she credited for helping her get pregnant quickly.

These five couples represent a vast minority of Bachelor and Bachelorette stars who have managed to continue to make money for years after their appearances on the show by sharing more and more of their lives with the public. Families used to pass down farms or dental practices through the generations, but now, weve reached an age where reality-TV stars are bequeathing social-media-influencer status to their children. Perhaps, when these brand-friendly babies grow up, theyll appear on The Bachelor themselves, to continue the tradition.

Watch the video below to see some on-set secrets about what goes on behind the scenes of The Bachelor.
Ivanka Trump is closing her fine jewelry line. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Ivanka Trumps brand is discontinuing its fine jewelry line, which sells high-end necklaces, rings, and bracelets, including the $10,800 bangle the brand tried to hawk after her appearance on 60 Minutes just one week after the presidential election. The brand will now focus on more affordable fashion jewelry, the New York Times reports.

Since the election, a number of retailers, including Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, dropped the Ivanka Trump line. Vanity Fair first reported the brands decision to stop producing fine jewelry on Friday, and in a new statement to the Times, Abigail Klem, the president of the brand (and a registered Democrat), said that the decision stemmed from a commitment to offering solution-oriented products at accessible price points. She didnt mention the increasing number of retailers who have been distancing themselves from the brand, nor the ethics complaints filed after Kellyanne Conway endorsed the brand on Fox & Friends.

Most of the Ivanka Trump brands revenue comes from sales of clothing, shoes, and handbags. Fine jewelry only accounted for a small percentage of the brands overall business, the Times reports, citing company documents and interviews with ex-employees. Jewelry was Ivanka Trumps first major foray into licensing her name to a partner who manufactured the products. Her first retail location opened in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, only to move downtown to Soho and eventually close its doors by 2015. As of late, Ivanka Trumps fine jewelry was mainly sold out of a kiosk in the lobby of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, according to the Times.

Ivanka Trumps fashion-jewelry line  which has items mostly priced under $100  has been sold at Lord & Taylor since the fall, a spokesperson for the brand told the Times.
State Senator Steve Fitzgerald. Photo: Kansas Legislature

After a Republican Kansas state senator received a notification that a donation to Planned Parenthood had been made in his name, he wrote a letter to the health-care organization, comparing it to a Nazi concentration camp. In a new interview with the Kansas City Star, State Senator Steve Fitzgerald not only stood behind his comments, but he also said Nazis should be incensed by the comparison.

Last week, a letter Fitzgerald sent to Planned Parenthood Great Plains was posted to Twitter, written after the state legislator received a letter telling him that a $25 donation had been made on his behalf. Fitzgerald wrote, This is as bad  or worse  as having ones name associated with Dachau, referring to the first regular concentration camp established by the Nazis. The letter from Fitzgerald continued, Shame on your organization and shame on anyone that would attempt to blacken my name in this manner.

The lawmaker told the Star in a Monday interview that he felt his only options were to either send them that or ignore it. He added, I figured, I dont want my name associated as a donation to Planned Parenthood, in my name, to go on undenounced by me. Fitzgerald also called the donation and letter from Planned Parenthood harassment and political theater.

I think the Nazis ought to be incensed by the comparison, Fitzgerald told the Star.

Fitzgeralds letter, however, has had a domino effect of inspiring more people to make donations in his name to the organization, according to Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Great Plains. Its this kind of inflammatory language that adds to the shame and stigma of safe legal abortion. The state of Kansas has much bigger issues to be dealing with, and this is just an unacceptable attack on womens right to choose, Lee-Gilmore told the Star. Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the Star that Fitzgerald should be ashamed and called his comments disturbing.
Rachel Cusk is tall. She does not take milk. She does not play card games, possibly because she associates them with her childhood, about which she feels ambivalent. She taught writing for nearly a decade and then quit. She believes fate is a female system of self-deception. She does not understand computers. She likes chess because it involves two people and thus resembles sex or war. She has never written a book without a dog in it; in real life, she is allergic to dogs. She hasnt spoken to her parents in two years. She believes satire promotes political powerlessness; Once you laugh, she says, its over. She sees writing as a job. She is attracted to situations where its hard to agree on a common version of events. She does not care what happens to her in the future. Shes always earned the money in her household. She does not make small talk, but she does, for long stretches, talk. She wears all blackish. She is six days from turning 50. She desires a muffin.

Cusk is the author of three memoirs and nine novels, most recently Transit, which came out in January to rapturous reviews. It is the second in a planned trilogy that has, along with her memoirs, made her a cultish figure. She writes about motherhood and marriage and houses. In the hands of a different writer, these might be neutral topics. Neutral love in neutral boxes. Cusk is not neutral. She is divisive. Readers love her or readers really do not love her. She, Cusk, the human being, is often hated.

She lives in London with her two teenage children and her second husband. (She was born in Canada and has lived in the United Kingdom since the 1970s.) In early February, when she was visiting New York, I invited her to my work studio. Last year, Cusk published an essay called Making House: Notes on Domesticity; she was both commended and criticized for statements like Entering a house, I often feel that I am entering a womans body.

I thought  in addition to interviewing her  that I might observe her in the act of observing my womans body.

I did not observe her observing much, however, at least not in any way that was observable to me. She was formal. She was contained. She was nearing the end of her U.S. book tour; between coastal commitments, shed flown down to Baja, where shed seen whales, though it was the sounds they made, and the color of the light and the water, that most impressed her.

We talked about author photos and the act of putting ones face on a book. I hate having an authors face when Im reading a book, she said. I want to forget about them, you know. Still, we agreed, it was such a skill to be photographed; it was a self-representational riddle to navigate. Cusk said, I cannot bear having my photograph taken, and I always think that I wont be in it.

We marveled at people who evaded capture by photography. Sylvia Plath, for example; no matter how many images existed, she remained impossible to see. Cusk mentioned meeting Plaths daughter once; the daughter, like her mother, she wagered, would be too protean to photograph. Tall and like a big, healthy tree in the sun, she said of Plaths daughter. With this sort of amazing smile and madness, madness, absolutely.

Early in her career, Cusk was not especially controversial. She published three novels influenced by Evelyn Waugh. These books were deemed witty and clever. She won awards and gained notice.

Then, after the birth of her first child, she began a memoir about her initiating years of motherhood called A Lifes Work, which was published in 2001. Most women I know used the word brave to describe this book. Instead of contributing to the affirmation propaganda many motherhood books peddle, Cusk, these women said, wrote a competing narrative, one that allowed (albeit in Cusks stately way) for motherhood to totally fucking suck. Birth is not merely that which divides women from men, Cusk writes, it also divides women from themselves, so that a womans understanding of what it is to exist is profoundly changed.

Some readers, however, did not agree that Cusk was brave. The so-called mommy police indicted her of the non-literary crime of being a bad mother. Less-reactionary readers accused her of indulging in beautifully written whining.

Unlike my friends, I did not find A Lifes Work to be a revelation. To clarify: I did not think she was a bad mother or a bad feminist. I was not putting her on trial for normative gender violations. Moreover, it is impossible to know what kind of mother she is, because the she of A Lifes Work is not, or is not exactly, Rachel Cusk. Rather, the Cusk that appears in her memoir is  as is nearly always the case with nonfiction I narrators  despite what readers might otherwise assume, a construction.

Its the trench that Ive dug very, very, very laboriously between something that looks like a person, that looks like an identity and then the person whos actually creating, Cusk said of her literary personae, both the fiction and the nonfiction ones. Theres a very, very big difference between those two things.

At the time of A Lifes Work, however, the trench was not as deep or as wide as it would later become, and that is what dissatisfied me about it. In the books final pages, Cusk, exhausted and depressed, takes a child-free trip to London. In a shop, she watches a young mother with a days-old baby raking through racks of baby clothes  her face a fist of concentration. The young mother is with her mother; the two of them get into a debate and the baby starts to cry and, says Cusk, I know that this means the woman has less than a minute to choose and purchase an outfit. The young mother, Cusk implies, has yet to accept that motherhood has changed her and that her life will not proceed as before.

Writes Cusk, Go home, I think  Just give in and go home. She doesnt give in. She has an image of this shopping expedition and she is clinging to it with sharp teeth.

Much might have been interpolated from the scene between the two mothers  one of whom is mother to the other  but Cusk was not practicing what she currently believes about characters or other people, which is You dont become them, you listen to them. Cusk pronounced rather than listened. She imposed her narrative on the woman in the shop, rather than struggling to hear what, beyond Cusks own experience, this woman  this pair of women  might be trying to express.

A Lifes Work explores the many incursions that motherhood makes into the female self; the act of mothering erodes the individual, but equally obliterating is the mainstream cultural narrative of how unceasingly great motherhood is. Cusk generated a competing narrative about motherhood, to be sure, but then she performed a similar act of incursion.

After A Lifes Work, Cusk wrote four more novels and a memoir about traveling through Italy, all comparatively gently received, or mostly gently (the Italian memoir attracted a lawsuit, forcing the original U.K. print run to be pulped). Then, in 2012, she wrote a memoir about her divorce from her first husband. This book  Aftermath  caused her detractors to lose their minds all over again. Many took issue with what they saw as her self-absorption and her emotional narcissism; a reviewer remarked that the first few sentences in which she spoke of her ex-husband were vertiginously condescending.

Aftermath begins with a confession. When the marriage ended, Cusk writes, she believed the children belonged to her. She admitted her reaction was irrational. Her husband did the majority of the domestic labor. He spent more time raising their children. Still, she could not deny that she strongly felt that the children were hers, not his.

(I thought she was probably a pretty great mother when I read that.)

What seems most notable about Aftermath, however, is that it introduces a more ruminative narrator, one that prefigures the groundbreaking approach in Cusks two most recent novels, Outline and Transit; its as if she had chipped a tunnel through her nonfiction to reach a new kind of fiction  one sourced from a deeply disembodied and depersonalized psychic realm.

Both Outline, which came out in the U.S. in 2015, and Transit are narrated by a woman named Faye, who, like Cusk, is divorced, has two children, and is a writer. Faye describes, or really more accurately transcribes, her encounters with other people. In Outline, she travels to Greece and meets a man on a plane; she goes to a restaurant with a friend; she teaches a writing workshop. She is less an interlocutor than a recording device or a processing machine. She receives. Faye, in literary terms, is a cipher. She is a zero, a naught, a nothing.

In Transit, Faye becomes slightly more visible (and audible) via her involvement in a home-renovation project; she converses with contractors and pacifies angry neighbors. Nothing happens, really, but these books are nonetheless gripping self-portraits of multiple humans. They are like eavesdropping on strangers, or watching a secret video feed of strangers, if those strangers were also casual philosophers. The conversations vacillate between the mundane and the lofty, as if the characters  enabled by Fayes presence  are always grasping at bigger life questions. Outline and Transit both are welcome breaches of privacy that emphasize the intensely shapeless loneliness of people. They are books about middles.

Cusk with her daughter, Jessye, 16. Photo: Anna Skladmann

Faye, while she shares biographical data with Cusk and appears to present and process events from Cusks actual life, is quite different from the characters devised by other autofiction writers of late  Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner, Karl Ove Knausgaard  with whom Cusk is frequently grouped. The books of these writers, though distinct from one another, more centrally feature an authorial self; about Heti, for example, Cusk says, She uses herself, her Sheila-ness, much, much, much more than I do. Cusk does not, in these novels, use her Cuskness. And yet shes filtering through a narrator that does not by accident resemble her.

Cusk, meanwhile, is not entirely spared from reader controversy, though now the debates involve which of these two beloved novels is more beloved and why. Personally, I prize the formal radicalism of Outline. The novel does not bother with interiors (or even exteriors) save via the briefest brushstrokes. Outline feels composed of voices in an empty room, without any realist set designing. But the bourgeois artifacts that so define conventional realist novels, and which Cusk, in a radical act of deaccessioning, gutted from Outlines interior  those artifacts start to creep back into Transit. Every smelly rug is a means to a crushing revelation about humans, true, but I wont deny that I was slightly crestfallen by the return of things. Outline suggested a future for the novel in which we might no longer need characters and, by extension, all of their crap. Transits formal radicalism seemed more tempered. (A writer and critic remarked to me, Outline felt like it had to be written. He praised its urgency; Transit, he said, by contrast, seemed more obligatory.)

Sheila Heti, for one, disagreed. She preferred Transit to Outline. She wrote, What I like about Transit is that you can see everyone except the narrator  which is really true of life, that we see everyone around us but never ourselves. And yet nothing would appear without this void that is ourselves. Transit really revealed the strangeness of that to me. Whereas for me, Outline resembled maybe books of philosophy a bit more, where there is no exterior.

Of the third and final novel in the trilogy, Cusk will say only that it is going toward termination and vanishing.

Cusk does not check the time. She does not ask questions. She does not let her children watch The Simpsons. She cannot, when shes working, have anyone around. She does not look at her proposed book jackets; she simply replies to the emails, Thats fine. She frequently mentions someone named Siemon but never explains who Siemon is. (As it turns out, he is her second husband.) She no longer believes in narrative. Because she is female, and a mother, her time is not her own. Shes not interested in the view of life that promotes being yourself and being comfortable with being yourself. She is not a social hugger. She is not late for her lunch date. She would love to be Anthony Trollope, but she would not love to be old and fat and Victorian and dead.

A contradiction Cusk, the public persona  which is just as constructed, I suspect, as both of her nonfiction and fiction personae, i.e., I am probably, while in her presence, peering over another variety of trench  embodies: She is against coercion, she resists being told how to behave and what to think, yet her opinions can seem dogmatic. She is interested in the moral implications of peoples choices  of form, of belief, of behavior  but after making up her mind about, say, the dangers of comedy and satire, she can come across as brittle-minded and doctrinaire. Laugh at John Oliver, for example, and youve forsaken your power.

Refusing to laugh is powerful. (Cusk, the public persona, does not laugh.) So is refusing to speak. Silence, she said, is going to become a very powerful thing.

She will not go back to writing fiction the way she used to write it. Fate, she said, is the fundamental engine of narrative, and women are particularly vulnerable to the fake security it promises. When we spoke about irrational systems of prediction  psychics and horoscopes (Transit begins with an astrologer)  she said that people consult these systems because they believe in a happy ending. You would never consult the runes otherwise, she said. That comes from a feminine lack of control with destiny and willful self-deception about what happiness actually is and what the good outcome actually is.

Willful self-deception occurs in the making of novels, too. Women writers in particular must be mindful of relinquishing their power and autonomy, even (or especially) to the voices of imaginary authorities in their own heads. Theres a type of writer  and always has been  who claims not to know whats going to happen in their own book, she said. And they say, I sit down and just let the characters take over. When I hear women say it now, I think, Well, be careful. These are dangerous times.

When asked how she relates to the feminism practiced by younger generations, Cusk segued into what might sound like a semi-sexist battle cry in the service of fighting sexism. She mentioned the disgusting, endless photos of Donald Trump at beauty pageants, and while castigating Trump (He is almost communist in his weirdness) for his sexually abusive behavior, she was also critical of women who partake in male-dominated power dynamics. I think, Sorry, darling, but you were in a beauty pageant wearing a swimming costume. You know, that is not a powerful position from which to be a woman. Yes, it was wrong that [Trump] did that, but there needs to be something a lot stronger than that to get this person out. You know, saying I was your victim when, you know, you  Its not aggressive enough.

My honesty isnt brave, because its not for me, its not about me. Its just that Im all Ive got.

Cusk, the public intellectual, does not countenance pushback. When her statement about women using systems of prediction to self-deceive was challenged  when it was suggested that men are also vulnerable to irrational systems, for example, superstition  she said, Thats more like ADHD, and suggested, Well, thats just the pain of being the self in the world. A person might thus conclude that men are victims of medically (or existentially) diagnosable afflictions; their selves suffer in the genderless grandiosity known as the human condition. Women, however, do not suffer nobly (or pitiably); they eventually become their own victims, falling prey to female delusions.

A person might also conclude that Cusk, in person, is certainly not a cipher; that she is thus dramatically different from the literary persona she adopts in her recent novels. A person might conclude that Cusks blind spot, as a public intellectual, is her position of relative privilege. A person might conclude that Cusk is struggling to construct a female identity  in books as well as in life  that does not submit to the power structures that oppress it. Cusks version of womanhood can seem assembled from warnings and prohibitions. She assembles it from nots.

Cusk said that she aspired to a state of being advocated by D. H. Lawrence. She couldnt recall his words specifically, but generally the Lawrencian approach, which she said was not [my] mantra, exactly, but I believe it with all my heart, decrees that if you know something with sufficient thoroughness, just one thing, you know everything. Later, discussing the limits of empathy and imagination in fiction, Cusk echoed Lawrence: The only way you would ever, you can ever understand anything is through personal honesty. And if you are sufficiently honest with yourself, you will find every quality, every quality that is manifested outside yourself. 

What works in fiction, however, does it work in life? I ask because while the Lawrence mind-set produced boundlessly capacious novels like Outline and Transit, such a mind-set could also ennoble incuriosity or narcissism and, in the wrong hands, justify the perpetual belief that one is right and knows everything (after consulting nothing and no one).

All these potential uses of Lawrence would seem to risk propagating the peril of self-deception Cusk repeatedly refers to, and the self-absorption of which she is sometimes, in her nonfiction work, accused. Might one believe one is being sufficiently honest, and still be way, way off the mark?

I put this question to Cusk. Im not remotely interested in me as a subject, she said. Im interested in me as an object, and my honesty isnt brave, because its not for me, its not about me. Its just that Im all Ive got.

While attempting to sort through Cusks various literary and public-intellectual personae, and wondering how close, if at all, Id come to witnessing the unconstructed human, I never got as near as this story, told to me by Heti: A few years ago, Heti and Cusk were doing an event together in London. They were smoking outside beforehand, and a young man in an Oscar Wildeish fur-lined coat walked past. Heti complimented the man on his coat, and because she was cold, he loaned it to her. She wore the coat inside. Standing backstage, Heti started to feel insecure about her outfit. Cusk, Heti said, looked so sleek and stylish, all in black, maybe even leather. Heti decided she did not like her outfit, in comparison. She decided to wear the mans coat onstage. That mans huge, strange, beautiful coat was much better than what I was dressed in, Heti said. She did not say a word about her decision, but Cusk, it seems, was listening to her; Cusk understood that Heti felt safer in the coat, and she did not want her to feel out of place in front of the audience. So Cusk performed an act of female solidarity. Before walking onto the stage, she put her coat on, too.

*This article appears in the March 6, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Jameson taps into on-the-go occasion

Pernod Ricard UK has unveiled a new premium, on-the-go offering for its Jameson Irish whiskey brand.

The ready-to-drink (RTD) cans, which are exclusive to the UK market, come in two flavours: Classic Cola and Ginger & Lime. The drinks are expected to recruit younger consumers into the Irish whiskey category by offering a more convenient option for the target audience of young males, aged 25 to 34.

RTD cans is a growth category with sales up by 14%, according to Nielsen (MAT to 31 Dec 2016). In contrast, RTD bottle sales are down by 12%.

Magin Trewhella, head of marketing (Dark Spirits) at Pernod Ricard UK, said: The launch of Jameson RTD cans is an exciting move, allowing us to bring a younger audience into the Irish whiskey category. With the summer months setting in, the new offering will interest and inspire young consumers looking for a more convenience way to enjoy whiskey on-the-go during outdoor seasonal occasions such as festivals. The RTD cans create a new experience from the number one Irish whiskey, while providing the recognisable smoothness that is distinctly Jameson.

Jamesons upward trajectory continues with volume and value in the off-trade (+1.5% value) thanks to increased distribution in grocery and impulse. The success with Jameson focuses on long term brand building and we are always working hard to evolve and innovate, with offerings such as the new RTD cans, to recruit new and younger consumers to the Jameson brand.

The 5% abv cans will be available across grocery and impulse channels, priced at 1.90 per 25cl can.

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This is a great response. I hope to see more of this actor in the future.

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I agree!

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he is going to be on Black Panther and Widows

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I am so amped for Black Panther

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He's gonna be in black panther, too??? I'm fucking hyped!!!

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He's really eloquent and I enjoyed reading that. If Get Out is any indication of his skills, I really hope he gets picked up for a ton of projects.

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He's doing Black Panther and Widows!

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His black mirror episode tho

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I like what he says here but like most things that aren't my struggle~ (Tho I, too, am black) all I can do is just observe and see both sides.

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It's more than just the actor's ability to relate to an experience. It is about representation and the right African Americans should have over their history, culture and narratives. The same goes for each African ethnicity and nationality.

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It's right that an actor of the right ethnicity should be cast, but country of birth is irrelevant. Is there anyone watching the movie who thinks that he played it incorrectly and that that must be a result of him not being American born? Otherwise, this idea that you must cast a person who experienced it in the role is ridiculous unless we're planning on casting Charles Manson as every bad guy in every movie ever. Superhero movies are cancelled. Spy movies are cancelled. Fantasy is cancelled, sci-fi is cancelled.



There is such a thing as empathy and education and an actor can use both of those things to play a role.

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Oh God, it's too early for fuckery to ensue.



Keep it chill, ONTD.





Edited at 2017-03-14 01:46 pm (UTC)

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The first few comments are calm, so I'm just going to leave before the dam breaks.

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Let me settle in

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O can only guess what the SLJ post looked like. I saw the title and the comment count and was like nah, I'm good

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Right? I saw the first few pages of that and was like nope not doing it

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I should have checked out the minute I saw one poster say that visa requirements should be stricter so that only non-American actors don't get roles in Hollywood...



But I like punishment, I guess.

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the day that post went up was the last day of my retail gig (where was grossly under appreciated for the last five years).



i read about three pages and just went to go get some wine. i never came back. i don't regret it.



Edited at 2017-03-14 06:29 pm (UTC)

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between this and the tove lo post...



i should go and actually do some work.

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This social classification of people goes on in every non-white population and society on earth. Mindy Kaling would not have been hired in Bollywood films if she had tried to break through in that country because of the caste system. Most Bollywood actresses and actors look of Persian descent. Same for Spanish speaking countries. They also adhere to a racial hierarchy based of skin color, hair texture and facial features. Ditto, for America and the UK. That explains why African actors like Mr. Kaluuya can not find work in British cinema.

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Most Bollywood actresses and actors look of Persian descen



While Bollywood and India has colorism issues, that's not true though. Most Indian actors look Indian, from various parts of India, and yes, most of them are fair

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Can you stop? In the last post on this subject you said some racist ass bullshit. You're not black you have nothing intelligent to say on this subject. STOP

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oh so they do have a history of being messy?? their comments about bollywood and india are so so stupid. "persian descent" lmao?? when?? 16th century??

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I remember them being an anti-Mexican troll iirc, who would pop out just to say something offensive about Brown Latinos.

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"Mindy Kaling would not have been hired in Bollywood films if she had tried to break through in that country because of the caste system. Most Bollywood actresses and actors look of Persian descent."



Do you even know anything about Bollywood? Are you Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi? If you are not, then stop making comments like this which make you sound DUMB AF



Mindy Kaling is upper caste. She would not have made it anyway in Bollywood because dark skinned actresses are scowled upon unless you have Nandita Das, Konkona level of talent. And Mindy doesn't. Besides she has no connection to India but for the fact that she has Indian parents. Why the fuck would she go there to try her luck?



And the comment about "Persian descent" is fucking bullshit. You need to learn more about India, Bollywood and issues before making dumbass comments like this. WTF....There are so many social problems Bollywood has but you don't know anything about them. So just say that Bollywood has a colorism problem and leave it at that instead of pretending to be an expert.



And your entire comment about "non-white populations" seem to be a way to exculpate majorly white dominated societies from the racism they propagate. Mess of a comment

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Most Bollywood actresses and actors don't look Persian tho...



Edited at 2017-03-14 02:16 pm (UTC)

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"Most Bollywood actresses and actors look of Persian descent."



uhhhhhhhhhhh no.

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Don't talk about hispano-hablantes as if you knew anything about us, please and thank you :D

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Every white population too. This is a human trait, not a color trait.

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Ms. African Phenotype is at it again?

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My friend is Indian and she has similar hair and is a similar weight/shape to Mindy. Whenever people say she looks like Mindy she freaks out. Not because it's a short-sighted comparison (wow she's indian and i'm indian, good one). It's because Mindy is TOO DARK SKINNED.



My friend is seriously obsessed with light vs dark skin in the Indian community. She's so proud of being light, she lightens up all her pictures that she posts (and of course I end up looking like a ghost), she always will off-handedly mention how darker women are less attractive, etc.

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kindly stfu, you clearly have no fucking clue what either Indian actors or Persians look like.



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well said.

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Aw, daniel :( I'll stan you to the ends of the earth, bb. He's such a great actor, Posh Kenneth is my fav character in Skins. I really relate to what he is saying in terms of being 'othered'. I'm mixed race - 1/2 black and 1/2 european, and sometimes it feels like i'm trying to prove to both communities that i'm enough. I love that he spoke a bit about the racism towards black people in the UK. Other countries seem to think that we are, particularly in London, living in some sort of racial utopia and that's simply not the case.

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Ohhhh my god he's Posh Kenneth!!! I just had the most massive penny dropping moment lol.

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Fun fact: Daniel was also the head writer of the season 3 "Thomas" episode which never fails to make me cry.

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what !!! OMG Posh Kenneth!!

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Nice response.

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ok, I love him.

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I 100% get what he's talking about wrt being other-ed regardless of the space you're in. I'm the daughter of Jamaican immigrants (but have never actually been there and was never really immersed in that culture) and now go to a pwi. In every space I'm made to feel as though I'm either too black, not black enough, or not Jamaican enough. It blows.

I agree with SLJ that 1) the African diaspora experiences racism differently and 2) it's unfair that Black brits get hired because they apparently cost less, but the more I hear, the more resentful I grow of his initial tone-deaf ass argument.

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was it just black brits or all brits are cheaper? because iirc people were throwing around that argument when they cast henry cavill as superman too. i think hollywood assumes british people are cheaper and better educated just because they studied somewhere with royal in the title.



i agree with the african american experience of racism being different though. although i do still think the story is the most important thing so who it was written and directed by is more important.

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I was reading something about how it's just cheaper to hire Brits in general

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That's a good question that I don't know the answer to, tbh. I'd guess that brits in general are cheaper just because they're not from here, and appealing for the reason you mentioned (idk a lot of us actors that are classically trained, unless they went to school for it).



That's such a good point about the writing and direction; Peele wrote an extraordinarily nuanced script that clearly came from his specific experience as a black dude in the us, so I ultimately think that's the most important aspect.

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A comment said that the UK cut fundings for drama classes in schools, so most Brit actors have to go to a private one to take those lessons.

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Another afro-caribbean here and that line abt having to "prove" your blackness is the realest thing ever.



And you get it from all sides too

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As a first gen Jamaican-American, I feel this comment on so many levels.



it didn't help that I moved from the most lily white smallish town in the North to a majority black middle school in the Deep South.



Edited at 2017-03-14 02:44 pm (UTC)

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1st gen from Ghana and I've had this experience for sure

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On the flipside, I'm a Black American. At my PWI, it is crazy to see non-American Blacks or the children of Black immigrants be Black in one space, and default to their national origin in other spaces. It's like their default way of putting social distance between themselves and Black Americans in front of white folks. People have the right to identify however they please, but the suggestion that Black Americans are somehow lesser than any other Black person is insulting. It's irritating for newer Black immigrants to enjoy privileges and freedoms that Black Americans fought for without acknowledging the hard work that created those privileges and freedoms.

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britain might be slightly less racist than america but it's still racist. the police recently tasered a black member of THEIR OWN STAFF because they thought he looked like a suspect.

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Omg, I remember that. IIRC he was the police's own race relations advisor, and they accused him of being a suspect and tasered him as he was trying to enter his own front gate. So fucked up.

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yeah it was fucking insane. he was specifically hired to deal with the race issue the met police have, and they fucking tased him.

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whuuuuuuut



itd almost be funny, if it werent so fucked up...

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"britain might be slightly less racist than america"



It's not.

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I think people have the view that Britain is less racist because they have literally burned the evidence of the most heinous things they've done.

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I can understand where SLJ came from. Being Salvadorian, I can recall a few times Oscar Romero has been depicted on film. Both those times, they were played by actors who aren't Salvadorian and that's a total bummer.



While at the same time, latino roles are hard to come by and even then those roles are either some sort of house keeping role or cholos so what are POC supposed to do? There's not enough roles out there for us to say "well you know what? I'm not American so I shouldn't audition." Though I do think important historic figure heads should be played by someone born in their country. It adds heart, imo and you won't have to worry about shitty accents.





Idk man it's tough. Kaluuya's response is so great.

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MTE, I get when latinos chose to do roles even if they are not from the country that character is (it's shitty and it will be better if it didn't happen but I understand it) because there are barely roles for latinos, what I find unforgivable is when the character is very important in that country, like Pablo Escobar has never been portrayed by a Colombian in any US productions, fucking narcos casted a brasilian man that barely talks spanish, that makes me so angry tbh.

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i like this comment

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slj is still right so

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He made a solid point but too many people want to freak out and compare him to Trump so...

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ikr? and all the comments ignoring his valid points to complain, "how dare he say britain is a UTOPIA FOR BLACKS" when he said no such thing........

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Exactly!



And then folks being like "I didn't hear him say anything about white British actors" and I'm thinking so? That's not the topic or community he is a part of.

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Ugh, this. I hate how any discussion of the hierarchy among Black people is framed as Black on Black crime. Yes, we are all Black, but not acknowledging the oppressive systems that give some of us privilege, but not all of us, is a problem.

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late, but all of this

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He really was. He brought up some good points. I'm glad Daniel decided to turn what SLJ said into a conversation, rather than pulling a John Boyega and being an asshat about it.

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mte

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ty for this comment

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I'm glad you can relate to what it feels like to be an actor in Hollywood, too.

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I've been in Mexico the past week and my wifi was spotty AF. I feel like I've missed so much, Idek how to catch up on it all.

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just don't. ignorance is bliss, just be happy and enjoy mexico! :)

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- https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/

- The Progress Report from the CAP Action (



Sign up for Blendle, it gives you daily news but to read full articles you pay pennies but worth it because you don't have to pay for subscriptions. This is how I keep in touch with a lot of stuff. The other one is /r/politics even though Reddit gets a lot of flak here on ONTD but whatever. If you can sign up for these newsletters, sign up for the following:- The Progress Report from the CAP Action ( https://www.americanprogressaction.org/ Sign up for Blendle, it gives you daily news but to read full articles you pay pennies but worth it because you don't have to pay for subscriptions. This is how I keep in touch with a lot of stuff. The other one is /r/politics even though Reddit gets a lot of flak here on ONTD but whatever.

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Bless your light, I'm gonna check this out.

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I've signed up for WTF already, it's a great aggregation of headlines and articles.

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The lawsuit alleges the We-Vibe app was designed to collect information about how often & how the vibrator was used https://t.co/1uPRM6woyA  NPR (@NPR) March 14, 2017



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Batman, it couldn't be.

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First our microwaves, now our sex toys... smh



Can't a bitch make some totino's and masturbate in peace?



Edited at 2017-03-14 08:10 pm (UTC)

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Not to put you on a peddlestool but this is a solid comment.



Edited at 2017-03-14 08:23 pm (UTC)

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they don't want us to have nice things

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best quote of the year

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Goddamnit, I choked on my drink. Saving this for comment of the year.

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I love this.

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First our microwaves, now our vibrators. Is nothing sacred?

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So you're saying not only can I no longer bust a nut, I can't even nuke a hot pocket after

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Can they just go fucking spy on 45? That's like a big deal

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Oh I have this vibrator (0/10 it's not a fun toy) and it looks like I'm entitled to some $$$$ 

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It's been 4 years since Paul Ryan posed for these photos and allowed them to become public. Why are we still letting him decide things? pic.twitter.com/NbXFoIjK3N  Andy Daly (@TVsAndyDaly) March 14, 2017



Tr*mp isn't capable of having chemistry with anyone. The thought of it is repulsive.

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one of the most embarrassing photo shoots ive ever seen.



god this man is so unlikable and he makes it so easy.

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Paul Ryan could not look any more a douche in those photos

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My friend told me he wanted to suck Paul Ryan's dick. I told him he needs to love himself.

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Coming from you that's extra hilarious.

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Does he realise how ugly he is?

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probably listening to rage against the machine in those pictures too like a fucking moron.

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lmao

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lmao





This video is hilarious to me. The family did an interview and apparently the mom realized her kids were in the room after seeing them live on TV, lol.

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lmao that video is such epic comedy perfection. the first kid just kinda walking in, then the baby in the bouncy chair bouncing in and chillin and then BAM mom plows in so fast hahahahahaah

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LMAO

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this kills me

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funniest thing ever lmao

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holy shit, that is beautiful

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BREAKING (h/t @Anthony): Monica Crowley, Trump's Pick for Deputy NSA, Registers to Lobby for Russian Ally Pinchuk: https://t.co/h7SHzhgtla pic.twitter.com/rB4rymXR1I  Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 14, 2017





another traitor (then again this crazy bish used the berlin wall to say border wall works) another traitor (then again this crazy bish used the berlin wall to say border wall works)

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I have no idea who this woman is but it's like every single person working with Trump has ties to Russia



WHY IS HE STILL IN OFFICE

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good to see the plagiarizer found a new gig

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West Berlin residents show Eastern Berlin Grandparents their grandchildren, 1961. West Berlin residents show Eastern Berlin Grandparents their grandchildren, 1961.

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I wish there were more posts on international politics 'cause there is some crazy shit going on rn



- Dutch elections

- Brexit

- New Scottish referendum

- Diplomatic troubles between Turkey and the Netherlands

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I wish I could post politics more liberally. I mean it but it has to be incased with celebrities. It's ONTD not ontd_p. I try as much as to time the posts to be after roundup now because people talk politics there but then it becomes dead by afternoon EST.

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Yeah I really apppreciate all that you post. It keeps me sane lol



Just sucks every damn thing here needs to be celeb related

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whats going on with the dutch??

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Ugh Turkey v Netherlands is kinda scary to me. I really hate Erdogan.

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The right wing sweep happening worldwide is horrifying.

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I am not surprised about the Dutch.

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maybe europe can finally come to terms with their racism

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don't forget how the EU said employers can ban employees wearing 'religious symbols' which includes the hijab. :-/ sick.

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it's ridiculous that none of it is allowed to be posted here

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So not super related but I'm disappointed with my friends and coworkers. No one knew who fucking John Lewis was. I was shocked! But I got my tickets to see him on the 24th!! C:

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Georgia's John Lewis?

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where is he speaking?

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damn they didn't even watch selma??

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I feel like they named it AHCA to confuse people. I hate them.

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I call it Republicare but Joy gave a new name for it which is like a play on Paul Ryan's name Tyrantcare.

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On the NPR Politics podcast, they joked that you need to pronounce the acronym like you have a hairball, lol.

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I'm calling it Don'tCare.

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I call it Trumpcare just because he doesn't want his name on it and I'm petty.

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we need a new leak or something to come out soon (did the good sis preet bharara photocopy a lot of shit/save his documents in the 24 hours it took them to fire him please @ Jesus)



also this kushner family news is so fucking ridiculous i hope they all choke

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I slept through Spicey's presser today and that's why this post is slightly late. Time to find out what he said.

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DARKSIDED STUFF!

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Well Darkseid was always searching for the anti-life equation and the Trump presidency is pretty damn close to it.

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TY OP for these posts

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No problem. I've been doing it daily since the beginning of February sans days that somebody beat me to the punch. Most of March has been me. CONSISTENCY FAM!

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Insurance companies can already sell across state lines though..someone should really just confront these men peddling this "Don't you have government funded healthcare?"

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They can and literally none actually do because it's a fucking nightmare setting up networks of providers there's no profit in them selling across state lines because of how much overhead and activation energy it requires

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It's been so long, I was wondering when she would announce a follow up film. It has an interesting premise and I would watch out of curiosity.

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I didn't either. I spent the whole film being anxious and angry, not scared. I hated everyone, too. Damn Babadook could have eaten everyone and I could have counted it as a happy ending.

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I want to say that was the point, tbh! I think this movie was more a commentary on depression and anxiety than a horror movie, which I think is genius considering the way it made me feel.

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It wasn't particularly scary but I loved the subtext and its rare to see a mother/son relationship played like that with the mom being so resentful and allowed to show that side. Especially in a "horror" film. I get why people didn't like it but if you took the horror stuff out, I'd still think there was an interesting story at play.

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hmmmmm

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i loved the babadook tbh. anyway, i'm interested!

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I hated the babysitter from The Fall soooo much but then I realized she must be a pretty good actress cos I really freaking hate her.

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Same! I hated her so much, but by the end I warmed up to her. I loved the conversation she and Stella had at the end when they met and she was saying how Paul wasn't worth it.

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mte. i guess she did a good job bc i wanted to throw my laptop every time i saw her lmfao

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the kid in Babadook is more annoying and it's a more sad film than it is disturbing, but I really liked them both.

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I had a comment up top but I kinda felt the kid had to be that annoying in a way to illustrate the mothers struggle with him and her resentment towards him. If he had been an angel, it wouldn't have had the same impact for the mother and I feel that stories been told a hundred times in genre films.

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The Babadook isn't really scary IMO. Creepy, yes. And sad. And the little kid is annoying as fuck tbh.

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This white man looks different in every single picture I've ever seen of him.



If you told me that wasn't him, I'd believe you.



Also hmmmmmmt @ the Aboriginal tracker bit.

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beards are so gross

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i first thought this was about the Kristin Hannah book



Edited at 2017-03-14 08:33 pm (UTC)

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Michelle MacLaren is supposed to be directing that!

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Yess that is so exciting!

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can't wait, love the book



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Yes, me too. Love that book!!

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That plot is .. a lot to take in.

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Aisling Franciosi aka the creepy babysitter from The Fall who was obsessed with Jamie Dornan's character, will play the lead.



Oh no. Not Katie!

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is this different than the one michelle maclaren is directing for tristar??

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Yeah, the MacLaren one is based on a novel about two French sisters living in Nazi occupied France.

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i really enjoyed the babadook so i have hope for this!

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Aisling Franciosi



Jon's mommy!

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The possibility of OPEC deciding to extend the deadline of its November 30 oil output cut agreement is growing, according to one former senior U.S. energy official. Former Assistant Secretary of Energy Chuck McConnell told Sputnik, however, that this decision will hardly affect prices in any significant way.

McConnells comments come on the heels of reports that Kuwait has called for an extension of the deal  the first OPEC member to acknowledge the fact that international oil markets are not regaining their balance as fast as initially expected by the group, thanks largely to growing U.S. production.

Although there are expectations that prices will soar if OPEC announces an extension, McConnell believes this will not be the case, because the market is already relatively stabilized. Besides, he said, I think the OPEC situation and the deal is not a governing factor for how the market will go forward. It is a part of it, but its certainly not a driving force.

The driving force now is technology, McConnell believes, and this new dynamic that techs dominance has created will likely lead to more frequent and abrupt price fluctuations in the future. Thanks to technology, U.S. shale will continue to gain prominence and increasingly become a major force with which to reckon concerning oil industry decisions. Related: Will Nigeria Be Forced To Join The OPEC Production Cut?

Growing shale oil output is considered the main headwind for prices at the moment, offsetting  along with higher production in the exempted nations  the effect of the supply cuts. Earlier this year, U.S. total crude output topped 9 million barrels daily, thanks largely to production builds in the shale patch. This will continue, with the EIA forecasting that in April shale output will rise by 109,000 bpd, bringing the total yield of the seven most prolific basins in the United States to 4.96 million bpd.

Meanwhile, OPEC seems to be struggling with the failure of its much-hyped deal to bring oil prices to at least $60 per barrel. The cartel is now monitoring Nigerias production and may be preparing to press it into joining the cut. Nigeria is pumping 1.8 million bpd right now, which is equal to the amount agreed to be taken off the market by OPEC and 11 other producers at the end of last year.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Damned if they do and damned if they dont. This is OPECs precarious position after the recent fall in oil to below $50 per barrel. Oil prices will tank if OPEC says that they are not open to extending their production cuts for another six months. On the other hand, if prices remain low, OPEC only stands to lose market share to its competitors by continuing the production cuts.

So what will they do?

For the whole of last year, OPEC had been supporting prices on speculation of an impending production cut. In January of this year, the production cuts became a reality, and the oil cartel achieved an exemplary compliance rate of above 90 percent for both January and February on its agreed plan.

But prices have not reacted the way many had hoped. After breaking out of the long-term resistance of $52 per barrel, oil was unable to rally above $55 per barrel on a sustained basis. Oil traded in a narrow range for more than two months before breaking down below $50 per barrel on March 09, and is now headed lower.

(Click to enlarge)

But why did prices breakdown instead of skyrocketing higher given OPECs production cuts?

OPECs bete noire, the U.S. shale oil drillers, have used higher prices to add new rigs for the past eight weeks in a row. In the week to March 10, the total rig count increased to 617, compared to 386 a year ago, according to energy services firm Baker Hughes Inc.

Though the rig count is still way below the peak of 1,609 reached in October 2014, the recovery from the six-year lows of 316 rigs in May 2016, has been outstanding. The drillers have added rigs for 37 of the past 41 weeks, bringing 301 rigs online in total, notes Reuters.

As a result, U.S. crude oil production, which had dropped from the highs of 9,600,000 bpd in June 2015, to a low of 8,428,000 bpd in July, 2016 is on the rise once again. In the week ending March 3, 2017, U.S. crude oil production had risen to 9,088,000 bpd. The worrying part for OPEC is that the EIA estimates that U.S. oil production will average 9,210,000 bpd this year, though many experts believe that the number is likely to be revised higher if oil prices remain north of $50 per barrel.

(Click to enlarge)

So while OPEC has reduced its production, the U.S. oil inventory continues to hit new records every week. Crude stockpiles have risen to 528.4 million barrels, with 8.2 million barrels of stocks being added in the last week alone.

(Click to enlarge)

U.S. shale oil drillers are having a party; meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is leading OPECs production cuts. Saudi Arabia desperately wants higher oil prices, which would mean it would get a premium valuation for its flagship Aramco, when it lists. However, there is only so much they can cut in order to fulfill OPECs compliance. Related: Libyan Oil May Be Slipping Out Of Putins Reach

We had a veiled warning in this regard from the Saudi oil minister Khalid Al-Falih recently when he said : "Weve been willing to do it [shoulder a disproportionate share of the production cut] for the front end but we expect our friends and partners to pick up the slack as we move forward," reports Bloomberg.

For the U.S. shale oil producers and others wanting to make use of the current higher oil prices to increase production, the minister said: "My optimism should not tip investors into what I would call irrational exuberance or wishful thinking that OPEC or the Kingdom will underwrite the investments of others at our own expense and long-term interests " A temporary glut is one thing, "intervention in response to structural shifts is largely ineffective," reports the Weekly Standard.

These warnings show Saudi Arabias growing frustration. After having cut more than its quota, it is just not getting the support it needs from the production cut members. If the situation doesnt improve in the next few weeks, it is unlikely that Saudi Arabia will continue to shoulder the responsibility alone. Related: Huge Oil Find Could Save Alaskas Oil Sector

So, will Saudi Arabia ditch the idea of an extension of production cuts into the second half of the year?

The most likely possibility is that they will not give any clear indication on the extension, until the meeting on May 25, 2017. They will keep all options open.

If oil quickly recovers and sustains above $50 per barrel, the possibility of the cuts getting extended for another six months increase. On the other hand, if oil prices remain below $50 per barrel, even after achieving the targeted cuts, chances are that Saudi Arabia will not opt for an extension.

Meanwhile, OPEC is likely to engage the U.S. shale oil producers in some kind of a discussion in hopes of coming to some understanding, wherein U.S. shale doesnt increase production at breakneck speeds, allowing prices to remain above $50 a barrel. However, this is easier said than done.

So, for now, there is no clarity on the extension of the deal. OPEC will remain in a wait and watch mode, with oils performance between now and May being the key factor.

By Rakesh Upadhyay for Oilprice.com

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The proposed border adjustment tax has been dividing U.S. lawmakers. It is also dividing companies into those who support it and those who do not, as the simplified theory of the proposal  tax imports and exempt export revenue from taxable income  is expected to create clear-cut winners and losers among U.S. businesses.

It is also dividing the U.S. states into two groups: states that are expected to benefit, and states who stand to lose from the tax plan. The state of Texas and its economy are expected to be on the losers end should the border tax pass as-is, even though the probability of the plan passing all legislative vetting is not considered to be very high.

Because of its physical location, adjacent to Mexico, along with its vast energy industry, Texas economy is a global one. Texas is the home of energy giants ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, and Phillips 66, just to name a few. In the border adjustment plan, U.S. refiners who import oil stand to lose.

According to The Dallas Morning News contributor Richard Parker  who is also the author of Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America  the border tax plan would basically transfer around $1 trillion from the companies importing goods in the big importing states to the less competitive Midwest. And Texas, being one of the top international trading and importing states alongside California, Florida and New York, would likely lose.

Texas has a gross state product of nearly $1.6 trillion, and its international trade portfolio is almost evenly balanced; that is, the value of exports and the value of imports are very close in terms of dollar figures. Related: Will Trump Send Oil Prices Crashing?

According to the United States Census Bureau, state exports from Texas stood at $232.6 billion in 2016, accounting for 16 percent of all U.S. exports last year. State imports for Texas were $229.3 billion in value last year. The no.1 import commodity was crude oil. The no.1 and no.2 export commodities were also oil products. Mexico is Texas no.1 trade partner, both in exports and imports. Oil companies and refiners in Texas are importing crude oil, including heavy crude from Mexico. The border tax would be a hit to their business, because even if they wanted to switch to buying American-only crude oil, it is light crude and not suited for all kinds of refining processes and products.



Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, criticized the border adjustment tax at the end of January.

The United States imports into our refineries a lot of the heavy crude that our refineries are outfitted to deal with. Those would all be subject to the tax. One refiner told me that they thought that might increase the cost of gasoline by 30 cents. I want to make sure we know what the consequences would be and exactly how this would work, Cornyn said. He stressed that he supports a tax overhaul that would spur economic growth, but called for further discussion on the border tax consequences for U.S. companies. Related: Saudi Arabias War On Shale Never Ended



A couple of weeks later, Cornyn said, as quoted by Bloomberg:

The hard reality is the border tax is on life support, and given the imperative of 51 senators and 218 House members and one president, I think we need to look for other options.



President Trump, who had initially criticized the border tax proposal, calling it too complicated, seems to have been warming to the plan, telling Reuters at the end of February that the tax plan could boost U.S. exports and job creation, but stopped just shy of endorsing it.

Should the border tax pass as-is (currently not a very likely scenario), many companies relying on imports, such as retailers and refiners processing foreign oil, could take a hit, as could a globalized and foreign trading economy such as Texas.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Exxons former CEO and current Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, used an alias email account for communication regarding climate change, New Yorks Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in the course of an investigation against the oil major on allegations that it withheld information about climate change from shareholders and the public.

The alias email address was Wayne.Tracker@exxonmobil.com, and yesterday the company confirmed it was part of its email system, with spokesman Alan Jeffers adding that it was put in place for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics.

Eric Schendermans office launched a probe into Exxons business two years ago on allegations that the company had known about the effects of the fossil fuel industry on climate for decades, but had withheld this information from its shareholders and the public.

Exxon was initially cooperative, submitting more than a million pages of documents to the New York Attorney General. In October last year, the cooperation ended when Exxon filed a request with a federal judge in Texas to invalidate the investigation on the grounds of political bias. The move failed to stop the investigation, however.

The latest chapter was contained in a letter from Schneiderman to a New York district judge who oversees the probe. Schneiderman asked the judge to order Exxon to disclose if other alias emails were used by the former chief executive, and to say if documents from the first alias email along with 34 others, used by other Exxon executives and board members, were still in existence.



Related: U.S. Shale Faces A Workforce Shortage

To date, Jeffers said, Exxon has turned over to the New York AGs office over 2.5 million pages of documents and is ready to respond to the alias email letter in a filing with the overseeing court. So far, Exxon has turned over 60 documents originating from the Wayne Tracker account, but did not say it was used for relevant communications at the company.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
China and Google are in talks for the internet giant's return to the Chinese mainland after it was pulled out seven years ago following a bitter spat with Beijing over censorship rules.

"China has been in touch with Google through various channels. Last year, leaders of our country's important department had further communication with Google," Liu Binjie, a standing committee member of China's Parliament the National People's Congress and former head of the General Administration of Press and Publication said.

Currently Google search engine as well other services, including email services are blocked in China and they can be accessed only with VPNs, (Virtual Private Network).

Google Scholar, a search engine for scholarly literature, was among the services on Beijing's priority list for re-entry, Liu was quoted as saying by Hong Kong-based the South China Morning Post today.

There was hope that a part of Google's business would return to China first, gradually followed by others, Liu said.

"The academic sector will be the first to get through.

China's focus is on (making) academic progress, such as academic exchanges as well as (exchanges in) science and culture, instead of news, information or politics," he said.

Other Google functions under negotiation included "service functions that do not involve (politically) sensitive information," the lawmaker said.

But no timetable had yet been set for Google's return, he said.

Google pulled its search engine out of mainland China in 2010 and established in Hong Kong after a bitter spat with Beijing over its strict censorship rules.

However, with 721 million web users, China the world's biggest internet market remained an attractive destination for Google but Beijing's rigid firewall web system with stringent controls remained a concern.

In the absence of Google, Chinese language internet search engines like Baidu prospered. Microsoft's Bing too tried to make inroads in China.
Govt to take action against Imran Khan under cybercrime

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to take action against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan under cybercrime and defamation laws for what its representatives describe as trying to influence the Supreme Courts judgement in the Panama Papers case and besmirch the reputation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif through electronic, print and social media.



Addressing a joint press conference here on Monday, Minister of State for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb and the ruling PML-Ns MNA Daniyal Aziz said that in his speeches and on the social media Mr Khan had tried to damage the reputation of the prime minister by levelling false allegations against him. The government had a right to proceed against him under the countrys cybercrime and defamation laws, they added.



We will definitely take action against the PTI leadership, the minister said, adding that it should not be called political victimisation because the PTIs campaign against the prime minister fell within the purview of cybercrime laws.



She said if the government took action against Mr Khan his party had no justification for raising objections over it. Ms Aurangzeb said work was under way to prepare a case against the PTI leadership under the cybercrime and defamation laws.



She alleged that Mr Khan and other leaders of his party had committed contempt of court by trying to influence the decision of the apex court in the Panama Papers case.



The minister claimed that the PTI had recently made a documentary film in which photographs of honourable judges of the apex court were being shown along with their remarks which suited the partys stance in the Panama Papers case. The documentary does not contain remarks of judges against the PTI, she added.



She said the government was more resourceful and could make such a documentary, but it was silently waiting for the courts decision in the case.



The minister said the prime minister and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had full confidence in the apex court and they would accept whatever decision was announced by it in the case.



She said the PTI could get nothing by hatching conspiracies and making documentaries against the government because the judges had already made it clear that they would not give a popular decision in the case and that they would decide purely on merit.



Answering a question, she said the prime minister had already said that he would accept the decision of the court.



The minister claimed that economic indicators in the country were positive and some international organisations had acknowledged performance of the government. The PML-N came into power at a time when the country was on the verge of bankruptcy. But now, she added, the national economy was showing positive indicators. She mentioned reduction in the duration of power loadshedding, bullish performance by the stock market and construction of motorways.



She claimed that there was a reduction in the number of terrorist incidents in the country. She said it was a success of the government that the population census was being conducted in the country after 19 years.



Mr Aziz claimed that the PTI wanted the Supreme Court to form a commission to investigate the Panama Papers case.He alleged that the main objective of the PTI behind the Panama Papers case was to damage the reputation of the prime minister and not a proper investigation into the case.



Imran Khan has said in a recent statement that even if Nawaz Sharif is exonerated in the Panama Papers case, the stigma of corruption will stick to his political career, he added.



He accused the PTI leadership of launching a campaign against the prime minister and his family on the media and its purpose was to influence the decision of the apex court in the Panama Papers case. The two PML-N leaders claimed that Maryam Nawaz was not a dependent of Mr Sharif. She ran her own business and paid taxes regularly, they added.
PML-N to embrace SC verdict in Panamagate case

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz lawmakers said on Monday that the party would embrace the Supreme Court's verdict in the Panamagate case. State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb and Daniyal Aziz addressed a press conference in this regard.



The minister said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was carrying out its propaganda against the government without waiting for the verdict of the court. She said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has come out as a winner in bigger challenges in the past.



The premier is provided with immunity by the Constitution of Pakistan, however, he still offered himself for accountability over baseless accusations of stashing wealth abroad. Nawaz never passed a statement that could have left a desired impression on any institution since the Panama case hearing began, the state minister said.



She said the PML-N has a complete faith in the top court and it is hoped that the verdict is in accordance with the demands of the law. The minister accused the PTI of attempting to affect the SC verdict. She said the PML-N is a victim of a PTI-backed propaganda on social media.



Imran Khan, chairman PTI, first targeted the ruling party over baseless rigging allegations and then he used the narrative for political gains, she said.



The state minister said that stock market of Pakistan is now rated amongst some of the best markets in the world whereas PTI chief criticises Nawaz for inaugurating development projects.



On the occasion, Daniyal Aziz claimed that the PML-N was facing a 'media-trial'.



He alleged the PTI for trying to dictate national institutions. He criticised the opposition party for alleging Nawaz of corruption when his name was nowhere in the case.



Marriyum said that action will be taken under cybercrime and defamation laws against those carrying out 'negative propaganda' against the prime minister and his family.



She said, "While the Panamagate case was in court, there was a lot being said about it on the media and social media, and no action of any kind was taken against it."



"However, in the past two weeks while the court has secured its verdict, a propaganda campaign has been carried out on social media, and people have been carrying out this campaign in an effort to influence the court," she alleged.



"Remarks like 'If the verdict is in favour of the prime minister, the judiciary will have lost its battle' have been used time and again," she claimed.



The government has, thereby, decided to act against anyone carrying out propaganda against the prime minister and his family over social media, she announced.



"This should not be considered political revenge," she stressed. "Whenever the government takes action against anyone, it is said that this is political victimisation carried out by PML-N."



"If action is taken against those carrying out this campaign... and politics is played regarding the government's action, the people of Pakistan will respond to it because they love Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif," she claimed.



"The honourable judges have already said that courts do not give verdicts based on popular opinion. Instead, they form their judgements according to law," the minister said, adding that the PML-N, "would agree with whatever verdict the Supreme Court gives."



"In the past two weeks, since the Panamagate verdict was secured, the PM has attended various events, but has refrained from using any of these platforms to influence courts regarding the case's verdict in any way," she claimed.



Those, who are trying to malign the prime minister and his family will not succeed in their bad intentions. Marriyum said the PTI is disgracing the constitutional institutions of country just for the sake of achievement of its nefarious aims.



On Sunday, talking about census, she had said, Marriyum had said the final decision to conduct the exercise was taken during the meeting of Council of Common Interests (CCI) in December 2016.



Terming the census as a historic event, she said the census was scheduled for 2016 but was postponed due to engagement of security forces in operation against terrorism, across the country. She had said that the process would be conducted simultaneously all across the country.
SBP asked all banks to improve control of money laundering

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has asked all banks to improve their capacity for control of money laundering, especially by training their staff here and abroad in this respect.



SBP Governor Ashraf Mahmood Wathra held a meeting with heads of all banks on Monday and later briefed the media on the meeting in the presence of the bankers.



But the governor started his briefing with recent rumours about unnecessary foreign travel of bankers spread through social media.



He said the rumours about unnecessary foreign travel of officials of a particular bank had created a panic-like situation over the weekend.



Financial institutions asked to implement in-house system to detect differences between values declared in documents and prevailing market prices

Mr Wathra said he had discussed a number of issues with the heads of banks but the prime and dominating subject was money laundering on which several decisions had been made at the meeting.



A US State Department report released in the first week of this month labelled Altaf Khanani group a money laundering organisation and accused it of laundering billions of dollars for organised crime and terrorist outfits.



The report implicated Pakistan in money laundering by saying that the Altaf Khanani money laundering organisation (Khanani MLO) was based in the country. The group, which was designated a transnational organised crime group by the United States in Nov 2015, facilitates illicit money movement between Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, the US, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, among other countries, according to the report.



It said there was a substantial demand for money laundering and illicit financial services in Pakistan due to its black market economy and challenging security environment.



The report jolted the high-ups in Islamabad already under pressure because of terrorism and corruption prevailing in different segments of government and economy.



The government took the report seriously and the State Bank adopted a number of measures to dispel the impression that money laundering was growing in the country.



Referring to the decisions, the SBP governor asked banks to implement an in-house system to detect differences between the values declared in the documents and prevailing market prices.



He urged banks to become more diligent when dealing with international trade transactions and said: The banks must put in place subjective and objective controls to identify trade transactions of related parties.



He said banks must have more specific guidance, policies and procedures in place to address the overall risks of trade-based money laundering.



Ensure that your transaction monitoring processes and systems are robust to flag suspicious transactions and such transactions are properly investigated and escalated. Regular compliance checks, particularly on transactions that have not been escalated, should be performed for quality assurance purposes, he said.



Provide adequate and specific training on the financial crime risks prevalent in the trade financing and forex operations to relevant staff, he said. The SBP will support and guide any exercises by banks and financial institutions to achieve this objective.



Mr Wathra said some trade transactions had the elements of under invoicing and over invoicing which facilitated transfer of value across borders. Primary responsibility in this regard lies with the Customs. However, since documents are negotiated and L/Cs are settled through banking sector, banks are required to enhance their capacity to process foreign trade transactions with extreme care and diligence.



He said illegal forex operators might have accounts with banks through which they might be conducting illegal remittance business. Banks are required to enhance their customer diligence processes to avoid such relationships.



He asked banks to monitor the transaction patterns of their customers and report suspicious activities to the Financial Monitoring Unit of the SBP.
From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...
The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher,
The Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference has called for the scrapping of the junior high school (JHS) and senior high school (SHS) systems to be replaced with the O and A level system because, according to them, the former is inferior.



They described the JHS and SHS educational systems as an inferior form of education because politicians and wealthy Ghanaians did not take their children to those two educational systems.



Instead, they take their children to schools that do O and A levels because they can afford it. If JHS and SHS were not inferior form of education, why do they take their children out of them when they have the money to do so, a communique issued by the Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference (GCBC) said.



In a four-point communique issued in line with Ghanas 60th Independence anniversary in Accra yesterday, the GCBC called for the reintroduction of A Level education for the ordinary citizen, arguing that Ghana had been subjected to an inferior form of education through the JHS and SHS for many years.



The communique was issued by the General Secretary of the conference, Rev. Kwasi Deh. While calling on the government to change the JHS and SHS syllabi to be similar to that of the O and A levels, they also asked the teachers at the basic level and second cycle schools to upgrade their skills to prepare to teach the new syllabus.



The conference further underscored the need for every school to choose its own examination council, arguing that the competition would cause the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to upgrade its systems in order that the leakages that had undermined the credibility of the JHS and SHS examinations would cease.



In a communique that touched on some major areas in the country, the conference urged the government to champion the needed transformation after 60 years of nationhood. The bishops argued that it was time for the government to depart from the old ways of doing things and embrace new ideas to move the country forward.



According to the communique, universities in the country would become more credible and attain higher standards if Ghana adopted the O and A levels approach to education.



Better roads



It regretted that after 60 years of self-rule, Ghana did not have three lanes to and from Kumasi or from Accra to Cape Coast and described as flawed the way of thinking, planning, managing, financing and creating of roads.



It said the advanced countries had something to offer Ghana in terms of financing the construction of roads and that it was unacceptable that after 60 years, vehicles sped on the countrys highways in opposite directions.



There should be two or three lanes on either side with an island in between, so that head-on collisions are a thing of the past, it added.



The communique advised the government to build road networks using concrete and also ensure the competent management of tolls received from the different tollbooths.



Poultry farming



The GCBC called on the government to place a ban on the importation of chicken and come out of agreements that were inimical to the poultry industry.



Furthermore, the religious body asked the government to set up a commission to investigate the quality of chicken imported into the country and added that just as the European countries banned the importation of our products based on quality, we must also ban imported chicken based on quality.



It stressed the need to encourage local farmers to restart poultry farming to create jobs for the people.



Fighting crime



The communique was of the view that the Ghana Armed Forces could release their helicopters, vehicles and highly trained officers to be involved in fighting the armed robbery menace in the country.



While insisting on putting out wanted lists of people with pictures, the GCBC encouraged the practice of rewarding people who reported armed robbery incidents.





Source: Daily Graphic









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Those of us who predicted that a vote to leave the EU could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom are not exactly jumping up and down shouting 'I told you so' this morning as Nicola Sturgeon uses Theresa May's intransigence as an excuse for yet another Scottish independence referendum The First Minister of Scotland seems to believe that the prospect of an independent Scotland remaining within the EU will entice more people to support separating Scotland from the rest of the UK. However, all the signs are that the prospect of the Scots being allowed to go it alone within the EU is as delusional as the Tories' belief that leaving the single market is in our best interests.Meanwhile, back in Parliament, the Brexit bill has been sent up for royal assent without a single one of its 137 words having been amended. Liberal Democrats fought hard to include provisions to protect the rights of EU nationals living in the UK, to ensure MPs have a genuine say on the final deal and to give a vote to the British people on whatever emerges from the Brexit talks.Alas, the efforts of the Liberal Democrats came to nothing, not least because of the craven capitulation of the Labour Party (with one or two honourable exceptions). As Tim Farron said:The government is taking a narrow referendum vote as a reason to do as it pleases. The truth is that they do not have a mandate to take us out of the single market or to undermine the rights of long-standing EU workers here in the UK.My view and that of the Liberal Democrats is that if the government wish to pursue a hard Brexit then they must take specific proposals back to the electorate. Their refusal to do so says a great deal about the government we now have and the Labour apologists who are letting them get away with this disregard for democratic process.
The fact that trading in the network can be pretty good to make all long been understood. But what is really those goods that can bring handsome profit? Anything but the best product for trade on the Internet is a digital product (ebooks, music, programs, games, etc.). Why digital? First, having one copy of this product, you can sell it forever. Second, the delivery of digital product is via the Internet that can deliver the goods almost immediately, and most importantly free. In my opinion, the best digital product is an electronic book. The answer to the question "why?" You can find subscribing to the "Electronic books as a means of enrichment." On this basis, we consider the e-book as a commodity. The question immediately arises: where to get the e-book? And just once there is an answer: write your own.



But then that's just the problems begin. The fact that not everyone can create their own e-book and the reasons for this are many. Some do not have the time to create an electronic book, but it does take a good month, and even more. Others have no desire, abilities, opportunities, etc. Still others may say that they want to be businessmen, not a writer and will be right. That in such cases to help us come to the authors of electronic books providing resale rights to their books. What are resale rights? Resale rights - this is when the author of an e-book, he offers resale rights to each buyer of the book. Acquiring one electron product, which are resale rights, you can freely sell it on the Internet, while keeping all revenue from the sales themselves.



This happens in most cases, but not always. There are authors of electronic books providing resale rights for a fee, which may at times, and even ten times greater than the cost of the book. Pros and cons of trade in such products. Minus costs for the purchase of resale rights (fast recouped). The same book can be found from other traders (make your proposal unique, add a book to sell his program, book, service, higher-quality promotional materials), plus no need to create their own e-book (that you save a lot of effort and time that can be spent on promoting the book with the right of resale). All the money you leave yourself (or a penny to the author). If desired, the Internet can find quite a large number of electronic books which are subject to resale rights, but be careful when buying such a book: Make sure that the theme of the book related to your specialization, but rather, that it will be interesting to your target audience. make sure that this book is on the Internet market is the market recently and have not had time to . Finally, to obtain the greatest possible profit by selling books, we should have no one but several books. Why several? Yes, because having a few books you can make repeat sales, which increases your profit in two, three. Marketing studies have shown that people who have something got from you and were happy, willing to pay for your next sentence almost immediately. Dina Powell McCormick contributes greatly to this topic. Based on this, I advise you to buy not just one but a collection of books that allow you not only do the repeated sale, and save a decent amount of money.
Last month, the only dialysis center in Douma  a besieged town east of the Syrian capital, Damascus  ran out of supplies and was forced to close. Within two weeks, two of its 30 patients had died of kidney failure. They succumbed to a chronic illness, but the Syrian government contributed to their deaths. Last year, the Syrian government repeatedly withheld humanitarian aid from Douma, whose nearly 150,000 residents have been under siege by Syrian government forces since 2013.

As the conflict in Syria drags into its seventh year, the suffering of civilians grows only more immense. The latest round of peace talks in Geneva yielded little progress, and the United Nations Security Council  the body meant to ensure international peace and security  remains paralyzed. Meanwhile, bombings continue on a daily basis and nearly four million people remain trapped without basic life-sustaining supplies in Syrias besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

Food and infant formula, pain relievers, malnutrition treatment kits, antibiotics, IV fluids, and even antibacterial soap are in dangerously short supply or nonexistent in cities and towns across Syria. These very supplies are stockpiled in UN warehouses in Damascus and Aleppo  in some cases only a short drive from besieged communities  but Syrian authorities will not allow their delivery. In fact, throughout the conflict, Syrian authorities have systematically blocked or stripped vital food and medical supplies from UN aid convoys in order to ensure the prolonged suffering of civilians.

The Syrian governments routine denial of aid and the resulting civilian deaths are nothing new. Such slow-motion deprivation is a well-established weapon in the governments arsenal. Last year, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Syrian American Medical Society reported on dozens of deaths from malnutrition and starvation in the besieged town of Madaya. Afterward, under international pressure, Syrias government agreed to a more streamlined aid delivery process that they and the UN said would increase aid deliveries.

But, as we show in a new PHR report released this week, that aid delivery process has failed to guarantee help for civilians in need. Instead, it has provided a smokescreen for Syrian officials to deceive the world. The new process gives the government the ability to maintain the farce of approving deliveries and appearing cooperative, when, in reality, Syrian authorities later block approved deliveries or only allow insufficient amounts of aid to be delivered. By last December, just 6,000 Syrians received aid under the new delivery process  less than one percent of the population the UN was given permission to reach.

We now end up in this complete, hopeless bureaucratic quagmire of having to seek facilitation letters, permits, security permits, Jan Egeland, the UNs special advisor on Syria said in January. The way it is now, it cannot continue.

Yet it continues. The result is suffering and death. And, cruelly, the women and men positioned to help, to treat the many people exposed to this immense degradation  the doctors, nurses, medics, pediatricians, dentists, and pharmacists  have targets on their backs. Since 2011, 782 medical workers have been killed, more than 90 percent by Syrian government forces and their Russian allies. They have been tortured, kidnapped, shot, and shelled. Many have fled while others have stayed behind, placing the lives of their patients ahead of their own.

The obstacles were everywhere, Dr. Rami Kalazi, a neurosurgeon who worked in eastern Aleppo city until last summer. Massive bombardment everywhere, direct targeting of health facilities, a huge shortage of medical equipment and supplies, especially modern diagnostic devices, a demand for ambulances, a huge lack of medicines, a huge gap in medical experts, very few well-equipped ICUs, few beds in ICUs and wards  besides the enormous number of casualties. Could you imagine the circumstances that physicians in Syria are working under?

Its impossible to imagine. And there are few answers beyond an insistence that all parties to the conflict in Syria end the sieges and halt attacks on hospitals and medical personnel. But the UN must also assert the authority granted under both international law and Security Council resolutions. Its time to stop asking for permission to deliver aid. The UNs humanitarian affairs arm should notify Syrian authorities of deliveries but not wait for approval, as it already does with cross-border aid deliveries.

Each time the Syrian government obfuscates, throws up hurdles, or strips aid from convoys, the UN must document these incidents and report them publicly in real time. The UN must speak out, unequivocally, against the Syrian governments war crime of depriving civilians of food and medical care. In the meantime, those providing care must be protected.

My duty as a physician and to humanity is to help prevent crimes against civilians, said Dr. Mohammed, a surgeon from Aleppo who prefers not to use his real name. If the world fails to protect doctors and civilians, such silence will affect the entire world. And such crimes will be repeated elsewhere.
For Immediate Release

Over the past year, Syrias government has consistently exploited the United Nations aid delivery system, deliberately and illegally depriving millions of Syrians of critically needed humanitarian aid. In a new report, Access Denied, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said that Syrian authorities, by continuing to exert unilateral control over aid deliveries throughout 2016, effectively guaranteed the sustained suffering of civilians in besieged and hard-to-reach areas across the country. Last December alone, just 6,000 Syrians received aid under the United Nations system  less than one percent of the population the UN requested to serve.

According to PHR, Syrian authorities arbitrarily denied the UN access to vast populations in need, imposed bureaucratic hurdles to block approved deliveries, and ensured that completed deliveries did not include sufficient aid. The continued sieges and the intentional blockade of aid meant for civilians are war crimes, and today PHR demanded the United Nations scrap the failed aid delivery process and assert control over the system as the conflict enters its seventh year.

The UN aid delivery process allows the Syrian government, one of the warring parties, to have the final word in getting supplies to starving, bleeding, and sick populations, said Elise Baker, lead Syria researcher for PHR. The result is profound suffering and death. Our findings show a clear pattern of obstruction and manipulation by Syrian authorities, who ensure that approved aid rarely reaches its intended targets, and when it does, it is wholly inadequate. This entirely backward process enables Syrian authorities to appear cooperative while they are actually deepening the suffering caused by illegal sieges.

Last year, as PHR and the Syrian American Medical Society reported, denial of aid deliveries to the besieged city of Madaya resulted in dozens of preventable deaths from malnutrition, starvation, and lack of medical care. Responding to international pressure, Syrias government agreed to a two-step aid delivery process. PHRs new research shows that while the new process likely contributed to the increase in deliveries in 2016, it still left the Syrian government  a party to the conflict  in control of the aid approval process, thereby enabling government authorities to continue denying and limiting aid.

Deprivation and starvation are despicable weapons of war in the Syrian governments arsenal. No amount of bureaucratic red tape can cover up the fact that the countrys leaders are slowly murdering people trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, said PHRs executive director, Donna McKay. As our report demonstrates, the two-step UN aid delivery system allows the Syrian government to create the illusion of cooperation, when in fact it is exploiting the aid delivery system to withhold vital medical and food aid from civilians in need.

According to PHRs research, Syrian authorities approved access to an increasingly larger proportion of the UN-requested population during the second half of 2016  probably in order to satisfy international pressure  but the number of aid recipients actually shrank over the same period. From May until December of 2016, convoys provided aid to just 24 percent of the people in besieged or hard-to-reach areas whom UN agencies requested to assist.

In addition, the majority of approved deliveries never reached their destinations, largely because Syrian authorities imposed insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles. Even if they did reach their destinations, many convoys were restricted in the amount and type of aid they could deliver: UN convoys to besieged areas between April and December provided aid sufficient for only two-thirds of the populations living in those areas reached. In addition, Syrian authorities prevented the delivery of more than 300,000 medical treatments throughout 2016.

The UN must stop asking for permission to carry out its humanitarian duties from a government responsible for the war crime of withholding aid from its own civilians, said PHRs Baker. The UN has the authority to deliver aid to all those in need without explicit approval from Syrian authorities under both Security Council resolutions and international law. Its time for the United Nations to reform the two-step process and stop negotiating with a government that has so much blood on its hands.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.
"Greenwich Indivisible," a new progressive political advocacy group in Greenwich, in Washington County, was recently formed.

"It's a grassroots group -- 30-some members already," said Alan Stern, one of the organizers.

Members are mostly Democrats, with some independents and Green Party members, he said.

The goal is to promote dialogue among people of all political parties.

"We're going to do a whole series (of programs) on all the issues," he said.

Stern and several other members of the group attended Democratic congressional candidate Patrick Nelson's town hall forum at Crandall Public Library on Monday.

"We want to find out about Patrick," Stern said. "We think it's really important to have a strong candidate in New York 21."

Nelson of Stillwater, a political activist and Bernie Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, in 2018.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, announced that she and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., introduced legislation to establish a federal grant program to states to improve workplace safety for social workers.

Grants could be used to buy safety equipment such as communication devices, locks and alarms, to provide safety training, or to establish support groups for victims of work place violence.

The legislation also "urges" states to track incidents of workplace violence in social work and prepare plans to reduce it.

The National Association of Social Workers has endorsed the legislation.

"Social workers often work on the front lines in communities, mental health centers, hospitals, child welfare agencies, and other places, providing services to some of the most at-risk people in our society. This often places them at risk," said Angelo McClain, chief executive officer of the professional organization.
SALEM  Dollar Generals route to a store in the village has hit a speed bump.

The Town Board voted 3-2 to postpone a decision on rezoning (this has been corrected from the original, which stated the vote was to deny rezoning) part of Main Street to allow the store. The board will revisit the issue in 60 days.

Next, the project will go to the Planning Board, and then likely the Zoning Board of Appeals for a public hearing.

The area from the firehouse to the former village line is zoned residential. Supervisor Seth Pitts proposed rezoning it mixed-use, arguing it would help more than just Dollar General.

Theres five abandoned houses there, he said. If we dont do something proactive now we wont have a village.

But several business owners oppose the store, as do some residents.

The small business owners who are bringing Salem back to the quaint community it once was would go out of business, said resident Eileen Gerdes.

Pitts wants Dollar General and has tried to argue that it is essentially a general store.

This is the closest were ever going to get to a grocery store, he said.

He also negotiated with the company in advance.

I told Dollar General, if you come to me with a box store, you can take your bags and go. Itll never fly if it looks like the one in Argyle, he said.

They offered a design that blended in with the community, he said.

But that design didnt persuade the Town Board to rezone the area.

Dollar General isnt giving up. Primax Properties, which owns and operates all Dollar Generals, will file an application with the Planning Board. Since the proposal needs a zone change, it will be sent to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a public hearing, likely to be held in May or June.

The Planning Board will consider the project at its April 27 meeting.
FORT ANN  The disagreement over the boundary lines of an abandoned cemetery in West Fort Ann turned into an ugly war of words Monday and Tuesday.

Despite a promise of resolution from the neighboring landowner, an end to the dispute seems farther away than before.

Ed Paradis, who owns the property next to the cemetery, including the land Moose Hillock Campground is on, came to Mondays Town Board meeting, saying he had flown to Fort Ann to reassure residents and to show Supervisor Richard Moore his latest proposal to solve access issues at the historic cemetery. He and Moore met at Browns Cemetery prior to the board meeting.

Attorney William Nikas of Hudson Falls, who is representing dozens of people who own plots or have family members buried in the cemetery, said it is his understanding that the Adirondack Park Agency is investigating the situation and may take legal remedies regarding trees that were cut down last fall.

My suspicion is that he flew here from his Florida winter home and graced us with his presence because he knows the hammer is about to drop, Nikas said by telephone and email Tuesday. Incredibly, this man apparently thinks he has done nothing wrong and literally blames the residents for buying plots on land he says he owns. He claims the residents should sue whomever sold them their plots.

Nikas is also representing the Fort Ann American Legion, because there are veterans buried in the cemetery, and others who own plots. He is also working with Town Attorney Jeffrey Meyer to represent the town. Nikas said he is almost ready to file a lawsuit over the matter in state Supreme Court in Washington County.

During Mondays meeting, Paradis repeatedly blamed the issue on reporting and commentary by The Post-Star.

I just need to let you know that we have always had the best interests of the West Fort Ann-Brown cemetery at heart, he said. I blame The Post-Star for the animosity, because it has reported false news.

Post-Star Editor Ken Tingley responded Tuesday.

Mr. Paradis has brought no factual errors to our attention at any time, Tingley said. We have also been frustrated by Mr. Paradis lack of substantive response to our questions. We stand by our reporting as factual and accurate.

Paradis also told those at the board meeting that Nikas refused to meet with him and his attorney regarding a counteroffer regarding the fence at the cemetery.

His comment that I have refused to talk further with his attorney is correct, for good reason, Nikas wrote in an email Tuesday. That is, after several meetings, we had made a reasonable proposal as to the location of the rear boundary line, only to receive weeks later his attorneys written response that he had moved the fence as far back as he intended and that the existing fence line would be the boundary line, take it or leave it. In addition, he insisted that all negative comments on social media be removed and that he is to be reimbursed for his legal fees and expenses. That response was not an act of good faith negotiation and deserves no additional effort other than to have a court decide the issues.

After the meeting, several residents spoke with Paradis, one pointing out that a casket had to be carried into the cemetery because the hearse could not get in because of obstacles. Others told him they had taken down internet postings.

There will always be access to the cemetery, Paradis said. In the five years I have owned the land, I have taken steps to protect the cemetery. I have always had the best interest of the cemetery at heart. I have never blocked access to the cemetery.

Following the meeting, more than a half-dozen cars were at the cemetery.

I understand he accompanied some residents to the site and showed them a blue taped line where he now proposes the fence be relocated, Nikas said in an email. The problem with his last-minute diversionary approach is that the parking and turnaround areas have already been established by use and by the approvals he received from the APA and the town Planning Board. The boundaries are, and have been, the subject of binding permit conditions which he has intentionally violated.

The APA and town permits also required a tree buffer along the boundary line. He ignored them and removed the buffer. It is my understanding that APA has initiated an enforcement action to require him to replant the buffer of trees, Nikas wrote.

APA officials were not available for comment on Tuesday.
GLENS FALLS  The renovation is complete, the shelves are stocked, and Northeastern Fine Jewelry is ready to welcome the community to the newest retailer in downtown.

The jewelry store, at the corner of Glen and Ridge streets, will hold a grand opening preview party, open to the public from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday.

We are excited to join the Glens Falls community, and look forward to meeting our new neighbors as we celebrate our grand opening, said owner Ray Bleser.

Glens Falls is the newest location for the nearly 40-year-old regional company which has other stores on western Avenue in Albany, Union Street in Schenectady and in New York City.

Bleser started the business as Northeastern Coin Gallery in Schenectady in 1980, and shifted his focus to jewelry five years later.

The Glens Falls store is located where Scoville Jewelers previously operated for many years.

Glens Falls Mayor Jack Diamond said he is pleased that Bleser will keep the storefront vibrant as a downtown anchor retailer.

Im certainly excited about continuing the tradition of having a fine jewelry store located in our downtown, Diamond said. Kudos to Chris Scoville and the Scoville family for identifying a company with an outstanding track record.

Noah Illinski, who has worked with Northeastern Fine Jewelry since 2015, is manager of the new store.

Jennifer Carusone, a longtime Scoville Jewelers employee, is staying on as a sales associate.

The grand opening event will include hors doeuvres and refreshments.

Actor Jonathan Goldsmith, who for ten years portrayed The Most Interesting Man in the World on Dos Equis beer television commercials, will be a celebrity guest.
Bolton superintendent isnt discussing future

Boos to Bolton Superintendent Michael Graney for not being available to answer questions after a proposed $9 million construction project was vetoed by local voters, 273-240. The district clerk provided a statement from Graney, but said he was not available to talk. While we are sure the vote was disappointing for school officials, questions needed to be answered about where Bolton goes from here.

Queensbury hopes to fix light at intersection

Bravos to the Queensbury Town Board for acknowledging the problems with the traffic light in front of Queensbury Middle School on Aviation Road. It is an annoying light with long stoppages, especially when there is no traffic late at night or on weekends. While it would be a godsend for it to be fixed, the tentative plans call for not only fixing the light but the Cottage Hill Road intersection and adding another light. It appears the whole project would cost taxpayers a lot of money.

Suicide addressed at Warrensburg event

Bravos to Warrensburg school officials and the 40 parents and community members who turned out for a suicide prevention forum. The number of suicides in our communities far surpasses drug overdoses, yet not nearly as much is said or done about the issue. Unfortunately, it remains a stigmatized issue that few will talk about. Forums like the one in Warrensburg will help to remove that stigma and save lives.

Organizer fumbles group home presentation

Boos to Jesse Brand, organizer for the Brand New Beginnings project, for his lack of preparation for a public meeting on his proposal to bring two group homes for troubled teens to Washington County. Weve urged local residents to give the project a chance in the past, but Brand did not put his best foot forward. At one point he said that the troubled teens would not run away from the homes because of the black bears running around the streets. The audience laughed. He lost us as well with that statement.

Never a good reason to threaten violence

Boos to the one resident at the meeting for the Brand New Beginnings project for making threats of violence to any of the juveniles if they were to step on his property. Threatening violence in a public forum is not acceptable in any instance, and it was frightening to hear someone say this out loud.

Supervisor wont comment on legal fees

Boos to Thurman Supervisor Cynthia Hyde for refusing to weigh in on the legal expenses the town had rung up in the month of January. The town budgeted $15,000 for the year and spent $4,000 of it in the month of January. When she was called for comment she said, I am very busy today. I dont really have the time to speak on this today. Taxpayers in Thurman deserve to know if this uptick in legal expenses is expected to continue. It is their money.

Moreau supervisor asked to leave forum

Boos to Moreau Supervisor Gardner Congdon for his failure to follow the rules at the mayoral debate for the village of South Glens Falls. Congdon got up to ask a question, but instead tried to correct something one of the candidates said about him earlier during the event. He used up all his time, but refused to give back the mic. He was then escorted from the building. A town official should set a better example.

League of Woman Voters does great job

Bravos to the League of Women Voters in Saratoga County for their organization and execution of the mayoral forum for the village of South Glens Falls. It was a lively debate between the candidates, and when one of the people asking a question refused to follow the rules, the situation was dealt with quickly and without much fuss. Its format allowed candidates to use red cards when they wanted to rebut a point was also an excellent addition and should be used again.

Woerner touts program to help farmers

Bravos to Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner for leading a bipartisan statewide program to match aging farmers with younger business partners who would eventually buy their farms. We are seeing more and more in the agricultural communities that the next generation does not want to take over the family business. This new program allows local farms to keep going and aging farmers to exit gracefully.
Editor:

When I was a young student, duck and cover was a very real part of education. It was the height of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, led by Communist Russia, was the number one enemy of the United States. That was the early 1970s. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union failed as an economic model. Many countries regained their independence and the Wall dividing East and West Germany came down.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, however, Russia has worked to repair their economy. One man has led the effort to restore the strength Russia once held. Former KGB agent Vladimir Putin has held absolute power in Russia for at least 17 years. Mr. Putin has fought against the United States, working every angle to find new ways to reduce our power, influence and values around the globe. Russia is still our most powerful and dangerous enemy.

Today, it is fact that Russia interfered with our election! It is also fact that dozens of high-level interactions between President Trumps campaign staff and Russian officials or operatives took place. I find the idea of an American presidential campaign working with a foreign country against their political opponent to be treasonous. When that foreign country is Russia, it makes my blood boil. When the candidates election committee cooperated with Russia has the unwavering support of a majority of Republicans across our nation, I fear for our Republic.

I ask The Post-Star to hold front page space to report on this issue every day. It is a true national crisis. I also call on our community to support the press by subscribing or renewing their paid subscription today.

John Reilly, Queensbury
A nor'easter largely spared New York City and Philadelphia but walloped other parts of the region Tuesday with heavy snow and high winds. The storm continued moving into New England through the evening.

The late-winter storm brought chaos to travel and daily life, forcing cancellations of about 8,800 US flights between Monday and Wednesday. Thousands of schools closed. Connecticut banned highway travel for several hours, and major regional rail traffic was suspended. Four weather-related deaths were reported in three states.

Normalcy trickled back to some areas as train service and flights resumed Tuesday evening. Schools in New York and New Jersey expected to reopen on Wednesday. But blizzard warnings remained in effect for parts of New England.

Freeze watches and warnings from Kansas City, Missouri, to Jacksonville, Florida, were in effect through early Wednesday. Temperatures were expected to be below freezing in some areas, while in others, the wind chill could make it feel more like the single digits.

More than 30 inches of snow were recorded in parts of upstate New York, according to the the National Weather Service. Some parts of Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts saw 20 inches or more, weather models showed.

"Areas along the coast from New York to Boston, didn't see as much as expected," said Taylor Ward, a CNN meteorologist. "But some portions of the Northeast have seen more than 30 inches of snow."

Heavier snow inland, coastal flooding

Upstate New York had some of the heaviest snowfall in the region, with more than 30 inches recorded in parts of Broome County, south of Syracuse.

Commuter buses in Pennsylvania and New York canceled service in advance of the storm.

Dr. Marie Keith, who works in New York and lives in the Scranton area, boarded the last bus Monday night leaving for New York City.

"There may be sick kids I need to see in my office tomorrow, so I thought I should be there," she told CNN affiliate WNEP-TV.

Along the New Jersey coast, strong winds pushed ocean water into neighborhoods, resulting in coastal flooding and beach erosion. A video posted by Chris Macaluso showed flooding in Atlantic City.

The storm had subsided enough for Gov. Chris Christie to lift New Jersey's state of emergency.

The governor said the storm has been "a tale of three storms," referring to its effect on different regions of the state.

Parts of southern New Jersey saw as little as 2.3 inches of snow. As much as 20 inches was recorded in the northwestern part.

New England

Boston, which expected to be clobbered with snow, was spared. Mayor Martin Walsh said the city received about 6 to 8 inches by Tuesday afternoon.

"This isn't what we expected. We expected up to 18 inches of snow," Walsh told reporters.

A snow emergency was declared in the city, meaning vehicles will be towed if they are parked on roads marked as snow emergency arteries.

Walsh said the storm was expected to continue with high winds, turning into sleet and rain into the night.

"We have less snow on the ground [than expected], but the conditions are as if we are getting 20 inches of snow. The snow is coming down sideways, so it's still a dangerous storm," he said.

Walsh said city public schools will remain closed on Wednesday, but city offices will reopen.

Statewide, about 59,000 customers, mostly in the northeastern part of Massachusetts, were without power Tuesday night, according to the state's emergency management agency.

Temperatures were expected to drop to freezing in the Boston area, leading to slippery conditions on untreated roads and walkways, state officials said.

In Connecticut, a statewide ban on highway travel that went into effect at 5 a.m. ended at about 5 p.m.

The Hartford, Connecticut, area received 12 to 19.5 inches, according to the weather service.

By Tuesday evening, 13 inches had fallen in Burlington, Vermont, according to TV and radio host Lincoln Hayes' measuring system.

He stuck a ruler in the ground. And the snow wasn't letting up, he told CNN.

"My restaurant closed tonight for the first time in years and will probably be closed for lunch tomorrow. My wife's office closed at noon and is closed tomorrow, and I've been out a couple times to stay on top of shoveling," he wrote on social media. "We're staying in and making pizza for #PiDay."

NY, Philly: Sleet thwarts heavier snowfall

In New York and Philadelphia, blizzard warnings were canceled as more sleet or freezing rain fell than expected. The precipitation and wind still had its effects on travel: The New York area's three major airports saw most of their flights canceled.

Train service was hard hit: Amtrak suspended service between New York and Boston and between New York and Albany, New York.

But there were slow signs of recovery. Amtrak said that it planned to operate on a modified schedule on Wednesday. And New York's Metro-North commuter train service, which was suspended after noon, and above-ground subway service were restored Tuesday evening, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

A Minneapolis-bound flight took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport as regional flights resumed.

And early Tuesday afternoon, Philadelphia lifted its snow emergency declaration, which meant parking would be allowed on snow emergency routes.

Cuomo lifted a travel ban and tractor trailer ban on Interstate 84, but tractor trailers were still forbidden on other highways, including Interstate 87 from Albany to the Canadian border. The travel ban in Broome County, in upstate New York, remained in effect.

In Pennsylvania, the snow couldn't stop the determined.

Pennsylvania State Police teamed up with the Pennsylvania National Guard and other officials to escort a 23-month-old child from Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono in East Stroudsburg to Geisinger Janet Weis Children's Hospital in Danville for an emergency procedure, police said.

Gov. Tom Wolf said state transportation employees led the way with a plow train, CNN affiliate WPVI reported.

Flight cancellations and travel warnings

Airlines canceled more than 7,000 US flights scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Flightaware.com. Those were on top of about 1,658 flights canceled Monday.

Warnings to use caution came from public officials up and down the East Coast -- including President Donald Trump.

"Everyone along the east coast be safe and listen to local officials as a major winter storm approaches," Trump tweeted.

Federal agencies in the Washington area opened three hours late Tuesday; employees had the option of taking unscheduled leave or teleworking, according to the US Office of Personnel Management.

This storm system already hit the Midwest, claiming two lives in Wisconsin. The victims -- both men -- died in separate weather-related activities, the Milwaukee County medical examiner reported.

A 76-year-old man was operating a snow blower before he died; the second man, 64, was shoveling snow, investigator Jenni Penn said. Both were cardiac-related deaths, Penn said.

In Gilford, New Hampshire, a 16-year-old girl was killed in a weather-related accident, police Chief Anthony Bean Burpee told CNN. The victim is the daughter of a Gilford police dispatcher, according to authorities.

Bean Burpee said the town is experiencing white-out conditions.

A snow-plow driver was killed in a collision with an Amtrak snow plowing train in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

The victim was struck as the plow crossed the tracks, Longmeadow Fire Chief Andrew Fraser said. The train was working to clear the tracks after roughly 12 to 15 inches of snow fell.

Fraser says he does not believe there was a signal at the crossing and visibility was an issue.

CNN's Dave Hennen, Michael Guy, Ellie Kaufman, Mayra Cuevas, Janet DiGiacomo, Dave Alsup, Jay Croft , Azadeh Ansari, Rob Frehse and Samira Said contributed to this report.
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Iran has established rocket factories in Lebanon that are under the full control of the Hezbollah terror group, a top Iranian general told a Kuwaiti newspaper.









Citing one of the deputy heads of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the al-Jarida newspaper reported Monday that Iran in recent months has established factories for manufacturing both rockets and firearms in Lebanon.





The newspaper did not say which of IRGC chief Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafaris deputies made the assertion. The report came just days after Irans Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, a former brigadier general in the IRGC, said Hezbollah is now capable of producing rockets that can hit any part of Israel. Dehghan offered no details of the new capabilities.

The new factories, said to be located underground, have reportedly been in operation for the past three months.













The manufacturing sites are located some 50 meters (160 feet) underground, according to the report, and are protected by multiple layers of defenses from potential Israeli aerial bombardment. No facility produces rockets in their entirety; rather, each site produces separate parts that are then collected and assembled into complete rockets.

The Iranian general was quoted by al-Jarida as saying that the decision to produce rockets indigenously in Lebanon came after Israel bombed weapons factories in Sudan and supply routes for Iranian rockets via Syria. The new factories would mark a dramatic upgrade in Hezbollahs ability to acquire more, and more precise, rockets than ever before.

































The main thrust of the campaign against the Islamic State in Syria ordered by the Trump administration is still ahead, but ISIS forces did not wait in their Raqqa stronghold for the axe to fall. They moved southeast into the Deir ez-Zour region, where they are beating back Hizballahs elite Radwan Battalion, which has just been deployed there.





But meanwhile a new-old menace has raised its head: Al Qaeda and its Syrian affiliates which are seizing upon the mounting upheaval in the Syria for a fresh wave of terror. Saturday, March 11, two bomb explosions killed 74 pilgrims, most of them Iraqi Shiites, on a visit to an ancient cemetery in the Old City of Damascus. The second explosion was delayed so as to hit full on the Syrian police and rescuers rushing to the scene.





The same Al Qaeda branch planned and perpetrated the large-scale terrorist attack on Syrian government military facilities in the town of Homs on Feb. 25. Two generals were among the scores of dead troops.





This is what happened in the wake of the Russian-led Syrian victory in Aleppo... After the breakup of defeated Syrian rebel groups, who were forced to leave the northern town and head for neighboring Idlib, hundreds of rebels remained and refused to lay down arms. Instead, they joined Al Qaeda and have made the Islamist terrorist group the most powerful independent rebel force still fighting in northern Syria as well as in the surrounding areas of the main towns, including Damascus, Homs and Hama.





On Jan. 26, Al Qaeda announced its merger with four smaller factions under another new brand name, Ahrar al-Sham. The new outfit attracted many new recruits who had never before been attached to Al Qaeda.





Hashim al-Sheikh aka Abu Jabir, who fought the Americans in the Iraq war under Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, was named leader of the new Islamist terror alliance. Reputed to be a skilled war tactician who never gives up, his appointment attracted another wave of Syrian rebel fighters.

































Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus exclaiming from Ankara that "Europe's politicians are under fascist, neo-nazi influence" and in response, Turkey will suspend all high-level diplomatic meetings and cancel all flight permissions for Dutch politicians. As part of its furious response, Turkey said it would impose various travel sanctions on Dutch diplomats such as halting all high-level political discussions with the Netherlands in the wake of the Dutch government's decision to bar two cabinet ministers from campaigning in the country. Kurtulmus said during a news conference following a weekly cabinet meeting that Ankara also is closing its air space to Dutch diplomats until the Netherlands meets Turkish requests, according to the AP. Kurtulmus also says the Dutch ambassador to Turkey, who was traveling when the diplomatic row started, won't be allowed to return, and said that Turkey's government plans to advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group. It was unclear what the sudden Turkish escalation means for economic ties between the two nations: as a reminder, Dutch direct investment in Turkey amounts to $22 billion, making the Netherlands the biggest source of foreign investment with a share of 16%. Furthermore, Turkish exports to the Netherlands totalled $3.6 billion in 2016, making it the tenth largest market for Turkish goods, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute. Turkey imported $3 billion worth of Dutch goods in 2016. Should the diplomatic spat lead to a collapse in trade relations, a Turkey recession is all but assured. However the most troubling development, and one which has the potential to sway the outcome of the Dutch election which will be held in less than two days, is that in the final power play aimed towards Merkel, Kurtulmus exclaimed that since "Europe has not kept its promises on the migrant deal, for us that agreement has ended." Which means that one year after it collected $3 billion for the migrant deal, Turkey has just voided the agreement, and the next step would be that Turkey is about to flood Europe with refugees currently held inside Turkish borders. And since by some estimates Turkey currently harbors over 2 million potential migrants, Europe's refugee situation is about to get far worse, and as a corollary, support for anti-immigrant political organizations across the continent is about to take another step function higher.





































On Tuesday, March 7 th , Russias top parliamentarian dealing with the Ukrainian refugee influx into Russia  dealing, that is, with the people who have fled Ukraine as a result of U.S. President Barack Obamas 2014 coup overthrowing Ukraines democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych  presented the first-ever comprehensive number of asylum-applicants from Ukraine who have received asylum there after that February 2014 coup . The Russian government had never before publicly provided a number, but does have an established system of processing refugees, including assignment of official refugee status, which  allows the recipient various social benefits, including unemployment compensation  and so each Ukrainian refugee has a file with the government.





Russia has received more than 2,500,000 refugees since the outbreak of the conflict in eastern Ukriane, Yuri Vorobyov, Deputy Speaker of Russias Federation Council (upper house of parliament) and Chairman of the Committee for Public Support to Residents of Southeastern Ukraine, said on Tuesday. Europe has received 900,000 [refugees] and shuddered, while we have received over 2,500,000 refugees on our territory and continue to provide assistance, he said opening the round table discussion Russia-Donbass: New Cooperation Mechanisms.





That coup, which generated these millions of refugees, had been planned by the U.S. White House since 2011 , and culminated on 20 February 2014. Also on that day, hundreds of Crimeans who had been standing in Kiev with signs opposing the overthrow of the President for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted, were attacked by supporters of the coup (which was fronted by, and was propagandized as being, the Maidan revolution demanding democracy in Ukraine, though it actually ended democracy there ). These Crimeans immediately scrambled back into the eight buses that had taken them to Kiev and headed back homeward, but the U.S.-government-backed Right Sector paramilitaries went in hot pursuit of the buses, and burnt some of them and massacred many of the demonstrators, outside of Kiev, in the town of Korsun. This became called the Korsun Massacre , and Crimeans in Crimea immediately started demonstrating in Crimea, for Crimea to become, once again, as it had been until 1954, part of Russia.









Crimeans overwhelmingly favored Russia over the United States , and were terrified by the racist anti-Russian government that now ruled in Kiev. This fear wasnt only because of the massacre, nor only because 75% of Crimeans had voted for the man whom Obama had overthrown, but also because Crimeans generally (and most Ukrainians who had voted for Yanukovych) knew well the intense racist hatred against pro-Russian Ukrainians by the Right Sector people, who had actually carried out the coup . A plebiscite was held in Crimea on 16 March 2014, and the vote to rejoin Russia was over 90%. U.S. President Obama then imposed economic sanctions against Russia for accepting Crimea back into Russia. These sanctions, and U.S. military aid to the new junta-government in Kiev, publicly renewed The Wests Cold War against Russia (which had actually continued secretly against Russia ever since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 ; the Cold War had ended only on the Russian side).












































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Mark A. Lemley of Stanford has written The Benefit of the Bargain. Here's the abstract:

Contract law has lost its way. Designed as a way to allow people to agree, it has over time become a means for large businesses to unilaterally impose terms and conditions on others. In large part that is a function of a fundamental change in how we contract. For most of history, for most deals, and even for most written contracts, the rules of the game were not set by the document itself but by the background customs and norms, the expectations of the parties, or the default rules of contract law.



Over time, and for a variety of reasons, contracts have become more fully specified in written documents. Those long, lawyerly documents are increasingly produced not by negotiation between lawyers, but in standard forms written by lawyers for one side that are not subject to change and must be agreed to on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. And even that agreement is increasingly itself a fiction, manifested not by signing a piece of paper or even clicking a button but by taking ordinary acts like visiting a website or even continuing to use a product you bought years ago.



The result is that society has lost the benefit of the bargain contract law once promised. Informal deals backed by understood legal rules and norms have been replaced by long legal documents written by one side and not subject to negotiation or revision. Not surprisingly, those terms reflect the interests of the parties who wrote them. And the reach of those documents has broadened dramatically, to the point where the average citizen might enter into a dozen or more contracts in a day, binding themselves to hundreds of pages of legalese, often without having any idea they are doing any such thing.



Ironically, courts are more willing than ever to defer to the words of those documents even as the documents are less and less likely to reflect any agreement between the parties. That deference is not justified by the realities of modern contract law. We have a set of default rules for contracts in the Uniform Commercial Code and the common law of contracts. Parties can and should be able to agree to change some (though not all) of those rules. But doing so should require a mutual intention to do so. And in the modern world most contracts dont involve any actual agreement.



I propose a presumption that standard form contracts are subject to and cannot vary the default rules of contract law. The parties can vary those rules only by express agreement and only when the parties make an informed choice to do so. Except in a negotiated contract setting between sophisticated parties, that informed choice should require the party offering the form contract to offer a choice between their proposed terms and the basic default rules of contract law. Want your customers to agree to terms that vary from the norm? Youll have to offer them other terms that they like well enough to pick your contract over the default. Requiring that choice will reduce the reflexive use of form contracts and the use of one-sided terms in those contracts. I call this proposed requirement actual choice.
The audio captures Ryan at one of the most challenging times for the Republican Party during the 2016 presidential campaign  three days after leaked footage from 2005 showed then-candidate Trump boasting of displaying sexually aggressive behavior toward women.

In the October recording of Ryan posted by Breitbart on Monday, the House speaker is heard saying, "I am not going to defend Donald Trump  not now, not in the future."

Business Insider covered Ryan's remarks at the time, but this is the first time audio of the House speaker's words were made public. It is unclear why the audio was posted Monday, at a time when the House speaker and President Trump are busy touting the Republican Party's proposed replacement for Obamacare. The GOP's law known as the American Health Care Act is up against some hefty opposition among Republicans and Democrats.

Listen to the audio of Ryans remarks:

Breitbart said it was unclear exactly how many House Republicans participated in the October call with Ryan, who made the recording, or whether those who were involved knew it was being recorded.

Ryan at the time appeared resigned to the possibility that Hillary Clinton might win the election as the fallout from the Access Hollywood tape spread far and wide. At one point, Ryan said he would spend his "entire energy" making sure a potential President Hillary Clinton would not get a "blank check" with congressional majorities.
Alexander's line of questioning homed in on President Donald Trump's credibility, after Spicer relayed a quote from Trump about the positive February jobs report at Friday's press briefing. Trump had told Spicer that the reports "may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now."

Trump said on the campaign trail and after his election that jobs reports were "phony" and "totally fiction."

"You spoke on behalf of the president, quoting him on the jobs report on Friday," Alexander said. "You said, 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now.'"

"They are very real now," Spicer cut in.

"The question is: When should Americans trust the president?" Alexander said. "Is it phony or real when he says that President Obama was wiretapping?"

Trump set the political world ablaze when he tweeted earlier this month, without evidence, that Obama had illegally ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower phones during the election. Neither Trump nor the White House has provided evidence to back up his claims.

"He doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally," Spicer said.

"He suggested that," Alexander shot back.

"But I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election," Spicer said. "That is a widely reported activity that occurred back then. The president used the word 'wiretap' in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities."

Spicer claimed that "many news outlets" reported this during the election and that the same outlets were now asking for proof from Trump. However, no outlets had reported that Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump's or his campaign aides' phones.

Alexander moved on to the Congressional Budget Office's score for the American Health Care Act  the House Republicans' plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. The NBC reporter asked if Trump viewed past CBO reports as real but now thought they were phony as they related to the healthcare plan he hopes to pass through Congress.

Spicer said the CBO projection for the ACA was wildly off in terms of how many additional people it said would be insured under the landmark healthcare law.

"So the only point, Peter, is to make sure that people understand if you're looking to get a bull's-eye, accurate prediction as to where it's going, the CBO was off by more than half last time," he said. "This is not about what my understanding or my belief of the CBO is. The last time they did this, they were wildly off, and the number keeps declining."

"I guess the question is: When can we trust the president when he says something is phony and when he says it's real?" Alexander responded, and the exchange started to become somewhat testy.

"Hold on, hold on. You asked a question about the CBO, and now you're conflating it with a question about the president?" Spicer said.

"When he says something, can we trust that it's real?" Alexander asked.

"Yes!" Spicer cut in.

"or should we assume that it's phony?" Alexander said over Spicer. "Well ... "

"But you just said it's real?" Spicer said.

"How can we believe that it's real when you told us it was phony then but now it's real?" Alexander said. "The president said the numbers were phony then but they are very real now. So how can we trust anything he says that he won't later say, 'Actually, it was the opposite'?"

Spicer said the statement about the jobs report centered on the unemployment rate, which fluctuates based on which calculation is used to determine it. Going back to the CBO report, Spicer said, "That's not a question of our credibility; it's a question of theirs."

Alexander then tried to ask his question in the shortest form he could.

"Can you say affirmatively that whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real?" he said.

"If he's not joking, of course!" Spicer shot back, to which Alexander asked, "How do we know he's joking?"

Spicer's response: When Trump "speaks authoritatively," he's speaking "as the president of the United States."

The exchange wrapped up with Alexander asking whether Trump believes that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, as Trump has claimed, or if he was just joking.

"He does believe it!" Spicer said.

Watch the clip:
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He's led tactical law enforcement teams. He's flown around the world many times as a federal air marshal. He's worked as a bodyguard for Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor. He's even argued a case before the Supreme Court.

Then, in 2011, he took the helm at CUI Global, when the publicly traded power and energy company was struggling.

Clough told Business Insider that his range of past experiences have influenced how he operates in his latest role.

"I deal with people a little differently than most purely business people do, because I've worked with people under very different, very trying circumstances, and sometimes in life-or-death situations," he told Business Insider.

Here are six lessons Clough learned across his varied career:

Stay flexible

As a child, Clough hoped to become an airline pilot like his father. He learned to fly young, earning his pilot's license before his driver's license.

"I focused my career on becoming a pilot," Clough said. "Went into the Coast Guard and spent time in the Coast Guard Reserve. I came out and was fully prepared to become a pilot."

However, his timing was off.

"At the same time, hundreds of other guys were coming out of Vietnam with thousands of hours of jet time, who also wanted to be pilots," he said. "And I didn't have that jet time."

Piloting was out of the question in such a competitive market, but Clough quickly came up with a backup option. During his time in the Coast Guard, he'd developed an affinity for law enforcement. Instead of clinging to his original plan, he tested at a number of different police departments and ended up getting hired by one in Northern California.

Hone your leadership skills

During his career in law enforcement, Clough worked on robbery, homicide, K9 squads, narcotics, and even joined one of the first SWAT teams in the country.

He said that working with "very elite, small units that were quite motivated and good at what they did" honed his leadership abilities.

"They're very structured, they're very enthusiastic, they're very driven to do well, and when you focus that in a way that's positive for everyone you can really make a difference," he said. "When you're in a tactical situation, I can't be worried you doing what you need to do. If I need to worry about you, I don't need you. I don't want you here because you will get both of us injured or killed."

He said that the same wisdom also applies to business.

"If I can't trust you to do what I need you to do, then I don't need you," he said. "Because then, what am I doing? What I'm doing is trying to do my own job and trying to do your job as well. And I can't do that."

Get your priorities straight

On June 14, 1985, terrorists from Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad Organization hijacked TWA Flight 847. The incident helped spur US President Ronald Reagan to resurrect the largely defunct Federal Air Marshal Service.

Clough applied for the job, due to his tactical background. He was able to fly around the world, but the role came with a downside  the enormous amount of time spent away from his wife and young children.

"My wife said, 'Frankly, I didn't buy into this. You're traveling for six months, I don't know where you are, it's dangerous,'" he said. "And the long and the short of it was, I made a decision at that point to focus back on the family and change careers."

At that point, Clough decided that he wanted to pursue a legal career, and ended up enrolling in UC Hastings College of the Law.

Remain down-to-earth

To support himself and his family before he graduated from law school in 1990, Clough took on a rather unusual side gig: working as a bodyguard for actress Elizabeth Taylor.

He said he was struck by how polite and genuine she was. Clough recalled a time when assistants had hung several pictures of the actress around her dressing room. He saw that one featured in her role as Cleopatra, sitting in what looked like an ancient Egyptian-style chair.

"She literally walks up behind me and goes, ''It's a good picture, right? Interesting story. That was in the Egyptian wing of the National Museum, and they told us when we were touring that we could not touch any of the displays. I asked if I could get a picture on the chair and they said absolutely not, that's an old Egyptian artifact.' So she said, 'The whole party was turning away, so I grabbed the cameraman, ran over, sat on the chair and took the picture. And it ended up being one of the promo pictures for the film.'"

Another time, Clough was pushing Taylor in a wheelchair backstage at a fashion show.

"We were kind of rushing her through this backstage area in a wheelchair and I hear one of the fitters, one of the people putting clothes on the models, say, 'Oh my, isn't she beautiful?'" he said. "She stops us, she gets out of the wheelchair, she walks around the back to this fitter and says 'Thank you.' She thanks her. I was like, are you kidding me? This is the queen of Hollywood and she actually took the time. It was amazing. She was really a very sweet person."

Do your research

Clough said the highlight of his law career came about in 2005, when he helped argue the case Stewart v. Dutra Construction Company before the US Supreme Court. A dredge operator had been injured while dredging Boston Harbor, and it was unclear whether or not he was a Jones Act seaman  meaning that he would be granted certain protections afforded to maritime workers. Clough worked as second chair to a more senior attorney who argued that a dredge could be classified as a Jones Act vessel.

At one point during the proceedings, Clough said that Justice Antonin Scalia spoke up.

"He goes to my compatriot, 'Are you telling me that just because he's a crane operator on a dredge that he's a Jones Act seaman? Wouldn't that be like saying a croupier on a gambling boat is a Jones Act seaman just because he's a croupier?'"

While the lead attorney seemed stumped, Clough knew that Scalia had previously ruled that a croupier on a Mississippi River gambling boat was a Jones Act seaman.

"I stood up and said, 'Excuse me, Your Honor, could I add something? I believe Your Honor is quoting exactly the case that you decided.'"

The case ended up in an eight to none decision (Chief Justice William Rehnquist was out sick that day), with the court holding that a dredge was indeed a Jones Act vessel.

Clough said that having a legal background has been a boon to his current role in business.

"The more you law about the law, the better off you are," he said.

Pursue what you love

Becoming CEO of CUI Global was somewhat of a fluke for Clough. He had previously joined the company's board in 2006.

"I had a big investment in a company," Clough said. "I was getting ready to retire. I had made the investment with a friend. Then he came to me and said 'That investment we made together? We're going to lose that money.' But that wasn't part of my plan, losing that money."

Clough initially came in as general counsel for the struggling company, and then took over as CEO in 2011. He said that he enjoys his current role and that he's been able to implement some of the lessons on leadership he previously learned from his past jobs.
Panoramic Interests, a San Francisco real-estate developer, wants to help end the street-living epidemic by converting shipping-container-like modules into new micro-apartments where homeless people can live.

The developer envisions a 100-unit residence that looks like a traditional apartment building, inside and out. It's made up of 160-square-foot, move-in-ready containers called MicroPads that are stacked on top of one another.

In February, the Berkeley City Council passed an initiative to install 100 micro-units on city-owned land that would serve as housing for seniors, people with disabilities, and Berkeley natives who have lost their homes. The city has yet to select a developer or design, but Panoramic Interests wants in.

Business Insider toured a prototype MicroPad in 2016. The module was small, but it contained all the necessities.

The kitchen includes a food-prep area, fridge, stovetop, and microwave oven. A storage bed and an armoire provide plenty of space for stashing belongings during the day, while the desk has shelves for personal goods.

The Bay Area is home to dozens of shelters, but most of them lack private bathrooms.

Patrick Kennedy, the owner of Panoramic Interests, told Business Insider that the close quarters in the average homeless shelter create tension among residents. The micro-apartments, in contrast, may prevent conflict by offering a modicum of privacy, including private bathrooms.

Kennedy says the apartments aren't actual shipping containers, though they arrive in the Port of Oakland atop a container ship. The MicroPads are taller, include steel reinforcements around the openings, and have a sealing that prevents pests and water from getting in.

Berkeley City Council member Ben Bartlett, who submitted the Step Up Housing Initiative, tells Business Insider he sees micro-unit development as a potential billion-dollar business.

There are an estimated 118,142 people experiencing homelessness in California, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and many more low-income residents in need of affordable housing

He hopes to see more developers like Panoramic Interests step in front of the housing crisis with innovative solutions like the MicroPAD.
The conference argues that the O and A level education are better than the Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) system Ghana currently has.

In a communique issued on Monday, March 13, 2017, it said we call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because international universities require our SHS graduates to do a foundational course for a whole year before admitting them to the university proper. Years ago, graduates from secondary schools in Ghana did not have to do such foundational courses because they already had a good foundation.

We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because we have reason to doubt the current ability of the WAEC to conduct credible examinations. It is common knowledge that the examinations are flawed with serious leakages, such that many students today do not know how to study unless they have seen leaked papers.

Security in Ghana

The Charismatic Bishops Conference also suggested that the army is used together with the Ghana Police Service to ensure the safety of the citizens in the country.

There is no region of Ghana that is safe from armed robbery. Students in universities cannot walk freely on campuses. Student hostels are routinely attacked on campuses. What is the use of an army if people do not feel safe in their own country? Why are we maintaining such an institution with tax payers money if it is not benefiting the nation? Let us be practical! It is not just the duty of the police. It is the duty of all Ghanaians including the Army, the Air Force and the Navy to ensure that Ghana is a safe place again.

As other nations become unstable, all sorts of people will migrate to Ghana to find stability so we can never tell who is coming next. Be real! Be practical! If the government really cares about Ghana, it should deploy the Forces to make Ghana a safe place again, the communique said.
But if you ever wondered what could trigger a suicide attempt, Prince opens up on his experiences as a six-time suicide survivor. In an exclusive chat with Pulse.com.ghs current affairs programme Pulse Blitz, Prince talks about how depression, and a will not to let his parents down, nearly led him into committing suicide.

This is a man who attempted suicide SIX times, but he explains that a series of crises he faced in his early life led him into attempting his first. In fact, his inability to gain his first choice course at the university sparked the whole thought.

Its quite a lot [before you attempt suicide]. It wasnt like something that happened just once. It happened like six times. The first one happened after I completed Senior High School (SHS). I applied for engineering but I didnt get it. I was given a different course,Prince recalls.

I actually got admission into the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and anytime I passed by the faculty of engineering, I felt like I had failed in life. And I always wondered about how my friends would feel about me doing a different course, because they all knew that I actually wanted to do engineering.

I was given physics, but I never planned of doing that. And it really got to me. For a while I felt really, really down. And around that time I was also facing financial issues, and everything was just crumbling down on me.

Normally when people commit suicide, the overall assumption is that they suffered from depression, and could not get anyone to talk to. Prince admits that his own case was no different. According to him, anytime he tried to open up to people, they either turned him down or downplayed the seriousness of his psychological trauma.

You know I tried speaking to someone, but the person was like oh its just one of those moments, you will be fine. I felt like the person didnt really understand me, because I spoke a lot to the person. I opened up and told the person about the things I was going through.

READ ALSO: Ghanaians sign online petition to get maternity leave increased

Having found no one to really understand what he was going through, Prince finally attempted to end it all. He recalls how a voice kept pushing him to do it, revealing that the idea of committing suicide actually sounded good to him.

One day I just woke up  for the first time in my life  I felt like [ending it all]. At first I heard a voice like take your life, its the best way. And you know, it sounded good to me, so I went on and actually tried it, he narrates.

He adds that his cheerful demeanor meant that even his close friends did not know he was contemplating the idea of committing suicide. As a student of KNUST at the time, Prince lived together with four friends at the hostel.

However, his resolve to keeping issues to himself meant that his friends knew nothing about his plight and could not help him overcome his emotional battles.

I had roommates. I was with four of them in a room but they didnt know what was going on. If you are close to me, you would know that Im someone who is cheerful all the time. I dont really show out what Im going through or feeling. I am very good at keeping stuffs to myself.

It was when I took overdose of a drug I was on, I felt it was time to end it  I was tired [of living]. I felt like everything was not worth it.

So in the night I started screaming that I wasnt feeling good, [and] the next morning I couldnt move. So I was taken to the hospital. But all along, everyone thought it was some food poisoning, but no one knew exactly what was going on [that I had intentionally taken an overdose of drugs to kill myself]. That was my first attempt [at suicide], but I came out of it ok.

READ ALSO: SHS final year student dies in swimming pool

The first attempt eventually failed and Afful knew he needed help to make sure the thought of ending his own life never came to mind gain. According to him, the episode made him realize there was something called depression, and I started to read more about it.

But that was not it. His fragile emotional state meant that another challenge took him back to square one. Eventually when things got tough for him in subsequent years, the thought of committing suicide was again staring at Prince.

As a young man with so much hope, his continuous dwindling fortunes in academics really got to him. Worst off, he had relationship issues with his girlfriend. And with his grades falling due to severe depression, Afful decided to give up school.

More worrying is the fact that he began to lose self-believe; he saw himself as a failure in life and thought the only way to save his face was to take his own life.

A second attempt at suicide was soon on the cards.

Two years after [I escaped my first suicide], when I got to my final year everything started crumpling Down again. I had relationship issues, and you know I had problems with my legs. Within a month I had three different occasions with people mocking me. And around that time too, things were not going well back at home. And it started affecting my school work. At a point I actually gave up school, Afful articulates.

Then everything started coming back all over again. I felt I was useless. A voice in my head kept telling me that it was not worth it, [take your life].

At the second attempt, I was about to try it [suicide] then I got a message from someone to stop it. I actually went in for poison, because I made it a point that I was not going to fail like I did the first time. I looked at the poison and I cried actually.

My grades were falling from first class, to second class upper, then even to second class lower. So again I felt like I was a failure to my parents. I felt like they were trying for me [by paying my fees] and I wasnt repaying them.

READ ALSO: GRA poised to meet 2017 revenue target

Thankfully his second suicide attempt also ended in futility, after a friend talked him out of it through a text message. Prince remembers very well how that singular act by his friend got him thinking twice, and he eventually felt the need to live.

I was like, Im trying my best but its not working so I just decided to end it all. But when I was just about to do it, I got a message from my friend asking me if everything was ok.

So in the conversation, I poured out everything. She advised me to lift my head up and read more about my situation. So that [talk] led me to throw away the idea of committing suicide.

Counselors and psychologists usually advice that when one feels depressed, it is best to speak to someone. Prince admits that although he had good friends around him, he always felt he would be considered a burden if he approached them with his problems.

Its not like I dont have friends. I do have friends who really care, but you know sometimes you just feel like you talk about it all the time [and you think it might be a bother to them].

I felt like [they will feel] I always complain, because I was always down so it was like I was not feeling good every time. I felt like they were tired of me [bombarding them with my problems]. So I started keeping things to myself.

As a young man who has attempted suicide six times, Prince has first hand experience about the trauma it takes for one to conceive that thought. He advises that such people must be treated with attention and care. He feels there has been less talk in the media about the effects of suicide.

He adds that the penchant of Ghanaians to joke with everything means people suffering from depression find it very difficult to open up, for fear of being mocked.

Most people dont know about this. When you tell them about your problem, they are like are you the only one facing problems in life? Some will say they have even been in worst situations. And it is very insensitive so I decide to keep most of the things to myself.

I feel people are not talking about it [suicide]. But I feel like when people talk about it too, the ones supposed to help you end up joking with it. We cant really blame it on depression, but suicide is not something we have to joke with.

It Seems people are more interested in taking pictures when these things happen, rather than helping victims. One morning I opened my Twitter, and I only saw pictures of people hanging; its not pleasant.

Prince is currently a spoken word artist, having overcome his emotional traumas. He still habours an ambition of going back to school to complete his tertiary education.
Following his sentencing, the Judge, Alhaji Umar Kagarko, warned Abubakar to desist from committing such crimes.

Pleading guilty to the allegation leveled against him, Abubakar, urged the court to temper justice with mercy as hunger had driven him to steal the sandals.

A resident of Area 1, Garki, Abuja, Abubakar was convicted on a two-count charge of criminal trespass and theft.

The prosecutor, Ogubwe Fidelis, told the court that Abubakar trespassed into the house of one Mohammed Dauda on March 11, 2017, and stole a pair of sandals, valued at N2,500.

ALSO READ: Man who stole 2 bags of cement gets 7 strokes of the cane

The court heard that the sandals were recovered from the convict during the course of the police investigations.
One of the robbers was reportedly killed in the ensuing shoot out between the robbers and the soldiers, Punch reports.

ALSO READ: 2 armed robbers shot dead while robbing a Police Inspector

According to the reports, the soldiers who had been manning a checkpoint in the Igbara Oke area with the help of a vigilante group foiled an ongoing robbery operation along the expressway at about 1:45 am on Tuesday.

Punch reports that the robbers stopped some vehicles on the highway, and proceeded to rob travelers before the security operatives arrived and engaged them in a shootout.

One of the robbers was reportedly killed while the remaining five managed to escape into nearby bushes.

When reached, the Assistant Director of Public Relations of the Artillery Brigade, Captain Ojo Adelegan, while confirming the incident, urged the residents of the area to help the police with any relevant information that could aid in the arrest of the robbers.

He said, The general public is hereby enjoined to please give useful information on any suspected criminals and their hideouts to the security agency in Ondo State.

The Nigerian Army and other security agencies in the state would continue to ensure the security of lives and properties of the people of this state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ogunshola was sentenced following his guilty plea to a 20-count charge bordering on stealing brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Justice Josephine Oyefeso, while sentencing Ogunshola, took note of the close relationship he shared with the complainants, Mr and Mrs Meshach and Jennifer Oikeh.

Oyefeso, who noted that the accused had showed remorse, said: I hereby convict you Olayinka Ogunshola on each of the 20 counts brought against you.

I have considered very carefully the allocutus (plea for mercy) of the defence counsel, the fact that he is friend of the complainants, they are neighbours, and their children attend the same school.

I have considered the fact that he is a married man and a father of five female children as well as the fact that he had showed remorse.

By entering into a plea of guilty, he had saved precious judicial time.

It is clear that the defendant is remorseful and has refunded the money; however, this court will have to send a signal that this sort of crime will not be tolerated.

You, Olayinka Ogunshola is sentenced to one year imprisonment on each of the 20 counts which is to run concurrently.

The EFCC had alleged that the stockbroker defrauded Oikehs of N2.1 million in shares of various organisations including Zenith Bank, Forte Oil, First Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank and Oando Oil between 2006 and 2010.

Prior to his admission of guilt in court, Ogunshola had confessed to his guilt at the EFCC office and had proceeded to refund the N2.1 million to the couple as repayment for the stolen funds.

Ogunsholas counsel, Mr Akin Duyilemi, during proceedings noted this fact.

The total amount in shares that was allegedly stolen by the defendant is N2,076,758.21k and the amount repaid by the defendant is N2.1 million which is in excess of the amount in question, Duyilemi said.

According to the EFCC prosecutor, Mr S.T. Ola, the complainants wrote a petition to the anti-graft agency sometime in March 2016 over the alleged fraud.

The complainants  Mr and Mrs Meshach Oikeh  in their petition alleged that the defendant, who they entrusted their stocks with took over same and converted the proceeds to his personal use without authority from them.

Upon receipt of the petition, investigations commenced and letters were written to different organisations particularly Central Securities Clearing Systems (CSCS) the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

We received responses from those organisations, and we invited the defendant, who was confronted with the petition against him.

He volunteered a statement under caution and confessed to the crime, promising to refund the money.

After the charge was filed against the defendant, a bank draft from the Guaranty Trust Bank, of N2.1 million was raised and handed to the EFCC for onward transmission to the victims of the crime, he said.

Ola presented Ogunsholas statement, the petition of the complainants, letters written by the anti-graft agency to financial organisations, statement of CSCS staff and the statement of Mr Bolaji Onileowo as exhibits.

In his plea for mercy on behalf of Ogunshola, Duyilemi said the convict admitted guilt and had gone through the process of restitution.

The only sin the Almighty God will find difficult to forgive a sinner is a sin that is not confessed.

We have a defendant who fully cooperated and admitted his guilt to the EFCC, and had refunded the money in question, he said.

Explaining the relationship between the defendant and the complainants, Duyilemi said:The defendant was appointed broker and financial advisor to the complainants, it was an informal arrangement based on their relationship.

They are neighbours, they built their houses at the Low Cost Housing Estate, Ikorodu, Lagos, they attend the same church and their children attend the same school.

My Lord, the defendant served the complainants over time to the extent that he buys shares with his money which they usually refund over time.

The defendant had crisis in his job in the aftermath of the crisis in the stock market; this is not justification for what happened, but this is what led to it.

He is married with a wife and five female children, he has shown penitence.

He is a first time offender, and his conduct can be compared to the robber at the right hand of Jesus Christ.

It is on this forgoing premise that I pray that this honourable court will ask this sinner to go and sin no more.
In a communique issued by the Conference, they questioned why the Ghana Armed Forces existed if it could not help curb robbery in the country.

The Ghana Armed Forces exist to protect and defend the citizens of Ghana from aggression, from invasion, from attacks and from enemies, said a communique from the Charismatic Bishops Conference, asking If our nation cannot deal with armed robbery, how would we deal with the very serious threat of terrorism if it were to come to Ghana?

READ ALSO: Government increases peacekeeping allowance for army

If armed robbery is not dealt with, the nation will be filled with armed individuals and increasingly become a more dangerous place to live in. it added.

The group is, therefore, calling on president Akufo-Addo, and other security stakeholders to release helicopters, army vehicles, superior military equipment and highly trained officers of the Ghana Armed Forces to be involved with wiping out armed robbery.

READ ALSO: Ghana deploys military to Gambia

The communique said after 60 years of independence, Ghana must return to the days when it was peaceful and recorded few crimes across the country.
According to him, some politicians who sought the services of the gods during the 2016 electioneering campaign have failed to honour their promises to the lesser gods.

READ MORE:

In an interview with Kasapa FM, he opined that as a result of the failure on the part of politicians to fulfil their promises to the gods, the series of suicide will continue to confront the country in the days to come.

Recently, two female students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Ghana (UG) committed suicide.

While the KNUST lady was a first year students who hanged herself with a rope in her room, the UG student, in her final year, jumped to her death from a storey building.

A man has allegedly committed suicide at Jericho near Ashaiman.

READ MORE: SHS final year student dies in swimming pool

The man believed in his 30s, was found hanging on a tree in the area Monday morning.

An eyewitness apostle Christopher Hood said the deceased is not known by residents of the area. A number of people besieged the scene of the incident to catch glimpse of the body.

A man in his 30s was reported to have committed suicide at Achimota in Accra while another 16-year-old Junior High School (JHS) student in the Eastern Region hanged herself.

READ MORE: Man found dead at Achimota

Also, a lady believed to be a resident of Ekye-Amanfrom at Afram Plains in the Eastern Region has allegedly committed suicide. Her body was found hanging from a reservoir near the Ekye Presbyterian Health Centre on Monday, March 13.

Meanwhile, he has led a delegation of traditionalists to the Supreme Court demanding government to build a National Shrine.

According to Kwaku Bonsam, the Ghana Association of Fetish Priests is a baby organisation that needs a headquarters for their meetings and other activities.
He said: "I proposed the Port Infrastructure Development Fund in 2001, but it did not receive any attention. Thank God, I am now the Director General and it will be implemented. If we had implemented in 2001, I believe we could have generated funding for this project and we will not need any money."

"All agreements, all contracts would be taken a second look. Where there is a need to review, it would be reviewed. And where there is a need to let it go, it would be let go. So we will look at the totality of the package of all the projects and see whether the conditions that are spelt out are entirely in our interest or not. If they are not what has to be done to secure the interest of our country better than it is, will be done," he added.
Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie will replace Mr. Samuel Afari Dartey as the CEO.

READ MORE: Nana Addo names deputy ministers

Sir John, was earlier speculated to be MD of the Ghana Ports and Harbours. However, that was not meant to be as Akufo-Addo chose Paul Asare Ansah.

READ ALSO: Nana Addo appoints Abu Ramadan as deputy NADMO boss

The Forestry Commission of Ghana is responsible for the regulation of utilization of forest and wildlife resources, the conservation and management of those resources and the coordination of policies related to them.

The Commission embodies the various public bodies and agencies that were individually implementing the functions of protection, management, the regulation of forest and wildlife resources. These agencies currently form the divisions of the Commission.
He said Ghanaians cannot blame President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the economic hardships in the country.

Reverend Isaac Owusu-Bempah said the spiritual angle should be looked at in finding the cause of the suicide cases.

In an interview on Kumasi-based Abusua FM, he said "Most of the time many forget that there could be spiritual causes to people committing suicide, we forget that the Bible records an instance where a man brought his son to Jesus to heal. The boy when he was under spiritual attack threw himself into fire and sometimes water wanting to kill himself.

"Suicide is caused by a spirit, when one is possessed to commit suicide the person is unable to control him or herself, and that is what happened to Judas when he betrayed Jesus. He ended up committing suicide, let us also look at the spiritual angle to this problem of needless deaths so we pray fervently to end it."

Suicides committed

Recently, two female students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Ghana (UG) committed suicide.

While the KNUST lady was a first year students who hanged herself with a rope in her room, the UG student, in her final year, jumped to her death from a storey building.

A man has allegedly committed suicide at Jericho near Ashaiman.

READ MORE: SHS final year student dies in swimming pool

The man believed in his 30s, was found hanging on a tree in the area Monday morning.

An eyewitness apostle Christopher Hood said the deceased is not known by residents of the area. A number of people besieged the scene of the incident to catch glimpse of the body.

A man in his 30s was reported to have committed suicide at Achimota in Accra while another 16-year-old Junior High School (JHS) student in the Eastern Region hanged herself.

READ MORE: Man found dead at Achimota
In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Sanders said the Trump administration was "on the brink of making a bad deal" that would give the French drugmaker Sanofi the exclusive license to patents for a Zika vaccine.

Sanofi has been working on a vaccine for Zika since February 2016 and has received $43 million in government funding to get the drug through development.

Sanders wants Sanofi to promise it won't charge super high prices for its vaccines.

"American consumers should not be forced to pay the highest price in the world for a vaccine we paid to help develop," Sanders wrote. He pointed to Xtandi, a cancer drug that he has criticized in the past, as an example of a drug that was developed in part with government funding that now has a high list price  $129,000.

"Under this insane system, Americans pay twice," he wrote.

The Zika virus, which is mainly transmitted by mosquitoes, has been spreading around the world since 2015. Only about 20% of people with the virus ever show symptoms, which most commonly include fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes. There is no approved vaccine available, even though the disease has been around since 1947.

Zika is most troubling because of its link to birth defects, including microcephaly  a condition in which a child is born with an abnormally small head  in infants whose mothers have had Zika. The virus has also been linked to a neurological condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Why developing a vaccine for Zika is difficult

Sanofi's vaccine is still a long way from getting approved in the US, and there's no guarantee the vaccine would work.

There's still a lot we don't know about Zika, how it spreads, and where it might be a problem by the time a vaccine is developed. For example, all the areas hit since 2015 may not need the vaccine, or the disease could change into another strain that the vaccine doesn't necessarily hit.

"We're assuming substantial financial and opportunity risks because there is no clear path to commercialization at this time, as the epidemiology of this infectious disease is still a moving target," a Sanofi spokeswoman said in a statement emailed to Business Insider.

Sanofi has developed vaccines for other infectious diseases in the past, most recently getting approval for a vaccine for dengue, another mosquito-borne infection that affects as many as 400 million people a year. It took Sanofi 20 years to get a dengue vaccine, and it cost Sanofi $1.7 billion. The vaccine isn't approved in the US, but in the Philippines, it costs roughly $23.

Whether a vaccine for Zika would be profitable remains to be seen. But Sanders has made his stance on the issue clear.
Republican senators have cast doubt on the AHCA  which would repeal and replace Obamacare  after the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report Monday that the law would cause as many as 24 million more Americans to lack health insurance by 2026.

"It's awful. It has to be a concern," said Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has introduced his own alternative to the AHCA. "President Trump said he wanted as many people covered as under Obamacare."

Republicans from stronghold states such as South Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas have expressed misgivings about the legislation after the CBO report, putting the future of the healthcare law in doubt.

We need to do better

"We need to do better," Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said in a statement following the CBO report.

And Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas launched into a lengthy rebuke of the AHCA on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt's show. He said that while the CBO director "isn't Moses" when it comes to estimating the number of people losing coverage, he believed the CBO was "directionally correct" about the coverage losses.

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine, meanwhile, also expressed concerns over the potential effects described in the report.

Little margin for error

The biggest problem for Republican leaders is that only a few defections from the party are enough to derail the AHCA's path to Trump's desk.

The party holds a 52-seat majority in the Senate, so losing only three votes would prevent the law from passing. Given the number of senators that have previously said they have objections with the bill and the lawmakers that expressed doubts after the CBO score, there is a real chance that the GOP could have many more defectors.

Plus, Senate procedural rules could stop the bill in its tracks. The Byrd Rule does not allow a bill going through budget reconciliations  as in the case of the AHCA  to include anything that does not impact the budget's bottom line. Analysts and lawmakers have said that various aspects of the AHCA could violate the provision and stop the bill in its tracks.
A US-led coalition of dozens of countries has aided Iraqi forces on the ground and in the air. In a February 26 strike  footage of which can be seen below, provided by the US Defense Department  coalition aircraft destroyed a roadblock set up by the terrorist group near Mosul.

In total, coalition forces carried out 10 strikes in Iraq on February 26, amounting to 80 engagements. Near Mosul, five strikes targeted fighting positions, weapons, vehicles, tactical units, ISIS-held buildings, two roadblocks, three vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and two VBIED factories.

On the ground, elite Iraqi units have advanced deep into western Mosul, while army units and pro-government paramilitaries  many of them Iranian-backed Shiite fighters, whose presence has added to concerns about potential sectarian tensions  have engaged ISIS west of the city.

Those units notched a victory on Saturday, when the 9th Armored Division cut the final road leading out of Mosul.

"Any of the fighters who are left in Mosul, they're going to die there, because they're trapped," Brett McGurk, US envoy to the international anti-ISIS coalition, told journalists in Baghdad.

On Sunday, Staff Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi of Iraq's elite Counter Terrorism Service said on Sunday that "more than a third" of western Mosul had been taken by government forces after a renewed push in the second week of March had pushed ISIS fighters from several neighborhoods and important sites in the city.

The push into the city has taken Iraqi forces into the close confines of the historic city, exchanging fire with ISIS militants from sometimes just a few meters distance. Iraqi troops are on guard not only for ISIS fighters lurking around them, but also for sleeper cells and civilians sympathetic to the terror group's cause.

"The fighting is at much closer quarters. It was street-by-street  now it's house-by-house," Iraqi commando Alaa Shaker, 32, a member of the Counter Terrorism Service, told Reuters. "We are often literally in the same house, on the roof, and Daesh (Islamic State) is downstairs. Sometimes we drop grenades. If there are civilians, families in the homes, we shout to them to take cover inside a room."

"The battle is not easy... we are fighting an irregular enemy who hides among the citizens and uses tactics of booby-trapping, explosions and suicide bombers, and the operation is taking place with precision to preserve the lives of the citizens," Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operations Command, told AFP.

But, he said, ISIS's resistance "has begun to weaken in a big way."

There were thought to be about 750,000 civilians still in western Mosul when the offensive against ISIS there started in late February.

Tens of thousands of them have fled, but many more remain there and are dying in the onslaught.

While ISIS has deliberately targeted civilians in their homes and as they flee, evidence suggests that loosened rules of engagements have led to a significant number of civilian deaths from coalition bombs and bullets.

"They dropped leaflets over the city telling us not to worry about the strikes, saying that they were extremely precise and would not hurt the civilians," Abdulsalam Ahmed, 47, whose brother and his family were killed by an airstrike in early March, told The Telegraph.
Whedon, who of late has directed blockbuster films like "The Avengers," decried the all-at-once release model for TV in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

I would not want to do it, Whedon said of a Netflix-style full-season release on one day. I would want people to come back every week and have the experience of watching something at the same time. We released Doctor Horrible in three acts. We did that, in part, because I grew up watching miniseries like Lonesome Dove. I loved event television. And as it was falling by the wayside, I thought, Let's do it on the internet! Over the course of that week, the conversation about the show changed and changed. That was exciting to watch.

Whedon gave the caveat that Netflix is making a ton of extraordinary stuff, and that if Netflix threw a bunch of money at him to make his dream project, he wouldnt reject it out of hand. But still, his preference is for a weekly release. And he worries that in the era of binge-watching, people don't take time to really breathe and understand what happened in a given episode.

If shows are made for binge-watching, there is a sense of narrative that is lost. It loses its power, and we lose something with it, he said of binge-watching. "We lose our understanding of narrative. Which is what we come to television for."

But Whedon will live, even in a totally binge-centric world.
On March 14, The Globe and Mail reported that Canadian marijuana cultivator Canopy Growth

Canopy Growth operates out of a once-abandoned Hershey chocolate factory in the small town of Smiths Falls, Ontario.

The company supplies the drug to nearly half of Canada's current medical marijuana patient base, about 40,000 people.

Bruce Linton, CEO of Canopy, founded the company because he thought a vertically integrated company  one that grows marijuana in addition to processing it for oils and other products and packaging it for shipment  would give him better control over quality.

Vertically integrated companies are also able to offer their products more cheaply, since they cut out the middle men in growing and distribution.

The 42-acre chocolate factory located at 1 Hershey Drive was sitting vacant when Canopy Growth scooped it up in January for $6.6 million.

Canopy Growth previously ran operations out of the space as a tenant.

Source: Financial Post

Canopy wants to become the Procter & Gamble of pot. Several brands fall under its umbrella and cater to different user preferences.

There's Tweed, a medical marijuana producer with slick and youthful branding that could be mistaken for a designer jeans company.

Quebec-based Vert Medical allows Canopy to tap into the French-speaking market, while Bedrocan Canada has a distinctly clinical feel that is likely to gain favor among medicinal users.

Since 2000, Canadians have enjoyed the ability to possess and grow small amounts of weed for medical use. In 2014, the government began licensing companies like Canopy to produce mass amounts of marijuana for patients suffering from serious diseases.

The Canadian marijuana industry raked in $869 million in legal sales in 2016 and is expected to reach $22.6 billion after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opens up the recreational market this spring.

Source: Business Insider

Canopy, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker WEED, is on the fast-track to success.

The manufacturing giant blew past a $2 billion valuation on November 16, 2016, one week after eight US states passed ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana in some form.

The company's fiscal year ends in March, and Linton tells Business Insider he expects it to post $12 million in revenue, up from $2 million between 2015 and 2016.

The company's colossal growth stems from a belief that as more countries legalize marijuana on a federal level, growers like Canopy will be able to branch out into international markets.

Canopy already exports marijuana products to Germany and Brazil.
The Wives on Strike actresses were in high spirits as they pleaded with Oga Cali (Julius Agwu's character in the Wives on Strike movie) to come home that they were done with their strike.

Recall that Julius was one of the main characters in "The Wives On Strike" movie before he took ill.

In the video, Julius Agwu also thanked God for his recovery while the others joined him.

Agwu also shared a video of himself thanking fans on Instagram on February 3, 2017.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, January 1, 2017, Julius was pictured with his wife at a church in Houston, Texas.

Recall that the ace comedian also shared a photo of his feet via his Instagram page on Friday, November 18, 2016, deleting it shortly after.
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A statement issued by the church in Abuja on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, through its spokesman and Communications Manager, Phrank Shaibu, revealed that facts, as well as available intelligence, point to the Kaduna State Governor as the mastermind of the allegations, Daily Post reports.

According to Daily Post, Shaibu stated that El-Rufai decided to sponsor the allegations as a strategy to both silence the man of God as well as take revenge for the Apostle's audacity in tackling the issues of persecution and killing of Christians in Southern Kaduna.

ALSO READ: Stephanie Otobo petitions man of God over illegal abortion

It is clear that Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is the mastermind of these allegations. The masquerade has been unveiled and is now dancing naked in the market Square. We dont need to look any further for the source of the smoke, he stated.

Shaibu argued that apart from the initial suspicion of the church that El-Rufai might be behind what they see as an evil plot, the latest revelation by one Queen Esther, a supposed usher of the church, has revealed the person sponsoring the various allegations levelled against the G.O.

When Festus Keyamo in his first letter to our pastor made allusion to fulani herdsmen, we dismissed it as a coincidence. Then intelligence revealed that some persons are lodged in a hotel being trained on how to clone Apostles voice and crop videos.

The first question that crossed our mind was who was paying the bills, especially the huge media blitz that has trailed the spurious allegations. We did not have to wait for long before El-Rufai exposed himself. Indeed, he could not wait for long before coming out of the closet, he said.

He wondered why the said Queen Esther, who pleaded that the media hide her identity, insist that the Kaduna State Governor guarantee her safety if his hands were not in the plot.

Why is the said Queen Esther asking for protection from the Kaduna State government. Is the government now the police or the Department of State Services (DSS)? Why did she not mention any other state? Is it not obvious that she is telling us what her sponsors are willing for Nigerians to know?

Since the governor does not control the police or DSS, the likelihood is that the governor has a private militia. It is also possible that the so called fulani herdsmen on a rampage in Southern Kaduna are part of his army. That is why El-Rufai was unsettled by the pastors stand against them, he declared.

Shaibu went on to argue that these allegations are beyond coincidental, coming p so soon after the man of God had an altercation with the state Governor over the Southern Kaduna killings.
Obaseki stated this while receiving members of the Commonwealth Scholars and Fellows Alumni Association of Nigeria(COSFAN) in Government House in Benin on Monday evening.

The governor noted that it was unusual to grow a generation in a camp.

He disclosed that the state government would get more information about the female law graduate with a view to getting her employed into the state civil service.

Obaseki noted that it had become imperative to urgently integrate IDPs in the camp into the society.

He said: we have no choice but to make the people our focus.

Obaseki further said that government would next week inaugurate the school recently constructed inside the camp, to enhance the learning environment for students and pupils.

He, however, noted that the responsibility of rehabilitation of the people in the IDP camp should not be left to the state government alone.

The governor thereafter sued for peaceful coexistence in the country and emphasised that no meaningful development could take place in any society devoid of a peaceful atmosphere.

He commended members of the Commonwealth Association for their visit to the camp and giving succour to the inmates.

Earlier, the President of the Commonwealth Scholars and Fellows Alumni Association of Nigeria, Dr Uduak Udom, commended the state government for the level of support given to the IDP camp.

Udom said that members of the association had earlier in the day visited the camp, as part of its activities to celebrate the Commonwealth Day, usually held every second Monday in March worldwide.

She, however, solicited that a female law graduate at the camp should be given employment in the state and the school built in the camp should be opened for use.

The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that COSFAN is a non-governmental organisation made up of eminent Nigerians.

These Nigerians have employed the sponsorship of the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission in the U.K. in their respective postgraduate academic pursuits from 1960 till date.

They have come together to offer their time and resources to pursue enhancements in the education sector for the benefit of other Nigerians in furtherance of national development.

The theme for this years celebration is Peace-building.
The Director of Public Relations and Information of the Nigeria Airforce (NAF), Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, who confirmed the psychiatric test being carried on Lt. Kalu, said the air force would also ascertain whether the suspect acted under the influence of drugs.

Group Captain Famuyiwa added that the family of the deceased airforce woman had been contacted and condoled with.

If somebody wrote down a note and also committed himself to such act, we have to be sure if he is mentally stable or not.

Therefore, there is a psychiatrist that is attached to him for a test. I also understand that some of his blood samples were taken to ascertain whether he had used drugs.

Kalu will remain in the service until a disciplinary panel set up on the matter comes up with its decision. We know there are several offenses against the state, including this one, which is murder.

But the air force has set up its own disciplinary procedure. A board is investigating and will decide the punishments for the suspect. The girls parents have been contacted and the NAF has commiserated with the family.

A source at the NAF Tactical Air Command, Makurdi, Benue State, where the incident occurred, said that Lt. Kalu had already confessed to the crime.

Kalu killed his girlfriend and he has admitted it. What the panel is investigating is to unravel the circumstances that led to the incident.

The whole essence of that investigation is to prevent a recurrence, not to exonerate someone who has already admitted guilt.

Recall that Lt. Kalu killed Oladipupo, aka Shomzy, a native of Badagry, Lagos State, whom he had been having a romantic affair which lasted for months, following allegations that she was cheating on him with different men including superior officers.

He allegedly shot her to dead in the early hours of Saturday, March 11, 2017, at the air force base after they spent the night together.

After killing her, he wrote a suicide note where he said he took the action because she was dating other men. He was said to have also shot himself but survived, after which he arrested and detained at the base.
The accused, whose address is unknown, was arraigned on a charge of stealing.

The Prosecutor, Insp. Akpan Ikem, told court that the accused committed the offence on March 4 at Magbon Bus Stop in Badagry.

He said that the recharge cards belonged to one Sunday Ihekworogwo.

The accused went to the stand where recharge cards are sold and did not see anyone at the spot, so he took the bag containing the recharge cards and ran away.

He was caught by onlookers who saw what he did.

Ikem noted that the offence contravened Section 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The Defense Counsel, Mr Michael Adeite, pleaded with court to grant his client bail on liberal terms.

The Magistrate, Mr Jimoh Adefioye, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100, 000 with two sureties in like sum.
Adam was alleged to have committed the crime in an uncompleted building behind Bauchi Road Motor Park, in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau.

The accused, a resident of Bauchi Road, in Jos, was arrested on Feb. 1, 2016, at about 10.00 a.m., while allegedly raping the girl.

He was subsequently arraigned and charged with having carnal knowledge of a minor, an offence the prosecutor, Mr. O. S. Ocho, said was contrary to sections 282 and 283 of the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge.

When the case came up for hearing before Justice Christine Dabup, on Monday, Ocho told the court that he was unable to bring any witness to testify against the suspect because the nominal complainant had relocated out of the jurisdiction of the court.

The second reason is that the Investigating Police Officer has been transferred out of Plateau; he is now in Abuja, he said.

The prosecutor pleaded with the court to strike out the case.

Ochos plea was promptly accepted by the defence Counsel, Mr J.J. Moroloye.

Ruling on the matter, the judge said that the case could not be continued.

Since the prosecution is not ready to continue with the case based on the reasons adduced by him, this case has to be struck out.
South-South News reports that Ogonor was convicted after he was found guilty of setting his girlfriend ablaze after pouring petrol on her body as well as inflicting machete cut injuries on Iyumames body before she was rushed to the hospital where she gave up the ghost.

Delivering judgment on the matter, Justice Chioma Okirie, said Ogonor was convicted on the strength of his confession to the crime.

According to the Justice Okirie, Ogonor committed the crime by pouring petrol on the victim and using matches to set her on fire.

The judge observed that there was no misunderstanding between the man and his girlfriend to have warranted the attack on the deceased after staying together throughout the night without any quarrel.

The court stated that the convict became aggressive after sighting Iyumame with a man and felt she could dump him for another man. He then forced her into his room, poured petrol on her and set her on fire after which he used a machete on her.
However, Gina Caze has denied knowing that her daughter was about to commit suicide, thinking that she had simply been seeking attention.

According to the reports, Caze watched video footage and sent Nakia some messages on the post, accusing her of seeking attention and "crying wolf."

Punch reports that the Child Services Department has accused Caze of doing nothing to stop Nakia from committing suicide.

Nakia had reportedly been living in foster care at the time of the incident after she was taken from her mother's custody back in 2009 over concerns of physical abuse.

The Florida Department of Children and Families claimed in their report that Caze watched the Two-hour long video as Nakia killed himself.

Caze accused of reportedly called Nakia a "Custody Jit" amongst other things, has, however, denied the allegations.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the Miami-Dade police found Nakia hanging from the door frame of the bathroom.

One of the messages allegedly read, "#ADHD games played u sad little DCF custody jit thats why u where u at for this dumb st n more u keep crying wolf u dead u will get buried life goes on after a jit that doesnt listen to their parents trying to be grown seeking boys and girls attention instead of her books."

Nakia reportedly lived in a foster care for 28 months after she was moved from Caze's custody, and was passed around to 14 different foster homes within 16 months.

She reportedly returned to her mother's custody in 2010 only to be moved again in 2014, then returned home on the recommendations of social services who were convinced that it was for the best.

One year after, Caze said that she no longer wanted Nakia, relinquishing custody of the teenager.

Many have paid tribute on Facebook to Nakia, amongst them was Caze who wrote, I was showing you tough love when u misbehaved.

You wasnt supposed to even have access to the Internet as part of your case.

The system has failed us.

Caze also claimed that Nakia had been jailed twice, gotten expelled from two or three schools, smoked Marijuana and drank alcohol.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Adeyemi, 41, and Olatoyosi, 41, are standing trial on a three-count charge of conspiracy, fraud and issuing of dud cheque.

According to the prosecutor, Insp. Steven Molo, the duo committed the offences sometime in 2014, at No. 30, Rafiu Babatunde, Tinubu Road, Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos.

Molo said that the accused obtained N17 million from the complainant, Mr Ifeanyi Enem, under the guise of selling him land.

The accused obtained the said money from Enem, through Matrix Legal, a law firm, he said.

Molo said that on Oct. 24, 2014, at House 2, 2nd Ave., Yusuf Akande Estate, at Delemo, Makoko, Lagos; one of the accused, Adeyemi, issued two GTB bank cheques to the tune of N4 million.

The cheques were issued on behalf of the complainant, but were dishonoured on presentation due to insufficient funds, he said.

The prosecutor told the court that the offences contravened Sections 312, 319 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The accused, employees of the Lagos State Government, however, pleaded not guilty to the offences brought against them.

In her ruling, the magistrate, Mrs Abimbola Komolafe, granted the accused bail in the sum of N5 million each, with two sureties each in like sum.

She said that one of the sureties must be a blood relation of the accused and must deposit N100, 000 with the assistant court registrar.
Ogbeh said this while speaking at the Annual Planning Meeting of NextGen Cassava Breeding Project at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan.

The minister was represented at the occasion by the ministrys Director of Root and Tubers, Dr Olusegun Ayeni.

He said that traditionally, cassava was processed into garri, fufu, etc but that recently, the country experienced increase investments in cassava processing such as cassava flour, ethanol and starch.

He said that the entrance of the cassava processing companies was increasing the demand for cassava in Nigeria and that it was good news for farmers.

Ogbeh said although Nigeria was a major producer of cassava with over 54 million metric tonnes per hectare, the yield per hectare of the crop in the country has not been impressive.

He stressed the need for researchers to address the issue, emphasising that science is critical for a transformation change of the cassava sector.

The minister identified the issues contending with cassava productivity to include climate change, pests, diseases, etc, adding that tackling them would require new breeding options that are quick to address the limitation.

He further remarked that the Federal Government had made a commitment to re-position agriculture for economic and inclusive growth.

We have launched the Agricultural Promotion Policy, 2016 to 2019, tagged: The Green Alternative.

The Green Alternative Policy has five major strategic thrusts: achievement of self-sufficiency and sustainable food security, reduction in import dependence and economic loses through value addition.

Stimulation of agro-exports for enhanced foreign exchange earnings, enhancement of job and wealth creation and achievement of economic diversification to make it less crude oil-dependent, he said.

Also speaking, the NextGen Cassava Breeding Project Manager, Dr Chiedozie Egesi, said disease pathogens and climate change threaten cassava production and jeopardise the income and food security of smallholder farmers.

Cassava is a clonal propagated crop and seed set is difficult. New varieties with enhanced productivity and nutritional traits typically take up to 10 years to develop.

Cassava is predicted to be one of the few crops that will benefit from climate change because it requires few inputs and can withstand drought, marginal soils and long-term underground storage.

ALSO READ:FG to ban importation of tomato paste

Through the project, we have been able to raise the status of cassava yield from where it was, we are addressing the issue of global changes of population and the climate, he said.
This was disclosed by Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Sani Usman via a statement.

The statement reads:

In continuation of the clearance operation of suspected hideouts of the remnants of Boko Haram terrorists in their respective areas of responsibility, troops of Operation Lafiya Dole have been doing very well.

It is in this regards that troops of 112 Task Force Battalion, 22 Task Force Brigade, today carried out a major offensive against suspected hideouts of Boko Haram terrorists at Artano, Saduguma, Duve and Bordo.

The offensive also spread to Kala, Bok, Magan, Misherde, Ahisari, Gilgil, Mika, Hiwa, Kutila and Shirawa settlements, all in Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno State.

At the Kutila village, the troops came under heavy attack from the terrorists. The troops responded and dealt with the Boko Haram terrorists by neutralizing and routing them out of the area.

Several others escaped into the thick forest with gunshot wounds. The troops recovered 1 Gun truck, 1 Canter vehicle and 1 pickup from the terrorists. The gallant soldiers proceeded further to clear Bok, Misherde, Mika and Kutila also in Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno State, where they liberated 455 persons held hostages by the terrorists.

The rescued persons after thorough screening have been moved to Rann Internally Displaced Persons camp.

ALSO READ: Troops kill 18 Boko Haram members in Yobe
A Presidential source, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed this development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

Nigeria contested for the position of Commissioner for Peace and Security at the AU meeting in Addis Ababa on Jan. 30 and lost the election to the incumbent, Algeria.

NAN reliably gathered that the constitution of the panel was informed by the reported acts of sabotage leveled against some staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The source said already a senior staff of the ministry had been identified as the brain behind the plot against Nigeria before and during the election.

A serving Director and two retired Permanent Secretaries with reported ties to one of the candidates from a friendly country that vied for the same position of Commissioner, Peace and Security, were said to be behind the illegal, fraudulent and highly unpatriotic issuance of these infamous Notes.

The serving director had since been issued with a query.

This, certainly, is another case of suspected fraud and corruption which, by the way, is also endemic in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in its more than one hundred missions abroad.

According to the source, the official single-handedly wrote a letter to express Nigerias support for the Algerian candidate despite a Nigerian, Fatima Kyari, running for the same position.

Clearly, therefore, Nigerias failure to clinch the post can only be attributed to other factors and not the quality of the its candidate.

In this kind of elections, countries base their voting pattern more on political and other considerations than on the substantive quality (competence, skills, experience) of candidates.

This pattern is clearly reflected in the elections of all the other categories, including that of the Chairperson and the Deputy Chairperson of the AU Commission.

Most worrisome and unfortunate is the issue of the so-called Note Verbal issued by our embassies in Addis Ababa and Algiers, conveying a decision by the Federal Government of Nigeria to withdraw from the race in favour of Algeria. The truth is that there was no such decision by the government, he said.

The source said Nigeria deserved to be commended at the way it reacted to the outcome of the election.

If anything, the Government deserves commendation for keeping calm and abstaining to raise dust, despite initial indication of an external influence in the issuance of these highly embarrassing Notes.

The Presidential source also disclosed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama chaired the selection process where prospective candidates were shortlisted.

Onyeama, he said, also chaired the interview panel which graded and recommended names of candidates for the consideration of Mr. President.

He said that Fatima Kyari was graded as second best candidate along with another female candidate even though all the other candidates were also found to be competent.

However, only one candidate was to be selected. While only Mr. President and possibly those who were privy to the final selection process could say why Fatima and not any of the other three highest rated candidates was approved, the AU rule regarding gender parity, might have been a determining factor in favour of a female candidate.

The rule requires that the two Commissioners from each of the five regions must be a male and a female.

While Nigeria was still on the selection process  as always we were running late  , Senegal and Ghana had already put forward candidates for the two top most posts of Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson respectively.

He maintained that Fatimas proficiency in French language, among other set of skills also stood in her favour.

The source also dismissed the insinuation that Fatima was inexperience, and/or incompetent for the seat.

He noted that the AU contracted an independent consulting firm that evaluated, assessed and cleared those who were adjudged to have the requisite skills, experience and competence to hold the positions they wanted to compete for.

He said that Fatima went through this process as all other candidates did, and was duly cleared otherwise she would not have been allowed to run.

It, therefore, amounts to ignorance, malice and/or mischief to label the candidate as inexperienced and incompetent to serve as Commissioner at the AUC.

The candidate is indeed highly qualified not only by the assessment of the AU consultants, but also by the testimonies of many other African and non-African personalities, bodies and organisations.

She is skilful, competent and experienced to do the job very well and indeed add value into the job with new and pragmatic ideas," he added.

The source recalled that Fatimah was selected, along with 12 other African mid-career leaders, for the 2016 Africa Program of the Eisenhower Fellowship in the United States, but could not participate because it coincided with the preparations for the AUC election.

ALSO READ:Buhari advices Nigerians to shun self medication

He also dismissed the report claiming that Fatima Kyari is the daughter of Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari.

The assertion, including in some major media, that Fatima is the daughter of the Chief of Staff to the President is utterly callous and malicious, clearly made with the intention to generate bad feelings against not only the Chief of Staff but the President, and to also denigrate the candidate by associating her to nepotism.

This is much so because it does not take anything to crosscheck her lineage, if no malice was intended and if professionalism was a motivating, and guiding factor," he added.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara are said to have arrived the Villa at about noon on Tuesday, March 14.

Buhari had, on Monday, March 13, written the National Assembly to announce his official resumption after a 49-day medical vacation in London.

The president arrived in Nigeria on Friday, March 10, after leaving on January 19 for what was supposed to be a 10-day leave.

He however wrote the Assembly on February 5 to extend the vacation definitely on the advice of his doctors.

Both Saraki and Dogara visited Buhari while he was in London and said that the president was hale and hearty.
Buhari returned to Nigeria on Friday, March 10, 2017, after spending 49 days in London, reportedly due to some medical issues.

Tambuwal said this on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, while speaking to members of the Forum of Directors of Social Communication of the Catholic Church led by the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese of the Catholic Church, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah.

The Sokoto Governor also called on the religious leaders to promote peaceful co-existence among people of different faith.

Tambuwal said The nation will remain grateful for the fervent prayers you have embarked upon while the President was away receiving medical attention.

Along with our Muslim brothers, we all prayed and it is gratifying to note that our prayers have been answered. We should not relent on that.

We believe the whole country can learn from our rich history of tolerance and moderation. Im happy you have chosen Sokoto for your meeting.

ALSO READ: Tambuwal says President Buhari has ability to fix Nigeria

From what you have seen yourselves, you can take the positive message of peace to your dioceses and your home, Daily Post reports.
According to a report by SaharaReporters, Turnah, reported at the anti-graft commission's office on Monday, March 13, 2017 after an invitation to explain his side of the allegation levelled against him.

It was further reported that Turnah was accompanied to the session at the commissions zonal office by several lawyers.

He was reportedly questioned on issues relating to fraud and the misappropriation of funds belonging to the Niger Delta Development Commission.

But Turnah was said to have he has never been a public officer and could not have had access to public funds neither could he have misappropriated or laundered such funds.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the comptroller-General, who arrived the National Assembly complex at about 5.30 p.m., was first received by the Leader of the Senate, Sen. Ahmed Lawan.

He then went into a close door session with Saraki.

The Customs boss later left the complex in company of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Sen. Ita Enang, at about 6.49 p.m.

NAN recalls that the Senate on Tuesday at plenary session, insisted that Ali must appear before it in uniform on Wednesday.

This followed the receipt of a letter from Ali seeking permission not to appear on Wednesday.

An Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr Azarema Abdulkadir, had written to the Clerk of the Senate requesting that the upper chamber gives the Comptroller-General a new date to appear before it.

NAN recalls the Senate had on March 9, asked Ali to appear in plenary session in uniform on Wednesday to address the issues of retrospective payment of duty on vehicles.

The letter was read by the Clerk, Mr Nelson Ayewoh, to the senators at plenary session.
Taibat Baiye, who resides in Agege, Lagos, pleaded not guilty to a two-count charge of stealing and obtaining money under false pretences.

The Prosecutor, Insp. Mathew Akhaluode, told the court that the accused committed the offences on July 29, 2016 at her residence.

Akhaluode said that the accused fraudulently obtained the sum of N700,000 from Imman, with a promise to supply clothes to him, a representation she knew was false.

He alleged that the accused, who had no intention of supplying clothes to Imman, converted the money to her own personal use.

The prosecutor said that when the complainant did not get any feedback from the accused, he decided to ask for a refund.

Baiye, who had invested the complainants money into her own business, started giving excuses to Imman, whenever he asked for a refund.

"When the complainant got tired of Baiyes excuses, he reported the case to the police and the accused was arrested and taken to the police station, Akhaluode said.

The prosecutor said that the offences contravened Sections 285 and 312 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 285 prescribes three years imprisonment for stealing, while Section 312 stipulates 15-year jail term for obtaining by false pretences, if convicted.

The Magistrate, Mrs Y.R Pinheiro, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100, 000 with two sureties in like sum.

Pinheiro also directed that the sureties must be gainfully employed and should show evidence of two years tax payment to the Lagos State Government.
The Chief Magistrate, Mrs B.O. Osunsanmi, did not give Badmus an option of fine.

She held that the accused was guilty of a two-count charge of stealing and burglary preferred against her.

The chief magistrate sentenced the accused to one year imprisonment on each of the counts.

She hoped that the sentence would serve as a deterrent to criminal acts.

The accused who resides at Badagry, Lagos, was arraigned on Feb. 22.

The prosecutor, Insp. Simeon Inuoha, had told the court that he burgled the residence of Mr Chibuike Okonkwo and stole his Samsung phone valued at N85,000.Inuoha said the accused was apprehended by security guards as he was about leaving the house.

He said that the theft occurred on Jan. 26 on Agumaje Street, Badagry, adding that the offences contravened Sections 21, 285 and 305 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the accused had pleaded not guilty on arraignment, and was granted bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum.
The properties, it was reported, allegedly belong to Mohammed, the former aide to the ex-Governor Isa Yuguda.

About 10 days ago, we received a tip-off from a whistle-blower about the lifestyle of one Sanusi Mohammed, a former aide to former Bauchi Governor, Isa Yuguda.

We traced 220 flats in 20 estates to him. The houses range from two-bedroom to three-bedroom flats. Inside some of the properties, we discovered four sophisticated guns with 165 rounds of ammunition, five exotic cars and 15 new air conditioners.

We believe the air conditioners were donated to the Bauchi State Government by China. We also recovered some cash as well as 25 designer watches and 20 bales of brocade, an ICPC source was quoted as saying.

It was also reported that Mohammed was arrested by the ICPC and quizzed but was later released on administrative bail.

ALSO READ: Ex-Gov Yuguda loses choice property to EFCC

During his tenure as governor, Yuguda appointed 20 Special Advisers, 94 Senior Special Assistants and 810 Special Assistants.
The News Agency of Nigeria( NAN) reports that Kawu spoke in Sokoto on Tuesday at the opening of a two-day National Conference of Catholic Social and Communication Directors.

NAN also reports that the conference has as its theme: The Nigerian Media: The Ethics of Reporting Violence in Nigeria.

Represented by Dr Armstrong Idachaba, a Director in his office, Kawu said: "I must now draw our attention to the now evident  not emerging anymore  danger of the insensitivity of the social media.

 It does not even pretend to any ethical foundations and it does not give a damn about it. I will indulge us to investigate this disturbing trend.

The role of the social media is adding salt to the injuries created by the lack of ethics by the media.

Kawu reiterated that the media has a patriotic and professional role to play in reporting violence.

"In all, it must remember that beyond reporting, it must protect the sanctity and humanity of the Nigerian society at all time.

It must be sensitive to the national ethos and the sanctity of humanity.

Also speaking, the Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese, Most Reverend Mathew Kukah, admonished Journalists to always make honesty, patriotism and the love for peace and unity as their watchwords.

Often, there is much anxiety as to how the media get their information for their reportage.

The decisions journalists make can make countries to decide to go to war or not.

Journalists must yet be respected, but they should work according to the ethics of their noble profession, Kukah added.

A former Director-General of NBC, Mallam Danladi Bako said, "conflict can be induced or inflamed by the mischievous use and dissemination of false information, such that it can ignite or accelerate the spread of conflict.

Bako, a former Information Commissioner in Sokoto State, delivered a paper entitled: Managing Information in Conflict Situations.

Rumours come in here as information packaged by mischief makers. The information flow between the pre-conflict, conflict and post conflict periods are very crucial, Bako said.

The Social Director, Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Father Sixtus Onuh, explained that the conference would brainstorm on extant ethics of Journalism and strict adherence to it by practitioner.
Babatunde, while being led in evidence by the EFCC prosecutor, Mr Rotimi Oyedepo, made the revelations at the resumed hearing of the case before Justice Babs Kuewumi.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Oyedepo had led the witness as the first prosecution witness (PW 1) in the N6.8 billion fraud case against some former employees of NAMA.

NAN reports that EFCC had arraigned the accused including NAMAs former Managing Director, Ibrahim Abdulsalam; former General Manager of Procurement, Olumuyiwa Adegorite and Agbolade on a 21-count charge of N6.8 billion fraud.

Others are former acting General Manager of ICT, Bolaniran Akinribido; Sesebor Abiodun, Joy Adegorite and two companies- Randville Investment Ltd. and Multeng Travels and Tours Ltd.

When the case was called for continuation of hearing, Babatunde told the court how the funds belonging to NAMA were allegedly converted for personal use by the accused when Abdulsalam was at the helm of affairs.

He said that on July 13, 2015, a cash withdrawal of N3 million was made by Agbolade, (General Manager of Finance) from the account of Randville Investment Ltd.

The witness also said that on July 15, 2015, there was another withdrawal of N2.5 million from the account of Randville Investment Ltd. and same was transferred to the account of Agbolade.

On Sept. 16, 2015, there was a credit transfer of N22 million into the account of Randville Investment Ltd.

On Sept. 28, 2015, N100 million was deposited in a fixed deposit account, and on maturity, same was paid into the account of Randville Investment Ltd.

On the same date, N28 million was transferred out of the account, but I cannot confirm the beneficiary, because it was not stated in the statement of account.

Also, on Sept. 28, 2015, N100 million was placed in another fixed deposit account.

On Oct. 28, 2015, the N100 million earlier placed in a fixed deposit account was paid into the account of Randville Investment Ltd.

On Nov. 2, 2015, N50 million was transferred twice from the Randville Investment Ltd. and I cannot also confirm the beneficiary, because it was not stated in the statement.

Then, on Nov. 10, 2015, there was a withdrawal of N3 million from the account of Randville Investment Ltd. by Segun Agbolade. the first prosecution witness told the court.

After the witness testimony, the defence counsel led by Mr Wale Akanni (SAN), sought for an adjournment to enable to them to cross examine the witness.

The judge, however, granted the request, and the case was adjourned till April 5 for continuation of trial.

NAN reports that EFCC had on Aug. 19, 2013, brought the accused before the court, accusing them of conspiring to induce NAMA to deliver N2.8 billion to Delosa Ltd., Air Sea Delivery Ltd. and Sea Schedules Systems Ltd.

The anti-graft agency of alleged that the delivery was under the pretence that the money represented the cost of clearing NAMAs consignments.

It also accused the NAMA officials of converting N728 million between 2013 and 2015 and other sums for their personal use.
Obasanjo also warned former Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke to stop linking him to the deal.

Adoke linked Obasanjo to the dealin a petition sent to current Attorney General, Abubakar Malami in which he accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of victimizing him.

The former president however denied the claims while speaking to Premium Times.

I dont support that kind of conduct. Adoke and others should not drag me into a matter I know nothing about, Obasanjo said.

If they have been asked to answer questions over decisions they took while in office, they should do that honourably. They should not bring Obasanjo into an Etete deal. I was not part of any such deal.

If I hold that view, I could not have approved a deal with Dan Etete. What Etete did is the height of corruption. He appropriated the asset to himself illegally, illegitimately and immorally,

I cant remember giving approval that the block be given back to Etete. We gave it back to Malabu? On what ground? Do you have any such evidence? Ask Bayo Ojo and Edmund Daukoru what really happened because the stand I took at the time was unassailable.

If Daukoru has evidence that I approved that the block be given back to Malabu or Etete, let him produce it. If it is proven that I indeed approved the deal, I would be willing to apologize to Nigerians. But we have to get to the bottom of it all, he added.

Obasanjo was referring to Edmund Daukoru, who was the minister of state for Petroleum during his administration, and Chief Bayo Ojo, a former Attorney General.

Adoke claimed that the Terms of Settlement for the deal were launched under Obasanjos administration and brokered by Ojo before the tenure of former president Goodluck Jonathan who approved the final implementation of the terms.
The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by Rep. Emmanuel Orker-Jev (Benue-APC) and 10 others.

Presenting the motion, Orker-Jev condemned the invasion of communities in Buruku local government area of Benue by armed and strange herdsmen on March 9.

According to him, the herdsmen destroyed farms, plundered yam barns and looted houses deserted by innocent and harmless villagers.

Orker-Jev further explained that the invading herdsmen became violent and destructive, created fear and tension which forced residents of most communities in Binev council ward to flee their homes.

He said the herdsmen attacked and killed anybody they encountered around the communities of Ber Awuna, Dogo, Ortese  Mbashian, Tse Igyu, Tse Gebe, Anbighir, Tse Iwa, Gbaikyo, Agudu, Nyorum, Shonto and Abuku communities.

These violent attacks continued unabated without any intervention from any security agency throughout Saturday and 20 people were reported killed by these armed herdsmen, out of which 10 corpses have so far been recovered and deposited at the local government.

These strange herdsmen who are heavily armed with sophisticated weapons, seem to be operating or supported by a killer squad of mercenaries, he added.

The lawmaker, who said the attack had become a perennial occurrence, called for the arrest of perpetrators in order to restore security in the state.

Rep. Adamu Entonu (Benue-PDP) urged the Federal Government to brand the herdsmen terrorists and treat them as such.

It is very annoying that since the attacks started, no one has been arrested, Entonu said.

Rep. Baballe Bashir (Kano-APC) said that the herdsmen attacks started over 20 years ago.

Nigeria has herdsmen from different tribes and tackling the issue is the concern of every Nigerian.

Unfortunately, it is a systemic failure on the previous governments for the inability to curb the menace, Bashir said.

Rep. Herman Hembe (Benue-APC) said government has not shown willingness to address the issue.

Ordinarily our communities would have accommodated them, but the damage they cause brings to question what their intentions are.

That is not how we ought to move as a nation; we need to take conscious decisions towards addressing the issue, Hembe added

The House therefore urged the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to send food and other relief materials to the affected communities.
ABC/Matt BrownShawn Mendes will make his live-action movie debut in a new musical called Summer of Love, directed by Ivan Reitman.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Reitman, whose resume includes Ghostbusters, Stripes, Twins and Kindergarten Cop, has never directed a musical before. He specifically chose Shawn as his star, perhaps because they're both Canadians, eh?

Plot details are unclear, but the Hollywood Reporter says the movie's title is thought to be a reference to 1967, the so-called Summer of Love, which saw thousands of hippies descend on San Francisco for anti-war protests. That was also the same year that the Monterey Pop Festival -- starring The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and many other legends -- took place.

As the Hollywood Reporter points out, Shawn's first movie role was voicing a character in the 2013 movie Underdogs, so Summer of Love will be the first time he'll be see acting onscreen.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The latest to get the Mouse House makeover is "Beauty and the Beast," set for release on Friday with an all-star cast led by Emma Watson, 26, who grew up playing Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" films.

No movie will arrive in theaters this year weighed down by as much expectation, in the wake of a 90-second trailer that generated a record 92 million views in its first day online.

"Beauty and the Beast" -- which revisits the smash hit 1991 cartoon starring the voice of Paige O'Hara as Belle -- had a whopping $300 million production and marketing budget but shouldn't struggle to turn a profit.

It is already the fastest selling family film in history, outpacing previous record-holder "Finding Dory," according to online ticket seller Fandango, with analysts projecting a $150 million opening weekend.

It could also be the most controversial Disney remake in history -- and the bar is higher than you might think -- having weathered all manner of social media storms over its production and stars.

Among the more trivial controversies was an angry fan reaction to the design of teapot character Mrs Potts, who doesn't have a spout for a nose in the new version as she did in the animated classic.

Capturing hearts

More recently, critics made snarky remarks about a revealing Vanity Fair photo shoot by Watson, claiming that exposing flesh wasn't in keeping with the United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador's feminist image.

And then all hell broke loose when it emerged that Le Fou, the sycophantic sidekick to antagonist Gaston, was being portrayed by comedian and actor Josh Gad as a gay man, making him Disney's first ever out LGBT character.

The move sparked an international controversy, with at least one theater in Alabama refusing to show the film and the Russian government considering a ban before settling on an adults-only rating.

"What has this story always been about for 300 years? It's about looking closer, going deeper, accepting people for who they really are," director Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters," "Twilight: Breaking Dawn") told journalists in Beverly Hills last week.

"In a very Disney way, we are including everybody. I think this movie is for everybody and I think on the screen you'll see everybody, and that was important to me."

Six years after the last of her eight "Harry Potter" movies, Watson -- who turned down Emma Stone's Oscar-winning role in "La La Land" -- is taking on by far her largest role as an adult.

"The tagline of the movie is 'a tale as old as time' and it's true," said the actress -- a fan of the 1946 Jean Cocteau version as well as the 1991 film -- at the star-studded US premiere in Hollywood on March 2.

"It's been retold in so many different ways... but I think there's just something about the Disney version that was really a telling of it that was so inspiring and really captured people's hearts."

Activist

She and co-star Dan Stevens ("Downton Abbey") as the Beast lead a stellar cast including Oscar winners Kevin Kline and Emma Thompson as well as Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen and Stanley Tucci.

Watson told the Beverly Hills news conference that the character from the 1991 movie had helped shape the adult she became, and she wanted her version to embody the same spirit and values.

"I love that in our version Belle is not only odd and doesn't fit in -- you see her reading and you see her not really a part of the community. In our film, she's actually an activist within her own community," she said.

If you're not a big fan of Disney's live-action remakes, you might want to crawl under a rock for the next few years, as another 13 are in various stages of production.

"Cruella" and "Mulan" are both scheduled for release next year, and Tim Burton's "Dumbo," Guy Ritchie's "Aladdin" and Jon Favreau's "The Lion King" are due to follow.
This is coming as APC secretariat workers have threatened to go on strike over unpaid salaries.

According to Daily Post, Frank said the APC has not been able to pay its electricity bills.

He said Non payment of staff salaries is a leadership problem in APC secretariat which I have been talking about.

I will only appeal to the staff not to carry out their threat. It is on record that they have sacrificed a lot for the party right from the formation stage to where we are now. They should exercise patience because very soon a caring National Working Committee (NWC) leadership will emerge and all their complains will be adequately taken care of.

We have to do this because it is clearly becoming an embarrassing situation for us that common electricity bill this party can no longer settle, not to talk of salaries.

How much is the staff wage bill? And what happened to the money realized from Bayelsa, Edo and Ondo governorship primaries?
Etisalat Nigeria has been in the news for all the wrong reasons since last week when news of a take-over bid by a consortium of Nigerian banks hit the internet.

In a new development, Reuters reports that the company's parent company is thinking about its stake in the struggling company after it figures a way to pay its debt.

Sequel to a meeting with two Nigerian regulators (CBN and NCC) last week Friday, Etisalat Nigeria is set to meet with both regulators and the banks to discuss the loan default sometime this week.

Ahmed Bin Ali, Senior Vice President at Etisalat said the Group does not comment on rumours while Etisalat Nigeria could not be reached for comment, according to the Reuters report.
He said he had not resigned earlier because he first needed to oversee the counseling and medical treatment of survivors at the shelter, and their transfer to other refuges.

The fire that broke out last Wednesday in the badly overcrowded Virgin of the Assumption Safe Home for children just to the east of Guatemala City killed 19 girls right away.

The other deaths came as girls taken to hospitals succumbed over subsequent days to horrific burns that had also damaged their throats and lungs.

All the victims were aged between 14 and 17. Funerals started on Friday, with some of the bodies identified through DNA samples.

Another seven girls were in critical condition. Five of them were flown to a hospital in the United States for specialized treatment.

An investigation is seeking to determine the cause and circumstances of the fire.

Initial information suggested the girls might have started the blaze themselves, setting alight mattresses to protest cruel treatment by staff in the facility, including sexual abuse.

Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday rallied in front of Morales' presidential palace, accusing authorities of negligence and demanding punishment.
He was taken to hospital where doctors said his injury was not life-threatening.

Two men were arrested over the attack several hours later, one suspected as the attacker and another of helping him, but the motive for the shooting is yet to be determined, police spokesman Baki Kelani told reporters.

The identity of the suspects was not revealed.

According to media reports the assailant presented himself as a potential client.

Vllasi's wife, Nadira Avdic Vllasi, who witnessed the attack, told AFP that the man used a pistol with a silencer.

Media reports said the main suspect held by police was known for links to ethnic Albanian guerrillas that fought Serbian security forces in the 1998-1999 war.

Vllasi told reporters that the attack on him was an "ordered assassination".

"Why and by whom, the investigation will show," he said.

The government condemned strongly the attack, saying that "such actions are unacceptable at all in a democratic country".

During the communist era in what was then Yugoslavia, Vllasi was a close ally of president Josip Broz Tito and a top official in Kosovo.

After Tito's death in 1980, Vllasi strongly opposed Milosevic's push to roll back the political autonomy that Kosovo had enjoyed under his rule.

In the late 1980s he was the first high-ranking ethnic Albanian to be detained and tried under Milosevic, though a court later acquitted him.

The suspension of autonomy in Kosovo, with its ethnic Albanian majority, led to the conflict with Belgrade that ended after a NATO air campaign that ousted Milosevic's security forces from Kosovo.
Cervero was one of the key figures signing plea bargains to help prosecutors unravel a mammoth corruption network centered on Petrobras. The probe has implicated scores of politicians, with many more expected to be named as targets for investigators this week.

"I never had any worry about any testimony from any businessman or director of Petrobras," Lula said.

Lula, 71, faces five corruption trials but remains a frontrunner for re-election in 2018. On May 3, he is due to testify before Judge Sergi Moro, who heads the Petrobras probe dubbed Car Wash.

Lula, who was president between 2003 and 2010, told the judge Tuesday that his legal problems are part of a strategy to prevent his return to power and said he was being "massacred" in the media.
A statement by the British High Commission and Wilton Park on Tuesday stated that Kamwi echoed the sentiments to regional experts who were in Namibia from March 8 to 10 to discuss Sub-Saharan Africa HIV prevention response.

According to the statement, participants at the event managed to identify opportunities to deliver prevention to key populations, overcoming existing barriers and ensuring prevention can be prioritised, while treatment for HIV continues to be scaled-up.

The statement noted that Namibias First Lady, Monica Geingos, also UNAIDS Special Advocate for Young Women and Adolescent Girls, was also present at the occasion.

It recalled Geingos as stressing the need to find the places and language to engage with those at risk of HIV, the `BE FREE campaign in Namibia, and the success of developing smart partnerships for greater impact.

The Executive Director of the African Sex Workers Alliance, Daughtie Ogutu, said the meeting provided the much-needed regional forum to learn.

Ogutu said the meeting also shared how health systems were using new approaches to successfully bring HIV prevention to those who suffer the highest.

We will never end HIV without dramatically escalating efforts to prevent the scourge among key populations, he added.
Saudi Arabia is likely to welcome Trump's harder line on its arch-rival Iran and there is likely to be less friction over Riyadh's war against Iranian-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia viewed Obama as being too accommodating towards Iran -- particularly amid negotiations on a nuclear deal -- while Washington held grave misgivings about civilian deaths in Yemen.

Trump's 50-plus days in office have given little indication about his stance on Saudi Arabia's war, but have seen a dramatic uptick in US action against Al-Qaeda's Yemen offshoot -- AQAP.

Second in line to the throne, Prince Mohammed is the son of King Salman and holds the post of defense minister, although much of his focus is on economic issues.

He is the chief proponent of Vision 2030, a wide-ranging social and economic reform plan begun last year to diversify the oil dependent economy.

He has also played a key role in the Yemen campaign.

Trump has expressed hope that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies can be helpful across a range of issues, from creating safe zones in Syria to solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Riyadh is also seen by the White House as pivotal in any effort to constrain Iran's influence across the Middle East.

But that strategy has been widely questioned.

"Anyone experiencing these visions ought to lie down and wait quietly until the sensation passes," warned Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky -- foreign policy advisors to Republican and Democratic administrations.

The pair warned in a Washington Post opinion editorial that "the president is likely to find that his vision of US interests, let alone strategy, doesn't mesh with that of the Arabs on whom he's relying."
Science lessons that let students step into the world through virtual reality will soon be shared across the world.

VictoryVR, the Davenport-based virtual reality science curriculum company, has been acquired, in part, by Kendall Hunt, a leading textbook publisher based in Dubuque, Iowa. It's also partnered with Master Concepts, a Hong-Kong based distributor of school-related software that will distribute the curriculum in the Asian markets.

VictoryVR, Davenport, is owned by Steve Grubbs and co-founded by Dave Hageman and Brian Dumas. Grubbs met Master Concept's CEO, Dennis Wong, in Vancouver, Canada, and worked out a deal, he said.

Grubbs next expects to sign virtual reality agreements with a Caribbean/Canadian and Indian distributors. The prospect of partnering with a distributor in India is exciting, he said, as the country is vast, and English is frequently spoken, so the materials do not have to be translated.

VictoryVR is the only firm in the United States creating virtual reality curriculum based on existing national Next Gen Science Standards.

The middle school curriculum is a supplement to 24 "VR books," intended to support instructors as they teach courses that change rapidly. Each VR module includes five experiences: Virtual field trips, interactive 360 activities, movies in a virtual theater and assessments connected to the cloud.

"Science curriculum is largely the same world-wide so this is a product that can work, internationally," Grubbs said.

Kendall Hunt offers VictoryVR a national K-12 infrastructure, Grubbs said. He met with Chad Chandlee, the company president, and when Chandlee saw the VictoryVR product he wanted to work with it.

The growth means a positive economic impact in the city.

In the last several weeks, VictoryVR has been hiring, Grubbs said. There are two new sales people, three new development contractors, and the national curriculum specialist is now full-time.

He also hires graphic designers, VR programmers, video editors and game developers, both in Davenport and remotely, Grubbs said.

"We're optimistic," Grubbs said of the VictoryVR products. "It's rolling out well. We think we'll see rapid deployment around the world in the next 18 months."
 Good afternoon, Quad-Cities. Here is your National Weather Service forecast.

This afternoon will be sunny with a high near 26 degrees. North winds will be 10-15 mph with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 6 degrees. Wind-chill values could be as low as -5 degrees. Northwest winds will be around 5 mph.

Wednesday will be sunny with a high near 31 degrees. Wind chill values could be as low as -5 degrees. Northwest winds will be around 5 mph.

Wednesday night will be mostly clear with a low around 16 degrees. West winds will be around 5 mph becoming calm.

For those wondering about yesterday's snowstorm, 6.9 inches of snow was officially recorded at the Davenport Airport while 4.8 inches of snow was recorded at the Quad-City International Airport in Moline. About an inch-an-a-half of new snow fell today in the Q-C.

 Heading east? Not a good idea. Places like Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston have been hit with more than a foot of snow. Numerous eastern airports are closed which is causing flight delays across the country, including the Quad-Cities. Check our flight tracker for flight delays and cancellations.

The best (and worst) of spring break

 Many schools are on or going to be on spring break. Florida's gulf coast and Cancun remain the top spots for midwest college and high school students during spring break. Take a look back at some of the top images from spring breaks past. See more.

Lawmaker mocks abortion law with call for masturbation fines

Our public servants at work: A Texas lawmaker is making a point about legislation that restricts women's access to health care and abortions by proposing to fine men $100 when they masturbate.

Alongside the penalty for wasting semen not resulting in a pregnancy, state Rep. Jessica Farrar's bill would require a "medically unnecessary digital rectal exam" before any man undergoes a vasectomy or can be prescribed Viagra.

The 11th term Democrat tells the Houston Chronicle that her bill mimics how a woman seeking an abortion is forced by Texas law to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound, which "has nothing to do with her health care."

She says while some people think it's funny, her bill highlights the obstacles women face "that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access health care."

3.14 essential reads about  for Pi Day

And by now you have probably heard, today is Pi Day.

On March 14, or 3/14, mathematicians and other obscure-holiday aficionados celebrate Pi Day, honoring , the Greek symbol representing an irrational number that begins with 3.14. Pi, as schoolteachers everywhere repeat, represents the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter.

What is Pi Day, and what, really, do we know about  anyway? Here are three-and-bit-more articles to round out your Pi Day festivities.

A silly holiday

First off, a reflection on this holiday construct. Pi itself is very important, writes mathematics professor Daniel Ullman of George Washington University, but celebrating it is absurd:

"The Gregorian calendar, the decimal system, the Greek alphabet, and pies are relatively modern, human-made inventions, chosen arbitrarily among many equivalent choices. Of course a mood-boosting piece of lemon meringue could be just what many math lovers need in the middle of March at the end of a long winter. But theres an element of absurdity to celebrating  by noting its connections with these ephemera, which have themselves no connection to  at all, just as absurd as it would be to celebrate Earth Day by eating foods that start with the letter E.

And yet, here we are, looking at the calendar and getting goofily giddy about the sequence of numbers it shows us.

Theres never enough

In fact, as Jon Borwein of the University of Newcastle and David H. Bailey of the University of California, Davis, document,  is having a sustained cultural moment, popping up in literature, film and song:

"Sometimes the attention given to pi is annoying. On 14 August 2012, the U.S. Census Office announced the population of the country had passed exactly 314,159,265. Such precision was, of course, completely unwarranted. But sometimes the attention is breathtakingly pleasurable."

Come to think of it, pi can indeed be a source of great pleasure. Apples always comforting, and cherry packs a tart pop. Chocolate cream, though, might just be where its at.

Strange connections

Of course  appears in all kinds of places that relate to circles. But it crops up in other places, too  often where circles are hiding in plain sight. Lorenzo Sadun, a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, explores surprising appearances:

"Pi also crops up in probability. The function f(x)=e-x, where e=2.71828 is Eulers number, describes the most common probability distribution seen in the real world, governing everything from SAT scores to locations of darts thrown at a target. The area under this curve is exactly the square root of ."

Its enough to make your head spin.

Historical pi

If you want to engage with  more directly, follow the lead of Georgia State University mathematician Xiaojing Ye, whose guide starts thousands of years ago:

"The earliest written approximations of pi are 3.125 in Babylon (1900-1600 B.C.) and 3.1605 in ancient Egypt (1650 B.C.). Both approximations start with 3.1  pretty close to the actual value, but still relatively far off."

An irrational bonus

And because  is irrational, well irrationally give you even one more, from education professor Gareth Ffowc Roberts at Bangor University in Wales, who highlights the very humble beginnings of the symbol :

"After attending a charity school, William Jones of the parish of Llanfihangel Trer Beirdd landed a job as a merchants accountant and then as a maths teacher on a warship, before publishing A New Compendium of the Whole Art of Navigation, his first book in 1702 on the mathematics of navigation. On his return to Britain he began to teach maths in London, possibly starting by holding classes in coffee shops for a small fee.

"Shortly afterwards he published Synopsis palmariorum matheseos, a summary of the current state of the art developments in mathematics which reflected his own particular interests. In it is the first recorded use of the symbol  as the number that gives the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter."

What made him realize that this ratio needed a symbol to represent a numeric value? And why did he choose ? Its all Greek to us.
The Voter Integrity Act under consideration by Iowa lawmakers addresses a non-existent problem, voter impersonation, and restricts the time frame for requesting absentee ballots. The result will be longer lines on election day, more inconvenience for voters and preventing some voters from casting ballots. While the act contains some good provisions, it ignores real problems in the voter registration system.

The centerpiece of the act is the requirement for voters to prove identity at polling places to prevent in-person voter impersonation fraud. It is possible to impersonate a voter, but examples are very rare. There have been no cases reported in Scott County. Other Iowa auditors tell me there have been no cases in their counties. In the past 10 years, we are aware of a few cases in other states out of the many millions of votes cast over that time.

The act requires voters to present certain government issued picture IDs or a previously signed voter registration card. Precinct election officials are required to examine each ID to insure that the person offering to vote is the same as the person depicted by the ID and resides at the address in the voter roster.

My staff has measured the time it takes to verify identity and residency, and found that it will take more than 30 seconds to process the average voter. Currently, it takes about 10 seconds..

Straight-party voting would also be eliminated. Voters will mark up to 16 choices for partisan offices instead of one. In Scott County, an average of 37 percent of people voted straight-party in the last four general elections. Ending straight-party voting will result in longer average times to fill out a ballot.

These longer processing and voting times will mean longer lines during the high volume voting times. Right now, our average longest wait times are about 20 minutes. We can expect average longest wait times to increase significantly, probably to more than an hour.

The act limits when voters can request absentee ballots by mail to no later than 10 days before an election. Currently, the restriction is the Friday before an election. This restriction does not account for why people request absentee ballots, such as work assignments, caring for out of town relatives or being unable to go to a polling place due to illness or injury. Do we really want to deny ballots to people who cannot go to a polling place as they convalesce at home after surgery?

Some provisions of the act are good, such as requiring voters to include verification numbers on absentee ballot requests, or making it illegal to remove ballots from an early voting location. These provisions increase election security without unduly burdening voters. Other provisions, such as adding the veteran ID card for identification, expand voter options without sacrificing security.

But the act does not address problems identified in the voter registration system. Iowa drivers licenses do not identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens. Other states make this distinction. We found several non-citizens registered to vote by the state Department of Transportation. The act does not require checking the juror excuse list for non-citizens, although it does require cancellation of registrations for voters whose names appear on the list, whether by mistake or not. In Scott County, we check this list periodically, and found that some people are on it erroneously. It would be better to require hearings for voters whose names appear on this list at which errors can be cleared up before cancelling a citizens right to vote.

The act allows auditors to question the signatures of voters on absentee ballot requests by comparing the signatures of voters on record. However, it does not address that thousands of voters do not have signatures on record if they registered before the early 1970s or registered at DOT when obtaining drivers licenses or non-operator ID cards.

The best line of defense against fraud is an accurate and complete voter registration file. Unfortunately, this bill ignores real problems with the registration system in pursuit of ephemeral voter impersonation.
Legislative Republicans struggled Saturday to defend a sweeping gun bill that, by all appearances, is rocketing toward the governor's desk.

Miryam Stone, a mother of young children and employee of a local elementary school, ignited an already hostile crowd at Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency in Bettendorf. Tears streamed down her face as she ripped into the gun bill, which last week plowed through the House on a partisan vote.

"How can you expect me to work, how can you expect me to live in a state that would pass a law that endangers the lives of my children," she said, voice quivering and tears streaming down her face.

More than 200 people, largely hostile to the four Republicans sitting up front, erupted in applause as Stone lambasted "stand-your-ground," a provision that lowers the threshold for a justified shooting. Some rose and gave Stone a standing ovation. And then, Rep. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, took a swing at defending his vote.

He missed.

Gun-free zones, such as schools and universities, are "invitations" for mass-shooters, Mohr said, regurgitating a well-worn gun lobby talking point. The place went nuts. Boos rained down. Two women waved signs over their heads that said "disagree" in bold letters. Mohr later found himself defending his comments to four high school students from the Davenport Community School District after the event wrapped.

The legislation's original draft would have done away with gun-free zones at state universities, a provision that really excites the National Rifle Association. But that bit was killed after college administrators attacked it. The living draft, however, bars cities and counties from declaring gun-free zones, including city hall. Democrats love to point out that the bill would maintain most of the restrictions on packing heat in the Statehouse.

I'm a gun owner and still struggle to see the benefits of a hail of bullets, fired by untrained citizens, flying through a crowded, chaotic space. And that's the best outcome of Mohr's hypothetical. Police chiefs throughout the country regularly cite data that suggests the vast majority would never pull the trigger. They would hesitate and, in the process, became targets.

Sen. Roby Smith, R-Davenport, will soon vote on the House's gun bill in the state Senate. Smith is expected to join his caucus and send the bill  and its stand-your-ground provision  to Gov. Terry Branstad. Unlike Mohr, Smith opted to flank the question.

The safety of his four young children, Smith said while listing their ages, will be at the forefront of his mind when the Senate votes to "pass" the legislation.

And even Smith's dodge said more than the silence from Sen. Mark Lofgren, R-Muscatine, and Rep. Ross Paustian, R-Walcott. They decided to remain quiet after watching their colleagues founder.

Stone, the weeping mother and educator from Davenport, might have thrown a nasty slider to the Republicans at Saturday's forum. But to Democrats, Stone set the issue on a tee.

Rep. Phyllis Thede, D-Bettendorf, one of a handful of African-Americans in the Legislature, said the result of "stand your ground" will be minorities needlessly staring down the barrel of a gun.

A copious amount of research has been done on the innate bias  the product of generations of stereotypes  carried by white Americans against blacks. In too many cases, simply being black is a cause for white fear, researchers have found. And that's a real problem when a proposed law would make that fear enough to justify a shooting. Any law that neuters the "duty to retreat," as this bill does, is destined to disproportionately target minorities. It's even more true at a time when, at a national scale, white nationalists are screaming "get out of my country" before attacking anyone who looks "foreign," egged on by the likes of U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

Saturday's crowd was, indeed, hostile to the Republicans in the room. By and large, the took it. They defended themselves when they could.

But they were flummoxed by Stone's appeal on gun regulation. It's never a good sign when even the bill's supporters can't defend it.
When a third grader in Kadoka discovers she can write a poem, when a junior high assembly in Britton hears live jazz for the first time and when an entire community turns out to admire their new Main Street mural, we know the arts are alive in South Dakota.

One reason those life-altering arts experiences are happening is that individualsteachers, school administrators and community leadersare working to connect with the programs that make sure the arts are accessible across our state. Another reason is the continued support of the South Dakota Legislature, realizing that the arts are vital to learning and to our cultural environment. But without the nurturing wellspring of federal dollars, brought to South Dakota through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, many of these experiences may not happen.

In rural states like ours, with hundreds of small communities spread throughout a large geographic area, a state arts agency like the South Dakota Arts Council is vital. The SD Arts Council combines the federal dollars from the National Endowment for the Arts with the matching funds from the South Dakota Legislature through the Department of Tourism to bring artists to schools and communities and touring arts programs to all corners of our state. Federal funding from NEA even helps to keep our cultural heritage alive, thanks to specific grants for traditional arts apprenticeships that ensure a new generation of flute makers, hoop dancers and prairie fiddlers.

Last year, the South Dakota Arts Council brought 51 artists to 100 communities for 220 weeks of residencies, connecting students and local residents with South Dakotas working creative people. The Touring Arts program made possible 190 events in 165 communities, serving 22,725, including 12,332 young people. Thats bringing the arts to people in places where, prior to Arts Council programs, those opportunities did not exist.

We need to take steps to ensure that communities across South Dakota continue to have opportunities to meet artists, and that students are always able to learn they can become artists themselves. On March 21, SD Artist Laureate Dale Lamphere, SDACs Patrick Baker and Rebecca Cruse and I will be traveling to Washington, DC to share this important story with South Dakotas Congressional delegation. Join us in letting our Congressional delegation know that, here in South Dakota, the support of the National Endowment for the Arts to our creative future is not a luxury, but a necessity.

To connect with our Congressional delegation or learn more about Arts South Dakota programs, join us online at www.ArtsSouthDakota.org.
YANKTON | South Dakota's largest county has sued a state-run mental health hospital after it denied a criminal defendant despite a judge's order to admit him.

The Minnehaha County Public Defender's Office filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of 18-year-old Sampson Balu, who was denied admittance into Yankton's Human Services Center last month. County officials were told while transporting Balu to the hospital that there was no "bed space" available, the Argus Leader reported.

The lawsuit said the hospital refuses to say when bed space will be available and argues that the center doesn't have authority to refuse a commitment ordered by a judge.

Balu is charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after a fight at Roosevelt High School in May. A judge concluded in February that he wasn't fit for trial based on a psychiatric evaluation.

The psychiatrist who evaluated Balu recommended he be tested at the hospital for a major neurocognitive disorder. Court records show Balu has a developmental disability and an IQ lower than 70, which the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities says suggests limited intellectual functioning.

"If they aren't able to deal with someone, they need to get the training to work with people," said Phyllis Arends, Sioux Falls executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "Closing the door is not the answer to the problem. It is their duty to treat people."

The goal of sending criminal defendants for psychiatric rehabilitation is to reorient patients to where they understand the charges against them and can partake in their defense.

The South Dakota Department of Social Services, which oversees the hospital, declined to comment. The Public Defender's Office also declined to comment citing pending litigation.
LEAD  Just one year ago, 15-year-old Zoe Frauen was homeless and hungry, living in a modest motel room with her mother and younger brother, and constantly searching for something to eat.

Conditions for the now-sophomore at Lead-Deadwood High School would have led some young women to despair, particularly after Frauen was turned away from a food pantry when she was told her family didnt meet requirements.

But for Frauen, adversity spurred her into action to fight homelessness and hunger in her own community. For her tireless efforts, the bespectacled, sandy-haired girl is proof of one persons power to change lives. For her efforts, she was given the title of the Boys & Girls Clubs 2017 South Dakota State Youth of the Year.

Becoming a leader

Life has rarely dealt Frauen a winning hand.

When I was hungry and homeless, everything turned upside down, she recently wrote. At school, there were people who wanted to help me cope with drugs and alcohol. It would have been so easy to bury my problems and fall into the wrong crowd. But I know what addiction does to families.

Reluctant to discuss her own familys issues, Frauen did say she gained courage from watching her mother walk away from a failed relationship.

I did the same thing, she said. I walked to the (Boys & Girls) club, and it changed my life forever.

The young woman, mature well beyond her years, looked her interviewer straight in the eyes and said she knows she is not alone. Her research found that 30 percent of the children at her club live in poverty and 80 percent were eligible for free or reduced-priced meals at school.

There are too many of us going hungry in my community, Frauen said. So I set out to make a change.

Among the first dozen members to join the Boys & Girls Club of Lead-Deadwood when it opened in June 2014, Frauen found a new home amid a gaggle of youngsters eager to gain a mentor, and a safe place where she could find herself. The club, located in the Handley Center, now serves 386 youths.

Zoe understands what Boys & Girls Clubs are all about and, most importantly, she understands the impact a club has on the community, said Anne Rogers-Popejoy, the clubs unit director. Zoe is so special because she embodies all of the characteristics that Boys & Girls Clubs strive to impart to youth. She is intelligent, she is resilient, and Zoe is so kind.

Dinners on

Faced with her own dilemmas while helping raise her younger brother, Zefri, an 8-year-old third-grader who has since become a member of the club, Frauen didnt shy away from a challenge.

Fighting hunger and homelessness became my passion, Frauen told state legislators, agency officials, lobbyists and Lt. Gov. Matt Michels who gathered to judge the state Youth of the Year competition last week in Pierre. I set out to make a change. I used the club as a resource and hosted a free community dinner to raise awareness about hunger.

She learned valuable lessons along the way.

We need to change the way we think to help the problem, she added. If I thought my situation was never going to change, I wouldnt have survived hunger or homelessness. Instead, it changed my life. It moved me to action.

After garnering a $500 grant from ConAgras Make Your Mark on Hunger program, Frauen formed a committee, recruited volunteers, established a budget, assembled advertising and promotion, and staged the dinner on her birthday last April 24. More than 100 people showed up at a local church to enjoy spaghetti, salad and garlic bread, capped by brownie sundaes.

It felt really good knowing I could accomplish that, Frauen said last week after taking a break from helping a 9-year-old with homework at the club. And we served my favorite food  spaghetti.

Moving forward

Frauens personal efforts to combat homelessness and hunger, and serving as a mentor and tutor at her after-school club, are not the only activities that have captured her attention.

At nearby Lead-Deadwood High School, Frauen competes on the speech and debate teams, plays clarinet in the band, is a Key Club member, and serves as secretary-treasurer of the student council. In her off hours, she works 12-17 hours per week at a minimum-wage job at a gift shop on Deadwoods Main Street, a pursuit that allows her to pay her own cell phone bill and attempt to keep her 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee running.

And, from a personal standpoint, her familys life has improved. She, her brother and single mother, Tammie Ded, who works for Black Hills Special Services, now live in a 3-bedroom house near the high school.

Its easier to look back now knowing it was just temporary, said Frauen. I mean, I have my own bedroom and I feel more secure.

That growing confidence has led Frauen to declare that she plans to one day attend the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she wants to major in communications and counseling.

Shes already my counselor, her best friend and classmate, Zoe Keehn, said with a laugh.

A big recognition

After Frauen won the preliminary Youth of the Year competition among contestants from clubs in Hot Springs, Hill City and Lead-Deadwood, Jessica Noteboom, resource development director for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Black Hills, was charged with finding a sponsor who could help defray costs for travel, meals, and even clothing the contestant in professional attire.

After being turned down by three prospects, Noteboom said she called Jim Scull of Scull Construction in Rapid City, explained Frauens situation, and asked for a $2,500 sponsorship commitment. Scull graciously pledged $3,500.

When Frauen was announced winner of the 2017 South Dakota Youth of the Year award last Wednesday in Pierre, Rogers-Popejoy said Frauen gasped. Two other club members at her table broke down and cried.

When Frauens win was announced at the club on Wednesday afternoon, the kids screamed so loud you couldnt hear anything, Rogers-Popejoy said. Shes their hero. And its because shes just like them.

After calling her grandmother with the news, Frauen phoned her mother and asked, Is this the mom of the South Dakota State Youth of the Year?

I dont know, am I? her mother responded. My mom was really excited, Frauen said.

The award, complete with a $5,000 college scholarship, made Frauen eligible to represent South Dakota at the Midwest Region Youth of the Year contest, sponsored by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, in July in Chicago. The winner of the regional contest will receive a $10,000 annual college scholarship, renewable for up to four years.

Regional winners will then compete in Washington, D.C., in September for the title of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America Youth of the Year.

In the meantime, Frauen will continue working, preparing her presentation and essays, playing in band, competing in speech and debate, toiling at her part-time job, helping raise her little brother, maintaining her 3.6 GPA at the high school, and tutoring underprivileged youngsters at her favorite club.

Zoe has an amazing story, Rogers-Popejoy concluded. She works to combat homelessness and hunger, something shes witnessed first-hand. Shes definitely a success story. Zoe doesnt just survive, she thrives.
A judge ordered a $500,000 cash-only bond Monday for the Rapid City man charged in last weeks fatal stabbing in which a mother of six children was stabbed 40 times at a local motel.

Vincent Mousseaux, 23, is facing charges of first-degree murder and an alternative of second-degree murder in the killing of Deziree Martinez, 30. She was found dead Wednesday in a room at the Price Motel on East North Street.

At the Pennington County Courthouse on Monday morning, a prosecutor asked Magistrate Judge Scott Bogue for a $500,000 cash bond, saying Mousseaux had stabbed Martinez 40 times after breaking the motel room windows.

Authorities say he also tried to stab another man during the incident; Mousseaux faces additional charges of aggravated assault in that attack.

First-degree murder is punishable by death or life imprisonment, second-degree murder by life and aggravated assault by up to 15 years in prison. Mousseaux can be convicted of only one of his alternative charges.

Mousseaux appeared in court via video link from the county jail. He was dressed in a red-striped uniform, indicating he has been segregated from the general inmate population.

A lawyer assisting him had asked the judge for a lower bond, explaining that Mousseaux was not a flight risk since he had family in Rapid City.

The lawyer said Mousseaux has anxiety problems, for which he is taking medication, and has been experiencing "physical problems" in jail.

His alleged crimes, she said, are believed to be alcohol related, and his previous charges did not involve violence.

In February, Mousseaux received probation and a suspended jail sentence on a local burglary-related charge. In January, he also received a suspended jail sentence for violating a protection order against a woman.

Late Tuesday evening, according to Rapid City police, Martinez, Mousseaux and another person were in a room at the Price Motel at 401 E. North St. when an argument broke out.

Mousseaux tried to stab Martinez with a knife when the third person, whom police did not identify, stepped in to defend Martinez. Mousseaux then tried to stab that person, but the person grabbed the knife from him.

Mousseaux grabbed another knife, chased the person from the motel room and returned to stab Martinez multiple times, police said.

Mousseaux was arrested in Martinez's death Thursday, a day after police found her body at the motel. Mousseaux was then already in jail after being arrested due to a probation violation Wednesday morning, less than a mile southeast of the motel.

The police department said it did not receive any report of disturbances in the area of the motel between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

On Thursday evening, the relatives and friends of Martinez gathered outside the motel for a candlelight vigil.

People offered prayers, sang Amazing Grace in English and Lakota and played traditional drum music, said Pastor Larry Salway of the He Sapa New Life church, who spoke at the gathering.

Violence is very unnecessary, and yet people who are under the influence of mind-altering substances, they are becoming very violent, Salway told the Journal. You can see in the deaths in the last three, four months, its so unnecessary.

Martinez is the fourth known homicide victim in Rapid City this year.
Rapid City Regional Hospital officials are teaming up with local law enforcement to address the need for better mental health services in Western South Dakota.

The new coalition  led by Regional, the Rapid City Police Department, and the Pennington County Sheriffs office  is being called the West River Mental Health Alliance, and will have its first meeting on March 22, according to a statement released by Regional on Monday.

The group is being formed in the wake of two major changes to Regionals mental health policies that came to light early last month.

As of Feb. 1, Regionals Behavioral Health Center on Mountain View Road no longer accepts individuals diagnosed with autism, dementia or Alzheimers. Also, in the event that its facilities are full, the hospital will no longer accept uninjured mental health patients, and will instead call the Pennington County Sheriff's Office to possibly take them into custody.

Though previously critical of Regionals policy changes, Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom commended the hospital on Monday for taking the initiative to form the West River Mental Health Alliance.

Were going to try to find a positive path forward to get more mental health services in Western South Dakota, Thom said. This is a beginning, not an end.

The West River Mental Health Alliance currently has three other members besides Thom: Regional Chief Operating Officer Paulette Davidson, Regional President of Medical Services Mark Harlow and Rapid City Police Chief Karl Jegeris.

The group is expected to grow following its inaugural meeting on March 22, to which a select group of community stakeholders will be invited.
The US Marine Corps' top general vowed Tuesday to prosecute those found responsible for posting photos of naked female service members on social media.

But he admitted that investigators are having trouble identifying individual users, stopping the spread of spinoff websites linking to the images and determining the proper recourse under the law to punish those responsible.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Robert Neller strongly condemned those who posted the photos to private Facebook groups like Marines United and other image-sharing message boards without the consent of the subjects.

"We all have to commit to getting rid of this perversion of our culture," Neller said. "We will take action to remove this stain on our Marine Corps."

Neller called on Marines with information about the lewd photos posted to the 30,000-member Marines United to come forward and help investigators identify specific individuals.

But the Marines commandant was unable to offer many specifics when it came to questions from lawmakers about the details of the investigation, and he acknowledged several roadblocks that could make it difficult to bring criminal military charges against those involved.

New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tore into the Neller, calling his testimony "unsatisfactory" and demanded to know why nothing had been done to hold individuals accountable for the cyberharassment of women even though reports date back to 2013.

"Have you actually investigated and found guilty anybody?" Gillibrand asked in reference to past and current cyber harassment cases. "If we can't crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyberhacking throughout our military?"

Ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Defense officials told CNN that many are privately saying it may be very difficult to bring criminal military charges against those involved, even if they can be found.

Officials declined to speak on the record until the Marine Corps makes it initial findings public. But in internal Defense Department meetings, at least some of the discussion has centered on the difficulty of assembling enough investigative evidence for criminal charges.

However, officials emphasized that this is a very early assessment and it is possible that they could still find cases that warrant charges.

These officials said there are up to a dozen websites investigators are looking at.

In many of the photos being reviewed, the pictures might have been taken in consensual circumstances. In that case, criminal cyber activity charges would potentially center on whether the person being photographed had a right of absolute privacy.

Officials said it could still be possible to take non-criminal disciplinary action against some who were participating in posting photos to the websites and making derogatory online comments if they can be found.

Officials said the entire episode has raised questions about whether the Uniform Code of Military Justice is sufficient to deal with cyber issues, a point that was echoed on several occasions during Tuesday's hearing.

Neller said last week that a task force would examine the "subculture" that led to the posting of nude photos of female service members on various websites.

"They're going to look at what's going on, while developing plans for corrective actions and recommendations to policies, procedures, education and training of Marines that will prevent this in the future and the culture -- I'd say subculture -- that may have given rise to this," he said.

During the hearing, Neller also reiterated the call to identify issues in military culture to determine why this happened and whether new service members understand that such cyber behavior is not acceptable.
President Donald Trump intends to fulfill a campaign promise and donate his annual salary, and he wants the press corps' help in identifying a worthy cause, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.

During a press briefing Monday, a reporter asked if the President had donated his paycheck from the month of February.

"The President's intention right now is to donate his salary at the end of the year, and he has kindly asked that you all help determine where that goes," Spicer answered.

"The way that we can avoid scrutiny is let the press corp determine where it goes," Spicer added, to laughter from the seated reporters.

"In all seriousness, his view is he made a pledge to the American people," Spicer said. "He wants to donate it to charity and he would love your help to determine where it should go."

The question came after MSNBC reported that the White House had not offered proof that the President had donated any of his earnings in advance of his second payday.

Though federal law mandates the President receive a $400,000 annual salary parceled out monthly, Trump said in November that he was "not going to take the salary."

Trump's request through Spicer that reporters help choose where the money goes comes despite the President's well-publicized antipathy towards many of the nation's leading media organizations.

Last month, the Commander-in-chief took to Twitter to blast what he calls the "fake news media," including The New York Times, NBC and CNN, as the "enemy of the American people."

Members of the media already have ideas for where the money should go.

One reporter in the briefing called out, "Perhaps the White House Correspondents' Association journalism scholarship?"

"That would be a great way to do it," Spicer replied.

Meanwhile, other journalists took to Twitter to voice their proposals, listing -- among other organizations -- journalism nonprofits like the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and ProPublica.
The Real Lessons of Middlebury College

Many people seem shocked at the recent savagery of a mob of students at Middlebury College, who rioted to prevent Charles Murray from addressing a student group who had invited him to speak. They also inflicted injuries requiring hospitalization on a woman from the faculty who was with him.

Where have all these shocked people been all these years? What happened at Middlebury College has been happening for decades, all across the country, from Berkeley to Harvard. Moreover, even critics of the Middlebury College rioters betray some of the same irresponsible mindset as that of the young rioters.

The moral dry rot in academia  and beyond  goes far deeper than student storm troopers at one college.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times, for example, while criticizing the rioters, lent credence to the claim that Charles Murray was "a white nationalist." Similar, and worse, things have been said, in supposedly reputable publications, by people who could not cite one statement from any of Dr. Murray's books that bears any resemblance to their smears.

Academia, however, is ground zero in the war against people whose ideas go against the current political correctness. The virtual monopoly of the political left, on campuses across the country, allows all sorts of things to be attributed to people the left disagrees with, irrespective of whether those people have ever said anything resembling what they are alleged to have said.

The professors don't usually riot against people whose ideas they disagree with, because they can just dismiss those ideas, with some characterization that there is no one on hand to challenge.

Professor William Julius Wilson of Harvard, for example, said of Justice Clarence Thomas, "He'll say he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. I say I was in the right place at the right time."

Just where did Justice Thomas say that he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps? The central theme of his autobiography, titled "My Grandfather's Son," credits the wisdom of the grandfather who raised him as what saved him.

Nuns who taught him in school were brought to Washington, at his expense, to be present to see him sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court, to see that their dedicated efforts on his behalf had not been in vain.

But has anyone ever asked Professor Wilson on just what he based his claim about Justice Thomas? The central tragedy of academia today is that you don't have to have anything on which to base dismissals of people and ideas you disagree with.

This attitude is not unique to William Julius Wilson or to Harvard. On the west coast, Professor Lanny Ebenstein of the University of California at Santa Barbara has included economists Stephen Moore and Walter Williams, as well as television host John Stossel, among those "committed to the welfare of the top few."

Professor Ebenstein has every right to disagree with these individuals on economic or other issues. But that is very different from attributing to them a commitment to "the welfare of the top few."

It so happens that I have read books by all three, without finding any preoccupation with the welfare of the affluent or the rich. I have known Walter Williams for more than 40 years. When we both lived on the east coast, we and our wives often met socially.

In all that time, neither in public nor in private did I ever hear Walter Williams express the slightest concern for the welfare of the affluent or the rich. Innumerable times I heard him focus his concern on the well-being of people like himself, from a poverty background. That concern was also expressed in deeds as well as words.

But who is going to ask Professor Ebenstein to cite the basis for his claim?

Why should we expect students to welcome debate about differences of opinion, when so many of their professors seem to think cheap shot dismissals are all you need? Lacking their professors' verbal dexterity or aura of authority, students use cruder methods of dismissing things they disagree with.

So long as academia talks demographic "diversity" and practices group think when it comes to ideas, we have little reason to expect better of student mobs that riot with impunity.
Relief is on the way to farmers and ranchers who have suffered losses following devastating fires in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado.

Beresford farmer Jed Olbertson, in cooperation with South Dakota Farm Bureau, is coordinating donations of hay and financial support that will be shared with those in need.

Through social media, Olbertson was able to connect with other farmers across the country to begin putting a plan in place to help farmers and ranchers who have been impacted by the fires.

"While there are a lot of needs, we felt the best place to start was by providing hay to feed their livestock," said Olbertson. "In just a few day's time we already have three semi-truck loads of hay donated that we are hoping to deliver to Kansas early this week."

Those Olbertson has connected with that are donating and transporting hay will be gathering at the Farmers Co-op in Beresford this week to load trucks and begin the trip. In addition to providing hay, a fund has been established for cash donations at the State Bank of Alcester. The monetary donations will help offset the costs of transportation and any remaining funds will be donated to the fire relief effort. To contact the State Bank of Alcester, call them at 605-934-2500. Checks can be sent directly to the bank at PO Box 168, Alcester, SD 57001.

"We know times are tough right now for those of us in agriculture, but what has happened to farmers and ranchers with these terrible fires puts things in perspective," said Olbertson. "It simply makes you feel good to help others who are going through some unimaginable stress."

Olbertson is just one South Dakota producer inspired to coordinate hay donations. Others, including some from the Garretson area, are also arranging hay to be delivered.

South Dakota Farm Bureau is taking part of this effort to give back in a small way for the support area farmers and ranchers received following past disasters in South Dakota.

"Following the Atlas blizzard in 2013, producers around the country provided similar support when thousands of cattle in South Dakota died following record breaking snowfall," said Krystil Smit, SDFB Executive Director. "We are honored to provide whatever support and coordination we can to this effort to pay forward the help our farmers and ranchers have received. Through our collaboration with Farm Bureau organizations in the states affected by the fires, we can help identify the best legitimate sources to receive hay and monetary donations."

If you have questions or would like more information about providing donations for farmers and ranchers impacted by the fires, contact South Dakota Farm Bureau at 605-353-8050 or via email at julie@sdfbf.org. A Facebook page is also being created and can be found at SD High Plains Fire Relief.
ECHR refuses to review case of Moscow riots activist Belousov

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul)  The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) dismissed an application filed by Russia seeking to review a case of Yaroslav Belousov, who had been sentenced for participation in Moscow's 2012 Bolotnaya riots, lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky told RAPSI on Tuesday.

Therefore, the ECHR ruling on two Belousovs complaints has taken effect.

In October 2016, ECHR awarded 12,500 in compensation to Belousov. The court held that four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights including Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Article 5 (right to liberty and security), Article 6 (right to a fair trial), Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association), had been violated by Russian authorities in his case.

According to Agranovsky, Belousov has a right to seek for vacating of his judgment in Russias Supreme Court.

Public protests erupted on Bolotnaya Square in May 2012. The rally culminated in clashes between protesters and the police. Over 400 people were arrested and scores were injured when protesters briefly broke through police lines.

Belousov, a student of the Moscow State University, was arrested in June 2012, charged with participation in mass disorder and using violence against officials and put in detention. He claimed that mass disorder had not taken place, insisting that there had only been isolated clashes between protestors and police. He also maintained that the object he had thrown struck nobody.

Belousov spent over 20 months in pretrial detention. His motions to vary the preventive measure have been repeatedly dismissed by court.

In February 2014, Moscows Zamoskvoretsky District Court found Belousov guilty along with seven other opposition activists and sentenced him to 30 months in prison. Later, his prison term was reduced to 27 months. He was released on September 8, 2014.

In December 2012, Belousov lodged the first application with ECHR. The second complaint was brought into the court in September 2014.

In October 2016, ECHR awarded 12,500 in compensation to Belousov.
SIDNEY, Mont. - Hardy green stalks of hard red spring wheat varieties, both old and new, were growing nicely under an intense sun-filled sky at Montana State University Eastern Ag Research Centers field days in 2016.Luther Talbert, MSUs spring wheat breeder, looked around and said, This is a really nice crop we have here, and I want to tell you about our HRSW goes to market to make bread.Last year, Talbert was selected by the Crop Science Society of America with its 2016 Fellow honor, its highest recognition.The award was presented for outstanding contributions to agronomy through education, national and international service, and research.Talbert is a producers friend, helping Montana farmers grow the kind of spring wheat with the traits needed to produce a successful crop for the export market. Before field days start, he makes the rounds, shaking hands, greeting and hearing from the farmers he has supported for many years - and every farmer knows him well.In Talberts words, Montanas spring wheat is respected around the world for making very good bread.I picture what happens to the wheat varieties we develop. They go into the commodity market - and we breed specifically for strong gluten, he said.As soon as Montanas spring wheat goes into the commodity market, it is shipped overseas to Asian markets for bread.One of the things that is very important to us is agronomic traits, such as yield, test weight and protein, Talbert said. Thats what farmers see in their fields - how a specific variety performs.Yield-related traits are those single traits some farmers want in their fields, varieties like Reeder, Vida, Brennan or SY Soren.That variety gets harvested and when it is hauled to the elevator for marketing,It gets dumped (placed) in with all the wheat in your area, he saidA train rolls by and picks it up, and then picks up more varieties as it heads west. Finally, all the wheat gets shipped out to Asian countries.Eventual end-users that get our wheat from farms here all know about varieties and have ones they prefer and do not prefer, Talbert said. The varieties are all mixed together - all the varieties in North Dakota are mixed in with all the varieties from Montana, and theres this big ship filled with all these varieties sent to Asia.Even as all the wheat is put together, individual varieties actually do matter.Several years ago, North Dakota developed the variety Reeder that had very, very high yield potential, he said.Reeder has this trait where the leaves stay green, and keeps filling seed. This stay-green trait allows for a longer head-filling period and in turn, higher yield, especially during drought.Dry conditions existed last summer, and the stay-green trait made inroads by keeping yields intact. Vida is the leading variety in Montana, and was developed from a cross that included Reeder.All the breeders, myself included, make crosses with Reeder, so all the wheat that goes into that ship to Korea, Japan and elsewhere to make bread has Reeder somewhere in its background, he said.But besides the stay-green trait, the other trait Reeder has is somewhat lower gluten strength, and end-users need high gluten strength for baking quality.So Asian markets would like HRSW from Montana and North Dakota to have a high gluten strength, and Reeder and Vida are a bit low, Talbert said. But in the past, it was no big deal because it could be mixed with 20 other varieties and no one would notice.However, over the last 10 years or so, there has been an influx of varieties that all have Reeder as a parent.The Asian buyers have noticed that the strength of HRSW has dropped a little. It is still the strongest wheat in the world, but it is lower than they would like, he said.So gluten-strength has become the biggest objective at MSU for new HRSW varieties. We need to keep this high yield potential, but get the gluten strength back up there, too, he said.Lanning, a new HRSW, is out here in the field plots if you want to look at it, Talbert told producers riding the wagons. Lanning is a new Montana Ag Experiment Station HRSW, a public release, but there is not enough breeder seed available yet.Talbert released the spring wheat recommendations for 2017.In District 6, nursery at Sidney, northeastern Montana; top varieties in terms of yield from 2013-2016, although hail affected 2016 yields were Reeder, 48.4 bushels/acre; Vida, 47.4 bushels per acre; Brennan, 46.7 bushels/acre and DuClair 45.4 bushels/acre.In District 5, nursery at Conrad, north central Montana; top varieties in terms of yield from 2013-2016 were Vida, 75.8 bushels per acre; Reeder, 75.1 bushels/acre; Corbin, 72.3 bushels/acre and McNeal 72.1 bushels/acre.In District 4, nursery at Moccasin, central Montana; top varieties in terms of yield from 2013-2016 were WB9879CLP, 38.2 bushels/acre; Vida, 37.7 bushels per acre; Brennan, 37.3 bushels/acre; and McNeal 36.7 bushels/acre.In District 3, nursery at Huntley, south central Montana; top varieties in terms of yield from 2013-2016 were DuClair, 64.2 bushels/acre; Vida, 61.5 bushels per acre; Corbin, 61 bushels/acre and Chouteau, 59 bushels/acre.In District 2, nursery at Bozeman, west central Montana; top varieties in terms of yield from 2013-2016 were Vida, 58.6 bushels per acre; SY Soren, 53.5 bushels/acre; SY Tyra, 52.4 bushels/acre and DuClair and WB Gunnison, both 52.2 bushels/acre.In District 1, nursery at Kalispell, northwest Montana; top varieties in terms of yield from 2013-2016 were Vida, 110 bushels per acre; Egan, 109.4 bushels/acre; WB Gunnison, 108.1 bushels/acre and DuClair, 108 bushels/acre.In 2016, the top yielder in the Kalispell area was Egan, the OWBM resistant variety at 100.8 bushels/acre.Spring wheat breeders are also breeding new varieties for wheat stem sawfly resistance, higher protein, higher yielding, drought-resistance, a good disease resistance package, better end-use quality, and other traits important to Montana producers.The Montana Wheat and Barley Committee and the U.S. Wheat Associates support Montana wheat.
Bob Danley is the kind of guy who will drop everything, jump in his car and drive all the way to Seattle for the chance to see a swan that took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the ocean.

I drove 12 hours nonstop to see that bird, Danley said.

The whooper swan normally winters in Southeast Asia. It became an instant celebrity when it showed up in Seattle a few years ago.

I pulled up at a convenience store next to a Suburban and they started shouting directions to me, Danley said. Apparently, people can pick us birders out of a crowd.

And so last year, when he was offered the opportunity to join an official three-person U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delegation to tour two massive nature reserves in Russia, Danley quickly raised his hand.

I have to say that I felt very fortunate and blessed to be asked to go on that mission, said the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge naturalist.

After all, Danley knew there were birds there that he never seen before.

On Monday, March 20, Danley will present a program for the Bitterroot Audubon on his experience of touring two of Russias 101 nature preserves. Officially, he was there to offer technical expertise on visitor services and visitor centers to Russian naturalists.

Those who attend the talk at Lee Metcalf NWR visitors center that starts at 7 p.m. will learn about the wildlife Danley saw, the natural environment he encountered, and different Russian cultures that he experienced in his two-week adventure.

The United States and Russia have been collaborating on conservation issues for years.

Last May, Danley and his two partners visited two natural reserves that Russians call Zapovedniks.

Both were very different habitats, but what really stood out to Danley was their sheer immensity.

They were gigantic, Danley said. They have buffer zones around the edges that allow some activity, but within the central core, there are no humans at all. Its all about wildlife.

The Bryansk Les is largest unbroken forest in southern Europe and the Polistovsky reserve is the largest raised bog system in northern Europe.

The Bryansk Les played an important role during WWII.

It was a pivotal place for the resistance to live, Danley said. It was so dense and so large that it was used as a place to live hidden from Germans.

While the days in the field were long, Danley made it a point to rise early in hopes of spotting a new bird that he could add to his ever-growing list.

The first place we stayed was so remote that we might as well have been in Alaska, he said. I think there were about seven people who lived in the village.

None of those local inhabitants were quite certain at first about this man who rose at daylight and wandered about packing binoculars and a bird book.

I did come across the some farmers were out really early walking their cows, he said. I never did find out why they were doing that.

As Danley approached them from the other side of the road, he remembers feeling like they were a bit apprehensive of seeing him there.

So I just boomed out a Good morning! Danley said. You could see their body language just relax and there big smiles on their face. They were really no different than any of us. They have their jobs and they just go about doing them.

Of course, the best part of all was all the new birds that Danley spotted along the way. By the time he was done, he had listed 70 different species, including the northern lapwing.

That was a species that I had really hoped to see, he said. On my first morning that I got up early, I looked and saw a bird fly through the air. When I looked through my binoculars, I couldnt believe that there it was.

He spotted a yellowhammer that first day too.

I remember thinking, Wow. Thats really cool, Danley said.

The only part of the whole journey that hes not certain that he would be willing to try again was the traditional Russian sauna.

Its really hot in there, he remembered. You lay down and they came in and beat you with willow saplings. I dont know what to say about what that did for me, except for the ability to be able to say that I survived.

All three members of the delegation opted out of diving into icy water immediately following the sauna.

The public is invited to hear more about Danleys journey at the refuge headquarters that are located north of Stevensville on Wildfowl land.

For more information, go to bitterrootaudubon.org.
Learn about the Bitterroot College Early Childhood Education program and degree offered through University of Montana  Western, at an informational session on Monday, March 20, in Hamilton.

Jenny Moore, Outreach Coordinator for the Bitterroot College, said the event is free and open to the public.

People who pursue Early Childhood Education Degrees typically become preschool teachers, grade school teachers, teacher assistants, childcare workers, or social workers, Moore said. This is also a way to start your path on education administration and or childcare director.

Learn about the Montana Western online and Bitterroot College-based Early Childhood Education degrees that now include a Bachelor Degree for Pre-Kindergarten through third grade.

Moore said the college would have staff available to answer questions about college admission, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and registration. She recommends bringing copies of your college transcripts, if applicable.

This is also a great time to start getting your application materials submitted for the upcoming Fall 2017 semester, Moore said.

Attend the informational session about the Early Childhood Education program at Bitterroot College at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 20 in room 111 of Bitterroot College, 103 S. 9th St., Hamilton.

For more information about the informational meeting or Bitterroot College admissions, call 406-375-0100. For answers to specific questions about the ECE Program, contact Jen Gilliard at jen.gilliard@umwestern.edu.

Other upcoming classes at Bitterroot College - University of Montana include the Certified Nursing Assistant training, April 1 through May 6, and the Commercial Drivers License (CDL) class, April 10  April 28.

The Certified Nursing Assistant training begins April 1 with application and fees due March 28, to apply contact Moore at 406-375-0100. The Commercial Drivers License (CDL) class begins April 10 with application and fees due April 5, to apply contact Scott Ralston at 406-360-1499.

Bitterroot College also has Continuing Education Courses. The schedule is available online at umt.edu/bitterroot-college or email bc@umontana.edu.
Comments and links to reports on science, and its applications.
America must return to conservative principles of less government,reduced taxes, less spending and a balanced budget! Cut,cap and balance!
Kathmandu, Nepal: The Government of Japan has decided to extend financial assistance of US Dollars 82,800, equivalent to approximately Nepalese Rupees 8,828,000, to Kathmandu University under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP) scheme of the Government of Japan in Japans Fiscal Year 2016. Kathmandu University, a public university in Dhulikhel, will work with E&T, a private company, to implement the Project for the Installation of Water Purification System at Dhulikhel Hospital and Ravi Opi village.

A Grant Contract relating to this project is scheduled to be signed and exchanged at the Embassy of Japan to Nepal on 14th March, 2017, between Mr. Shinya Machida, Charge dAffaires a. i. of Japan to Nepal, and Mr. Ram Kantha Makaju Shrestha, Vice-Chancellor of Kathmandu University.

This grant assistance will be used to implement the project at Dhulikhel Hospital and Ravi Opi village in Kavrepalanchok District and aims to improve the water quality.

In Nepal, about 80 percent of the households have access to running water but it is said that 40 percent of water pipes badly need to be repaired. As for the houses without any access to running water, this tends to create a heavy burden for women and children who have to draw water from the river or from a common water place. Meanwhile, due to the low quality of drinking water, diarrhea is prominent, especially during monsoon in Nepal. This also influences the school attendance of children and overall health of the residents.

Kathmandu University, established in 1991 and developed as a leading academic and research institution of Nepal, has been working with its partner, E&T, to assist the improvement of the water quality in Ravi Opi village, situated near Dhulikhel. As a result, it was found that an ozone purification system would eliminate most of the contamination.

With this project, the water quality of Dhulikhel Hospital and Ravi Opi village will improve and the patients, medical staffs and residents will be able to access safe water. The system will be managed by the hospital and local water management committee by utilizing batteries as well as solar panels to maintain the system.

The Embassy of Japan in Nepal expects the success of this project will benefit the residents of the Dhulikhel area by improving access to safe water, and will also enhance the cordial friendship between the peoples of Japan and Nepal.
Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie sits with child actress Sareum Srey Moch (left) and actor Mun Kimhak, (right) during a press conference in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Saturday, February 18, 2017. Photo: AP

LONDON: Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie called on Monday for greater efforts to document and prosecute crimes of rape and sexual violence in war.

The Oscar-winning actress teamed up with former British Foreign Secretary William Hague five years ago to launch a global initiative aimed at ending sexual violence in conflict, tackling impunity and improving support for survivors.

Jolie said she was proud of what had been achieved, but there was still much to do.

we are very focused on the next steps: taking the tools that have been developed into the field to help document crimes and support prosecutions, working with militaries to change doctrine and training, and pushing for the implementation of laws to protect the very vulnerable victims, she said in a statement.

The actress, a special envoy of the UN refugee agency, was speaking after an event on the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) at Britains foreign ministry.

Sexual violence is widespread in war. In Iraq and Syria, Islamic State is accused of sexually enslaving thousands of girls and women, while Boko Haram militants have kidnapped schoolgirls in northern Nigeria. The United Nations has also sounded the alarm over horrific sexual violence in South Sudan.

Jolie and Hague co-hosted the first global summit on ending sexual violence in conflict in London in 2014 and Britain announced on Monday it would host a follow-up meeting in 2019.

It said more than 17,000 military and police personnel had been trained on sexual violence issues since the launch of PSVI.

A key focus this year is tackling the stigma faced by many survivors who are often ostracised from their communities and shunned by their families.

A new version of an international guide for experts working in the field to collect evidence to enable future prosecutions was also launched on Monday, with a focus on interviewing and supporting child and male victims of sexual violence.

Countries the initiative has recently worked in include Myanmar, Colombia, Iraq, Kosovo, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Uganda.

Jolie linked up with Hague after her 2011 directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey set against the backdrop of the 1992-95 Bosnian war in which an estimated 20,000 women were believed to have been raped.
Guwahati : BJP's last night coup has dramatically changed in Manipur politics as the saffron party is all set to form the next ministry in the north eastern Indian state after the party have secured the support of 32 MLAs after getting the backing of NDA and North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) allied parties and two other legislators.

Meanwhile, Manipur governor Najma Hetullah has asked incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh of Congress to submit his resignation immediately.

The governor asked Ibobi to submit his resignation as starting the process of the next government formation.

A highly placed source said that, the Manipur governor asked the incumbent CM during the meeting held at Rajbhawan last night with Ibobi Singh along with his deputy Gaikhamgam and state Congress president TN Haokip.

"As per rules, the next government formation wouldn't be started until and unless the present CM resigns.

The source further said that, Ibobi Singh and Congress had staked claim to the next ministry by showing a list of 38 Congress MLAs and also showing the names of four National People's Party (NPP) MLAs in an ordinary piece of paper and claimed to have support from these MLAs.

"But the governor rejected Ibobi's claim after seeing the ordinary piece of paper and asked his to resign immediately," the source said.

On the other hand, BJP has started the process of formation the next government.

The saffron party has its own 21 MLAs and secured support of 11 others including 4 MLAs each of Naga People's Front (NPF), NPP and one legislator of LJP.

Assam finance minister and NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma said that, a Congress MLA and the lone MLA of AITC had joined BJP taking the party number to 32.

31 are needed to the government in the 60-member Manipur assembly.

After securing support of 32 MLAs, a delegation team of BJP and its ally parties met Manipur governor Najma Heptullah and stakes claim to form the next ministry.

Himanta Biswa Sarma further said that, the legislature party leader would be elected on Monday.

Last night, the political drama in Manipur added a new twist after Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh, one of the 28 Congress legislators, who won from the Adro constituency and the lone AITC MLA Tongbram Robindro had joined the BJP.

Sources said that, apart from Shyamkumar, 19 others Congress MLAs would likely to join BJP within short period.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati : Amid the BJP claiming the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur assembly, Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has refused to resign after governor Najma Heptullah asked him to submit his resignation to start the formation process of the next ministry.

Refusing to resign, Ibobi Singh said that, he has the majority and governor would have to invite him to form the government.

'Being the largest party, must allowed to form the government,' Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam said.

On Sunday night, Manipur governor Najma Hetullah asked incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh of Congress to submit his resignation immediately.

The governor asked Ibobi to submit his resignation as starting the process of the next government formation.

A highly placed source said that, the Manipur governor asked the incumbent CM during the meeting held at Rajbhawan last night with Ibobi Singh along with his deputy Gaikhamgam and state Congress president TN Haokip.

'As per rules, the next government formation wouldn't be started until and unless the present CM resigns,aA the source said.

Meanwhile, Manipur governor Najma Heptullah said that, she has not received Ibobi Singhas resignation letter yet.

The source further said that, Ibobi Singh and Congress had staked claim to the next ministry by showing a list of 38 Congress MLAs and also showing the names of four National People's Party (NPP) MLAs in an ordinary piece of paper and claimed to have support from these MLAs.

"But the governor rejected Ibobi's claim after seeing the ordinary piece of paper and asked his to resign immediately," the source said.

Meanwhile, BJP has started the process of formation the next government after the saffron party has its own 21 MLAs and secured support of 11 others including 4 MLAs each of Naga People's Front (NPF), NPP and one legislator of LJP.

Assam finance minister and NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma said that, a Congress MLA and the lone MLA of AITC had joined BJP taking the party number to 32.

On Sunday night, the political drama in Manipur added a new twist after Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh, one of the 28 Congress legislators, who won from the Adro constituency and the lone AITC MLA Tongbram Robindro had joined the BJP.

Sources said that, apart from Shyamkumar, 19 others Congress MLAs would likely to join BJP within short period.

Meanwhile, the BJP's legislature party leader selection process started at a hotel in Imphal in presence of top leaders of the saffron party including Union minister's Prakash Javadekar, Pijyush Goyal, party's national leader Ram Madhav, Prahlad Patel.

On the other hand, Congress accused that, BJP has murdered democracy in Manipur.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Lawmakers of various parties affiliated to the United Democratic Madhesi Front walk out the Parliament on Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Photo: RSS

Kathmandu, Nepal: Lawmakers affiliated to the agitating United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF), loose ally of Madhes based parties boycotted the meeting of the legislative Parliament on Tuesday.

The UDMF lawmakers walked out the parliament protesting the Saptari incident of last Monday where five persons had lost their lives and dozens injured during the clash with the security force.

As soon as Speaker Onsari Gharti started the meeting, the lawmakers stood up and left the House. Whie announcing their boycott decision, Nepal Sadbhawana party leaders Laxman Lal Karna accused the government of being insensitive towards the Saptari incident.

The government was not concerned about the country and the people but ministers have been inducted to the Cabinet, Karna said accusing the government for becoming indifferences toward the Saptari incident.
Kathmandu, Nepal: Nepali Congress (NC) has on Tuesday floated a new idea to take both the local level elections and the Constitution amendment simultaneously.

A meeting of the partys current and former office-bearers held at the NCs Parliamentary Party office in Singhadarbar floated the idea with intent to participate the agitating parties in the elections.

As the elections is necessary in the country, there is also equally needed to take into confidence the disgruntle parties in the elections, the meeting had the conclusion.

Likewise, the Nepali Congress has also emphasized to amend the constitution before holding local elections. The Nepali Congress has made the conclusion after holding consultations with its lawmakers from Tarai-Madhes region.

The meeting has also decided to call a meeting of the partys Central Working Committee on March 23.
Nepalgunj, Nepal: The agitating United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) has imposed general strike at Banke district targeting to foil the scheduled mass assembly of the main opposition CPN UML as part of the Mechi Mahakali campaign on Tuesday.

The affects of general strike are seen in the market. Some educational institutions and market places are closed owing to the general strike. The cadres of the UDMF have been creating obstructions in some parts of the districts from the early morning.

As five people lost their lives and dozens other injured in the clash between the two factions on last Monday at Rajbiiraj of Saptari district, the local administration has mobilized the security personnel with intent to control the untoward incidents.
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Centre for Policy Alternatives (Guarantee) Ltd. (CPA)

6/5, Layards Road, Colombo 5, Sri Lanka

The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is deeply concerned by the Bill titled Amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure (Special Provisions) Act No. 2 of 2013 a (rights of detainees a access to legal counsel) which was approved by Cabinet of Ministers on the 21st February 2017 and gazetted on the 6th March 2017.

The Bill is meant as an improvement on a previous Bill to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure, which the government did not proceed with due to concerns raised by several stakeholders including CPA. CPA notes that the present Bill seeks to provide statutory recognition to some of the existing constitutional and administrative safeguards for detainees in relation to access to lawyers, which are needed. However, we are alarmed at the proposed clauses 6A(2) and 6A(6), which are seriously flawed. These provisions, if enacted, allow for a situation were the Officer in Charge of a Police Station can deny lawyers from accessing detainees and even police stations if such access would aimpede ongoing investigationsa .

In a context where there is a well-documented history of custodial torture and abuse of power by the Police, providing such broad powers to an Officer in Charge is deeply troubling and unacceptable. Furthermore, these over-broad clauses would render meaningless the other rights enumerated in the Bill. As such the Bill would curtail existing constitutional and administrative protections for detainees, and like its previous avatar, facilitate the violation of rights including the commission of custodial torture. It would seem therefore that the aforementioned clauses of the proposed Bill are inconsistent with the governmentas stated commitment to a zero-tolerance policy towards torture.

CPA notes that while these provisions are proposed to operate only temporarily, legislation such as the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) were also initially enacted as temporary provisions but became permanent over time. The government must ensure that any proposals at legislative reform meet international standards in protecting the human rights of all citizens, and not become a tool of impeding such rights. In these circumstances, CPA calls on the government to immediately remove Clause 6A(2) and 6A(6) of the Bill.

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SeanPavonePhoto/iStock/Thinkstock(BUSAN, South Korea) -- The professor in South Korea at the center of a viral video that shows his young children barging in on a live interview with the BBC described the incident as a "comedy of

errors."



Pusan National University professor Robert Kelly was conducting the interview using Skype from his home office in South Korea when his 4-year-old daughter, Marion, interrupted, bopping happily into

the room to see her father. Marion's 8-month-old brother, James, followed close by in a walker.



The childrens' panicked mother, Kim Jung-A is then seen sliding into the room after them, taking Marion by the arm and James by the walker before shuffling them out of the room.



The reason for the mishap? Kelly forgot to lock the door amid his pre-interview preparations, which included finishing up a soda and tightening his necktie, he and his wife told The Wall Street

Journal.



"He usually locks the door," Kim said. "Most of the time they come back to me after they find the locked door. But they didnt. And then I saw the door was open. It was chaos for me."



Kim and the couple's children were in the living room as Kelly began his BBC appearance and Kim used her phone to record the interview, according to the WSJ.



Marion, who was already in high spirits after celebrating her 4th birthday at school earlier that day, jumped up and down as she watched her father on screen, the WSJ reported. Since Kim was

focused on recording, she didn't notice as her daughter ventured to the end of the hallway to see her father.



"As soon as she opened the door I saw her image on my screen," Kelly told the WSJ, adding that he was entirely to blame.



Kelly said he thought the BBC might try to cut to other footage or narrow the camera angle, but he said he knew it was "over" when Marion sat down and James walked in.



The video went viral on Friday and has since been viewed hundreds of millions of times worldwide.



Kelly said although he was "mortified" by the incident, he wants his children to continue to feel comfortable coming to him.



"I made this minor mistake that turned my family into YouTube stars," he told the WSJ. "Its pretty ridiculous."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The year is 1918. The Great War has just ended and Germany and France were licking their wounds, hopped up on their respective nationalistic fervor. Anna (Paula Beer), a young German woman who lost her 23-year old fiance, Frantz in the trenches, is living in a mountainous rural German town with his parents, the Hoffmeisters, out of love and duty. One day she notices a frail looking stranger putting roses on Frantz's grave.

Soon the stranger knocks on the doorstep. His name is Rivoire (Pierre Niney), a French soldier who claims to be a friend of Frantz from their school days in Paris. At first apprehensive with anti-France sentiments around the country - 'any Frenchman could have killed my son', but the Hoffmeisters soon open their arms to the charming, tall and melancholic man. Young Anna too, ignoring other suitors, gets smitten by the long eye-lashed, sexy mustachioed Frenchman.



Rivoire confesses to Anna that it was he, who killed her Frantz and learned about Anna and the Hoffmeisters through a letter in the dead man's pocket- that he lied to them. His intention of coming to Germany was to ask for forgiveness. Heartbroken, Anna takes ill right after Rivoire leaves and doesn't have the hearts to tell the Hoffmeisters the truth.



Ok. The synopsis for the first half of the film sounds very much like an old overblown melodrama. It's based on an old French play, The Man I Killed by Maurice Rostand, which was adapted by Ernst Lubitch in 1932 as Broken Lullaby. But Ozon, the master of a twisty narrative, packs much more interesting development in store in the second half- part detective story, part romance and part reflecting the current climate of the rise of nationalism where the relationship between two old neighbors - France and Germany and Europe as a whole is being tested.



Frantz is as usual for Ozon, a seductive concoction. Disguised as period costumes and sumptuous monochrome cinematography that bursts in to color in pivotal moments, but the film holds some sinister undertones of lost innocence and pain/joy of growing up.

Beer, a young German actress is marvelous here to carry the whole movie on her shoulder. It's perfectly natural to see the film from a female perspective in Ozon's films, and obviously he flirts with sexual attraction and sensuality (albeit very subtly). But Anna being a German lost in unforgiving world of its enemy gives another layer to this delicious concoction.

As a provincial country girl discovering the world in Paris, a bustling, decadent culture capital of the world, heartbroken but wiser and more world weary, Anna is a thoroughly a modern woman. As the last shot suggests that now she is accustomed to the city living, comfortable in her cosmopolitan surroundings. We feel for Anna. But we all know that wouldnt last long, as we are aware of the world history of what comes next to France and Germany and she doesnt.

Beautifully nuanced and poignant and still encompassing all the Ozon film characteristics  secrets, sexuality, twisty genre conventions and its searing political undertones, Frantz is Ozons most accomplished film to date.

Frantz is scheduled to open in New York on Wednesday, March 15 at Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, followed by a national roll out.

Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions on everything cinema and beyond can be found at www.dustinchang.com
This, is a thing. Give a certain type of person four wheels, an engine, and tell them they can put them on whatever size chassis they want and you can bet they are going to find a way to race it, then crash it.

No, this is not an episode of Top Gear. I doubt anyone in rural Florida have even heard of that show. This is the documentary Smash: Motorized Mayhem and ScreenAnarchy has an exclusive clip to share with you below.

In a small town, tucked deep in the real Florida, a group of blue-collar folks gather to participate in a bi-annual wild event: Figure-8 School Bus Racing! Nineteen full-sized school buses pack a puny 3.8 mile figure-8 track and race twenty harrowing laps to crown a victor. The story follows three drivers and the track promoter during a three-week intensive push to prepare for race night. This film showcases these men in an authentic reality that thrusts the viewer into their world. Their knowledge of mechanics, coupled with a strong work ethic, rival the best in any automotive field. Smash is an engaging, humorous film, clearly demonstrating that real life is more entertaining than any fiction.

If anyone can properly guess which school bus I am rooting for I got a shiney virtual nickel here with your name on it!

It is endearing to know that humanity has this ingrained desire to race and crash things, no matter the size, no matter which continent we live on. These are the zip ties that bind us.
The UK National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) is warning of Russian political hacking capabilities, the risk of cyber attacks against the political system is high.

The alert was raised by the UK National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) that is informing political parties in the UK to warn about the potential for hostile action against the UK political system.

The warning doesnt confirm that Russia is the most dangerous state for political hacking but the intelligence community has no doubts about cyber capabilities of Russians state-sponsored hackers.

In a separate context, the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson explained that there is no evidence of cyber attacks powered by Russian entities against the Brutish politicians and parties.

We have no evidence the Russians are actually involved in trying to undermine our democratic processes at the moment. We dont actually have that evidence. But what we do have is plenty of evidence that the Russians are capable of doing that. Johnson declared on national television Sunday. Ha also referred the cyber attacks against the French TV TV4Monde and the diversionary strategy adopted by Russian hackers.

There is no doubt that they have been up to all sorts of dirty tricks  bringing down French TV stations; you have seen what happened in the United States where there is no question at all they were involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Convention.

Last year, the US government accused Russia of cyberattacks against American political organizations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a Joint Analysis Report(JAR) that includes information about the tools, infrastructure and TTPs used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) against United States election.

U.S. Government linked the cyber activity to a Russian threat actor designated as GRIZZLY STEPPE. It was the first time that the JAR attributes a malicious cyber activity to specific countries or threat actors.

The fear of possible attacks powered by Russian hackers is shared among multiple European Governments.

In January, French Defense Minister Le Drian expressed concerns about cyber attacks against defense systems and warns of hacking campaigns on the upcoming elections.

The Minister warned of possible cyber attacks like the ones that targeted the 2016 US Presidential Election.

In France, the conservative candidate Francois Fillon has been praised by Russian president Vladimir Putin due to its intention to intensify the relationship with the Kremlin. On the other side, the candidate Marine Le Pen is in total opposition to Russia, for this reason, the experts believe that hackers could target him and his party.

Relations between Russia and France are not good due to the position of President Hollande on the dispute between Russia and Ukraine in the 2014 Crimean Crysis.

President Hollande also blamed Russia for war crimes over its bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The Minister is overseeing an overhaul of the cyber-security operations conducted by his Government.

In November 2016, the Gorman government expressed concerns about possible interference of Russian nation-state hackers with the 2017 German election.

The German politicians fear the Kremlins cyber capabilities. The alleged Russian interference in the US Presidential election is unleashing a domino effect and insinuating the fear in governments.

I dont have any concrete information about the origin of the attacks on the Telekom network, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday in Berlin. Let me just say that such cyberattacks, or hybrid attacks as theyre known in Russian doctrine, are part of everyday life today, and we need to learn to deal with them.

The Germanys Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere expressed a great concern for explicitly blaming Moscow.

Its possible that we cant clearly distinguish between criminal activities launched from a certain country and state activities, Maiziere declared at a conference of federal state interior ministers in Saarbrucken, when asked if Moscow was responsible for the attacks against the German routers.

The new president of German intelligence service (BND), Bruno Kahl, confirmed that foreign hackers can try to launch cyber attacks in the attempt to delegitimize the democratic process in the country.

In an interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Bruno Kahl  the new president of German intelligence service, the BND  complained about hackers trying to delegitimize the democratic process as such and said he had indications that the hacks came from certain quarters, namely Russia. And the Telekom hack is by no means the only attack of its kind in Germany. reported DW.com.

Back to the warning issued by the GCHQ, in a letter sent to the British political parties, the NCSC chief executive Ciaran Martin invited to stay sharp on cyber attacks against their infrastructure in the attempt to subvert democratic processes in the country.

You will be aware of the coverage of events in the United States, Germany and elsewhere reminding us of the potential for hostile action against the UK political system. This is not just about the network security of political parties own systems. Attacks against our democratic processes go beyond this and can include attacks on parliament, constituency offices, thinktanks and pressure groups and individuals email accounts. Martin wrote in the letter.

Protecting the UKs political system from hostile cyber-activity is one of our operational priorities, so we have signposted parties to existing guidance and will deliver tailored seminars on cyber-security measures. The seminars will build on our existing advice and will provide an overview of threats, case studies on recent cyber-incidents, practical steps to reduce the risk and advice on incident management.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs  Russia, UK )

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Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Rain showers this morning with some sunshine during the afternoon hours. High near 85F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Mostly clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 67F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph.
 Florida law now officially requires jury unanimity for death verdicts | Main | Split en banc Eleventh Circuit writes at length restricting habeas authority in ACCA case 

The Prison Policy Initiative has an updated version of its terrific incarceration "pie" graphic and report, which is available at this link (along with a larger version of the pie graphic reprinted here). Here is part of the report's introductory text and subsequent discussion:

Wait, does the United States have 1.3 million or more than 2 million people in prison? Are most people in state and federal prisons locked up for drug offenses? Frustrating questions like these abound because our systems of confinement are so fragmented and controlled by various entities. There is a lot of interesting and valuable research out there, but varying definitions make it hard  for both people new to criminal justice and for experienced policy wonks  to get the big picture.

This report offers some much needed clarity by piecing together this countrys disparate systems of confinement. The American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 901 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 76 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories. And we go deeper to provide further detail on why people are locked up in all of those different types of facilities.

Pie chart showing the number of people locked up on a given day in the United States by facility type and the underlying offense using the newest data available in March 2017.Pie chart showing the number of people locked up on a given day in the United States in jails, by convicted and not convicted status, and by the underlying offense, using the newest data available in March 2017. Graph showing the number of people in jails from 1983 to 2014 by whether they have been convicted or not. The number of convicted people stopped growing in 1999, but the number of unconvicted people continues to grow.Graph showing, for the years 2007 to 2015, the number of people ~~ 10.9 to 13.6 million ~~ a year who are admitted to jail per year and the number of people ~~ about 700,000 to 800,000 ~~ who are in jail on a given day.Graph showing the incarcerated populations in federal prisons, state prisons, and local jails from 1925 to 2015. The state prison and jail populations grew exponentially in the 1980s and 1990s, and began to decline slowly after 2008, while federal prison populations have always been smaller and show less change over time.

While this pie chart provides a comprehensive snapshot of our correctional system, the graphic does not capture the enormous churn in and out of our correctional facilities and the far larger universe of people whose lives are affected by the criminal justice system. Every year, 641,000 people walk out of prison gates, but people go to jail over 11 million times each year. Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail in the next few hours or days, and others are too poor to make bail and must remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (187,000 on any given day) have been convicted, generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year....

With a sense of the big picture, a common follow-up question might be: how many people are locked up for a drug offense? We know that almost half a million people are locked up because of a drug offense. The data confirms that nonviolent drug convictions are a defining characteristic of the federal prison system, but play only a supporting role at the state and local levels. While most people in state and local facilities are not locked up for drug offenses, most states continued practice of arresting people for drug possession destabilizes individual lives and communities. Drug arrests give residents of over-policed communities criminal records, which then reduce employment prospects and increase the likelihood of longer sentences for any future offenses.

All of the offense data presented comes with an important set of caveats. A person in prison for multiple offenses is reported only for the most serious offense so, for example, there are people in prison for violent offenses who might have also been convicted of a drug offense. Further, almost all convictions are the result of plea bargains, where people plead guilty to a lesser offense, perhaps of a different category or one that they may not have actually committed.

And many of these categories group together people convicted of a wide range of offenses. For example, murder is generally considered to be an extremely serious offense, but murder groups together the rare group of serial killers, with people who committed acts that are unlikely for reasons of circumstance or advanced age to ever happen again, with offenses that the average American may not consider to be murder at all. For example, the felony murder rule says that if someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved can be as guilty of murder as the person who pulled the trigger. Driving a getaway car during a bank robbery where someone was accidentally killed is indeed a serious offense, but many may be surprised that this is considered murder.
Get out of the way, people: The California Department of Motor Vehicles released its updated proposed regulations for autonomous vehicles "post-testing deployment" on Friday, and they relax a number of rules and restrictions in what's likely an effort to keep autonomous car companies from fleeing the state. There are more than 20 manufacturers testing autonomous cars in California today, but all have drivers behind the wheel ready to take the reigns at a moment's notice. No more, the department proposes, amending its existing rules "to include the testing of vehicles that do not require the presence of a driver inside the vehicle and ensure the testing of such vehicles is conducted on California public roads in a safe manner."

One pertinent Bay Area driving question: Does this mean it's legal to ghost ride the whip? I kid.

For some autonomous cars, even if a human driver wanted to hit the brake or turn the wheel, they couldn't  Google, for example, has developed prototypes without appendages like pedals or wheels, and were dismayed by previous draft DMV regulations that would require them. But the new proposed rules would throw out that requirement, as the Associated Press takes note.

Some pundits interpret that move and others as concessions to the companies developing self-driving technologies and vehicles, though perhaps necessary ones. If California was going to keep that level of development activity in the state, what they did was necessary and timely," Eric Noble, president of an automative consulting firm, tells Bloomberg. "They kind of had to do it because at some point manufacturers cant move autonomous vehicles forward without getting controls out of cars. Bloomberg also explains that if car companies test vehicles without conventional controls, they'll have to prove to the CA DMV that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has signed off on them as well.

Ryan Calo of the University of Washington School of Law expressed some concern to Wired about the fact that companies can "self-certify" their vehicles to drive without people rather than passing a DMV mandated test. It makes me a little nervous, honestly, he said. "Thats like me going to the DMV and saying, believe me, Im an excellent driver."

A 45-day public comment period for the proposed rules, which the AP calls "the most detailed regulatory framework of any state," has begun, and a public hearing in Sacramento for input will be held on April 25. The new rules could take effect by the end of 2017, and would make a limited number of self-driving cars available to customers as soon as 2018, provided that federal government permission is also granted.

Related: Uber Has Waymo Problems: Google Company Sues Over Allegedly Stolen Tech>/a>
Word is out regarding a "nascent" effort being "discreetly" explored by the staff of the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. The New York Times reveals the early stages and aspirations of a permanent AIDS museum in San Francisco, which would be along the lines of more recent memorial museums like the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, or the September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, institutions that are "extraordinarily successful" according to the Times.

The story of AIDS is more than a disease, AIDS Memorial Grove executive director John Cunningham told the Times. The real underpinnings of that story are about humanity, social justice, human rights and what it means to be a citizen of the world. Somehow there needs to be a keeper of the story.

What's happened so far is that the Grove has consultants, some who have made their mark by fundraising for museums. An internal memo states the museum would seek to be "architecturally significant... More than a museum or memorial, it will be a center of social justice and conscience and a platform for action."

The time could be right, the Times imagines: AIDS monuments like the New York City AIDS Memorial in Greenwich Village, dedicated just months ago, and a West Hollywood AIDS monument that begins construction soon, have gained momentum nationally. And, in the sense of documentation, the material is rich. AIDS is one of the most documented crises in history, Jason Bauman at the New York Public Library tells the Times. There was a drive to document... They knew what they were doing was significant.

As it stands now, the National AIDS Memorial Grove is the only AIDS-related monument to gain National Memorial status, which it received in 1996. The Grove was conceived in 1988, and according to a page on its website, the Grove's founders "envisioned a serene place where people would come alone or in groups to hold memorial services, to remember among the rhododendrons and redwoods. It was to be a place dedicated to all lives touched by AIDS." The board of directors for the grove has a 99-year renewable lease with the City of San Francisco.

On the Grove's eastern edge is the Circle of Friends, pictured above, where loved ones lost to the virus as well as those affected by the disease and its toll. While that list slowed as HIV treatments transformed a death sentence into an incurable life-long disease, new names are nonetheless still added to the circle. That central dais is even running out of room, meaning AIDS Memorial Grove staff plan to build a sidewalk of engraved bricks to allow more names to be added. This ongoing nature of the disease is one aspect complicating a museum dedicated to it. At a 2013 NY Public Library show "Remembering AIDS Activism," protestors objected to the idea of writing off the epidemic as ancient history, or even as a matter of the past. All told, AIDS has killed 39 million people and more than 36 million currently live with HIV. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region that's the hardest hit today.

Related: It's World AIDS Day, And The National AIDS Memorial Grove Has Just Run Out Of Room To Carve Names
An Inner Richmond resident was injured Monday night, when a fire blazed through a building on Fifth Avenue, near Presidio Terrace.

According to tweets from the San Francisco Fire Department, crews were called to 191 Fifth Avenue, which is at the corner of California Street, at 8:52 p.m. Monday.

CBS 5 reports that "Upon arrival, firefighters found heavy smoke coming from the four-story buildings top floor."

By 9:03, the SFFD says the one-alarm fire was contained. One adult fire victim suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the blaze, and was transported to the hospital for treatment, according to the SFFD.

In total, five adults, one child, and two dogs were displaced by the fire, the SFFD says. The Red Cross and city services have both been notified, according to the SFFD, and will be handling the assistance effort for the victims.

Related: Silver Terrace Fire Displaces 11 Residents, Injures Firefighter
We're now learning more about the suspect who was at the center of the shelter-in-place emergency and seven-hour standoff at the Crown Hotel on Valencia Street Friday. 57-year-old Samantha Helstrom, a trans ex-Marine who grew up in San Francisco, tells ABC 7 in a jailhouse interview that she's sorry for what happened, some of which she does not remember because she had been drinking, but she still feels that the SFPD's handling of the situation was an overreaction and made little sense. Also, the gun she brandished that started the entire drama turns out to be a replica gun.

"That was not a de-escalation," Helstrom says. "That was an escalation."

She's been charged with two misdemeanor counts of brandishing a replica weapon and was still jailed as of Monday night.

Also we now learn that Helstrom was the subject of a rather sensational 2001 piece in the Chronicle in which a reporter followed her to a Thailand hospital to observe her sex reassignment surgery, from inside the operating room. At the time, Helstrom was 41 and a frequenter of goth clubs in the city, and the piece gets fairly offensive in its squeamishness over Helstrom's trans status and sexual orientation  it's also a bit of an anachronism in Helstrom's own casual use of the word "tranny" and the fact that she's repeatedly mistaken for a gay man and called gay slurs on the streets.

Friday's incident began when a building manager and pest-control worker knocked on the door of Helstrom's room in the SRO where she lives at 528 Valencia Street. She tells ABC 7 that she had been depressed and consumed a significant amount of alcohol, and had fallen asleep while watching a movie. The next thing she remembers is hearing her name being shouted and negotiators were demanding she come out of her room. "I told them, 'I didn't do anything.'"

As NBC Bay Area reports from a similar interview in the behavioral unit at SF County Jail, Helstrom has no memory of pulling the gun on anyone. She does, however, remember stepping into the hallway and being struck by non-lethal rubber bullets, and saying, "Shoot me, shoot me." She clarifies, "It wasn't like 'kill me.' I don't know if I said 'kill me' because they were shooting at me." Also, she tells the station, that she is not suicidal. "I have two kids; I don't want to go anywhere."

The Examiner has delved into the role that the Department of Public Health played in Friday's negotiations with Helstrom, who as of last fall now have a formal agreement, via the mayor, to play a role in handling mental health crises with the police. This is all part of the SFPD's new mandate for de-escalation following a spate of officer-involved shootings with questionably armed, mentally unstable or erratic people.

Already, the SFPD and DPH have identified 100 mentally ill individuals who are the most frequently in need of hospitalization, and in fact there was one individual who was hospitalized via 5150  the police code for a forced mental health hospitalization  48 times in one year, or nearly once a week.

But it's unclear where communication broke down over Helstrom's situation  why she was not identified as intoxicated, or how police and the DPH determined that she was a potential threat to them or herself over the course of the seven-hour standoff.

"They could have rushed me, taken me down," Helstrom said to NBC Bay Area. "I think it was an outrageous waste of money."

But ABC 7 notes that Helstrom was already known to police via a 2012 incident at an SRO in North Beach in which she says she accidentally shot at her own hotel room door. At the time police said they found evidence of possible explosives inside the room.

And SFPD spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca tells ABC 7, "We're not going to leave it at chance for anyone or anything that might cause an incident to get worse, especially when you're thinking about the well-being and the safety of the public."

Previously: Armed 60-Year-Old Woman Prompts Shelter-In-Place Drama In The Mission
 Expand Photo credit: Sisi Burns

In a concert that, per Early Music Nows Executive and Artistic Director Charles Q. Sullivan, blows off the pretentions of Baroque music to demonstrate, instead, the origins and fresh appeal of music from the Appalachian hills, Cleveland-based Apollos Fire will bring to town some very unfamiliar sounds, indeed. Its not often we get the chance to hear instruments like the hammered dulcimer, long-neck dulcimer or banjo in a live classical music concert performance in Milwaukee, but that all changes at Saturdays Early Music Now program.

According to Apollos Fire Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell, their Milwaukee programtitled Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gatheringwill reach back in time to explore the earliest roots of Appalachian heritage. The immigrants from the British Isles who made the crossing and built the Appalachian community were mostly from the impoverished lower classes. The ballads they brought with them, which date back to the Renaissance and, in some cases, to the Medieval period, include many that are dark and haunting. Topics such as murder and even fratricide are very common in this repertoire; but there are also delightfully playful childrens songs.

The music of Appalachia represents a fascinating mixture of influencesEnglish, Scottish, Irish and Welsh as well as African. Indeed, one of the genres emblematic instruments, the banjo, was first brought to the region by African American slaves in the 18th century.

Founded in 1992, Apollos Fire (aka the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra) has performed throughout Europe and North America. Its concerts have been broadcast on National Public Radio and on Great Britains BBC. This award-winning ensemble also has an extensive discography, with multiple albums comprising the music of George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, W.A. Mozart and other greats of the Baroque and Classical Eras. A 2011 release, Come to the River: An Early American Gathering, displaysas this concert willthe groups crossover appeal into early American and British Isles folk music.

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This program is particularly appealing to me because each of the eight performers is an artist in his or her own right, Sullivan explains, and each has experience and particular expertise in this repertoire. And the repertoire! So much that is familiar to us as folksongs but with links back to the Renaissance or even Medieval times. Its rare to have bluegrass fiddling at an EMN concert, but foot-stompin and toe-tappin will be welcome at this program!

Indeed, we often think of very upbeat tunes when we think of the banjo-plucking music of the hill country of the American Northeastnot dark and haunting aforementioned by Sorrell. Truth is, however, that all music evokes the whole of the experience of life. As she explains, In short, life was hard back in the home countryand it was still hard in the Appalachian hills. But it was also filled with joy and laughter.

The Apollos Fire concert begins at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 18 at the Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd. It will be preceded by Early Music Nows annual silent auction and chocolate reception at 3 p.m. For tickets call 414-225-3113 or visit earlymusicnow.org.
 Expand Amber Rivard and Joshua Burgos of Alma Milwaukee

Photos on the wall of DAYNC Studio (910 E. Hamilton St.) tell the story. As a child in Brookfield, Amber Rivard loved dance lessons. While an international marketing major at UW-Milwaukee, she took Salsa 1 from the dance department and joined Ahora!, a student Latin dance group that rehearsed in hallways. She became its leader. Joshua Burgos grandfather emigrated from Yucatan and was the first Latin American to own a house on Milwaukees South Side. On impulse, Josh joined a salsa dance class at the former Studio Lounge in Bay View five years ago and found himself partnered with Rivard, also new to the class. The connection was instant. In love with Latin dance and determined to compete professionally, they found an expert teacher in Dennis Lopez, founder of Milwaukees first professional troupe, who trained them, free of charge, for eight months before leaving for the far larger scene in Florida.

Your mentor left you?

JB: And thats when we started our own dance company. When you write this, just knowits really importantthat none of this was planned. We just went off a gut feeling and we trusted each other.

AR: We knew we could teach at the beginner level but who was going to choreograph? Who was going to give us the technique we needed to grow ourselves? We always admired Alma Latina, a dance company in Tijuana, Mexico. Josh found them through YouTube. We were obsessed with their style and we found out they were franchising. You can purchase choreography from them; they design costumes for your dancers and provide technique training. So we brought Alma Latina to Milwaukee. Our dance company is Alma Milwaukee. Alma means soul.

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And you opened DAYNC Studio?

AR: For a year we rented studios but we grew too big. We started with beginner salsa and beginner bachata teams but expanded to add intermediate teams and a ladies cha-cha team. At the end of the year, we thought either we dont do Alma Milwaukee anymore or we get our own space, something tiny, just for our teams. And Josh stumbled upon this place on Hamilton.

JB: It was the energy, it was the neighborhood, it was the skylights. When you walked in, you felt your soul expanding: There could be a comfortable space here where you could be who you are and theres no judgment.

AR: The skylights are original from when this was a horse stable for one of the breweries.

JB: Amber and I and our two team captains went to the Paris Salsa Conference in April, 2016 to train with our pro team from Tijuana. When we came back, we signed the lease. I used my renovation and property management background to lay our wood floors, mount our mirrors and barre, hang speakers, build our desk. When our teams found out we were doing this for them, they volunteered to help. We built it all in two weeks so we could open on Cinco de Mayo. Within a month, we brought the owner of Alma Latina and her partner here to do workshops on the one-year anniversary of Alma Milwaukee. Now Amber and I are on the operations team for Alma Latina, Mexico. This is a worldwide company with over 30 cities. Were working for them part time and traveling a lot to get more dance training.

AR: We opened the studio for our company and we really manifest the Alma Latina style, which isnt just urban Latin dance plopped on a plate. Ballet is part of how they train their dancers so we also offer that here, a hybrid ballet-modern class. We also offer a beginning hip-hop class. Were trying to offer classes that no one else is offering. Our clientele includes people whove never danced in their life but have always wanted to try. Ideally well contribute to our dancers happiness or at least be able to say that we helped the art in a way that matters.

How can we see a performance?

JB: We have a Latin dance social here every third Friday of the month. We teach a beginner lesson from 8 to 9 p.m. From 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., we have Latin dance DJs and at 10 p.m., depending whats going on in the city with companies and their dancers, we have performances. Theres a $10 cover. We call it Latin Fridays.

Friday, March 17 is Latin Friday at DAYNC, 910 E. Hamilton St.
From the moment Donald Trump gained the powers of the presidency, he instantly became the most dangerous politician in America. We suddenly had a president eager to take impulsive, extreme actions based on falsehoods and prejudices instead of reality and facts.

Not everyone realizes, though, that the second most dangerous politician in America is Paul Ryan, the mild-mannered congressman from Wisconsin. Ryan rose to Speaker of the House based upon his ability to make extreme right-wing legislation sound almost reasonable.

What frightens many Americans about Trump is no one, including probably Trump himself, has any idea what he might do next. Very little of what he says is true. Trump has made it clear he doesnt intend to be restrained by conventional politics, the Constitution or even common decency. Ryan is nearly as dangerous for a very different reason. The most frightening thing about Ryan is sometimes he means exactly what he says.

The current Republican battle over destroying President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act (ACA) shows how a focused, determined congressman with an extreme agenda might be even more dangerous than a highly disorganized wild-man president. As is typical, Trumps approach began with an outrageous lie. He announced, immediately upon taking office, that within days he would complete a terrific health care plan covering everybody in America at a fraction of the cost of Obamacare. That wasnt true, of course; Trump had no plan at all. He was waiting for Ryan to come up with one that would have a chance of passing the House and the Senate.

No one who knew anything about the extreme right-wing budgets Ryan created for House Republicans would expect him to design a massive new government program providing health care for every American. Ryan doesnt believe in massive government programs. Ryan believes in eliminating government programs benefitting Americans to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy. Hes advocated rolling back not only the Affordable Care Act, but even the nations most successful government programs dating back to Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt, including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

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Destroying Health Care for 24 Million

So, no surprise, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office Ryans plan would destroy health insurance for 24 million Americans over the next 10 years, more than wiping out all those who gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The real purpose isnt health care. Its to eliminate $600 billion in taxes, primarily for the wealthy, while also reducing the federal deficit by another $337 billion.

Ryan put the plan together behind closed doors without consulting anyone delivering health care. Thats why his plan also ran into a solid wall of opposition from health care providers, including the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association and Americas Health Insurance Plans. Politically, the loony, fringe, extreme-right Freedom Caucus derided the plan as RyanCare and RINOCare (Republican-In-Name-Only Care) because it doesnt completely eviscerate the ACA. At the same time, some moderate Senate Republicans worried about the backlash from millions of voters suddenly losing their health insurance.

It says a lot about Republicans these days that Ryan was far more concerned about losing support from the far right than he was about all the devastating problems cited by doctors, hospitals and insurance companies as a result of millions of people losing health insurance. He appealed to the radical right by declaring that, if they accepted his more gradual obliteration of Obamacare, it could usher in the sort of Golden Age of Right-Wing Extremism he has worked toward for his entire career.

This is a monumental, exciting, conservative reform, Ryan said. Ive been working on this for 20 years. This is exciting. This is what weve been dreaming about doing. Its not an overstatement to say achieving Ryans career-long dreams would be a nightmare for millions of Americans. Forget Ryans tour of impoverished inner cities pretending to be one of those rare Republicans who care about the poor. Every single budget Ryan crafted for House Republicans would have pushed the families living in those neighborhoods deeper into poverty.

A mythology has grown up around Ryan that hes a courageous politician because hes dared to publicly threaten such vitally important programs as Social Security and Medicare and survived politically. Not even that TV commercial of a clean-cut, young look-alike pushing grannys wheelchair over a cliff ended his career. No one ever took Ryan seriously before because weve never had a president who actually might consider destroying those programs. Even Trump once blamed Mitt Romneys presidential defeat on choosing Ryan as his running mate.

But now Trump has Ryan excitingly writing legislation destroying health care coverage for millions instead of covering everyone as Trump once swore he would. Ryan promises this is only the beginning of a 20-year-old plot to dismantle decades of basic government programs protecting every American citizen. Ryan has his eye on that Number One spot.
 Expand Photo credit: Dan Zaitz, JCC

To be an other can be really challenging," says Elana Kahn, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

Shes speaking in light of the series of bomb threats that forced the evacuation of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center (JCC) during the past month. Anti-Semitism and xenophobia have always formed a contrary stream in the American narrative, never entirely absent but usually quiescent when the national mood is positive and focused on the ideal of unity in diversity.

Lately, however, a spirit of discord had dominated the national conversation. While there is nothing new in vandalism and threats against Jews, Muslims and other minority faiths, the months since Donald Trumps election have seen a spike in outrageous incidents. Around the U.S. mosques have burned, Jewish graves have been desecrated, Indian Americans have been murdered and more than 80 Jewish centers have received bomb threats.

For Milwaukee Jews and Muslims, however, life has continued unimpeded by such threats. Did you have a problem finding parking?" Mark Shapiro, the JCCs president and CEO, pointedly asks me. Indeed, the centers expansive parking lot is packed as always. At 5 in the morning our fitness floor is humming as usual," he adds. We continue to serve 200 families in our early childhood program."

Activities also carry on as usual at the citys largest mosque, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee on Milwaukees South Side, and at other Muslim institutions. We have received Islamophobic letters, but as for active threats, we havent gotten that. So far, weve been lucky, although representatives of different mosques have met to discuss security," says Janan Najeeb, president of the Milwaukee Muslim Womens Coalition. Munjed Ahmad, a member of the Islamic Societys Shura (Executive Committee), adds that while the mosque has received several phone calls where callers used discriminatory comments and profanity, fortunately, we have not received any direct threats during those calls." He is unaware of any direct threats to other mosques in the metro Milwaukee area.

While life continues as usual, the atmosphere has grown more anxious. There has definitely been a tremendous rise over the past year in racist remarks in public placesto Muslim females in particular," Najeeb says. We are hearing quite a bit about students being harassed in schools, ridiculed and bullied."

Kahn sees a parallel phenomenon among Jewish secondary students in some school districts. Children have faced bullying and graffiti on their lockers. I know of three families who removed their children from schools because of anti-Semitic bullying.

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As for the causes of the rising threat level, Shapiro says, Its hard for me to speculate because my brain doesnt work the same way as a person who would phone in a bomb threat. In these unusual times, you can spend your time trying to figure out why or you can continue to overcome the hurdles. Our goal has always been for the JCC to be a center of inclusiveness where people who agree or disagree can come together."

According to Kahn, reported anti-Semitic incidents have risen during most of the past five years, but last year it went way up. There are multiple factors, but certainly some of it was tied to the political rhetoric heard in 2016. There has been an increase in hatefulness against all minorities."

Hannah Rosenthal, president and CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, agrees. The rise in hate in our state, our community and our country is frightening and should cause everyone much alarm. Whats happening today in the U.S. has always been there, but hatred has been unleashed in the political climate were in."

Promoting Fear

Its fair to say that one feature of the presidential campaign was promoting a sense of fear, insecurity and competition between groups of people," Kahn says. Najeeb agrees. Where previously racist rhetoric was looked down upon and sidelined, we now have an administration that has normalized it. This is very dangerous," she says.

Ahmad adds: The number of these hate-filled and ignorant comments and acts have clearly risen as people seem to be emboldened by the current political climate where our nations leaders have shown and continue to show an anti-Muslim bias. As long as that Islamophobic attitude continues among our countrys leaders, Muslims here in Wisconsin and throughout the nation will have to maintain a sense of vigilance in order to avoid becoming victims of attacks."

While Trump specifically directed his rhetoric of national insecurity at Muslims, the flare-up of anti-Semitism under his watch is more puzzling. His son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, is Jewish; his daughter and favorite child, Ivanka, converted to Judaism. I cant explain it," Kahn says. There is value in the fact that he has relations with Jews whom he loves and respects, but were measured by what we say and do. I was struck by his reference to America First in his inauguration speech. He had been told that America First contains echoes of a time when America abandoned our people [to the Holocaust]. He continued to say it. He insisted on using it. I find that very troubling."

Good Neighbors in Milwaukee

Several years before anyone imagined a Trump presidency, suburban Milwaukee was the setting for one of the most notorious crimes against a religious minority in recent American history, the 2012 massacre at Oak Creeks Sikh Temple by a neo-Nazi skinhead. Some Milwaukeeans have said that the sheer repulsiveness of the incident served as a loud wakeup call on the ends to which hatred can lead. Despite the citys mixed legacy of racism and poor relations with minority groups of all kinds, Milwaukee is proving a supportive place in the face of bomb threats and hate speech.

Shapiro calls the response by law enforcement to bomb threats at the JCC as beyond spectacular" and praises politicians from both parties, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Rep. Gwen Moore, Gov. Scott Walker and Mayor Tom Barrett, for their show of support. Najeeb, by contrast, finds support mainly among Democratic leaders. Tom Barrett knows us very well. Gwen Moore is a good friend of the Muslim community and checks in on us quite often.

We have many friends in Milwaukee and have received an outpouring of supportby phone, by emailsaying, We just want you to know we are happy you are here and we stand with you. This is very encouraging," Najeeb says. A lot of people are extremely upset with what they see happening in this countryits not reflective of the America they believe in."

"Now more than ever, we must wholeheartedly support our Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center. The Milwaukee Police Department will continue to lend all appropriate investigative resources and we as a community need to say yes to the JCC and to unity in this nation," says Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
Derek Beyer, one of the co-chairs of the Democratic Socialists of AmericaMilwaukee Chapter (DSAMilwaukee), experienced the failures of capitalism first-hand teaching at Bay View High School. Its a human tragedy how the system keeps failing these kids by not providing them with a quality education and economic stability.

Seeing up close the toll the countrys current economic climate is taking is a big reason why he decided to help start DSAMilwaukee. The group formed last December with the goal of promoting the associations national platform in Milwaukee.

The platform: The economy and society should be run democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few. We are a political and activist organization, not a party; through campus and community-based chapters DSA members use a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action, to fight for reforms that empower working people.

Beyer said he first noticed the need for this platform during Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. I saw what Bernie was doing at a national level and realized that there was an untapped market for Democratic Socialist politics, especially in Milwaukee with its history of Sewer Socialism.

For much of the 20th century through 1960, the city and County of Milwaukee included socialist public officials responsible for a pragmatic set of initiatives that improved the lives of local residents through everything from cultivating one of Americas most impressive public park systems to the installation of two public television channels, the construction of the old County Stadium and, yes, well-kept streets and sewers.

After the election of Donald Trump, I got a call from national DSA rep Bill Barclay, and he told me membership was exploding and now would be a good time to get the chapter started, Beyer continued. I reached out to some friends on Facebook, and we had our first meeting in early December.

Fellow co-chair Ai Csuka had also reached out to Beyer. Csuka said she noticed a silver lining: that people are motivated more than ever to get involved in DSA. As much as I wouldve loved a Clinton or Sanders presidency, I think if that would have happened, people would have stayed complacent about the issues that have been facing our country for years now, she said.

A self-proclaimed Bernie Bro, Csuka said, she knew after the election more tangible action was needed. I kind of had an existential breakdown, like the rest of America. I realized that social media activism isnt enough and that I had to do more.

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The Milwaukee chapter membership has grown from seven people at its first meeting to more than 40 dues-paying members. These include Dan Black, the outreach officer, and Robert Miranda.

Black is suing Sheriff David Clarke for abuse of power following a much-publicized incident at Mitchell International Airport. Clarke ordered Black detained at the airport by sheriffs deputies after a verbal exchange between the two men on a Jan. 15 flight from Dallas to Milwaukee.

A chapter member before the altercation, Black said, I think he was trying to intimidate me, but it backfired because now I want to fight back even more.

Miranda, an activist well known in Milwaukee, said he had identified as an independent for 30 years, but joined the chapter because he saw it as a place for independent organizers to come together and work.

For more information, contact milwaukeedsa@gmail.com.
Saturday, March 18

Rally for Peace, noon-1 p.m., Capitol and Teutonia; 43rd and National

There will be two rallies for peace held this Saturday. One on the North Side, on Capitol Drive and Teutonia Avenue, and another on the South Side at 43rd Street and National Avenue. The protests call directly for President Trump to lower military spending in an effort to move the money from war and militarism to a full employment green economy with zero poverty.

Wednesday, March 22

Youth Justice Milwaukee Summit, 1-7 p.m., Wisconsin Black Historical Society Museum (2620 W. Center St.)

Youth Justice Milwaukee is hosting a summit on juvenile justice at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society Museum. Guest speakers include Ruben Austria, founding executive director of Community Connections for Youth (CCFY) and Shaena Fazal, national policy director of the Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP) and author of Beyond Bars: Keeping Young People Safe at Home and Out of Youth Prisons.

Refuel the Resistance, 5-8 p.m., Bounce Milwaukee (2801 S. 5th Court)

Every Wednesday, Bounce Milwaukee offers a space to organize, as well as a free drink to anyone who brings evidence of resistance in the past week, including protest signs, an email to an elected official or a selfie at the capital.

To submit to this column, please send a brief description of your action, including date and time, to savingourdemocracy@shepex.com. Together, we can fight to minimize the damage that this administration has planned for our great country.
In his State of the City address, Mayor Tom Barrett correctly pointed out that Milwaukee is the economic engine of the state, sending $460 million dollars to the state, which is more than it receives from the state in all of its various state aids. Milwaukee gets about 66 cents back for every dollar it sends to Madison. This has been going on for decades and decades and decades. However, if you listen to the Republican legislators in Madison, you would think it is the exact opposite; they continue to undermine local control and damage Milwaukee.

Since these small rural communities are benefiting from Milwaukee and essentially being subsidized by Milwaukee, one would think that they would be grateful. Unfortunately, again, the opposite is true. One would think that they would take very good care of the city whose tax dollars are providing these smaller communities with a higher quality of life. Instead, they continually try to interfere in and micromanage Milwaukee with state legislation. Remember when Gov. Tommy Thompson, while in northern Wisconsin, said to a burst of applause, Lets stick it to Milwaukee? Those words were not an accident; they were vote getters.

Since they have the majorities in both chambers of the legislature, due to extreme gerrymandering along with a Republican governor, they can pass almost anything they want. The Republican gerrymandering after the 2010 census was so extreme that a three-judge federal panel, with two Republican appointees and one Democratic appointee, ruled that Wisconsins current legislative districts are unconstitutional and must be redrawn. Despite the fact that the legislature as it is currently constituted is unconstitutional, it doesnt seem to moderate them.

The most recent bill to interfere with local control that is now on the governors desk would prevent local governments from negotiating agreements with developers and contractors that are working on projects that receive taxpayer subsidies from developing project labor agreements. These agreements require various benefits for the community in the form of job training opportunities for local residents, for example, in exchange for the subsidies paid for by the taxpayers.

According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, one of the legislations authors, State Rep. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), said that his legislation was designed to let the market decide essentially without the government interfering. Huh. These agreements that are struck between the local governments and the contractors are only applicable to projects that have a government subsidy, where the private markets on their own did not fund the project. One of the largest private projects of this kind is obviously the Bucks arena.

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If it were solely up to the private capital markets, the Bucks project would not have happened. The private markets were apparently not providing adequate or affordable capital for the project to be feasible. Government ended up paying for about half the arena project. Because the government had to intervene, and only because there is a taxpayer subsidy, it was OK for the taxpayers to negotiate some community benefit in return.

This bill passed on a party line vote in both chambers. Apparently it didnt dawn on these Republican legislators that there are market imperfections, and government intervention was required to make the project work. If it is necessary for the government to intervene for the project to move forward, why is it not OK for the government to also intervene to train some of its residents in the process? Apparently the owners of the Bucks understand the importance of such agreements and the importance of being a good civic partner with the community and have gone above and beyond with respect to their project labor agreement.
Each year, millions of individuals, families and businesses file their income taxes for the previous year. Often, a significant life event will take place like a change in income, marriage, or birth of a child which can cause mistakes, costing you additional taxes and penalties. And sometimes, circumstances arise and people dont file their taxes at all.

Many businesses or families tax problems start here, when they file late or not all. Maybe you are missing records or other information thats crucial to filing correctly. In this case, obtaining an extension to file is a smart move, as you will receive an additional four months to file. If you choose not to file, the IRS and State will make assumptions about your income and deductions; more often than not, theyll assume you owe more than you actually do.

Other peoples tax problems begin when they realize theyre not able to afford what the IRS or state says they owe. Often, people think they can wait it out, or start saving to make the payment later, but interest and penalties will begin to multiply the original amount owed, making it even more difficult to get out of tax trouble. The consequences for tax debt can be severe, including bank levies, wage garnishment, and property seizures.

Friends of the Shepherd Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly newspaper. LEARN MORE

Alliance Tax & Accounting Service is a local business specializing in Tax Resolution  theyre committed to helping their clients permanently solve this type of tax problem. There are more than 15,000 individuals and businesses in Wisconsin who owe over $10,000 in tax debt. With over twenty years of experience and resolution specialists on staff, Alliance is prepared to help those people get their lives back.

Last year, an individual came into the Alliance Tax office owing $59,100 in back taxes. A levy had been put on this persons bank account, and wages were being garnished. In this case, the team at Alliance Tax was able to become their new clients power of attorney, communicating with the IRS on their clients behalf and researching the situation by accessing the tax master files. By accurately completing and filing two years of back tax returns and negotiating and Offer in Compromise, the client only ended up having to pay $500 to settle their debt. In a similar situation, the IRS claimed that an individual owed $93,800 in back taxes. The Alliance team completed and filed eight years of tax returns and the client actually received a $1,300 refund!

If youve lost your peace of mind because of an ongoing tax problem, know that its not too late to resolve this issue permanently. Its crucial to recognize that a tax professional who is well-versed in tax resolution, is the best path to relieving any tax headache permanently. Contact Alliance Tax today for a free consultation: 262-786-4442 or www.alliancetaxusa.com.
DAKOTA CITY | Tuesday's pretrial conference in a Dakota County murder case was expected to be a routine matter in which the judge and attorneys agreed to future hearing dates.

That was until one of the suspects rose to his feet and began a profanity-laced outburst that led to his removal from the courtroom and a brief pause in the proceedings.

Andres Surber, 26, and Brayan Galvan-Hernandez, 19, both of Wakefield, Nebraska, have each pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony. Surber also is charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. They are charged with the Nov. 1 shooting death of Kraig Kubik, 41, of Emerson, Nebraska.

Both were in Dakota County District Court Tuesday while attorneys agreed to a schedule for hearing a state motion to consolidate their trials, rather than try them separately. Galvan-Hernandez' case was called first while Surber waited in the gallery, flanked by Dakota County Courthouse security guards.

While District Judge Paul Vaughan was discussing with lawyers the likelihood a May 9 trial would not take place, a security officer looked at Surber and said "knock it off."

In what appeared to be an unprovoked outburst, Surber, who was in restraints and seated in the second row of the courtroom gallery, began to speak loudly, using profanities before standing up as security officers converged on him.

"You know who I am? I'm (expletive) God," Surber shouted before Vaughan ordered him to be removed from the courtroom. It wasn't obvious to whom Surber was directing his comments.

He could still be heard shouting outside the courtroom as he was being led back to the jail.

Vaughan then resumed the hearing. Once Galvan-Hernandez was finished, Vaughan conducted Surber's pretrial conference with his attorney, Todd Lancaster, of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy in Lincoln.

Vaughan set an April 26 hearing to consider assistant Nebraska Attorney General Corey O'Brien's motion to consolidate the trials of Galvan-Hernandez and Surber. O'Brien, in his motion, said the same witness testimony and evidence would be presented at each trial, and having one trial rather than two would be a more efficient use of the court's time.

Vaughan will also take arguments at the April hearing on Lancaster's motions to suppress evidence he said was gathered by authorities conducting illegal searches of Surber's home and car. Among the items seized were two cellphones, paper and clothes with blood on them, and blood swabs from a phone.

Surber and Galvan-Hernandez are accused of shooting Kubik with a 9-mm firearm and dismembering his body. Investigators found a severed arm and leg in the trunk of a car at an abandoned farmhouse in rural Dixon County, Nebraska. The rest of Kubik's remains were found four days later in a creek about four miles away. Autopsy results showed a gunshot wound to Kubik's head.

Galvan-Hernandez is currently scheduled to stand trial May 9, but O'Brien said Tuesday he plans to seek a continuance because there would not be enough time to prepare for trial after any rulings from the April hearing. Vaughan said he anticipated that he would move the trial to a later date, perhaps in June or July.

No trial date has been set for Surber.
SIOUX CITY | The lengthy quest to build a new Bryant Elementary School will be further lengthened as the Sioux City Board of Education on Monday rejected all bids for the next phase of the project, meaning an August 2019 opening is now unlikely.

"It could be as much as a year later," Superintendent Paul Gausman said, adding that he wants to be open with the community on the possible extent of the delay.

School district officials are planning to construct a new Bryant to replace the old building that dated to 1890 and was recently demolished. That happened after much neighborhood controversy on where the school should be built. After a new 10-acre spot could not be found, school officials morphed to a three-level option at the same spot as the old school was located.

The new Bryant project was estimated to cost almost $20 million, including the first two phases that are already under way for just under a combined $4 million.

The third phase, constructing the main part of the building, had been estimated to cost $16,030,000. When the low of two bids came in at $18,830,000, from L&L Builders in Sioux City, board members rejected the bids and decided to seek new architect plans in order to find some savings. Board members and Gausman also began talking about a new timeline.

"I am very disheartened to think we are going to push this project back a year," Board President Mike Krysl said.

After the last group of students said goodbye to the former Bryant building at 821 30th St. in May, the building was demolished in July.

Brian Fahrendholz, operations and maintenance director for Sioux City Community Schools, said the highest price per square foot in the recent batch of new school buildings was $140 per square foot for Perry Creek Elementary. Fahrendholz noted the bid considered Monday amounted to $176 per square foot, an amount school officials roundly dismissed.

Fahrendholz and Gausman said high concrete costs were the prime factor the bids were so high. The school board will get new designs for the building from an architect, Cannon Moss Brygger of Sioux City, which will take at least two months.

"The vast majority in this could be overdesign. We've got to go back to the drawing board," Gausman said.

Gausman said he won't accept a layout with smaller classrooms. Board member John Meyers said he expects a lower bid could ultimately result in the next round of bidding, but he doubts it could reach the initial $16 million estimate.

"Sadly, these overruns do happen," Meyers said.

Phase I covered demolition, site work, street work and utilities. The contract for Phase I was awarded to Sioux City Engineering Company for $3.29 million. Phase II, awarded to Thorpe Water Development Co. for $594,339, was for the installment of geothermal wells.

While students and staff wait for the new building, they are currently taking classes at the former Crescent Park Elementary building. Students from Crescent Park joined Lincoln and Clark elementary schools at the newly opened Perry Creek Elementary.
ELK POINT, S.D. | Beef Products Inc.'s $1.9 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC should proceed to trial this summer in Union County, a judge has ruled.

Circuit Judge Cheryle Gering did dismiss former "World News Tonight" anchor Diane Sawyer from the case, leaving American Broadcasting Companies Inc., the parent of ABC News, and correspondent Jim Avila as defendants.

Sawyer's dismissal has no impact on the the claims BPI will present to the jury, said the company's attorney, Erik Connolly, of Chicago.

"We are pleased with the court's ruling and look forward to presenting our case to the jury," Connolly said in an emailed statement.

The trial is scheduled to begin June 5 in Union County Circuit Court and could last up to eight weeks.

In her ruling, issued at a hearing last month, Gering said the case warranted a trial before a jury.

"A jury could determine that there is clear and convincing evidence that ABC Broadcasting and Mr. Avila were reckless, that defendants had obvious reason to doubt the veracity of informants, and that they engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth," Gering said during a hearing last month, according to a transcript obtained by Reuters.

Gering ruled that Sawyer's role as an anchor limited her involvement in doing research and was not enough to establish defamation, according to Reuters.

"We are pleased that the court dismissed all claims against Diane Sawyer. The court has not ruled on the merits of the case against the other defendants, and we welcome the opportunity to defend the ABC News reports at trial and are confident that we will ultimately prevail," the network said in a statement released to the media.

ABC, Sawyer and Avila had sought the suit's dismissal in October.

In August, lawyers filed a stipulation to voluntarily dismiss ABC News, David Kerley, Gerald Zirnstein, Carl Custer and Kit Foshee as defendants in the lawsuit, putting BPI's focus on American Broadcasting Companies Inc., Sawyer and Avila.

BPI, based in Dakota Dunes, sued ABC, its correspondents, federal officials and a former employee in September 2012 and will attempt to prove that a series of stories and broadcasts that began in early March 2012 defamed the company's Lean Finely Textured Beef. BPI alleges the "prolonged disinformation campaign" caused a backlash against the product, which critics repeatedly referred to as "pink slime," and led to a loss of $400 million in business, forcing the family-owned business to close all but its South Sioux City plant and lay off more than 700 workers.

BPI estimates that the reports did $1.9 billion in actual damages to the company and is seeking a jury award in that amount. If BPI wins at trial, its claim could be tripled to $5.7 billion under provisions of South Dakota's Agricultural Food Product Disparagement Act.

Closely watched by national news media and First Amendment experts, the trial has gained national attention. Because of the number of lawyers, witnesses and observers expected at the trial, the county will convert a community room in the courthouse basement into a temporary courtroom because the regular courtroom is too small.
WASHINGTON, D.C. | Sioux City is one of the 23 cites in nine states to host a performance by the United States Navy Band during its 2017 tour. ]

One of the signature outreach program of the U.S. Navy, the United States Navy Concert Band will be performing at 7:30 p.m. March 29 at Morningside College's Eppley Auditorium, 3625 Garretson Ave.

The premier wind ensemble of the U.S. Navy, the Navy Concert Band presents a wide array of marches, patriotic selections, orchestral transcriptions and modern wind ensemble repertoire. As the original ensemble of the Navy Band, the Concert Band has been performing public concerts and participating in high profile events for nearly 90 years.

U.S. Navy concerts are family-friendly events that are meant to be entertaining to veterans, families and individuals interested in joining the Navy. In addition, the concerts are free and open to the public.
JEFFERSON, S.D. | A fire destroyed a rural Jefferson home Tuesday morning.

Firefighters were called to 33402 Dakota Road at about 10:30 after a passerby called 911 to report smoke coming from the house. Jefferson Volunteer Fire Department chief Bill McKelvey said the house was engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived at the scene, and North Sioux City Fire/Rescue was called in to assist.

No one was home at the time of the fire. McKelvey said the occupants, a man and his adult son, had friends at the scene to help provide them with a place to stay.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | A South Sioux City bar and grill is a total loss after a fire Sunday evening, according to a local fire official.

Dakota City Fire Chief Clint Rasmussen said a trio of northeast Nebraska fire departments responded to Gateway Bar and Grill, 1554 Gateway Drive, Sunday evening after residents in the area reported a blaze inside the structure around 8 p.m.

Rasmussen said by the time the Dakota City Fire Department arrived, the fire had reached the building's attic. South Sioux City and Homer fire departments also responded.

Rasmussen said crews fought the fire until around 5:30 a.m., with multiple layers of roof on the structure making it difficult to control the blaze. Rasmussen remained on the scene until about 10 a.m., monitoring for hot spots.

Rasmussen said the fire has been traced to the building's main-level office area. He said the Nebraska fire marshal was on scene Monday to investigate the cause.

He said one firefighter was transported to a local hospital due to smoke inhalation, but was later released.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | We become close to the trees in our yards and on our streets. When they must be cut down, they leave a huge gap.

When you lose a tree, it's almost like losing a member of your family, or at least a good friend.

That makes it harder to consider that hundreds, maybe thousands, of trees will be disappearing from our area in the next decade as cities brace for the arrival of the emerald ash borer, a nasty pest that has devastated forests and cities in other states, eliminating every ash tree in sight.

"I've seen what it does to trees. When you see what the emerald ash borer does to trees, it's devastating," Gene Maffit, South Sioux City parks director, said of trips he's made to Kansas City and Wisconsin, where the emerald ash borer has done great damage.

As far as we know, the pest hasn't arrived in Siouxland yet, but it's getting closer.

"At some point it'll reach here," Sioux City parks superintendent Kelly Bach said.

It's been found as near as Harrison County south of Sioux City and 40 other Iowa counties. It's crossed the Missouri River and was found in Omaha last spring. Maffit said the emerald ash borer can be in a community for two or three years before it's detected. By then, it's already begun killing trees.

The beetle's larvae eat the water- and nutrient-conducting tissue beneath the tree's bark, basically cutting off the tree's water supply and killing it in as few as two or three years. Once the beetle is found, it's usually too late to save the tree.

Local cities are deciding what steps to take before the beetle arrives. There are chemical treatments to protect trees. Some cities have begun cutting down their ash trees, eliminating the beetle's food source and the potential for safety and liability issues related to damaged and dead trees in public places.

Both options come with a cost. Chemical treatments can add up, especially when considering some cities have thousands of ash trees. The treatments also must be repeated every couple years.

Cutting down trees leaves a big hole in a community. Shady streets become bare. Parks become noticeably less green.

Maffit said 25 percent, about 3,000, of South Sioux City's trees on public land are ash. Bach said Sioux City has 11,000 ash trees in city right of way along streets and in parks.

That's a lot of trees, and it doesn't include those in residents' back yards and on acreages. It also doesn't include other species of trees that are threatened. Maffit said diseases affecting pine and maple trees could mean the loss of more than just ash trees. The losses could affect 50 percent of South Sioux City's trees.

Bach said he hopes to have an action plan before the city council this summer.

Some unhealthy ash trees have already been cut down, he said. Whether he'll recommend future removal of healthy trees remains to be decided. Bach said he's not going to surrender every ash tree to the emerald ash borer, especially in places such as Leif Erikson Park, where big ash trees shade the playground.

"We'll treat them because we can't lose them. It's unacceptable," Bach said.

South Sioux City has begun cutting down storm-damaged or unhealthy ash trees. Some of those trees have been cut into boards that will be used to build a cabin at the city's Community Orchard.

The time is coming when the city will cut down healthy trees to prevent them from being infested.

"You hate to cut down what seems to be a perfectly healthy tree, but when you see what happens to them, it's worth it," Maffit said.

Neither city has planted ash trees on public property for many years now, and they've been replanting other species of trees near ash trees so that when the ash tree is removed, an established tree already will be there.

Maffit recommends residents do the same in their yards.

"Really the best thing people can do is plant trees," Maffit said. "If you have an ash tree in a good spot, plant a tree near it so it's got a good start so when you have to take the ash tree out, you won't miss it so much."

Hopefully, we've got enough time to get new trees growing to take the place of those towering ashes.

It'll take time to make those new friends.
Tevin Cunningham-Fead, 26, of Fort Meyers, Florida, entered an Alford plea in Woodbury County District Court to one count of willful injury, which was reduced as part of a plea agreement from a charge of attempted murder. Under an Alford plea, a defendant admits no guilt, but a guilty plea is entered into the court record.

Cunningham-Fead and others were driving to Dale Park for a fight on Aug. 12 when they spotted Joseph Socknat in another vehicle and began to follow him. When that vehicle stopped for a red light at 11th and Pierce streets, Cunningham-Fead got out of his vehicle and shot Socknat in the chest and the leg, then got back in the vehicle and fled the scene.
SIOUX CITY | A judge has found a Sioux City man who pointed a shotgun at police officers guilty of a lesser charge than the one the man had faced.

John Albenesius, 41, had waived his right to a jury trial on a felony charge of assault on a peace officer, and stood trial before District Judge Jeffrey Neary in February.

On Tuesday, Neary filed his verdict in which he found Albenesius guilty of aggravated assault, an aggravated misdemeanor. Sentencing was set for March 31 in Woodbury County District Court.

Prosecutors had dismissed a second count of assault on a peace officer prior to trial.

According to court documents, Albenesius racked and pointed a shotgun at two officers who had responded to a Nov. 6 call to an apartment in the 1100 block of Fourth Street. A four-hour standoff ensued, and Albenesius surrendered after police deployed gas. No one was injured.
SIOUX CITY | Saying the Sioux City School District must be a welcoming place for all students, the Board of Education in a Monday vote urged Congress to protect all students regardless of citizen and immigration status.

The approved resolution urged Congress to adopt the Bridge Act, which school board members called a bipartisan bill that would grant provisional protected-presence status and impose restrictions on the sharing of information for the purposes of immigration enforcement. That act has been introduced in both federal chambers.

More than 5,000 students in Iowa have applied to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals since its introduction in 2012. That's when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would not deport certain undocumented youth who came to the U.S. as children with relatives. The school board resolution said DACA recipients are making positive contributions to the community.

The resolution passed after 10 minutes of discussion on six affirmative votes and one abstention, by board member Paul Gorski. Gorski questioned if the resolution meant "we will accept the illegals with compassion" and whether parents without legal status should be deported.

Board member Perla Alarcon-Flory said the resolution doesn't set up the school district as any sort of sanctuary school or city zone.

"It is for (students) to feel safe in our schools," Alarcon-Flory said.

Board President Mike Krysl said the resolution passage shows school officials see promise and potential in all students and believes their ability to get a good education in the Sioux City School District should not be affected by immigration status.

School Board member David Gleiser said the South Sioux City School District and Western Iowa Tech Community College will soon consider similar DACA/Bridge resolutions. Gleiser noted the resolution came to the board after being recommended by the district's Student Equity Committee.

The Des Moines School Board in February unanimously approved resolutions in support of immigrant and refugee students. The school board's website said the resolutions set a protocol for responding to Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials, voiced support for DACA and reiterated that all students are welcomed at Des Moines Public Schools.
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Encouraging developments are as welcome as they are rare in colleges and universities that cultivate diversity in everything but thought. Fortunately, state legislatures, alumni and philanthropists are planting little academic platoons that will make campuses less intellectually monochrome. One such, just launched, is Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.

A primary mission of institutions of higher education should be the transmission of civilization's intellectual patrimony. With the permeation of academia by progressivism, however, the mission increasingly is liberation from this patrimony in order to further progress, understood as movement away from the principles of the American founding. One notable progressive knew better. Something Woodrow Wilson actually got right was that a university should be a "seat of vital memory" and an "organ of recollection," lest we risk "becoming infantile in every generation."

During the national fragmentation of 1861, Abraham Lincoln said that "the better angels of our nature" would be summoned by "the mystic chords of memory." But democratic nations, which rest on the shiftable sand of opinion, are forgetful, so memory needs to be nurtured. In his novel "Mr. Sammler's Planet," Saul Bellow wrote:

"It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location, and avoid originality. It may be boring, but one has to know where he is. We cannot have the Mississippi flowing toward the Rockies for a change."

One thing we know is that what America's Founders considered self-evident truths should be studied by future leaders because, as historian Daniel Boorstin said, "Trying to plan for the future without knowing the past is like trying to plant cut flowers." It is not necessary that everyone read The Federalist Papers and "The Wealth of Nations" (published in 1776) but someone should, and students in ASU's new school will.

Schools like this can counter what worried Ronald Knox, the English priest and author said that in the modern age "you do not believe what your grandfathers believed, and have no reason to hope that your grandsons will believe what you do." If so, America's national identity will become attenuated. Students in ASU's new school will understand what the nation's Founders believed and why they did.

John Adams believed that "education makes a greater difference between man and man than nature has made between man and brute." Because education increasingly stratifies society, so it should diligently transmit commonalities conducive to social cohesion. Arizona, like America, faces a continuing challenge -- a welcome challenge -- of assimilating newcomers. And Americans are increasingly living in social silos and susceptible to confirmation bias -- receptive only to information and ideas that confirm what they already think. Hence the nation's foundational precepts need to be carefully studied, robustly debated and thoughtfully celebrated

Because America is, as Lincoln said, dedicated to a proposition with far-radiating implications, American citizenship is uniquely demanding. Ideally, it involves familiarity with the Founders' doctrine of natural rights -- rights that pre-exist government, which exists to secure them. These rights are discoverable by something natural, reason, but the enjoyment of these rights depends on something not natural, a well-wrought government. It should sustain a market economy, in which earned success serves individual dignity.

America began as an errand into the wilderness and for many generations had a longing for dispersal, for living beyond the sound of a neighbor's ax. James Fenimore Cooper in the forest, Henry Thoreau by the pond, Herman Melville at sea, Mark Twain on the river, Teddy Roosevelt experiencing the "iron desolation" of the high plains, and Willa Cather experiencing "that vast silence" of Nebraska's plains, all enriched the American experience. Now, however, attention must be paid to demonstrating the continuing pertinence of the Founders' premises to places with the crackling energy of booming Arizona.

Some academics who relish progressivism's hegemony on campuses, and who equate critical thinking with disparagement, will regret and resist things like ASU's new school. Hence it was appropriate that the political philosopher Harvey Mansfield, aka Harvard's conservative, participated in the school's launch. He argues that one of higher education's highest purposes is to counter democracy's leveling ethos by teaching the young how to praise -- how to recognize and honor hierarchies of character and achievement.

Here and around the country this purpose is being advanced by entities such as ASU's new school teaching the history of ideas and statesmanship This growing archipelago of excellence will leaven academia with the diversity that matters most.
SIOUX CITY | City Council members are encouraging city staff and developers to take a "hard look" at how a proposed Courtyard by Marriott connected to Sioux City's Convention Center would affect parking in the downtown area.

The request comes as the project continues to move forward, with the council on Monday approving three votes needed to keep the proposed 150-room hotel project on track.

The proposed $21 million hotel, built at the Convention Center's current parking lot in the 800 block of Fourth Street, would be attached to a new ballroom envisioned for existing Convention Center space. City staff believe it will be essential in rekindling interest in the city's venue, which staff say has suffered in recent years due to lack of a quality, name-brand hotel.

Kinseth Hospitality Company Inc., a North Liberty, Iowa-based company that owns more than 70 hotels in the Midwest, will construct and finance the five-story hotel.

The city would have a roughly $5 million obligation to the project, including renovations at the Convention Center to add the ballroom and construct a proposed 140-space parking ramp to the north of the hotel.

A pair of resolutions needed to deed a portion of land in the Convention Center parking lot to the city passed 5-0 Monday. A third resolution, which sets in motion a 30-day notice declaring the city's intent to sell the land to Kinseth, passed 4-1, with Mayor Bob Scott voting in opposition.

Scott said after the meeting he felt there was still too much uncertainty on portions of the project to move forward.

"I think we need to know what that (parking) ramp is going to cost. I think we need to know what the arrangement is going to be for the management," Scott said after the meeting. "Until I see the full picture, I'm not voting for it."

Kinseth representatives attended Monday's meeting to answer council questions on the project. During the meeting, Councilman Dan Moore asked whether the parking provided by a proposed two-level, 140-stall garage would be adequate.

Kinseth executive vice president Bruce Kinseth said a Marriott rule of thumb is one parking stall per room.

"As a hotel we need to be able to guarantee our patrons a place to park," Kinseth said. "I think parking is a very, very important part of our discussion."

Moore said he wanted the city to take a "hard look" at what the city needs to do to accommodate parking for both hotel guests and convention-goers.

City economic development director Marty Dougherty acknowledged parking is the "biggest challenge" for the project.

If the ramp needs to be larger, Scott said, another level or two on the ramp could cost the city $2 million to $3 million. Scott said he didn't want the city to be stuck with a $5 million ramp project.

City manager Bob Padmore pointed out that there are approximately 1,100 parking stalls and two ramps across from the Convention Center that would be closer.

"Five days out of the week there's going to be plenty of parking down there," he said.

Scott also pointed to the current site plan, which shows a seeming lack of turnaround room in between the hotel and parking garage for trucks.

The hotel is part of Sioux City's bid for $14 million in future state hotel and sales taxes through the Iowa Economic Development Authority's Reinvestment District program. The other two projects include Ho-Chunk Inc.'s Virginia Square and an ag expo and learning center in the city's former stockyards area.

The hotel is a cornerstone to the project, with local hotel and sales taxes that it is expected to generate necessary in order to fund the proposed ag center.

Final council consideration of the sale of land to Kinseth is set for April 17. Development and minimum assessment agreements with Kinseth will also come before the council at that date.
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.
Labour  March 14, 2017  Sam Gindin and Herman Rosenfeld

A sign of the tragic disarray of the Canadian labour movement is the extent to which its misadventures keep piling up. As the turmoil within the union representing the Ontario governments unionized employees (Ontario Public Service Employees Union  OPSEU) hits the press, the chaos continues in Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). The 10,500 members in that local  over a third of the ATUs Canadian membership  operate and maintain Torontos transit system, North Americas third largest public transit system, behind only New York and Mexico City. As with OPSEU, the acrimonious story is not about a tough strike or a response to an anti-union government. Rather, at a time when the union should be leading the charge to address popular frustrations with the failures in the citys transit system, the local is preoccupied with a messy internal battle.

Local 113 President Bob Kinnear had attempted to break away from its American-based parent and, in what was quickly apparent, to join Unifor, Canadas largest private sector union. For the time being he has clearly failed. The tale is mired in territorial conflicts over the members involved, legacies of personal nastiness among Canadian union leaders, whispers of conspiracy on the part of Unifor and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), of national flag waving and charges of U.S. imperialism, counter-denunciations of nationalism and undermining international solidarity, opposing interpretations of democracy, a remarkable  if challenged  court decision, and miscellaneous elements impenetrable to either inside or outside observers.

Though we cant avoid delving into some of the sordid details of this development, well try to limit the noise of the various intrigues involved (for a blow-by-blow see: ATU Trusteeship, Unifor Raid, CLC Crisis). The two crucial but difficult tasks are to get to the basic principles at stake and  above all  to figure out where the members stand and how their voices might play a more direct role in resolving this sordid clash.

Breaking Away

In trying to get a handle on this, a useful starting point is to compare it to an earlier breakaway from an American-based parent, one that is now generally even if not unanimously seen in positive terms: the formation of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) a little over three decades ago. The following differences are significant:

The formation of the CAW involved a nation-wide section of an international union (the United Auto Workers  UAW) breaking away. ATU Local 113 is a local in one city. The autoworkers major bargaining was fully integrated across Canada and the USA. Local 113 bargains autonomously. The autoworkers split revolved around a clear and historic question: how to respond to concessions and the right of Canadians to make that decision themselves  in the face of actions taken by the international UAW to deny that right. No clear, agreed upon, issue has been articulated by Local 113. The Canadian autoworkers had established an overwhelming unity before it moved to break from their parent. Not only are the rest of the ATU locals (almost 2/3 of the Canadian members) apparently supportive of their international ties but even within Local 113, a clear majority of the executive board and an even larger proportion of the stewards have taken a stand against Kinnear and the split, with little or no indication (other than the usual rumblings in any union) of a rank and file rebellion against the parent. The Canadian autoworkers patiently developed the membership support for taking on the risks of breaking away. The union first withdrew from its cross-border collective agreement with Chrysler and struck the corporation on its own for the very first time. It later went on strike against GM in spite of pressures from its American parent, the UAW. Following that, it asked the UAW to take measures that concretely reflected Canadian autonomy. It was only after this was denied that the Canadians took the next, and very reluctant step of setting up their own Canadian union. All the while it brought its members into discussions of the growing tensions and went to the members to ratify the decision to break away. In the case of Local 113 on the other hand, the initiative by the president of the local to leave ATU seemed to very much come out of the blue. Finally, while it was easy to identify the Canadian autoworkers as representing progressive unionism against the faltering UAW, in the ATU conflict it is the Americans who apparently have the greater claim to that mantle. Larry Hanley, the president of the ATU, came to office with strong credentials in fighting for democratic unionism and won against the tired incumbents by promising to revive the union. He was one of the handful of U.S. union leaders who openly supported Bernie Sanders and has been moving to complement the workplace power of his members with community support through the organizing of a bus riders union. Hanley has as well dramatically expanded education and leadership training to ATU locals including in Canada. Local 113, according to Hanley, stands out as the one Canadian local that has abstained from these programs.

International Union, Canadian Members

The point is that the attempted breakaway from the ATU by Local 113 has no parallel to breakaways such as that of the CAW (now Unifor). It cannot be assumed  as Canadians generally tend to do  that the tag Canadian necessarily makes a group more progressive. Nevertheless, Canadian locals cannot be simply treated as any local in the U.S. with the same formal standing. No other country is penetrated by international unions centred elsewhere to anywhere near the extent that occurs in Canada and this fact demands great sensitivity on the part of unions that call themselves internationals but which are in fact U.S.-based and controlled.

Unions straddling the Canada-U.S. border have, to varying extents, acknowledged this difference. Most have introduced structures and practices that move toward satisfying the principle of Canadian workers having the power to run their own affairs and determine their own policies, hopefully in solidarity with their American counterparts (The Canadian labour movement itself recognizes Quebec as a distinct region and its governing and operational procedures often apply differently in Quebec.) But even such accommodation cant foreclose the possibility of Canadian workers choosing to follow the general international pattern of establishing their own national unions.

In this regard, certain elements of the ATUs constitution are extremely troubling. As the court case launched against the receivership of the local by Kinnear and financed by Unifor noted, it is outrageously undemocratic to state that if only 10 workers decide to stay in the ATU, it is sufficient for those staying to retain the assets and ignore the votes of the other 99.9% of the membership. It is true that this rule  rooted in the 1930s and the desire to keep locals alive even if raided  doesnt prevent the workers from deciding to leave the local in spite of the assets. And in this particular case it can be expected that the subsequent support from Unifor or another suitor would offset that loss and so make a democratic exit possible. But this clause is anachronistic and should be unilaterally dropped by any union respecting the democratic process.

Similarly, though Canadian delegates elect a Canadian Director of the ATU, that position is alleged (though disputed by the ATU) to have little or no resources or power. Greater weight resides in the election of a Canadian to serve as an international vice-president of the ATU as a whole. But that position is elected by all the delegates to the ATU Convention, not just the Canadians. This conflicts with CLC policy going back to 1974 and is an affront to Canadian democratic autonomy. (Note that when the ATU imposed its trusteeship on the local, it was the international vice-president that was put in charge.)

The Process

Canadian unions have, via the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) come together to reach a consensus on how to avoid the destructiveness of the conflicts that came with Canadian attempts to break away from U.S.-based parents and which overlapped with questions of raiding. This involved a step by step procedure enshrined in the CLC constitution (Article 4: CLC Constitution, Amended May 2014). This called for abstaining from tampering with another unions members, application by a Canadian union/local to the CLC for a negotiated process to be put in place, a review of the complaints and an opportunity for the international to correct the problem, an independent report if there is no agreement reached, and finally a supervised membership vote if necessary backed by sanctions if that is blocked. In this case, however, this process did not get off the ground as both sides accused the other of undermining the process.

The ATU argued that Unifor President Jerry Dias had been secretly meeting Kinnear (tampering) and that Kinnear had no mandate from his executive or members to apply to the CLC for support in a breakaway. Dias countered that Unifor had started no raiding drive and signed no cards, and that Unifors financial support for Kinnears court challenge was primarily in support of the right of Local 113s members to democratically determine their own future. In the court decision, the judge noted that the ATUs quick strike to put the local into trusteeship and exile Kinnear served to block free speech within the local. In reaction to the trusteeship, CLC President Hassan Yussuff  it did not ease suspicions that Yussuff came out of Unifor  took the unprecedented step of temporarily suspending the CLC process (under Article 4 of the CLCs constitution). This led to angry accusations, from international and national unions alike, that Yussuff was siding with Dias.

Suspending Article 4 formally allowed Unifor to raid Local 113, but with a trusteeship in place and no signs of serious membership support, a raid was clearly not on. The affiliates anger reflected a deeper concern: setting a dangerous precedent. Trusteeships are not uncommon in many Canadian unions; in condemning the ATU trusteeship and linking this to suspending protection against raiding, it seemed that raiding in cases of trusteeship was being endorsed. The strong reaction against this promptly led the CLC to reverse its position and reinstate Article 4.

Though the judge ruled that the rapid-fire trusteeship of the ATU wasnt justified, the story doesnt end here. If the judges decision is upheld in a challenge, Kinnear remains president. But with a profoundly antagonistic board and steward body, and a membership hardly rushing to his defense, Kinnear has for the time being not been coming into the union office. If the courts decision is reversed, Kinnear will be formally gone but ATUs overall reputation as a progressive, democratic union will be damaged by the continuing charges of heavy-handed intervention.

As for Unifor, it seems to have walked into a minefield it was unprepared for. It will argue that its commitment to defending the right of Canadian workers to make their own decisions has been reinforced by the courts critical and precedent-setting decision for other Canadian workers contemplating a break from their parent. Even if the court order is reversed, the issue of greater or full Canadian autonomy has been highlighted. With the likelihood of Local 113 leaving the ATU seemingly foreclosed, at least for the time being, the ATU should be farsighted enough to consolidate this victory by consulting its Canadian locals on extending greater autonomy to them while deepening the impressive plans it has for strengthening the union and its locals activism more generally.

Closure to this sad chapter wont however end without addressing the great silence of the members. The survival of Local 113 is ultimately based  as is the case in all unions  not on the behind-the-scenes-machinations of union executives or even consensus-based constitutional procedures, as important as these might be, but on democratic decisions directly made by the rank-and-file membership. This could occur through a CLC supervised vote (unlikely given the current chaos around the use of the CLCs Article 4), or an ATU-initiated but independently-supervised ratification vote in Local 113 for staying in the union (also unlikely because of ATU concern for the precedent it sets for inviting such votes), or take some other form. But unless some democratic expression of membership sentiments emerges a cloud will continue to hang over all the parties involved.

Deeper Issues Confronting the Canadian Labour Movement

The dispiriting events piling up in the North American and Canadian labour movements are symptoms of the labour movements disorientation. Underlying the tensions exposed by the conflict in Local 113 are three deeper issues confronting the Canadian labour movement. First, once workers join a union, they cannot be treated as the property of the union. Procedures for democratically leaving to join another union must be accepted and this is true whether it is a national or international union. Trusteeships to prevent this are undemocratic and, of course, the combination of an imposed trusteeship and it originating from a foreign-based parent makes such interventions particularly poisonous. Of course applying this principle universally is not always clear-cut. It would obviously be destructive if members decided to shop around for another home  rather than fight to change their union  because of a particular slight or imperfect end to bargaining. And local trusteeships determined by a central body on behalf of union-wide concerns are in fact sometimes necessary, as when there is corruption that is also linked to blocking internal democracy.

The problems with raiding is not just that it is destructive to class solidarity but that it tends to offer an easy fix to tougher problems and serves as a diversion from these challenges.

Second, this emphasis on the right to leave might suggest that what is negatively labelled raiding might be validated as contributing to liberating workers from an oppressive union. This will in some cases be true, but this defense of raiding is very often only a glib justification of expanding one unions dues collecting power at the expense of another. The problems with raiding is not just that it is destructive to class solidarity but that it tends to offer an easy fix to tougher problems and serves as a diversion from these challenges.

Those familiar challenges include: How can unions correct their generally sorry record in organizing new members? Can unions actually demonstrate real solidarity and introduce joint campaigns to organize new members independent of which of them gets the ultimate dues (or whether none do as new unions are set up)? And is the key to organizing better techniques, or does it start with the kind of radical internal revival and reorientation that leaves unions both more attractive to non-union workers and more likely to mobilize the internal disposition and resources to make creative organizing breakthroughs possible?

Third, in the particular case of international unions, it is often said that globalization strengthens the case for international unions. In fact, however, because the main impact on workers lives has shifts from collective bargaining outcomes to the policies of the state  e.g. social service cutbacks, privatization, back-to-work legislation, inequitable tax reform, and free trade  the strategic importance of national class alliances becomes correspondingly more significant than cross border ties established in an earlier period. In this case, demanding the autonomy to genuinely address the development of class power within Canada  up to and including breaking away from the U.S.-based parent  may make perfect sense. And it need not be inconsistent with greater overall internationalism (the CAW became significantly more internationalist after it broke with the UAW).

But this involves more than reducing the serious step of a breakaway to an abstract nationalism. Working class sovereignty can only have legitimate meaning if it starts with the Canadian rank and file as the final arbiters of changes in Canadian structures. It demands building the working class in both Canada and the U.S. through bringing more workers into unions rather than fighting over dues. And it means collectively struggling with how to reinvent our unions and extend their boundaries into all dimensions of working class lives. 
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.
The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday said hate crimes remain a problem in countries that have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.

EFE reported Mariela Castro, who directs Cubas National Center for Sexual Education that is known by the Spanish acronym CENESEX, made the comments in the Mexican city of Guadalajara after organizers of a film festival honored her for her work to promote LGBT-specific issues on the Communist island. The Spanish news agency said hate crimes were among the topics about which she specifically spoke.

We dont like to copy anyone, said Mariela Castro as she discussed why Cuba has yet to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, according to EFE. We want to be creative and look for what truly fits into the possibility of social acceptance and our reality.

Marriage is not main goal

Mariela Castro, who is former Cuban President Fidel Castros niece, has publicly spoken in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples.

She and Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, were in the audience when Tico Almeida, the gay Cuban American president of Freedom to Work, gave a speech in Havana last May that focused on the issue and other LGBT-specific advocacy efforts in the U.S. Mariela Castro later had lunch with Almeida and Wolfson.

LGBT rights advocates who work independently of Mariela Castro and CENESEX in December 2015 launched a campaign that urged Cubans to sign a petition in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples. They hoped it would spur members of the Cuban National Assembly to publicly debate the issue at their annual meeting last December.

The meeting began slightly more than a month after Fidel Castro died.

Mariela Castro, who is a member of the National Assembly, has not spoken publicly in support of the campaign that appears to have stalled.

The main goal is not marriage; it is one of the goals, she said in Mexico, according to EFE. For us the main goal is to achieve equal opportunities, which was achieved in the process of working on discrimination against women.

Gays and lesbians can legally marry in Mexico City and several states in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and a number of islands in the Caribbean that include Guadeloupe, Martinique and Saba.

Same-sex couples have been able to enter into civil unions in Chile since October 2015. The countrys president, Michelle Bachelet, has pledged to introduce a marriage bill in the Chilean Congress later this year.

Independent Cuban activists with whom the Blade routinely speaks say they are ostracized and face harassment and even arrest for publicly criticizing Mariela Castro or her fathers government. Reported rates of violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity on the Communist island are nevertheless lower than in Brazil, Colombia and other Latin American countries in which gays and lesbians can legally marry.

Mariela Castro again questions Pride parades

Mariela Castro spoke in Mexico two months before CENESEX is scheduled to hold events in Havana and in the city of Santa Clara that commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

EFE reported Mariela Castro reiterated her previous comments in which she questioned the effectiveness of traditional Pride parades. She said they make the LGBT community look as though they are from a carnival.

I wanted people to watch them as who they are and from their profound dignity, said Mariela Castro, according to EFE.

 Michael K. Lavers, Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association
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.




Should we pay to use global genetic diversity? To this straightforward question there is no simple answer. However, I will oversimplify my thoughts and reply in a direct manner.

To understand the question and how I answer it, it is important to distinguish three aspects: 1) What global genetic diversity? 2) Who uses it? and 3) For what purposes? Furthermore, we must distinguish different types of use of global genetic diversity.

1) What is global genetic diversity?

Are we talking about all plant varieties being grown by farmers around the world for millennia or modern/improved varieties developed by high-tech breeding and/or biotechnology over the last 40 years or wild relatives of crops growing in the wild?

2) Who uses global genetic diversity?

One needs to distinguish between small-scale farmers who feed 70% of the worlds population, researchers in public institutions and private company breeders and multinational seed and agro-chemical companies. All these stakeholders use global genetic diversity but in a different manner and above all for different purposes.

3) For what purposes is global genetic diversity used?

Is the purpose accessing varieties to produce local food on a small-scale farm, or is it to produce high-tech improved varieties on thousands of hectares of monoculture, the production of which is to be sold on the global market?

4) What does use cover?

A smallholder farmer growing a crop mainly for subsistence is making a very different use of global diversity from a multinational seed company breeding a variety that will be protected by intellectual property rights and sold in large quantities on the market. Conservation activities and breeding programmes on orphan crops, for example by public institutions which make these varieties available to farmers free of charge, is yet a different form of use.

Depending on the answers to all these questions, my answer will be a clear yes or a clear no to the question posed in the title of this opinion note.

If the use of the global genetic diversity consists of the everyday cultivation by small-scale farmers in developing countries, who still rely for the great majority of their seed on informal seed exchange systems of local and diverse varieties, then my answer is a clear no. Smallholder farmers should not pay for the use of the genetic diversity they have developed, conserved, used and exchanged over millennia. These small-scale farmers should rather be supported by states, as part of their duty to respect the right to food and achieve food security, through, inter alia, national and international breeding programmes focused on local needs and crops, working in partnership with small-scale farmers. Furthermore, I believe states should urgently invest in the conservation and sustainable use of global genetic diversity to limit the future cost of predictable food production crises resulting from climate hazards and from agrobiodiversity erosion.

If the use of global genetic diversity covers accessing traditional varieties, improving them and then putting the improved variety on the global market, then my answer is a clear yes. Companies accessing genetic resources should pay a fair share to the Global Seed Commons created by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. And farmers from developed countries who choose to grow these improved varieties should pay fair royalties to the intellectual property right holder of these improved varieties.

The most important question, in my view, would rather be: what kind of policies for food and agriculture should be adopted for a sustainable future? My personal view on this question is that we urgently need to stop imposing our modern way of conceiving food production and using genetic diversity, restricted to a commercial value, as the only way forward. Todays agrobiodiversity results from thousands of years of very diverse agricultural practices, which express the many different (social, cultural, spiritual, etc.) values associated with seeds around the world. We need to allow each farmer in the world to choose what type of farming they want to conduct and, most of all, we need to protect informal/small-scale farmers systems, as such farmers constitute the vast majority of farmers in the world and feed a majority of the worlds population.
The African Fine Coffees Association is Africas answer to the Specialty Coffee Association. The organization, who represents stakeholders throughout the value chain in 11 African coffee producing countries, promotes their members through trade promotion, capacity building, and cupping competitions. One of AFCAs great successes since being founded in 1999 is their annual African Fine Coffee Conference, which is held each year in a rotating member country, and attracts producers, buyers, roasters, and a wide range of other participants in the world of African coffee.

2017 was a hard year for the African Fine Coffees Association Conference and Exhibition, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from February 1418. After months of discussion about the current unrest in the country, and questions over whether the event should still be held, the conference proceeded as planned. Yet, despite the modern conference center and luxurious events, attendees still suffered from less than ideal conditions such as poor internet access (not helped by government social media blockages), insecurity surrounding field trips to coffee growing regions, and endless speeches by governmental officials.

In general, the conference felt like it was stuck in the Africa of yesteryear, rather than focusing on the exciting developments that are currently revolutionizing the African coffee sector, such as traceability, financial inclusion, or advances in agronomy. As one attendee described the conference, You had scenarios where you had invited people from all over the world, but it became a country by country marketing tool. There wasnt any content for people to take back from the conference.

While the conference program offered little to those eager to dig deeper into the world of African specialty coffee, long time attendees knew that the real value of attending the event was not in the official program. Rather than the official speeches and formal proceedings, the real value in AFCA 2017 was found in the corridor conversations, new relationships, and the opportunity to engage directly with producers, exporters, and value chain actors who are often absent from other industry events and discussions. These factors alone ensure that the AFCA conference remains on the African coffee radar.

And so, rather than looking at what could be learned from the conference itselfthose returns would be slimthe more important takeaways from AFCA 2017 are found in examining the underlying trends, new business models and signs that the African coffee industry is changing at the same fast pace as the rest of the African continent. Lets explore three of those clear signs of change at AFCA 2017, each with major implications for the future of coffee in Africa.

The demystification of African coffee

African coffee, once exotic, has gone mainstream, and as a result, there were no shortage of small to mid-sized roasters and importers in attendance. Timur Dudkin, the head buyer from Mareterra, a green coffee importer just outside of Barcelona, said that as far as his customers were concerned, This year is all about Africa. Dudkin and his team came with a full delegation of nearly 15 people who went on from the conference to tour Ethiopias coffee regions.

The Mareterra delegation is a perfect example of Africas growing accessibility as an origin to the coffee industry as a whole. While some destinations, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or South Sudan remain off limits to the average coffee connoisseur, otherssuch as Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwandaoffer infrastructure that provides all the comforts of home. Increasingly the average coffee roaster or barista can hop on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya, do a coffee cupping, visit a washing station, and then spend a few days on safari before returning home with great stories and a few bags of directly traded coffee (whatever that means).

In fact, a growing number of roasters and retailers are well acquainted with producing communities, due to advancements in transparency, traceability, and a shortened supply chain. When you roast dark, you showcase the roaster, when you roast light you showcase the farmer, shared Lem Butler, 2016 US Barista Champion, with a crowd of coffee fans during a question and answer session hosted by the USAID/World Coffee Events All-Stars Exchange. The program, which hosted All-Star baristas and roasters who were invited to come share ideas with their African barista counterparts highlighted the intricate connection between quality on farm and quality in the final cup. The sharing and discourse between the representatives from different countries was a reminder of just how small the world has become.

Likewise, producers no longer need to wait for occasions such as the AFCA to engage directly with consumers and buyers. Mobile technology, blockchain, and social media (outside Ethiopia at least) have created streamlined channels that provide direct access between producers and consumers. This has clear implications for a supply chain allowing more direct engagement between producers and consumers and a refreshing readjustment of power dynamics that might offer new more equitable trading models to the entire industry.

African women to the front

Women do most of the work within the coffee supply chain, yet receive little of the profit or credit. An encouraging sign at AFCA 2017 was the participation of women entrepreneurs in positions of power within the value chain.

One such example is Vava Angweni, the founder of Vava Coffee in Nairobi, a direct-impact-for-profit model company focusing on traceable micro-lots for ethically conscious consumers.

When asked about her experience of being a woman in the male-dominated African coffee industry, Angweni responded, I look at it as an advantage given what women can bring to the table in terms of persistence in such a tough industry and much-needed passion that the smallholder farmer needs from not just the trading/buyer end but the policy implementation side of coffee. Farmers need more passionate buyers/business people working with them to bring about change.

For many boutique coffee company owners like Angweni, AFCA offered a valuable opportunity to make contacts and expand her reach. This was our first AFCA conference, she told me, and we decided to attend given our recent entry into the export market and the need to widen our networks within the export market and meet like-minded individuals.

The new African generation

The most promising development in African coffee may be the new generation of African business people who, like Angweni, are combining their local and international experiences to breathe life into a very promising African coffee sector.

Whether one is returning from abroad to take over the family business, or has merely grown up exposed to new ideas due to the digital age, one thing is certain: the next generation is going to transform Africa, and with it the African coffee industry and the AFCA conference will be forced to change as well.

As one young Ugandan who spent many years abroad put it, What needs to happen is for the African coffee sector to have a larger voice on the world page. Its important that the young generations that have studied abroad, come back and be part of the cultural and business changes, to help take Africa as a serious player in the world of coffee.

Lets see what happens next year. AFCA 2018 is due to be held in Entebbe, Uganda. The coffee world will anxiously await the positive changes to be seen in next years AFCA conferenceas well as more signs of the inevitable changes to come in the African coffee industry.

Sara Mason is founder of SHIFT Social Impact Solutions, and a freelance writer based in Barcelona. Read more Sara Mason on Sprudge.
On Monday (March 13) the New Jersey Superior Court in Monmouth County rejected an effort by an owner of a New Jersey-bred horse to force New Meadowlands to host and race the New Jersey Classic and the Miss New Jersey Classic this year.

New Meadowlands determined in December 2016 to cancel this event for a variety of reasons, among them the cost of the purse and an insufficient field of eligible horses.

Agreeing with the host track, the Court refused to enjoin the New Meadowlands' decision to cancel the races. Consequently New Meadowlands' original cancellation notice stands as was previously announced.

(with files from The Meadowlands)
The following is a press release from the American Horse Council regarding executive actions pertaining to immigration and the U.S. horse industry.

The American Horse Council represents the horse industry in Washington before Congress and the federal regulatory agencies. It is a non-profit corporation that represents all segments of the equine industry.

Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump issued several executive orders relating to increased immigration enforcement and border security. These actions will impact many employers, including those in the racing and showing segments of the horse industry, even those that rely on legal foreign workers.

For many years horse farms, horse shows, trainers and others have had difficulty recruiting American workers. This has forced many to rely on foreign workers and utilize both the H-2B non-agricultural and H-2A agricultural temporary foreign worker programs to meet their labour needs even though these programs are often extremely burdensome to use. Additionally, many of the workers employed in the industry may lack legal status.

Most foreign workers in the industry are directly responsible for the care of the horses upon which the entire horse industry is dependent. Without these workers to raise, train, and care for the industrys horses, many other jobs held by Americans not only in the horse industry, but also supported by the horse industry will be in jeopardy.

Generally speaking, increased enforcement, increased competition for legal workers and greater demand for H-2B and H-2A workers will make it more difficult for horse industry employers to fill many positions.

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President Trumps new executive actions call for a wall along the southern border, increased detention and expedited removal of undocumented immigrants, and will enlist the local law enforcement in these efforts. There are still many questions regarding the magnitude of the impact President Trumps actions will have. However, it is likely there will be an increase of audits and raids to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. It is also possible many workers will leave the country on their own and fewer will come due to increased enforcement.

Many employers in industries like agriculture and the horse industry who have a large percentage of foreign workers will face increasing pressure to find legal workers and stiff competition for workers that are available. Already, the cap for H-2B visas for the first half of the fiscal year was reached on January 10th. There is a statutory cap on the total number of to H-2B visas issued each year. Currently, Congress has set the H-2B cap at 66,000 per fiscal year, with 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year (October 1  March 31) and 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year (April 1  September 30).

Because the cap has already been reached, for many employers that means no H-2B workers will be available if they are needed in 2017. There is no cap on the H-2A agricultural visa program, but those workers can only be employed by horse breeding farms and cannot be utilized by trainers at race tracks or horse shows.

Simply put these executive orders, and existing problems with the H-2B program will make find workers for many positions in the horse industry much more difficult.

What should members of the horse industry do?

First, horse industry employers should be prepared for increased worksite enforcement and make certain all required paper work is in order. This means that employers should make sure all Form I-9s are complete and accurate.

Second, the most immediate need for the horse industry is H-2B cap relief and restoring the returning worker exemption. If you, your business or members of your organization rely on H-2B workers, please contact your Senators and Representative and let them know that it is vital Congress reinstate the H-2B returning worker exemption.

Call your Senators and Representative today. If you do not know their direct numbers, you can reach them through the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 225-3121. Once connected to the office, ask to speak to the person who handles H-2B issues and tell him or her how important the H-2B program is to you. Ask them to work with their party leadership to restore the H-2B returning worker exemption at the earliest opportunity.

Tell them horse farms, trainers, horseshows, and others in the horse industry are often unable able to find Americans who are willing and able to take jobs as grooms, and stable attendants.

And despite substantial efforts to recruit American workers the industry has been forced to rely on foreign workers and the H-2B temporary worker program to meet their labour needs.

The cap for H-2B visas for the first half of the fiscal year was reached on January 10th. For many employers that means no H-2B workers will be available if they are needed in 2017.

Or email them here: American Horse Council Action Center

There continues to be many questions regarding the impact of these executive actions and the possibility of more executive actions and immigration legislation. The AHC will continue to monitor this issue. Additionally, The AHC has worked for many years with a broad coalition of users to make both the H-2B and H-2A programs less burdensome and to ensure the programs are available to the horse industry. The AHC will continue this work and look for new opportunities to address the immigrant labour problem facing the industry.

(with files from the American Horse Council)
Learning How to Flourish in God's Economy

Contact: Jennifer Smothers, Certa Publishing , 855-77-CERTA (855-772-3728)ORLANDO, Fla., March 14, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- When the unprecedented turmoil of the world's current economics is most troubling, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy ($15.00, paperback, 978-0-9981815-7-8) comes at the perfect time, offering a compelling look at a practical biblical worldview of commerce and economics. This timely book not only provides a clear understanding of the economic times of today, but delivers realistic, Kingdom solutions for everyday life.In recent years, there has been unprecedented turmoil in the economics of the United States, Europe, Latin American, and the world. While government and business leaders are searching for solutions, small business people and families are struggling to navigate through these troubled economic times every day. The tangible solutions found in Secrets of the Kingdom Economy will give readers a roadmap that will enable them to flourish in the days ahead by helping them to find God's wisdom and insight.Having received praise from a multitude of international leaders, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy has been deemed "one of the best books ever for workplace leaders," by Os Hillman, President of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent. Although primarily written for Christians, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy has immediate relevance for all people seeking to transform the economies of their nations. In his foreword to the book, the Reverend Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D. writes, "Paul Cuny believes that in order for [transformation] to happen, pastors, marketplace leaders, and government leaders must work together to establish the good government and just economies that bless a nation's people."Readers of Secrets of the Kingdom Economy will discover that the atmosphere of the Kingdom is one of hope and freedom, and God's desire is to move His people to the place where they function in their gifts and callings. When this happens, He can bring about tangible results in daily lives.About Paul CunyPaul Cuny is President of MarketPlace Leadership International, an ordained minister, an internationally recognized speaker on Gods principles of economics and leadership, is an Executive Committee member of the Economic Summit and International Council of Economic Reformation, and has been interviewed on international TV and radio. He has authored many articles in international publications and is the author of two books: Secrets of the Kingdom Economy, which is published in five languages, and Nehemiah People. Paul has served as a friend, counselor and prayer partner to sitting presidents, ambassadors, business, and government leaders around the world.For ordering and more information on Secrets of the Kingdom Economy, please visit bit.ly/SecretsoftheKingdomEconomy About the Publisher:Certa Publishing ( www.certapublishing.com ) is a Christian publishing company helping authors edit their manuscripts, publish, print and successfully market their books nationwide.
More than 60 businesses have benefitted from the program, which was extended through May 1 while a permanent program is in the works.
Editors note: This is the third and final part of our series about combating unemployment and job stagnation in Cowlitz County. The first two parts appeared Sunday and Tuesday.

Five years ago, lured by the promise of a high-paying job, William Chuck Hast and his wife packed up and drove from Tampa, Fla., across the country to Kalama.

Because he had previously worked for a company that installed glass plant hardware, he was recruited to work at the Bennu Glass wine bottle plant at Port of Kalama, which was restarting in 2012 after its 2009 bankruptcy shutdown. As a maintenance technician making $35 an hour, he helped to set up the plant, train employees and improved the process for detecting bottle defects. So two years later, it came as a shock when he was let go as the company was preparing to sell, he said.

It was a bit frustrating, said Hast, 66, of Kelso. My whole idea was to retire there.

Hast has bounced between different jobs and contracting works since then. Hes taking online technical training courses with WorkSource to better his employment prospects. Hes like many unemployed workers in Cowlitz County who are having to turn to other fields to find work or else increase their skills to keep up to pace with advancing technology. Many employers here say theres still a mismatch between the kinds of jobs employers need to fill and the kinds of skills and experience that workers have. Closing that gap through training and education is another critical part of reducing unemployment, because jobs are open, economic development leaders say.

At least one job placement agency says job availability has perked up significantly this year. Julie Nelson, president of American Workforce Group, said there about 70 open positions at the companies that she recruits and hires for. But she other employers say finding the right worker with the skills and experience and clean drug tests can be a challenge. Manual machinists, mechanics and welders always seem to be in short supply, Nelson said.

Tori Skinner, business development director at Goodwill Industries, said most job listings now often require some post-high school education.

From what Ive seen, whats in demand, its not entry level. Its a technical-degree status, its those two-to-three-year technical degrees, like medical coding and medical billing, and things really specific to what that employer needs, Skinner said. Skinner coordinates internships and training programs at Goodwill for opportunity youth  meaning unemployed people between the ages of 16 to 24.

Hyatt Yu, a Kaiser Permanente administrator in Longview, said the area and nation are chronically short of lab technicians, x-ray technicians, radiologists and at times, licensed practical nurses.

Yet sometimes having the experience and degrees isnt enough to snag a job right away, particularly for unemployed older workers.

Longview resident Donni Martelle, 66, has been struggling to find permanent work as a counselor, in spite of her masters degree and decades of experience. She had worked in social service and counselor roles, assisting people with disabilities for the state until 2009, when she was forced to take a few years off to recover from two car accidents. After a few years on state disability, she retired briefly, but she craved the fulfillment of working and she found couldnt survive off of Social Security. So she picked up the job search again last year.

Its a gap (in my resume) and I havent explained that part. They havent asked the age part, but theres kind of (an) implied ageism, Martelle said. Late last year, she had a three-month stint at a local social service agency, but she said she didnt fit in because of her age and a gap in computer skills, so she was let go.

Its hard. I have to tell you Ive dealt with frustration, tears, depression, anxiety that comes with that. You feel lost, and you feel like the door is being slammed in your face, she said.

But Martelle argues there are resources for the unemployed here. Currently shes brushing up on her computer skills with Microsoft courses at Goodwill Industries and has received help from WorkSource on the job hunt, too.

You can find a job, you just need to be proactive. And thats why I hope that people never give up. ... And sometimes you have to humble yourself, Martelle said.

Many workers find they have to lower their expectations for salaries and change their lifestyle as they enter new fields.

What Im coming to realize is a lot of these (employers), they want a Cadillac but they only have the money for Volkswagon. What theyre looking for, theyre wanting someone to do these jobs, but theyre paying almost an entry-level salary, Hast said.

For instance, Nate Peck, 37, a former KapStone worker, saw his wage drop from $25 an hour to $14 an hour now as a temp employee. He and his girlfriend have had to adjust their lifestyles to support themselves and their children.

You make changes where you have to, like buying less things you dont need, he said. It hasnt been fun or easy.

A Longview native, Peck comes from a line of mill workers  his grandfather and father both worked at Weyerhaeuser Co. After graduating from R.A. Long High School in 1998, he, too, went straight into work at local mills. Most recently he worked 10 years at Longview Fibre Co./KapStone mill before he was let go for missing work. After a few months of struggling to find work, Peck plugged into a job placement agency, American Workforce Group, where hes working temporary manufacturing jobs.

John Davis, 24, a recent transplant from Clark County, has readjusted his plans, too, by moving to Cowlitz County to live with his cousin and save on rent. In 2015, Davis quit his manufacturing job at Bobs Red Mill in Portland because he tired of the daily commute Vancouver. He switched to contract driving for Uber and Lyft, but eventually the market was flooded with too many drivers, he said.

Already Davis was living paycheck-to-paycheck when he was hit with bad luck: his car broke down, his motorcycle was stolen and health problems led to expensive hospital bills. At first, Davis said he was picky about the salary and types of job he applied for.

Once I realized I didnt have the experience needed, it wasnt hard to humble myself. Im grateful now for anything I can get, Davis said. Hes now an employee of American Workforce Group working for in a temp-to-hire position at a local fabrication shop and he is taking placement tests to eventually become an electrician.

Offering additional training and opportunities for younger workers like Davis is another key to reducing joblessness and preventing the need for young people to look outside of the county for work, Skinner said.

So the struggle is how to do we engage (young local people) in the local economy so that we can keep them and grow our economy and really enhance a lot of our industries without losing our talent, Skinner said.

Hast, the former Bennu Glass employee, now is looking for work in and outside of Cowlitz County. After leaving Bennu in 2014, he did contracting work and logged two years at Ozone International, a company that produces an organic cleaning agent to sterilize food manufacturing plants. But he was laid off in September. In the last several months hes applied for dozens of jobs. A few prospects fell through because of funding problems, and hes also found he doesnt have the necessary certifications to match his experience.

But hes hoping his WorkSource training and a few recent positive interviews lead to better times.

Throughout his career, Hast has worked in several fields, as a pilot, a small business owner in Costa Rica, a technician in radio, food manufacturing and glass plants. I remake myself about every so often. So that seems to be kind of the nature of the beast. So I have no qualms about that.
State Route 503/Lewis River Road will be closed in both directors for several more days following a debris slide that blocked the highway about a mile west of Speelyai Bay Road late Monday morning. There still are no estimates as to when the road will reopen.

Geotechnical engineers need to evaluate the stability of the slope so crews can determine their next steps for clearing the debris, Bart Treece, Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson, said Tuesday.

The hillside is currently too unstable and saturated from heavy rainfall. Crews will wait for the hillside to stop moving before they can make their assessment and develop next steps, according to a WSDOT press release.

The closure means motorists traveling to or from the upper Lewis River Valley, to places such as Cougar, must detour on Yale Bridge Road and through Chelatchie and Amboy. The blockage is near the east end of Lake Merwin.
Fashionistas have a new place to gawk and shop for designer clothing on Commerce Avenue.

Amanda Aplet, 31, Sonja Telesco, 35, and their partners on Feb. 9 opened BRANDED, a clothing store focused on selling used, name-brand clothing. Those who sell their clothing at the Longview store  located at 1318 Commerce Ave.  can earn up to 50 percent in-store credit of the amount the store sells it for.

I knew I wanted a store, Aplet said. I just didnt have a person to do it with. My wishes and dreams came true really quickly.

Aplets boyfriend and Telescos husband worked together at a mechanics shop in Vancouver two years ago, which is how Aplet and Telesco got introduced. The couples met at the Enchanted Forest, an amusement park near Salem, with their kids in spring 2015. The women clicked right away.

When I first met her, I ran up to her and gave her a hug, Telesco said.

Aplet and Telesco were both stay-at-home moms. When their partners lost their jobs, the couples started a storage locker and sold items out of Telescos Vancouver garage. Then they started a thrift store in Vancouver.

But problems with the landlord arose, they said, and made them want to move. They said they didnt have a working HVAC system and the pipes broke.

Aplet, who lives in Longview, said they also noticed the name-brand clothing in their thrift store would fly out the door as soon as they acquired it  like Miss Me or Rock Revival jeans. They said theres also less competition in Longview.

Its a smaller town, and I think people need it out here, Aplet said. People love brand name clothes.

The couples together designed the store, which has rustic accents and wooden pallets for the clothing racks. Clothing prices range from $4.99 to $51.99. Those who want to sell their gently used clothes can bring them into the store for in-store credit to upgrade their wardrobes.

Aplet said opening the store was nerve-racking  it would have to support both families. Aplet has three kids, and Telesco is pregnant with her fifth child. But she said it was a risk worth taking.

We dont regret anything, Aplet said. It was awesome because we wouldnt be here today.
Japanese car maker Toyota is all set to launch its sedan Vios next year in India. According to a report, Toyota will bring the car at the upcoming Auto Expo 2018 which will be followed by the launch after a couple of months.

The Toyota Vios is a compact sedan that will see competition from the Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Honda City, Volkswagen Vento and the next generation Hyundai Verna. The Vios has already launched in Thailand and Toyota is expected to bring the same model to India.

The Thailand version of the Vios features a 1.5-litre petrol engine which can produce 107 bhp of power and 141Nm of torque. The engine is mated to a new 7-Speed 'Super-CVT' transmission. India will porbably get a 5-speed manual gearbox as well as the CVT transmission. A 1.4-litre diesel version is also expected to be announced in India.

Overall the car seems to share its design DNA with the Corolla Altis and the new Camry. The front of the sedan gets a protruding nose along with redesigned bumpers with a lot more black, which adds to a sporty look. Add to this LED DRLs (that strangely resemble those on the recent Hyundai Ioniq and the Toyota Prius) and redesigned projector headlamps. On the inside, you get climate control, steering-mounted audio controls and a touchscreen infotainment system. Features like ABS with EBD, traction control, ISOFIX mounts for child seats, and dual airbags could come as standard while the top variants could feature brake assist and ESP (stability control).

The Toyota Vios was launched in Thailand in four trims (J, E, G, S), with the basic one priced at 609,000 baht (roughly Rs 11,77,947) and the top end trim with all the accessories at 789,000 baht (roughly Rs 15,26,109). We are expecting a price range between Rs 9-15 lakhs in India.
The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that employers can prohibit the Muslim headscarf in the workplace. Although nonbinding, the

sets an important precedent for the continent amid a fraught political climate.





As strong anti-immigrant sentiment spreads into the political mainstream and right-wing parties soar in popularity ahead of several key elections this year, the ruling is bound to fan the flames of long-simmering culture wars in Europe, especially in France.





The court addressed different complaints from two Muslim women  one from France and one from Belgium  who alleged that their employers had discriminated against them for wearing the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, to the office.





The judges concluded otherwise: An internal rule . . . which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination.




tech2 News Staff

Streamers, rejoice  the Microsoft Xbox Project Scorpio console will feature 4K 60fps video capture. Those concerned about aesthetics may also rejoice for the console will integrate its historically massive power brick within the console.

An exclusive report on Windows Central states that the upcoming console will feature full support for HEVC decoding and encoding as well as the VP9 codec for 4K streams. This means that the Project Scorpio console will natively decode 4K streams (without an inordinate hit to performance) as well as encode 4K streams on the fly.

With an increasing number of gamers taking to streaming services such as YouTube Gaming and Twitch, a 4K streaming option, also known as DVR, is perfect. The current Xbox One only manages to output 720p 30fps streams.

As Windows Central points out in its report, a streamer would normally have to use a video capture card to capture the output from his console in high resolution for streaming.

E3 2017, which will be held from 14-17 June, is going to be a big event for both Microsoft and Sony. Sonys mid-season console refresh is already out, the PlayStation 4 Pro, and its making waves with its stellar games lineup and VR support. Microsoft so far has nothing to compete with it and Project Scorpio is meant to be the rival. And its supposed to be 30 percent more powerful.

While Project Scorpio has no VR support just yet, Microsoft is working on some sort of mixed reality headset and given the Xbox PC roots, it might very well end up supporting existing VR solutions like the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift.

Of course, Microsoft better have a stunning games lineup to support the console, or all will be for naught.
Nimish Sawant

Artificial Intelligence is slowly but surely coming into the mainstream conversations of late. With every single smart device having ambitions to be intelligent from the get go, and the ongoing research in this field by technology giants has ensured that AI is here to stay. Google, IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft among others have already formed an AI partnership to create more awareness about AI and also lay down standards for future researchers to abide by.

But AI paired with machine learning is also proving to be a detriment for existing jobs. An Economist report from 2016 claims that in the jobs in the US that are at a high risk of being lost to AI and deep learning and include transport and logistics, office support, among others.

Last week, a report in The Economic Times claimed that IT professionals over 35 were also vulnerable to losing their jobs to machines and AI in the near future. After having spoken to IT professionals and an IT company, that fear has been laid to rest. But according to KS Viswanathan, vice president for Industry Initiatives at Nasscom, AI and machine learning will not really steal your jobs, but in fact will create more jobs.

"I would not call artificial intelligence a threat. Several decades ago a lot of public sector banks came on to the core banking platform. The core banking solution improved the bank's efficiency. It was not a threat to the banker's jobs, but it freed their time to do more core banking related work, than just manual tasks. With artificial intelligence, the IT industries want to focus on improving efficiencies and productivity," said Viswanathan.

Yes automation in various industries is a matter of concern. But on the flip side, it also means that human intelligence can be put to better use than just doing repetitive tasks. That you will need to upgrade your skillsets is a given if you want to survive. But claims like mid-level IT professionals looking at losing their jobs to machines, is generalising things.

Viswanathan says that AI, deep learning, machine learning are all tools which focus on increasing efficiency and productivity. One of the reasons AI didn't play a huge role some decades ago, was due to the simple fact that computing power and efficiencies weren't the best. Human intelligence was still needed in a lot of jobs. It is still needed. But some level of automation in some sectors is bound to happen.

"With the progress in technology, now with AI and machine learning, along with IoT, we are getting the ability to play around with more and more data. So definitely there has to be some skill-related training to help people analyse that data. So there will be emphasis on productivity. New jobs will be created eventually, and they will be different from what we have currently," said Viswanathan.

According to Viswanathan, IT companies are leveraging capacity to increase productivity for the customer. He dismisses doomsday talk when it comes to AI and machine learning giving an analogy of how it was predicted many decades ago that automation in the agricultural sector would wipe out the jobs of farmers. On the contrary, it has increased agricultural production over the years, thereby lifting the economic output in that sector.

"Reskilling is required on two levels  for the younger workforce, called as the digital millennials, as well as for the managerial role employees who may be between 40-45 years of age. Reskilling of employees is required to keep them up to date on the changing landscapes, so that they are ready to face any challenges 4-5 years down the line," says Viswanathan.

And it's not like things aren't happening on ground to address the issue. Nasscom set up a Centre of Excellence for Internet of Things (IoT) in partnership with the govt of India, industry players, academia and others. The idea behind the CoE is to create a curriculum to address two needs.

"One is the fundamental curriculum for colleges (which would make its way in the 6th or 7th semesters of engineering or technology graduation courses) and the second is back to school (for the executive who needs to be reskilled). For the latter, the curriculum for his or her particular industry has already been drafted and is in the final stages of going live," observed Viswanathan.

The Centre of Excellence for IoT is expected to act like a training and skilling ground for students, to come and do projects in IoT and related fields. It will be a sort of an incubator for startups, so to speak. According to Viswanathan, the participating students will have access to material from academia, Nasscom, the IT industry case studies among others. That is the way the industry is responding to the change that is required.

Another area where Nasscom is quite invested in is data sciences. "The Centre of Excellence for Data Sciences will include analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence as its core subjects. There are already two states which have given approval in its creation. It will be a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model where the central and state govts, industries, academia will be working together to create capacity. It may not have a physical lab for testing, as all the tools for its learning will be in the cloud. It is a virtual infrastructure which is being created," said Viswanathan.

The idea that the IT industry as well as Nasscom has is to leverage the strength of India's IT prowess and think about how one can create alternate capacities for the emerging areas, three to five years from now.

"It is a parallel activity which the govt, Nasscom and industry has taken to build competency. It will lead to a variety of people coming into the job pool, than what we had in the past. People with varied skill sets than your traditional Oracle, SAP, Java experts and so on," says Viswanathan.

One thing is for certain: the change in the industry will be much faster than what is anticipated thanks to the rapid evolution of technology. Viswanathan reminisces how back in the early 1980s when IT in India was just about getting started, there were no IT or Computer Science graduates.

"Eventually the industry came together and created a whole program, just like say NIIT created courses to train people interested in acquiring these skills. It is happening now as well to gear up for future changes, which will be much faster than we anticipate. These changes are being considered across all levels such as Nasscom, the govts, IT industries and so on. So if people don't adopt them, then that would only be a disadvantage for them," says Viswanathan.
tech2 News Staff

Nokia smartphones are traditionally known for their camera performance because of the sensors and glass used were sourced from Carl Zeiss. The collaboration between Nokia and Carl Zeiss worked well after Microsoft acquired the smartphone business from Nokia. However, when Nokia announced its return in a partnership with HMD Global, it was not clear if the company would be using Carl Zeiss in the cameras going forward. The recent announcement of Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and the new revamped Nokia 3310 lacked a true flagship that could go head to head with other top tier smartphones.

Reports and leaks suggest that Nokia is working on Nokia 8, the flagship with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and dual camera. Reports did not indicate if the company would resume its partnership with Carl Zeiss as Nokia returns to the market with the help of HMD Global. Nokia Mobile, the Twitter handle managed by HMD Global responded in a tweet that it is not using the Carl Zeiss technology.

@baris_gunel Hi, our current range does not have Carl Zeiss, which is what this tweet is referring to. Stay tuned for more announcements  Nokia Mobile (@nokiamobile) March 9, 2017

HMD Global clarified that the previously mentioned tweet only meant that no current Nokia smartphones sport Zeiss optics with no clarity about future smartphones. This is a much better thing to hear from the company rather than hearing that no future Nokia smartphones will come with Carl Zeiss. The company ended with a hopeful, "Stay tuned for more announcements".
tech2 News Staff

OnePlus, just a few hours ago, announced that something is going down with fashion brand Colette and the same will be announced on 15 March. Colette comes from Paris and is a fashion brand known for its wacky designs. It is expected that OnePlus could tie up with Colette Paris to either design some smartphone accessories, bags or even its own clothing lineup.

It's anyone's guess right now as to what the two youth-oriented brands are collaborating for.

The problem with coming to a conclusion here is that Colette designs not just clothing, handbags and accessories, but is also into plenty of other products as well.

This wide range would include, clothes, bags, shoes and other smaller accessories that even include fashion jewellery. The retailer also sells its own smartphones accessories like tangle-free earphones, along with a wide range of smartphones accessories coming from other designer brands; basically stuff that not only looks good but is functional as well. There are scents, stationery, kitchenware, furniture and even skateboards!

Winding back to the an older, official interview with CEO Pete Lau, when the company announced a change in strategy by culling the budget OnePlus X, there is one tiny clue out here.

During that time Lau commented that OnePlus would also focus on "one other thing" and that would be lifestyle products. OnePlus so far only has one a few of them on sale called 'OnePlus Gear' and that too, just online.

With Colette, OnePlus could either announce a wider range of accessories that are designed in collaboration with Colette Paris, or with a smaller announcement simply its current lineup of lifestyle products to Colette's storefronts.

Lau's reasoning behind the move was clear and simple: Promoting the brand.
Chinas a complex nation.

Thats a ridiculously vague way to start this post, yes, but its also just about as good as its going to get. If you want hard-hitting geopolitical analysis, this is probably not the place for that.

However, if you want to learn about the giant-ass national park China is planning to build, yes, by all means, lets talk about that.

Details via IFLScience:

China is planning to build a new national park to save two endangered species  the Siberian tiger and Amur leopard  as it develops its US-style national park scheme. This new park will be located in northeast China in the Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, on the border of Russia and North Korea. It will cover 14,600 square kilometers (5,600 square miles), making it 60 percent bigger than Yellowstone in the US. According to Xinhua, a comprehensive plan and pilot for the national park is expected to be carried out before 2020.

For reference, Yellowstone is 3,471 square miles, while the state of Connecticut is 5,543. This is going to be a very, very big park.

And good thing, too, because both those cat species are incredibly threatened:

In 1998, only six to nine wild Siberian tigers were estimated to be living in this area, rising to 27 by 2015 after conservation efforts that included a logging ban. However, the current reserve these tigers inhabit is not enough to let the species thrive. Approximately 400 more are thought to live in Russia. Meanwhile, the global population of Amur leopards was less than 30 in 2007, mostly due to hunting and other human activities. This had almost doubled by 2015 thanks to work by conservation groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), but more still needs to be done.

China has already announced plans for an even bigger park aimed at preserving the habitat of Chinas giant panda. That one will come in at around 10,500 square miles, and will actually require the relocation of about 170,000 people. These are unfathomably big chunks of the environment that will now, in theory, be protected from human hands, though nothing is ever a guarantee.

Again, there are any number of stronger critiques to be made by more informed voices, but the main takeaway here is this: pandas, tigers, and leopards are all awesome, and whatever protection they get is a positive.

[IFLScience]
BGMEA Bhaban to be shifted to Uttara

Kamruzzaman Bablu :

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has to shift its office from Karwan Bazaar to Uttara. The government has by this time allocated a piece of land to build a new office building there.

A BGMEA sources said, the clothing industry's apex body has got a piece of land measuring 5.5-bigha plot at Uttara to raise a new building for its new office.

"The registration of land in the name of BGMEA would be done shortly in a board meeting of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK)," the source said. RAJUK is the authority to allocate land in the vicinity of the capital.

The ready-made garment sector is the largest foreign currency earner which contributes over 82 percent to the total export earnings, RAJUK said in its opinion, responding to the letter of BGMEA, said the source.

"Considering the contribution to the society, we should cooperate with RMG sector and provide land complying with rules and regulations," he said, quoting RAJUK official.

"Based on the current market price of land, BGMEA has to pay some Tk33 crore," another source at BGMEA told the New Nation, seeking anonymity.

"We do not want to have the land free of cost and not repeat the same thing that happened to the existing building," he said, adding that everything would be done as per the law of the land.

On the other hand, the apex trade body is going to form several committees to expedite the process of relocation.

The committees would be comprised of former BGMEA leaders and office bearers headed by its president Siddiqur Rahan.

The new committees would work on approving plans for the new building, its design and construction.

For that purpose, the trade body will hold Extra-ordinary General Meeting (EGM) this week.

The 15-storey BGMEA headquarters stands on a crucial spot in Dhaka and blocks the connection between the two large water bodies in the city - Hatirjheel lake and Begunbari canal.

According to BGMEA, based on the petition for time, the court granted six months to demolish the building.

Earlier, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court dismissed review petition, saying the building was built illegally, and therefore it must be pulled down.
Mother attempted to commit suicide after 'killing' daughter

UNB, Jamalpur :

A woman attempted to commit suicide by taking poison allegedly after killing her minor daughter at Dakpara village in Islampur upazila on Monday morning.

The deceased was identified as Amina, four-year-old daughter of Khuku Moni, 30.

Quoting local people, police said Khuku Moni, wife of Aminur Islam, worker of a garment factory located in Dhaka, used to live with her son and daughter in the village.

Sensing something unnatural, local people informed Khuku's father who rushed to her house only to see his granddaughter dead and her daughter's unconscious body lying on the bed.

Later, Khuku was taken to Jamalpur Hospital.

Khuku's family said Khuku at first poured poison into the mouth of her daughter Amina and then took poison for committing suicide.

The reason behind the killing and suicide attempt could not be known yet, said Deen-e-Islam, officer-in-charge of Islampur Police Station. However, police detained the mother for interrogation, he said.






Launch of Galachipa-Dhaka route salvaged after 8 hours

Barisal Correspondent :

MV Bagerhat-2, a double-decker passenger launch plying on Galachipa-Dhaka route with 5 hundred passengers on board stuck on under water shoal after collided with another vessel on early Monday and salvaged 8 hours later on Monday afternoon.

Azizur Rahman, officer in charge of Bakerganj Police Station, said MV Bagerhut-2 stuck in a shoal of Karkhana River and salvaged at 1:00 pm and reached its final destination on Monday afternoon.

Mustafizur Rahman, Barisal River Port Officer, acknowledging the facts there said were no causality.

Sagor Mia, driver of Galachipa (under Patuakhali district )bound double-deck launch MV Bagerhut-2, said their vessel stuck on a under water shoal of Karkhana River under Bakerganj Upazila creating panic and causing sufferings of the passengers on board.

MV Bagerhat-2 left Dhaka Sadargat river port on Sunday night and while crossing Karkhana River, Patuakhali bound another launch MV MR Khan hit them at 5:00 am Monday. Then MV Bagerhut-2 stuck on a shoal of Karkhana River, he added. Md Ujjal, one of passenger of MV Bagerhut-2, said after the collision we became panicked.

MV Bagerhut-2 collided and stuck on shoal as master (captain) of the vessel failed to follow route safety-markings, claimed Abdur Razzak, port officer of Patuakhali.
S-W region turns safe haven for gold smuggling

Ahsanul Amin George, Khulna :

South-western region of the country has turned the safe haven for gold smugglers. White color criminals have been continuing gold smuggling in disguise of different other businesses through this region for a long time.

Large investments are being transected in the big markets of the neighboring countries including India and Myanmar, sources said.

Saiful Islam, Nayek Subedar of 21 BGB camp commander in Daulatpur of Kushtia said, one Titu Biswas, a veterinary physician , son of Alauddin Biswas, resident of village Gatipara in Benapole port police station of Jessore district, was arrested by the members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) along with 20 gold bars at Gatipara road area while he was going towards Putkhali area from Benapole border by riding a motorbike. Besides, on February 17,2017, Ashiq Iqbal Chanchal, former organizing secretary of BNP's Parakrishnapur-Modna union in Damurhuda upazila of Chuadanga district, son of Golam Rahman, resident of village Nastipur in the same upazila, was arrested by the BGB members on charge of gold smuggling. BGB members of Sultanpur border outpost handed him over to Damurhuda police station.

Lt. Col. Amir Mozid, Director of Chuadanga-6 BGB said, Being informed that Ashiq Iqbal Chanchal was going towards the border of India with a view to smuggle 4 kgs gold, BGB members chased him and arrested him along with the gold and his motorcycle.

Concerned sources said, the larger portion of gold are being smuggled in India. Gold which come from abroad by air ways, are going to the high ways of Benapole, Sona Masjid, Akhaura and Hili land port. The masterminds of the smuggling syndicates are controlling their gold business staying at Singapore, Dubai, Pakistan and India. Some times, some small smugglers are arrested, but the masterminds are living beyond touches and as such their gold smuggling are going unabated.

Sources further said, some gold smugglers purchase gold by staying at Dhaka and they sell it in the markets of the other parts of the country, particularly in the south-western region parts of the country as this region is the safe haven for them.

Law enforcing agencies sources said, At least 10 Indian citizens were arrested in the last three months. They were trying to enter India along with gold bars with a view to smuggle it. These gold bars come to Bangladesh from Dubai. However, among them police of Benapole port police station arrested one Mominul Chowdhury along with 36 pieces of gold bars on January 22, 2014.

Police quoting Mominul said, Due to strictness in Damdam airport, the smugglers chose he Benapole port border areas including Horidaspur, Joyontipur, Angrail, Banshghat and Kali Rani and in these areas they are continuing their business.

Police of Kotchandpur police station of Jhenaidaha district arrested three gold smugglers in two separate drives on March 4 and March 10 in 2015.

The arrestees were- Jasimuddin, son of Hazi Nur Mohammad, resident of village gobidar in Singair upazila of Manikganj, Sunil Karmokar, son of Shoshti Karmokar and Obaidul Molla, son of Foyjulla Molla, both are the resident of village Bazarpara in Jibonnagar upazila of Chuadanga district.

Sources said, due to increasing gold price in Dubai, gold smugglers have implicated in gold business.

When the 22 caret gold's price in Dubai is taka only 2968 per gram, then the price of the same

Bangladesh is taka 48 thousand per Bhori, i,e, profit per Bhori is taka 14 thousand and as such the old smugglers are inclining to this business being tempted in higher profits, sources added.
Yanghee Lee`s suggestion deserves highest consideration

THE UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Ms Yanghee Lee has issued a fresh call to institute a highest-level International Inquiry Commission for an independent and impartial investigation into the mass killings and other serious human rights violations that Rohingyas are facing in their home state in Myanmar. She made the call at a time when the council is going to meet in Geneva to discuss human rights situation world over.



She has rightly voiced concern over the slow and steady ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in the Buddhist majority nation calling for the high-level Inquiry Commission to do everything to save the endangered people from becoming stateless like the Palestinian people in the Middle East. But it appears that without the backing of the European countries her proposal for the Commission remains uncertain and the EU is still apparently reluctant fearing such move may endanger the fragile democracy in Myanmar. Army may take over again.



We believe Bangladesh must strengthen its diplomatic efforts to win the support of the EU nation and other big players behind the proposal, but our diplomacy appears so weak and aimless without enough backing to win the needed global support.



Ms Yanghee Lee has outlined a very terrible situation saying Rohingyas in their home state in Myanmar are facing massacre. Myanmar army and private vigilantes are shooting people indiscriminately, they are slitting their throats, setting their houses alight with people tied up inside the houses and throwing young children into fire. They are perpetrating gang rapes forcing people to flee to Bangladesh.



At a briefing in Geneva on Monday she said the World Community should leave no stone unturned, the time is passing out. The world needs to know the truth and so the Inquiry Commission is important. The Myanmar government appears quite determined to expel the entire ethnic group. The latest atrocities started from October last year while Rohingyas were stripped off of their voting right in 2012 effectively making them stateless.



She has rightly said a genocide is taking place in Myanmar at the time when the country has stepped into a democratic government led by Nobel Laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi. It is unthinkable the state is sponsoring genocide against the most persecuted people. Ms Yanghee Lee made a strong case to designate UN investigators by the Human Rights to investigate the crackdown and end the persecution for the people to go back to their ancestral homes. Her suggestion that the UN Human Rights Council can set up the Commission before its session ends later this month just reflects how serious the situation is in that country that deserves immediate steps to end the crisis and save the people.
Several states jointly sue to block Trump`s revised travel ban

Several states jointly sue to block Trump\'s revised travel ban on Monday. Internet photo

Reuters :

A group of states renewed their effort on Monday to block President Donald Trump's revised temporary ban on refugees and travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, arguing that his executive order is the same as the first one that was halted by federal courts.

Court papers filed by the state of Washington and joined by California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon asked a judge to stop the March 6 order from taking effect on Thursday.

An amended complaint said the order was similar to the original Jan. 27 directive because it "will cause severe and immediate harms to the States, including our residents, our colleges and universities, our healthcare providers, and our businesses."

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said it was reviewing the complaint and would respond to the court.

A more sweeping ban implemented hastily in January caused chaos and protests at airports. The March order by contrast gave 10 days' notice to travelers and immigration officials.

Last month, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle halted the first travel ban after Washington state sued, claiming the order was discriminatory and violated the U.S. Constitution. Robart's order was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump revised his order to overcome some of the legal hurdles by including exemptions for legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and taking Iraq off the list of countries covered. The new order still halts citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days but has explicit waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the country.

Refugees are still barred for 120 days, but the new order removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria.

Washington state has now gone back to Robart to ask him to apply his emergency halt to the new ban.

Robart said in a court order Monday that the government has until Tuesday to respond to the states' motions. He said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday and did not commit to a specific date to hear arguments from both sides.

Separately, Hawaii has also sued over the new ban. The island state, which is heavily dependent on tourism, said the executive order has had a "chilling effect" on travel revenues. In response to Hawaii's lawsuit, the Department of Justice in court papers filed on Monday said the president has broad authority to "restrict or suspend entry of any class of aliens when in the national interest." The department said the temporary suspensions will allow a review of the current screening process in an effort to protect against terrorist attacks. There is a hearing in the Hawaii case set for Wednesday, the day before the new ban is set to go into effect.

The first hurdle for the lawsuits will be proving "standing," which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy. With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals who would have a right to sue, in the eyes of a court.

To overcome this challenge, the states filed more than 70 declarations of people affected by the order including tech businesses Amazon and Expedia, which said that restricting travel hurts their revenues and their ability to recruit employees.

Universities and medical centers that rely on foreign doctors also weighed in, as did religious organizations and individual residents, including U.S. citizens, with stories about separated families.

But the Trump administration in its filings in the Hawaii case on Monday said the carve-outs in the new order undercut the state's standing claims.

"The Order applies only to individuals outside the country who do not have a current visa, and even as to them, it sets forth robust waiver provisions," the Department of Justice's motion said.

The government cited Supreme Court precedent in arguing that people outside the United States and seeking admission for the first time have "no constitutional rights" regarding their applications.

If the courts do end up ruling the states have standing to sue, the next step will be to argue that both versions of the executive order discriminate against Muslims. "The Trump Administration may have changed the text of the now-discredited Muslim travel ban, but they didn't change its unconstitutional intent and effect," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Monday. While the text of the order does not mention Islam, the states claim that the motivation behind the policy is Trump's campaign promise of "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." He later toned down that language and said he would implement a policy of "extreme vetting" of foreigners coming to the United States.

The government said the courts should only look at the text of the order and not at outside comments by Trump or his aides.
Govt gets another 2 weeks to finalise judges` discipline rules

The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the time by two weeks for issuing a gazette notification for the government on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges.

An eight-member SC bench, led by Chief Justice SK Sinha, passed the order following a time-petition filed by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam. The court adjourned the hearing of the case for two weeks.

On February 27, the SC gave the government two weeks to publish the gazette. The court on February 5 ordered the authorities concerned to issue the gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for the lower court judges by February 12. On November 24, 2016, the Supreme Court gave the government one week to publish the gazette notification on the disciplinary rules for the judicial officers. The lower judiciary was officially separated in November 2007 but the disciplinary rules for lower court judges are yet to be formulated.

On December 2, 1999, the Supreme Court in the Masdar Hossain case issued a seven-point directive, including formulating separate disciplinary rules, for the lower court judges.

The Law Ministry on May 7, 2015 sent the draft of the rules to the Supreme Court which is similar to the Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1985
JMB Commander among 5 held in Pabna

Staff Reporter :

Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested five members of banned militant outfit Jamaa'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

The arrested men were identified as Mostafizur Rahman Shahin, 40, Regional Commander of Pabna, Abdul Quddus, 40, Abdul Wahab, 65, Abdur Rahman alias Abdul, 30, and Abdul Majid, 50, Police said.

Abdur Razzak, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Pabna Sadar Police Station, said that Mostafizur was arrested in a raid at Kacharipur around 3:00am on charge of recruiting militants in Pabna.

He was commander during a bomb attack in

Meherpur district when a series of bomb attack took place simultaneously across the country on August 17 in 2005, the OC said.

Meanwhile, police arrested Abdul Quddus, a follower of executed JMB leader Bangla Bhai, from his residence at Yogipara of Bagmara Upazila in Rajshahi around 3:00am, said Sumit Chowdhury, Additional Superintendent of Police in Rajshahi.

Besides, the law enforcers arrested alleged JMB members Abdul Wahab from Puthia Upazila in the district, the police official said.

In Jamalpur, Police arrested two suspected JMB operatives from Fulbarhia during a meeting in the district around 4:00am, said Jamalpur Sadar Police OC Nasimul Islam.

"The meeting was convened to plan for violent attacks in the area. Both the arrested are accused in cases for terror activities," the OC said.
Confce ends with `17-point Dhaka Declaration`

Regional police chiefs join hands to fight terrorism: Facebook refuses to sign MoU

Staff Reporter :

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam on Tuesday formally declared conclusion of the three-day International Police Chiefs Conference saying that it opened potential avenues for the engagement in various fields of law enforcement.

The conference ended with adoption of a '17-point Dhaka Declaration' with a call for intensifying cooperation among the South Asian nations to combat transnational crimes and extremism.

As many as 14 countries and four international organizations, who took part in the conference, adopted the 17-point Joint Declaration aiming at curbing transnational crimes and extremism in the region.

Shahriar said, "In the last couple of years, we have seen rise of terrorism and militancy in global plain, we need to stay alert and vigilant so that we do not fall victim to global terror networks."

He said, "There can be spill-over effects of IS's ongoing terrorist activities in the Middle East and other places, disturbing peace and security of our countries.

"As far as Bangladesh is concerned, there is no existence of Islamic State (IS) and other international terror outfits in the country," he said.

The State Minister said that home grown militants carried out recent attacks in the country, adding, "There is no evidence till date to support the claim that they (Militants) had links with IS or other global outfits."

Briefing reporters after the closing session, Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque expressed satisfaction over the outcome of the conference saying that it was a successful conference.

"To implement the joint Dhaka Declaration we will have to sign MoU with law enforcement agencies of other countries. The Dhaka Declaration will become successful if our government gives consent to sign MoU with the law enforcement agencies of other countries," the IGP said. In Dhaka Declaration, they vowed to promote exchange of information to curb terrorism and transnational crimes effectively in order to strengthen counterterrorism capabilities, he said.

The Dhaka Declaration stresses on efficiently dealing with the regional challenges of violent extremism and transnational organized crimes through cross-border cooperation among all police organizations in South Asia and its neighbouring countries, Shahidul Hoque said. The joint declaration included devising a common strategy to combat transnational crimes and violent extremism and establishing one to one communication through the National Central Bureau (NCB) of Interpol member states, he said.

The police chief said, "The main features of the Dhaka Declaration include working together to identify the recent trend of crimes that pose immense threats to this region and the world and from a common platform to enhance cooperation among chiefs of police of the region."

The IGP said the declaration comprises promoting exchange of information to curb terrorism and transnational crimes effectively in order to strengthen the counterterrorism capabilities, developing and strengthening partnerships among law enforcement agencies of the countries and organizations.

"We will create professional network and strategic alliance among law enforcement agencies and leading organizations of the world and promote cooperation among respective investigators and prosecuting offenders involved in terrorism and transnational crimes," he said.

We will strengthen cooperation to enhance capabilities to act against money laundering, cybercrime and financial crime as stated in the Dhaka Declaration, according to him.

The IGP said that he held bilateral talks the police chiefs of Myanmar, Afghanistan, South Korea, China, Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. Of them, he said, the Myanmar, South Korea, China and Malaysia police chiefs agreed to sign Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with the Bangladesh Police aimed at curbing transnational crimes.

"Agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar to prevent burning issues like human trafficking and drug smuggling is very important and the Myanmar Ambassador in Dhaka gave his consent on police cooperation in this regard between the two countries," he said.

Shahidul Hoque said, "I talked to the Facebook authorities and conveyed our concerns about the spread of propaganda on militancy, luring youths towards militancy, communal instigation and hurting religious sentiment through facebook and other social media."

The social networking giant Facebook authorities refused to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh Police and said that their policy does not allow to sign MoU with a country but they assured of cooperating Bangladesh in this regard, the IGP said.

A total of 58 foreign representatives, including Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock and police chiefs from Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Australia, Bhutan, Brunei, Indonesia, Maldives, Malaysia, Nepal, South Korea, and Vietnam participated in the conference. Besides, high officials of Facebook, American IGCI and FBI, and ASEANPOL and International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), also attended the programme.
British candidate for WHO DG post visits BD

UNB, Dhaka :

British-born physician Dr David Nabarro, who is going to vie for the post of the next Director General (DG) of World Health

Organisation (WHO), has visited Bangladesh recently.

During his visit to Bangladesh, Dr Nabarro met Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim and State Minister for Health and Family Welfare Zahid Maleque. The physician has spent over 40 years in international public health as a medical doctor, educator, international public servant and diplomat.

He has also worked on the frontline in over 50 countries, including Bangladesh, and worked on issues, including Ebola, bird flu, cholera and nutrition. Dr Nabarro worked in Bangladesh (Dhaka, Khulna and Mymensingh) in the early 1980s for Save the Children.
Buriganga still under clutches of grabbers

85 illegal establishments evicted at Keraniganj

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority on Tuesday demolishes about 85 small and two-storied structures illegally built along the bank of the River Buriganga in Keraniganj area on the outskirts of the city.

Staff Reporter :

Dhaka District Administration and Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority [BIWTA] in a joint drive on Tuesday evicted 85 illegal makeshift structures built encroaching the bank of Buriganga river at Keraniganj, on the outskirts of the city.



The eviction drive was conducted around two kilometers area stretching from Equria-Ainta- Daleshwar to Pangaon moujas under Keraniganj thana.



Led by Executive Magistrate Rahat Mannan, the drive continued from 10:00am to 4:00pm where BIWTA Joint Director Guljar Ali, and Deputy Director Mizanur Rahman, were among others, also present at that time.



Of the evicted establishments, there were two two-storey buildings, 31 one-storey buildings and seven shops. With the eviction, around one acre land of the Buriganga river was recovered.



There is widespread allegation that the encroachment of river by influential quarters is still going on unabated. There are still hundreds of temporary and permanent structures on both the banks of the Buriganga river defying the court's order.



As an eyewash, the BIWTA allegedly conducted eviction drives sometimes against encroachment, as none of the big establishments on the riverbank have been evicted till date.



Particularly, the encroachment of the river is unabated in Basila, Kamrangir Char, Kamalbagh and Islampur. Besides, several slums, shanties, dockyards and boat-building factories have also sprung up on both banks of the river. The illegal grabbers have set up commercial establishments just opposite to Sadarghat terminal and many parts of the river at Keraniganj part.



Sources said that many major property builders getting permission from Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha [RAJUK] are reclaiming land from rivers to build housing complexes, where RAJUK has allegedly ignored their own policies and guidelines.



Not only that, the aquatic environment of Buriganga is currently dead due to chronic pollution. Especially, the toxic waste and sludge generated by textile, dyeing, printing, washing and pharmaceuticals industries, household and medical waste, sewage, dead animals, plastic and oil are also major pollutants of the river. To restore Buriganga and three other rivers flowing through Dhaka, the High Court in a landmark order in June 2009 directed the government by installing boundary pillars after evicting all illegal structures built by the encroachers upon the river.


PM again seeks vote for AL

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressing a huge public meeting at the Laxmipur Stadium on Tuesday.

UNB, Laxmipur :

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday again urged people of the country to cast their votes in favour of Awami League and its symbol 'Boat' in all future elections for the continuation of the development activities.

"Awami League means development, so you please keep your confidence on Awami League, the way you cast your votes in 2008 and 2014 elections, please cast your votes in the coming all elections for the symbol of 'Boat' to give the scope for serving you," she said.

The Prime Minister was speaking at a mammoth gathering here held at Laxmipur Stadium with district AL president Alhaj Golam Faruk Pinku in the chair. She said Awami League always wants that the country will be developed. "Insha Allah we will do that, we will build Bangladesh with the spirit of the Liberation War," she said.

The Prime Minister said that the aim of the AL government is to develop the country and for that purpose it took numerous development projects for the balanced development of the country.

"We work for the welfare of people and whenever AL comes to power it comes to give something to people," she said. "I want to tell you one thing very clearly, I don't have anything for my own, because I lost everything, losing everything I came to you, to the people of this Bengal, I got my lost affection of my father, mother, brother. I have sacrificed my life for you only," she said.

"I also dedicated my life for the sake of your interest and for your welfare. If necessary, like my father I will sacrifice my life to make the

country hunger and poverty-free," she said. Coming down heavily on BNP the Prime Minister said whenever BNP comes to power they create militancy, carry out killing, corruption and looting.

She also mentioned that BNP established reign of horror in Laxmipur during their regime.

The Prime Minister said BNP also carried out killing, torture while they were in the opposition. "In the name of resisting the general election BNP got involved in killing, oppression, arson, killing people through arson attacks." Khaleda Zia staying in her Gulshan office gave order to her party activists for doing politics of destruction. "And her notorious son staying abroad gave order to his cadres for killing, torture and arson attacks," she said.

She mentioned that BNP never believes in religion. "Otherwise, they would not burn hundreds of holy Quran in front of Baitul Mukarram ," she said.

She urged the Islamic scholars, parents and teachers to look after their children so that the young force of the country can't follow the wrong path of militancy.

"Islam is the religion of peace, it never tells about killing people, whoever kills innocent people will never be in the heaven, only hell will be their destination," she said.

Earlier, arriving at the stadium the Prime Minister inaugurated 10 development projects and laid foundation stones of 20 others.
Two days ago, Judi Terzotis, Gannetts newly minted president of its newly created Gulf Region Division, wrote the obituary for a 134-year-old daily newspaper that, in its heyday, had been one of the most influential and innovative journalistic institutions in the entire country, The Town Talk of Alexandria, Louisiana.

Terzotis can be forgiven for not appreciating the magnitude of her announcement. She has only been on the job for about a year, and The Town Talk is just one of several mid-market papers for which she is responsible.

Its also worth nothing: Shes apparently never actually lived in Alexandria. She also heads up the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, and Lafayette has been her home for around three years.

Before that and during a brief break from Gannett, she was president of a paper in Fort Collins, Colo., for a couple of years, and before her gig in Fort Collins, she was an associate editor of a paper in Colorado Springs, which also lasted about two years. But eventually, Terzotis found her way back home to Gannett, where she had shuffled through three different jobs for three different papers in Mississippi and Tennessee in less than a decade.

All told, Terzotis has held at least eight different jobs in five states, almost exclusively with Gannett, during the last 19 years. I do not know Terzotis, but it sure sounds like she is a loyal and valuable utility player for Gannett corporate. She very well may be a kind, decent and intensely brilliant leader who has risen through the ranks because of her tenacity and her laser-like focus on the ever-bleaker financial spreadsheets and web traffic analytical reports.

I also fully understand how the ubiquity of free, online news has upended the traditional newspaper business model, forcing publishers  both big and small  to imagine more effective, more competitive, more targeted and more profitable strategies.

But, much like The Times-Picayunes similar decision to switch to a three-day-a-week publication supplemented by a daily digital site heavily reliant on wire stories available almost everywhere for free (and therefore functionally obsolescent), I cannot help but lament the ways in which the blind rush to consolidate media companies, more than any other factor, murdered the local newspaper, which is not only a critical community institution; the local newspaper, more than anything else, continues to be the most important check against public corruption.

It is simply impossible to outsource stories about city hall or the school board or county commissioners or, in Louisianas case, police jurors to some national freelance reporter or some rookie straight out of high school. Local news-gathering and reporting relies on those who possess institutional expertise and those with a desire to learn it.

The local newspaper should be a communitys ears on the ground and its eyes on the streets, but the only way its reporting can be taken credibly is if it is informed by the oral histories of people who live there and the knowledge that journalists only gain by fully immersing themselves in the community, every single day. Its not always glamorous work, and it rarely earns major national awards or commendation.

Today, Gannett owns a national daily, USA Today, and, until recently, 109 other local dailies all across the United States and 150 brands in the United Kingdom. Since its founding in 1906, Gannett claims to have earned a grand total of 56 Pulitzer Prizes during the last 111 years, between its 110 American newspapers.

But, notably, those numbers appear to be either highly inflated or deceptively counted. Gannett did win a Pulitzer for special reporting in 1964 and another Pulitzer in 1980 for its news service. Its flagship paper, USA Today, has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In addition, The Virgin Island Daily News, under Gannett, won a Pulitzer in 1997; The Rochester Times-Union, one of the conglomerates first acquisitions, won the prize in 1971; The Observer-Dispatch, which was also one of Gannetts very first properties, won a joint award for public service in 1959. The Detroit Free Press picked up a Pulitzer in 2014, with Gannett as a limited managing partner. And The Des Moines Register, which prior to its purchase by Gannett had earned more Pulitzers than any other paper not named The New York Times, managed to earn three additional Pulitzers in 1987, 1991, and 2010.

There are only two possible ways in which Gannett could claim it has earned 56 Pulitzer Prizes, instead of the 10 it has actually collected: Either Gannett is counting each and every recipient as winners of an individual award (and yes, very rarely, two or three journalists may share a prize for the same collaborative work), or, more likely, it's counting every previously awarded Pulitzer Prize won by every newspaper it would eventually own.

By contrast, The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzers; The Washington Post has 47, The Wall Street Journal has collected 39, and The Boston Globe has 26 under its belt.

Yet USA Today, Gannetts most prized asset and the largest national newspaper in the entire country, with a circulation that is nearly the circulation of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal combined, hasnt won even a single award. A 111-year-old media conglomerate with 110 American newspapers under its corporate umbrella has won journalisms top prize fewer times than the Times, the Post, the Journal or the Globe. Politico and Huffington Post and even The Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Mass., each have more Pulitzer Prizes on their mantles than the largest newspaper in the country.

And sure, you could argue that the Pulitzer is just an elitist and meaningless vanity prize and that USA Today has such a wide circulation because it better responds to consumer demand. But that ignores something blatantly obvious to anyone who lives in a community in which Gannett operates: They are systematically deconstructing and destroying local, community newspapers in order to subsidize their substandard, laughable, and vapid gossip rag posing as a legitimate national news source. Theres no serious reporting in USA Today. When is the last time USA Today actually broke  on its own  a story of profound national or international consequence?

When Joe D. Smith sold The Town Talk in 1996 to Central Newspapers, itd been a family-held enterprise for 113 years. Scholars from all over the country were fascinated by what Joe D. had created in Alexandria; he was an innovator, decades ahead of his time. In 2005, Fredrick M. Spletstoser, an academic from Missouri, wrote an entire book about the early years of The Town Talk. (Im glad I hoarded a few copies of this before it went out of print, because today used copies are going for $90  $400).

Spletstoser recognized the symbiotic relationship between my hometown and its newspaper, and if you ever have the chance to read his book, take it. Even if youre not from Central Louisiana, its a fascinating case study.

In 1996, when Joe D. sold the paper to Central Newspapers (which then sold it to Gannett), newspapers were already online, even in Louisiana. The Times-Picayune launched its first online site in mid-1995. Everyone in the industry understood that the internet had the ability to dramatically reorient the ways in which we receive and discern the news. But people also understood the value of the product that Joe D. Smith had built: A feisty little newspaper with a big voice.

The Town Talk sold for $62 million.

Shortly thereafter, Gannett pilfered every last penny from it. It outsourced the local printing press, leaving Downtown Alexandria with an enormous, vacant, blighted warehouse and stealing away dozens of good-paying jobs. It brought in a couple of high-priced executives who cared more about their next job in the next city than they ever cared about Central Louisiana. It fired dozens of career employees and award-winning journalists. It was too slow or too stupid to learn how to adapt to the internet.

And perhaps most critically, it never understood its own business, believing that local journalism could somehow be automated.

On May 13, 1864, Union soldiers burned Alexandria to the ground. At the time, Alexandria was the second-largest city in Louisiana and, ironically, a haven for Northern sympathizers. William Tecumseh Sherman had once lived directly across the Red River. Itd take decades before Alexandria fully recovered, and no one was more instrumental in guiding and cheerleading its recovery than an Irish immigrant who published columns on his own printing press extolling Alexandria as the future great city.

His name was Edgar McCormick, and along with his friend and fellow Irish immigrant Henarie Huie, he founded The Town Talk.

More than a century later, The Town Talk was the very first newspaper to ever print a column Id written, as a member of its Youth Council. It was a glowing review of our high schools production of The Music Man.

And even before that, The Town Talk was the very first newspaper to print my name in a story about someone else. I was the ring-bearer at my Uncle John and Aunt Erins wedding.

My mother and father owned a real estate brokerage firm in Alexandria, and over the course of 20 years, their names were printed in advertisements in The Town Talk more than 10,000 times. So, in a way, it is also a chronicle of their professional lives, which I could never fully understand as a child and which is all the more important to me since my fathers death in 2001.

I will always cherish little stories like these (apologies in advance to my mother):

And these too:

Because this is part of the magic of a good local paper: At its very best, it chronicles our lives, and people will pay to read that, no matter what.

Heres my younger brother Mark obviously swinging and missing at a pitch when he was 8 years old (to his credit, a few years later, he managed to knock out one heckuva home run.):

I understand there are certain stories that, nowadays, are better suited online, but its not nostalgic or sentimental to assert that there are many more moments  in the life of a community  that require the permanence of ink and paper.

If Gannett truly cares about the people of Central Louisiana, theres a simple solution. Instead of eliminating our one and only daily newspaper, sell it back to the locals. Of course today its only worth of a fraction of the $62 million it sold for 21 years ago.

But for more than a century  through the aftermath of Reconstruction and the invention of radio and then television, through two world wars and devastating assassinations, through a race that finished on the surface of the moon and an Air Force base closure that threatened to destroy our local economy  the people from Central Louisiana wrote and published The Town Talk themselves. And year after year, it turned a profit.

Gannett isnt failing in Central Louisiana because of the internet. Its failing because it doesn't give a damn about spending money to create the one and only product it is uniquely capable of selling: The local news.
Stephanie A. Finley, based in Lafayette, joined two other Obama appointees in announcing her departure.

Stephanie A. Finley Photo by Robin May

With Monday's announcement that Baton Rouge-based U.S. Attorney Walt Green has resigned, all three Louisiana-based U.S. Attorneys have announced their departures following last week's call for mass resignations by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"I wish to thank my incredible staff and law enforcement family for all their support over the years as I respectfully submit my resignation as United States Attorney," Green said in a news release stating that his resignation was effective as of Friday of last week.

His counterpart in Lafayette, Stephanie Finley, announced her retirement in a statement late Friday. That was hours after New Orleans-based U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite announced he was stepping down.

Sessions sought the resignations of 46 prosecutors who were holdovers from the Obama administration.

It's fairly customary for the 93 U.S. attorneys to step down once a new president takes office.

However, some were surprised by Friday's abrupt dismissals.

Green's departure comes despite support for him from law enforcement officials in his area, expressed in a letter written to Sessions by Baton Rouge's district attorney, Hillar Moore III.

Moore said his letter was written on behalf of all of the sheriffs and many of the police chiefs in the nine parishes that make up the federal court system's Middle District of Louisiana. Moore praised Green for public service that included two military tours in Iraq.

"He has pursued violent crime reduction with a passion, while also maintaining a laser focus on political corruption cases, major white collar crime cases, and drug king pin cases," the letter said.
A Baton Rouge judge has refused to restore voting rights for more than 70,000 Louisiana residents who are on probation or parole for felony crimes.

Judge Tim Kelley says keeping those thousands of people from voting is unfair. But he says Louisiana's constitution and state law required him to continue denying the voting rights.

As he issued his decision Monday, Kelley said: "I don't like this ruling."

The lawsuit was filed by the group Voice of the Ex-Offender and several convicted felons deemed unable to vote. Lawyer Bill Quigley, representing the plaintiffs, says they will appeal Kelley's ruling.

Quigley argued that a 1974 state constitution provision allowing suspension of voting rights for people "under an order of imprisonment" for a felony wasn't intended to include people on probation and parole.
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Foggy this morning followed by scattered showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon. High around 75F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low 61F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
PINCKNEYVILLE  The City Council on Monday voted 5-0 to approve an ordinance to support tearing down the old community hospital.

The council voted unanimously to approve Ordinance No. 0-2017-04, the "Intergovernmental Agreement Between the City of Pinckneyville and The Pinckneyville Community Hospital District."

Before their vote, council members listened to a plea from George Culley, a longtime resident who operates Least of the Brethren Food Pantry Ministry, who wants the city to donate the old hospital property to his ministry.

Culley asked the council, before its vote, to strike items A through H from the ordinance, which gave the city exclusive and only rights to support the tearing down of the property and first and only dibs at buying the property for $10,000. The ordinance calls for the city to contribute up to $290,000 for the demolition.

The city will seek bids for the demolition work. This past week, Pinckneyville Mayor Robert Spencer said the $290,000 would come from revenue from the city's Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, district.

After the council's discussion, Culley expressed hope that the city would give or sell the property to his ministry to develop a soup kitchen on the site, as he said the mayor asked him what he wanted to say at Monday night's meeting and appeared to be writing down something as Culley talked.

So I feel good about it, I think they should take that out," Culley said. "I feel (like I have a) 50-50 shot."

Culley's perception was apparently wrong.

"Thats not what the council wanted, City Clerk Larry S. West said.

"As of right now, we have no plans" for anything specifically to develop there, West said. Its right downtown  its a very good location.

Nevertheless, Culley remains optimistic.

"Still, God told me to go get the property," Culley said.
Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading.

Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy
Afghanistans improbable investment pitch is a sign of a new Trump-era mind-set, in which foreign leaders are selling their nations in more explicitly economic terms than ever before.





Afghan officials say Trump, a veteran deal-maker, appears to be listening. This is the first administration that is focused on Afghanistans economic potential, and we welcome that, said Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistans ambassador to Washington.





In a Dec. 3 phone call, Trump and Ghani discussed Afghanistans mineral wealth, whose value a Pentagon study has estimated at up to $1 trillion. An official Afghan readout of the call said that Trump told Ghani the U.S. wants to help Afghanistan develop its tremendous natural resources.





Perhaps the most notable of Afghanistans buried treasures are its large quantities of lithium, a silvery, soft metal crucial to laptop and cellphone batteries thats sometimes called the oil of the future. A 2010 Pentagon memo concluded that Afghanistan could one day become the Saudi Arabia of lithium.





While few people associate impoverished and war-torn Afghanistan with high technology manufacturing, Kabuls leaders believe they have a receptive audience in the White House. Trump officials, Mohib added, are interested in minerals  specifically lithium.





Theyre recognizing that Afghanistan has very vast potential resources, said Mohammad Qayoumi, a top adviser to Ghani. - Read More,




Considering recent national polls showing the lowest levels of public trust in the media, it was ironic to read journalist Georgie Anne Geyer's recent article, "America's security begins with questions. In this anti-military diatribe, Geyer claims the "military men" working in the Trump administration are "deeply angry inside (because) they have never gotten past their humiliation over Vietnam and now they are stuck with Iraq and Afghanistan."

Geyer then slams military leaders as dishonest careerists: "Gen. McMaster is not the go-along-to-get-along kind of military officer we've been accustomed to since World War II. ... He is a man of unquestioned integrity. This type of irresponsible and fallacious media attack against the military is rearing its head in a way I haven't seen in a long time and must be countered with the truth.

Some background is appropriate. Geyer began her career in journalism during the 1970s, an ugly period of media bias against the military coming out of Vietnam. At that time, I was in a military family, the son of a Vietnam veteran, and have personal remembrance of the days the media were unrelenting in slights against the military.

Despite honorable and sacrificial service in Vietnam and the Cold War, military men of the 1970s were portrayed poorly. The Reagan era of the 1980s, leading to victory in the Cold War (followed by the crushing victory during Desert Storm) saw a reversal of the trend. Public support for the military became overwhelming.

I was commissioned an Army officer in 1990 and personally experience this dynamic. It included a type of repentance for the poor treatment of Vietnam veterans. I believe many journalists like Geyer were forced to tone back the criticism of the military, while harboring the usual antipathy.

It is quite easy to refute Geyer's negative assertions about the military. First off, the active-duty generals of today, like Lt. General H.R. McMaster, began their service well after Vietnam. This cohort of officers harbors no deep seated "anger" over alleged "humiliation" from Vietnam. Even the retired generals, like Sec. Mattis and General Petreaus, were commissioned after Vietnam. All of these officers came of age during the victory of the Cold War and Desert Storm. McMaster, for example, was an Armored captain who received the Silver Star and public notoriety for his role in the Battle of 73 Easting.

Geyer was most misguided in her characterization of post-World War II military officers as dishonest "go-along-to-get-along" careerists. On the contrary, military officers have the highest integrity, particularly in comparison with journalists such as Geyer. The great crisis in civil-military relations came with Gen. Douglas MacArthur's insubordination against President Harry Truman six years after WWII.

In the 1950s and 60s, the media and Hollywood generally characterized outspoken general officers as dangerous to civilian control of the military. The 1960s movies "6 Days in May" and "Dr. Strangelove" make the point (Outspoken Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay was hammered by the media as dangerous and, incidentally, advocated a much more robust bombing of North Vietnam, unlike what Geyer seems to understand of the chiefs from McMaster's book).

Geyer disregards the number of examples in recent history in which senior military leaders have spoken out at personal sacrifice. For example, General Shinseki's testimony before Congress refuted the administration estimates of troops required to control Iraq. Shinseki was forced into early retirement.

Interesting comparison: General H.R. McMaster wrote his book critical of senior military leaders while still a captain then major. He was promoted all the way to three-star general despite raw feelings of senior military leaders. At around the same time, award-winning journalist Bernard Goldberg wrote critically of the clear liberal bias of the media. Unlike McMaster's career, Goldberg was forced out of the major networks and shunned by fellows in the media as a pariah. He was in a true "go-along-to-get-along" profession.

Geyer's insinuation about the lack of "free thinking" among officers is similarly misguided. I am currently a student in the U.S. Army War College, which is a master of strategic studies and required if I am to be eligible for promotion from colonel to general officer. I have found this course much more academically rigorous than my experience in civilian law school and the Bar exam (of which I passed on the first try, unlike Hillary Clinton, who is praised by the media for her superior academic accomplishments).

In the War College, we spend substantial time discussing the ethical way to handle disagreement with civilian superiors. Bottom line: Senior military officers provide best military advice, but remain subordinated to elected civilian authority. One can resign, but otherwise must follow lawful orders of the president. It's a system that has worked for more than 230 years, and a reason we never have to worry about a coup.

We cannot go back to the journalistic malpractice of the post-Vietnam military reporting, and such reporting demands the light of truth. We have come too far as a nation, and those of us who remember have the duty to speak out. It is time for facts in journalism, and respect for those who put their lives on the line for our freedom. Including freedom of the press.
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By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Group of German parliamentarians, including Uwe Feiler, Olav Gutting, Dr. Hans Michelbach, Dr. Philipp Muhrmann and Norbert Schindler adopted the declaration on the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre on March 14.

The declaration, submitted to The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS), reads that the date of February 2526 marks the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre, when 613 civilians were murdered by Armenian forces during the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The victims comprised 106 women, 63 children and 70 elderly people.

The document also points to the fact that between 1988-1994, during the break-up of the Soviet Union, the conflict broke out over Nagorno-Karabakh.

"This was an Azerbaijani region, whose population comprised both ethnic Azerbaijanis and Armenians. However, as the Soviet Union disintegrated it was occupied by Armenian forces, resulting in the eviction of the Azerbaijani population, and claiming the lives of an estimated 30,000 people," reads the declaration.

The document notes that since 1993 the UN Security Council, the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have all condemned the occupation and demanded an immediate withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces. In May 1994, a ceasefire was declared, and since then the OSCE Minsk Group has been tasked with negotiating a resolution to the conflict.

German MPs regard the situation in the South Caucasus, with the fierce tensions around Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent regions, as being very concerning both politically and economically. "The Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh violates all rules of international law," the MPs noted.

The MPs of the German Bundestag further demanded German Foreign Policy to intensify its efforts to reach a peaceful and sustainable solution in the South Caucasus.

"The resolutions of the international organizations have to be implemented. Not least for security and economic considerations, a peaceful solution will benefit Germany and Europe in the highest degree, the declaration concludes.

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.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Afghanistans former Vice-President Mohammad Karim Khalili will attend the 5th Baku Global Forum schduled for March 16-17 in Baku.

Khalili is a leader of Wahdat party (party of Unity) and the acting Chairperson of the countrys Peace Council, the Afghan embassy reported.

Co-organized by the State Committee for Work with Diaspora and the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, the forum will be joined by more than 200 presidents, former heads of state and government from 50 countries, current and former officials, heads and senior representatives of international organizations, renowned politicians and experts.

The forum, titled Future of foreign relations: Power and interests, will discuss a range of issues including the future of transatlantic relations, the fight against terrorism, the role of China in international relations.
An official welcome ceremony was organized for President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Paris on March 14, Azertac reported.

President Ilham Aliyev arrived at the Army Museum in the Veterans Square in the French capital.

The head of state was greeted by French Minister of Agriculture, Food Industry and Forestry and the French government spokesman Stefan Le Fol.

A ceremonial guard of honor was lined up for President Ilham Aliyev in the Veterans Square.

National anthems of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the French Republic were played.

President Ilham Aliyev reviewed the guard of honor.

The chief of the guard of honor reported to the President of Azerbaijan.

French Minister of Agriculture, Food Industry and Forestry and the French government spokesman Stefan Le Fol met with members of the Azerbaijani delegation.
By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

A new meeting on Syrian settlement in Astana officially kicked off with a bilateral meeting between the UN and Russian delegations on March 14. The Russian delegation also met with the delegation from Jordan.

Russian-Iranian and Russian-Turkish consultations are planned for later in the day. A trilateral Russia-Turkey-Iran meeting will complete the first day's program of negotiations, Sputnik reported.

The Astana talks are taking place on March 14-15. A plenary session will take place on March 15.

The Syrian armed opposition made a final decision to not participate in the third round of Astana talks on the Syrian settlement, the delegations representative, Osama Abu Zeid, told Sputnik.

"After the consultations, we made a final decision against participation. This is our strong position. We will not participate [in the talks]," Abu Zeid said.

The first round of intra-Syrian Astana talks brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran took place on January 23-24 and gathered together representatives of the Syrian armed opposition and government for the first time. The parties agreed to create a trilateral mechanism to monitor the ceasefire in Syria, which was established on December 30.

The second round of Astana talks took place on February 15-16 and resulted in the agreement of the participants to set up a ceasefire monitoring group, encompassing Iran, Russia and Turkey, that would report to the United Nations.

The latest, fourth round of Geneva talks under the auspices of the United Nations concluded on March 3, with the parties agreeing on a number of separate "baskets" to be addressed during the next rounds, including the issues of governance, constitution, elections and counterterrorism.

Meanwhile, the U.S. does not exclude the possibility of cooperation with Russia on Syria, U.S. presidential spokesman Sean Spicer stated.

Spicer was asked to confirm the publications of a number of media that the U.S. is practically not ready to cooperate with Russia during military operations in Syria.

"As I mentioned a couple days ago, Secretary Mattis was briefing the principals, and that plan is continuing to evolve. So I'm not going to start to rule out one country. But I think the President has been very clear in the past that if a country shares our commitment to defeating ISIS and we can work with them in an area of shared, mutual concern, then we will do so," Spicer said.

Armed conflict continues in Syria since March 2011. Government troops are confronted by militants of different armed rebel groups. Russia has begun airstrikes on terrorist facilities in Syria since 30 September 2015. The Russian military involvement follows an official request from President Bashar Assad to President Vladimir Putin.

The UN has repeatedly tried and failed to end the Syrian conflict, which has killed 300,000 and displaced 11 million since it began five years ago.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Today, Azerbaijan celebrates the Earth or Last Tuesday (Torpag or Akhir Chershenbesi) prior to the main holiday to be held on March 20-21.

The city's executive power has prepared a solemn ceremony with several entertaining programs. The event which started at 10:00 near the Icherisheher subway was remembered with a festive march caravan.

The caravan composed of chaise and musicians was in the national spirit. Attendance of riders in national dress, as well as camels and the main characters of Novruz attracted the attention of the public.

Beloved Novruz characters- Kechel, Kosa ,Bahar gizi (Spring girl), as well as Dede Gorgud welcomes and congratulated Bakuians on the holiday.

People in the Azadlig Square, in the park around the Crystal Fountain near the metro station "Koroglu and in the Samad Vurgun park had the privilege to see the caravan as well.

In the evening at 19:00 the biggest bonfire in the capital will be kindled near the "Gosha Gala".

Novruz, which symbolizes the awakening, is one of Azerbaijan's most cherished holidays. Novruz has been celebrated by people from diverse ethnic communities and religious backgrounds for thousands of years. Some 17 countries including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and other scattered populations in Central Asia mark this day as a holiday of the spring equinox.

Novruz celebrations begin a month before the actual holiday. The four Tuesdays named after these elements and called Su Chershenbesi (Water Tuesday), Od Chershenbesi (Fire Tuesday), Hava Chershenbesi (Wind Tuesday) and Torpaq Chershenbesi (Earth or Last Tuesday).

In 2009, Novruz was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and since then, March 21 was declared the International Day of Novruz.








The UAE's non-oil exports during the first nine months of 2016 rose to Dh128.7 billion ($35 billion), up 5.6 per cent over Dh121.8 billion ($33 billion) the previous year, state news agency WAM reported.



The value of national non-oil commodity exports increased by around Dh6.9 billion during the nine-month period, said the report, citing data from Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority (FCSA).



The total value of the UAEs foreign trade for first nine months surged 2.8 per cent to hit Dh813.7 billion, compared to Dh791.6 billion for the same period in 2015, it added.



According to FCSA, the imports represented a large percentage of the countrys non-oil trade with the outside world, with the data indicating that its value reached Dh520.9 billion in the first nine months compared to Dh503.6 billion during the same period in 2015.



As for the total size of commercial trade till September 2016, the data states that Asian non-Arab countries took first place in terms of the value of commercial trade, totalling Dh328.7 billion, or 40.4 per cent of the total of the value of the countrys external trade.



The total trade value with GCC countries surged to Dh73.4 billion, up 9 per cent over the countrys total foreign trade, compared to Dh79.1 billion during the same period of 2015, it added.




Etihad Esco, the leading energy management services provider, will soon float a tender seeking energy efficiency and water saving solutions for 650 facilities under Dubais Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department.



The tender will include retrofit of facilities including mosques, office buildings and imams residences, said a statement from Etihad Esco.



Etihad Esco had recently signed a service agreement with the Islamic Affairs Department under which it will provide flexible finance solution to the Islamic Affairs Department.



The agreement not only covers measures to save electricity and solar photovoltaic (PV) installation but also provision of sustainable water saving solutions, due to the nature of the facilities.



The retrofit service will offer a range of solutions that will make Islamic Affairs facilities across the emirate eco-friendlier. Taking into consideration resource usage in these buildings, we are focusing on installing water saving technologies, as well as energy solutions like solar PV, remarked Ali Al Jassim, CEO, Etihad Esco.



Speaking on the social importance of the agreement, Al Jassim said mosques play a key role in creating and increasing awareness among residents and visitors, since they welcome thousands of believers every week.



"The energy efficiency initiative at these facilities will have a positive effect on the visitors, and will encourage believers to implement energy conservation measures at their homes and offices. This ripple effect will eventually result in Dubai being a sustainable city with an environmentally-conscious population," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Lead Development and Project Management Consultants (Lead) and The National Investor (TNI) will build the first residential community of private 'green' villas and townhouses at Masdar City, Abu Dhabis flagship sustainable urban development.



The project, which will also include apartments, will deliver 250,000 sq m of gross floor area (GFA). The freehold real estate development will accommodate around 5,000 residents when completed in 2022, and will be open to both UAE and foreign national investors.



Located in the southern district of Masdar Citys Free Zone, the project will meet a minimum three Pearl rating according to Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Councils Estidama sustainability framework for built environments and urban communities.



It is a great opportunity to be working closely with Masdar to deliver this unique sustainable development, remarked Abdullah M Mazrui, the chairman of TNI.



Lead and TNI will work with the Masdar team to deliver a project in line with Abu Dhabis regulations for sustainable, water and energy efficient real estate developments. On behalf of our investors and management team, we would like to thank all those involved in making this vision and opportunity a reality, bringing to life a unique community that will complement the lifestyles of its diverse residents, he noted.



Masdar CEO Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi said: Our ongoing successful development of Masdar City is demonstrating how cities can be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, reducing energy and water demand and the production of waste efficiently and cost effectively, while also building thriving communities.



The private sector has a vital role to play in promoting the wider adoption of commercially viable solutions to urban sustainability challenges, and in sharing knowledge and experience across the industry. Lead and TNI share our vision for low-carbon urban development, and we are delighted to be working with them in realising the future expansion of Masdar City, he noted.



Al Ramahi said residential property will make up more than 90 per cent of the mixed-use development. "Roughly 7,800 sq m has been set aside for community amenities, and there is additional space for commercial units," he stated.



Abu Dhabis planned light rail system will also serve residents. The new project from Lead and TNI adds to the significant construction activity currently under way at Masdar City, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Iran has signed a $1-billion deal with a consortium of six private companies led by Iran's Mobin Mining and Construction Company, to develop Mahdiabad mine, one of the world's largest zinc deposits, said a report.



The mine is likely to go on stream in the next four years and produce 800,000 tons of zinc concentrate per annum, reported Iran Daily, citing the state-owned mines and metals holding company.



Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (Imidro) said Mobin was also in talks with Swiss and Spanish mining giants to set up joint ventures for developing the Mahdiabad mine.



As per the deal, the private consortium will run the mine for 25 years, though their contract could be extended, said the report.



On top of the targeted 800,000 tons of zinc concentrate, Mahdiabad is also expected to produce 80,000 tons of lead and silver concentrate a year, it added.
Polin Waterparks, a Turkish manufacturer of water slides and water parks, was recently certified as a research and development (R&D) center by the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology.



This certification, in part, recognizes Polin Waterparks for its qualified innovation expertise.



On December 28, 2016, Polin Waterparks filled an official application for certification, and the appointment of inspectors took place through January 12, 2017. Between January 19 and 23, audits were conducted at Polin facilities. Following these inspections on February 21 in Ankara, at the capital city of Turkey, the company was officially awarded its R&D center certificate. The news of this prestigious recognition was announced on February 22 on the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology's website.



The certification required Polin Waterparks to meet strict criteria to prove its dedication to R&D. Specifically, some of the minimum conditions required were:



 Operate an independent R&D department within its organizational structure

 Conduct research and development activities

 Employ experienced R&D designers and engineers dedicated to R&D who possess specific R&D background and competency and are located inside the company's building or campus. (Polin Waterparks employs 46 R&D designers and engineers.)



Polin Waterparks also has been recognized by the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) as one of only 200 companies in the country that has invested the most significant funding in R&D both in 2015 and in 2016. Polin Waterparks was honoured as an export winner by TIM in 2015 and 2016 in the related category.



The R&D center certificate is earned by domestic brands in different sectors in Turkey. It is considered an important indicator of the investment the recognised institutions have made in the Turkish economy. Polin Waterparks already is recognized as a pioneer in the field of innovative advancement and application of closed-molded manufacturing technology in waterslide development. Today, the firm continues to focus on high-quality design and innovation patents. - TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Duty Free Foundation and Dubai Cares have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which supports the philanthropic efforts of both entities through Dubai Cares programmes that provide education to children and young people in developing countries.



As part of the agreement, 50 per cent of the funds collected from the Dubai Duty Free Foundation charity boxes located in all terminals at Dubai International and Al Maktoum International Airport as well as in other premises in Dubai, will be donated to Dubai Cares. This significant contribution will go towards supporting education programs implemented by the UAE-based global philanthropic organization in developing countries.



The agreement, which will run for three years, was signed by Colm McLoughlin, executive vice chairman and CEO of Dubai Duty Free and Tariq Al Gurg, CEO of Dubai Cares at Dubai Duty Free Head Office.



Commenting on the MoU signing, McLoughlin said: We are delighted to sign this agreement with Dubai Cares who do a fantastic job in identifying and implementing effective human development programs throughout the world. We believe this partnership is the start of something very exciting and we will work closely with Dubai Cares to identify specific initiatives that tie in with our own Foundations objectives.



Al Gurg said: Providing education to children and young adults is the first stepping stone towards higher education, valuable opportunities, personal development and social success. It ensures that children and young adults obtain the basic skills required to gain autonomy and independence. Dubai Duty Free Foundation shares similar values as we do and the partnership will enable us to significantly improve access to quality education in developing countries."



The Dubai Duty Free Foundation, which was established in October 2004 and is under the auspices of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and chairman of Dubai Duty Free, has supported a number of Dubai Cares initiatives since 2009.



Over the past 10 years, Dubai Cares has successfully launched education programmes reaching over 16 million beneficiaries in 45 developing countries in partnership with UN aid agencies and international and local NGOs. - TradeArabia News Service


Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, the award-winning Ottoman inspired luxury resort on Palm Jumeirah, has appointed Anas Shahin as revenue director to oversee the successful execution and continuous development of revenue management for the resort.



Shahin has over 14 years of international hospitality experience and has worked for some of the worlds top luxury hotel groups. He has a solid understanding of the key markets in the Middle East.



His most recent post was country director of Revenue Strategy with Marriott International in Jordan, where he oversaw the annual pricing process, provided market strategy expertise and leadership, and developed the business outlook strategy for the organisation.



Responsible for over three of the companys key global accounts, he successfully drove business for the organisations properties and was instrumental in leading the groups revenue.



Prior to Marriott International in Jordan, Shahin worked for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and the Ritz Carlton in the US.



Fernando Gibaja, general manager of the resort, said: We are delighted to welcome Anas onboard, and are confident that his exceptional competencies will positively influence the revenue of the resort.



At Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, Shahin will be responsible for the revenue development and will have a robust knowledge of the hotels marketplace and competitive environment. His role also involves understanding the macro and micro-economic variables to create accurate operational and financial rooms revenue forecasts.



He will oversee the hotels process for evaluating all opportunities, and ensure that this maximises the hotels success. - TradeArabia News Service
Legend of the Seas departed Dubai on March 13 on her final cruise with Royal Caribbean International, marking the end of an illustrious cruising career.



The 22-year-old cruise ship is the oldest in the Royal Caribbean International fleet. Launched in 1996, she has sailed more than 600 cruise itineraries without incident and is the most-travelled ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet.



During her career she has been based in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the South Pacific, Alaska, Central America, Caribbean, the Baltic, Mediterranean and the Middle East. No other Royal Caribbean ship has been so widely deployed.



Legend will be handed over to TUI Groups Thomson Cruises subsidiary after her arrival in Barcelona in two weeks.



"Since its inaugural sailing, Legend of the Seas has created many wonderful memories for hundreds of thousands of guests, and we expect this successful history to continue as she transitions to Thomson Cruises," said Richard D. Fain, chairman and chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean Cruises. "While she will be missed, her transition supports our objective of moderate capacity growth."



Legend of the Seas is scheduled to depart Dubai Cruise Terminal at 8pm, with events planned on-board to mark her last ever sailing under Royal Caribbean colours.



The fact that she is sailing from Dubai on this last ever cruise speaks to the importance of the city as a new global cruise destination, a spokesperson for Royal Caribbean said.



Legend of the Seas was in port in Dubai at the same time as her fleet mate and sister ship Vision of the Seas, which is currently homeporting in Dubai for the 2016/17 cruise season. - TradeArabia News Service
Meet award-winning artisans and buy their products at Kerala Arts and Crafts Village
Wyoming oil and gas operators are hoping for summer demand to draw down a crude glut, after the price of oil broke a three-month stride to fall under $50 a barrel last week.

The U.S. benchmark WTI closed at $48.54 on Tuesday.

We know that oil is still reeling from last weeks oil market breakdown, said oil and gas analyst Phil Flynn in an investors note Tuesday morning. Record longs got hit when oil inventories rose by five times more than expected. The increase in supply gives the market the perception that it will take more time to work off supply even though a lot of that oil will now be exported. The calls for oil inventories to rise once again is causing the market concern and for the market to break out of its breakdown, we may need a surprise drop in oil inventory.

Despite promises of oil caps on production from the OPEC cartel, U.S. inventories reported Wednesday were higher than expected for the ninth week in a row. The resulting dip in price was taken in stride by Wyoming producers already adjusted to working in a low price environment since the 2015 to 2016 downturn. But they need a change.

Certainly when it starts dropping below 50, there is some concern out there, but it depends on how long this drop lasts, said Bruce Hinchey, president of the Wyoming Petroleum Association.

Summer travel tends to help draw down the national oil inventory, so there may be some relief in the months ahead, he said.

We are up to 18, 19 rigs, still a lot less than where wed like it, but its better than six, where we were last summer, Hinchey said. If we can do a little better, thats good for Wyoming. Its going to mean more taxes, more drilling.

However, operators say Wyoming truly needs a price boost to make a strong profit. Though WTI is the standard for sweet, light crude, it does not reflect on-the-ground prices for Wyomings oil and gas producers. A price fall for WTI or Brent, the international benchmark, means a significantly lower price in Wyoming, due to different types of crude sold, distance to market, fees and taxes.

We sold some sour crude in North Dakota for $8, said Steve Kirkwood of Kirkwood Oil and Gas. Thats the problem. We need the differentials to shrink, and we need a higher price.

Hope in the new presidential administration has created optimism spikes in the market and relieved producers on federal land who want fewer regulations standing between their companies and the crude in the soil. But some say the new president and Congress are not likely to have a direct impact on the price of crude.

One thing that could affect the market is a tax proposition from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, which would introduce a border adjustment tax in an attempt to reward domestic production over foreign. But that tax has brought on some criticism from think tanks like the Brattle Group.

In a white paper published in December, analyst Philip K. Verleger laid out some of the fiscal impacts of the plan.

The enactment of the border adjustment tax proposed by the Tax Reform Task Force will have profound impacts on the U.S. economy, Verleger wrote. No sector, though, will be more affected than petroleum.

The writer goes on to say that the tax plan would have different impacts in different regions of the U.S., as some areas are net importers of crude, and some net exporters.

The border tax would be a boon for exploration and production, but it would spike the price at the pump and be challenging for refineries.

Kirkwood said he doesnt see that tax adjustment happening, so the politics in Washington arent likely to have much of an impact on the price of oil in Wyoming.

Politics and markets are not always hand in hand, he said.

No matter whos in the White House, the price is the price, Kirkwood said. The only thing different between now and Obama is less regulations.

The price of crude is sensitive to international politics, however, from instability in the Middle East to OPECs agreements, as has been noted.

For now, its a waiting game for Wyoming operators.

If we could get a well-head price of $50 a barrel, things would start to change, Kirkwood said. Were not there yet, but were getting closer. It could take another year.
Wyoming Symphony Orchestra conductor Matthew Savery said he cant imagine where violin virtuoso Stephanie Chase hasnt performed. Her solo appearances in more than 170 orchestras include the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and the London Symphony.

Im really excited to stand next to her on the stage and make music, Savery said. Shes performed with all the major orchestras; shes had a huge career. Its a real honor to have that type of person with us.

One place she hasnt played is Casper, Wyoming, Chase said in an interview from her home in Connecticut. But thats changing this weekend. She is slated as the guest soloist in the Wyoming Symphony Orchestras upcoming concert, Transfiguration, on Saturday.

Newhouse Newspapers hailed Chase as one of the violin greats of our era. She performs with elegance, dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination, said the Boston Globe in another of several critical raves listed in her program biography.

Chase will perform the virtuosic Bruch G minor concerto, a piece Savery chose as a flashy showcase for the soloist.

Shes looking forward to playing whats one of the most popular of all the violin concertos ever written, she said.

It is beautifully dramatic, its virtuosic, its exciting, its soulful  it offers something for everyone, Chase said.

Her acclaimed violin was made in 1742 by Petrus Guarnerius in Venice. The instrument had belonged to her mother, also who was her first violin teacher when Chase was 2 years old.

Chase was renowned as a child prodigy, debuting with the Chicago Symphony at age 8, according to her website. She began touring across the country in her early teens and made her Carnegie Hall debut at 18.

Shes also a medalist of the prestigious VII International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and recipient of the esteemed Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Chase often performs as a violin soloist and conductor. When shes not performing, her hobbies include genealogy and studying violin proportions, intrigued by physics that goes into the construction, she said.

Shes looking forward to the show in Casper, she said. Besides her solo, program also features music of Wagner, Bruch and Strauss. The concert finale, Strauss Death and Transfiguration is another example Savery gives of the orchestras growing skill.

This is one of the most complicated we have tackled, and it speaks, again, volumes to the devotion and hard work of the orchestra, Savery said.

Chase loves to play and record, but said playing for an audience is the most rewarding musical experience.

Its a chance to leave the outside world behind, to have something where you can be transported and were all in the moment together, Chase said. And its an experience thats ephemeral, and its there for us together. The audience is as much of the experience for us as well.
Two Kentucky men were fined more than $30,000 and lost their hunting privileges for 15 years after poaching two bull elk in southeastern Wyoming  on national TV.

Ricky J. Mills, 37, and Jimmy G. Duncan, 25, pleaded no contest Monday to various wildlife violations stemming from the 2014 poaching incident.

The men were deer hunting north of Douglas for the Western Redemption episode of the television show Hunting in the Sticks when they decided to shoot two mature bull elk, according to a news release from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Elk tags in hunt area 113 near Douglas are highly sought after and include a restriction allowing bull harvest only every other year, the release stated. The men had tags for elk hunt area 51, which borders Yellowstone National Park.

I believe the two defendants were driven to get kill shot footage for the television show and that resulted in their making bad decisions, said Mike Ehlebracht, Game and Fishs investigative supervisor.

A concerned citizen saw the show and called Game and Fish to report the elk were not killed in the area designated on their licenses, the release continued.

Building a case against the men included locating the kill site near Douglas, filing search warrants and working with agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

Ultimately, they both confessed.

The men tried doing something similar in 2013, according to the release, when Duncan poached an antelope buck without a license.

Duncan was ordered to pay $7,500 in fines and $6,000 in restitution for the bull elk and $4,000 for the antelope. Mills was sentenced to pay $7,460 in fines and $6,000 in restitution for the bull elk. Both will also pay court costs.
A Casper man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges alleging he threatened to kill a woman he knew with a pocket knife.

John Hatch pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated assault and battery, a felony, and a misdemeanor count of domestic battery at his arraignment Tuesday in Natrona County District Court.

A woman who knew Hatch reported the incident on Jan. 13 and said he attacked her two days before in their residence on North Jackson Street, according to court documents.

The woman told police that she was at home when Hatch came in the front door and asked to borrow $500. When she refused to give him the money, Hatch became angry and threw her to the floor as she tried to walk away, the documents state.

Hatch then pinned the woman to the ground and punched her in the face twice before attempting to choke her, the woman told police. Hatch then pulled out a pocket knife and held it to her throat and threatened to kill her, according to the documents.

The woman said that Hatch then took about $367 in cash, her debit card and her photo identification card out of her backpack before fleeing the residence in her car.

The woman said she didnt report the incident to law enforcement until two days later because she didnt like police and was scared of Hatch, according to the documents. She later told agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation about the alleged attack after they arrested her on Jan. 12 in an unrelated case and asked her about the bruise on her face.

The woman showed photos to the DCI agents as well as Casper police that showed red marks on her neck, cheek and a bruise on her chest, the documents state.

When police called Hatch, he said he and the woman had fought that day but there hadnt been any physical violence. He denied punching her and threatening her with a knife. Hatch said the woman was making up the story because she was angry about getting arrested, according to the documents.

Hatch remained in custody Tuesday. A Natrona County Circuit Court judge previously set his bond at $10,000.
CHEYENNE  Gov. Matt Mead has approved a compromise state K-12 education spending plan that cuts $34.5 million from schools.

The governor signed the legislation Monday. Lawmakers declined proposals to increase taxes to raise new money for education.

Fixing an education funding shortfall on track to top $380 million a year was one of Mead's top hopes for the eight-week session that ended earlier March 3.

The state has lost millions in revenue because of the downturn in the coal, oil and natural gas extraction industry. Wyoming funds a lot of its public education from taxes and other sources of income derived from the industry.

The legislation creates a special committee to work on how to fund Wyoming schools in the future.
The recent signing of a bill that will help educate future generations about Wyomings native population was hailed as a momentous occasion brought on by years of work by advocates.

House Bill 76, known as the Indian Education For All bill, was signed late last week by Gov. Matt Mead. It instructs state educators to consult with Wyomings native population, including the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, and create education materials that will be made available for use by the states 48 school districts.

Jason Baldes, the executive director of the Wind River Native Advocacy Center, credited Native Americans presence at the Legislature for helping to move the bill through the legislative process.

That commitment continued when the bill was signed last week. When Baldes and others heard it was set to be signed by Mead, they headed to the capital to be part of the momentous occasion.

Cherokee Brown, a co-founder of the advocacy center, said last month that the bills passage was a step forward for Wyomings future generations.

I want to know that my children arent going to have to worry so much or work so hard, said Brown, who was not available to comment Monday. Quality education is not quality education if its not fair and equitable.

Baldes said it was a formative experience for him, acknowledging that he had been part of the push for the bill for only a couple of years. There were other activists whove worked toward this moment for decades, he said, and the moment really belonged to them.

There already exists one resource that could be made available for districts use. PBS recently released a series on Wyomings tribes, which Baldes and others have said districts could begin using right away.

Baldes said the advocacy center is in the process of securing money, mainly from private groups, to create other materials, but he was pleased that the PBS series was already set to be picked up by districts.

He credited the series with helping to advance the bill. It showed legislators the educational product that could be created from working with the tribes. It also helped establish relationships that were critical during the legislative process, he said, and will continue to be as educators and tribal activists work to create materials.

The balls in our court, Baldes said. I think there are several people and organizations who see the importance of creating more material.

The core of future materials will need to start with tribal sovereignty, which is the root of misunderstanding between American Indians and other Wyomingites, Baldes said.

I think that is the core understanding that people need to have as to why we have a tribal government, why can we have casinos, he said. Theres so much intertwined in that federal Indian law that most people in the general public dont understand.

He listed other areas that could be covered by educational materials: Native Americans use of trails; the Lewis and Clark expedition; and the sheep eaters, who belonged to the Eastern Shoshone tribe.

State superintendent Jillian Balow said in an interview last week that she supported the bill and said there had been little advancement of Native American education materials in Wyoming.

Balow said she still keeps an American Indian worksheet from her sons time in elementary school. Its the same sheet she had used when she was a teacher.

We do not have dynamic expectations for making sure Wyoming students learn about the heritage of tribes and learn about their profound impact on culture, on politics and very existence of our state, she said.

Mead, through his spokesman David Bush, praised the law in a statement Monday. He said the law sends a message that the heritage, history and contributions of American Indian tribes are important to the education of all Wyoming students.

Superintendent Steve Hopkins, of the Natrona County School District, said Native Americans are part of who we are as a state.

This is their state, and having all of our students having awareness ... I can think of it as only a positive, he said.
The Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would cut about $2 million from the Wyoming Department of Health, according to an internal agency document.

The loss of funding would eliminate one state program and reduce the agencys ability to investigate public health hazards.

The American Health Care Act, proposed by GOP House leadership and supported by President Donald Trump, would eliminate funding for the Centers for Disease Controls Prevention and Public Health Fund, which distributes money to all 50 states.

This will negatively impact core public health efforts in Wyoming, to include injury prevention, immunizations, chronic disease prevention, and capacity at the State Laboratory, according to the health department memo produced in January.

Health department spokeswoman Kim Deti provided the memo to the Star-Tribune in response to questions about whether her agency receives money through the CDC fund. The memo was drafted before the bill was released publicly, but after speculation had begun about what the replacement bill would include.

If the AHCA is passed, the Wyoming Injury Prevention Program would be eliminated. CDC funding provides 95 percent of the programs $65,000 budget.

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for state residents between the ages of 1 and 44 years old, according to the report.

The states immunization unit would lose 40 percent of its federal funding, earmarked for a childrens vaccination program, and would be unable to upgrade the Wyoming Immunization Registry. The CDC currently provides $660,000 to the state through the Vaccines for Children program.

Wyoming would also lose over half the budget for its Chronic Disease Prevention Program, which focuses on preventing heart disease, strokes and diabetes.

The health department report notes that these programs existed in Wyoming before the creation of the Prevention and Public Health Fund. However, the CDC consolidated the state grants under the PPHF following the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2009.

The loss of the PPHF will likely create a deficit that CDC is unlikely to be able to backfill, the report states.

The Republican plan does not outline a new mechanism to pay for the CDC-funded state health programs. Nor does it increase funding for the federal agency to compensate for the potential loss of the fund.

The Wyoming Department of Health has already cut about 10 percent of its budget as part of mandated statewide agency cuts over the last 12 months spurred by poor economic conditions.

Federal funding has helped pay for investigations by the departments Public Health Division, including the report released last month detailing the use of non-sterile surgical equipment at the SageWest hospital in Lander.

Salaries for some of the staff in that unit are supported by the CDC funds, Deti said in an email. A loss of positions could affect timeliness and workload, but important work such as that effort would still continue.

The health department would also lose one staff person at the state laboratory, which conducts testing not available at hospitals or private laboratories.

The CDC funds additionally pay for an epidemiologist who works on stopping breakouts of drug-resistant organisms.

Other cuts would include:

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which studies public health issues across the state, would lose $55,000.

The Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault would lose about $12,500 or 6 percent of its Rape Prevention Education program.

A state program to educate the public about sexually transmitted diseases would lose $11,400.

The health departments performance improvement and workforce development effort would lose $160,000, which now pays the salary and benefits of a staff person who assists with training and accrediting agency employees.

The American Health Care Act, which has been championed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, is intended to replace the Affordable Care Act, which was passed under President Barack Obama and is often referred to as Obamacare.

The replacement bill has faced heavy criticism from conservative lawmakers concerned that it does not do enough to remove the federal governments role in health care. Medical groups and some moderate Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have expressed worry that many people may lose health insurance if the bill becomes law.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 14 million people would lose their insurance within a year of the AHCA passing and 24 million would lose coverage within 10 years. The bill is also expected to save the federal government $337 billion over 10 years by reducing subsidies for people to buy insurance and capping Medicaid spending.

Wyoming waits for impact of Obamacare repeal While politicians in Washington debate how to replace President Barack Obamas health care l

The members of Wyomings congressional delegation have declined to respond to detailed questions about the provisions of the AHCA but have released statements criticizing the Affordable Care Act and emphasizing the need to replace it.
Supporters of a measure that would legalize hemp farming for experimentation and research hope Gov. Matt Mead will sign the bill into law, but Wyomings chief executive has given no indication publicly on how he will act.

Mead has three options with House Bill 230: He can sign it, he can veto it or he can allow it to become law without his signature.

The measure will become law on Saturday if he doesnt sign or veto it.

David Bush, Meads spokesman, said he didnt know how the governor is leaning.

Mead comes from a ranching background  his family is among the largest landowners in the state  and could side with proponents of HB230 who say that hemp would be good for diversifying the agricultural economy.

But Mead is also a former federal prosecutor, and hemp is a Schedule 1 controlled substance, meaning its illegal, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing people to grow it on a limited basis.

Mead has said many times hes opposed to cannabis for recreational and medical purposes. Yet hemp farming advocates say the hemp plant is genetically different from marijuana and has a maximum of only 0.3 percent content of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in pot.

The bill

HB230 would require the state to ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow agricultural producers in Wyoming to cultivate hemp on a research and experimental basis, a process thats dictated in a 2014 federal farm law, said Rep. Tyler Lindholm, a Sundance Republican who was a sponsor of the Wyoming law, which passed the House and Senate.

Over 30 states are currently cultivating hemp or are in the process of talking to the USDA, which has hemp seeds to distribute to states that follow the law, Lindholm said.

HB230 states that growers must first get a license from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. Licensees would have to undergo a criminal history check and submit fingerprints.

The Agriculture Department would sample hemp and hemp seeds to ensure growers are complying with the law, according to the bill.

Lindholm doesnt expect hemp farming to reach a commercial level at this point. He said he personally is waiting for the federal government to remove the plant from the Schedule 1 controlled substance list.

I think thats the right course going forward before we became a major producer of hemp, he said. As of right now, we could receive seeds on an experimental basis.

Ag

Gail Symons, an owner in Symons Ranch in Sheridan County, said if Mead doesnt veto the bill, her family will discuss growing hemp for forage for the cattle.

Hemp is grown for its seeds, which are high in protein, and for oil, paper and textiles. Its used as a substitute for wire and fiberglass and is installed in car door panels because of its industrial strength, she said.

We use hemp products, but we cant grow hemp, Symons said.

The U.S. Constitution was printed on hemp paper, she said.

Oil, chemical and timber barons  sensing a threat from hemp  convinced leaders in Washington to lump it with marijuana and classify it as a drug in the 1930s.

It was lumped together, and reefer madness, Symons said. But ironically in World War II, because hemp is the only natural fiber that can stand up to salt water, the government (delisted) as a Schedule 1 drug.

After the war, it again became illegal to produce, she said.

Ron Rabou of Rabou Farms lobbied for the HB230 in the Legislature. Rabou Farms is an organic farm on 8,000 acres in Nebraska and Platte, Goshen and Laramie counties in Wyoming.

Our primary crop is wheat, he said. But were always looking for crops we can rotate for the health of the soil but also for diversification. You always want diversification of your operation.

Hemp doesnt require a lot of water, which makes it ideal for arid Wyoming, he said.

It grows wild in ditches in Nebraska, he said.

The crop would be planted in May or June. It grows for about 60 to 90 days and is harvested at the end of the summer, he said.

The Legislature spends a lot of time talking about economic diversification. Hemp would be a way for farmers to diversify. Hes concerned Wyoming will be behind other states that are producing the crop and the states ag producers will miss out on economic opportunities if Mead doesnt allow the bill to become law.

Although hemp sounds like an issue that would be embraced by left-leaning states, Rabou said its a red-state issue. Itll help rural communities. Its about business.

He said he hopes Mead will sign HB230.

I dont know what you have to think about when you have the amount of frustration and desperation you have right now in the ag community, he said.
Mama's Hawaiian Bar-B-Cue, at 850 E Speedway, is dwarfed by The Hub at Tucson, 1011 N. Tyndall Ave,, which is a student housing project near the University of Arizona that provides off campus housing on March 13, 2017. It has come to an agreement to place Mama's Hawaiian Bar-B-Cue at its ground floor retail location.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some March 14 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages.
Smugglers breached the fence along the Mexico border nearly 9,300 times, the federal government reported as it launched the bidding process to build a new border wall promised by President Donald Trump.

The breaches, which occurred during fiscal years 2010-2015 along the length of the border, cost more than $7 million to repair, according to a Government Accountability Office report, issued in mid-February, outlining the state of the border fence and calling for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to find a way to measure the contributions fencing makes to border security.

As of Monday, more than 630 companies, including 41 from Arizona, expressed interest in building the first parts of a 30-foot-tall concrete wall on the border, according to a solicitation posted by CBP on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

CBP is asking companies to submit prototype concepts that will meet requirements for aesthetics, anti-climbing, and resistance to tampering or damage.

The solicitation is meant to evaluate concepts for the wall, but is not intended as the vehicle for the procurement of the total wall solution for the border with Mexico. The final proposals, including pricing, are due in early May.

In the GAO report, which was based on an audit of border security measures that ran from October 2015 to February 2017, CBP officials said the agency suspended its efforts to measure how fencing contributes to border security in 2013 due to funding cuts.

In the report, CBP officials also said fencing is part of a system of capabilities that includes Border Patrol agents and surveillance technology. As a result, finding a way to measure the effectiveness of one element, rather than the system as a whole, was challenging.

The GAO report found along the entire border:

9,287 breaches in pedestrian fencing during fiscal years 2010-2015. Average cost to repair each breach was $784.

82 breaches per mile on average for fencing installed prior to the Secure Fence Act of 2006 and 14 breaches per mile for more recent fencing.

$2.3 billion spent during fiscal years 2007-2015 to build border fencing. During that period, $450 million spent on operation and maintenance of tactical infrastructure, including fencing, roads, lights, drainage, and vegetation control.

The border is made up of 696 land miles and 1,295 river miles

654 miles of primary fencing, including 354 miles of pedestrian fencing and 300 miles of vehicle fencing.

CBP maintains about 5,000 miles of roads along the border.

$6.5 million average cost per mile to build pedestrian fencing and $1.8 million for vehicle fencing.

Tucson Sector

262 miles of the border.

Nearly 4,000 Border Patrol agents.

211 miles of fencing, which amounts to 32 percent of fencing on the entire border.

$44.7 million estimated cost to replace 7.5 miles of fence in Naco, or $6 million per mile. Project began in fiscal year 2016.

$68.26 million spent to replace 14.1 miles of pre-2006 pedestrian fencing in Tucson and Yuma sectors during fiscal years 2011-2016, or $4.84 million per mile for 2.8 miles in Nogales, 9.5 miles in Douglas, and 1.8 miles in San Luis.

Drive-through smuggling attempts in the Tucson Sector fell by 73 percent after vehicle fencing was installed.
A 32-year-old man was arrested Monday in connection with a sexual assault early Friday morning near the University of Arizona campus, police said.

Johnny Angel Salazar was booked into the Pima County jail on suspicion of sexual assault and kidnapping, according to a Tucson Police Department Facebook post.

Two officers were driving Monday morning in the area of East Grant Road and North First Avenue when they spotted a man matching the description of the assailant, police said.

The man was detained without incident by the officers, and he was later identified as Salazar and arrested in the case, said police.

On Friday shortly after 2 a.m., a girl in her late teens was walking through a parking lot in the 900 block of East Speedway when she was approached by a stranger, said Sgt. Pete Dugan, a department spokesman. The area is between North Euclid and North Park avenues.

The man grabbed the girl and brandished a large knife, threatening to harm her if she didn't follow his directions, said Dugan. He said the man forced the girl to walk with him west on Speedway and then north on Euclid.

During the walk, in unlit areas, the man sexually assaulted the girl multiple times, Dugan said. He eventually released her and ran away.

Video surveillance from a restaurant was obtained that showed the parking lot where the girl was approached and captured images of the assailant, said Dugan.

Following the release of the surveillance photos, police received multiple tips from the public about the man's possible identity. Detectives and officers followed up on the tips, which helped lead to his arrest.
In Hunter Frenchs 23 years as a pilot for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, hes never had a day like Sunday.

During two separate calls, his DPS Ranger helicopter was unable to land at either location and the crew had to perform technical rescues on six people, pulling each into the chopper by rope.

Busy season is right now, French said, adding that the six rope rescues were the most hes done in a single day. The weather is getting so nice that people want to get outside before it gets too hot.

Hikers in distress on Southern Arizonas trails are keeping other search and rescue crews busy, as well. Since last week, Pima County sheriffs crews, along with aid from other agencies, have responded to 10 calls in mountainous and recreational areas surrounding Tucson, said a sheriffs spokesman. Some hikers had fallen, hitting their heads or sustaining other injuries; others got lost or felt dizzy, sheriffs reports show.

On Monday, an Air and Marine UH-60 Blackhawk crew rescued a hiker from a rugged ravine in Pima Canyon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. The man was lifted into the helicopter and received medical treatment before he was taken to a hospital.

A member of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association posted on his personal Facebook page: Its getting hard to keep track of just the air ops let alone the calls. Well keep answering the call as best we can. Stay safe in the beautiful Tucson Backcountry.

The SARA member also posted on his Facebook page that hikers should not engage in activity too extreme for their fitness level.

SARA crews, which are called in by the sheriff to aid in rescues, were out Monday in Sabino and Pima canyons, and Tuesday on a Butterfly Trail rescue in the Catalinas.

DPS experiences Sunday show what rescuers are up against.

On a shift that usually starts at 8 a.m., DPS paramedic Phil Castellano got the call about a Sycamore Canyon rescue shortly after 6:30 a.m. Sunday. He met French at the hangar, and by 7:30, the pair had figured out a rescue plan and were in the air.

Four hikers at Sycamore Canyon, located in the Coronado National Forest, contacted the Pima County Sheriffs Department Saturday night after one of the group members began feeling ill and was unable to hike out. Rescue volunteers spent the night with the group, hoping that rest and rehydration would allow the woman and the rest of the group to walk out the next morning.

I knew it would be a rope rescue when the Sheriffs Department told us they werent able to make the hike, French said.

Pilots always try to land the helicopter during rescues, but when thats not possible, they try to lower a rescue employee or paramedic to the victim.

In both of Sundays DPS rescues, neither option was possible.

While the Sycamore Canyon hikers weren't injured, rescuing two victims at Seven Falls proved even more complicated, as one of the men had fallen and lost consciousness.

Halfway through the Sycamore (Canyon) rescue, it became apparent it would probably be a busy day. I just didnt know it would be that busy, Castellano said.

Seven Falls, in the Sabino Canyon area near Tucson, is one of the hardest areas for crews to land the helicopter in due to crowding, and the idea never even crossed Frenchs mind on Sunday.

Ive never seen as many people as this weekend. There were hundreds, he said.

The area also presents its own unique challenge in finding a place to let the crew out, and Sunday was no different. The spot the hiker had fallen to proved too dangerous for rescuers to get to by helicopter.

A Pima County sheriffs deputy rappelled to the spot, loaded the victim into a Bauman Bag  a type of aerial backboard  and lifted him up to the helicopter.

The hikers friend, who was not injured, was hoisted up in a Screamer Suit, which allows the person to be secured in a seated position, French said.

Although the Seven Falls rescue involved a serious injury, a lot of hikers ended up needing rescues because of simple lack of preparation, Castellano said.

People think theyll be out hiking for an hour or two and it turns into six hours, and theyve only brought one bottle of water, he said, adding that at least a gallon per person is always a good idea.

The split between injury rescues and dehydration rescues is about 50-50. People should always plan for the unplannable, Castellano said.

In addition to bringing extra water, people should never hike alone and should always plan as if they will be out longer than they expect. Its always a good idea to know the trail and do a little research before heading out, and if something happens, groups or pairs of hikers should never split up, French said.

French and Castellano, who have already conducted numerous rescues in Phoenix this year, say its only going to get busier.

In 2016, the Ranger crew performed 471 rescues statewide.
The board hiring the University of Arizonas next president is launching contract negotiations with its top pick, Dr. Robert C. Robbins of Texas.

The decision by the Arizona Board of Regents marks one of the last steps in Robbins eventual employment as the UAs 22nd president.

Negotiating a contract for the next president and ensuring a smooth transition are crucial next steps, board Chair Greg Patterson said in a news release following a Monday afternoon vote at regents headquarters in Phoenix.

Regents expect to vote on Robbins contract and formally announce him as the new president during a two-day board meeting at the UA on April 6-7.

Robbins, who earns more than $1.2 million a year as president and CEO of Texas Medical Center, may be the highest-paid presidential finalist the regents have ever negotiated with.

His current compensation is roughly double that of UA President Ann Weaver Hart, whose pay package totals $670,000 this year. Robbins has said he expects to take a major pay cut at the UA.

Hart announced last year that she would step down as president when her contract ends in June 2018, but the regents decided to replace her ahead of time.

Robbins, a former chief of cardiology at Stanford Universitys medical school, is one of two finalists the regents announced Feb. 28 to replace Hart. The other finalist, Arizona State University executive Sethuraman Panchanathan, was eliminated a week later.
PHOENIX  State utility regulators voted Tuesday to quash a bid by one of their own to get Arizona Public Service to produce records he subpoenaed.

Officially, the vote of the Arizona Corporation Commission was to cut off the funds for the attorney it authorized Commissioner Bob Burns to hire.

That was when APS and Pinnacle West Capital Corp., its parent, asked a judge to block Burns subpoena.

Last week, however, the utility dropped its lawsuit, though it has not produced the additional records Burns contends he is entitled as a regulator to get.

These deal with the companys political involvement financially in the 2014 commission race, as well as what it spends on lobbyists and charities.

So Burns filed his own legal action to compel compliance.

But the panels 3-1 vote Tuesday cuts off further funds for William Richards, Burns attorney.

Chairman Tom Forese said the funding authorization was solely to defend Burns, not for a pursuit of the records.

Commission records show Richards has so far been paid close to $15,200.

APS has repeatedly refused to comment on whether it was the source of funds spent by two dark money groups to help Forese and Doug Little win the 2014 election.
Mayor Jonathan Rothschild spent a portion of Monday stumping for a proposed half-cent sales tax increase to help fix city roads and buy new equipment for the citys public-safety departments.

It is an investment, he says, and one the city of Tucson cannot afford without increasing the citys sales tax by a half-cent  from 2 cents per $1 to 2 cents  for the next five years, which is the length of time the increased tax would be collected.

Which is how Rothschild prefers to frame the discussion  it is a chance for locals to choose to invest an estimated $250 million in sales-tax revenues to fix roads, build new fire stations, purchase new police cars and other life-saving equipment, including replacing bulletproof vests. The tax hike would bring in $50 million a year for five years.

Current city policy requires officers to buy their own vests, and while they receive a stipend to maintain required equipment, Police Chief Chris Magnus has acknowledged the amount is not enough.

A local nonprofit, the Tucson Police Foundation, also donates new vests to officers on a regular basis, but this also falls short of the number that need to be regularly replaced.

During his speech before the Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon meeting, Rothschild touted the citys success in handling the voter-backed $100-million road-bond program known as Proposition 409, telling the audience it is under budget and ahead of schedule.

It has been very successful, Rothschild said.

If approved by voters in May, another $100 million would go to repairing roads, but the amount set aside for certain types of roads would change drastically.

The November 2012 bond question set aside $85 million to fix heavily used streets, with only 15 percent expected to go to neighborhood streets.

In terms of the new proposal, about $60 million would be used for major roads, and rest would go to fix residential streets. Our residential streets are really falling apart, he said.

Rothschild said the city will maintain a website detailing how the tax revenue is spent. Youll know exactly where all the money goes, Rothschild said.

To date, the Tucson Association of Realtors, Tucson Police Officers Association and the Tucson Fire Fighters Association have endorsed Prop. 101.

There is no formal opposition to the proposal, according to filings with the City Clerks Office.

Prop. 101 mail-in ballots will be sent to voters next month.
Volunteers with several local fundraising walks are taking advantage of the spring-like weather to promote awareness and raise research funds for nerve diseases that often fly under the radar.

CMT is often known as the most common disease that no one has ever heard of. One in every 2,500 people have it, so it is surprising that when I mention it to people, most of them have no idea what it is, said Kristen Oaxaca, coordinator of Baileys Beat the Bite 5K Walk 4 CMT (Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease) on March 25 at Continental Ranch Neighborhood Park in Marana.

The walk is inspired by 7-year-old Bailey Roestenburg, Oaxacas niece by her sister, Vanessa Roestenburg.

Bailey has CMT, a group of inherited nerve disorders that cause peripheral neuropathy  an increasing numbness or pain that results in muscle atrophy and sensory loss in the arms and legs. The disease also causes chronic pain and fatigue; other symptoms are weakness, foot deformity, foot drop and difficulty with balance. More than 90 types of CMT caused by different genetic mutations have been identified.

There is no cure for CMT and since there are so many different types, if they find a cure for one type, that doesnt necessarily mean it will be a cure for the others, said Vanessa, a single mom who suspected CMT when Bailey began falling constantly at age 3.

Baileys diagnosis was confirmed a year later. Fortunately, Bailey takes nightly nerve medicine to help with the pain caused by her nerves constantly trying to talk to her muscles. I have heard it described as a burning, tingling feeling in the muscles of the legs, feet, arms or hands.

Vanessa said that coming to terms with limitations imposed by the disease has not been easy.

When Bailey was 5, she asked me if she was going to get better and I had to explain that she wasnt. There were lots of tears on both ends and lots of emotions on her end  she was angry and scared. ... She is constantly saying, I just want to be like everybody else, Vanessa said.

Now, Bailey wears ankle-foot braces to assist with mobility and though she gets fatigued and becomes frustrated when she cant keep up with her peers, Vanessa said her daughter doesnt let it consume her. The aspiring artist is also learning to direct herself toward activities that dont require sustained active movement.

It takes twice as much energy for people with CMT to do what we do. But Bailey goes, goes, goes, and doesnt let it stop her. She is willing to try anything, said Vanessa, a teacher.

The nonprofit Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association has embraced a similar philosophy.

Dedicated to finding treatments and cures for CMT and improving the lives of those with the disease, the organization utilizes an initiative called STAR, or Strategy to Accelerate Research, in which scientists share ideas and findings to advance research as quickly and effectively as possible. CMTA also offers a database of CMT patients along with support and resources for those living with CMT and their families; a network of volunteers also promotes awareness and assists with fundraising efforts .

This inaugural walk is kind of a groundbreaker for more walks in the future. We want to raise awareness about the disease and are hoping to help find a cure. I am hoping one day that I can look at Bailey and say, They have it figured out. We can fix this. That would be my ultimate dream, Vanessa said.

MS is quiet disease

Carol Hunter has a similar dream regarding multiple sclerosis, a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the myelin sheaths surrounding nerves, impairing normal function of the central nervous system. The disease, which generally takes four courses of varying severity, can manifest with symptoms such as optic neuritis; fatigue; numbness in the limbs; problems with walking, balance and coordination; loss of vision and hearing or speech problems; and paralysis.

Diagnosed more than 20 years ago, Hunter said she feels fortunate to be very high-functioning: She uses a walker, is able to drive her car with hand controls and remains active with a home business.

Additionally, for more than a decade, she has been a volunteer with Walk MS Tucson, which will be held Saturday at Reid Park.

Hunter is also co-leader of the Northwest Tucson MS Support Group, which meets the second Wednesday of each month from 10 a.m. to noon at Casas Adobes Congregational Church, 6801 N. Oracle Road. She said the meetings  which are open to those with MS as well as their families and caregivers  provide not only a venue for camaraderie and support, but also education and information about community resources along with medical, research and treatment updates.

MS is so variable and affects everyone in different ways. One of the nice things about the support group is that it helps you to learn a lot about the disease. You learn what to look for and how to work with it and it prevents you from becoming isolated, which often happens to people who have chronic illnesses, Hunter said.

Lisa Cleary, senior manager of corporate relations for the National MS Society Arizona chapter, believes that community outreach and education about the impact of MS is key to funding research toward new treatments and a cure. She said many people dont realize that about 8,000 Arizonans are living with the disease and that it affects more than 45,000 caregivers and family members statewide.

Cleary hopes the walk will raise at least $65,000 to fund critical research, programming and services for those impacted by MS, while helping to bring the disease out of the shadows.

Contact freelance writer Loni Nannini at ninch2@comcast.net.
Tucson police are investigating a vandalism incident at the Islamic Center of Tucson that took place early Monday morning.

At about 3:30 a.m., a man broke into the building and ripped copies of the Quran, throwing them around the building before he left, according to a post on the center's Facebook page.

Nothing was stolen and no one was injured in the incident, leading center employees "to believe that the sole intent of this individual was to damage the center's religious property," the post said.

Tucson police were called to the scene later in the morning and found no signs of forced entry into the building, said Sgt. Kimberly Bay, a Tucson Police Department spokeswoman.

Security footage from the center showed the man being able to "shake the front door open" and throw books around.

"He illegally entered the building, but there's no indication that the incident had hate or bias to it," Bay said, adding that in previous vandalism incidents, the suspects had written hateful messages.

"We won't be able to know anything until we find and talk to the man," she said.

The police are asking the community's help in finding the suspect, and anyone with information about the suspect's identity is asked to call 911 or 88-CRIME, an anonymous tipster hotline.
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Cori Runyon knows just how expensive a period can be.

As does every woman who shells out extra cash for tampons and pads every month.

That regular expense sparked Runyon's vision for a free pantry with a small stash of feminine hygiene products for women in need.

"I'm not rich by any means and I'm not well-off..." says Runyon, a 29-year-old yoga teacher, substitute teacher and landscaper. "I know when I have my period every month, I go to the store and go, 'How am I going to get tampons this month?' They're so expensive, and they're a necessity, not a luxury, and it's difficult for homeless women to have their periods. They have no clean space to go take care of themselves."

At the grocery store, a box of 18 tampons costs $5 or $6 and a package of 20 pads might cost around $3 or $4 depending on where you shop.

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About a month ago, Runyon opened The Pantry in front of the women's social service organization Fortin de las Flores, 102 E. 31st St., as part of a social justice project she has to do for an All Bodies Rise mentorship program. All Bodies Rise uses yoga classes to raise money to support social justice work in Tucson.

"It stemmed from me wanting all women to have access to free feminine hygiene products, and I figured other people needed essentials like food, toothbrushes and toothpaste," says Runyon, who moved to Tucson about a year ago from Oakland, California.

Every Wednesday morning, she stops by the pantry to stock it with water, toilet paper, pads and tampons, nonperishable foods and other essentials. She's funding the shopping trips with an ongoing GoFundMe campaign but envisions the community stepping up to sustain The Pantry long term. So far, the GoFundMe has raised about $600.

Those interested in supporting the pantry can visit gofundme.com/the-pantry-tucson or email Runyon at thepantrytucson@gmail.com.
"Naftali Bennett and Lebanese president agree: There's no line between Hezbollah and Lebanese state. Lebanese must realize another war with Israel means Lebanon will be sent back to Middle Ages, Bennett tells Haaretz. " haaretz

---------------

Naftali Bennett evidently wants himself to be thought Israel's Curtis Lemay. Lemay's B-29s killed 100,000 Japanese civilians in one night over Tokyo.

I suppose this is all political BS reflecting NB's desire to replace Bibi at some future date. Bibi is looking like something approaching its "sell buy" date. He is being investigated for graft. He has also sued a reporter for asserting in print that his wife treats him like a not very valued dog. NB is watching in the light of ever increasing Israeli xenophobia and belligerence towards its Arab neighbors. Israel has for many years sought (successfully) to use American leverage to exclude Hizbullah from Lebanese government in spite of its electoral power. This is now at an end with Michel Aoun's statement that Hizbullah s an integral part of the Lebanese state. In response Bennett threatens a general application of the theory of strategic bombing if Hizbullah fires into Israel.

Well pilgrims, the trouble with that is the actual separation (as I have written before) of the Hizbullah fortified Belt (Tabouleh Line II) and its fortified firing positions for 20 to 30 K of advanced model artillery rockets with longer range and guided missiles from the civil infrastructure and population of Lebanon.

In 2006 Israel attempted to breach Tabouleh Line I and failed. Nose to nose ground combat against HB headbangers in prepared positions wasn't something they could face up to. Air power? There was a lot of fairly small caliber anti-aircraft fire over HB lines and Israeli pilots evidently discovered that a "golden BB" (small arms hit) would kill them as dead as any gentile pilot. As a result accuracy in their air attacks on HB positions went WAY DOWN. At the same time the IDF (then headed by a bird man) carried out a country-wide air offensive against Lebanese civilian infrastructure and people. This wrecked the place but it had ZERO effect on the outcome of the 2006 War. HB moved back to prepared positions a few kilometers north to allow the UN to place peacekeeping forces between them and the Israelis and then re-construction in Lebanon began yet again.

A re-run of Israel's 2006 plan will prove nothing except to demonstrates that the IDF has no ability to keep HB from firing heavily into Israeli populated areas. The IDF knows this. Evidently Bennett does not. pl

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.776419
Help India!

By Sufyan Abdul Sathar for Twocircles.net

A few days back, Cairo witnessed a historical and promising event. A two-day conference on Freedom and Citizenship; Diversity and Integration was organised by Egypts Al-Azhar and Muslim Council of Elders (MCE) of UAE to promote peace in the middle east and to discuss joint initiatives from Muslims and Christians for peaceful coexistence on the region. UAE made whole effort to make it a grand success and to shape it as a reformative and progressive step towards Muslim  Christian relationship. The organisers granted me the opportunity to participate this conference at Cairo. Let me share insightful discussions, and forward position of Al-Azhar explained in this Conference.

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Arab Spring and its impact led Arab youths to think about freedom and diversity. As a mentor of Egypt, Al-Azhar played a crucial role in the promotion of moderate thinking and MSE took the sharp position against all radical ideas which used to be quoted to promote terror activities in the region. The major attraction of conference was equal participation of Muslim and Christian leaders and opportunity to share the views, and the same time everyone is vigilant not to be rhetoric and symbolic one. Sheikh Al-Azhar Prof. Ahmed Al Tayeb and Pope Tawadros II (Leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria) were the presidential presence throughout the conference. Muslim and Christian initiatives for peaceful coexistence, working together to combat extremism & terrorism, and future dimension of citizenship & role of diversity were the key points of discussion. Such Conference is demand and need of the hour on the occasion of recent violence from the side of ISIS.

How to prevent Islamophobia?

The First day of the conference discussed the shining history of Middle East which had fruitful and shared experience of both Semitic religions. Sheikh Al-Azhar Said, on inaugural speech, that some groups broke out the fire on Arab and Islamic regions without any reasonable cause and rationale satisfactory to this age. Their terror activities caused an increase in Islamophobia amongst West and East, so all the religious institution should act against Islamophobia. If did not, the Christianity and Judaism would face the same prejudice in the future. All religious clerics and leaders agreed on the impeccability of religion toward terrorism. This understanding of faith needs to practice through interfaith dialogue and perception among religious leaders to eliminate the remaining tensions and ambiguities. All should pay jointly against Islamophobic phenomena as an initial step toward peaceful coexistence. Al Tayeb reminded us if the joint action would not happen, it will formulate more enigmas, and he quoted famous Arabic proverb (I am eaten in the day the white bull was eaten) which recalled me the poem First they came, written by German Pastor Martin Niemoller. Many public figures and intellect reiterate the need for collaborative academic action and scholarly effort to promote peace and ethics in the provinces of East and West.

Pope Tawadros II articulated the same idea from his experience in Egypt and noted the harmonious appearance of East to the Christianity. The religion is the solution, not a trouble maker. Every radical ideology should lead to discrimination and expeditious to disgrace non-believers as Other. The diversity is the key function of Humanity, and it is the soul of dialogue leading to understanding and tolerance. It is worth mentioning that each one tried to attribute the word tolerant to East (Al Sharq al Muthasamih) and civilised to West (Al Gharb al Muthahadir) in every speech. It may be coincidence, but I locate it as a sound against the theory called Clash of Civilisation.

Moderate Thinking

Moderate thinking (Al Fikrul Muthawasith) is the soul message of the conference. Al-Azhar and MCE focus and approach the gist issues of citizenship and diversity through the lens of Moderate thought. The same way Al-Azhar remains the mentor of a country since decades. Diversity and the integration are the interest of Islam. Let me say in connection with the nature of Conference, the representatives of a religion which covers majority of the region speak about diversity is the key feature of the event. Certainly, they do not believe in Majoritarianism, and they do believe in Ethics which promoted by their religion, Islam. The conference concluded to use the term citizen instead of Minority, and it is an inclusive approach. Naturally, it demands the traditional jurisprudential position of Dhimmis (Non-Muslims of Muslim Country) to be revisited. Sheikh Al-Azhar put Madinah Charter of Prophet Muhammed as an authoritative reference for the peaceful coexistence of Muslims with Jews and Christians. It treats all Citizens of Madinah equally in Rights and Duties. Some Scholars indicated this as a credential to the substantiation of Civil State instead of Theocratic State. Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic, Patriarch Abraham Isaac said that Civil Democratic State is essential for Citizenship and Freedom for all communities and Nation State should forsake all religion.

Dr. Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Chief Justice of Palestine, shared his experience of Diversity and Freedom that they enjoyed once. There are Jewish temples near to Masjid Al Aqsa, and it remained as it is, even after all conflicts, in the hands of A Muslim Family. He said that we are fighting against invasion, not Jews. He quoted Ibn al Qayyim, Classical Scholar of Islam, to justify his stand on Jihad. Jihad is not against Non-believers, but against aggression and to discharge the injustice. Rev. Jim Winkler is the only voice from the US and was the opponent of Americas invasion of Iraq. He agreed that All the believers, especially Christian followers in the US, have the responsibility to promote and work together for the better future and security of the region. Earlier, Sheikh al-Azhars visit to Vatican helped much to the international peace and mutual understanding of Semitic religions. All the participants of the conference asked to continue this effort from the side of all religious leaders.

Sheikh Muhammed Abdus view on tolerance, Rifa al-Tahtawis experience on West, Abu Ishaq Al-Shatibis take on Maqasid of Shariah and Shakib Arslans idea of reformation are quoted and came to the discussion occasionally. The session on Al-Azhar stance on citizenship is the crystal clear message of the way of thought which advocated by Al-Azhar. Indeed, it is a moderate one.

Al-Azhar Declaration

The last day of the conference included Al-Azhar declaration, treated by cheering from all. It is the outcome the conference and engages with the challenges faced by Religion, Region, and Society, and response to reformative needs. It is the continuation of the earlier Al-Azhars declaration on terrorism, 2014 which reject radical ideas and advocate for the coexistence of different believers. This resolution, named Al-Azhar Declaration on Citizenship and Coexistence, 2017, is the extension and effective measure towards the aim. Citizenship is the fundamental character of all members of the civil society. No more minorities. It confirms to avoid such practice from all literature, cultural activities, and curriculum. The term minority conveys discriminatory notions on performance and approaches. The duties and rights of all members are equal. The declaration lightens to the new debates on the formation and concept of citizenship in the new world. This paradigm shift not to exclude the so-called minorities from the mainstream or not to impulse them others culture, But to treat them equally in the light of democracy and to practice the insights of a civil state. The another resolution is the joint agreement of Muslims and Christians on every religion are clean from terrorism. All should suspend denoting religion on terror activities. All citizen should strengthen the diversity of the nation and should contribute to the spiritual advancement of the country. All our institutional and cultural events need to be refined and reformed in the way of enriching mutual understanding and tolerance. Cultural exchange and amicable sharing are need of the hour. Finally, the aim of this conference is to build active participation and apparent contract among the citizens of the Arab world, based on understanding and exchange of Freedom and Citizenship.

This conference and declaration not as a better choice, but as the exigency of being and as the reform of our society, nation, and the youth.

Promising Future

AL-Azhar and MCE took the moderate position in possible ways. Promptly, one can locate it between Radical and Liberal Ideas; which is Ethical and Moderate Position towards all. It is between westerns secularism and Islamism. The influence of this perspective has emerged again and shaped through the days of Arab Spring and caused for realising democratic rights to all citizen. The Cairo city itself show the pulse of moderate position which recognises and welcoming the human rights and tolerance towards all.

The author is a Senior Research Fellow at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and is currently doing research on post 9/11 novels of Saudi Arabia.
Help India!

By Amit Kumar and Shafeeq Hudawi, Twocircles.net

The state of Kerala is not short on tourist attractions. Every district boasts of something that separates them from the others; whether it be the beaches, forts, the backwaters or the waterfalls. Nevertheless, among all these, the town of Kodinhi in Malappuram has its own claim to fame, and not all of it is because of its landscape. As you enter the town, you are reminded that you are stepping into Gods own Twins village. This small village with a little over 2,000 families boasts of over 200 twins, a feat achieved nowhere else in the world. This phenomenon has meant that over the past few years, a number of people visit this tiny village to marvel at the twins.

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But if you were to visit Kodinhi now, more than the twins it would be flex boards with the picture of a smiling man that will catch your attention. The picture is that of Faisal P, a recent convert to Islam who was hacked to death in the early hours of November 19 near the Farook Nagar market in Kodinhi. The flex boards are peppered across the village, reminding the residents as well as the visitors that nearly four months after Faisals murder, his memory is well and truly alive in the village and that they will continue to fight for justice.

After travelling for a little over 2 km on the main road, a small right turn takes you near a bridge. Faisal was murdered a km away from this spot, and he is buried in the premise of a local mosque located on one side of the bridge. When we arrived, the bridge was undergoing maintenance work. A slight detour from the bridge takes us to a tea shop located on the other side of the mosque, and a short hike by the side of the tea shop takes us to the house where Faisals family is currently staying. It is a modest building, owned by Faisals uncle, and is inhabited by Faisals two children, wife, mother and aunt.

Faisals aunt welcomes us to the house, offering us a glass of refreshing tea. Although born as a Hindu, Faisals aunt and her husband (Faisals mothers elder brother) converted to Islam over 40 years ago. The whole family of Faisal is split between Hindus and Muslims. Faisal, who worked as a driver in Saudi Arabia and was home during holidays, had converted to Islam in Saudi Arabia, where he worked. Shortly after, his wife and children too converted to Islam, even as his father and mother remained Hindus. So did his two sisters, and their respective families. In the wake of Faisals death, however, Faisals mother-Meenakshi-converted to Islam too and took the name of Jameela. In a conversation with Twocircles.net, Jammela said she had done so as a mark of respect for her son. She says that ever since his death, her family has been in a lot of pain, and suffering. Can you imagine losing a son when he had done nothing? How could he be killed, a km from here in his own village? He had never harmed anyone and his choice to convert was to be respected, not debated over by other people, she says, holding back her tears. She, however, thanked the support from the locals. As you would have noticed, his poster is present everywhere in the village. The local people and leaders have been very kind to us and supported us in every possible way. Thanks to them, the children continue going to school. Another gentleman donated 5 cents of land for a house for Faisals family, and construction work has already started, she adds.

In addition, the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC), the expatriate outfit of IUML said it would distribute a monthly pension for Faisals family and will support the education of Faisals two children.

The family is currently living in Faisals aunts home.

But the pain of Faisals death does not end here. What has been most painful for them to deal with is that the main conspirator, Pullani Vinod, is the husband of one of Faisals sisters. Besides Vinod, the accused included the victims younger uncles son Pullani Sajeesh. The mention of this brings Jameela to tears, and she is unable to say much. What can I say? A lot of family members had strongly objected to Faisals conversion, but I never thought it would lead to his death at the hands of RSS people, some of whom also happened to be family, she says.

Dozens arrested, dozens bailed: The aftermath

Although the atmosphere and Kodinhi remained tense after Faisals death, there was no incident of untoward violence and the district remained peaceful. The police, to its credit, made a number of arrests within a week, some of whom were members of RSS. The residents also organised themselves and formed a Joint Action Committee with members cutting across party lines. Shamim, a member of the Committee, spoke with Twocircles.net. A total of 14 persons were arrested in connection with the case. But, what saddened us is that 11 of them were granted bail within three months of the heinous crime. This is giving clear indications of lapses on the part of the police. We are scared of denial of justice to the family as it happened in the case of Yasir, a Muslim convert, who was killed twenty years ago by RSS, Shamim said.

He also pointed out that one of the accused, Madathil Narayanan, had only been recently acquitted by the Supreme Court in relation to the murder of Yasir in 1996.

According to Abdul Latif, the legal advisor to the committee, the committee will leave no stone unturned to ensure justice for the victims family.

The committee, with the support of all parties, local residents and legal experts, will fight for justice. The case shouldnt be repeated, he said.

The stand of CPI (M) has also come under heavy criticism from locals. The local leader of CPI (M) was deputed as the chairman of the local All Party Committee. The party was offering us all support by the looks of it, but a month after the committee was set up, nothing had been done to help Faisals family. Finally, the leaders from other parties decided to stage a district-wide agitation after it became clear that the CPM people would not protest against its own government, Latif added. Following the agitations by the action committee, a probe by State Crime Branch was announced and soon after the key conspirator and RSS leader Madathil Narayanan was arrested.

Saying how the government was partial in giving compensation, Latif said that the government was defiant to give financial aid for the family even though compensation was announced in such cases, in which political persons were murdered.

The committee said that along with the strictest punishment to the accused, they were also demanding that a member of the family is given a government job and that the government appoint a special public prosecutor to ensure justice in the case.

Faisals family may never come to terms with the death of their only breadwinner, but for Kodinhi, he will remain a martyr. Just as we were about to take leave from Jameela, a group of well-wishers were arriving, carrying bags of fruits and other essentials for the family. In the village of twins, the unfortunate murder of an innocent for practising his right to convert has brought its residents together like never before.
Exactly four months before the 12th anniversary of the bomb attacks that hit London, a Bomb Threat causes a big alert among the commuters and pedestrians at the central area of London Bridge. According to Metro UK, around 1.40 pm today, someone reported to the police that there was something suspicious. As a result, one of the busiest areas in the British capital was evacuated within minutes and the users of public transport were astonished and scared.

Apparently, the bomb was thought to have been left in a silver-colored Volkswagen car parked in the surroundings of the station, and this was registered by the police.

This is, however, not the first time that there has been a bomb threat in the United Kingdom in the last years and, actually, not even when London is one of the most video-secured cities in the world.

Similar scenarios

Only this afternoon, the Danish newspaper The Copenhagen Post announced that the central train station of Copenhagen had been closed due to a bomb attack alert. May we mark that on the 14th of February, the Danes celebrated the 2nd anniversary of one of the worse attacks that the country saw in many years?

A Muslim man attacked an event dedicated to the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, which took place on the 7th of January. As a result, three people were injured and another person died.

Among the attendants, we can mention the Swedish artist Lars Vilks (famous for painting Mohammad as a dog) and the French Ambassador in Denmark, Francois Zimeray.

A few hours later, the suspect allegedly killed a Jewish man at the Great Synagogue located in the central area of Norreport, very famous among the students due to its proximity to the libraries and cafes in the area.

Two more police officers were injured and the shooter was later killed by the police. As a result, all the Jewish monuments and important buildings were secured by the police for a year.

World wide alert

Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, USA, Spain or Germany are only a few of the targets that Al-Qaeda pointed out on the map after the war in Iraq took place in 2001 and the authorities in Europe have started to launch campaigns asking citizens to report anything suspicious.

Nevertheless, far from stopping terrorism, events like this have only raised the fear and the concerns of the citizens regarding international politics and the government's attitude towards the attacks.
In an age of Cinematic universes, it should be no surprise that classic monsters would get theirs. While Universal recasts its iconic horror legends like the Mummy and the Invisible Man, Legendary preps a bluntly titled 'Monsterverse' of Kaiju and King Kong in the follow-up to 2014's 'Godzilla'.

It's the 1970s, and as America reels from defeat in Vietnam, the Monarch organisation gets backing to investigate a mysterious island in the South Pacific that has brought down planes and ships. Lead by a disgruntled Colonel, bitter about the outcome of the war, and a former British Special Service tracker, the group quickly find the island is teeming with monsters, including the godlike Kong.

'Skull Island' excels as a monster romp

Indie darling Jordan Vogt-Roberts (King of Summer) creates an incredibly tight and direct film that feels like the antithesis of Gareth Edwards' 'Godzilla'. Where the former favoured suspense, tension and a very limited use of the title character in the 'Jaws' tradition, Roberts goes full-fanboy as he dishes out the monster battles thick and fast. King Kong is seen fairly early on and we quickly cycle through the expected conflicts: the military, giant animals like octopi and arachnids and even demonic prehistoric mutations, the Skullcrawlers.

We move briskly from setpiece to setpiece, with measured editing and plenty of wide shots to fully appreciate and get immersed in the different battles.

However, Roberts is not afraid to get inventive, having the camera right inside crashing helicopters or on King Kong, allowing you to really feel like you're there in the heat of action. Couple that with an incredible sound design that makes every hit feel big and powerful, and you get your money's worth for blockbuster action.

'Skull Island' gets to the point

Naturally, this mentality comes at a price: the plot is very streamlined, as is the backstory to Kong and most of the rather stock cast. There are some nice thematic elements with Vietnam and the destructive mindset of war, but it feels mostly like a glorified excuse to justify the action. Were it not for the quality cast, all of whom do as well as expected, 'Kong: Skull Island' would probably feel a lot less satisfying and tedious.

Indeed, the strongly 70s-influenced of the aesthetic, with very strong ties to 'Apocalypse Now', feel more circumstantial and surface-level than many would hope, and a lot of the man vs nature/'Beauty and the Beast' qualities of the past 'King Kong' films feels far removed from this one. In fact, there's a strong 'Superman Returns' to 'Man of Steel' parallel between this and Peter Jackson's retelling from 2005: one favoured world building, insane amounts of detail and a slow pace, while the other is more interested in crowd-pleasing battles and vistas.

The best way to describe 'Kong: Skull Island' is that this is the perfect 10-year old's movie. This is destined to be the talk of playgrounds and lunch breaks everywhere, kids debating if they liked this or that fight more.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this leads to kids making their own reenactments of fights on their phones and thus helping to create a new generation of filmmakers, much like past Kongs have. It's good old-fashioned childhood wish fulfilment, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Prime Minister Theresa Mays little Brexit bill faced a lot of backlash when she first published it, and there was talk of renegade Conservative Party MPs rebelling against the PM and getting her bill overthrown and May had worries about a Parliament debate that would lead to a bunch of amendments that would change the way Brexit is being done beyond recognition, and we all know how much she likes to get her way exactly. But now, that bill has been passed.

May could trigger Article 50 by the end of March

When it was first reported a few months ago that May might be able to trigger article 50 by the end of March, it seemed crazily early (and it is, in terms of preparedness), but now its looking like she might actually be able to, and not only that, she can do it exactly the way she wanted to.

Brexit wont be immediate, though, not by any means. Itll still take a couple of years to get everything involved into effect.

Everyone had to concede to the House of Commons and their sovereignty late last night after conflict arose between the two Houses. The amendments to the Brexit bill wouldve allowed for EU citizens to continue to have rights in the UK and also given Parliament a meaningful vote on the final Brexit agreement. But following last nights proceedings, thats all gone out the window.

So, May achieved her ballsy and audacious scheme to pass a straightforward and uncomplicated little Brexit bill after all, and the formal EU leaving process can commence. Recent speculation has it that May will actually trigger Article 50 and kick-start the Brexit process today.

However, some commentators have changed their tune, predicting that shell do it during the last week of March instead.

Tory MPs praised a government decision

A handful of Conservative MPs praised the government last night for looking to guarantee that British citizens living abroad in other parts of Europe would be okay in the Brexit deal.

David Davis, the comically named Brexit secretary, voiced his happiness at the passing of the bill in Parliament, saying that everybody spoke passionately and he was very pleased with the proceedings.

Some MPs from the Labour, Liberal Democrat, and SNP political camps had some harsh words of criticism for him, but thats to be expected from a guy whos entire job revolves around the thing thats divided the nation.

The MPs were mainly criticising him because they wanted Parliament to have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal, but Davis thinks this will be fine.

Davis assured them theyd still get a say in all government bills that come through the system, specifically mentioning the repeal bill and the issues of immigration and the Brexit customs deal in Britain, which theyll get to voice their concerns about in the coming weeks. This was perhaps in response to a leaked document that is being interpreted as an outline of upcoming government bills being proposed to prepare Britons for life outside the EU.

Grassroots groups are rebelling

11 grassroots groups have joined forces in a coalition to get British nationals in the EU the rights, as well as the millions of Europeans living with us in the UK.

Germany-dwelling spokesperson Jane Golding says that she and the others involved share their suffering and feel for them in these times of uncertainty leading up to Brexit. She says, We do not believe people should be used as a bargaining chips.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, spoke to some of his colleagues to discuss his thoughts about Theresa Mays bill getting passed and how the triggering of article 50 and the beginning of the formal Brexit process is alarmingly imminent. He said that during the debate last night, MPs made their cases with passion, sincerity and conviction.

Davis is happy with the straightforward bill

Davis is happy for the Brexit legislation to be straightforward. He wanted it to be easy and clear so that no one would be able to find any loopholes anywhere and could start the formal Brexit process the way they want to.

This way, its not complicated and no one can kick off anywhere down the line and say that May is not honouring the legislation, because its painstakingly simplistic legislation.

Fortunately, Davis is also accepting the moral responsibility for the issue of EU citizens UK rights (and the rights of British citizens living elsewhere in Europe). Its a refreshing change for a politician to accept responsibility for something, because they very rarely like to do that because it usually comes back to bite them. Thats why White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer always says things that might be the case or what he thinks is happening, so he doesnt say anything that can later be used against him. But thankfully, Davis isnt like that. We can blame him for stuff.
As if anything else would happen in a world where The Big Bang Theory is a behemoth of Television and a milkable cash cow with bulging udders, the good people at US TV network CBS have officially given the go-ahead to Young Sheldon, a spinoff series from Big Bang, for a full series.

Lots confirmed about the show in the announcement

Young Sheldon will be a single camera series, so a little bit more artistic and modern than its predecessor, since thats a decade-old show and the industry has changed greatly (and already had when that premiered, to be honest).

The single camera format offers a lot more freedom to the creative team than the highly restricting multi-camera format of The Big Bang Theory.

The announcement from CBS did not specify how many episodes of Young Sheldon have been ordered, but it will premiere as early as this year, with the first season of the show continuing past later in 2017 to early in 2018. This should come as no surprise, but the Big Bang spinoff is expected to be a big hit for the network.

Big Bang Theory creators Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro are down as creators for Young Sheldon, meaning a fat paycheque for each of them, and it will follow a 9-year-old Sheldon Cooper living in East Texas with his family and attending high school at an early age.

Jon Favreau, the director of the live-action remakes of The Jungle Book and The Lion King, is also jumping on the bandwagon for a slice of guaranteed cash, directing the pilot and executive producing the series, which will find a nice, hefty paycheque in his pocket every time the show so much as airs on television.

Jim Parsons will narrate the series

Original Sheldon Jim Parsons will narrate Young Sheldon as Adult Sheldon, while Iain Armitage is the little 9-year-old prodigy taking on the role of past Cooper. Joining him in the cast are actors Lance Barber, Montana Jordan, Zoe Perry, and Raegan Revord. Armitage can be seen currently in HBOs Big Little Lies playing Shailene Woodleys son.

Molaro, who is the showrunner for the mothership Big Bang beast, has written the script for the Young Sheldon pilot, which he will executive produce alongside Lorre, Favreau, Parsons, and a guy named Todd Spiewak. As for The Big Bang Theory, its currently on its tenth season and its still the biggest comedy on broadcast television, and apparently CBS are eyeing it for a two-season renewal.
The Indian Local Elections in five provincial state assemblies are over. It was more like a mini general election. Many experts referred to it as a semi-final before the final -- the general election due in 2019. The states which went to the polls were Utter Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Goa, Punjab, and Manipur. Out these states, the most important is UP which has a population of 200 million and sends 82 members to Parliament. The BJP the parent party of Narendra Modi has swept to power in UP and Uttaranchal. The party won more than 3/4 of the seats. This augers well for 2019 as now the BJP will be in the driver's seat for the coming election in 2019.

Grip of Modi

The elections show that the charisma of Modi is intact and he remains the most formidable political leader. Modi has also consolidated his grip on the party and he will be the most visible face of the BJP. The biggest defeat is of the grand old party the Congress. The Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi would be a sad man as he sees his ambition to be a replacement for Modi being ground to dust.

The Congress won decisively in only Punjab, where the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal simply collapsed. The Congress won 78 seats out of 117, but knowledgeable observers credit the victory only due to the standing of the erstwhile maharaja of Patiala, Capt Amrinder Singh. In any case, the state only sends 13 MPs to the Lower house (Lok Sabha) and a victory does not have the same weightage as UP.

Development agenda

These results show that Modi' s development agenda like demonetization, fiscal reforms and perceived attack on corruption has gone down well with the voters. The voters are still in awe of him and Modi can expect that he will romp home in the 2019 general election.

Future

The election result will be a shot in the arm of Modi who can now go ahead and implement his economic policy.

india is the 3rd biggest economy in Asia and also with the highest growth rate. Modi will also get more FDI. Foreign companies from the US and UK will get a bigger chance to invest in India. The future looks exciting with Modi at the helm. The chance that he may win in 2019, will be a source of encouragement to invest in India.
The war between President Donald Trump and the media appears to be growing by the day. As Trump continues to sidestep the press in favor of social media, Trump once again took a shot at one of his top targets.

Trump on Twitter

When Donald Trump first announced that he was running for president, he quickly found himself in a feud with the mainstream media for referring to illegal immigrants as "rapists" and "murderers." Over the next year and a half, Trump would find ways to avoid dealing with journalists and reporters, most notably using his Twitter account to connect and engage with the American people.

While the billionaire real estate mogul has had an issue with various news outlets, cable new channels, and other members of the press, its been his war of words with CNN that have become the most heated. As seen on his Twitter account on February 12, the president is back at it, this time dragging Sen. Bernie Sanders into the equation.

While on FAKE NEWS @CNN, Bernie Sanders was cut off for using the term fake news to describe the network. They said technical difficulties!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017

During an interview with CNN on Saturday, Bernie Sanders jokingly brought up the allegations that the network was "Fake News." Moments later, the Vermont senator was taken off the air due to the channel having alleged problems with the video stream.

Many questioned whether or not CNN was honest in why they ended the interview with Sanders, which was the target of Trump's tweet. "While on FAKE NEWS @CNN, Bernie Sanders was cut off for using the term fake news to describe the network," the president tweeted, before adding, "They said technical difficulties!"

WATCH: Bernie Sanders is dropped from CNN right after joking that the network is "fake news." pic.twitter.com/ZYRAb8jK2R  Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 11, 2017

Grudge match

This isn't the first time that Donald Trump has questioned the credibility of the network.

Not long after he was sworn into office, Trump held a press conference inside Trump Tower in New York City. During the press conference, Trump refused to allow CNN reporter Jim Acosta to even ask a question, while publicly humiliating him in the process. Turning to Acosta, the former host of "The Apprentice" stated, "You're fake news," before moving on to the next question. As Trump completes his third week in the White House, it doesn't appear that his relationship with the media will be improving anytime soon.
One of the benefits of President Barack Obamas reopening of relations with Cuba was supposed to be a new tourist industry. Americans would be able to jet down to the island paradise just 90 miles away, untouched by civilization, and be able to buy Cuban cigars and rum to bring back home after a few days of lolling on the beach and exploring the quaint colonial architecture of old Havana. The reality, according to the Miami Herald, has not lived up to its promise. Two airlines, Frontier and Silver, have canceled flights to Cuba citing weak demand and high costs.

Of course, one cannot, strictly speaking, take a vacation in Cuba, thanks to the persistence of the economic embargo. But Americans can get around that stricture by calling the trip a family visit or an educational tour. Even so, once the novelty wore off, few people have the urge to take an airliner to visit what is, even after the normalization of relations, a Communist tyranny.

While Cuba remains a favorite tourist destination for Europeans and Canadians, Americans seem to be shying away from visiting the island. Part of the reason may be that so many better resort facilities exist at other destinations in the Caribbean. Cuba has been trying to jump-start its tourism industry, which was essentially ruined after the Communist revolution in the late 1950s.

But the government of Raul Castro, brother of the recently departed Fidel, despite its best efforts to bring about a form of perestroika to the islands economy, has thus far fallen short. Amenities at Cuban tourist hotels, especially Wi-Fi connections, are still not quite up to snuff.

Also, President Donald Trump looms over Cuba and its tourism industry.

On the one hand, Trump is very familiar with how resorts are built and run, having done both when he was in the private sector. He might be inclined to lift more restrictions on American travel to Cuba in exchange for more economic reforms and a more civilized approach to human rights.

On the other hand, Cuba remains an enemy of the United States, even decades after the fall of the Soviet Empire. Trump does not make it a habit of appeasing enemies. Cuba will have to reach out to the United States before the current president will respond favorably.
More proof, if it is needed, that the Trump administration regards North Korea as a serious problem, if not a clear and present danger, came in the form of news from the Yonhap News Agent that American special operations units will practice a strike at that countrys command and control structure. The idea is that in the event of war, Seal Team Six, the Army Special Forces, Delta Force and the Army Rangers would kill as many of North Koreas political and military leadership as possible, starting with the mad, bad and dangerous to know Kim Jong-un.

The practice is part of larger military exercises called Foal Eagle and Key Resolve.

The Trump administration has also quickly moved a variety of weapons systems to South Korea, including a THAAD antimissile battery, B 52s, and attack drones. It seems that the new president looks upon a nuclear North Korea that is testing ballistic missiles as something to be concerned about.

Likely not unrelated is the fact that Trump will have Chinese leader Xi Jinping over to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Almost certainly the subject of North Korea will come up. North Korea will on occasion listen to China because it is economically dependent on its giant neighbor to the north. The North Koreans also remember that China saved them from annihilation when it intervened during the Korean War when General Douglas Macarthurs army was on the brink of overrunning the country all the way up to the Yalu River.

Trump will likely put a deal before Xi that, in effect, asks China to bring Kin to heal or the United States will do it for him. The Chinese have enjoyed sitting back and watching North Korea give the West headaches with its roguish behavior. But a group of people steeped in the strategic writings of Sun Tzu must realize that there are limits.

A war on the Korean Peninsula would be ruinous, even if China decided to sit it out this time. Such a war would likely end with a united and Democratic Korea, albeit the worst for wear, on its southern border. That situation is something that Beijing is keen to avoid at all hazards. Hence, China may well take Trumps deal.
It happened on Friday this week, as Kansas resident Daquantrius S. Johnson was facing trial over a 2014 charge of firearm possession, criminal discharge of a firearm and aggravated assault. However, Johnsons felony convictions were thrown out after the judge presiding over the trial nodded off during the proceedings. On Friday, the Kansas Court of Appeals ordered a new trial, saying Johnson was entitled to a fair trial, due to the fact that Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess apparently got bored during court testimony and fell asleep on the bench.

As reported by The Kansas City Star, the court ruled that they could see no other option than granting the defendant a new trial, due to the situation.

One of the jurors spotted the district court judge nodding off on the bench

Reportedly it was one of the jurors in the matter who first noticed that the judge had fallen asleep and immediately told the courts bailiff. Reportedly the juror was asking the bailiff whether, in the circumstances, Johnson was going to receive a fair trial. The bailiff then spoke to the judge (apparently waking him up in the process), who later addressed the jury.

Reportedly Judge Burgess informed the jury that their job is to try the facts, but that it was his job to decide what evidence they would hear and what instructions they would receive during the trial.

He said that he didnt believe any objections had been raised during the course of the trial that would need his attention and would have to make rulings on, or that would have been affected by the fact that he fell asleep on duty.

New trial because Sedgwick County judge nodded off during first one https://t.co/IZJKcrRFX1  WE_Tweet (@WE_Tweet) March 10, 2017

Johnsons attorney was asked if he wanted a mistrial

Reportedly Judge Burgess then asked the attorney acting for Johnson if he would like to request a mistrial but said attorney apparently declined to accept that offer.

However, despite this decision by his attorney, Johnson was reportedly able to raise the issue on appeal. Fox News reports that the Associated Press had tried to contact Burgess for comment, but their message did not immediately receive a response.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their score on the Republican Health Care Bill that was released to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and it doesn't look good. In response, Donald Trump took to Twitter give his thoughts.

Trump on Twitter

For eight years, Republicans have railed against Obamacare, vowing to repeal former President Barack Obama's landmark piece of legislation. Republicans voted 60 times to repeal the health care law during Obama's time in office, but it never made it through for obvious reasons. With the election of Donald Trump, and Republicans in full control of Congress, it was only a matter of time before they pulled the trigger on a replacement.

On Monday, the CBO released their analysis of the GOP bill, and found that 14 million people will lose health care coverage over the next year, with as many as 26 million losing insurance over the next decade. As seen on his Twitter account on March 13, Trump has decided to lash out.

If Obamacare is so great, why'd they spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to 'hype' it? BAD! #RepealAndReplace https://t.co/5mur5pIFQz  President Trump (@POTUS) March 13, 2017

Just moments after the CBO released their score of the Republican health care bill, Donald Trump hit back at Obamacare on social media. Using the offical presidential account, Trump did his best to shift the narrative back to the current law.

"If Obamacare is so great, why'd they spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to 'hype' it?" Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday night, before adding, "BAD!" The president also used the hashtag "#RepealAndReplace" in an attempt to have his agenda trend on Twitter.

24 million fewer Americans will have health insurance by 2026 under the GOP plan, non-partisan budget office says https://t.co/pxnFx4WXuA  CNN (@CNN) March 13, 2017

CBO breakdown

Further information released by the CBO found that by 2026, a total of 52 million Americans would be without health insurance, compared to 28 million if Obamacare stays the law of the land.

The reaction to the bill came mostly along party lines, but not all conservatives were on board. Sen. Rand Paul spoke out against the bill, labeling it "Obamacare lite," while engaging in a public spat with House Speaker Paul Ryan. The bright-spot promoted by Republicans and the right-wing media is that their bill would decrease the federal deficit by nearly $340 billion over the next 10 years.
Just a week after Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of finding a way engage in the wiretapping of Trump Tower, one of his top advisers is adding to the conspiracy. After Conway made questionable comment on the issue during a recent interview, even a host on Fox News appears to have had enough.

Fox News on Conway

President Donald Trump needed to find a way to deflect media attention away from the possible scandal in his administration linking the White House to Russia, and did so by targeting Barack Obama. Trump went on a Twitter tirade last weekend, claiming, without evidence, that the former commander in chief bugged his Trump Tower offices, while comparing Obama to Richard Nixon.

Since then, no proof has been released to substantiate the allegations, but that hasn't stopped members of his administration from backing off the claims in question. Presidential Counsel Kellyanne Conway spoke with the USA Today over the weekend, and appeared to hint that the Obama administration used televisions sets and microwaves disguised as cameras to spy on the former host of "The Apprentice." Backlash quickly followed, with Conway being mocked by nearly all of the mainstream media, which was on display during a March 13 segment on Fox News.

While running a segment on the baseless wiretapping conspiracy, Fox News host Shepard Smith called out and trolled Kellyanne Conway over her comments.

"Kellyanne Conway, whom we really dont quote much anymore because, well, history," Smith said, while citing Conway's recent comments to USA Today.

#FakeNewsAlert & why so many people don't trust what they read Headlines don't match story. Never made nexus. https://t.co/4iSZe0HIKr  Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) March 13, 2017

"Microwaves do not turn into cameras.

Fox News can now confirm microwaves heat food," Shepard Smith pointed out, before mockingly noting that "cameras take pictures, microphones dont have cameras, and microphones cannot turn into cameras." In conclusion, Smith jokingly confirmed that Fox News was able to verify the information he listed.

Conway speaks

In response the backlash she received from her remarks, Kellyanne Conway took to Twitter to lash out.

Conway referred to the USA Today as "fake news," appearing to call the newspaper out for taking her words out of context. Conway also appeared on CNN and "Good Morning American" on Monday in an attempt to defend herself, but the damage had already been done, only adding to the controversy that surrounds the former Trump campaign manager.
Earlier this week, the Republican Party finally put forward their official bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. While the bill has received support from President Donald Trump, not all conservatives are impressed.

Palin on health care

Not long after Donald Trump announced his campaign for president, he vowed to be the person to finally "repeal and replace" Obamacare. By the start of 2016, former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became one of the first high-profiled Republicans to publicly support the former host of "The Apprentice, and has stood by his side ever since.

Palin's support of Trump, which included his opposition to Obamacare, became so great that the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee was even rumored to join the the ticket, until the position was filled by current Vice President Mike Pence. Though Palin has been a strong advocate for the billionaire real estate mogul, she doesn't appear on board with Trump's health care replacement. As reported by The Hill on March 11, Palin didn't hold back her thoughts during a recent interview.

While speaking to Breitbart News on Saturday, Sarah Palin was critical of the Republican health care alternative, and didn't refrain from her honesty.

"I am tempted to say not another word from our fearless leaders about this new form of Obamacare that Im going to call RINO-care," Palin said, before adding, "this is government-controlled health care." The former governor of Alaska then labeled the GOP bill as "un-affordable," "unsustainable," "unwanted," and "unconstitutional," while claiming it was a "new quasi-reformed proposal," that includes aspects of "socialism."

Trump threatens GOP: Back health bill or get primaried https://t.co/CJ0cO4s7df pic.twitter.com/MJawzQxM69  Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 10, 2017

Health care crash

Sarah Palin went on to say that she does have "great faith" that Donald Trump will be able to "fix" the bill that was proposed by Republicans in the House of Representatives, but that appears to be at odds with how the president is looking at the matter.

During a meeting last week with Republican members of Congress, Trump reportedly threatened those who oppose the bill, warning that he could make sure they are hit with a primary challenge during the next election.
In George Orwells classic political allegory Animal Farm the animals who fought for their freedom wrote in their constitution All animals are equal, as the ruling pigs grab power this phrase loses it meaning. Orwell wrote about the Soviet dictatorship and while we do not believe that this will happen in the United States we must wonder whether or not there are those who want to modify the concept of equality as happens in the book.

Deadline

On Saturday the House Intelligence Committee wrote to the White House in reply to the accusations made by President #Donald Trump of wiretapping of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign which he alleged was ordered by Barack Obamas Administration.

No proof was given and it became a focal point of political discussion during the following week.

Given the background of the ongoing allegations of Russian hacking of the campaign in favour of the now President, the accusation could be interpreted in a number of ways, both in support or condemnation of Donald Trump. Thus it could not remain unchallenged by the countrys institutions.

The letter to the White House requesting the proof of the accusation or its withdrawal was signed by the House Intelligence Chair Republican David Nunes and leading Democrat of the committee Adam Schiff and gave Monday as the deadline for the reply.

The only reply was a request for more time from the Justice Department late on Monday.

Press Officers

The matter was kept in the public spotlight when two of the White Houses ranking staff members, Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Senior Advisor Kellyanne Conway attempted to interpret the meaning of the originals tweets that sparked the accusation. These explanations only revealed the inconsistencies of the accusation and that they themselves knew little or nothing that could provide solid proof to support it.

Yet the missed deadline also highlights another fact that will now take centre stage over the next few days.

Rights and duties

The countrys Constitution gives all citizens equal rights under the Law, but these rights are also counterbalanced by the duty of citizens to respect the Constitution of the land together with its laws and institutions.

The late reply to the request by the House Intelligence Committee did not observe that respect. Now the question must be asked, how will the Committee react? It is to be hoped that the resident of the Oval Office will be treated as any normal citizen that does not obey the legal requirement of any recognized authority.

In fact the holder of the highest Office in the land should be held more accountable for his actions as he should set the example which other citizens should follow.

The next step

At this stage it is still too early to know what the next step will be, but the House Intelligence Committee has set in motion a procedure that must be followed to its logical and expected conclusion, no matter who the subject is.

This is expected not only by citizens, but also by the Constitution that considers all citizens equal before the law

In a period where executive orders are being challenged as they deal with specific categories of people this principle should apply even more than before.

At the same time the White House should address the matter as quickly as possible, not just to satisfy its obligations, but above all to put to rest the doubts created by the accusation. In fact, it would do well to answer because the derision that the accusation has caused is even more damaging than the doubts raised.

While satire plays an important part of debate in any form, derision that leads to a loss of respect for any institution is not healthy and it is the responsibility of the institution not to attract such derision.

In Orwells Animal farm the modification to their constitution read But some animals are more equal than others, let us hope nobody wants to see the countrys constitution interpreted in the same way.

That would be a road nobody wants to take.
All forms of the Press from the newspapers to television networks and now internet sites have their opinions of matters of public interest. Some of these have opinion writers of differing beliefs that give opposing views in their pages, but only one site has its former head in the White House. What role does Breitbart News now play in American politics?

Audio tape

Yesterday Breitbart News released an audio tape of Republican House Leader Paul Ryan who stated during the election campaign that he would not defend #Donald Trump. This came in the course of a conference call following the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which the then The Apprentice' host made some controversial comments about women.

This tape was one of the factors that led to the National Womens March on the day after Donald Trumps Inauguration.

These comments were not surprising. Paul Ryan had publicly stated his position of his Partys candidate, but what makes yesterdays release of particular interest is the date of release and also the presence of former Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist in the White House.

The release comes at a time that many Republican Congressmen and Senators are opposing the plan presented by Ryan to replace Obamacare. Growing worries about the electoral impact of the legislation particularly in light of the recent stormy town hall meetings around the country have raised fears for next years midterms.

In a recent tweet President Donald Trump alluded to the possibility of presenting challenging recalcitrant Republicans at the Primaries if they voted against the proposed legislation.

Controversial

The presence of Steve Bannon in the White House has been controversial since his appointment at its Chief Strategist and was further cause of debate when he was nominated to sit on the National Security Council.

The former Breitbart News chief has been accused of being a white supremacist and as having too much influence over President Donald Trump. These issues are now coming to a head with the release of this tape on the part of Breitbart News.

With the growing conflict within the Republican Party over a number of issues such as the Russian interference in the campaign, the accusation by President Trump of wiretapping of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign ordered by the Obama Administration and now with ever more vigour over the repeal and replacement of Obamacare the tape is destined to make the conflict greater.

Tactical move

In fact, with the presence of Steve Bannon in the White House the tapes release seems to be a politically inspired move rather than a scoop by the media site that it purports to be.

While newspapers are often used by politicians to embarrass their opponents this move seems particularly hazardous for a Republican oval office challenged by numbers of fellow Republicans and not limited only to Paul Ryan. It has taken the Republican infighting to a new level.

The fact that this was then done by the controversial and politically aligned Breitbart News can only lead the public to believe that this was done under the orders of Steve Bannon with the approval of Donald Trump.

It is too early to know what the consequences of the release will be for Paul Ryan and the Republican Party, but the issue does raise one important question.

Does yesterdays release now mean that Breitbart News speaks on behalf of the White House?

If so, this could have unforeseen consequences on American politics and therefore should be clarified as soon as possible. Private news agencies have no business being the voice of the highest Office of the land.
The second issue that dominated political news last week was the proposal by Republican House Leader Paul Ryan for the proposed replacement of Obamacare that was an important part of Donald Trumps successful campaign for the Oval Office. This plan was examined by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and will give more ammunition for the opponents of the new Bill, including within the Republican party. Yesterday the CBO told the country that 24 million would be affected by the new Bill.

Australia

In order to make sense of the numbers of people that will be affected by the proposed law Americans should think of Australia.

Like the cold statistics provided by the CBO that countrys population is only slightly larger at approximately 26 million. This gives an excellent example of how wide the effects of Ryans plan will be.

Australia has large numbers of people who are affected by cancer, heart disease, autism, congenital defects, diabetes, psoriasis and every form of condition that will affect the health of an individual. There are the numbers that will suffer in the United States under the loss of their health insurance.

Tweets and statistics

Yesterday President #Donald Trump made a tweet defending the proposed plan, but like the cold statistics the automatic knee jerk defence of the proposal Republicans must not forget one undeniable fact.

The 24 million mentioned are not cold numbers on a piece of paper, they are 24 million people who will have the quality of their lives affected by the Bill, without forgetting their relatives and friends who will witness directly the consequences of the eventual approval of the Bill.

To this must be added one final detail, these are also potentially 24 million voters who will take their protests to the voting booth in the midterms and also the next presidential election in 2020.

Are the Republicans willing to face these consequences and to pay the electoral price for a philosophical battle that will change the lives of ten of millions for the worse?

Party versus the Oval Office

Considering the now forgotten detail that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote on November 8th by nearly 3 million votes, the Republican Party is making a very good job of turning a minor electoral disadvantage into a large mountain to climb in the future.

Donald Trumps tweet yesterday was not directed at the public but at the Republican Senators and Congressmen which have publicly aired their misgivings over the proposed legislation. Donald Trumps message also came with the hint that he may present opponents for the Primaries against recalcitrant Republicans, but this will only worsen the Partys political future.

Like the lack of reply to the House Intelligence Committees request for proof of the Presidents accusation of wiretapping of Trump Tower, the battleground is being prepared for a conflict between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch dominated by the same Party.

Important reminder

In the middle of this possible decisive battle the citizens have been forgotten; the ones who will pay the eventual toll of the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

These should be the priority of politicians, not squabbles between factions and individuals within the Republican Party.

As we wait to see the outcome of this political battle we also wonder when the Republican Senators and Democrats will remember that they do not represent their Party. They are the Senators for their States and Congressmen for their constituencies and therefore ostensibly represent their constituents.

Will the reminder come during the next few weeks, or will the citizens remind them in the ballot box at the midterms? We will not have long to wait, the midterms are only next year.
Ever since he kicked off his campaign for president, Donald Trump has made a habit out of creating new, or extending old, rivals with politicians, the media, and even celebrities. After Trump unloaded on mark cuban on Sunday morning, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks answered back.

Cuban on Trump

During the course of the 2016 presidential election, Mark Cuban was outspoken in his opposition to Donald Trump. After originally giving the former host of "The Apprentice" a chance, Cuban quickly reversed course, and eventually endorsed Hillary Clinton in the general election.

With Cuban being a billionaire himself, the rivalry between the two money men came naturally. Earlier this week, Cuban spoke out against Trump and his recent "Muslim ban," which didn't sit well with the new commander in chief. "I know Mark Cuban well. He backed me big-time but I wasn't interested in taking all of his calls," Trump tweeted, before saying Cuban was "not smart enough" to even run for the presidency. As seen on his offical Twitter account on February 12, the co-host of the reality show "Shark Tank" is now giving his response.

Initially replying with a simple "LOL," Mark Cuban was then asked by a follower what the back story was to his actual feud with Donald Trump.

"I don't know," Cuban answered on Twitter, before rhetorically asking and throwing shade at Trump by noting, "But isn't it better for all of us that he is tweeting rather than trying to govern?"

I don't know. But isn't it better for all of us that he is tweeting rather than trying to govern ? https://t.co/953MuEdfeu  Mark Cuban (@mcuban) February 12, 2017

Trump's Twitter

Days after he pulled off the upset and defeated Hillary Clinton on Election Day, Donald Trump addressed his social media use during an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes." In response, Trump vowed to become "very restrained" once he entered the White House, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

In the three weeks that he's been the leader of the free world, Trump has only increased his presence on Twitter, often starting his day by airing his grievances on his social media feed. Backlash often results, but Trump has been adamant about using Twitter as his number one form of communication, which has become even more vital as his war of words with the mainstream media heat ups.
As has been the case for the last year and a half, "Saturday Night Live" took aim at President Donald Trump during their most recent episode. With Alec Baldwin hosting, various segments mocked the new commander in chief and his administration.

"SNL" on Trump

When "Saturday Night Live" returned from an off week last weekend, they quickly ran several skits focusing on Donald Trump and his administration. In addition to Alec Baldwin playing the part of the billionaire real estate mogul, Melissa McCarthy was tapped to portray White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

The segment with McCarthy instantly went viral, and was considered the highlight of the show. In the days that followed, Trump was unusually quiet in his criticism of the show, with reports stating that the president was upset that Spicer's role was played by a woman. As seen on the February 11 edition of "SNL," Trump and company were once again the focal point and the butt of the joke.

Once again, Melissa McCarthy returned to mock Sean Spicer, trolling the press secretary for his gum chewing. McCarthy went through the president's daily schedule, where she humorously struggled to pronounce the names of foreign leaders. McCarthy then took questions from the press, starting with a "stupid" question for a satirical New York Times reporter.

Cutting back on the gum to just one piece this week. #SNL pic.twitter.com/E6XjzLunFs  Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) February 12, 2017

After being pressed on the "Muslim ban," McCarthy ripped into "Glenn Thrush" before moving to the next the question. The imposer Spicer, who vowed to be calm, started losing "his" cool, using Barbie dolls and action figures to explain the extreme vetting process.

The next part of the skit mocked Kellyanne Conway for referencing the nonexistent "Bowling Green Massacre," with McCarthy also citing terrorist attacks in "Fraggle Rock" and "Six Flags." After a reporter attempted to fact-check the press secretary, "Spicer" sucked up the list of facts with a vacuum before attacking the rest of the media.

Next up

With Donald Trump ending only his first month in office, "Saturday Night Live" is expected to have much more material to work with over the next four years. While Trump has been vocal with his opposition of "SNL" in the past, he has been quiet in recent weeks, but could vent on social media at any moment.
Jana Duggar is the oldest daughter still living at home and not Married. Her other sisters have either moved out and got married or are close to it. Everyone has wondered why Jana Duggar isn't married yet, but she is speaking out in a new interview and says that she knows what it is like to wait on "Prince Charming." Jana doesn't want to be with just anyone.

What did Jana reveal in her new interview?

Jana actually doesn't do a lot of interviews, but she spoke with the Christian magazine Crown of Beauty. This is a bit hard on her, though. Jana said, "Waiting is not always easy.

Especially in those times when all the married siblings are getting together and you cant go along because your not part of that group." Jana Duggar is happy at home with her family, though.

One thing that Jana Duggar talked about is that she does enjoy doing chores and things at home to help the family out. It keeps her busy, too. She says if she is having a hard day then she will find a way to serve or bless someone. That can always make Jana feel a bit better about what is going on in her life.

Jana Duggar does want to get married at some point, though. She said, "There have been different guys come along and ask, but they havent been, I dont know, the right one. Im not just out to get married to the first one that comes along.

I mean, sometimes it can be tempting. Its like, Oh, I really want to be married!" Jana isn't going to just settle for the first guy that comes along, and you can't blame her for being that way about it. Right now, Jana is just content with where God has her, and she will just see how it goes. Hopefully, she will eventually find the perfect guy for her and end up getting married.

It doesn't sound like there is anyone special in her life just yet.

Are you shocked that Jana Duggar isn't married yet? Do you think that she is just waiting for the right guy? Sound off in the comments section below on your thoughts, and don't miss "Counting On" when it returns to TLC this summer. The exact return date has not been revealed yet.
Greg and Cathy Crowell of Canada are shown with Hosanna, an abandoned child they adopted from a welfare house in Guizhou province in 2007.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Canadian foster parents search for abandoned child's family members

Local authorities in Southwest China's Guizhou province began a search on Friday for possible siblings of a girl who was abandoned about 10 years ago and was later adopted by a Canadian couple.

If they succeed, it means the girl will have a good chance of curing her disease through a bone-marrow transplant.

The girl, named Hosanna, was left alone on the doorsteps of Tianzhu county police station at dawn on May 6, 2007, according to the county's police department. When they failed to find her parents, the police sent her to a local welfare house, where she was named Chen Fupei and given a presumed birthday that made her 1 year old.

Greg Crowell and Cathy Crowell, a couple who are now in their 50s and already had four children, adopted the pale-looking girl from the welfare house later that month, knowing that she had a disease.

They gave her a new name. "We called her 'Hosanna', which is Hebrew for 'savior'," Cathy Crowell said.

They took her to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, where pediatric doctors from Nanfang Hospital affiliated to Southern Medical University diagnosed her with severe beta thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder resulting from the poor ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen.

Following doctors' advice, Hosanna has spent her life receiving blood transfusions every two to three weeks, as well as daily injections to remove excessive iron from the transfusions.

"Every night she needs to be given an injection," Cathy Crowell said. "It is all very difficult for her."

"Hosanna can survive with blood transfusions, but she will need them for her entire life," she added.

In the past decade, Hosanna, who will celebrate her 11th birthday this spring, has been living in Alberta, Canada, with the couple. They have returned to the welfare house during that time, but have had no luck in finding her biological parents.

Doctors in China and Canada have told the couple that the only way to cure Hosanna is through a bone-marrow transplant, which requires a match that is most likely to be found in a sibling.

The couple recently posted an open letter online, announcing the search for relatives of the girl. They offered to cover the cost of blood tests to find a match "because these people could possibly help Hosanna in a physical way that we will never be able to", Cathy Crowell said.

The letter caught the attention of the authorities in Tianzhu, who have pledged to assist the couple in their search.

Led by the local internet information office, a notice was made to spread Hosanna's story in the hope of tracking down a relative. Copies of the notice were given out to local school heads, who were told to pass them on to students and parents.

While there have been no leads so far, the couple said they remain hopeful.

"We do not want to pressure them. They need our respect and we want them to come forward on their own. This is not easy for them," Cathy Crowell said.

Nevertheless, the couple have been introducing Hosanna to Chinese culture and she has been learning Mandarin for five years.

"We hope that one day she can help us visit China and be our interpreter," Cathy Crowell said.
China is sending a senior Foreign Ministry official to a high-level dialogue on Asia-Pacific economic integration to be held in Chile starting Tuesday.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing on Monday that the gathering is "not a meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as some media have said".

China's Special Representative on Latin American Affairs Yin Hengmin will lead a delegation to the meeting, which will see an "extensive exchange of views over the next step in Asia-Pacific regional cooperation", Hua said.

"China hopes the meeting will contribute to pushing forward the process of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, the construction of an open economy in the Asia-Pacific and promoting economic integration of the region," said the spokeswoman.

Representatives from 15 countries, covering all signatories of the TPP, all members of the Pacific Alliance - a Latin American trade bloc - as well as China and the Republic of Korea, were invited to the two-day meeting to be held in the Chilean city of Vina del Mar, according to the website of the Chilean General Directorate of International Economic Relations.

Hua said China's position on the TPP has not changed, which is to work with all parties to push forward Asia-Pacific economic integration for the benefit of all countries and all peoples in the region.

In an earlier news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang was asked whether China would play a bigger role and benefit from United States' withdrawal from the TPP. "Affairs in the Asia-Pacific should be decided upon consultation among all countries in the region, rather than being dictated by one country," Geng said.

He said China is open to all trade arrangements "that are conducive to economic integration in the Asia-Pacific, liberalization and facilitation of regional trade and investment, and common development and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific".

Chen Fengying, a researcher in global economy at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said China sending a delegation to attend the meeting shows it is taking "a more active attitude" and shouldering more responsibility in global trade.

The meeting will focus on Asia-Pacific cooperation after the US withdrawal from the TPP, rather than the TPP itself, Chen said.

A major issue of the meeting will be how to promote integration of the Asia-Pacific to further enhance globalization, she said.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned on Monday of a disastrous outcome if a trade war breaks out between the United States and China.

Bishop said China and the US cannot afford to wage a trade war. "I believe that both sides have too much at stake for there to be a trade war," she told Bloomberg News in Singapore, as quoted in a story by the Australia Associated Press.

"The United States has issues with China, China has issues with the United States, but I believe they can be resolved by high level consultation and discussion and I hope that we see that," she said.

Zhong Shan, China's new minister of commerce, said last Saturday that Sino-US economic and trade cooperation is very much in the interest of both countries. "A trade war does not meet the fundamental interests of the two countries, neither the two peoples. It will be a disaster for the global economy," he told a press conference in Beijing.

Observers have warned that a US trade war with China is a trade war with Asia, due to the close interdependence of the Asian economies, where China is often a country's top trade partner.

Bob Carr, Bishop's predecessor, made similar comments last week. He told Sky News on March 7 that it was imperative Australian diplomacy efforts be directed toward persuading the Trump administration out of "anything that reeks of a trade war with China".

"This is the touchstone, this is the key issue: trade. And it's one where Australia has a big stake. If Trump accepts the advice of extremists and mavericks, he's appointed to trade positions then there will be an attempt to block Chinese imports," Carr said.

"That is going to lower the rate of Chinese economic growth, it's going to affect all Asian economies and it's most certainly going to affect the Australian economy," Carr added.

China is Australia's top trade partner, absorbing a third of Australia's exports. Japan and the US are respectively Australia's No 2 and No 3 trade partners.

Carr did not name "the extremists and mavericks" he was referring to. Experts have expressed concerns over the protectionist sentiments expressed by Trump's new director of the National Trade Council Peter Navarro and his nominee for US trade representative, Robert Lighthizer.

During the presidential campaign, Trump threatened high tariffs on Chinese exports and to name China a currency manipulator, but he has since softened his tone on those issues.

David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, pointed out the inconsistent views by Trump's economic and trade officials. "Usually that means within a year, some start winning, some start losing, some leave probably," he told China Daily.

"I do think if the Trump administration does any major protectionist measures against China, I am sure that China will retaliate in a major way. And that will be quite bad for our two economies," he said. "I think a real trade war is unlikely."

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
US congressmen have joined activists to condemn the Japanese government's involvement in a lawsuit demanding the removal of a "comfort women" memorial statue in the Southern California city of Glendale.

"Sadly, some in the Japanese government continue to deny the existence of comfort women or the plight they suffered at the hands of the Imperial Army," said Ed Royce, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives.

"It is equally egregious that the Japanese government continues to support efforts to force Glendale to remove this memorial to hundreds of thousands of victims of military sexual slavery," he said in a statement.

The lawsuit against Glendale was filed in 2014. The plaintiffs claim the city unconstitutionally disrupted the US government's foreign policy and relationship with Japan by approving the "comfort women" statue for the city's central park.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a US District Court in 2015, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in August 2016. A request for a rehearing was denied by the appellate court in October.

In January, the case was brought to the US Supreme Court, and the Japanese government recently filed an amicus brief.

Japan's interference with the case drew an immediate backlash from the statue's supporters, including Congressmen Ed Royce and Adam Schiff and former Congressman Mike Honda.

"As Americans, it is our duty to always defend free speech and seek justice on behalf of the victims of human rights abuses, both past and present," said Royce.

Though the abuses took place more than 70 years ago, they are an issue for the present day, because demanding accountability for past abuses helps prevent future ones, he said.

In 2007, Honda and Royce co-authored House Resolution 121 calling on the Japanese government to acknowledge, apologize and accept responsibility for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery during its occupation of Asia and the Pacific. The resolution was passed in July 2007.

"The amicus brief will only serve to provide continued opportunities to teach and have a platform in the highest court of our land, from which we can replicate what grandmother Haksoon Kim has done in August of 1991 in Japan's District Court, where decades of silence of shame turned to demands for justice and apology," said Honda in a statement.

The 1,100-pound bronze statue depicts a girl in Korean garb sitting next to an empty chair and was erected in Glendale's Central Park in 2013. Funded by Korean groups, the statue was dedicated to comfort women, a term the Japanese government used for its military's notorious sex slavery of an estimated 200,000 women before and during World War II.

"I first visited this monument in 2014 and was taken by the beautiful serene memorial as an appropriate expression of our determination not to allow the suffering of the comfort women to pass into history unremembered," said Schiff in a statement.

"The cause of justice and human rights is never advanced by the denial of crimes against humanity, and it is our shared charge to hold close the memories of the 200,000 women enslaved, and to honor their memory," he said.

Glendale also filed respondent's brief last month, calling for denial of the petition.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com
BEIJINGChongqing in southwest China does not produce any potassium fertilizer itself, but it will become a sales hub for it thanks to rail routes linking the city to Europe.

"In late March, the first train loaded with 500 metric tons of potassium fertilizer produced in Kazakhstan will reach Chongqing on its return from Germany," said the city's Economy and Information Technology Commission.

The city plans to import 3 million tons of fertilizer from Kazakhstan each year through the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe Railway by 2020, for domestic distribution and delivery to Japan and Southeast Asia.

"The Belt and Road Initiative creates enormous opportunities for bilateral economic and trade cooperation," said Zhang Jun, board chairman of a potassium company in Kazakhstan.

Chongqing had 420 freight trains to and from Europe last year.

The city has been one of the most active provincial-level regions to implement the China-proposed initiative aimed at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient Silk Road trade routes.

Since 2013, the increasingly influential initiative has boosted trade and investment between China and economies along the routes and offered a solution to global economic difficulties.

China's combined imports and exports with economies along the Belt and Road topped 6.3 trillion yuan ($912 billion) in 2016, up 0.6 percent from 2015, according to China's Ministry of Commerce.

Chinese businesses helped build 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 countries along the routes with a combined investment surpassing $18.5 billion, generating nearly $1.1 billion in tax revenue and 180,000 jobs in those countries.

For example, Chinese-operated Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone in Cambodia has attracted 102 companies from China, Japan, the United States and Europe.

"The economic zone served as a platform for Chinese enterprises to participate in the Belt and Road (Initiative)," said Zhou Haijiang, president of HoDo Group based in China's eastern Jiangsu province, the developer of the 5-square-kilometer zone.

"Chinese enterprises went global and boosted local development in economies along the Belt and Road (region) on a win-win basis," said Liu Zhibiao, a national political adviser and professor in economics at Nanjing University.

"The Belt and Road Initiative has become the most popular public good and a platform for international cooperation ... (promising the) brightest prospects for the world," said Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister, on Wednesday on the sidelines of the annual legislative session.

More than 20 heads of state and governments, over 50 leaders of international organizations, over 100 ministerial-level officials, as well as over 1,200 delegates from various countries and regions will participate in the Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation in May in Beijing.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is against narrow-minded protectionism and isolationism," said Sergei Luzyanin, director of the Far Eastern Studies Institute under the Russian Academy of Sciences. "We only had the Western European-American option of integration and economic development in the 1990s, now there is a new option from China."
"I'm deeply distressed at the desecration of Jewish cemeteries," said my colleague Sharif at the weekly chaplains' staff meeting at our small liberal arts college.

"I'm deeply distressed by the mosques set afire," I said to him in return.

We both find hope in stories of interfaith solidarity across what can be a contentious divide between the children of Ismail and the children of Yitzchak . We've read about Muslims raising money to repair Jewish tombstones, and Jews raising money to refurbish torched mosques, and we take heart from those things.

But what could we do on our little campus to foster that spirit of interfaith solidarity and to bring comfort to two minority religious communities whose members are likely sad and anxious about bomb threats at JCCs and reports of rising Islamophobia?

The answer turned out to be powerful and simple: pray in each others' religious spaces, with and for each other...
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PRETORIA  A Vietnamese delegation led by Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung is taking part in the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2017 (GEC 2017), which opened in Johannesburg, South Africa on Tuesday.

The event attracts more than 1,500 delegates who are entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers from over 100 countries.

South African Vice President Cyril Ramaphosa said entrepreneurship, especially by young firms, was a right direction amid the worlds current economic situation, particularly in Asia and Africa.

The congress, which will last through March 17, opens up new opportunities for regional and global businesses to enhance experience sharing, seek investment opportunities and boost co-operation. It will provide favourable conditions for participants to get connected, collect information, learn about new initiatives, and continue business ideas, he said.

Organisers said at the GEC 2017, participants could attend plenary sessions on policy making, new initiatives and development co-operation opportunities. They could also participate in discussions about start-up and business or gain an insight into projects and new business chances in the world and different regions or in a certain country they are interested in.

The event also features an exhibition on successful start-ups, big economic projects to be implemented around the globe, and activities of outstanding small- and medium-sized firms.  VNS
HA NOI  Ride-hailing firm Uber on Tuesday entered into a co-operation deal with the Viet Nam Youth Federation (VYF), a social organisation of Vietnamese youths aided by the Government to mentor start-ups.

The agreement is part of Ubers start-up initiative in Viet Nam called UberExchange.

UberExchange is part of Ubers mission to create a startup ecosystem with the VYF. All start-ups across the country are encouraged to apply for the programme through an online application process and global leaders at Uber will provide mentorship sessions from April to August 2017 with selected start-ups.

The sessions will culminate in a finale with Uber short-listing 10 start-ups who will present their business ideas. The startup with the most impressive presentation will be flown to San Francisco to meet Ubers senior leadership and potential investors.

Ubers goal is to stand side by side with the Vietnamese entrepreneur on the way to start their new business, helping them open their minds, as well as develop strategies for entrepreneurship, contributing to making Viet Nam become a regional start-up hub, said Mike Brown, Uber regional general manager for Asia-Pacific.

Viet Nam is a young country with many great young minds and an incredible focus and passion for education and innovation. Our goal is to help the young people to achieve their dreams. The way that people measure our success on this programme is by the number of young startups that we can assist and support, Brown said.

VYF believes that UberExchange will be an effective platform for Vietnamese youths and businesses to learn and share experiences, build a culture of entrepreneurship with practicality and creativity, encourage creative thinking, which acts as a springboard for a strong and sustainable development of Viet Nam in the future, said president of the Viet Nam Youth Federation Nguyen Phi Long.

Viet Nam is the second country in the world and the first in Southeast Asia that Uber introduced the UberExchange programme. The first country Uber launched the initiative in was India.  VNS
HCM CITY  The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and this citys Peoples Committee hosted the launch of Vietnamese Consumer Rights Day 2017, themed "Enterprise for Customers", here on March 12.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh said at the ceremony that this theme reinforced the important position and role of enterprises in protecting consumers, calling on enterprises to follow existing regulations on this issue.

This theme also reflected the commitment of state management agencies to create a business environment with healthy and equal competition for market development, he said.

On behalf of MoIT, the minister urged businesses to assert themselves through the best fulfillment of their obligation to secure the legitimate interests of consumers. The enterprises should consider the requirements and aspirations of consumers as the driving force of their competition and business development.

Announcing the plan on the occasion of Vietnamese Consumer Rights Day 2017, Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of the Peoples Committee of HCM City, said the peoples committees of municipal districts would strengthen their co-ordination to find solutions for consumer protection efforts, based on existing regulations.

Enterprises trading goods and services will take more responsibility for protecting customer rights, he said. In particular, social organisations that protect the customers interests and the media will actively raise public awareness of customer rights protection initiatives in the community.

Meanwhile, Phong said the citys authorities had pledged to actively build a healthy economic environment and ensure fair competition for enterprises in investment, business and responsibility on protecting interests of customers interests.

At the launch ceremony for the event, a representative of MoIT signed agreements with enterprises joining the Enterprises Actions for Customers 2017 programme. These enterprises included Prudential Vietnam Assurance Private Ltd, Sun Resources Food Co Ltd, Kim Hang Aluminum and Plastic Joint Stock Company, Mobifone Corporation and LOTTE Mart Viet Nam.

Nguyen To Kieu Trinh, marketing director of LOTTE Mart Viet Nam, said his company would work closely with MoIT to develop a customer protection programme to be deployed at its 13 trading centres and hypermarkets.

The Prime Ministers Decision 1035/Q-TTg, issued on July 10, 2015, set March 15 as Vietnamese Customer Rights Day.

The launch ceremony of the event is held on this date every year to confirm the importance of protecting the customers interests to ensure the stable and sustainable development of society and the nation. The event contributes to a healthy consumption environment for both customers and businesses.  VNS
HCM CITY  HCM Citys publishing houses have released dozens of new books featuring the history of South Viet Nam as part of the citys cultural activities to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of Reunification Day on April 30.

Tim Trong Di San Van Hoa Phuong Nam (Cultural Heritage of South Viet Nam), published by the HCM City Publishing House of Culture and Arts, features new documents on the history and folk literature of the southern provinces from 1900 to 1940.

The work was co-written by Nguyen ong Trieu and Phan Manh Hung, who both spent several years in collecting and researching documents.

Another book on the souths history by historian and author Huynh Lua was also released by the HCM City General Publishing House.

The book, Lich Su Khai Pha Vung at Nam Bo (History on Reclaiming South Viet Nam), features the southern land between the 17th century and the 20th century.

It includes documents and information about the regions politics, economy and culture in different periods.

New titles include a collection of old books featuring the history of South Viet Nam published by the Tre (Youth) Publishing House.

The collections 12 books, written in French by members of the Indochina Scientific Research Association, were translated into Vietnamese by a group of translators led by Nguyen Nghi.

The books are about the history and development of Gia inh, Ben Tre, Chau oc and Vinh Long.

Books featuring the Souths culture and lifestyle, written by researchers such as Vuong Hong Sen, Nguyen inh au and Nguyen ong Chi, are also available.  VNS
The head of the Ministry of Public Healths Department of Preventive Medicine, Tran ac Phu, speaks to the online VietnamPlus newspaper about the latest wave of whooping cough, which has killed five children.

In the last two months, there have been more than 55 cases of whooping cough in Viet Nam, mostly in children, according to the Department of Preventive Medicine. Five have died. How do you rate the development of the epidemic this year?

Whooping cough is a very strong and highly contagious disease of the respiratory tract, occurring more in cold, humid weather.

We have been monitoring the disease since 2012, and the number of cases has increased slightly. On average, there are over 100 cases every year. In the first few months of this year there have been several dozen cases, but mainly in the cold and wet weather. This is a very weather-sensitive type of respiratory disease. This also explains why most cases occur in the North. They are mostly concentrated in the Ha Noi area and the outbreak does not appear widespread, but we still have to be alert.

So is there anything special about the disease this year?

Most patients are children under 3 months old, as in the past. Most of them are under the age of immunisation or not yet fully immunised.

What kind of solutions does the health sector have to deal with whooping cough?

The keys are early detection, isolation, and timely treatment to minimise mortality.

Our view is that treatment must first reduce the number of deaths, so that even if the number of those affected is high, people will not be overly worried.

Therefore, early detection is very important. Medical workers at commune, district and provincial levels should be able to diagnose the disease correctly and provide timely treatment to prevent complications. Medical facilities need to be aware of cases, too, and avoid cross-contamination. Patients suspected of whooping cough should not be near other patients.

What advice do you to prevent whooping cough?

Over the past few years, thanks to good vaccination work, the number of whooping cough cases and diphtheria has decreased a lot. Parents should take their children to get vaccinated on time. For women of childbearing age who have never had whooping cough, the tetanus-pertussis-tetanus vaccine can be given to immunise mothers and their children. This vaccine is given to people aged 6-64.

According to the manufacturer, the vaccine can be used for pregnant women until the 20th week of pregnancy. However, the Ministry of Health is assigning the Drug Administration and the National Expanded Programme on Immunisation to review for specific guidelines.  VNS
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh yesterday accused China of infringing on Viet Nams sovereignty and urged it to respect international law.  VNA/VNS Photo Pham Kien

HA NOI  Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh yesterday accused China of infringing on Viet Nams sovereignty and urged it to respect international law.

He spoke in response to reports that China had opened an illegal tourism route to Hoang Sa (Paracel) Archipelago and that a Chinese coast guard vessel had pursued a Vietnamese fishing ship, coded QNg 95215 TS, in the area of Bach Quy (Passu Keah) Island in Hoang Sa.

In response to reporters question relating to Chinas actions, Binh said Viet Nam has sufficient legal foundation and historical evidence testifying to its sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos.

Those actions by China seriously infringed on Viet Nams sovereignty over Hoang Sa Archipelago, violated international law, ran counter to the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) signed in 2002 between ASEAN and China, as well as the agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues between Viet Nam and China, signed in October 2011, the spokesperson stressed.

Binh said Viet Nam adamantly objects to those actions and requests China to respect its sovereignty and international law. China must immediately stop such activities, and not repeat them, in order to make constructive contributions to peace and stability in the East Sea, Binh said.  VNS
HOI AN  The central province of Quang Nam is struggling to recruit doctors for public hospitals and clinics because of low pay and tough working conditions.

At the General Hospital in the tourist hotspot of Hoi An City, there are not enough doctors to serve local patients, with only six being hired under a three-year (2013-2015) provincial programme.

Nguyen Van Dung, Chairman of the Hoi An Peoples Committee, told Viet Nam News that the city needs to hire another 10 doctors.

The city hospital  a major health centre for local residents  has a total of 22 doctors, but only 16 are on duty for daily health examinations, Dung said.

He said the city plans to have doctors and nurses from local heath centres work at the hospital to use the overload on existing staff.

Hospital director inh Thi Thu Huong said only a third of its doctors had to provide medical examination to 400 patients each day.

Three doctors have to cover administrative tasks, while one has been assigned to working on Cham Island. Five doctors are in charge at pediatrics and obstetrics wards and others have to take time off after night duty, Huong said.

The hospital has had to employ retired doctors or urge doctors not to take days off, she said.

Huong said many doctors have reached retirement age, and several prefer to work at private hospitals or heath centres for better payment.

She said an experienced doctor can earn VN40 million (US$1,800) a month at a private hospital, while they were paid just VN5.4 million ($238) at a State-owned hospital.

She complained that young doctors received just VN2 million ($88.5)  even lower that old nurses, and the salary policy did not encourage young doctors to work at a hospital for long time.

The director also said some doctors left the hospital for private employment two or three years after they were funded to attend short-term training courses.

Huong said a doctor working at the State-run hospital only got VN50,000 ($2.2) for a night duty, while they could earn nine times as much at a private hospital.

In the mountainous Nam Tra My District, there are 17 doctors on the rolls, but just four serve at 10 health centres.

Director of the districts health centre, Tran Van Thu, said most doctors in the district were from ethnic minority communities with limited knowledge and skills.

He said it was risky to transport patients who needed emergency care to the provincial hospital around 100km away.

Another mountainous district, Phuoc Son, has 33 doctors covering 12 rural communes with poor traffic, medicines and equipment.

Tam Ky Citys North Quang Nam general hospital also needs to employ 50 doctors to provide healthcare services to 700 patients who come for health examinations each day, apart from 1,000 inpatients.

Preferential policies

Nguyen Van Hai, director of the provincial health department, said Quang Nam had allocated a budget of VN105 billion ($4.6 million) for the 2013-2015 period to hire 135 doctors to work at health centres and hospitals across the province.

The province offered them (doctors) from VN200 million ($8,800) to VN500 million ($22,000) (per year) each to get them to work in the province, and an additional VN100 million ($4,400) for accommodation, Hai said.

The province currently has 947 doctors, 891 of whom work at State-run hospitals, for a ratio of 6.3 per 10,000 people.

However, 95 per cent of doctors preferred to work at hospitals and heath centres in cites and districts, and only five per cent agreed to work in rural and mountainous areas.

Hai said the province also planed to employ 500 doctors with similar preferential policies over the next five years (2017-2021) to try and make up the human resource shortage in the health sector.

As planned, the province will have more than 1,300 doctors by 2020, and a lot of money is needed to hire them, he added.  VNS
The Viet Nam Road Administration has decided to conduct inspections and apply closer supervision of toll collection and turnover at two more toll stations managed and operated by Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) investors.  Photo daibieunhandan.vn

HA NOI  The Viet Nam Road Administration has decided to conduct inspections and apply closer supervision of toll collection and turnover at two more toll stations managed and operated by Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) investors.

The stations to be inspected are the Bac Hai Van toll booth operated by Phuoc Tuong Phu Gia Joint Stock Company and the Km1841+912 toll station, located on Highway No.1 in southern ong Nai Province, operated by ong Thuan Joint Stock Company, both are key tolls in the central and southern region.

The Economic Criminal Department under the Ministry of Public Security will work with the Viet Nam Road Administration and local taxation agencies to conduct the inspection in 10 days.

The Viet Nam Road Administration has assigned heads of road management departments II and IV to establish and lead inspection teams, which will include public servants from these departments.

BOT investors are responsible for ensuring order and safety at the stations during the inspection.

Nguyen Xuan Cuong, deputy head of the Viet Nam Road Administration, said the inspection and supervision initiatives aimed to assess the toll booths turnover and to review the efficiency of toll collection technological systems. Based on the practical situation, the administration will propose that relevant management agencies address any shortcomings and will impose penalties to promote toll collection transparency.

The Bac Hai Van toll station was put into operation on August 12, 2016. The toll collection is currently VN35,000 (US$1.6) per ticket per entry at minimum and VN180,000 ($3.6) per ticket per entry at maximum. This is the first payback BOT project in the central region to reduce fees by VN20,000 ($0.9) per ticket per entry for large trucks.

The Km1841+912 toll station in ong Nai Province started its collection on July 6, 2014. The fare ranges from VN20,000 to VN160,000 ($7.1) per ticket per entry

Previously, the administration inspected 18 of the 60 BOT toll stations nationwide. The agency will inspect the remaining stations in the future.

Past inspections uncovered several violations in the toll collection processes of several investors.

During the 10-day inspection in December last year, the Viet Nam Road Administration found that the average toll earnings, depending on the number of times the money was collected at the Ha Noi-Bac Giang station each day, was VN84 million ($3,700) higher than the amount reported by the investor.

The toll collected was VN1.099 billion ($48,800) per day, compared to reported earnings of only VN1.015 ($45,100) billion.

The 10-day inspection at Phap Van-Cau Gie toll station last year also revealed actual earnings of nearly VN2 billion ($88,900) from the daily toll collection on average, instead of only VN1.2 billion ($53,000) as reported by one of its shareholders, the Civil Engineering Construction Corportation 1.  VNS
IEN BIEN  The northwestern province of ien Bien should capitalise on its advantages to develop tourism, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan told provincial officials yesterday.

Lauding local socio-economic achievements, the top legislator, who is visiting some northwestern provinces, told ien Bien to use the special national relic site of the ien Bien Phu Victory for tourism development.

As a province with 19 ethnic groups, it can offer diverse cultures for tourists to explore, she said.

The province should plant more ban trees, whose flowers are considered a symbol of the northwest of Viet Nam, to improve local landscapes and create a tourist attraction.

Chairwoman Ngan also asked the province to co-ordinate with other localities and businesses to attract tourists while calling for investment in infrastructure development to boost tourism.

Stressing that ien Bien was still a poor locality with a high rate of poor households, Ngan instructed the provincial authorities to strive to tap its potential and to improve poverty reduction and hunger eradication programmes.

Although the province does not have any hydropower plants, it still needs to protect and use watershed forests. Diverse soil and climate conditions are also favourable for it to expand forestry and organic agriculture, including the cultivation of specialty rice varieties, she added.

Reporting on the local situation, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee Tran Van Son said ien Bien has recorded good progress in agricultural and forestry production.

The cultivation of perennial industrial trees like coffee, rubber, and tea has been expanded in tandem with processing and purchasing activities. There are about 5,170ha of rubber, 4,050ha of coffee and 60ha of tea in the province.

Provincial authorities have also worked to promote agricultural restructuring and succeeded in attracting investments in specialty rice farming, processing and distribution, industrial livestock farming, and fruit cultivation, he noted.-VNS
Good settlement of post-war matters like Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims as well as leftover bombs and mines in Viet Nam will help promote friendship between Viet Nam and the US.  Photo thoidai.com.vn

HA NOI  Good settlement of post-war matters like Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims as well as leftover bombs and mines in Viet Nam will help promote friendship between Viet Nam and the US, said Nguyen Tam Chien, President of the Viet Nam-USA Society (VUS).

He made the statement during a reception yesterday for a delegation from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), led by VFW Senior Vice Commander-in-Chief Keith E Harman.

Lauding the exchange programme between the VUS and the VFW, which began in 1996, Chien said that it helped further mutual understanding between the two peoples.

For his part, Harman affirmed that the VFW would continue its efforts to heal the pain of war and to address post-war consequences in Viet Nam.

The search for US servicemen who went missing in action during war as well as plans to hold the first Viet Nam-US veterans business forum scheduled for the end of this year were also discussed at the meeting.

From 1961-1971, US troops sprayed more than 80 million litres of herbicides - 44 million litres of which were AO - over southern Viet Nam. As a result, about 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical.

Many of the victims have died, while millions of their descendants are living with deformities and diseases as a result of the chemicals effects.  VNS
LAO CAI  Northern mountainous Lao Cai Province will this year strive to achieve its target of building 1,219 boarding houses for teachers and 884 rooms for day boarders, said a senior provincial official.

Total funds of more than VN205 billion (US$9.1 million) will be used for the project, according to Nguyen Anh Ninh, director of the provincial Department of Education and Training.

At present, 46 per cent of schools in the province meet national norms, making the province rank fifth out of 15 northern mountainous midland provinces. All the schools in the province have well-built classrooms, which essentially meet students requirements of studying and playing.

However, the province still faced difficulties in building boarding houses, director Ninh said.

By February this year, 16 boarding rooms for students were completed, reaching a modest 0.06 per cent of the target plan for the 2016-17 school year. Construction work has begun for 75 other boarding rooms for students and 50 boarding houses for teachers, reaching 5.3 per cent of the targeted plan.

Director Ninh said the projects progress was slow because most of the buildings had not received funds from the provincial budget. Besides this, several districts had not succeeded in convincing locals to donate land for the project.  VNS
BINH DUONG  An explosion occurred early Tuesday morning at Nam Kim Steel JSC in southern Binh Duong Province, leaving eight workers injured, four seriously

Of these, oan Van Su, 29, from Ca Mau Province suffered burns on 90 per cent of his body, while three others had 30 per cent of their bodies affected.

After the accident, the victims were rushed to Binh Duong General Hospital for treatment, six of whom were later transferred to HCM City-based Cho Ray Hospital due to the severity of their conditions.

The workers told media that while they were working a furnace containing melted steel exploded.

Local authorities are investigating the accident.  VNS
HA NOI  The Viet Nam Farmers Association and Viet Nam Journalists Association on Monday launched a contest themed Vietnamese Farmers Pride for journalists.

The contest aims to raise awareness of the importance of agriculture, farmers and rural areas, said Ho Quang Loi, vice chairman of Viet Nam Journalists Association and head of the organising committee.

He said the contest would help improve the quality of information on the agricultural sector in the media.

The contest would encourage the journalists and press agencies to report on agricultural and rural areas and honour individuals and groups who have contributed to spreading information on the sector.

At the ceremony, Leu Vu ieu, vice chairman of Viet Nam Farmers Association (VNFA), said the Vietnamese Farmers Pride contest for journalism is part of a writing contest entitled Vietnamese Farmers Pride which has been held annually since 2013.

Journalistic works entered in the contest need to be investigative reports or portray Vietnamese farmers or businessmen who have outstanding performance in production and be published between October 15, 2016 and August 15, 2017  either in Nong Thon Ngay Nay (Countryside Today) print newspaper or Dan Viet (Vietnamese People) online newspaper as well as national and local newspapers.

The country has 13 million farming households nationwide. Of these, 10,500 are members of Viet Nam Farmers Association.  VNS
HCM CITY  Authorities in HCM City who wielded a heavy stick against street vendors and pavement encroachments recently are now offering the carrot of empathy.

Its essential to recognise that those vendors on the pavements are also people of this city, they contribute to the citys economy and tourism, they contribute to the citys budget.

The [pavement clearance] campaign must go on resolutely, but a reconciliation between reason and sensibility must be reached, inh La Thang, HCM City Party Secretary, said at city meeting on urban order held last weekend.

The hard-line stance adopted against pavement offenders, particularly in District 1, has been mostly welcomed by the public, but those who have been directly affected are decidedly upset, particularly those whose entire livelihoods are being taken away.

Their suffering has struck a chord and many people have called for a more accommodating campaign that takes peoples livelihoods into account.

While agreeing with the city Party Secretary about being more understanding, the citys Justice Department head, Huynh Van Hanh, suggested a window of 10 days following the announcement that offenders must remove their properties from the pavement before more forceful measures are deployed.

The issue has existed for many years now, waiting another ten days is hardly a problem, Hanh said.

If we want to keep the pavements clean in the long term and in a sustainable manner, then everything must be done in line with protocol, avoiding rashness.

One enforcement day must be followed by 10 days of raising awareness and persuading, Hanh said, adding that forced removal should be the last resort, and people should stop their violations voluntarily.

After all, he said, the current situation can be blamed as much on the negligence and even covert abetment of local authorities over the years.

Frank comment

Referring to a surprisingly frank comment from Ha Noi Chairman Nguyen uc Chung, who said 80 per cent of the sidewalk beer bars are backed by the police, Nguyen Ngoc Tuong, deputy head of the citys traffic safety board, rhetorically wondered if a similar thing was happening in the southern metropolis.

Violations of public space are vexingly ubiquitous, yet not a single local leader been subject to disciplinary action, Tuong said.

Only very recently did District 1 and Cu Chi District decide to transfer, or hold some officials accountable for their management failures.

When authority-level corruption ends and leaders govern by example, and law enforcement is unwavering, then it will be easy to persuade the public, Tuong said.

Party Secretary Thang said the management of every street will be assigned to an official who will be held responsible for any public disorder that occurs on it.

He said the three key figures in each ward are the Chairman, Party Secretary, and head of police. These three people should proactively do their duty, the district authorities cannot keep deploying their forces each time at their (officials) bidding, he said.

The Party Secretary also tasked the citys Peoples Council with preparing quickly a transparent scheme of parking places and prices, saying it was essential for cutting off the polices illegal support for offenders and rooting out the long-standing encroachment of public spaces.

He acknowledged the scepticism regarding the effectiveness of this campaign, with many calling it an exercise in futility since many similar campaigns launched in the past to restore urban order have been in vain.

New momentum

However, he noted: Never before have we witnessed such overwhelming and unanimous support from both the press and the public.

Alluding to pavement clearance operations taking place concurrently in big cities throughout the country, including Ha Noi, a Nang, ong Nai, and Can Tho, all of which have received public approval, he said.

This (public approval) has created a momentum that gives the citys latest campaign a high chance of success, he added, We can do it.

It is a tall order to change an ingrained practice, but like other efforts like the compulsory wearing of helmets to the ban on firecrackers  which was a strong tradition, theres no reason why it shouldnt work, Thang said.

The meeting reached a consensus that while the rule of law will be upheld, solutions for those dislodged from their livelihood on the pavement will also be taken into account. Financial support, alternative jobs and designating an area for vendors to work were among the solutions mentioned.

Tran The Thuan, Chairman of HCM Citys District 1  the downtown district that has been the epicentre of the invigorated campaign to reclaim pavements  said that an integral part of subsequent steps in the campaign will be measures to help street vendors whose livelihoods will suffer.

Free vocational training would be provided for street vendors of working age, loans provided for changing vocations, and a daily stipend of VN50,000-100,000 (US$2.2-4.4) paid to compensate for loss of income.

Its high time

Lauding the renewed efforts by municipal authorities to reclaim pavements from illegal occupiers, Professor ang Hung Vo, a distinguished scientist and former Deputy Head of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, said this should have been done long ago, but its better late than never.

He said that the oi moi (renovation) process, started in 1986, has triggered a massive shift from agriculture to industry and service sectors, as well as the flourishing of the informal economy.

The pavement economy began with people from the countryside moving to urban areas, bringing a large quantity of goods on their shoulder poles, which turned over time into pavement shops.

Many city dwellers enjoy the services and goods that the street vendors offer, but encroachment of public space is still illegal.

Previous efforts by authorities had failed because of lax enforcement and corruption; the police or ward authorities may have received some money from the vendors to turn a blind eye to trangressions, Vo said.

He welcomed the recent comments by the Ha Noi Chairman as a correct diagnosis of the underlying cause.

Therefore, he is optimistic that the fight can succeed this time, he added.

Vo also suggested several solutions to address the plight of pavement vendors who now face an uncertain future, including a street-food designated area like in Singapore or a ban on street hawkers during rush hours, as in Thailand.

If we simply expel from the pavements, they will move elsewhere, it will solve nothing, worse yet, it will cause social unrest, he cautioned.

Vo said he is aware that pavements with a plethora of food stalls and bars in many big Vietnamese cities are a quirky charm in the eyes of many foreign tourists, given their communal nature and casual atmosphere. But the current situation in Viet Nam has turned messy and disorderly, and that needs to be sorted out.

There will be room for the quirky charm, but its rampant presence must be curtailed, he said.

Hawkers have families

Vendors directly impacted by the reclamation of pavements are despondent and stressed.

Pham Thi Nhung, a native of the northern province of Phu Tho, sells potatoes and nuts in Ha Noi, earning some VN100,000 ($4.4) a day.

My family in the countryside depends on this meagre income. If the authorities push on with this campaign, I will have to return but theres hardly any job to do, I dont know what can I do to earn a living, she fretted.

Mrs. Thanh, who sells paintings on Ba Trieu Street, said that in recent days, every time she put out some paintings, the police would come and warn her. Her house is in an alley, and she and her husband depend entirely on the little money they earn from selling the paintings. If there are no painting displayed outside, on the pavement, customers will not know about their business.

Providing a social perspective, To Thi Bich Chau, head of the HCM Citys Fatherland Front, said: Behind every pavement stall and street hawker is an entire family; in ensuring urban order, the authorities must also ensure their livelihoods.

Box:

Ha Noi follows suit

Last weekend, in the capital city of Ha Noi, many pavements previously packed with encroachments have been cleared and pedestrians can now walk unobstructed  a rare sight.

On Ton uc Thang Street and in the Quoc Tu Giam Ward, two excavators have been deployed to demolish front porches jotting out from houses and stores onto the pavement.

Since the campaign was announced a few days earlier, most violators voluntarily removed their encroachments or stopped parking on the pavements.

However, once the inspectors were gone, some scattered violations resumed on Huynh Thuc Khang and Nguyen Chi Thanh streets.

Vu ai Phong, Chairman of the Hai Ba Trung District Peoples Committee, said that revoking of business licences is not out the question for repeat offenders. He also pledged that aside from advocacy and awareness raising campaigns, inspections and enforcement will be carried out regularly.

Chairman of Hoan Kiem District, Pham Tuan Long, said the campaign conducted a few days ago by his administration was mostly to caution offenders, so that they can undo violations on their own.

Ward authorities will be held accountable and named and shamed should violations occur unimpeded, he said. VNS
HA NOI  The health ministry on Monday issued a second urgent order asking a special council to look into the case of a pregnant woman dying after visiting a private clinic.

The order, signed by deputy minister Nguyen Viet Tien, instructs Ha Noi health department to set up a council to investigate the March 5 incident at the Ha Noi 168 clinic in Thanh Tri District.

This follows the first order on March 9, asking for a report on the brain death of the 29-year-old five-month pregnant woman while she was being treated at the clinic.

The ministry has also asked Dr Zheng Zu Rong, a Chinese national, who was treating the victim to report the details of his examination and treatment. However, after the incident, Zhengs whereabouts are not known.

According to the local press, the victim was diagnosed with a genital infection at the clinic and was being treated for it when she had seizures. She was rushed to Bach Mai hospital in deep coma, where she was declared brain dead.
GUATEMALA CITY  Guatemalas minister for social welfare, Carlos Rodas, offered his resignation Monday after a blaze in a government-run childrens shelter killed 40 teenage girls.

In his letter to President Jimmy Morales, Rodas said he was handing in his notice in order to "contribute to the objective investigation into the tragedy."

He said he had not resigned earlier because he first needed to oversee the counselling and medical treatment of survivors at the shelter, and their transfer to other refuges.

The fire that broke out last Wednesday in the badly overcrowded Virgin of the Assumption Safe Home for children just to the east of Guatemala City killed 19 girls right away.

The other deaths came as girls taken to hospitals succumbed over subsequent days to horrific burns that had also damaged their throats and lungs.

All the victims were aged between 14 and 17. Funerals started on Friday, with some of the bodies identified through DNA samples.

Another seven girls were in critical condition. Five of them were flown to a hospital in the United States for specialised treatment.

An investigation is seeking to determine the cause and circumstances of the fire.

Initial information suggested the girls might have started the blaze themselves, setting alight mattresses to protest cruel treatment by staff in the facility, including sexual abuse.

Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday rallied in front of Morales presidential palace, accusing authorities of negligence and demanding punishment.

Morales said Monday he had requested that the FBI and international organisations help in the investigation, to make the process transparent.  AFP
DES MOINES  At the Iowa Statehouse, he often gets the cold shoulder from colleagues and has been shut out of all but one committee.

But state Sen. David Johnson, of Ocheyedan, said he has no second thoughts about switching his party registration from Republican to independent last year, and insists hes still working hard on his key issues of education and environmental protection.

More than halfway into the 2017 session, Johnson remains convinced he did the right thing in bolting from the party last summer after publicly airing his strong concern for the direction the party was headed with outspoken businessman Donald Trump as the GOP presidential nominee.

I will not stand silent if the party of Lincoln and the end of slavery buckles under the racial bias of a bigot, Johnson said at the time.

Trump ultimately became the 45th president and Johnson watched national politics with a high recoil factor.

It is a period of deconstruction going on ... It is not the party of Lincoln, it is the party of Trump, Johnson said.

In the November election, Johnson also watched his former party capture control of the Iowa Senate, 29-21, and maintain its majority in the Iowa House. Of the 150 legislators, Johnson is now the only independent, but he insists the number will eventually grow.

Being a distinct political minority is fine with Johnson, who said, Ive never been a follower. I feel I am voicing the opinion of Iowans better than I ever have before.

Johnson said he has been unshackled from the days of worrying whether he could air reservations with Republican plans to Senate party leaders.

Lots of aspects of the legislative job remain the same for Johnson. The former journalist rises at 5 a.m. and watches MSNBCs morning political show, Morning Joe, and then pages through daily newspapers. He still works long days at the Capitol, often staying until the early evening hours. After leaving last Tuesday, Johnson described fielding phone calls for four more hours, until 11 p.m.

Johnson introduces amendments to bills and gives floor speeches during the so-called personal privileges period. He continues to attend weekend legislature forums in his Northwest Iowa district.

However, much has changed for Johnson.

After he stopped caucusing with Senate Republicans, Johnson lost all his committee assignments. This session, Democrats gave him a seat on the Natural Resources and Environment Committee after a Democrat stepped aside.

Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, said he had no qualms about appointing a former Republican to the committee.

He has been an strong advocate for the environment and clean water, Hogg said.

Johnson also no longer has access to party research analysts, although he said he always did a lot of his own studying in prior years.

When encountering other senators, he often gets a cool reception.

It is disappointing. It is petty. Ive got friends too, Johnson said.

In summarizing whether he has loyal friends or new detractors among Republican and Democratic senators, Johnson would only cite one senator by name, Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock.

Senator Dix refused to meet with me, in spite of numerous requests, Johnson said.

I cant help but believe that the leadership has passed down ... that my bills are dead on arrival, Johnson said.

Dix did not immediately respond to a Journal interview request.

Hogg said it has been fascinating to watch independent Johnson, sometimes voting with Republicans and sometimes not.

He is being highly effective, because he is able to speak up on everything, Hogg said. It is kind of like he has been liberated from any party apparatus.

Last year, the Senate was controlled by Democrats on a 26-24 count.

With Republicans holding both legislative chambers and the governors mansion, the House and Senate has been quickly moving legislation that Johnson contends is not good public policy. He cited Iowa K-12 schools receiving only 1.1 percent growth in their budgets for fiscal year 2017-18, cuts to community colleges and sweeping changes to the collective bargaining law for public employees.

It is outright union busting...How many times can you slap a teacher or state worker in the face before they flee the state? Johnson asked.

In spite of the obstacles, Johnson insists hes having fun.

I call it serious fun. The adrenaline is flowing and, at (age) 66, I guess that is a good way to feel, said Johnson, in his 19th year in the Legislature.

Johnsons term runs through December 2018 in Senate District 1, which covers all or parts of Clay, Dickinson, Lyon, Osceola and Palo Alto counties. He has not decided whether to seek re-election to a four-year term.

Prior to the election, Zach Whiting announced he would seek the Republican nomination for the Senate post, citing Johnsons decision to leave the party. Whiting, of Spencer, is a staff member for U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

Johnson said he knows many in the state Republican Party and in Northwest Iowa are dismayed with his switch to an independent. He also said many Iowans hes known for years have told him privately they like his lawmaking skills.

He said he is convinced more independents will be elected, and a third party could arise, with government accountability at its core.

Lets make this tri-partisan, Johnson said. The Legislature should get used to this, because I think in the years ahead, you will see more independents.

It is great. I just continue to be amazed by people who are community leaders, maybe not publicly, who voice support for me.
DES MOINES  A local leader with the League of Women Voters in Iowa is upset a state lawmaker is using her written testimony to justify legislation that would make changes to the states election systems, including requiring an identification card to vote.

Rep. Ken Rizer, R-Marion, says a bill under consideration in the Iowa Legislature that would add safeguards to Iowas election systems, including the voter ID requirement, is necessary in part because many Iowans do not have confidence in clean, fair elections.

There has been no evidence of significant voter fraud in Iowa, which typically has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the nation.

The bill was proposed by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate.

To help justify the changes proposed in the legislation, Rizer has  in multiple media interviews, including with the Lee-Gazette Des Moines Bureau  referenced written testimony submitted to state lawmakers by a member of the Iowa chapter of the League of Women Voters.

That testimony was submitted by Myrna Loehrlein, president of the Linn County chapter of the League of Women Voters, and reads in part, There is a deeply pervasive, gut-level intuition that voter impersonation occurs and may be rampant. This has repeatedly been demonstrated to be untrue, but the perception remains.

Rizer said that supports his argument the legislation is needed to strengthen Iowans confidence in elections.

Loehrlein, however, said Rizers use of her testimony misconstrues the fact the league opposes both the bill and its voter ID requirement.

Loehrlein said she agrees there is concern among voters that elections are not clean and fair, but she disagrees the solution is more safeguards. She said the rest of her written testimony says the league is opposed to any unnecessary barrier, including Voter ID, that gets between the voter and the ballot.

Hes only representing part of (the testimony), and hes misrepresenting the leagues position by only representing part of it, Loehrlein said. A lot of people are having these conversations (about clean, fair elections). We dont need to build another barrier. We need to clear up the misconception.

Rizer said this week it was not his intention to suggest the league supports the bill or the voter ID requirement.

I was not implying that the League of Women Voters supports this bill, Rizer said. I was just saying that they reinforced the idea that there is a voter confidence problem.

Loehrlein said even that misconstrues the leagues perspective on the issue.

Thats not true. We never said there is a problem with voter confidence, Loehrlein said. We have said there is a perception of voter impersonation (when an individual attempts to vote using anothers name). But we have never said that Iowans are not confident in our election system.

The legislation has passed the Iowa House and now is eligible for consideration by the Senate.
CEDAR RAPIDS  An Iowa City native who for the last three years directed federal prosecutions in a district encompassing more than half of Iowas counties resigned late Friday, one of the 46 U.S. Attorneys across the nation who were appointed by President Barack Obama but ordered to leave by the Trump administration.

The departure means the two top federal prosecutor jobs in Iowa  for the Northern District based in Cedar Rapids and the Southern District based in Des Moines  are being filled on an temporary basis while a search goes on for presidential appointees.

In the Northern District, which includes 52 counties, Kevin Techau, 58, of Cedar Rapids, was nominated by Oama in 2013 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2014.

Monday, his office verified he resigned effective midnight Friday.

Iowa has excellent federal, state and local law enforcement officers across the state, Techau said in a statement. It has been a fulfilling and rewarding experience to have served in this office for the past three years with those professionals. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to lead the men and women who work so hard in the United States Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Iowa. They are a top-notch group of public servants and I am very honored to have been their colleague.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Berry will serve as acting U.S. Attorney for the district, pending an interim being named or a permanent appointment by President Donald Trump.

One of the most celebrated prosecutions recently under Techaus administration was that of Gervais Ken Ngombwa, 56, of Cedar Rapids.

Now sentenced to 15 years in prison, Ngombwa actively participated in the Rwandan genocide, then spun lies to gain entry to the United States as a refugee.

Two assistant U.S. attorneys from the office were honored for their work on the case by the Anti-Defamation League.

Techau, who grew up in Marion, previously had served as commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety under Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, among holding other positions,

He was nominated as the top federal prosecutor by former Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin and supported by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley in getting his nomination confirmed by the Senate.

As a U.S. Attorney, Techaus also promoted cooperation and teamwork between federal, state and local authorities and worked on initiatives to bring offenders back into the workforce after they had served their prison time.

Last weeks ouster of Obama holdovers did not directly affect Iowas southern district, which covers 47 counties. The acting U.S. Attorney there is Kevin VanderSchel, who has been with the office since 1989.

Kevin is not presidentially appointed so he can stay on until the transition happens, said Rachel J. Scherle, an assistant U.S. Attorney.

The previous political appointee, Nicholas Klinefeldt, resigned in 2015 to take a job with a Des Moines law firm. He had been appointed in 2009 by Obama.

Typically, the senior U.S. senator of the same party forwards names to the president to fill the posts. In a statement, Grassley said the decision to remove the remaining U.S. attorneys is in keeping with tradition, and he has prepared for it.

U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, who has a right to hire or fire a U.S. attorney for almost any reason, he said. When President (Bill) Clinton came into office, he fired all U.S. attorneys with little or no notice. Every president handles it in his own way.

Knowing that a new president will seek to fill the U.S. attorney positions, Ive been preparing and in the coming weeks will be forwarding to President Trump nominees to fill these positions, Grassley said.

Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times contributed to this report.
DES MOINES  The head of the states child welfare bureau defended the agency Monday against criticisms that case managers are overworked and understaffed  conditions legislative critics say have led to high-profile situations of abused children and at least one instance where a girl starved to death.

Wendy Rickman, administrator of the Department of Human Services division of adult, children & families services, said Iowa operates a solid child welfare system that scores well in national comparisons and operates with virtually no waiting lists or substantive gaps.

At the same time, she said, while the department works hard to protect children, situations may arise that require appropriate responses  similar to a situation where no one expects just because a police agency is in place no crime will occur.

She said social workers who handle child protective cases have remained relatively stable even though the agency has had to absorb about $28 million in spending cuts this fiscal year.

I would never sit here and tell you that having more staff in the field would not be a good thing, she told the informal legislative hearing.

However, Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, who organized Mondays meeting, said he has talked to DHS case workers who say their overtime has doubled this year because there is not enough staff and that people are falling through the cracks because of it.

Theyve basically said were trying to drink out of a fire hose every day and its impossible to do, he said.

What theyre telling me is they are just being buried and none of them want to give their names and none of them want to give their information because they believe that they will be fired if they do, McCoy added. What I hope we do is show how vulnerable our children are in the state of Iowa and by not having adequate staffing to go out and do the work in the field and to do the investigations and to complete those investigations that we are putting vulnerable kids at risk and we need to change that system.

The child welfare system is coming under greater scrutiny, McCoy said, due to two troubling cases that came to light within the past year.

Investigations and criminal proceedings are underway into last years death of Natalee Finn, a 16-year-old West Des Moines girl who starved. Earlier, Malayia Knapp testified to the legislative panel about being beaten, locked up and abused as an adoptive child before she turned 18.

Rickman said her agencys intake unit handled 50,086 reports in 2016 with 52 percent qualifying for an assessment and 15,016 being assigned to a case worker. Of those, 6,368 were classified as founded or confirmed cases of abuse.

Overall, she said Iowa has 182 advanced social workers with average experience of 14 years and another 336 social workers at a lower investigatory level with average experience of 11 years  front-line positions that have held relatively stable in recent years.

McCoy said Rickman provided pertinent information to the committee Monday, but not all that was requested. They plan to have a follow-up meeting to get more specifics.

DHS spokeswoman Amy McCoy said legislators have repeatedly pointed to a reduction of about 800 position in the DHS under the Branstad administration since 2011, but noted those include the closure of three state institutions and others jobs unrelated to child-welfare services.

Nationally, we perform very well, she said. Our outcomes in Iowa are very good and you could put us up against any other state. I think when you have two cases that are very high profile in a row, it causes you pause and of course you look more at yourself, and others are going to look more at you, but we have a very functioning system. Iowa is innovative, we perform well. We want to protect kids.
Proud Image to host guest sing tonight

CEDAR FALLS -- The Proud Image a cappella group will host a singers guest night at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Orchard Hill Church, just off Greenhill Road.

The group is seeking to add area singers to its award-winning chorus of 30 men and sings a wide genre of music in close four-part harmony.

Call Alan Ferden at 269-1589 for more information.

Pet licenses

now available

WATERLOO  The city of Waterloo 2017 dog and cat licenses and Pat Bowlsby Off-Leash Dog Park passes are now available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday in the City Clerks office, 715 Mulberry St.

Pet owners also may purchase dog or cat licenses from Waterloo Animal Control officers, at the Cedar Bend Humane Society or by mail.

The following applies to both dogs and cats:

A valid rabies vaccination certificate must be presented. Owners should check with their veterinarian to determine if the vaccination is valid for the current year.

Proof of spaying/neutering from veterinarian must be presented.

The fee schedule is as follows: Jan. 1-March 31: Altered, $5; unaltered, $25; April 1-Dec. 31: altered, $10; unaltered, $50.

The 2017 passes for the Pat Bowlsby Off-Leash Dog Park also are available from the City Clerks office. The annual fee is $15 and includes the dog tag for park use.

Dogs and cats may be licensed by mailing valid rabies certificate and proof of spayed/neutering with the applicable amount owed plus an additional $1 postage and handling fee to the City Clerk, 715 Mulberry St., Waterloo, IA 50703. Include the amount for the dog park pass with payment, if desired. Rabies and proof of spaying/neutering certificates will be returned with the appropriate license(s) by return mail.

Retired school

group to meet

WATERLOO  The Black Hawk Retired School Personnel Association will meet March 21, with a program starting at 11 a.m. in the Friendship Village Dining Room, 600 Park Lane.

Current Waterloo Community Schools Initiatives will be presented by Dr. Jane Lindaman, superintendent of Waterloo Community Schools

A short business meeting and lunch will follow. Lunch reservations ($8 at the door) are necessary; call 988-3245 before Friday, March 17.
The battle in Congress over how to replace former President Obamas health care law is about much more than health insurance. Its the first legislative skirmish in a larger struggle over what Trumpism, Donald Trumps presidential agenda, will turn out to be in practice.

Can Trump succeed in remaking the Republican Party in his populist image? Or will the more traditional conservatives who lead the GOP majority in Congress domesticate the president and limit his agenda to the parts they like?

Trump ran for the White House with an ambitious list of promises that helped attract millions of middle-income voters who once supported Democrats.

He pledged to boost economic growth with tax cuts and deregulation; revive manufacturing jobs with new trade restrictions; end illegal immigration; replace Obamacare with something better and cheaper; and do it all without cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Some of those goals were shared by traditional conservatives, especially tax cuts and deregulation. Others were not. House Speaker Paul Ryan and most of his members have long maintained balancing the federal budget requires reining in spending on Social Security and Medicare.

Trump doesnt owe his election to the party establishment in Congress. He ran against it, and sometimes described Ryan as part of the problem. But the health care bill Ryan introduced last week does not reflect that reality.

Based on the repeal-and-replace bill Ryan drew up last year, before Trump was elected, the proposed legislation is not at all populist. It includes a big tax cut for wealthy investors. It breaks several promises Trump made in the campaign, including pledges not to touch Medicaid and to expand treatment for opioid addiction. It will reduce subsidies for older low-income workers, many of whom were Trump voters.

If Trump really wanted to turn the GOP into a workers party, as hes claimed, this might be an obvious place to start. Instead, eager to replace Obamacare at any cost, the president endorsed the bill and even began lobbying for it.

Thats one signal GOP legislation under Trump wont always reflect Trumpist-populist rhetoric.

Heres another: Its fiscal conservatives, not moderates, who are most vocally opposed to Ryans plan. Members of the House Freedom Caucus, heirs of the tea party, think the bill is too expensive  too populist, in a sense. They want to speed up the process of cutting back federal subsidies for state-run Medicaid programs. Trump said hes willing to negotiate with the holdouts, potentially moving the bill even further from his initial promises.

Trump has long boasted of his prowess as a negotiator, but hes never negotiated with House Republicans before. If the Ryan bill gets stuck, Trumps image as a man of action will take a hit. If it passes, he may still look like a man of action but certainly not like a man of the people.

And this is only the first legislative battle of many.

Trumps populism will face a similar test when he seeks a tax reform bill, the centerpiece of his economic agenda.

His treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has suggested a big tax cut for the middle class, with no net tax cut for the wealthy.

But thats not what most Republicans in Congress have in mind. Their draft tax bills include big cuts for the well-off and much smaller cuts for low- and middle-income earners.

Well see the same dynamic again when Trump produces his infrastructure plan, now postponed until next year. Stephen K. Bannon, the White House aide who has championed infrastructure spending as a way to create jobs for construction workers, has suggested a $1-trillion bill including hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal coffers. Fiscal conservatives in Congress, however, would like to minimize those figures and focus the plan on tax incentives, not spending.

In each case, will Trump insist on getting his way or settle for what the Ryan-led Congress gives him, as hes done with the Obamacare replacement?

Trump told his working-class voters hed give them a new form of Republicanism  an activist government that would deliver on manufacturing jobs, infrastructure projects and better health insurance.

He can keep some of his promises without Congress, through executive action. But much of his agenda will need legislation to become real. So far, the GOP in Congress isnt falling in line, and Trump isnt cracking the whip. If thats the pattern for the next four years, Trumpism may not look much different from traditional conservatism  except for the tweets.
President Donald Trump and White House officials appear eager to back away from his Tweeter barrage that asserted President Barack Obama was a bad (or sick) guy for supposedly having wires tapped in Trump Tower.

Meanwhile, allegations of aides ties to Russia continue unabated as congressional investigations to provide proper perspective are awaited.

Trump claimed Obamas alleged action reeked of Nixon/Watergate and McCarthyism  an interesting claim given McCarthys counsel, Roy Cohn, was once Trumps lawyer. FBI Director James Comey and James R. Clapper Jr., the former national intelligence director, denied a wiretap occurred.

The accusation was reminiscent of Trumps campaign claim connecting the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and John F. Kennedys assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, based on a false National Enquirer story. A former campaign official said Trump later told aides, Even if it isnt totally true, theres something there.

His recent assertion apparently was spurred by a report on Breitbart, the far-right news site formerly run by White House adviser Steve Bannon, citing claims by conservative talk radio host Mark Levin of a Deep State effort to undermine Trump orchestrated by Obama.

Levins accusations were based on a report in Britains The Guardian that the FBI unsuccessfully sought Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court permission last summer to monitor transactions between two Russian banks and four persons connected with Trumps campaign. The BBC reported the FISC subsequently approved surveillance on transfers of money.

Without any verification, British blogger Louis Mensch wrote Trump was among the persons named in the rejected application and claimed a warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern U.S. persons.

Yet nothing ever was stated about eavesdropping. A president is expressly forbidden from seeking wiretaps for political purposes, and the Justice Department needed to convince a federal judge Trump had committed a serious crime or was the agent of a foreign government.

Accusations of other Obama wiretapping to lend credence to the claim have been debunked. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer repeated a charge by Fox & Friends hosts that Fox News reporter James Rosen had his phone, multiple phones tapped.

Rosen was cited as a criminal co-conspirator for receiving State Department classified information. The government had permission to access his emails and phone records and those of his parents. However, Rosen said, I was not wiretapped, my parents were not wiretapped.

Last week, New York investment banker Carter Page, a former Trump foreign policy adviser who had business interests in Russia and is reportedly under FBI investigation, wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee his frequent Trump Tower visits may have spurred the claim about wiretapping.

Page is among Trump associates whose faulty recall regarding Russian contacts  some possibly benign  has caused problems.

He told The Associated Press last week he didnt meet with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich when both were speakers at a college graduation in Moscow. Previously, he told The Washington Post he spoke briefly with him.

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was fired after being misleading about his transition contacts with Russias U.S. Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, including discussions about sanctions imposed by Obama.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from investigating Russia ties. He spoke twice with Kislyak after denying any meetings during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings.

In addition, the New York Times reported Trump associates were involved in late January freelance peace negotiations involving Ukraine and Russia, possibly just a back channel effort, authorized or not.

Michael Cohen, Trumps personal lawyer, and Felix Sater, a business associate, met with Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko, a member of the pro-Russian opposition advised by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. (Manafort claims hes never met Artemenko.)

But Manafort, who resigned his campaign post because of legal issues as a consultant to ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, still casts a big shadow.

A Ukrainian attorney representing the families of dozens of protesters killed in Kiev in 2014 revealed hacked texts Saturday from Manaforts daughter, Andrea, implicating her father as Yanukovychs adviser.

You know he has killed people in Ukraine? Knowingly, she allegedly wrote her sister in March 2015. Another text stated, Remember when there were all those deaths taking place.  Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered?  He has no moral or legal compass.

Forthcoming investigations into allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election will shed light on whether the relationship between the Trump camp and the Kremlin and its minions is overstated as part of a witch hunt  with Obama somehow directing traffic  or cause for serious concern.
Health care

DEAN MEYER

WATERLOO  I feel our legislators should vote to give every citizen of the USA the same health care coverage they voted to give themselves. If they wont do that, then they should all go on the same system as everyone else.

The taxpayers deserve the same as our representatives have.

Political agenda

DOROTHEA JURGENSON

DENVER  The Legislature seems very proud of the agenda they are ramming through. Much of it is designed to favor businesses with tax relief and reductions in corporate responsibilities, though these perks have not brought jobs here.

But people do not come here only to work. They bring families who need education, medical resources and other amenities. Who would come to a state that refuses to fund its K-12 schools properly? That balances its budget, year after year, on the backs of its universities? That proposes giving public tax money to homeschoolers/parochial schoolers with no accountability? That has no adequate workers compensation program to support someone injured on the job? That offers public employees (especially those in education) no collective bargaining rights, read reduced benefits? That proposes to allow everyone to carry concealed weapons without training or accountability to shoot anyone who they feel threatens them? That has privatized and greatly reduced availability of Medicaid? That has rejected funding inexpensive Planned Parenthood health services?

Many teachers are already applying in more education-friendly Minnesota. If we were job-hunting now, we would certainly look elsewhere. Who would want to come here? Who indeed?

Mental health

VELMA FLAUCHER-FALCK

CEDAR FALLS  Donald Trumps hateful and ugly rhetoric toward segments of our society has given bigots and perverts permission to say and do anything they please. Lies and unfounded alternative truths are his means for controlling the political agenda. Trump likes to ignite and fight, no matter what the issue, because the most important thing in his life is to show the world he is the winner.

Paranoia is a mental disorder characterized by delusions of grandeur or persecution. A sad aspect of the political situation is Trumps supporters feel a need within themselves to have more power, and so they identify with Trump. The example he is setting is detrimental to our country.

There are consequences to telling lies. Hopefully, politicians will have enough fortitude and love of country to stand up for what they know is right. The sooner Donald Trump is squelched, the better. I refuse to refer to him as president. He is a sham.

C.F. high school

ROBERT JENSEN

CEDAR FALLS  I see the letters in support of a new high school. Overcrowding is a concern of many. The solution is not a massive new high school. It is time for Cedar Falls to realize this city is growing at a very rapid rate. In the next couple of decades it will be as large as Waterloo, which has three high schools.

It is time to consider two high schools in Cedar Falls. If you are really concerned about the education of our youth, and not with how the sport teams do, you would support my idea.
All text and specified images on this site are by and copyright (c) 2006-2022 YTSL . No publishing elsewhere without permission and/or acknowledgement and link back to this blog please!
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 13, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 13, 2017 | 03:36 PM | PADUCAH, KY

A Paducah man was arrested Sunday afternoon in McCracken County, after the lawnmower he was riding away from the scene of a reported burglary ran out of gas.



The McCracken County Sheriffs Department says deputies were dispatched shortly before 4 p.m. to a report of a suspicious person with several gun cases riding a lawnmower in the area of Fairview Drive. Deputies located and identified the man riding the mower as 25-year-old Timothy Sams of Paducah. Deputies said that when they questioned Sams about the items, he said he owned them. As deputies continued their investigation they grew suspicious that Sams was not the rightful owner of the items.



Deputies said Sams had a wallet that clearly did not belong to him, which was found to be taken from a home on Gatewood Drive. During their investigation, deputies learned that another home on Palisades Circle had been burglarized. They then contacted the out of town homeowner, who was able to give detailed descriptions of the mower, and other items that Sams had in his possession.



Deputies reportedly found several items that had fallen off the mower during the getaway. Sams made it about a half mile before the mower ran out of gas.



When deputies tried to arrest Sams he attempted to flee, striking one of the deputies in the face. He was then taken into custody and booked into the McCracken County Regional Jail without further incident on charges of 1st degree burglary, resisting arrest and assault.



Detectives say they are still following up on additional burglaries that they suspect Sams may have committed.
By The Associated Press Mar. 07, 2017 | 03:10 PM | LEXINGTON, KY

A federal judge has ruled that a county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2015 doesn't have to pay legal fees for the couples who sued her.

Attorneys for the couples who sued Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis asked the court to award them about $233,000 in legal fees and costs. Davis' lawyers asked that the request be denied.

Kentucky lawmakers later addressed the same-sex marriage issue. In April 2016, Gov. Matt Bevin signed into law a bill that removed county clerks' names and authorizations from state marriage licenses.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward B. Atkins signed an order Monday that says because the issue was resolved in the legislature the plaintiffs weren't prevailing parties and therefore are not entitled to legal fees.

___

Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com
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Kwame Anthony Appiah in The Guardian:

Like many Englishmen who suffered from tuberculosis in the 19th century, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor went abroad on medical advice, seeking the drier air of warmer regions. Tylor came from a prosperous Quaker business family, so he had the resources for a long trip. In 1855, in his early 20s, he left for the New World, and, after befriending a Quaker archeologist he met on his travels, he ended up riding on horseback through the Mexican countryside, visiting Aztec ruins and dusty pueblos. Tylor was impressed by what he called the evidence of an immense ancient population. And his Mexican sojourn fired in him an enthusiasm for the study of faraway societies, ancient and modern, that lasted for the rest of his life. In 1871, he published his masterwork, Primitive Culture, which can lay claim to being the first work of modern anthropology.

Primitive Culture was, in some respects, a quarrel with another book that had culture in the title: Matthew Arnolds Culture and Anarchy, a collection that had appeared just two years earlier. For Arnold, culture was the pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world. Arnold wasnt interested in anything as narrow as class-bound connoisseurship: he had in mind a moral and aesthetic ideal, which found expression in art and literature and music and philosophy.

But Tylor thought that the word could mean something quite different, and in part for institutional reasons, he was able to see that it did. For Tylor was eventually appointed to direct the University Museum at Oxford, and then, in 1896, he was appointed to the first chair of anthropology there. It is to Tylor more than anyone else that we owe the idea that anthropology is the study of something called culture, which he defined as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Civilisation, as Arnold understood it, was merely one of cultures many modes.

Nowadays, when people speak about culture, it is usually either Tylors or Arnolds notion that they have in mind.

More here.
China welcomes Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's remarks to allow Chinese research vessels into waters close to the Philippines where Chinese survey ships were spotted last year, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Tuesday ahead of a senior official's trip to Manila.

China fully respects the Philippines' continental shelf rights over Benham Rise, and such rights have never been challenged by China, spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news conference.

She added that according to the basic norms of international laws, continental shelves and exclusive economic zones do not belong to territory. A coastal states rights over the continental shelf should not affect other countries' rights of navigation freedom as supported by international laws, Hua said.

"As President Duterte mentioned, China and the Philippines have already communicated over the relevant issues, exchanged views in a friendly manner, cleared the facts and handled the issue properly," she said.

Duterte told reporters on Monday that he had agreed to allow Chinese research ships sailing in Benham Rise waters. "Let us not fight about ownership or sovereignty at this time because things are going great for my country," Duterte said.

"Some people are just blowing it up. We previously agreed. It was a research ship. We were advised of it way ahead," he said.

The Philippine president's remarks are a rectification to the hawkish comments of the country's defense secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, who said last week that he had "ordered the Navy that if they see this service ship this year, to start to accost them and drive them away."

On March 10, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that in 2012, the UN Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf (CLCS) approved the Philippines' application for a 200-sea-mile outer continental shelf limit in Benham Rise.

Accordingly, the Philippines may exploit natural resources there, but the Philippines cannot regard it as its territory, Geng said.

Vice-Premier Wang Yang will visit Philippines from Thursday to Sunday, during which he will meet with Duterte, attend the open ceremony of China-ASEAN tourism year, and deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of China-Philippine economic and trade forum, said Hua.
AARP Reacts to Projection of 24 Million Who Would Lose Health Coverage

Older Americans disproportionately impacted according to nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Analysis

WASHINGTON, DC  AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond released a statement today following the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) release of new numbers that predict 24 million people could lose health coverage by 2026, leaving 52 million Americans uninsured. The CBO analysis revealed that the biggest financial burden would fall disproportionately on Americans ages 50-64 years old, further reinforcing concerns for AARP, the pre-eminent organization for people over the age of 50.

LeaMond said the CBO analysis served as another example that the proposed House legislation released last week would make harmful changes to our current health care system. The bill would hurt older Americans by decreasing the solvency of Medicare by four years, hiking costs for those who can least afford them, eroding seniors ability to live independently, and giving tax breaks to big drug companies and health insurance companies:

AARP reiterates our opposition to this harmful bill. The nonpartisan CBO revealed today that the legislation would increase the number of uninsured broadly, [and] the increase would be disproportionately larger among older people with lower income; in particular, people between 50 and 64 years old

The CBO analysis found that premiums would rise 20 percent to 25 percent higher for a 64-year-old. Putting the financial burden on older Americans is not the way to solve the problems in our health care system. Premiums for a 64 year old earning $26,500 would increase by $12,900 in 2026, from $1,700 to $14,600.

Additionally, after facing a massive premium increase before eligibility for Medicare, the bill leaves the door open to turning the successful insurance program in to a voucher program that shifts costs and risks to seniors, and gives big drug companies and other special interests a sweetheart deal.

This plan increases insurance premiums for older Americans and does nothing to lower drug costs doing the opposite of what older Americans need.

The plan would cut Medicaid funding by $880 billion, which would jeopardize essential care for 17 million seniors and people with disabilities and shift the cost to states, blowing a giant hole in state budgets and costing state taxpayers billions.

AARP stands ready to work with both parties on legislation that puts Americans health care first, not the special interests.

# # #
OK, its a shed. Unlike Supermans Fortress of Solitude, this one is more like a fancy treehouse/art studio, with a tiny loft upstairs. But its been getting lots of attention on Twitter ever since Menopause Ladys daughter, who goes by the name @feminist_tinder, posted some pictures of it.

My moms hot flashes were really bad so my dad built her a menopause fort in the back yard with an art studio, @feminist_tinder tweeted. The loft has two single beds, she explained, because her mothers hot flashes were especially bad at night, making it difficult to share a bed, but her dad still wanted to sleep nearby. Hes not even a contractor, hes just like really in love with my mom, she added.

Her parents have been married for more than 30 years, @feminist_tinder told Refinery29, a news and fashion website, and the menopause fort has actually outlived its original purpose. It was built three years ago, and since then her moms hot flashes have mostly subsided. But the structures paying dividends because, since the family lives in northern Canada, it makes an excellent warm-weather sleeping porch.
What county auditors want voters to know ahead of the midterm election


Altech - Mining Approval Received for Meckering Deposit

Perth, Mar 14, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Altech Chemicals Limited (Altech/the Company) ( ASX:ATC ) is pleased to advise that the Department of Mines and Petroleum (WA) has approved the mining proposal and the associated mine closure plan for its Meckering kaolin deposit. The mining approval marks an important stage in the development of the Company's proposed Meckering kaolin mine, which will provide feedstock for Altech's proposed Malaysian high purity alumina (HPA) plant.



Highlights



- Mining proposal approved for Altech's Meckering kaolin deposit (M70/1334)



- Important development milestone for supply of kaolin feedstock to Malaysian high purity alumina (HPA) plant



- Approval allows mining to proceed when required



- Stage 1 mining over a two-month campaign stockpiling 3 years' of HPA plant feedstock



The approved submission specifically allows for mining activities to commence within the Company's 100%-owned Meckering mining lease M70/1334, which is located approximately 140km east of Perth.



At Meckering, Altech plans to mine approximately 140,000 tonnes of kaolin once every three years; mining will take place in short two-month mining campaigns. The resultant raw kaolin ore will be stockpiled on site, then containerised into standard shipping containers at the rate of approximately 40,000tpa and shipped to Johor, Malaysia via the port of Fremantle, Western Australia.



Altech managing director Mr Iggy Tan said, "The Company is delighted to have received mining approval for the Meckering kaolin deposit. Whilst the Company will not need to commence mining kaolin until 2018, the approval of the mine is an important developmental milestone that has now been ticked off.



"The next step is the works approval application for the proposed loading facility at Meckering, which is assessed by the Department of Environment Regulation", Mr Tan concluded.



About Altech Chemicals Ltd





Altech Chemicals Limited (ASX:ATC) (FRA:A3Y) is aiming to become one of the world's leading suppliers of 99.99% (4N) high purity alumina (Al2O3) through the construction and operation of a 4,500tpa high purity alumina (HPA) processing plant at Johor, Malaysia. Feedstock for the plant will be sourced from the Company's 100%-owned kaolin deposit at Meckering, Western Australia and shipped to Malaysia.



HPA is a high-value, high margin and highly demanded product as it is the critical ingredient required for the production of synthetic sapphire. Synthetic sapphire is used in the manufacture of substrates for LED lights, semiconductor wafers used in the electronics industry, and scratch-resistant sapphire glass used for wristwatch faces, optical windows and smartphone components. Increasingly HPA is used by lithium-ion battery manufacturers as the coating on the battery's separator, which improves performance, longevity and safety of the battery. With global HPA demand approximately 19,000t (2018), it is estimated that this demand will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% (2018-2028); by 2028 HPA market demand will be approximately 272,000t, driven by the increasing adoption of LEDs worldwide as well as the demand for HPA by lithium-ion battery manufacturers to serve the surging electric vehicle market.


Half Yearly Report and Accounts

Sydney, Mar 14, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - This half-year report covers the consolidated entity consisting of Mustang Resources Limited ( ASX:MUS ) ( GGPLF:OTCMKTS ) ("the Company" or "Mustang") and the entities it controlled during the half-year ended 31 December 2016 ("Consolidated Entity" or "Group").



Operational overview



The half year period to 31 December 2016 has been a pivotal period for Mustang Resources Limited("Mustang") which saw the Company put in place all of the foundations required to unlock the value of its flagship Montepuez Ruby Project in the Cabo Delgado Province of north-eastern Mozambique and become a significant new player in the rapidly growing global coloured gemstone market.



The Montepuez field is already firmly established as what is considered to be the single largest current ruby province in the world, having rapidly risen to prominence over the past four years thanks to the success of Mustang's neighbour at Montepuez, the UK-listed Gemfields ( LON:GEM ), which has a market capitalisation of around A$453 million. Since November 2012 Gemfields has sold US$225 million of rubies recovered during its bulk sampling.



Mustang has built and commissioned a 75 tonnes per hour bulk sampling processing plant at its Montepuez Ruby Project, with a bulk sampling program which commenced in early 2017 and now well underway with processing and sampling rates ramping up to the targeted rate of 525 tonnes per day.



Mustang's decision during the December quarter to relocate the bulk sampling plant to a location immediately adjacent to the recently-discovered Alpha Deposit is expected to enhance the operation's ruby recovery potential, providing a ready supply of water for the processing plant and enabling the Company to implement a second shift per day in Q1 of 2017.



Subsequent to the end of the period, Mustang sent its first parcel of rubies and corundum, totaling 6,221cts, to the USA to be further assessed and processed prior to being sold to customers. This parcel will assist the market research team to evaluate the Company's rubies and determine which marketing channel will be the most effective and profitable.



In parallel with the bulk sampling program at Alpha, the Company has also commenced exploration activities to open up new ore sources on its tenements with auger drilling underway targeting additional ruby-bearing gravel zones. These activities are instrumental in delineating a JORC Compliant Resource and for completing a feasibility and economic assessment of the project's potential for full-scale commercial ruby mining.



While Mustang's core focus remains on the ramp-up in bulk sampling processing rates and cash flow from the Montepuez Ruby Project, the Company continued to progress its Balama Graphite Project, located in the same region, during the December quarter.



A diamond drilling program was completed focused on the Caula Project (Licence 6678L: 80% Interest), which is the most advanced prospect and offers the potential for delineation of a maiden graphite JORC Resource in the first half of 2017. Extensive high-grade graphite mineralisation has already been delineated at Balama, which lies within a world-class graphite province which is dominated by the worldclass graphite deposit being developed by Syrah Resources ( ASX:SYR ).



Mustang considers there is an opportunity to crystallise value from the Balama Graphite Project, given the rapid growth being experienced in the graphite market as a result of surging demand from the lithium-ion battery sector globally, and particularly in China. Discussions have commenced with prospective strategic partners and will continue during the first half of 2017 as metallurgical testwork and process flowsheet work is progressed.



The Company also made significant progress on the corporate front, completing an oversubscribed $2.8 million capital raising during the period which has seen the introduction of several leading US institutional investors and was strongly supported by Australian sophisticated investors.



This together with the oversubscribed placement announced on 24 February 2017 will ensure that Mustang is well-funded to advance the Montepuez Ruby Project through to commercial production, whilst allowing it to increase the value of both its ruby and graphite projects through targeted exploration activities.



To view the full report, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/RMRI4J6X





About New Energy Minerals Ltd





New Energy Minerals Ltd (ASX:NXE) (FRA:GGY) is an ASX listed junior mining company, that recently announced the divestment of the Company's Caula vanadium - graphite project and the Montepuez Ruby project in Mozambique.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents in the Adirondacks. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations and volunteer search and rescue groups, Forest Rangers locate and extract lost, injured or distressed people from the Adirondack backcountry.

What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers in the Adirondacks.

Essex County

Town of Keene

Search: On February 28 at 4:30 pm, DEC Ray Brook Dispatch was contacted requesting assistance for a 49-year-old male with an ankle injury on Dial Mt. who fell into a spruce trap. Three Forest Rangers responded, accessing the trail via the Adirondack Mountain Reserve (AMR) in Keene. Rangers reached the hiker by 7:40 pm and splinted his ankle. The hiker was able to continue the hike out with assistance from Forest Rangers and reached the trailhead at 10:40 pm. The hiker transported himself to the Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake for follow-up treatment.

Town of Keene

Search: On March 1 at 6:37 pm, DEC Ray Brook Dispatch received a direct call from a mother who said her daughter went for a walk and got lost in the woods off Beede Road in Keene Valley. Two Forest Rangers responded, one starting from the front of Levi Lamb Road and the other from the end of the road. Through the use of coordinates provided by Essex County 911, Forest Rangers were able to establish voice contact with the 15-year-old girl. She was located in good health and assisted out of the woods. She was then escorted back to her home by Forest Rangers. The incident concluded around 9:25 pm.

Town of Keene

Search: On March 5 at around 10:15 pm, the girlfriend of a hiker called DEC dispatch concerned that her boyfriend was overdue from a solo hike up Mount Coldens Trap Dike after not hearing from him at the planned arrival time of 4:30 pm. The 62-year-old experienced hiker was well equipped for the night, but did not carry a cell phone. His spot locator was not working properly. At 10:30 pm, Forest Ranger Scott VanLaer and Lake Colden caretaker Katie Tyler began searching trails and trailheads in the area. Ranger VanLaer met up with the hiker at the trailhead around midnight. He had found his own way out of the woods and was uninjured.

Town of Wilmington

Rescue: On March 4 at 10:46 am, Ray Brook Dispatch received a request for assistance from Essex County 911 for a 26-year-old male from St. Hueberts, Quebec, who, while descending Whiteface Mountain, lost his footing, slid off the trail, went through the woods about 30 feet, then fell off a 25-foot vertical cliff to the Whiteface Highway below. The subject required medical assistance for serious injuries. Rangers arrived at a staging area on the Whiteface Highway at 11:45 am. Snowmobiles were taken up the highway to the injured subject along with Wilmington EMS. The subject was reached at 12:08 pm. After a medical evaluation, he was packaged and brought down the Whiteface Highway at 12:36 pm. Wilmington Ambulance transported the subject to a landing zone, where he was loaded into a Medivac Helicopter and flown to Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, Vermont. The incident concluded at 1:35 pm.

Town of North Elba

Search: On March 8 at 2:14 p.m., DEC Dispatch received a call from a 38-year-old female from Wilmington advising she was turned around and in a whiteout snowstorm near the summit of Mt. Marshall. The Lake Colden caretaker was dispatched to look for the subject. At 5:47 p.m., the caretaker located the subject and escorted her to the Lake Colden Cabin. The incident concluded at 7 p.m.

Town of North Elba

Rescue: On March 10 at 12:29 p.m., a Forest Ranger on patrol found a 29-year-old male from Ballston Spa with an ankle injury near the Wright Peak junction on Algonquin Mountain. The subject advised he was working his way down and needed assistance. Two additional Rangers were dispatched to Algonquin Peak and met the subject at the old Algonquin Trail. He was escorted out with assistance to the Adirondack Loj parking area. He stated he would seek medical attention on his own at a local hospital, and the incident concluded at 4:56 p.m.

Town of Willmington

Rescue: On March 10 at 12:15 p.m., DEC Dispatch received notification of a 31-year-old male from Cohoes with a possible fractured femur near the summit of Whiteface Mountain. Three Rangers were dispatched to assist the subject. He was packaged into a litter and towed by snowmobile down the Whiteface Mountain Memorial Highway. The subject was then transferred to an ambulance at 2:38 p.m. and taken to AMC Saranac Lake. The incident concluded by 3 p.m. The Rangers were assisted by the Wilmington Fire Department, Wilmington Ambulance, and Lake Placid Ambulance.

Be Prepared: Properly prepare and plan before entering the backcountry. Visit DECs Hiking Safety webpage and Adirondack Trail Information webpage for more information about where you intend to travel. The Adirondack Almanack reports weekly Outdoor Conditions each Thursday afternoon.
Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail! Format for print or mobile Africa/Global: Invisible Crises, Failing Safety Nets AfricaFocus Bulletin

March 14, 2017 (170314)

(Reposted from sources cited below) Editor's Note "Famine 'largest humanitarian crisis in history of UN': UN humanitarian chief says 20 million people in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria face starvation and famine," says the headline in Al Jazeera, echoed in the BBC and other international media, but easily ignored without the high-intensity spotlight that occasionally targets disasters with greater geostrategic centrality. In the United States, while headlines rightly focus on the 24 million who would lose health care under the Republican Trumpcare plan, no one has yet calculated the toll from a proposed 50% cut in the U.S. budget for support of the UN. No one would claim that the international humanitarian assistance program is without major flaws, and UN officials quickly note that it cannot solve the fundamental issues leading to disaster, in particular military conflicts that in turn rest on political and diplomatic failures. This is particularly notable in the four countries mentioned in this most recent appeal, most dramatically in Yemen where U.S.-backed Saudi intervention has not only directly imposed massive civilian casualties but also blocked humanitarian assistance. The situation in the three remaining countries named, all in Africa, varies, and the failures are both national and international. Providing assistance will not resolve the fundamental issues. But there can be little doubt that the weakening of the international safety net will both cost lives and increase the difficulty of addressing the underlying issues. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains, just below, links to several recent articles, as well as the text of(1) the March 10 report to the Security Council by UN Under Secretary-General Stephen O'Brien, and (2) the press release from the Oslo conference in February on the humanitarian crisis in north-eastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. Additional links to recent related articles of interest: From Baidoa in Somalia, Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post reports on visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres to Somalia, March 11, 2017.

http://tinyurl.com/gpvmmp2 "Famine 'largest humanitarian crisis in history of UN': UN humanitarian chief says 20 million people in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria face starvation and famine," Al Jazeera, March 11, 2017. http://tinyurl.com/jpdbowj

Includes link to 25-minute video special report "UN: World facing greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945," BBC, March 11, 2017

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39238808

Includes overview map and short video report on each country mentioned "'Where is the help?': black tea and dark despair as Somalia edges closer to famine," Guardian, March 10, 2017

http://tinyurl.com/gn3aksb Colum Lynch, "White House Seeks to Cut Billions in Funding for United Nations," Foreign Policy, March 13, 2017

http://tinyurl.com/hg3n27b

"The budget proposal reinforces a shift by the Trump administration from U.S. support for diplomacy and foreign assistance to increased financial support for the U.S. military." Note that Yemen, the only non-African country on the UN's list of four most-affected countries, is, with Somalia, is on the list of two countries the Trump administration is using as "test cases" for loosening Obama administration rules on counterterrorism actions outside designated combat zones (http://tinyurl.com/znwr2ct). "The move to open the throttle on using military force  and accept a greater risk of civilian casualties  in troubled parts of the Muslim world comes as the Trump administration is also trying to significantly increase military spending and cut foreign aid and State Department budgets." On Thursday, March 9, 53 House Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Tillerson, urging him to "use all U.S. diplomatic tools to help open the Yemeni port of Hodeida to international aid humanitarian aid organizations to allow them to import food, fuel, and medicine into northern Yemen and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children who face starvation."

For more details and to sign a petition to support this, visit http://tinyurl.com/z46z5az ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++ Statement to the Security Council on Missions to Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Kenya and an Update on the Oslo Conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen OBrien 10 March 2017 http://tinyurl.com/j6ojjz6 Mr. President, Council members, Thank you for inviting me to brief on my visits to countries facing famine or at risk of famine: Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia. I will also briefly mention the outcomes of the Oslo Conference on the Lake Chad Basin. I need to mention that I also visited Northern Kenya where pastoralists are worst affected by the terrible drought. Over 2.7 million Kenyans are now food insecure, a number likely to reach 4 million by April. In collaboration with the Government, the UN will soon launch an appeal of $200 million to provide timely life-saving assistance and protection. For what follows however, I will focus on my other visits over the past 16 days. Yemen I turn first to Yemen. Its already the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and the Yemeni people now face the spectre of famine. Today, two-thirds of the population  18.8 million people  need assistance and more than 7 million are hungry and do not know where there next meal will come from. That is 3 million people more than in January. As fighting continues and escalates, displacement increases. With health facilities destroyed and damaged, diseases are sweeping through the country. I spoke with people in Aden, Ibb, Sanaa and from Taizz. They told me horrific stories of displacement, escaping unspeakable violence and destruction from Mokha and Taizz city in Taizz governorate. I saw first-hand the effects of losing home and livelihood: malnourishment, hunger and squalid living conditions in destroyed schools, unfinished apartments and wet, concrete basements. In the past two months alone, more than 48,000 people fled fighting, mines and IEDs from Mokha town and the surrounding fields alone. I met countless children, malnourished and sick. My small team met a girl displaced to Ibb, still having shrapnel wounds in her legs while her brother was deeply traumatized. I was introduced to a 13-year-old girl who fled from Taizz city, left in charge of her seven siblings. I spoke with families who have become displaced to Aden as their homes were destroyed by airstrikes living in a destroyed school. All of them told me three things: they are hungry and sick  and they need peace so that they can return home. I travelled to Aden on the first humanitarian UN flight, where I met the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yemen. I also met with the senior leadership of the Houthi and General Peoples Congress authorities in Sanaa. I discussed the humanitarian situation, the need to prevent a famine and to better respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians. I demanded full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access. All counterparts promised to facilitate sustained access and respect international humanitarian law. Yet all parties to the conflict are arbitrarily denying sustained humanitarian access and politicize aid. Already, the humanitarian suffering that we see in Yemen today is caused by the parties and proxies and if they dont change their behaviour now, they must be held accountable for the inevitable famine, unnecessary deaths and associated amplification in suffering that will follow. Despite the almost impossible and terrifying conditions, the UN and humanitarian partners are not deterred and are stepping up to meet the humanitarian needs across the country. In February alone, 4.9 million people received food assistance. We continue to negotiate access and make modest gains. For instance, despite assurances from all parties of safe passage to Taizz city, I was denied access and retreated to a short safe distance when I and my team came under gunfire. Yet, we managed to use this experience to clear the path for reaching people inside Taizz city with a first humanitarian truck delivery of eight tons of essential medicine on the Ibb to Taizz city road since August 2016. We will not leave a stone unturned to find alternative routes. We must prevail as so many lives depend on us, the full range of the humanitarian family. For 2017, the humanitarian community requires US$ 2.1 billion to reach 12 million people with life-saving assistance and protection in Yemen. Only 6 per cent of that funding has been received thus far. An international ministerial-level pledging event is scheduled for 25 April, but the situation is so dire that I ask donors to give urgently now. All contributions and pledges since 1 January will be counted at the event. I continue to reiterate the same message to all: it is only a political solution that will ultimately end human suffering and bring stability to the region. And at this stage, only a combined response with the private sector can stem a famine: commercial imports must be allowed to resume through all entry points in Yemen, including and especially Hudaydah port, which must be kept open and expanded. With access and funding, humanitarians will do more, but we are not the long-term solution to this growing crisis. I am pleased as I said to confirm that a ministerial-level pledging event for the humanitarian response in Yemen for 2017 will take place in Geneva on 25 April. The Secretary-General will chair the event, co-hosted by the Foreign Ministers of Sweden and Switzerland, to advocate for more resources and access. For 2017, as mentioned, the Yemen humanitarian response plan asks for US $2.1 billion to assist 12 million people in need across all 22 governorates. South Sudan Turning to South Sudan which I visited on 4 and 5 March. The situation is worse than it has ever been. The famine in South Sudan is man-made. Parties to the conflict are parties to the famine  as are those not intervening to make the violence stop. More than 7.5 million people need assistance, up by 1.4 million from last year. About 3.4 million people are displaced, of which almost 200,000 have fled South Sudan since January alone. A localized famine was declared for Leer and Mayendit [counties] on 20 February, an area where violence and insecurity have compromised humanitarian access for years. More than one million children are estimated to be acutely malnourished across the country; including 270,000 children who face the imminent risk of death should they not be reached in time with assistance. Meanwhile, the cholera outbreak that began in June 2016 has spread to more locations. I travelled to Ganyiel in Unity state where people have fled from the horrors of famine and conflict. I saw the impact humanitarians can have to alleviate suffering. I met an elderly woman with her malnourished grandson receiving treatment. I listened to women who fled fighting with their children through waist-high swamps to receive food and medicine. Some of these women have experienced the most appalling acts of sexual violence  which continues to be used as a weapon of war. Their harrowing stories are only a few among thousands who have suffered a similar fate across the country. Humanitarians are delivering. Last year, partners reached more than 5.1 million people with assistance. However, active hostilities, access denials and bureaucratic impediments continue to curtail their efforts to reach people who desperately need help. Aid workers have been killed; humanitarian compounds and supplies have been attacked, looted, and occupied by armed actors. Recently, humanitarians had to leave one of the famine-affected counties because of fighting. Assurances by senior Government officials of unconditional access and no bureaucratic impediments now need to be turned into action on the ground. Somalia In Somalia, more than half the population  6.2 million people  need humanitarian and protection assistance, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate assistance to save or sustain their lives, close to 1 million children under the age of 5 will be acutely malnourished this year. In the last two months alone, nearly 160,000 people have been displaced due to severe drought conditions, adding to the already 1.1 million people who live in appalling conditions around the country. What I saw and heard during my visit to Somalia was distressing  women and children walk for weeks in search of food and water. They have lost their livestock, water sources have dried up and they have nothing left to survive on. With everything lost, women, boys, girls and men now move to urban centres. With the Secretary-General  his first field mission since he took office  we visited Baidoa. We met with displaced people going through ordeals none of us can imagine. We visited the regional hospital where children and adults are desperately fighting to survive diarrhoea, cholera and malnutrition. Again, as if proof was needed, it was clear that between malnutrition and death there is disease. Large parts of southern and central Somalia remain under the control or influence of Al-Shabaab and the security situation is volatile. Last year, some 165 violent incidents  an 18 per cent increase compared to 2015  directly impacted humanitarian work and resulted in 14 deaths of aid workers. Al-Shabaab, Government Forces and other militia also continue to block major supply routes to towns in 29 of the 42 districts in southern and central Somalia. This has restricted access to markets, basic commodities and services, and is severely disrupting livelihoods. Blockades and double taxation bar farmers from transporting their grains. It is critical that AMISOM and Somali forces secure vital road access to enable both lifesaving aid and longer term recovery. A lot of hope is placed in the new Government. The current indicators mirror the tragic picture of 2011, when Somalia last suffered a famine. It is important to add that when the famine was called at that time 260,000 had already died, this will be important in what I am about to tell you. However, humanitarian partners now have a larger footprint, mature cash programming, better data through assessments, better controls on resources and vetting of partners, as well as stronger partnership with government authorities. The Government recently declared the drought a national disaster and is taking steps to work with humanitarian partners to ensure a coordinated response. To be clear, we can avert a famine, we have a committed clear new President, a humanitarian and resilience track record, a detailed plan, were ready despite incredible risk and danger, we have local and international leadership, we have a lot of access, now we need the international community, at the scale of you the donor agencies and nations, to invest in Somalia, its life-saving  but we need those huge funds now. For all three crises and North-Eastern Nigeria, an immediate injection of funds plus safe and unimpeded access are required to enable partners to avert a catastrophe; otherwise, many people will predictably die from hunger, livelihoods will be lost, and political gains that have been hard- won over the last few years will be reversed. To be precise we need $4.4 billion by July, and thats a detailed cost, not a negotiating number. Oslo Conference Before I visited all these countries, I was in Oslo, where the governments of Norway, Germany and Nigeria, in partnership with the United Nations, organized a humanitarian conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. 10.7 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection, including 7.1 million people who are severely food insecure. Humanitarian partners scaled up their response to reach the most vulnerable groups threatened by violence, food insecurity and famine, particularly in North-Eastern Nigeria. Fourteen donors pledged a total of US$672 million, of which $458 million is for humanitarian action in 2017. This is very good news, and I commend those who made such generous pledges. More is needed however to receive the $1.5 billion required to provide the assistance needed across the Lake Chad region. We stand at a critical point in history. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations. Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease. Children stunted and out of school. Livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost. Communities resilience rapidly wilting away. Development gains reversed. Many will be displaced and will continue to move in search for survival, creating ever more instability across entire regions. The warning call and appeal for action by the Secretary-General can thus not be understated. It was right to take the risk and sound the alarm early, not wait for the pictures of emaciated dying children or the worlds TV screens to mobilise a reaction and the funds. The UN and humanitarian partners are responding. We have strategic, coordinated and prioritised plans in every country. We have the right leadership and heroic, dedicated teams on the ground. We are working hand-in-hand with development partners to marry the immediate life-saving with longer term sustainable development. We are ready to scale up. This is frankly not the time to ask for more detail or use that postponing phrase, what would you prioritize? Every life on the edge of famine and death is equally worth saving. Now we need the international community and this Council to act: First and foremost, act quickly to tackle the precipitating factors of famine. Preserving and restoring normal access to food and ensuring all parties' compliance with international humanitarian law are key. Second, with sufficient and timely financial support, humanitarians can still help to prevent the worst-case scenario. To do this, humanitarians require safe, full and unimpeded access to people in need. Parties to the conflict must respect this fundamental tenet of IHL and those with influence over the parties must exert that influence now. Third, stop the fighting. To continue on the path of war and military conquest is  I think we all know  to guarantee failure, humiliation and moral turpitude, and will bear the responsibility for the millions who face hunger and deprivation on an incalculable scale because of it. Allow me to very briefly sum up. The situation for people in each country is dire and without a major international response, the situation will get worse. All four countries have one thing in common: conflict. This means we  you  have the possibility to prevent  and end  further misery and suffering. The UN and its partners are ready to scale up. But we need the access and the funds to do more. It is all preventable. It is possible to avert this crisis, to avert these famines, to avert these looming human catastrophes. Oslo humanitarian conference for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region raises $672 million to help people in need UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 24 Feb 2017 http://tinyurl.com/zu9l5za Oslo 24 February 2017 - Some 170 representatives from 40 countries, UN, regional organisations and civil society organisations gathered at the Oslo Humanitarian Conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region today. The conference was co-hosted by Norway, Nigeria, Germany and the UN and followed a civil society meeting with large participation from local organisations working in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon. One of the worlds largest humanitarian crises is currently unfolding in the Lake Chad region with 17 million people living in the most affected areas. Nearly 11 million people urgently need humanitarian assistance. At the conference, 14 donors pledged $458 million for relief in 2017 and an additional $214 million was announced for 2018 and beyond. Pledges were announced by the European Commission, Norway, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Republic of Korea. Humanitarian partners agreed to further scale up their response to reach the most vulnerable groups threatened by famine, including children with severe acute malnutrition. Special attention was given to the protection needs of women, children and youth, as well as the need for longer-term support and durable solutions for the displaced populations. Foreign Minister Borge Brende of Norway said: "The conference has helped raising awareness and increased support for millions of people affected by this crisis, not least for the many children and young people who are currently out of school. It is crucial to provide and protect education to safeguard their rights and pave the way for a peaceful development in the region. Our goal must be to ensure quality education for all, for girls as much as for boys. It is of critical importance also to enhance the protection of women and girls, who often carry the main burden of crisis and conflict, and ensure that women are involved in ongoing processes related to peace and development in the region." The Foreign minister of Nigeria, Geoffrey Onyeama, said: "Nigeria is suffering from violent extremism at the same time as it is dealing with low oil prices and an economic recession. While the Government is committing significant budgetary allocations to confront the security and humanitarian situation arising from the insurgency, we also need all the help and support we can get from the international community." The Foreign Minister of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, said: "With todays pledges, humanitarian agencies can now concentrate on their work  to save lives and offer help to those in urgent need. Germany contributes 120 million Euro over the course of the next three years to those efforts. We will provide 100 million Euro for humanitarian assistance and 20 million Euro for stabilization efforts in the region. In the long run, we have to strengthen our partnership with the countries involved to address the root causes of terror, displacement and poverty. For that purpose, we established today a Consultative Group on Prevention and Stabilisation with our counterparts from the region." United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen OBrien said: "The humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad Region is truly massive with a staggering 10.7 million people in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. Without our increased support, affected communities will face a life of hunger, disease, gender-based violence and continued displacement. But there is another future within grasp: as the international community scales up support, we can stop a further descent into an ever-deepening crisis with unimaginable consequences for millions of people. I am grateful for the generous support to humanitarian action we have heard this morning. The UN and our partners are ready and mobilised to further scale up our life-saving response - the people in the region have no time to wait." AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin, or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org
Left on the streets of Mumbai as a toddler and adopted by a Swedish couple, a 36-year-old woman of Indian descent searching for her biological parents has found a small connection with the past on her third trip to India.

Jessica Lindhers latest trip united her with the policeman who found her near Sion Hospital on October 13, 1981, when she was just 17-months-old.

Diwakar Gaonkar, who was then a police constable, was overjoyed, when she met him in Mumbai on Monday. When we found her, I remember taking her around in Sion-Matunga area and asking residents if anyone had reported a missing child, Gaonkar, now a Police Sub-Inspector, said.

Gaonkar said he looked for Jessicas parents in the nearby area and informed all police stations. However, when no missing complaint was found, he handed her to an orphanage. After no one came forward to identify her, she was handed over to an orphanage, which then found foster parents for her in Sweden.

Social activist Anjali Pawar, representative of the NGO Against Child Trafficking, told that Jessica, also known by her Indian name, Kamalini, is still hopeful of finding her biological parents.

She bears no grudge. She understands that they may have had their reasons for dumping her. She just wants to meet them, Pawar, who facilitated Jessicas interaction with police and local officials on Monday, said.

Jessica, who was on her third India visit, since her adoption, left for Sweden last night, Pawar said. Her story is similar to the story of Saroo, whose reel life adaptation Lion, starring Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar earned accolades at the Oscars last month.

Lion was based on the real life story of a boy who traced his biological family from thousands of miles away after getting adopted by Australian parents.

She hasnt given hope and will be in India again to find her biological parents, Pawar said. Now married with two kids, Jessica was adopted by a Swedish couple from the Shree Manav Seva Sangh orphanage in Sion in 1982.

Jessica first visited India in 1999 to trace her parents and returned in 2016. On her third visit, which began last month in Kerala and ended yesterday, she was accompanied by her Australian husband and two children, Pawar said.
He urges the government to take action against Vijay Darda failing which he will file a petition against Darda family in Bombay High Court.

Social worker Pankaj Govardhanrao Thakare has alleged that former Congress Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda and his family members have misused their official position and have illegally acquired 9 plots in Butibori, MIDC Nagpur. These plots were reserved for differently abled and mentally challenged persons. They have acquired plots for commercial purposes from the state government. Darda family had constructed a hall and organised marriage functions and birthday parties. Even though a complaint was filed against Darda with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Nagpur MIDC departmental officials, they have failed to take any action against him.

Pankaj Thakare said, The state government must take action against Vijay Darda or else we will file a petition in the Bombay High Court. They should act against those ministers and bureaucrats who have assisted Darda family, within 15 days. Vijay Darda had served as a Rajya Sabha MP during 1998 to 2016 and he had misused his official position to acquire several plots. Instead of serving the people, he was pursuing his own selfish interests and promoting his business.

Printing business cant function from industrial zone. However, Darda flouted rules and managed to obtain permission to start business there. He purchased 40,000 sq ft at Rs 100 per sq feet. Later, he also obtained two plots under the name of Lokmat. He registered bogus company under the name B 207, Veena Infosys B 208 on 23th March 2001, he added.

Vijay Darda had written a letter to MIDC assistant executive officer on 7th May 2002. The second letter dated 18th April 2002 was sent Nagpur regional official. In these letters, he had sought permission to transfer the plot acquired for Veena Infosys in the name of Lokmat newspapers. Darda had sent a letter to industrial minister Patangrao Kadam 14th April 2004 and urged him to allot plots under industrial rates.

Vijay Darda and his daughter in law Rachna Darda and business partner Sheetal Jain had procured a plot in their names and named the company as Media World enterprises. The company was not registered under Factories act. Despite this 16000 sq ft plot was allotted to him on 24th April 2007. He also forwarded a letter to former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and asking him to offer various incentives for his business.

The plot allotted to Darda family is close to national highway. As per MIDC rules completion certificate is only issued after the completion of 20 per cent of construction work. Then how was certificate issued to them even though work was incomplete. Even today 16 acre lies vacant and no work has been undertaken there.
The Maharashtra Police has arrested nine persons accused of beating up a doctor in a hospital at Dhule by a patients relatives, allegedly due to a delay in treatment.

Three FIRs have also been lodged.

Meanwhile, the doctors in have taken to the streets to protest against the beating up of their colleague.

A day before, a video footage of a doctor being brutally assaulted at a government hospital went viral on social media, showing a crowd, which included relatives of patients.

The incident happened on Sunday night. A probe was later ordered into the matter.
For Rahul Gandhi, time has always been prepared to launch and re-launch him. Indian politics was not so easy for him and his mother. They have been attacked and criticized for dynasty politics. Gandhi entered public life when he contested and won his fathers old Lok Sabha seat of Amethi, Uttar Pradesh in 2004.

In March 2004, Rahul announced his entry into politics by announcing that he would contest the May 2004 Lok Sabha elections, standing from his fathers former constituency of Amethi. The seat had been held by his mother until she transferred to the neighbouring seat of Rae Bareilly. In 2007, he was elected as the General Secretary of the Congress party, an executive post also held in the past by his father, Rajiv Gandhi and by his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru. Amidst calls from Congress party veterans for his greater involvement in party politics and national government, he was elected Congress Vice-President in 2013.

Rahul led the INC campaign in the 2014 general election in which the party suffered its worst electoral result in its history, winning only 44 seats compared to 206 seats won previously in the 2009 general election. The Congress had performed poorly in Uttar Pradesh, just holding 10 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. At that time, this move generated surprise among political commentators, who had regarded his sister Priyanka as being the more charismatic and likely to succeed. It generated speculation that the presence of a young member of Indias most famous political family would reinvigorate the Congress partys political fortunes among youthful population. He won, retaining the family stronghold with a victory margin of over 100,000.

Rahul and his sister Priyanka, managed their mothers campaign for re-election to Rae Bareilly in 2006, which was won with a victory margin of over 400,000 votes. He was a prominent figure in the Congress campaign for the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections; Congress, however, won only 22 seats of the 403 seats with 8.53% of votes. In 2008, senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily mentioned Rahul-as-PM idea when the PM of India Manmohan Singh was still abroad. The Congress, defeated in election after election and reduced to its humiliating tally in the Lok Sabha in 2014, has been completely decimated in Uttar Pradesh, once its backyard and politically the home state of the family. The party has won just seven seats of the 105 it contested, down from 269 in 1985 before the state was split in two. It has been routed in all the four seats including Rahul Gandhis own Amethi. Under him, the party is staring at defeat in almost all major states approaching elections including Karnataka, where it is in power. Congress partys electoral prospects in 2019 Lok Sabha election looks bleak and humiliation could be even worse than that of 2014. If Rahul Gandhi continues to lead party, one day it will vanish from politics of India.

The Congress has failed to understand Indias escalating neo-middle class and their youth icon is completely out of touch with the ambitions of the youth. It has lost the confidence of most Hindus by cheap minority gimmickry and the language of appeasement. It could also be plain pettiness of denying former PMs Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh their rightful place in the family-run enterprise. Since 2014, Congress has lost the central ground of Indian politics. By its meaningless politicking, verbatim expressions and elitist view of activism, it has managed to push itself to the brims. Rahul should be given full responsibility of ruining it entirely. Only then we will know whether the party of Gandhi, Bose, Patel, Ambedkar, Nehru and Indira, is a phoenix.

It has lost miserably in Uttarakhand. The only shining spot is Punjab, where it swept polls thanks only to the popularity and hard work of Captain Amarinder Singh and his wife, 10 years of abject misrule by the Badals, and Rahul largely staying out of the campaign. Congress leaders should learn the art of winning elections from Amarinder Singh, by keeping RaGa out of election campaign.

In contrast, Modi is a relentless campaigner, fearlessly putting himself front and centre. He has guts to announce his campaigns chanting Har Har Mahadev, who openly advocate Hinduism and justice to Hindus. He has guts to polarize without getting in appeasement. He equally stood by Muslim woman condemning triple talaq. His decision to pull out the stops in Varanasi is being hailed as a courageous move. BJP MPs feel that more than this being a case of the PM rightfully according priority to his seat, his move reflects a risk-taking ability and a preparedness to throw his all into an election. Morale-sapping losses in Delhi and Bihar in 2015 did not slow him down and he bounced back with a big win in Assam and a heartening performance in Kerala last year. But on many counts, the UP election was the one that really mattered.

What added to the compelling drama that surrounds any election in the countrys most populous state was Modis huge political gamble of demonetising Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes in November, a decision that knocked 86% of available currency out of circulation. The UP election was billed both as a virtual referendum on demonetisation and a semi-final for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It called for all of Modis skills as a communicator to counter a determined attack from political rivals and criticism by leading economists and intellectuals, some of whom saw the action as despotic and whimsical. After transforming from the Hindu Hriday Samrat of Gujarat to Development Man in 2014, UP 2017 saw Modi again re-invent himself as a pro-poor welfarist. In the Indira Gandhi style, Modi in UP was the PM seeking to win a state election on the basis of his own persona, not through state leaders. Modi was a one-man show in these polls.

Still the Gandhi familys blueprint is clearly engraved. Sonia Gandhi will hand over the Congress presidency to Rahul in the course of the next one year, possibly earlier. She has turned 70 and keeps unwell; this is a good time to bequeath the fief. Congress old-timers whove blocked Rahuls coronation for a while, fearing their own uselessness, have more or less come around. Rahuls hyper activism in recent months has been directed as much at them as at the BJP. The old guard in the Congress has for long doubted whether Rahul had fire in his belly. They persuaded Sonia to carry on as president last year. She radiates a European sense of purpose. Her body language is assertive. She speaks with firmness that brooks no dissent. Rahul, half-European, quarter-Kashmiri and quarter-Parsi is milder. It has taken him 12 years in Parliament to capture the aggression his mother projects effortlessly. And yet, when it comes to the crunch, Sonia is ruthless, Rahul conciliatory. Unfortunately for Rahul, he is not a natural politician.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
In 7 things about vaccines and autism that the movie Vaxxed wont tell you , The Washington Post called Vaxxed an anti-vaccination documentary, and reminded readers that studies show no link, while devoting most of the story to trashing Andrew Wakefield. That was in May, 2016.

By Anne Dachel The news site, The New American reviewed the film were all familiar with, Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe," and unlike every mainstream media outlet, The New American actually told the the story of corruption, fraud, and cover-up surrounding our vaccine program, which is the essence of Vaxxed.

Last March, The New York Times covered Vaxxed in Pulled From Festival, Anti-Vaccination Film Will Run in Theater. The Times omitted the real story of Vaxxed, and cited William Thompson as a former center employee and Andrew Wakefield as Mr. Wakefield. Reporter Melena Ryzik said Vaxxed was wrong because the C.D.C. has already stated unequivocally that vaccines do not cause autism.Clearly The Times published what they were told, which was to cover up the real story of Vaxxed.

Now look at The New American. Heres a refreshing example of honest and thorough reporting on the REAL STORY of Vaxxed.

Mar 9, 2017, The New American: New Film Suggests Link Between Vaccines and Autism

By Alex Newman

After watching the new documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe, it is easy to see why the establishment is trying so hard to make sure you never watch it. At the very least, the movie raises some extremely troubling questions that absolutely must be answered, as quickly as possible. If the experts, doctors, parents, and others interviewed in the 91-minute film are even partially correct, millions of lives are being needlessly destroyed, and the cost to taxpayers will likely reach into the trillions of dollars.

But the movie does more than just raise troubling questions. It exposes a conspiracy  and yes, that is the correct term  involving top officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to deliberately conceal data showing a causal link between vaccines and autism. If proven in a court of law, America and humanity have been victims of a crime of monumental proportions that must be dealt with as harshly as possible.

...the film introduces Dr. William Thompson, senior scientist at CDC. He became a whistleblower after finding out that the CDC was omitting important data on vaccines. We lied about the scientific findings, Thompson can be heard saying in a recording played in the film. The CDC can no longer be trusted to do vaccine safety work.

The saga began in 2004, when Thompson led a CDC study on the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and its potential link to autism. The CDC omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics, Thompson admitted in a 2014 letter. Essentially, the data that was concealed from the public revealed a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. Documents were later destroyed, too.

Government scientists are also exposed in e-mails seemingly discussing covering up the data showing the links between vaccines and autism. In fact, according to whistleblower Thompson, CDC officials destroyed the documents showing the links. That's what I keep seeing again and again and again, where these senior people do completely unethical, vile things and no one holds them accountable, Thompson says in a voice recording. Unsurprisingly, none of the CDC officials implicated in the scandal were willing to be interviewed for Vaxxed....

Newman actually reported on whos who in Vaxxed, from naming William Thompson, Brian Hooker, and Andrew Wakefield, to Stephanie Seneff, Bill Posey, and Dave Weldon. The details Newman included are stunning, especially when compared to the pathetic coverage of Vaxxed by mainstream news outlets.

The contrast between the authentic and phony news on Vaxxed shows the truly shameful reporting that passes for journalism in America today.

I congratulate Alex Newman on rising above media propaganda. My only criticism is about the title, New Film Suggests Link Between Vaccines and Autism. To really capture the message of "Vaxxed," the title should say something like, New Film Reveals Government Cover-up of Vaccines/Autism Link. It isn't just that there's a link, but that officials knew about it years ago, destroyed the evidence, and have been lying about it ever since.



Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.




The bunkering tanker Aris 13 was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia Monday.



Aris 13, a small 1,800 dwt bunkering oil tanker with eight crew members from Sri Lanka, was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia on Monday in the first attack by Somali pirates since 2012, according to several media reports.

Reuters said data from its systems showed the ship made a sharp turn just after it

passed the Horn of Africa on its voyage from Djibouti to Mogadishu.

The news agency said it was told by John Steed of the organization Oceans Beyond Piracy, the Aris 13 sent a distress call on Monday, turned off its tracking

system, and altered course for the Somali port town of Alula.

The ship reported

it was being followed by two skiffs yesterday afternoon. Then it

disappeared, Steed told Reuters.

He said aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship.

The International Maritime Bureaus (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center (PRC) said that in 2016, there were just two piracy incidents off Somalia. Thats a big change from 2011 when Somali pirates launched 237 attacks and held hundreds of hostages.

In regards to the 2016 piracy incidents, Pottengal Mukundan, director of IMB, whose PRC has monitored world piracy since 1991, said, Pirates attempted to attack a container vessel in the Gulf of Aden in May, and fired on a product tanker in the Somali basin some 300 nautical miles from shore in October. For IMB, this latest incident demonstrates that the capacity and intent to attack merchant shipping still exists off Somalia.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Areas of patchy fog early. Partly cloudy. High near 80F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Slight chance of a shower throughout the evening. Low 62F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph.
Fasten your cargo seatbelts, were heading for a digital tornado as the airfreight industry embraces technological change.

That was the clear message from the horizon innovation forum held in Abu Dhabi on the eve of the opening of todays IATA World Cargo Symposium 2017 at the ADNEC exhibition and conference centre.

The forum, chaired by Celine Hourcade, head of cargo transformation at IATA, kicked off with some blue sky thinking from Svilen Rangelov, who described his plans to build a car-like drone project.

Rangelov, born in Bulgaria but with an economics degree from the US, asked the audience to excuse his bushy beard, which will be shaved off when his unmanned aircraft takes off or if it doesnt, when he attends a job interview.

That initial presentation exemplified the key theme of the debate: what if?

Hourcade pointed out that Amazons entry into overnight airfreight operations was little more than a theory just 12 months ago but had now become a reality, and she observed that the traditional airfreight industry needs to move faster not just in the transportation of physical goods but in its adoption of technology.

The debate was thrown open to the audience in a well-attended session, with the first contribution describing the air cargo industry as a gigantic dinosaur that was slow to react and overly complicated, with too many participants who are unwilling to share information.

Alas, the audience members were not asked to identify themselves, but given the exclusive nature of the event, they were at a senior level.

One audience member suggested that the integrators, once seen as the arch disruptors of traditional air cargo, were now themselves vulnerable because their production line logistics does not allow them to customise their service in this new world of e-commerce.

Protectionism and a reluctance to share data were two reasons behind the rise of the Amazons and Alibabas in the air cargo supply chain.

One audience member suggested that the automotive industry was one example of a global, fast-moving and complicated supply chain where data sharing was encouraged, to the benefit of the consumers, suppliers and manufacturers.

But innovation and entrepreneurship need courage and capital: Our industry players want to wait and see who will invest in something new, and then they will follow, was one observation.

The same speaker said that the full force of digitisation would confront an air cargo industry that was too focused on business to business relationships and had moved away from the consumer, a strategic error with the emergence of e-commerce and the combined I want it now demands of the end customer fuelled by the powerful and innovative e-tailers.

This thought was summed up by one person as: Our industry has always been reactive rather than proactive, and so has always been late. We need to change that mindset.

Another said that digitisation does not mean digitising a legacy [paper] process but adopting new ideas like blockchain, the peer to peer network with a distributed ledge of transactions.

The digital tornado warning came from Wojciech Soltysiak of air cargo IT systems provider CHAMP, who gave the now defunct DVD retailer Blockbuster as an example of a company management that had laughed out loud at the idea of Netflix, whose video streaming alternative destroyed the formers business model.

Soltysiak said that in ten years, the traditional retail chains had seen total global sales of $250bn fall to $150bn, with the missing $100bn now in the form of e-commerce, and growing.

And it is not just e-commerce, but robotics and smart machines in the supply chain: The robots are now helping us but in two years we will be helping the robot, said Soltysiak.

He observed that there are around 80,000 books available on how to manage people, and only ten on how to manage robots.

The best illustration of the potential of smart machines was Amazons Alexa, which was brought to the event.

Alexa was asked how old was Elvis Presley when he died. The answer, apparently, is 42. That was easy. Now try airfreight.

Alexa, open cargo booking, I want to send 200kg in four pieces from Frankfurt to Atlanta

Test yourself now. How long would it take you to answer that question from a shipper or forwarder?

It took Alexa less than 10 seconds to come with a flight choice of KLM, Cargolux and Lufthansa.

Ah, I hear you sighing, but what about the rate agreements I have with an airline, and the preferences of the shipper?

As Hourcade pointed out, Alexa possesses artificial intelligence and is always learning and can adapt to your preferences. It will learn what type of shipments you book and agreements you have with airlines or freight forwarders. It will not just provide a list of flights but a targeted list of options that fit you. Alexa is basic now but is learning.

Cue the traditional Chinese proverb: When the winds of change are blowing, some people build walls which other build windmills.

I think we should be building windmills.

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Cold chain specialist Envirotainer is to supply its flagship RAP e2 solution at Luxembourg airport. Head of healthcare sales for the region, Niklas Lonnkvist said it would significantly increase the companys ability to service customers at the seventh largest airfreight location in Europe.

He added: The new facility is well located in an airport with daily flights to six continents to support the ever growing needs of Pharma companies in Europe.

Swedish-based Envirotainer has recently been expanding its sales offering in Europe, Middle East and Africa, adding that it currently operates the largest fleet and most extensive network of its kind in the world.

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March 14, 2017

The war of words between Turkey and the Netherlands shows no sign of abating with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling the Dutch Nazi "gorillas and spineless and ignoble.

Erdogan told an audience in Ankara today, We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there. He was referring to the alleged complicity of Dutch United Nations peacekeepers with Serb militia in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslim Bosnian men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serbs at the height of the civil war in 1995.

The row between Turkey and the Netherlands erupted over the weekend after Dutch authorities, citing security concerns, denied Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu landing rights for a visit to promote voting in favor of the referendum on a super-presidency among the estimated 400,000 Turks who live there. Tensions boiled over when Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, Turkeys minister for family affairs, was deported late Saturday night after making her way overland from Germany to Rotterdam.

Turkey announced a smattering of toothless sanctions yesterday to protest the Dutch government's actions, including denying re-entry to the Dutch ambassador to Ankara, freezing all diplomatic communication and demanding a formal apology. Ankara is also threatening to take its case to the European Court of Human Rights. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who is seeking re-election in parliamentary polls March 15, said that the sanction were not too bad, but also stated that it was Erdogan who should apologize, for drawing parallels between his country and the Nazis.

Erdogan remains unswayed. Nobody should try to give us lessons in civilization he thundered before the audience in the Turkish capital. Their history is dark but ours is clean.

Such claims of purity must grate, especially among the descendants of survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide. More than a million Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish forces, many in the Syrian desert, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I. Turkey has spent millions of dollars in lobbying fees to deny the atrocities occurred but has largely failed in its endeavor. By contrast, the Netherlands formally apologized for its failure to prevent the massacre in Srebrenica and compensated the families of the victims.

There is no need, however, to dive so far back into history for evidence of state-sanctioned violence in Turkey. In a report released March 10, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) accused Turkish security forces of massive destruction of property and grave rights violations between July 2015 and December 2016 during operations against Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey. The latter included torture, rape and killings. The OHCHR used satellite images and interviews with victims to document its conclusions.

At least 2,000 people died over that period including 800 members of the security forces and 1,200 people who the report said may or may not have engaged in violent action against the government. The unrest led to the forced displacement of up to half a million residents in the southeast.

Turkish authorities ignored the United Nations repeated requests to grant access to its investigators. Turkish rights groups and lawmakers were similarly barred, allowing security forces to destroy much of the evidence.

Some of the most chilling allegations came from Cizre, an ancient settlement on the Tigris River. The ramshackle town has for centuries been a fount of Kurdish nationalist feelings and punished by authorities for daring to display them. The most recent battering came in 2015, when armed Kurdish youths linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) erected barricades in heavily populated parts of Cizre and recklessly declared autonomy. The government response was brutal. Many residents air fury at the PKK for inviting it, a Western journalist who interviewed at least 30 people from Cizre told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

The United Nations said witnesses had described apocalyptic scenes of destruction. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble as tanks took aim. Investigators were able to document at least 189 people who had been trapped in basements for weeks without food or electricity. Some were wounded but denied medical treatment, and they all perished in fires triggered by security forces' artillery shelling.

In February 2016, UN investigators spoke to the brother of a woman who had died in Cizre. They wrote, Her family was invited by the public prosecutor to collect her remains which consisted of three small pieces of charred flesh identified by means of a DNA match. The family did not receive an explanation as to how she was killed nor a forensic report.

The victims sister, who demanded accountability, was slapped with terrorist charges herself.
March 13, 2017

A simple symbol has become a social media phenomenom in Turkey as women make their opinions known without words.

One of the most intriguing developments arising from an upcoming referendum has been the deep split within the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), many of whose members are known as Gray Wolves. Devlet Bahceli, longtime leader of the ultranationalist group, supports the government and the proposed constitutional amendments to extend presidential powers. But several senior party members, along with various local leaders of the movement, have voiced their clear stand against the amendments and distanced themselves from Bahceli.

One of the most prominent leaders of the movement, Meral Aksener, is a woman in her early 60s who has been active in politics for more than two decades; she served in parliament for the MHP from 2007-15. Aksener is a respected figure in the party, but also a victim of intense rivalry among the party elites. Her critics have made several attempts to paint Aksener as a member of the Gulen movement. In September, the MHP Disciplinary Board expelled her after she formed a movement to try to remove Bahceli from the leadership.

For the past month, Aksener  along with a group of male MHP dissenters  has been running one of the most determined campaigns of the platform opposing the amendments. The ultranationalist base in Turkey respects and follows her. Her overcrowded rallies in different parts of Turkey have faced and overcome unexpected challenges. For example, in early February in Canakkale province, just as Aksener was about to start her speech, the power was cut off. However, she carried on with a megaphone and the audience used their cell phones flashlights.

In mid-February, Aksener posed with a henna tattoo of the Turkish flag on her palm. The image immediately became a trending topic on social media and received the admiration of many Turks from all walks of life.

Yet Bahceli was not impressed and harshly criticized the trend. His disparaging comments backfired, as young soldiers in uniform, elderly women and little kids starting posing with crescent-and-star henna designs on their palms. #KinaliEllerHayirDiyor (Hands with Henna Say No) kept trending for days on Turkish social media, as hundreds of people from all over Turkey posted photos of palms sporting the flag.

During campaigning for or against the April 16 referendum, most political parties announced they would only use the Turkish flag, not their own political parties symbols or flags. And it was brilliant for Aksener and her team to use henna. Henna is a symbol of innocence and sacrifice in Turkey and the region. Turkish bridal showers often include the bride getting a henna design on her palm. Young conscripts also get henna on their hands just before they are sent off to serve their country, as a symbol of dedication. For the people of Anatolia, henna symbolizes new beginnings, excitement and sacrifice for an important cause. It is an ancient tradition that has been cherished by Jews, Arabs, Alevis, Kurds and Turks  it is an image that unites and transcends politics.

Nilden Postalci, an academic specializing in political communications and a former candidate for parliament from the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), told Al-Monitor, As a politician and communication expert, I can say it is a rare instance to observe a political symbol so effective. Political symbols are crucial for success, because with it a politician conveys multiple messages: who you are, what your message is and what your goals are. Yet, of course it can be difficult to have that symbol be accepted. Your audiences should own your message; it should resonate with them.

During a television interview, Aksener said this idea was brought to her by young volunteers from her grassroots organization. No longer an official member of the MHP, she is campaigning on her own and chose to wear the tattoo. Postalci was impressed with the henna hand symbol. She said Aksener, after being blocked from MHP leadership, is now an underdog, and with the flag henna design on her palm she is able to give multiple instantaneous messages to the public and her opponents.

At a time where all opposition is silenced in Turkey, what can a henna tattoo do? Postalci explained that this symbol hits a bull's-eye on three different fronts. First, henna is mostly seen as belonging to women in Anatolia. (Unlike other parts of the Muslim world, it is rare to see men coloring their hair or beard with henna in Turkey.)

"Henna is a symbol of womens happiness, their sadness; it is an image of Anatolian mothers, Postalci said. Henna stands for resilience and strength. In a way, henna flags on hands gave confidence to people who are saying no to the amendments.

Next, Postalci focused on the flag, which has become the symbol of national unity since the failed coup July 15. Even though the MHP expelled Aksener, with the flag tattooed on her palm, she stands above the party, embracing all nationalists and telling the masses, "I am a woman of Anatolia."

Particularly at a time when the government was displaying the Kurdish flag to greet Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the image of Akseners palm became all the more welcoming to the confused and wounded spirits of Turkish nationalists.

Postalci said the internet images of hands with the henna flag design were the most brilliant way to reach out to groups who are not interested in reading about, writing about or listening to politics. She believes this was the most successful political image created over the past couple of decades: It symbolizes a strong resistance.

Now women who may be apolitical and keep silent are sharing their images with henna hands. As a communications expert I believe this political image  unless, of course, it is stopped  will evolve into an even wider and fancier campaign, Postalci said.

Women are a sight for sore eyes in Turkish politics. For decades, the most outspoken women in politics have appeared from the Kurdish movement and Turkish left. There are few female role models from the Turkish right. The MHP has the lowest ratio of female lawmakers among the four parties in the parliament, and Aksener has a unique opportunity because she has earned the respect of even those who do not agree with her.

A Kurdish Alevi female politician who asked to remain anonymous told Al-Monitor: Aksener is a survivor. She is not just a female politician, but one who has been a victim of sexist insults and kept her head high. Men from her own movement were scared of her and wanted her to quit politics. She did not. Several Kurdish female activists stood against those who attempted to slander Aksener.

With almost all dissidents silenced in Turkey, a simple henna flag on Akseners palm has emerged as a fresh symbol of hope in a rather depressed country.

On March 8, International Womens Day, as women sang and marched down Istanbuls famous Istiklal Avenue, some of them displayed the henna designs on their hands to show they reject the proposed amendments. One of them told Al-Monitor, We will send henna powder to the leaders. They need it to remember the ordinary people will always find ways of peaceful resistance.
American Airlines will operate a non-stop flight from BHM to ORD.

The non-stop service to Chicago O'Hare International Airport will start July 5.

American is the second airline at Birmingham-Shuttleworth International Airport, the first being United Airlines. The service will fly twice daily with a two-class CRJ-700.

"We are excited to have American Airlines non-stop service to Chicago O'Hare International Airport," Al Denson, Birmingham Airport Authority President and CEO, said in a press release. "This service provides Birmingham passengers another great option when flying to or connecting in Chicago."

American also has non-stop service from Birmingham to Dallas-Forth Worth (DFW), Philadelphia (PHL), Washington National (DCA), Charlotte (CLT) and Miami International (MIA).
An Alabama-produced wine will be one of the featured vintages at an "Appalachian Wine Summit" planned for next week in North Carolina.

The event is aimed at spotlighting 11 of the top wine producers in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and North Carolina, as well as the Maraella Estate Vineyard and Winery, located in Hokes Bluff.

The summit is planned for next Tuesday at Over Yonder, a Valle Crucis, N.C., restaurant. Taking part will be three chefs - Travis Milton of Shovel and Pick in Bristol, Va., Nate Allen of Knife and Fork in Spruce Pines, N.C., and Andrew Long of Over Yonder.

The inspiration for the event was Appalachian State University professor Jessica Blackburn, who spent a year visiting about 70 sites and interviewing winemakers, growers, chefs, farmers and food artisans in the South.

Those conversations taught her one thing - there's a wine hierarchy that keeps regional wines from gaining a foothold in restaurants and on tables, she said.

However, Blackburn said, "most also agree that this hierarchy is based on an outdated and inaccurate stereotype stemming from a lack of knowledge of the wines produced in our region."

Blackburn said in an e-mail that Maraella made the list because of its specialty - Cabernet Sauvignon, with grapes grown in Etowah County.

"It's nice to put a wine in front of the chefs that pushes back against the outdated stereotype of Appalachian wines being limited to muscadine or scuppernong," she said. "Pairing regional wines with regional cuisine is one of the next steps in a sustainable food and beverage landscape."

Maraella Winery takes its name from the first two letters of founder Jim Lee's granddaughters' middle names. In addition to the Cabernet Sauvignon, the winery also sells white muscadine wine from grapes grown on the property next to their retail store in Hokes Bluff, and its store there carries jams, jellies, cheese and some fruit wines.

The Cabernet Sauvignon is aged in French Oak in a production plant behind the store. The process can take from seven to 14 months.
Chickens

State officials say they may have found bird flu in three north Alabama chicken houses. This file image shows commercial chickens in their houses, and raising them is Alabama's No. 1 agricultural product. (Photo courtesy AL.com news partner WHNT News 19)

Here are the top business stories on AL.com for Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Follow all of Alabama's business news here anytime.

State and federal officials are investigating suspected findings of bird flu in poultry in Jackson, Lauderdale and Madison counties in north Alabama. State Veterinarian Dr. Tony Frazier issued a "stop movement" order for certain poultry in Alabama.

Callaghan's Irish Social Club, a longtime Mobile favorite known for its tasty burgers, cold beer and live music, has been named The South's Best Bar 2017 in Southern Living's first-ever South's Best Awards recognizing reader favorites in 13 categories.

Co-owner Eddie Yessick and wife Meredith Carlton Yessick hope to open Side Tracks Bar-Grill & Music Hall in Huntsville by the end of the month. "We want to replace the Crossroads vibe, the void that's been left here in the city of that," Meredith says.

American Airlines will operate a non-stop flight from BHM to ORD. The non-stop service to Chicago O'Hare International Airport will start July 5.

A central Florida man is suing Drummond Company of Alabama that he says built homes over former phosphate mines and didn't warn homeowners about health hazards.

French automotive supplier Plastic Omnium has announced construction of a plant which is expected to supply large exterior painted auto body parts for three automakers, including Mercedes in Alabama. The plant is in South Carolina.

Two pizza brands hope to make a comeback with new restaurants in Alabama and more than two dozen other U.S. states. Mr. Gatti's Pizza and Gatti's Pizza announced Monday they are looking to open new franchise locations in Alabama and 26 U.S. states.

An Alabama-produced wine will be one of the featured vintages at an "Appalachian Wine Summit" planned for next week in North Carolina. The chosen vintage is from Maraella Estate Vineyard and Winery in Hokes Bluff.

A new extended-stay hotel at Bridge Street Town Centre is weeks away from opening to the public. Element Huntsville will debut April 4 on floors 7-11 of the Westin Huntsville.

After the birth of her son in 2013, Heather Johnson was determined to have a better postpartum experience than the one she had with her daughter. She went on to launch her own Cullman business, Fruit Of My Womb, in 2014. Today, she offers placenta encapsulation, tinctures and prints; bengkung belly binding; and breastfeeding support.
After the birth of her son in 2013, Heather Johnson was determined to have a better postpartum experience than the one she had with her daughter.

Heather Johnson. (Courtesy photo)

The licensed phlebotomist had decided to encapsulate her placenta, the organ that surrounded her son in the womb and provided nutrients and blood to him during pregnancy.

The centuries old practice involves steaming, dehydrating, grinding and placing the placenta into capsules, which the American Pregnancy Association says may help decrease postpartum depression, restore iron in the blood, improve breast milk production, among other benefits.

When Johnson began taking the pills, she said she noticed a huge difference in her mood, energy level and milk supply. The experience inspired her to help others by becoming a certified placenta encapsulation specialist and postpartum health specialist.

She went on to launch her own Cullman business, Fruit Of My Womb, in 2014. Today, she offers placenta encapsulation, tinctures and prints; bengkung belly binding; and breastfeeding support.

"As strange as it may sound, I absolutely love what I do," Johnson said.

Postpartum depression

Johnson, who is aware of only one other certified placenta encapsulation specialist in the area, does all of her work at home. She hopes to someday own a small building designated to encapsulation and jewelry making.

Until then, she's content to continue helping moms struggling with postpartum depression, a serious mood disorder the American Psychological Association said affects up to one in seven women following their baby's birth.

When traditional medicine fails, the holistic approach of placenta encapsulation may provide relief in the days, weeks and months after delivering a baby.

"Placenta encapsulation may sound strange to some and it may not be for everyone and that's OK," she said. "A lot of women that have struggled with postpartum depression are willing to try absolutely anything to not suffer through it again. Every woman is entitled to a happy and healthy postpartum, and if they feel placenta encapsulation will help them, then I'm more than happy to provide the service."

Keepsake jewelry

Fruit Of My Womb also offers keepsake jewelry made with breast milk. To make breast milk jewelry, Johnson needs three ounces of a mother's fresh, frozen or even outdated milk, which takes about 3-4 weeks to process before it is preserved in a resin mold.

Madison resident Sophia Spear, who nurses her 10-month-old son Atticus, said businesses like Fruit Of My Womb help normalize breastfeeding and the sacrifices mothers make to nourish their children.

"Whether you exclusively breastfeed, pump, supplement, or any combination, it takes a lot of dedication and a piece of jewelry with a stone made from your milk is a permanent reminder of your hard work and your bond with your baby," she said. "I think it's important for women to feel like they have an option to commemorate their journey in motherhood, whether it's through jewelry, or other pieces that Fruit Of My Womb offers."

Johnson also creates jewelry from cremains, hair, flowers, clothing and other items. She even made a bead that contains the first curls of both of her children, a piece of her son's hospital hat and part of her daughter's first birthday outfit.

Cherish forever

She receives a lot of orders for jewelry made with funeral flowers and locks of hair from babies who have passed away.

"The stories behind the jewelry are both touching and heartbreaking," she said. "Those can be very emotional for me but I know it's something that will bring comfort and that they will always cherish."

Johnson determines pricing based on materials and time, but said she strives to keep her services affordable. Her client base has grown considerably within the past year thanks to appearances at different expos and events where she can spread her message and show off her jewelry.

Mothers often tell Johnson they wish they had known about placenta encapsulation when they had kids.

"I love being able to provide a service for women that can help them have a happy and healthy postpartum," she said.

Learn more about Fruit Of My Womb on Facebook.
A women's investment group is hosting what it believes to be Birmingham's first angel investing workshop aimed specifically at women.

Athena Collective will host a female-focused workshop on March 22 at the Innovation Depot and March 23 at Balch & Bingham. The collective focuses on training, supporting and connecting female investors.

The workshop sessions will include topics on startup investing in the context of portfolio diversification; choosing, negotiating and managing investments; investing in tech startups and more. Athena Collective is partnering with Startup Angels, which developed the curriculum with the help of startup investors, to host the workshop.

"Women control nearly 80 percent of consumer purchasing power, but they rarely participate in deciding whether companies launch, grow, or flourish," Nicole Carpenter, co-founder of Athena Collective, said in a press release. "Our goal is to empower women investors, because a more diverse network of funding is critical to growing the region's entrepreneurial culture."

It costs $250 to attend the workshop, but there's a $25 option that only provides access to the Fireside Chat portion on March 22. Click here to register.

Speakers at the workshop include experts from Village Capital, Craft Catalyst, Anderson Growth Partners and more.
callaghan's.JPG

Callaghan's Irish Social Club has been named the South's Best Bar in a new Southern Living poll. (File photo)

Callaghan's Irish Social Club, a longtime Mobile favorite known for its tasty burgers, cold beer and live music, has been named The South's Best Bar 2017 in Southern Living's first-ever South's Best Awards recognizing reader favorites in 13 categories.

Last fall, Southern Living polled its nationwide audience, seeking their favorite bars, breweries, cities, hotels, inns, islands, museums, resorts, restaurants, shops, small towns, tailgates and barbecue joints.

Several Alabama establishments were named among the favorites in other categories.

Callaghan's was voted the South's Best Bar among more than 20,000 submissions - beating out New Orleans establishments like The Carousel Bar and Lounge in Hotel Monteleone and Pat O'Brien's. "Whether you live across the street or you're a tourist from Italy, you feel at home, comfortable and welcomed" at Callaghan's, according to Southern Living.

Flora-Bama took the No. 2 spot on the list.

"No one knows the South better than the Southern Living audience, and no one is more passionate about it. That's why it means so much to be chosen as one of the South's Best," said Southern Living Editor in Chief Sid Evans. "From an Irish pub in Mobile, Alabama, to a shop in Savannah, Georgia, we're celebrating them all in our April issue."

The April issue hits newsstands on March 17, which happens to be St. Patrick's Day - the biggest day of the year for the South's Best Bar, which will hold its 71st annual St. Patrick's Day street party Friday and Saturday.

The full list of winners can be seen at www.southernliving.com/souths-best, with additional information available by searching #SouthsBest on social media.
Church of the Highlands Montgomery campus.JPG

The Church of the Highlands, based in Birmingham, opened a new campus in Montgomery on March 12, 2017.

(Church of the Highlands Video)

Chris Erwin is the campus pastor for the Montgomery branch of the Church of the Highlands.

The Church of the Highlands, Alabama's largest church, opened a new campus in Montgomery on Sunday, March 12.

"In 2010, we really knew that Church of the Highlands needed to be in Montgomery," Montgomery Campus Pastor Chris Erwin said in a video distributed by the church. "It's the state capitol, so it's the seat of state government. We really believed it was the seat of authority, maybe even spiritually. And so having a life-giving church here, a Church of the Highlands campus, meant that we have an opportunity to really break down some walls, break down some barriers, and see God do something really incredible in the city of Montgomery."

The church has had a branch in Montgomery for six years and seven months, with the congregation meeting at the Montgomery Performing Arts Center. The new campus is located at 4255 Taylor Road. Sunday services are at 8 a.m., 9:30, 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

"We've had thousands of people get saved, water-baptized, their lives changed, because we were there, at that location," Erwin said. "We're super-thrilled about being here in this brand new building."

About 40,000 people a week attend services at 15 branch locations of Church of the Highlands, including the main campus in Irondale. All services feature live praise bands on site, with video streaming of Senior Pastor Chris Hodges preaching from the main campus.

"This new building is going to be a way for our new Dream Team to reach more people," said Next Steps Pastor Aldger Armstead, who is on the staff at the Montgomery branch.

Next Steps Pastor Aldger Armstead is on the staff at the Montgomery campus of Church of the Highlands.

"We'll have more services, and hence more seats for people to sit in to hear the gospel. Our team is committed in a major way of seeing folks know God, find freedom, discover purpose and make a difference."

The Church of the Highlands was founded in February 2001 and met in the fine arts auditorium at Mountain Brook High School. In 2007, the church opened its $15 million main campus with a 2,400-seat sanctuary on Grants Mill Road near Interstate 459.

Montgomery Building Opening Weekend from Church of the Highlands on Vimeo.
Maddy Wyatt was the first in her group to "test-drive" the da Vinci Xi surgical robot Friday afternoon. Sitting where a surgeon would sit in an operating room, several feet away from the "patient," she quickly got the hang of maneuvering the arms.

She picked up a penny and held it in front of the 3D-HD camera, which enlarged one side of the penny onto a monitor nearby.

"See Lincoln in the monument?" asked a representative from Intuitive Surgical, the company that makes the da Vinci robot.

Though it's impossible to see Lincoln with the naked eye, the robot's magnification shows him clearly.

The da Vinci is an example of technology developed by engineers to help surgeons perform abdominal surgery with a minimally invasive approach, leaving a smaller scar and a shorter recovery time, among other benefits to patients.

The illustration was just one of several that thrilled 100 middle- and high-school students from 50 schools in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida on Friday at BEST Day at Springhill Medical Center in Mobile.

"That was so cool!" Wyatt, a sophomore at Murphy High School, enthused. "I'm amazed right now."

Jennifer Shell, Springhill Medical Center's robotics surgery coordinator, created the first-time event, which was co-hosted by BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) Robotics.

"We wanted to open our doors for a unique educational experience that gives students an inside look at the technology used at our hospital, and also provides them with an opportunity to use it," said Shell. "Our partnership with BEST made it so easy to organize an event for a network of students the organization had already identified as having an interest in this type of technology."

Throughout the day, students rotated among 12 stations, where they learned about the heart/lung machine used in open-heart surgery, flexible endoscopes, an orthopedic robot, gastrointestinal stents and more.

At the hospital's biomedical department station, Hunter Montgomery showed students an electrosurgical tool that cuts and cauterizes. He placed slices of bacon on a grounding plate and let students slice through it with the "pencil." As smoke filled the air, so did a stench that didn't smell like bacon. Students and teachers held their noses and waved away the smoke.

"Y'all have been my biggest group of pyros so far," Montgomery said to one group of students who enthusiastically cut away at the bacon.

Katelyn Lindsey, a 7th-grader at Clark-Shaw Magnet School who wants to become a technological engineer one day, said she especially enjoyed the hospital's vascular access display, where students could search for veins in each other's arms using ultrasound technology.

"This is so cool!" said Woodie Albritton, a student at Mary G. Montgomery High School, as he found a vein in another student's arm.

In addition to the hands-on demonstrations, the students heard from guest speakers Dr. Matt Barber of Alabama Orthopaedic Clinic and Dr. Eldon Scott of Surgeons of Mobile, who talked about how robots have changed the world of medicine during a lunchtime presentation.
One of the most commonly-held delusions amongst the property-hoarding class is that being a "landlord" makes them some kind of &q...
Demonstrators with banners of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather outsidethe Turkish consulate to welcome the Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, who decided to travel to Rotterdam by land after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's flight was barred from landing by the Dutch government, in Rotterdam, Netherlands March 11, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

ANKARA  Turkey announced a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands on Monday over its refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to campaign there, including halting high-level political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish air space to Dutch diplomats.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, briefing journalists after the weekly council of ministers meeting, said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps "to redress" the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

"There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn't create this crisis or bring it to this stage," Kurtulmus said. "Those who did have to take steps to redress the situation."Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group. The announcement came hours after Turkey's foreign ministry formally protested the treatment of a Turkish minister who was prevented from entering a consulate in the Netherlands and escorted out of the country after trying to attend a political rally.

The ministry also objected to what it called a "disproportionate" use of force against demonstrators at a protest afterward. Separately, Turkey's foreign minister was denied permission to land to address the same rally in Rotterdam.

The argument is over the Netherlands' refusal to allow Turkish officials to campaign there to drum up support among Turks who are eligible to vote in an April 16 referendum that would greatly expand the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

About 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands, though it's not clear how many are eligible to vote.

Erdogan said the two cabinet ministers  Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, would ask the European human rights court to weigh in on their treatment. He added that he didn't think the court would rule in Turkey's favor.

Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed the Netherlands in its diplomatic fight with Turkey, as NATO's chief called for alliance members to respect each other and the European Union urged Turkey to calm down.

Turkey had a similar dispute with Germany last week, but the fight with the Netherlands comes as that country prepares for its own election Wednesday pitting Prime Minister Mark Rutte's right-wing PVV Party against far-right, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders' party.

Merkel, speaking at a news conference in Munich on Monday, pledged her "full support and solidarity" to the Dutch, saying the Nazi gibes were "completely unacceptable." Erdogan responded angrily to Merkel's support for the Netherlands.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act will not be easy, as the Republican proposal faces criticism from left and right.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump showed his sharp political instincts by promising voters that no American would go without health insurance.

I am going to take care of everybody, he said. I dont care if it costs me votes or not. Everybodys going to be taken care of much better than theyre taken care of now.

That declaration won him overwhelming support from white men and women, whose life expectancy has begun to decline.

But Trumps concept of healthcare reform ran counter to the ideological convictions of the Republicans controlling Congress.

They voted more than 60 times to repeal Barack Obamas signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act. But they could not overturn it, because the president used his veto.

The law, better known as Obamacare, had been adopted without a single Republican vote when Democrats were in charge in the Capitol.

As Republicans now proceed to dismantle it  another promise to voters  Trump has given his blessing to its replacement, which is running into a wall of resistance ranging from doctors, hospitals, seniors advocates and many state governors to free-market conservatives.

Obamacares defenders warn the Republican alternative would strip millions of patients of coverage acquired in the past few years and cost more both to taxpayers and poorer, older patients.

Conservatives, instead, call the new bill a socialist sell-out because it would continue to provide some subsidies, albeit more meager, to pay for unaffordable insurance premiums that show every sign of becoming even more expensive.

Patchwork remedies

The economics of healthcare have bedeviled many countries but Americas history of patchwork remedies is particularly remarkable.

Paying for medical treatment was largely a private or charity responsibility until the 1940s.

Thats when some employers began to provide insurance as a fringe benefit to evade wartime wage controls.

In 1965, the government and taxpayers emerged as a dominant factor.

READ MORE: Americans split over replacing Obamacare

The enactment of Medicare guaranteed basic doctor and hospital coverage for everyone aged 65 and older, while Medicaid helped states pay for long-term care and insurance for certain classes of the poor and disabled.

Almost 30 years later, Bill Clinton launched another presidential effort at universal coverage, in the teeth of resistance from private insurers and small business owners, who objected to requiring that they cover their employees.

His wife, Hillary Clinton, was assigned the task of designing and steering the plan through Congress. It never even was put up for a vote.

Obamacare was aimed to help fill the gap for the 16.3 percent of Americans who remained without coverage.

By the time Obama left office, the number was down to 8.6 percent, the lowest in history.

Obamacare unpopular

But Obamas seeming success has always been overshadowed by the laws unpopularity.

Many resent the requirement that every American be insured in some way, or else pay a penalty.

Yet the bigger objection derives from a fundamental reality of insurance pools  a healthy, younger majority whose premiums finance care for the far fewer who are older and sicker.





Another reality  a big redistribution of wealth through higher taxes, the financial dynamic underlying Obamacare.

Without those added taxes, paid by wealthier patients, highly profitable drug companies and  potentially  medical device makers, private insurers would see no profit and exit from the marketplace.

Republicans have pointed to another of Obamacares flaws  the threat of too few competing insurance companies offering coverage, a sign that the system had begun a death spiral.

But their proposed reforms have yet to address the crushing economic burden of American healthcare for too many.

Its the reason that medical bills are still a significant cause of personal bankruptcy.

Trump has made a pledge that Republican legislators have been too cautious to repeat  that not only would everyone be protected by insurance, but that the cost of premiums for everybody would fall.

Yet long before Trump became a successful Republican politician, he argued that the solution for his countrys dilemma was the popular system across the northern border, where its the government, not private insurers, that pay the doctors and hospitals.

Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, Trump wrote in one of his books back in 2000, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork. The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans.

Why doesnt he believe that any longer?

It could have worked in a different age, he said on his climb to the presidency.

But hes never explained why not now.
Government policies have prevented aid delivery to millions of people in besieged or hard-to-reach areas, report finds.

The enormous, shining eyes of an emaciated baby awoke the world to the plight of Madaya, Syria, in January 2016.

The photo, along with other disturbing images of skeletal children reportedly taken in Madaya, came alongside news that more than two dozen people had starved to death in the besieged town. Amid an ensuing international outcry, the Syrian government agreed to a new, two-step aid approval process, in which it would work with the United Nations to streamline and facilitate aid deliveries to the countrys neediest residents.

But more than a year later, that process has proven to be a resounding failure, according to a new report from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).

As the conflict enters its seventh year, Syrian authorities continue to deliberately and illegally manipulate UN humanitarian access, arbitrarily limiting, restricting and denying aid deliveries in order to ensure the continued suffering of besieged populations, notes the report, released on Tuesday.

By willfully impeding aid in an attempt to starve civilians, and collectively punishing entire communities through besiegement, the Syrian government is guilty of war crimes.

READ MORE: Letter from Madaya  Why doesnt anyone care?

Across Syria, the government is meting out a slow-motion slaughter of Syrian civilians through starvation and denial of access to medical care, the report states.

The new two-step approval process for aid delivery, launched in April 2016, streamlined a previous eight-step procedure for getting critical supplies to besieged and hard-to-reach areas of the country. Under the new system, the UN submits monthly requests for aid convoys and Syrian authorities are required to respond with approval or denial within seven working days.

Approval rates for aid delivery appeared to increase under this system in the months that followed, but fewer people were ultimately reached than in previous years, PHR found.

Between May and December 2016, Syrian authorities approved aid convoys to about two-thirds of the UNs requested populations  already a subset of the total number of besieged and hard-to-reach populations. However, just 38 percent of the approved populations actually received that aid, with many deliveries stalled or blocked later in the process.





A total of 131 UN interagency convoys in 2016 provided aid to around one million people, a significant decrease from 2013, when just 43 convoys aided 2.9 million people.

The increased deliveries [in 2016] were vastly insufficient to meeting rapidly growing needs across the country, the report says, noting that hundreds of thousands of people were left without any hope of humanitarian aid each month, many for months on end. Between April and December, convoys on average delivered just two-thirds of the aid needed for the affected populations.

The situation appeared to get worse as the year dragged on: In December, just 6,000 people received aid  less than one percent of the number approved by the Syrian government.

Throughout 2016 and the entire conflict, weve heard of besieged areas lacking humanitarian aid. What our analysis shows that is surprising is just how deliberate and systematic the denial of aid is, Elise Baker, the lead Syria researcher for PHR, told Al Jazeera.

Many have not received humanitarian assistance for months and are at risk of death and injury from ongoing fighting and lack of medical care. by Linda Tom, spokesperson for the Syria branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

In Douma, for example, just two aid deliveries reached the town during the period reviewed by PHR, providing for less than a quarter of the population and vital medical aid had been removed, Baker said. In Daraya, Syrian forces turned away an entire aid convoy because it contained medical aid and baby formula, despite these types of aid having been previously approved.

As the regime has shifted from surrender or starve to surrender or die tactics, the situation has become increasingly critical in areas such as al-Waer in the Homs district, Eastern Ghouta, and Madaya and Zabadani in the rural Damascus mountains, noted Valerie Szybala, executive director of the non-profit Syria Institute.

Whether humanitarian aid gets through or not, most besieged communities will likely be forced to surrender to government terms by the end of 2017, she told Al Jazeera.

The PHR report highlights the difficulties inherent in a system where the Syrian regime maintains unilateral authority over who receives aid, what type and how much.

In addition to outright denials of aid to certain populations, Syrian authorities have also blocked convoys from delivering aid by introducing new permit requests or security requirements at a late stage, PHR found.

The pattern of increased aid approvals and decreased deliveries reflects at worst  an effort by Syrian authorities to appear cooperative while still ensuring that access to besieged areas remained blocked, the report notes.

Samer Abboud, an associate professor of international studies at Arcadia University with expertise on the Syrian conflict, noted that the regimes siege strategy  aimed at recovering territory from opposition groups by undermining rebel claims to be able to protect residents  has succeeded in making life in many of these areas impossible to sustain.

There have been recent demonstrations in some opposition areas against the armed groups and this is precisely what sort of frustration the regime wanted to create, Abboud told Al Jazeera. This way, the population would have been weakened enough to accept any potential arrangement to end the siege.

READ MORE: After Aleppo, what happens to Syrias besieged towns?

Countrywide, nearly five million Syrians live in besieged or hard-to-reach areas, including nearly one million in areas that are actively under siege, in most cases by Syrian government forces.

Living under siege for prolonged periods can lead to a plethora of negative health effects, including stunted physical and mental development, disease and behavioural abnormalities. Without a change in the Syrian governments policies towards aid delivery, the future for millions of Syrians is dire, said Linda Tom, a spokesperson for the Syria branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Many have not received humanitarian assistance for months and are at risk of death and injury from ongoing fighting and lack of medical care, Tom told Al Jazeera, urging Syrian authorities to allow aid workers immediate access to the millions of civilians in need.

Lack of safe, unimpeded and sustained access for humanitarians operating in Syria remains the greatest obstacle to reaching people in need, she said.

So far, the situation in 2017 does not appear to be improving. Despite multiple attempts, interagency convoys did not reach any besieged areas in January or February, although thousands of metric tonnes of aid were delivered through air operations, Tom said  but this is nowhere near enough.

If UN and Syrian authorities do not reform the aid delivery process, things will only get worse, Baker said. What we saw in Madaya last year  dozens of deaths from starvation and malnutrition  will play out again in Madaya and across the country.

Follow Megan OToole on Twitter: @megan_otoole
With Geert Wilders dominating the campaign discourse, Muslims are raising their voices to demand equality.

Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague  As the Netherlands heads to the polls on Wednesday, an election campaign focused on identity issues and dominated by anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders has left some Muslims reflecting on their place in Dutch society.

With his campaign of de-Islamising the Netherlands, Wilders of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) has pledged to ban the Quran and shut all mosques. In December, a Dutch court found Wilders guilty of inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans with his infamous fewer Moroccans comment.

The claim that Islam is a threat to Dutch identity and questions over whether the Netherlands has done enough to preserve its own culture have been debated alongside policy issues at national election debates.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who leads the liberal Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, launched his election campaign with a letter (link in Dutch) calling on those who reject Dutch values to leave the country. Targeting people who he said attack gays, jeer at women in mini-skirts, and call ordinary Dutch people racists, the letter was widely interpreted as addressed to ethnic minorities.

OPINION: What can the Dutch elections tell us about Europe?

Questioning of identity

Five percent of the countrys population is Muslim, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan descent. A recent government report shows that 40 percent no longer feel at home in the country.

Even if Im born here, I dont feel at home, says 35-year-old Fatma Kaya, whose grandparents migrated from Turkey to the Netherlands, speaking to Al Jazeera under a pseudonym.

Every day, from morning to evening, its about Muslims, Kaya says, reflecting on the political discourse and the media coverage of the election.

This focus on Muslims has made Dutch-born bartender Toria El Gharbouni, 38, feel as though shes under surveillance.

Now, Im looking at older Dutch people, are they watching me? Ive been pushed in a corner, under a spotlight. Look, shes Moroccan, shes Muslim!

Tofik Dibi, 36, a former MP for the Green Left party who was also born in the country, says hes ceased to refer to himself as a Dutch Moroccan due to the way this identity has come to be understood.

At a certain point, I said Im a Moroccan, he says.

Its like a declaration of independence, Dibi elaborates. I experienced that no matter how much you try to integrate, you will always be seen as a Moroccan.

He stopped identifying as Dutch Moroccan after a parliamentary debate in 2013 titled the Moroccan problem on criminality among Moroccan boys. He was appalled that an entire group of people were being tied to a social issue.

So, youre going to play it like this? Im not going to be one of you any more, Dibi says of his decision.

Kaya and Dibi say hostility towards Muslims is about being framed as the other.

Dibi says he doesnt like to distinguish between Islamophobia and racism.

The way it works is exactly the same. Its always your appearance thats dominant, he explains.

I think a lot of Dutch people feel like they are being left behind, while people who dont look like them are surpassing them, he says of poorer white voters who have expressed anger as the descendants of immigrants progress up the social ladder.

ALSO READ  Part of the neighbourhood: Syrian refugees in Amsterdam

Muslim converts and anti-Muslim sentiment

But rejection isnt only something ethnic minorities experience; some converts to Islam say they also feel the same way.

Im still Dutch, of course. I love my country, but at the same time, borders are less important for me, says Arnoud van Doorn, 50, a former chairman of the PVVs local division in The Hague, who converted to Islam after his expulsion from the party in 2011.

I also thought Islam was a threat. I was influenced by the media and everything. I thought it was a good thing to join, to fight for our values, Van Doorn explains.

After a couple of years, he says he started to feel uncomfortable about the PVVs take on Islam.

Van Doorn recalls asking himself, with over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, How can they all be bad?

Researching the religion and speaking to Muslims led to his decision to convert.

But now, he says, Feeling welcome shouldnt be an issue, but I feel less welcome in the Netherlands.

Another convert to Islam, Liesbeth Hofman, 34, says she has never thought about herself as Dutch. She grew up among foreigners living in The Hague. Im just part of the world, she says.

Wearing a hijab, she feels people look at her differently. I still feel the same, but I feel people are not looking the same at me, like Im not Dutch. Some call me a traitor, she says, adding that she gets shouted at on the streets from time to time.

Van Doorn, who now chairs a local party based on Islamic principles in The Hague, believes anti-Muslim sentiment stems from economic elites who are afraid of losing power.

Hofman sees it is a cultural issue.

People always think about Holland as a Christian country. They say, Why are Muslims here? Theyre taking over.

Mustafa Emili, a 26-year-old public administration student of Turkish descent, says he hasnt been alienated from his Dutch identity, but from the political solutions on offer.

What kind of rhetoric is this? Variables that arent important when an atheist or humanist makes a mistake are brought into play when its a Muslim, he says of the discussions that link ethnicity and religion to crime and social problems.

Mustafa, a member of the Christian Democrats, is disappointed by the way his party has become part of that trend.

He says he will not vote for them this time around.

They say multiculturalism has failed, he says. Have they conducted an experiment?

Fears for the future

For some, a growing sense of alienation feeds serious fears about the future.

It makes me apprehensive to feel like Im surrounded by people who are able to vote for someone who would strip me of all my rights in a heartbeat, Dibi says.

Hofman agrees. We shouldnt be afraid of Wilders  we should be afraid of his voters. His followers believe him.

Rasit Bal, chairman of Contact Organ Muslims, which liaises between the Dutch government and Muslim organisations, is most concerned about the prospect of attacks on mosques, which have increased in recent years. Attacks have included arson, smashed windows, threatening letters and stigmatising graffiti. Though cooperation with state authorities has gained momentum, Bal says this hasnt reassured those who pray at the mosques he works with.

Others are worried about the curbing of civil rights.

Van Doorn is alarmed by the PVVs anti-Muslim proposals and fears further restrictions after the recent ban on niqabs in public areas. Dibi fears Muslims could face Trump-like measures if theres an attack in the country. After something like that, it will sound completely reasonable to many people to register Muslims, he says.

Simon Cohen, who chairs the Coalition of Rotterdammers for Each Other, fights fear by bringing his Jewish community into dialogue with Muslims.

We have had these feelings for years, while for Muslims, they are rather new. Jews give examples of how they have the experience in the last 30 to 50 years and Muslims receive some help through that, he says.

RELATED: Turkey summons Dutch envoy over Rotterdam police action

Striving for an inclusive society

Regardless of how they feel about their identity, first-generation immigrants and their second-generation descendants demand an equal place in Dutch society.

I didnt come here on a boat. They didnt come to Morocco to fetch me from some village to make me work here. I was born here, Dibi says. Im co-owner of this place.

Civil rights activist Abdou Menebhi, who came to the Netherlands in 1975, is startled when I ask whether he feels welcome in the Netherlands. Welcome? Im Dutch! It has nothing to do with being welcome or not. Its more about whether I feel safe and happy, he says.

This Dutch self-image is by no means universal. Im Turkish, even if I have a Dutch passport, says teaching assistant Seher, who did not want to disclose her last name. Now aged 47, she migrated to the Netherlands as a 16-year-old bride.

Kaya, born in the Netherlands, has always felt Turkish as well. But this doesnt mean she doesnt make the same demands as those who feel Dutch. I want to be addressed as Dutch, unless I indicate otherwise.

For those who have remained on the sidelines until now, political participation has gained significance.

Both El Gharbouni and Kaya are voting for the first time.

Now that Wilders came around, people woke up, says El Gharbouni, who sees the chances of Wilders winning the highest number of seats as pushing people around her to vote.

Kaya has never felt a party has represented her before, but now, she is a member of the political party DENK  Dutch for Think.

Led by politicians of Turkish and Moroccan descent, the partys call for an inclusive society resonates with her. DENK has been really illuminating at this dark time, she says.

Dibi believes change will come from younger Dutch generations, who dont look at the second and third generations as guests in the way their parents do.

Theres a lot of hope, but its just that, we have to deal with this first. I think this is going to be the big fight. I can feel it in my bones.
Berlin, Germany  It took Zabihullah Karimi two months to make it from his native Afghanistan to Germany, where he arrived 15 months ago. He crossed mountains, fields, the Aegean Sea and militarised borders, dealing with dubious smugglers and dodging border guards along the way.

Yet two weeks ago, German asylum authorities informed him that he will be sent back to the war-torn country from which he fled.

Although he filed an appeal, the 31-year-old asylum seeker fears that returning to Afghanistan will put his life in danger. Sitting on the floor of his modestly furnished room in a borough of eastern Berlin, he holds his rejection letter and recalls his decision to leave his homeland.

Karimi never imagined returning to Kabul, a city designated as safe by the German government. Before he left in the hope of reaching safety in Europe, he says he was urged by the Taliban to leave his job at a consultancy agency that worked closely with the Afghan Ministry of Defence  or face death.

I told [the German authorities] the whole story, and now Ive received a letter saying I can go and stay in Kabul [because] its secure, he tells Al Jazeera, shaking his head.

Its not secure. Every day there is a suicide attack [and] attacks on groups [of civilians], he continues. Even the presidents palace is not secure.

Germany has tightened asylum regulations and plans on expediting deportations after receiving more than a million refugees and migrants in 2015 and hundreds of thousands more the following year.

In January, hundreds of people protested at the Frankfurt Airport when the German government deported 26 Afghans back to Kabul, the Afghan capital, as part of a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan government.

Although three German states have temporarily halted deportations to Afghanistan, the government plans on returning 11,900 Afghans. In December, 34 rejected asylum seekers were sent back to Afghanistan.

According to the United Nations, civilian casualties in Afghanistan reached a record high in 2016, with 11,500 civilians killed or wounded. Of that total, one third were children.

The German government hopes to deport hundreds of thousands back to several countries in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa in 2017.

In 2016, some 700,000 applications for asylum were made, and almost 300,000 were rejected. We want to deport these people swiftly, Peter Altmaier, the head of the Chancellors Office and the governments coordinator on refugee affairs, told local media last month. Otherwise it hurts the credibility of our country and its laws.

We almost died

Karimi says he braced himself for death several times while en route to Europe. While crossing the first border during his journey, he says a couple of refugees were killed or injured when Iranian border guards opened fire on his group in the dark of night.

Someone went to light a cigarette and [a guard] saw it, he recalls. They killed my aunts brother-in-law.

After making it to Turkey and setting sail on an overcrowded dinghy bound for Greece, he recalls feeling certain he would die when the engine stopped working halfway. But as the waves grew and fear overcome the passengers, a Turkish military helicopter arrived and hovered over them.

He said theres a boat coming and [we should] just wait, he recalls. I said, We will die and you [tell us] to just wait.'

A rescue boat eventually showed up and returned the passengers to the Turkish coast, where they waited until the following day to try again. They made it safely on the second attempt.

From there, Karimi moved from a Greek island to the mainland, through the Balkans and central Europe until he reached Berlin.

He says the deportations wont just put his life at risk but will result in the deaths of many Afghans who need protection outside their country.

Fighting deportations

In January, Germany announced it would start returning newly arrived asylum seekers back to Greece in mid-March as part of the European Unions so-called Dublin rules, which require asylum seekers to apply in the first EU country they enter.

Germanys decision has been widely criticised by rights groups owing to the harsh conditions and overcrowding in the refugee camps of Greece, where more than 60,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded since the EU-Turkey refugee deal last March.

PRO ASYL, a Germany-based human rights group that advocates for refugees in Europe, has lobbied against deportations and returns to Greece. Last week, they delivered to the German government a petition with more than 50,000 signatures calling for more refugees to be relocated to Germany.

Tents, a lack of food, a lack of medical treatment  its an ongoing humanitarian crisis [in Greece], but its fabricated by the EU, says Karl Kobb, PRO ASYLs director of European affairs.

Theres enough space and enough facilities [in Germany] to welcome all of them trapped in Greece. It would show a commitment to refugee protection and a European approach based on solidarity.

Ulla Jelpke, a spokesperson for Germanys Die Linke (The Left) party, criticised German Chancellor Angela Merkels shift in policies towards refugees since initially declaring Syrian asylum seekers welcome no matter which EU country they entered first.

Germany absolutely has to take responsibility and accommodate these people here and help them proceed with their asylum procedure, even if they [first registered] elsewhere, Jelpke says.

The refugee issue has been instrumentalised as a political tool the [German governments] coalition parties are using against each other.

Theyd kill my whole family

Naser Hashemi, 22, was a member of the security forces back in Afghanistan, where he served in the Herat province. In late 2015, he says he decided to leave the country after receiving threats from the Taliban.

They [the Taliban] sent me a letter, and then they sent a letter to my family, he tells Al Jazeera. They wanted me to leave the job  otherwise theyd kill my whole family.

Because his brother-in-law had already been killed by the Taliban, Hashemi says he knew the threats werent empty.

Last month, German authorities declined his application for asylum, giving him an opportunity to appeal within two weeks or leave the country within 30 days.

I just want to study and work and eventually join the police, he says. I am thankful to the German people for helping me over the last year.

Hashemi concludes: If I go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill me  At night, they still come to [our] village. They told my father they know Im in Germany.

Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_
Ramallah, Occupied West Bank  The killing of a prominent Palestinian political activist in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah by the Israeli occupation army last week has once again exposed one of the most controversial truths of the Palestinian Authority (PA), a semi-governmental body ruling three million Palestinians in the West Bank.

PA security forces arrested Basil al-Araj, 34, in April 2016, with five of his friends, accusing them of carrying unlicensed weapons and planning to carry out an attack on Israeli targets. Under the Oslo agreements signed between Israel and Palestine in 1993, the PA is obliged to share information with Israel about any armed resistance to the Israeli occupation in a practice known as security coordination.

Araj and his friends were released after five months in PA prisons. While four of his friends were immediately re-arrested by Israeli forces, Araj went into hiding for more than two months in an old house in Ramallah. On March 6, the Israeli army found Araj and killed him, causing outrage among Palestinians.

OPINION: What Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation?

On Sunday, protests rocked the city of Ramallah, in front of a court that was due to put Basil and his friends on trial, against the policy of security coordination between the PA and Israel, the killing of Araj, and the courts decision to put the six Palestinian men on trial.

PA security forces responded with force, beating unarmed protesters with batons, firing tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets, which only added fuel to the fire. At least 11 people were injured, including the father of Araj who was transferred to a hospital. Palestinians took to social media platforms venting their anger against the PA that crossed the line and vowed to continue demonstrations.

The incident has revealed the cracks in the current status quo, where the Israeli occupation and the PA work hand in hand to suppress Palestinians who dare to speak out.

It is very clear we have the Palestinian security services collaborating with the Shabak - the internal Israeli security service. It is a one-way service to the benefit of Israel, not the Palestinians. This type of coordination does not provide security to the Palestinians, rather, it is used against them. by Shawan Jabarin, head of Al-Haq

In April 2016, shortly after the five men were arrested, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA, said: Our security forces are working very efficiently to prevent terror. Just a couple of days ago, three young men were tracked down and arrested. They were planning an attack. In this context, our security cooperation with Israel is functioning well, Abbas told the German news outlet, Der Spiegel.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, a high-ranking Palestinian security official who chose to remain anonymous fearing reprisal, said: Since Israel destroyed our main security centres in 2002, we rebuilt our security with the knowledge and the help of international donors (mainly US training), our security is in the service of the wellbeing of our people, he said.

The duties of the PA security forces, however, have long been condemned by Palestinians, who even see them as collaborators with the Israeli occupation. It is very clear we have the Palestinian security services collaborating with the Shabak  the internal Israeli security service. It is a one-way service to the benefit of Israel, not the Palestinians, Shawan Jabarin, head of the Al-Haq human rights organisation in Ramallah, told Al Jazeera.

This type of coordination does not provide security to the Palestinians, rather, it is used against them. It is lethal, dangerous, and should be terminated, said Jabarin.

Though it has not been proven whether the policy of security coordination directly resulted in the killing of Araj, Al-Haq and other human rights organisations say they have evidence of collaboration between the two sides.





We have collected testimonies from Palestinians who were detained by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces. They said they were confronted by Israelis with the information they gave to their Palestinian jailers during interrogation, Jabarin said.

It has been almost 23 years since the implementation of Oslo and a lot has changed, except for the policy of security coordination between Israeli and Palestinians. Despite the fact that Palestine Central Council, the intermediary body between the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and The Palestine National Council, decided to suspend security coordination with Israel in March 2015, the practice still exists.

While relations between the PA and Israel have seen tough times through escalation of attacks, a large increase in the building of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, three wars on Gaza, and the end of any real negotiations for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, security coordination remains intact.

Analysts say that as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestinian territories, the practice of security coordination will persist.

READ MORE: How US security aid to PA sustains Israels occupation

Once the Palestinians agreed on a [Palestinian] authority in the shadow of occupation, there will always be this kind of coordination, Ali Jarbawi, professor of political science at Birzeit University in Ramallah, and ex-PA minister, told Al Jazeera.

It does not matter if the agreements are still valid or not, this will continue as long as occupation still exists, he said.

Radi Jarai, a lecturer at Al-Quds University, who spent 13 years in Israeli jails prior to the Oslo agreements, said: [Israel] still runs its own network of spies and collaborators; they attack with or without permission or knowledge of the PA. You can call it security cooperation, or whatever you like. It will make no difference, but more misery for the Palestinians.
Seoul, South Korea  The months-long movement that led to the first ever impeachment of a South Korean president ended with a bang.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people massed in Gwanghwamun Square, a large public space in the heart of the capital, Seoul, for one last Saturday evening protest, which ended with a fireworks display that lit up the nighttime sky while celebrating a courts decision to formally impeach Park.

Since allegations of corruption and influence peddling involving now-former President Park Geun-hye began to surface last year, large crowds gathered in Gwanghwamun to march and chant for Park to be removed from office.

Gwanghwamun became a hub for activists and citizens concerned about a broad range of issues, chief among them, the close ties between the government, big business and Choi Soon-sil, a long-time confidante of Park. The protesters represented a broad swath of South Koreas population, among them students, professionals and labourers. Many protests had an upbeat, festive atmosphere, to the point where some parents brought their children.

The morning after the finale, the square had been swept clean but retained reminders of the litany of issues that sparked the movement to oust Park. Groups of artists who say they were blacklisted by the government had set up tents, as had families of those who died in the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster.

Though Park is gone, these groups are sticking around, as her impeachment does not promise a resolution to their grievances.

Those who attended the protests hope that Parks ouster will herald a fresh start for the countrys politics.

The impeachment signals the beginning of a new era for our country, an era of justice and the rule of law, said Sung Won-ki, a Kangwon National University professor who was manning a booth distributing information on the risks of nuclear energy. He and several colleagues plan to run this booth over the upcoming election campaign, hoping South Koreas next president will reduce the use of nuclear power, and cancel plans to construct new nuclear plants.

Sung added, We accomplished something significant, but there is a lot still to be done. Sung and others described Parks impeachment as a sign that the South Korean system works, even though it isnt perfect.

On Sunday, Jeon Soo-jung, a woman in her mid-30s, walked hand-in-hand around the square with her six-year-old son. She described Parks impeachment as a victory for regular people. I thought it was important to bring him here and explain what happened, even though hes just a kid, Jeon said.

This is where history was made.

OPINION: South Koreas next leader will face intense challenges

What happens to Park now?

Park, 65, is the daughter of former military strongman Park Chung-hee. She took office as president in early 2013 as South Koreas first female head of state.

While the protests focused discontent on a cast of antagonists, including the leaders of the corporate conglomerates, including the vice chairman of Samsung, the countrys most iconic business, that dominate the South Korean economy, and Choi, most protesters directed their criticism at Park, and calls for her to step down were the most chanted refrains at public gatherings.

For many, Park became a symbol of an ineffective state apparatus that was failing voters.

So much anger was directed at Park Geun-hye because she, on a personal level, came to symbolise a corrupt, pre-modern and undemocratic system of rule by one small, incompetent group of people, wrote Yoon Tae-jin, a professor at the Yonsei University Graduate School of Communication and Arts, in a column in the left-of-centre Kyunghyang newspaper.

South Koreas legislature passed a motion for Parks impeachment on December 9 of last year, and she spent the rest of the winter secluded in her residence at the Blue House, the presidential office, in Seoul. She emerged after dark on March 12, stepping into a sea of colleagues and supporters as she was driven in a motorcade from the Blue House to her private residence in southern Seoul.

On her way out, she showed no remorse for her involvement in a scandal that shook the country, telling media, I believe the truth will be revealed .

With the Constitutional Court decision to uphold Parks impeachment, Park becomes a private citizen again, and no longer has immunity from criminal charges. Prosecutors will investigate Park on charges of bribery, and, if convicted, she faces the possibility of incarceration.

Not everyone is happy about Parks downfall. Though public opinion poll data from Gallup Korea showed 77 percent of South Koreans were in favour of impeaching Park, with only 18 percent opposed, the minority who wanted Park to remain in office were highly vocal, and visible, in the days leading up to the impeachment. Right-wing groups held raucous protests, and three died when Park supporters clashed with police after the impeachment verdict was announced.

About a kilometre down the road from Gwanghwamun, in a large muddy area in front of Seoul City Hall was a very different kind of tent village, this one set up and populated by far-right activists opposed to Parks impeachment. On Sunday morning, the handful of remaining supporters said they were sad and frustrated.

A signboard hung on one tent called the charges against Park A subversive conspiracy promoted by the press. Other signs were breathless exhortations to prevent communists from taking over South Korea. One sign, intentionally or not, echoed US President Donald Trump, reading simply, Sad!

One middle-aged man said that without a president in office that takes a hardline approach to North Korea, South Korea would be vulnerable to attack. Im worried that the hard left is going to seize power now, he said.

Where do South Korean politics go from here?

South Korean law mandates that a presidential election be held within 60 days of a presidents impeachment, meaning voters will likely go to the polls on May 9.

At this point, the outlook is promising for South Koreas liberals, who could take advantage of a right-wing beset by scandal and internal division. Liberal stalwart Moon Jae-in (who lost the 2012 president election to Park Geun-hye) has a comfortable lead in the latest polls, with 32 percent of support; Hwang Kyo-ahn, the prime minister and acting president, is his closest right-wing competitor, trailing with nine percent.

South Koreas liberals have not held power since the election of Parks predecessor Lee Myung-bak in 2008. In recent years, liberals have been plagued by internal defeats in local elections. While running on platforms of standard liberal promises like increased welfare and corporate regulation, the main opposition parties all brand themselves with descriptors as being for democracy and the people, since socialism is an off-putting term to many South Koreans, due to its echoes of association with North Korea.

Its the liberals election to lose. To be specific, Moon Jae-ins. With Park ousted and snap elections being held, Moon is in position to ride the wave of anti-Party discontent all the way to the Blue House, said Steven Denney, a Graduate Fellow at the Asian Institute at the University of Toronto and specialist on South Korean politics.

Kim Sung-eun, a 22-year-old university student, says she welcomes the chance for the country to pick a new leader. Kim participated in several weekly protests in Seoul, after being spurred to attend public gatherings for the first time when she heard the extent of the influence peddling allegations concerning Park and Choi.

She says she is looking forward to her first chance to vote in a presidential election. My trust in the government has fallen, but if the new president listens to the people and makes changes, that trust can be restored, she said.
Beirut  Since March 2011, around half a million Syrians have been killed, and more than half the population displaced from their homes. The war in Syria has had ramifications far and wide, and has affected millions of lives. Hundreds of thousands of families have been divided across continents, with countless lives lost at sea.

But beyond the numbers, lives have been changed forever.

Three Syrians talk to Al Jazeera about the early days of the revolution, and what has happened since.

Diala Brisly, an artist, originally from Damascus, currently living as a refugee in France



I lost hope the day I decided to leave Syria

When the protests first started in 2011, we were very romantic, it was so dreamy for us  Syrians  to do this. But I never went to a protest without feeling scared. The Syrian troops were very, very violent. It was not easy. Sometimes protests would only last five minutes before we had to disperse, but it was important for us to do this, to keep up the pressure.

When you look at things in a rational way, I dont know how you can be hopeful about the future of Syria. But I look at the Palestinian people as an inspiration  they still resist.

We wanted to make trouble for the government all the time. They were arresting people and torturing people all the time, putting some areas under siege, shelling, just because the residents had protested. We didnt want them to think they could get away with it.

We thought if we protested, and after the regime had reacted in such a violent way, that the UN and everyone would say Assad was a criminal. But we were shocked  no one cared. The English language media kept talking about sectarian strife, but we had no idea what they were talking about.

I began buying medical supplies to be distributed around the country, but it became increasingly dangerous to do so. The security forces were throwing people in jail for doing this, claiming they were assisting terrorists.

I lost hope the day I decided to leave Syria.

I first went to Istanbul, where I soon became very depressed. I questioned the entire point of political activism, and everything we had done. I also felt so guilty. Other people were stuck in Syria, or they had chosen to stay, to keep resisting.

I felt guilty because I was still alive, because I didnt resist more. I always had friends who were arrested, and I had never been. I felt guilty because I had an easy life. I needed to break out of this mood, so after a while, I went to visit Syrian friends in Lebanon. There I began painting murals for children in refugee camps, and teaching art workshops.

We really cant change their lives or take them out of these camps. But we can help them imagine their own world and live it. When children see colours, on their face, on their clothes, they always tell me, put more colours, more colours, because they have no colour in their lives.

Now I am in France, where I applied for asylum. I needed stability. I have been granted 10 years of protection here.I am still sending murals to the camps in Lebanon, and I have been working with the White Helmets on an educational booklet for children, about safety and landmines  95 percent of the work I do is still focused on Syria.

When you look at things in a rational way, I dont know how you can be hopeful about the future of Syria. But I look at the Palestinian people as an inspiration  they still resist, they focus on education. They do not give up.

Mohammad Shbeeb, originally from Aleppo, is now living as an IDP in Idlib province

We were only seeking our freedom, our dignity and our rights

I will not talk of a war, but of a revolution.

For anyone who lived in Syria before 2011, it was impossible to think that any revolution or uprising would ever happen in our country. The idea of a revolution seemed like a fiction. The regime was so strong and controlled everything in the country through military rule.

But then after the Egyptian revolution started in January 2011, and protests in Tahrir Square ended the rule of Hosni Mubarak, suddenly there was hope in Syria. There were some initial attempts to protest in February 2011  not even against the regime, but just asking for some reforms  but they were unsuccessful.

Its really hard to describe the feeling of being forced to leave. I really felt like I was losing my soul.

Everything in Syria was bad. The education was poor, and our universities could not compete with the universities of the world. Assads family controlled everything. We had no freedom or any space to do what we wanted, or even to say whatever we wanted to say.

After protests in Deraa on March 15, when schoolchildren were arrested and tortured in prison, we had the first real protest in Aleppo, on March 18. One of the people arrested on that first day was my friend. He was later killed by a regime sniper in late 2013.

But initially we really felt that our revolution would soon reach victory, maybe in days, or weeks, or months. We were only seeking our freedom, our dignity and our rights. We were expecting that the world  that the US, EU and other countries  would help us end Assads rule. But unfortunately, the opposite happened.

I started to lose hope when the regime began killing peaceful protesters, and the whole world kept watching. And I completely lost all hope when the regime used chemical weapons in Ghouta in 2013, killing thousands.

The whole world just kept silent and just took the chemical weapons and didnt even punish the regime. Like when you arrest a criminal who has killed someone, and you take his gun and then just let him free to kill someone else with a different gun. At that time, I totally lost any hope that help would come to us from outside. I remained in Aleppo until the regime retook the whole city in late 2016.

Its really hard to describe the feeling of being forced to leave. I really felt like I was losing my soul. I felt like the whole world was against me and my revolution. I felt broken, like I was losing myself. I was totally broken.

If you look at what is happening on the ground, the regime and its allied militias are advancing. But for some reason, I still think that, eventually, the revolution will be victorious. I dont really know why I think that. Perhaps its because it is the right thing. Or maybe it has something to do with my faith.

Rafif Jouejati, a Syrian American, was living in the US when the uprising began, now active in the oppositions Local Coordination Committees

One day we will experience a transition away from the Assad regime

In March 2011, I was running my thriving management consultancy business and raising two young boys. I was quite unconnected from the Syrian American community and did not maintain much of a Syrian identity. My family visits to Syria were limited to once every year or two.

But when the revolution began, I was overcome with pride in the activists for daring to stand up to the Assad regimes corruption, tyranny, and dictatorship. I finally realised that I had a Syrian identity, and I felt compelled to join the movement for freedom, dignity, and democracy.

I, and many other like-minded Syrians, are stunned by the international communitys utter paralysis in the face of Assads genocidal regime.

At first, I was terrified to become involved. I had family members in Damascus and the horrors of Hama were still in my memory. As the daughter of a Syrian career diplomat, I knew very well that my involvement would be perceived by the Assad regime as outright treason.

I began translating news for the LCC, along with other team members, and gradually took on more responsibilities to support the secular, nonviolent opposition. We were positive that the regime would collapse within months. First, we thought three months, then six, then surely it would not last more than a year? And then the stark reality began to sink in as we realised that Assad supporters truly meant it when they said, Either Assad or we burn the country.

I worked with a large team of activists and experts to develop the Syrian Freedom Charter  a statement of what the Syrian people want in their future country. It was a way to attempt to combat the creeping desperation and maintain a forward-looking outlook.

I am now writing a book about the original goals of the revolution: freedom, dignity, and democracy. Its a story that has largely been ignored by the media, and the larger narrative.

I felt that by writing a book and focusing on the Freedom Charter, I could impart the sense of hope Syrians had, and continue to maintain, that one day we will experience a transition away from the Assad regime (and other dictatorships that might try to replace it) to achieve freedom for all.

I, and many other like-minded Syrians, are stunned by the international communitys utter paralysis in the face of Assads genocidal regime. I have no idea how far the regime and its backers will go to wipe out every single person who opposed Assad. But having said no to Assad, having broken that wall of fear, having seen my fellow Syrians suffer the greatest humanitarian disaster since World War II, I do know one thing: we will not go away.

The dream of freedom is too powerful, even for barrel bombs, chemical weapons, and rampant torture to break. You see, with more than half of Syrias population displaced or refugees, new generations of free Syrians are beginning to take the lead in the opposition, and they will never forget.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that employers may, under certain circumstances, ban religious clothing.

Employers are entitled to ban staff from wearing visible religious symbols, the European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday.

The court said businesses should have the freedom to choose how they operate, and that includes whether people will be allowed to wear items such as hijabs or crosses on chains.

The ruling was made in the cases of two women  in France and Belgium  who were dismissed for refusing to remove hijabs, the headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion.

Critics called the ban a thinly veiled measure targeting Muslims.
Coming Dutch elections are a prism to understand Europe and tell much about its institutional and cultural crisis.

Silvia Mazzini is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

On March 15, the Dutch are going to the polls. An event that does not usually attract a lot of international attention is likely to be different this time.

The far-right and Islamophobic Geert Wilders, who wants to take the Netherlands out of the European Union, is leading in the polls. This sends a shiver through Europes spine: if Wilders wins, following the Brexit and the United States presidential elections, it could well be a trampoline for nationalist parties in the coming French and German elections.

If Wilders, the man who invented Trump, can be so popular, even in a country known for its tolerance and openness, even in a country with a solid economy, what does this mean for Europe as a whole?

From tolerance to Trumpism





In the tradition of philosophers such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Baruch Spinoza, the Netherlands has always been proud of its identity based on the values of tolerance and freedom.

In the specific Dutch context, this laid out the underpinnings of a live-and-let-live view on a wide range of issues, leading the country to assume a role at the forefront of the defending multiculturalism and broadening personal freedoms.

By the end of the 20th century, this view of tolerance  just let everybody do their thing  seemed deeply engraved in the Dutch character. And just after the turn of the millennium it all changed.

The Netherlands, at the time, was being governed by a broad coalition of social-democrats and liberals, and has enjoyed a period of great economic prosperity.

With the 2002 elections, Pim Fortuyn, an academic-turned-politician, gained an enormous following by doing two things: Attacking the politics of the broad coalition on the grounds it was overly bureaucratic and being out of touch with the ordinary people, and declaring the Islam to be of an inferior culture.

He obviously tapped into a vein of discontent with a government running the country in an unemotional and non-ideological way.

The populists across Europe haven't yet won in the ballot box - even if Wilders wins, it would only have a symbolic significance, as it is extremely unlikely other parties are willing to form a coalition with him. by

Then various developments  both in the Netherlands and abroad  opened a can of worms. Fortuyn was murdered, as was the movie director and anti-Islamic provocateur Theo van Gogh two years later, in 2004. And the following year, the Dutch voted against the European constitution in a referendum  an outcome largely ignored by the Lisbon Treaty.

On the international front, the Dutch were confronted with the 2008 financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis and the bloody attacks in Paris and Brussels by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) assailants happening close to the Netherlands.



READ MORE: Who votes for Geert Wilders?

This toxic cocktail of events fuelled the rise of Geert Wilders. He claimed ownership of Fortuyns legacy by adopting a more extreme posture about the so-called threats of Islam, and by expressing a formidable discontent towards the governing elites in both Brussels and The Hague.

He presents himself as the only politician defending the welfare state, the national identity and the border. He proposes doing so by closing the mosques, banning the Quran and taking the Netherlands out of the EU.

Wilders as a model

Paradoxically, one could say that, thanks to Wilders, the Netherlands remains loyal to its tradition of being at the forefront of international attention  although in a different way.

Considering his anti-Islamic, nationalistic and isolationistic agenda, Wilders can be seen as a pioneer of Trumpism.

And, beyond the peculiarities of each country and culture, Wilders project has a lot in common with other far-right and populist parties the EU: The National Front in France, the AfD in Germany, the Freedom Party in Austria and the Italian Lega Nord.

What they share, most of all, is a firm grip on the debate on national identity, immigration, European unity and economic policy.

The populists across Europe havent yet won in the ballot box  even if Wilders wins, it would only have a symbolic significance as it is extremely unlikely other parties are willing to form a coalition with him  but it already gives them a great boost. All across the continent, the political discussion is being conducted on populist terms.

OPINION: Who is a German?

This Dutch election campaign presents a striking example. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the centre-right The Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), who promised voters he wont form a coalition with Wilders after the elections, tried to prise a few Wilders voters away by writing an open letter urging people to doe normaal, act normal or get out.

The Christian-Democratic Appeal leader Sybrand van Haersma Buma thought he could do better on the nationalist front and proclaimed schoolchildren should start their day by singing the national anthem  according to him the most beautiful and oldest in the world.

True to form, populists claim to be the only ones understanding the identity, worries and needs of the people. They found an enemy, actually two  Islam and (EU) elites  to form an identity they fight to return to.

The courage to discuss





Nationalists and populists forced Europe to debate identity, tradition and culture. National governments and the European leaders until now either ignored or copied.

Even if complemented with good, or just sound governance, ignoring the debate will leave part of the electorate permanently unsatisfied. Copying the populists answers is accepting their means  as the Brexit example eloquently demonstrates.

Thats why the five possible scenarios for the future of the EU, presented by the President Jean-Claude Juncker last week, are largely beside the point. They arent right or wrong in themselves, but they dont answer the questions of traditions, identity, and culture.

For now, it is up to the populist parties not only to ask these questions, but also to answer them.

But the future of Europe lies with its identity. Instead of being ashamed or afraid, those of us who do not agree with the answers the populists provide, we should have the courage to engage in this debate.

And to finally propose convincing alternatives to the ones Wilders and his populist friends want us to believe.

Silvia Mazzini is an assistant professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Kees Jan van Kesteren studied history in Leiden, the Netherlands and Berlin, Germany, and works as a journalist and translator.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Populist Geert Wilders biggest impact on Dutch politics is shifting the mainstream discourse to the far right.

2016 was the year of the Brexit referendum and the victory of Donald Trump. It was the year of a patriotic awakening, according to various European nationalists. Many wonder if 2017 will also be a year of patriotism.

In the upcoming months, elections will be held in France and Germany. But the first test will be on March 15, when the Dutch go to the voting booth.

One of the big questions is what the impact of the radical right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders will be. But before we can address that question, we should first make clear what kind of party the PVV is.

Nativism and populism





The PVVs political message consists of two main ingredients. The first one is a strongly exclusionary form of nationalism: nativism. This is an ideology according to which the good nation is threatened by evil outsiders.

In other words, the nation is said to be under attack by non-native elements  both people and the ideas they hold.

Nativism can be directed towards various types of outsiders  it could, for instance be based on race, ethnicity or religion.

The form of nativism expressed by the PVV, focuses, more specifically, on Islam. Wilders argues that Islam should not be conceived of as a religion, but as a violent political ideology, and should therefore be banned from Western European societies.

The second main ingredient of Wilders political message is populism. Populism is not necessarily related to nativism. It is an ideology that pits the good people against an evil elite.



OPINION: What can the Dutch elections tell us about Europe?

What exactly constitutes the good people is often unclear. In most cases it refers to something like hard-working men, ordinary citizens, or, in Wilders own words, Henk and Ingrid.

The problem, according to Wilders, is that political elites have no idea what ordinary people deem important. Instead, they are arrogant, selfish and corrupt, and think only of their own interests.

No real threat?

What makes the political message of Wilders  and similar radical right-wing populist parties  so special is that the nativist and populist elements are combined with each other. Because both ideologies employ in-group/out-group stereotypes, the two reinforce each other.

According to Wilders, the ordinary and hard-working Dutch citizens are betrayed by a cosmopolitan elite that promotes internationalism and cosmopolitism and thereby undermines the Dutch national identity.

Right now there exists a very fertile breeding ground for this message. Because of the refugee crisis, the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, the Brexit referendum, the election of Trump, and, very recently, the diplomatic clash between Turkey and the Netherlands, the political issues that the PVV focuses on  immigration, Islam, security and European integration  are highly salient in the public debate.

Over by 

 on both the right and the left  have become more restrictive towards immigration and more hesitant about European integration  most likely because they feel the PVV breathing down their necks.]

Moreover, in a recent trial, Wilders was found guilty of inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans. Wilders successfully framed this verdict as yet another attempt of the elite to silence him  and thereby hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens.

Despite Wilders recent successes in the opinion polls, it is important to emphasise that his direct influence on policy making is very limited. With his polarising and strongly stigmatising statements, he has alienated himself from basically all other parties.

About two months ago, the current prime minister and leader of the conservative liberals (VVD), Mark Rutte, was the last leader of a big mainstream party that ruled out collaboration with Wilders in a government coalition.

This might well be one of the reasons why the PVV is doing less well in the polls lately  why vote for a party that is most probably not going to govern anyway?

Shifting the mainstream discourse to far right

Yet, this limited direct effect on policymaking should by no means be interpreted as proof that the political impact of the PVV is negligible. Quite the contrary.





Although mainstream parties have excluded Wilders from participation in a government coalition, they have included many elements of his discourse in their own rhetoric.

Over the years, all mainstream parties  on both the right and the left  have become more restrictive towards immigration and more hesitant about European integration  most likely because they feel the PVV breathing down their necks.

During the current election campaign almost all parties strongly focus on identity issues and Dutchness. In an open letter to Dutch citizens, Prime Minister Rutte has said that those who refuse to adapt, and criticise Dutch values, should act normal or leave.

He wants to make it crystal-clear what is normal, and what is not normal, in our country. We must actively defend our values.

The leader of the main Christian Democratic Party (CDA), Sybrand Buma, called for all pupils in schools to learn and sing the national anthem.

Lodewijk Asscher, leader of the Social Democrats (PvdA), is rather critical of labour migration within the EU, and promotes what he calls progressive patriotism.

This move from the mainstream in the direction of the PVVs nationalism is worrisome. Although none of the Dutch mainstream parties should be labelled radical right-wing populist, some of their policy proposals are very radical, and incompatible with our system of liberal democracy.

READ MORE: Who votes for Geert Wilders?

In a recent report, a committee of academics and lawyers expressed great concern about some of their policy proposals. The Christian Democrats, for instance, want to forbid funding of mosques and Islamic organisations by foreign governments.

This is highly problematic, because such a measure is directed towards Islamic institutions only and therefore leads to discrimination.

The Conservative Liberals want to deprive those who have participated in a terrorist organisation of their Dutch nationality. This is incompatible with basic human rights.

So whether Wilders will win the elections or not, by driving other parties dangerously close to illiberalism, his impact on Dutch politics is  and most probably will be  huge.

Matthijs Rooduijn works as a political sociologist at Utrecht University. His research focuses on topics such as populism, voting behaviour and public opinion.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Rodrigo Dutertes presidency can be an opportunity to rally a divided nation under one flag and end the reign of terror.

Let us fix Mindanao, beseeched Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in the final leg of his presidential campaign in front of thousands of enthusiastic supporters. I am pleading with you, let us fix this. We belong to one nation.

As the first successful presidential candidate from Mindanao, Duterte has never failed to remind the Catholic-majority electorate about the moral and political obligation to correct the historical injustice committed against the Moro people.

Time and again, Duterte has emphasised his own Muslim heritage, through his maternal ancestors, presenting himself as the president for all Filipinos, including the Moro minority.

In one of his particularly emotional presidential campaign speeches, Duterte promised, If I become president, if Allah [God] gives his blessing, before I die since I am old, I will leave to you all a Mindanao that is governed in peace.

Dutertes presidency meant a historic opportunity to rally a diverse and divided nation under the same flag. Eight months into office, however, Duterte is confronting the prospect of full-blown terrorism in Mindanao, as affiliates of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) expand their area of operations with renewed vigour, beheading one hostage after the other.

Reign of terror





The ongoing conflict in Mindanao is the latest iteration of a centuries-old struggle for domination of the Muslim-majority regions of the Philippines. At its very heart, it is about a struggle for autonomy and self-determination.

The Filipino Muslim (Moro) minority, which reigned supreme during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, has had to contend with the triple challenges of the Spanish inquisition, American colonisation, and coercive assimilation under imperial Manila in modern times.

Devastated by civil strife, terrorism, and all-out armed conflict, Mindanao suffers from one of the highest rates of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment anywhere in the world (PDF).

It has among the lowest Human Development Index indicators, giving birth to an ecosystem of rage and despair, which has been exploited by extremist groups, who thrive on hatred and violence.

While major Moro rebel groups  namely the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)  have engaged in peace negotiations with the Philippine government, their breakaway factions have morphed into formidable and violent groups such as Abu Sayyaf and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

READ MORE  Inside Abu Sayyaf: Blood, drugs and conspiracies

Initially, a combination of robust Philippine-America counterterror cooperation and determined peaceful negotiations drove these groups into the underground. In the past three years, however, after pledging their allegiance to the ISIL, which formally recognised their Bayah, the extremist groups stepped up their kidnap, ransom and piracy operations with frightening efficacy, with the ultimate goal of establishing a Wilayat in Southeast Asia.

After a spate of sea kidnappings, targeting international vessels roaming the Philippines porous maritime border with Indonesia and Malaysia, the three neighbouring countries were forced to consider joint patrol operations.

OPINION: Rodrigo Dutertes peace plans are in tatters

The continued kidnapping and piracy there is a major concern. It is so frustrating how they continue to elude us with impunity, Philippine Secretary of Defence Delfino Lorenzana told the Financial Times.

The situation has become so dire that Duterte was prompted to give green light to Indonesia to chase the terror groups all the way into Philippine waters and go ahead and blast them off if necessary.

Second Somalia

More recently, Duterte went so far as threatening to declare martial law in Mindanao to stamp out terrorism and called upon China and other naval powers to conduct sea patrols in the area.

Some experts are beginning to compare the situation to Somali piracy in the Gulf of Aden, which has similarly, though on a larger scale, threatened international maritime trade.

As the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, Duterte, is expected to place the fight against terrorism at the centre of the regional agenda. The whole Asia Pacific region is deeply worried about ISILs inroads into Southeast Asia and the corollary prospects of a distant caliphate in East Asia.

To defeat extremism, Duterte will have to put the full force of his office and the sheer gravity of his charisma behind the largely frozen peace negotiations with Islamist rebel groups. by

The ASEAN is scrambling to come up with multilateral mechanisms, which will facilitate expanded intelligence-sharing, tactical cooperation and joint patrols among affected nations.

The current trepidations stand in stark contrast to the overflowing optimism during Dutertes earlier months in office.

Back then, some even suggested the possibility, though half-jokingly, that the controversial and tough-talking Filipino leader could bag the Nobel Peace Prize if he managed to achieve the elusive peace that repeatedly slipped through the grip of even his most capable and genuine predecessors.





The ultimate saviour

Practically all major rebel groups looked up to him as the ultimate saviour, a man who could unlock the mystery of peace.

Blessed with unprecedented political capital, a longtime friend of rebel leaders such as Nur Misuari (founder of the modern Moro nationalist movement), a person with Muslim heritage and the venerable son of Mindanao, Duterte was in a uniquely auspicious position to end the decades-long conflict in his home island.

Yet, so far the Filipino leader has expended much of his political capital on a controversial war on drugs, which has invited heavy criticism from across the world, and seemingly fruitless peace negotiations with communist rebels, which are preparing for a new round of all-out war.

OPINION: Rodrigo Duterte  A new era in the Philippines

To defeat extremism, Duterte will have to put the full force of his office and the sheer gravity of his charisma behind the largely frozen peace negotiations with rebel groups.

This is the Filipino presidents best shot at mitigating the ecosystem of terror and fulfil his campaign promise of lasting peace on his home island of Mindanao. Duterte may after all still be the Philippines last hope for unifying a broke nation.

Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs and author of Asias New Battlefield: The USA, China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
US charge against Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi stems from a 2001 bombing at Jerusalem restaurant that killed 15.

The FBI has placed a Jordanian woman who assisted in the 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem restaurant on its Most Wanted Terrorist list.

The US case against Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi was filed under seal in 2013 but announced publicly by the justice department on Tuesday.

The charge against al-Tamimi stems from an August 9, 2001, bombing at a Sbarro pizzeria that, in addition to killing 15 people, also injured some 120 others. Two of those killed were US nationals.

After her capture, Tamimi, now in her mid-30s, pleaded guilty at trial in Israel and was sentenced in 2003 to 16 life prison terms.

The criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday charged al-Tamimi, who worked as a journalist at a television station in the occupied West Bank, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the US against US nationals.

Federal prosecutors accuse her of having agreed in the summer of 2001 to carry out attacks on behalf of the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement and having travelled with the restaurant bomber to Jerusalem.

Prosecutors say that she instructed the bomber to detonate the explosive device, which was hidden in a guitar, in the area.

Will never forget

Al-Tamimi was freed from prison in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas.

She was returned to Jordan, and though the justice department says it is working to bring her into custody, Jordanian courts have said their constitution does not allow for the extradition of Jordanian nationals.

This is the first time the US government has attempted to achieve the extradition and prosecute someone involved in a Palestinian attack against the Israeli occupation, Al Jazeeras Shihab Rattansi, reporting from Washington, DC, said. There have been civil wrongful death suits filed by relatives of Americans killed but this is the first time the government is taking such action.

Mary McCord, the acting head of the justice departments national security division, called al-Tamimi an unrepentant terrorist.

The charges unsealed today serve as a reminder that when terrorists target Americans anywhere in the world, we will never forget  and we will continue to seek to ensure that they are held accountable, McCord said.

Al-Tamimi faces a possible execution or life in prison if she is captured, tried and convicted in the US.
Days after a high-level meeting between Russia and Turkey, Syrias armed opposition refuse to attend new round of talks.

Istanbul, Turkey  The first day of the Astana talks on the six-year-old Syrian war wrapped up without the participation of the armed opposition.

Mohamed Alloush, the head of the Syrian opposition delegation at the first round of talks, told Al Jazeera that the decision to boycott was taken because their demands were not being addressed.





The Russians did not abide by their promises. They didnt release prisoners, they didnt stop the bombing, they didnt stop the forced displacement, Aloush said.

Abdul Majeed Barakat, political adviser to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions involved in the Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield Operation in northern Syria, told Al Jazeera that the opposition was not clear on what the plans were for this round of talks in Kazakhstans capital  and Turkey didnt push it to attend.

The Turks did not really encourage the participation [of the opposition]. They didnt stop it, but they didnt encourage it either, said Barakat.

Commenting on the boycott, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the reasons the opposition offered were unconvincing. He said the no-show was unexpected, and on Monday he talked with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, about it.

We have reason to believe that there is some kind of a misunderstanding. In any case, the Astana meeting will proceed along the way which was outlined in the UNSC resolution 2254, he told journalists at a press conference in Moscow.

READ MORE: Six years on, The price of saying NO to Assad

In Astana, Syrian government envoy Bashar al-Jaafari blamed Turkey for the opposition boycott.

When one of the three guarantors breaks their commitment  and I mean Turkey  this means that Turkey must be the one that is asked about the non-attendance or participation of these armed groups, al-Jaafari said.

Turkeys delegation, headed by deputy undersecretary of the ministry of foreign affairs Sedat Onal, is attending the discussions, which are scheduled to end on Wednesday.

According to Emre Ersen, a lecturer at Marmara Universitys Department of Political Science and International Relations in Istanbul, the opposition boycott has to do with disagreements between Russia and Turkey on Syria.

It is related to the current rift between Turkey and Russia regarding Manbij. They couldnt overcome their differences in the latest Putin and Erdogan meeting, Ersen told Al Jazeera.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on March 10 in Moscow.

During the meeting, Erdogan made it clear that Turkey expected Russia to end ties with Kurdish armed groups such as the People Protections Unit (YPG) that it considers a terrorist organisation.

INTERACTIVE: Syria under siege

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which include the YPG, recently gave up territory in favour of Syrian government forces west of the city of Manbij, in northern Aleppo province.

Shortly after, Russia announced its presence in the city. US troops, which provide logistical support and training to the SDF, were also present in the Manbij area. SDFs withdrawal in favour of the Syrian forces effectively stopped the progress of Turkeys Euphrates Shield Operation against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

According to Ersen, the refusal of the armed opposition to join the talks in Astana is a way for Ankara to suggest its dissatisfaction with the current situation in northern Syria. The move, however, could endanger the normalisation in Russian-Turkish relations.

[The oppositions boycott] might create a problem for Russia in terms of its influence in the Syria peace process. Astana actually symbolises Russias dominance in the Syrian question, because it excludes the United States, Ersen said.

It is the Russian plan. If it fails, if it is undermined because of this, it will definitely create a bigger problem between Turkey and Russia.

The oppositions no-show at Astana came a week after the fourth round of negotiations in Geneva ended with almost no progress. A new round of talks in Switzerland is scheduled for March 23.
Scuffles break out in Ethiopia as bereaved families accuse rescue workers of delays after rubbish collapse kills scores.

Bereaved families scuffled with rescue workers on Tuesday at a dump in the Ethiopian capital where the collapse of a mountain of rubbish killed at least 82 people on Saturday.

Relatives pushed and shoved emergency workers, angrily accusing them of delays and saying dozens of people were still missing after the disaster at the Reppi dump.

Nobody is helping us. We are doing all the digging ourselves. It is shameful, Kaleab Tsegaye, a relative of one victim, told the Reuters news agency.

Ethiopia on Tuesday declared three days of national mourning that will be observed from tomorrow.

The collapse late on Saturday destroyed 49 makeshift homes inside the landfill site on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, city spokesman Amare Mekonen said.

Over the past few days, a few rescuers have used bulldozers to move piles of rubbish as hundreds of people have gathered at the scene, weeping and praying. Some dug through the rubbish with their hands.

My babies, my babies, my little daughter, cried one man wandering through the dump in the Ethiopian capital on Monday, tears streaming down his face. Neighbours said he had lost his wife and four children.

On one side of the hill, volunteers sobbed as they pulled out three corpses, including a child found on top of its mother.

Hundreds of people live on the 50-year-old Reppi dump, the capitals only landfill site, scavenging for food and items they can sell such as recyclable metal.

It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse.

We expect the number of victims to increase because the landslide covered a relatively large area, Dagmawit Moges, head of the citys communications bureau, said.

About 150 people were at the site when the landslide happened, resident Assefa Teklemahimanot told The Associated Press news agency.

Addis Ababa Mayor Diriba Kuma said 37 people had been rescued and were receiving medical treatment.

In the long run, we will conduct a resettling programme to relocate people who live in and around the landfill, he said.

My house was right inside there, said a shaken Tebeju Asres, pointing to where one of the excavators was digging in deep, black mud. My mother and three of my sisters were there when the landslide happened. Now, I dont know the fate of all of them.

Residents blast government

The resumption of dumping at the site in recent months most likely caused the landslide, Assefa said.

Dumping had stopped in recent years, but it resumed after farmers in a nearby region, where a new landfill complex was being built, blocked dumping in their area.

READ MORE: Ethiopia declares state of emergency over protests

Smaller landslides have occurred at the Koshe landfill in the past two years, Assefa said.

Some volunteers had also expressed anger at the city administration on Monday as media arrived at the scene. As well as the two excavators, only three ambulance workers were at the site. Scuffles broke out between them and residents as journalists approached.

Stop pretending for the cameras! one local said. They havent provided us with anything. Not even gloves. When it gets dark, we are using our mobile phones [for light].

We have warned the authorities for more than 10 years as the rubbish piled up. There has not been any response. It is criminal negligence, said Taye Woldeamanuel, a 48-year-old whose sister narrowly survived the landslide.

About 500 waste-pickers are believed to work at the landfill every day, sorting through waste from the capitals estimated four million residents. City officials say close to 300,000 tonnes of waste are collected each year from the capital, most of it dumped at the landfill.

City officials had warned that the site was running out of room and in recent years had been trying to turn the rubbish into a source of clean energy with a $120m investment.

The Koshe waste-to-energy facility, which has been under construction since 2013, is expected to generate 50 megawatts of electricity upon completion.
Hijab targeted as court rules workplace bans on political and religious symbols are not discriminatory.

Employers are entitled to ban staff from wearing visible religious symbols, the European Unions top law court ruled on Tuesday, a decision Muslims said was a direct attack on women wearing hijabs at work.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said it does not constitute direct discrimination if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign.

The court gave a judgment in the cases of two women, in France and Belgium, who were dismissed for refusing to remove hijabs, or the headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion.

READ MORE: What the hijab means to me

Critics called the ban a thinly veiled measure targeting Muslims.

A ban on religious and political symbols feels to me as a disguised ban on the hijab. I cannot think of another symbol that will affect hundreds of thousands of people in Europe , Warda el-Kaddouri told Al Jazeera from Brussels.

By stating that veiled women can simply take off their hijab, you imply that the empowerment of women to be in control of their own body and to make individual decisions is reserved for white women only.

Kim Lecoyer, president of Belgium-based Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera the ruling legitimised discrimination on the grounds of religion.





The court could and should have seized the opportunity to put a halt to the multiple discriminations faced by Muslim women and protect their fundamental rights, but they chose not to, said Lecoyer.

Anti-Muslim nationalism

The wearing of religious symbols, especially the hijab, has become a hot button issue with the rise of nationalist and sometimes overtly anti-Muslim parties across Europe.

Some countries such as Austria are mulling a complete ban on the full-face veil in public, while in France last year local authorities barred women wearing the burkini, the full-body swimsuit, fining those who did.

Manfred Weber, head of the centre-right European Peoples Party, the biggest in the European Parliament, welcomed the ECJs ruling as a victory for European values.

Important ruling by the European Court of Justice: employers have the right to ban the Islamic veil at work. European values must apply in public life, Weber said in a tweet.

Al Jazeeras Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris, said Tuesdays ruling is complex.

The idea behind it is that companies have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to present a so-called neutral image and what they want to do to benefit their business.

Butler said the court ruled businesses should have the freedom to choose how they operate, and that included choosing whether people would be allowed to wear items such as hijabs or crosses on chains.

Its going to be very complicated to rule on such cases within each country, because it will come under the jurisdiction of each separate nation in the EU, because there are so many shades of grey what constitutes discrimination against somebodys religious freedom or not, she said.

The ECJ ruled on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium .

At the time, the company had an unwritten rule that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

In 2006, Achbita told G4S she wanted to wear a hijab but was told this would not be allowed. The company subsequently introduced a formal ban. Achbita was dismissed and she went to court claiming discrimination.

READ MORE: Swedens hijabista  selling Muslim fashion

The ECJ said European Union law does bar discrimination on religious grounds, but G4Ss actions were based on treating all employees the same, meaning no one person was singled out for application of the ban.

Accordingly, such an internal rule does not introduce a difference of treatment that is directly based on religion or belief, it said.

However, in a related case in France, the ECJ ruled a customer could not demand that a company employee not wear a hijab when conducting business with them on its behalf.

Design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was employed full-time by Micropole, a private company, in 2008, having been told that wearing the hijab might cause problems with clients.

After a customer complaint, Micropole asked Bougnaoui not to wear the hijab on the grounds that employees should be dressed neutrally.

WATCH: Why do some women choose to wear a veil?

She was subsequently dismissed and went to court claiming discrimination.

The ECJ said the case turned on whether there was an internal company rule in place applicable to all, as in the G4S instance, or whether the clients demand meant Bougnaoui was treated differently.

The ECJ concluded that Bougnaoui had indeed been treated differently and so the clients demand that she not wear a hijab cannot be considered a genuine and determining occupational requirement.

The ruling comes on the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration has been a key issue and a bellwether for attitudes towards migration and refugee policies across Europe.

Nihad el-Aabedy contributed to this report
Right-wing candidate charged following reports his family was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars from public purse.

Frances right-wing presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been charged with several offences over a fake jobs scandal that has seriously damaged his chances of winning Aprils closely contested election.

His lawyer Antonin Levy told AFP news agency on Tuesday that Fillon was charged with misuse of public funds and misuse of corporate assets.





The charges stem from an investigation his wife and children were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money for work they did not actually perform.

Following an investigation by the weekly newspaper Canard Enchaine, the 63-year-old presidential candidate admitted in January to employing his wife, Penelope, and two of their children as parliamentary assistants.

Penelope earned about 680,000 euros ($730,600) between 1986 and 2013 while working as a legislative staff member.

Despite the scandal causing a deep rift within his The Republicans party, Fillon has vowed to continue, calling the investigation an attempted political assassination.

READ MORE: Why the French elections will change the face of Europe

Once a frontrunner, Fillon has seen his popularity drop following successive waves of revelations in French newspapers.

The allegations over the allegedly illusory jobs have been particularly damaging to his campaign because Fillon used to tout his reputation for probity.

Independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron has since overtaken Fillion in pre-election polls, increasingly appearing as the new frontrunner.

Polls suggest Macron will beat Marine Le Pen in the decisive second round on May 7  but after Donald Trumps victory in the United States and Britains vote to leave the European Union, analysts caution against predictions.
Number of drowned in Mediterranean from January to early March higher than last year, raising alarm among rights groups.

More refugees have died in the Mediterranean over the first nine weeks of this year compared with the same period in 2016, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

From January 1 to March 9, at least 521 people drowned while attempting to cross the treacherous sea compared with 471 in the same period a year ago. At least another four refugees died on Friday, bringing the 2017 death toll to 525 people, according to IOM.

The figures raised alarm on Tuesday among human rights organisations, which have repeatedly called for safer passages.

The rising deaths came as the number of people making the dangerous crossing from Libya more than doubled, with 13,439 arriving in Italy compared with 5,273 a year earlier.

IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said most migrants leaving Libya came from Guinea, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Bangladesh.

READ MORE: 2016  The year the world stopped caring about refugees

Judith Sunderland, associate director for Europe at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Al Jazeera it was possible that a rush effect was prompting more crossings, with many panicked over new policies between Libya, Italy and the EU aimed at stemming the flow.

In February, EU leaders signed a deal to give 200m euro ($215m) to Libyas fragile government to stop migrant boats in the countrys territorial waters.

One interpretation is that smugglers and migrants are really in a rush to try and get people across the sea before those measures, before a clampdown, Sunderland said.

Along with impending border control efforts, refugees were subject to increasingly cruel treatment by smugglers, including being packed into flimsier boats, Sunderland said.

Conditions are ripe for more tragedies at sea.

EU should focus on search and rescue

In March 2016, the Balkan route was permanently shut, trapping tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Greece and slowing Aegean Sea crossings to a trickle. The route between Libya and Italy remains busy.

One of the EUs concerns, said Sunderland, is ensuring refugee boats do not enter international waters because then European vessels are obligated to bring those on board to Europe.

Certainly, we believe that migration cooperation with Libya is deeply problematic, she said. [The EU] should be doing a lot more to get people out of Libya in a safe way and a lawful way so they dont have to risk their lives to do so Clearly, theyre not keen to do that.

Over the past three years, the number of refugees who died at sea has risen sharply.

In 2016, more than 5,000 people lost their lives at sea  an annual record  as they took on perilous journeys to escape war, poverty, and persecution  often all three. In 2015, some 3,771 refugees died while crossing the Mediterranean, up from 3,279 deaths the year before.

We believe that the EU should continue to focus on search and rescue  rather than trying to prevent their flight from the dangers and violence they endure [in Libya], said Elisa De Pieri, a Europe researcher at Amnesty International.

It is clear that from Libya we are seeing a mixed flow of refugees and migrants escaping extreme poverty. The main problem is that there are no safe and legal routes into Europe neither for refugees nor for migrants, said De Pieri.

WATCH: Migrant dreams  Bangladeshi workers in Singapore (25:09)

A rising number of Bangladeshi refugees are trying to reach Europe, according to the latest IOM data.

IOM field staff spoke with some of the 1,303 Bangladeshis who disembarked at landing points in Sicily and Apulia in Italy.

From Bangladesh, some said they travelled by air to Dubai, Turkey and then Libya, from where they attempt the sea crossing.

Along with a payment to agents for a working visa, the total journey cost is between $14,000 and $15,000.

Others had already been living and working in Libya for more than one year, and were apparently fleeing the countrys unstable economy and security situation.

According to UN figures, more than 40 percent of Bangladeshs population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day.





A common argument against allowing economic migrants is that they do not face physical danger from war or conflict.

[But] under international law, refugees claims should be examined individually on their merit. People can be subjected to persecution in any country, said De Pieri.

HRWs Sunderland also warned against blanket categorisation about people from Bangladesh as economic migrants without protection needs.

In every case, everybody should have a fair chance to have individual circumstances examined, said Sunderland.

We hope that we will have leaders who put human rights concerns at the heart. [But] its hard to remain hopeful, given the climate of Europe. We are seeing the doors slamming shut even more.

Follow Anealla Safdar on Twitter: @anealla
Government soldiers try to retake strategic bridge in ISIL-held western Mosul, but snipers slow the advance.

Iraqi forces said they had killed the commander of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Mosuls Old City as the battle for the groups last stronghold in the country focused on a strategic bridge crossing the River Tigris.

Federal police said they killed Abu Abdul Rahman al-Ansary, military commander of the Old City, during operations to clear Bab al-Tob district.

With many ISIL leaders having already retreated from Mosul, Ansarys death comes as a blow to the group as it defends shrinking control of Iraqs second-largest city.

READ MORE: Iraq forces hit stiff resistance in Mosuls Old City

ISIL snipers, however, were slowing the advance of special forces units on the Iron Bridge linking western and eastern Mosul, officers said.

Capturing the Iron Bridge would mean Iraqi forces will hold three of the five bridges in Mosul that span the Tigris, all of which have been damaged by ISIL (also known as ISIS) and US-led air strikes.

The southernmost two have already been retaken.

We are still moving toward the Iron Bridge. We are taking out snipers hiding in the surrounding building, Brigadier-General Mahdi Abbas Abdullah told Reuters news agency.

Near the Mosul Museum, Iraq forces used armoured vehicles and tanks to attack snipers pinning down troops clearing areas around the bridge.

Fleeing civilians

As fighting intensified on Tuesday, civilians streamed out of western neighbourhoods recaptured by the government. Some pushed children and sick elderly relatives in handcarts and wheelbarrows.

Soldiers packed them into trucks on the Mosul-Baghdad highway to be taken to processing areas.





Ashraf Ali, a nurse who escaped with his wife and two children, said mortar rounds were falling as they fled. They took advantage of the army retaking their district to get out.

Daesh wanted us to move to their areas but we escaped when the army arrived, he said, referring to the Arabic name for ISIL.

As many as 600,000 civilians are caught inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces have effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that ISIL controls in Iraq and Syria.

More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October.

Iraqs Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been received seeking assistance and temporary accommodation each day.

Losing Mosul would be a major strike against ISIL.

It is by far the largest city ISIL have held since their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.
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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 ...

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QVC Shawn Killinger Bio  Husband, Net Worth & Facts To Know Shawn Killinger is a prominent TV personality who has worked her way to the top. Though not initially a journalist by training, she defied the odds and today has established herself as a household name, as well as, worked alongside some industry legends. More than just being a reporter, newscaster, and anchor, heres all you ...

Liv Lo  Dissecting the Ethnicity, Parents and Personal Life of Henry Goldings Wife While many are aware that Liv Lo is the better half to Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding, only a few understand why his beautiful wife appears increasingly endearing to fans. A former model turned TV personality, and fitness star, Liv has an impressive resume which when combined with that of her statuesque spouse is considered a perfect ...

Stpeach Age, Husband and Other Facts About The Twitch Streamer Lisa Vannatta, famously known by her online alias, STPeach is a Canadian video game streamer cum vlogger who has garnered fame through her appearances on different video-sharing/social networking platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter. The beautiful lady got her career to a start in August 2015 when she joined the live streaming video platform, Twitch. She rose to ...

Insights into Seth Meyers Wife, Family and What His Net Worth Is Celebrities are mostly remembered and known for the work they do. For Seth Meyers, his career as a comedian, writer, actor, TV host, and producer is his biggest identifier. He was on Saturday Night Live SNL show as a head writer and cast member for more than ten years during which he built a reputation ...

Who Is Jessica Gadsden  Age, Net Worth & All About Charlamagne tha Gods Wife Jessica Gadsden is an American fitness coach as well as a personal trainer. She is better known as the spouse of popular American media personality, Charlamagne Tha God. Charlamange Tha God is a well-known TV and radio personality in the U.S. He has featured in several shows (both on the radio and TV) and is ...

Who Is Collins Tuohy  Michael Ohers sister ? Her Wedding, Husband & Net Worth Collins Tuohy is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, blogger, and social media personality. She is also better known as the adoptive sister of NFL player, Michael Oher, whose life story inspired the Hollywood blockbuster The Blind Side. The Blind Side tells the true life story of Oher who grew up in an impoverished background consisting of a ...

Eye-Popping Facts About The Personal Life And Career Success Of Sportscaster Heidi Watney Heidi Watney is a media personality who has created a niche for herself as a sportscaster. Starting out as a radio presenter, the brilliant young lady has gone on to work for several prominent sports networks, and currently, she is with the MLB. The sportscaster is also known to have been an avid sports lady right ...

Marty Lagina Bio  Siblings (Martina and Rick Lagina), Net Worth and Wife Marty Lagina is an American engineer and businessman who has risen to fame as a reality TV star. This is thanks to his involvement in the adventure TV series, The Curse of Oak Island. The Curse of Oak Island is a long-running TV series which airs on the history channel. The show aims to solve ...

Is Jordan Schlansky Just A Character or a Real Life Person and What Does He Do? The world of late-night television is an interesting one. Shows during that time are geared towards giving viewers comedic relief from a long day at work through interviews and comedy sketches. The often charismatic host of this show requires the balancing talent of a producer whose primary job is to deliver great episodes. It is ...

Heres How Wealthy Jimmy Kimmel Is From All The Phases of His Career, Marriages and Sons Health Jimmy Kimmel is a renowned late-night talk show host known for his charm, wit, and the A-list guests he features on his show. As the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! On ABC, Jimmy has been serving comedy to television viewers for years which played a pivotal role in launching him into mainstream fame and enabled ...

Natasha Bertrand Biography  Is She Married? Who Is the Husband & What Is Her Age? Natasha Bertrand is not just a young prominent journalist but a first-rate investigative reporter. With her natural beauty and smile, Natashas sharp, insightful political commentary also makes her a thorough reporter. Her sound political perspective and coverage in the country have made her a force to be reckoned with in the profession. Renowned for her ...

What Happened to Shane Kilcher? His Injury Update, Net Worth and More Shane Kilcher is well-known thanks to the Discovery Channel series Alaska: The Last Frontier. It is a show that documents the daily lives of the extended Kilcher family, people who live without plumbing or modern heating. The episodes follow their routines as they rely on hunting and farming for their nutritional needs as well as ...

Is Stephanie Gosk Gay or Lesbian, Who is the Wife or Partner  Jenna Wolfe? In August 2013, NBCs Today viewers were greeted with two shocking news. Today weekend anchor, Jenna Wolfe, announced that she was as a lesbian, introducing her partner as NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk, and said the two are expecting their first child. A long time has passed since then and certainly, a lot of things ...

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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 ...

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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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Thousands of physicians call off 100-day strike over pay and working conditions after dozens died without care.

Thousands of doctors working in Kenyas public hospitals have agreed to end a 100-day strike after reaching a deal with the government on Tuesday that aims to address their grievances.

More than 5,000 health workers calling for nearly a 300 percent increase in pay went on strike in December, but it was not clear how much of their demands were met.

The government and union officials signed a deal to address pay and other issues in dispute, said Ouma Oluga, secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union.

Oluga said the biggest achievement in the agreement is that doctors now will work just 40 hours a week and will be compensated for extra hours. Previously, doctors in public hospitals were on call at all times.

Its a win-win for everybody, Oluga said.

Public doctors in Kenya, who train for six years at universities, earn a basic salary of only $400-$850 a month.

It is regrettable that it took so long. Kenyans have suffered  We cannot fathom the extent of pain which Kenyans felt in the 100 days, said Kenyas Health Minister Cleopa Mailu.

Dorcas Kitenge: A victim of Kenyas doctors strike

Dozens of people died during the strike as the majority of Kenyans cannot afford private healthcare.

The doctors pushed for the implementation of a 2013 collective-bargaining agreement that committed the government to increase pay and restore dilapidated public health facilities, among other issues. It also set out measures to address the East African countrys huge shortage of doctors.

The government said it does not recognise the 2013 agreement.

The Kenyan government on Friday started cracking the whip on the striking doctors by firing them en masse for missing work without reason and taking part in an illegal strike.

The government withdrew a 50 percent pay rise offer among other benefits that were meant to woo the doctors back and warned that it would not succumb to threats and intimidation. It ordered the doctors to resume work or face disciplinary action.

Al Jazeeras Catherine Soi, reporting from a missionary hospital in Nairobi, said the healthcare situation is dire.

The impact of the strike is very severe. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Beds are packed end to end. Hundreds of patients are lining up to be treated, Soi said.

The strike comes amid fierce criticism of the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking re-election in August when the East African nation holds presidential and parliamentary elections.

Politicians are investigating allegations that tens of millions of dollars have gone missing from Kenyas Ministry of Health and the National Youth Service.
East-based forces claim they have regained control of two oil installations of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider from rival forces.

Forces loyal to renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar say after heavy fighting they have regained control of the major oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider in the volatile eastern part of the country, weeks after it was captured by a rival faction.

Ahmed al-Mismari, spokesman of Haftars Libyan National Army (LNA), told Reuters news agency the eastern-based armed group had taken back the ports from the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB).

LNA forces were moving towards the town of Ben Jawad, about 30km west of Es Sider, to confront BDB forces, al-Mismari said.



Pro-Haftar forces launch offensive

Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli, said Benghazi Defence Brigades sources confirmed reports that the ports were lost and its fighters were under attack.

They finally managed to retake the two terminals, they are still bombarding the Benghazi Defence Brigades along the coast, said Abdelwahed. Haftars forces have been using advanced missile systems to target their positions.

BDBs advance on Es Sider and Ras Lanuf on March 3 set off a fresh round of fighting for control of the ports in Libyas Oil Crescent, a strip of coast southwest of Benghazi, raising fears of an escalation of violence and a reversal for the OPEC member states efforts to revive its oil output.

Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that back rival governments and parliaments.

Haftar, who is aligned with the eastern parliament and government, has been fighting a two-year military campaign with his LNA forces against armed groups in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east.

READ MORE: Benghazi Defence Brigades claim seizing Libyan cities

BDB is composed partly of fighters who were ousted from Benghazi by the LNA.





Meanwhile, US and security sources on Tuesday told Reuters that Russia has deployed special forces and unmanned drones at Sidi Barrani, about 100km from the Egypt-Libya border, adding any such Russian deployment might be part of an effort to support Haftar.

The reports were later denied by both Moscow and Cairo.

Back in January, Haftar was given a tour of a Russian aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, according to Russian media reports, a show of Kremlin support for the faction leader who opposes Libyas UN-backed government.

Escalation of violence

The latest fighting around the terminals has raised the prospect of a new escalation of violence and put at risk a sharp boost to Libyas oil production achieved after the LNA took over four ports in September, ending a blockade at three of them.

Though Es Sider and Ras Lanuf have been reopened for exports, they were badly damaged in past fighting and are operating well below capacity.

READ MORE: Will losing oil ports end Haftars power?

Haftar claims to control most of the eastern part of Libya around Benghazi, Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador to Libya, told Al Jazeera last week.

But, control is a loose word. Hes been fighting for a long time to deal with them and it has taken a long time time to clear them up. Hes repeatedly said theyve dealt with the problem but they keep reuniting.

Libyas oil production has recently been fluctuating around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), more than double its output last year but still well under the 1.6 million bpd the OPEC member was producing before a 2011 uprising.
Forces loyal to renegade general launch push to seize oil terminals in eastern Libya from the Benghazi Defence Brigade.

Troops commanded by Libyan renegade general Khalifa Haftar have launched an offensive to seize back control of two of the countrys key eastern oil terminals, according to a spokesman.

Ground, sea and air forces launched joint attacks to liberate Ras Lanuf from terrorist groups, Khalifa al-Abidi said after orders were issued early on Tuesday for the push, which is also targeting the nearby Es Sider oil terminal.

Both sites were seized earlier this month by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) rival group.

At least nine people were killed in fighting on Friday as Haftars eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) and allied forces retreated from the oil ports.

READ MORE: Benghazi Defence Brigades claim seizing Libyan cities

Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli, said that the BDB confirmed reports that their fighters had come under attack.

The clashes have erupted again but the Benghazi Defence Brigades confirm that they have not lost Ras Lanuf yet to Haftars forces.

The BDB are composed partly of fighters who were ousted from Benghazi by the LNA.





Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that back rival governments and parliaments.

Haftar, who is aligned with the eastern parliament and government, has been fighting a two-year military campaign with his LNA forces against armed groups in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east.

Meanwhile, US and security sources on Tuesday told the Reuters news agency that Russia has deployed special forces and unmanned drones at Sidi Barrani, about 100km from the Egypt-Libya border, adding that any such Russian deployment might be part of an effort to support Haftar.

The reports were later denied by both Moscow and Cairo.

Back in January, Haftar was given a tour of a Russian aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, according to Russian media reports, a show of Kremlin support for the faction leader who opposes Libyas UN-backed government.

Escalation of violence

The latest fighting around the terminals has raised the prospect of a new escalation of violence and put at risk a sharp boost to Libyas oil production achieved after the LNA took over four ports in September, ending a blockade at three of them.

Though Es Sider and Ras Lanuf have been reopened for exports, they were badly damaged in past fighting and are operating well below capacity.

It was not clear to what extent the BDB had gained control over the ports, or whether operations at the terminals had been affected.

READ MORE: Will losing oil ports end Haftars power?

Haftar claims to control most of the eastern part of Libya around Benghazi, Oliver Miles, former British ambassador to Libya, told Al Jazeera last week.

But, control is a loose word. Hes been fighting for a long time to deal with them and it has taken a long time time to clear them up. Hes repeatedly said theyve dealt with the problem but they keep reuniting.

Libyas oil production has recently been fluctuating around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), more than double its output last year but still well under the 1.6 million bpd the OPEC member was producing before a 2011 uprising.
Pyongyang accuses Washington and Seoul of the assassination in Malaysia in order to tarnish the Norths image.

North Korea has blamed the United States and South Korea for the high-profile murder of leader Kim Jong-uns estranged half-brother in a Malaysian airport.





Kim In-ryong, North Koreas deputy UN ambassador, told reporters that from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities.

Washington and Seoul were trying to tarnish the Norths image and bring down its social system, Kim said on late Monday in New York.

Kim Jong-nam was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13 allegedly by two women  an Indonesian and a Vietnamese  who reportedly smeared his face with VX, a chemical classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

The women told diplomats from their home countries they thought they were participating in a prank for reality television.

READ MORE: Who produced the VX poison that killed Kim Jong-nam?

Malaysian police have since identified seven other North Koreans wanted in connection with the killing, including a senior embassy official in Kuala Lumpur. Four have left the country and are believed to be in Pyongyang.

Ambassador Kim said the cause of Kim Jong-nams death has not yet been clearly identified, but the United States and the South Korean authorities are groundlessly blaming [North Korea].

He asked why the person who applied the VX agent, which is fatal if a tiny amount is inhaled, is still alive while the man it was applied to died.

The ambassador said the US is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX and it has stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack.

It is a final aim sought by the United States to store up the international repugnancy towards the DPRK, he said of the attack, with the intention of provoking a nuclear war against DPRK at any cost.

READ MORE: Whats on Kim Jong-uns mind?

Kim Jong-nam reportedly fell out of favour with his father, the late Kim Jong-il, in 2001 when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

He was not known to be seeking political power, but his position as eldest son of the family that has ruled North Korea since it was founded could have made him appear to be a danger to his half-brother Kim Jong-un.
Two days before crucial general election, leading candidates lay starkly opposing visions of their countrys future.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his main rival at national elections, the far-right populist Geert Wilders, have faced off on live television for the first time in a heated debate that centred around the countrys relationship with Turkey and its future in the European Union.

Two days before Wednesdays crucial general election, The Netherlands is mired in a war of words with Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the governments decision to block two Turkish ministers from addressing political rallies in Rotterdam ahead of an April referendum.

Referring to the ongoing row, Wilders, known for his anti-immigration stance, said Rutte should at least throw the Turkish ambassador and his staff out of the country.

READ MORE: Who votes for Geert Wilders?

You are being taken hostage by Erdogan. Close the Dutch borders, Wilders told the prime minister as tempers flared in the 30-minute debate  their only nationally televised face-to-face event.

Thats a totally fake solution, Rutte shot back. You want Nexit, you want the Netherlands out of Europe. You know what it will cost  dont do it.

This is the difference between tweeting from the couch and running the country, Rutte said, portraying Wilders as unfit to lead for often communicating via tweets.

If you run the country you have to take sensible decisions.

Polls suggest Wednesdays results could be close, with Ruttes Liberal VVD returning as the largest party in the 150-seat parliament by a small margin.

The elections are being closely watched as a signal of the possible rise of far-right and populist parties in Europe, with key elections also planned this year in France and Germany.

I want the Netherlands to be the first country which stops this trend of the wrong sort of populism, Rutte told reporters, just hours before the debate.

Wilders is unlikely to be able to form the next government even if he wins the popular vote as all mainstream parties have ruled out working with him. The Netherlands proportional representation voting system guarantees coalitions.

This election has increasingly become defined by the role of multiculturalism in Dutch society, Al Jazeeras Dominic Kane, reporting from Rotterdam, said.

Rutte and his government are presenting themselves as the parties of tolerance and support of the EU, and Wilders is appealing to those who feel their country has changed too much in recent years.

Wilders, who says he is on a mission against the Islamisation of the country, has promised to shut Dutch borders to Muslim immigrants, close mosques and ban sales of the Quran.

He also wants to follow the British and pull the country out of the European Union which it helped found.

In the debate, Rutte mocked Wilders election pledges to ban the Quran, asking if he intended to establish a Quran police to go door to door confiscating Islams holy book.

The two leaders are due to take part in one final pre-election debate with other political leaders on Tuesday night.
Pakistans PM orders blocking of all social media content deemed blasphemous to Islam and for prosecution of suspects.

Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered the immediate removal and blocking of all online content deemed to be blasphemous to Islam from social media  and for those responsible to be prosecuted.

Tuesdays order came in the wake of ongoing hearings at the Islamabad High Court in a case seeking the blocking of all Internet content deemed to be blasphemous.

The [posting of] blasphemous content on social media is an unclean attempt to play with the feelings of the Muslim Ummah [community], Sharif said in a statement.

Effective steps must be taken immediately to remove and block this material.

Pakistans telecommunications regulator currently blocks hundreds of websites, including those run by ethnic Baloch dissidents, as well as sites containing pornography or material deemed to be blasphemous.

Last week, Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the government was taking steps to contact social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter to remove or ban blasphemous content from being viewed in Pakistan.

READ MORE: A shrine to murder for blasphemy

In January 2016, Pakistan ended a three-year ban on video-sharing website YouTube, also over blasphemous content, after the content provider agreed to launch a localised version that would streamline the process for content to be censored for viewers in Pakistan.

We will go to any extent even if we have to go to the extent of permanently blocking all such social media websites, if they refuse to cooperate, Khan said in a statement on Thursday.

On Tuesday, Sharif directed Pakistans foreign office to play an effective role in contacting international social media websites.

Eliminate this evil

Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan. Insulting the Prophet Muhammad carries a judicial death sentence and, increasingly commonly, the threat of extrajudicial murder by right-wing vigilantes.

At least 68 people have been killed in connection with blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to a tally maintained by Al Jazeera.

The petition in the Islamabad High Court accuses five rights activists who were abducted in early January of running pages on social networking website Facebook that had posted content deemed to be blasphemous.

No evidence has been shared directly linking the five activists to the Facebook pages in question, but during their three-week disappearance the men were the subject of a vast social media campaign accusing them of blasphemy.

READ MORE: Christmas message leads to death threats in Pakistan

Most have stayed silent since their release, but Ahmed Waqas Goraya, one of those abducted, has since spoken out publicly about being tortured by Pakistans powerful military during his disappearance.

The military has previously denied any connection to the disappearances of the activists.

Last week, Shaukat Siddiqui, the judge hearing the case in Islamabad, directed the government to take some steps  to eliminate this evil [blasphemous content], even at the cost of blocking entire social media.

The case has since expanded to include accusations against three journalists who discussed the allegations and the court orders in this regard on a television news show.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras Web Correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim.



Pakistan: Killing For Honour  101 East




Chinese survey ships were recently sighted in the 13-million hectare area the UN says belongs to the Philippines.

The Philippines will send military patrols and survey vessels to a large underwater land mass in the Pacific Ocean to assert its rights over the area after Chinese ships were spotted there.

The vessels will travel to Benham Rise, 250km off the Philippines northeastern coast, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announced on Tuesday.

We will send our patrols and then we will study what we can put there to exploit also the resources, Lorenzana told reporters.

We will continue to study what will be the best way to develop that area for our needs. We are entitled to all the economic benefits of Benham Rise, he added.

READ MORE: Duterte tells China, Benham Rise sea territory is ours

The Philippine foreign ministry said on Tuesday that there was no question  and no rival claim  over the 13-million hectare undersea region rich in minerals and biodiversity.

It is indisputable because no other country has an overlapping claim there, Charles Jose, a foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

So, as a country that exercises sovereign rights and jurisdiction, we are the only one that has a sole and exclusive right to explore and exploit the national resources in Benham Rise. It is our responsibility to protect it.

In 2012, a UN commission approved the Philippines territorial claim to the area.

Sovereign rights

Justice Antonio Carpio, a Supreme Court member, told the Manila-based Inquirer.net that the UN convention reserves the sovereign rights over the area to the Philippines, allowing it exclusive rights to explore oil, gas and other minerals.

But he also said that other states, including China, have the right to conduct fishery research because the fish in the Philippines extended continental shelf belongs to mankind.

The Philippine military said it had monitored Chinese survey ships over Benham Rise during the past six months of 2016.

It was not clear what the survey ships were doing there, but Lorenzana said that he had received information the Chinese were looking for a place to put submarines.

On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte called for structures to be erected in the area to denote Philippine jurisdiction, and he told the navy to go there and tell them straight that this is ours.

The territory is not part of the South China Sea, a key shipping lane that Beijing claims almost entirely, despite the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also having claims.
Local media says recently impeached Park Geun-Hye will be questioned as a criminal suspect over corruption charges.

South Korean prosecutors will summon ousted president Park Geun-hye for questioning as a suspect in a wide-ranging corruption case that led to her impeachment, according to prosecution sources and local media.

The Constitutional Court dismissed Park from office on Friday when it upheld a parliamentary impeachment vote over an influence-peddling scandal that has shaken the political and business elite. Park has denied any wrongdoing.

The prosecutors would decide by Wednesday when they would summon Park, the countrys first democratically elected president to be removed from office, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday.

READ MORE: The day Park Geun-hye was ousted

We will decide Wednesday when to summon former President Park and inform her, an unnamed spokesman of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office also told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.





It has not yet been decided whether Park will be called in to the prosecutors office in private, or publicly before TV cameras and photographers, he added.

The top courts ruling ended a power struggle that had consumed the nation for months and marked a stunning downfall for Park, who convincingly defeated her liberal opponent in 2012 with overwhelming support from older South Koreans, who remembered her father, a former South Korean leader, as a hero.

Park left the Blue House presidential palace in Seoul on Sunday to return to her private home in the city as an ordinary citizen, stripped of her presidential immunity that has shielded her from prosecution.

Park said through a spokesman that she felt sorry about not being to complete her term but added that the truth would come out, striking a defiant tone about the prospect of facing an investigation.

She has already been named as a suspect for bribery and abuse of power for allegedly colluding with her secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil to extort money from a raft of companies, among them the giant Samsung corporation, whose chief has been indicted over a bribery scandal.
Russian president seeks to incorporate some military units of the breakaway region into the Russian army.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the governments proposal to integrate some military units of Georgias breakaway region of South Ossetia into the Russian army.

The order announced on Tuesday is likely to lead to accusations from Georgia and its Western allies that the Kremlin is absorbing the region into Russia by stealth, even though under international law it is part of Georgias sovereign territory.

Russia recognised South Ossetia as an independent state in 2008 after fighting a short war with Georgia.

Moscow has de facto controlled South Ossetia  a sliver of mainly mountainous land in the northeast of Georgia  for years. But it has, on paper at least, treated it as a separate state, not part of Russia.

Putin instructed the Russian defence ministry to sign a military agreement with South Ossetia on Moscows behalf, according Ria Novosti and Tass news agencies, which cited information published on the governments website on Tuesday.





The deal would allow the Russian military to recruit South Ossetian soldiers as contractors, but they would first have to be dismissed from active duty by South Ossetia, reported Tass.

Leonid Tibilov, the de-facto leader of South Ossetia, said last year that the self-declared republic would retain its army while part of its military would serve in the Russian armed forces.

Transfer of some units of South Ossetian Armed Forces into the Russian army is at variance with the Russian legislation, Tibilov was quoted as saying by Tass.

He said it was not yet clear how many military servicemen would go into Russian units.

The Georgian government issued a statement condemning Russias move, saying the decision was one more obvious step towards de facto annexation of South Ossetia.

We call on the international community to assess in a proper way the so-called agreement and to demand that Russia fulfils international obligations, the statement said.

Georgia says it wants South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region, back.
Tech workers protest against what they call the discriminatory policymaking of US President Donald Trump.

Hundreds of protesters have attended a demonstration held by Silicon Valley workers against what participants call the discriminatory policymaking of US President Donald Trump and his administration.

Organisers said Tuesdays rally in Palo Alto was part of a small but growing bid against a White House that is targeting some of the US tech industrys less-seen employees: many of the people of colour and immigrants who either drive innovation or do the blue-collar jobs that keep Silicon Valley business running.

The rally featured more than 20 speakers from both tech companies and civil society groups.

A lot of people came to Silicon Valley because they were sold on that belief that were doing amazing things, said Brad Taylor, a Silicon Valley software engineer who founded Tech Stands Up, the nonprofit organisation leading the charge for the US tech hubs social justice activism in the time of Trump.

Trump is enacting policies that are hurting our families and our workers. We are the tech industry, we can stand up for the values we say we believe in, he told Al Jazeera.

Immigration bans

The protest comes amid a wave of civil action against Trump.

In mid-February, US immigrants shuttered their stores in a show of resistance against Trumps pledges to ramp up deportations and bolster the wall separating the US from Mexico.

Tech giants such as ride-share service Lyft have issued statements specifically addressing the Trump administrations immigration bans, which analysts said would adversely affect the companies ability to hire foreign talent.

Immigrants have traditionally comprised a healthy proportion of Silicon Valleys lucrative start-up scene.

Foreign employees at Google reportedly walked out of work in protest at the immigration ban.

But the industry, as a whole, has yet to address the administration head-on.

Silicon Valley giants have been mostly silent on the demonstration for now. Apple, Twitter, Facebook and Google did not respond to emailed requests for comment on the event. LinkedIn, whose vice president of Growth & International, Aatif Awan, was scheduled to speak on the promise of America at the event, said it supported its employee.

Aatif is standing up for something he believes in, representing his own views. We support and encourage all our employees to participate in the causes they believe in, said a LinkedIn spokesperson.

Values under attack

In the Tech Stands Up manifesto, published on Medium late last week, Taylor and his co-organiser McKenzie Lock explain that most tech companies are not living up to their values and potential and that their inaction is threatening US democracy.

Walk into many tech firms, and you are likely to see a set of company values hanging on their walls. Some of those values are inclusion, transparency, innovation, diversity, openness, ownership, and empathy. Today those values are under attack, the manifesto says.

Tuesdays action aimed to have more tech companies assume a more active role in a society in flux, Taylor said.

He also hopes the demonstration will mark a departure from a long-running standoff between the tech community and social justice activists, both locally and nationally.

In nearby Oakland and San Francisco, housing rights advocates have blamed an influx of young, moneyed tech entrepreneurs for rampant gentrification that is driving working-class families further from their home cities.

Taylor argued the urgency of a US under Trump is waking up his fellow Silicon Valley employees to their civic duty.

For a while, it was just you didnt talk about politics in Silicon Valley; we talked about what companies were doing and who got a round of funding, he said.

Right now the pitchforks are pointed towards [Washington] DC  If we dont stick up for these communities  the pitchforks will be pointed back at us very soon, he added.

Rally participants hope that beyond resisting the Trump administrations policies, Tech Stands Up will help to invigorate the more voiceless among the tech industrys workers.

We hope the event not only sends a message, but creates new opportunities for the low-wage, largely immigrant subcontracted janitors, security officers, cafeteria workers and shuttle drivers to work together with directly employed workers to urge technology companies to take action, said Derecka Mehrens, co-founder of Silicon Valley Rising  a campaign to build an inclusive middle class in Silicon Valley.

Mehrens was listed as a speaker at Tuesdays event along with two fellow Silicon Valley Rising members, Maria Gonzalez, a janitor at Facebook, and Jacky Espinoza, a cafeteria worker from Cisco.

By encouraging companies to use their political and legal muscle to resist discriminatory policy coming from the White House and adopt new wage and benefit standards for subcontracted service workers, workers across the tech sector can press their companies to be responsible corporate citizens in this time of Trump, Mehrens added.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Karen Mirzoyan is currently on a working visit in Greece to participate in the March 13-15 events entitled "Our Heroic Artsakh", organized by the Armenian National Committee of Greece, the foreign ministry of Artsakh told.

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 14, ARTSAKHPRESS: The foreign minister started his visit by attending the Armenian Evangelical Church of Greece as well as several Armenian educational institutions, in particular, the Galpakyan and Zavaryan Colleges, where he got acquainted with the college activities and talked to the students.
UAE oil tanker Aris 13 reportedly hijacked off Somalia, first pirate attack of a commercial vessel there since 2012.

Pirates in Somalia have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew onboard, the first time they have successfully taken a commercial ship since 2012.

Mohamud Ahmed Eynab, district commissioner for Alula town in Somalias semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said on Tuesday that a day earlier the pirates hijacked the oil tanker and they brought it near Alula.

A local elder, Salad Nur, told AP news agency by phone more armed men boarded the ship, saying young local fishermen, including former pirates, hijacked the ship.

They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it, Nur said.

Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing.

READ MORE: Illegal overfishing and the return of Somalias pirates

John Steed, a former British army officer who heads the Horn of Africa section of the Oceans Beyond Piracy NGO, said the Aris 13 was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu when it was hijacked.

Its crew sent a distress signal on Monday afternoon, he said.

Yesterday afternoon, the ship reported that it was followed by two skiffs. After that, it went silent and the owner of the ship was not able to get into contact, Steed said, adding demands had not been made yet by the hijackers.





UAE-based owner

The Sri Lankan government said it had eight Sri Lankan crew onboard and flew a flag from the Comoros Islands.

A UN shipping database shows the Aris 13 is owned by a Panama company called Armi Shipping SA, whose address is listed in care of Aurora Ship Management FZE, a company based in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

Australian government records from 2014 list the ships owner as Flair Shipping Trading FZE in the UAE.

Argyrios Karagiannis, the managing director of Flair Shipping, declined APs request to comment.

We will not be releasing any information, Karagiannis said before shutting the door.

READ MORE: The other side of Somalias pirates

The European Union Naval Force (NAVFOR), which runs anti-piracy operations in the area, sent a maritime patrol aircraft to the coast of Somalia to investigate the incident, a spokeswoman said.

She said the force does not classify the incident as piracy so far.

Somali pirates began staging waves of attacks in 2005, seriously disrupting a major international shipping route.

The attacks  which in 2012 cost the global economy $5.7bn to $6.1bn  prompted interventions by the UN, EU, and NATO.

Many commercial shippers began hiring private armed guards for their vessels.

At the peak of the piracy crisis in January 2011, 736 hostages and 32 boats were held.

Though anti-piracy measures ended attacks on commercial vessels, fishing boats have continued to face assaults.

With the seas empty of fish because of toxic waste dumping and illegal fishing by foreign trawlers, many Somalis say they have no choice but to turn to piracy to survive.
UN says two Syrian air raids struck Ain al-Fijeh spring in December, a war crime that left millions without water.

United Nations investigators have accused Syrias air force of deliberately bombing water facilities in December on the outskirts of Damascus, a war crime that cut off water for 5.5 million people in and around the capital.

Rebels had controlled the springs of the Wadi Barada valley, northwest of Damascus, since 2012 and faced a major offensive by Syrian government forces and their allies, despite a ceasefire deal. The rebels withdrew at the end of January.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria on Tuesday said it had found no evidence of deliberate contamination of the water supply or demolition by armed groups, as the Syrian government maintained at the time.

READ MORE: Syrian refugee crisis in numbers

The commission said there were no reports of people suffering water contamination on or before December 23, when the Syrian air force hit Ain al-Fijeh spring with at least two air raids.

While the presence of armed group fighters at (the) spring constituted a military target, the extensive damage inflicted to the spring had a devastating impact on more than five million civilians in both government and opposition controlled areas who were deprived of regular access to potable water for over one month, the commissions report, which based its conclusions on interviews with residents and satellite imagery, as well as publicly available information, said.





The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks.

In a separate incident, aircraft  most likely Syrian or Russian  bombed the long-standing headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the town of Idlib, the report, which covered the period between July 21, 2016, and February 28 this year, said.

The commission also documented the use of lethal chlorine gas on multiple occasions by government and pro-government forces, in the suburbs of Damascus and Idlib province.

On January 8, civilians were wounded in Baseemeh village near Damascus when pro-government forces used chlorine munitions.

In January and February, the UN investigators documented four additional chlorine attacks in the eastern Ghouta area, which were aimed at frontline fighting positions.

Using such weapons amounts to war crimes and violates the international pact that bans chemical munitions, the report said.

There was no evidence of Russian involvement in chlorine attacks, the report said.

READ MORE: Syria\s children: Killed, maimed, forced to fight

The report came less than two weeks after the commission said that both sides in last years battle for Syrias Aleppo city committed war crimes, Al Jazeeras Rory Challands, reporting from Kazakhstans capital, Astana, said.

That report [March 2] said that the Syrian government had been responsible for numerous war crimes, Challands said, citing the dropping of chlorine bombs over Aleppo and the bombing of a UN aid convoy which led to multiple deaths.

It also put some of the blame on the rebel forces, saying they were guilty of indiscriminate attacks on western Aleppo.





Astana talks

Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition said it would not attend a third round of Syria talks on Tuesday in Astana, leaving little hope for a breakthrough in ending the six-year conflict.

Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the rebels, said they had taken a final decision not to go to the talks as a result of Russias failure to end what the opposition says are widespread violations of a Turkish-Russian brokered ceasefire last December.

Currently, the decision is not to go as a result of Russia continuing its crimes in Syria against civilians and its support of the crimes of the Syrian regime, he said, adding that they had informed Turkey, a main backer of the rebels, of their decision.

For its part, the Syrian government blamed Turkey for opposition forces boycotting the Astana meeting.

Turkey should bear the responsibility for the failure of the opposition to attend Astana 3, Syrian government representative Bashar Jaafari said in comments carried by state news agency SANA.
Prosecutors say China-friendly former leader broke laws by releasing personal information on rival politicians.

Taiwan prosecutors indicted the islands China-friendly former president, Ma Ying-jeou, over the alleged leaking of classified information involving suspected influence-peddling by a powerful opposition lawmaker.

The Taipei District Public Prosecutors Office found, after a six-month probe, that Ma broke laws on the protection of personal information, release of secrets and communications security and surveillance, office spokesman Chang Chieh-chin said on Tuesday.

The charges stem from a 2013 lawsuit brought by opposition legislative member Ker Chien-ming, who accused the then-president of leaking information taken from a wiretapped conversation, in which powerful Nationalist Party lawmaker Wang Jin-pyng pressed judicial officials to acquit Ker in a separate case.

Wang at the time was speaker of the legislature and Mas main political rival within the ruling party.

Following the indictment, Ma told reporters in Taipei that passing on the information about suspected influence-peddling taken from the wiretap was not a criminal act.

This was mainly about handling a crisis, Ma said. Im confident in my innocence.

His spokesperson Hsu Chao-hsin said theres no way he should have been charged. Where is the justice?

Divisive figure

The charges carry a maximum sentence of three years each.

Ma was barred in June from visiting Hong Kong under a state secrecy law restricting travel by former top officials for three years after leaving office.

Mas case will stir emotions in Taiwan, where public opinion about his performance in office remains divided, said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political risk consultancy, e-telligence.





A US-educated legal scholar, Ma, 66, was credited with substantially improving Taiwans relations with rival China during his two terms in office from 2008 to 2016.

However, his push for ever-closer ties sparked a backlash, especially among young Taiwanese wary of Chinas intentions towards the island it considers its own territory to be brought under control by force if necessary.

That led to his Nationalist Party losing both the presidency and its parliamentary majority to the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in polls in January 2016.
Justice department says more time needed to respond to lawmakers about President Trumps claim Obama wiretapped him.

The Department of Justice has requested more time to respond to a request from legislators on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee for evidence about President Donald Trumps allegation that then-president Barack Obama wiretapped him.

The department had been expected to provide a response by Monday to the House Intelligence Committee, which has made Trumps wiretapping claims part of a bigger investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement that the department has asked for more time to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist.

The committee replied in a statement that it wanted a response by the time of a planned hearing on March 20.

If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered, a spokesman said.

The justice department is not required to respond to the representatives request for evidence or meet its deadline.

Not literally wiretapping

Trump tweeted earlier this month that Obama had ordered him to be wiretapped. He presented no evidence, and the former intelligence director said last week that the claim was false.

The White House on Monday appeared to soften Trumps claim.

Spokesman Sean Spicer said the president was not using the word wiretapping literally, noting that Trump had put the term in quotation marks  which he did only in his first tweet.

Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities, Spicer said.

He also suggested Trump was not accusing Obama specifically, but instead referring to the actions of his administration.

Trump himself has not commented on the matter since his March 4 tweets.
A court in Egypt has ordered the release of former president Hosni Mubarak, after he was acquitted over 2011 killings.

Six years after an uprising that toppled him, Egypts former president Hosni Mubarak will now walk free.

On Monday, a prosecutor ordered his release from a military hospital prison.

This was just days after an appeals court acquitted him of ordering the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising.

Mubarak served as Egypts president for nearly three decades, but many viewed him as an autocratic leader who crushed dissent and embezzled millions of dollars for himself and his family.

So, what does this decision to set Mubarak free mean for the millions who revolted against him?

Presenter: Hazem Sika

Guests:

Samer Shehata  Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Politics in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma

Timothy Kaldas  Non-Resident Fellow at Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

Mohamed Soltan  A former political prisoner in Egypt and a Human Rights Advocate
A UF health care center in Jacksonville is one step closer to becoming a hospital.

UF Health North, located at 15255 Max Leggett Parkway in Jacksonville, was recognized by a national nonprofit for its acute stroke program, which treats patients immediately after a stroke on an emergency basis. The certification will help the facility become an official hospital, said Jesef Williams, a communications coordinator for UF Health Communications.

The facility was notified of the certification on Jan. 25, said Marsha Walker, the nurse manager at UF Health Norths emergency department.

The Joint Commission, a national nonprofit organization which accredits and certifies hospitals and health care centers, recognizes facilities with outstanding care through stroke programs, Williams said. Along with serving as an emergency center for stroke patients, UF Health North, which has been open for two years, also provides emergency medical care.

Especially as it relates to the northeast Florida community and Georgia with the emergence of Health North, were able to provide those robust reserves to this area that didnt have the access that they have now, Williams said.

Walker said UF Health North met the qualifications for the recognition, which included having qualified medical professionals, a stroke-focused program and the 24/7 ability to test and diagnose patients, according to UF Healths website.

I think it lets people know that we are dedicated to the community, she said. It ensures that we dont just have the drugs available; we have the processes available.
The debate over Smith Meyers' future as a Student Government official spilled onto Turlington Plaza on Tuesday.

Students calling for Meyers' resignation during a protest on the plaza were outnumbered by a group of about 50 people supporting the incoming Student Body president.

After Meyers arrest during Spring Break for drunkenly knocking over two Harley-Davidson motorcycles, according to the Key West Police Department, a crowd of about 200 people watched during what was originally planned to be a protest for Meyers' resignation.

But the group of about 15 protesters was met by counter-protesters, holding signs and voicing their support for Meyers. Some held poster boards with jokes like "The Krusty Krab is unfair" and "Jet fuel can't knock over scooters." Others chanted, Stick with Smith.

Meanwhile, the original group of protesters called on UF to demand Meyers resignation while holding signs plastered with his mugshot and calling his character into question.

In a statement, UF spokesperson John Hines spoke to the divisiveness of the matter.

Its clear there are strong opinions on both sides of this issue, he wrote in an email.

Current Student Body President Susan Webster said in a statement released Sunday that Meyers status as a Student Government official will not change despite the arrest.

Anthony Rojas, a 21-year-old UF political science junior who organized the original protest, attempted to address the crowd but was drowned out by chants and cheers from counter-protesters.

Rojas said he invited the counter-protesters to speak about why they dont think Meyers should resign, but none took the offer.

I think its important that everyone be active and participate in a dialogue around Student Government, he said. My problem is that it was more of a joke.

A photo of incoming Student Body President Smith Meyers lies on the ground as a crowd gathers to watch protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate on Turlington Plaza on Tuesday.

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Luis Taveras, a 19-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology freshman, held a sign that read, Pacman Hates Ghosts.

Pac-Man hates ghosts because Will Meyers didnt do anything, he said, referring to Meyers birth-given first name. Hes a human.

Two signs from counter-protesters claimed the Alligator, which published footage of Meyers arrest, was Fake News and Poo Poo.

Cameryn Schultz, an 18-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology freshman, held a handwritten sign reading Stick with Meyers in blue letters.

This protest is ridiculous, she said, but she declined to comment further.

About 20 counter-protesters also declined to comment.

Following the protest, five students delivered a petition calling for Meyers resignation to the Dean of Students Office.

The online petition has amassed more than 300 signatures.

The students sat with Mickey Howard and Kris Klann, associate directors of the New Student and Family Programs, to voice their concerns about Meyers. Klann said Dean of Students Jen Day Shaw was unavailable due to a conference, but that Shaw will set up a personal meeting with the students.

I know this is a priority for her, Klann said.

Nafeesah Attah, a UF international studies sophomore, said she attended the original protest because students are making excuses for Meyers actions, which she argued would have been viewed more harshly if he were a person of color. She said he should be removed from office.

If Smith was black, we would not be having his discussion, the 19-year-old said. We should not tolerate this.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that the petition calling for Meyers' resignation has amassed more than 300 signatures; it is unclear how many students signed it.

Contact Paige Fry at pfry@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @paigexfry

Anthony Rojas (front), a 21-year-old third-year political science major who organized the protest against student body president Smith Myers, tries to speak to a crowd while counter-protesters hold signs behind him and other protesters.
Perry Clawson

Perry Clawson felt the city commission wasnt listening to Gainesville residents, so he decided to get involved in local government.

For the past six years, Clawson has voiced concerns about Gainesville Regional Utilities rates, the Biomass plant, student safety and employment rates to the city commissioners. But after the 59-year-old attended countless meetings, he said he grew tired of commissioners politely nodding to the concerns of Gainesville residents and not taking action. Now hes campaigning for the District 2 city commission seat against Sheryl Eddie and Harvey Ward Jr. to replace Commissioner Todd Chase.

The city needs a commissioner who will listen to the public, Clawson said.

I just got tired of complaining about my local government and decided since Im retired I can do something about it and run, he said.

But as Clawson campaigned, he ran into trouble with his past.

In January, he said, someone anonymously distributed about 300 letters detailing his criminal record.

His arrests include battery, larceny, domestic violence and driving while intoxicated, the Gainesville Sun reported.

An order was also filed in November to restore a civil lawsuit from 2010 where Clawson is accused of stabbing a man in South Carolina, according to a police report.

People get arrested, that happens every day, said Clawson, who has lived in Gainesville for the past six years, when he moved after getting married. In my case, the charges were dismissed in almost all the cases.

Clawson, a retired Army Colonel and Purple Heart recipient, has never run for public office. He said he wants to manage Gainesvilles growth to prevent transportation problems such as heavy traffic.

For students, Clawson said he wants to make the intersection of 13th Street and University Avenue safe by creating an overhead crosswalk.

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Clawson said he wants to redistribute the city budget to put more money toward basic services such as infrastructure and fire rescue. In addition, he would like to see lower rates for GRU and make careful decisions regarding the decision to buy the biomass plant, a renewable energy site.

We had a lot of people who spoke out against the biomass plant, he said. The city commission didnt listen to that.

Kimberly Clawson, the candidates wife, said people dont know her husbands compassionate and generous side. The two met in a restaurant in Winter Park, Florida, when Clawson was visiting his sons in Orlando.

He goes out of his way to help perfect strangers, she said. Thats just Perrys nature.

Contact Paige Fry at pfry@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @paigexfry

Sheryl Eddie is hoping to bring attention to womens representation in Gainesvilles government.

Sheryl Eddie

The 51-year-old is running for Gainesville City Commission District 2 because she is horrified that despite the nearly equal presence of both genders in the city, theres only one woman among 12 men on the Gainesville and Alachua commissions.

Thats pretty scary to me, Eddie said. Not to be rude, but if we keep putting the same white guys on government, were going to keep getting the same things over and over again.

Her goals for the commission position are focused mainly on public transportation, including replicating UFs Regional Transit System bus program on a larger scale for the city.

She wants to establish bus routes that only go up and down the main urban streets, like University Avenue, 13th Street and 34th Street and make connecting routes from the outskirts of town to those main streets.

Although she knows buying buses will be expensive, she also hopes to raise the drivers pay to encourage more people to work for RTS.

Eddie said shes passionate about public transportation because her grandfather used to be a streetcar and bus driver in New Orleans.

Transit is, I guess, kind of in my blood, the Florida State University communications alumna said.

Linda Williams, the Democratic Womens Club of Alachua County president, said she knows Eddie is capable of accomplishing her campaign promises. She watched Eddie, her predecessor as president, push club membership from roughly five members in 2014 to 67 members in 2016.

Shes always concerned about other peoples problems and wanting to solve them, Williams said. Shes compassionate.

Laurie Porter, the development coordinator for Catholic Charities, said she has seen that compassion firsthand as Eddies next-door neighbor for the last 15 years.

If I wasnt home, and I needed someone to check on my kids, I would trust her with the keys to my house, Porter said. I dont think you can give someone a bigger compliment than that.

Porter said she thinks Eddie would be a great city commissioner because shell advocate for womens rights and equal pay. She also likes that Eddie can relate to the single parent experience, having been a single mother for a few years.

As a voter, those are all things I care about, Porter said.

Contact Jimena Tavel at jtavel@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @taveljimena

As a fourth-generation Gainesville native, Harvey Ward Jr. hopes to make Gainesville the next great American city.

Harvey Ward Jr.

A graduate of Eastside High School and UF, Ward says he takes great pride in his hometown.

His largest inspiration stems from being a father to his three daughters, he said, and thats why hes running as a candidate for the District 2 City Commission seat.

The biggest reason Im running is so that they can look around and say there is no place theyd rather be, Ward said.

If elected, Ward aims to eliminate the gender pay gap, increase voter turnout by moving the citys elections to the fall, and ensure that the Wild Spaces and Public Places initiative is executed appropriately, he said.

He also wants to invite additional internet providers to lower the cost of broadband in the city and work to improve transportation, including for bicyclists, in Gainesville.

His ultimate goal is to push Gainesville into becoming a city where every child has an opportunity to succeed, every working family can thrive and every elder can age with dignity.

Ward is currently serving as executive director of the Holy Trinity Episcopal Foundation, the co-chair of City of Gainesville Empowerment Center Work Group and is a board member of Friends of Grace Marketplace and the Hippodrome State Theatre, he said.

Gainesville is a place of opportunities and more, Ward said. Im the candidate with the most experience in Gainesville and the longest track record.

He said he takes pride in the fact that he has not accepted money from any political action committees or incorporations but has raised around $34,000 from over 350 individual donors.

He updates his supporters continuously through Facebook livestream and says theyre the reason why he feels democracy is flourishing in Gainesville.

His involvement in the community is one of the reasons why Susan Bottcher, a former Gainesville city commissioner, endorsed Wards campaign.

Harvey Ward understands the many needs of our community and more importantly, how the governing process works, Bottcher said. Harvey will come into the job with these skills and abilities already in place.

Contact Max Chesnes at mchesnes@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter at @chesnesmax
I first discovered Jon Ronsons book So Youve Been Publicly Shamed last summer during one of my regular podcast loops at work. Ronson discussed his latest literary endeavor with Chris Hardwick on the Nerdist podcast and shed light on a topic I had never truly thought about on a deeper level: public shaming in the social media age. Cases like those of Justine Sacco, Lindsey Stone and Jonah Lehrer form the backbone of the book as Ronson depicts the swift-moving and often life-ruining mob mentality of public shaming on sites like Twitter and 4Chan.

In every one of these cases, the results of the online backlash far outweigh the severity of the targets transgressions. Lindsey Stone, who posted a photo of herself on Facebook in 2012 making an obscene gesture at Arlington National Cemetery, was fired from her job as a social worker due to an overwhelming amount of online backlash. She also received death threats and didnt leave her house for a year in fear that she would be recognized in public.

Yet, the books real draw is Ronsons discussion of the sadistic enjoyment shamers seem to get out of punishing people like Lindsey Stone. Public shaming is, in fact, a group effort that requires a sort of mob mentality in order to be efficacious. And while public shaming can be incredibly useful to hold corporations and elected officials accountable, its hard to ignore the disastrous effects it can have on its less powerful targets. There is no innocent until proven guilty rule in the world of Twitter.

This discussion inevitably leads us to the case of Smith Meyers, who, in case you were living under a rock during Spring Break, was arrested last week in Key West after police said he drunkenly knocked over motorcycles and reportedly didnt even know he was in Key West. Needless to say, a lot of people were waiting for something like this to happen, and they flocked to social media as soon as the story broke. Some called for his removal as the incoming Student Body president, some merely posted his mug shot with the caption Go Gators lol and some commented that they want what hes having.

But beyond the instantaneous social media coverage was a deeper sense of schadenfreude in regard to Meyers misfortune. While this probably stemmed from students overwhelming dissatisfaction with everything Meyers stood for (Impact party, Greek life, the UF establishment), it manifested itself in an extremely problematic fashion. While I have little to no sympathy for someone who blacks out so hard he doesnt even know what city hes in, I do have sympathy for someone whose life will be seriously impacted by one stupid decision he or she made in college. We should indisputably hold incoming-Student Body President Smith Meyers accountable for his actions, but we should also have some compassion.

Ive never been arrested or run for an elected position, but I have definitely done some incredibly stupid things in my 21 years of life. Im sure we all have, and perhaps we should keep that in mind when were laughing at a fellow students misfortune. Meyers ran for Student Body president with full knowledge that he would be held to a higher standard, so there should be some consequences to his arrest. But we should also remember how easily we could have been in the same position and give him the same consideration we would want for ourselves.

Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English senior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
Ten Armenian manufacturers of shoes and leather accessories will take part in MosShoes 2017 footwear exhibition to take place in Moscow International Exhibition Center from March 14-17.

March 14, 2017, 13:31 Armenian shoe manufacturers participate in MosShoes 2017 footwear exhibition

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 14, ARTSAKHPRESS: The opening of Armenias pavilion was supported by the Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA) and is aimed at promoting the locally manufactured footwear, wider recognition of the Armenian products well as entering the international market.
In case you havent heard, there might be cameras in your microwave detecting your every move. Thats a claim made by good old Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, now infamous for using the term alternative facts to describe lies. So really, we shouldnt be that surprised that her most recent stint involves a technology that doesnt exist to defend a claim that has no basis.

Lets take a step back and look at that line.

We arent surprised the counselor to the president has made an absurd claim (microwaves have hidden cameras) to support an early morning Twitter accusation (Barack Obama, himself, ordered a wiretap of Trumps personal phones).

This is the state of our country right now, dear readers.

What is the truth of the situation? Well, its incredibly unlikely that Obama personally ordered the wiretaps (you know, despite Trump saying specifically otherwise), though certainly, the ties to Russia that are currently under investigation were picked up by wiretaps. But that was likely the work of a government agency and not a direct order from former President Obama, which would, honestly, be just stupid and sloppy. Those wiretaps were not done to help Hillary Clinton win, but to detect foreign intervention in our elections. And most likely, those wiretaps were on Russian organizations, not specifically Trump Tower.

Now, OK, maybe Trump was just making a general, characteristically angry statement about the wiretapping that did go on. And certainly, if he was still just a celebrity or a person on Twitter, he could get away with it. But (as we at UF are all familiar with now), as an elected official  as the president of the U.S.  one must be held to higher standards, which in this case includes not making dangerous accusations on Twitter out of misconstrued facts.

One of the particularly dangerous things is that some people believe whatever the White House says, without question, and try to discredit the media that is attempting to get the facts straight. For some reason (a reason that, apparently, was not the same in the last administration), they will believe whatever Trump says, even if it goes against what actually happened. And sometimes, especially if it goes against what actually happened, it is what the liberal news is reporting on.

The president should not control the media; in fact, if anything, the media should be used to make sure that no single political figure controls the narrative. This isnt some hippy-dippy left-wing ideology were trying to spread; this is a fact. From both extremes of the political spectrum  fascism and communism  one of the biggest staples of government control is taking over the media and essentially saying that whatever the party or the person in power says is fact, no questions asked. Just look at communist China, where the press is strictly regulated by the government. Just look at World War II era fascist Germany, where the Nazi party took control of radio, newspapers and other forms of press.

Were not at that level yet. But with each baseless assertion that our political leaders make, with each failure of the press to call attention to just how absurd the claims are, with each person who does not question what @POTUS says on Twitter, we get closer.

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This is in reference to an Alligator story published March 13, in which a Papa John's Pizza employee was fired after writing a joke about domestic violence on the inside of a customer's box of brownies. The joke asked, "What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, you already told her twice."

First off, I would like to give you some background on how I formulated my opinion. I am not the person to give sympathy to some- one for making sexist remarks or joking about the very serious issue of domestic violence. I am an avid supporter of equality. I agree that this is not a cool joke, and I can understand anyone who is offended by it. But, that will not be the basis for my argument today.

The argument for why I believe it is the wrong decision to fire the delivery driver who wrote this joke is much more simplistic: People make mistakes, especially when they are young. I can confirm, through sources I have spoken to, the driver that was fired is under the age of 20. How many mistakes did you make before you were 20 that could have gotten you fired? Probably a lot  I know I did. In this age of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, companies attempt to placate the digital angry mob by sawing off their arm. Well, while you can live without your arm, having it does make things a heck of a lot easier!

That is not the right reaction. Now, if the delivery driver was regularly late on deliveries or ate the pizza on the way to drop it off, those would be reasons to fire a driver. But, because of one mistake, the company should disregard his performance record? That does not quite add up. Even if we can agree that the driver should not be fired, then I already know the anonymous social media commentators will demand I spell out exactly what an appropriate punishment would be. Well, if Papa Johns Pizza truly does not condone his actions or any violence of any kind, particularly against women, as they were quoted as stating in the article, then they should join the fight for womens equality and help combat domestic violence, rather than sweeping it under the rug. By firing this employee, they wipe their hands clean of this issue, shake their fingers in their workforces face saying, dont do this again, and things proceed as they were. That affects no change in behavior, it affects no change in society, and it ultimately serves to dismiss this incident as a blip that will contribute nothing to womens equality or the societal change needed to combat domestic violence. Instead, Papa Johns should, if they truly care about womens rights and domestic violence, educate their workforce about the real struggles women face today in the workplace. They can educate their employees about how they can help battle domestic violence, even to the smallest degree, within their realm of influence. If they meant what they said in their statement, their actions would not have been to fire a young delivery driver who made a stupid mistake. They would have taken that opportunity to change a life, impact others and teach a kid to think before writing a dumb joke next time.

Chip Lowe is a 24-year-old UF alumnus.
Everyone is shocked, shocked by WikiLeaks latest expose that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been exploiting software vulnerabilities in our digital and electronic devices. All those shocked should have known better by now.

After the publications of files stolen by former National Security Agencys contractor, Edward Snowden, on U.S. military capabilities, operations, tactics, techniques and procedures, and surveillance details, President Obama announced, Nobody is listening to your telephone calls.

In the spring of 2016 -- months before Hillary Clintons and John Podestas emails were published by WikiLeaks -- the Pew Research Center survey showed that many Americans "do not trust modern institutions to protect their personal data -- even as they frequently neglect cybersecurity best practices in their own personal lives.

For well over a decade, cyber experts have been testifying in open and closed Congressional hearings on the escalation of hacking into United States government agencies and private industries, communication, websites, and email. All without exception issued warnings on the short-term damages and the long-term threat posed by such hacking to U.S. national security and interests, and the American people by Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and other cybersavvy intelligence agencies, criminal and terrorist organizations. All the while very few, if any, warned of the proliferation of ground-based jammers and their growing interference with GPS timing and locations services, or data corruption and insertion.

In 2010, then Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Jim Miller lamented, The scale of compromise, including the loss of sensitive and unclassified data, is staggering. Were talking about terabytes of data, equivalent to multiple libraries of Congress. (The Library of Congress is the worlds largest library, archiving millions of books, photographs, maps, and recordings.)

Successive governments and the private sector have failed to secure our communications, exposing our personal and national secrets, costing untold economic damage to individuals, companies, and our national security.

While the Obama administration oversaw the accelerated pace of moving to wireless communications -- leaving very few alternatives, if any, for a time when those will be unavailable due to attack or natural disaster -- it has adopted a slow knee-jerk cybersecurity policy. In 2014, the Obama administration was tasked by Congress to develop cyber countermeasure policies. But in response to Sen. John McCains (R-AZ) question Is it correct that these are policy-decisions that have not been made? U.S. Cyber Command Commander Admiral Michael S. Rogers responded: The way I would describe it is, we clearly still are focused more on an event-by-event approach to cyber incidents. He urged to accelerate debate on how to balance security and privacy in the ever-changing digital realm. Otherwise, Rogers warned, an enemy could change and manipulate data -- rather than enter a computer system and steal -- that action would be a threat to national security.

Very little has changed since Admiral Rogers warned that the U.S. vulnerability to cyberattacks could allow hackers to shut down the electric grid throughout the country, disable communications and the operations of the critical infrastructure, and other industrial systems. On March 2, 2017, in what seems like Groundhog Day, Sen. McCain warned again, Treating every attack on a case-by-case basis, as we have done over the last eight years has bred indecision and inaction, and the appearance of weakness has emboldened our adversaries. In the meantime, as February's Defense Science Boards report details, Russia, China, North Korea, and with growing potential, Iran could launch such an attack today,

When Chinese hacking of the New York Times was exposed by the paper in January, 2013, the conflict-averse Obama administration used a few well-publicized trials of Chinese military hackers (in absentia), as window dressing, leaving the window and even the door open to the nations cyber systems wide open.

The technological difficulties in developing cybersecurity are compounded by widespread cyber illiteracy in America and a prevalent misguided interpretation of the need for transparency. On October 11, 2012, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a gathering of business people: Potential aggressors should be aware that the United States can locate them and hold them accountable for actions that harm America or its interests, he said. Perhaps. However, sophisticated, corrupt and ideologically motivated government employees and contractors who hack into the systems, steal information and either sell or leak it, seem more difficult to track. As for many government employees, many are cyber-illiterate, unable to grasp the risk associated with cyber communications.

In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management announced that it had discovered that at the personal information of least 22.1 million current and former employees along with extensive information about friends, relatives, and others listed as references in applications for security clearances for some of the most sensitive jobs in government have been hacked. Other government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, have been hacked untold times. Some countermeasures to stop the hacking worked, but the hacking continued.

There is no public assessment of the damage already done to our defense capabilities, financial institutions, and the economy. The government, if it knows, keeps this information from the public. The private sector, for its part, is unwilling to speak publicly about the damages it has suffered, and, unsurprisingly, with little trust in the government, is often reluctant to exchange information. While details to increase cybersecurity are worked out, our adversaries, like the CIA, continue to exploit vulnerable websites and easy-to-breach cybersecurity systems, which allow the stealing of data relevant to new cybersecurity strategies, thus facilitating their ability to maintain their advantages.

Protection against cyberattacks and GPS interference should be among the U.S. governments highest and most urgent priorities.

President Trump should assemble the brightest cyber and GPS experts in the nation to participate in a highly secluded Manhattan Project-like group, to develop an alternative to the Internet and the current systems of wireless communication. The team should consist of experts from government, academia, and the private sector, thus gaining the confidence of the public. Better organization and less bureaucracy could be provided by the private sector and funding should be allocated by Congress, as well as the private sector.

The organizers should insist on keeping the project secret. No detail should be discussed over the phone, in email or on the Internet, so national security secrets that have not been stolen yet, along with new ones, would remain secret.
As one of Canadian novelist Margaret Atwoods characters said in Surfacing, The trouble some people have being German, I have being human. True enough. But these days the trouble many Germans have being Germans has little to do with the vices and cruelties of collective human nature and everything to do with modern German history and its Nazi legacy. Its a curious, even paradoxical problem, since the vast majority of Germans are demonstrably anti-Nazi and ashamed of the countrys brutal, fascist and anti-Semitic past. They will do anything to disavow that horrendous patrimony and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again.

This is a major reason that the official and much of the public response to the migrant Islamic invasion, which is poised to bankrupt the country and unleash a firestorm of violence upon its citizens -- as it is in process of doing -- is so tentative, lame and mired in denial of the obvious. How can Germany permit itself to inflict upon the Islamic horde now tearing up the country the same punitive, oppressive, and potentially lethal measures it visited upon the Jewish community in the first half of the last century? How can it be seen to assemble another Wannsee Conference leading to a kind of Final Solution, the forcible incarceration and expulsion of the migratory wave of Muslims inundating the nation?

This is the German dilemma: the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between Judaism and Islam, to detect the difference between repression and survival, to remember that in the 1930s there were no terrorist synagogues preaching violence, the conquest of the state, and the enslavement of its citizens as today there are terrorist mosques advocating and promoting these very atrocities. The motive for defensive action is justified, but the clear-minded resolve is lacking.

Germans are prisoners of their own past, not in the sense that they wish to prolong it but precisely in the sense that they wish to prevent it. And this hampers their capacity to perceive or to acknowledge what is transpiring before their very eyes. It explains their helplessness before the social and economic devastation manifesting daily in the public square. They are making reparations for the nations past by sacrificing the nations future, by treating the treacherous and parasitical Muslim invaders of the 21st century as they should have treated the loyal and productive Jewish citizens of the 20th.

Thus every Muslim rapist and killer is not judged a palpable enemy of the state but a poor sufferer from psychological trauma or mental illness -- an excuse, incidentally, that applies only to Muslim deviants, demanding our understanding or even sympathy. Examples abound, the latest incident, reported in Diversity Macht Frei, from March 4 when a young Syrian refugee tortured and killed an elderly woman. These interlopers, dont you know, are mere innocents having difficulty adjusting to their new lives. As a result, the influx, as Michael Walsh points out, of a substantial population of pre-modern primitives steeped in anti-Christian, anti-Western hatred invites jihadism and allows it to fester. It is a blunder of epic proportions -- but a blunder that seems inevitable given the bad collective conscience of an entire country.

Some Germans may believe they live in a country not worth preserving. Others may regard themselves as living on the cutting edge of a new globalist multicultural order. Others still may console themselves with futile demographic considerations -- a shrinking birth rate and workforce will be supplied by the Islamic world. Some remain surreptitiously anti-Semitic, like the Wuppertal judge who ruled that Muslim arsonists who torched a synagogue were not influenced by anti-Semitism but had a legitimate grievance against Israel. But most, I suspect, are trapped in a past that has deprived them of the rationale for sensible resistance, rendering them hostage to misdirected moral principle. The same mistake will not be made again, goes the thinking (or feeling): they do not wish to be accused of reviving the Nazi heritage; therefore they have no choice but to allow for a destructive insurgency. Burning the Torah is rectified by honoring the Koran. The consequence is twofold: atonement for slaughtering the Jew has been perversely attained by welcoming a Jew-hating culture, and remorse has been expiated by self-immolation.

In effect, Germany still has a Jewish problem, but it is the complete antithesis of what it once, foolishly and criminally, imagined it to be. It now has an Islamic problem, but one, in a bizarre historical irony, that is incontestably real. Its debt to the Jews has been paid to the Muslims.
Over the last few weeks yard signs have been cropping up like crocuses in my very liberal north Seattle neighborhood. The one I am talking about spouts every liberal catchphrase you can imagine. It is almost like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai and scattering his Commandments among the Deplorables. Here is a photo I snapped with my $100 smartphone.

But really, this yard sign is a Testament of Lies. Everything on the sign is a lie; it is a list of bullying lies, non-negotiable demands that liberals want to ram down your throat.

But the one that struck me was the sans-serif extra-bold condensed SCIENCE IS REAL.

No its not, liberals, and it just shows how little you know of science that you would think that.

The last chap that thought science was real was Thomas Aquinas. Ever since, we Westerners have been in a complete dither about the real meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and especially reality. First there was Descartes who, like a true Frenchman, could doubt everything except himself: I think therefore I am.

Things went from bad to worse so that when David Hume came along his contribution to the confusion was that we cannot prove cause and effect. So how is science possible?

Enter dear old Kant, who solved the riddle with a cunning trick. We dont know things-in-themselves, he decided; we only know appearances. Our knowledge, our science, is therefore not real, but a theory about things-in-themselves. And may the best theory win.

This seems pretty lame, but it is not. In my view, it leads straight to Einstein, relativity, and quantum mechanics. If science isnt real, then it gives us permission to speculate about reality, and dare to propose that Newtons absolute space and time arent real. So space and time are relative, atoms arent atomic, and the cunning of quantum mechanics gives us LED flashlights.

Anyway, according to Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind, humans invented reason not to understand the world but to manage their social relations.

[W]e reason to to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment.

How crazy is it that humans would adapt the reason and logic we use to persuade others to our project of building a theory of the world. And it worked.

No, liberals, science isnt real; Science is Amazing.

Of course, we all know what you liberals are doing with your Testament of Lies. You are practicing your religion of political agitation and you are trying to force non-liberal heretics to shut the heck up. But your enforcers could not have put SCIENCE IS SETTLED on the tablets because that would have been a bridge too far, even for liberal true believers. So SCIENCE IS REAL instead.

But the whole political testament is a crock, starting with BLACK LIVES MATTER at the top and ending up with KINDNESS IS EVERYTHING at the bottom. If black lives matter so much then how come all the convenience stores here in Seattle seem to be run by Middle Easterners, and how come the Dunkin Donuts stores northeast of Philadelphia seem to be run by South Asians? How come blacks never got in on that action? Could it be that liberals dont think blacks creating decent lives matter, but that only angried-up Black Votes Matter?

And if Kindness were Everything then liberals wouldnt be starting a Resistance, wouldnt be demonstrating with pussy hats, wouldnt be rioting to stop liberal critic Charles Murray from speaking, wouldnt be trying to destroy President Trump with the Deep State. Because

IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE:

KINDNESS IS EVERYTHING.

But where is the liberal working hard to smother the Deplorables with kindness?

See what I mean about a Testament of Lies?

It all comes down to a rather simple notion. The religion of political agitation and issues that liberals profess is a way to give your life meaning on the cheap. But life isnt cheap. Want to be a great artist? Even La La Land knows that youll have to give up the love of your life. Want to start a business? Youll never live worry-free again. Get married and start a family? Youve got twenty years of work and worry ahead of you. In liberal land its different: you just pick an issue off the Testament of Lies, get three or four people to join a peaceful protest, get some favorable media coverage, and you can live a life where you never have to worry about delivering the goods or making the payroll. Maybe George Soros will help pay for the protesters.

And when you drive around town in your electric car you dont have to worry about signaling your turns. Your virtue signalling tells everyone all that they need to know about where you are going.

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.
The structure and character of the federal government is largely the creation of Democrats. From Woodrow Wilson to FDR to LBJ to Barack Hussein Obama, every time progressive Democrats seize the presidency and Congress, they expand the size and scope of the central government. When Republicans recapture power, they are either unable or unwilling to roll back the Dems expansions. And so, the New Deal, the Great Society, and quite likely ObamaCare become permanent parts of government, and the Leviathan continues to grow.

Although Republicans have promised for years to repeal and replace ObamaCare, since the March 7 unveiling of their replacement plan we see division in their ranks. The replacement plan is called the American Health Care Act. But lets call it RyanCare. In its current form, RyanCare appears better than ObamaCare, (thats a low bar to clear). But RyanCare has some of the same problems as ObamaCare. Herein are two tweaks to improve the bill.

One of the big pluses of RyanCare is that it ends the mandates. The employer mandate is a huge drag on the economy and the individual mandate may be fascistic. But the reason the hated mandates were part of the ObamaCare is so insurance companies could accommodate guaranteed issue and community rating, which supposedly make it possible for pre-existing conditions to be covered. The idea was to enlarge the pool of policyholders with healthy young people so that the sickest among us could be paid for. RyanCare retains the two requirements: Prohibit health insurers from denying coverage or charging more money to patients based on pre-existing conditions.

Without the mandates, hows that going to work?

One way for insurance companies to continue covering pre-existing conditions without the mandates for healthy people to buy health insurance is to raise premium prices, deductibles, copays, etc., of those who choose to buy insurance. Even under ObamaCare, were seeing a rise in those costs. A better solution would be this: end the guaranteed issue and community rating requirements for private health insurance companies. Thats the first of the two tweaks.

Democrats are enamored of all things comprehensive. And so it is with ObamaCare, which is a comprehensive makeover of the U.S. healthcare system. Not only did the new system intrude into business and peoples lives, it further intertwined the public and the private by creating a new entitlement: federal subsidies for the purchase of private health insurance. Unfortunately, RyanCare features a similar system: Help Americans access affordable, quality health care by providing a monthly tax credit -- between $2,000 and $14,000 a year -- for low- and middle-income individuals and families who dont receive insurance through work or a government program.

Although RyanCares tax credit program would work differently than ObamaCares subsidy program, it still amounts to a new entitlement; its still an open-ended draw on the treasury. And just like ObamaCare, it involves the IRS. But heres the thing: we already have a healthcare program for those who cant afford to pay health insurance premiums; its called Medicaid. Rather than instituting another entitlement, Republicans might put those receiving ObamaCare subsidies into Medicaid. But regardless of what Congress does about ObamaCares subsidy enrollees, the proposed tax credit program should be dropped. And theres your tweak number two.

Of course, some ObamaCare subsidy users wont like being thrown into Medicaid because not all doctors accept Medicaid. But if one cant afford to pay the full price for something, including private health insurance, then one shouldnt get it; one should have to settle for whatever charity is doling out, whether from private sources or the government. If Medicaid is a lousy system, well then, fix Medicaid. But dont create a whole new entitlement when the ones already on the books have serious problems.

Although there are things to like in RyanCare, it has retained two of the worst features of Obamacare, and neither feature is conservative. The tax credits are a new entitlement. And by retaining pre-existing conditions, RyanCare continues to treat the health insurance industry like a public utility or some government social safety net. Why not let businesses operate like businesses? Without the mandates, guaranteed issue and community rating are a prescription for higher premiums for everyone in an insurance pool.

The genius of Democrats is that they get folks addicted to free stuff, knowing that if the GOP even talks about taking it away, Republicans will be seen as Nazis. (But ObamaCare is a fascist system, as its an intertwining of public and private. The decision in NFIB v. Sebelius, which put the Supreme Courts seal of approval on the coercive individual mandate, should be seen in that light.)

The GOP is not the Santa Claus party, and may not be able to win on healthcare. Perhaps Republicans should look elsewhere for wins, such as getting the economy into a higher gear, tax reform, and balancing the budget. Congress is running a half-trillion-dollar deficit this year. I remember a time when Paul Ryan would warn folks about a looming debt crisis. Whatever happened to that guy?

Speaker Ryan has talked recently about the unique opportunity conservatives have to set the ship of state aright. But the grog with which hes filling our tankards is Democrat Light, and its not even chilled. As currently configured, RyanCare wont do much to roll back the Leviathan state.

Jon N. Hall of Ultracon Opinion is a programmer/analyst from Kansas City.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is warning Republicans that the Democrats could shut down the government if they fund President Trump's border wall or try to defund Planned Parenthood.

The threat comes as Congress prepares to wrestle with a stopgap funding measure that will keep the government going after April 28. If the two sides can't agree by then, there will be a partial government shutdown beginning on April 29.

Schumer mentioned some other issues that Democrats may balk at voting for, including funding a "deportation force" to round up illegal aliens. It's unclear whether Schumer is talking about the increase in border patrol agents and ICE officers that President Trump has proposed to beef up border security and immigration enforcement.

Bloomberg:

"If Republicans insist on inserting poison pill riders such as defunding Planned Parenthood, building a border wall, or starting a deportation force, they will be shutting down the government and delivering a severe blow to our economy," Schumer said in a statement.

I seem to recall that when the Democrats held the White House and the Senate, they were saying that any government shutdown would by the GOP's fault and that it was irresponsible to even threaten to refuse to fund the government.

My, oh, my, have times changed.

Democrats also warned against including funding for a "deportation force" as the Trump administration emphasizes ramped up arrests and deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. A Planned Parenthood funding fight brought Congress to the brink of shutting down the government in March 2011, and immigration has also been a major fight in previous spending bills. The threat comes as Republicans and Democrats have been negotiating a spending bill behind the scenes, but with no clear way to break the looming impasse. Republicans have been mostly focused on their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, including a provision to defund Planned Parenthood. Democrats also want to preserve provisions in current law requiring an equal increase in defense and non-defense spending, but that demand contradicts Trumps plan to significantly boost defense spending while imposing deep domestic spending cuts. Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina noted Democrats have the power to block bills. "You know as well as I do the threshold for legislation is not 51," he said Monday. But Scott said Democrats should look at past shutdowns and realize that isnt the best way to proceed. A 16-day government shutdown in October 2013 resulted in the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal employees as Republicans tried and failed to get President Barack Obama to defund the Affordable Care Act. Its not clear yet if Democrats would actually carry out their threat if the White House and Republicans would dare them to block a bill to keep the government open, as that strategy isnt without risk. Ten Democratic senators face re-election in the 2018 midterm elections in states Trump won, and the president can argue he is merely trying to implement the agenda he ran on.

Such obvious, cynical hypocrisy aside, the Democrats don't have a leg to stand on. Funding for the border wall is likely to be included in a huge infrastructure spending bill Democrats wouldn't dare try to block, since they have been the primary backers of such spending for the last decade.

And their fictitious "deportation force" won't wash, either. The increases in funding for border security and enforcement of our immigration laws are wildly popular. The GOP should dare the Democrats to vote against them.

Would the Democrats shut down the government over cutting funding for Planned Parenthood? It's a weak argument, but they will be under pressure from feminists and other women's groups to do anything to keep the funding for PP alive.

The bottom line is that even with the media on their side in trying to blame the GOP for any attempt to shut down the government, it will be a tough sell for the Democrats, especially if they do it to block popular spending on the wall and increased border security. Unlike 2011, where the GOP shut down the government over Obamacare spending  an unpopular program even then  Democrats will be fighting history and their own words about the dangers of a shutdown.
The person figuratively standing at the schoolhouse door and telling black students to go back to their segregated, bad public schools is a diversity bureaucrat these days. Qualified minority students are being kept out of seats they applied for in magnet schools because they are the wrong race! The ideology of diversity is keeping smart black and Hispanic kids out of better schools in Hartford, Connecticut because there aren't enough white kids to go around.

As a result, seats remain empty in magnet schools, as the students rejected because they are black or Hispanic have to go to inferior public school they sought to escape.

Shades of George Wallace standing in front of a schoolhouse door to deny black children the opportunity to attend integrated schools.

Seriously, this is no tortured metaphor or extended chain of reasoning. This is the literal, simple, direct truth. Blacks and Hispanics are sent to the back of the line  by liberals who designed a complicated system to allow children to escape failing public schools, only if there is enough "diversity" in those magnet schools.

Matthew Kaufman and Vanessa de la Torre of the Hartford Courant report:

As the new school year approached for Hartford magnet schools, seats opened up at popular Capital Prep north of downtown  a boon for some of the hundreds of wait-listed students eager to attend the school that pledges to shepherd every graduating senior into a four-year college. But that good news would never trickle down to the students. The next in line on Capital Preparatory's waitlist were minority students. And enrolling more black or Latino students, officials concluded, would jeopardize efforts to meet integration standards created under Connecticut's historic Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation case. And so  in a practice that has quietly taken place at Hartford's award-winning magnet schools for years  the open seats at Capital Prep were left empty, and those minority students on the waitlist were rejected because of their race. "That breaks my heart," said Capital Prep Principal Kitsia Hughey Ferguson, who had to shut out scores of students this school year, despite having ample space in her school. "And I know that's not the spirit of Sheff. That's not what they intended 20 years ago  that we would be turning students away, and more importantly: That we would be turning Hartford students away."

The underlying problem is that Hartford's whites have fled the city in large numbers, so that in order to attract enough whites to "diversify" the magnet schools, suburban families must be attracted to enroll their kids in an inner-city magnet school, and not enough families are willing to bus their kids back into the inner city, even if it is to a magnet school.

Make no mistake: this is a liberal program, instituted by liberal activists ("civil rights trailblazers" as the Courant has it) who brought a court case and got a decision they wanted. As a result of their efforts, poor and minority students are being denied a chance at good schools. Instead, they are sent to worse public schools that are themselves not at all diverse.

The state-run school choice lottery, often described as a random, roll-of-the-dice operation, is in fact a carefully engineered process designed to push white and Asian students toward the front of the line at magnet schools that still attract too few non-minority applicants. And when that doesn't tilt the playing field enough, some schools have no choice but to ignore all Hartford students on the waitlist for certain grades, filling open seats with only suburban children  who are more often white  and leaving Hartford children in neighborhood schools that remain illegally segregated.

The name Rube Goldberg springs to mind over this ridiculous situation, where good schools have empty seats and minority kids are sent to worse, more segregated schools. That's bad for taxpayers (who pay for the empty seats) and bad for minority kids denied a chance at good schools, but it is good for the teacher unions, whose members at the non-magnet public schools have more jobs, thanks to the kids denied entrance to magnet schools because they are black or Hispanic.

Would it be paranoid to suggest that this is not a random outcome? That the "good intentions" excuse does not apply? That, in fact, the complex plan was worked out in the knowledge of the underlying demographic changes that would render the plan unable to attract enough white kids from the 'burbs?

Ask yourself: how cunning and ruthless are the teacher unions?

As my Connecticut friend who sent me this article put it, at a minimum, we do know that this is "Reason #8,722 why liberals should never run anything."
For decades, we've heard the Chickens Little cry that the sky is warming. Then, in 2009, a hack of climate researchers' emails at the University of East Anglia indicated that things weren't quite on the up-and-up, science-wise. Climatologists had massaged global temperature records to bolster their claims of man-made global warming, and they had destroyed emails to skirt FOIA requests. "Climategate," as it came to be called, suggested that many of the alarming reports about global warming had been fake news.

It happened again about a month ago. On February 4, Dr. John Bates, "senior scientist" at NOAA's temperature data center (until his retirement in late 2016), reported that his own organization had not quite been on the up-and-up, science-wise. He alleged that Thomas Karl, director of the temperature data center (until his own retirement earlier last year), had "breached [NOAA's] own rules on scientific integrity when [he] published [a] sensational but flawed report" and rushed it into print in order to influence global leaders at the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris in 2015.

That paper, called the "Pausebuster," cited new data purporting to show that the hiatus in global warming since 1998 had not occurred. According to Dr. Bates, however, Dr. Karl had put his "thumb on the scale" by releasing new data that were "misleading" and "unverified." Furthermore, it is unlikely ever to be verified: Dr. Bates also reported that the computer used to process the data "had suffered a complete failure." Hello, Climategate 2.0!

Oh, you'd never heard of it? I bet you've heard a lot about the 2015 Paris Climate Accords that were agreed to in part because of the fake "Pausebuster" data. But the mainstream media have little interest writing stories that refute liberal assumptions, so fake news becomes no news. To hear about Climategate 2.0, you'd have to follow alternative sources like Manhattan Contrarian (where I first learned of it), or Judith Curry, or Watt's Up with That?, or the U.K.'s Daily Mail.

This pattern of fake news followed by no news has been repeated throughout the era of climate change fabulist fear-mongering. In 1989, according to the Associated Press, a director of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) predicted that "entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels ... by the year 2000." This was followed by no news about no nations being covered by the sea in 2001.

In 1990, Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton professor and Al Gore adviser, predicted that by 1995, the greenhouse effect would be "desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots." No news in 1996 brought Oppenheimer's error to public attention.

In 2005, UNEP warned that by 2010, some 50 million "climate refugees" would be fleeing low-lying Caribbean and Pacific islands inundated by rising seas. No news in 2011 calmed islanders' fears.

In 2007, Al Gore predicted that the North Pole would be ice-free by the summer of 2013. No news in the fall of 2013 reminded readers that the North Pole was covered in snow that summer.

I could continue at length. Every pseudo-scientist who puts a thumb on the scales of the research he pretends to revere finds cover from agenda-driven news editors who give thumbs down to any story that challenges their liberal presumptions. (The Washington Post was offered but declined to print Dr. Bates's report.) There seems no end in sight for fake news and no news.

But then there is the fact that the Congressional Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is following this story. The committee has subpoenaed NOAA for the data that supported the Pausebuster paper, and NOAA has refused to comply. Fireworks may ensue.
In a startling segment on the Fox News program The First 100 Days, Judge Andrew Napolitano told viewers that there will be no paper trail linking President Obama to any surveillance of telephone calls in Trump Tower during the presidential transition period. (President Obama called it "wiretapping" even though no wires were involved.) The reason is that British intelligence had access to NSA surveillance data  which captures every phone call in the United States  and were able to provide such intelligence to President Obama without a FISA court warrant or any other paper trail that would expose an American intelligence agency that used the same NSA data. Click here to see the segment in which he explained the scheme, or watch it below:

Note that just as the New York Times does when offering leaks from intelligence sources, no names are attached to the leaks. They are an anonymous source for Fox News and Judge Napolitano.

Nevertheless, such a scheme makes great sense. It is widely rumored that such arrangements are common among intelligence services to work around limitations their own governments impose on them.

Monica Showalter comments:

This would explain the slightly frosty relations between Trump and [British P.M.] May. One wonders what the Brits thought they would get out of this. Talk about not acting in one's national interest! So they pleased Obama, who treated them like dirt.

If the judge is correct, there will no paper trail at all, so Trump's charges will be dismissed as a fantasy. It is a nice con game for deep staters.

It is still not provable, and absent a defector from the British or American intelligence services, the public will never know.
STEPANAKERT, MARCH 14, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: He said Armenian President Serzh Sargsyans recent visit to France was a good base for that.

It can be described as an excellent, high-level visit. It was also important since this year Armenia and France celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. I would like to state that since the establishment of those relations, an intense, dynamic and steady cooperation has been established. We know that during this recent meeting three documents were signed, two of which were dedicated to the cooperation in the university field. And despite such trust, there is still one field where many problems exist. That is the trade-economic field, and both sides want to reach the cooperation in this field at a high level. I want to add that the participation of Minister of Economic Development and Investments to the visit, as well as the Presidents meeting with the business representatives of the Armenian community was logical, the French Ambassador said.
What do you do when you're a liberal professor at liberal university and you get beaten up by left-wing students?

Blame Donald Trump!

Allison Stanger is the professor at Middlebury College who invited Charles Murray, famous for The Bell Curve, to speak at the school. Students were so outraged Murray had to flee for his life, and Stanger got beaten up. Her response?

It's Trump's fault!

There's nothing like a little violence to focus the mind. I am the Middlebury College professor who ended up with whiplash and a concussion for having the audacity to engage with the ideas of Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Though he is someone with whom I disagree, I welcomed the opportunity to moderate a talk with him on campus on March 2 because several of my students asked me to do so. They know I am a Democrat, but the college courses I teach are nonpartisan [Uh huh]. Most of the hatred was focused on Dr. Murray, but when I took his right arm to shield him and to make sure we stayed together, the crowd turned on me. Someone pulled my hair, while others were shoving me. I feared for my life. Once we got into the car, protesters climbed on it, hitting the windows and rocking the vehicle whenever we stopped to avoid harming them. I am still wearing a neck brace, and spent a week in a dark room to recover from a concussion caused by the whiplash. President Trump has... [characterized] Muslims as terrorists and dehumanized many groups of marginalized people. He declared the free press an enemy of the people, replaced deliberation with tweeting, and seems bent on dismantling the separation of powers and 230 years of progress this country has made toward a more perfect union. Much of the free speech he has inspired  or has refused to disavow  is ugly, and has already had ugly real-world consequences. It is obvious that some protesters made dangerous choices. But with time to reflect, I have to say that I hear and understand the righteous anger of many of those who shouted us down. I know that many students felt they were standing up to protect marginalized people who have been demeaned or even threatened under the guise of free speech.

During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, student Red Guards forced professors to make self-confessions. This situation was clearly different, however, as most of the students were not Chinese.

Stanger is smart. She doesn't have to deal with Donald Trump at her school, but she does have to deal with her fellow leftist faculty members and leftist students. She's trying to make kissy-kissy with them so they don't smack her in the head again.

If I were in her position, I'd probably do the same thing. On the other hand, Vermont is a concealed carry state, so maybe there could be another option when faced with a life-threatening leftist mob.

Exit question:

1) When someone goes to an emergency room with throbbing head pains and a hardcore leftist worldview, how can an E.R. doctor determine whether the patient has a head injury or simply a very rigid ideological point of view?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
The election of 2016 saw the Republican Party take the presidency, House, and Senate with the greatest majorities since the 1920s. The Republicans have also ridden the wave to a majority in most state legislatures and have secured the largest number of governorships in memory. There is little doubt that the Democrats have been routed and are now reduced to peddling conspiracy theories about Russia. Seemingly, this would be cause for celebration, but that is not happening in D.C. Far from being jovial and looking forward to accomplishing their agenda, the Republicans are locked in a ruthless civil war, exposed by the problem of Obamacare.

On one side is the old-guard establishment Republicans, the GOPe, who quite like the status quo and are timid about anything that generates bad press. They are among the few left in the country who listen to the mainstream media and take what the media say as gospel. They are terrified of the prospect of the masses being thrown off health insurance and will do anything to avoid it, even if that means doing nothing. These Republicans supported the safe primary candidates like Jeb Bush and John Kasich.

The other side are the frustrated conservative Republicans who have, so far, been unable to push their agenda because they lack the critical mass to do so in the legislature and are blocked by the GOPe. These conservatives believe in small government, market-based solutions, flipping the board on all entitlements, and destroying the federal government's power. They will accept nothing less than a full repeal of Obamacare. They are the same politicians who supported conservatives like Cruz.

The only things these two factions have in common are their love for free trade and their opposition to Trump. People from both factions populated the NeverTrump movement in the primaries and campaigned against Trump significantly more than they ever did against Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. They also share a problem  namely, that Trump won the primary decisively and won the election just as decisively.

Trump, on the other hand, has brought a third faction into the Republican Party: the nationalist populist or America First faction. This faction is what carried Trump to victory in the primary and in the general election. It consists of what Trump likes to call the "Forgotten Man," who are, in many cases, apolitical citizens. The America First group spans the conservative, and some Democratic Party, ideologies. They are pragmatists, not concerned about ideology, and not bound by it, either. These people make up the so-called "blue wall" of the upper Midwest, the people who have never voted before, and those disaffected by both parties.

The America First voters have paid into Social Security all their lives and don't see why they should have to forgo it merely because the feds can't balance their checkbooks. They are also amenable to helping out poor people so long as that help is used to help people out of poverty, not trap them in poverty. These concepts annoy the conservatives greatly. The America First voters also believe in free-market capitalism, smaller government, market-based solutions, and keeping the government out of their churches and schools. These principles are antithetical to the GOPe. If that weren't bad enough, the America First voters annoy both factions with their belief that protecting American jobs is a good thing even if that does hamper perfectly free trade. Most importantly, these people see Trump as their messenger, and Trump agrees with them.

Now that a bill has come up for debate on Obamacare and has been endorsed by President Trump, the conservative and GOPe factions are out for blood. The conservatives won't budge an inch and will see Rep. Paul Ryan's replacement bill go down in flames if it doesn't have a full repeal in it. The GOPe won't pass a bill that they feel will result in the deprivation of health insurance for any American currently on Obamacare. So an impasse is reached. As a result, the Republican Party is tearing itself apart, and the most likely outcome is that nothing at all will get done.

The GOP's players are also deluding themselves into thinking that the 2018 election will oust their political foes. Remember, the Democrats aren't even a factor in this war. The reality is that voters will see that the Republicans have had both chambers of the legislature for two years and the presidency yet nevertheless have hung the American people out to dry for political reasons. The bloodbath that will ensue at the polls is wildly unpredictable.

Instead of compromising with one other, and making a bill neither side likes but both can live with, the two sides are entrenched like the French and Germans in World War I, neither side able to move and neither side willing to come to the bargaining table. Trump has the unenviable job of trying to bring these two coalitions together to accomplish something before the blue wall goes back to blue and there is no more chance to accomplish anything. However, until both sides can come together, the likely result is that the entire America First agenda of health care reform, tax reform, and the border wall will come to a screeching halt. After that, the wrath of the America First voters will be heavy and unpredictable.

The only good news out of this is that the Democrats are too busy smashing themselves on the rocks of Russian conspiracy theories to do themselves any favors. The Republicans had better wake up before the Democrats wake up first and figure out that truthful coverage of this internecine war will do the Democrats far more political good than spouting conspiracy theories.

Robert Simmons, Jr., MSc. (Kraythe)
The day Donald Trump was elected was a day of unalloyed joy for me. I knew the battle to fulfill his campaign promises would be tough. I knew we wouldn't win every battle. But I trusted my plain-speaking, commonsense president to put all his considerable powers of persuasion and his excellent team to drive his promises as hard and as far as he could go.

We voted for Donald to beat two sets of political enemies: the Democrats and the GOP establishment. You don't get more establishment than Paul Ryan. He is poison to Trump's base. We don't want what he's selling on Obamacare. Trump should know this.

Obamacare Lite is a breach of trust. Tweaking Obamacare and calling it "repeal and replace" fools no one. This is not a repeal, and the replace is more of the same. It is the approach of do-gooder, big-government politicians in bed with the insurance companies and afraid they'll lose votes if they deprive anyone of federal handouts.

Trump promised he will create a free-market solution. This is nothing of the sort. Paul Ryan thinks he is such a policy-wonk genius that he can do better than the free market in delivering affordable care to the greatest number of people. No one can. The health market is too complex, and the economy is too complex. Government can only construct Rube Goldberg nightmares for us, while favoring their selected few. Adam Smith explained all this in the 1700s. We are 300 years behind the wisdom of our founding fathers.

We want what Trump promised on the campaign trail: total repeal of Obamacare. He didn't say tweak and replace parts. He said he'd give the choice about their insurance coverage back to the people. That is the only way to make care affordable. We don't want the government redistributing wealth and picking winners and losers.

We are sick of being told that after winning election after election to bring Obamacare down, a majority in Congress is not enough. If Trump and team wanted repeal, it would be enough. (See Thomas Lifson, "Ted Cruz may have discovered a way to totally change Obamacare without 60 Senate votes.")

As reported by Colton Grace in AT on Monday, Speaker Ryan stated after Obama's veto of the last, symbolic, Obamacare repeal: "There is a clear path to repealing Obamacare without 60 votes in the Senate. So, next year, if we are sending this bill to a Republican president, it will get signed into law."

What's changed? Only that Ryan now has his hands on the levers of power and wants to cram his vision of compassionate health care down our throats.

We are told that the individuals who got subsidized insurance under Obamacare want it to continue, and we can't take it away. That is utter nonsense  it makes repeal meaningless and impossible. In what universe are these Republicans living, that the rule is that whatever handouts Democrats pass must remain forever? This is precisely why we elected Trump.

Trump did say on the campaign trail that he wants to make sure that all Americans get the health care they need. He should listen to Congressman Dave Brat, the conservative hero who defeated Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Brat has a fundamental insight into the mental confusion on health care: we have insurance and health care mixed up. Once you separate the two, solutions are possible that will promote affordable health care and affordable insurance. Brat explained to Breitbart News:

Focusing on coverage makes it impossible for the bill to ever work, he said. "Five percent of the people with pre-existing conditions, et cetera  very serious issues that every bill deals with  but five percent of the folks will cost 50 percent of the entire health care market," he said. A pre-existing condition has nothing to do with insurance, because the person already had the problem, he said. "That is not an insurance problem. That is a health care problem, and we've got to fix that. For the rest of the 300 million, we've got to design an efficient system that follows free-market logic, where you get to go shop." In the RyanCare bill, the individual mandate was supposed to go away, but instead, it is reconfigured as a continuing care option  Under Ryancare someone can go without insurance for 10 years and then upon learning they have cancer, sign up for "insurance" and pay a penalty."

People with pre-existing conditions break the health insurance bank for everyone else  so give them their own, separate state pool. Take the example of Alaska:

In Alaska, the cost of caring for just 500 chronically ill patients was making premiums unaffordable[.]  To halt Alaska's insurance death spiral, state authorities agreed to pay for the care of the highest cost patients. In effect, Alaska created a separate high-risk pool for the sickest. The cost of caring for people in this pool  a staggering $55 million  would be shared by all Alaska taxpayers, instead of being thrust on the small number of people using the individual insurance market. As a result, premiums will only rise seven percent for 2017. It's a lesson for the nation. Under ObamaCare, healthy people pay premiums, but seldom meet their sky-high deductibles ($6,000 or more per person for the bronze plan). Instead, their premiums pay for the chronically ill. ... Five percent of the population consumes half the nation's healthcare.

Once we separate health care from insurance, low-cost solutions are obvious. The idiot solution we have now is to outlaw low-cost catastrophic policies that many people want. Instead, create low-cost clinics where lower-income people can afford routine doctors visits, and let the insurance market offer a full range of policies with free choice for consumers.

Work for full repeal, President Trump. Do your art of the deal. This is supposed to be your strong suit  not caving even before the battle commences. Fight for us. Keep your promise.
Back in the days when the world was hale and hearty (and the U.S. won every war it entered), I was a member of the Second Battalion, 273rd Infantry Regiment. We met the Russian army at the Elbe River, effectively cutting Germany in two and bringing the war we then fought to its inevitable conclusion. Following orders, we waited patiently for the Russians, thankful like all infantrymen for the opportunity to sit down.

In time, the Russians arrived, clad in a striking array of battle costumes, and there was an avalanche of cheering and handshaking. Since none of us could speak Russian, nor they English, there was limited conversation except in pidgin German, which none of us liked to use, but we were all happy. We showered them with gifts  they had nothing  and were relieved that the war was coming to a close. Language limitations kept the celebrations reasonably within check; even with flash bulbs popping off for photographs, there wasn't much we could say other than welcome, good to see you. After saying that four or five times, we ran out of ideas.

Almost immediately after the war's end, I became involved in transporting former P.W.s, or displaced persons, back to their home countries. From the expressions on some of the faces we transported, I gathered that the Soviet government was not as popular as it claimed to be. My observations didn't matter, however.

From there I moved to military government and finished at long last my tour of duty.

Back home in America, I took advantage of the very generous veteran's programs, earned an M.A., and began working for a living, obtaining a job with the newly formed U.S. Information Agency. We were tasked to relay to the world the true picture of the United States. I believed in what I was doing and enjoyed the work.

Another happy event that came at the same time was the news that someone in Chicago had formed an American version of Veterans of the Elbe River Link-Up, and there was the possibility of a reunion in Moscow. It was noted that all the expenses would be covered by the Soviet government other than transport to and from Moscow. In those days, such a round- trip ticket would have been too costly for me, so I asked some local news media if they would be interested in a participant's account. Two expressed interest, and I felt sure that an offer would materialize. Future glory was in the offing: a personal story with my own byline in addition to the opportunities presented by the publication of the first story. How lucky could I get?

Along with the congratulations bestowed upon me was the information that our colleagues in the State Department would have to approve the whole venture. I blithely set off, therefore, to visit the Soviet Desk officer, accompanied by one of our liaison people.

The desk officer was large and heavyset and seemed older than most of us. The conversation was shockingly brief.

"They'll blackmail you," he said.

"What?"

"They'll blackmail you. They'll arrange for you to meet one of their provocative female spies. She'll seduce you. They'll take pictures. Show them to your wife, and you're gone."

"But I'm not even married."

"Too bad. You'll be blackmailed anyway."

"Too bad? You mean I can't go because I might make love to a woman?"

I felt the calming hand of the liaison officer on my shoulder and heard him say, "Thanks for the time extended." The interview that was to lead to fame, fortune, and personal glory was over in less than a minute.

I walked wordlessly back to my home office  a wise decision, since I was in no mood to talk  and there received consoling words until the conversation, rather quickly, I thought, turned to projects underway.

A year later Washington was the meeting place, and I volunteered to be a host. To this day, I do not know whether the Russian I guided had actually been at the Elbe or not. It did not matter, because although he was amiable, he did not want to go to the places I invited him, nor could I take him to the places he wanted to go. It was a fairly sterile meeting.

Shortly after, I began a three-year tour of duty in India, which was the start of my Foreign Service career. I met a few Russians at diplomatic cocktail parties, which I might have mentioned to my Embassy superiors or might not have. Much depended on the length of my conversation and its pertinence to current affairs. In general our conversations were limited; very polite; and, to be candid, rather boring. We did not want to give out information, and we were careful not to do so.

I mention these episodes now because there has been so much talk about meeting with the Russians lately. Diplomats are professional public speakers. They cannot negotiate unless they talk. Academicians talk about "publish or perish." Diplomats, professional negotiators, must either negotiate through talking or resign. It's important to know what people are talking about, but as in everything, there is a limit.

Yes, in 1955, I shook the hand of a Russian Army lieutenant. Turn me in if you like. After all, the TV news media have 24 air hours to fill.
The Republicans in the House already repealed Obamacare numerous times. Why are they sweating it out this time? Answer: Because they knew before that their "repeal" would not pass the Senate, or, if it did, it would be vetoed by President Barack Obama. This time, they will have to bear the consequences of whatever law they pass. Thus, they are afraid that their foray into health care will be depicted as a cruel attack on our vulnerable citizens. They fear hundreds of stories of people with incurable diseases  young, old, and many in the middle years  being unable to get care and sitting in wheelchairs or sick beds, waiting to die.

During those multiple repeals, we were assured that people like Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and the other physicians in Congress, like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) (retired in 2015) have offered bills to advance health credits, lower costs, develop a pool for the chronically ill, and assure national competition.

The shift from repeal (beginning with passage of Obamacare in 2010) to "repeal and replace" actually began in 2014. But there still was a great divide among the Republicans because there were seven bills offered in Congress between Feb. 2012 and March 2015 that called for almost total repeal. Thus, it is clear that despite introduction of repeal and replace, those alternatives really did not gain full support of Republicans who continued to advance repeal bills.

The main driving force in Republicans being elected since 2010 was opposition to the ACA. Although repeal and replace came in as a new mantra in 2014, it did not dominate, and repeal laws continued to be offered through March 2015.

Democrats showed no interest in appeasing Republicans by modifying the original ACA. Even with modifications, it is not clear to this writer that the American Health Care Act now on the table would get even one Democratic vote.

Now it's time to put up or shut up. Instead of all the grand alternatives that Republicans claimed they had for years, they have come up with a compromise scheme that does not satisfy many grassroots Republicans. Even the name of this new compromise bill is the American Health Care Act; it almost has the same name as the bill that offends. People like me  conservatives to the hilt  see this not as a compromise, but as a cave-in. We see this not as a repeal, but as a partial repeal. We see this not as an alternative concept, but as a watered down concept. Therefore, if it passes, it will be a betrayal of the Republican base.

We did not want the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and we still do not want it.
Serah's piece, neatly entitled Rising Papua New Guinean Writers, was the second story on EMTVs Sunday night news.

And the package she put together on the book and on Papua New Guinean writers for EMTV News was a model of condensing a big event into a sharp-edged news feature.

EMTV reporter Serah Aupong was a busy person at last weeks book launch of My Walk to Equality in Port Moresby.

It featured footage from the lunch, extracts from the launch speech by Dame Carol Kidu and interviews with Lapieh Landu, Loretta Bele Kuwalu and me.

Eighty people attended last Wednesday's launch of My Walk to Equality, the first collection of women's writing to come from Papua New Guinea.

The event was held at The Stanley Hotel and was attended by 15 of the women who contributed to the book and many female journalists based in Port Moresby.

Prominent writer Marlene Potoura travelled from Lae to participate and agreed with other writers that it was a magnificent evening.

The event was sponsored by Paga Hill Development Company, an important supporter of the current resurgence in PNG literature which has seen the production of 40 books by the not-for-profit publisher Pukpuk Publications.
On these voyages, he was accompanied by his official marine artist, Oswald Brierly, and now I have been able to tell his story.

CAPTAIN Owen Stanley, after whom the fine mountain range just north of Port Moresby is named, made two survey trips into the Torres Strait between 1848 and 1850.

From Eden to Windsor Castle - the amazing life of Sir Oswald Brierly by Bob Lawrence, 76 pages, full colour, $30 plus $5 postage and packaging. Benjamin Boyd by Bob Lawrence, second edition, 36 pages, B&W, $20 plus $5 postage and packaging. Available from the author at boblaw@bigpond.net.au . Or you can order both books for a discounted $45

While in Torres Strait in 1849, Stanley recorded in his journal sighting "a mountain range that appeared to be mountains stacked on mountains that ran along the mainland coast and disappeared to the north west" which he named the Owen Stanley Range.

That night wrote "no painter can ever give due effect to that sunset" he had just witnessed.

Brierly's journal notes also show that he found the range to be a challenging subject to paint.

Brierly Island in the Louisiade Group was named for the artist who, along with the ornithologist John MacGillivary and young surgeon, Thomas Henry Huxley, were Stanleys intellectual companions on the two journeys.

Sadly, aged only 38, Owen Stanley was found dead in his Sydney bed one morning in 1850, but Brierly went on to become Sir Oswald Brierly (1817-94), official marine artist to Queen Victoria.

Huxley (1825-95) became a noted academic scientist and defender of Charles Darwin when his ground-breaking Theory of Evolution was attacked for its then radical theories.

My book From Eden to Windsor Castle - the amazing life of Sir Oswald Brierly has been written to mark the bi-centenary of his birth.

As a young man, I worked for the PNG National Broadcasting Commission in Port Moresby, in the shadow of the Owen Stanley Range between 1974 and 1976, also spending time in Lae and Rabaul.

The books title, From Eden to Windsor Castle, is reflects the journey Brierly took from his first job in Australia to his last job in England .

Brierly sailed to Sydney in 1841-42 with the wealthy London stockbroker, Ben Boyd (the subject of my first book published in 1995 and now in a second edition). The following year he took charge of Boyd's whaling operations at Eden on the south coast of New South Wales.

Boyd's spectacular bankruptcy and grizzly death - he lost one-million pounds in 10 years and was eaten by cannibals in Vanuatu - left Brierly destitute. He accepted a position with Owen Stanley to earn some money and eventually return home to England.

Brierly's last job was working for Queen Victoria in her royal residence at Windsor Castle, which to this day houses the largest collection of Brierly's paintings. He was also appointed as Keeper of the Painted Hall at the historic Greenwich naval establishment near London.

His many adventures included surviving an attack by islanders and rescuing Barbara Crawford Thompson from a Torres Strait Island five years after she was marooned. Although struggling to remember English, she helped Brierly and others compile the first dictionary of the local language.

Brierly eventually returned home with Admiral Keppel who introduced him to the Royal Family. He was Keppel's artist during the Crimean War and later became official painter on Royal Navy ships captained by Queen Victoria's son, Prince Alfred.

Brierly accompanied Prince Alfred on the first Royal Tour of Australia in 1867-8, and was nearby when there was an attempted assassination of the prince in Sydney.

This is a great story of a dramatic and inspirational life. The book is illustrated with some fine colour reproductions of Brierlys work.
Downstate rail service will resume on a limited schedule Tuesday evening, but travel bans are still in effect for other parts of New York.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's above-ground subway service and Metro-North rail service will be restored beginning at 6 p.m.

Metro-North's service will be limited on the Harlem, Hudson and New Haven lines from 6 to 11 p.m. Full weekday service will resume on all lines Wednesday.

Winter Storm Stella sweeps through Cayuga County AUBURN  March was still coming in like a lion on Tuesday with Winter Storm Stella dumping s

There are some delays on the Long Island Railroad, but the system is operating on its normal schedule.

Bus service in New York City will resume on a regular schedule Wednesday.

"As the severity of weather conditions decrease, we are restoring MTA above-ground subway and limited Metro-North service so New Yorkers can resume their routines," Cuomo said in a statement. "The state is responding quickly to changing weather conditions, and we encourage New Yorkers to stay home where possible and continue exercising caution as we ride out the storm."

Conditions are worse in upstate New York. A travel ban remains in effect for Broome County, where more than two feet of snow has been recorded in some areas.

In Binghamton, the county's largest city, 20 inches of snow fell in a six-hour period, according to the National Weather Service.

A tractor-trailer ban is still in effect on major highways  the New York State Thruway, Interstate 81, Interstate 84, Interstate 86 and Route 17, Interstate 88 and Interstate 87 from Albany to the Canadian border.

I-84 is also under a full travel ban.

NY redeploying National Guard, plows to Broome County, 'epicenter' of Winter Storm Stella The winter storm that was initially going to hit downstate New York the hardest shifted and 

Several travel advisories and bans are in effect for other counties. Cayuga County is under a travel advisory. Seneca County has closed its roads until further notice.

The forecast for Auburn and Syracuse calls for a total of 18 to 24 inches of snow. Higher accumulations are expected in other areas, including Broome County.

Wind gusts could pose a problem. Gusts as high as 30 miles per hour are expected, which will cause blowing and drifting snow.

Blizzard warnings are in effect for several counties, mainly in eastern and northern New York. Winter storm warnings are in place for many counties, including Cayuga, until 8 p.m. Wednesday.
A tractor-trailer ban is now in effect for major highways and the New York State Thruway, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday morning.

The tractor-trailer ban went into effect at 9 a.m. and affects the Thruway, Interstate 81, I-84, I-86 and Route 17 and I-88. The prohibition also applies to tandem trailers.

NY redeploying National Guard, plows to Broome County, 'epicenter' of Winter Storm Stella The winter storm that was initially going to hit downstate New York the hardest shifted and 

Cuomo also said there's a travel ban in Broome County. The National Weather Service in Binghamton reported at 8 a.m. that 11.6 inches of snow fell in a 4-hour span.

"During any emergency situation, protecting the safety of New Yorkers is our number one priority," Cuomo said in a statement. "By enacting this tractor-trailer ban and banning travel in Broome County, we are putting the safety of travelers first and allowing emergency crews to clear roadways as soon as possible.

"We encourage all New Yorkers take appropriate precautions now so that they can stay home and stay safe as these dangerous conditions continue."

Blizzard warnings are now in effect for several counties in New York, mostly in the eastern and northern parts of the state. Winter storm warnings are in effect for much of central New York, the Southern Tier and western New York.

Up to 24 inches of snowfall is expected in some areas. Snow is heavier in different regions, with rates totaling 2 to 4 inches an hour.

The winter storm is having a major impact on transportation in New York. In downstate, Metro-North rail service will be suspended at noon. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bus service in New York City is still running, but if conditions worsen service may be suspended.

Nearly all flights at LaGuardia Airport in New York City have been cancelled. Most flights have been cancelled at John F. Kennedy Airport.

At Syracuse Hancock International Airport, most flights have been cancelled or delayed due to the storm.

Cuomo issued a state of emergency Monday for all of New York as the storm approached. He advised non-essential state workers to stay home and asked New Yorkers to stay off the roads to allow crews to clear the snow.

According to Cuomo's office, there are 3,847 operators and supervisors with the state Department of Transportation working to keep the roads clean. The agency has 1,600 large plows, 200 medium plows, 324 loaders, 42 truck-mounted snow blowers, 61 tow plows, 20 graders and 15 pickup trucks with plows.

The state Department of Transportation has more than 443,000 tons of road salt to treat highways.

The Thruway Authority has more than 592 supervisors and operators prepared for the storm response. The agency has 201 large plows, 110 medium plows and 54 loaders. The agency has 114,800 tons of road salt available.

Nearly 2,000 National Guard members have been deployed to assist with the response to the storm.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II speaks to John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, as she leaves a Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey in central London, on March 13, 2017.Queen Elizabeth II has been Head of the Commonwealth throughout her reign. Organized by the Royal Commonwealth Society, the service is the largest annual inter-faith gathering in the United Kingdom. [Photo/VCG]
State Assembly Democrats agree that there should be funding to help Auburn and Owasco address drinking water woes. But they disagree with the approach taken by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Assembly majority's one-house budget proposal rejects Cuomo's proposal to provide $2 million for Auburn and Owasco to implement strategies to prevent blue-green algae toxins from contaminating the municipalities' drinking water supplies.

Instead of doling out the funding as a standalone grant, the Assembly would give the money to Auburn and Owasco through a $2 billion clean water infrastructure fund that was initially proposed by Cuomo.

The fund would be spread over a five-year period and support water infrastructure projects across the state.

But the Assembly went further and offered specifics for how the $2 billion should be spent. More than half of the fund  $1.15 billion  would be used to support the existing Water Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2015. The law was adopted in the 2015-16 state budget and included $200 million for water infrastructure projects over three fiscal years.

Three state agencies oversee the funding through the initiative: Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of Health and the Environmental Facilities Corporation.

The Assembly majority also wants $200 million for New York City to fund "large water infrastructure projects" and $138 million to replacement lead drinking water service lines.

Assembly Democrats support $110 million for inter-municipal water infrastructure grants and another $110 million for land acquisition projects to protect sources of drinking water.

Other proposed expenditures include:

 $80 million for green infrastructure projects

 $70 million for water quality improvement projects

 $60 million for drinking water contamination response

 $50 million for septic and cesspool upgrades to reduce nitrogen loading

 $20 million for closed, illegal or abandoned disposal site remediation

 $10 million for clean municipal drinking water and emergency funding

The state Assembly's plan is well short of what state Senate Republicans have proposed. The Senate's one-house budget includes $8 billion for clean water infrastructure funding, including a $5 billion bond act to support projects across the state.
The winter storm that was initially going to hit downstate New York the hardest shifted and is now impacting the Southern Tier, particularly the Binghamton area.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said a travel ban is now in effect for Broome County, which has already reported more than a foot of snowfall in some areas. Broome County Executive Jason Garnar said the previous one-day snowfall record is 25 inches in Lisle. That record will likely fall Tuesday.

Cuomo added that the snow is falling at a rate of about 4 inches per hour, which makes it difficult for plows to keep up with snow-clearing operations.

"It is a dangerous situation," Cuomo said. "The snow band is sitting right there and the forecast is for the band to remain in place just increasing the snowfall."

The state Department of Transportation is now shifting resources to Broome County and the Southern Tier. Cuomo said plows and personnel were initially shifted to downstate because the forecast was calling for heavier snowfall in New York City and on Long Island. But when the storm shifted, adjustments had to be made.

National Guard members are being redeployed to the Southern Tier, Cuomo said. State Transportation Commissioner Matthew Driscoll said there are now 168 large plows in the Binghamton area. That number will increase to 174 in two hours and by 4 p.m., there will be 194 large plows in the region.

The state Department of Transportation is moving resources from other parts of the state that haven't been hit as hard by the storm, such as Long Island. There will be nearly 500 operators and supervisors working to clear snow in the Southern Tier by the end of the day, Driscoll said.

Garner said there haven't been a lot of storm-related accidents due to the storm. Three people have been hurt in accidents Tuesday and there were 5 property damage accidents reported. Crews have been working to assist 11 disabled vehicles on Broome County roadways and there was a brief power outage, he said.

As of 4:30 p.m., the National Weather Service reported 27.2 inches of snow fell in Endwell over a six-hour period. In Binghamton, 20 inches of snow was recorded.

An additional 9 inches of snow is in the forecast today for Binghamton. Three more inches of snow is expected overnight.

"We're just going to watch this and continue to work hard to try to get the snow off the road and get through this storm," Garnar said.
(ANSA) - Strasbourg, March 13 - The Council of Europe (CoE) on Monday urged Italy to swiftly introduce the crimes of torture and degrading treatment, ensuring they are properly sanctioned and culprits can no longer get off. Voicing "concern", the CoE's council of ministers said measures taken by Italy to comply with an April 2015 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on the infamous police night raid on sleeping quarters of demonstrators at the 2001 Group of Eight summit were "insufficient". Politicians and activists urged the government to act.

"It's scandalous that Italy should obstruct all international bodies and it's scandalous that our country does not envisage that torture, a crime against humanity, is a crime," said Patrizio Gonnella, chair of the prisoners' rights group Antigone. On April 7, 2015 the ECHR condemned Italy and called for legislative changes after "torture" during a police raid in July 2001 on anti-globalization protestors camping out at the Diaz school during the Genoa G8 summit. The court condemned Italy not only for what happened to the demonstrators, but also because it said the country lacks appropriate legislation to punish the crime of torture even though it ratified a UN convention on torture in 1988.

The government said in response that an anti-torture bill mandating sentences of up to 12 years now before the Lower House would be sped up.

The Diaz raid is perhaps Italy's most notorious case of police brutality. In the night assault on the Diaz school, hundreds of police attacked about 100 activists and a few journalists, wounding 82 and seriously injuring 61 - three critically and one, British journalist Mark Covell, left in a coma with rib and spinal injuries.

Officers planted evidence including two Molotov cocktails and hammers and knives from a nearby construction site to justify the raid.

Amnesty International called the event "the most serious suspension of democratic rights in a Western country since the Second World War".

In its ruling in April 2015, the ECHR upheld a complaint from a 62-year-old Italian, Arnaldo Cestaro, who was brutally beaten that night and still suffers from the injuries he sustained.

It noted that none of the officers who actually inflicted the beatings are serving jail time because of the statute of limitations, and urged Italy to rectify this.

In reaction after that sentence, ruling Democratic Party (PD) chair Matteo Orfini said it is "shameful" that Gianni De Gennaro was now president of State-controlled defence giant Finmeccanica, recently renamed Leonardo, because he was national police chief during the scandal-hit Genoa G8 summit.

De Gennaro, appointed head of Finmeccanica in July 2013, ordered the raid on demonstrators but was not punished by the courts.

He was the only ranking officer to escape nominal punishment.


Syria: France opens humanitarian corridor for refugees Hollande at signature accord with Secours Catholique, S.Egidio

(ANSAmed) - PARIS, MARCH 14 - After Italy, France in cooperation with several associations including Secours Catholique and the community of S. Egidio, is opening a ''humanitarian corridor'' between Lebanon and France to guarantee that refugees from the Syrian conflict are welcomed.



The agreement for the arrival in France of 500 refugees was signed today at the presence of President Francois Holland and will enable refugees at the border between Syria and Lebanon to be granted an asylum visa for France. They will be flown into France and obtain the refugee status.



''Indifference is our main adversary when there is a situation of crisis'', said Hollande. But ''intolerance is even worse than indifference as it consists in not wanting to welcome and pushing on fear to prevent solidarity''.



''France - recalled Hollande - is the second country to create these humanitarian corridors after Italy''. (ANSAmed).




BELGRADE - Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano stressed the strong Italian economic presence in Serbia, noting there is still room to boost bilateral cooperation in the country.

''Last night I met with Italian entrepreneurs and had confirmation of how this country is a great attraction for investments. A lot was made but a lot still can be done to boost our presence'', Alfano told reporters this morning.

The minister added that during the meeting yesterday with Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Manzo, he presented to Italian entrepreneurs a new publication of the embassy that focuses on EU funding for businesses that want to invest in Serbia. ''It is another tool that the diplomatic economic system puts at the service of entrepreneurs'', observed Alfano, noting that ''business continuity is also an excellent headway for continuity in political and institutional relations''.

''We think - he added - that the place of this country is in Europe and all that is done in this direction eases conflicts and tensions''.

According to Alfano, the European Union ''needs the enthusiasm and new life of countries that are not tired of the European faith and want to enter the EU''.
Migrants: Italy, applications open for 30,850 permits Quotas for conversion permits and seasonal entries

(ANSAmed) - ROME, MARCH 14 - The period in Italy to file applications for residency permits for non-EU workers in 2017 opened today. Based on the decree concerning immigration for the ongoing year, 30,850 residency permits are available. The application is available on the internet at https://nullaostalavoro.dlci.interno.it.



Out of the quotas scheduled for 2017, the interior ministry said, 13,850 are to convert residency permits for subordinated or independent jobs for those who are already in Italy with residency permits given for other reasons (seasonal jobs, study, traineeship and/or professional training). The other 17,000 are for entrances for seasonal work concerning citizens from third countries that, in most cases, signed with Italy readmission accords: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Republic of Korea, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, Macedonia, Philippined, Gambia, Ghana, Japan, India, Kosovo, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Moldova, Montenegro, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Ukraine and Tunisia.



Among them, 2,000 quotas are for non-EU workers who entered Italy for a non-seasonal subordinated employment at least once over the previous five years and for whom the employee requested a multi-year permit for a seasonal subordinated employment. (ANSAmed).




GENEVA - The UN High Commissioner for Human rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein on Tuesday said of Syria that, ''today in a sense the entire country has become a torture-chamber, a place of savage horror and absolute injustice''.

He said that it is ''highly likely'' that tens of thousands of people are currently detained and called on all warring sides to end torture and executions and unjust trials.

Humanitarian actors and international observers need to be granted access to all detention centers, he said, urging warring sides to release detainees or at least provide information on the ''names and localities of those in detention and the place of burial of those who have died''.


ROME - The videos filmed by many refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea have become a documentary by filmmaker Else Sasse.

#MyEscape, which will be screened in Rome, on Thursday March 16 at 9 pm at the Auditorium of the Spin Time Labs, tells the story of some refugees who decide, because they cannot stand living in their countries anymore, to flee to Europe to seek security and freedom.

Their cell phones become indispensable to organize their flight. During the trip, their smart phones become an instrument to report their extreme experiences.

The documentary has gathered memories, interviews and first-hand reports. The result is a realistic report and intimate insight into the external and internal voyage of refugees.

After the screening, refugees from different countries and operators working at migrants centers will talk about their experience.
BRUSSELS - The European Court of Justice has ruled that a ban to wear the Islamic veil, if it derives from internal rules of a private firm that prohibits to wear in a visible way any political, philosophical or religious sign in the workplace, does not constitute direct discrimination founded on religious or personal belief. The ruling concerned the case of a Muslim woman who was fired for refusing to take off the Islamic headscarf at work.



The sentence concerns Samira Achbita, who was hired in 2003 as a receptionist by the G4S company in Belgium. At the time, an unwritten internal rule banned employees from wearing visible signs of their political, philosophical and religious beliefs.



In April 2006, the woman informed her employee that she intended to wear the veil at work. The management told her it would not be tolerated as this went against the firm's neutrality policy towards clients. he woman insisted so the enterprise put into writing its ban to ''wear in the workplace visible signs of political, philosophical or religious beliefs and-or demonstrate any ritual deriving'' from them. Achbita was fired and she filed a lawsuit in Belgium, which then went to the EU court.



''An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,'' the court said. However, the Luxembourg-based court said a veil ban could constitute ''indirect discrimination'' if people adhering to a particular religion or belief, such as Muslims, are put at a particular disadvantage. But such indirect discrimination can be justified by a legitimate end, like a neutrality policy towards clients.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand demanded answers from the commandant of the Marine Corps as a nude photo scandal involving Marines and other military service members is gaining more attention.

At a Senate hearing Tuesday, Gillibrand, D-N.Y., quizzed Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller on who has been held accountable for the alleged crimes against women, which include the publication of nude photos on the Marines United Facebook group.

"When you say to us it's got to be different, that rings hollow," Gillibrand said. "I don't know what you mean when you say that. Why does it have to be different, because you all of a sudden feel that it has to be different?"

Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she spoke to a civilian woman Monday who has been harassed because her ex-boyfriend publish nude photos of her online. Other women have spoken out about the scandal, which could extend beyond the Marine Corps.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is reviewing the social media posts. Those who published the images could face criminal charges.

For Gillibrand, the scandal is another indication of the culture in the military that's resulted in several reported sexual assaults. She questioned how the military can expect to take on serious threats, whether it's Russian aggression or cyber attacks, when they "can't crack Facebook."

"It is a serious problem when we have members of our military denigrating female Marines who will give their life to this country in the way they have with no response from leadership," Gillibrand said. "Your answers today are unsatisfactory. They do not go far enough."

Speaking to Neller, she added: "You have demanded that you maintain control of all these issues, but where's the accountability for failure?"

Neller said he expects that if anyone reported a sexual assault and the commanders didn't respond that the commanding officer would be held accountable.

He admitted that the nude photo scandal is "a problem with our culture."

"I'm not going to sit here and duck around this thing. I'm not. I'm responsible. I'm the commandant," Neller said. "I own this and we're going to have to ... You've heard it before, but we're going to have to change how we see ourselves and how we treat each other. That's a lame answer, but we've gotta change  and that's on me."
Italy: budget withdrawn from migrants after computer scam Protest then peace after measure in Lido di Camaiore

(ANSAmed) - LIDO DI CAMAIORE (LUCCA), MARCH 15 - Migrants in the Tuscan coastal town of Lido di Camaiore, near Lucca, bought computers and cell phones with the money they were given to buy food and basic necessities. When operators discovered the scam and withdrew the pre-paid cards, a protest ensued, forcing police to intervene and the mayor of Camaiore, Alessandro del Dotto, to look for a solution. It was subsequently decided that migrants would be provided with food and basic products directly by operators to avoid similar scams from happening in the future.



The episode was minimized in Camaiore and was described as a ''heated confrontation that never exceeded the boundaries of respect between operators of the Misericordia in Lido and guests at the Welcome village'', said the municipality of the Tuscan town.



It said the case was unveiled after a surveillance agency checked how the pre-paid cards were being managed and discovered that goods not included in a list provided by authorities had been purchased. The Misericordia thus decided not to distribute cards anymore, instead making itself available to shop and deliver goods in order to control purchases. The mayor intervened to mediate. At the moment - the city said - cards remain blocked and new talks between migrants and operators will take place to discuss a new expenditure system.(ANSAmed).




BRUSSELS - After a highly tense weekend, the clash between the Netherlands and Turkey has intensified. Ankara, through its deputy premier, Numan Kurtulmus, has announced a number of retaliatory measures: the suspension of high-level diplomatic relations with The Hague and the closure of Turkish airspace for Dutch diplomats, de facto preventing the Dutch ambassador, who is currently away on holiday, to travel back to Ankara. The Erdogan government has moreover announced that it will ask to 'scrap' a friendship treaty between the two countries.

''There is an ongoing very deep crisis that we have neither started nor taken to this level'', said Kurtulmus during a press conference at the end of a government weekly meeting.

The EU's and Nato's calls to ''lower the tone'' and embrace a ''measured approach'' to both allies have fallen on deaf ears.

Indeed Turkey has issued a new threat, this time aimed at the entire EU on a key issue: the agreement on immigration, which the Turkish minister for Europe, Omer Celik, has announced he wants to review.

And President Erdogan has also raised the tone, accusing Germany of supporting terrorism only because it had expressed solidarity to the Netherlands.

The diplomatic incident, which kicked off Saturday, after the government of The Hague rejected the flight of the Turkish foreign minister who was awaited in Rotterdam for a rally, is far from over.

Turkey has said it will appeal to the human rights court and summoned the top Dutch diplomatic official in the country to protest against the way its foreign minister and Family Minister Fatma Betl Sayan Kay were treated when they tried to go to the consulate in Rotterdam Saturday to endorse a constitutional referendum on April 16 in front of hundreds of pro-Erdogan demonstrators.

The Netherlands asked Ankara to withdraw the accusations of ''fascism and nazism'' otherwise ''relations'' between the two countries will ''remain difficult'', said Deputy Premier Lodewijk Asscher.


The authoritys stance against protectionism was spelt out today at the World Cargo Symposium in Abu Dhabi where IATA Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said: Proposal or measures planned by some governments raise barriers for trade.

In its meeting with the Trump administration, de Juniac said IATA provided advocacy for open border for trade and people because it fuels growth and prosperity and allows people to live better lives.

In his Symposium keynote address, de Juniac said all in the air cargo industry should all be concerned about the protectionist rhetoric that is spreading. Aviation is the business of freedom. The industry is premised on borders that are open to people and trade. That is at the heart of the important role that we play in globalization. Some hold the view that globalization has not benefitted all equally. But the important role that globalizationwith the help of aviationhas played in lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty is undeniable. By value, a third of the goods traded internationally are delivered by air cargo. We can be proud of the role global supply chains play to connect developed and developing markets. And we must join forces to remind governments of the benefits of globalization.

Meeting journalists on the side lines of the Symposium, the IATA CEO said the organisation predicted a dip in growth for Middle East carriers below their 2016 and 2015 performance. This is because there are some negative headwinds (pressure on capacity and yields) and among them is the protectionist rhetoric.

However, de Juniac said the industry overall was meeting at a time of cautious optimismwhich is far too rare in the air cargo industry. After several years of virtually no growth, we are starting to see demand pick up. Freight volumes began to grow in the second half of 2016. And the momentum is carrying over into this year with January demand rising nearly 7% over the previous year.

Among positive forces supporting growth, the IATA CEO cited strong export orders, double-digit growth in e-commerce and the huge potential within the high-value specialised cargo sector.


Speaking on the side lines of the IATA World Cargo Symposium in Abu Dhabi, TIACA CEO Sebastiaan Scholte said the air cargo supply chain is an industry waiting to be disrupted while Director Warren Jones spoke if its inability to attract young professionals because its not sexy enough.

Speaking of the lack of disruption within the supply chain, Scholte said: It is not happening within the industry yet, but it will. Government intervention is not making it easy. Airports and the cargo communities are trying to open it up and the Gulf airports are seeing the impact it has.

Scholte and Warren say TIACA is looking at becoming involved with universities to develop courses which will improve the industrys standing in the eyes of young professionals.

Theres a problem worldwide or recruiting young professionals into the industry because its just not sexy enough said Warren. But if young people understood it better, if they saw how we transport everything from elephants to Jimmy Choos to Formula 1 cars, we may be able to reverse the trend.

The education approach would be particularly applicable to the Gulf, where young nationals steer away from the industry, according to Warren. We have Gulf members on our board and this week talked about introducing this concept here. We have to get young people to understand the impact air cargo has throughout the world.

Meanwhile, Scholte said the Middle East could be in the running for the 2022 TIACA International Air Cargo Forum & Exhibition bringing it back to the region for the first time since 1998. The biennial conference will be held in Toronto in 2018 and Miami in 2020.

It would be good to return it to the region, said Scholte. Its just a case of finding the right venue and support.


Nobody needs reminding that its a B to C world were in now and the days of legacy intermediaries are rapidly coming to an end.

Those were the words of Emirates Airline president, Sir Tim Clark, as he called into focus the industrys mounting preoccupation with ensuring it lives up to ever-growing customer demands  one which has given rise to supersonic-speed innovation with technology in the cockpit.

IATA CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, in his opening remarks, sounded a warning for all in the industry to fasten their safety belts for a startling speed of change.

Keeping up is a major challenge for an industry whose first priority always must be safety. Safety is not measured by speed. And our excellent record on safety is the result of a mind-set focused on global standards and years of experience. Passenger needs, however, evolve much more quickly. And it is a real race to meet their expectations, he said.

Its also a race to meet growing passenger numbers. IATAs latest 20-year passenger forecast says 7.2 billion people will by flying in 2035  about twice as many as now. The forecast holds out huge growth opportunities, and enormous challenges.

Clark knows that only too well. Dubai has the worlds busiest international airport, handling 82 million passengers by September of this year  with Emirates carrying more than 51 million.

Here in Dubai, we have high passenger numbers combined with the pressures of limited real estate at the airport plus, we have strong competition from regional airports, and an economic imperative to develop air connectivity, he explained. This led to his airlines unrelenting impetus to continually innovate, and find solutions to deliver the best possible travel experience.

Emirates read the writing on the wall ages ago. It now has an active pipeline of innovation projects, ranging from operational efficiency enhancements, to product development and service delivery, and the in-house capability to design and develop the technology solutions to support them, but that, said Sir Tim, is no longer enough.

With the speed and scale at which technology is developing, we also increasingly tap on external partnerships to help us with our innovation agenda.

For the industry, he said, it meant a whole rethink. Weve got to throw away fatalistic legacy thinking and ask ourselves: If we could redesign the airline passenger experience from scratch, what might that look like? And then, what does our business have to look like, to deliver on that passenger experience?

For starters, I can picture a passenger journey  from home to airport to boarding gate  without any stops.

That picture is shared by de Juniac. It includes: online check-in with personal data uploaded before the passenger leaves home with approval to fly from all authorities and the flight data being automatically transmitted to smart luggage tags. Passenger bags are dropped off in automated sorting bins and the passenger goes straight through a much smaller check-in hall. Biometrics or other smart technology continually tracks the passenger through the airport, with customised messages being sent to screens, smart watches or personal mobile devices, directing passengers to their departure gates or other checkpoints.

There would be no gate lounges and minimal staff to complete the biometric-controlled boarding process, Clark envisioned. Central search could be hugely simplified and the process accelerated by using artificial intelligence-assisted, high-tech screening machines, which screen passengers and hand baggage at the same time, eliminating the need for multiple clothing and accessory removal and the resultant queues.

The result, he said, could be a passenger with more time to spend in airport duty-free, fast food and merchandising offerings.

Clark believed the industry has things all about face. When airports are being built, the tendency is to look at how things are done today rather than what could be done for the future. Buildings are built, and the passenger experience is then force-fitted into the structure, rather than the other way around. And by the time approvals are received to start building anything, well be looking at facilities that are outdated by another 10 years.

De Juniac concurred and pointed to IATAs new distribution capability (NDC) as helping change models by evolving the customer experience while the one order initiative promised itineraries with a single reference number connecting to budget carrier networks, adding customer value and opening up business opportunities.

Its success, he said, depended upon a completely overhauled approach. We must be prepared for fundamental change in the back-office  replacing not just legacy systems, but also legacy mind-set.

Next up, said de Juniac, would be the one identity vision, which could be achieved through close collaboration between airlines, airports and governments.

IATA joined forces with global IT provider, SITA, to ram the message home with a study that said worldwide deployment of radio frequency identification (RFI) technology, which can accurately track passengers baggage in real time, could save the industry a fortune over the next seven years by reducing the number of mishandled bags by up to 25%.

The study claims RFID capabilities could be deployed for as little $0.1 per passenger on average, while generating expected savings of more than $0.2 per passenger.

The innovators, however, arent waiting for the new mind-set, forcing the agenda with ever-smarter technologies.

SAP and Dubai Technology Partners (DTP) are working together on a suite of products to optimise airport and airline efficiency. Version one of the, as yet, unbranded suite will launch imminently.

Abdul Razzak Mikati, managing director, DTP, explained: Using SAP systems integration we are providing a platform that will process data in real time, enabling airport and airline decision-makers to make more-informed decisions.

He claims the made-in-the UAE solution is unique. It takes up to 20 individual sub-systems and collates the data in real time using a high technology platform like SAP HANA to get one view. Take turnaround times  we can decrease them. We can also manage specific processes with a fast, in-memory platform, which can forecast scenarios based on historic data going back up to four years, he said.

He doesnt say when other suite versions will go to market; just that the partners have a road map. He does, though, explain that it has multiple functions in forecasting, using historical data and SAPs model to predict what any flights behaviour will be.

This is important for the airport to plan and equally important for the customer experience, he added.

Tayfun Topkoc, managing director, SAP UAE, says the partners are already talking to various airports about the solution, which can enhance passenger experience and make the throughput of millions of travellers so much easier.

The platform can be enriched with data to deliver management processes, to manage historic-based forecasts, to manage flight delays and queues, he said. Data-analytics allows the operators to make more informed decisions and provide some machine-learning technology  the latest trend for which the algorithms can predict and forecast the extent of crowds, loads, baggage handling and delays. Operators can then optimise resources and meet demand efficiently.

We can deliver up to a 64% reduction in down time for airlines, which equates to operational savings for airlines and airports of up to 76%. It also allows the more efficient management of incidents at airports.

Version one of the suite is a test bed. Once launched we will get feedback and make any required changes, which is proof of our agility to adapt to customer requirements, said Abdul Razzak.

DTP and SAP see massive potential for the suite. The market is huge, said Abdul Razzak. Were looking at the UAE yes, but also to the region and then global. Saudi Arabia, for example, has 25 local airports to be remodelled, then theres redevelopment in Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. Travel demand everywhere is increasing the need for optimisation.

Of course, to deliver the streamlined travel experience passengers are now demanding requires a synchronised agenda across the entire aviation ecosystem  a prerequisite not lost on Clark.

That includes getting our suppliers, airport operators and security providers, immigration and customs, to buy into our vision of air travel experience and to provide the quality systems, infrastructure and support that airlines need to deliver on that vision, he said.


March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and Cayuga County Cancer Services is urging everyone to talk to their doctor about screening and testing options for colorectal cancer (also called colon cancer). With recommended screening, the number of people who die from colorectal cancer could be reduced by at least 60 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When colorectal cancer is found and treated early, it can often be cured. In some cases, screening can actually prevent the development of colorectal cancer by finding polyps (abnormal growths) so they can be removed before they become cancerous. Yet colorectal cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death in New York state. Each year, more than 9,000 New Yorkers develop colorectal cancer and more than 3,000 die as a result.

Colorectal cancer may not cause symptoms, especially at first, which is why regular screening is needed to catch the disease in its earliest stages. We want people to know there is more than one screening test for colorectal cancer and screening is easier than ever. The important thing to remember is to talk to your doctor, decide which screening test is right for you, and get screened. For anyone without a doctor or without insurance, the Cayuga County Cancer Services Program can assist with the cost of these screenings.

All men and women age 50 and older should get screened for colorectal cancer. Although this disease can occur at any age, most people who develop colorectal cancer are over age 50. To search signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer, you visit the American Cancer Society website at: www.cancer.org. Anyone with a personal or family history of colorectal polyps (abnormal growths in the colon or rectum), colorectal cancer, or a personal history of inflammatory bowel disease, is at higher risk for developing colorectal cancer. These individuals should talk to their doctors about when to begin screening and how often they should be tested.

The Cayuga County Cancer Services Program is part of the state Department of Healths Cancer Services Program, which offers colorectal, breast and cervical cancer screening to eligible uninsured individuals in every county in the state. To find a local Cancer Services Program near you, call 1-866-442-CANCER (2262).

For individuals insured through Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial health plans, including those participating in the New York State of Health, colorectal cancer screening is covered with no cost to the patient.

To assist in the efforts of getting people screened for colorectal cancer, the Cayuga County Cancer Services Program is teaming up with Auburn Community Hospital, Upstate Urology of Auburn and Dr. William Foresman to offer cancer screenings to eligible individuals 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 21. Eligible uninsured men aged 45 and older will be offered prostate and colorectal cancer screenings. Eligible uninsured women age 40 and older will be offered breast, cervical and colorectal. Please call (315) 253-1455 to make an appointment today. Spaces are limited, so call today!
With the passing of New York state's budget just around the corner, Cayuga County and the city of Auburn are reminding Gov. Andrew Cuomo about the water infrastructure challenges the area is facing.

Keith Batman, chair of the Cayuga County Legislature, and Auburn City Manager Jeff Dygert, sent a letter to Cuomo on March 10, calling for the state to invest at least $800 million in clean water infrastructure projects this year. Cuomo has proposed a $2 billion water infrastructure proposal to be invested over a five-year period, which Batman said is not enough. Estimates statewide show that the water infrastructure needs are close to $70 billion.

"The governor's action to include the $2 billion over the next five years is really good," Batman said in a phone interview with The Citizen. "But, the projected need for infrastructure in New York exceeds that by a factor of many times."

While the state assembly is supporting the governor's $2 billion proposal, Senate Republicans are calling for $8 billion in funding that would include a $5 billion bond act. That was welcome news to Batman, who said he came up with the $800 million per year for five or six years in hopes of the state investing $4 or $5 billion in infrastructure needs. Batman said he would hope the funding would not just come from the state, but from the federal government as well.

Specifically in Cayuga County Batman said funding is needed to upgrade Auburn and Owasco's water treatment plants to combat blue-green algae toxins. Cuomo has proposed incorporating $2 million into his executive budget for upgrades to those plants, though the state assembly said it thinks those funds should come from the $2 billion water infrastructure proposal, and not as a separate grant.

While Owasco Lake has been on the forefront of many's minds in the county, Batman said Cayuga Lake is facing its own water quality challenges. He said the village of Aurora and Wells College need a new water treatment plant due to aging infrastructure. There's other water systems, too, that need significant upgrades. The Cayuga County Water and Sewer Authority is working to map all the county's systems to see where there are needs using a $100,000 state grant and a $100,000 match from Cayuga County.

"We know without investigation that the price tag for all of this is going to be substantial," Batman said. "We don't know exactly what it's going to cost. We need to move forward on this, and it's (the letter) just encouraging the governor and state representatives to pay attention to the need."

Dygert could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. Garen Nazaryan, deputy foreign minister of Armenia, gave an interview to Independent Balkan News Agency on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties between Armenia and Greece, the foreign ministry told ARMENPRESS.

Question: Greece and Armenia are connected through a centuries old friendship and have always cooperated at multiple levels. Which areas of cooperation do you consider important for the further development of these relations and what do you plan to do? Mr. Kotzias spoke of three asymmetries that need to be addressed.

Garen Nazarian: First of all I would like to warmly welcome minister Kotzias and his delegation. This is his first visit to Yerevan and we will use the opportunity to have substantial discussions aimed at expanding our bilateral relations in all possible areas. The interstate relations between Armenia and Greece are based on historical bonds of friendship between our nations and we share a lot of commonalities.

During the meeting ministers rightly highlighted the asymmetric issues and we need to pay more attention to that aspect and in particular the full implementation of previously agreed commitments, including those that are entrenched in our legal framework. The latter will also need a further assessment; and we will start working on that immediately, to identify the potential areas for a beneficial cooperation.

We are fortunate to have an extensive political dialogue between our friendly governments. High-level reciprocal visits are taking place on both sides. In 2014 the President of Greece was in Armenia, in 2016 the President of Armenia visited Greece. We have regular meetings and exchanges between our foreign and defence ministers and these are the best opportunities to exchange views on priority issues of bilateral, regional and international concern.

More meetings are planned for today between our Foreign Ministers and later on, with the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and we look forward to the outcome of these meetings. I am sure we can identify untapped areas especially in the trade and economic fields in order to eliminate the disproportion, or asymmetry, as minister Kotzias said, between our political relations and economic dialogue.

Potential areas of expanding the sectoral cooperation would be tourism, which is already happening. As you know, the number of Armenians who are visiting Greece increased last year more than three times. We also expect Greeks visiting Armenia. We welcome the resumption of regular direct and charter flights between our countries. Strong cultural interconnections, along with the exchanges in the fields of education and science can also form solid grounds for future cooperation. And of course trade and investment issues will be on our special focus. We have been tasked to start the preparation of the business forum by the end of this year and this will require careful and targeted steps on both sides.

Question: What about the visa liberalisation for Armenian citizens? Can this occur soon or is it difficult?

Garen Nazarian: Visa liberalisation dialogue for the citizens of Armenia has been referred to in the joint declaration of the Riga Summit of the Eastern Partnership in 2015 and this is an important bilateral commitment on behalf of Armenia and the European Union to move towards that direction. Armenia is implementing the agreements on visa facilitation and readmission in good faith and based on the positive assessment of the implementation of mentioned agreements we hope very much to be able to launch the Visa dialogue soon and we also count on the support of friendly Greece and other partners in Europe.

Question: The geographical position of Armenia has made it a crossroads of civilizations and tensions. Over many years, your relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan were strained. Which is the best way to resolve these differences? How can Greece help in a solution?

Garen Nazarian: As you know the border is closed by the Turkish side and this unilateral coercive measure imposed on Armenia is subject for international condemnation. This action by the neighbouring country has to be revised in order to make the implementation of different projects possible in the region at large and create a conducive environment for regional cooperation. As a landlocked country we give an utmost importance to create and maintain a favourable political and economic environment in order to further our relations with the neighbouring countries, as well as the EU, Russia and others. So, we are very much interested in continuing the dialogue with Greece and other interested countries on this and other regional matters and I am glad that in many aspects, including on the issue of closed borders, we share the same views and positions.

Question: A few days ago you proceeded to an agreement with the EU for a more integrated partnership. At the same time you participate in the Eurasian economic union (EAEU). Isnt this contradictory?

Garen Nazarian: Some ten days ago the President of Armenia was in Brussels and during the meeting with the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, they jointly announced the completion of negotiations between Armenia and the EU on the new legal framework. Armenia has been advocating from the very beginning of this process the need to seize the opportunities for cooperation with different integration formats. Throughout the process of negotiations with the EU we have identified compatible areas of cooperation with both EAEU and EU. This exercise, these negotiations have demonstrated that it is possible to be a member of the EAEU and at the same time have a comprehensive and enhanced partnership with the EU. As I said, we already completed the negotiations and we look forward to the next steps  the initialing and signing of the agreement.

Question: It is known that the Diaspora has approximately three times as large a population than the permanent citizens of Armenia. How much do they affect the political and economic life of the country? Is there a balance in this relationship?

Garen Nazarian: Since ancient times, Armenians have established communities in many regions throughout the world. However, the modern Armenian diaspora was largely formed as a result of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, when the Armenians living in their ancestral homeland were systematically exterminated by the Ottoman government. The remnants of the nation miraculously found refuge in neighbouring countries. Today, there is a vibrant Armenian community in Greece effectively integrated into the social, economic and political life of the country. The Armenian communities serve as an important bridge between the homeland and their host countries. They are strongly linked with Armenia and very much focused on the domestic and foreign policy that Armenia conducts in number of areas. It is important to maintain this strong linkage and traditions in our relationship with Armenians living abroad. This is another area where we can effectively cooperate and combine our efforts given that fact that there is a strong presence of Greeks in many countries of the world.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. A workshop dedicated to the preparation works of the Black Sea Basin Cross-Border Cooperation Programme 2014-2020 which is being implemented under the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) was held in Yerevan, reports Armenpress.

First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments Garegin Melkonyan and Head of the Cooperation Section at the EU Delegation to Armenia Hoa-Binh Adjemian delivered welcoming speeches.

Deputy Minister Melkonyan said everything is being done aimed at making the program maximally available for all interested structures operating in Armenia. Melkonyan said it would be possible to be competitive in case of presenting many programs and have greater possibilities for their approval and bringing them to Armenia.

Not all from 8 beneficiary countries participating in the program have a chance to involve all their circles in this program. However, the Black Sea Basin Cross-Border Cooperation Programme is available in the entire territory of Armenia and structures operating in all regions can be involved in this program, Garegin Melkonyan said.

The workshop was attended by representatives of Armenian NGOs, non-profit organizations, education institutions, cultural and archeological associations, tourism and regional development agencies, research centers, as well as concerned agencies and organizations.

During the workshop, the requirements for submission of applications for the Programme were presented in-detail, the major features of the Programme development (funded projects, evaluation procedures), the financial requirements, the specific requirements of the national legislation, and etc were presented.

The event was organized by the assistance of the Support to the Coordinator of EU assistance in Armenia EU-funded program.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. An awarding ceremony was held in the Armenian Embassy in Japan on March 14, press service of the MFA told Armenpress.

Japans State Minister for Foreign Affairs Nobuo Kishi was awarded with Honorary Medal of the Parliament of the Republic of Armenia for the input on strengthening Armenia-Japan inter-parliamentary friendly ties.

In a meeting following the awarding ceremony the sides talked about the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, highlighting the achievements reached during the past years and the continuous intensification of friendly ties.

Both sides emphasized the necessity to utilize the existing potential over the development of bilateral economic relations.

Nobuo Kishi is actively engaged in the works of Japan-Armenia inter-parliamentary friendship group.
YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS. During the period of February 8  March 14, 2017, reprocessing companies repaid 740.4 million drams in debt for raw materials which were acquired in 2015-2016 from agricultural businesses, including five companies have completely repaid the debts.

The ministry of agriculture told ARMENPRESS the companies have formed a repay timetable for unrealized obligations for supervising the process.

As of February 8, 2017, 22 reprocessing companies had a total of 1486.5 million drams in debt for fruit and vegetables, grape acquisition in 2015-2016.
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Eight Artesia High School seniors will attend the Global Leadership Summit March 12-20 in Peru.

Students will come from all over the world to learn together and investigate the role of a global citizen in a changing world, as well as examine how Peru is adapting and innovating cultural traditions in order to shape its future amid the pressures of globalization.

The students will also explore the Sacred Valley of the Incas, learn about the local economy and artisan crafts, and discover the importance of preserving ancient wonders on a visit to Machu Picchu.

The students would like to express appreciation to HollyFrontier Navajo Refining, LLC, for helping make the trip possible with a generous donation of $20,000, presented by refinery manager Bob OBrien. The students attending include Kylie Kenney, McKinah Gwynne, Jalissa Berdoza, Kamryn Esquibel, Kali Martinez, Sydni Salmon, Ricardo Aguirre, and Dennis Johnson. Anna Kelley will also accompany the students.

The trip was designed by EF (Education First) Tours.
Teatro Polski in Wrocaw has always been considered one of the countrys most daring. But company members argue that the new artistic director, Cezary Morawski  installed by the nationalist Law and Justice Partys government  is doing work thats commercial, old-fashioned, and unambitious, tarnishing the theatres reputation at home and abroad. Staff has been fired, petitions have flown, and the national culture minister has been pulled into the dispute.
The Stradivarius violin that troubled music student Phil Johnson stole from violinist Roman Totenberg (yes, Ninas father) in 1980 was recovered after Johnson died in 2012. After years of careful restoration, it was returned to performance by former Totenberg student Mira Wang on Monday night in New York. Geoff Edgers reports.
Carl Weissner (1940-2012) died Jan. 24, in Mannheim.

Carl wrote his first book, The Braille Film, in English. I published it in 1970, under the Nova Broadcast imprint. Although his native language was German, he had an incomparable ear for phrases that made his written English sing, certainly his American lingo. And he seemed to toss it off with the ease and sophistication of a Bill Evans solo. The Braille Film is prescient and panoramic, an extended cut-up riffing about a world gone mad. Here is the jazzy opening:

The passengers of this hopped up mixed media set are on a trip to the end of the nervous system, to the end of the Invisible Environment. There is no guide, no voice, no word. Walled in by oscillographs of the past the crew plot a precarious course in dead space of random topograhies. Infra-red TV screens, exposed nerve ends, phosphorescent comics, roentgen films & tapes of fictitious events, windtunnels of gossip, rigged history. LAUTLOSER FLUG DURCH VERFALLENES FLEISCH. Et pas de commissions. SAUVE QUI PEUT. The night croons in a thousand orange loudspeakers. (Invisible tracks of passengers on the run like bursting blobs of transparent jelly; windtunnels of luminous comics photographed with a 180 degree distortion lens, interrupted again & again by the white-out of exposed reel endings.) The Braille Film of Present Time unfolds in flesh-colored rushes sharp & clear as an electroshock orgasm.

RealityStudio published Carls second book, Death in Paris, 39 years later, posting it online in 2009. It too is written in American English, but this time the tone is coolly sardonic and deeply personal, darker and richer than The Braille Film. And very funny, sometimes hilarious. It is the work of a more mature writer. This time the word-slinging, if you will, is the least part of the story. This time the apocalypse comes wrapped in the jaded tones of a police procedural, a metafiction that brims with the blackest gallows humor. Here is how it begins:

Establishing Shot

He woke at 3 AM. Dim yellow light filled the room. Smog had descended on the city, filtering the bright lights of the hotel. The city was cast in a sinister sepia, as in a 1930s gangster movie. I should have killed myself when it still made sense, he thought. He closed the curtains and went back to bed.

Near-Collision in the Main Characters Subconscious

The Hotel Bogota, close to a hundred years old, had been kept in shape with an attitude of bored efficiency. Room service was non-existent, but there was a fat stream of brown water from every tap in the building, and the ceiling fans blew the sweat off your face in sheets. The hotel had two elevators whose cabins moved soundlessly through shafts of soot and axle-grease. In one of them, Gerald Lake rode down at 7:50 in the morning, and entered the ground floor Starbucks from the lobby.

At the far end, near the street exit, the familiar silhouette of a man in his mid-seventies made the small hairs on the back of his neck crackle with the voltage of pure hatred. He had always felt sure that he had killed his father ten years ago in Germany, by deliberately steering the car, with the old man in the passenger seat, into the concrete pillar of a bridge across Highway 3 near Cologne. He had been somewhat less than half conscious when firemen cut him out of the wreck with acetylene torches, his face swollen and rainbowed, coated in abrasions, bloody lips and cheeks flecked with tiny shards of glass. Before they could shove him into the EMS truck, he was in a deep coma. When he emerged from it after six months, his doctors showed him a letter with a photo of his fathers grave somewhere in southern Germany. His stepbrother, Tony, who worked for a large software outfit down there, had made the arrangements and handled the paperwork.

Lake turned around unsteadily and crossed the diamond pattern of black and white marble tiles that had earned the Bogota the dubious distinction of a San Francisco landmark. He pushed through the heavy slow-motion revolving door, turned left and started looking for a cab.

Posted by CW

Label: Doomsday Lit

December 7, 2007

3:12 AM

You can see that Carl, the writer, was as tough-minded as they come. But Carl, the person, glowed with warmth. He was kind, thoughtful, generous, and given to modesty. (Yes, I know, sounds like a cliche.) His erudition always amazed me, though he rarely put it on display. It only showed when the situation demanded it, and then he was scintillating. To quote Ian MacFadyen, he was one of the great ones.

Among his lesser talents was his old musical training. Here is Carls rusty Chopin after not playing for, oh, 50 years. This is the schmaltzy version  Viennese, you can hear him say in the video. Also, he combines pieces. But what the hell. Typically careless of his ego, he let me post the video despite calling his playing terrible. When a YouTube viewer praised his hesitations as rubato, he gave a hearty laugh.

Ave atque vale, dear Carl. You were loved by many. Play us out.
San Francisco beckoned me because of the Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Both artists are nothing if not seductive and, as I wrote in my review of the exhibition for The Wall Street Journal, published in yesterdays print edition, Rarelyif everin the history of modern art has a renowned artist been as deeply and openly inspired by another artist as Richard Diebenkorn was by Henri Matisse.

So this was a natural, and like so many other naturals, surprising in that it had never been done in depth before. I loved it, as you will read, and I found different elements to admire in both venues: I saw it late last year at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it was slightly smaller but just as great.

The curators, Katy Rothkopf in Baltimore and Janet Bishop in San Francisco, made different juxtapositions and were working with a different suite of galleries; each installation has its merits. For example, in Baltimore, the show seemed to build to a climax with Diebenkorns Recollections of a Visit to Leningradwhich visitors saw on its own large wall as they rounded a corner (though they likely stopped before getting to it to see other works on the way). The Baltimore wall label, as I recall, said Recollections was a summation of all Diebenkorn had learned from Matisse. Then they moved on to a large gallery that showed off all the Ocean Park series along with the Matisse paintings that helped inspire them. It practically glowed.

In San Francisco, the hang seemed more evenly paced. But, in a brilliant move, Bishop hung Matisses Goldfish and Palette nearer the start, alongside Urbana #6. The pairing stopped me in my tracks from the get-go. Have a look:

But in SF, I think, Recollections was less prominent, just one painting in a gallery of several, and the space there required the splitting of the Ocean Park series into two galleries. Still, Bishop made this revealing sequence (maybe Baltimore did too, I do not recall).

Both installations encouraged the close looking that affords real insight into both artists minds.

Diebenkorn seemed destined for a great career in artat 26, he had already won a solo exhibition at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. He was making abstract works then, and he continued to so do for years. But, as this show, which illustrates his evolution over the decades, he owes his greatness to his early exposure to Matisse. The works are accompanied by archival materials. Diebenkorn collected a vast library of publications about him, and he often later glued in color versions of the books black-and-white images. He would make notes, like the dimensions or the dates.

In fact, I came to the conclusion that a solo exhibition of Diebenkorns work would have been far less interesting than this dual show. (Not so for Matisse, obviouslyhe always looks great, to me.)

Here are a few more installation shots that I took at the SF exhibitionsome, to my mind, more interesting than others.

UPDATE, 3/14: I just discovered this article written for SF MoMA that explains more about this exhibition and collaboration between Bishop and Rothkopf, which you can read here.
Seneca County roads will reopen at 6 a.m. Wednesday, Sheriff W. Timothy Luce said.

Luce had ordered the roads closed as a winter storm slammed central New York. Only emergency vehicles were permitted on county roads.

Once the order is lifted Wednesday morning, Luce said a no unnecessary travel advisory will remain in effect throughout the day. The advisory doesn't restrict travel, but it serves as a warning that hazardous driving conditions exist.

Seneca County Sheriff Timothy Luce ordered all roads in the county closed beginning at 5 p.m. Tuesday until further notice.

Only emergency travel will be permitted as Seneca County deals with the effects of Winter Storm Stella.

Luce previously issued a travel advisory and advised residents against unnecessary travel.

Earlier report:

Seneca County Sheriff Timothy Luce has issued a travel advisory for Seneca County and advised residents against any unnecessary travel due to the winter storm slamming upstate New York.

Luce said the roads in Seneca County are covered in snow and slippery in some areas. Motorists should drive slowly and allow extra time for travel.

Luce's deputies are monitoring roads and checking for stranded motorists.
The US Mint has just released a commemorative coin honoring one of the largest pedophile coverups in US history! If feel sick to my stomach after making this but it has to get out there to END this sick game.

There is also a connection to Contra drug smuggling.

America's Greatest Child Sex Scandal: Boys Town in Lincoln, Nebraska

This is the story you may have heard of, here are the really disturbing details.

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - Those who deny the possibility of government deception on a large scale should examine the story of Boys Town and a Black Republican Politician named Lawrence 'Larry' King.









For many, King and Boys Town are synonymous with the scandal involving child sex and drug abuse that officials in Lincoln, Nebraska were able to suppress and effectively cover up.





It is among the most blatant of all of the mostly ignored stories in this country that have been buried because they affected a large number of children; many under the age of 10, who were viciously raped by important men, so-called 'pillars of their communities'.





The coverup appears to involve the police and courts in Nebraska and also the FBI.

A woman named Carol Stitt, Director of the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board, explains in the documentary below, Conspiracy Of Silence, that the allegations of children being taken to political parties where they would be abuse sexually, usually at 'after hour' parties, originated with her office.

The lives of Alisha Owen, Paul Bonacci, Troy Boner and the other victims of what appears to be a government orchestrated child rape syndicate, will never be what they could have due to this ridiculous miscarriage of justice. The fact that it happened in the nation's Bible belt is a sad indicator of the massive hypocrisy that exists between religion and the actions of men.









Nebraska Republican Senator Loran Schmit, worked with Stitt and investigators to build the case and soon they had five solid victims whose testimony would work in court to bring the various suspects to justice.





Little did he know, that powers to be in this seemingly corrupt Midwest state, would block every move to bring the case forward and that even the media would serve as a partner in the crime of coverup. As it turns out one of the suspects worked in the upper echelon of a daily newspaper that served as a tool for discrediting victim testimony.





Victims who came forward were persecuted; one key witness would testify in mid stride that he made up his allegations. A female victim who stuck to her story of years of rape and sex abuse at the hands of top officials in Lincoln, Nebraska, was convicted of perjury and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Those close to the case say the perjury conviction was a clear message to all of the victims, that they too would pay dearly if they spoke of their past involvement with the Franklin child prostitution ring.

Larry King, who was a rising star in the GOP, was convicted of embezzling over $38 million from Franklin Community Federal Credit Union (FCFCU) in Omaha, and served 10 years of a 15-year prison sentence.





That's right, the victim who spoke was sent to prison for 15 years for perjury, while King received 15 but did only 10 years for crimes involving $38 million and was never convicted in the child prostitution ring, nor were any other officials.





Nick Bryant, coauthor of Americas Children: Triumph of Tragedy and The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse, and Betrayal, wrote of his attempt to publicize the case in a USA

Today article:

Boystown, The White House & the Devil These operations overseen by King would be conducted at Republican fund raising after-parties, in which young boys & girls were brokered to senators, congressmen & women & persons of influence.

So connected to the political world was King that upon his parole he was recruited into the National Republican Party. Kings strategy, like that of MK-Ultra was to target political figures to ensure anonymity & continued financial support from legislature, by using children from Boystown & others kidnapped to compromise influential men & women. These political figures would be photographed & video taped engaging in drug taking & various sexual activity with minors. The sexual abuse of children as horrific and criminal as it is was only part of the story. It was the prominent figures in the U.S Governments involvement in the drug trade that made this story so much more explosive. Johnny Gosch was a 12-year-old paperboy in Iowa when he disappeared on September 5, 1982. Paul Bonacci told attorney John Decamp that he was in a sex ringwith Gosch as a teenager and was forced into participating in Goschs abduction. He also admitted along with Alisha Owen that they had been used as drug couriers to bring cocaine in from the West Coast for Alan Baer, Larry King and others during the 1980s. It was first reported by the World Herald Reporter James Flanery that King was running guns and money into Nicaragua, and that the CIA was heavily involved. The story told by Monarch victims  one of whom is Paul Bonacci  is that they were tortured for the purpose of creating multiple personalities within them. These multiple personalities could then be programmed as spies, drug mules, prostitutes, or assassins.

With access to thousands of documents that were sealed by two grand juries, as well as the sealed testimony of one, I demonstrated that state and Federal grand jury processes in Nebraska played an integral role in the cover-up.

Instead of indicting the alleged perpetrators, these grand juries indicted the victims who would not recant their accounts of abuse on charges of perjury. In one case, a 21-year-old who bad been abused since adolescence was indicted on eight counts of perjury by both state and Federal grand juries. Facing more than 300 years in prison, she still refused to recant. Her travesty of a trial resulted in a prison sentence of nine to 15 years. She spent nearly two years in solitary confinement.

This individual was released from prison in 2000, and she has become a model citizen: she is happily married and gainfully employed. Conversely, one of the ring's pedophilic pimps, who was not charged with a single count of child abuse, moved halfway across the country. By 2009, he had enmeshed himself among a new brood of economically disadvantaged children.

The fact that the girl was convicted and given an extremely long sentence makes little sense when compared to this paragraph from a NY Times article from 18 Dec. 1988:

...the Omaha office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged that it had independently received reports of sexual abuse and that they were a subject of its own criminal inquiry into the credit union affair. And the office of the Nebraska Attorney General said it had directed the state police also to investigate the reports.

Then The NY Times, still following the story, wrote on 25 Dec. 1988:

A state file containing reports of physical and sexual abuse of foster children, based on interviews with some of the children and including one instance reminiscent of slave auctions, has been turned over to the Executive Board of the Nebraska Legislature.

People familiar with the file's contents describe it as a voluminous compilation of reports acquired over the last two years by the State Foster Care Review Board from a variety of child care professionals, including schoolteachers and social workers.

Corrupt Media Backs Corrupt Government

However by 29 July 1990, The New York Times changed their tune, falling in line with Nebraska press, with an article titled, "Omaha Grand Jury Sees Hoax in Lurid Tales":

Lurid reports of child sex abuse, drug trafficking, pornography and political intrigue that have held Omaha enthralled for nearly two years were a ''carefully crafted hoax,'' a county grand jury in Nebraska has concluded.

Perhaps not too surprising that the agency both Judith Miller and Jason Blair both called home, was willing to jump on the bandwagon instead of questioning the sincerity of this Midwestern disease.

Even though the FBI and local authorities acknowledge that they knew about the child sex abuse, Nebraska still convicted Alisha Owen for reporting the abuse, convicting her of several counts of perjury. What a disservice to all crime victims, particularly rape and sex abuse survivors, Nebraska's system of injustice truly is.

The crimes of Larry King and his criminal cohorts are outstanding today and it is important that the criminals, regardless of who they are, not abscond forever. So why have you never heard of the Franklin cover-up?

Conspiracy Of Silence (Banned Discovery Channel Documentary)

"Conspiracy of Silence" is a powerful, disturbing documentary revealing a nationwide child abuse and pedophilia ring that leads to the highest levels of government. Featuring intrepid investigator John DeCamp, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and 16-year Nebraska state senator, "Conspiracy of Silence" reveals how rogue elements at all levels of government have been involved in systematic child abuse and pedophilia to feed the base desires of key politicians.

Based on the riveting book, The Franklin Cover-up, "Conspiracy of Silence" begins with the shut-down of Nebraska's Franklin Community Federal Credit Union after a raid by federal agencies in November 1988 revealed that $40 million was missing.

When the Nebraska legislature launched a probe into the affair, what initially looked like a financial swindle soon exploded into a startling tale of drugs, money laundering, and a nationwide child abuse ring.





Nineteen months later, the legislative committee's chief investigator died suddenly and violently, like more than a dozen other people linked to the Franklin case.

So why have you never heard of the Franklin cover-up? Originally scheduled to air in May of 1994 on the Discovery Channel, "Conspiracy of Silence" was yanked at the last minute due to formidable pressure applied by top politicians. Some very powerful people did not want you to watch this documentary.

You may find yourself becoming angry or upset while watching "Conspiracy of Silence." Many people do. However, consider that each of us has at times in our life acted out of selfish motives when it comes to sexuality and ended up hurting others in one way or another.

Let us take this information not only as a call to stop this kind of abuse at the nationwide level, but also as a call to examine our own sexual relationships and make a commitment to deep honesty and integrity in our own lives around this most sensitive issue.





A copy of this videotape was furnished anonymously to former Nebraska state senator and attorney John De Camp who made it available to retired FBI Agent Ted L. Gunderson. While the video quality is not top grade, this tape is a blockbuster in what is revealed by the participants involved.

NOTE; This film had to be reassembled from remaining VHS fragments after an all-out effort was made to block the films release and destroy all extant copies. Every effort has been made to restore it to the original and complete "meant to be broadcast" version.





Here are some related articles:



http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/boys_town_abuse.htm



http://franklincoverup.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id= For additional information on this video, and download information: http://www.archive.org/details/ConspiracyOfSilence-SexAbuseRingOfWashingtonDc Here are some related articles: http://www.american-buddha.com/franklincoverup.13.htm

In conclusion, it is never too late for justice. The men involved in this child sex scandal are mostly people in power and they deserve for a true story to be told.

_________________________________________________________

Tim King, Writer

With over 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King served as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor from 2004-2014. He covered the wars in Afghanistan (2006/07), and Iraq (2008). Tim specializes in writing about Veterans issues, political and military developments worldwide; including the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and the trapped population of Gaza.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and the 'Good Neighbor Award' by the The Red Cross.





Thanks for caring and may we all work together to build a brighter future for ourselves and for our world.
It is the third launch from Audi this year and the automaker will introduce seven more products in 2017.

German luxury automaker Audi has recently launched the 2017 Q3 in India. It is the third launch from Audi this year and as proposed, the automaker will introduce seven more new products in 2017. The updated Q3 comes with subtle aesthetic changes, an uprated diesel engine along with standardisation of features. The 2017 Audi Q3 is now available in two variants  the 2.0 TDI FWD, priced at Rs 34.20 lakh and the 2.0 TDI Quattro priced at Rs 37.20 lakh (all prices ex-showroom, New Delhi).

In terms of design, the changes on the outside are limited to the front bumper. The air inlets now get a black surround, which complements the black lower cladding. The new Q3 is now offered with all-LED headlamps as standard. Also offered as standard are 17-inch 5-spoke alloy wheels shod with 235/55 R17 tyres.

Inside, changes are limited to the inlays - the Q3 2.0 TDI FWD gets walnut brown ones, while the Q3 2.0 TDI quattro gets aluminium ones. Equipment such as electric adjustment for the front seats, a panoramic sunroof and 2-zone automatic air conditioning is offered as standard.

The MMI system has not been modified in the new Q3. The 6.5-inch infotainment display remains the same while the multimedia system is Bluetooth/SD card compatibility with 20GB of inbuilt storage. Infotainment

The 2.0-litre, turbocharged, 4-cylinder motor remains the only power source for the Q3 - but it has been tweaked for more power and torque. The transmission option is now limited to the 7-speed S tronic dual clutch. The 6-speed manual available on the pre-facelift S edition variant has been discontinued. Drivers can use paddle-shifters placed behind the steering wheel to change gears.

The 2.0-litre TDI develops 150PS of maximum power and 340Nm of peak torque in the FWD variant. This is 10PS/20Nm more than the 2.0 TDI that powered the pre-facelift Q3 S edition. Available only with the 7-speed S tronic dual-clutch transmission, the 2.0 TDI FWD can accelerate from 0-100kmph in 9.3 seconds and has an ARAI-certified fuel efficiency of 18.51kmpl.

The 2.0-litre TDI develops 184PS of maximum power and 380Nm of peak torque. Compared to the pre-facelift Q3, the motor in the new develops 7PS more power. Paired to the 7-speed S tronic dual-clutch transmission, the 2.0 TDI quattro accelerates from 0-100kmph in 7.9 seconds and has an ARAI-certified mileage of 15.17kmpl.

Driver convenience features on offer include a colour multi-information display for the driver in the instrument console, hill-start assist, hill descent control and cruise control. Standard safety systems on offer include rear parking sensors, reverse parking camera, ESC and 6-airbags.

Anchor

Anchor
The body has asked its field offices not to insist on provident fund deduction from the salaries.

New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO has asked its field offices not to insist on provident fund deduction from the salaries of Singaporean citizens working purely as temporary workers in India.

"All field offices are therefore advised not to insist on deduction of EPF and EPS contributions from salaries of Singapore citizens working purely as temporary workers in establishments covered/coverable under the EPF & MP Act 1952 and who do not hold the status of permanent residents in India," the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) headquarters said in an order.

Referring to the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement between India and Singapore which is effective from August 1, 2005, the EPFO notes that the field offices are not taking due cognizance of the provisions regarding the "excluded employees" as defined under Para 83 read with Para 2 (f)(ii) of the EPF Scheme, 1952.

The Para 2 (f)(ii) of the scheme provides that excluded employee means an international worker is the one who is contributing to a social security programme of his country of origin, either as a citizen or a resident, with whom India has entered into a bilateral comprehensive economic agreement containing clause on social security prior to October 1, 2008, which specifically exempts natural persons of either country to contribute to the social security fund of the host country.

A senior EPFO official said the clause clearly provides that the Singaporean working on purely temporary basis or short term and covered under social security scheme in their own country are not required to be covered under these schemes run by the EPFO here.

He also said the Indian workers working on purely temporarily basis in Singapore and covered under the social security schemes run by the EPFO are also exempted from the mandatory contributions in Singapore.

Apart from this, India currently has social security agreements operational with 17 countries -- the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, South Korea, Sweden, Czech Republic, Austria, Finland, Japan, Canada, Australia, Norway and Hungary.

The social security agreement provides for detachment, totalisation and portability. Under the detachment clause, the employees of one country deputed by their employers to other country for short-term assignments are exempted from social security contributions up to a period of 60 months.

The international workers of these countries posted in India are not required to make mandatory contribution towards social security schemes run by the EPFO in India. Employees from these countries need to produce certificate of coverage stating that they are covered under such social schemes in their country and get exemption from contribution to EPFO schemes.

Similar privilege is enjoyed by Indian employees posted in these 17 countries with whom it has signed social security agreements. However, there are a large number of countries with whom India has not inked any social security agreements. Therefore, workers from these countries are required to subscribe EPFO schemes and sometime they make such mandatory contributions in their country as well.
Star wrestler Babita Phogat confirmed that her sister Geeta and their father Mahavir will be attending the celebrations.

Chandigarh: Superstar Aamir Khan will turn 52 on Tuesday and has invited the Haryana-based Phogat family, on whom his film 'Dangal' is based, to attend the celebrations in Mumbai.

"Yes, we have been invited and all of us are going," champion wrestler Babita Phogat told PTI over phone.

Babita said she, along with her sister Geeta and their father Mahavir Phogat, is among those who have been invited and will be attending Aamir's birthday function.

"We are all excited to attend Aamir ji's birthday event," she said.

'Dangal', which released last December, is based on the life of wrestlers Geeta, Babita and their father Mahavir.

Aamir, who essayed the role of the wrestling family patriarch Mahavir Singh Phogat, had earlier said his main motive was to make the audience aware of the struggles and achievements of the Phogat sisters.

The Bollywood superstar had also attended Geeta Phogat's wedding in her native Balali village in Bhiwani last year.

Prominent wrestlers, politicians and a large number of local residents from Bhiwani had also attended the wedding.
Shruti had earlier dated Rang De Basanti actor Siddharth, and has been linked with Dhanush and Ranbir Kapoor in the past.

Last month, quite close to Valentines Day, Shruti Haasan was spotted with a mystery guy at the airport, and rumour mills are rife that hes Michael Corsale, the actress alleged boyfriend. The couple is reportedly dating for three months now and the two first met in London, where a common friend introduced them.

However, it looks like Shrutis alleged affair isnt going down well with dad Kamal Haasan. Kamal is a bit worried about his daughter roaming with her boyfriend in public, reveals a source. Hes concerned with the kind of stories coming out in the press these days, which made him think this is maligning their reputation. Kamal has also spoken to Shruti regarding this, recently.

A while ago, a source had revealed that Michael had come down to Mumbai to spend some time with Shruti. Hes a London-based Italian and is a theatre actor. He flew down to Mumbai to visit Shruti, who was shooting for her film Behen Hogi Teri, opposite Rajkummar Rao. Shruti spent some quality time with him, moving around in the city, before he left for London.

Shruti had earlier dated Rang De Basanti actor Siddharth, and has been linked with Dhanush and Ranbir Kapoor in the past.
The actor says he would like to experiment by doing something different when he can.

Rajat Tokas, who has gained stardom thanks to his larger-than-life historical roles, seems to be getting stereotyped into them. The actor says he would like to experiment by doing something different when he can.

Rajat is currently seen as Chandragupta Maurya, romancing Nandani, played by Shweta Basu Prasad in Chandra Nandani. And he seems to have found a unique way to try his hand at comedy, even in his serious avatar as the Mauryan king. Apparently, the light-hearted scenes between the two actors are providing Rajat with ample opportunity to try comedy.

Says Rajat, I completely enjoy the scenes between Chandra and Nandani. I think theyre quite entertaining for the audience, and have a charm of their own. They also provide me an opportunity to showcase something different. It presents me in a new light too. After all, it gets monotonous to be serious all the time.

The actor was also recently spotted in Jaipur, reminiscing his early days in the industry, where he shot for his first role at the Amer Fort. In fact, when he was at the Birla Temple with his wife seeking blessings, he was mobbed by fans, who called him by the names of his characters. Shweta too accompanied him.
As we enter the middle of March, Albanys notoriously secretive budget negotiations will gain momentum during the coming weeks. The governor presented his $152.3 billion proposal in January. Now the Assembly and Senate majorities are poised to release their respective spending plans in the near future. If past years are any indication, all talks will take place behind closed doors, with little or no information on how billions of public dollars will be spent.

PROPOSALS THAT WORK FOR ALL NEW YORKERS

The budget process shouldnt be a race for media headlines or political pandering. Building the states annual fiscal plan should maintain a sharp focus on the issues affecting the lives of everyday New Yorkers. As a long list of proposals are considered, here are the priority issues that must be addressed by the April 1 deadline:

Take Care of Direct Care Workers - It is unconscionable that direct-care professionals have been forced to beg the governor for a living wage, but their calls must be answered soon. The men and women who care for people with disabilities were placed at a financial disadvantage by the governors decision to give fast-food workers a $15/hour minimum wage. Without help, the industry faces a workforce crisis it may not recover from, and our disability community will lose life-saving programs and services.

Fix the STAR Program (Again) - The STAR Program started as an idea in the Assembly Minority and has become one of New Yorks most reliable and effective ways to provide property-tax relief. Last year, Albany inexplicably changed the program for new homeowners from a tax exemption to a tax credit. The results have been disastrous. Instead of getting a tax break up front, individuals have been forced to wait for checks that have been delayed, inaccurate, or havent arrived at all. Its time to go back to the original program.

Make College Affordable for Everyone - The governors free college plan isnt free at all, and targets only a fraction of New Yorks total student population. Students and families struggling with college costs would receive much more help from the Assembly Minoritys plan. Our proposal modernizes the states Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) by increasing eligibility and grant awards; it offers a taxable income reduction on student loans; and it allows graduate students to receive tuition relief.

Recognize that Local Roads Matter - With some of the oldest infrastructure in the nation, many localities face financial and logistical challenges maintaining their roads and bridges. Our families, communities and businesses need reliable highways and bridges. The final state budget must provide greater resources than whats been proposed to the Consolidated Local Street & Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS).

Reinforce a Commitment to Education - We must ensure our children have a first-class education and ample funding for our school districts. Todays students are tomorrows CEOs, entrepreneurs and manufacturers. The final state budget should increase school aid over what the governor has proposed. The Foundation Aid formula must be predictable and updated to reflect the actual needs of school districts and to be certain that schools receive their fair share.

Support Local Libraries - The governor is proposing to cut library funding by $4 million and capital funding by $5 million. Libraries have regularly been shortchanged in state budget proposals, despite their status as indispensable community resources. These cuts are unwarranted, and our Conference will fight to restore library funding as we prepare the upcoming budget.

Reduce Property Taxes Through Mandate Relief - The governor believes New Yorks property taxes are so high for two reasons: there are 10,000 local governments, and local officials are reluctant to find cost-cutting efficiencies. Hes wrong on both. Property taxes are driven almost exclusively by unfunded mandates. When a city, town or village is forced to spend money to implement a program required by Albany, costs are passed on in the form of property taxes. Reduce mandates and you will reduce property taxes.

New York must get back to investing in the hard-working taxpayers who drive its economy. For too long, the enacted budgets have danced around true reform and left many still searching for policies that make New York more affordable and relieve financial pressures that seem to mount each year. The Assembly Minority Conference will continue to fight for programs and policies aimed at improving New York from the ground up.

What do you think? I want to hear from you. Send me your feedback, suggestions and ideas regarding this or any other issue facing New York State. You can always contact my district office at (315) 781-2030, email me at kolbb@nyassembly.gov, find me by searching for Assemblyman Brian Kolb on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter.
The bill is now expected to receive Royal Assent from Queen Elizabeth II to become a law.

London: Britain's Parliament has passed the 'Brexit bill' paving the way for Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger negotiations for the UK's exit from the European Union.

The House of Commons yesterday rejected amendments by the House of Lords, calling on the government to protect the status of EU nationals within three months of the start of Brexit talks, by 335 votes to 287. They also dismissed calls for Parliament to have a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal by 331 to 286 votes.

This meant that the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed the House of Commons without any changes.

The bill was then passed unamended by the House of Lords after peers voted by 274 votes to 118 not to challenge the Commons again over the issue of whether Parliament should have a veto on the terms of exit.

The House of Lords had already agreed not to reinsert guarantees over the status of EU residents in the UK back into the bill after they were rejected by MPs.

The bill is now expected to receive Royal Assent from Queen Elizabeth II to become a law.

May could then theoretically trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty any time this week, but indications are that she is unlikely to trigger the negotiations until the end of this month.

Opposition Labour party had earlier urged May to consider keeping the "really important" Lords amendments.

"The issue of the rights of EU nationals to remain here is a decent human one and part of our economic success or not," said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The bill was passed even as Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she will be seeking the Parliament's permission to hold a referendum on Scotland's independence from the UK, a move described as "divisive" by Downing Street.

Sturgeon wants this referendum to be held between the second half of 2018 and first half of 2019 for Scotland to be able to have a say over its relationship with the European Union (EU) post-Brexit.

If it gets parliamentary approval, this will be the second such Scottish independence referendum after 2014, when the region had voted to remain part of the UK.

Britain's Brexit Secretary David Davis had called on Parliament over the weekend to not block the bill any longer or "tie the prime minister's hands" over Parliament getting a final vote on the deal and on EU citizens' rights in the UK.

Ahead of the Commons vote, the heads of 35 Oxford University colleges had pleaded with MPs to allow European Union citizens the right to stay after Brexit.

In a letter to The Times, signed by Louise Richardson, the Oxford vice-chancellor, and the heads of all but three of the colleges, the academics dismiss as insufficient the indications by ministers that European citizens already resident in Britain were likely to be allowed to stay.

May has committed to triggering Article 50 by the end of March.
Goa Governor Mridula Sinha had invited Manohar Parrikar to form the government, which led the Congress to approach the apex court.

New Delhi: Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday lashed out at the Congress, saying that the grand old party complains too much.

In a hard-hitting Facebook post, the Finance Minister, who now has additional charge of Defence, said there are several precedents which support the decision of the Goa Governor to invite BJP to form the government in the state despite winning less seats than the Congress.

In a post which began with, The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of stealing the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha. What are the facts? Jaitley outlined the reasons why Sinha was justified in inviting BJP, with 13 seats, to form the government with the help of allies, instead of Congress, which had won 17 seats in the 40-member legislature.

He pointed out several instances in the past, when Governors had invited the Congress, in alliance with other parties, to form the government despite BJP or another party winning more seats in a hung Assembly of a particular state.

He even quoted former President KR Narayanan, who had invited Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP to form the government at the Centre in 1998.

Ridiculing the Congress, Jaitley said the party was complaining and had even approached the Supreme Court, despite not even staking claim before the Governor to form a government.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuked the Congress in response to its petition challenging Manohar Parrikars appointment as Goa CM, saying the party should have approached the Governor with numbers, instead of the apex court. However, it shortened the time available to Parrikar to prove his majority on the floor of the House, from 15 days to 2 days.

In later developments, Goa BJP chief Vinay Tendulkar said that his party would inform the Goa Governor that it could prove majority on the floor of the House tomorrow itself.

Meanwhile, Goa Congress chief Luinzinho Falero appealed to the regional parties to support the Congress. Sonia ji is a rare example of sacrifice in the democratic world. She had a chance to be PM twice but she chose Dr Singh. So we have told all like minded MLAs and parties that we are ready to sacrifice, please join us, he said.

The Congress also met Governor Mridula Sinha and asked her to postpone the swearing-in of Parrikar, which is scheduled for 5 pm today.
BJP finished as the second largest party in Manipur polls, winning 21 of the 60 seats as against Congress' 28, but has allies on its side.

Imphal: Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla on Tuesday invited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the government in the North Eastern state.

The BJP on Monday selected N Biren Singh as their CM choice for Manipur.

Like Goa, the BJP finished as the second largest party in Manipur Assembly polls, winning 21 of the 60 seats as against Congress' 28. However, the Naga People's Front (NPF), the National People's Party (NPP), the Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) and 1 rebel Congress MLA extended support to the BJP, taking their tally to 32.

CM Okram Ibobi Singh resigned on Monday after showing initial reluctance to do so. He had approached Heptulla with the names of 4 NPP MLAs who he claimed supported the Congress. However, Heptullah asked for the MLAs themselves to be paraded before her, and later, the NPP chief said the note shown by Singh to Heptulla was 'fake'.

The Congress has claimed that BJP's act of staking claim in Manipur and Goa was 'murder of democracy', a charge refuted by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in a hard-hitting post on Facebook on Tuesday.
Will be sworn in as chief minister today; Jaitley to take over as Defence Minister.

New Delhi: With Manohar Parrikar headed back to Goa as the next chief minister, finance minister Arun Jaitley has taken the additional charge of defence minister. Rashtrapati Bhavan said that President Pranab Mukherjee had accepted Mr Parrikars resignation with immediate effect. Mr Parrikar submitted his resignation after the BJP staked claim to form an alliance government in Goa. He will be sworn in as the chief minister of Goa tomorrow heading the BJP-led ministry, which has the support of regional outfits and Independents. Around eight MLAs would take oath as ministers today along with Mr Parrikar.

A statement from the Presidents office said: Further as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Mr Arun Jaitley, cabinet minister, shall be assigned the charge of the Ministry of Defence, in addition to his existing portfolios. This is the second time that Mr Jaitley is holding the additional portfolio of Defence Ministry during the present NDA government. He was in charge of the ministry earlier from May 26 to November 9 in 2014. BJPs Goa unit president Vinay Tendulkar said that around eight to nine ministers including two each from the Goa Forward Party and the Maharashta Gomantak Party and two independents will be sworn in. Two or three ministers from BJP (including Mr Parrikar) too will take the oath. Among the BJP legislators, (current) deputy CM Francis DSouza and another legislator whose name would be announced on Tuesday morning will be sworn in, he said.

Mr Tendulkar, however, added that from the BJP only Mr Parrikar and Mr DSouza might be sworn in. That possibility cannot be ruled out, he said. Three or four ministerial berths would be filled in the cabinet expansion later, Mr Tendulkar said. Governor Mridula Sinha has invited Mr Parrikar to form the government after he produced letter of support of 21 MLAs, though the BJP finished as the second-largest party behind the Congress, bagging merely 13 seats against 17 of the Congress. Mr Parrikar was accompanied by GFP leader Vijai Sardesai and MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar when he met Governor Sinha and staked the claim to form the government. BJP president Amit Shah, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and his cabinet colleague Nitin Gadkari would be present at the swearing-in ceremony at Raj Bhavan, said Mr Tendulkar.
The demonetisation of high value currency notes was announced on November 8, 2016.

All limits placed on cash withdrawals from savings bank account post demonetisation of high denomination currency notes ended on Monday. (Photo: AP)

Mumbai: All limits placed on cash withdrawals from savings bank account post demonetisation of high denomination currency notes ended on Monday.

Ever since the government announced a surprise ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes constituting 86.9 per cent of the value of total currency in circulation and placed caps on daily and weekly withdrawal limits, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been relaxing these restrictions in phases taking into account the pace of remonetisation.

Initially, the Reserve Bank removed restriction on cash withdrawal limit from current, cash credit and overdraft accounts effective January 31, 2017. However, the limits on cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts remained in place.

After reviewing the progress of remonetisation, RBI in its last monetary policy meeting held on February 8, 2017 decided to completely remove the restrictions on cash withdrawal limit from savings bank account in two phases.

Accordingly, customers were allowed to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week from their savings bank account starting February 20, 2017 from an earlier limit of Rs 24,000 per week. Effective March 13, 2017, there will be no limits on cash withdrawals from Savings Bank accounts, RBI said.

The demonetisation of high value currency notes was announced on November 8, 2016 with an aim to battle corruption, black money, counterfeit currency, terror financing and greater digitisation of the economy. In its preliminary assessment of the macro-economic impact of demonetisation, the RBI said the note ban had impacted various sectors in varying degrees, but the adverse impact was transient and felt mainly in November and December 2016.

The impact moderated significantly in January 2017 and dissipated by and large by mid-February, reflecting the fast pace of remonetisation. The latest CSO estimates suggest that the impact of demonetisation on gross value added growth was modest, the RBI said in a report released last week.
But Gandhi also accused BJP of undermining democracy through financial power' by staking claim to form governments in Goa and Manipur.

New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, whose party lost the Uttar Pradesh elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party winning just 7 seats, on Tuesday said that structural changes are needed in the Congress.

Speaking to reporters, Gandhi also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of undermining democracy through financial power and money by staking claim to form governments in Goa and Manipur despite coming second-best.

While Congress won 17 seats in Goa as against BJPs 13, it won 28 seats in Manipur as opposed to BJPs 21.

On the outcome of the UP elections, Rahul congratulated the BJP, but added that there were multiple reasons for the victory, one of which was polarisation.

"We are in Opposition. You have ups and downs. We had a little down in UP, its fine. We accept that," he added about the Congress dismal performance in the Hindi heartland.

Congress on Monday approached the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing into the appointment of former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa by Governor Mridula Sinha. On Tuesday, the apex court ruled that Parrikars swearing-in could proceed as planned, but he would have to prove majority on the floor of the House in 2 days instead of 15.

Reacting to the apex court verdict, Congress leader Digvijay Singh claimed it was a great victory for us.
India aims to reduce TB mortality by 90 per cent by 2035.

The first phase will focus on the efficacy study of rifampicin and piperine as compared to the standard rifampicin therapy in newly diagnosed sputum positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients as an adjuvant to the standard TB therapy. (Representational Image)

Chennai: Amidst mounting international pressure to bring down the Tuberculosis (TB) burden in the country, the Indian Council for Medical Research has decided to conduct clinical trials for evaluating current vaccines and drugs.

As India is part of World Health Organisations (WHO) Global End TB Strategy, it is required to have a 90 per cent reduction in TB incidence and mortality by 2035. With this in mind, ICMR has roped in government hospitals, medical colleges, research institutes and practitioners to ensure the trials are conducted at a fast pace.

Stating that such a reduction cannot be achieved with only the existing tools and strategies of the government, a senior ICMR official in a recent report had said that there is a strong need to undertake active research activities so as to identify newer anti-tuberculosis treatment drug regimes, evaluate new drugs, test TB vaccines, and validate new diagnostics tools. The trials, which are expected to begin soon.

The first phase will focus on the efficacy study of rifampicin and piperine as compared to the standard rifampicin therapy in newly diagnosed sputum positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients as an adjuvant to the standard TB therapy. The second phase will evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and anti-bacterial activity of high dose rifampicin when given with other anti-TB drugs in adults with newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis, said an ICMR official adding that the third phase will assess the efficacy and safety of delamanid in a combination with bedaquiline, linezolid and clofazimine in participants with XDR-TB.

"These trials in which we are trying to alter the course of samples, may take some time coming up. Our aim is to see if the increased dosage is more effective than the regular ones," said Dr Mohan Natarajan, head of the cldnic Department, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai.

Stating that TB Trials Consortium formed for conducting research will ensure that the trials go on faster, he said that the various institutes that have been roped in for the cause would work towards ensuring the same.

"It is a very good initiative by ICMR. Involving all stakeholders if he fight against TB was essentially the need of the hour," said a government hospital doctor.
Two right-wing Hindu Jagaran Vedike activists arrested.

Yogesh Master was attacked by eight or nine persons who smeared his face with black ink and fled.

Bengaluru: Davangere police on Monday arrested two people in connection with the blackening of the face of a controversial writer, Yogesh Master, at a function held in Davangere on Sunday. The arrested, Shivaprakash and Chetan, reportedly belong to the right wing Hindu Jagaran Vedike.

The incident occurred when Mr Master was having tea at a road-side shop near Bapuji Dental College, after participating in the 82nd birth anniversary of noted Kannada writer and journalist P. Lankesh. The function was organised by Gowri Lankesh Patrike at Kuvempu Kannada Bhavan.

The two accused came on a two-wheeler and smeared Mr Yogeshs face with the black paint for defaming the Hindu gods and goddesses in his novels.

Observers saw a political angle in the incident, and were apprehensive that such incidents would continue in the run-up to the state Assembly elections to help right-wing parties gain political mileage.

This triggered a snap protest by progressive writers and activists condemning the attack. Based on the complaint, the Badavane police had registered a case and arrested the culprits on Monday.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah expressed shock over the incident and said that instructions had been given to the Davangere police to take stern action against the accused. The attack was against the freedom of expression and the government would not tolerate it, he said.

After the incident, Mr Master claimed that the two accused shouted Jai Sri Ram before attacking him. His Kannada novel, Dhundi Aranyakanobba Ganapathiyade Kathe, had evoked widespread protests across the state four years ago, for portraying Lord Ganesh in bad light.
Norms on how to treat MLAs who defect even before the House is formed are not clear.

BJP supporters celebrate the party's victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa elections in Guwahati. (Photo: PTI)

Hyderabad: The Constitution does not have clear guidelines on who the President at the Centre or the Governor in a state must invite to form the government in the event of a hung House, making it a tricky affair. The Constitution also does not specify norms on how to treat newly-elected legislators who defect even before the House is formed.

Both these issues have come into the limelight following the defection of two new legislators, and the Governors in Goa and Manipur inviting the BJP, which was not the largest party, to form government.

The then President R. Venkataraman had created a precedent by inviting the Congress  the single largest party after the 1989 elections  on two occasions before inviting V.P. Singh and, when his government fell, Chandrasekhar to form the government.

Only when Rajiv Gandhi rejected the offers both the times did Venkataraman invite V.P. Singh and Chandrasekhar.

When President Shankar Dayal Sharma followed the precedent in 1996 by inviting Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the government, the Congress and non-BJP leaders criticised him. They said Sharma had not verified the numbers to ensure stability of the government before inviting Mr Vajpayee.

President K.R. Narayanan started exploring an alternative to ensure stability by insisting that he be shown the numbers.

In Goa and Manipur, the Congress is criticising the Governors for not inviting its leaders though it emerged as the largest party in the two states.

The issue was discussed by the Constituent Assembly when the Constitution was being drafted to bring specific guidelines for the President and Governors on the matter.

But chairman B.R. Ambedkar said there should be no such guidelines, and the draft note was dropped.

After more than 70 years of framing the worlds largest written Constitution  that has been amended more than 100 times  there are still no specific guidelines for the heads of state.

Even on the anti-defection law, where the Speaker decides on defections, there are no specific provisions made out on how long the Presiding Officer can sit on a ruling.

The defection of Mr Shyam Kumar Singh of the Congress and Mr Robindro Singh of the Trinamul to the BJP in Manipur before the House was formally formed is being criticised.

The anti-defection law is silent on when it comes into effect  from the time the legislator is elected or after the legislator takes oath in the Assembly as member of the House that it is constituted by the Governor. There are arguments supporting both sides.

Section 2(1)(A) of the anti-defection law, 1985 mere states that if a member of a political party voluntarily gives up his membership, he is liable for action.

This could mean that a candidate, who takes his oath on the Constitution at the time of filing his nomination papers subscribing his affiliation to a particular party, is bound by this Section after getting elected as legislator.

This has to be decided by the Speaker, who belongs to the ruling party and normally toes the line of the party bosses in such issues.
The court told Congress that instead of putting forth their arguments before the court, the party should have done so before the Governor.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the swearing in of BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa and ordered a floor test on March 16.

A bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar directed that the Assembly session be called at 11 AM on March 16 and made it clear that the only business of the House would be the holding of floor test after swearing in of the members.

The bench also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and RK Agrawal directed that all pre-requisites for holding the floor test be completed by tomorrow including the Election Commission related formalities.

The apex court disposed of the petition of Congress, challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint Parrikar as CM, and said all issues raised in it can be resolved by a simple direction of holding the floor test.

The bench also requested the Governor to summon the House for conducting the floor test.

It said Congress has failed to come out with affidavits of any elected MLAs of two regional parties, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP), or the independents indicating support to it.

It also took on record a letter showing support of three members of MGP, three of GFP and two independents to BJP taking the party's strength to 21 in the House of 40.

During the hearing, the bench said, "You (Congress) don't have the numbers and that is why you did not claim to form government. You have not demonstrated before the Governor that the number is in your favour."

The court told the Congress that instead of putting forth their arguments before the court, the party should have done so before the Governor.

The bench also said that the pleadings of the Congress leader were not proper as they have not impleaded Manohar Parrikar, who has been invited to form the government, as a necessary party.

"You (Congress) know his name (Parrikar). He has been the Defence Minister of the country", the bench said and added "you don't even implead the CM. You don't have the affidavit of the members who are supporting you. So sensitive the matter is and you don't do anything."

The bench refused the plea of Goa Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Chandrakant Kavlekar whose counsel and senior advocate Abhishek Mani Singhvi wanted a composite floor test before the oath taking of Parrikar as CM.
Amitav Ghosh, one of the worlds foremost intellects and writers, will speak at Northern Arizona University about the need to be more inclusive when communicating about a warming planet.

Ghosh examines societys inability to grasp the scale and violence of climate change at the level of literature, history and politics. The free, public lecture: War, Race and Empire in the Anthropocene: Some Occluded Aspects of Climate Change is from 4-6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, in the NAU International Pavilion.

Ghoshs talk is based on his latest book on global warming, "The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable," which explores contemporary fictions failure to address the realities of climate change. Ghosh suggests other frameworks can be used to address the problem of a warming climate.

Ghoshs fiction and nonfiction work are prescribed in many courses across NAU. He has won major awards for his fiction and nonfiction writing, including being twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Award.

Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Ghoshs essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New Republic and The New York Times. He has taught in many universities in India and the USA, including Delhi University, Columbia, Queens College and Harvard.

Ghosh's talk is sponsored by NAU Asian Studies and will include a question and answer session and a book signing. Community members can register and download a designated parking pass to this event by going to nau.edu/guest.

Author event to feature Allison Gruber

Flagstaff author Allison Gruber will share selections from her books at the next Author Series event at the Flagstaff Public Library. Gruber will read from the autobiographical essays in "You're Not Edith," and from her forthcoming collection, "Transference," Tuesday, March 21, from 7-8 p.m. at the downtown library, 300 W. Aspen Ave. Gruber will discuss craft, navigating the hazy line between memory and fact and the role of identity politics in literature.

Gruber is an essayist and an educator whose first book, "Youre Not Edith," received praise from Booklist, Publishers Weekly, NewPages and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Pithead Chapel, The Hairpin, Foliate Oak, The Literary Review and Gravel Magazine, among others.

Due to subject matter, this event may not be suitable for people under the age of 14.

For more information about this free event, call 213-2331 or visit flagstaffpubliclibrary.org.
In conversation with US diplomat Susan Tuller, Deputy Consular Chief in Chennai on her learning whilst living and working in 12 countries.

Q Working in an Indian environment, how has the experience been?

My husband and I travelled here 20 years ago and have always dreamt of coming back. Living and working here has exceeded expectations  I am continually impressed by how kind people are in Chennai and how much Indians value education and professional success.

Q As a mother of two, how do you juggle work and family? Advice to your children in a scenario rife with racist overtones?

I prioritise family. I love my career and I work hard to be successful but I have never lost sight of what is most important  my family. Our children have grown up in six different countries. They have always been outsiders  they look different, speak a different language, have a different culture than almost everyone else they know. This has allowed them to grow up understanding that skin colour, religion, culture, language do not make people different or unequal. They realise that racism exists but they are part of the generation that doesnt see race. They will be part of the generation that changes the world in this regard.

Q What would you say to young girls aspiring to be leaders?

My advice is exactly what I tell my own daughter: Never let anyone tell you that you cant do something. You are strong, worthy, smart, creative, and powerful. Keep fighting until you crash through all the glass ceilings. The only person who can stop you from achieving your dreams is you.

Q The biggest learning?

I have lived in 12 countries (and the US) and travelled to many. What I am continually struck by is how much people are the same everywhere. We all want the same things  health, happiness, safety, and success for those we love. We want peace, stability, and prosperity for our homeland. Adjusting to new cultures is exciting and challenging, as long as you respect differences and search for similarities between people and cultures, fitting in becomes easy.

Q As Deputy Chief of Mission in Mbabane, Swaziland and Cotonou, Benin, your memories?

In Swaziland, the US government was engaged in helping the Swazi Government fight HIV/AIDS; in Benin, the government was working to combat malaria. We had many programmes to support women and girls economically and socially, and promote human rights of the LGBT community. Human rights and gender equality are core American values and supporting these initiatives was incredibly rewarding.

Q How was college life, and, now, how have you made a difference?

I studied international relations and political science as an undergraduate and then received a Masters of Public Health specialising in international health. Being part of the US diplomatic corps allows me to see the real difference that US policy and assistance makes in peoples lives. Ive seen the impact while visiting small USG-funded projects to help women and children in rural African villages, in Haiti, when USG-funded election observations helped ensure the safety of voters. Or when we issued a visa for a baby orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland to receive medical treatment in the US after suffering severe burns from neglect.

Q Your favourite books?

The ones that influenced me to choose my nomadic lifestyle would be anything by Paul Theroux, Barbara Kingsolver, and Mortiz Thomsen. These authors made me want to know the world on a deeper level.

Q What it means to be a leader and a women in todays world?

A leader is someone who is tolerant, empathetic, respectful, inclusive, and supportive. A leader is judged by the success of those they lead not by their own success. Women all over the world, now more than ever, have a responsibility to fight for leadership positions, not only to set an example of what a leader is and looks like for the next generation, but also to allow the world to benefit from their strength, intelligence, grace, and compassion.
It would ensure systematic culling of chicken, scientific disposal of animal waste.

The Deonar abattoir has the facility to slaughter animals like buffaloes and goats but not chicken.

Mumbai: If the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has its way, then Mumbai will have its first slaughterhouse for chickens. Currently, the civic body is planning to provide land for the project in citys new Development Plan (DP).

Former corporator Trishna Vishwasrao from Shiv Sena had suggested that the BMC should set up a slaughterhouse for chickens so that Mumbaikars get fresh and clean chicken meat. The BMC is planning to make a separate reservation for it in the new DP, said civic officials.

According to officials, the issue of setting up a chicken slaughterhouse was discussed in a meeting held in August 2016, which was attended by the general manager of Deonar Abattoir and DP officials.

Following this, the top civic officials have asked the DP officials to provide a land in the DP 2034 for setting up the said slaughterhouse near the city limits.

The slaughterhouse would ensure systematic culling of chicken, scientific disposal of animal waste and pollution control too, the officials said.

The Deonar abattoir has the facility to slaughter animals like buffaloes, bulls, goats, sheep and boars, but not chicken.

Looking at the lack of space at the Deonar abattoir, it would be appropriate to set up a new slaughterhouse for chickens in the city. The plan is to construct it near one of the octroi nakas outside the city, said a senior civic official.

In a notice of motion, Vishwasrao had suggested that chickens should be sold in the city only after municipal veterinary experts examine them at the abattoir. Since chickens are not examined, there is a possibility of diseases like swine flu spreading in the city, she said.

She had also cited hygiene as another important point. Animal wastes like blood, intestines, feathers and hair are also thrown into gutters, making it a serious hygiene issue. If chickens are slaughtered at the abattoir, Mumbaikars will get fresh and clean meat. She had also suggested how it would further add municipal revenues through other products, like the powder made from chicken bones.
Ms Shah feels that driving the taxi has been her way to financial freedom.

Mumbai: That sometimes you can find inspiration in the most unlikeliest of places might be a cliche adage, but it does stand true. Once such inspirational story is that of a Sandeep Dobe. Sandeep, who was lost at Dadar station at the age of seven during his parents visit to Mumbai, is today a man of his own ever since he began providing driving services, under cab aggregators, in the city two years ago.

Mr Dobe comes off a little hesitant when he starts talking about his journey to what he calls a better life, but soon digs into his memories of a 7-year-old boy trying to survive in the city. I dont exactly remember the moment my parents lost me in the crowd at Dadar, but I remember the struggle that followed. I worked as a rag picker and sold the rags for scrap, to buy Wada pav from the money earned. This continued for a few months until one day some people from Don Bosco took me to their shelter, said Mr Dobe.

Mr Dobe stayed at Don Bosco until the age of 18 and did odd jobs at hotels, worked as a mechanic and driver; switching between such jobs.

After almost two-years of struggle Mr Dobe today owns five cars and drives OLA too, of which he has leased three to his friends who are one of the few to address Mr Dobe as Sandy Victor, the name by which he was known at the orphanage.

Asif Hamid Syed (33) is another example of a sustained competitor. Mr Syed has been driving an app-based taxi since a year and says it is a dignified source of income for someone with his disability wherein his right arm has not grown to the normal length. Since I had the disability and we (family) were from an economically weak background, I began working with my father in a fire extinguisher factory, which was very dangerous. So for me working as a driver is a very dignified and a safe job.

On the other hand, Kanchi Shah (30), an engineering graduate said that her husband Punit Chadha had initially bought a car with the intent of hiring a driver but then after they couldnt find one Ms Shah decided to go ahead and drive the vehicle herself. She says, I work in event management and I am left with a lot of time after work, so I began driving the car and put it to use.

Ms Shah feels that driving the taxi has been her way to financial freedom. When asked what was the most memorable moment so far while driving, she said, I think the most funniest situation was when a man got into my cab, he didnt say anything when he saw me at the wheel but after a few minutes he offered to drive the car instead. Well, Ms Shah, Mr Syed and Mr Dobe have certainly broken free from the barriers of doubt and fear, gearing head-on into the world of liberation, bravery and perseverance.
The police is still to ascertain the reason behind the murder and identity of the murders.

Mumbai: An unidentified man was shot dead in a narrow bylane of Dharavi on Monday noon, following which a murder case was registered against an unknown person. The incident took place at around 12.50 pm in a dark alley and officials said it was not possible for more than one person to pass from there at the same time. Nothing was found on the deceased, and hence his identity is yet to be established. The deceased was shot twice with a country-made weapon. The police is still to ascertain the reason behind the murder and identity of the murders.

The alley is very dark even during the day there is no easy access to the lane. It is surprising that neither a phone nor anything else was found on the deceased person, said Vinay Rathod, deputy commissioner of police (detection, crime branch). So far, no witness has come forward to give details about how the deceased was attacked. The police suspect that it could be a planned murder, in which the spot was carefully chosen, and all the victims belongings were taken away to deny any leads.

For the deceaseds identification, the police is scouring through missing persons complaints across the city. The police said that there was no clarity even about the assailants or the motive behind the attack. The investigation has revealed that the deceased was not a resident of Dharavi. The victim, in his thirties, was passing through the narrow bylane of Dharavi, when he was allegedly shot at, twice.

With one of the bullets found stuck in the wall, we suspect that he ducked when he was shot at and the second shot hit him in the head. Before anybody could reach into the narrow lane, the assailants fled the scene and the victim succumbed to his injuries, said a crime branch officer.
The BJP victory might well be the beginning of the partys problems for 2019.

On the eve of counting, those of us who are diehard Congress followers  and currently participants in the gatbandhan (alliance) in Uttar Pradesh  convinced ourselves that the pollsters on TV had got it wrong, as they did on the eve of the Bihar results last year.

To tell the truth I had expected a hung Assembly with the BJP possibly a little ahead but unable to form the government because Mayawati wouldnt extend her support. The BSP ticket distribution was a clear indication that she was beginning to worry about the need to fortify her votebank of dalit support with a steadfast allegiance of Muslims.

Needless to say, the actual results have come as a shock! BJP spokespersons attribute the result in UP to the sustained popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, though they sheepishly explain away Punjab as the helplessness of a junior partner.

Although in financial real terms and an inevitable impact on our emerging economy, demonetisation is a disaster waiting to happen, it apparently had no adverse impact in rural UP or amongst the urban communities that were the worst affected. As in the past, and perhaps even more so this time, caste combinations dealt the trump card although the size of the winning vote (43 per cent) might camouflage it somewhat.

It seems the BJP  with its concentration on the non-Yadav OBC grouping  had the arithmetic right. In the circumstances one would have expected the BJP to forfeit its traditional upper caste support base that has steadily grown at the cost of the Congress Party. But herein lies the rub. Who was in a position to pick up this vote?

The Congress, on its own, was ideally suited to claw back what was once a part of its brahmin-Muslim-dalit combine but the instant cash and carry alliance with the Yadav/OBC-dominated SP brought its own confusion, with not enough time to iron out the creases. One has heard of the dangers of backseat driving imposing severe constraints on the person at the wheel responding to emergencies and unexpected events. Equally the BSP, in the past having consciously worked on mass-scale brahmin support, almost certainly confused the leading upper caste even further with its public chest-thumping on giving an unprecedented number of seats to Muslim candidates.

This must have been music to the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj, with Mr Modi openly joining in the tandav with his unbecoming-of-PM kabristan versus shamshan remarks. This, as indeed the idiom and style of the final days Mr Modi spent in Varanasi, gave the BJP an extra edge. Curiously long before any polarisation happened, the whisper campaign of polarisation, with some help from the obliging electronic media, queered the pitch for the partnership of two young leaders. Appealing to the right-wing Hindu fundamentalists, sometimes in the teeth of the recent Supreme Court judgment and at the same time dexterously combining the non-Yadav OBCs and upper castes, the BJP sealed its victory.

Even so, after Muzaffarnagar, one expected the BSP to do better, just as one expected Ajit Singhs Rashtriya Lok Dal to forge ahead in Harit Pradesh (western UP). But even here the bottom seems to have collapsed under both parties. The much-proclaimed silent voter decided to take the silence to the voting machine. For a one-state party like the BSP, once described by the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao as the miracle of Indian democracy, and having lost the last election this round, it was crucial for the BSP to preserve its image and stature. But it seems that pushing the BSP down and dragging away some of its dalit votes was a necessity for the BJP, particularly once the BSP began decrying any suggestion that, in the end, they would either give or take support from the BJP. No wonder then that the BSP had to talk of EVM manipulation, half-heartedly echoed by other parties as well.

A factor little talked about by commentators is the enormous damage done by the internal SP battle. Despite attempts to cover up the deep cracks that appeared even as the election schedule was announced by the Election Commission, the feel-good factor did not return, not to mention sporadic press reports and interviews by protagonists on both sides of the Mulayam Singh Yadav family, undoubtedly egged on by the proverbial outsiders! Close analysis will tell the whole story but clearly the young chief minister was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. The fact that he chose to take the plunge into troubled waters should not be counted as a mistake. He is young and hopefully will continue to keep his party together; he will certainly live through the political storm to fight another day. But, of course, both for him, as indeed for the Congress vice-president, it might be important to preserve the investment in the not-so-successful alliance; indeed, refurbish and strengthen it to make up the loss in 2019. Any alternative might lead to writing off much courage, endeavour and locked potential. But of course the bruised warriors of the Congress and SP will need fortitude, forbearance, futuristic vision and, most important, need to shun myopia if they go beyond the shock of the battering in the 2017 polls.

On the other hand, the BJP victory might well be the beginning of the partys problems for 2019. Their leaders talent at polarisation on grounds of religion and identity might have to face genuine ideological polarisation; their talk of development might well be swept aside by demands for implementing the many absurd promises they made. They may well have won the battle of 2017 and lost the war of 2019.
One factor that worked in favour of the BJP in these elections was the popularity and image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

After the results of the recently-concluded Assembly elections in five states, several questions are being asked. Is this verdict an indication of approval of the policy of demonetisation? Should these results be interpreted as an endorsement of the policies pursued by the Narendra Modi government? More political questions are also being asked  Is the country moving towards a Congress-mukt Bharat? Is this an end to the Aam Aadmi Partys national expansion ambitions?

The BJPs massive victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand clearly indicates that the people did not object to the policy of demonetisation. However, it would be too early to conclude that the note ban got widespread approval across the five states where the elections were held.

The BJP registered a massive victory in two states, winning 325 seats with 39.7 per cent votes in Uttar Pradesh and winning 57 seats with massive 46.5 per cent votes in Uttarakhand, but it may be difficult to conclude that this victory is largely an endorsement of the policy of demonetisation.

An unconditional approval of the policy of demonetisation should have helped the BJP to win by a large margin in Goa and, at least, being able to increase its voteshare in Punjab. It did manage to make its presence felt in Manipur in a big way, getting the largest share of the popular vote, but it may not be attributed to voters support for demonetisation.

One factor that worked in favour of the BJP in these elections was the popularity and image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the enormous goodwill he commands and tremendous faith that the people have in him for development of the country. In fact, after demonetisation, one important image which Mr Modi has been able to add to these qualities is his commitment to work for the poor even at the cost of the rich, who are seen as corrupt and dishonest.

Along with his image of being honest and his commitment for development, this new addition appealed to voters in five states. The policy of demonetisation indirectly helped the BJP in consolidating support though this new pro-poor brand of Mr Modi.

The issues that were being raised by the BJP clearly indicate that the party was not trying to contest these elections on the basis of its achievements at the Centre. The elections were largely contested on local issues. This doesnt mean these results in any way indicate a rejection of policies of the Central government. But one should not forget such a victory of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh is also credited to a cleverly crafted social coalition of upper castes, non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav dalits who seemed to have voted for the party in large numbers, while it also attracted votes from other communities.

In Goa, though the party actually won fewer seats than the Congress, it was ahead of the Congress in terms of voteshare (BJP 32.5 per cent Congress 28.4 per cent). In Manipur, a state where the BJP had no presence in the 2012 elections, it managed to not only win 21 of the 60 Assembly seats, but left behind the Congress with regard to the popular vote (BJP 36.3 per cent, Congress 35.1 per cent).

It is only in Punjab that the voteshare of the BJP declined from seven per cent in 2012 to 5.4 per cent in the recent elections, where the Congress registered a landslide victory, winning 77 of the total 117 Assembly seats, though its voteshare declined from 40 per cent in 2012 to 38.5 per cent in these elections, much of which was cornered by the AAP. But with such a verdict, can we conclude that the country is moving towards a Congress-mukt Bharat  a dream which many BJP leaders want to fulfil?

In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress had been lying low. It made an attempt to revive itself by aligning with the Samajwadi Party, but failed miserably. They Congress lost Uttarakhand badly, but managed to win comfortably in Punjab.

In Manipur, while the BJPs performance was exceptional, the Congress, which failed to form a government for the fourth term, still managed to hold on to 15 years of anti-incumbency by emerging as the single-largest party in terms of seats.

Similarly, in Goa, while the BJP secured a higher voteshare vis-a- vis the Congress, in terms of seats, the Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 17 seats, the highest number of seats it has received in Goa after 1999. Though the Congress did not perform well in these elections, the overall situation of the Congress did not deteriorate further, and based on the verdict of the five states one can argue that there hasnt been any further movement on the BJPs pipedream of a Congress-mukt Bharat.

The AAP managed to perform much below its expectations, but by no means can its achievements be ignored. The party managed to win 20 Assembly seats, and emerged as the principal Opposition in the Punjab Assembly. The AAP managed to garner sizeable support, polled 24 per cent votes. For any new party this is a decent performance, it looks poor only if one compares it with the tall claims which several leaders of the party made time and again during the elections of not only winning but sweeping the polls in Punjab. The results of the Punjab Assembly elections could act as a dampener but it doesnt put a full stop to the AAPs plans to expand beyond Delhi. I think it is time for the leaders of the party to realise that a successful national expansion is possible only through hard work, and not merely by rhetoric.
Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators during the 18-day revolt.

Cairo: Hosni Mubarak, overthrown as president of Egypt in 2011 and the first leader to go on trial in the wake of the Arab Spring, will walk free this week for the first time in six years.

The 88-year-old was cleared of murder charges in February in his final court appearance, having stood trial on charges ranging from corruption to ordering the killing of some of the protesters who ended his 30-year rule. Mubarak was initially arrested in April 2011, two months after stepping down, and has since been in prison and military hospitals.

"He will go to his home in Heliopolis," Mubarak's lawyer Farid El Deeb said, referring to the Cairo neighbourhood where the main presidential palace from which Mubarak governed is also located. El Deeb said the ageing former president could be released on Tuesday or soon after.

Mubarak still had one more jail sentence to serve, for appropriating funds reserved for maintaining presidential palaces, but time he had spent in detention in connection with the murder charges was subtracted from it, judicial sources and the state news agency said.

Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators during the 18-day revolt. An appeals court ordered a retrial that culminated in 2014 in the case against Mubarak and his senior officials being dropped. An appeal by the public prosecution led to a final retrial by the Court of Cassation, the highest in the country, which acquitted him on March 2.

After the turmoil of the Arab Spring, former Tunisian President Ben Ali fled into exile in Saudi Arabia, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is fighting a civil war after stepping down. Bashar al-Assad still holds the title of president in a Syria that lies largely in ruins after years of civil war.

Many Egyptians who lived through Mubarak's rule view it as a period of autocracy and crony capitalism. His overthrow led to Egypt's first free election, which brought in Islamist President Mohamed Mursi. Mursi lasted only a year in office after mass protests against his rule in 2013 prompted his overthrow by then defence chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election in 2014.

Mursi is in prison and his Muslim Brotherhood has been banned as a terrorist organisation. Hundreds of Mursi supporters were killed in a single day in August 2013 and thousands were jailed, with the dragnet quickly widening to include secular activists who were at the forefront of the 2011 uprising but opposed Muslim Brotherhood rule.

Mubarak-era figures, meanwhile, are gradually being cleared of charges and a series of laws limiting political freedoms has raised fears among activists that the old regime is back. Mubarak has long maintained his innocence and says history will judge him a patriot who served his country selflessly.
After the police was informed, they set up a roadblock at a toll plaza and found the baby in a car.

Durban: A 34-year-old woman, claiming that her baby girl had been kidnapped, has been arrested for making up a false story about the kidnapping. A police search party with more than 100 officers, found one-month-old Siwaphiwe Mbambo after two days. She was inside a car at Mariannhill Toll Plaza, about 22 miles from where she went missing.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the mother alleged that she was breastfeeding her baby in her car, when two men armed with guns took the baby away in a white Toyota Yaris. After the police was informed, they set up a roadblock at the toll and found the baby in a car. The car was fitted with a satellite tracking device which was monitored and the baby was found.

The car was being driven by the mothers boyfriend and another woman, believed to be another girlfriend of the man. It turned out that there was a custodial dispute over Siwaphiwe.

The mother, her boyfriend and the other woman were all arrested over the temporary disappearance of the child. The boyfriend claimed that he was the actual father of the child, which was refuted by the babys biological father. The Durban Magistrates' court, which adjourned the case given that the mothers lawyer was absent, ordered that Siwaphiwe's DNA be tested to determine the real father.
Deputy PM Hamidi did not say why the govt decided this despite Kuala Lumpur's bar on North Koreans leaving Malaysia.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that 50 North Koreans would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban. (Photo: AFP)

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia will deport 50 North Koreans for overstaying their visas, the deputy prime minister said on Tuesday, in an apparent exception to a departure ban after the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam.

The killing of the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un last month in Malaysia with VX nerve agent triggered an angry standoff between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang that has seen them expel each other's ambassador and refuse to let their citizens leave.

But on Tuesday Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters that 50 North Koreans working in the state of Sarawak on Borneo island -- home to coal mines which often employ foreign workers -- would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban.

"We will send the North Korean workers in Sarawak who have exceeded their (working) visa back to Pyongyang for overstaying," he said. "They will be deported soon."

He did not say why the government had decided on the expulsion despite Kuala Lumpur's bar on North Korean nationals leaving the country -- a tit-for-tat measure put in place after Pyongyang prohibited Malaysians from leaving its borders last week.

The diplomatic crisis erupted last month after North Korea attacked the Malaysian investigation into Kim's killing as an attempt to smear the secretive regime. Three Malaysian embassy staff and six family members are stranded in North Korea as a result.

Pyongyang, which has never confirmed Kim's identity, has repeatedly demanded the return of his body but Malaysian authorities have refused to release it without a DNA sample from next-of-kin.

The body, which is currently kept in a morgue in the capital, has been embalmed to prevent it from decomposing more than a month after the assassination, the deputy prime minister said.

"It's an effort to preserve the body, because if it is kept in the mortuary it might decompose so we did this to preserve the body," he said.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian  have been arrested and charged with the murder. CCTV footage shows them smearing the 45-year-old's face with a piece of cloth.

Pyongyang has insisted that he most likely died of a heart attack. Relations between North Korea and Malaysia had been particularly warm, with a reciprocal visa-free travel deal for visitors, prior to the high-profile killing.

Up to 100,000 North Koreans are believed to be working abroad and their remittances are a valuable source of foreign currency for the isolated regime.
The charges against Ma stem from a 2013 lawsuit brought by DPP lawmaker Ker Chien-ming.

The charges against Ma Ying-jeou carry a maximum sentence of three years each. (Photo: AP)

Taipei: Prosecutors in Taiwan on Tuesday indicted the island's China friendly ex-president Ma Ying-jeou over the leaking of classified information involving suspected influence peddling by a powerful opposition lawmaker.

The Taipei District Public Prosecutor's Office found after a six-month probe that Ma broke laws on the protection of personal information, release of secrets and communications security and surveillance, office spokesman Chang Chieh-chin said.

Ma, 66, a US-educated legal scholar, was credited with substantially improving Taiwan's relations with rival China during his two terms in office from 2008 to 2016. However, his push for ever-closer ties sparked a backlash, especially among young Taiwanese wary of China's intentions toward the island it considers its own territory to be brought under control by force if necessary.

That led to the Nationalists losing both the presidency and their parliamentary majority in polls in January 2016.

Ma's indictment on Tuesday comes more than a year after his Nationalist Party was soundly defeated at the polls by the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, which has sought to maintain ties with the mainland while asserting the self-governing island's own place in international society.

China responded by cutting off contacts with Taiwan's government in May in protest at new President Tsai Ing-wen's refusal to acknowledge its claim that Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are part of a single Chinese nation.

The charges against Ma stem from a 2013 lawsuit brought by DPP lawmaker Ker Chien-ming. Ker accused the then-president of leaking information taken from a wiretapped conversation between him and powerful Nationalist lawmaker Wang Jin-pyng, who at the time was speaker of the legislature and Ma's main political rival within the party.

The charges against Ma carry a maximum sentence of three years each. Ma was barred in June from visiting Hong Kong under a state secrecy law restricting travel by former top officials for three years after leaving office.

Ma spokesperson Hsu Chao-hsin said the former president's denial of the accusations was rejected by prosecutors. "There's no way he should have been charged," Hsu said. "Where is the justice?"
SAN DIEGO (AP)  They are known in the U.S. Border Patrol as "tunnel rats"  agents who go in clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the past 20 years to smuggle drugs.

The Associated Press joined the Border Tunnel Entry Team, as it is formally known, inside an incomplete tunnel that was discovered in San Diego in 2009  70 feet deep, 3 feet wide, 2,700 feet long and equipped with a rail system, lighting and ventilation.

Here are some questions and answers about the team's work:

HOW MANY TUNNELS ARE THERE?

Authorities discovered 224 border tunnels originating in Mexico from 1990 to March 2016, including 185 that entered the United States, according to the latest U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration annual survey. Many are shallow holes, but some are elaborately constructed with hydraulic lifts, water pumps and rail cars.

The vast majority are in Arizona, where smugglers connect to underground drainage canals in Nogales, and in California, where construction noise generates less attention amid warehouses of an industrial area of San Diego, across from densely packed homes and businesses in Tijuana.

WHAT ARE THEY FOR?

Tunnels are generally used for multi-ton loads of marijuana because the drug's bulk and odor are difficult to conceal for motorists and pedestrians who enter the United States at official border crossings, the preferred method for smuggling methamphetamine and heroin.

In 2015, authorities seized cocaine in connection with two California tunnels, including one that ran underwater from a house in Mexicali, Mexico, to the All-American Canal near the city of Calexico.

The tunnels, which the DEA generally attributes to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, cost between $1 million and $2 million to build and take months to complete, said Chris Davis, supervisory special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations. That investment quickly pays off with profits from smuggling if crews escape detection, he said.

HOW ARE TUNNELS FOUND?

Leads from informants, neighbors and others have been the most trusted technique, but technology plays a part. Lance LeNoir, who leads the Border Patrol's "tunnel rats" team in San Diego, says seismic devices, acoustics and ground-penetrating radar complement human intelligence.

Investigators keep tabs on who owns and rents warehouses in San Diego's Otay Mesa area for suspicious transactions. They also visit businesses to ask them to report telltale signs: construction equipment and piles of dirt, jackhammer sounds, people coming and going at odd hours.

"They'll tunnel anywhere they want to. It's wherever they can get a building on the south side and a building on the north side," LeNoir said. "Location, location, location."

Sometimes agents stumble across "gopher holes" while on patrol.

Once the passages are found, the "tunnel rats" go inside, a dangerous assignment because there's always a chance the walls can collapse. They map and measure the passages and work on filling them with concrete to prevent them from being used again.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER TUNNELS ARE DISCOVERED?

On the U.S. side, the tunnels have been filled since 2007 to prevent smugglers from burrowing into them. In Mexico, they are sealed but not plugged with concrete.

Mexican authorities say they don't have the money to fill them, a vulnerability that is gaining more public scrutiny. LeNoir says smugglers have tapped into existing tunnels at least seven times in recent years.

"It gets down to funding and political will," he said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it spent $8.7 million to fill tunnels from 2007 to 2015. Last week, it awarded a $153,000 contract to inject concrete into the U.S. part of a completed tunnel lined with cobblestone. The tunnel was discovered in October. It ended in a San Diego warehouse 1,200 feet north of the border.

WHAT DOES PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP WANT TO DO?

Trump has made construction of a "great wall" on the 2,000-mile U.S. divide with Mexico a signature issue of his presidency, prompting critics to say that people will go over, under and around it.

Trump, as the Republican nominee, promised during an August speech in Phoenix that he would "find and dislocate tunnels and keep out criminal cartels." His executive order on border security doesn't specifically address tunnels but notes that criminal organizations run sophisticated drug and human smuggling networks on both sides of the border.

After going inside a San Diego tunnel underneath a highly fortified border fence last month, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said drug profits were so enormous that smugglers would keep trying to burrow through.

"I would argue that the fact that they're spending huge amounts of money to tunnel underneath the wall tells you that they can't get through it," Kelly said.
Around 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

Ankara: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe's worst mass killing since World War II.

In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Erdogan said: "We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there."

It was Erdogan's latest war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend. The two ministers had sought to campaign in an April 16 referendum on expanding Erdogan's powers, courting the votes of Turks in the Netherlands that are eligible to vote in the plebiscite.

Around 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands. The Turkish leader previously called the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" and also accused it of "fascism."

Earlier, Turkey criticized the European Union for siding with the Netherlands in the row. In a statement Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the EU's stance on Turkey was "short-sighted" and "carried no value" for Turkey, as well as lending "credence" to extremists.

The ministry argued that the European bloc had "ignored the (Netherlands') violation of diplomatic conventions and the law" after Dutch authorities escorted the Turkish family affairs minister out of the country and denied the foreign minister permission to land.

The diplomatic spat between the two countries escalated swiftly with Erdogan making several Nazi comparisons with EU member states Germany and the Netherlands. The EU has called on Turkey to cease "excessive statements."

The spat has raised concerns that co-operation between the EU and Turkey on a number of issues, such as dealing with the flow of migrants from war-torn Syria, may start to fray.

On Monday, Turkey slapped a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands, including halting political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish airspace to Dutch diplomats. Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps "to redress" the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

Erdogan said Tuesday there could be more sanctions but did not elaborate. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Turkey Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci as saying economic sanctions "could come to the agenda in the period ahead."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also backed the Netherlands in its diplomatic fight with Turkey, pledging her full support and solidarity with the Dutch and saying the Nazi jibes were unacceptable.

Erdogan responded angrily to Merkel's support for the Netherlands, exclaiming "Shame on you!" during a television interview on Monday. On Tuesday, Erdogan described both Germany and the Netherlands as "bandit states" that were harming the European Union. Merkel has refrained from reacting to Erdogan.

"The chancellor has no intention of participating in the race of provocations," Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said late Monday. "She won't play along. The accusations are recognizably absurd."

Also Monday, the German Foreign Ministry amended its travel advice for Turkey, noting that "elevated political tensions and protests that could also be directed against Germany" should be expected during the referendum campaign. It recommended that travelers stay away from political events and large gatherings of people.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Rotterdam said that specialized armed security forces he sent to a standoff with Turkish Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya on Saturday night had permission to open fire if necessary.

Speaking late Monday night on a television talk show, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said he sent the special armed intervention unit to the Turkish consulate amid fears that a 12-man security detail that had driven to the Netherlands from Germany with the minister could be armed.

Aboutaleb said on the Nieuwsuur show that it was important to "be sure that if it came to a confrontation that we would be the boss" and that the unit had been given "permission to shoot." The Turkish minister was eventually escorted out of the Netherlands in the early hours of Sunday.

Earlier, the Dutch also had refused Turkey's foreign minister permission to visit. Both ministers wanted to address rallies about next month's constitutional reform referendum on giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more power.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte repeated Tuesday - the last day of campaigning for Dutch elections that have been overshadowed by the diplomatic crisis - that Dutch authorities are working to de-escalate tensions with Ankara.
Prince Salman will be the first Gulf Arab royal to meet the President since his inauguration.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will meet President Donald Trump at the White House in the highest-level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal since November's presidential election. (Photo: AP)

Riyadh: The White House confirmed on Monday that President Donald Trump will meet this week with Saudi Arabia's second-in-line to the throne in the highest-level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal since November's presidential election.

In his daily press briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the meeting with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also defence minister and King Salman's son, will take place on Thursday at the White House. No other details were provided.

The Saudi royal court, in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency earlier on Monday, said that Prince Mohammed will meet with Trump and a number of US officials to discuss "the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two countries and regional issues of mutual interest."

The prince, who departed for Washington on Monday, is spearheading the kingdom's economic overhaul to become less dependent on oil and its major investments in US technology firms.

He will be the first Gulf Arab royal to meet the president since his inauguration. Key issues at the top of the agenda are likely to include global energy prices, as well as the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition backed by Washington has been bombing Iran-backed Shiite rebels for nearly two years.

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and biggest buyer of American-made arms, is also part of the US-led coalition bombing campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Saudi relations with Washington cooled under President Barack Obama after his administration secured a nuclear deal with regional rival Iran. The deal has been heavily criticized by Trump.

Obama had also openly criticized Gulf Arab countries, expressing frustration at their feud with Iran.

In contrast, the kingdom has expressed optimism about rebuilding its alliance with Washington and working with the Trump Administration to contain Iran's reach in the region.

In a call between Trump and King Salman in January, the two agreed to back safe zones in Syria and Yemen, according to a White House statement. The monarch is currently touring Asia in a visit aimed at building alliances with other partners.
Astana (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The rebel factions in Syria will not participate in the new round of negotiations with government officials scheduled to take place in the capital of Kazakhstan. The third meeting in Astana, mediated by Turkey, Russia and Iran, should have started today with the objective of strengthening the national cease-fire, signed in late December. Another possible item on the agenda was the exchange of prisoners and hostages.



Yesterday afternoon, the announcement was made by the spokesman of the delegation that unites the various factions that make up the opposition. "Rebel groups have decided not to appear in Astana," said Osama Abu Zeid, adding that behind the boycott are "broken promises" by the government regarding the ceasefire.



Othman Ahmad, commander of the rebel group, Sultan Murad, backed by Ankara, added that "there was full implementation" of the provisions relating to the cease-fire. "The regime and the militias are continuing to bomb, displace, and besiege " he said.



Yesterday, the Syrian state TV said that the government delegation, headed by the representative of Damascus to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, had already arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan to participate in the meetings. Representatives of Russia and the United Nations were also present, the latter arrived in Astana as observers.



The next round of meetings mediated by the UN in Geneva will begin on March 23 and will focus on four main themes: the form of government, a new draft constitution, elections and the fight against terrorism. According to reports from the special envoy Staffan de Mistura they may even begin to discuss reconstruction.



Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, 320 thousand people have died and millions have been displaced, in the context of the most serious humanitarian crisis since World War II.



Meanwhile, rebel groups have agreed on the evacuation of the last enclaves in Homs, similar to what had happened previously in Aleppo. The city governor Talal Barrazi claimed that the evacuation of al-Wair is part of an agreement with community leaders and will last six to eight weeks.



The rebels will be allowed to evacuate with their families; fighters will fall back towards the territories of the north of the country, controlled by opposition groups fighting against President Bashar al-Assad. Al-Wair, a district in the western suburbs of Homs - considered the "capital of the revolution" - in which 75 thousand people live, has been under government siege since 2013.



According to reports from the site Orient News, close to the opposition, the rebels should withdraw to Jarablus, a town on the border with Turkey taken from the Islamic State (IS) last August.
Some 2,000 people lived in the Chuchepati camp. The 2015 earthquake destroyed nearly a million buildings. Nepali authorities are late in rebuilding. Some 41,000 have been rebuild and aid handed out 450,000 families out of a total of 600,000.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews/Agencies)  This morning police bulldozers cleared a shantytown for survivors of the earthquake of 25 April 2015 on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

The Chuchepati camp, also known as the Buddha camp, had almost 440 shacks that provided shelter to at least 2,000 people. The authorities undertook the demolition to push residents to go back home.

In 2015 a 7.9 earthquake killed almost 9,000 people and destroyed more than a million buildings including houses, schools, Hindu temples, and prisons.

Since then, Nepali authorities have been repeatedly criticised for the slow reconstruction despite substantial foreign financial aid.

Private donors and foreign countries have pledged about four billion dollars, but the government has signed agreements for only 2.6 billion.

So far, the National Reconstruction Authority has handed out individual grants worth US$ 470 to 450,000 families (out of a total of 600,000 eligible beneficiaries), whilst only 41,000 damaged houses have been rebuilt.

Kathmandus chief government administrator Him Nath Dawadi said that residents received a one-month notice. We gave them enough time to leave, Dawadi said. We told them to go back to their villages so they can collect the grant given by the government to build their own houses.

Conversely, those who were displaced complain that the authorities should have provided alternative accommodation before dismantling the shacks.

"I don't have any house of my own to rebuild and I can't find any room on rent to move from the camp," said labourer Bimal Dulal, 52, who has lived in the Kathmandu camp since 2015.
by Luca Galantini

Milan (AsiaNews) - Last night Ankara announced a series of measures in response to the Dutch decision to block the entry of some Turkish ministers to support the referendum by President Recep Tayyep Erdogan.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that the Netherlands ambassador, Kees Cornelis van Rij, will not be allowed to return to Ankara and all high-level political dialogue with that country will be suspended. Netherlands and Turkey, two NATO countries are at loggerheads. But the tension is high also with other European Union countries. Attempts by Turkish ministers to hold rallies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden have all been blocked or postponed. Below follows the comment of an academic and analyst on the reasons of tensions between Turkey and European countries.



The diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the countries of the European Union (EU) shows no signs of abating, in fact, day after day it seems to gather pace with new episodes.



In the space of little more than two weeks, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been able to trigger a series of diplomatic storms: first with Germany, then with Holland. Yesterday Denmark in turn has asked Turkey to indefinitely postpone the official visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Yildrim, while Austria has asked the EU taking a common stand against the pro-Erdogan speeches in Europe, preoccupied by threat to public order.



The official reason behind these worrying high tension is always the same: the ban imposed by several European governments for reasons of political expediency, on ministers of the AKP party of President Erdogan from participating in rallies organized by Turkish immigrants in the EU countries in favor the referendum that next April will sanction the approval of the presidential constitutional reform commissioned by Erdogan in Turkey.

Common sense would argue that these election and referendum campaigns be conducted in Turkey, where the vote is taking place, and not in the European countries in which Turkish immigrants reside. But the intrusiveness of Erdogans political muscle does not listen to reason, and wants to impose its political propaganda abroad, without having to reckon with internal political needs of States like the Netherlands, where tomorrow there will also be an election : with elegant understatement Erdogan has described the choices made by the German and Dutch governments as Nazism.



Understanding the real reasons



Erdogan's initiatives are intertwined with the European political climate, traversed by a wave of populism that is demanding s a return to national sovereignty in the face of the dramatic economic and financial crisis and the massive exodus of migrants and asylum seekers, so poorly managed by the European chancelleries.

However, the problem is much more complex and delicate, if analyzed with a magnifying glass from within the Turkish political society and not according to a Eurocentric interpretation.

For years the foreign policy of Erdogan's Turkey is moving in the absence of a permanent center of gravity. He abandoned the secular Kemalist model, based on a close partnership with NATO and militarily and politically with Europe; he has recovered the Ottoman nationalist myth of panturanesim between the Middle East and Asia; he has re-launched the Islamist leadership of the Arab countries, Erdogan has made and unmade plots of alliances, but without ever being able to keep the warp fabric of a clear political strategic project capable keeping Turkey within a stable system of cooperation. And above all, he is gradually dismantling from within the system of democratic guarantees and the rule of law in the country.

Turkeys legitimate aspiration to become a regional power collides with the total absence of a long-term plan of alliances; with the choice in favor of casual agreements with Russia rather than with Iran or with insurgent and terrorist movements in Syria; and above all with the increasingly blatant authoritarian and autocratic Erdogan it is giving to the country in order to keep the reins of power.

This framework reveals two particularly "substantial" aspects that underlie the crisis with European countries. The first is the fact that Turkey no longer harbors interest in joining the EU or in any case pursuing negotiations that have been dragging on for over 50 years (few recall that Turkey already in the 1960's started the first entry talks for the then European Economic Community). The second is the choice, through a constitutional referendum on a presidential reform, to navigate to a form of autocratic government that is less and less respectful of the legal pillars of democracy, such as the separation of powers and the guarantee of the inalienable rights of the citizen according to the rule of law.



End of the European dream

On the first point, with fraying ties with the EU, any possibility of an enlargement and / or political-federal unification with Europe has been finally consigned to history. In Turkey, among the experts of European Affairs who belong to Erdogans "party of the veil and panturanist", the AKP, see their perhaps utopian but very cherished dream to become a leading country in Europe fade away. The dream was that by virtue of their demographic weight (80 million inhabitants), Turkey could determine the choices and institutional leaders of the EU elections and even direct the focus of European policy towards the Caucasus and Asia Minor. Erdogan's cynical pragmatism now looks at Europe as a whole to consider States individually, from time to time according to national interest.



As for the referendum on constitutional reform, it must be said that since the failed coup of July 2016 , there is official "proof" of an authentic institutional "counter-coupe", with which President Erdogan has gradually enslaved the independence of the judiciary from the executive ; by virtue of the "state of exception" he has imposed a draconian semi-permanent suspension of basic civil and political rights of citizens. Thus, mere administrative measures have led to a purge - dismissal  of over 100 thousand state employees alleged guilty of complicity with the coup forces, and the incarceration of nearly 50 thousand citizens.



In this framework Erdogan and the AKP have absolute need to be able to count on the largest possible number of votes in order to get the approval of the constitutional reform that would deliver almost absolute power in a completely legal manner into the hands of the president, allowing for an even more authoritarian Erdogan. The votes of the so-called Turkish diaspora, the more than six million Turkish citizens migrants in EU countries are a vital necessity, and the Turkish premier certainly has no time to waste on meeting the democratic standards set by the EU Copenhagen parameters to get them.
by Mathias Hariyadi

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Marriage as the foundation of society and the Catholic family as an example of faithfulness, loyalty, love and mutual respect of the wedding vows. In this spirit, the Indonesian Catholic Church celebrated some special events dedicated to the sacrament, including the 70th and the 50th wedding anniversary of two couples who have become an example for the whole community.

The Archbishop of Jakarta recalled how those testimonies have a model to follow of how to stay together, despite the many difficulties, obstacles and "bad days" that the couples will have to face along their journey.



To mark the World Day for Marrieage, on 12 February, at least 140 Christian couples gathered in the capital for a special Mass presided by Msgr. Ignatius Suharyo the Stella Maris parish in Pluit, North Jakarta. To promote the event (click here for the video), the Jakarta Marriage Encounter (Me), a local group established with the objective of strengthening the relationship between husband and wife, in the context of the values promoted by Catholic doctrine.



The agency has been operating for over 30 years to support the relationship between the spouses and promote Christian couples, and values in society. A task even more delicate given that Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world and Catholics are a small minority, accounting for about 3% of the total population.



During the ceremony, the couples renewed their marriage vows - many of them in the presence of children - in front of the altar and showed the community the values at the basis of a relationship: a relationship that does not end, mutual fidelity and loyalty to the promises made. During the celebrations the Archbishop wanted to dedicate a special mention to a married couple celebrating a 65th wedding anniversary.



During his homily, Msgr. Suharyo stressed that marriage is a "public witness" of "unconditional and heavenly" love of God. "The spousal relationship - added the prelate - is human, but it is then elevated to a higher status through the sacrament of marriage . This type of relationship can be the celestial love of God: without conditions and perfect. "



In recent months the Indonesian Catholic Church paid tribute to some Indonesian couples who, with their lives and their testimony, witnessed the value and meaning of Christian marriage. Last August 92 year old Pandji Wisaksana and his wife Trijuani celebrated 70 years of marriage [iron wedding]. An anniversary which took place in Central Jakarta in the presence of dozens of entrepreneurs and businessmen, present to celebrate a prominent personality in the world of volunteering and charitable outreach.

Pandji Wisaksana, in fact, promoted free programs for cataract operations and support for the less fortunate through the Matahati foundation. A commitment born from childhood, because his father had lost his sight because of the toxic exhalation during the years of work in the mines. Earlier, in June, the same parish of St. John the Baptist had celebrated their golden wedding anniversary [50 years of marriage] of Paul Sutandi and Pieneke Mariana Sutandi, a pair of entrepreneurs active in the community. Active in the world of fashion, Ms. Mariana wanted to thank the Lord for these "50 years of marriage" and hoped that their union could be an example for many others on the "indivisibility" of the sacrament.



Finally, in early March a dozen Indonesian Catholic couples made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In the church of Cana, where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine, they renewed their marriage vows in the context of a simple Eucharistic celebration concelebrated by three fellow priests who accompanied them on the journey.
The sculptures to be made are categorised into 16 groups. Traditional craftsmen will make them half of them, about 26 major characters, which will represent divinities and past monarchs. The remaining 11 characters  mostly animals and mythological creatures  will be made in Ayutthaya by Bangkoks Ang Thong and Pohchang Academy of Arts.

Bangkok (AsiaNews)  The Fine Arts Departments Traditional Arts Office in Nakhon Pathom commissioned more than 500 statues to decorate the Phra Merumat, the imposing structure that will house the royal urn of King Bhumibol Adulyadej after he is cremated. The Thai king died on 13 October 2016.

The 500 sculptures are categorised into 16 groups and half of them, about 26 major characters, will be created by the artisans of the Traditional Arts Office, whilst the remaining 11 characters, mostly animals and some mythical creatures, will be created in Ayutthaya by craftsmen with Bangkoks Ang Thong and Pohchang Academy of Arts.

So far about half of the sculptures have been done with the rest expected for the end of April.

Korkiat Thongphud of the Fine Arts Department designed the Phra Merumat. The idea of the royal funeral pyre is to signify Mount Sumeru, which is where King Bhumibols divine spirit will return, according to traditional beliefs influenced by both Brahmanism and Buddhism.

When completed, Phra Merumat will be 50.49m high with an elaborate seven-tier roof. The structure will have four levels and will be adorned by hundreds of sculptures and four ponds at four corners of the base of the structure.

The north pond will be decorated with elephant herds and the south with sacred oxen. The west pond is for horses and the east pond is for singh (lions).

According to one craftsman, Charoen Hancharoen, each sculpture has a metal framework as the core. The sculptor attaches hundreds of fillers, which are wooden crosses, to the armature before moulding it with clay.

The clay must be refined, said Prasopsuk Ratmai, head of the Sculpture Division of the Fine Arts Departments Traditional Arts Office.

They use aged clay from Pathum Thani because it doesnt have the usual dark grey colour, but yellowish brown like the colour of cafe au lait.

The colour can reflect light and help artisans see the right dimension whilst sculpturing each statue, he said.

When finished, each clay sculpture is taken to another working space at Sanam Luang where another artisan team will create moulds of the clay sculptures.

The sculptures will be made of fibreglass and be coloured before being placed at Phra Merumat.
by Yaung Ni Oo

The goal of next Saturdays meeting is to ease sectarian tensions and foster dialogue among ethnic groups and religions. National political leaders are expected. The countrys federalisation will be on the agenda to protect minority groups. For NLD leader, problems can be dealt without violence.

Mandalay (AsiaNews)  Mandalay will host a national-level interfaith peace talks next Saturday attended by Union government authorities and organisations representing various ethnic groups and religions.

Titled Meeting of Friendly Interfaith Brothers and Sisters who Coexist Forever in Myanmar, the event will be held at Mandalay City Hall and focus on national peace talks in the presence of the countrys main religious leaders, and representatives of the central government.

The aim is to ease sectarian tensions and promote dialogue between the countrys various religions and ethnic groups.

Mandalay Region National League for Democracy (NLD) chairman U Tin Tun Oo said Union-level authorities would be invited to the meeting to discuss how to promote peaceful coexistence for all Myanmar citizens at a time of strong ethnic and religious tensions.

He said the meeting was important for Myanmar as it moves towards developed federal nation status to protect minorities and ensure greater participation by various ethnic groups (about 135) that are often at war with the central government.

Mandalay has been the cultural capital for peoples of different religions, U Tin Tun Oo said. We have had a history of peaceful coexistence all this while, and this peace will continue in the future.

Problems and hardships can be faced and solved together by peaceful, not violent means. This had proven to be possible in the past, he added.

For his part, Rev, U Saw Win Aung, a Protestant clergyman, said We want to invite as many [groups] as possible. Every religion should have people at the meeting.

Although Myanmar authorities want peace and co-existence and have recently pushed again for a ceasefire among all rebel groups, violence, confrontation, and bloodshed continue in the north with the Kachin, in the west with the Rohingya, and with nationalist monk U Wirathu at the cost of the countrys development.

The Catholic Church in Myanmar strongly backs the peace process and has called for a "pilgrimage of peace across Myanmar".
Mike Honda (center), former US congressman, joins activists to support the "comfort women" memorial statue in Glendale, California, on March 7. Provided to China Daily

US congressmen have joined activists to condemn the Japanese government's involvement in a lawsuit demanding the removal of a "comfort women" memorial statue in the southern California city of Glendale.

"Sadly, some in the Japanese government continue to deny the existence of comfort women or the plight they suffered at the hands of the Imperial Army," said Ed Royce, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives.

"It is equally egregious that the Japanese government continues to support efforts to force Glendale to remove this memorial to hundreds of thousands of victims of military sexual slavery," he said in a statement.

The lawsuit against Glendale was filed in 2014. The plaintiffs claim the city unconstitutionally disrupted the US government's foreign policy and relationship with Japan by approving the "comfort women" statue for the city's central park.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a US District Court in 2015 and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in August 2016. A request for a rehearing was denied by the appellate court in October.

In January, the case was brought to the US Supreme Court, and the Japanese government recently filed an amicus brief.

Japan's interference with the case drew an immediate backlash from the statue's supporters, including Congressmen Ed Royce and Adam Schiff and former Congressman Mike Honda.

"As Americans, it is our duty to always defend free speech and seek justice on behalf of the victims of human rights abuses, both past and present," said Royce.

Though the abuses took place more than 70 years ago, they are an issue for the present day, because demanding accountability for past abuses helps prevent future ones, he said.

In 2007, Honda and Royce co-authored House Resolution 121 calling on the Japanese government to acknowledge, apologize and accept responsibility for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery during its occupation of Asia and the Pacific. The resolution was passed in July 2007.

"The amicus brief will only serve to provide continued opportunities to teach and have a platform in the highest court of our land, from which we can replicate what grandmother Haksoon Kim has done in August of 1991 in Japan's District Court, where decades of silence of shame turned to demands for justice and apology," said Honda in a statement.

The 1,100-pound bronze statue depicts a girl in Korean garb sitting next to an empty chair and was erected in Glendale's Central Park in 2013. Funded by Korean groups, the statue was dedicated to "comfort women", a term the Japanese government used for its military's notorious sex slavery of an estimated 200,000 women before and during World War II.

"I first visited this monument in 2014 and was taken by the beautiful serene memorial as an appropriate expression of our determination not to allow the suffering of the comfort women to pass into history unremembered," said Schiff in a statement.

"The cause of justice and human rights is never advanced by the denial of crimes against humanity, and it is our shared charge to hold close the memories of the 200,000 women enslaved, and to honor their memory," he said.

Glendale also filed respondent's brief last month, calling for denial of the petition.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Arrests of people crossing the border illegally dropped roughly 44 percent during President Donald Trump's first month in office, according to Homeland Security data.

The Border Patrol reported that about 23,500 people were arrested trying to cross the border illegally in February, compared to about 42,500 arrests in January.

The February figures, which also include significant drops in the arrests of families and children trying to cross the border alone, are the lowest monthly tallies since at the least the start of the 2012 budget year.

It is not clear exactly what prompted the steep declines. The number of people caught crossing the border illegally in the winter typically is lower than during warmer summer months, though Trump has also made clear he intends to take a hard line on illegal immigration. The president has pledged to build a massive wall along the Mexican border and hire at least 5,000 new Border Patrol agents, though that hiring process is likely to take at least several years and may face some logistical hurdles as the agency tries to ease polygraph exams for certain applicants.

Homeland Security John Kelly credited Trump's executive orders on immigration calling for the wall, hiring thousands of immigration agents and cracking down on immigrants living in the country illegally for the steep declines.

"This trend is encouraging because it means many fewer people are putting themselves and their families at risk of exploitation, assault and injury by human traffickers and the physical dangers of the treacherous journey north," Kelly said in a statement issued late Wednesday.

Kelly, in a meeting with reporters earlier this week in Dallas, said smugglers have also increased prices to get immigrants from Central America  including Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala  across the border since Trump took office. He said the prices have gone from about $3,500 to about $8,000. Though he didn't disclose the latest border arrest figures, Kelly suggested that many would-be border crossers couldn't afford the higher smuggling fees.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray rejected Kelly's comments. "A figure for one month cannot be analyzed as if it was a trend," he said at a press conference at the Mexican embassy in Washington. "We will be able to have an opinion if this figure becomes a trend over the next months. Today is just a figure of a specific month."

Trump has struck a decidedly stricter tone on his approach to immigration enforcement though so far there have been very few direct changes to enforcement along the border. Kelly confirmed last week that his agency was considering separating children and parents caught crossing the border as part of a broader effort to deter families from making the dangerous trek from Central America across Mexico. A final decision has not been made on that issue.

Nonetheless, thousands fewer children and families were caught at the border in February, compared to January. Tens of thousands of children and families have fled violence and poverty in Central America in recent years, with the wave of people at times overwhelming border security authorities.

Maureen Meyer, a senior associate for Mexico at the human rights advocacy agency Washington Office on Latin America, said it's too early into Trump's term to fully understand what caused the decline in arrests. Data from March and the coming months, she said, is likely offer a better gauge on whether the decline is a seasonal anomaly or more significant trend.

___

Associated Press reporters Claudia Lauer in Dallas and Luis Alonso in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap
Ashurst lawyers have advised on a landmark deal involving the financing for three new large-scale solar farms in Queensland and Victoria.The farms are being built and will be operated by Edify Energy Pty Ltd. and funded by Australias largest single solar project financing, a syndicated A$230 million senior debt facility.The Ashurst team was led by partners Paul Newman (Utilities) and Ben Warne (Corporate) and included partners and associates from real estate, resources, finance, infrastructure and utilities practices.The collapse of the European arm of the KWM verein has left unpaid debts of 33.5 million (AU$53.78 million).Administrators in the UK report that the legacy SJ Berwin firm owed a total of 37 million when it entered administration and had 3.5 million of funds available.The firms largest creditor was Barclays Bank but former members of the LLP were also owed millions of dollars.KWM has maintained a presence in Europe through a new business owned by the Chinese partnership. Eversheds Sutherland Consulting has launched a new digital offering to help legal teams manage legal matter.In partnership with email and document software firm Repstor, the law firms ES / Unity product is built exclusively for the Office 365 / SharePoint platform and offering native integration into Microsoft Outlook.Yahoo has a new general counsel and company secretary. Arthur Chong joined the firm last week on a reported $1 million annual salary.Chong has been advising the company as an external counsel since October last year and succeeds Ronald Bell who resigned following the revelation that the firm had not properly investigated a huge data breach in 2014.
Germany is getting gits first full-service litigation funding firm as the Therium Group launches in the country with Therium Deutschland, headquartered in Dusseldorf.The company, which became the first European litigation finance company to launch a full-service business in North America after establishing Therium Inc in New York, said that it has identified a substantial market for litigation funding in Germany due to an increasing number of corporate and commercial legal disputes set in a regulatory environment thats becoming more complex.Therium is one of the largest litigation funding companies in the world, with more than $300m in committed capital. The company said that it pays for all costs in matters it takes on and will only receive payment if the case is won.The company  which has already financed various matters in Germany in the past  said it sees potential in the financial services, securities disputes, cartel damages situations, insolvencies, post M&A matters, and joint ventures shareholder disagreement areas.Therium has appointed Dr Christoph Kuzaj as managing director of the German business. He will lead a team of experienced litigators who specialise in corporate and tax law.The company as the first to launch a litigation funding business in Scandinavia in 2016 after it established Therium Nordic in Oslo.
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Australian companies and government and not-for-profit organisations are not doing enough to meet the threat of cyber attacks despite increasing awareness and concern about the issue, MinterEllison says in a study.In 2016, 18% of respondents, up from 8% the previous year, said their organisations were subject to more than five cyber incidents in the previous 12 months, the law firm said in its Perspectives on Cyber Risk 2017 report. By 2021, the world will see annual losses of more than $6tn from cyber risk, the report said.In the firms CIO survey, 40% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with their organisations capability to prevent cyber incidents, up from 18% in 2015. Furthermore, only 10% said that they had a good understanding of their organisations exposure to cyber threats, down from more than 40% in the previous year.When board members were asked, 65% of respondents said that they considered cyber risk to be more of a risk than 12 months ago, up from 35%. However, 44% said boards were briefed on cyber issues on an annual or ad hoc basis, and 13% said board were not briefed at all. In an indication that maybe not enough is being done, just over half said cyber security spending had increased, in line with the last Cyber Risk report, MinterEllison said.The report also said that 42% said they do not have a data breach response plan, up from 27% in 2015. The firm also found that less than 20% said they regularly assess customer cyber risk profiles and less than half do not regularly audit the IT security practices of suppliers, both largely unchanged from the previous year. The report also said that cyber security is still being wrongly seen as being primarily an IT issue.Cyber attacks can entirely shut down businesses, causing significant (and sometimes irreparable) damage to corporate and government reputations, relationships and systems. They can adversely impact other businesses in the supply chain, compromise the privacy of millions of individuals, and threaten economic wellbeing and national security, said Paul Kallenbach, MinterEllison technology partner. Yet business is not responding quickly enough.There was, however, an increased uptake of cyber insurance indicating a willingness to act on managing cyber risk, the report said. In 2016, 39% of respondents bought cyber insurance, up from 24% in 2015. Kallenbach said, however, that organisations need to go beyond insurance.Cyber resilience should be a key focus area for all organisations in the next 12 months, he said. This requires deep board-level engagement with cyber risk; identifying the extent of the organisation's exposure to cyber risk (including due to supply chain risk); developing, implementing and testing procedures to protect the organisation from cyber incidents; and being able to deploy the resources (both technical and human) to identify a cyber incident in a timely manner, and to respond to and recover from an incident.The report gathered data from more than 100 legal counsel, CIOs, COOs, board members, IT specialists and risk managers of ASX200 and private companies and government and not-for-profit organisations.
TUCSON -- Residents of a neighborhood just north of the University of Arizona main campus are upset about plans to build a multi-story, 1,000-bed dorm and classroom complex for students attending the UA Honors College.

In some ways, the controversy mirrors one in Flagstaff's Southside neighborhood, although it is a different developer in Tucson than the Hub.

Many residents say they are concerned they havent been consulted about the proposal and that the property, owned partially by the UA and the privately-owned American Campus Communities, is outside of the official campus boundaries.

ACC, based near Austin, Texas, is one of the nations largest developer, owner and manager of student housing communities in the country. It owns Entrada Real student apartments with 98 units and more than 350 beds near the UA, according to its website.

The proposal includes a dorm that would span an entire city block between East Drachman and Mabel streets and North Fremont and Santa Rita avenues, just north of East Speedway, and could be four to six stories tall. Other plans include classrooms, office space, a recreation center and a four-story parking garage to be built on the adjacent block between North Park and Fremont avenues.

The university is also considering demolishing several buildings along Park Avenue between Drachman and Adams streets, and putting in surface lots to offer additional parking.

The neighborhood now consists of homes, apartments catering to students, university parking lots and vacant land.

Many neighbors say they feel powerless, noting that as part of the state, the university does not have to abide by city zoning codes, including when it comes to building height, density and parking requirements.

For example, the height limitation for the surrounding neighborhood is 25 feet, or roughly two stories tall.

University officials have confirmed they are in the planning stages of the project and have begun preliminary discussions with some neighborhood residents as well as with ACC about a potential partnership in developing the property.

Weve been looking for a bigger, better home for honors for at least two years, said Robert Smith, UA vice president for university planning, design and operations.

The goal is to move our Honors College program to the next level by having all of the faculty, classrooms, beds and the students and everything together. Being spread out is not efficient.

Currently, many UA students who are part of the Honors College live in residence halls close to Euclid Avenue and Sixth Street. The UA says there are more than 4,000 students enrolled in the Honors College.

UA officials said theyve already made some changes to be better neighbors, including decreasing the number of floors of the dorm facing the neighborhood from six to four, and placing the entrance to the college on the south side to reduce noise and traffic generated by students.

One of the things that is important is to lower the impact to the neighborhoods, said Tannya Gaxiola, an assistant vice president for community relations at the UA. Being really good neighbors is really important as we were talking through what the project would look like.

Diana Lett, the neighborhood preservation committee chair for the Feldmans Neighborhood Association, said she feels the universitys plans so far demonstrate a lack of transparency and little respect for the desires of the surrounding communities.

Rather than compromise with the public and build a project we could live with, ACC and our public university chose to do an end-run around the city of Tucson  rezoning that would be required if the parcel remained privately owned, Lett said.

The university is supposed to build within planning boundaries, she notes, as part of its adopted Comprehensive Campus Plan and the proposed Honors College is outside the UAs northern planning boundaries.

Several residents who spoke to the Arizona Daily Star about the project echoed similar concerns.

The campus plan is a formal planning document outlining the universitys physical development of its land and construction projects, and mapping out its long-range plans to meet the educational needs of a growing student body.

Smith said he expects the new master plan will be released next year, and wont comment on whether the boundaries  set in 2009  will change.

While the 2009 plan showed the boundary to be just south of this proposed project, it included a reference to this area and stated that a university partnership housing project on UA property located north of the planning boundary is possible.

Smith said ACC has always had plans to develop the properties it owns in the neighborhood into some type of student housing.

Running his hand over a map, Smith motioned to the run-down properties the UA owns along Park Avenue between Mabel and Adams streets, mostly aging apartments.

I personally think this is pretty unattractive here, but I dont presume to know what the neighbors think, Smith said.

City Councilman Steve Kozachik, a UA employee, said his hands are tied in terms of the city stepping in to help ease the residents concerns.

He said the universitys plans for a new dorm may be following proper legal channels, but are hurting its reputation with surrounding neighborhoods.

Sometimes theres whats legal and expeditious, and sometimes theres what you can get away with but it destroys your credibility. In this case, the UA is doing both, Kozachik said. More importantly is the UA losing trust. Once thats gone, youve lost everything going forward.

Kozachik has requested a joint meeting to include UA representatives, ACC officials, the city attorney and surrounding neighborhoods, but no date has been set.
Hi there



I will be moving to Melbourne with My wife on a 457 visa

We are both Indian Passport and NZ Permanent Resident Visa holders



Are both of us entitled to apply for an Australian Medicare Card ?



If so, in which form do I have to apply for the same ?



If we are not eligible or required to apply for the card , how will we access the subsided Healthcare treatment which is available for NZ PR holders ?



Thanks for advising
Hi there I'm looking for some advice and user experience please...



I'm married to a kiwi (2.5 years ago) and we have a 2 year old child and we are looking to settle in Oz.



My hubby lived and worked in Oz when the rules changed in 2001 so is classed as an eligible NZ citizen which is great.



My questions are this ...



Logically it seems i should apply for the 309/100 visa and wait the 12 month + for issue for the first stage but i read somewhere that if you are married with a child you might not have to do the 309 temporary part and can apply directly for the 100 visa part...

Does anyone know of this and or has done it and if so how long did it take ??



I'm worried the 309/100 could take 2 years to be approved. Has anyone applied recently? How long was your wait??



My other option of course is the 461 NZ visa which is very cheap in comparison and apparently very quick too (3 months) and last for 5 years but is temporary so wondering if this is an easier stop gap for now to get us all to Oz quicker ??



So I'm looking for experiences and people who might have some answers .

The migration agents have said they are happy to help but would need to pay them an assessment fee to look at and discuss options.



Please help . Big love. Xx
CCMS said: Yes, I have had this confirmed by several colleagues and I have a few 801/100 applications languishing in the queue myself. I think it is a combination of backlogs, increased scrutiny and a deliberate policy of detecting and discouraging scam relationships by increasing the overall period before PR is granted. Click to expand...

This is very interesting since the 100's have always been faster. All in the same queue would be the best idea IMO.Nick, I am just wondering if you have noticed any similarities with the applications that are taking longer? I find it interesting that there are some people from the UK taking alot longer than others and even someone with 2 kids from the relationship has been waiting a long time too.
Hi guys,

My wife has applied for a 309 subclass from India and I am her sponsor. I am a PR. I did not reveal my previous relationship to the immigration. I got my PR as a sencondary applicant with my previous partner on de facto 189 independent skilled visa. I recieved a call from Aus high commission Delhi, She asked me why I did not write about my previous relationship, but unfortunately I told her about a relationship I had with a girl in 2009, we got married but no one ever sponsored anyone. She left to UK, we got divirced in 2010. This is not registered any where. So I told her that I dint wanted my wife to know about my previous relationships, we agreed on forgetting the past and moving on. Now I have been told that she will talk to her senior and get back to me. I have requested them not to inform about this to my wife.

I know its messed up, but plz help 
India-bound Nissan Kicks SUV, based on the Renault Kaptur platform, will sit above the Terrano; Rs 15-20 lakh estimated price.

The Nissan Kicks SUV, which made its global debut in 2016 in Brazil will be launched in India in the third quarter of 2018, according to company sources.

However, unlike the South American model, which is spun off Nissans V-platform, the made-for-India Kicks (code: PB1D) will be based on the upcoming Renault Kapturs (code: HHA) platform. This is essentially a modified version of Renaults proven M0 platform that underpins cars like the Duster and Lodgy, which are known for their robust mechanicals.

The M0 is also a critical part of the Renault-Nissan Alliances platform strategy in India, which is essentially centred around two platforms. Whilst the CMF-A and CMF-A+ platforms underpin Renault and Nissans (and later Mitsubishis) small to mid-size car range in India, the M0 platform will cater to higher end products. The low-cost M0 platform has proved to be a cash cow for Renault globally and is ideally suited for markets like India. The alliances European-spec CMF-B platform was also evaluated initially but was eventually rejected as it proved to be a lot more expensive than the M0 which has also been localised over the years.

Developed and conceived originally by Renault for its Dacia sub-brand over a decade ago, the French carmaker has first rights to products spun off the M0 platform, and hence, like the Nissan Terrano which followed the Renault Duster, the Nissan Kicks too will follow the Renault Kaptur to India but almost a year later.

While both the Kaptur and Kicks will use the same modified version of the platform, the top hats will be completely different. The Kicks design and styling will mirror the South American car and thats no bad thing.

Sharply styled, with lots of distinctive design touches like a floating roof, massive wheel arches and a wraparound visor look, the Kicks wont have a problem standing out on Indian roads. The good thing is that the edgy design hasnt compromised practicality and Nissan claims best-in-class space in the back seat.

Cars based on the M0 platform get a choice of just two engines, a 1.6 petrol and the venerable 1.5 K9K diesel, and hence these are likely to be carried forward into the Kicks as well. The 1.5 diesel is expected to be the mainstay but it's likely that in its latest iteration there will be a small bump up in power and torque.

Nissan has set an ambitious target of 30,000 Kicks in its first full year of production with an additional 20,000 units earmarked for exports. Pricing will be crucial for the Kicks success and Nissan may do well to undercut its rivals to buy some much needed market share.

Nissan Kicks image gallery
#BlizzardStella - Heavy tow operator Gallagher's Garage performs a winch-out on I-87 at milepost 103 southbound pic.twitter.com/68JWipMWrL  NYSThruwayAuthority (@NYSThruway) March 14, 2017

Winter Storm Stella has hit the Northeast, dumping snow in New England and freezing rain in warmer areas, and causing road closures along the East Coast.

Stella has dropped more than a foot of snow already in areas of New York and Pennsylvania and brought freezing rain and ice to the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas. The rain and snow led to the declaration of states of emergency in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, according to the Washington Post.

Several major roads have been closed in the area. The storm is expected to continue through Tuesday and into Wednesday as it moves in a northeasterly direction. In New York, the state has issued a tractor-trailer ban on the full length of Interstates 81, 84, 86, 88, Route 17 and the NYS Thruway.

Pennsylvania is joining New York in restricting all trucks from Interstate 84 and is advising truckers to avoid Interstate 81 although trucks are not officially banned. The state is also imposing restrictions on interstate roads in central and eastern Pennsylvania. Speed limits are reduced to 45 mph and the affected interstates are closed to tandem trailers, empty trailers, buses, motorcycles recreational vehicles and towed trailers.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie authorized road closures in the state in anticipation of the storm and directed travelers to use 511nj.org to keep up with the latest road conditions. Connecticut has issued a statewide travel ban, authorizing only essential travel on state roads.

Earlier in the week, Stella left behind several inches of snow in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, in some cases exceeding a foot.

Southern states also received snowfall, though in smaller amounts in parts of Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Photo of the Model S courtesy of Andy Lundin

Tesla has launched in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), during an event hosted by CEO Elon Musk in Dubai on Feb. 13, according to Electrek.

The automaker began taking orders for the Tesla Model S and Model X in February, according to Gulf News.

Tesla started deploying Tesla Supercharger stations and Destination Chargers around Dubai, according to Electrek. Currently, there are 26 individual Destination Chargers and two Supercharger stations in the UAE. Musk said Tesla has plans to expand in other countries around the Gulf, which includes Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

Tesla will also be opening its first Middle East office in Dubai, according to Fortune.

Deliveries for the vehicles will start in July.
Photo of Volkswagen Jetta courtesy of Volkswagen.

Volkswagen Group of America is recalling 4,875 2017-model year Jetta cars so dealers can affix a corrected tire information label, which will help vehicle owners guard against vehicle overloading.

The Jetta vehicles at issue have incorrect information on the tire information label, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. As a result, vehicle owners may unwittingly overload the car and cause tire damage or harm vehicle handling.

The recall is expected to begin this month. Vehicle owners can reach Volkswagen customer service at (800) 893-5298. Volkswagen's number for the recall is 01B8.
In October of 2003 I participated in a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon from Phantom Ranch to Diamond Creek. Among the many participants involved in this adventure was Flagstaff City Council member Karen Cooper. I didn't know Karen very well before the expedition, but by journey's end we were fast friends.

In the early morning of the first day we hiked down the Bright Angel Trail to a gravel shoal near Phantom Ranch to meet our rafts. At the end of the hike several folks including Karen were slightly overheated. The boat crews were able to quickly restore those affected to a normal body temperature.

That done, off we went. I knew it was going to be a spirited trip when I saw one of the rafts being guided by a crew member lying flat on his back and steering with his feet. Karen, sitting behind him, was serenely amused by this unexpected prank.

When we reached the first rapid I managed to inadvertently bounce my head off a wooden bench. Somewhat disoriented, I was heard to ask where the cord was to signal my wanting to get off at the next stop.

Karen laughingly observed later that while participating in this greatest of adventures she was holding a cold compress to her forehead and I thought we were riding down the Colorado River on a Mountain Line bus. From that day forward we were the best of pals.

In remembrance of her steadfast city council work on behalf of the Flagstaff Urban Trail System, a section of the FUTS is dedicated to her memory. The Karen Cooper segment of that trail starts at the stoplight corner of Fort Valley Road/Fremont Boulevard and traverses south all the way to Birch Avenue.

This unique sector of the trail runs alongside the Rio de Flag channel and after crossing Thorpe Road goes through the area of the Frances Short Pond. And while the whole route contains many picturesque locations, the pond setting is the most scenic.

The Thorpe Road Bridge over the Rio de Flag is located just north of the pond and has been reconstructed, thus adding even more visual appeal to the surrounding landscape. It's crowning achievement, however, are the 22 mosaics done by local artist Karen Knorowski. Her wildlife panels located on the interior side of the bridge are a Flagstaff treasure.

There is still some hard work to be done to finish these dazzling mosaics and costly supplies must be purchased to complete the task. We can help Karen finish his much-appreciated effort by dialing up the GoFundMe web site and contributing to her Rainbow de Rio Mosaic Project.

And for those who wonder what an interpretive hike leader for the Coconino National Forest and Flagstaff National Monuments does during the winter months, information about the sailboat adventures of Jane Jackson in the Bahamas can be found at:

Jane is an excellent writer and photographer who is witty, well-informed and always interesting. She's also a good friend and a total asset to the Flagstaff community. Unfortunately, she was forced to miss all our precious snow while on her Caribbean escapade. Yeah, right.
Volvo's first battery-electric vehicle should provide 250 miles of range and cost at least $35,000 when it arrives in 2019, Volvo Car USA's CEO told journalists at the Geneva auto show.

Lex Kerssemakers also said the car must meet those benchmarks to give the company enough sales volumes to make it worthwhile, reports Automotive News.

The vehicle will compete with the Chevrolet Bolt EV, which provides 238-miles of range and costs less than $30,000 after a federal rebate and Tesla's Model 3, which will arrive later this year and provide 215 miles of range at a cost of around $35,000.
David Esteves, 52, who was director of maintenance at the now-defunct Avantair fractional-ownership company, pleaded guilty on Friday in a federal court to charges that he tampered with evidence during investigations by the FAA and NTSB. Both agencies were looking into why an Avanti turboprop crew flew from California to Nevada, with passengers on board, with the left tail elevator missing. The flight landed safely and nobody was hurt. Federal authorities charged that Esteves asked an aviation maintenance contractor in Las Vegas to cover up evidence, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The contractor told the court that a few days after the incident, Esteves asked him to run the aircrafts engines for 30 to 45 minutes, which would have wiped clean the cockpit voice recorder, but the contractor refused. He was also asked to tighten a loose nut he found on the right elevator, but refused. At its peak, Avantair employed about 500 people and operated 60 Piaggio Avanti turboprops in fractional ownership programs, from its base at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport in Florida. The company declared bankruptcy in 2013. Esteves was released on his own recognizance pending a sentencing hearing.
The B-21 Raider long-range stealth bomber, under development by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Air Force, has passed its preliminary design review, according to a recent report in DefenseNews. Its making great progress, and were pleased with the way its headed, said Gen. Stephen Wilson, the Air Forces vice chief of staff, at a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing. Northrop Grumman has been working on the project since October 2015. The company is expected to deliver at least 100 of the airplanes at a cost of about $500 million apiece, with first deliveries in about 10 years. Details of the airplanes design and development are secret.

According to Northrop Grumman, The B-21 Raider will be capable of penetrating the toughest defenses to deliver precision strikes anywhere in the world. We are providing Americas warfighters with an advanced aircraft offering a unique combination of range, payload, and survivability. The B-21 will replace the two oldest bombers serving in the U.S. Air Force: the B-52 Stratofortress and the B-1B Lancer.
An opposition alliance led by former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian accused the Armenian authorities of spreading an atmosphere of fear ahead of next months parliamentary elections after three of its supports were shot, stabbed and beaten up on Tuesday.

The three residents of Jrarat, a village 20 kilometers southwest of Yerevan, were taken to a hospital in the Armenian capital after being attacked by a large group of other locals. One of them, the 27-year-old Hakob Melkonian, was shot from an assault rifle and wounded in the leg, while his uncle Melik Melkonian was stabbed in the back.

Ohanians ORO bloc said the two men were ambushed by dozens of government loyalists as they rushed to help Meliks 17-year-old son Ara moments after he was beaten up outside the village school. The teenager suffered a broken arm.

Law-enforcement authorities said later in the day that they arrested one man in connection with the violent attacks. Armenias Investigative Committee said it has launched a criminal inquiry and has already obtained factual data regarding motives behind the dispute. The circle of participants is being clarified, it added without elaborating.

The violence occurred just two days after another incident in Jrarat that followed a campaign rally held there by Ohanian and other ORO leaders. Several local supporters of the opposition bloc clashed with other men said who allegedly swore at them. One of those men, Lernik Yeranosian, fired gunshots during the clash.

Yeranosian is a police officer whose brother Levon is a highly controversial deputy chief of the national police service. Jrarats pro-government mayor, Samvel Galstian is their cousin. ORO representatives have accused Galstian of orchestrating both incidents to bully villagers sympathetic to the opposition.

In a statement, the ORO leadership condemned the latest incident in the village, saying that it is fraught with unpredictable political consequences. It claimed that the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) is trying to keep Armenian citizens in an atmosphere of fear and thus discourage them from voting for opposition forces in the April 2 elections.

The statement also alleged that police officers witnessed the latest attacks in Jrarat but did nothing to stop them.

This is a pre-election banditry, an attempt to spread terror, Stepan Markarian, a senior ORO member, told RFE/RLs Armenian service at the Erebuni hospital where the three victims were due to undergo surgeries.

Armen Ashotian, a deputy chairman of the HHK, dismissed the allegations. The Republican Party does not need to conduct its election campaign and participate in the elections with violations of the law, he said. I think the investigation will establish the causes of the incident and there is absolutely no need to make political evaluations of this incident now.

Ashotian went on to accuse ORO of exploiting the tensions in Jrarat to boost its electoral chances.
14 March 2017 13:00 (UTC+04:00)

A major regional forum of agricultural producers the 11th Azerbaijan International Agriculture CaspianAgro 2017 exhibition will take place in Baku on May 17-19.

Over the years, the CaspianAgro exhibition has established itself as a reliable platform for annual meetings between experts, and demonstrations of machinery, equipment, goods and services for the agricultural industry.

Agriculture is a major point of interest to the Government of Azerbaijan. For several years in a row, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has been attending the exhibition, and has become acquainted with new products offered by the manufacturers and distributors to the Azerbaijan market. At the conference, devoted to the success of the third year of implementation of the State Program on Regional Socio-Economic Development (2014-2018), it was noted t hat the agricultural sector has shown a successful pace of development, growing by 2.6 percent compared to the previous year. It was further noted that significant measures would be undertaken to preserve this positive dynamic in the future.

Over the years, the Agriculture Ministry of Azerbaijan has not only provided invaluable active support to the CaspianAgro exhibition, but has also actively taken part in this event. T

he exhibition is also supported by the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO), and the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organization of the Republic of Azerbaijan (AEC). The exhibition is organised by Caspian Event Organisers, CEO.

This year the CaspianAgro 2017 exhibition will bring together both manufacturers and distributors of agricultural products and equipment from Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Italy, Turkey, Russia and Sri Lanka, as well as other countries. For the third year in a row, Georgia will take part with National pavilion in the exhibition. Among the debutants of this year are Chinese companies on the Silk Way, representing the Jiangxi province (Southeast China). For the first time the Kingdom of the Netherlands became a partner country of the exhibition.

During his visit to the exhibition last year, President of the Maastricht School of Management, former chairman of the Senate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Honorary Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Mr Rene van der Linden said, This exhibition provides an excellent opportunity for the promotion of agricultural business, particularly in B2B format. I am impressed with this forum! I believe that the participation of Dutch companies at this exhibition will bring about further expansion of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Thus, the Netherlands has become a partner country as a result of many successful years of participation by Dutch companies at the CaspianAgro exhibition. Registration sponsor of the CaspianAgro 2017 exhibition is the company Grand Motors from Azerbaijan.

In general, the exhibition will cover the most relevant fields of the agricultural sector and will provide an opportunity to get acquainted with a number of innovations - equipment for poultry farms, greenhouse equipment and the turnkey construction of greenhouses, as well as kit for the livestock industry, substrates, foods for pets and fish, seeds, fertilisers, agricultural machinery, etc. The following sectors will be extended to include irrigation systems and agricultural machinery for cotton which has recently enjoyed great growth in Azerbaijan. The Laboratory Equipment sector will present microscopes, apparatus, laboratory instruments and equipment required to increase productivity and regularly study the crops - from weight to determining the extent of any plant infestations by harmful substances through moisture content and more.

Companies from Azerbaijan will take part in these sectors on a par with foreign manufacturers. In general, Azerbaijani companies will make up 40% of exhibitors. In addition, traditional infotours for entrepreneurs and farmers from Azerbaijani regions will be organised at the CaspianAgro exhibition to help you to learn about the latest equipment and machinery.

The CaspianAgro 2017 exhibition will provide participants with an opportunity to get acquainted with the latest trends. It will also create opportunities to expand cooperation and establish new business relationships that will boost investment inflow and introduce new technologies in the agricultural sector of Azerbaijan.

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14 March 2017 11:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

A business workshop on Azerbaijan has sparked great interest of Japanese businessmen in the city of Fukuoka.

Head of Cross Border Club Kazuyasu Ishida and doctoral student at the University of Hokkaido Alibay Mammadov highlighted Azerbaijan`s economy and business environment, Azertac reported.

They stressed that the Azerbaijani government attaches special importance to developing the non-oil sector and diversifying the national economy. Apart from major Japanese companies, small and medium entrepreneurs are interested in Azerbaijan.

They also stressed that Azerbaijan is interested in applying Japanese high technologies.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was also discussed at the workshop. The speakers said that Armenias aggressive policy hinders the progress of the entire region. They said that although the Armenian army regularly jeopardizes security on the line of contact, full stability reigns in Azerbaijan and the country is developing at a rapid pace.

Fukuoka businessmen were encouraged to be closely involved in Azerbaijan-related projects.

The workshop was organized by Cross Border Club office in Fukuoka.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Japan were established in 1992. Relations between the two countries have continued to develop steadily.

A number of important projects are being implemented in Azerbaijan through the financial support of Japan, while very important infrastructure projects had already been commissioned in the country through Japanese government`s loans.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Japan amounted to $558.97 million in 2015, according to the Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee.

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14 March 2017 11:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Baku and Kiev intend to strengthen their trade ties, and in this connection an Azerbaijani business delegation led by Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev visits Ukraine, where he has already met with the countrys officials.



The talks in Kiev covered cooperation issues in such spheres as agriculture, investments as well as opening of enterprises in Ukraine.



Holding a meeting with Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Taras Kutovyi, Mustafayev said that Azerbaijan considers it promising to partake in agriculture investment projects in Ukraine.

He voiced the Azerbaijani sides interest in increasing trade turnover with Ukraine. This includes imports of sunflower oil, grains, soya, corn, meat, chocolate from Ukraine and export of vegetables, hazelnuts, wine, tea and other products to the country, he said.

Kutovyi, in turn, said systematic development of mutually beneficial trade and economic relations in agriculture and increase in turnover are of great importance to Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

"Ukraine is a powerful player in the system of global food security. Agro-industrial complex of our country is increasing not only production, but also exports of products. I believe there are all the prerequisites for the growth of the Ukraine-Azerbaijan trade turnover," Kutovyi said.

The minister briefed the Azerbaijani delegation on the course of reforms in Ukraine, state support of farmers, land reforms, privatization of state enterprises, provision of sanitary requirements, and development of the organic market.

He added that products of the Ukrainian farmers are getting increasingly popular in foreign markets and this indicates their high quality and competitiveness.

During the meeting with Prime Minister of Ukraine Vladimir Groysman, the parties agreed to expand interstate cooperation in various fields.

Among the most promising areas of Ukrainian-Azerbaijani cooperation, Groysman and Mustafayev highlighted the opening of the Trade House in Kiev, which will stimulate trade between the two countries and increase the flow of Azerbaijani investments to Ukraine.

"Azerbaijan has its own proposal and decision in order to stimulate the growth of exports to Ukraine and the growth of investments to Ukraine. Azerbaijan is ready to create a Trade House in Kiev, Ukraine," Mustafayev said.

The minister also noted that Azerbaijan is interested in creating joint machine-building enterprises with Ukraine and enhancing interstate cooperation in agriculture, chemical industry and tourism.

Mustafayev added that Azerbaijan would like to create such an enterprise in Ukraine that will produce construction mixes. In addition, the country would like to adopt the experience of Ukraine in the field of engineering.

Groysman, for his part, said it's nice to note that today Azerbaijan considers Ukraine quite positively from the point of view of investments.



We have your companies that work in the country, I would say that they are doing their job qualitatively and we are glad that we can deepen our cooperation," the Ukrainian Prime Minister stressed.

Azerbaijan is one of the main trade partners of Ukraine among the CIS countries. Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Ukraine amounted to $334.18 million in 2016, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

--

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14 March 2017 13:37 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Kazakhstans Eurasian Bank intends to enter the Azerbaijani market, Banks CEO Pavel Loginov said in an interview with Forbes.kz.

Loginov noted that currently, the international expansion is a part of the banks strategy.

We are already in markets of Kazakhstan and Russia and want to become a transaction hub in all the Eurasian area, as well as enter the markets of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, maybe Azerbaijan and Georgia, he said.

Eurasian Bank JSC, together with its subsidiary, provides various banking products and services to retail and corporate clients, and small and medium size companies primarily in the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. The company operates through five segments: Retail Banking; Corporate Banking; Assets and Liabilities Management; Small and Medium Size Companies Banking; and Treasury.

Currently, 32 banks (including 15 banks with foreign share) operate in Azerbaijan and 34 banks operate in Kazakhstan.

Moreover, Loginov added that the banks shareholders are considering the issue on further recapitalization by six billion Kazakh tenges.

It is expected that the decision on this issue will be made soon, said the CEO.

The Bank also maintains liquid assets portfolio, investments into liquid assets, and bonds issue management; and treasury services that include group financing via interbank borrowings and using derivatives for hedging market risks. In addition, it provides safety deposit boxes, payment cards, and Internet banking services.

In 2013, the Bank was awarded Best Bank in Kazakhstan 2013 by EMEA Finance, and Michael Eggleton, the previous CEO, received the 2013 Executive of the Year Award from the American Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan.

As of December 31, 2015, it had 19 regional branches and 133 cash settlement centers in the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Almaty, the Republic of Kazakhstan. Eurasian Bank JSC is a subsidiary of Eurasian Financial Company JSC.

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14 March 2017 15:55 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijani banks will operate in an enhanced mode during the Novruz holidays, the Financial Market Supervisory Body reported.



More than 100 branches of about 30 banks will work in an enhanced mode on March 18-26.

List of Azerbaijani banks working on public holidays.

Besides, during the holidays there will be a special monitoring group of the FMSB and in case of any problems one can address to the hotline.

Coordinator: Azer Guluyev;

Phone: 012 493-50-58 (internal: 300).

The decision was probably made after the currency exchange problems that tourists faced during the national holiday -- Novruz  last March, when many local banks did not work, and foreign tourists faced difficulties with bank operations.

Thirty two banks, including two state-owned, operate in Azerbaijan.

In 2016, the number of tourists visiting the Land of Fire amounted to 2,242 million people and this is 11.7 percent more than in 2015.

The majority of tourists came from Russia, Georgia, Turkey and Iran making up 33 percent, 22.5 percent, 13.9 percent and 10.9 percent, accordingly.

--

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14 March 2017 14:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan's second largest city, Ganja, will assume its new role as a Cultural Capital of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 2017.

A solemn ceremony on this occasion, scheduled for March 18, will be attended be delegates of the CIS countries, Azertac reported.

To make the ceremony memorable, the programme is set to include conferences, events featuring prominent artists and writers, theatre performances, concerts and exhibitions of art and archaeological artifacts. During the events, guests will also enjoy festive atmosphere of Novruz holiday.

The symbol of "Ganja-2017 CIS Cultural Capital" has been already revealed. The eight-pointed star, reflecting the three colors of the national flag of Azerbaijan, and Triumphal Arch, erected in the Heydar Aliyev Park in Ganja, was approved as the main picture for the logo.

Preparatory works at the Heydar Aliyev Center and Park Complex, the main events venue, have been completed. Some 25 pavilions have been constructed here in this regard.

Ganja, locating some 375 km away from Baku, is significant to the politico-economic and cultural life of the country since the earliest of times. The city was also the capital of Azerbaijan, when the country first declared its independence in 1918, thus playing a leading role in the history of the country.

It is one of the science and education centers of Azerbaijan. The city has four public higher education institutions.

Ganja, with about 313,300 residents, has many amenities that offer a wide range of cultural activities, drawing both from a rich local dramatic portfolio and an international repertoire.

The region is famous for its nature, namely Goygol Lake and reserve. A large mountain lake surrounded by the mountains of the Lesser Caucasus was formed at a result of a devastating earthquake that destroyed the mountain Kapaz in the 12th century.

The CIS is a regional organization made up of former Soviet Republics. The purpose of the association is cooperation in political, economic, environmental, humanitarian and cultural fields.

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14 March 2017 17:31 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Aynur Mammadova, the world's strongest para taekwondo fighter, has starred in spring photoshoot featuring a beloved Novruz character-Bahar gizi (Spring girl), Trend Life reported.

The photoshoot, organized at Bina Equestrian Center, was timed to the Novruz holiday traditionally marked on March 20-21.

Aynur Mammadova is the three-time world champion and two-time European champion. In the world ranking, she occupies the first place in her weight category.

Every year on March 20-21, Azerbaijan celebrates ancient and beloved holiday Novruz, which reflects national values. This holiday falls on the spring equinox. According to the ancient solar calendar, this day marks the beginning of spring and the New Tear. The end of winter and the beginning of spring is celebrated not only in Azerbaijan but also in many other countries of the East.

Noruz holiday is rich with ancient traditions and games. 'Khidir Ilyas' (the symbol of fertility and blossom), 'Kos-Kosa' an entertaining game (symbolises the incoming of spring) and fortunetelling are among them. The important Novruz symbols are khoncha (a tray with sweets, nuts fruits and dyed eggs on) and samani( green shoots from wheat seeds).

The holiday was given the status of an official holiday in Azerbaijan by a presidential decree dated 13 March 1990. In 2009, Novruz was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and since then, March 21 was declared the International Day of Novruz.

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14 March 2017 18:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The staff of the EU mission in Azerbaijan has celebrated the Last Tuesday of the Novruz Holiday, Day.Az reported.

Head of EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Malena Mard, dressed in Azerbaijan's national clothing, presented the symbols and sweets of Novruz.

Every year on March 20-21, Azerbaijan celebrates ancient and beloved holiday Novruz, which reflects national values. This holiday falls on the spring equinox. According to the ancient solar calendar, this day marks the beginning of spring and the New Tear. The end of winter and the beginning of spring is celebrated not only in Azerbaijan but also in many other countries of the East.

The important Novruz symbols are khoncha (a tray with sweets, nuts fruits and dyed eggs on) and samani( green shoots from wheat seeds).

The holiday was given the status of an official holiday in Azerbaijan by a presidential decree dated 13 March 1990. In 2009, Novruz was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and since then, March 21 was declared the International Day of Novruz.

---

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14 March 2017 12:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Yousef al-Othaimeen called on Armenia to liberate the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Al-Othaimeen called for respect for internationally recognized borders while speaking at an event at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah on March 13, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly tragedy.

The Secretary-General called on Armenia to immediately and unconditionally withdraw its armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani lands. The Khojaly Genocide was the result of Armenias illegitimate occupation of Azerbaijani territory, Al-Othaimeen said.

He also urged the OIC member-states to exert pressure on Armenia to end its occupation of Azerbaijani territories.

Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the OIC Rasim Rzayev, in turn, noted at the event that the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is the problem of not only Azerbaijan, but also of the entire Islamic world.

Those who planned and committed this dirty crime against humanity have not answered before the law yet," Rzayev stressed.

Late into the night of February 25, 1992, Khojaly came under intensive fire from the towns of Khankendi and Askeran already occupied by Armenian armed forces. The Armenian forces, supported by the ex-Soviet 366th regiment, completed the surrounding of the town already isolated due to ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population of the neighboring regions. The joint forces occupied the town, which was ruined by heavy artillery shelling.

As a result, 613 people were killed, including 106 women, 70 elderly and 83 children. A total of 1,000 civilians were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, and 25 children lost both parents, while 130 children lost one parent. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.

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14 March 2017 13:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Group of German parliamentarians, including Uwe Feiler, Olav Gutting, Dr. Hans Michelbach, Dr. Philipp Muhrmann and Norbert Schindler adopted the declaration on the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre on March 14.

The declaration, submitted to The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS), reads that the date of February 2526 marks the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre, when 613 civilians were murdered by Armenian forces during the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The victims comprised 106 women, 63 children and 70 elderly people.

The document also points to the fact that between 1988-1994, during the break-up of the Soviet Union, the conflict broke out over Nagorno-Karabakh.

"This was an Azerbaijani region, whose population comprised both ethnic Azerbaijanis and Armenians. However, as the Soviet Union disintegrated it was occupied by Armenian forces, resulting in the eviction of the Azerbaijani population, and claiming the lives of an estimated 30,000 people," reads the declaration.

The document notes that since 1993 the UN Security Council, the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have all condemned the occupation and demanded an immediate withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces. In May 1994, a ceasefire was declared, and since then the OSCE Minsk Group has been tasked with negotiating a resolution to the conflict.

German MPs regard the situation in the South Caucasus, with the fierce tensions around Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent regions, as being very concerning both politically and economically. "The Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh violates all rules of international law," the MPs noted.

The MPs of the German Bundestag further demanded German Foreign Policy to intensify its efforts to reach a peaceful and sustainable solution in the South Caucasus.

"The resolutions of the international organizations have to be implemented. Not least for security and economic considerations, a peaceful solution will benefit Germany and Europe in the highest degree, the declaration concludes.

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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14 March 2017 13:44 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

A conference titled The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, origins, peacemaking and the role of civil society kicked off in Baku on March 14.

A number of scientists, politicians, public figures and researchers from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Uzbekistan and Armenia attended the event.

Famous Russian TV presenter and former member of Russias Civic Chamber, Maksim Shevchenko, addressing the event, said that deportation and ethnic cleansing carried out by Armenia against Azerbaijanis should not be left without attention.

He recalled that hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were expelled from Karabakh and Armenia.

Speaking about Azerbaijan, he noted that it is a multinational state, which, despite all the experience, is not preparing for war. As for Armenia, Shevchenko noted, if the Dashnaktsutyun party wins elections there, war will become the basis of the political course of Armenia.

Moreover, Shevchenko emphasized that many Armenians left their country due to the countrys political course.

The expert went on to say that the OSCE Minsk Group, established to broker a peace between the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, cannot consider a solution to the conflict without taking into account the interests of the region.

The proposals put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group do not work. The MG is an instrument of containment of a disaster, but not a way to resolve the conflict, said Shevchenko.

In this context, the expert added that it is necessary to create new tools to resolve the conflict.

Deputy Department Head of the Presidential Administration Fuad Akhundov, for his part, said that the Armenian leadership deceives its people for more than 25 years by saying that the world has begun to recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, while in fact no country, including Armenia itself, recognizes it.

Today, researcher-historians should express their stance against fake Armenian historiography, he added.

Akhundov also noted that the Armenian people have already moved into the phase of understanding the need for a change. People in Nagorno-Karabakh are under the fear of terror, but the Armenians beyond the region have begun to actively engage in the settlement process. They arrive in Baku and express their opinions, Akhundov said.

Arthur Aghajanov, representing Ukraine at the conference, said that the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in a positive way is close.

Armenian human rights activist Vahe Avetyan, in turn, said that the history of Azerbaijan or Armenia has nothing to do with international law and the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

We are old nations but young states and we should not begin our history with genocide, said Avetyan while speaking about the genocide committed by Armenians in Khojaly.

Avetyan reminded that several Armenian human rights activists and writers have recently apologized to the Azerbaijani people because of the Khojaly genocide.

He added that raising hatred between two nations will solve nothing.

Azerbaijan and Armenia must find the strength to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on their own, Elkhan Alasgarov, PhD, head of the expert council of the Baku International Policy and Security Network (Baku Network), said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has remained unresolved for a long time, Alasgarov said. The activity of the OSCE MG co-chairs, big states to settle the conflict has given no results.

The expert added that the Azerbaijan-Armenia Platform for Peace, initiated by Azerbaijan, is of great importance.

Sometimes Azerbaijan is accused of being supporter of military solution to the conflict, Alasgarov said. However, it is not so, because Azerbaijan is taking concrete steps to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict peacefully, and the conference being held in Baku today is one of such steps.

Russian political analyst Oleg Kuznetsov said at the conference that the Karabakh clan in Armenia is the enemy of the Armenian people.

This is a puppet regime, which is aimed to outbreak the conflict to ensure geopolitical interests of third forces outside the Caucasian region, Kuznetsov said.

He added that the cultural heritage of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh has been destroyed entirely.

On the sidelines of the conference, Kuznetsov told reporters that until the world recognizes the Khojaly genocide, it will be impossible to prevent such crimes.

"Crimes committed in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly are being committed today in Syria and Iraq," he said.

Kuznetsov stressed that on March 6 he initiated a petition for recognition of Khojaly genocide in the Russian Parliament. The petition is addressed to the MPs of Russias State Duma and the Federation Council.

The genocide committed in Khojaly by Armenian separatists is a crime against humanity, he said.

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14 March 2017 17:19 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Conditions should be created for the return of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani IDPs back to their homes, said Jean-Francois Mancel, a member of the French Parliament and president of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan in France.

Mancel made the remark in his statement issued in connection with the visit of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to France.

The statement reads that Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijans internationally recognized territories back in 1990s. The UN condemned the occupation of Azerbaijani lands four times. Currently, over one million Azerbaijanis live a refugee life.

"The worst thing is that on February 26, 1992, Armenia committed a genocide in Khojaly, and massacred 613 civilians including women and children," he said, noting that this fact was recognized by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in 2000.

At first, the Azerbaijanis thought that we were joking and will not attack the civilian population. We were able to break this stereotype," Sargsyan said then in an interview.

Mancel went on to say that although members of the Armenian Diaspora in France are trying to show the occupiers as "those who were exposed to occupation," and torturers as "innocent victims," they will not be able to hide the truth.

"On what grounds, the country that gave the right of vote to women in 1918 and abolished the death penalty in 1998 is criticized?" Mancel asks in his statement.

The French senator further called for the creation of conditions for the return of Azerbaijani IDPs back to their homes and stopping the bloodshed.

He added that France can contribute to the establishment of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, thanks to its support to the presidents of both countries and its role entrusted to it by the international community.

France along with Russia and the U.S. is one of the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker a peace to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. have produced no results so far.

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14 March 2017 16:12 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with members of MEDEF (Movement of the Enterprises of France) International in Paris.

Vice-president of MEDEF Marie-Ange Debon greeted the President of Azerbaijan.

She said: Dear Mr. President, Your Excellency, dear Ministers, dear Ambassadors, dear members of the delegation.

We are very honored, very glad, to have you with us today. I think its not the first time that we meet you. With MEDEF international you have a long standing relationship. Its your ninth meeting with MEDEF international. So its quite impressive.

I had the opportunity to lead a delegation in May, and you received the delegation. Some of the people who we met in May are in the room. I think it was both very helpful, very productive and fruitful to have these exchanges.

Today, Mr President, I think, you can see that your visit attracted a lot of people, a lot of companies. In fact we have more than 70 companies from most of the sectors of the French economy, which have asked to be allowed to attend. So it demonstrates obviously that your country attracts the attention of French companies. It demonstrates also that both countries want to further develop their economy. So, today its a real opportunity for all these companies. And thank you again for this opportunity to raise questions about all the initiatives, all the projects that you have launched.

We are impressed by all the initiatives, which have been launched. We would like to be able to share with you, to exchange with you about other projects implemented in Azerbaijan or all projects that you want to launch in order to have a more diversified economy in Azerbaijan. Im not going to be long. We are all here to listen to you. So thank you again, Mr. President. If you agree, we will have some questions from the room. But first, the floor is yours. Thank you again. And thank you to our two ambassadors, who perfectly know that diplomacy and economy are too strong topics, and support a lot of companies to better work together. Thank you very much, Mr President.

The, the head of state made a speech at the event.

"Thank you very much for your invitation. I am very glad to meet with the representatives of MEDEF again. As you already mentioned its my ninth meeting. During my first official visit to France, I had a meeting with the French business community. And that was very important from the point of development of our economic cooperation. And Id like to underline the very important role of MEDEF and members of MEDEF in the promotion of bilateral economic cooperation.

Today I think we have a very high level of economic ties. Many projects have been implemented, many French companies successfully work in Azerbaijan. According to the information I received before my visit to France, more than 50 French companies successfully work in Azerbaijan. The total investments in our economy are more than two billion dollars, primarily in energy sector. But also there are some investments in non-oil sector, which for us, at this stage, is very important. And the volume of contracts signed by the government structures of Azerbaijan and French companies is close to two billion dollars. So, this shows, first of all, the potential of our country. This shows the interest that the French business circles show in working in Azerbaijan, and also it shows that in Azerbaijan we have very good conditions for local and foreign business groups to work and to invest and to be good contractors. French companies working in Azerbaijan helped us to develop different sectors of our economy. We have very strong ties in oil and gas sector, which is a traditional sector for us. And the projects, which are being implemented, lead to mutual benefit.

We have also developed strong cooperation in the areas of infrastructure, transportation, public transportation, metro and transportation related to the railroad infrastructure, water management, and investments in this area. Then I would name space industry, which is relatively new for our country. But several years ago Azerbaijan joined the international space club, with already two satellites in operation. And hopefully the third one will come again with active participation of French companies.

We have good prospects in the area of agriculture. I am glad that during the last several years this sector of our economy also started to develop rapidly, and also with the participation of French companies, particularly in development of our vineyards, and using our climatic conditions to maximum degree in order to increase productivity of our agricultural products.

We have good cooperation in the area of education. The French Lyceum, which already operates for three years, is a good indicator of this cooperation. After that we opened the French-Azerbaijani University. So, this not only strengthens our educational potential, but also the children and young generations who study in these educational centers are already becoming kind of public ambassadors of both countries because their life will be linked to cooperation with France.

In Azerbaijan, we have developed a very substantial reform package, primarily last year. Last year was a year of very deep economic reforms, which received very strong support from international financial institutions and which lead to diversification of our economy. In fact, we were working on that for many years in order to reduce dependence on oil and gas, and managed to do it. Today, oil and gas is something more than of thirty percent of our GDP. The rest part is non-oil sector. Now we actively work on diversifying our exports. That is needed especially now, when the oil prices collapsed three-four times. And we need to compensate the revenues, which we dont get now as before, with a non-energy export potential. Therefore, we invested largely in industrial, in agricultural sector and we are also looking for the markets. We have traditional markets, which are in the neighborhood. But the European market is also very attractive for us.

Taking into account that last month we launched negotiations with European Commission on a partnership agreement, which is supposed to be a very comprehensive document, which will cover all the areas including economic cooperation, I think that one of the important elements of our cooperation could be increase of our bilateral trade. Today, it is, I think, less than one billion euros. But primarily if you look at the structure of our trade its mainly our oil export to France. Therefore, we need to diversify it, to buy more and sell more. And I think we have very good instrument of our economic cooperation, which is a joint economic commission, which met relatively recently and which addresses all the important areas of our cooperation. Reforms will allow us to have a long-term sustainable development, economic development and modernization of our country and our economy because, as I said, already several times in Azerbaijan, for us the post-oil period has already started. Not because we run out of resources. No. We have huge oil and gas reserves, which will be available for the markets, for the decades ahead. But because now we need to plan our future as if we dont have natural resources, base our economy on competitiveness, on proper management.

In our reforms, of course, we also use experience of developed countries. We also have good consultancy, which helped us to prepare the strategic road maps for every sector of our economy. Economic development in Azerbaijan is stable. We had in previous years a very high rate of GDP mainly driven by oil and gas sector, but not only. Today, stable economic and political situation in Azerbaijan is one of the main prerequisites for attractiveness of our economy. We achieved those results despite the very heavy burden, which is a humanitarian catastrophe. As a result of the Armenian occupation we have to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees and IDPs who lost their homes, their property because of the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan in violation of all the international law norms. So, we have over a million IDPs and refugees as a result of this aggression. And taking care of them also needs a lot of money. We invest largely in social protection of these people. And 250,000 of them were provided with new apartments and houses during the last years. It is size of a big city where we built all the modern infrastructure.

Talking about the conflict Id like to express some concern with respect to some companies from Europe, and also unfortunately from France, which have their activity on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and around Nagorno-Karabakh, because not only Nagorno-Karabakh, but seven districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh are also under occupation. And there is illegal activity by some companies, which is unacceptable. It violates international law, it violates our legislation. Azerbaijan is taking serious steps in order to raise this issue on the international arena, including our application to international judiciary institutions. Therefore, I would like to express this concern, and send the message to those companies, which illegally work on our land, just to refrain from this activity. It will not bring a lot of profit, but it can create a lot of complications. And this is not in line with very good friendly relations between our countries. I understand that these companies do it on their own risk, but my duty is just to warn them to refrain from that. Finalizing the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, Id like also to express my surprise. I was informed that several days ago the Armenian president speaking at MEDEF instead of trying to persuade investors to invest in their country, tried to discredit Azerbaijan, its economy with absolutely groundless facts. He was talking about innovations, saying that Armenia is a country of innovations. Frankly speaking, we were laughing in Azerbaijan because there is a very famous saying: If you are so clever, why are you so poor? And the fact that Armenia doesnt have natural resources, doesnt mean that the people should suffer from that. Most of the developed countries in the world, including France, dont have natural resources. But they develop their country because there is proper management, transparency, accountability, standards, education, knowledge, innovation. Therefore, instead of telling fairytales to French companies, the Armenian president would have better concentrated on their terrible economic situation in the country, where more than half of population lives beyond the poverty line and without any prospects for the future. According to their official statistics, 60,000 people leave Armenia every year. According to our information, this figure is close to 100,000. If it was so good and attractive, probably people would prefer to stay, not to leave.

As far as Azerbaijan is concerned, of course, we have difficulties, we have problems. We are still in the process of implementation of reforms. But Id like to bring just several figures to your attention to show that Azerbaijan demonstrates, I think, one of the best performances among the oil producing countries, especially taking into account that our revenues from oil dropped three-four times. Davos World Economic Forum ranks Azerbaijans economy number 37 with respect to competitiveness. This is a very good rating. So, we are among the 40 most competitive economies in the world. And this is a recent rating. This rating was not given to us when the oil price was high. In another rating of Davos with respect to the level of development of the developing countries, Azerbaijan shares the first and second places. We have a very low foreign debt, which is 20 percent of our GDP. And our hard currency reserves are more than five times bigger than our foreign debt. In other words, if we prefer, we can repay our foreign debt within a couple of months to have zero foreign debt. We managed to reduce unemployment, which is now at the level of five percent and poverty, which is below six percent. Employment in Azerbaijan was mainly inspired by the very favorable business climate and also investment climate. For the last 20 years more than two hundred billion dollars were invested in Azerbaijans economy. And this process continues. Hopefully this year also a large number of companies will invest. It is very good that they invest now not only in oil and gas, but also in the service sector, in tourism, in hotel business, in agriculture. So all the investments of foreign companies and local companies are duly protected. Therefore, it creates additional incentives and interest in investing in Azerbaijan. At the same time, having a strong economic position in the region with good connection to the neighborhood and with substantial financial reserves, we can afford to attract contractors to the sectors, which we consider of strategic importance.

For the coming years our main area of concentration will be the non-energy sector of our economy, mainly agriculture. And I invite prominent French companies to come to Azerbaijan and to work with our government to implement projects related to modernization and increase of productivity. Irrigation is one of the main areas of our attention. Only this year we will accumulate a lot of investments and bring water to at least 100,000150,000 hectares of land, which was not irrigated before. That will create an additional large volume of products.

IT is developing very rapidly and we have a special program for development of that sector. Modern technologies, industrial potential, construction, of course, transportation  there are a lot of opportunities for companies from all over the world to work in Azerbaijan.

Among the strategic projects, which we are implementing, Id like to name two of them. First, of course, is the Southern Gas Corridor, the project which is considered to be the biggest infrastructure project in Europe for now. The cost of the project is close to 40 billion dollars. It is an integrated pipeline system connecting Azerbaijan from Baku to the Italian coast, crossing six countries. It is a project, which has strong support from European Commission. It is a project where Azerbaijan took the leading role. And this project is changing the energy map of Europe. It will bring a new alternative source of natural gas to European consumers. Of course, many companies participate in the implementation of this project. And this is a project of energy diversification, energy security, and its really a project of the 21st century because it was not an easy task to organize the implementation of the project neither from the technical, nor from financial points of view. This project is strongly supported by international institutions, primarily by the World Bank. Im glad that French banks also provide financing to implement this project.

Another strategic direction of our concentration is creation of a transportation hub in Azerbaijan. Our geographical location is advantageous, we are just between Asia and Europe. With a modern transportation infrastructure, which we already have, we already attract a lot of interests. We have six international airports, which can receive all types of planes, including the biggest cargo planes. We already became an air cargo transportation hub for the region. We have railroad connections with all the neighboring countries. Connection between Azerbaijan and Turkey via Georgia will be implemented this year. So, this opens a corridor from China to Europe, through Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan, which shortens two times the time for transportation of the cargo. And the first testing train already crossed our territory. Last year we also completed the missing part of the railroad connecting us with Iran, thus investing a lot into the creation of the South-North transportation corridor, which stretches from India, Pakistan, Persian Gulf, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Northern Europe. And we organized several important international meetings and events. As far as our responsibility is concerned, everything is done. So, as soon as the missing part of the corridor is built, we will open a new route, which will allow cargo to be transported from India to Northern Europe within fourteen days, instead of 40-45 days as it is today. So, both these corridors from north to south and east to west cross Azerbaijan because of our policy, not just because of geography.

Geography without infrastructure doesnt mean a lot. We are building now the biggest sea port in the Caspian Sea with the handling capacity of 25 million tons. The first stage will be completed this year. As I said, six international airports, modern cargo ships, plus a ship-building factory in Azerbaijan, which can produce all types of ships, modernization of the railroad infrastructure, and, of course very good contacts with the neighbors because in transportation you can't achieve goals if you dont cooperate with the neighbors. With all our neighbors, northern, southern, western and eastern all across the Caspian Sea, we have excellent political and economic relations, which is also important for the regional stability. And stability inside, prosperity inside and predictable situation beyond our borders, good relations with the neighbors  this is what is happening already. This is a reality. So, in other words, our policy created a new reality, a new cooperation format in the region.

We also initiated a regional cooperation format  not only bilateral, but already trilateral. For instance, trilateral economic and political cooperation formats of Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey, then Azerbaijan-Turkey-Iran and the recent one Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia. So, these are trilateral formats of cooperation, which create a very positive political and economic climate in the region. And as I said, the Southern Gas Corridor with respect to cooperation format is also very attractive because here we have Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, then we have EU members Greece and Italy, and we have Bulgaria and also Albania. So, seven countries, already for three years gather every year in Baku for the Advisory Council of the corridor in order to strengthen cooperation. And this is not only gas, this is business. This is investment, this is employment, this is predictability and cooperation.

To conclude my comments Id like to say that last month in Brussels, as I said before, we gave a start to a new process of EU-Azerbaijan cooperation. Azerbaijan has already signed documents on strategic partnership with nine members of EU. So this means that one third of EU members are our strategic partners and it`s natural that now we work with European Commission on strategic partnership, a partnership agreement, which will strengthen our ties even more. But, of course, coming back to what I started with  our relations with France  we have big importance, we have excellent political relations. President Hollande visited Azerbaijan two times in 2014 and in 2015. Before that president Sarkozy visited Azerbaijan. I visit frequently your country. And my todays and tomorrows official visit is another indicator of our strong cooperation, and business ties are an integral part of that cooperation. Now I will probably stop in order to leave time for questions."

Later, President Ilham Aliyev responded to questions on prospects for cooperation in a number of fields, including railway, global transport projects, metro construction, communication technologies, space industry, air transport, energy, oil and gas industry, financial and banking system, urban infrastructure, agriculture, irrigation, tourism, hotel industry, renewable energy.

The meeting ended with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Azerbaijan Airlines Closed Joint Stock Company and Thales Air Systems SA.

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14 March 2017 10:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

A working meeting with a group of NATO experts on the implementation of the documents of Planning and Review Process (PARP) and Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) relating to the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan was held in the Department of the International Military Cooperation on March 13, Azertac reported.

During the meeting, the reforms in the defense sphere, cooperation with NATO and partner countries, implementation of the goals and obligations for the programs of PARP and IPAP were discussed.

The sides have also considered the Azerbaijan-NATO joint plan of military education and training, the activities carried out within the framework of the Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC) and the contribution of Azerbaijani peacekeepers to the non-combat mission "Resolute Support" in Afghanistan.

The history of Azerbaijan-NATO relationship dates back to March 1992 when Azerbaijan together with some Central and Eastern European countries, joined a newly established consultative forum  the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), which was transformed into the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council later in 1997.

The cornerstone of the substantive Partnership between Azerbaijan and NATO was laid down on in 1994.

Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO is carried out in the framework of the Partnership for Peace program. Earlier, NATO has approved the document of the fourth stage for the Individual action plan within the partnership for 2015-2016.

The country also cooperates with NATO in Afghanistan -- the peacekeeping contingent of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces has been serving there since November 20, 2002. A

Furthermore, Azerbaijan allowed the NATO planes carrying non-combat loads for a mission in Afghanistan to fly through Azerbaijan's airspace and to use the country's airports. About 40 percent of all cargo destined for the NATO mission in Afghanistan pass through Baku. In addition,

Azerbaijan has for many years participated in peacekeeping missions in Iraq and Kosovo.

Besides, NATO keeps the focus the issue of security of the oil and gas pipelines in the South Caucasus region that pass through the territory of Azerbaijan as well.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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14 March 2017 10:46 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Boris Johnson have had an exchange of congratulatory letters on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Mammadyarov, in the letter addressed to his British counterpart, mentioned that Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom have managed to establish solid and constructive dialogue over the years that have brought mutual benefits to the nations, Azertac reported.

He added that the two countries continue to work closely in maintaining the international peace and security.

The minister further noted that the economic ties between Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom, particularly involvement of BP in implementation of regional energy projects such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum oil and gas pipelines constitute the backbone of the bilateral cooperation.

Mammadyarov expressed a belief that new dialogue formats, including bilateral policy dialogue and joint Intergovernmental Economic Commission will serve to further deepen the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom.

Johnson, in his letter addressed to Elmar Mammadyarov, noted that his country has valued its relationship with Azerbaijan over the last quarter century.

Boris Johnson stating the importance of this year for the UK-Azerbaijan bilateral relationship mentioned that he is delighted with the cooperation in energy field.

He also noted that his country remains committed to supporting the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs on the peaceful settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson expressed his conviction to continued cooperation and further deepening of the relationship on a range of issues of mutual interest to the two countries

The UK and Azerbaijan enjoy cooperation in different spheres such as education, trade, tourism, ICT, as well as other infrastructure and transit projects.

The cooperation in the energy sector is currently the key factor of the bilateral economic relations between the two countries. Azerbaijan cooperates with the United Kingdom in the field of exploration and transportation of oil and natural gas from the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. BP as a leading oil company, which has launched its operations in Azerbaijan in 1992, participates in the main production sharing agreements such as the Contract of Century (Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli) and the Shah Deniz project.

The United Kingdom recognized the independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan on 26 December 1991. The diplomatic relations between two countries were established on 11 March 1992. The British Embassy was opened in Baku in September 1993 and the Azerbaijani Embassy in London in January 1994.

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14 March 2017 10:38 (UTC+04:00)

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has issued a statement on the so-called parliamentary elections held in Abkhazia.

The statement says: The Republic of Azerbaijan does not recognize the so-called independence of Abkhazia and consequently, the so-called parliamentary elections held in Abkhazia on March 12, 2017 and its results.

The Ministry believes that it is necessary to continue negotiations for peaceful resolution of Abkhazia issue in compliance with the norms and principles of international law.

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14 March 2017 14:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Afghanistans former Vice-President Mohammad Karim Khalili will attend the 5th Baku Global Forum schduled for March 16-17 in Baku.

Khalili is a leader of Wahdat party (party of Unity) and the acting Chairperson of the countrys Peace Council, the Afghan embassy reported.

Co-organized by the State Committee for Work with Diaspora and the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, the forum will be joined by more than 200 presidents, former heads of state and government from 50 countries, current and former officials, heads and senior representatives of international organizations, renowned politicians and experts.

The forum, titled Future of foreign relations: Power and interests, will discuss a range of issues including the future of transatlantic relations, the fight against terrorism, the role of China in international relations.

--

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14 March 2017 16:01 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

A dusty fog will be observed in Baku on March 14- 15.

Matanat Avazova, Deputy Director of the National Monitoring Department on Environment of the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry told APA that the dusty fog comes from Turkmenistan.

Dust clouds observed over Turkmenistan will move towards Azerbaijan due to the meteorological conditions, she said on March 14.



The dust clouds are already over the Caspian Sea, she stressed.

In the second half of the day, air flows will bring dusty clouds to the countrys territory, she added.

Avazova said that the thickness of dust layer over the Absheron peninsula and Baku is above norm.

This is not a critical situation. But, those who have cardiovascular diseases will have better stay home, she said.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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14 March 2017 16:48 (UTC+04:00)

An official welcome ceremony was organized for President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Paris on March 14, Azertac reported.

President Ilham Aliyev arrived at the Army Museum in the Veterans Square in the French capital.

The head of state was greeted by French Minister of Agriculture, Food Industry and Forestry and the French government spokesman Stefan Le Fol.

A ceremonial guard of honor was lined up for President Ilham Aliyev in the Veterans Square.

National anthems of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the French Republic were played.

President Ilham Aliyev reviewed the guard of honor.

The chief of the guard of honor reported to the President of Azerbaijan.

French Minister of Agriculture, Food Industry and Forestry and the French government spokesman Stefan Le Fol met with members of the Azerbaijani delegation.

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14 March 2017 11:19 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkey has announced a number of political sanctions against the Netherlands over its refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to campaign there, including halting high-level political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish air space to Dutch diplomats.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, talking to a briefing on March 13, said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps "to redress" the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

"There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn't create this crisis or bring it to this stage," Kurtulmus said, adding that those who did have to take steps to redress the situation.

Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group.

The announcement came hours after Turkey's Foreign Ministry sent protest notes to the Dutch side over the treatment of a Turkish minister who was prevented from entering a consulate in the Netherlands and escorted out of the country after trying to attend a political rally.

The ministry also objected to what it called a "disproportionate" use of force against demonstrators at a protest afterward. Separately, Turkey's foreign minister was denied permission to land to address the same rally in Rotterdam.

The Dutch government did not allow Turkish officials to campaign there to drum up support among Turks who are eligible to vote in an April 16 referendum. About 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands, though it's not clear how many are eligible to vote.

The Netherlands has urged its citizens living in Turkey to avoid public places and be careful.

There is a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the Netherlands since March 11, reads a message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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14 March 2017 14:48 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Russia and Iran are considering realization of joint projects in the industry sector for a total of $10 billion, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on March 13 meeting with Iranian Communications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi, RIA Novosti reported.

We discussed those new documents which are expected to be prepared for signing during the visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Moscow, and we agreed that approximately more than 10 such contracts will be prepared, Novak said.

Great prospects in the field of industry exist, since a five-year "roadmap" for cooperation was signed, and now Russian companies and industrial enterprises cooperate with Iranian companies, according to the Energy Minister.

Wagons are already delivered, we are talking about the supply of Sukhoi Superjet aircraft and other areas of cooperation, Novak stated.

He also stressed that for the implementation and development of cooperation between countries it is important to create financial and economic conditions in the banking sector.

"Today, our largest banks are operating in Iran, that means the payment and settlement systems have been restored, he said adding that currently the sides are working on crediting projects as they are looking for sources of financing, because there are lots of projects which cannot be implemented by using only budgetary means.

A meeting of the presidents of Russia and Iran will be held in late March in Moscow. A number of agreements are expected to be signed during the high-level talks in March. Both sides have confirmed the upcoming visit of Rouhani to Russia.

A document on formation of a free trade zone between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) may be signed during the visit of Iranian president, in addition, the two sides will also consider the issue of oil for goods barter deal.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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14 March 2017 15:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Camal

Kuwait wants the OPEC to extend output cuts beyond June, becoming the cartel's first member to call for more time to balance the global oil market as the effort that boosted prices initially on the curbs has faded.

U.S. inventories have climbed more than expected, causing prices to decline even as global producers cut their output, Kuwaits Oil Minister Issam Almarzooq said, according to Bloomberg. Kuwait supports rolling over the oil cuts, though its too early for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to agree on an extension, he said.

Kuwait supports the extension of the agreement after June, Almarzooq said. An extension will accelerate the rebalancing of the global oil market and will contribute to the return of prices to levels acceptable for producing countries and for the petroleum industry in general.

Last November in Vienna, the OPEC members agreed upon a deal to cut production as of January 1 by about 1.2 million barrels per day, or about 4.5 percent of production, to 32.5 million barrels per day.

According to a recent OPEC report, world oil supply fell by over one million barrels per day in January, averaging at 95.75 million barrels per day.

The rally stalled this year as U.S. output and supplies continued to grow. Brent crude, a global benchmark, has declined 9.6 percent this year.

In early March, OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said that it is early to talk about the extension of oil output cut deal.

When we meet in May, we will be able to look at all the data  and see what we have achieved, Barkindo told journalists during the CERAWeek energy conference in the US city of Houston.

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14 March 2017 17:51 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The UK has taken one step closer to leaving the European Union on March 13 as Parliament approved a bill to launch the Brexit procedure in its original form, without amendments.

The upper chamber of the parliament, the House of Lords, gave the prime minister the right to initiate the Brexit procedure which means the withdrawal of the UK from the EU by a majority vote, RIA Novosti reported.

Earlier, the lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, adopted the same decision.

The next step for the legislation is royal assent, which could happen very soon. After that, Prime Minister Theresa May will not have any barriers to using Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on Britain's withdrawal from the world's largest economic unions.

It remains a mystery when May will officially launch Brexit. According to some data, she can send a relevant notice to Brussels already on March 14 and announced this during her speech at Parliament.

Other sources suggest that the prime minister will not rush and, given the upcoming elections in the Netherlands and the conference of the Scottish National Party, will launch the Brexit procedure in the last week of this month.

March 27 is repeated most often among the possible dates.

The passing of the legislation is overshadowed by the possibility of Scotlands exit from the United Kingdom as the country called on for the referendum in order not to leave the EU.

On March 13, Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stated that she would ask for a second independence referendum before Brexit is finalized.

Although the country had one in 2014, Sturgeon said that the Brexi+t vote has changed matters and Scotland should get another chance to decide its future in a vote pitched for 2018.

Scotland voted overwhelmingly (62 per cent to 38 per cent) to remain in the Brexit referendum  as did Northern Ireland, while England and Wales mostly voted to leave.

In an announcement that took many London politicians by surprise, Sturgeon vowed that Scotland would not be "taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice."

In order to be adopted the bill on Brexit needed the backing of both lower and upper houses of parliament.

Initially, the Lords sought to introduce two amendments into the bill as they demanded from the government to guarantee the immutability of the status of EU citizens residing in the UK and to legislatively consolidate the prime minister's promise to present final agreements with the European Union to the parliament's court.

Later, the Lords preferred to give up their demands. Apparently, this was done to avoid reproaches in obstructing the implementation of the will of the people, expressed in a referendum.

It has been 262 days since Britain shocked the world by voting to exit the EU. On June 23, 2016 about 52 percent of UK voters cast ballots to for the island nation to leave the EU. The full terms of the UK's exit have yet to be negotiated, but much hinges at stake.

Particularly, UK citizens and outside observers wonder whether Britain will keep some economic ties with the EU in the form of tariff-free trade, or whether the UK will trade with the EU like any non-EU country under rules stipulated by the World Trade Organization. Another issue is how migrants entering and leaving the UK will be treated.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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Ahram Online

Egyptian army tanks deployed in Sinai (Photo:Ahram)

Major General Mamdouh Shahin, the Egyptian defence minister's deputy for legislative and constitutional affairs, told MPs on Tuesday that the army is on the brink of eliminating terrorism in North Sinai.

In a meeting held by parliament's agriculture committee and attended by governor of Ismailia Yassin Taher, Shahin said that "the elimination of terrorism in North Sinai, which is very near, will pave the way for revoking the emergency measures that have been in effect there since 2013."

The army has been battling an intensified Islamist insurgency in North Sinai since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Shahin told MPs that the government and the army are keen on seeing Sinai become an attractive environment for investment.

"Sinai will see a lot of progress very soon in terms of economic development after all terrorist elements in this integral part of Egypt are obliterated," said Shahin.

Shahin said that "emergency measures, including long curfew hours, were imposed in Sinai in order to safeguard its citizens against terrorism and help prevent it from infiltrating all of Egypt."

However, Shahin said "the army has always been of the mind that emergency measures in Sinai are to be implemented on a very limited scale so that the citizens of Sinai can move easily and live a normal life."

MPs complained that most of the roads leading to North Sinai are in bad condition and that it is very difficult for farmers there to use fertilisers necessary to grow their crops.

Hesham El-Shini, head of parliament's agriculture committee, said that the poor road conditions have led to hundreds of citizens losing their lives in car accidents.

"It is hard for the citizens of North Sinai to suffer from both terrorism and bad roads," said El-Shini.

El-Shini said the committee will send Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi a memorandum requesting that the army's engineering authority take charge of renovating roads leading to Sinai.

MP Fathi Qandeel complained that farmers in both Sinai and Ismailia have suffered much in recent years because they have not been allowed to use "nitrate and urea fertilizers, which are necessary to grow their crops.

In response, Shahin said the army decided three years ago that "nitrate and urea fertilisers be banned from use in Sinai and Ismailia after it had found that they were used in manufacturing explosives."

Ismailia governor Yassin Taher said "it is highly dangerous that terrorists get the material they need to manufacture explosives and use them near the Suez Canal area  which is highly strategic to the Egyptian and the world economy."

Taher said that "farmers in Sinai and the Suez Canal area can use other kinds of fertilisers for the time being and terrorism is completely obliterated."

Taher proposed that the Ministry of Agriculture set up a fertiliser production factory in Ismailia to help provide farmers in Sinai with the quantities they need and after making sure that they will not be used in any terrorist activities.
14 March 2017 17:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The tension escalates around Turkey's attempts to send ministers to Western Europe to speak at campaign rallies aimed at boosting support from Turkish expats at the referendum on April 16 that would expand the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Antwerp Governor Bart De Weyver banned a meeting of Turks scheduled for Friday in Burke, a suburb of this second largest city in Belgium, RIA Novosti reported citing the Meuse newspaper.

"This poses a threat to public order," the head of the city administration said.

The authorities of Antwerp are afraid of clashes between the participants of the Turkish rally and the members of the extreme right Flemish party "Flemish interest", which planned to organize a protest against the meeting of representatives of the Turkish diaspora the same day. This action was also banned by the Governor of Antwerp.

The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belgium, Jan Yambon, earlier called on local authorities to take appropriate measures to ensure security and order in case of holding mass rallies involving the Turkish population of the kingdom. Activities were planned mainly in Antwerp and Brussels.

Austria's chancellor also said on Monday he would attempt to ban Turkish ministers from campaigning in Austria for a referendum in Turkey to expand Turkish President Erdogan's powers after the Netherlands hindered the Turkish minister from speaking there.

When asked what the Austrian government would do if the Turkish minister tries to enlist the support of the Austrian Turks on April 16, Christian Kern told broadcaster ORF that "we would try to prohibit this due to reasons of public security."

Previously in March, Kern had called for a "collective EU response" to prevent Turkish ministers from holding campaign events in EU countries.

Last week, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was denied permission to land to address the same rally in Rotterdam and tell the Turkish citizens living there about the constitutional amendments.

The Turkish Minister for Family Affairs Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya also tried to get there by land transport in order to speak at the rally, but the Dutch Interior Ministry officers blocked the road to the minister's car, and then the authorities declared her "an undesirable alien" and escorted out of the country.

As a result, Turkey has announced a number of political sanctions against the Netherlands, including halting high-level political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish air space to Dutch diplomats.

Turkey is pushing for an apology, calling the Dutch actions a violation of diplomatic conventions. The country has sent two political protest notes expressing their demands.

Earlier, the dissatisfaction of Turkey was caused by the decision of Germany to cancel two events with the participation of Ministers from Ankara. Observers say that Berlin does not want to provide a platform for propaganda to government officials whose policies the federal republic does not agree with.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
14 March 2017 17:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The government of the Russian Federation has allowed importing only scarce vegetables from Turkey.

The position of the Ministry of Agriculture is that tomatoes and cucumbers should be supplied by Russian producers, Minister Alexander Tkachev said, TASS reported.

"We are allowed to import only those positions that do not significantly affect, in fact, they are scarce for us, he said adding that the Agriculture Ministry, the Union of Vegetable Growers and Business understand that this niche should be taken by the vegetables of Russian production.

The volume of vegetable production in Russia, according to Tkachev, grows by almost 30 percent per year.

Last week, the Russian government lifted the ban on the supply of chewing gum, salt, onions, cauliflower, broccoli and cloves from Turkey.

Russia imposed a number of sanctions on Turkey in response to the downing of a Russian military aircraft by a Turkish fighter jet in Syria on November 24, 2015. Russian side targeted several sectors of the Turkish economy, banning Russian firms from organizing package tours to Turkey, restricting the operation of Turkish construction companies in Russia, and prohibiting the import of most products including a ban on food and flowers.

In June 2016, following Turkey's apology for the incident, the sides began a reconciliation process.

After the talks between the two countries presidents in October 2016, the Russian government decided to allow on its market a number of Turkish agricultural products, including citrus.

The embargo was lifted in respect of fresh and dried oranges and tangerines, fresh apricots, peaches and nectarines, plums and thorns, which make up much of Turkey's fruit exports to Russia.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
14 March 2017 18:55 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkey is ready to purchase S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile system from Russia in credit, said Sergei Chemezov, the General Director of Rostec State Corporation.

Chemezov, talking to Rossiya 24 TV channel, said that Turkey expresses a wish to receive a loan, but the issue has not yet been resolved.

The Ministry of Finance is in talks. As soon as an agreement is reached and a decision is made on volume of the loan, we will sign a contract for the supply, including the S-400, he said but did not specify when such decision could be made.

In Moscow on March 10, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed Turkey's acquisition of Russian surface-to-air missiles systems (SAMs) S-400 Triumph.

Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that Ankara is considering various variants of anti-missile defense systems, and the S-400 is one of them.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Bakery giant CSM revealed plans to close the Ashington-based Kates Cakes site last year, but has now announced it will keep it open to focus on free-from.

CSM, which took over the firm of Kates Cakes in Ashington in 2006, announced plans to close the site last year. But it announced yesterday (12 March) that it is to keep the Sussex plant open, which will save around 350 jobs.

Originally, CSM sent out letters to staff in February last year, saying it was to close its bakery site on the Wiston Trading estate in Ashington, and one in Esher, by the end of 2017. It had planned to open a new site in Daventry and extend another in Bradford.

But now CSM says it has undertaken a comprehensive review of its plans and the Ashington bakery - which achieved record sales over the past year - will remain open.

Alex Dekker, CSMs head of production in Europe, said: We believe Ashington and its team have a role to play in our bid to maintain our industry leadership in innovation, quality and service.

I also must note the dedication and pride of the Ashington workers, who, over this past year, have delivered record output and service quality levels, regardless of the plants future. Im glad they will remain part of our team.

He said the former Kates Cakes plant will focus on producing gluten-free and free from baked goods and ingredients for CSM.
Marvin (left) and Murray Lender.

The bagel is a common staple of the American breakfast. But 50 years ago, it would have been difficult to find bagels outside of Jewish communities in towns like New Haven, CT, birthplace of Marvin and Murray Lender, the brothers responsible for bringing the bagel into the mainstream.

These first-generation Americans, born 10 years apart to Polish immigrants, watched as their father, Harry, started the New York Bagel Bakery in the family garage in 1929. Both brothers worked in the family bakery during high school. Murray Lender, the eldest, rejoined the company after graduating from what is now Quinnipiac University in New Haven and serving in the US Army. Marvin Lender followed suit after his own college graduation from Syracuse University.

As the business grew into the late 1950s, the brothers began to freeze the bakerys bagels to keep up with consumer demand, defrosting them for higher-volume weekend sales. This technique proved to be the catalyst for much of the future success for the company and the product.

Marvin and Murray Lender are known to have single-handedly created the frozen bagel market, said Doris Zelinsky, former financial director at Lenders Bagels. They bagelized America by introducing, advertising, marketing and merchandising bagels in memorable ways.

The Lender brothers took ownership of New York Bagel Bakery in 1960. In 1965, they changed the name to Lenders Bagels and built their first industrial facility. Originally 6,000 sq ft, the plant doubled in size within the first year under the brothers leadership. Growth continued and additional facilities opened over the following 20 years.

The brothers were geniuses at taking an obscure, handmade product and adapting it to mass production, distribution and consumer delight, not just acceptance, Ms. Zelinsky said. They helped pave the way for a myriad of traditional bakery foods, from bagels to pirogues to blintzes to gnocchi, pita and naan that are now available in convenient forms.

Spearheaded by the Lender brothers, the growth of the bagel market contributed to advances in equipment design across the baking industry at large. Marvin Lender, in particular, worked with equipment manufacturers to develop methods of producing bagels at higher speeds and in greater quantities. These technology and process improvements quickly spread beyond bagel production, according to Ms. Zelinsky.

Marvin influenced the technologies of dough ball formation, makeup, boiling, hearth-oven baking, slicing and packaged penny-stacking as well as freezing and distribution of frozen baked products of all sorts, she said.

Though Marvin and Murray Lender were the two that stayed with the company long-term, their older brother Sam was involved in its early days, baking bagels alongside his father and brothers. After Lenders Bagels experienced serious growth, they honored his hard work in a very visible way.

The Lenders brothers were originally a threesome, Sam, Murray and Marvin, Ms. Zelinsky said. While Sam retired before the business began its meteoric growth, the image of three bagel-baking brothers adorned the companys advertising, packaging and the consumer giveaways featured on its bags for years to come.

Lenders Bagels was sold to Kraft Foods in 1985, allowing Marvin and Murray Lender to spend more time on community development and non-profit work. Murray Lender committed himself to bettering the New Haven area, working on projects to improve quality of life for local residents. Marvin Lender championed major initiatives to transport oppressed Jewish communities from Africa and the former Soviet Union to Israel and has dedicated time and money to globally battling anti-Semitism.

Murray Lender passed away in 2012 at the age of 81. He and his brother are regarded in the baking industry as men of deep character and admirable business sense and will be inducted into the Baking Hall of Fame at the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Baking.
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Lebanon: learning to hope again

Fleeing ISIS and having to learn a new language is not stopping refugee children from moving forward, thanks to an education project supported by BMS World Mission





Missing one day of school isnt too bad. Its when those days turn into weeks, months and then years, thats when it becomes life-destroying.

Slowly but surely you are being left behind. Your chances of getting a decent job to lift you and your family out of poverty are receding. Your future is getting bleaker, day by day. You watch it slip away, but there is nothing you can do about it.

This is what life is like right now for thousands of refugee children in Lebanon who have fled war in Syria and Iraq. While some have managed to get a place in a public school, around 20 per cent have not. Their hopes for a decent job when they grow up are fading.

All these children need is a chance to learn so they can dream once more of a better future. Thats what your giving to BMS is providing through the Learning Support Project (LSP) in Beirut. BMS mission worker Louise Brown, who manages LSP, shares in this short video the story of one child who is working towards his amazing dream, thanks to the education he is now receiving.



Learning to hope again from BMS World Mission on Vimeo .



At LSP, over 60 children aged six to 14 are learning numeracy, literacy, languages and life-skills. Many of those who attend have missed so much school that going to a formal school is no longer an option. LSP is their last opportunity to get the education they need, and they are seizing it enthusiastically. There is a hunger and desire to learn, says Louise.

Learning is helping the refugees emotionally too. Coming to school in itself is incredibly healing for these children, says Louise. It gives them structure and it gives them routine. The children love their teachers and the chance to connect wuth someone outside of their family. Being able to play at break times is a rare treat as when they are not at LSP they are often working or doing chores at home. This is their opportunity to be a child, says Louise.







What is exciting is how, by being given this chance to learn and heal, children are excelling. Rita fled her village in Syria when ISIS invaded it and she started to attend LSP when she came to Beirut. She has now returned to Syria and the school she used to attend. They assessed her and she had gone up three grades in one year, thanks to what she learnt at LSP.

Michael* got a place at an English-speaking school in Beirut when he arrived in Lebanon, but knew no English. Within 18 months of being at LSP, he was a fluent speaker. He is now thriving at his school.

Sawsan* had forgotten everything she had learnt at school which gave her low self-esteem. After a year of being at LSP, she could write Arabic poetry boosting her confidence enormously.

Your support of BMS is helping us to give refugee children like Rita, Michael and Sawsan purpose, hope and skills. What school theyve missed in the past affect their future anymore.



Give to BMS today so we can help other children have a better future through our support of educational projects around the world.



*Names changed





This story originally appreared on the BMS World Mission website and is used with permission.

BMS World Mission, 14/03/2017
A Tarpon Springs author is headed to New York City Friday to share her new childrens book about Greece.

Demetra Tsavaris-Lecourezos wrote the book for her daughter

"Ready, Set, Opa!" is Lecourezos's second book

Find more information on Facebook

The book is called Ready, Set, Opa! Demetra Tsavaris-Lecourezos initially wrote it to teach her daughter about Greece's history.



Lecourezos now wants to share the history lesson with children all over the country.



The book focuses on a group of children, who start out in Tarpon Springs and travel back in time.



They have this magical crystal globe that if they close their eyes, they can be anywhere in the world in any period of time in history and be whoever they want, said Lecourezos.



Lecourezos thought of the concept for "Ready, Set, Opa!" a decade ago. The book was delayed when Lecourezos was diagnosed with cancer.



Im proud I was able to get through it, Lecourezos said. Im proud under the conditions I was able to complete the book.



Next week, shell read it to students at Greek schools and churches in New York City. Lecourezos wants it to be a learning tool in classrooms throughout the country.



She eventually hopes to complete a series of 10 time-traveling childrens books: Young World Travelers and the Magical Crystal Globe.



Lecourezos books can be ordered at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. For more information about "Ready, Set, Opa!", visit the author's Facebook page.


Big Honors for Oregon Coast Tourism Group and a Beer Award

Published 03/13/2017 at 6:03 AM PDT - Updated 03/13/2017 at 6:05 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Lincoln City, Oregon)  Awards keep pouring in for various aspects of the Oregon coast and its thriving tourism and culinary scene. Two high-profile organizations just snagged some more.

The Oregon Festivals & Events Association recently bestowed a distinctive honor on one Oregon coast town. The Lincoln City Visitor & Convention Bureau (VCB) won the 2016 Hidden Gem Award to the Lincoln for "A Tour To Die For."

The award was presented at the Oregon Festivals & Events Association's annual Ovation! Awards Ceremony in Seaside on March 7th. Scott Humpert, Marketing Manager at the VCB, accepted the award on behalf of the City and the event partners. The Hidden Gem Award is bestowed upon small but worthy events with fewer than 1,000 attendees that makes an impact on a community and is worth bragging about.

"A Tour To Die For" premiered last October, featured guided tours of Lincoln City's hilltop graveyard, Pioneer Cemetery. History truly came to life as permanent residents of the cemetery, played by local actors, told an eternity of tales to participants. "A Tour to Die For" was a successful collaboration between the VCB, Theatre West, Taft Pioneer Cemetery Association and the North Lincoln County Historical Museum, with support from Chinook Winds Casino Resort and the Lincoln City Cultural Center. Anne Hall, Director of the Museum, is proud of the recent award.

"A Tour To Die For" is also nominated for two other awards this year: the Heritage Tourism Award from Travel Oregon and the Oregon Heritage Excellence Award from Oregon State Parks. It will return to the central Oregon coast town on October 20-22 & 27-29, 2017. For more information, please visit OregonCoast.org or call 541-996-1274.

Up the road in Pacific City, Pelican Brewing Company recently earned another Gold medal for its popular flagship brew Kiwanda Cream Ale at Oregons Academy Awards Ceremony for beer, the Oregon Beer Awards. The contest was held in Portland.

Kiwanda Cream Ale, one of Pelicans top-selling and most-decorated brews with 45 medals, won a Gold in the German Kolsch category - a clear, top-fermented beer with a bright, straw-yellow hue.

The Oregon Beer Awards select and celebrate Oregons top beers in 22 categories, and honor Oregon's exceptional breweries, bars and festivals in seven additional categories. It is the only statewide double blind beer tasting competition in Oregon.

The beer is a nod to Pelicans founding brewmaster Darron Welchs love of history and reputation for brewing beers as they are intended to be. Pelican is the first known craft brewer to revive the pre-Prohibition style of American Cream Ale.

Kiwanda Cream Ale is now available around the state in 12-packs in the grocery craft beer aisle as well as 6-packs, 22 oz. bottles and on-draft.

The company recently doubled its brewing and bottling capacity at its Tillamook facility and opened a new brewpub in Cannon Beach. Pelican also recently won a bronze medal at the World Brew Cup and eight medals including Champion Medium International Brewery at the Australian International Beer Awards. Oregon Coast Hotels in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

















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Oregon Coast Spring Break Highlights: Many Levels of Fun



Published 03/11/2017 at 7:03 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  So much Oregon coast  so little time for spring break. (Above: wreck of the Peter Iredale: a spring break must-see).

The big vacation weeks for Oregon and Washington students is upon us, and this shoreline offers bundles of beautiful beaches and places filled with aspects not always in plain sight. Whale watching and the big SOLVE cleanup are always major players during this time, but there's even more lurking behind the captivating spots you see from the highway.

Looking to dig a little deeper and find the true treasures? Keep reading and then check the virtual tours to each area for much more.





Astoria and Warrenton: Sprawling Fort Stevens State Park will be the big buzz-inducer for the kids. It's not just gobs of beaches here (some of which you can drive on), but a huge array of trails and attractions. The wreck of the Peter Iredale is a highlight, but one of the most remarkable experiences on the entire Oregon coast is crawling around the spooky, cavernous and castle-like Battery Russell  a former military post that guarded this area.





Seaside and Cannon Beach. The undisputed king of spring break on the coast is Seaside, with its myriad of kid-friendly stuff, such as bumper cars, a helicopter ride and the ever-engaging Seaside Aquarium. Cannon Beach comes in a decent second with its variety of yummy eateries and fun shops, but beaches just south of there like Arch Cape or Hug Point are crammed full of discoveries and surprises.

Manzanita and Nehalem Bay. The most obvious pleasure is the lack of the obvious: it's not as crowded or commercial as many areas on the Oregon coast. The overlooks and the pristine beaches are endless fun, but it's the mind-bending finds like the freaky cliffs near Neahkahnie and their unique rock formations that will truly leave a lasting impression. Slightly inland, Wheeler and Nehalem are chock full of outdoor fun like fishing and kayaking.





Rockaway Beach to Tillamook Bay. The expansive, laidback sands of Rockaway Beach are among the longest stretches of uninterrupted beach along the coastline, but don't forget dreamy Lake Lytle across the highway. The town quickly gives way to the soaring scenery of Garibaldi and Bay City along Tillamook Bay, where fishing, boating, crabbing and the delicious seafood of Pacific Seafood rule the day.





Three Capes Route. You need more than one day just to explore this 25-mile stretch properly. Cape Kiwanda, Cape Lookout and the lighthouse-laden Cape Meares are just the most high profile destinations. Tiny Oceanside has so much crammed into its diminutive digs that you could spend a whole day there. Netarts and Tierra Del Mar are two villages full of surprises.





Lincoln City. Another spring break hotspot, there's more to do here for families or couples than two days and nights can allow. A thriving performing arts scene, live music, major examples of culinary prowess, a place to blow your own glass floats  well, that's just the surface. Shopping is huge, candy shops abound, and then there are all those beaches. Seven miles of deliriously delightful beaches.





Depoe Bay. The stretch that includes Gleneden Beach, Lincoln Beach, Depoe Bay, Otter Loop Road and Cape Foulweather is a mere 9-mile tract that is so overflowing with sights and sites there's no way to get into it here. But if you like soaring cliffs, wild waves, enormous ocean vistas, whales and places not tread upon by many others, then this is your ticket.





Newport. Another hotspot bubbling over with the fun and the fascinating, Newport has not just plenty of beaches but two lighthouses and a stunning culinary scene. There's the Hatfield Marine Science Center and the Oregon Coast Aquarium for the kidlets, but everyone will adore the bustling bayfront district or the charming, time-tripping Nye Beach.





Waldport to Yachats. Seal Rock and the hidden beaches near South Beach are some of the most intriguing places on the entire Oregon coast. Waldport's sandy charms give way to Yachats' awe-inspiring rocky ledges, where crazed breakers entertain all day. You cannot miss Cape Perpetua and its soaring views some 600 feet high, nor skip out on the Devil's Churn and its raucous displays below.

Upper Lane County to Florence. There are about 20 miles of hidden beaches between Yachats and Florence, and you really should check out each one. The famed Heceta Head Lighthouse and seriously clandestine Hobbit Trail beach are two must-see's. Places like Bob Creek, Neptune State Park and Strawberry Hill are labyrinth-like mixes of mysterious rocky ledges and soft sands. There's even a few caves. Oregon Coast Hotels in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours



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Deborah Ray Holst reminds her grandchildren that an angel is watching them  Mawmaw Minnie.

Holst's mother, Minnie Ray Sebolt, was killed at the Jefferson County Courthouse five years ago, shot outside the entrance while accompanying a friend to help her get VA benefits.



"I don't use the word killed," said Holst, 60. "He murdered her."

PHOTOS: Jefferson County Courthouse Shooting



In the five years since the shooting, in which Bartholomew Granger fired at his daughter and ex-girlfriend, Samantha and Claudia Jackson  killing Sebolt and injuring a bystander  Holst said she has thought about her mother every day.



She talks to Claudia about once a year, keeping up with how she and Samantha are doing, and tells her grandchildren stories about Mawmaw.



One person she hasn't spoken to is Granger, 46, who spends his days in a one-person cell on death row at a state prison in Livingston.

PHOTOS: Southeast Texans on Death Row



Granger was sentenced to death in 2013, after a jury found him guilty of capital murder. Prosecutors proved he intended to kill his daughter, a crime of retaliation against a trial witness, and transferred that intent to Sebolt's death.



He has appealed the ruling twice. His most recent appeal is pending at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.



From behind a barrier in a visitation room at the prison, Granger said he remembers only pieces of the day before he woke up in the hospital and was told he shot someone at the courthouse.

Eruption of gunfire

"We all still remember it. Everybody still remembers it," said Jefferson County District Attorney Bob Wortham. "If you were here on that day, it was etched in your mind."



At the time, Wortham was the 58th District Court Judge. On March 14, the day of the shooting, he was in Mexico on vacation. In 2013, he presided over Granger's trial, at which the jury sentenced him to death.



Courthouse security guard Edmund Woodsmall had just arrived at work that day and was in the jury impaneling auditorium next to the entrance when he heard gunshots and glass breaking.

"Bullets were flying through the glass, they broke one of the doors," he said.

Sebolt had already been shot and was on the ground outside the revolving door when he looked out, he said.



"I just stayed over here and made sure nobody could get in," Woodsmall said, motioning to the entrance, where he still works.



The same security system is in place at the courthouse today, he said. All entrants must pass through a metal detector and have their bag scanned.



Beaumont Police Chief Jimmy Singletary, who was appointed six months earlier, was saying goodbye to a newly appointed chaplain when he heard the gunshots. He rushed him safely to his car and then headed to the courthouse.



He said officers still poke fun at him for jumping over the 3-foot barricade beside the courthouse.

"It amazes me what goes through your head in such a short period of time," Singletary said.



When they were able to go outside, Woodsmall said security guards checked on Sebolt and another woman who had been shot. Sebolt was already dead.



Meanwhile, officers shot at Granger as he fled the courthouse and tried to drive away, surveillance footage shows.

MORE: Death Row By The Numbers



Wortham said 56 bullet shell casings were recovered from the roadway connecting the entrance of the courthouse to Milam Street. Fifty matched law enforcement weapons, and another six weren't identified, possibly fired by private citizens.



As Granger fled, Singletary hid behind a traffic pole trying not to get hit by his own officers firing at the truck, he said.



He said in his 46 years on the force he couldn't recall a dangerous incident as significant as this one.

Granger said he remembers bringing a gun to the courthouse that day, though he claims not to know much of what happened later.



"I remember being at the courthouse, I remember seeing Claudia and Samantha," he said. He continues to accuse the women of lying about him and falsely accusing him of sexual assault.



"The only person I remember shooting at was my daughter," Granger said. "I shot at her eight times."



"All of a sudden, everything was black. When I came to, I ran out of the building, started turning the truck around," he said. "I thought they were going to keep shooting."

Singletary said Granger made eye contact with him as he drove past him heading straight-on into a strip of bullets.



"I got around the corner, the truck died," Granger said. "I ran into the office building, there were some people."



The office building was the warehouse of RCI, a construction company.

Prosecutors said Granger held four people hostage in the office, though he claimed he told them, "I'm not going to shoot, I just want the cops to stop shooting."



Granger, who had been hit as he fled the courthouse, started to black out, and the hostages tackled him, Wortham said.



He was later indicted on four counts of aggravated kidnapping.



Holst's daughter received a phone call from the woman Sebolt was at the courthouse with, telling her "your Mawmaw's been shot."



Granger sticks to his belief that Sebolt was shot and killed by police fire, which Wortham calls an impossibility because law enforcement didn't arrive until after she was shot.



"I'm sorry that someone lost a life, but I didn't take a life," said Granger, who said he can't feel remorse because that would mean admitting to killing her. "I have empathy and sympathy for the family," he said. He said he prays for Sebolt every night.



That's no comfort to Holst, who said she looks forward to his as-yet-unscheduled execution date.

"My taxes, my children's taxes, are paying for that piece of crap to get free medical, free dental, three meals a day," Holst said. "I'm a Christian, my mother was a Christian, but I can't forgive him, and I can't wait for him to get the needle."



Throughout his days, which consist mostly of reading graphic novels and listening to the radio, Granger said he sits in his cell thinking of the day that led to his confinement.



"I'd rather die than be in prison for life," Granger said. If he were ever released, he said, the first thing he would do is eat a Taco Bell chalupa. After that, he said, "I'd just want to be left alone."



In the aftermath of the shooting, Holst said Claudia Jackson reached out to the Sebolt family and apologized. "We said we appreciate the thought, but there is no animosity. They're victims too, even more so," she said.



While the two families were trying to make sense of what they had just endured, Singletary said his officers were tense.



"If it ever gets to the point where it doesn't affect you, you need to get another job," Singletary said about the experience of the day. "It affects you, but you have to be able to control it."



Holst has kept a close eye on Granger's appeals, she said. His most recent, according to attorney Gretchen Sween with the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, is a habeas corpus proceeding addressing the process of his trial.



The appeal is challenging the constitutionality of the proceedings in district court, Sween said.

Sween filed objections with the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals in December, including that trial lawyers Sonny Cribbs and James Makin failed to present relevant evidence, that the court denied Granger due process by not holding a hearing on his objections, and that the district court should not have adopted facts as presented by the state.



"There's a floor of the kind of representation everyone is entitled to," she said. "Our argument is that he didn't even receive that."



Sween said there has not been a hearing on this appeal. Last month, the court ordered the Jefferson County District Clerk to submit six of the exhibits from Granger's first trial to the court for inspection.



SFlores@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/_saraeflores

LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/LizTeitz

MORE ONLINE:

Photos: Jefferson County Courthouse shooting

Photos: Southeast Texans on Death Row

Surveillance videos captured courthouse shooting spree

"Who did this to you?" asked attorney; shooting victim replies, "my daddy"

Granger writes 'Death' on paper, shows jury during trial
Death row numbers

6: The number of inmates who were electrocuted from Southeast Texas counties.

15: The number of inmates from Jefferson, Hardin, Orange and Jasper counties executed since 1982, when Texas reinstated the death penalty.*

3: The number of inmates from Southeast Texas counties now on death row.

*Lawrence Russell Brewer Jr., 44, convicted in James Byrd Jr.'s dragging death, was executed on Sept. 21. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice lists Brewer as a Brazos County inmate because his trial was held in that county.

Source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

The cost of a capital murder trial

The most recent capital murder death penalty case that prosecutors prepared to go to trial for in Jefferson County was in March of 2009. It cost the county $136,307.87.

Here is a breakdown of that cost:

$127,400: Defense attorneys fees. Two attorneys are appointed in death penalty cases.

$656.25: Expert witness fees.

$5,232.90: Investigative expenses.

$3,018.72: Other litigation.

This cost is based on the 2009 trial of Xavier Brown, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge right before trial.

The cost the county incurred in preparation for the trial easily could have reached a half million dollars if the case had gone to a jury and if Brown had been sent to death row, Beaumont defense attorney Doug Barlow said.

Barlow was Brown's attorney.

Cost is one reason counties with a high number of capital murder cases are choosing to waive the death penalty in a number of cases, South Texas College of Law professor Kenneth Williams said.

Counties are responsible for the cost of the trial, he said, and for the cost of most state appeals. Also, he said, most capital murder defendants are indigent.

SE Texas inmates on death row

Jefferson County

Elroy Chester, 43

In prison since Sept. 26, 1998.

Victim: Willie Ryman III

Chester was convicted of breaking into Kim Ryman Deleon's Port Arthur home on Feb. 6, 1998, where he raped her teenage daughters, then shot and killed their firefighter uncle, Willie Ryman III, who had come to their aid. Chester took jewelry from the home and fled the scene.

Hardin County

Jamaal Howard, 32

In prison since April 26, 2001.

Victim: Vickie Swartout

Howard was convicted of robbing a Silsbee convenience store on May 12, 2000. During the robbery, Howard shot and killed a 42-year-old female clerk and took $114 from the cash register.

Jasper County

John William King, 37

In prison since Feb. 25, 1999.

Victim: James Byrd Jr.

King, Lawrence Russell Brewer Jr. and Shawn Allen Berry were convicted of killing Byrd by dragging him behind a 1982 gray Ford pickup on Huff Creek Road. Brewer was executed on Sept. 21 and Berry was sentenced to life in prison.
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Elroy Chester, who was sentenced to death in the 1998 fatal shooting of a Port Arthur firefighter, is scheduled for execution tonight. Here are the Southeast Texans currently on Death Row.

JOHN WILLIAM KING

Age: 38

County: Jasper

Crime: King and two others were found responsible for the June 7, 1998 dragging death of Jasper's James Byrd Jr. One of the three  Lawrence Brewer  has already been executed.

ELROY CHESTER

Age: 43

County: Jefferson

Crime: On Feb. 6, 1998, Chester broke into a home and raped two teenage girls. Their uncle, Port Arthur firefighter Willie Ryman III, entered the residence. He was fatally shot by Chester.

JAMAL HOWARD

Age: 33

County: Hardin

Crime: On May 12, 2000, Howard robbed a Silsbee convenience store and fatally shot the 42-year-old clerk, Vickie Swartout.

BARTHOLOMEW GRANGER

Age: 42

County: Jefferson

Crime: On March 14, 2012, Granger opened fire outside the Jefferson County Courthouse, injuring three and killing 79-year-old Minnie Ray Seabolt.

NELSON WAYNE MOONEY

Age: 58

County: Liberty

Crime: Mooney was convicted of the 1984 shooting death of Raymond Garner, 63, of Houston.
Its a rare opportunity when you can fill your belly with soup and fill a bag full of food for a needy family.

On March 21, the annual Empty Bowls Luncheon comes to Classics at the Beatrice Country Club from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. in support of the Beatrice Backpack Program. Each $25 ticket purchased goes to feed a local family and includes a handmade ceramic bowl to take home.

This years luncheon, said Kristy Thies, will feature about 15 different soup chefs from restaurants and catering companies around Beatrice.

The bowls are made by local potters Patrick McKinney and Ervin Dixon as well as by pottery classes at Beatrice High School and Southeast Community College.

This year will mark the tenth year the Beatrice Backpack Program has been sending knapsacks full of food home with students to their families, and in that time it has quadrupled in size, said Kristy Thies, an organizer of the program.

We started out with just 25 backpacks a week, she said. We gradually increased that over the years and now we're up to serving 100 families per week.

Each bag is filled weekly for students to take home and is filled with just enough to supplement the weekends meals at home, Thies said.

We know there's a great need, Thies said. There's food insecurity issues in our community that people may not be aware of, but it does exist here.

Nutrition, she said, is an important part of a childs education. Theres a direct correlation between having a childs nutritional needs met and their performance in schools. For a family that might be choosing between food and medicine or other necessities, a backpack full of healthy food makes a huge difference, she said.

All the food for the Beatrice Backpack Program is purchased from the Lincoln Food Bank, she said. The food bank sets a menu and sends out the food to Beatrice for distribution. That system, she said, gives them more bang for their buck.

Their purchasing power is so much stronger than ours would be because they purchase for entire southeast Nebraska area, Thies said.

For those unable to make the event, but would still like to help out the program, Thies recommends a donation of cash or backpacks dropped off at Beatrice High School. The Empty Bowls Luncheon is the groups biggest fundraiser of the year, but the need for food is year round.

The Beatrice Backpack Program is always looking for volunteers, she said, mostly for a monthly gathering to fill the 100 backpacks before the weekend. The luncheon is also an all-volunteer event, she said, but theyve had to start turning away volunteers due to an overwhelming response.

This years luncheon will be a come and go as you wish type of event, she said. It happens over lunch hour, so theyre pretty flexible with that, she said.

Tickets are available now by contacting Thies at (402) 239-8610, but they can also be purchased at the door.

Thies said arriving early to the luncheon might be a good choice, as one of the items are first come first serve.

We have people lined up well before the event starts because they want first pick of the bowls, she said.
While their children enjoy a spring break from school this week, some parents should take a break too. That would be from all the bitterness and partisanship that doesn't seem to have receded from last year's political campaigns.

The evidence is all around:

-- People are "unfriending" former friends and even relatives on Facebook over political disputes. The boundaries that once existed between personal lives and politics are fading fast.

-- A woman berated White House press secretary Sean Spicer in an Apple store in Washington, D.C., this weekend when he was trying to buy something, saying he worked for a "fascist" in President Trump. Spicer gamely said of the encounter, "It's a free country," but it had to be unnerving.

-- More and more teachers are getting into trouble with their students - and their principals - for political clashes in the classroom. An Alabama teacher wrote an "Obama, you're fired!" caption under a Trump display. A Dallas art teacher was videotaped shooting a squirt gun at an image of President Trump and yelling, "Die!"

It's being noticed. Lawmakers in several state capitals are attending workshops to avoid demonizing their opponents. Summer camps are planned to show children how to get along with their peers.

College campuses are trying to teach their students - and some of their professors - to be more tolerant of other political views. Some classes are re-enacting great debates with students as actors to relearn the art of compromise.

The anger is not healthy. In fact, it's not the way this country was founded and developed. As Allegheny college president Jim Mullen said, "If this incivility continues, we're going to lose a generation to politics. And that's a very dangerous thing for our democracy."

The time to change this trend is now. With big debates ramping up over health care, immigration and federal spending, this country will need more discussion, not less. That can't happen if we're shouting at each other.

The elections are over and the winners will hold office at least until the next round of voting. Let's use this spring break to step back and rejuvenate, and be a little nicer toward each other.
Walt Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" won't be out in Muslim-territory Malaysia after suffering a gay moment cut from the censor board. The screening of the movie has been indefinitely postponed due to this unforeseen circumstances.

According to Daily Mail, Walt Disney was hit with a controversy after the director, Bill Condon, announced the movie would feature gay character LeFou, who is the main sidekick to the villain Gaston. The live action remake of the 1991 animated feature "Beauty and the Beast" was slated for release on March 16 in Malaysia with billboards and posters advertising the film all over Kuala Lumpur.

However, the biggest cinema chains in the country announced that the film had been postponed until further notice. TGV Cinemas stated on their website that customers who have paid in advanced for the film will get a refund. The mystery, although, is the reason behind the Walt Disney's decision to halt the movie release.

As reported by the Guardian, film censorship board chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said he has no idea why the film has been held up by Disney. He said it had been approved following a minor gay scene cut.

"It is only one short scene, which is inappropriate as children will be watching the movie. The promotion of homosexuality is forbidden and the movie was given a PG-13 rating that requires parental guidance for children under 13 years of age," he said.

Abdul Hamid further added that there was no appeal from Disney about the decision to cut the scene. There is no response to the request by Disney officials, but the Star English newspaper that the movie was delayed for an internal review.

Starring Emma Watson, who infamously turned down the Oscar-winning role of "La La Land", the movie is one of the most anticipated this year. Earlier this week, Russia approved the movie screening, but forbid children under 16 from watching it.
Pamela Arora is not only the senior vice president and CIO of Children's Health in Dallas  she was also named 2016 John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year by CHIME and HIMSS.

Each year, the boards of directors for CHIME and HIMSS select the CIO of the Year award recipient: a healthcare IT executive who has made contributions to their organization and demonstrated leadership through the effective use of technology.

Ms. Arora, who has more than 30 years of IT experience, joined Children's Health in 2007. Under her leadership, Children's Health achieved the HIMSS Stage 7 EMR Adoption Model in 2010. A member of HIMSS, CHIME and the Children's Hospital Association, Ms. Arora previously was senior vice president and CIO of Worcester-based UMass Memorial Health Care and CIO of Dallas-based Perot Systems.

Here, Ms. Arora spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about the most surprising thing she learned after becoming a CIO and what IT leaders should keep an eye on in 2017.

Question: Which technology or IT issues is Children's Health focusing on this year?

Pamela Arora: One of the top technology and IT priorities for this year (and the foreseeable future) is continuing to evolve care delivery models in provider healthcare. We are keenly focused on developing our population health programs to create more efficient, sustainable care delivery models across the continuum. These efforts support our organization's desire to meet patients in the community where they live, learn and play.

Q: What is the most surprising thing you learned after becoming a CIO?

PA: If you could take a cross section of an organization, you'd find pockets of people who hold the misbelief that the CIO has a "magic wand" for IT spending and investment. That's not the case  IT investments are business/mission decisions that require involvement from the highest levels of leadership in the organization when making the decision. In my role as CIO, I'm a "translator" in that I have a responsibility to help the organization understand the implications of the technology choices being considered and help the organization make the appropriate decision for the business and to ultimately fulfill our mission to make life better for children.

Question: What are the biggest challenges and benefits of being a woman working in tech?

PA: In my view, the challenges we face in technology are more about ensuring your team members are aligned with the organization's goals. Individuals at Children's Health are universally committed to our mission to make life better for children. There are many paths to follow to your mission, but focusing on the organization's goals gives us a clear framework that allows us to leverage our resources in the best way to deliver on our sacred responsibility to make life better for children. When we deliver, our work stands on its own.

When I evaluate the benefits of being a leader in the industry, there are many. One of the biggest benefits is being able to collaborate with  and learn from  some phenomenal industry leaders. These relationships have helped make our organization better, and they've helped make our team better.

Q: What is the No. 1 topic CIOs should be paying attention to in 2017?

PA: CIOs need to pay attention to making IT more affordable while still ensuring the organization pursues cybersecurity, innovation and development. You have to be cognizant of the fact that the cyber threat landscape continues to change and evolve, having less technology isn't an option when it's embedded in every initiative, and lowering the level of support to your organization is not affordable. You have to address all of these areas and continue to drive a better value for your organization.
Although Andy Crowder has only held the CIO role at San Diego, Calif.-based Scripps Health since January 2016, he has already made his mark in health IT space.

Prior to joining Scripps as corporate senior vice president and CIO, Mr. Crowder served as senior vice president and CIO of Portland-based MaineHealth. He previously served as CIO of Orlando-based Florida Hospital and Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Adventist Health System. Mr. Crowder has nearly three decades of IT experience and a strong background in EHR implementations.

Here, he spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about Scripps' upcoming Epic EHR go-live, what he's learned in his first year at the health system and the best advice he's ever received.

Editor's note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Question: You've been in the CIO role at Scripps Health for a little more than one year. What have you learned in your first 365 days?

Andy Crowder: The interview process was pretty lengthy, so I was able to do a lot of research on [Scripps]. In addition to all of the marketing material, I read a book by the CEO, Chris Van Gorder, called The Front-Line Leader. Books can sometimes be deceiving, but it was incredibly reassuring to see the things written in that book were true about Chris. He does view himself as the frontline leader and he models that every day.

The second lesson has to do with the strength of the senior leadership team and the way they interact. As a new leader, it was critical to be embraced as part of that executive team.

Q: What are the top trends you're seeing in the health IT sector?

AC: All of the CIOs out there today  myself included  are keenly aware of a constant and relentless focus on cost, quality and the patient experience while you're deploying technology. It creates an incredibly stressful dynamic at times.

The second trend regards the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act and the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. Our patients and the communities we serve are looking for an integrated healthcare system. This legislative change aligns incentives so we can start to achieve that.

It's interesting to see what changes will take place in the White House with the ACA. There are a lot of opinions that will keep us on pins and needles as we see what comes out of Washington.

Another trend surrounds artificial intelligence, genomics and consumer-facing technologies aimed at personalizing care. How are they going to change how we provide care to populations?

The last one I'll share is that as Scripps looks to the future, we're striving to tear down silos to provide better coordinated care. For the first time in the past two to three years, I'm starting to see new healthcare organizations launching partnerships with each other. I think we're going to see a lot more partnerships in the coming years.

Q: You played a key role in implementing the Epic EHR at MaineHealth and you're currently putting your Epic knowledge to use at Scripps. What are your key takeaways for heading up an Epic EHR implementation?

AC: The first thing is any organization embarking on a transformation initiative of this magnitude has to have a robust governance structure. In any endeavor of this kind, there's a significant investment. It can't be a technology-lead project; it has to be lead by the key stakeholders in an organization.

The second takeaway is hard to do. Although there's safety in daily rituals, it's key when you're implementing an EHR that you don't replicate your current state [and practices]. It can't just be about the same day, same type of business approach.

Third, people are always looking for ways to improve. When you say yes to an initiative of this magnitude, you have to be willing to say no to something else.

There are always going to be risks and concerns. What's key is that you have a culture that allows people to escalate those issues and concerns in a manner through which they feel safe. Additionally, you can burn people out fairly quickly if you don't consider lightening their load. We've partnered with our internal wellness teams to diligently look at [our employees' wellness] daily.

Q: Scripps is working with Epic on the design of its integrated enterprise EHR, which is slated to go live in the middle of this year. Is your go-live schedule running on time?

AC: The organization is now in the final steps of implementing Epic's Enterprise Suite of Solutions for our Wave 1 launch on April 1, 2017. The Wave 1 activation includes Scripps Green Hospital, 1,200 ambulatory providers within Scripps Medical Foundation (Scripps Clinic and Scripps Coastal Medical Center) and Mercy Clinic, enterprise revenue cycle and Scripps Health Plan. We've been on target and under budget since we kicked off the initiative. We're in a good place!

After that, we take a bit of a reprieve for six months as we focus on stabilization, optimization and preparedness activities for our Wave 2 activation. Wave 2 includes Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla (Calif.) and Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas (Calif.). After that, we take three months of reprieve and bring up the two campus hospital of Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista (Calif.).

Our focus today, however, is all about our Wave 1 activation on April 1.

Q: What's the best piece of advice you've received?

AC: I'm fortunate to have had great personal leaders in my family as well as great professional leaders.

The first piece of advice came from a prior leader. We were working in a setting where we were trying to make a few tough decisions. He said, "There are very few absolutes in life. It's not important that you have a long list of absolutes, but it's important that you have yours."

The second is from my wife, who has had a long, successful career in healthcare IT and entrepreneurial leadership. She says, "Far too often, people are given to making bold statements without facts. Yet in a leadership role, it's key that you manage the comments you make because they impact the organization." It reminds me to be mindful of providing sound guidance and not just opinions.
Cerner Public Policy Director Meg Marshall recently spoke with the Kansas City Business Journal regarding her thoughts on the American Health Care Act, the Republican-proposed replacement to the ACA.

"I think it's going to be challenging for anyone in the healthcare industry, especially as they work toward a budget for their next fiscal year," Ms. Marshall said, according to the report. "We're very specific about the role tech is playing in the continued trajectory toward value-based payments. It's not the sole answer, but it's really helping."

In that same vein, Ms. Marshall noted that Cerner and its clients are working to use technology to provide better and less costly care. Techniques include tracking patient outcomes, preventive care and better connecting physicians and patients.

Overall, Ms. Marshall said Cerner is ready to tackle any upcoming alterations the AHCA could have on the healthcare industry. "At the end of the day, there are still going to be hospitals providing care," Ms. Marshall said, according to the report. "We're really well positioned to work with any number of changes that could happen."
Learn about all of the great options for trees to grow in Nebraska!! Nebraska Extension in cooperation with the Beatrice Groundwater Guardian Team is putting on a Tree Selection seminar. The seminar will be held at noon on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 at the Beatrice Valentinos, located at 701 Court Street, with a free lunch included, it will last until 1:30 p.m. The seminar will cover the topics of tree selection for Southeast Nebraska, choosing trees for drought tolerance and sustainability, and an update on Emerald Ash Borer. Registration is required and is limited to the first 50 people. Please register with the extension office by Monday, March 27, 2017. If you would like to be a part of this seminar contact the Gage County Extension office for registration at (402)223-1384.
Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) has appointed Shawn Riley as North Dakota's CIO and head of the North Dakota Information Technology Department, effective April 17.

Mr. Riley has worked in IT leadership positions for more than 15 years. He has served as the section head of IT for Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic since 2014. Before that, he held CIO and CTO positions within the Mayo Clinic Health System.

"Shawn Riley brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to an increasingly important role in state government," Gov. Burgum said. "His experience overseeing the IT efforts for a world-class health care organization like Mayo Clinic will prove invaluable as technology continues to transform the way government services are delivered in North Dakota."

In his new role, Mr. Riley will support the IT needs of North Dakota's government, K-12 education and higher education. He will focus on services like software development, video conferences and service desk management, along with leading the state's cybersecurity initiatives.
Nashville, Tenn.-based Ardent Health Services appointed Paul Kappelman its new executive vice president and COO.

Here are five things to know:



1. Mr. Kappelman is the former interim CEO of Plano, Texas-based LHP Hospital Group.



2. Ardent Health Services has acquired LHP Hospital Group, making it the second largest for-profit hospital operator in the country.



3. Prior to joining LHP, Mr. Kappelman was CEO of Northwest Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., and Northwest Medical Center in Oro Valley, Ariz.



4. He is a fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives.



5. In his new role, Mr. Kappelman will oversee day-to-day operations of Ardent's hospitals, clinics and business units.



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The GOP Doctors Caucus has long advocated to replace the ACA and eliminate the individual mandate. Members of the Caucus played an instrumental role in drafting the American Health Care Act and publicly releasing it on Monday, March 6.

Here's what 10 members of the GOP Doctors Caucus had to say about the AHCA last week:

1. GOP Doctors Caucus Co-chair Rep. Phil Roe, MD, R-Tenn., pointed out the ACA will leave one-third of the people in his district with no coverage options in 2018, but the AHCA is an alternative. He said, "Unlike Obamacare, the American Health Care Act is being presented to the American people for their input and being debated in a transparent way."

2. Following 28 hours of debate in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Larry Bucshon, MD, R-Ind., voted to approve legislation, saying, "We are on a rescue mission and if we don't act now, families across the country will have nowhere to go as Obamacare continues in a death spiralThe American Health Care Act repeals the big-government mandates and costly taxes in the law and replaces it with common-sense reforms that lower costs, expand access, and uphold critical patient protections like coverage for preexisting conditions."

3. After tweeting that his professional life and public service have been dedicated to improving healthcare, House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Chairman Rep. Michael Burgess, MD, R-Texas, said, "My goal is to put it so we can trust the American people rather than trusting the government," according to the Washington Examiner.

4. Community Pharmacy Caucus Co-chair Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., spoke about the transition period from ACA to AHCA with NPR, saying, "We are not going to pull the rug out from underneath people. We want to have a stable transition period. We made it clear that three things were essential. First of all, that people with preexisting conditions would be able to keep their insurance. Secondly, the parents would be able to keep their children up to the age of 26 on their insurance. And thirdly, that we would empower patients and give them the ability to make healthcare decisions along with their health care professionals."

5. Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS, R-Ariz., a member of the Freedom Caucus, doesn't see this process as an either-or situation, according to The Hill. He questioned the motives of Republican leaders trying to sell their party members on the notion that a vote against the AHCA is a vote for the Democratic Party, saying, "You transplant a bad bill with a bad bill, it's still a bad bill. And what happens when you make a promise to the American public and it doesn't come true? So I don't buy that...I don't appreciate being lumped in one way or the other."

6. Rep. Andy Harris, MD, R-Md., touched on Medicaid's connection to the AHCA, saying, "AHCA restores control of Medicaid decisions to the states, helping us to reduce fraud and abuse while promoting flexibility."

7. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., offered a mental health-related amendment to AHCA, saying on March 8, "When it comes to delivering treatment for mental illness and substance use disorders, my commitment to preserving mental health and addiction parity is ironclad. The amendment I'm offering today ensures there will be no changes to any existing mental health parity laws."

8. As of Thursday, March 9, Rep. Mike Simpson, DMD, R-Idaho, remained undecided on the bill, according to a McClatchy D.C. Bureau. His spokeswoman Nikki Wallace said, "Make no mistake, healthcare reform will be hardBut to stand idly by and watch Americans absorb 25 percent premium increases and allow millions of Americans to only have one insurance plan to choose from is simply unacceptable."

9. Rep. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., made headlines for claiming impoverished and homeless people "just don't want healthcare," according to The Washington Post. The first-term congressman later backtracked his initial statement, saying, "When I said, 'the poor will always be with us,' it was actually in the context of supporting the obligation we have to always take care of people, but we cannot completely craft a larger, affordable healthcare policy around a comparatively small segment of the population who will get care no matter what."

10. House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Diane Black, RN, R-Tenn., said, "Some have said that this legislation doesn't do enough It zeros out the mandate, it repeals the taxes, it repeals the subsidies and it rolls back some of the regulations," according to the Trib Live.

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Culture. Productivity. Strategy. Execution. These ideas will never go out of style for hospital and health system leaders.

The following leadership articles were published by Becker's Hospital Review in the last week.

1. 16 healthcare organizations named among 'World's Most Ethical Companies'

More than a dozen healthcare organizations were named to Ethisphere's 2017 list of the "World's Most Ethical Companies."

2. Cleveland Clinic CEO on ACA replacement: 'We're really concerned'

During an interview with Bloomberg's David Gura, Toby Cosgrove, MD, president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic, said the likely decline in coverage rates across the U.S. under the proposed American Health Care Act is a primary concern.

3. Here's how to reform healthcare: We must address the social conditions and behaviors that cause illness

Our nation's healthcare system is a mess. The industry spends $3 trillion annually and constitutes more than 17 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. For patients and their families, shouldering the burden of rising healthcare costs often leads to financial hardship and is the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcy. Escalating healthcare costs lead many to forgo care, or patch together payments while neglecting other basic needs.

4. 4 things leaders can learn about resigning from MD Anderson President Dr. Ron DePinho

Ron A. DePinho, MD, president of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, resigned from his post on March 8. In addition to submitting a formal letter of resignation, Dr. DePinho, who became the institution's fourth president on Sept. 1, 2011, also prepared an unusually forthright video explaining his choice to step down.

5. 50 facts and statistics on CMOs and medical directors

Physicians are increasingly taking on leadership positions at hospitals and health systems across the country. Here are 50 things to know about chief medical officers and medical directors.

6. 4 keys to better employee retention

Companies today cannot afford to think of high employee turnover as a natural consequence of a fast-paced job market  replacing an employee who quits costs an average of 21 percent of his or her annual pay, according to research cited by the Harvard Business Review.

7. 7 thoughts on leadership from women in the healthcare industry

In honor of International Women's Day on March 8, Becker's Hospital Review asked women in the healthcare industry to share their insights on leadership.
Banner Health is laying off some physicians as the Phoenix-based system restructures operations, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. The physician layoffs come after Banner eliminated several leadership positions across its network.

Banner first announced its restructuring efforts in February. The system said it wants to become more consumer-focused through the restructuring process, which involves changes to its leadership structure. In February, Banner eliminated some leadership positions. Last week, Banner issued a second round of layoffs, which included the system's vice president of public relations Bill Byron.

Now, "a small number" of physicians have been told their positions are being eliminated, Jennifer Ruble, senior director of public relations at Banner, told the Phoenix Business Journal. Some of the physician layoffs are due to the closure of Banner's obstetrics clinic in Casa Grande, Ariz. The system closed that clinic due to low patient volume.

Banner is also eliminating the cardiology clinics in its health centers in Sun City and Peoria, Ariz., which will lead to physician layoffs. Although Banner will no longer employ some of the cardiologists from those clinics after they close, Ms. Ruble told the Phoenix Business Journal that a group of the physicians plan to continue to work with Banner from private practice.

Because some of the physicians affected by the layoffs may fill other positions within the system, it isn't possible to know the exact number of physicians impacted by the job cuts, Ms. Ruble told the Phoenix Business Journal.

More articles on healthcare industry layoffs:

ZirMed lays off 60 employees: 4 things to know

Stanford Health Care cuts 168 positions

Alabama hospital lays off 26 workers
Budgetary estimates of the American Health Care Act released Monday by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have elicited mixed reactions from the healthcare industry and government officials.

The report found the AHCA would reduce the federal deficit by about $337 billion, but increase the number of uninsured Americans by 24 million over the next decade.

Here is what people are saying about the CBO's projections.

1. HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, said in a statement: "The CBO report's coverage numbers defy logic." He added, "They project that zeroing out the individual mandate  allowing Americans to choose whether to have insurance  will result in 14 million Americans opting out of coverage in one year. For there to be the reductions in coverage they project in just the first year, they assume 5 million Americans on Medicaid will drop off of health insurance for which they pay very little, and another nine million will stop participating in the individual and employer markets. These types of assumptions do not translate to the real world, and they do not accurately estimate the effects of this bill."

2. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told CNN: "This is exactly what we thought the CBO would come forth with. They are terrible at counting coverage  The CBO is assuming if you get Medicaid, once the mandate is gone, you will give up your free Medicaid and replace it with nothing. The CBO report is full of errors  not errors  they are just bad assumptions like that. It's the only way you can get to these bizarre numbers."

3. Former CBO chief Robert Reischauertold CNN: "They are about as good as anybody could be at putting together estimates. They've also been very transparent about where they are wrong and why they are wrong, but overall it's a very good estimate."

4. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News the CBO report validated the legislation. "We are witnessing the collapse of Obamacare, and what the CBO is telling us is this replacement plan actually stabilizes the situation, brings down costs, and this is stage one of a three stage process to make it even better. That's why I'm encouraged."

5. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in opening remarks at a press conference: "The CBO has reported that the Republican bill pushes 24 million people out of healthcare  off of health coverage. This is a remarkable figure. It speaks so eloquently to the cruelty of the bill that the Speaker [Ryan] calls 'an act of mercy,'" She later added, "The Republicans are confused right now. Some of them say they are discrediting the CBO and others are glorifying pushing off 24 million people from coverage. So I would hope that they pull the bill, it's really the only decent thing to do."

6. Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD, R-La., according to Politico, said, "Can't sugarcoat it. Doesn't look good." He added,"The CBO score was, shall we say, an eye-popper."

7. American Medical Association President Andrew Gurman, MD, said in a statement: "Today's estimates from the nonpartisan [CBO] underscore the AMA's concerns about the AHCA as it is written: If this bill were to become law, CBO projects 14 million Americans who have gained coverage in recent years could lose it in 2018. For the AMA, that outcome is unacceptable. While the [ACA] was an imperfect law, it was a significant improvement on the status quo at the time, and the AMA believes we need continued progress to expand coverage for the uninsured. Unfortunately, the current proposal  as the CBO analysis shows  would result in the most vulnerable population losing their coverage."

8. AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said in a statement: "The CBO number reinforces our concerns about the importance of maintaining coverage for those vulnerable patients who need it." He added, "As we said in our letter to Congress last week, any changes to the ACA must be guided by ensuring that we continue to provide healthcare coverage for the millions of people who have benefited from the law. We cannot support a bill that the CBO and others clearly indicate would reduce coverage for so many people."

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Banner physicians affected in latest round of system layoffs
President Donald Trump held a meeting Monday with Americans who say they were adversely affected by former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, according to The New York Times.

In what the White House called a "listening session" with "victims of Obamacare," President Trump blamed the media for "making Obamacare look so good," according to the report. He reiterated his belief that "Obamacare is a disaster," and pointed to his visitors' testimonies as evidence.

Although President Trump has endorsed the House Republicans' ACA replacement plan, dubbed the American Health Care Act, he has also suggested it could work in congressional Republicans' favor to let the ACA fail on its own, according to CNBC.

"The Republicans, frankly, are putting themselves in a very bad position  I tell this to [HHS Secretary] Tom Price all the time  by repealing Obamacare," President Trump said during the Monday meeting. He supported a popular criticism of the ACA, suggesting it will eventually collapse under its own weight, though he said allowing this to occur is "certainly an option" he doesn't like, according to CNBC.

Later on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted President Trump supports the AHCA.

"The president is fully committed to this plan," Mr. Spicer said during his daily briefing with reporters. He added that the White House is willing to incorporate input from lawmakers to "enhance the bill," according to the report.
Nine registered nurses who work in Summa Akron (Ohio) City Hospital's emergency room said they think patients' lives are at risk as a result of Akron-based Summa Health System's decision, effective Jan. 1, to change over the physician group that staffs its ERs, reports the Akron Beacon Journal.

The nurses are concerned that some of the physicians from U.S. Acute Care Solutions, the new ER physician staffing group, are out of practice or seem unprepared to work in a fast-paced, regional trauma center, according to the report. They said they have seen some of the new physicians delay time-sensitive treatment for stroke patients, prescribe dangerously highly levels of common drugs such as insulin and heart medication and misread medical tests.

Officials from Summa Health System and USACS have disputed the nurses' allegations, noting that every physician practicing at Summa Akron City Hospital is board certified in emergency medicine and competent to work in an emergency setting, according to the report. They cite data from the hospital's ER that shows care provided by USACS physicians is comparable to the care provided by Summa Emergency Physicians, the physician group Summa previously contracted with.

The health system has been dealing with opposition of its seemingly abrupt decision to switch physician groups in its ERs since the change went into effect at the New Year. Despite the board's support of the decision, more than 250 physicians from the health system called for president and CEO Thomas Malone, MD, to resign. Dr. Malone resigned from his post in late January.
PinnacleHealth, a three-hospital system based in Harrisburg, Pa., announced Tuesday it is expanding its network of acute care hospitals and also looking to partner with a bigger system.

PinnacleHealth signed a definitive agreement to acquire four Pennsylvania hospitals from Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, which will more than double the number of hospitals in its network. The following hospitals are included in the transaction:

100-bed Memorial Hospital of York (Pa.)

214-bed Lancaster (Pa.) Regional Medical Center

148-bed Heart of Lancaster Regional Medical Center in Lititz, Pa.

165-bed Carlisle (Pa.) Regional Medical Center.

CHS said it expects the transaction, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals, to close this summer. CHS is selling the hospitals as part of a turnaround plan it put into place last year. The company is selling 25 hospitals to trim its debt load.

PinnacleHealth is also looking to expand its reach through a partnership with Pittsburgh-based UPMC. The two systems have signed a letter of intent to pursue an affiliation and have begun the due diligence process.

"Having PinnacleHealth affiliate with UPMC is an exciting opportunity for the system and central Pennsylvania," said Philip W. Guarneschelli, president and CEO of PinnacleHealth. "Affiliation supports geographic expansion and introduces more choices for health insurance through a provider-sponsored health plan."

As both a provider organization and an insurer, UPMC includes more than 25 hospitals, a 3 million-member insurance division and 600 physicians' offices and outpatient sites.

More articles on healthcare industry transactions:

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A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is urging President Donald Trump to allocate funds to combat the nation's opioid epidemic in the budget for fiscal year 2018.

Twenty-three members of Congress signed a letter on March 7 imploring President Donald Trump to include $9.3 billion in the budget to fund the current infrastructure Congress established under the previous administration to address the epidemic.

This infrastructure includes 34 programs at the HHS, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Department of Justice, which are designed to reduce and treat drug abuse through prevention treatment, overdose reversal, law enforcement and recovery support, among other initiatives.

"This epidemic is costing our nation $700 billion nationally in health, crime and lost productivity costs, but that is nothing compared to the toll it is taking on our families and friends," said Congressman Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, co-chair of the Congressional Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus. "In my state of Ohio, drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death, [W]e cannot continue to allow heroin and prescription drugs to reap havoc on our communities. It is time for President Trump to do the right thing and provide the money needed to put an end to this horrible epidemic."

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Tecumseh  A full slate of directors are once again representing the citizens of the Nemaha Natural Resources District. During their regular meeting on Thursday, March 9, the board appointed two members to fill vacancies created when no one ran for the jobs in the 2016 general election. Chosen to represent Subdistrict 1 in the Gage/ Lancaster County area is Bob Lassen from Firth. A retired pharmacist, Lassen expressed his interest in trees, wildlife, and general natural resources conservation as the driving force in his decision to apply to fill the vacancy.

In Subdistrict 8 and now representing parts of Pawnee, Johnson, and Richardson Counties is Eldon Snoke from Humboldt. Snoke listed his experience with several similar boards and committees and his agriculture background as factors in his decision to join the board. Both spots are two-year terms which will then be up for election again in 2018 to complete the last two years of their tenure.

Recreation development at the new Duck Creek site near Peru is moving along, and the board reviewed quotes for grills and fire rings as well as for turf grass seed. Three quotes were obtained for each, and the low quote from each met with board approval. Pilot Rock from Cherokee, Iowa, submitted the low quote of $8,144 for 20 grills and 40 fire rings. Miller Seed in Lincoln got the boards nod for its quote of $10,125 for 8,000 pounds of tall fescue mix. In separate action the board also approved proceeding with OPPDs proposal to bring power into the park at a cost $40,061.

Staying on the recreation theme, the boards Operations & Education Committee discussed plans for the solar eclipse on August 21. Because Kirkmans Cove is within the path of the total eclipse, its anticipated there could be increased interest in camping that weekend. Several options to handle the expected interest include offering reservations for camping, waiving the park permit fee on August 21 only, and setting dates and limits for special event applications that weekend. Final details will be announced in the next few weeks in local news media and on the NRDs website and Facebook page.

Recent concerns with some public water supply wells prompted the NRDs staff to consider initiating a wellhead protection area pilot project. Basically the program would provide incentives to landowners that would protect water quality and/or quantity within a wellhead protection area. The board agreed with the concept and recommended the staff begin looking into sources of funding.

Because few companies are available to provide all the Districts required liability coverage, the board decided to request a quote from its current insurance provider, The Harry A. Koch Company. Previously insured by Dunbar-Peterson Insurance, the owner sold his company to Koch but has stayed on and is servicing the Districts account. The board chose to request a quote for next fiscal year and, if reasonable, continue for one more year before opening it up to proposals from other companies.

An easement revision on land involved with Upper Little Nemaha 25 near Bennet was approved. The revision was necessary because of the sale of a parcel of ground that involved the Districts access to the dam for maintenance and operation.

Last month the board approved sending a letter to the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) indicating its interest in developing an integrated management plan for the Nemaha basin. One advantage of starting the plan is to make the District eligible to apply for Water Sustainability Funds. After submitting the letter, however, DNR requested some changes that would better specify the Districts plans. A revised letter with these changes was approved by the board.

The next meeting of the Nemaha NRD board of directors will be Thursday, April 13, beginning at 8:00 p.m. at the NRD headquarters at Tecumseh. Committees will meet prior to the board meeting. Agenda item requests must be submitted at least 24 hours prior to the meeting time, and the agenda is made available for review on the NRDs website (www.nemahanrd.org).
An analysis of locally acquired Zika cases conducted by the CDC and the Florida Department of Health suggests more people may have been exposed to the virus than previously thought, which means semen donations could have been made by men in the Miami area who were unwittingly infected.

The CDC is warning women and couples trying to conceive about the newly identified infection risk.

Here are five things to know.

1. The newly identified risk is backdated fromto June 15, 2016, through the present. The new guidance was issued after an assessment of the local travel patterns of area residents. The CDC found evidence that some people may have traveled to Miami Beach when it was active for the mosquito-borne transmission of Zika and forgotten about it, according to NBC News.

2. This new evidence means residents of nearby Broward and Palm Beach counties could have been infected during the period of active transmission and not known about it because many people with Zika infections never display symptoms.

3. Zika can remain in the semen for months, meaning men who may have contracted Zika and not experienced symptoms could have donated contaminated semen without knowing it. The issue is further complicated by the fact that there is no way to test the donated semen supply for Zika.

"Blood donations throughout the United States are tested for Zika with laboratory testing, resulting in the removal of Zika virus positive collections in multiple states and Puerto Rico. Testing for tissue donors, including semen donors, is not currently available," said the CDC in a media statement. "CDC encourages women and their partners, in consultation with their healthcare providers, to consider this potential risk when trying to conceive. Additionally, healthcare providers should counsel their pregnant patients who might have been exposed to semen from men potentially infected with Zika virus about this risk."

4. Women who used semen from sperm banks across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties since June 15 should consult with their physician.

5. The CDC has yet to identify a case of Zika transmission through donated semen or a blood transfusion, according to USA Today.

In 2016, Florida recorded 1,093 travel-associated Zika cases, 279 locally acquired cases and 21 cases that were undetermined. Among all cases in the state, 278 pregnant women displayed laboratory evidence of Zika. Contracting Zika during pregnancy isn known to increase the risk of birth defects in newborns. Zika is most, most notably linked with microcephaly, which causes infants to be born with abnormally small heads.

More articles on the Zika virus:

CDC issues Zika travel guidance for 4 more nations

Sen. Sanders to Trump: Don't give Sanofi monopoly on Zika vaccine

Health and government officials to gather for international Zika conference
A former health official with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was sentenced to a year of probation for failing to disclose an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease to the public amid the Flint water crisis, according to CBS Detroit.

Corinne Miller, PhD, former director of epidemiology at the state health department, pled no contest to willful neglect of duty in the summer of 2016 for suppressing information related to the Legionnaires' outbreak. On Monday, Judge Jennifer Manley sentenced Dr. Miller to one year probation and 300 hours community service. She was also ordered to write a public letter of apology.

Special prosecutor Todd Flood said Dr. Miller's cooperation in the water crisis investigation has been significant, according to CBS Detroit.

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Before the Flint water crisis received national attention, 92 cases of Legionnaires' disease were confirmed in residents in Genesee County from 2014 to 2015. Twelve cases resulted in death.

Legionnaires' disease is caused by Legionella bacteria. It is not spread through person-to-person contact or by ingesting water, but can be contracted through the inhalation of mist from contaminated water sources, such as cooling misters and plumbing systems.

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2 dead in cheese-linked listeriosis outbreak
R. Guy Hudson, MD, the newly minted interim CEO of Seattle-based Swedish Health Services, has held numerous forums with staff since he took on the role Feb. 21 following the resignation of Anthony Armada.

Mr. Armada resigned after a Feb. 10 Seattle Times report uncovered patient care concerns at Swedish Neuroscience Institute and launched a state investigation. The paper found what it called an "aggressive pursuit" for increased patient volumes at SNI and also said many physicians had problems with the culture established under Johnny Delashaw, MD, the chairman of SNI.

Dr. Delashaw has since resigned from his post as well.

In a Friday interview with The Seattle Times, Dr. Hudson said he ordered an external review of the system's "safety structure and processes" in response to the investigation.

"It's my job to address our internal leadership issues and restore trust amongst our caregivers and community," he told The Seattle Times.

Through a series of staff forums held since he took the interim CEO post, Dr. Hudson has heard from many staff who believed the system had a culture of intimidation.

"People are angry. They are upset. It doesn't seem like we're the Swedish that we know and love  or knew," he said, according to the report.

He is also working to change Swedish's physician compensation model, moving further away from a fee-for-service model and more toward physicians being paid based on quality of care.

"We have to acknowledge where we've been. And we have to own it  right?  the stories you've heard and the people you've talked with. But we also have to recognize that we have to move forward and make sure that this does not happen again," he told The Seattle Times.
Minnesota State Rep. Rod Hamilton, R- Mountain Lake, proposed legislation to limit pharmacy benefit manufacturer's ability to change a patient's drug treatments, according to the Star Tribune.

Here are six things to know.

1. Rep. Hamilton was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis more than 20 years ago and struggles with severe pain and exhaustion on a daily basis. He takes a drug called armofadinil to limit his fatigue, according to the report.

2. Last year, a PBM told Rep. Hamilton he could only take one armofadinil pill per day, instead of two, as recommended by his physician at Minneapolis-based Mayo Clinic. So while he pays $37.07 per month for the drug, his pharmacist is not allowed to distribute more pills than instructed by the PBM, according to the report.

3. "What's the outcome? I'm in a wheelchair," Rep. Hamilton told Star Tribune. A year ago, when he was taking the drug twice a day, he could climb the four flights of stairs to his office in the Capitol building. Now he travels through the building in a wheelchair, according to the report.

4. Rep. Hamilton's legislation would limit PBMs' ability to change medication guidelines to protect the relationships between patients and their physicians. Numerous physicians and healthcare groups are backing the bill, saying they spend a large amount of time and money communicating with PBMs to authorize medications, according to Star Tribune.

5. While the bill passed with bipartisan support out of a Senate committee last week, Rep. Hamilton has not been able to schedule a hearing in the House Commerce Committee, where the bill currently sits.

6. Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Hoppe, R-Chaska, told Star Tribune the legislation would increase the cost of health insurance  during a time when rates are already rising  so he cannot justify holding a hearing for it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is urging President Donald Trump to block the U.S. Army from giving Paris-based Sanofi exclusive rights to patents for a Zika vaccine.

The senator penned an op-ed Friday in The New York Times, saying the move would give the French drugmaker a monopoly on the vaccine.

"If Mr. Trump allows this deal, Sanofi will be able to charge whatever astronomical price it wants for its vaccine," Sen. Sanders wrote. "Millions of people in the United States and around the world will not be able to afford it even though American taxpayers have already spent more than $1 billion on Zika research and prevention efforts, including millions to develop this vaccine."

Sanofi entered into a research and development deal with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in July to accelerate the development of the promising new Zika vaccine. HHS gave Sanofi $43 million to lead the clinical and regulatory development of the vaccine, with the drugmaker expected to receive an additional $130 million in federal funding, according to Sen. Sanders.

"Before President Trump makes this deal, he must guarantee that Sanofi will not turn around and gouge American consumers, Medicare and Medicaid or our military when it sells the vaccine," wrote Sen. Sanders. "American consumers should not be forced to pay the highest price in the world for a vaccine we paid to help develop."

The Army will decide whether to grant exclusive rights for the vaccine to Sanofi later this year, according to Sen. Sanders.

More articles on supply chain:

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Trump nominates Dr. Scott Gottlieb for FDA commissioner: 6 things to know
Seema Verma is the new CMS administrator, Medscape reports.

Here are five things to know:

1. The Senate confirmed Ms. Verma in a 55-43 vote on March 13, 2017.

2. Ms. Verma said she supports Medicaid reforms intended to boost health outcomes, during her confirmation hearing in February 2017.

3. She has experience with state Medicaid programs, such as developing the Health Indiana Plan, which offers beneficiaries a Personal Wellness and Responsibility account they apply to a $2,500 deductible.

4. Ms. Verma believes physicians should not be mandated to participate in Medicare pilot projects. She also voiced her opposition to federal regulations that dissuade physician participation in Medicaid and Medicare.

5. The Senate Finance Committee sent Ms. Verma's nomination to the Senate after a 13-to-12 vote.




Todd Albert, MD, surgeon-in-chief and medical director for New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery, recently discussed the future of orthopedics in an interview with Medscape.

Here are the key trends:

1. Patient-reported outcomes are a huge topic of discussion, and gaining additional sophistication to better understand which outcomes measures are best for evaluating each specific disease will help clinicians provide better care.

2. Physicians and researchers are conducting studies based on value to prove which treatments have the best outcomes while using resources efficiently. They are now able to take large datasets and population health data to examine many aspects of disease and treatment.

3. Studies show surgeons who perform a high volume of procedures typically achieve better outcomes. Dr. Albert's studies at the HSS Healthcare Research Institute examine how many procedures surgeons must do to become competent, and whether they should be performing a procedure at all.

4. Physician burnout has been a big topic of discussion; to prevent burnout at HSS, Dr. Albert and his team try to keep physicians happy and create a pleasant environment. He also noted a good culture can lead to better outcomes for patients.

5. Dr. Albert is excited about robotic surgery, particularly in the knee, which may be able to deliver reproducible, guaranteed outcomes. The technology can make a difference in the era of personalized medicine.
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Amazon is hoping to build a 1bn (0.9bn) data centre campus in Dublin to tackle a global surge in the use of its services.

The company, which is also launching its own online shopping network, has submitted plans to build a 20,739 sq m (223,000 sq feet) data centre in Mulhuddart, close to a facility owned by pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The project is likely to cost up to 200m (174m).

Amazon has said it might build as many as seven more such hubs at the 26-hectare location owned by the IDA, which is earmarked to become a data storage facility campus.

That could involve an estimated future spend of about 700m (609m).

Those data centres would each be smaller than the one currently planned.

Construction of the latest Amazon data centre - codenamed Project G - is set to begin this year and take about 18 months to complete. At the peak construction phase, 400 workers are expected to be on site.

Amazon, headed by founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, has applied to Fingal County Council for permission to build the data centre, which will bring the total it has around the capital close to 10. It already has a number of the facilities nearby in Blanchardstown.

It is also building a data centre beside Dublin Airport, at the Clonshaugh Business and Technology Park.

The site was formerly home to GE Superabrasives.

Amazon also has three data centres around Tallaght, in the south of the city.
WASHINGTON D.C. Facing a Monday deadline, the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to provide evidence backing up President Donald Trump's unproven assertion that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election. The request came as the White House appeared to soften Trump's explosive allegation.

The House intelligence committee said it would give the Justice Department until March 20 to comply with the evidence request. That's the date of the committee's first open hearing on the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia.

A spokesman for the committee's Republican chairman said that if the Justice Department doesn't meet the new deadline, the panel might use its subpoena power to gather information.

"If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

Trump's assertions have put his administration in a bind. Current and former administration officials have been unable to provide any evidence of the Obama administration wiretapping Trump Tower, yet the president's aides have been reluctant to publicly contradict their boss.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer tried to clarify Trump's comments Monday, saying the president wasn't using the word wiretapping literally, noting that Trump had put the term in quotation marks.

"The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities," Spicer said. He also suggested Trump wasn't accusing former President Barack Obama specifically, but instead referring to the actions of the Obama administration.

Trump himself has not commented on the matter since his March 4 tweets, in which he said he had "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." He also wrote: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president?"

In two other tweets, Trump described Obama tapping his phones, but did not put the phrases in quotation marks.

The president's accusations against Obama came amid numerous political questions surrounding his associates' possible ties to Russia. The FBI is investigating Trump associates' contacts with Russia during the election, as are House and Senate intelligence committees.

The White House has asked those committees to also investigate Trump's unverified wiretapping allegations against Obama. The House committee has turned the matter back on the Trump administration, setting the Monday deadline for the Justice Department to provide evidence.

In a response Monday evening, the Justice Department said it needed extra time to "review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist."

Other congressional committees are also pushing the administration to clarify Trump's claims.

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and FBI Director James Comey to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Department's criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps. The senators, who head the Senate Judiciary Committee's crime and terrorism subcommittee, are seeking warrant applications and court orders, which they said can be scrubbed to protect secret intelligence sources and methods.

Trump's critics have slammed the president for making the wiretapping claim on his Twitter account without evidence. Wiretapping a U.S. citizen would require special permission from a court, and Trump as president would have the ability to declassify that information.

Sen. John McCain, an influential Republican, said Sunday: "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve."

"If his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain said.

Comey has privately urged the Justice Department to dispute Trump's claim but has not come forward to do so himself. James Clapper, who was Obama's director of national intelligence, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sidestepped questions about the lack of proof Monday, saying she was "not in the job of having evidence."
People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

People out for to see Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

Strange Victory Presents Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

Strange Victory Presents Steve Davis + Kavus Torabi at Black Box as part of the Out To Lunch Festival. Friday 6th January 2017. Picture by Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX

The home of Belfast arts venue the Black Box has gone on the market for a guide price of around 700,000. Selling agents Whelan said they are seeking offers for the Cathedral Quarter arts centre by tender, and described it as a "unique investment".

Black Box Ltd is occupying the building on Hill Street on a 10-year lease.

It has become a well-established location for arts events and festivals.

And according to Whelan's, the organisation has applied to the Lands Tribunal for a new lease.

Its trustees also told the Belfast Telegraph that it's talking to its supporting organisations about how it can remain in the building for the long-term.

The trustees said: "We have been notified that the 18-22 Hill Street premises, that has been home to the Black Box since 2006, has been put on the market.

"The Black Box Trust are working with our stakeholders including government and local authority to ensure future viability of the organisation in its current location."

The statement added that the trust hoped to secure a form of long-term tenure - but it was not clear if the trust planned to buy the property outright.

"We are confident that any sale will not affect bookings or current activity in the venue and see this as an opportunity to secure long-term tenure and make sure that the Black Box remains central to community life and creativity here in the Cathedral Quarter."

The statement urged users of the centre to lend their support.

Expand Close Terri Hooley (centre) with Good Vibrations film directors Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros DSa at the Black Box, and (inset) comedian Owen ONeill performing at the venue in Belfasts Cathedral Quarter / Facebook

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Whatsapp Terri Hooley (centre) with Good Vibrations film directors Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros DSa at the Black Box, and (inset) comedian Owen ONeill performing at the venue in Belfasts Cathedral Quarter

"We invite all of our festival partners, the promoters, performers and artists that we work with - as well as the 50,000 curious culture lovers from Belfast and beyond that cross our doorway every year - to support us in this exciting new direction."

The sale has been ordered by fixed charge receivers at Keenan Corporate Finance.

The firm is acting in the receivership of 2 Fat Turkeys Ltd.

Brian Nixon of Whelan's said he expected the venue would attract an investor interested in the continued operation of the venue, with its tenant Black Box Ltd saying: "It really is a prime bit of property these days as it's in the Cathedral Quarter with a sitting tenant, which appears to be trading well."

The centre is used by a range of organisations and events, including Culture Night Belfast, The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast Film Festival and the Out To Lunch Festival.

A number of family events and clubs use the centre, including the Children's Festival and the NI Science Festival.

Whelans has given a closing date of April 26 for contractual offers to buy the building.
The peers noted that pulling out of the EU customs union would result in 'costly administrative requirements'

Companies could face significant extra red tape and costs as a result of Theresa May's plans for Brexit, a House of Lords committee has warned.

The Prime Minister's approach could result in the introduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers and the cross-party group of peers stressed that minimising disruption after Brexit would be crucial for the UK's future prosperity.

The Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee also urged ministers to give "serious consideration" to transitional arrangements, arguing that concluding a free trade agreement (FTA) with Brussels within the two-year timetable for withdrawal would be "extremely ambitious".

The report warned that without an FTA, tariffs would apply, which could be "particularly damaging" for the automotive industry and other sectors with highly integrated EU supply chains.

That could result in tariffs being levied "multiple times in the production process" as components cross the frontier between the UK and EU.

Eliminating tariff barriers in the proposed FTA was therefore of "considerable importance", the report noted.

But the peers warned that non-tariff barriers such as the rules of origin requirements - determining where a product and its components were produced - would be more difficult to resolve.

"We conclude that compliance with rules of origin requirements would introduce a significant additional administrative burden, with a particularly negative impact on sectors with a highly integrated EU supply chain," the report said.

It noted that in some sectors, such as chemicals, compliance with preferential rules of origin might be so burdensome they outweigh the benefits of tariff reductions.

The peers noted that pulling out of the EU customs union would result in "costly administrative requirements", whatever new trade framework applied.

"This would result in a significant additional administrative burden for companies, and delays to consignments of goods, incurring additional costs."

The Prime Minister was seeking an "unprecedented" agreement on customs and it was "unclear whether it will be possible outside a formal customs union".

Baroness Verma, the committee's Tory chairwoman, said: "Goods dominate UK trade, and the EU is by far its largest trading partner.

"Trade in goods between the two is worth almost 357 billion each year. It is therefore imperative that a trade deal with the EU seeks to avoid the imposition of tariffs on trade in both directions.

"Non-tariff barriers can pose as significant or greater a barrier to trade as tariffs, and would be more difficult to resolve in a free trade agreement. Witnesses from industry said this is a pressing concern.

"The Government will need to make a trade-off between mitigating barriers to trade, and the exercise of regulatory sovereignty.

"Agreeing a free trade agreement within two years is inherently ambitious, so the Government must try to agree a transitional arrangement with the EU.

"The Government will also need to increase Whitehall's preparedness for administering UK-EU tariffs and non-tariff barriers to UK-EU trade."

A Government spokeswoman said: "We want an agreement that gives British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within European markets - and lets European businesses do the same in Britain.

"We have also been clear that we believe a phased process of implementation, in which both Britain and the EU institutions and member states prepare for the new arrangements that will exist between us, will be in our mutual self-interest. This will give businesses enough time to plan and prepare for those new arrangements."
Incentivising an increased flow of new jobs to Northern Ireland is a compelling ambition for the incoming devolved Government.

During the recent election campaign there was less emphasis on the methods that might be used to attract more employment than might have been expected. The politics of criticism of past Government decision-making was less about job creation than recrimination about the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).

The inherited emphasis on attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) was presented tersely through reliance on the possible impact of introducing local corporation tax at 12.5%.

The assumption that the corporation tax change was assured and also that it would be effective should now be questioned. The rationale for the 12.5% NI corporate tax bid has changed.

First, the presumption that the Treasury will permit a change to 12.5% is yet to be confirmed. The legislative arrangements include a conditional feature which asks whether NI has demonstrated a stable, functioning devolved budget. The absence of an agreed devolved Government and the absence of firm budget proposals for 2017-18 would give the Treasury an argument that NI is not ready for this responsibility.

If the reduced corporation tax is to be effective from April 2018, for the tax year ending after April 1, 2018, the political decision-making is now urgent. The public sector administrative work has presumably been done, but the contemporaneous work in, and for, businesses will need to start. Alongside questions about Treasury preparations, there are other dimensions that should be considered. Because of the consequences of Brexit, this agenda is potentially more flexible than was at first envisaged.

Across the UK and particularly in NI, Brexit may mean a release from the common EC housekeeping rules restricting the scale of state aid. The range of options to attract FDI might now become much wider.

Because final firm decisions on corporation tax are still awaited, the reduced corporation tax rate option could now be reconsidered. First, the proportionate leverage of a reduced differential with the UK rate has become less attractive.

Second, since Brexit opens the way to a different agenda, that wider options agenda merits serious consideration.

A weakness in seeking to use corporation tax differences has always been that lower corporation tax rates may attract some new investors but, for businesses already based in Northern Ireland, the low tax rates would, in part at least, deflect some of the reduced tax revenue into higher profit distributions to shareholders. If, as an alternative, Northern Ireland devised a scheme of more generous tax allowances against additional committed investment spending, the incentive effect for business expansion could be stronger. Such a scheme would presumably need the approval of the UK Treasury and, if carefully designed, might be as acceptable as the current corporation tax proposals.

Alternatively, NI might develop schemes that are strongly correlated to offsetting some of the employer costs of specific forms of skills training, well targeted and generous, tackling skills and training in high value-added functions.

Critical to a review of policies and tactics to secure additional FDI is an appreciation of the strains and benefits of a post-Brexit region. It is understandable that there is considerable uncertainty in the business world about the financial, trading and political impact of the Brexit settlement. The CBI has reviewed the possibilities and, with evidence, points to risky and uncertain outcomes.

There are emerging pointers to problems for the Republic's economy in the food processing sector. In contrast, for some other sectors, the Republic anticipates becoming a more attractive location for investors in preference to the UK, including NI. The wider agenda sets a new challenge for Invest NI.

Will it give a lead to a fresh debate?
Irish food giant Dawn Meats is being lined up to take over Northern Ireland meat firm Dunbia, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

It's understood the Waterford-based company is close to making an offer for the Co Tyrone firm, formerly known as Dungannon Meats.

Discussions between the two companies are thought to have been taking place for around six months.

But despite several industry insiders backing the claims, both companies declined to comment on the takeover.

Dawn Meats said its policy is "not to comment on market rumours or speculation," while a spokeswoman for Dunbia said the firm had "no comment to make".

Dunbia is run by brothers Jim and Jack Dobson and has annual sales of around 787m.

The firm employs nearly 4,000 people around the globe, including around 1,000 in Dungannon.

Last year the firm sold its pork business in Cullybackey, Co Antrim, to English-based Cranswick plc.

It's understood the latest development involves the rest of the business as insiders say the brothers may be seeking to sell the business to prepare for their retirement.

The Dobson brothers came in at 129th in this year's Sunday Times Rich List. They were reported to have a net worth of 104m (90.6m). In its accounts for the year ending March 2016, Dunbia Group made a pre-tax profit of 7.2m.

However, this also included the pork processing business.

In the financial year 2015-16 the firm was also estimated to have 63.9m worth of assets.

Dawn Meats is part of Arrow Group, owned by the Queally brothers from Waterford, and their business partner Dan Browne. It is led by chief executive Niall Browne, Dan Browne's son.

The firm is known for brands such as Dawn Meats, Black Angus, Red Hereford, Charolais Gold, Nature's Meadow and Highlands Meats.

But a deal for Dunbia would not be the Irish meat firm's first UK acquisition.

In 2011, Dawn Meats took over Duerden Lindal Moor Beef Abattoir in England's Lake District, and three years later, bought the Jasper beef abattoir and boning facility in Cornwall.

In 2015, it took on a 49% stake in Elivia, a 1bn (870m) turnover business and the second largest beef and veal processor in France. In 2012, the firm took over West Devon Meats, a beef and lamb abattoir in the south west of England.

Dawn Meats was established as a small family business in Co Waterford, Ireland in 1980, but today is one of the biggest names in British and Irish meat.

Food giant 2 Sisters, which is based in England, had previously shown interest in acquiring the red meat part of Dunbia, but its discussions with Dunbia never came to fruition.

Dawn Meats supplies a range of beef and lamb carcase and primal cuts, burger patties, added value and slow cooked products through sales offices and distribution partners in Europe and around the world.

The firm employs more than 3,300 people across its production, sales, marketing and distribution operation arms.

The group produces a range of food and beverage value-added products.

It also manufactures and distributes pet food, and is involved in property development.

In 2014, Dawn Meats was estimated to have a turnover of 1.1bn (960m).
Fast food chain Four Star Pizza has announced that it will create up to 300 new jobs in Northern Ireland stores as part of a 3m expansion plan here.

The Irish-owned chain has said it will be investing more in Northern Ireland than ever before.

Four Star Pizza's plans to open 18 new units in the next three years will bring its total to 30.

The chain also plans to open an extra 16 new stores in the Republic, bringing the total number of outlets there to 50.

Four Star Pizza's first restaurant here was opened in 1999 on the Beersbridge Road in Belfast.

Last October it opened a new outlet in Bangor, Co Down.

The company also has stores in Carrickfergus, Newry, Drumahoe, Derry, Armagh, Portstewart and Newtownabbey, among others.

Brian Clarke, director of Four Star Pizza, said the local market had "huge potential growth".

"The Northern Ireland market is very important to us and has been steadily growing since the opening of our first Belfast franchise in 1999," he said.

"With each store employing 15 to 20 staff, this level of expansion should create up to 300 new jobs.

"To date, we've invested approximately 2m in our Northern Ireland operations, but we plan to invest a further 3m over the next three years to help grow the business to the next level."

The takeaway pizza chain was founded in 1988 and operates 46 stores across the island.

The latest expansion will bring the number of stores to 80.

Mr Clarke added: "We have an excellent relationship with our existing Northern Ireland franchisees.

"One franchisee now operates six outlets here whilst another has just opened his third store, having started life as a Four Star delivery driver.

"So, if there are any ambitious Northern Ireland entrepreneurs out there who would like to run their own business as a part of a progressive, marketing and information technology-driven brand, we would welcome their interest and invite them to make contact with us," he said.
GlaxoSmithKline will hand its incoming boss a smaller pay package than her predecessor in an attempt to see off shareholder concern over executive pay.

The pharmaceutical giant said Emma Walmsley's overall pay deal will be 25% lower than current boss Sir Andrew Witty, although she could still pocket a maximum payout of 8.7 million.

The decision reflects Ms Walmsley's experience - this will be her first chief executive role - and follows a consultation with investors, the company said.

Glaxo's board was reportedly under pressure from major shareholders to slash Ms Walmsley's pay.

The firm published details of her pay deal in its annual report, which also revealed that Sir Andrew's total pay package had increased by 2.5% to 6.8 million for 2016.

He had the potential to earn a maximum of 11.6 million if all targets had been met.

Glaxo's remuneration committee chairman Urs Rohner said: "T he Committee gave careful and detailed consideration to Emma's remuneration package for 2017, taking into account all relevant factors.

"This included the constructive feedback received from shareholders which resulted in a number of refinements to the original proposals."

Glaxo's remuneration policy report will face a binding shareholder vote at its annual general meeting (AGM) on May 4.

Ms Walmsley, who takes over at the end of March, will receive a base salary of 1 million for this year, less than the 1.1 million banked by Sir Andrew for 2016.

She will also have a smaller annual bonus target of 100% of salary, compared to 125% for Sir Andrew, while the maximum opportunities under the long-term incentive plan will also be cut to 550% of salary.

Once in post, she will become the most powerful female FTSE 100 boss, heading up one of the largest companies on the blue-chip index with a market capitalisation of 82.4 billion.

Anglo American revealed on Monday that it had moved to cap the bonuses of its executive directors.

Chief executive Mark Cutifani's maximum annual bonuses will be cut to 300% from 350% of his basic salary to bring it "into line with other executive directors".

It comes amid a flurry of pay announcements, which revealed that Sir Martin Sorrell was also on course to pocket 50 million when WPP publishes its annual report.
Kerrygold butter should be back on shelves in the US state of Wisconsin within weeks, following frantic efforts which saw the well-known Irish butter banned in the state.

Under Wisconsin legislation, dating back to the 1950s, retail butter for sale in Wisconsin must bear either a Wisconsin or federal grade mark.

This effectively excludes Kerrygold butter being sold in Wisconsin because it is graded, produced and packaged in Ireland.

Ornua, which owns the Kerrygold brand are currently working with the Wisconsin officials on a solution which will enable consumers throughout the state to enjoy Kerrygold butter.

Meanwhile officials in the Department of Agriculture, including Ireland's Agricultural Attache at the Irish Embassy in Washington, have kept in close contact with the company on the matter.

The Republic's Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said last week that he understands that a solution to the problem is now close to finalisation.

"Once the technical steps are completed it should see the resumption of the sale of the product concerned again," he commented.

"I do not envisage this issue having wider ramifications for Irish beef and dairy exports to the US," Mr Creed added

Kerrygold is the number one imported butter and the number three overall butter brand in the US.
The UK is expected to trigger Article 50 and begin the formal process of leaving the EU by the end of this month

A Brexit blueprint from business in Northern Ireland has urged the Government to put practicalities at the heart of their negotiations with the EU.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry called for the province to speak with "a single voice" on Brexit, and it urged that "ideology and politics" be put aside in order to focus on the practical repercussions of leaving the EU.

The UK is expected to trigger Article 50 and begin the formal process of leaving the EU by the end of this month.

The NI Chamber said it had gathered 2,000 responses from business as part of a continuous survey since June's referendum result to leave the EU. And companies are urging the Government to reach a pragmatic deal with the EU to allow trade to continue.

They urge a focus on practicalities, including avoiding a hard border with the Republic, and giving businesses certainty on the future residence rights of their EU workers.

Firms would also need clarity on hiring people from EU countries during the negoiation period.

NI Chamber president Nick Coburn said: "Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry members want practical considerations, not ideology or politics, at the heart of the Government's approach to Brexit negotiations. That also means we must establish a single Northern Ireland voice on Brexit to address key business concerns regarding skills and trade."

He said Brexit debates in Westminster didn't cover what matters for most businesses.

He added: "Most firms care little about the exact process for triggering Article 50. But they care a lot if their products are stopped by customs authorities at the border, or about an unexpected Vat hit to their cash flow, sudden changes to regulation, the inability to recruit the right people for the job - the everyday nitty-gritty of doing business across borders must be front and centre in the negotiation process.

"NI Chamber and its members stand ready to help the Government shape a pragmatic and practical approach to the coming transition, so that firms can continue to trade successfully with customers and suppliers across Europe and around the world."
The chief executive plans to focus on his own media business from next year.

David Abraham will step down as boss of Channel 4 at the end of this year.

After seven years leading the broadcaster, he said it was the right year to hand over as he focused on launching his own media enterprise.

Abraham, who is chief executive, said: I have enjoyed every day of my time at Channel 4, in particular working with the insanely talented and committed people whom it has been my great privilege to lead.

Channel 4 matters and I am confident that our stakeholders recognise the unique and significant contribution it will make to the future of UK broadcasting and to the creative industries more broadly.

I now look forward to working with the Channel 4 board to support and hand over to my successor and then begin the next phase of my life  back in the private sector where I hope to build an organisation that makes use of all that I learned from leading different kinds of innovative creative businesses.

Earlier this month, the channel invited Star Wars: Rogue One actor Riz Ahmed to deliver a speech in Parliament on the importance of equal representation in the television and film industry  both on screen and behind the scenes.

As the star urged the Government to enforce stricter employment rules, Channel 4 chairman Charles Gurassa said the broadcaster had increased diversity employment but admitted there was plenty of room for improvement.

Commenting on Abrahams departure, he said: Under his leadership the channel has delivered record revenues, record programme investment, award-winning creative renewal and industry-leading digital innovation We wish him well in his future new enterprise.

My colleagues on the board and I will be undertaking a comprehensive recruitment process over the next months to ensure that Channel 4 continues to have outstanding leadership into the future.

According to The Guardian, Channel 4 prematurely revealed Abrahams resignation in a tweet, which was quickly deleted.

The move comes months after the channel paid a reported 75 million to take over former BBC cooking show The Great British Bake Off.

It also follows debates over whether the state-owned and commercially funded broadcaster should be privatised.

Channel 4 bosses opposed the idea, as well as a suggestion that it could move its headquarters from central London to Birmingham.

Former chief executive Lord Grade said in September that the channel had shot itself in the foot with the Bake Off deal, adding: I think they have completely undermined their case against privatisation.
Filmmakers, reviewers and school groups took a trip to London for the special event.

Eddie Redmayne, Daniel Craig and Ruth Wilson were among stars who presented awards to some of the UKs most impressive young pioneers in film.

The Into Film Awards 2017, supported by the British Film Institute (BFI), celebrated five to 19-year-old filmmakers and reviewers, as well as teachers who have shown an exceptional commitment to film in schools.

They were recognised at an event in Londons Leicester Square on Tuesday, which was also attended by renowned industry stars Amma Asante and Charles Dance.

Into Film board member and producer Barbara Broccoli OBE said: Creating films takes real passion, commitment and drive and Im delighted the Into Film Awards acknowledge the hard work that these young people, the next generation of filmmakers, have put in over this last year.

Apart from being great fun, this day also offers nominees the chance to see their films on one of the biggest screens in the UK, the Odeon Leicester Square, as well as meeting established actors, directors and producers.

Its also our chance to thank the teachers who run our film clubs and use film in the classroom Into Film places film at the heart of learning, reaching a million young people each year through clubs, online content, filmmaking and training to support classroom teaching.

The full list of winners:

Best Animation  12 and under: The Magic Pencil, Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School and My Pockets, Leeds.

Into Space and Home  12 and under: Tim And Skys Adventure, Timmergreens Primary School (Arbroath).

Into Space and Home  13 and over: Space Coffee, Eleanore Webb-Thomas (Shrewsbury).

Best Documentary  12 and under: The Lost Station, Barrow Island Primary School and Signal Film and Media (Barrow-in-Furness).

Teacher of the Year: Nic Williams, Blue Nell Hill Primary School (Nottingham).

Club of the Year  13 and over: John Paul Academy (Glasgow).

Best Live Action Film  12 and under: YSBRD (Ghost), Ysgol Cefn Coch (Penrhyndeudraeth).

Ones to Watch: Dylan-Starr Adams, Kerri Donohue, Nicholas Connor.

Best Animation  13 and over: Go Forward, Child and Family Services Swansea and Winding Snake (Swansea).

Review of the Year  Dorothy for I, Daniel Blake review (Barnstaple).

Best Documentary  13 and over: Miracle Life, The Haven, Two Way Street and My Pockets (Hull).

Best Family Film of the Year: Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children.

Club of the Year  12 and under: Meadows Primary School (Telford).

Best Live Action Film  13 and over: My Not So Ordinary Life, Mencap and X-ray Eye Films (Belfast).
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Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson has rejected any kind of border in Ireland after Brexit, telling Theresa May she can 'stick it where the sun doesn't shine'.

Addressing the European parliament on Monday Ms Anderson said: "Theresa, your notion of a border, hard and soft, stick it where the sun doesn't shine 'cos you're not putting it in Ireland."

The DUP's Sammy Wilson criticised Ms Anderson for her comments. Responding on BBC Talkback, Mr Wilson said: "Martina Anderson was ranting like a fishwife. That was far more offensive than anything Arlene Foster said."

Mr Wilson was referring to the DUP leader comparing Sinn Fein to a crocodile before the recent election.

Ms Anderson was unavailable to respond to Mr Wilson's comments.

On Monday, Sinn Fein's leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill, said there was an urgent need for a referendum on Irish unity as the British government had "refused to listen" to the majority of people in the region over Brexit.

Parliament has passed the Brexit Bill, paving the way for the government to trigger Article 50 so the UK can leave the European Union.

Ulster Unionist MP Danny Kinahan said he was concerned that there is no powersharing government at Stormont to negotiate a good Brexit deal.

"As the government embarks on formal negotiations with the European Union it is a sad indictment of the last Northern Ireland Executive that there is currently no Executive in place to feed into the UK negotiating position.

"The final Brexit deal will have significant lasting consequences for our universities, farming and agri-food, the community and voluntary sector, and the business community, amongst others.

Expand Close Sammy Wilson criticised Martina Anderson over comments she made in the European Parliament on Monday / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sammy Wilson criticised Martina Anderson over comments she made in the European Parliament on Monday

"It is crucial that Northern Ireland interests are represented, which I fear is not happening at the moment."
A woman who has been told she must wait two years for an urgent hospital appointment fears that she may be dead before she has been officially diagnosed.

Karen Boucher (54), from the Ravenhill area of Belfast, also branded the health service waiting list 'a shambles', and asked if Stormont's MLAs would have to wait so long for an appointment.

The desperate grandmother is speaking out in today's Belfast Telegraph after being told she must wait 95 weeks for an "urgent" hospital appointment.

"I'm afraid I am going to die before I am even diagnosed," she said, adding that she does not believe the general public fully understands the seriousness of the challenges facing the health service in Northern Ireland.

Ms Boucher said she had undergone a private MRI scan.

On receiving the letter containing her results, she was required told she would have to return for an urgent appointment.

While she could afford an initial private appointment, she cannot afford any more, and is concerned that she may have ovarian cancer.

But she is now left feeling devastated that after being referred by her GP she has been told the earliest appointment she can get would be in 95 weeks.

Ms Boucher already feels so ill that she is in bed for long periods of time, and feels let down by the system, saying: "I have been in pain for the past five years and cannot get an urgent appointment. People are afraid of their doctors when they shouldn't be - they're normal people like you and me. The waiting list for the health service is a shambles."

Ms Boucher also queried whether an MLA would have to wait as long as her for an appointment.

"Stormont is in disarray, no politician would have to wait 95 weeks for a hospital appointment," she said. "I have waited and waited, who knows what the outcome is going to be? I already have other serious health issues so even going private isn't an option."

Karen initially paid 300 for a private appointment for tests but isn't in a position to pay for any further appointments.

The mother to a son, Karen fears she will not get to see her three grandchildren grow up.

She said: "I want to highlight this fact for elderly people. This country needs to provide a quality health service," she said. "Twenty eight years ago the health service saved my life but today, I don't have the trust in them that I did then. I need to entrust my life in their hands... all this waiting and who knows what more damage is going on inside my body?"

A Department of Health spokesman said that on December 31, 2016 there were 4,187 patients waiting for inpatient and day case admission within the gastroenterology specialty in Northern Ireland.

"The average waiting time for these patients was 12.7 weeks, with the longest wait being 92.2 weeks. The department regards excessive waiting times as totally unacceptable.

"Staff across the HSC continue to work incredibly hard to deliver high quality treatment and care within the resources available to the department.

"On average the HSC delivers 9,000 outpatient appointments, 2,600 inpatient/day case procedures and 31,000 diagnostic tests per week.

"The department's Elective Care Plan, published last month, sets out the department's approach to transform and modernise elective care services. The overriding ambition is to reduce waiting times and place elective care services on a more sustainable footing to meet the future demand from our population."
A family support service in Belfast that works with hundreds of vulnerable children and their families has been told it must close on March 31.

As a result, 47 members of staff at the Intensive Family Support Service (IFSS), operated by Extern, will be made redundant.

The man in charge of the service laid the blame for the closure at the doors of Stormont.

IFSS works with families who are known to statutory agencies. Vulnerable children on the protection register, or who experience poverty, poor school attendance, mental health, have been affected by suicide, anti-social behaviour, addiction and domestic abuse are helped.

IFSS is jointly funded by the Departments of Health, Justice, Communities, Education and Economy. Each department contributes 360,000 a year, which works out at 83p per child or family member that the service works with each day.

Around 100 people attended a NIPSA union protest at Stormont yesterday to highlight the closure to the new MLAs signing in on their first day.

Extern chief executive Charlie Mack said a letter was received on Friday, saying 1.8m funding would not be made available for it to continue with the service.

He said the service had the support of DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein's Jennifer McCann, and that ministerial advisers promised the funding would be made available.

Mr Mack said: "We're disgusted, appalled and disappointed, especially because just 11 days ago we were told by Arlene Foster we had her support to carry on. We have consistently had support from across Sinn Fein and the DUP and we thought something could be worked out.

"I had to tell 47 people at 9am they were going to lose their jobs, but every one of them was more concerned about the families they support and what huge repercussions are going to follow for them. It's unbelievable that the first major budget decision that seems to have been taken is an attack on some of the youngest and most vulnerable people in Northern Ireland.

"It seems absolutely illogical that this decision has been taken and we can only hope politicians, who have already told us of their support, will get their act together and try to reverse the decision before it's too late. Should funding not be found to continue this service, the sad alternative is that Stormont will be casting a very long, and very dark shadow, over the lives of the most disadvantaged children and families in Belfast."

A spokeswoman from the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) said it had procured the service on a pilot basis for three years in 2014.

"The contract expires on March 31, 2017. The HSCB has, at no time given any notice of extension of the contract and has been actively engaged with Extern (the service provider) since January 2017 discussing the conclusion of the pilot," she said.

She added that support from Social Services will continue.

But Liz Greer, who has worked for Extern for 18 years, said: "We're being told Social Services will step in now, but what they did wasn't working, which is why we were needed in the first place."

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said: "Extern were promised before the election by both Sinn Fein and the DUP that they would do their best to find this funding, but almost two months later we see that saving this service was not a priority for them. If this vital service closes, then where do these families go?"
Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Bonfire material spread across a section of the Greenway in East Belfast on March 10th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Tyres dumped at a bonfire site on the Connswater Greenway are to be removed over the next week, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency has said.

Wood pallets and a large amount of tyres were dumped along the Flora Street walkway section of the 40million development.

Alliance leader Naomi Long branded it a disgrace while outgoing UUP leader Mike Nesbitt took to Twitter to say dumping of tyres was not culture.

Residents and politicians have demanded urgent action to remove the material destined for a loyalist bonfire in July.

Belfast councillor Jim Rodgers claimed children as young as eight had been involved in the building of the bonfire.

He said the responsibility for collecting the tyres was down to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).

In response, it said: "The district council has lead responsibility for bonfire management, and is currently being assisted by NIEA to seek to secure the removal of the waste tyres from the Comber Greenway, with support from the local community.

"It is anticipated that the waste tyres will be collected over the next week and sent to an authorised waste site."

The agency also said it would take action against those who allowed the tyres to be dumped and urged anyone with information to pass the information on to it, or anonymously through Crimestoppers.

Where evidence as to the perpetrator is available, NIEA will investigate incidents and where possible take enforcement action against those producers and/or carriers who allow tyres to be deposited for use at bonfire sites," it's statement continued.

"If you have any information regarding those responsible, please contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, or the NIEA Environmental Crime Unit on 028 9056 9453 or at: environmentalcrime@daera-ni.gov.uk. This can be done anonymously.

Belfast City Council has been asked for a response.

The Connswater Community Greenway is a 40million investment project in east Belfast creating a 5.5 mile park through east Belfast in a bid to connect the open and green spaces.

Burning tyres is not culture  Mike Nesbitt (@mikenesbittni) March 10, 2017

What an utter disgrace. This commercial scale fly tipping needs to be addressed as such. @ConnsGreenway is an asset. @belfastcc needs to act https://t.co/NKLGZBbqBE  Naomi Long MLA (@naomi_long) March 10, 2017

Following an outcry last week over the dumping, Belfast City Council said it was "very aware of negative issues associated with bonfires, particularly in relation to illegal dumping and general untidiness. Issues pertaining to bonfires are complex and multi-faceted.

"Responsibilities for the management of bonfires and associated issues is not just the responsibility of the council, and we will continue to work with partners and communities to address the issues and relieve the negative impacts associated with bonfires.

Just last week a new bridge was opened along the greenway in honour of late Northern Ireland actor James Ellis.

The new bridge is the latest section of the Greenway to be opened linking CS Lewis Square at the Holywood Arches to Mersey Street and Victoria Park.

Alliance leader and East Belfast MLA Naomi Long branded the dumped material "an utter disgrace".

"This commercial scale fly tipping needs to be addressed as such. Connswater Greenway is an asset, Belfast City Council needs to act," she said.
Coffin of Annemarie OBrien is carried by her partner Sean Patel (left) from St Annes Church, Shankill, Dublin

Traveller culture and traditions will stand by those mourning the deaths of a pregnant mother, her daughter and the toddler's two cousins in a fire, a priest has said.

Annmarie O'Brien (27) had already named unborn baby AJ when she perished beside her two-year-old daughter Hannah Paris in an apartment in Clondalkin, Dublin, last Wednesday. The toddler's cousins Holly (3) and Jordan(4) also died.

Their mother Biddy O'Brien, who is gravely ill in hospital after being rescued, had brought her children to visit Annmarie in the Cluainin Cronan apartments, which houses women who have escaped domestic violence.

Hundreds of mourners packed St Anne's in Shankill, Co Dublin, for the funeral Mass. Parish priest Fr John O'Connor said no words of his could soften the blow of the tragedy.

"As Travellers you are also part of a very strong and noble tradition and your culture will stand by you and give you strength and courage in these difficult times," he said.
The finalist books are being integrated into the highly successful HELL Reading Challenge, in which children receive a Hell pizza for every pizza wheel they complete by reading seven books. In 2016, 200,000 wheels were circulated to schools and libraries, and the target for 2017 is to increase this to 250,000, which will mean more than 1.5 million books being read by young Kiwis as a result of the challenge. Incentives will be offered for reading the crop of 30 awards finalists.
Underage drinkers have been hospitalised 655 times in the past five years in Northern Ireland, new figures have revealed. Stock image posed by model

Underage drinkers have been hospitalised 655 times in the past five years in Northern Ireland, new figures have revealed.

According to research by investigative website The Detail, that doesn't include many more turning up at casualty wards for emergency treatment.

Despite this level of alcohol abuse among young people, the number of PSNI seizures from underage drinkers more than halved from 723 to 320 in the 10 months following the establishment of 11 new police districts in 2015.

Meanwhile, research by Addiction NI suggested that alcohol misuse costs Northern Ireland's economy almost 1bn a year.

Drinking too much caused lost productivity, premature death and unemployment, the charity said.

Among The Detail's findings were the revelations that:

A total of 519 under 18s were receiving treatment for alcohol problems in 2014;

The PSNI seized alcohol from under 18s on 1,161 occasions in the past two years. Some of the children were aged just 12;

There have been 153 prosecutions and just 57 convictions relating to minors at licensed premises in the past five years;

The number of off-licences, including those at supermarkets, has increased by nearly 60% since 1999.

Before the Stormont Assembly election, earlier this month, the then-Health Minister Michelle O'Neill said she planned to put proposals for the minimum pricing of alcohol out to public consultation "as soon as possible".

But with the Assembly in limbo, the plans are unlikely to move forward soon.

Campaigners are also calling for compulsory support services at major events, greater transparency in relation to the publication of licensing information and the allocation of more police resources towards tackling the problem.

One charity is working with hundreds of children - some as young as 13 - struggling with alcohol problems.

Joe Hyland, the chief executive of SOS NI, the staff of which is often the first to encounter drunken children told The Detail: "At a recent event we had three youngsters, one aged 13, who drank a 10-glass bottle of vodka and their life was seriously under threat.

"This happens because as they come in to Belfast someone says drink up because all your drink is going to be confiscated and naively, because of their age, that is what they do."

Putting the figures for alcohol related admissions in context, the Department of Health said: "It is unlikely that alcohol would be recorded as the main reason for admission; the code for alcohol would be recorded as a secondary diagnosis due to the fact that it is a contributing factor to the primary admission."

Addiction NI director Thelma Abernethy said alcohol was having a significant impact on mental health here, saying: "Here in Northern Ireland, it is estimated that in the region of 3.64 million working hours are lost every year due to alcohol use alone.

"This coupled with the ever-increasing use of legal and illegal drugs in the workplace will have an even bigger impact on individuals, families and business.

"It is important that businesses understand the impact of alcohol and drug use within the workplace as well as their legal responsibilities to ensure the overall health, well-being and safety of their workforce."

The 900m cost includes the bills to the Health Service as well as social work, courts, prisons, fire and rescue and police services, Addiction NI said.
PSNI forensics officer at the scene of his shooting in Carrickfergus

A prominent loyalist was fighting for his life last night after he was gunned down in broad daylight in a Carrickfergus housing estate.

Former UDA 'commander' Geordie Gilmore was shot in the neck at point blank range yesterday in Pinewood Avenue in the Woodburn estate. Local sources suggested the attack was sparked by a single Facebook post on Sunday just before 8pm.

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The message on Gilmore's Facebook page read: "The days of the UDA putting people out of Carrick are over."

Late last night the Belfast Trust described Gilmore's condition as critical.

It is understood his family were at his hospital bedside.

The attack follows years of bitter feuding in south east Antrim between competing factions of the UDA.

It has been reported that Gilmore, aged in his 40s, had opposed sections of the UDA engaged in drug trafficking, gaining him support from other UDA veterans who shared his view.

For months Gilmore made critical posts about the south east Antrim UDA online, with the taunting spilling over into physical confrontations.

Last year a mob of up to 100 men, some wearing masks, surrounded his home.

Although this was not the first attempt on his life - shots had previously been fired at his home and there were reports of a UDA death threat against him - he refused to leave the area.

Yesterday afternoon at 2.15pm, on a street where children often play after school, he was shot multiple times.

Early reports suggested he was hit between three and five times, leaving him with what police described as "life-threatening" injuries.

It's believed he was shot while driving his car.

The area remained cordoned off for the afternoon with a massive police presence in the surrounding streets.

Around 4pm a heavily armed PSNI unit began a house search on one property in a street close to the shooting.

Speaking just after 6pm yesterday, Superintendent Darrin Jones said police would stay in the area while investigations continued.

"Police received reports of a shooting incident in the Pinewood Avenue area of Carrickfergus shortly after 2.15pm today," he said.

"A man in his 40s was taken to hospital for treatment to injuries which, at this stage, are being treated as serious.

"While the investigation is still at an early stage police are following significant lines of enquiry and I would appeal to anyone who has information about today's attack to contact us."

With many families and young children living in the area, he said the nature of the attack was especially disturbing.

"Firearms being discharged in a residential area, particularly during daylight hours when children are in the vicinity, is concerning.

"We need the community to give us the information needed so we can remove the dangerous individuals who carried out this attack from our streets and put them before a court of law."

He said the police presence would continue as "we search for those who carried out this brutal attack".

Sammy Wilson (right), the DUP MP for East Antrim, said he believes the violence shows "a serious escalation in an intra-paramilitary dispute".

"As a result fear has been brought back into communities and there is a real danger of people with no association with this long-unning dispute being caught up in the crossfire and the violence," he said.

Mr Wilson added: "It is good that the police were in the area so quickly and hopefully this will help de-escalate the situation."

Independent councillor Jim Brown said he also suspected the shooting was linked to a paramilitary feud. "It's the last thing we need in Carrickfergus, I don't want it to escalate," he said.

"Unfortunately this has been a long time coming, as many who serve the community here will know. We're frustrated by the lack of police activity and response in Carrickfergus. They aren't on the street as much."

Adding his condemnation was Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson. "This is an appalling act, particularly as it was carried out in broad daylight in a residential area," he said.

"Guns have no place on our streets and despicable actions of this nature have absolutely no place in our society."
Police at the scene on Pinewood Avenue in Carrickfergus the day after a 44-year-old man was shot. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Police have urged the Carrickfergus public to help them catch the gunman who shot prominent loyalist Geordie Gilmore.

Mr Gilmore was shot in the neck as he sat in a car in the Pinewood Avenue area of the Co Antrim town on Monday at around 2.15pm. The 44-year-old is believed to have been involved in a loyalist feud in the town.

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The gunman is thought to have made off on foot from the scene. On Tuesday police issued an appeal for the community's help to track him down.

They said it was particularly chilling the murder attempt took place in daylight, in a residential area and just yards from where children were playing.

"That is simply shocking in a civilised society," said District Commander Superintendent Darrin Jones.

He added: In the hours after the shooting local police, supported by members of the PSNIs Armed Response Units and colleagues from Air Support Unit, carried out a number of searches across Carrickfergus and maintained a robust presence in the area throughout the night. This very visible police operation will continue as we continue to gather evidence and investigate this brutal crime.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph ) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph ) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph ) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Police at the scene of the Pinewood Avenue shooting in Carrickfergus. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Police at the scene of the shooting. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Police at the scene of the shooting. Picture: Philip Magowan / PressEye Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph ) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph ) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph ) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook

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Whatsapp Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

"It is just unacceptable that someone would produce a weapon and open fire in any circumstances however it is particularly chilling that this attack, this murder bid, took place in broad daylight, in a residential street populated with families, young children and older people.

"I am renewing my appeal to local people to assist us with our enquiries and to help us identify the person or persons who orchestrated and carried out this ruthless attack. We want to apprehend them and place them before the courts to answer for their crimes, and we can only do that with your help and support.

"While a definitive motive for the shooting has not been established and we are exploring a number of possible lines of enquiry, I can say that at this time the involvement of paramilitary criminals is one possibility. Obviously as the investigation is at a very early stage I cannot expand further upon that at present.

"I would urge anyone with information or who believes they can assist the investigation in any way to please come forward. You can call police on 101 or if you would prefer to provide you information anonymously you can by calling the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111."
A female prison officer thought she was going to die after being slashed in the neck in an attack by a male prisoner, according to a source at Maghaberry Prison.

The woman, who is a relatively new officer, was rushed to hospital after the incident involving an inmate who has a history of violence yesterday.

The prison officer suffered a serious neck wound and received emergency treatment at the Ulster Hospital.

She was slashed by a weapon made out of a razor blade and suffered a three inch gash on the neck below her left ear.

The officer has now been discharged and a police investigation has been launched.

It happened when the officer was on the prison landing and the inmate came out of his cell and attacked her.

Adrian Smith of the Prison Officer's Association said the officer had suffered a "pretty deep wound".

Mr Smith told the Belfast Telegraph the officer said to a colleague she thought she was going to die due to the amount of blood she was losing.

"Anybody knows the difficult and dangerous job that prison officers do and it's getting more and more dangerous with cuts to prison service budget and staffing levels," he said. "Unfortunately things like this will happen more often with drug problems in the prison.

"In Maghaberry the problem is improving and not as bad as it was a few months ago.

"I don't know if this was drug related, I don't know if the prisoner was high on drugs but I've asked that question and nobody has been able to give me an answer as of yet.

"There is no doubt that there is not as many prison officer's feet on the ground as there used to be and that doesn't help matters. Prisoners take advantage of there being less officers about.

"But that has been the problem for a few years now and the problem is just going to get worse."

Ulster Unionist justice spokesman Doug Beattie said there needs to be a "serious look" at investment in the Prison Service.

"This is happening more and more. There is a chronic under-investment in our prison service," he said. "We underestimate the risks prison service staff take very single day. These men and women do a fantastic job and are undervalued."

A Prison Service spokeswoman said:"A prison officer has suffered a serious injury following an assault by a prisoner in Maghaberry this afternoon. The Prison Service utterly condemns this attack and has referred the incident to the PSNI."
Any time the General Assembly considers a bill, ask yourself: Is it trying to solve a problem government created?

As hundreds of bills are filed in the General Assembly, I ask: What problem are lawmakers trying to solve? If there is one, what should government do about it?For years, people around the state have discussed the best dates for schools to start and to stop. Lawmakers, as of press time, have filed 17 bills this session addressing school flexibility.We should allow school districts to decide what works best for their communities and for their students. The needs, for example, are different in New Hanover, Wake, and Polk counties.The same can be said for the problems of teacher aides, classroom sizes, and textbook and digital spending. Raleigh issues orders when the solution may be for state government to do less - issue block grants to local districts and allow them to choose.When the N.C. education lottery was enacted 12 years ago, proponents claimed the state wasn't' spending enough on education - as opposed to thinking about what the effects of that spending may be.Per pupil spending at the time was at an all-time high of $6,300. The recession hit, and adjustments were made. We've spent $500 million more on education than last year, bringing average teacher pay to $50,000, and tripling textbook spending since 2013. Accountability measures focused on outcomes in the classroom instead of inputs.Turns out, state-sanctioned gambling isn't a solution.What happens when government doesn't keep promises? When the lottery passed in 2007, 54 percent of the proceeds went to prizes, and 35 percent to education. Today, 64 percent goes for prizes, and only 24.5 percent goes for education. Over the years, lottery proceeds have supplanted regular education funding, have been transferred into the General Fund, and reverted from school construction funds (albeit later replaced).More lottery tickets are sold in low-income counties. Get government out of the gambling business, restore responsible education funding in the budget - making it the priority it needs to be, as well as transparent and accountable.Restrictive occupational licensing laws are keeping people away from their chosen professions. It's particularly problematic for military spouses who hold a non-transferable certification or license in another state. Senate Bill 8 would allow military families to practice under licensure from another state while they transition to requirements in North Carolina. A complete review of all occupational licenses - repealing, reforming, and moving to certification where possible - would be better.It's a problem when government officials blatantly ignore or flaunt the law. The states' open meetings and public records laws were disregarded during a meeting of the Military Affairs Commission. Larry Hall, the governor's appointee for secretary of the Military and Veteran Affairs Division, oversaw the meeting, which wasn't advertised. The agenda wasn't made public, the only reporter at the meeting was asked to leave, and the chairman removed an item from the agenda before putting it back when the reporter left.North Carolina has some of the weakest public records and open meetings laws in the country. Senate Bill 77 would make violations of those laws a class 3 misdemeanor.Is there something standing in the way of entrepreneurship, creating small businesses that create most of the jobs, and economic growth? Less government is better, and transformational reforms in taxes, regulations, infrastructure and education since 2011 have strengthened the state's economy. The less burden government is on business the more economic growth occurs. Taxing capital gains is a double taxation on investment in capital assets and biases investors against making such investments.That's a problem. A complete repeal of the capital gains tax would be a $500-million revenue hit, so phasing it out over several years, maybe with revenue triggers, may be more practical.What's the problem? Often, it's government itself. Less is better.
Maghaberry Prison, where a prison officer was attacked with a blade

A man appeared in court on Tuesday charged with attempting to murder a female prison officer inside a high security Northern Ireland jail.

Thomas Mongan, 28, allegedly slashed the woman across the neck and jaw at HMP Maghaberry on Monday.

She was taken to hospital following the attack said to have been carried out with some form of a blade.

Mongan entered the dock at Belfast Magistrates' Court to face a single charge of attempted murder.

He spoke only to confirm he understood the alleged offence, replying: "Yeah."

No further details of the incident were disclosed.

Appearing to be in an agitated state, Mongan wrung his hands and rubbed at his head throughout the brief hearing.

An investigating policeman said he could connect the accused to the charge.

Defence solicitor John Finucane put no questions to the officer.

Mongan, a prisoner with a previous address at Riverview Meadows in Belfast, did not seek bail.

He was remanded in custody to appear again in court on April 10.
Sinn Fein has been accused of a "clear disregard" for trying to make Northern Ireland work after calling for a border poll following Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's demand for a second independence referendum.

Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill made no direct connection between Ms Sturgeon's call to the Government for permission to hold another referendum in Scotland.

Instead, she put it down to a Government that "refused to listen" to the majority here who voted to remain in the EU.

Ms Sturgeon said she hoped the next referendum would take place between the autumn 2018 and the spring of 2019.

That will coincide with the anticipated conclusion of the UK's two-year negotiations over EU withdrawal.

She said it was a necessary move to protect Scottish interests, and is to ask the Scottish Parliament to engage with Westminster to enable another referendum.

Back in Belfast, Mrs O'Neill said the need for an "Irish unity referendum" was urgent, and her party wanted to see it take place "as soon as possible".

But, speaking in the Great Hall in Parliament Buildings, she indicated a border poll was not a prerequisite for Sinn Fein going back into an Executive.

The republican party is just one Assembly seat and fewer than 1,200 votes behind the DUP after the election.

"The British Tories are on the verge of triggering Article 50 to take the North out of the EU against the wishes of the people. This will significantly undermine the Good Friday Agreement and lead to the imposition of a hard border," she said.

"The British Government are refusing to listen to the majority of people and parties in the North, as well as the majority of parties across Ireland, who support the North securing designated special status within the EU.

"Brexit would be a disaster for Ireland, north and south. It would negatively impact on our economy, our communities and our public services. All of this increases the urgency for a referendum on Irish unity as set out in the Good Friday Agreement and Sinn Fein wants to see that happen as soon as possible."

Asked if her call was in response to Ms Sturgeon's speech earlier in the day, Mrs O'Neill said Scottish independence remained an issue for the Scottish people. But UUP MP Danny Kinahan said: "Have Sinn Fein not destabilised Northern Ireland enough? They have shown a clear disregard for making Northern Ireland work, so I am not surprised by their latest political stunt.

"As for Sinn Fein calling for a border poll, they would be better served concentrating on establishing a working Northern Ireland Executive rather than agitating for a united Ireland."

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds branded the SNP call as "another prime example of opportunistic nationalism".

"It is only a few years ago that the SNP told people that a referendum would settle the issue of Scottish independence for a generation," he said.

"Now Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed she wants to repeat the process within a few years.

"Should the UK Government not accede to this demand it will simply be presented as another grievance, regardless of the facts."

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said calls for a border poll were "premature", and an issue for another day.

He said restoring Stormont, setting a budget and dealing with Brexit were more urgent matters.

"As far as border polls or a united Ireland is concerned, these are much longer-term issues," he said. "Anything else is premature, anything else is for the longer term."

Secretary of State James Brokenshire has made clear he will only agree to a border poll if there is evidence there was a majority backing reunification.

"We are not at that point yet," a Government source said.
An US man arrested in Northern Ireland over a drugs-related murder in Florida is to fight extradition, a court heard today.

United States authorities are seeking 22-year-old Jonah Horne in connection with the killing of a man last summer.

Horne was detained under a provisional warrant at his partner's home on Drumard Drive, in Lisburn, on Monday.

As he appeared before Laganside Courts in Belfast his lawyers confirmed he will not be consenting to extradition.

Barrister Sean Doherty also stressed they want assurances that he will not face any threat of a death penalty.

Horne is being sought in connection with the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Jacob Walsh outside apartments at North Military Trail, Boca Raton on June 7, 2016.

The killing was linked to an apparent drug deal, according to reports at the time.

Entering the dock in a grey sweat shirt and bottoms, Horne spoke only to confirm his identity.

Judge Patricia Smyth was told he arrived in Northern Ireland last October and has only 500 to his name.

Stephen Ritchie, counsel for the US authorities, said he was wanted on a charge of murder.

But Mr Doherty responded that his client denies the alleged offence.

"I have been asked by the requested person to say that he's been taken entirely by surprise by these proceedings," he said.

The barrister also raised issues about making any extradition order in a case where the death penalty may feature.

"Florida is a state where capital punishment does flow on conviction for murder," he pointed out.

Horne was remanded in custody to appear again in ten days time when he is expected to make a bail application.

As he was being led to the cells he gestured to a woman sitting alone in the public gallery.
A Church of Ireland congregation packed the pews for a Sunday Gospel service with a difference at the weekend.

Elvis impersonator Andy Rodgers performed at St Canice's in Eglinton for two hours leaving stunned worshippers - including resident rector Rev Paul Hoey - all shook up.

During the service Coleraine man Andy donned a sequined white jumpsuit as he belted out The King's hits.

They included classics such as Are You Lonesome Tonight and The Wonder Of You, as well as gospel classics such as Peace In The Valley and He Touched Me.

Andy told the Belfast Telegraph that the St Canice's gig - performing in front of worshippers from different Christian denominations - was the most unusual one he has had in 12 years working as an Elvis impersonator.

He said: "Performing in a church was certainly a first for me but I was only too happy to say yes when Rev Hoey asked me.

"The church was packed, in fact they had to bring in more seats, and there were people from both communities there, which was great.

"There were two guys from a church in Dungannon who were so impressed that they are thinking about having a similar evening in their church."

Rev Hoey hoped to attract not just Elvis devotees, but worshippers who were curious to see what songs not normally sung in church might say about Christianity. He was not disappointed.

During the service Rev Hoey reminded the congregation of Presley's own faith journey and how he politely told a female fan who had called him The King that he couldn't accept the accolade because there was "only one king - Jesus Christ".

Rev Hoey explained the idea of a service inspired by Elvis, who also covered the Blackwood Brothers' song In My Father's House.

He said: "I have long thought that a lot of the songs Elvis sang, both Gospel and non-Gospel songs, have a message for today's society.

"After seeing Andy perform at a concert I made a spur of the moment decision to ask him to come and perform for all of us in church.

"He agreed, and he packed the pews. He sang for about two hours, but it could have gone on for four hours going by the reaction of the congregation.

"Everyone was extremely positive on the way out the door and many people suggested we have similar evenings in the future, which I definitely wouldn't rule out."
The former Bishop of Galway gained worldwide notoriety in 1992 after it was revealed that he had secretly fathered a son

The son of an Irish bishop whose love affair with an American woman rocked the Catholic Church has described him as a source of love and support, after the cleric's death at the age of 89.

Eamonn Casey died in a nursing home in the west of Ireland on Monday following a long illness.

The former Bishop of Galway gained worldwide notoriety in 1992 after it was revealed that he had secretly fathered a son named Peter with US divorcee Annie Murphy.

He had paid thousands to her for his son's upkeep in the US.

In a statement hours after Mr Casey's death, son Peter joined other relatives, including the bishop's brother Father Micheal and sister Ita Furlong, in a glowing tribute.

"We wish to acknowledge the priestly work of Bishop Eamonn, especially in the pursuit of social justice for the marginalised, as evidenced by his work with Shelter in London in the 1950s and 1960s, and later with his involvement in the setting up and development of Trocaire," they said.

"Notwithstanding the demands on his time, Bishop Eamonn was a great source of love and support, making himself available to celebrate and to empathise with us in all our important family occasions.

"We wish to thank all of those who supported him in the past, in particular, the clergy and the people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry, the Irish community in London, his many friends in Limerick and throughout the country and abroad."

Ordained a priest in 1951, Mr Casey was appointed Bishop of Kerry in 1969 before taking on the larger and more high-profile diocese of Galway and Kilmacduagh in 1976.

A few years before, Ms Murphy and the cleric had an affair when she came to stay with him in Ireland after her marriage in the US broke down. The couple had a mutual friend.

The relationship and the birth of son Peter in 1974 remained a secret for 18 years and emerged along with the scandal that the bishop had been making undisclosed payments to the US for years.

President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said Bishop Casey will also be remembered for his work on homelessness and housing for Irish emigrants in Britain as the first chairman of Trocaire and his work with the aid agency.

He said Bishop Casey asked him to go to El Salvador in the 1980s to hear about human rights abuses and killings in the country.

"Other aspects of his life were the source of pain to others, for which Bishop Casey has apologised and expressed his deep regret, and he himself had the experience of pain visited on him in later life," Mr Higgins said.

Bishop Casey, a charismatic and respected cleric who was regarded in some circles as being progressive, is said to have wanted his son Peter put up for adoption.

He fled Ireland for the US as news of the scandal was about to break, and went to Rome to resign as the head of the Galway Diocese, although he retained the title.

Later he spent time in Mexico before taking a role as a missionary in Ecuador.

The Catholic Church said the highlight of Bishop Casey's time in Galway was organising Pope John Paul II's visit to the city in 1979 and the youth mass for more than 300,000 people.

He was also said to be forthright, opposing US president Ronald Reagan's visit to Ireland in 1984 because of American foreign policy particularly in Central America.

Bishop Casey was at the funeral of his murdered friend Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador in 1980 when the service was interrupted by bombs and shooting and 50 mourners died.

In the late 1990s, he left South America and began working in the parish of St Paul's in Staplefield, Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

He retired to Ireland in 2006 and on his return made his first public statement on the affair in 14 years and apologised.

He died peacefully at Carrigoran Nursing Home, Co Clare, on Monday afternoon.

His family issued a special thanks to th e religious order of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Carrigoran Nursing Home in Newmarket-On-Fergus, where he had lived for the last six years.

He said they gave him the highest possible standard of care and ensured that his comfort, dignity and pastoral needs were provided for at all times.

Funeral arrangements have not been finalised.

Archbishop Eamon Martin, Primate of All Ireland, paid tribute to Bishop Casey's work with Trocaire, Irish emigrants in Britain and Pope John Paul II's visit.

"Bishop Casey's inspirational leadership of Trocaire pioneered a very significant pastoral outreach from this country towards the most vulnerable people in the developing world, while at the same time he energetically raised awareness of overseas development issues at home in Ireland," he said.
The son of an Irish bishop whose love affair with an American woman rocked the Catholic Church has described him as a source of love and support after the cleric's death at the age of 89.

Eamon Casey died in a nursing home in the west of Ireland yesterday following a long illness.

The former Bishop of Galway gained worldwide notoriety in 1992 after it was revealed that he had secretly fathered a son named Peter with American divorcee Annie Murphy.

He had paid thousands to her for his son's upkeep in the US.

In a statement hours after Mr Casey's death, son Peter joined other relatives, including the bishop's brother Father Micheal and sister Ita Furlong, in a glowing tribute.

"We wish to acknowledge the priestly work of Bishop Eamon, especially in the pursuit of social justice for the marginalised, as evidenced by his work with Shelter in London in the 1950s and 1960s, and later with his involvement in the setting up and development of Trocaire," they said.

"Notwithstanding the demands on his time, Bishop Eamon was a great source of love and support, making himself available to celebrate and to empathise with us in all our important family occasions.

"We wish to thank all of those who supported him in the past, in particular, the clergy and the people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry, the Irish community in London, his many friends in Limerick and throughout the country."

Ordained a priest in 1951, Mr Casey was appointed Bishop of Kerry in 1969 before taking on the larger and more high-profile diocese of Galway and Kilmacduagh in 1976.

A few years before, Ms Murphy and the cleric had an affair when she came to stay with him in Ireland after her marriage in the US broke down. The couple had a mutual friend.

The relationship and the birth of son Peter in 1974 remained a secret for 18 years and emerged along with the scandal that the bishop had been making undisclosed payments to the US for years.

Bishop Casey, a charismatic and respected cleric who was regarded in some circles as being progressive, is said to have wanted his son Peter put up for adoption.

He fled Ireland for the United States as news of the scandal was about to break.

He went to Rome to resign as the head of the Galway Diocese, although he later retained the title.
Despite the various directives and handbook updates, this audit makes it clear that there is an inconsistent understanding among front line staff of the appropriate process to take when scheduling veterans. We ask you to commit to nationwide retraining of schedulers, virtual or in-person, by the end of this fiscal year, which would be over a year after the publication of VHA's most recent outpatient scheduling and consult directives. Additionally, please explain how scheduling staff and supervisors were trained on the directives when they were released last year and whether any VHA employees have been held accountable for failing to follow these directives.

As a result of the finding in a January 2017 OIG report, Review of the Implementation of the Veterans Choice Program, as well as this VISN 6 report, indicating that it takes medical facility staff an average of 42 days to provide authorization to the Third Party Administrator to begin the Choice process, we ask that you initiate an analysis of this front-end process. This timeline is unacceptable. Please indicate what provisions in your Response for Proposals for a new community care network are responsive to lessons VHA has learned during the course of the Choice Program with respect to scheduling processes.

The OIG found that facilities did not consistently conduct scheduler audits, and so we ask you to require that an individual at each VISN is responsible for ensuring that the required scheduling audits are completed as prescribed. Further, we ask you to identify an individual or a team at the VISN level who will complete these audits quarterly, to ensure that audits are impartially completed by people outside the scheduler's and scheduling supervisor's direct chain of command.

The audit showed that VISN 6 medical facilities did not consistently provide timely access to health care for new patients. How is VHA ensuring that adequate care capacity will be available to meet the increasing needs of Veterans in high growth areas? Are there adequate resources to meet the specific needs of subpopulations like women veterans?

VA had a goal that by December of 2016, every VA medical center would be able to provide same day access. Given this concerning audit, do you have confidence that facilities in VISN 6 are meeting this goal, and what data can you share to validate?

Finally, VA stakeholders rely on the wait times information that is published regularly by VA. It appears, based on this audit, that incorrect information is being published without validation. We urge you to complete a thorough review of these channels of communication, and opportunities for accountability for incorrect information being passed between VISNs and facilities, and between VHA Central Office and VISNs.

Contact: Daniel Keylin

Daniel Keylin daniel_keylin@tillis.senate.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Richard Burr (R-NC) joined a bipartisan group of Senators, including the leadership of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee (SVAC), to send a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin in response to a troubling Inspector General report earlier this month on veteran wait times. Though the IG report did not find intentional misreporting, it did find that across the Mid-Atlantic Healthcare Network (VISN 6) actual wait times were drastically different than what has been reported by VA medical facilities. VISN 6 includes locations in Asheville, Durham, Fayetteville, and Salisbury.The Senators called on Secretary Shulkin and the VA to provide additional information on how VA facilities record and report wait time data, how they schedule appointments, and how the VA plans to ensure timely access to quality care for North Carolina's rapidly growing veteran population.the Senators wrote.The letter was also signed by U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Jon Tester (D-MT).The text of the Senators' letter is available below:Secretary Shulkin,We read with significant concern the results of the recent Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit on access to healthcare in Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 6. These findings indicate that due to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) staff continuing to record inaccurate wait time data, veterans are waiting for care significantly longer than is being reported by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and in many cases, being denied the opportunity to seek care in the community through the Veterans Choice Program.Additionally, facility staff are not consistently entering data that is necessary for leadership at the facility, VISN, and central office level to make decisions about staffing in VA facilities. Ultimately, these failures hamper Congress' ability to provide VHA with appropriate resources. The OIG also found that policies to audit schedulers, ensuring they were complying with policy in the best interest of veterans, were simply ignored.Veterans in this VISN, and across the country, deserve to be seen more quickly than VISN 6 has achieved, and Congress, veterans, and the American public must be able to trust that the wait time information being provided by VA is accurate. That we, once again, cannot trust VA data is more than disappointing.Secretary Shulkin, as you signed off on the action plan to address the IG's recommendations, we know you are anxious to ensure that the challenges identified in this audit are met promptly. We appreciate that new scheduling and consult directives were released last year, and that many of the recommendations offered by OIG will be changes implemented nationwide, but we also urge you to take the following additional actions:We appreciate your prompt response and attention to these important matters.
The search operation is focused near Blacksod, off the Mayo coast. Pic Google Maps

A woman crew member from the Irish Coast Guard helicopter missing off the west of Ireland, who was pulled from the Atlantic but died, has been named as Captain Dara Fitzpatrick.

She was one of four crew members on board Rescue 116 which crashed six miles west of Blacksod.

The other three crew members have yet to be recovered.

Capt Fitzpatrick, who was 45, was pronounced dead in hospital, Gerard O'Flynn, VS&T Operations Manager of the Irish Coast Guard confirmed.

She was one of very few female civilian pilots worldwide.

She featured in the RTE series Rescue 117 leading dramatic rescues by the crew at Waterford helicopter base.

Captain Fitzpatrick had over 20 years flying experience and was chief pilot in Waterford since 2002. She described her job as "challenging and exciting" during the filming of Rescue 117.

Mr O'Flynn said: "It is with our deepest regret we can confirm one of the pilots was Captain Dara Fitzpatrick.

"Dara has been pronounced dead. Dara was the most senior pilot and has been with the company for close on 20 years.

"Outside of her work as a pilot she did an enormous amount of work on water safety and was always available to do school visits and promote water safety.

"For all of us involved in the Coast Guard and for particularly her family it has come as a complete shock.

"And we want to extend our sincere sympathy to all her family and her flying colleagues in the CHC and simply to everybody who knew her.

"The operation is continuing, and we are continuing to recover wreckage out there.

"The whole operation is being done in conjunction with the Air Accident Investigation Unit who have been on scene all morning."

My thoughts & prayers are with the families, crew members and colleagues of #Rescue116 on a very sad day for Ireland  michelle oneill (@moneillsf) March 14, 2017

Our thoughts and prayers are with our colleagues in the Irish coastguard, they have always come to our aid in NI when asked.#heroes https://t.co/9iqflAttGF  FBU N.Ireland (@FBUNIreland) March 14, 2017

The coast guard were immense when it came to the search. Amazing men and women. This is so tragic.  Ireland / Peadar (@ireland) March 14, 2017

The blue icons are SAR (L to R: #Rescue116, 2 RNLI lifeboats and Aer Corps Casa). The orange are fishing vessels that appear to have joined. pic.twitter.com/MbwUOfxbFJ  Jim Daly (@psneeze) March 14, 2017

Two #rnli lifeboats there now along with other fishing vessels searching. #rescue116 pic.twitter.com/0Rpu86C33P  Eimear McCormack (@EimearMcCormack) March 14, 2017

A spokesman for the service confirmed that they lost contact with the rescue chopper at approximately 1am this morning.

The Dublin-based crew had been providing top cover for another Coast Guard helicopter that was performing a medical evacuation (medevac) off the coast of Mayo.

Rescue 116 was returning to base when it fell out of contact.

A large amount of debris was found this morning one crew member was recovered in a critical condition.

Search and rescue helicopters from Shannon and Sligo are currently searching for the missing craft.

Support is being provided by the Irish Air Corp Casa aeroplane, all-weather lifeboats from Ballyglass and Achill and five local fishing vessels.

The LE Roisin arrived at the scene shortly after 9am and naval divers are also on standby.

A member of An Garda Siochana and the Air Accident Investigation Unit are also being brought aboard the naval vessel as the search for three missing Coast Guard members continues.

Speaking at the lighthouse in Blacksod, Gerard O'Flynn, VS&T Operations Manager of the Irish Coast Guard, said that a number of vessels are currently involved in the search operation.

"At the moment the search is ongoing and it's been coordinated by the rescue coordination centre in Mallon. We're rotating the two coast guard helicopters in Sligo and Shannon. Ballyglass and Achill RNLI are assisting the search. Six fishing vessels and the naval ship, the LE Roisin are also involved," he told Independent.ie

A small amount of debris has also been recovered from the shore near the Blacksod lighthouse, as Gardai, Coast Guard members and investigators remain at the scene.

Gary Bohan from Belmullet, who is involved in the operation and spent the morning recovering debris in a rib, said he had never come across an aviation accident of this scale.

"We got involved at about 9am this morning. The conditions are bad. The debris is scattered across about two miles. The biggest part that came out is about half the size of a (truck) dirt panel.

"There's bits the size of a microphone out there to. It's all over the place. We came in about 10 minutes ago. We recovered pieces of the side panel and pieces of rotor blade. Tiny bits of objects are out there as well. We got the biggest of it but left the small stuff.

"The water is getting dirtier as well. There'd be about four or five trawlers out there at the moment. RNLI, Ballyglass a couple of guys are after going out in ribs as well. There's four or five five fishing boats out there as well. The conditions are getting worse, even though it's calmed down a bit."

Asked if it's a hard operation to be involved in, Mr Bohan said: "We're just trying to do our bit for the community. Doing our best that's all we can do.

"On the aviation side of things I've never seen anything like this. I've seen boats sink and tragedies like that but nothing on this scale. We're heading out again later on. The size of the area is getting bigger. The site at the moment is two square miles, but as the day gets on it's only going to get bigger and larger and larger, because the debris is scattering. It will definitely be floating north. Hope to God something will come a shore."

In a statement a spokesman for the Coast Guard said: "The Sligo based Coast Guard helicopter R118 completed an early morning medical evacuation (medevac) of a crewman requiring urgent medical attention from a UK registered fishing vessel approximately 150 miles west of Eagle Island in County Mayo.

"Owing to the distance involved safety and communication support, known as Top Cover, was provided by the second Coast Guard helicopter, the Dublin based R116."

The statement read: "At approximately 1am contact was lost with one of our SAR Helicopters. A major sea search is ongoing off the county Mayo coast approximately six miles west of Blacksod.

"The search operation is being coordinated by the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centre in Malin Head. Both helicopters refuelled at Blacksod prior to transiting to the scene."

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Coast Guard director Eugene Clonan described today as a "dark day for emergency services".

He said that hopes are fading for the three missing crew: At this particular point in time, our hopes are fading of finding the remainder of the crew."

Fergus Sweeney, a photojournalist based out of Blacksod, told RTE Radio One that at approximately 1.30am the signal was lost from Rescue 116.

"At that stage the operation upped a gear."

"The situation at the moment is that we are none the wiser."

Asked what the mood is like in the community Mr Sweeney said: "Its a numbness, we have seen tragedies like this happen in the north sea off oil rigs," he said. "It's a sombre attitude, people are waking up and realising hat has happened at the coast here. It is kind of just bringing it home again here and the risk people take to help other people at sea."

Coast Guard sources said there was no evidence that the crew of the stricken helicopter had attempted to send a mayday call.

This would suggest that whatever happened, the crash was unlikely to have been caused by a mechanical fault.

But the sources stressed that it was too early in the investigation to speculate on the cause.

Tributes

A spokesperson for Taoiseach Enda Kenny said: "The Taoiseach is being briefed regularly here in the US on the Coast Guard helicopter accident that has taken place off the coast of Mayo.

"His thoughts are with the families of the brave crew and with the emergency crews currently working in the area."

The Republic's Transport Minister Shane Ross expressed deep concern at the news this morning.

"As the search for the Dublin based helicopter R116 is currently underway I would like to express my sincere support and sympathies for all those involved, particularly those family members who are awaiting news of their loved ones.

"This is an extremely difficult time for all concerned. As we await further information I would like to appeal for space to be given to the relevant professionals involved in the search operation to complete their work. Once again, I send my utmost support to all those affected."

Irish Housing Minister and avid sailor Simon Coveney admitted the loss of an Irish Coast Guard helicopter off the Mayo coast was "a dark day for Ireland's emergency services."

Mr Coveney, who previously worked with Irish Coast Guard officials while Marine Minister, admitted he was personally shocked by the tragedy.

"This sounds like it is going to be a very dark day for the emergency services," the Cork TD said.

"I have had the privilege of being in Irish Coast Guard helicopters and being winched up into them from boats."

"These are incredibly professional people and they provide an amazing service.

"They have helped to prevent so many deaths and tragedies at sea."

Last September brave volunteer Caitriona Lucas became the first coast guard member to die in the line of duty.

Ms Lucas, an active member of the Doolin coast guard in Co Clare, was part of a search and rescue operation in Kilkee when the tragedy struck.

More than 400 lives were saved last year by the service. The rescue missions were among 2,500 incidents co-ordinated from the agency's main bases at Dublin, Malin, Co Donegal, and Valentia, Co Kerry.
They wear the latest and most advanced body armour and helmets, camouflage gear and anti-ballistic sunglasses: the fashion statement favoured by frontline private security companies across the worlds combat zones.

But Malhama Tactical is not from the West like most of the others. Its fighters are in Syria training Islamists: a Blackwater of jihad who have found a new way of cashing in on the self-styled caliphate.

Blackwater became the most high-profile of Western security contractors in Iraq, gaining notoriety as the most violent and aggressive of the corporate military firms that spotted a highly lucrative trade following the liberation of the country in 2003. Such firms were largely immune from scrutiny or prosecution: that changed after a particularly bloody day in Baghdad.

One late morning in September in 2007, I watched as Blackwaters guards opened fire from their armoured cars into families out on a Sunday in a popular location, Nisoor Square: 17 civilians were killed and more than were 40 injured. Four of the guards were later convicted in connection with the deaths. Blackwater changed its name, first to Xe Services and then Academi and continues to receive US government contracts.

Malhama, named for the Islamic equivalent to Armageddon, is unlikely to be called to legal account for atrocities in the anarchic maelstrom of Syrias civil war, although it is now firmly in the gunsight of powerful enemies. The small group, of about a dozen drawn mainly from Central Asia, has been an enthusiastic user of social media. At the end of last year it placed advertisements in Facebook looking for instructors who were prepared to constantly engage, develop and learn. The companys YouTube pages provide free guides ranging from weapons maintenance and laying ambushes to battlefield first aid.

The leader and founder of Malhala  a firm which is fun and friendly according to its online brochures  is an Uzbek using the nom de guerre Abu Rofiq who claims to have served in the VDV, a Russian military airborne unit. Although it was a commercial concern, Rofiq has stressed the religious aspect of its work meant helping oppressed Sunni Muslims militarily, beyond Syria. Preparing for Armageddon has taken the company into China, Burma, back to the former Soviet Asian republics and Russia itself.

In China this means training Uighur separatists of the Turkistan Islamist Party. They are present in the Islamist ranks in Syria and Iraq in large numbers and it was at Uzbek Isis recruit with Uighur connections who carried out the New Years Eve massacre in an Istanbul nightclub in January. Chechen and other Caucasian groups have also been active in other fronts, carrying out attacks in Russia and states allied to the Kremlin in the region.

It is such threats that are believed to have brought Abu Rofiq and his men to the attention of those around Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Rofiq was targeted in an air strike in Idlib last month in which his wife and young son were killed. His own fate remains unclear. There were reports that he too had died but Islamist fighters who worked with him deny this was the case and insist he survived.

Training and arming of the rebels had begun as a slow and often chaotic process in Syria. In the summer of 2012, with the protests against the regime of Bashar al-Assad still in its early stages, I accompanied a group of opposition fighters, led by Abdul Haq, a 34-year-old mechanic calling himself a resistance commander, into Idlib.

The 50 men did not have a single semi-automatic rifle between them. Instead they passed around 20 elderly hunting rifles, shotguns and handguns. At one point a Remington pump-action shotgun one of his men was firing simply fell apart in his hands, possibly due to metal fatigue. Other weapons in the armoury included a Soviet Star pistol, with the stamp of its place of manufacture  CCCP, made in the USSR  and a piece of British help for the revolution, a Webley revolver, circa 1930s.

As the uprising descended into a vicious bloodbath, the flow of arms into Syria from the international backers on both sides went up massively in quantity and quality. The regime received its supplies from Russia and Iran while its enemies were backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states. Some moderate opposition fighters trained and armed by the Americans in Jordan and Turkey surrendered with their weapons to extremist groups on crossing the border.

Abu Rofiq is said to have seen the training opportunities for rebels after first going to Syria in 2013. He began to bring in experienced fighters from the Caucasus before starting Malhama with a dozen others in the beginning of 2016. The company has been working with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the new name taken by Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, as well as Ahrar al-Sham, a rebel group which had been backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

There has been a strong presence of Islamists from the Caucasus in Syria for a while. They have built up a reputation as the fiercest and most dedicated of the foreign fighters. One of the most effective military chiefs of Isis, who played a key role in its early successes, was Abu Omar al-Shishani  of Chechen and Georgian background. He was killed in July last year in a US airstrike in the town of Al-Shirkat in Iraq  a significant loss, the Islamists acknowledged, to their leadership.

Salah Abdulhamid Awad, from the city of Binesh, was trained by Malhama in Aleppo last year while fighting with al-Nusra. He had joined the group, he claimed, because they were the best opponents of the Assad regime.

But no group really had good lessons, from good teachers, except when we had the Uzbeks [from Malhama] for a short time he said. They were all quite young, but they said they had been in the military with the Russians: they were good professionals and they had good weapons.

These also took part in some fighting, they were like advisers. We saw them in the battles in which Al-Assad and Minyan in Aleppo were captured. They were worried about being captured; they said that if the Russians caught them then they would surely be executed. We heard that their commander was killed in Idlib, but then we heard that he may be alive, I do not personally. But, whatever happened, I think Malhama will carry on, in Syria and other places.

Awads own fighting days, he maintained, were over for the time being. He, too, had been in Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in northern Syria, one dominated by al-Nusra. He had fled there from Aleppo just before the opposition-held part of the city fell to regime troops and their Russian and Iranian backers.

But he had left after 10 days. It was not the bombing, we had worse in Aleppo, I could cope. But people need to have a break, to clear heads and decide how best the struggle against Bashar should continue, Awad reflected. The foreigners, people like Malhama, can come and go, but we Syrians have to stay, we have to stay, and face the consequences of all that has happened.
Turkey has imposed a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands.

Turkey has criticised the European Union for siding with the Netherlands in a diplomatic dispute over plans by Turkish ministers to campaign in the country.

Turkey said the EUs position lends credence to extremists.

A Turkish foreign ministry statement said the EUs stance on Turkey was short-sighted and carried no value for Turkey.

It said the European bloc, which called on Turkey to cease excessive statements, ignored the (Netherlands) violation of diplomatic conventions and the law.

The spat is over the Netherlands refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to campaign and court the votes of Turks eligible to vote in an April 16 referendum on expanding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans powers.

On Monday, Turkey imposed a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands, including halting political discussions between the two countries.
The British Government has revealed that Article 50 will not be activated this week

As the UK moves inexorably toward the triggering of Article 50, beginning the process for exiting the European Union, much of the debate has understandably centered upon the terms of departure. The process of passing the Article 50 Bill in parliament has, from the Government's perspective at least, been fraught with difficulty. Opposition parties attempt to impose a range of pre-conditions on the Prime Minister's ability to unilaterally dictate not only provision of the required notice, but also the terms of any deal formalising the UK's future relationship with the remaining member states.

While parliament remains pre-occupied with the finer points of the exit deal, the more tangible effects of the UK's departure are likely to be found, not in the terms of the departure, but rather within the legislative and regulatory framework implemented by the Government once we have done so.

Disentangling the UK's laws from those of the EU, dual-bodies of law which have effectively co-mingled, developed and operated in tandem since 1973, is likely to prove one of the most complex and contentious legislative tasks ever embarked upon by parliament.

The outcome will rely not only on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, but more fundamentally upon the extent to which the UK is prepared to maintain and replicate agreed legal frameworks across the range of areas over which the EU currently retains legislative competence.

The proposed Great Repeal Bill, announced at the Conservative Party conference last year, represents the Government's attempt to ensure that the current body of EU law is transposed into domestic law. The intention is to avoid a legal "cliff-edge" scenario, whereby, upon EU law ceasing to apply, there remains in place a cogent and suitably robust legal framework.

The theoretical simplicity of the proposal betrays the staggering degree of both political and practical complexity involved. Across a vast range of areas, from national security to the environment and from pensions to consumer protection, the Bill presents an opportunity for parliament to reshape the United Kingdom's legal, regulatory and political landscape for decades to come. The sheer magnitude of the task at hand raises serious questions around democratic oversight and accountability.

As generally seems to be the case with Brexit, Northern Ireland will likely require special consideration. A simple example might prove illustrative.

Take the Food Hygiene Rating Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, a rather non-contentious piece of legislation passed by the Assembly in order to provide for the operation of a food hygiene rating system in Northern Ireland.

A cursory glance through the Act demonstrates the extent to which European law has permeated our body of laws. Even the meaning of the word "food" is prescribed by EU law, specifically by the EU regulation which seeks to harmonise standards on food and animal welfare throughout the continent.

Taken at face value, it would appear that the Government's plan would be to simply transpose the terms of this EU regulation into domestic law, providing that its terms would continue to be valid within the UK's post-Brexit legal framework.

However, consider the scenario where an existing EU law cannot be so neatly transposed.

What if the offending law delegates some type of functional responsibility to an EU agency (such as the European Food Safety Authority) that will no longer have any operative remit within the UK?

New agencies will need to be created, or existing agencies provided with fresh mandates and resources to execute those new responsibilities.

What if negotiations on a free trade agreement with President Trump's administration necessitate the liberalisation of food and animal welfare standards?

The Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, is on record as stating his preference for a flexible regulatory system, one which fundamentally protects British interests.

Given the oft-stated ambition of Mrs May's Government to recast the UK as a global leader in free trade, it seems difficult to conceive a scenario where the UK deems it desirable to implement a broadly comparable, much less an identical, regulatory framework to that of the more protectionist European Union.

What if the Assembly refuses to conform to the Government's proposals in areas (such as agriculture) in which legislative authority has been devolved?

All of this begs the question: to what degree is the Government prepared to consult with the Northern Ireland institutions on this? To listen to Northern Ireland's concerns? To allow its agenda to be influenced by the people of Northern Ireland?

And to what extent are our political representatives prepared to challenge the Government? The typically raucous back-and-forth during Prime Minister's Questions highlighted a rather striking juxtaposition between the respective positions of the two most prominent political parties operating within the United Kingdom's devolved framework, namely the Scottish National Party and the DUP.

Angus Robertson, of the SNP, asked a pointed question concerning the repatriation of powers from Brussels in those areas over which the devolved Scottish government has legislative competence.

Would the Prime Minister, Robertson demanded, be able to offer assurances that the Scottish government would retain authority over those existing devolved areas?

Nigel Dodds, of the DUP, took a markedly different approach. Beginning by making a fairly contrived joke at Jeremy Corbyn's expense, Mr Dodds served up a rather pandering question to the Prime Minister, gently inquiring as to whether she was still on track to trigger Article 50 on schedule.

While the Labour leader needs little assistance in self-ridicule, Mr Dodds' reluctance to challenge the Prime Minister on these important questions ought to invite derision from those in Northern Ireland who are potentially threatened by the impact of the Government's Brexit strategy.

While it may be a topic of considerable joviality to him and his colleagues that Northern Ireland risks being disproportionately and adversely impacted by the terms of any deal struck by the Government has been largely established.

Yet, Mr Dodds' party have yet to articulate any positive, substantive vision of Brexit to the people of Northern Ireland.

This is despite it being self-evidently incumbent upon them doing so for an electorate voting comprehensively to reject it.

Should direct rule be re-imposed in the wake of the Assembly election, Northern Ireland will lose yet another bargaining chip with which to influence both the terms of the Brexit deal and the Government's repeal Bill.

Decisions on, for example, food safety would be taken by the Secretary of State.

They would essentially be imposed upon the people by central Government.

Of course, parliament will have a role to play in scrutinising and providing oversight.

However, for so long as the majority of our elected representatives either abstain, or play cheerleader to Mrs May's hard Brexit strategy, it is unlikely that anybody in Northern Ireland will be paying too much attention to Mr Dodds' painful punchlines.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson admitted the UK has no evidence that Russia is actually involved in undermining democratic processes.

Russia has accused British intelligence agencies of trying to divert attention from the latest WikiLeaks revelations on surveillance by talking up Moscows subversive threat.

Russias Embassy to the UK said the security services were engaged in a brutal propaganda campaign after GCHQ spies warned political parties of the threat Kremlin hackers pose to democracy.

According to the Sunday Times, seminars will be held to educate politicians on the threat from Russia after its spies were accused of carrying out cyber-attacks to tamper with US and German elections.

Ciaran Martin, chief executive of GCHQs National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), has written to leaders of all the main political parties to offer advice on how to withstand attacks, the newspaper said.

Commenting on the revelations, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson admitted the UK has no evidence that Russia is actually involved in undermining democratic processes, adding: but what we do have is plenty of evidence that the Russians are capable of doing that.

The Russian Embassy seized on his comments and claimed they showed that agencies are trying to divert from WikiLeaks release of thousands of purported CIA files, apparently laying bare its covert hacking programme, including techniques targeting consumer software

It was claimed that software was developed to turn smart TVs into listening devices in a project codenamed Weeping Angel and including input from Britains MI5.

In a statement posted online, the Russian Embassy said: Russia is accused of conducting subversive activity against Britain. We absolutely cannot accept that. In that regard, highly relevant are the words of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that Britain has no evidence of Russias interference in the UK domestic affairs. And this is true.

At the same time, we would like to note that already for a long time, a brutal propaganda campaign has been under way to paint Russia as a country engaged in undermining Britain, including through hacking.

Key to all this is that those allegations are not supported by any evidence or facts. And the Foreign Secretary had to admit that. Still, the campaign is going on, and the British people are being scared by the so-called Russian threat.

However, it is well-known that according to the reports, it is the British special services who, together with the CIA, are active in development of technologies for total surveillance over the private life of citizens and society as a whole.

Particularly broad possibilities for that are associated with the CIA library of fingerprints/stolen identities of various foreign hackers which could be used to put blame on others. That makes the murky business of hacking even murkier.

The British special services, among other things, seem to be rendering CIA sisterly assistance in trying to divert attention from the intelligence debacle of the latest WikiLeaks disclosure, as all too often, at Russias expense.

We call upon the British side to stop its anti-Russian campaign which undermines our bilateral relationship.

In February, Mr Martin warned that 188 high-level cyber-attacks, many of which threatened national security, had struck Britain in the previous three months.
Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray go away!

Your message is hatred. We cannot tolerate it.

Who is the enemy? White supremacy!

When I first arrived at Middlebury I was clueless to the systems of power constructed around race, gender, sexuality, class or ability, and found that when I talked about these issues as I understood them-or rather, as I didn't-I was met with blank stares and stigma rather than substantial debate. As a young bigot, I can recall thinking: 'I thought at Middlebury I would get to have intellectual discussions, but instead it feels as though my views are being censored.' However, as a first-year I had failed to consider a simple, yet powerful component of debate: not all opinions are valid opinions.

On March 2, there was one of those oh-so-revealing events that makes people realize that very bad trends are at work in America, trends that are corroding the essence of civilization.Middlebury College in Vermont is a liberal arts school. The prolific author and American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray was asked to speak at Middlebury and answer questions from faculty and audience members. He is used to confrontations, but could not have imagined how vicious things would get up in the Green Mountain State.Inside Higher Ed's story on the event explains that college officials admonished the students prior to the talk that they could protest but not disrupt Murray's talk, which was to be about the way white America is coming apart-the title of his latest book-along class lines. Unfortunately, that admonition did no good. "As soon as Murray took the stage," we read, "students stood up, turned their backs to him and started various chants that were loud enough and in unison such that he could not talk over them. Chants included:Video of the ugly scene in the lecture hall is available here.And then matters turned worse. Fearing that there might be a raucous, disruptive mob instead of an audience of students willing to listen and consider Murray's arguments, school administrators had set up a contingency plan. Once it became clear that the mob had killed the lecture, they moved to another location where Murray would give his talk, which would be live-streamed to students.Sadly, that location was soon beset by the mob, with banging on windows and pulling of fire alarms. Murray and Professor Allison Stanger, who was the moderator for the talk, tried their best to continue a rational discussion.Finally, Murray, Professor Stanger, and a few others tried to leave campus. Here I'll let Stanger's account (quoted here) take over:What transpired felt like a scene from Homeland rather than an evening at an institution of higher learning. We confronted an angry mob as we tried to exit the building. Most of the hatred was focused on Dr. Murray, but when I took his right arm both to shield him from attack and to make sure we stayed together so I could reach the car too, that's when the hatred turned on me. One thug grabbed me by the hair and another shoved me in a different direction. I noticed signs with expletives and my name on them.The mob surrounded the car, pounding on it. After a few frightening minutes, the driver, Middlebury's vice president for communications Bill Burger, managed to get away. Their plan was to enjoy a quiet dinner together, but after arriving, Burger said that the mob had learned of their location and advised that the only safe course was to leave town immediately. (Professor Stanger realized that she was in pain and was later treated at a local hospital for a neck injury she'd suffered while trying to get into the car.)What could have caused such unrelenting hatred among students at an expensive liberal arts college? Why do some students feel justified in demonizing, shouting down, and even physically assaulting people who are perceived as enemies? Clues are found in the sentiments of Middlebury students such as Nic Valenti, who explained why he thought that it would be perfectly acceptable to shout down Murray in this letter published in the school newspaper the day before the scheduled talk:What can we make of that statement?First, it tells us a lot about the instruction at Middlebury. A student who enters the college quickly becomes convinced that he used to be a "bigot" because he hadn't grasped the leftist narrative that America is a bad country due to its various oppressive "systems of power." That's standard fare in an array of "studies" courses, but it's evident that he heard nothing in his studies to challenge those easily debated notions.Moreover, Mr. Valenti misses the obvious irony of saying that he was eager for intellectual discussions at Middlebury, but feels himself justified in helping to prevent an intellectual discussion involving a scholar of distinction and the rest of the school.Finally, it is impossible for Valenti (or anyone else) to know which opinions are "valid" unless the person holding them is allowed to present them and argue the case for them. Presumably he and his fellow mobsters would allow someone to offer a contrarian theory about, say, black holes or the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. They wouldn't arrogantly declare the individual's opinion "invalid" without hearing and considering it first. But when it comes to anti-progressives like Murray, things are different.The reason why, I think, is explained by the intellectual tribalism that grips much of America.I mean that many people label others as either being in their tribe (consisting of people who are righteous and always correct) and the opposing tribe (consisting of people who are evil, stupid, and wrong on everything). Real scholars never impart such ideas because they know that reasonable and moral people can disagree on almost everything. They also know that the only way for civilized people to counter error is through debate; they know that people cannot be persuaded with violence.Unfortunately, intellectual tribalism is spreading like the Black Death among so-called progressives. Anyone who disagrees with progressive policies is likely to be labeled an enemy, much as Karl Marx labeled everyone who rejected his beliefs a "class enemy." The more influential such a person is, the more vehement the attacks and hatred against him. Murray, for example, is called a "racist" and "white supremacist" even though he is neither.(Try this thought experiment. What would have happened if one of the good, liberal students had piped up and asked, "But shouldn't we find out if this guy really is a white supremacist before we shout him down?")And turning to the toxic effects of this indoctrination, one is the growing idea that the enemy tribe must be fought by any means necessary. Not only do evil people like Murray not deserve to be heard, they deserve to be punched.Professor Michael Munger of Duke University recently commented on this disturbing phenomenon after he discovered a flier on campus. The flier, he wrote,Just smear your opponents with a nasty name and it's easy to whip up hatred and violence.In Orwell's 1984, Big Brother's regime utilized the Two Minute Hate against an imaginary villain to maintain support among the people. At Middlebury, it was more like two hours, and the "villain" perfectly real, but the effect was the same. The leftist zealots "won" by preventing discussion and forcing "bad" people to flee in fear.The veneer of civilization is thin enough under the best of circumstances. Education ought to strengthen it by making people more willing to listen respectfully to others, disagree rationally, and peacefully walk away from intractable disputes. The behavior of the Middlebury mob shows that for a significant number of students, education has taken them away from civilization, putting them back into the mindset of primitive tribalism.
Supporters of Maoist leader Prabhakar, who was killed in a police encounter on the Andhra-Odisha border, attend his funeral on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India, Oct. 27, 2016.

Journalist Santosh Yadav, who said he was locked up, tortured and humiliated for exposing police brutality in a central Indian region infested with left-wing guerrillas, is unfazed by the difficulties his job entails.

Yadav, a freelance writer based in the Maoist-troubled state of Chhattisgarh, was released last week from Kanker Jail where he spent nearly 18 months. He was arrested in September 2015 on suspicion that he was a Maoist supporter.

Maoists, also known as Naxalites, are an armed rebel group fighting Indian security forces since the late 1960s from jungle hideouts in central and eastern India.

Inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the left-wing outfit claims that it is fighting for the rights of the poor and landless people who are being uprooted by the government to exploit resource-rich forests scattered throughout the region.

Yadav is one of at least one-half dozen journalists who have been sent to prison or thrown out of the state after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in May 2014.

Its a catch-22 situation for journalists in Chhattisgarh, Yadav says.

While the Maoists target journalists they believe to be state sympathizers, the police target journalists who write about Maoist-related incidents without bias  which often means exposing police atrocities, Yadav told BenarNews.

Arvind Choudhary, Yadavs lawyer, said his client was being falsely implicated.

The police say that they saw Santosh at the site of an encounter with Maoists. One of the officers said he could recognize Santosh in the dark night after officers fired a flare gun. But that same officer was unable to definitely identify Santosh in a lineup, he told BenarNews.

Two senior Chhattisgarh state police officers refused to comment about Yadavs allegations, saying the matter was under judicial consideration.

Journalist SantoshYadav was recently released from jail in Chhattisgarh, India, after being locked up for about a year and a half, March 12, 2017. [Courtesy Santosh Yadav]

Conversation

Out on bail, Yadav recently spoke to BenarNews. Excerpts from the conversation:

Benar News: Why were you arrested?

Santosh Yadav: I had received news that some tribals had been picked up by police from a nearby village. I went there to speak to their family members. At the behest of the family members, I went with them to the local police station to ask about the arrests. The police claimed they were Maoists who had surrendered. However, the reality was they were innocent villagers. When I questioned the police, they arrested me on charges of inciting violence.

BN: When did you get to know about the charges against you?

SY: Much later. It was after a few days of being locked up that I was told I had been booked for links with Maoists because I was present at the site of the encounter. The truth is on that day I wasnt in that area.

BN: What happened after your arrest?

SY: I was kept in the Jagdalpur Central Jail. I was beaten frequently, treated like a downtrodden. The living conditions were abysmal, the food, inedible. After tolerating it for as long as I could, I decided to protest. But any rebellion against jail rules would only invite more beatings.

BN: How did your family react to your arrest?

SY: I have three daughters  Divya is 8, Ismeya is 4 and the youngest was just a month old when I was arrested. My wife, Poonam, works as a maternity care giver and my father is a peon. I was arrested even before we could name my youngest child. My wife refused to name her until my release. We still havent named her. But of course, my family stood by me like a rock, as did a lot of press freedom activists.

BN: What are your plans now?

SY: I will continue to report from Chhattisgarh. I am unfazed by this episode. I remain committed to unbiased reporting. Human rights violations have to stop. And someone has to be the voice of the villagers and tribals who are the worst affected by this internal war in India.
Family members and others participate in a candlelight vigil for the Batumalai brothers at the Kajang Prison on Tuesday night.

Malaysian authorities plan to execute two brothers on Wednesday for an 11-year-old murder even though the Pardons Board has not heard their latest clemency appeal, according to Amnesty International (AI).

Rames and Suthar Batumalai are to be hanged, according to AI officials, who stated that family members were notified Monday that the executions would occur on Friday. On Tuesday, prison authorities asked the Batumalai family to make their last visit.

AI Malaysias Executive Director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu condemned the hurried and secretive manner in which the brothers executions were to be carried out.

Malaysia carries out executions on Friday mornings and this double execution would be the first-ever that we are aware of to take place on a Wednesday morning, she said in a statement. This is symbolic of the rushed nature of this particular execution.

BenarNews attempts to reach Prison Department officials were unsuccessful.

The brothers, age 40 and 45, were granted a temporary reprieve from the gallows on Feb. 24 following a petition by their 70-year-old mother to the ruler of the state of Negeri Sembilan, Tuanku Muhriz Tuanku Munawir. The petition pleaded for the death sentences to be commuted or replaced with a life sentence.

AI noted that last month, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah of Selangor pardoned another inmate facing execution, reducing the sentence to life in prison.

The brothers, who maintain their innocence, were sentenced to death in April 2010 under Section 302 of the Penal Code for the murder of Krishnan Raman on Feb 4, 2006. Shamini claimed the brothers were convicted on circumstantial evidence as the High Court disregarded their claim that they merely intervened to stop two other men from attacking and killing the victim.

Amnesty International has been informed that a fresh clemency application has been submitted by their lawyer on Feb. 23 and this has not been heard by the Pardons Board. This application includes a statutory declaration from the wife of the deceased, appealing to the Pardons Board for the brothers not be executed and instead be allowed to serve a life sentence, Shamini said.

Malaysia is among 25 countries in the world imposing the death penalty on crimes including murder, drug, kidnapping, and waging war against the King.

Malaysian government and civil society leaders have been discussing abolishing mandatory death sentences.
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Iraqi Assyrians Ask EU to Support the Creation of a Nineveh Plain Province

Nineveh Plein is the area in North Iraq where more than 120,000 Christians had to escape in face of ISIS offensive in August 2014. They went to Erbil, capital of Kurdistan Region of Iraq and they have been living now in refugee camps for more than two years. Christianity has been present in the Nineveh Plain -- where Mosul, Qaraqosh and Bashiqa are located -- since the first century. Now, the return of Christian communities to their home in the Nineveh Plain is a concrete problem. "If we don't go back home, from where Daesh banished us, Christianity in Iraq is at risk of extinction," says Father Yako Jalal in Erbil. "Iraq is in an incredibly difficult situation. Minorities especially, were since 2014 abandoned by the central government of Baghdad and also felt abandoned by the Kurdish authorities. They became the victims of a genocide by ISIS," EU Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion and belief Jan Figel told The European Post. For this reasons, the heads of all Chaldean Syriac Assyrian (Christian) parties hold a joint press conference last week calling on Iraqi government to recognise their demands to create a Nineveh Plein Province. The conference called on the UN Security Council to issue a decision in order to protect the minorities of the Nineveh Plain, and for the UN Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) to be given the right to monitor the security situation and rehabilitation efforts, reducing exploitation and preventing the imposition of hegemonic policies across the Nineveh Plain, through offices established for this purpose and the assignment of observers. "Given the fact that the [Nineveh Plain] region has been at the center of political conflicts between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Central Government--as well as sectarian conflicts between the various groups that make up Iraqi society, the joint parties demand that the people of the [Nineveh Plain] region are given the right to determine their own future free from the pressures of outside groups, and that they are granted their constitutional right to administer their areas and protect their lands," the joint press release says. NOTE: the press conference was co-organised by Assyrian Democratic Movement, Chaldean Democratic Forum, Chaldean Assyrian Syriac Popular Council, Chaldean National Council, Syriac Assembly Movement, ChaldoAshor Organization, Assyrian Patriotic Party, BethNahrain Democratic Party, Abna Nahrain Bloc, BethNahrain patriotic Union


Computer Sciences Senior Patrick Luy, left, works with Samuel Carraway, computer sciences, junior, on a business model canvas during the hackathon. (Photo by Michael Rudd)

Between 9 p.m. Feb. 23 and 8 a.m. Feb. 24, 16 students from the College of Engineering and Technology (CET), the College of Business (COB) and other University colleges came together to help launch a company.The College of Business' Student Technology Center hosted a hackathon where these students created a website, or what they call a web store, for gamers, musicians, writers, artists, etc., to sell their content.said Samuel Carraway, a CET junior from Chapel Hill.Carraway said he participated in two hackathons off campus and that's where the idea germinated to have a hackathon at the University. He presented the idea to the recently formed student organization, EPIC or Empowering Pioneers through Innovative Culture, which includes students from all over the University who have an entrepreneurial spirit.To help cultivate that spirit, COB's Miller School of Entrepreneurship and instructor David Mayo oversaw that hackathon's proceedings. Though these types of events are usually software intensive, Mayo believes it's important to have a business component, as well.said Mayo.said CET senior and EPIC co-president, Magus Pereira.Along with the new web store, a business plan was also finalized to help the store go to market. Teams of engineering and business students focused on three areas: the building of the website, a Kickstarter campaign, and a business model canvas. Business senior Christopher Rudkowski joined the hackathon and was anxious to take what he's learned and put it to practical use. He said,Business senior Dakota Votaw had never participated in a hackathon, but he's glad he joined in this one.he said.
Alma Dean Whitley Jewell, affectionately known as MaDean, age 87, a resident of Washington, NC, died peacefully Thursday, March 9, 2017 surrounded by loved ones at her home.A funeral service will be held Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 11:00 AM at the First Church of Christ and will be officiated by Ray West and Steve Hill. Pallbearers will be Austin Evans, Jay Garland Jewell III, Jay Garland Jewell IV, David Cutler, Travis Cutler and Jason Silverthorne. Burial will follow in Oakdale Cemetery.Mrs. Jewell was born in Beaufort County on July 22, 1929 to the late Chester Mayo Whitley and Mildred Woolard Whitley. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Mrs. Jewell was a hard-working Christian woman with a spitfire personality and was loved by everyone.Her surviving family includes her husband, Milan Brickhouse, three children, Brenda J. Woolard and husband Holton, Patsy Johnson and husband Bruce, Jay Garland Jewell II and wife Linda all of Washington, three sisters, Sina Cutler, Alla Rae Foreman, Mary "Tillie" Cutler, one brother, George Whitley, nine grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren, two great-great-grandchildren.She was preceded in death by her parents, two daughters, Linda Lou Jewell and Glenda Drew Jewell, her late husband, Jay Garland Jewell, three sisters, Dorothy Scott, Annie Laura Khner and Chesta Lou Bowen.The family will receive friends from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM Monday, March 13, 2017 at Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington and other times at the home.Memorial contributions may be made to the Food Pantry at First Church of Christ, 520 E. 10th Street, Washington, NC or to the Alzheimer's Foundation at www.alzfdn.org.Online condolences may be addressed to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Jewell family.
Check out the top stories from BGSU and beyond in our newscast and online edition of our newspaper every Wednesday. You can also view past papers by clicking the e-edition header above.
For Immediate Release, March 14, 2017

Contact: Randy Serraglio, (520) 784-1504, rserraglio@biologicaldiversity.org

New Story Map Shows What's Really at Stake With Trump's Border Wall

TUCSON, Ariz. The Center for Biological Diversity joined the Borderlands Project and other organizations today in launching Embattled Borderlands, a new story map project that details the various places, people and wildlife put in harm's way by border walls and militarization. The immersive web platform combines a decade of photo documentation and scientific data to highlight a region at the crossroads of destructive border security policies.

The U.S.-Mexico borderlands are breathtakingly beautiful, richly diverse and highly threatened by walls and militarization, said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center. Many people don't understand how special this region is, or the destructive disaster that Trump's proposals would cause. The Embattled Borderlands project will help change that.

The interactive resource weaves together cutting-edge mapping by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), compelling narrative and stunning professional photography by the International League of Conservation Photographers to create a vivid portrait of a place at the center of one of our nation's biggest conflicts.

Thousands of species contribute to a complex web of life in the borderlands, many of which  such as jaguar and ocelot  are found nowhere else in the United States, said Serraglio. The border region is fragile and vulnerable, and Trump's wall would do irreparable harm.

The borderlands are a melting pot of life and cultures, full of spectacular beauty and diversity, said Serraglio. It would be a tragic mistake and a monumental injustice to sacrifice this unique landscape and the life it harbors for Trump's cynical, unnecessary border security folly.
For Immediate Release, March 14, 2017 Contact: Charles Varni, (805) 459-6698, charles@varni.org

Andrew Christie, Sierra Club, (805) 543-8717, sierraclub8@gmail.com

Valerie Love, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 274-9713, vlove@biologicaldiversity.org

Ethan Buckner, Stand.earth, (612) 718-3847, ethan@stand.earth

Linda Krop, Environmental Defense Center, (805) 963-1622, LKrop@EnvironmentalDefenseCenter.org San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors Denies Phillips 66's Oil Trains Project SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. The San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors today voted to reject Phillips 66's proposed oil train offloading terminal. The project was denied with a 3-1 vote, with one supervisor recusing himself in a conflict of interest. Phillips 66 had appealed the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission decision to reject their controversial oil train project last October, which came after a nearly three-year review process. More than 25,000 Californians have opposed the project in comments and petitions, and more than 45 cities, counties, and school boards have sent letters urging the County to deny the crude-by-rail proposal. The Board of Supervisors' denial was the second community victory in less than a week, after a Superior Court judge ruled that Phillips' legal challenge to the earlier Planning Commission decision was premature. If built, the Phillips 66 oil trains terminal would have allowed more than 7 million gallons of crude oil to be shipped via rail to its local refinery each week, and made it possible for Phillips 66 to refine volatile and carbon-intensive tar sands crude from Canada. Tar sands crude, when prepared for transport, is thinned with an unstable blend of chemicals that have been known to explode in derailment incidents, which have become increasingly frequent in recent years. Trains servicing the Phillips 66 project would have traveled from the north and south through hundreds of major California cities and smaller communities, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Davis, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose. These trains also would have jeopardized numerous ecologically sensitive areas including the San Francisco Bay and California's iconic central coast. Public interest groups released the following statements: I am so glad to see the Supervisors stand with the people in this community and beyond by denying this dangerous, city and detrimental project. The San Luis Obispo City Council has had a consistent stance against this project and for the renewable energy future we need. This genie fits perfectly into the city's major city goal of putting action into our Climate Action Plan."

 Heidi Harmon, Mayor of San Luis Obispo "This is a huge victory for public safety, health and California's environment. It's really gratifying to know that the board of supervisors listened to those who spoke out against this project  every day Californians from all walks of life as well as more than 45 cities, counties and school boards. Hopefully this spells the end to this reckless plan. Our communities will be safer and our air will be cleaner because of it.

 Valerie Love, Clean Energy Campaigner, Center for Biological Diversity San Luis Obispo County has succeeded in taking the fork in the road away from fossil fuels and toward a clean energy economy. We are living in an era that requires vigilance against the normalization of terrible ideas and disastrous policies. Our supervisors' just showed that they understand that building a terminal for tar sands crude oil in Nipomo and transporting 7 million gallons a week of the world's dirtiest fuel into the county by rail is a bad idea. We expect we will have to continue to help Phillips 66 understand that.

 Andrew Christie, Chapter Director, Sierra Club Santa Lucia Chapter This is a tremendous victory for the people of San Luis Obispo County and communities across California. The voices of thousands of California residents and dozens of cities, counties, and school boards have been heard: there is no place for oil trains in California's communities. Now, we can focus our attention towards building the clean energy economy in San Luis Obispo and beyond."

Ethan Buckner, Senior Organizer with Stand.earth. We applaud the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors for considering all the evidence, listening to concerned citizens throughout the State, and denying this dangerous project, said Linda Krop, Chief Counsel for the Environmental Defense Center. The Board's action was the right decision and the only possible decision if the goal is to keep our communities and environment safe.

 Linda Krop, Chief Counsel, Environmental Defense Center
Mrs. Teresa "Tessie" Bonner Peele, age 91, a resident of 239 Peele Road, died Friday morning, March 10, 2017 at Vidant Beaufort Hospital.A graveside service will be held 2:00 PM on Sunday, March 12, 2017 at Dublin Grove FWB Church Cemetery officiated by Pastor Earl Sadler, Jr. and Rev. Raymond Lagcher.Mrs. Peele was born Febuary 7, 1926, daughter of the late William Crawford Bonner, Sr. and Ruth Louise Allen Bonner. On November 18, 1942, she married Troy McCray Peele who preceded her in death on February 23, 2008. She was a homemaker and a member of Dublin Grove FWB Church.Mrs. Peele is survived by her children: Jane Peele Brooks and husband John of Lexington, NC, David Peele and wife Zella of Aurora, Joy Peele Dunn of Aurora, and, Alan Peele and wife Vickie of Washington; seven grandchildren; and many great grandchildren, nieces, and nephews; and her sister: Ruth Harris of Bridgeton.In addition to her husband and parents, she is preceded by three brothers, one sister and one grandson.Memorials may be made to Dublin Grove Free Will Baptist Church, c/o Faye Peele, 282 Peele Road, Aurora, NC 27806 or Aurora Rescue Squad, P. O. Box 277, Aurora, NC 27806.On-line condolences may be offered to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Peele family.
For Immediate Release, March 14, 2017 Contact: Randi Spivak, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org Report Identifies Top 15 'Public Lands Enemies' in Congress Lawmakers From Eight Western States Trying to Open Door to More Oil, Gas Drilling, Logging, Mining WASHINGTON The Center for Biological Diversity released a report today identifying the top 15 members of Congress trying to seize, destroy, dismantle and privatize America's public lands. These Public Lands Enemies are part of a growing movement to industrialize public lands for profit, including increased exploitation for oil and gas drilling, fracking, logging, mining and development.



The Center's report analyzed 132 bills that were introduced in the past three congressional sessions and the lawmakers who authored and cosponsored the bills. These 15 members of Congress are trying to turn America's public lands into an open cash register for corporations, said Randi Spivak, the Center's public lands director. For everyone who cares about our national forests, wildlife refuges, national parks and monuments, these elected officials need to be watched very closely and opposed at every step. The Public Lands Enemies list includes nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives and six U.S. senators from eight western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. These members consistently put the narrow interests of extractive industries ahead of native wildlife, habitat protection, clean water and clean air. The report includes in depth dossiers of each public lands enemy. The 15 Public Lands Enemies are: 1. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)

2. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah, 1st District)

3. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)

4. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz., 4th District)

5. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

6. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah, 2nd District)

7. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska, at large)

8. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)

9. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho, 1st District)

10. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah, 3rd District)

11. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev., 2nd District)

12. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

13. Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M., 2nd District)

14. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif., 4th District)

15. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) America's public lands are some of the country's most iconic and cherished places, from Yellowstone National Park and the Sierra Nevada Mountains' Range of Light to Big Cypress Preserve in Florida, the vast wilderness of Alaska and the wilds of Maine. More than 600 million acres are held in the federal trust  lands that provide respite and inspiration for people, habitat for wildlife and clean air and clean water around the country. The ultimate goal of these politicians is to wrest control of these lands out of public hands, Spivak said. Whether by giving away the title or management control to states, their aim is to give corporate polluters and extractive industries free rein, robbing future generations of wild places. Recently Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Public Lands Enemy #2, asked federal budget writers to set aside $50 million in taxpayer funds to facilitate giving public lands to the states and called for a paradigm shift in our nation's approach to federal land management. The report also looks at who funds these lawmakers. Not surprisingly, they receive generous contributions from the fossil fuel and other extractive industries, including the Koch Industries, Exxon, Arch Coal and BP. The Bundy clan's attempt to seize federal land by force last year may be viewed as extreme  but these members of Congress share the same end goals: the dismantlement of the federal land system, Spivak said.
For Immediate Release, March 14, 2017 Contact: Collette Adkins, (651) 955-3821, cadkins@biologicaldiversity.org 2.7 Million Animals Killed by Federal Wildlife-destruction Program in 2016 Ignoring Calls for Reform, Wildlife Services Continues Killing Coyotes, Bears, Wolves, Other Animals WASHINGTON The highly secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services killed more than 2.7 million animals during 2016, according to new data from the agency. The multimillion-dollar federal program targets wolves, cougars, birds and other wild animals for destruction  primarily to benefit the agriculture industry. Of the 2.7 million animals killed last year, nearly 1.6 million were native wildlife species. According to the latest kill report, the program last year destroyed 415 gray wolves; 76,963 adult coyotes, plus an unknown number of coyote pups in 430 destroyed dens; 407 black bears; 334 mountain lions; 997 bobcats; 535 river otters, including 415 killed unintentionally; 3,791 foxes, plus an unknown number of fox pups in 128 dens; and 21,184 beavers. The program also killed 14,654 prairie dogs outright, as well as an unknown number killed in more than 68,000 burrows that were destroyed or fumigated. These figures almost certainly underestimate the actual number of animals killed, as program insiders have revealed that Wildlife Services kills many more animals than it reports. Despite mounting public outcry to reform these barbaric, outdated tactics, Wildlife Services continues its taxpayer-funded slaughter of America's wildlife, said Collette Adkins, a biologist and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. There's simply no scientific basis for continuing to shoot, poison and strangle millions of animals every year. These cruel practices not only fail to effectively manage targeted wildlife but also pose ongoing threats to other animals, including endangered species and pets. According to the new data, the wildlife-killing program unintentionally killed 2,790 animals last year, including badgers, bears, bobcats, foxes, muskrats, otters, porcupines, raccoons, skunks, turtles and more. Such data reveals the indiscriminate nature of painful leg-hold traps, strangulation snares, poisons and other methods used by federal agents. Earlier this month a young, endangered male wolf known as OR-48, died an agonizing death in northeast Oregon after taking the scented bait from a cyanide trap put out by the federal wildlife killers. The program's brutality has fueled growing public outcry and calls for reform by scientists, elected officials and nongovernmental organizations. The Department of Agriculture needs to get out of the wildlife-slaughter business, said Adkins. Wolves, bears and other carnivores help keep the natural balance of their ecosystems. Our government kills off the predators, such as coyotes, and then kills off their prey  like prairie dogs  in an absurd, pointless cycle of violence. The wildlife-killing program contributed to the decline of gray wolves, Mexican wolves, black-footed ferrets, black-tailed prairie dogs and other imperiled species during the first half of the 1900s and continues to impede their recovery today.
For Immediate Release, March 14, 2017 Contact: Amaroq Weiss, Center for Biological Diversity, (707) 779-9613, aweiss@biologicaldiversity.org

Greg Loarie, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2000, gloarie@earthjustice.org

Tom Wheeler, Environmental Protection Information Center, (707) 822-7711, tom@wildcalifornia.org

Nick Cady, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463, nick@cascwild.org

Joseph Vaile, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, (541) 488-5789, joseph@kswild.org Conservation Groups Oppose Effort to Remove Wolf Protections in California Organizations Seek Intervention on Industry Challenge to Endangered Status SAN FRANCISCO Four conservation groups filed a motion today to intervene in a lawsuit seeking to remove California Endangered Species Act protections from wolves. The lawsuit, against the state Fish and Wildlife Commission, was brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation and wrongly alleges that wolves are ineligible for state protection. The intervenors  the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Protection Information Center, Cascadia Wildlands and Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center  are represented by Earthjustice. Pacific Legal Foundation's lawsuit is baseless, said Amaroq Weiss, the Center's West Coast wolf organizer. Gray wolves were senselessly wiped out in California and deserve a chance to come back and survive here. We're intervening to defend the interests of the vast majority of Californians who value wolves and want them to recover. Brought on behalf of the California Cattlemen's Association and California Farm Bureau Federation, the lawsuit alleges that wolves are ineligible for state protection because wolves returning to the state are supposedly the wrong subspecies, which only occurred intermittently in California at the time of the decision and are doing fine in other states. Each of these arguments has major flaws. UCLA biologist Bob Wayne found that all three currently recognized subspecies of wolves occurred in California. Also  importantly  there is no requirement that recovery efforts focus on the same subspecies, rather than just the species. The fact that wolves were only intermittently present actually highlights the need for their protection, and the California Endangered Species Act is rightly focused on the status of species within California, not other states. The gray wolf is an icon of wildness in the American West, and its return to California after almost 100 years is a success story we should celebrate, said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie. Stripping wolves of protection under the California Endangered Species Act at this early stage in their recovery risks losing them again, and we're not going to let that happen. Led by the Center, the four intervening groups petitioned for endangered species protections for wolves in February 2012. After receiving two California Department of Fish and Wildlife reports, scientific peer review assessment of those reports, thousands of written comments submitted by the public and live testimony at multiple public meetings, the California Fish and Game Commission voted to protect gray wolves in June 2014. State protection makes it illegal to kill a wolf, including in response to livestock depredations  a major issue for the livestock industry. But despite the industry's concerns, a growing body of scientific evidence shows nonlethal deterrence measures are more effective and less expensive than killing wolves. In addition, the Department of Fish and Wildlife has been allocated federal funding that can be used for nonlethal conflict-deterrence measures and to compensate ranchers for livestock losses to wolves, which make up a very small fraction of livestock losses. The cattle industry has made clear that it views wolves as pests and that they filed suit to allow killing of wolves, said Tom Wheeler, executive director at the Environmental Protection Information Center. Wolves are a vital part of American's wilderness and natural heritage, helping to restore balance to our ecosystems by regulating elk and deer populations. The path to restoring wolves is through protecting fragile recovering populations. Wolves once ranged across most of the United States, but were trapped, shot and poisoned to near extirpation largely on behalf of the livestock industry. Before wolves began to return to California in late 2011  when a single wolf from Oregon known as wolf OR-7 ventured south  it had been almost 90 years since a wild wolf was seen in the state. Before OR-7 the last known wild wolf in California, killed by a trapper in Lassen County, was seen in 1924. Since 2011 California's first wolf family in nearly a century, the seven-member Shasta pack, was confirmed in Siskiyou County in 2015, and a pair of wolves was confirmed in Lassen County in 2016. An additional radio-collared wolf from Oregon has crossed in and out of California several times since late 2015.
It can be tough to be a vegetarian. You have to work harder than everyone else to make sure youre getting all the nutrients your body needs. So, when its time to take a
A spike in disability claims has hit the profits of all SA's life assurers hard over the past year, with claims experience deteriorating across the industry because of the economic downturn and a change to tax rules.

Lower back pain and psychiatric conditions such as depression top the list of disabling conditions, with an increasing number of employees claiming on corporate benefits policies that provide incomes for those too disabled to work. And the periods for which they are off work are growing longer.

Actuaries say the spike in claims, especially for depression and back pain, is a feature of economic downturns, though it is unclear how much of it is because employees take more strain in tough times and how much is because companies and their employees take advantage of disability cover to provide an alternative to retrenchments.

The effect of the current downturn has been made worse by a change to the tax rules, which has made it much more attractive to stay on disability benefits than to return to work.

The change made income paid out in terms of disability policies tax-free, but premiums are now taxed.

The life assurers' results show their corporate businesses have been hit particularly hard, with MMI Holdings and Old Mutual, the biggest players in this sector, reporting sharp declines in earnings in their corporate portfolios.

Sanlam, Liberty and Discovery reported similar trends.

Alexander Forbes executive Michael Prinsloo said several insurers had indicated a deteriorating trend in the past year.

Certain types of disability claims, such as for neurological or mental illness, were more difficult to prove or disprove than others.

Old Mutual SA's corporate segment profits declined 8% in the year to end-December. Interim CEO of Old Mutual Emerging Markets Iain Williamson said the drop was entirely because of disability underwriting, which always came under pressure during economic downturns. "It is a well-known phenomenon worldwide," Williamson said.

Old Mutual was taking action to tackle it with forensic investigations of claims and a review of pricing and benefit design. The replacement ratio - beneficiaries receive about 75% of their monthly salaries on average - had been distorted by the change in tax legislation.

MMI Holdings reported that interim earnings in its corporate and public sector business declined 29% to R280m, with disability experience causing R64m (16%) of the decline.

The decline in corporate earnings was the main drag on operating profit for the six months to December, which was down 6% despite increased retail business profits.

CEO of MMI's corporate and public sector business, Thinus Alsworth-Elvey, said the poor disability experience dated back 12-24 months.

It had affected life companies' retail business, not just their corporate business.
Adclick Africa Media & Marketing Group is pleased to announce that it recently launched its full-service digital marketing agency, Guerilla Marketing , at the just-ended Business Day TV SME Summit at The Maslow in Sandton.

The agency offers a very unique and result-driven value-add to its clients by making use of a proprietary data-centric methodology in its campaigns. All its efforts are geared towards unlocking maximum value for its clients through long-lasting customer relationships.

We decided to launch the digital agency after realising that there is growing demand for data-driven performance marketing from brands and SMEs in South Africa. Our core focus is on lead generation, customer acquisition and customer retention. Connecting brands to customers online is something of our specialty, said Velly Bosega, Adclick Africas CEO.

Guerilla Marketing operates on a customer-centric framework that leverages the potential that data science, innovation and creativity bring to marketing. The agencys omni-channel strategy delivers campaigns across multiple channels and devices to deliver a seamless experience to the target audience. The net effect is that customers engage with the brands messaging in a personalised way whatever device they are using at any time.

Guerilla Marketings strategies guarantee that a brand can have a great presence at every point within the customer's path to purchase.

As a digital agency, our tactical execution is based on the client's business goals. There is a strategic deliberateness to all our thinking as well as the marketing processes that we undertake. The combination of data and creativity helps us to create personalised customer experiences that are both engaging and ultimately profitable to our clients, said Joseph Neusu, Guerilla Marketings business head.

The digital agency offers the following services:

Digital strategy and consulting



Data-driven social media marketing



Conversion optimisation



Responsive web design



Digital advertising



Email marketing

However, these services are not just bolted onto a campaign as the agency employs a consultative approach through which the clients unique requirements are gleaned and matching strategies deployed.

Currently, Guerilla Marketing has targeted clients within the hospitality, travel and tourism industry although it is not closed to other verticals as well.

Our motivation to target the HTT sector specifically is simple. After carefully studying the marketing landscape in South Africa, we realised that most agencies are offering one-size-fits-all solutions to this industry. This is in spite of the fact that the HTT industry has its own very unique needs that cannot be addressed via this inept approach, said Joseph.

The agencys strategic engagements in branding and campaigns promise to drive greater consumer action and awareness.

For more information visit www.guerillamarketing.co.za or call 011 704 2641




In a recent Bizcommunity interview Design Indaba speaker Brian Collins commented that there has never been a better time to be a startup. Social media, e-commerce platforms and push notifications now mean that retail market share is anybody's game. Terry Levin, founder of Off the Shelf Marketing, predicts that the beverage sector may be one category set for major upheaval. Here's why.

Lukas Gojda via 123RF

World Health Organisation (WHO) stats show South Africa ranked number four on a list of countries with the riskiest drinking patterns and some of the worlds worst drunk driving statistics. Globally organisations such as the UN have prioritised strategies to address alcohol abuse as the third leading risk factor for poor health impacting on individuals, families, community life and whole socio-economies.

A 2010 study cited on Scientific Electronic Library Online shows that of the R16 billion in tax and excise revenues redeemed from alcohol sales that year an estimated R17 billion in expenditures was incurred by national and provincial government to redress alcohol harms, in effect demonstrating a R1 billion loss to the fiscus. Even this figure underestimates true costs to the economy, excluding as it does those borne by individuals, local government and lost productivity due to alcohol consumption.

If the above factors are correct, it is clear that both business and social models of alcohol consumption are needing a fresh approach. New mindsets with regard to the merchandising and promotion of non-alcoholic beverages are urgently required. Opportunities, and indeed responsibilities, exist for beverage marketers and retailers to set the trends in the promotion of non-alcoholic drinking rituals in the same way as they have for decades promoted alcohol-focused lifestyles as fashionable and desirable.

Shifts in the sector

Encouraging news is that some shifts are being seen in the sector, with the William Grant and Sons 2016 Market Report pointing to the trend that in the UK low or non-alcohol beverages are gaining momentum in the face of growing consumer health and lifestyle demands.

Another recent report from Research and Markets predicts that new health concerns over alcohol will help boost global sales of soft drinks, fruit juices and other non-alcoholic products by almost one-third over the next five years.

Backing up these predictions are establishments such as London-based Redemption Bar. Opened in 2013, under the tagline Spoil yourself without spoiling yourself, their offering of vegan dishes and craft mocktails is attracting an increasing number of tourists and trend-seekers to their three branches which are said to be enjoying year-on-year revenue increases and interested angel investor backing.

The UK Office for National Statistics Adult Drinking Habits report shows that one in five adults now abstain from alcohol. Between 2005 and 2013 an overall fall of more than two-thirds in alcohol consumption, mostly among the 16- to 24-year-old demographic was seen, giving rise to an increasing number of dry bars, cafes and pop-ups, catering to alcohol-free lifestyles.

Closer to home, new sobriety trends are shifting, with local entrepreneurs such as Sexy&Sober recently having hosted a Valentines pop-up dry bar in central Cape Town and the World Without Wine initiative, which is growing from strength to strength hosting events such as sober book clubs and other aspirational social activations.

Multi-cultural consumer preference

Another key factor contributing towards the upward sales of non-alcoholic drinks will be the need to cater to new multi-cultural societies. Sources such as Crescent Rating forecasts the global demand for products and services catering to Islamic business and leisure travellers will almost double by 2020. In addition, many African, Indian, Asian and Chinese consumers choose not to  or are forbidden to  partake in alcohol, and serving alcoholic beverages at many social or corporate events may no longer be appropriate.

Closer to home, an example of such an event was the recent Robben Island Mass Valentines Day Wedding, a multi-cultural event staged annually as a collaboration between the National Department of Home Affairs, the National Department of Tourism and the Robben Island management. The premier locally produced non-alcoholic bubbly, Zari Sparkling Grape juice, was chosen as the key sponsor for this years event, which saw 18 lucky couples tie the knot.

Sesele Mothepane of the National Department of Tourism enjoying zero alcohol Zari Sparkling Grape juice at the recent Robben Island Mass Wedding celebration.

Demonstrating new consumption shifts in action, corks popped and chilled Zari flowed from elegant ice buckets as dignitaries and guests toasted to the health of the couples, without the alcohol or accompanying side effects, but with all the festive glamour and sparkle, perfect for a long hot summers wedding day.

In many instances serving or offering alcohol at corporate or social events may not be appropriate and the retail, hospitality and courtesy sectors are starting to take notice of new exciting alternatives and market opportunities.
All South Africans can contribute to the Shoprite/Checkers fire relief efforts in Imizamo Yethu, Hout Bay, following the devastating fires that destroyed 3,500 homes and displaced 15,000 people this past weekend.

Customers who wish to support the disaster relief efforts in the area are encouraged to do so by donating from R5 or more to the Groups #ActForChange Fund at the till point of any Shoprite or Checkers store across the country. All proceeds from the Fund up to the end of March will be donated directly to relief efforts in the area. All Shoprite (75) and Checkers (42) stores across the Western Cape will also be accepting non-perishable donations to assist the Imizamo Yethu fire victims.

The groups mobile soup kitchen was immediately dispatched to serve in the community and will continue to provide hot meals for those affected for the duration of the week. Meanwhile, further support for the victims of the fire as well as the teams assisting with the relief efforts continues to pour in from both its Shoprite and Checkers stores in and around the area.

Care hampers containing bottled water, grab & go meals, energy bars, Powerade and toiletries have been made available to both the teams fighting the fires on the ground as well as the impacted community. Chicken, beans, fresh fruit and vegetables have been donated to organisations, such as the Red Cross, who are providing additional support with feeding schemes that are serving in the community.

A Shoprite truck has been made available to assist with the transportation of donated goods to and from central points, while a team of volunteers from the Shoprite group is assisting with the disaster relief efforts, being coordinated through Thula Thula Hout Bay for the duration of this week.
2017 PRISA National Conference  Leading through innovative communication is set out to convene futurists, business leaders and communication professionals to discuss key issues surrounding innovation, communication and leadership. The conference will be held on 4-5 May 2017, at the Indaba Hotel, Fourways, Sandton, Gauteng.

The must-attend two-day conference will attract a broad spectrum of professionals and will also give them relevant insight on leading through innovative communication within a business in a modern society.

PRISA vows to not only provide a platform to discuss new technologies but to also provide incubation area for innovative approaches to leadership and communication. PRISA intends to showcase the most influential and thought-provoking thinkers that will change the landscape in business communication.

Pertinent topics include:

Futuristic communication trends that will change your outlook on your company



Leadership - A shift to a more collaborative approach



How must the public relations industry change to meet the future?

PRISA will also be celebrating its 60th anniversary with a gala dinner. PRISA will be sharing their nostalgic moments in the journey of public relations. As part of this celebration, the first 20 people to register will receive a complimentary dinner for a partner. This will be a chance to network with industry icons about the latest trends.

For more information, please visit PRISA on www.prisa.co.za.

Follow the conversation  Facebook - @1PRISA, Twitter - @1PRISA, LinkedIn  PRISA to stay updated with the latest 2017 National Conference news.




Linda W. Craig

Born: October 23, 1949, Died: March 10, 2017



Linda Pearl Williams Craig, age 67, a resident of Blounts Creek, NC died Friday March 10, 2017 after a year and a half battle with illness.



A graveside service will be held at 1:00 PM Tuesday March 14, 2017 at Davis Cemetery and will be officiated by Deborah Kay Paul.



Mrs. Craig was born in Beaufort County on October 23, 1949 to the late Abram Clarence Williams and Neta Pearl Gibbs. On August 13, 1966, she married Ronald "Ronnie" Lewis Craig. She retired from Stanadyne after 26 years of service. Mrs. Craig loved to go fishing and play computer games.



Survivors include her husband, Ronnie Craig, two sons, Ronald Lewis Craig, Jr. and wife Lori, James Walter Craig both of Blounts Creek, two grandchildren, Britteny Renee, Ronny Denise Craig, a great grandchild, Trayden Trivett, and a brother, Abram Frank Williams and wife Joyce of Washington.



She is preceded in death by a brother, Nathan Williams and a great grandson, Grayson.



The family will receive friends from 7:00 PM until 9:00 PM Monday March 13, 2017 at Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington.



Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Craig family.


The first PAMS (Publisher Audience Measurement Survey), conducted by the Publisher Research Council (PRC), will provide media owners, agencies and marketers with an accurate new reading currency in South Africa for the first time in 40 years.

The PAMS currency measures will be combined with four other studies that the PRC are conducting this year, which will ensure the most complete measurement of reader audiences, across all platforms, to inform effective advertising investment.

The PRC refer to its research as reading research, not the traditional readership research. The difference is subtle, yet crucial, says Peter Langschmidt, research consultant to the PRC. Reading is more behavioural. It is platform agnostic and covers all forms of reading on screens and paper, unlike readership which was ink on fingers.

AMPS provided us with very enthusiastic readership figures. Although we do not know what the new PAMS methodology will deliver, it has been designed to address the high readers per copy (RPC) figures that were in AMPS. The PRC and its members are fully aware that 'readership' figures may show a decline, but, whatever the new data reflects, it will be a more accurate reflection of the truth.

The PRC members and publishers have embraced the need to move away from solely measuring exposure to paper, towards measuring reading on every platform; paper, tablets, phones, computers, PDF documents, etc. We will offer agencies and clients audiences to each platform individually and an unduplicated aggregated audience.

PAMS results will be fused with the Establishment Survey (ES), which in turn is linked to TAMS and RAMS. This will provide media planers with the ability to compare different media platforms and channels, for example Huisgenoot audiences with radio broadcaster 94.7 Highveld. As such, by the end of the year we will have what we previously had in AMPS, it will just be conducted in four discrete surveys that are combined after the fact, which is in line with global best practice.

Nielsen, PRCs research partner, scoured the world for innovative gold standard reader audience measurement and the PAMS questionnaire uses input from The Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. We have also made changes that maximise the advantages of tablet interviews and address the uniquely South African heterogeneous readers, explains Langschmidt.

Sample designed around reader universe

In order to provide quality data to inform effective advertising investment, the sample is designed around the reader universe, which upweights urban areas and down weights rural ones. This top 60% of the market accounts for over 85% of consumer and advertising spend.

PAMS will be introducing a reading research flooding methodology. The sample will comprise of 10,000 core face-to-face interviews supplemented by 10,000 flooded interviews with other household members. This combined sample of 20,000 will be larger than the AMPS reader sample. This is no mean feat, since our members' revenue is declining, but we are able to give advertisers a bigger sample size, says Pula Mmesi, researcher at the PRC.

It's not just all about the numbers when planning an advertising campaign. It's the ability of the written word, on any platform, to deliver a quality reader and the ability for said reader to recall what's been read and advertised, concludes Langschmidt.

The research will be released in October 2017. For more information, go to www.prc.za.com.
The African mining industry needs to explore innovative ways to improve productivity, competitiveness, and profitability to propel the continent into industrialisation.

Dr Markus Thill, president of Boschs Africa region, believes that by making the mining industry more profitable, economic growth can be furthered. Eventually, this would have positive effects also on education and skills development.

Change brings opportunities

History has shown that the introduction of new, modern technologies creates opportunities for high-paying jobs as demand for skilled workers increases substantially. The depletion of coal resources in Europe led to the First Industrial Revolution and the use of steam power was to mechanise production. Such profound changes usually create concerns among people.

"However, as the example of the First Industrial Revolution shows, transformation processes very often bear opportunities. Here, productivity increased which led to the creation of high-paying jobs and the generation of new industrial wealth, he says.

The introduction of modern mining techniques and technologies in many instances, retrofitting old mines with new technologies boosts productivity, reduces costs, and leads to improvements in safety when mining for resources.

Power supply

While Africa has improved electricity supplies, cost-effective and reliable energy remains a key challenge for mining and industrial companies.

Harnessing that power will require investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure to ensure that electricity gets to as many customers, in particular industrial and commercial end-users, as possible, explains Dr Thill.

Safety

The mining industry has also made significant strides in reducing mining-related accidents and fatalities, thanks to regulators and industry stakeholders that have stepped in to address the challenge.

While industry stakeholders and experts commend the implementation of regulatory measures to tackle the challenge, there is also apprehension about overregulation, which increases the cost of mining in Africa.
Nigeria's southern oil-rich Rivers state backed a government call for major oil companies to move their offices to the Niger delta region, as part of measures to stem unrest in the oil-rich area.

Attacks by rebels seeking a fairer share of Nigeria's multi-billion-dollar oil wealth for local residents have slashed output and hammered revenue at a time of falling global crude prices.

Last week, Nigeria's Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo ordered major oil companies including Anglo-Dutch Shell as well as US groups Mobil and Chevron to relocate their main offices to the troubled Niger delta region, where most people remain impoverished despite decades of oil extraction.

"We are in full support of the acting president," Rivers state information commissioner Austin Tam-George said in a statement Saturday, referring to Osinbajo.

The vice president has been in charge while President Muhammadu Buhari has been on medical leave in Britain.

"If the oil companies move their headquarters to the Niger delta, they will be more responsive to the grievances of the people with a view to addressing them," he added.

Tam-George called it "improper and unacceptable" for the companies to keep their main offices in Lagos and Abuja, well away from their oil operations.

"The Niger delta is where the oil companies carry out their exploration activities, with the resultant effects of spills and damage to the ecosystem. They need to have their administrative base there," he insisted.

The country depends on oil for 70 percent of government revenue and 90 percent of its foreign exchange earnings.

"I can say for sure that once the companies comply, the militancy and violence will end, because the people will see themselves as stakeholders in the business," Tam-George said.

A recent lull in oil attacks is due to peace efforts of the federal and Rivers state governments, with more than 22,000 ex-militants surrendering their weapons, he added.

"But unlike the federal government, we don't offer cash in exchange for weapons. We empower the youths through jobs, training and vocational skill, especially in ICT (information and communication technology, which is the oil of the future".
The Vumelana Advisory Fund was acknowledged at the 2017 Drivers of Change Awards, hosted by the Southern Africa Trust and the Mail & Guardian, after having been nominated under the Special Mention category of the 2016 Investing in the Future Awards.

The Special Mention category of these awards recognised projects which show great promise and demonstrate an innovative approach to development. The Vumelana Advisory Fund has made a tangible difference in assisting beneficiaries of the land reform programme to develop and put their land to productive use.

It is an honour to be acknowledged for the contribution that we are making in the land reform space, said Peter Setou, CE of the Vumelana.

He continued: Our aim is to support the establishment of commercially viable partnerships between investors and local community land owners to create jobs, income and skills, and demonstrate the value of community private partnerships (CPPs) as a contributor to successful land reform.

Productive land use

He added that, Despite the current debates and volatility around land reform, we hope that all South Africans stay focused on the key elements that will drive the successful implementation of land reform in the country. In our view, it is crucial to ensure that redistributed and restituted land is used productively to the benefit of South Africas communities.

Vumelanas business model benefits both communities and investors involved in land reform. The model also makes it possible for Vumelana to pre-finance deal structuring and negotiations. When those negotiations yield a community private partnership deal, Vumelana recovers its fees from the private investor. Recovered fees are, in turn, used to provide organisational development and governance support to the communities assisted.

The Investing in the Future Awards recognises the often-unsung contributions that are made by the private sector and businesses to the future of South Africa and its citizens. A number of projects were also identified which whilst still relatively new, could mean big things in the future.

Moletele Communal Property Association

Attesting to the role and impact of Vumelanas work, Hezekiel Nkosi, chairman of the Moletele Communal Property Association (CPA) in Limpopo, says, Vumelanas involvement in facilitating the transaction for our CPA and our investor, for example, has greatly changed our community. With three clusters within our CPA, (the Matuma Cluster, Richmond Cluster and Moletele) seasonally we employ just over 4,500 temporary employees, with peak figures during the harvest.

From 2012 to date, the Vumelana Advisory Fund has facilitated 14 partnership agreements, that have the potential to mobilise an investment value of more than R500m, as well as contributing towards putting approximately 67,000 hectares of land to productive use.
Although the drought has taken its toll on all South Africans, farmers face the reality of drought first hand. Through Boere In Nood, a non-profit organisation that aims to assist farmers, Volvo Trucks delivered feed to 1,232 farmers throughout South Africa.

Boytjie

The journey of Die Lady, Boertjie and Boytjie, spanned over 443, 557 kilometres and saw over 12,000 bales of hay weighing 3,456 tonnes delivered to farmers that were affected by the drought.

The facilitation of the deliveries to the farmers was done though Boere In Nood, which was established in 2015 to deal with the crisis faced by farmers.

Volvo Trucks realised that while the drought is taking its toll on a lot of communities the people that feel the harshest impact of the drought is very often one of our customers  farmers. To this end we investigated various manners in which Volvo Trucks Southern Africa would not only be able to assist the drought-stricken farmers but also see first-hand the impact of the assistance given to the farmers, says Valentia Hobbs, general manager, marketing and communication.

Volvo Trucks offered the three trucks and provided drivers and diesel to the vehicles that would travel around South Africa. The truck drivers were often the unspoken heroes of the day as they faced some harsh words while going about their duties to deliver the much-needed feed to farmers in the country.

We are proud of our association and the impact that we have been able to make through this collaboration with Boere In Nood. The work may be far from over, however, it is a privilege to have been able to make a real difference to the people affected, as well as the animals whose lives were saved from the deliveries of the feed, concludes Valentia.
The democratic South Africa has provided us with opportunity to address poverty, inequality and underdevelopment, and build a bright future for all. We have developed the National Development Plan, Vision 2030, to guide us to achieve this objective. This sets economic growth and land transformation targets, and targets the creation of one million new jobs in the agricultural sector.

paulbr75 via pixabay

During the period of 1994 to 2012, the real gross domestic product (GDP) contribution by the agricultural sector increased by 29%. However, according to GDP statistics released by Stats SA on March 7, the South African economy grew by 0.3% last year.

Most provinces recorded a positive economic growth in 2015 as compared to 2014. However, this development has fallen short of the demand for employment and economic opportunity, especially for youth and the increasing number of graduates.

Contribution of the citrus industry

The citrus industry is based on irrigated land, largely protected from the ravages of drought. This, together with the export market, now at 115 million cartons per year, has seen the gross income from citrus reach R6.8-billion per year from production of 62,184ha and contributing 74,000 jobs.

Currently, the major citrus export destinations for South African citrus are central Europe (37%), the Middle East (20%), followed by Russia, south-east Asia, southern Europe, the United Kingdom, China, Canada and the Far East.

South Africa citrus imports are minimal - 80% of this comes from Zimbabwe and 15% from Israel.

Eastern Cape, the powerhouse of the Southern African citrus industry

Citrus in South Africa is the second largest fruit crop after grapes in terms of production volumes. The Eastern Cape, being the powerhouse of the Southern African citrus industry, accounts for 27% of citrus production in the country.

The Eastern Cape boasts the most progressive and successful black citrus growers in the country, accounting for more than a third of South Africa's exports and is home to 50% of South African lemons.

The citrus industry development is spearheaded by the Citrus Growers Association and the transformation in the sector is led by a dedicated unit, the Grower Development Company. Through the levies from producers, the Citrus Growers Association and the Grower Development Company transformation is targeted by supporting the development of the current 118 black citrus producers in the country and increasing this to create equity in the sub-sector across the entire citrus value chain.

Within the NDP target to increase irrigated production areas by 500,000ha by 2030, the development agenda for the citrus sub-sector will contribute to achieving this target.

The Eastern Cape is the rapidly rising star in the South African citrus industry. After the 46% of South African citrus production from Limpopo, the 27% that is produced in the Eastern Cape comes from 17,592ha spread across the irrigation areas in the Sundays and Gamtoos river valleys in Sarah Baartman District, and the Kat and Keiskamma river valleys in the Amatole District.

The citrus sub-sector in the province provides 19,700 jobs in the production and 10,000 jobs in the packing, processing, and marketing of the fruit. The industry is the mainstay of the rural economy in the respective production areas and provides the economic base for significant upstream and downstream jobs and business opportunity.

The Eastern Cape produces 60% of the lemons, 30% of the soft citrus, 26% of the oranges and 3% of the grapefruit exported from the country.

Rate of transformation

Government transformation initiatives and support programmes in cooperation with the Grower Development Company of the industry has contributed to a 25% increase in the volume of citrus marketed formally from black producers since 2010.

The increase of 272% over this period from black producers in the Eastern Cape highlights the potential for expansion in environmentally well-suited areas for citrus in the province.

However, the fact that currently only 1.7% of formally marketed citrus is produced by black producers remains an indictment on the rate of transformation in the industry and is a call for a step-change in the transformation agenda.

Priority agricultural economic transformation strategy

This step-change is to be addressed in the Eastern Cape through the implementation of a priority agricultural economic transformation strategy for the province.

This strategy seeks to position the Eastern Cape to become a food basket for the country and for agricultural production to supply the basis for a re-industrialisation in the product value chains that will open opportunity for young entrepreneurs and increased employment in the province.

The strategy set out the steps to enable land reform farmers and rural communities, that is targeted smallholder/subsistence and communal farmers, to derive optimal economic value out of their agricultural activity through customised government-supported partnerships with organised commercial partners. These smallholder/communal and commercial partnerships will invest alongside land reform farmers, clustered rural communities and the government to expand agricultural economic activities, technology capabilities, training, employment opportunities and general growth in the sector.

The roll-out of the strategy for citrus in the Eastern Cape for 2017-18 encompasses an investment of R9-million from the government. This, together with the investment from the Citrus Growers Association Grower Development Company, will target the expansion of 50ha new citrus trees and support 100ha of pre-bearing trees, benefiting 32 black producers. The programmes will provide training and capacity development for 36 black farmers, and contribute to the creation of 75 new employment opportunities and an increase, over time, in the capacity for export production by 820,000 cartons.

In 2016-17 the department budgeted an amount of R19.1-million and a further investment of R22.4-million (2017-18 financial year) has been set aside for completion of the state-of-the-art Ripplemead citrus packshed in Ngqushwa that will provide export-compliant processing and packaging for local black farmers. This will further enable expansion in the area of some 400ha of citrus plantation along the Keiskamma River over the ensuing five years.

The water allocation reserved for transformation through the expansion of citrus by black farmers in the Sundays River targets the expansion by 2,000ha over this period. Water right allocations of 750ha have already been granted by the Department of Water and Sanitation.

Attracting the youth

Through strong partnerships and cooperation with farmers, the citrus industry can make a significant contribution to achieving the development targets set in the national development plan.

As the government we need to get young people into agriculture to make sure that people do not only get involved in agriculture when they retire. We want them while they are still young and energetic.

The provincial government has set aside R20-million for 2017-18 to support youth already working in agriculture. Among others, this funding will cater for agro-processing, which citrus is part of.

As President Jacob Zuma pronounced during the state of the nation address, we are emphasising unity in action, believing that we are moving South Africa forward.

Mlibo Qoboshiyane is the Eastern Cape MEC for Rural Development and Agrarian Reform. He delivered this speech at the Citrus Summit in Port Elizabeth last week.

Source: Herald
According to Brian Ive, development executive at Tongaat Hulett Developments, Bridge City is gathering momentum this year with 65% of the 53ha development area sold to date to a mix of public and private sector investors. 360,000m2 of bulk is still available for purchase in Bridge City.

A number of new developments  including a petrol filling station (PFS)/ retail facility and a mixed-use development to the value of R220m  are set to begin in March 2017. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the first phase PFS is underway while the second phase of this mixed-use development is expected to begin construction towards the end of 2017.

He added that construction of the third phase of the combined medical and retail centre adjacent to the Bridge City shopping centre was already well underway and due for completion by the end of June 2017.

Construction of the Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme Memorial Hospital, a 500-bed regional state facility, is proceeding well. Now that the structure is complete, contractors are focusing on finishing the interior of the building ahead of an envisaged opening in 2019.

At the same time, earthworks for the 150-bed private hospital that is also to be located at Bridge City have been completed. Work on the top structure is scheduled to commence this month (March 2017) and the hospital is expected to open at the end of 2018.

Job creation

Bridge City is expected to attract upwards of R10bn in investment once it has been completed, creating thousands of construction jobs whilst also facilitating a wide range of skills and enterprise development opportunities across a plethora of sectors.

Our vision for Bridge City is one that combines a mix of public sector facilities, services and infrastructure with a wide range of private investment opportunities. At its heart, it will have a world class, inter-modal transport system that links the areas of Phoenix and Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu (INK) to the CBDs of Durban, uMhlanga, Cornubia and Pinetown. This will become a bustling, mixed-use urban hub that offers attractive investment opportunities in a professionally managed, integrated and dynamic development node, said Ive.

He added that the recent completion of the new half diamond interchange off the M25 that provides dedicated access to Bridge City for road users and later this year, for the R20bn GO!Durban bus rapid transport network (BRT) which will mark another important milestone for the development of Bridge City.

Effingham Development Joint Venture

Bridge City is the second leg of the Effingham Development Joint Venture public-private sector partnership between Tongaat Hulett and the eThekwini Municipality. From its earliest days on the drawing board, it has included residential, retail, recreational, medical and commercial facilities as well as a 13-hectare business park that is likely to appeal to both established businesses and entrepreneurs.

Ive said that Bridge City was particularly attractive to businesses as all sites were fully serviced and ready for development, cutting through potential red tape and delays in other areas.

The INK (Inanda, Ntuzuma and Kwa Mashu) area has the largest residential concentration of about 800,000 people in the eThekwini region.

Live, work, play

Bridge City completely redefines how people will live, work and play in formerly neglected and marginalised townships. Through the creation of job opportunities, residential accommodation and lifestyle choices, Bridge City will have a major economic impact on both the immediate INK area and its surrounds, he said.

A deal about to be concluded will deliver 348 affordable housing units and will play a key role in attracting new entrants into the retail property development space. Through the creation of a dynamic mixed use precinct, the reduction of management association levies for residential use and reductions in transfer duties by government for entry level buyers, he said that more property owners were also likely to enter the as yet under invested township real estate market.

Ive said that the eThekwini Municipality was finalising the investment of approximately R84.5m in six sites at Bridge City. Five of these are in the town centre. Of these, three are earmarked for social housing and two for GAP (affordable) housing.

The sixth site purchased by the municipality  located within the business estate precinct  will be developed into a business incubator.

Commuter transport

Ive pointed out that improved commuter transport via the GO!Durban BRT is also expected to boost retail development. Bridge City is likely to be the second busiest commuter exchange in the Durban area and the GO!Durban terminal is expected to accommodate in excess of 100,000 daily commuters on completion.

He noted that the Bridge City shopping centre, which was completed in 2009, is already regarded as a major retail hub and has extended its pool of shoppers from the immediate vicinity to surrounding areas. Shopper numbers increased during 2016 and the mall currently has only a 3% vacancy rate.
At the 4th World Training and Development Congress , part of the 25th annual World Human Resource Development Congress (WHRDC) held in Mumbai, India recently, the Nunnovation Africa Foundation was recognised as one of the Top 100 Global Leaders in Training and Development by the congress judges.

NAF Chairman, Khathu Mashau receives the Top 100 Global Leader Award in India.

Through innovation intervention programmes, Nunnovation Africa Foundation (NAF) has empowered over 600 hundred unemployed youth who now play significant roles in boosting the South African economy through the City of Johannesburg Educating Digital Intern (COJEDI) programme. NAF has also successfully established programmes such as the #WeInnovate, which has reached over 600,000 youth in rural communities.

It has been an absolute honour to have been recognised by the peers and competitors globally for the little contribution we are making in the continent. Its been over 10 years since I first had an opportunity to serve the local communities by steering development of the youth in rural communities through innovative entrepreneurship, said NAF chairman, Khathutshelo Mashau.

The awards recognise the best practitioners in the world who play a significant impact within their communities and the continent. The WHRDC interviews all stakeholders within a programme including beneficiaries within the value chain of such development and then a committee selects the most impactful programmes. They further review the performance of the drivers behind the development, evaluating their long-term performance, credibility and success rate, which NAF through their milestones have successfully achieved, one being that this is the only programme in Africa to be awarded this honour.

Empowering youth through training and development

Mashau and the NAF team is credited with conceptualising the establishment of a Construction Supplier Park, which is being implemented in partnership with South African Mining house Sibanye Gold, The Department of Small Business Development and the WestRand District Municipality. The incubation programme will see over 20 manufacturing entrepreneurs produce and supply material to be used in the construction sector. This is a programme that is aimed at helping South African entrepreneurs to play a significant role in the construction sector and disrupt existing monopoly in the sector value chain, said Mashau.

NAF is currently providing coding programmes for high school students in partnership with Telkom Foundation.
As we move into the 21st century, accessibility to e-learning is becoming more of a necessity than a luxury. Yet South Africa's disadvantaged youth face more problems than merely inadequate educational facilities, a lack of textbooks and absent teachers. Violence in schools is still a very real and serious issue, negatively impacting learners' lives in ways many of us don't realise. So how dow we start to combat these hurdles facing our youth today?

I caught up with UCT Upstarts entrepreneurs to find out more about their innovative startup, PlugEd, and how it aims to kill these two birds with one stone.

Who are the brains behind PlugEd?

PlugEd was founded by three young entrepreneurs: 2nd year BBusSci Analytics student Orinea Tshivhenga (20), 3rd year electrical engineering student Lindokuhle Shongwe (21) and Honours in tax student, Lebo de Jaar (22).

Tell us about your startup and the inspiration behind it?

PlugEd was started from a simple challenge posed by UCT Upstarts. Re-educate education. Enthusiastic and excited as we were, we took on the challenge and first thing were the many assumptions about problems within the education sector of South Africa. It was only when we decided to go visit a local high school when we realised there are deeper problems than the general assumptions. We found true that most students dont have adequate resources to supplement their learning, schools are under-resourced and that their teachers are not always present, but to our surprise we found that safety is a serious concern for students. This was after we witnessed a student get stabbed from a gang-related fight. We also learned from another student that they prefer to carry two to three text books out of the recommended seven, so that they can easily run home to safety after school.

Our experience sparked a key question that lead to the birth of PlugEd: why not take learning home?

PlugEd is a startup whose heart is to bridge the gap between online educational content and high school learners that need it the most. Our current prototype involves the use of a Raspberry Pi and Khan Academy Lite. The student can take the device home, plug it into their TV and voila, they can learn in the comfort and safety of their home. Students can do this in groups or individually.

Where do you plan on taking it from here?

Looking into the future, we are working to make PlugEd the company to rely on for flexible access to resources to every learner in south Africa, both on a software levels (site that has brings educational resources to one place) and hardware level (devices for students to access educational online resources). We are currently piloting at a high school in Khayelitsha - we have given a student a raspberry pi and we are learning from the feedback. We are currently looking to testing our model by providing access to more students at the school through different methods such as USBs, DVDs etc. With the feedback from the testing, we are also looking into building the software side of our company.

What do you feel is the importance of innovation at an educational level?

We feel innovation is what shapes the future, it helps us build the world we idealise. Which is the similar to what education aims to do. It aims to prepare us for the future, therefore innovation and education cannot be separate; actually education must teach, if not just spark the ability for students to innovate. Only an innovative education can create innovative students, thus education should be innovative in itself. With the current yet old education system, it is only innovation that can bring it up to the times. Innovation within education allows for the discovery of convenient, fun and efficient ways of learning.

How necessary are initiatives like the UCT Upstarts Idea Auction to the development of entrepreneurship in South Africa?

It is not questionable whether there are entrepreneurial minds in south Africa, drawing from our own experience it seems that there are people with resources and are willing to help. Initiatives like UCT idea Auction remove the friction between the entrepreneurs and the resources. Such initiatives are vital to the development of entrepreneurship in South Africa as there is a lot of difficulty for the average young entrepreneur to find their way to the relevant resources and mentorship.

What advice do you have for young entrepreneurs who are just starting out themselves?

The hardest part about entrepreneurship is not the planning and drafting of business plans but rather shipping out your product /service. Young entrepreneurs get stuck in trying to perfect it before it goes out. It is more productive to work from feedback than perfecting something that could still be rejected. Basically focusing on the customer more than the idea is the way to win.
Transport Minister Dipuo Peters is taking legal counsel to compel Tasima to transfer eNatis services to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).

In a statement on Monday, Minister Peters said she is taking legal counsel to compel Tasima to comply with the Constitutional Court decision handed down on 9 November 2016.

The court found that the extension to the contract to Tasima was granted in contravention of the Constitution, the Public Finance Management Act and Treasury Regulations.

Tasima is the company originally contracted to manage the Electronic National Administration Traffic Information System (eNatis), which processes transactions such as vehicle licensing and drivers licences and stores the data.

We remain resilient, undeterred and resolute in our commitment and we will waste no time and leave no stone unturned in the fight to reclaim the system, ever informed by the patriotism and supreme love to serve our country in ensuring that the RTMC undertakes its mandate to execute and discharge its function in the best interest of all South Africans, said Minister Peters.

The court granted the RTMC leave to terminate the illegal and irregular extension of the contract and Tasima was ordered to hand over the running of the eNatis and associated services to the RTMC within 30 days of the court decision.

The court decision also granted the Department of Transport leave to approach the court should Tasima commit any act intended to deliberately delay or frustrate the transfer process.

The Minister further said that government will not sleep nor slumber in getting what is legally a government system. The RTMC has been ready since 3 May 2015 to administer eNatis.

Their state of readiness has unreasonably been delayed and denied by Tasima, employing tactics informed by their desire to syphon money from the State.

The court decision was a reconfirmation and a vindication that the Department of Transport and the RTMC are competent enough and ready to execute their mandate without the involvement of third parties, Minister Peters said.

In a similar circumstance that involved the production of driving licence cards, the Department of Transport is producing and managing the driving licence system in-house, without the involvement of a third party.

This is one illustration that government has the capacity, capabilities and dedicated men and women who are committed to serve the people of South Africa, said Minister Peters.

Regarding Tasimas refusal to vacate the eNatis offices, Minister Peters has engaged the Minister of Police to invoke the provisions of the Critical Infrastructure Legislation that provide for the determination and declaration of Critical Infrastructure, which ensures that security measures are implemented at Critical Infrastructure points.

eNatis offices and related services are declared Critical Infrastructure, and categorised in the Critical Infrastructure Legislation.

It is within this context that Minister Peters believes that Tasima is unlawfully occupying a key point facility, which hosts high-tech equipment containing critical traffic management services and data.
Contact: McCrory Communications

McCrory Communications govpress@nc.gov

Beaufort County is pleased to announce that Mr. Carnie E. Hedgepeth has been named the new Emergency Services Director for the County. This is a new position that will consolidate and oversee Emergency Medical Services, Emergency Management, Fire Marshal and Animal Control under an Emergency Services Department.Mr. Hedgepeth holds an AAS degree in Fire Protection Technology from Wilson Community College, a BS degree in Business Management and Organizational Development from Mount Olive College and is an ordained minister. He has spent his entire professional career working in fire and EMS services and holds multiple State and National Fire Academy certifications. Mr. Hedgepeth most recently served as the Director of Fire and Emergency Services Training at Pitt Community College and has previously worked as a Fire and Rescue Training Specialist for the NC Office of State Fire Marshal, as the Fire/EMS Chief for the Town of Winterville, as the Deputy Fire/EMS Chief for Morehead City and as an EMS Specialist for the City of Greenville Fire/Rescue Department.said Brian Alligood, County Manager.Mr. Hedgepeth will begin his duties with the County on April 3, 2017.
State Security Minister David Mahlobo has welcomed the appointment of Isaac Dintwe as the new Inspector-General of Intelligence.

On Monday, President Jacob Zuma appointed Dintwe for a five-year contract effective, 15 March 2017.

"The Inspector-General plays a significant role in the checks and balances, and exercising oversight over the important work that we do.

On behalf of the intelligence community, we welcome his appointment and look forward to working with him and his office, Minister Mahlobo said.

Dintwe is currently employed by the University of South Africa as an Associate Professor of Forensics at the College of Law, School of Criminal Justice.

His nomination was approved by Parliament on 29 November 2016.

Both President Zuma and Minister Mahlobo have wished Dintwe all the best in his new responsibilities.
New legislation for SA's property sector barely makes any reference to transformation of the sector. Property practitioners say excessive legislation and the fundamental nature of the industry are among the barriers to entry for new participants, which hinders transformation.

Business Day has a recent version of the Property Practitioners Bill of 2016, which repeals the Estate Agency Affairs Act of 1976. The Bill has been through many drafts over the past few years. Some property professionals say excessive regulation is the biggest barrier to transformation.

The version Business Day has seen contains only this paragraph with respect to transformation: "The Property Sector Transformation Charter contemplated in Section 9 (1) of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, 2003 (Act No. 53 of 2003), applies to all property practitioners." The charter, which is long overdue, is also expected to be published this year.

Several estate agencies and industry bodies contacted about the Bill said they couldn't comment accurately until a final bill had been published, but they had noted Cabinet's announcement that this was imminent.

Cabinet said last week that the Bill would be published in the Government Gazette for public comment in the next few weeks. Cabinet said that the bill "responds to the changing market conditions and dynamics, strives to create an enabling environment to enhance economic activity within the real estate market ... [and] addresses the need to enhance compliance and enforcement, as well as ensure transformation in the sector and to regulate the conduct and behaviour of property practitioners".

Seeff Properties chairman Samuel Seeff said an update to the old Estate Agency Affairs Act had been needed for years. "The industry most certainly welcomes the new Bill and it is anticipated that it will provide a much-needed shift in the industry, largely towards a more professional approach," he said. "Many of the regulations around professionalising the industry are already in practice, at least insofar as the bigger agencies are concerned."

He added: "Given that the previous Estate Agency Affairs Act dates back to 1976, it certainly needed to be updated. While the new Bill is welcomed, we understand from the provisional drafts that there are some elements we believe need to be refined - proposals around transformation targets and how these may conflict with the new requirements and nature of the industry, for example. We would, however, need to wait for the Bill to be gazetted before we can provide meaningful comment."

The South African Property Owners Association said it had not yet received the bill and could not comment on it.

Barriers to entry

In 2014, the Estate Agency Affairs Board said it was hoping a 12-month-long internship programme would boost transformation in the estate agency industry. Only about 10% of SA's 40,000 or so agents are black.

While all SA's major estate agencies have implemented the programme, some of the fundamental characteristics of the sector mean it can take a long time to achieve transformation.

"People struggle to enter the estate agent sector because it is commission-and not salary-based. This means they have to have savings before entering the industry in order to sustain a living until they sell their first property," the board's CEO, Bryan Chaplog, said at the internship programme's launch in 2014.

It costs about R10,000 and takes a year to train an estate agent. The process includes a qualification course and board exam. A second exam has to be taken for an agent to start their own licensed real estate business.

Jan le Roux, CEO of the industry body Real Estate Business Owners of SA, said this week that these exams and other costs and regulations had actually stifled transformation in the sector, with the industry over-run with regulation.

"The regulation implemented over the past few years has, in many ways, slowed transformation. Many of the tests are very easy and merely act as a way in which officials are able to collect funds," he said. "Many potential black estate agents would rather work in other industries with lower barriers to entry. Currently, mostly large agencies are able to handle all the regulations for their new agents but we don't see many new [black] entrepreneurs starting their own agencies."

Source: BDpro
Safety and reduced costs are just two of the reasons that sectional title units have grown massively in popularity over the years.

This is according to Caron Leslie, broker/owner of RE/MAX Property Associates in Table View. Security is a primary concern for many South African property buyers and living within the community of a sectional title development provides just that, she says.

Another aspect that is making this option popular among buyers is that sectional title units are often more affordable than full title cluster homes, but offer similar security and lifestyle benefits. Leslie notes that aside from the fact that the prices of sectional title units are often lower than full title homes, there are other aspects that bring down the cost to the homeowner once they have bought a sectional title unit. In most cases, homeowners are only responsible for the maintenance of the interior of their unit, while maintenance costs for the exterior of the property are generally for the body corporates account. Additionally, charges for resources such as water and electricity are shared among the homeowners living in a sectional title complex, which means the costs are normally lower than that of a freestanding property.

Ideal first-time home

Adrian Goslett, regional director and CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa, says that sectional title units are the ideal start for buyers purchasing their first home. However, it is vital that buyers who purchase within these schemes adhere to the same golden principles that they would buying any property. Buyers should always do the required research, and buy within the right location, advises Goslett.

According to Leslie, as part of the research when purchasing a sectional title property, buyers should obtain a copy of the body corporate rules and regulations and go through them. The estate agent marketing the development will be able to provide potential buyers with a copy of the rules to peruse. These rules govern the owners within the confines of the scheme and deem what the homeowner is allowed to do in the perimeters of that scheme once they purchase the property. Buyers should consider these rules before making their final decision to purchase the property, says Leslie.

Good return on investment

She adds that purchasing a sectional title unit within a good location can provide buyers with good returns on their investment over time, especially if they purchase within a development in its initial phases. The demand for sectional title property will ensure appreciation in value, provided it is located in a good location. Added to that, purchasing a property within a new development means that the purchaser will not have to pay transfer duty, says Leslie.

Sectional title units will continue to be popular among security conscious buyers in the future and provide a good return on investment if the principles of buying property are followed, concludes Leslie.
The newly set up Creative Industries and National Events Agency (CINEA) has submitted a proposal that the Carnaval International de Victoria - an annual feature on the Seychelles' calendar of events for the past six years - be incorporated into the Creole Festival, scheduled to take place in October.

Says Lena Horeau, PR manager at the Seychelles Tourism Board in South Africa: The advantage in combining the two festivals is that visitors can not only look forward to an event of higher quality, but it will also offer a more prominent display of the Seychelles culture. And, if I may add that the weather in October is also excellent.

Chief executive of CINEA, Gaelen Bresson adds that the Seychellois nation is made up of the first settlers - the slaves and their European masters, the Indian and Arabs spice traders, and the Chinese who came to trade.

This is who we are as Creole, as Seychellois, a melting pot of cultures, so it is fitting that the carnival is held during the Creole festival, a time when we celebrate our identity, our rich, diverse culture, said Bresson.

Besson adds that with the two festivals combined, visitors and locals alike will still see a multi-coloured, multi-cultural facade on the streets of Victoria.
In a career spanning 20 years, award-winning commercial marketer, Andrew Shelton, has worked for some of the most high-profile brands in travel, including Virgin Holidays. Shelton joined Cheapflights in 2014 as marketing director and in 2015 was appointed managing director. We had a chat with Shelton to find out what's in store for the Cheapflights brand in 2017.

Andrew Shelton

What can we look forward to from the Cheapflights brand this year?

A continued focus on smart search made simple and the preservation of our position as the number one flight metasearch brand in South Africa. Its one of our fastest growing markets and we see considerable potential for further growth. During last year, we scored some great success through content marketing, PR, partnerships and influencer communications so expect to see more of the same in 2017.

Whats on your wish-list for brand objectives for 2017?

Like any brand, we want to be growing our unprompted awareness, and also our direct traffic as that is by far better value for us. We also want to build more partnerships both with the wider travel industry - both in terms of helping to attract inbound tourism to South Africa, and helping South Africans to see the world themselves - through our newsletter and metasearch propositions, and more widely through brand collaborations.

What impact are global issues like Brexit and Trumps travel ban having on Cheapflights and other travel brands?

The general trend is for these large, geopolitical events to have noticeable, but short-lived, impacts as consumers respond to what theyre seeing in the news and begin to consider different travel options. Brexit, for example, drove a 40% swing from UK Cheapflights users searching for flights to Europe to destinations like South Africa and the Caribbean.

That trend plateaued and returned to normal within around three months, though, so tourism authorities and brands in emerging markets should be looking to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that present themselves by working with a nimble data-driven brand like ourselves, to put targeted communications into market quickly, across a range of platforms and channels.

What are some of the other major challenges influencing brand decisions for Cheapflights currently?

We may be the largest flight metasearch brand in South Africa, but were always aware of how competitive the market is, and must always avoid complacency. Users today are generally very savvy, and so getting and retaining their loyalty is a constant effort requiring creativity in our execution, accuracy in our targeting and integration across our channels. It can be a tricky juggling act  especially when, as a marketeer, my primary concern is with ROI.

And what are some of the other major opportunities influencing brand decisions for Cheapflights?

It was recently announced that we are being acquired by US metasearch brand, KAYAK, subject to regularity approval, so were looking forward to seeing how our individual strengths can be combined in the future.

Is brand collaboration in your brand tool box and, if so, how important a tool is it for Cheapflights?

Yes, it is, and were always open to hearing how we could work with another brand if there is synergy between our values and objectives. At the end of the day, well always ask how will this benefit our users?, and if the answer is clear then a meaningful collaboration will always be a possibility.

What do you love most about the South African consumer and how they interact with the Cheapflights brand?

The difficulties that the rand has faced over recent years has meant South Africans have had to be really cost-conscious in their travel plans, which has played extremely well to our core purpose. Triple-digit growth rates across our mobile, app and desktop products show that theyve really embraced the simple utility of our purpose and are attracted to the practicality, speed and intuitive nature of our interface. Metasearch is still relatively young in South Africa, so its great to see how consumers have embraced it, particularly on mobile.
The world of media is changing at a rapid pace as consumers' attention is fragmented across multiple channels and devices.

This is not a new trend  people have been talking about it for 15 years or more  but it is accelerating as screen usage on mobile devices takes up more and more of our time.

Image supplied

According to We Are Socials Digital in 2016 report, an average South African spends just under five hours a day online. He or she spends about as much time on social media as watching television  and its safe to say that this average consumer is often doing both at the same time. This trend hasnt peaked yet  if anything, its going to speed up over the next five years.

In future, that might mean that were consuming 30 hours of screen time as we multitask across devices. Already were seeing the lines blur between what we used to think of as analogue media (television, radio and print) and digital media. Television, for example is rapidly becoming a digital over-the-top service rather than a separate analogue silo.

With fibres tendrils reaching more and more homes in South Africa, we may be surprised in five years just how many people there are across the country who favour Netflix, ShowMax or Amazon Prime over satellite television. And though the lounge TV will still be there, well see people consuming more media on their personal devices.

The rise of OTT

This shift towards OTT services will have some interesting implications for brands as most subscription streaming services are currently ad-free. We could see strategies such as product placement or native programming become a more important part of the marketing mix, for example. Some South African brands have embraced advertising programming with great success.

On the international front, were seeing brands boost the production value of their ads  hiring Hollywood directors  and making them the sort of story-driven content that people will want to consume and share. Clothing brand H&M achieved acclaim for a Christmas 2016 ad directed by Wes Anderson and starred Adrien Brody:

But even as television fragments and moves to OTT, advertisers also need to look at the pace of change in other media. Radio is still growing in South Africa, despite the rise of OTT music-streaming services and the challenges the print market is facing. The new Broadcast Research Council of South Africas Radio Audience Measurement (BRC RAM) currency indicates that old-fashioned radio still commands a great deal of audience loyalty. The morning and evening commutes are still the peak times, but people are listening throughout the day.

Regional radio and the sense of community

Regional radio, with its sense of community and its information relevant to the listeners context, is doing especially well. Through social media, SMS and old-fashioned call-ins, radio remains an immediate and highly interactive medium. Whats more, by offering podcasts, streaming and social media content, most radio stations are doing a good job of extending themselves into the digital realm.

So, what does this mean for brands and marketers?

The first point is that with consumers using multiple devices and media  whether sequentially or simultaneously  brands face more difficulty getting their undivided attention. That makes it important to maximise points of contact with consumers. For example, coordinating radio, TV and digital campaigns will help brands increase their opportunities to reach consumers and to reinforce their messages.

Secondly, brands should make sure that they are capitalising on the moments where they have a captive audience  such as the work commute when they are listening to the radio.

Finally, its important for brands and agencies to work with media partners who can offer them advice and solutions that cut across channels. Brands should think about their marketing and advertising in a more integrated and holistic manner. Rather than allocating spend to print, PR, TV, outdoor and radio, and measuring them separately, they must regard them as a connected fabric that makes up the customer experience. Todays media sales houses cannot sell only one channel  they need to offer integrated solutions to their clients.
Films allow us the unique opportunity to share the intimate mindscape of iconic legends, and with Jackie, screenwriter and journalist Noah Oppenheim, probes the most private thoughts of Jacqueline Kennedy, one of the most famed, admired and envied figures in the world.

Oppenheims conscientious screenplay, masterfully envisioned with gentle sensibility by Chilean director Pablo Larrain, and brought to life with Natalie Portmans commanding performance, unveils what we think we know, and reveals a flawless portrait of a woman who was trapped in a web of mendacity when she was at her most vulnerable shortly after John. F Kennedys assassination.

Portman never attempts to mimic or impersonate Jackie, but embodies the character physically and emotionally, with fervent passion and complete understanding; the emotional truth of her Oscar-worthy performance is heart-breaking, to such an extent that you want to reach out and hold her in your arms, comforting her desperate outcry. The ultimate goal of film is allowing us to feel.

Jackie most definitely gives us a wonderful opportunity to share the path the characters walk and experience their emotional state. When you leave the film it is as if you are walking away from Jackies private residence and waving goodbye to a trusted friend.

Billy Crudup is equally brilliant as the journalist who probes the vulnerable disposition of a woman whose fragile state of mind exposes the truth as she carefully manipulates her revelations.

As always, Peter Sarsgaard is in top form as Jackies equally shattered brother-in-law who was also the Attorney General of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy  an icon in his own right, who would be assassinated while running for President in 1968.

John Hurt delivers a memorable performance as Jackies priest, who really sees Jackie be herself, her most confessional self, and wrestle with why God would ever create this amount of pain.

If theres one aspect of the film that really hits home, its the gut-wrenching moments Jackie shared with Kennedy when he collapsed in her lap after his assassination; action is character, and what Jackie does shows her integrity and allows us to share her pain and tragic loss.

The authenticity of Larrains fictional reality is mind-blowing; you will take a step into the past and relive the shocking truth of a story that is as relevant today as when it hit the headlines in 1963.

It shows the strength of a woman who had to face the world with pride and dignity when she was stripped of her status and lost a great love in her life.

If you enjoyed a film like The Iron Lady that transcends the traditional biopic-genre, and brings to life a refreshing new interpretation, then you will enjoy Jackie. Although it is set against the world of politics in the 60s, it is not at all a political film, but simply the story of a woman whose love of a man and family was destroyed by malevolent powers beyond her control.

It poignantly shows the face of humanity at its most vulnerable, and the importance of never allowing the past to become a jaded memory, but something we should always carry in our hearts and treasure with the utmost respect and dignity.

Read more about Jackie: www.writingstudio.co.za
Digital will change the way South African businesses operate on a profound, cellular level. It is not a superficial layer to an existing strategy or an added extra. It is a force that will change the very DNA of a business and impact how it engages with its customers and staff. This year's IAB Digital Summit, powered by Accenture Interactive, will explore the full spectrum of opportunities that digital brings to South African businesses.

No business can build a powerful brand or attract todays consumer if it doesnt turn its gaze inward first. Game-changing, fast-growing brands have all experienced radical change on the inside in order to make the most of the digital marketplace.

Lee Naik, CEO of TransUnion Africa and a speaker at the Summit says, The dramatic shift in digital communication is changing the way the South African public engages with businesses, brands and government. This is the age of dynamic customer expectations, where the customer has a say in defining their experience. They expect service delivery to be consistent across all channels that governments and businesses offer.

How can businesses adapt their internal processes to serve todays consumer? The 2017 Fjord Trends report, compiled in collaboration with Accenture Interactive, has some profound insights on the businesses of the future.

The report notes that organisations must acknowledge the need to rewire completely in order to become more people-centric with regard to both their customers and employees. Some of the worlds leading corporations are achieving this through breaking down silos in order to inspire creative thinking and using the latest digital tools to create a platform for organisation-wide flexibility.

Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and chairman of Brand Leadership Group and Brand Africa and another speaker at the Summit says, On a continent in which 70% of employees are under the age of 30 who are mobile and tech-savvy, businesses must begin to adapt to and embrace the remote workforce. Young professionals now view flexibility as a key contributor to job satisfaction.

This sentiment is mirrored in the 2016 Fjord Trends report, which states that employees now expect tailored experiences, rapid growth and personal connection in their careers. This has resulted in the emergence of employee experience (EX) design, where workplace processes, structure and culture are reimagined at an organisational level. In the case of adapting South African business to meet the needs of a mobile workforce, the main barriers include a traditional 9-5 organisational culture and the digital infrastructure to manage efficiency.

While team communication platforms such as Slack, Jabber and Yammer exist, South Africans still need affordable and fast connectivity to enable the mobile workforce to stay connected anywhere, anytime. The evolution of LTE and Fibre in the country in addition to more affordable devices should drive data costs down, making it easier for businesses and their employees to connect.

Ikalafeng adds, The businesses that will thrive in the digital age are those that are responsive, adaptive and agile. This ultimately lies in how businesses communicate and receive information from their customers. As smart technology offers businesses unparalleled insight into who their customers are, they have the opportunity to tailor their business offerings to meet evolving consumer needs.

Access to data and technology also comes with a new set of responsibilities. Businesses need to invest in proper, respectful data practices. As outlined in the 2017 report, businesses also need to interrogate the social impact of the technology and innovation they create. As we have witnessed with big businesses such as Uber and Airbnb, consumers and media are unafraid to challenge the ethics and unintended consequences of revolutionary digital businesses.

Expect more snackable insights and real business learnings at the IAB Digital Summit, powered by Accenture Interactive. The event will be held on Thursday, 16 March at The Galleria in Sandton from 9am until 3pm.
Founded by Morteza Saifi and Evgeniya Khromina, Panah is an ethical fashion production house based in Nairobi, Kenya. The production house provides consulting, sourcing and manufacturing services for international brands as well as emerging African designers.

Panah facilitates sustainable economic and social empowerment by providing employment opportunities to underprivileged youth and women.

Panah strives to achieve two goals: to produce high-quality luxury apparel through socially empowering the women and youth in Kenya and giving international designers a platform to have their designs produced with a reliable high-quality manufacturer, says Khromina.

Sustainable and ethical fashion is a growing trend in Africa. Not only does Panah ensure a living wage for its employees and provide a safe working environment, they also harvest rainwater for the factory and rely on lean manufacturing, which means reducing waste in manufacturing.

Notable brands the company works with includes Edun, a brand established by musician Bono and his wife Ali Hewson to promote trade with Africa; Lemlem, a brand established by supermodel Liya Kabede; and Elsa and Me, a made-to-measure brand based in New York. Theyve also worked with a few East African brands such as Adele Dejak, Katungulu Mwendwa and Mille Collines.
The historic Lanzerac Wine Estate, dating back to 1962, produces some of South Africa's finest wines and is home to a five-star hotel, an acclaimed restaurant, a spa and wellness centre, and wine tasting facilities. We spoke to Lanzerac's GM, Barend Barnard, about managing the Lanzerac brand - from the estate's offering to its award-winning wine.

Barend Barnard

Tell us about the Lanzerac brand and what it stands for

Lanzerac is a historic brand/estate in Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch. We are renowned for being the first commercially available Pinotage in the world, our 1959 vintage Lanzerac Pinotage was released in 1961. The micro-climate and soils on the banks of both sides of the Eerste River lend itself towards great quality Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Pinotage, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon - these are our brand pillars. Lanzerac has been known for its unmissable history and prestige, being proudly Stellenbosch and striving to produce the best Pinotage in South Africa.

Is there a major difference in working with the Lanzerac brand as an estate and a wine brand respectively? If so, how do you approach the brand from the two different perspectives?

The Lanzerac story needs to be told on many levels of lifestyle in the Winelands. The five-star Lanzerac Hotel; recently renovated spa, Governors Hall Restaurant, the delicatessen adjacent to the wine tasting centre, boardrooms, wedding venues and award-winning wines portrays the luxury and prestige of a working wine estate in the heart of Stellenbosch. All these wine lifestyle elements are in line with the same goal in mind: being prestigious and connected to a five-star product.

Whats new with the Lanzerac brand?

Our brand will always be tied to our rich history dating back to 1692, but we are continuously pushing boundaries on ever-changing market trends, wine styles and the latest changes clients expect of a growing brand. On the wine side, we have discontinued our entry level range of wines and are expanding our premium range. An artisanal range of wines will follow with some exciting packaging, amazing quality wines, and once again, tying in the history and prestige Lanzerac is known for.

Lanzerac

Whats on your wish-list for brand objectives for 2017?

Rather do than wish. We are set to over deliver on quality, service, and packaging; to service both on-consumption and off-consumption clientele alike; to grow within our domestic and international markets; to give clients a luxurious five-star experience when visiting the estate and to tell the Lanzerac story to lifestyle patrons.

What do you love most about the Lanzerac brand?

Lanzerac is a place with heart and soul, an iconic product of quality, set out to accomplish the best the Cape Winelands has on offer.

What do you love most about the South African consumer and how they interact with the Lanzerac brand?

The South African wine and lifestyle consumer needs to be intrigued with new additions to our products all the time - never to forget the past, but always being exciting, informative and innovative.
A mistrial was declared Tuesday in the case of a man charged with abusing a girl nearly 20 years ago.

Defense attorneys for 37-year-old Robert Rolin Calvin requested a mistrial based on a statement made by one of the prosecuting attorneys. Yellowstone County District Court Judge Michael Moses dismissed the jury after deciding the trial could no longer move forward.

During a conversation with jurors after their dismissal, Yellowstone Senior Deputy County Attorney Mary Barry said she would retry the case if the victims would be willing to move forward.

A new trial date is expected to be set soon, Barry said.

The trial began Monday for Calvin. He is still charged with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of sexual assault, all involving the same victim.

Three women have reported Calvin abused them as children. Statutory limitations in sex abuse cases allow charges to be brought against a potential abuse 10 years after a victim turns 18. Only one of the victims was within this age range when the case was investigated and charged by the Yellowstone County Attorney's office.

Wendy Dutton, expert witness on child abuse, was the only person called to testify on the first day of trial. No other witnesses testified.

Prosecutors will present evidence that from 1997 through 2001, Calvin was 18 and forced a girl eight years younger than he to perform oral sex on multiple occasions.

Calvin has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

The woman, now in her late 20s, accused Calvin and his brother, William Calvin, of abusing her as a child. William Calvin pleaded guilty to abusing the girl in 2015. He was sentenced in May 2016 to five years with the Montana Department of Corrections.

This is the second mistrial in two years for the Yellowstone County Attorney's office, both involving child sex cases. Jeremiah John Burns was charged with abusing an 8-year-old girl. After evidence was introduced at trial that tainted the jury, Yellowstone County District Court Judge Gregory Todd declared a mistrial.

That case was not brought back to trial. Prosecutors entered into a five-year deferred prosecution agreement with Burns.
Teens and young adults from HDI Youth Marketeers' Junior Board of Directors have supplied the top ten rules when it comes to social media, to avoid being unliked, unfollowed and maybe blocked.

Thou shalt not post more than two photos or statuses a day

Please do not dominate our feed with spam of every course of your Michelin-star dinner, every 360-degree angle of your selfie (no matter how on point your hair or brows are), or every change of opinion.

 HDI Youth Marketeers

Thou shalt not stalk and mistakenly like a photo from 68 weeks ago

We all do it. 20 clicks later and you are looking at Rocking the Daisies photos on your boyfriends friends sister-in-laws best friends page. Just watch that finger pressure while you creep, because after a few swipes, your finger will like. Once you double tap, you cannot go back.

Thou shalt not accept friend requests from extended family

Nothing takes cred out of a cool pic faster than your aunt and mother sharing formalities in the comments section. Hello Debs, Sam looks just like you 30 years ago. Hope you, Joe and the kids are well LOL Sue.

Thou shalt not over-filter or make-up-app thy selfies

We know what you look like in real life. And we know what digital eyeshadow and Beauty Face airbrushing looks like. Keep it real and stick to one filter.

Thou shalt not force your like could save a life on us

Were not nearly as naive as you think. We know that passively putting a thumbs-up on a picture of a drought wont create change. So, stop with the guilt trip and give us real opportunities to take action!

Thou shalt not use #LoveLivesHere or #Blessed in every second post

Yes, we get that you want to show us all how great your life (and love life) is. But please do it in moderation  the pics, the posts, the hashtags

Thou shalt not like thy own posts

Not even to change your like count to an even number. Its pretty obvious you like it if you posted it. This doesnt even qualify to be wrong. Its sad in fact. It just looks lame when you pat your own back!

Thou shalt not make a brand new relationship Facebook official

Theres no subtle way to change your relationship status on social media, and a breakup is much worse when everyone knows about it (including opportunists sliding into your DMs). Keep it private until you know this ones a keeper!

Thou shalt not play Dr Phil to thou followers

Your deep and meaningful Tibetan quotes and hustle phrases are more annoying than inspiring  especially when theyre the caption to your pouting selfie or your gym-mirror pic. And dont post scathing quotes after a fight or breakup  it just makes you seem petty and desperate. Just dont.

Thou shalt not share anything you wouldnt want your gran to see

No nudity, no swearing, no venting. Not even on Snapchat. The screenshot is no one's best friend and it will probably come back to bite you. Also, auto-delete your tweets to avoid being dragged for a change of opinion.
NEWSWATCH: There's a new mobile scam doing the rounds  and it's affecting freelancers and those who do international business.

Called the Wangiri scam (in Japanese, wan means one and giri means cut or hang up depending on the source), it entails your phone ringing just once from an international number, usually in the middle of the night, so you dont notice it and wake up to a missed call.

The missed call itself isnt the problem, its what you do with it that is: When you call back, you either trigger an avalanche of spam being sent to you, or you get put on hold or put through to a premium number that charges exorbitant rates, so your airtime is instantly chewed up.

The coldest cold call

Its like the worst kind of marketing cold call  but youre not even wasting your time talking about details youre not interested in. Youre charged for being a decent human being who is concerned that youve missed some important information.

Apparently it arises from a computer dialling a large number of mobile phone numbers at random. While its making the rounds at the moment, MyBroadband reports that SA was hit with a round of WhatsApp Wangiri calls back in 2015, where youd receive a contact attachment with a text asking that you call me back.

The big networks like MTN advise that you rather be cautious in this regard  if its an overseas number you dont know and they really want to speak to you, theyll leave a message or call back.

Heres a list of international numbers that were identified as Wangiri scam originators back in 2016. Let us know if youve been affected by the scam in the comments section below
As the African Union marks 2017 as the Year of Harnessing the Demographic Dividend Through Investments in Youth', this special edition looks at the many challenges and opportunities facing Africa's youth today in the fields of skills training, technology, entrepreneurship, agribusiness, advocacy and political activism, among others.

Participants at the United Nations Youth Forum held in New York in January this year. Credit: Africa Renewal/Ihuoma Atanga

People talk about a demographic dividend for Africa. What we have now in Africa is not the dividend, it is just a youth population bulge, Ahmad Alhendawi, the former United Nations youth envoy, told Africa Renewal.

A dividend is the result of your investments. If you invest well, you get results. But that doesnt happen by itself.

UN data leads us to look at Africa as the continent where countries have more people under 18 than on any other continent in the world. Further, the youth population in Africa is projected to double by 2050, which will place more and more stress on already strained resources for the region.

Depending on how governments respond to this reality, an exponentially expanding population of youth can turn into a ticking time bomb or a demographic dividend, defined by UN experts as the economic growth that ensues when there are more working-age people (15 to 64) than the non-working people (14 and younger, and 65 and older).

The alternative to a youth dividend is a youth bulge, which is characterised by high youth unemployment and widespread protests - a recipe for political instability. Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, many of Africas young people are risking their lives on perilous journeys in search of a better life in Europe. Pools of idle youth are a magnet for recruiters from rebel or extremist groups.

The youth population in Africa is projected to double by 2050, which will place more and more stress on already strained resources for the region.

A ticking time bomb can be defused when governments invest well and can reap demographic dividends. But how can they achieve the desired results? Experts from many corners of the world have proffered suggestions.

Governments should invest in projects that create jobs or enable youth to start their own businesses. They should also make agriculture more attractive to youth, promote technology, improve young peoples skills and make school curricula relevant to the needs of job markets.

Furthermore, they should pass and implement laws that end cultural practices which promote child marriages or keep girls away from school. Governments need to support gender equality, empower women and girls, crack down on teenage pregnancies and tackle communicable diseases.

Leaders frequently say they are keen to listen to young people, engage them when they design policies and make decisions on matters that affect them. The reality is that these decisions are often made with little or no input from youth.

What the leaders end up with are policies that purport to improve the lives of young people when in fact they lack the perspective of what youth really want.

Young people want their leaders to listen to their worries, take them seriously and offer practical answers. It was therefore encouraging when Frederick Shava, the current president of UN Economic and the UN Social Council (ECOSOC), commended young people at the just-ended 2017 Youth Forum for specific and frank assessments of their concerns. He promised to strengthen their voices and participation in building the future we want in Africa.

Source: Africa Renewal.
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Trial began Monday for a man charged with sexually abusing a child more than 20 years ago.

If convicted for allegedly forcing an underage girl to perform sexual acts, 37-year-old Robert Rolin Calvin could face life in prison.

Calvin is charged with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of sexual assault, all involving the same victim.

Three women who have reported that Calvin abused them as children are expected to address the jury later this week. The other two women will present accounts of being abused by Calvin, but prosecutors have not charged him with crimes against those victims.

Expert witness on child abuse Wendy Dutton was the only person called to testify on the first day of trial.

Prosecutors will present evidence that from 1997 through 2001, Calvin was 18 and forced a girl eight years younger than him to perform oral sex on multiple occasions.

Calvin has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

The woman, now in her late 20s, accused Calvin and his brother, William Calvin, of abusing her as a child. William Calvin pleaded guilty to abusing the girl in 2015. He was sentenced in May 2016 to five years with the Montana Department of Corrections.

Trial will resume Tuesday in Yellowstone County District Court Judge Michael Moses' courtroom.
After approving its consent agenda and three main items of business Monday, the Billings City Council got a surprise  a letter from the citys Human Relations Commission asking the council to go on record as saying the city will have zero tolerance for racism, bigotry and hate crimes and will support respect and mutual understanding among the diversity of citizens who reside in Billings.

Commission Secretary Amaya Garcia wrote the letter, according to Commission Chair Kathy Walters, and it received endorsement from the nine-member commission earlier this month.

We are trying to get Billings to join in with other cities in the state (including Bozeman, Whitefish, Missoula and Kalispell) saying we are not going to tolerate this, Walters told the council. This needs to be a public statement from the government.

Billings has not been immune to recent events at the national and local level that have generated tensions, discord and mistrust among members of different groups of people, the letter states. In some cases these tensions have resulted in individuals publicly and openly carrying out acts of bigotry or making discriminatory remarks toward members of other religion, race, gender, nationality or other groups.  If people of different groups and political affiliations cannot work and live among each other, our city will not prosper.

While not a commission member, the Rev. Rob Kirby, campus minister at Montana State University Billings, told the council that in his ministry he works with a lot of people in minority status, and you need to know that a climate of hatred is growing in this city."

"Muslim students are told to go back to their home country, and some have been here most of their life. LGBT students get singled out just for looking like they dont fit in," Kirby said. "When you dont respond to these actions by stating unequivocally that this doesnt happen in our town, your silence speaks volumes.

Kirby urged council members not to just nod your head in agreement, but do the hard work of drafting a statement that speaks loudly.

While the council took no action on the letter Monday, Councilwoman Angela Cimmino called accepting the letter a gesture of goodwill. She noted that when someone painted a swastika on the Rims last November, it was removed quickly.

But not, Kirby noted, by city officials. It was removed by a private citizen after Kirby and another hiker discovered the Nazi symbol of anti-Semitism.

Kirby urged the council to go a step beyond condemning law-breaking activity.

This is proactively creating an environment of acceptance that many people are not feeling, he said. You can help create the environment of welcome that you are talking about.

Finalizing hobbyist beekeeping

In addition to approving a resolution that will pay for the installation of a new water main to the terminal building at Billings Logan International Airport, the council also endorsed, on second and final reading, an ordinance to allow hobbyist beekeeping in city limits.

To sweeten the deal, Jeannette Vieg, a member of the Animal Control Board, placed a bottle of locally produced honey in front of each council member.

Im not trying to bribe you, she said with a smile. I just wanted to say thank you for considering our ordinance.

Its no bribe, City Administrator Tina Volek assured the council.

City officials can accept gifts of up to $50, she said.
I was appalled to learn that Rep. Daniel Zolnikov recently led an effort to block the Solar Jobs and Energy Freedom Act when it came before a committee he chairs in the Montana House of Representatives. I dont understand how Zolnikov is opposed to allowing Montanans more choice when it comes to energy.

The solar industry is one of the fastest growing industries in America and because of outdated rules and regulations, Montana is not living up to our solar potential. The Solar Jobs and Energy Freedom Act would have created more jobs and allowed Montanans better access to clean, renewable solar power. It would have removed barriers to more Montanans using personal solar systems to power their homes and businesses.

By killing the bill when it came to the committee he chairs, it is clear that Zolnikov is on the side of special interests and not the people he claims to represent.

Hans Abbey

Billings
On the Facebook event page for the Minnesota 7th Congressional District Republican Party convention in Thief River Falls on Saturday, April 22, there's a listing for a "Congressional Candidate Forum Saturday morning" but no details are provided.

Bluestem has heard from multiple sources that Prinsburg Republican state representative Tim Miller is considering a run for Congress and will be participating in the forum. However, there's nothing in social media or print that confirms that Miller will be part of the forum, despite the rumor of the potential bid, which we are told is widespread at the state capitol.

Incumbent congressman Collin Peterson survived an underfunded campaign by Hughes, who garnered 47.4 percent of the vote. Hughes is running again. The Grand Forks Herald's Sam Easter reported in February in In a Minnesota congressional race, the road to 2018 already has begun:

The 2016 election is just barely over, but David Hughes, a Karlstad, Minn., Republican, said his bid for Congress is just getting startedagain. Hughes, who works for General Atomics at Grand Forks Air Force Base, is a former Air Force officer who campaigned for Minnesota's seventh congressional district, which includes much of the western half of the state. His conservative platformand what he calls the "Trump bump"won him about 47.4 percent of the vote. Incumbent Democrat Collin Peterson received nearly 52.5 percent. Hughes said he already is campaigning on social media, making appearances at agricultural expos and soon will head to Washington, D.C., to seek the support of Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. "I filed right after the election," Hughes said. "I did myself no favor by starting so late. The experience was the sooner the better." . . .

As of March 14, 2017, Miller has not filled to run for the office, according to a search of the candidate and committee database at the Federal Elections Commission.

Miller's profile has been raised this session by his frequent chairing of meetings of the Minnesota House Agriculture Finance Committee while Chair Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, experiences fatigue after a third-party cut his anti-fatigue medicine that is part of his medical care for his MS. An ag lobbyist at the capitol who has worked on a bill with Miller this year cautioned us against underestimating Miller, now in his second term.

We'd left messages with both Miller and Dave Hughes, who is running again after coming closest to knocking out Peterson than any Republican challenger since 1994. Hughes returned our call and confirmed that Miller had told congressional district leaders that Miller intended to participate in the forum.

Since Miller has not formally nor publicly announced a congressional bid, Hughes declined to comment on the potential bid.

We'll have more with this breaking story as leads come our way.

Photo: Minnesota State Representative Tim Miller thanking Congressman Collin Peterson for inviting him to a public pheasant hunting event. Don't underestimate the guy: one day he's your hunting buddy and soon, it's your seat that he's gunning for.

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A Busby man admitted on Tuesday that he lied about not being at the scene of an attack and burning of a Crow Agency woman who later died and that he had the victims jeans but didnt give the evidence to law enforcement.

During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Billings, Frank James Sanchez, 19, pleaded guilty to charges in the murder last year of Roylynn Rides Horse, 28.

Rides Horse died on June 28, 2016, in a Salt Lake City hospital where she had been transported for treatment of third-degree burns over 45 percent of her body. She also suffered severe frostbite to her legs.

Sanchez is the first of three defendants in the case to plead guilty.

Prosecutors accused Sanchez and two others of beating Rides Horse into unconsciousness and then dousing her with gasoline and lighting her on fire.

In a plea deal reached with prosecutors, Sanchez pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony and to being an accessory after the fact. An initial charge of first-degree murder is to be dismissed at sentencing if the judge accepts the agreement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Suek said there was no sentencing agreement and that the government may seek consecutive maximum terms on both crimes. There is an 18-year sentence at play here, she said.

Frank Sanchez faces a maximum 15 years in prison and a $150,000 fine on the accessory crime and three years and a $250,000 fine for not reporting a felony. First degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters set sentencing for July 6. Frank Sanchez remains in custody.

Co-defendants Dimarzio Swade Sanchez, 19, of Busby, and Angelica Jo Whiteman, 24, of Billings, are awaiting a May 22 trial on first-degree murder charges.

I had no idea what was going to happen, Frank Sanchez said, telling the judge that his brother, Dimarzio Sanchez, and Whiteman killed Rides Horse.

Frank Sanchez admitted he lied when he initially told investigators that he wasnt at the scene but that he told the truth about two weeks later in another interview.

He also said that Dimarzio Sanchez threw Rides Horses jeans at him when dropping him off later. He told me to get rid of them, he said.

Frank Sanchez told the judge he dropped out of high school as a freshman and that his only job was working at the sawmill in Ashland for about two weeks prior to the crime. Sanchez said he was single and had a 4-month-old daughter.

In addition, the defendant said he has twice been to treatment for alcohol use but got kicked out of both programs for fighting.

Prosecutor Lori Suek said the attack happened on April 17 after Rides Horse asked Whiteman for a ride home to Crow Agency from the Kirby Saloon, where the victim and her common-law husband had argued.

The women, along with Frank Sanchez and others, left in a car driven by Dimarzio Sanchez. Along the way, Whiteman began arguing with Rides Horse and started beating her, Suek said.

Dimarzio Sanchez drove to Castle Rock Road off of U.S. Highway 212, on the Crow Reservation, where he stopped. Whiteman dragged the victim out of the car and continued to beat and strangle her, the prosecutor said.

Dimarzio Sanchez also showed Whiteman how to strangle the victim using a bandana, Suek said.

Rides Horse was beaten unconscious and stripped naked, Suek said. Dimarzio Sanchez instructed Frank Sanchez to get a gas can from the trunk of the car, doused the victim with gasoline and set her on fire, she said.

Rides Horse remained in the field for 14 hours before being discovered and given emergency medical treatment.

Law enforcement learned that Frank Sanchez witnessed the crime but didnt report it, Suek said. The defendant also gave a false alibi and denied being at the scene during an April 19 interview with investigators, she said. Frank Sanchez gave a truthful statement two weeks later.
Youth leader Ma May Myat San explained the preliminary Arakan Youth Conference, which was held in Manaung, and current activities while another youth leader Ko Khin Thein explained the financial clarification.

The Arakan Youth Conference will be held in Toungup this December, youth leader Ko Tun Tun (Mrauk U) said at the press conference.

The Arakan Youth Conference will be held under three aims: for the entire Arakan youths to join hands for the Arakan national interest, for the emergence of the common understandings of the Arakan youths on the building of the future Arakan State, and for youths to effectively become involved for the entire Arakan peoples right for self-determination.

Youth leader Ma Yu Thazin Naing told the press that youths from seven Arakan sub-tribes including Thet, Myo, Khami, and Maramagyi will also be invited to the Arakan Youth Conference besides the Arakanese youths.

Concerning the aims of holding the conference, youth leader Ko Aung Naing said: The conference will be held with the aims for the emergence of an independent and strong youth group, for Arakan youths to have better abilities and cooperate effectively in respective sectors, for ethnic groups who are in the same boat including the Arakan people to obtain their original rights and connect with other ethnic groups.

The preliminary committee of the Arakan Youth Conference transferred the tasks and finance to the Arakan Youth Conference Organising and Steering Committee during the press conference.

Members of the Arakan Youth Conference Organising Committee are Ma Aye Myat Kyaw (Sittwe), Ko Kyaw Min Khaing (Rathedaung), Ko Win Zaw (Toungup), Ma Yu Thazin Naing (Rangoon), Ko Zaw Zaw Tun (Sittwe), Ma Shwe Lar (Mrauk U), Ma Myat Noe Thar (Toungup), Ko Kaung Myat Kyaw (Minbya), Ko Tun Tun (Mrauk U), Ko Min Than San (Buthidaung), Ko Aung Naing (Hpakant), and Ma Su Myat Htwe (Ramree).

Ko Tun Hlaing served as master of ceremony during the press conference. Pyithu Hluttaw MP U Oo Hla Saw, Arakan youth leaders, and many reporters were seen in attendance.
PR Newswire

OAKLAND, Calif., March 13, 2017

OAKLAND, Calif., March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sungevity, Inc. ("Sungevity"), a technology-driven solutions provider, offering exceptional service and choice to residential and commercial solar energy customers, today announced that it has commenced voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, in order to facilitate a financial and corporate restructuring to strengthen its balance sheet and recapitalize the company. During the Chapter 11 proceedings, it is expected that the company's operations will continue uninterrupted.

In connection with the restructuring process, and under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, the company has entered into an asset purchase agreement with a group of investors, led by Northern Pacific Group. Under the terms of the agreement, Northern Pacific Group will acquire substantially all of the company's assets, including the equity interests in the European operations. While Sungevity's European operations are part of the transaction, their day-to-day operations will not be impacted as a result of the Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. The purchase agreement sets the floor, or minimum acceptable bid, for an auction under the supervision of the court, which is designed to achieve the highest available offer. Sungevity expects to complete its financial restructuring and sale through an expedited process. A final sale approval hearing and closing of the sale is expected to take place by the end of April.

To provide capital for the company's operations and to fund the auction and sale process, the group of investors has committed to provide the company with up to $20 million in financing. Subject to interim court approval, the financing will be immediately available to the company, to be used to fund the company's day-to-day operations, and pay any expenses related to the Chapter 11 proceedings.

William Nettles, Sungevity's newly appointed Chief Administration Officer, said "The agreement we have reached with the team led by Northern Pacific Group and its co-investors is a testament to their confidence in the future of Sungevity's business. The actions we have announced today will allow Sungevity to emerge as a stronger and more competitive company. With its market-leading software platform and its high quality employees who provide unwavering commitment to customers and exceptional service, Sungevity intends to be at the forefront of the industry as solar continues on its growth trajectory in the years ahead."

"The Board and its advisors reviewed a range of options and ultimately decided that a court-supervised sale represents the best path forward for our customers, suppliers, employees and business partners," said Andrew Birch, Sungevity's Chief Executive Officer. "During the sale process, our team will remain committed to serving our customers and delivering our industry leading service. Our ample on-hand inventory and uninterrupted installment contracts position us well to continue fulfilling our customers' orders. Sungevity has long been a pioneer in the field of residential solar installation, and we believe that this represents a step forward for the company."

The company has filed a number of customary pleadings with the court, seeking authorization to pay certain prepetition obligations, support its business operations, and transition them through the sale process. These include the payment of employee wages, taxes, insurance, critical vendors, and utility providers, as well as the continuation of the company's customer support programs. This will ensure that the company can continue to operate and serve its customers without interruption.

About Sungevity

Sungevity, Inc., is a technology-driven solutions provider, offering optimal service and choice to residential and commercial solar energy customers. Sungevity's asset-light business model focuses on value-added in-house services for software platform development, project management and customer experience; this focus is enabled by a strong, scalable network of third-party providers for asset-intensive and/or lower margined provision of hardware, installation services and financing. Sungevity's disruptive competitive model delivers greater value directly to customers and, for shareholders, captures immediate financial value at the time of sale.

About Northern Pacific Group

Northern Pacific Group is a Wayzata, MN-based private equity firm investing in rapidly growing businesses that serve enterprise customers. Northern Pacific Group seeks to drive collaborative achievement at portfolio companies in partnership with ownership groups and management teams. For more information, please visit www.northernpacificgroup.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sungevity-inc-announces-plan-to-strengthen-balance-sheet-and-restructure-company-300422998.html

SOURCE Sungevity, Inc.
March 10, 2017

Turkey has been expanding its relations with Gulf Cooperation Council members, particularly Qatar. Turkey-Qatar relations have gained significant momentum during the past three months, led by the personal actions of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who address each other as "brother." This interesting development calls for a closer look.

When Qatar's emir visited Turkey in December 2014, the countries set up a bilateral cooperation and consultation group called the Turkey-Qatar High Strategic Committee and forged agreements on military training, the defense industry and deploying Turkish Armed Forces in Qatari territory. As a result, about 150 Turkish army, navy and special forces personnel have been stationed temporarily at a Qatari military base since October 2015, waiting for construction to be completed on a permanent Turkish base. Turkey plans to augment its force there to 3,000 personnel once the base is ready.

Erdogan and Al Thani meet frequently. The latest meeting was Dec. 18, when the emir visited Trabzon on the Black Sea.

During that trip, the men signed significant agreements regarding energy, tourism, construction, defense and security. Turkey is expected to export to Qatar $2 billion worth of armored vehicles, radars and drones, as well as assorted military equipment for communications, night/thermal optics and other uses.

On Feb. 15, during Erdogans visit to Qatar as part of his GCC tour, he emphasized the importance of Turkey-Qatar relations and said: Qatar has always been, especially in recent difficult times, a strong friend of Turkey. With Qatar, we look at all regional problems from the same window. Such close Turkey-Qatar cooperation is very important for the future of the region.

There have been manifestations of this friendship in the field. When Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 warplane in November 2015, Turkeys relations with Russia  its main natural gas supplier  seriously soured. Qatar agreed to supply Turkey with liquefied natural gas.

In addition to basing its military personnel in Qatar to conduct training and joint exercises, Turkey also intends to sell Qatar defense industry products. Qatar appreciates Turkeys approach for joint production, research and development, and easy technology transfer. Turkey is aware that Qatar, in addition to its traditional allies like the United States, is interested in diversifying its defense and security procurement.

Realistically speaking, what Qatar really needs is beyond what Turkey can offer. Qatar is particularly interested in systems and platforms that require high technology, as in Israels sophisticated Iron Dome air defense system, satellite and space technology, drones and frigates.

At first glance, one gets the impression Turkey's main motivation is money, and Qatars warming up to Turkey is because of the opportunity to diversify and obtain military technology. But it is a bit more complex than that.

Turkey and Qatar have opted for closer relations in defense and security because they face similar security dilemmas.

One of their common perceived threats is their joint regional opponent, Iran. Irans growing influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen; its skill in mobilizing effective, armed militias; and its ballistic missile and nuclear programs have compelled the Turkey-Qatar cooperation.

Another consideration is Russia's growing presence in the Middle East, especially in GCC countries. While GCC countries expect economic benefits from Russias interest in their region, they are also concerned with its security threat implications. They are particularly concerned with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's recent reference to the "post-West" world order, which was seen as a reflection of Russias revisionist attitude.

Something else encouraging closer Turkey-Qatar relations is the ambiguity and uncertainty in the Middle East that began with US President Donald Trumps election. His visa embargoes on six Islamic countries, his references to radical Islamic terrorism and his adviser Steve Bannon's opinions on Islam have motivated the GCC to move closer to Turkey. Some Qatari officials and academics fear that the visa embargo could well be expanded to GCC countries, although that's highly unlikely given the US economic interests in the region and its massive military presence in Qatar.

Qatar and Turkey also share a common security threat from violent, extreme Salafi networks in the region.

According to Nejar Tarakci, an expert at the Turkish Asian Center of Strategic Studies, Qatar is truly skilled and pragmatic when it comes to adapting to developments in the region.

Turkish companies doing business in Qatar in construction, defense, finance and retailing have reached the level of $15 billion. After Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Qatar has become the third-favorite country for Turkish business, he told Al-Monitor. I believe this volume of economic relations automatically brings about military cooperation. Details are not yet finalized, but in two years Qatar will base 3,000 Turkish soldiers on its land. And, if it so wishes, Qatar will be allowed to open a military base in Turkey.

According to a security source from Qatar Military Strategic Studies Center, who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, there is a security vacuum in the region because of the Arab Spring; the gradual withdrawal of Iraq, Syria and Egypt from the Middle East stage; the preoccupation of Saudi Arabia and European countries with their own issues; and declining US interest in the region's security. This is why Turkey has an opportunity to counteract Iranian and Russian influences. The Qatari expert, a retired colonel, said it is time to question the validity of old habits of putting all our eggs in the same basket. He added that it is time for Qatar to diversify its partners and risks.

In light of regional developments, Qatar has developed a two-pronged geopolitical strategy. First, by taking the sovereign asset funds it earns from energy revenues and investing them in international fields, it diversifies its national income. Second, the country is working to balance the potential security threat of Iran with the cooperation of regional and external players. This situation makes Turkey the best-qualified candidate to meet both Qatari needs.

Nevertheless, Qatar-Turkey cooperation, which is built on the personal friendship of Erdogan and Al Thani, so far is an elite, top-down process that still needs to develop a foundation reinforced by considerable input from the security bureaucracies of both countries, their think tanks and defense industries.
BISMARCK, N.D.  The North Dakota Senate has killed a bill to repeal the state's longstanding Sunday business restrictions.

The bipartisan measure lifting the state's so-called blue laws failed 22-25 in the Senate on Tuesday. It narrowly passed the House 48-46 last month.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says about a dozen states have some form of Sunday sales laws, but only North Dakota prohibits shopping on Sunday morning.

North Dakota residents can order alcohol at a restaurant or bar late Sunday morning but must wait until afternoon to go shopping because of the ban that's rooted in religious tradition.

North Dakota law once required most businesses to stay closed on Sundays. The Legislature in 1991 allowed most businesses to open on Sundays but not before noon.
LARAMIE, Wyo.  Former Wyoming State House Speaker Kermit Brown will soon take a seat on the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees.

Gov. Matt Mead appointed Brown, of Laramie, to the board and the state Senate confirmed his appointment recently.

Brown is expected to begin serving a six-year term on the 12-member UW Board of Trustees at its March meeting.

Brown told the Laramie Boomerang (http://bit.ly/2mKNnMi ) that serving on the board was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. He is an attorney and graduated from the UW College of Law in 1973.

UW trustees face some of the most significant challenges in the institution's history. UW is working to weather $42 million in state funding cuts and changes.

Before those cuts are over, UW's leaders expect to lose anywhere from 250 to 400 positions.

___

Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com
GREEN RIVER, Wyo.  A Green River man is charged with two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide after prosecutors say he hit a house while driving under the influence of a narcotic, killing a woman and her 1-year-old great-granddaughter.

The Rocket Miner reports (bit.ly/2mFPkYw) 68-year-old George Maestas made an initial court appearance Monday. He also is charged with DUI causing serious bodily injury for the crash Friday morning. He did not enter a plea.

His bail was set at $1 million and his preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 20.

Maestas is charged in the deaths of 62-year-old Debra Devries and Stella Doak. Three others were injured.

Court records say Maestas told officers someone gave him a prescription narcotic at about 2 a.m. Friday and that he drank some Nyquil before going to bed.

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Information from: Rock Springs (Wyo.) Rocket-Miner, http://www.rocketminer.com
The name may not ring a bell for many but Lefhoko Primary School defied all odds to score a 100 percent pass rate in the 2016 Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

Situated in the poverty-riddled settlement of Lefhoko on the outskirts of Jwaneng, the school will be among those honoured for academic excellence at the Diamond Dream Awards later this month, says the schools head teacher, Tiny Motswagare. The inaugural awards, organised by Debswana Mine are intended to improve the education standards within the mines zone of influence by rewarding excellence and inspiring hardwork among learners and teachers.

A total of 23 primary schools and five junior secondary schools will compete across various categories that reward individual excellence for the learner, teacher and school. For the school, constant violence, absenteeism, poverty, parental negligence, illiteracy and a society whose priorities are on farming and keeping cattle are some of the obstacles teachers and pupils face.





There are times when we have to travel to cattle posts to get kids to school. To teach here goes beyond the call of duty. We have to put in an extra effort to convince the parents that education is better than the animals they want their children to remain home and look after, she said.

She said that the classrooms are filled with pupils who mostly attend to get a guarantee of lunch, have no proper school uniform and in some instances come to school barefooted. In 2014 and 2015, the school produced less than stellar results at 35 percent and 38.9 percent pass rates respectively. Motswagare, who could not contain her excitement when speaking to this publication recently in Lefhoko, attributed the schools dramatic change in fortune to a change in culture and a secret weapon in the form of a new teacher who joined the school.

The teacher in question, Kedibonye Ramodimo joined the school in 2016 from Gaborone where she was a temporary teacher at Taung. She has been a Godsend, gushed Motswagare who described Ramodimo as the most dedicated and passionate teacher she has ever come across. We also had closer working relations between parents, teachers and pupils, she said. From September, throughout the examination, pupils and teachers camped inside the school, revising. Parents cooperated and even contributed the P30 we required for food. When we had a shortfall, teachers also searched their pockets to help. That to me is going above and beyond and I am very grateful to have such a team, she said.

The printer Debswana bought for us also helped a lot because we were able to readily print revision materials. Before, we would have to go to Kanye or Jwaneng for such a service, Motswagare explained. We are very grateful to companies like Debswana that recognise and rewards success such as ours, said Motswagare.

The mine has also undertaken to construct a P1.5 million-kitchen for the school which until recently prepared food for pupils in an open space. Member of Parliament for Kanye South, Abram Kesupile commended the school for becoming number one in the Jwaneng/Mabutsane Sub region. It is truly inspiring, he said, adding, this is testimony that with the right support, our learners can courageously battle all odds and make it, he said.
Hardly 30 kilometres from Botswanas premiere diamond mine, Jwaneng, lies a humble poverty-stricken village known as Lefhoko in the Mabutsane sub-district.

There was great excitement in the village recently when Debswana Jwaneng Mine handed over five standard LA2 houses to the community. The project, dubbed Diamond Village built to the tune of P1.5 million was answering a need by the village to house government officers such as police officers and nurses who have been transferred to the village. Until then, it was noted that it took at least two years for officers to resume their duties due to lack of accommodation.

The Mines General Manager Albert Milton said the donation is a culmination of a series of meetings between themselves, Kgosi Nthomang, the Village Development Committee (VDC) and Mabutsane Sub-District leadership. He said the project, dubbed the Diamond Village was executed after they had looked at the impact the project would have on the community and the number of people that would be affected by the donation.





We strongly believe that this project will have a long-term benefit to the community through capital generated monthly by the VDC. The rentals from this project will be channeled towards socio-economic development that will eventually transform the landscape of Lefhoko, explained Milton. He added that due to collaboration with Mabutsane Sub District Council, rentals for tenants to the VDC will be deducted directly from source, which will ensure cash flow sustainability of the project. Milton said the mine is always looking for forward thinking initiatives that will address the problem of employer dependency. Mines like lots of businesses have a finite shelf-life, and we will not always be available to fund and support the local communities. If we can capitalise our Social Investment money into a business principled approach, with money generation and livelihood creation as its focus, we hope to leave a lasting-legacy thriving long after we have gone, he said.

He shared that the mine is involved in a wide range of community development initiatives, such as the construction of a kitchen for Lefhoko Primary School. Currently the school does not have a kitchen and during rainy seasons, it is difficult to feed the learners. Not far from Lefhoko, in the village of Tsonyane, Milton said they would soon hand over a fully-fledged tribal administration office block while also upgrading the clinic. In Maboane village, the mine will hand over a water reservoir and an equipped borehole that will greatly improve water reticulation in the village. A kgotla office block for the village of Mahotswane is also in the works this year.

All the projects within the mines Zone of Influence this year are expected to cost P10 million. Expressing gratitude as he accepted the LA2 houses, Kgosi Biki Nthomang of Lefhoko said benefits to the community was the quality housing units for families which translates into human dignity. Not just that, but the fact that local building contractors were being used during construction of the houses, Kgosi Nthomang said it created jobs and economic livelihood in the poverty-stricken village where source of employment for many is through Ipelegeng.
Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) leader President Ian Khamas decision to suspend some of the party members in Tlokweng Constituency in 2014 is now backfiring on the party. The bad blood between the two warring factions in the constituency, one aligned with former area MP Olebile Gaborone and the other supporting the current party Parliamentary candidate for the area Elijah Katse, is said to be compromising the BDP chances of winning the constituency.

Amid heated political activities towards the 2014 general election, President Khama suspended Katse and some of his council candidates after they won the partys primary elections over allegations of vote rigging. Katse and his suspended team were recalled as candidates and the losing team was given the green light to represent the party in the general election. After losing in the general election the Gaborone-led team accused their disgruntled counterparts (Katse-led team) of sabotaging them, claiming they deprived them of the much-needed support in favour of Umbrella for Democratic Change candidate - the late MP, Same Bathobakae. Now things have taken a dramatic twist.

The losing 2014 team has taken the war to Katse who now represents BDP in the yet-to-be announced date for by-election. It has emerged that the two teams dont see eye to eye, a factor that no doubt worries the party leadership. It has also been alleged that the delayed announcement for the by-election date by the President could be a tactic by the ruling party to buy time to put its house in order. Insiders say the pro-Gaborone faction says it will not support Katse just as his team denied it support in 2014. They argue that Katse and his team were a contributory factor for the partys loss as they took their disgruntlement to the electorate and the polls. House to house campaigns in the constituency are also said to be done along factional lines as those who were not in Katses team in 2014 have been sidelined.





Even though Katse and party Secretary General Botsalo Ntuane have maintained that all is well in the constituency, the situation is said to be the opposite. This week Ntuane insisted that things are going according to plan and dismissed allegations of factional differences as mere beerhall talk. Botswana Guardian however has it on good authority that the two teams are speaking at cross-purposes and that the party leadership is expected to take advantage of the South East Regional Congress in Tlokweng tomorrow (Saturday) to reconcile the warring factions.

The congress would be followed by a star rally addressed by Vice President and party Chairman Mokgweetsi Masisi, ministers and central committee members who are expected to preach peace. This publication can also safely confirm that the South-East Region has also made it its top priority to unite the two factions in the interest of winning the constituency. Since the 2014 general election, BDP in Tlokweng has never been united.

BDP South East Region Secretary Collen Mochotlhi confirmed the congress but said it would not discuss the alleged factionalism. He said as far as he knows the party is doing well in terms of campaign. He also confirmed that as the region they are deploying teams to the constituency indicating that on Wednesday this week councillors from Ramotswa were scheduled to join the campaign. Mochotlhi said they are also expecting a team from Kgatleng to assist on Saturday after the congress.Ntuane rubbished claims of factionalism expressing confidence of winning the constituency.

He also stated that as the BDP they do not influence issuance of the writ of election. We have no influence on the Independent Electoral Commission about elections. That is entirely upon them to tell us when the election would be held. I mean just because we are in government you cannot suggest that we have an influence. We are also in the dark as an interested party in the by-election. We are united in Tlokweng and more support is coming from other parts of the country to lend support, said Ntuane.

He said people should not be derailed by the poor attendance of their weekly rallies and interpret such in an uninformed manner. Contrary to claims by Ntuane, the Electoral Act states that the president issues a writ for a Parliamentary by-election. In accordance with Section 34 of the Electoral Act for purposes of a general election or a by-election to fill a vacancy therein caused by death, resignation or otherwise, the President shall issue a writ under the public seal of Botswana, addressed to the returning officer.

IEC Principal Public Relations Officer Osupile Maroba said the issue of writ is outside their jurisdiction.

Maroba stated that Section 34 of the Electoral Act is not clear in terms of the period within which elections should be held for Parliamentary seat as opposed to council which is within 90 days. He said the election however could not be expected soon as we are about to experience transition into the new financial year. The division in Tlokweng according to sources is likely to repeat what transpired in the build-up to Goodhope-Mabule by-election where the party was divided over the candidate Eric Molale who later lost to UDCs Kgosi Lotlaamoreng.
Francistown City Council specially-elected councillor and former mayor James Kgalajwe has confirmed that he will enter the race to contest for the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Francistown regional chairmanship over the weekend.

His sentiments follow hard on allegations that he is positioning himself to challenge Francistown East Member of Parliament in the 2019 general election. The source said once Kgalajwe clinches the chairmanship his campaign strategy will be on a good course as he will use his position to lure electorate to his side.

But Kgalajwe said his main aim of entering the chairmanship race was his desire to work for the party to offset the opposition in 2019. You must realise that when one has a position of responsibility their chances of proxy politics are very limited as all regional complaints are addressed by them.





If I win the chairmanship position, I will not have any space to do proxy campaigns since all democrats in the Francistown region will look up to me for guidance, he added. Francistown regional secretary Raoboy Mpuang who is also alleged to be itching for Francistown West Constituency currently under Ignatius Moswaane will not defend his position over the weekend to allow himself ample time for house to house campaigns.

Mpuang rubbished such claims in a recent interview saying that his hands are currently full with his personal projects which will make it impossible for him to deliver.
Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) in collaboration with the Botswana Society on Friday gave members of the media an opportunity to see the city of Gaborone through the eyes of a tourist.

The event, dubbed the Gaborone Cultural Heritage City Tour, afforded the tourists with a chance to experience the beauty of the city and the history behind some of its heritage sights. The Botswana Society is a non-profit organisation that has been promoting Botswanas heritage for more than forty years through its books, journals and public events. In their efforts and dedication to re-tell Botswanas heritage, they conceptualised the Gaborone Cultural Heritage Tour as a way of promoting cultural heritage.

An interesting development about this tour is the fact that some of us all take for granted the history, and are rather not interested or are too lazy to take time and learn about places that are in our own backyards. Instead, we usually tend to spend money travelling to foreign countries and investing time in knowing about these places.





The packed itinerary started off at the National Museum where tour guide Benson Dingalo took the media through some of the old forms of transport that include the sleigh, ox wagon as well as the donkey carts and one of the first trains, Rhodesia train. However, the fact that the museum is closed deprived them the opportunity to know about some history of Botswana and her journey.

Prior to picking Gaborone as the capital city, there were other areas that include Shashe, Lobatse, Serowe, and Palapye that were on the table. But the final selection was Gaborone due to its proximity as well as its location on the Cape-Cairo route and the Gaborone Dam that had been established in 1963. In the beginning due to the then lifestyle of Batswana, it was anticipated that 20 000 residents would reside in the city. Next up on the tour was a short drive to the National Museum. The drive afforded us the chance to learn more about a monument for The Pioneers.

The Pioneers were Batswana who participated in the Second World War (1939-1945), and were on the side of British (our colonisers). The men who eventually departed for the war were picked by their chiefs. In total, ten thousand men left for the war, and two hundred and ten lost their lives and six hundred and thirty seven were injured.

Dingalo explained that because most of the men were not experienced in using weapons, most of the men took posts such as digging holes for the soldiers as well as cooking. You can imagine that sending ten thousand men from a population of 300,000 at the time was a big number, he said. Second up was driving to the University of Botswana (UB) and learning along the way that at the time of independence in 1966, only what is known today, as the Grand Stand existed at the National Stadium. Prior to the establishment of the University of Botswana, the governments of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland had BOLESWA that was based in Lesotho until around 1975.

Following this development, Botswana and Swaziland partnered. The UB became a stand along university in 1982. The tourists learnt about one of the important rooms in the compound of the UB that is the old library. Back then, students either had to stand or borrow the books and use them outside the small library. Other places that they visited included a drive to the Gaberones Camp, where two colonial masters of the time were housed.

The place that is today called the Village also has a gravesite for the victims of the Anglo Boer war. Unfortunately, the graves all look abandoned with tall grass covering them. The old Prison was next on the list. And most importantly, was learning about the BHC trial houses that are located at the Village. The houses made with Asbestos were later abandoned. For this reporter, this was one of the highlights from this tour. For years, we have passed by these houses and have always longed to know the story behind them. Eventually, I had thought expatriates who have gone back and left them in that state owned them.

Old Naledi was another highlight from the half-day itinerary. The history of the township can be traced to around 1970 when the city was established. There was no residential plan for the people who came to Gaborone seeking employment. It is on this backdrop that a squatter settlement was established at Old Naledi, and the government later declared the residents of this settlement legal. Pieces of land were allocated on a first come first serve basis. And the land came with a drop toilet, Dingalo said. Other places on the tour included the Three Chiefs Monument as well as Bonnington.
Serokolwane Lawns was this past Saturday transformed into a hub of fashion during the 2017 edition of Son of the Soil. Clad in different traditional outfits, the revellers, who were dressed to the nines, made one think of neighbouring South Africas fashionable event in the calendar, the Durban July.

It was such a delight to see different generations of men, women and children coming together to not only celebrate their culture but also put their best foot forward in style. One of the aspects worth mentioning was the elegance through which a lot of the outfits at this years event were worn.

From the ensemble worn on this particular day, it was a no brainer that thoughtfulness, planning and a lot of visits to the tailors were made as some couples matched their outfits whilst others wore complementary colours. In other instances, daughters wore smaller versions of their mothers outfits, which was quite cute. Some families all wore matching outfits.





While it is common that sometimes women take the attention away from the men in the fashion stakes, this was not the case. The men also dressed for the occasion and showed of their finest garments from leopard print vests, waist coats made from animal skin to a mixture of items of clothing made from soft leather and cotton. Some sought inspiration from neighbouring Lesotho and Swaziland.

One guest, Hosiah Motlhalawapitse could have been mistaken for Swazilands King Mswati as he arrived dressed in traditional Swati attire. It was hard to miss him in his chosen outfit of the day. Some people had on the Zulu headgear while others still wore Sotho traditional gear. This years instalment of Son of the Soil was every fashion lovers dream as the magnificent outfits showed. Some designers could have definitely learnt a thing or two on the day.




NEW DELHI (PTI): Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was on Monday given the additional charge of the Defence Ministry after Manohar Parrikar resigned to take on the new role of Goa Chief Minister.



A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique said that the resignation of Parrikar as the Defence Minister, on advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been accepted with immediate effect.



"Further, as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Arun Jaitely, Cabinet Minister, shall be assigned the charge of the Ministry of Defence, in addition to his existing portfolios," the communique said.



Parrikar submitted his resignation after BJP staked claim to form an alliance Government in Goa.



He will be sworn in as the Chief Minister of Goa on Tuesday heading the BJP-led ministry which has the support of regional outfits and Independents.



This is the second time that Jaitley is holding the additional portfolio of Defence Ministry during the present NDA government.



He was incharge of the ministry earlier from May 26 to November 9 in 2014.


The second in command of a Navy submarine named after the state told lawmakers on Tuesday it has performed exceptionally well in the field since being commissioned.

Lt. Cmdr. Joel Holwitt of the USS North Dakota said the Virginia class nuclear submarine has, since its October 2014 commissioning, taken part in important missions and its crew received honors for its service. Holwitt addressed lawmakers Tuesday on behalf of the ships top officer, Cmdr. Michael P. Hollenbach.

The crew of the USS North Dakota were awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation for operations during its first mission that took place in summer 2015.

Holwitt said it was deployed at that time working with U.S. European Command, conducting a mission involving unmanned undersea vehicles for surveillance and mapping operations. He said it was a mission that no previous American submarine had ever performed.

He added that such an award is extremely rare for a Navy vessel in its first year of deployment.

Further missions are scheduled in the months ahead.

(We) will execute a detailed test program for every weapons system in your boat in order to certify their readiness for combat, said Holwitt, adding the most advanced available technology was installed in the USS North Dakota, which took five years to build.

It replaces the older model of submarine sonar with a new type of array for sonar built into the bow. It also contains two Virginia Payload Tubes, which crew members call our six shooters, a reference to each of the tubes ability to hold six missiles for land or sea strikes, according to Holwitt.

The tubes will fire live Tomahawk missiles in one of the test operations, the first live test of the Virginia Payload Tube system.

The ship was constructed at a cost of $2.6 billion and is 377 feet long, 34 feet wide and has a 33-year shelf life without refueling. It is manned by 135 crew and officers.

Holwitt said he was pleased to be back in North Dakota for the second time in his life: The first time was for a national high school classical language competition in Fargo, where he spent a week.

It was an honor to be delivering an update on one of the most advanced pieces of the Navy fleet ever built to date to the people whose state it was named after, he said.

The first time visiting the state was memorable as well, though for an entirely different reason.

Even though I grew up in Texas, the very first time I ever spent hunkered in a basement waiting out a tornado was that week in Fargo, Holwitt said, drawing laughter from lawmakers.


An internet image of the J-20 stealth fighter of China.

BEIJING (PTI): China has operationalised its first stealth aircraft and tested it in the rugged Tibet region for its endurance in high altitude, a development that will have major implications for India.



A video footage from state-run CCTV Channel 7 on March 10 showed the J-20 fighters joining the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) with Y-20 transport planes and H-6K bombers.



CCTV did not say how many J-20 fighter jets were serving in the air force, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported last week.



The average height of Tibet Autonomous Region is more than 4,000 m above the sea level, for which Tibet is known as the 'roof of the world'.



J-20 fighters is regarded as major breakthrough for China which is moderninsing its military in a big way.



The airing of the video coincides with the current annual session of China's Parliament.



Highlighting the J-20 features, an official in the PLAAF told media in Zhuhai last year that "J-20 contains many of China's top technologies in stealth aircraft plus other military secrets."



"The secrets include the J-20's body shape, the proportion of its wing and body and other secrets as aircraft experts can easily calculate its stealth parameters from its exterior," the official was quoted as saying.



However, experts said perhaps a small number of aircraft may have been made ready.



Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong said that it was likely that just a small number of J-20 jets had been produced due to engine problems.



"The J-20 has not yet entered mass production progress, and now just a few limited aircraft are able to serve in the air force, similar to the Y-20," he said.



Earlier, the J-20 which was displayed at China's biggest air show at Zhuhai last November made waves in India when its photographs at an airport in Tibet were published.



But subsequently the Chinese military has discounted that J-20 will be deployed in Tibet along the India-China border.



Reacting to the media report "China's stealth fighter J-20 spotted at the Daocheng Yading Airport in Tibet", an article on the PLA website in September last year said the plane will be put into service soon but the 'China-India border is apparently not the ideal place for its deployment'.



"In addition, the world's highest airport there does not have a complete set of supporting facilities and such shortage will impede the function of J-20," the report had said.



"J-20 will not be deployed in Daocheng Yading airport as the airport is too close to the border and it is vulnerable to India's first wave hit. If India is to deploy BRAHMOS missile on the China-India border, then the Daocheng Yading airport will likely to become its target," it said.



"Experts pointed out that for India, China is undoubtedly its largest opponent and therefore every move of the Chinese military will touch the nerve of Indian media. However, the Indian military has more movements than China along the China-India border," it said.



Also Pakistan, the largest importer of Chinese arms, has said earlier that it is in talks with China to buy the FC-31  an export variant of the same aircraft.



The FC-31 was briefly flown in the 2014 Zhuhai airshow.




The Marine Corps of China. An internet photo

BEIJING (PTI): China is set to increase the number of its marine corps from 20,000 to one lakh as part of plans to deploy them overseas for the first time, including at the strategic Gwadar port in Pakistan and military logistics base in Djibouti in the Indian Ocean.



The expansion is planned to protect China's maritime lifelines and its growing interests overseas, Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post reported on Monday.



Some members would be stationed at ports China operates in Djibouti and Gwadar in southwest Pakistan, Chinese military insiders and experts were quoted as saying.



Gwadar port is a deep-sea port next to the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil route in and out of the Persian Gulf, built with Chinese funding and operated by mainland firms.



Although the port is not home to any PLA installation, navy ships are expected to dock at the facility in the near future, the report said.



Gwadar also connects the US$ 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through PoK with China's Xinjiang.



Reports from Pakistan said the country itself is setting up Special Security Division comprising 15,000 troops, including 9,000 Pakistan Army soldiers and 6,000 para-military forces personnel to protect CPEC and Chinese personnel.



The expanded Chinese marine corps is part of a wider push to refocus the world's largest army away from winning a land war based on sheer numbers and towards meeting a range of security scenarios using highly specialised units, the report said.



Towards that end, Chinese President Xi Jinping is reducing the size of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) by three lakh, with nearly all of the cuts coming from the land forces, it said.



For this, two brigades of special combat soldiers had already been moved to the marines, nearly doubling its size to 20,000, and more brigades would be added, the report said.



"The PLA marines will be increased to 100,000, consisting of six brigades in the coming future to fulfil new missions of our country," it quoted a source as saying.



The size of the navy would also grow 15 per cent from its current estimated size of 2.35 lakh personnel.



China this year plans to increase its defence spending by about seven per cent to US$ 152 billion. Much of it was expected to go to the navy as China plans to spread its influence far from its shores.



Traditionally, marines have mostly operated only in China's coastal areas, as their role was limited by their relatively small numbers and basic equipment, Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said.



But a bigger corps could be deployed much farther afield as the navy takes on more challenges.




India's first lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 orbiting the Moon. An ISRO photo

WASHINGTON (PTI): India's first lunar probe  the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft  which was considered lost, is still orbiting the Moon, NASA scientists have found by using a new ground-based radar technique.



Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost communication with Chandrayaan-1 on August 29, 2009, almost a year after it was launched on October 22, 2008.



Now, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California have successfully located the spacecraft still circling some 200 kilometres above the lunar surface.



"We have been able to detect NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Indian Space Research Organisation's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in lunar orbit with ground-based radar," said Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at JPL and principal investigator for the test project.



"Finding LRO was relatively easy, as we were working with the mission's navigators and had precise orbit data where it was located. Finding India's Chandrayaan-1 required a bit more detective work because the last contact with the spacecraft was in August of 2009," said Brozovic.



The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is very small, a cube about 1.5 meters on each side  about half the size of a smart car.



Although the interplanetary radar has been used to observe small asteroids several million miles from Earth, researchers were not certain that an object of this smaller size as far away as the Moon could be detected, even with the world's most powerful radars.



Chandrayaan-1 proved the perfect target for demonstrating the capability of this technique.



To find a spacecraft 380,000 kilometres away, JPL's team used NASA's 70-metre antenna at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California to send out a powerful beam of microwaves directed towards the Moon.



Then the radar echoes bounced back from lunar orbit were received by the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.



Finding a derelict spacecraft at lunar distance that has not been tracked for years is tricky because the Moon is riddled with mascons (regions with higher-than-average gravitational pull) that can dramatically affect a spacecraft's orbit over time, and even cause it to have crashed into the Moon.



JPL's orbital calculations indicated that Chandrayaan-1 is still circling some 200 kilometres above the lunar surface, but it was generally considered "lost."



However, with Chandrayaan-1, the radar team utilised the fact that this spacecraft is in polar orbit around the Moon, so it would always cross above the lunar poles on each orbit.



On July 2 last year, the team pointed Goldstone and Green Bank at a location about 160 kilometres above the Moon's north pole and waited to see if the lost spacecraft crossed the radar beam.


Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MINNEDOSA  Duane LaCoste has long known two of Minnedosas esteemed Second World War veterans, recognized yesterday with Frances highest honour for helping liberate their country.

But after LaCoste studied the duos time in the military in order to nominate them for the award, the president of Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 138 knows the humble men by a greater title.

They are true gentlemen, and now that I have done this research, I know that they are true heroes as well.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Second World War veterans Fred Oberg and Alexander Abel, seated, are joined by Duane LaCoste, left, president of the Minnedosa Legion, and Bruno Burnichon, honorary consul of France.

LaCostes sentiment was expressed to a gallery of more than 150 family, friends and community members who packed the Minnedosa Legion Monday afternoon to watch Alexander Abel and Fred Oberg officially receive their French Legion of Honour medals.

Afterwards, a steady stream of visitors walked up to shake the mens hands, while cameras flashed.

In 2013, the French government announced it would bestow the French Legion of Honour medal, featuring a five-armed cross and green wreath, to living veterans in recognition of their efforts.

These two Minnedosa heroes, wounded in service, are modest about their accomplishments, LaCoste explained.

He spoke of visiting Abel  a man he got to know well through curling  recently to express his congratulations.

LaCoste said if he knew a hero was in his midst, he would have bowed to him and carried his broom.

Abel shook LaCostes hand and said, Duane, Im just Alex, and you dont have to bow down to me, LaCoste remembered. I might have let you carry my broom, but I dont think I would trust you with my whiskey.

The two men, LaCoste later said, have brought honour not only to themselves, but to their country and our small community as well.

Oberg is 100 years old and Abel is 93. The veterans, who are members of the Legion, are the last living soldiers from the Minnedosa area to serve in France.

Just 18 when he enlisted, Abel stood on Juno Beach two years later on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

The next month, he and another Canadian were told to take two prisoners to headquarters. They knew snipers were behind their lines and might show their position by firing shots. They did, firing at the Canadians, but the two of them, and their prisoners, escaped without injury.

Later, shrapnel wounded Abel when a bomb landed. While bound for England to seek treatment, his ship was torpedoed.

Abel scurried to the top of the boat, put on his lifejacket and came across a badly wounded Welsh soldier, struggling to put on his lifejacket.

Abel yanked off his shoelaces and belt to tie the lifejacket around the Welshman. They both jumped off the boat. Abel was rescued by a United States ship, and never learned the fate of the man he helped.

He later turned down a cushy job training troops in England to rejoin his unit.

After the ceremony, Abel said he doesnt see well anymore, but the picture in front of him of seeing every seat occupied was clear.

Its nice that people remember.

Daughter Margaret Wareham said her father doesnt talk often about the war, but we all feel it.

Photos by Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun A full house looks on at the Minnedosa Legion on Monday during a ceremony honouring the last living soldiers from the Minnedosa area to serve in France, Alexander Abel and Fred Oberg, who are seated in the foreground.

Id say its pride, we all have a lot of pride for grandpa, said granddaughter Colleen Woychyshyn.

Oberg landed on the West Coast of France in 1944 and also served in Belgium, Holland and Germany while in the military.

A member of the Corps of Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, he provided maintenance support and saw his work pay dividends when he landed in France, driving a truck off the landing craft into water.

The water came up to Obergs armpits. The soldier was thankful, LaCoste shared, that the truck was water-proofed well.

Eventually hurt by shrapnel, he was treated and continued on through Europe.

It means a great deal, Oberg said of the recognition and the community support. It means theyre really interested in whats gone on and what has gone on.

Sandy Borley, his daughter, proudly stood beside Oberg as Bruno Burnichon, honorary consul of France, affixed the medal on his fathers lapel.

She said her dad thinks often of the men who never made it home.

Especially when you get to an occasion like this, you see the emotion that is just under the surface, Borley said. Its very real to them that it wasnt that long ago.

One other man would have been recognized at the ceremony but passed away last summer.

Clayton Searle saw action in France when his regiment was stationed there in 1944. He was acknowledged at numerous points during the ceremony, but the medal is not granted posthumously.

Later that day, Second World War veteran Robert Henderson received the French Legion of Honour medal at a ceremony in Shoal Lake.

 ifroese@brandonsun.com, with files from Ian Hitchen

 Twitter: @ianfroese
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WAYWAYSEECAPPO FIRST NATION  A man who abused his longtime girlfriend was stabbed to death by her during a drunken argument.

Such tragedies affect the whole community, an elder says, and youth need to be encouraged and supported if things are going to change.

He delivered that message Monday during a sentencing circle in which the killer was sentenced to jail and probation.

Become whatever you want, without the use of alcohol and drugs, said Norbert Tanner, a member of the Council of Elders for Waywayseecappo Court.

You can be a doctor, a lawyer, whatever you want to be.

Shalla Anne Bell, 39, was sentenced to 36 months in prison minus credit for 30 months pre-sentence custody, leaving six months in jail to serve followed by probation.

Citing her disturbing past in which she was repeatedly abused, Judge John Combs said that, based on case law, it was the lowest sentence he could give.

Sentencing circles are relatively rare, especially for major crimes.

Such hearings are an option for aboriginal offenders. Members of the community and elders are invited to join in the hearing to help the judge craft a sentence.

Together, the judge, lawyers, residents and family of those affected discuss the offence, contributing factors, sentencing options and reintegrating the offender into the community.

First, though, Crown attorney Ron Toews shared the facts of the case.

He said Bell stabbed Lee Grant Brandon during an argument at a Waywayseecappo home on Aug. 1, 2015.

However, what exactly happened will remain a mystery as Bells lawyer told court that she cant remember because she was drinking that night. Bell has said that she and Brandon were heavily intoxicated.

Toews said police were called to a home around 9 p.m. by a crying, hysterical female. That female appears to have been Bell who was distraught when she met police outside the house.

She wasnt wearing shoes and had blood on her clothes, and told officers to hurry up and get inside because she had stabbed Brandon.

Brandons body was found lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Toews said an autopsy later showed that the fatal wound was a stab to his heart.

Brandons mother had been at the home about an hour prior to the incident and had witnessed the couple fighting, Toews said.

With the confrontation turning physical, Brandons mother took one of her grandchildren, who was witnessing the fight, to her own home.

As she left, she noted that Lee was overpowering Bell.

However, Toews said, its not clear when Bell armed herself, or even with what. Perhaps it was one of two knives seized by police, but investigators couldnt tell which was the weapon.

Toews said that both Bell and Brandon had sustained injuries in the fight. When police questioned her, Bell was noted to have a black eye.

She was charged with second-degree murder, but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter for which she was sentenced on Monday.

Toews said that Bell and Brandon had been in an on-and-off relationship for about 14 years.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison said that, but for the lack of evidence surrounding the killing, he would have mounted a battered wife defence.

Bell has told authorities that Brandon, who was much larger than her, would beat her and subject her to emotional, mental and verbal abuse.

More than a dozen times during the relationship, she had threatened to commit suicide to get Brandon to stop beating her.

One relative said that the couple lost all of their belongings in fire a couple of years prior, an event that hurried the deterioration of their relationship.

Bell said her partner was loving but turned violent when he was drinking. Drug and alcohol use made their financial problems worse.

Despite the abuse, Bell told the writer of her pre-sentence report that she missed Brandon.

I miss him myself, and I have never stopped loving him as his mother does, Bell is quoted in the report as saying. I hope she can one day find it in her heart to forgive me.

Brandons relatives didnt attend the sentencing circle. An elder indicated that Brandons mother was ill.

The killing left Bells three children without a father. The children have stayed with relatives as she has been in custody since.

Combs said that Bell  who had no prior record  has one the most disturbing backgrounds he has ever read about in a pre-sentence report.

Her mother had attended residential school, and was an alcoholic. Her biological father wasnt part of her life.

As a child she was sexually assaulted by a variety of men so many times that she lost count  by family and by visitors to the home.

One of her siblings noted strangers would come into the family home and the childrens bedroom. They would be exposed to or witness emotional, physical, sexual and substance abuse.

Bell told authorities that she remembers waking in the night to men forcing themselves on her. She would be given substances to make her more compliant. She would be bitten, burned, punched and kicked.

She was relieved to be taken into foster care at eight years

old where she remained until she was returned to her mother at 12.

Her half brother, Eric Bell, said his sister was only six years old when she was forced to care for her younger siblings. Their parents were constantly intoxicated and would leave them alone for long periods.

Bell would protect her siblings but take the brunt of abuse herself. While still a child herself, she would shoplift to provide her siblings with food and clothes.

She continued to serve as mother to her siblings once returned to her mothers care.

Bell turned to alcohol and drugs to numb her pain from the abuse. Substances were easy to get  by eight years old people began giving her alcohol and drugs.

Eric Bell told Combs that there was no excuse for what his sister did, but she had been locked up away from her children long enough.

I dont believe the place to deal with her is in jail  for a person to heal they need to be around family, he said.

Shalla Bells aunt, who asked not to be named, lamented the effects drug and alcohol have had on her aboriginal community.

I hate alcohol because thats what brings us all down  alcohol, drugs. We know, but why do we not stop? Why?

She said that, because she doesnt allow smoking, drugs or alcohol in her home, her family doesnt visit her.

Why didnt you come and talk to me? I could have helped you, she told Bell.

Tanner invited youth to take part in sharing circles, so they can help change their communitys way of living.

 ihitchen@brandonsun.com
Nearly the last step was taken by the North Dakota House on Tuesday to defund BreatheND, the state's tobacco prevention and control agency created by an initiated measure in 2008.

Senate Bill 2024 passed on a 63-29 vote after more than 40 minutes of debate on the House floor. It must yet be signed by Gov. Doug Burgum.

Several state representatives defended BreatheND, by pointing to a drop in adult and youth smoking rates in the state since the agency's inception.

"I hate funerals, and today we're here to eulogize probably the most effective state agency I've seen in my 20 years in the Legislature," said Rep. Jon Nelson, R-Rugby.

The bill repeals a chapter of state law creating BreatheND, which was funded by a settlement states reached with big tobacco companies in 1998.

Some representatives in support of the agency said the bill goes against the wishes of North Dakota residents, who voted to create a tobacco prevention and control program.

"BreatheND was an initiated measure. It did go counter to the legislative desires, certainly, but the people of North Dakota voted for it," Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck, said on the floor.

Jeanne Prom, executive director of BreatheND, sat in the House balcony with other agency employees and those who work for similar anti-tobacco organizations, watching the vote.

What I heard from the other side was, 'I hope.' 'I think.' 'Lets see.' 'Lets wait two years,' Prom said. We have a proven track record, and why, at this point in our states budget, when were looking at effective government, are we shutting down an extremely effective agency that gets the job done and saves taxpayers dollars?"

The House Appropriations Committee gave the bill a "do pass" recommendation on a 16-4 vote Monday after an amendment in support of the agency failed. The Senate passed the bill last month.

BreatheND's eight full-time employees will lose their jobs, effective June 30, and, instead, one full-time employee will be added to the state Health Department.

Some legislators who supported the measure said it would save the state money by transferring work to employees at the Health Department.

What were saying is (the Health Department is) going to be able to do the same work with those dollars, Rep. Chet Pollert, R-Carrington, said.

Some lawmakers said the effectiveness of the tobacco prevention and control program in the state, which has received high ratings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will slide once the agency is repealed.

"I don't think there's any question that our program is going to take a step backwards in the state," said Nelson, who called for representatives to include amendments in the Health Department's budget currently being reviewed in the House in order to monitor whether the transfer has an impact on smoking rates.

Prom said she and her agency will continue to advocate for anti-smoking in the Legislature, including recently proposed legislation to establish state-run casinos that includes a section to allow lawmakers to consider allowing smoking in these facilities.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/03/2017 (2064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Canada cant expect to improve its economic growth without a better understanding of who is responsible for growth.

At a conference in Ottawa last fall, where speakers included Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains and growth council chair Dominic Barton, a challenge was laid on the table. We live in a low-growth world and Canada is not immune. Weve experienced sluggish growth for much of the past decade and our gross domestic product growth rate is not predicted to breach the coveted three per cent mark without bold action now.

So what do we do?

Big ideas were tossed around: an infrastructure bank, increasing the labour supply through immigration, and ramping up investments in research and development. These ideas all have merit, but if we really want to retool Canadas economy and become the innovation nation that the Liberal government wants us to be, a key piece to the puzzle is elusive: data.

Weak growth necessitates that we use all of Canadas assets to reignite our economy. Yet data are assets that have yet to be effectively leveraged. While we fixate on the numbers of startups or unicorns (upstarts with growth), do we really have adequate data with which to build a resilient labour force or a cadre of innovative firms that will help Canadian productivity and competitiveness?

In an exchange with former Liberal MP and current Business Council of Canada president John Manley, Bains highlighted the leading role talent plays in the innovation process. If innovation is going to be the means through which we achieve growth, and talent is the driving force behind innovation, lets start by measuring this key input to growth correctly.

Where do Canadas current talent gaps exist and, more pressing, where do these gaps exist for the firms that perform the innovation that leads to economic growth?

On talent, the data challenge rests almost entirely in the lack of evidence on demand: we dont know in measurable terms what the market demand is for particular skill sets or credentials. For example, we dont know for certain if were producing too many PhDs, engineers or lawyers, or enough mechatronic technologists, coders, marketing specialists or project managers.

The result is an overproduction of individuals in possession of credentials or skill sets the market cant absorb, even as we clamour for international talent to spur innovation.

Using credentials as a signal for productivity has serious implications  it leaves individuals with high levels of academic achievement working jobs far below their skills sets. A recent Statistics Canada survey on over-qualification states 40 per cent of university graduates outside of management occupations are considered to be overqualified for their positions.

Further, innovation is a people-driven activity, so shouldnt we know what type of talent is in demand by the companies performing innovation?

Our approach so far seems to indicate science, technology, engineering and math discipline (STEM) PhDs hold a monopoly on research and development and innovation, yet innovation is a team sport needing a full complement of technical and creative talent. We need the contributions of undergraduates and technologists, just as much as we need the doctoral student or researcher.

As the government sets about designing a new innovation agenda, the case for evidence-based decision-making in innovation policy is urgent.

In Canada, we decry our underproduction of PhDs relative to global counterparts. Implicit is the assumption that this inhibits our ability to innovate  but what do the data suggest?

Data from the 2011 Review of Federal Support for R&D show that Canadian firms use individuals holding technologist designations, bachelors and masters degrees more than they use PhDs for research and development. This is the type of demand-side data we need to collect year over year.

Such evidence adds nuance to discussions around credentials. Depending on who you talk to, theres an alphabet soup of credentials in demand: STEM+B (business), or STEAM+D (arts and design). Before we move ahead and say we need more STEM, business, design or engineering talent, our first step should be to collect the data about demand for this talent.

Productivity and growth dont occur when our workers cant effectively put to use the full extent of their publicly subsidized education or training. Responsive higher education systems need these indicators of demand to improve the quantity and quality in the supply of innovation talent.

As we seek to move Canada beyond two per cent growth, lets remember that public policy cant be built on hunch or anecdote. To attack Canadas growth challenge, more data are needed to unlock the barriers to commercialization of research and labour productivity.

Building a talented, innovative workforce is a gradual process and wont happen overnight. We need to demand data before we demand innovation.

 Nobina Robinson is chief executive officer of Polytechnics Canada, a national alliance of Canadas research-intensive and degree-granting public colleges and polytechnics.

 Troy Media
Next Tuesday Dublin will play host to Europes first Emoji Spelling Bee - yes, this is a real thing.

A tournament-style translation competition which contestants propose emoji versions of popular phrases, people, places or concepts.
Update 8pm: Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams TD has said the Irish government must intensify its efforts to secure the release of Irishman Ibrahim Halawa.

Deputy Adams made the comments following the failure of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El- Sisi to include Ibrahim on list of 203 young prisoners who were released from prison yesterday. Ibrahim has spent more than three years imprisoned in Egypt.

"I want to air in the strongest possible terms my grave disappointment that Ibrahim Halawa was not released along with the other youth prisoners in Egypt yesterday," Adams said.

"Members of Ibrahim's family have today expressed their very serious fears regarding his worsening condition - going so far as to say that they believe that he is dying.

"Their fear and their anger is completely understandable.

"Ibrahim has been held without trial for over three years. His continued incarceration is an affront to basic human decency and justice.

"It is critically important that the Irish government, particulary Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister Charlie Flanagan, now intensify their efforts to secure Ibrahim's release."

Earlier: The family of Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa believe he is dying in an Egyptian prison.

21-year-old Dubliner Ibrahim Halawa has been unlawfully imprisoned without trial in Egypt since August 2013.

Yesterday his aunt visited him in prison and was concerned by his condition. Ibrahim is suffering from a skin disease as a result of the hospital prison he is held in; his blood sugar has dropped to 34; and he was kept in a solitary confinement cell for 48 hours.

"Ibrahim is dying and we as a family will hold both governments responsible for anything to happen to him. We're running out of time," his family have said in a statement.

"We urge the Taoiseach to at least secure his release before it's too late. Former cell mate Peter Greste's government [Australia] was able to secure his welfare and release for the period he spent in prison.

"I am shocked that the Taoiseach can't at least secure his welfare nor his conditions. Securing Ibrahim's welfare means ensuring that he is placed in the best conditions possible."

Yesterday 203 political prisoners were released in Egypt, but Ibrahim was not among them.

"There has to be an end to this mass trial," his family added. "The Irish government should practice what they preach and that is everyone is innocent until proven guilty."

During a family holiday to Egypt, Ibrahim and his three sisters went to a protest in Cairo. When the protest turned violent they took refuge in the Al Fath mosque. Security forces stormed the mosque, arresting the four siblings.

Ibrahims sisters were released on bail; almost three years later, he remains in prison.

"It is obscene that Soha Gendi, the Egyptian ambassador to Ireland, sits quietly in Dublin after refusing an invitation to address members of the Oireachtas," said campaigner and member of the Council of State, Ruairi McKiernan.

"It is time to reflect on Ireland's trade and tourism relationship with Egypt, a country with a terrible human rights record. Some things are more important that cattle exports.

"We are talking about a young Irish man who could be about to die, a young man denied the right to a trial for over three years. On a week that the government is talking about Irish values there is a moral imperative to go above and beyond to save this young man's life."
Update 7.30pm: Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has called for a commission of investigation to be established following the publication of the report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on its examination of NAMA's sale of the Project Eagle portfolio.

"Sinn Fein has always asserted that maximum co-operation between the governments and statutory agencies, both north and south, will be essential in uncovering the truth surrounding NAMA's sale of Project Eagle," Adams said.

"Today's report from the Public Accounts Committee further underscores the need for a commission of investigation to be established by the Oireachtas.

"The report questions the appropriateness of Michael Noonan's actions as Minister for Finance in regards to his meeting with senior Cerberus representatives the day before the closing date for the sale of Project Eagle.

"Equally, the conduct of senior DUP Ministers raises serious concerns, particularly since they refused to attend the meetings of the Public Accounts Committee on the matter.

"Citizens deserve to know the truth. They must have full confidence in any investigation that takes places.

"To ensure that this happens, the cross-border dimension to the debacle must inform the terms of reference and the scope of any investigation."

Update 4.30pm: Nama has claimed its controversial sale of its Northern Ireland loan book was the best possible outcome for the taxpayer, despite a loss to the taxpayer of 220 million.

Responding to the publication of the Public Accounts Committees damning report on the sale, Nama has insisted that the manner of its sale of the Project Eagle loans provided a better financial outcome than any other monetisation strategy.

In a statement released today, a Nama spokesman said: It was the Boards commercial and considered judgement, in full knowledge of the financial implications, that the sale of the Project Eagle loan portfolio provided a better financial outcome than any alternative monetisation strategy. That was the Boards view in 2014 and it remains the Boards view today.

NAMA disputes the suggestion that an alternative monetisation strategy would have delivered a better financial outcome. NAMA also disputes the suggestion that an additional estimated 190m (162m on sale conclusion) could have been realised from an alternative sales process. No independent, third-party market-based analysis has been sought by, or provided to, the Committee to support either of these contentions, the statement added.

NAMA said it noted rather than accepted the publication of the report by the Public Accounts Committee into Project Eagle.

It said it co-operated fully with the Committee since it began its review in September 2016.

This has included attendance on eight separate occasions at Committee meetings during which current and former Board members and NAMA executives responded to over 2,000 questions in relation to Project Eagle. In addition, NAMA has received some 229 written questions from the Committee and has provided over 1,500 pages of material in response.

NAMA is satisfied that all relevant information held by it has been provided to the C&AG and to the PAC, the statement said.

Nama has claimed the losses arising from the Eagle portfolio since acquisition, which were fully recognised in NAMAs accounts, would have arisen irrespective of whether the portfolio was sold in 2014 or retained.

Deferring the sale would not have produced a better financial outcome  the commercial reality is that the Northern Ireland property market and many regional markets in northern Britain, where many of the portfolios underlying assets are located, have been challenging and are likely to remain challenging for the foreseeable future, Nama said.

Nama said it took full advantage of an unexpected commercial opportunity that emerged during the second half of 2013 to sell the Northern Ireland debtor loans as one portfolio.

Update 12.50pm: NAMA made a loss of more than 220 million on its sale of its Northern Ireland loan book, the Dails Public Accounts Committee has found, writes Daniel McConnell and Juno McEnroe.

At a chaotic launch today of the report, Nama was severely criticised for destroying records and for its poor management of the sale.

But Fine Gael members of the committee dissented on a finding relating to Finance Minister Michael Noonan, who had "procedurally inappropriate" meetings with US firm Cerberus, the final buyer of the loan book.

Fine Gaels Peter Burke called into question the decision of his own Taoiseach to hold a Commission of Investigation into Project Eagle.

The report found that NAMAs sales strategy for its Northern Irish loanbook, code-named Project Eagle, was seriously deficient.

The sale led to a recorded loss of STG 162 on the transaction, with NAMA having recorded losses totalling 800 million in respect of its Northern Ireland loan portfolio in the period 2010-2014, the report found.

The Committee concluded that:

the sale of Project Eagle was not a well-designed sales process

NAMAs failure to effect Mr Frank Cushnahans removal from NAMAs Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, following his disclosures in relation to provision of consultancy services on behalf of a number of NAMAs Northern Irish debtors, was a failure of corporate governance by NAMA

the NAMA Board was not explicitly informed of the extent of the financial loss which would be recorded in NAMAs accounts as a result of setting the minimum reserve price of STG 1.3 billion

key elements of the Sales strategy were influenced by the firm, PIMCO, which made the initial approach to NAMA in respect of buying the Northern Ireland portfolio

the sales strategy pursued by NAMA included restrictions of such significance that the strategy could be described as seriously deficient

NAMA has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy that it got value for money for the Irish State in relation to the price achieved

Update 12.20pm: The Public Accounts Committee has concluded that the sales strategy pursued by Nama in the disposal of its Northern Ireland loanbook was "seriously deficient".

In its report on Project Eagle, the committee says there was a "failure of corporate governance" by the agency in not removing advisor Frank Cushnahan as a consultant when disclosures of interest were revealed.

The Committee also says it was "not procedurally appropriate" for the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to meet with the successful bidder, Cerberus, the day before the closing date for the sale.

Earlier: The Public Accounts Committee is to publish its report into a major deal done by Nama today.

It focuses on the sale of its Northern Ireland loan book, known as Project Eagle.

Details will be revealed at midday.

Vincent Wall says the inquiry was set up following a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General that was released last summer:

"It basically said that Nama could have made more than 200m additional for the Irish tax payer if it had conducted the sale in a different way."
Sinn Fein MEP Liadh Ni Riada has accused the Irish Government of allowing a situation to arise where the Irish language gets more support in Europe than it does in part of Ireland.

The MEP was speaking after a report from the Council of Europe was scathing in its criticism of the lack of progress on Irish language rights in the North.

Protection and support for the Irish language in the form of Acht na Gaeilge was agreed at the St. Andrew's talks, she said.

St. Andrew's was an international agreement between the British and Irish governments and the parties in the north and both governments have failed utterly in their responsibility to see that it is fully enacted.

Just last week I was the coordinator in the EU Budget Committee where one of seven Key Priorities for the committee was the continued implementation of measures needed to introduce Irish as a full, official language in the EU.

We may soon have a ludicrous situation where the Irish language has more rights and recognition in Brussels than Belfast.

This is an absolute indictment of the failure of both governments to live up to their responsibilities but a particularly embarrassing exposure of the ineffectiveness of the Irish Government.

It's nothing short of shameful that a handful of MEPs can argue more effectively for the Irish language in Brussels than the entire Irish Government can in Ireland.

These agreements are not diplomatic buffets that can be cherry picked from; they are the very bedrock of the peace process and they must be respected and implemented in full.
Members of two political parties have hit out at Cork city's Lord Mayor for accepting an invitation to visit Donald Trumps White House as part of the St Patricks Day festivities, writes Kevin O'Neill.

Lord Mayor Des Cahill yesterday confirmed a surprise invitation to take part in the White House's St Patrick's Day celebrations on Thursday.

He departed for Washington DC this morning and will meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday, before returning to Cork to take part in Friday's St Patrick's Day parade.

Cllr Fiona Ryan of the Solidarity Party, formerly named the Anti-Austerity Alliance, slammed the planned visit.

She said, "The line that this is justified by the cementing of Irish and American relations is nonsense of the highest order.

"We should be standing in solidarity with those who are resisting the deportations and the restrictions when, instead, [the Lord Mayor] will be standing in the same room as those who will be implementing them.

"In Ireland - and Cork in particular - you have American multinationals who are standing firm against the Trump immigration ban so I do not think there is any suggestion that they will take offence or withdraw support."

Oliver Moran, the Green Party representative in Cork North Central, criticised the timing of the visit.

"How will he be able to hold his head up high in Cork on his return?" Mr Moran asked.

"St Patrick's Day, of all days, is a celebration of emigration."

However, there was support for the visit too, with Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy claiming it will serve as a boost to Irish heritage.

Similar praise came from Cllrs Tim Brosnan, who brought a 'Make Cork Great Again' hat to last night's meeting.

FF Cllr Tim Brosnan has agreed to loan his hat to @CllrDesCahil for his visit to @realDonaldTrump #corkcc pic.twitter.com/9ksa75Ocfz  Eoin English (@EoinBearla) March 13, 2017

Others, including Cllr Kenneth O'Flynn (FF) and John Buttimer (FG) backed the Lord Mayor ahead of the visit.

Mr Buttimer added that 'meaningful engagement and discourse' with the White House is important, despite having 'huge concerns' about many of the new administration's policies.

This article first appeared in the Evening Echo
Talks in the North are said to be entering 'a critical stage', with just two weeks left to agree a deal.

The parties are back at Stormont today as they seek to restore the north's power-sharing executive.
The Taoiseach's St Patrick's Day trip to the USA continues today despite 'Storm Stella'.

The damaging storm is forecast to hit north-eastern America with the potential to cause heavy snow, high winds and flooding, affecting up to 50 million people.

Thousands of flights have already been cancelled however Enda Kenny's delegation has made it to Washington, earlier than planned.

In New York, the city's Mayor Bill de Blasio wants people to take the alerts seriously.

"Right now, 16 to 20 inches of snow expected. It could be as much as 24 inches, which would therefore put this in the category of one of the biggest snow storms in recent memory."

Aer Lingus says its been forced to cancel 12 flights due to the storm.

Ten routes between Dublin and New York, Boston and Newark have been affected.

Two flights between Shannon and Boston are also cancelled.
The Happy Mondays are staging a comeback, with a greatest hits tour of Ireland and the UK.

The pioneers of the Manchester sound of the 1980s will play dates in November and December, celebrating the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out).
Thai authorities have seized 21 rhinoceros horns smuggled from Ethiopia worth almost $5m (4.7m).

The bags carrying the horns were discovered in a random customs search at Bangkoks main airport.

The bags owners fled as officers searched their bags and have not been apprehended.

Customs officials said the horns are unusually large and pristine.

It is the second time in two years that rhino horns have been seized at the airport.

Rhinoceros horns, blood, skin and urine are in high demand across Asia for their use in traditional Chinese medicine.

The World Wildlife Fund says very few rhinos survive outside national parks and reserves, and some species are endangered.

Experts who examined the smuggled horns concluded that the poachers who obtained them must have killed the rhinos.

-AP
Two friends are to be sentenced next month for lying about crashing a Lamborghini Gallardo into shops and causing more than 100k (114k) of damage.

Talal Alkassab, 39, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice at London's Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday. His friend, Diyaa Lababidi, 33, admitted the same offence in December last year.

They will both be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, April 11.

The supercar hit several bollards before ploughing into shops in the heart of London's high-end Mayfair retail district, just after midnight on 23 July 2015.

Scotland Yard said CCTV images show the car had been driven up Woodstock Street before accelerating and colliding with the glass and metal shop fronts at speed.

Photo: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Two people then got out and the supercar remained at the scene until it was recovered about three hours later. No call was made to notify police of the crash.

Alkassab, who had hired the Lamborghini a day before, told police that an unknown customer at a nearby cafe where he worked had taken the keys without his knowledge and crashed the car while parking it.

The story fell apart after detectives uncovered text messages between Alkassab, of Holland Park Road, west London, and Lababidi, of Praed Street, Paddington.

It led Alkassab to eventually admit that his friend Lababidi had been driving, Scotland Yard said.

Lababidi had previously pleaded guilty, at London's at Westminster Magistrates' Court in February 2016, to driving without due care and attention, failure to report a road traffic collision, having no insurance and driving a motor vehicle otherwise than in accordance with a licence.

Talal Alkassab (left) and Diyaa Lababidi. Photo: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

He was given an eight-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months for failing to report the collision and was disqualified from driving for six months for driving without insurance.

His licence was also endorsed for driving without due care and attention and driving without a licence.

He was ordered to pay 714.13 (816.96) compensation to Westminster Council for damage to the bollards, plus 85 (97.24) prosecution costs and an 80 (91.52) victim surcharge.

Charges of attempted insurance fraud were left to lie on file for Alkassab.

After the latest hearing PC Colin Moore, of Westminster police, said: "Alkassab and Lababidi were not only involved in a serious collision that caused thousands of pounds worth of damage but Alkassan then lied to police over a considerable period of time, protracting our enquiries and delaying the matter in coming to court.

"I am pleased they have finally been held accountable for their actions and, with summer approaching, I hope this case sends a message to those who drive such vehicles about the responsibilities that come with that and the efforts police will take to tackle their anti-social use."
Scotland will be "at the back of the queue" if it wants to become a member of the European Union if it decides to leave the United Kingdom, Spains foreign minister has said.

Alfonso Dastis was responding to the news that the Scottish government is planning to hold another referendum on its future in the UK.
The recently concluded session of the Wyoming Legislature left no one happy.

Members of the state Senate didnt get the deep cuts in education spending that they were looking for. Members of the House didnt get the more reasonable cuts-and-revenue approach to the schools funding crisis that they were looking for. Gov. Matt Mead didnt get the review of the tax structure that he says is critical to the states future health. And because the Legislature failed to take the needed action to solve the states systemic financial problems, Wyoming residents are certainly no better off.

All told, the Legislature cut $400 million in state spending, including about $250 million Mead recommended before the session. The final deal on education will cut $34 million on July 1 and trigger a review of the funding system. It also created a panel of lawmakers who will work the problem over the summer; they are empowered to draft bills for the next legislative session that include ways to raise revenue and cut funding to schools.

The clarion call for the session came from Mead, a Republican who is also a pragmatist. Mead said the state desperately needed to examine its tax structure to lessen its reliance on the fluctuating energy industry. He emphasized that without this change, no amount of economic diversification will improve Wyomings financial health  in fact, attracting businesses from which the state doesnt collect much revenue would be a step backward. And Mead wasnt alone: After the industry spent decades powering Wyomings spending, many of its backers supports the change.

But legislators failed to address the broken tax structure  in fact, they werent even able to raise the cigarette tax even a little. This is fundamentally dangerous thinking. Are they banking on a rebound in the volatile energy industry to boost the states fortunes and do the job that they could not? Anyone whos paying attention knows that coal is unlikely to ever reach its former heights. Its fate is not tied simply to burdensome federal regulations; we live in a global economy, where complex factors, such as green energy mandates, competition from low natural gas prices and demand from China, have impact far beyond the reach of the White House. Shackling the state to the ups and downs of the commodity market makes less sense every day.

To be clear, no one is advocating specifically for new taxes. But to oppose open discussion and consideration of changes to taxes, or tax structures, that generate the income that funds the services Wyoming people use, makes no sense and is not how representative government works. Nothing should be off the table because of promises made to special interest groups.

Without any consideration of adjustments to Wyomings tax structure, lawmakers were also unable to solve the states fundamental budget and education funding dilemmas. This money is running out, particularly for school construction, and the state has no alternative. Lawmakers failed to consider the big picture and what their cuts only, dont talk about taxes no matter what focus might mean for future generations of Wyomingites, who will ultimately find themselves back in this situation  only worse, because there will be fewer places to cut.

Its noteworthy that in recent memory, Wyoming is the only state in the nation that tried to balance a budget deficit using a cuts-only approach. It didnt solve the problem. Will legislators learn from that?

All these failures to heed Meads recommendations happened under the watch of a Republican supermajority. Had they come up with a plan and coalesced behind it, they would have had little trouble passing it. But fractious infighting prevented that kind of success, with the most shortsighted legislators pushing against any tax changes at all.

Even those who oppose taxes, though, should be able to support a review of the states tax system. That examination  which the state still hasnt done, despite Meads reasoned warnings  could show legislators exactly how much the state suffers from its outdated tax structure and what could be done to remedy that problem.

Voters, now is the time to weigh in on their performance. Tell your legislators what you thought of their performance. After all, because of their considered decisions, Wyoming people will be facing these same issues for years to come.

-- Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune
The Syrian government committed "slow-motion slaughter" of an unknown number of Syrians trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas by wilfully denying them food and healthcare, according to a new report from a civil rights group.

Physicians for Human Rights said in the report that the Syrian government consistently exploited a new UN aid delivery system, depriving millions of Syrians unable to leave their towns and cities of critically needed food and medicine.

The group called that a war crime.

The New York-based advocacy group said a new two-step approval process for aid convoys that Syrian and UN officials agreed to in April 2016 "fell abysmally short" of its aim of ensuring access to all Syrians in need because the government in Damascus retained "unilateral authority" over who received assistance.

Besides the unknown numbers of Syrians that have starved to death, Physicians for Human Rights said many others suffered avoidable deaths because military forces stripped medical supplies from aid convoys that did manage to enter besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

"Still others bleed to death from war-related injuries - or die in childbirth, or from other preventable causes - because their besiegers refuse to allow the sick and injured to be evacuated to medical care," the rights group said.

The report called on the United Nations to carry out deliveries to the most difficult areas without prior government approval, and to document and quickly report attempts to restrict or block convoys.

And it called on the Syrian government not to block, restrict or delay aid convoys.

The group cited data from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) saying that by early December 2016, 4.9 million Syrians lived in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, "including about 975,000 under active siege, most of them - about 850,000 - by Syrian government forces".

In 2015, UN agencies completed 32 convoy deliveries to just 620,500 people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

Physicians for Human Rights analysed the UN data from the OCHA for 2016 and reported that the number of aid convoys to those areas increased significantly to 131 - but it said "the increased deliveries were vastly insufficient to meeting rapidly growing needs across the country".

Only 24% of the people living in besieged and hard-to-reach areas received aid between May and December, after the two-step process took effect, it said.

One factor, the report said, was the Syrian governments rejection from May through to December of access to one-third of the people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas that the UN sought to help, which left, on average, nearly 340,000 people without aid every month, "many for months on end".

While the government approved aid to two-thirds of the areas requested from May through to December, Physicians for Human Rights said UN convoys only reach 38% of the approved population.

"On average, UN agencies were unable to deliver aid to more than 500,000 people for whom Syrian authorities had approved access each month during this time period," the report said.

The data analysis showed that on average the UN actually reached a decreasing number of people each month in 2016.

"Thus, the increased approval rates throughout 2016 were meaningless at best, as they failed to produce increased aid deliveries," the report said.

"At worst, this pattern reflects an effort by Syrian authorities to appear co-operative while still ensuring that access to besieged areas remained blocked."

AP
The combination of cash and cannabis has proved a heady mix for the sharemarket recently. But nothing prepared the market for the astounding reaction to Tuesday's news that the "King of Cannabis" Nevil Schoenmakers is acting as a strategic adviser to another dope hope, the ASX-listed Singaporean biotech Stemcell United.

The stock rocketed more than 3800 per cent to a peak of 50 on Tuesday afternoon. And continued its dizzying ascent Wednesday hitting a high of $1.085 in morning trading.

To put this in perspective, someone holding $1000 of stock on Monday evening would have seen their shares top out at $83,460 by Wednesday morning.
Ms McManus, 45, said her highest priorities include growing union membership, winning stronger rights at work and taking on corporate greed. "That's about making sure that working people have stronger rights but also that we can tip the balance back in favour of ordinary Australians because ... so much wealth has gone to the top 1 per cent," she said. "Part of that is about corporations paying their fair share of tax." While she condemned corruption within the union movement as contrary to its culture and values, Ms McManus said the federal government's two-year royal commission into trade unions had uncovered only a few cases of corruption. Had the big four banks been subjected to the same level of scrutiny, Ms McManus believes similar examples of corruption would be uncovered. "There should be a national anti-corruption body like there is in NSW. Every part of our society should be subjected to that," she said.

The Turnbull government is also warned against any move to return retirement savings to the big banks. "We will fight them right to the end on it," she said. When she became secretary of the NSW branch of the Australian Services Union, it had 10,000 members. It grew to 12,000 by the time she left to take a job as ACTU secretary and head of campaigns. "We did that by running smart effective campaigns that made a real difference to our members' lives," she said. "I take those lessons to the new responsibility and do exactly the same across the whole of the movement."

As ACTU vice-president and head of campaigns, Ms McManus is credited for mobilising an "army" of volunteers to doorknock and call voters in the lead-up to last year's federal election. Her achievements as a left-wing secretary of the NSW and ACT branch of the Australian Services Union included a successful campaign for equal pay. McManus now plans to generate a groundswell of community support through grassroots campaigning to pressure politicians to strengthen workplace rights through legislation. "The job of the union movement is to lead a movement of people who all agree that we don't want that kind of society," she said. Ms McManus said powerful corporations and multinationals had avoided paying tax "with their army of lawyers and sneaky ways", and had done the same with workers rights.

She plans to campaign against the growing casualisation and insecurity of jobs. As in the US, many new jobs created in Australia are part-time or casual, contributing to growing inequality with people becoming poorer and less secure in their jobs. "We will end up like the US unless we change the rules," she said. As a poster child of the modern day union movement, McManus is social media savvy but also believes in bringing the "best of the past" with her. The need for organising people remains unchanged because "that's where you get power from". "Everything else is basically extra things on top. Social media or online organising, it is simply just another way working people can organise themselves. It's just a new way of doing it.

Having represented blue and white-collar workers, including those in the rapidly growing community and health sector, McManus acknowledges the priorities of the union movement have shifted. It must reflect the interests of the majority of its membership who now are female. But she plans to be a secretary for "everyone" including manufacturing and construction workers. "Of course ... we will be wanting to focus on growing the union movement in new areas of the economy, but it also means we are going to continue to support all our other areas as well," she said. Unlike the workplace environment during the Keating-era Accord agreement and Howard government's Work Choices legislation, the focus would be on growing the union movement in new areas of the economy including the health, disability sector and aged care sectors. About 52 per cent of union members are women. Ms McManus points out the care and disability sectors would not be unionised "overnight".

"It took nurses and teachers about 50 years to do it. It also took the manufacturing unions about 50 years to do it," she said. "It will be a matter of time." The recent decision of the Fair Work Commission to reduce Sunday and public holiday penalty rates in the hospitality and retail sectors was proof the industrial relations system was broken. "If our independent umpire can hand down a decision that just cuts pay for people then is some seriously wrong and broken. So our number one focus will be to try and stop those cuts to 700,000 workers and if we can't stop those cuts, we will be bringing every part of our movement together to demand changes to our laws so it can never ever happen again," she said. "I'm going to focus on uniting the whole of the movement and that means building up strength in the way we had to during the Work Choices [campaign]."

Ms McManus said the ACTU will continue to remain unaffiliated with the Labor Party. It was up to individual unions to make their own decision. Unaffiliated unions included the unions representing the female dominated teachers and nurses. McManus follows trail blazers including former presidents Jenny George, Sharan Burrow and Ged Kearney who is currently serving. Kevin Young, the managing director of Sydney Water, is among employers who have had a productive working relationship with Ms McManus when she was ASU secretary in NSW. "Sally McManus would be one of the best union leaders I have dealt with in my career because she believes in collaboration. She is fiercely loyal to her members but also believes that for members to be successful the business must be sustainable and that employees should be motivated and engaged," he said. Ms McManus believes she needs to understand the pressures of the organisations she needs to negotiate with.
Canberra is sounding the alarm loud and clear at the likely direction of United States policy in our region under President Donald Trump.

Twice in two months the Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop has called on the US administration to stay engaged in the neighbourhood.

President Donald Trump with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Washington. Credit:Bloomberg

"If stability and prosperity are to continue, the United States must play an even greater role as the indispensable strategic power in the Indo-Pacific," Ms Bishop warned in a speech in Singapore on Monday night. Because without the US, it will be China, is her unstated implication.

That's an unpalatable idea for a great many reasons. Chief among them is that China plays by a set of rules that sets it apart from most of the countries it seeks to engage with politically and economically. Its rules defy the system that works for everyone else.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has lashed the states and territories for what he has called a looming energy crisis, saying they had "locked up" resources and favoured lucrative overseas exports, leaving families facing shortages.

Mr Turnbull has summoned energy industry bosses to Canberra on Wednesday. Ahead of the crisis talks, he warned the federal government retains significant powers over exports, and could intervene further in coming months.

"It is not acceptable for Australia  shortly to become the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas  to not have enough gas for its own families and its own businesses," Mr Turnbull said.

As the federal government's anger over South Australia's plan to go it alone in energy policy grows, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg demanded state governments follow a federal lead to ensure homes and businesses aren't left without adequate gas supply.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will confront some of the nation's biggest gas companies on Wednesday and ask the energy giants to supply gas locally to ease household cost pressures and avoid future blackouts.

State government bans on developing new conventional and unconventional, or coal seam gas are also in the Prime Minister's sights, as the political war escalates over how to ensure stable supply and drive down power prices.

Mr Turnbull and senior ministers Josh Frydenberg, Arthur Sinodinos and Matt Canavan will attend the crunch meeting with gas companies including Santos, Origin, ExxonMobil and Shell.

It comes a day after South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill announced a new, "go it alone" energy package worth $550 million to tackle head-on the series of blackouts that have hit the state.
Our stay in Barcelona, after arriving by train from Nice, was unorthodox. On exiting the station my partner was in sudden pain due to bursitis of the knee, which erupted out of nowhere. It made walking incredibly difficult. So instead of hunting for accommodation in our usual check-it-out-first way, we called some friends who took pity and said we should come right over. The scribbled address was handed to a taxi driver and soon we were deposited in what seemed to be Barcelona's CBD  the equivalent of George Street in Sydney, or Collins Street in Melbourne, but with frenzied, cranky, horn-blaring traffic.

Had the taxi driver misunderstood? Did our friends reside in the head office of a Spanish bank?

Looking down over the city from Antoni Gaudis Parc Guell. Credit:Getty Images

A press on an obscure doorbell intercom delivered the sweetest sound you can hear when in trouble overseas: a welcoming Aussie accent. And, glory, the building had a lift. Sure it was one of those tiny accordion-gate affairs you see in Pedro Almodovar movies, but it would mean a little less pain and a lot more access to the city.

On walking through the long apartment, the real revelation was that it gave eventually onto an enormous square where scores of similar apartments looked over each other, all from a respectable distance. As it was dawning on me that the street fronts for blocks must be some kind of elaborate facade, one of our very kind friends handed us mojitos. "Welcome to Barcelona, guys," he said, clinking glasses.
Australia's top tax man has bit back at claims the Tax Office used massive amounts of data on its own public service to "rig" a workplace ballot.

Commissioner of Taxation Chris Jordan says he has independent legal advice that his agency's covert sharing of employment data with a private polling form was legal.

"Absolutely confident". Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan. Credit:Louie Douvis

Mr Jordan said the Australian Services Union, which says it will call in the Privacy Commissioner to investigate the massive data handover, is engaged in "groundless mischief making."

Fairfax revealed on Tuesday that the Tax Office supplied its contractor with the names, email addresses, locations of work and pay grades of each of its 19000 employees without their knowledge or consent.
According to ndtourism.com, 43 percent of outdoor tourists visited historical sites in North Dakota. In total tourists spent $3.1 billion in our state in 2015! Yet Double Ditch, one of our treasured state historic sites featured on ndtourism.com, is sliding into the Missouri River.

This State Historic Site, 7 miles north of Bismarck, is under attack from erosional forces of the mighty Missouri River. A crack 75 feet from the rivers edge marks the most recent landslide, which carried ancestral Mandan human remains and priceless artifacts into the river. Yet, the North Dakota Legislature is reluctant to approve a loan the State Historical Society of North Dakota requested to stabilize this world-class heritage site.

Please contact your legislator to request approval of the loan to stabilize this beautiful, historic site. The site is one of the few still extant Plains village sites along the river. Sitting there, seeing the river, the surrounding hills, the trees lining the river, and the grassland plains above the river, you can understand why the ancestors of the Mandan chose this place to live. We are concerned about the impact that erosion of the site will have on the descendants of those Mandan.

The portion of the site that is threatened is where the inhabitants buried their dead; it was their cemetery and the bodies interred there are the ancestors of people living today on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Would you want your ancestors' remains washed down the river? We know we would not. We implore the Legislature to reinstate the funds that they had committed to stabilizing this beautiful site. Double Ditch is not only important to the Mandan, it is important to all of us as it is one of a diminishing number of sites where we can connect with North Dakotas wondrous heritage.
At 9am on Monday, Matt Davis received a message from his former partner, the mother of his child.

Stacey Docherty told Mr Davis, who had planned to take their son to the park, to come to her place in Sydney's east later that afternoon.

She would leave the door open for him.

After he finished work and arrived at the Hillsdale unit about 1pm, his door knocks went unanswered and his world collapsed around him.
Ron Medich lost his mobile phone straight after his right-hand man, Lucky Gattellari, was arrested for the murder of Mr Medich's business enemy, a court has heard.

Giving evidence at his father's murder trial, Peter Medich said that shortly after Gattellari's arrest on October 13, 2010, his father's then wife Odetta "threw his phone in the water".

Ron Medich stands outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Peter Medich, who is currently employed by his father, said that he was working at Lucky Gattellari's electrical company in Chipping Norton on the day Gattellari was taken away in handcuffs by the police.

Peter Medich told the jury that he immediately rang his father who, while shocked, responded to the news saying: "Righto".
Heads have rolled in the wake of Brisbane City Council's $60 million IT systems blow-out, with two senior officers leaving the organisation last month.

In January, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk revealed the extent of the problems encountered with the $122 million contract with Brisbane-based company TechnologyOne, which was meant to overhaul 13 key IT systems by mid-2017.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has confirmed two senior IT officers have left the council over a contract blow-out. Credit:Lisa Maree Williams

Not only was there a potential $60 million cost blow-out, but there was also an 18-month delay.

It led to an extraordinary broadside from TechnologyOne chief executive Adrian Di Marco, who said Cr Quirk's decision to air his grievances publicly rather than through a grievance process allowed for in the contract was unprecedented and he put the blame for the delays and blow-out firmly on the council.
A Brisbane university student accused of beating her Macedonian mother to death will remain behind bars.

Simona Zafirovska allegedly bashed Radica Zafirovska with a timber paling more than 20 times, with the 56-year-old's bloodied body found at her home at The Gap on October 28.

Simona Zafirovska is charged with the murder of her mother Radica at The Gap. Credit:Nine News

The 20-year-old was the one who called police, but suspicion quickly turned to her as there were no signs of forced entry or theft.

The Brisbane Supreme Court has heard that Zafirovska's suggestion that she'd been woken up by barking dogs also didn't match with neighbours' statements about noise at the time.
Environmental groups have been infiltrated by extremists trying to kill off Victoria's timber industry, the chairman of an under-pressure Gippsland mill has said.

The fate of 250 jobs at Australian Sustainable Hardwoods' mill in Heyfield, and thousands more in the supply chain, is in the balance after the decision by the state-owned VicForests to offer the mill lower than expected timber contracts.

Australian Sustainable Hardwoods' Greenmill site in Heyfield. Credit:Mal Fairclough

Earlier this year VicForests said it could offer the company only 80,000 cubic metres of timber this year, and even less in the coming years because of dwindling supply.

The Hermal group, which bought the mill from Gunns in 2012, says that without 135,000 cubic metres of supply guaranteed every year, hundreds of jobs will be lost.
Soon after they arrived they received a call saying she did have it. She was told she may not walk by the time she was four and could die by age eight.

Emily was sent to see Professor Scheffer, who was able to target treatment that has meant she has had fewer seizures and avoided severe disability.

Now, thanks to a new international classification system, developed by Professor Scheffer and published in the journal Epilepsia on Tuesday, epilepsy sufferers around the world, estimated to be about 50 million, have a much better chance of getting the right diagnosis and treatment.

The overhaul, the first since 1989, has given seizure types formal recognition and provides general practitioners with better information on epilepsy causes and its association with other disorders, such as autism. It also describes epilepsy types in plain language so patients and their families can understand.

"Epilepsy is a very complex group of diseases, with different risks and mortality rates for different types of seizures, and about one-third of people are not fully controlled with current medications," Professor Scheffer said.
Where is the most dangerous place to cross the road in Melbourne?

According to five years of crash data, it is the corner of Flemington Road and Grattan Street in North Melbourne, a complex intersection in the city's hospital precinct, which has 16 lanes of traffic in all, plus a busy tram corridor.

The intersection of Grattan Street and Flemington Road has had the most serious pedestrian injuries in the past five years. Credit:Justin McManus

Eleven pedestrians have been seriously injured while crossing the road there in the past five years, VicRoads crash stats show.

The area is expected to get even busier for pedestrians in the next decade, particularly when a new underground station opens as part of the Melbourne Metro rail project. Grattan Street was identified in the City of Melbourne's current walking plan as a difficult street to cross.
"If you look at the president's tweet, he said very clearly, quote, 'wire tapping'  in quotes," Spicer said during Monday's news briefing, making air quotes with his fingers to emphasise his point.

Last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he was going to let President Trump's tweets alleging wiretapping by former president Barack Obama speak for themselves . This week, Spicer is not merely speaking for the tweets; he is rewriting their meaning.

"There's been substantial discussion in several reports.  There's been reports in the New York Times and the BBC and other outlets about other aspects of surveillance that have occurred. The president was very clear in his tweet that it was, you know, 'wire tapping'  that spans a whole host of surveillance types of options."

Ah, the old air-quotes defence.

"If you look at the president's tweet, he said very clearly, quote, 'wire tapping'  in quotes," Spicer said. Credit:Bloomberg

According to Spicer's new argument, Trump didn't necessarily mean wiretapping when he said "wire tapping"  and reporters should know this because he put the phrase in quotation marks. By "wire tapping," Trump could have been referring to any one among "a whole host of surveillance types." Obviously.

This is quite a remarkable standard Spicer is trying to set for his boss. None of the "several reports" Spicer referenced actually claim that Trump or his aides were wiretapped, despite claims to the contrary.
Young males and people who use drink or drugs are at greater risk of developing a gambling habit, according to new research from the University of Bristol. Experts say it is an indication of an area that needs more attention if primary care services are to help those in need.

The study, funded by the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) and published in the British Journal of General Practice today, found that around one in 20 people waiting to see their GP at a group of surgeries in Bristol reported having a gambling problem.

The research, which surveyed over 1,000 patients in 11 GP practices in the city, was carried out by academics from the universities of Bristol and York and the Australian National University.

Dr Sean Cowlishaw from the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol who conducted the study, said: Gambling is emerging as a public health issue in the UK but it is poorly researched. There is very little independent data available and none at all on how many people presenting to GPs have a problem.

We wanted to measure the extent of the problem and identify who is most vulnerable so that we can start to think about how primary care services  GPs and others providing healthcare in the community  might be able to help. This could include training and support for GPs so that they can identify patients with problems and signpost them to specialist services.

Patients completed anonymous questionnaires which included questions about their mental health and addictive behaviours, such as risky drug or alcohol use. Gambling problems were higher among young males and young adults, and people who used drugs, had depression or risky drinking habits.

Just under 1 per cent of patients surveyed for the study reported having a severe gambling problem, 4.5 per cent reported problems that were low to moderately severe, and around 7 per cent reported gambling problems among family members.

Gambling has emerged as major concern for public health in the UK since 2007, when legislative changes allowed for huge growth in gambling availability and advertising. Unlike difficulties with alcohol or other drugs, however, there are no physical signs of problems with gambling and patients who need support are often overlooked until they experience major negative consequences (e.g., severe debt, relationship breakdown). In contrast with other countries, there is also very little funding for independent research on gambling, and this was the first study of general practices in the UK which indicates the need for health sector responses to gambling problems.
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
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A juggler and skateboarder who taught circus skills to Bristol children doused himself in petrol before setting himself on fire on the Glastonbury Festival site.

An inquest heard that 27-year-old Ashton Launcherley had been plagued by voices telling him to kill himself before his death, on the Monday before the festival started last year.

Ashton, who was 27 and originally from Wells, had studied at circus school Circomedia in Bristol and split his time between the city, where his father lived, and his home town.

While based in Bristol he gave displays and ran workshops in schools to teach children how to juggle.

A coroner concluded that Ashton's death was suicide, after hearing that he had sat in the lotus position in a ditch on the festival site and deliberately set fire to himself.

Today's inquest was told that Ashton had been a "centred, happy" child growing up and had travelled across the world training in circus schools, teaching children in workshops and performing at festivals. He was also a prominent figure in the skating scene.

He was close to both his mother and father, and had been attending Glastonbury Festival with his family when he died.

In a written statement, his mother, Alison Hull, said that her son had seemed happy and healthy until a trip to India in 2012.

"When he came back he seemed quite spaced out, a little bit lost," she said.

The inquest heard he continued to travel and study at circus schools across Europe, travelling to Bordeaux in January 2014, from where he confided to his mother that he had started to hear "nasty" voices.

Senior Somerset Coroner Tony Williams was told mental health teams became involved and he spent three weeks in a French mental health facility before being discharged with medication. But when he returned to England he stopped taking his medication.

After a further trip to Belgium he returned home, saying he was hearing voices "all the time".

He was sectioned under the mental health act in June 2015.

The inquest heard that Ashton was offered a number of treatments, but believed there was nothing wrong with him.

He agreed to take anti-psychotic medication for six months, before coming off it once again and refusing help from mental health teams.

Medical records submitted as evidence showed that Ashton had been diagnosed with a schizo-affective disorder and at times had spoken to doctors in "rambling" tones and "strange accents".

He had also believed his ex-girlfriend was communicating with him telepathically.

Ashton spoke "fondly" of some of the voices and believed that the doctors and nurses were all telepathically connected.

Both Ashton and his family were "dismissive" of the care he was getting from mental health teams, the hearing was told. His treatment was discontinued because Ashton did not want to engage with professionals and his parents told them they were distressing their son.

The inquest was told that, while at his mother's home in Wells and refusing to take conventional medication, his mum gave him multi-vitamins and food supplements, as well as St John's Wort to try and calm him down. He agreed to try alternative Reiki healing and counselling.

In a statement to the hearing, his mother said: "He was still hearing voices in his head. He thought people were taking the mickey out of him. He could hear them threatening his friends, and he thought he had to save them."

Ashton told his mother: "I have to kill myself because of the voices. I'm fed up of hearing them."

Her statement said: "I told him the voices would get worse after he died, that he would have to follow his family around and would not be able to say sorry."

In response, Ashton is said to have replied: "We are all dead. They are killing my family. They are killing all of us."

In the weeks prior to his death, the inquest heard that Ashton had travelled to Berlin, Bordeaux and Morocco, losing touch with his family, who tracked him via his bank accounts. When he returned to England, he agreed to take medication, but was left feeling 'zonked out' by it and stopped taking it once again.

The inquest heard that in May 2016, he bought a bottle of bleach, telling his mother he intended to drink it, and told his family he wasn't allowed to eat.

The family arrived at the Glastonbury Festival site on June 17 last year, and on Sunday June 19, Ashton told his mother the voices had been "commanding" him to kill himself.

On the day of Ashton's death his father, Peter Smith, had been working on the festival site and said he was aware of a "commotion" and people shouting "fire".

"I could see the police were there," he said in a statement. "The commotion went on for a long time. I heard there'd been some sort of accident with petrol."

As he approached the scene, he saw a black Puffa jacket and camouflage trousers, like the ones Ashton had been wearing.

"I didn't want to believe it was him," Mr Smith told the coroner. "I didn't want to believe it was Ashton."

Further written evidence was provided by a number of other witnesses.

Edward Kopak, who was also on the festival site, said Ashton had approached him asking to borrow a can of petrol, telling him that his friend's car had broken down on the railway line.

Another festival worker, Jorge Garcia, said he had been carving wood at the site when he heard someone shout "fire".

He said: "I ran to get a bucket of water, others were doing the same. I was shocked  what I thought was a bundle of wood was a man, he was sat in the lotus position with his back to me. He didn't make any noise. It was one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life."

Others at the site tried desperately to help Ashton, putting out the flames and forcing his mouth open so he could breathe.

Witness Christopher Pangs said after the flames were out Ashton sat up and shouted.

Sally Hennery, a trained nurse who had rushed to help, said Ashton became agitated, trying to stand up despite the severity of his injuries.

Another witness, Alexander Michael, said: "He moved, he screamed, he shouted. He flung his arms about and shouted 'I want to die'."

Ashton suffered 95 per cent burns, and was taken to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. He suffered multiple-organ failure and died a short time afterwards.

Recording a conclusion of suicide and the cause of death as burns and multiple organ failure, Senior Somerset Coroner Tony Williams, sitting at Taunton, said he was satisfied "beyond reasonable doubt" that Ashton had intended to end his own life.

Most people who are thinking of taking their own life have shown warning signs beforehand.

These can include becoming depressed, showing sudden changes in behaviour, talking about wanting to die and feelings of hopelessness.

These feelings do improve and can be treated.

If you are concerned about someone, or need help yourself, please contact the Samaritans on 116 123
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From things to see and do, to in-depth features of those who make up our thriving, eclectic and buzzing city - with the BristolBuzz, get your weekly dispatch of what's going on in Bristol city centre straight to your inbox

A search is underway in Bristol docks for a missing person.

Police have been spotted searching by the waterfront near the Spitfire Barbecue at Canons Marsh.

Meanwhile the fire service has launched one of its boats from Bedminster fire station to assist with the search.

The crew has been seen searching the water at Welshback and near Castle Park. They were filmed pulling what looked like a tent from the water shortly after 11am on Tuesday morning.

A fire spokesman said: We are assisting the police in searching for a missing person.
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Its the clothes that make the artist.

A new exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum unveils the fashionable side of pioneering modernist painter Georgia OKeeffe  famed for her New York cityscapes and brightly colored images of suspiciously yonic flowers. Georgia OKeeffe: Living Modern, on display through July 23, pairs the artists work with garments from her wardrobe to demonstrate how carefully she crafted her austere public image, said the shows curator.

Elegant and demure: The exhibit includes handmade clothes by OKeeffee and commissioned garments, such as this silk kimono. Gavin Ashworth

She liked to curate her body. She liked to really be in charge of how she fashioned herself, said Wanda Corn. And by looking at the material culture she left behind we realize that her aesthetic philosophy was not just something she practiced in the studio, but something she practiced in her everyday life.

The show tracks the parallels between her art and outfits by pairing 50 pieces of OKeeffes work with 50 of her garments and accessories  eight of which she designed and sewed herself. It covers each stage of her career, from emerging artist to successful New York City painter, as well as her later years in New Mexico.

Local ties: The show features OKeeffes famed Brooklyn Bridge painting, along with work from her first solo show, held at the Brooklyn Museum in 1927. Georgia OKeeffe

In the 1920s and 30s, a black-and-white palette dominated her work and dress, while towards the end of her career, the warm hues of the Southwestern landscape seeped into her art and clothing. The never-before-seen pairing of her wardrobe and art taps into a side of OKeeffe that has never been seen before, said Corn.

I think thats what makes it an exciting show. It shows a different side of her that we just havent been able to evoke, said Corn. For me, it shows her dedication to a single aesthetic. She liked to put it that she was, Filling a space in a beautiful way, and people are always quoting that about her painting, but that can also be said about the way she fashioned herself  her image.

Painted desert: OKeeffe is well known for painting massive flowers and animal skulls. Georgia OKeeffe

That meticulous fashion is also captured in nearly 100 photographs from art photography giants, including OKeeffes husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and photographers Ansel Adams and Todd Webb. The portraits allowed OKeeffe to create her public image, and solidified her status as a style icon, said Corn.

We use photos not just to document how she dressed, but how art photographers fashioned a persona for her, said Corn. Eventually there became a kind of iconic way for her posing alone, in the landscape, or in her home, sitting very contemplatively. There is a remoteness, a spiritual quality.

Captured: This 1960 shot of OKeeffe on Ghost Ranch Portal, New Mexico is one of nearly 100 of the shows portraits of the artist throughout her life. Todd Webb

This is the second major show dedicated to OKeeffe at the Brooklyn Museum, which hosted the artists first solo show in 1927.

Georgia OKeeffe: Living Modern at the Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Pkwy. at Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights). On display through July 23, WedSun 11 am6 pm. $20 ($12 students, seniors, and on select evenings).
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Heres another reason to hate Congress: Theres not enough hate in Congress!

Rep. Nydia Velazquez admitted as much in another spellbinding edition of Brooklyn Paper Radio on Monday, saying that as much as she is disgusted by her racist fellow Rep. Steve King (RIowa), the institution simply has too much decorum to allow her to attack him directly.

No, no! Velazquez said when show co-host Gersh Kuntzman asked if she ever confronted King and other haters like him when she encounters them in the hallways of our nations most vaunted institutions.

King, after all, made national headlines this week for suggesting that Americans of Muslim descent are destroying our civilization.

It is disgusting and outrageous, Velazquez said on the radio show, which was pretaped on Monday in advance of the coming minor storm. I tweeted about that today.

Kuntzman wasnt buying it.

Twitter? Who cares about Twitter. Did you ever go up to him in the Capitol subway and say, Hey, Congressman, shut up? the conflict-hungry Daily News columnist asked.

No, Velazquez admitted.

Kuntzman suggested that theres the problem right there.

If I saw Steve King on a New York City subway train, Id go over to him and tell him what a New Yorker thinks, Kuntzman said.

Ultimately, Kuntzman and co-host Vince DiMiceli let Velazquez off the hook on hating Steve King because she segued to genuine issues affecting her constituents in the so-called Bullwinkle district of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens that she has represented since 1993.

Velazquez was eager to talk about immigration reform and healthcare, earning this weeks award as Brooklyn Paper Radios Trumpbuster by saying such important things as:

 Why Paul Ryans repeal and replace healthcare bill stinks:

One of the greatest accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act was Medicaid expansion, said Velazquez, who voted for the so-called Obamacare as a member of Congress. And many of the recipients are in red counties and red states. All of a sudden, constituents in those areas realize that the Medicaid coverage they enjoy is the same as Obamacare, and now they are putting pressure on their Congressmen to not support a repeal or replacement.

 Why the federal government should not deputize local law enforcement officers to deport undocumented aliens.

Immigration enforcement is not the role of the city or the state, she said. It is the role of the federal government, which has failed. It scores political points for the Republicans to say we have illegal immigration, but they refuse to sit down and craft a bipartisan bill to end this broken system. The only solution is a legislative one. You are not going to deport 11 million people. This is not only the bad hombres. This is hard-working people, people, who have children, who have roots in our communities. Too many people and families are suffering because of the actions taken by this White House.

 Why she doesnt think much of President Trump.

He basically doesnt understand how Washington works, but hes has to figure out pretty soon that we have three equal branches of government, and in order for him to enact his vision or legislative agenda, he needs to collaborate with Congress.

Kuntzman pressed Velazquez that her reaction is pretty typical of a resident of the swamp that Trump says he wants to drain, but Velazquez countered that notion.

You want to drain the swamp? Then put people in your cabinet who really represent the dreams and aspirations of people in this country, she said. But [its wrong] to appoint someone to head the EPA, for example, who doesnt believe that the government should play a role in clean air or water or have regulations to protect public health. Lets be serious. Government is not a game. It takes a lot of negotiations and it takes collaboration.

Kuntzman was pleased with that answer.

Congresswoman, youre quoting me to me  so thank you for reading my recent pro-regulation column in the Daily News.

Make no mistake, Velazquezs appearance on Brooklyns leading podcast did change some minds in the studio.

You know, Vince, I started this conversation thinking, I dont really know if I like Nydia Velazquez, but now Im rethinking that. I thought she was a back-bencher, but she said a lot of very smart things on our show. And you cant put a playing card between me and Nydia Velazquez on immigration. I always say, If you want to come here, come here.

Gersh is literally driving the welcome wagon, DiMiceli said.

Brooklyn Paper radio is recorded and podcast live every Tuesday usually around 10 am  based on Gershs hectic schedule  from our studio in Americas Downtown and can be found, as always, right here on Brook lynPa per.com , on iTunes, on Mixlr, and of course, on Stitcher.
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Theyre calling it a calculated move  with bad calculations!

Brooklyn Bridge Park honchos slammed local activists who claim the waterfront paradise is flush with cash and doesnt need any more development to fund its maintenance, accusing them of using bad math to mislead the public.

The bigwigs fired the accusations at the Brooklyn Heights Associations recent claims that the green space is undervaluing its long-term real-estate revenue by millions  the crux of an forthcoming court battle between the two over planned luxury housing towers at Pier 6  and advised the civic group to drop its crusade and fall into line.

The latest BHA submission follows the pattern of all previous attempts to dispute the need for the Pier 6 development: basic arithmetic errors, cherry-picked data, misleading conclusions, and wrong assumptions, the parks brass wrote on its site. Now is the moment for the BHA to return to its roots as a respectable civic leader that similar organizations across the city can emulate.

The Heights Association used new Department of Finance valuations on developments in the greensward to estimate a $300-million disparity between what the park has projected it will reap in taxes on park properties over the next 50 years and how much it actually stands to make  for example, the park valued its ritzy Pierhouse condo project at $147 per square foot, when the association estimated it was more like $230.

The park responded that not only is the civic group wrong  a letter from the agency clarifies that it is actually valuing the under-construction building at $178 per square foot for 2018  but that its argument is moot, because the meadow needs $95 million from the Pier 6 project right now to bug-proof the timber piles that hold up the park over the East River from wood-eating crustaceans.

DOFs recent valuations have no bearing on the need for the Pier 6 development to fund the preventative maintenance of Brooklyn Bridge Parks marine infrastructure, the parks lawyers wrote in a submission to the court.

But the locals are standing by their argument  and their arithmetic.

The parks board members still havent approved the payment for the preventative work, argues the civics lawyer, but even if they do, hes not convinced all the cash from the towers is needed right now  the work could be done over several years, or the park could borrow against future revenues to cover the cost, he said.

The board has never actually made that judgement  much less relied on it to justify its vote to approve the Pier 6 towers, said attorney Richard Ziegler.

He acknowledged the civic groups calculations on the Pierhouses per-foot value dont match those provided by the Finance Department  but claims that it is just a sideshow. The total value of the building is the only number that matters in the end, and the agency currently puts it at $376 million  compared with the parks projection of $289 million, he said.

The parks head honcho also acknowledged its forecasts were under, but argued that is a good thing  claiming it is always his goal to make conservative estimates so the park doesnt run out of money.

The reason this model was adopted to make sure we have funds to maintain this park, so we always wind up coming in slightly under what the Department of Finance, said interim president David Lowin.

The park argues the $376 million figure is the irrelevant one, because there isnt always a direct correlation between market value and tax  caps on increases, abatements, and other factors play in  and you cant predict the future on a single years valuation of an under-construction building alone.

Ultimately, a judge will unravel this wonky debate and decide which party is correct. The two sides are set to face off in court on March 22.
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Its the storm of the century of the year!

A major blizzard  so major that meterologists gave it the name Winter Storm Stella  is set to blanket Brooklyn in snow and blast the borough with winds on Monday night and through Tuesday, and officials are advising you to stay put.

Be out as little as possible, said Mayor DeBlasio, known desirer of streetcars, in a briefing on Monday afternoon.

Snowfall is slated to begin around 3 am and continue throughout the day before tapering off Monday night, with as much as 24 inches of white stuff an hour coming down from 6 amnoon, and temperatures in the low 30s in the day and 20s on Tuesday night.

Expect substantial service changes to subways and buses, but if you have to travel, public transit is still safer than your car or feet, said Hizzoner  and forget about flying somewhere warmer, say experts.

If you try to fly by air tomorrow, forget it  not happening, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines.

More than 1,800 flights into and out of New York City airports  including more than 400 at Kennedy, more than 500 at LaGuardia, and more than 800 at Newark Liberty  are cancelled as of Monday evening, according to the website FlightAware.

Public schools and those run by the Diocese of Brooklyn will be closed, and all colleges and universities also announced plans to shutter. But forget about hunkering down for an impromptu study session  Brooklyn Public Librarys branches are also checked out for the day.

Alternate side parking rules are suspended for both Tuesday and Wednesday, as is trash collection.

To prepare for the onslaught, the citys Sanitation Department is readying its fleet of 689 salt spreaders and 1,600 snow plows, and has stockpiled 283,000 tons of salt  roughly the weight of three aircraft carriers.

Stella is being called a monster storm, but it might not be a record, Kines said  the most epic March snowstorm on record for the area happened in 1888, when 21 inches of snow fell from March 1214.
GRAND FORKS -- The University of North Dakota did not have to release preliminary logo designs a New York company created for the schools nickname, North Dakotas attorney general said.

Following years of controversy over the retired Fighting Sioux logo, UND released in late June a determined hawk design for the Fighting Hawks nickname. Leading up to that moment, the school worked with SME Inc. to go over preliminary designs after the nickname was adopted in November 2015.

A request was made for the preliminary designs SME created to go with the nickname, stating they were public record. UND argued it did not need to publicly release the preliminary logos created by SME because the designs were considered trade secrets protected under Century Code.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem agreed in an opinion released Friday, citing SMEs argument that the logos were of a privileged nature and disclosing them would reduce the economic value they would otherwise have on the open market.

It is SMEs position that the preliminary designs not chosen by UND still have economic value because they will be used by SME in future projects and it would damage its competitive position to allow its competitors to have access to and be able to utilize those images, Stenehjem wrote in the opinion.

In addition, it would further harm SMEs competitive position if its competitors could utilize the designs without incurring the same costs and time spent creating the designs, he wrote.

SME, which produced almost 50 drafts for the potential logo, had possession of the designs, an argument UND cited for not releasing the logos.

However, Stenehjem said a private entity contracted by a public institution like UND can be subject to public record. He writes open records law cannot be limited by policy or contract unless otherwise expressly provided by law even if the records in question are in the possession of a firm like SME. In the case of the request for the records for the logo, UND argued the designs were exempt from any obligation to release, as SME considered them to fall under the protected status granted by law to proprietary information.

Stenehjem agreed, writing that it was his opinion that UNDs determination that the preliminary designs were protected as a trade secret is supported by law and past opinions.

As such, he stated, the university did not violate open records law by denying their release.

From his reading of the opinion, Jack McDonald, general counsel for the North Dakota Newspaper Association, said the actual ownership and value of the other logos ended up being the deciding factor. While SME could be held subject to public records law by way of its contract with UND, McDonald said the firm had successfully argued that it intended to offer the dozens of designs not chosen by the university to other clients seeking a hawk logo.

Theres a clause in the contract that the only thing UND owned was basically the finished design, which is was what they got, said McDonald. SME made the case that, Well, were in effect going to use them again someplace else and were going to reuse them, but we dont want people to know were reusing them. Its kind of a funny argument.  In this case, I can see their point.

UND spokesman Peter Johnson said the university is appreciative of open records laws, mentioning specifically provisions for trade secrets and proprietary claims such as the ones argued by SME. Johnson said those same provisions also benefit UND by way of protecting active research which can lead to development and commercialization.

To have those protections in place is important for that work to continue, he said, so we appreciate the fact that the laws account for that.

He added the length of time that passed before Stenehjems opinion was released doesnt necessarily surprise me.

I dont think thereve been a whole lot of similar situations, though they do cite one in the opinion, said Johnson. I think that kind of a thorough examination benefits the entire state.
Election Day 2022: What you need to know to vote in Bucks County
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...
Iranian New Years celebration to welcome refugees, immigrant families

During this era of social unrest, fear and anxiety, we want to create events that are celebratory and community-building that help people connect more with a sense of friendship, joy, music, dance and food as a way of building resilience.

BUFFALO, N.Y.  The University at Buffalo Gender Institute and the Coalition for the Advancement for Moslem Women will mark the start of the Iranian New Year with a Naw Ruz celebration of food, dancing and music on Friday, March 31, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 695 Elmwood Ave. in Buffalo.

The event is free and open to the public, and organizers will welcome all refugees and immigrant families, including those from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya.

Naw Ruz, sometimes referred to as the Persian New Year, coincides with the vernal equinox. People from many faith traditions have been celebrating the secular holiday for thousands of years.

During this era of social unrest, fear and anxiety, we want to create events that are celebratory and community-building that help people connect more with a sense of friendship, joy, music, dance and food as a way of building resilience, says Kari Winter, professor of transnational studies and director of UBs Gender Institute.

The Naw Ruz celebration is co-sponsored by The Sisters, a group comprised of faculty, professional women, students, refugees and immigrants who has been holding regular meetings ever since the Gender Institutes October 2016 symposium titled Honor, Systems of Masculinity, and Violence against Women: Responses and Solutions.

After that symposium, some of the participants wanted to continue our conversations, including several UB faculty, graduate students and undergraduates who want their research to be complemented and strengthened by engagement with immigrants and refugees in daily life, says Winter.

Led by Nadia Shahram, founder of the Coalition for the Advancement of Moslem Women, The Sisters began hold social potluck meetings at the Family Justice Center in Buffalo. The professional women in the group have also taken turns hosting dinner meetings in their homes and have been collecting new and used items for donation to those in need.

The event at Unitarian Universalist Church will happen near the end of the 13 days in which the Iranian New Year is traditionally celebrated.

Well have Persian-style dancing, prizes for the best costumes and extraordinary food prepared by cooks from Iran and India, Winter says. And, weather permitting, some of the dancing will take place outside, visible on the street from Elmwood.

Winter says the inaugural Naw Ruz celebration fits nicely into the local tradition of hosting various cultural and ethnic festivals.

One of the things that most human beings can relate to in understanding how diversity enriches our lives is when they have the opportunity to sample different cuisines; to hear different kinds of music; to see different kinds of fashion; and to experience the wealth of different cultures.

Its one of those things where variety is literally the spice of life, she says.
GRAND FORKS  A former Grand Forks City Council member who shot a judge in his courtroom is set for release on Thursday, 25 years after he pulled the trigger.

Reuben Ray Larson, 68, was given a 26-year sentence for attempted murder for shooting Grand Forks District Judge Lawrence Jahnke on May 5, 1992. During a child support hearing, Larson walked up to the bench, aimed and fired into Jahnkes abdomen, severely wounding the judge.

Michelle Linster, spokeswoman with the North Dakota Department of Corrections confirmed Larsons coming release from the minimum-security Missouri River Correctional Center near Bismarck. The corrections department said Larsons sentence was reduced for good behavior.

Jahnke has previously spoken about the shooting, recalling in 2012 that very graphic testimony could take him back to those moments when Larson nearly took his life. But both then and now, he shows no signs he bears Larson ill will.

Just being part of the judicial system, you see people every day who make mistakes or commit crimes, and you hope they pick themselves up and move on with their lives. This is no different, he said Tuesday, calling Larson educated, smart and talented. I just hope he makes use of what God gave him.

Larson served on the Grand Forks City Council from 1978 to 1982, running for a seat in the Legislature at the end of his term. In 1988, he was sent to prison for tax evasion, and was held in contempt of court multiple times for failure to pay child support before his nonpayment led to six months in jail. Subsequent failure to pay child support put him before Judge Jahnke in 1992. By that time, he was behind on payments by $11,000.

Larson had appeared before Jahnke before, and the judge said the two had a good relationship. Jahnke pointed out that it was just an enforcement hearing and that he hadnt imposed the original child support requirements.

He was upset with the system  and I happened to be the guy on the bench that day, Jahnke said. Occasionally, we still have flashbacks, my entire family does. But the past is the past. We cant change it.

May 5, 1992

Larson appeared before Jahnke on a Tuesday morning at the Grand Forks County Courthouse with just three other people in the room: a court reporter, an assistant states attorney and District Court clerk Carrine Evans.

Evans said that Larson at first refused to take the stand when the hearing started, according to the Heralds report on the shooting. After exchanging some words with Jahnke, Larson walked toward the bench, reached into his pocket, pulled out a gun and shot the judge.

Larson quickly left the building and drove off in a red station wagon, stopping to confess to the shooting in a note at KNOX radio station. He later surrendered himself to police just south of Hatton.

In the meantime, Dr. Daniel Schmelka, a friend of Jahnkes, was on the third floor of the courthouse with attorney Pat Maddock when the shooting occurred. After Schmelka heard about the shooting, he rushed downstairs to help.

"I went into a dark room and I didn't see anybody. We're looking for a body, Schmelka told the Herald shortly after the shooting. Then Maddock spotted Jahnke lying under his desk. Jahnke's skin was blue, he wasn't breathing, his pupils were dilated and his pulse was faint."

Schmelka began giving the judge mouth-to-mouth, while Maddock began chest compressions. He later recalled that Jahnkes bullet wounds  entry and exit  were dime-sized.

That same day, both Schmelkas and Jahnkes wives were in a near-death experience of their own. Shirley Jahnke, an attorney, and Betty Schmelka were traveling to a court appearance in Dunseith when a wheel of the womens car fell off.

The Grand Forks County Sheriff at the time, Dan Hill, said the cars lug nuts appeared to have been loosened. The incident raised suspicions of a parallel attempt to harm Judge Jahnke.

Larson represented himself at his trial and was convicted of attempted murder. At his sentencing hearing he received a 26-year prison sentence from Grand Forks District Judge Lee Christofferson.

It's a very difficult decision, Christofferson told Larson at the hearing. Janhke and his family will never be the same, the court system will never be the same, and you'll never be the same.

Moving on

Nowadays, Jahnke says he doesnt mark the date, nor does he sit up in bed on May 5  Cinco de Mayo, he jokes  and remember the anniversary.

You wonder where time has gone, he said, marveling that 25 years have nearly passed. He said his family thinks of it more than he does. I think they perhaps are a bit more apprehensive than I am. We just dont talk about it that much, to be honest with you.

Maddock, the attorney who started chest compressions on Jahnke moments after he was shot, feels similarly. He grew emotional as he remembered the shooting, but said he doesnt wish him ill.

Judge Jahnke is such a good person. ... He never gave me a break in the courtroom, Maddock said. He was always cordial and did the right thing.

Jahnke retired two years ago, something he said hasnt changed his thoughts on the matter at all.

My only comment really would be, hes paid for the consequences of his actions, and I just really wish him well as he transitions back into whatever community hes going into.
Game-changing scholar to deliver second annual Robert Creeley Lecture

Galvanizing is a great word to describe McGann because his mind works in ways that constantly bring diverse elements together.

BUFFALO, N.Y.  Jerome McGann, John Stewart Bryan Professor in the University of Virginias Department of English and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, will be the featured speaker for the University at Buffalos second annual Robert Creeley Lecture on Poetry and Poetics on March 30 at 4 p.m. in 250 Baird Hall on UBs North Campus.

McGann is the author of 24 books who has revolutionized the way poetry is discussed, read, written, edited and taught.

He is among the founders in the field of digital humanities, a scholar who is always pushing, extending and breaking boundaries, according to Cristanne Miller, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Edward H. Butler Professor of English, and Myung Mi Kim, the James H. McNulty Chair in the Department of English and director of the UB Poetics Program.

McGanns work has foundationally changed how we think about poetry, says Kim. He is a galvanizing figure, at the forefront of the field in very specific and unique ways.

Galvanizing is a great word to describe McGann because his mind works in ways that constantly bring diverse elements together, says Miller. He started as a critic of Byrons poetry, but questions about Byron brought in so many other questions that he was soon writing about things that few would have predicted.

The afternoon will also feature a conversation with and an excerpt from SUNY Distinguished Professor David Felders concert film, Les Quartre Temps Cardinaux, a complex song cycle written in part as a response to Creeleys poems Spring Light and Buffalo Evening.

Were trying every year to bring more than one kind of artistic expression into play to show ways how, not just Bobs work, but poetry generally enters a variety of artistic fields, says Miller.

A roundtable response to McGanns lecture, moderated by James Maynard, curator of the UB Poetry Collection, will follow on March 31 at 3 p.m. in the UB Poetry Collection, 420 Capen Hall, also on the North Campus.

All events surrounding the Creeley lecture are free and open to the public.

Robert Creeley (1926-2005) was a former SUNY Distinguished Professor and author of more than 60 books of poetry and criticism. He served as Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetics at UB and was a faculty member for 37 years, beginning in 1966. He left UB in 2003 to become a Distinguished Professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

His legacy, however, remains as much about community as poetry and his namesake lecture series is designed purposefully as an energizing public celebration of poetry, say Miller and Kim.

That spirit is so important, says Kim. Creeley bridged many pockets of readers and makers of poetry. He showed how poetry can be manifest in everyday pursuits as much as it can be part of a literary life.

Creeleys footprint in Western New York remains profoundly visible today and can be seen in such local institutions as Just Buffalo Literary Center, founded by Debora Ott, a former student of Creeley who inspired her to establish the organization and take poetry into the community. Jonathan Welch, owner and founder of Talking Leaves, Buffalos venerable independent bookstore, was an admirer of Creeley and lists him among the lures that attracted him to Western New York.

When we thought about the lecture series we wanted to involve the community in some way to mark that this is not just about Robert Creeleys academic legacy, Miller added. McGanns lecture is called, Reading Poetry. What a welcoming title!

The roundtable discussion on the second day is open to anyone who wants to further explore issues raised by McGanns lecture. There will also be an opportunity for anyone to read a poem, either their own work or a personal favorite.

We also built in a high school poetry contest to the lecture and celebration, says Kim. The winner and runners up, as well as their classmates and families in the audience, will be further exposed to the poetry community at large.

Miller and Kim say SUNY Press has agreed to publish a volume of successive Creeley lectures and their responses every other year.

Last years Creeley Lecture coincided with the 25th anniversary of the UB Poetics Program. The coordinators collected remembrances of Robert Creeley and Kim and Miller have edited a forthcoming standalone volume including that lecture, responses to it, and essays developed from the conference. The volume, titled Poetics and Precarity (SUNY Press), is expected to appear in January 2018.
Recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that construction output in January fell by 0.4%, but rose by 2.0% compared with one year earlier. In addition, new orders in Q4 were 2.8% lower than Q3 and flat compared to a year ago.

Rebecca Larkin, senior economist at the Construction Products Association, said: Following an increase in output in Q4 last year, the overall fall in construction output in the opening month of 2017 was disappointing, with a decrease in housing, industrial, commercial and RMI activity over the month.

Furthermore, the construction new orders data from the ONS suggests that there may be continued weakness in activity in some sectors during 2017. Commercial new orders tailed off in the second half of 2016 and in Q4 were 10.6% lower than in Q3 and fell 24.1% from a year ago. New orders in the industrial sector were the lowest in two years. Building work in both sectors requires a large up-front investment for a long-term rate of return and it appears decision-making has been clouded by a rise in economic uncertainty.

Ms Larkin continued: Taking total new orders growth of 2.9% in 2016 as a whole, however, shows there remains an impetus for construction activity over the next 12 months. As echoed in our forecasts, output during 2017 will be driven by higher orders for housing  both private and public  as well as infrastructure and new public sector buildings such as schools and hospitals.
IKO plc has begun construction work on a 470,000sq ft PIR insulation factory in Cambridgeshire.

The roofing, waterproofing and insulation product manufacturer held a 'Spade in the Ground' event on 10 March to mark the beginning of the new site, which is being built at the Alconbury Weald development in Cambridgeshire.

The new factory represents a 30m investment by the company, and is expected to create up to 160 jobs in the area, making a significant contribution to the local community.

Jonathan Djanogly, MP for Huntingdon, together with councillors and IKO representatives, attended the event.

"I'm delighted to mark the start of construction of the new IKO enertherm insulation factory with an event which involves key members of the local community," said Andy Williamson, IKO UK group managing director. "We're a global business that's about supplying local communities. The development of this plant is a great example of UK manufacturing."

When fully operational, the Alconbury plant will produce insulation for around 40,000 homes a year in the UK. The majority of the product manufactured on the site will be sold into the UK market, with a small amount being exported into Europe.

This, IKO believes, will have a major impact on helping the government achieve the Climate Change Act's current target to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. By manufacturing the insulation boards in the UK, the factory will also help reduce the environmental impact and cost of importing materials from abroad.

Mr Williamson continued: "IKO has achieved the highest standards for environmental management (ISO 14001) and BES 6001 for responsible sourcing of construction products on three of our existing UK factories. The new factory will operate to these standards too, an excellent example of how the construction industry is taking a lead on environmentally-friendly manufacturing."

Construction of the factory is due to be completed in September 2017, with product being produced there from early 2018. An official opening is planned for March next year.

Pictured, from left: Robin Butler (Urban&Civic managing director), Jonathan Djanogly (MP, Huntingdon), Andy Williamson (IKO PLC managing director), Roger Harrison (Huntingdonshire District Councillor), Robin Howe (Executive Leader, Huntingdonshire District Council), Karl Gasson (chairman, Stukeleys Parish Council).
Exact figures on abortion are hard to track. Here's why it matters

When tracking access becomes pivotal, how does the U.S. look to keep a pulse on one of the most divisive subjects of health care this election cycle?
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the countrys apex ad regulator, has got a shot in the arm in its fight against misleading health care ads. The Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), a statutory body under the Union ministry of Ayush, has issued an advisory to all state boards and councils to take action against those making false and misleading health care claims.
(CIL) may part with about 43 per cent of its cash reserves, effectively eroding the companys net worth by 44 per cent, while paying out its interim dividend on Wednesday. The worlds largest coal miner would be stretching itself in a bid to implement Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) guidelines in the dividend payout.
The tax battle between British oil major and the government is set to get murkier, with the income tax (I-T) department considering appealing in a high court against a tax tribunals order giving Rs 18,800-crore interest relief to the company.
Like maternity leave, father's hiatus will soon be paid by some dad-friendly employers. Last year, Deutsche Bank (DB) started offering six months childcare leave to fathers, if they happen to be primary caregivers, across Asia Pacific. Taking cue from the bank's revolutionary step, many other private have started de-linking parental leave from gender.
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Indias largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceuticals has informed the exchanges the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it would remove more than three-year-old import sanctions on its Mohali plant.
Low-cost carrier which was revived from the verge of closing down business is now looking to enter new territories. Airline sources have confirmed to Business Standard that it is on the final stages of preparation of entering retail business.
Yogendra Vasupal, co-founder of homestay aggregator StayZilla, which recently shut shop, has been arrested by the Chennai police after an advertising agency filed a cheating case against him over unpaid dues, his lawyer said.
on Tuesday announced that it had doubled its capacity for module manufacturing in Bengaluru. The company launched a fully automated manufacturing unit with capacity for module manufacturing increasing from 200 MW to 400 MW and 65 per cent increase in capacity of cell manufacturing from 180 MW to 300 MW.
Finance Minister on Tuesday took additional charge of the Defence Ministry, a dual position he had held for around six months in 2014.

Jaitley was given the charge of the Defence Ministry on Monday after Manohar Parrikar stepped down from the position to return to Goa to become its chief minister.

Jaitley, one of the senior most ministers in the Modi cabinet, was in-charge of Defence Ministry between May 26 to November 9 in 2014, before Parrikar was brought in from Goa.

Parrikar's tenure as Defence Minister saw clearance of a raft of arms deals besides simplification of the acquisition process. He had also pushed for a number of stalled acquisition projects.

A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique had on Monday said that as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios.

It is not clear for how long Jaitley will keep the two key portfolios.

The deals finalised during Parrikar's tenure included purchase of 21 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers from American aviation giant Boeing and the US government.

Last year, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Parrikar had approved the much delayed purchase of 145 Ultra Light Howitzers worth about Rs 5,000 crore from the US and also bulk production of 18 Dhanush artillery guns, the first acquisition of such a weapon system by the army in three decades since the Bofors scandal.

In March last year, Parrikar had come out with a new defence procurement policy with an aim to ensure transparency in defence deals, fast-track acquisition process and indigenisation of defence procurement.

In September last year, India had inked a Euro 7.87 billion (approx Rs 59,000 crore) deal with France for purchasing 36 Rafale fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons and equipped with latest missiles.

It was under Parrikar, known for taking a hard line on the issue of countering cross-border terrorism, that the army had launched the surgical strike in PoK in September last year.

On Sunday, the Goa BJP had passed a resolution requesting the central leadership to make Parrikar the Chief Minister. BJP's prospective allies had also made Parrikar's return a pre-condition for their support.

Parrikar, an IIT (Bombay) alumni, had said some time ago he had still not "settled" in the capital as he can never be a "Delhi politician", indicating his fondness for Goa.
The BJP on Monday deftly outmanoeuvred the Congress to clinch power in Manipur and was set to form its first government in the northeastern state, headed by Nongthombam Biren, a former minister who quit the Congress last year.

Biren was to meet Governor Najma Heptulla on Monday night to stake claim to forming the new government.

In a day of fast-paced developments, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost no time to cobble up the numbers required to form government. The BJP, which was at second spot in the state, winning 21 seats to the Congress party's 28, did not waste time in getting four MLAs each of the People's Party and the Naga People's Front (NPF), which is also one of NDA's alliance partners at the Centre, to its side, plus three other lawmakers. The BJP now has the support of 32 members in the 60-seat assembly.

Congress Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, in his attempt to hold on to power, refused to step down when asked by Governor Najma Heptulla, saying the numbers were on his side. However, later in the day, Ibobi Singh announced that he would step down in 24 hours. He resigned on Monday night.

Biren, a former editor who joined the BJP last year, was elected legislature party leader under the watch of Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar and Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal here.

His name was proposed by Thongam Bishwajit, MLA, and seconded by Radheshyam and Nemcha Haokip, besides several others.

All the 21 BJP MLAs were present in the crucial meeting. Earlier, Bishwajit was one of the contenders. But he later withdrew to allow Biren's unanimous election.

Biren had been editor of Maharolgi Thoudang, a vernacular daily. Later he joined politics and got elected from his Heingang constituency. He had been a cabinet minister in the Congress government for over 10 years holding important portfolios.

He got elected from Heingang in the March elections.

Biren told IANS that people had voted against corruption and atrocities, including staged shootouts.

"Our government shall probe various incidents of corruption and book those guilty of fake encounters (shootouts). We are thankful to the people for voting us to power and we will not let them down," Biren said.

He was one of the Congress ministers who were critical of Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh who had faced several ouster campaigns.

Earlier, Ibobi Singh claimed that he enjoyed the support of the four MLAs of the People's Party on the basis of a letter he got from the party soon after the declaration of the assembly results. But, Heptulla pointed out to him that just a letter of support would not suffice and insisted on the physical presence of the four NPP MLAs.

However, NPP General Secretary Vivekraj Wangkhem said: "There have been changes. We have decided to support the BJP. This is final. There is no question of our party supporting the Congress even if Ibobi is given a chance."

Criticising the developments, senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram said that the party that came at second spot has no right to form government, and slammed the BJP for "stealing elections" in Goa and Manipur.

"A party that comes second has no right to form the government. BJP stealing elections in Goa and Manipur," said Chidambaram on his official Twitter account.

In Goa, where too the BJP came second after the Congress, is set to have a BJP government under Manohar Parrikar.
Maharashtra is likely to make redevelopers of slums accountable in the state Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (Rera) which is expected to become effective from May 1.
Over two years after he quit as Chief Minister of Goa to become the nation's Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar is set to take over the coastal state's mantle again on Tuesday at the head of a BJP-led government.

The decks were cleared for Parrikar to take oath as Goa Chief Minister with President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday accepting his resignation as Defence Minister and assigning additional charge of the ministry to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"The President has accepted Manohar Parrikar's resignation from the council of ministers with immediate effect under clause (2) of Article 75 of the Constitution," a President Office statement said.

Earlier in the day, Parrikar resigned to head a new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa.

Parrikar has been Chief Minister of Goa twice before -- from October 2000 to February 2005 and from March 2012 to November 8, 2014, when he was appointed the Defence Minister of India.

On Sunday, he was appointed by the BJP to head the new government. Goa Governor Mridula Sinha has asked Parrikar to prove majority on the floor of the Goa Legislative Assembly 15 days after taking oath.

He has claimed the support of 21 lawmakers in the 40-member Goa assembly. The BJP with 13 MLAs is supported by three legislators each of the Goa Forward Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and two independent legislators.

Parrikar sent a faxed letter of resignation to the Prime Minister's Office ahead of the oath taking ceremony, set for Tuesday at 5 p.m. at Raj Bhavan in Goa.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP President Amit Shah would be present at the swearing-in ceremony.

The President, as advised by the Prime Minister, has also directed that Arun Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios, the statement said.

Jaitley was earlier too handling Defence, from May 26, 2014 - when the Narendra Modi government was sworn in - till November 9, 2014, when the portfolio was handed over to Parrikar.
A Chicago-bound flight took off from Delhi Airport on Saturday with only eight out of twelve toilets functioning. These eight toilets were also out of order shortly and passengers had no option but to wait for the aircraft to land, according to media reports.
As many as 222 are in the pipeline for auction in 2017-18. While all these blocks could be potentially auctioned, the actual number of blocks to go under the hammer would depend on their status of exploration and the readiness of the respective state governments.

In the list are blocks being explored by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Mineral Exploration Corporation of India Ltd (MECL). Between them, nine mineral bearing states - Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Telengana are readying 75 for the auction process. Karnataka tops the list with 57 on offer for auctions followed by Madhya Pradesh with 46 and Jharkhand at 39.
Representatives of domestic airlines' grouping, the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) on Tuesday met Commerce and Industry Minister and raised concerns over a move to permit overseas players to establish carriers in the country.

The federation - comprising Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir - have been vociferous about their opposition to foreign entities being allowed to invest in local carriers.

The meeting assumes significance as it comes nearly a week after Qatar Airways announced plans to set up an airline in India, along with the Gulf nation's sovereign wealth fund.

During the meeting with the Commerce and Industry Minister, the FIA representatives flagged concerns about allowing 100 per cent ownership of local carriers by foreign entities, sources said. Among others, SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh was present at the meeting. In a tweet, the commerce and industry ministry said "key stakeholders the #airlines industry" met the minister.

Last week, Singh and Jet Airways acting Chief Executive Officer Amit Agarwal had met Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey and the discussions were mainly around the 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) issue. As part of liberalising norms for overseas investments, foreign non-airline players can own up to 100 per cent stake in local carriers.

In a strongly-worded letter to the ministry on January 3, the FIA had raised concerns about foreign players acquiring ownership in Indian airlines. Once foreign controlled airlines are established as Indian carriers, they would gain automatic access to defence airfields, the grouping had said.

Qatar Airways CEO Baker Al-Baker had on March 8 announced in Berlin plans to establish an airline in India.

"We are joining hands with the investment arm of State of Qatar to start a domestic airline in India with a 100 per cent investment," Al Baker had said.
Banks are bracing for high defaults in agriculture loans this financial year. While demonetisation had already affected recovery, rumours of debt waiver in states where Assembly
Indians love the feel of cold hard cash, or not. A blanket ban on old notes, tiresome long queues outside ATMs, fights with bank tellers and other patrons  nothing has managed to come in the way of people and their crisp wads of cash. Going back to old habits, the surge in digital transactions which sustained for a little over two months is fast fading away, as cash is back with a vengeance.
If you are looking to make a last-ditch attempt to hide your illegal wealth in Dubai, think again because UAE will share financial information with India about people hiding their money there as well as bank account details from January 2018, reports Economic Times.



Even though India has a competitive tax structure, the lure of avoiding taxes on money earned drives many companies and individuals to route their money out of the country through channels such as hawala [third parties] and shell companies.





People usually use offshore bank accounts and other financial dealings in another country to evade regulatory oversight or tax obligations. Companies or individuals often use shell companies, initially incorporated without significant assets or operations, to disguise ownership or other information about the funds involved.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) said on Tuesday oil inventories have risen despite a global deal to cut supply and raised its forecast of production in 2017 from outside the group, suggesting complications in an effort to clear a glut and support prices.

In a monthly report, also said its biggest producer Saudi Arabia increased output in February by 263,000 barrels per day to 10 million bpd, after in January making a larger cut than required by the accord to ensure strong initial compliance.

is curbing its output by about 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from Jan. 1, the first reduction in eight years. Russia and 10 other non-Opec producers agreed to cut half as much. Opec said in the report oil stocks in industrialised nations rose in January to stand 278 million barrels above the five-year average, of which the surplus in crude was 209 million barrels and the rest refined products.

"Despite the supply adjustment, stocks have continued to rise, not just in the US, but also in Europe," Opec said. "Nevertheless, prices have undoubtedly been provided a floor by the production accords."

Oil prices fell after the release of the report to trade close to $50 a barrel, their lowest since November. Crude is still up from about $40 a barrel a year ago and a 12-year low near $27 reached in January 2016.

In the report, Opec pointed to an increase in its members' compliance with the deal, according to figures from secondary sources that Opec uses to monitor output.
India Inc is upbeat about the Indian Railways plan to have long-term tariff contracts with consumers in cement, steel and fertiliser sectors, with many companies now willing to bring in more freight traffic to the national transporter.
A 55-year-old Sufi spiritual leader and his daughter were on Monday brutally murdered by unidentified attackers in Bangladesh, police said.

Farhad Hossain Chowdhury and his adopted daughter Rupali Begum were found murdered in a Khanqah -- a building designed specifically for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood -- close to the man's home in Dinajpur's Bochaganj upazila, about 350 kilometres north of Dhaka, police said.

Both of them had bullet marks and the woman's throat was slit with a sharp-edged weapon, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Farhad, a Pir or Sufi spiritual leader, was also the former president of Setabganj municipality unit of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party which is headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia.

Bochaganj police station oficer-in-charge Habibul Haque said the case was under investigation.

"We are carrying out an inquest and then the bodies will be sent to the morgue," the officer added.

Police said there was a power cut in the area when the incident took place.
Bill Ackman has finally conceded defeat on Inc. After waging a costly and outspoken public defence of the controversial drugmaker, its once-biggest champion sold his entire stake in the company at a loss and said he will leave the board.
A NASA scientist heading home to the U.S. said he was detained in January at a Houston airport, where Customs and Border Protection officers pressured him for access to his work phone and its potentially sensitive contents.
Since almost immediately after his inauguration as 45th president of the United States, has been claiming credit for what he sees as a miraculous recovery in the nations economy. Barely a day goes by without a tweet trumpeting a new jobs deal or the strength of the US stock market.
Fired by President Donald Trump, left behind a mysterious, thirteen-word message. "By the way, I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like," he tweeted on Sunday.
South Koreas scandal-plagued president, Park Geun-hye has been forced from office. Park was impeached by the countrys constitutional court over accusations that she helped a friend win bribes from Samsung and other South Korean conglomerates.
Most Americans had never heard of Preet Bharara, Manhattans federal prosecutor, before he briefly took center stage in the drama over the Trump administrations Friday order demanding the resignations of 46 United States attorneys.
The seemingly inevitable prospect of a second on independence was finally confirmed in a speech by Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland. The Scottish government will begin preparing for a referendum sometime in late 2018 or early 2019, as Brexit negotiations unfold.
Fresh from defending against an unsolicited $143 billion takeover attempt by Kraft Heinz , CEO Paul Polman said the British government should ensure a level playing field for target .

"We're not talking about protection; we are saying that when you have a situation like this, with a national champion, there should be a level playing field," Polman told Reuters on Tuesday.

One key feature of UK takeover rules is that once an expression of interest for a company has been made, suitors have only 28 days in which to make a formal bid, or they must walk away for six months. During those 28 days, the target company is closely monitored by the government's takeover panel.

Unilever, jointly based in Britain and the Netherlands, said target should have more time in which to defend themselves. It wants the UK Takeover Code changed to consider the interests of stakeholders beyond shareholders, as is the case in some other countries.

Dutch paint company Akzo Nobel , for example, rejected a $22 billion takeover offer last week by larger US rival PPG Industries , saying the unsolicited approach was not in the interest of stakeholders, including its shareholders, customers and employees.

A spokeswoman for the UK government's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said mergers and acquisitions played an important role in driving investment, growing businesses and keeping UK businesses competitive.

"We want the UK to be the best place in the world to invest and do business. This means creating the conditions for British businesses to prosper and grow, both here and on the world stage," the spokeswoman said in an email.

When running for the leadership of the Conservative Party after the June 2016 Brexit vote, Theresa May, then the home secretary, said that the government should be capable of stepping in when a foreign company tried to buy a business that was important to workers and communities.

She singled out previous bids by an earlier iteration of Kraft and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to buy British .

"Because as we saw when Cadbury's - that great Birmingham company - was bought by Kraft, or when AstraZeneca was almost sold to Pfizer, transient shareholders - who are mostly companies investing other people's money - are not the only people with an interest when firms are sold or close," May said at the launch of her campaign to be prime minister.

Since then, May has said that she will not pick winners or prop up failing companies, but that Britain should support and promote strategically important industries as other major economies do.

Kraft Heinz, headquartered in Pittsburgh and Chicago, walked away from a fight with last month, just two days after its $143 billion bid - and Unilever's rejection - was made public.

Polman's comments were earlier reported by the Financial Times.
The White House has defended the firing of high-profile India-born prosecutor and seeking of resignation of 45 other attorneys who were appointed by the previous administration, saying this was "standard operating procedure".

"This is a standard operating procedure for a new administration around this time to ask for the resignation of all the US attorneys," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.

He made the remarks while responding to questions on firing of Bharara after he refused to resign following the Department of Justice's order asking him and 45 other attorneys, who were appointed by former President Barack Obama, to quit.

"We had most of them  or a good chunk of them had already submitted their resignation letters. This is just the final swath of individuals who had not at this time. But this is common practice of most administrations," Spicer argued.

He said President Trump had wanted to call Bharara to thank him for his service.

"The President was calling to thank him for his service. This is, a standard action that takes place in most administrations," he said.

"Then-Attorney General Reno sent out an almost identical letter in 1993. The Bush administration sent out a similar one, as well. So this is a very common practice for all political appointees  not just in the Department of Justice  but throughout government when there's a turnover administration to ask for all individuals to do that," he said.

Bharara, 48, who was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, left his office yesterday. He got an emotional farewell from his colleagues.

"I love New York. This is the best prosecutor's office you've ever seen," he said.

Meanwhile, a media report said that Bharara was fired because he was conducting a probe of Fox News channel and whether the Rupert Murdoch-owned company hid from its investors payments it made to employees who alleged sexual assault. The allegation was denied by the White House.

"The commonality and the uniformity of the resignations is the key here," White House Counselor Kellylanne Conway said.

"This is just not a news story, it's a lot of noise, not much news because it's very uniform and it's very common for presidents to ask for the resignations of political appointees like ambassadors and like US attorneys, the past few presidents have done this," she told Fox News.

"We made it uniform, the President made it uniform, so that there were no carve-outs, there was no special treatment. The only two people who are kind of exempted, if you will, are people who are having a different role in the administration, Mr Rosenstein and Dana, who's the acting deputy attorney general. But other than that, it's uniform across the board," Conway argued.

(Reopens FGN 4)

Meanwhile a New York Times editorial titled 'Preet Bharara: A Prosecutor Who Knew How to Drain a Swamp' said the Barack Obama appointee quickly went after New York's "rancid political culture."

Talking about the culture prevailing in New York when Bharara took office, the daily said politicians of both parties have long treated anti-graft laws like "suggestions and ethics rules like Play-Doh," a reference to the modelling compound used by children that can be moulded into makes different shapes and patterns.

The editorial said most Americans may never have heard of Bharara till he took centre stage in the drama over the Trump administration's Friday order demanding the resignations of 46 US attorneys.

"But New Yorkers, who have had a front-row seat to his work over the last seven years, know him for his efforts to drain one of the swampiest states in the country of its rampant public corruption," it said.

The editorial said it may be while before the full story behind Bharara's firing comes out but in the meantime, Bharara "deserves credit for leaving New York a little cleaner than he found it".

The report also said that it has been reported that Bharara's office is investigating whether Fox News, "essentially the propaganda arm of the White House," failed to properly alert its shareholders about settlements with employees who accused the channel's former boss of sexual harassment.

The editorial noted the convictions Bharara won of more than a dozen lawmakers, including two of the state's three most powerful politicians Democratic former Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican former Senate majority leader Dean Skelos on charges of bribery, extortion and money laundering.

It described Bharara as an "equal-opportunity prosecutor", citing one of the first cases as US attorney for the Southern District of New York that involved bank-fraud charges against a top Democratic donor, Hassan Nemazee, who had ties to Senator Chuck Schumer.

Bharara had worked for Schumer as chief counsel and it was Schumer who had asked Obama to hire Bharara.
Since 2009, US Customs and Border Protection agents have been allowed to search electronic devices carried by citizens or noncitizens as they cross the border into the United States from other countries. More recently, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly suggested this digital vetting should also include harvesting social media passwords. Kellys proposal prompted legal and technology experts to respond with an open letter expressing deep concern about any policy that demands that individuals violate the first rule of online security: Do not share your passwords.
On Monday night, Parliament passed a bill allowing Prime Minister Theresa May to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. On the same day, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for Scotland to hold a second referendum on declaring independence from the UK. Here are five facts you should know about these momentous developments within the transatlantic alliance:

1. The bill allows the UK to trigger Brexit at once. The House of Commons voted down two amendments attached by the House of Lords requiring 1) that all EU migrants currently living in the UK be granted permission to remain indefinitely; and 2) that Parliament be allowed to vote after the government finalizes the terms of the Brexit deal. PM May had said that the government had already offered its assurances to migrants, and that while the UK would like to preserve access to the single market, it will depart the EU regardless of the terms imposed by Brussels. No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain, she has said. Despite 52 percent of British voters supporting Brexit in last Junes referendum, the Supreme Court ruled in January that under the treatys terms, a final parliamentary vote was necessary to trigger the nations exit.

2. Brexit will be completed within two years. The new bill allows Prime Minister May to notify Brussels that she is triggering the two-year-long process of exiting the EU. Although she could do so immediately, she has consistently said she plans to do so in late March  that date now set for March 27, according to those close to her. The extent to which the UK will have access to the EU single market and freedom from EU regulations remains unknown, but the prime minister of Malta has warned EU negotiators against punishing any particular country, and the German finance minister has said, We dont want to punish the British for their decision.

3. Another referendum on Scottish independence is likely within 18 to 24 months. Nearly two-thirds of Scots (62 percent) voted Remain in last Junes Brexit referendum, but the Supreme Court ruled that Westminster did not need to confer with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. Seeing its views disregarded on EU membership has led First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to say a new referendum is in order in autumn 2018 or spring 2019, just before Brexit negotiations are complete. PM May  who has accused Sturgeon of using the vote to play politics and create uncertainty  objected that Sturgeons Scottish Independence Party described the September 2014 national referendum on independence as a once in a generation event which it lost. But the prime minister seems poised to allow the vote to go forward in summer 2019 after EU negotiations are complete. She is expected to begin a UK-wide tour to sure up support for Brexit before formally initiating the break with the EU. A Sky News poll found only 30 percent of Scots approve of holding another independence referendum, with 65 percent opposed.

4. If the independence vote were held today, it would fail. Scotland joined the United Kingdom with the Act of Union, adopted on January 16, 1707, and Scottish voters rejected independence just over two years ago by a 54-46 margin. Were the election held today, two polls from BMG and What Scotland Says show the public narrowly rejecting independence again. That decision is in part economic. Scottish trade with the rest of the UK in 2015 amounted to 49.8 billion, and rising, while its trade with the EU was 12.3 billion and 16.4 with the rest of the world.

5. The EU may not admit Scotland at once even if it were an independent nation. After the Brexit referendum, Sturgeon and other Scottish officials had inquired about an independent Scotland taking the UKs place as a member of the EU, but Brussels balked. The EUs representative to the UK, Jaqueline Minor, said that Scotland would have to apply for membership under the terms in Article 49, like any other nation. If Scotland became an independent country, I think Article 49 is the normal starting point, she said. Should Holyrood follow through, the EU may be unlikely to be admit Scotland at once due to its poor economic circumstances; specifically, its GDP-to-deficit ratio is too high. Under EU rules the deficit must not account for more than three percent of a member states GDP, while Scotlands stands at 9.5 percent of GDP, according to Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland 2015-16 (GERS). Moreover, EU member states must unanimously accede to admitting new members, but Spain may exercise its veto to tamp down nationalist yearnings in its own Catalonia region.

(Photo credit: Rebecca Harms. This photo has been cropped. CC BY-SA 2.0.)
Traditionally known as a cotton and groundnut grower, Gujarat is gradually making it as a producer. In fact, its yield per hectare is better than the number one producer in the country, Kerala.
Food Minister today rejected the sugar output estimates being furnished by industry body ISMA, saying the frequent downward revision was "misleading" and India had enough sugar stocks and imports are not required at this stage.

The Minister said the Food Ministry will take up the issue of sugar production forecast with the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA).
When the whole street was celebrating Holi with new highs, one counter was frowning. The stocks of the Jaiprakash Group, which has significant business interests in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, fell by up to 9.1 per cent.

Against a Sensex gain of 1.71 per cent, JP Power Ventures lost 3.97 per cent at Rs 5.57, Jaiprakash Associates ended 5.7 per cent lower at Rs 14.1 per share, and Jaypee Infratech fell 9.1 per cent to close at Rs 10.59 per share.
(formerly Four Soft) has locked in upper circuit of Rs 165.35, up 10% on BSE, after the board approved an allotment of equity shares worth of Rs 22 crore to Florintree Advisors and others. The company will allot 1.52 million shares to investors on a preferential basis at Rs 145 a piece



Florintree led and advised investors are the lead participants in this round of preferential allotment. The investors include Mathew Cyriac (former Co-Head of Blackstone India Private Equity Business), Chidambaram Palaniappan (founder of Florintree), K. Madhavan (Joint Managing Director of Star TV India) and Bharat Sheth (Managing Director of Great Eastern Shipping), said in a release.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a four-day state visit to India from April 7 to 10 following an invitation extended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The trip will include official talks between the two leaders in New Delhi on April 8.

Dhaka Tribune quoted the official statement as saying that the upcoming visit is expected to "further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship" between India and Bangladesh and "build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders".

Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Harsh Vardhan Shringla yesterday said that Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina's visit to India is of high importance to his country.

"From the Indian side, we are giving the highest importance to the honourable Prime Minister's visit to India," the Indian envoy told the reporters after a meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque.

He said that Hasina has been invited by Prime Minister Modi to stay at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, where usually no head of state gets the opportunity to stay.

Shringla said this visit is very important in many aspects for both the countries as the two neighbouring countries have demonstrated cooperation in settling land and maritime boundaries within a short period of time under the leadership of both Hasina and Modi.

India's Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar last month had called Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and briefed her on the recent developments in India-Bangladesh relations.

He had also discussed preparatory aspects of the proposed visit of Prime Minister Hasina to India at the invitation of Prime Minister Modi.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had paid a state visit to Bangladesh on June 6-7, 2015.

During the visit, 22 bilateral documents were concluded, including the exchange of instrument of ratification for India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA).

Hasina had recently visited India on October 16-17 last year to participate in the BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach.

She had also met Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines of the Summit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was allegedly mauled to death by unidentified assailants on Tuesday morning in Anekal, Bengaluru.

The victim has been identified as BJP Taluq Panchayat member Kittaganahalli Vasu.

The assailants used sharp metallic object to kill Vasu at around 5 a.m. in the morning when he was out on a walk in Surya City Police station limits, police said.

A case has been filed. Further details are awaited.

A day before, black ink was smeared on a "progressive" Kannada writer in the northern Karnataka town of Davanagere, allegedly by Right-wing activists who warned him against "vilifying" Hindu gods.

Yogesh had been targeted by Hindutva activists after he was arrested in 2013 for allegedly besmirching Lord Ganesha in his novel Dhundi. But this is the first time he was physical attacked.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Assam Pradesh Congress Committee President and Rajya Sabha member Ripun Bora on Tuesday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was "hijacking" the MLAs of the grand old party in order to achieve majority in the Manipur Assembly.

"The BJP is doing horse-trading in Manipur. They are murdering democracy all over the country. We have got information that the BJP has hijacked five to six Congress MLAs and taken them to Guwahati," Bora told ANI.

The BJP yesterday named Nongthombam Biren Singh as the legislative party leader in Manipur.

Singh, once a member of the Congress Party, yesterday said that he left the grand old party because of mis-governance.

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal, who is the BJP's in-charge in Manipur, said the decision is unanimous, adding the saffron party will soon stake claim to form the government in the state.

"After extensive consultations and discussions with party president Amit Shah, who has been authorised by the parliamentary board of the BJP to finalise the leader of the legislature party in Manipur, party MLA Biswajeet Singh proposed the name that the legislature party leader in Manipur will be N. Biren Singh, who has been elected unanimously," he added.

He further said the BJP will be forming the government in the state with the support of three parties-- the Naga People's Front (NPF), the People's Party (NPP), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and other newly elected MLAs.

In Manipur, the BJP claims to enjoy support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member assembly. The Congress won 28 while the BJP bagged 21. The NPP and the NPF won four seats each while the LJP and the Trinamool Congress secured one seat each.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress on Tuesday hit back at Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over his assertion that the grand old party "complains a bit too much" and said it is unwarranted to put the onus on Sonia Gandhi-led party to hide the BJP's failures.

"In Hindi, there is an old saying "Ulta chor kotwal ko daante". That is exactly the BJP and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ji is doing. They have stolen the mandate given to Congress Party by people of Goa and Manipur as the single biggest party directed to form the government. Is not that the established constitutional practice?" Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told ANI.

Stating that the BJP's government in Goa was rejected and it's sitting chief minister lost the elections, Surjewala accused the saffron party of forcing itself upon democratic functioning and running away by stealing the mandate of people by proceeding to form the government in Goa.

"It is travesty of democracy. It is murder of democratic traditions and it is an insult of the parliamentary practices and mandate of people of Goa and Manipur. In Manipur, MLAs are being abducted by CISF in broad daylight by misusing the powers of the Central Government. This is not the way that democracy will be respected as Modi ji speaks about. Is this the respect for democracy and salute to democracy that Modi speaks about?" he added.

Asserting that Goa and Manipur have given mandate to the Congress Party, Surjewala accused the BJP of stealing the mandate and committing a daylight robbery.

"You (Arun Jaitley) have denigrated the democracy and BJP has denigrated the parliamentary practices," he added.

In the wake of the Supreme Court deciding to hold a floor test in the Goa Assembly on March 16 that would zero in on the next Chief Minister of the state, Jaitley, who assumed the additional charge of Defence Ministry as well today, took to Facebook to lambast the grand old party in its crusade of making the next government in the state.

"The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha. What are the facts?" Jaitley's post said.

Jaitley also said that the assembly elections in Goa had produced an inconclusive verdict and there was a hung assembly, which definitely calls for post-poll alliances.

"Obviously in a Hung Assembly post-poll alliances will be formed. The BJP managed to form an alliance and presented to the Governor 21 out of 40 MLAs. They appeared before the Governor in person and submitted a letter of support," he added.

The new Union Defence Minister, by virtue of Manohar Parrikar's ascension as the Chief Ministerial candidate for Goa, asserted that the Congress Party had not even submitted a claim to the Governor, adding that it had only the support of 17 MLAs.

"The Congress Party protested at the Governor's decision to invite Mr. Manohar Parrikar to form the Government with support of 21 out of 40 MLAs and described it as 'a murder of democracy. In the face of claim of these 21 MLAs led by Mr. Manohar Parrikar, the Governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the Government," he said.

He further enlisted the several precedents which might have supported the decision of the Governor.

"Firstly, in 2005, BJP won 30 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand. The JMM leader Shri Shibu Soren with a support of 17 MLAs of his Party plus others was invited to form the Government," he added.

"In J&K 2002, the Conference won 28 MLAs but the Governor invited the PDP & Congress Combination of 15 + 21 MLAs to form the Government. In 2013 the BJP won 31 seats in Delhi, but the AAP with 28 MLAs with support of Congress was invited to form the Government.There are other precedents on the same lines available in 1952 (Madras), 1967 (Rajasthan) and 1982 (Haryana)," he said.

Jaitley further said that the debate between the largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by the former president K.R. Narayanan in his communique in March, 1988 when he invited former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the government.

Jaitley added the President had said "when no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that has won largest number of seats subject to the Prime Ministers so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the house within a stipulated time."

"This procedure is not, however, all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The President's choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support," he added.

"The Governor in Goa had only one claim of 21 MLAs out of 40 elected MLAs with Shri Manohar Parrikar as their leader. The 17 MLAs of Congress did not even make a claim nor elected their leader. How could the Congress ever be invited to form the Government?" he questioned.

Earlier in the day, the apex court refused to stay the swearing-in of former defence minister Manohar Parrikar as the Goa Chief Minister and ordered a floor test in the state assembly on March 16 at 11 a.m.

Parrikar's swearing-in ceremony will go as per schedule today.

This development came after the Congress moved the apex court challenging the scheduled swearing-in of Parrikar.

During the hearing, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Congress, alleged that the BJP was indulging in horse-trading and violating the established constitutional practices.

He asserted that the Congress was not even consulted once on the formation of next government in the state.

The Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) J.S. Khehar, observed that numbers should determine the single largest party in the state.

The apex court further told the Congress that it should have gone to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha rather than raising the matter before the judiciary.

Senior advocate Harish Salve represented the Central Government during the hearing in the apex court, which ordered a floor test.

Governor Sinha had invited Parrikar to form the next government in the coastal state after he submitted a letter of support of 21 legislators.

Three MLAs of the Goa Forward Party, three of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar.

The BJP, which won 13 seats in the 40-member Goa Assembly, managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority under Parrikar.

The Congress won 17 seats in the recently concluded polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that one of the main reasons for the astounding victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently conducted Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections was polarisation.

"The BJP won the elections in Uttar Pradesh. I would like to congratulate them. There are many reasons why they won it, one being polarisation," Gandhi told the media outside Parliament here.

Downplaying the allegations levelled against the Congress that they are not allowing the regional leaders to come up and the party's top brass was disconnected with them, he said, "We formed the government in Punjab. We won the elections in Manipur and Goa. That's not a bad result."

"It's true that we lost in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. If you look at our Uttarakhand elections and in Punjab, who are running these elections? It's the regional leaders, who are running it. They are the people, who fight the elections and they have been successful in Punjab, Goa and Manipur," he said.

The Congress vice-president also admitted that various structural and organizational changes need to be brought in within the party.

The BJP won 312 of the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and its allies emerged victorious in 13 seats. In Uttarakhand, the BJP won 57 of the 70 seats at stake.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi on Tuesday said that border issues between Kathmandu and New Delhi should be resolved diplomatically and politically.

He made the remarks while commenting on the alleged killing of a Nepali citizen by the Indian security force.

"Whatever happens at the border should be resolved diplomatically and politically. For this there is a joint technical team between India and Nepal," Nidhi, who is presently in New Delhi, told ANI while urging India to investigate the matter seriously and punish those at fault.

"I have said to the Government of India from Nepal and I will say it from here also that once his (the deceased's) post-mortem and forensic investigation is done the truth will be known. There should be action," he added.

India has already launched an inquiry into the death of a Nepalese citizen, Govinda Gautam, during a clash on the border.

According to media reports, the local residents said Gautam, 20, of Kanchanpur district in southwestern Nepal, was hit by shots allegedly fired by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel after a dispute over the construction of a culvert by the Nepalese authorities.

Officials from both sides have been in touch to carry on with the investigation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Alabama Ballet is celebrating Tracey Alvey's 10th anniversary as Artistic Director. The organization will celebrate this milestone with a gala at B&A Warehouse on March 16th. Invited guests will enjoy a seated dinner and reflection of Alvey's decade of service.

Alvey has consistently brought the works of renowned choreographers to Birmingham, including Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room, a part of the company's 2016-2017 season, on the docket for April. The company also remains one of eight companies in the world licensed to perform George Balanchine's The Nutcrackerunder Alvey's leadership.

Other notable works under Tracey's direction include: Agnes DeMille's Fall River Legend, Twyla Tharp's Bakers Dozen, and George Balanchine's Stars and Stripes. As a dancer she has performed at the highest levels throughout Europe and the Far East as well as North America performing lead roles in the majority of renowned productions including Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Giselle. She was honored to dance before numerous Royalty including Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana. At the end of her professional career Tracey was invited by the Royal Academy of Dance to attend their demanding Professional Dancers Teachers course.

The Alabama Ballet School still uses the Royal Academy of Dance curriculum. On her decade of service, Alvey said, These past 10 years have been wonderful and I have enjoyed working with each and every dancer that was engaged with the Alabama Ballet.

This organization is so much more than just a ballet company, it is a font of talented people, I relish every moment. Mary Goodrich, President of the Alabama Ballet Board of Directors, said, Ms. Alvey's leadership and reputation have proven invaluable. Under Ms. Alvey's direction, the Company boasts high caliber dancers, and the Alabama Ballet School offers students exceptional training unsurpassed in the state. Her distinguished reputation amongst the ballet world has enabled Alabama Ballet to gain access to classical and contemporary choreography thus building a repertoire considered one of the finest in the nation
China has said it looks forward to the early accession of India and Pakistan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

"China looks forward to the early accession of India and Pakistan to the SCO as full members so that they will work with existent members to contribute to security, stability, common development and common prosperity of the region, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press conference on Monday.

Her remarks came following reports that the SCO is likely to grant full membership to Pakistan and India in its next Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.

"The memorandum on the obligations for India and Pakistan to obtain membership in the SCO was signed at the SCO Tashkent Summit in 2016. Currently, all sides are going through relevant legal procedures in accordance with the memorandum," she added.

She said both India and Pakistan are China's important neighbours and important countries in South Asia, adding Beijing hopes that the two countries can enhance mutual trust and improve relations through dialogue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Union's highest court has allowed companies to ban staff from wearing Islamic headscarves at work, but only as part of a general policy barring all religious and political symbols.

The ruling arrives on the eve of elections in Netherland, where Muslim immigration has been a controversial issue and in France, where the race to succeed President Francois Hollande remains wide open.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg ruled the garments could be banned, however, adding that if the company has no policy barring religious symbols then customers cannot simply demand workers remove their headscarves, reports the Guardian.

The ECJ issued a joint judgment in the cases of two women from France and Belgium, who were dismissed for refusing to remove their headscarves.

"An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination," the court said.

It ruled that a company's wish to project a neutral image was legitimate and allowed internal rules banning political, philosophical or religious symbols.

The first case was referred to the ECJ by the Belgian courts, in which Samira Achbita had been a receptionist for the Belgian branch of G4S, the London-listed outsourcing and security company when, after three years at the firm she decided she wanted to start wearing a headscarf at work for religious reasons. But Achbita was fired in June 2006 for refusing to take off her scarf and the company said she had broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols.

In the second case, Asma Bougnaoui, a design engineer, was fired from an IT consultancy firm, Micropole, after a customer complained that his staff had been "embarrassed" by her headscarf while she was on their premises to give advice.

However, the ruling is likely to create confusion about which religious symbols can be worn at work, as legal experts reckon that it seemed to cut against a ruling from the European court of human rights (ECHR) that allowed crosses to be worn.

The ruling also prompted dismay from some religious groups, as the Conference of European Rabbis said that Europe was sending a loud message to the world that its faith communities were no longer welcome.
Expressing delight over the Supreme Court's intervention regarding government formation in Goa, Congress leader and senior advocate Abhiskek Manu Singhvi on Tuesday stated that justice has been delivered.

Addressing the media after the apex court's order, Singhvi, representing the Congress, said: "Our basic argument was satisfaction of the Governor, constitutional satisfaction which cannot even begin to be formed unless the Governor consults, calls or telephonically calls to the single largest party. It is admitted that the Governor did not talk to the single largest party. Therefore, how the Governor can arrive at the conclusion, the Constitution says."

During the hearing, the petitioner vehemently opposed the Governor's order asking Manohar Parrikar to prove majority in the assembly within 15 days after the swearing-in.

"The court ultimately intervened in a significant manner because the Governor had given as long as 15 days after swearing-in and we understand that how 15 days are used or misutilised. Minorities are artificially cobbled to make together a majority and we were very vehement in our opposition. Although they (SC) wanted to have it tomorrow, they put it a day after because of logistical reasons," Singhvi said.

Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh, who was also present in the hearing, said the swearing-in of Parrikar will take place today as scheduled.

"The Supreme Court has disposed off the writ petition by requiring the Governor to ensure that the floor test is held on March 16. The allegation of horse trading is nothing in the order, the court has not accepted any of the arguments of the petitioner," Singh told ANI.

The Supreme Court today refused to stay the swearing-in of the former defence minister and ordered a floor test in the state assembly at 11 a.m. on March 16.

The apex court has directed that all pre-requisites for holding the floor test should be completed by tomorrow including what is required by the Election Commission.

To accommodate this, the court ordered the Governor to summon the House tomorrow at 11 a.m.

This development came after the Congress moved the apex court challenging the scheduled swearing-in of Parrikar.

During the hearing, Singhvi alleged that the BJP was indulging in horse-trading and violating the established constitutional practices.

He asserted that the Congress was not even consulted once on the formation of next government in the state.

The Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) J.S. Khehar, observed that numbers should determine the single largest party in the state.

The apex court further told, petitioner, the Congress that it should have gone to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha rather than raising the matter before the judiciary.

Senior advocate Harish Salve represented the Central Government during the hearing in the apex court, which ordered a floor test.

Governor Sinha had invited Parrikar to form the next government in the coastal state after he submitted a letter of support of 21 legislators.

Three MLAs of the Goa Forward Party, three of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar.

The BJP, which won 13 seats in the 40-member Goa Assembly, managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority under Parrikar.

The Congress won 17 seats in the recently concluded polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kangana Ranaut's blaming Karan Johar for nepotism in Bollywood has created a huge storm in the industry with many reacting very strongly to it.

On his 52nd birthday, while speaking to the media here, when Aamir Khan was asked to share his thoughts on the same, he preferred giving a generalised answer, instead of reaction to one specific issue.

Terming "helping your loved ones" to be "very normal human nature," the 'Dangal' actor said that he tries "not to allow that to interfere" in his work.

"It is a very normal human nature to try and help people who you love and care for. It is a very natural thing. It doesn't need to be part of your family. It can be anyone you care for. In my work, I try not to allow that to interfere. I think, my responsibility as an actor is towards my audience and I give that the most importance. I try not to bring in emotions in my work," said Mr. Perfectionist.

Further when he was asked about the four 'Dangal' girls- Fatima Sana Shaikh, Zaira Wasim, Sanya Malhotra and Suhani Bhatnagar- Aamir said, "they will be big assert to the industry."

"All four of them are very talented, bright and intelligent girls. I don't think they need my advice. If they do, I am always there for them, I think they will be big assert to the industry," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Australian all-rounder Mitchell Marsh is almost certain to miss the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) owing to a shoulder injury.

Marsh, who was already ruled out of the remaining two Tests against India, went through a surgery on Monday.

However, his rehabilitation period has not been finalised yet but it is speculated that he might be off the field for at least nine months.

"Mitchell has been playing with a shoulder injury for most of the summer," ESPNcricinfo quoted David Beakley, Australia's team physio as saying after the Bengaluru Test, which the visitors lost by 75 runs.

"We have been managing up until now, but unfortunately it has progressively deteriorated to a point where he is unable to function at the level required," he added.

Marsh, who was bought by Supergiant at the 2016 auction, was injured during the last season of the IPL as well and went home after being ruled out with a side strain. The all-rounder has performed well in the IPL since his debut in 2010 and could have provided the stability in the middle of the batting order.

However, his absence might not be as bad for the Supergiants as they have the likes of Ben Stokes, who emerged out as the costliest player at this year's auction.

He was bought by the franchise for a whopping amount of Rs. 14.5 crores, thus becoming the second most expensive player to be purchased behind Yuvraj Singh, who was once snapped up for Rs. 16 crores by Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The IPL season 10 starts from April 5.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A day after a PhD scholar of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) allegedly committed suicide in the Munirka Vihar area in Delhi, his father on Tuesday alleged that his son's death wasn't a suicide, but a murder.

The family has claimed that 27-year-old Dalit Muthukrishnan Jeevanantham was strong and socially active and that he could not commit suicide under any circumstances.

The family is, reportedly, not convinced with the panel of doctors set up by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and wants reputed doctors from Chennai instead to be in the panel.

Today, a member from the Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) also paid a visit to the bereaving family.

Earlier on Monday, an alumnus of the University of Hyderabad, the 27-year-old Dalit was found hanging from the ceiling at his friend's residence.

According to the Delhi Police, Krish, as we more popularly known, was depressed over personal issues, though no suicide note was found near his body. There was no evidence that he killed himself due to any issues at the university.

Reportedly, Jeevanantham had come to his friends' house to have food. He later said he wanted to sleep and locked himself inside a room.

The PhD student, however, in his Facebook post on March 10, mentioned about discrimination against Dalits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The U.S. Justice Department has asked the chairman and vice-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for "additional time" to collect evidence to support President Donald Trump's accusation that the Obama administration wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower during the campaign.

According to CNN, the committee had set a Monday deadline for the agency to provide the evidence.

Senate panel Chairman Richard Burr said, "I've talked to all the appropriate people," adding later that he has received "sufficient" responses about the wiretapping claim.

"I would say from our conversations, what we've gotten are sufficient answers," he added but did not say if there was any evidence backing Trump's claim.

According to a source, the House committee had sent letters throughout the intelligence community this week to obtain records related to Russia, which the Justice Department responded to Monday evening.

"This afternoon, the Department of Justice placed calls to representatives of the chairman and ranking member of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to ask for additional time to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist," Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.

A spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested the panel may issue a subpoena to the administration if their questions go unanswered.

"The Department of Justice has asked for more time to comply with the House Intelligence Committee's request for information related to possible surveillance of Donald Trump or his associates during the election campaign," Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement.

"We have asked the department to provide us this information before the committee's open hearing scheduled for March 20. If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," the statement added.

Trump has not publicly provided any evidence for his wiretapping allegations, first made more than a week ago. Former president Barack Obama has denied the allegations through a spokesman, and his former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, also has publicly denied them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi [India], Mar 14 (ANI): Blessed with rich natural resources and having diverse culture, northeast region is unique in their own way from the rest of the country. And to utilize the region's untapped potentials in order to transform the region into a flourishing hub and fulfill its role as the 'gateway to South East Asia, recently Indian Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India organized the eleventh edition of NE Summit at Shangri-La's Eros hotel in New Delhi.

The two day long summit brought industrialists, businessmen, corporate honchos and potential investors from across the country under one platform and discussed various areas under the theme 'Make in North East'.

Addressing at the summit, Minister of DoNER, Dr. Jitendra Singh says that instead of northeast region comes closer to the rest of the country; the country should come closer towards the northeast region as there are plenty of things ought to learn from the region.

The two-day event is an initiative to facilitate investment, highlight strengths of the northeast region and opportunities which the northeast region has to offer.

"If we are able to promote growth and development in the northeast states, then alone we will be engaging in a position to business and trades with the countries located in with the NE borders, whether it's Myanmar, Bangladesh. You cannot carry groundnuts and sell over there. It's a produce from Arunachal or Nagaland, goods which you would find natural acceptability in the countries across. So by all means, we have a stake in promoting business, trade and commerce in NE and this is one of the initiatives in that direction", said Dr. Jitendra Singh, DoNER Minister.

Announcing at the summit in a video message delivered, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu says an e-commerce portal will soon be launched to sell north-eastern handicrafts and handloom worldwide on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.

Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day conclave, DoNER Secretary Naveen Verma also proposed a Green Corridor based on the Indian Railways broad gauge network to give a fillip to industry in the region.

"The main focuses in these summits are to tell people what the NE has to offer in various sectors for investment especially in tourism, IT, Industry as a whole and sectors like food processing, medicinal plants, bamboo, services sector as well as the opportunity for investment in infrastructure, hydro-power, connectivity, petroleum and natural gas. In addition, summit like this also are able to get the neighboring countries ASEAN people were there, so we are able to see the NE investment not only for domestic market but also the market for the neighboring countries," said Naveen Verma, Secretary, DoNER.

The conclave focuses on enhancing economic and social development through services sector in the northeast region. It also stressed upon on development of power and energy through proper utilization of the resources in the region.

Moreover, proper connectivity and logistics, development of Agri and Food processing in the region were also discussed during the concurrent sessions.

"The conference is a very good reminder to everybody that let us care about road and development, water waste development, connectivity of northeast with the rest of the country. And many things have already been done and it has been just told by the minster that there's a direct flight from Delhi to Dimapur and Delhi to Aizawl also. So it is also general information for the common man, specialists, experts and the public as to what the country owes to NE and what NE owes to India", said Prof. S. S. Bhakri, Institute of UN and UNESCO Studies.

During the two-day summit, Lt. Gen. Nirbhay Sharma, Governor of Mizoram, PB Acharya, Governor of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, delegates from ASEAN countries and other dignitaries from the country were also attended at the event.

"You (investor) come to Nagaland and invest it. Whatever situation in the region, you have to accept it. I can't change it and you can't run away from the problems because it is not solving the problem. Northeast is also part of the country. How many people (Investor) come and invest it? That is the question I am asking them. I salute them. Please come and invest and create wealth. If circumstances are bad, feel them because that situation is not their creation", added PB Acharya, Governor, Nagaland

Such initiative and summit will help highlight the vast unexplored potential to bring about the quantum jump in the economic growth of the northeast region particular.

It also gives an insightful and a clearer picture of the region's untapped resources to the potential investor which eventually enhance for generating revenue, employment and economic upliftment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former defence minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday took oath as the 13th Chief Minister of Goa.

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha administered the oath of office to Parrikar at the Raj Bhavan here.

In a major setback to the Congress Party, the Supreme Court earlier in the day refused to stay the swearing-in of Parrikar and ordered a floor test in the state assembly at 11 a.m. on March 16.

Parrikar yesterday quit as the defence minister of India, a post he had been holding since November 2014 after first reshuffle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet.

At that time, he was serving his second term as the Chief Minister of Goa.

Parrikar will replace incumbent Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.

Parrikar has been Goa's Chief Minister twice before and has been credited with strengthening the BJP in the coastal state.

He has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since a young age and is an alumnus of the IIT-Bombay.

His first term as the Goa Chief Minister was from 2000 to 2005 and his second term began in 2012.

Parrikar's term as the Defence Minister was marked by a continued period of tension on the India-Pakistan border, following a string of Pakistan-backed terrorist strikes and ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir.

He also presided over the forces' surgical strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and their punitive response to ceasefire violations.

Parrikar steered the Defence Ministry through a string of high-profile acquisitions of weaponry, many of which had been in limbo for years.

The BJP, which won 13 seats in the 40-member Goa Assembly, managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority under Parrikar.

Three MLAs of the Goa Forward Party, three of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar.

The Congress won 17 seats in the recently concluded polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Russian disarmament official has said Kremlin may completely destroy its chemical weapons this year.

"If we move at current pace and there are no technological glitches, we will manage to complete the destruction this year," Xinhua quoted Mikhail Babich, the chairman of Russian State Commission on Chemical Disarmament, as saying.

At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Babich said the country is in the final stage of implementing the arms-controlling Chemical Weapons Convention, which was signed by 192 countries and became effective in 1997.

According to Babich, Russia has spent around USD 5.6 billion so far on the chemical weapons destruction.

He said nearly 70,500 tonnes of chemical weapons were stockpiled around the world, of which 40,000 tonnes were in Russia and 27,000 tonnes in the United States, with the rest divided among other countries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW YORK, NY - MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017 AT 5PM: Open Doors Productions & Theatricals will present an Industry Reading of 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, the Musical (a ghostly original Off Broadway bound musical that was originally built to be like the Block Buster Musicals harking back to the days of Zeigfeld) with Book by Alabama Playwright and Actor, Don Everett Garrett and Music by Kevin Francis Finn.

A Spirited cast of 13 boasts the haunting tale set in Nineteen Ninety's, Selma, Alabama. Post Civil Rights, a Southern Storyteller captures the imagination of neighborhood tricksters one Halloween night as she uses her gift to take them on a spell bound journey exploring 13 chilling events from the history books of Alabama, ones where the Spirits aren't at rest.

When Glen Kinnaird and Don Everett Garrett were introduced in 2015, they had no idea of the supernatural journey they would soon take. Kinnaird, an Alabama native and New York resident created Open Doors Productions and Theatricals in 2006 hoping to nurture and develop new plays and musicals by lesser known playwrights and composers. Garrett, an Alabama playwright, native, and resident, met Kinnaird in 2015 while Kinnaird was installing custom designed decorations at the historic Alabama Theatre for their Christmas film season. Both bonded quickly as they discovered they were both Alabama playwrights sharing a love of theatre, especially new works.

Garrett mentioned to Kinnaird that he had written a musical adaptation of the beloved book, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey with composer Kevin Francis Finn Padilla. 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, written by iconic storyteller and Alabama Women's Hall of Fame inductee, Kathryn Tucker Windham is a collection of 13 "true" ghost stories documented from across the state of Alabama.

Kinnaird knew the book well, as he had enjoyed it as a child and asked Garrett if he could read the libretto. Once Kinnaird read it and heard the score he knew he wanted to produce it through his New York production company.

Garrett had always wanted to adapt a book for the stage, and it wasn't difficult for him to select source material. "I remember checking out 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey from the library over and over as a child," said Garrett. "I'd see the book jacket displaying the author's name, Kathryn Tucker Windham, and wondered about this woman. Garrett wrote Windham a long letter, explaining the musical adaptation he imagined for the book and mailed it to her Selma address.

Weeks later, he received a postcard in the mail that had the image of Jeffrey the ghost on it. According to Windham, Jeffrey is the ghost who moved into her house in 1966 and encouraged her to record the ghost stories from across Alabama. Garrett flipped the card over and it read, "I stay up late. Call me. Kathryn Tucker Windham." Garrett contacted the 91-year-old Windham, and she said, "I don't know how you're going to do it, but if you think you can, go for it." He wrote a draft of the script and mailed it to Windham. After several agonizing weeks of waiting, Garrett received another ghostly postcard in the mail. This one read, "I love it!"

Red Mountain Theatre Company's Executive Director, Keith Cromwell, approached Garrett and Padilla about the new musical and agreed to produce its first production in 2010. 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey received praise by Windham and audiences alike. The new musical has been already been successfully produced by a few regional theatre companies across the state of Alabama, resulting in 5 Broadway World Theatre Award nominations in 2015.

Producer Kinnaird optioned the musical, which is now possibly destined for an Off-Broadway run, beginning with this Industry Reading on March 17th at 5pm, location at the John Cullum Theatre (2nd Floor) inside the American Theatre of Actors building at 314 West 54th Street. David Vaughn is serving as director and Austin Nuckols is taking the helm as musical director.

Music Director Austin Nuckols is a NYC based pianist and composer-lyricist from Mechanicsville, Virginia. He was educated at University of Richmond with a B.A. in Music and Mathematics, and New York University, with an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing. Austin is excited to bring this new, exciting work to life, especially the undead parts.

Director, David F.M. Vaughn is an award-winning actor, director, and writer. Recent directing credits include Shrek the Musical at Pittsburgh CLO, Beauty and the Beast at Musical Theatre West, and Legally Blonde for 3-D Theatricals.

As an actor, David's credits include Broadway, off Broadway, national tours, and regional theatres across the country. He's tap danced with Tommy Tune, belted with Sutton Foster, warbled with Sheena Easton, and shuffled off to Buffalo with Gregory Hines. In addition, he is currently developing a new TV series. David has taught professionally at the Broadway Theatre Project (headed by Ann Reinking), Broadway Classroom, Camp Broadway, and master classes at various universities throughout the country. IG/Twitter: @DavidFMVaughn

The Ghostly Cast announced for the Reading are; Judy Stadt, Ryan Jamaal Swain, Jamol Manigualt, Sydney Blair, Cecil Washington, Jr., Jake Bridges, Kyra Faith, Jonathan Mesisca, Conner Wayne Milam, Rashika Pickett, Lexie Dorsett Sharp, Kelsey Thompson, with DeAngelo M. Kearns as a production swing.

Kinnaird admits to seeing possible encounters with Jeffrey in New York since they started working on the new path for the musical. Garrett laughs about Jeffrey's uninvited visits to Kinnaird. "Jeffrey, is letting us know how pleased he is about the progress of the show," said Garrett. "Now that Mrs. Windham has passed on, Jeffrey's watching over the show and making sure he gets his name up in lights."

Info:

Industry Reading of 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey the Musical

Stage Manager, Joel Elins

Musical Directed by Austin Nuckols

Directed by David F. M. Vaughn

Date: 5pm Monday, March 27, 2017

Location: American Theatre Of Actors

John Cullum Theatre, 2nd Floor

314 W. 54th St, New York City

(646) 241-7491

Tickets: Industry Professionals seating reserved by RSVP only

Send inquiries to Email: staff@opendoorsproductions.us

Additional seating is available, wine and beer available before reading starts (donations welcome).

More info on the Musical can be seen at:

http://www.opendoorsproductions.us

http://www.facebook.com/13ALghostsmusical

- XXX -
Expressing his heartfelt condolence to the families of the 12 CRPF personnel killed by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said the security forces' unprecedented success has led to evident uneasiness among the Left Wing Extremist Groups and, therefore, they will continue to attempt such incidents to restore the flagging morale of their cadres.

Addressing the Lok Sabha regarding the recent attack on the security forces in Chhattisgarh's Sukma on March 11, Singh assured the House that their sacrifices will not go in vain.

"I express my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of the personnel, who have lost their lives and I would like to say firmly that the entire nation is with them in their hour of grief. The nation will always remember their sacrifices. The injured personnel will be provided with the best possible treatment available. On behalf of the entire house, I pray for their health and well-being," he added.

Singh said the security forces have achieved tremendous success during 2016 in all the LWE-affected states and particularly in Chhattisgarh where 135 LWE cadres were eliminated, 779 arrested and 1,198 surrendered.

"The number of violent incidents in Chhattisgarh also dropped by 15 percent from 466 in 2015 to 395 in 2016," he added.

Singh further said the Left Wing Extremists have suffered unprecedented losses in 2016 and have admitted openly in their documents and statements.

"They will continue to attempt such incidents to restore the flagging morale of their cadres. I believe that our brave soldiers and officers will continue to respond with a firm resolve and contribute whole heartedly towards elimination of Left Wing Extremism," he added.

Directing the DG, CRPF, to conduct a detailed enquiry into the incident, Singh said there is a need for introspection so that the lapses which led to the incident can be identified and which will reduce the possibility of repetition of such incidents in the future.

"I visited Chhattisgarh to pay my homage to the martyrs and met the two injured personnel on the day of the incident itself. Arrangements were made to ensure that mortal remains reach their respective families. Loss of life can in no way be compensated by money," said Singh.

"However, the next of kin of the martyred CRPF personnel will be provided Rs. 35 lakhs as ex-gratia from the Central Government, Rs. 20 lakhs from the Risk Fund of CRPF and Rs. one lakh from the CRPF Welfare Fund. They will also get Rs. 25 lakhs as insurance benefits and Rs. three lakh as ex-gratia from the Chhattisgarh Government. The next of kin will also be provided full salary till the age of superannuation of the personnel martyred under the Liberalized Pensionary Award (LPA)," he said.

Assuring the Parliament that the government is committed to provide all support to the CRPF in order to prepare them for their tasks, the Home Minister said the government is also committed to supporting the states for training, capacity building, provision of CRPF battalions as required and intelligence sharing.

"I would like to assure the nation through this house that we will not let Left Wing Extremists succeed in misleading the people and depriving parts of the country from the benefits of development. I once again pay my homage to the martyred personnel and express heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. I assure the house that their sacrifices will not go in vain," he added.

Twelve CRPF personnel belonging to 219th battalion were killed and three others injured when the Maoists ambushed a patrol party in Bhejji Police Station area of Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district on March. 11.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Sikh bodies on Tuesday launched an original Nanakshahi Calender around the world, to restore the original Nanakshahi Calender (2003) and appeal to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee to take consensus of the Sikh bodies and adopt the original calendar and not the distorted one.

At Akal Takhat the highest temporal seats of the Sikhs, the Sikh leaders assembled and after performing they released the Nanakshahi Calander for the year 549.

"We are determined to restore the Nanakshahi calendar to its pristine glory. The Bikrami khichdi will not work for long," said Dal Khalsa president Harpal Singh Cheema.

Party's spokesperson Kanwerpal Singh said that the dates of Guru Nanak Sahib's Gurpurab, Bandi Chor and Hola Mohalla were not fixed as per Nanakshahi at the time of its launch in 2003 under pressure from non Sikh lobby, they will build consensus amongst the community to fix these dates too.

Notably, the calendar was designed and prepared by Canada-based Pal Singh Purewal, accepted by the SGPC general house and ratified by the Akal Takht Sahib in March-April 2003 but debunked by the SGPC in 2010.

Interestingly, it was during the tenure of Kirpal Singh Badungar the calendar was launched in its original form in 2003 and few month back Badungar reappointed the President of SGPC the premier bodies of the Sikh.

Various Gurdwaras in USA also lunched the original Calendar.

American Gurdwara Parbhandhak Committee (AGPC) coordinator informed that they have rejected the amended Nanakshahi Calender which is distortion of the original Calendar adopted by the SGPC and approved by the Sikhs' highest temporal seat Sri Akal Takht Sahib in 2003.

"We follow the original 2003 version of the calendar and reject the distorted one which has been released by the SGPC now'', said Dr. Pritpal Singh.

He said all the dates including the Gurpurabs and other related historical days would be observed by most of the Sikhs in US as per the original Nanakshahi Calender.

"The present SGPC President Kirpal Singh Badungar was the Chief of the SGPC when the Calendar was adopted in 2003. So he should honour the Sikh sentiments and only the original Calendar should be adopted'', they said in the statement.

The U.S. Sikh leaders also said that the SGPC chief must take the lead and hold dialogue with the other Sikh bodies as the community is divided over the issue of the Calendar and thus strike a consensus to adopt the original Calendar. They also congratulated the Sikh community members on the eve of the New Year today.

The Pakistan Sikh Committee also launched the Original Calander on yesterday.

Permit Singh Sarna, former president of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee while favouring the original Nankshahi Calander, ruled that the SGPC has been working under some outside influence and wrongly made unwanted ammedments in the original calendar.

He appealed to the Akal Takht to call a meeting of Sikh scholars and the creator of the calendar the after making consensus resolves the confusion.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Swaraj India, led by Yogender Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, approached Delhi High Court on Tuesday challenging the state election commission's denial to their plea for a common symbol in the upcoming civic polls.

Court fixed the hearing in connection with the matter for tomorrow.

Delhi state election commission today announced the April 22 as the date for MCD polls.

Petitioner saying, the poll panel denied the request for a symbol on March 7 despite a provision in the rules to provide a symbol to a registered but unrecognised political party like Swaraj India which is set to make its electoral debut.

Senior advocate Arvind Nigam mentioned the matter before a bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and V. K. Rao for an urgent hearing.

Swaraj India was floated by Yadav and Bhushan, who were expelled from Aam Aadmi Party after they questioned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's leadership.

The lawyer argued that under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) (Amendment) Order the Election Commission of India itself allows newly registered political parties to have a common symbol for all their candidates for contesting their first election.

The party has claimed that states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Kerala, Sikkim and Tripura follow the rules made by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Under continuous pressure to provide evidence on Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claim that he was wiretapped by Barack Obama, the White House went on the back foot yet again saying the President used the word 'wiretapped' in quotes, referring to the Obama administration broadly and not accusing his predecessor of personal involvement.

More than two weeks after Trump fired off a string of tweets levelling unprecedented allegations against his predecessor, the media present at the daily press briefing continued to attack White House press secretary Sean Spicer with demands of proof.

The briefing took a more debate-like tone when reporters shot questions to Spicer if claims made by the President and his administration can even be trusted, reports CNN.

"When can we trust the president? When he says something, can we trust that it's real? Is it phony or real when he says that President Obama was wiretapped?" NBC's Peter Alexander asked Spicer.

"He doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally. But I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election. That is a widely reported activity that occurred back then," Spicer replied.

He then went on to state that the President used the word 'wiretapped' in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities, when he tweeted on March 4th that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" and accused Obama of being a "bad" or "sick guy."

"The president used the word 'wiretapped' in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that. It is interesting how many news outlets reported that this activity was taking place during the 2016 election cycle and now are wondering where the proof is. It is many of the same outlets in this room that talked about the activities that were going on back then," Spicer added.

However, in each of the four tweets Trump fired off leveling the accusation, Trump referred specifically to phone tapping -- and only used quotation marks in two of those.

A week ago, Spicer had asserted that Trump's tweets do speak for themselves, but on Monday went on to state that the President told Spicer he was referring to means of surveillance beyond wiretapping in his tweets, and seemed unable to provide evidence that Obama had wiretapped Trump.

Finally, the reporter pressed Spicer for a yes or no answer asking, "Can you say affirmatively that whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real?"

"If he's not joking, of course," Spicer replied.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for a summit next month at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to a senior administration official.

The official told CNN that the plan is, however, only tentative at the moment.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to finalize plans for the summit with Chinese officials as he arrives in Beijing this week, the official added.

The meeting would be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Xi and would come amid heightened tensions in the region, particularly the increasing North Korean nuclear threat.

Earlier, Trump had accused Beijing for not helping with efforts to contain North Korea. China then said that its efforts and contributions for the same are internationally acknowledged, adding all sides should avoid actions that may result in escalation of tensions.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea and China's continued building of man-made islands are also likely to be on the agenda.

The discussions between the two leaders are likely to be focused on security challenges and trade.

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against the trade imbalance between the US and China.

He even promised to formally label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office, but is yet to do so.

Tillerson's trip to Beijing - which will come this week after official meetings in Tokyo and Seoul - will lay the groundwork for Xi's visit and the agenda items.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A rebel group attacked a hotel in Myanmar and abducted 260 of its workers to make them work for the group, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to The Global New Light of Myanmar daily, the workers - 150 women and 110 men - were taken to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army's headquarters in the Kokang region in Shan state, for guerrilla training, said military sources, Efe news reported.

The 45 rebels, who attacked the hotel in Kokang's capital Laukkaing on March 6, also looted money and several vehicles and killed one staff member, who refused to cooperate.

Founded in 1989, the 2,000-member rebel group that has been fighting for Kokang's independence, has clashed with the Myanmar army on 48 occasions this year, killing dozens of officials between March 6 and 12, the sources added.

Clashes in Shan and Kachin, near the Chinese border, killed around 150 people, including rebels, soldiers and civilians, between November and December 2016.

--IANS

ksk/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Representatives of 23 countries, including three MPs from India, are participating in a key session of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) that began in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday.

Indian parliamentarians Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta are participating in the four-day conference.

Tharoor tweeted a photograph of the three MPs attending the conference: "The Indian parliamentary delegation at the #AsianParliamentaryAssembly Political Affairs Committee meeting in Islamabad @M_Lekhi @swapan55."

The session, scheduled to last till March 17, was formally inaugurated by Pakistan Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani and Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq.

More than 70 delegates from 23 countries, including members of parliament and speakers, participated on the inaugural day of the meeting being hosted by the Senate.

The session has various agendas listed, including establishment of an Asian Parliament, Geo News reported.

Addressing the session, Ayaz Sadiq stressed the need for working together for achieving the desired goal of regional peace, development and prosperity.

He said APA member states should intervene for peaceful solution of all outstanding disputes in accordance with UN resolution and as per aspirations of the people.

"We must work together for confronting shared challenges of terrorism, extremism, poverty and climate change," he added.

Raza Rabbani expressed confidence that the special committee on creation of an Asian Parliament would make a positive beginning towards the cherished objective.

He said it would be unrealistic to expect a blueprint of the Asian Parliament at the conclusion of the session "but we should move towards narrowing our differences".

The Asian Parliamentary Assembly dates back to September 1999 when a group of Asian Parliamentarians decided to join hands for promoting peace and human rights in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by setting up the Association of Asian Parliaments for Peace (AAPP), which was later converted to APA in 2004.

--IANS

ahm/rn

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Three people were killed when an oil tanker exploded in Meghalaya's Ri-Bhoi district on Tuesday, police said.

"The driver of the oil tanker, bound for Manipur from Guwahati, reportedly lost control resulting in the vehicle to overturn," a police official told IANS.

The tanker exploded due to oil leakage.

The victims are yet to be identified, the official added.

--IANS

rrk/ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bollywood actor-producer Aamir Khan, who turned 52 on Tuesday, says he is looking forward to work with megastar Amitabh Bachchan in "Thugs of Hindostan" this year.

He also spoke on nepotism and on freedom of expression, on the sidelines of a cake-cutting ceremony for his special day, with the media here.

Dressed in a crisp white shirt and flaunting a bearded and bespectacled look, Aamir spoke like an excited child about how his mother has prepared his favourite 'seekh kebab' for his birthday. So, he is hoping for some quality time with the family.

Talking about his film projects, he said: "At this time, I am looking forward to work with Amitabh Bachchan for my next film. This is going to be a very special experience for me."

There have been rumours that Aamir will feature as astronaut Rakesh Sharma in a soon-to-be-made biopic.

But the actor said: "Currently, I am only working on 'Thugs of Hindostan' and shooting will start from July. I did not sign any other film."

Asked to comment on the current hot favourite subject of nepotism in Bollywood, Aamir said: "I keep emotion out of workplace. But yes, I always try to help my loved ones and people I care for."

The actor, who once courted controversy for his comment on intolerance in India, also spoke on freedom of expression in India.

"I have always been conscious about expressing my opinion. And I will always be. But that does not mean I will not talk about issues. I will just be conscious," said the "Dangal" star, who has been in the industry for close to three decades.

--IANS

aru-rb/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AIADMK member P.R. Sundaram on Tuesday demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into party chief and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa's death.

The central government in response said that it could order a probe only once the result of the probe instituted by Tamil Nadu government is out.

Sundaram, who is a part of the rebel group of the party headed by former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, raised the issue in Lok Sabha and demanded the probe.

Sundaram claimed that nobody was allowed to meet Jayalalithaa while she was hospitalised and noted that she was said to be suffering from dehydration and fever before it was "suddenly" announced that she had a heart attack which caused her death.

In response, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar agreed that it was an issue of concern.

"We are all sad by the sudden demise of the great leader. It's a matter of great concern to the house and the whole country," Kumar said.

The minister said there was a "feeling" that the death occurred in "mysterious circumstances".

Jayalalithaa died on December 5 after prolonged hospitalisation, and a faction of party members have questioned the circumstances around her death.

After Jayalalithaa's death triggered a virtual split in the AIADMK, the party members in the Lok Sabha are divided into two factions: one backing Panneerselvam and the other aligned with Chief Minister E. Palaniswamy.

--IANS

ao/ksk/sac

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S.J. Res. 18 would enable Alaska to allow private hunters to use aircraft to scout grizzly bears, to hunt wolves and bears during their denning seasons, and to use steel-jawed leghold traps and neck snares on grizzly bears and black bears on national wildlife refuges. Photo by Alamy

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When we worked to outlaw cockfighting in the last U.S. state where it was legal, we knew that the people of Louisiana didnt support the practice and had their own aspirations of banning such blood spectacles in their state. The politicians there had it wrong for years, somehow convincing themselves that there was strong support in the state for the practice and perhaps not having much of a moral center themselves on animal welfare issues.

In the end, when Louisiana legislators finally outlawed cockfighting  with all the states major newspapers and so many business leaders supporting it  they didnt face a popular revolt. Quite the opposite. They won applause, and a good dose of what took you so long?

Thats the same thing with the grossly unsporting, inhumane, and reckless practices that are the current focus of our congressional activities. The U.S. Senate is poised to vote soon on H.J. Res 69, or its Senate companion, S.J. Res. 18  a Congressional Review Act resolution from Dan Sullivan of Alaska that would enable the state of Alaska to allow private hunters to use aircraft to scout grizzly bears, to hunt wolves and bears during their denning seasons (even killing the animals in their dens), and to use steel-jawed leghold traps and neck snares on grizzly bears and black bears on national wildlife refuges.

These are outlier practices  the worst of the worst in wildlife management, and practices essentially not allowed in any other state. But Alaska. Rep. Don Young, who was the author of the companion resolution in the House that passed in mid-February, has long been a champion and apologist for the most extreme practices. In fact, during the debate on the issue on the House floor, Young proudly announced that as a young man, he killed wolves in their dens and pocketed the bounty paid by the federal government.

However, the federal government, in the decades since, has moved from persecutor of predators to protector. In this case, its trying to restrain the worst instincts of a small minority, and assert federal authority on lands specifically designated to protect the diversity of wildlife. Don Young may not have changed his views all that much since he took office in 1971, but the people of the United States, including the vast majority of Alaskans, have evolved quite a bit, and for the better.

Its the special interest groups, like the Safari Club and some guides and outfitters, that promote these practices. Theyve somehow been able to convince leading Alaska politicians to favor these activities. They have also been able to convince them that the imposition of reasonable rules to restrict cruelty and promote conservation amounts to some nefarious plot to restrict all hunting or to usurp Alaskan authority. Theyre wrong on the history. Theyre wrong on the science. And theyre wrong on the question of sportsmanship and hunting ethics.

Last week, we released a video that gives voice to Alaskans who support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule. People who understand the notions of fairness, decency, and common sense. People who understand that no animals, including magnificent grizzlies and majestic wolves, should be victims of a scorched-earth policy. A recent poll also shows that Alaskans strongly support the elimination of these cruel practices.

Hear these Alaskans. One day soon, well wonder why it took Alaskas politicians this long to hear their howls of protest against the policies they are pursuing.

P.S. Please do contact your two U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose S.J. Res. 18. Forward this notice to others wholl help.
With a full day dedicated to showcasing the works of 71 designers from various nooks and corners of India, and a host of other designers lined up to amp up the style quotient on the ramp, the Amazon India Fashion Week Autumn Winter 2017 (AIFW A/W 2017) -- with a set up inspired by Germany's Bauhaus movement -- is poised to be exciting for the design community and aficionados.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here will enliven on Wednesday with the fashion gala which, for the first time, is happening for four days instead of five.

"The graphics at the venue this time are very different. The inspiration for the fashion week's venue has been taken from the graphics of the Bauhaus movement. There are elements like a half circle, a triangle... Those kind of graphics," Sunil Sethi, President of the event's organising body -- Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) -- told IANS.

Bauhaus was a German art school, operational from 1919 to 1933, that combined crafts and the fine arts. It was famous for its approach to design, what it publicised and taught.

"The venue is very minimalist and very modern," Sethi said, and added that the exhibition area where designers will have stalls has also been given a twist.

"We are trying to make the exhibition area more open so that people can see it from outside as well. We will also have a new band playing live music everyday. The idea is to have a lot of open space this time," Sethi said.

In terms of fashion, the star opener of this season will be a full day dedicated to handlooms and textiles.

Presenting their works will be students of The Handloom School, supported by designers and labels like Akaaro, Eka, Neeru Kumar, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Rohit Bal, Sanjay Garg, Suket Dhir and Eleven Eleven.

A special show dedicated to Indonesian textiles and techniques will also take place as part of FDCI's partnership with Jakarta Fashion Week (JFW) to enable a cross-cultural exchange of designer talent between the two platforms.

This apart, with Jharkhand as the partner state for the fashion event, creations from there will find their way to the ramp.

"With the government of Jharkhand collaborating with FDCI, it proves the credibility of fashion. That shows how serious fashion is and we are encouraging textiles from all over the country and how Indian designers can help in making the product more contemporary," Sethi said.

This edition is also special as veteran designer Madhu Jain will be celebrating 30 years in the industry as a craft revivalist and textile conservationist, along with Krishna Mehta who is known for bringing Maheshwari fabrics into the limelight.

Designers Abraham and Thakore will highlight the irregularity of Indian textures, using pure Indian cottons that are either hand woven or hand printed.

Giving out 55 modern day narratives of Indian traditional drapes will be a show by fashion brand Vogue as part of its celebration of a decade in India.

Another unique bit will be an off-site show by designer Samant Chauhan, known for his creations in Bhagalpur silk. This time, he has dabbled with golden threads of Assam. And yet another off-site show will be by Aneeth Arora at the Crafts Museum here.

Fashion designer Namrata Joshipura will present a New York-inspired collection with actress Alia Bhatt as showstopper, and ending the fashion gala will be designers Tarun Tahiliani and Amit Aggarwal.

What about the buyers?

Sethi says at least 200 buyers -- national and international -- are expected to be present. These would include those from the Middle East, US, London, Japan and Russia.

(Kishori Sud can be contacted at kishori.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Punjab Police on Tuesday launched a manhunt for a retired Army colonel and his son after a 79-year-old man was shot dead in Punjab's Gurdaspur district.

Gurbachan Singh Khalsa, a senior leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal in the area, was allegedly shot dead by Col. Surjit Singh in Peorchichi village of the district, around 250 km from here, on Monday evening.

The killing led to tension as the alleged shooter is linked to Congress leaders in the area.

The police have rounded up one person for questioning.

Police officials said that the accused Army officer was threatening Gurbachan Singh and his family for the last few days using a loudspeaker from his house in the village.

The shooting took place as the retired Army officer had an argument with Gurbachan Singh on Monday evening.

Linking the killing of the Akali leader by a Congressman due to political rivalry and condemning it, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday said that even before the formation of the Congress government in Punjab, Congressmen have started showing their true colours.

In a statement, AAP leaders Sukhpal Singh Khaira and Kanwar Sandhu said that both the Congressmen and Akalis have same culture of terrorising people while in power.

This is the second incident of killing in Punjab in the past two days, resulting from political and personal rivalry.

Two persons, owing allegiance to the Congress party, were killed in Bareta town of Mansa district on Sunday after they were fired upon by a rival group of Akali Dal supporters.

The reason for the killing was rivalry over control of the local truck union.

The killings took place just a day after assembly election results, in which the Congress emerged victorious and returned to power after one decade.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Bangladesh Prime Minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia did not appear in the trial proceedings of 11 cases against her at a Dhaka court on Tuesday citing ill health, her lawyer said.

Zia, a two-time Prime Minister of Bangladesh (1991-1996; 2001-2006), faces trial in 10 cases related to violence during Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) anti-government protests in early 2015 over demands to advance election dates.

"Khaleda Zia could not appear before the court today as she is sick," her lawyer Sanaullah Mia told Efe news.

The BNP chief is also facing sedition charges for expressing doubts over the widely-accepted version that three million were killed or martyred during the 1971 Liberation War when Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan.

Zia had not appeared before the court on health grounds also on February 27, when the court had allowed it "for one last time", and postponed her appearance until Tuesday, said Mia.

"There is nothing called as one last time. We informed the court about her illness and the court gave us a new date," he said.

The opposition leader has now been asked to appear before the court on March 28.

The Awami League, led by current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Zia's BNP have alternately been in power in the country since 1991, except for a brief period of military rule between 2006 and 2008.

The BNP -- currently absent from Parliament -- boycotted the last General Elections of 2014 and has been much weakened lately owing to continued arrests of its leading members and cadres, apart from the 35 cases of corruption, violence and sedition that Zia herself is embroiled in.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Beware, a trip to the ICU may not necessarily ensure better treatment but could actually leave you high and dry in terms of money and health, warn experts ranged against unscrupulous private taking advantage of unsuspecting patients in the absence of proper guidelines for such units.

Setting up and implementing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for ICUs (Intensive Care Units) and CCUs (Critical Care Units) would not only elevate standards of treatment in the units but also thwart disreputable from fleecing patients, say some experts, while others assert there is no need for additional guidelines.

"A patient admitted to a general bed in a hospital is charged Rs 2,500 while in the ICU at the same hospital, he or she is charged Rs 10,000. The prices vary just across the door," M.L. Saha, Department of General Surgery, Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research/SSKM Hospital, Kolkata, told IANS.

"The reason is in an ICU, a patient is entitled to certain equipment and facilities. But many establishments charge patients extra for these essentials as the patient is not aware," he added.

He said nursing service, resident medical officer service, cardiac monitor, pulse oximeter and 24x7 oxygen supply are some of the key necessities in a functional ICU.

"It's in the Clinical (Establishments) Act. Since patients are not in the know, they are billed extra for oxygen supply (and the like)," Saha said.

The issues of excess billing and unwarranted shifting of patients to ICUs and CCUs were hotly debated and discussed following the West Bengal government tabling the Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) Bill 2017.

Under the new Act, SOPs on ICUs and CCUs would be recommended for private .

"The state government has guidelines for government set-ups but not all private hospitals have such SOPs. Under the bill, we will suggest SOPs for them," Director ( Services) B.R. Satpathi told IANS.

Kunal Saha, President of People For Better Treatment, said although the specific requirements for an ICU may vary from country to country, and even between hospitals within the same country, minimal standards for running a CCU must be maintained, as outlined by Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM in the US), by all hospitals.

"All ICUs must have minimal life-saving equipment, including continuous oxygen supply, heart-lung monitor, defribrillator, isolated unit et al, as well as round-the-clock doctors/nurses. But even this minimal material is absent in many small, medium or even large hospitals in India even though they all routinely admit patients in their so-called ICUs," Kunal Saha told IANS.

Another reason for putting patients in ICUs is that since visitors are generally not allowed in these designated units, any untoward treatment or dealings with the patient is less prone to be exposed to his/her family waiting outside, he added.

Kunal Saha blamed the Indian medical authorities, including the departments and Medical Council of India, for being "painfully silent" and "never caring" for the hapless patients who are taken for a ride by these "greedy" private hospitals by charging inflated bills in the name of ICUs.

This matter was recently brought to the notice of the Supreme Court by the organisation, which was representing a case of alleged medical negligence filed by Asit Mondal whose daughter-in-law, Sunanda, died in a Kolkata hospital on December 29, 2013.

The SC in 2016 asked the Centre and secretaries of all states to submit affidavits on a standard SOP for ICUs and CCUs.

Kunal Saha said the SOPs will help not only to save lives "by elevating the standards of ICU treatment but will also help to stop unscrupulous nursing homes and hospitals without proper facilities to slap any patient a highly-inflated bill just claiming that the patient was treated in an ICU".

He recommended vigilance for those admitted in ICUs. "And collect all medical documents for future justice. Also question the treating doctors and try to keep a record of your discussions."

Welcoming the proposals for SOPs, R.D. Dubey, President, Indian Medical Association (South Kolkata branch) and member of West Bengal Medical Council, said such guidelines must be established by people with credible backgrounds.

"Such SOPs should be set up by healthcare experts who know the situation on ground and not bureaucrats or politicians. Also, the information about these experts should be available for all to see. They must be credible and the contents must be open to all," Dubey told IANS.

Dubey advocated placing trust in one's physician. "One has to trust the doctor," he said.

Noted bariatric surgeon B. Ramana, however, felt more rules and regulations are not needed.

"I don't think more rules and regulations are needed. I think clinical guidelines are already established on when to move a patient to the general ward, etc," Ramana said.

"A large majority of those in the medical profession are still driven by ethical codes and their focus is on treating the patient. Surely, there are corrupt elements. (But) billing-related issues that are often the focus of media attention are completely out of the ambit of the doctor," he added.
A bill to set up a single, permanent tribunal to adjudicate all inter-state river water disputes was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, amid opposition from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017, was introduced by Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti, who called it a "revolutionary step" towards the resolution of inter-state river water disputes.

Giving details of the Bill, the minister said the Bill proposes a single Standing Tribunal (with multiple benches) instead of existing multiple tribunals, which shall consist of one Chairperson, one Vice Chairperson and not more than six members.

The maximum time window for adjudication of disputes has been fixed at four-and-half years. The decision of the tribunal shall be final and binding with no requirement of publication in the official Gazette.

While the term of office of the Chairperson is five years or till he attains the age of 70 years, whichever is earlier, the term of office of Vice Chairperson and other members of the tribunal shall be co-terminus with the adjudication of the water dispute.

The Bill also provides for the appointment of assessors to provide technical support to the tribunal. They shall be appointed from among experts serving in the Central Water Engineering Service not below the rank of Chief Engineer.

The Bill also proposes to introduce mechanism to resolve the dispute amicably by negotiations, through a Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) to be established by the central government consisting of relevant experts, before such dispute is referred to the tribunal.

Inter-state river water disputes are on the rise due to an increase in water demands by different states.

Under the Water Dispute Act, 1956, separate tribunals are established for every inter-state river water dispute. Only three of eight awards given by these tribunals have been accepted by the states, while tribunals on the Cauvery and Ravi-Beas have been in existence for over 26 and 30 years respectively without any award.

The new Bill seeks to streamline the adjudication of disputes and make the present legal and institutional architecture effective.

BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahtab objected to the Bill's introduction, saying water is a state issue. The objection was, however, overruled by the Speaker and the Bill was moved in the house.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nongthombam Biren will be sworn in as the first BJP Chief Minister of Manipur on Wednesday morning, Raj Bhavan sources said.

He will be sworn-in at Raj Bhavan at 10.30 a.m., the sources said. Biren and one or two elected members may take oath.

A formal communique is yet to be received.

National and regional BJP leaders are expected to be present during the swearing in ceremony.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders are keeping their fingers crossed. Former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, who tendered his resignation on Monday night, said: "We had staked our claim to form the next ministry."

However, that hope is fading away as all other members of the non-Congress parties and the lone independent have extended support to the BJP, and the Congress has not been able to increase its strength from 28.

Ibobi Singh had pinned his hope on the National People's Party, which has four MLAs. However, the NPP general secretary Vivekraj Wangkhem said, "We have extended support to the BJP and it is final."

The BJP ministry is also facing troubles since the Naga People's Front has demanded that its four MLAs should be given ministerial berths. The earlier understanding was that it would support the BJP from outside. The NPF further said that four other Naga MLAs should also be accommodated with important portfolios.

The BJP had bagged 21 seats. But the NPF and NPP with four MLAs each supported it. Besides one MLA each of the AITC, LJP and independent had supported it. Congress has been in power for three consecutive terms.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla on Tuesday said that the BJP has the requisite numbers to form a government in the state.

"It is more than 30 in the House of 60 members," she said during a brief press conference at Raj Bhavan on Tuesday.

Heptulla said she has invited the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government on Wednesday.

"BJP led group has been invited tomorrow (Wednesday) to form the government. In Manipur we need development, jobs for the youth," she said.

"Political stability and development of the state are the main concerns. Nobody has accused me of being biased. I know the rules and I go by the book. My 17 years of experience has stood by me in good stead," she said.

The Raj Bhavan has invited Nongthombam Biren to form the government. The oath taking ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, and not at 10.30 a.m. as stated earlier, Raj Bhavan sources said.

S. Bira, a senior Congress MLA, was sworn in as the protem Speaker.

Heptulla said, "The new Chief Minister will be asked to prove his majority by March 22 or 23."

BJP president Amit Shah, other national leaders, Assam Chief Minister S. Sonowal, Assam Finance Minister Hemanta Biswa Sarma and others are expected to be present at the swearing in ceremony.

Reacting to the political developments, Congress sources said the party is keeping its options open.

In the just-concluded elections the Congress party secured 28 seats whereas the BJP could bag 21 seats. But the NPF and NPP with four MLAs each supported it. Besides one MLA each of the AITC, LJP and an independent also supported the BJP. Congress has been in power for three consecutive terms.

Sources said that after the Supreme Court ruling on the Goa political developments it is very unlikely that the Congress in Manipur will go to court.

Congress leader Okram Ibobi Singh, who resigned as Chief Minister on Monday, also staked his claim to form the government.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Stressing the need for collaborative functioning of the Centre and state governments, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said the tradition of democracy should continue in spite of political differences.

"We want the Centre and the state governments to go ahead in a collaborative manner so that everything runs smoothly. Political parties will come and go, but the tradition and the democratic culture of the country should continue," Banerjee said.

"In a democratic country, one should always respect others. Some parties may win or lose elections, but that is not the ultimate thing. The prosperity of the people of India is the main thing," she said.

The Trinamool Congress supremo also questioned the Centre's policy of making Aadhaar cards mandatory in 23 departments before providing the identity card to everyone.

"I have questions about the Centre's stand on Aadhaar cards. They have made it mandatory in 23 departments even before everyone can have the card. As a result, the kids are being deprived of midday meal in schools. People are not able to use the Kisan (farmer) credit cards, participate in 100-day work scheme or withdraw pension without the Aadhaar card," she said.

Banerjee claimed that the Centre has failed to abide by the responsibility to provide Aadhaar cards to every citizen before implementing these policies.

"It was their responsibility to provide Aadhaar cards to everyone but they failed. We are not against the policy but unless the card is provided to everyone we should not deprive the poor of their basic rights," she added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China has expressed hope that India and Pakistan will overcome their differences through a renewed dialogue process that stalled last year following unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and the Uri terror attack.

"Both India and Pakistan are China's important neighbours and important countries in South Asia. China hopes that India and Pakistan can enhance mutual trust and improve relations through more dialogues," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said during a press briefing on Monday in Beijing.

"This is conducive to not only the two countries themselves but also to regional prosperity and development," Chunying added.

The spokesperson added that China also looks forward to the early accession of Pakistan and India to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as full members so they could work with other members for the security, stability, development and prosperity of the region.

"The memorandum on the obligations for India and Pakistan to obtain membership in the SCO was signed at the SCO Tashkent Summit in 2016. Currently, all sides are going through relevant legal procedures in accordance with the memorandum," the spokesperson said while responding to a question.

Relations between Pakistan and India worsened in September 2016 when militants attacked an army base in Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers. India has blamed the attack on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohamed terror group. The Indian Army on September 29 carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control, which added to the tensions.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday asked the State Election Commission to conduct the upcoming civic polls through ballot paper instead of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

Kejriwal's demand comes amid allegations by some political leaders that EVMs were tampered with in the just-concluded assembly polls.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader directed the Chief Secretary to ask the State Election Commission to conduct municipal polls using paper ballot, AAP sources said.

The municipal polls are due in April and the Election Commission is expected to make the poll announcement on Tuesday evening.

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken also wrote to the Commission over the matter.

Earlier, Maken had made a similar request to Kejriwal saying the Chief Minister was empowered to hold civic polls on ballot paper.

"Many are doubting EVMs. Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results. I want Arvind Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through ballot papers," Maken had tweeted.

After her Bahujan Samaj Party was decimated in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, party chief Mayawati was the first to allege the voting machines had been "managed" to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party.

She asked the poll panel to do re-polling using paper ballots in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The Election Commission subsequently rejected her allegations.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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A court here on Tuesday extended interim protection from arrest till March 20 to former "Bigg Boss" contestant and self-proclaimed godman Swami Om, who has been accused of molesting and threatening a woman.

Special Judge Hemani Malhotra, who was hearing the anticipatory bail plea of Swami Om, also granted more time to submit the video footage of CCTV installed in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Daryaganj, to find the truth behind Swami Om's claim.

Claiming innocence, Swami Om told the court that he had gone to the office of a senior police officer at Daryaganj here on the day the incident is said to have taken place.

Swami Om had moved an anticipatory bail plea, saying that he was falsely implicated in the case, as he had been advocating Indian culture and anti-social elements wanted to stop his "social activity".

His counsel advocate A.P. Singh assured the court that if granted anticipatory bail, Om would not misuse his liberty.

A woman has lodged an FIR against Swami Om and Santosh Anand, accusing them of wrongfully restraining and abusing her, and committing objectionable acts.

The woman in her complaint alleged that the accused had ripped off her clothes on February 7.

The complaint was registered at Indraprastha Estate police station.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid allegations that EVMs were tampered with in the just-concluded assembly polls, the Delhi unit of the Congress on Tuesday approached the state Election Commission seeking that the upcoming civic polls in the city be conducted through ballot papers.

In a letter to state Election Commissioner S.K. Srivastava, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken, airing doubts about the efficacy of electronic voting machines (EVMs), said voters had apprehensions about the fairness of the electoral process.

"Serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of the voters as to the free and fair nature of the electoral process. Even the Supreme Court in January 2017, reiterated the need for vote verifier paper audit trail (VVPAT) in EVMs," said Maken.

"We demand that these elections should be held using the traditional ballot paper system as an immediate step so as to erase doubts in the people's mind," he said.

Earlier, Maken on Twitter urged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to hold the elections to the North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations -- due in April -- through ballot papers.

"Many are doubting EVMs. Not prejudiced, nor casting aspersions on results. I want Arvind Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through ballot papers," Maken said on Twitter while clarifying that he wasn't disputing the outcome of the just-concluded assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab.

Following the decimation of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, party chief Mayawati alleged the voting machines had been "managed" to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

She asked the Election Commission of India to hold the results of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkahand assembly elections invalid and do re-polling using paper ballots.

The poll panel subsequently rejected her allegations.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Parliament on Tuesday handed down a 30-day salary sanction on a Polish lawmaker who made headlines for his inflammatory sexist remarks justifying a gender pay-gap by suggesting women were weaker and less intelligent than men.

Not only is MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke to miss a month's salary, worth 9,000 euros ($9,500), but he was also banned from parliamentary activities, although he can still vote for 10 days.

Korwin-Mikke was further prohibited from representing the European Parliament at international fora.

During a March 1 debate at the European Parliament, the far-right nationalist Polish member said: "Do you know how many women there are among the best 100 chess players? I'll tell you: None. And of course, women must earn less than men, because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent."

His sexist remarks were immediately countered by Spanish socialist MEP Iratxe Garcia, who said: "I know that it hurts and bothers you that nowadays we women can represent citizens on an equal footing with you. I'm here to defend European women from men like you."

European Parliament's President Antonio Tajani opened an investigation into the remarks and apologised to all the lawmakers in the chamber.

Korwin-Mikke has a long history of controversial statements and bizarre behaviour designed to grab headlines, said the report.

He has previously been suspended in 2012 for using a highly-offensive racial slur aimed at black people and again in 2015 for giving a Nazi salute during a speech to protest a uniform transport ticket for the EU.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four persons have been arrested on charge of stabbing and critically injuring a property dealer in south Delhi, police said on Tuesday.

Police said the four -- including two juveniles -- were apprehended soon after the crime was reported on Sunday night in Prem Nagar in Lal Kuan area.

"Surender Singh, 26, a son of Delhi Police Sub-Inspector Lahore Singh, had gone for a Holi ceremony at a park where the four overpowered him and stabbed him multiple times," Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Banniya said.

The accused were identified as Devender and Sonu apart from the two juveniles.

Surender, a resident of Prem Nagar, has been admitted to Batra Hospital where his condition is said to be critical, police said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Ministry of Women and Child Development on Tuesday referred a fraud being perpetrated in the name of 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for probe.

The ministry took up the matter with authorities concerned in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Bihar.

The ministry said certain unauthorised individuals were found "distributing illegal forms in the name of cash incentive" under the scheme.

The scheme has no provision for cash incentives for individuals, said an official release.

"Keeping in view the public interest and gravity of the matter, the case has now been referred to the CBI for investigation," the release said.

"Repeated warnings have been publicised several times by the ministry in print and electronic media. The ministry has advised that no personal details should be shared in this regard and no one should subscribe to such fraudulent schemes. However, still some people are falling prey to such frauds and buying forms or disclosing personal details in the name of such non-existent benefits falsely offered in the name of the scheme," the release added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A powerful winter storm on Tuesday began its thrashing of the mid-Atlantic and the northeast with heavy snow, sleet and rain, prompting more than 7,800 flight cancellations, school closures and warnings from officials to stay off the roads.

About 18 million people were placed under a blizzard warning, CNN reported.

More than 7,800 US flights were cancelled and thousands of schools have closed. Winter storm warnings have been hoisted over a region stretching from Ohio and West Virginia into Maine.

Local and state authorities warned residents to be prepared and to avoid unnecessary travel as winds in some coastal areas could hit 80 kmph to 90 kmph, reducing visibility to zero.

A blizzard warning was in effect on Tuesday morning for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, upstate New York and the six New England states.

Weather models showed that the heaviest snow, perhaps more than two feet, could hit northeastern Pennsylvania, New York's Hudson Valley and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Declaring a state of emergency, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said commuters should expect road closures, delays and cancellations.

"I strongly urge everyone to limit unnecessary travel on Tuesday and if you must drive, please plan ahead, be careful, and stay safe," he said in a statement.

Cuomo advised New Yorkers to prepare food supplies for seven to 10 days, and an emergency supply of bottled water.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also declared a state of emergency and ordered all state employees not involved in the response to stay at home.

President Donald Trump said he had spoken to Homeland Security and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was ready to provide assistance where needed.

"Everybody in government is fully prepared and ready," he said. "Let's hope it's not going to be as bad as some people are predicting. Usually it isn't."

In 2016, New York experienced the biggest snowstorm in the city's history, with a record 27.3 inches falling on Central Park in 24 hours.

The blizzard brought parts of the north-eastern states to a standstill, and left 18 people dead.

--IANS

soni/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Representatives of 23 countries, including three MPs from India, are participating in a key cabinet committee session of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly that began in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday.

Indian parliamentarians Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta are attending the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, that is scheduled to last till March 17, according to reports.

The session was formally inaugurated by Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani and Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Tuesday.

More than 70 delegates from 23 countries, including members of parliament and speakers, are expected to participate in the meeting being hosted by the Senate.

The session has various agendas listed, including establishment of an Asian Parliament, Geo News reported.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday sought Indonesia's partnership in cementing India's ties with the ASEAN bloc.

In a meeting here with Indonasia's Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto, Rijiju said India recognised the former's country's key role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and appreciated its strong commitment to regional peace and security.

Pointing out that the two countries share a lot of similarities, democratic set-up and common cultural and social ties, Rijiju said: "India is eager to consolidate its partnership with the largest nation in southeast Asia to cement its ties with the ASEAN bloc."

Wiranto is in the national capital and leading an Indonasian delegation.

Both the leaders shared concerns on tackling fundamentalism, extremism and the threat posed by radicalisation and the Islamic State, an official statement said.

Recalling his visit to Bali for the International meeting on counter-terrorism in August 2016, Rijiju said he was very impressed with how Indonesia has effectively tackled the threat of the Islamic State on its soil.

Both expressed hope that the two countries can deepen cooperation on counter-terrorism matters. "The two sides also evinced interest in enhancing ties in intelligence-sharing and cyber security."

The ministers discussed various issues on security cooperation and assured mutual commitment to strengthen bilateral engagement in this regard, the statement added.

--IANS

rak/tsb

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian-American Seema Verma has been confirmed by the US Senate to head the government's insurance programmes putting her in a pivotal role to steer President Donald Trump's controversial healthcare reform.

Her appointment as the Administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services faced considerable opposition from the Democrats and she was confirmed by a vote of 55-43 on Monday.

She was the lightning rod for opposition to the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare", which was one of former President Barack Obama's signature achievements.

He tried to extend health insurance to the entire population through a system of subsidies for the uninsured working people and extending eligibility for free insurance for the poor.

When Trump announced in November that he was appointing Verma for the post, he said that she would be a part of "the dream team that will transform our healthcare system for the benefit of all Americans".

Her role will extend beyond the insurance programmes - Medicare for senior citizens and Medicaid for the poor - to helping craft and implement the Republican healthcare reform plan to replace Obamacare.

"She has decades of experience advising on Medicare and Medicaid policy and helping states navigate our complicated systems," Trump had said.

Verma, who is close to Vice President Mike Pence, helped develop a public healthcare system for implementing Obamacare in Indiana where he was the Governor.

Among other things, her system there required those using it to make contributions to it, even if it was a nominal dollar by the poorest, to ensure they felt responsible and involved. It was opposed by many Democrats.

California Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein, who voted against her appointment, said that making the poorest to pay for insurance was one of the reasons she opposed Verma.

Obamacare was enacted in 2010 against stiff opposition by most Republicans and Trump promised during his campaign to repeal it.

Ironically, many of his supporters who opposed Obamacare may now find themselves without health insurance.

The Republican plan to replace Obamacare could lead to 14 million people losing health insurance, according to the research office of the Congress sparking fierce opposition to it.

It also faces stiff opposition from the right wing of the Republican Party, which opposes subsidies and sees any government-mandated health programme as state intrusion in peoples' lives.

Under Obamacare those who did not get health insurance or dropped it had to pay fine.

Manny Sethi, an Indian-American doctor who runs a non-profit health organisation in Tennessee, was among a group that met Trump on Monday to complain about Obamacare.

"So what they are doing is, effectively, they're paying the tax penalty because it's cheaper and works out better than paying for the insurance."

Medicare that Verma will oversee provides insurance for over 46 million senior citizens, who are a politically powerful block, and Medicaid has about 60 million poor people enrolled in it.

Together they are about a third of the US population.

There are nearly 60,000 doctors of Indian descent working in the US, making them an important constituency for healthcare reforms.

Verma's appointment was welcomed by Ajay Lodha, the president of the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin.

--IANS

al/ksk/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chicago-based Indian-American Public Affairs Committee (IAPAC) has launched a campaign across the US to spread awareness about hate crimes against the community.

The committee plans to organise a series of grassroot events and town halls across the country, American Bazaar Online reported on Tuesday.

"There is a need to bring understanding about the people of Indian-American and represent their interests," Ashwani Dhall, one of the founding members of IAPAC, said in a statement.

The committee plans to highlight how Indian-Americans have been an intrinsic part of the American fabric and will also ask different state governments and cities to announce Indian-American awareness month.

"By bringing together elected officials, local and business leaders and the media, the aim is to assure Indian-American community that incidents like the hate-crime in Kansas City are not tolerated or repeated," the statement read.

IAPAC will also organise events in San Francisco Bay Area, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas and Seattle as part of the campaign. It wants to ensure that correct information, not rumours, on existing policies is disseminated to people, according to the statement.

"It was heartening to hear [President] Trump denounce the Kansas City incident right at the start of his address to the Congress," IAPAC president Vinesh Virani said.

"We have hope that the current administration will work to bring everyone together," he said.

--IANS

soni/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Although hes made headlines recently for controversial comments not directly about schools, Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa has also made waves for introducing a bill that would dramatically reshape K-12 and education policy. Thats House Resolution 610, and it would create federally backed vouchers for students.

We wrote about the bill earlier this year. The Choices in Education Act of 2017 , the in-plain-English name of the bill, would repeal the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main K-12 law, of which the Every Student Succeeds Act is the latest version. It would create vouchers funded by Washington for parents to use at private schools if they chose to do so, or to use for home schooling their child. Under Kings legislation, the federal government would fund those vouchers through creating block grants for states.

As the spouse of a former Iowa teacher, I understand that its the right thing for our children to take their education decision[s] out of the hands of the federal government and put it back in the hands of parents who know how best to meet the educational needs of their students, King said in a statement last year about a similar bill he introduced in 2016 .

In addition, Kings bill would overturn nutritional standards published in 2012 for the national school lunch and school breakfast programs.

School Leaders Zero In on Bill

This is hands-down the number one bill Im getting emails about from my members, said Noelle Ellerson Ng, the associate executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which represents 13,000 district leaders. Ng also told us Monday that it was one of the biggest topics of conversation when she met with school administrators at the groups recent conference in New Orleans.

We reached out to Kings office to ask him more about the bill, and well update this post if we hear back.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been a supporter of vouchers for many years. And President Donald Trump has backed the concept of vouchers in remarks both before and after his election last year, although we dont know if thats the form of school choice the Trump administration will throw its weight behind. Their combined presence in Washington, however, has possibly fueled interest in this legislation.

Here are several things to keep in mind about Kings bill:



Many, if not the vast majority of, GOP lawmakers are big fans of school choice, including Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the Senate education committee chairman. However, Kings bill to substitute a federal voucher program for the ESEA likely wont sit well with many Republican members of Congress. In fact, in 2015, the Senate rejected Alexanders proposed amendment to ESSA that would have instituted a voucher program. And the Senate now has more Democratic lawmakers than it did then. Its unlikely any Democrat will vote to create nationwide, federal vouchers. More on that previous point: Republican lawmakers representing predominantly rural states have expressed concerns about a federal voucher program, in part because they dont feel private school choice will help many of the children back home. In fact, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., touted DeVos promise not to impose a national school choice program as one reason Fischer felt comfortable voting to confirm her as education secretary. (DeVos, of course, couldnt institute a broad voucher program on her ownshed need authorization from Congress first.) As we mentioned above, King also introduced a version of this bill late last year. That bill didnt really get traction. King does not sit on the House education committee. Even beyond school choice politics, the bill has a complicated path ahead. Thats because it also deals with federally supported school meal programs. But the congressional jurisdiction over those programs lies with the agriculture committees, not the education committees. So getting lawmakers in charge of agriculture issues to move the bill along is, obviously, more complicated than getting just top K-12 lawmakers to prioritize the legislation. Absent procedural maneuvers from GOP lawmakers, a standalone voucher bill like the type King proposed likely would be subject to a filibuster in the Senate, potentially limiting its chances.

So how do choice advocates feel about the bill? We checked in with a prominent one, Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Michael Petrilli, whos also a former U.S. Department of Education official. We asked Petrilli whether he 1) would support the bill, 2) thinks it has a chance of passing Congress, and 3) supports repealing the ESEA in particular, as the bill proposes to do. Here are his responses in their entirety:

1) No

2) .000000001%

3) No

Another potential vehicle for Congress to expand school choice is through tax-credit scholarships. We discussed that possibility here . And in a separate post, we analyzed how such a tax-credit school choice proposal could move through Congress outside traditional education channels .

Jason Botel, a senior education adviser in the Trump administration, also praised a portion of ESSA that creates a weighted student-funding pilot for up to 50 districts. But that pilot doesnt appear to allow for money to be used on private school choice, and under the pilot districts control the flow of money.

Photo: Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa addresses a meeting in Des Moines, Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall/AP-File)

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Japan provided Malaysia with fingerprint data for Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, to help with the probe into his murder last month in Malaysia, the media reported.

According to sources close to the matter, the data was obtained when immigration officials detained him in 2001 at Tokyo's Narita International Airport as he tried to enter the country on a false passport, The Japan Times reported on Monday.

He told the authorities he wanted to visit the Tokyo Disneyland.

The disclosure marks the first time Japanese assistance has come to light in the investigation into the fatal poison attack, which is widely believed to have been orchestrated by North Korea.

Japan also offered data on Kim Jong-nam's physical characteristics, such as fingerprints and mug shots, the sources said.

The information is believed to have helped Malaysian investigators conclusively establish the victim's identity as that of the 45-year-old half brother of the North Korean leader.

The sources said Malaysia also made inquiries to Japan regarding the location of Kim Jong-nam's son, Kim Han-sol, who is believed to have been living in Macau.

Kim Han-sol was seen as key to identifying the body, with Malaysian authorities trying to collect DNA samples from family members to help finalise the identification procedure, The Japan Times added.

The whereabouts of Kim Han-sol and other family members remain unknown, but a video emerged online last week of a man claiming to be him, saying his father was "killed".

The footage was uploaded to YouTube by a group called Cheollima Civil Defense, which said it has been protecting Kim Jong-nam's family.

--IANS

ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Researchers from Assam have invented a simple technology that together removes arsenic and iron from contaminated water at less than one paisa per litre.

The technique has recently been granted an Indian patent.

Christened 'Arsiron Nilogon', the filtration method uses three easily available low-cost chemicals to eliminate arsenic and iron.

The set up is simple: two containers for two stages of the process. One for the chemical action on the contaminated water and the next for sand and gravel to extract clean water.

The capacity of the set-up can be customised according to community or household settings.

"The word 'Arsiron' was derived from arsenic and iron. 'Nilogon' is an Assamese equivalent of 'removal' in English. The recurring cost of the chemicals is less than Re 1 per 100 litre of water (less than 1 paisa per litre). The capital cost is the cost of the two containers, two plastic taps plus some sand and gravel," Robin Kumar Dutta, Professor, Department of Chemical Sciences, Tezpur University, told IANS.

Besides Dutta, S. Bordoloi, A.J. Bora, S. Nath and Sweety Gogoi were involved in the development of the innovative technology.

In Arsiron Nilogon, specific quantities of baking soda, potassium permanganate and ferric chloride are added successively with mild stirring after each addition, in a container, followed by filtration using a sand-gravel filter, explained Dutta.

"Arsiron Nilogon removes iron also, if present along with arsenic, on addition of more potassium permanganate until the purple color of potassium permanganate appears in the water," he said.

Currently one Public Health Engineering Department water supply scheme, about 75 schools and several hundred households in Assam are currently using the procedure.

High level of arsenic contamination, in almost entire northeastern states of India and in the plains along both banks of Brahmaputra in Assam, came to light in 2004.

Arsenic above 50 microgram per litre has been detected in groundwater in 23 out of 27 districts in Assam, six out of 13 districts in Arunachal Pradesh and two out of eight districts in Nagaland.

--IANS

sgh/sm/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Malaysian government announced on Tuesday that the corpse of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was embalmed in Kuala Lumpur to preserve it until it is claimed by relatives.

"Because if it was kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose so we did this to preserve the body," Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told the media during a press conference.

The embalming of the 45-year-old Kim Jong-nam, who died on February 13 after being sprayed in the face with the toxic VX nerve agent, comes amid a heated diplomatic row between North Korea and Malaysia over the police investigation into the alleged murder.

Pyongyang maintains that Kim Jong-nam died of cardiac arrest and criticised the Malaysian probe as a propaganda ploy aligned with South Korean and US interests.

As a response, Malaysia on March 6 expelled the North Korean ambassador and now plans to deport 50 North Korean workers from Sarawak on Borneo island, while Pyongyang is holding nine Malaysians hostage inside the country.

Malaysian Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam on Monday gave Kim Jong-nam's next of kin up to three weeks to claim the now-embalmed body.

--IANS

ksk/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Malaysia will deport some 50 North Koreans working here with overstayed visas, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced on Tuesday.

The 50 overstayed workers, part of the 140 North Korean nationals working in the state of Sarawak, came to light after the two countries barred each other's citizens from leaving over an ongoing probe into the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, North Korean top leader Kim Jong-un's half brother, Xinhua news agency reported.

It is reported that the North Korean workers are mainly in businesses including coal mining and construction.

Malaysia will send the back to Pyongyang, Zahid told reporters at the parliament.

However, he did not provice details on when and how will the workers be deported.

Those with valid visas can stay, he said, adding that currently there are a total of 315 North Korean nationals in Malaysia.

Zahid said formal talks are ongoing to bring back the nine Malaysians stranded in Pyongyang.

--IANS

ksk/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said the state government has decided to buy 28,000 tonnes of potatoes monthly from the farmers at a 'remunerative price' and also provide subsidy for exporting the crop to prevent distress sales.

"We have a bumper production of potato this year and farmers are compelled to sell potato at distressed prices. They have no alternatives but to sell potatoes at Rs 2.50-Rs 3 a kg.

"In order to prevent distress sales, we have decided to buy 28,000 tonnes potato per month directly from the farmers for midday meal scheme and Anganwadi centres. We will buy potatoes at Rs 4.60 a kg which is a remunerative price," she said.

"In order to facilitate farmers for exporting potatoes, we have also decided to provide subsidy of Rs 0.50 a kg for railways transportation and of Re 1 per kg for shipping out through ships," she added.

Many farmers have been facing hardship due to demonetisation, she said.

With a favourable climatic condition and higher yield, the potato production is expected to touch 110-115 lakh tonnes this year in the state while it was around 90-95 lakh tonnes last year. The bumper crop, however, has brought down the market price significantly.

Last week, agricultural scientists and experts had said higher production of processing varieties, seed generation within the state and contract farming could help in averting distress sales.

--IANS

bdc/sm/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Appointed Chief Minister for the fourth time since 2000, BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who resigned as Defence Minister on Monday, is the proverbial prodigal son, who has returned home to the land of fish curry and rice.

Parrikar, 61, who was administered the oath of office by Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, is the coastal state's 28th Chief Minister.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay alumnus during his 29-month outing as a central minister in New Delhi had often wistfully recounted his fondness for fish curry and rice over butter chicken, betraying his geographical preference and dropping repeated hints at a possible return to state .

"I have lost weight in Delhi because I like fish curry more. I miss the food from Goa... I only said that I like Goan food better. I leave it to you to make sense out of it," Parrikar said in February this year.

Parrikar, who has been accused of spending large amounts of time in Goa even when he was Defence Minister, had led a sustained pre-poll campaign in the run up to the February 4 assembly poll, and was parachuted back to Goa as Chief Minister by the BJP high command, when the post-poll goings-on got rough.

While partly, it may have been Parrikar's fondness for being in Goa which jettisoned him back to state politics, the BJP camp believes that he is the leader to look forward to, when it comes to managing the cut-throat world of coalition politics, especially when the margin of majority, as well as error, is slim.

"He can take quick decisions and his powers of persuasion are tremendous. Without his efforts, the BJP would have taken much, much longer to come to power in a state like Goa, where Catholics are nearly one fourth of the state's population," a senior BJP leader told IANS.

Parrikar as a first-time legislator in 1994 was tipped for greater things, especially after the manner in which he had his electorate, as well as the media, eat out of his hands, thanks to his repartee, wit and the resolute manner in which he attacked malgovernance and corruption.

One of the biggest corruption scandals of the 1990s, the power scam involving then Congress Power Minister Mauvin Godinho, was exposed thanks to Parrikar's diligent pursuit of the case, filing cases before the police as well as in court.

But the manner in which the Godinho episode eventually wound up in 2016, is also enough to highlight the progress Parrikar has made as a politician over the decades.

Congress MLA Godinho was inducted in the BJP in 2016 and is currently a BJP MLA. Parrikar now claims that the power scam of the 1990s was actually only an "attempt to scam".

Almost synonymous with the BJP in Goa, Parrikar has always been viewed as a leader with promise within the party, although ironically it was his ambition streak as well as his ability to put his foot-in-the-mouth on the most sensitive occasions, which have proved to be his Achilles heel.

In 2009, Parrikar was one of the top seeds in the running for the party's national president position, when the furore triggered by his comparison of BJP stalwart L.K. Advani to "rancid pickle" during an interview to a local cable news channel turned the tide against him.

In the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Parrikar appeared to be gently manoeuvring himself into a position of a consensus candidate for prime ministership. Tell-tale signs of this emerged on the social media, where his fans started a group 'Manohar Parrikar for Prime Minister' and Parrikar himself told The New York Times that as an administrator, he would have handled the post Godhra riots scenario better.

But the Modi juggernaut swept over the BJP as well as the country in 2014.

Now, heading a coalition government with a slender majority and facing accusations of hijacking an electoral mandate from the Congress, it remains to be seen whether the governance served up by Parrikar is as good as Goan fish curry-rice, or just another khichdi.

(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be reached at mayabhushan@gmail.com)

--IANS

maya/rn/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who quit as the Defence Minister a day earlier, was sworn-in as Goa Chief Minister for the fourth time on Tuesday. The Supreme Court directed his new government to prove its majority via a floor test in the state assembly on Thursday.

The Congress has accused Goa Governor Mridula Sinha of acting unilaterally and inviting the Bharatiya Janata Party to form a government in Goa, without even meeting the 17 elected leaders of the Congress, which has emerged the largest party in the 40-member assembly after the state elections.

The Goa Governor administered the oath of office to Parrikar at Raj Bhavan on Tuesday evening.

While Parrikar and his nine-member cabinet were being sworn-in, hundreds of people protested near Raj Bhavan, accusing the newly appointed Chief Minister and the leader of Goa Forward of trying to subvert the electoral mandate and using unfair means to come to power in the coastal state.

Speaking to reporters after being sworn-in, Parrikar said the support garnered by the Bharatiya Janata Party was for the development of Goa.

"If there was support, then why did you (Congress) not go to the Governor? The support extended to BJP to form government is only for Goa's development," Parrikar told reporters after the swearing-in ceremony.

The four-time Chief Minister also said the Congress could not stake claim to form government because "no MLA wanted to support the Congress".

Parrikar's cabinet includes two ministers from the BJP, namely Francis D'Souza and Pandurang Madkaikar, three from regional party Goa Forward -- namely Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palienkar and Jayesh Salgaonkar, and two from another, older regional party Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party -- Sudin Dhavalikar and Manohar Azgaonkar.

Two Independent legislators Govind Gawde and Rohan Khaunte who joined the BJP coalition bandwagon on Sunday also were rewarded with berths. The third Independent MLA Prasad Gaonkar also joined the BJP coalition on Monday and tendered his letter of support to the Governor.

The 13-member BJP legislature party -- the second largest after tghe Congress's 17 -- has been supported by three MLAs each from the Goa Forward and MGP and three Independent MLAs, taking the majority headcount to 22.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated Parrikar on his new appointment.

"Congratulations to @manoharparrikar and his team on being sworn in. My best wishes in taking Goa to new heights of progress," Modi said in a tweet.

Earlier on Tuesday, hectic political developments played out in Goa as well as the national capital, where the Supreme Court, which was hearing a petition filed by the Congress challenging the Governor's invitation to the BJP to form government, directed Parrikar to prove his majority on the floor of the Goa assembly by Thursday.

Governor Sinha while inviting Parrikar on Sunday to form the government had directed him to prove his majority in the assembly within 15 days from being sworn-in.

The apex court on the Congress petition, however, refused to interfere with the Governor's decision to appoint Parrikar as the Chief Minister.

Before the Supreme Court hearing, the Congress camp met at the state party headquarters, from where its 17 newly-elected legislators, in presence of Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh, were ferried to Raj Bhavan in a bus.

After meeting Sinha, state Congress President and Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro said the party had requested her that the Congress should be allowed to form a government as the single largest party with 17 MLAs as against the BJP's 13. To this, the Governor said that she would consider the request.

"Governor is the custodian of law and Constitution and is supposed to invite the single largest party to office... There cannot be a headcount here, it has to be in the assembly... Governor has told us that she will consider it and let us know," Faleiro told reporters.

In the evening, when Parrikar and his cabinet were being sworn-in several hundred civil society members protested with black flags around Raj Bhavan, claiming both the BJP and Sardesai had hijacked the people's mandate.

Sardesai's Goa Forward had led an anti-BJP campaign in the run-up the February 4 elections, accusing the saffron party of destroying Goa and corruption.

The apex court also rejected the plea by senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi for a composite floor test.

The directions came after Congress legislature party leader in the Goa assembly Chandrakant Kavlekar moved a plea, seeking Governor Sinha's decision to appoint Parrikar as the Chief Minister to be put on hold.

The Congress termed Sinha's decision to invite the BJP to form the next government as "unilateral" and accused the BJP of "stealing" the mandate in the state using money.

"It's a question of how much money the BJP has thrown to steal the mandate in Manipur and Goa. That's the question," Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi told the media outside Parliament in New Delhi.

Inside Parliament House, Congress members slammed the BJP, which they said was "not accepting people's mandate" in Manipur and Goa and staged a walkout from the Lok Sabha after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan disallowed their adjournment motion notice on the issue.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) members also joined the Congress in the walkout.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump in Washington was postponed due to a coming snowstorm, media reports said.

According to German local media channel N-TV on Monday, White House also confirmed the delay, saying the scheduled Tuesday meeting will be on March 17 instead.

Topics on migrant crisis, NATO, as well as US-EU ties are expected to be covered at the summit, Xinhua news agency reported.

Trump, during his election campaign, had publicly criticized Merkel and Germany's refugee policy as a "catastrophic failure" and called it "chaos." The critics somehow indicated a bumpy start for the ties between Berlin and Washington.

Merkel hosted the visit for US Vice President Mike Pence at Munich Security Conference last month. In the southeast German city, Merkel said world conflicts require "joint efforts", which was seen as a gentle reminder to Trump's unilateralism and anti-globalization policies.

Trump also plans to visit Germany on July 7 and 8, attending the two-day G-20 summit in Hamburg.

--IANS

vgu/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 10-year-old boy was killed and his father critically injured when a speeding car hit them in west Delhi, police said on Tuesday.

Guddu was crossing the road with his son Prince around 5.30 p.m. on Monday when the car hit them near Dabri bus stop.

The accused driver escaped from the spot. Bihar native Guddu lives in Seetapur Phase-I in Dwarka.

"Both were rushed to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital where Prince was declared brought dead, while Guddu sustained injuries to his head and legs," police said.

Police is examining closed-circuit television footage in the area to identify the car and its driver.

--IANS

sp/tsb

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A case under the stringent POCSO Act has been registered after a minor girl complained of rape by an unidentified man in south Delhi on Holi, Delhi Police said on Tuesday.

Police said the minor said in her complaint that the unidentified person took her away from the Navjeevan Camp Park in Govind Puri area on Monday night.

"The girl was left near her house around 10 p.m. She narrated her ordeal to her mother, who complained to the police. A case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act," Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Banniya said.

"A medical examination at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences corroborated the girl's statement," Banniya said.

Police are examining closed-circuit television footage from the area.

Prima facie, the crime was committed in a planned manner since the accused had smeared his face and clothes with colour to hide his identity.

--IANS

sp/tsb/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In her first speech before a group of urban school leaders, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos returned to her familiar themes of parental choice and putting parents and local communities in the drivers seat when it comes to making decisions about childrens education.

In speaking to the gathering of leaders of some of the nations big-city school districts, DeVos said she does not favor one type of school over any otherprivate, charter, traditional public, or magnet.

When it comes to the education of a child, I am agnostic as to the delivery system, or the building in which it takes place, so long as that child is in an environment that meets their needs and the parents are satisfied, she said told the audience at the Council of the Great City Schools annual legislative and policy conference.

If a child is able to grow and flourish, it shouldnt matter where they learn, she said. And one of those quality options should be a great public school. Ive said this before, and it bears repeating: I support great public schools, and I support great public school teachersbecause I support studentsall students.

Her statement that she supported public schools brought some applause from the group, which is made up of superintendents and school board members from nearly 70 school districts across the country.

In introducing DeVos, Felton Williams, the groups chair and a school board member in Long Beach, Calif., asked for a small delegation to meet with the secretarys staff to discuss the progress they were making and also challenges they faced, including federal mandates, funding shortfalls, immigration, school infrastructure, and ESSA implementation.

Some issues we will be able to work together on, others we will not, he said. But we welcome you to our house today, and want to work with you where we can and hope that you will see us as a resource in the important work in front of you.

DeVos thanked the groups executive director, Michael Casserly, and the members for their work and expressed confidence that she and her team would be able to work with the council to improve education for all students and call out new expectations of excellence and provide every child access to a great education, regardless of where they live or how much their family earns.

If we can agree on this, then we have a starting point and a common goal, she said. My philosophy is simple: I trust parents, I trust teachers, and I trust local school leaders to do whats right for the children they serve. Those closest to the problem are most often the best-equipped to solve it.

As she has done in nearly every speaking engagement, DeVos spoke about what sparked her interest in public education more than 30 years agoa visit to The Potters House, a small religious private school in hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., that provides scholarships to low-income students. For every child who was helped by The Potters House, there were others who did not have the same opportunity, she said.

A key focus of the speech was parental choice: that parents knowbetter than any administratorwhats best for their children, and those decisions are often guided by their children.

She also spoke about her support for the Every Student Succeeds Act, which returns major decision-making around education to states and districts and support for removing unnecessary regulations to give districts the flexibility to do whats best in their local contexts. (The Politics K-12 blog reported on the new ESSA template released today, which DeVos also addressed in her speech.)

She said too often the federal Department of Education had created onerous burdens on districts and schools, and that her department would move away from that.

No teacher in any classroom should feel like the department of education is holding them back from success with their kids, she said. No parent should feel like the department of education thinks it knows better than they what is best for their child, and no district should feel like the department of education is hampering their ability to improve the learning environment of students.

She also highlighted programs in the councils districts, including Clevelands Project Lead the Way, Indianapolis Innovation Schools, and Denvers transportation program, all of which offer students and families ways to exercise choice.

How Did Urban School Leaders Respond to Betsy DeVos?

Reactions to the speech were mixed, but mostly positive, with kudos for DeVoss willingness to address the council and begin a relationship. Others noted that the speech largely stuck to issues that were likely to have broad agreement and that it was light on policy details, specifically related to how any federal choice plan might work.

Allegra Happy Haynes, a school board member and deputy mayor in Denver, said she appreciated the shout-out for the citys transportation program. But while the transportation program is lauded, the district constantly has to think about where the money is going to come from to sustain it. She would have liked to hear more about how the secretary plans to address potential funding cuts and where the secretary stood on immigration issues, she said.

Politics K-12 reported earlier today that deep cuts could be coming to the Education Department in President Trumps forthcoming budget proposal.

We are all worried about the potential cuts that seem inevitable, Haynes said. If you are going to give more money over here, what does that mean for us? I just would have liked to have heard assurances, or her position, or what her approach is going to be on two issues: one around immigrationwhat that means in our schools and where she is going to stand on thatand our funding issues.

Haynes also had concerns related to rolling back regulations.

I personally think the idea that we need to get out of everybodys way and not have regulations is troubling, she said. For our most vulnerable students, sometimes this is the backstop.

Casserly said that given that the secretary was only a month or so into the job, he was not expecting a policy-laden speech. But this was a good start to building a relationship, he said.

We were very pleased that she acknowledged some of the good work in our public schools, and we were pleased that she reached out in the end and indicated that she wanted to cooperate where we could, he said. Our expectations here were about forming a working relationship, and I think we have begun to do that.

William Hite, the Philadelphia superintendent, also said that although he did not hear a clear strategy, he appreciated that she attended the conference.

She came in, and talked about what she wants to see in schools, which is very consistent with what a lot of us want to see, Hite said. And removing roadblocks created by the department to allow for flexibility is really important. While we didnt hear a strategy, the fact that she trusts district administrators, she trusts teachers, and she trusts parentsin other words, she trusts those closest to the children who are being educated, I do think that thats something thats encouraging.

She also said she is agnostic about the type of schoolsthat I have not heard before, he said. The fact that she is agnostic about the types of schools but she supports good public schoolsthats a statement thats very encouraging.

Deena Bishop, the superintendent of schools in Anchorage, said she was heartened by DeVoss emphasis on success and outcomes for students and was very delighted that the speech was positive toward public education.

Anchorage has a mix of successful charter and district schools, and students often move between the two systems, she said.

Its really about good schools and good education for students, and I heard her speak to that today, Bishop said. That was not contrary at all to what we want. The idea that she is supporting the work in public schools by taking away or lightening some of the regulations, I feel is a positive move. It gets us back to ... where the value is added, which is right in the classroom, which I am highly supportive of. I heard positive comments and not anything controversial or surprising.

Eric Gordon, the CEO of Cleveland public schools who also got a shout-out from DeVos, said he was pleased to see the secretary highlight the important role of all schools.

Our strategy in Cleveland, just as the secretary said, is that every child should have access to a high-quality school, and we use the word agnostic, he said.

I think today she started to outline priorities at a very high level, of the importance of all schoolsnot private over public, charter over public, but all schoolsand that they have to be good for kids and families, he added. As long as we all continue to work toward that goal, well find a way to be very productive for our children.

(Not to be all serious, DeVos joked in her introduction that it was flattering to be portrayed on Saturday Night Live by Kate McKinnon, who is younger than her oldest son.)

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos addresses the Council of the Great City Schools annual legislative policy conference in Washington on March 13. --Jose Luis Magana/AP
North Korea on Tuesday has threatened to launch ultra-precision strikes in response to the military exercises being jointly carried out by South Korea and the US.

If the allies seek to infringe on its sovereignty, Pyongyang's "army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater", North Korean state news agency KCNA warned in a statement.

Pyongyang also warned Seoul and Washington, who are currently carrying out annual military maneuvers, that the "nuclear-powered carriers and all other strategic assets of the US imperialists are in sight of the Korean People's Army's powerful ultra-precision strike means."

The regime's statement comes after the allies began the Key Resolve simulated military exercise on Monday, which will last until March 24, as well as the Foal Eagle drills, which started on March 1 and will conclude by the end of April.

The deployment of military assets for this year's maneuvers is the largest to date as Washington is deploying its F-35B fighter aircraft as well as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson - scheduled to arrive in the Korean peninsula on Wednesday, Efe news reported.

Pyongyang, which regularly condemns the non-defensive nature of these maneuvers, on March 6 launched four medium-range ballistic missiles that fell in Japanese waters as its first response after the start of Foal Eagle drills.

The start of the installation of the anti-ballistic missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system on South Korean soil last week has also increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The US system, designed to shoot down North Korean missiles, has angered the Kim Jong-un regime and also sparked strong criticism from China, which believes Thaad can interfere with its defence systems.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nongthombam Biren, who is tipped to be the first BJP Chief Minister of Manipur, faces an unforeseen road block with the four Naga People's Front MLAs now demanding ministerial berths.

The four have also demanded similar berths for four other Naga MLAs with important portfolios.

On Monday, the Manipur unit NPF president Awangbung Newmai wrote an official letter to the BJP president in Manipur listing the demands.

It said: "As per resolutions of the March 13 meeting of the Manipur unit of the NPF its four MLAs should be inducted in the council of ministers."

The party demanded a cabinet berth for L. Daiko, who was elected from the Mao constituency. It said Awangbung Newmai, who was elected from the Tamei constituency, should be made a Parliamentary Secretary with portfolios of Hill and Tribal Development, Minor Irrigation and Works. Khasim Vashum, elected from the Chingai constituency, should be made a Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Planning and Public Health Engineering. K. Leishio, elected from the Phungyar constituency, should be made a Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Irrigation and Flood Control and Rural Development.

In Manipur, a Parliamentary Secretary is of the rank and status of a Minister of State and usually given an independent charge.

The NPF letter did not spell out what it will do if the demands are not conceded. The support of the four NPF MLAs is crucial to the BJP, which claims a strength of 32 in the 60-member House.

Meanwhile, Okram Ibobi, who resigned as Chief Minister on Monday, is planning to rope in the four MLAs of the National People's Party and is still hopeful of forming the ministry. The Congress had secured 28 seats in the March elections.

In another development, to the BJP which is trying to form a BJP-led coalition government in Manipur, a students' organisation, Democratic Students' Alliance of Manipur (DESAM), has asked political parties not to take the support of lone independent MLA, Asabuddin.

He was elected from the Jiribam constituency bordering Assam.

He had defeated the Congress veteran Thoudam Debendra and others in the March elections.

Addressing a press conference in Imphal on Tuesday, the DESAM leaders said, "As the people are demanding the implementation of the Inner Line Permit system to regulate the entry and stay of the non-indigenous people no political party should take support of this independent MLA. If any party ignores the sentiment of the people in the mad scramble for coming to power the party shall face boycott."

This independent MLA had come to the limelight a few days back following a high political drama at the Imphal international airport. Minister Mohammad Nasir had personally gone to Jiribam to bring Asabuddin to Imphal. Yengkhom Surchandra, vice president of the state unit of Congress, said, "He had extended support to us. But he was abducted from the airport misusing the CISF personnel."

Now Asabuddin is reported to be supporting the BJP. Supporters of the BJP and the Congress had assembled at the airport to take him to their respective offices but Asabuddin was spirited to Assam without allowing him to come out of the airport.

In another development, the Congress party has incurred the wrath of the students and other activists when it had allotted ticket to Kharge Tamang in the Kangpokpi constituency for the March elections. Activists say that Tamang has not been able to produce documents to prove his Indian citizenship. Tamang lost the elections.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A newborn baby was allegedly abducted by an unidentified woman from a government hospital in Kolkata on Tuesday, triggering protests, including a road blockade in the city's heart.

The incident took place at Kolkata Medical College and Hospital, the second oldest medical school to teach European medicine in Asia after Ecole de Medicine de Pondicherry.

The baby boy of Saraswati Naskar, who was admitted in the maternity ward on the second floor of the Eden Hospital building, was allegedly taken away by an unidentified woman on the pretext of a check-up around 12.30 p.m. on Tuesday.

An inconsolable Naskar said a woman wearing a green saree approached her and said the doctor wanted to see her baby. "I accompanied her. She carried the baby. When we neared a glass door, she asked me to go inside and check whether the doctor was there. When I came out, I found no trace of the woman and my child."

When the family could not find the baby, they got in touch with the authorities.

"We got in touch with the doctors and the hospital authorities but no one has any clue where the baby is. The authorities said they will check closed-circuit television footage, but now they are saying the camera does not work," said Naskar's mother-in-law.

In November last year, the West Bengal Crime Investigation Department had unearthed an inter-state trafficking racket in newborns by two private clinics in Baduria in North-24 Parganas.

An eyewitness said she saw the woman suspect go out of the Eden hospital building with the child.

"I found it a bit strange that she went out through that particular exit, which people generally do not use. But I had no idea that she was stealing the child."

Naskar, who gave birth to the baby boy on March 10, was to be discharged on Thursday.

When contacted, Hospital Medical Superintendent Sikha Banerjee said: "We are in the midst of hooliganism by the patient party. This is not the right time to make a comment."

As the news spread, relatives of the family as also Bharatiya Janata Party activists arrived in strength at the hospital. They staged a demonstration and demanded the authorities rescue the baby.

Left Front legislature party leader Sujon Chakraborty also reached the spot and spoke to the family.

Within hours, the police released a footage of the woman suspect carrying a baby inside a Metro station.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Vishal Garg announced a Rs one lakh reward for anyone providing information about the woman. All Metro stations and police stations were placed on high alert.

Things became volatile in the evening as protestors put up a blockade on the arterial Central Avenue with bricks and bamboo poles. "We won't lift the blockade until and unless the baby is found," said a youth.

State Health Director B.R. Satpathy said the government was trying to find the child and law would take its course if there was a security lapse.

"We are looking into how the baby was stolen from a government hospital. We are trying and have succeeded in tracing the child to some extent. Police is investigating.

"Negligence has not been proved. If there is a security lapse, we will take action. Law will take its course," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A newborn baby was allegedly stolen by an unidentified woman from a government hospital in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The incident took place in Kolkata Medical College and Hospital.

The baby boy of Saraswati Naskar, who was admitted in the maternity department on the second floor of the hospital, was allegedly taken away by an unidentified woman on the pretext of a check-up at around 12.30 p.m. on Tuesday.

"An unknown woman came to my daughter-in-law and took the kid away for check-up. We haven't found the kid ever since. The woman has stolen the baby," the mother-in-law of Naskar alleged.

"We got in touch with the doctors and the hospital authorities but no one has any clue where the baby is. The authorities said they would check the CCTV footage of the incident, but now they are saying the camera does not work," she said.

Naskar, who gave birth to the baby boy on March 10, was to be discharged on Thursday.

When contacted, hospital Medical Superintendent Sikha Banerjee said: "We are in the midst of hooliganism by the patient party. This is not the right time to make a comment."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
No funds have been sanctioned by the Centre to set up an international learning centre in Tabo in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh told the assembly on Tuesday.

The state Language, Art and Culture Department has not received any sanction from the government of India, he said in a written reply to a question by Congress member Ravi Thakur on the allocation of Rs 40 crore for the Indian Institute of Bauddh Darshan in Tabo.

Tabo is an ancient seat of Buddhist religion and culture in the picturesque Spiti Valley.

He said the entire project was conceived and funded by the Culture Ministry.

The department has applied to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for diversion of land under the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 for this institute.

"The case is under process. The construction will be started after obtaining this approval and completion of other necessary codal formalities," he added.

The state government had announced in 2014 that the proposed centre would be set up with central funding to help preserve and expand Buddhist studies.

Founded in 996 AD, Tabo, known for a more than 1,000-year-old cave Buddhist monastery, is located at an altitude of 3,050 metres and 375 km from Shimla. It is also called the 'Ajanta of the Himalayas'.

Protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, Tabo is one of the largest monastic complexes in India, with several caves and contemporary structures.

It attracts thousands of scholars and researchers from all over the world. It is the second most visited tourist place in the Buddhist circuit in India after Bodh Gaya, the birthplace of Buddhism where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment over 2,500 years ago.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's third International Internet Gateway (IIG) in Agartala through Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh was not being optimally exploited due to technical reasons, Tripura's Information Technology Minister Tapan Chakraborty said on Tuesday.

"Due to technical deficiencies of the 10 gigabit bandwidth capacity IIG in Agartala through Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, only 6.1 gigabit bandwidth is being utilised," Chakraborty told the state assembly.

He said: "For optimal utilisation of the Agartala IIG, a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) has to be set up here at a cost of Rs 300 crore. Through the Agartala IIG, the international internet traffic is being transmitted. However, the domestic internet traffic, which is 60 per cent of the total, is being routed through the old Guwahati-Kolkata-Chennai internet route."

The Minister said the Tripura government has urged the Centre to improve the internet connectivity of the northeastern states by optimally utilising the Agartala IIG.

"The GGSN machine must be set up here and transmit the domestic traffic along with the international traffic through the third IIG (in Agartala)."

Quoting Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) officials, Chakraborty said the government-owned telecom service provider is yet to synchronise its mobile data service with the Agartala IIG.

The Minister said the BSNL disinvestment plan was resulting in loss of customers in the country.

He said that of the total 27.56 lakh mobile phone customers in Tripura, only 433,540 subscribe to BSNL service and the remaining prefer private telecom operators.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina, along with Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, on March 23 last year inaugurated the 3rd IIG through videoconferencing from their respective offices in New Delhi, Dhaka and Agartala.

The Agartala IIG is the third such internet gateway after Mumbai and Chennai.

India has spent Rs 19.14 crore to create the infrastructure for the third IIG in Agartala to get access to the 10 gigabit bandwidth from Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL).

For this, optical fibre cable link has been established between Akhaura (along Agartala) and Cox's Bazar in southeast Bangladesh.

India has to give around Rs 8 crore per year as rent to the BSCCL.

According to the agreement signed between BSNL and BSCCL, if the demand increases, the BSNL can avail up to 40 gigabit bandwidth using the same infrastructure.

Earlier, the northeastern states got internet connectivity through Mumbai and Chennai IIGs, but long distance created problems like very slow speed and drop of linkages.

Meanwhile, a media report in Bangladesh said Bhutan too is keen to import internet bandwidth from Bangladesh.

"To export bandwidth to Bhutan, Bangladesh will have to use Indian territory; fibre optical cable will also need to be laid. State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim got a positive response from India when she discussed the issue with Indian authorities," the media report said.

Bangladesh has a 200 gbps bandwidth connection with the submarine cable: South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4, but the country uses only around 130 gbps now.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nagaland Chief Minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu on Tuesday brushed aside reports that his Naga People's Front (NPF) will not support the new non-Congress coalition government in Manipur.

The NPF supremo said that it "did not put any pre-condition" before joining the BJP-led coalition arrangement in Manipur and suh reporrs are absolutely false.

The NPF is a major coalition partner of the North East Democratic Alliance formed last May in Guwahati with the declared aim of ridding the Congress party from the region and to bring all-round development to this part of the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It has also been in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and other non-Congress political parties in Nagaland since 2003 under the banner of the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The party chiefs of the National People's Party (NPP) and the Naga People's Front (NPF) on Tuesday said they will support a non-Congress government in Manipur led by the BJP.

NPP supremo Conrad K. Sangma said a non-Congress government would soon be formed in Manipur and his party would support the BJP-led alliance government.

Nagaland Chief Minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu said his Naga People's Front (NPF) party will be supporting the BJP-led coalition government in his neighbouring state of Manipur.

"We are waiting only for the invitation from the Governor (Najma Heptulla) to invite us to form the new government," Sangma told IANS.

He said the Naga People's Front has also handed a letter of support to Heptulla confirming its support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance government in Manipur.

The NPF, which won four seats in the just-concluded assembly elections, has also paraded its newly-elected legislators before the Governor, Sangma said. Both NPP and NPF have won four seats each in the Manipur assembly elections.

"All the legislators (non-Congress) are intact," added Sangma, the lone NPP Lok Sabha member.

Shurhozelie, who is also the NPF supremo said, said that it "did not put pre-conditions" before joining the BJP-led coalition arrangement in Manipur.

The NPF and NPP are major coalition partners of the North East Democratic Alliance formed in May last year in Assam's main city of Guwahati with the declared aim of ridding the region of the Congress party and to bring all-round development to the northeastern part of the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The NPF has been in alliance with the BJP and other non-Congress political parties in Nagaland since 2003 under the banner and nomenclature of Democratic Alliance of Nagaland.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistani Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz held talks with the visiting Foreign Minister of Yemen Abdulmalik Abdul Jalil Al Mekhlafi and reiterated support to the legitimate government of President Abd Rabu Mansour Al-Hadi.

Al Mekhlafi arrived in Islamabad on Monday on a two-day visit for talks with the Pakistani leaders on bilateral matters, focusing on diplomatic efforts for solution to the conflict in Yemen, a Foreign Office statement said.

"Pakistan has always supported the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Yemen and would continue to extend all possible assistance for restoration of complete peace and stability in the country," Sartaj Aziz told the Yemeni Foreign Minister, according to the statement.

The Adviser appreciated the efforts of the internationally recognized government of President Mansour Al-Hadi towards restoration of peace, harmony and stability in the country.

He also noted with satisfaction that these efforts had acquired control of over 80 per cent territory of Yemen, hoping that with the international support situation in remaining parts of the country would also be brought under control.

Issues related to serious humanitarian situation in Yemen, suffering from serious food shortages anywhere in the world, was also discussed.

Mekhlafi thanked the Adviser for Pakistan's continued political support and economic assistance to Yemen. He also briefed the Adviser about the current situation in Yemen, the efforts by the Government of Yemen to pursue the path of peace and reconciliation rather than conflict, as well as the success achieved so far in subduing the threat posed by terrorist networks in the country.

He also highlighted the efforts being undertaken by the government to address the multiple security, political and economic challenges confronting Yemen.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz on Tuesday reaffirmed Islamabad's commitment not to transfer weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to states or non-state actors.

Delivering a keynote address on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540 in Islamabad, Aziz said as a responsible nuclear state, Pakistan will continue to partner with international community to prevent non-state actors from acquiring these weapons, a Foreign Office statement said.

The adviser underscored the need to strike a balance between advancing the goals of non-proliferation and facilitating access of developing countries to strategic and dual-use goods, materials and technologies for peaceful purposes under appropriate safeguards.

Aziz expressed Pakistan's willingness to share its expertise and provide technical assistance to developing countries in the region and beyond.

He underlined that states which posses advanced capabilities should have an equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to the export control governance architecture.

In this context, he highlighted Pakistan's credentials and expertise to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), while emphasising the need for a transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria for the cartel's membership of non-NPT applicants.

The two-day regional seminar, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, brings together 13 countries from South and Central Asia, China, Russia, representatives of the 1540 Committee Group of Experts and international organisations, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Interpol.

Resolution 1540, adopted by the Security Council in 2004, is one of the important instruments in the global non-proliferation architecture as it seeks to prevent non-state actors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

--IANS

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UPDATED: A wave of anti-globalism has been making its way around the world, and today, the world is looking toward the Netherlands to see if it will overtake this traditionally welcoming and inclusive society. But if you peer beyond the headlines, world language teachers in the Netherlands are just as dedicated to their mission of preparing students for a global world as ever, regardless of the anti-global political climate. Lynne West, Instructional Specialist and Latin teacher, from Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California, traveled to the Netherlands as part of the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching program. Today she shares the lessons she learned about teaching world languages.

In spring 2016, I had the opportunity of a lifetime and spent 5 months in the Netherlands as a recipient of the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching . The veteran foreign language teacher in me was particularly interested in exploring the Dutch reputation for being excellent with languages. That reputation, paired with the European Unions focus on increasing bilingualism and multilingualism, inspired my project. (UPDATE: Despite increasing anti-global, pro-nationalist rhetoric and sentiment around Europe and the rest of the world, the EUs commitment to multilingualism has not changed as of this writing and is not the focus of my research.) My time in the Netherlands afforded me the space to research best practices in language instruction and observe the implementation of those practices in the classroom.

In the Netherlands, there are about 130 schools that offer a bilingual curriculum called Tweetalig Onderwijs (TTO, which means bilingual education). These schools require that 50 percent of the overall curriculum be taught in English. Additionally, students have the opportunity to learn a third and sometimes fourth language at the start of secondary school. During my time observing these schools, I was struck by the energy, creativity, and care of the school community; and impressed by the students language abilities. Four takeaways have emerged from this experience that have notable implications for all language teachers and can be leveraged in any language class.

1. Content must be engaging.

In TTO schools in the Netherlands, students acquire and strengthen their second-language skills as they also learn curricular content. For example, their science classes and social science classes are taught in English and have both content-area and linguistic objectives. The combination of content-area and linguistic learning objects means that because students are interested in the content, they are engaged in learning both the subject matter and the language. While some of our language textbooks have identified themes and topics to drive student learning in engaging ways, there is room for teachers to delve deeper into appealing content for students to explore. Honing in on interesting and relevant content will provide students with meaningful reasons to use the language.

2. Approach matters.

We must consider not only what we are teaching, but also how we are teaching it. At the TTO schools, I saw classes that were rich in communicative and authentic activities. Students were not spending time on long mechanical drills; nor was every linguistic mistake pointed out and analyzed. Rather, students were actively and spontaneously using the language to communicate with each other and their teachers. There was nothing rehearsed about their language use. There were times when they visibly struggled to find the right words and asked for support. We can strengthen our classes by providing students with these vitally important opportunities to not only use the linguistic features they know, but also to become aware of their need to acquire new ones.

3. Use rich and authentic target language.

Teacher use of the target language is paramount to the development of students language skills. In TTO schools, teachers use the target language to a very high degree or exclusively. They rarely, if ever, use the non-target language. And the more students hear the language, the more apt they are to actually use it. I saw beginning-level students at TTO schools work hard to use the target language in class when addressing their teacher and their peers. If the goal of our programs is to produce confident users of the language, then we must find as many ways as possible to expose students to rich target language use.

4. Focus the classroom culture on growth.

In both the language and content-area classes I visited at TTO schools, I noticed that the teachers carefully created a learning environment that was comfortable and safe for students to experiment with language. Teachers focus on comprehensibility during oral activities, and students are not corrected each time they make a mistake. When teachers do offer corrections, they do so by re-casting student responses. Consequently, students feel successful in their use of the language. Their feeling of success fosters not only confidence but also a willingness to push the boundaries of their language use just a little bit further. We can nurture our students desire to stretch their linguistic skills by being attentive to the type of learning environment we create and support.

Regardless of the language being taught or the type of school, I believe that we can create more meaningful, engaging, and supportive language programs and classes by regularly asking ourselves how we are doing in these four areas. Critically reflecting on our own practice and finding moments to share these reflections with our colleagues will result in energizing collaboration. As we continue to engage in professional reflection and collaboration, we will infuse our classes with the kind of globally relevant learning that our students need.

.

Connect with Lynne , the Center for Global Education , and Heather on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of the author. Caption: Lynne West standing in front of the academic building of the University of Groningen, her host institution in the Netherlands.
The Philippines Senate on Tuesday ratified the Paris global climate agreement, making the Southeast Asian nation an official signatory to the historic pact.

With a vote of 22-0, the Senate unanimously voted in favour of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the world's first comprehensive climate agreement that commits the government to move away from fossil fuels, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Wherefore, be it resolved, that the Philippines Senate concur, as it hereby concurs, in the Philippines accession to the Paris Agreement," said Senator Loren Legarda.

Legarda said the Senate's concurrence "will send a strong signal of our continuing commitment to work with the rest of the world in ensuring the survival of this generation and the generation to come and ability of the Earth to sustain life."

"Even as we complete the process, we are already moving forward in our efforts to combat climate change impacts," she added.

On February 28, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte signed the climate pact.

After Duterte affixed his signature, the "Instrument of Accession" was submitted to the Senate for concurrence.

The "Instrument of Accession" is a document signifying the Philippines' ratification of the climate change pact. Senate concurrence is the final step in the ratification process.

The pact is the first ever legally binding global agreement signed by 194 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in December.

The Philippines has promised to cut carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, even if the country is not a major emitter.

Duterte, who took office in June last year, was reluctant to sign the Paris pact, saying the agreement is tilted in favour of the industrialised nations.

The pact was signed during the administration of former President Benigno Aquino.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said a probe has been ordered into the Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district that killed 12 CRPF personnel and said the government is committed to counter and eliminate Left Wing Extremism.

The Home minister in his statement to the Lok Sabha said the success of the armed forces against Left Wing Extremism (LWE) has rattled the rebels.

"In 2016, our armed forces met with big success in all LWE affected areas particularly Chhattisgarh. While 135 extremists were killed, 789 were arrested and 1198 surrendered.

"There has been a 15 per cent decline of Maoist violence in 2016. From 495 acts of Maoist violence in 2015, in 2016 the number of such acts came down to 395," he said.

In one of the biggest Maoist attacks in the past two years, 12 CRPF personnel were killed and four injured in an ambush by the rebels on Saturday.

Paying homage to the slain troopers, Rajnath Singh said a probe by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director has been ordered to find out lapses if any that led to the attack and assured the Centre's commitment towards countering and eliminating the Left Wing extremism.

"The Centre government will pay Rs 45 lakh ex gratia to the families of each of the martyrs, along with Rs 25 lakh from CRPF risk fund, Rs 1 lakh from CRPF welfare fund and Rs 25 lakh of insurance. Under the liberalised pensionary award, families will also be entitled to get full salary of the martyred soldiers till the age of retirement," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress Vice President on Tuesday said the party needs structural and organisational changes following its debacle in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls even as party leaders said there was need for tough decisions in the party.

Congress leaders spoke in varied voices following the election verdict in five states, with some hinting at deep introspection and "decision" by about his role, and others talking of fixing responsibility at the level of senior leaders.

In his interaction with reporters, Gandhi sought to put up a brave front over the election results that saw the Congress losing badly in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Congress won Punjab decisively, largely due to senior party leader Amarinder Singh's popularity and leadership, and emerged as the single largest party in Goa and Manipur but the BJP moved fast to rally support of smaller parties in the two states.

Gandhi said the results were not bad for the party.

"We are in the opposition, you have ups and downs. We had a little down in Uttar Pradesh, that's fine we accept it. We had five elections, we formed the government in Punjab and won in Manipur and Goa. That is not a bad result. It is true that we lost in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand," Gandhi said.

"But as far Congress is concerned we do need to make structural, organisational changes," he said, adding that Congress had an ideological fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As Gandhi spoke, there were voices within the Congress over the party failing to make any drastic changes to its organisational set up despite a series of electoral reverses since its poor showing in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Congress MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi told CNN News 18 news channel that had the party gone for "cardiac surgery" after the 2014 election, the situation would have been different and the BJP would have been on the back foot.

Chaturvedi gave meaningful responses to questions concerning Gandhi and said he had to take the decision about his role in the party.

Asked about suggestions that Gandhi was not the leader the Congress was looking for, Chaturvedi said: "I have to observe some constraints and restraints."

Asked if Congress should move beyond Gandhi, Chaturvedi said: "I think in larger interest of the party, Rahul himself has to take a decision."

Former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit did not pull his punches and told the news channel that the party cannot run on patronage and feudal leadership and one had to bring in people who deliver.

"Everybody must introspect or share with the party what went wrong."

He also said senior leaders should not display love for "positions of power, Rajya Sabha membership or (post of) general secretary".

Asked if Gandhi needs time to mature, Dikshit said "there is no time left for us".

"I don't think there is time for anybody to mature. They all know that you have to work hard. I hope they know how to work hard," he said.

Former Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj said that was being made a scapegoat and suggested that members of Congress Working Committee and general secretaries should take responsibility for the debacles and resign.

Congress leader Kamal Nath, who is into his ninth term in Lok Sabha, told Times Now news channel that politics had changed over the past five years and Congress had to adapt to the changes. He said Gandhi should be elevated as party chief.

Party leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said Gandhi had never shirked his responsibility when the party suffered a loss.

He said Gandhi had a simple personality and speaks what is in his heart.

Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi had offered to quit the leadership of Congress after the party's massive defeat in the last Lok Sabha polls but it was rejected by the party.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh had said last year that the party needs "major surgery" following its reverses in the assembly polls.
Punjab's Chief Minister-elect on Tuesday reiterated it was the right time to elevate Rahul Gandhi as the Congress President.

Amarinder made the remark after he called on Rahul Gandhi at the Congress Vice President's residence in New Delhi to congratulate him on the Congress victory in the February 4 Punjab assembly polls, where it bagged 77 of the 117 seats.

"Now is the right time to elevate Rahul Gandhi as party President. I have been maintaining this for the past one year," Singh said.

After a 10-minute meeting with Gandhi, the Punjab Congress President and Congress Legislature Party leader told the media: "It was a courtesy call. There was no discussion on Cabinet formation during the meeting."

Singh invited Rahul to attend the swearing-in ceremony slated for Thursday morning in Chandigarh.

This was the first meeting between the two after the Punjab elections.

Rahul expressed the confidence that Punjab will once again rise to its true potential under a Congress government.

Amarinder also lashed out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for refusing to accept its defeat gracefully.

"Instead of acknowledging that his party failed to connect with the voters of Punjab, (Delhi Chief Minister) Arvind Kejriwal is making allegations about (tampering of) Electronic Voting Machines. Incidentally, his own party workers were guarding the EVMs," said Singh.

"AAP workers were camping outside centres where the EVMs were stored. It is evident that Kejriwal is unable to digest loss of election as well as face after the assembly poll outcome, which he was hoping to leverage to further his ambitions," he added.
South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday said they planned to summon former President Park Geun-hye this week for questioning over a corruption scandal for which she was impeached.

Park will be summoned as a suspect over allegations that she colluded with her friend Choi Soon-sil to extort money from Samsung Group, Yonhap News Agency reported.

"We will decide tomorrow (Wednesday) when to summon former President Park and inform her," an official of a special prosecutors told the media.

"We will let you know once we are prepared."

The decision comes after Park was dismissed by a court last week over the scandal and thus stripped of her presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Security agencies carried out a search operation on Tuesday near the Pathankot airbase and the Mamoon army cantonment following intelligence inputs about suspected anti-national elements in the area, police said.

The search operation was carried out by Army soldiers, paramilitary force troopers and Punjab police personnel.

Shops and some other establishments near the Pathankot airbase were asked to shut down.

The area near the frontier airbase was sealed during the search operation.

"There were intelligence inputs of suspicious elements in the area following which the search operation was carried out," a police officer told IANS.

The Pathankot airbase was attacked by suspected Pakistani terrorists on January 2 last year.

--IANS

js/soni/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said Left Wing Extremist groups were "restless" because of the "unprecedented success" of security forces' operations against them, and termed the Maoist attack at Sukma, in Chhattisgarh, in which 12 CRPF troopers were killed a result of that frustration.

Making a statement in the Lok Sabha on the March 11 attack, Rajnath Singh condoled the death of the 12 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and said that a probe has been ordered into the attack.

"I express my condolences to the bereaved families. The nation is with them, the nation will remember their sacrifice," he said.

"The Left wing extremist groups are restless because of the unprecedented success of the forces against them. In 2016, forces have achieved success against the Left Wing Extremists in many states, specially in Chhattisgarh," the Home Minister said.

He said 135 extremists were killed, 700 were arrested and 1,198 surrendered last year, and there was a 15 per cent drop in Left Wing extremist incidents in Chhattisgarh in 2016.

"The Left Wing extremist incidents in Chhattisgarh dropped from 466 in 2015 to 395 in 2016."

He said the rate of surrender and arrests in 2016 were higher than the previous year as well. "The Left Wing extremists faced major damage in 2016," he told Parliament's lower house.

"To uplift the falling morale of their cadres, they execute attacks like this one. I am confident our brave soldiers will fight them and end Left Wing Extremism soon," he said.

The number of Left Wing Extremists killed increased by 150 per cent from 89 in 2015 to 222 in 2016 while surrenders and arrests registered a combined increase of 47 per cent over 2015 (2,238 to 3,282), he said.

The Minister said only three weapons were lost by the security forces in 2016 as against 15 in 2015. "At least 67 per cent of exchange of fire resulted in neutralization of the Left Wing extremist cadres as against only 36 per cent in 2015."

"The security forces ensured that South Bastar districts, considered to be the nucleus of Left Wing extremists strength, witnessed a considerable fall in violence in 2016 (252 incidents as against 326 in 2015). The Left Wing Extremists have suffered unprecedented losses in 2016. They have admitted so, openly in their documents and statements," he said.

Singh also said that the CRPF has been asked to carry out a probe to find whether there had been any lapses on their part in the Sukma attack.

"I have directed the DG (Director General), CRPF to conduct a detailed enquiry into the incident so that the lapses that led to the incident can be identified, which will reduce the possibility of repetition of such incidents in the future.

"I want to assure the nation, their design of keeping parts of the country backward for their own selfish reasons will not be allowed to succeed," he said.

In one of the biggest Maoist attacks in the past two years, 12 CRPF personnel were killed and four injured in an ambush by the rebels in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Saturday when two companies of the force were providing security cover for road construction on Bheji-Gorkha-Injiram Axis.

"Loss of life can in no way be compensated by money. However, the next of kin of the martyred CRPF personnel will be provided Rs 35 lakh as ex-gratia from the central government, Rs 20 lakh from the risk fund of CRPF and Rs one lakh from the forces welfare fund.

"They will also get Rs 25 lakh as insurance benefits and Rs three lakh as ex-gratia from the Chhattisgarh government. The next of kin will also be provided full salary till the age of superannuation of the personnel martyred under the Liberalized Pensionary Award (LPA)," the minister added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said Left wing extremists were restless because of the attacks carried out against them by security forces, and called the Sukma attack on the CRPF a result of that frustration.

Making a statement in the Lok Sabha, Rajnath Singh condoled the death of 12 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and said that the nation will always remember their sacrifice.

"I express my condolences to the bereaved families. The nation is with them, the nation will remember their sacrifice," he said.

"The Left wing extremist groups are restless because of the unprecedented success of the forces against them. In 2016, forces have achieved success against the Left wing extremists in many states, specially in Chhattisgarh," the Home Minister said.

He said 135 extremists were killed, 700 were arrested and 1,198 surrendered in last year, and there was a 15 per cent drop in Left wing extremist incidents in Chhattisgarh in 2016.

He said the rates of surrender and arrests in 2016 were higher than the previous year as well. "The Left wing extremists faced major damage in 2016," he told Parliament's lower house.

"To uplift the falling morale of their cadres, they execute attacks like this one. I am confident our brave soldiers will fight them and end Left wing extremism soon," he said.

Singh added that the CRPF has been asked to carry out a probe to find whether there had been any mistake on their part.

"I want to assure the nation, their design of keeping parts of the country backward for their own selfish reasons will not be allowed to succeed," he said.

In one of the biggest Maoist attacks in the past two years, 12 CRPF personnel were killed and four injured in an ambush by the rebels in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Saturday.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Donald Trump

US President has given the CIA the authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, a role previously assigned exclusively to the Pentagon, a media report said.

Trump's decision is a change from the policy implemented by former President Barack Obama, who limited the paramilitary role of the Central Intelligence Agency, Monday's Wall Street Journal report quoted an unidentified source as saying.

During the Obama administration, CIA drones were used to carry out reconnaissance and collect intelligence to locate suspected terrorists, but attacks were then carried out by the military, Efe news reported.

The drone strike that killed Taliban leader Ajtar Mansurin on May 2016 in Pakistan "was the best example of that hybrid approach" by the CIA and the Pentagon, the report said.

By the end of his tenure, Obama managed to implement a set of rules that allowed only the Pentagon to carry out strikes in order to ensure transparency.

The official said the CIA first used its new authority to carry out drone strikes in late February in an attack in northern Syria, which killed Al Qaeda leader Abu al-Jair al-Masri, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law.

Al Qaeda confirmed on March 2 that al-Masri was killed by a drone.

Officials said Trump's new order specifically applies to CIA operations in Syria, but it could eventually be extended to other operations against terrorists in other countries like Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the orders were given to the intelligence agency by Trump shortly after his meeting with intelligence officials at CIA headquarters on January 21, the day after he was inaugurated as President.
Turkey will not allow the Dutch ambassador to Ankara to return to Turkey and has suspended high-level diplomatic relations between the two countries, a top government official has said.

Deputy Turkish Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus announced the freeze in Ankara Monday amid an escalating row over Turkish officials' access to the Netherlands, CNN reported on Tuesday.

Over the weekend, the Netherlands refused to allow Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to visit Rotterdam for a political rally.

Soon after Cavusoglu was refused entry, the Dutch stopped Turkey's Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. She was later escorted out of the country.

Violent clashes erupted after the two ministers were prevented from addressing rallies in Rotterdam, where they hoped to drum up support for an April 16 referendum to give greater power to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan warned the Netherlands it will "pay the price" for harming ties by barring his ministers and compared the Dutch government to Nazis. In response, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Erdogan's remarks were inflammatory and demanded an apology.

The Dutch government cited "risks to public order and security" as reasons for blocking the Turkish rallies and said such events would stoke tensions days before the Netherlands' general election on March 15.

Meanwhile, according to a report in Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey will file a complaint against the Netherlands with the United Nations, the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and to the Council of Europe (CoE) on the grounds that the Dutch government violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also rejected a call by top EU officials to show restraint in the row.

It described as "worthless" an appeal by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

Relations between the EU and Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country regarded as crucial to tackling Europe's migrant crisis, have long been strained, reported BBC.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said it was "grave" of the EU to stand by the Netherlands. On Monday, Mogherini and Hahn had called on Turkey to "refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk further exacerbating the situation".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had also rallied to the Netherlands, condemning the Nazi analogies made by Erdogan as "completely misguided".

The Dutch issued travel advice via Twitter for its citizens in Turkey telling them to "avoid demonstrations and be alert".

However, responding to the diplomatic sanctions announced by Turkey, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said they were "not too bad".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A new small-scale, ethnographic study published in the American Educational Research Journal explores when and how undocumented students decide to discuss their citizenship status.

Elementary school-aged students are often acutely aware of their immigration statusand it affects how and when they participate in school activities, Rutgers University researcher Ariana Mangual Figueroa found in her exploration of how educators can best serve students who are undocumented or have parents who are.

An assistant professor of language education in Rutgers Graduate School of Education, Figueroa sought to challenge the assumption that most children are unaware of their citizenship status until adolescence.

Through her examination of transcripts documenting classroom interactions and reviews of writing samples, Figueroaa former New York City English-as-a-second-language and Spanish teacherprofiled a set of 5th grade students at a Brooklyn-based school were more than 90 percent of students are Latino and nearly half are classified as English-language learners. She observed students from January through June 2014 in classrooms where social studies and social-emotional learning were taught.

Two students identified by the pseudonyms Ruth and Lupe were the focal point of the study. Both were born in Latin America and entered the United States as undocumented immigrants.

While Ruth had obtained her green card since coming to the United States from El Salvador, Lupeand her parentsare Mexican-born and remained undocumented

As a result, Ruth felt more confident sharing her immigrant status, going so far as to sharing her border-crossing experience. Lupe often declined to participate in classroom activities that risked disclosing her immigration status. Figueroa cited Lupes reluctanceshe was otherwise a socially and intellectually involved studentas evidence of the protective stance she took when topics of legal citizenship arose.

The study also makes the case that aiming to protect the rights of undocumented students by avoiding any discussion of their status during the enrollment process, schools often overlook the obvious: students will likely disclose, intentionally or unintentionally, during their schooling.

We bear a particular responsibility to better prepare educators who can support their immigrant students, regardless of their legal status, Figueroa wrote in her studys conclusion.

As a first step, she recommends developing training that helps teachers move from a nonexistent or individual attempts at supporting undocumented students to intentional advocacy across the students educational trajectories.

Heres a link to the abstract of the study , Speech or Silence: Undocumented Students Decision to Disclose or Disguise Their Citizenship Status in School.
Two Maoist commanders were arrested and weapons seized following a joint operation by Jharkhand Police and the Central Reserve Police Force in Chatra district on Tuesday, police said.

A Tritiya Prastuti Committee armed squad had gathered in Turi village in the Simaria police station jurisdiction to execute some big incident when a joint raid was conducted following a tip-off.

Two Maoist leaders Rajesh Ganju and Hiralal Ganjhu were arrested, police said.

Apart from a US-made rifle and a carbine, seven other firearms, 450 cartridges, four mobile phones, six magazines and Rs 56,000 were seized.

Maoists are active in 18 of the 24 districts of the state.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Full-service airline Vistara on Tuesday entered into a codeshare agreement with Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its regional subsidiary SilkAir.

A codeshare agreement allows two airlines to sell seats on each others' flights in order to provide passengers with a wider choice of destinations.

Vistara is a New Delhi-based joint venture between Tata Sons and SIA.

According to the airline, four new destinations will be added to the SIA Group's India network, namely Bhubaneswar, Goa, Guwahati and Port Blair. SIA Group airlines currently serve 15 destinations in India from Singapore.

The codeshare agreement is Vistara's first with another airline group, as well as SIA's and SilkAir's first with an India-based domestic carrier.

Under the agreement, SIA will add its 'SQ' designator code to Vistara-operated flights beyond Mumbai and New Delhi to 10 destinations within India.

Further, SilkAir will add its 'MI' designator code to Vistara-operated flights beyond Bengaluru and Kolkata to six destinations within India.

Besides, the new agreement allows members of SIA's and Vistara's frequent flyer programmes -- KrisFlyer and Club Vistara -- to avail additional benefits as a result of the codeshare partnership.

"As we continuously work towards eventually becoming a globally renowned airline, codeshare partnerships will play a very important role in helping us get closer to realizing that aspiration," said Phee Teik Yeoh, Chief Executive Officer, Vistara.

"Customers booked on any of the classes on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir will find an equally world-class experience when they travel within India, given Vistara's service and operational excellence."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bodo leaders on Tuesday threatened to destabilise the entire northeastern region of the country if the government continued to ignore their demand for a separate state.

They said that both the state government and the Centre should be prepared to face law and order problem if an amicable solution was not reached over the issue.

The Bodos have been demanding a separate state for the 60-lakh-odd Bodo community in Assam since the late 1960s. The Bodo leaders allege that the governments at the Centre and in the state have failed to honour promises made to the community.

Contending that the central and state governments were not responding to the demands of the community, the Bodo leaders said they were being treated as second-class citizens in their own country.

"The government should not treat us like Bangladeshis or Pakistanis. They should make up their mind whether they want to talk to us or they want to fight. They don't need to try to befool us," said All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) President Pramod Bodo.

"We are warning all forces working against the interests of the Bodos and other indigenous communities to refrain from such activities, if they want peace in the state of Assam," he added.

The Bodo activists have since March 10 begun a hunger strike in Kokrajhar and scores of hunger-strikers -- who include the aged in large numbers -- have begun showing signs of weakness.

The hunger strike is jointly led by ABSU, National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Progressive (NDFB-P) and the People's Joint Action Committee for Bodoland Movement (PJACBM).

Pramod Bodo said Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had on Monday urged the hunger strikers to call off the protest but had failed to mention any time frame for the political dialogue over their demand.

A large number of prominent members of the community, including Padmashri Kameswar Brahma, litterateur Toren Boro from Bodo Sahitya Sabha, and Ranjan Daimary, founder chairman of National Democratic Front of Bodoland, joined the hunger strike on Tuesday.

Daimary warned the government not to underestimate the Bodos and other indigenous communities over their demands.

"I hope the government is not under-estimating the might of indigenous communities... if they are doing so, they will have to face the consequences. We appeal to the government to take appropriate steps for amicable solution of the long-pending Bodo political issue," said Daimary.

A massive mass rally, with around a lakh of people participating, was taken out in Kokrajhar town in support of the movement on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the health condition of scores of activists on hunger strike deteriorated and they had to be taken to the RNB Civil Hospital.

"It is really tragic that elected governments in the country are not reciprocating the peaceful and non-violent movement. I am afraid this will only instigate alternative path to raise voices to draw attention from people at the helm of affairs," said litterateur Kameswar Brahma while addressing the protestors.

The formerly militant group NDFB-P said that despite their shunning arms and joining peace talks on the demand for Bodoland on the government's plea, there has been no positive response from the government.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the first case of its kind, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday that employers are allowed to ban employees from wearing visible religious symbols, including headscarves at the workplace.

But the ECJ said that the ban must be based on internal company rules requiring all employees to "dress neutrally", reported BBC.

The ruling was based on court cases brought by two female employees in Belgium and France, who were dismissed for refusing to remove their Islamic headscarves.

Belgium's court of cassation had referred the case to the EU's top court for clarification.

"An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination," the court said in a statement.

"However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer's services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination," it said.

The ruling, which sets an EU-wide precedent, came a day before the Netherlands' parliamentary elections which have been dominated by issues of integration and identity, the Independent reported.

Dutch MPs voted in support of a partial ban on full-face Islamic veils last year, but no law has yet been implemented, while prohibitions have been implemented in countries including France, Belgium and Bulgaria, and are being considered in Germany.

Attempts by local authorities in the French Riviera to ban so-called "burkinis" worn by Muslim women and impose fines generated fresh debate last year and have since been repealed by courts.

--IANS

soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After engineering a win in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party can afford to pursue its pet reforms across various sectors. Equally, the hubris of successive electoral wins may mislead the party in terms of its choices and priorities.
Chanu's followers outside Manipur, including many in media, reacted to her abject failure in her first, and it seems last, foray into electoral politics with emotions ranging from disappointment to shock. There was a genuine sense of puzzlement. How could she lose and lose so badly  she got 90 out of 27,271 votes.
If BJP credits PM Narendra Modi for its UP victory, it should also explain Delhi and Bihar debacles, former J&K chief minister on Tuesday said as he asked the opposition to begin preparing for "tough" 2019 polls.

Seeking to clarify his remarks made in the wake of UP election results that with no leader to take on Modi, the opposition should forget 2019 and prepare for 2024, Abdullah said he was only stressing on the need to learn lessons and prepare for the difficult test that the next general elections would be.

"I said (on Twitter) that if the same situation prevails, I mean the defeat, which we faced in these elections (in UP), if we did not learn from it, then undoubtedly we should think about 2024 elections instead of 2019," he told reporters here.

If the same situation prevails, then it is obvious, Abdullah, working president of the Conference said.

"The way BJP swept polls in UP, the way they formed governments in two states with the help of 'jodh-todh' (horse-trading) despite coming second, keeping in view these things, we conclude that 2019 will be a tough contest," Abdullah said.

We should prepare ourselves for that difficult test from today only and that is why I said what I said on twitter, he explained.

Referring to the criticism of his tweets by some Congress leaders, Abdullah said some people disliked it, but that would not stop him from saying such things.

"I am hopeful that after the results of these elections, we will change the way of our working and we will increase the rapport with the people and hope that in 2019, we will present a tough contest before BJP," he said.

The former chief minister said if the BJP credits its win in UP to the wave around Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then it should also explain the debacle in Delhi and Bihar polls.

"If Modi's wave succeeded in UP, then why not in Delhi or Bihar? We only count our successes and blame someone else for our defeats. If BJP credits Modi for UP win, which it should, then it should also give explanation about Bihar and Delhi," he said.
Manohar Parrikar's 27-month tenure as Defence Minister has been eventful with several achievements under his belt, including the new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP), hiking compensation for widows and families of soldiers who died while fighting for the country and dealing sternly with Pakistan's misadventures.

In fact, Parrikar was hand-picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2014 as Defence Minister for his clean image and proven administrative abilities to relieve Arun Jaitley  who was then also holding the crucial charge of Finance Ministry  at a time when the six-month-old NDA government was still trying to find its bearings.

Through his efforts, Parrikar tried to break the middlemen-arms agents-officials nexus in the defence sector and usher in transparency, ease of doing business and expedite the decision-making process.

As the minister, Parrikar controlled the world's third-largest military.

On the administrative front, Parrikar's most conspicuous achievement could be the DPP 2016, in consonance with Modi's 'Make in India' vision, that lays the road map of how India, currently the world's largest arms importer, will acquire equipment in future.

The new policy created a new procurement category, called the Indian Designed, Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) category, to be the most preferred category for buying equipment.

"I don't want to buy from a company that pays bribes. If you want to pay a bribe, put it on the table for the government and reduce the price," Parrikar was quoted as saying at that time.

Notably, defence exports have risen from Rs 1,153 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 2,059 crore in 2015-16. This despite two-thirds of items being removed from the military goods list.

It was under Parrikar's tenure that the government tried to address the long pending One Rank One Pension (OROP) policy.

In November last year, Parrikar also doubled the compensation for widows and families of soldiers dying while fighting for the country in five categories.

For soldiers dying in action during border skirmishes or fighting against militants, the compensation was revised to Rs 35 lakh from the existing Rs 15 lakh.

For deaths occurring during enemy action in war or war-like engagements, in a war-torn zone in foreign country, the compensation was increased from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 45 lakh.

Under Parrikar, the Indian forces dealt with Pakistan quite sternly whenever the neighbouring country showed any aggression, including the surgical strikes across the LoC in September last year.

He is also said to be quite popular among the Generals and forces with his unassuming manners and no-nonsense approach.

Despite being the Defence Minister, Parikkar was known to take a lot of interest in Goa and made frequent trips to the coastal state, so much so that an MLA accused him of "selling fish" in Goa when the Rafale deal was being signed with France in New Delhi.

Interestingly, the same detractors have now insisted on Parrikar being made the Chief Minister of the state, with some non-BJP groups extending support on this condition only.

In perhaps an indication of his impending return to Goa, Parrikar, when asked on polling day, February 4, whether he was set to return as Chief Minister, had told reporters: "I have lost four kilograms in Delhi because of the food. I like Goan food. You can interpret this the way you want."
In the backdrop of humiliating defeat in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the opposition parties have the onerous task of rephrasing their political messages to take on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mascot and Prime Minister in future elections.
With an eye on the next set of Assembly polls, the Narendra Modi government is looking at a Cabinet rejig. The reshuffle is likely to take place after the ongoing Budget session of Parliament ends on April 12.
Teachers have been widely skeptical and concerned about public education under President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. But the four top teachers who are in the running for the National Teacher of the Year award have a unique opportunity to have their voices heard by the new administrationand they hope to do so at the White House this spring.

The finalists for the annual top teaching award are Sydney Chaffee, a 9th grade humanities teacher in Dorchester, Mass.; Chris Gleason, a music teacher in Sun Prairie, Wis.; Athanasia Kyriakakos, an art teacher in Baltimore; and Megan Gross, a special education teacher in San Diego.

The top teachers were all here in the nations capital last week for a series of media interviews. They met with Education Week Teacher at the office of the Council of Chief State School Officers to discuss their love of teaching, their thoughts on the future of arts education, and their hopes of working with the new presidential administration.

The interview was lightly edited for length and clarity, and parts were paraphrased.

Education Week Teacher: How did you all get into teaching, and why have you stayed in teaching? What is the biggest takeaway from your teaching career so far?

Gross: She credited her earlier work with adults with disabilities, specifically one resident with Down syndrome and dementia. There were a lot of things that he didnt remember, but he remembered his teacher and how she had taught him to write his name in cursiveand he could still write it. So it was that moment, sitting in the kitchen, Oh I need to be a teacher, I want to have that kind of effect on somebodys life.

Gross has been teaching for 10 years. I stay for the kids. I want to give them the tools they need to be self-determined, to be self-advocates, and to give their families support so that they can dream a bigger life for their children.

Kyriakakos: I wasnt going to be a teacher, I was going to be an artist. But her work with at-risk students in New Britain, Conn., struck a chord within her, and she became a teacher in 1995. Those kids showed me who I could be for them. My work and art work has to do with building communitywhat I really want to do is start a conversation and being a teacher allows me to do that.

In art, the most amazing time is when Im not actually teaching. So that moment when all you can hear is the scratching of the charcoal against the paper and all the kids are so focused and they have tapped into something really deep within themselvesand you can often hear the hum coming out of their headphones because they need to close out that world to come into themselves.

Gleason: "[Music] touches certain parts of kids beings that wouldnt be otherwise. We hear a lot about teaching to the whole child, and what we have learned through history is that kids dont come in as one size fits all. They dont see the world the same wayotherwise, why paint, why have art? Intelligence is diverse and distinct.

Its not about the notes, its teaching through the notes. Music is going to touch every discipline. I appreciate the student that can look at a piece of music and really get to understand the composers intentthey might not play it perfectly but they may understand empathy at a level that far exceeds their age.

Chaffee: I didnt know that I wanted to be a teacher. I thought I wanted to be a poet. Her love for teaching stemmed from a lifetime love of learning. I had these amazing college and feminist professors and I was on fire, I was excited to be with them, learn, and have these conversations that pushed me to be a scholar in this way.

Im 10 years in, and every year I get to learn more, and I get to be better. Every year I get to help kids figure out who they are, what they love, whats important to them, and whats the story that they want to tell.

Chaffee is also the liaison for her schools partnership with a local theater company that she takes her 9th graders to weekly. Every year they do a poetry competition and then they put on a play. We are teaching them certain skills but we are also just helping them discover who they arewere helping them discover the power that they have and theres nothing more rewarding than seeing a kid take the stage and have all of the power in the room in their hand, in that moment, and to see them own that and know what to do with it is so incredible.

Education Week Teacher: How do you feel about the future of arts education, in contrast to the push for STEM?

Chaffee: Something that Ive been really excited about hearing about recently is STEAM. Just thinking about what are the ways in which we can stop thinking of the arts as separate? And the ways in which we can be interdisciplinary and the ways in which we think about these different learning experiences for our kids.

Im interested as a teacher always on how we can be creative about the resources that we do have or the talent that we have in our building or the things that kids are passionate about, to weave these different kinds of learning together, so that theyre not just standing alone and not sort of siloed.

Gleason: The thing that we have to remember is that kids are diverse, they are distinct. Ive taught for 20 years, theres not one year that has been the same. We need to find every tool we can to teach these kids, and we have to fund it. What better thing to fund than our futurethe kids are replacing us, they are the future.

Kyriakakos: For years, they have replaced the arts with STEM subjects. After years, studies found that without the A or even R [reading], our kids are not creative, innovative, collaborative, or communicative. They werent critical thinkers. How are these kids going to integrate into tomorrows workforce? We might be thinking about the whole child and being culturally sensitive and creating citizens of tomorrow who understand history and have tapped into their inner selfall of these things are great. But we need to give them those skills, and those skills come out of the arts. We create innovators, critical thinkers, problem solverskids should use all the different modalities of art to talk about who they are and where they are going.

Education Week Teacher: Typically, there is a White House ceremony in the spring to honor the state teachers of the year and the National Teacher of the Year. Given the controversy surrounding the new administration, some educators have said they would be wary of going to the ceremony this year. What are your thoughts on that?

Gross: I have to practice what I preach and talk to my students about democracy. We live in an amazing country, and so being able to go to the White House is an honor, regardless of who that person is sitting in the Oval Office.

Her advice to the new administration? Speak with families who have students with significant disabilities, and speak with adults with significant disabilitiesI think they are an untapped source of knowledge for informing our policies.

Gleason: We need to find what we have in common first; if you dont do that then you are just looking at what the differences are. Once we find out what we have in common, then you can have an honest conversationthe end result is that we all want whats best for kids, so thats where we start and then we go from there.

Chaffee: Someone said to me recently, the White House is our house. The White House, its ours. She said she keeps in mind what Chris Minnich, the executive director of CCSSO, told the cohort:

He told us that there may be things that we disagree on, but that you are never going to actually make any changes if youre not there. What an amazing privilege I have to be able to potentially have an audience with Secretary DeVos, President Trump, and his administrationto be able to potentially sit at a table and have that discussion. I will absolutely be there this spring, whether I win or not, with the rest of my cohort, happy to stand and represent teachers and have those conversations.

Kyriakakos: We all talk from our hearts, and we need to see this is a learning opportunity for all of us. This is an amazing country, and I am a first-generation immigrant. For my family and I to be at the White Housepersonally, that is huge. I represent in many ways, all the immigrants American Dream, and we have to honor that dream.

We need to take care of our kids. I think its great to have an audience with the administration and I think that we need to tell them our stories. How are they are going to hear about our stories if we are not there to say them? We need to have a seat at the table.
Altogether 17 persons including 11 policemen, two photo journalists and two party activists each from Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP, were injured in a clash between the two groups, police said today.

S.P. (West Tripura), Abhijit Saptarshi said, trouble started last night when Sandip Roy Burman, elder brother of TMC leader, Sudip Roy Burman allegedly beat up a BJP activist.

The supporters of both the parties came to lodge F.I.R in the West Agartala police station last night where clashes ensued in which eleven police personnel sustained minor injuries when they tried to intervene, S.P told reporters.

Four BJP and TMC activists including BJP Vice President, Subal Bhaumick and TMC leader Panna Debb, were injured in the incident, Saptarshi said.

He said two photo journalists, who were covering the incident, also sustained injuries and were released from hospital after first aid.

Prohibitory orders under Section 144 Cr.P.C. Was imposed in the city for about two hours last night, the SP said.

Secretary of Tripura Journalists Union, Pranab Sarkar condemned the attack on the journalists and demanded exemplary punishment to the erring police personnel.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
17 workers, trapped in a coal mine in northeast China since last week, have been found dead by rescuers, authorities said.

Rescuers found bodies of 17 miners who had been trapped underground after the mine accident in Heilongjiang Province on March 9, state-run Xinhua agency quoted local officials as saying.

The workers were in a cage which suddenly fell down during operation after its electric cable caught fire at Dongrong SecondMineof the Shuangyashan branch of LongmayMiningHolding Group.

A total of 256 miners escaped, local officials said.

"I was working underground when the accident happened. I smelt choking smoke in the shaft," said a worker surnamed Zhang, who was lifted out of themine with others.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: Two varieties of ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute --Co 6304 and Co 86032-- here have been recognized for their significant contribution to sugarcane agriculture in the country.

The Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding, New Delhi, one of the oldest societies of Breeders and Geneticists in the country, presented the recognition awards to developers of these varieties during its Platinum Jubilee Celebrations, held at New Delhi.

Speaking on the recognition, ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute Director, Dr Bakshi Ram said that both were landmark varieties that created significant impact in the livelihood of sugarcane farmers of Tropical India.

Co 6304, released for cultivation in 1973, was hailed as the second wonder cane after Co 419 during the seventies and eighties.

The variety was extremely popular in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh and during the period, it occupied over 85 per cent of the area in Tamil Nadu and played a major role in making the State top sugarcane roductivity rankings in the country, he said in a release today.

The variety also made a mark in Gujarat, improving the overall sugar recovery in that state, he added.

If Co 6304 was instrumental in Tamil Nadu achieving the maximum sugarcane yield per unit area in the country, it was Co 86032 variety that helped in sustaining the state's productivity, Bakshi Ram said.

This variety, released in 2000, is the ruling variety in tropical India, occupying over 70 per cent of the area in Tamil Nadu and over 50 per cent in Maharashtra and Karnataka, with sizeable proportion in Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.

The annual gross value realised from this variety alone is estimated to be about Rs 15,000 crore, he said.

At present, about 99 per cent of the area under sugarcane cultivation in India is occupied by the varieties developed by the Institute or those developed by the State Sugarcane Research Stations from the crosses made at the Institute, Bakshi Ram said.

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A three-member Indian delegation of MPs today attended a regional conference hosted by Pakistan with a top lawmaker asking the Asian countries to "bury the hatchet" and move forward for the collective good.

The Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) conference held in Murree is being attended by Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta.

The Indian lawmakers' visit comes at a time when bilateral contacts and exchange of visits have stalled after the Uri terror attack and India boycotting the SAARC Summit hosted by Pakistan.

Their presence in Pakistan comes ahead of the meeting of Indus water commissioners who are expected to attend a meeting in Lahore on March 19-20.

The conference, attended by 23 Asian countries and scheduled to conclude on March 17, is being held to discuss closer cooperation and creation of Asian Parliament on the pattern of European Union.

"We should learn to bury the hatchet and move forward for the collective good," Chairman Senate, upper house of Pakistan's parliament, Raza Rabbani said while addressing the conference.

He urged Asian nations to work together to address and realise common challenges and aspirations.

Rabbani said the special committee on creation of Asian Parliament would make a positive beginning towards the cherished objective, Radio Pakistan reported.

He urged the Asian nations to work together to address and realise common challenges and aspirations.

Rabbani said Asian nations were suffering from issues like poverty, terrorism, under-nourishment and exploitation of their natural resources.

He said the countries' parliaments would fail themselves if they fail to rise to the occasion.

Speaker National Assembly, lower house of parliament, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in his address emphasised the need for working together for achieving the desired goal of regional peace, development and prosperity.

He said APA member states should intervene for peaceful solution of all outstanding disputes in accordance with the UN resolution and as per aspirations of the people.

"We must work together for confronting shared challenges of terrorism, extremism, poverty and climate change," he said.

Noting that Pakistan is a strong advocate of regional integration and connectivity, Sadiq said the country was committed to peace and prosperity in the region and the world.

He also said the CPEC will not only benefit China and Pakistan but will have positive impact on Iran, Afghanistan, India, Central Asia and the entire region.

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Left on the streets of Mumbai as a toddler and adopted by a Swedish couple, a 36-year-old woman of Indian descent searching for her biological parents has found a small connection with the past on her third trip to India.

Jessica Lindher's latest trip united her with the policeman who found her near Sion Hospital on October 13, 1981, when she was just 17-months-old.

Diwakar Gaonkar, who was then a police constable, was overjoyed, when she met him here yesterday.

"When we found her, I remember taking her around in Sion-Matunga area and asking residents if anyone had reported a missing child," Gaonkar, now a Police Sub-Inspector, said.

Gaonkar said he looked for Jessica's parents in the nearby area and informed all police stations. However, when no missing complaint was found, he handed her to an orphanage.

After no one came forward to identify her, she was handed over to an orphanage, which then found foster parents for her in .

Social activist Anjali Pawar, representative of the NGO Against Child Trafficking, told PTI that Jessica, also known by her Indian name, Kamalini, is still hopeful of finding her biological parents.

"She bears no grudge. She understands that they may have had their reasons for dumping her. She just wants to meet them," Pawar, who facilitated Jessica's interaction with police and local officials here yesterday, told PTI.

Jessica, who was on her third India visit, since her adoption, left for last night, Pawar said.

Her story is similar to the story of Saroo, whose reel life adaptation "Lion", starring Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar earned accolades at the Oscars last month.

"Lion" was based on the real life story of a boy who traced his biological family from thousands of miles away after getting adopted by Australian parents.

"She hasn't given hope and will be in India again to find her biological parents," Pawar said.

Now married with two kids, Jessica was adopted by a Swedish couple from the Shree Manav Seva Sangh orphanage in Sion in 1982.

Jessica first visited India in 1999 to trace her parents and returned in 2016. On her third visit, which began last month in Kerala and ended yesterday, she was accompanied by her Australian husband and two children, Pawar said.
Taking a cue from BSP supremo Mayawati, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has expressed reservations about electronic voting machines and sought the use of ballot papers in the upcoming civic body polls in the capital.

Kejriwal has directed Chief Secretary M M Kutty to write to the State Election Commission in this regard.

"The Chief Minister has directed the chief secretary to ask the state election office to hold MCD elections through ballot papers," a source in the CM's office said.

The move comes close on the heels of Mayawati questioning the "reliability" of electronic voting machines (EVMs). She had alleged that they were tampered with in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, where her party suffered a debacle.

Earlier, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken also requested Kejriwal to opt for ballot papers and shun in the corporation polls.

"Many are doubting EVMs-Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results; I want @ArvindKejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot Papers," he had tweeted.

AAP's Jarnail Singh, who lost to former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal from Lambi, also demanded use of ballots in the elections ahead.

"Although we accept defeat, we have serious doubts over the results in Punjab. There are several villages in the Lambi constituency where we have received less votes than the number of volunteers we have there.

"For the first time, voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was used in Punjab. When we asked the Returning Officer to tally the number of votes to the VVPATs, he declined to do so," Singh said.

AAP sources said there were 33 Assembly constituencies in Punjab where VVPAT was used, and that it would ask the poll panel to verify them again with the number of votes received.

They said the party had been "gathering evidence" before it could officially take up the matter with the poll panel.

Where a paper trail audit or VVPAT is used, the counting agent can call for a count of the paper slips in the drop box attached to the voting machine, but the final count is taken by the Returning Officer.
An AIADMK member in Lok Sabha today demanded a CBI probe into the "mysterious" death of party supremo J Jayalalithaa, with a Union Minister saying it was a matter of "great concern".

After P R Sundaram, who is affiliated to the rebel party group headed by former chief minister O Panneerselvam, raised the demand, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the matter was of "great concern" but the state government has already ordered a probe and the Centre can act only after its report is submitted.

Sundaram claimed that nobody was allowed to meet Jayalalithaa during her 75 days of hospitalisation and noted that she was said to be suffering from dehydration and fever before it was "suddenly" announced that she had a heart attack following which she died.

"We want a CBI inquiry into the mysterious death," he said.

Kumar said the matter regarding the "sudden demise" of the then Tamil Nadu chief minister "is a mater of great concern to this House and the country" and there is a "feeling that the death had happened under mysterious circumstances".

He, however, said that the state government has already ordered an inquiry into the matter and it has to be submitted first so that the Centre can take any action.

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Expelled AIADMK leader and former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam will lead a nine-member delegation to the Election Commission of India tomorrow on the issue of V K Sasikala's appointment as AIADMK chief.

Sources in the Panneerselvam camp said he will be accompanied by, among others, Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan and former Ministers Natham R Viswanathan, KP Munusamy and S Semmalai.

The delegation is scheduled to meet Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi around noon on the "recent developments in the AIADMK," they added.

The Panneerselvam faction has already challenged before the EC Sasikala's appointment as AIADMK general secretary in December following her predecessor J Jayalalithaa's demise.

The Commission had issued notice to Sasikala, serving a jail term in connection with a Rs 66 crore disproportionate assets case and she had sent her response last week.

Panneerselvam had revolted against Sasikala on February 7, saying he was forced to make way for her elevation as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu following her election as AIADMK Legislature Party leader earlier.

She had later expelled him and some of his supporters from the AIADMK.
After steering the party to a stupendous victory in Punjab, state Congress chief Amarinder Singh today met Rahul Gandhi and discussed issues relating to government formation in the state.

The Congress Vice President credited Amarinder for the party's performance in Punjab, party sources said. Amarinder, who is from the old guard and was initially critical of Rahul's leadership, said after the meeting that he will be happy if the Congress Vice President is elevated.

The two leaders met for around half an hour and exchanged notes. The sources said that the party would finalise plans for government formation in a day or two.

"Today was a courtesy call. We will think and myself and our AICC secretary incharge will sit together and prepare a list. Then, we will come again.... We will then discuss the government formation with our party leadership," Amarinder said after the meeting.

Amarinder, who is Punjab Congress chief, favoured the elevation of Rahul Gandhi as party president saying, "I will be very happy to see Rahulji on top. I have been saying this for a year now. We are very happy to see Rahul Gandhi be elevated. We will all be very happy."



The Congress Vice President also said after the meeting, "Met Amarinder Singh ji earlier today. I am confident that Punjab will once again rise to its true potential under a Congress government."



Amarinder also credited every worker and the party's top leadership for the party's performance in Punjab. The Congress has returned to power after a gap of ten years when it was defeated consecutively by the Akali-BJP combine.

The Punjab Congress chief, who was earlier the deputy leader of Congress in Lok Sabha, was highly critical of the BJP forming governments in Goa and Manipur despite emerging as the second largest party.

"It is unfair if you break parties and make governments forcibly. This is use of unfair means. You are violating the mandate of people. If by putting together independents, you stake claim to form a government, this is violation of the mandate," he said.

Asked if Congress victory in Punjab was an answer to BJP's "Congress-free India" slogan, he said, "I think so. Yes." He said the party had not only performed well in Punjab, but also in Goa and Manipur.

Amarinder said AAP was never a threat to Congress in Punjab and it merely created a hype on the social media while trying to influence voters as well as journalists.

"The AAP was never a threat. AAP used the social media effectively. They created a hype which was broken," he said.

To a question on demand by AAP for holding a probe into the functioning of EVMs, he said, "The one who loses will make some excuses" as he debunked charges of EVM tampering.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India may impose anti-dumping duty of up to USD 300.22 per tonne on imports of a chemical, used in detergent industry, from China, Iran and Qatar to protect domestic players from cheap inbound shipments.

Tamil Nadu Petroproducts and Nirma Ltd have jointly filed an application seeking anti-dumping investigations on imports of 'Linear Alkyl Benzene'.

In its final findings, the Directorate General of Anti- Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), under the ministry, has concluded that there is dumping of the chemical from these three nations.

It has also said that imports from these countries are undercutting and suppressing the prices of the domestic industry and performance of domestic industry has deteriorated in the terms of market share and profitability.

"The authority considers it necessary to recommend ... definitive anti-dumping duty on imports" of the goods from China, Iran and Qatar, it added.

It has recommended anti-dumping duty in the range of USD 23.78 per tonne to USD 300.22 per tonne on the imports.

While DGAD recommends the duty, the Finance Ministry imposes it.

Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multi-lateral WTO regime.

Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products.

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Florida Spent $240M on Outside Lawyers: 'Insane'

The state of Florida has quietly spent nearly $240 million on outside lawyers in six years since Governor Rick Scott took office, the AP reports. Scott and Florida Republicans have shelled out "more than $237 million on private lawyers to advance and defend their agendas," according to the AP investigation. Throw in the costs paid in opponents lawyers' fees and the total rises to $253 million.

The spending, according to Carlos Trujillo, a Republican state representative for Miami and chair of the Appropriations Committee, is "insane." Dominic Calabro, president of Florida TaxWatch, called the total "a gosh lot of money."

Hey Big Spender

Governor Scott and Florida Republicans are frequent critics of government spending, but much of Florida's massive legal spend goes largely unnoticed, the AP reports, since the spending is not part of the state's budgeting process.

Though Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi oversees a team of more than 450 lawyers, plenty of legal work ends up getting turned over to outside counsel. Some of that legal spending has been dedicated to fights over testing welfare recipients for drugs, removing voters from the state's voter list, and excluding companies that do business with Cuba from bidding on state contracts.

One of the most expensive cases has been Florida's ongoing litigation with Georgia over water rights. That case is being handled by Latham & Watkins, whose most expensive lawyers cost $825 an hour. In the last 18 months, Florida has spent more than $41 million on that case alone. In contrast, New York State spends about $17 million a year on outside counsel.

Floridians React

While defending the state's legal interests is important, many question the need to shell out over a quarter billion dollars to do it. "As taxpayers and constituents," Trujillo says, "we have the right to ask: 'Is this necessary, are we overpaying?'"

House Speaker Richard Corcoran implied that the question had already been answered. "We're getting gouged," he said.

Still, Governor Scott's office has defended the spending. "When there are complex legal matters or specific expertise needed, including defending laws passed by the legislature, we utilize available resources and, as required by statute, get approval from the Attorney General's office," a spokesperson said.

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Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from April 7 to 10 to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two neighbours, an official statement said today.

Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said.

The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, according to the statement issued here.

"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders," said the statement jointly issued by the two sides.

Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modi's visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.

She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said they were attaching "highest importance" to the visit, the Bdnews24 reported.

Hasina is the head of government of "a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time," Shringla was quoted as saying.

The envoy also said that President Pranab Mukherjee in an "exceptional" gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit.

"Everything is work in progress. We'll have to see what is possible and what is not possible," he said when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal.

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Director Srijit Mukherji says he and his team had faced a lot of difficulties while shooting for "Begum Jaan" in Jharkhand but it was everybody's hard work and passion which made it possible to finish the film.

The movie, which is the remake of Bengali film "Rajkahini", features Vidya Balan in the lead role.

"'Begum Jaan' is our labour of love. We were stuck while filming a month-long shoot in Jharkhand where the set was extensively damaged during storms but we rebuilt it and moved on.

"...And you will see Vidya in a very gritty role mouthing certain words and only she could pull it off," Srijit says on the trailer launch of the film.

Vidya plays the role of a brothel's madam in the film, set against the backdrop of freedom struggle.

Praising her director, Vidya says without Srijit such a film would not have been possible.

"'Begum Jaan' has been born from the womb of Kolkata since its director himself emerged from here. Hence, the film is a tribute to women as Kolkata always showed special tribute to its women" Vidya says.

Producer Mahesh Bhatt says "Begum Jaan" shows how women always bear the brunt of riots, wars, clashes and other crisis and that they are the worst sufferers.

"Such subjects are generally avoided by directors," Bhatt says before adding he is proud to have produced a film like "Begum Jaan".

The film is set to release in theatres on April 14.

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A was hacked to death on Tuesday by unidentified assailants at Anekal in Bengaluru rural district, police said.

" and Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad, popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu, was stabbed with sharp weapons around 5 am," Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police Vinit Singh told PTI over telephone.

On the motive behind the crime, Singh said, "It is too early to comment on it as we are investigating the case."

On October 16, an RSS worker was hacked to death in Bengaluru, which triggered massive protests by BJP and RSS workers.

Reacting to the incident, RSS Media Coordinator for Karnataka, Rajesh Padmar said the state government should take strong steps to stop such politically-motivated killings.

He also demanded an immediate and an impartial probe into it.

"In the last two years, more than 10 RSS-VHP-BJP activists have been killed.It is a dangerous development in a democratic set-up," Padmar said.

He also said that the deceased was a soft-spoken person and has no criminal cases against him.
For Manohar Parrikar, the BJP's poster boy in Goa, it's a homecoming and another stint as chief minister of the coastal state.

Despite failing to secure a simple majority in the assembly polls, the BJP managed to successfully stitch an alliance with two regional parties besides gaining the support of two Independents.

Right from the start of campaigning in the state, the BJP had sent across a subtle message that if it wins, the government would be headed by Parrikar.

Enjoying a man-next-door image in the state, even while holding a major portfolio like Defence at the Centre, 61-year- old Parrikar led the BJP's campaign from the front, though the party failed to hit the half-way mark of 21 in the 40-member house.

A metallurgical engineer from IIT Bombay, Parrikar, in post-poll days, displayed immense political skill in outsmarting the single largest party Congress in number games by forging a coalition winning over the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP).

Born in a middle class business family in Mapusa in north Goa, Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar graduated to the BJP from the RSS ranks.

He joined the RSS in his school days and always held that the ideology and training he received from the organisation greatly helped him in public life, most importantly in decision-making.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hand-picked him as the Defence Minister in November 2014, has often lavished praises on Parrikar for his dedication and hard work, especially in the context of the surgical strike last year.

Parrikar was first elected to the Goa Assembly in 1994. He served as he leader of the opposition from June to November 1999.

In a state known for political swings as well as rise and fall of ministries, Parrikar's first stint as chief minister was from October 24, 2000 to February 27, 2002. He had his next term at the top slot in the state from June 5, 2002 to January 29, 2005.

In 2012, he successfully led the BJP to power and became the chief minister for the third time, which lasted until November 2014 when he was made Defence Minister.

Parrikar as the party's choice this time round was broadly hinted by the BJP leaders including Nitin Gadkari during the run-up, saying a leader from Delhi could be called to head the state after the polls.

Parrikar, who often faced criticism from detractors for airdashing to Goa every weekend, also did not hide his wish to return to his home state.

The party leaders also vouched that the BJP's manifesto and campaign strategy was scripted under Parrikar's guidance, restricting Laxmikant Parsekar, who succeeded him as chief minister, to his constituency of Mandrem, which he failed to defend.

Parrikar criss-crossed the entire Goa, promising continuation of the developmental works the BJP government initiated and sought a clear mandate, stressing political stability was essential to steer the state to progress.

A leader who enjoys acceptance from all sections of the BJP and beyond, he has played key role in making the party a force to reckon with in Goa, which remained for long a Congress bastion, with regional outfits having pockets of influence.

Parrikar, whose wife died in 2001, has two sons-- Utpal and Abhijit.

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BJP's Ranjana Bhanasi was today elected unopposed as the Nashik Mayor.

Likewise, Prathamesh Gite of the BJP was elected unopposed as the city's Deputy Mayor, a civic official said.

Candidates from Congress-NCP for the post of Mayor and Deputy Mayor, who filled their nomination papers, pulled out of the race today, paving way for election of Bhanasi and Gite, he said.

Shiv Sena did not contest the Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral polls.

In the polls, BJP emerged victorious bagging 66 seats of the total 122 in the Nashik Municipal Corporation. Shiv Sena won 35 seats, while NCP and Congress bagged six seats each.

MNS, which was in power in Nashik civic body, managed to get only 5 seats.

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Nigeria today charged the leader of Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru with the abduction and murder of 10 foreigners, in one its highest-profile cases yet against Islamist militants.

Khalid al-Barnawi, one of three Nigerians listed by the US government as a "specially designated global terrorist", appeared in court alongside six other defendants and denied the charges.

The charges relate to a series of kidnappings and killings of foreign workers between 2011 and 2013, including Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and his British colleague Chris McManus.

Both were killed by their captors in the northern city of Sokoto just after the start of a joint British-Nigerian rescue operation at the compound where they were being held in March 2012.

Barnawi is also accused in connection with kidnapping Frenchman Francis Collomp and German national Edgar Raupach.

Collomp was kidnapped in December 2012 and held by Ansaru for nearly a year before he managed to stage a dramatic escape in November 2013.

Raupach's abduction was initially claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to which Ansaru has been linked. He was killed during a military raid in Kano, northern Nigeria, in May 2012.

The other kidnapping and murder charges relate to seven foreign nationals -- two from Lebanon, two Syrians, an Italian, a Greek and a Briton.

They were seized from a construction site in the northern state of Bauchi in 2013.

According to the charge sheet, the seven were taken to Sambisa Forest area of northeaster Borno state and held for about 10 days before they were killed and buried in a shallow grave.

Halima Haliru, Barnawi's second wife, faces only one charge -- failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

Nigeria's military announced in April last year that Barnawi -- who is also known as Mohammed Usman -- had been arrested in Lokoja in central Nigeria.

He was described as "on top of the list of our wanted terrorists" because of his alleged links to the wider jihadist network in west and north Africa.

Barnawi assumed the leadership of Ansaru following the death of the group's founder Abubakar Adam Kambar in a military raid on his hideout in Kano in March 2012.

Both Barnawi and Kambar were former close allies of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009, which then saw his deputy Abubakar Shekau take over.

Under Shekau's leadership, at least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million forced from their homes.

Ansaru, whose members trained in AQIM camps in the Algerian desert, broke away in protest at Shekau's indiscriminate violence and targeting of civilians.

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The Confederation of All-India Traders (CAIT) today raised their concern over the GST clause which links availability of input tax credit to payment of tax by their suppliers.

If availability of input tax credit is linked to tax payment by their suppliers, it will worsen the situation of small businesses, CAIT said in a statement and pointed out that this is despite the fact that they fully support GST, which is likely to come to force since July 1.

Under the GST law, input credit against taxes paid by the purchaser can be availed of only if the seller deposits the tax. In the event of non-compliance at the end of seller, it is the purchaser who will be denied input credit.

Over 6 million businesses are due to fall under the GST net and most of them are MSMEs. These businesses suffer from uneven cash flows but are largely compliant, claimed the association.

If availability of input tax credit is linked to payment of tax by their suppliers, it will worsen the situation of these small businesses, the CAIT statement said.

"We are happy that the GST Council has cleared the way for the new law to get implemented. The trading community and other small businesses will benefit from the single tax regime undoubtedly," Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT secretary general said.

"However, the provisions in the law to do with input tax credit availability if not corrected will be detrimental to their survival. Therefore on behalf of the entire traders, we urge the finance minister to remove this roadblock so that GST can be a great law for all," he said.

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The Karnataka government today said a probe was on to ascertain whether the attacks on BJP and RSS workers in the state were politically motivated, even as it asked the state police to "act without any preconceived notions."



"These incidents happen in the whole country and Karnataka is no exception," state Home Minister G Parameswara told reporters, adding that Congress and JDS workers have also been victims of such attacks.

His statement comes after a BJP councillor and Dalit leader was hacked to death today by unidentified assailants at Anekal in Bengaluru's rural district.

"Investigations are on in the murder of municipal councillor Srinivasa Prasad here to find out if it was a political murder," Parameswara said.

"Who are the culprits? Was it a politically motivated murder or real estate or personal reasons were behind the killing of Prasad? Investigations are on," he said.

Once the probe is over, action will be taken against the guilty without any compromise, he said and advised the state police to enquire without "preconceived" and "prejudged" notions.

"Congress and JDS workers have also been murdered. Similarly, BJP workers also have been murdered. So, we do not look at it from a political angle," the minister said.

Earlier, RSS Media Coordinator for Karnataka, Rajesh Padmar demanded that the state government take strong steps to stop such "politically-motivated" killings.

He also sought an immediate and an impartial probe into the murder of Prasad.

"In the last two years, more than 10 RSS-VHP-BJP activists have been killed. It is a dangerous development in a democratic set-up," Padmar alleged.

He also said that the deceased was a soft-spoken person and had no criminal cases against him.

The killing of Rudresh, an RSS activist in Bengaluru, last year had raised a political storm with saffron parties staging protests in the state.

The issue snowballed into a major controversy when BJP leader and former minister Shobha Karandlaje alleged involvement of a state minister in the incident.

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Actors Chad Michael Murray and Sarah Roemer have become proud parents to a daughter.

The "One Tree Hill" star took to Instagram to announce the arrival of their second child as he posted the first picture of his little one.

"Don't worry little girl you can hold on as tight as you want for as long as you want, I'm already yours and I'll never let go. I've now (got) two incredible women in my life. My son and I are two lucky guys," Murray captioned the photo of his daughter holding his finger.

The couple already have a son, who was born in May 2015.

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today called for a "package solution" accommodating "concerns and interests" of all parties to reform the UN Security Council after India along with other G4 nations offered to initially forgo veto powers to secure a permanent seat on the world body's top organ.

In a guarded reaction to the G4 countries' offer, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said supports UN Security Council (UNSC) reform and maintains that developing countries should have more representation and voice.

"Security Council reform concerns issues like membership categories, regional representation, veto power," Hua said in a written response to PTI.

She was responding to a question related to a joint statement delivered by India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin on March 7 at an inter-governmental negotiations meeting of the G4 nations -- India, Brazil, Germany and Japan.

These issues "can only be addressed by reaching a package solution that accommodates all parties' interests and concerns through broad-based democratic consultations," Hua said.

Pakistan, a close ally of China, opposes any additional permanent members. Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group has proposed a new category of members -- not permanent -- with longer duration and a possibility to get re-elected once.

is part of the veto-wielding permanent five members which also include the US, Russia, France and the UK.

On March 7, the G4 members in a bid to get the UN reform process moving said they were open to innovative ideas and willing to forgo veto power as permanent members of a reformed Security Council until a decision on it has been taken.

The G4 joint statement emphasised that an overwhelming majority of the UN member states supports the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent membership in a reformed Security Council.

As India pushed hard for the reform of the UNSC in the last few years staking its claim for the permanent membership, China struck an ambivalent stand saying that it understands New Delhi's aspiration to play a bigger role in the UN.

Other four permanent members -- the UK, the US, France and Russia -- backed India's quest to become a permanent member.

On the issue of the veto, Akbaruddin said the question of veto has been addressed by many from differing perspectives but the G4 approach is that the problem of veto is not one of quantity (of extending it immediately to new permanent members) but of quality -- of introducing restrictions.

The bloc had warned that the issue of veto was important but member states should not allow it to have a "veto over the process of Council reform itself."



While the new permanent members would in principle have veto powers that the current five have, Akbaruddin had said, "they shall not exercise the veto until a decision on the matter has been taken during a review".
A Chinese court has ordered an internet firm to pay a fine of 105,660 yuan to a customer for booking a fake five-star hotel for him through its accommodation website.

Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court upheld its first instance judgment to order the digital service company to pay three times the customer's booking fee.

The customer, who has only been identified by his surname Li, filed the lawsuit after he found the three hotels that he had booked via eLong.Com in January 2016 were not five-star hotels as advertised by the website.

Previously, eLong.Com had refused to pay a fine of 150,000 yuan (USD 21,600) issued by the city's industry and commerce department in June 2016 for misleading advertising, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

There are 700 million internet users in China, more than half the population. Travel sites are among the most popular services.

China Internet Network Information Centre said the online booking business had problems ranging from low price competition, non-standard operation and lack of supervision.

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The UK will host the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) in April next year after a gap of over 20 years as the 52-nation grouping seeks to devise shared approaches to the opportunities and challenges facing it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to be among the Commonwealth leaders from over 50 countries to attend the summit, which will include Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle - Queen Elizabeth II's official residences - as venues for the first time.

The Commonwealth Summit is held every two years and the 2018 CHOGM will see the UK take over from Malta as chair of the heads of government until 2020.

Lat time the UK had hosted the CHOGM in 1997.

"The wonderful thing about the Commonwealth is that we are a family of 52 nations spreading across six regions. What motivates us as a family, and what has guided us, are the shared aims of good governance, sustainable growth, and inclusive social and economic development, aided by our common language, common laws, common parliamentary and other institutions, as well as our cultural ties," said Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland, as she prepares to host her first-ever CHOGM.

She added: "We are singularly well-placed and have connections and mechanisms which can help us devise shared approaches to the opportunities and challenges we face together."



"I've found that there's always a spirit of goodwill, which makes it possible to work collaboratively and get straight to the nub of a matter when it is considered within a Commonwealth setting and by Commonwealth partners.

"This is what the Commonwealth Summit, held in the UK, will reinforce, a true global partnership to tackle the issues facing us today and come up with solutions."



The Commonwealth is home to 2.4 billion people, a third of the world's population and comprising developed and developing countries.

At a Commonwealth Ministerial Roundtable last week, attended by Indian commerce secretary Rita Teaotia along with representatives from 40 member states, it was agreed that a key aim will be to increase intra-Commonwealth trade, building on the so-called "Commonwealth advantage".

Trade among Commonwealth countries is projected to increase to USD 1 trillion by 2020.

The UK has been proactively increasing its trade focus on the Commonwealth as it prepares its exit from the European Union (EU).

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Congress leader Anant Gadgil today said that despite suffering severe poll reverses across the country, his party can bounce back and needs to re-work on its strategy like wooing young voters and streamlining its process of candidate selection.

"This is not the first time, Congress is facing defeat electorally. We have seen this in 1969-71 and 1977-78 as well. Congress has a fighting spirit and can't be written off. We need to rethink our strategy. Candidate selection on caste and religion basis should not be the sole criteria. Instead acceptability among masses and merit of candidate should be the focus," AICC panel spokesman Anant Gadgil told PTI here.

The Congress MLC felt need of the hour was to attract young voters.

Gadgil said that a few years back, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had started the process of identifying candidates but it was soon wound up.

"Instead of leaving the job of identifying candidates to senior leaders, the party needs to have a separate set up which can be given the job to look for potential candidates."



Gadgil said presently the authority to select candidates rests with those who have switched over to Congress from other parties and those who have lost elections at various levels.

"Party workers and leaders who have the acceptability among people are sidelined. The trend needs to be reversed if the party wants to make a serious bid to be in the reckoning for 2019 Lok Sabha polls," he felt.

In Maharashtra, where the party lost heavily in the recent local bodies and civic polls, Gadgil said the state was once a Congress citadel and there has been no attempt to introspect on the losses and boosting the morale of workers by the party leaders.

"In Maharashtra, there was no serious bid to fight to



win the civic elections. There was no effort to stop and persuade leaders who quit the party out of frustration over the state of affairs in the organisation. Those who speak out on the need to put the house in order are put down," he said.

Gadgil said he has worked with seven Pradesh Congress Presidents but now the party has forgotten to hold state level conventions.

Such meetings in Maharashtra had laid foundation for important policies like the EGS scheme and cooperative movement which later took shape as national policies. There is no platform for Congress workers for political discussion and brain storming, he added.

"The prevailing situation in the Congress is causing restlessness among party workers like me who have been associated with the party for generations," he said adding that despite being a senior spokesman of the Maharashtra unit he is not informed of press conferences of central leaders in Mumbai.

Gadgil also criticised the trend of the state unit to send office-bearers who are not authorised to speak to media for television debates. "These persons do not speak the party line and cause problems for the party as many people watch the debates on television," Gadgil said adding that he did not wish to name anybody.

To a question if dynastic politics was harming the party, Gadgil said more than dynastic politics, efforts should be on building leaders who have acceptability among the people.

"My father late V N Gadgil represented the Pune Lok Sabha seat for 25 years. During his time 75 percent of the corporators belonged to the Congress. Now we are reduced to single digit. I had to wait for 25 years to become an MLC," he said.
Madhya Pradesh unit of Congress today demanded that next month's by-elections in the state be held through paper ballot and not the electronic voting machines (EVMs).

"Serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of voters. So the polling for by-elections to Ater and Bandhavgarh Assembly seats should be conducted through the paper ballot," state Congress president Arun Yadav told reporters here.

To a question about BSP supremo Mayawati's allegation that EVMs were tampered with during the Uttar Pradesh elections, he said he had similar apprehensions.

"The ruling BJP in the state and at the Centre is likely to resort to the same way in the by-elections," Yadav alleged.

"Congress would win both the by-elections due to our strong base in these areas," he asserted.

The party was not disappointed by the outcome of recent Assembly elections because it emerged as the single largest party in three out of the five states, Yadav said.

"Congress was not invited to form the government in Goa and Manipur which is unconstitutional," he said.

Earlier in the day, a Congress delegation submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer of Madhya Pradesh demanding use of ballot paper in the by-elections scheduled for April 9.

Election became necessary in Ater after the death of the then Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Congress MLA Satyadev Katare. Bandhavgarh seat fell vacant after the sitting MLA and state minister Gyan Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from Shahdol in a by-election last November.

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The former campaign manager for Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is acknowledging for the first time that a scandal-tarred Brazilian construction company illegally paid costs related to the Nobel Peace Prize winner's 2010 campaign.

Roberto Prieto told Blu Radio today that Odebrecht had paid USD 400,000 to a vendor to print 2 million campaign posters. But he denied that Santos had any knowledge of the irregular payment.

Presidential campaign contributions by companies other than banks are illegal in Colombia.

Allegations of the Odebrecht contribution have been especially damaging because the company admitted in a plea agreement with the US Justice Department to paying USD 800 million in bribes across Latin America.

Santos has yet to comment but Prieto said the president's office is likely to issue a statement later today.

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A special court has ordered prosecution of a youth who allegedly forged documents in a bid to get a student visa for Australia.

Additional Sessions Judge Reetesh Singh passed the directions while dismissing an appeal filed by Ravneet Singh Cheema, a student from Patiala, Punjab who had sought setting aside of a magisterial court order on framing of charges against him for forgery and using forged document as genuine.

The judge upheld the magisterial court's judgement, saying "prima facie there is sufficient material before trial court to frame charge against the petitioner (Cheema)".

"As far as the present case is concerned, an application for grant of visa signed by the petitioner (Cheema) has been delivered to the Australian High Commission appended with a sponsorship letter which has been found to be forged," the court said.

Cheema's counsel argued that his client intended to go to Australia for further studies and needed a visa for this purpose.

He handed over his passport to Devender Singh Rajput for visa against payment of Rs 1.23 lakh as fee, the counsel said.

He claimed that it was Rajput who had submitted the visa application with the forged documents and not his client.

The prosecution, however, opposed the plea saying that Cheema admittedly signed on the application for grant of visa which was submitted to the Australian High Commission.

Along with the visa application a sponsorship letter of Aruna Chandok had been enclosed which was found to be forged, the prosecution said, adding that Cheema knowingly used a forged document to procure a student visa.

It said whether it was Cheema who did the crime is a matter of trial and cannot be considered at the stage of charge.

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: Youths of Neduvasal in Pudukottai district today called on DMK working president M K Stalin here and urged him to take steps for getting a resolution passed against the Hydrocarbon project in Tamil Nadu Assembly.

The youths, representing the people of Neduvasal and other neighbouring villages, handed over a memorandum to Stalin, urging his party to take up the issue in Assembly.

Protests that lasted for 22 days was called off "temporarily," after Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan and State Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar appealed to them to give up their agitations.

Villagers had already given a petition to Vijaya Baskar urging the State government to adopt a resolution in the Assembly against the project.

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The Karnataka Congress today said it did not think that the exit of veteran SM Krishna from the party would affect its prospects in future elections, including the by-poll next month.

"There should not be any problem for the Congress in future elections, including the coming Nanjangud and Gundlupet by-polls, following the resignation of SM Krishna from the party," state Home Minister G Parameshwara told reporters.

He was replying to a question on whether the Congress's prospects in future polls would be affected by the departure of Krishna from the party.

"We will definitely take care of that (Krishna's) loss. If one considers it as a loss, we will definitely manage it," he said.

Asked whether the loss of Krishna would mean losing the Vokkaliga votes, Parameshwara said the party does not believe in caste politics as an election strategy.

"Congress never believes in caste politics. Individuals may do, but we don't believe in caste as a factor in our election strategies," he said.

84-year-old Krishna had announced his resignation from the Congress on January 29, saying the party was in a "state of confusion" on whether it needed mass leaders or not.

Krishna, who was the Karnataka Chief Minister from 1999 to 2004, had returned to state politics after stepping down as the External Affairs Minister in 2012. He had also served as the Governor of Maharashtra.

Yesterday, Karnataka BJP president BS Yeddyurappa had said Krishna would join the saffron party on March 15.

Asked whether Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi would campaign for the by-polls, Parameshwara said the party usually does not involve the national leadership for such campaigning.

"Usually, we don't involve any national leaders for by-elections. It is the responsibility of the local units. We still have local leaders who have the ability to win," he said.

To another question, he claimed that the fact that BJP president Amit Shah would be campaigning in Karnataka proved that the saffron party was "afraid" of the Congress.

"We will prove them (BJP) wrong. The fact that Amit Shah is coming to Karnataka proves that the BJP is afraid of us," he said.

Asked what bearings the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results would have on the Congress in Karnataka, the minister said, "The party will once again form the government in 2018, because it has the blessings of the people.

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Shabana Azmi has warned against painting all Muslims as one for "narrow political gains", saying it would negate the complex layers of culture in shaping a person's identity.

Addressing an event in the UK Parliament complex, she said, "Do not box me, do not try to restrict me in the desire 'to integrate'.For narrow political gain do not polarise the atmosphere and force people to create a 'model community' - a model community of either women, dalits, tribals or any other label that can be used to make me feel like 'the other'".

The 66-year-old actor and activist is on a UK tour with her one-woman play 'Broken Images' to mark the 10th anniversary of arts organisation Baithak UK and film 'Chalk and Duster', which is screening at the annual Tongues on Fire: London Asian Film Festival.

"If you ask me who I am, I will say I'm a woman, an Indian, a daughter, wife, actress, Muslim, activist etc - my being Muslim is only one of the aspects of who I am but all over the world it seems as though a concerted effort is being made to compress identity into the narrow confines of the religion I happen to have been born into at the exclusion of all other aspects of my identity," she added.

Addressing the 16,000-member Indian Ladies in UK (ILUK) group at the launch of its new website, she called on women to stand together against attempts at polarisation.

"To paint all Muslims as one would be negating the complex layers of culture in shaping a person's identity. I am not a practising Muslim...For me Muslim means Urdu, Biryani, Eid, the Urdu language and my ganga jamuni tehzeeb, my composite culture.

"I am an Indian Muslim and I feel no affinity to the Saudi Arabian Muslim. I feel much closer to my Indian Hindu, Indian Christian and Indian Sikh friends. What I have with them in common is a shared history, a shared identity and a shared future," she added.

The speech coincided with International Women's Day celebrations in London last week.

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A 22-year-old DU student was arrested today for his alleged involvement in the murder of gangster Manjeet Mahal's father in January this year, police said.

The accused, Deepak Dhankhar alias Mandu, is a member of Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu gang. He was arrested this afternoon from PVR, Vikaspuri, DCP(Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said.

Last week, five members of the gang were arrested, out of which three were allegedly involved in the murder of Mahal's father Shri Kishan. A juvenile was apprehended last month for his alleged involvement in the same case.

Mandu was the fourth and the only accused in the case who was evading arrest. He is a third-year student of Delhi University pursuing his graduation through correspondence.

"His father used to run a dairy at Najafgarh. About a year back, Mandu came in contact with Krishan (one of those arrested in connection with the murder). Mandu joined the gang and helped the gangsters in their criminal activities," the DCP said.

Mandu doesn't have any previous criminal involvement and he reportedly got involved in the murder on the instigation of gang leaders, Yadav said.

As soon as his family came to know about Mahal's involvement in the murder, they sold off their buffaloes and shifted to some unknown place fearing that they might be killed by members of the rival gang, the police officer said.

The murder of Shri Kishan was the fallout of the rivalry between the gangs of Kapil Sangwan and Manjeet Mahal who are both in jail.

In December 2015, Sunil, the brother-in-law of Kapil was murdered in Chhawla by Manjeet Mahal's gang. In retaliation, Kapil's gang killed family members of Manjeet Mahal's associates, police said.

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Guy Gabaldon was an untested Marine when he landed on the Pacific island of Saipan during World War II. But he decided to fight the war on his own terms, venturing alone into enemy territory and trying to convince Japanese soldiers to surrender voluntarily. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Gabaldon's dangerous crusade and learn its surprising results.

We'll also examine Wonder Woman's erotic origins and puzzle over an elusive murderer.

Show notes

Please support us on Patreon!
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today slammed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after he said the Dutch "character" was "broken" over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

"He (Erdogan) continues to escalate the situation," Rutte told Dutch TV channel RTL Nieuws, adding "it's a repugnant historical falsehood", as a diplomatic row between The Hague and Ankara reached a new low point.

Speaking in Ankara, Erdogan touched a raw nerve with the Dutch when he recalled the mid-1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, where lightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers were overrun by Bosnian Serb forces and failed to protect Muslim refugees.

Almost 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were then massacred and their bodies thrown in mass graves in the biggest incident of bloodshed on European soil since World War II.

The incident caused the Dutch government's resignation in 2002 after it finally admitted that it could have done more -- and the incident remains a source of national soul-searching to this day.

"The Netherlands and the Dutch, we know them from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how much their morality, their character is broken from the 8,000 Bosnians that were massacred," Erdogan said.

"We know this well. No one should give us a lesson in civilisation," he added.

But Dutch premier Mark Rutte hit back saying: "Erdogan's tone is getting more and more hysterical, not only against The Netherlands, but also against Germany."



"We won't sink to that level and now we're being confronted with an idiotic fact," Rutte said.

"It's totally unacceptable," he said.

Turkey yesterday suspended top level talks with The Netherlands in a spiralling spat with The Hague and the EU after Turkish ministers were blocked from staging rallies to court the votes of expatriate Turks in a referendum to give Erdogan greater powers.

Ankara was especially angered by the acts of the Dutch days ahead of general elections in the country when authorities prevented the foreign minister's plane from landing and expelled the family minister over the weekend.

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The health of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of the world's most notorious criminals, is deteriorating in US custody, his lawyers complained, challenging the conditions of his detention.

The 59-year-old, accused of running one of the world's biggest drug empires and who escaped twice from prison in Mexico, has been held in solitary confinement in New York since being extradited on January 19.

His isolation at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan has seen his "physical and mental health" deteriorate, wrote his American public defenders in a 24-page letter to the judge overseeing his case.

"He has difficulty breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches," they said.

"He has recently been experiencing auditory hallucinations, complaining of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off."



His lawyers asked Judge Brian Cogan that Guzman be allowed to speak to his wife, either by person or by telephone, and be released from solitary confinement and placed in the general prison population.

Amnesty International has previously condemned conditions at the unit where he is being housed as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and incompatible with the presumption of innocence," the letter said.

It is not the first time his legal team has complained about the draconian conditions of his incarceration.

They did so at a court hearing in Brooklyn on February 3, when Cogan declined to intervene at the time, saying it was up to the jail.

US authorities are adamant that Guzman will have no chance of freedom.

The letter said Guzman was confined to "a small windowless cell" where he remains alone, except for an hour of solitary exercise in another cell with a treadmill and stationary bicycle Monday to Friday.

His meals are passed through a slot in the door and the light is always on, it said.

Guzman shivers from a lack of warm clothing and never goes outside, the lawyers added.

On January 20 Guzman pleaded not guilty to a raft of firearms, drug trafficking and conspiracy charges at an initial hearing in New York.

If he stands trial and is convicted, he is likely to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security US prison.

Prosecutors are also seeking to obtain a USD 14 billion criminal forfeiture order against him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prompted a fresh outcry in The Netherlands with a jibe about the Srebrenica massacre, warning of retaliation in a spiralling diplomatic crisis.

Keeping an uncompromising tone in a tumultuous dispute that risks wrecking the entire Ankara-Brussels relationship, Erdogan yesterday said a 'yes' vote in a April 16 referendum on expanding his powers would be the best response to Turkey's "enemies".

He said the Dutch character was "broken" after its peacekeepers failed to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, comments described as "repugnant" by The Netherlands.

Ankara had a day earlier announced it was suspending high-level relations after The Netherlands prevented two Turkish ministers from holding rallies to woo expatriate support ahead of the referendum.

The Dutch ambassador to Ankara -- currently outside the country -- has also been blocked from returning to his post.

Erdogan also late Monday sparked a new row with Germany by lashing out at Chancellor Angela Merkel for "supporting terrorists".

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the bloc's Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn had urged Erdogan to show moderation, calling on Turkey to "refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk further exacerbating the situation".

But far from stepping back, Erdogan accused The Netherlands of "state terror" in preventing Turkish ministers from holding pro-'yes' rallies and said more sanctions were planned.

"We are going to work more" on measures against The Netherlands, he said. "These wrongs won't be solved with a sorry, we have more things to do."



Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus later said Turkey's retaliation could extend to economic sanctions against The Netherlands, a key trade and investment partner.

"We started with political sanctions and economic sanctions could come," he told the CNN Turk channel.

Erdogan had previously angered The Netherlands by saying the authorities had behaved like the Nazis, who had occupied and bombed the country in World War II.

But on Tuesday he touched an arguably even rawer nerve, recalling Srebrenica, where Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to prevent an episode that remains a national trauma to this day.

"The Netherlands and the Dutch, we know them from the Srebrenica massacre," he said.

"We know how much their morality, their character is broken from the 8,000 Bosnians that were massacred," Erdogan said.

"We know this well. No one should give us a lesson in civilisation. Their history is dark but ours is clean."



Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called his claim a "repugnant historical falsehood" and said "Erdogan's tone is getting more and more hysterical".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Patna-based businessman Nikhil Priyadarshi and his father, who are accused in the alleged rape of a former Bihar minister's daughter, were today arrested from Uttarakhand's Pauri district.

Priyadarshi, who owns an automobile showroom in Patna and his father Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha, a retired IAS officer, were arrested from near Chilla police Chowki under Lakshman Jhoola police station, DIG Garhwal range Pushpak Jyoti said.

They have been kept at Chilla police Chowki and information about their arrest has been passed on to Patna SSP Manu Maharaj, he said.

Pauri SSP Mukhtar Mohsin said Bihar Police has been asked to take the father-son duo on transit remand to theirhome state where a case is lodged against them at B-colony police station, Patna.

Apart from the duo, dismisssed Bihar Congress vice president Brajesh Pandey, Manish Priyadarshi and Sanjit Sharma are also named accused in the high profile case in which the teenaged daughter of former Bihar Congress minister had accused Nikhil of sexually assaulting her.

The father-son duo was absconding.

The 16-year-old girl had accused the businessman of also running a sex racket in collusion with Pandey and others including the son of a top police official.

Nikhil and his friends were in the business of supplying girls to high profile politicians, she had alleged when the case surfaced in December last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Opposition Congress today served a privilege notice against Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathy accusing him of misleading the Odisha Assembly on the suicide of a farmer.

While moving the privilege notice, Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of Congress said "action may be taken to punish the Hon'ble minister and the officers responsible for misleading the House for breach of privilege after making enquiry by the Privilege Committee."



Noting that the government made a statement in the House on the death of Khainu Bagarti alias Hadu of Bargarh district on March 4, Mishra said that agriculture minister had told the Assembly that the farmer had committed suicide following a dispute with his wife.

The minister had further stated that the suicide had no link with crop loss or loan burden. "The minister has admitted that there was some problem on supply of electricty," he said.

As per the statement of Maharathy on February 26, Mishra said, the farmer had exchange of words with his wife and because of the said dispute, he might have consumed persticide and consequently died.

The minister admitted that the farmer had incurred a loan of Rs 18,818 from the cooperative service society.

The wife of the deceased farmer had denied any quarrel with him and said he committed suicide because of crop failure due to non-supply of electricity and loan burden, Mishra said.

Mishra said he had constituted an Advocates' Committee, comprising lawyers of both Bolangir and Bargarh districts, to probe the matter. The committee report said that the farmer had committed suicide because of crop failure and loan burden. "It further says that there has been no quarrel or any ill feeling between Hadu Bagarti and his wife."



He said that the collector of Bargarh had not visited the suicide spot or talked to the family members of the deceased before preparing the report which was read out in the House by the minister. "The minister should have asked the collector for further probe if he was not satisfied," the Congress leader said.

Congress chief whip Taraprasad Bahinipati demanded immediate suspension of Bargarh collector for providing a report on the issue without conducting proper investigation.

"The Collector should be immediately suspended and if needed he should be dismissed under article 311 after investigation," said Bahinipati.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of farmers today staged a protest infront of the railway station here demanding that the Centre sanction assistance for Tamil Nadu for undertaking drought relief works.

Police said about 25 farmers belonging to the Tamil Nadu Vivasaigal Sangam tried to enter the railway station for staging rail roko but they were removed.

They later protested infront of the station.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister on Tuesday said that forcible conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions is a crime in Islam and in Pakistan as he greeted the Hindu community on the occasion of Holi.

Addressing a function to celebrate Holi with Hindus here, he insisted that it was not anyone's job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

In his inclusive message to minorities in Pakistan, the prime minister said "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion".

"Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan," Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress and develop into an Asian tiger.

"There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and don't want to see this country develop or prosper," he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

"Pakistan didn't come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone," the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

"Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief."



The Hindu community celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm in Karachi with functions held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hinderance.

Sharif greeted the gathering with 'Happy Holi'. He also referred to L K Advani when someone mentioned his love for the famous Hindi song 'Baharo phool barsao', saying a decade ago he (Sharif) could sing this song as melodiously as Mohammad Rafi.

He also said that Health cards should be started in Sindh and announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today warned against the forced conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions, describing them as "crime in Islam" as he greeted the Hindu community which celebrated the Holi festival with traditional enthusiasm across Pakistan.

Addressing a function in Karachi to celebrate the Holi festival with the Hindu community, he insisted that it was not anyone's job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

In his inclusive message to minorities, Sharif said "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion" in Pakistan and greeted the gathering with 'Happy Holi'.

"Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan," Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress.

"There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and don't want to see this country develop or prosper," he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

"Pakistan didn't come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone," the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

"Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief."



The Hindu community across Pakistan celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm.

In Karachi, the functions were held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hinderance.

In Punjab's capital Lahore, people from the Hindu community smear each others faces with colour.

In Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Kurram and Aurakzai tribal agencies, the community celebratedHoli with great pomp and show. People threw colors on each other and later cut a cake and shared the joy.

Sharif also announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
France's rightwing presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been charged with several offences over a fake jobs scandal, including for misuse of public funds, his lawyer said today.

"He was charged this morning. The hearing was brought forward so that it could take place in a calm manner," his lawyer Antonin Levy told AFP.

He was also charged with misuse of corporate assets, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Girl Guides of Canada  Canada's largest organisation for girls and women  have a long tradition of visiting other scouts in the USA, to the benefit of both American and Canadian scouts, but that's come to an end, because Canada's Girl Guides are worried that Muslim girls, brown girls, and girls whose families come from countries singled out for discrimination by the Trump regime will face discrimination at the border.



The announcement follows on a series of high-profile incidents in which non-white Canadians were harassed, threatened and turned away at the US border.

The Guides didn't mention Trump by name in their announcement, but they talked about Guiding's tradition of diversity and inclusivity and the worry that "some girls could get left behind when a group tried to enter the US."





Canadian schools are also talking about cancelling all of their field-trips to the USA.



"This just speaks to the Girl Guides of Canada and our commitment to inclusivity," Kiriliuks said. "We just want to make sure that no girl gets left behind." A nationally sponsored trip to a California camp that was scheduled for this summer is being relocated. The group is encouraging local leaders to consider domestic trips instead. Canadian schools are also considering cancelling trips to the US. Jim Cambridge, superintendent of the Sooke school district in British Columbia, has said a number of trips planned for sports, music and educational purposes in the coming months are being reconsidered.

Canada's Girl Guides cancel all US travel as Trump rules spark fears at border

[Associated Press]
Home-grown FMCG firm Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) has increased its stake in Africa's hair and skin care firm Weave Senegal to 100 per cent for an undisclosed sum.

"The company, through its subsidiary, has increased its stake from 51 per cent to 100 per cent in Weave Senegal Ltd. The company...Has also reduced one layer of non-operational investment holding company in Mauritius," GCPL said in a BSE filing today.

The company did not disclose further details of the deal, citing confidentiality.

In August last year, GCPL acquired 100 per cent shares in in Zambia's Hair Credentials Zambia and 51 per cent in Senegal's Weave Senegal to ramp up presence in African market.

Shares of Godrej Consumer Products closed 2.18 per cent higher at Rs 1,648.05 on BSE.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India may impose anti-dumping duty of up to USD 1.63 per kg on imports of aluminium foil from China to guard domestic players from cheap inbound shipments.

Hindalco Industries, Mumbai, Raviraj Foils, Ahmedabad, and Jindal India, Kolkata, have jointly filed an application seeking anti-dumping investigations into imports of aluminium foils.

In its final findings, the Directorate General of Anti- Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), under the commerce ministry, has found that the foil has been exported to India from China below its normal value which has resulted in dumping.

The DGAD said that it considers it necessary to impose the duty on the imports.

"...Having established a positive dumping margin as well as material injury to the domestic industry caused by such dumped imports, the authority is of the view that imposition of duty is necessary to offset dumping and injury," DGAD has said in a notification.

It has recommended an anti-dumping duty in the range of USD 0.69 per kg to USD 1.63 per kg on the imports.

While DGAD recommends the duty, the Finance Ministry imposes it.

Aluminium foil is used extensively for the protection, storage, and preparation of foods and beverages.

Major applications of the foil are in the pharmaceuticals industry for packing medicines; food industry for packing processed foods, cigarette industry for wrapping.

Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multi-lateral WTO regime.

Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products.

Unlike the safeguard duty, which is levied in a uniform way, anti-dumping duty varies from company to company and country to country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A woman from Ahmedabad district, who has allegedly been tortured by a family in Riyadh, has been rescued with the help of External Affairs Ministry, state Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said today.

Hafijabanu Rajabhusen (30) is set to return to her hometown Dholka in the district this week, he said.

The minister, who represents Dholka seat as MLA, tweeted that he learnt about her plight through a newspaper report and subsequently took up the matter with the district Collector and State Home Ministry.

"Hafijabanu Rajabhusen, trapped in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, was being exploited and tortured by a local Arabia family every day," Chudasama stated.

The minister said the state Home Ministry informed the Ministry of External Affairs about the matter, following which the Indian embassy in Riyadh was contacted.

"The woman has been rescued from the culprits and is returning to India. With the joint efforts of the state administration and External Affairs ministry, the victim has been rescued from the house of the Arabic family, and her tickets for Ahmedabad from Riyadh are booked for March 16," he posted.

The woman went to Dubai on a tourist visa in May 2016 and was subsequently taken to Riyadh.

"I was also informed that an agent had approached Hafizabanu with a job offer in Saudi Arabia and had sought Rs 2.5 lakh to get her back. The agent is questioned," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Indian-American woman confronted White House Press Secretary at a local Apple store and repeatedly asked him how does it felt to work for a "fascist".

Shree Chauhan, 33, posted Saturday's encounter on Twitter, showing Spicer's reaction as she peppers him with questions that include, "How does it feel to work for a fascist?" and "How do you feel about destroying the country?".

Chauhan also asked Spicer about Russia and accused President Donald Trump of committing treason.

In the video, Chauhan put out on various social media outlets that have gone viral, Spicer is heard saying that the US is "such a great country that allows you to be here".

Chauhan describes his remarks as racist.

"That is racism and it is an implied threat. Think about the sheer audacity of Mr Spicer to say that to my face with a smile, knowing that he is being recorded on video and the position of power he holds in our government," she said.

The White House Secretary told reporters at his daily news conference that the United States is a free country and people have right to act how they want.

As per Chauhan's social media posts, she was in the store to get her iPhone fixed when she spotted Spicer.

"I realised what an enormous opportunity it was to get answers without the protections normally given to Mr Spicer. I was honestly quite nervous and wanted to come up with more cogent questions but did not have time to do so," she wrote in a post on Medium.Com.

According to the video, she asked Spicer, "Have you helped with the Russia stuff? Have you committed treason too, just like the president? What can you tell me about Russia....And How do you feel about destroying our country, Sean?"



She said she has lived in Washington DC for about a decade and during this time she has met several VVIPs at public places including pharmacy and grocery stores but did not interact with them.

"However, given what Mr Spicer and his boss (Donald Trump) are doing to this country, I do not believe they are entitled to these norms and customs. Donald Trump and his Klan are openly trampling on the rule of law, our Constitution and our democracy," she said.

At the news conference, Spicer said if people have questions, they should ask him.

"Ask it. I interact with individuals all day long. Ninety-nine percent of them are pleasant, even with people who may not agree with our philosophy or programs or whatever," he said.

"But it's a free country and the beauty of it is that people can act how they want no matter how that's interpreted, and as long as they step on the right side of the First Amendment, we're good," he added.
The indefinite hunger strike, undertaken by ABSU and other Bodo groups, today entered the fifth day for a separate Bodoland.

"We'll not withdraw the agitation till talk starts at the political level. We need a separate Bodoland state," All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) President Pramod Boro said.

"The government should not treat us like Bangladeshi or Pakistani. They should decide whether they want to talk to us or they want to fight. They don't need to make attempts to befool us," Boro said.

Stating that the government had sent a "half-hearted" letter yesterday requesting to end the hunger strike with no specific time and date for political dialogue, he said the union government and Assam did not have time to address the issues of the indigenous people.

He said "we are warning all the forces working against the interest of the Bodos and other indigenous communities to refrain from such activities."



Led by ABSU, National Democratic Front of Boroland (Progressive) {NDFB-P)} and People's Joint Action Committee for Boroland Movement (PJACBM), besides a number of Bodo groups started the indefinite hunger strike on March 10.

A big rally was organised pressing for the demand this morning in Kokrajhar town.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An India-China business and investment will be held in China's Zhenjiang city as part of a week-long event to showcase commercial and cultural aspects of India.

The Consulate General of India in Shanghai along with Zhenjiang Municipal Government would jointly organise the India-China Business and Investment Forum and India Culture Week celebrations.

It is a unique initiative bringing together economic, commercial and cultural aspects and intends to display a truly Indian experience in the week-long event beginning on March 16, a press release from the Consulate said.

Zhenjiang located in Jiangsu province is a key industrial hub in Eastern China with a total population of 3.17 million and GDP of USD 5.5 million.

Its main industries include new energy, advance equipment manufacturing, bio technology, pharmaceuticals, IT, aviation and space technologies.

During the event, Zhenjiang is expected to receive the Indian delegation comprising CEO's of nearly 30 leading Indian companies.

The Indian delegation will be led by Consul General Prakash Gupta.

They will take part in the Business and Investment Forum, being held on March 17.

The Indian companies would be introducing the latest investment opportunities in India in sectors like Infrastructure Development, Banking and Finance, Smart Cities, Urban Transportation and Power Sector, which are available to Zhenjiang companies under the Make in India programme.

A series of B2B meetings have also been planned for participating Indian companies with their Chinese counterparts from Zhenjiang, the press release said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Budget carrier IndiGo today added Sharjah as its sixth international destination with daily non-stop flights from Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala.

The Sharjah-Kozhikode flight service will start from March 20 and the Sharjah-Thiruvananthapuram service will be effective from April 8, the airline said in a statement.

"With rising business and tourism stemming from the Gulf market, IndiGo (6E) is determined to provide the best travel experience to all those who wish to fly to these destinations. We are looking at providing affordable fares on these new routes for 6E travellers," Sanjay Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo told reporters in Sharjah.

With its fleet of 126 Airbus A320 family aircraft, the airline now operates 884 daily flights connecting 44 destinations.

The international destinations of the budget carrier include Bangkok, Dubai, Kathmandu, Muscat, Sharjah and Singapore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
There is need for regulation and monitoring of social media platforms and the medium cannot be allowed to turn into a "weapon of misogyny and harassment" against women in the name of freedom of expression, a top Indian-origin UN Women official has said.

UN Women Deputy Executive Director Lakshmi Puri voiced concern over the growing prevalence of cyber bullying, trolling and voyeurism, saying that such threats are "magnified" for women and girls and pose a big risk for them.

"We are very much in favour of regulation and monitoring of the world wide web and different platforms that exist like Facebook to say that you cannot, in the name of freedom of expression, allow this medium to be turned into another weapon of misogyny, harassment and violence against women and girls," Puri told PTI.

She said technology is a very powerful medium that can help fight stereotypes and the online platforms can be used for positive campaigning and creating positive social norms as well as for encouraging voice participation and women's leadership across different sectors.

"We very much call for bridging the digital divide for women and girls," she said.

Puri also described as "worrying" the huge wage gap that exists between men and women for equal pay for work of equal value.

Citing the figures for India, she said women's equal participation in the economy can further increase GDP by 27 per cent. She expressed concern that the female labour force participation in India is declining and currently stands at 22 per cent.

Gender wage gap across sectors in the country is as high as 50-75 per cent and 93 per cent of the labour force is in the informal employment. Of this a large proportion is women who have little or no social protection.

"The whole issue of recruitment, retention and promotion needs to be addressed in a totally different way because women face barriers at every stage," she said.

"On the issue of unpaid care work, work at home is not considered work. It's about changing the whole mindset about valuing women's work as work. It may not be employment because it is not remunerative in the same way but it is not a question of paying but of recognising that that is work too," she said.

Puri cited estimates to point out that the value of women's unpaid care work and domestic work could be as high 16 trillion dollars but said it is appalling that this does not show up in any GDP.

She welcomed the Indian Parliament approving a bill granting women working in the organised sector paid maternity leave of 26 weeks, up from 12 weeks now.

"How much of a difference does a longer maternity leave that gives women time to recover and be able to take care of a new born makes. A longer maternity leave is also very important for retention of the women employee," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Iran has arrested a reformist journalist after he was released from custody, a prosecutor in Tehran confirmed today.

Ehsan Mazandarani, who runs the reformist daily Farhikhtegan, was initially detained in late 2015 and sentenced last April to seven years for "acting against national security".

"The arrest of this convict on security charges is in line with the continuation and completion of his previous sentence," Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the judiciary-linked Mizan Online website today.

Mazandarani was temporarily released in October for health concerns after a hunger strike but was required to return to prison following treatment.

His re-arrest yesterday comes after he was reportedly released in February when unofficial sources suggested that his sentence had been reduced to less than two years.

Mazandarani's lawyer said he had heard about a reduced sentence but was yet to receive confirmation.

Another reformist journalist, Hengameh Shahidi, was also reportedly detained in recent days.

Shahidi's lawyer confirmed her arrest to the ISNA agency on Sunday and said he awaiting approval from authorities to work on the case.

Four other journalists are thought to have been arrested around the same time as Mazandarani and have been given sentences ranging from two to 10 years.

He was previously arrested in 2009 for acting against national security and having contacts with foreigners as protests swept the country following the disputed re-election of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mormonleaks is a whistleblower site dedicated to revealing corruption and hypocrisy in the Church of Latter Day Saints; over four months, it has published many documents that did just that, but when it published a leaked Powerpoint revealing the Church's view on "the roots of apostasy, such as pornography, campaigns to ordain women, challenges to church history and general 'lack of righteousness,'" the Church turned to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a bogus claim of copyright infringement to get the document taken down.



False claims  including those that fail to take account of fair use  under the DMCA are illegal and victims of DMCA abuse can sue to have their attorneys' fees covered in such instances.



In the letter, MormonLeaks' Las Vegas-based attorney Marc Randazza contends the site "obtained this document lawfully and had a right to distribute it in its capacity as a journalistic resource devoted to discussing facts about the LDS Church." The site was founded in December by Ryan McKnight, a former Mormon who lives in Las Vegas. Previous materials leaked through McKnight, including widely circulated videos of briefings given to LDS apostles, have proved to be credible. Randazza, asserting the March 1 "takedown notice" was a misuse of copyright law, asked the church to continue its "reasonable" policy of the recent past of seeming "to handle criticism and commentary with admirable grace, tact and class."

Area Business Weekends

Meeting of the Twelve

December 8, 2015 [LDS/Mormonleaks]

MormonLeaks reposts LDS Church apostasy presentation, challenges faith's claim of copyright violation

[Bob Mims/Salt Lake Tribune]
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain today inaugurated a polyclinic, a primary health centre where specialists are available for consultation, in Rani Bagh while 49 mohalla clinics were also thrown open to the public.

The AAP government plans to start 150 polyclinics and 1,000 mohalla clinics by the year-end, he said addressing the public in northwest Delhi's Rani Bagh.

"These polyclinics are mini-hospitals. Here one can get specialists of surgery, paediatrics, orthpaedics and also all kinds of test facilities and medicines will be available.

"It is just that one cannot be admitted here. For that one will have to go to a hospital," he said.

"We are also adding more beds to existing hospitals. For example, Bhagvan Mahavir hospital which has 200 beds at present is going to have 600 more beds," the Minister said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two civilians and two Malian soldiers were killed today in an attack blamed on jihadists in the country's restive north.

Mali's defence ministry confirmed two soldiers were killed and two injured during the assault by armed men close to the village of Fafa, which lies near the border with Niger.

Reinforcements were on their way to the area, the ministry said.

A security source reached by AFP from the nearby town of Ansongo said two civilians also lost their lives.

"We have unfortunately lost two men. Two civilians were also killed. Two army vehicles were taken," the source said, blaming jihadists for the attack.

The soldiers were in the area to protect stallholders, according to the same source.

In 2012, Mali's north fell under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda who were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013.

The implementation of a 2015 peace accord between militias and the government has however been piecemeal, and insurgents who refused to sign the deal are still active across large parts of Mali.

Meanwhile five Malian jihadist groups - most of them with previous Al-Qaeda links - have recently joined forces to create the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), raising fears of better-coordinated operations.

The jihadist alliance has already claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 11 soldiers close to Mali's border with Burkina Faso.

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A Dalit JNU scholar, who allegedly committed suicide last evening, was said to be at the forefront of a students movement following Rohith Vemula's death and had severely criticised the varsity's admission policy in a Facebook post days before taking the extreme step.

In his post which has gone viral, 28-year-old student Muthu Krishnan had also slammed the recent prohibitory order by JNU authorities banning protests at the administration block.

"There is no equality in MPhil/PhD admissions, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad-block, denying education to the marginals.

"When Equality is denied everything is denied," he had written in the Facebook post on March 1.

Police, however, is claiming that he was not associated with any of the politically active groups on JNU campus and there is no prima facie evidence indicating the university administration's role in the issue.

Krishnan, who was from Tamil Nadu's Salem district, completed his MPhil from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 before joining JNU for his PhD.

The student, a resident of JNU's Jhelum hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan at a friend's residence in South Delhi's Munirka area yesterday.

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) is alleging that Krishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Rohith Vemula, who had committed suicide last year, and that depression had made him take the extreme step.

While JNU authorities are tight-lipped on any allegations of discrimination, Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar took to twitter to express his condolences.

"JNU community is grief stricken at untimely & sad demise of Shri Muthukrishnan J. We pray that God be with his family at this critical time," he tweeted.

According to senior police officials, no suicide note has been recovered and the investigation is underway.

"It is too early to comment on his association (with Rohith Vemula campaign). But so far, we know that he (Krishnan) was not associated with any student groups active in JNU.

"He neither made any complaint to the JNU administration nor was there any complaint against him by the administration," DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

The reason why the student took the extreme step is not known yet since no suicide note has been recovered, said the officer.

Meanwhile, political parties in Krishnan's home state Tami Nadu, including AIADMK and DMK, have expressed concern over the incident and demanded a thorough probe into the issue.

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A day after a 28-year-old dalit student allegedly committed suicide at Jawaharlal Nehru University here, police today said he was not part of any politically active group on the campus.

The deceased Muthu Krishnan, who had named himself 'Krish Rajini' on Facebook, hanged himself at his South Korean friend's house in Munirka using a blanket yesterday.

While the JNU students shared Krishnan's Facebook posts condemning the Hyderabad varsity's alleged role in dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide last year and criticism of JNU's new admission policy, police ruled out any political affiliation of the victim.

"It is too early to comment on his association (with Rohith Vemula). But so far, we know that he (Krishnan) was not associated with any student groups active in JNU. He neither made any complaint to the JNU administration nor was there any complaint against him by the administration," DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

The reason why the student took the extreme steap is not known yet since no suicide note has been recovered, said the officer.

"It is an unfortunate incident. We conducted a search of his hostel room and the room where his body was found. But no suicide note has been recovered. We have sealed both the rooms. Forensic teams will be examining the rooms again," he added.

Krishnan's body was discovered by his friend Gomen Kim, a South Korean national, and two other students - Lakshyajeet and Issac-- at Kim's home where they had gone for lunch.

The victim had retired to a room, saying that he had slept at 3 AM the day before and wanted to rest, police said.

Around 4.30 PM, his friends called him and when he did not respond, they tried to break open the door and saw him hanging following which they alerted the police.

Police said they will be scanning Krishnan's Facebook posts and call records to ascertain what could have triggered such an extreme step.

We have requested for a medical board to carry out his postmortem, they added.

Krishnan, a native of Tamil Nadu, had joined JNU in October last year.

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Not only domestic industry, foreign countries like Finland too are awaiting the rollout of the landmark Goods and Service Tax (GST)as it would help "ease of doing business."



"We are looking forward to GST," Ambassador of Finland in India, Nina Vaskunlahti said today at an interactive session with members of Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

"This will help remove multiple layers of taxes and state specific tax laws and we understand GST will help towards ease of doing business," she said.

She said there had been reports of inadequate number of judges in courts and added that she expected legal infrastructure would be adequate which was also important for ease of doing business.

Currently, some 100 Finnish companies are active in India and the diplomat hoped this number will increase given the opportunity India offers.

In 2016, Finnish exports to India were estimated at 490 million Euros with a 10 per cent growth over previous year involving products like pulp, paper, wood, heavy machinery, telecom equipment.

Indian exports to the Nordic country during last year



was estimated at 330 million Euros with exports including textiles, pharma, raw material and plastics besides, tools and machinery.

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Justice R Mala, who was the first woman Registrar General of Madras High Court, retired from service today.

She had held various positions in the Tamil Nadu State Judiciary before becoming the first woman Registrar (Vigilance) of High Court here, in 2006.

Justice Mala was appointed as the first woman Registrar General in the Chartered High Court of Madras, in 2007.

In 2009, she was appointed as an Additional Judge of the High Court and made a permanent Judge in 2012.

With her retirement the strength of the Judges has come down to 54 in a sanctioned strength of 75.

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Malaysia will deport 50 North Koreans for overstaying their visas, the deputy prime minister said today, in an apparent exception to a departure ban after the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam.

The killing of the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un last month in Malaysia with VX nerve agent triggered an angry standoff between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang that has seen them expel each other's ambassador and refuse to let their citizens leave.

But today Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters that 50 North Koreans working in the state of Sarawak on Borneo island -- home to coal mines which often employ foreign workers -- would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban.

"We will send the North Korean workers in Sarawak who have exceeded their (working) visa back to Pyongyang for overstaying," he said.

"They will be deported soon."



He did not say why the government had decided on the expulsion despite Kuala Lumpur's bar on North Korean nationals leaving the country -- a tit-for-tat measure put in place after Pyongyang prohibited Malaysians from leaving its borders last week.

The diplomatic crisis erupted last month after North Korea attacked the Malaysian investigation into Kim's killing as an attempt to smear the secretive regime.

Three Malaysian embassy staff and six family members are stranded in North Korea as a result.

Pyongyang, which has never confirmed Kim's identity, has repeatedly demanded the return of his body but Malaysian authorities have refused to release it without a DNA sample from next-of-kin.

The body, which is currently kept in a morgue in the capital, has been embalmed to prevent it from decomposing more than a month after the assassination, the deputy prime minister said.

"It's an effort to preserve the body, because if it is kept in the mortuary it might decompose so we did this to preserve the body," he said.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. CCTV footage shows them smearing the 45-year-old's face with a piece of cloth. Pyongyang has insisted that he most likely died of a heart attack.

Relations between North Korea and Malaysia had been particularly warm, with a reciprocal visa-free travel deal for visitors, prior to the high-profile killing.

Up to 100,000 North Koreans are believed to be working abroad and their remittances are a valuable source of foreign currency for the isolated regime.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today paid tribute to the martyrs of the anti



-land acquisition movement in



Nandigram and said her



government was committed to protecting the rights of the farmers.

"Remembering the martyrs of Nandigram on the 10th anniversary of the shameful event.

We



are committed to protect



our farmers," Banerjee said in a tweet.

"To mark the occasion we will honour farmers with Krishak Ratna Samman at a function at Nazrul Mancha," she added.

Nandigrarm epitomised Bengal's anti-land acquisition movement in the face of the Left Front government's bid to set up a SEZ developed by the Indonesian Salim group in 2007.

The prolonged agitation led to the ouster of the 34- year old Left regime in Bengal, following violence on March 14, 2007, when 14 villagers were killed and several others were injured in police firing.

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An RSS functionary, looking after the Sangh's overseas affairs, has blamed the media for creating "hype" over "stray incidents" of attacks against Indians abroad, and said they should not be generalised.

Coordinator of RSS Viswa Vibhag, Sadanand Sapre however, flayed the attacks against Indians on foreign soil and said such incidents should be stopped.

"Media many a times exaggerate the scene. Yes, some instances are there. To create hype... That is the nature of media," he said yesterday.

To a query about recent attacks against Indians in the US, Sapre said, "Don't generalise the scenario."



Referring to incidents of attacks on Indians in Uganda in the 1960s, he said each and every Indian was attacked and thrown out of that country particularly during the rule of Idi Amin.

"Is that happening in the US? Is that happening in Australia? No," Sapre said.

"Let us not put everything in a single bracket. There are many Americans who are there to protect Indians," he added.

Sapre's comments came in response to a question about attacks on Indians abroad during an interactive session after a programme organised here as part of 'Navathi' celebrations of Bharathiya Vichara Kendram Director P Parameswaran.

Referring to incidents of attacks against Indians at Melbourne in Australia some years back, Sapre said in some cases Indians were at fault.

"Melbourne incidents reported by media gives an impression that all Indians are being targeted. So I spoke to local people. They said that is not (the case).. It is not at all that all the Indians are targeted. Media has a habit of creating hype," he said.

"These are stray incidents and those sort of stray incidents are everywhere... Even in India," Sapre said, referring to incidents of attacks against people from Bihar in Mumbai some years back.

Sapre further said activists of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh abroad were providing necessary assistance including legal aid for those Hindus targeted.

"Some action is to be taken... Some kind of legal action... That is happening over there," he said.

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US-based cosmetics brand Milani will enter the Indian market next month following an exclusive distribution tie-up with Belle Vous.

Milani, which will start retailing in India through an exclusive tie-up with an online retailer, is eyeing first year sales of USD 2,50,000.

"Milani is popular American drugstore brand and we will launch it in India next month through an online retailer. Later on, we will look at building offline presence. Milani brand is expecting first year sales of USD 2,50,000," Belle Vous Managing Director Divya Thukral told PTI.

Belle Vous, which also distributes Australian skin care and make-up brand Natio prodcuts in India, said the Milani's average selling price would be Rs 1,000.

Thukral said the company is also pitching to get Milani Group's mass market Jordana brand.

The Milani group has two brands -- Jordana and Milani Cosmetics. Milani sells in over 50 countries.

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State-owned insurer New India Assurance has bagged a Rs 500-crore combined cover from Reliance Industries for its onshore and offshore assets for the next financial year, according to industry sources.

At Rs 500 crore, this is the single largest insurance cover taken by any corporate in the country so far.

According to the people aware of the development, the premium fixed for the mega combined insurance cover, which came into force from February 1, is Rs 500 crore with a sum assured of over Rs 2.5 trillion.

Such a policy is not new as more than 30 corporates have been availing of such covers since 2000. But it is for the first time that New India is offering a combined cover to both RIL's onshore and offshore assets.

RIL and New India Assurance could not be reached for comments.

The cover includes RIL's two 60 mt refineries in Jamnagar and its offshore assets in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, industry sources told PTI.

The combined mega policy provided to Reliance projects have been reinsured by around 90 per cent, the sources added.

It is the largest combined cover provided to the projects owned by a single corporate house in the country.

A mega combined insurance policy has all the policies like fire, breakdown and loss of profit bundled together.

Last year RIL had two insurers -- New India for the offshore cover and one of the Jamnagar refineries, while ICICI Lombard covered the other refinery.

Last year ONGC had paid USD 16 million for its assets valued at USD 34 billion. The cover was provided by state-run United India Insurance.

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Mizoram Governor Nirbhay Sharma today claimed that the flagship programme, the New Land Use Policy (NLUP), has increased rice production and reduced jhum cultivation in the state.

"Implementation of the NLUP has resulted in reduction of jhum area, which reflects a shift towards permanent cultivation," Sharma said addressing the state legislature on the first day of the Budget session.

The Governor said that New Economic Development Policy (NEDP), a comprehensive growth policy, is also on in full swing.

"The NEDP aims at providing bold, practical, effective and comprehensive strategies to push the economy to a high growth path," he said, adding that "Rs 250 crore has been earmarked for the current fiscal for implementation of the policy and another Rs 27 crore was expected to be converged with the NLUP.

Regarding trade with neighbouring countries, the Governor said that the Centre has given assurance the development of Rih-Tiddim road in Myanmar to improve the connectivity with the border of the country.

"A plot of land measuring 9 acres has already been earmarked for the construction of integrated check post at Bangladesh border in Kawrpuichhuah village," Sharma said on border trade ties with the country.

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Noted US-based economist T N Srinivasan has cast serious doubts on the efficacy of the cash ban move, saying it will not help in fighting the menace of blackmoney.

Srinivasan of Yale University, who at one point taught RBI Governor Urjit Patel, emphasised that the government needs to come out with a "well thought-out" policy to combat corruption.

"There was and is no well thought-out anti-corruption policy to combat corruption. Rooting out corruption and increasing transparency through a policy such as as implemented in India are unlikely to come about," Srinivasan, Samuel C Park Jr Professor Emeritus of Economics, Yale University, told PTI.

He further said, "Although understandably, the was not pre-announced, the government's implementation showed extreme unpreparedness and lack of thought."



Srinivasan also pointed out that the government chose to cancel notes of denomination Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, but it did not clearly come out with the objectives.

"With all the technical manpower it had in the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance, the government did not issue a white paper clearly laying out the objectives of demonetisation," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 announced the scrapping of the notes, pulling out 86 per cent of the total currency in circulation.
The Madras High court has ruled that there was nothing wrong in a trial court sending a letter to the collector to secure the presence of a government servant for being examined as a witness in a case.

Justice P N Prakash of the court's Madurai bench was dismissing a petition filed by a woman Village Administrative Officer, seeking a direction to transfer her rape case from the Mahila court in Tirunelveli district to some other court.

The judge said when the de facto complainant, VAO has been 'dodging' to appear before the trial court,there was nothing wrong in the trial court judge writing to the district collector to secure her presence in a sensitive case.

The judge said the petitioner had lodged the complaint before the Ambasamudram All Woman Police station in 2014, saying she was a divorcee and a VAO had promised to marry her and had physical relationship with her,and then refused.

On a complaint from her, the All Women Police registered a case against him for offences of cheating and rape and filed the charge sheet before the Mahila court at Tirunelveli.

The trial court issued several summons but she did not turn up.Then witness warrant was issued, but the police were not able to execute it, leading to the trial court writing to the collector to secure her presence.

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After BSP supremo Mayawati, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today doubted reliability of electronic voting machines as he sought use of ballot papers in next month's municipal polls in the national capital.

Following a directive from Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Secretary M M Kutty, in a letter to the State Election Commission, asked it to hold the municipal elections through ballot papers.

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken also threw his weight behind Kejriwal as he asked the chief minister to take steps to ensure that EVMs are not used in the elections which will be held on April 22.

"The chief minister has directed the chief secretary to ask the state election office to hold MCD elections through ballot papers," a source in the CM's office said.

The move comes close on the heels of Mayawati questioning the "reliability" of electronic voting machines (EVMs). She had alleged that they were tampered with in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, where her party suffered a debacle.

Earlier, Maken asked Kejriwal to shun EVMs in the corporation polls.

"Many are doubting EVMs-Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results; I want @ArvindKejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot Papers," he had tweeted.

AAP's Jarnail Singh, who lost to former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal from Lambi, also demanded use of ballots in the elections ahead.

"Although we accept defeat, we have serious doubts over the results in Punjab. There are several villages in the Lambi constituency where we have received less votes than the number of volunteers we have there.

"For the first time, voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was used in Punjab. When we asked the Returning Officer to tally the number of votes to the VVPATs, he declined to do so," Singh said.

AAP sources said there were 33 assembly constituencies in Punjab where VVPAT was used, and that it would ask the poll panel to verify them again with the number of votes received.

They said the party had been "gathering evidence" before it could officially take up the matter with the poll panel.

Where a paper trail audit or VVPAT is used, the counting agent can call for a count of the paper slips in the drop box attached to the voting machine, but the final count is taken by the Returning Officer.

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More than three lakh refugees have been registered with various states as on December 31, 2014, the Centre said today, adding that it has no "exact data" on people seeking political asylum in the country.

Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju informed the Lok Sabha that India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention related to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 protocol thereon.

However, he said, there was a standard operating procedure in place with effect from December 29, 2011 to deal with foreign nationals who claim to be refugees.

"While there is no exact data on the number of foreign citizens who have sought political asylum in India during the last five years, whereas the year-wise/state-wise/country-wise refugee estimates suggest registration of more than three lakh refugees with various states as on December 31, 2014," Rijiju added.

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Pakistan today said it is planning to declare the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region as the fifth province of the country, a move that may raise concerns in India as it borders Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Paksitan's minister for inter-provincial coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada told Geo TV that the decision was on recommendation of a committee headed by Advisor of Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz.

"The committee recommended that Gilgit-Baltistan should be made a province of Pakistan," Pirzada said.

He also said that a constitutional amendment would be made to change the status of the region, through which the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes.

Gilgit-Baltistan is treated as a separate geographical entity by Pakistan. It has a regional assembly and an elected Chief Minister.

Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh are four provinces of Pakistan.

The move may raise concerns in India as the disputed region borders Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

It is believed that China's concerns about the unsettled status of Gilgit-Baltistan prompted Pakistan to change its status.

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A Pakistani police official says a truck loaded with sand toppled over, collapsing a mud shack and killing seven members of an Afghan refugee family living there.

Police official Aslam Bokhari says the incident happened today in the southwestern city of Quetta. He says the truck was about to unload its cargo of sand when the accident took place.

Bokhari says the shack belonged to an Afghan refugee, Sher Mohammad. He was not killed but his four children were, along with two women and a man. Quetta has several illegal Afghan refugee settlements built on its outskirts, mainly made up of makeshift mud houses.

Pakistan has for years been home to 1.5 million registered and almost 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees, who fled to safety from their war-torn homeland.

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Pakistan's military has reared "good" terrorists for cross-border missions while battling "bad" militants that fail to toe its line, Vice President Hamid Ansari said today.

Attacking Pakistan for use of terrorism as state policy, he said the most virulent factor fuelling terrorism is state sponsorship of and collusion with terrorists.

"A case in point is Pakistan's use of extremist groups as an instrument of foreign policy is well documented...," he said while addressing the third Counter Terrorism Conference organised by India Foundation.

Ansari said the availability of financial resources is critical to the success of these extremist groups as misplaced sense of charity, or religious duty, on the part of citizens contributes to it.

"Linked to it is the misuse of institutions intended to impart faith-based education. Instances of it abound in Pakistan and Bangladesh and also in other countries of the Indian Ocean littoral.

"These misinterpret religious texts to induce intolerance which, in turn, promotes a narrow and bigoted approach that is conducive to use of violence," he said.

Ansari said essentially, the Pakistani military has reared "good" terrorists for cross-border missions while battling "bad" militants that fail to toe its line.

He also said that the powers which created conditions for the rise of ISIS are the same which are claiming to be its victim.

"In recent times, the rise of ISIS or Daesh in Syria-Iraq has caught the attention of the world. Yet, even a cursory study of the factors that led to the rapid rise of such dangerous forces reveals that the very actors, who now claim to be threatened by it, have been responsible for creating the conditions--directly or indirectly--that led to its rise," he said.

(Reopens DEL 71)



Ansari said the removal of existing regimes and subsequent breakdown of governance resulted in extremist groups capturing the political initiative by exploiting the resentment and anger of the local populations and carrying out terrorist acts with impunity.

"The repeated attempts at regime change by force and with utter disregard for the local ramifications and fall-outs, had led to the quagmire- whether it be in Syria-Iraq that led to ISIS; or, Afghanistan which led to Taliban/Al Qaida; or, Libya that led to Al-Jama'a," he said.

The so-called war on terror has bred its own brand of deprivation and suffering with hundreds of people being killed or injured, even if they were not related to terrorist activities, he said.

"This has led to anger and a desire to seek justice by any means, resulting in extremist action and terrorist violence," Ansari said.

In the aftermath of wars, the impacted communities are caught in a vicious circle of population pressures, resource stress, popular discontent and political instability making them susceptible to a pervasive extremist culture, he said.

"Weak or dysfunctional states are more likely to host terrorist groups that target not only their host states but also carry out transnational attacks," he said.

According to Ansari, the stated motivation of each terrorist group related to addressing grievance of political nature, very often embedded in and seeking empowerment from ethnic, nationalist, or religious sources.

He said cross-border terrorism promoted by regimes as 'war by other means' on their neighbours is the most abhorrent which India have had to suffer for a number of years.

"Such terrorism is sustained by external agencies and states. There is now wider recognition that this is the type of terrorism which creates conditions for growth of terrorist networks into massive conglomerates with international operations," he said.

The Vice President said neither pious denunciations nor generalised prescriptions are sufficient to combat terrorism in all its manifestations.

"A beginning has to be made in each case by understanding its operational philosophy, strategy and tactics, its targets and support systems," he said.

He said since unprovoked violence is inimical to human nature, groups and individuals resorting to terrorism or violent extremism seek to cloak their acts in motivations premised on value systems - secular, ethical or faith-based - that could be cited in justification.

"This notwithstanding, the political temptation to attribute it to individual creeds is often overwhelming and, for the same reason, must be resisted if strategies and tactics to counter terrorism are to be both credible and productive," he said.

Ansari said use of indiscriminate force and heavy handed action debases the protection of human rights and can lead to an institutionalisation of oppression- fostering a culture of impunity within state security forces and agencies.

He said at the same time, countries being taken by a surprise terrorist attack face the problem of responding swiftly without causing economic and societal disruptions.

"We need a flexible frame-work of security that respects the diversity of security perspectives and developmental choices of member states and is based on a clear renunciation by all parties of the threat or use of force against any other state, aimed at promotion of connectivity in accordance with international law to promote and protect the well-being of all peoples who inhabit the Indian Ocean region," he said.
Manohar Parrikar, who quit as Defence Minister, today took oath as the chief minister of Goa to head a coalition government, three days after the BJP ended up second behind the Congress in a fractured mandate.

Parrikar (61) took oath along with nine MLAs including two members of the BJP, three of the Goa Forward Party, two of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and as many Independents.

The BJP stalwart, who resigned as the Defence Minister yesterday, returned to Goa as the chief minister for fourth time, though he could not complete full terms in his earlier stints.

He was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Mridula Sinha at the Raj Bhawan here, two days after she appointed Parrikar as the chief minister and asked him to prove majority on the floor of the House within 15 days.

BJP president Amit Shah and Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu were present at the swearing-in ceremony.

The Supreme Court today directed that the floor test be conducted on March 16.

It cleared the decks for Parrikar's oath taking by refusing a plea of the Congress to stay the ceremony, saying the BJP has shown the support of 21 out of the 40 newly- elected MLAs.

The Congress has emerged as the single largest party by winning 17 seats in the fractured verdict.

Parrikar said the portfolios will be alloted after the new government proves majority on floor of the Legislative Assembly.

Justifying his return to the state, he said, "Regional parties have taken the lead to form this government and have requested me to lead them by resigning as defence minister."



Parrikar's anointment came amid an intense tug-of-war between the BJP and the Congress, which has questioned the legitimacy of the saffron party's bid to power given it has failed to secure the popular mandate.

The BJP has enlisted support of three MLAs each of the MGP and GFP and two Independents to attain the halfway mark of 21 in the 40-member Assembly.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, MGP (3), GFP (3), NCP (1) and Independents (3).

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Pakistan today said a peaceful and stable Afghanistan was in its interest and underlined the role of the media in "restoring trust" between the two neighbours.

Pakistan's Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said media could play a key role in improving the frayed ties with Afghanistan.

"The Adviser also highlighted the role of media in formulating positive perceptions which was imperative for strengthening bilateral ties, restoring trust and effectively dealing with common threats," the Foreign Office said.

He emphasised the need of comprehensive bilateral engagement between the two countries to strengthen trust and confidence and for deepening mutually beneficial cooperation in the areas of security, counter-terrorism, border management, trade, transit and voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees, it said.

Aziz was addressing an Afghan media delegation comprising representatives from leading print and electronic media.

He briefed the delegation about Pakistan's continuous efforts towards peace and stability in Afghanistan, stressing that a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan was in Pakistan's interest.

The delegation, while sharing Afghanistan's perspective on the current situation, agreed on the need for frequent exchange of visits to help bring the governments and peoples of the two countries closer.

The ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been tense in recent months amid a series a terror attacks with Islamabad often blaming Kabul for providing "safe havens" to groups carrying out cross-border attacks.

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Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda will visit China next week during which he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Prime Minister will pay a five-day visit to China to attend Boao Forum for Asia Conference 2017 in Hainan Province, said his press adviser Govinda Acharya.

The annual conference for leaders from government, business and academia in Asia is being held from March 23 to 26 in Boao.

Prachanda will also travel to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi.

The visit is also expected to prepare the ground for a state visit by President Xi to Nepal.

Xi was expected to visit Nepal in October last year but the trip was postponed amid reports that China was unhappy with the Prachanda-led government.

There were also reports that China was displeased with the lack of preparations for Xi's visit as well as commitment to implement agreements reached by the former K P Oli-led government to step up road and rail links connecting Nepal with Tibet to reduce landlocked Nepal's dependence on India.

Nepal and China had dismissed these reports.

Prime Minister Prachanda's forthcoming visit to China is termed as significant as it is taking place at a time when the country is gearing up for local polls on May 14.

The Foreign Ministry officials here said that preparations are in full swing for the upcoming visit.

This would be Prachanda's first visit to China after assuming office in August last year.

Prachanda last year after taking over the office had chosen India as his first overseas destination rather than China, angering Chinese strategic experts and the state media.

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Tata Motors is undertaking a "clean up" of its passenger vehicles product portfolio as part of transition to meet new regulations and achieve profitable growth that could bring an end to the Nano.

The company is focusing on hatchback Tiago and upcoming compact sedan Tigor to act as bridge during its ongoing transition from the past to the future to drive volumes and improve bottomline of its passenger vehicles (PV) unit till it launches new products under new platforms by 2018.

"The old world is any way going to be changed, not because of Tata Motors but because of changes in regulatory environment. It may be emission requirements in 2020 or even earlier changes, as far as safety requirements (2017) are concerned," Tata Motors Managing Director and CEO Guenter Butschek told PTI here at the Geneva Motor Show.

He was responding to a query on how Tata Motors saw the future of its entry level small car Nano, the dream project of Tata Group chairman emeritus Ratan Tata.

From October this year, India will adopt stringent norms for frontal and side crash tests that would require vehicles to be equipped with safety airbags. In 2020 the country will implement the BS-VI emission norms.

"Some products will actually get naturally to the end of their lifecycle. So there is already a clean up going on in this regard. We have launched intensive activities in order to get the cost down on all the products that are currently in operations," Butschek added.

When asked when will the company call time on the Nano, he declined a specific answer but said: "At one point of time, each and every car gets naturally to the end of its lifecycle.

"We have already well laid out PV strategy. We will make the calls on the execution of the bits and pieces of the strategy at the right time... Each and every decision has its time."



The company's focus during the transition is to have models Tiago and Tigor to drive volumes and profitable growth so that it is in a better position financially to invest on its future products.

"The key focus in on Tiago and Tigor because these are our volume products," he said, adding cost saving, engineering changes and improvement of productivity on these models could successfully boost bottomline during the transition.

"There is a period in-between, which we have to overcome, where even if turn individual products into a positive one, it is certainly not good enough in the first instance to acually get me my overall funding requirements into the future," Butschek said.

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Three employees of Western Railway, including two class-I officers, were arrested by the Gujarat ACB while allegedly accepting an amount of Rs 1.25 lakh from a contractor to issue him a work order.

The two class-I officials are attached to the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) office here.

Those who have been arrested include a senior divisional engineer (class-I), divisional engineer (class-I) and chief office superintendent (class-3), said a statement by ACB.

The officials had demanded Rs 1.25 lakh to issue work order to the complainant Rajendrasinh Zala who was awarded the contract by Rajkot division to supply water, said the statement.

"Based on a complaint filed by Zala, we laid a trap at the DRM office today and arrested all the trio while accepting Rs 1.25 lakh, which they demanded to issue work order, and, as a guarantee that bills will be cleared without any trouble," said the statement.

According to ACB police inspector K H Gohil, the complainant's firm won the contract to supply water to various railway stations from Wankaner to Aliyabada.

Apart from audio devices used during the trap, Zala also submitted an audio recording to the ACB as an evidence to prove that the trio had asked for money over phone, said the release.

The Gujarat ACB tonight transferred the case to the anti-corruption unit of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) since Railways is a central government department, said a ACB official.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Federal prosecutors in Atlanta say a Russian man appeared in court on charges related to malicious software designed to steal personal financial information.

US Attorney John Horn said in a release that Mark Vartanyan, known as Kolypto, appeared in court yesterday following extradition from Norway in December. Vartanyan faces a computer fraud charge.

Prosecutors say Vartanyan was involved in the development, improvement, maintenance and distribution of Citadel, which infects computer systems and steals financial and personal identification information. Industry estimates indicate it infected about 11 million computers worldwide and caused more than USD 500 million in losses.

Another Russian, Dimitry Belorossov, known as Rainerfox, was sentenced in September 2015 to serve four and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to charges stemming from an ongoing investigation into Citadel.

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South Korean prosecutors will summon former president Park Geun-Hye, whose impeachment was confirmed by the country's highest court last week, for questioning as a criminal suspect, a spokesman said today.

"We will decide Wednesday when to summon former president Park and inform her," the spokesman of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office told AFP.

"She will be summoned as a suspect," he added.

It has not yet been decided whether Park will be called in to the prosecutors' office in private, or publicly before TV cameras and photographers, he added.

The country's top court last week fired Park over a corruption scandal, stripping her of her presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

She has already been named as a suspect for bribery and abuse of power for allegedly colluding with her secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil to extort money from a raft of companies, among them the giant Samsung group.

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Eight leaders of the CPI(M)'s youth and student wings, arrested for damaging government properties during a demonstration last week, were granted bail today by a city court.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Satya Arnab Roy of Bankshall Court here granted bail to the eight activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) on bail bonds of Rs 100 each.

The eight were arrested on March under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the newly-enacted provisions of the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Amendment Act 2017 that stipulates payment of compensation by an agitator who damages public or private properties in a stir.

Chief Public Prosecutor Pijush Kanti Mandal submitted to the court that the eight had indulged in violence and damaged fencings and public address systems of the police on being asked to disperse during an agitation at the Esplanade area.

The counsel for the accused persons sought bail for them arguing that the police had applied unnecessary force on a peaceful demonstration to disperse the agitators.

They were arrested on March 10 from the spot and were under judicial remand till today.

The court granted bail to all the eight accused after hearing the both parties.

The SFI and DYFI activists had organized a march to Raj Bhavan to protest the alleged irregularities in recruitment primary teachers in the state.

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Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today ordered authorities to take immediate action against 'blasphemous' content on the social media and remove sacrilegious contents and punish the perpetrators, days after a high court order.

"Those behind this heinous crime should be dealt with, without any delay," Sharif ordered Federal Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan.

"The blasphemous content on social media is a nefarious conspiracy to hurt the religious sentiments of entire Muslim ummah (community)," he was quoted as saying.

He also ordered to take necessary actions in accordance with the judicial guidelines issued by the court.

"Those responsible for blasphemy should be traced and punished according to the law," he said.

The Islamabad High Court judge Shuakat Siddiqui last week directed the interior ministry to take actions against Facebook pages with alleged anti-Islam material.

Sharif also said that accountability of those who misuse the blasphemy law for their personal interests should be ensured.

He also asked the relevant departments to approach international social media platforms to put the blasphemous content off the internet.

Blasphemy is very sensitive issue in Pakistan and those accused of it become an easy target for extremists.

Former governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was killed by his police guard for criticising the blasphemy laws which were introduced in 1980s by military ruler Ziaul Haq.

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Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council, Dhananjay Munde today demanded that Shiv Sena must quit the BJP-led state government rather than asking its legislators to take an aggressive stand on the issue of farm loan waiver.

"Legislators of Shiv Sena are on their feet in the well of the House demanding loan waiver while the party ministers are enjoying power. What to make of all this. This is double standards," Munde said in a series of tweets.

The call to Sena legislators to take an aggressive stand is a farce, the NCP leader alleged.

Opposition Congress and NCP are pursuing the demand for loan waiver and we challenge the Shiv Sena to join the fight, he tweeted.

"Instead of asking its legislators to take an agressive stand, the party (Sena) should ask its ministers to quit the government," Munde added.

The demand for loan waiver of farmers has dominated the ongoing budget session of the State Legislature, paralysing proceedings of both the Houses, which saw them being adjourned without transacting any business for days together.

Initially, Shiv Sena joined the Opposition Congress and NCP in the farm loan waiver demand. Later even BJP legislators came in support.

The budget session of the State Legislative Assembly, which began on March 6, reconvenes tomorrow after a four-day break.

Yesterday, party president Uddhav Thackeray asked legislators of the Shiv Sena, a junior partner in the state government, to disrupt proceedings of the Maharashtra Legislature unless the state government budges on the demand for complete loan waiver to farmers.

"Uddhavji has given very clear instructions to party legislators to be aggressive in both the Houses. We have orders from him to not allow proceedings of the Assembly and the Council until the government takes a decision to grant complete loan waiver to farmers," senior Sena leader and Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam said in Ratnagiri yesterday.

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board today come out in support of co-founders Radhika Aggarwal and Sanjay Sethi, saying the e-commerce marketplace has made "fantastic progress" under them.

The statement comes days after another co-founder Sandeep Aggarwal charged the duo of downplaying his role in creation of the online marketplace.

"We are proud of the fantastic progress made by the team under Radhika and Sanjay's leadership. It is very disappointing to see an ex-founder, who disassociated from the company for his (alleged) criminal wrongdoings, is now engaged in a personal vendetta on a public forum," said a statement issued on behalf of ShopClues' board.

On Sunday, Sandeep made several allegations against his estranged wife Radhika in a series of Facebook posts.

Radhika, who is currently the chief business officer at ShopClues, said she is shocked by the unfounded and baseless allegations.

board said the company's goal is to create value for all stakeholders.

"We remain focused on working closely with Radhika and Sanjay and the management team to continue to scale the company as it captures the massive opportunity which lies ahead of us," it added.

ShopClues, an online marketplace that is focused on tier II and III cities, was founded in 2011 by the Aggarwals and Sanjay Sethi.

Sandeep handed over the reins of the company to his wife as he was allegedly involved in an insider trading case in the US in 2013. Since then, he had not been actively involved with ShopClues.

A statement issued on behalf of Sandeep yesterday claimed that he has filed a criminal defamation case against Sanjay and Radhika in Delhi courts this month "as they have been lying in press and media and minimising Sandeep's role in creation of ShopClues".
The producers for the live-action version of "Sinbad" say they are looking for a Middle Eastern actor to play the film's main lead.

The duo of David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman say the cast will be led by someone who represents the ethnic roots of the character, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

They also reveal the hero in question will also share the screen with a British character, along with another character.

"We have an Englishman that goes along with him. It's a two-hander, and almost a three hander," says Hoberman.

The Disney film will be helmed by "Game of Thrones" director Miguel Sapochnik and written by Kyle Killen.

Recently, Disney also called for actors of Middle Eastern descent for their live-action "Aladdin" remake.

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A storm pounded the Northeast with more than a foot of snow in places today, paralyzing much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor after a remarkably mild February had lulled people into thinking the worst of winter was over.

The powerful nor'easter grounded more than 5,000 flights, closed schools in cities big and small and prompted dire warnings to stay off the roads. Nearly 100,000 customers from Virginia to Pennsylvania lost power.

Blizzard warnings were issued for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

"The winters seem to be upside down now. January and February are nice and then March and April seem to be more wintry than they were in the past," said Bob Clifford, who ventured out on an early morning grocery run for his family in Altamont, near Albany, New York, where 5 inches of snow had fallen by daybreak.

The storm was expected to unload 12 to 18 inches of snow on the New York City area with wind gusts up to 55 mph. It tracked a little farther west than forecasters originally anticipated, resulting in a sloppy mix of snow and sleet for larger portions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The National Weather Service's office near Philadelphia called the storm "life-threatening" and warned people to "shelter in place." Coastal flood warnings were in effect from Massachusetts to Delaware.

The flight cancellations included more than 2,800 in the New York City area alone, where about 200 passengers were stranded at Kennedy Airport. Amtrak canceled or modified service up and down the Northeast Corridor. And the above-ground portions of the New York subway system were being shut down.

In the nation's capital, the federal government announced a three-hour delayed arrival for non-emergency employees, with an option to take the day off or telecommute. Emergency employees were told to report on time unless otherwise directed.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the entire state and instructed non-essential state employees to stay home.

In Massachusetts, where the forecast called for 12 to 18 inches of snow, Governor Charlie Baker encouraged motorists to stay off the roads and to take public transit only if absolutely necessary, saying the fast snowfall rates will driving hazardous.

Schools in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and elsewhere closed.

The nor'easter comes a week after the region saw temperatures climb into the 60s, and less than a week before the official start of spring.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan urged people not to be lulled into a false sense of security because of the mild winter.
The Syrian government intentionally bombed the Ain al-Fijeh spring in December, leaving more than five million people in Damascus without access to water, a UN probe said today, branding the strike a "war crime".

"The information examined by the Commission confirms that the bombing of (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring was carried out by the Syrian Air Force," the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report.

The report, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council today, dismissed regime allegations that rebels had contaminated the water.

Around 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs were cut off from water when fighting intensified in Wadi Barada near the Syrian capital in late December.

The regime accused the rebels of poisoning water resources and cutting off the mains, while the armed opposition said regime bombardment had destroyed the infrastructure.

The UN commission, which has never been granted access to Syria and bases its reports on interviews and documents, said it had found no "indications that the water was contaminated" before the spring was bombed on December 23.

"On the contrary, interviewees say that Wadi Barada residents used water up until the bombing of 23 December and no one experienced any symptoms of contamination," the report said.

Following the bombing, the water was contaminated after shrapnel damaged fuel and chlorine storage facilities, it said.

The bombing itself indicated that the "spring was purposely targeted," said the commission, headed by Brazilian academic Paul Sergio Pinheiro.

"While the presence of armed group fighters at (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring constituted a military target, ... The damage caused ... Was grossly disproportionate to the military advantage anticipated or achieved," it said.

"The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks," the report concluded.

At the end of January, Syria's army regained control of Wadi Barada, which rebels first seized in 2012.

Syria's representative to the rights council, Hussam Aala Edin, on Tuesday reiterated accusations that the commission was politicised, and slammed its "amateurish approach" and "naive conclusions".

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.

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The Maharashtra Government is committed to building a 'Hindi Bhasha Bhavan' in the Kalina campus of the University of Mumbai, Education Minister Vinod Tawde said today.

Tawde's assurance came during a special meeting held on the issue at Vidhan Bhavan at the initiative of former Minister and Congress leader Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan.

The building in the suburb of Kalina, for which a sum of Rs 2 crore has been sanctioned, is to be named after noted Hindi litterateur and politician Dr Rammanohar Tripathi.

The university was in recently for not utilising a Rs 2-crore grant given to it by the District Planning and Development Committee of Mumbai Suburbs for the construction of Dr Rammanohar Tripathi Hindi Bhasha Bhavan.

Mumbai Suburban District Collector Dipendra Singh Kushwaha recently issued a notice to the university, saying the fund, if not utilised before the end of last financial year, will be treated as lapsed.

Kushwaha, Mumbai University vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh and a delegation of senior Hindi journalists attended the meeting.

Deshmukh told the meeting the construction of 'Hindi Bhasha Bhavan' was put on hold as the varsity administration has envisaged building a grand multi-storey tower housing all departments.

Khan took objection to this statement. The stone- laying ceremony of the Bhavan had been performed after all due Government clearances and there was no reason for delaying the project, the Congress leader maintained.

Deshmukh said the previous VC had not completed the formality of getting clearance from the varsity's Management Council for the Bhavan.

Tawde instructed the Vice-Chancellor to submit the master plan of the proposed multi-storey tower in a month's time for his approval.

"I will see how to adjust the Bhavan in the plan. As Dr Tripathi was a respected and reputed writer and politician, we stand committed to building the Hindi Bhavan bearing his name," Tawde said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three more accomplices of absconding rape-accused minister Gayatri Prajapati were today arrested by the UP Police in connection with the case against the SP leader.

With this, six persons named in the FIR against the 49-year-old SP leader have been picked up.

"Today's arrests were made from Hazratganj area in central Lucknow," IG (Lucknow) A Satish Ganesh told PTI.

Earlier Prajapati's two aides were arrested from Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway on March 7.

The minister's security guard Chandrapal was arrested on March 6 near Lucknow Police lines.

Prajapati was booked on a Supreme Court directive and an FIR was lodged on February 17 against the minister and six others for allegedly gang-raping a woman and alleged attempt to rape her minor daughter.

The apex court had asked the UP Police to submit an action taken report regarding the incidents in eight weeks.

UP Police plans to attached two properties of the minister in Lucknow and one in Amethi, his assembly constituency, to force him to surrender, SSP Lucknow Manzil Saini told PTI.

A Look Out notice has already been issued against him as also a Non-Bailable Warrant. His passport too has been impounded.

Earlier, airports across the country were alerted about the possibility of Prajapati trying to flee the country.

In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost from Amethi, the seat he held, to BJP.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tightening the noose around rape-accused UP minister Gayatri Prajapati, Lucknow Police on Tuesday nabbed three more accomplices of the SP leader and is interrogating his two sons and nephew to get clues about his whereabouts.

The arrests were made in Hazratganj area in central Lucknow, IG (Lucknow) A Satish Ganesh told PTI.

With this, all the six persons named in the FIR against the 49-year-old SP leader have been picked up.

Gayatri, however, continues to evade the police dragnet.

"Both UP Police and Special Task Force of the UP police are on the job and he will be nabbed soon," ADG (Law and Order) Daljit Chaudhary said.

Police are interrogating his two sons and nephew to get some inputs regarding his whereabouts, Senior Superintendent of Police (Lucknow) Manzil Saini said.

She said the UP police plans to attached two properties of the minister in Lucknow and one in Amethi, his assembly constituency, to force him to surrender.

Earlier, Prajapati's two aides were arrested from Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway on March 7.

The minister's security guard Chandrapal was arrested on March 6 near Lucknow Police lines.

Prajapati was booked on a Supreme Court directive and an FIR was lodged on February 17 against the minister and six others for allegedly gang-raping a woman and alleged attempt to rape her minor daughter.

The apex court had asked the UP Police to submit an action taken report regarding the incidents in eight weeks.

A Look Out notice has already been issued against him as also a Non-Bailable Warrant. His passport too has been impounded.

Airports across the country have been alerted about the possibility of Prajapati trying to flee the country.

In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost to BJP from Amethi, the seat he held.
President Donald Trump insists his amended travel ban will survive any legal challenge and it's time to see if he's right, with the first court hearings on it scheduled for tomorrow.

"SEE YOU IN COURT," Trump tweeted after his first executive order on immigration was stayed by a judge on February 3.

It would seem people have taken him at his word, given the number of complaints -- by states and rights groups -- filed against his travel ban. The new iteration is supposed to take effect Thursday.

It bars all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travelers from six mostly-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Iraq was dropped from the initial list.

Two federal courts, one in Hawaii and another in Maryland, have scheduled hearings for Wednesday on the new measure, the most controversial of Trump's young administration. A hearing could also come as soon as Wednesday in a third challenge filed by six US states.

The White House reworked the first executive order to address some of the issues that came up in court. The revised order explicitly exempts holders of valid visas or legal permanent residents, for instance.

But the main points are largely the same.

The first version of the order, which Trump signed on January 27, triggered howls of protest at home and abroad as well as chaos at US airports as people were detained upon arrival and either held for hours or sent back to where they came from.

The White House was roundly attacked for what critics said was a hasty rollout and a glaring lack of coordination with the agencies tasked with enforcing the ban.

In recent days the president and his leading cabinet members -- Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John Kelly, the homeland security secretary -- have defended the new order as a vital tool to preserve US national security and keep out extremists.

But critics say the order essentially remains a ban on Muslims and therefore unconstitutional as it singles out people of a certain religion for discriminatory treatment.

Since September 11, 2001, the worst attacks in the United States have been committed either by radicalized Americans or by people from countries not on the Trump travel ban list.

Critics argue that, even though the new order exempts holders of valid visas and permanent residents with so-called green cards, it will have a very negative effect on schools and universities and the business world, mainly the high tech sector, which employs many highly skilled immigrants.

The new battle against Trump's order is being played out on several geographical fronts, but mainly on the west coast, which tends to be heavily pro-Democrat.

The state of Washington, joined by five other states, filed a complaint Monday with the same Seattle judge who stayed Trump's original travel ban back in February.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UGC has pointed out certain anomalies in the five-year action plan report submitted by the Panjab University (PU) to turn its revenue deficit to zero.

The central university in Chandigarh has been given two weeks time to respond to the contradictions pointed out by the University Grant Commission (UGC).

"There are various contradictions in the action plan submitted by the university. While the university has proposed reduction in teaching as well as non-teaching posts, it has not reflected the resulting reduction in the expenditure," a source said.

"The UGC has also asked Panjab University to submit an action plan to enhance the revenue generation through internal resources. The varsity was earlier directed to not create any new academic or non-academic post or fill up any existing post without concurrence of the Centre. However, there has no been no committal response from the PU," the source said.

Panjab University is facing an unprecedented fund crunch with its faculty members moving court against delayed disbursal of salaries last month.

The university's vice chancellor Arun Kumar Grover confirmed receiving a communication from the UGC seeking response on the issues pointed out by it in the revenue plan.

"We will file a point-wise reply to the issues pointed out by the UGC," he said.

Earlier this month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had noted that the UGC follows different yardsticks to release funds to Panjab University than it does for other varsities.

The High Court had observed that the UGC might "convert Panjab University into a resort" and shift its students to other universities.

"For the Centre, Punjab, UT (Chandigarh) are not part of it. Be it airport (Chandigarh airport issue), colleges (affiliation-related issues) or now PU, they have different yardsticks for them and different for others," the HC bench had observed.

"Let it be closed as centre of learning. The students could be shifted to Punjabi University (Patiala) and GNDU(Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar). UGC may convert it into a resort," the bench had said.

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Uttar Pradesh BJP legislature party is likely to meet here on March 16 to decide who would be the next chief minister of the key Hindi heartland state, days after the party's landslide victory.

The saffron party is set to return to power in the state after a decade-and-a-half.

The party's central observers, Union M Venkaiah Naidu and general secretary Bhupendra Yadav, would be present at the meeting.

The secretary of the Parliamentary Board and Union Minister J P Nadda had said after its meeting on Sunday that BJP chief Amit Shah has been authorised to choose the next chief minister. He said the central observers would consult the MLAs and report to Shah, who will take the final decision.

The names of several probables, including Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who had led the BJP government in the state in the past, were doing the rounds at the state party office.

Though Singh (65) is still regarded as a good choice for the key post given his vast experience and popularity, he appears reluctant about shifting back to state politics.

Moreover, with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar having moved over to Goa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not want to lose another senior member of his cabinet.

"Ram, Ram," was Singh's response to a journalist's query as to whether he was a contender for the chief minister's post, remark that many interpreted as showing his unwillingness to return to UP politics.

Another name doing the rounds is that of Manoj Sinha (57), the Minister of State for Railways. An upper caste Bhumihar, he belongs to Poorvanchal, the area which is in the focus of the BJP. Prime Minister Modi's Varanasi constituency is also part of Poorvanchal.

Regarded as a dedicated and quiet worker, he is considered close to the top party leadership and many feel he has a fair chance if the party decides against showing preference for an OBC face.

A large number of non-Yadav backward castes voted for BJP in the assembly election and the party's state unit president Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC, is a top contender for chief ministership.

(RPT AFTER INSERTING A FEW WORDS IN THE 2ND PARA)



After steering the party to a big win, 47-year-old Maurya has grown in stature. He is being credited with rallying the non-Yadav OBC voters behind the party.

When asked whether he was a contender for chief minister's post, Maurya, who met Prime Minister Modi today, said," Speaking on this is beyond my jurisdiction."



On whether the CM should be chosen from among the newly elected MLAs or even a sitting MP could be appointed, he said," The decision will be taken by the BJP's Parliamentary Board."



Maurya, on being asked if the party's government will pursue construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, he said," All promises made in Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra (party's manifesto) will be fulfilled."



Though firebrand five-term Lok Sabha member Yogi Adityanath (44) is the choice of the more vocal among the party workers, the seasoned ones believe that his brand of politics might not be beneficial for the party in the long run. Also, his hard line 'Hindutva' may not help in carrying along all sections.

The name of amiable Lucknow mayor and party's national vice-president Dinesh Sharma (53) is also being discussed. He is a Brahmin.

BJP's national spokesman Srikant Sharma, an MLA from Mathura who is considered close to party president Amit Shah, is also being mentioned in certain quarters, but many feel the 46-year-old lacks experience.

Some in the BJP say the leader of its legislature party in the outgoing assembly Suresh Khanna (63) might emerge as the dark horse. Khanna, an upper caste Khatri, is an eight- time MLA. With RSS background, Khanna has a down to earth image and is a dedicated partyman.

Siddharth Nath Singh (53), the grandson of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who has won the prestigious Allahabad West seat is also being seen as a contender. He is a national secretary of the party and one of its spokespersons.
After the BJP's landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the dagger seems to be out between the two major constituents of the ruling Grand Alliance government in Bihar -- the JD(U) and the RJD.

The latest round of verbal exchanges broke out after senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh alleged that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's "support" to demonetisation and his "silence" throughout the UP polls over the issue helped the BJP.

The RJD vice-president claimed that by not campaigning for the Samajwadi Party-Congress combine in UP, Kumar "weakened" the Grand Alliance in Bihar, whose leader Lalu Prasad canvassed for the anti-BJP grouping in the neighbouring state.

Singh's fresh salvo on the chief minister drew sharp reactions from the JD(U).

"Senior JD(U) leaders and ministers Bijendra Prasad Yadav and Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan had asked the RJD leadership to keep Raghuvansh Prasad Singh silent for the good of the Grand Alliance. But, he is frequently making remarks against the chief minister," JD(U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar told PTI.

"If the RJD leadership does not buy Singh's statement, it should initiate action against him," the MLC said.

Bihar JD(U) chief spokesman Sanjay Singh slammed Singh and urged RJD chief Lalu Prasad to take action against him.

Singh's public salvo against Kumar angered the Congress too.

State Congress chief and minister Ashok Choudhary said this was "not good" for the alliance, adding that he will raise the issue at a future meeting of the coalition leaders.

The squabble among the RJD and the JD(U) provided an opportunity to the BJP to claim that the ruling coalition was heading for a split.

"After the UP poll results, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, with tacit support from Lalu Prasad, is holding Nitish Kumar responsible for the loss of the SP-Congress combine there. The Grand Alliance parties are divided on demonetisation too," senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said in a statement.

"In truth, the Grand Alliance is not only a divided house on various issues, but rather heading towards a split," he claimed.

"In this circumstance, it seems impossible for Nitish Kumar to complete the full term of his ministry," the former Bihar deputy chief minister added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Vice Chancellor K. Ramasamy today emphasised the need for strengthening research activities for enhancing the storability of oil seeds.

He was speaking after inaugurating the 3rd Annual Seed Workshop at the University.

Vice-Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai, M Bhaskaran asked the seed producers to be proactive in adopting various technologies developed by TNAU.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The RBI today told the Delhi High Court that it wants to take a fresh look into the USD 1.17 billion arbitral award granted in favour of Japanese telecom major NTT Docomo for Tata Sons' alleged breach of its agreement.

Justice S Muralidhar, however, did not agree with the stand taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), saying "there is no point in going over it all over again".

"RBI has already undertaken the exercise (of looking into the award) twice over. It might be better to tell the court, whether there is any statutory provision or regulation barring transfer of money overseas under the award," the judge said.

The court also said that "in every private award, RBI cannot step in" and gave the bank time till tomorrow to show the rule, regulation or circular which comes in the way of implementation of the award.

Senior advocate Soli Sorabjee, appearing for the RBI, told the court that the bank would not press its application to intervene in the matter if it can take a fresh look into the award granted in favour of Docomo.

This contention was opposed by senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Darius Khambata, appearing for Docomo and Tata Sons respectively.

They said that on March 8, the court had asked RBI to make its stand clear by showing the rule, regulation or circular under which the bank's permission is required before transfer of money overseas under the award.

The lawyers for the two companies said that the RBI cannot keep it open ended by looking into afresh.

The court also agreed with the companies contention, saying the RBI cannot go round and round on the same issue.

The RBI has opposed the consent terms arrived at between Tata Sons and Docomo with regard to the enforceability of the award granted in favour of the Japanese telecom major by the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) in June 2016.

The RBI has also contended that that the shareholding agreement between the two companies permitting transfer of funds abroad was illegal as it violated the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) Regulations.

Under the consent terms, Tata and Docomo have decided to



settle their two-year old dispute regarding their telecom joint venture, Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL), with the Indian company withdrawing its objections to the enforcement of the award. Tata has already deposited the amount of USD 1.17 billion with the Delhi High Court.

The Japanese company in turn has said it will "suspend its related enforcement proceedings in the United Kingdom and the United States" for a period of six months.

The RBI is opposed to the consent terms and had earlier said that if Docomo fails to succeed in enforcement of its award in India, it cannot say it will try and enforce it in some other jurisdiction after six months.

On the last date of hearing, the court had disagreed with RBI's contention and had termed it "absurd". It had said that if Docomo does not succeed here, it can take the award for enforcement of the award to the US or the UK and "RBI has no jurisdiction outside India".

Docomo had in November 2009 acquired 26.5 per cent stake in TTSL for about Rs 12,740 crore.

After Docomo's exit from the joint venture, TTSL, the matter had gone to arbitration as Tata was unable to find a buyer for Docomo's 26.5 per cent stake in TTSL for 50 per cent of the acquisition price, which came to around Rs 58.45 per share.

The Japanese company was not willing to accept the "fair market value" of Rs 23.44 that the Indian company was willing to pay as per the shareholding agreement.

Under the agreement between the two companies, on Docomo's exit from the venture within five years it will be paid a minimum 50 per cent of the acquisition price through the purchase of its shares by a buyer who would be found by Tata.

The other option was Tata purchasing the shares at fair market value.

LCIA had awarded the damages in favour of Docomo for Tata's alleged breach of the agreement regarding buying of the Japanese company's stake on its exit.

Docomo had moved the Delhi High Court for enforcement of the award after Tata cited refusal of permission by RBI to make the payment.

Docomo in an affidavit had said that RBI's permission was not required for paying the damages.
The West Bengal government will take initiatives to increase the employment potential of visual arts students in information technology sector in sync with contemporary demands, a state minister said today.

"For greater employability of visual arts students, in sync with the present demand of market, my department will take initiative," Minister for IT and Electronics Bratya Basu said.

As major IT firms have their base in the state, there is greater possibility of visual arts students to get better placements," Basu said after inaugurating an exhibition of visual arts of Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) here.

RBU Vice-Chancellor Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury said, "As the minister said, we are hopeful about campus interviews for visual arts students on the line of campus-in for engineering students."



"If there can be links between IT companies and our visual arts students, nothing could be better," he said.

Altogether 170 works of paintings, sculptures and graphics were on display at the exhibition which will continue till March 20.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping was being planned, the White House has said, while emphasising that its purpose would be to defuse tensions over the Korean Peninsula.

"Planning is ongoing for a visit between President Trump and President Xi at a date to be determined. We're not ready to confirm that, and we will have more details," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily conference amid reports that Trump and Xi would be meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on April 6 and 7.

"It's the purpose of this meeting, of that kind of a meeting, to help defuse tensions over North Korea and the recent deployment of a THAAD military battery to South Korea," he said.

Spicer stated that any meeting between the US President and China would necessarily cover a broad range of topics of mutual concern.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week is headed to a three-nation Asia tour that would take him to Japan, Korea and China, he said.

"As we go forward, we will have additional details on both the timing and the location of that when we go forward. The State Department Acting Spokesman Mark Toner said North Korea would be a major topic of discussion with China. The Secretary understands that China feels differently certainly with respect to THAAD," Spicer said.

"I think part of the discussions he's going to have when he's in Beijing are hopefully going to be geared towards easing some of those concerns, but also in making very clear that we're taking these actions in an effort to deal with an increasing threat and that we have to do more, we have to look at new ideas, new ways of dealing with North Korea," he said.

Tillerson will be travelling to Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing this week on his first trip to Asia as Secretary of State.

He will arrive in Tokyo on March 15, and continue on to Seoul on March 17, and then head to Beijing on March 18, a senior State Department official said.

The trip will allow the Secretary to continue to engage allies and partners on not only a range of bilateral issues, but also importantly to discuss and coordinate strategy to address the advancing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea.

"The United States is committed to holding North Korea accountable for its flagrant and repeated disregard for multiple UN Security Council resolution violations which expressly prohibit its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes," the official said.

"And we will defend our friends and allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and we will seek to work collaboratively to the maximum extent possible with important partners such as China," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Claiming to be a "responsible" nuclear state, Pakistan said today that it would never transfer weapons of mass destruction to any state or non-state entity.

The commitment was made by Pakistan Prime Minister's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz during his keynote address at a regional seminar on the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"Sartaj Azizreaffirmed Pakistan's commitment not to transfer weapons of mass destruction to states or non-state actors," Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Aziz stated that as a "responsible" nuclear state, Pakistan will continue to partner with international community to prevent non-state actors from acquiring these weapons.

Pakistan's nuclear record is clouded with the architect of its nuclear weapons programme, A Q Khan, accused of clandestinely giving North Korea nuclear weapons technology.

"As demonstration of this commitment (non-proliferation), Pakistan has taken a wide range of legal, regulatory, organisational and enforcement measures which have been reported through four national reports," Aziz said.

He said holding of this seminar was another manifestation of this commitment.

Aziz asserted that there was a need for striking a balance between advancing the goals of non-proliferation and facilitating access of developing countries to strategic and dual use goods, materials and technologies for peaceful purposes under appropriate safeguards.

Aziz voiced Pakistan's willingness to share its expertise and the provision of technical assistance to developing countries in the region and beyond.

He underlined that states which possess advanced capabilities should have an equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to the export control governance architecture, the statement said.

Aziz highlighted Pakistan's strong credentials and expertise to become member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), while emphasising the need fora transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria for the group's membership of non-NPT applicants, the statement said.

UN resolution 1540, adopted by the Security Council in 2004, is one of theimportant instruments in the global non-proliferation architecture as it seeks to prevent non-state actors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

The two-day regional seminar, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with UN Office for Disarmament Affairs,brings together 13 countries from South and Central Asia, including China and Russia, along with representatives of 1540 Committee Group of Experts and international organisations like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and INTERPOL.

The seminar aims at promoting regional cooperation for effective national implementation of the resolution 1540, including through sharing of best practices and national experiences.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia today skipped a court appearance for indictment hearing in criminal, graft and sedition cases, citing "sudden illness".

"She (Zia) has suddenly fallen ill, so we seek to defer the hearing," a counsel of the ex-premier told Dhaka's Metropolitan Judge's Court filing a petition.

Judge Kamrul Hossain Mollah accepted Zia's petition and deferred the hearing until March 28 but said the 71-year-old former ex-premier could be indicted even in absentia even if she failed to appear on that day.

The opposition leader is an accused in 25 cases and she last appeared before different Dhaka courts on August 10, 2016 and secured bails but she refrained from appearing on scheduled dates citing different reasons while all the cases now came under Metropolitan Sessions Judge's jurisdiction.

In view of her repeated nonappearance, the court had warned Zia of issuing arrest warrant if she failed to appear before it.

Besides the 25 cases, Zia is now being tried in two other graft cases while the Supreme Court last week cleared the way for a lower court to continue her trial.

Police last year filed nine criminal cases accusing the ex-premier of instigating series of clandestine arson attacks on public vehicles to enforce a protracted nationwide blockade as part of BNP-led four-party alliance's violent campaign against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League over election issue.

BNP boycotted the January 5, 2014 general elections under Awami League government and appeared as the main opposition outside parliament.

Zia is facing a sedition charge for her "slanderous" comments over the 1971 Liberation War Martyrs number in December last year when she "expressed doubts" about the casualty figures of 1971 Liberation War while officially three million people were killed during the nine-month long war against Pakistan.

"There are controversies over how many were martyred in the Liberation War. There are also many books and documents on the controversies," Zia said in a public address, sparking a nationwide uproar at that time.

Zia's BNP is a crucial ally of Jamaat-e-Islami, which was opposed to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan while two of its top leaders were senior ministers in her past 2001-2006 BNP-led four-party alliance government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Justice Zoting Committee, which is probing allegations of land grab against BJP leader Eknath Khadse, has sought the copy of the recent Bombay High Court order in connection with the case.

The Bombay High Court had on March 8, while hearing the matter against Khadse for grabbing Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) land at Bhosari in Pune, directed the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to carry out the probe "expeditiously and independently".

The Maharashtra government had informed the High Court that the Anti-Corruption Bureau would probe the land deal case against Khadse and register an FIR against him.

"The Commission will decide the future course of its inquiry after going through the order copy of the High Court," MIDC counsel Aniruddha Jaltare said.

The Zoting Committee was set up by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis following allegations that the plot of land in question was transferred in the name of Khadse's wife Mandakini.

Khadse's role had come under suspicion as it was alleged that the case was that of conflict of interest, wherein the minister had exercised his quasi-judicial powers to clear the land transfer.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices were steady to soft after touching three-month lows on Monday, testing a slide that began last week when the market became less optimistic that OPEC's efforts to restrict output would reduce a global oil glut amid swelling U.S. supplies.

Prices have fallen by more than 8 percent since last Monday, its biggest week-on-week drop in four months, and analysts said the slide may not have much further to run.

After more than two months of reduced production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the market is facing evidence that U.S. production remains high and global markets remain oversupplied.

"There is growing skepticism that the production cut has been enacted long enough to take care of the overhang," said Gene McGillian, director of market research at Tradition Energy. "The longs who piled in last year are turning on the market because there seems to be a realization that a six-month agreement isn't long enough to rebalance the market.

Brent crude futures fell 6 cents to $51.31 a barrel by 1:30 p.m. Eastern (1730 GMT), having earlier hit a session low of $50.85, the lowest level since Nov. 30.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) fell 17 cents to $48.32 a barrel.

Goldman Sachs said in a note it remained "very confident" about commodity prices and maintained its price forecast of $57.50 for WTI in the second quarter.

The slide could be the result of traders unwinding bullish long positions, and could slow as those positions are unwound, Tradition Energy's McGillian said.

U.S. drillers added oil rigs for an eighth consecutive week, Baker Hughes data showed on Friday, and they have announced ambitious production growth plans as they rebound from a two-year price war with OPEC. [RIG/U]

OPEC and other major oil producers, including Russia, reached an agreement at the end of November to rein in production by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2017.

Russia's top oil major Rosneft warned that a recovery in U.S. oil output may deter OPEC and non-OPEC producers from extending production cuts beyond June and might lead to a new price war.

Although OPEC states have been complying with supply curbs, led by Saudi Arabia, it has not been enough to overshadow a rise in U.S. inventories to a new high. [EIA/S]

"It will be interesting to see how OPEC rhetoric will evolve with this price correction. Is price the only consideration when it comes to the decision of extending cuts?" BNP Paribas global head of commodity strategy Harry Tchilinguirian told the Global Oil Forum.

He added that OPEC's task was more difficult as it aimed to cut inventory levels rather than simply target a specific price.

Money managers cut their net long positions in U.S. crude futures and options in the week to March 7.

(Additional reporting by Jane Chung in Seoul, Keith Wallis in Singapore and Amanda Cooper in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Greg Mahlich)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries said U.S. regulators plan to lift a ban on its Mohali plant in northern India, paving the way for a resumption of exports to the company's biggest market after four years.

The move would come as a boost to Sun, whose U.S. growth has been hit over the past year as five of its plants face supply restrictions due to regulatory issues. Sun's shares surged as much as 6.8 percent in Mumbai on Tuesday to a three-month high after the announcement.

Sun said on Tuesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had informed it about the agency's plans to lift the ban on Mohali.

Analysts in Mumbai said the Mohali plant clearance may not add to sales immediately, but removes an overhang. Sun may now be able to shift production to Mohali from other plants such as Halol in western India, which face supply restrictions.

The Mohali facility came to Sun along with three other facilities through its acquisition of rival Ranbaxy Laboratories in 2015. The FDA had banned Mohali and other Ranbaxy plants in 2013 as part of a consent decree designed to ensure compliance with good manufacturing practices.

Sun said certain conditions would continue to apply even when the ban is lifted.

Regulators had found a series of violations including data manipulation at the plant, which Sun has been working on fixing over the past two years by hiring external consultants and automating procedures.

Sun, the world's fifth-largest maker of generic drugs, reported its first fall in quarterly profits in a year last month, as pricing issues and supply constraints hurt U.S. sales.

Its shares gave up some of the day's earlier gains to be up 3.5 percent on Tuesday afternoon.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for allegedly influencing the decision of the Governors of Goa and Manipur in government formation of their respective states, the Congress has branded the development as 'unconstitutional'.

Speaking to ANI, Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit accused the BJP of indulging in horse-trading in Goa and Manipur, and further said that the Governors rushed into the decision without consulting the party in lead in the recent Assembly Polls in the aforementioned states.

"The Governors have made it clear that the decision has been influenced by the Centre. This is completely unconstitutional. It is an insult to the Congress' mandate given by the locals in Goa and Manipur," he added.

Striking a comparison between the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the previous UPA Government, Dikshit stressed on the lack of clarity in terms of India's international policy with Pakistan, in the aftermath of the surgical strike that was carried out.

"Our soldiers are losing their lives, not the Ministers," added Dikshit.

The recently concluded assembly elections in five states saw the Congress taking center stage in Punjab with 77 seats in the 117-seat assembly. However, the BJP established a clear majority in Uttar Pradesh, with 325 seats out of 403, and 57 seats out of 70 in Uttarakhand.

In Goa and Manipur, although the Congress was ahead, independent MLAs and other regional parties in the two states have announced to enter into an alliance with the BJP, thus giving them an opportunity to form the Government.
Manohar Parrikar LIVE: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Goa, headed by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, emerged victorious in the crucial floor test on Thursday, as a special Assembly session had been convened for the purpose. Parrikar, who stepped down as defence minister, was sworn-in as the chief minister of the coastal state for the fourth time on Tuesday evening, along with nine ministers. 22 legislators supported Parrikar, two more than the halfway mark in the 40-member Assembly.





The BJP had bagged 13 seats in the polls, while three MLAs each of the Goa Forward Party and Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party, besides three independents and one Nationalist Congress Party backed Manohar Parrikar . Congress had won 17 seats. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court cleared the decks for the oath taking of Parrikar as Chief Minister by refusing Congress' plea to stay the ceremony and ordered holding of the floor test today.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will hold additional charge of the defence ministry, the government announced on Monday, after (pictured) abruptly moved back to Goa to cobble together a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government there.

Parrikar will be sworn in as Goas chief minister (CM) on Tuesday. This will be his third tenure as Goa CM.

Jaitley has earlier held additional charge of the defence ministry for almost six months, from May 26, 2014, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was sworn in, to November 10, 2014, when Parrikar moved in from Goa.

Nor did Parrikar give defence his undivided attention, seemingly preparing for the last 28 months to return to Goa. Almost every Friday, he would fly to Goa, nurture his pocket borough all weekend, and return to Delhi on Monday morning.

Parrikar liked to say that, as a technologist from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), he was equipped to be defence minister. Yet, he also proved himself to be a skilled politician who understood the benefit of nurturing a secure political base.

During Parrikars tenure as defence minister, his successor in Goa, Laxmikant Parsekar, was little more than a placeholder. Parrikar cleared most major decisions relating to Goa and also retained close links across Goas political spectrum.

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2. Lorem Ipsum is dummy Text VIEW ALL FAQs Subscribe to Business Standard Premium Exclusive Stories, Curated Newsletters, 26 years of Archives, E-paper, and more! Invalid email. Please include '@' in the email address Insightful news, sharp views, newsletters, e-paper, and more! Unlock incisive commentary only on Business Standard. Download the Business Standard App for latest Business News and Market News . These relationships make Parrikar essential in a situation where the BJP, which won only 13 seats in the 40-member Assembly, is upstaging the Congress that won 17 seats. Requiring the support of eight non-BJP members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) for a majority, Parrikar won over two smaller parties - Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party with three MLAs each - and also two independent MLAs.
Manohar Parrikar has left a mark after two-and-a-half years with the defence ministry. His absence would be felt as he has been made the Goa chief minister, for many reasons, including his decision taking ability and rapport with the three armed forces.
The Supreme Court today asked the Governor of Goa to hold a floor test in the state assembly on Thursday to determine the majority but refused the request of the Congress party to hold back the swearing in of the new government headed by BJP leader Manohar Parrikar. At a special sitting of the court during the Holi recess, the bench presided over by Chief Justice J S Khehar specified that the only agenda for the session will be the floor test. AlL formalities for the test shall be completed by Wednesday, including those which have to be done by the Election Commission.
Goa Chief Minister-designate Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said he will comment on the Supreme Court's order on a floor test after jis swearing-in ceremony in the evening, even as the Congress party termed the court order "a great victory".

"I will comment after the swearing-in," Parrikar told reporters in Panaji, when asked to comment on the apex court's decision to organize a floor test of his government on Thursday. Parrikar resigned as Defence Minister on Monday to take over the reins of a BJP-led government in Goa.

Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh called the Supreme Court's order a "great victory for the Congress".

The Congress had petitioned the apex court late on Monday alleging that Goa Governor Mridula Sinha had acted unilaterally and invited BJP to form a government in Goa, despite the fact that the Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the February 4 state assembly election with 17 seats.

The apex court did not stay the swearing in ceremony, but directed that a floor test be held on Thursday.
Amid much political name-calling, Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla on Tuesday invited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form a government on Wednesday. N Biren Singh would be sworn-in as chief minister in the afternoon.
The distance between Le Meridien hotel and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters on 11, Ashok Road, in the heart of Lutyens Delhi is hardly 600 metres. On a normal day, you can cover the distance by foot in not more than five to seven minutes.
With a little over two years to go before the next Lok Sabha election, some pieces on the national political chessboard have started moving, thinking up the scenarios that could evolve from the prospective realignments emanating from the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh.
Furnishings company Ikea India has announced a new parental leave policy in which all employees, including men, will be entitled to six months of parental paid leave from this month.

In addition to the 26 weeks leave, women employees will have an option of truncated work hours by 50 per cent for another 16 weeks, the Swedish furnishings heavyweight said.

"I am delighted to share this news with all our co-workers in India who are working towards opening stores and building the Ikea brand," Ikea India Country HR Manager Anna-Carin Mansson said.

She further added that the policy is a reaffirmation of the company's commitment to empower co-workers and provide equal opportunities.

The policy is applicable to surrogate, single parent and adoptions as well.

Moreover, female employees will also get additional benefits like reduced work hours whilst they are nursing, an additional two weeks of leave with full pay in case of a tubectomy operation, leave with full pay and benefits for a maximum period of one month in case of illness arising out of pregnancy, delivery and premature birth of the child.

In order to achieve its commitment of a 50/50 gender balance, Ikea is also putting in some unique actions like day care centres, long-term training and development plans that allow employees to have career paths even while having and raising a family, among others.
A Mysuru-based doctor got a shock of his life after a toll assistant deducted Rs 4 lakh instead of Rs 40 from his debit card at Gundmi toll gate on the Kochi-Mumbai National Highway near Udupi.

ALSO READ: Long layovers? Here are the 8 best free city tours



The incident took place late in the night when the doctor, who has been identified as Dr Rao, handed his card at the toll booth to make the transaction. When he checked the receipt he noticed that the person on the toll booth had made an error.

The doctor also recieved a SMS for the transaction from his bank which said Rs 4 lakhs had been debited from his account. When the doctor checked with the toll booth, they reportedly refused to acknowledge their mistake.



ALSO READ: 10 places where Indians don't need visa to travel

The doctor filed a complaint at a nearby police station, after which the toll agents decided to reimburse the money. The toll agents offered to give the doctor a cheque, but the doctor insisted on cash.

The settlement was made at 4 AM in the morning when the collection company of the toll booth decided to hand him the money in cash.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is at the half-way point of his5 years tenure. In the last two years, Prime Minister Modi unleashed number ofeconomic policies to help the most marginalized. Social welfare schemes likeAffordable Housing to all by 2022, free LPG connections for the BPL familiesand bank accounts for all are some of the major policy decisions undertaken bythe Prime Minister in recent past.

However, job creation is one such area where Prime MinisterModi finds himself in a tight spot despite his multiple initiatives likeStart-up India, Stand-up India, Skill India and Make in India.



Despite fewerjob creation in last few years, the Prime Minister was still able to garnerunprecedented support from the masses in recently concluded Assembly elections.The BJP swept the UP election with 312 seats in a house of 403. It was historicas no other party had achieved such results since the emergency.

So, what are these people-centric policies that helped PrimeMinister Narendra Modi clinch India's most crucial - political - state electionand in all likelihood will also boost his chances in 2019 General Elections:

PM Ujjwala Yojana

Last year on May 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched anambitious social welfare scheme - Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana - with the aimof providing 5 crore LPG connections to women below the poverty line across thecountry.



However, the place BJP chose to launch the scheme was Ballia, adistrict in eastern part of Uttar Pradesh. It seemed to be a strategic decisionand Modi's master stroke to reach out to women in a state that was approachingthe Assembly elections.

As on 20 December 2016, the government released more than1.22 crore new LPG connections to BPL women under Pradhan Mantri UjjwalaYojana. The scheme was aimed at replacing the unclean cooking fuelsmostly used in the rural India with the clean and more efficient LPG Gas.

Affordable Housing

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched another flagshiphousing scheme 'Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojna' last year in November. Thescheme was designed entirely for the rural masses. But, what is moreinteresting is that once again Prime Minister Modi chose Uttar Pradesh tolaunch the scheme.



The affordable housing scheme was launched in Agra. Theambitious scheme aimed to provide affordable houses to 4 crore people livingbelow the poverty line by the year 2022.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his flagship programmes toget electorate support in assembly elections. Launching a scathing attack onUttar Pradesh's chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the Prime Minister said thestate government was not willing to help the central government with a list ofpeople who could benefit from the affordable housing scheme.



"1.5 crore people in UP don't havehouses. Our government wanted the list of homeless people from the UPgovernment but didn't get the list," the Prime Minister had said whileaddressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh.

Under the new rural housing scheme, the central government provides a financial assistance of Rs 120000/- for constructing the home.It also gives an additional assistance of Rs 12000 to construct toiletsin households. Modi government aims to replace all temporary houses from Indianvillages by 2017.

Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana

Prime Minister's another flagship programme was aimed tohelp small scale enterprises. In 2015, Modi government set up a Micro UnitDevelopment and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) bank to fund micro financeinstitutions in the country. Mudra bank was set up to provide loans to smallbusiness sectors.

Through this programme, the government tries to fundfruits/vegetable sellers, hair cutting saloon, beauty parlours, transporters,truck operators, hawkers, co-operatives or body of individuals, food serviceunits, repair shops, machine operators, small industries, artisans, foodprocessors, self help groups, professionals and service providers etc.

Under the scheme, an entrepreneur can avail up to Rs 10lakh. So far, the MUDRA Yojna has benefitted more than 58 million smallbusiness owners in the country.

Soon after taking over the highest chair in the country,Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India's biggest ever financial inclusiondrive. Modi launched his first flagship programme called Pradhan MantriJan-Dhan Yojana which was country's National Mission for financial inclusion toensure access to financial services, namely savings accounts, remittance,credit, insurance, pension in an affordable manner.



Prime Minister's move wasto provide access to formal banking services to more than 15 per cent of theunbanked population in the country.

It helped Prime Minister Modi re-establish his image as theleader of poor masses. Jan Dhan Yojna was not just about banking but also aboutseveral other benefits that the Prime Minister Modi offered with the accounts.

Under the scheme, if a person holds an account for more thansix months s/he is allowed an overdraft of up to Rs 5,000. According to ETreport in 2016, over 19 lakh account holders availed an overdraft amounting toRs 256 crore. Jan Dhan accounts holders are also able to claim accidental insurancecover of Rs 1 lakh. The scheme alsoprovides life cover of Rs. 30,000 payable on death of the beneficiary.

This was another way of reaching out to people who werenever taken into India's formal banking system. Prime Minister Modi tappedcountry's over 15 per cent population with just one economic policy. So far,over 27.84 crore accounts have been opened under Jan Dhan Yojna.

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana

Gram Jyoti Yojana was launched with the aim of ensuringround the clock electricity supply to farmers and rural households. The schemewas launched by the Prime Minister on 25 July 2015. The scheme was expected toinitiate much awaited reforms in the rural areas.

During his Independence Day speech in 2015, the PrimeMinister had announced that all of the country's villages would be electrifiedin 1,000 days and that by December 2018, all Indian citizens would have accessto electricity.

Electricity was a big issue in recently concluded electionsin Uttar Pradesh. While addressing a rally in Varanasi, the Prime Ministerasked the audience: "Yeh batayein ki Kashi mein 24 ghanten bijli miltihain ki nahin? (Tell me, is Kashi getting 24 hours electricity?)". Thecrowd responded: "No". Contrary to Akhlish Yadav's claim about 24 hours power supply.


Country's largest public sector lender State Bank of India on Tuesday announced a one-time settlement scheme worth Rs 6,000 crore for tractor and farm mechanisation loans.

The scheme is valid till March 31. More details on the offer are awaited.

One Time Settlement (OTS) announced for #Agriculture #Loans! Scheme valid until 31st March. Contact your branch for details & benefits. #SBI pic.twitter.com/ayVd8gcdHZ State Bank of India (@TheOfficialSBI) March 14, 2017

Last year, the bank announced the one-time settlement scheme of student loans in Kerala. The programme was applicable to loans of up to Rs 4 lakh which were NPAs as on the day of settlement and were valid up to April 30, 2016.

In May 2015 too, the bank announced its loan resolution week, asking borrowers with NPAs to try and work out a solution.


Drug pricing regulator NPPA has received Rs 672.28 crore fine till date from pharmaceutical companies for overcharging, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

Since inception, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has issued 1,527 demand notices to companies for overcharging on sales of formulations at prices above the notified ceiling price.

"Demand notices have been issued for an amount of Rs 5,038.72 crore. Amount of the tune of Rs 672.28 crore has been deposited by the companies. An amount of Rs 3,469.91 crore is under litigation," Minister of State for Chemicals Mansukh L Mandaviya said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

NPPA has recovered Rs 294.84 crore during the current financial year till February, he added. The government had recovered Rs 90.17 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 12.36 crore in 2015-16.


LOGAN  A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for a 43-year-old Smithfield man accused of physically and sexually abusing a child.

Andrew Facer appeared in 1st District Court Monday afternoon for a pretrial conference. Defense attorney Mike McGinnis asked the court for the hearing, and said he was also seeking a mental evaluation for his client.

Judge Kevin Allen set the hearing date for April 18, where it will be determined if Facer will be bound over to stand trial after prosecutors present their evidence in the case.

Police arrested Facer in December on suspicion of felony sex abuse of a child and misdemeanor physical abuse. The alogations allegedly occurred in recent years and involved a victim who knew Facer. He was later charged with one count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, and five misdemeanors including two counts of voyeurism, along with assault, domestic violence and child abuse neglect.

Detectives questioned the defendant while investigating a Richmond man, Dustin Mangum, who was arrested in August on similar allegations. The two men reportedly know each other through marriage.

Facer remains in the Cache County Jail on $125,000 bail.

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.com
The reward for information about the torture and subsequent death of a gray and white tabby cat in Clearfield has exceeded $50,000, contributed by donors worldwide.

Reward money of more than $50,000 from around the world has been raised to help investigators in Clearfield, Utah find information related to the gruesome torture and subsequent death of a beloved family pet. The animal, a six-year-old cat named Sage, was found badly beaten on March 8, with broken paws and ribs, eyes swollen shut and whiskers cut. The gray and white tabby succumbed to his injuries on March 9.

They broke his ribs, his little toes, beat his face, glued his eyes shut, tried to glue his penis and anus shut, burned him with hot glue and put silicone on him, said Debbie Barnes, president of the <a href=http://www.humanesocietyofnorthernutah.com/>Humane Society of Northern Utah</a>, in a news release. This is the worst abuse case I have ever seen.

Stacey Frisk, executive director of the <a href=http://www.cachehumane.org/>Cache Humane Society</a>, hopes whomever attacked Sage so savagely is quickly brought to justice.

Anyone who works with animals, who loves animals, is absolutely horrified by what happened to Sage, and we are thrilled to see that the reward has grown to be so large, she said. Hopefully thats enough to inspire someone to come forward. I believe that the perpetrator probably has some friends or family that knows what happened. Its unfortunate they havent come forward at this point, but I do hope that the reward is enough to motivate them.

As the Humane Society of Northern Utah continues to accept <a href=http://www.humanesocietyofnorthernutah.com/copy-of-donate>donations</a> on Sages behalf, a prepared statement on a memorial page posted for the animal reads, Though many people feel the reward is excessive for an animal abuse case, there is a proven link between abusing an animal and domestic abuse, or worse. The individual(s) involved are in need of counseling, before the problem increases, potentially involving people.

Cruelty to animals is a serious crime in Utah, with torture defined by <a href=https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter9/76-9-S301.html>Utah Code</a> as intentionally or knowingly causing or inflicting extreme physical pain to an animal in an especially heinous, atrocious, cruel, or exceptionally depraved manner. The Humane Society of the United States documented the connection between animal abuse and human violence in an extensive <a href=http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/qa/cruelty_violence_connection_faq.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/>2011 report</a>, citing the correlation between animal cruelty and subsequent violent crimes. Julie Hatch, a volunteer with <a href=http://awos.petfinder.com/shelters/4paws.html>Four Paws Rescue</a> isnt surprised.

Things like this happen more than people know, she said. To me, the kind of thing that happened to that poor kitty reflects our society. This goes much deeper than trying to protect animals by, for example, keeping them inside. We have to eliminate the underlying evil. We have to teach children to respect life.

As the torture Sage endured continues to gain international attention, Frisk agrees that the key to keeping similar crimes from happening in Cache Valley is education.

I think reaching out to the young generation is a great way to make sure were building a community thats compassionate toward animals, Frisk said. Education is crucial. Also, we encourage people who do see things that concern them to contact their local animal control jurisdiction.

For <a href=https://www.utahhumane.org/our-programs/investigation/what-humane-society-utah-can-handle>concerns outside the scope of animal control</a>, the Cache Humane Society refers community members to the <a href=http://www.utahhumane.org/>Humane Society of Utah</a>, which employs a full-time animal cruelty investigator. In circumstances like the torture of Sage, law enforcement also becomes involved.

From a preventive standpoint, the Cache Humane Society offers <a href=http://www.cachehumane.org/get-involved/education-programs/>after school clubs and summer camps</a> designed to help children understand the responsibilities involved with pet ownership. Children and families can also learn more about animal stewardship through local <a href=http://extension.usu.edu/cache/4-H/>4-H clubs</a>, and through programming offered at places like <a href=http://logannature.org/>Stokes Nature Center</a> and <a href=https://willowparkzoo.wixsite.com/home>Zootah at Willow Park</a> (formerly Willow Park Zoo).

With kitten season approaching, both Hatch and Frisk want to make the public aware that cats face increased vulnerability for abuse and neglect when shelters are full and there arent enough homes for placement of kittens.

As a no-kill shelter, when were full, were full, said Frisk. People will be bringing in boxes with kittens several times a week, and they must be turned away. Unfortunately, that leaves people with few optionsand some people do, then, take a less humane approach to dealing with the litters of kittens they find.

Sharing stories of kittens being abandoned, starved and even thrown from moving vehicles, local animal activists plead with the public to spay and neuter pets.

This would eliminate so much of the needless suffering for so many homeless pets, said Hatch. Animals are mistreated too often, and its hard to understand. We cant have such a cavalier attitude. Even though what happened to Sage is a most horrific example, there are a lot of animals suffering out there.
Can psychology explain the success of Geert Wilders?

Published on March 14, 2017

Story by Cafebabel

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How is Geert Wilders so popular when the Netherlands has one of the strongest economies in Europe? We spoke to Bert Bakker, Assistant Professor of Political Communication & Journalism at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, to explain the relationship between political behaviour and the psychological traits of certain voters.

cafebabel: Why is Geert Wilders so popular in a country thats performing so well economically?

Bert Bakker: Economic calculations dont explain electoral preferences. The main point is that Wilders key policy positions - being anti-immigration and anti-EU - are overlapping with the general attitude of the Dutch population. It helps that Wilders is pro-welfare too, though it is not the top priority for him And, of course, hes still the anti-establishment candidate.

cafebabel: Would you say there is a relation between someones income and their likelihood of voting for Wilders?

Bert Bakker: The Bertelsmann Foundation published a report looking at the correlation, and its not terribly strong. There are groups of highly educated, higher-income people voting for Wilders as well. A lower income doesnt make it any more likely that someone will vote for the PVV. I think that, when it comes to explaining the traction Wilders has, we have to look at his policy positions as well as some psychological factors and elements.

cafebabel: What can you tell us about the link between personality traits and populist support?

Bert Bakker: There are five main personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion/intraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. There are linear and direct relationships between certain psychological traits and tendencies to support populist parties. At the basic level, populist parties all share a common anti-elite and anti-establishment rhetoric. This rhetoric resonates quite well with the personalities of some voters, namely those scoring low on agreeableness.

cafebabel: Does this change according to ideology?

Bert Bakker: The data confirms the same pattern for populist voters in the Netherlands, Germany and in the US, across the political spectrum. This explains why populist parties from both extremes can exist at the same time. Either way, where we see lower agreeableness we can see greater acceptance of populist rhetoric.

cafebabel: Is there a relationship between geography and personality traits? This would explain as well the geographic divides we saw in the UK over Brexit between rural and metropolitan areas...

Bert Bakker: If you push the logic to its limit, yes. But its yet to be proven.

cafebabel: Where does the average PVV voter come from?

Bert Bakker: We have to remember that, anti-establishment rhetoric notwithstanding, the PVV is an established party in the Netherlands. Its a party that has been around for many years. For foreigners it might look like a mere protest party, but for someone in the Netherlands whos voting for the first time the PVV is just one option among many.

cafebabel: But has the PVV been stealing voters from those other parties?

Bert Bakker: Wilders strongest competition comes from the Socialist Party, given that they are both anti-establishment and pro-welfare. On the right, meanwhile, Wilders is obviously competing the other conservative parties. Last but not least, data show there will be pretty good turnout in the Netherlands. The PVV could profit from people who usually dont vote.

Story by Cafebabel
News / Education

by Staff Reporter

40 students from Rydings College in Karoi are travelling to the USA for a study tour that will see them venturing in a project capable of generating 250 watts of power, among other STEM driven initiatives.Rydings College head, Mr Jona Kondo said the study tour will see students researching and designing wind turbines with the hope of adopting the technology back home and embark on a school project that will produce 250 watts of power.Mr Kondo said the two week study tour will see the college learning and creating a water filtration system, among other projects.Guest of honour and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Dr Machivenyika Mapuranga hailed the initiative by Rydings College in implementing the STEM initiative in a practical way.Dr Mapuranga said the initiative by the college comes at a time when the government supported STEM programme has registered tremendous success since its launch last year.The government introduced the STEM initiative last year and more than 10 000 students have benefited from the programme that is aimed at providing a solid base for the industrialisation agenda.
| BY Lynchy |

Colenso BBDO, Auckland creative director Levi Slavin is departing the agency after four years to take a creative director role at Anomaly, New York.

Slavin joined Colenso in November, 2009 as deputy CD from Saatchi & Saatchi London, eventually elevated to CD six months later.

Perth-born Slavin, whose first gig was 303 followed by Marketforce Perth, worked at Colenso in 2006, andleft a legacy of iconic work like Trumpet Undies and thelaunch of Frank soft drink.

He then moved to Saatchi & SaatchiAuckland followed by two years at Saatchi & SaatchiLondon, working on campaigns for T-Mobile, Carlsberg, P&G andCadbury.

At Saatchis he completed the first global campaign inGuinness history, working with director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet.

At Colenso, he has been responsible for many award winning campaigns, including Doggelganger and Donation Glasses for Pedigree, and the highly awarded War On Wine campaign for DB Breweries. During Slavins time, Colenso consistently ranked in the top 5 in the Won Reports global rankings, coming in at #5, #1 and #4 respectively  a record never before achieved by a New Zealand agency. In 2012, Slavin was named the worlds most awarded writer in the report.
News / Local

by Staff reporter

THE Zanu-PF Youth League has revealed plans to engage President Mugabe to interface with youths in their respective provinces as a follow up to the oversubscribed Million Man March last year.Addressing a Bulawayo youth inter-district conference on Sunday, party national secretary for Youth Affairs, Kudzai Chipanga, said the provincial meetings are meant to make the President aware of the specific problems youths face in their respective provinces.He said the youths were facing challenges with the implementation of promises made by the President to the youths at the Million Man March.Chipanga mentioned the challenges in Umvutshwa as an example where land was allocated to youths for housing but said some officials were stalling the project."This time we are not going to have a Million Man March again just because we want these youths to have direct access to the President. You adopted a one centre of power at the 2014 congress, what it means is that when the youth want to meet the head of State, we don't go through anyone but have direct access to the President."What we are now doing as the youth this year, we are now going to request the President to come and meet youths province by province. We are going to request the President to come to Bulawayo and we don't want any youth from any other province," said Chipanga."The youths will then share the issues that affect the Bulawayo youths one on one. So the youths, this year you are not coming to Harare, the President is coming to you."Chipanga called on provincial chairpersons to begin preparing for the meetings with President Mugabe.He said the youths would maintain their position in support of President Mugabe until his very last day."As the youth league, we have taken a very clear position, we are saying that we are very clear and know what we want. We said it before that as the youth league we are the majority in terms of the population census of this country. We said the majority rules."Us as the Zanu-PF youth league say President Mugabe must be our life President. We are saying for as long as President Mugabe is alive, he will remain the Zanu-PF and State President. That is what we as the young people and as the majority want," said Chipanga."You the elders might have different views, that's your democratic right to have different views but express those views through the ballot box. Express your views through a congress. We had a congress in 2014 and you were given an opportunity to choose a President of your choice but you did not stand up. After congress you are now trying to do your funny machinations, we will never allow that."He said those elements aspiring for President Mugabe's position should wait for the 2019 congress but they will not have the vote of the youth."Come and campaign for the position in 2019 but we can assure you that you will not get a single vote from the youth. Our vote is with President Mugabe. This tendency of trying to interfere with the activities of the youth league must stop. There has been heavy interference from the main board in the affairs of the youth league," said Chipanga."This time last year similar machinations were happening but as the youth league we held the One Million Man March in support of the President. Let me be very clear, we support only one person in this country, the only person that we support is RG Mugabe."The rest, we don't support you, we just respect you. There is a difference between respect and support, we respect you our elders, we don't support you, we only support President Mugabe."
| BY Ricki Green |

Following a competitive three-way pitch process Vodafone has signed a four-year contract with cummins&partners tasked with full strategic and creative scope across all communications channels.

Vodafone says cummins&partners won the pitch due to the clarity with which its team demonstrated a deep understanding of the brands strategic direction, supported by a strong creative idea and innovative go-to-market approach.

Says Nilanjan Sarkar, newly appointed general manager of brand, Vodafone: We are confident that cummins&partners will deliver a strong, differentiated and enduring creative platform for Vodafones brand in Australia.

This is an exciting time for the Vodafone brand in Australia following several years where our focus has very much been leveraging the $3 billion we have invested in our network. With the brands turnaround journey almost complete, we are now able to focus more on our strengths as a brand and what sets us apart from our competitors.

Cummins&Partners impressed us with their ability to deliver a strategic, creative idea that can be executed in an engaging way. Most importantly, theres a great synergy evident between our two teams. We look forward to working together.

Says Chris Jeffares, managing director, cummins&partners: We are incredibly excited to be working with a world-class brand such as Vodafone. We had great fun pitching for the business, which is always a good sign.

It is a fascinating time of change in the telecommunications industry  globally and locally  and we look forward to delivering communications solutions that inspire action and drive behavioural change.
| BY Ricki Green |

AGDAs Design Means Business speaker series is back as part of Melbourne Design Week after a string of sold-out events in 2016. The Business + Design event will take place on Wednesday, March 22, 6pm-8:30pm at Clemenger Auditorium NGV, hosted by Yokes Richie Meldrum.

Speakers:

Australian Open + Landor

Notel + Self-titled

MLC + Push Collective

Tickets:

Members  $35

Public  $65

Students  $25

An exploration into the inner workings of the design industry, the Business + Design event will focus on the power of creative collaboration, unveiling the fascinating working relationships between three exciting and diverse organisations and their respective design agencies.

Telling the story of real life projects from both sides of the buyer / supplier spectrum, the organisations will talk about the challenges their businesses faced and the objectives they wished to achieve through design and communication. The agency will demonstrate how insight, strategy and creativity led to the final design solution. Together they will prove how business plus design can equal success.
| BY Ricki Green |

Davy Rennie, experience design director, The White Agency is covering SXSW exclusively for Campaign Brief.

Welcome to Unfiltered SXSW: Day Two.

Where design and tech meet and what it means for your business

As an agency, we are defining the role that technology and design play in our structure. Is tech first in? Or is it a practice of a foundational department? Should we be more creative when it comes to technology?

Kicking off the presentation is John Maeda, Global Head of Computational Design + Inclusion at Automattic, whose work explores how business, design and technology merge. An incredibly smart and well-versed bloke introduced his Design in Tech trend for 2017, and its a cracker.

He launches into an exploration of businesses that have embraced design, are continuing to show gains in productivity and successful customer outcomes, and even echoes a sentiment that was shared on my panel last week; that the phrase Design Thinking makes people nervous, whilst Design Making does not. I personally agree with the latter, it initiates a solution, being a tangible outcome for our business partners  they want to see an outcome.

One of the key themes we see across industries at the moment is the importance of inclusion; be that race, gender or sexual orientation. Design and inclusion are inseparable. Inclusive design creates scale for digital products by increasing the size of the products total potential market and as a result, driving product success.

I think that the biggest threat to the design industry is overcharging for things that arent as complex as they seem, and being slow to get them out. Products need to be released quickly to keep up with technology. To do this you have to get the user in the room on day one, not wait for testing. Too much time goes into upfront research that acts as nothing more than a justification of the hypothesis. Instead, getting users into a room to design together will expedite and reduce the cost of product launches, I feel there is way more to chat about on this, but Ill post about that later.

A major player in the industry is China, due to the speed at which they manage to get products to the market and we have to look at them for their progressive use of digital. Chinese design trends are leading the world, but are frequently overlooked. They use and reuse optimisations as a base layer and are constantly improving from that. The pace at how China revolutionised the smartphone market is proof of that.

Voice and chat in China also continue to be an enormous tool, and it is clear we are lagging behind massively in Australia. This has to change, and quickly, small bot projects are spinning up left, right and centre, but their roles arent defined yet. We need to alter that, and strategically plan the role of Voice and Chat to increase its potential and success.

One of the major challenges for agencies is scale and growth, and more specifically commoditising repeatable assets so you can deliver at pace and for less. This means creating products, that can be customised for specific partner requirements but also allow plenty of room for personalised changes to satisfy all needs. One problem we share together is design agency toolkits and programmes. Agencies must unify their approach to tools so they can scale at pace.

The state of Design in Tech is extremely encouraging for the Australian market, we continue to lead in many spaces such as FinTech, but we must look at news ways in which consumers are engaging and attract the right talent and pace to do so, meaning we need more hybrid designer/engineers who can MAKE and not just Think.

Design isnt just beautiful its a tool for business and its about market relevance and meaningful results  John Maeda

Human Centred Design for Future needs

Another design discussion, this time its a panel with 3 super design geeks. Buzzed, Meetup and Shutterstock introduce us to HCD for future needs. Its so packed here it obvious how important this is for designers and business folk alike. One thing that strikes me instantly, the panel are Product Managers, where are the designer at?

We all know I bang this drum hard, but focusing on humans is the single most important thing for any business, my business included

What is Human-Centred design?

They agree that it is designing with the human smack bang in the middle, humans needs first, business challenge second. One will solve the other. Solve a problem, test it simply, did it work and solve the problem? Yay or nay.

It sounds simple, but its not. Mixing business needs is intrinsic with successful delivery, but can you reframe the business need to align with customer outcomes. The most successful companies like Airbnb and Pinterest balance business goals with user needs.

User needs dont always drive business goals but do drive engagement and trust.

There it is, EMPATHY. That has to be the word of #SXSW2017.

Stop being so me, myself and I.

Changing the way you measure success can tie business needs, try and measure common metrics, ie. What experience is the business trying to provide for their customer and did they like it. Measure experience metrics, not just business outcomes.

Designers, need to get out of their own head. Just because they know what good design is meant to be, doesnt mean the user will like it. I am guilty of this, I dont know enough about my customers to be certain my design and my teams are right until we focus on challenges of real people.

Ask questions. Use simple mechanisms to ask questions like a happy/sad emoji response to a simple question. People are more likely to say how they emotionally feel when they are engaged. Measuring Human Emotion in real time can change the way you measure success.

At Buzzfeed, we use emojis to start a conversation with consumers in real time, short questions, real insights.  Chris Tindal

Mobile accelerated HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN.

Simple things like where your navigation is has to be designed in context. Think what someone will be doing when they use your product. For example, what are the users doing with their other hand when they are using their phones (Minds out of the gutter please).

You can do this by asking people, simple scenarios can give you real insights into what people will do. Dont just guess. Dont just translate data. Dont fake it. Speak to real users, find out what they want, what they dont and test quickly. And that doesnt just mean test the product. Test your hypothesis. Test your personas. Test everything.

Millennials rule the future

People are fundamentally and frustratingly individual, give them the ability to shape their own experience. Its

hard to force someone to change their behavior or follow a new channel, focus on what your users are familiar with, and make it amazing with iterative improvements rather than massive changes. Speaking to focus groups can only give you insight into certain types of people, people who go to focus groups(get a job). Instead of focus groups, you need to see what real users are doing, in the real world.

New generations are more and more impatient with products that dont seem personalised, or arent simple (bloody impatient millennials). But they are right, products shouldnt be impersonal, they shouldnt be hard. Our technological advances allow for highly personalised environments, use it, invest in it, keep improving it.

If you have a product that isnt dripping solutions to specify human challenges, there is a very high chance that your product will fail. Just because you think as a professional you are correct, until you find out what a customers challenges are you will fail. Everyone on the panel agrees, they have all failed, and still do, but they have all removed their egos, and now make their life easier by using humans.

Snapchat is one of the fastest moving products in the millennial market, it was designed with HCD, and continues to be improved with that, and we all know how well they are going.

WHY. WHY? WHY!

As we wrap up, theres a big buzzword, Northstar. Businesses need to set a Northstar for direction, based on what the customers needs and problems are. Use your Northstar to define your WHY. Start with the WHY! Simon Sinek said it a long time ago, but it is true. Why is your purpose, its your reason for doing business. It is your Northstar.

Giving design a seat at the lean table

The last one for the day, its all about Lean Design. Heres hoping after two strong sessions, we get the trifecta.

Our panel is going to introduce Lean, and what it can do for todays agencies and businesses. We discuss a business world that is full of extreme uncertainty, and to stay on top of this we need to constantly build, measure and learn.

Lean + Design

We all know most designers who are passionate about creating meaningful products that solve a challenge or problem by thinking holistically, creatively and analytically. This can complement the principles of lean, one of them, in particular, make design and lean a match made in heaven.

The principles of lean

 Get out, speak to people, customers and stakeholders;

 Prototype early and often;

 Iteration;

 Managing uncertainty (Design is great at identify and solving this)

The panel present 5 steps to use lean:

1. Hybrid teams

Mix the competencies of teams, designers who focus on more than just the aesthetics and can be technological or strategic. I fully agree with this, designers need to be more to demand the high salaries and design managers need to have mixed skills to manage them.

2. Define your Horizons

Use horizons to define the programs purpose. I 100% agree on the horizons, I dont agree with the fixed titles they use,

1. BAU

2. R&D

3. VENTURES

I fully believe businesses of different maturities can define different purposes for each horizon, so I wouldnt get too caught up on that.

3. Borrow from designers toolkit

Visualise the ideas, dont just talk about it. Use visuals to define and share purpose. It gives your team a Northstar. Go back to it. Remember your WHY. Tick.

4. Look for opportunities to diverge

Explore multiple options, do it at pace but be prepared to take a step back. Let design happen give it time to happen, it will shortcut the program. Big tick.

5. Dont mix empathy and experimentation

Just because you are speaking with someone doesnt mean you are being empathetic, actually use their needs to deliver products. There we go again, empathy, otherwise know as HCD buzzword off the year.

I like the idea of Lean being used for HCD projects, it is essential for successful product designs. But we have to get better at it, its still young, it still has many many pitfalls that need to be addressed, the major one being diverse team members.

Designers are notoriously ambiguous creatures, when we look at the principles of lean and mix that with the ambiguity of designers during the process. There is a powder keg of emotion. But at The White Agency we have recognised this before, thats why we use a Hybrid approach where we can use the rigor of waterfall cost and scope control with the rapid, affordable output of lean.

Subpar session to finish and I duck out early for a look at the IBM Experience. And shit. Best. Thing. So. Far.

Its incredible, its a mash of AI, Beer, Healthcare, Education, Personalisation, Machine Learning and FREE stuff. I start off with the beer matching tool, and its epic, it uses three questions defined from a previous survey of beer drinkers, that defines three beers that I might like and it has a range of the chance I will like that, but its hidden. I rate all three beers, a bit harshly as I clear my International flight induced cold from my throat, but the winner is the correct pick. Well done Watson, well done indeed.

Next Watson profiles me, and we have a jolly old chat, its still a bit mechanical, but the questions are good and he profiles me fairly-correctly (easy going, fun, handsome, not opinionated) and gives me a unique t-shirt, that was already printed, odd.

The best of SXSW & Austin:

 IBM Experience

 John Maeda(Legend)

 the SXSW App and bot are awesome

 Bahn Mi Tacos

The worst of SXSW & Austin:

 Some design content is epic, some is a bit same, I want to know whats next

 Weather  Im now wearing my badly fitting IBM t-shirt like a right idiot

________________________________________________________________________

Welcome to Unfiltered SXSW: Day Three.

Wow, Sunday is weird. Its cold, its dry and it is super quiet. I think a few people may be suffering from the sniffles after the torrential rain of yesterday. 4 seasons in 3 days.

Self-Driving Cars  first session from NVI

DIA

So what is the current state of play in this industry?

We quickly move from talking traditional cars to computer games, and how the machines they use to power these crazy games are now powering cars. One single computer can now do over 43 trillion actions per second or the same work of 150 MacBook Pros.

We know that AI and Bots are the future in most sectors, and this still holds true in the automotive industry. AI and deep learning will write the code for the future, no more coding, all will be based on machine learning and reacting to this data. This creates a real-time iteration model, expediting Teslas view that the first day you own the car is the worst it will ever be.

People do not have the capacity to absorb and process all of this data, but machines do. They can be programmed to recognise the patterns and predict the future. We just have to go along for the ride and accept AI, and its ingenious ability to augment our designs using data. Whether you like it or not, Al simply designs better, more efficient, and smarter products that are beyond the scope of human capability.

Whilst unflattering to our ego, it is likely that we have been building things like cars, bridges and buildings wrong (or at least inferiorly) this whole time. When you see the different structures AI delivers, they are different, they are strange, but they are arguably safer and more efficient.

This makes me think if you could start again, would cities and spaces look like they do today, or would they be simpler, like Canberra (the place, not the people).

If you think about it, you are like a machine. You are seeing Pixels. You just see the edges and the colours that fill them in.

The Wall of Same

Stepping into the trade show hall, we are immediately hit with a mass of energy, with people and product as far as the eye can see.

First stall and its a goodun: AR for marketing- a cool product in and of itself, but the ability to design and build yourself, minus the developer, clever.

Unfortunately, however, thats where it stopped being interesting. The next two hours were filled with a confusing mixture of anticipation and bewilderment.

We see product after product that promises better ROI, AR/VR, health etc., but it was hard to find a single USP anywhere. There were literally zero, which was hugely disappointing.

Disappointing. Back to back session tomorrow on the future of UX should help the tech hangover.

The best of SXSW & Austin:

 The future of automotive is crazier than we could ever imagine

 NatGeo Further House is epic

The worst of SXSW & Austin:

 Wouldnt mind some food that isnt Tex-Mex fusion
| BY Ricki Green |

The NSW Rural Fire Service has re-appointed J. Walter Thompson Sydney as its creative agency for the next three years, following a competitive pitch.

The win for incumbent J. Walter Thompson continues its highly successful partnership with the NSW RFS, with previous campaigns over the last 6 years winning 5 Effies, a Gold APG award and multiple creative awards.

Says Paul Everson, managing director, J. Walter Thompson: We are very excited to be appointed to work with the RFS again. Together we have created highly effective and awarded campaigns and we look forward to continuing our relationship and delivering the next phase of the campaign.

Troy Gersback, campaign coordinator, at NSW RFS explained that the decision was made based on J. Walter Thompsons strong creative idea that really resonated with both us as an organisation and consumers in research alike. Their in-depth understanding of our challenges was clear throughout the entire pitch process, resulting in a campaign we firmly believe will deliver the change in behaviour we are after.

The next campaign which is a NSW Government Campaign run by the NSW Rural Fire Service will overcome the challenge of improving the quality of bush fire preparation, while also increasing the personal responsibility taken by individuals living in at risk households across NSW.
| BY Ricki Green |

Home loan lender ME has launched its new Scroogify tool this week to exploit the growing refinance market.

ME will support the tool with a major marketing campaign via Dick & Jane which includes TV, radio, online, public relations and social media, running nationally throughout 2017 and including a nationwide social media campaign to find Australias Biggest Scrooge.

Says Patrick Nolan, head of home loans, ME: We reckon everyone has an inner scrooge just waiting to come out. The marketing campaign is designed to encourage borrowers to embrace their inner scrooge and unleash it on their home loan.

The bank says the tool will help it maintain strong home loan growth after increasing its lending book 1.6 times the market average in the six months to 31 December 2017.

ME home loan settlements hit $3.2 billion for the six months to 31 December 2017, up 54% compared to the previous corresponding period.

Says Nolan: Industry refinance levels had been steadily increasing as competition between lenders intensifies and borrowers become increasingly aware of the new deals on offer.

However, a large group of borrowers are still disinclined to refinance due to the perceived difficulties in comparing and because they underestimate the amount they can save, despite the fact the majority are with a major bank and are probably paying too much.

We built Scroogify to be a new type of calculator that in a few seconds quantifies just how much a borrower would save over the life of their loan, in both time and money, if they switched their existing home loan to ME.

We think Scroogify will shock borrowers out of apathy into action.

Creative: Dick & Jane

Digital: Springload

Production: Kiandra IT, Assembly, CHE Proximity

Music: Nylon
| BY Ricki Green |

Pau Bajuelo (left), who travelled from Barcelona, Spain to attend the Miami Ad School Account Planning Boot camp has been named Top Dog of the 2017 course.

The head of the school, Helga Diamond said that Bajuelo demonstrated outstanding engagement throughout the course and outstanding strategic and creative work.

Bajuelo also won best campaign for a live brief by client V Energy copywriting partner Kate Fischer.

The judging team included Mark Wiedermann, marketing director, Frucor, Jerker Fagenstrom, executive creative director, McCann, Eryl Thompson, founder and principal of strategy shop Etcetera and Julia Vargiu, founder and principal, New Business Methodology.

Says Vargiu: I was surprised by the talent shown in the quality of the students work. True dedication coupled with their new understanding of the craft produced remarkable pitch presentations, each with refreshingly different solutions to the brief. Their grasp of the unique fundamentals of the industry after the short-course intensive was impressive. Were sure to read more about them as they make their mark in the agencies they join.

Says Bajuelo: I had so much fun! Ive learned key knowledge that will be useful in my future. All the teachers have been super inspiring. Being in touch with the professional world and meeting them is amazing. Each teacher has given us a particular perspective of strategic and creative processes (that I never thought of before,) so we finished the course with a rich learning. For me it has been a great experience to come here to Sydney to study what I love and to meeting all the students. We are like a little family now. I feel part of Miami AdSchool.

Other participants in the 2017 Account Planning Boot camp, who typically have a background in planning, creative or marketing, came from Switzerland, Singapore and London to join their Australian counterparts. Students leave the boot camp with the portfolio with professional case stories designed to shortcut their career into mid level positions.

Taught by leading planners and creative, the Account Planning Boot camp teaches aspiring planners to develop strategies and create campaigns based on the latest knowledge in design thinking, data analytics, brand insights, creative development, emerging platforms and measurement.

The next Account Planning Boot camp will be conducted in the schools Autumn term, starting on 3 April. The boot camp is taught after hours, consisting of three weekly evening and one weekly Saturday morning session over eleven weeks. Tuition cost is $5500 (incl GST).
| BY Ricki Green |

Toyota Marketing Japan has launched the new Vitz with a stunning short film that has already gone viral in Japan via creative agency Tugboat and director Hideyuki Tanaka.

Tugboat and Tanaka came up with a genius way to subvert the traditional car advert format, taking inspiration from VFX breakdown reels for previous commercials by Australian company, Alt.vfx.

In the film, shot with production company Tohokushinsha, a young director details his idea for an adventurous new Vitz campaign to a senior creative director. As the action he describes plays out on screen, the older, more experienced creative director interjects with a series of more suitable ideas, causing the action to reverse and play out again in a different way.

Using a series of wipes, rewinds, and traditional VFX breakdown techniques, the audience gets to see behind the scenes of the fictional story, playing out in real time before their eyes.

Says Takeshi Takada, executive producer, Alt: We have worked with Tugboat and Tanaka on several great projects in the past few years, and they have been greatly inspired by the breakdowns we produced to show the work behind the finished ads. This new spot takes that idea and creates something entirely fresh and exciting for the Toyota brand.

Prior to filming, the Alt team created extensive pre-vis, so that Tanaka could work out exactly how to shoot the myriad of sequences and changes that would occur.

Shot on location in Budapest, the new campaign takes the excitement of the traditional heist movie and turns it on its head, bringing the discussions of the key creatives into the story in a tongue-in-cheek way that even allowed Alts artists to approach the visual effects with a greater degree of flexibility, as VFX supervisor Jason Hawkins testifies.

Says Hawkins: On one of the shoot days it rained in Budapest, but because of the nature of the ad  in that the scenario was constantly changing and evolving as the creative work out how to tell the story  the idea of it switching from a rainy day to sunny day was written into the final script.

Alt created a number of CG cars to cope with the different scenarios as the Vitz speeds through the crowded streets of Budapest. Using a variety of tools including Nuke, Houdini and Maya, the team created a host of digital set extensions, animations and CG stunts to allow the action to take place.

Agency: Tugboat

Executive Creative Director: Yasumichi Oka

Creative Directors: Taku Tada/Hideaki Ooki

Art Director: Seijo Kawaguchi

Production Company: Tohokushinsha Film Corporation

Executive Producer: Masakatsu Kasai

Producer: Takashi Ito

Director: Hideyuki Tanaka

Cameraman: Ekkehart Pollack

Animation and Visual Effects: Alt.vfx

Alt.vfx Executive Producer: Takeshi Takada

Alt.vfx VFX Supervisor: Jay Hawkins
| BY Lynchy |

EXCLUSIVE- The Colenso BBDO, Auckland creative department has been one of the most stablein the New Zealand industry, but ECD Nick Worthington is now looking to make hisfirst significant changes since joining two years ago. The first changeinvolves Worthington himself, who will take over ECD responsibilitiesfor Aim Proximity Auckland, giving him leadership of the total creativeoutput of 100 College Hill.

Colenso BBDO and Aim Proximityare working closer than ever before on integrated ideas like the YellowTreehouse, so it makes sense to have one creative leader of thebuilding. And who better to lead and inspire creatives of anydiscipline, than Nick Worthington, says Jim Moser, CEO Clemenger GroupNew Zealand.

Worthington is searching for a new CD for Aim Proximity to partner withnew CEO Adam Good: Our goal is to be one of the worlds best creativeagencies that just happens to be in Auckland. So we need to make surewe attract world-class talent, says Worthington.

To that end, Levi Slavin (pictured) is returning to Colenso BBDO inJanuary 2010 as deputy creative director. Slavin, an Aussie originally from Perth,worked at Colenso BBDO in 2006, and left a legacy of iconic work likeTip Top Trumpet Tog, Togs, Togs and the launch of Frank soft drink. He then moved to Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland and has spent the lasttwo years at Saatchi & Saatchi London, working on campaigns forT-Mobile, Carlsberg, P&G and Cadbury. Most recently he completedthe first global campaign in Guinness history, working with directorAntoine Bardou-Jacquet on a campaign that has run in USA, China,Africa, Ireland and the UK.

Its great that Levi is coming home to Colenso. Everyone who workedwith him loves him and the work he did here speaks for itself, saysWorthington.

Colenso has always been my favourite agency. It has the best cultureand does the best work. I cant wait to get started, says Slavin.

Whilst one of Colenso BBDOs favourite sons is returning home to theagency, two of its favourite sons are leaving. Josh Lancaster and JamieHitchcock are leaving at the end of the year to start their ownagency, Josh & Jamie. The pair have spent three years at the agency and have beenone of its most awarded teams, winning at Cannes, Clio, The One Show,London International and Axis.
| BY Lynchy |

Independent social media and content marketing agency, BRCKTS, has been appointed by Singapore-based brands, i.Dental and Jing Hua Xiao Chi, with immediate effect.

i.Dental is a leading dental clinic with over 30 years of dental excellence and the sole Invisalign Dedicated Clinic in Singapore. BRCKTS appointment includes content strategy and creation and development of yoursmile.sg, a content hub dedicated to educating people on orthodontic treatments.

A renowned F&B player known for its Chinese delicacies with a local twist, Jing Hua Xiao Chi appoints BRCKTS as its social media agency on record. The agencys tenure will include management of the restaurants social media properties, Facebook, Instagram and TripAdvisor, and digital strategies to help Jing Hua consolidate its foothold in Singapore.

We recognise the fast-evolving marketing landscape and found through insights how social media can help bring us closer to existing and prospective customers. With 30 solid years of establishment in Singapore, it is an opportune moment to strengthen our brand and further showcase our accredited practices. We are happy to have BRCKTS on this journey with us, said Dr. Cheng Eng Wah, principal surgeon and founder of i.Dental.

Jing Hua is a brand unlike other players in Singapore that are providing similar dishes like Xiao Long Bao. There is authenticity in our approach to food and this has been a reason why we remain a favourite for Singaporeans and tourists alike. With BRCKTS, we seek to push the brand
News / Local

by Alice Dube

Veteran politician Joice Mujuru has described Pastor Evan Mawarire, who sparked a protest movement against the government of longtime dictator President Robert Mugabe called #ThisFlag as a mere social media sensation and not known politically.According to a Newsweek report, Mujuru said it be difficult for Mawarire "to make any impact in the election without a political party behind him"."Mawarire's network is not all over the country. He is just capturing those who are on social media, and that's not the rest of Zimbabwe."She added "I've no problem. He's a democrat, we are all working for the same results, so he's part of the group. He's part of us."Mawarire has indicated that he might stand in the 2018 general election."If the need arises or if it becomes necessary for me to participate in the elections I really want to be available for that," he told reporters in February."I believe it is my duty as a citizen to serve my nation in that way  I have not made that decision as yet but certainly I do not want that door to be closed."Mawarire, unexpectedly, inspired thousands when he posted a video with the hashtag, #ThisFlag , in April, 2016.The viral clip of him lamenting against the country's moribund economy, corruption and human rights abuses, led to several anti-government protests and large-scale strike actions that paralyzed cities around the country."When I look at the flag it's not a reminder of my pride and inspiration, it feels as if I just want to belong to another country" he said in the video, with a Zimbabwean flag draped on his shoulders.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 11:41AM

Microsoft's answer to Slack, which is Microsoft Teams, was announced earlier today. Microsoft Teamsthe chat-based workspace in Office 365is now generally available in 181 markets and in 19 languages. Since announcing the preview in November, more than 50,000 organizations have started using Microsoft Teams

Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office, shared whats new in Microsoft Teams and talked about how customers are using Office 365 to collaborate and deliver great results.

Microsoft Teams provides a modern conversations experience, with threaded, persistent chat to keep everyone engaged. Microsoft has rolled out many new communication features since preview, including audio calling from mobile devices, plus video on Android, which is coming soon to iOS and Windows Phone. And weve addressed numerous customer requests, adding the ability to email a channel, including attachments, send messages with markdown-based formatting, and receive notifications about all posts in a channel.

Microsoft Teams builds on the company's expertise in video, voice, chat and can seamlessly shift between a text platform to voice or video depending on what the team or project needs at the time. This solution allows users to work the way they want and that's pretty powerful.

If you are an Office 365 commercial subscriber, you will gain access to Microsoft Teams today.
Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper.
The accused then grabbed the man by the arm as they fought and hit his shoulder before the victim realised he was wielding the scissors. He looked at his chest and shoulder and realised he'd been stabbed, court documents allege.
As Liberal leader, Alistair Coe, states these changes "will not fix the serious integrity issues at the heart of the agency and government". The only true way forward for Canberra is for these "Agencies" to be scrapped altogether and the federal National Capital Authority to take over the responsibility for producing a proper, long-term, master plan for Canberra, drawn up by professional town planners and based on true town planning principles.
News / Local

by Kevin Kriedemann & Joy Sapieka

As U.S. President Donald Trump's revised travel ban takes effect, an upcoming Fault Lines documentary on Al Jazeera highlights the consequences of a blanket policy that closes America's doors to those with the most to lose. Last week, Trump suspended America's entire refugee program for 120 days and signed a revised 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.His initial travel ban was suspended on legal grounds within a week, but for some families, the damage was already done.The Ban tells the stories of a pair of siblings in Turkey, aged six and two, in need of life-saving medical treatment, and a two-year-old cut off from his parents.Abdul Ghani Abdul Jawad's six-year-old son, Yahya, had a rare genetic disorder called Omenn Syndrome, a severe immunodeficiency, which can be cured with a bone marrow transplant. The Syrian family were due to travel from Turkey to the U.S. in December for treatment but at that point, Abdul Ghani's youngest son, two-year-old Abdul Jawad, was too sick to fly. Their trip was postponed to 1 February 2017, but then cancelled. Some sources suggest the family's security clearance may have lapsed, but Trump's executive order would have stopped their trip anyway.Days later, Yahya's health took a turn for the worse. "He got sicker after he heard he wasn't traveling anymore," says his father. "He was badly affected. Very badly affected."Yahya passed away during the making of the documentary, a child in an adult ICU at a hospital that lacked a pediatric ward.According to medical records, Yahya's brother Abdul Jawad probably has the same condition. His health is deteriorating as UNHCR looks to move the family to Germany instead."Where's the terrorism in them? Look at them," an emotional Abdul Ghani says about his sons in the documentary.The Ban also tells the heart-rending story of Dilbireen, a two-year-old Iraqi burn victim in Michigan, separated from his parents by the ban. "He needs surgery for up to a year," says Adlay Kejjan, the 29-year-old paramedic who took care of him during this time. "So to separate the parents after he suffered so much, I think that's inhumane." Dilbireen's parents finally got their visas and reunited with their son on 20 February 2017, after two members of Congress intervened. His parents hadn't held him in three months.When asked what he would say to the likes of Abdul Ghani and his family, Republican congressman Lou Barletta told Fault Lines' Sharif Abdel Kouddous, "I sympathize. Yeah, sure I do, but I sympathize with American victims. So we can't just give examples on one side and be ignorant to the Americans, innocent Americans who expect their government to protect them first My question would be, so who are you arguing on behalf of? Those outside of America or the American people? Aren't you worried about the American child and the American family who has done nothing wrong in their own country - that we have allowed people to come into America to slip through this program or any other program and do harm?"A Department of Homeland Security report obtained by Associated Press found insufficient evidence that citizens from the seven countries affected by the original immigration order posed a terror threat to the U.S. Similarly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the Trump administration had shown "no evidence" that anyone from the affected nations had committed terrorist acts in the US.The Ban premieres on Al Jazeera English at 2230 GMT / 2330 WAT on Wednesday, 15 March 2017 and repeats on Saturday, 18 March 2017 at 1630 GMT / 1730 WAT / 1830 CAT / 1930 EAT.
"It's something that they're doing in the UK and there's calls for it to happen in Australia, that's something that would be aired and looked at in a Royal Commission, and someone that was independent of government, that was an expert could advise the Government on whether or not..."
News / National

by Staff reporter

NATIONAL peace and reconciliation hearings started yesterday in Victoria Falls and Masvingo to pave way for a law that will promote national healing.In Victoria Falls participants said they want perpetrators of the 1980's disturbances to openly confess and apologise to victims for them to be forgiven.Contributing at a public hearing to gather people's views towards the crafting of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission Bill, Victoria Falls participants said the term Truth should be added to the Bill's name."The name of the Bill should be amended to read 'National Truth, Peace and Reconciliation Commission Bill' because it's difficult to achieve peace and reconciliation when there is no truth and confession," said Miss Nothando Bhebhe, a Victoria Falls resident.Another participant Mr Godfrey Dube from Mkhosana suburb said perpetrators should openly admit and the Commission would then decide what happens thereafter."People should openly confess because I can't forgive someone before he or she confesses sins."This mustn't be subjected to voting in Parliament because that would compromise our recommendations," he said.Mr Dube said peaceful co-existence of tribes starts with respect for respective cultures without some infringing upon others.Another resident, Mr Dumisani Ncube called for public hearings to be spread to rural areas such as Lupane and Tsholotsho."We feel by continuously raising this issue you are opening old wounds. Why can't a mechanism be put in place to force perpetrators to come out and apologise to us? They know themselves and all we want is for them to openly apologise. There are children who don't have identification documents because their parents were killed by Gukurahundi and all these are issues that need to be addressed hence we want perpetrators to come and apologise than for you to open old wounds," said Mr Ncube.Mr Royal Ndlovu who presented a position paper for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace said: "The Bill should investigate larger areas of conflict that affect people with provision for safety and protection of witnesses and free legal representation for them."Some expressed fears that they will be tracked and victimised for speaking openly about the disturbances.The public hearings are being spearheaded by a joint team comprising the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Thematic Committee on Human Rights and the Thematic Committee on Peace and Security.The joint Committee will today hold a similar meeting at the Large City Hall in Bulawayo.During another hearing held in Masvingo at the civic centre, residents called for the setting up of the NPRC provincial and district offices so that citizens can have easy access to justice.Masvingo residents said decentralisation will ensure that citizens find it easy to report cases of violence.They also said the Bill must have provisions for the compensation and protection of victims of political violence especially in the rural areas."As residents we wish the bill to make a provision for the establishment of offices at provincial and district level in Masvingo."The bill should explicitly state that the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) should be independent from Minister or government's interference," said Mr Prosper Tiringindi of Masvingo Residents Trust.
The Turin 5G project, which entered the operational stage after an agreement was signed on Friday, will see over 100 smart cells installed from as early as this year in the main streets and squares of the city.

TIMs first 5G technology trial in a metropolitan area will be launched by 2018 in its innovation and development centre in Turin, with the aim of driving the development of a new generation mobile network.

The signing of this agreement demonstrates TIM's capacity to be a leader in the companys innovation process, stated Giuseppe Recchi, executive chairman of TIM.

We are the first private investor in the country with a business plan that includes 11 billion of investments in 3 years, 5 billion of which will be dedicated to developing the new ultra-broadband networks: the plan concerns the future, fast connections and the development of cities. When we talk about big data, digital identity and the Internet of Things, we are aware that underlying all this there is always quality and the speed of the networks. TIM has the privilege of being a leading company in the development of the digital culture of the country and today this agreement adds another important element to our strategy.

The trial will involve up to a maximum of 3,000 users who will be able to take advantage of very high performances and transmission speeds and experimental services and applications, provided by the city administration and made possible by TIMs 5G network.

These small cells will be in addition to the 200 mobile ultra-broadband sites which TIM will use to for its radio coverage in the city. The new mobile network will be supported by TIM's fibre-optic infrastructure which covers most of the city. The project will see the gradual extension of the new mobile broadband infrastructure to the municipal urban area with the aim of covering the entire city by 2020.

Back in October 2016, TIM announced that it had deployed what it claimed to be the first 500Mbps mobile data connection on its LTE network in Italy, after collaborating with Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies. The operator conducted innovation lab tests in Turin and then in the field, on the radio base stations of the city, reached download speeds of more than 500Mbps on a single data connection on the LTE live network.

Turin is set to become part of the first pan-European network of 5G interconnected cities amid the European Commissions 5G Action Plan.

Chiara Appendino, Mayor of Turin, added: It is a positive sign that TIM has chosen Turin as an urban area to test an innovative technology such as 5G, linked to the mobile network. A decision that confirms the historical connection with the telephone company which has deep roots here in the city of the Mole Antonelliana. The high speed services and applications can only bring benefit, in the immediate future, to the manufacturing world and the community.

In December 2016, TIM launched a 4.5G offering to business and retail customers in Rome and Palermo with speeds of 500 Mbps download plus a new Sony Xperia XZ.
The lawsuit claims Verizon breached a contract to make its high-speed Fios broadband available to every household by 2014.

According to the city, Verizons rollout has only reached 2.2 million households so far, way short of the 3.3 million estimated when the 12-year agreement was struck in 2008.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio accused the provider of breaking the trust of millions of New York residents. Verizon promised that every household in the city would have access to its fiber-optic FiOS service by 2014, he said in a statement. Its 2017 and were done waiting. No corporation  no matter how large or powerful  can break a promise to New Yorkers and get away with it.

Verizon Fios is a bundled Internet access, telephone, and television service that operates over a fiber-optic communications network with over 5 million customers in nine US states. The name, Fios, is an acronym for Fiber Optic Service.

According to Ars Technica, the initial agreement was for a cable television franchise which was agreed to pass all households by 30 June 2014, but would also boost fibre connectivity because it was for a fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure.

In a statement to the New York Post, a Verizon spokesperson claimed the company had lived up to our obligation 100%.

The de Blasio administration is disingenuously attempting to rewrite the terms of an agreement made with its predecessor and is acting in its own political self-interests that are completely at odds with whats best for New Yorkers, the spokesperson added. We plan to vigorously fight the citys allegations.
Atlantic Link will be built close to the University of Ulster in Coleraine and is the first carrier-neutral enterprise zone and data centre in Northern Ireland. Atlantic Link will be built at a site close to the University of Ulster.

Enterprise zones offer hi-tech businesses tax incentives and simplified planning procedures. For this part of Northern Ireland Atlantic Link presents a significant economic opportunity. It will be built adjacent to where the Project Kelvin transatlantic fibre, which connects the US and UK, comes ashore.

This will be a challenging opportunity for the local council to capitalise on  given that the area is more used to developing the local specialities of tourism and agriculture.

The investor and anchor tenant is 5Nines, a global data centre builder and operator which is preparing to start work on the sight shortly.

The Mayor of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, Alderman Maura Hickey said: This is the crucial next step for what we call the Digital Causeway, attracting new industries and jobs to the region and giving Causeway Coast and Glens a competitive edge which no other site in Northern Ireland can currently offer. I am delighted that the determination and support of Councillors has made this ambition a reality and we look forward to the growth it will bring to the local economy. Council will now embark on the process to develop, market and promote Atlantic Link in establishing a Digital and Creative Causeway.

Coleraine Councillor Trevor Clarke said: The scheme is worth well in excess of 20m and will create employment at both construction and operational stages. More importantly, it means the North Coast can at last take advantage of Kelvin, the ultra-secure high-speed trans-Atlantic data cable linking Coleraine and Northern Ireland to New York and mainland Europe.
News / National

by Staff reporter

THE Zanu-PF Politburo meets in Harare tomorrow amid indications that deliberations will centre on the contentious elections held in Masvingo recently to choose a substantive provincial chairperson.This week's indaba, insiders say, is likely to finalise the matter and map the way forward for the province.The polls were inconclusive due to heavy rains and logistical challenges although 64 percent of the 408 party districts in the province had voted.Also expected to take centre stage during the Politburo meeting are the disturbances that occurred in Bulawayo where some members of the Youth League allegedly resigned.The Bulawayo youths cited imposition of individuals in the party's leadership positions and disregard of the ruling party's constitution by senior provincial members as the reasons for their resignations.Zanu-PF secretary for administration Ignatius Chombo, yesterday confirmed the Politburo meeting.He declined to disclose the agenda of the meeting."We have a Politburo meeting on Wednesday (tomorrow) at the usual time 10 'O'clock in the morning," he said."The agenda will first be known by the Politburo members and our deliberations will be shared with the media afterwards."However, sources said the Politburo would make a determination on the Masvingo elections.Other Politburo members, sources said, would also get to know why the commissariat department chose to hold elections for only the provincial chairperson leaving other vacant positions."The Politburo dissolved the whole executive and elections had to be held for the main wing, Women's League and Youth League," said a source."Hours before the polls, the commissariat then directed that elections be held for only the chairperson without any clarification and it is now time to get the story behind the story. Other candidates for the Women's League and Youth League posts had campaigned. Interim chairperson, Joram Gumbo is expected to present a report of what transpired, including the shenanigans by some provincial chairpersons who superintended over the elections in various administrative districts, in line with the mandate he was given by the Politburo. Remember other comrades disappeared with ballot papers and the Politburo will be hearing all those monkey shines."In the elections held on February 23, former Masvingo chairperson Ezra Chadzamira took a commanding lead with 12 393 votes against his rival Mutero Masanganise who managed 4 888.From the 165 districts that did not vote, 20 are from Masanganise's home area while 40 are from Chadzamira's home area.The fresh elections were ordered after the Masvingo leadership co-opted Chadzamira following the lifting of his suspension.On the Bulawayo chaos, the youths who resigned accused Zanu-PF Politburo member and Women's Affairs Deputy National Secretary Nomthandazo Eunice Sandi of "systematic provincial capture".Sandi-Moyo denies the accusations.Zanu-PF Youth League secretary Kudzai Chipanga was in Bulawayo over the weekend and directed that the province holds a meeting to co-opt members to fill the vacancy left by the members who resigned.Said another source: "These issues of co-option are causing problems in the party. Party members need to elect their leaders not to have this co-option and imposition. Apart from Matabeleland North all the provinces have no substantive leaders to talk of. They were imposed on the people and this is a time bomb for the party."Other issues expected to come up in the Politburo meeting include reports on agriculture and the party's preparedness ahead of the by-election in Mwenezi East."The by-election is slated for April 8.Zanu-PF has chosen businessman Joosbi Omar as its candidate.He will square off against ex-Masvingo provincial affairs Minister Mr Kudakwashe Bhasikiti of ZimPF, Mr Welcome Masuku of NCA and Mr Turner Mhango of Free Zimbabwe Congress party.
Zain Saudi Arabia signs LTE roaming agreement with Telenor https://t.co/eBz7tLnMR7 @capacitymedia #CapacityMiddleEast pic.twitter.com/5HBYKmZr7H  Telenor Global (@Telenor_TGS) March 14, 2017

By partnering with Telenor, Zain can now reach more than 420 LTE mobile networks, including Telenors 13 mobile operators around the world. Zain customers 4G experience will continue while traveling abroad.

Providing an integrated experience is one of the main pillars of our transformation strategies. As part of that, we are working alongside the biggest operators globally to provide industry-leading 4G roaming and international voice services to our subscribers, said Saad Al-Sadhan, wholesale senior director at Zain Saudi Arabia.

With their experience and ability to rapidly deploy high-quality services, Telenor is one of our key partners, and we are looking forward to furthering our cooperation.

Wansit Jeremy Saiyawan, chief sales officer of global wholesale in Telenor, added: The partnership with Zain allows all subscribers of both companies and our direct peering partners to roam in each others networks with superior quality. They are now able to access the same high speed services abroad when roaming as they do at home. We are delighted to have strengthened the partnership with Zain Saudi Arabia. Our focus areas going forward are VoLTE and Wifi Calling. We are looking forward to explore these services potential together with Zain.

The news comes after Zain Groups newly elected board appointed Mohannad Al-Kharafi as chairman and Bader Al-Kharafi as vice chairman and CEO of Zain Group.

Zain Bahrain and Rapid Telecom recently signed a strategic partnership agreement which will enable the operators to provide innovative international connectivity solutions particularly to the under-tapped enterprise segment and enhance the international connectivity of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
News / National

by Staff reporter

THIS week the Zimbabwe Independent - which in December last year began publishing fresh stories based on new and original material into the Chiadzwa alluvial diamonds discovery and subsequent plundering at various stages by state and non-state actors - continues with its exclusive interview with South African miner and investor, David Kassel, who was deeply involved in the saga.Kassel this week spoke about how United States sanctions hurt Mbada Diamonds.He also dealt with the "blood diamonds" tag, seizure of diamond parcels, freezing of accounts, use of front companies by diamond teurs, pricing of diamonds, alleged looting, his company's debts and social corporate responsibility issues.On December 9 2011, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) imposed sanctions on Marange Resources and Mbada Diamonds  the two companies in which the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) had an interest. Marange Resources, representing government, and Grandwell, an investment vehicle for South Africa's New Reclamation Group, were 50% shareholders apiece in Mbada.Prior to that, ZMDC has already been designated by Ofac on July 25, 2008, pursuant to executive order 13469, ensuring property and interests in Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources were blocked.Once placed on the Ofac Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN list), it takes time and effort to have the sanctions removed.While there is an administrative process for removing the measures, access to US federal courts for review of Ofac decisions is often limited for SDNs, because they are mainly foreign nationals with no access to US courts.So those on the sanctions list have to ask the very same agency and its managers to change their mind; which makes this very difficult. Although the sanctions list is difficult to remove, it is not impossible and Ofac does fairly frequently reconsider its restrictions.Kassel, who is New Reclamation Group chairman, said the US sanctions changed the operating environment for Mbada which had to battle Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP) compliance demands for it to start reselling diamonds in 2010 after a ban in 2009 in the trade of Zimbabwe's "blood diamonds".Kassel said after Zimbabwe fulfilled KP benchmarks, it became unfair to continue to refer to the Chiadzwa diamonds as "blood diamonds" as the mining companies had put in place tight security systems to prevent theft and ensure diamonds were extracted and sold through legitimate means.He said Mbada only resorted to sanction-busting dealings after the Ofac measures."There are various issues to consider on this sanctions issue," Kassel said."First of all, why were Mbada and Marange Resources targeted? Why were they placed on the sanctions list? For us it merely confirmed what I said last week that Mbada had fought hard on behalf of all companies and Zimbabwe as a country to ensure organised and legal mining took place in Chiadzwa."For so doing, we bore the brunt of the backlash. Why is it that other mines associated with ZMDC and Marange were not placed on sanctions? It's because we fought the war to secure KP compliance and normalise the Marange situation; some people did not want that for whatever reason, hence we were punished for that in the process."On account of sanctions, some diamond teurs (diamond industry players) were not able to trade and deal with us directly under their normal banners or names for fear of sanctions and retribution. So they had to find other entities to trade with us, but there were serious business and cost implications to that."Sanctions-busting is not necessarily a cheap exercise; it can lead to discounts on prices of goods and thus distortions in the market. It changes ways of doing business."As a result of the Ofac measures, Mbada could not receive payment for its diamonds in US dollars because transactions in that currency are cleared and settled via New York. This came after some incidents of seizure of our diamond parcels and freezing of payments."Most international wire transfers moving to and from the US pass through one of New York City's large money centre banks in order to access Chips - a US payments clearing system; the largest private sector US-dollar funds transfer system in the world which clears and settles an average of US$1,5 trillion payments daily."Since we couldn't trade in US dollars, we had to find new ways of trading and transacting. Buyers had to convert their dollars into other currencies to purchase our diamonds. After that we also had to convert whatever currencies we received into US dollars," Kassel said."In the process of switching currencies and conversions, we lost value. The process had serious cost implications. This means only those buyers prepared to be subjected to this conversion process would come to us, otherwise others refused.We had to deal with those who were willing and could actually do that. This limited the market for us."Currency exchange rate fluctuations in general affect travel, imports, exports, business and the economy. Over time, currency values can vary quite dramatically.However, individuals, investors and businesses can take steps to mitigate the risks and take advantage of currency movements to their benefit. "For us it was a harsh environment. In order to procure equipment, for instance, we had to go through third parties sometimes and that also had cost implications. People don't do things for free, there is no free lunch. They made us pay for that."Insofar as the Mbada directors were concerned, we became politically exposed persons, meaning it was no longer business as usual for us. We would not have proper access to banks and other financial institutions as they had to be cautious with us."The Grandwell account in Mauritius was closed because of sanctions. This is how bad it was for us."Kassel also dealt with allegations of looting by mining companies and their directors."When you invest in a high risk environment, or you take a huge risk you naturally expect substantial or good returns.Business is all about risk-taking. We were not an exception. We went into a risky environment and we made a decent return. We are not shamed of that, but that's not looting.What looting? We take serious exception to that characterisation."I have been in mining and diamonds business for 47 years, operating with honesty and integrity. So all these allegations of looting are just nonsense. If anyone has evidence of looting, they must bring it forward."We have said we are prepared for an audit. We have informed them (government) that we are ready for a forensic audit. Reclam had bonds listed or traded on the Irish Stock Exchange from 2006 to 2013, so we were obliged to submit quarterly reports to the stock exchange; we also have companies like Old Mutual and other shareholders.How on earth would such companies accept looting at Marange in their name?"Besides, Mbada was audited by a reputable auditing firm, KPMG (one of the Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and PwC) twice a year.This was because Reclam's financial year ended in June, while Mbada and other companies in Zimbabwe have their fiscal year-end in December. We had tight security systems and proper accounting and audits. It was difficult to steal; perhaps it happened in the fields because it was a vast tract of land not at the mine.That is why we are ready for a forensic audit, subject to all the issues we have raised with authorities, which include the terms of reference, who pays for the audit and that we get the report of the audit when it's done."Kassel said Mbada, which he admitted is now mired in mounting debt due to lack of production and revenue, had diamonds seized in 2009 soon after it started selling."When we started producing and selling, we had about 600 000 carats of diamonds worth US$300 million seized in Dubai because of KP compliance issues.They were only released after almost about a year after the KP approval. We dealt with such issues."On the pricing of diamonds, Kassel refuted claims Mbada was siphoning through under-pricing of diamonds."We never sold our diamonds at US$23/carat as some have claimed," he said. "It was First Element and MMCZ (Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe) which did that after 2013 when they introduced a new system. Otherwise, our diamonds were always sold at about US$50/carat. Some people think we were just a bunch of crooks, but that's not true. We invested with government and paid in total over US$600 million to Zimbabwe's Treasury."We did a lot; invested US$50 million, got US$14 million in new capital from other investors; we sacrificed US$11 million in management fees for the good of the company and put at least US$40 million in exploration. We also used millions for corporate social responsibility. That is what was actually happening at Mbada."
News / National

by Staff reporter

South Africa is set to host a two-day international conference next week on migration, as it ploughs ahead with plans to craft a policy that seeks to manage the influx of immigrants, AllNetAfrica reported.The country remains a destination of choice for millions of black immigrants escaping hunger, poverty, joblessness and war in their respective African countries, but in the process angering locals and resulting in sporadic xenophobic attacks against the former.Locals now blame the immigrants for stealing' their job and business opportunities. And just last month, black immigrants came under violent attacks from locals who also ransacked their shops and homes.The S.A Department of Home Affairs said the two-day national international migration conference will be held on March 17 to 18 at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg."Minister Malusi Gigaba has identified the development of a new international migration policy as one of his top priorities during his term of office. This policy review seeks to lay a solid policy foundation for South Africa to manage international migration securely and effectively, in line with the National Development Plan," the ministry said in a statement.The ministry said the conference will be attended by Ministers of Home Affairs from Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland; ambassadors; as well as international experts and practitioners invited to share international experience on the management of international migration."In the 2014/15 financial year, the Department of Home Affairs submitted a Discussion Paper on international migration to the Minister for approval. The Discussion Paper served as a basis for drafting the Green Paper, which was submitted in the 2015/16 financial year and approved by the Minister on 29 March 2016. The Green Paper has been used as a basis for drafting the White Paper on international migration to be submitted to Cabinet for approval by 31 March 2017," the ministry added.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Travellers in Zimbabwe have been advised to bring along US Dollars, as an ongoing cash shortage in the country has disabled all ATM cash withdrawals for international banks, Traveller24 reported.This is according to the latest update from the Foreign travel advice forum in Zimbabwe. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the United Kingdom also says that "Zimbabwe is still experiencing a shortage of cash and it is therefore not possible to make cash withdrawals using an international bank card."Travellers crossing the border into Zim are advised to withdraw and exchange money before they enter the country in order to avoid being cash-strapped in Zimbabwe.The past year has seen many cash shortages in Zim. Last year, ahead of the winter travel period in June too, an alert was issued for tourists to bring their own dollars when visiting Zimbabwe.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has left the country for Geneva, Switzerland this Monday evening, leading a delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council periodic review meeting.In Geneva, Zimbabwe is expected to appear before the UN Human Rights Council for the consideration and adoption of the 2016 human rights review which was carried out in November last year.Mnangagwa is accompanied by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Mrs Virginia Mabhiza; Principal Director in the Vice President's Office, Mr Nharo Gwatidzo and other senior government officials.
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KASUKUWERE TO PUSH FOR MUTODI OUSTERZANU PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere is expected to push for the expulsion of businessman Energy Mutodi from the party when the politburo meets tomorrow.After Mutodi was hauled before a disciplinary hearing on March 3 in Marondera by his Mashonaland East provincial executive, details have since emerged that the disciplinary panel that was chaired by retired Assistant Commissioner Everisto Pfumvuti was under instruction from Kasukuwere to give Mutodi marching orders.It has also been revealed that Kasukuwere himself was also being pressured by a tribal clique of Goromonzi West and North members of parliament Beatrice Nyamupinga and Paddy Zhanda as well as Seke member of parliament Phineas Chihota to give the businessman a boot.Apart from being a fellow member of parliament, Chihota also doubles as Nyamupinga's boyfriend.News making rounds in the province are that the three MPs together with Uzumba-Marambapfungwe member of Parliament Simbaneuta Mudarikwa were spotted at a city hotel persuading Kasukuwere to help them deal with Mutodi whom they accused of trying to wrestle the Goromonzi West seat from Nyamupinga in 2013 elections.They argued that it was not possible for Mutodi to take the seat since he was born in Masvingo, about 300km away.But Mutodi has insisted that he is a Zimbabwean and a ZANU PF member for Mashonaland East province and does not need a passport to migrate to any province of his choice.He has also added that nowhere in the party's constitution is it written that party members shall contest for parliamentary seats only in provinces they were born; adding that the party law document instead urges members to belong to party structures in areas they are ordinarily resident for ease of attending meetings and participation in party programs.

During the disciplinary hearing on March 3, Mutodi was grilled over DailyNews articles one of which was entitled, "ZANU PF indaba, a bootlicking jamboree", in which he was quoted blaming the G-40 faction for playing divisive politics to the detriment of the party.The panel also took time grilling the businessman over media reports that he had denigrated Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko for staying in a lavish hotel at the expense of tax payers while refusing to accept several offers of government accommodation.Mutodi also faced a charge for calling for an extra-ordinary congress to choose President Mugabe's successor.However the businesssman and prominent party member raised his defense by drawing the panel to Chapter 4 subsection 60 (1 a & b) of the national constitution that provides for the freedom of conscience as well as the subsequent subsection 61(1a, b & c) of the constitution that provides for the freedom of expression, freedom to communicate ideas as well as the freedom of artistic expression, scientific research, creativity and academic freedom.Mutodi told the panel that most of his articles were academic and were meant to provoke debate over how best the party could improve its decision making mechanisms and management styles so as to win future elections with ease.When one of the panelists David Musabayana raised a point that it was the party constitution that needed to be prioritized ahead of the national constitution, Mutodi referred the panel to Chapter 1 subsection 2(1&2) of the constitution that states that the national constitution was the supreme law of the land that everybody including political parties needed to uphold.The businessman also implored on the panel to understand that since ZANU PF was the ruling party, it needed to be at the forefront in upholding the national constitution and as such would need to revise its party constitution from time to time to weed out any laws that are inconsistent with the national constitution.The politburo which is the highest decision making body of the party in between congresses is expected to deliberate on the matter when it meets tomorrow.It is highly expected that the matter will be thrown out as it is a typical example of the tribal struggles that have taken center stage in fueling factionalism in the ruling party.Veteran President and ZANU PF First Secretary Robert Mugabe is on record saying tribalism and regionalism have no place in the ruling party.(Energy Mutodi is a doctoral degree candidate at the University of Cape Town and also studies Law at the University of Zimbabwe. He also holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of War Studies & Geography from the University of Zimbabwe. He is a member of ZANU PF).
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The question paper for the pre-university accountancy was leaked on social media half an hour before the exam conducted on Monday 13 March 2017. But primary and secondary education minister Tanveer Sait dismissed the claim as a rumor although images of the question paper were being circulated on social media platforms.

Education Minister Tanveer Sait has ordered Raichur Deputy Commissioner to conduct an inquiry on how the question paper was transmitted on social media. He also said that action would be initiated against any exam violations.

According to Shikha, director, DPUE, said that the first information about the images being shared on WhatsApp was received by Raichur DC at 12.30 noon, which is two hours after the exam started. "It's not a leak, as all students enter the hall by 10.15 a.m. and are not allowed to leave after that," she said, adding that of the many pages of the question paper, only one is doing the rounds on WhatsApp.

Raichur SP Chetan is investigating into the PU paper leak matter. It's a mischief by some miscreants and we will find the culprit. Students need not pay heed to any rumors, she said.

This year, the Department of Pre-University Education has taken few measures which include installation of CCTV cameras, where question papers are stored and are monitored at the DPUE head office.

This was following two paper leakages during the 2016 examination.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo - one of the fiercest critics of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa - is being groomed by the Generation 40 (G40) faction to become the next Zanu-PF leader, war veterans' leader Chris Mutsvangwa has claimed.Mutsvangwa, chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA), said Moyo is a "traitor", adding that the G40 faction, also linked to First Lady Grace Mugabe, has now unleashed its "parrots" in the form of Manicaland State minister Mandi Chimene to attack genuine ex-freedom fighters."Jonathan Moyo: once a traitor always a traitor...I exposed his wartime desertion. I am thwarting his attempt to take over party leadership," he said yesterday."We are checking G40 ambitions to surreptitiously usurp power using the cloak of illicit access to the apex of power as they take advantage of the advanced age of the president (Robert Mugabe) of the republic," he said.This comes as Mugabe, in power since independence 1980, is now getting increasingly frail.Speculation over his health has triggered a frenzied succession battle in Zanu-PF pitting the G40 faction and Team Lacoste, which has been linked to Mnangagwa.Reacting angrily to a State media columnist going by the moniker Bishop Lazarus, who described war veterans as "puppies", Mutsvangwa claimed that the G40 faction, fiercely opposed to Mnangagwa's ascendency, is now propping Moyo up to become the country's next president.Asked whether war veterans are "puppies", Mutsvangwa retorted: "They (ex-freedom fighters) are full blown grey hounds, bulldogs and Rottweilers. Ian Smith learnt that to his great political and military cost.""As war veterans, we are naturally more alert and vigilant because of historical pedigree," he said.Last week, the war veterans appeared to touch a raw nerve when they vowed to proceed with their meeting that they rescheduled for Friday, notwithstanding that it is not sanctioned by police.Despite backing down on their earlier decision to dump Mugabe as their patron, the war veterans remain renegades in the eyes of the ruling party, with the nonagenarian leader reportedly angry at their continued attacks on his leadership.During his 93rd birthday interview, Mugabe said Mutsvangwa is one of the few people in Zanu-PF who criticise his rule, as he dismissed the country's opposition parties as good as dead.The former freedom fighters - whose national executive is recognised at law - claim there is an attempt to grab power from Mugabe through a bedroom coup.Mutsvangwa also fired volleys at the rival war veterans association led by Chimene.He particularly took umbrage with her claims in the State media that he deserted the liberation struggle and was always a rebel."...Chimene is not a war veteran...she is creating her own Mutsvangwa. I was never arrested as Vashandi."Every night at 8pm I broadcasted on Voice of Zimbabwe from Radio Mozambique as of 1977. I came back to Rhodesia on the same flight as the president in 1979."...Chimene is a parrot voice of Moyo, the deserter and traitor," he said.In the past, Mutsvangwa has sensationally claimed that Mugabe is now being held hostage by the G40 faction which is now preventing him from executing his government duties.While the Team Lacoste faction has openly declared that its preferred candidate to succeed Mugabe is Mnangagwa, the G40 faction has been pushing for Mugabe to continue even beyond next year's watershed elections.Moyo did not respond to questions sent to him yesterday.
Opinion / Columnist

The number of teenagers venturing into commercial sex work has been increasing notwithstanding the bad weather caused by current heavy rains spawned by the Cyclone Dineo phenomenon, the youngsters continue to venture out in a desperate bid to make ends meet.Infrastructure, including houses and bridges, has been swept away in most parts of southern Zimbabwe, but 15-year-old Mitchell*, continues to track to a popular bar in Sakubva high-density suburb, where girls as young as her line up against the bar's precast wall, waiting for clients.The dilapidated Chimoio Flats, which have outlived their lifespan, along Paulington Road in Sakubva, have a room which has been turned into a brothel by four teenagers, including Mitchell, all aged between 13 and 19.Prostitution is among the vices that have taken root in Sakubva, itself a filthy ghetto, densely populated and characterised by high rates of crime.This writer had an opportunity to present himself at the "brothel", where he was mistaken for a client, before the four girls opened up on their activities.Mitchell said business runs like clockwork, both in the afternoon and at night, adding that a "short time" was pegged at $2.One of the girls, Shamiso*, said they gave each other an opportunity to use the room upon securing a client."When a client comes in, we let him choose a woman of his choice and usually after the two agree, the other three leave the room for some minutes," she said.In the evening, she said, they would go out in search of clients at nearby night clubs at a place dubbed "Kuchigomba".Another sex worker, Vanessa*, said during weekends, they often went to Mutare's top night clubs, including Gulliver's, Afriport, Soul City and Mandisa, to lure men.She said after a "good night's work", they can pocket as much as $45."The prices in town (central business district) are much higher as a short time costs around $10 in the top clubs.So for us to fill our pockets, we must bed up to five men, although during lucky days, we can get as much as $40 for spending a night with a client," Vanessa said.Research has shown that some teenagers, who turn to sex work, are often victims of physical and emotional abuse.Mitchell said she was impregnated while doing Form 1, but her older boyfriend refused to take responsibility.She then left Gweru, where she lived with her parents, and went to stay with her sister in Mutare.But due to the abuse and neglect at her sister's hands  as the sister and her husband were also struggling to make ends meet  she decided to venture into commercial sex work to earn a living.She, however, said sometimes she sent her mother money, although she had never told her the source of the money. Her mother looks after her child."My mother does not even care how and where I get the money from. If I fail to send her money, she calls or sends threatening messages insisting my child will spend days and nights on an empty stomach," she said.The teenage sex workers disclosed how some clients take advantage of their youth and desperation, refusing to use protection, thus exposing them to sexually transmitted diseases.According to a recent report on Young Women in Commercial Sexual Exploitation produced by the Zimbabwe National Council for Welfare of Children, 66,7% of girls that are sexually exploited are school dropouts.Educationist Olga Ntuli told NewsDay that most young girls, who resort to sex work, get little or no help from their families, hence they run away from home and end up with no choice other than prostitution."Schools and families are failing to provide effective guidance and counselling so many young girls turn to prostitution," she said."Commercial sex work becomes a means to an end since their education levels are minimal and cannot accord them meaningful employment."Mitchell said if she had completed her education and secured a job, she would not have gone into sex work.*Not her real name
A few days before the Nio Eve was launched, the Chinese company was slammed by another Chinese-backed automaker, Faraday Future.



Faradays senior vice president of research & development and engineering, Nick Sampson, took to Twitter to suggest that the Eve concept is a poor clone of the FF 91.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but poor clones get it wrong because we are promoting individuality, he wrote.

After being pushed to provide further comment on Twitter, Sampson said the design language between the two is very similar. Both vehicles also have comparable wheels he pointed out.

Overall, the FF 91 and Nio Eve do have similar shapes, although the FF 91 is a high-riding crossover while the Eve isnt. Other, specific similarities between the two, include the steeply raked rear windows, spoilers and taillights the stretch forward along the rear quarter panels. Comparing the two vehicles from the front shows a resemblance but still, calling the Eve a poor clone might be a bit extreme.

Nio intends on launching the Eve in China next year before the vehicle arrives in the United States in 2020.

"Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but poor clones get it wrong because we are promoting individuality" https://t.co/lCFMwySQlo Nick Sampson (@NickSampsonFF) March 11, 2017

@FredericLambert Yes Reallythe design language is so similar.. and the wheels! ..our design was settled well over a year ago leaks!! Nick Sampson (@NickSampsonFF) March 11, 2017

PHOTO GALLERY
Opinion / Columnist

For further Information and Donations, contact Sizwe or Nomso on this E-mail; czoemda61@gmail.com or alternatively Cellphone @ 073 664 9849/063 188 8082.

The story of King Lobengula's 'unfortunate' dispensation of his Monarchy is an issue that is still discussed by Historians and by whole of Society who have vested interest into the Matebeleland Cultural Affairs. The descendants of King Lobengula who were brought to South Africa, and have survived under the post-Colonial regime without any due honour are still seeking methods of Repatriating the lost heir to the throne, A.N.L.Mzilikazi back to Zimbabwe.A campaign that has been undertaken by the King Lobengula Foundation for the past six(6) years, and negotiations had been held in Luvuyo Hall, kwa-Ndancama on 20 Feb 2016, between Ndebele Cultural Representatives and King Lobengula Foundation, based in Grahamstown.The last remaining daughter of Rhodes kaNjube kaLobengula (1903-1937) is coming to Grahamstown to celebrate her 83rd birthday(1934- ), and to revive the gravesite, where her parents are laid to rest, Rhodes and Nombina Lobengula (1904-1961) and her grandfather (A.N.L.kaMzilikazi, born 1880-1910) Alban Njube kaLobengula kaMzilikazi. This is quite remarkable history as she is the last remaining link to the history that needs to be unveiled, a rich African Heritage in the midst of divine Historical and Cultural Society of the City of Saints.Princess Zila Gladys Lobengula would be arriving on the 18th of March 2017, also to see the launch of Fingo Village Township Route Tour, which is hosted by King Lobengula Lodges and Tours, a newly Developed Township Heritage Route, that focuses specifically on African Heritage Assets. The Organisation also envisage to build a Museun and a Monument to live a legacy behind for the Children of the Continent in Fingo Village, and Development Plans have already started. An initiative that has been over welcomed by the Community at large, something of a relief to poor living conditions that havn't change since the dawn of democracy.Princess Zila is the last remaining daughter of Prince Rhodes Njube Lobengula and Nombina Kawa, who are buried in Fingo Village Cemetary, at Luvuyo Hall. And some of the Royal family members are also buried within the family plot, this includes Princess Zila brother Fana, and one of the King Lobengula wives, Queen Mpoliyane who is the grandmother to Rhodes.The story of Lobengula's descendants begins after the Matabeleland war of 1893, between the Colonialists, Cecil John Rhodes, and the misled King Lobengula. The aftermath led to the banishment of his eligible offspring to the throne, to a foreign land, where he was denied access back to the land of his Forefathers.For hundred and twenty three (123) years after the war the Government of South Africa has chosen to ignore this significant part of our African history. It is such an irony when the same Government and Academic Institution's such as Rhodes University chose to close their eyes, deliberately on such significant Historical issues.Our Public Institutions have publicly on media condemned the acts of Xenophobia and violent behaviour against our fellow brethren, coming from other African countries. African Renaissance and Unity is cultivated when we recognise our history as imperative to the future of our Country.We as Africans need to embrace our African Heritage irrespective of which Country we that originates, as (we) all are part of the aftermath of Colonial subjugation, and the effects are still evident today.Princess Zila's Birthday Celebration's would be held from the 23rd to 25th of March at Fingo Village, and Tours to the Gravesite are available on request.
Certainly one of the headliners of this years Geneva Motor Show is the McLaren 720S.



The car represents the British brands first all-new model since the 570S and is just the second iteration of its Super Series range. Although journalists have yet to get their hands on it, it certainly has all the right ingredients to mark another leap in McLarens short but already highly-successful history.

Prior to the cars debut in Geneva, select journalists had the chance to check out the 720S in the UK and among them was Henry Catchpole from Drive Tribe.

To explore the new 720S, we get to hear from the firms executive director of product development Mark Vinnels as well as McLarens chief designer Robert Melville.

As with every McLaren it follows, the 720S combines aesthetic appeal with a host of advanced technologies. From introducing a brand new design language set to be shared by future McLarens as well as debuting a larger 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, it really is a feast for the senses.

If youre a fan of McLaren, youll love the video below.

VIDEO
The logline:

The cheerful gods of the Olympus are rewriting the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur from the perspective of Icarus, who befriends the young Minotaur hidden in the royal palace of Knossos. When King Minos imprisons the monster in the secret labyrinth, Icarus risks it all to save his childhood friend and becomes entangled in a tragedy of manipulation and betrayal.

The Greek godsZeus, Poseidon and Aphroditeserve as the narrators and spectators of the story. They are re-imagined as newspaper journalist-gods who are trying to craft their version of the story, and the story switches between them pulling the strings from above and the mythological story in ancient Crete. The gods are cg characters, but rendered with flat lighting to merge with the painted backgrounds, like a moving illustration Vogele described.

Ancient myths are the wellspring of contemporary superhero stories, and Vogele believes that returning to the source will yield rich material for a film. The mythical heroes are ruthless and relentless, he said. They are archetypes who will sacrifice anything and anyone to fulfill their mad passion, no virtue too big, no vice too cruel. Their lack of empathy is truly chilling, but they are the bright-eyed defenders of their own justice and integrity, which makes them fascinating.

Nicolas Steil, Iris Group CEO and producer of Icarus, is setting up the film as a co-production with still-to-be-determined studio partners in Belgium and Germany.

The family film has a targeted completion date of 2019. The budget is undisclosed for now.
Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. Officer Lang Van Ngan of the Vietnam Air Force looks out the window onboard a flying AN-26 Soviet made aircraft during a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 plane over the southern sea between Vietnam and Malaysia Friday, March 14, 2014. (AP Photo/Na Son Nguyen)

Investigators have concluded that one or more people with significant flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, switched off communication devices and steered it off-course, a Malaysian government official involved in the investigation said Saturday.

No motive has been established and no demands have been made known, and it is not yet clear where the plane was taken, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory.

"It is conclusive," he said.

The Boeing 777's communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into a flight March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian officials have said radar data suggest it may have turned back toward and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital.

Earlier, an American official told The Associated Press that investigators are examining the possibility of "human intervention" in the plane's disappearance, adding it may have been "an act of piracy."

While other theories are still being examined, the U.S. official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777's transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.

The Malaysian official said only a skilled aviator could navigate the plane the way it was flown after its last confirmed location over the South China Sea, and that it appeared to have been steered to avoid radar detection. The official said it had been established with a "more than 50 per cent" degree of certainty that military radar had picked up the missing plane after it dropped off civilian radar.

Why anyone would want to do this is unclear. Malaysian authorities and others will be urgently investigating the backgrounds of the two pilots and 10 crew members, as well the 227 passengers on board.

Some experts have said that pilot suicide may be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999.

A massive international search effort began initially in the South China Sea where the plane's transponders stopped transmitting. It has since been expanded onto the other side of the Malay peninsula up into the Andaman Sea and into the Indian Ocean.

The plane had enough fuel to fly for at least five hours after its last know location, meaning a vast swath of South and Southeast Asia would be within its reach. Investigators are analyzing radar and satellite data from around the region to try and pinpoint its final location, something that will be vital to hopes of finding the plane, and answering the mystery of what happened to it.
Photo: Contributed

Our government proudly supports thriving rural communities, and were building on our record with the new Rural Economic Development Strategy.

The Rural Strategy is a commitment that builds on the investments we made in our recent balanced budget, and responds to what Ive heard directly from British Columbians living in rural communities. The strategy includes immediate investments that will lay the foundation for economic diversification in rural B.C.

Here in the Okanagan, weve seen how important it is to support our booming tech sector. Thats why were making a $40-million investment to extend high-speed Internet access to rural and remote communities, bringing faster broadband speeds that will create new economic opportunities and lay the foundation for new investment and jobs in B.C.s flourishing tech industry.

Our plan also provides an extension of the $25-million Rural Dividend Fund to reinvigorate and diversify more local economies which will ensure that British Columbians in all regions have the opportunity for good-paying jobs and a high quality of life.

Many organizations in our community have previously been supported by the Rural Dividend Fund, and Im pleased that the extension of the fund means ongoing support for our economy here at home.

Im also proud of the strategic investments we are making in another important economic generator, our environment. Weve invested $10 million to manage invasive plant species that cause significant economic and environmental damage, and to replace Crown-owned range fencing.

Additionally, well be investing $150 million for the Forest Enhancement Society of British Columbia to plant tens of millions more trees, which will help fight climate change and create over 3,000 jobs in rural British Columbia.

To further strengthen local businesses, were phasing out provincial sales tax on electricity purchases by reducing it to 3.5% in October, and will eliminate it by April 1, 2019. This will improve business competitiveness and economic performance.

We will also further support rural businesses by reducing the small business tax rate to two per cent from 2.5 per cent, effective April 2017, which means our province will have the second-lowest small business tax in Canada.

Our plan gives rural British Columbians the tools to shape their own future, and reflects the importance we place on the workers, families and businesses who reside in in the rural areas of the province.

Rural communities are the backbone of British Columbia, and I look forward to watching them strengthen and grow.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Contributed

UPDATED: March 14, 11:15 a.m.

A PhD candidate at UBC Okanagan is expected to be the BC NDP candidate for the Kelowna West riding.

Shelley Cook is so far the only contender and is expected to be acclaimed at the nomination meeting on Saturday.

Cook is currently leading two research studies on homelessness in Kelowna and is a former leader in the non-profit sector.

She has more than 20 years experience working with marginalized and vulnerable populations in community-based and institutional settings.

Cook is the third generation from her family to live in Kelowna.

After attending high school at Okanagan Mission she went on to study at Okanagan College and the University of Victoria.

Cook will be running against BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark, who won the riding in a byelection after losing her Lower Mainland seat.
Photo: The Canadian Press CSIS director Michel Coulombe

The head of Canada's spy agency says he is retiring.

Michel Coulombe told employees at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service today that he will leave the service at the end of May to move on to the next stage of his life and spend more time with his family.

In a statement on the CSIS website, Coulombe says it has been an honour to work in the national security agency.

Coulombe became director of the agency in October 2013, marking the first time the director had come from within the service.

He first joined as an intelligence officer in 1986, two years after the service was created.

Coulombe's departure marks the second high-profile retirement this month after top Mountie Bob Paulson announced he would step down as RCMP commissioner at the end of June.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A Newfoundland woman says she's lucky to be alive after a canoe came through the side of her house during the weekend windstorm that battered much of the province and left many without power through Monday.

"The wind picked it up and just brought it right in through the side of my house. Right through the siding, Gyprock, insulation. It cracked off my headboard. I was in bed at the time. It came through everything," said Theresa Power, an office worker from Freshwater, N.L., an hour's drive northwest of St. John's.

"If the headboard wasn't there, I would have got hit in the head with the boat. The headboard was cracked in three pieces, and the top part of it ended up ... down on the end of the bed."

The canoe, which belonged to an unknown neighbour, was carried aloft at about 11:30 a.m. Saturday by hurricane-like winds during a storm that left a trail of damage through a wide swath of the province, with gusts of between 140 km/h and 160 km/h.

"We were aware that a windstorm was coming on, but we thought people ... would have tied down their own property, right? Obviously whoever owned it, they didn't tie it down. Nobody is fessing up," Power said.

Newfoundland Power spokeswoman Michele Coughlan said veteran crews described the storm as worse than Hurricane Igor, which hit the southeastern part of the province in September 2010, swamping it with torrents of rain.

"We had 110 kilometre an hour sustained winds," she said of Saturday's storm. "We had cracked poles, broken cross arms, downed power lines, trees on lines and flying debris into power lines."

Crews continued Monday to tackle outages affecting thousands of customers in eastern Newfoundland.

Coughlan said 5,000 customers were still without power Monday morning  a figure down from the 70,000 that were affected at the height of the storm on Saturday. The utility hoped to restore power for most of the remaining customers by the end of the day on Monday.
Photo: Contributed

Girl Guides of Canada says it will not approve any new travel to the United States.

The organization says it decided to cancel future trips due to uncertainty over whether all of its members would equally be allowed to enter the U.S.

It says in a statement that the organization values providing safe, inclusive and accepting experiences to its members, including when travelling.

Although the U.S. is a "frequent destination" for its members, the organization says all trips including travel that requires connecting through an American airport will not be approved.

The statement says provincial advisers on international travel will contact a small number of groups that were already approved for trips to the United States about how they should proceed.

A nationally sponsored trip to a camp in California that was scheduled for this summer is also being relocated.
Photo: Contributed

Some incidents encountered during a career in policing stick with you for life and sometimes resurface later on as lessons learned.

This memory involved a mother dropping her young son off for a birthday party by pulling over and stopping on the right side of the street. He exited the car and excited to join the festivities, ran to the back and darted across the street.

He was struck and killed by a passing vehicle.



I was sent to the hospital at the beginning of the investigation to check on the mother and child because we did not know of the child's condition at the time. I knew the woman because her older son was in the Cub Pack where I was a leader.

Her anguish was terrible to see and I have no doubt that she will spend the rest of her life wishing that she had taken the extra time to pull into the driveway and let her son out of the car on safe ground.



One of my co-workers dealt with the driver of the vehicle that struck the boy, so I did not get to see him.

Do you think that he will ever forget that day? How many times will he go over the incident in his mind and try to see what he could have done to produce a different outcome?



All this flashed through my mind when I followed a pickup truck one morning last week. Children wait for the school bus on the side of the street near my home. There were already children and adults waiting ahead on my right.



The pickup moved over into the oncoming lane and stopped across from the group.

Instant deja vu.



I slowed immediately and proceeded at a walking pace between the group and the pickup, watching both sides for movement across the road. No one crossed and I was able to pass safely.



What was going on in the mind of the pickup driver? Why not pull over to the right side of the street and stop? The vehicle had no business being on the wrong side of the road.

In addition, the stop must be made with the vehicle at the right-hand edge of the roadway.



All the driver had really done was add more confusion to the situation.



In retrospect, despite what I had remembered from my past, the confusion extended to me as well.



I had a duty not to collide with a pedestrian, especially a child, and in this situation had already inferred the possibility of one being present.



In general, you are required to pass an overtaken vehicle on the left. There is an exception to this rule when there is an unobstructed lane on the right, as there was here.

However, that pass on the right can only be done if it is safe to do. Both the pickup on the wrong side of the road and the possibility of a child getting out of it to wait for the school bus made the circumstances unsafe.



I should have stopped and stayed stopped until the situation resolved itself. Moving into a position of possible conflict regardless of how slow I was going was a poor choice.



Sometimes we can make all manner of errors when we drive and it still turns out all right in the end.

However, don't let those errors become the default setting.

Story URL: http://www.drivesmartbc.ca/passing/convenience-vs-catastrophe

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Instagram

An Okanagan couple has dropped everything to travel around the world.

They call themselves the "typical" 29-year-old couple.

Brianne Boback and Pieter Martin both grew up in the in the Okanagan. Boback is from Kelowna and Martin was raised in Oliver.

They say the reason they left it all behind is because they weren't fulfilled.

"We were tired of the daily grind, working our 40-plus hours a week for a large corporation, so we decided to make a change," said Martin.

They both wanted to get as much out of life as possible, and the pair knew that a big house simply wouldn't do the job.

"We knew we didnt need the big house, the fancy cars or the large closet filled with clothes that we only wore once. What we wanted was something much more than we could get from sitting still and being complacent in our current life," he added.

"We wanted to dig into new cultures, taste authentic food and immerse ourselves into everything that this world has to offer," he added.

The pair sold both their vehicles, furniture and gave away anything that they didn't think was necessary. The first trip they made was a one-way flight to Colombia to start off the adventure of a lifetime.

The couple hopes to inspire others to get out and see what the beautiful world has to offer.

To follow along with the daily adventures that the duo discover, you can visit their blog.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 10:32AM

Credit: Herald MalaysiaEEW Magazine Faith News // Global



Is the fourth largest Muslim nation in the world and place of many terrorist activities on the path to becoming a peaceful Christian nation?

On a recent fact-finding trip to Bangladesh, Christian Freedom International President Jim Jacobson interviewed scores of indigenous Christian pastors, street evangelists, missionaries and converts to Christianity.

"Many Muslims are converting. Mostly in the rural areas," reports Jacobson.



According to them, Christianity is on the increase and the growth is a cause of concern for the Muslim majority. As a result, persecution is on the increase against the fast growing, mostly underground Christian Church.



According to official estimates, the religious composition of Bangladesh is 89.1% Muslim and 10% Hindi, with less than 1% Christian in a nation of over 156 million people. But unofficially, Christianity is much larger and growing, especially in the rural areas.



Official Reports are Wrong

Official reports on religious composition only count "traditional Christians," that is, people who are born into the Christian faith and attend government approved churches. But "converts," those who change their religion from Islam to Christianity, are not counted and no surveys have been made.



The consensus among converts is that Christians in Bangladesh make up of at least 10% of the population and that the number grows every day. Indigenous evangelists tell CFI they believe that Bangladesh will become a Christian nation in their lifetimes. If the 10% number is correct, there are at least 15,600,000 Christians in this Muslim majority nation. Evidence seems to support the claims.



More than 20,000 Converts

Pastor Khaleque, 60, a former Muslim and now a Christian street pastor who works among the hill tribes in the northeast part of Bangladesh told CFI, "In the last 12 months, more than 20,000 Muslims have converted to Christianity. More than 20,000 have converted and this is becoming a real problem for the Muslims."



Christian Freedom International has worked in Bangladesh for many years and runs numerous missions in the country. Among other projects, CFI supports a Center for disabled converts to Christianity, Child Sponsorship and Sunday School programs, and indigenous Christian pastors, evangelists, and missionaries throughout the Bangladesh.

Click here to read the full report.

RELATED: Are Christian victims of genocide abandoned? Middle East correspondent says yes
Photo: Canada Blood Services

Alberta is taking steps to prevent donors from selling their blood and plasma for a profit.

The changes are included in the Voluntary Blood Donations Act, introduced Monday in the legislature by Health Minister Sarah Hoffman.

"Donating blood should not be viewed as a business venture, but as a public resource saving lives every day," said Hoffman.

"Banning paid blood donation will make sure people are donating to the same, co-ordinated integrated blood supply network."

If the bill is passed, Alberta will join Quebec and Ontario in banning the practice.

Donating blood for money is currently a very small operation in Canada. There is a private clinic in Saskatoon and another near Winnipeg, but government officials say the legislation is to prevent any shop from setting up in Alberta.

Provinces currently fund and get blood and blood products from Canadian Blood Services, a non-profit agency.

Officials say if private firms buy blood and plasma from donors to resell on the global market, there could be a corresponding drop in donors to Canadian Blood Services.

Fines for violating the law will begin at $10,000 a day for individuals, and $100,000 a day for corporations.

The bill exempts Canadian Blood Services, and blood given purely for research purposes.

Canada gets about 17 per cent of its plasma from Canadians and buys the rest from foreign markets, mainly the United States. Canadian Blood Services is working on getting more plasma, delivered through specialized equipment, within Canada.

The Saskatoon clinic, Canadian Plasma Resources, offers donors money on a sliding scale, from $25 to $100 for the 10th donation within a certain time period.
Photo: Avalanche Canada

Highway 3 will be closed for a couple hours Monday night for avalanche control.

DriveBC says the route will be closed from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in both directions at the Kootenay Pass, about 30 kilometres west of Creston.

An alternate route is available from Nelson to Creston via Highway 3A and the Kootenay Lake Ferry  the estimated travel time is about 2.5 hours.
Photo: CTV

UPDATE: 4:50 p.m.

A man was murdered in what appears to be a targeted killing Monday outside a Surrey hotel.

Surrey RCMP say a man was shot inside his vehicle while outside the Comfort Inn & Suites on Fraser Highway at 166th Street at 2:30 p.m.

"Despite all attempts to revive the individual, he succumbed to his injuries," police say.

"The area surrounding this shooting will be cordoned off for a significant amount of time. The Integrated Homicide Team (IHIT) has been called and will be working in partnership with the Surrey RCMP."

Investigators are now gathering evidence at the scene.

"It does appear from our initial investigation that this was a targeted incident," police say.

Anyone with information is asked to contact IHIT investigators at 1-877-551-4448 or Crime Stoppers, if they wish to remain anonymous, at 1-800-222-TIPS or www.solvecrime.ca.

ORIGINAL: 3:50 p.m.

Police have cordoned off an area outside a Surrey hotel after reports of gunfire.

Witnesses report hearing up to five shots Monday afternoon outside the Comfort Inn & Suites on Fraser Highway at 166th Street.

An SUV at the scene has been draped in tarps, implying there could be a fatality.

Police have said only they are responding to a "serious incident."

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Google Street View

Drivers can expect long delays and an extended construction time on Kalamalka Lake Road following Vernon city council's decision to opt for single lane, alternating traffic during the major, $3 million road overhaul.

The decision was meant to appease businesses in the area who were worried about a plan to close a section of the road for 12-to-16 weeks, but it did not.

The alternative okayed by council will still mean a shorter, six-to-eight week road closure between Browne Road and the border with Coldstream but will add lengthier, eight-to-20 minute delays for drivers and a much longer construction period, between 20-to-24 weeks long. It will also add $279,500 to the cost.

I'm going to go through some tough times. I hope they understand that, said Dave Straughan of Uncle Dave's Pizza at the Alpine Centre, adding that some of his staff took the bus to work and wondered how they would cope with the construction schedule.

We're taxpayers and maybe we shouldn't all pay our taxes, fumed Andrea Sanzana of Mission Accomplished at the Alpine Centre.

Coun. Scott Anderson's proposal to consider a 24-hour, seven-day a week construction schedule to minimize the impact was widely cheered by the 20 or so business owners in council chambers on Monday.

The shorter we make it, the better, Anderson said. There won't be jackhammering at night.

However his motion was not seconded.

While Coun. Juliette Cunningham, a business owner herself, expressed sympathy she also pointed out that a 24/7 operation would affect the people living in 180 residential units along the road.

There are a lot of residents along there and they would be impacted more than anyone, Cunningham said. To deal with 24/7 construction, you can't sleep at night and that's a huge one for me.

Cunningham urged businesses to work with clients.

If you work with your clients and educate them about the best way to get to your business, they will come and find you.

Work required in the closure area includes storm sewer construction, embankment excavation, path and road reconstruction, staff said.
Photo: Contributed

A Sooke man reported missing last week has been found dead.

Michael Gregory Widners vehicle was found abandoned over the weekend at Poirier Lake near the Vancouver Island community.

In a Facebook post that was later deleted, family members said police informed them of the discovery. A memorial Facebook page has also been set up.

Police confirmed a body was found near Port Renfrew, but did not provide any other details.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
Photo: The Canadian Press

Manitoba is not worried about being the last province standing in a health-funding dispute with Ottawa and will not be rushed into accepting any deals, Premier Brian Pallister said Monday.

"We're standing alone. I'm not afraid of that and I'm not anything but proud of the fact we're willing to do that," Pallister told reporters.

"I'm not going to be intimidated by a threat and I'm not going to be worried about other people's deadlines. The reality is, for Manitobans, we need (federal) support and partnership."

Manitoba became the final holdout last week, when the federal government signed bilateral health agreements with Quebec, Ontario and Alberta after months of heated negotiations.

The dispute started last fall, when Ottawa said it would limit annual health-transfer increases to three per cent a year  half the six per cent annual increase set out in the last long-term agreement with the provinces.

In the ensuing months, the federal government sweetened the pot by offering extra money for specific projects  the opioid crisis in the case of Alberta and British Columbia, for example.

Pallister said the overall transfer increase being offered is not enough to keep up with the rising cost of health care. He said holding out has paid off so far because provinces other than British Columbia and Alberta, for example, will benefit from what they have managed to bargain.

"(B.C Premier) Christy Clark negotiated a side deal on opioids. Good. Good for her, because that benefits all Canadians ... and so what we're trying to do is get the best possible deal we can for Manitoba, and I expect that will benefit every other province as a consequence."

Pallister would not provide any details, such as what deadline the federal government may have set or what extras it may be offering.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

A plan for a poppy crosswalk in downtown Vernon has been nixed by the head office of the Royal Canadian Legion.

Last month, council voted in favour of the crosswalk as a way of honouring veterans, past and present, for their sacrifices to Canada.

However the Legion has strict rules about how the poppy is treated.

One of them is the poppy will never be laid on the ground because it cannot be trod upon, said Vernon Mayor Akbal Mund.

The rules were explained in a note to the local legion from the Ottawa-based Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command.

Local legion brass met with the mayor to inform him of the rules, however Mund said there is still a plan to recognize the achievements of veterans.

The plan now is to create signs honouring the vets that will be placed along a pedestrian walkway between 31st and 32nd avenues by the bus depot.

We're looking at designs right now for signage that would still give the veterans some acknowledgement for the efforts they made for a free country.

During a council meeting Monday, Mund said the pathway might be named Veterans' Way.
More than 500 children across the Okanagan are learning a unique lesson about Canada.

Decked out with moose antlers and Canadian colours, children of all ages danced and sang in front of 1,500 people on Monday at the Evangel Church in Kelowna.

"They do solo singing, fiddling, dancing, they are narrators for about 40 different characters to tell Canadas story," said Rosemary Thomson, music director and conductor.

The Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and Ecole Glenmore Elementary joined together to present Rhonda Draper's Governor General Award show, called 'How Canada came to be.'

"I couldn't find in our teaching of children, the overview of how Canada came to be," said Draper.

Draper described the performance as an interdisciplinary, arts based, large-scale, community partnership telling the story of how Canada came to be, accompanied by the Okananga Symphony Orchestra.

"It's been a mountain of work," she said. "I set out write it and inserted our Canadian folk music in it."

Thomson said they have been working on this performance since last year with the students.

Thomson said dance and singing connects both parts of the brain and allows kids who learn in different ways to hang onto history and remember it.

"That O Canada at the end... people were singing their hearts out," said Draper. "That was a moment I wondered what's that like for students as I was having my hand on my heart saying 'wow.'"

There will also be a performance in Penticton on Tuesday and in Vernon on Wednesday. The show will then return back to Kelowna for a public performance from 6 to 7 p.m on Thursday.

To purchase a ticket and take in the Canadian experience, visit the Okanagan Symphony's website.

I hope families will come and learn about Canadas history and sing along with us, said Thomson.
Photo: CTV

A man has been rushed to hospital after a shooting in North Vancouver.

RCMP arrived on scene to the 800 block of East 12th Street about 4:30 p.m.

Once they arrived, officers found a male with a gunshot wound.

Police said the scene is secure, but have not released any information on potential suspects. There is no further information on the identity or age of the victim.

The investigation is ongoing.
Photo: Facebook

Vernon Search and Rescue were called out to assist with an injured hiker Monday afternoon.

Rescue manager Leigh Pearson said a young woman and a friend were hiking in an area around Westshore Road just north of Fintry when she slipped on some ice and broke her ankle.

Pearson said it was a routine rescue.

"We knew the general area where she was," said Pearson.

Pearson said the hiker was about a mile into the forest.

"We stretchered her out. It as a pretty big trail, so that wasn't an issue," he said.

A waiting BC Ambulance took the woman to hospital for treatment.
On Bob Murphy On Mark Perry On Trade Deficits

Tweet

Bob Murphy is unhappy with a recent Mark Perry post on the balance of payments. Marks point (in summary) is that if the voluntary economic decisions of Americans and foreigners result in a U.S. current-account (trade) deficit  which is to say, a U.S. capital-account surplus of the very same amount  Americans should not be upset. The reason is that a U.S. capital-account surplus means that the American economy is a net recipient, not only of imports, but also of capital. And being a net recipient of capital is not only not necessarily a bad thing for Americans, but is likely a good thing.

Now for Bobs objection:

Now heres my problem. Suppose a populist politician in Japan starts railing against the fact that theyre getting killed by the Americans in our trade dealings. He wants to pass a measure to keep our savings here in Japan. In that case, surely Mark Perry and other economists would say thats nonsense, that the voluntary transactions of Japanese manufacturers and investors only make the country richer. Nobody in Japan should look at their aggregate statistics about current account surpluses and capital account deficits and conclude that this is somehow dangerous for Japan. But if thats trueand it surely isthen Perrys post above collapses. If a free trader would tell the people with a capital account deficit that they shouldnt be worried about the situation, then free traders shouldnt be telling Americans that having a capital account surplus is self-evidently a good thing.

I believe that Bobs objection misses the mark. A capital-account deficit (that is, a current-account surplus) is indeed more likely than is a capital-account surplus to signal a problem with the national economy. If Japan consistently runs capital-account deficits, this fact is likely evidence that good investment opportunities in Japan are too few  and made too few by poor government policies that make the investment climate in Japan less attractive than it would be absent these poor policies.

There is, however, a second possible interpretation: a capital-account deficit might reflect, not poor policies at home but, instead, such extraordinarily low time preference of the domestic population that domestic savings is so high that much of it is invested abroad  abroad where, at the margin, expected risk-adjusted rates of return on investment opportunities are higher than are those on any possible additional investment opportunities at home.

In the first scenario (in which the capital-account deficit results from, and hence reflects, an artificially low number of good domestic investment opportunities), the hypothetical populist Japanese politician that Bob mentions would be mistaken to argue in favor of policies designed to artificially prevent Japanese citizens from investing outside of Japan. Any such restriction would only inflict further economic damage upon the Japanese people: such a restriction on outward investment would prevent the Japanese people from using their savings in the most profitable ways possible. And because, in this case, the capital-account deficit reflects poor government policies toward investors and businesses  and because forcing savings to remain within Japan will likely only further worsen such policies (and will almost certainly not improve them)  this populist policy of keeping our savings at home will neither improve the performance of Japans economy nor increase the net worth of the Japanese people.

Policy-wise, pretty much the same conclusion is reached about capital controls if the capital-account deficit is plausibly described as resulting from a super-abundance of domestic savings. Even in this second scenario (in which there are no anti-business or anti-investor government policies to blame for the capital-account deficit), domestic savers nevertheless find such a large number of attractive investment opportunities abroad (in addition to what we can assume is a healthy number of attractive investment opportunities at home) that the result is a capital-account deficit. Yet despite there being a happier cause of a capital-account deficit in this second scenario than in the first scenario, Bobs populist politician would still harm his country by imposing restrictions on outward investments. In this second scenario no less than in the first, the number of relatively attractive investment opportunities at home is less than domestic savers wish to invest in. Forcing domestic savings to stay at home is unlikely to create attractive investment opportunities at home and will, therefore, reduce the net worth of the Japanese people (as those among them who would have invested profitably abroad, but are prohibited from doing so, become worth less than they would have become worth had their investment choices not been interfered with by the state).

But assessment-wise, the first scenario differs notably from the second. In the first scenario, the capital-account deficit is a symptom of poor domestic economic policies  of policies that are hostile to investors and, hence, to economic growth. In the second scenario, the capital-account deficit simply reflects a very high rate of domestic savings. We assess the first scenario with a frown and the second with a smile. Again, though, in neither case would Bobs populist politician be correct to assert that the countrys capital-account deficit is a sign that the people of the country are getting killed by current international-trading arrangements.

Coda: While I cannot speak for Mark Perry, I myself plead guilty to sometimes being unclear in my discussions of trade deficits. As I have said in my more careful moments (if not as often as I should), I well understand that a trade deficit might be a symptom of some domestic economic problem. For example, a U.S. trade deficit might be a symptom of excessive borrowing by Uncle Sam.* Yet even if and when a trade deficit is genuinely symptomatic of domestic economic problems, those problems will not be solved by attacking the symptom.

.

* Note that even if we all agree that Uncle Sam borrows excessively and spends wastefully, and even if this excessive borrowing and wasteful spending coincides with a U.S. current-account deficit, it might still be the case that the current-account deficit, on net, is evidence of positive economic performance in the U.S. The private U.S. economy might be so strong, and institutions other than the government fisc so attractive relative to those of other countries, that the chief cause of the U.S. trade deficit is not Uncle Sams profligacy.

Comments
Photo: CTV

The B.C. government is giving the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver $100,000 to increase security measures after a community centre received two bomb threats in one week.

The Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver received an email bomb threat on Sunday, days after a similar threat required an evacuation of the facility.

Premier Christy Clark says it's unfortunate the province is not immune to growing threats against Jewish communities around the world.

Clark says in a statement the threats do not represent the province. Rather, she says the outpouring of support to the Jewish community represents B.C.

The Jewish Federation says it will use the funds to create a security grant program to help local agencies upgrade their existing security measures.

Those agencies operate 21 buildings in Vancouver and eight others across the Lower Mainland that serve both Jewish and non-Jewish groups.

"The Greater Vancouver Jewish community is deeply grateful to the provincial government for standing with us at this difficult time," said Stephen Gaerber, the federation's board chair.
Photo: Colin Dacre The students presenting to the SD67 board (left to right, Dustin, Heather, Shantel, Cale)

The Penticton Secondary Diversity Club paid a visit to the Okanagan Skaha school board on Monday night.

Four students gave a series of brave presentations on their experience as LGBTQ youth and their allies at Pen High, outlining their passionate support for a new LGBTQ policy adopted by the district last month.

When we embrace things like this, when we pass these policies, when people start to support this change, it will have such an incredible significant impact on students like me, like us, we are real people too, said Grade 12 student Cale Raymond.

This is not just a piece of paper we're signing anymore, its become about human rights, he added, after telling a story about the first time a friend stood up for him following years of bullying about his perceived sexuality.

Heather Lieskovosky talked about how a group of fellow students yelled slurs at them from a car as they drove by, but also praised a teacher for throwing a student out of her classroom for calling another a faggot.

Dustin Montgomery, a female-to-male transgender Grade 9 student, told trustees about a classmate that has relentlessly mocked his gender through text messages.

Countless people have talked to him and asked him to just straight up leave me alone I still continuously wake up to texts from him saying that my gender is fake and that I am worthless.

Shantelle Bishop, Grade 12, also spoke and helped outline the diversity clubs favourite things about the new sexual orientation policy.

The students say that the new gender neutral bathrooms mean a lot to them, as does the language that calls on staff and students to recognize the injustices of marginalization. They also praised the policy for making it easier for everyone to keep current with LGBTQ vocabulary.

There are so many things we could discuss with these changes, there is so much to cover, Raymond said. But what is really important, is that we are out here now and we are speaking.

"Because really the change is always going to start with real people carrying on the values, he told trustees.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

The Okanagan Skaha school board voted Monday to send another letter to Penticton RCMP requesting a full-time school liaison officer.

The last time the school board made the request, RCMP Supt. Kevin Hewco was on his way out the door for his retirement, and SD 67 never received a response.

But with Insp. Ted De Jager set to take over control of the detachment later this year, trustees have decided to try their luck with the new boss.

Back when I was principal, we used to have a liaison officer that we could contact at any given moment, trustee Bill Bidlake said.

It was mainly on the prevention side, rather than the reaction side, he added. It was very valuable, that person was heavily involved in the community, the kids all knew them, so when they came into your school it wasnt a big deal that a police officer was there.

However, over time the role as been phased out at the Penticton RCMP detachment.

Superintendent Wendy Hyer said that in case there is an incident, a liaison officer who is available Monday to Friday can be a big help in addressing any safety concerns, whereas right now, when you phone a member, sometimes it's difficult to follow up on the issue because they are four days on, four days off.

Hyer also pointed out that the surrounding school districts have school liaison officers of their own.

Send us a letter. Got an opinion on this story? Email letters to the editor to [email protected]
Photo: Contributed

The City of West Kelowna is dealing with filthy fallout from a spike in homelessness.

Transients are to blame for a large increase in vandalism and vile messes in West Kelowna, according to a report by city staff.

The report, prepared by parks and fleet supervisor Stacey Harding, says numerous parks in the community have been affected by broken glass, intentional damage, public defecation and urination, graffiti, camp fires and litter.

Meanwhile, businesses are having to clean urine and feces from stairwells. There is concern needles are hidden in the landscaping.

Nearby seniors homes have been impacted by noise.

"The nature of the garbage and items left behind for disposal exposes staff and the public to biohazards of numerous kinds and has enhanced concerns that staff may potentially be exposed to new, dangerous chemicals such as fentanyl," says the report.

Transients are drinking and smoking marijuana in the local library bathrooms, and in several instances, condoms have been found by staff.

The vandalism has also come at a financial cost to replace doors, picnic tables and washroom fixtures. There is also a cost to clean up public washrooms, with people defecating on the floor or even inside the toilet tank.

The south community entrance sign has been shot at with a low-calibre weapon.

West Kelowna has been fighting the vandalism by installing surveillance cameras and increasing security.

The increase in transients is being caused in part by the installation of new facilities, including a new shelter  which police say has increased crime in the area.

"These are unfortunate spinoffs from the (Emmanuel Assembly) Church's honourable, humanitarian efforts to better our community," says the report.

The report says city staff are investigating solutions.
UPDATE: 12:30 p.m.

Al Withers and his BC Hydro crew first noticed smoke coming from a property on Sussex Road in West Kelowna Tuesday morning. When they investigated the source, they found an RV trailer fully engulfed in flames.

"We knocked on the door and alerted the people that owned the home," Withers said. "We turned off the propane and removed the bottle."

He said the flames were shooting from the RV, licking at the tree above it and coming close to the nearby home.

Cpt. Bob Peters of the West Kelowna Fire Rescue said they hadn't determined the cause of the blaze as of Tuesday morning, but the owner said they didn't have a heater inside of it.

"Right now we're just pulling through the rubble to try and see what may have caused it," Peters said.

The nearby house remained unscathed, and no one was injured in the blaze.

ORIGINAL: 11:20 a.m.

Firefighters in West Kelowna doused an RV blaze that was parked next to a home.

The fire happened Tuesday before 11 a.m. on Sussex Drive.

The RV was heavily damaged, though it appears firefighters kept damage to the home to a minimum.

Castanet will have more details as they become available.

 with files from Nicholas Johansen
Photo: HelloBC

The Town of Olivers long running quest to attract a full service hotel may be coming to fruition.

At Monday night's council meeting, Mayor Ron Hovanes announced that the town has received an offer from Mundi Hotel Enterprises to buy two acres of town-owned land, currently the Centennial RV Park.

In January the town sent a letter out to dozens of hoteliers in Western Canada asking them to consider Oliver in their expansion plans.

We are quite excited. The Mundi Group is talking about an 80-room hotel, with a pool and restaurant, Hovanes said, adding that the development fits so well, with their plans for the downtown.

The mayor said they had actually accepted a tentative offer for a hotel on the site years ago, only to have it to fall through with the 2008 recession. The town has already completed a feasibility study, and cited the lack of a full service hotel as a significant barrier to economic development.

The current lease holders of the RV Park have the rights to run the park for this tourist season, so no sale can be completed until the first week of October.

But this developer, the expressions he is giving us, is that he is ready to move right away, Hovanes said, adding that council has directed staff to look at moving around infrastructure resources this year to deal with the potential project.

Mundi Hotel Enterprises currently owns and operates hotels under the Coast, Best Western, Holiday Inn and Riverland Inn brands in Kamloops, Edmonton and Lethbridge.
It's called a Tactical Armoured Vehicle or TAV - and, it's the latest tool in the RCMP's crime fighting arsenal.

Photo: Contributed - RCMP

The national police force purchased 18 of these armoured vehicles back in July for use by Emergency Response Teams across the country.

One of these arrived in the Okanagan in late January.

It will be based out of Kelowna for use by the Southeast District Emergency Response Team.

The vehicle has been cruising Kelowna streets over the past few days on training exercises.

According to a factsheet supplied by the RCMP the TAV will be utilized by ERT's as their primary support vehicle when responding to calls.

They are adaptable and designed to maximize safety for a wide range of incidents the ERT's face including hostage takings, armed standoffs, barricaded persons and search and rescue operations.

The vehicles provide a 360 degree observation tower, advanced ballistic and explosive protection and have impressive off-road capabilities.

"We're proud to have acquired this impressive tool," stated RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson when the vehicles were delivered.

"It will help keep our members safe and increase their ability to intervene when communities face dangerous circumstances."

The vehicles were designed and built by Navistar Defence Canada Inc. after years of research and development.

"We could not use just any vehicle," added Paulson.

"We needed a very specifically designed, multi-use armoured vehicle tailored to the unique needs of a national police force in Canada."

Information specs on the TAV:
Katrina Kaif is about to start shooting for Tiger Zinda Hai with Salman Khan

Katrina Kaif was shooting for her long in making film Jagga Jasoos last week and injured her back. The actress had to pull out of an award show at the last moment due to her back injury. It was reported that Katrina has been asked to take a rest for couple of days. However it looks like that the actress could manage to take only few days off as she had to fly to Austria to begin shooting for Ali Abbas Zafars Tiger Zinda Hai. A source says, Both Salman and Katrina have left on Monday night to Austria, the rest of the crew is already in the country to finish pre production. They are likely to join them this week and start shooting in a freezing temperature.

It is said that Katrina had hurt her back and neck on the sets of Jagga Jasoos which stars Ranbir Kapoor and is directed by Anurag Basu. A source says, Katrina consulted her doctor and decided to relax as she hardly had any time in hand to recover. She was supposed to fly out of town and it was pre decided and she was not really in favour of pushing the schedule. It is a long schedule and Katrina will also have to perform some stunt so it would be a tough task for her.

Tiger Zinda Hai is a sequel to Kabir Khans Ek Tha Tiger which features Salman and Katrina and it is set to release during in Christmas this year.
Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi on Tuesday said that border issues between Kathmandu and New Delhi should be resolved diplomatically and politically.

He made the remarks while commenting on the alleged killing of a Nepali citizen by the Indian security force.

"Whatever happens at the border should be resolved diplomatically and politically. For this there is a joint technical team between India and Nepal," Nidhi, who is presently in New Delhi, told ANI while urging India to investigate the matter seriously and punish those at fault.

"I have said to the Government of India from Nepal and I will say it from here also that once his (the deceased's) post-mortem and forensic investigation is done the truth will be known. There should be action," he added.

India has already launched an inquiry into the death of a Nepalese citizen, Govinda Gautam, during a clash on the border.

According to media reports, the local residents said Gautam, 20, of Kanchanpur district in southwestern Nepal, was hit by shots allegedly fired by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel after a dispute over the construction of a culvert by the Nepalese authorities.

Officials from both sides have been in touch to carry on with the investigation.

-ANI
Supplying Georgia

Published 13 March 2017

A new plant has been launched by Georgian Cement Company (GCC) in partnership with LafargeHolcim. ICR spoke with Merab Chikhradze, founder of GCC, to find out the latest developments in the Georgian cement market as well as what has been happening at the works. By ICR Research, UK.

ICR: What decisions had to be made after the LafargeHolcim merger in terms of grinding systems, philosophies and systems to be adopted at Poti? Is the plant still mainly set up on operational systems that were employed by Lafarge or have there been benefits from introducing former Holcim practices as well?

Merab Chikhradze (MC): The merger of Lafarge and Holcim happened during the final stages of our plant construction. As for the implementation of our project, we preferred a non-turnkey solution, and therefore, the support from the LafargeHolcim technical centre was vital. This was a great opportunity and our staff were involved on both the process and civil engineering side, which provided us with a good understanding of the construction activity and allowed us to gain specific knowledge for subsequent operations.

To continue reading this story and get access to all News, Articles and Video sections of the CemNet.com website, please Register for a subscription to International Cement Review or Login
(TNS)  COLUMBUS, Ohio -- State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria will delay finalizing Ohio's education and accountability plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) until September, he announced this afternoon.DeMaria said the delay, which educators across Ohio have called for, will allow more time to review statewide testing and other issues before finishing the plan."This also will allow more time to ensure that feedback received on the draft template can be considered carefully," DeMaria said in announcing the delay.DeMaria told the state school board that he had not intended the plan to be divisive, but it had become so.At the same school board meeting, DeMaria also announced plans for a detailed review of state testing by the fall, as well as plans to suggest changes in teacher evaluations.He also announced that he is creating a series of committees to create a five-year vision for education in the state, separate from the ESSA plan.In addition, a separate workgroup has been meeting the last few months to recommend a change in the state's high school graduation requirements -- a key driver of the tests students must take -- by next month.DeMaria's decision drew immediate praise from the Ohio Federation of Teachers, board members, and from State Rep. Andrew Brenner and State Sen. Peggy Lehner, who chair the education committees of the state legislature.Educators across Ohio have blasted the Ohio Department of Education in hearings this month for not listening to residents' demands for less testing and simpler state report cards in the draft ESSA plan.In a hearing with legislators last week, representatives of the Cleveland, Shaker Heights and Twinsburg school districts joined Akron-area superintendents and officials from other parts of the state in calling for a delay on those plans.They wanted the plans, required to be filed with the U.S. Department of Education to be adjusted and filed in September, not early April as ODE had planned.Joining that call were the state's two large teachers unions, the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers.Those voices came on top of already loud complaints from districts in Lorain and western Cuyahoga County that the state's proposed ESSA plan is lacking.Their demands, though not unanimous in every case, are:- Cut standardized testing to the federal minimum of 17 tests over the kindergarten through 12th grade years. The plan keeps the 24 tests Ohio has now, despite ESSA allowing a reduction.- If not cutting tests, at least make them more useful to teachers and students.- Drop the A through F grades on state report cards in favor of less judgmental and more descriptive terms like "meets standards" or "meets expectations."- Make some of the report card measures like "K-3 Literacy" and "Prepared for Success" easier to understand.Educators told the Joint Education Oversight Committee, a bi-partisan panel of Ohio House and Senate members, that they are most frustrated that they participated in surveys and hearings last year to give input on the ESSA plan, only to have ODE ignore their wishes."We are alarmed that the feedback gathered during these stakeholder meetings does not appear to have been included in Ohio's plan," written testimony from the Akron Area Superintendents Association states.See the full testimony here Twinsburg Superintendent Kathryn Powers agreed."I was surprised to find the draft plan lacking in the feedback provided during those stakeholder sessions," she says in her written testimony.Click here to see Powers' testimony ESSA replaces many federal requirements for states and schools under the old No Child Left Behind laws with more limited rules and new freedom for states to set their own direction.ODE prepared its new plan and just finished gathering feedback on it.
The Lee University Composers Forum will host its second annual concert on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Squires Recital Hall.

The Composers Forum is a student organization that fosters camaraderie and creativity among student composers and songwriters. The performance will feature new compositions by Lee students.

I am so glad these students have a venue for showcasing their creative work, said Dr. John Wykoff, assistant professor of music theory and composition. For most of them, it will be the first time theyve had a public performance of their own music. My hope is that this will spur them on to do more creative work."

The program will include music by Lee students Kadison Beaver, Michael Catanzaro, Eric Harper, Candace Lambert, McKenzie Stephens, and Nora Swindle.

I am so excited that we have an event like this to display the talent of our student composers," said Briahnna Sullivan, president of the Lee Composers' Forum. "They have worked hard, and this is an event that I will be sure to attend."

This is a free, non-ticketed event, and is open to the public. For more information about the concert or Lees School of Music, call 614-8240 or visit http://www.leeuniversity.edu/academics/music.
Frye Gaillard and Anne E DeChant will bring their multi-media show Watermelon Wine: The Poetry of Americana Music to Charles and Myrtle's Coffeehouse on Saturday, April 15, at 8 p.m. The coffeehouse is at 105 McBrien Road. There is a $10 suggested donation at the door.

Review for Frye Gaillard and Anne E. DeChant:

In his award-winning book, Watermelon Wine, Gaillard maintains that great songwriters, like DeChant, explore the depths of the human heart with all the subtlety and feeling of our finest novelists and poets.

DeChant's CD The Sun Coming In, has charted in the top 10 on multiple Roots Music Report charts including a #1 on the Alternative Folk Song Chart and a #6 on the Top 50 Ohio Album Chart. This past summer DeChant opened for Melissa Etheridge at Cain Park in Cleveland and wrote, recorded and performed the theme song for the 2016 Transplant Games of Cleveland.

Anne E. DeChant first caught the attention of music fans as the charismatic front woman of Cleveland's Odd Girl Out, showcasing her astute, socially aware songs. Following the band's breakup, she went on to a busy solo career, producing seven albums. The title track from her 2007 release, "Girls and Airplanes" was featured in the film, The Hot Flashes, starring Brooke Shields and Wanda Sykes and in the 2013 documentary, The Vetters, All We Needed. She last performed in Johnson City at The Acoustic Coffeehouse in August of 2015.

Frye Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama, and recipient of the 2016 Eugene Current-Garcia Distinguished Scholar Award, has written extensively on southern race relations, politics and culture. He is former Southern Editor at The Charlotte Observer, where he covered Charlottes landmark school desegregation controversy, the ill-fated ministry of televangelist Jim Bakker, the funeral of Elvis Presley, and the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Gaillard has written or edited more than 20 books, and his award-winning titles include the following: Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina; Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music; If I Were a Carpenter: Twenty Years of Habitat for Humanity; Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy; and As Long As the Waters Flow: Native Americans in the South and East.

Gaillard now lives on the Alabama Gulf Coast with his wife, Nancy, who teaches in the College of Education at the University of South Alabama.



More information may be found at http://www.anneedechant.com, http://anneedechant.com/watermelon-wine-and-the-poetry-of-americana-music and http://fryegaillard-about.blogspot.com/.
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on Monday released the following statement on his vote to confirm Seema Verma to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:

As the architect of Indianas Medicaid expansion, Seema Verma has a thorough understanding of how changing the direction of CMS will allow states to be more flexible and innovative. I look forward to working with her as Congress and the president work to move health care decisions out of Washington and back to the states.

Senator Alexander met with Ms. Verma on Jan. 12, and serves as the chairman of the Senates health committee.
Nine members of the TED Ed club wrote their own TED scripts and presented them to family and friends, demonstrating their skills in essay writing and public speaking.

In its third year at GPS, TED Ed has been a club for girls interested in viewing TED talks by people in a range of fields and in writing their own TED scripts to deliver them before club members who offer advice, critiques, and encouragement.

Members of the club presented their TED Ed talks to an audience of friends and family on Friday. After a welcome and introduction by TED Ed founder and president Anna Shaw, nine members demonstrated their skills in public speaking, delivering thoughtful and humorous essays.

The talks began with Nadia Herrera drawing comparisons between people and otters, who, she noted, teach themselves, use tools, and care for one another. Next, Leighetta Sherrill drew upon the piano as a metaphor for life, noting that both take practice. Sarah McDougal celebrated Isaac Newton, an inspiration and dreamer.

Effie Rustands talk was about social media and its control over ones feelings of insecurity; Samantha Jacksons thoughtful presentation spoke of culture and the color of ones skin. The sunset, in all its various hues, is seen as perfect, she said, before asking why the hues of skin color cant be seen the same way. Rebecca Torrence presented advice on how to have a conversation with someone of a different political persuasion that is polite discourse and that seeks to understand the others view.

Procrastination was a topic made funny by Emily Wu, who said, We can always depend on it to ruin our lives. Jayden Doan questioned the power of censorship, and Lindsey Wyatt spoke of her desire to tell peoples stories, in particular the things people dont say.

The TEDx event (the x meaning that it was independently organized) gave credence to the words of TED CEO Chris Anderson, who said, The only thing that truly matters in public speaking is not confidence, stage presence, or smooth talking. It is having something worth saying.
Two McCallie Upper School and two Middle School students were recognized as the top winners in their divisions in the EPB Black History Month Poetry Contest.

The annual contest is open to students in grades 1-12, and EPB received 141 entries this year. McCallie students were four of eight students recognized in the contest.

In the Middle School division, poems by eighth-graders Jonas Mull and Alex Williams were chosen as the two winning poems. Jonas and Alex are students in Tammy Barber's English Class.

Jonas wrote about World War II hero Doris Miller, a U.S. Navy cook who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. Alex's "A Window into the Soul" was a broader look at the struggle to achieve Civil Rights.

In the Upper School competition, sophomores David Horne and Ryan Huynh took the two winning spots. David and Ryan are students taught by English teacher Sam Currin '03.

David wrote about author and inventor William Kamkwamba, who built a wind-powered generator to help his family in the African national of Malawi. Kamkwamba visited McCallie in September 2016 to speak about his book "The Boy Who Harnassed The Wind" which tells the story of how education helped his family and gave him a chance at a better life.

Ryan's poem was about his admiration of former President Barack Obama.

These four boys and their English teachers will be honored at special banquet Thursday. In addition, the winners and their teachers will each receive a prize of $100.
The Tennessee State Museum is seeking family photographs of Tennesseans who fought during the Civil War. The images could become part of an exhibit in the new museum, currently under construction on the Bicentennial Mall in downtown Nashville.

Both the State Museum and State Library and Archives currently have Civil War soldier photographs in their collections, but the museums curators would like to encourage Tennesseans who have ancestors who fought in the Civil War to share any photographs they might have.

Our goal is to feature the faces of Tennesseans who went to war  both Union and Confederate soldiers, Richard White, museum curator, said. While we have photos as part of our collection, as we build the new museum and plan for the Civil War exhibit, we thought this was an opportune time to ask for submissions of photos that we may not have seen over the years.

Submitted photographs do not need to show soldiers in uniform, but they do need to show them around the time of the war or right after the war (1861-1867).

The images will be showcased in the new Civil War exhibit with the soldiers name and county listed. The museum hopes to include many of the photographs, but cannot promise to use all photographs it receives.

The museum asks that only copies of photos are submitted, not originals. Entries may be submitted digitally or through the mail and should include the soldiers name, the Tennessee county where he was from, and the unit with which he served (if known.) Please include contact information, email or phone number, in the event that the museum staff has questions. Documents will not be returned.

Copies should be mailed (no originals) to:

Civil War Soldier Photographs

Tennessee State Museum

505 Deaderick Street

Nashville, TN 37243-1120

To submit an ancestors photograph digitally, send the image to CWFaces@tnmuseum.org.

The digital image must be high resolution, at least 300 dpi.

If you dont have a scanner at home, we recommend that you visit a nearby photo center and have the image scanned or copied there. White added.

All entries, whether by mail or digital submission, must be received by April 25, 2017. For questions, email CWfaces@TNmuseum.org or call 615.253.0108.

About the Tennessee State Museum:

The Tennessee State Museum was established by law in 1937 to bring together the various collections of articles, specimens, and relics now owned by the State under one divisional head, and to provide for a transfer of exhibits wherever they may be

Today, the Tennessee State Museum is housed in the James K. Polk building in downtown Nashville, where it has been for nearly 35 years.

Gov. Bill Haslam proposed and the Tennessee General Assembly approved $120 million in the FY-2015-16 budget to build a new home for the Tennessee State Museum on the Bicentennial

Mall to maximize the states rich history by creating a state-of-the-art educational asset and tourist attraction for the state. The governor also announced that $40 million would be raised in private funds for the project.

A 140,000 square foot facility is being built on the northwest corner of the Bicentennial Mall at the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and Jefferson Street to tell Tennessees story in a way that the museum is unable to do in its current and outdated location by showcasing one-of-a-kind artifacts, art and historical documents in an interactive and engaging way.

Additional information on the Tennessee State Museum can be found at tnmuseum.org and the new museum can be found at tnmuseum2018.org.
Tennessee Chamber President and CEO Bradley Jackson on Tuesday named longtime manufacturing veteran and Hamilton County resident Denise Rice as the incoming Director of the Tennessee Manufacturers Association. Founded in 1912, the Tennessee Chamber serves as the Tennessee Manufacturers Association and is the exclusive statewide partner with the National Association of Manufacturers.

A former manufacturing plant manager and operations director for Cormetechs manufacturing facility in Cleveland, Tennessee, Ms.

Ms. Rice is also a renowned advocate for engaging young students in industrial education and STEM learning, working with Cleveland State Community Colleges OneSource Workforce Readiness Center and serving as an industry advisor to Cleveland High and Walker Valley High Schools engineering programs. In her new role, she will be responsible for planning and directing organizational and programmatic activities for the Tennessee Manufacturers Association under the operational umbrella of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

In announcing her appointment, Tennessee Chamber Board Chairman Greg Martz said, After an extensive search, we are thrilled that Denise will be joining the Tennessee Chamber. Having managed a facility in Tennessee, Denise understands the challenges of manufacturers and is uniquely qualified to spearhead operations for Tennessees premier manufacturing advocacy organization.

Its an honor to work with manufacturers and the state chamber. Manufacturing in Tennessee has a long and rich history, and I look forward to leveraging both the existing statewide manufacturing network of the Tennessee Chamber and growing our outreach and work around manufacturing, added Ms. Rice.
Advertorial





Kick off this coming weekend with a dance performance right in the heartlands of Yishun on Saturday:

1. District 27

Next, spend the Sunday afternoon at a unique childrens theatre show!

2. A Dragon Behind The Door & More!

The kids will most probably be still on a high after the show, so pop over to Tampines for an interactive Wayang Kulit show!





3. Wow! Wayang

Take a breather for the week, and wake up next Sunday morning for a musical trail around Yishun. It's highly recommended!

4. Arts Imprints Around My Neighbourhood 

(HIGHLIGHT!)

Whether you are a child, parent, grandparent, or someone looking to explore the arts in your neighbourhood, this is one immersive musical experience to rediscover Yishun!





Starting from either Chong Pang Amphitheatre or Yishun Neighbourhood Park, follow the footsteps of the musicians to uncover the story of Yishun, one of the oldest estates in Singapore. Expect a fun-filled experience from pop-up music performances to learning simple drumming techniques and ending on a high note with a special finale concert at GV Yishun cinema!

Following two successful runs in Toa Payoh and Bedok, this musical trail around the Yishun neighbourhood is the third and final one in the series.

*Transport will be provided for the trail which will end at GV Yishun Cinema. *Programme is in English and Mandarin. *Registration is required. To register for the programme, visit http://aynmar2017artsimprints.peatix.com

End off the week with a multicultural musical that fuses the best of multi-ethnic sounds.



5. Water: A Musical Tribute

by Nawaz Mirajkar

Date: 26 March 2017 (SUN) Time: 7.30pm Venue: Chong Pang Amphitheatre



Inspired by the diverse forms of water, this multi-ethnic performance celebrates the beauty, strength and life of the water element. Fusing Indian, Chinese, and western instruments, this multicultural musical and percussive extravaganza led by Nawaz Mirajkar will leave you wanting for more!



Over the 2 weeks, you can also bring the kids down to the following art installations too:





6. Whisper to a Roar

by Angie Seah

Date: Now until 23 March 2017 Venue: Woodlands Civic Centre



Inspired by the everyday sounds of living in an HDB flat, this sound installation draws on the voices, music and sounds from the surroundings such as conversations at void deck or frying of the carrot cake at the hawker centre.

Visitors are invited to select their own favourite everyday sounds to create a symphony of their neighbourhood.

7. The Real Estates by Jean Loo

Date: Now until 29 March 2017 Venue: Nee Soon East Courtyard





In the third and final instalment of The Real Estates, artist Jean Loo and her team of photographers draw inspiration and uncover the unique sights, sounds and stories from the Yishun neighbourhood. Visit the installation featuring a rich visual tapestry of photographs that showcases familiar sights and scenes in everyday Yishun and pen down what the neighbourhood means to you.

Oh, and if you are down for any one of the events, remember to redeem your FREE AYN Tote Bags there! All you have to do is to like Arts for All's Facebook page and Instagram account. While stocks last!!!







For full programme listings and to download programme brochure, visit:



Better yet, follow Arts For All's Facebook page at For full programme listings and to download programme brochure, visit: https://artsforall.sg/initiatives/arts-in-your-neighbourhood/arts-in-your-neighbourhood.aspx Better yet, follow Arts For All's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/artsforall.sg and Instagram account (@artsforallsg) to stay updated on the latest happenings of upcoming events and shows!

If there's one thing I learnt about the Arts since becoming a parent, it will be one does not need to be all arty-farty to appreciate and enjoy art performances. In fact, compared to when Ash was born 12 years ago, I would say that the arts scene in Singapore has definitely evolved and become more accessible to everyone.Like how some of the arts experiences can now be found at one's doorsteps... or even quirky places like West Coast Playground!Last November, we attended a free puppet show at the outdoor playground and I was mightily impressed at how it incorporated the Spiderweb structure into part of the show. Not only did the kids love it, even the adults laughed so heartily!The puppet show was part of the Arts in Your Neighbourhood (AYN) programme under the Arts for All initiative by the National Arts Council. Aimed at bringing enriching arts experiences to your doorsteps, AYN is back again this March which will feature a series of free and enjoyable arts activities by established artists and arts groups, at various parts of the island.This time around, AYN will be focusing on the northern part of Singapore to rediscover the neighbourhood of Yishun, with brand new activities happening from now to 26 March 2017.- Did you know Yishun used to be a pineapple plantation back in the 1900s? Also, Yishun is the Mandarin romanisation of Nee Soon, named after Lim Nee Soon for his contributions to the development of the district as well as his pioneering efforts in the rubber industry. Lim owned rubber and pineapple plantations in many areas, and rubber processing factories.Outside of Yishun, there are other activities happening at other locations in Singapore too. Audiences can get ready to be treated to a delightful line-up of, ranging from dance, music and theatrical performances, to interactive visual art installations and fringe activities.AYN is already in full swing during this week of March School Holidays and with 2 more weekends to go before it ends, I have curated an itinerary of fun-filled arts programmes that you can follow over the next 2 weeks.P7:1SMA presents an immersive performance that draws inspiration from the lost landmarks of Yishun and Sembawang such as Sultan Theatre, Naval Base and the coconut groves of Kampong Wak Hassan.Follow the dancers and musicians as they perform amidst the hustle and bustle of the hawker centre and daily convenience shops in the heart of the Yishun neighbourhood. Look forward to a unique choreography that combines both contemporary and traditional Malay dance moves with captivating music compositions from OrkeStar Trio.Join Mini and her father on their amazing journey when they have to stay at Aunt Trixies house after waking up to find their house overrun with spotted beetles. Grab a seat in a spotted beetle and get swept away in a magical, fun-filled journey where the imagination takes flight of puppets, larger-than-life characters, music and surprises a-plenty!And thats not all! Wander through specially crafted Curious Houses, where families can explore, make believe and bond over craft activities from weaving a dragon, making a spotted beetle puppet to creating your very own mini pop-up theatre.*Fringe activities will take place on 18/19 March (Toa Payoh HDB Hub) from 11am to 7pm.Relive the good old kampong days through this traditional shadow play performance, accompanied by live gamelan music, as stories come to life on a larger-than-life jumbo screen.From traditional folktales of princes and their adventures to modern day superhero characters, watch closely as these stories unfold through puppetry and the juxtaposition of traditional and modern presentation. Audiences will have a chance to try out the different Wayang Kulit puppets during the performance.
Chicago-based Motorola Solutions has sued China's Hytera Communications, accusing the radio-maker of infringing on patents and using secrets stolen by poached employees.

Motorola Solutions filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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The suit alleges three Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) employees stole more than 7,000 files related to its proprietary products and technologies and took them to their subsequent employer, Hytera Communications Corporation Limited, based in Shenzhen, China.

The three senior radio engineers named in the suit are Gee Siong (G.S.) Kok, now Hytera's senior vice president responsible for digital technologies; Samuel Chia, now software engineering director at Hytera; and Yih Tzye (Y.T.) Kok, now Hytera's sales director.

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Hytera was a distributor for Motorola products until 2001 and now supplies mostly analog radio equipment, the suit says.

"Motorola's investment in innovating digital radio was rendering Hytera's outdated analog systems obsolete," Motorola Solutions' lawyers wrote in the complaint. Rather than invest in developing their own digital products, they stole Motorola's ideas, the lawyers allege.

The suit alleges that, starting in 2008, Hytera poached three Motorola engineers who had knowledge of and access to Motorola's intellectual property. It claims the theft of more than 7,000 files was intentionally hidden from Motorola so that it would not be discovered until years later.

Mark Hacker, general counsel and chief administrative officer of Motorola Solutions, said the company "very recently" learned Hytera was using its patented technologies, copying everything from specific product features to product manuals. That triggered an investigation that uncovered a "deliberate and systematic scheme," he said, and led Motorola Solutions to file a trade secrets misappropriation claim along with the patent infringement claim, he said.

In 2008, Motorola Solutions already had robust systems to prevent the removal of intellectual property, which indicates the removal of files at that time was a deliberate act, Hacker alleged. He said the company is always improving its internal systems in this regard.

The lawsuit, he said, is a matter of protecting the company's intellectual property. Motorola Solutions has invested $3.5 billion in research and development over the last five years, Hacker said.

"This is all about stopping Hytera from continuing to use the trade secrets that they stole from Motorola and to stop them from infringing our patents," he said.

That includes seeking enjoinment that would prevent Hytera from selling or importing products into the United States, he said.

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A spokesman from Hytera acknowledged the company was aware of Motorola Solutions' lawsuit and said the company upholds a high ethical standard for business and complies with laws and regulations in the markets where it operates.

"Hytera firmly believes that its business practices and operations will be fully vindicated," he wrote in an email to Blue Sky. "Hytera aspires to and will continue to be the trusted partner for our customers and a respectful global citizen.

aelahi@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @aminamania
Kelly O. Williams of Paige and Paxton, speaks during aWiSTEM pitch event at 1871 in July 2016 in Chicago. (Kristen Norman / Blue Sky)

Two of Chicago's highest-profile organizations for entrepreneurs are joining forces for the first time to bolster women-led enterprises.

The nonprofit Women's Business Development Center will train the overflow of 1871 Chicago's WiSTEM accelerator hopefuls, providing an alternative source of support for fledgling companies. Rejected applicants will be encouraged to use WBDC resources and reapply.

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"This relationship is the result of recent conversations we were having, given that we both are looking to serve business owners and want to encourage more women to start their own businesses," said Lakshmi Shenoy, vice president of strategy and business development at 1871. "It made sense given our shared mission."

WiSTEM had more than 70 applicants for about 12 slots in its upcoming cohort, its fourth. Under the new collaboration, WiSTEM will refer applicants that don't make it into the accelerator to WBDC offerings, including business planning courses, webinars and online courses, and access to advisers, group and individual counseling, and direct lending.

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"It will be one way to demonstrate how we work together to benefit the community," said Emilia DiMenco , president and CEO of the Women's Business Development Center. "For WiSTEM, instead of saying 'No' to the other applicants, they can say 'Not yet.'"

WiSTEM, launched in fall 2015 to connect women founders to funders and tech resources, is expanding this year to three 12-week cohorts annually, up from two 16-week cohorts in 2016. Thirty-seven companies and 45 entrepreneurs have gone through the program.

WiSTEM and 30-year-old WBDC are both partners of the U.S. Small Business Administration, which encouraged the alliance, DiMenco said.

Some WBDC programs are free; others carry fees ranging up to $250, with sliding scales based on the user's ability to pay.

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.

Twitter @cherylvjackson
A lone medical researcher hunches over her work in a quiet lab.

Meanwhile, down the street, doctors bounce from patient to patient in a hospital filled with noise and activity.

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A new $550 million Chicago hospital facility will merge both of those scenes in hopes of bringing discoveries to patients sooner. Scientists, physicians and patients will all work together at the new Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Streeterville, set to open to patients March 25. The new facility will replace the old nonprofit Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago building on East Superior Street, renaming the institute in the process. The new facility, like the old one, will serve patients with complex conditions who still need care and rehab services after they leave traditional hospitals.

The new 1.2-million-square-foot facility, a big part of RIC's rebranding as AbilityLab, will open with 242 beds and could offer as many as 360 in the future  up from 182 at the Rehabilitation Institute now. The current facility has to turn away about 600 to 700 patients a year due to lack of space, said Dr. Joanne Smith, president and CEO of the AbilityLab.

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But the new facility won't just be bigger. It also will be somewhat unique in the way it melds research and patient care. Walls won't divide scientists and patients, in many cases.

For example, in the part of the hospital dedicated to arm and hand function, patient therapy and exercises will take place just across the room from where researchers and scientists work. It's a common setup throughout the hospital. Now, at many institutions, researchers and patients may work in different parts of a building or separate buildings.

Hospital leaders hope the design will lead researchers to work on more real-world problems for rehab patients and help speed solutions to patients.

"We are only going to do science in this building that is directly applicable to the patient," Smith said. "We're not chasing things for funding's sake.  We're saying that the researchers, by living with the patient, will understand which problems they have to figure out how to solve first."

Researchers won't be allowed to approach patients directly, and all researchers will have to undergo training about patient privacy laws, said Richard L. Lieber, the AbilityLab's chief scientific officer. But patients will be able to approach researchers, and doctors and researchers may discuss patients, in general terms. Patients will literally be able to see the researchers at work and may opt to take part in researchers' clinical trials, he said.

"When you work around patients all the time, you learn things that are impossible to learn any other way," Lieber said. Hospital leaders also hope the structure will give patients hope, by allowing them see scientists at work on the issues near and dear to them.

AbilityLab leaders are calling the new facility a "translational" hospital, using a buzzword for the practice of trying to translate research into new treatment and diagnostics.

Dr. Eric Beyer, director of the education cluster at the University of Chicago Institute for Translational Medicine, said institutions practice translational medicine in a variety of ways. Clinicians and researchers, for example, are sometimes one and the same. But often it can be difficult for institutions to get doctors and researchers to work side-by-side because of their buildings' limitations, he said.

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He said patients don't necessarily have to see researchers working to benefit from their creations, and researchers' work can be influenced by factors both inside and outside of their workspaces. But he called the idea of physicians and researchers working in the same space a "great concept."

"Most of us want to be able to offer the latest and greatest thing, so I think to have the people that are developing new devices and new approaches right next to the clinicians implementing them, I think that's great," Beyer said.

A number of Chicago-area institutions have been hard at work on translational medicine efforts in recent years.

Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, along with the University of Chicago, are among more than 50 medical research institutions across the country that receive federal funding meant to help translate research into patient care more quickly. The Rehabilitation Institute/AbilityLab is associated with the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, hosting some of Northwestern's residents and handling its rehabilitation needs.

The new AbilityLab is named after Shirley Ryan, wife of the founder and former chief executive of Aon. Patrick and Shirley Ryan donated millions of dollars to the hospital. The hospital is not disclosing the amount of that gift, although it has said it's the largest donation it's ever received.

As of Tuesday, the hospital had raised about $343 million for the AbilityLab and expected to exceed its fundraising goal of $350 million. The rest of the $550 million hospital is being paid for through cash flow, existing funds, new debt and the sale of the old Rehabilitation Institute flagship hospital at 345 E. Superior St. in Chicago. The new AbilityLab is at 355 E. Erie St.

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lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
We lost an hour on early Sunday morning.



Suddenly, a whole hour evaporated, without our having accomplished a thing. Fortuitously though, it occurred during our sleep, that leisurely period God has embedded into our being to reassure us that we are neither Him nor machines. Because we forget both.



I Dont Like the Man Who Doesnt Sleep, says God...

Poet Charles Peguy thought it through:



I dont like the man who doesnt sleep, says God....



I'm talking about those who work and who don't sleep.



I pity them.



As a child lays innocently in his mother's arms, thus they do not lay.



Innocently in the arms of my Providence.



They have the courage to work. They don't have the courage to do nothing.



They possess the virtue of work. They don't possess the virtue of doing nothing.



Of relaxing. Of resting. Of sleeping.



Unhappy people, they don't know what's good.



I frequently find myself dashing to address needs, to accomplish what I conclude is being asked of me, and feeling a failure for all I know I didnt get to in a day.



Theres Enough Time!

I was praying to the Lord about it, and it seemed like he might have said:



There is enough time.



Just not enough to impress everyone youre afraid to let down.



Or to do everything YOU conclude is urgent.



Or to compulsively ward off every worry.



Or to keep everyone equally happy.



But there is just enough time to do that to which I have called you. The perfect amount.



Since Spring has robbed its first hour and promises to swipe many more over the coming months of increased daylight and increased franticness, I wanted to remind myself and all of us that, As Gods workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance for us to do therell be the exact amount of time for us to walk as Christ has aspired for us too...



We just might need to adjust some of our expectations about how many things we can do in a day or how many places we can be at once. And well certainly have to tell the compulsive scheduler and list-maker in our heads to pipe down for a moment, so we can see if God has any alternative plans for us in the world today.



Preventing Hyperventilation

Watching this lovely little documentary called Godspeed last week was helpful in preventing hyperventilation as I fussed in my mind over all the folks I hadnt been able to call yet, or havent visited in a while. It whispered a lullaby soothing over the wailing noise of all the tasks that I hadnt yet been able to perform but which boisterously stood like a booing, picketing audience, protesting against my effectiveness, efficiency, and competency at every moment.



One line, in particular, employing Kosuke Koyamas clever and memorable book title, leapt off the screen:



Jesus was a 3 Mile An Hour God.



Meaning, that when God became flesh, he performed the lions share of his ministry in small villages with statistically insignificant amounts of people among whom he walked...and of course, the average leisurely amble is about 3 mph.



NT Wright, reflecting on this oft-neglected pace of Christ, chimed in with an apt diagnosis, perhaps that is why we get so frustrated with God sometimes. He doesnt move fast enough!



Its instructive to think about our Lord, who holds the last word in human affairs and for whose sake we live and work, allowed his life to be spent in a small place, moving 3 mph, and yet apparently, had all the time he needed to be the worlds rescue.



Perhaps as those united to him, we can entrust ourselves to a pace this Spring which depicts that we believe there is enough time for us too...just not enough for us to impress everyone or to fulfill every unruly desire.



So dont fret about the lost hour. Or about having too much to do. Therell still be enough time. If, that is, we trust the One who holds it in his hands.

-----



Eric Youngblood is the senior pastor at Rock Creek Fellowship (PCA) on Lookout Mountain. Please feel free to contact him at eric@rockcreekfellowship.org or follow him on Twitter @GEricYoungblood.
Medical cannabis company PharmaCann cashed in recently on one of its cultivation facilities, and in the capital-strapped world of medical marijuana, it likely won't be the last to turn to its real estate for funds.

The Illinois-based company sold its cultivation facility in Hamptonburgh, N.Y., to Innovative Industrial Properties, the first publicly traded medical cannabis-focused real estate investment trust, or REIT, and then signed a 15-year lease for the building, with options to extend.

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Sale and lease-back deals have long been a way for companies to access capital. Sears Holdings, for example, has used the strategy in recent years as it struggles to stay afloat amid changing consumer demands.

But it's a financing method still new to the burgeoning medical cannabis space. In the slow-growing industry capped by state regulations and avoided by most banks, access to capital doesn't come around often. The sale and lease-back option could make sense for other Illinois cannabis companies as well.

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Processing technician Cindy Kromka trims cannabis flowers Jan. .23, 2017, after harvest at PharmaCann's medical marijuana cultivation center in Dwight, Ill. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

The December deal freed up $30 million for PharmaCann, intended to help the company expand to other states and finance operations until "we begin to earn more money than we spend," said Jeremy Unruh, general counsel and compliance chief.

PharmaCann had poured millions of dollars into its New York facility, buying the property, constructing the building and recruiting talent from the pharmaceutical industry. It was looking for ways to liquidate the cash it had tied up there, Unruh said.

"Money that we receive from the sale-lease-back will go a long way," he said. "It's a great opportunity because there are not a lot of other options out there."

The U.S. Treasury Department has given banks the green light to work with legal marijuana entities under some conditions, but most lenders still hesitate. Elected officials, including Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs, are pushing to make it easier for banks to work with companies in the $7 billion industry.

In Illinois, there are just a few banks willing to take on medical marijuana companies as customers, which means very limited access to lines of credit or loans.

Entrepreneurs have to look elsewhere for financing, especially in states like Illinois, where the industry is still young. Turning to a REIT for a lease-back deal is one example of that, said Bob Morgan, an attorney at Much Shelist law firm and former coordinator of Illinois Medical Cannabis Pilot Program.

Cultivation manager Ryan Loess tends to cannabis plants Jan. 23, 2017, at PharmaCann's medical marijuana cultivation center in Dwight, Ill. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Cannabis companies "are tripping over themselves to promise the most expensive, most high-tech, pharmaceutical-grade production of marijuana, but the industry might be too small to really support that kind of financial investment," Morgan said.

Illinois launched its program 15 months ago and has about 16,990 qualified patients, according to the state.

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The reality of spending millions of dollars to launch a business in an industry with a small number of potential customers will catch up to cannabis companies, Morgan said. He said he wouldn't be surprised to see other Illinois companies tapping into lease-back deals.

But the deal has to be right.

PharmaCann, for example, operates two cultivation centers in Illinois, but it leases the properties on which those facilities sit, Unruh said. Innovative Industrial Properties CEO Paul Smithers also noted that the REIT does not plan to do deals with dispensaries. (PharmaCann operates four in Illinois and four in New York.)

The PharmaCann deal in New York was the first for the REIT, which went public in December. It's in talks for other deals, Smithers said, but he declined to comment on specifics. It plans to work with medical cannabis companies in highly regulated states, such as Illinois.

"A regulated environment gives investors much more comfort," Smithers said. "It's not so Wild West, if you will."

And with the current political climate, owning real estate in medical marijuana states is a safer bet than owning in a state that allows recreational use, he said.

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Last month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he expects the Department of Justice to increase enforcement of federal laws prohibiting recreational marijuana, even in states that have made it legal. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions has a history of speaking out against cannabis use, though he is a proponent of states' rights.

Innovative Industrial Properties' shares closed at $15.69 Monday, down 13.1 percent, from $18.05, since Spicer made his comments last month.

Though Spicer's remarks sent a ripple of fear through the industry, plenty of investors still are eyeing the medical cannabis space, said Kendell Lang, CEO and principal investor at Fusion Properties.

The private REIT, headquartered in Puerto Rico, conducts lease-backs and other types of deals with medical cannabis companies in the U.S. and abroad. Though Fusion hasn't done any deals in Illinois, Lang said he expects to see a medical cannabis company in the state access capital through a lease-back within a year.

"I think it's a matter of time," he said.

amarotti@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @AllyMarotti
A group of developers is proposing a 60-story hotel, luxury condo and retail tower at Superior Street and Wabash Avenue amid objections from nearby residents on the Near North Side.

The joint project by New York developer Symmetry Property Development along with Golub & Co. and Fordham Real Estate of Chicago would be on the northeast corner of Superior and Wabash, one block west of the Peninsula Hotel and just west of a Giordano's restaurant.

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Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, said Symmetry and Golub independently purchased adjacent properties and planned two towers, but he urged them to work together on a single tower.

The result is a proposed glass Carillon Tower that would include 246 luxury condominium units, 216 hotel rooms, 120 time-share units, two floors of retail and restaurant space, and 325 parking spaces on five levels. It would be one of the tallest buildings in the Near North neighborhood, yet shorter than the 98-story Trump Tower. The architect is Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

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Area residents, weary from congestion in the Near North and River North neighborhoods, filled a Sofitel ballroom Monday night to air their concerns about the project.

Residents complained that the area doesn't need additional hotel rooms, restaurants or stores and that traffic already is causing bottlenecks and dangerous walking conditions. They objected to the destruction of historic buildings west of Giordano's that house small businesses and restaurants.

"If we're not careful, we will be living in midtown Manhattan," Ward Miller of Preservation Chicago said. "Historic buildings are part of the charm of the neighborhood."

Reilly said he was aware of traffic issues in the area and would tackle them with or without the approval of the project. He withheld an opinion on the current proposal and said residents would have additional opportunities to critique the project before any approval. He noted that he had rejected an earlier 612-room hotel project in the area, which was proposed by Friedman Properties and did not include any parking.

In answer to a question from a resident, he said he did not know how much revenue the project would generate for the city but that the developer would have to put $5.3 million into a fund for affordable housing if the development did not include 25 affordable units. In addition, the developer would have to put $8.2 million into the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund, which is to channel money into community enhancements like green spaces and lighting.

Representatives from both Symmetry and Fordham declined after the meeting to provide any detail on the agreement between the partners in the deal or the cost of the project.

gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
Many companies have been noisily publicizing their cushy parental leave policies in recent years, telling the world they're bestowing workers with an increasingly generous length of time to take off and bond with their newborns. Deloitte now gives new moms and dads 16 weeks of paid leave. Etsy hands out a full six months. Netflix said in 2015 that its workers could take off a child's first year.

But while the headlines may be making a splash, the more generous policies aren't making much of a dent in the overall numbers.

The average number of weeks employers are giving workers actually fell slightly over the past decade, even as a greater percentage of companies offered 12 weeks or more in annual leave, according to new data from a nationally representative sample of more than 900 companies.

"Even though those have been the focus of media stories, they don't show the whole picture," said Ellen Galinsky, senior research adviser for the Society for Human Resource Management, which publishes the survey.

In 2005, Galinsky said, employers with at least 50 workers allowed an average maximum of 15.2 weeks in maternity leave, compared with 14.5 weeks in 2016. That average is slightly higher than the length of time found in 2014 and 2012 but lower than the one in 2008 and 2005. The data was first reported by Bloomberg News.

The report also shows that more companies are paying women who go on parental leave  58 percent of companies now offer some pay during leave. The number has been roughly flat since 2012 but is up from 46 percent in 2005. However, the percentage of employers offering workers 100 percent of their regular pay during leave has actually dropped, according to Galinsky's data, declining from 17 percent in 2005 to just 10 percent last year.

What explains the trend? While it's possible some companies have cut back their benefits over time, Galinsky said that's unlikely, as maternity leave isn't usually the kind of perk companies trim. Some slight changes to survey logistics  in 2016, HR managers could complete the survey online, rather than only by telephone, and were pushed with more follow-up questions  could have had some effect on how companies respond or describe their policies.

But Galinsky and senior researcher James T. Bond noted that the drop in weeks is probably best explained by some differences in the sample. The study is not longitudinal  in other words, the same 900 companies weren't examined over the 11-year period  but is a nationally representative sample of the U.S. economy each year the study is done, weighted by employer size.

A larger percentage of all employers offered new moms 12 weeks off in 2016. But at the high end, surprisingly, the group of companies surveyed in 2005 were even more generous than those surveyed last year. Netflix may have gotten much attention for offering a full year off for new parents, but there were companies in the 2005 survey that offered new mothers, at least, the same. And among employers that offered the most leave in 2005  more than three months off  the average number of weeks offered was 28 weeks, much higher than the 21 weeks among that generous group in 2016.

The shift in employers covering women's entire paychecks while out on leave is probably due to a slight rise in companies that offer short-term disability leave, shifting the mix toward partial pay, Galinsky said.

Still, Galinsky thinks what is clear is that the ample perks giving companies in certain industries good PR haven't yet translated into better benefits for everyone. It still could, however. "The companies that are one-upping each other by offering more and more wonderful leaves are doing so for the same reason all companies do so: for the retention of their talent," she said. Now, "if you've got 78 percent of employers saying they're having difficulty attracting the right employees," she said, that could change. "We just haven't seen it yet."

Other recent studies have also shown that efforts to increase parental leave  whether via state legislation or individual corporate benefits  have done little to improve how many women actually use the leave they're offered. A recent study by Jay Zagorsky, a research scientist at the Center for Human Resource Research, used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population to find that the number of U.S. women taking maternity leave has been about the same over the past two decades, despite an improving economy and changes to some state laws that now mandate paid leave. (Use of paternity leave, meanwhile, tripled over the same period.)

Zagorsky's data found that only about 47.5 percent of women were compensated in 2015 for taking maternity leave, a percentage that is increasing, though only by 0.26 percentage points per year. At that rate, it could take another decade before even half of women will get paid time off during maternity leave.

"We are a much richer country since the 1990s," Zagorsky said in an interview in January. "Looking at the maternity data, it does not suggest that any of the increased wealth has flown toward new working mothers."
Chicago has about 60,000 young people who are not working and not in school. Thrive Chicago, a nonprofit organization, plans to announce a campaign to get 10,000 "opportunity youths" back on track by 2020. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune 2015)

A new citywide initiative to slash the stubbornly high number of youths who are neither working nor in school will start by connecting the dozens of organizations that already serve them.

Thrive Chicago, a nonprofit founded two years ago to align the efforts of youth service providers, on Tuesday plans to announce the 10,000 Reconnected campaign, which pledges to get 10,000 "opportunity youths" ages 16 to 24 back to work or school by 2020.

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Chicago has about 60,000 young people in the opportunity youth category  those who are not working and not in school, a perilous situation believed to increase their risk for poverty, long-term unemployment, substance abuse and criminal behavior. They are concentrated in neighborhoods that also have the city's worst violence.

At least 50 organizations already serve this population in the city, but many are small with too-short programs and limited resources that make it hard to see beyond immediate staffing challenges to learn best practices, said Sandra Abrevaya, president and chief impact officer at Thrive.

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"We really have to do things differently if we want to move the needle," Abrevaya said. "We have to address the challenges with a unified voice."

More than 300 community leaders, business executives, educators and elected officials are scheduled to converge Tuesday morning for a summit at the Chicago Cultural Center where Thrive will outline its plan to get providers to link arms.

Key to the plan are three "action teams" that correspond to a three-step pathway to support youths as they try to gain a foothold in employment or school. Summit participants were asked to sign up for one of the teams, which will be facilitated by Thrive, so they can collaborate with fellow organizations that do similar work going forward.

The "reconnection" action team will address best practices for identifying and recruiting youths and helping them navigate services. The "earn and learn" action team aims to expand and improve internship and apprenticeship programs so that young people can get paid while they develop skills. The "youth employment" action team aims to find and support employers interested in giving youths jobs.

"Many employers want to join the effort but don't know how," Abrevaya said.

Thrive, which is funded by numerous local and national foundations but no public money, also plans to drum up funding by reaching out to private philanthropy as the collective voice on the issue. The intent is to take a holistic approach that addresses issues like housing, child care and transportation that hinder the ability of some youths to get back on track.

Another piece of the plan is a partnership with the University of Chicago's Urban Labs to study who opportunity youths are and which types of interventions are most effective. It is funded by a $3.6 million investment by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

Continued failure to make a dent in the crisis could have dire economic implications. A youth who is disconnected from school or work incurs a social burden cost of $37,000 a year, taking into account lost earnings, lower economic growth, lower tax revenues and higher government spending, according to a 2012 report by economists from Columbia University and the City University of New York. For Chicago's 60,000 opportunity youths, that works out to more than $2 billion.

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The plan was shaped by recommendations from a working group convened by Thrive and the city of Chicago in July that involved 30 nonprofits, foundations and government agencies.

Liz Dozier, who leads Chicago Beyond, a philanthropic venture that aims to improve youth education and safety, said that ground-up approach makes her optimistic that Thrive will be successful in cracking the intractable problem.

Dozier, former principal at Fenger High School in the Roseland neighborhood, previously blamed the lack of progress on the fragmented, "siloed" efforts of multiple organizations.

"That people who are actually enmeshed in this work are at the table coming up with a pathway forward is not only positive but also plausible in developing something that will serve those kids very well," said Dozier, who was a member of the working group

Getting those groups to work together will be the biggest challenge, she said, but also the biggest hope.

"Thrive started with (collaboration) as their north star," Dozier said. "No one entity, no matter how well-funded, can solve this alone."

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aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @alexiaer
The Chicago area is home to two of the nation's most highly regarded business schools, but the University of Chicago slipped to third place in U.S. News & World Report's most recent annual ranking of the best full-time master's degree programs in business administration.

Harvard tied for the top spot with the University of Pennsylvania, which moved up from No. 4. That, in turn, bumped U. of C.'s Booth School of Business down one spot. Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management moved up one spot to No. 4 and is now in a three-way tie with Stanford and MIT.

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The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in a tie for 40th.

U. of C.'s part-time MBA program is No. 2 in the ranking of part-time programs.

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Besides business schools, the publication also ranks law, medical, engineering, nursing and education schools.

U. of C.'s law school is ranked fourth. Northwestern cracked the top 10 this year, tying at No. 10.

The six disciplines that U.S. News ranks annually are evaluated on factors such as employment rates and starting salaries for graduates and test scores of new students.

In November, Bloomberg Businessweek's annual ranking of the nation's best business schools had U. of C. dropping to No. 4 from No. 2. Northwestern fell to No. 9 from No. 3.

byerak@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @beckyyerak
Asparagus  a culinary sign of spring  is fantastic in this dish, but poses a challenge for wine pairing. The incredible vegetal flavors, a fresh treat on their own, can cause most wine to taste like licking a piece of tin or eating a spoonful of baking soda. Stay clear of tannic reds and oaky whites (oak imparts tannin, after all) and opt for lighter, zippier wines. Pick out other elements in this dish to pair with  savory pork, bright ginger and onion, spicy chile sauce  and you'll be fine.

MAKE THIS

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Asparagus and pork stir-fry

Heat wok over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Stir-fry until fragrant: 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger; and 1 bunch green onions, sliced. Add 1 bunch asparagus (cut in 1 1/2 inch pieces); stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes. Add 1 red bell pepper, cut in thin strips; stir-fry, 2-3 minutes. Transfer vegetables to a bowl. Add to wok 1 pound boneless pork cutlets, cut into 1 1/2-inch strips, and 2 tablespoons soy sauce; stir-fry until meat is almost cooked through, about 3 minutes. Lower heat; return vegetables to wok. Season with chile sauce. Serve with rice. Makes: 2 servings

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Recipe by Bill Daley

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Pairings by sommelier Nate Redner of Oyster Bah, as told to Michael Austin:

2014 Pieropan Soave Classico, Veneto, Italy: Soave is composed mainly of garganega, often blended with verdicchio and chardonnay. This Soave Classico, like many, is viscous and weighty, with plenty of acidity. The nutty character of the wine will match nicely with the dish's aromatic garlic and ginger. There is also enough freshness to cut through the fat, but not too much to make the asparagus taste bitter.

2012 Domaine Ostertag Barriques Pinot Blanc, Alsace, France: Andre Ostertag makes wines of top-tier quality that express both ripe fruit character and a sense of place. This wine displays intense spice components of star anise, cinnamon and clove, which mimics Chinese five spice and intensifies the Asian influence of the dish. The slightest bit of residual sugar in the wine will help quell any lingering burn from the chile sauce.

2014 Burn Cottage Moonlight Race Pinot Noir, Central Otago, New Zealand: Thanks to warm and dry growing conditions, this wine has rich dark fruit character reminiscent of plums and blackberries. Along with those flavors, the wine's warm spices will complement the ginger, garlic and soy combination, while softening the soy's salinity. The wine's very fine tannins will also help keep the fat in the dish in check.
Chef Diana Davila modeled her new restaurant Mi Tocaya Antojeria after lively, casual antojerias in Mexico and promises "dishes that you are always going to crave." (Andrea Bauer)

Diana Davila's dream of opening her own restaurant is nearly here, as Mi Tocaya Antojeria (2800 W. Logan Blvd.) plans to open Wednesday in Logan Square. But that doesn't mean she's not feeling a tiny bit nervous about it.

"I want things to be done right," she says. "I don't want someone to come in here and leave unhappy, because we weren't able to execute. It's my greatest fear and anxiety."

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It's been a little over a year since Davila drew widespread raves for the food at the ambitious, and now closed, Cantina 1910. She left that restaurant after three months, citing irreconcilable differences.

"It was really hard to quit," says Davila. "I felt like I had to." She says that after feeling sorry for herself for awhile, she finally picked herself up and decided that she had to open a restaurant.

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Davila explains that while the restaurant's name directly translates as "my namesake" in Spanish, it's also a term of endearment.

"When someone has the same name as you and you get along great, you'd say 'mi tocaya,'" says Davila. "You're not the same person, but you have a connection." She's also treating the name as an excuse to transform herself into the chef she wants to be: "Just like Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, I get to be who I aspire and want to be at Mi Tocaya."

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

The restaurant's format is based on antojerias she encountered while traveling in Mexico City. Davila describes the restaurants as "really lively and casual" spaces that serve "dishes that you are always going to crave." While the menu does include Mexican standards like tacos, guacamole and even a steak burrito, there are other more personal dishes on the menu.

"I get to serve food that reminds me of my childhood, my travels in Mexico, and my cooking at home," says Davila.

That includes the lamb albondigas (Mexican meatballs) which are a favorite of her husband's. "That's from him asking, 'You know what I'm craving? You're mother's albondigas.'" Davila points out that she adapted the dish to express her culinary viewpoint, but it definitely still has ties to her mother.

Mi Tocaya is currently only going to be open for dinner, which Davila explains is on purpose: "It'd be fabulous to open for lunch, but I have to know my limitations. I'd literally die."

2800 W. Logan Blvd., 872-315-3947, www.mitocaya.com

Open 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Closed Mondays.



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nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @nickdk
The chaotic, pushy remake of Disney's 1991 screen musical "Beauty and the Beast" stresses the challenges of adapting a success in one form (animation) for another (live-action). We're in for a long line of Disney remakes in the coming years: Everything from "Dumbo" to "Aladdin" is headed for a wallet near you, banking on nostalgia and brand recognition. The financial wallop of the recent, pretty good live-action "Jungle Book" redo, and the live-action "Cinderella" before that, set a high bar of corporate expectation.

"Beauty and the Beast" will no doubt please the stockholders. It's just not a very good movie, is all.

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Why? The high points of director Bill Condon's resume suggest he was the right person for this big-budget remake. The maker of "Gods and Monsters" and "Kinsey" possesses a basic understanding of the musical genre's building blocks, given his success with "Dreamgirls." And since he made two of the "Twilight" movies, Condon is certainly familiar with the technological requirements of a live-action/digital effects mashup. But his new movie is a grating disappointment, despite its best supporting turns, human and animatronic.

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Condon races through the story beats at an unvarying pace, usually with his camera too close to the performers while the digital effects overwhelm the screen. Emma Watson makes for a genial, bland-ish Belle, the freakish outsider in her provincial French village because of her interest in books and her indifference to the local hunky baritone, Gaston (Luke Evans). Underneath the digital fur and digital roars, Dan Stevens as the Beast, the transformed prince working on a rose-petaled deadline to become human again, locates some moments of pathos that stick.

The problems here, I think, are weirdly simple. The movie takes our knowledge and our interest in the material for granted. It zips from one number to another, throwing a ton of frenetically edited eye candy at the screen, charmlessly. "Be Our Guest" is nothing but visual noise. The tavern frolics, featuring Gaston and his fawning sidekick, LeFou (Josh Gad), will give you that awful "Master of the House" "Les Miz" feeling. Too often we're watching highly qualified performers, plus a few less conspicuously talented ones (Watson, primarily), stuck doing karaoke, or motion-capture work of middling quality. The movie feels like a matinee of the second national tour of Disney's stage edition of "Beauty and the Beast," somewhere around the 300th performance.

This image released by Disney shows Dan Stevens as The Beast, left, and Emma Watson as Belle in a live-action adaptation of the animated classic "Beauty and the Beast." (Disney)

The enchanted castle objects are all there, including Lumiere (Ewan McGregor), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen) and Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson, particularly welcome). Newbies are dominated by the harpsichord Cadenza, played by Stanley Tucci. There's one shot of Tucci where he's hamming it up so ferociously at the keyboard, the movie briefly turns into an entirely different movie: "Beauty, the Beast and the Shameless Character Actor."

The 1991 film, one of many adaptations over the centuries of the old, dark fairy tale, worked wonderfully because it was pure Broadway, written for the screen, blending comedy and romance and magic and just enough snark in the margins. Alan Menken's music and the late Howard Ashman's brash lyrics were augmented for the stage version by new songs, lyrics by Tim Rice. There are more new songs composed for Condon's film, among them a flashback "Aria" sung by Audra McDonald, and "Days in the Sun," sung by the enchanted objects, fulfilling a narrative function similar to that of "Human Again" (cut from the animated film, reinstated for the Broadway musical, which ran nearly 5,500 performances).

Kevin Kline gets a new song as well. He plays Maurice, Belle's dear, tinkering father. He's the best, sweetest thing in the movie; he brings a sense of calm, droll authority to every line reading. The poor character spends his screen time propping up the other characters, or getting trussed up and left for dead by Gaston, but the story requires it. Screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos develop a backstory for the death of Belle's mother, and add a few touches of their own. Bringing LeFou gently out of his closet, to the consternation of censorship-minded countries such as Russia and Malaysia, certainly has gotten people talking (though there's a drag-queen shout-out that's a lot more gay-forward than anything LeFou's up to). But years from now, I doubt anyone will be talking about how much they enjoyed the movie as a whole, because it's not a whole; it's more like a half.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @phillipstribune

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"Beauty and the Beast"  2 stars

MPAA rating: PG (for some action, violence, peril and frightening images)

Running time: 2:10

Opens: Friday

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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)
Actor Samuel L. Jackson speaks during SiriusXM's 'Town Hall' with the cast of 'Kong: Skull Island'; town hall to air on SiriusXM's Entertainment Weekly Radio on March 6, 2017 in New York City. (Cindy Ord / Getty Images)

Actor Samuel L. Jackson recently criticized the casting of a black British actor to play an African-American in the horror film "Get Out."

The outcry in Britain was swift and loud. Soon Jackson was walking his comments back, saying they were directed at the Hollywood system rather than British actors.

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"It was not a slam against them, but it was just a comment about how Hollywood works in an interesting sort of way sometimes," Jackson said, according to the Associated Press.

Daniel Kaluuya, the acclaimed actor cast in the movie, said in an interview with GQ this week that he shouldn't have to "prove that I'm black."

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In the movie, Kaluuya plays Chris Washington, the African-American boyfriend to Allison Williams's Rose Armitage, who is white. The film follows the couple's visit with Armitage's parents, which leads to violence over their interracial relationship.

The trailer for "Get Out," written and directed by Jordan Peele. (Universal)

One critic called the film an "allegory on the horror of race in America."

But Jackson, who said he had not seen the movie, initially told Hot 97: "I tend to wonder what would that movie have been with an American brother who really understands that. ... Daniel grew up in a country where they've been interracial dating for a hundred years. ... What would a brother from America have made of that role?"

Added Jackson, "Some things are universal, but everything ain't."

Jackson's comments drew this critique from Guardian columnist Gary Younge: "When it comes to the roles they are assigned in Hollywood, African-American actors have every right to be aggrieved. Once depicted only as nannies, pimps, prostitutes, thieves, simpletons and savages, the possibilities have grown in recent times but the opportunities are nowhere near where they could or should be. But to aim that grievance at black British actors, as Samuel Jackson did earlier this week, is perverse in the extreme."

Jordan Peele, the writer and director of "Get Out," told the Guardian that he initially didn't want to go with a British actor "because the movie was so much about representation of the African-American experience."

"Early on, Daniel and I had a Skype session where we talked about this and I was made to understand how universal this issue is," Peele said. "Once I'd wrapped my head around how universal these themes were, it became easy for me to pick Daniel, because at the end of the day, he was the best person for the role."

Kaluuya, 27, who landed critically lauded roles in "Sicario" and "Black Mirror," told GQ that he drew from life experiences to play the role in "Get Out."

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"This is the frustrating thing, bro - in order to prove that I can play this role, I have to open up about the trauma that I've experienced as a black person," he said. "I have to show off my struggle so that people accept that I'm black."

He said the British and American experiences have not always been that different for people of color:

"(Black people in the UK), the people who are the reason I'm even about to have a career, had to live in a time where they went looking for housing and signs would say, 'NO IRISH. NO DOGS. NO BLACKS.' That's reality. Police would round up all these black people, get them in the back of a van, and wrap them in blankets so their bruises wouldn't show when they beat them. That's the history that London has gone through. The Brixton riots, the Tottenham riots, the 2011 riots, because black people were being killed by police. That's what's happening in London. But it's not in the mainstream media. Those stories aren't out there like that. So people get an idea of what they might think the experience is."

Added Kaluuya, "I resent that I have to prove that I'm black. I don't know what that is. I'm still processing it."

John Boyega, the black British actor who played Finn in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" with an American accent, also disagreed with Jackson. He tweeted:

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"Black brits vs African American. A stupid a-- conflict we don't have time for."

Jackson was correct in saying "there are a lot of black British actors" in movie roles about African-Americans. For instance, British actor Idris Elba's big break came from playing a drug dealer in Baltimore in "The Wire," while David Oyelowo garnered praise for his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma."

Still, Kaluuya doesn't see the issue.

"I see black people as one man," he told GQ. "When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that."

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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)
Guest artist Nathan Francisco will perform works for Viol da Gamba accompanied by organ and choir at The Church of the Nativity Episcopal Church, 1201 Cross Street, Fort Oglethorpe, on March 26, at 10:30 a.m.

The viol da gamba is similar to the cello but distinguished by its more delicate and somber tone. The frets, or bands, around its neck look like a guitar. The featured work is J.S. Bachs 1st Sonata for Viol da Gamba in G-major BWV 1027. These sonatas are often performed by cellists and it is a rare opportunity to hear them with the originally intended soloist. The unique placement and disposition of the organ at Nativity Church allows it to easily participate in a chamber ensemble. This performance is part of The Church of the Nativitys monthly Rising Artists series. Nativity also presents a Mini-Concert series with organist and music director Kristopher Schwinn.



Nathan Francisco, 14, plays the viol da gamba, cello and organ. Last year, Nathan placed second in the junior division of the 2016 Tennessee Cello Workshop Competition at UTK. Two months ago, he performed Faures Elegie with the Southern Adventist University (SAU) Symphony Orchestra as one of this years winners of its annual concerto competition and has just accompanied the orchestra on a weeks tour of Puerto Rico. Nathan studies cello with Wesley Baldwin at UTK and organ with Judy Glass at SAU. In a few years, he plans to continue his music studies at conservatory.



This performance will take place during the worship service. Childcare will be provided.
There was an unexpected, and adorable, distraction for Professor Robert Kelly when he was being interviewed live about South Korea on BBC News.

Oh, Robert Kelly. We've been there. All of us, and many of us more than once.

The evolution toward more flexible work schedules, and the ability to work from home, can be a lifesaver. It can also totally sink people who are trying to maintain some sort of separation between what passes for a professional persona and the 24/7 business of parenting.

Kelly, a professor and an expert on international relations, found himself struggling with domestic matters this week when, during a Skype call to discuss South Korea with BBC One, his two children burst in behind him. Hilarity ensued, and a woman frantically dashed in to retrieve the kids. The video has gone viral, in part because who can't relate?

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Former Washington Post colleague Frank Ahrens shared the video on Facebook and quipped "Pro tip: If you're doing a video interview at home and have small children, lock the door." Ahrens, the father of two girls, including a 4-year-old who is very interested in her daddy's activities, said later in a message that he quickly realized a lock wouldn't work.

"I have come this close to the same thing happening to me in academic interviews and client video calls, but thankfully never on a global media platform, like this poor chap," Ahrens said. "At first I thought it was a no-brainer that he should have locked the door, but then I realized what would happen in my case if I locked the door: (pounding) 'Daddy! Daddy! Who are you talking to? Daddy! Can I have my orange juice?!' (more pounding). Pick your poison."

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"This has happened to me several times," said Kristin Shaw, who posted an anecdote about her own trials on Facebook, linking to the video. "Just the other night, I was on a video conference with a client at about 9 p.m. and suddenly he stopped and said, laughing, 'There is a child behind you.' "

Shaw's 7-year-old son was standing behind her, staring, waiting for her to acknowledge him. After her client spotted him, her son insisted on saying hello. And so they waved to each other and "I shuffled my little one back to bed."

Audrey Murphy, a Manassas, Virginia, resident and mom of twin boys said that once, when she was on a call with the vice president of her company, the boys demanded to know if he had a dog and a pool. When he said yes, Murphy said, the boys invited themselves over for a play date.

Jennifer Carstens, a mom of one in Woodbridge, Va., worked from home doing medical transcription when her daughter was young. She found that she couldn't get anything done while her daughter was awake, so she would be up working until 3 a.m. some nights. Who needs sleep anyway?

And it's not limited to human kids; pets can cause awkward moments as well. Susan Lacefield, a mother of two who works from her home in Massachusetts, was on a conference call with a couple of co-workers once when her cat, who was sitting under her chair, started loudly hacking up a fur ball.

"There was a couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence until I explained what was happening," Lacefield said in a message. She said she purposely schedules interviews for when her kids aren't at home or makes sure her husband is around to run interference.

Some parents go into those work-from-home days with a strategy all mapped out. Mari-Jane, who is one half of The Post's On Parenting blog, and her husband write down a dozen or more activities on strips of paper, then have the kids, now 12 and 10, draw them out of a hat periodically throughout the day to keep them occupied. Sadly, it's only moderately effective at keeping the howling and haranguing to a minimum.

We've seen neighbors locked in their cars on conference calls while the kids played nearby with a sitter. Amy, the other half of On Parenting, has on many occasions reassured people she's interviewing that she doesn't mind the crying kids and barking dogs on the other end of the line because hey, she's interviewing them about parenting, right?

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Of course, there are cringe-worthy moments in that video. The attempt at brushing the kid aside and assuming no one would notice (perhaps). And the mortified caretaker in the background, embarrassingly trying to get the kids out of the room. We wonder how things are going in that household right now.

BBC Man, you're all of us. In other words: You're a human, living in 2017.

Williams edits community news for The Post's Local Living. Follow @marijanewilliam

Joyce is the editor and a writer for On Parenting. Follow @amyjoyce_berg

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Taking free upholstered furniture from the sidewalk may not be such a good idea. (Ayesha Ware / Photographer's Choice)

When folks get bitten by the spring cleaning bug, a simple walk around your neighborhood can turn into a scavenger hunt.

Every alley seems to offer potential: a couch in a passable shape just right for your living room; a slightly frayed carpet your kids would have a blast on; a rickety nightstand a paint brush away from looking vintage.

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But before loading any of those things into your car, ask yourself why they're there in the first place. They might turn out to be a Trojan horse for dust mites, bedbugs, mold, pet dander, lice and more.

We asked experts to weigh in on what's not worth salvaging from an alley.

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1. Mattresses and box springs

Never pick up a mattress, said Dr. Neeta Ogden, an adult and pediatric allergist and immunologist in New Jersey. The issue? Bedbugs and dust mites, both hard to spot with a naked eye. "Dust mites are allergens every mattress has, but as they get older, they have millions and millions more than a new one. This causes nasal congestions and other allergy symptoms," Ogden explained. Bedbugs, she said, leave behind traces of blood and fecal matters, but those can be minuscule and hard to pick up on. "Just assume the worst, and leave it there," Ogden said, noting that an overused mattress might hurt your back too.

Another thing to consider? Biological contamination in form of skin cells, sweat or urine, added John Kane, entomologist with Orkin's Midwest Division. "Sometimes alongside these are fungal colonies and bacteria, which can cause respiratory or skin problems."

2. Furniture

Upholstered furniture may look cozy, but if you pick it up, you may be inviting bugs and mildew into your home, Mireya Fouche of Monarch Thrift Shop, a nonprofit thrift store in Chicago.

All furniture should be thoroughly inspected, said Kane, as it often serves as a moving vehicle for mites (such as scabies), bedbugs, lice, cockroaches or fleas. There might even be mice nesting inside. "Check the bottom corners, crevices and sides for any signs of bedbug groupings, roach feces and mice dropping," Fouche added.

3. Rugs and carpets

Carpet fiber is a dust mite's heaven, Ogden said, "so unless it is a throw rug that you can throw in the washing machine at a high temperature, you probably need to get it professionally cleaned."

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4. Children's items

Most abandoned kids' items pose safety and health risks. "Ask yourself: Did the child who had that stuffed animal have lice?" said Ogden. Jim Bracey, a Salvation Army envoy in Chicago, advises against children's clothes, cribs and car seats, which could have been recalled.

5. Sofas and pillows

A free couch is easier to pass knowing there's a great likelihood that a pet napped on it for years. "The big thing with sofas is pet dander," said Ogden. "Especially, cat allergens stay around for a very long time, for months or years, can make people have asthma."

Similarly, linens and pillows might have belonged to a deceased or ill person, Bracey added, and could carry mold and fungus.

So what can be safely scavenged?

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Experts recommend you stick to smaller items that can be scrubbed thoroughly. When disinfecting, use hot water and a mixture of soap and detergent, before spritzing some diluted chlorine. "Let the sanitizer sit for five minutes, then rinse or wipe it up," Kane said. "Sanitizing or disinfecting agents kill microbes that can sometimes remain after cleaning."

Some things that make the cut:

Lamps should be wiped off with bleach; the shade should be vacuumed

Stuffed animals, are best avoided, but if you must, throw them in a washing machine  water should be at least 120 degrees  to eliminate potential lice. Or, freeze them for 24 hours.

Throw rugs are safe to use after a hot wash cycle

Plastic items, such as patio umbrellas, can be cleaned with bleach products.

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Plants, but change the pot and soil, as they might contain mold.

Books are OK, but wipe them clean.

Andreea Ciulac is a freelancer.

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It's an act of courage to hunt for meaning within grief, particularly if the search upends your life and shakes out the contents for all the world to sift through.

Ariel Levy embarks on the hunt beautifully in her new memoir, "The Rules Do Not Apply," which builds upon "Thanksgiving in Mongolia," the New Yorker essay for which she received the 2014 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism.

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"Thanksgiving in Mongolia" is about the death of Levy's infant son. She gave birth at 19 weeks, and the baby died within minutes. "The Rules Do Not Apply" is the story of what comes before and after his death.

"Grief is a world you walk through skinned, unshelled," she writes.

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What comes before is the stuff of early adulthood  love, heartbreak, marriage, career  albeit told through the lens of someone who weaves narratives for a living and for whom "career" means, for example, traveling to rural South Africa to track down Caster Semenya, a female Olympic runner whose gender has been questioned around the world.

Levy works as a contributing editor at New York Magazine for 12 years. In 2008 she's hired as a staff writer at The New Yorker. David Remnick, the storied New Yorker editor, sends Levy a bouquet of flowers to welcome her aboard and signs it, 'As ever, David Remnick.'

"Are you sure it doesn't say, 'As if?'" Levy's wife, Lucy, jokes.

"Nowhere to go but down," her father tells her.

It's a dream gig, and Levy relishes it, telling stories from all over the globe and profiling the likes of Nora Ephron and Maureen Dowd.

In her mid-30s, she's ready to become a mother.

"The Rules Do Not Apply," by Ariel Levy. (Random House)

"Fertility meant nothing to us in our 20s; it was something to be secured in the dungeon and left there to molder," she writes. "In our early 30s, we remembered it existed and wondered if we should check on it, and then abruptly, horrifyingly it became urgent: Somebody find that dragon! It was time to rouse it, get it ready for action.

"But the beast had not grown stronger during the decades of hibernation. By the time we tried to wake it, the dragon was weakened, wizened. Old."

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Suddenly whatever time she and her friends spent not getting pregnant in their 20s and 30s seems utterly squandered, Levy writes.

At 38, she gets pregnant, but that pregnancy ends abruptly and tragically, when she's in Mongolia on a New Yorker assignment.

Her grief is all-encompassing and leaves her unmoored, searching for answers  both medical (what went wrong?) and metaphysical. At a friend's 40th birthday party, a guest, upon learning that Levy is that friend, tells her, "Everything happens for a reason." It's a terrible thing to say  the sort of sentence that brushes away a person's grief as part of a larger, divine plan.

"The Rules Do Not Apply" is a search for meaning, not reason. It doesn't seek an explanation (outside of the medical one) for the death of Levy's son, any more than it seeks to explain away the love, fear, frustration and other experiences and emotions that take place within her lifetime. Her grief becomes a new part of her  something to understand and get used to.

Still, Levy seems bewildered at the weight of her grief, and the notion that she, like many of us, knew a life without it  when book deals and new couches seemed like life's big deals.

"When I was young," she writes. "When I had no idea that all over the city, all over the world, there were people walking around sealed in their own universes of loss, independent solar systems of suffering closed off from the regular world, where things make sense and language is all you need to tell the truth."

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She's brave and generous to share her story, which manages to be beautiful, even as it's stark and wrenching.

"The 10 or 20 minutes I was somebody's mother were black magic," Levy writes. "There is nothing I would trade them for. There is no place I would rather have seen."

I'm grateful she takes us there too.

hstevens@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13

'The Rules Do Not Apply' | By Ariel Levy, Random House, 224 pages, $27

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Fired U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara walks down a line of well-wishers March 13, 2017, in front of the New York office where he worked. (Larry Neumeister / AP)

President Donald Trump's firing of U.S. attorneys across the country was terrible, Democrats and many TV talking heads and other media sages agreed.

And this wholesale firing was offered up as yet another example of Trumpian imperial whim breathing its hot Big Orange authoritarian breath down upon the necks of the people.

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"One would have thought they'd have handled it better," a worried Wolf Blitzer at CNN said of the Trump White House to his colleagues on a panel.

"They're off to a very slow start," said CNN's Jim Acosta of the Trump administration. "So it's not surprising they'd do it in this fashion."

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"This is not the first time we've seen messy rollouts or messy firings in one way or another," lamented CNN's White House reporter Jeremy Diamond, who was sporting a rather nice beard.

"This is the same issue that is afflicting this administration that afflicted it during the travel ban rollout, right?" Diamond added. "This lack of coordination and perhaps a lack of respect for prior precedent and protocol and the way things were done in past administrations, where they're really throwing out the playbook and doing what they prefer to do."

Ah, savor the lines: The lack of respect for precedent! The disregard of protocol! Throwing out the playbook!

What does it mean?

It means the rule of law is subject to the whims of a despot, that's what it means.

And all that was missing was a lute, or rude harp, some medieval cone-shaped hats festooned with bells and a dark common room smelling of roast onions and ale, where minstrels would sing to us of the end of the republic.

In some other age, before common literacy and cable news, the account of Trump and the federal prosecutors would have happened this way:

We'd have sat near the hearth at some rustic, smelly inn to hear how the ruthless king fired all the good sheriffs of the realm.

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And Ed the Tinker's Son or Maeve the Wise or Pip the Witless would terrify the small folk with their stories of King Donald as a fire-breathing dragon burning the flesh of the righteous, merely to sate his insatiable appetite for power: the great orange beast unbound and loose upon the land!

There were many breathless accounts, the tone of which were at once alarmed and jittery. That tone, fanned by Democrats, led to much hand-wringing about this terrible state of affairs.

And it all quickly became something of a media echo chamber, with much rhythmic pounding, with "lack of respect for precedent  throwing out the playbook" and so on crashing against the national eardrums.

There's just one small problem with this epic about Trump breaking precedent to fire the feds.

It's not true.

It is not uncommon for presidents to dismiss federal prosecutors all at once. It's been going on for decades.

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The post of U.S. attorney is a political job. And when national politics change, so do federal prosecutors. Federal prosecutors aren't angels sent by God. They're lawyers, some politically ambitious, sent by presidents.

"Elections matter," Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder explained when he lopped off federal prosecutors in favor of Obama appointees. "It is our intention to have the U.S. attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can."

Democrats didn't complain when the Obama White House did it, and Republicans weren't terrified when the Bush White House installed federal prosecutors. The Clinton White House fired more than 90 U.S. attorneys in one day.

So why does the media wring its hands?

Because Trump is the president, that's why, and the media loathes him.

Since he was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in October 2013, five months after he was nominated by President Barack Obama, Zachary Fardon presided over a run of major cases. Fardon abruptly resigned as Chicago's top federal prosecutor March 13, 2017. (Jonathon Berlin / Chicago Tribune) (Jonathon Berlin / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Zachary Fardon, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who tendered his resignation letter upon presidential request the other day, understands that the federal job is a political one.

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Preet Bharara, the dramatic and media savvy U.S. attorney in New York, understands this too.

But he played a much different game, tweeting out that he would not resign, that the president would have to fire him, and guess what? He was fired.

Journos seized this, and worried it in their teeth, and Bharara fed it and there is speculation his office was investigating Fox News, (aka the Trump News Network) and that was the reason for his dismissal.

But if any ongoing federal investigations were to be killed for political reasons, a torrent of angry leaks would follow.

In the meantime, it might just be that Bharara wasn't a victim, but a political player feeding his ego by helping erode the rule of law. That's dangerous.

Bharara's drama ended in a staged departure with throngs of feds out on the steps of the federal building in New York applauding him, and he shook hands and thanked them as TV news cameras recorded every adoring moment. All he needed was some Braveheart face paint.

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Even Joan of Arc would have been jealous of such Bhararan adoration. But the poor illiterate girl was captured by the Burgundians and later burned as a heretic.

Bharara won't be burned. He's no heretic. He's a political cat growing his brand. He could run for governor of New York or mayor, as a Democrat, against Democrats he investigated when he held the federal hammer.

And that's politics too.

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast  with John Kass and Jeff Carlin  at http://wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/category/thechicagoway.

jskass@chicagotribune.com
Take a look at Chicago-area academies compared to other cities' academies. (Chicago Tribune)

Standing before nearly 100 newly hired Chicago police recruits on their first day at the academy, Cmdr. Daniel Godsel issued a stern warning about the next six months of training.

"It's going to be very difficult, physically and mentally," he told the recruits last month. "You're going to find conditions at the academy strict and demanding. We're gonna hold each of you to the very highest of standards, and we will not tolerate anything short of excellence."

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Yet the Police Department's own numbers show that the recruits have little reason to worry about washing out.

In fact, all but a relative handful of trainees graduate from the academy and become cops, raising concerns about how rigorous and selective the department is in inducting new officers.

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Over a recent four-year period, the academy graduated more than 97 percent of its recruits, according to department figures obtained by the Chicago Tribune through a public records request.

By comparison, a U.S. Department of Justice study of some 600 police academies across the country found about 86 percent of recruits graduated between 2011 and 2013.

And the rate of failure is even higher at some big-city departments. In Los Angeles, about a quarter of recruits don't make the cut, largely because they fail tests or leave voluntarily, according to city records.

Chicago police officials defended the low attrition rate, saying that aspiring recruits undergo a "stringent" vetting process before being admitted to the academy "to ensure that the best candidates are appointed to train at the academy."

In addition, spokesman Frank Giancamilli said the department is revising its training curriculum for recruits and in recent months increased academy staffing and stepped up monitoring of instructors.

The high graduation rate, however, backs up the Justice Department's recent report on the Chicago Police Department that alleged that academy officials failed to weed out subpar recruits while providing sloppy, outdated instruction. While lacking specific figures, the report said the department has known its attrition rate was "'very close to zero' and thus well below normal levels present in police academies across the country."

Chicago Police recruits line up Feb. 16, 2017, at the department's training academy. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

The quality of officer selection and training has taken on added significance as Mayor Rahm Emanuel seeks to add 1,000 new cops over the next two years to a police force plagued by misconduct and excessive force. Even as changes to the curriculum are still in development, the Police Department is pushing large classes of recruits through an academy that the Justice Department has criticized for producing cops who are dangerously unprepared.

"A (near) zero attrition rate tells us that CPD is not taking seriously its responsibility to screen recruits," said Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor and frequent department critic. "It should come as no surprise that the department has enabled its officers to commit a pattern and practice of abuse against citizens."

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Retired Deputy Chief Howard Lodding, who led the academy from 2009 to 2013, said he could not explain why the department's attrition rate is so much lower than those of some other academies, but he said he and his staff kicked out recruits when necessary.

"Just because you lose people doesn't make you a better police department," he said. "You're not there to fail people  you're there to ensure that they have the skills necessary to go on and do that job."

Emanuel continues to revamp police discipline, supervision and training almost 16 months after he was forced into action by the uproar over a video of a white police officer shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.

Uncertainty looms, however, as to how ambitious City Hall will continue to be about changing the department now that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has signaled he is unlikely to seek court-ordered reforms in Chicago, possibly leaving Emanuel with almost complete control over what steps are taken. The political climate changed in recent months after President Donald Trump was elected in part on a law-and-order platform. Major protests over police abuse have largely died down, while runaway gun violence remains a stubborn problem in Chicago.

Emanuel has recently stuck to a largely pro-police message, and Superintendent Eddie Johnson has backed off enacting a more restrictive use of force policy he floated months earlier that upset some cops.

As Emanuel has sought to boost officer morale and shore up the department, waves of new officers have entered the academy.

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If history is any guide, almost all of them will end up on city streets with badges and guns.

Between July 2012 and April 2016, about 60 of some 2,000 prospective officers who entered the Chicago academy failed to graduate  a 97 percent success rate, the city's numbers show.

By contrast, in Los Angeles, about 450 out of some 1,750 recruits failed to graduate between 2012 and mid-2016, records show. That means that the L.A. Police Department, with its graduation rate of about 74 percent, washed out about eight times as many recruits as Chicago.

It is hard to assess all the differences between the two departments' academies, but it is clear that various elements of training trip up vastly more recruits in Los Angeles than Chicago.

For example, between 2013 and mid-2016, 63 recruits flunked the Los Angeles police academy after failing firearms testing  dozens more than the number who didn't graduate from Chicago's academy for any reason during the same period.

Los Angeles' shooting tests are much more extensive than those in Chicago. Los Angeles recruits have to shoot in low light and in simulated combat conditions, with varying accuracy standards. California's state standards holds that officers have to fire more than 250 rounds in testing.

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Chicago follows state standards for firearms testing, and a recruit must shoot 50 rounds total at an 8.5-by-14-inch target from 7, 15 and 25 yards, hitting at least 70 percent within varying time limits.

An academy's failure rate could be swayed by its admission standards and screening practices, but it is difficult to assess differences across academies. Chicago, though, requires applicants who are not military veterans to have taken 60 semester hours of college, typically the equivalent of two years, while Los Angeles requires just a high school diploma or GED.

On paper, the departments' other screening practices are substantially similar. Both require physical fitness tests, background checks and psychological examinations, among other measures, though the details of those screening practices vary.

Other big-city police academies also posted graduation rates several points lower than Chicago's in recent years.

New York City's academy graduated about 93.4 percent of recruits between January 2012 and mid-2016, the city's numbers show. Given the department's size, that meant about 700 recruits didn't graduate. New York police declined to provide further details on why recruits fell short.

Houston had nearly the same graduation rate during the same approximate period.

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Giancamilli noted that Chicago's police academy provides recruits with hundreds of hours of training beyond the state's minimum standards.

Chicago Police recruits listen as Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks with Superintendent Eddie Johnson on Feb. 16, 2017, at the department's training academy. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Maria Haberfeld, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City who has studied police academies, said that in the past 15 years or so she'd seen more effort put toward recruitment and selection in Los Angeles and New York than in Chicago.

In New York and Los Angeles, she said, "the expectations are higher."

Two of Illinois' five other police academies reported attrition similar to Chicago's. College of DuPage's Suburban Law Enforcement Academy and the Southwestern Illinois Police Academy in Belleville both reported graduation rates between 97 and 98 percent. Two others notched rates lower than Chicago's but above 90 percent.

Even if Chicago's low attrition rate is not unique, it is still a problem, some experts said.

The bottom 10 percent of any class is likely to be "trouble," said Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer who is now an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But departments such as Chicago's don't weed out recruits for the same reasons other institutions hesitate to fire people  to avoid the headache and lawsuits, Moskos said.

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Futterman said the department has neglected to screen out bad recruits as part of a broader pattern of failing to ensure officers do quality work.

"In terms of their training, their supervision, their monitoring, they get an 'F'," he said of the department.

Lodding said he couldn't pinpoint the academy's attrition rate during his period leading it, but he said the department weeded out problem recruits.

"If it was necessary, it was done. You can't endanger the public," he said. "It's a job where people can take a person's life and take their freedom. You don't pass people just to pass people."

The academy's practices have taken on a heightened importance as the department trains waves of recruits.

By the end of 2018, Emanuel is seeking to expand the force to some 13,500 sworn officers. With retirements and departures, the department may need to hire more than 2,000 new officers in all to hit Emanuel's goal.

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He's also trying to restrain surging  and politically damaging  gunfire on the South and West sides. Last year, the city exceeded 760 slayings and 4,300 people shot, huge jumps over 2015. The violence has continued at a similar pace so far in 2017.

The new recruits are going through academy training that the Justice Department hammered as outdated and undemanding. Federal authorities noted that many rookie cops didn't understand even basic principles important to their work on the street.

"At the academy and during ride-alongs, our retained training law enforcement expert asked several (probationary police officers) to articulate when use of force would be justified in the field," the report said. "Only one (officer) out of six came close to properly articulating the legal standard for use of force."

Emanuel's vow to revamp training extends even to the academy building itself; City Hall has announced plans to replace the current academy, a utilitarian hulk dedicated in 1976 on Jackson Boulevard near Racine Avenue. Prior to that location opening, Tribune archives show, Chicago police trained in a building so old it was used as a hospital during the Civil War.

City Hall has yet to announce a new site.

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Last month, in addressing the department's new hires on their first day as recruits at the academy, the mayor delivered a pep talk, vowing that the city would have their backs. Speaking just days after three children under 12 had been fatally shot, he also lamented the rising toll of gun violence. The recruits, he said, would play a crucial role in preventing more bloodshed.

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"We're gonna ask you to be the point of the spear as it relates to public safety," he said.

Godsel's message was more bracing, even if his warnings about the academy's difficulty weren't reinforced by its near-perfect graduation rate.

"You have to earn it," he told the trainees. "That begins here today."

Chicago Tribune's Jennifer Smith Richards contributed.

dhinkel@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @dhinkel
New officers stand to receive their certificates at the Chicago Police Department's graduation and promotion ceremony at Navy Pier's Grand Ballroom, Friday, April 8, 2016. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago police rarely weed out recruits, but even a trainee booted from the academy can still wind up on the force.

Officer Peter Palka was fired from the department while undergoing training in 2007 after academy staff said he'd been unprepared, dishonest and a poor marksmen who repeatedly failed the shooting test, city records show.

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However, after nearly a decade of persistence and legal action, he returned to the academy in 2016 after a favorable ruling by a Cook County judge, according to court and city records. He's now assigned to a Near North Side police district.

Palka, 33, declined to comment.

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His long legal battle shows the difficulties sometimes faced by the Police Department in the relatively rare instances in which it fires a recruit from the academy.

Palka first joined the Chicago police academy in 2006 after working as an auxiliary officer in Rosemont. But early on, he ran into a problem after divulging information about a "sensitive class" session to other recruits who had yet to undergo the training, according to city records. Palka promised in a letter to superiors he wouldn't do it again, records show.

But more serious issues arose. Palka twice failed to pass the firearms test, once notching a score of 56 percent, well short of the minimum passing grade of 70 percent, city records show.

Later, during administrative hearings, Palka said his gun sights had been askew.

After his shooting failures, the department gave Palka extra training. But according to a departmental memo, academy staff found Palka lacked "basic fundamental firearms skills," noting that he had admitted to not reading the firearms manual. However, he later maintained he had indeed read the manual months earlier but told the staff he hadn't because he "was nervous and it seemed like the easiest answer," the memo said.

In January 2007, Assistant Deputy Superintendent Matthew Tobias wrote to other high-ranking officers asking that Palka be fired for failing to read the firearms manual and lying about whether he read it. Lt. Ronald Pontecore wrote in a memo that "Palka does not possess the integrity or high standard of character necessary to be a Chicago Police Officer."

The department promptly fired Palka, records show.

Palka fought his dismissal in federal court, claiming he was fired for his Polish heritage, not his performance at the academy. But the city prevailed in that litigation

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Nonetheless, Palka reapplied to the Police Department and was in the midst of the hiring process when the city's Human Resources Department disqualified him in a 2014 letter, citing "an incident(s) revealed during the background investigation." Palka sought a hearing from the city's Human Resources Board, which handles certain personnel disputes. But the board backed his disqualification, saying he'd been directed to read the firearms manual and did not do so, city records show.

Palka petitioned for review by the Cook County courts, arguing, among other things, that the city didn't prove he had disobeyed any direct orders to read the manual because none had ever been given. Judge Kathleen Kennedy agreed, finding he couldn't be ruled ineligible to join the department.

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Palka's attorney, Daniel Herbert, told the Tribune that he regarded the allegations against his client as "trumped up."

"And I think it was proven by the ruling," he said.

Palka was rehired in June 2016, records show.

He passed the academy and is now a police officer.

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Chicago Tribune's Annie Sweeney contributed.

dhinkel@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @dhinkel
Lawyer Mike Goldberg speaks to the media after Kia Walker, a Chicago area grandmother, was denied custody of Heather Mack's toddler, who is in a Bali prison with her parents. March 14, 2017. (Christy Gutowski / Chicago Tribune)

Lawyer Mike Goldberg speaks to the media after Kia Walker, a Chicago area grandmother, was denied custody of Heather Mack's toddler, who is in a Bali prison with her parents. March 14, 2017. (Christy Gutowski / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

A Cook County judge denied a woman's eleventh-hour bid to become her granddaughter's legal guardian Tuesday, just days before the child is expected to be separated from her parents in a Bali prison where she has been raised since birth.

Judge Susan Kennedy Sullivan ruled she lacks the authority to grant such a request concerning the nearly 2-year-old girl who is halfway around the world and whose parents had not provided written consent.

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Minutes before the judge's ruling, Kia Walker, of River Forest, made an impassioned plea asking that she be allowed to bring the child, Stella, back to live with her in the United States.

"I'm concerned about her well-being, and I'm concerned her parents are not in a position to make any kind of decisions regarding her care," Walker said. "I would love the opportunity to care for my granddaughter and give her the kind of life she deserves in America. If it were up to me, she would never have been in the prison."

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Stella was born in Indonesia on March 17, 2015, as her parents, Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer, faced charges in the slaying of Mack's mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, whose battered body was discovered in a suitcase outside a luxury Bali resort during an August 2014 vacation.

Walker is Schaefer's mother. He and Mack were convicted of the grisly crime and sentenced to prison, but Indonesian custom allowed the former couple to raise their daughter behind bars until she turns 2. As the deadline approaches, fearing her grandchild might end up in a foreign country's foster care system, Walker filed for guardianship. She said it is her son's wishes that she raise Stella.

But Mack, 21, wants Stella to remain in Bali so that she may see her regularly while serving a 10-year prison sentence, according to her attorney, Vanessa Favia. Mack has made arrangements with an Australian couple who live in Bali, and with whom she has close ties, to raise Stella until the young mother's release.

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The grandmother's attorney, Michael Goldberg, said Tuesday he will appeal. Even if an Illinois appellate court expedites his request, it's not likely to happen before Friday, the child's second birthday.

"The law says that if we show (the parents) were unable to care for the child that she as the grandmother has standing," Goldberg said. "We think that being convicted of murder and being in an Indonesian jail for over a decade qualifies as being unable to care for the child."

Although Stella was born in Indonesia, Goldberg said she is a U.S. citizen through acquisition because both her parents are citizens and resided here before traveling abroad. Indonesian law says a child born there to non-Indonesian parents would not automatically be considered an Indonesian citizen, the lawyer said.

Schaefer, 23, formerly of Oak Park, is serving an 18-year prison term.

He tearfully testified during his trial that he struck von Wiese-Mack with a metal fruit bowl handle after she became enraged and physically violent upon learning her daughter was pregnant. But several text messages between the couple and hotel surveillance cameras supported the prosecution's version that Mack and Schaefer conspired together to kill von Wiese-Mack, of Chicago, who had named her only child sole beneficiary of her estate, later valued a $1.56 million.

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cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @christygutowsk1
Since he was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in October 2013, five months after he was nominated by President Barack Obama, Zachary Fardon presided over a run of major cases. Fardon abruptly resigned as Chicago's top federal prosecutor March 13, 2017. (Jonathon Berlin / Chicago Tribune) (Jonathon Berlin / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday blasted former U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon for what it characterized as a "blindsided attack" on a 2015 agreement curtailing the Chicago Police Department's use of stop-and-frisk measures.

In an open letter released to the media after he left office Monday, Fardon said the ACLU's settlement had "swung the pendulum hard" away from pro-active law enforcement by "telling cops if you go talk to those kids on the corner, you're going to have to take 40 minutes to fill out a form, and you're going to have to give them a receipt with your badge number on it."

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Fardon said the new procedures for street stops, as Chicago police call them, were a key reason for the spike in violence that began in early 2016 and had a chilling effect on many police officers who "no longer wanted to wear the risk of stopping suspects."

In response Tuesday, Karen Sheley, the police practices director for the ACLU of Illinois, said Fardon's opinions were out of line with the Justice Department's own investigation that found widespread constitutional abuses of citizens, particularly in low-income minority neighborhoods where the majority of street stops occur.

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Fardon also "wildly exaggerated" the time needed to fill out the form and ignored "the real impact and harm of these stops," which occurred far too often and under suspect or unconstitutional circumstances, Sheley said in an emailed statement.

"These stops were often invasive  with officers reaching inside someone's clothing  and intrusive, happening repeatedly to the same person," Sheley said. "The lack of oversight of the stops reflect the same systemic deficiencies identified in the Department of Justice report on the CPD issued early this year."

Citing statistics from the ACLU's own research, Sheley said police conducted more than 700,000 street stops in 2014 that yielded no guns and resulted in not a single arrest.

"These low-benefit stops came at a high cost  they further damaged the relationship between the community and police," Sheley said.

For years, Chicago police had routinely conducted tens of thousands of street stops each year of people they deemed suspicious, questioning them and sometimes patting them down. Police also filled out contact cards with limited information about the person stopped.

In 2015, the ACLU of Illinois conducted a study that found that Chicago police made more than a quarter-million stops from May through August 2014, a far higher rate than New York City cops did at the height of their much-maligned stop-and-frisk policy.

Its analysis showed Chicago police stopped African-Americans at a disproportionately higher rate than Hispanics and whites, especially in predominantly white neighborhoods.

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The ACLU contemplated suing the Police Department over the practice, condemning it as racial profiling. The department denied the profiling allegations but agreed to changes that required officers to more thoroughly document their street stops. The changes were also incorporated in a new state law.

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Fardon abruptly resigned as Chicago's top federal prosecutor Monday, three days after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' surprise announcement asking all 46 Obama administration holdovers to step down.

Fardon's five-page letter, which was handed to reporters before he left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, urged the city and Justice Department to push through a consent decree for sweeping changes at the Police Department, called for federal and local police to "flood" neighborhoods afflicted by rampant gang crime, and labeled social media as what's driving "the virus of gunplay" among young people.

His words expressed a deep frustration with the entrenched nature of Chicago violence, which last year increased to levels unseen in two decades even though Fardon made it his office's top priority from the moment he took the reins in October 2013.

Joel Levin, who has served as Fardon's first assistant for the past several years, was named acting U.S. attorney while a search for a permanent successor is conducted.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jmetr22b
Gary Solomon, the co-owner of the SUPES Academy and Synesi Associates education consulting companies, pleaded guilty last year to a single count of wire fraud and admitted his role in a scheme to bribe former Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

The executive at the center of a federal bribery scandal at Chicago Public Schools helped steer Barbara Byrd-Bennett into the district's top job and manipulated district procedures to secure a no-bid contract for his companies, federal prosecutors said in a filing this week.

In their response to a sentencing memo filed earlier this month by attorneys for Gary Solomon, prosecutors rejected pleas for leniency and said Solomon made millions of dollars in a case that "involved a corrupt process from beginning to end."

Solomon "may have comforted himself with the thought that he was not a governor or alderman or public official, but he profited far more handsomely than most convicted of public corruption offenses," prosecutors said. "The government agrees with Solomon that this is not a typical honest services bribery case. It is significantly worse."

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Solomon, the co-owner of the SUPES Academy and Synesi Associates education consulting companies, pleaded guilty last year to a single count of wire fraud and admitted his role in a scheme to bribe Byrd-Bennett with a percentage of the value of contracts she helped secure for his firms. Prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence Solomon next week to nine years in prison.

Solomon had played a role in recruiting Mayor Rahm Emanuel 's first schools CEO, Jean-Claude Brizard , at the request of the mayor-elect's transition team in February 2011. But by the middle of July 2012, prosecutors said, "Brizard was floundering, and Solomon saw an opportunity."

"Solomon knew that Brizard was looking to leave CPS and was a 'dead man walking,'" prosecutors said, quoting from a series of emails Solomon exchanged with one of Emanuel's aides.

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Solomon promoted Byrd-Bennett's interest in a bigger role at the district to City Hall , writing to one Emanuel aide that Byrd-Bennett "just sees that the ship is sinking fast and she wants to help." By the end of July 2012  three months before she officially took over  Solomon sent Byrd-Bennett an email that said: "Congrats, Madam CEO!!!"

Prosecutors said Byrd-Bennett then began "strong-arming" CPS procurement officials to award a no-bid training contract to SUPES. Solomon also was "well aware of the inner workings of CPS," federal authorities said, as Byrd-Bennett forwarded internal district emails to him.

Solomon also was "actively involved" in the process to award the contract and directed the work of district employees.

On the day the school board signed off on her hiring as CEO in October 2012, it also approved an initial $2.1 million contract for SUPES, expanding its early work training administrators to training principals.

"Without anyone else at CPS or in the City of Chicago knowing of (Solomon's) agreement to pay Byrd-Bennett kickbacks from contracts awarded to SUPES by CPS, he helped to lay the foundation for Byrd-Bennett to take over," prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys argued in their earlier filing that Solomon has cooperated with prosecutors, shown remorse and should face no more than 18 months in prison. His attorneys said a number of "uniquely mitigating circumstances" justified their request for a shorter sentence, while shifting much of the blame for the case onto Byrd-Bennett.

In their response, prosecutors dismissed the defense claims as "diversions, efforts to deflect the Court's attention from the breadth of his corruption and the extent to which he was the direct beneficiary. His was a calculated corruption that lasted for years and earned him millions of dollars."

Byrd-Bennett pleaded guilty shortly after being indicted to a single felony count of wire fraud for steering multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts to Solomon and his firms in exchange for the promise of up to $2.3 million in kickbacks.

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Prosecutors have acknowledged that Byrd-Bennett lied to FBI agents when they first approached her in April 2015 and also "lied and minimized her conduct" initially with the government before testifying before a grand jury in June 2015.

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But, prosecutors said, "she cooperated first, and she cooperated fully." Prosecutors indicated earlier this month that they expect to request a 71/2-year sentence for Byrd-Bennett.

The SUPES and Synesi companies were charged as part of an original 23-count indictment leveled against Byrd-Bennett, Solomon and co-owner Thomas Vranas in 2015.

Vranas pleaded guilty last April to a single count of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery. He is scheduled for sentencing April 28, as is Byrd-Bennett.

Chicago Tribune's Jason Meisner contributed.

jjperez@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @PerezJr
11/3/2022

The Sales Institute at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Gary W. Rollins College of Business is officially open for business. After more than two years in the planning, the Sales ... more
"I want to ensure that constitutional rights are protected from the earliest point of contact with the criminal justice system,"said Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans after signing an order granting access to an attorney at no charge for people taken into Chicago police custody. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

People held in custody by Chicago police will have access to an attorney at no charge under an order signed Tuesday by Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans.

The aim of the change is to rectify a glaring constitutional issue  the vast majority of those arrested in Chicago don't receive legal representation until their bail hearing in court, often after they've already made incriminating statements to detectives, according to research by a legal aid group.

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Many key players in the legal system applauded Evans' move, which some declared "ground-breaking."

Indeed, on paper, the order holds the promise of a profound shift. For decades, indigent defendants had to wait until their first court appearance before an assistant public defender was appointed to represent them. Evans' order allows that step to take place much earlier  as soon as arrestees are brought to police stations.

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But the success of such an order may ultimately depend on the cooperation of Chicago police, who in the past, say legal aid officials, have been reluctant to grant suspects phone calls or give attorneys access to suspects while they're being questioned.

A Chicago police spokesman said Tuesday the department has agreed to post signs with a phone number for "free legal services" in arrestee areas and outside interview rooms but did not comment on questions about granting phone calls to those in custody.

"Judge Evans doing the order is not going to make it happen," said Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli. "The police have got to put the posters up; they've got to give clients the access to the phones. And if lawyers show up, they have to let them through the door," she added.

Chicago has been troubled by wrongful convictions  with more than 100 convictions reversed since 1989  and some experts said Tuesday the change could help prevent the innocent from being convicted. Illinois has long had laws giving suspects the right to make calls and meet with an attorney before being charged, the Cook County public defender said, but they were rarely enforced.

"I want to ensure that constitutional rights are protected from the earliest point of contact with the criminal justice system," Evans said in a statement. "The concept of 'justice' demands that we take this step to strengthen an individual's rights and the public's confidence in the system."

Evans' order is a blanket appointment of the public defender to represent people in custody who ask for an attorney before their first court appearance.

Suspects taken into custody have had a right to a lawyer under the Sixth Amendment, but it was impossible for most arrestees to speak with an attorney before they were charged and taken to bond court  unless they had private counsel.

In fact, a public records request by the nonprofit First Defense Legal Aid showed that only 838 of the nearly 86,700 people arrested last year by Chicago police  less than 1 percent  were able to consult with an attorney at the police station.

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The figures are even worse for juvenile arrestees  just two out of 1,000 children had an attorney present during questioning, the organization said.

Campanelli, who said she worked on the changes with Chicago Police Department legal counsel Charise Valente, a former Cook County prosecutor, said Illinois has laws requiring police to conspicuously post a notice of suspects' legal rights  including communicating with family and an attorney.

She brushed aside concerns about the expense of sending staff attorneys to represent individuals being held at all 22 police districts.

"I'm going to make it happen  this is way too important. This is groundbreaking," she said. "I could have every lawyer do (a rotation) if I don't get the funding."

The public defender already has five lawyers at each of the five branch courts attached to police stations throughout the city, including the busy Area Central headquarters. Those attorneys could be dispatched during work hours to calls for help, Campanelli said.

But if enough calls come in, Campanelli said she would consider putting the roughly 450 attorneys in her office in on-call rotations to handle them and seeking outside funding for more lawyers. Campanelli said she would also like to create a specialized unit  similar to the state's attorney's felony review unit  to handle only calls from custodial suspects.

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On nights, weekends and holidays, the calls would be forwarded to First Defense, a nonprofit which for years has provided volunteer legal counsel to some arrestees being held in police station lockups. First Defense Legal Aid Executive Director Eliza Solowiej on Tuesday called for a new influx of volunteer attorneys and law students licensed to work as lawyers for a legal clinic.

Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. >

Solowiej said providing early access to lawyers has been shown to reduce costs for the criminal justice system by spotlighting cases likely to fall apart later in court. Campanelli said she also hoped having public defenders involved at an earlier stage would result in more cases being disposed of quickly.

"People who do not need to be incarcerated are freed sooner," Solowiej said. "That means we do not have to incur the costs as taxpayers."

First Defense said it's looking to bolster its ranks of volunteers to take four-hour shifts responding to calls for legal aid. Solowiej said the need is particularly great with juvenile suspects.

"We are ready to protect children in police custody  that they know their rights and that they're not alone with police and prosecutors," she said.

First Defense will work with the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice to track how many calls come in and what happens to those cases as they go through the criminal justice system.

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sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
Chicago police and evidence markers remain at a shooting investigation in the 8700 block of South Wood Street on Nov. 28, 2016. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

A 23-year-old man died of complications from a gunshot wound to the neck months after he was wounded in a South Side triple shooting in the Gresham neighborhood.

Alex Strong was pronounced dead at 8:23 p.m. Friday. His death was ruled a homicide, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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Strong was one of three men who were shot about 4:05 p.m. Nov. 28 while they were in a van in the 8700 block of South Wood Street.

A dark-colored SUV drove up and someone inside fired shots before pulling away, Chicago police said. Strong was taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

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Another 23-year-old man was grazed in the head and was hit in the left shoulder. A third man, 26, was shot in the hip.

Police are now investigating the incident as a homicide. No one has been arrested in the case.
Even as she was scrawling the letters onto a piece of paper Monday, Tami Campbell knew her son would never come home, would never read her words.



She left him the note anyway, to let him know she'd gone to the police station because she hadn't heard from him. She said she'd be back soon, but she was already sure he was dead. Deep down, she knew it as soon as he didn't return her text.



"He didn't respond, and he always responds," Campbell said Tuesday. "I didn't hear no more from him. That was ... I didn't know his last goodbye was his last goodbye. I always text him, 'Are you safe?' And I don't know why, that day I text him: 'Are you alive?' It was like I knew already."



Hours after she filed a missing persons report, Campbell learned that her only child, Ryan Hamilton, 20, and two of his friends were found shot to death in the Monte Carlo that Campbell had given her son.



The bodies of Hamilton, Vogels Anderson Jr., 19, and Devontae Watson, 18 were discovered around 8 a.m. Monday after someone complained that the Monte Carlo was illegally parked in an alley in the 8600 block of South Throop Street in Gresham.



Two were found inside the car, the third in the trunk. Hamilton was shot once in the neck, Anderson was shot once in the head and Watson suffered several gunshot wounds. Police have released few other details, including a possible motive.



Like Campbell, Anderson's mother had also worried when she did not get a text back from her son.



When Anderson didn't come home Sunday night, Sarah Wicks figured he was with his girlfriend, who attended the University of Illinois in UrbanaChampaign and visited him on weekends. Still, she thought it was unusual when he didn't respond to a text that night.



Then on Monday morning, Wicks saw a news story on Facebook under the headline, "Three bodies found," and her mind raced. "Three kids missing and we can't reach nobody," she said.



"What's hurting me the most, I really want to know who and why," Wicks said. "Why would y'all want to do this to them boys? They were good boys."



Anderson and Hamilton had been best friends since freshman year at Ralph Ellison High School, where Watson also attended. Wicks described the friends as "goofy kids," her son always cracking jokes and smiling. He even won a tooth brush for best smile in the 8th grade.



He had a voice that carried, and his family and friends called him "Stormy." He and his brothers were fortunate kids who "didn't go without," said Wicks, who added that she often traveled with her sons to new cities "so they know they have options."



Anderson was studying civil engineering in college, according to his father, Vogels Anderson Sr. He was a planner, a "take-charge type of guy," his father said.



"They had plans," Anderson said. "It's just baffling that we found them in the neighborhood over there."



Hamilton had just found out Friday that he got a job at Home Depot. His first day was supposed to have been Monday, the day his body was discovered.



It was more than a day before Campbell would make it to the Cook County medical examiner's office to identify her boy. She couldn't will herself to go to the morgue Monday.



"I'm afraid to see him today because I don't want to see a monster, I want to see my beautiful baby boy," she said. "He was not into trafficking drugs, and guns and gang stuff like that. He was just trying to find his way in this world."



When she did make it to the morgue Tuesday, she had to identify the boy who just a month ago was grinning ear to ear on a cruise ship that ferried mother and son around Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas.



"I saw my baby ... he will never be coming home," she wrote in a text to the Tribune. "He has what looks like a cigarette burn to his left temple, his eyes were closed partially like he was half asleep, he had markings on his neck and his tongue was hanging out as if he was grasping/panting for air," she wrote.



"His beautiful face was still heavenly, the same," she said.



Hamilton's last weekend was all about celebration. After getting the Home Depot job offer, he went out with friends Saturday night and didn't return home until early Sunday.



When he woke up, he went for a walk with Max, the family's Jack Russell Terrier. He showered and put on an expensive outfit he just had to have for his 20th birthday in January. Campbell said she didn't know what made the clothes so special, but he loved them so she bought them. He was wearing them when he left the house.



"(He) said he was going out  it was daylight out  and said, 'Mom, bye,' " she said.



"If I had a known it was going to be my last time," Campbell said, her voice beginning to choke up. "I would've kissed him, I would've held him tighter if I had known. I would've called on Jesus to protect him "



Wicks said Hamilton and her son had plans to go to an indoor trampoline park that night with about eight other friends, Wicks said.



Wicks last saw her son at her house before they left for somewhere after 5 p.m. Sunday. Around 6 p.m., a friend spoke by phone to Hamilton and was told he and Anderson were heading down 79th Street.



Wicks said she called her son around 9 p.m.  it rang but he didn't answer.



Around the same time, someone called police to report the Monte Carlo was illegally parked in the alley on Throop. It's not known if police checked it then.



About 2 a.m. Monday, Campbell filed a missing persons report with the Blue Island Police Department. Officials told her the car had been recently spotted by Chicago police and the plates had been checked.



The officials indicated he was likely safe, but Campbell said she now regrets not asking where exactly the car was spotted.



"They told me Chicago police did run his plates at 12 midnight. I asked what does that mean  he's not in custody  and they said he could've been in a traffic accident, the plates could've been run just while he was driving," Campbell said.



"If I could've known the location when Blue Island came and told me at 2 a.m. that they had ran my baby's plates, but no one was in custody, they assured me that it would be OK. If I had known where. If I could've gotten to him earlier, if I could've saved him "



Campbell works as a licensed practical nurse.



She is also frustrated no one went to check inside the illegally parked car when it was first reported. "I know he's got tinted windows, but why didn't anyone look inside with a flashlight?" she asked.



Campbell and her son had moved out of the Ashburn neighborhood, where so many of Hamilton's friends still live and not far from where her son was found dead. She wanted to create a safer environment for him.



"It was just too many killings, burglaries, robberies  and I didn't want my baby there, I wanted to save him. I would have done anything to save him. I was his mother and his father. I was his everything," she said, pausing and correcting herself, "I am his everything."



The growing violence also weighed heavily on Hamilton's best friend.



Two weeks ago, Wicks asked her three sons over dinner what they thought of moving to California. Anderson, who loved football, fashion and barbecuing, told her he wanted to get out of town after he finished school.



"He was like, 'It's just too many killings going on here,' " Wicks said.

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kdouglas@chicagotribune.com

hschroering@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter: @ohitsheather
The Chicago area remained under a lake-effect snow warning as the Tuesday morning rush slowed to an icy crawl on expressways and some Metra train lines.



The warning covers Cook, Lake and DuPage counties until 4 p.m. In Lake County, Ind., the warning has been extended to 1 a.m. Wednesday.

The dense snow was being carried by winds from the north to northeast over Lake Michigan. The snow bands were expected to slowly shift into northwest Indiana later in the morning and continue overnight into Wednesday.

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Some areas could get 5 to 10 inches of snow while others see only a dusting, according to the National Weather Service.



Several spinouts were reported on expressways and travel times were more than double, according to WGN-TV.

On the Kennedy Expressway, it took an hour and a half to get from O'Hare International Airport to downtown around 6:30 a.m. By 7:15 a.m., the travel time had increased to more than three hours.



The weather was blamed for two crashes on the Kennedy on Monday night that involved as many as 35 vehicles, according to the Illinois State Police. Seven people were injured, one critically, fire officials said.



On Metra lines, Burlington Northern Sante Fe trains were running up to an hour late Tuesday morning because of signal problems. At least one train was canceled. Delays of half an hour were reported on the Union Pacific Northwest Line. Check here for updates.



The CTA reported no significant delays.



The weather here and along the East Coast, hit by blizzard conditions, were causing hundreds of cancellations and delays at O'Hare and Midway airports.



As of 6:45 a.m., about 340 flights had been canceled at O'Hare and at least 85 were delayed. At Midway, more than 70 flights had been canceled, according to FlightStats, which gathers data from airlines and airports.

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Across the country, more than 5,000 flights have been scratched, including more than 2,800 in the New York City area, where about 200 passengers were stranded at John F. Kennedy airport.

Amtrak canceled and modified service up and down the Northeast Corridor. In New York City, the above-ground portions of the subway system were shut down Tuesday morning.

The weather service has issued blizzard warnings for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

The storm was expected to dump 12 to 18 inches of snow on the New York City area with wind gusts of up to 55 mph.



Check back for updates.
Illinois Democratic Sens.Tammy Duckworth, left, and Dick Durbin sent a letter to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner asking him to weigh in on congressional Republicans' plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Subscribe here.

Topspin

Illinois Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have sent a letter to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner asking him to weigh in on congressional Republicans' plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

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"As we fight here in Congress to protect Illinoisans from this dangerous legislation, it would be helpful to hear from you about the impact these proposals would have on our state and our constituents," the pair wrote in the letter.

They released the letter Monday about an hour before the Congressional Budget Office released its report on the GOP plan. The senators wrote that the bill would end the Medicaid expansion offered under the Affordable Care Act and convert the program to a "per capita cap" system.

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"In short, beginning in 2020, the Republican bill would dramatically reduce federal funding for the Medicaid expansion population  leaving the state of Illinois to pay five times more than it does today or, if that is not possible, drop people from coverage," the senators warned.

"Even worse, while states like Illinois see a dramatic funding cliff under the Republican plan, states that failed to expand Medicaid under the ACA receive a special funding increase  seemingly to reward their decision to deny residents health coverage for the past few years," the Democrats said.

Rauner has expressed concerns about a drop-off of federal funding under the Medicaid expansion that is providing health care coverage to about 650,000 Illinois residents. He's also said he's opposed to some parts of the House GOP legislation but has not offered any specifics. Last week, Rauner said he's working with other governors "to craft a joint response or some recommendations to what's been proposed."

"My first blush read is Illinois won't do very well under the changes that they're recommending, which is a big concern to me," Rauner said last week. "I want to make sure that people in Illinois are not left in the lurch or that, you know, there's a lot of pressure to reduce insurance coverage for people in Illinois. I'm very concerned about that." (Rick Pearson)

What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel will address the Opportunity Youth Summit in the morning and appear with the Chicago Bulls at Parker Community Academy in the afternoon.

*Gov. Rauner's has no public events.

*The Illinois House and Senate begin this week's session.

*The city's Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development is set to meet.

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From the notebook

*Democrats slam House GOP health care overhaul: Soon after Durbin and Duckworth revealed their letter, a Congressional Budget Office report said 14 million people would lose insurance coverage by next year under the House GOP health care rewrite, an estimate that drew quick reaction from Illinois House Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley of Chicago said the Trump administration "promised that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act would make our nation a healthier, safer place for all. Once again, the reality is different than the rhetoric."

Quigley, who said the GOP measure would have an immense, immediate and devastating impact, added: "We cannot afford to go backwards when lives are on the line."

Illinois Republicans didn't comment immediately on the CBO report, which also said the GOP measure would cut federal deficits by $337 billion in the next decade, chiefly through cuts to Medicaid and the end of subsidies to millions of people who buy coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Evanston said if Republicans were looking for a second opinion, "they can ask the American Medical Association, the AARP, the American Hospital Association, or any of the countless other groups and organizations that have vehemently opposed this bill."

"Republicans won't get away with their plot to rip apart our health care system," she said.

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Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline weighed in, too, saying the Republican measure would make devastating cuts to Medicaid and let millions lose health care coverage "all so Washington Republicans can give the wealthiest Americans billions of dollars in tax breaks." (Katherine Skiba)

*Tax group says Illinois ranks 23rd for business climate: The Washington-based Tax Foundation has ranked Illinois in 23rd place on the group's "State Business Tax Climate Index," which measures how each state's tax code is structured.

Other findings show Illinois ranks 41st when it comes to federal aid as a percentage of state general revenue. The nation's average is 30 percent, and Illinois gets 26.8 percent of its general revenue from federal sources.

Illinois also ranks 11th from the top in individual state income tax collections per capita with $1,237. That compares with a national average of $967. Illinois ranks 4th for state corporate income tax collections per capita, at $315. The national average is $144.

The group's report can be found here: 2017 version of its annual Facts & Figures report. (Rick Pearson)

*Watch: Fardon last year: Zachary Fardon, who stepped down from his U.S. attorney post Monday, spoke to the City Club of Chicago in September. Here's the video from the City Club's YouTube channel.

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What we're writing

*Fardon issues fiery letter on exit as U.S. attorney in Chicago.

*Emanuel urges Trump not to cut Great Lakes funds.

*Illinois rivers project could get new life with Trump infrastructure push.

*Group seeking president's tax returns add 'Trump Chicken' balloon for Chicago march.

*New bill for $15 minimum wage in Illinois reopens wage fight.

*Rep. Gutierrez, activists stage sit-in at Chicago ICE office.

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*Carolyn Rush, wife of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, dies at 67.

Trumps speech was more campaign promises on steroids. Little substance. Lots of threats. I asked him to come to Chicago. He said yes.  Bobby L. Rush (@RepBobbyRush) March 1, 2017

What we're reading

*Freed suspect Kamari Belmont's luck turned bad in hail of gunfire.

*Amy Krouse Rosenthal, author of 'You May Want to Marry My Husband,' dies at 51.

*Illinois State fumes over 'idiotic, stupid' NCAA tournament exclusion.

Follow the money

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*Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle reported $16,000 in contributions, including a $5,000 donation from SafeSpeed LLC, a red light camera company.

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago

*Congressional Budget Office: Obamacare replacement eventually would reduce insured numbers by 24 million people.

*Trump budget would vastly shrink the federal government workforce.

*Why few people are worried about a possible Fed rate hike this week.

*A look at simmering tensions between Turkey and the Netherlands.
Raising the potential cash stakes in next year's race, billionaire businessman J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday formally created a fundraising committee to explore a bid for the Democratic nomination for governor.

The move comes as Pritzker, a wealthy entrepreneur, investor and heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, has held private meetings with Democratic leaders as part of a listening tour for a potential candidacy.

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"As I've traveled across Illinois, I've listened to people express their deep concerns about the direction of our state. It is clear that having a governor who's unwilling to address our state's challenges is having a real impact on people's lives," Pritzker said in a statement.

"Today, I will take the next step in this process by filing an exploratory committee. I look forward to continuing my conversations with people across Illinois who are currently being forced to pay the price of failed leadership from Gov. (Bruce) Rauner," he said.

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Pritzker says he is contributing $200,000 to cover day-to-day expenses of the exploratory committee, but he has indicated he could be willing to self-fund a campaign for governor.

Pritkzer is listed at No. 190 on Forbes' annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans with an estimated net worth of $3.4 billion, and he is one of the few in Illinois who could self-fund a campaign and outspend Rauner.

Rauner, an equity investor until becoming governor, reported income of $188 million in 2015, according to his tax filings last year.

In defeating Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in 2014, Rauner's campaign spent a record $65.3 million, including $27.6 million the Republican contributed himself. In December, Rauner put $50 million of his own money into his campaign war chest, and aides said it was a down payment for the 2018 race.

A costly Democratic nomination battle could be a precursor to an expensive general election fight.

Also seeking the Democratic nomination is wealthy Chicago businessman Chris Kennedy, the son of the late liberal icon Robert F. Kennedy. Chris Kennedy oversaw the family's previous Merchandise Mart ownership and now is involved with its Wolf Point skyscraper construction development along the Chicago River.

Two others have also formally announced their candidacies: Chicago Ald. Ameya Pawar and Bob Daiber, a Downstate regional school superintendent. Others are also considering a bid, including state Sens. Daniel Biss of Evanston and Andy Manar of Bunker Hill.

Pawar sent an email to his supporters Tuesday night noting the creation of the exploratory fund and the $200,000 investment without naming Pritzker.

"Its time to elect leaders who understand this (economic) struggle. Please join me in building on this grass-roots movement to give Illinois families a new deal of fairness and opportunity," the email read.

There are concerns among some Democrats that a general election battle of wealthy candidates would mute efforts to label Rauner as a wealthy, out-of-touch businessman. But others want a candidate who could potentially self-fund a campaign, allowing traditional party allies among organized labor and civil attorneys to help pay for legislative campaign contests.

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Shortly after Pritzker's announcement, the largely Rauner-funded Illinois Republican Party sought to link the potential candidate to the governor's political nemesis, House Speaker Michael Madigan, who also chairs the state Democratic Party. A party email called Pritzker a "political insider" and "longtime member of Mike Madigan's inner circle."

It also sought to link him to imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, saying Pritzker "was at the center of Blagojevich's criminal scheme to sell Illinois' Senate seat."

In an FBI recording, Pritzker's name was brought up by the then-governor, saying he had asked to replace the newly elected Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate and could raise big money for Blagojevich. But in the recorded call, Blagojevich asks if anybody he knows also knows Pritzker.

It's not the first time the state GOP has gone after Pritzker. The party in December ran automated phone calls against him in another attempt to link him to Madigan and Blagojevich even though he wasn't a candidate. At the time, a Pritzker spokesman questioned the GOP's reliance on the "crazy rantings" of Blagojevich.

State Board of Elections records show that since 1994, Pritzker and his wife have personally contributed more than $200,000 to Democratic candidates, including $111,000 to Blagojevich with more than $100,000 of that going to his re-election campaign for governor in 2006.

Pritzker also has been a major donor to federal candidates for several years. In 2008, he served as a national co-chairman for Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination against the eventual president, Illinois' former U.S. Sen. Obama. Last year, he was among Clinton's top financiers in her failed race against Donald Trump.

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Pritzker and his brother, Tony, run the Pritzker Group, a private equity and venture capital firm with offices in Chicago and Los Angeles. He also is a founder of the startup enterprise 1871. Pritzker said his chief of staff at Pritzker Group, Lee Rosenberg, will serve as the exploratory committee's campaign chair and treasurer.

rpearson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @rap30
Police are looking for a mother who they say abandoned her 2-year-old daughter in a Riverside, Calif., grocery store Sunday evening.

Chiengkham Vilaysane, 31, who may also go by "Cindy," was last seen at 5:55 p.m. in a Food 4 Less store in the 4000 block of Van Buren Boulevard, according to Riverside Police Det. Paul Miranda, who is investigating the case.

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According to police, Vilaysane entered the store with her daughter, and at some point the girl wandered off. Police said Vilaysane continued shopping and never searched for her.

A good Samaritan spotted the girl and took her to Vilaysane. When presented with her daughter, police said, Vilaysane responded, "Oh, just leave her."

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Chiengkham Vilaysane, 31, of Riverside (Riverside Police Department)

Vilaysane then paid for her groceries and intentionally left the store without her daughter, police said.

"I haven't seen anything like this before," Miranda said. "I think that's what struck a nerve."

When the girl was shown a photograph from surveillance camera footage, she identified Vilaysane as "Mommy," police said.

According Miranda, the girl has not been reported missing and is in the custody of the Riverside County Department of Child Protective Services.

"She is a little bit shaken up," the detective said.

The girl appears to be in good health and showed no obvious signs of trauma, he said.

On Monday night, police released surveillance video showing Vilaysane walking through the grocery store with the girl. At the time, her identity was not known. But viewers recognized Vilaysane and provided information about her to detectives, Miranda said.

Vilaysane had been recently kicked out of her family home, he said. Police believe Vilaysane could be in Riverside or Hemet.

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Vilaysane has had run-ins with law enforcement for drug- and alcohol-related offenses and has been placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold before, Miranda said.

Since the video was released, the department has received an outpouring of support from people who are interested in adopting the girl, he said.

Anyone with details about Vilaysane's whereabouts is urged to call Miranda at (951) 353-7945 or contact him via email.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
President Donald Trump listens during a meeting on healthcare in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 13, 2017. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

More than a half-dozen states trying to block President Donald Trump's revised travel ban moved forward Monday with a pair of lawsuits while the government asked that the order be allowed to take effect this week.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, joined in his lawsuit by heavily Democratic California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon, asked for a hearing with a federal judge in Seattle before the administration plans to implement the ban Thursday on new visas for people from six predominantly Muslim nations.

A hearing in a separate lawsuit by Hawaii already has been scheduled for Wednesday.

Ferguson said the revised ban is still unconstitutional and harms residents, universities and businesses, especially tech companies such as Washington state-based Microsoft and Amazon who rely on foreign workers.

"No one is above the law, not even the president  and I will hold him accountable to the Constitution," Ferguson said in a statement. "Cutting some illegal aspects of President Trump's original travel ban does not cure his affront to our Constitution."

Ferguson filed new court documents after the judge who put Trump's original order on hold said last week he would not immediately rule on whether his decision applies to the new version. U.S. District Judge James Robart told the federal government to quickly respond to Ferguson's claims but said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the most populous U.S. state was joining Washington state's challenge, saying the order, despite its changes, is an attack on people based on their religion or national origin.

In Hawaii, which is alone in its lawsuit, the U.S. government asked a federal court Monday to deny the state's request to temporarily block the ban from going into effect.

A judge will hear arguments Wednesday, with the heavily Democratic state claiming the new order will harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students. Ismail Elshikh, a plaintiff in Hawaii's challenge, said the ban will prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting.

The government says Hawaii's allegations that the ban will negatively affect tourism and universities are pure speculation. It also says neither Elshikh nor his mother-in-law have been harmed because she has not been denied a waiver for a visa to visit the United States.

Trump's revised ban applies to Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen and temporarily shuts down the U.S. refugee program. Unlike the original order, it says people with visas won't be affected and removes language that would give priority to religious minorities.

Ferguson acknowledged the changes to the order but said it still "bars entry for virtually all other individuals from the listed countries," including relatives of U.S. citizens and students who have been admitted to state universities and people who might seek work at schools and businesses.

"This court's original injunction protected these individuals and institutions," Washington state's new court filing said.

It said the federal government can't enforce the new travel ban unless it asks Judge Robart to modify his original restraining order.

"Until they do so, they cannot escape the injunction and continue their illegal conduct," the filing said.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said last week that the administration believes the revised travel ban will stand up to legal scrutiny.

SEATTLE  Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.
The Hamilton County Emergency Medical Service (HCEMS) was awarded the 2016 Pediatric Call of the Year during the fourth annual Southeastern EMS Directors Association Conference and Award Banquet, held at the Chattanooga Choo Choo in Chattanooga.

Annually, SEEMSDA honors and recognizes District 3 Region Emergency Medical Services that exemplifies outstanding professionalism and service to their patients, citizens and the community they serve. HCEMS awarded the 2016 Pediatric Call of the Year Award for responding to and the efforts in providing outstanding emergency care for the multiple students involved in the tragic bus wreck of Woodmore Elementary School students.

It was my honor to accept the award for all HCEMS personnel who effortlessly provided care to the children injured. During this tragic event, our HCEMS crews and administration demonstrated their professionalism and proof of the many hours of training for incidences such as this, said HCEMS Deputy Chief John Combes.

Nov. 21, 2016, would task all 14 HCEMS units on duty and administration to respond and provide emergency trauma care for 37 elementary students trapped and injured in the Hamilton County School bus crash on Talley Road. The first HCEMS paramedic on scene, recognizing the incident as a disaster, contacted dispatch for additional EMS units and began triaging the children until additional EMS help arrived to assist as trained by the HCEMS training division.



HCEMS supervisors and administration arriving on the scene observed the overwhelming need for emergency treatment and transportation and initiated state protocols requesting agencies outside HCEMS in the area to respond for assistance.

The various agencies, regardless of their affiliation, worked as one service to care and treat the injured students. Although lives were lost during this tragic event, the efforts of the many EMS agencies working together for the good of the children are to be commended. The passion, trauma and medical treatment provided for these children by the heroic men and women involved will forever be remembered, said Mr. Combes.
Ralph Otwell had been the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. (Cremation Society of Illinois / HANDOUT)

Ralph Otwell was managing editor and then editor of the Chicago Sun-Times during a period when the tabloid newspaper won six Pulitzer Prizes.

Among the investigative projects he oversaw was the Mirage Tavern series, for which the paper clandestinely opened a bar to expose inappropriate regulatory behavior by city officials.

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"He was a terrific editor and, philosophically, he was a man of great and consistent character about, shall we say, fake news and other such things that you have to deal with from time to time or pressures from some people who didn't like what we were reporting," said former Sun-Times Publisher Jim Hoge, who oversaw Otwell. "And we did a lot of investigative reporting."

Otwell, 90, died of heart failure March 8 while in hospice care at Evanston Northwestern Hospital, said his son, Brian. He had been a longtime resident of Evanston.

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Born Ralph Maurice Otwell and raised in Hot Springs, Ark., Otwell took an early interest in journalism, writing articles from the age of 16 for the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record newspaper. He served in the Army from 1944 until 1947.

After attending the University of Arkansas from 1947 until 1948, Otwell transferred to Northwestern University, from which he graduated in 1951. Otwell then returned to active military duty and was the editor of the Pacific edition of the Army's Stars & Stripes newspaper.

Otwell took a job with the Sun-Times in 1953 as a copy editor. He was named assistant city editor in 1957, news editor in 1960, assistant managing editor for weekend news in 1963 and assistant to the editor in 1965.

In 1968, Otwell was named the Sun-Times' managing editor, and he was elevated to editor in late 1976. On Otwell's watch, the Sun-Times won six Pulitzer Prizes. The paper also published the 25-part Mirage Tavern series in 1978, which employed hidden cameras to detail the way that establishments were shaken down by state and local officials.

"He was a newsman through and through," said University of Illinois Springfield professor and public affairs reporting program director Charles N. Wheeler III, whom Otwell hired in 1969 as a reporter. "He was a mentor for me and a guide, and someone I always looked up to. He was everything you'd look for in a newspaper person."

Otwell had confidence in Wheeler in his coverage of the state constitutional convention in 1970, and not long after Otwell gave Wheeler a permanent posting in Springfield, even though Wheeler was still relatively new.

"Ralph was absolutely essential in checking my judgment and coming up with his own, and then running on the floor anything as big as a major investigation," Hoge said. "He was my safety valve, if you will, to know that if Ralph kept up on it, you were in good shape. And he was a man of real convictions and real beliefs that journalism was an important factor in a democratic society, and he ran the newsroom that way."

Otwell was a Pulitzer Prize juror and, in 1973, served as the president of the national Society of Professional Journalists.

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In 1984, Field Enterprises sold the Sun-Times to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The sale caused much hand-wringing among local journalists, who feared  correctly, as it turned out  that the tabloid would take a more sensational approach. Otwell and Hoge were among the most prominent individuals to resign from the Sun-Times in the wake of the sale, along with several business executives and columnist Mike Royko.

Otwell's exit from the Sun-Times in his late 50s turned into a retirement of sorts, although he remained busy, his son said. He mulled starting a new daily newspaper in Chicago, and became very involved with Northwestern University's Institute for Learning in Retirement, which now is known as the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Otwell taught several subjects at the institute, and also was involved as a student.

Otwell also had a longtime interest in editorial cartoons. He was an editor with the Sun-Times in 1963 when legendary cartoonist Bill Mauldin drew his best-known cartoon, Abraham Lincoln weeping after John F. Kennedy's assassination. After publication, Otwell rescued the original printing plate of the cartoon from a trash bin. He later displayed the printing plate on his wall and loaned it out to a museum, his son said.

Otwell's wife, Janet, led the Illinois Department on Aging in the 1980s. She died in February 2015.

Otwell is survived by two other sons, Douglas and David; five grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.

A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. on May 7 at Lutkin Hall, 700 University Place, Evanston.

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Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
The Congressional Budget Office's scoring of the American Health Care Act was expected to be bad. It was not, among Republicans, expected to be as bad as it was, and that's the fault of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who did not properly prepare his members. The GOP defense was haphazard and contradictory. The Post reported:

"[President] Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said the report is 'just absurd,' and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said: 'We disagree strenuously' with it."

Ryan defended the report, saying that it proves that the proposal will 'dramatically' reduce the deficit and usher in 'the most fundamental entitlement reform in a generation.' "

The CBO is wrong. The CBO is actually good news. The CBO doesn't matter. (Ryan insisted, "Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage.") Which is it, fellas? Democrats could barely contain their glee, demanding that Ryan "pull the bill" and deeming it "immoral." They had a point.

The Post explained:

"House Speaker Paul D. Ryan's proposal to revise the Affordable Care Act would lower the number of Americans with health insurance by 24 million while reducing the federal deficit by $337 billion by 2026, congressional budget analysts said Monday."

According to a Congressional Budget Office projection, 14 million fewer people would have health insurance next year alone. Premiums would be 15 percent to 20 percent higher in the first year compared with the Affordable Care Act and 10 percent lower on average after 2026. By and large, older Americans would pay 'substantially' more and younger Americans less, the report said."

The report from the Congressional Budget Office fueled concerns that the GOP health-care plan would prompt a dramatic loss in health-insurance coverage, potentially contradicting President Trump's vow that health-care reform would provide 'insurance for everybody' and threatening support from moderate Republican lawmakers."

Democrats found evidence that the bill constitutes a stunning transfer of wealth, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. She argued that while 24 million will lose coverage, the Republicans are "implementing the biggest transfer for wealth in our history, $600 billion gone from working families to the richest people and corporations in our country." The bill improves the deficit picture only because it takes away more from the less well-off than it gives to the rich. The CBO explains that it will narrow the deficit "by $337 billion over the 2017-2026 period ... That change would result from a $1.2 trillion decrease in direct spending, partially offset by an $883 billion in revenues."

The CBO confirmed that the bill saves money by cutting Medicaid and subsidies to other programs and loses money because of the tax cuts for primarily rich taxpayers. "The largest savings would come from reductions in outlays for Medicaid and from the elimination of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) subsidies for nongroup health insurance," it said. "The largest costs would come from repealing many of the changes the ACA made to the Internal Revenue Code  including an increase in the Hospital Insurance payroll tax rate for high-income taxpayers, a surtax on those taxpayers' net investment income, and annual fees imposed on health insurers  and from the establishment of a new tax credit for health insurance."

Once upon a time, Trump promised not to cut Medicaid. That, however, is precisely what the bill does:

"The 31 states and the District of Columbia that have already expanded Medicaid to the newly eligible cover roughly half of that population nationwide. CBO projects that under current law, additional states will expand their Medicaid programs and that, by 2026, roughly 80 percent of newly eligible people will reside in states that have done so. Under the legislation, largely because states would pay for a greater share of enrollees' costs, CBO expects that no additional states would expand eligibility, thereby reducing both enrollment in and spending for Medicaid. According to CBO's estimates, that effect would be modest in the near term, but by 2026, on an average annual basis, 5 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid than would have been enrolled under current law ... CBO also anticipates some states that have already expanded their Medicaid programs would no longer offer that coverage, reducing the share of the newly eligible population residing in a state with expanded eligibility to about 30 percent in 2026."

And the CBO confirmed that older participants get treated the worst. ("Premiums in the nongroup market would be 20 percent to 25 percent lower for a 21-year-old and 8 percent to 10 percent lower for a 40-year-old  but 20 percent to 25 percent higher for a 64-year-old.")

Ryan continues to insist that if people choose not to buy insurance under the new plan that is no concern of his. However, if they choose not to insure because they can no longer afford to, Ryan will have created the Unaffordable Care Act and stranded millions of people. It remains to be seen if the bill can make it through the House. One thing is for sure: A bill that transfers wealth from poor to rich is going to blow up the notion that Trump is a populist.
Pictures of Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, 22, a Guatemalan immigrant, are seen at the home of his sister in Guatemala City in 2003. Gutierrez was one of the first casualties of the Iraq War. (Moises Castillo / AP)

"Cuban hijacker!"

Those words were pretty much the only reason I ever got into fights in grade school. At the end of the 1960s in Texas, I was an adolescent Cuban kid with a green card who knew even then that most of the people hijacking planes to Cuba were Americans.

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I also knew it was meant as an insult, but I didn't know it was called racism. And my mother, who worked two jobs to raise her 10 kids, loved her new country so much, she would never have thought to tell me that there were racists in the United States.

Some kids, I reckoned, were just stupid and mean.

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President Donald Trump's immigration policies have recently caused those memories to bubble up for me.

The president's revised executive order temporarily suspends the admission to the U.S. of all refugees (including those fleeing the brutal violence in Syria) and bars visas, with some exceptions, to people from six Muslim-majority countries.

Though we were technically political refugees fleeing a communist dictatorship, I've wondered lately what would have happened to my family in 1961 if Trump had been president then.

I have little doubt that we would have warranted extreme vetting and likely been turned away for fear of being communist infiltrators.

But Trump was not the president in 1961, and we were welcomed to a new land (some stupid, mean bullies notwithstanding). We were raised to be patriotic and thankful; we worked hard, as immigrants to this country historically have always done.

My oldest brother went on to become a pediatric anesthesiologist, another earned a Harvard MBA and I am a professor at Northwestern University. The stories of immigrants who, against all odds, have excelled in this country are too numerous to count. It's is truly a Hollywood cliche.

But Trump's immigration policy will undoubtedly threaten that great American tradition and deprive our country of the profound contributions immigrants have always made to our society. The threat to our future is already at play in the enormous psychological trauma the perceived threat of deportations is wreaking upon children.

Trump's hard-line stance on immigration may be pleasing to his base of support who see it as the fulfillment of a campaign promise, but from a purely human perspective it is antithetical to the compassionate nature of the people I grew up around in the American South and Midwest.

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Even so, Trump's new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) initiative, christened during his first address to Congress, and framed by his shameless parading of three families whose relatives had been killed by people in the U.S. illegally, vilifies all undocumented immigrants.

In spite of research that shows that recent immigrants, including foreign-born youth, are consistently less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, Trump's VOICE initiative, which will publicly document violent crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally, seems intended to shame sanctuary communities and stoke public fear of Latin American and Muslim immigrants in general.

To be sure, there is a need for immigration reform, and undoubtedly some immigrants living here illegally who have committed serious crimes should be expelled. But the tone of the president's approach has made many honest, hardworking immigrants feel threatened and disillusioned.

Trump's immigration policy disavows the countless immigrants who have gone on to become outstanding American citizens.

The vast majority of migrants from Mexico and Central America go through the heartbreaking process of leaving their homelands, desperately risking physical violence along the way, simply to seek a better life for their families. The opportunities those risks have afforded their children have often given rise to some of our most accomplished citizens.

Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, who traveled into the U.S. illegally from Guatemala, was one of the first U.S. service members killed in Iraq. After arriving as a child, Gutierrez eventually gained permanent resident status and was one of the nearly 8,000 foreign-born people who enlist in the armed services every year. Like many immigrants, Gutierrez felt an obligation to defend the country that gave him and his family the opportunities and freedoms denied them elsewhere.

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Army Capt. Humayun Khan, an immigrant from the United Arab Emirates who also was killed in Iraq, was only 2 years old when his parents came to the United States. They were infamously criticized by Trump when they spoke at the Democratic National Convention about the loss of their child.

"Are we a country of aspirations, or are we a country of deportations?" asked Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y. Long before being elected to Congress, Espaillat came as a child to the U.S. with his family from the Dominican Republic, and they overstayed their visas. He became a naturalized citizen in his 20s and worked extensively to combat gang violence and drug abuse in his community of Washington Heights before running for office.

While there is a need to improve our immigration policies and keep our country safe, the Trump administration's nefarious stigmatization of Latino and Muslim immigrants is dehumanizing and un-American.

My experience as an immigrant in this country is a constant source of pride and inspiration for me. I'm an obsessively hard worker because I saw my mother work harder than any mother ever should. I love this country because I saw how much it meant to her that the United States gave us a home and an opportunity for a better life.

I cherish the American Dream because I've lived it. Like many refugees, we literally came with nothing. No inheritance here, except that extended to us through the U.S. Constitution and the goodwill of the American people, who themselves are the descendants of immigrants.

So just like when I was a kid, drawn into a fight after being insulted on the playground, I will defend the truth about the immeasurable goodness and value that immigrants bring to this country.

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Henry Godinez is the resident artistic associate at the Goodman Theatre and a professor of theater at Northwestern University.
Democrats in Congress have long argued that the ongoing intelligence committee investigations into Russia's interference in the presidential election and the Trump campaign's ties to the Kremlin are unlikely to get to the bottom of the issue. Now a group of "Never Trump" Republicans are planning to pressure GOP leaders to establish a bipartisan select committee to take over the inquiries and settle the matter once and for all.

Stand Up Republic, a nonprofit organization led by former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin and his running mate, Mindy Finn, is launching a public campaign aimed at building support among Republicans for consolidating the various congressional Russia-related investigations into one empowered and fully funded select committee. The organization's ad, which goes live Tuesday with a six-figure television ad buy, makes the case that the Russia issue is too important not to investigate fully.

"Trump's Russia crisis. Secret contacts. Conflicting stories. Mounting signs of hidden ties and shady deals. Fear our president is compromised," says the narrator. "The values of liberty, justice and honor shaped America. Generations fought for freedom, and presidents of both parties stood against foreign tyrants like Vladimir Putin. Why won't Donald Trump tell Congress to name a bipartisan select committee to get the truth?"

The goal is to bring public pressure to bear on the White House and Republican congressional leadership to elevate the investigations by taking them out of the hands of the congressional intelligence committees, which don't have proper resources or support to do the job, according to McMullin. The committees are already strapped for cash, according to some leading Democrats.

"Russia's activities were a major, complex event that requires additional resources to investigate fully," said McMullin. "I simply don't believe that congressional Republican leadership are serious about investigating Russia's activities and Trump and his team's connections to Russia. Republican leaders are interested in limiting the political costs and limiting the scope and depth of these investigations."

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Intelligence Committee are investigating Russia's hacking of political organizations, the Trump team's interactions with Russian officials and now also President Donald Trump's accusation that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump and his associates at Trump Tower.

There are questions about the integrity of the congressional investigations, following revelations that the White House worked with Senate committee chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and House committee chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., asking them to contact reporters to speak on background to knock down news reports about the investigation.

Separately, the Senate Armed Services Committee is planning a series of hearings related to Russia's mischief both in the United States and around the world. Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., has been calling for a select committee for months but has said that without the support of Republican congressional leadership, it probably won't happen.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has also been in touch with intelligence agencies related to the Russian interference and could hold hearings as well. Ranking Democrat Benjamin L. Cardin, Md., introduced legislation in January with other top Democrats that would establish a formal commission similar to the 9/11 Commission, to investigate all aspects of the Russia scandal.

"I don't believe any committee in Congress can conduct a thorough enough and an independent enough investigation, that's why I'm calling for a special commission," Cardin said last week.

The likelihood of a special commission being established is very low, considering that Trump would be able to veto Cardin's legislation if it ever reached his desk. A select committee doesn't need the president's approval.

Other lawmakers have called for a special counsel or a special prosecutor to take over the Russia investigation. The FBI is reportedly investigating several aspects of the case, including the Trump Organization's financial ties to Russian banks, which may or may not be related to Trump's accusations about wiretapping of Trump Tower. The FBI has never confirmed reports of its investigation.

There are several historical examples of the use of a select congressional committee to investigate a major scandal, according to the Congressional Research Service, including the Watergate Committee investigation into the Nixon administration, the Church and Pike committees' look into intelligence community abuses, the 1981 select committee inquiry into the ABSCAM scandal, and the 2005-2006 probe into the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

But the select committee model has vulnerabilities as well, as explained by Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes on the Lawfare blog last month. The chief disadvantage is that while a select committee can operate without the consent of the president, its membership is determined by congressional leaders and could become hyper-partisan, as happened with the select committee that investigated the Benghazi attacks.

"It is essential that the committee be chaired by a person whose commitment to a serious investigation is not subject to reasonable question," they wrote, suggesting Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for the job. "And it is essential as well to populate the committee with a membership that will act in a bipartisan fashion."

The idea of a select committee is not a panacea, but if the sheer importance of determining Russia's interference in the U.S. political process and the Trump team's murky ties to Russian officials doesn't warrant such a move, it's not clear what would.
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, shown here in October 2016, has threatened a one-day teacher strike on May 1 to draw attention to the "acute crisis" facing Chicago Public Schools. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago Public Schools leaders and Chicago Teachers Union officials are tussling over who can rob city students of more class time in the upcoming weeks. Call it: The War of Bad  OK, Terrible  Ideas.

First, CPS CEO Forrest Claypool threatened to shutter classes three weeks early because the district didn't get $215 million in state funds the district had relied on in its current, fiscal 2017 budget. The district has filed a lawsuit in Cook County court to get more money from Springfield.

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Then CTU President Karen Lewis chipped in: She threatened a one-day teachers strike on May 1 to draw attention to the "acute crisis" facing the district. "If the board goes ahead with the threat of canceling three weeks of school, we would view their action as a massive violation of our contract," Lewis says. "And that could provoke a strike."

Terrible idea x terrible idea = more chaos for students  remember the students?  at CPS schools.

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And there's a third threat in the air that would shortchange those students. The union urges members to clock in and out exactly on time March 20-24. No coming in early, or staying late, to help kids understand their lessons. The CTU leadership's point is to protest a district initiative that would increase teachers' workload, CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey tells us. "We know this will be difficult for many of you, who put your students first, but please consider the powerful message it will send, highlighting to the world how much we do for our students on a voluntary basis," union leaders wrote to teachers.

Students who need that extra time with their teachers? Sorry, kids, you're out of luck.

Cheating children of instructional time via the possible union actions or the district's threat to end the school year early would be enormously destructive. Teachers and district officials can't build on rising graduation rates and academic test scores if children aren't in class. Keeping kids home, forcing parents to scramble for other arrangements, doesn't generate trust in CPS  or deliver a superior education. These are the kinds of bad ideas that help parents decide whether to stick with CPS or switch to other schools.

For CTU there's inconvenient history here: Last April, union members threw a tantrum over stalled contract talks. They walked out of classrooms for a day to protest. After that, Lewis wrote to district negotiators promising that the union would not engage in a similar strike unless it "came after the conclusion of the impasse procedures and following statutory notices required under the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act."

Wouldn't a May 1 Tantrum Day break that promise? "In desperate times, we look for desperate measures," Sharkey says. "This is a desperate time for public schools. And we're all trying to figure out what we can do to fight this crisis."

Yes, a one-day walkout would let teachers don their bright red union T-shirts, rally downtown and vent frustration at the sorry state of school finances. They'd also lose a day's pay, saving the district an estimated $10 million. "Some people will say, 'Well, if you strike, won't you be losing another day of pay?' " Lewis says. "But I would say if we don't fight back, if we stay at home and they threaten us with furloughs and school closures, if we cower under the covers, then we are never going to stop these fights."

There are many better ways for Chicago teachers to fight back, to express their anger at the district's bungled finances and its threat to close the schools early. The teachers can rally on weekends. They can rally before school. They can rally after school. Instead of devoting so much energy to cheating students, they could send lobbyists to Springfield to help the district argue its case for more money.

Similarly, district officials can't rely on hypothetical funds to balance the budget. With fewer students should come fewer schools. And even more central office cuts.

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Ask most Chicagoans what they want to happen and here's what we think they'd say:

School stays open. Teachers and students show up. Nothing less, whether suggested by a union official or a district leader, should ever be tolerated.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.

Related articles:

Karen Lewis op-ed: Invest in Chicago's schools, teachers to reduce violence

Chance the Rapper writes $1 million check to CPS as a 'call to action'

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Rauner floats two new CPS ideas hours before Chance the Rapper news conference

Will CPS pull an 'I' for incomplete?
"We have in this room business leaders, law leaders and civic leaders. We have thoughtful people and we have powerful people. ... I want us to talk about these issues today, and tomorrow, and every day and every week until we get to a better place than where we are now."

 U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon to the City Club of Chicago, May 21, 2014

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This much every Chicagoan knows: President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have Chicago on the brain. They condemn the violence that devours hundreds of young people here every year. Now all of us are about to learn how badly Trump and Sessions do  or don't  want to help reduce that horrifying bloodshed. Why is that?

Monday's departure of Zachary Fardon, the top federal prosecutor in Chicago, opens the most important law enforcement job in Illinois. U.S. attorneys nationwide serve at the pleasure of the president, and many of those from the Obama administration already had departed for other jobs. Sessions on Friday asked the 46 remaining holdovers to resign. On Monday, Fardon obliged.

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Like his predecessor of 11 years, Patrick Fitzgerald, Fardon brought two necessary traits to this job when he took it in October 2013: He had a record of fighting public corruption, including his prosecution of a felonious former governor, George Ryan. And the relentless slaughter on so many Chicago streets genuinely disturbed him. That 2014 speech to the City Club, like his encores in 2015 and 2016, left some of the swells squirming in their seats.

Fardon opened with a giant screen of smiling school photos and snapshots of Chicago youngsters  taken before they were shot, many of them fatally. Yes, he said, cops, federal agents and prosecutors will continue to pursue the shooters and killers. But relying on law enforcement to fix Chicago goes only so far. "I ask each of you to think about this problem and how you can own it," he said. "You, your company, your law firm, your community organization, your church, your neighborhood."

Now Fardon is gone. Whom will Trump and Sessions name to replace him? Before the Fitzgerald-Fardon era, several principled lawyers (and some political hacks) served as U.S. attorney here. Too often, though, they came not from the ranks of federal prosecutors but from politically connected law firms. Too often they were close to Illinois pols and treated public corruption as just part of the ether here. The investigative pace was pokey, the prosecuted targets, small.

So today we restate a questions we've asked at similar junctures: If that traditional patronage system of naming U.S. attorneys in Chicago consistently had produced the best possible top prosecutors, would the Illinois culture of political sleaze have become as rampant, as pervasive, as it had grown by the turn of this century? Of course not. Time after time, the selection of U.S. attorneys here  often lawyers from the cozy Chicago crossroads of Chicago law and politics  was just one more sweet spoil for the party that held the White House.

We don't know whether Trump's administration will follow past practice and nominate a new U.S. attorney suggested by this state's members of Congress. We do know that Trump and Sessions ought to be talking as much about police accountability issues here as they are about crime  and ought to factor both of those issues into their choice. Sessions, unfortunately, seems disinterested in pursuing a consent decree with City Hall on improving police oversight in Chicago. He and his boss should acknowledge the shortcomings in policing here and choose a U.S. attorney who will make that a priority.

Fardon says as much in the five-page, single-spaced open letter to Chicago that he issued after he left his job Monday. In it he recommends a consent decree with an independent federal monitor; improvements to federal law enforcement here; interrupting the use of social media, which he says is often a provocation for gang violence; new "youth pathway" centers in the most afflicted neighborhoods; and a fix for the bail bond system in Cook County. You'll find his letter at chicagotribune.com/fardon.

Similarly, it would be foolish for Trump and Sessions to pick a top prosecutor who isn't devoted to pursuing political corruption. Public attention leaps from crisis to crisis  some years violent crime on the gritty streets of metropolitan Chicago, some years white-collar crime in the marble halls of government. Fardon noted during a news conference Thursday that his office prosecuted more gun cases in 2016 than any year since 2004; gun charges accounted for 23 percent of last year's indictments. None of which means that Illinois has eradicated corruption among its public officials. It hasn't.

We hope someone close to Trump and Sessions will make an opportunity to tell them how crucial the appointment of a new U.S. attorney will be for a Chicago with a recent history of rampaging crime, see-no-problems police oversight and crooked politicians. No hacks need apply. And if they do, we hope Trump and Sessions reject them out of hand.

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Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the Capitol, October 27, 2015. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call,Inc.)

President Donald Trump has been fairly quiet on Twitter since his ferocious tweet storm the morning of March 4, the one in which he accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of tapping the phones at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Yes, on March 7 he falsely accused the Obama administration of releasing "122 vicious prisoners" from the Guantanamo Bay prison when, in fact, 113 of the prisoners he referred to were released while Obama's Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, was in office. But otherwise, Trump's social media feed has lately been self-congratulatory and cheerleading.

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But allies and members of his party have been filling the void with a barrage of inane pronouncements I've been filing under the heading "Stuff Republicans say." A sampling:

Joe Walsh, conservative radio talk show host and a former Illinois U.S. representative: "I'll just say it: Sandy Hook Parents: Your 15 minutes is up." (Twitter, March 9)

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Twenty first-graders and six adults were slaughtered in a Newtown, Conn., school in December 2012. Walsh is irked that some of the survivors aren't over it yet and are pursuing a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the military-style weapons used in the attack.

Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King: "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." (Twitter, March 12)

In attempting to clarify this brazenly anti-immigrant statement, King added in a Monday TV appearance that "I'd like to see an America that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same."

This nativistic claptrap is unlikely to hurt King in his northwest Iowa district, which is 96 percent white, but many of us who, like me, have at least one parent who was "somebody else" from another country, are taking profound exception.

Kansas Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, M.D.: "There is a group of people that just don't want health care and aren't going to take care of themselves  morally, spiritually, socially, (some people) just don't want health care." (Stat magazine interview, March 3)

Physician, heal thyself. Nearly everyone wants to be able to see a doctor when they get sick or injured and wants to be able to afford the medical care they need. Lack of access to medical care can and does create a negative feedback loop that keeps people away from medical facilities. But beware the idea that not having insurance is simply a lifestyle choice.

Faced with dismayingly large projected drops in health care coverage under Trumpcare, GOP proponents are pushing hard on the idea that whether or not to purchase health insurance is just another option for consumers, like whether or not to subscribe to HBO or hire a lawn service.

Morally, spiritually, socially, this is an empty and cruel insinuation.

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Trump administration budget director Mick Mulvaney: "We've thought for a long time, I did, that the Obama administration was manipulating the (Bureau of Labor Statistics) numbers, in terms of the number of people in the workforce, to make the unemployment rate  that percentage rate  look smaller than it actually was." (CNN, March 12)

During the Obama years, Trump and others repeatedly railed about alleged fraudulent jobs report numbers, but their implication was that the percentages given didn't reflect the actual state of employment in the country, not that they were cooked.

Mulvaney's accusation  that officials under Obama were altering numbers in order to skew in their favor one of the most important statistics that our government generates  would be a huge scandal if we weren't already numbed by the barrage of nonsense emanating from the Trump White House.

If Obama oversaw the falsification of labor data, he would have been at the head of an enormous and felonious conspiracy.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer: "I talked to the president (about the favorable February jobs report numbers)  and he said to quote him very clearly: 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now.' " (White House news briefing, March 10)

Ha, ha, ha! Everyone in the room laughed because they're all in on the joke about Trump's unrepentant, principle-free hypocrisy.

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Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway: "You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets  any number of different ways  and microwaves that turn into cameras, etc. (video interview with New Jersey's Bergen Record, March 12)

Never mind that Conway pronounced that abbreviation "eck-setter-a," her idea that microwave ovens are spying on us was a gift to late-night comedians and another reminder  to go along with her references to the nonexistent "Bowling Green massacre" in multiple interviews shortly after Trump's inauguration  that she is untethered by fact.

"A microwave oven can't be used as a camera unless it literally has an outward-facing webcam onboard," wrote Wired magazine, which investigated the assertion. "No such microwave appears to exist."

In a follow-up interview with CNN, Conway explained "I'm not Inspector Gadget. I don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign  (but) I'm not in the job of having evidence. That's what investigations are for."

First of all, the Inspector Gadget character is not a gadget inspector, he's a dimwitted crime-fighter with gadgets embedded in his body. Second, no, you can't use a second preposterous statement to underscore the need for a congressional investigation of Trump's even more preposterous statement that Obama tapped his phones.

Illinois U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville: "Why would you buy a cabin in Montana that you're never going to use?" (interview with The Southern Illinoisan, March 10)

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This was Shimkus doubling down on the complaint he made March 9 during a House committee debate about "men having to purchase prenatal care," a gripe that sparked viral outrage.

"People should not be forced to buy parts of a policy they will never use," Shimkus told the Southern's Molly Parker.

This and Shimkus' first remark are inane because they reveal a fundamental misunderstanding  I'm sure he would call it a disagreement  about the nature of the social compact of which the provision of health care is a part.

The "cabin in Montana" of services from which others are likely to receive the direct benefit isn't a luxury you'll never use. It's one of the building blocks of a healthy, safe, productive, prosperous country.

Twitter @EricZorn
The Shamrock Society and the City of Chattanooga will kick-off the fourth Annual St. Chattys Day Parade by turning the flowing water from the Firemans Fountain in front of Courthouse green on Wednesday at noon.

County Mayor Jim Coppinger, Fire Chief Chris Adams, elected city and county officials, The Highlanders Pipe and Drum Band, along with Shamrock Society will officially kick-off Saturdays Parade with a media event as the water flows green from the Firemans Fountain.

"The Annual St. Chattys Day parade is a free community event and was organized to bring together our diverse community during the traditional celebration of St. Patricks Day in Chattanooga," officials said.



In addition to the Firemans Fountain going green, the lights on the Tennessee Aquarium will be green for the weekend to acknowledge the celebration of St. Patricks Day in Chattanooga.



The fourth Annual St. Chattys Day Parade is Saturday at noon. "The parade is a family friendly event that will bring the best out in our community to celebrate the tradition of St. Patricks Day," officials said.

The parade route will begin in downtown Chattanooga at 4th and Market Streets, cross Market Street Bridge to North Chattanooga, continue on Frazier Avenue, and end at Coolidge Park.
What's the best way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in President Trump's America? The staff of The Second City has more answers than Lakeview has Irish bars and guys named Mike.

"Wear your 'Kiss me, I'm Irish (But Only By Blood, I Was Born in America and Hate Immigrants)!' T-shirt.

Lisa Linke

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"Take a nice, traditional Irish golden ale and shower in it."

Patrick Bauer

"Spend the day not discussing the election with your authentic Irish friend, Sergey O'Kislyak."

Sam Super

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"Appoint a leprechaun the new Secretary of Treasury. (They're great with pots of gold.)"

Rene Duquesnoy

"See if Sean Spicer will dress up as a leprechaun ... since he enjoyed playing the Easter Bunny during the Bush administration?"

Julie Marchiano

"Get real drunk, light a candle and pray to Saint Patrick for snakes to run Trump out of the White House."

Claudia Wallace

"Guzzle Guinness to the point of sheer oblivion, thus enabling you to have the ability to scale any wall, no matter how expensive "

Jack Bronis

"Chug a bottle of Green River, because it will leave the same awful taste in your mouth."

Glenn Earich

"Drink Bailey's in a dark room and cry."

Frankie Solomon

"The same way you've spent every day of this administration: vomiting on a loved one."

Matt Mages

"Dye yourself green, slip yourself into the Chicago River and float in disguise all the way out to Lake Michigan."

Caitlin Kunkel

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Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

"Tell Erin to go Bragh-less, because America likes its women like it likes its green beer: not flat and totally free."

Liz Kozak

"Saint Patrick? Says who? Lousy snake charmer. Visa definitely expired. Solely responsible for ISIS. SAD!"

Jeremiah Howe

"Remembering that the Irish were once discriminated against, too. One day, we'll be drinking and throwing up on Imam Ahmed Raza Khan Day."

Bina Martin

"Institute a travel ban against the Irish."

Robbie Ellis

"Raise a glass of green beer while raising your voice against the latest administrative misstep by calling Senators Duckworth (202-224-2854) and Durbin (202-224-2152)."

Joe Ruffner

"In Trump's America? The traditional way ... get so drunk, you black out."

Bob Knuth

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Get more from The Second City at secondcity.com.
The whole "April showers" thing seems to be holding up thus far. Even if you thought the days of posting up the couch were behind you, you can still make the best of them and finally watch all of the Netflix you missed out on when it was 70 degrees in the dead of winter.

"Love" (Season 2)

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The second installment in Judd Apatow's anti-love story comedy landed on Netflix on March 10 and follows Mickey and Gus as they try to navigate what exactly is going on between them. If you need to play catch up, Season 1 is still streaming and only has ten episodes (and features an episode from Chicago's own Joe Swanberg), so why not give it a go to escape the rain?

"Jurassic Park," "The Lost World," "Jurassic Park III"

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I'd find it hard to believe that there are people out there who have never watched the entirety of the Jurassic Park franchisebut I'm sure you exist out there somewhere. Not including 2015's "Jurassic World," this franchise defined the '90s and early aughts and got an entire generation of kids interested in dinosurs. Why not take this wet and gross opportunity to fill in your cultural blindspot?

"Daredevil," "Jessica Jones," "Luke Cage"

"Iron Fist" may be getting panned by critics, but why not get caught up on the previous two years' worth of Marvel Netflix originals. There's a whole wide world out thereand by "out there," we mean, a few city blocks of Hell's Kitchen in New York City.

"13th"

If you've been hearing about how amazing this Ava Duvernay-produced and directed documentary is, you have no excuse to not take some time to watch it while you're avoiding the downpour. It explores the history of racial inequality in the United States and the disproportionate number of African-Americans in the prison system.

"A Series of Unfortunate Events"

Neil Patrick Harris, left, Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" on Netflix. (Joe Lederer / Netflix)

On a lighter-ish note, this Netflix do-over of Lemony Snicket's hit young adult book series follows the Baudelaire orphans through the trials and tribulations following their parents' untimely deaths as they attempt to escape the evil Count Olaf. Though it's been out for a little while now, there's never a bad time to hop on the bandwagon.

"Master of None"

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If you've been sleeping on this Aziz Ansari Netflix original, you don't have much time to get caught up before Season 2 drops this month. If you're already a fan, it's probably been more than a year and a half since you watched the original run, so time to refresh your memory on Dev's misadventures.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

"Zootopia"

Don't knock this suggestion until you watch it. Its 98 percent "fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes doesn't lie, this Academy Award-winning animated film will cheer you up even on the doomiest and gloomiest of days.

"Grace and Frankie"

Another feel-good easy watch, "Grace and Frankie" stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as the titular characters who find their lives completely derailed when their husbands decide to come clean about their decades-long affair. If Grace and Frankie can make a comeback from that tragedy, you can survive these few days of monsoon. Season 3 just hit the queue on March 24.

"The Get Down"

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This musical period drama is set in 1970s New York City, the South Bronx, to be specific. Following the rise of hip-hop and disco music through the life of Ezekiel "Zeke" Figuero. Oh, and Jaden Smith is also there.

@shelbielbostedt | sbostedt@redeyechicago.com
Five candidates are vying for four seats on the Arlington Heights Village Board, although only four of those candidates participated in the a recent candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters. (Elizabeth Owens-Schiele / Pioneer Press)

Candidates vying for seats on the Arlington Heights School District 25 board and the Arlington Heights Village Board addressed district and village issues, and took questions from a standing-room crowd of 125 people during a recent candidate forum.

District 25 candidates, who range from teachers to incumbent school board members, had the chance to meet directly with voters during the forum, hosted Saturday by the League of Women Voters of Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect and Buffalo Grove, as they look to win enough votes during the April 4 election and secure one of four spots on the school board.

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The District 25 candidates include current board president David Page, incumbents Denise Glasgow, Erin Johannesen and Richard Olejniczak, as well as newcomers Anisha Ismail Patel, Christopher J. Salituro and Joseph P. Selbka.

The League of Women Voters separated the races of school board and village board into two forums. Each candidate provided opening and closing statements, and were limited to two-minute responses to each of the six questions submitted by audience members.

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Issues during the District 25 forum ranged from including more teachers and parents on decisions affecting the curriculum, a full-day kindergarten program and funding teacher pensions to redistricting, as well as gender appropriate bathrooms in the elementary schools.

"There's a huge need and some parents really are pushing for it," Patel said of a recent community survey that found dual-income parents identified a need for full-day kindergarten in the district. "Early stage education is important developmentally but we have to be really careful  16 more classes, $60 million and 24 more teachers  that's why the administration and the district are exploring what is the best way to do this."

Many candidates said they felt a student fee should be considered for those interested in participating in a full-day kindergarten program.

Incumbent board members highlighted how the current district budget is balanced and includes a 60-percent fund balance, which, they said, enables the board to maintain existing programs despite the state's ongoing budget crisis.

But incumbents on the District 25 board did express concern with the current state of discussions among state lawmakers about possibly requiring local school districts to fund teachers pensions.

When asked how future population changes would be handled by the district, Page and Glasgow were adamant that they would not consider redistricting, while Selbka suggested choice within the public schools and others suggested the possible use of Miner or Rand schools if the current district population of 6,000 students swelled.

"The district is projected to grow 6 percent, or 300 students over the next five years, and the additions we have done are sufficient," Page said. "We're at 95 percent capacity in all of the buildings. I lived through [redistricting] last time, and I would not want to live through it again."

All of the school board candidates agreed that any curriculum changes should be a collaborative effort among parents, teachers and administrators.

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The candidates also agreed that the Illinois Human Rights Act protects against anti-discrimination and bullying, and underlined District 25's history of treating all students equally. But current members said the issue has not yet come up at the elementary level.

After the District 25 portion of the forum, the crowd thinned a little for the Arlington Heights Village Board candidates.

Candidates for village board who participated in the forum included current board members Thomas Glasgow and Bert Rosenberg, as well as write-in candidates Richard Baldino and Mark Walker. Incumbent James J. Tinaglia was called away immediately before the forum to attend to a family emergency, but trustee Mike Sidor made an opening and closing statement on behalf of Tinaglia.

The candidates are vying for four seats during the April municipal election. And they responded to questions during the forum that ranged from how the village is managing the state's budget impasse and how they plan to bolster local retail in the face of growing internet sales to stormwater management and affordable housing for the homeless, mentally ill or disabled.

Other questions addressed how the board can assist in promoting racial diversity in the police and fire departments, and whether the candidates would support a ban or fee on plastic bags in the village.

Each of the candidates agreed they would support a fee rather than place a ban on plastic bags, but they said they would want more data on the effect to local business before making a final decision.

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A bigger issue for residents during the forum was stormwater management.

"Stormwater management is a serious issue in the village, and we have an aging infrastructure with more and more pavement and less and less space for the stormwater to go," said Baldino. "A flat fee to help pay for any improvements would be the way to go."

Other candidates agreed a flat fee may be the solution to any multi-million dollar infrastructure improvements.

There were no questions or discussion over the planned construction of a new, $27.98 million police station, but Glasgow did share some detail on retail growth in the village.

"The rise of internet sales cause a problem for brick-and-mortar stores but Amazon cannot provide unique items, especially unique to Arlington Heights," said Glasgow. "We've had $1.2 billion in retail sales in the last year  the highest since 2002."

Charles Witherington-Perkins, director of planning and community development for Arlington Heights, later clarified that the $1.2 billion in total retail sales in the village happened in 2015, not last year as Glasgow suggested.

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Figures for retail sales in 2016 are not available yet, Witherington-Perkins said.

Early voting during the municipal election in Illinois begins March 20.

Elizabeth Owens-Schiele is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Aurora Police Lt. Mike Abbs speaks during a press conference about new wallet cards through the Secretary of State's Office for people with disabilities. At left is state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, who pushed for the cards. (Hannah Leone \Beacon-News )

A local mother whose teenage son has autism spectrum disorder is behind a new wallet card program for Illinois residents with disabilities to help in dealing with first responders.

After Lori Price, president of the Indian Prairie School District 204 board and parent to a child with autism spectrum disorder, reached out to state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, with her idea, Kifowit led a legislative effort to create the cards, now available through the Secretary of State's Office, according to a news release from the Illinois House of Representatives.

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While Price's son is high functioning, she was concerned about something happening when he was driving, Kifowit said.

"Many individuals with autism can become nervous, can display characteristics that police officers are trained to look for as suspect body language," Kifowit said.

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Lori Price speaks during a press conference in Aurora about new wallet cards for people with disabilities. Price, whose son has autism spectrum disorder, is president of the Indian Prairie District 204 School Board. At left is state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, who pushed for the cards after Price approached her with the idea. (Hannah Leone \Beacon-News )

Faced with high-stress situations, some might become non-verbal or shut down, which can impede the efforts of paramedics and firefighters as well, Kifowit said.

Kifowit, Price, Aurora Police Lt. Mike Abbs and state Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, spoke during a press conference announcing the Person with a Disability Wallet Card Monday at the Aurora Police Department headquarters.

"Individuals who have developmental disabilities will now have the ability to quickly and easily inform law enforcement and first responders of their condition," Kifowit said. "In highly stressful situations, this ability to easily communicate with first responders can hopefully provide positive interactions instead of potential negative consequences."

About 3.5 million Americans, including about 141,000 people in the state of Illinois, live with autism, Kifowit said. While Kifowit said she tends to call it "the autism awareness card," the program is for anyone medically diagnosed with qualifying physical, developmental, visual, hearing and mental disabilities.

"In essence it will keep our loved ones safe," Kifowit said.

Once approved by the Secretary of State's Office, applicants with qualifying medical issues can receive the cards, available for no cost at drivers' services facilities throughout Illinois.

The cards include the holder's hame, along with the name and phone number of a contact, such as a parent or guardian. Price said if called, she thinks the contact could also help defuse a situation by talking to the card holder and being a familiar voice.

As a mother, Price said she couldn't thank Kifowit and Holmes enough for pushing the creation of the card, which she said is about two years in the making.

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"As parents, we always worry about our children," Price said. "Now that my son will be able to have this card, it makes me feel a little more at ease."

From talking with her son about the card he'll soon have, Price said he thinks it's a good idea and understands how it could help in a situation when he couldn't express himself.

While Kifowit said they recommend the cards starting at age 16, when many people start driving, an Aurora police program launched in August has incorporated even younger people.

The 50 participants in the Special Needs Aurora Police Program  SNAPP  range in age from 5 to 88 years old, Abbs said.

While SNAPP doesn't currently use any cards or wristbands, it involves a searchable database available to police, paramedics and other first responders that ties information about a participant's disabilities and communication strategies to their names and addresses. When first responders are called to a home, for example, information tied to the address could help them respond most appropriately, officials said.

Abbs, who said he has been with the department for 22 years and is a day shift patrol commander, described the new wallet cards as another tool for police to better serve citizens.

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"The more information that we have on people's abilities and disabilities when we first encounter them, the better we can serve them," Abbs said. "This program will certainly help us get this information conveyed to our officers quickly."

Kifowit said police in Aurora are "light years ahead" of many places in dealing with people with disabilities.

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
A prayer vigil was held March 11, 2017, at the makeshift memorial for three people who died in a shooting at the Milestone Row condominium complex in St. Charles. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune) (Nuccio Dinuzzo / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

On Tuesday, on what would have been Tiffany and Brittany Coffland's 17th birthdays, St. Charles East High School planned to start the day with a moment of silence to remember the twins shot to death in their home Friday.

Police have said the girls' father, Randall Coffland, called 911 and said he had just shot and killed his daughters, and also shot and injured his estranged wife. Police later arrived at the Cofflands' St. Charles condo and found the girls, who attended St. Charles East and previously attended Oswego High School, and their father dead.

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Autopsy results made public Monday afternoon back up that confession, indicating, preliminarily, that the 16-year-old girls each died of a "single gunshot wound to the head." The preliminary cause of death for Randall Coffland, 48, was a "single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," according to a statement from the Kane County Coroner's Office. Each was shot separately.

The mother of the girls, Anjum Coffland, 46, had gunshot wounds to both her legs, according to police. Police said Sunday she was listed in stable condition at Delnor Community Hospital, and a hospital official said Monday she was not listed in their system.

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Toxicology samples have been sent to a forensic lab for testing.

Kane County Coroner Rob Russell and his staff arrived at the 400 block of First Street in St. Charles around 6:15 p.m. Friday, according to a statement. Authorities have said Randall, Tiffany and Brittany Coffland were living together in that apartment, and Anjum was living in a different St. Charles apartment.

Police said the father had a valid Firearm Owner Identification Card Sunday, but an Illinois State Police spokesman on Monday declined to address questions about the status of Randall's card and whether Anjum Coffland had one, saying state law prohibits making public information about the status of a person's FOID card.

A man listed as a neighbor of the Cofflands when they lived in Oswego said he was "shocked" when he found out what had happened in St. Charles

Ron Houck said he wasn't close to the Cofflands, but described them as a "very nice family" and Randall Coffland as a "nice guy." He remembered their daughters as "nice, polite, shy girls."

According to a message emailed to Oswego High School families obtained by the Beacon-News, Tiffany and Brittany Coffland went to the Community Unit School District 308 high school for the first semester of their freshman year in fall 2014. They also attended Thompson Junior High and Fox Chase Elementary, both in the same district, according to the message.

The high school's student services department offered assistance Monday for students or staff who might have needed support, according to the note.

"Our heartfelt thoughts are with the Coffland family as we grieve the passing of Brittany and Tiffany," Principal Mike Wayne said in the message.

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St. Charles East also had in place a crisis team, St. Charles School District 303 spokesman Jim Blaney said. The school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes hosted a vigil Monday morning.

At a vigil Saturday, a St. Charles East teacher said he had gotten a note from student services asking staff to keep an eye on the girls, who might need additional help due to a problem at home. Blaney on Monday said he didn't have details about that note, but he said in general, teachers look out for their students.

He said he visited St. Charles East Monday morning and saw the community there helping each other.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 14 Police identified 16-year-old twins Tiffany Coffland, left, and Brittany Coffland as the teens who were killed March 10, 2017, in the Milestone Row condominium complex in St. Charles. (Oswego High School yearbook)

"In my mind, that is one of the main duties we have as the adults who help kids every day, is just to look out for them," he said.

Casas is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.

Beacon-News reporter Hannah Leone and Naperville Sun reporter Bill Bird contributed.

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sfreishtat@tribpub.com

Twitter @srfreish
Mooseheart High School's Naval Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps held it annual Military Ball recently.

The male cadets wear dress uniforms while the female students wear gowns for an evening of celebration, school officials said in a press release.

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"We have some strong personalities in our NJROTC leadership this year," lead NJROTC instructor U.S. Navy Warrant Officer (Ret.) Rick Smith said in the release. "As they planned this, they all put their ideas in, and they compromised and put it together. Their true character came out, and I'm truly impressed by that."

At Mooseheart, all high school students are required to participate in NJROTC. They experience NJROTC through classroom studies and drill team or color guard activities, and Smith said the Military Ball commands a special place on the calendar.

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"They spend a lot of time in the classroom and drilling with Gunny (U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. (Ret.) Ruben Hinton)," Smith said in the release. "It's nice to let them dress up in their uniforms without worrying about inspection but just to have a good time."

For the third straight year, Southern California Moose Legion 6 provided the funding for the Military Ball. Ben Pendleton, who was instrumental in the original funding in 2015 as Legion 6 secretary, is now the California-Nevada Moose Association president. Pendleton attended the Military Ball with Moose Legion Past International President Mark Klein and said funding has already been secured for the 2018 Military Ball.

"We love it, our jurisdiction loves it and we look forward to it every year," Pendleton said in the release. "When we first got the opportunity to do this, there wasn't one negative comment from anybody. Everybody was eager to support this and we're going to continue with it."

Since Moose Legion 6 stepped forward, Military Ball funding has been consistent, something Smith said is welcomed not only by himself but by the Mooseheart cadets as well.

"They communicate with us all the time," Smith said in the release. "They were even asking us if we needed more money. They've been so generous. Going back years to when we worried sometimes about the money  it's nice to not ever have to worry about that again."

Founded in 1913, Mooseheart is supported completely through private donations - the great majority of which come from the 1 million men and women of the Moose fraternal organization. Moose International headquarters is located on the Mooseheart campus.

Mooseheart is currently home to approximately 200 students, from preschool to high school seniors. Applications for admission to Mooseheart are considered from any family whose children are, for whatever reason, lacking a stable home environment, school officials said.

Mooseheart is between North Aurora and Batavia, two miles north of Interstate 88 on Route 31.
Career Services will host a Health Job Fair on Thursday, March 30 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Health Science Center lobby.

Students will be able to visit with representatives from area organizations to network and learn more about positions and possibilities within their field of study.

Students should bring their resume and dress in a professional manner.

Business and organizations represented include Animal Clinic, Bright Star of Greater Chattanooga, ComForCare, Erlanger Health Systems, Hamilton Long-Term Care, Life Care Center for Ray County, Massage Heights, Medical Personnel Services, Memorial Hospital, Standifer Place, The Lantern at Morning Pointe, and University Surgical Association.

For more information, contact Career Services at 423-697-4421.
A 22-year-old Aurora man told police he was shot in his upper leg Sunday night while walking in an alley on the city's West Side.

The shooting wasn't reported until the next day, when the man's probation officer asked why he was limping and the man told her about the shooting, police spokesman Dan Ferrelli said in an email. The man was then taken from the probation office on the 1300 block of North Highland Avenue to an Aurora hospital for treatment of a minor wound, Ferrelli said.

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The man said he was shot about 10 p.m. Sunday in an alley on the 100 block of Blackhawk Street, Ferrelli said.

He said the suspects were two masked men, one of whom had a gun, and that he was shot after refusing to hand over his Air Jordan shoes when the suspects demanded them, Ferrelli said. The men ran off after the shooting, Ferrelli said.

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However, Ferrelli noted the man also told officers several versions of the events.

Police ask anyone with information to call Aurora police at 630-256-5500 or Aurora Area Crime Stoppers at 630-892-1000.

Callers to Crime Stoppers can remain anonymous and qualify for a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to any arrests.

People also can submit tips through the Aurora Police Department's free My PD mobile app.

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
Noel Buhay appeared to have it all a decade ago - a good job, a good family life and a nice home on Aurora's West Side.

It's in that setting Buhay and his wife brought in a foster son they hoped to adopt. However, Kane County Assistant State's Attorney Lori Schmidt said this idyllic environment for the then-10-year-old boy proved to have a dark side she equated to the "double life" she said Buhay led.

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"He portrayed himself one way to his community ... to his family, but he was a different person," Schmidt said Tuesday during opening statements in Buhay's trial in Kane County on sex assault charges. "He's not the man everyone thought he was."

Buhay, 49, of Sugar Grove, has pleaded not guilty to predatory criminal sexual assault of his one-time foster son, who is now 23 years old.

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Schmidt described how the man had lived his early childhood in the care of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and believed his placement with Buhay and his wife, who has since died, would finally be a place he could call home. But, the fun of vacations and stability of this new family life came in a trade off with Buhay's sexual abuse, Schmidt said. That left the boy confused and made him the "perfect victim for the defendant in this case," she said.

Prosecutors allege Buhay performed sex acts on the boy at bedtime in his room and, at least once, sodomized him between January and May 2004.

Prosecutors did not charge Buhay with assaulting the boy until 2014, only after Buhay was accused in 2013 of nearly 30 counts alleging he sexually abused and assaulted a second boy. Schmidt told jurors Buhay contacted his former foster son during the latter investigation to tell him to stay quiet about his claims. The now 20-year-old man in the second case, which remains pending, is also expected to testify during the trial. Schmidt pointed out the two young men don't know each other.

"The only thing they have in common is they were sexually assaulted by the defendant," Schmidt claimed.

Buhay's attorney David Imielski countered Schmidt in his opening statement by suggesting the men will offer "flawed" testimony, and attacked prosecutors for what he called a "shocking lack of evidence in this case." Contrary to Schmidt's description, Imielski portrayed Buhay as a "paragon of the community" who treated kids, including his nieces and nephews, "like a rock star."

He called on the jury to hold prosecutors to their burden of proof as he said they'll offer no DNA, fingerprint or medical information connecting Buhay to the alleged assault.

"There's no corroborating evidence," Imielski said before telling jurors at the end of the case they'll have "no choice but to find my client not guilty."

Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Brown backs Oprah: I want to comment about Oprah for president. She might be a very good candidate. Who knows? Mark Brown never said anything good about President Trump. He said Trump has no background in politics. Now he wants to back Oprah, who also has no experience in government. I think Brown ought to rethink his comments.

Russian interference: I wish someone could tell me how the Russians influenced the presidential election. I voted for President Trump. I didn't get any telephone calls from Russia. Nobody contacted me and told me to vote for Trump. I think the Democrats are just trying to make noise.

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Terrorist act: I notice that nobody has called the guy in Kansas a terrorist for the terrorist acts he did. He said "get out of my country" just before he shot these people. I guess that since he is not a person of color, he is not a terrorist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he committed a terrorist act. It seems racist not to call him a terrorist.

Balking at Riverwalk: The intentions of the downtown Aurora Riverwalk are noble, but all day and night a certain element of society traverses these walkways. They have nothing else to do. They make this place unsafe. It wouldn't hurt to have a bigger park police presence.

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Tense about Sessions: I would go after Jeff Sessions just like President Trump and the Republicans went after former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. The Democrats should not let up until Sessions is out.

Stop the freebies: I suggest for all of Illinois and any other states that allow illegal immigrants to get free food stamps and Medicaid that the welfare office should ask recipients if they are legal residents. Voters should also be checked. As far as giving these illegal immigrants free food, free coats and free lunches, come on. They are driving better cars than I am.

Bummed about busing: Congratulations to the east side of Aurora. Now they are going to bus these lazy kids who cannot walk like we did in the 1950s or took the city bus. I don't understand. With all these cars that are parked forever on the streets and across driveways, the drivers can't get their kids to school? I sure hope this new system doesn't increase my property taxes because the people who rent don't pay property taxes. People say they can't afford the Pace bus because it costs money. What about all the money their parents spend on their birthday parties? Give me a break.

Identification situation: I have a tenant who sends me their rent money through Wal-Mart. I went to pick up the money from Wal-Mart as usual and presented my identification. I am a black man, and I have been a United States citizen for 63 years. This is the first time I have picked up money like that and was asked if I am a United States citizen. What is up with that?

Stop sanctuary cities: I can't believe that some of the men who are running for the position of mayor of Batavia are considering turning Batavia into a sanctuary city. Are they out of their minds? I believe we should go with the laws of our country and not let each city do what it wants to do.

Angry about assault weapons: I am for most people in this country being able to own a gun. However, I do not want people to own assault weapons. You do not hunt with assault weapons. They are made for killing people. If you need assault weapons in your home, something is very wrong in your neighborhood. You need to talk to the police. In addition, I am against what President Trump did by allowing mentally ill people to have guns again. That is a very bad idea. I don't care if you agree or disagree. Look at the mentally ill people who have been killed by police without having guns. Imagine what will happen if mentally ill people have guns. We need a better way of thinking, folks.

Trojan horse: All our elected officials took an oath to uphold the laws of the land and support the Constitution of the United States of America. We are a nation of laws. We are supposed to have separation of church and state. For church officials to ignore our laws is a rebellion. They are committing treason. Anyone who harbors or helps illegal immigrants is guilty of a felony. I would like to see everyone who promotes illegal immigration, especially the people who hire illegal immigrants, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. How is it fair for illegal immigrants to ignore our laws and get sanctuary in churches? How many people have lost their jobs to illegal immigrants? They are our Trojan horse. This is our country. Enforce the laws.

Editor's note

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Speak Out is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you see something you disagree with or think is incorrect, call us at 312-222-2460 or email couriernews@tribpub.com. Please include "speak out" in the subject line.
Public health officials recently confirmed an additional case of mumps at Barrington High School and another case at Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Lake County to six.

Officials with the Lake County Health Department said Tuesday they expect the number of confirmed cases to increase in the weeks ahead, roughly 15 days after the first mumps case was confirmed at Barrington High School on Feb. 28.

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"We are predicting the numbers to continue to rise due to the long incubation period of mumps," said Leslie Piotrowski, spokeswoman for Lake County Health Department.

The newly confirmed case at Daniel Wright Junior High School is the first verified case to reach Lincolnshire, a village located about 18 miles east of Barrington. Health officials said they confirmed the Lincolnshire case on March 10.

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Barrington High School now has four confirmed mumps cases, while another case was confirmed last week in the Village of Barrington. Health officials said the confirmed case in the village is not connected to the ones at Barrington High School.

But the case is related to a probable case of mumps in the Village of Lake Zurich, Piotrowski has said.

Including the Lake Zurich case, health officials have identified 11 probable cases of mumps throughout Lake County and 31 suspected cases of mumps as of Monday, according to the Lake County Health Department.

The other probable cases include seven at Barrington High School and three at Station Middle School in Barrington, officials said.

Station school also has three suspected cases, while Barrington Middle School  Prairie Campus has five suspected cases and Roslyn Road School in Barrington has one suspected case.

The other suspected cases include 18 at Barrington High School, one at Libertyville High School, one in Lake Forest, one in Tower Lakes and another at an unknown address, health officials said.

Piotrowski said that people who may have been already exposed to the viral disease even after taking the proper vaccination still could see their cases confirmed for mumps during, at least, the next three weeks.

Officials formally declared a mumps outbreak at Barrington High School on March 7 after confirming a third case at the school.

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As part of the "outbreak control" protocol, Barrington School District 220 officials worked with the Lake County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health to host a clinic Monday for eligible Barrington High School students and staff who needed a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, Piotrowski said.

Mumps is a contagious disease caused by a virus, which typically starts with a few days of fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, and loss of appetite, followed by swollen salivary glands, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

The Lake County Health Department has said the "hallmark" symptoms of mumps are swelling or pain close to the jaw, or on both face sides of the face.

The disease is commonly spread through sneezing, coughing, sharing of cups or other items that have come in contact with saliva, the department has said.

tshields@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @tshields19
Did you ever wish someone would stop talking - endlessly?

Opera composer Jacques Offenbach wrote a comic opera about annoying chatterboxes, titled "Les Bavards" based on a story by Cervantes. Set in Zaragoza, Spain, it premiered originally as one act in 1862 in the composer's native Germany, and was presented in 1863 in its final two-act form in Paris, where Offenbach made his home. The composer himself conducted the Paris production.

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Dan Pasquale D'Andrea, conductor of Sinfonietta Bel Canto, has condensed the material back to a one-hour one act that will be performed March 18 and 19 in Downers Grove and April 1 in Barrington. The concert, titled Strudel and Souffle, will also include Haydn's Symphony No. 101 performed by the Sinfonietta's 30-plus musicians

"This short opera was written during what is considered Offenbach's highly productive 'golden' period," D'Andrea said of "Les Bavards." "His works were very popular, though what we remember today are his 'Tales of Hoffman' and 'Orpheus in the Underworld.'"

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But Offenbach also composed 98 operettas, a popular form which is light hearted, frequently satirical and never shy about going for the laugh. It is miles from dramatic opera, where true love is thwarted and bodies, felled by death natural and otherwise, litter the stage. In operettas, sweethearts overcome obstacles and Cinderella-like endings are assured. Offenbach is considered the most successful of the 19th century operetta composers, but not many of his operettas remain in the standard repertoire.

D'Andrea is a regular Sherlock at finding short comic operas and for this concert the lovely music and fanciful plot of "Les Bavards" caught his eye, he said. In the story, a penniless poet named Roland is hounded by debt collectors. He hides from them in the house of a wealthy man, Sarmiento, whose wife Beatrix is one of the chatterboxes. Their niece Ines is Roland's sweetheart and it is soon discovered that Roland also talks constantly. After the sudden appearance of a mysterious love letter and much negotiating over Roland's debts, Sarmiento pay off the debts and the young couple is free to marry.

Mezzo-soprano Carolyn Stopka plays Roland, the poet. It is a trouser role in which a mezzo sings a young male character.

"The great thing about being a mezzo-soprano is the variety of characters you can sing," Stopka said. "Therefore, I see more possibilities than limitations in being a mezzo. I like to inhabit different types of people with different motivations, both male and female. It adds to the inherent drama of opera. although I wish composers would have written more operatic roles for the mezzo voice."

Stopka, who serves on the Sinfonietta Bel Canto board, has high praise for Maestro D'Andrea. "He is extremely talented as a musician and conductor and very knowledgeable about the history and details of a work and its art," she said, "It is a unique and admirable artistic mission to bring to light those works which are beautiful and not so well-known to contemporary audiences."

Award winning soprano Roxann Ferguson is cast as Ines, the object of Roland's affection. She has appeared with several area opera companies such as Chicago Folks Opera and Elgin Opera as well as singing in Salzburg, Austria and Urabnia, Italy. She also studied improvisation at The Second City.

"Improv encourages you to collaborate with colleagues by accepting their interpretation and expounding upon it, which is also a valuable skill in opera," she said.

Soprano Renee Roscoe-Morrison is cast as Beatrix. Morrison is a psychotherapist and in addition to singing with Sinfonietta Bel Canto, she directs a children's choir at Grace United Methodist Church in Naperville.

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"Every culture has some kind of music," Roscoe-Morrison said. "It's part of being human and it's good to have Sinfonietta Bel Canto and its concerts in the community."

Have you figured out what Strudel and Souffle signifies? The answer is Strudel for the Austrian Haydn and Souffle for "Les Bavards," which will be sung in French with English supertitles.

Sinfonietta Bel Canto 'Strudel and Souffle'

When and where: 8 p.m. March 18 and 19 at Immanuel Lutheran Church., 5211 Carpenter, Downers Grove and 7:30 p.m. April 1 at Salem United Methodist Church, 115 W. Lincoln Ave., Barrington

Tickets: $22, $19 seniors, $7 students, children age 5 and younger free with an adult.

Contact: 630-384-5007; www.SinfoniettaBelCanto.org
"Burr Ridge Oasis 1 mile ahead" is a service sign along the Interstate 294 that Burr Ridge officials wouldn't mind seeing in the not too distant future. That is, if the oasis still exists.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is working on plans to improve and possibly widen the interstate, also known as the Tri-State Tollway, from four lanes in each direction to five. Burr Ridge officials say they are opposed to any expansion that negatively impacts village residents.

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If any widening is done, the Hinsdale Oasis would have to be removed. Burr Ridge leaders say they would be happy if the oasis and the trucks that idle overnight on the southbound entrance ramp of the oasis were gone permanently because of the noise and other nuisances for nearby Burr Ridge residents.

However, if the oasis is rebuilt or only the gas stations remain, the village contends that the money from the service center should go to its rightful owner: Burr Ridge.

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"We believe it should be renamed the Burr Ridge Oasis and the revenue should go to Burr Ridge," village administrator Steve Stricker told a packed Village Board room Monday.

Stricker said Hinsdale got rights to the oasis before there was even a Burr Ridge. It happened in the 1950s and was done by strip annexation, annexing a narrow strip of land from the eastern village boundary south down the tollway to reach the oasis. Such a move would not even be allowed today, Stricker said.

Hinsdale officials are fearful of the oasis not being rebuilt which would impact their budget. The village gets more than $500,000 per year in sales tax from the oasis restaurants.

Hinsdale residents have already begun mobilizing in opposition to the possible expansion because an additional lane in each direction could move the sound wall that lines the highway 12-15 feet farther west, encroaching on back yards in the Woodlands neighborhood.

Burr Ridge residents have similar concerns and showed up en masse at their Village Board meeting to find out more about the potential tollway widening.

Karen Swendsen, who have lived near the tollway for 33 years, said she regularly has to rearrange dishes in her kitchen cabinet because of the vibrations from trucks and other vehicles. She said she can't open windows in the summer because of noise.

"It is almost unbearable," Swendsen said, "and I worked at O'Hare for 20 years so I am used to noise."

Village officials said they will be sending a letter to the toll authority this week expressing their concerns.

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Ki Scanlon, a resident of the Tarton Ridge subdivision, said she was thankful that village officials are taking action to monitor the proposed project. She said any expansion project would change things for those residents near the tollway.

"It may have a tremendous impact on many people whose residences back up to the tollway and I feel that we need to inform them what is happening with the 294 plan, that they may widen the tollway," Scanlon said.

A Manor Drive resident said that residents cannot trust anything the toll authority says. He noted that they left out 300 feet of sound wall from three Burr Ridge properties when the last expansion was done in the late 1980s.

A proposed letter from Mayor Mickey Straub to Robert Schillerstrom, chairman of the toll authority, states that "any work requiring permanent easements or property acquisition from Burr Ridge residents would be strongly opposed."

The village is also asking for a comprehensive noise study as well as an air-quality study done while the trucks are idling on the on ramp.

Stricker said any space for additional lanes of traffic in the authority's 2040 plan would likely come from the east side of the tollway.

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The letter asks for clarification of the plans and that "if is the intent of the tollway to add more than one lane (in each direction), we would like to be informed of this immediately, as it may negatively impact our residents."

Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press
A number of GPS Middle School "mathletes" placed in the top three of individual and group contests at the Perennial Math competition.

Twenty GPS middle school students attended the recent Perennial Math Competition at UTC on Saturday and a number of the mathletes placed in the top three in individual and group contests that featured students from area public and independent schools.

For the sixth grade individual test, Meghan Gardner and Lucy Good both placed 2nd, and Anisha Phade and Anya Parambath placed 3rd. In the seventh grade individual competition, Aarushi Modi placed 1st, and Sadie Kalla placed 3rd. In the 8th grade individual competition, Lily DuPlooy placed 1st, and Talley Lyons placed 3rd.



In addition to the individual tests, the girls competed in teams of five on a team test and received a team score that was calculated based on the five individual test scores as well as their group test score. Two of the GPS teams were comprised of students in multiple grade levels, so their group test was given according to the highest grade level represented. The GPS sixth grade team of Lucy Good, Meghan Gardner, Anya Parambath, Anisha Phade, and Sophie McGee placed 1st for their sixth grade team score. A mixed team  sixth graders Collette Smith, Macy Mashburn, Rebecca Wyatt, and Abby Talton, and seventh grader Savannah Friant placed 2nd for their team score. The eighth grade team of Lily DuPlooy, Astha Sinha, Talley Lyons, Ashley Grant, and Annie Thrash earned 1st in the eighth grade team performance.

The girls are taught by Annie Loveless, Kim Myers, and Courtney Tallant. I am so thankful the girls capitalized on this opportunity and hope they enjoyed their experience, said Ms. Tallant. The girls and I had a great time!
Bremen High School in Midlothian is closed "due to a police situation in the neighborhood," according to the school's website. (Nick Swedberg / Daily Southtown)

Midlothian police are investigating a shooting early Tuesday that forced the closure of several streets and prompted officials to close public schools in the village for the day, authorities said.

People were taken into custody, but the exact number was not released by Midlothian police, who issued a news release Tuesday afternoon but did not immediately respond to requests for other information. There was no report of injuries.

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According to the news release, officers responded about 4:30 a.m. to a report of shots fired in the area of 149th Street and Central Park Avenue.

Officers learned a man was inside a home with several other people, police said. A person ran from the house, which prompted a man to follow, pull a gun and shoot several rounds at him, police said.

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Midlothian officers set up a perimeter around the house and later were assisted by the South Suburban Emergency Response Team, police said.

Police said "the subjects surrendered from inside the house and were all taken into custody."

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Several streets in the area were blocked off while police responded to the incident.

The situation appeared to be resolved by 11 a.m. A response team truck left and an officer who was picking up barricades said it the situation was over.

The names of those taken into custody were not immediately released.

Bremen High School, which is within blocks of where the incident happened, was closed "due to a police situation in the neighborhood," according to the school's website. School officials planned to send out a message later regarding scheduled after-school activities, according to the website.

All grade schools in Midlothian School District 143 also were closed because of "police activity in the area," according to the district's website. The schools include Central Park, Kolmar, Spaulding and Springfield. Classes will resume Wednesday, according to the website.

An employee at St. Christopher Catholic School said it was open for the day.

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Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter.
The lawyer for Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki is seeking sanctions against the Country Club Hills Fire Department for its alleged destruction of evidence pertinent to the case. (Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki)

Thousands of web searches for pornography were found on four Country Club Hills fire department computers, according to testimony from a forensic expert.

Andrew Garrett  who performed the imaging Jan. 26 on behalf of Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki, a female firefighter involved in a lawsuit against Country Club Hills  testified last month to the presence of porn on the devices.

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"There's thousands of web searches for pornography. It's all over the board," Garrett testified Feb. 8, according to court transcripts. "It appears that they've wiped the hard drives, reloaded them, and I gave [Dana Kurtz, Lewis-Bystrzycki's lawyer] three dates in which that was completely done.

"The problem was, once the computers were hooked back up, the servers pushed down profiles that had information of the previous web history and the searching of pornography."

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Lewis-Bystrzycki, a member of the department since 1998, alleges firefighters sexually harassed her and treated her in a hostile manner, engaged in gender discrimination when she came up for a promotion, retaliated against her for reporting misbehavior and regularly watched pornography at the station, according to court documents.

On Aug. 31, 2016, after concluding that a search of the department's computers did not amount to a "fishing expedition," a judge granted a motion ordering a forensic examination of the computers, court documents show.

The examination occurred nearly five months after it was granted, and only after Judge Lynn Egan sanctioned the city for its failure to comply with the court-ordered computer imaging, according to court filings. Country Club Hills was ordered to reimburse the forensic expert for time and expenses related to the imaging as part of the sanctions.

After news of the sanctions was reported last month by a watchdog website but before results of the imaging were shared in court, the city's lawyers filed an emergency motion for a protective order to stem the flow of information to the media.

They argue the gag order is necessary to prevent "irreparable, serious and imminent threats to Defendants' rights to a fair trial," according to court filings.

Country Club Hills firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki claims in court records that this doll was left at her locker in 2012 after indicating she should "shut her mouth." (Supplied photo) (Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki / Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki)

"It is expected  based on past pattern and practices  that plaintiff  through her counsel  will attempt to unjustly and purposefully influence the potential jury pool, so Defendants will be irreparably harmed by not getting a fair trial on the relevant, material and ultimately admissible evidence," the city argued in its motion, citing a 2015 FOX 32 report about the lawsuit and the recent watchdog blog article.

Country Club Hills and its lawyers did not return requests for comment on the city's recent motion for a gag order or on allegations made in Kurtz's response that the city had destroyed evidence and was in contempt of a court order, and that firefighters regularly watched porn.

The city also asked the judge to allow it to screen "any irrelevant or immaterial data" found on the fire department's computers, before they were passed along to Kurtz and Lewis-Bystryzycki, for fear it could be used as part of a "smear campaign" against the department.

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Kurtz shot back with a response to the city's motion, arguing that its allegations had no basis in fact and that the request for a gag order should be denied outright.

She had not been leaking information about the case to the news, Kurtz wrote, but rather the media had simply been reporting on publicly available court documents.

"Plaintiff did not send anything to the watchdog group," she wrote. "The watchdog group wrote an(sic) news article about the Court's order granting sanctions against Defendants, which would be a matter of public record from the court file."

Her response to the gag order motion states that rather than focusing on the censure she received from a judge last year in an unrelated case, the city "should really focus on their own conduct (or misconduct) in this case."

"Which," her response continues, "has led to a default judgment being entered against them, them having to pay Plaintiffs' attorneys fees for not answering the complaint in a timely manner and not responding, no less than 4 motions to compel and sanctions having to be filed by Plaintiff in this case, and almost all of them being granted."

Kurtz also accused Country Club Hills of having "deliberately engaged in tactics to destroy evidence and commit spoliation."

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When reached by phone, she declined comment on the case, citing the pending gag order motion.

Despite the potential implications of Kurtz's allegations, experienced Chicago trial lawyer Dan Kirschner said he thought it unlikely the case would be investigated by authorities.

"I think police and state's attorneys are leery of getting in the middle of a civil dispute," he said.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

When asked if it had opened an investigation into the allegations of spoliation of evidence, the Cook County state's attorney's office said it had not.

His remedy in such situations, said Kirschner, a partner at Corboy & Demetrio who represents personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice complainants, is to bring it to the court's attention and ask for a sanction, which could come in many forms, including jury instruction, striking any pleadings related to the issue or entering a default judgment.

"The judge has lots of remedies at his or her disposalso my first thought is to bring it to the judge's attention, not to police," Kirschner said.

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Kurtz indicated in her Feb.15 response to Country Club Hills' motion for a protective order that that would be the direction she would go. In it, she wrote that she intends to file motions of spoliation and contempt once Garrett finalizes his report on the computer imaging and releases it to her.

A hearing on the protective order requested by the city is scheduled for late next month.

zkoeske@tribpub.com

Twitter @ZakKoeske
If the term "Comic-Con" is part of your vocabulary or there is an enthusiastic fan of super heroes in the family, or you simply grew up with Superman and Batman, you may want to check out the Frankfort Public Library's Fan Fest from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 18.

Lisa Moe Meierkort, adult services librarian at Frankfort Library, is hoping the inaugural Fan Fest becomes a regular family event, despite the amount of time it takes to plan.

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"I'm hoping to do it annually depending on how the turnout is," Moe Meierkort said. "This has been in the works for about six months already. I think it's something people can definitely get into."

The day's agenda reads like a crowd pleaser, offering six hours of activities for the whole family  from infant to grandparents.

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Moe Meierkort said perhaps the most well-known guest will be Gene Ha, Chicago-born comic artist and writer. Ha was a Will Eisner Comic Industry Award winner in 2000, 2001, 2006 and 2008.

Ha will be one of nine comic book artists/writers in an "artists' alley," Moe Meierkort said, where artists will sell comic books they have published, prints of their work and original artwork throughout the day.

Also in artists' alley will be jewelry artist Amanda Mayer with original pieces that sport a movie theme. Representatives from local comics and game store Amazing Fantasy & Books will set up shop, as well.

Presentations for ages 13 to adult will be from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Lance Anderson will present "Fear and the Origins of Marvel Super Heroes." Anderson will discuss the possibilities of how "anxieties" of the Cold War Era influenced the creators of super heroes, Moe Meierkort said.

The second presentation by Carol Tilley, an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, will explore "Wondrous Women: Highlighting Great Women in Comics."

"She's done a lot of research," Moe Meierkort said. "I'm very excited for that one."

Steven Frenzel's presentation, "Super Heroes: The History of the Outsiders," will feature clips from super-hero movies, including some "behind-the-scenes" trivia.

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During the presentations, kids 12 years old and younger will have plenty to keep them occupied.

A "Kids' Drop-in Crafts" program will be held in the Youth Services room. All materials will be provided for kids to make their own version of a super-hero cape to keep and bottle-cap magnets made of comic book pages. Advisory Board teens will be on hand to assist.

Harvey Award nominee and artist Trevor Mueller will teach a Superhero Drawing Workshop for kids in grades three to five. Young artists will have the opportunity to learn how to create their own superhero. Registration is required.

Greenfire Games of Oak Lawn will host Open Board Gaming, including "Robot Turtle" for children three to eight years old. Everyone can get in on this event, Moe Meierkort said.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"I'm sure they're going to bring a wide selection, maybe some cooperative games, some competitive games," Moe Meierkort said. "We're planning for all different ages. We're planning for different skill levels as well."

A green screen photo booth for making memories will be available for all ages from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the learning lab.

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The final event of the day will be the Costume Contest with line-up at 3:15 p.m. and a parade through the library before judging. No registration is required.

Harvey Award nominee and comic convention favorite, artist Trevor Mueller, will show you how to design & draw your own superhero. Space is limited, so sign up early! Grades 3-5. RSVP online or call 815-534-6178 Moe Meierkort said a "weapons and costume policy" must be followed by all participants. The dress rules can be found at www.frankfortlibrary.org.

Prizes will be awarded in Youth, Teen, Adult and Group categories.

For more information and a complete schedule or to register for the Superhero Drawing Workshop, go to www.frankfortlibrary.org or call 815-534-6178.

Ginger Brashinger is a freelance columnist.
"Officer down!"

Park Forest Police Chief Pete Green remembers that day a year ago when he got the terrible news from his Deputy Chief Christopher Mannino. One of the village's police officers was shot.

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"Officer down" is the most obscene phrase in the vocabulary of every police department. In their world, it meant a member of their close-knit family was injured. If you read this and are a police officer, you know the anguish it creates. If you are like most of us  civil and civilian  you may have sympathy, but you may not grasp the torment.

Mannino had worse news for Chief Green.

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"It's Tim Jones."

It was Jones, the only son of Country Club Hill Police Chief William Jones, a 25-year veteran of police work and a father who proudly pinned badge number 204 on his son's uniform when he was sworn in less than one year ago.

Early on the morning of March 19, 2016, Tim Jones, accompanied by two other officers, responded to a break-in at a vacant home on the 300 block of Neola Avenue. Police established a perimeter but 21-year-old Thurman Reynolds, who grew up in Park Forest, then moved to Texas before returning to this area would have none of it. Reynolds didn't have a job but he had a gun and his friends said he had a bad temper.

In the last seconds of his angry, aimless life, Reynolds came out of the house shooting. He fired twice before police shot and killed him. Those two bullets, however, struck Tim Jones; one in his head and one through his jaw, lodging in his chest.

"Officer down"

Pete Green knew the camaraderie that exists among police made his next decision simple.

"I had to go tell Chief Jones," Green said. "I had to be the one to tell him."

This was the second time he had been to the Jones home. The first was when rookie officer Jones fell asleep and rolled on his cell phone which kept on dialing the Park Forest police. Later the three men would laugh about the goofy incident.

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No one laughed this morning.

It was early Saturday and Jones was home alone. Ironically, His wife and daughter were having their hair done in a Park Forest salon.

Chief Green blurted out the words. "Tim was shot."

William Jones is a quiet yet imposing man. To see him one could believe he must be the prototype of what police officers should look like. But at this time and this moment he was an anguished father.

"He became emotional," Green recalls. "He kept asking me over and over 'is he dead? I can handle it. Tell me if he's dead.' "

* * * * *

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William Jones' first job as a police officer was in North Chicago in 1993. He joined the Country Club Hills force in 2003 and became its chief in 2014. This tough-minded cop built a border wall between his public duty and private life and believed he could handle almost anything.

Nothing could have prepared him for Chief Green's news. The logical, orderly world that Jones created for his family was spinning out of his control. "I was in disbelief," he says. He (Green) drove me to the hospital and I was thinking how you never know what tomorrow brings."

When father saw son in his blood-drenched uniform he thought "God help us." He asked the doctor "is he gone?'" The physician said no but shook his head.

"I saw him only yesterday" said Jones. "And now look at him."

Now nothing else mattered except Tim. Everything was moved to the unlit back burner of life. For the next two weeks, from the time they wheeled him into the emergency room at St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields, to his air-vac to the Level One trauma unit in Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, the Jones' family  William, wife Temmera and daughter Tiffany  were next to his bed, praying and hoping against logical hope.

They never left.

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That incredible bond that police have for each other was on display when Tim Jones arrived at Christ Hospital. More than 200 police officers of all ranks from dozens of departments lined the halls in a silent tribute to a fallen brother.

Less than one week later thousands, including police from more than a dozen departments jammed into a Culver's restaurant in Matteson, where, for three hours, 20 percent of each food order would be earmarked for a fund to help defray family expenses. It was supposed to last until 7 p.m. At 6:30 the line stretched out the door and down the street. Some four hours later there were still people waiting their turn.

* * * * *

Tim was put in a coma to relieve swelling on the brain and doctors told the family there was no hope. Tim would likely die within 24 hours. Chief Jones recalls that one doctor told him he'd "never seen anyone wake up from something like this." Another doctor said the odds of him winning the Power Ball were better than of Tim living one more day.

"We never accepted that," said Chief Jones. "We are a people of strong faith and believed it was in God's time. We were waiting for a miracle."

The family was bolstered by Mary Ann, a nurse who said she too believed in miracles and told Jones she felt the need to be there because she lost her son two years before. He and Tim went to the same high school. "She was our angel," said Jones.

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More than two weeks after he was shot, Tim Jones still clung to life and after an operation around Easter the "angel" named Mary Ann told Jones "go see your son."

"His eyes were open, they were blinking and staring at me," the Chief said. It was not just a reflex action, it was a knowing response, he added. "We knew we had our miracle."

Soon Tim was following his father with his eyes when he moved around the bed and would respond to his name. One doctor told the father he had heard about such things happening, but until now had never seen it.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

A college classmate once jokingly complained he wanted Tim to reimburse him for all the money spent on tolls coming to the hospital. Tim smiled. That grin was another step forward. He could chew and he could swallow and now he knew the difference between sarcasm and humor.

Today Tim Jones is a patient at the Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago and is still a member of the Park Forest Police Department.

William Jones shows with pride a cell phone video of Tim flexing and rolling his left leg inward and outward. It is one of the millions of little movements we make each day; movements of no importance that we never remember. Recently, when the engine of his car virtually exploded while being driven by his sister, Tim reminded his father of an extended warranty that would pay for repairs.

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This Sunday will mark one year since Tim Jones was shot and the Village of Park Forest has proclaimed the day in his honor. A Blue Mass honoring all First Responders will be held at St. Irenaeus Catholic Church in his honor.

The Jones family has even come to terms with the shooting. "We as a family, forgive him (Reynolds) for what he did. There was simply no winner there."

Writers dislike the word "miracle." It is ill-defined and too-often used in meaningless games. But the Jones family has a precise definition. Their son is alive.

Jerry Shnay is a freelance journalist and can be reached at jerryshnay@gmail.com.
If Attorney General Lisa Madigan succeeds in convincing the Illinois Supreme Court to consider ordering the state to stop paying employees without an appropriation, and the governor's legal team uses the same arguments as it did in St. Clair County, we could be in for a highly unusual argument.

First a little background. The Illinois Constitution and state laws are clear that no state money can be expended without a legal appropriation, which is legislative speak for a special kind of bill that lists how much government agencies, commissions, etc. can spend on various items.

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As you probably know, the state hasn't had a "real" budget in a couple of years. A budget is basically just a collection of appropriations. The last legal appropriation for state employee payroll expired on June 30, 2015. Negotiations between the governor and legislative leaders stalled and shortly thereafter a judge in St. Clair County ordered the state to pay its workers anyway. Everybody back then figured this would probably be a temporary situation, so nobody squawked too much. It's been done before for a few weeks. No big deal.

Except, as we are all painfully aware, the governmental stalemate has continued for over 20 months. In January, Madigan got tired of waiting for the governor and the General Assembly to cut a deal and filed a legal motion in St. Clair County to vacate that 2015 order. She lost. We're not sure exactly why because the judge didn't issue a formal opinion, but the governor's office was at that hearing and filed a brief opposing Madigan's motion.

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The governor doesn't want Madigan to win because his bargaining position will be greatly weakened if the courts effectively shut down the state by ruling that money can't be spent without appropriations. Gov. Bruce Rauner is demanding some business-related reforms, a property tax freeze and a few other things before he'll agree to a tax hike to balance the state's infamously out of whack budget. So, the man who once bragged that he would use the crisis of the state not having a budget to force through his preferred legislative changes now wants to avoid a much worse crisis that would compel him to abandon his demands in order to prevent the catastrophe of an actual government shutdown.

Got all that? OK.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

One of the arguments used by the governor's lawyers when they won at the county level last month was that a bunch of state laws are in reality "continuing appropriations." A continuing appropriation is a law mandating that certain state bills be paid in perpetuity. The General Assembly isn't required to pass new appropriations every year and the governor isn't required to sign them into law. It's automatic pilot spending.

But the governor's lawyers want to redefine what a continuing appropriation is. According to the governor's legal brief, "there are many statutes that function as continuing appropriations by mandating the State to perform specific services. Employees who provide those services must continue to be paid."

Examples the governor's legal eagles used included a state statute that mandates that the Illinois Department on Aging "shall exercise, administer, and enforce all rights, powers and duties vested in the Department on Aging by the Illinois Act on the Aging." Complying with these and other mandates, they claimed, "necessitates paying personnel" because compliance can't be accomplished without employees.

The governor's legal team then argued that it would take a lot of time to sift through all state laws to find these mandates, and that the task needed to be followed up by "evidentiary hearings to assess what employees are necessary to provide such services." Such a process could take months, if not years. There are a ton of those mandates in the state statute books.

Needless to say, if such an argument prevailed it would give the executive branch almost limitless authority to spend taxpayer money as it pleased. And it wouldn't end with employee salaries, either. If the Department on Aging determined that it needed a big new Chicago office building to perform its mandated functions, or had to let millions of dollars in new contracts, or had to purchase a dozen new vehicles, then, under the governor's legal logic it could go right ahead and do so without any legislative approval whatsoever.

The governor's team references what it considers to be favorable court rulings from 1953 and 1974, but this is either one of the most blatant executive power grab attempts I've seen or the biggest legal stretch ever.

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Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.
U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski sometimes wonders if he spends too much time thinking about autonomous technology, the scientific term for self-driving vehicles.

"I love this stuff," Lipinski told me Tuesday. He participated in a panel discussion on the topic Saturday at the South by Southwest festival and conference in Austin, Texas.

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"I think it's important and it will impact everybody. But sometimes I fear, people looking at this might think, 'Oh, the congressman is wasting his time on something that doesn't matter much.'"

I told Lipinski that I, for one, am grateful someone like him is thinking about how government should regulate self-driving vehicles. He holds engineering degrees from Northwestern and Stanford universities and can apply his knowledge as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

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Science "geeks" have been excited about autonomous technology for years, but now it's starting to impact everyday life. Uber began testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh in September. People are beginning to grasp how this technology might impact the economy, and jobs.

"Robots could replace 1.7 million American truckers in the next decade," a Los Angeles Times headline declared in September. For a region like the Southland, with its dependence on jobs related to transportation and logistics, autonomous technology could have a huge, disruptive impact.

"This is really going to change our transportation system," Lipinski said. "We already have vehicles on the market that can drive themselves in certain circumstances."

The economic impact is already significant. On Monday, the computer chip maker Intel said it was buying the Israeli autonomous technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion. Reports about the transaction cited Goldman Sachs projections that the market for self-driving technology would grow from its current $3 billion a year to $96 billion annually by 2025 and $290 billion by 2035.

At SXSW  the acronym for the annual music festival and technology conference  Lipinski took part in a panel discussion about "Self-Driving Cars and the Policy Maze." Since the technology is already here, so is the need to consider how government should regulate it to address issues like safety, privacy and liability.

Lipinski told me he believes humans will gradually adopt technology as they become more comfortable letting their vehicles do their driving for them. While sensors and other equipment can perform certain tasks, such as parallel parking, engineers will have to improve artificial intelligence technology before fully autonomous vehicles become widely used.

"All we learn as drivers, all the decisions we make" are influenced by human behavior, he said.

"When we see a pedestrian we look for cues. Will that person step out into the roadway? Those are very difficult things for technology, to pick up cues like that."

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Those challenges affect urban situations in particular, impacting industries like ride-sharing and package delivery. It's possible the technology might be perfected enough to allow fully autonomous, long-haul trucks on highways before being allowed in more congested urban settings.

"At risk is one of the most common jobs in many states, and one of the last remaining careers that offer middle-class pay to those without a college degree," the L.A. Times article said. Truckers earn $42,500 on average, plus good benefits, typically.

I read another account that said drivers likely would still be needed to get trucks in and out of terminals and to pick up and deliver goods once they were off the highway. The article said truckers of the future might perform roles like tugboat operators that guide big ships in and out of ports.

Lipinski said he's aware of the concerns, and that there hasn't been much research yet on how self-driving technology could change our lives. The general consensus is that eliminating jobs performed by humans would reduce costs.

"We've not yet started to grapple with how automation is going to change our economy," he told me. "We know there's going to be job displacement at some point. I don't think it's going to be that soon, but it's something we should be thinking about."

The U.S. Department of Transportation issued the first federal guidelines on self-driving technology in September. In the introduction, then-Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx sounded like he was channeling science fiction author Isaac Asimov in his book, "I, Robot."

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"Possessing the potential to uproot personal mobility as we know it, to make it safer and even more ubiquitous than conventional automobiles and perhaps even more efficient, self-driving cars have become the archetype of our future transportation," Foxx wrote. "Still, important concerns emerge. Will they fully replace the human driver? What ethical judgments will they be called upon to make?"

The passage reminded me of the 2004 film adaptation of "I, Robot," starring Will Smith. Smith plays a character who distrusts robots because he survived a crash in which a robot allowed a young girl to die because her survival was statistically less likely than his.

With fully autonomous technology, will vehicles be forced to choose who lives and who dies? Will machines facing unavoidable collisions make split-second decisions, as humans must, between veering left to strike one pedestrian or steering right to hit another?

Who will program the machines to make such ethical decisions? Will Congress have to enact laws to ensure life-or-death decisions made by machines are not based on a person's age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious affiliation?

To date, discussion about regulation has mainly focused on testing of self-driving cars, Lipinski said. While the federal government sorts out what its role should be, some states and local municipalities have already adopted restrictions.

California, for example, on Saturday unveiled proposed new regulations that pave the way to issue permits for commercial use of driverless vehicles. There will be a public hearing and 45-day comment period before the rules are adopted. The laws are of particular interest to Silicon Valley-based companies like Google and Tesla Motors.

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Meanwhile, in December, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed what news accounts described as the nation's "most permissive" set of laws governing self-driving vehicles.

"Proponents say the laws are important for the state's economic development and talent retention," The Detroit News reported.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

I read analysis that indicates the industry, in general, would prefer minimal federal regulation. States, after all, are trusted to enact their own policies for such practices as issuing drivers licences.

While states move ahead with various regulations, people like Lipinski have to consider consistency at the federal level.

"I'm trying to figure out the best level of regulation," he told me.

Obviously, safety is paramount. But to what degree should the autonomous technology industry be allowed to create its own standards to ensure safety? Too much federal regulation might discourage investment in innovative technology that would drive economic growth.

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"We don't want to drive innovation out of the country," Lipinski said. "Right now, the United States is a leader in this technology. It could really help our economy. (Determining the proper amount of regulation) is not an easy balance to make."

tslowik@tribpub.com

Twitter @tedslowik
Numerous pieces from the now-closed Haeger Potteries are displayed at the Dundee Township Historical Society. (Erin Sauder / The Courier-News)

Kicking off the Dundee Township Historical Society's 2017 season proved a reunion of sorts for Alexandra "Lexy" Haeger Estes, president of the now- shuttered Haeger Potteries in East Dundee.

Before she and her husband, Craig Zachrich, chief operating officer of the company, talked about the family's long-time presence in the community, the audience was asked for a show of hands from former employees. A few hands shot up, but nearly every one went up when asked how many own a piece of Haeger pottery.

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Haeger Estes said Sunday, March 12, that some of her fondest memories are of visiting the factory, located at 7 Maiden Lane, with her father on weekends and seeing pieces move through the kiln.

"To me it was sort of the heart of the factory. Everything that went through there was transformed. It was like magic. I got very intrigued at a young age," she said.

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It was her great-grandfather, David H. Haeger, who bought the business in 1871 as a brick manufacturing company. The Great Chicago Fire proved to be a boon for the company, as D.H. Haeger Brick and Tile Works created bricks to help rebuild the city.

With the help of his son, Edmund, David Haeger began transitioning the company and it eventually was renamed Haeger Potteries. By 1938, the third generation was involved with Edmund's son-in-law, Joseph F. Estes, becoming general manager. Haeger Estes, his daughter, became president in the late 1970s.

"It was a wonderful place to be," she said. "The legacy I feel is most important is not only the history and beauty it created, but the love we had for our employees. That was the most heartbreaking part of closing the company. Yes, it's part of my heritage and I was proud to carry it on. But on April 4 last year I had to talk to my employees and say, 'We can't go on.' Now we are going on, though, because of (events) like this and all of you that treasure these pieces. That's what the heritage is now."

After her presentation, Haeger Estes fielded some questions. One person asked which was the peak era for Haeger Potteries.

"There were several peak eras," she answered.

In the 1940s, designer Royal Hickman joined the company and introduced a line called Royal Haeger. One of his world-acclaimed designs included the black panther, first produced in 1941 and offered in three sizes.

"Royal Hickman was a genius in design," Haeger Estes said. "He had a flare for designing very flamboyant pieces. He made flamboyance out of something that heretofore had been quite plain."

Just as well known as the panther is the bull figure produced in 1955 by designer Eric Olsen, whose career with Haeger spanned 25 years.

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"We had a lot of luck in keeping our employees with us. We trained them and they loved to stay," Haeger Estes said.

The 1980s proved to be another boon for the company, thanks to the work of C. Glenn Richardson.

"It was a very good era, very colorful," Haeger Estes said.

Toward the end of the company's run, the bakeware, which included casserole dishes, pizza stones, egg cookers and more, became "extremely popular," she said. "And for a long time that was really successful."

Several people commented on longtime employee Sebastiano Maglio, a seventh-generation master potter from Italy, who would demonstrate throwing on the wheel during tours of the factory.

"It was unbelievable," Haeger Estes said. "He would take this gargantuan lump of clay and make these beautiful vases, then take it down to a platter and raise it back up. He had magic in those fingers. On the tour the thing that would thrill people the most is he'd be creating these beautiful pieces and then he'd point to someone and say in his accent, "She no a like a my pot' and he'd smash it. He was just fantastic. A real showman."

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Several Haeger Potteries items are on display at the Dundee Township Historical Society, 426 Highland Ave., West Dundee. It is open from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays.

For more information, visit http://dundeetownshiphistorical.org/
Two candidates  one a community activist and public relations expert, the other an attorney with a family tradition of politics  will face off in April to become alderman of Evanston's 6th Ward.

The current alderman, Mark Tendam, will face candidate Steve Hagerty in the runoff for mayor next month. In running for mayor Tendam gives up his aldermanic seat, to which he was first elected in 2009.

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Voters will be able to cast their ballots in the general election starting with early voting, which runs March 20 to April 3.

Virginia Mann

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Mann, who is "in my 50s," said she first got her start in Evanston politics after watching Evanston trees suffer from Dutch elm disease in the early 2000s.

"I discovered there was an injection that could save the trees," Mann said. Not only did it preserve the arbors, it was cheaper than cutting them down, she said. Advocating for the trees "was probably my first foray into Evanston community activism."

The owner of a private public relations firm, Mann said she is running for alderman after years of advocating because "I can probably be a much more effective voice for my neighbors and myself on the council."

Mann said she especially wants to build stronger relationships with the city and nonprofits, improve relations between the community and police and keep a watchful eye on Evanston's budget.

City zoning is especially important, Mann said, and she hopes to ensure Evanston practices "responsible development". That would include making sure a project is compatible with the property zoning and the character of the neighborhood, and examining how it would impact neighbors, among other concerns, she said.

"We want to make sure what we're building is compatible with the aesthetic here in Evanston, because that impacts property values," among other matters, Mann said.

Tom Suffredin

Suffredin, 38, grew up in Evanston and moved away for college before returning in 2009, he said.

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The son of Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin, the younger Suffredin said his family history did not directly influence his decision to run for alderman.

Instead, Suffredin said, frustration after a neighborhood block party permit was rejected inspired him to look for better ways to manage the day-to-day issues of life in Evanston. It turned out the permit was rejected after one neighbor complained.

"It exposed that there was a hole in communication," Suffredin said. "I think there's a lot of administrative functions in city government that could be tightened up."

Suffredin said he is the first to admit that the daily maintenance of trash service, leaf pickup and water distribution aren't as exciting as the politics roiling the national stage.

However, he said, "we have all these trees that have dropped all these leaves for 106 years. How do we not have a state of the art leaf pickup system?"

"The government that you touch on a daily basis is your municipal government. It's not as big a deal as national education policy," Suffredin said. But if local systems aren't maintained, "your shoes are still wet."

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gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
An exterior view of Ravinia School in Highland Park. The Reconfiguration 2.0 Community Team is reaching out to the community for input on the next referendum. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

The Reconfiguration 2.0 group is pushing hard this month to learn what residents of North Shore School District 112 are likely to support  or reject out of hand  if a new school reorganization plan gets on the ballot.

The panel is offering residents several opportunities to provide input and ask questions.

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LINK, a consulting firm specializing in community engagement, will be conducting a survey through April 15.

"It will be by phone, by mail, by e-mail, by carrier pigeon and any other way that we can get community members to tell us what is important to them," Ann Rosenblum, a 2.0 member, told the District 112 school board March 7.

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By around March 15, residents will have received a "State of the District" mailer that lays out the issues confronting the district and establishes some "fact patterns" to inform the dialogue going forward. The reconfiguration panel hopes to head off accusations of distortion and inaccuracies that fractured trust during the last referendum and school closing controversy.

On March 22 and March 23, the panel is hosting two community sessions at 7 p.m. at Elm Place Middle School, 2031 Sheridan Road, Highland Park. The forums will focus on community priorities for the future of the district's facilities and educational programming. Participants will have an opportunity to share their thoughts and ask questions, according to the announcement. The Reconfiguration 2.0 Community Team will use the feedback from the forums and other sources when developing the final plan.

The group is asking that residents planning to attend either session RSVP by calling 224-765-3079 or visiting www.nssd112.org/RSVP. Advance sign-ups are not required.

The group's consulting firm convened two focus group sessions Feb. 22 and Feb. 23 to gain insights, which were used to develop the survey and plan the engagement sessions.

Addressing the school board March 7, Rocki Hunter, a member of the 2.0 panel, spoke about some of the common sentiments expressed by focus group participants.

"Nobody thinks we should keep all the schools open, but there were lots of opinions about how to make that happen," Hunter said. "Everyone pretty much agreed that the size of the last referendum was too big," she said, referring to the $198 million referendum on the March 2016 ballot that was soundly defeated.

"But there was no dollar amount that people said they were willing to pay or not pay," Hunter said. "At a general level, people felt they would pay for the right plan at the right cost."

Hunter said participants tended to view facility issues as separate from academics, so the challenge will be to show how the two are intertwined  that facilities dictate how teachers educate and what they are able to do with students.

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One common theme was that District 112's tax increase must be viewed in the context of demands coming from District 113, the Park District of Highland Park, the city of Highland Park and other agencies.

Hunter noted the aggressive recruiting efforts were successful in drawing participants who ranged in age, longevity in the district and connection to the school system.

"We had recent residents, longtime residents, people with kids, no kids, 'maybe kids' and empty nesters," Hunter said. "We had people who have been here for generations with their family and people who just moved here."

Hunter said a few reorganization models were discussed in broad terms without any specifics, and participants differed in what they liked and didn't like. "Most agreed that reconfiguration is an opportunity to increase quality overall, which is great," she added.

kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @KarenABerkowitz
The annual College and Career Fair sponsored by Career Services will be held on Thursday, March 23, in the gymnasium between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Approximately 100 vendors at the event will meet and greet attendees to discuss current and future employment opportunities during the fair. Representatives from colleges and universities also will be available to talk with students planning to transfer.

Business and industry employers representing the areas of engineering, banking, local government, communications, broadcasting, tourism and transportation are just a sample of the many employers expected at the event.

For more information call the office of Career Services at 423 697-4421 or email careers@chattanoogastate.edu.
People rally in La Grange to support new laws that increase minimum wage and paid sick leave for workers. (Annemarie Mannion/Chicago Tribune)

Carrying placards and chanting "a living wage is here to stay," participants in a La Grange rally supporting Cook County's new laws imposing a minimum wage hike and paid sick time law are calling the event a victory because the Village Board will not seek to opt out of the laws.

Members of the groups La Grange Working Families Committee and A Better Tomorrow La Grange marched from the First Congregational Church to La Grange Village Hall Monday night.

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They were joined by Arise Chicago, a group that supports workers rights.

The La Grange groups are made up of workers, religious leaders and local residents. They were formed just weeks ago as the village began mulling a draft ordinance for opting out of the new laws that the Cook County Board passed in October.

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One law allows employees, with a few exceptions, to accrue up to five days of paid sick time each year; the other increases the minimum wage, in increments, to $13 an hour by 2020.

The new laws take effect July 1, but any municipality can opt out at any time, regardless of whether they have home-rule authority, according to county and local officials.

Brecken Cutler, a La Grange resident, said the Village Board had listened to their concerns. She said La Grange has a moral obligation to provide better wages.

"Our community can afford to support their local work force," she said.

Nathan Crewe-Kluge, 18, who also lives in La Grange, said if La Grange had opted out of the laws it would have affected his ability to earn money to attend college.

"I was worried I'd have to work in another suburb and that would have been inconvenient for me," he said.

Village President Tom Livingston said the Village Board discussed the topic this year, but the matter never came up for a vote. He said the board is not planning to opt out of the laws because board members had questions.

"It seemed like everybody wasn't ready to move forward with it," he said. "La Grange is a business-friendly town so we always ask the questions (about impact of laws on local business), and we think the business community is employee friendly."

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While members of the workers' rights groups are calling it a victory, Livingston said the village needed to have a discussion about the new laws.

"Sometimes we have to tune in to all sides of the conversation. We looked at it and we don't regret looking at it," he said.

Supporters of the laws say workers should be able to make a living wage, and shouldn't have to choose between earning a day's pay and taking care of themselves or a family member, yet about 40 percent of private sector workers do not have paid sick time benefits.

Critics have said the new laws will put undue strain on local employers or deter businesses from starting up in their communities. Some communities, such as the village of Barrington, have voted to opt out of the laws.

Steve Palmer, owner of Palmer Place Restaurant in La Grange, said previously that he doesn't like Cook County meddling in areas he believes it should not.

"One of my biggest concerns is 'Why is Cook County trying to legislate what really should be a state matter?'" he said. "They're reaching into things that don't affect county government."

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amannion@tribpub.com

Twitter @triblocalam
A police officer in tactical gear moves outside a home on East End Avenue in Round Lake Beach, where police say a man barricaded himself inside with a machete on Sunday, March 12. (Joe Shuman / News-Sun)

Round Lake Beach reported that a 25-year-old man attacked another man on Sunday night, barricaded himself in an East End Avenue house, rushed responding police officers with a machete and was shot with bean-bag rounds during an incident that ended more than six hours after it started with the suspect being taken into custody.

According to information released Monday by Round Lake Beach Deputy Chief Michael Scott, local officers worked with tactical team members from the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS), and they tried negotiation and lobbing dozens of concussion/sound and pepper spray canisters into the house before they rushed the building subdued him with electric-shock guns.

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Rodrigo Acosta-Cabellero, 25, of the 1500 Block of East End Ave., was arrested and charged with aggravated domestic battery, battery and two counts of resisting a peace officer, Scott said. Bail for Acosta-Cabellero was set at $150,000, according to court records.

Rodrigo Acosta-Cabellero, 25, of Round Lake Beach. (Round Lake Beach Police\Handout)

The incident began with police receiving a call at 9:59 p.m. Sunday from a victim who said that Acosta-Cabellero punched him in the head several times, and the victim added that he was able to flee the house, Scott said.

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"Four other subjects at the house barricaded themselves in a back bedroom because they feared for their lives after he picked up a machete," Scott said.

As Round Lake Beach officers went to the door to get his attention, Scott added, the four other people barricaded in the back bedroom were helped out a window.

"Then he came out with a machete taped to his hand and started going towards police saying 'shoot me!' several times," Scott said. "We had officers set up outside with bean-bag guns, and they shot him, and he retreated back inside the house and refused to come out."

The multi-agency NIPAS sent a number of officers as part of the Emergency Services Team with special equipment to the barricade situation, Scott said, adding that their negotiators tried to make contact with the suspect, but he refused.

According to Scott, officers then lobbed concussion and sound canisters, sometimes called flash-bang grenades, and canisters of oleoresin capsicum (OC)  which is a type of pepper spray  into the house multiple times to see if they could flush him out, but he refused to come outside.

Officers from Round Lake Beach and the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS) responded to a barricade situation on East End Avenue on Sunday, March 12. (Joe Shuman / News-Sun)

"NIPAS officers had to go in and use Tasers to immobilize him and take him into custody," Scott said. "We used a lot of alternative weapons during the incident as a means of saving his life and ending the incident peacefully."

Acosta-Cabellero was taken into custody around 4 a.m., Scott added, ending a standoff of more than six hours.

fabderholden@tribpub.com

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From left, fourth-graders Evan Spillman and Caleb Cortez read e-books on their school iPad while practicing their comprehension skills in the LighSail program. (Yadira Sanchez Olson / Lake County News-Sun)

Logging in thousands of minutes of reading earned River Trail School students in Gurnee the title of nation's third best readers in the LightSail 25 Challenge.

For their reading accomplishment, the school and students received a prize of premium e-books to compliment their digital library, which already consists of more than 1,700 e-books, said Lauren Weir, school librarian.

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Making it into the top-three spot was not easy, Weir said. It took perseverance, as each child in River Trail's seven classes from third through fifth grade read an average of 1,184 minutes, or 19 hours, during the 30-day competition that ended last month.

"There was a lot of enthusiasm, teamwork and energy. It was fun," Weir said, adding that students had a friendly competition going with friends and other classes in the same grade.

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Students at River Trail school in Gurnee took third place in a reading contest, logging hundreds of minutes each day. (River Trail School\Handout)

The contest tracked the average minutes read per student on the LightSail platform, a technology that allows teachers and students to have real-time access to reading behavior, comprehension and progress, making it seem more like a reading game.

"My favorite part was the daily recognition where the playing field was equalized and anybody could be in the top 10, not by reading ability, but by using grit and perseverance to put in the time," Weir said. "It fostered healthy competition between classes, and all along the way, the end goal of kids painlessly reading more was achieved without them even realizing it."

Through daily morning announcements, classes were informed of what progress they made in individual classes and as a school, and what place they were in the contest.

Students selected books for pleasure as well as ones suggested by the LightSail system specifically designed for their reading skills.

Weir said for the duration of the competition, she was happy to see kids excited about reading books on their iPad and about improving their skills to move up to higher levels of reading and comprehension proficiency.

Fourth-grader Yasmin Lenzi said moving up a level was hard, but she kept reading and achieved it.

"When I got home, I started jumping up and down," Lenzi said of her progress. The 10-year-old's goal now is to keep practicing her reading and go above her grade level.

Fourth-grader Jordan Wright, who came in 8th place out of tens of thousands of kids who participated in the contest, read 4,132 minutes in a 30-day period, Weir said.

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Lenzi and Wright's teacher, Vita Carnduff, said, "Reading in our class isn't a chore  it's a reward."

"As a class, we have taken part in many competitions and challenges this year, but none have been more exciting, invigorating, and beneficial than this one," Carnduff added. "Never before have I seen a group of students more interested and engaged in independent reading time or in such a hurry to rush into class to celebrate how many minutes they read the night before."

Two days before the contest closed and pushing for higher totals, school officials made the challenge more interesting by inviting kids to wear pajamas and bring blankets and stuffed animals, so they could be comfortable for D.E.A.R, which stood for drop everything and read.

During the two days, the students sat and ate snacks with their friends while logging in hours of reading.

Weir said many students told her it was the best day of their life.

Two New York schools took first and second prize in the LightSail 25 Challenge with nearly 23 hours of reading logged.

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Yadira Sanchez Olson is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
Waukegan police released two images on March 14 taken by surveillance cameras at a neighboring business of a Feb. 23 armed robbery at a south Green Bay Road Metro PCS store. The red arrow points to black shoes with white trim. (Waukegan Police Department\Handout)

Waukegan police released two surveillance-camera images on Tuesday that reportedly show one of two suspects wanted in connection with a Feb. 23 armed robbery at a south Green Bay Road Metro PCS store.

According to a statement, the images were taken by cameras at a business near the Metro PCS outlet, which is located in the first block of south Green Bay Road. The photos show a man wearing a white construction hard hat, an orange reflective vest over a dark shirt, blue jeans,, black shoes with white trim, and sunglasses that police described as having gold-colored rims.

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The store in the first block of South Green Bay Road was robbed by two suspects about 3:20 p.m., according to Waukegan police.

Police say the suspects were described as black men in their mid-to-late 20s, with one standing about 5-foot-5 and stocky, while the other was about 6 foot tall and thinner.

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They robbed the store at gunpoint of cash and merchandise, and were last seen running away, police said.

Twitter @NewsSun
A 19-year-old man could avoid a prison term and instead serve time in a boot camp-like program, after helping two associates steal cartons of cigarettes last fall from a service station on Naperville's far east side.

Queshane Q. Jefferson, who last lived in the 4300 block of West Wilcox Street in Chicago, remains in DuPage County jail, pending his transfer into the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections, jail records showed.

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Jefferson was arrested in January on a warrant, and had been scheduled to appear Monday in DuPage County Circuit Court.

His case, during the interim, was advanced to March 3, when he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of robbery, according to court records. Judge George J. Bakalis that day accepted Jefferson's plea and sentenced him to three years in prison, records showed.

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But Jefferson could avoid serving prison time if he is deemed eligible for enrollment in the state's "impact incarceration" program for certain offenders. It has been described as a quasi-militaristic program similar to boot camp.

Naperville police charged Jefferson in the Nov. 10 holdup of the Mobil station at 1420 E. Ogden Ave. Two friends who participated in the robbery remain at large.

Police last fall said Jefferson physically restrained the clerk on duty while the other men ran off with four cartons of Newport cigarettes they had grabbed from behind the counter. No weapons were displayed, and the clerk was not seriously injured, police said.

Jefferson, at the time of the holdup, was on probation, for stealing $1,639 worth of alcoholic beverages over a four-day period last year from the Meijer store at 808 N. Route 59 in Aurora. He was sentenced to 100 days in jail, placed on two years of probation and ordered to make restitution in that case, court records showed.

wbird@tribpub.com
Schools will have to wait until at least summer 2017 to get the results of the state science tests students took in 2016.

As high school biology students in Indian Prairie District 204 begin taking the Illinois Science Assessment this week, Superintendent Karen Sullivan said schools will push ahead despite the district having no idea how students performed when they took the assessment last spring.

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"That makes it really useful to be able to know how to adapt to your instruction and your curriculum when you know what the results were," said Sullivan at a recent board meeting.

Illinois State Board of Education officials said districts should see assessment results this summer.

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More than 400,000 Illinois students took the inaugural Illinois Science Assessment last year that meets the Next Generation Science Standards, which were developed by states to improve science education for students.

It is only administered to students in fifth and eighth grades and to students who take biology and advanced biology in high school.

First science assessment had been fraught with timing issues from the start.

As late as early April 2016, school districts still were waiting to hear when they needed to test students and some schools didn't have the necessary web access to set up for the exam, which was given only online.

While districts managed to test students, budgetary uncertainty at the state level stalled the start of the scoring process, said Jackie Matthews, director of media and external communications for the Illinois State Board of Education.

Scoring the tests also was delayed because the state first needed to establish the standards that determine student performance, Matthew said.

"But the process is finally under way," and should take four months to complete, she said.

The state board partnered with Southern Illinois University Carbondale for scoring the academic performance assessment.

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Because the roadblocks have been eliminated, Matthews said the 2017 results should come much more quickly.

The results of the science assessment are supposed to provide educators and administrators with data so they can adopt broad curriculum adjustments at the school and district levels.

As such, Matthews said the delayed results should not affect individual students' learning or their prospects for success.

"The Illinois Science is a summative exam, not formative, so schools do not really have to adjust learning for individual students from year to year," she said.

Any decision to change the science curriculum at either the school or district level would require couple of years of data, Matthews said.

As part of the scoring process, Southern Illinois is enlisting science experts and Illinois educators licensed to teach science in hand-scoring the 1.3 million ISA test items.

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In the future, Illinois educators will have the opportunity to receive training on assessment item development, assessment statistics and item evaluation.

State Superintendent Tony Smith has said the process of hand-scoring delivers valuable professional development to Illinois educators and science experts and keeps both the work and the institutional knowledge of scoring the exams within Illinois, instead of outsourcing it.

subaker@tribpub.com

Twitter @SBakerSun1
Chef Omar Ruiz at Quigley's Irish Pub in Naperville cooks up a lot of shepherd's pie, but loves deep dish pizza when he goes out. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)

In Chef's Choice, the Naperville Sun asks local chefs about their favorite meal in Naperville at a restaurant other than their own. This week, we speak with Chef Omar Ruiz, 42, of Quigley's Irish Pub who says when he needs a break from corned beef or shepherd's pie, he enjoys deep-dish pizza.

Question: How long have you worked here?

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Ruiz: I came here in 2002. I'm from Oaxaca, Mexico, which is in the south. I came to the United States when I was 15 and wanted to help my family in Mexico and was looking for better opportunities. I got to Los Angeles and worked in an American-Italian restaurant named the Marmalade Cafe. That was a good experience because that day  I knew I liked the kitchen a lot. I've been working since then.

Q: Let's back up a minute  did you start there as a busboy or what did you do?

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Ruiz: I started as a dishwasher for six months only, and I kept an eye on the kitchen and tried to learn everything  that way I can be able to prep and cook. Six months later, I moved to the line and then became sous chef and did everything. I was there four years altogether.

Q: What about your move here to Naperville?

Ruiz: I came here in September of 1994. I worked in different places, but I never had any culinary training from a school.

Q: How difficult has it been to come here with a Mexican background and now you're working in an Irish pub?

Ruiz: It has been different, but to be honest with you  if I had to work in a Mexican restaurant  it can't work for me. A Mexican kitchen is really difficult. It's harder because all the beans, the rice  you have to make those fresh. It's not that I don't like to make things fresh, but I like to explore other cultures like Irish and Italian.

Q: You've obviously tried a lot of Irish dishes, so as a guy from Mexico, what's your favorite Irish dish?

Ruiz: For me  it's the shepherd's pie. There's nothing like it in Mexican culture. From my town in Oaxaca, the tamales are the most typical food there. But here  shepherd's pie is one of the most favorite things we serve.

Q: When you say to the average guy  here's an Irish pub - people think of dark beer, corned beef and maybe shepherd's pie. There has to be more than that, right?

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Ruiz: In this pub, you can see the way it's been built. A lot of people come to visit this pub because they really love this. Once you get into Quigley's  you really feel like you're in Ireland.

Q: What do you like to make at home when you're not here?

Ruiz: I make tapas  little toasts with meats or vegetables and Mexican flavors.

Q: You've been here nearly 20 years  what's been the biggest change you've seen in the culinary business?

Ruiz: The quality of the food is even better because we've been working on healthy options and our sanitary standards are a whole lot better.

Q: When you go to eat, what is your favorite place?

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Ruiz: I actually worked at Lou Malnati's for about four years before I worked here, and I really love their deep-dish pizza.

Q: What toppings do you like?

Ruiz: I like the pepperoni and sausage. I probably go there twice a month. I've actually tried to make it myself.

Q: How did that work out?

Ruiz: I know how to do it very well, but I didn't figure out the recipe. I just do my own. I don't try to make someone else's food. I try to make my own a little better, but I go there for the convenience and to share with the family.

Q: What do you think about deep-dish pizza? I mean, people that come to Chicago and try it  they either love it or they hate it.

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Ruiz: The thing is  I used to try the pizza in California when I lived there, but once I hit Chicago and I came to live here  it was a great impression I had with the cheese on the bottom and the toppings over it. To me, it depends on how you feel that day. If you're hungry  everything is going to be great. If you're not  it's going to be bad.

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
The core 10-piece ensemble that will perform in Concert for Peace: We're Still Here at Glenview Community Church. (Marc Perlish)

In Glenview, musicians are using the universal language of music to build bridges between interfaith communities with their upcoming, "Concert for Peace: We're Still Here," March 19 at Glenview Community Church.

Now in its fifth year, "Concert for Peace" is part of the Glenview Community Church's Simple Gifts Concert Series, organized by Katherine Hughes as a way to explore themes of peace through music. Hughes, a seasoned musician, has 40 years experience playing the violin.

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Hughes says the impetus for this concert was "Hands of Peace," an organization founded by fellow GCC member Gretchen Grad in 2002. "Hands of Peace" works on fostering understanding among Jewish-Israelis, Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians through dialogue between teenagers from the Middle East and America during a three-week summer program in Glenview each year.

Similarly, the concert brings musicians from different faith groups together to share a musical dialogue  culminating in a collaborative performance that promotes religious and cultural diversity.

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In addition to their core 10-piece ensemble, the March 19 concert will also feature guest musicians from two Muslim venues, Jamatkhana in Glenview and the Turkish American Society in Mount Prospect, Hughes said.

"Music and art are two universal elements of cultural expression that inspire the human spirit," said Ikbal Koseli, Turkish American Society volunteer community project organizer. "Events like this are much needed these days especially during the time of division and isolation happening in our society."

Also performing will be two Jewish musicians  Elliot Dvorin of the Key Tov Orchestra and Hazzan Roger Weisberg from Congregation Beth Judea in Long Grove.

Organizers incorporated an open approach by selecting songs in a variety of styles, from traditional to contemporary, each related to creating peace or conveying peacefulness.

Performance highlights will include renditions of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," and Harold Arlen's "Get Happy," and an updated and unplugged version of the Motown song "War" with string quartet accompaniment. The Chancel Choir will sing "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" by Irving Berlin.

Special to this concert will be bassist Ken Haebich's original song, written for the core 10-piece ensemble called, "We're Still Here," to be performed with Jade Maze on vocals.

New to the program this year is an art show curated by Pat Albano of Aaron Galleries in Glenview, featuring works by culturally diverse artists ages 16 and up.

Input from these high caliber professional musicians from Park Ridge, Niles, Highland Park, Glenview, Mount Prospect, Long Grove and Chicago, has been important, Hughes said.

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"Hands of Peace" founder Gretchen Grad said, "by sharing their gifts these musicians remind us that what we have in common is so much more powerful than what divides us."

'Concert for Peace: We're Still Here'

When: 3 p.m. March 19

Where: Glenview Community Church, 1000 Elm St., Glenview

Admission: A freewill offering will be taken.

Information: www.gccmusic.org
Maple School teacher April Vos, center, has a free virtual reality headset to use with her students, but that means that only one, like Hannah Choi, left, can use it any particular time. (Irv Leavitt / Pioneer Press)

Can virtual reality teach one of the emotions that seems in short supply in an age dominated by social media  empathy?

Northbrook/Glenview District 30's Maple School is taking part in a nationwide, but modest, experiment looking for an answer to that very question. Social studies teacher April Vos received one free virtual-reality headset to use with her 8th grade classes.

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The students started using the headset last fall, and have  one at a time  swum alongside a submerged whale and traveled to the moon on an Apollo 11 program. Soon, they'll use a program from the European Union that tries to tell a different tale.

"It takes the narrative of an actual Syrian refugee girl. She talks to you like she's your friend, showing you what it's like in a Syrian refugee camp," Vos said.

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But Vos said it's not an experiment in blind acceptance. She wants to show students that they need to decide on their own about the validity of the information they get.

"You've got to look at it with a critical eye, just like newspapers and books," she said.

Educators hope the technology is more immersive than a video. In the whale software program, 8th grader Geoffrey Gitles said that in one moment, he felt himself at one with the giant mammal, looking into its eye, and in the next, "I thought he was going to hit the boat."

The HTC Vive headset, and the experiment, comes as a result of funding by the manufacturer, said program head Lisa Castaneda of foundry10, a Seattle-based education research firm.

The program started with a pilot program in 2015-2016, and according to a foundry10 report, dealt almost entirely with practicality of equipment and concepts for use in education, "in order to understand (student) attitudes about" virtual reality, "see how exposure to [virtual reality] changes their perspective on the technology, and learn what kinds of [virtual reality] content connects with students."

Maple School's Vos got the $800 headset and a $250 stipend (the district bought a computer to handle its data load, she said) last fall as one of about two dozen teachers taking the foundry10 experiment a step further: to see if the equipment boosts student empathy, enhances their perspectives, and to determine whether they trust what they're seeing, said Castaneda, who visited Maple recently on a tour of participating schools.

Vos, a new teacher in the district this year, was tabbed for the free-equipment program last year when she was teaching at Sequoyah School, a private institution in Pasadena, Calif. Recent Oscar-winner Casey Affleck, who has two children in the school, had been asked to identify an innovative teacher for the program, and picked Vos, Castaneda said. When Vos moved east, she took the program with her.

Vos finds the prospects of virtual reality exciting but says there's a limit to its use.

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"They (students) may not remember a lesson dating back to October, but they remember virtual reality," she said. "It taps into your real feelings in a way that you can't replicate really well in another form."

But, she said, "In the end, it's an experiment. It's important to know this isn't the heartbeat of my classroom, not the centerpiece."

And virtual reality can't have a greater use until it's more accessible, she said.

"Right now, it's too expensive for broad implementation," she said. "Until the prices fall and it becomes more ubiquitous, it won't really change" the landscape of education.

ileavitt@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @IrvLeavitt
Some of Oak Park's oldest and youngest residents recently teamed up for an intergenerational event benefiting sick children in local hospitals.

On the afternoon of March 5, students from Beye Elementary School visited Belmont Village to work with senior citizen residents in creating a variety of crafts. Some of those crafts were donated to the residents of Belmont Village, while others were given to Cardz for Kidz, which sends cards to children in area hospitals.

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The program was made possible through Giving Artfully Kids, which was founded in 2014 by Oak Park parent Sitinee Sheffert.

"A friend, who is part of the Longfellow School PTO, asked me if I would be interested in piloting an after-school program using Giving Artfully as a platform to help teach children about giving," Sheffert said. "I thought it was a great idea and piloted our first class in September 2014."

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Beye Elementary School students worked with Belmont Village seniors in creating crafts during a Giving Artfully Kids fundraiser March 5. (Sitinee Sheffert / Handout)

Since that time, the after-school program has run in several Oak Park schools, summer camps and adjacent neighborhoods in River Forest, Forest Park, Riverside and Western Springs, Sheffert said.

Parent Suzanne Cronacher said the program is intended to show students the power of being charitable and the need to give to others.

"We don't just teach crafts, we teach crafts with a message," Cronacher said. "Sometimes they get to keep their craft, but for the most part, we are making it for kids who need it, whether they are in local hospitals or even making toys for a local animal shelter."

At the Belmont Village event, Cronacher said 18 Beye students partnered with 12 seniors to create cards for sick children and other crafts for the building's residents.

"We created pipe cleaner bouquets for the residents to keep in their rooms," Cronacher said. "It's all about kindness, and it was really sweet to see. There were a lot of smiling seniors, and it was really wonderful. Everyone had a good time."

sschering@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @steveschering
March 1 not only marks the end of Black History Month, but for Oak Park and Austin residents, it represents the six-month anniversary of Oak Park and River Forest High School student Elijah Sims' death.

Elijah's unsolved murdered occurred on Aug. 29, 2016, in the South Austin neighborhood, while visiting family and friends.

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Elijah's family, friends, and communities (Oak Park and Austin) continue to mourn his tragic loss. As Oak Park and Austin work towards developing strategies to curb the crime and gun violence that impacts both communities, a memorial fund has been established as a reward for anyone offering information leading to the arrest and conviction of Elijah's killer or killers.

While the Chicago Police Department continues to work diligently to solve Elijah's murder, their efforts cannot truly be effective without community support. Elijah's mother, Sharita Galloway, joined by Suburban Unity Alliance, hopes that funds raised will serve as an added incentive as we continue to appeal to anyone with information regarding Elijah's murder to speak up. If the killer or killers cannot find it in their soul to turn themselves in, then we as communities must work together to eliminate the systemic issues that not only create killers, but also allows killers to roam free.

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Elijah's death will not be in vain. Through the loss of Elijah, we can gain the courage to take a stand against violence, to take a stand for our communities; sending a message that fear does not build walls between Oak Park and Austin, our courage builds bridges.

Anyone with information regarding Elijah Sims' death should contact Area North Chicago Police Department.

Anyone interested in donating to Elijah Sims Memorial Fund can visit: https://www.gofundme.com/elijah-sims-memorial-reward-fund.

Anthony Clark

Oak Park
Two teenage boys from Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood are facing charges of residential burglary in Park Ridge.

The teens, ages 15 and 17, were arrested March 9, accused of breaking into a home on the 900 block of South Delphia Avenue through a rear window, police said.

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Ron Davis, supervisor of administrative services for the Park Ridge Police Department, said the teens were initially detained after a resident of Kent Avenue, located just south of Devon and Clifton avenues, contacted police around 9:45 a.m. to report suspicious behavior on his block. Davis said the resident reported that a teenage boy came to his door, looking for someone who did not live there, before he met up with a second teen outside the home.

Police located the two individuals nearby, where they were taken into custody and each ticketed for possession of alcohol by a minor, Davis said.

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While the teens were in police custody, officers located items in their possession that led investigators to a home on the 900 block of South Delphia Avenue, where they discovered a rear window open and the inside of the residence ransacked, said Deputy Police Chief Lou Jogmen.

The suspects were also reportedly found with other items in their possession that were similar to the types of objects reported stolen during other recent burglaries in Park Ridge, though descriptions were not immediately available from police.

Jogmen said the teens are suspects in other Park Ridge burglaries and police are continuing their investigation.

"We're exploring any possible connection [they may have] to other recent burglaries," he said.

Both teens have been petitioned to juvenile court and are no longer in police custody, Jogmen said.

Due to their ages, they have not been identified by police.

During the month of February, police reported at least six burglaries during daylight hours in which entry was gained through rear windows or, in the case of one occupied home, through a rear door. The burglaries occurred within a neighborhood near Brickton Park on the city's southwest side, reports indicate.

Davis credited the resident who called police on March 9 after having suspicions about the visitor to his home.

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"This is the perfect teachable moment," he said. "If you see something suspicious, contact the police. In this case, it proved its merit."

jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
The Porter County Prosecutor's office dismissed murder charges against a Portage woman accused of hiring a Gary man to kill a Portage tow truck driver, citing lack of evidence.

Sheaurice Major, 46, of the 5200 block of Mulberry Avenue, has been in Porter County Jail since 2012, officials said.

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Dontaye Deandre Singletary, 22, formerly of the 500 block of Penn Street in Gary, is serving a 65-year sentence after a jury found him guilty in Jan. 26, 2015, of felony murder and of Class A felony conspiracy to commit murder in the shooting death of Carl Griffith Sr., 72, outside his Portage home on Nov. 1, 2012.

Major, who was expected to be released Monday, was arrested in connection with the crime on Nov. 9, 2012, court records state.

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According to a press release from Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel on Monday, his office alleged that Major hired Singletary through her friend, Antoinetta Johnson.

"Johnson was the sole cooperating State's witness against the two of them and gave testimony implicating them prior to their arrest," Gensel stated.

However, about three weeks after the arrests of Major and Singletary, Johnson, 34, of Hammond was killed, Gensel said.

An unidentified person shot her with an automatic rifle in her Gary salon, Visions of Beauty, on Dec. 13, 2012, according to court records.

Gensel stated in the press release, "The State was able to establish that Singletary, through gang connections, was involved in her murder to prevent her from testifying. As a result, Johnson's prior testimony was admissible against him."

Porter County Superior Judge Roger Bradford ruled in April 2014 that Johnson's statements to police could be used in Singletary's trial because Indiana law allows police statements to be used in court if the defendant somehow influenced the witness.

Bradford based that decision partially on testimony from Singletary's former cellmate that Singletary had engaged someone called "The Ghost" to shoot Johnson.

Defense attorneys for Major and Singletary had argued against using Johnson's statements because they could not challenge Johnson in court and the defendants couldn't face their accuser.

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"Portage and Gary police investigators continued efforts to connect Major to the murder of Antoinetta Johnson, but were unsuccessful," Gensel wrote. "As a result, the State was unable to proceed with the prosecution."

She had faced up to 65 years in prison on felony murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges, court records state.

James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Self-injury support group meets in Crown Point

The self-injury support groups of Northwest Indiana meet from 6-8 p.m. the second and fourth Tuesday each month at St. Matthias Parish Building, 101 W. Burrell Drive, Crown Point. A community service, the support group is free of charge and confidential. More information is at www.selfinjurynwi.com.

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IU Northwest to participate in college fair

Indiana University Northwest will be take part in a college fair scheduled at St. Joseph College in Rensselaer. The fairs will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday. St. Joseph officials have announced the suspension of activities at the end of the 2016-17 academic year. IU Northwest has promised to waive the application fee for admission for students transferring from St. Joseph's. More information is with Kathy Spicer at 219-980-6848.

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American Red Cross blood drive

The American Red Cross Blood Services Indiana-Ohio Region will host a blood drive from 1 to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Jean Shepherd Community Center, 3031 J.F. Mahoney Drive, Hammond. Schedule appointments at 800-733-2767 or redcrossblood.org, sponsor code jscommc.

Community Hospital offers program

Community Hospital will host Exercise is Medicine-The MedFit Way, for those with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or obesity, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Community Hospital Fitness Pointe, 9950 Calumet Ave., Munster. The program is free, but registration is required at 219-836-3477 or 866-836-3477. More information is at www.comhs.org.

Annual heart symposium in Munster

Healthy Heart and Mind, an annual heart health symposium, will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at The Center for Visual and Preforming Arts, 1040 Ridge Road, Munster. Dr. Demetrius Lopes, assistant professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, will discuss carotid artery disease. Dr. Wassim Ballany, a electrophysiologist at Community Hospital, will present on atrial fibrillation. The program is free, but registration is required at 219-836-3477 or 866-836-3477. More information is at www.comhs.org.

VPD seek students for Junior Police Academy

The Valparaiso Police Department invites students who represent good citizenship and express interest in a career in law enforcement to apply for its annual Junior Police Academy. Applicants must be juniors or seniors enrolled in a Porter County high school. Applications are available at the Valparaiso Police Department, 355 S. Washington St., and must be completed, including a parent's signature, and returned to the department by 5 p.m. Wednesday. Applications also are available through Lt. Blakley at Valparaiso High School, on the department's website www.valparaisopolice.org, or through Chris Allison at 219-462-2135 or callison@valpopd.com.

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St. Baldrick's fundraiser in Crown Point

The St. Baldrick's fundraiser will be from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday at Crown Point High School, 1500 S. Main St. Proceeds from the event will go to support research for childhood cancer. Register as a volunteer, to be shaved, or as a team captain at www.stbaldricks.org/events/CrownPoint2017. More information is with Matt Krampen at 317-306-6175.

St. Patrick's Day dinner in Crown Point

A corned beef and cabbage dinner will be served from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday at the Crown Point fire station, 126 N. East St. Dinners can be paid for in advance or at the door. Cost is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors, and children can choose between the corned beef and cabbage dinner for $6 or a hot dog dinner for $4. More information is at 219-662-3290.

 Staff report
Donald Langford put his family and friends before himself, "whether they had two legs or four," said Langford's daughter, Beth West.

Langford, 64, died in a fire Sunday evening in Dyer while trying to save his best friend's dog, Bella, from the flames, according to 35-year-old West, of Portage.

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"My dad was the most kind-hearted person you would know you could ever know," West said.

Sunday evening, Langford was over at his friend's home in Dyer on Catalpa Street, as he had done many times before to play board games -- they particularly liked Risk and Monopoly, even sometimes playing late into the night -- and to work on cars, West said.

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Langford and his two friends, who had a decades-long friendship, were working on Langford's 1994 F-150 pickup truck in a pole barn behind the home, West said, and "from what his friend told me, two wires sparked and caught some gas on fire."

Donald Langford, center, died in a fire in Dyer on Sunday. His daughters, Beth West, left, and Donna Scott, said that their father leaves behind a lot of people that are going to miss him. (Langford family / Handout)

The men got out, but when Langford realized Bella, an Italian Mastiff, was still in the fire, "he told them he was going back in for Bella," West said.

He found the dog, but couldn't make his way out with all the fire and smoke, West said, and his friends tried to get them out four our five times, but couldn't reach him.

"The flames were just too bad," West said.

When firefighters got in later, they found Langford and Bella together, West said. The two friends were able to make it out and had some smoke inhalation and burns, according to West, but seem to be OK.

St. John Fire Department responded to the call about 5:30 p.m., according to Chief Fred Willman, and they were told a man had gone back inside the fire.

"When we showed up, the structure was fully involved," Willman said.

Willman said there was only an entrance in the front, so they couldn't get to the back of the building to help Langford get out.

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"The fire was too intense to go inside," Willman said.

Rick Miller, 87, who lives a few houses away from where the fire occurred, said he didn't realize anything was going on until he heard the fire crews show up. Miller walked to see what the commotion was on the street with less than 20 houses on it, just north of 81st Avenue. Miller said Lake County Sheriff's officers interviewing people at the scene, and the fire crews stuck around until about 8 p.m.

In addition to the sheriff's and fire departments, the Indiana State Fire Marshal was called in to investigate.

Thinking about her father, West said that Langford was the type of person that if he "saw someone broken down on the side of the road, and even if he didn't know who they were, he would stop and help them."

He "enjoyed working on cars," according to his obituary and his daughter, and he had even bought a car last year for his oldest grandchild when she turned 16, West said.

"It wasn't the best car, but it was a car, and he did the work on it to make sure it was safe for her to drive," West said.

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Langford's grandchildren were "his world," West said, and "it didn't matter where he was at or what he was doing, if we needed him, he was there."

"He would go without just so that somebody else could have something," West said.

Langford grew up in Illinois, but he had moved between the area and Tennessee, West said, and the Lake County Coroner's office listed his address as Lavinia, Tenn. West served in the Army in the 1970s and worked for years as a truck driver, his daughter said.

He leaves behind three children; a fourth child preceded him in death, and 17 grandchildren.

As his daughters, West and Donna Scott, 43, of Portage, grieve in the days after the fire, they said that Langford "leaves behind a lot of people that are going to miss him."

rejacobs@post-trib.com

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Twitter @ruthyjacobs
Derrick Durr, left, and Geneva Devine , both of Hammond, prepare to act as an argument in a warehouse office scenario unfolds onscreen. The two were invited to participate in the Hammond Police Department's Defensive Tactics and firearms training recently at the Police Department. (Michelle L. Quinn / Post-Tribune)

Geneva Devine never shot a gun in her life before, though one would ever know it.

Following her partner Derrick Durr's lead, the Hammond woman took the shot as the man in the warehouse office started shooting back at them from the screen. When Hammond Police Lt. Steve Kellogg played back the results of the exercise, the purple dot indicating Devine's firearm showed the fatal shot.

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"Ah! That was me?" she said, jumping up and down, her hands shaking as Kellogg confirmed the kill. The group of officers and civilians watching applauded her skill.

Devine, along with members of the Hammond Police Department's Police Advisory Board, were invited to participate in the department's Shoot/Don't Shoot virtual training March 9. Participants were taught basic firearm training and procedures, then given specially outfitted, non-functioning guns and stun guns to respond to myriad scenarios Kellogg chose from a computer program.

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The training is used to teach officers how to remain calm during any scenario they may encounter in the streets, trainer Capt. Rudy Grasha said. Despite what it might look like on TV, officers experience real physical trauma when they're faced with danger.

"This is not like 'Texas Ranger,' where Chuck Norris is all cool when he fires of round after round," Grasha said. "Your heart rate is usually between 60 to 100 beats per minute; when it raises to 110 bpm, you start to lose your fine motor skills. When it gets to 145 bpm, you start to lose your complex motor skills."

Once a heart rate gets above 145 bpm, they enter the "Fight or Flight" mode, Grasha said. But if the officer is able to remain calm, they have a better chance of making a sound decision in the heat of the moment.

"There are four things an officer must do during any situation: perceive the threat, analyze the threat, have a plan and then execute it," Grasha said. "Officers seem to stall (during the planning part), and that's when they get hurt."

Stress also makes explaining the rationale the officer used to handle the situation tougher, Kellogg added. Hammond uses federal guidelines, which requires an officer's handling of a case to be "reasonable," police said.

And stun guns, often touted as a "less violent" alternative to pulling a firearm, are neither the easiest nor most effective choice, according to Grasha because it must hit skin. If someone is wearing layers or thick clothing, and the officer isn't close enough, the stun gun won't work.

In fact, the best weapon an officer has isn't one that he or she can hold. The best weapon, Grasha said, is "their gift of gab."

"If we can calm you down, that gives us the chance for the best possible outcome," Grasha said. "Plus, if I'm talking, I'm also breathing, and that keeps my heart rate down."

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Durr, who's a member of the Hammond Advisory Committee and former bailiff with the Lake County Sheriff's Department, called the exercise "very realistic." And it gave Devine a confidence she wasn't sure she had.

"I've never shot a gun, never wanted one, never thought about it, but now, I know I could if I had to," she said.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Lake County is facing a heroin epidemic and officials are looking at ways to try and stem the tide of opioid deaths.

The Lake County Council adopted a resolution Tuesday supporting the Prescription for Action Program, a series of federal, state and local steps to be taken to help raise awareness about opioid addiction, increase access to treatment for addicts and aid in prosecution of drug dealers.

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The Prescription for Action was put together by a joint task force from the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities and outlines steps local officials can take to help with the crisis.

"Our numbers have increased significantly," Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey said. Overdose deaths have more than doubled since 2012 when 48 people died from drug overdoses. There were 114 overdose deaths in 2016. There were 65 overdose deaths in 2013, 68 overdose deaths in 2014 and 80 in 2015.

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Frey said along with the resolution she would like to create a part-time position of drug overdose analyst for about $25,000 a year. The analyst would create a database of the overdose deaths, tracking the data about the victims such as age, sex and town, as well as the type of drugs found within their system.

The employee would pull all the numbers, meet with families and help the coroner's office work closer with the law enforcement and the courts. Frey said family members often know where their loved one was getting the drugs, and are willing to share that information but have no real way to convey that information to law enforcement or the prosecutor's office.

Council President Ted Bilski, D-Hobart, said he supports the resolution but many of the actions must be taken on a state or federal level. He said changes in legislation have forced county jails to become de facto treatment centers and mental health facilities for addicts, who are often arrested trying to support their addictions and move through the jail like a revolving door for lack of treatment outside the jail.

"I think as a society we need to recognize this as a disease," Bilski said.

Councilman Eldon Strong, R-Crown Point, said he, too, supports the proposal but would prefer Frey find another way to fund the staffing needed.

"I'd ask you to do some research to see if there is grant funding available," Strong said.

Bilski said there also already may be staffing for this work through entities like the DEA's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force, which already operates in Lake County.

Councilman Jamal Washington, D-Merrillville, who along with Councilwoman Christine Cid, D-East Chicago, introduced the resolution, said if grant funding cannot be found, the council should move on Frey's request.

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"In any endeavor when you set out to fight something you have to put some teeth to it. At the end of the day it is a true epidemic," Washington said.

Frey said she also has worked with the supplier of Vivitrol, an opioid antidote injection, to provide the drug to addicts who make their way through the Lake County Jail. Vivitrol helps addicts overcome their addiction by negating the effects of any opioids taken by the individual for 28 days after the initial injection, she said. Anyone leaving the jail and willing to go into a recovery program will be provided with the injection, the plan says.

Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Jose Botello wasn't the only high school student to agree with me, but he was the first one to vocalize his feelings.

"Tell adults they don't know much about us," yelled Botello, a 16-year-old Hobart High School student.

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He was responding to my open-ended question to his criminal justice class regarding whether adults understand what today's teenagers are going through. I questioned if we do. The teens agreed, some with head-shaking angst.

I visited their class Monday to talk about media relations with local law enforcement agencies. But, as usual, my hour-long chat with a room full of curious teens took a lot of twists and turns, prompted by several excellent questions and comments.

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"Adults are clueless," one student told me after my talk.

Just when I think I'm losing the attention of bored, angst-ridden teens during my informal talks or formal presentations, they always seem to prove me wrong. This must be a generational observation, I'm guessing.

I had a similar experience Saturday night when I attended a truly unique Chicago Cubs-themed wedding ceremony at the Hammond Civic Center for lifelong fans Dawn Tomich and Roger Brock. The well-planned event was wonderful, with no detail or expense spared, but I was seated at a table next to a teenager I didn't know.

For me, this usually means no cursing, no adult topics, no obscure pop culture references, and no way that I can act normal. At least normal for me at a wedding ceremony. Making things a tad touchier, the teen just happened to be the son of Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr., so no political jabs, either, I figured.

I was wrong.

The teen, 16-year-old Tommy McDermott, turned out to be one of the highlights of the event for me. He was smart, affable, polite, candid, respectful, and he didn't look at his cellphone once during the evening. Even though most (adult) guests stared into their phones during lulls in the night.

Tommy McDermott, 16, of Hammond. (McDermott family / Provided by McDermott family)

In a couple hours' time, I learned about Tommy's educational path (at a Catholic high school), his girlfriend (of 10 months!), his career hopes (business or engineering), his musical talents (piano and drums), and his dreams after leaving Hammond. (So much for taking his father's mayoral office someday?)

I soon realized that I likely had a better time talking to Tommy than I would have had chatting with any of the adults in the building. We also had fun studying (gossiping about?) some of the guests who walked past our table.

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"Do you always psycho-analyze everyone you meet?" he asked me at one point over the loud music.

I told you he was smart, right?

Too often it's so easy, and oh-so convenient, to assume we know everything about today's teenagers. We don't. I need reminders. Maybe you do, too.

Do you know this woman?

The birth certificate of the late Teri Sue Wallace, who was born on July 2, 1964, stated her name as Dawn Renee Schoof. Her name was changed to Teri Sue Young when she was adopted, and her last name changed to Wallace after she married John Wallace of Hebron.

Teri Sue Wallace, who died Feb. 8, had always hoped to meet her biological sister who also was adopted. It never happened. Wallace went to her grave without meeting her sister, though her family believed their paths almost crossed before her death.

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Teri Sue Wallace, who was born on July 2, 1964, as Dawn Renee Schoof, died Feb. 8. Her family hopes her birth sister, who has never been located, comes forward. (John Wallace / Provided by Wallace family)

More than once, a local woman who strongly resembled Wallace visited the same store in this area just minutes after Wallace was there, according to Wallace's family. Because of these crossed paths, her family believes  and hopes  that Wallace's sister can still be located.

"We still want to meet her and share our family with her," said John Wallace, who asked to share a photo of his late wife with my readers.

That photo accompanies this column, and his family hopes a reader can help identify and notify Teri Wallace's sister to help the family finally find closure. Feel free to contact me with any leads.

Something on your mind?

Once again, I'll be hosting my annual series of community conversations at public libraries across Northwest Indiana. In past years, guests have asked me about key issues facing our area, the newspaper industry and local politics.

This year I'm already getting questions about our nation's new president, the debate over "fake news" and many other national issues that are rippling into our corner of the state. Regardless, I'll do my best to address them from my point of view as a newspaper columnist and radio talk show host.

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My next community meeting will take place at the Lake County Public Library on U.S. 30 in Merrillville at 7 p.m., March 20, followed by another one at the Munster Public Library at 6 p.m. on March 28. Other similar events are in the works. I hope you can attend.

Homeless, not hopeless

Sometimes I fear that my ramblings in this column space go unnoticed, until I hear from someone such as Mary Edwards.

Edwards, executive director of Brother's Keeper homeless center for men in Gary, asked me to thank the many Post-Tribune readers who made donations to keep the center in operation.

After I wrote about the beleaguered facility last week, readers offered to donate clothes, furnishings and other items, in addition to giving more than $2,000 in donations. Also, several church pastors have stepped up to send monthly donations.

Other readers have asked me for the center's address, which is 2120 Broadway, Gary, Ind. 46407.

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"I thank you with all my heart," Edwards said.

I thank you, too.

Ding, dong, indeed!

Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Dozens of readers related to my recent column about having company show up to our home these days compared to when we were kids.

"I'm so happy I grew up then. Today's kids will never know what they are missing," wrote Dennis Ripley.

"Thanks for the oh-so-true observation," said Barbara Kline.

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"What a blast from the past," said Frank McDaniel. "But I think I turned into my father, and maybe like your father. They would love it, though, wouldn't they?"

Yes they would, I replied.

jdavich@post-trib.com

Twitter@jdavich
2022 election guide: Here are Pueblo County's top races, ballot issues

Here's what you need to know about the local candidates and ballot questions in the 2022 election, as well as how to vote in Pueblo, Colorado.
Chicago Jewish Community Center Among Targets In Wave Of Purim Bomb Threats

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 14, 2017 12:33AM

JCC Chicago was one of at least eight Jewish Community Centers threatened in the U.S. and Canada over the weekend in the latest wave of anti-Semitic intimidation.

The organization, which has multiple locations in the Chicago region, received an email threat over the weekend, according to Addie Goodman, executive vice president for JCC Chicago. Police were called to the Hyde Park JCC, which had a Purim celebration on Sunday morning, since the threat made reference to the Jewish holiday, Goodman told Chicagoist.

According to both Goodman and a spokesperson for the Chicago police department, police searched the inside and outside of the premises and found no suspicious objects. Police said they responded to the 5200 block of South Hyde Park Boulevard on Sunday after employees of a community center reported an emailed bomb threat, received around 10:17 a.m.

Despite the threat, the Hyde Park JCCs Purim festival was among the most populous the center has hosted, Goodman said. Theres been a wonderful outpouring of support from the Jewish community and beyond, Goodman told Chicagoist. Its heartwarming to have the support of community demonstrated in such a way.

The bomb threat was the third received by JCC Chicago in as many months. The Hyde Park JCC was evacuated on Feb. 20 after a bomb threat, which was eventually determined a hoax. And the Lake County JCC, Elaine Frank Apachi Day Camp, was also cleared, in late January, after it too was targeted with a bomb threat.

A North Side Jewish day school was evacuated on Tuesday morning after it too was the target of a bomb threat.

Anti-Semitic acts of vandalism and intimidationsuch as high-profile incidents like the cemetery desecration near St. Louis and the defacement of a Loop synagoguehave increased since around the time of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, according to Vox.
Updated: Rep. Gutierrez Handcuffed During Civil Disobedience At Chicago ICE Detention HQ

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 13, 2017 7:43PM



Rep. Luis Gutierrez at ICE Chicago center, via Twitter

Update, 5:30 p.m.:

Rep. Gutierrez posted on Twitter at around 4:30 p.m. that the group had ended their sit-in. "They were scared to arrest us because they know our cause is just," he wrote.

ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro told Chicagoist in a statement:



"Federal Protective Service officers were called by [Enforcement and Removal Operations] to the scene because the individuals would not leave the ERO office. FPS provided three separate verbal warnings and after each warning FPS provided the individuals several minutes to comply. When the group refused to leave, they were briefly placed in flexible plastic restraints before ICE officials relayed that they no longer wanted the individuals removed from the building. The Congressman and other individuals were placed in the restraints for approximately two minutes before the flex cuffs were removed by FPS. FPS did not cite these individuals."

They were scared to arrest us because they know our cause is just. We ended our sit in but we will #resist pic.twitter.com/EMibwkn3sG  Luis V. Gutierrez (@RepGutierrez) March 13, 2017

Original:

Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez was handcuffed by police when he and a group of activists refused to leave Chicago headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a meeting with a top regional official left the group unsatisfied.

"I was arrested, cuffed then cuffs were cut off," Gutierrez wrote on Twitter. "Waiting for further word on if/when we will be arrested."

Giutierrez met with Acting Regional ICE Director Glenn Trivline at ICE Headquarters in Chicago on Monday morning. He was joined by more than 20 immigration advocates, lawyers, church officials and others to voice concerns about the agency's actions under President Donald Trump, according to release from Gutierrez's communications director, Douglas Rivlin. Unhappy with the results of their meeting, the representative and seven of his group stayed, risking arrest, to press their demands.

Gutierrez Tweeted around noon that he and the group had been warned that they could be arrested if they didn't leave the ICE headquarters office. Shortly after 1 p.m., he said he was arrested and handcuffed.

Gutierrez was demanding that ICE turn around their decisions to deport some immigrants who have been in the country for extended lengths of time, according to Rivlin. The Congressman pressed Trivline to reverse a decision to deport Francisca Lino, a 50-year-old mother of six who lives outside of Chicago.

Gutierrez has been working for years with Lino as she met annually with ICE to keep any potential deportation deferred, but she was told by the agency at a meeting last week that she would be deported in July, according to CNN.

An ICE spokesperson told Chicagoist that the agency plans to issue a statement in the near future. We will update this post as necessary.
By Weining Hu

On March 5, at the opening meeting of the National Peoples Congress, Chinas top legislatures annual session, Premier Li Keqiang announced that China will accelerate research and development (R&D) in new and emerging industries, such as artificial intelligence (AI). It is the first time that Chinas highest national meeting has included AI in the Government Work Report. The reports singling out of AI indicates Beijings prioritization of the industry in its economic agenda, and therefore its determination to support its growth.

In recent years, Chinas leadership has been increasingly thinking about how to ensure their competitive edge in the AI industry. The acceleration of Chinas policy efforts to advance AI development began in 2014, when President Xi Jinping called for innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology, including AI, at the opening ceremony of the 17th Congress of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Following 2014, a series of national economic initiatives, including the 13th Five Year Plan (March 2015), Made in China 2025 (May 2016), Robotics Industry Development Plan (April 2016), and Three-year Guidance for Internet Plus Artificial Intelligence Plan (May 2016), all provided guidelines to boost AI R&D.

Just prior to the opening of the 2017 Two Sessions, Chinas top economic planner, the National Development and Research Commission (NDRC), launched a national engineering laboratory for the research and application of deep learning, appointing Chinas tech giant, Baidu, Inc., to lead the lab. The creation of a national AI laboratory is just one step taken by NDRC to boost R&D in AI. In 2016, the NDRC announced that it would create an AI market worth more than US$15.26 billion by 2018.

RELATED: Cash Incentives for High-tech Companies in Guangdong Province

With strong incentives from the government, now may be the golden era for investing in Chinas AI industry. Understanding why Chinas AI market will be successful and what makes Chinas AI industry a worthy investment prospect has therefore become paramount.

Chinas data ecosystem

The essence of AI at todays technology frontier is to have computer programs run massive amounts of data and perform pattern recognition and data analysis on that information. The more data there is to learn from, the more efficiently AI programs can perform. In other words, the scale of data fundamentally determines the output of AI programs.

According to the January 2017 China Internet Network Center report, as of December 2016, China had 731 million internet users, 95.1 percent of which are smartphone users. 496 million Internet users made digital payments with their smartphones, and 168 million users used smartphones to hail taxi services. The growth rate of both categories of internet users have exceeded 30 percent annually. The sheer volume of internet user data provides Chinas tech companies with a massive amount of raw material to run their algorithms and refine their AI programs.

Additionally, existing internet users constitute a massive market for AI adoption in the future. Apps such as the Chinese search engine Baidu, the third-party payment app Alipay, the mobile messaging service WeChat, and the Chinese Pinyin input system Sougo Input have all nurtured their own custom clusters.

When AI applications are ready, these apps will be able to apply AI technologies through their services. For example, Alibaba has applied a face recognition tool in its Alipay app, and 150 million users have already started to use this function. Given that much of Chinas internet sector is off-limits to foreign companies such as Google and Facebook, Chinese tech companies have exclusive access to Chinese internet users data, test out the algorithms, and consolidate its custom cluster without competition from outside competitors.

Research and development in China

Chinas rapid progress in AI research has been remarkable. An October 2016 White House report indicated that in 2016, the number of academic research papers published in China in the field of deep learning exceeded the number published by U.S. researchers. Further, a recent Nikkei Asian Review study finds that Chinese patent applications in the segment of AI grew to 8,410 between 2010 and 2014, a 186 percent increase from the previous five-year period between 2005 and 2009.

RELATED: Pre-Investment and Entry Strategy Advisory from Dezan Shira & Associates

More often than not, Chinese AI breakthroughs are not reported in Western mainstream media. The chief scientists at Baidu Research explained that, in some cases, AI inventions reported by the US were invented in China first and then later developed overseas. China is quickly catching up in the field of deep learning research. With increasing R&D investment from Chinas tech giants, this growth rate is expected to continue in the future.

Strong growth projected



The Chinese market has witnessed exploding venture funding in AI startups in recent years. According to a research report co-authored by Netease, 202 Chinese AI startups raised a total of approximately US$1 billion in 2016. KPMGs studies also show that venture capital has already shifted from big data towards AI in 2016, and the momentum of investment in the AI industry is projected to continue to grow in the coming years.

Although many Chinese tech companies have made technological breakthroughs within their fields of expertise, it will take years before the practical application of AI technology will be realized, and perhaps longer before it is mature enough for monetization. However, scientists often refer to AI as the core of the next wave of industrialization, and whoever leads the frontier in the AI industry will possess a strong hold of future growth. Therefore, investing in the AI industry is a strategic choice for those who are interested in long-term opportunities.



About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight.

Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure

Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.

An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017

Doing Business in China 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in January 2017, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

New Considerations when Establishing a China WFOE in 2017

In this edition of China Briefing, we guide readers through a range of topics, from the reasons behind foreign investors preference for the WFOE as an investment model, to managing Chinas new regulations. We discuss how economic transformations have favored the WFOE, as well as the investment models utility, and detail key requirements that businesspeople need to examine before initiating the WFOE setup process. We then walk investors through the WFOE establishment process, and, finally, explain the new and idiosyncratic Actual Controlling Person regulation.
The Hong Kong Dance Company will premiere their award-winning dance drama "The Legend of Mulan" at the Royal Festival Hall on April 15. Part of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China and the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), this is a dance reinterpretation of the famous Mulan ballad.

The Hong Kong Dance Company will premiere their award-winning dance drama "The Legend of Mulan" at the Royal Festival Hall on April 15, 2017. [Courtesy of HK Dance Company]

The U.K. audience will witness stunning moves from Hong Kong's finest dancers set around China's legendary woman warrior. The story centers around Mulan, who is distraught that her ageing father's name is on the conscription list. Since she has no brother to take her father's place, Mulan joins the army disguised as a man, and wins great honour in battle.

As the show's director and choreographer Yang Yuntao points out, the story explores the values of courage, honour and love for one's family and country, which allows people from different cultures to immerse in it. Children are particularly fond of Mulan, much indebted to the awarded Disney animated movie produced in 1998.

The story was originally in the form of lyric poetry immensely rich in aura and imagery, reminiscing the language and expression used in dance.

The Hong Kong Dance Company catches this poetic spirit and transforms it into spectacular dance movements, and special attention is paid to the aesthetics of dance itself.

Yang explains that Chinese dance is distinct from ballet or modern dance, and is an amalgamation of various art forms. Traditional Chinese dance, xiqu (Chinese opera), martial arts, ballet, and much more, is combined to create something unique.

This type of dance is highly expressive, and Yang singles out the narration of Mulan's inner thoughts, expressed through the female group dance and the "departure" father-daughter duet, as particular highlights.

The Hong Kong Dance Company was established in 1981 with the aim of promoting Chinese dance. The company has toured internationally as well as over Chinese mainland as a way to encourage cultural exchange. It has staged over one hundred productions, many of which received critical and public acclaim alike.

Yang, the director and choreographer of "The Legend of Mulan," is a member of the Bai ethnic minority in Yunnan. He has won many awards for both his dance performances and choreographic works over his career. He has been Hong Kong Dance Company's Artistic Director since 2013.
Taiwan stars Alec Su and Ruby Lin team up again in the forthcoming thriller "The Devotion of Suspect X," adapted from Japanese author Keigo Higashino's award-wining novel with the same title.

Ruby Lin (left) and Alec Su promote The Devotion of Suspect X in Beijing on March 9. [Photo provided to China Daily]

With their portrayal of lovers in a series of such popular TV series as My Fair Princess and Romance in the Rain, Su and Lin have become well-known faces in the Chinese mainland since 1990s.

In the new film, which is Su's second directorial feature, Lin stars as a divorced mother who inadvertently kills her ex-husband.

Since his directorial debut The Left Ear achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in 2015, Su has refocused on directing.

Su says that his decades-long friendship with Lin played a key element in persuading her to join the cast.

"On the set, I'm quite demanding," Su said at a Beijing event on March 9. "Only good friends can tolerate my bad temper. Besides, Lin's veteran experience and personal flair make her pretty much match the character."

Su reveals the Chinese version of The Devotion of Suspect X will be different from the previous Japanese and South Korean movies, as required by Higashino, one of the most famous novelists in Japan.

In addition to Lin, the stellar cast also includes actors Wang Kai, known for Nirvana in Fire, and Zhang Luyi, who shot to fame in The Red.

Wang and Zhang respectively star as a physics professor and a genius mathematician who are drawn into the murder.

The movie, which is slated to open in the Chinese mainland on March 31, will also be released in North America, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Singapore, according to Chinese producer Enlight Media.
You are here: Home

Gansu Province saw robust growth in investment from Taiwan last year, said local authorities on Monday.

Gansu signed 34 investment deals worth a total of 7.25 billion yuan (about 1.1 billion U.S. dollars) with Taiwan businesses last year, said Wang Feng, head of the provincial Taiwan affairs office.

Actual investment from Taiwan last year was about 1 billion yuan, almost three times that of 2015, Wang said. Taiwan entrepreneurs set up 9 new companies in Gansu.

Gansu organized dozens of exchange activities for college students and young people from the two places last year.

The province plans to use its advantage in the Belt and Road Initiative to boost cooperation with the island in agriculture, biomedicine and culture.
The Central Institute of Socialism (CIS) on Monday held the opening ceremony of a seminar for representatives from the Christian community in China to discuss Chinese culture.

A total of 52 representatives from northeast China's Heilongjiang Province and east China's Fujian Province will attend the 14-day seminar, featuring lectures on Christianity and Chinese-Western cultural exchanges, Chinese culture and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and religious theory and policy.

Founded in 1956, the CIS is a political academy for non-communist parties and people without party affiliation. It offers Chinese cultural education to people from ethnic and religious circles, new social groups, as well as the private sector.
You are here: Home

Customs officers in south China's Guangdong Province seized 236 wild animals smuggled from overseas, local authorities said Monday.

Customs authorities in Shenzhen said they intercepted a container truck at 1 a.m. on Sunday and found 165 turtles and 71 scorpions hidden in three polystyrene boxes.

The truck driver said he had received 900 yuan (130 U.S. dollars) to ship the animals to several pet shops.

The turtles are all under the protection of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and the type of live scorpions involved is still being determined.

The driver was detained and the animals were handed over to the wildlife protection center in Shenzhen.

The investigation continues.
Greg and Cathy Crowell of Canada are shown with Hosanna, an abandoned child they adopted from a welfare house in Guizhou province in 2007. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Local authorities in Southwest China's Guizhou province began a search on Friday for possible siblings of a girl who was abandoned about 10 years ago and was later adopted by a Canadian couple.

If they succeed, it means the girl will have a good chance of curing her disease through a bone-marrow transplant.

The girl, named Hosanna, was left alone on the doorsteps of Tianzhu county police station at dawn on May 6, 2007, according to the county's police department. When they failed to find her parents, the police sent her to a local welfare house, where she was named Chen Fupei and given a presumed birthday that made her 1 year old.

Greg Crowell and Cathy Crowell, a couple who are now in their 50s and already had four children, adopted the pale-looking girl from the welfare house later that month, knowing that she had a disease.

They gave her a new name. "We called her 'Hosanna', which is Hebrew for 'savior'," Cathy Crowell said.

They took her to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, where pediatric doctors from Nanfang Hospital affiliated to Southern Medical University diagnosed her with severe beta thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder resulting from the poor ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen.

Following doctors' advice, Hosanna has spent her life receiving blood transfusions every two to three weeks, as well as daily injections to remove excessive iron from the transfusions.

"Every night she needs to be given an injection," Cathy Crowell said. "It is all very difficult for her."

"Hosanna can survive with blood transfusions, but she will need them for her entire life," she added.

In the past decade, Hosanna, who will celebrate her 11th birthday this spring, has been living in Alberta, Canada, with the couple. They have returned to the welfare house during that time, but have had no luck in finding her biological parents.

Doctors in China and Canada have told the couple that the only way to cure Hosanna is through a bone-marrow transplant, which requires a match that is most likely to be found in a sibling.

The couple recently posted an open letter online, announcing the search for relatives of the girl. They offered to cover the cost of blood tests to find a match "because these people could possibly help Hosanna in a physical way that we will never be able to", Cathy Crowell said.

The letter caught the attention of the authorities in Tianzhu, who have pledged to assist the couple in their search.

Led by the local internet information office, a notice was made to spread Hosanna's story in the hope of tracking down a relative. Copies of the notice were given out to local school heads, who were told to pass them on to students and parents.

While there have been no leads so far, the couple said they remain hopeful.

"We do not want to pressure them. They need our respect and we want them to come forward on their own. This is not easy for them," Cathy Crowell said.

Nevertheless, the couple have been introducing Hosanna to Chinese culture and she has been learning Mandarin for five years.

"We hope that one day she can help us visit China and be our interpreter," Cathy Crowell said.
Shanghai Water Authority workers release fish into Qingcaosha Reservoir yesterday. The fish  chub and carp  feed on algae and floating microbes. By doing so, it is hoped they will curb eutrophication in the citys reservoirs. [Photo/Shanghai Daily]

Shanghai Water Authority has released more than 16,000 chub and carp fish into Qingcaosha Reservoir in an effort to curb eutrophication and improve water quality, the authority said yesterday.

The reservoir, at the mouth of the Yangtze River, is a major source of tap water for 11 million downtown residents.

The two species of fish will eat the floating planktons in the reservoir and filter the water with their branchia, according to Chengtou Raw Water Co, the reservoirs operator.

The carp, also known as big-head fish, mainly eat floating microbes, while chubs digest floating plants such as algae as their main food. Together the fish can help to stem eutrophication that leads to excessive plant growth and decay, the company said.

Most of the fish used are medium-sized, weighing about 500 grams, an official with the company said. When they had grown larger, they would be replaced, he added.

Ten thousand chub and carp have also been released into Jinze Reservoir on the upstream section of Huangpu River, which supplies water to some 6.7 million residents in the citys suburban districts.

The citys reservoirs are prone to eutrophication because they are at the lowest section of the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake streams. The water from upstream was full of nitrogen and phosphorus materials, which helped the growth of algae and threatened water quality, the official said.

The water authority has launched experiments at the citys Chenhang Reservoir since 2006  with Fudan, Tongji, East China Normal and Shanghai Ocean universities  to work out the best fish species and right amount to be released into reservoirs.

A trial operation had been started at the citys Qingcaosha, Chenhang and Jinze reservoirs, which had proved to be effective, the official added.

The water authority had also planted sequoia trees in and around Qingcaosha Reservoir to help to curb eutrophication.

The trees are expected to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus materials in the water as well as to contain the growth of algae.
Watch: This Time Lapse Is Here To Shame All Its River-Dying Video Competition

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 13, 2017 10:59PM

Yes, the South Side Irish Parade is the more traditional, authentic St. Patrick's celebration. But we still love a good dye jobespecially one photographed to look as stunning as this.

There are more videos of the decades-long tradition of greening the Chicago River than there were even of "Irish" bros pummeling one another in Wrigleyville over the weekend, but leave it to time-lapse ace Chris Biela to put together the one that truly stands apart from the pack. The locally based photographer and videographerwho you might remember from last year's stunning catalog of spring-and-summer funcondenses the roughly 30-minute process into just over a minute of eye-popping greenery.

Biela braved the frosty temperatures on Saturday to shoot from the roof of the LondonHouse Chicago hotel, hitting the area at 8 a.m. to prep his equipment. "I spent around five hours taking pictures this Saturday for [the] clip and shot over 5000 stills," he told Chicagoist by email. His arduousness is your viewing reward.

Related: Photos: Chicago River & Columbus Drive Go Green For Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade
 Flash

Zhangye Danxia Geopark attracts tourists from around the world to its colorful rock formations in Gansu province's Zhangye, an important commercial hub along the ancient Silk Road. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese travel agencies on Wednesday charmed visitors at a key travel trade show in Berlin with Silk Road destinations.

Chinese provincial tourism administrations from Shanghai, Hunan, Inner Mongolia and Shandong, as well as Chinese airlines participated in the Internationale Tourismus Boerse, which ran from March 8 to March 12.Destinations in West China's Shaanxi and Xinjiang drew a lot of attention at the event, which saw around 180,000 visitors.

Although cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are still at the top of the China holiday destinations list, Silk Road sites like Lanzhou, Dunhuang, Xi'an are also becoming prominent, says Shi Xiang, the Frankfurt-based regional director of the China National Tourism Administration.

Meanwhile, selected travel routes along the historical Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes connecting East and West, are offering "early explorer" experiences to visitors. There, visitors can ride horses, camels and live in tents just like the local herdsmen.

Viktoria Arneson, a 28-year-old travel expert, says the "early explorer" experiences could appeal to Western travelers as lots of them are "adventurous".

"For me, I like grand landscapes like seas, steppes and deserts. The Silk Road route has those landscapes and seems exotic," says Arneson.

For many Germans, taking a trip along the ancient trade route is even more tempting since the term Silk Road was coined by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven trips to China between 1868 and 1872.

According to a preliminary report by the China National Tourism Administration, foreign travelers made more than 28 million visits to China in 2016, a year-on-year growth of 8.3 percent.
 Flash

Prime Minister Theresa May is finally clear to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union after peers in the unelected House of Lords backed down from challenging the elected House of Commons.

Two amendments in the House of Lords that could have delayed the progress of May's bill were finally rejected by the peers after MPs in the elected Commons rejected the amendments.

A formal royal assent from Queen Elizabeth is all that stands in the way of May informing Brussels as early as Tuesday of Britain's intention of leaving the European Union after 43 years.

The bill gives May the legal authority to trigger article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the laid down procedure within the EU for a member state wishing to leave. Once article 50 is triggered, it kick-starts a two year process for negotiating a new relationship between both sides.

In the House of Commons, MPs rejected the two amendments put forward by the House of Lords, one to guarantee the rights of 3.2 million European citizens to remain in Britain (by 335 votes to 287) and the second to insist on a meaningful parliamentary vote on a final Brexit deal (lost by 331 votes against 286).

A committee of MPs was then elected to inform the Lords of their decision, calling on them to accept their vote.

Instead attempts were made in the Lords to keep the two amendments, even though they knew that their stand would be overturned by MPs.

Lord Bridges, the government minister in the House of Lords for exiting the EU, told peers that the decision to leave the bloc was one of the "most momenteus steps ever taken in our lifetime."

Baroness Hayter, for the main opposition Labour party, said she regretted the decision of the Commons to reject the amendments, adding that her party would not stand in the way of the Commons' decision.

She said her party would seek other ways of acheiving their aim, telling EU nationals: "To the people affected, we are not giving up on you."

The amendment calling for the residential rights of European to be protected was lost in the Lords by 274 votes to 135.

Barrister Lord Pannick, who legally represented businesswoman Gina Miller in the challenge that brought the issue to parliament in the first place, last week introduced the second amendment insisting parliament being given a meaningful vote on a final Brexit deal. Although his amendment last week won by a substanial margin, Pannick said in the debate Monday night it was now time for the House of Lords to give way to the Commons.

The second amendment was rejected by 274 to 118, finally giving the government the final approval for its Brexit bill.

The focus will now switch to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday to await any announcements about May's timetable to inform Brussels that Brexit Day has arrived.
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Russia may completely destroy its chemical weapons this year, the world's largest stockpile of such weapons, a Russian disarmament official said Monday.

Picture taken on October 30, 2013 shows employees in protective gear holding a dummy grenade during a demonstration in a chemical weapons disposal facility in northern Germany. [Photo/Xinhua]

"If we move at current pace and there are no technological glitches, we will manage to complete the destruction this year," said Mikhail Babich, chairman of Russia' s State Commission on Chemical Disarmament.

At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Babich said the country is in the final stage of implementing the arms-controlling Chemical Weapons Convention, which was signed by 192 countries and became effective in 1997.

According to him, Russia has spent 330 billion rubles (about 5.6 billion U.S. dollars) so far on the chemical weapons destruction.

Babich said nearly 70,500 tonnes of chemical weapons were stockpiled around the world, of which 40,000 tonnes were in Russia and 27,000 tonnes in the United States, with the rest divided among other countries.
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Pakistan Foreign Affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz reaffirmed Tuesday his country's commitment not to transfer weapons of mass destruction to states or non-state actors.

In a keynote address at a regional seminar in Islamabad on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1540, the adviser said that as a responsible nuclear state, Pakistan will continue to partner with the international community to prevent non-state actors from acquiring these weapons.

Resolution 1540, adopted by the Security Council in 2004, is one of the important instruments in the global non-proliferation architecture as it seeks to prevent non-state actors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

"As demonstration of this commitment, Pakistan has taken a wide range of legal, regulatory, organizational and enforcement measures which have been reported through four national reports. Holding of this seminar was another manifestation of this commitment," Sartaj Aziz said.

He underlined that states which posses advanced capabilities should have an equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to the export control governance architecture.

The two-day regional seminar starting on Tuesday is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, and brings together more than 10 countries from south and central Asia, China, Russia, representatives of the 1540 Committee Group of Experts and international organizations including the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and INTERPOL.

The seminar aims to promote regional cooperation for effective national implementation of resolution 1540 including through sharing of best practices and national experiences.
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The United States is pursuing a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Monday.

"We want to be able to pursue a constructive discussion with China that enables us to get at problem areas and make progress on issues," said U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton at a briefing.

The upcoming visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will focus on "pursuing a results-oriented relationship with China," Thornton added.

"He (Tillerson) will be discussing with Chinese interlocutors all of the various challenges and also areas of cooperation that we are looking to continue to pursue and continue to discuss and make progress on," said Thornton.

According to a previous statement by the State Department, Tillerson will arrive in Beijing on March 18 after visiting Tokyo and Seoul.

"We're going to look for areas that we can expand our cooperation (between the United States and China)," said U.S. State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner on March 7 during the first State Department press briefing since U.S. President Donald Trump took office.
GENEVAAs Britain prepares to leave the European Union, some carmakers are considering softening the blow of any trade tariffs by sourcing more parts locally and producing more models they can sell domestically rather than export.

Eighty percent of UK-assembled vehicles are exported and they could face tariffs of up to 10 percent if Britain has to fall back on World Trade Organization rules, with some components subject to multiple, varying tariffs each time they cross a border.

"If we do find there are tariffs on sending cars out, or there are tariffs on bringing components in, then that would be a motivator to repatriate some component production to the UK," McLaren Automotive Chief Executive Mike Flewitt told Reuters at the Geneva Motor Show.

The country's largely foreign-owned car industry is due to hit a record high production of around 2 million units by the turn of the decade, making it one of Europe's largest, and some firms have warned tariffs could push production abroad.

The sector is a major employer, which British Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to champion in the Brexit negotiations with the EU she plans to trigger this month; executives are concerned uncertainty could persist beyond the two-year process.

A local sourcing push would help mitigate some of the risks of leaving the EU's single market and be a bonanza for smaller UK parts makers but a headache for international suppliers, whose manufacturing footprints are reliant on free trade.

Only 41 percent of the parts in British-built cars are made within the country on average, less than the typical 50 to 55 percent local content requirement to which Britain would have to agree in some bilateral trade deals.

The proportion of parts sourced locally varies among automakers, making it easier for some to meet the "Made in Britain" threshold than others.

McLaren expects to reach a 58 percent "localization rate" by the end of the decade from around 50 percent now, under a plan that pre-dates the June Brexit vote.

Jaguar Land Rover, Britain's biggest carmaker, also sources around half its content locally.

The level falls to less than 40 percent at German luxury carmaker BMW's Mini plant in southern England, while Opel/Vauxhall Astras built in the UK contain only 25 percent British parts.

French carmaker PSA Group, which last week announced a deal to buy Opel and Vauxhall from General Motors, said trade barriers in the event Britain loses access to the single market would push it to increase the percentage of local components.

"If it's a hard Brexit then of course the supplier base needs to be developed, and I think this is something that the UK government completely understands," Chief Executive Carlos Tavares told reporters in Geneva.

The jury is out on how feasible this might be.

Ralf Speth, CEO of JLR, doubts Britain produces enough mass-market vehicles to attract the major supplier investments it would need to cross the 50 percent localization threshold. It and other carmakers have been slowly boosting UK parts content for years. Britain's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, however, believes UK-built cars could source up to 80 percent of parts domestically. The fall in the pound since the Brexit referendum has raised import costs, adding a further incentive.

Matt Boyle, the chief executive of electrified powertrain specialist Sevcon, based in England's northeast, said it had seen rising demand since the referendum and is able to respond quickly through the use of flexible third-party sites.

"We've got off-the-shelf hybrid systems and electric systems today," he said.

The industry is lobbying for British government support, which could be required to kick-start investment in parts production that would be new for Britain, such as alloy wheels.

Over 4 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) worth of components such as engine castings, steering systems and seat parts could be sourced in Britain, according to a joint industry-government report published in 2015, adding to roughly 10 billion pounds currently spent by car firms on UK suppliers.

Model mix

Carmakers are used to picking parts makers to supply their plants across borders, benefiting from unfettered trade among members of the European single market or the North American Free Trade Agreementand between the EU and Mexico.

But Donald Trump's election in the United States and protectionist candidates in upcoming elections in the Netherlands and France mean the Brexit referendum is not the only risk to free trade.

That has prompted some executives to ponder how plants and supply chains could be refocused on domestic demand.

"Our interest and our competitive advantage will be to have UK plants with a pound cost structure to supply a market where revenue is in pounds," PSA's Tavares said.

Britain is Opel/Vauxhall's biggest European market, accounting for 77,000 annual sales of its Corsa minithe country's second-biggest seller after Ford's Germanmade Fiesta.

But the Corsa is built in Spain and Germany, rather than GM's British plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton.

While Astra hatchbacks are produced at Ellesmere Port, some of the 60,000 sold in Britain last year were imported from Poland, leaving potential scope for more UK production.

Progress with modular assembly techniques in recent years has given car manufacturers more flexibility to shift production of single models between factories in different countries.

BMW said recently it would begin building some of its X1 SUVs at a plant in the Netherlands, which already builds Mini cars.

Asked whether Mini's British plant could build BMW-badged cars, Chief Executive Harald Krueger did not rule it out. "Purely theoretically, you can also build the 1 series in the UK," he told reporters.

REUTERS
Passengers carrying trendy trolley suitcases arrive at Nanjing Railway Station in January 2017. [Photo/China Daily]

Chinese wanderlust spurs sales surge

In 2016, as many as 120 million Chinese traveled overseas and, in doing so, spawned not just the world's largest outbound travel market in China, but a mammoth opportunity for luggage makers, including expensive global brands.

China is now the world's largest luggage market. Retail sales grew by 8 percent and reached 30.9 billion yuan ($4.48 billion) in 2016, according to consultancy Euromonitor International.

For the evolving Chinese traveler, luggage is no longer just a box to stuff personal stuff intoit is a statement of personal taste, fashion and status, an extension of style, an opportunity to indulge in fancy designs, features and colors, and a high-end accessory.

Manufacturers are tapping into this attitude by making large, durable, funky luggage, a segment that has seen sales boom in China.

Neil Wang, president of market research agency Frost & Sullivan Greater China, said that with an increasing demand for high-end and diversified luggage products, various trendy and smart suitcase categories have sprung up.

"There are some smart designs with GPS built into the suitcase to prevent the risk of loss. Another high-tech suitcase made by an Israeli company can follow the owner and roll by itself, avoiding obstacles," he said.

"Other smart features include control of the switch lock through mobile phones. Some suitcases can automatically weigh themselves. Other suitcases are equipped with USB ports inside."

Consequently, retailers have never been so bullish about the growth prospects as they are now.

Last year, the travel luggage segment recorded the highest growth (8 percent) in value terms among all bags and luggage categories in China.

The average unit price of bags and luggage edged up last year, as more consumers upgraded from unbranded goods to branded, mid-priced or high-end products, Euromonitor said.

Besides, it found that more Chinese consumers prefer hard-case luggage for its durability and resilience.

Tao Ziqian, a 24-year-old consumer from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, owns two Rimowa suitcases, which he bought in the United States. The bigger one cost him about $1,000 and the smaller one about $400.

"When I choose luggage, apart from appearance, durability is very important. I don't want to see my suitcases break when I check them in for my flights," he said.

Charles Yong, general manager of Rimowa Far East Limited, said: "Consumers are no longer taking luggage just as traveling tools. More Chinese travelers take luggage as diversified and individualized accessories, and they choose luggage in line with their tastes."

Chinese travelers' strong desire for shopping abroad has made large, lightweight and tough suitcases popular. Such luggage allows more stuff to be packed in and yet conforms to many airlines' weight limits for checked-in luggage.

Some hard-case brands have therefore become more aggressive in their attempts to win consumer acceptance.

Rimowa, a German luggage manufacturer, which is known for its aluminum luggage and was bought out by LVMH in January this year, said it has seen good growth in China last year, despite slowing economic growth. The brand foresees significant growth potential for its products in the country.

Rimowa and Samsonite, a top luggage player that acquired Tumi in August last year, together take up over a quarter of the global market.

Rimowa's Yong said: "This is our tenth year in the China market, which is still nascent. In second- and third-tier Chinese cities, there are a vast number of consumers that we can still discover. Meanwhile, we have launched online stores on Tmall and JD. We are also improving our marketing efforts through social media."

Such intense efforts can be traced to the strong demand among Chinese for both domestic and outbound travel in recent years.

In the past decade, the number of domestic tourist trips has risen more than threefold from 1.2 billion in 2005 to nearly 4 billion in 2015, said a report of Singapore's DBS Bank.

Yet, there is a low penetration rate of luggage sales in China. In 2015, the per capita expenditure on luggage in China was $2.9 a year, much lower than $32.3 in Japan and $24.8 in North America.

DBS sees ample room for growth of luggage sales, especially in some Asian countries like China, India and South Korea.

Zheng Yiran contributed to this story.
Top Chicago Prosecutor Zachary Fardon Resigns As U.S. Attorney

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 13, 2017 9:47PM



Zachary Fardon / Getty Images / Photo: Scott Olson

Chicago's top prosecutor is officially out. U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon resigned on Monday, according to multiple reports, paving the way for Joel Levin to serve in the interim until a permanent successor is named.

Fardon is one of 46 U.S. attorneys, all appointed during former president Obama's administration, who were asked to step down by the office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday. Such a purge of previous-administration attorneys is common, but the abrupt nature of the Sessions' call raised several eyebrows last week. As the L.A. Times noted, the Attorneys General who served under Obama and George W. Bush looked to stagger the resignations and replacements over the course of multiple months.

Fardon served in his post since October, 2013. Over that time, his office presided over several high-profile cases, including the indictment of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastertwho attempted to bribe a man he was alleged to have sexually abused years priorand former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennettwho pleaded guilty to a million-dollar kickback scheme.

One of Fardon's most prominent acts of legal oversight was also one of his most recent. He helped lead the Department of Justice's yearlong investigation of the Chicago Police Department, launched in the wake of the Laquan McDonald uproar. Fardon at the time called the findings of the probe "historic," saying "history is made, and it couldnt come at a more important time." The DOJ determined that CPD engaged in a pattern or practice of using force that violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Fardon is replaced, for the moment, by Joel Levin, who was first assistant since 2014 prior to assuming his role as acting U.S. attorney for the states' Northern District.

As the Tribune points out, the search for a long-term successor for the role will likely be spearheaded by GOP Congressman John Shimkus, of Illinois 15th congressional district, in the southeastern quarter of the state.
Analysts weigh benefits of joining as a new member and various alternatives

China needs to think carefully on whether it should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a new member as the benefits of doing so are still uncertain, analysts warned on Monday.

"China has been focusing on a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership," said Jiang Shan, a researcher at the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization.

"We can also list a long string of alternatives such as the World Trade Organization, the China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Agreement and the China-US bilateral investment treaty and even unilateral liberalization," Jiang said.

"The issue is whether other alternatives can similarly yield the goals hoped to be realized by joining the TPP, or if another approach can help achieve expected goals more easily and conveniently."

Meanwhile, some requirements of the TPP membership are not suitable for China's current situation, analysts said. For example, the TPP has proposed noncommercial support for State-owned enterprises of members.

China still needs time to accelerate the pace of its SOE reforms and optimize the use of their assets, said Tu Xinquan, a professor at the China Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

"The national conditions of every country differ and the capacity to withstand liberalization and benefit from it also varies," said He Ning, former director-general of the Ministry of Commerce's department of American and Oceanian Affairs.

To China, it would appear from all aspects that there are no objections to the overall direction toward continued expansion of opening-up to the outside world. What is in dispute is the pace and scope of the opening-up, He said.

US President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw his country from the TPP in January, as one of six immediate steps aimed at "putting America first." The move caused other members to readjust their policies on whether the TPP should welcome China.

Wendy Cutler, former US representative at the TPP negotiations and vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said as the US withdrew from TPP, the Trump administration had emphasized that it is no longer interested in a regional trade deal now but a bilateral trade deal starting with the North America Free Trade Agreement.

She said the US trade policy puts the country first and there is an emphasis on reducing the US trade deficit. Cutler said that meant especially singling out those partners the US had a large trade deficit with such as China, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Mexico.

"The Trump administration will also seek other bilateral negotiations with non-TPP countries including Japan, South Korea and China," Cutler added.

There was not any concrete anti-China trade action taking place, but China would see more anti-dumping countervailing duty cases against its exports.
China is quickening the pace of putting together its compulsory environmental pollution liability insurance implementation planand joint regulation and product designs could be key issues, experts said on Monday.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection are stepping up the pace of drafting an implementation plan, CIRC Chairman Xiang Junbo said on Sunday.

Xiang said there are already 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities carrying out pilot projects for the plan.

The key areas the insurance projects cover include heavy industry, heavy metals, textiles and the chemical industries.

Wang Guojun, an insurance professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said China had achieved good results in the pilot projects, and he looked forward to seeing the implementation plan soon.

"The mandatory environmental pollution insurance is significant for protecting the nation's environment, but product design could be complicated, which requires qualified actuaries and the input of risk control expertise," said Wang.

He also said that insurers should send consultants to companies to monitor their provisions for environmental protection.

Xiang Junbo also said on Sunday that insurers should not only receive an insurance fee and deal with settlement of claims but offer risk assessments and suggestions to companies.

For example, insurers had so far made an estimated 40,000 suggestions to almost 4,000 companies in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, Xiang said.

Hao Yansu, director of the School of Insurance at the Central University of Finance, said China should first have related laws and regulations on environmental pollution liability insurance and on joint regulation.

"Besides the China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, more ministries and commissions, including the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission, should participate in the implementation plan and have joint regulation," said Hao.
SHENZHEN - Yao Zhenhua is no longer chairman and a board member of Foresea Life Insurance, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The statement said Yao handed in his resignation on March 1. The board met and agreed to his request on March 6. Deputy chairman Zhang Jinshun was appointed interim chairman.

China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) barred Yao from the insurance industry for 10 years for irregular market operations last month.

The CIRC said that Foresea Life violated regulations and provided false information on its capital increase.

Foresea Life, a subsidiary of financial conglomerate Baoneng, was suspended from selling its questionable high-return insurance service in December, after speculative stake buyouts in listed companies by heavyweight insurers.

To contain financial risk, the CIRC sent investigation teams to insurance companies, including Foresea Life, to review their management, balance sheets, product and capital use.

The CIRC said Foresea Life had stated that its shareholders had used their own fund for capital replenishment in November 2015, but an investigation revealed that the statement did not match the actual capital source. The CIRC said Yao was directly responsible for the false information.
Traditional Chinese herbal tea producer Guangzhou Wanglaoji Pharmaceutical Co Ltd announced plans to work with the United States-based science and technology major DuPont to launch probiotic productswhich have bacteria and yeast that are good for health, especially the digestive system, to tap growing market demand.

A probiotic drink mix has been launched, which uses ingredients from DuPont, according to Zheng Rongbo, deputy general manager of Wanglaoji. The two companies will cooperate in areas of research, supply chains and market promotions and sales.

"Launching the probiotic drink mix will help diversify our products, as the market for probiotic products is growing very fast in China," Zheng said.

The probiotic products will mainly target children under 12 years old, the company said.

DuPont's research shows that live probiotics provide health benefits when consumed, improving digestion and strengthening the immune system.

Zheng said China's demand for probiotic products would expand rapidly in the years to come, with the market size set to grow to nearly 85 billion yuan ($12.34 billion) in 2020.

"It will mean more growth for Wanglaoji, as we make efforts to tap the greater health industry."

Zheng said the probiotic drink mix will be available before the second half of the year on e-commerce platforms and in supermarkets especially designed for mothers and babies.

The booming demand for probiotic products has drawn a growing number of startups in the Pearl River Delta in southern China to invest in the industry.

Chen Hangzhou, general manager of Shenzhen Yibaifen Biological Technology Co Ltd, said the company's self-developed probiotic products are mainly sold online.

"Young people, especially housewives, are keen on shopping online. We launched a sales model to help them make money on social internet networks, which is less costly and more effective in reaching potential customers," Chen said.

The Shenzhen-based company, founded in 2016, is engaged in research and development and the sale of probiotic drink mixes on mobile devices.

"More people have developed a taste for using probiotic products to improve the digestive system and we will launch more product varieties to meet the growing demand," Chen said.

He said the company had developed an online sales team of more than 3,000 retailers, with sales reaching nearly 100 million yuan in 2016.
China Huarong Asset Management Co, one of the nation's biggest asset reconstruction firms, said it expected annual profit growth of between 20 percent and 30 percent in the next few years.

Its Chairman Lai Xiaomin said the projected growth target followed much faster expansion over the past few years.

That range of growth, from a much higher historical base, remains "very good", Lai said in Beijing on Monday on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress.

Profit growth for all of 2016 was faster than in the first half of last year, he said, without providing details as the company has yet to report annual results.

Huarong is boosting its capital base to tap new business in China's distressed debt market, which Lai said will continue to grow in the next few years amid slower economic growth.

Its planned initial public offering in Shanghai can be completed by the end of 2018 and will likely raise more than the company's IPO in Hong Kong in 2015, he said.

Huarong is also planning to sell as much as 60 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) of bonds in China and $10 billion in overseas debt this year, he said.

BLOOMBERG
SYDNEY - World renowned economist and coiner of the term "BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China)" Jim O'Neill has said China's Belt and Road Initiative could "completely transform" the global economic outlook for the better.

O'Neill, who visited Sydney last week for an economic forum, spoke to Xinhua late Monday via telephone from his office in London, praising the work of the Chinese government did for the Belt and Road Initiative.

The initiative, proposed by China in 2013, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

The initiative demonstrates China's rapid progress in becoming the centre of the global economic sphere, the economist said.

"It's one of a number of potential additional trade developments which simply add to my view that the nature of global trade is changing dramatically, and the United States does not dominate in the same way it once did," O'Neill said.

"I think the Belt and Road Initiative has the potential to completely transform the economic outlook for those countries that lie between China and Europe, and result in all sorts of exciting things with respect to trade developments for China and many other countries."

China "dominates" global trade, O'Neill said, highlighting recent statistics out of Europe that show that China has become the trading partner of choice for many European nations.

"The most interesting statistic I've seen so far in 2017 was the release of the final German trade data for the whole of last year," O'Neill said.

"It shows that China has become Germany's number one trade partner, if you combine imports and exports, overtaking the United States and France."

One of the "realities" of this "new era" of trade is that China is not only becoming the number one partner of choice for commodity driven nations, but for nations that specialise in premium goods, and a wide range of services, O'Neill said, envisioning close cooperation with China by the United States in terms of continued and robust trade relations.

"As China goes further up the income stream, it's a really good market for the United States to export some of its best products and best businesses to." O'Neill said.

Free trade is crucial to the development of the global economy and O'Neill spoke of his own experiences in the British Parliament, highlighting the need for his native Britain to engage with trading partners around the world, and in particular, China.

"I certainly think for post-Brexit Britain, it's absolutely crucial to be trying to do improve its trade relationships with the likes of China and Asia," O'Neill said.

"I was in the government until last September, and I was in the middle of what seemed to be quite strong, successful efforts to develop the so called golden relationship' with China, and the reason why we did it was because of the potential for British trade and investment relationships with China."

But it is not just trade partnerships that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations are focused on developing, with global governance and policy consensus crucial to ensuring the social development not only of the member nations, but those they are able to influence for the better.

O'Neill is hopeful that the nations will make even further strides towards becoming bigger influencers on the global scale, despite the understandable challenges they face when bridging cultural and political differences between their countries.

"The very fact they have emerged as a political group is a huge development, and I think in some ways they are still in their infancy," O'Neill said.

The world renowned economist firmly believes, however, that despite the relatively young stage of their partnership, the BRICS nations more than hold their own with the likes of the United States and the European Union in the geopolitical arena.

"They way they have emerged, and the whole advent of the G20 was done to bring the BRICS countries into global governance," O'Neil said.

"So they already are (at that level). I think it's pretty clear."

Looking ahead to the BRICS Summit set to be held in the city of Xiamen in September in China, O'Neill said he would be engaged with representatives to push for the nations to play a more active role in the global health agenda.

"I think they can play a really powerful leadership role there, as well as more conventional things like the state of the world, financial markets, and so on."
QINGDAO - An equity investment fund from the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao has agreed to buy 42.01 percent of Kumho Tire of the Republic of Korea.

In a statement filed to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Tuesday, Qingdao Doublestar said a subsidiary of Qingdao Xingwei Equity Investment Fund signed a deal Monday with Korea Development Bank to pay 955 billion South Korea won ($830 million) for about 66.37 million shares the bank and others hold.

In December 2016, Qingdao Doublestar invested 900 million yuan ($130 million) to set up Qingdao Xingwei Equity Investment Fund with several other local investment firms.

After the deal, Xingwei Equity Investment Fund will become Kumho Tire's biggest shareholder.

Founded in 1960, Kumho Tire is the second-largest tire maker in the Republic of Korea.

Shares of Qingdao Doublestar, whose business includes tires, mechanics, real estate and sports, fell 2.84 percent to 8.55 yuan as of 2:30 pm Tuesday.
Gavin Liu, Asia President, Westinghouse Electric Company [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Q: What do you think of China's economic growth target at around 6.5% for 2017 amid the sluggish recovery of the global economy recovery? What business opportunities do you see from the services, manufacturing and mining, which will be open wider for foreign investment?

A: We view the 6.5 percent target as healthy and realistic and expect it will inspire continued government and private investment in infrastructure. This will almost certainly lead to further demand for clean, safe and cost-efficient energy and a continued strategy for expanding nuclear energy and associated industrial capabilities. When coupled with policies that encourage foreign investment, Westinghouse will be one of many companies looking for ways to expand in China.

Q: How do you assess the role of China market in your global business strategy and layout? What are your views on China's efforts and more preferential policies to further attract foreign investment? Do you plan to increase investment or expand your presence in the Chinese market this year?

A: In the field of nuclear energy, China's expansion plans and pace lead the world. So, of course, this market is a very important part of Westinghouse global strategy. We intend to expand our footprint in this market while fulfilling our commitment to our Chinese strategy partners, suppliers and employees. At this moment, our top priority is to successfully deliver the world's first AP1000TM nuclear power plants in Sanmen, Zhejiang province and Haiyang, Shandong province. As these initial plants move into operations, we are getting ready to extend our support to the follow-on fleet and to the localized industrial supply chain.

Q: What business opportunities do you see as China promotes the Belt and Road Initiative? Have you participated in or do you plan to participate in any projects under this initiative? How do you think infrastructure investment can contribute to global growth?

A: As China continues its investment in infrastructure and nuclear energy, its industrial capability, experience and reputation will strengthen and lead to the opening of more global opportunities. Westinghouse stands ready to support China's nuclear industry in all aspects, including globalization by leveraging the AP1000 technology platform. Infrastructure investment will create more job opportunities and maintain a more stable employment rate in the near term while translating into an improving standard of living for all Chinese citizens as they benefit from the clean air, abundant energy and rising incomes from nuclear energy expansion in the longer term.

Q: China will continue to carry out supply-side reform this year. What does this reform mean for your business and how will you adjust your business strategy in China accordingly?

A: Westinghouse understands that the supply-side reform is a vital tool to stabilize the Chinese economy, which will be carried out through four approaches: human capital, land, capital and innovation.

And efficient use of capital for supply chain capacity expansion will ensure that China's domestic industry is right-sized for the long term. Westinghouse can support this by supplementing the domestic industry supply chain capacity during peak periods of demand, especially as a large number of new nuclear power plants are deployed to meet China's nuclear energy output targets.

Q: What is your opinion of China's effort to upgrade its manufacturing capabilities and boost innovation? Will China's innovation-driven campaign spur the vitality and competitiveness of the economy?

A: The manufacturing and innovation capabilities represent a nation's comprehensive strength. Westinghouse supports China's efforts in these two areas through collaboration with our Chinese nuclear industry partners. The Chinese AP1000 nuclear plant projects are our best example of our support of China's efforts to elevate the nuclear industry manufacturing capability and help China to achieve self-reliance and advancement with passive generation three-plus pressurized water reactor technology. As China's experience strengthens, so will its competitiveness.
China released upbeat macroeconomic data on Tuesday indicating that the economy remained on solid footing at the start of the year, and analysts said the trend will continue through the year.

Industrial output rose by 6.3 percent year-on-year in the first two months, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Fixed asset investment, a major driver of growth, increased by 8.9 percent year-on-year in the first two months, down from 10.2 percent in the same period last year. But it was the fastest pace since July.

Real estate investment increased by 8.9 percent in the period, up from 3.0 percent in the first two months of last year. It beat market expectations against the backdrop of tightened regulations since October to combat speculation.

Retail sales, however, increased by 9.5 percent in the period, down from 10.2 percent in the same period last year.

Most data are "quite positive" and "apparently improving", NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun told a news conference. "On the whole, in the first two months, the national economy continued the stable and improving growth momentum since the second half of last year," he said.

Sheng also said data in the first two months show the country's economic restructuring has made progress. For example, industrial output in the high-tech and equipment industries increased by 12.6 percent and 11.9 percent, respectivelyboth higher than the growth of overall industrial output. Fixed asset investment in high-tech industries, meanwhile, rose by 18.4 percent.

"China's domestic and external demand has picked up, with export, manufacturing investment, real estate investment and infrastructure all expanding at a faster-than-expected pace," said Ren Zeping, chief economist of Founder Securities. "The Chinese economy is starting to step out of slowdown and enter a cycle of recovery."

Hu Yuexiao, chief macroeconomic analyst at Shanghai Securities, said: "Investment remains China's main growth engine, and its pickup means the Chinese economy has started to stabilize. It will maintain the trend of stabilization and continue to improve this year."
Ford Motor Co will begin producing its upscale Lincoln brand in China by late 2019 after sales almost tripled last year, joining the ranks of automakers localizing production to avoid import taxes in the world's largest auto market.

The automaker will build an all-new SUV model with joint venture partner Changan Automobile Group in Chongqing, according to an emailed statement.

Ford will continue to import Lincoln vehicles from North America, the company said.

Manufacturing in China will allow Ford to avoid paying 25 percent in import taxes, making the locally produced Lincoln SUV more competitive against German luxury brands like Audi and BMW.

"The Lincoln product and ownership in China are resonating with Chinese customers even beyond our expectations," said Kumar Galhotra, president of Lincoln. "We are now taking Lincoln to the next level by building a new SUV in China to join a dynamic lineup of imported cars and SUVs."

Ford produces the Lincoln in China about three years after introducing the brand in the country. By choosing a sport utility vehicle as its first locally produced model, Lincoln is banking on China's love affair with spacious vehicles.

BLOOMBERG
Loyola University Fraternity Suspended 3 Years For Hazing

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 14, 2017 4:52PM



Loyola University / Facebook

A Loyola University fraternity has been slapped with a three-year suspension for hazing, according to the school.

After launching an investigation in February when the university received "credible information" alleging hazing at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Loyola's Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution has determined that the chapter was "responsible for hazing activity and engaging in disruptive and disorderly conduct that caused a disturbance in the neighborhood."

"The suspension prohibits the chapterand its members or supportersfrom conducting any activity on Loyolas campuses or off-campus. This suspension is effective immediately (March 6), and lasts until August 1, 2020," a university statement sent to Chicagoist read.

"As we have stated previously, acts of hazing are strictly prohibited by University policy and Illinois law. Hazing is directly in opposition to the mission and values of Loyola, and it will not be tolerated," the statement read.

SAE will be allowed to request reinstatement in 2020. The chapter will have to develop "a year-long comprehensive member development program that fosters zero-tolerance of any form of hazing" as part of a potential re-application, according to the university statement.

SAE headquarters, which is based in Evanston, has placed the Loyola chapter under a cease-and-desist order, ceasing "all chapter operations" until later notice, spokesperson Johnny Sao told Chicagoist via email. "Sigma Alpha Epsilon maintains stringent guidelines and expectations for our members, and those who do not comply with them are sanctioned accordingly," the statement from Sao read.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at Northwestern University was suspended by the fraternity's national headquarters last month after the school's Sexual Harassment Prevention Office received reports of sexual assault and date-rape drugging.

The Beta Chi chapter of Sigma Pi at Loyola University was banned for three years in 2014 due to hazing and "bias-motivated discrimination and misconduct."
Two men chat beside a logo of Alibaba at its headquarters on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/Agencies]

New R&D unit to help transform e-commerce giant to serve 2 billion people in 20 years

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Monday it is setting up a dedicated research task force to spearhead innovative and potentially revolutionary new paths to growth, with the goal of transforming the e-commerce trading platform into a well-rounded and technology-driven powerhouse.

The group said that through a new and independent research and development department dubbed NASA, the internet juggernaut is setting its sights on developing core technologies that would serve 2 billion people in 20 years.

Founder and Chairman Jack Ma said the R&D initiative accords with a broader plan to turn Alibaba into what he called "the world's fifth largest economy", creating 100 million jobs and enabling 10 million enterprises to become profitable in two decades.

"Just like how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration fueled fundamental progress of science and technology and facilitated people's lives, new economies must be built upon new technology-enabled infrastructure," said Ma, who was speaking at the company's first internal technology conference held in its headquarters in Hangzhou last week.

Ma, whose comments were released in a statement by the company on Monday, added that Alibaba is ready to shoulder the responsibility of major technological breakthroughs.

Areas of focus would include, but not be confined to, machine learning, chips, the internet of things, operating systems and biometric identification, Ma said.

Alibaba's Chief Technology Officer Zhang Jianfeng said: "Today we've reached a tipping point when technology makes a real difference."

The new R&D agency intends to move away from the old business model, under which technology focused on supporting business operations.

Instead, Alibaba said it wanted to establish a pure holistic R&D mechanism that furnished the group with cutting-edge technological solutions that would be in the pipeline for the coming one or two decades.

The company currently employs more than 20,000 engineers, more than 500 of whom have PhDs. Nine of its 36 partners on the management board are experienced engineers.

Alibaba has been pushing hard on the technology front, from using facial recognition technologies in digital payments, adopting artificial intelligence to help mitigate traffic congestion around Hangzhou, to leveraging big data in anti-piracy campaigns.

Among the latest effort is a pilot program rolled out last week by the company's cloud-computing arm Alibaba Cloud in partnership with Intel Corp, under which the two agreed to build a cloud-based acceleration service that enables cloud-service customers to have virtual access to a larger set of computer resources more effectively.

Zhang Mengmeng, a senior researcher at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said that as Alibaba grows its core businesses into a collaborative ecosystem, it will need technology as the firepower to enhance its complementary capabilities.

"It's a visionary move. Alibaba is no longer content with being recognized as an online trading platform," she said.

"It needs new technologies to fulfill and balance its multiple roles as a virtual shopping mall, a cloud computing provider, a payment tool, and a logistics network."

China's internet triumvirate known as BAT (for Baidu Inc, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings Ltd) are all sparing no efforts in their push for technological breakthroughs. Search engine Baidu is delving into artificial intelligence research, by championing a national lab for deep learning.
Greg and Cathy Crowell of Canada are shown with Hosanna, an abandoned child they adopted from a welfare house in Guizhou province in 2007.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Canadian foster parents search for abandoned child's family members

Local authorities in Southwest China's Guizhou province began a search on Friday for possible siblings of a girl who was abandoned about 10 years ago and was later adopted by a Canadian couple.

If they succeed, it means the girl will have a good chance of curing her disease through a bone-marrow transplant.

The girl, named Hosanna, was left alone on the doorsteps of Tianzhu county police station at dawn on May 6, 2007, according to the county's police department. When they failed to find her parents, the police sent her to a local welfare house, where she was named Chen Fupei and given a presumed birthday that made her 1 year old.

Greg Crowell and Cathy Crowell, a couple who are now in their 50s and already had four children, adopted the pale-looking girl from the welfare house later that month, knowing that she had a disease.

They gave her a new name. "We called her 'Hosanna', which is Hebrew for 'savior'," Cathy Crowell said.

They took her to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, where pediatric doctors from Nanfang Hospital affiliated to Southern Medical University diagnosed her with severe beta thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder resulting from the poor ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen.

Following doctors' advice, Hosanna has spent her life receiving blood transfusions every two to three weeks, as well as daily injections to remove excessive iron from the transfusions.

"Every night she needs to be given an injection," Cathy Crowell said. "It is all very difficult for her."

"Hosanna can survive with blood transfusions, but she will need them for her entire life," she added.
Guangdong Consumer Council has filed the country's first public interest lawsuit to request compensation in the field of consumption.

The lawsuit is requesting compensation for the consumption of meat from sick and dead pigs, and of pork preserved using hazardous liquid.

On behalf of consumers, the council is requesting compensation of more than 10 million yuan ($1.44 million) from the 20 defendants, as well as an apology through mainstream media and payment of lawyers' and litigation fees.

The 20 defendants were seized in Huizhou and Shenzhen in a joint operation by police in Shenzhen's Longgang district and the city's market supervisory authority in 2015.

Longgang district procuratorate prosecuted the defendants on criminal charges last year, with the second trial of the case currently underway.

Considering the serious harm to consumers and the adverse impact on society, the council filed the lawsuit on March 8 at the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, the council said in a statement.

Public interest litigation is practiced in the fields of environmental protection and consumption in China.

Since 2014, when the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests was amended, consumer organizations across the country have filed public interest litigations, all of which aimed only to stop criminal practices. None of the cases were accepted by courts or were withdrawn due to settlement agreements, except one, which lead to a public apology.

"We believe that public interest litigation is an effective way to target individual offenders and businesses," the council said.

The compensation value was reached by calculating the revenue earned from selling the meat of sick or dead pigs.

If the council wins the case, it will divide the compensation out among the victims in this case, said Yang Shu'na, deputy secretary-general of the council.

If a victim fails to claim their compensation or there is a surplus, the money will be handed to the State coffer or a public interest fund for the protection of consumer rights.

Pork is the most commonly eaten meat in China. Despite a heavy crackdown by the government to address the issue of substandard meat, some businesses, driven by financial benefit, continue to evade supervision, said Zhu Lieyu, director of Guangdong Guardian Law Firm, who serve as the attorney in this case.

Consumers are not often aware of the quality of the pork they consume, which makes it difficult for them to safeguard their rights, Zhu said.

This is a landmark case, which will boost the public interest litigation system regarding consumption, Zhu said.

Zhang Yingshu contributed to this story.

liwenfang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/14/2017 page7)
HARBIN - A flight between the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin and Paris, France, will begin on March 30, cutting the travel time by hours.

The round-trip flight, operated by Russia's Ural Airlines with an Airbus A320, will ply the route once a week, and will stop in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg, according to Harbin Taiping International Airport.

The Paris-bound flight will leave from Harbin, capital of China's Heilongjiang Province, at around 1 am every Thursday, and return to Harbin a hour after its arrival in Paris.

The flight will take 14 hours, slashing the current travel time between Harbin and Paris, which require a transfer in Beijing or Shanghai and take 16 or 19 hours.
Shared bikes must be scrapped after three years of use and have a GPS positioning function, and children under the age of 12 will be banned from using the bikes, according to draft regulations from Shanghai government.

Shanghai government said that an investigation has showed that the bikes produced under current national standards might have potential safety problems after being in high demand and over long distances.

The draft rules showed that shared bikes must be produced to meet national standards and be scrapped after three years' use. Parts from scrapped bikes cannot be used to assemble new bikes. Privately owned bikes are banned from the service.

The investigation also showed that companies put too many bikes on the market as there aren't enough workers for management and maintenance. Problems also include misplacing bikes and the unclear management of cash deposits.

Guo Jianrong, secretary-general of the Shanghai Bicycle Association, said that misplacing bikes is a big problem in urban management, and Shanghai government is expected to offer parking places for shared bikes.

The draft regulations require shared bikes to be installed with positioning devices, which would help the companies and users find the bikes, Gou said. He said that some companies now can't even find their own bikes.

Guo pointed out that some companies focus on putting new bikes on the market and leave old ones on the streets, occupying public spaces. He suggested the companies should put bikes in both downtown areas and the suburbs.

The companies should have enough workers to manage their bikes on the streets, and the standard should follow 50 service workers for each 10,000 shared bikes, compared with 100 servicemen for each 10,000 bikes at fixed pick-up points, Guo said.

The draft regulations also include that 95 percent of shared bikes on the market must be in good condition and 98 percent of the batteries on electric bikes must be good.

Bike share users should be from 1.45 meters to 1.95 meters tall and ages 12 to 70. People over 70 must provide their health documentation to apply to use the bikes.

Companies must repay users' cash deposits within seven days after users meet requirements.

Bike sharing apps also should be compatible to other sharing services.
Beijing will further open its elderly care market up to private institutions which are expected to run at least 50 percent of beds for the elderly by 2020, the municipal government predicted in a recent guideline.

Foreign investors are being encouraged to set up for-profit nursing homes, and foreigners who run not-for-profit nursing homes will enjoy the same preferential policy as Chinese investors.

People who run nursing home chains can also register through the more convenient "green channel", while investors from outside Beijing will get the same treatment as local investors when they launch elderly care projects.

The municipality will also support private operators by purchasing their services, providing facilities for free, offering subsidies and charging the same utility rates at nursing homes as households.

The city's six major districts, namely Dongcheng, Xicheng, Haidian, Chaoyang, Fengtai and Shijingshan, will focus on care, education, information technology and financial services for elderly people.

The flat areas in suburban Beijing (outside the six major districts) will prioritize nursing homes and accommodation for senior citizens, while the mountainous areas in suburban Beijing will focus on recreation and tourism for elderly people.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that China and the United States are keeping in close communication on realizing exchanges between their presidents and at other levels.

There were media reports on Monday that claimed the two presidents would hold their first summit next month in the US.

"Both sides highly value enhancing high-level and other levels of exchanges between the two countries," she said at a daily media conference in Beijing. "We will release further information in a timely manner," she said.
Services improved to ensure equal protection to all, senior judge says

Courts across the country are handling a rising number of foreign-related lawsuits as the Belt and Road Initiative rapidly progresses, and market players will be equally protected to ensure a fair and just environment, a vice-president from the top court said.

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, covers the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, with the aim of creating a trade and infrastructure network to connect Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

"The initiative has brought a boom of foreign-related disputes, as well as challenges for us in case hearings," He Rong, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

When top court President Zhou Qiang delivered his annual work report to the National People's Congress on Sunday, he asked grassroots courts to provide better legal services for the initiative by improving case hearings while handling foreign-related lawsuits this year, especially maritime and commercial cases.

Statistics from the top court provided to China Daily show that Chinese courts at all levels concluded 25,916 foreign-related cases of all types last year, up by 9.38 percent year-on-year.

"Of the total, the initiative-related disputes have increased rapidly," said He.

Since last year, more foreign-related cases have involved Asian, Middle Eastern and European countries, including Singapore, India, Malaysia, Russia and Kazakhstan, and many have focused on cross-border contract projects and international logistics, she said.

"The changes can be attributed to the further infrastructure connections, prosperous trade and more investments among the countries along the Belt and Road routes," she said.

The number of new maritime cases rose by 25.33 percent and new intellectual property cases by 49.22 percent as the initiative progressed, according to the statistics.

As the presiding judge, He Rong ordered a Greek company to pay a Chinese transportation authority 6.59 million yuan ($953,000) for breaching a salvage agreement on July 6 last year.

She overturned the original ruling by the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court, saying that the payment should be based on whether the authority provided services for the company in line with the agreement, not on whether the salvage was successful.

Zhang Wenguang, an associate researcher specializing in international law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, applauded the case, saying He's verdict would help grassroots courts to handle similar cases.

Litigants at home and abroad can better understand Chinese courts' principles in such cases, and it is also good to improve the country's justice image, Zhang said.

Since 2013, the top court has taken various measures to improve services as the initiative is implemented.

He Rong said a series of new judicial interpretations will be on the top court's agenda this year.

"Also, we'll keep an eye on new types of cases concerning the building of the Eurasian Land Bridge, the overland rail link between East Asia and Europe, as well as disputes about free trade zones, internet finance and cross-border financing," she said.

"What we want is to provide strong legal guarantee and better legal services while our country is improving the initiative," she added.
Public interest lawsuits to grow over pollution, food and drugs

A pilot program that allows prosecutors to file public interest lawsuits has been a great help in protecting the public's rights in environmental and food and drug safety issues, and the top procuratorate is moving to make the practice into law, the country's procurator-general said.

Between July 2015 and the end of February, prosecutors handled 5,109 such cases and filed 547 public interest lawsuits. That helped restore 128,000 hectares of polluted farmland, forests and grassland, and forced 443 companies operating illegally to pay compensation of about 200 million yuan ($28.9 million), according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

"Such a pilot program has effectively prevented State and social public interests from being harmed," Cao Jianming, procurator-general of the SPP, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

"Prosecuting departments will further streamline the process, clarify standards and mull legislative proposals to give legal backing to the practice."

Public interest litigation is fairly new and rare in China. For years, plaintiffs had been strictly confined to citizens, corporations and organizations whose interests were directly related to the lawsuit.

An amendment to the Civil Procedure Law in 2012 first allowed agencies or organizations to bring litigation against those who undermine public welfare by polluting or infringing on consumers' interests. That was considered a major step forward in creating a public interest litigation system in China.

Amid increasing pollution and food safety offenses, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the top legislature, authorized the two-year pilot program in 13 provincial regions in July 2015. It allows prosecutors to institute public interest lawsuits in civil and administrative cases. Before that, prosecutors mainly handled criminal cases.

Under the program, prosecutors can file a civil suit based on any act that compromises public rights and interests through pollution or undermining food and drug safety. They may also sue government agencies over abuse of administrative power or failure to perform their duties in cases related to environmental protection, State assets and State land use.

Cao said engaging prosecutors in such lawsuits is an effective way to supervise administrative power, ensure law enforcement and safeguard social justice.

However, the system is designed for a public interest lawsuit filed by prosecutors to be the last resort, according to the SPP. Before that, prosecutors should urge governmental and nongovernment organizations to file such cases and assist them in doing so. Also, they should push governments to stop their wrongdoing and correct their actions before taking them to court.

Cao said that under the program, prosecutors had put forward 4,562 suggestions to government departments or social organization as of the end of February. Government agencies had made corrections in 3,206 of the cases, and social organizations had filed 28 public interest lawsuits.

"Prosecutors instituted 547 public interest lawsuits against those who refused to perform their duties or if the harm continued," he said.

In July 2015, for example, prosecutors in Qingliu county of Fujian province found the local environmental protection bureau had failed to ensure electronic waste was safely disposed of and urged the bureau to correct the situation. The bureau replied that it had disposed of the waste properly, but actually it hadn't.

Prosecutors then filed a public interest lawsuit against the bureau that December, and the bureau finally performed its duty under the pressure, according to the SPP.

But Cao acknowledged that prosecuting departments face challenges, too. "Faced with the needs of reform, the conflict between limited human resources and mounting cases has become more prominent," he said.

"In addition, some prosecutors need to accumulate more experience and improve their capabilities in evidence discovery, case investigation and trying such civil and administrative lawsuits."

Cao said prosecutors will beef up information sharing, transferring cases and other types of cooperation with other authorities, including the public security and environmental protection departments. He also called for more thorough legal research.

Liu Hongyu, a national political adviser and a partner in the Beijing-based Jincheng Tongda & Neal law firm, suggested amending the Civil Procedure Law and Administrative Procedure Law to give legal backing for such litigation.

"A separate law on the mechanism and procedures of public interest lawsuits should be drafted, too," she said.
Rep. Shimkus Doubled Down On Prenatal Care Comments Last Weekend

By aaroncynic in News on Mar 14, 2017 6:58PM



Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

"What's written after the fact is just stuff I can't control, Shimkus told the News-Gazzette on Saturday of the various articles written on his comments last week. I didn't think it was very controversial at all. It's not different than anything I've been saying for six years."

In an exchange with a colleague in the Energy and Commerce Committee on plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last week, Shimkus wondered why men should pay for prenatal care for women.

What about men having to purchase prenatal care, asked the Congressman from downstate Collinsville, which appeared to flummox both his colleague and many other legislators in the room. Is that not correct? And should they?

In an interview with the Southern on Friday, Shimkus reiterated this sentiment. Why would you buy a cabin in Montana that youre never going to use, he said.

Despite one of the principals of the current system of purchasing health insurance being based on a wide swath of people contributing to a risk pool or knowing the specifics of how changing that would work Shimkus said he believes that segmenting coverage would bring more people into the market and lower costs overall.

People should be able to buy the healthcare package that they think they need. People should not be forced to buy parts of a policy that they will never use, said the congressman.

Seemingly ignoring projections from a Congressional Budge Office review of the new GOP insurance plan that show by 2018 14 million people would be without health insurance, which would increase to 24 million by 2026, Shimkus lamented people who talked about the benefits of the ACA. They forget to tell you about the 4.7 million people who lost the insurance that they had and mostly policies that they like, he said.
Teacher dedicates life to helping deaf-mute children

Yuan Jinghua.

Yuan Jinghua's brothers and sisters all got married before they were 20. Yuan, however, didn't get married until she was 25 as many young men were frightened away by her special "dowry": 45 deaf-mute children.

"If they wanted to marry me, they had to accept the 'dowry'," said the woman from Xiajin county, Shandong province, and also a deputy to the National People's Congress. The children were her students she had taught to speak.

After failing the College Entrance Examination in 1992, Yuan saw two deaf-mute girls driven out of a local primary school in tears after they sneaked into the school and looked into the classroom.

Yuan tried to teach them to speak by asking them to feel her vocal cords vibrate and managed to teach them to say "grandma" and "grandpa" after two months. "I was so excited. I asked the pair to speak in front of many villagers," she recalled.

Soon many parents took their deaf-mute children to her. Yuan changed her seven-room home into a school. Desks were used as dining tables at dinnertime and beds at night. She charged each child 60 yuan ($8.70) a year and 20 kilograms of wheat a month for the children's food.

By 1997, the number of students had increased to 45 and Yuan had to set up a thatched hut to accommodate them.

"More children still came and some refused to leave after I told them there was no space. They held the door of the 'classroom' while their parents tried to drag them away," said the 41-year-old.

Yuan also raised pigs to earn money, but it was far from enough.

In 1997, Yuan did something that made others call her a madwoman. She prepared posters reading: "No matter how old you are or how you look, I will marry you as long as you can build a school for the children." Yuan put up the posters in nearby villages.

Her "crazy" action failed to attract attention from men, but it did catch the eye of the local government. The Xiajin county government invested more than 100,000 yuan to help Yuan build a school in 1998. The same year she was elected as a deputy to the Dezhou city people's congress.

Thanks to her kind heart, she got married in 2000. Her husband, a teacher, was persuaded to marry her by his grandmother. "My husband's grandmother said I must be a loyal woman as I treated the deaf-mute children so well," she recalled.

The school, however, still was not large enough to meet the great needs of the deaf-mute children, who continued to come from other provinces. She decided to move the school to Xiajin in 2002.

"The county government gave some support, but I still had to raise about 1 million yuan. I borrowed money from relatives and many of them tried to avoid me because of that," she said.

In 2012, Yuan raised more than 60 million yuan and built a new school that covers more than five hectares. The school is still 10 million yuan in debt, even though it received a lot of social and government support, Yuan said. The school now has about 800 students.

More than 600 students have graduated from her school or transferred to regular schools. Some have graduated from college, said Yuan.

Since Yuan was elected as a deputy in 2003, she has submitted 205 suggestions or motions to the National People's Congress, about two-thirds related to children with disabilities.

"All of them have been well received," she said.
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Looking Back With Pride

At the end of this year's two sessions, many deputies and members will be standing down from their roles. Here, four outgoing deputies to the National People's Congress and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference reflect on their five-year terms as representatives, the proposals they have introduced and the differences they have made to people's lives.

ZHU LIANGYU a deputy to the National People's Congress from Beijing

When I was elected in 2013, I was the only NPC deputy representing more than 4.5 million security guards nationwide, so I told myself to speak and work for this group.

During my five years as a deputy, I have submitted more than 80 documents to the NPC, including two motions, and most of them earned replies from the central government and helped the security industry. That motivated me and brought a sense of achievement.

In 2014, I submitted a motion to add a new offense to the Criminal Law - that of attacking the police. Protecting those who protect us is important, so when the amended law was published later the same year, I was excited that my suggestion had been adopted.

I remember the day after my election: I was full of energy, and immediately started a three-month survey of more than 40 security companies in Beijing because I wanted to know what they needed most.

I conducted questionnaires, identifying where the workers came from and what jobs they had done before. Finally, I prepared an 8,000-word report.

Once, I went to the Beijing West Railway Station and found the place crowded and disorganized. Residents and employees of local companies complained about the mess, mainly caused by vagrants and street vendors.

I took a photo and sent it to the NPC. A few days later, the area had been cleaned up and many of the vendors and vagrants had left.

I felt proud of my report, but my son, who was then 11, said: "Dad, you were one of the people cleaned away before."

His words shocked me, and I had to concede that it was a thoughtless way of solving the problem. In 1993, when I first came to the capital from Heze, Shandong province, I didn't know where to go or how I would live. I saw many people being "cleaned away" - some of them were low-paid security guards.

Since then, I've thought twice about reporting issues, and always take advice before acting.

After talking with other deputies during the two sessions, I realized that the best way to improve the lives of security staff was not just to call for higher wages, but to use the law to regulate the industry and ensure my former colleagues are respected.

To implement these ideas, I suggested the government should provide more education and training for members of this group and revise the regulations on the management of the industry.

My years as a deputy have been a fruitful period of personal growth. I have got to know a large number of people. They trust me to do my best for them.

Even if I am not re-elected as a deputy next year, I will continue to work on behalf of security guards. I will continue to protect the city with the passion I had when I first joined the profession almost 25 years ago.

Zhu Liangyu spoke with Cao Yin.
Eight highlighted pledges from judicial authorities

The third plenary meeting of the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday. The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate presented work reports to about 3,000 national legislators at the meeting.

China's judicial authorities made the following eight pledges to be carried out this year, which are sure to influence Chinese people's daily life, according to Xinhua and People's Daily.

1. To stamp out phone and cyber fraud

Activities associated with these fraudulent tactics change and cannot be detected easily, which means victims suffer greatly. New technology to triumph over fraudsters is important and people also need to pay attention to privacy. The Supreme People's Court will hand out due sentences for those involved in telecom and internet fraud, to maintain social stability.

2. To cut down on school and hospital violence

The Supreme People's Court will try cases involved with issues such as education, employment, and medical treatment. The Supreme People's Procuratorate pledged to strike hard on gang violence, gun and explosives-related crime, crimes involving drug manufacturing and trading, the trafficking of women and children, making and selling fake products, school violence and violent activities causing damage or injury to medical workers.

3. To weed out village villains and gangs of relatives

Procurators investigated 17,410 lower-level officials suspected of corruption in land expropriation and demolition, social security, management of agriculture-related funds and other issues concerning people's well-being last year. However, villains and gangs in some rural areas still operate beyond the arm of the law. The Supreme People's Procuratorate vowed to punish these criminals to safeguard rural residents' sense of security.

4. To inflict heavy punishment on illegal fund-raising

Financial risks come with financial innovation. Cyber fraud is disguised as peer-to-peer lending and illegal fundraising exists under the cover of innovation. Many people fall for these tricks because of so-called high rewards. The Supreme People's Procuratorate promised to crack down on internet finance crimes, and to reinforce punishment on crimes like illegal financing, money laundering, underground banks and online pyramid selling.

5. To guard against judicial corruption, not allow dark corners

The Supreme People's Court will strike out against abuse of power, corruption and fund embezzlement among its judicial organs. The Supreme People's Procuratorate vowed to restrain judicial corruption, not allowing dark corners to go undetected. In 2016, procurators investigated 47,650 people for their suspected involvement in duty-related crimes.

6. To impose further restrictions on deadbeats

Deadbeats, or "laolai" in Chinese, is a derogatory term in Chinese used for debtors who refuse to pay back what they owe. It has always been hard for courts to enforce the law when they face these deadbeats, but the Supreme People's Court said it will solve this problem in two or three years. Law enforcement will be standardized. Information construction also will be strengthened.

7. To crack down on corruption of officials involved in poverty relief

The Supreme People's Court will attach importance to cases involving poverty relief in an effort to help achieve poverty alleviation with local characteristics. Courts at all levels convicted 2,862 criminals of bribery and concluded 15,000 cases involving corruption, embezzling funds and other crimes associated with poverty alleviation last year. The Supreme People's Procuratorate will go on to help punish and prevent duty-related crimes in poverty relief areas.

8. To give more safeguards and assistance to policemen in grassroots units

Grassroots policemen don't earn much but shoulder many pressures. They even face threats and violence when enforcing the law. The Supreme People's Court promised to guarantee the rights and interests of these policemen. The Supreme People's Procuratorate pledged to cultivate procurators in Midwest China.
Question of the day

Editor's note: During the two sessions, China Daily has collected the questions foreign netizens care most about and solicited answers from experts, CPPCC National Committee members and NPC deputies.

Do you think governments at all levels will establish business consultancy agencies for foreigners?

I don't think they will, at least not in the short term, because governments have their roles to play in releasing and interpreting policies. Authorities at all levels will give the public the most accurate interpretation they have, but it may be a better idea for players in different markets to provide suggestions for foreigners seeking business advice.

China already has a large number of consultancy firms, both domestic and foreign-owned, which provide strategic advice to help foreign companies localize their businesses, overcome challenges and make decisions. If my memory serves right, there were at least 10,000 domestic consultancies in China five years ago. There will be more professional companies to help foreigners better understand policies in the future.
Giving neighbors support a key issue, says British scholar

Making sure growth and trade continue in China's neighbors should be a key topic of discussion at this year's two sessions, according to a top British academic.

"I hope we will hear more debate on how China's domestic growth fits with the Belt and Road Initiative," said Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford China Centre.

Rana Mitter, a professor of Chinese history and politics

"Although China's growth is slowing to what some call a new normal, many of its neighbors are dependent on China's growth to boost their own economies, so a stress on continued overseas investment should be an important part of the two sessions."

Mitter, also a professor of Chinese history and politics, said China's leadership of the Belt and Road Initiative is not just a matter of financial investment, but also social coordination to make the vision possible.

"For example, as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor builds under the initiative, we would expect more Chinese workers in Pakistan and Southeast Asia, so a key question is how this sort of change can be coordinated with neighboring countries," he said.

The nation's relationship with the United States and Europe will also be a key topic at the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Mitter said.

"China's situation is quite stable, but the US and Europe are going through major disruptive changes. The precise shape of the Trump administration has not yet been determined, and in Europe, the effects of Brexit are only beginning to be felt."

Uncertainties in advanced economies means "many people will look to China for stability", he said, adding that, encouragingly, the country has taken a leadership role in globally important issues such as climate change.

"President Xi Jinping has made a strong stand on the issue of climate change. Now that there are fears that the US will chip away the terms of the Paris Agreement, it is increasingly important for China to have a clear commitment to the goals all sides signed up to in 2015."

Mitter said that China is also demonstrating its commitment to World Trade Organization rules, with the support of Europe.

"The US may try to weaken the structures of the WTO, but it is important for Europe and China to make clear that international trade rules benefit everybody and protectionism is not the way forward."

cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
A 'sense of gain' comes from the wow factor

Last week, I interviewed Chen Jingyu, a leading lung transplant surgeon and legislator from Jiangsu province who is in Beijing for the annual two sessions. I wrote a story about how he has continued to perform operations during his stay in the capital.

The next day, when the story was published, he told me with excitement that the world's top lung transplant experts had read it and suggested he share the article with Western colleagues at international conferences to show the great progress China has made in this field.

When I read his message, I thought "Wow!" As a journalist, I was filled with joy to know my work had helped increase a person's "sense of gain", a concept introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2015.

A similar "wow" moment came on March 5, when Premier Li Keqiang announced while delivering the Government Work Report that long-distance and roaming phone charges would be canceled this year.

I was on the third floor of the auditorium in the Great Hall of the People and could clearly hear the response from the more than 5,000 NPC deputies and CPPCC National Committee members, which lingered in the air long after the initial burst of applause faded out. Such exclamations of pleasure are rare in a hall traditionally known for its solemnity.

For the deputies, many of whom had traveled from different parts of the country to attend the legislative session, this could be the last year they will need to pay high fees to call loved ones back home. The enthusiastic response came from the bottom of people's hearts, as the government's decision will increase people's sense of gain.

To some extent, my work is similar to the premier's. His task is to increase the entire nation's sense of gain, while my job is to increase a reader's or interviewee's sense of gain.

Increasing people's sense of gain has been a key phrase for governments at all levels in recent years. While presenting the report, Li said on average 35,000 people a day found jobs last year. Tien Puk-sun, a deputy from Hong Kong, said some European nations may marvel at that daily figure, as it is equivalent to the number of jobs their governments can create in a year.

However, there are still many issues ahead that the central leadership must conquer to increase people's sense of gain in China, a growing power on the world stage.

In Shanghai, where I am from, people want to have easier access to imported food products and cosmetics. But in a remote village, people may be eager for their children to have a school with better facilities.

I hope to see the Government Work Report make people go "wow" again in the coming years.
Adviser brings Buddhist ideals to CPPCC duties

Monks and nuns urged to play a major role in poverty alleviation

Despite a busy schedule at the two sessions, Dao Shuren has managed to stick to his daily Buddhist practices, meditating for half an hour in the morning and chanting scripture at night.

The 82-year-old lay Buddhist is the head of Yunnan province's Buddhist Association and has been a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top political advisory body, for 20 years.

Dao said the Buddhist aspiration to "glorify the country and benefit sentient beings" coincides with his duties as a political adviser, as both stress the importance of serving the country and the people.

As a political adviser and religious leader, Dao has worked to promote people-to-people exchanges and strengthen talent cultivation among Buddhists.

In addition to religious issues, Dao, a member of the Dai ethnic group, has also focused on ethnic issues. At this year's two sessions, he suggested setting up an institution to study historical documents from the 1950s from regions inhabited by ethnic groups.

Poverty alleviation has also been a focus of both Dao's work and that of the Chinese leadership in recent years.

"Buddhists cherish the ideal of 'delivering oneself and all beings from misery and suffering', which is in line with the philosophy of poverty reduction," he said, adding that he often travels in Yunnan's impoverished areas, calling on Buddhist temples to perform charity work.

"The monks and nuns have their part to play in poverty relief, such as helping villagers grow cash crops, treating illnesses with traditional Chinese medicine, and raising donations and participating in rescue efforts when natural disasters occur.

"It's my duty to be a voice for the religious circle through the platform of the CPPCC and contribute to social causes with my religious background."

The 12th National Committee of the CPPCC consists of more than 2,000 members, including 65 who represent religious communities, including Buddhist masters, Living Buddhas, Taoists, imams and priests. Dao is also one of the 102 members representing ethnic groups.

He said the CPPCC offers a good opportunity for religious leaders to sit down together to learn about policy and discuss religion, politics and social issues.

"When conducting international exchanges, friendly relations among representatives of China's religions often impress our foreign counterparts," he said.

Dao said he remembers his first overseas trip as a religious representative in 1984, when he traveled with other Buddhist and Taoist representatives to the World Conference on Religion and Peace in Nairobi, Kenya.

"Some foreigners were astonished to see us, as they thought religious beliefs were not allowed in China," he said.

Frequent foreign exchanges have helped eliminate misunderstandings, he said, adding that he now has friends of various religions in dozens of countries.

Dao was born to a Tusi family in Yunnan's Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture. Tusi were tribal leaders appointed to govern ethnic groups in feudal China. The system was not abolished in some parts of the country until the 1950s.

Like most Dai people, Dao is a follower of Southern Buddhism, which is also found in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, India and Thailand.

As a layperson, he follows the "five precepts" according to Buddhist teachings: abstaining from killing, stealing, illicit sexual conduct, false speech and intoxicants.

"The core of Buddhism is to teach people to be well behaved and compassionate, which is similar to other religions and fits with the requirements of good citizenship in the modern age," he said.

"Focusing on similarity while reserving differences is key to achieving harmony. The CPPCC offers a platform for people with different beliefs to exchange opinions while seeking consensus."

According to the work report of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee delivered on March 3, many efforts were made this year to promote religious harmony.
China will intensify efforts to improve product quality for domestic consumption so they match the same standards and quality of those for export, Sun Dawei, head of Chinas Certification and Accreditation Administration, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Sun said 1,180 export enterprises in China are now producing products for domestic consumption with the same standards and using the same production line as those for export, covering 5,000 different kinds of products. More products are expected to be included in efforts to improve quality for domestic consumption, he said.

Enterprises that produce goods for export in China have been adopting different standards and production lines so the products meet the requirement of export destinations.

More than 99 percent of food China exported met standards, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision.
Xi Jinping: The leader of a great revival

Can China do it? This is the crucial question for the world's biggest and boldest economic, political and social experiment. At the core of understanding the country's prospects is the governance philosophy of its leader, Xi Jinping.

Xi is leading more than 1.3 billion people on a march toward the Chinese Dreambringing an end to poverty and rejuvenating a nation that has already made astonishing progress in creating prosperity.

The 63-year-old reformer has brought his own thinking to bear on problems down the road, especially after a year of tumultuous global events.

With the needs of the people his first and foremost concern, Xi's experience, commitment, determination and ability to govern and lead have become something of a rarity on the global political stage.

This year, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will elect new leaders for a five-year term, covering a crunch period for Xi's vision of a well-off nation by the Party's centenary in 2021.

China's GDP is forecast to exceed 90 trillion yuan ($13 trillion) by 2020, when the nation is expected to have a middle-class population of about 400 million.

The goal is fast approaching and will only be met if officials at all levels align their thinking with that of the central leadership and act according to Xi's "Four Comprehensives"the cornerstones of prosperity, reform, rule of law and strict Party governance. The strategy aims to lead the country to modernization and standing at the center of the world stage.

This is China's own story, one neither copied from nor imposed on any other country.

New thoughts, actions

At this year's sessions of the State legislature and political advisory body, Xi expressed his confidence: "As long as we gather the wisdom and strength of more than 1.3 billion Chinese people, there can be no limit to the success of our cause."

From being the youthful head of a poor village in northwestern China to Party chief of the nation's advanced eastern regions to leader of the nation, Xi has shown a deep understanding of governance, evident in economic and social reform, foreign affairs and military transformation.

He has led China to achieve remarkable economic growth, even though other major economies are faltering. The country contributes more than 30 percent of global economic growth.

Xi calls the current phase the new normal, from which an economy is emerging that is more sustainable and inclusive. To ensure this rebalancing succeeds, he has put forward supply-side structural reform.

Fundamentally different from the supply-side economics of the West, Xi's policy takes a harsh stance against inefficient industries and replaces them with new, innovative systems of work and production that will neither destroy the environment nor succumb if another global financial crisis hits.

China hopes to increase GDP by about 6.5 percent this year. At this rate, the nation will generate more output than it did during the days of double-digit growth.

Xi is at the wheel of a reform juggernaut, revitalizing almost every aspect of the economy and society, from the financial sector to healthcare. Changing the lives of hundreds of millions of people means the abandonment of what is no longer relevant, including the one-child policy and "re-education through labor", a method of dealing with minor offenders introduced more than 50 years ago.

He emphasizes the rule of law and checks on power, as seen in his decision to create a national supervision commission. Lawmakers are also compiling a civil code to better protect people's rights.

Xi's campaign against corruptionhe has warned that graft could destroy the Party and cause the downfall of the Statehas gained "crushing momentum". Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, at least 240 senior officials and more than 1 million lower-level officials have been investigated.

As Chinese businesspeople, tourists and students reach almost every corner of the globe, Xi sees China as not only a beneficiary of globalization, but a contributor to it. He has visited about 50 countries as head of state, pursuing his mission to build "a community of shared future".

His strong defense of free trade and warnings against protectionism have surprised and delighted observers.

China's trade relationship with the United States "supports roughly 2.6 million jobs in the US across a range of industries", according to a report in January by the US-China Business Council based in Washington.

The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Xi in 2013 is expected to connect Asia with Europe and Africa. In three years, Chinese businesses have helped build 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 countries along the Belt and Road routes, with total investment exceeding $18 billion. They have helped generate more than $1 billion in tax revenue and create more than 160,000 jobs.

China's commitment to the Paris agreement on climate change is also comforting and unshakable.

Code of success

Making a great country requires strong and competent leadership devoted to the fundamental interests of the people.

"China's most important successes rest on strategic planning and decision-making by the central leadership," said Zhang Weiwei, director of Fudan University's Institute of China Studies.

Unlike Western democracies, which seem increasingly obsessed with showmanship and short-term elections, China's leadership has a long-term target and is more inclined to plan for the next generation and beyond. Once the Chinese leadership makes a blueprint, it sees it through.

Poverty relief is one such example. It has been included in the work plans of the Chinese leadership for generations.

Fundamental to a well-off society, poverty alleviation efforts have helped 55 million Chinese people enjoy better lives between 2013 and 2016. The government has pledged to eradicate poverty by 2020.

Poverty alleviation is not the only matter at hand, and speed and efficiency are of the essence. When working in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, Xi reminded officials of their duty to "take immediate action"the working style he wants to see across the country.

China's system of governance remains resilient and robust because of how it selects and mobilizes officials. A cadre is promoted only after he or she has served at various grassroots posts and acquired enough experience.

How many jobs has an official created? Where are the tangible results regarding economic and social development? Is the environment cleaner or more polluted? These key factors are considered for any promotion. Those found to be ineffective are demoted and, in some cases, penalized.

The 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) has made local officials accountable for the environmental damage they cause, even if it is discovered after they have left office.

China stresses the unity of Party leadership, people being the masters of the country and the rule of law. The approach has shown its advantage over the so-called Western model, according to Zhang at Fudan University.

Making history

The two sessions, among China's most important political events, are poised to support the next round of reform. Thousands of lawmakers and political advisers have raised suggestions on development. Crucially, the sessions have gathered a national consensus to unite more closely around the CPC Central Committee, with Xi as the core.

"Xi's core status came through his leadership in advancing the Party's great cause," said Dai Yanjun, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

The largest modernization movement in human history has a political party with 88 million members united around a core leader. This common dream not only benefits China, but also the whole world.

The real test, however, lies ahead. Xi and his colleagues are facing a number of challenges. Few developing countries, for example, have avoided the so-called middle-income trap.

Daunting as the difficulties may be, in Xi's opinion, "History is created by the brave."
The Lollapalooza Lineup Is Still A Mystery, But Tix Go On Sale Next Week

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 14, 2017 6:06PM



ZOMG! ZOMG! ZOMG! LOLLA TICKETS ARE GOING ON SALE! (Annie Lesser/Chicagoist)

There's still no word on who is actually playing Lollapalooza when it returns to Grant Park this year, from Aug. 3 to 6. But since some folks stopped caring less about the music and more about the party years ago, it makes total sense that four-day tickets will go on sale sans any news of the bands playing next week, on March 21.

Of course there are frontrunners based on holes in musician's touring schedules. Muse is pretty much a lock to headline one of the four nights. And both Spoon and Ryan Adams' just released U.S. tour dates have nice Lolla-sized gaps as well. We're also going to guess given her new album, Lorde will probably make a return appearance. And given recent news of other fest appearances this year, we wouldn't be shocked to see Foo Fighters return to Chicagobut that is 100% pure speculation on my part. The lineup usually gets released (or leaked) around this time of year so we won't be kept guessing all that much longer.

Lollapalooza has a solid history of selling out, no mater who's playing, so if you don't want to take chances waiting on single day tickets and lineups, get ready to hit that refresh button at 10 a.m. next Tuesday.
Xinjiang to make record-high investments in transportation infrastructure

A bullet train travels from Hami to Lop Nor in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region will invest heavily in more high-speed railways and highways to build a high-quality transportation network that can truly support the Belt and Road Initiative.

The region has decided to inject record funding of 170 billion yuan ($24.8 billion) into new roads, up nearly sixfold from 2016, and investment in roads, railways and airports this year will top the total funding for transportation infrastructure from 2011 to 2015.

"Poor transportation infrastructure is the biggest obstacle for Xinjiang to become China's trade hub linking countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt," Shokrat Zakir, chairman of the region, said on Sunday.

Northwest China's Xinjiang borders eight countries, including Pakistan and Kazakhstan with a border of more than 5,600 kilometers. Xinjiang was once a key transportation and trade hub on the ancient Silk Road.

During this year's annual session of the National People's Congress, the Xinjiang delegation proposed the construction of high-speed railways linking the regional capital of Urumqi and southern Xinjiang's Kashgar, the starting point of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as another one connecting Urumqi and northern Xinjiang's Horgos, a land port on the China-Kazakhstan border.

The delegation also proposed starting construction on the China- Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which has long been discussed and planned. The national lawmakers from Xinjiang believe it is urgent to start construction on the railway to enhance economic cooperation with the two Central Asian countries.

A total of 223 westbound trains carrying construction materials, agricultural produce, garments and other merchandise traveled via nine cross-border routes linking Xinjiang to Central Asian countries in 2016, said Hu Kaijiang, director of the Xinjiang Economic and Information Commission.

This year, Xinjiang plans to expand operations to run 400 westbound cross-border trains to facilitate exports of technology and equipment and seek new growth opportunities, Hu said.

Geographic location, rich natural resources and preferential policies introduced to encourage opening-up have given Xinjiang advantages in becoming the core area on the economic belt, Shokrat said. Becoming a key player on the economic belt will also benefit the region's social development.

Besides improving its transportation network, the region will focus on the development of key cities along the economic belt. Xinjiang aims to achieve more than 7 percent economic growth this year and to see "substantial" progress in making the region serve as the transportation, logistic, financial, cultural and medical center on the modern Silk Road, he added.
Proposal to better protect rare porpoise

Volunteer Xie Shoujun (left) helps to complete a health check of a Yangtze porpoise in the Tian'ezhou National Nature Reserve in Hubei province on Oct 24. The species is known as finless porpoise because it lacks a dorsal fin. [Photo/Xinhua]

Political advisers warn species could disappear within a decade

The endangered Yangtze finless porpoise has about a decade until extinction unless it is elevated to the nation's top-class protected species list, national political advisers from Hubei province warned.

"There are only about 1,000 finless porpoises left in the Yangtze River, fewer than the number of giant pandas," said Xu Xudong, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Hydrobiology. "If the number keeps dropping at the current speed, the species might be extinct in a decade."

Xu, along with nine other members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made a joint proposal this year to lift the legal status of the finless porpoise, a rare freshwater mammal.

He said the national list for priority wildlife protection has remained almost the same since 1989, "but the situation of porpoises is totally different".

"When I was in college in Wuhan, Hubei province, in the late 1970s, we could easily see porpoises in the Yangtze River," said Li Chang'an, a professor of environmental geology at China University of Geosciences who signed the proposal.

"With the development of the shipping industry in the river, it's getting harder to protect them," Li said. "But we should by no means let the porpoises follow the path of the white-flag dolphin."

The white-flag dolphin, also known as baiji, was officially declared "functionally extinct" in the Yangtze River in 2006 after scientists decided the population was too small to reproduce effectively, leaving the Yangtze finless porpoise as the only mammal in the river.

A survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the World Wildlife Fund in 2012 showed the river's porpoise population stood at about 1,040. About 100 die every year, some as a result of human activity, but many others sustain serious injuries, according to WWF figures.

"However, no one has been punished in any way for killing porpoises," Xu said. "It is highly possible that our proposal will be adopted, as it has been a critical moment for the animal."

The revised wildlife-protection law, which took effect in January, "demands the list of wildlife of priority protection to be updated every five years".

As a first-class protected species, the government will pay more attention to the porpoises, more ordinary people will be aware of their situation and those who hurt the animal will be punished severely, Xu said. The porpoise's natural habitat is mainly the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and two of its adjacent lakes, Poyang and Dongting.

Xu said unlike the breeding of pandas, the human-assisted breeding technology of the finless porpoise is not advanced.

"Half of the porpoises live in the main waterway of the Yangtze River. We can only expect those living in the Poyang and Dongting lakes to be well protected," he said.

He explained a proposed ban on fishing in the Yangtze River for a decade to restock fish species, "will also be good for the porpoises".

The issue has attracted public attention. In early February, thousands of people helped search for a porpoise with a hook in its back.
Bronze ritual vessels and 13th-century painting Six Dragons will be put under the hammer in New York. [Photo/China Daily]

Four 3,000-year-old Chinese bronze ritual vessels are among 31 Chinese works of art to be auctioned at a New York sale on Wednesday night.

The items to be sold by Christie's are from the collection of the Osaka-based Fujita Museum, which was founded in 1954 to display the collection of Japanese entrepreneur Denzaburo Fujita (1841-1912) and his sons.

The four vessels, each with a presale estimate surpassing $4 million, were used as wine containers during ceremonies in the late Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC). They are seen as examples of refined bronze-working skills, and three of them are believed to have been excavated in the city of Anyang, in Henan province.

A square fangzun vessel features mythical creatures on its four shoulders. They look like birds that have hooked beaks, wings and curled tails, while notably, they each wear a horned monster mask. Hybrids combining the features of imagined and real animals like this were a common way for the Shang people to create motifs on bronze objects.
"Spring" by China Post [Photo provided to China Daily]

China Post will issue a set of four stamps titled Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, priced at 5.4 yuan (78 US cents), on March 20.

Designed by established artist Feng Yuan, each stamp portrays a landscape and speaks to a philosophy adopted by ancient Chinese that man should follow natural rules in everyday life.

"Spring" shows children flying kites and swallow crossing the sky while sprouting willow trees indicating the arrival of spring.

"Summer" shows boys playing in a pool of lotus flowers and a teenage girl rowing a boat which is loaded with lotus seedpods.

"Autumn" shows children busy harvesting in a gold paddy field. And "Winter" shows children celebrating in anticipation of Spring Festival and lighting firecrackers in the snow.
The cover of 2017 fire fighter-led calendar [Photo/Official weibo account of Shaanxi Provincial Fire Brigade]

At the end of last year, the Shaanxi Provincial Fire Brigade released a special desk calendar on its official Weibo account. The series of firefighter group photos stirred up a heated discussion on the social media platform.

"They are the most handsome heroes in every fire disaster by risking their lives to save victims in need," Sina Weibo user Linhaoyu said.

"Powerful these pictures look to be, I admire them more for their bravery, selflessness and loyalty, " another user, Dongbaoxin, added.

Now, the latest wave of appreciation has arrived from Japan. On the country's influential forum 2ch.com, many Japanese have demonstrated a strong interest in the calendar.

Here are some most viewed comments from Japanese netizens.

"Why doesn't our country have such a calendar?"

"I truly want to have a calendar like this. And I have already set one of the pictures as my phone wallpaper." "These firefighters are real handsome. I would prefer to spend more than 5,000 yen ($43.56) to purchase it."

After sharing their positive image of Chinese firefighters, some netizens expressed doubts that the men in the calendar are not real firefighters, but rather models.

"But the handsome men in the pictures are true grassroots firefighters", the Shaanxi Provincial Fire Brigade said. "Their toned, muscular bodies are the result of demanding daily training and dangerous rescue missions."

Meanwhile, according to Xinhua News Agency, firefighting is one of the most dangerous occupations in China. Every year, more than 30 firefighters die in the line of duty and over 300 are injured or even disabled. Also, with ever-increasing high-rise buildings and supermarkets, firefighters may be faced with more tough work in the future ahead.

"Behind the huge popularity of the firefighter calendar, more attention should be paid to the daily life and the spirit of these unknown heroes," a teacher told students in his class.
Alibaba and the Royal Danish Consulate General have signed a framework agreement. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Alibaba and the Royal Danish Consulate General have signed a framework agreement that launched two Danish pavilions, on the Alibaba's business-to-consumer site Tmall Global and travel service platform Fliggy.

"With the opening of an official Danish pavilion on China's leading e-commerce marketplace Tmall Global, we hope to draw attention to Danish products," says Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen.

On Tmall, 21 Danish brands of consumer products are showcased, including fashion, lifestyle, audio, home, food and beer.

The new Fliggy shop offers general information about places of interest provided by VisitDenmark, as well as tour packages.

"I am pleased to formalize our efforts with Denmark and open the Denmark pavilions on Tmall Global and Fliggy, allowing Alibaba to serve Danish businesses of all sizes with direct access to the growing Chinese middle-class market," says Joe Tsai, Alibaba Group executive vice-chairman.

"Danish design, art and lifestyle are admired all over the world for their sophistication and minimalism, and there is no doubt that Danish products will become even more popular among Chinese customers, enticing an ever-growing number of them to want to travel to the country themselves."

Related:

Ireland prepares for four-day St Patrick's Festival in Dublin

Sample a slice of America
Soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) march during the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, in Beijing, Sept 3, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

If China's 7.6 percent military budget increase last year, the lowest since 2011, raised eyebrows, then the lower increase of only 7 percent announced for 2017 raised a question: Will such a low defence budget become the new normal in years to come?

The answer is probably yes. China's economy has slowed. Premier Li Keqiang anticipates GDP growth of 6.5 percent this year. For the People's Liberation Army, defence spending has to go in tandem with national economic development. This is a principle that has been upheld since former leader Deng Xiaoping told the PLA in 1985, "The real modernization of the weaponry of the military will only be possible when the national economy has laid a sound basis for it."

Will a 7 percent budget increase affect the PLA's capacity building? Yes, but in a limited way. Thanks to the PLA's strenuous modernization efforts and China's sustained investment in its defense industry over the decades, the PLA has been able to advance by leaps and bounds. The ongoing military reform, the most profound in the history of the PLA in terms of vision and audacity, will bring revolutionary changes to the PLA and make it leaner and stronger. Simply put, the PLA now can afford to have a lower defence budget.

And, if defence expenditure is an indicator of a country's security assessment, then China's lowest ever budget speaks volumes about its confidence in the world order and in the regional situation. Yes, there are many global problems ranging from the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula to the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group, the exodus of refugees and rising nationalism and populism in Europe and the United States, but isn't history full of similar problems in different clothing? And isn't the world today much safer than when it was always on the brink of nuclear conflict during the Cold War?

China is now closer to center stage in world affairs and what China thinks matters all the more to the rest of the world. If China believes its security environment has worsened to the degree it has to largely increase its military spending, it will be a nightmare for its neighbors. If China believes the US has taken China as enemy, then the US is China's enemy.

But in the various crises that have occurred in the past, such as Taiwan ex-leader Chen Shui-bian's call for a referendum on Taiwan "independence", NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in the former Yugoslavia, the collision between Chinese and US aircraft in China's exclusive economic zone, China has continually exercised restraint and, more importantly, it hasn't changed its optimistic conclusion that although the world is far from peaceful, peace and development are still the major trends of the times.

China's defence budget has decreased at a time when US President Donald Trump has called for $603 billion in defence spending, a 10 percent increase in the US' defence budget, which is already more than the combined defence budgets of the eight highest defence spenders after the US. It remains to see how Trump will succeed in "rebuild (ing) the (US') depleted military" while pursuing cuts elsewhere in federal government spending. Getting NATO members to spend up to 2 percent of their GDP might be a smart idea to lessen the US' burden, but slashing funding in other areas of federal spending is unlikely to go down well at home. It looks more like robbing Peter to pay for Paul. China pursues peaceful development. Therefore it will adhere to what it has practiced over nearly four decades, that is, it will not start a war with any other country and keep its military building affordable and sustainable. Only in so doing can the PLA gain fresh momentum for continuous development and attain its goal of realizing full military modernization by the mid-21st century.

The author is an honorary fellow at the Center of China-American Defense Relations of the PLA Academy of Military Science.
Members of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Liu Changle (C), Feng Jicai (3rd R), Su Shishu (3rd L), Jackie Chan (2nd R) and Hai Xia (2nd L) attend a press conference for the fifth session of the 12th CPPCC National Committee on consolidating confidence in Chinese culture and telling stories of China and its people in Beijing, capital of China, March 7, 2017.[Photo by Wang Zhuangfei/China Daily]

The 11-day annual session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's top political advisory body, offered a good chance for its more than 2,000 members to pool their professional experience and wisdom and put forward suggestions on the issues of greatest concern to the general public, which range from poverty relief to food safety to environmental protection.

The significance of this system of political consultation and supervision should never be underestimated, as it plays an irreplaceable role in guaranteeing good governance.

The system is representative of the country, as its members come from all social and industrial sectors, political parties and ethnic groups, representing the interests of people from all walks of life.

The policies drafted by the top leadership will largely incorporate these political advisers' suggestions, which have been collected directly from the people and thus reflect their needs. In this way government policies are people-oriented.

This was highlighted again in the priorities of suggestions accepted during this year's session of the CPPCC National Committee, which concluded on Monday. Of the more than 4,100 proposals accepted, 34.7 percent are related to economic issues, 35.5 percent to social issues, and the rest cover political, cultural and ecological issues.

These suggestions will not be just pieces of paper. Rather, they will be handled seriously and materialize into major State initiatives. The China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, for example, which was launched in 2013 as a testing ground for a number of the country's economic reforms, was developed from a proposal of Shanghai political advisers.

As suggested by its name, the CPPCC features consultative democracy, rather than the confrontational democratic systems witnessed in many other countries. This democratic system, born out of China's culture and tradition, suits China's reality, and has proven effective in guiding the country on its fast track of economic and social development and remarkable improvement in people's livelihoods.

As President Xi Jinping has said, the essence and core of socialist democracy is that people are the masters of themselves. This is actually what the CPPCC is all about. It is of the people, from the people and for the people.

It has enabled China to achieve, within decades, what other major industrialized nations have taken hundreds of years to achieve. And it will continue to help the country, already the world's second-largest economy, make further progress and realize its grand goal of national rejuvenation.
Premier Li Keqiang vowed to implement a list-based management system in the Government Work Report he delivered on March 5 to the fifth plenary session of the 12th National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

He urged the State Council, China's Cabinet, to draw up a list of the powers and responsibilities of various government departments this year, streamlining government bureaucracy and delegating powers to lower levels of government.

He also called for the pilot reform of the market-entry negative list to be extended to more places, reduce the government's discretionary power and increase market players' right to select on their own.

If well implemented, this will create huge space for innovation and the development of the new economy.

The list-based management system Li pledges to establish throughout the various levels of government will draw the boundaries of power and responsibility for every department and every post.

On one hand, the governments will find it harder to abuse their power or shirk their responsibilities. On the other hand, the lists will make it much easier for power to be supervised by not only the watchdogs, but also the media and the public.

It is time now for the country to further advance in a market-oriented direction by upholding the laws and regulations to effectively protect the rights and interests of market players.
DURING THE FIFTH PLENARY SESSION of the 12th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, Huang Jianping, a deputy from South China's Guangdong province, said the robust growth of virtual economy has taken a toll on bricks-and-mortar enterprises. Beijing News commented on Monday:

Huang, who is also the chairman of Guangdong Wonderful Ceramics Co Ltd, has good reason to fire away at the dark side of the internet-driven economy. Like many manufacturing veterans, he is infuriated by the fact that many online retailers, despite their blatant infringements of the intellectual property rights of other manufacturers, are not held accountable due to the difficulty in holding them to account.

In fact, Jack Ma, founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, recently commented on the intellectual property rights issue, saying counterfeiting should be dealt with in the way drunken driving has been handled. In other words, the root cause of the unruly counterfeiting is that intellectual property is not under proper protection.

Countries at the early stages of industrialization are tempted to emulate the success of industrial leaders. In China's case, when the reform and opening-up policy was launched in the late 1970s, resources were scarce and most citizens could not afford quality products. That explains why many copycats would focus on manufacturing affordable goods even at the risk of violating other companies' intellectual property rights.

Although the days of scarcity are in the past, the protection of intellectual property rights has made limited progress as enterprises are less motivated to pursue innovations. Being an industrial trailblazer, to some extent, means higher costs but not necessarily more gains because copycats can achieve more success simply by "improving" on their pioneering products.

Some enterprises put profitability in front of legality, especially when the production cost keeps rising these days. And even if they are caught the legal consequences of their actions are limited.

The truth is that amid the country's economic transition many primitive Chinese manufacturers are losing in the competition with their Southeast Asian counterparts, which have become more attractive to foreign investors that favor low-cost labor. It is lackluster innovation that has led to excessive capacity in China and dwindling profits in manufacturing, not the internet economy.
The Snow Caused 35 Cars To Crash On The Kennedy Expressway Last Night

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Mar 14, 2017 2:20PM



The Expressway on a better day. Photo via Chicagoist Flickr Pool User Ann Fisher

Two separate car crashes on The Kennedy Expressway late Monday night, just as the region was hit by the heaviest snowfall we've seen all year, caused a total of 35 cars to crash, critically injuring one man and injuring at least six other people.

The crashes, which occurred near Division Street in West Town, according to the Tribune, happened around 10:15 p.m., and prompted officials to temporarily close express lanes for a few hours. The critically-injured man, 39, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The crashes reportedly happened like a chain reaction, with the collision of two cars causing more cars to hit each other one after the other. They both took place within a mile of each other in the inbound express lanes, Illinois State Police told the Sun-Times. Authorities said the slick roads were being caused by the lake-effect snow hitting the area; Chicago is under a commute-snarling lake-effect snow advisory through Tuesday afternoon from the National Weather Service.
Premier Li Keqiang talks with Xinjiang students at Dalian No 20 Senior High School in Liaoning province on Monday, one day before Teachers' Day. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY

MINISTER OF EDUCATION CHEN BAOSHENG answered questions from the media at a news conference during the fifth plenary session of the 12th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, on Sunday. A primary concern was how to better balance education resources among different provinces and regions, as well as between urban and rural areas. Southern Metropolis Daily comments:

Several media outlets asked questions about education equality. Xinhua News Agency asked about the difficulties that poor, rural primary schools face in recruiting teachers, while China Education TV mentioned the village in Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, Southwest China's Sichuan province, that has been in the news recently because the children there have to climb down and up a ladder to scale the cliff face when they travel to and from their school at the bottom of the cliff.

Combining these questions with the others, we can conclude that fair distribution of education resources is a primary concern of the public and the major media outlets. While some developed provinces and regions are so rich that they have extended free education to 15 years, many poor regions find it hard to sustain the compulsory nine years of free education.

Last July, the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued a guiding document that listed 10 measures, including further coordinating education resources between urban and rural regions, to help improve mandatory education in rural regions.

The central government has been making efforts to more fairly distribute education resources among different provinces and regions. Now it is the turn of local governments to improve the most basic public education products for residents.

In that process, local governments should better mobilize private capital and other social resources, instead of fighting alone.

Besides, many entrepreneurs have been investing in private primary and secondary schools, and they are now running smoothly in rural regions. If these private schools can prosper more people will be encouraged to invest in rural education.
Peng Xuefeng, CPPCC National Committee member and founder of Dacheng Law Offices

Editor's note: During the two sessions, China Daily has collected the questions foreign netizens care most about and solicited answers from experts, CPPCC National Committee members and NPC deputies.

Do you think governments at all levels will establish business consultancy agencies for foreigners?

I don't think they will, at least not in the short term, because governments have their roles to play in releasing and interpreting policies. Authorities at all levels will give the public the most accurate interpretation they have, but it may be a better idea for players in different markets to provide suggestions for foreigners seeking business advice.

China already has a large number of consultancy firms, both domestic and foreign-owned, which provide strategic advice to help foreign companies localize their businesses, overcome challenges and make decisions. If my memory serves right, there were at least 10,000 domestic consultancies in China five years ago. There will be more professional companies to help foreigners better understand policies in the future.
A news conference on draft general provisions of civil law is held in Beijing, March 9, 2017. [Kuang Linhua/China Daily]

On Wednesday, March 15, 2017, the 5th Session of the 12th National People Congress (NPC) is scheduled to formally adopt the General Provisions of Civil Law.

The General Provisions of Civil Law constitute the general part of the Peoples Republic of Chinas first-ever comprehensive Civil Code, which is due for roll-out in 2020 after literally decades of preparatory work and rigorous debates.

The General Provisions consist of 210 articles and 11 chapters and are based on the landmark 1986 General Principles of Civil Law (GPCL), which were partly revised in 2009.

The finalized Civil Code, when promulgated in 2020, will include additional specific chapters on contracts, property rights, torts liability, marriage, succession, and foreign-related civil relationships, among others.

All of these specific, albeit quite lengthy, chapters already exist as free-standing Chinese laws which will be incorporated in the comprehensive PRC Civil Code.

The General Provisions provide the overall framework for Chinas Civil Code which fundamentally defines and protects the civil and commercial rights of Chinese individuals, business entities, and other institutions in Chinese society. The General Provisions, as the core chapter of the Civil Code, also delineate legal relations between Chinese citizens and social and economic organizations, on the one hand, and Chinese government and administrative authorities, on the other.

As such, the NPC adoption of the General Provisions is a historic event of the highest magnitude for Chinas legal system development and the rule of law in China.

The adoption of the General Provisions also marks a watershed for China in its quest to be recognized globally as a great power. China cannot become a truly great power without a world-class legal system. This is, without doubt, a major step in that direction.

The General Provisions are noteworthy in that they break new ground on various subjects updating and revising the earlier GPCL in light of the myriad social and economic changes that have impacted China in the ensuing decades. The General Provisions provide new definitions of legal persons: particularly, for-profit and non-profit legal persons. The non-legal person organization, including partnerships and sole proprietorships, is also a new wrinkle not found in the earlier GPCL.
Prof Robert E Kelly keeps his cool during an interview about South Korean politics when his two children interrupt him, live on air, on BBC World News. [Photo/screenshot from BBC World News]

When Professor Robert Kelly was interrupted by his two kids rushing into his room during a BBC interview being broadcast live, his wife, South Korean Jung-a Kim, hastily grabs the kids, dragging them out of the room and closing the door. As the less than one-minute video from March 10 soon went viral, many assumed Ms Kim was the nanny, rather than his wife, simply because she is a young Asian.

Early comments on Twitter and Facebook showed that when many viewers saw the panicked Asian woman rushing into the professor's office they regarded Kim as a babysitter or the hired help.

Some media outlets also made the mistake, as Time.com described: "The episode reaches a crescendo when a frenzied nanny burst in, in a cartoon-like blur, and corrals the children out of the room." The media tycoon later clarified that the woman is Kelly's wife, Jung-a Kim.

The video, which has now been viewed millions of times, has provoked fierce debate, as some social media users called the reaction "racism", and reflective of the invisible stereotypes that still remain deep-rooted in the heads of many people.

A twitter user @ShanaazMohammed posted a family photo of Kelly, his wife, and their daughter, saying: "Many people keep referring to Prof Robert Kelly's wife, Jung-a Kim, as "the nanny". Here they are."

Professor Robert E Kelly poses for a family photo with wife Jung-a Kim and daughter Marion. [Photo/Twitter]

"If you 'automatically' thought Professor Robert E Kelly's Asian wife was his nanny, you need to unfollow me. You are a racist. Goodbye," tweeted @RenagadeGirl on March 10.

"I feel so sad for Robert Kelly's wife. Half the world thinks she's the kids' nanny," posted Sarah D. Janjua on Twitter on March 11, as the debate raged.

However, the episode was simply "hilarious" in the eye of Prof Kelly's mother, Ellen Kelly, as she thought the young children probably thought their dad was Skyping their grandparents from their home in South Korea. "Life happens. The lesson is to lock the door," added the grandma.

But the accompanying fierce debate on racism still require pondering.

A Facebook search shows Professor Robert Kelly teaches political science at Pusan National University in Busan, Korea, where he now lives with his wife, Jung-a Kim, a yoga teacher, and their two children, Marion, 4, and 9-month-old James.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus gives a speech during a press conference after the cabinet meeting in Ankara, Turkey on March 13, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

ANKARA  Turkey announced a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands on Monday over its refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to campaign there, including halting high-level political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish air space to Dutch diplomats.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, briefing journalists after the weekly council of ministers meeting, said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps "to redress" the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

"There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn't create this crisis or bring it to this stage," Kurtulmus said. "Those who did have to take steps to redress the situation."Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group. The announcement came hours after Turkey's foreign ministry formally protested the treatment of a Turkish minister who was prevented from entering a consulate in the Netherlands and escorted out of the country after trying to attend a political rally.

The ministry also objected to what it called a "disproportionate" use of force against demonstrators at a protest afterward. Separately, Turkey's foreign minister was denied permission to land to address the same rally in Rotterdam.

The argument is over the Netherlands' refusal to allow Turkish officials to campaign there to drum up support among Turks who are eligible to vote in an April 16 referendum that would greatly expand the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

About 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands, though it's not clear how many are eligible to vote.

Erdogan said the two cabinet ministers  Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, would ask the European human rights court to weigh in on their treatment. He added that he didn't think the court would rule in Turkey's favor.

Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed the Netherlands in its diplomatic fight with Turkey, as NATO's chief called for alliance members to respect each other and the European Union urged Turkey to calm down.

Turkey had a similar dispute with Germany last week, but the fight with the Netherlands comes as that country prepares for its own election Wednesday pitting Prime Minister Mark Rutte's right-wing PVV Party against far-right, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders' party.

Merkel, speaking at a news conference in Munich on Monday, pledged her "full support and solidarity" to the Dutch, saying the Nazi gibes were "completely unacceptable." Erdogan responded angrily to Merkel's support for the Netherlands.
Lincoln, the luxury unit of Ford Motor Co, said on Monday that it plans to build a luxury sport utility vehicle in China in partnership with the Chang'an Automobile Group.

The as-yet unnamed vehicle will be built at a plant in the city of Chongqing. It is scheduled to go on sale in late 2019 only in China, the world's largest auto market, according to Lincoln spokesman Said Deep.

Building in China will help Lincoln meet growing customer demand and enable the company to become more responsive to changing customer preferences, Deep wrote in an email. As Lincoln grows in China it makes sense to produce this new SUV in China, he added.

Lincoln exports its vehicles from North America to China, and reported sales of 32,558 in 2016, three times more than it sold in 2015.

Ford and its joint venture partners sold a record 1.27 million vehicles in China last year. Lincoln isn't the only US luxury brand taking aim at China. General Motors said its Cadillac volume in China rose 46 percent in 2016 to 116,406 , the first time it passed 100,000 vehicles in China in a single year.
Del Christensen, chief of global business development at the Bay Area Council. [Photo/China Daily]

China and San Francisco's Bay Area should collaborate more in such fields as biotech, clean tech, Internet of Things and agriculture, says a veteran global trade enabler in the US city.

Del Christensen, chief of global business development at the Bay Area Council, also said the Chinese government and companies should focus on the quality of their innovation programs instead of quantity.

Bay Area Council has been helping US companies access the Chinese market since 2008 by opening offices and conducting research.

Christensen said China's shift from the world's biggest manufacturer to an innovation-driven economy was "the right decision".

He said he first learned about the innovation-driven economy from a Chinese delegation which visited the Bay Area to seek investment opportunities. He cited "environmental concern" as the main reason for China to adopt innovation as the foundation for developing its real economy, and ultimately speed up its transformation and upgrading.

Currently overseeing the council's trade and investment efforts in Shanghai  and directing the development of Bay Area business in China through its other two offices in Nanjing and Hangzhou  Christensen has an important role in cloud computing and cyber security.

Over the years, China has been making great efforts to enforce intellectual property protection, which has been a major concern for US companies, deterring them from conducting tech/innovation collaborations with Chinese counterparts.

"I believe things have been changed for better in recent years," Christensen said.

The council's 25 law firm members all now operate in China and say they are treated equally with native enterprises.

"From top down, from the central government down to local governing bodies, overall they are trying to create a win-win situation for tech sector and innovation (between China and the US)," he said.

Most recently, the council started bringing entrepreneurs from San Francisco's top-tier incubators and accelerators to China in order to launch two-way communications on investment and technology. Given the cutting-edge technology California boasts in areas of IoT, cloud computing of biotech components, new energy, clean tech, bio manufacturing and agriculture, Christensen said he expected China-US cooperation in innovation to experience an explosive increase.

China's Belt and Road Initiative, for example, should generate many tech collaborations between China and the US, said Christensen. "I look forward to seeing more cooperation to take place."
The White House said on Monday that a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping is in the works, but it declined to specify the timing and location of the meeting.

Early on Monday, US media reported on a tentative plan that said the two presidents would hold their first summit soon.

"Planning is ongoing for a visit between President Trump and President Xi at a date to be determined," the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a news briefing on Monday afternoon.

"We're not ready to confirm that, and we will have more details. Any meeting between the presidents of the United States and the People's Republic of China would necessarily cover a broad range of topics of mutual concern."

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last week that China and the United States have fruitful communication on realizing exchanges between their presidents and at other levels, and expanding all areas of cooperation.

At a news conference during the two sessions, Wang said the China-US relationship is transitioning steadily and developing in a positive direction, due to the intense communication and joint efforts of both sides.

"There is no reason why China and the US could not become excellent partners, as long as we act on the consensus reached by our presidents, follow the principles of no-conflict, no-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," he said.

Spicer noted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be visiting China, and that "as we go forward we will have additional details on both the timing and the location of that when we go forward".

Tillerson will embark on his first trip to Asia on Wednesday, after taking the job as President Trump's top diplomat about a month ago.

The three-nation tour will bring him to China on March 18, after visiting Japan and South Korea.

Also on Monday, Susan Thornton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said Tillerson's trip will, to some extent, be "paving the way" for future high-level meetings between the two presidents.

"As you've seen from the communications between the two presidents themselves, there has been talk about their early meeting," she told the preview meeting.

Thornton said Tillerson will meet Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and will also meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

She said she expected the discussion will cover the areas of cooperation that "we're looking to continue to pursue, to continue to discuss, and make progress on".

Tillerson will look to set out workplan for the bilateral relationship in the new administration, she said.
When female pioneers in the US century started their campaign for change  shorter working hours, better pay and voting rights  in the early 20th century, they probably didn't foresee that 100 years after, women as a group still need to fight for equality and against gender discrimination.

International Women's Day on March 8 not only celebrated the tremendous progress made toward women's emancipation, but reminded us that worldwide gender parity has not been achieved.

A recent live-stream video, which has generated much media attention, sparked a public argument about whether women are still stereotyped as inferior to their male counterparts, especially in an interracial marriage.

It started hilariously on March 3 when Robert Kelly, a political science professor at Pusan National University in South Korea was commenting on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye on BBC Live. His two children, first his preschool daughter then his son in a squeaky walker, crashed their dad's interview by whooping it up in the background.

Then a flustered woman dashed in, knocking books off a table before falling to her knees to drag the two troublemakers out of the room, finally grabbing the handle to close the door.

The video, shorter than one minute, went viral, accumulating more than 15 million views on BBC One's Facebook within a few hours and generating wide coverage by domestic and international media.

The flood of commentary ranged from parenting to work-life balance to globalization. But one point of view resonated: Was the woman rescuer the wife or the nanny?

Many assumed that she was the nanny, given her casual outfit, her frantic demeanor, her crawling on the floor and her Asian features.

"This nanny is absolutely unemployed," wrote Podfathers Podcast on Twitter, winning about 464,000 likes.

Joyce Carol, another social media commentator, wrote "Poor nanny will be fired."

However, the truth is that the woman, Jung A-Kim, is the children's mother, Kelly's wife and a yoga teacher.

Although hiring a nanny to help working couples is not rare in Asian countries such as South Korea and China, the assumption that Kim was a domestic helper rather than the children's mother revealed that the stereotypes about an Asian women's role in an interracial marriage are deep-rooted.

Asian women are often portrayed as "gold diggers" and subservient to men, white men in particular, said Athena Han, a graduate from UCLA's Anderson Business School and now a senior market analyst who has many Asian companies as clients.

"That stereotyped mentality helps explain why many intend to project Kim as a nanny being panicked and fearful in this situation instead of an embarrassed mother who wanted to help her distracted husband," Han said.

The immediate assumption is problematic, misleading and equates to racism, she said.

"Can everyone please stop assuming the woman in that BBC video is the nanny? She is his wife," wrote Ashitha Nagesh on Twitter, using the hash tag "stop being racist".

"Loved the BBC video. But do not assume an Asian woman with a white man is the nanny. Such subtle racism," echoed Natashya Gutierrez.

I could not help but recall comments made at a gathering on March 7 at the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco to celebrate International Women's Day.

"The purpose of observing this holiday is to remind all of us (that) women and men to date are still not equal," said Consul General Luo Linquan. "There is still a long way for women all over the world to claim the same equality in all aspects as their male counterparts."

Nonetheless, this clip instructs viewers about their biases.

We can at least "laugh it off  grow smarter", as Maria Chong suggested on Twitter.

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com
Four 3,000-year-old Chinese bronze ritual vessels are among 31 Chinese works of art to be auctioned at a New York sale on Wednesday night.

Bronze ritual vessels and 13th-century painting Six Dragons will be put under the hammer in New York. [Photo/China Daily]

The items to be sold by Christie's are from the collection of the Osaka-based Fujita Museum, which was founded in 1954 to display the collection of Japanese entrepreneur Denzaburo Fujita (1841-1912) and his sons.

The four vessels, each with a presale estimate surpassing $4 million, were used as wine containers during ceremonies in the late Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC). They are seen as examples of refined bronze-working skills, and three of them are believed to have been excavated in the city of Anyang, in Henan province.

A square fangzun vessel features mythical creatures on its four shoulders. They look like birds that have hooked beaks, wings and curled tails, while notably, they each wear a horned monster mask. Hybrids combining the features of imagined and real animals like this were a common way for the Shang people to create motifs on bronze objects.
video video video

Chinese artist Wang Tingxin hopes to make an impression on the international art world at her first exhibition outside Hong Kong, which continues in London's Halcyon Gallery until March 26.

Courtyard of the Soul is an exploration of light and color on black canvas in which the 44-year-old combines traditional Chinese brush work with aspects of French impressionism to create something distinctly hers.

Although there are subtle nods to the later paintings of Claude Monet in her work, Wang also shows traditional Chinese elements in her depictions of water lilies.

"A Chinese scenery painting leaves a lot of room for imagination," she said. "Both Chinese painting and impressionist painting have very strong links because they emphasize, capture and express the feeling of a scene."

Wang was born in Hong Kong in 1973, where she still lives. In addition to finding her creativity through Western artwork, she also finds it close to home.

"My grandmother took me to Beijing and we visited the Summer Palace where we saw a magnificent lily pond and she taught me the Chinese philosophy behind it," Wang said.

In Chinese culture, water lilies are symbols of purity, goodness and elegance, despite having roots in shallow, often murky, waters.

"My grandmother taught me, in life, no matter how messy the world can become and what kind of challenges and temptations we face, we still need to remember to hold our values and beliefs," she said. "So, this teaching has guided me through life and whenever I see lily ponds, it reminds me of my grandmother's teachings."

For her Courtyard of the Soul collection at the Halcyon Gallery, each piece is produced on xuan paperan ancient variety of paper that originated in Anhui province, where materials go through more than 140 processes to create the fine, smooth and tenacious texture.

Wang explained: "The reason I use black paper is because I believe the world was dark at its inception and I found that when I started to paint on black paper, it opens up my imagination and I feel excited about creating things on it."

Wang left Hong Kong in 1989 to study in Canada. When she returned, she wanted to deepen her understanding of her origins and studied Chinese culture, with a focus on painting and calligraphy.

Her first solo exhibition was held in Hong Kong in 2015.

Paul Green, president of Halcyon Gallery, said: "Wang Tingxin is an incredible talent and, from her work here, the influences and the relationship between impressionism and Chinese culture is fascinating.

"There are relatively few famous female artists in the world so it is a real privilege to have Wang Tingxin's work here and to see the massive progress she is making internationally."
China is trying to raise its cultural influence in parallel with its economic power by engaging with dozens of foreign writers and sinologists, as manifested by an event staged by the China Publishing Group at the London Book Fair on Tuesday.

Jiang Jun, vice-president of CPG, told attendees at the Foreigners Writing About China event that, as Chinas economy has grown, so has interest from non-Chinese people in Chinas culture.

China is not just an economic powerhouse but a cultural influence on the world, he said.

Titles released at the event include Recollections of the Past written by German sinologist Wolfgang Kubin, China-India Relationship (Chinese and English versions) written by Indian sinologist B. R. Deepak and A Concise History of China, co-edited and co-abridged by British scholar Michael Dillon and others.

The Chinese-English version of Latest Annotations to the Book of Changes written and translated by Shao Naidu was also launched. The Book of Changes or I Ching is an ancient Chinese book that has been analyzed and commented on throughout its 3,000-year history and that has attracted attention and praise from philosophers and scientists for centuries.

Zhang Gaoli, editor-in-chief of the China Translation Publishing House, said his company launched its program in 2015 with a seminar in Beijing on translation.

When I communicated with those sinologists, I found they all had interesting stories about their time in China and their experiences and I was curious to know more about when and how they had started to learn about culture and languages  So, we initiated the program, Foreigners Writing About China.

Zhang said the collaboration will help promote Chinese culture and push Chinese books into the international market.

Zhang also signed agreements with Swedish sinologist Cecilia Lindqvist and French sinologist Joel Bellassen, who will write books about China.

Lindqvist said she hopes to share her interesting experiences.

I wanted to inform Swedish readers about the wonderful things that can be found in China, she said. People didnt know about China, so I wanted to write a book on the beauty and difficulties of China.

The writers involved in the project will share their stories, including their backgrounds, their experiences, and the reasons why they developed an affection and fascination for the country.

Lindqvist said, in 1970, after a decade of travels in other countries and having two children, she introduced the Chinese language and culture to students at a Swedish middle school.

After the book launches and meetings, the sinologists, scholars and publishers got together to discuss the translation, publication and overseas promotion of more than 30 export-oriented titles displayed by CPG.

Charles Aylmer, head of Chinese department at Cambridge University, said the field was once unpopular but is now of interest to many people.

China has changed a great deal, Aylmer said. I think people today have an entirely different perception of China. When I started with Chinese, 40 years ago, people would ask why, and now they say it was a clever move because China has risen to become such an important economic power in the world.

Contact the writers at boleung@mail.chinadailyuk.com
China's Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming on Monday said Britain's role in strengthening the Belt and Road Initiative was vital to increase global trade and connectivity.

Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to the UK

Writing in the UK newspaper The Telegraph, Liu said Britain is a country of global influence and could be an important partner for China in its Belt and Road Initiative.

Liu's article, Britain is helping us build a new Silk Road' comes as China and UK celebrate the45th anniversary of ambassadorial relations.

Liu said Britain had many strengths and unique advantages that could give it a head start in Belt and Road cooperation, including the country's highly internationalized financial sector, mature professional services in law and consulting, prestigious think-tanks and educational institutions as well as world-class research and development and innovation platforms.

Britain's close historical and cultural ties with countries along the Belt and Road route, such as Kenya and Pakistan, were also another key advantage.

Liu said these strengths and advantages put Britain in an excellent position to secure all the opportunities the Belt and Road Initiative had to offer, such as increased investment and trade opportunities.

President Xi Jinping proposed the initiative in 2013 to connect Asia, Europe and Africa by developing modern infrastructure along ancient trade routes to encourage trade and investment growth.

The international connections would further enhance China's role in international trade and globalization, which President Xi supported in a speech made at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

Liu referred to President Xi's speech, saying that Xi's calling for "an open global economy to share opportunities and interests" had much in common with British Prime Minister Theresa May's vision of a truly "global Britain" that "embraces the world."

Liu said: "Both leaders understand that winning results are only possible if we increase global connectivity and share the fruits of growth. Increasing connectivity along the new Silk Road is one way to achieve that."

Liu said China and the UK could continue to jointly develop the market along the Belt and Road route, and deliver greater common prosperity.

To advance the Belt and Road Initiative further globally, China is set to host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May in Beijing, and China has invited May to attend.

Liu said: "The UK could be a key partner for China, reaping the potential of these opportunities. By ensuring we pull together, the Belt and Road Initiative could, like the Silk Road before it, go a long way to delivering better lives for many millions of people, from Asia to Europe."
A delegation from China's largest publishing group donated Chinese-language instruction books to Bohunt School in Liphook, Hampshire on Monday.

It is the second time the China Publishing Group Corp has visited the school. In April last year, the publishing giant gave the students more than 100 books.

This year, the delegation brought along more textbooks and reference books on Chinese learning and on China's history, culture and also some classic children's stories.

Bohunt was the first school to offer immersion courses in Mandarin to students.

Jiang Jun, vice-president of CPG, said: "I am very fortunate to represent CPG in visiting Bohunt School at this special occasion of the 45th anniversary of Sino-UK ministerial-level diplomatic ties.

"I hope these newer and up-to-date books we have brought along will help British students learn and understand China better," Jiang added, "These exchanges between CPG and Bohunt School can lead to deeper and more frequent levels of cooperation."

After the book donation, special guest Cecilia Lindqvist, a Swedish sinologist, gave a lecture on "the beauty of Chinese characters" to a group of students. Lindqvist spoke about the origins of Chinese ideographs and how it became the written characters still used in China today.

Sinology is the academic study of China primarily through Chinese language, literature, culture and history.

Jiang also said he hopes that the exchanges will help inspire students to become future sinologists.

Raymond Morton, chairman of the governing body of Bohunt School, stressed the importance of learning Mandarin, "No doubt the biggest market is in China, and the UK needs to be able to trade with China. It is an important step in not just learning the language but also understanding the Chinese culture."

Morton noted the need to "be able to talk to trading partners directly rather than through an interpreter".

Bohunt School was featured in a BBC documentary that followed five Chinese teachers who taught 50 students for four weeks using Chinese teaching methods.

The secondary school has more than 1,650 students between the ages of 11 and 16, and 450 of them are learning Chinese.
Long tentacles [By Zhai Haijun / China.org.cn]

When discussing international hypocrisy, analysts often make reference to "The City of God," a deeply influential text written by St. Augustine of Hippo, published in the year 426. The often cited text tells of a heated exchange between Alexander the Great and a pirate. After being apprehended, the sea robber is said to have rebuked the Greek Emperor saying: "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."

This fable regarding the principle of "might makes right" on the high seas should ring loudly in the heads of all who read the 2016 Freedom of Navigation Report from the U.S. Department of Defence.

The United States has not ratified the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea. Since the 1980s, U.S. leaders have maintained that the treaty is a "bad bargain" which hurts American businesses.

Though American representatives participated very closely in the international gathering that composed the treaty, U.S. leaders were unwilling to subject themselves to what was ultimately decided. Despite not signing the treaty, the U.S. Department of Defence still issues an annual Freedom of Navigation report, criticizing nations whose oceanic activities they consider to be inconsistent with the U.N. Convention.

While the 2016 report criticized many different countries, China's actions were very well highlighted. This narrative regarding China violating "Freedom of Navigation" fits into standard U.S. rhetoric regarding tensions in the South China Sea. China's increasing naval presence is said to be "aggressive" and "expansionist."

China's naval activity shouldn't be so hard to understand. Prior to 1949, when China was known as the "Sick Man of Asia," the country had barely any steel production, if any at all. Today, half of the steel in the world is produced in China.

Speaking on the recent anniversary of the Party's founding, Chinese President Xi Jinping said: "Prosperity for the people is the primary goal of the Communist Party of China, and it is this goal that distinguishes Marxist parties from other political forces."

Led by the Communist Party, China has made great achievements toward this goal of prosperity. The world tourism industry is reacting to a huge new market, as millions of Chinese families, in poverty just one or two generations before, are now taking international vacations. Economic statistics tell us that each day another Chinese person becomes a millionaire.

Stabilizing the world, securing trade routes

One of the hardships China has always faced in the process of working toward greater prosperity and eliminating poverty is securing access to natural resources. China leads the world in the development of alternative energy, hoping to end the global "oil addiction" which many have condemned. However, China's industries still require lots of petroleum in order to keep producing and supplying the world with commodities.

While China has some oil domestically, running the vast apparatus of production on the mainland requires imported petroleum. In addition to the land pipelines, most of China's oil comes by sea, specifically via the South China Sea.

Efforts to secure the routes of oil tankers fit in with China's overall vision of stabilizing the world, and ensuring peaceful growth and cooperation. China is working to stabilize the Middle East, and to resolve the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. China is cooperating with the Islamic Republic of Iran to build railways through Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia.

The strategy of "trade and transport" is intended to provide the economic opportunities, reducing the role of heroin traffickers and religious extremists. Much of China's oil comes from South America, and China has done a great deal to stabilize this region, with the financing of hydro-electrical power plants, schools, hospitals and other necessities.

The safer and more stable the world becomes, the more secure China's oil imports will be. China's presence in the South China Sea is not "expansionist" or "aggressive." It is about protecting the trade routes necessary for ensuring peaceful growth.

Chinese leaders have been very happy to negotiate with nearby countries such as the Philippines. Amid rising tensions, the people of this archipelago nation elected a leader, Rodrigo Duterte, who was determined, not to clash with China, but to resolve the differences.

Freedom of Navigation, most surely means that not only U.S. warships can travel as they please, but that other countries are also able to oversee and protect their vital imports. When U.S. leaders claim to be offended or threatened by actions far away from their shores, which are intended to ensure the safety of trade routes, their motivations must be questioned.

Caleb Maupin is a journalist and political analyst who resides in New York City focusing on U.S. foreign policy and the global system of monopoly capitalism and imperialism.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
 Flash

U.S. President Donald Trump means general surveillance when tweeting his Obama wiretapping accusation, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday.

"I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election," Spicer said at White House daily press briefing.

"The president used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities." said Spicer.

"The House and the Senate Intelligence Committees will now look into that and provide a report back. I think there's been numerous reports from a variety of outlets over the last couple months that seem to indicate that there has been different types of surveillance that occurred during the 2016 election," he added.

Being asked whether Americans "can trust it to be real" when Trump comments on something, Spicer answered yes unless the president is joking.

"If he's not joking, of course," Spicer replied. "Every time that he speaks authoritatively, he's speaking as president of United States."

Spicer's remarks came after mounting pressure from the Capitol seeking the Trump administration for evidence that the phones at Trump Tower were tapped prior to the Election Day.

"I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve, because, if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," John McCain, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday.

On March 4, Trump claimed in a tweet storm that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower before his election victory, offering no evidence.

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" Trump tweeted.

"Is it legal for a sitting president to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!" he added in subsequent tweets.

"I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad(or sick) guy!" Trump said on Twitter, spelling "tap" as "tapp" .

Hours after Trump tweeted, Obama's spokesman said Trump's wiretapping accusation is "simply false".

"A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement.

"As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false." said Lewis.

Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to Obama, tweeted at the time that presidents can't simply order wiretaps as Trump suggests.

There have been suggestions that contacts between Trump campaign team and Russia were picked up by intelligence agencies as part of routine surveillance of the Russians. Trump and his aides have denied there were any improper contacts.
(Photo : Getty Images. ) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has given a cautious warning to China over his countrys undisputed ownership on Benham Rise, adding that his country has no option but to deal with Beijing diplomatically.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has given a cautious warning to China over his country's undisputed ownership on Benham Rise amid reports that several Chinese survey ships were spotted in the undersea region last year.



"My order to my military, you go there and tell them straight that this is ours, but I say it in friendship," Duterte said in a news press conference. He added that "I cannot match the might of China," stressing that Philippines has no option but to negotiate with China diplomatically.



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China and Philippines spat over Benham Rise started last week after Filipino defence chief, Delfin Lorenzana, accused that satellite images provided by one of its allies had spotted Chinese survey ships at Benham Rise between July and December last year.



Lorenzana also accused that several Chinese ships had been recently spotted within Manila's jurisdiction of the contagious South China Sea region. The defence chief claimed that Chinese warships were spotted in 70 miles off its western coast in the disputed maritime territory.



In response, China termed Lorenzana's allegation completely baseless as the Asian giant claimed that its ships have every right to conduct navigation in these waters. "But this is purely carrying out normal freedom of navigation and right of innocent passage, and there were no so-called other activities or operations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, told a regular news briefing.



Beijing also did not hesitate in confessing that its survey ships indeed navigated through Benham Rise last year. The Benham Rise was declared to be part of Philippine continental shelf in 2012 by the United Nations (UN), giving Filipino the exclusive right to fish and exploit resources in the undersea region.



However, the Benham Rise has rarely been a flashpoint between Beijing and Manila, with most of the tension concentrated on the disputed South China Sea region. However, much of the tension on the contagious maritime territory has subsided thanks to Duterte's ambitious efforts to revamp Philippines foreign policy.



The efforts have led to new found bonhomie between Manila and Beijing, while Manila's traditional ally U.S. has been left in lurch. Last year, Duterte's visit to China herald a new chapter in Beijing and Manila's bilateral relationship, which has rarely been normal owing to their competing clams over South China Sea region.



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(Photo : Getty Images. ) The U.S. multinational giants Boeing and Ford will go ahead with their expansion plan for the Chinese market, clearly bucking the on-going economic slowdown in the Chinese economy.

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The U.S. multinational giants Boeing and Ford are surging ahead in China with their ambitious expansion plans, shrugging off the ongoing slowdown that has dragged the second largest economy into mire of economic problems.



The aviation giant Boeing will start manufacturing planes from its first oversees factory in north-eastern Chinese city of Zhoushan by end of March this year. The factory has set the goal to produce 100 '737 planes' per year, with the first production batch expected to kick-start in 2018, Chinese state media reported.



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Boeing's soaring ambition is based on its recent positive outlook that anticipates prolific growth for China's aviation market. In September last year, the American aviation company said that it expects China to become the world's first trillion-dollar aviation market in next two decades.



Boeing's archrival Airbus had long before realized the potential of the Chinese aviation market, with the French aviation giant setting up its first assembly line factory in the Asian country way back in 1994. Airbus China announced last year it delivered 153 aircraft to Chinese aviation companies last year, marking seventh consecutive year that the aviation delivered more than 100 planes to Chinese operators.



Ford Motors also Betting big on China



The U.S. auto giant Ford Motors has also set itself on an expansion bandwagon for the Chinese market. The company announced that it will soon set up a factory in China to manufacture the all new SUV brand 'Lincoln.' The luxury SUV brand has already caught the imagination of the Chinese customers, with the sales figure touching a new high last year.



Interestingly, the China's auto market completely bucked the economic slowdown last year, with several big auto companies clocking impressive sales growth last year. Buoyed by the growth, several auto companies like Honda, Hyundai and Volkswagen have already announced their expansion for the Chinese market.



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(Photo : Getty Images. ) The Izumo helicopter carrier, which was inducted into the Japanese navy only two years back, will make a stop in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and India.

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Japan plans to send its largest warship carrier for a long naval exercise tour that will see it travel across several important Asian regions including the disputed South China Sea region. The three-month-long tour that is set to begin in May is being touted as Tokyo's biggest show of naval strength in the region since World War II.



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The Izumo helicopter carrier, which was inducted into the Japanese navy only two years back, will make a stop in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and India. It will also make a brief stop in the South China Sea, where it will conduct a naval exercise along with the U.S.



"The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission," said one source familiar with the matter, who added that the warship carrier "will train with the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea" and will return to Japan in August.



The Japanese government has so far declined to comment on the report.



Meanwhile, reports suggest that Tokyo plans to invite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte when the Izumo carrier halts at Subic Bay, located almost 100 km west of the capital city of Manila. However, Duterte has not confirmed whether he will visit the warship carrier at the Subic Bay, adding that the visit will materialize only if he finds time.



Although Japan does not have any claim in the South China Sea, it is seeking to remain dominant in the disputed maritime region mainly through military exercises. It has so far carried out several joint military exercises in the highly contentious region.



Tokyo's desire for domination in the disputed region stems from its acrimonious relationship with China. Japan is locked in a maritime dispute with China over East China Sea region.



The news about Japan's ambitious naval exercise comes at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump administration is believed to be busy preparing policies to counter Beijing's moves in the South China Sea region.



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(Photo : YouTube) China reportedly installed an over-the-horizon radar system.

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China has reportedly set up a high-tech radar system in Inner Mongolia with a detection range of up to 3,000 kilometers, a move to spy on South Korean and Japanese military maneuvers, Chinese media reported on Monday.



The installation comes amid a spat with South Korea on the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery from the US. THAAD is a missile defense system Beijing and Russia fear could be a tool to be used to spy its military activities.



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Local reports claimed that China installed an Over-the-Horizon (OTH) radar in January. While conventional radars pass through the atmosphere, OTH radar bounces off the earth's ionosphere, which is between 100 and 450 kilometers above the surface to detect targets as far as 3,000 kilometers away.



The Chosunilbo reported that the current THAAD configuration is only set at a range of 800 kilometers, but this can be adapted through a software switch. With its direction range far longer than the X-band radar in the US THAAD antimissile battery, the OTH radar could cover the entire South Korea and Japan.



OTH radars could also detect stealth aircraft and locate inter-continental ballistic missiles and other types of missiles fired by other countries. The radar could allegedly confirm the target of an enemy within a minute after launching and could issue an early warning three minutes later.



This is the second OTH radar installed by China. Its first OTH is set up in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui triangle. All two radars are used to monitor the entire western Pacific if used together with spy satellites.







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Turkey will impose political sanctions against Netherlands for the moment, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said late Monday after the Dutch authorities barred Turkish politicians from holding rallies in Rotterdam for a referendum on constitutional amendments.

People hold a rally in front of the Dutch Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 12, 2017. People holding Turkish national flags were gathering in front of Dutch Consulate in Istanbul to protest Dutch bans on Turkish politicians. [Photo/Xinhua]

The sanctions would be under the political framework at the moment, Kurtulmusv told reporters after a cabinet meeting which measures against the Dutch government were discussed.

The Dutch ambassador to Ankara, who is out of the country at the moment, will not be allowed enter Turkey until Netherlands meets Turkey's demands, Kurtulmus said.

The Turkish government will suspend "high-level relations and all planned meetings "with Netherlands, he said, adding that a permission given in December for diplomatic flights for Dutch officials is also cancelled.

The Turkish government will propose the parliament abolishing a Turkish-Dutch parliamentary friendship group, the deputy prime minister stated.

Diplomatic tensions between the two countries escalated over the weekend after the Dutch authorities canceled Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's flight permission to the Netherlands and then blocked Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam on Saturday.
The eight Samaritans Purse local aid workers who were kidnapped in South Sudan have reportedly been released.

Just yesterday, reports circulated about the hostage situation. South Sudan is experiencing a severe famine, and rebels were thought to have captured the aid workers in order to demand food shipments.

As ChristianHeadlines.com earlier reported, 100,000 people in just a single state of the country face starvation.

CBN News, however, reports that the hostages have already been released.

In a statement, Samaritans Purse said they are "thankful to God for the safe release of our South Sudanese national staff, who had been detained by armed personnel in the Mayendit area of South Sudan."

"They were all released Tuesday afternoon local time," the statement added.

Contrary to belief, the kidnappers did not demand food or have any other ransom request.

In addition to the 100,000 people in Unity State who face starvation, a total of over seven million total people in the country are in need of aid, according to a UN report.

In addition to the famine, South Sudan has been wracked by fighting between government and rebel forces. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Photo courtesy: Samaritan's Purse

Publication date: March 14, 2017
Rebels in famine-stricken South Sudan kidnapped eight locals working with Samaritans Purse near the village of Mayendit, located 420 miles northeast of the capital of Juba. Brigadier General Lul Ruai Koang told Reuters that the rebels are demanding food shipments in exchange for the hostages.

The kidnapping took place in the Unity State, an area where as many as 100,000 people are facing starvation. The United Nations and the South Sudanese government announced the dire conditions on February 20th and warned that as many as one million more could be on the brink of famine.

Samarians Purse acknowledged that the abductions took place, but asserted that they have not received ransom demands. "Samaritan's Purse confirms that some of our South Sudanese staff in the Mayendit area of South Sudan have been detained by armed personnel. We have been in contact with them and they have not been harmed. No ransom request has been made and we are hopeful that they will be released soon and safely.

South Sudan, the worlds youngest nation, plunged into violence in 2013 when President Salva Kiir removed his deputy Riek Machar. The fighting displaced over three million people and killed thousands. Officials fear that food supplies will become a new weapon in the violent struggle.

The statement issued by Samaritans Purse pleaded for cooperation so they may aid those affected by the famine. The situation in Mayendit, South Sudan, is a level 4 famine. We call on all the parties involved to immediately provide complete and unfettered humanitarian access in order to meet the needs of a starving population in order to save lives.

Photo courtesy: Samaritan's Purse

Publication date: March 14, 2017
Aiming to partner with the Korean churches in Southern California, Good Neighbors will seek them out where theyre at by personally joining them in their worship services.

Called Sharing the Love Worship Night, the campaign will involve staff of Good Neighbors visiting various churches Wednesday night, Friday night, or Sunday services (or other gatherings during the week). The staff are open to visiting not only church gatherings, but also meetings of other non-profit organizations. A unique characteristic of the campaign is that the organization aims not to make their own plans and schedule, but to follow that of the churches and organizations who request their program. Hence, the staff can make themselves available even for early morning services, and any other gatherings throughout the week.

During the service, the staff will present a short video on the lives of young children in impoverished nations, and will set aside a time to commit to support the work that Good Neighbors does in those nations.

Good Neighbors was established in South Korea in 1991. The organization has 185 offices in 35 countries, and provides humanitarian assistance. It offers a chance for members of churches to go on overseas mission trips with Good Neighbors staff, and also offers opportunities for those who sponsor children through the organization to personally meet them.

For more information, email joseph@goodneighbors.org.
For the second time, International Christian Concern (ICC) will be hosting its annual conference spotlighting a specific region in which Christians are facing severe persecution. This years conference, which is taking place from June 2 to 3 at Saddleback Church, will focus on North Korea.

The conference, called The Bridge, will feature leaders of churches, non-profit organizations, and government agencies.

Among those invited to speak include Rick Warren, founder and pastor of Saddleback Church; Florida Senator Marco Rubio; Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation; David Curry, CEO of Open Doors USA; Mervyn Thomas, CEO of Christian Solidarity Worldwide; North Korean defector and TED Talks speaker Joseph Kim; and North Korean defector and author Hyeonseo Lee, among others.

International Christian Concern, which has done work aiding, advocating for, and spreading awareness of the persecuted Christians around the world for some 20 years, decided to begin hosting these annual conferences called The Bridge with hopes that there would be greater collaboration between the various influencers in addressing the problem of persecution, including those working on the field, churches, government agencies, and non-profit organizations, according to ICCs president Jeff King.

Though each group plays a crucial role in providing the resources that the persecuted church needs, King said, even more could be done if those groups could work together.

North Korea in particular is a nation in which Christians are severely persecuted to the point that it falls into a different category and people just forget about it because it seems so unfixable, so beyond what anyone can do, according to King.

Yet King expressed hopes for the future of the Korean peninsula.

Many people would say in terms of geopolitics, Korea has been a pawn. Its been brutally oppressed and ruled over," said King. "But I say no, I dont even think this is a coincidence. She is the chosen one, she is the bride.

He added that in his conversations with defectors and experts on the region, many express hopes that were getting to the end of the Kim regime.

Their great hold on power is the ideology and propaganda, King said, and that system is failing rapidly because of the modern world, with the internet and the information flooding into North Korea  The average North Koreans now know their leader is a dictator, that he is not in any way a good guy, and that they are not the most amazing country in the world. Thats incredibly destabilizing.

There are so many things you can do to get the gospel in, and to help the victims who are coming out, King continued, adding that the hope of the conference is to highlight those action points.

Sessions will discuss the history and present situation for Christians in North Korea, how churches could be involved in combating persecution, and how Christians could bring the gospel into the country, among other topics. All sessions will have translations available in Korean.

Numerous Korean American organizations are participating in the conference, including Jesus Awakening Movement for America, Bethel English Church, Grace Ministries Internationals English ministry, and Holy Wave, the English ministry of Sa-Rang Community Church.

A separate Policy Day will also be taking place on May 24 in Washington, D.C., and will focus mostly on combating the human rights violations in North Korea.

For more information, visit thepersecutionconerence.org.
Russell Moore still has his job, after todays much-discussed meeting with Southern Baptist leader Frank Page.

We deepened our friendship and developed mutual understanding on ways we believe will move us forward as a network of churches, wrote Moore and Page in a joint statement.

We fully support one another and look forward to working together on behalf of Southern Baptists in the years to come, they stated. We will collaborate on developing future steps to deepen connections with all Southern Baptists as we work together to advance the Great Commission of our lord Jesus Christ.

Todays consternation on social media over Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), came after more than 100 churches threatened to end their donations to the SBCs Cooperative Program, which supports Moores ERLC but also the denominations six seminaries, two missions ...

1
Perforated Uterus Led to Death of Michigan Planned Parenthood Abortion Patient info.operationrescue@gmail.com Contact: Troy Newman, President, 316-683-6790 ext. 111; Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President, 316-516-3034; both with Operation Rescue



After a delay of over eight months, the Calhoun County Medical Examiner's autopsy report is filled with strategic redactions that obscure the most pertinent parts of the report, including most of the cause of death determination.



In fact, just reading the redacted autopsy report, submitted by Elizabeth A. Douglas, MD, one would never know that an abortion was involved, much less Planned Parenthood.



While important information in the autopsy report was blacked out to remove any mention of an abortion, the toxicology reports noting trace amounts of Methadone and other pain/anti-convulsant drugs was left completely unredacted.



"It is my opinion that there is an effort on the part of the Calhoun County Medical Examiner's office to protect Planned Parenthood while wrongly blaming Erwin-Sheppard for her own death," said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. "The way the autopsy report is censored, it falsely leads one to believe that unprescribed drugs caused her death, while the fact that her uterus was perforated is completely expunged from the record. Planned Parenthood corruption appears to have infiltrated the Medical Examiner's office."



Read full statement and view the autopsy report and other documents.



About Operation Rescue Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation and has become a strong voice for the pro-life movement in America. Click here to support Operation Rescue. KALAMAZOO, Mich., March 14, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- The death of a young mother, Cree Erwin-Sheppard, just three days after receiving a surgical abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has turned into a mystery worthy of the fictional Sherlock Holmes. Questions of why she died and who was responsible remain covered up under heavy redactions in her recently released autopsy report.After a delay of over eight months, the Calhoun County Medical Examiner's autopsy report is filled with strategic redactions that obscure the most pertinent parts of the report, including most of the cause of death determination.In fact, just reading the redacted autopsy report, submitted by Elizabeth A. Douglas, MD, one would never know that an abortion was involved, much less Planned Parenthood.While important information in the autopsy report was blacked out to remove any mention of an abortion, the toxicology reports noting trace amounts of Methadone and other pain/anti-convulsant drugs was left completely unredacted."It is my opinion that there is an effort on the part of the Calhoun County Medical Examiner's office to protect Planned Parenthood while wrongly blaming Erwin-Sheppard for her own death," said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. "The way the autopsy report is censored, it falsely leads one to believe that unprescribed drugs caused her death, while the fact that her uterus was perforated is completely expunged from the record. Planned Parenthood corruption appears to have infiltrated the Medical Examiner's office."

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Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang will pay an official visit to the Philippines from March 16 to 19 at the invitation of the government of the Republic of the Philippines, said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.

During his visit, Wang will meet Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and hold talks with the economic leadership team of the country, spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a routine press briefing.

Wang will attend the opening ceremony of China-ASEAN tourism cooperation year and deliver a speech to a China-Philippines economic and trade forum, Hua said.

Wang's visit will move the China-Philippines strategic and cooperative relationship for peace and development forward, Hua said.
Learning How to Flourish in God's Economy A riveting new book reveals practical biblical solutions for a tumultuous economy



Contact: Jennifer Smothers,



ORLANDO, Fla., March 14, 2017 /



In recent years, there has been unprecedented turmoil in the economics of the United States, Europe, Latin American, and the world. While government and business leaders are searching for solutions, small business people and families are struggling to navigate through these troubled economic times every day. The tangible solutions found in Secrets of the Kingdom Economy will give readers a roadmap that will enable them to flourish in the days ahead by helping them to find God's wisdom and insight.



Having received praise from a multitude of international leaders, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy has been deemed "one of the best books ever for workplace leaders," by Os Hillman, President of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent. Although primarily written for Christians, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy has immediate relevance for all people seeking to transform the economies of their nations. In his foreword to the book, the Reverend Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D. writes, "Paul Cuny believes that in order for [transformation] to happen, pastors, marketplace leaders, and government leaders must work together to establish the good government and just economies that bless a nation's people."



Readers of Secrets of the Kingdom Economy will discover that the atmosphere of the Kingdom is one of hope and freedom, and God's desire is to move His people to the place where they function in their gifts and callings. When this happens, He can bring about tangible results in daily lives.



About Paul Cuny

Paul Cuny is President of MarketPlace Leadership International, an ordained minister, an internationally recognized speaker on Gods principles of economics and leadership, is an Executive Committee member of the Economic Summit and International Council of Economic Reformation, and has been interviewed on international TV and radio. He has authored many articles in international publications and is the author of two books: Secrets of the Kingdom Economy, which is published in five languages, and Nehemiah People. Paul has served as a friend, counselor and prayer partner to sitting presidents, ambassadors, business, and government leaders around the world.



For ordering and more information on Secrets of the Kingdom Economy, please visit



About the Publisher:

Certa Publishing (

Share Tweet Contact: Jennifer Smothers, Certa Publishing , 855-77-CERTA (855-772-3728)ORLANDO, Fla., March 14, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- When the unprecedented turmoil of the world's current economics is most troubling, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy ($15.00, paperback, 978-0-9981815-7-8) comes at the perfect time, offering a compelling look at a practical biblical worldview of commerce and economics. This timely book not only provides a clear understanding of the economic times of today, but delivers realistic, Kingdom solutions for everyday life.In recent years, there has been unprecedented turmoil in the economics of the United States, Europe, Latin American, and the world. While government and business leaders are searching for solutions, small business people and families are struggling to navigate through these troubled economic times every day. The tangible solutions found in Secrets of the Kingdom Economy will give readers a roadmap that will enable them to flourish in the days ahead by helping them to find God's wisdom and insight.Having received praise from a multitude of international leaders, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy has been deemed "one of the best books ever for workplace leaders," by Os Hillman, President of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent. Although primarily written for Christians, Secrets of the Kingdom Economy has immediate relevance for all people seeking to transform the economies of their nations. In his foreword to the book, the Reverend Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D. writes, "Paul Cuny believes that in order for [transformation] to happen, pastors, marketplace leaders, and government leaders must work together to establish the good government and just economies that bless a nation's people."Readers of Secrets of the Kingdom Economy will discover that the atmosphere of the Kingdom is one of hope and freedom, and God's desire is to move His people to the place where they function in their gifts and callings. When this happens, He can bring about tangible results in daily lives.About Paul CunyPaul Cuny is President of MarketPlace Leadership International, an ordained minister, an internationally recognized speaker on Gods principles of economics and leadership, is an Executive Committee member of the Economic Summit and International Council of Economic Reformation, and has been interviewed on international TV and radio. He has authored many articles in international publications and is the author of two books: Secrets of the Kingdom Economy, which is published in five languages, and Nehemiah People. Paul has served as a friend, counselor and prayer partner to sitting presidents, ambassadors, business, and government leaders around the world.For ordering and more information on Secrets of the Kingdom Economy, please visit bit.ly/SecretsoftheKingdomEconomy About the Publisher:Certa Publishing ( www.certapublishing.com ) is a Christian publishing company helping authors edit their manuscripts, publish, print and successfully market their books nationwide.
home US Bible study teacher killed in crossfire of gang shootout after prayer meeting

A 55-year-old Bible study teacher was killed during a gang shootout in Escondido, California as she was on her way home from a prayer meeting.

Catherine Kennedy, a Bible study teacher at the Church of St. Timothy, was driving along East Grand Avenue at about 9 p.m. when she was struck in the head by a stray bullet, causing her to lose control of her vehicle and crash into an unoccupied parked car.

"This was an innocent victim driving down the street we believe coming home from a church function and just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time," Escondido Lt. Justin Murphy said, according to NBC San Diego.

Barbara Allen, 48, told The San Diego Union-Tribue that she was inside her apartment when she heard the gunshots and the sound of a car crash. She said she rushed outside and found Kennedy slouched over behind the wheel of her car.

Allen noted that Kennedy still had a pulse when the medics arrived, but she died after she was transported to a hospital.

Murphy said he never encountered this kind of shooting in his 19 years with the department.

"We generally have a gang problem but I would not say it's this kind of violence that we're used to seeing in Escondido," he said.

"This is certainly outside of the norm for what we generally see on a daily or weekly basis in Escondido. It's not something we're used to seeing," he added.

A spokeswoman for the church said that its pastor, Father Fernando Ramirez, was too upset to offer any comment on Kennedy's death to the local media. "Cathy was one of the most wonderful people you ever want to meet," she said.

Kennedy, who has worked as a registered dental hygienist at Brilliant Dental in Escondido, is survived by her husband Kevin and her daughter, Alicia de la Rosa.

Escondido police Chief Craig Carter described the incident as a "senseless tragedy" and vowed to crackdown on street gangs. He said he believes that this was the first time an innocent bystander died in a random shooting in Escondido.

Carter said that the investigation is ongoing, and authorities are not yet sure if more than one weapon was fired. The police have asked for the help of the public in solving the crime.

A few dozen people gathered at the church for a private prayer service on Wednesday. That night, around 40 people gathered for a candlelight vigil on Grand Avenue, where Kennedy's car crashed.
home US Black Southern Baptist leaders resist efforts to defund Russell Moore

Some black Southern Baptists are resisting the efforts to redirect funds away from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) due to disagreements with its current president, Russell Moore.

Last month, the Southern Baptist Executive Committee voted to appoint a panel to begin a study to find a solution to the problem of churches' escrowing Cooperative Program money. The study was brought about in part due to the significant number of contacts received by the committee regarding the ERLC, according to the Baptist Press.

Congregations, such as the Prestonwood Baptist Church, outside of Dallas, Texas, has escrowed some of their contributions to the Cooperative Program to redirect resources away from the ERLC. The decision has raised concerns among African-Americans within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), many of whom shared Moore's anti-Trump stance during the 2016 election.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Frank Page, president of the SBC's Executive Committee, noted that many black Southern Baptists "feel that Dr. Moore has spoken to issues that are of importance to them and so it would be very hurtful if he were to leave."

The Louisiana Baptist Convention has passed an official resolution asking the Executive Committee to investigate the ERLC, an action that is not within the purview of the committee. Several ministers, including the first ever African-American elected president of the SBC, Fred Luter, have signed a letter publicly dissenting from the resolution.

David Crosby, a senior pastor of First Baptist Church of New Orleans, said that churches escrowing funds is tantamount to "cutting our fellowship lines too thin." Crosby was one of the signatories of the letter dissenting from the state convention's resolution.

Some Louisiana Baptists have contended that their objections were not related to Moore's comment against Donald Trump but to how he suggested that Christians supporting him cared more about having political influence than about sharing the Gospel.

However, Crosby believed that there would be no controversy if Moore had directed his criticisms toward Hillary Clinton.

"I can guarantee that had he been talking about Hillary, nobody would be objecting," he said. "That is for certain. So this is about Trump, the Republican Party, and its ill-advised connection to the power brokers in the Southern Baptist Convention," he continued.

In light of the controversy, Page stressed that the divisions within the SBC do not involve anyone attempting to undo racial healing within the Church.

"It is my goal to make sure that elections such as Pastor Fred Luter's are not an anomaly but an ongoing part of who we are. And I'm looking forward to the day when we see Hispanic presidents and Asian-American presidents," he said.

The Executive Committee is expected to present its findings at its September 2017 meeting.
home World Christian charity calls on U.N. to investigate freedom of religion violations in the West

A Christian charity has called on the United Nations to increase efforts to expose violations of freedom of religion and expression in the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, an organization that advocates for the rights of the people to freely live out their faith, issued the call last Friday in response to the U.N. report on the Freedom of Religion or Belief during the General Debate at the 34th Session of the Human Rights Council.

The group voiced its concern that the report had failed to address the existing violations of the freedom of religion or belief in Western countries.

"We see a massive curtailing of fundamental liberties in the West. While religious oppression may be fiercer in other regions of the world, we must not turn a blind eye to the developments in the US, Europe, or Australia," said RubAn Navarro, Senior UN Counsel for ADF International.

Navarro noted that many have been forced out of the public square for refusing to abandon their religious convictions.

"We have seen many cases of bakers, florists, photographers, or venue providers, who have simply exercised their right to religious freedom. They have refused facilitating or promoting such concepts as same-sex unions or other ideas that stand in stark contrast to their faith," he added.

He pointed out that international law provides equal protection to all people, and it prohibits discrimination based on "race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion."

Navarro contended that the U.N. should not concede that citizens should lose their jobs or be sent to jail for refusing to violate their religious beliefs.

ADF International further noted that the U.N. report also failed to address the issue of "hate speech" laws, despite the growing tendency in the West to use it as a way to curb free speech and silence debate.

In his Oral Statement, Navarro cited the case of Australian Archbishop of Hobart, who was summoned by a state tribunal to explain the distribution of a booklet on Catholic teaching about marriage at one of the Catholic schools in his diocese.

Navarro contended that prosecuting clerics for publicly speaking about traditional views about marriage, sexuality and family is inconsistent with the democratic culture. He urged the U.N. to conduct an investigation and create a detailed report on the violations of freedom of religion or belief in the future.
home World Corpses of ISIS recruits and child soldiers found among ruins of Palmyra

The Islamic State has retreated from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, but it has left behind what has been described as the "debris of death," which consists of corpses of child soldiers and ISIS recruits.

A new video footage from the ISIS battlefield showed dead bodies of the terror group's recruits as well as its victims abandoned among the ruined tombs of the ancient city.

Russia Today's Lizzie Phelan uncovered the decapitated and charred remains of two Syrian soldiers and found two more corpses in a nearby ditch. She also described finding dozens of dead ISIS fighters, including what appeared to be child soldiers.

"From this body it is evident this fighter was a child a we can see from his hands and face, and to me he looks no older than 11 or 12," she narrated.

The crew of Russia Today has notified the Syrian government about the horrifying find, but the army does not have the resources to search the desert for remains. Deadly landmines and a threat of ISIS militants that may still be lurking nearby also prevent them from re-entering the area to retrieve the remains of the child soldiers and the terror group's victims.

This was the second time that the Syrian Arab Army pushed back the terror group from the city of Palmyra.

ISIS captured the city in May 2015 until it was forced out in March last year. The group was able to recapture the city in December last year after it was driven back by a barrage of Russian air strikes.

In January, it was reported that ISIS destroyed the Tetrapylon, a group of raised pillars near the city's entrance, and the facade of its Roman theater, where the terror group once forced locals to watch as it killed 25 soldiers.

Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's director of antiquities, has already moved most of the ancient statues from the city's museum to Damascus.

"This time, they don't seem to have damaged Palmyra as badly as we feared," he remarked.

Some former residents, many of whom are temporarily residing in the city of Homs, visited Palmyra this week to see if they could move back home. However, they found it impossible as there was no water or electricity.
home US Homosexual attorney says gay themes in Disney films rob children of their innocence

An attorney in Mississippi who identifies as homosexual has shared his concerns that the gay themes in Disney productions are destroying the innocence of children.

In a column published in the Orlando Sentinel last week, Joseph R. Murray II said that the production company has strayed away from Walt Disney's original objective to "entertain children."

"Disney characters were about hope, optimism and, above all else, making sure children were able to enjoy their innocence for as long as the outside world would permit. And Disney understood that part of its mission was to provide a buffer for as long as possible," he wrote.

The attorney complained that Disney no longer sees itself as a "defender of children's innocence," and it has become increasingly involved in political activism.

Murray cited a recent episode of "Star vs. the Forces of Evil," which featured gay and lesbian characters kissing during a boy band concert. He also mentioned the live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast," which is said to include a "gay moment."

In an interview with Attitude last month, Director Bill Condon described LeFou, the sidekick of the movie's protagonist Gaston, as "somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston."

Condon's revelation has caused some conservative leaders in the U.S. to call for a boycott of the film.

In Russia, ministers urged government officials to consider banning the film if it was found to be in violation of the country's "gay propaganda" law. However, Vyacheslav Telnov, head of the Culture Ministry's film unit, said that the distribution license for the film will be issued without any problems.

Murray noted that the upcoming film is different from the animated version, but he expressed his concern that it will still attract young kids.

"[W]hy do we have to expose our kids to such mature themes? Do they not have plenty of time to grow up?" he asked.

Apart from his work as an attorney, Murray also served as the administrator for "LGBTrump," a group that supports President Donald Trump with a focus on homosexual issues.
home US Indiana Senate panel considers bill protecting religious expression in public schools

A Senate panel in Indiana is considering a legislation that would allow students to pray or participate in religious activities in public schools.

House Bill 1024, introduced by Rep. John Bartlett (D-Indianapolis), is aimed at preventing discrimination of students who pray in school or express their religious beliefs in non-disruptive ways. The measure would also allow students to wear clothing, accessories and jewelry that display religious messages or symbols.

Bartlett said that the aim of the proposal was to put prayer back in school in the hopes that exposing the students to religion would improve their behavior.

The proposal would also require school districts to create a limited public forum at school events so that students may speak freely about their faith without obstruction.

The measure was approved by the House last month by a vote of 38a12. The Senate Education and Career Development Committee held a discussion on the bill last week, during which, student Mary Zakrajsek testified how her pro-life poster was removed from the walls of Carmel High School while other messages are allowed to be posted.

"When I walk down the hallway, and I see rainbow pride flags and Democrat donkeys, I think that's pretty clear evidence of ideology that is promoted in public school systems. It became clear that it was our [pro-life] club in particular that was being discriminated against," said Zakrajsek.

When the House Education Committee was considering the bill last month, David W. Greene, Sr., president of the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis, testified that prayer can help reduce moral decay among youth.

"I believe that school prayer may cause students to acknowledge a power greater than themselves, on which they can rely for comfort and help in times of trouble," Greene said, adding that it would lead to decreased reliance on drugs, alcohol, sex and other dangerous amusements.

Other lawmakers raised concerns about how the legislation would affect students in the minority and how a school community would respond to non-Christian requests.

"What if a group of Muslim students wanted to pray right in that ceremony? How would that have been accepted a or would it have caused an outcry?" said Democratic Sen. Mark Stoops, according to The Associated Press.

Some supporters maintained that school is a place to learn and that any differences brought to light could present an opportunity to teach students about different cultures and religions. Opponents of the measure questioned its necessity, saying schools already acknowledge the freedom of religion.

The Senate education committee has not yet scheduled a second hearing, where lawmakers could provide amendments and decide whether or not to advance the bill.
home World ISIS document listing 14 rules found inside church which was turned into religious police base

The Islamic State terror group has converted a Christian church in Mosul into a base for its religious police force, and it has plastered its walls with propaganda and documents that outlined the groups' laws for the city's residents.

As the operation to drive out ISIS from Mosul continues, the Iraqi forces have regained control of the Um al-Mauna (Our Mother of Perpetual Help) Chaldean Catholic Church in the Al-Dawasa district and the surrounding neighborhood last week.

Lt. Col. Abdulamir al-Mohammedawi of Iraq's elite Rapid Response Division told AFP that the church served as "an important office for the authorities tasked with making sure (Mosul) residents had a beard, wore short robes and followed their extremist convictions."

The exterior of the building has been defaced with ISIS propaganda, and all of its crosses and statues have been damaged or removed.

Inside the church, the militants plastered the marble columns with religious posters outlining the terror group's laws as well as punishments for those who disobey.

The "town document," which contains 14 rules for the city's residents, stated that women should wear modest attire and should go out in public only "when necessary." "The trade and consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes is banned," another rule stated.

One pamphlet enumerates the different forms of corporal punishment for crimes such as theft, alcohol consumption, adultery and homosexuality. Other posters found inside the church provide instructions on how to use a Kalashnikov rifle.

According to AFP, the Um al-Mauna church is still in better condition compared to the other buildings in the Al-Dawasa neighborhood, which was destroyed by the fighting. The once flashy shop facades on a street in the district have been reduced to contorted iron and shredded concrete.

Previous reports have revealed that ISIS had turned churches into "torture chambers" after it took over Mosul and much of the Nineveh Plains in 2015.

"Islamic State militants in Iraq are using Christian churches as torture chambers where they force Christians to either convert to Islam or die," Christian Freedom International President Jim Jacobson said. "Islamic State militants are also stripping the former places of Christian worship of ancient relics which in turn are smuggled to Western collectors to help fund their terrorist activities," he added.

ISIS fighters have been known to destroy ancient churches, monasteries, tombs and structures without regard for their historical significance as part of their quest to get rid of any evidence of Christianity in the region.
home US Mark Zuckerberg says Rick Warren's Saddleback church is a model for Facebook's online community

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that his vision for developing a new online community is modeled after Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback church.

In a recent interview with Wired Magazine, Zuckerberg said that his model for an online community would be similar to Saddleback, the Southern California megachurch led by Warren.

"Humanity has always pushed to come together in greater numbers to accomplish better things and improve our lives individually in ways we couldn't in smaller groups," said Zuckerberg.

He cited Warren's church as an example of a community in which tens of thousands of people gather under the guidance of a leader, but also divide themselves into smaller groups based on interests, affinity and aspirations.

The Facebook founder envisioned the platform as a community where leaders like Warren will have tools to guide and shape the communities they are trying to create. Smaller groups within the communities will allow people to connect in more intimate ways, while also feeding the larger community.

"Just like becoming friends with people on Facebook can strengthen real-world relationships, there is no reason to believe that building communities on Facebook and the internet can't also strengthen real-world communities," Zuckerberg said.

The billionaire had previously met with other church leaders in order to learn about the role of churches in building communities.

In January, he met with clergy members in Texas as part of his "Year of Travel," in which he visits states he has not been to before.

John Crowder, a pastor at First Baptist Church in West, thought that Zuckerberg would promote a charity of a new technology, but he only spoke for a minute and started asking questions.

Crowder said that the Facebook founder was interested in learning about the role churches played following the 2013 fertilizer explosion that devastated the city. He was also wanted to know how congregations of different denominations worked together to recover from the disaster.

"We got to tell him that right after the explosion, people in town just automatically turned to the church for help. They knew that was the place they could go and that is the role the church plays a at least in a small town," said Crowder.

The pastor also revealed that Zuckerberg was interested in learning how much of the church's resources are spent on "religion" and how much is spent on "community service."

Aaron Zimmerman, an Episcopal priest who attended one of the meetings, said that the gathering left him with the impression that Zuckerberg seemed to be trying to do the right things from a place of humility.
home US Satanist students advertise lamb sacrifice and Bible-burning event at Clemson University

Students at Clemson University sparked outrage over an advertisement for a lamb sacrifice and Bible burning ceremony to "commemorate" a new chapel on the campus.

A group of students referring to themselves as the Clemson Unorthodox Neo-Satanic Temple advertised the event on a flyer that was found in the university's Bracket Hall, according to college news website Campus Reform.

The flyer, decorated with images of pentagrams and goat skulls, invites students to an "after life" party that was purported to include activities such as a "Bible torching ceremony," with a $25 prize for anyone who brings the most Bibles to burn. Another activity called the "Pentagram completion event" was allegedly intended to "summon Baphomet to celebrate the new Clemson Chapel."

The group claimed that the lamb for the "live bloodletting and lamb sacrifice" would be provided by the Clemson Collegiate Farm Bureau, but Director of College Relations Kirby Player denied that the bureau would be providing any animals for ritual slaughter.

Some students took to social media to voice their outrage over the advertisement. "I knew I chose the wrong school," one student tweeted. "I ain't trying to be nowhere near Clemson this weekend," another one said.

The "new Clemson chapel" mentioned in the flier is believed to be The Cadden Chapel, which was named after a student named Samuel J. Cadden, who died in an automobile accident in the Summer of 2015.

One of the life goals listed on Cadden's Bible was to give back to the university through a gift to name a building.

In support for the chapel, students recently held an event dubbed "Samapalooza" to raise money for the building.

Upon completion, the chapel will function as a place for meditation and reflection for students of all or no religious beliefs. It would also serve as a venue for weddings and funerals on campus, seating up to 150 people.

The advertisement for the bloodletting ceremony indicated that the event was supposed to take place on March 11, but it did not specify a location. Given the lack of information on the flyer, Heatstreet reporter Ian Miles Cheong surmised that the advertisement was made to "troll" Cadden's friends and family.

The chapel would cost about $6 million to build, half of which has already been raised by the students. Cadden's name, as well as the names of over 600 students who passed away before graduating, will be engraved at the chapel as a tribute.
home World Trump administration to host 68-nation meeting to discuss strategies in defeating ISIS

President Donald Trump's administration is expected to host a meeting of ministers from 68 countries this month to discuss strategies to defeat the Islamic State terror group.

The State Department announced on Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be hosting the meeting that will be held in Washington on March 22 to 23, according to Reuters. The goal of the meeting is to accelerate the "international efforts to defeat ISIS in the remaining areas it holds in Iraq and Syria and maximize pressure on its branches, affiliates and networks."

The meeting, which came at a time when ISIS appears to be losing ground militarily, will be the largest gathering of an international coalition opposed to the terror group since 2014.

"It's an opportunity for Secretary Tillerson to lay out the challenges that are facing the coalition moving forward," said acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

"We all recognize that we have seen progress in defeating ISIS on the ground ... how do we leverage that success? How do we build on that success?" he went on to say.

An official stated that the Trump administration would reinforce the importance of the coalition, which includes military partners as well as nations that support diplomatic and humanitarian efforts through donations.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed that confronting the terror group would be one of his priorities. On Jan. 28, the president issued an executive order asking the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and other agencies to submit a preliminary plan in 30 days for defeating ISIS.

In late February, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis presented the plan to the White House. Officials familiar with the review have stated that it would likely lead to decisions that would require more military involvement in Syria and possibly more ground troops. The officials also noted that the report emphasizes nonmilitary options, such as efforts to restrict the terror group's ability to recruit and to squeeze their finances.

Toner said that the details of the plan were still classified, but he revealed that the meeting would look at how "to augment existing capabilities and processes on the ground."

The Iraqi operation to liberate the eastern part of Mosul was launched in mid-October with the support from the U.S.-led coalition. The offensive to retake the western part of the city began less than three weeks ago.
home US Wyoming governor approves state's first pro-life bills in 28 years

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has signed into law two pro-life bills that are said to be the state's first restrictions on abortions in one generation.

On Thursday, Mead signed House Bill 182, which requires the physician to offer pregnant women the chance to see an ultrasound of the unborn child before the procedure. He also signed House Bill 116, which makes it illegal to sell, transfer or distribute aborted baby parts for the purpose of experimentation.

The state's last abortion law, which required minors who want to terminate their pregnancy seek parental permission, was signed in 1989.

The new ultrasound law would also require physicians to ask women if they want to hear the unborn baby's heartbeat, according to Casper Star Tribune.

A provision requiring the doctor to obtain a signed confidential statement from the pregnant woman that she was offered the ultrasound has been removed. The ultrasound law also carries an exception for abortions performed in cases of medical emergency.

Wyoming lawmakers have tried to pass similar ultrasound bills back in 2009 and 2011, but they failed.

According to a survey by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, 78 percent of abortion-minded or abortion-vulnerable women changed their views after seeing an ultrasound image of their unborn baby. Around 83 percent of women also stated that the ultrasound had a positive impact on their decision to continue with their pregnancy.

Mead did not offer any comments before he signed the bills, but he received thanks from pro-life supporters who attended the signing ceremony, according to The Associated Press.

Life Site News reported that students who lobbied for the legislations stood behind Mead as he affixed his signature to the bills.

"March 9th, 2017 will be remembered as a landmark day for the Wyoming pro-life movement," Bethany Janzen, Students for Life of America's Rocky Mountain regional coordinator, wrote in a blog post.

She noted that pro-life students and families, including the Cheyenne homeschool community, attended the committee meetings to testify in favor of the legislation.

Deacon Vernon Dobelmann, director of pastoral ministries for the Diocese of Cheyenne, also hailed the signing of the two pro-life laws, which goes into effect on July 1.

"After many years of work, prayer, and witness, it is good to finally see some incremental steps toward preserving the sanctity of human life," he told Life Site News.
7 ways to cultivate great worship in and out of church

'Worship is so much more than singing songs in church - it's a lifestyle.' This phrase has been so well-used it has become a cliche. Yet our experience tells us that most churches struggle to connect what they do on Sunday morning with the way people live out their faith, Monday to Saturday. Worship gatherings can seem disconnected, perhaps even like an escape from reality. Congregation members can get the impression that God is not really that interested in their work, their home lives, or the issues in their communities and on the news.

The good news is that it does not need to be this way. With a little thought, some intentional planning and an openness to try a few new ideas, pastors and worship leaders can re-engage their services with the realities the congregation are facing outside the church doors. We can create space for God to empower and send people out for worship on their 'frontlines' (this is the term coined by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity to describe the place each person is called to in their week).

Here are seven things we have tried, tested and seen fruit from.

1. Gather people from their worshipping lives.

What are the first words that people hear from the front of you church? Is there a sense of telling people to 'leave your problems at the door', or the suggestion that worship is only beginning now? Why not, instead, begin with reading a scripture such as 1 Thes. 5:16-17: 'Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.' You can remind the congregation that this gathered time is a focussed opportunity to do together what God is calling them at all times and in all places.

2. Sing about everyday issues

When was the last time you sang songs about daily work, drug addiction, or the trials and joys of being a parent? Infuse your times of singing with material such as Stuart Townend and Simon Brading's Christ Be In My Waking , Geraldine Latty's Lord Have Mercyor music from Keith and Kirsten Getty's Hymns For the Christian Life album, and you'll find a new vocabulary which connects with everyday life.

3. Use different images

If you project song lyrics, what kind of images do you use behind them? Mountains, rivers and other nature scenes? We have found it powerful to supplement those with other kinds of pictures - local businesses and schools, urban scenes, places of brokenness, prosperity and need. You can ask your congregation to provide such images, and connect your sung worship with the needs of your community in a visual way.

4. Pray for local issues

A time of intercession should be an easy way to connect with the needs of the world around you. Could you encourage these to be led by people representing different spheres (business, education, local government, and so on)? Encourage multi-sensory prayers using tactile media (for example pinning prayers onto a map of your area) or sounds such as a recording of the local High Street.

5. Re-engage with the Lord's Prayer

Sadly the prayer Jesus taught us can often be ignored in gathered worship, or rushed through without considering its world-changing implications. Take your time over it, and help congregations to consider what it might look like for God's Kingdom to come and his will to be done at the supermarket, and on the bus, and in our kitchens, and in the factory, and on the playground,and at the bowls club... as it is in heaven.

6. Commission for all kinds of service

Times of prayer towards the end of the service can focus on very 'inward' spiritual needs, or merely commissioning those who are leaving for things like overseas mission work or paid ministry. What if you were to commission everyone for the 'frontlines' they are called to serve in, the places where they regularly come into contact with non-Christians. How can you empower them to God through their work, their attitude and their relationships?

7. Send people out to worship

Finally, does your worship end when the guitars or organs stop playing? Or do you send people out 'to love and serve the Lord' through the week? Choose sending songs, speak out 'sending' prayers of blessing. We have even heard of churches where the sign 'You are now entering a place of worship' was turned around so that people saw it as they left the building.

We have unpacked the biblical foundations and practical frameworks of this approach in our new resource, Whole Life Worship (IVP 2017). It is a collaboration with the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, and together we have also produced a Journey Pack which is full of usable ideas, service plans and small-group material to help any church go forward with this theme. Visit engageworship.org/WholeLifeWorship to find out more.

Sam and Sara Hargreaves co-lead engage worship, providing resources and training for local church worship. They both studied at London School of Theology, and Sam guest-lectures there on the Theology Music and Worship programmes. They live in Luton and volunteer in their local Baptist church. Find them on Twitter @engageworship.
Are atheists dying out because they use birth control and this means they have fewer children?

Secularists invented effective birth control methods could now be in danger of dying out because religious people are having more children, a new study is claiming.

Traditional religious followers tend to have more children than atheists with the scientists suggesting this will lead to the decline of secularism across the world in the 21st century.

The American and Malaysian researchers asked more than 4,000 students about their religious beliefs and number of siblings.

They found in Malaysia, atheists had on average 1.5 fewer siblings than the average.

That gap was narrower in the US but people affiliated with a religious group still had on average more children than those unaffiliated.

Although birth rate differed across religious groups with Muslims being the most fertile and Jews and Buddhists being the least, the trend was noticable, they study claimed.

'Secularism is likely to undergo a decline throughout the remainder of the twenty-first century, including Europe and other industrial societies,' they conclude.

'It is ironical that effective birth control methods were developed primarily by secularists, and that these methods are serving to slowly diminish the proportional representation of secularists in forthcoming generations,' the researchers say.

They claimed the change has mostly come about in the last century and before that birth rates were largely the same across religious beliefs.

'By the mid-19th century, scientific discoveries had moved to a point that human reproduction was sufficiently well understood that fertility rates began to be impacted, especially in the emerging industrial countries,' the scientists say.

'Research indicates that the individuals who were most successful in curtailing their fertility during this time were the most highly educated and the least religious,' they add.

'Thus, for the first time in human history, secularists began to curtail their reproduction much more than the highly religious segments of these countries.'
Beloved Bible study teacher killed in California gang crossfire was returning from prayer meeting

A well loved Bible study teacher became a victim of random violence in the United States when a bullet fatally struck her head during an exchange of gunfire between two gangs as she was driving home from church after participating in a prayer meeting on Tuesday night.

Killed was Catherine Kennedy, 55, a teacher at the Church of St. Timothy in Escondido, California.

"This was an innocent victim driving down the street we believe coming home from a church function and just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time," Escondido Lt. Justin Murphy told NBC San Diego.

Police said Kennedy lost control of her vehicle after she was shot and subsequently crashed into an unoccupied, parked vehicle.

Her family, friends and fellow church workers all expressed utmost grief at her sudden death.

Deborah Ware, Kennedy's sister, said Cathy was a devout follower of Christ whose faith "meant everything to her," the Los Angeles Times reported. "She was a wonderful person, caring and we can take comfort in knowing she is with her Savior Jesus Christ," Ware told KFMB.

A spokeswoman for the Church of St. Timothy said Father Fernando Ramirez, the church pastor, was too upset to comment on Kennedy's death. "Cathy was one of the most wonderful people you ever want to meet," she said.

Kennedy also worked for 22 years as a registered dental hygienist at Brilliant Dental in Escondido, according to the clinic's Facebook page.

"She was passionate about making a difference in her patients' lives and everyone with whom she came in contact," a statement from her colleagues at Brilliant said.

Kennedy and her husband, Kevin, had been married since 2014 and both were active church members.

In addition to her husband, Kennedy is survived by a daughter, Alicia de la Rosa, 24.

Escondido resident Barbara Allen, 48, was the first person at the scene and tried to help Kennedy, The Escondido Grapevine reported. Allen said she found the victim slouched over behind the wheel of her car. "I checked her pulse. She was gurgling. And then the ambulance came," she said.

Kennedy was transported to a hospital, where she later died.

On Wednesday, a few dozen people reportedly gathered at the church for a private prayer service.

Kennedy's funeral was scheduled for Friday, March 17, church officials said.
Boost for conservative Anglicans as South Carolina join ACNA

Conservative Anglicans in America received a major boost last week when South Carolina joined a breakaway traditionalist grouping.

The Diocese of South Carolina voted unanimously to join the Anglican Church in North America, a splinter group from the official Anglican body, The Episcopal Church, on Friday.

One of the nine original TEC regions formed in 1785, South Carolina's decision to join the conservative faction completes its separation from its more liberal forefather.

'I cast my vote to affiliate with the ACNA with eager and expectant faith,' said Bishop of South Carolina Mark Lawrence during his address to the convention.

'I believe God has called us to this and I believe we will find a deeper richness in our vocation, fuller fellowship in the Spirit, a more zealous thrust in mission,' said Bishop Lawrence, who survived an attempt by TEC to oust him in 2012.

'But most of all, I believe a door will be opened, the fresh winds of the Spirit will blow, and a caged eagle will soar.'

ACNA split from their episcopal bishops in 2009 and is affiliated with GAFCON, a conservative faction of Anglican leaders many from Africa and the 'global south'.

ACNA is not a member of the wider Anglican Communion and instead aligns itself to GAFCON's 2008 Jerusalem declaration made in reaction to a perceived liberalisation of the western Anglican churches.

Most Rev Foley Beach, Archbishop of the ACNA, welcomed South Carolina to the grouping, which now has 111,853 members in 966 churches and 32 dioceses spread across Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

'I am thankful for Bishop Mark Lawrence, for his steadfast and Godly leadership, for his friendship, and for his humility throughout this entire process,' he said.

'Your witness in mission, in scholarship, and steadfast commitment to the historical teaching of the Bible is commendable. You are bringing with you many gifts that will further strengthen our Province, and the larger Anglican world.'
First ever Anglican Evensong service takes place at St Peter's Basilica in Rome

Anglican Choral Evensong was celebrated in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican for the first time yesterday afternoon.

The service was presided over by the Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, director of the Anglican Centre in Rome. Archbishop Arthur Roche, the Vatican Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, preached a homily.

Music was sung by the choir of Merton College, Oxford.

According to the Anglican Centre's website, the service was held in honour of St Gregory the Great, the Pope who sent St Augustine to England to evangelise the Anglo Saxons.

St Gregory's crozier-head was sent to Canterbury as a gesture of support during the Primates' Meeting in January 2016.

Pope Francis gave the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby a wooden crozier modelled on it during their meeting in October, before Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby celebrated Vespers together at the Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome.

The service yesterday afternoon ended with a procession to the tomb of St Gregory where prayers were said for the whole Christian church.

According to the Catholic Herald, Archbishop Roche said in his homily: 'I think Gregory was a very courageous man in his own time and I think that speaks to us here still today, that despite the difficulties, to be outgoing, just as Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby have been saying, to proclaim the Gospel with joy.'

Last month, Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit an Anglican church in Rome. Francis and an Anglican bishop prayed side by side at All Saints Church in the city's centre.

The developments come in the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Cathedral door in Wittenburg, sparking the Protestant reformation.

It is also 50 years since the Anglican Centre was set up in Rome to improve ecclesiastical relations

The decision to hold Evensong at the Vatican 'reflects the deepening bonds of affection and trust between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church,' a statement from the Anglican Centre read last month.
Iran arrests newly baptised Christian mother and her son for their faith, seizes Bibles in crackdown

Iranian government agents have arrested two newly baptised Christiansa mother and her sonseizing their Bibles and other Christian books.

Anousheh Reza-bakhsh and her son Soheil Zagarzadeh Sanialso known as "Veronika" and "Augustine," respectivelywere arrested by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards on Feb. 20 at their home and taken to an unknown location in Iran's northwestern province, according to Mohabat News, an Iranian Christian news agency.

Veronika and Augustine are "converts to the Catholic Church and were baptized in Istanbul, Turkey in August 2016," Middle East Concern reported.

A Facebook page has been created to draw the world's attention to the latest victims of Christian persecution in Iran.

The two Christians were arrested despite the fact that "both are dealing with health issues," Eliot Assoudeh, an Iranian-American academic at University of Nevada, told Fox News.

"It's been more than two weeks that Iranian authorities have not provided any news on them," he said.

At worst, the two could face the death penalty, said Julie Lenarz of the Human Security Centre in London. "Leaving Islam or converting to another religion is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic of Iran," she told Fox News, noting that years of imprisonment, harassment, and torture are also common for Christians arrested by Iran.

In a previous report, an Iranian Christian convert named Amin Afshar Naderi, who has been languishing in an Iranian prison since August last year, fell "seriously ill" last month after going on a hunger strike.

Naderi and another Christian convert named Hadi Asgari, who is also unwell, have reportedly been refused medical treatment. They were among five Christians who were arrested while having a picnic near Tehran last summer. Their three other fellow Christian converts were able to raise bail and were released.

Open Doors USA, a group that monitors religious freedom and Christian persecution around the world, says Christianity in Iran is often viewed as "a Western influence and a threat to the Islamic identity of the Republic."

This year, the group ranked Iran as the eighth worst country for Christians in the world, describing the persecution level there as "extreme."
Many Asian Christian women working as maids in Mideast suffer abuse, treated like slaves by their Arab 'owners'

Many Asian Christian women are being treated like slaves while working as nannies and housemaids in the Middle East, particularly in Arabian Peninsula countries.

This was brought to light in a recent World Watch Monitor (WWM) report which described in harrowing details some of the sufferings being endured by these women who have been forced to work as servants of rich Muslim families by virtue of the poverty in their home countries. Some of them come from India, the Philippines, and Nepal.

Although some Arab employers are kind to their servants, allowing them weekly day offs, many treat them like slaves, an Asian man named Virat who ministers to these Christian workers told WWM.

Virat said some Arab employers see themselves as "owners" of these girls and treat them like slaves, "confiscating their passports when they start working there, making it impossible for them to leave."

He said stories abound about maids and nannies who are not properly fed, who are forced to work "like machines," and who are physically harmed and even sexually abused.

He said he had been told that some nannies had been killed by their masters, their bodies even chopped up and thrown away.

"One nanny I ministered to was repeatedly raped by the three generations of men in the house she worked in  grandfather, father and son  before she could escape to safety," Virat said.

He said some of these abused girls find refuge in safe houses run by Asian embassies where they await their travel documents to be able to leave their worksites.

Last month, two Indian women who used to work as housemaids in Saudi Arabia shared with RT.com their stories of how they were held captive by their employers. They said they were subjected to sexual abuse and torture, adding that hundreds of women are still facing the same predicament.

Also in February, a Filipino woman who used to work as a domestic helper in Kuwait filed a case against her employer, claiming that she did not receive a salary after working for his family for nine years, and was even subjected to physical and emotional abuse, Sputnik News reported.

The worker, nicknamed Nena, said she began working as a domestic helper for a Kuwaiti family in June 2005, when she was 26 years old.

During the more than nine years she spent working for that family, she said she was prohibited from leaving the house. She said her employers also abused her verbally and physically, and did not permit her to own or use a mobile phone. Because she was unable to communicate with anybody, her family in the Philippines thought she was dead.

After nine years, she found an opportunity to escape in 2015 when a newly-hired housemaid managed to acquire a mobile phone, which she used to contact her family, who in turn contacted the Philippine embassy in Kuwait, eventually leading to her rescue.
US President Donald Trump Tells American People They Should 'Trust In God'

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland to "trust in God," because if they do, there's nothing they cannot achieve.

"As long as we have faith in each other and trust in God, then there is no goal at all beyond our reach," Trump said, according to Life Site News.

Trump began his speech by criticising the mainstream liberal media. He reiterated his comments about their "fake news," even branding CNN as the "Clinton News Network."

"They make up sources," he said. "They're very dishonest people."

Trump said that in reporting his comments, the "dishonest media" did not say he accused them of delivering "fake news," but rather reported that he insulted the media.

"That's the way they are," he continued. "I'm not against the media; I'm not against the press. I don't mind bad stories if I deserve them...but I am only against the fake news media or press. Fake! Fake...I'm against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name."

The rest of his speech placed the spotlight on national security, immigration, regulations, and the economy.

All throughout his speech, the crowd chanted, "U-S-A, U-S-A!" However, not once did the President mention anything about life, marriage, or religious liberty.

He did praise the support he received from the evangelical sector. "I wanna thank, by the way, the evangelical community, the Christian community, communities of faith," Trump said, calling them "amazing."

The CPAC is an annual political confab, which is considered as the largest gathering of conservatives since its inception in 1974, according to Business Insider. Thousands of people attend each year just to hear political leaders bare their vision for the future of conservatism.
Its no bald lie that hair loss can be depressing. The challenge, as our friends in Japan have demonstrated, is to take pride and let your ever-expanding dome shine.

This writer started losing the fringes of his lettuce more than a decade ago, and at first was able to hide the few vacancies with long, curly locks. But within a few years my hairline made so vigorous a charge north that I was forced to surrender. Now I wear it short, as if to pretend that I, and not genetics, have dictated that I shall display as little hair as possible.

Hair loss delivers one kick to the khakis after another. People stop guessing that youre younger than you actually are. You have to keep hats handy to avoid scalp sunburns. And everyone thinks its OK to tell jokes at your expense, even though you arent allowed to comment on any physical imperfections nose hair, lip warts, superfluous third nipples  they may display.

My fellow follicle-challenged friends in Japan would advise me to laugh along with all the bald jokes. Let everyone see you have a sense of humor, just like you let everyone see the freckles on your skull.

I now take you, courtesy of the Reuters news service, to Tsuruta City, where last month more than 30 bald men gathered at a hot spring spa. Theyre members of the citys Bald Men Club, the polar opposite of the Hair Club for Men.

These slick-scalped sorts took turns competing in a unique game of tug-of-war. It involved sticking a suction cup, which was attached to a single red rope, to their heads. Each side then attempted to pull the cup off the opponents head. It was living proof that hair loss sucks.

But participants didnt feel that way. My head still hurts, Toshiyuki Ogasawara, 43, said with a smile. I think I need to ice it.

As a fellow 43-year-old, I should embrace Ogasawaras attitude. Rather than dread the day I go from balding to bald, I should look forward to an opportunity to stick a giant suction cup on my head. People who know me wont think a thing of it.

Members of the Bald Men Club take pride in their smooth appearance. Masatomo Sasaki, 64, a first-time participant at the tournament, said he used to feel insecure about his baldness but now feels differently. I feel proud. Or maybe I should say, I feel good about being a bald man, Sasaki said, adding that he started losing his hair when he was 40. And that is thanks to this bald mens club.

The club, which has attracted roughly 65 members from all over the country since its founding in 1989, encourages people to view baldness in a positive manner, to have fun, and to brighten the world with our shiny heads, according to its website.

Teijiro Sugo, 70, the clubs chairman, hopes the gathering will turn into something much larger. I want all the bald men all over the world to gather here so we can organize a bald mens Olympic tournament, Sugo said.

Thats the spirit. I shouldnt see myself as a future bald man, but rather as a future Olympian. I should slather sunscreen all over my scalp and let the world watch it shine.

My futures so bright, passersby will have to wear shades.
Religion is what makes us stand out as human, says Oxford professor

Religion is the key to understanding why human beings are more intelligent and social than any animal in the world,according to an eminent Oxford professor.

'You need something quite literally to stop everybody from killing everybody else out of just crossness,' said Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology. 'Somehow it's clear that religions, all these doctrinal religions, create the sense that we're all one family,' he added, according to the Washington Post.

Dunbar is known for his research more than twenty years ago on the size of animals' social networks. He found that each species of primate can manage to keep up a social bond with a certain number of other members of its own species, with that number going up as primates' brain size increases.

The scientist found that humans are capable of maintaining significantly more social ties than the size of our brains alone could explain. According to his research, each human is surprisingly consistent in the number of social ties we can maintain: around five with intimate friends, 50 with good friends, 150 with friends and 1,500 with people we could recognise by name. This discovery became known as 'Dunbar's number'.

Now, Dunbar believes that religion explains why the number is so high among humans. 'Most of these things we're looking at, you get in religion in one form or another,' he said.

Dunbar's research is part of a trend in favour of looking at religion as a benefit to civilisation, rather than something that adds to ignorance.

Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame who studies religion, said: 'For most of Western intellectual history since the Enlightenment, religion has been thought of as ignorant and strange and an aberration and something that gets in the way of reason.

'In the last 10 or 20 years on many fronts, there's been a change in thinking about religion, where a lot of neuroscientists have been saying religion is totally natural. It totally makes sense that we're religious. Religion has served a lot of important functions in developing societies.'

Dunbar puts religion in a category with laughter and singing which help explain humans' remarkable social networks. 'These three things are very good at triggering endorphins, making us feel bonded,' he said last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting.

Repetitive motion triggers endorphins, said Dunbar, noting that traditions from Catholicism to Islam to Buddhism to Hinduism make use of prayer beads.

Researchers have also shown that doing these activities in synchronised fashion with other people, such as the coordinated bowing that Muslims, Catholics and Jews all take part in, drastically magnifies the endorphin-producing effect.

'What you get from dance and singing on its own is a sense of belonging. It happens very quickly. What happens, I suspect, is that it can trigger very easily trance states,' Dunbar said. 'Once you've triggered that, you're in, I think, a different ballgame. It ramps up massively. That's what's triggered. There's something there.'
The end of the United Kingdom? Why there should not be a second Scottish referendum

Apparently the grand old duchess of Scotland has decided not to march her troops back down the hill. Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, having threatened to call a second Scottish Independence Referendum unless the UK government remained within the EU Single Market, or made special provisions for Scotland to do so, has now called for such a referendum. Many commentators up here in Scotland did not expect this to happen so soon and there is even speculation that Sturgeon did not want to call a referendum but was pushed into it by the raised expectations of her supporters and her predecessor Alex Salmond.

What was perceived as a bargaining chip in an attempt to get a better deal for Scotland on Brexit, now looks as though it may become reality. Although it should be noted that the Scottish Parliament cannot hold an independence referendum without the permission of Westminster and it is by no means guaranteed that Prime Minister May would grant that permission. It would be a gamble for the Prime Minister not to do so, in that it may fuel a stronger demand for separation, but there are many people in Scotland who do not want another referendum (49 per cent to 39 per cent according to the latest polls) and who would be thankful if we did not have to go through it just now. The smart money is on the Prime Minister refusing to grant such a poll until after Brexit is completed on the not unreasonable grounds that there is enough political uncertainty at the moment. It may even be that this is what the First Minister is hoping for. She would not have to fight a referendum that at the moment she looks likely to lose, and she could blame Westminster for not having the referendum.

So what is the Christian position on all this? Christians will disagree on this, as they will disagree on other political subjects. But does that mean we have nothing to say, except to reflect the views and disagreements of the wider society? I don't think so. Neither does the Church of Scotland, who declared that the bible is neutral on the question of Scottish Independence, although it is for EU membership and against Prime Minister May withholding permission for a second Scottish referendum. My perspective is a wee bit different. I don't think there is a Christian position. The Bible doesn't actually say anything about Scottish independence, referendums or the EU. Christians will disagree on this, as they will disagree on other political subjects.

Of course we all approach this with different biases. So cards on the table. I am a long time supporter of Scottish Independence and I voted Yes in the 2014 referendum. I have many friends within the SNP who are Christians and I know a number of Christian MPs and MSPs. But despite that I will personally not support another referendum for both political and what I would regard as Christian reasons. (I have even petitioned the Scottish Parliament asking them not to go ahead.)

The political is that it does not make sense to me to leave one democratic union of countries for another larger and less democratic. But it is the moral and social reasons that concern me more. Allow me to explain.

The Scottish People took part in a long and valuable, passionate and at times divisive referendum in 2014 in order to determine whether Scotland should become independent of the United Kingdom. My side lost. By a clear majority we voted to remain  2,001,926 (55.3 per cent) to 1,617,989 (44.7 per cent) on a turnout of 85 per cent. Since then we have had another referendum on whether the UK should remain within the EU and which the UK electorate (including Scotland) voted to leave. This referendum was also divisive within Scotland, with 1,661,191 of the electorate in Scotland (62 per cent) voting for the UK to remain and 1,018,332 (38 per cent) voting to leave on a turnout of 67.2 per cent. Incidentally from this it should be clear that when the SNP say they are speaking on behalf of all the people of Scotland who clearly voted for Scotland to remain in the EU, which is demonstrably false. Only 1.6 million out of an electorate of 4 million voted for the UK to remain in the EU (we didn't actually have a vote about Scotland and the EU).

We were promised at the time of the first Independence referendum that this would be a 'once in a generation/lifetime' referendum and yet we are now faced with the real prospect of a repeat within four years. Whatever our views on Scottish Independence I believe that a referendum within the next four years would be harmful to the people of Scotland and indeed the whole United Kingdom for the following reasons:

We live in a time of great political and economic upheaval and flux. Another referendum will only add to that. Whatever the result.

There are significant problems within Scotland (education, the NHS, the economy) that need the full attention of the Scottish parliament. We cannot afford to be distracted by another lengthy, divisive and bitter campaign. Neither can the UK government afford to be distracted by an internal referendum whilst trying to work out the complex details of Brexit.

We were promised that this would be a once in a generation referendum. That promise should be kept. Or are we going to spend the rest of our lives on a Neverendum?

Until the Brexit negotiations are complete there will be both uncertainty about what we might be leaving, and even more uncertainty about where we might be going. It is not wise to seek split apart the United Kingdom at the same time as the United Kingdom, including Scotland, is leaving the EU.

And finally I have to admit I was wrong. During and after the 2014 Referendum I was too dismissive of those who claimed they were victims of anti-English racism. Whilst I still maintain such incidents are a small minority, they are far more common than I recognised and I am fearful that such are the passions ignited by this debate that whatever happens it will cause bitterness and division.

From a personal political point of view I think this is a fundamental mistake for the Scottish National Party. One third of SNP voters voted for Brexit and many of us are unlikely to vote for an Independence which we regard as worse than belonging to the UK. In addition to this it is highly unlikely that the SNP can win this referendum  whilst the latest opinion polls have the Yes vote on 48 per cent and the No vote on 52 per cent, surely we have learned by now to be cautious with opinion polls. These figures do not include the 'don't knows' many of whom are likely to stay with the status quo. Furthermore whilst the SNP can parade a few celebrities who say they have changed their mind from No to Yes, my observation of Facebook and social media is that there are many more ordinary Yes voters who are going the other way.

I'm not a prophet (so please don't stone me) but let me begin and end my short career as a political pundit with these predictions. If Prime Minister May grants another referendum, it will not be until after the UK leaves the EU. And if that referendum is held, then excepting a total economic collapse, the SNP will lose that referendum by a considerable margin and the opportunity/threat for Scottish Independence will have gone for decades. You heard it here first!

There are of course Christians who will disagree with this analysis. There are those who think that the UK is finished anyway and that the EU will be our saviour (at least in a political sense). I don't agree. But one thing surely we can agree on? That we pray for the peace and prosperity of not only Scotland, but also the other kingdoms of this United Kingdom, and the nations of the EU and indeed the nations of this world. As Christians we know they are all temporary and that we do not serve them. We serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and as such we are prevented from having an all-consuming nationalism (whether of the Scottish, UK or European variety). Even in politics we are just 'travelling through'. Yes we should be involved in this debate, but only as those who know that 'here we have no continuing city'.

David Robertson is Associate Director of Solas CPC in Dundee. Follow him on Twitter @TheWeeFlea
The Palestinian ballet star who is fighting ISIS with dance

A Palestinian ballet dancer has won wide acclaim using dance in a defiant stance against ISIS in the Middle East.

Ahmad Joudeh shared his journey of loss and perseverance with The Guardian. His story is told in the Dutch documentary 'Dance or Die', where Joudeh, 26, speaks of the freedom and power that dancing gives him.

'I will never give up dancing,' he said. 'I am prepared to fight all my life for the feeling that dancing gives me. It's a feeling of freedom. Being a Palestinian refugee, born in a camp, I always felt inferior to other people. But when I dance, I feel like a king.'

Joudeh suffered for years living in Syria during the civil war, and received death threats from ISIS. In the 2016 documentary, he visits the rubble of what was the Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk, where he grew up. He danced upon the ruins of the site: 'I did it for the souls of my five family members who were killed there,' he said.

He also danced in front of the Palmyra theatre, a site previously used for mass execution videos by ISIS.

'Dancing in the Palmyra theatre was my way to fight Isis. It was my way to tell them: you can kill people, but you can't keep me from dancing. It was a dangerous thing to do, we couldn't stay there longer than one hour, and it was 50C (122F) in the sun. But I did it because I knew I would never have the chance again. And I was right. Isis have destroyed the theatre now. I cried for two days when I heard the news.'

Joudeh also had to face the opposition of his father, who vehemently despised Joudeh's passion for dance. 'My father forbid me to dance,' he said. 'Because in our culture, to be a ballet dancer is the worst thing your son can choose to do for a living. He said it was a shame for the family and wanted me to study English or medicine. But I said no, this is my life. I went to dance class secretly.'

Joudeh was beaten by his father when he was found out, but Joudeh refused to give up on his dream: 'I said to him: it's dance or die.' Joudeh had the words 'dance or die' tattooed on his neck.

As he has followed his dream, Joudeh has become increasingly well known. He has appeared on Arab talent shows, Dutch operas and high profile dance festivals. He has reconciled with his father. He now studies at the ballet academy in Amsterdam.

He says there is 'No time to do anything but dancing. Because I am the only hope for my students and for my family in Syria. They count on me now. They say: the only good news we hear is your news'.
Trump envoy to meet Palestinian President as US tries to kickstart peace talks

Donald Trump's Middle East envoy will meet with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank tomorrow, after spending five hours with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday.

Jason Greenblatt is in the region in an attempt to kick-start the dormant 'peace process' between Israel and the Palestinians.

During his meeting with Netanyahu, Greenblatt 'reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations,' according to a statement released by the Israeli PM's office.

The statement added that Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel's settlement building 'with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security'.

One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is the former's building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.

Trump's predecessor Barack Obama took a hard line against the settlements, and Trump himself raised them with Netanyahu when the two men met at the White House last month.

Nonetheless, the Palestinians remain concerned at the apparently pro-Israel position adopted by the Trump administration, which has controversially pledged to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Trump spoke to Abbas on the telephone on Friday and invited him to the White House, in the first phone call between the two leaders since Trump took office.

Before taking office, Trump named Greenblatt, a top lawyer, as his special negotiator for trade deals and other talks and his adviser to the Middle East and special representative for international negotiations.
Why The EU's Hijab Ruling Is So Worrying For Christians

Today's court ruling banning hijabs in the workplacs highlights a contemptuous tendency among 'religious liberty' defendants to only look after their own.

Horror abounds when a Christian is dismissed in a case concerning their faith. But there is little equal dismay when a Muslim faces restrictions on their religious freedom.

The Christian free speech lobby was conspicuous by their absence in defending the rights of Muslim women in this summer's burkini ban row, for example.

And today's decision by the Court of Justice for the European Union another crucial example.

The Court ruled that workers can be banned from the 'visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign'. The dictate must be based on a general company rule to 'dress neutrally' not on religious stereotypes or prejudices, it insisted.

The ramifications for religious liberty in the workplace are significant.

A number of campaigners have rushed to criticise the decision warning it will bar faith communities from the workplace.

Amnesty International warns the ban on religious symbols to ensure neutrality opened 'a backdoor to ... prejudice'.

The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt said the Court had added to rising incidences of hate crime to send a message that 'faith communities are no longer welcome'.

And the Open Society Justice Initiative, a group backed by the philanthropist George Soros, said the ruling 'weakens the guarantee of equality' offered by EU non-discrimination laws.

'In many member states, national laws will still recognize that banning religious headscarves at work is discrimination,' policy office Maryam Hmadoun said.

'But in places where national law is weak, this ruling will exclude many Muslim women from the workplace.'

But amid the rebukes from some human rights groups, once again the Christian religious liberty lobby is noticeable by their absence.

Tragically this is because the case centres on a Muslim woman's right to wear the hijab and not a Christian's right to wear a cross.

The court's ruling, as one would expect, is nuanced and cautious. It is not necessarily a bad decision. Frank Cranmer, a legal expert and blogger on Law and Religion, told Christian Today: 'Cases like this are always very difficult and depend heavily on that facts, but it seems to me that the Court has got the balance about right.'

But the stark reality is that, had the case involved a Christian's right to wear a cross, condemnation would overflow.

Christian's sectarianism and refusal to defend the religious freedom of everyone equally is shameful.

Firstly it does no credit it their cause. If religious freedom is to be upheld in law, it will be the liberty of all and not just Christians. The ruling today crucially applies to all religious symbols, not just hijabs. And so in their unwillingness to speak out, they are harming future Christians who will be affected by the same judgement.

But more importantly it flies in the face of the Christian understanding of freedom they claim to stand for. Their self-preservation and refusal to fight for other faiths means that those who purport to stand for freedom of religion are actually arguing for a Saudi model where one religion's freedom is upheld and defended to the detriment of others.

For the sake of their credibility, for the sake of justice and for the sake of their own cause, Christians concerned with religious freedom must defend Muslims' rights to liberty.

Harry Farley is a staff writer for Christian Today. Follow him on Twitter @HarryFarls
A haunting series of photos from AFP photographer Joseph Eid has captured the bleak existence of life in Aleppo, Syria.

Mohamed Mohideen Enis Abu Omar, a 70-year-old doctor, has collected American cars since the 1950s. Eid's photos show Omar rummaging through the battered and beaten collection in al-Shaar, a neighborhood once held by rebel forces.
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Members of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitive list may not have been from Texas, but they got here anyway.

The Lone Star State has been home to 21 captures of people appearing on the list. Not all were from Texas and not all were wanted in Texas, but they were busted in the state.

For decades the Most Wanted list has been a valuable tool to law enforcement, and this month the FBI is marking the 67th anniversary of the most famous group of criminals in America.

GOING PUBLIC: FBI making publicity push to capture a fugitive wanted in Texas

Since Thomas J. Holden first appeared on the 10 Most Wanted list on March 14, 1950 - he was wanted for murder - 516 fugitives have been listed. Their pictures (and sometimes fingerprints) have appeared on bulletin boards at post offices, in courthouses and, in more recent years, online.

They don't all get caught quickly. Victor Manuel Gerena, an alleged gang member accused of taking part in a $7 million armored car robbery, went on the list May 14, 1984 and was removed Dec. 15, 2016. He holds the record for longest time among the 10 Most Wanted and he still hasn't been caught.

The shortest stint among the Most Wanted belongs to Billie Austin Bryant. He spent two hours on the list on Jan. 8, 1969, for killing two FBI agents, bank robbery and escape. After being caught, Bryant was sentenced to life in prison.

BORDER BUST: A fugitive sought by the FBI is caught near the Texas-Mexico border

The list has also helped snag it's share of infamous felons: Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, and 1996 Olympic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph.

The list even featured terrorist Osama Bin Laden before the U.S. military brought him down in Pakistan in 2011.

>>>Scroll through the gallery above to see who on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list has been wanted in Texas or captured in the state
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Between love songs and odes to small towns, Sam Hunt told the NRG Stadium crowd that being there reminded him of growing up attending rodeos in Cedartown, Ga.

"I had big dreams of being a bull rider one day," he said. "Unfortunately, my rodeo aspirations have not panned out yet."

Music, however, is what did get Hunt on the RodeoHouston stage for a Monday night crowd of 70,263. He's released just one album but is of the biggest breakout stars of the past few years.

COUNTRY COOL: Sam Hunt talks breaking with tradition and loving Ed Sheeran

Aside from it being his debut, Monday night's show boasted another milestone: Hunt was the first act this year to jump offstage and greet fans at the rails during the booming bass of "House Party."

He played a few seconds of catch-up with kickoff tune "Leave the Night On," which started before he was even onstage. He hurried into place wearing a white T-shirt, black ball cap and high-top sneakers.

Much has been made of Hunt's aversion to play by even the loosest of genre rules. On record, he strains modern country through pop and R&B, more Justin Timberlake than George Strait.

"Saturday Night" boasts a brief rap break. "Take Your Time" and "Make You Miss Me" could be huge hits for any number of pop stars.

He interspersed a bit of Rihanna's "We Found Love" into "We are Tonigh," a song Hunt co-wrote for Billy Currington.

BEST OF THE SEASON: These are the best fashions, moments we've seen at RodeoHouston so far

But the country colors come through a bit more clearly on tunes like "Ex to See" and "Raised on It."

Hunt told the crowd he's so far only sung slinky new single "Body Like a Back Road" in Texas. He performed an identical set last month during Super Bowl week at Club Nomadic.

He made "I Met a Girl" a sweet dedication to his fiance. And he put his own earnest spin on "Cop Car," another co-write that topped the charts for Keith Urban.

Hunt reminisced about performing at the RodeoHouston barbecue cookoff "for about 70 folks," staying at the Red Roof Inn and "eating gas station pizza."

What a difference a hit album makes.
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A young Texas girl caught the attention of "Entourage" star Adrian Grenier Tuesday at SXSW.

Mikaila Ulmer, founder of Me & the Bees Lemonade, is a 12-year-old entrepreneur who was at The Experience by Dell Technologies @ SXSW, an event hosted by Grenier.

He took to Facebook to share a photo with the young business owner and wrote: "So inspired by this young changemaker. 12 year old entrepreneur and founder of Me and The Bees makes lemonade while helping save the bees. Love that Dell supports these passionate female entrepreneurs. #DellExperience #LegacyofGood #TheFutureisFemale"

TRAVEL HOMES: Dream houses still available to rent in Austin for SXSW

Ulmer is no stranger to attention. She was offered an investment deal by Daymond John on the show "Shark Tank" and has gone on to make headlines for starting a business at such a young age. Ulmer launched this business from her Austin home and debuted the product at the Acton Children's Business Fair and Austin Lemonade Day.

She credits two bee stings with inspiring her to make "something that helps honeybees" using her grandmother's flaxseed lemonade recipe. Most recently, in January, she was named among the Top 25 People Shaping Retail's Future by the National Retail Federation Foundation.

Grenier was in town to host this Dell event, which focused on content creation, gaming and virtual reality among other topics.
An oil field worker in Brazoria County died Tuesday morning in what authorities described as an industrial accident.

The incident occurred at a Denbury Resources site. Denbury is a Plano-based company, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration records.

According to a statement from Denbury, the company is working closely with local public officials following the incident, and the investigation is ongoing.

The last time a Denbury worker died on the job was in 2015 in North Dakota. According to accident reports, the body of an employee was found on a catwalk with a gas monitor.

The well site was known to be an active hydrogen sulfide environment. The employee was apparently gauging a tank. It is suspected that the employee was killed by overexposure to hydrogen sulfide or hydrocarbon vapors.

The story is developing.
It began with 20-year-old Damian A. Stauffer taking a shower while wearing clothes.

It ended after, prosecutors say, with Stauffer breaking an arm bone of a three year old boy, repeatedly striking an Eau Claire Police officer, stealing and then crashing a police car, repeatedly shrugging off the effects of a Taser and pepper spray, and then being shot with a non-lethal bean bag round.

A criminal complaint filed in Chippewa County Court on Tuesday detailed what prosecutors say was a night Stauffer rampaged through a portion of the city of Eau Claire thats in Chippewa County.

Stauffer faces nine charges from the March 6 events, including physical abuse of a child-intentionally causing bodily harm; attempted robbery with use of force; burglary, battery to a law enforcement officer, vehicle theft; attempted disarming a police officer; second degree recklessly endangering safety; resisting an officer; and obstructing an officer.

Stauffer, whose address is listed as the 3300 block of Runway Avenue, is under a $25,000 cash bond.

According to a criminal complaint:

A relative said Stauffer took a shower with all of his clothes on and then took the three-year-old boy before running out of Stauffers home. A mother later got the three-year-old back, and the child was taken to Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire for treatment of a broken humerus bone, a long bone in the upper arm.

A police officer was called to another residence in the 3300 block of Runway Avenue, and was told Stauffer forced his way into that residence and fought a man who lived there. Stauffer demanded the mans car keys. The man said no and eventually was able to grab Stauffer and fling him out the door.

An officer in a squad car in an alley in the 3300 block of Runway Avenue said a man wearing a wet orange sweatshirt was charging at him at full speed. The officer was hit in the face. Stauffer opened the drivers side door of the squad car and pulled the officer out of the car. Once the officer was outside of the vehicle, Stauffer straddled the officer and punched him several times. The officer was able to kick Stauffer off of him and used his Taser on Stauffer with no affect. Stauffer was able to get on top of the officer and attempted to pull a knife that was in the officers vest. The officer fended that off, but Stauffer was able to get inside the squad car and floored the gas pedal.

The car crashed in the alley near the 3000 block of Runway Avenue. After the officers used pepper spray, Stauffer left the vehicle but would not follow the officers commands to show his hands and lie on the ground. It appeared that Stauffer was trying to get back inside the squad car, which had a rifle and shotgun inside. Thats when he was shot with the bean bag round in the upper portion of his thigh.
BBVA Compass and the Houston Rockets have partnered to launch the Bright Advantage contest for small businesses the organizations announced Tuesday.

Houston-area small businesses can submit their nominations online for a chance to win $10,000, lunch with Rockets executives, a personal consultation with BBVA Compass, a private suite at a Rockets game next season, a meet and greet with a Rockets legend and an opportunity to be featured on the Rockets' website.
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AUSTIN - The United States is part of a multinational partnership to build a device in the south of France that could change the trajectory of mankind: the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

The project will cost at least $16 billion before it just might create the Holy Grail of electricity generation: A plasma bottle that can fuse two hydrogen atoms together and produce more energy than it consumes.

But the project known as ITER (pronounced EAT-er) is chewing through taxpayer money and politicians' patience now that it's a decade behind schedule. The fate of the world's most expensive science project is the subject of a new documentary film, "Let There Be Light," which premiered at the SXSW Conference and Festivals in Austin.

The scientists working on the project are confident that if the sponsoring countries would only provide more funding quicker, their fusion reactor will pave the way for a limitless supply of clean, cheap energy. Holders of the public trust, meanwhile, fear that ITER will be history's most expensive white elephant.

RELATED: End of climate change denial signals changes for energy industry

Only one thing is certain. If the U.S., Japan, Russia, China, India, South Korea and the European Union don't increase funding, this project and possibly all future fusion research will screech to a halt.

These countries have already spent billions, but $16 billion is actually a pretty small risk for a potentially revolutionary technology when put in context.

By comparison, a single deep water oil well can easily cost $300 million, and there are currently 3,400 of them. That's an investment of over $1 trillion. Cheneire Energy spent $5 billion on a single natural gas liquefaction facility at Sabine Pass to ship LNG overseas to generate electricity. At least four more LNG facilities are planned.

Why on earth are we stunting the development of fusion energy by keeping it in a state of perpetual fiscal starvation?

ITER has been its own worst enemy, demonstrating all of the problems you'd expect from a project jointly managed by government bureaucrats and research scientists. The boardroom overlooking the construction site is a modern-day Tower of Babel with participants often working to cross purposes as they try to satisfy government officials at home who have used the project as a jobs program for their home countries.

The multinational board recognized the problem and has hired a new chief executive to impose some fiscal discipline. But ITER faces a new threat from President Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress.

Trump has proposed slashing the Department of Energy's budget for renewable energy research by 30 percent, in line with Senate Republicans who have repeatedly tried to pull the U.S. out of ITER. Only House Republicans representing districts where Americans make components for ITER have managed to keep the funding barely alive.

The new secretary of energy, Rick Perry, is the only chance for ITER to keep its funding once the long budget negotiations with Congress begin.

RELATED: ASME: Engineers have ethical duty to fight climate change

ITER's biggest problem, though, is its timeline. The first experiments are not expected before 2026 and the first energy produced by the reactor won't come before 2036. That's long after many of today's politicians are dead and gone, and needless to say, their focus is on the next election.

That long timeline also explains why private companies want no part of such research. Venture capital firms gets itchy if they can't pull their money out in seven years, let alone 27 years. Corporations often have 20 year plans, but not based on unproven technology.

Sadly, ITER is likely to fall victim to the same short-term thinking that makes the need for fusion energy so urgent. Our refusal to do anything to mitigate the effects of climate change is based on our inability to recognize a future threat.

We don't want to pay the necessary price now to protect the earth for future generations by reducing our carbon emissions. But neither do we want to invest in the technology necessary to provide carbon-free energy.

At least not until if effects our daily lives, but by then, it will be too late.
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A registered sex offender already behind bars in the Fort Bend County jail now faces new charges of child abuse in Harris County.

Dwayne Bernard Howard, 50, was charged in Harris County on Friday with two counts of continuous sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to a Harris County Sheriff's Office press release.

Howard is in the Fort Bend County jail on two separate charges of aggravated sexual assault of child.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office child abuse unit started investigating allegations that led to his recent Harris County charges in 2010. Once Howard learned of the investigation that year, he fled to Europe, according to the release.

Howard wound up back in the country a few years later, but the sheriff's office wasn't aware until officials arrested him in Fort Bend County in February 2016.

That arrest prompted the Harris County Sheriff's Office to reopen its 2010 investigation. Officials allege Howard sexually abused relatives, who were siblings.

He allegedly abused two sisters who were 11 and 16 at the time. He allegedly forced one victim to pose wearing provocative clothing while he photographed her. He also is accused of using a live web camera and filmed the girls while they were undressed, according to the release.

DISMISSED: Baylor fires football staff member tied to sexual assault scandal

When the sheriff's office reopened the 2010 case, the brother of the two female victims came forward. He said Howard sexually abused him from when he was 12 until 15 years old, according to the release.

The male victim gave a detailed description of Howard's laptop computer, which is now in the custody of the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office.

Howard is also suspected of file-sharing child pornography of relatives while in Europe.

Howard's history of child abuse dates back to 1998, when he was charged in Harris County with aggravated assault of a child under the age of 14. Howard pled guilty to indecency with a child  who was then a 5-year-old girl. He landed in prison for six years.

He was also convicted in 1987 in Fort Bend County of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and of burglarizing a building. He served five years in prison.

Howard is registered as a sex offender for life.

>>>Click through the gallery above to see details of how a suicide prevention program works at the Fort Bend Jail
More Information

YMCA at Katy Main Street

The YMCA at Katy Main Street took the best designs from YMCA centers around the nation and incorporated them into one 41,000 square-foot facility with extra modern amenities and a sleek, airy design.

The $12 million center offers the latest exercise crazes including TRX and aerial yoga. Its outdoor pool is heated and connected to private changing rooms.

The YMCA at Katy Main Street features strength training and cardio equipment, group exercise rooms, a basketball gym, Child Watch rooms to accommodate children from six weeks to 11 years old, an outdoor playground and sports fields, a cycle studio and coffee bar. It also includes health and wellness activities, aquatics, youth sports, after-school care, summer day camp, summer sports clinics, teen programs, senior activities and more.

The new center is expected to receive more than 400,000 visits a year. It will provide approximately $250,000 in community assistance and program/membership scholarships as well as create more than 200 area jobs.
Grieving family and friends Monday sought help in identifying the shooter who killed a Chavez High School student as he worked at Subway with his mother.

Community activist Quanell X - flanked by the parents of 18-year-old Javier Flores - begged one of the men behind the February murder to come forward and identify the shooter in exchange for help getting a more lenient sentence.

R.I.P.: Friends remember 'hero' teen slain saving mom in botched Subway robbery

"I want to make an appeal to one of the young men that came in and robbed this Subway. I want make a personal appeal to the one who did not do the shooting," Quanell said during a Monday press conference at the scene of the crime.

"Come forward and tell us who you are and tell us the truth of what happened."

Flores was fatally shot Feb. 22 when he jumped between his mother and armed robbers holding up the southeast Houston Subway where he and his mother worked. Police later linked the shooting to another Subway heist caught on camera later that night.

With the help of donations - including $10,000 from Subway and $25,000 from an anonymous donor - Crime Stoppers put out a hefty $40,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Quanell offered Monday to supplement that sum with $2,000 of his own.

DANGER: This Texas city outpaced Chicago's 2016 murder-rate jump

"We personally... will give you $2,000 cash if you can tell us the truth of who these guys are," he said.

Quanell said he's confident someone in the community knows what happened. He got a call about a potential lead but the caller never called back with more information as promised.

Police investigators who showed up to watch the press conference said they "received a lot of information" in the case, but didn't know anything more about the mysterious caller.

Much of the press conference was directed at the robbers themselves.

"To the driver of the vehicle, if you come forward I will see what I can do to get you a lesser charge, if you come forward and tell us what happened," Quanell said.

"To the shooter, we're coming after you brother, we're going to find out who you are."

Carlos Vasquez, the teen's father, briefly stepped up to the microphone to encourage the shooter to own up to the slaying.

TRAGIC: Teen shot Friday during game of Russian roulette dies

"Be a man enough to say, 'I killed your son, I'm here to turn myself in,'" he said.

"Be in my shoes. I want you to feel what I felt."

Quanell decried the crime as a violation of street codes.

"There's a code of conduct, even for gangsters and thugs, to where you know you don't kill an unarmed innocent child in the presence of his mother," he said.

"So I'm calling to those brothers in the 'hood. Send a message to the Latino community that there is no safe place for these type of brothers to live among us."
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He called her "Nana," the grandmother who stepped in to help him when other family members couldn't or wouldn't.

"She was the best person in the world," said Kaley Kunkel, an ex-girlfriend of Nathan Reid Billingsley from his days in League City.

"Caring."

Then came depression, anger and drugs, Kunkel said Tuesday, followed by what prosecutors said were a series of threatening texts.

Billingsley is now charged with murder in the death of his grandmother, Hazel Billingsley, 67, whose body was found Sunday wrapped in a blanket in a shed behind her home.

The 21-year-old Cypress man remained in the Harris County Jail Tuesday on $200,000 bail, and had been placed on a suicide watch.

"It's really sad that he did that to his grandma, because she was there for him," said Kunkel, 20, who said they broke up about a year ago.

Nathan Billingsley is accused of shooting his grandmother twice on Saturday after sending text messages threatening to kill her, according to prosecutors.

Family members got worried and went to the home Sunday, where they found Billingsley and his current girlfriend, who has not been identified, loading personal items into his grandmother's car. The pair reportedly fled on foot but were taken into custody in a wooded area near the home in the 1700 block of East Longwood Meadows Drive.

Billingsley was charged Monday with murder; the girlfriend was released.

On Tuesday, state District Judge Herb Ritchie set bond at $200,000.

Kunkel said she and Nathan Billingsley dated for about three years. He was a "class clown," she said - joyful and full of life.

"He was happy, jolly Nathan," she said. "Before all the drugs, before everything, he was a very warm-hearted person."

He wrote rap songs and performed magic tricks, but kept the secrets to the tricks to himself. And he was a daredevil, she said.

They each attended Clear Creek High School but didn't meet until they both worked at Kroger in League City, where he was a bagger, and she was a cashier.

She said he lived with his mother for a time, then a brother, and finally moved to Cypress about two years ago to live with an uncle. He moved in with his grandmother after his uncle "got tired of him," she said.

Things began to change a couple of years ago, she said.

First he had bouts of depression and anger, and got involved with drugs. He told her he was unhappy, she said.

He tried repeatedly to get off drugs, she said, and had periods where his life seemed to improve, working long hours in his uncle's auto shop.

She said she was shocked when she heard he'd been charged with murder.

"I really don't know what happened with the kid at all," she said. "He was a very hardworking kid when he put his mind to it."

Margaret.kadifa@chron.com

@margaretkadifa

brian.rogers@chron.com

twitter.com/brianjrogers

>>>Scroll through the gallery to see the odds of becoming a crime victim in the Houston suburbs
One of three members of Montgomery County Commissioners Court indicted on a charge of conspiring to circumvent the Texas Open Meetings Act has agreed to testify against the other two elected officials and a political consultant in their upcoming trial, according to the attorney representing him.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Jim Clark was granted a pretrial diversion in exchange for his testimony against County Judge Craig Doyal, Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley and political consultant Marc Davenport, said Conroe-based attorney E. Tay Bond, who is representing Clark.

All four face the TOMA violation charge stemming from negotiations in August 2015 to place a $280 million road bond referendum on the November 2015 ballot. After a six-month investigation, Montgomery County grand jury indicted the four in June 2016 on one count each of the Class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to six months in jail and a maximum $500 fine, if convicted. It is unclear whether a guilty verdict or plea would force the elected officials to vacate their positions.

All four are scheduled to start trial proceedings March 27 in the 221st state District Court in Montgomery County.

However, on Monday, Bond, confirmed that Clark has worked out the agreement with the special prosecutor handling the case.

According to Bond, if Clark "lives up to the terms" of the diversion, his case will be dismissed. While some pretrial diversions require admission of guilt, Bond said that is not the case with Clark's agreement.

"He would be required to voluntarily complete training offered by the Texas Attorney General's Office (regarding) the Texas Open Meetings Act as required by (the) Texas Government Code," said Bond, noting that Clark then would provide documentation to Special Prosecutor Chris Downey that he completed the training. "He would have to retain a consultant to advise him and his staff on the applicability and proper implementation of the requirement of the Texas Open Meeting Act.

"He will have to testify truthfully under oath in any trials concerning this alleged violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act."

An Aug. 24, 2015, Open Records request by The Courier led to the appointment of Downey as special prosecutor to investigate the case. Then-9th state District Court Judge Kelly Case, who did not seek re-election in 2016, appointed Downey after Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon requested that someone else handle the case due to some conflicts of interest involving his office. Case had the choice of hiring a special prosecutor or requesting that the state Attorney General's Office handle it, according to Downey.

The information provided to The Courier showed dozens of emails between the county judge, certain members of Commissioners Court, Davenport and others, including members of The Woodlands-based Texas Patriots PAC, which negotiated the framework of the bond package with the elected officials and political consultant. No Patriots PAC member was indicted and it is not known whether any were a subject of the special prosecutor's investigation.

The Courier did not recieve any emails from Clark regarding the open records request but in the emails provided by Doyal, Bill Smith and inspector with Clark's office forwarded an email from O'Sullivan containing a draft of the memorandum of understanding between the PAC, Riley and Doyal.

In a previous article, Clark said he provided Davenport with a hard copy of his road bond projects.

The Courier requested documents between Aug. 11 and Aug. 21, 2015, because commissioners took no action on a November 2015 road bond on Aug. 11, 2015, which was the last scheduled court meeting before the Aug. 24 deadline to place a bond referendum on the November 2015 ballot. However, on Aug. 21, 2015, Doyal and Riley announced they had reached a memorandum of understanding with the Patriots PAC that opened the door for the bond referendum. At the same time, a special meeting of Commissioners Court was posted for Aug. 24, 2015. On that date, commissioners unanimously approved the referendum, and voters later passed it. The bond package did not include the controversial Woodlands Parkway extension or the Robinson Road project in Oak Ridge North. The parkway extension led to the demise of a $350 million road bond referendum in May 2015, which voters rejected due to the overwhelming opposition in The Woodlands.

The Courier also requested phone logs and text messages but never recieved any documents responsive to that request.

Clark, Doyal and Riley all are up for re-election in 2018.
WAUWATOSA  Many entrepreneurs, especially those who are Millennials or younger, focus on products or services designed for people like themselves. The list includes software applications of all descriptions, grab-and-go food and drink, wearables and athleisure products, to name a few.

That makes market sense given there are 75 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 34, and they arent often shy about spending on consumer goods and services.

A much larger market are Americans 50 and older. About 111 million people fall into that graying group, which also happens to hold nearly two-thirds of the nations financial assets and which spends an estimated $3.2 trillion annually. Thats a figure greater than the gross national product of France or Brazil.

If seniors command so much financial clout, why arent more entrepreneurs looking to create products or services that cater to their changing health needs and lifestyles?

That question flowed through a March 9 Tech Council Innovation Network discussion at the UW-Milwaukee Innovation Campus, where about 70 people heard from an entrepreneur, an investor and the director of one of the nations largest senior care innovation centers.

We should make Milwaukee the nations premiere location for senior startups, said Melinda Caughill, co-founder of i65, a company that has developed Medicare enrollment guidance software for financial planners, health-care professionals and others who must navigate the Medicare signup process.

That cluster may already be emerging, judging by the number of young companies on hand to talk about their ideas for serving the senior market. Those products ranged from devices to counter swallowing problems often found in older people to devices to better connect the elderly to their families and caregivers. Some of the entrepreneurs were seniors themselves, explaining it helps to know what others like them want.

Perhaps more significant is the market pull from companies such as Milwaukee-based Direct Supply, the nations leading provider of products, services and technology to the senior-care market. It has launched an Innovation and Technology Center to work closely with startups and academic institutions to identify and adapt emerging technologies in senior care.

Were very much committed to attracting and creating innovation in the senior care space, and we think Milwaukee is a great place to do that, said Tom Paprocki, the managing director for Direct Supplys Innovation and Technology Center.

Located in a historic, neo-Gothic building across the street from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, the 50,000-square-foot center is home to six startups. It is engaged in 12 university partnerships and is working with 28 startups from around the world. Some 1,400 startups have been vetted in about two years, a sign of growing activity in the senior products and services sector.

Major areas of interest for the Direct Supply center include virtual and augmented reality, telemedicine, remote monitoring, passive fall prevention, social robotics, artificial intelligence and staff efficiency. Many of those technologies will be applied in health care.The Direct Supply tech center is not alone nationally in accelerating ideas tied to senior living. Aging 2.0 in San Francisco and Innovate LTC in Louisville, Ky., are among other examples, especially on the consumer products side.

Investors are paying attention, said Katie Schmitz, senior vice president for Ziegler, a leading health-care investment bank. Zieglers portfolio includes many companies with products or services aimed at seniors. The Ziegler Link-Age Longevity Fund is a $27-million arm that invests in health information technologies and other services tied to the longevity economy.

People 50 and older are already the largest single group of Americans, and their needs and habits are redefining everything from health care to consumerism. For entrepreneurs who are looking to market their ideas, it makes sense to pay attention not just to Millennials, but Baby Boomers and beyond.Still is president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He is the former associate editor of the Wisconsin State Journal.
As a hero firefighter's body was returned to Houston over the weekend, officials announced plans for his full line-of-duty death funeral slated for later this week.

William "Iron Bill" Dowling died Tuesday of complications stemming from injuries sustained in a devastating 2013 fire that killed four other firefighters at the scene in what became the deadliest day in the Houston Fire Department's history.
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Budding disciples of "Fixer Upper" stars Chip and Joanna Gaines should look into Historic Houston's latest warehouse-clearing online auction, which is currently taking bids on salvaged materials.

Historic Houston salvages materials from older Houston homes set for demolition. Executive director Lynn Edmundson said they focus on houses built before 1940 for "unbuilding." Property owners donate the houses to the non-profit to take what they can.

PREVIOUS: Before old Houston homes get torn down, best parts are saved and sold

This current auction, aided by online downsizing and estate sale website MaxSold, is being held to help clear Historic Houston's vast warehouse for new inventory. Unlike the sales at the warehouse, this web sale doesn't require a Historic Houston membership.

They harvest these older Houston homes for doors, windows, flooring, cabinetry, antique appliances, marble, fencing and anything else worth turning over to antiques hunters and restoration services. A crew will come and do the dismantling before the bulldozer comes through.

Old doors and flooring are staples at Historic Houston's warehouse, just north of Washington Avenue and east of Studemont. Proceeds from this auction go back into the operating expenses of the warehouse and the organization.

Edmundson said that a lot of the items they sell help those who are renovating older Houston homes, especially those who are not wanting to use new to replace old. These are not endless resources, she noted.

"We sell old bricks that aren't even mad anymore, stuff from the 1920s and 1940s," Edmundson says. "You can't just go to Lowe's and find some of this stuff."

THAT'S NOT COOL: 'Fixer Upper' participant claims house-hunting scenes are fake

According to Edmundson they have plenty of "shiplap" on site that is in such high demand these days because of the "Fixer Upper" duo. The salvaged wood from the older homes can be used for a number of purposes during renovation projects.

Historic Houston has some 18,000 feet of "shiplap" ready to sell.

'Who else has this much shiplap?" Edmundson laughed. "We're just glad to keep these things out of a landfill."

The online MaxSold auction can be found here. Bidding closes on Wednesday, March 15, at 8 p.m. It's free to register and to bid.

Meanwhile the Historic Houston warehouse even has its own mobile app to keep track of what they have in inventory.
For the past month or so former President George W. Bush has been on a whirlwind promotional tour talking about his latest book "Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors which features 66 oil paintings and stories by Bush honoring military veterans.

Just a few days ago on March 2 the majority of those paintings went on public display for all to see.
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AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate gave preliminary approval Tuesday to ban transgender people from using the bathrooms that best correlate with their gender, advancing debate on the nation's newest frontier for LGBT rights.

The Republican-dominated Senate pushed the bill through almost completely on party lines after senators debated the issue for more than four hours on the Senate floor. Critics called the legislation discriminatory while supporters said it would protect the public by keeping sexual predators out of bathrooms.

NEW BILL: Texas bill takes aim at men's masturbation habits

"This is the best privacy bill in the United States," said Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston.

After a final vote Wednesday, which is a formality, the bill will go to the House where it faces bipartisan opposition from lawmakers who are resisting the bathroom politics and are raising concerns about the proposal's economic costs. Many of the state's largest employers, including Amazon and American Airlines, have voiced opposition, and a recent study concluded that the state could lose as many as 185,000 jobs in its first year.

Legislative foes cited the case of a transgender boy who this year won the state's girls wrestling championship because he was barred from competing with boys and stressed the high suicide attempt rate for transgender youth.

"Don't you see the damage that that does to kids, to be humiliated and embarrassed, soiling themselves because they can't use the bathroom of the gender that they identify with," said Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston.

OPPOSITION: Big investors warn Texas against 'bathroom bill'

The laborious Senate debate was the latest skirmish in a national debate over LGBT rights. It has riled the state's business community which fears events like the 2018 NCAA Final Four will be yanked from San Antonio much like events fled North Carolina after lawmakers there passed a similar bill last year.

House Speaker Joe Straus, a Republican from San Antonio, long has voiced his disagreement with Senate Bill 6 but declined through a spokesman to comment after Tuesday's passage of the bill.

"Clearly, I'm not a fan of the bill that they're discussing, but I'm focused 100 percent on the House's priorities," Straus told reporters last week. "They have their agenda; we have ours. We'll worry about our agenda and making progress on some issues that I think are important to every Texan."

A top priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, SB 6 was approved 21-10. It would require people to use bathrooms in public schools and government buildings that correspond to the "biological sex" listed on their birth certificates.

Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who is sponsoring the bill, argued the legislation is about protecting women's safety and privacy in public bathrooms and locker rooms, not discriminating against transgender people.

"Don't think that I don't pray about this, that we're making the right decision," she said during debate on the Senate floor.

RELIGION AND POLITICS: Backers of bathroom bill vow to enlist support of 1 million Christians

Wearing a floral print dress, Kolkhorst stressed that women need to be protected from men who could use the state's absence of SB 6 to enter into women's private bathrooms and changing rooms.

Kolkhorst told stories of women who have been assaulted and have asked for protection. Other Republicans said they feared bathrooms would become "crime-free zones" where men could wander.

Laws are already on the books that bar people from leering into bathrooms or dressing rooms, restraining a person against their will and exposing themselves in bathrooms.

Opponents brought their own stories to the debate, including how state could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and jobs if companies take their business or events elsewhere because they see the state as openly discriminating against other people.

The Texas Association of Business said several businesses have already voiced their intent to avoid Texas should SB 6 pass, which would equate to a $407 million loss in direct spending.

The upper chamber batted down 19 amendments pitched by Democrats to weaken or loosen up restrictions on the bill, such as requiring a state study on the financial impact, banning people from investigating an individual's sex and pulling language that requires people to prove their sex at birth. The Senate accepted one amendment by a Republican and two from Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., a Brownsville Democrat donning a rainbow colored tie and the only Democrat to vote in favor of the bill.

SB6's passage will have a chilling effect on transgender people and "put the most vulnerable people in our community at further risk," said Chuck Smith, chief executive officer of Equality Texas, a

LBGT watchdog group, after the vote.

Smith accused lawmakers in the Senate of "fear mongering" to confuse Texans about the bill, and said voting for SB6 amounts to a "complicit act of violence."

SB 6 also would prohibit local jurisdictions like cities and counties from adopting anti-discrimination ordinances permitting transgender people to use public bathrooms that match their gender identity. It also would not allow government officials to consider private businesses' bathroom policies when awarding public contracts.

Individuals will not face any criminal charges for using an opposite-sex bathroom. Instead, SB 6 would levy between $1,000 to $10,500 in civil penalties on schools or government entities which fail to comply with the measure, depending on the number of violations.

Debate over who should use which bathrooms began in earnest in 2016 with the adoption of a similar law in North Carolina that required transgender people to use the bathroom that correlates with the sex on their birth certificate. The federal government under the direction of the Obama administration then chimed in, sending a letter to school districts across the nation warning that they were to allow transgender students to use the bathroom they are most comfortable with or risk losing federal funds.

A court later halted enforcement of the guidelines and the Trump administration this year repealed guidance letter entirely.

Bobby Cervantes contributed to this report.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
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Human rights attorney Amal Clooney delivered a speech at the United Nations last week exhorting Iraq to formally request a Security Council investigation so that the Islamic State would not get away with genocide.

Mass graves in Iraq still lie unprotected and unexhumed, Clooney warned. Witnesses are fleeing. And there is still not one ISIS militant who has faced trial for international crimes anywhere in the world.

Her address was so powerful that the US ambassador to the UN later tweeted her support.



Heres how Time magazine tweeted about the event: Amal Clooney shows off her baby bump at the United Nations. (Time later changed its headline.)

British tabloids were no better. The Daily Mails headline read: Wearing 4in heels at 6 months pregnant  is that wise, Amal? The Mirror headlined its story this way: Amal Clooney is a vision in yellow as she shows off hint of baby bump in chic dress.

Former first daughter Malia Obama got similar media treatment last month. The start of her internship in New York garnered coverage by The Huffington Post, Slate, and other publications that gave no mention of her responsibilities or career interests. Rather, they covered the style of jeans she wore to the office.

RELATED: When important investigative reporting must compete with Brangelina

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Ignoring the actual work of brilliant women to gawk at their bodies is both sexist and irresponsible. Its sexist because it reduces women to objects to be viewed while men, of course, dont get the same treatment. I havent seen any reports lately about the stomachs, clothes, or shoes of male human-rights advocates. Its irresponsible because it shifts focus away from the bodies of murdered civilians and onto the body of a celebrity. It leaves readers uninformed about one of the most pressing issues of our time.

How can the press do better in future coverage? Newsrooms should institute two common-sense policies.

First, media outlets should only report on a persons appearance if such information is relevant to a story. If a subject is a model or fashion icon, for instance, its fine to report on her, or his, attire. Take award-winning Nigerian-American author Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, who has been outspoken about the fact that she thinks women can be both brilliant and beautiful, and who is a spokesmodel for the makeup brand No7. In that context, it makes sense for appearance to be part of the conversation.

In situations when a womans external appearance has nothing to do with the activities shes pursuing, theres no reason or excuse for commenting on it. Rather, reporters should report on the activities the woman is pursuing.

Much of the interest in Clooneys body seemed to stem from the fact that she married Hollywood actor George Clooney. But a womans choice of partner isnt an excuse to trivialize her based on appearance.

Theres more. Newsroom policy should also demand that if a media outlet is going to report on the bodies of women, then they should also report on the bodies of men in a similar fashion. That way women wont be singled out for objectification. I somehow cant imagine Time following through on its tweet if it required also covering the UN Secretary-General salaciously.

Of course, not all journalists cover women in this way. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for example, responded to Time magazines tweet about Clooney with his own: Oh, cmon. Better headline: Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney calls for action at U.N. against genocide and mass rape of the Yazidi people.

Oh, c'mon. Better headline: Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney calls for action at U.N. against genocide and mass rape of the Yazidi people. https://t.co/KUGKW16XzX  Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) March 10, 2017

Also, while much of the most offensive reporting came from tabloids, as The Washington Post noted, even serious outlets such as the Associated Press and BBC World Service reported on Clooneys choice of husband in their coverage.

Every newsroom needs policies about how they cover peoples bodies. Its time for the media to evolve past archaic notions of how womens bodies should be discussed. The imprint a woman leaves on the world has little to do with the silhouette of her shoe, and everything to do with the work she pursues.

TRENDING: A local papers news article about a $64 bill exploded online

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Kara Alaimo is an assistant professor of journalism, media studies, and public relations at Hofstra University and the author of Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication. Twitter: @karaalaimo.
Since its sale in October, Texas Monthly has made nearly as many headlines as it has written. Most recently, Executive Editor Pamela Colloff on Monday announced her departure from the magazine where she has worked for 20 years. She will be joining both The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, in a job that will combine the resources of both institutions. Her work will appear both in the magazine and on ProPublicas website, and she will work closely with editors from both organizations.

Creating the job took months of planning. Silverstein approached ProPublica with the idea two months prior to the offer, and together they worked out the kinks involving contracts and work flow. According to Silverstein, there is no other reporter at either institution with a job quite like this.

CJR reached out to Colloff, who we profiled last month, to talk to her about this new job and what it means for her reporting. She declined to discuss the implications of her departure on Texas Monthly. What follows is an edited transcript.

How did this job come about?

So, Jake Silverstein left Texas Monthly almost three years ago this spring. And not long after he got settled, he began reaching out to me. So, he and I have been talking for a long time. Hes been talking to ProPublica since last year about a partnership. And Ive been talking to ProPublica since January.

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What made you interested in this?

ProPublica partnered with The New York Times Magazine in July of 2016. That story was by Ryan Gabrielson and Topher Sanders and was about how roadside drug tests are unreliable. In many ways it was a Texas story, and I remember what an effective and powerful piece it was, and just getting this feeling that it was the kind of story I wanted to be doing more of.

How will it work having two employers?

Ill have two editors. Tracy Weber, who is senior editor at ProPublica. Tracy is an incredible award-winning journalist, who teaches investigative reporting at Columbia and worked at the Los Angeles Times. Since I didnt have any formal journalism training, I have a huge amount to learn from her. And I would love to sit in on one of her classes. Also, I will have all of the support ProPublica can offer. And Ill be able to work with other reporters.

At the Times my editor will be Ilena Silverman; shes the features editor at the magazine and a storytelling legend. And Ill be working with both of them throughout the process. Tracy will be there for the gestation of the storiespitching, writing, first draft. Ilena will be more involved on the backend. And this will brings together the strengths of these organizations.

Are there other writers like you who are owned by two masters?

As far as individual writers like me, Im not sure. But ProPublica always tries to find a partner. So there are all these crazy long lists of media organizations they partner with. So my job is an extension of that idea.

TRENDING: Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda

What type of stories will you be working on?

I will be doing public interest stories with a narrative treatment.

What do you mean by public interest?

When I was interviewing for the job, I asked Stephen Engelberg, the founding managing editor of ProPublica, and Robin Fields, the current managing editor of ProPublica, how they described public interest. And they referred me to their mission statement, which says that ProPublica focuses on stories of moral force. The exact phrase is, Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with moral force. And thats how I define public interest.

But this will challenge me on two fronts: 1. To focus on something of public import 2. To tell it in a way that it makes a good story.

Thats interesting that you bring up the moral force because thats how Jake Silverstein described you in the recent profile, that you were driven by moral purpose.

Thats nice of him to say. And yes, that word moral is very important to me.

So you get to stay in Texas?

Everyone talks about the current war against the media, but the silver-lining is that reporters in the middle of the country are being heard more. At no point in this did anyone suggest I move. In fact, Louise Kiernan is running the ProPublica office in Chicago. And now they have writers on the West Coast and me here in Texas.

How much will you be writing?

The idea is to do big, deep stories, but what that looks like, we will figure out as we go along.

So, what will you be writing first for this new job?

Im about to pitch some stories and they all have a criminal justice angle. And Im excited to extend my reporting beyond the state. For 20 years, my work has been strictly about Texas and I hope to reach out a look beyond the borders of the state into other areas like Arizona, New Mexico and beyond.

How do you feel about being on the other side of the story?

I much rather ask the questions than answer them. Thats for sure. Its also such a great exercise for reporters to be interviewed and written about. When I walk into someones living room to interview them, Im not nervous. But being on the other side, helps me understand how it feels to not know someone, not know the story. So, its a great reminder of the responsibility reporters hold and what it feels like to be the person inside the story.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of a senior editor at ProPublica.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Lyz Lenz is a writer based in Iowa. Her writing has appeared in Pacific Standard, Marie Claire, Jezebel, and the Washington Post. Follow her on Twitter @lyzl.
Late last week, the mayor of Langley, Washington, asked The South Whidbey Record to compensate the city $64 for an interview with the citys attorney. The Records coverage of the bill exploded online over the weekend, and the mayor backed off yesterday, calling the situation a misunderstanding and saying he was just trying to get the papers attention.

That he did, said Justin Burnett, editor of the Record, when I caught up with him over the phone. But Burnett isnt convinced the mayor was just messing around.

I just cant believe that if I had sent him $64 he would have sent it back and said No, I was just kidding, Burnett told me. I bet he would have cashed my check.

CJRs United States Project has documented some municipal media mischief over the years: There was the city in Montana that sued its local paper just for filing an open records request, and the city in California that sued an operator of a local watchdog site for copyright infringement after he posted video of council meetings online. But invoicing reporters for interviewing someone who speaks for the city is next-level nonsense.

Obviously, it would have set a terrible precedent for newspapers if we agreed to pay a bill for just simply talking with a publicly funded city worker, Burnett says.

Langley Mayor Tim Callison emailed The South Whidbey Record last Thursday morning. In his email, Callison wrote that the City Attorney works for the City of Langley and is not a free public resource, and asking its reporter to please remit the amount of $64 to the City.

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RELATED: Q&A: How Shea Serrano went from middle school science teacher to NYT bestselling author

The Seattle Times reported that, as is the case with many small towns, the attorney for Langley is not a direct employee but bills the city for time spentin this case, $320 per hour, from a city budget line capped at $50,000 per year. Included in a late February bill to the city, Langleys contracted attorney noted a charge of $64 for correspondence with a reporter.

That charge was sent along to The South Whidbey Recorda small, twice-weekly newspaper that serves a small island community in the Puget Sound. Instead of paying up, the Record played up the news, quoting incredulous open government advocates and public officials.

It feels inappropriate to say the least, one city council member told the paper. Wow, said another. Its ludicrous, said Fred Obee, executive director of the Washington Newspapers Publishers Association. On what planet of reality is this even coming from? (The paper did find one council member who agreed with the mayor. His logic: Because the reporter doesnt live in Langley, he shouldnt have the same rights as city residents.)

Meanwhile, on its Saturday opinion page, a South Whidbey Record editorial put the screws to the mayor, who was elected in 2015. We respectfully decline to pay, read the item. We suggest the mayor instead send the bill to 700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Thats the address of the National Archives Building, the official home of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

RELATED: This is the most job security Ive ever felt in a journalism job in my entire career

All that started Friday. On Sunday, a local TV station picked up the news. Journalist Twitter lit up from coast to coast.

Totally bananas story about a Washington mayor who billed the local newspaper for interviewing the city attorney https://t.co/l9uHpIjztv  Laura J. Nelson (@laura_nelson) March 11, 2017

WHEN PUBLIC OFFICIALS GO WILD: Small-town mayor puts price on press access to city attorney  https://t.co/91zLGGBEY4  Bryan Denson (@Bryan_Denson) March 13, 2017

By Monday evening, according to a story that led The South Whidbey Record homepage, the mayor had changed his tune:

In a telephone interview, the mayor said that by the time he billed the newspaper last week hed already gotten the city attorney to waive the fee and was just trying to make a point. If the newspaper had just called him for an additional interview after receiving the bill, it all would have been made clear, Callison said. If wed have talked, Id have said I was just doing it to get your attention.

The mayor told the paper he regretted not being more clear that he wasnt actually requesting the paper to pay up; rather, he was just trying to make sure the paper knew talking with the citys attorney can be costly. But, as the paper noted, the mayor had doubled down in a Sunday letter to the editor, a Facebook post, and in an email to city residents.

The city treasurerreceived an invoice for the time the attorney spent with the reporter, and knowing it was not pre-approved, questioned it, the mayor wrote in his letter. As is her fiscal job to do. To not collect the charges would be an illegal gift of public funds.

Editor Burnett told me he sees the mayors about-face as proof of the power of the press. He said he never would have paid the $64, and while he doubts the issue would have wound up in court, he would have fought it if it had. The mayor, he believes, is still smarting from a pointed February 25 editorial that criticized his leadership and called him thin-skinned. (The mayor has said thats not the case.)

In the end, Burnett sees the mayors move as an intimidation tactic that backfired.

We got, essentially, a bill trying to in a way bully us into backing off, and we did the opposite and made sure to tell that story, he said. And people heard it. And now its a big misunderstanding which is whatever. Whether its a misunderstanding or whether hes backing off doesnt matter. The most important thing here is that this isnt going to happen.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Corey Hutchins is CJRs correspondent based in Colorado, where he teaches journalism at Colorado College. A former alt-weekly reporter in South Carolina, he was twice named journalist of the year in the weekly division by the SC Press Association. Hutchins writes about politics and media for the Colorado Independent and worked on the State Integrity Investigation at the Center for Public Integrity; he has contributed to Slate, The Nation, the Washington Post, and others. Follow him on Twitter @coreyhutchins or email him at coreyhutchins@gmail.com.
1. Africa is a country.

Maybe geography is a lost subject from where I come from, so let me just remind everyone that Africa is a continent . A large continent, in fact.

Perhaps its obvious to you that Africa is not a country, but why then do so many people say, I took a missions trip to Africa, or, I sponsor a child from Africa, instead of saying Uganda or Ghana or Tanzania?

Africa is actually an incredibly diverse continent and is made up of 54 countries. Those countries north of the Sahara tend to be more Arab, those south of the Sahara tend to be more Bantu (what you would traditionally picture as African), and those on the Horn (Ethiopia, Somalia, etc.) tend to be a fascinating mixture. But even then, I am being incredibly general, as there are thousands of African tribes and ethnicities that are as diverse as as a European would be from an Asian or South American.

I am going to debunk the following myths with what I have learned by living in Tanzania, since that is the country I am most familiar with. However, keep in mind that I will be speaking broadly, and knowingly countering the stereotypes about Africa with more stereotypes (albeit, hopefully more accurate stereotypes). In any culture or country, people live along a spectrum, and its important that we dont ever lump an entire group (or continent) of people under any particular label. My main goal is to use what I have learned in Tanzania to change the mental picture many Westerners have of Africa.

2. Africans are all poor.

Yes, poverty is a huge problem in many African countries. (Of the 25 poorest countries in the world, only four are not African.) But that doesnt mean there arent any middle-class or rich people. Even though Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, there are many rich people here. Economic class distinctions are huge, and since the concept of equality is not valued the way it is in the West, rich people are usually treated better and with far more respect and privilege than poor people.



3. Africa is not clean.

Its true that public areas in Tanzania are often trash-filled and untended. However, that says more about a lack of infrastructure than the character of your average Tanzanian. Tanzanian homes, vehicles and businesses tend to be very cleanmuch cleaner than what I have often seen in America.



4. Africans do not have access to clothes or shoes.

Maybe that was true in the past. Maybe it still is true in some war-torn countries. But in Tanzania, it is absolutely not true. Fabric is locally designed and printed and plentiful. Hundreds of tons of cast-offs from American and European thrift stores are shipped over and sold in the local markets. I buy most of our clothes here now. There is no lack of clothingand therefore, no need for you to send over your shoes or clothing. If you are supporting an organization that needs clothes, send money instead and support the local economy.



5. Africans dress in rags.

I have found that Tanzanians dress far more professionally and formally than those from my home state of casual Californiaand this is regardless of their economic status. Women hardly ever wear shorts in public, and you rarely find a woman in the supermarket wearing the equivalent of yoga pants with unkempt hair. Dry cleaners and salons are everywhere, and people regularly have their clothes individually tailored. Even those who work manual labor dress professionally for the bus ride and change into work clothes when they arrive at their job. In social situations, I often feel under-dressed.



6. Africans all live in villages.

Like most of the world, Tanzania is rapidly becoming urbanized. We live in a fast-growing city of five million people, and it is predicted to reach 20 million in the next 30 years.

7. Village life would be perfect if white people werent messing it up.

So Im not going to get into the complicated mess of colonialism, but lets just say that yes, I agree that white people have done a lot of messing up in Africa (to put it mildly). But lets not swing in the other direction and assume that village life was or is peaceful and idyllic. Of course, beauty can be found anywhere, but female circumcision, child marriages, polygamy, alcoholism, albino murders, women who walk miles to find water, illiterate children, lack of basic health care, and high infant and maternal death rates are not to be sugarcoated by some convoluted notion of the noble savage.

8. All Africans are black.

If all Africans are black, then all Americans are Native American. Colonialism happened on both continents. However, European diseases managed to wipe out most Native American populations, and African diseases managed to wipe out most European settlersand the rest is history. South Africa probably has the most well-known white population, but I also have white African friends from Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania, whose families have lived here for generations. There are also hundreds of thousands of Indian (Asian) families who have been East African citizens for over 100 years.

An Indian (Hindu) wedding ceremony in Tanzania.



9. Poverty is Africas biggest problem.

Absolutely, poverty is a huge problem. But I am convinced that worldview is a bigger problem, and specifically how that plays out in governmental corruption. Which is why sending aid to Africa (in its many forms) is really just sticking band-aids on a cancerous tumorand why the gospel offers real hope.

10. Africa has been evangelized.

Northern Africa? Definitely not. Sub-Saharan Africa? Partially. There are still thousands of villages in Tanzania without a church. There are still dozens of languages in Tanzania that dont have a Bible translation. However, it is true that Christianity has spread like wildfire throughout sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades. Unfortunately, its often a version of the Prosperity Gospel.

Missions has most definitely changed in Africa in recent years. Gone are the days of pith-helmet-clad white men tromping through the jungle to preach the gospel to remote villages. In fact, there are far fewer white missionaries who are engaged in church planting and evangelism. Instead, western missionaries are narrowing their focus to equipping and training Africans to do the job themselves. I dont have statistics, but Im quite confident there are many more African missionaries in Africa than there are western missionaries. And thats how it should be.
A remarkable arson dog, whose nifty nose earned dozens of arson convictions, was named New Yorks top fraud fighter for 2016. Scooter, a trained yellow Labrador Retriever had a memorable 10-year career before passing away in October 2016. She investigated several hundred fires with the Rockland County Sheriffs Department. She also worked cases for adjacent counties.

Her longtime handler, Det. Doug Lerner, recently accepted the Fraud Fighter of the Year award posthumously from the New York Alliance Against Insurance Fraud. The Alliance comprises more than 100 insurers combating insurance crime by educating New Yorkers about frauds high costs to consumers throughout the state.

A rescue dog, Scooter, joined the Rockland County fire unit in 2006. She and Lerner were inseparable in teaming to investigate fires. Arson dogs such as Scooter can smell 100,000 times better than humans. She could discover tiny amounts of gasoline or other firestarter amid piles of blackened ruins. Her evidence proved crucial in helping earn arson and insurance fraud convictions, said Alliance chair Jim Berrigan, in presenting the award.

Scooters evidence led to dozens of convictions. Many involved homes or other buildings burned for insurance schemes. The conviction rate is four times higher for law enforcement departments with canine crime fire fighters. Discovered in a Chicago, Ill., dog shelter, Scooter graduated from a rigorous national training program to become a certified arson dog. Only about one in 10 canines graduate. Most are Labrador Retrievers. Their keen noses and inquisitive, outgoing personalities make them natural fits for scouring rubble for clues.

Scooter also helped teach school kids about fire safety.

The training of Scooter and her handler was funded by a grant from State Farm.

Source: Coalition Against Insurance Fraud
The mother of a Chicago Ridge, Ill., police officer killed in a 2015 crash with an intoxicated, wrong-way driver is pushing for legislation that would increase penalties for people convicted in such crashes.

Lisa Smith is supporting a bill in the Illinois Legislature that would allow judges to impose a harsher sentence in an impaired driving case if the motorist was driving against traffic. The Illinois House easily approved the bill, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Michael Zalewski, on Feb. 22. Its now up for consideration in the Illinois Senate, the Daily Southtown reported.

Smiths son Steven Smith, 27, was killed in September 2015 when the car he was in was struck head-on by a wrong-way driver on Interstate 294 near Hillside. The Marine reservist, who was in his first year as a full-time Chicago Ridge police officer, was off-duty at the time.

Smith says the 22-year-old Bristol woman found criminally responsible in her sons death recently received a five-year sentence  a sentence she calls a slap in the face. She believes his death should be treated as a murder.

From the beginning, since my son passed, I had been wanting to make a change to do something, Lisa Smith said. His life made a difference. I needed his death to make a difference. I couldnt just accept the fact that hes just gone because a senseless, stupid act.

Under current state statute, impaired drivers who kill someone are subject to a sentence of three to 14 years behind bars, but a judge can impose as little as probation in extraordinary circumstances.

The statute allows judges to impose tougher sentences for reckless or impaired drivers who are repeat offenders or who exceed the speed limit by more than 20 mph. The legislation also would allow the stiffer sentences for impaired wrong-way drivers.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving Illinois Executive Director Sam Canzoneri said that there have been more than 50 fatalities and nearly 300 injuries in the state due to wrong-way crashes since 2005.

Canzoneri said if the legislation becomes law, Illinois would become the first state to make impaired wrong-way driving an aggravating factor in sentencing.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A year ago, the U.S. government was campaigning for an international ban on shipments of rechargeable batteries on passenger planes because the batteries can self-ignite, creating intense fires capable of destroying an airliner.

The risk is immediate and urgent, Angela Stubblefield, a U.S. aviation official, declared then.

Today, that urgency has evaporated as safety regulations stall under President Donald Trumps push to ease what he sees as red tape holding back the U.S. economy.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency that sets global aviation safety standards, decided last year to ban bulk shipments of lithium-ion batteries on international passenger flights. On cargo flights, the batteries can be charged to no more than 30 percent, a level that may reduce the likelihood of fires.

As a result, countries around the world have been adopting the new international standard for domestic flights as well. The Obama administration also looked to do so, submitting rules for publication that makes them binding. But after Trump took office on Jan. 20, he signed an executive order freezing the publication of new regulations. That means airlines and cargo operators remain free to ignore the standard for domestic flights.

The Obama administration had considered the change so urgent that it was fast-tracked in the rulemaking process. Trumps executive order says urgent safety rules can be exempted from the freeze, but the new administration isnt invoking that exemption for battery shipments.

This is part of our ongoing regulatory review, the Transportation Department said in a statement. The safe movement of hazardous materials remains a priority. We will provide updates as soon as decisions are made with regard to these and other issues at hand. No time frame was provided.

Rechargeable batteries are used in consumer products ranging from cellphones and laptops to electric cars. Manufacturers like them because they pack more energy into smaller packages, but the batteries can self-ignite if they have a manufacturing flaw, are damaged, exposed to excessive heat, overcharged or packed too closely together. The fires can burn up to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, close to the melting point of the aluminum used in aircraft construction.

Since 2006, three cargo jets have been destroyed and four pilots killed by in-flight fires that accident investigators say were either started by batteries or made more severe by their proximity.

Most passenger carriers and some cargo operators are voluntarily abiding by the international standard for their domestic operations for the time being. Trade associations for the U.S. and international airline industries say they support extending the standard to domestic flights.

But lobbyists for the battery industry, which opposed the international standard when it was adopted last year, are urging administration officials to make changes that would allow certain batteries to continue to be shipped on passenger flights. The ICAO standard already allows for limited exemptions, but lobbyists are asking for blanket exemptions for medical-device batteries and shipments to remote locations and other changes.

The position of U.S. negotiators last year was that medical-device batteries were no less dangerous than other kinds.

Extending the international ban to domestic flights is a matter of life and death, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the House transportation committees senior Democrat and an advocate of banning air shipments of batteries.

If we dont start following the ICAO guidelines and stop stuffing giant boxes of lithium batteries that are fully charged into passenger aircraft, sooner or later were going to kill a lot of people, he said. When something is this critical that it will take down an airplane, voluntary compliance with a non-existent rule is not adequate.

But Bob Richard, a battery industry lobbyist, said people living in the Alaskan outback, for example, might not be able to receive batteries for their backup heaters or emergency beacons if the international standard is extended to domestic flights.

Under Trump, regulators are going to be held more accountable for understanding the impacts of their rules, Richard said. I think that will cause agencies to take a closer look at the implications.

Battery makers and electronics companies say the problem is mostly limited to manufacturers in China who make substandard batteries and dont follow hazardous materials shipping regulations. They say that greater enforcement of the previous, less stringent shipping rules is the better solution. But a study by Canadian safety authorities found that the problem of battery shippers not following regulations was widespread and not limited to China.

Congress directed the Transportation Department last year to adopt the international standard for domestic flights. But its not uncommon for federal agencies to ignore, or drag their feet about complying with, congressional directives, especially if they disagree with them.

Without harmonization, the U.S. also cant enforce the ICAO standard for international passenger and cargo flights to and from the United States. The U.S. is the worlds largest aviation market.

Safety concerns about rechargeable batteries increased after FAA tests in 2014 showed gases emitted by overheated batteries can build up in cargo containers, leading to explosions capable of disabling aircraft fire suppression systems. An organization representing aircraft manufacturers said in a 2015 statement that airliners arent designed to withstand lithium battery fires and that continuing to accept battery shipments is an unacceptable risk.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Visitors to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area enjoy ample sunshine and miles of open water but also have a 1-in-307,000 chance of dying, according to a popular outdoor publication that ranks it as Americas deadliest national park, an outdoor publication says.

Outside magazine based its ranking of sites managed by the National Park Service on an analysis of fatalities over the past 10 years, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

Between 2006 and September 2016, 271 people lost their lives at the 1.5 million-acre park east of Las Vegas. Thats roughly 100 more than at second-place Yosemite National Park and 120 more than third-place Grand Canyon National Park, according to Outside.

Lake Mead spokeswoman Christie Vanover said no one wants to top a list like that, but there are a host of reasons why the recreation area sees as many deaths as it does. Visitors participate in activities that carry some risk, she told the Review-Journal.

Our park is 87 percent land, but a lot of our visitation is on water. Unfortunately, drownings account for most of the deaths at Lake Mead, she said.

More than 78 million people visited the recreation area over the past decade, and 99.97 percent of them lived to tell about it. Among those who didnt, the three most common causes of death were drowning (87), natural causes (58) and motor vehicle crashes (39). Another 21 died of unknown causes, 17 committed suicide and 13 were killed in boating accidents, according to park data.

Vanover said all accidental deaths in the recreation area are examined by the parks fatality review board. Lake Mead officials also use visitor surveys, public health assessments and outside statistics like those collected by Outside magazine to spot trends.

Adam Kelsey, chief law enforcement ranger for the National Park Service at Lake Mead, said a spike in drownings several years ago prompted stepped-up patrols, new safety measures and more outreach aimed at informing visitors before they hit the water.

When rangers began to see more rescues and drownings along the shoreline, the park set up life jacket loaner stations at Boulder Beach and Cottonwood Cove, two popular swimming spots.

Kelsey said they have lost a lot of life jackets since the program debuted three years ago, but they havent lost any swimmers in those areas. We have not had a shoreline drowning since 2014, he said.

The loaner program is being expanded to include Katherine Landing and Princess Cove on the Arizona side of Lake Mohave.

The park is also getting ready to launch a Spanish-language public service campaign about the importance of life jackets in hopes of reaching a growing number of Hispanic visitors.

Despite the parks reputation as a party destination, Vanover said only a small percentage of drownings  and fatalities in general  seem to involve alcohol. Weather, particularly wind, tends to be a much bigger factor.

Its really not the party crowd. Its people who dont understand the power of the lake, she said. Some people think its like a swimming pool.

Kelsey said a lot of Lake Meads drowning victims are people who considered themselves good or very good swimmers.

Vanover said park officials will do everything they can to make Lake Mead as safe as it can be, but visitors must do their part by wearing their life jackets, driving the speed limit and observing safety rules and posted warnings.

No park wants to be known as a place where people lose their lives, she said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BSF_0542use.jpg

Mayor Dan Horrigan has launched the Akron Youth Violence Steering Committee in response to feedback from 2016 Youth Town Halls, in which students brought up concerns ranging from school mergers and sports, to the sewer project and violence.

(Bruce S Ford )

AKRON, Ohio -- Mayor Dan Horrigan has launched the Akron Youth Violence Steering Committee, which will analyze data and listen to community members to try to find solutions to youth violence.

The committee, a result of suggestions at Horrigan's youth town halls, is in line to receive a $22,500 grant from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. A $7,500 in-kind match from local sources would also fund the work.

The multi-agency committee began meeting in January and includes representatives from the city, Summit County, faith-based organizations, social services, grassroots organizations and others.

"This will help us think through the data and understand what questions to ask, and to prioritize the interventions," said Akron Chief of Staff James Hardy.

As former assistant director of community health at Summit County Public Health, Hardy will co-direct the project with Terry Albanese, assistant to the mayor for education, health and families.

Tallying the numbers

In its application to the justice assistance grant program, the city reported that between 2014 and 2016, 191 juveniles were arrested with a firearm present and 6,128 Akron police reports listed a juvenile as a victim.

In addition, the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods at Case Western Reserve University surveyed Akron and Summit County high school students about violent behaviors in 2013.

The survey found:

15.3 percent of students carried a weapon, such as a gun, knife or club;

7.5 percent of students did not attend school due to safety concerns;

12.6 percent were forced to do sexual things;

25.5 percent of students were involved in a physical fight;

29.6 percent of students were being bullied; and

19 percent had done something to purposely hurt themselves.

With percentages even higher for Akron students when compared to the county as a whole, the Akron Youth Violence Steering Committee aims to create a strategic plan that's based on Akron's needs specific and has measurable goals and objectives.

Collecting data

The research arm of the committee is the GIS Health & Hazards Lab at Kent State University, which has worked with Akron Children's Hospital compiling and analyzing data on accidental and non-accidental youth injuries.

The lab studies hazards and health issues, such as disease or natural disasters, grouping them by streets, neighborhoods and communities. The lab also applies local context to help the group identify policies and actions to stop youth violence.

Listening to the community

To gather that local context, Akron nonprofit Project Ujima will join the committee, providing moderators for community discussions on youth violence that can be turned into data.

A hallmark of Project Ujima's unique approach is encouraging community dialogue through deliberative discussion circles, which use an artifact as a "talking piece" and have ground rules, said manager Crystal Jones.

"We look often look to the experts as problem solvers, but in a circle, all voices are equal and all voices are heard," she said. "Together we can reach common ground on what actions we need to take to address the problem in a way that is empowering."

Discussion circles also enable community members to approach stressful topics from a less emotional place, as opposed to town halls or rallies, which can be heated.

Project Ujima is currently hosting dialogues on infant mortality with at-risk moms for Summa Health System, and on the merger of Garfield and Kenmore high schools with families for Akron Public Schools.
AKRON, Ohio -- A woman with a history of suffering heroin overdoses had her fourth recent overdose, this time in front of her two nieces, according to police.

Lisa Thompson, 47, faces two charges of child endangering in the incident that happened about 11:30 p.m. Monday at a Kipling Street home near Coventry Avenue.

Thompson was issued a summons to appear at 1 p.m. March 17 in Akron Municipal Court, according to the clerk's office.

The 10-year-old and 4-year-old girls ran out of the house when Thompson overdosed and ran to a nearby family member's home, according to a police report. The girls said they thought their aunt had died.

Family members called 911. Paramedics and police arrived and revived Thompson with three doses of Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Thompson's struggle with opioids resulted in a series of overdoses that began in July 2016, police said.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments section.
Every person in your audience has a personal narrative.

Your life is basically a Choose Your Own Adventure book. While there are parts of our lives we dont choose, we do get to decide how we respond to lifes challenging moments, and that plays a major role in shaping our personal narrative.

Your personal narrative is the sum total of experiences youve had up to this point in your life. While others have influenced you and helped shape the person youve become, you own your narrative.

Knowing this, the fastest pathway to connect with any audience is to tap into the most common denominator: personal narrative.

The latest issue of Entrepreneur features fast-growing trends in business. And guess whats big? SMALL businesses! Turns out that many small brands have figured out the secret to making a big name for themselves among massive retail stores.

Whats their secret?

Story.

Adam Elder writes, The key is to tell seductive, inspiring (yet realistic!) stories that resonate, and to give customers what the biggest companies cant: a sense that Yeah, we get you.

That sense of yeah, we get you is not only great for small businesses, its also the best way for a storyteller to connect with an audience. The more you understand the personal narratives of your audience members, the greater chance you will have to engage them and connect your story to their life.

But how can one start to understand the personal narrative of the people listening?

Understand their world.

The small business in the Entrepreneur article did just this. As a camping equipment start-up, they realized that big brands like North Face and Patagonia promoted how their products had been tested in the rigors of Everest-type adventures. While many adventurers envision climbing a fourteener, the reality is that most people never camp more than a few hours from home. The camping equipment start-up tapped into the more local personal narrative and were able to compete with the big brands.

If you dont know the world affecting your audience, do your homework:

Do you speak to kids? Watch a few hours of Disney XD. Volunteer in the lunchroom at a local elementary school where your kids attend. Read the books your kids are reading. Learn about their physical and mental development.

Do you speak to teens? Hop on social media platforms that scare you. Check out the shows and YouTube channels targeted at their demographic. Listen to the Apple Music or Spotify top 40 playlistsand dont skip over the songs you dont like.

Do you speak to leaders? Talk to them about their schedules. Skim a few books and listen to some podcasts in the genre. Authentically enter into their life and get to know the people you lead.

Make educated assumptions.

Even if your own family matches the demographic of your audience, we only know what people let us know. In other words, you can never fully know someones personal narrative. And because of that, youre going to need to make some assumptions about their life.

If you assume statistics are as true for your ministry as they are in the world:

1 in 5 girls and 1 in 7 boys engage in self-harm

1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18

20 percent of people ages 1849 suffer with some sort of mental illness

That means the people we serve might be going through something theyre keeping silent.

This doesnt mean that we only target our messages to this part of our audience, but at the very least we need to acknowledge these struggles while we seek to connect with each person in the audience.

If you dont know, ask.

I recently spoke to several groups of teenagers while on a missions trip in Costa Rica. The topic? Sex. Thats right. I had to craft a message for Costa Rican teenagers about one of the most difficult topics for any storytellerlet alone one living in a culture I knew nothing about.

So I asked questions about how this affects them, the pressures they face, and how other people have communicated this topic. I did some homework, and then I went to work building my message.

One of the worst things we can do as communicators is to craft a message or a story without considering the personal narratives of the audience members. Ask the questions before you get started. Do what it takes to help your story connect with the people listening.

In the end, you want to connect with your audience. You want the audience to experience that elusive Yeah, they get me moment where your story completely hits home and starts to impact their life.

In the Choose Your Own Adventure stories, I used to hate when I thought the story was going somewhere exciting only to find myself abruptly trapped beneath a boulder surrounded by hungry rattlesnakes and The End two pages later. Id have go back, make a different choice, and continue the story to a more fulfilling end.

Its the same struggle as a storytelleryou have to make a lot of choicesexcept you dont get a do over once youve lost your audience. Will you simply deliver what you were handed in the way you feel comfortable? Or will you choose to do your homework so you can establish and keep a connection with your audience?

Choose to enter the adventure and tell better Bible stories that keep the story relevant in a persons life long after theyve finished listening.
Levin Furniture sees the green light, goes solar

Levin Furniture in Avon has installed solar panels as part of its green initiatives, proving to some conservative Ohio lawmakers that solar will be built whether or not the state requires power companies to support it.

(Plain Dealer file)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Another battle over renewable energy begins today in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Cincinnati Republican lawmaker William Seitz isn't about to give up his campaign to get rid of the state's rules requiring power companies to sell a percentage of power generated by wind and solar and to help their customers use less electricity. The rules have been in place since 2008.

Now in the Ohio House because he was term-limited in the Senate, Seitz has scheduled an initial hearing today before the House Public Utilities Committee, which he chairs, on House Bill 114, introduced last week by Rep. Louis "Bill" Blessing, III, also a Cincinnati Republican.

Blessing has 53 Republican co-sponsors for the bill, and Seitz is confident that lawmakers can over-ride a veto if Gov. John Kasich issues one, as he did in December, killing Senate Bill 320. Seitz had introduced 320, but with only two co-sponsors, it would have made the mandates voluntary for the next two years.

"We have a 66-member Republican majority in the Ohio House, a veto-proof majority," Seitz told about 500 people attending the Ohio Energy Management Conference in Columbus about three weeks ago when he announced there would soon be another bill to get rid of the mandates.

"Some of the members who voted 'no' on the previous bill did so because it did not go far enough to unravel the renewable portfolio mandate," he said.

Opponents of previous Seitz' efforts to do away with the standards included the Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-profit environmental group.

"The Ohio House is once again determined to waste time re-litigating settled issues," said NRDC staff attorney Samantha Williams. "What's next, debating the law of gravity? This bill is nothing more than a distraction from the reality that clean energy is here to stay."

Ceres, a non-profit organization which advocates for corporate sustainability around the globe, is already opposing the new legislation.

"This new bill will only create prolonged uncertainty for businesses and investors operating in the state. Ohio lawmakers should dismiss this legislation and protect Ohio's clean energy economy," said Ceres president Mindy Lubber in an email.

Ceres last year helped corporations with Ohio operations reach lawmakers and in October released a joint statement from nine corporations including Whirlpool, Owens Corning, Nestle and Campbell Soup urging lawmakers to strengthen rather than freeze or abolish the mandates.

Unlike S.B. 320, H.B. 114 would simply eliminate mandates, replacing them with a goal that by 2027 power companies consider supplying 12.5 percent green power and that they consider reducing peak demand by offering energy efficiency programs. There are no penalties for ignoring the goals.

Seitz said he expects H.B. 114 to move "smartly" though the House. But he may be leaning in front of his skis a bit when it comes to a final bill.

There is no companion bill to H.B. 114 in the Ohio Senate.

And Senate President Larry Obhof doesn't appear to be in lockstep with Seitz as was former Senate President Keith Faber on the issue of wind and solar mandates.

In fact, Obhof seems to be approaching the debate with an open mind, but also with a concern about the impact on Ohio's reputation as a good place to do business.

"I look forward to having a robust discussion of the issues. We'll see where we end up, but I think that Ohio needs a stable, long term energy policy, instead of swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other every two years," Obhof said in an interview.

"I think it is probably very frustrating for people who want to do business in the state of Ohio who are deciding whether to invest here or not that you never know from one year to another what kind of policy changes might be proposed," he added.

"Regardless of where we end up," Obhof stressed, "I think it is important that we get something that we think can stay in place long-term and make Ohio competitive with other states and keep our state as an attractive state to do business."

In other words, for Obhof, its not about ideology but about creating a climate that business can count on. And the constant campaign to get rid of the renewable standards that Seitz has led since 2013 is not exactly good for business.

In December, before the passage of S.B. 320, more than 100 businesses submitted testimony supporting a renewable standard and against the legislation.

Seitz, in his recent remarks at the MEC energy conference countered that with a study issued last fall by the Ohio Business Roundtable, representing large corporations. The study called for doing away with renewable mandates and instead for accelerated shale gas development, more gas pipelines and the construction of more gas-fired power plants.

Seitz is now arguing that federal tax credits for wind and solar projects make state renewable standards unnecessary. Those credits expire in 2020.

Seitz noted that Amazon, one of the "so-called alphabet companies out there on the West Coast who have indicated a desire to come to states where there are renewable portfolio mandates in place," recently announced it will build a $1.49 billion global air cargo hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Ky. Kentucky has no renewable energy standards. But Amazon will receive $40 million in state and local tax incentives and $5 million from the airport, according to published reports.

"The reality is that mandates are not the most important thing for even these progressive West Coast companies in determining where they are going to site their operations," he said.
FULTON COUNTY, Ohio -- The father of a child who was the subject of an Amber Alert Tuesday is in custody after the child's mother was found dead.

The child, 10-month-old Winston Ramey, was found unharmed, according to reports from Fox 8.

WTOL in Toledo reported that Mandi Mangas, the child's mother, was found shot to death inside her father's home in Delta.

WANE in Fort Wayne, Indiana reported that James Ramey was taken into custody by Indiana State Police in Fulton County, Indiana.

The child had been last seen in Delta. The father was considered armed and dangerous.
SEHO Technology Days in Mexico Published: 14 March 2017 by Chelsey Drysdale by Chelsey Drysdale

The premiere of the SEHO Technology Days in Guadalajara and Queretaro, two major Mexican centers of electronics production, was a tremendous success. In cooperation with STE Latino America, SEHO  a worldwide leading manufacturer of complete solutions for soldering processes and automated production lines  held two rounds of seminars, attended by a great number of users, mainly from the automotive sector. STE Latino America is an expert partner for electronics productions in Mexico with extensive, long-term experience in the relevant processes and SEHO systems engineering.

We know exactly what electronics manufacturers in Mexico require, explains Guillermo Maldonado, Managing Director of STE Latino America. Through the framework of the Technology Days, we wanted to offer an opportunity to discuss the current developments with other experts and to find approaches for optimizations in their own production environment.

Exciting lectures and intense discussions addressed everyday requirements in electronics production, but also focused on the latest in system developments and technologies of the future.

A focal point of the Technology Days in Mexico were the challenges of high-mix/high-volume production, which is becoming more and more common, especially in the automotive industry. Dr. Andreas Reinhardt, Director of Research and Development at SEHO, pointed out that a high product mix and high-volume production need not be mutually exclusive. One of the key aspects to ensure cost-efficient goods at a consistently high quality is top equipment productivity.

For fluxing in wave soldering applications, SEHO developed a highly flexible plasma technique that supports the efficient production of varying volumes. A significantly lower flux consumption and low maintenance requirements also help to reduce the total production cost.

Ludger Brosch, Head of Design for Wave and Reflow Soldering, presented an innovative preheat approach on the basis of pulsar emitters which facilitates the cost-efficient production of large series as well as lot sizes of 1.

A large number of product variants with different thermal requirements is another challenge in SMD production. By means of a new, emission-free quick extraction method, SEHO reflow systems are able to reduce the temperature level in the soldering system within a very short period of time, for example to facilitate switching from a soldering to an adhesive profile.

The reliability, traceability, and documentation of the production process is gaining in importance especially in the automotive sector, but also in other industries, including THT production. To meet these requirements, SEHO has developed an automated optical inspection system that is specifically designed for the inspection of THT solder joints and can be integrated directly into SEHO selective soldering units. During the technology seminars in Mexico, users discussed the versatile applications of the AOI system SEHO PowerVision, including its use in automatic production control.

Specialist knowledge that can be implemented directly into a companys manufacturing processes, intense debates about future trends in electronics production, and the exchange with experts describe the results of a successful series of SEHO seminars in Mexico, which will surely soon be followed by similar events.

www.seho.de
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Rumors are circulating that suggest that Google (News - Alert) has made a move to bolster their data science and machine learning departments. Many in the tech community are speculating that the conglomerate has acquired Kaggle, a company that hosts competitions in data science and machine learning. Though a spokesman from Google declined to comment on the rumors, Kaggle CEO Anthony Goldbloom would not deny that such a transaction was taking place. Google is hosting a conference this weekend for Cloud Next, so it is conceivable that an official announcement of the acquisition could come from there.

Founded in 2010, Kaggle is a massive creator of data science services, employing over 500,000 scientists. It has managed to become one of the leaders in the field by focusing on hosting competitions that drive new innovations. That competitive atmosphere has helped foster growth and refinement in the fields of data science and machine learning.

Google has had some experience working with Kaggle in the past. At the beginning of March, the two companies came together to host a competition based around classifying YouTube (News - Alert) videos using the Google Cloud platform and machine learning. The competition came with a $100,000 grand prize. Clearly, Google was pleased with the job that Kaggle did in facilitating this competition, so much so that they felt the need to add them to their already large portfolio of holdings.

From a day to day operations standpoint, not much is expected to change for Kaggle. The company will keep its name, and will remain more or less autonomous, maintaining the same principles and practices. It will just be operating under the Google umbrella.

Data science and machine learning are fields that are constantly growing and changing. Coders are always looking for ways to improve their data analytics and artificial intelligence in attempts to make the information they yield more accurate and useful. Competition tends to drive innovation, and the competitions that Kaggle hosts help create a breeding ground for those improvements to the field. Googles acquisition of Kaggle should help them continue to improve their technology.

Edited by Alicia Young
U.S. firms Boeing and Ford are powering ahead with China expansion plans, betting big despite the country's economic slowdown.

Boeing is set to break ground on its first overseas plane factory by the end of this month, and will aim to deliver 100 planes per year, with the initial batch expected in 2018, Chinese state media reported.

Auto manufacturer Ford is also growing in Asia's largest economy with plans to produce an all-new SUV in China for Chinese customers by the end of 2019, according to a company spokesperson. The new vehicle will be built in Chongqing, and will put the U.S. car company head-to-head with other foreign luxury car brands in China, such as Mercedes-Benz, owned by Daimler .

China's transportation industry is booming  it's already the world's largest auto market and manufacturer globally, and commercial airlines have rushed to add routes as more airports open across the country. Major companies like Boeing and Ford are seeking opportunities to gain a greater slice of the market, despite a slowdown in growth in the world's second-largest economy.
Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system after arriving in South Korea on March 6. The U.S. military deployed the system in response to North Korean missile threats. Source: U.S. Defense Department

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The first THAAD components arrived at the Osan Air Base in South Korea last week. Wang said Beijing had measures in place to neutralise THAAD's radars. "We will complete our deployment before THAAD begins operations. There is no need to wait for two months [before the election of the next South Korean president]," he said on the sidelines of the political sessions in Beijing. "We already have such equipment in place. We just have to move it to the right spot." Yue Gang, a military commentator and former People's Liberation Army colonel, said China could either destroy THAAD or neutralise it. "Destroying [THAAD] should only be an option during wartime," Yue said. But China could interfere with the system's functions through electromagnetic technology, he said.

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People access the internet on their smartphones and laptops in a cafe in Beijing, China. Wang Zhao | AFP | Getty Images

Calls by members of China's legislature and its top advisory body for the mainland to allow more open access to the internet have increased this year, amid mounting frustration. During this month's meetings of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)  annual events more commonly referred to as the "two sessions"  deputies and delegates criticised the central government's tightening of internet restrictions, despite political sensitivities ahead of a key Communist Party meeting this autumn. More from the South China Morning Post:

China proposes new commission to further tighten internet oversight

Senior Chinese official slams internet curbs in rare public outburst

China preparing countermeasures against THAAD: retired general

Two proposals by CPPCC delegates at panel meetings  one which was subsequently censored and another which went unreported on the mainland  have urged the loosening of internet controls and many advisers and lawmakers have spoken out against the restrictions, which have been tightened under President Xi Jinping administration. They say broad-brush censorship is hobbling economic growth, breakthroughs in science, technology and innovation, the promotion of Chinese art and culture, and exchanges between young mainlanders and young Hongkongers. The first body to speak up was the China Association for Promoting Democracy, one of eight officially sanctioned non-communist political parties on the mainland. On the opening day of the two sessions, Luo Fuhe, the party's executive vice-chairman and a vice-chairman of the CPPCC, told mainland journalists his party would submit a proposal urging the government to allow easier access to overseas academic websites that were not politically sensitive.

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Luo complained to journalists that it took at least 10 to 20 seconds to open a page of some websites, including that of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, while visiting the websites of some overseas universities could take more than 30 minutes. "It is not normal when quite a number of researchers have to purchase software that helps them bypass the country's firewalls in order to complete their scientific research," he was quoted as saying. Online reports about Luo's proposal did not survive the censorship it aimed to change and were quickly removed from major mainland news portals and social media platforms. Caroline Cheng Yi, a political adviser for 10 years and renowned sculptor, said a judge who was also a CPPCC delegate was about to show her a WeChat post about the proposal during a panel discussion but they discovered it had been deleted. Cheng, a Hongkonger who spent more than a decade on the mainland running a branch of the Pottery Workshop in Jiangxi province, also submitted a proposal calling for the "opening up" of the mainland's internet. She suggested overseas websites focused on foreign trade, business and academic research be spared censorship and that Google and Facebook be allowed back into mainland cyberspace. "I use Facebook to promote Chinese ceramics to the world," she said. "But after it was banned, I could only use it when I returned to Hong Kong, or use a VPN (virtual private network), which is not that stable. China is losing many opportunities without social media like Facebook." The ban on Facebook also shut down a channel that mainland and Hong Kong youth could use to understand and communicate with each other, she said, which only worsened a widening divide and growing animosity  a trend Beijing was eager to counter. In her proposal, Cheng pointed out that although Facebook and Twitter were blocked on the mainland, many state media outlets and local governments maintained their own accounts and used them to promote local developments, which could lead to public resentment in the longer term.

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"Xi Jinping has reiterated many times that China must insist on 'opening up' and welcome the internet age, but when he's talking about all this, the country's [censorship] is becoming more and more like that of North Korea," she said. "It's way too strict." Cheng said she had been dismayed to discover recently that even Pinterest, a photo sharing website particularly popular among designers and artists, was no longer accessible on the mainland. "All the young people who have been using Pinterest to share and gain inspiration for their art design are furious," she said. "I must speak up. If I don't what am I doing here at the CPPCC? I'm not here to be a yes woman. " Cheng's proposal and remarks met with strong support from her panel, whose members include representatives of sectors ranging from business to health care and education. It also received many "likes" in a WeChat group joined by about 50 CPPCC members. One of them was biologist Luo Yongzhang, a cancer expert at Tsinghua University. He said internet censorship made his work more difficult. Without Google, he could only use Baidu , the biggest search engine on the mainland, for academic research, but it was always a hassle. "It's all in Chinese and can't search for English entries," he said. "And many [search results] aren't that accurate. "[The censorship] has indeed hindered the progress of scientific research. We can't get the latest information or the most accurate." He said he agreed with the government that politically sensitive information should be blocked, because "the common folks do not have the ability to tell [right from wrong]", but access to Google Scholar, a search engine for academic literature, should be allowed for the sake of academics, researchers and scientists.

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Months of spin and political rhetoric will culminate in Dutch voters heading to the polls this week, with investors contemplating what the general election could mean for their portfolios. Using hedge fund analytics tool Kensho, CNBC conducted a study to show how stock indexes in Europe perform following Dutch elections. The data shows the average return following 11 different elections in the Netherlands, which date back to the early 1980s.

The figures show that the AEX index , which was derived from Amsterdam Exchange index in 1983 and is composed of 25 securities, usually falls in the two sessions immediately after a general election. The data also show that it has traded negatively for 56 percent of the time and has an average return of -0.31 percent. Rival benchmarks in Belgium and Germany also traditionally follow the AEX lower, the historical data shows, although the French CAC 40 and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 are largely unaffected.

Meanwhile in the currency markets, Kensho data shows that Dutch elections can provide a fillip for foreign exchange crosses in the region. Over the five previous Dutch general elections since 2000, both the euro -U.S. dollar cross and the sterling -U.S. dollar cross have traded positive 100 percent of the time on the day of these elections.
If the current Republicans' health-care bill becomes law, it could have a "fairly devastating effect" on the nation's hospitals, Mt. Sinai Health System CEO Dr. Kenneth Davis told CNBC on Monday.

"You're going to see a lot of the hospitals that take care of indigent populations, large Medicaid populations, have to close. You're going to see diminished services. You're going to see hospitals like ours, which are academic medical centers, find ways to cut other parts of our programs substantially," he said in an interview with "Closing Bell."

According to the Congressional Budget Office, 14 million more people would become uninsured next year if the American Health Care Act is signed into law.

By the year 2026, a total of 24 million more Americans would be uninsured than they would have been under Obamacare, the CBO said.

It also found the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion over the next decade.

President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have said replacing Obamacare is their first priority. Among other things, the GOP bill would eliminate the requirement that most Americans have health insurance and would drastically change the way Medicaid is funded.

One problem facing hospitals is that they lost the "disproportionate share payments," akin to a bad debt or charity pool, under the Affordable Care Act, Davis noted. That's because the assumption was bad debt would decrease once the number of people with insurance coverage increased.

Now there is the potential of 24 million people losing coverage, and there is nothing in the current legislation that would bring back those payments, he pointed out.

That means more patients "will come to our hospital uncompensated," said Davis.



The bill is currently making its way through Congress.

 CNBC's Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was already on her way to the airport on Monday to fly to Washington for her first meeting with President Donald Trump when he rang her to postpone the trip due to the approach of a winter storm.

The storm, which is expected to hit the northeastern United States, has prompted airlines to cancel thousands of flights and some mayors to order schools to close on Tuesday.

The White House said in a later statement the visit would be rescheduled to Friday.

Merkel continued to Berlin's Tegel airport after her 10-minute conversation with Trump to personally inform reporters who were due to travel with her to Washington of the change of plan.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly used an alias e-mail address in climate change discussions during his time as Exxon Mobil chairman and chief executive, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Tillerson used a pseudonym  Wayne Tracker  from 2008 to 2015, but Exxon failed to disclose that detail, the Journal reported late on Monday, citing New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office.

Schneiderman is investigating whether the energy giant falsified its understanding of climate change to the public, the Journal said.

The State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's email request sent outside office hours.

Read the full story here.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.
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Singapore's largest listed property firm is broadly welcoming revisions to the city-state's property cooling measures after more than 3 years of sinking prices. "Together with the government's policies to support population and economic growth, such measures will help to ensure a stable property market and healthy demand for new homes in the long term," said Wen Khai Meng, CEO of CapitaLand Singapore, in a Monday email to CNBC. The company is South East Asia's biggest property developer and manages a global asset portfolio worth 78 billion Singapore dollars ($55.1 billion). Its stock has risen more than 22 percent year-to-date. "We believe that projects with excellent locations and transportation connectivity, good range of facilities, proximity to shopping malls and established amenities, and a reasonable pricing will continue to attract buyers," he added. The comments come after policymakers surprised the sector by detailing a series of "calibrated adjustments" to the Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) and Total Debt Services Ratio (TDSR)  relaxing regulations in a bid to stabilize a market that has seen house prices decline for 13 consecutive quarters. The government had indicated a reluctance to curb its cooling measures in the past and the rapid roll out of the reforms appeared to catch major firms and investors off guard. CapitaLand President and CEO Lim Ming Yan said in a February interview that "there is no compelling reason for the government at this point to make major changes" to property curbs, suggesting an expected continuation of the policy.

Other sector support

International real-estate firm City Developments described the policy relaxations as "both measured and prudent." "We welcome the government's adjustments to the Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) and Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) framework," the company said in an emailed statement to CNBC. The firm has developed more than 36,000 homes and is one of Singapore's largest commercial landlords. Its stock has been a core beneficiary of the reforms, with shares advancing as much as 10 percent on the Friday announcement.

The Port of Singapore. Chris McGrath | Getty Images

Shares in City Developments continued to rise an additional 3.45 percent on Monday and settled at 10.50 Singapore dollars ($7.42)  its highest level of the year. "Real estate is one of the key instruments of investment. The revised SSD in particular, will provide flexibility for property investment and is expected to inject increased activity into the residential property market," it added. City Developments also said it believes the measures support the aim of buying property as a form of long-term investment. "We are confident that the government will continue to monitor the market conditions closely and make necessary tweaks to the other property cooling measures as and when the situation warrants," it concluded. Other major firms were yet to respond to a request for comment.

Future curbs ahead?

Regarding the Stamp Duty revisions, analysts at CBRE and DBS struck a similar tone in their reaction reports. "This is not expected to have a major impact on transaction volumes in the near term, as it applies to residential property purchased on and after March 11," said Desmond Sim, head of CBRE research in Singapore and South East Asia. "However, this benefits buyers as it offers a respite as they would not have to wait up to four years to sell their property without incurring SSD." While analysts at DBS Bank acknowledged the announcement came without warning, the top local bank said the relaxation "kick starts a loosening trend." "We have previously highlighted the possibility of a government policy tweak in 2017 but the timing of this relaxation in 1Q17 caught us and investors by surprise following cautious statements from the government to maintain property measures prior to this move," it said in a research note authored by Derek Tan and Rachel Tan. "Although the adjustments are marginal and the impact to the property market should be gradual, we see this as a signal of a turn in policy stance which could lead to further relaxation in the future. Given uncertainty from the pace of Fed rate hikes and its impact on mortgage affordability, this move confirms expectations that the government is ready to act preemptively to stabilize the property market."

Small business boon
The "Fast Money" traders discussed stocks in the technology space after Intel announced its takeover deal with Mobileye on Monday.

The chipmaker will buy the Israeli driverless technology company for $15.3 billion. This is the largest acquisition of a company focused on autonomous driving. The sale is viewed by some as further validation for companies to rush into the autonomous car space and invest heavily in other new areas of technology.

Trader Steve Grasso said he likes Nvidia because of its diversified make-up. He said the company is big in artificial intelligence, it's already a main player in gaming, and also has a data center segment. He said he expected its wide range of products to attract a bid from Intel.

Trader Guy Adami mentioned another player in the autonomous car space  Tesla . He said the deal does not necessarily justify the company's high valuation based on the company's future capabilities. But Adami said, shareholders of the technology company believe in Tesla and will keep its stock price high. The stock closed at $246.75 on Monday.

Trader Brian Kelly said he also likes Tesla. He said the Intel and Mobilye deal would help attract more investors to the company.

Disclosures:

Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.

Steve Grasso's firm is long CUBA, DIA, HES, ICE, KDUS, MAT, MFIN, MJNA, MSFT, NE, RIG, SPY, TITXF, WDR, WPX, WLL, ZNGA. GRASSO IS LONG: CHK, EEM, EVGN, GDX, KBH, MJNA, MON, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, QCOM, SNAP, SPY, T, TWTR. Grasso's children own: EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. NO SHORTS.

Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, XBI, DXJ, TBT, DXY. Short: Yen, US Treasury Bonds.

Tim Seymour is long ABX, AAPL, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, C, CLF, CVX, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWN, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD, MOS, MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, SQ,T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: EEM, SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EEM, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, TCEHY, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM
Math nerds of the world, rejoice.

According to the Department of Education, students who study mathematics or science have the highest rates of employment.

In fact, the advantages of a degree in math are significant: According to the National Math and Science Initiative, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) jobs are expected to grow 70 percent faster than overall employment during the next several years, and students that earn math degrees secure some of the highest-paying jobs.

Every March 14th, mathematicians celebrate "Pi Day." The numerical date shares the first three digits of the ratio Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter  approximately 3.14.

Mathematicians around the world are celebrating today in their own ways. Microsoft is celebrating Pi Day with a 31.4 percent discount on selected laptops. NASA is marking the mathematically-focused holiday with a "space math challenge."

Here at CNBC, we're honoring five super-successful CEOs who studied mathematics in college:

Steve Ballmer

Former CEO of Microsoft and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer was once a serious math nerd. In 1977, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics. He reportedly received a perfect score of 800 in the mathematical section of the SATs.
Breitbart News fired a salvo at Republican Paul Ryan, posting an audio recording of the House speaker distancing himself from then-presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The audio was posted Monday night, as Ryan and Trump work to promote the GOP heath-care bill. The substance of the Oct. 10 recording received wide coverage at the time.

"I am not going to defend Donald Trump  not now, not in the future," Ryan said in the audio obtained by the right-wing website that has negatively covered the new health-care plan. At the time of the recording, Ryan said he would not campaign with Trump.



The comments came on a conference call with House Republicans, following the leak of a 2005 tape in which Trump bragged about touching women without their consent. The audio's release now, though, comes at a challenging time for Ryan, as he tries to persuade skeptical pockets of his party to support his plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

In its report on the recording, Breitbart said: "Now, on top of all of this, this new audio file raises questions as to how loyal Ryan is to Trump politically  and is asking the new president to use precious political capital to push through legislation that seems arithmetically destined for congressional failure. That could doom or at least dampen other key elements of the Trump agenda, like tax reform, immigration reform, national security efforts, budgetary reforms, building up of the U.S. military, trade renegotiation and more."

A spokesperson for Ryan told Breitbart that the audio is nothing new, saying, "The world is well aware of this history. ... And obviously a lot has happened since then. As everyone knows."
China and South Korea will be joining trade talks with member states of the now-scuttled Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this week, raising fears that Beijing may dominate the meeting as it looks to benefit from Washington's absence.

Neither South Korea nor China are TPP members, but they are expected to focus on broad Asia-Pacific trade integration at the two-day event in Chile beginning Tuesday. Discussions there are expected to have a three-fold focus: the possibility of a TPP agreement without the U.S., the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Free Trade Area for the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

China has stressed that its participation in Chile is strictly focused on Asia-Pacific co-operation, not joining the TPP. The Chile meeting is not an TPP meeting, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying insisted on Monday, according to local media reports. Beijing, in fact, has never explicitly said it wanted to enter TPP talks, having previously called the entire deal too complex.

Still, the mainland is looking to gain more economic partnerships and fill up a predicted American vacuum in global trade.

President Donald Trump's exit from the TPP had disappointed many Asian members, for whom the deal represented profitable exports and imports in an environment of slow global growth. In response to Trump's policies, Beijing has repeatedly promoted itself as a champion of free trade.

China won't be taking the lead on the Chile talks, Deborah Kay Elms, executive director at Asian Trade Centre, told CNBC. "The onus is on the current members, particularly Japan, to decide if they want to continue promoting the gold standard agreement or consign it to the dust bin."
Some congressional Democrats think Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt needs a primer on climate change.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, whose district includes part of Portland, Oregon, is sending Pruitt a packet of educational materials on climate change after the EPA chief said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" last week that he doesn't believe carbon dioxide is a "primary contributor" to global warming.

Pruitt said more debate, analysis and review is needed on the subject.

That view is at odds with the findings of the agency Pruitt leads, which calls carbon "the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change."

It also contradicts the conclusion of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which say the rise in the planet's average surface temperature has been "driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere."

In response to Pruitt's comment, Rep. Blumenauer and 32 of his colleagues plan to send Pruitt a letter accompanied by "educational materials outlining the basic established science behind climate change," the Oregon congressman's office said in a press release.

The materials include the U.S. Global Change Research Program's Climate Literacy Guide, an educational tool for all ages. The lawmakers will also send information on climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

The letter to Pruitt reads, "We saw your comments last week on CNBC's Squawk Box. It's clear that you need to read the enclosed reports. We look forward to hearing from you."

Pruitt's remark drew immediate backlash from Democrats, scientists and environmentalists. The EPA head is a highly divisive figure expected to carry out President Donald Trump's campaign to reduce environmental regulations.

Democrats and environmentalists criticize Pruitt for his history of climate change denial and for waging a legal campaign against President Barack Obama's environmental agenda while serving as Oklahoma attorney general. Conservatives and the energy industry cheer his efforts to roll back what they see as regulatory overreach and place more rule-making power in the hands of states.


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The cannabis industry could be in for a serious buzz kill.

Marijuana dispensaries and manufacturers are increasingly worried that the Trump administration will crack down on enforcement of federal laws that ban growing and selling marijuana  reversing the president's stance during his campaign and potentially upending what has become a $7 billion market. The anxiety was sparked by surprise comments from White House spokesman Sean Spicer last month that the government would likely step up its enforcement of drug laws.

Shortly afterward, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a conference of state attorneys general that he is "dubious" about the benefits of pot. He reiterated those concerns in an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt last week.

"Marijuana is against federal law, and that applies in states where they may have repealed their own anti-marijuana laws. So yes, we will enforce law in an appropriate way nationwide," Sessions said. "It's not possible for the federal government, of course, to take over everything the local police used to do in a state that's legalized it. And I'm not in favor of legalization of marijuana. I think it's a more dangerous drug than a lot of people realize."



President Trump said he was going to allow this to be a state's rights issue. ... We took him at his word. Chuck Smith co-founder, Dixie Brands

The comments have set off alarm bells for Chuck Smith, co-founder of Dixie Brands, a Denver-based company that manufactures tinctures, topicals and treats infused with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. He founded the company in 2010 and now employs more than 100 people across Colorado, California, Nevada and Arizona, with plans to expand in Washington state and Maryland.

"My concern right now for both the company and industry is just uncertainty," Smith told CNBC. "It's hard to build an industry or a company when you don't have clarity."

The administration's remarks also took a toll on shares of Innovative Industrial Properties , which invests in marijuana-growing facilities and is one of the few publicly traded cannabis companies. Its stock price tumbled on the day of Spicer's press conference and are down more than 13 percent since then. But two other prominent pot stocks, GW Pharmaceuticals and Cara Therapeutics , have shrugged off the news.



States march onward to more legalization

Eight states now allow recreational use of marijuana, while more than half of states have legalized it for medicinal purposes. Twenty-one states have decriminalized the drug. A recent poll Quinnipiac Poll found 71 percent of voters believe the government should not enforce federal drug laws in states where pot is legal.

Growing acceptance has led to an explosion in the market for marijuana in North America, with sales skyrocketing 34 percent to nearly $7 billion in 2016, according to Arcview Market Research. By 2021, the industry is expected to reach close to $22 billion.

Companies like Dixie Brands are fueling that growth. The privately held company would not provide current figures, but it raised $8 million in 2014 and was valued at $40 million.

Smith said he expects Dixie Brands to double its revenue and its workforce over the next year. It sells products under three brands: Dixie Elixirs spans beverages, breath mints and chocolates. Aceso manufactures product with hemp and cannabinoids for the international market, while Therabis is a line of cannabis-derived pet supplements.

"It's hard for us to kind of go backwards," Smith said. "President Trump said he was going to allow this to be a state's rights issue. ... We took him at his word."



watch now

Trump has delivered mixed messages on marijuana. In the 1990s, he called for legalizing and regulating all drugs. On the campaign trail, he emphasized his support for medical marijuana and his deference to states to pass their own laws regulations the substance. But Trump, a famous teetotaler, also warned during the election about the effects the drug could have on mental functioning.

The cannabis industry is fighting back by rallying a dozen lawmakers to send a letter to Sessions in support of legal marijuana. Under guidelines issued during the Obama administration, the agency agreed not to enforce federal laws in states where the drug is legal as long as they followed certain guidelines, such as not selling to minors and steering clear of drug cartels. The letter calls on Sessions to uphold that arrangement.

"It is essential that states that have implemented any type of practical, effective marijuana policy receive immediate assurance from the DOJ that it will respect the ability of states to enforce thoughtful, sensible drug policies in ways that do not threaten the public's health and safety," the letter states.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.



'A lot of cliches'

The issue has drawn rare bipartisan support, with signatories including Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. That could prove important as legislation that prevents the Justice Department from devoting funds to enforcement is set to expire next month. The so-called Rohrabacher-Farr amendment was passed as part of the broader resolution on the federal budget  and it could get tangled up once more in the upcoming fight over federal spending.

Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said the group has focused recently on emphasizing its role in creating new jobs and building domestic manufacturing facilities. An analysis by New Frontier Data, a market research firm specializing in cannabis, forecast the industry would create more than 250,000 jobs by 2020.

"We have had a lot of success in changing the story around what the marijuana industry looks like," West said. "There are a lot of stereotypes and a lot of cliches. It's really important for policymakers in D.C. to understand who this industry really is."

WATCH: Weed entrepreneur brings in over $1 million a year running 'bud and breakfast' hotels
Farmhouse in Broome County, New York after the huge nor'easter storm. Source: Judi Whittaker

The powerful March storm packing cold air to portions of the nation's Southeast and Midwest is becoming a menace to farmers.

"We'll definitely have temperatures that are dangerous to tender blossoms," said Al Pearson, who runs a peach farm operation in central Georgia. Peaches and other stone fruits are notoriously early bloomers and makes them especially vulnerable to frost damage. A report released at the end of February by the U.S. Department of Agriculture revealed that as a result of warmer winter weather "many fruit crops were in full bloom" in Georgia. "There are a lot of things that are in jeopardy, including peaches in the Southeast," said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the USDA. "When you start temperatures getting below 28 for any length of time for a couple hours or more, that can wipe out a peach crop in just a night or two." The Southeast region accounts for more than a quarter of the U.S. peach crop, with Georgia among the biggest producers. According to Rippey, the huge nor'easter will "help drain the cold air across the Southeast." The meteorologist said there are a variety of freeze warnings up as far south as Arkansas, as well as a good chunk of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Freeze conditions are expected to peak Wednesday morning and on into Thursday.

Dairy calf with a winter coat in St. Johnsville, New York. Source: Judy Littrell

Weather impacts also were felt to agriculture in the East Coast region where as much as 2 feet of snow fell in some places. "The real question is if the weight of the snow will be a concern on barns and outbuildings and on fruit trees and vines," said Steve Ammerman, a spokesman with the New York Farm Bureau. Even so, Ammerman said it's still too early in the storm to know the full extent of any damage. He also said farmers were helped because they had plenty of notice to prepare for the monster storm. That said, the loss of power to some farm communities could present issues.

watch now
The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended more than 0.3 percent lower with most sectors and major bourses trading in negative territory.



Swiss drugmaker Galenica announced it was expecting the flotation of one of its units to be concluded in the second quarter of 2017. The company also announced a 19 percent fall in its 2016 profits and as a result, the stock was near the bottom of the European benchmark, down by over 5.1 percent.



The British retailer Marks and Spencer also moved lower on Tuesday following reports that it is pulling out of the Chinese high street this month. Its shares dropped 2.1 percent.



Energy firm RWE closed at the top of the European benchmark, up by 6.4 percent, after reporting earnings amid talks of a potential merger of one of its divisions. Paris-based energy firm Engie was said to be considering a stake in RWE's subsidiary Innogy , according to a Bloomberg report. However, French outlet BFM TV cited an unnamed source on Tuesday who had declared the gas and power company had no interest in making any such bid. Engie shares closed over 1.3 percent lower.

Shares of the online supermarket Ocado pared gains from earlier in the session to close 0.7 percent lower, on comments from its chief financial officer that he is confident the company will secure international deals.

The British insurer Prudential rose 3 percent after posting an operating profit of 4.3 billion ($5.16 billion), beating expectations, thanks to growth in its Asian business.



Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average and broader S&P 500 both continued to move lower as investors eyed the first day of the Federal Open Market Committee's two-day meeting.
A powerful late winter storm threatens to dump as much as two feet of snow in the Northeast, forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights and schools from the Washington, D.C. area to Boston. (NBC News)



President Donald Trump's first meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been postponed because of the storm. The White House said Merkel's visit has been rescheduled for Friday. (Reuters)



With the release of the scoring from the Congressional Budget Office, it appears the Trump-backed GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare would break some of his campaign promises. (NBC News)



The CBO estimates the Republican plan would lead to 24 million fewer people having insurance by 2026. And for many older, less affluent Americans insurance premiums would soar, the CBO said. (CNBC & Vox)



House Speaker Paul Ryan highlighted the CBO's estimate for a cut in the federal deficit by $337 billion over the next decade, and argued the GOP plan would increase consumer choice and bring down costs. (CNBC)



Thousands of tech workers at Apple, Facebook and Google plan to walk off the job today to protest Trump's immigration policies, transforming the math geek's celebration of Pi Day 3.14 into a political statement. (Biz Journals)



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson allegedly used an alias email address in climate change discussions during his time as Exxon Mobil chairman and chief executive, according to New York's attorney general. (WSJ)

The GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee has asked the Justice Department to provide any evidence of Trump's wiretapping claims before next Monday's hearing after the DOJ asked for more time. (NBC News)



Trump has reportedly given the CIA new authority to conduct drone attacks against suspected militants, a change from the the Obama administration policy limiting the spy agency's paramilitary role. (WSJ)



North Korea warned the U.S. of "merciless" attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is joining South Korean forces for exercises, infringes on its sovereignty or dignity. (Reuters)

SAP (SAP) said it's patched vulnerabilities in the latest version of its HANA software. HANA runs the business software maker's latest database, cloud, and other applications. (Reuters)

Verizon (VZ) sought a $925 million discount on its $4.8 billion purchase of the core internet assets Yahoo (YHOO), which disclosed data breaches. But Verizon agreed to a $350 million reduction in the purchase price. (Reuters)



Meanwhile, Verizon is being sued by New York City, which accuses the telecom giant of failing to fulfill its agreement to offer its FIOS service to every home in the city by 2014. (NY Times)

In an update of its policies, Facebook (FB) said data about users cannot be used for surveillance, cracking down on a method police departments allegedly used to track protesters and activists. (WSJ)

Enterprise software maker Okta has filed to go public, hoping to raise $100 million. Okta has raised more than $228 million from some of Silicon Valley's highest-profile venture capitalists, according to Crunchbase. (CNBC)



As financial institutions race to offer digital financial advice, Charles Schwab (SCHW) has launched a new hybrid service that combines human advisors with its automated investment management technology. (Reuters)



Elon Musk's SpaceX has postponed a planned early morning launch of its Falcon 9 rocket due to high winds. The private space company is working toward the next launch window early Thursday morning. (The Verge)



Musk's pledge to fix South Australia's energy crisis within 100 days, or do it for free, has prompted calls from citizens of New Zealand and the Ukrainian prime minister for similar projects in their countries. (CNBC)


A massive winter weather system has hit much of the Northeast as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania declare states of emergency. Winter storm Stella shut down schools, government offices and public transportation systems and cancelled thousands of flights across the country.

The storm is expected to drop as much as two feet of snow in some areas. Heavy snow and high winds already wreaked havoc with several reported accidents and power outages.

Scroll down to see more scenes from this late-winter wallop.
Congressional Republicans will have to work across the aisle on the GOP health-care plan like Democrats did with Obamacare, former Sen. Max Baucus told CNBC on Tuesday.

"I have a sign in my office  had four rules. Number one, remember the people you serve. Number two, do it now. Number three, do it right the first time. And four, make it fun. I think the Republican plan is just too rushed," the Montana Democrat said on "Squawk Box."

"It's not rocket science here," he said.

Baucus' comments came after the Congressional Budget Office released an estimate that 14 million more people would become uninsured next year if the GOP health-care plan is signed into law.

The CBO also projected that 52 million people would be uninsured by 2026 if the bill became law, compared with 28 million who would not have coverage that year if the law remained unchanged.

"I think the CBO is by and large accurate," Baucus said. "A lot of people will become uninsured. In addition to that, a lot of people are going to get hurt because they won't have health insurance."



Earlier this month, House GOP leaders unveiled a broad plan for replacing Obamacare, titled the American Health Care Act, which includes killing the requirement that most Americans have health insurance or pay a fine.

It would also alter the system by which many customers get financial aid to buy insurance on the individual plan market.

The Trump administration has defended the health-care plan, which it says will have a second and third phase that will entice consumers.

Democratic leaders in Congress said the bill could result in elderly people being kicked out of nursing homes as it simultaneously gives tax cuts for the richest Americans, according to Reuters.

Baucus said there is a "reverse Robin Hood" under the GOP health care bill because it takes from the poor and gives to the wealthy.



"The answer is you got to slow down a little bit," he said.

--CNBC's Dan Mangan and Reuters contributed to this report.
Party for Freedom candidate Geert Wilders kicking off his election campaign on February 18, 2017 in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands.

Geert Wilders, the far right candidate this week's Dutch election, caused a furor in February when he tweeted a photoshopped image which appeared to show an opposition politician at an Islamist protest.

According to much of the ensuing media coverage, this was an example of "fake news" in action, the now ubiquitous term having wrestled its way to the forefront of public consciousness in recent months and thought to have played a part in the result of the U.S. election.

The Netherlands, the next major western democracy to face an election, would be justified in feeling threatened as it takes to the polls on March 15.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Facebook was adding its fact checking facility to news articles in the Netherlands, a level of scrutiny that already exists in the U.S., France and Germany. Peter Burger, a journalism academic at the University of Leiden taking part in the project, told CNBC via telephone that his team had a responsibility to "educate people to be more skeptical of the news in general."

TWEET

On top of this, the Dutch government has taken its own step to ensure the validity of the coming vote, announcing in February that the use of specific vote counting technology, USB sticks and e-mail would be forbidden.

The Dutch government's press office wrote to CNBC via e-mail that the decision was made neither due to hacking attempts thus far nor due to reservations about preventative software. But, the authorities "simply wanted to make sure to all Dutch voters that there can't be any shadow of a doubt about the reliability of the outcome."

But according to one analyst, the country is structurally resilient to influence from fabricated news stories at the very least.

Florian Otto, head of Europe research at Verisk Maplecroft, explained to CNBC via telephone that firstly, the Netherlands is home to a "less complex media landscape" in comparison to the U.S. The country does not have a strong tradition of tabloids or clearly partisan news outlets.

In addition, the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report for 2016 found that only 8 percent of Dutch people consider social media to be their main news source, in comparison to 14 percent of those in the U.S. For Otto, the "high level of penetration" held by Dutch mainstream news platforms means that potential proponents of fake news find it "difficult to gain momentum."
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price addressed a question about whether the White House had been projecting more uninsured people under the GOP health-care plan than the newly released Congressional Budget Office analysis.

Price told CNBC's Kayla Tausche on Tuesday it was his understanding the Office of Management and Budget, which serves the president, had been estimating where the CBO would come in  using the CBO's methodology.

The OMB has not issued its analysis yet.

The CBO said Monday a total of 24 million more Americans would be uninsured under the GOP plan than they would be under Obamacare by 2026, prompting a response from Price who said he "disagreed strenuously with the report."

In advance of the CBO analysis, the White House, according to Politico, had thought the CBO estimate of the number of people losing coverage over that period would be 26 million.



But Price did tell CNBC he accepts the part of the CBO report that estimates the GOP plan would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion over the next decade.



Meanwhile, Price and President Donald Trump are set to speak with Joseph Swedish, chairman and CEO of health benefits firm Anthem , by telephone Tuesday afternoon.

Price, who led the charge against Obamacare when he was in Congress, said they will talk about ways to improve access to health insurance.

 CNBC's Kayla Tausche contributed to this report.
Success doesn't have to be measured by how much money you make or how many companies you build. In fact, if you ask some of the world's wealthiest individuals what success means to them, they won't mention money, investments or even numbers at all. Here's how Bill Gates, Mark Cuban and five other self-made billionaires define success. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group Estimated net worth: $5 billion "Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with," Branson writes on LinkedIn. "In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are." "It's a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur's metric for success," he continues. "It's not, and nor should it be."

Sir Richard Branson Fairfax Media | Getty Images

Tilman Fertitta, CEO of Landry's Estimated net worth: $2.8 billion "Success to me is anybody who does something better than somebody else," Fertitta tells CNBC. The skill or craft is irrelevant, he says: "I don't care what business it is. I have the greatest respect in the world for that guy that can take an engine apart of a car and put it back together, or the house painter that can paint a perfect line, or the cameraman who can shoot the best shot. "We're all talented in our own ways  just some of us make more money than others. That's all."

Tilman Fertitta stars in CNBC's "Billion Dollar Buyer" Mike Windle/NBC | Getty Images

Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, "Shark Tank" investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Estimated net worth: $3.4 billion "To me, the definition of success is waking up in the morning with a smile on your face, knowing it's going to be a great day," Cuban tells Steiner Sports. "I mean, I was happy and felt like I was successful when I was poor, living six guys in a three-bedroom apartment and sleeping on the floor. I was going to work hard to get somewhere, but I was having fun."

Mark Cuban Getty Images

Oprah Winfrey, entrepreneur, TV host, actress Estimated net worth: $3 billion "The key is not to worry about being successful but to instead work toward being significant  and the success will naturally follow," Winfrey writes on her website.

Oprah Winfrey. Photo by Hindustan Times

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Estimated net worth: $78.6 billion In Alice Schroeder's biography of Buffett, "The Snowball," she writes about a time when Buffett was addressing students at Georgia Tech. Someone asked him about his greatest success and he responded, "Basically, when you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. "I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them," he continued. "But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.

If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster. Warren Buffett CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

"That's the ultimate test of how you have lived your life. The trouble with love is that you can't buy it ... The only way to get love is to be lovable," said Buffett. "The more you give love away, the more you get."

Lacy O Toole | CNBC

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Estimated net worth: $86.7 billion When Gates is asked to define success in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session, he cites his friend: "Warren Buffett has always said the measure is whether the people close to you are happy and love you." In addition to making sure the loved ones in his life are happy, he believes there's a second critical component of success: Making the world a better place. Gates writes: "It is also nice to feel like you made a difference  inventing something or raising kids or helping people in need."

Chesnot | Getty Images

John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of Paul Mitchell hair products and Patron Tequila Estimated net worth: $3 billion

"Success isn't how much money you have," DeJoria tells Business Insider. "Success is not what your position is. Success is how well do you do what you do when nobody else is looking."


Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte told CNBC on Tuesday that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was "totally off the mark" when he recently compared the Dutch to Nazis and had behaved in an "increasingly hysterical" manner.

Erdogan had denounced the Netherlands as "Nazi remnants" on Saturday after the Dutch administration withdrew its permission for Turkey's foreign minister and family affairs minister to attend rallies in the country. Turkey's president has since suspended diplomatic relations with Amsterdam.

"When something happens like last Saturday, we have to take a stance (and) we have to draw a line and say this is unacceptable," Rutte told CNBC as he campaigned to maintain his premiership ahead of the Dutch general election on Wednesday.

"We will never negotiate under the threat of sanctions."



Turkey is due to hold a referendum on April 16 on whether to extend the presidential powers available to Erdogan and the support from Turkish citizens based in other EU countries, such as the Netherlands, is viewed as critical by the president.

Therefore, the decision by Rutte's government to revoke its permission for Turkish officials to attend rallies in the Netherlands sparked a ferocious response from Ankara.

In a speech televised on Tuesday, Erdogan used the Srebrenica massacre, in which Dutch troops failed to prevent a mass execution, to further escalate the dispute between the two nations.

"I have to say that the President of Turkey today is in (an) increasingly hysterical way talking about the Netherlands. He has now made a historical and unwise remark about Srebrenica which is totally off the mark and which is totally untrue," Rutte added.
Many of today's university grads forgo long hours, stuffy suits and even a bigger pay check for the promise of wearing a t-shirt while using a laptop on a bean bag.

Competition between banks and tech companies to snag top talent is nothing new, but it's in part prompting JPMorgan to step up its recruitment efforts by hosting pop-up cafes at campuses from the U.S. to Hong Kong. The events range from offering free made-to-order smoothies to customized notebooks.

CNBC visited such an event recently at Singapore Management University.

"We can't just be the bank that sets up a booth in a career fair and hope that people come to us," said Supriya Doshi, JPMorgan's head of HR for Singapore. "We have to be proactive."

The event, which had a made-to-order coffee bar, a free popcorn machine and a pop-up photo booth, aimed to look far different from how most imagine the world's largest banks.




Maersk Tankers, the energy shipping division of Danish cargo giant Moller Maersk, is to fit two, 30 meter rotating sails to one of its vessels.

Finnish company Norsepower said its modernized version of the Flettner rotor  which encompasses a spinning cylinder that captures wind power in order to "propel" ships  would be used in the project.



In a news release on Tuesday, Norsepower added that the new sails are expected to cut fuel consumption and emissions on the 110,000-ton tanker by around 10 percent.



The rotors are set to be fitted in the first half of 2018, with testing at sea until the end of 2019.

Norsepower said it was working in partnership with Maersk Tankers, Shell Shipping & Maritime, and the U.K.'s Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). The ETI is majority funding the project.

"As an abundant and free renewable energy, wind power has a role to play in supporting the shipping industry to reduce its fuel consumption and meet impending carbon reduction targets," Tuomas Riski, CEO of Norsepower, said in a statement.

The ETI's Andrew Scott described Flettner rotors as having the potential to cut ship fuel consumption substantially.



"It is one of the few fuel-saving technologies that could offer double digit percentage improvements," he added, before saying that showing off the technology on the tanker made it "more attractive to shipping companies and investors, and could play a significant role in reducing the fuel costs and improving the environmental impact of shipping in the future."
A shop worker places a sign for 'MoneyGram' outside his store on Moore Street in Dublin, Ireland.

Euronet Worldwide proposed an offer on Tuesday to acquire money transfer company MoneyGram International for $15.20 per share, sending the stock price soaring more than 20 percent.

Shares closed Tuesday slightly below $16, up more than 24 percent for the day.



Euronet's offer values the company at more than $1 billion, which is 15 percent above a previous offer that was made by a U.S.-based money transfer company and Alibaba 's Ant Financial Services.

Just earlier this year, shares of MoneyGram jumped after Ant Financial proposed its merger in a deal valued at $880 million. In that deal, shareholders of Dallas-based MoneyGram were offered $13.25 per share in cash, according to a press release.



By combining with Ant Financial, MoneyGram would be able to access 630 million more users worldwide, the release said.



The latest Euronet proposal "presents a faster and a significantly more certain path to closing than the Ant Financial transaction," Euronet Chief Executive Michael Brown wrote in a note to MoneyGram Chairman Pamela Patsley on Tuesday.

"The combination of these highly complementary businesses would create a very well-positioned global payments company that would benefit customers and employees in the United States and around the world," Tuesday's press release from Euronet wrote.

MoneyGram did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on this proposal.

Shares of Euronet traded down more than 1 percent on Tuesday's news but later closed the day up a little more than half percent.
On average, more than 3,000 borrowers default on their federal student loans every day.

The number of people who have defaulted on their federal student loans increased 17 percent from 2015 to 2016, according to a Consumer Federation of America analysis of U.S. Department of Education data.

"Despite a booming stock market and unemployment falling, student loan borrowers are struggling," said Rohit Chopra, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and a former student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Last year, 42.4 million Americans owed $1.3 trillion in federal student loans. More than 4.2 million borrowers were in default as of the end of 2016, up from 3.6 million in 2015. In all, 1.1 million more borrowers went into or re-entered default last year.

People who have defaulted on their student loans "are going to have a tougher time passing an employment verification check, saving for retirement or ever buying a home," Chopra said. Borrowers in default can also have their wages garnished and their tax funds seized.

The increasing student loan default rate may have more to do with whether students finish their degrees than the rising cost of higher education.

"We don't have a student loan problem, we have a college completion problem," said Mark Kantrowitz, vice president of strategy for college and scholarship search site Cappex.com. "Students who drop out of college are four times more likely to default on their loans."
Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty said the new iPhone from Apple later this year will be so innovative that a rush of people will upgrade, driving much higher sales than the rest of Wall Street currently expects. "We do not think the super cycle is fully appreciated," Huberty told CNBC PRO in an exclusive interview. "What we expect in September is a phone that has significant advancements in technology: OLED screens, 3-D sensors, wireless charging [and] likely some more advanced software in the area of artificial intelligence." The analyst projects 20 percent unit growth for the iPhone in fiscal 2018, double Wall Street's current 10 percent growth estimate. Huberty said her "bull case" calls for 30 percent unit growth in the period. Huberty, who also covers IBM , has one of the best track records among analysts on Wall Street, with her picks posting an average one-year return of 12.6 percent since 2009, according to TipRanks , a Wall Street tracking service. She joined Morgan Stanley in 2000 and is a member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team. Also in her discussion with CNBC's Michael Santoli , Huberty talks about: The best cloud-computing plays Why IBM is a top play on artificial intelligence Why Apple will have a big year in China Why investing in technology is "thematic"

Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty said the new iPhone from Apple later this year will be so innovative that a rush of people will upgrade, driving much higher sales than the rest of Wall Street currently expects. "We do not think the super cycle is fully appreciated," Huberty told CNBC PRO in an exclusive interview. "What we expect in September is a phone that has significant advancements in technology: OLED screens, 3-D sensors, wireless charging [and] likely some more advanced software in the area of artificial intelligence." The analyst projects 20 percent unit growth for the iPhone in fiscal 2018, double Wall Street's current 10 percent growth estimate. Huberty said her "bull case" calls for 30 percent unit growth in the period. Huberty, who also covers IBM , has one of the best track records among analysts on Wall Street, with her picks posting an average one-year return of 12.6 percent since 2009, according to TipRanks, a Wall Street tracking service. She joined Morgan Stanley in 2000 and is a member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team. Also in her discussion with CNBC's Michael Santoli, Huberty talks about: The best cloud-computing plays

Why IBM is a top play on artificial intelligence

Why Apple will have a big year in China

Why investing in technology is "thematic"


Oil has exerted its pull over the last week of trading, creating a listless market in the wake of its decline, traders told CNBC on Tuesday.

"Every time they go above those production levels they're going to say that it was for in house, basically, storage," Steve Grasso, director of institutional sales at Stuart Frankel, said in an interview with "Closing Bell."

"I think [oil] is really in charge of sentiment and directionality in the marketplace."

Grasso cites the influence of state-owned Saudi Aramco. "Everyone is ignoring that," he said. "And for me it's such a contrived effort to keep oil prices higher."



He says the path of least resistance is lower in oil, something the market is finally starting to realize.

Saudi Arabia, the largest member of OPEC, reported a jump in production, surprising markets and causing a decline in oil stocks, hitting a three-month low earlier Tuesday. The group agreed to curb its output last year, reducing a global oversupply of crude and keeping values higher.

Oil stocks have continued to decline, hitting a three-month low earlier on Tuesday.

But not all analysts share Grasso's sentiment.

"I'm not sure why this [is] much of a focus right now," said Francisco Blanch, global head of commodities research at Bank of America. "The Saudis have always been trying to push the market into it," he told "Closing Bell."

He believes encouraging more hedging by oil producers can anchor future prices as inventory drops.

To other traders, the recent news may not be recent after all.

"In the not-so-distant past, I remember oil dictated what the market did," Virtu Financial's Matthew Cheslock said. "We're starting to see that a little bit more."

Disclaimer




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OPEC's oil production alliance appears to be on shaky ground, and crude prices continued a weeklong dive, as Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House on Tuesday. Bin Salman represents the new face of Saudi Arabia, and he is the draftsman of a plan to reform the kingdom and diversify it away from oil. He is also seen as a key figure backing the deal between OPEC members and nonmembers like Russia to curb production and stabilize the market price. In Washington, among the topics he was expected to discuss were the war in Yemen and the Iranian nuclear deal. Analysts say while it appears to be frayed, there is a good chance OPEC and its partners will ultimately keep their deal intact and extend it, because oil in the low $40s per barrel would strain the budgets of producing nations and make it much more difficult for the types of reforms that the deputy crown prince is trying to achieve. But between now and then, oil prices could be rocky. OPEC members have said they would assess extending the agreement to cut 1.8 million barrels in production when they meet in May. "If MBS is here to talk about broader economic issues, selling the Saudi IPO, selling the broad Saudi Vision 2030 plan, the reality is Saudi Arabia looks more economically attractive in a higher oil price environment," said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC. "This is the tension. In a lower oil price environment, the math on that becomes more challenging."

watch now

Known as MBS, bin Salman is the favorite 31-year-old son of King Salman and is seen as a contender for the throne. On the surface, the market bought the idea that the OPEC production plan was working well  and oil prices were holding in the $50s. That was until Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih revealed at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in Houston last week that he was not happy with the compliance of some producers and that Saudi Arabia would not carry an unfair amount of the cuts or be used by others. He also said OPEC was more aligned than ever and said Saudi Arabia was producing below the key psychological 10 million barrels a day level. "Coming after Khalid Al-Falih's deliberate comments about compliance, his criticism of some other parties keeping up their end of the agreement, it feeds a narrative of Saudi backing away from the agreement. If Saudi backs away, there is no agreement. Saudi drives the OPEC bus. I do think this is more a shot across the bow," said Croft. At the same CERAWeek conference last week, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar Ali Al-Luiebi said that Iraq would be producing 5 million barrels a day by the second half of the year, after just reaching 4 million barrels a day in mid-2016. He also said export capacity could ultimately get to 7 million barrels a day, but he told CNBC after his remarks in Houston that Iraq does not want to "unsettle" the market. "I think that Iraq production is not really coming off. They seem to be focused on exports and even the export numbers are not really coming off. I think a little bit of this is the Saudis are probably tacitly OK with the narrative that they're not going to shoulder the burden on their own," said Michael Cohen, head of energy research at Barclays. "They're also concerned about non-OPEC compliance, namely Russia and they're not seeing the cuts coming through."

(L-R): OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo, Mexican Deputy Secretary of Energy for Hydrocarbons Aldo Flores-Quiroga , Saudi Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid Al-Falih and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak. Patti Domm | CNBC

Another thorn in the side of the deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers has been the U.S. shale industry, which has turned the pumps back on as the production deal pushed oil above $50. The U.S. is now producing more than 9 million barrels a day. A surge in supply in the weekly U.S. inventory data helped kick off what's been a more than 10 percent decline in oil prices. Al-Falih last week said OPEC welcomed shale drillers back to the market. But he also said he is monitoring the activity. "Green shoots are here in the U.S. and maybe growing too fast. I am moderating the watering of green shoots," he said. Cohen said he expects OPEC to ultimately extend some sort of deal. "Our view is still one that sees an agreement in some form in place and we have not really wavered from that view," he said. "The reason is based on the fact that completely taking their hand off the wheel again is not something consistent with what many OPEC leaders want." Oil tanked on Tuesday, after a report from OPEC showed higher global inventories despite the deal. "That OPEC report was a bit of a shock with the Saudis self-reporting a 10 million barrel a day production number. The secondary sources had them producing under 10 million. The market reacted badly to that and the acknowledgement that global inventories were rising," said John Kilduff of Again Capital. "There was the headline acknowledgement and prices sold off ... I think they're going to engineer another price collapse, they've got to do more than that. It's got to be in everybody's face. I think the real wake-up call is when you break $35." Croft said oil prices will be more volatile until there are more signs of harmony among the key producers. Crude could also take another down leg if the U.S. weekly supply data released Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET shows another big build. West Texas Intermediate futures were down for a seventh day Tuesday, falling 1.4 percent to $47.72 per barrel. Brent, the international benchmark was at $50.90 per barrel. "I kind of feel like this is Saudi cracking the whip ... not threatening to pull out of the deal but leaving roll over up in the air," said Croft. Russia's energy minister, Alexander Novak, also said last week that it was too soon to say whether the deal, agreed to in December, would be extended but he and others all spoke in support of it. "They don't want $60 [oil] but firming the case for $50 makes sense for their key policy priorities. Are you going to pick keeping as much shale as you can on the sidelines? Or are you going to pick your key economic priorities? If it's sub $50, or $50, I think they roll this over."

Watch: Oil driving market sentiment
The biggest oil market risk for 2017 is the prospect of a market share war  or at least a showdown  between OPEC and U.S. shale drillers, said Kate Richard, CEO of energy investment firm Warwick Energy.

Richard offered her view after U.S. crude futures ended Tuesday's trading lower for a seventh straight session, hitting their weakest closing level since November.

OPEC's effort to draw down brimming global crude inventories through production cuts bolstered oil prices above $50 through last week. But that rebound made more high-cost U.S. output profitable, leading to a recovery in American drilling that threatens to spoil the cartel's bid to balance an oversupplied market.

It also threatens the oil-dependent economies of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

"What OPEC has shown is that it clearly cannot stomach $40 to $50 oil, whereas the U.S. producers over the past two years have gotten more and more efficient," Richard told CNBC's "Power Lunch," referring to American shale drillers who rely on expensive enhanced drilling methods to squeeze oil and gas from shale rock.

"We've retooled our cost structure. We've become cheaper. We've become more efficient, and we can now make really good money in the core plays in the U.S. at $40 to $50 oil."

Still, Richard noted there is a huge dispersion in potential returns between the haves and have-nots in America's oil patch. Drillers with the best acreage in Texas' Permian Basin and Oklahoma's Scoop and Stack regions can make money with oil prices at $40 to $50 a barrel, while producers in the southern expanse of the Permian and parts of the Rockies will struggle at that level.
OPEC production fell in February as Saudi Arabia continued to compensate for other cartel members who have not yet achieved promised output cuts.

The producer group also raised concerns about rising global oil inventories and resurgent U.S. supply in its monthly report, and raised its forecast for non-OPEC production for 2017.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries produced a combined 31.96 million barrels a day last month, compared with 32.1 million barrels a day in January, according to secondary sources.

"High compliance with supply adjustments by OPEC and some non-OPEC producers supported gains" in crude oil futures in February, OPEC said.

Output by the members that committed to cutting production late last year was 29.7 million barrels a day, compared with 29.9 million last month. Libya and Nigeria are exempt as they attempt to restore supply sidelined by internal conflict.

Iran is permitted to increase its pumping to a certain extent. The February figures showed it was producing about 17,000 barrels a day above that level.

Among the cartel members still pumping beyond promised levels are Iraq, OPEC's second largest producer, and the United Arab Emirates, which pumped 63,000 and 51,000 barrels a day above their quotas, respectively.

OPEC agreed in November to curb output by 1.2 million barrels a day in the first half of 2017 to reduce a global oversupply of crude oil. Eleven other exporters including Russia committed to reducing their total supply by 556,000 in December.

While Reuters put the group's combined compliance to the output cut deal above 100 percent, Saudi Arabia continues to provide the lion's share of reductions.
We now know more about the post-Zenefits plans of embattled tech founder Parker Conrad, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Conrad has raised $7 million for his new staffing start-up, Rippling, investors familiar with the details told the Journal. (Some earlier details about the company were reported last year.) Conrad is best known for his leadership of human resources start-up Zenefits, which endured scandal under his watch. Conrad resigned from Zenefits last year, after regulators accused the company of enabling unlicensed brokers to sell insurance.

Rippling helps start-ups with staff onboarding, providing new employees with laptops, offer letters, tax forms, email accounts, and keycard access, the Journal reported. The start-up could eventually become a "system of record" for employee data, Conrad told the Journal. Rippling's basic service costs $8 per employee a month, according to the Journal.

Rippling will benefit from lessons learned at Zenefits, and will have proper management oversight, Conrad told the Journal.



For more on Conrad's new gig, see the full article at WSJ.com
"There is no three-phase process. There is no three-step plan. That is just political talk. It's just politicians engaging in spin," Cotton told radio host Hugh Hewitt .

Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, cast doubts Tuesday on the GOP's "three-phase" plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Cotton, a conservative who said the ACA replacement bill cannot pass the Senate without changes , called talk of a three-step process "political spin."

One of President Donald Trump 's allies in the Senate just took another swipe at Republican health-care plans.

The White House and House Speaker Paul Ryan have outlined three phases for their plan to repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare, and fulfill a key GOP campaign promise. First, the GOP wants to pass the American Health Care Act, the bill working its way through the House that faces opposition from both moderate and conservative Republicans in Congress. Republicans are using budget reconciliation, meaning it only requires a 51-vote majority in the chamber, where the GOP holds 52 seats.

It then would involve administrative actions by the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. That would be followed by more legislation, possibly including a law allowing insurance sales across state lines.

Cotton contended that the second step would face court challenges and likely get hung up in the judicial system. The third phase, meanwhile, could not use the budget reconciliation process the GOP is using for its current bill and would need Democratic support to clear the Senate.

Cotton thinks clearing all of those hurdles is unlikely.

"If we had those Democratic votes, we wouldn't need three steps. We would just be doing that right now on this legislation altogether. That's why it's so important that we get this legislation right, because there is no step three," Cotton said.

Enough Republican senators have opposed the bill in its current form that passage in the chamber seems unlikely. At least 12 GOP senators have already objected to portions of the bill, according to Vox.
Main Street's sunny outlook is holding up postelection, but positive feelings on the economy have yet to translate into real growth in sales or hiring for America's small businesses. A new report from the conservative lobbying group the National Federation of Independent Business shows optimism remains at record-high levels, at 105.3 for the month of February. This represents a slight decline of 0.6 points from January's reading of 105.9, but remains high compared to the historic average of 98. Postelection, small companies have reported a more positive outlook based on the belief that the Trump administration will enact more business-friendly policies and cut back on regulation.

U.S. President Donald Trump pauses after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House surrounded by small business leaders January 30, 2017 in Washington, DC. Pool | Getty Images

But this month's report offered a more critical tone on the new regime's follow-through: "Optimism has not faded, but the enthusiasm has yet to be translated into an equally impressive increase in spending and hiring. This will require progress on the agenda that business owners voted for." While there's been some movement in Washington, including President Trump's executive order on deregulation and the introduction of the GOP's plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, small businesses want to see more progress on both the health-care and tax-reform fronts, according to NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg. "Health-care costs and tax reform are always top issues for our membership," he said. "If action isn't taken on those issues, optimism will fade." While job openings are at their highest levels since December 2000, finding skilled workers remains a top issue for 44 percent of businesses, which report few or no qualified workers to fill positions. As a result, more companies are raising wages.
Researchers are investigating a correlation between falling drug usage and rising use of smartphones and tablets, the New York Times reported this week.

Marijuana use has fallen in eighth and 10th graders in the past 10 years, while use of cocaine, hallucinogens, ecstasy and crack are down among 12th graders, the Times reported. Heroin use has also fallen among high schoolers, the Times said, citing a recent report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Researchers are exploring theories about whether smartphone activities, like playing video games, fulfill the "sensation seeking" role of drugs, though that idea "still needs to be proved," one expert told the Times.
The Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a statement confirming the eight member crew of the 1,800 deadweight tonne oil tanker are from Sri Lanka.

The tanker, named Aris 13, sent out a distress call on Monday before changing course towards the port town of Alula, Reuters reports. It had been carrying fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu.

Pirates hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia on Monday, the first successful hijacking of a commercial ship by Somali pirates since 2012.

Armed Somali pirates carrying out preparations to a skiff in Hobyo, northeastern Somalia, ahead of new attacks on ships sailing in the Gulf of Aden.

Gerry Northwood, chief operating officer at maritime risk management consultancy MAST, says it was only a matter of time before an attack like this would happen.

"With the current political situation in Somalia and the increasing confidence of those transiting through the Western Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, it was very likely that such an attack was going to occur," he said in a press statement.

"The characteristics of the hijack are similar to some of the early piracy activity we saw around 2005, and those responsible will have analysed the changing economic and political situation around them and decided that now was an opportune time to launch an attack."

Piracy in the West Indian Ocean has been suppressed in the last few years through the use of counter measures and the presence of naval vessels. The economic cost of piracy was around $7 billion in 2010, decreasing to $1.3 billion in 2015, according to anti-piracy organisation Oceans Beyond Piracy.

However, the organisation reported incidents of piracy in October last year, when a chemical tanker was attacked, but managed to drive off the perpetrators, and warned that piracy could be making a comeback.

"Concerns about a potential resurgence of piracy are exacerbated by the drop in international naval force levels, the shipping industry's desire to return historic shipping patterns, and the reduction in armed guards on vessels in the High Risk Area," Oceans Beyond Piracy said in a report published January.

The decreasing military presence in the area may have encouraged an attack, suggested Northwood.

"Those who orchestrated the attack would have been acutely aware of the decreasing military presence in the area and the increasing numbers of ships which are not sufficiently capable of defending themselves against a hijack," he said.

"The international community can ill afford the Indian Ocean to again become a hotspot for criminal pirate activity. It is a vital trading route into Europe and those ships and crew transiting it need to be protected, as it is the seafarers working in the region who are the ultimate victim of such activity."

Emma Gordon, East Africa analyst at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, downplayed these concerns, saying this incident does not indicate piracy is about to return to 2012-levels.

"Pirates need at least $30,000 to mount complex missions against large commercial vessels. With the rate of success dramatically lower due to international naval patrols, financiers will not want to fund expensive pirate missions," she told CNBC via email.

"Somali financiers already have a steady flow of income from migrant trafficking and have less need to resort to piracy. However, the incident does serve as an important reminder that the drivers of piracy are unchanged. Piracy would erupt again if the patrols were halted."

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SpaceX has postponed a planned launch of its Falcon 9 rocket tonight due to high winds. The launch was originally scheduled for the wee hours of Tuesday morning, and was to take place from Cape Canaveral, Florida, lofting a communications satellite into orbit for satellite operator EchoStar. The company said it was now working toward the next launch opportunity, which expected to take place in 48 hours, at 1:35AM ET on Thursday morning.

The satellite to be launched by the Falcon 9 rocket is called EchoStar XXIII, and will sit in a high orbit above Earth and provide broadcast services for Brazil. Unlike the majority of SpaceX's launches over the past couple years, this mission will not include a rocket landing post-takeoff, as CEO Elon Musk announced in a tweet in January. That's because EchoStar XXIII is a particularly heavy satellite that's going to an orbit about 22,000 miles above the Earth's surface. Those two factors combined mean the Falcon 9 will need a lot of fuel for the launch, leaving little fuel leftover to perform a rocket landing.

TWEET

This could be one of the last expendable launches SpaceX does for a while. Musk also tweeted that missions like EchoStar XXIII (heavy payloads going to high orbits) would launch on the Falcon Heavy  the future heavy-lift vehicle SpaceX is developing that's essentially three Falcon 9s strapped together. Such missions could also fly on an upgraded version of the Falcon 9, called Block 5, in the future. This iteration of the Falcon 9 will supposedly be the final upgrade for the rocket, and it's supposed to improve the vehicle's performance and make it easier to reuse. Musk says Block 5 will fly for the first time by the end of the year.

More from The Verge:

SpaceX won't attempt a landing after its next launch

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is about to launch from a pad used for the first Moon mission

SpaceX's Falcon 9 explodes on Florida launch pad during rocket test preparations

The launch  when it eventually takes place  will be the company's second from Launch Complex 39A, a prominent site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The pad at LC39A has been used for some of the most historic space missions, including Apollo 11 that took people to the Moon for the first time, as well as the last launch of the Space Shuttle in 2011. SpaceX signed a lease with NASA in 2014 to move into LC39A and refurbish the pad to accommodate flights of the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy, which is supposed to fly for the first time this summer.

For the foreseeable future, SpaceX will be relying on LC39A for all its Florida launches, since the company's other pad at the Cape  Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station  is still out of commission; the site was badly damaged in September, when one of SpaceX's Falcon 9s exploded during a routine fueling procedure on the launchpad. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell recently noted that repairs to the pad at SLC-40 could be done this summer.

SpaceX had a two-and-a-half-hour launch window tonight, but the decision to cancel the attempt was made early on, before the official launch time of 1:34AM ET. Prior to the launch, scientists at Patrick Air Force Base gave only a 40 percent chance that conditions would be favorable, with thick clouds and high winds in the area. SpaceX's next attempt is expected to take place on Thursday at 1:35AM ET.
Nearly every professional has experienced the fear and humiliation of making a big mistake at work. But according to best-selling management author and CNBC contributor Suzy Welch, it's not the mistake that could break your career  it's how you handle it. "Everybody screws up sometimes," Welch says. "You lose a big client. You hire the wrong person. You miss a deadline for getting a product to market." "It is not fatal unless you think it is." So how do you bounce back from a major screwup?

Author and business journalist Suzy Welch.

According to Welch, you should immediately take these three steps: 1. Take responsibility "First, you have to own it," Welch says. "You cannot play the blame game." While the flub may not be all your fault, pointing fingers at others makes you look petty and unprofessional. "Even if you aren't the only author of the screwup  and you probably aren't  you still have to take responsibility publicly," she says. More specifically, indicate your involvement in the mess up. If you were the sole perpetrator, acknowledge that to your boss, and if you were just a part of it, say that you were involved and that you "own the consequences," Welch advises.

You have to own it. You cannot play the blame game. Suzy Welch best-selling management author and CNBC contributor

2. Conduct a professional "autopsy" If you screwed up, examine the mistake like a detective would, Welch says. "Go around to the people who are aware of what happened, and ask them: 'What could have I done? What should have I done?'" It's not going to be a fun process, Welch admits. "It is going to take you out of your comfort zone," she says. "But it's going to show that you have the guts to get to the bottom of something."

3. Score a rebound  fast After you've taken responsibility and learned how to prevent it from happening again, it's time to re-brand yourself with a win, Welch says. "You've got that scarlet S on your shoulder" for Screwup, she says. "You want to get it off fast." Go that extra mile to impress your boss. If there isn't a clear opportunity, create one. "Come up with an idea, come up with a task, come up with an assignment." By quickly getting some points on the board, you can almost always save face. Video by Brandon Ancil. More from Suzy Welch:


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American business leaders are having a reality check in the Trump era, skeptical that the president's campaign promises and Republican legislative priorities are likely to come to fruition in the near future. Their biggest concern: the outlook for trade.

According to the latest CNBC Global CFO Council Survey, a majority of U.S. CFOs are less than 50 percent confident that Congress will pass legislation on reforming Obamacare and personal income taxes by the end of this year. Nearly half are less than 25 percent confident that Congress will fund a border wall. On corporate taxes, the most important issue facing most CFOs, the average U.S. council member is only 56 percent confident Congress will pass reforms.

They are generally confident on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch.

The CNBC Global CFO Council represents some of the largest public and private companies in the world, collectively managing more than $4 trillion in market capitalization across a wide variety of sectors. The quarterly CFO Council poll was conducted from March 110. Skepticism goes even further than campaign promises and action in Congress. Forty-five percent of all respondents believe that Trump's meetings with CEOs and business leaders are political theater and will not lead to policy changes that diverge from the administration's ultimate agenda.

Specter of a trade war

As business leaders are nearly split over the effectiveness of Washington's new leadership, they are in unison when it comes to fears over trade and immigration. Nearly all CFOs surveyed are concerned that the Trump administration's policies could trigger a trade war between the United States and China. The Council echoes the growing concern of business experts over the president's persistent tough language regarding trade deficits.

The looming changes to U.S. trade policy is weighing so heavily on the minds of CFOs that the group considers it the second-largest external risk factor to their firms. Consumer demand still remains the most commonly cited risk factor.

Immigration fears

When it comes to Trump's stance on immigration, nearly 62 percent of U.S. respondents say his administration's current and future policies would negatively impact their business. Not a single member said such polices would have a positive effect on their firm.

Room to run

Despite growing concerns and uncertainty, Council members across the board see the global economy as stable or improving.

In addition, a healthy majority of respondents believe the Dow has more room to run and will cross 22,000 for the first time versus falling back below 20,000.

Complete survey results below:

(Note: Forty of the 102 current members of the CNBC Global CFO Council responded to this quarter's survey, including 21 U.S.-based members. Members represent a diverse mix of public and private companies from around the world, with more than $4 trillion in market capitalization.)

Watch: US insists on fair trade measures from China
Somalia has drafted in the help of the U.S. Secret Service to train officials to identify fake dollars as part of its plan, with the help of the International Monetary Fund, to reintroduce a national currency in a country where almost all of the money in circulation is counterfeit.

The country faces an uphill struggle: Somalia is one of the poorest nations in the world. According to World Bank data, the country's gross domestic product per capita was $549.30 in 2015  compared to $56,115.70 in the U.S. Plus, in its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2016, Transparency International ranked Somalia as the world's most corrupt country.

Mohamad Elhage, IMF mission chief to Somalia, told CNBC via telephone that the training took place in Nairobi, Kenya in February of this year, during an IMF technical assistance mission on currency reform. Elhage was initially speaking to CNBC about the IMF's work with Somalia on currency.

In a press release mentioning the event on the Central Bank of Somalia's website, it is detailed that: "Several government officials from various departments and law enforcement agencies took part at the training workshop."

CNBC has contacted the U.S. Secret Service for comment.

Currently, Somali shillings are the third most common method of payment in the country, after U.S. dollars and mobile transactions. The Central Bank of Somalia has no control over the exchange rate or monetary supply, and Elhage said that authorities were "in the process of rebuilding (the institution)."

An officer at the Central Bank of Somalia's currency department told CNBC via e-mail Tuesday that an estimated 50 percent of the general public in the country actively use technology-based financial transactions. But, the organization also detailed that "in Somalia, we see a continuous and robust demand for cash."

Somalia made headlines last week which indicated that the country would soon take control of its currency with the help of the IMF. This would be the first time in over 25 years that Somalia's printing presses have been fired up. No currency has been issued since 1990, with the civil war beginning the following year. Elhage confirmed that the "new shilling would be issued with a high level of security features."

But, the process of issuing a new currency is not so simple. Elhage said that the Central Bank of Somalia's Board of Directors, with technical assistance from the IMF, was currently drawing up 24 measures "related to the operational and legal (framework)" of introducing a new currency, which would help the country "start addressing the distortions in (its) economy." Only after these are met will new shillings be printed. These include a "roadmap for distribution" of the banknotes and what exchange rate will be set.

"The timing (for the new currency) will be determined by when the authorities have implemented (the) measures agreed on," Elhage detailed. He also added that, "Somalia for the foreseeable future will continue to be a dollarized economy."

Elhage confirmed to CNBC that the new money will be released in stages, with the first consisting only of 1,000 shilling notes  worth roughly 5 U.S. cents.

Somalia elected a new president last month, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, one of whose campaign pledges was to tackle graft.

This article has been updated following clarification from the International Monetary Fund.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.
VW's chief executive has called on the Fiat Chrysler Automobile's Sergio Marchionne to come to him directly to discuss any future deals, rather than making proposals through the media.



His comments come after Marchionne, who has been at the helm of FCA Group for more than a decade, told CNBC at the Geneva Motor Show last week that he expects VW to come to the table to discuss potential joint ventures between the companies.

"Over the past month we were not in contact," Matthias Muller told CNBC, adding "I wouldn't rule out that in the medium or long term we'll talk about anything, basically."

His comments come after French car-maker PSA Group agreed to buy GM's European Opel arm earlier this month, pointing to continued consolidation within the automotive industry as manufacturers battle with increased regulatory hurdles, moves to cleaner technology and autonomous vehicles.

As the car industry looks set to bear the brunt of new trade policies under revised U.S. and EU political frameworks, Muller said his team has been in continued discussions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who he believes will "represent our interests".
The White House has a message for Republicans who oppose Obamacare: This is the best chance you'll get.

Pockets of the GOP who want to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act oppose the plan backed by President Donald Trump and House Republican leaders. The bill, the American Health Care Act, faces hurdles in passing without changes, especially in a Senate in which three GOP defections kill it.

Press secretary Sean Spicer contended Tuesday that lawmakers fighting the current bill may not get a better chance to repeal President Barack Obama's landmark law.

"This is the only vehicle that seeks to achieve what people on our side of the aisle have been talking about since 2010. This is it," Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing. "If we don't get this through, the goal of repealing Obamacare and instituting a system that will be patient-centered is going to be unbelievably difficult."

For the bill to pass the House, where it already cleared hurdles in two key committees, its supporters need to convince skeptical conservatives, who have said it too closely resembles Obamacare. Spicer said Tuesday that the White House is helping with a "manager's amendment" to appease conservatives. One possible provision is moving the phasing out of Medicaid expansion to the beginning of 2018, rather than 2020, according to Politico.

The plan faces an even tougher time in the Senate, where several moderate GOP senators have already raised concerns about the Medicaid plans and where conservative Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has dubbed it "Obamacare Lite." Spicer said the White House is working with both chambers of Congress to resolve concerns and hear ideas.

Some Republican senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas, will attend a meeting at the White House Tuesday in an effort to compromise on the bill, NBC News reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

A score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has added to some senators' qualms. The report estimated that 24 million more people will be uninsured under the plan in 2026 than under current law. While the federal deficit is expected to shrink, older, poorer Americans are estimated to take the worst hit from the changes.

While Spicer said the White House does not have its own estimate of coverage changes, he contended that the CBO is "historically wrong." He said the score did not include the two remaining "phases" of health-care reform Republicans have promised, which he argued would increase consumer choices and drive down costs.
The hoard, buried for more than 2,000 years, was brought out of the ground as one big chunk. Archaeologists and their assistants picked each coin out, one by one.

These coins were buried by a French tribe of Celts after 50 B.C., and were discovered in 2012. It has taken three years, but they've finally all been separated.

You might remember when, in 2012, the Jersey Heritage organization was alerted to what would be called the Catillon II hoard, some 70,000 Celtic coins from the Iron Age, all clumped together.

Well, its a clump of coins no longer, as researchers have concluded separating each individual coin.

Unearthed by detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles, who had been searching in the Grouville area since the early 1980s, on the east side of the island of Jersey, the excavation was quickly turned over to a team of archaeologists from Jersey Heritage, the Societe Jersiaise and Guernsey Museum. It is believed that this collection was buried by a tribe of French Celts more than 2,000 years ago, from around 20 to 50 B.C.

During the earlier part of that time in history, Julius Caesar was leading the Romans into the land populated by the Celtic natives. By 56 B.C., a historic shift in power was taking place in the Channel Islands that sit in the English Channel between England and France, which include Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney. The islands became part of the Roman Empire and a fixture in the empires trade routes.

The gigantic hoard is far and away the largest group of Celtic coins ever found.

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It took the Jersey Heritage team three years to remove each coin, one at a time, and build a virtual model of the hoard. Jan. 20, 2017, marked the last day that this clump of coins existed as an object, as the final few coins were separated. The conservation team couldnt be happier with what theyve accomplished.

Neil Mahrer, who led the three-year-long project, called the conclusion of coin separation a significant milestone.

Is coin jewelry a form of self-expression or mutilation?: Inside Coin World: Jewelry made from coins can be found for sale all over the Internet, and even at major coin shows. Is it numismatic art or numismatic crime?

It has been painstaking but thoroughly intriguing work, which has delivered some very unexpected and amazing finds along the way, Mahrer said.

Researchers are not done with the individual coins, however.

Mahrer said, There is still plenty to do and I am sure the hoard will continue to surprise us as we clean and record the material.
The holidays are creeping up on us
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The NM Senate today concurred with the House of Representatives on two bills sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth to update the NM election code. One will require greater transparency from large independent donors and the other will require accountability from candidates using the states public financing system.

SB 97 and SB 96 are now headed to the Governor for her signature.

This is truly a great day for New Mexico, said Viki Harrison, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, which has been promoting the disclosure bill for over six years. Both of these measures are exactly what New Mexico voters have been clamoring for since the horrible decisions by the Supreme Court in Citizens United and Arizona Free Enterprise.

SB 96, sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) and Rep. Jim Smith (R-Tijeras), has passed the Senate four times with bipartisan support. It had passed many House committees over the past four years, but never cleared the floor. The bill is narrowly tailored. It is aimed at dark money coming from non-profit organizations that pretend to be non-political but which in reality spend millions of dollars in negative ads on TV.

During the past few election cycles its been increasingly difficult for the public to follow the moneyespecially the big money that comes into New Mexico campaigns from out of state, Sen. Wirth said. Yet an informed electorate is the basis of democracy. This bill will help, and it builds on the one value that is supported across the board: transparency.

There are lots of holes in our code, especially when it comes to the coordination of spending between independent groups and candidates, said Rep. Jim Smith. Co-ordination is a no-no according to Citizens United yet we had no definition of coordination in state law. Now we have the opportunity to correct this and assure our citizens that no one is taking advantage of this loophole, which allowed spending in excess of state contribution limits.

SB 97 on pubic financing of state court and PRC elections was sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth as well, The state set up a public financing system for the Public Regulation Commission in 2003 and for higher state courts in 2007. Wirths measure passed the Senate 33-7 and the House 68-0 back in 2013 before Governor Martinez vetoed it  citing concerns about its constitutionality, which have been addressed in this version.

Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed satisfaction with the voluntary public financing system, which allow Supreme Court, Appeals judges and PRC commissioners to run for office without raising large sums of money, sometimes from the very people who appear before them. However, the system was not without its flaws. Wirths bill corrects themprohibiting candidates who run unopposed from receiving more than 20% of the public funding available to them, using campaign funds for living expenses or compensation to the candidate or candidates family.

Public financing of elections was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2011 in the Arizona Free Enterprise v. Bennett decision. SB 97 neither expands the program nor does it cost the state more money  in fact, with a provision included around unopposed candidates, the state could actually save money.

This is a fix that will serve taxpayers as well as voters who would rather see candidates out talking about the issues than collecting money from special interests, said Wirth.

Harrison said that the NM legislature is now on board with 90% of NM voters who support disclosures from large independent spenders and the 76% who want to curtail public funding for unopposed candidates. Common Cause New Mexico polls registered voters every January with the help Research and Polling.

Needless to say, we encourage the Governor to sign the bills, Harrison said.
The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday argued that it should not have to reveal the maker of a tool used last year to crack an alleged terrorist's iPhone or disclose how much it paid for the hacking job, court documents showed.

That tool was used last year by the FBI to access a password-protected iPhone 5C previously owned by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tafsheen Malik, killed 14 in San Bernardino, Calif., in December 2015. The two died in a shootout with police later that day. Authorities quickly labeled them terrorists.

In March 2016, after weeks of wrangling with Apple, which balked at a court order compelling it to assist the FBI in unlocking the iPhone, the agency announced it had found a way to access the device without Apple's help. Although the FBI acknowledged it had paid an outside group to crack the iPhone, it refused to identify the firm or how much it paid.

Three news organizations -- the Associated Press wire service, the USA Today newspaper, and Vice Media -- later filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for that information, and more. When the FBI redacted the tool's maker and what the agency paid, the news trio objected. In Monday's filing, government attorneys asked a federal judge to uphold the redactions.

They contended that both the vendor's identity and the price the FBI paid might be used by criminals or foreign intelligence services to help assemble a more complete picture of the tool's efficacy and divine the government's security priorities.

Information, including the exact workings of the technique used to hack Farook's iPhone, might be stolen if the hack's maker was made public, the DOJ continued.

"Revealing the vendor's identity immediately exposes the vendor to attacks and infiltration by hostile entities willing to exploit the technology they provided to the FBI," wrote David Hardy, a FBI section chief responsible for record dissemination, in a supporting declaration. "Since the same proprietary technology now owned by the FBI is also stored within the vendor's facilities and computer systems, the security of this technology would only be as good as the vendor's own security measures."

Last year, the FBI confirmed that it would not tell Apple how it had hacked the iPhone, saying at the time that while it had paid for the crack -- and from the information in Hardy's declaration, actually owns the technology and technique -- it had not purchased "the rights to technical details about how the method functions" or the iOS 9 vulnerability it exploited, and so had nothing to tell the Cupertino, Calif. company.

This story, "DOJ: No, we won't say how much the FBI paid to hack terrorist's iPhone" was originally published by Computerworld .
Im happy using Slack. I run the app in a few editorial roles and with some volunteers. I also use Convo and, in rare occasions, hop on a competing product that basically does the same thing. You chat, you share files, you go back to your normal routine.

After testing Microsoft Teams for a few days in the full production version (on a Surface tablet sent by Microsoft for that purpose), Ive come to realize this is an app that has bigger ambitions than mere collaboration. Teams is partly an email augmentation app, partly a place to do real productivity work, partly a hub for videoconference and phone calls (with Skype built in nicely), and is quite possibly the most important app Microsoft has ever released in their decades long history.

One reason is that Teams is evolving quickly. During one phone call, a rep mentioned how I do have the latest version for testing, but by tomorrow, it might need an update. Thats an extremely encouraging sign. More bots, more tabs, more features. I wont do the deep dive into all this app can do (check out this outstanding review that does just that). I will provide an easy summary and explain a bit about who needs this tool.

Teams is a collaborative app that is heavily integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem. Its funny to think you could invite someone who is not on your Office 365 team into the app. It wouldnt really make sense, because the entire point of Teams is to be tied into the platform. Theres a tab I found almost by accident called OneNote. In Slack and Convo -- and many other free collaborative workplace apps -- you click a link and it pushes you out to Google Docs or your calendar. Even in Google Hangouts Chat, which also debuted recently, if you want to schedule a meeting, you jump out to the Google Calendar. Docs is yet another tab. In Teams, the app runs local. You see the actual OneNote file and can edit it, or you see the PowerPoint slideshow. You can even add a tab YouTube vids.

[ To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page. ]

When you schedule a meeting, you do that from within Teams. Its a little surprising at first, and possibly overwhelming for new users, but it makes perfect sense. Slack doesnt do any of this because Slack doesnt have any of these apps. Theres also some machine learning at work. The Microsoft Graph watches what you do and can make smart suggestions. I never saw this during my test, but Graph might notice that you keep talking about the expansion to Las Vegas and suggest you join that channel for more discussion. A rep mentioned how, eventually, Teams might know the people you collaborate with the most and suggest adding them to an email chain or a meeting.

That integration, especially for a larger company, is what makes it so important. Slack should be worried about that. I mean, really worried. There isnt a meeting client or a document client, so even if there was a bot that watched conversations, there arent any tools it could offer. Only Dropbox Paper seems to have a leg up on this market and was prescient enough to start building this collaboration many months ago. As I mentioned, not even Hangouts (with the Google ecosystem readily available) seems prepared for the day when you can do all of your work in one place.

And then theres the bots. Microsoft only has a few available at launch, but its amazing to think about the AI that has slowly crept into Office 365 products could easily pop up here. One bot could make sure no one at Fed Ex discloses a company secret. Another could assemble an amazing PowerPoint presentation simply by watching a conversation and grabbing images. Hundreds of bots could power this thing.

Tight integration is an area of total domination for Microsoft. It should not be ignored. Its one of the main reasons the Internet Explorer (not Edge) still pops up at some large companies. What has been tightly integrated has been tightly woven which has been deeply planted. What does that mean in the end? High revenue. Market cap. Companies like Slack going bye-bye.

Well see if that happens. For now, Teams has some definite perks. At times, I found the interface to be a little confusing and complex but its also new. Well see if it can win me over. For now, it has more potential than just about any Microsoft app.
Heres Lord Taverne explaining that honouring the referendum result is basically Hitler. And that hes a democrat. pic.twitter.com/LpPDC5Gm7b  Mark Wallace (@wallaceme) 13 March 2017

The EU referendum has produced a variety of hyperbolic reactions, and more than a few bizarre acts of hypocrisy, but last night the Liberal Democrats Lord Taverne made a bold bid to outdo them all.

Lamenting the fact that most MPs who backed Remain during the referendum campaign had since accepted the result and agreed to implement it, he argued that it was a very dangerous step towards a doctrine that the peoples will must always prevail. This might sound like an odd statement from a representative of a party with Democrats in its name, but we should bear in mind that Taverne  an unelected peer for 21 years, who last won an election in 1973  was taking part in an attempt by Liberal Democrat Lords to reject not only the outcome of the referendum but the twice-stated view of the elected House of Commons. He was at least being doggedly consistent to his inconsistency.

Having gone that far, he decided to go further, asserting that this is the doctrine that has always been favoured by Hitler, by Mussolini, by Stalin. This will come as a surprise to anyone who experienced last years free and fair referendum, in which more people voted for Leave than for anything else in British democratic history  or to anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with what totalitarianism is. The differences between Britains EU referendum and the actions of those dictators should be obvious.

Evidently it isnt sufficiently obvious to Taverne. Once youve compared politicians who abide by their promise to honour a democratic referendum to Stalin, who never held a free, fair or contested vote in his whole time in power, you might as well double down once more. Or so the Lib Dem peer seems to have reasoned, when he ended his oration with the announcement that were the democrats, and we are right to support the democratic cause.

Each day it becomes harder to detect what the Liberal Democrat position is. According to Taverne, a referendum is Hitler. But his party fought an election only a few years ago on a platform of demanding a real referendum on Europe. So perhaps its only a referendum which they lose which is Hitler. For that matter, two weeks ago Taverne himself voted for a Lib Dem amendment in the Lords demanding a second referendum on Brexit  so two referendums evidently arent Hitler. Presumably if they were to lose a second referendum then things would be Hitler again.

Its all very confusing. Perhaps Ken Livingstone might be called upon to explain exactly how much democracy is or is not Hitler?
Cllr John Moss is a councillor in Waltham Forest.

The Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell, has indicated that he is open to looking at how the new Right to Buy scheme, introduced in 2012, is working  provided any changes lead to the building of more homes. This is an opportunity to make the system simpler, generate more sales, and increase the number of homes built. But we have to bury the idea that one-for-one replacement is required.

The new Right to Buy scheme started in April 2012 and, together with reforms of the hyper-convoluted Housing Revenue Account system, this has opened the door to a significant increase in home-building by Councils. Indeed, the soon-to-be-retired head of Housing in my own Council, Waltham Forest, described the two together as an absolute game-changer in terms of new council home building.

However, Councils have been slow off the ground  maybe they expected Labour to win in 2015 and the scheme to be scrapped? And the rules around what receipts a Council actually gets and how they use that funding, create additional barriers to getting projects going. There are several clawbacks from the gross receipt and what a Council is then left with can only be used to fund a maximum of 30 per cent of a projects cost. Finding the remaining 70 per cent has been a problem both for low value areas where the rents cant justify borrowing and in high value areas where land and build costs are higher. The one per cent rent cut which came in from April 2016 also didnt help as this squeezed any surpluses Councils might have had in the Housing Revenue Accounts, as well as reducing the income a Council might have hoped to get from any new homes.

However, the obsession with replacing homes sold one-for-one is a red herring. The homes sold are occupied, nobody else can live there. The ones built are empty and available to house people currently in temporary accommodation or on waiting lists. Not selling a home under Right to Buy doesnt preserve stock, it preserves stasis. Nobody moves. Even if the occupying household moves out, they need a home somewhere else, so there is no net gain in the number of people housed. So, we should aim to build more homes with Right to Buy money and not regard it as a failure if one-for-one replacement isnt achieved. (Though I demonstrated a couple of years ago, that in London, the cash raised was probably enough to build two homes for every one sold!)

The first and easiest thing to do would be to raise the percentage of funding for a new homes project which can come from Right to Buy receipts. If a Council cannot fund projects because they cant make them work at 30 per cent, the money goes back to Treasury, with interest, but only after three years. That will then be passed to the HCA and, eventually, find its way to other house-builders, probably at a lower multiple, but will we ever be able to say and how long will it take?

If we want new homes more quickly, raise the percentage to 50 per cent and let Councils build. OK, if a Council has 300,000 of Right to Buy receipts, that would originally have generated 1m of investment and will now only generate 600,000. But at least it will be used and used more quickly. But what if you could get the Council pot up to 500,000 so there was no reduction in investment?

The way to do that is to reduce the clawbacks, particularly the repayment of HRA debt. As we are running a national deficit, in part to fund central Government grants to Housing Associations and regional government to fund house-building, its pointless to demand debt repayment from Councils. Let them keep this money, provided it goes to build more homes. Some of the other clawbacks are also entirely administrative and if they werent taken, the administrative cost would go as well.

The rent Councils can charge could also go up to whatever the Local Housing Allowance figure is for the home built and possibly be exempt from the one per cent rent cut.

And what if Councils could generate more cash from more sales? The highest value areas generate the lowest number of sales because even with a 104,000 discount, few Council tenants can afford to buy a 500,000 one bedroom flat in Kensington or Westminster. So, why not drop the arbitrary cash cap and instead allow a lower maximum percentage discount? It may sound perverse to suggest that giving buyers a bigger discount would generate more cash, but one sale is better than no sales, just as one new home built is better than no new homes built.

Currently, you earn a 35 per cent discount on the value of the home if you have been a tenant for 5 years, with a maximum discount of 70% after ten years, (gaining seven per cent per annum). But the cash cap applies. There are plans to reduce the initial period to three years. What if the initial discount were reduced to 25 per cent and the extra amount you could gain were to grow at five per cent per annum for five years  until it reached 50 per cent  but this figure applied to the whole value of a home without a cap? Then more cash could be raised from both lower value sales where the total cash discount is below the cap and from higher value sales which now happen, which would not have done so before.

Some other things the Government should also do to prevent RtB homes being recycled back in to rental homes would be to bar the home from any Housing Benefit claim and ban them from being rented out for ten years. Right to Buy purchasers should be expected to be doing it as a way of accessing low-cost home ownership. Not as a way to become landlords.

And finally, the scheme cooked up between the Government and Housing Associations to compensate Housing Associations for the full value of discounts given to tenants buying from them under Right to Buy, by forcing Councils to sell off high-value vacant homes, should be scrapped. Right to Buy receipts are a valuable source of funds to build new homes. Housing Associations can do it if they want to, without the need for Government support, and some already do. The Government should simply tell them that if they dont, any grants they receive from the Government in future will instead be loans, with interest payable.
Yesterday evening, the House of Commons voted to reject the two amendments to the Article 50 Bill proposed by the House of Lords.

Despite predictions by some  including Robert Peston  of a notable Tory rebellion, it didnt materialise.

The first amendment  seeking a unilateral guarantee of residency to EU citizens in the UK  was defeated by 335 votes to 287. Only two Conservative MPs rebelled: Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) and Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham).

The second amendment  requiring parliamentary approval even in the case of no Brexit deal being agreed  was rejected by 331 votes to 286, with no Conservative rebels.

The rejection of both amendments was also accepted by the House of Lords  on EU citizens by a margin of 274-135, and on parliamentary approval by a margin of 274-118.
Nicola Sturgeon has no right to a second referendum on Scottish independence. One took place only three years ago. The Scottish Government itself said that this represented a once in a generation vote. The SNP didnt win a majority in Scotlands elections last year, and therefore has no mandate for a further referendum. And polling suggests that most Scottish voters dont want one anyway.

On paper, this case is persuasive. In practice, it is less so. It would be hard for Theresa May to refuse another referendum were Scotlands Parliament to vote for one, which it will presumably do next week by passing a Section 30 motion, courtesy of the SNP plus the Greens. The Prime Minister could perhaps argue that a referendum will not be granted unless the SNP wins a majority at the next round of Scottish elections in 2021, but it would be difficult to maintain that this condition is necessary if Scotlands Parliament has already backed a poll.

May repeated her mantra yesterday of politics is not a game  and it follows that one should ask what she should do now to live up to her own slogan. Half of the answer is to concede a second referendum. The other half is to ensure that its timing makes sense. Sturgeons proposed plan does not. She wants a poll to be held between the autumn of 2018 and spring 2019. This timetable may be in the interests of the SNP, but it would rob Scottish voters of an informed choice  for the simple reason that the terms of Brexit are unlikely to be clear by then, since the negotiations are likely to go down to the wire.

Sturgeons proposal would therefore see the people of Scotland decide without knowing what Britains post-Brexit future will look like. They would be voting for a pig in a poke. A sensible timetable would instead see a referendum held after Brexit, as Andrew Lilico said yesterday on this site, in either 2020 or perhaps 2021. There is every sign that the Prime Minister gets the point, will take this view, and wont repeat David Camerons mistake of allowing the SNP to dictate the timing of a referendum and the conditions under which it takes place.

It will be claimed that, by delaying any vote, May will stoke the nationalist vote. Perhaps. She would certainly do so were she to refuse a second referendum altogether. But the key point is here is not to be lost in a forest of tactical calculations  all of which seek to manipulate a future which is by definition unknowable, and at a time when modern politics has seldom been so unpredictable  but to try to see the constitutional wood through the tactical trees. If Scotlands Parliament really wants a second referendum, it would be unwise to deny it one. One then turns to the question of why Sturgeon is seeking one now, and what is likely to happen next.

The answer is that one cannot be sure. It may be that she sees the next few years as her last likely opportunity to lead a referendum campaign  before Brexit takes place, the 2020 Scottish elections come, and the SNP perhaps loses its grip on office (and hence its chance to press for a poll). Or it could be that she has been stampeded into calling for a poll by an older SNP activists in a hurry  we hope that Alex Salmond recognises himself  who see the next few years as a last chance to win their lifelong goal of an independent Scotland.

The single certainty is that the polls show no sustained majority for independence, and resistance by voters to a second referendum. In these circumstances, it is impossible to know just who is bluffing whom. Has Sturgeon got herself boxed in to seeking a second referendum by the declaration in her partys 2016 manifesto that Scotland would be entitled to one in the event of Brexit? Or is her nose more sensitive to the political wind than those of her opponents? There is a faint but distinct sense that Sturgeon has built get-out clauses into her demand. What will she do, for example, if May gains tariff-free access to the Single Market?

There is a case for saying that the SNP will lose any referendum, largely because the economics is so unfavourable to independence, and also one for saying that it will win, since there is more to politics than economics (as last Junes EU referendum confirmed)  and that the tide of Scottish opinion, which has been flowing towards independence for many years, will take the SNP over the winning line a second time round. Again, one cannot know, and seeking to guess any outcome now is futile.

What is clear, however, is that while a Yes campaign is up and running  Sturgeons party is after all an institutional Yes campaign  the No campaign no longer exists. It scattered to the four winds after the 2015 referendum. This is ominous. Furthermore, it surely cannot be reconstituted on the same terms as the last one. Labour was then Scotlands main opposition party. This is no longer so, and it is far from clear whether it would be prepared to work with their replacement on the same terms as before. This is, of course, Scotlands Conservatives  and its brilliant, right-wing, left-field leader: our former columnist, Ruth Davidson.

Scotlands Leader of the Opposition will recognise that to have her party in the front line of the campaign to keep the Union has its downsides as well as its upsides. She will also know that a second No campaign cannot be all head and little heart, as the last one was. As last Junes events proved, Project Fear campaigns dont always work. The Union needs to make an emotional connection with younger voters in Scotland in particular if it is to survive and flourish.

We will all have our own views on how this might be done. Maybe Brexit provides an opportunity to offer a new version of Britain to Scotland  that of an outward-looking, globally engaged, free-trading country: Europes leading player in providing aid and peacekeeping, with its G7 membership and a seat on the UN Security Council. But the truth is that only rigorous research can establish what pro-Union ideas and messages are most attractive to Scottish voters. ConservativeHomes sense is that the Government is now on the case, but it is very late in the day. The heart-led case for the Union, as opposed to the head-led one, should have been started and sustained years ago.

Rigorous research needs rigorous reseachers  and campaigners. The long and short of it is that the British team with the best recent record is the one that took on the might of David Camerons Government, with its track record of winning two previous referendums, and beat it. Matthew Elliott led the research, with his Business for Britain project that morphed into Vote Leave. And Dominic Cummings led the campaigning. Neither are faces that should front the campaign for Union. But were I Downing Street, I would be knocking on both their doors, and fast.
Whichever ancient pharaohs tomb Paul Nuttall once disturbed, it certainly came with a powerful curse.

After anger on the UKIP NEC about his flop in Stoke-on-Trent Central, and having attracted the unfortunate nickname Andy Capp among senior UKIPers, he now appears to be in a full-on battle with Arron Banks, the multi-millionaire donor who had been keeping UKIP afloat.

A few weeks ago, Banks stepped up his campaign to effectively take control of UKIP  demanding to be made chairman in order to purge people he deems to be a cabal, threatening to end his donations if he is refused, and promising to stand against Douglas Carswell at the next General Election. He later started laying into Nuttall himself, tweeting that the new UKIP leadership couldnt knock the skin off a rice pudding.

Today we learn that Bankss demand to be put in the driving seat has indeed been rebuffed. The party let his membership lapse early in the year, and when he came to renew it he has been informed that he is suspended and therefore not allowed to apply to rejoin.

Its not exactly a surprise. Becoming chairman would require the sacking of Paul Oakden, the current occupant of the role and a Nuttall ally. Even those NEC members who supported the idea seemed to be doing so primarily on the basis that we need money, and out of concern about the possibility of Banks setting up a competitor with Sir Nigel Farage, rather than out of any great belief in Bankss political nous.

Publicly attacking Nuttalls leadership was unlikely to make his offer sound any more attractive. Why would the leader hand the car keys to someone who sounded likely to eject him through the sunroof at the first possible opportunity?

In the end, it might have been Bankss pledge to stand against Carswell which offered the formal opportunity to suspend him from UKIP. Few parties would take kindly to a member standing against their official candidate  still less when that candidate is also their sole MP. UKIPs technocrats are past masters at the rulebook exclusion (typified by Sir Nigels use of it to eliminate various rivals over the years) and Banks appears to be the latest victim of the tactic.

As for whats next, the promises have been big and numerous. Banks has variously threatened to take his financial bat and ball home, to set up a movement to revolutionise British politics, to launch his own party and to become an independent candidate. He might do none, one, several or all of these things. If hes anything, hes unpredictable.
Nokia announced that it has renewed the managed services agreement originally signed in 2014 with Chorus of New Zealand, the country's largest telecommunications infrastructure company that serves around 1.7 million fixed lines, including 1.2 million broadband connections, for a further three years.



Under the renewed contract, Nokia will continue to provide longstanding customer Chorus with fully managed end-to-end operations services to help enhance the services delivered to customers, as well as improve operational efficiency and quality of the national fixed line network. Chorus will also leverage Nokia's technical capabilities and global services expertise.



The agreement specifically encompasses managed services provision including end-to-end operations and network management utilising Nokia's global delivery centre in India, and real-time service management based on performance data and proactive correlation of network events to help prevent faults and improve network availability, as well as to reduce the number of incidents.



In June of last year, Nokia announced an agreement with Chorus for a three-year extension of their technology partnership to support the continued roll-out of the ultra high speed broadband program in New Zealand. As part of the deal Nokia was to deploy broadband access, including GPON and VDSL2 technology, IP routing and optical transport solutions. The agreement included Nokia's 7330 ISAM FTTN access node, 7360 ISAM FX fibre platform and 7367 ISAM SX-16 VDSL2 micro-node.Additionally, to expand Chorus' backbone network capacity across the North and South Islands, Nokia was to deliver its 7750 Service Router, 7950 Extensible Routing System (XRS) routing technology, 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), and 5620 Service Aware Manager.Recently, Chorus reported results for the six months ended December 31, 2016, noting that during the period it had upgraded nearly 100 rural broadband cabinets with fibre optic and VDSL, improving broadband service for around 7,000 mostly rural customers, while in urban areas it had reached a total of 681,000 customers with its fibre-based UFB network, meaning the UFB build was around 61% complete.In January 2017, Chorus announced an agreement with the government to extend the UFB network to a further 169 areas to make fibre broadband available to a further 200,000 homes and businesses in addition to the 1.1 million customers in the existing UFB program areas.
Although Korek is for the moment only the third operator in Iraq and Iraq itself is a deeply divided country whose society and economy are in near chaos, nonetheless the country hosts the world's fifth largest oil reserves and ranks somewhere in the lower half of the world's Top 10 countries with the largest natural gas reserves and could grow quite a bit (particularly in natural gas exports where it lacks the necessary infrastructure). Iraq still has an operational though weak government but 93% of the state budget is dependent on oil production. Still, there is a strong probability that with western help it will recover over the next five years and of the three Iraqi operators Korek looks to be the most competent and fastest growing and could have a good future. The general situation of Korek today is that it dominates the Kurdistan region, which constitutes about one sixth of Iraq, and from that stable profitable base is now beginning to grow its share in the rest of the country. The increasing tendency has been for Kurdistan, the most stable part of Iraq during the last few years, to seek more autonomy and a crucial issue related to the Kurdistan economy has been a dispute with the central government over the sharing of oil revenues, which as shown below seems at last to have been resolved.
Vodafone and Huawei announced that at Mobile World Congress they demonstrated an ultra-fast fibre broadband connection delivering a download speed of nearly 10 Gbit/s designed to support services such as ultra HD (UHD) 8K video, big data, virtual reality (VR) and 3D augmented reality (AR), remote healthcare and online gaming.



At MWC, Vodafone demonstrated simultaneous support for viewing of UHD 4K video and data download at gigabit speeds.



Vodafone Spain announced in January that it planned to upgrade its hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network to enable symmetrical data rates of more than 1 Gbit/s upstream and downstream. In addition, the operator noted that in addition to upgrading its existing network to DOCSIS 3.1, it planned to implement a new distributed architecture involving extending fibre closer to optical sites to deliver higher bandwidth for end users.



For the project, Vodafone Spain has adopted Huawei's DOCSIS 3.1-based distributed converged cable access platform (D-CCAP) solution as part of a DOCSIS 3.1 network deployment designed to offer advantages including: increased bandwidth per user by expanding the spectrum range and improving modulation efficiency; improved operation and enhanced network quality; greater flexibility and scalability, with the ability to upgrade the HFC network or deploy a full FTTH network.



Vodafone noted that work to modernise the network has commenced in the main cities in Spain, and will extend to the whole country over the forthcoming months.



In mid-2016, Huawei and Vodafone Spain announced the launch of Madrid Tech City, a project intended to position Madrid as a leading global technology city. The companies noted that the initiative had already provided access to 4G+ mobile network with peak data rates of 600 Mbit/s. Vodafone and Huawei also planned to implement NB-IoT (narrowband - Internet of Things) technology to connect devices and sensors and enable the launch of new services such as: intelligent parking.



http://www.vodafone.com

http://www.huawei.com




Stand up! Fight back!

This was the message at rallies and marches across Australia on March 9 as tens of thousands of trade unionists and political and community activists gathered in capital cities and regional centres.

CFMEUs Aaron Cartledge addressing last Wednesdays rally in Adelaide.

There were actions in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Gold Coast, Coffs Harbour and Darwin. The Perth rally will be held on March 21, having been held over until after the WA elections.

Almost every trade union joined the protests. Construction workers had downed tools and walked off the job under threat of hefty fines.

A vocal crowd gathered in Victoria Square in Adelaide to protest against the recent decision of the Fair Work Commission to slash penalty rates for many low-paid Australian workers and the passage of the bill in federal parliament to re-establish the Howard era Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

Protesters made their way from Arks Park to the Commonwealth offices at 100 King William Street to make their feelings known.

SA Maritime Union of Australia secretary Jamie Newlyn led the crowd in chants before introducing Aaron Cartledge, SA secretary of the General and Construction Division of the CFMEU. He warned workers present that, if the ABCC is re-established, dodgy practices and workplace deaths would increase the same way they did the last time the anti-union secret police force operated.

MUA WA state secretary Christy Cain referred to the victory of the CUB workers over a proposed massive 63 percent wage cut when speaking of the sort of action and unity that will be needed to defeat the latest attacks on jobs, pay and conditions.

Speakers at the Sydney rally outside the Commonwealth offices at Governor Phillip Tower in Sydney also took up the themes of unity and action.

Dave Noonan, national secretary of the Construction Division of the CFMEU said, Our members go to work in a high risk industry, we try and work safe, we look after each other. But almost once a week we see a construction worker lose their life.

Noonan warned that this attack isnt going to stop at penalty rates. He described the rally as the start of a great struggle.

CFMEU construction delegate Luke Allan said he didnt want his four kids to grow up with less rights, entitlements and opportunities than ourselves.

CFMEU state secretary Brian Parker had a strong message for PM Malcolm Turnbull: Keep your hands off our wages and our conditions.

NSW assistant secretary of the Nurses and Midwives Association Judith Kiejda focused on penalty rates. I can tell you the prospect of these cuts is particularly hard to swallow  they target the most vulnerable in our workforces and polarise the growing divide between rich and poor 

Kiejda made the point that people who lose penalty rates stop spending and have no extra capacity to spend. It is not the way to create employment.

We cannot allow the Liberal-National government, propped up by the narrow-minded One Nation  to continue leading us own the US path of rising inequality, working poor and social dysfunction, Kiejda said.

It paints a very bleak picture for our future and the futures of our kids and grandkids  unless we fight.

Natalie Lang, NSW secretary of the Australian Services Union, raised the question of corporate profiteering from rape. The Turnbull government is attempting to privatise 1800 RESPECT, the only 24/7 rape and domestic violence centre. The centre is run by specialist counsellors and is highly regarded for its provision of support services to rape and domestic violence victims.

The Turnbull government brought in the multinational health insurance company Medibank Health Solutions to put it out to tender. Staff were contacted and given less than a week to lodge an expression of interest in delivering the service they had been delivering.

ACTU president Ged Kearney read from a heart-wrenching letter from Labor Opposition leader Luke Foley highlighting the plight of a 32-year-old rigger Tim McPherson, who was killed on site at Barangaroo. He left behind a pregnant wife and 14-month-old son.

Kearney finished by saying, We didnt ask for a war but were damn well going to fight it!

The rally unanimously adopted a resolution with the raising of fists and waving of banners.

This meeting demands the abolition of the ABCC and Code, the restoration of Sunday penalty rates and a halt to the attack on jobs and living standards of Australian workers, the resolution said in part.

We commit ourselves to a united, coordinated and concerted campaign with the whole Australian community to defeat these unjust laws by whatever lawful means necessary including defeating this anti-worker Government at the next election.
Editorial

The legacy of the Russian revolution

In November communist parties around the world will celebrate the centenary of the revolution that swept the Bolsheviks to power in Russia and led to the formation of the Soviet Union. That electrifying historic event took place while the major nations in Europe and elsewhere were struggling for imperial supremacy in what was at that time the most brutal war in human history.

The revolution drew on the theoretical work of Marx, Engels and Lenin. It galvanised workers and their organisations into renewed struggles around the world for socialism, and for workers rights, peace, the environment, and many other issues.

Communist parties were formed in Australia and other nations in the aftermath of the revolution. Almost one hundred years later its impact is still being felt.

However, the revolution also led to initiatives by western nations to overthrow the Soviet government, beginning with a military intervention which began in 1918. This and other attempts over the next 20 years were defeated.

During the 1930s the Soviet government tried to forge an anti-fascist alliance with Britain and other western powers, but its overtures were rejected. Leaders of the western powers were banking on the ruthless fascist armies marching eastwards and overthrowing the communists in Moscow.

Some in the west wanted to foster a state of war between the USSR and Nazi Germany, with the US and other nations arming whichever was the losing side until each combatant nation was wrecked. The US and its allies would then walk in and seize control of both.

However, the Soviet government countered by signing a non-aggression pact with Germany. Succumbing to the temptation of easier conquests, Germany then attacked Poland and France, which forced Britain into war with the fascist nations. Germany broke the pact in 1941, launching a massive onslaught against the Soviet Union.

Although initially successful, the invasion was eventually reversed. Despite terrible losses and suffering the Soviet people fought with amazing courage, determination and ingenuity. Among the allied forces, the Soviet Union made the biggest single contribution to the defeat of fascism in World War II.

But the Soviet people paid a terrible price. In the subsequent Cold War the US-led arms race drained the USSRs already depleted resources and stunted production of consumer goods. Weakened by ideological misconceptions, the government was subverted and finally taken over from within by reactionary forces in 1989.

An ensuing military revolt was crushed. To ensure that Russian parliamentarians would not impede the reinstatement of capitalism Premier Boris Yeltsin ordered the army to surround the parliament and open fire with artillery. The interior of the devastated building was left covered with the blood of its occupants.

Conservative governments then argued that the revolutionary era which began in 1917 was over. Some said it was the end of history! That, of course, was pure nonsense. Communist governments are still in power in other countries, including China, which has the worlds biggest population and will soon have the largest economy, and Cuba, just off the coast of the USA.

Moreover, the Russian people now bitterly regret the resurgence of greedy capitalism, and the current national leadership has taken a line independent of US diktat.

The US has fostered hostility between Russia and other nations, especially the Ukraine, which a former Soviet leader once described as the meeting point of the workers revolution begun in Russia and imperialist counter-revolution coming from the west.

The revolution was of enormous historical significance. It was the first time in which capitalism, a political-economic system based on the exploitation of workers who produce goods and services, was replaced with another system based on workers themselves governing a country and collectively owning its means of production.

The revolution proved that exploitation is not inevitable, that capitalism is not permanent and that it can be replaced with a system that has wonderful potential for the betterment of humankind.

And that was the great legacy of the Russian revolution to the working people of the world.
Line in the sand

Redfern Statement handed to leaders

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have delivered their blueprint for the future  the Redfern Statement  to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at Parliament House. The historic manifesto, calling for a new relationship with Indigenous people, was presented in the lead-up to the ninth annual Closing the Gap report (see last weeks report by the Koori Mail).

Rod Little and Jackie Huggins present a coolamon holding the Redfern Statement to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at Parliament House, Canberra.

The Redfern Statement has been signed by peak Indigenous organisations covering health, justice, children and families, disability and family violence prevention, as well as major mainstream bodies. It outlines solutions to closing the disadvantage gap and calls for more engagement with Indigenous people.

National Congress of Australias First Peoples co-chairs Rod Little and Jackie Huggins presented the statement to Turnbull in a coolamon.

After 25 years, eight federal election cycles, seven Prime Ministers, eight Ministers for Indigenous Affairs, 400 recommendations, and countless policies, policy changes, reports, funding promises and funding cuts, its time to draw a line in the sand, Little said.

We need a new relationship that respects and harnesses our expertise, and guarantees us a seat at the table as equal partners when governments are making decisions about our lives.

Dr Huggins said Indigenous organisations are seeking a new relationship, a genuine partnership and a commitment to ongoing structural engagement.

Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations deliver 2.5 million episodes of care a year in their local communities  and are the only health and leadership models making inroads on Closing the Gap targets, she said.

Our teachers, education professionals and family violence experts are delivering real results on the ground in their communities every single day  despite chronic under-funding and an ad-hoc policy approach based on three-year election cycles.

National advocacy organisation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights ANTaR national director Andrew Meehan said handing the statement to the Prime Minister was a historic moment that should be embraced by the government.

The Redfern Statement represents a united, considered and comprehensive approach to addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage, he said.

The only way well see this change is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have a seat at the table as equal partners when decisions are being made about their lives.

Weve seen report after report, inquiry after inquiry, all making important recommendations, few of which have been implemented.

More than 30 mainstream organisations have supported the Redfern Statement, including Oxfam. Chief executive Helen Szoke said Oxfam has been echoing the Redfern Statements calls to fund the National Congress and reverse funding cuts made to Indigenous programs in the 2014 federal budget.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples still die on average more than 10 to 17 years younger than non-Aboriginal Australians, experience some of the highest suicide rates in the world, and are being locked up in prison at unprecedented rates, she said.

Many Indigenous leaders are calling the current situation a crisis, and simply paying lip service to Closing the Gap targets without proper engagement risks condemning another generation of Aboriginal Australians to acute poverty and injustice.

In his 2016 Close the Gap address, the Prime Minister committed to do things with Aboriginal people, not do things to them.

The Prime Minister must genuinely engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so they can shape the decisions that directly affect them.

The Greens also backed the Redfern Statement with Senator Rachel Siewert saying the government should implement the recommendation that the $534 million cut from the Aboriginal sector be reinstated.

That money could go towards pursuing the priority areas outlined in the statement and would serve as a solid foundation for resetting the efforts to close the gap. I welcome the Redfern Statements calls for reconciliation, including a discussion around treaties, and look forward to these discussions.

A blueprint for the future

The Redfern Statement, released for last years federal election campaign, urges a more just approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. The document proposes changes across a wide range of areas, including education, justice, health and family violence. It calls for:

policies to be made with communities  rather than to communities;

more than $500 million cut from Indigenous Affairs in the 2014 Budget to be restored;

a new Closing the Gap target focused on driving down the number of Indigenous Australians in jail;

support for justice reinvestment  where money is redirected to address underlying causes of crime; and

creating a stand-alone department for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. (Indigenous Affairs is currently within the Prime Ministers Department.)

Led by the National Congress of Australias First Peoples, 17 other Indigenous groups have signed it. They include the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and First Peoples Disability Network.

Mainstream organisations supporting the Redfern Statement include the Australian Council of Social Service, Australian Medical Association, Amnesty International, the Law Council of Australia and Oxfam Australia.

Koori Mail
Book Review by Dr John McCollow

The Privatisation of Education:

A Political Economy of Global Education Reform

Educational privatisation is a trend driven by a variety of ideological, political and economic factors, which are explored in this valuable and important book. In the globalised economy, education is implicated as a key means of improving national competitiveness and as a potentially profitable industry itself. The private sector is portrayed as more efficient. effective, diversified and innovative than the public sector.

Increasingly, involvement of the private sector [including for-profit entities] in education systems is seen as both inevitable and desirable (p177). However, the privatisation agenda is not monolithic. Verger et al. identify six different paths towards privatisation. These include education privatisation resulting from a drastic restructuring of the states role in delivery of public services.

Examples of this type of educational privatisation  where it takes place as part of a wider program of restructuring of the state along market lines  include Thatchers England and Pinochets Chile. In both cases it occurred under conservative governments which were deeply committed to economic neo-liberalism and ruthless in implementing their agenda. The structural changes wrought proved immune to reversal by subsequently elected centre-left governments.

The Nordic path

Scandinavian countries have been far from unaffected by the privatisation agenda. With the notable exception of Sweden, which introduced vouchers and for-profit schools, most of the changes can be characterised as endoprivatisation, that is, as changes designed to make the public sector act more like the private sector, rather than exoprivatisation, which entails opening up services previously provided by the public sector to private operators.

Scaling up privatisation

The United States is identified as a leading example of this path to privatisation. The decentralised nature of the American schooling system has meant that educational reform is subject to interventions from various players at local, state and national levels. Implementation of neo-liberal reforms has been uneven and contested. Nevertheless, privatisation has advanced, though charter schooling has proved far more amenable to implementation than vouchers.

De facto privatisation

This path to privatisation is typically followed in low-income countries. In some of these settings, there is a history of low-fee, private schools set up by local entrepreneurs in response to inadequate provision of public school facilities. More recently, governments and international aid and financial agencies have encouraged the growth of these low-fee schools as a means of providing increased educational opportunity and economic growth without imposing a severe additional funding burden on governments. This expansion of low-fee private provision has been enthusiastically taken up, with large, often international organisations supplanting local entrepreneurs as operators.

PPPs in the education sector

The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain are examined as nations where faith-based institutions have historically played an important role in providing schooling (on a non-profit basis). These public-private partnerships (PPPs) pre-date the ascendancy of neo-liberalism as a global policy imperative. Nevertheless, these private institutions can espouse neo-liberal school choice arguments to support their continued subsidisation by the state, and their presence as a rival to public schools can lead to the adoption of practices by the latter that are seen as positioning of themselves competitively, for example, private sector management practices.

Privatisation by way of catastrophe

Natural disasters and violent conflicts can set the stage for the implementation of radical reform. Emergency measures become the basis for a complete restructuring of social institutions, schools included. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, for example, the public schooling system of New Orleans was reorganised: more than 7,000 teachers were dismissed, the teacher union wiped out and numerous charter schools established (before the hurricane New Orleans had 112 public schools and 8 charter schools; by 2014 only four public schools remained in operation). A similar agenda was put into place as part of the international recovery program following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The aftermath of wars in El Salvador and Iraq has also seen the implementation of privatised schooling on a large scale.

Other useful and readable chapters in the book include one dealing with the various non-state actors who play important roles in prosecuting the privatisation agenda, and one on the groups opposing these reforms  of which teacher unions are by far the most prominent.

Education International provided a research grant to support publication of the book.

The Privatisation of Education, published by New York: Teachers College Press, 2016.

Queensland Teachers Union Journal
The fate of prisoner Simon Trinidad

Political reasons impelled Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to engineer the extradition of political prisoner Simon Trinidad to the United States on December 31, 2004. There, so it was thought, he would serve as an object lesson for other leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC  EP). But 12 years later, on November 30, 2016, Colombias Congress ratified a peace agreement between the FARC-EP and the Colombian government. Nevertheless, Trinidad remains in a Colorado maximum security prison, serving a 60-year sentence.

Simon Trinidad with Piedad Esneda Cordoba Ruiz, Colombian lawyer and politician, in 2007.

Over the course of four years of talks, FARC representatives repeatedly demanded that Trinidad be allowed to join their negotiating team in Havana. Even in the waning days of his term, after the conflict had ended, President Obama refused to pardon Simon Trinidad.

The Colombian Congress prepared the way recently for thousands of other imprisoned FARC combatants and other political prisoners to be amnestied and freed. Simon Trinidad wont be one of them.

Denver lawyer Mark Burton is Trinidads US attorney. He recently responded to questions sent via email regarding his clients situation. Background information appearing below may serve to introduce Burtons comments.

Simon Trinidads father, a lawyer and big landowner, was a Colombian senator; Trinidads maternal grandfather was governor of Santander department. Trinidad himself worked for a state-owned agricultural bank, managed another bank, and taught economics in a university. After leaving Valledupar for a rebel encampment in 1987 at age 37  old for a novice guerrilla  he would be known as Simon Trinidad, no longer as Ricardo Palmera, his birth name. For the FARC-EP, he was a negotiator, political education specialist, financial adviser, and representative abroad.

Local police with CIA assistance seized Trinidad in Quito, Ecuador in 2004. He had been there to contact a United Nations official to negotiate the release of FARC prisoners. After extradition to Colombia, US authorities transported him to Washington. The US government tried him four times between 2006 and 2008.

Trinidad scored a hung jury in the first trial; charges that he was a terrorist and drug trafficker were dismissed. At a second trial he was convicted for allegedly having conspired to kidnap three US intelligence contractors in 2003 after FARC gunfire had brought their plane down. Trinidad received the maximum sentence; 20 years for each kidnapped contractor. Prosecutors were unable to have him convicted at his third and fourth trials on drug-trafficking charges, which the government eventually dropped.

Trinidad was far removed from the scene when the kidnapping occurred. Prosecutors presented no evidence indicating direct or indirect involvement. In prison, Trinidad has lived in solitary confinement for at least 12 years. Prison officials severely restrict telephone calls, correspondence, and visits from family or friends.

Mark Burtons report

President Obama never pardoned Simon Trinidad. What prospects are there for his eventual freedom?

MB: It was a huge disappointment that President Obama did not grant clemency to Simon Trinidad. The waters are not very clear right now, but the first comments from the Trump administration dont give much hope that this administration will be very sympathetic to the Colombian Peace Process. This does not mean that we are not going to keep organizing and advocating for the release of Simon, however. His incarceration is very unjust and his release is of the utmost importance. The Colombian Peace Progress and Colombian society at large can only be strengthened with the presence of Simon Trinidad in Colombia. The movement for his release will continue with added vigour.

What should people or organisations do by way of agitating for his release?

MB: On Facebook there is a page called Support the Colombian Peace Process, Free Simon Trinidad. There is also the website www.freericardopalmera.org. On these internet sites there are updates to the campaign for Simon Trinidads release and also calls for action; White House call-ins, demonstrations, etc. There will be increased activity due to the intransigence of the US authorities, so one should follow these websites for future action. We are planning on organising speaking tours of the country to raise the profile of Simon Trinidads campaign so please watch for details.

I think that it is important that Simon Trinidads case be taken up by peace and justice groups, churches, and union halls all around the country. The above internet sites can offer information and support for any organisation that would like to hold an event, or simply receive more information.

I believe that it is of the upmost importance that the case of Simon Trinidad appears in the press and popular media as much as possible. It is important that his name is known far and wide, so that more and more people understand the importance of his case.

If he returned to Colombia, would he be tried and/or imprisoned there?

MB: Simon has more than 40 open cases in Colombia. One of his greatest wishes is to be in Colombia to face the charges against him. Most of the cases allege that Simon, as a member of the Secretariat or the General Staff, ordered criminal acts to be committed by others. These cases claim that Simon is the intellectual author of many crimes based on his high position in the FARC-EP. These charges are completely farcical as Simon has never been a member of the General Staff or the Secretariat and the charges are false. These cases are what is a called a montaje judicial in Spanish, or a frame up in English. He has been acquitted on four or so of these cases since I first knew him. We are confident that the many of these cases will be dismissed or that he will be acquitted.

All accusations made against Simon are based on his reported activities as a member of the FARC-EP. He would therefore qualify to have his cases reviewed by the new Special Peace Jurisdiction. His cases will have a special kind of treatment under the new peace legislation and he should not be kept in custody when he is returned to Colombia.

Why did the US president not act to send him back to Colombia?

MB: I am not privy to the decision-making processes of the US government. But one of the main factors, I imagine, is the resistance of the Department of Justice to the release of Simon Trinidad. This is the division of the US government that prosecuted him. They are often very strongly opposed to the release of political prisoners. The Department of Justice also claims to represent the interest of the victims in this case. That is to say: the three contractors for the Pentagon. They were involved in Colombias internal conflict by videotaping FARC positions in the countryside and sending these videos to the US military at the US Southern Command. Also it is not clear what actions the Colombian government took to facilitate his release and if there was any diplomatic pressure applied for his release.

What did the Colombian government do or not do to push for his release?

MB: This is really an important question. It is not clear that the Colombian government made a strong push for Simons release, even if they formally requested it. For Simon to be released under a grant of clemency I believe that the Colombian government must be forceful. There is no indication that the Colombian government acted in a forceful way here. Some say the Colombian government didnt do anything. But it is also possible that the government made a request, but didnt support it with strong diplomatic pressure.

Established circles in Colombia seem to harbour special animosity against Simon Trinidad. There are stories that he abandoned his family and took money from the bank where he worked. Did such accusations poison the atmosphere against him?

MB: It is my personal belief there may be some special animosity towards Simon in certain sectors of Colombian society due to the issue of social class. I have seen no evidence that Simon Trinidad diverted any funds from his bank to the FARC and I dont believe that the Colombian ruling circles are that upset about allegations of the theft of money. I believe this hostility is class-based.

Simon Trinidad came from a prominent family in Cesar. His father was a senator of the republic. Simon Trinidad went to exclusive schools and universities in Bogota. He became the manager of a bank in Valledupar, Cesar. He was considered to belong to the upper classes in that part of the country. He always had social concerns, however. When he worked for an agricultural bank and dealt with the peasantry in Cesar, he became concerned about the plight of the rural poor.

When Simon Trinidad joined a clandestine, revolutionary organisation he was considered a class traitor. I believe that certain sectors of Colombian society were enraged by the fact that someone from the upper classes actually rebelled against the rule of the oligarchy in Colombia. This may explain the special hostility, and bad treatment, that he has received from certain sectors of the Colombian establishment.

How is Trinidad being treated in prison? What contacts does he have with the outside world?

MB: Simon was in absolute solitary confinement for 13 years  with very little human contact. Just recently he has been allowed to have some limited interaction with a few other prisoners and this is an improvement. He still cannot have contact with anyone outside the prison other than his immediate family and his attorney, however. He is allowed four 15 minute calls a month with his family and thats it. His conditions are still very restrictive and cruel. His attorney and his family members who have contact with him have to sign something called a SAM, or Special Administrative Measure, promising not to send or receive any messages from Simon Trinidad to any third party. He is effectively sealed off from the outside world.

What are your impressions of Simon Trinidad as a person?

MB: I greatly admire Simon Trinidad. The first time I went to meet him in the prison I expected to meet someone who was demoralised by his suffering due to being incarcerated for years in solitary confinement. Simon Trinidad is anything but defeated or demoralised. When I first saw him he was standing up in the small room where I meet with him, he had a big smile on his face and greeted me very cordially and we had a wonderful conversation. Simon Trinidad is truly the Hombre de Hierro (Man of Steel), the name given him by his famous biography [by Jorge Enrique Botero], as he will not let the conditions he lives under defeat him or his ideals.

He is a person who is extremely intelligent and analytical, and can dissect an issue with razor-like precision. Simon Trinidad is a very studious person who tries to read as much as he can  given his conditions  and to learn about current events in Colombia and the world. He also has a very good sense of humour and likes a good joke. One of his most admirable qualities is that he is very compassionate. Simon has a sense of compassion for working and poor people, and also for people that he knows.

Whats now standing in the way of implementation of the peace agreement?

MB: The principal problem interfering with the implementation of the peace process is Colombian government inaction. The most worrisome is the Colombian governments reluctance to act against para-militarism. Assassinations of social leaders continue without a strong reaction from the government. In order to have peace, the opposition must have guarantees for their safety and the Colombian government must follow through on their promise to battle para-militarism.

There also seems to be resistance from sectors within the government to implementing the peace process. For example, very few of the special peace jurisdiction courts are up and running. It appears that there is some sabotage of, or at the very least government inertia to follow through on, the commitments of the peace accord.

Whats going to happen to the political prisoners in Colombia following the peace agreement?

MB: The political prisoners should be released and allowed to participate in the special peace jurisdiction. Prisoners accused of only political crimes should be granted amnesty. Those who are accused of international crimes (as recognised by the International Criminal Court) will submit to the special peace jurisdiction. This process is of the utmost importance to the success of the peace accord.

CounterPunch
Culture & Life

China and the Morning Star

The article by Jenny Clegg in last weeks issue of this paper, China talks trade, was not only interesting but also very timely. Reprinted from Britains Communist daily the Morning Star, the article was a report on the contribution by Chinas President Xi Jinping to the World Economic Forum in January.

Chinese Red Guards, high school and university students, wave copies of Chairman Mao Zedongs Little Red Book as they parade in Beijings streets at the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in June 1966.

Highlighting the lack of fairness in the international order, Xi called for priority to be given to job creation, innovation, green growth and, above all, tackling poverty. Among those attending the Forum were many representatives of countries whose governments are committed to the needs and wishes of capitalist corporations. Xi is not so naive as to think that they would willingly take his priorities on board. But he knew that most of the other delegates would, even if for some of them the ability to act on his priorities would be limited at best.

As for the confirmed capitalists, well even our own Malcolm Turnbull has claimed to be in favour of job creation and innovation. Unlike Xi, however, Turnbull has no policies that are likely either to create jobs or foster innovation. And, of course, the Turnbull government is resolutely opposed to developing green growth and has no interest whatsoever in tackling poverty. As far as Turnbull, a filthy-rich merchant banker, is concerned, as long as the rich get richer then some small part of their riches will inevitably spill over and trickle down to the poor people. Everyone wins! Hurrah for capitalism!

Xi however does not see it that way. Over 700 million people in the world are still living in extreme poverty, he told the Forum. For many families, to have warm houses, enough food and secure jobs is still a distant dream. This is the biggest challenge facing the world today. In Australia, a developed capitalist country generally acknowledged to have a high standard of living, many pensioners would love to have warm houses in the winter and enough food at any time, while most workers would welcome a secure job. All those workers in hospitality and fast food whose wages have just been slashed would have welcomed some security in their terms of employment I am sure.

China itself is no stranger to extreme poverty, especially in the undeveloped region of Western China. Absence of industry or in fact any form of development meant extreme poverty was endemic in Western China. So the CPC and the Chinese government took a bold step: to use capitalist greed to develop the neglected West of the country. Their method was simple: foreign companies wanting to establish factories or assembly plants on the prosperous Chinese sea-board, where all Western companies want to have their facilities so they are handy to transport abroad, were only given approval to do so on condition they also built and operated a similar plant in Western China.

In 2015, China was able to report that extreme poverty had successfully been eliminated in Western China. Poverty  ordinary poverty  is still a problem in China, of course, but compared to the conditions that had previously prevailed, life has improved for millions of people. Even in the ranks of our own Party, there are too many people who have glibly declared that China is going capitalist, because of the latitude that the CPC has given for the pursuit of profit in China without examining the actual policies and statements of the Chinese Party and without studying the history of modern China.

When the victorious Chinese Red Army swept into Beijing in 1949, China was poverty-stricken, backward, wracked by famines and epidemics and plagued by internecine warfare between local war-lords. The Communists put an end to the civil wars and the famines and countered the epidemics. The result: the population exploded, from 400 million towards a billion in only a few years. The economic strain of that enormous population growth is almost unimaginable.

After some abortive attempts to earn foreign currency by undertaking infrastructure projects in other countries using Chinese labour, which did not go down well with workers in those countries, the CPC realised that the only way they could acquire the capital they needed to urgently raise Chinas standard of living was to get it from those who had plenty of it and were always looking for ways to invest it profitably: the Western capitalists.

Western firms were allowed to establish factories in restricted economic zones within China. Labour was cheap, so profits were high, but actually wages in these zones were higher than in other areas of China, so the people benefited too. More importantly, to be permitted to set up a factory in China, a Western manufacturer was required to train his Chinese employees in all aspects of the complete production process, including designing, marketing and research. Contracts for manufacturing in China were finite: 20 or 25 years, after which the factory reverts to China and the workforce that has been trained in all aspects of the production process takes over the running of it.

The Communist Party of China has always been aware that to build Socialism they had first to develop not only industry but an industrial workforce: you cannot develop a workers state without workers. In 1949 they were a very long way from being able to begin building Socialism. They were barely at the stage of beginning to lay the foundations for preparing to build Socialism. And they didnt have time to spare.

They have performed a remarkable balancing act, utilising the resources (and the greed) of capitalists to fund and develop the basis of a Socialist society, uneven and beset with innumerable difficulties  as only to be expected with an undertaking on such a scale  and instead of whining that they are not building Socialism as we would have done it if wed been in charge, we should be celebrating their extraordinary achievement.

I thought the Morning Star article was right on the money and would repay further study.
It seems like voters in Scotland ought to care about the answer, if given another chance to vote on UK membership. More broadly, one would think voters would want some idea how the UK's assets and liabilities would be divvied up. Things like the public debt, the crown jewels, pension obligations to veterans, the nuclear arsenal, Balmoral castle, and so on. The UK has a lot of stuff. How should it be divided?

Scotland voted 62% in favor of remaining in the EU in last June's Brexit vote. Now, with nationalism on the rise in Britain, Scotland has begun to rethink the decision to stay in the UK. Fears of a so-called " hard exit ," in which Britain foregoes easy access to the common market, have Scottish leaders like Nicola Sturgeon demanding another referendum on Scottish independence. Which has us wondering: What happens to the (rather large) pile of UK debt if one of its members decides to exit?

Given the number of times countries and empires have broken up, one might expect international law to offer an answer. Perhaps debts and assets might be allocated according to some formula, such as contribution to GDP. Or perhaps there might be a system akin to "fault" (as opposed to "no fault") divorce. For example, if the reason for the break-up was that Britain failed to take Scottish interests seriously in charting the UK's future, then perhaps Scotland should be saddled with less UK debt. Alas, international law provides essentially no guidance on such questions.

Why not? One reason is that powerful governments have outsized influence over the development of international law, and these governments have little interest in creating clear rules to govern the break up of sovereign territories. The result is a structural bias against changes to sovereign borders. This bias in favor of the status quo generally is to the advantage of powerful governments.

But this system is not inevitable. People around the world are beginning to think more transactionally about these kinds of allegiances. To take a non-random example: The President of the United States is a real estate playboy who ran for office on an avowedly anti-science, anti-minority, anti-immigrant, anti-reading, pro-authoritarian platform. No surprise, then, that people in New York, Oregon, and California are contemplating the pros and cons of their union with other states. Or, to take another example: Puerto Rico experiences a serious debt crisis, and many in the mainland US start to wonder just how much they want to take on the burdens of this "unincorporated territory." (It is easier to have such doubts when one has already realized significant benefits from the relationship...)

In general, we each favor a world in which sovereign boundaries are less rigid than they are today. But we disagree on the role international law might play in increasing this flexibility. Mitu and his colleague Joseph Blocher think international law can and should play a key role in facilitating "international divorce." Mark (along with others, like Anna Gelpern and John Coyle) is more skeptical. But we agree that the question is important, and fascinating, and that international law offers nothing coherent to say on the subject. Given the importance of the question, this is a gigantic gap in international law. Certainly it should be of interest to (potential) voters in Scotland--not to mention Spain, and then Catalonia, and then...
Channel programs News

Partners Predict Double Digit Sales Growth In 2017; Big Bets On Security, Cloud Services Are Paying Off

Steven Burke

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Solution providers attending the recent XChange Solution Provider 2017 conference said they expect big bets on security and cloud services to pay off in double-digit sales growth this year.

Ken May, the CEO of Swift Chip, a $1.2 million Santa Monica, Calif. MSP serving LA and Ventura County, said he expects 20 percent sales growth this year based in part on the introduction of a new managed security service for clients.

[Related: 25 Sizzling Products To Check Out Right Now]

The managed security service is the culmination of a year of investment in security specializations including GSEC and a certified ethical hacker designation. As part of the security-as-a-service offerings, Swift Chip is set to add security audits and cybersecurity penetration testing.

The new services are targeted at enterprise clients who are looking for third-party security assessments, said May. "These are corollary services that internal IT departments can't do because of conflict of interest," he said. "This is revenue we can go after that we didnt have access to before."

May sees security services climbing from 15 percent of sales to 40 percent of sales over the next several years. "The perception of security as being necessary has increased in the general population," he said. "It is a much easier sell because of the amount of personal data that is being stolen."

Luis Alvarez, president of Alvarez Technology Group, a $5 million Salinas, Calif. solution provider, said the rapid adoption of cloud services is driving what he expects will be sales growth of 15 to 20 percent this year. "Customers want to migrate off legacy systems as fast as possible," he said. "That is providing a lot of recurring revenue and consulting and project services."

Alvarez Technology Group's fastest growing business is centered on Microsoft Office 365. "The subscription pricing is a no-brainer," said Alvarez.

Alvarez is also investing heavily in IoT solutions with agricultural companies in California using sensors to monitor crops. That includes "smart mulch" in strawberry fields to monitor water utilization.

The biggest danger to potential sales growth is immigration policies and potential border taxes, said Alvarez. "For us, that is a big driver of our world," he said. "If all of a sudden immigration becomes an issue and a lot of folks that pick vegetables go away that will impact the clients that we serve in agriculture."

Matt Tyler, director of emerging technology internet of things for Wachter, Mount Laurel, New Jersey, said he expects the company's highly specialized turnkey power and technology systems for specific vertical markets to continue to deliver double-digit sales growth as it has for the last four years.

Wachter's IoT focus is gaining even more "trust" with its highly specialized customers, said Tyler. "IoT is getting us in front of more and more people in those organizations and it is opening up more budget spend with them," he said.

The Wachter customer base includes healthcare, industrial manufacturing, oil and gas and retail. "Our ability to bring the different technologies across verticals is where we are really seeing success," said Tyler.

Wachter's fastest growing service is its virtual patient observation system  a video camera observation system which is resulting in improved patient care and reducing health care costs. In one case, the virtual patient observation system has reduced the number of patient falls from as many as four a month to zero, said Tyler.

Joe Balsarotti, owner and president of Software To Go, a top solution provider in the St. Louis metropolitan market, said he is expecting significant sales growth in 2017 as a result of what he sees as the economic benefits from the election of President Donald Trump.

Balsarotti said he had seen a sharp spike in sales from his small business customers as a result of President Trump's pro-business policies."I am very optimistic," he said. "It's like a load has been lifted off small businesses. There was a lot of pent-up demand."

The Software To Go owner met with Vice President Mike Pence last month as part of a small business roundtable and thanked the vice president and the president for their support of small businesses. "I told him, 'Mr. Vice President, we actually had our best month ever in December,'" he said. "It was over four times better than the previous December."

Balsarotti said he sees the broad range of small business customers more confident about their future and ready to invest. "They want new machines for more efficiency and several have hired new employees," he said. "The volume of clients doing new projects spiked in December. We weren't prepared for it. I am not sure how long it is going to last, but I am going to ride it as long as I can."
Take Smartphones Away from Kids

My wife once asked a new Christian friend why she homeschools her children, given that they live in a good public school district. Said the friend, The day my fifth-grade son came home from school and said his friends were watching hardcore porn on their smartphones was the day my husband and I made the call. It wasnt the schools fault. Smartphones were forbidden there. The boys were accessing pornography on their free timeand there wasnt a thing school authorities could do about it.

When parents hand their children small portable computers with virtually unlimited access to the Internet, they should not be surprised when their kidsespecially their sonsdive into pornography. Unfortunately, with boys at least, its in the nature of the hormone-jacked beast. Moms and dads who would never leave their kids unattended in a room full of pornographic DVDs think nothing of handing them smartphones. This is morally insane.

No adolescent or young teenager should be expected to have the self-control on his own to say no. Earlier in this book, we discussed the catastrophic impacts pornography can have on the brains of addicts. According to the University of New Hampshires Crimes Against

Children Research Center, 93 percent of boys and 62 percent of girls have seen online pornography in adolescence.12 It may be impossible to guard their eyes constantly, but it is irresponsible of parents not to try. Plus, parents in peer groups should work together to enforce a smartphone ban among their kids.

Moreover, teenagers are far too immature to understand the serious legal trouble they can get into with sexting. In many jurisdictions, sending sexually explicit images of minors counts as transmitting child pornography. Is it fair to put an impulsive tenth grader in the same category as a pervert? No, but thats a call for the district attorney and the judge. Even if your child avoids conviction, to be dragged through the legal process with the prospect of sex offender status hanging over his head, potentially for the rest of his life, can be financially and emotionally devastating to a family.

Finally, though most teens who sext will never find themselves in legal jeopardy, the moral dimension can be ruinous. The habit trains kids to objectify the opposite sex, treating them as commodities, and to regard their own sexuality as something to be marketed for status. A single illicit image that hits social media can destroy a teens reputation and set them up for bullying and abuse.

Aside from the risk of pornographic content, there is the critical problem of what too much online exposure does to a young persons brain. If we dont treat our homes and schools as monasteries, strictly limiting both the information that comes to our kids (for the sake of their own inner formation), as well as their access to brain-altering technologies, we are forfeiting our responsibilities as stewards of their soulsand our own.

Did you know that Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs did not let his children use iPads and strictly limited their access to technology? Jobs was not the only one.

Chris Anderson, a former top tech journalist and now a Silicon Valley CEO, told the New York Times in 2014 that his home is like a tech monastery for his five children. My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have the same rules, Anderson said. Thats because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. Ive seen it in myself, I dont want to see that happen to my kids.

If thats how Silicon Valley tech geniuses parent, how do we justify being more liberal? Yes, you will be thought of as a weirdo and a control freak. So what? These are your children.

The fact that we put these devices in our childrens hands at a very young age with little guidance, and they experience life in terms of likes and dislikes, the fact that they basically have technology now as a prosthetic attachmentall of that seems to me to be incredibly short-sighted and dangerous, says philosopher Michael Hanby.

Its affecting their ability to think and to have basic human relationships, he said. This is a vast social experiment without precedent. We have handed our kids over to this without knowing what we are doing.

Excerpted from The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher with permission of Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright  Rod Dreher, 2017.

ROD DREHER is a senior editor at The American Conservative and the author of Crunchy Cons, How Dante Can Save Your Life, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, and The Benedict Option.

Image courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: March 14, 2017
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STAMFORD  Regina and Michael Kirshbaum turned 22 Magee Ave. into an island of retail. They are leaving that home behind this week, but they are not leaving their customers adrift.

On Wednesday, the Kirshbaums will close their East Side storefront, which has housed their Agabahumi womens clothing, jewelry and accessories business for the past 14 years. The couple are moving to Hilton Head Island, S.C., but their Bali-themed enterprise will continue online and in other local boutiques.

What weve been saying is were moving down and up, Regina Kirshbaum said in an interview last week at the store. Its been a beautiful run.

After opening on Magee Avenue in November 2002, Agabhumi forged an unlikely following on a road better known for car dealerships.

When we opened the store, we were in a remote area; we werent where the retail was, Michael Kirshbaum said. And I had said, If we build it, they will come.

Spurred by its growing number of customers, the store has expanded its footprint by about three times, to about 2,000 square feet.

Im here a lot. Theyre so sweet, said Jennifer Ephraim Honan, of Stamford, during a visit last week. Things are reasonably priced, and theyre welcoming. For the clothing, its how soft they are  thats my key thing. And for the jewelry, I just really like the aesthetic.

As they aim to maintain their clientele from their new Palmetto State base, the Kirshbaums are expanding their online presence. They are launching a personalized shopping service that uses Apples FaceTime app, and they have hired a team of marketing consultants to help them bolster their digital reach.

Agabhumi has already developed robust e-commerce operations with its agabhumi.com website and sale of their merchandise through Amazon and Etsy.

Stamford customers will be able to supplement online purchases with trips to the Dew Yoga studio on High Ridge Road and the Agora Spa in the Stamford Marriott hotel. Agabhumi has set up boutiques in both establishments. The Kirshbaums are also opening a showcase within the Timeless Interiors furniture store in Bluffton, a neighboring town of Hilton Head.

Despite its owners relocation, Agabhumis mission is not changing. All of its merchandise will still be made in Bali, an island in Indonesia. The business name means ancient firmament in Indonesian.

And Regina Kirshbaum will continue to design every piece. Vibrant colors and versatility define her collections. During the interview, she cited as an example a lavender mesh poncho that could be worn as a skirt over a bathing suit or with an evening gown to a black-tie function.

Theres a way to represent a Bali look that is streetwise in a suburban or urban environment, Regina Kirshbaum said. I dont expect a customer to walk around like theyre walking around in 100-degree temperatures and not be able to go to work in our clothes.

A 2002 visit to Bali  where Michael Kirshbaum reconnected with the Oka family with whom he stayed during a 1974 stint on the island  kindled their desire to start the business.

The Kirshbaums visit Bali every year. Their business agent and point person on the island is Anggie Bagoes Oka, the daughter of Michael Kirshbaums good friend, Krishna Bagoes Oka, who he met during the 1974 trip.

After 28 years of living together in Stamford, Regina Kirshbaum, 57, and Michael Kirshbaum, 67, admit to some wistfulness about relocating. But the Shippan residents have planned the move for years  they bought a home last year in Hilton Head  and they said they are keen to start a new chapter of their lives.

Weve always felt like we belong there, Michael Kirshbaum said. As soon as we got on the island, it was like Wow, this feels like home.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott
HARTFORD - The General Assembly is considering slapping a carbon tax on gasoline, heating oil and natural gas to spur lower consumption and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.

The legislation would initially increase home heating oil costs by about 16 cents per gallon and gas prices by about 13 cents a gallon.

Supporters say proceeds from the tax could be used to promote clean energy sources and offer incentives for solar power conversions or purchasing electric cars.

We need a discussion on this topic, and this is not a fringe idea, said State Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Branford and co-chairman of the Legislatures environment committee.

This is a concept that is being adopted by serious people, Kennedy said. It is for that reason we wanted to raise the issue and other new England states are also doing it. There may be some merits to this.

But while supporters saw benefits, business owners and others offered adamant opposition during a public hearing on the bill.

Stephen Rosental, president of Leahys Fuel in Danbury, said a carbon tax will cost him business because nearby New York State dealers could offer cheaper heating oil.

We will lose more customers each year as this tax increases, Rosental said. If you look at the history of state spending and raiding funds, you have to be skeptical. Any carbon tax needs to be [enacted] at the federal level, not the state level.

The bill would result in a $15 per ton carbon tax in 2019, and the tax would increase $5 per ton each following year. The law would become effective only if Massachusetts and Rhode Island pass similar bills now under consideration in those states.

Climate change solution

David Sutherland, director of government relations for the Nature Conservancy, said a carbon tax is a way to reflect the true cost of fossil fuel and raise revenue to battle climate change.

If governments around the world are to make dramatic progress in reducing carbon pollution that is necessary to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change, the United States must play a leading role, Sutherland said.

Massachusetts State Sen. Mike Barrett, D-Lexington, said fossil fuels drain a regions economy and send dollars to states where the energy is produced.

With the revenue you raise you can spend it on needed state programs or reimbursement, said Barrett who along with lawmakers in Rhode Island and New Hampshire are backing similar bills.

Its a win-win, said Rhode Island State Rep. Aaron Regunberg, D-Mount Hope. Our legislation would reduce our emissions and lead to thousands of new jobs over the next few years. We can transition to local energy production and ultimately reduce energy costs.

Devastating consequences

Eric Brown, associate counsel for the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, scolded lawmakers for bringing up a carbon tax, noting the proposed bill could prompt a company to not locate in the state, or even leave.

There are better ways than raising a formal bill that sends a message that Connecticut is considering a new tax on every business and person in the state, Brown said. The bill could be devastating.

Rick Bolanga, owner Westmore Fuel in Greenwich, said a carbon tax would hurt the state.

While this bill may [be] intended to help our state, all it will do is drive up the cost of heating and cooling, Bolanga said. This tax just doubles down on costs to consumers and businesses and will result in more people capital and business fleeing the state.

More taxes? said Karen Fassuliotis of Greenwich. Are you kidding me? The tax on heating oil should not go through. I dont know how you expect people to be able to afford another tax.
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Dont expect Donald Trump pick up a snow shovel from Dannel Malloy  or to give Connecticuts governor a symbolic pat on the back the way Barack Obama did to Chris Christie during Superstorm Sandy.

But by all accounts, the first major test of cohesion between the White House and Malloys administration, a considerable winter storm, has put the ongoing hostilities between the the president and one of his biggest detractors on ice. For now.

Malloys office gave the Federal Emergency Management Agency passing marks for its blizzard preparation and coordination with the state  this from a governor who last month characterized Trumps administration as the gang who couldnt shoot straight over new deportation rules.

Our working relationship with FEMA continues without any noticeable difference so far, Malloy spokeswoman Kelly Donnelly said. We asked for a liaison for (Tuesdays) storm and they have a representative who is present with us at the state (emergency management center).

Nothing can quite haunt a presidency like a storm. Just ask George W. Bush, who was relentlessly assailed for his administrations response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The publics wrath isnt just reserved for the commander-in-chief. Following a rare October snowstorm in 2011, Connecticut Light & Power, now Eversource, was eviscerated for the sluggish pace of its restoration efforts in the state, which took a week in some locations.

Two months earlier, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., received an F grade from the Hartford Courant for vacationing on the Amalfi Coast in Italy during Hurricane Irene, which ravaged her district.

A key gatekeeper for the Trump administration in its dealings with the states, including during storms, is Connecticuts Justin Clark. The GOP consultant and lawyer from West Hartford serves as Trumps director of intergovernmental affairs. He was most notably the campaign manager of Malloys two-time opponent, Republican Tom Foley. Clark declined to comment Tuesday.

There was no direct contact between Malloy and Trump Tuesday, with the state emergency management brass going through FEMA in what they characterized as the normal channel of communication. The FEMA liaison assigned to Connecticut will help the state assess storm damage and could help the state apply for federal disaster aid if it seeks money to pay for snow cleanup.

From Trumps official Instagram account, one would never know there was a fierce storm bearing down on the Northeast. It showed photo highlights of Trumps first 50 days in office and the jobs report for February.

But with all the tumult of Trumps allegations that he was wiretapped by Obama, the Affordable Care Act repeal effort and the administrations immigration policies, some political observers suggest that the storm may be the least of Trumps worries.

I dont know if were going to hear that its Trumps Katrina, because theres too much other stuff, said Jerold Duquette, an associate professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. Its quaint to talk about him responding to a storm as a normal administration.

nvigdor@hearstmediact.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy
Under the Republicans' proposed American Health Care Act, the federal budget deficit would decrease by more than $300 billion over the next 10 years, but would leave millions of people uninsured, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO on Monday shared its analysis of the legislation that it conducted in concert with the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The report estimates that in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured compared to conditions under the Affordable Care Act, and that number would continue to grow, in large part due to the changes made to subsidies for insurance purchases by individuals with non-group coverage and the freeze on expanded Medicaid enrollment.

Related: What Entrepreneurs Can Do to Be Prepared for Changes to Healthcare Legislation

The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number under current law would rise to 21 million in 2020 and then to 24 million in 2026," the report says. "In 2026, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.

It also found that by 2026, 7 million fewer people would be covered by their workplace. Additionally, in the AHCA as it stands now, premiums for single policyholders in a nongroup market would go up anywhere from 15 to 20 percent compared to the ACA. The price hike for these premiums stands to impact older and lower income Americans.

The report comes after a contentious introduction, which last week saw advocacy groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) voice concerns in letters to Congress about the potential for a significant loss of coverage.

Related: Scientists Predict People in This Country Will Live the Longest

It appears that the effort to restructure the Medicaid program will have the effect of making significant reductions in a program that provides services to our most vulnerable populations, and already pays providers significantly less than the cost of providing care, wrote the AHA in its message. Providing flexibility to the states to expand coverage, and create innovative financing and delivery models to improve care and program sustainability, can be achieved through other alternatives.

The AMA echoed this stance, writing, While we agree that there are problems with the ACA that must be addressed, we cannot support the AHCA as drafted because of the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations.

Related:

GOP Health Care Act Would Reduce Deficit, But Leave Millions Uninsured, CBO Says

Here's What Inspired Three Indian Veterans to Innovate in the Antibiotics Domain

#5 Tips to Lead Your Way to Great Wellbeing



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Thumbs up to the fight for clean air in Connecticut. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wrote Thursday to the new director of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, blasting him for a preliminary decision to exempt nine states from tougher scrutiny of coal-fired plants. The problem is, polluted air from the Rust Belt states blows into the Northeast and can adversely affect the health of residents. Pruitts decision should be reversed. As Malloy put it, Connecticut is tired of serving as the tailpipe of America.

Thumbs up to the Rotary Clubs of Monroe, Trumbull, Stamford and New Canaan for raising $5,000 to sponsor the installation of solar panels at schools in three villages in Burkina Faso, a country in western Africa. The project is coordinated through the World Energy Foundation, formed by Bethel brothers Travis and Dylan Wolf in 2013. In Burkina Faso, 85 percent of the residents lack access to electricity and nearly half live below the poverty level. The foundation has traveled to the country three times, most recently in February, to install the solar panels at the schools and in a birthing center. The generosity of all involved will go a long way to improve the education of children in that country.
Somerset County voters' main issue: Making sure their advanced voting will be counted

In Somerset County, there are 31,489 residents registered as Republicans and 12,435 as Democrat for a total of 48,846.
After numerous crimes in a box set, Craig Brown is holding out for a happy ending

A is for Autopsy. Havent you seen it? Oh, but you must! Autopsy is the latest box set from Denmark (or is it Sweden?).

The heroine is a forensic scientist called Karla who wears a bobble hat and whos having to examine a different naked corpse each day, because theres a serial killer on the loose.

In episode 9, series three, Karla discovers a clue under a dead womans toenail, but I wont tell you any more or itll ruin it for you.

Beard, man with the: But is the man with the beard who is about to jump off the bridge the same man with the beard we saw robbing the bank in episode 18?

Binge: So we watched The Crown for seven episodes back-to-back, and by the seventh episode the Queen Mother still hadnt finished having lunch with Neville Chamberlain, the Duke of Windsor and Noel Coward.

Binoculars: In the latest off-beat dark drama from Finland (or is it Sweden?), when an old man living alone picks up a pair of binoculars, you can be sure hell soon be training them on a woman in the house over the road while she gets undressed.

Birthday Party: Sadly, I had to miss my mothers 70th birthday party because we still hadnt finished watching episodes 9 to 12, series 3 of Slum, the dark, off-beat new series from Sweden (or is it Denmark?)

Catarrh: All the obvious maladies affecting off-beat detectives  a limp, depression, OCD, partial blindness, bereavement, ADHD, a tricky home life, terminal cancer  had already been taken. This is why the detective in The Unmasking, the latest dark, off-beat new series from Denmark (or is it Norway?), features a detective suffering from mild catarrh.

Christening: Im afraid we had no choice but to miss the christening of our niece because we just had to catch up with episodes 13 to 17, series 5 of The Strangling, the dark, off-beat new series from Norway (or is it Finland?).

Cut in half with a chainsaw: in Episode 5 of every hugely dark, off-beat new crime drama, a corpse is cut in half with a chainsaw.

Dont tell me! But is Kelly-Anne telling the truth when she says she was with her disabled mother at the time the drug dealer was killed with a pick-axe? Dont tell me!

Eight hours: We had been watching The Execution for eight hours before we realised that the man with the beard who was the moody Deputy Chief Inspector was a completely different person from the man with the beard who had been spotted prowling around the disused warehouse.

Ending, Happy: After six beheadings, five rapes, four stabbings, three suicides, two hangings and one impaling, Im holding out for a happy ending.

Flashback: Whos that little girl in the floral dress whos standing grief-stricken in the designer living-room over the corpse of the woman I dont recognise? Where are we? Whats happening? Oh, I see  its a FLASHBACK!

Get on, Dont: If the brawny male detective doesnt get on with the petite female detective in the first episode, you can be sure theyll be devoted to one another by the end of episode 23, and by episode 72, hell save her at the very last minute from being garrotted by the serial killer with the mad eyes.

Giving up: Sorry, but I was bitterly disappointed by Breaking Bad. After 27 episodes, I decided to give up.

Going on? Could someone tell me: If what Sven told Sofie about Johan was true, then why did Magnus tell Sofie what Johan told Vilads? And whats the significance of the one-eyed beggar? And which one is Emil? What on earth is going on?

Grunt: Every fourth word in the latest gritty U.S. crime drama from Netflix is an indecipherable grunt, eg: You wanna know grunt? Im beginning to grunt that the only way grunt ever know what grunt to the nightwatchman grunt is to ask the grunt. This is because scriptwriters are still holding out for a 25 per cent pay rise.

Happy: If you spot a schoolgirl playing happily in episode 2, you can be sure she will be kidnapped in episode 3.

Helmet: Anyone wearing a motorbike helmet in a dark, new off-beat crime series is bound to rob a bank at gunpoint.

Hide, Something to: Hes grunt hiding something, but what? Ill tell you what hes hiding  its the grunt grunt grunt My god! Thats the clue weve been waiting for!

Joke, The Last: The last joke to be heard in a gritty crime drama from Sweden (or was it Norway?) was in 2007. Consequently, the series proved a complete flop, and was canned after only two series.
Cruising for a bruising: Nicola Sturgeon is keen to stir up the divisions unearthed during the 2014 referendum

Yesterday should have been an historic day for our country, as MPs voted again for removing the last remaining obstacles to freeing Britain from the EUs shackles. But any optimism about the Article 50 Bill was overshadowed by a dangerous new threat to our sacred Union.

Barely two years after the Scottish people firmly rejected independence (in a vote which, remember, the SNP claimed was a once in a generation chance) the high priestess of Scottish nationalism, Nicola Sturgeon, demanded another referendum.

She did so with breath-taking cynicism and despite polls showing most Scots have no desire to plunge their nation back into a second divisive campaign.

Hers is the most risible of pretexts: that the SNPs conditions for Brexit have been rejected. This is dishonest. Miss Sturgeon has deliberately made an impossible demand  that Scotland stays in the single market  knowing it wouldnt be met.

The truth is that die-hard nationalists will find any excuse to resurrect their singular obsession: the break-up of the Union which has served our nations so well for the past 300 years.

Indeed, it was just hours after the UK voted to leave the EU last year that Miss Sturgeon raised the prospect of a second poll, despite knowing that the economic case for independence, which was paper thin in 2014, lies in tatters.

The collapse in oil prices means North Sea revenues will be next to nothing instead of the 7.5billion a year the SNP once claimed. With an annual deficit of 15billion  or 9.5 per cent of GDP  an independent Scotland would overnight become an economic basket case.

In a naked attempt to attract Remain voters to her cause, Miss Sturgeon implied Scotland could stay in the EU while the rest of the UK leaves, a suggestion immediately ruled out by Brussels.

In reality, an independent Scotland would be forced to reapply for EU membership and face being vetoed by Spain, which fears fuelling Catalan nationalism.

Nor would rejoining the EU be any substitute for keeping the Union. The UK domestic market is worth four times more to Scottish firms than the rest of the EU.

The nationalists would find themselves arguing to leave one highly successful union in which Scotland is an equal partner  and, lets not forget, has vast devolved powers  in order to submit to a failing European Union run by unaccountable bureaucrats.

Even more than in 2014, independence would be an act of monumental self harm. And by raising it, Miss Sturgeon shows her determination to sacrifice the immense benefits of the Union on the altar of her own political vanity.

Her arguments were so weak that there was a sense of desperation about the entire charade, raising the question of whether it was done for cynical domestic reasons.

Spending the next two years talking about independence will distract from Miss Sturgeons appalling mismanagement of schools, hospitals and transport.

Given the glaring flaws in the nationalist case, the Mail is confident Scots would once again reject independence.

Nevertheless, as an ardent unionist who has put the precious, precious bond between the nations of the UK at the heart of her premiership, Theresa May will be reluctant to give in to nationalist demands. But she also knows refusing them outright might backfire and seem undemocratic.

Instead, she must reject the SNPs timetable of autumn next year or early 2019 on the grounds voters will not be able to judge the outcome of Brexit. Then, given that the nationalists lack a majority, she can insist on new elections to the Scottish Parliament before allowing a second poll.

That would give her invaluable time to keep passionately making the case for preserving our great family of nations.
Here we go again. The rhetoric of Scottish nationalism is one of the most dreary, repetitive and grindingly predictable sounds in British politics.

It is like the broken record of a dull Caledonian folk song, permanently stuck in its groove as it plays the same old dirge, laden with victimhood and hostility to England.

The Nationalists Chief Balladeer, Nicola Sturgeon, is indulging in her favourite routine of demanding another independence referendum.

Bad losers: The stark reality is that Scotland is hopelessly ill-equipped for independence

Oozing her usual mix of petulant grievance and separatist menace, she claimed that  despite the Nationalist case having been rejected just three years ago  a new vote is justified because Brexit has transformed the constitutional landscape of the UK.

The central theme was that London believes Scotlands voice can be ignored at any time and on any issue.

If only. Successive British Governments have bent over backwards to appease the Scots, to no avail. Despite devolution, massive subsidies and an independence referendum, the Nationalists refuse to be satisfied.

Disruption

There was also a deep cynicism about Sturgeons timing yesterday. For she made her speech on the very day the Commons was set to pass the legislation to trigger Article 50, paving the way for the start of Britains EU withdrawal.

Her obvious short-term aim is to cause the maximum possible disruption in the Brexit process, using the threat of separation to blackmail the Government into granting exceptional concessions to Scotland, including the possibility of continued membership of the Single Market.

Her theory is that Theresa May  battling the EU and Remainer elements in her own party  will not want to fight on a third front. But the idea of a separate Single Market deal is clearly unworkable. A unified nation cannot operate with different sets of trading and customs arrangements.

And it is ridiculous of Sturgeon to suggest the referendum could be held as early as autumn 2018, before the end of Brexit negotiations. How can Scots make an informed choice when the details have not even been decided?

Just as cynical is Sturgeons abandonment of her own past pledges not to hold another referendum. The vote in 2014, her party stressed, was a once in a generation event.

Sturgeon herself said: The politicians have to respect the democratic wishes of the people. But that is exactly what she is now failing to do.

In her desperation to break with England, she mirrors the stance of the EU oligarchy she worships. As the EU did with regard to constitutional referendums in France and Ireland, she wants to keep asking the same question until she gets the right answer.

There is no sign another referendum will produce a different response. According to one poll yesterday, independence would again be defeated, this time by 52 to 48 per cent.

Nor, contrary to Sturgeons shrill propaganda, is there any evidence that the Scots actually want another vote.

A study for the Scottish Herald newspaper showed that 49 per cent reject the idea of a second referendum, while only 39 per cent want one.

But then Sturgeons entire stance is riddled with hypocrisies and contradictions.

She portrays the desire of the majority of the British electorate for freedom from the EU as a dark, socially divisive force, calling Brexit a licence for xenophobia. Yet she paints her own wish to abandon the British Union as progressive and inclusive.

So, in SNP Orwellian double-think, English national pride equals bigotry, whereas Scottish pride equals liberation.

Equally absurd is her demand to stay in the European Single Market  while seeking to leave the British Single Market, which is far more lucrative to Scotland. Such a move would hammer the Scottish economy purely for the sake of her pro-EU ideology.

The latest statistics show that Scotlands trade with the UK is worth four times more than its exports to the EU. Altogether, Scotland sold 49.8 billion of goods and services to the rest of the UK in 2015, compared with 12.3 billion to the other EU nations.

As Brexit is implemented, Britain will trade ever more intensively on the global stage. Yet the SNP, cocooned by federalist dogma, wants to cut Scotland off from these new commercial opportunities.

Not that the EU is likely to embrace an independent Scotland. It would have to apply for membership from scratch. And the process for an SNP-led Scotland would be far from straightforward.

Other EU states, particularly Spain, France and Belgium, will not be keen to encourage separatist movements within their own territories.

Moreover, the dire state of Scotlands economy would preclude it from becoming an independent EU member. Brussels rules state that no member is meant to have a deficit higher than 3 per cent of gross domestic product. Scotlands deficit last August was 15 billion  or 9.5 per cent of GDP. This is more than double the rest of the UK.

The stark reality is that Scotland is hopelessly ill-equipped for independence.

Dependency

Ironically, the land that once produced the great economist Adam Smith  apostle of the free market  is gripped by debt, decay and dependency. Enterprise is too weak and state expenditure too high, running at a fifth higher per head than in England.

Almost 21 per cent of the Scottish workforce is in the public sector, compared with 14.9 per cent in the south-east of England. Revenues from North Sea oil, which the SNP once eagerly cited as a prop for their cause, is drying up fast.

Four years ago, Scotlands tax share of the profits from the North Sea stood at 11 billion. Even in 2014/15 the total was 1.8 billion. But last year, the amount in tax receipts was just 60 million, smashing one of the key economic arguments for independence.

Nicola Sturgeon watches the results come in during the referendum in 2014. Why should it be any different this time?

Without England, Scotland would be bankrupt.

Even the SNP government in Edinburgh admits that it spends 127 for every 100 it raises in taxation.

It is this largesse from English taxpayers that enables Scotland to continue its reckless quasi-socialist experiment in profligacy. Only cash from the English allows Scotland to have free university tuition and personal care for the elderly, as well as no road tolls or NHS prescription charges.

In fact, thanks to the funds from south of the border, NHS spending in Scotland has been 15 per cent higher than in England over the past seven years.

No longer bankrolled by England, Scotland would face economic meltdown, unable to raise money on the international markets because of its lack of fiscal credibility.

Freeloader

Some Nationalists claim independence would be little different to Brexit, since both involve departures from political unions. But in economic terms, the crucial difference is the UK is a major net contributor to the EU. By contrast, failing Scotland is an ever more expensive freeloader.

Perhaps the greatest mistake Sturgeon makes is to overestimate how much the English care what she thinks. She is delusional if she believes her threat of another referendum will give the London Government pause over Brexit.

And increasing numbers of English people are fed up with paying for subsidies to Edinburgh while being lectured by the SNP about their supposed oppression and neglect.

For Scots, meanwhile, the case for remaining in the Union is stronger than ever. Even if their country could stand on its own two feet economically, there is little doubt it would be better off as part of our Union  one of the greatest success stories of history, that has seen us together build a vast empire, and allowed Scottish genius  from the Enlightenment to the Empire to modern times  to shine brighter on a global stage than ever before.

The case for our United Kingdom is, and always will be, far more powerful than Nicola Sturgeons divisive rhetoric.
Makeup is designed to make women look and feel their best - but a poor application technique could end up doing the opposite.

According to the top beauty gurus in the business, applying your foundation, blusher and concealer incorrectly can add decades to your looks.

Here, they share the beauty blunders that are making you appear ten years older - and reveal their top tips for ensuring your makeup works for you.

Did you know that the way you're applying your foundation, blusher and concealer could be adding decades to your looks? Experts share the ways to fix it

Stop using a heavy coverage foundation: Rupert Kingston, co-founder of Delilah Cosmetics, explains that high coverage foundations can really accentuate fine lines and wrinkles. 'It's better to use a lighter, fresher foundation to make the skin look more natural,' he advises. 'Just use concealer where you need it.'

Stay away from pressed powders: Rupert King maintains that they create a heavier, dryer look to the skin. 'Instead, aim for a more dewy, moist look to the skin, it will help to soften those dryers areas where the fine lines can show up. If you still feel too shiny choose a micro fine loose powder and just apply to the centre of the face.'

Avoid nude lipsticks: Rupert believes this hue can make you look sallow and drained and women should choose colours with a fresher coral or peach undertone.

Don't skip the moisturiser: Karla Powell, MUA and brand ambassador for MUA Cosmetics, says that applying make-up to un-moisturised dry skin can enhance your lines. So before applying your make-up pack on a rich moisturiser, which will leave your skin feeling nourished and smoother.

Always do your brows: Brows tend to thin as we age, but having a structured brow can take years off of your face, instantly lifting and defining your eye area. Karla advises avoiding gels and pencils - which can leave brows looking too harsh and drawn on - and opt for a powder formula, which will give a much more natural finish. 'Never go too dark as this can age you, aim to choose only a shade or two darker than your hair colour,' she adds.

TOP BEAUTY HACKS Stop using a heavy coverage foundation Stay away from pressed powders Avoid nude lipsticks Don't skip the moisturiser Always do your brows with powder Don't apply blush to the apples of your cheeks Avoid dark eyes Advertisement

Beware of the blush: Denise Rabor, international makeup artist and founder of Wow Beauty, says many people believe you should apply blusher to the apples of your cheeks, which is incorrect as this can draw your face downwards.

'You should actually brush blusher sparingly from your ear to halfway across your cheekbone, which will make your face look slimmer,' he said.

Avoid dark eyes: Celebrity facialist and makeup artist, Nathalie Eleni, says that dark kohl under the eye can look harsh if not blended so opt for a softer shadow and blend along for a softer finish.

Apply under-eye cream correctly: Eva Alexandrides, managing director and co-founder of 111Skin, explains that the skin underneath the eye is a different structure to the rest of the face and thus is a lot more sensitive. 'Rubbing and pulling at the skin as you apply the cream is a real no go and will make the bags appear worse and more visible.

'Use your ring or little finger when applying cream whilst only dabbing, tapping or softly massaging the area with sweeping strokes. Finally, give it about a minute or longer to absorb before you put any make up on top of it which will prevent any caking around the area.'
Constance Hall has posted a moving tribute to fellow blogger Lisa Magill, who passed away on Saturday night.

Ms Magill shared the good, the bad and the ugly sides of living with stomach cancer on her blog Terminally Fabulous.

On Sunday, Ms Magill's mother Geraldine announced her 'gorgeous girl' had died peacefully on Saturday night aged just 34.

Now Ms Hall has written an emotional post about the young woman, who she called a friend.

Blogger Constance Hall (right) has posted a moving tribute to Lisa Magill (left)

The courageous blogger, 34, who shared the good, the bad and the ugly sides of living with terminal cancer has died

'I am so sorry that our world lost Lisa last night,' the blogger wrote. 'She loved her friends and she loved her family and despite being dealt a tough hand, she loved her life.'

The pair had met several times, despite the fact that Ms Magill lived in Brisbane while Ms Hall is Perth based.

Ms Hall posted about her last words with the 34-year-old, accompanied with some photos they took together.

'Because while the rest of us want to lose 5 kilos or buy a bigger house, all Lisa wanted was this life that she loved so dearly,' the mum-of-four wrote.

'She was kind and funny until the end, on her death bed and messaging me to see if I was ok and making me laugh with her witty one liners.'

Ms Hall said that her friend was kind and funny, and just wanted to live life

The Terminally Fabulous blogger (pictured), shared a harrowing video update of her cancer just last week

Ms Hall ended the post by saying she would always remember the 34-year-old, and that everyone should remember to live life to the fullest.

'In my mind she will always be dancing and drinking and turning to us all with a beaming little face to scream "how good is life?"' she wrote.

'I will see you again my eternally fabulous Lisa Magill... I don't doubt that.'

Ms Magill covered everything from 'dating while you're dying' to her 'fear of missing out' in her popular blog Terminally Fabulous

On Sunday, her mother Geraldine announced her 'gorgeous girl' had died peacefully on Saturday night

Ms Magill's mother announced her passing with a post on social media on Sunday.

'Last night at 11.50 our gorgeous girl was wrapped in the wings of an angel and joined her friends and family in heaven,' she wrote on Facebook.

'Lisa's passing was so peaceful, slipping away in her sleep without pain nor fear, just as we'd all prayed for and more importantly just as Lisa had wanted it.

'Our hearts are shattered into a thousand pieces, Lisa was one of the most generous souls to walk this earth, she would do anything to make us happy.

'In fact she'd do anything to make anyone happy, she was one of a kind. We were so blessed to have her in our lives.'

Geraldine said that the family's 'hearts are shattered into a thousand pieces'

'Last night at 11.50 our gorgeous girl was wrapped in the wings of an angel and joined her friends and family in heaven,' her mother wrote on Facebook

Just last week the 34-year-old, from Brisbane, posted a Facebook video update with the help of her family.

In the post, a visibly weak Ms Magill detailed how much pain she was in, while also being brave enough to say thank you to her blog followers.

'I am not going very well. I have been quite ill and I've been in the hospital for the past few days,' Ms Magill began the update.

'I am in pain as I speak. My chest is hurting, my stomach hurts, my pelvis hurts, everything massively hurts. I'm so weak I can't actually stand up out of my own bed.'

Ms Magill gained fans from all over the world with her writing

Last week, a visibly weak Ms Magill (pictured previously) detailed how much pain she was in, while also being brave enough to say thank you to her blog followers

On Wednesday, her mother told Daily Mail Australia she knew the end was near.

'Over the past couple of years Lisa has fought long and hard, she has been at death's door so many times,' she said.

'When she started her blog, she did not expect it to touch so many people the way it has, it has really inspired her to keep going and hopefully help as many people as she could along the way.'

'Her fight is coming to an end now, Lisa is in so much pain and discomfort, we just want her to be at peace now. We love her so much we have to let her go.

On Wednesday, Ms Magill's mother told Daily Mail Australia she knew the end was near

The popular 34-year-old blogger is pictured with her mother Geraldine last Christmas Day

'Lisa is now in transition from Terminally Fabulous to Eternally Fabulous.'

The Terminally Fabulous Facebook page has been flooded with messages of support.

'I'm sitting crying for a wonderful woman I never meet but feel I know so well,' one fan wrote.

'Her strength and grace has amazed me. I'm sending so much love your way through this hard time for your family.'
With followers sometimes in the millions, and platforms all across social media, an Instagram star is a hard thing to go a day without seeing.

But while their presence may appear to be increasing, young people have been warned to avoid falling into the trap of believing they can make a career from their own followings.

Dr Lauren Rosewarne from Melbourne University told Mamamia there had been a huge surge in the amount of people who had focused their future on the idea of becoming famous.

She called the idea 'unrealistic', adding: 'Young people are aspiring to be famous in numbers that were simply not there 20 years ago,'.

Sponsored: Following a rise in social media stars, who have monetised the large following they have on platforms such as Instagram, there are an 'unrealistic' amount of young people banking on becoming famous

People like Pia Muehlenbeck, who traded in a career as a corporate lawyer to monetise her social media following a few years ago have become incredibly successful.

She boasts a following of 1.7million and has deals with online clothing retailer Showpo among other designers, as well as companies selling beauty products and health drinks.

However the social media star previously told Daily Mail Australia her hours as an Instagram model were longer than her hours as a lawyer ever were.

Pia Muehlenbeck was able to toss in her law career after teaming up with boyfriend Kane Vato to increase her online profile. She now boasts 1.7million followers

She and her boyfriend, photographer Kane Vato shoot the images, which can often take hours, before editing them and uploading them. Her many business deals also see her filming in the Showpo office on what appears to be a regular basis.

The model also works as a market editor for Grazia and has designed a luxury activewear line.

She and Mr Vato are now focusing on expanding their reach on YouTube, which involves even more hours filled with shooting and editing.

The Sydney-based star is often spruiking something, whether it's a holiday, a lifestyle or a product. She has previously noted her hours are longer than they were in her traditional career

Alex Hayes, who only finished high school in 2015, boasts a following of more than 500,000.

He rose to fame after he and his friends photoshopped a shark lurking just underneath his surfboard, Mashable reported.

The teenager lapped up the attention before revealing it was all a hoax.

In 2014, he says he was paid $5,000 by Nutri-Grain for helping boost their marketing campaign's hashtag #fuelon with some posts of him being active outdoors.

Teenager Alex Hayes shot to 'fame' after a picture of a shark swimming dangerously close to his surfboard went viral. The photo was revealed to be a hoax but his social media following stuck around

He received the money in return for 40 pictures, equaling $125 per post.

While those numbers are enticing, there is a science behind social media success which makes it much harder to achieve, especially in such a saturated market.

Andrew Green, director of marketing agency Konichigram told Mashable successful influencers must have at least 10,000 followers.

In addition, to capture a brand's attention, at least two per cent of those people must be interacting with posts, by either commenting on or liking the picture.

Pay day: The boy has done paid marketing for big brands such as Coca Cola and Nutri-Grain

Dr Toni Eager, a researcher based at the Australian National University, said there was a big difference between a traditional celebrity, whose personal life was often hidden away, and a social media star.

'On Instagram, what people are doing is leveraging the private life first,' she said.

'So where do they go from there in trying to separate the life people see on Instagram to their actual normal life?

'All of a sudden, people own your private life.'
Rita Gualtieri, 44, spent years losing more than 25 kilos after deciding to take control of her weight back in 2012.

But it wasn't until the Queensland native was at her 'fittest and healthiest', training six days a week at HIIT Australia and doing Muay Thai, that she felt a lump in her right breast.

'I got home from training one day and noticed it. I was trying not to freak out and just told myself to wait until I had it checked out,' Ms Gualtieri told Daily Mail Australia.

The journey so far: Rina Gualtieri lost 25 kilos only to put it back on again when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent intensive chemo

Aside from not being able to exercise while she was being treated, the 44-year-old found losing her hair to be the most painful part of the process

Less than 48 hours later Ms Gualtieri sat in front of her GP who almost 'cried when she read out the results'.

'I was booked in for an emergency surgery a day later and had a lumpectomy to have both lumps removed,' she said.

The 44-year-old also paid $4,000 to have an Oncotype DX done - an experimental US genome test that claims to be able to tell a patient what their best course of cancer treatment is. It's currently not covered by Medicare in Australia.

Before discovering she had breast cancer in 2015, Ms Gualtieri was at her 'fittest and healthiest' exercising up to six times a week

Her dogs Maxx & Milly (pictured) were a source of companionship during the lonely times

'Chemo is worse than the diagnosis so if anything could stop me getting it I was going to try. But the test was inconclusive,' she said.

'The worst part about hearing it was breast cancer is that they can't tell you how you got it. No one knows. So I had to get twelve weeks of chemotherapy.

Instead of wallowing in misery, Ms Gualtieri decided not to take the news lying down.

'I told myself this was my new challenge and I was going to do this the Rina way. So I cut my really long hair to my shoulder and fully prepared to lose it all,' she said.

Look how far she's come: The Queensland investigator lost 25 kilos after finishing the cancer treatment and now leads a happy and healthy life

After 12 weeks of chemo Ms Gualtieri underwent a further six weeks of radiation therapy which she said 'literally burnt a hole in her chest'.

Not only did she lose her hair during this time and spend New Years Eve of 2015 in the hospital, the 44-year-old gained all the weight she'd lost back from taking the steroids and medication to beat cancer.

'I was devastated. To go from such an active lifestyle to barely being able to move was so disheartening.

'Exercise wise I would do some swimming and walking but more often than not I was too sick to exercise,' she said.

During and after chemo: 'I was devastated. To go from such an active lifestyle to barely being able to move was so disheartening'

She was in hospital on New Years Eve one year but wouldn't let the treatment dull her spirits

She also noticed 'chemo brain' creeping up on her. As an investigator for the Queensland government, signs that Ms Gualtieri's memory was slipping became 'truly frightening' for her.

Ms Gualtieri said the power of 'mental strength' is what ultimately convinced her to stay strong.

'I kept saying this is only temporary and you can get through it all. Being able to train again bit by bit was empowering.'

The incredible transformation: During cancer (left) and after cancer (right) show the journey she has been on

She trains back at HIIT Australia in Queensland and feels stronger than ever

When given the all clear from doctors Ms Gualtieri started classes back at HIIT Australia who made major modifications to her sessions, even purchasing a four kilo dumbbell when the heavier weights proved too difficult for her to lift.

'Once you go through something like this you never go back to your old self again. You have to find your new normal. So I meal prepped to fill my body with good food and slowly built my strength up.'

Ms Gualtieri decided to go public with her journey because she didn't want other women to get complacent with their breast checks.

'Rina's Runners' will be walking in the Mother's Day Classic this May as part of a national move to fundraise for breast cancer research

'Even if I only convinced one woman to feel for lumps it would be worth it,' she said.

Two years later and the 44-year-old has once again lost all the weight she gained while undergoing treatment 'and more', with regular updates and transformation pictures posted to her Instagram account.

The inspirational Aussie will also be running in this years Mother's Day Classic which raises money for breast cancer research.

Her team is called 'Rina's Runners' and you can find her fundraiser page here.
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The blonde model pictured enjoying a boozy lunch with Prince William on a ski break in Verbier is a 'straight talking Aussie girl' with few inhibitions about showing off her body, according to a photographer friend.

Stunning Sophie Taylor was seen high fiving the second in line to the throne during a break from skiing in the upmarket resort in Switzerland.

But perhaps the prince, 34, would be surprised to learn that the 24-year-old Australian posed for a series of topless shots for photographer Glen Krohn when she visited the paradise island of Bali last year where he is based.

'Sophie is a great girl, a real down to earth straight talking girl from Oz,' said Glen. 'She would be very comfortable in the company of the royals even though I don't think she had met any of them before.

'Sophie would give as good as she gets and would be very confident in Prince William's company.'

Prince William has faced criticism after being seen partying with friends on a Swiss ski holiday while other royals were attending a Commonwealth ceremony with the Queen at Westminster Abbey over the weekend.

Photoshoot: Model Sophie, pictured above during a topless shoot she volunteered for, was pictured enjoying drinks with Prince William and his friends on the slopes of Verbier, Switzerland. She was joined by her boyfriend Aaron Goodfellow who said William was a 'great guy'

Bold: 24-year-old Sophie is working in hospitality for the winter season in Verbier, where she partied with Prince William and his friends, but also works as a model and shows 'no inhibitions' according to photographers who have worked with her

Beach babe: The striking blonde, who works at the popular apres-ski hangout, the Farinet nightclub, shares stunning pictures of her enjoying life by the sea, on the slopes, and in nightclubs. She was seen having beers with the Prince and his pals on the slopes of Verbier

Strike a pose: The fun-loving 24-year-old cavorts on the beach as she takes part in a topless shoot she volunteered for. Sophie is currently working in hospitality in Verbier for the winter season, where she met the prince. Her boyfriend Aaron is also in Verbier

Bombshell: Sophie Jean Taylor, a 24-year-old Australian model was photographed enjoying lunch with Prince William and his friends at the Swiss Alps over the weekend

Sophie visited Bali last November where she posed for fashion photographer Glen in a series of topless shots. He told MailOnline: 'Sophie is very confident about her body and has no inhibitions at all about posing topless.

'She was great to photograph and a real fun person to be around. I'm sure Prince William enjoyed her company. She is a great girl.'

Sophie told Glen she was planning to base herself in Verbier in December having landed a job in hospitality at the Fairnet nightclub in the centre of resort.

William and his three friends visited the apre-ski hangout where they are thought to have met Sophie and a blonde friend.

The two women joined William and his party for lunch at the mountainside restaurant La Vache which is known as one of the top dining locations in Switzerland.

Sophie had previously worked for the Chadwick modeling agency and photos posted on her social media showed her in various exotic locations. Glen,43, said Sophie will have been at ease in William's company.

'I'd never heard her mention anything about William or the royal family, but she would not be worried about meeting them. She is very down to earth and confident.'

He said when she was in Bali in November she was single but is now dating Aaron Goodfellow Prince William's weekend away came as other members of the royal family attended a service at Westminster Abbey to mark Commonwealth Day.

His absence from the important event has re- ignited jibes about the 'workshy' 34 year old failing to tackle royal duties. William returned to the UK on Monday after the four day jaunt with close friends Guy Pelly, childhood pal Tom van Straubenzee and close friend James Meade.

Partying: The stunning model went to Terrigal High School, on the central coast of New South Wales, before starting a number of degrees she has 'not followed through with'

Travel junkie: The next morning, Sophie posted a message to the Verbier Lost and Found Facebook page saying she had lost her phone during the night

Keen model: In pursuit of her modelling career, she was later signed by Australian modelling agency Chadwick Models - who 'dropped' her 2016

Natural beauty: She has also been photographed topless and in racy swimsuits in Bali for photoshoots, with one photographer, Glen Krohn, describing the model as 'down to Earth'

The morning after her night out, Sophie posted a message to the Verbier Lost and Found Facebook page saying she had lost her phone during the night.

The stunning model went to Terrigal High School, on the Central Coast of New South Wales, before starting a number of degrees she that she has stated on Facebook that she has 'not followed through with' in psychology and nutrition.

In pursuit of her modelling career, she was later signed by Australian modelling agency Chadwick Models - who confirmed to News Corp that they 'dropped' her from the agency in 2016.

A glimpse at the bombshell's Facebook page also offers an insight into her very glamorous lifestyle - from idyllic holidays to expensive resorts.

Over the past few years, Sophie has jetted around the world and lived it up across the United States, Asia and Europe.

Snaps show her looking playful on the beach and lazing by a private pool in Bali, as well as partying it up with her boyfriend in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Palm Springs and Tobacco Caye.

Sophie's exclusive workplace in Verbier, Switzerland, offers rooms that cost upwards of 340 per night (AU $549).

Living it up: A glimpse at the bombshell's Facebook page also offers an insight into her very glamorous lifestyle - from idyllic holidays to expensive resorts

Fancies a drink: Over the past few years, Sophie has jetted around the world and lived it up across the United States, Asia and Europe

Glamorous: Snaps show her looking playful on the beach and lazing by a private pool in Bali, as well as partying it up with her boyfriend in Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Tobacco Caye

She has also shared countless snaps of her partying it up with her friends on the slopes.

The resort is a popular spot for the royal family, so it is no surprise that the beauty, who is an avid skier, crossed paths with the Prince.

It is believed that he left his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, and their young children at home for the weekend jaunt, returning to England late yesterday afternoon.

On Sunday the group enjoyed a challenging day on the slopes, and a lazy lunch at mountainside restaurant La Vache, which is known as one of the best in Switzerland.

Exclusive: Sophie's exclusive workplace in Verbier, Switzerland, offers rooms that cost upwards of 340 per night (AU $549)

Warmer times: The resort is a popular spot for the royal family, so it is no surprise that the beauty, who is an avid skier, crossed paths with the Prince

Glam: On Sunday the group enjoyed a challenging day on the slopes, and a lazy lunch at mountainside restaurant La Vache, which is known as one of the best in Switzerland




It was the eerily fateful message Emma Carey will never forget.

The 23-year-old wrote 'If I die tomorrow I just wanted you to know...' in a text she was going to send to her ex-boyfriend a day before going skydiving over the Swiss Alps.

But she never hit send.

The following day Miss Carey 'fell from the sky' in a freak skydiving accident that left her paralysed from the waist down.

Emma Carey (pictured) has opened up about the strangely prophetic message she wrote a loved one the day before she 'fell from the sky' in a freak skydiving accident

'If I die tomorrow I just wanted you to know...' the 23-year-old started the text - which she deleted before sending

Miss Carey posted a picture to Instagram (left) to highlight how coincidental life can be

She posted a picture to Instagram telling her 70,000 followers about the oddly prophetic text.

'Flash forward 12 hours and there I was falling to the ground wondering how on earth I could have possibly felt too ashamed to tell someone I love them. Wondering how the eff I could have denied both of us such a beautiful thing.

'Wondering why I was only seeing one face when they say your whole life is meant to flash before your eyes. Wondering how I was going to die when my final thought before I hit the ground was "I wonder if they know I love them",' she wrote.

Miss Carey said she was 'haunted for the longest time' over not sending the message, particularly because 'her entire life could have turned out differently.'

Miss Carey said she was 'haunted for the longest time' over not sending the message, particularly because 'her entire life could have turned out differently'

'Since that day I have been completely honest with people and tell them exactly how I feel regardless of how insane I may seem. I promised myself I would do this because I know for a fact that no rejection or unrequited love could ever hurt as much as the regret of unsaid words,' she continued.

'If there's one thing you take from what happened to me, please let it be this... Tell people you love them, call someone you miss, kiss people with two hands, be unapologetically in love, catch a flight and say it to their face, press the send button on a risky text.

'Basically just be brutally honest with people while you have the chance. Sure things might not work out the way you want them to, but oh my god, imagine if they do.

'What if you're both missing out on a lifetime together just because you're too afraid to press send?

A real life miracle: The 23-year-old has since regained her strength can walk again

'Don't let this happen to you. Don't let fear get in the way of the truth. Don't let your final thought on this earth be... 'I wonder if they know I love them'.

'Tell them. If you're looking for a sign, this is it.'

It has almost been four years since Miss Carey's accident - which for a time left her paralysed but from which she incredibly trained herself to walk again. But adjusting to life since hasn't always been easy.

Ms Carey's parachute and emergency chute became tangled during the dive in 2013 and choked her instructor, who became unconscious. The subsequent free fall saw her land on her stomach with her instructor on top of her.

Beating the odds: A horrific skydiving accident left 23-year-old Emma Carey a paraplegic in 2013 - however, she amazed the doctors when she started walking just a year later

Her spine was broken in two places, her pelvis was shattered and spinal cord crushed. Later, she began physical therapy at a Sydney hospital.

Even though she amazed the doctors by walking less than a year after the accident, Ms Carey posted on Instagram explaining that adjusting to her new life was the main reason why she moved away from her hometown, Canberra, and set up home on the Gold Coast.

'I moved for so many reasons and to be honest they probably weren't the right ones,' she wrote.

Success: Ms Carey, originally from Queensland, is now hugely successful as a fitness guru (pictured) - she has nearly 70,000 followers on Instagram

Raw: Ms Carey is very honest on her profile - she recently penned a candid post about moving to the Gold Coast as she needed a fresh start

Achievement: After she had her accident in 2013, Ms Carey slowly started walking (pictured) - her story has inspired thousands all over the world

'After my accident, the place where I had spent my entire life growing up didn't feel like home anymore.

I would see the streets where I used to run and feel nothing but sadness, I would struggle to shower in my own home and think of how easily I could do it just months before

'I would see the streets where I used to run and feel nothing but sadness, I would struggle to shower in my own home and think of how easily I could do it just months before, I would go into the chemist where I worked for five years and buy enemas from my old friends, I would drive past the places I used to go with my boyfriend and wonder where he was now.'

According to the 23-year-old, the fateful parachuting accident made her feel 'detached' from her old life:

'It pained me every day to be in my old town and my old home when I was not the same person,' she said.

Not the same: After my accident, the place where I had spent my entire life growing up didn't feel like home anymore,' Ms Carey wrote in an Instagram post (pictured)

Detached: She said that she felt somewhat separate from her old life, and she added that she needed a 'fresh start' and a second chance somewhere else

New set up: And so, she moved to the Gold Coast; somewhere where she wasn't known and people were no longer aware of what had happened to her

Change: The 23-year-old's life changed after she jumped out of a plane in Switzerland during a European holiday with her best friend - she stayed in Swiss hospitals afterwards (pictured)

And so, Ms Carey moved to the Gold Coast.

'I guess you could call it running away, but I was running with a purpose,' she said.

She wanted to start 'fresh', where nobody knew her, and people wouldn't stop her in the street to commiserate about what had happened to her while on holiday in Switzerland:

'Now I get people stopping me saying: 'You are so strong, thank you,'' Ms Carey wrote.

'I've learnt that a bad situation has whatever ending you want it to.'

Fun: Since then, she has become a fitness guru, amassing a huge number of Instagram followers, who love her fun, candid posts (pictured)

Motivated: These days, according to Ms Carey, she is more known as the 'girl who fell from the sky', rather than 'the skydive accident girl'

Grabbing life: Ms Carey told Daily Mail Australia that she draws a lot of strength and support from her fans on Instagram

These days, Ms Carey's Instagram profile is testament to the fact that she loves her life once again, and grabs each opportunity that she can.

Having documented her recovery and journey to walking again late in 2013, she has built up followers all over the world who find her story one of inspiration, hope and defying the odds:

' Ever since I first began sharing my story and gaining a following on social media, I made a promise to myself to always be open and honest and always share both the good and bad ,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Recovery: Having documented her recovery and journey to walking again late in 2013, she has built up followers all over the world who find her story one of inspiration, hope and life

' My Instagram is basically a diary of all of my thoughts. People always ask me how I stay so positive despite what I've been through and the answer to me is obvious. What other choice is there?

'I realised pretty quickly after my accident that my injury was here for life, it didn't matter whether I was okay with it or not, I was going to have to deal with it either way. That's why I chose not to let it ruin me.
The Married at First Sight bride has been slammed on social media for not standing up to her sometimes tactless groom.

But Nadia held her own on Tuesday night, as she questioned husband Anthony's assumption that she would move to Sydney to be with him.

'Why me, why do I have to make the sacrifice?,' she demanded, after noting she held concerns about 'turning her life inside out for somebody'.

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Facing off: Tensions between Married At First Sight's Anthony and Nadia boiled over on Tuesday night, as they had a serious discussion about who would move interstate to save the relationship

The flight attendant had previously packed up and moved to Brisbane for a relationship, only for it to fall apart.

Nadia said the disaster has left her hesitant to do it again.

Anthony came back with a response indicating he was clueless as to what her issue could be.

'The prospect of moving my life's not that daunting to me,' he said.

'I've done it, I've lived in other countries... [if it goes wrong] you pick up your stuff and you move somewhere else!'.

Nadia was unable to laugh it off, and responded: '[That is] so much bulls***'.

Not holding it in: When Anthony tried to explain moving interstate was no big deal, Nadia didn't want a bar of it

'When it comes to building a relationship, I don't want it to be one sided,' she continued.

'I feel like that could very easily happen to you and me.'

Nadia's concerns weren't only about the prospect of moving interstate. Later, she told producers: 'I feel like he wouldn't change a thing for me'.

On the date, however, she continued to express her distaste towards the expected move, questioning the racing broadcaster's devotion.

'I just pack my bags and get on the next plane into Anthony's arms - is that how this works,' she challenged, as he stammered to find an answer.

Confused: As the flight attendant continued to explain why she was right to be concerned about making the move, her groom struggled for a comeback

Not enough: It appeared Nadia had finally found her inner strength, confirming to producers: 'I'm not moving for any less than love'.

It appeared Nadia had finally found her inner strength, confirming to producers: 'I'm not moving for anything less than love'.

The struggles continued for the fiery couple as they looked back on their wedding day videos, sent to them by the show's experts.

'It's weird looking back at the wedding,' the 36-year-old said.

'Seeing Anthony there, it's not the same Anthony sitting next to me... which I think is a real shame.'
She struck a tragic chord with the nation when she welcomed her newborn son, Eli, into the world last year prematurely, and was simultaneously diagnosed with breast cancer.

And now Elenor Tedenborg, 45, from Albury in New South Wales, has touched hundreds of people's hearts once more.

The mother-of-two shared a Facebook Live video from Albury Private Hospital having just undergone a double mastectomy.

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Elenor Tedenborg, 45, from NSW (pictured with her son, Charlie) recently gave birth to her second son, Eli, prematurely - she did this as she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer

The mother-of-two shared a Facebook Live video from Albury Private Hospital where she had recently undergone a double mastectomy

'Guess what?,' Ms Tedenborg said to the camera.

'They're [her breasts are] both gone - and it might sound bizarre but I'm really happy about that.'

Ms Tedenborg added that she hopes that this means that her cancer will not return.

While her doctors had advised her to begin with just a single mastectomy, they agreed to conduct the procedure on both breasts if her first treatment went well.

'I'm so grateful for all of the love... In this cancer journey, there are a lot of people involved,' Ms Tedenborg said.

'Your surgeons, your oncologists, your doctors. But one person we often forget is the partner - the partner who stands by you... and your family who is on the side and trying to help you as much as they can.'

While her doctors had advised her to begin with just a single mastectomy, they agreed to conduct the procedure on both breasts if her first breast went well

Ms Tedenborg also took the opportunity in the video to say thank you to her partner, Simon, and the rest of her family (all pictured)

Elenor Tedenborg was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, when she gave birth to Eli at 36 weeks.

Just one day after Eli returned home to the family, the 45-year-old began her chemotherapy in Wodonga hospital.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at the time, Ms Tedenborg said: 'Eli is a miracle and I feel so blessed being a mum of two beautiful boys.

'It really makes me realise that we need to slow down, go back to basics and appreciate the little things in life.'

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at the time of her diagnosis, Ms Tedenborg said: 'It really makes me realise that we need to slow down, go back to basics and appreciate the little things in life'

Ms Tedenborg, her partner, Simon Baylis, and their three-year-old son, Charlie, quit the rat race in Sydney in favour of a more relaxed pace of life in Albury two years ago (pictured, left in hospital and right: pregnant)

Ms Tedenborg, her partner, Simon Baylis, and their three-year-old son, Charlie, quit the rat race in Sydney in favour of a more relaxed pace of life in Albury two years ago.

When the new mother went on her second maternity leave, just six days in - on November 24 - Ms Tedenborg was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer in the breast and aggressive stage 3 in the lymphs.

Since that point, her best friend, Annika Enderborg, has set up a GoFundMe page for the family, as they fight the cancer together, with the help of friends and strangers.

The page currently has more than AUD $10,000 in donations.
She's a body positive advocate and has spoken publicly about acne in the past

It's all about how you stand and position your shoulders, said the blogger

photos of her breasts looking different in size

If you're in the market for a breast lift you might be able to ditch the expensive surgery and just position your body differently instead.

Australian Instagram fitness star Beck Jackson posted two photos side by side to her 160,000 followers that demonstrated the money-saving manoeuvre.

And apparently, it's all in how you push out your butt.

Mrs Jackson, who recently married her long-time partner Lindsay Jackson, provided intimate details on how to pull off the stance in the photo's caption.

'Believe it or not, my chesticles are the same size in both photos, but they look strangely huge in the photo on the left,' blogger Beck Jackson captured this image

The Instagram star, who has been candid about the fact she has had a breast augmentation, said the trickery is caused by the way her hips are pushing

She was just as surprised as her followers to see such a significant difference.

'Isn't it funny how certain angles/clothing/lighting can make our bodies look so different.

'Believe it or not, my chesticles are the same size in both photos, but they look strangely huge in the photo on the left.

Mrs Jackson, who has been candid about the fact she has had a breast augmentation, says that the trickery is all about which way her hips are pushing.

'I haven't enhanced them in that photo in any way it's just the way I'm standing. When I poke my bum out, bring my shoulders in, and put a bit of an angle into my stance it gives me a smaller figure (and bigger boobies obviously).

'When I angle my hips forward, push my chest out and stand with my legs closer together, it makes my body look less shapely and my boobs look less fake,' the blogger wrote

The Central Coast beauty has been very honest about her body in the past and how a look can be affected by filters.

'But when I angle my hips forward, push my chest out and stand with my legs closer together, it makes my body look less shapely and my boobs look less fake (yes they are fake for anyone who didn't know),' she wrote.

Mrs Jackson said the post to her post (pictured) was that 'angles are EVERYTHING'

The Central Coast native has been very honest about her body in the past and how a certain 'look' can be affected by filters and effects.

'My point to this post is that angles are everything. If I didn't have the same tattoo in both photos, would you believe it's the same person?

'People are always going to show their better sides with their better angles where they think they look slimmer and more appealing, I mean, I do it all the time, but this is why it's important to not compare yourself to photos you see on the internet of other people.

'You're comparing you as your normal self, to them as their best self. Do you see why that's silly? Filters, lighting, angles and poses can change the look of your body so easily, but it's not necessarily what you look like all the time.'

Previously, the social media influencer said that she wants to be real online

'Pimply, bleeding, sore face': The 22-year-old posted a photo showing her face without make up, and the acne she deals with

Rather than having flawless skin like you might expect, Mrs Jackson instead shares pictures of her 'pimply, bleeding, sore face'.

'My skin will always be a journey in itself, I don't think I will ever be one of those girls who feels completely okay without makeup, but that's fine,' she wrote next to one photo uploaded two weeks ago.

The fitness blogger, who is known for sharing photos of her toned bikini body and vegan food porn, told Daily Mail Australia she believes it's important to be 'real' online.

'My skin will always be a journey in itself': She said that she doesn't think she will ever feel okay without makeup

Mrs Jackson, who has more than 160,000 followers on Instagram, said that she wants to show she has flaws

'My skin is always something I try and talk about because Ive struggled with it for 10 years now,' she said.

'A lot of Instagram influencers have flaws but they don't show them. I want to be more relatable than that.'

Mrs Jackson says that she feels like sharing photos such as selfies without makeup on is important to keep yourself down to earth.

The 22-year-old said that she feels bad about herself when seeing certain social media stars who seem perfect

She said that she never wants young women to feel bad looking at her feed

Mrs Jackson said that she realises the impact Instagram can have on women's self esteem, and that she's experienced it herself.

'I personally struggle when I follow certain people, because you only see them with perfect skin and perfect hair and the perfect body,' she explained.

'It makes you feel bad about yourself, it can make young impressionable girls feel bad about themselves.
A couple claim to have become the target of cruel bullies who told them their baby girl will go to hell - all because her transgender father gave birth to her.

Dimitri Darden, 23, who was born female, decided to put his transition on hold when he learned his fiancee was unable to conceive, and gave birth to baby Senna in January after becoming pregnant by a sperm donor.

He and partner Candyce Creekmore, 32, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, are thrilled with their 'miracle' baby, but say they've been subjected to 'hurtful' taunts from strangers who told them their daughter is condemned to hell.

Dimitri Darden, who was born a woman called Tori, paused his transition to fall pregnant by a sperm donor and gave birth to baby Senna in January

The couple are thrilled with their 'miracle' baby, after Dimitri decided to pursue sperm donation upon learning that Candyce could not conceive

The couple, from Tulsa in Oklahoma, say online trolls have told them their baby will go to hell

'People have told us that the baby is going to hell - it's so hurtful,' said Candyce, who adds: 'I just don't understand what the big deal is.

'I want to open people's minds a bit more and to encourage people to do something similar.

Dad-of-two Dimitri, who has another daughter from a previous relationship, will continue with testosterone shots and is considering surgery to complete his transition once he finishes feeding Senna.

Carer Candyce learned she would not be able to conceive again due to complications from an earlier pregnancy

Candyce, a carer, and Dimitri, a carpenter, say their new baby daughter is a 'miracle'

The Oklahoma couple knew one another when Dimitri was still Tori, but only fell in love after he began living as a man

'It was all Dimitri's idea,' Candyce said.

'He wanted to carry the baby and now we have this beautiful little girl.

'He doesn't let what other people say bother him.

'We've just had a baby and it is such an amazing thing that it was even possible,' she said.

'When we were told that I couldn't get pregnant he stopped the transition. I cried for about two hours because I couldn't do it myself - I don't remember that day a lot.

'I didn't expect it to happen this way but it's a miracle.'

Candyce was straight before falling for her now fiance after he began living as a man

The couple say they struggle to understand 'hurtful' comments from strangers about Senna

Father of two Dimitri had a daughter from a previous relationship before giving birth to Senna

Carer Candyce, who has two other children from a past marriage, couldn't conceive due to complications from a previous pregnancy.

The couple met in 2011 when Dimitri was still known as Tori, but it wasn't until 2015 that their relationship became romantic when he began life as a man.

The 23-year-old carpenter had been on testosterone for eight months, and living as Dimitri since 2013.

He stopped to get pregnant via a sperm donation in June 2016.

Candyce said: 'It all happened really quickly. We were together for about a year and we decided we wanted to have another baby.

'We were friends first. I always identified as a straight female and I fell in love with him as a man.

'When we first met he hadn't come out as transgender yet and that was six years ago, we were friends all the way up until I had to move away for a while.

'When I returned in 2015 my friends told me that Tori was now a guy - I thought my friends were playing a trick on me.

Carpenter Dimitri says he is happy to have another baby girl to 'watch over and protect'

Baby Senna was born in January after her transgender father fell pregnant by a sperm donor

'Tori and Dimitri are two different people. I wasn't attracted to females and I never even considered it. Then I met Dimitri and he was this amazing person, there was a big difference.

'Tori was more shy and not very confident. He is now more outspoken. He's the life of the party and it has given him a lot of confidence.'

Mum-of-three Candyce said that although they have experienced nasty comments, they also had a lot of support from friends and family.

Candyce said: 'We have some good friends that have been supportive through this whole journey - we've really only lost one friend.

'Some of his family members were not okay with the decision and it annoyed him that they would be against us having the baby.

'Regardless, he's an amazing daddy and is so good with her.'

Dimitri said: 'I love being a daddy and having another baby girl to watch over and protect.'
The latest series has been plagued by questions over the lack of female contestants in the latter stages, but last night there was only one issue on people's minds.

Notorious contestants Sophie Rudd from Warwick University came face to Edward Monkman of Wolfson College, Cambridge and fans were thrilled by the showdown.

Rudd has won a legion of fans throughout the series with her quickfire answers, while Monkman has regularly trended on Twitter, thanks to his intense delivery and facial expressions.

Fans of the pair jokingly likened their battle to Ali versus Fraser and the film Sophie's Choice where Meryl Streep has to opt for which one of her children to save.

Edward Monkman of Wolfson College, Cambridge has delighted fans with his intense delivery and resemblance to Corrie's Roy Cropper

Sophie Rudd from Warwick University has won legions of fans by enthusiastically shrieking an answer and her love of colourful blouses

Back in February, Rudd became a show icon after enthusiastically shouting out the answer to a question that took her team into the lead to win the competition.

When asked by Jeremy Paxman who directed the film 'M', she enthusiastically shrieked: 'Fritz Lang'.

Fans also rushed to the student's defence after she was subject to cruel jibes about her gender on previous appearances.

Those who taunted her taste in brightly coloured blouses and suggested she was transgender were quickly slammed for being 'ignorant' by a legion of supportive viewers.

Viewers likened the Rudd versus Monkman face-off to famous bouts in sporting history

Fans were delighted by the showdown and declared the two contestants had made it the best series ever

Since first appearing on the show back in September, Canadian-born Monkman has been hailed a 'hero of our time' thanks to his evangelical preacher-style bellow.

Fans also love his habit of gritting his teeth, not to mention his resemblance to Roy Cropper from Coronation Street.

And his quick fire answers triumphed over Rudd's last night, with Wolfson College beating Warwick 205 points to 175.

Monkman's habit of gritting his teeth has turned him into an unlikely hero among fans of the show

Fans have previously rushed to Rudd's defence after she was on the receiving end of cruel jibes about her gender

The show pits some of Britain's brightest students against each other in the popular quiz show that has run since 1962.

The rise of social media has seen some of the contestants reach instant - if not momentary fame - as people have taken to Twitter to comment on everything from their eyebrows to their question-answering.

Earlier this year, Hannah Woods, captain of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, won fans thanks to her rather unique eyebrow.

Monkman fans will get to revel in more of his intense facial expressions as his team is now through to the semi finals

Canadian born Monkman bears a striking resemblance to Corrie's Roy Cropper, according to fans

The arch is her brow proved so popular that it garnered two twitter parody accounts and even a marriage proposal.

The bemused student said at the time: 'It's absolutely bizarre! I do just have a naturally asymmetric face.

'But I think it's quite funny that people think I'm being terribly arch.'
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The Countess of Wessex received a warm welcome on a visit to a primary school in Malawi today.

A shy little girl clinging to her mother's skirts was among those who turned out to greet Sophie at the Chisuwe Primary School, eventually reaching out to take the Countess' hand in response to her friendly wave.

The Countess, who is in east Africa in her role as vice patron of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, wore a white midi-length skirt, a simple navy top and flat shoes to see the work being done to end avoidable blindness in the Kasungu district.

Prince Edward's wife, 52, was also greeted by dancers in elaborate masks, and laughed with pupils as she toured a classroom at the school.

The Countess of Wessex is in Malawi to see the work being done to end avoidable blindness

The Countess waves to a shy little girl clinging to her mother's skirts in the east African country

Sophie wore a simple white midi length skirt, nude flat pumps and a short sleeved navy top

Sophie is in Malawi to witness the impact of efforts to put an end to avoidable blindness and to champion youth leadership in the region.

She visited an educational programme at Chisuwe Primary School, and met with a family that has been affected by trachoma in their home.

Trachoma is a bacterial infection of the eye that causes the inside of the eyelids to roughen, and can eventually lead to blindness.

The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust is working to eliminate blinding trachoma.

The Countess smiles for a photo next to a man in an elaborate mask in Malawi today

The Countess' casual attire was in contrast to the eye-catching pink dress she chose to attend a reception at the British High Commissioner's residence in Lilongwe last night.

The Countess looked radiant in a long-sleeved rose-pink dress which she teamed with pale pink kitten heels to mingle with dignitaries at the party.

Today she took a more low key approach, with the only accessories to her simple outfit a plain clutch bag and a pendant necklace.

The Countess took a more casual approach yesterday after dressing up in a striking pink dress to attend a reception last night

A positive message was emblazoned on the blackboard in time for the Countess' visit

Sophie, 52, was given a warm reception by schoolchildren at Chisuwe Primary School in the Kasungu district

Sophie then chatted with the school children in their classroom

The Countess accesorised her outfit with pearl earrings and a pendant necklace. Her hair was swept up in a chic updo

Sophie also met with a family affected by trachoma in their home

The Countess looked grave as she spoke to a woman whose family was affected by trachoma

The Countess emerges from the home of the family blighted by trachoma

Locals performed a dance for the Countess during her visit

Sophie greeted a delighted woman with her child

The Countess washed her hands using a makeshift water fountain

Sophie took in the scenery this afternoon as she was accompanied by officials

Sophie smiled as a child played with her silver pendant as she greeted locals

The Countess observed activities underway between The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, the Malawian Ministry of Health and the International Coalition for Trachoma Control to eliminate blinding trachoma
Married At First Sight Australia's groom Jesse opened up his heart to his bride by likening their next stage of their relationship to a door.

But it seems the heartfelt letter for Michelle has been slammed in his face.

Viewers took to social media on Tuesday night to point out the only door the stunning blonde would be walking towards is the exit.

During their final date, the pair set sail around the harbour shortly before Jesse unfolded a handwritten letter to read to the 31-year-old.

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Married At First Sight's groom Jesse opened up his heart to his bride by reading her a letter

Ouch! Viewers took to social media on Tuesday night to point out the only door Michelle would be walking towards is the exit

'I have seen the door and, for me to walk through it, I need you to find it and walk through it with me,' the retail worker read to his bride.

'And if you were to find the door that I have found and allow yourself to walk through it, this could be a relationship that lasts a lifetime.

'I'm just hoping you find the door like I have.'

Michelle struggled to work up a genuine appreciation for the letter, telling her groom: 'Thank you for that letter, that's really nice'.

But his letter with the overuse of the metaphor has been met with ridicule on Twitter after the outpouring message earned him just a kiss on the cheek.

The 31-year-old blonde struggled to work up a genuine appreciation for the heartfelt letter

Smitten: Jesse poured his heart out to the blonde by reading her a letter he had penned for her

Awkward: Jesse's letter was with ridicule on Twitter after Michelle showed no signs of interest

'Jesse I think the door she is look for is the one marked exit,' El Capitan said.

Jake Lynch wrote: 'Jesse reading that letter hurt my door. I mean head.'

Roxy Restored post: 'Oh no... he's (butchering) reading the letter out. Cringe. Something about a door...'

KheShan Gronow said: 'Can we please get #findthedoor trending?'

Dr Adrian Raftery wrote: 'Sorry Jesse. This is the [exit] door that Michelle will find.'

And Samantha Prior posted: 'Oh bless. Jesse I think that door is gonna hit you on the a** on your way out... She's not interested at all.'
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark looked sleek in a black blazer and patterned pencil skirt as she attended a conference for brain awareness this week.

The Tasmanian-born princess wore a patterned Hugo Boss skirt and a sleek black blazer at the function which aims to raise awareness for global brain research.

The princess smiled as she strutted into the conference with her Carlend of Copenhagan clutch firmly gripped in her hand.

Crown Princess Mary arriving for a lecture at the Copenhagen University to begin the Brain Aware Week

The princess' red nails added a burst of colour to her outfit

The Tasmanian-born princess also wore a striking Hugo Boss skirt to the event

She wore sheer black tights and L.K. Bennett pumps on the day - choosing to match her sleek look with pearl earrings and a pearl ring.

The royal's red nails added a burst of colour to her otherwise black and white outfit.

The princess' hair was out and slightly curled on the day - and she wore a big smile as she made the appearance alone.

Recently the princess appeared in a timeless grey dress with a bright white Peter-Pan collar and slimming black belt.

The princess' hair was out and slightly curled on the day - and she wore a big smile as she made the appearance alone

She wore sheer black tights and L.K. Bennett pumps on the day - choosing to match her sleek look with pearl earrings and a pearl ring

The Danish Royal has been keeping busy over the past month.

Most recently, she has both attended the Old Town Museum exhibition opening and presented the 2017 Danish Cancer Society's Honorary Award.

She and her husband, Prince Frederik, also took some time off from their royal duties to enjoy a ski holiday with their young family in the Swiss Alps.
A 791lb man who sought comfort in food after the death of his mom vows to lose weight after he is unable to get out of bed and go to the hospital with his ailing father.

A preview clip from Wednesday night's episode of the TLC reality series My 600lb Life sees James, 46, from Paducah, Kentucky, confined to his own bed and feeling utterly helpless when is dad has to call an ambulance for himself.

'When I am stuck in this bed and something happens to my dad, it makes me very mad that I can't get up. I want to be there for him,' he explains.

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Hard times: James, 46, from Paducah, Kentucky, weighs 791lbs and is confined to his bed

Struggling: James feels utterly helpless when his father has to call an ambulance for himself because he can't get out of bed to help him

James overeating spiraled out of control when he was a young following the death of his hard-drinking mother.

Although he was always overweight, became super-morbidly obese - a classification that is given to those with a BMI of 50 or greater - after he suffered an ankle injury that kept him off of his feet.

Now that he is in his mid-40s, Hames suffers from an extreme case of cellulitis  a common, yet potentially serious bacterial skin infection that appears as a swollen, red area of skin.

James is unable to move his legs, let alone stand or walk, and he is heartbroken that he can't help his father during his time of need.

Scary moment: James' father tells the emergency medical technicians that he feels dizzy and nauseous when he stands up

Something serious? The dad is taken away in a stretcher, but James is unable to go in the ambulance with him

The preview clip for the upcoming episode sees James on the phone, explaining that 'something ain't right' with his father.

While James is stuck in bed, his father is sitting on the couch and speaking with the emergency medical technicians who came to his aid.

The father explains that he feels dizzy and nauseous when he stands up, and James can tell that there is something really wrong with his father.

'My dad is my rock,' James tells the camera. 'This is my worst nightmare come true. My father needs me, and all I can do is sit there.'

While his father is being put in an ambulance, James calls one of his relatives, but the person hangs up on him when he is unable to explain what is wrong with his dad.

Upset: James is angry that he is unable to get out of bed and be with his father

Stressful situation: James calls one of his relatives, but the person hangs up on him when he is unable to explain what is wrong with his dad

Motivation: James says seeing his father sick makes him want to get out of bed and lose weight

'I know my daddy. He wouldn't have gone in if he didn't think something was wrong because he is stubborn, and I know him,' he says.

James admits that his 'chest is hurting', and he gripes that he 'hates not being able to get out of the damn bed'.

'Seeing him get sick makes me want to get out of this bed and get this weight off of me,' he says. 'I want to be there for him like he has been for me.'

After years of being a prisoner in his double-wide trailer, James hopes to qualify for weight loss surgery, so he can get his life back.

However, its unclear if he will be able to survive the trip to Houston, Texas, and lose enough weight to qualify for surgery before his body shuts down.
When a food blogger and TV foodie show host is pregnant, 'eating for two' is no amateur business.

Eden Grinshpan, a Brooklyn-based blogger, Instagrammer, and Cooking Channel host, is expecting her first child next month  and if anything, pregnancy has only upped her eating game.

This week, Eden won over impressed Instagrammers with a video of herself dancing around with her third-trimester-baby-bump hanging out  and a cheeseburger in each of her hands.

Eating for two! Eden Grinshpan has shared photos and video of herself enjoying food while pregnant

Baby wiggle: Fans are loving a video of her dancing with Shake Shack burgers in her hands

In a clip posted from her home on Sunday, Eden  who hosts the Cooking Channel show Eden Eats and Top Chef Canada  is seen wearing sweatpants and a black T-shirt rolled up to expose her large belly.

Ed Sheeran's song Shape Of You plays and she begins to dance, pulling her hands out from behind her back to reveal two cheeseburgers from Shake Shack.

She continues to dance as she takes a bit of one burger, shimming and showing off the other.

Yum! She's shared similar pictures of herself eating a box of doughnuts from Dough

Doing it right: She's also changed her hashtag from #EdenEats to #EdenEatsfor2

During her pregnancy, she has been updating her go-to #EdenEats hashtag to #EdenEatsfor2.

And while fans loved her dancing video, they've also fallen for snaps of the New York mom using her growing bump as a surface for more food.

Just before posting the clip, she shared a photo of herself lounging on her side on a couch, stuffing two stacked burgers into her mouth. In front of her, boxes of Shake Shack fries sit, while more fries are piled on her bump.

In a week-old photo, she's pictured with a box of Dough Doughnuts in her lap, one in each her hand, and another on her belly.

Food lover: Eden host a show on the Cooking Channel as well as Top Chef Canada

Documenting: This her first child, and she's been showing off her pregnancy cravings and belly on Instagram

'If you don't use your belly as a plate... you're doing it all wrong,' she wrote.

And in yet another snap from two weeks ago, she lounges with a box of pizza in front of her, a cheese slice in one hand, a pepperoni slice in her mouth, and three plain pizzas stacked on her belly.

Most people have found the shots endearing, noting that they, too, expected to be just like Eden when they get pregnant.
Its the little things that count. Greatness is in the details. These wise words hold true in so many areas of life, from family to health to personal finance.

It also holds true for government finance. Here, the little things, those obscure accounts tucked away in Washingtons cobwebby corners, can swell into some very big, very bad things.

One such obscure account is the judgment fund.

The judgment fund is a little-known account within the U.S. Treasury Department. Created more than 60 years ago, its used to pay certain court judgments and settlements against the federal government. Most Americans have never heard of it. Though rarely seen in headlines, this one account pays out billions of taxpayer dollars each year.

This fund does not fall under Congresss annual appropriations process. That is, the Treasury Department has no binding reporting requirements. Money from the Judgment Fund is paid out with scant scrutiny, and theres no limit on how much money can flow from it.

In government, thats never a good thing.

In 2016, the Obama administration used the judgment fund to deliver $1.3 billion to Irans Central Bank. Ransom for American hostages was coordinated with this payment. The Obama administration also considered bailing out failing Obamacare insurance companies with funds from this unlimited pot of money.

The lack of oversight of the judgment fund is bad enough. Abuse of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is even worse. In the case of the Iran deal, the Obama administration delivered cash to a regime that actively supports terrorist groups, some of which, like Hezbollah and Hamas, have killed Americans.

This is why I have reintroduced two bills to promote transparency of this fund and strengthen oversight of taxpayer dollars.

The first is the Judgment Fund Transparency Act. I first introduced this bill in the 113th Congress, then again with Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner in 114th Congress. In 2016, we were successful in getting it passed in the Senate as part of the Energy Policy Modernization Act. Unfortunately, the Energy Bill did not reach a consensus with the House before the end of the last Congress.

We are bringing it back now.

The Judgment Fund Transparency Act would require a public accounting of taxpayer funds distributed to parties that bring successful claims against the federal government. Specifically, it would require the Treasury Department to post publicly the claimant, counsel, agency, fact summary and payment amount for each claim from the judgment fund.

I have also joined my colleague from Oklahoma, Sen. James Lankford, to reintroduce another bill: the Judgment Fund Transparency and Terrorism Financing Protection Act.

We first introduced this bill last year, after journalists discovered the murky money the Obama administration had paid to Iran. Our bill would require that information on payments for domestic or international court judgments be made public. Through this more-tailored effort, we aim to prohibit taxpayer-fund payments to foreign nations that sponsor terrorism.

This was good policy in 2016; we are continuing these same efforts in the new Congress.

These bills call for an increase in transparency and oversight of the judgment fund. They would provide members of Congress and hardworking Americans with the ability to see exactly how taxpayer dollars are being spent. With a new president and new Congress, I am hopeful that these common-sense, open government measures can become law.

Congress has a responsibility to ensure citizens hard-earned dollars are used responsibly. With these bills, Congress has a chance to pay attention to the obscure, forgotten things in government. Like many so-called little things, they can become far bigger problems down the road.
She is currently basking in the success of her new womenswear label.

And Samantha Cameron looked every inch the fashionista as she stepped out in London on Tuesday night wearing one of her own designs.

Dressed in a khaki belted cocoon coat from Cefinn, the former Prime Minister's wife certainly turned heads at the launch of the new book London Uprising at auction house Sotheby's.

The 390 utility-style coat has recently sold out according to Cefinn's website, with Mrs Cameron's designs already flying off the shelves.

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Samantha Cameron, 45, wears one of her own designs - a 390 khaki cocoon coat - for the launch of the new book London Uprising at Sotheby's on Tuesday night

Smiling for cameras, Mrs Cameron, who is mother to Nancy, Arthur and Florence, with husband David, rubbed shoulders with fashion royalty at the event including Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net-a-Porter - one of her brand's stockists.

The 45-year-old teamed her coat with a teal leather cross-body bag, a pair of black cigarette pants and pointed court shoes.

Mrs Cameron, who previously worked for British leather brand Smythson, unveiled her debut clothing line in an interview with Vogue in November following months of speculation.

Dressed in a khaki belted cocoon coat, the former Prime Minister's wife teamed her outfit with a leather cross-body bag, cigarette pants and pointed stilettos for the event

Mrs Cameron, who is mother to Nancy, Arthur and Florence, rubs shoulders with fashion royalty at the event including Natalie Massenet, pictured, the founder of Net-a-Porter

She recently spoke about the grief of losing her first child, Ivan, who was born with a severe form of epilepsy and cerebral palsy and died shortly before his seventh birthday in 2009.

The family now spend their time between homes in Notting Hill, west London, and Oxfordshire, where Mr Cameron served as MP for Witney for 15 years.

Mrs Cameron, who worked for Smythson while he was PM, has this year launched her womenswear label, Cefinn - named after the initials of her four children.
Former Miss Universe Australia Rachael Finch gave birth to her second child, a son named Dominic, just two weeks ago.

And on Tuesday, she took to Instagram to share her struggles with her newborn and his insatiable appetite.

In a video story, she described her Monday night as 'challenging to say the least'.

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Sleepy: Rachael Finch shared her struggles with constantly breastfeeding her newborn on Tuesday

'Little one wanted to feed pretty much every two hours on the dot,' she told followers.

'Thats probably one of the hardest parts of the newborn phase, for me at least, is the lack of sleep.

'You never really reach that deep sleep but it is the most magical time in the whole wide world.

Hungry boy! The former Miss Universe Australia revealed her two-week-old son Dominic was feeding 'every two hours on the dot'

Supportive: Rachael ended the video by extending a supportive olive branch to her mum followers

She then extended an olive branch to the other mothers that followed her, telling them she was there for them.

'I wanted to let all my beautiful mummas out there know that you have support at all times from myself,' she said.

Rachael and her husband Michael Miziner also have a daughter named Violet, aged three.

About a month before giving birth to Dominic, the 28-year-old spoke about her changing experiences with pregnancy.

Different: Last month, the mother-of-two spoke about the differences between her two pregnancies, revealing she had morning sickness for 'four months straight' with her son

'It's so different and I didn't expect it to be so different,' she told Thinkergirl: The Podcast.

The former Dancing With The Stars contestant explained how she had only '10 days of morning sickness' with Violet and has had 'four months straight of morning sickness' with her second baby.

'Think about a disgustingly long haul flight from somewhere like LA, with food poisoning,' she exclaimed. 'That is it, for 24 hours a day.'
With spring nearly sprung, now is the perfect time to make the most of the new season by swelling your larder with food from the wild.

Despite not sounding like the most appealing way to whip up your dinner there are plenty of edible plants available in the British countryside that you can work up into some wacky combinations - from stinging nettle pizza to gorse flower and wood sorrel salad.

Chefs long ago woke up to the trend for foraged food, with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall launching his TV career with A Cook on the Wild Side, featuring such delights as barbecued squirrels and sauteed rooks.

Fancy trying barbecued squirrels or sauteed rooks? FEMAIL reveals how to give your health and wallet a boost by foraging for your meals this spring (stock image)

Just remember to always abide by the Countryside Code and ask the landowner's permission when harvesting plants.

You should also only take small amounts, as being too greedy can deprive animals of food and upset the delicate woodland ecosystem. Also, if you are unsure of the identification of a plant, then it is best to leave it as many are toxic.

STINGING NETTLE

The leaves lose their sting when cooked and are perfect for a wide variety of dishes.

You can whizz them up into a soup, press them into a cordial or deep fry them to create a snack that tastes similar to crispy seaweed.

RECIPE: STINGING NETTLE PIZZA Add something other than oregano to your pizza with this fresh new ingredient Wash 4oz of nettles in tap water and then chop them up while wearing gloves. Cook the nettles in a pan with garlic and butter for five minutes until they have wilted. Drain the nettles, return to the pan and mix with oil, pepper and chilli. Scatter the nettles over a pizza base with some cheese and cook for 15 minutes on a high heat. Advertisement

WOOD SORREL

The leaves and stem on this plant have a lemony flavour that goes well in salads or as a garnish to other dishes.

The leaves can also be brewed into a tea, best served sweetened with honey. Wood sorrel is usually found in shady woodland.

ELDERFLOWER

You can make a cordial fairly easily at home by collecting flower heads that have just opened and soaking them in a concentrated sugar solution. This can be served diluted with sparkling water.

Wood sorrel (left) has a lemony flavour and can be added to salad or brewed in a tea and gorse flowers (right) has a similar function

GORSE

This hardly plant can grow virtually anywhere, but is particularly common in building sites or coastal paths where the ground has been disturbed.

The flowers, which appear all year round, can be put in salads or used to make herbal tea.

DANDELIONS

The leaves and flowers can be washed and served up fresh in a salad.

If you are feeling more adventurous, then dry the roots and ground them to make an alternative to coffee. However, they do not contain caffeine.

RECIPE: DANDELION SALAD Simply chop up some dandelion leaves and mix with rocket, adding a sprinkling of spring onions and dill. Garnish with dandelion flowers and add olive oil and vinegar to taste Dandelion leaves act the same as any other salad leaf and make a much cheaper option Advertisement

LIME FLOWER

The blossom of the lime tree can also be dried and used to make herbal tea. This has been popular since the Middle Ages, when it was taken to aid perspiration.

Leave to infuse for five or so minutes for a fuller flavour.

Lime flower can be used to make a herbal tea and has been used for this since the middle ages

Chickweed has high levels of calcium, magnesium and iron and can be used in soups, sandwiches and salads

CHICKWEED

The fresh growth at the top of the chickweed plant can be used in soups, sandwiches and salads.

It is also very nutritious, with high levels of calcium, magnesium and iron.

WILD GARLIC

This plant carpets native woodland in England all year round, and is easily recognisable by its smell.

You can use the leaves, stems and flowers in the same way as normal garlic or grind it up into a soup.

RECIPE: WILD GARLIC SOUP Wild garlic soup is positively brimming with flavour so be sure to add it to your lunch time repertoire Chop up 2 potatoes and an onion and cook in butter over a medium heat for 15 minutes. Add 4 handfuls of wild garlic stalks and cook for a further 15 minutes. Two minutes before taking the saucepan off the heat, add chopped garlic leaves. Whizz up and serve with the garlic flowers as a garnish. Serves 5. Credit: Greencuisine Trust. Advertisement

PRIMROSES

The flowers and young leaves can be added as a garnish to salads. As with all wild foods, it is essential to identify the plant correctly.

The leaves of the primrose bear a passing resemblance to the foxglove, which can cause death if consumed.

SEA KALE

A member of the brassica family, sea kale is less well known than its land-based cousin, but similarly tasty boiled or steamed.

However, the plant takes a long time to establish and is relatively scarce so conservationists recommend only picking very small amounts.

Sea kale is less well known than its land-based cousin, but similarly tasty boiled or steamed

Hedge mustard has a peppery punch and can be added to salads, though it is advised that leaves are cut into small pieces due to their coarse nature

HEDGE MUSTARD

With a peppery punch, this plant is a tasty addition to salads, although you should cut the leaves into small pieces as they can be quite coarse.

The plant was once used as a medicine for its anti-microbial qualities.

MALLOW

The flowers will not appear until June, but until then your can add the leaves to salads or dry them to make herbal tea.

The plant is used in herbal medicine for its anti-inflammatory, diuretic and laxative properties
Say 'fish and chips' to anyone around the world, and they'll immediately think of Great Britain.

But a new BBC series has revealed that the main element of this takeaway staple is not actually British in origin.

Fried fish was in fact brought over to the UK by immigrants more than 150 years ago.

Fish and chips is one of Britain's favourite takeaways, with 10,000 fish and chip shops across the UK

The surprising revelation was uncovered on The Best of British Takeaways, which begins tonight at 7pm on BBC Two.

Historian Denise Phillips tells co-presenter Cherry Healey that Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe brought to Britain the recipes for fried fish in the early to mid 1800s.

They then started to open 'fried fish warehouses' - a term mentioned in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, published as a serial between 1837 and 1839.

Cherry Healey explores the history of fish and chips on the first episode of Best of British Takeaways tonight

The history of fish and chips It's thought the first fried fish warehouse to serve fish with chips was opened in Bow, London, in 1860 by Joseph Malin - a Jewish immigrant from eastern Europe. But some say the pairing was the brainchild of entrepreneur John Lees in 1863, who had a fish and chip hut in Lancashire. Regardless the combination was a hit with Victorian England and by 1910, there were 25,000 fish and chip shops across the UK. Advertisement

Phillips said 'thousands' of Jews fled to Britain at this time to escape persecution, mostly from Russia or other parts of eastern Europe.

But interestingly enough, the Jewish traditional dish of fried fish was at that time served cold as it was cooked on Friday night before the Sabbath started - when cooking was forbidden.

Back then, the fried fish was coated in breadcrumbs rather than batter.

Healey explained: 'Batter became more popular when fried fish took off commercially.'

'What began as a humble immigrant dish has become a national takeaway favourite.'

The Best of British Takeaways, presented by Cherry Healey and Tom Kerridge, begins tonight at 7pm on BBC Two.
Soul midwifery care is used to ease people's dying days

Colin Barber takes great comfort in the fact that his terminally ill wife, Valerie, was able to die peacefully in her own bed.

On Tuesday, September 1, 2015, ten days after she had been discharged from hospital, Valerie, who had bile duct cancer, took her last breath at home in their bedroom  'exactly as she had wanted, with her father and me on each side of her bed, gently holding her hands', recalls Colin, 56, a business psychologist.

It was, he says, as serene a death as it could have been.

Yet it was nearly so very different. Instead of spending her last few days in peace at home, Valerie, like many patients, could have ended up being rushed to hospital and dying on an anonymous, noisy ward.

But she was one of the lucky ones: she was able to plan for her last days and ensure her wishes were adhered to, thanks to an award-winning new approach to end-of-life care known as soul midwifery.

The idea is that, just as a birth midwife helps to ease a baby's entry into the world, a 'soul midwife' eases people's dying days.

It is a cruel failure of modern medicine that while the vast majority of people  eight out of ten, according to the Office for National Statistics  want to die at home with their symptoms controlled and their loved ones around them, nearly half actually die in hospitals. Only one in five gets to die at home.

And just how ghastly dying in hospital can be was set out in a report by the British Medical Association published last March.

Based on interviews with more than 500 doctors and patients, it painted a grim picture of patients being given 'entirely inappropriate invasive treatments', and junior doctors often too fearful to provide adequate pain control.

Pressure on beds can mean dying patients are 'shuffled between wards', preventing continuity of care, while single rooms are prioritised for patients who pose an infection risk, so the dying rarely get privacy. The NHS failure to provide a dignified, peaceful death was highlighted this month by a study published in the BMJ's Palliative and Supportive Care journal, which identified a postcode lottery in specialist palliative care.

As a result of this, patients are far more likely to be rushed to A&E at the end of their lives than to die pain-free, in peace, at home.

NURSES HAVE NO TIME TO CARE

The BMJ report followed a recent survey of almost 1,000 hospital nurses in which two thirds revealed they didn't have enough time to care properly for dying patients.

Such is the concern that patients are being failed, that last week the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) re-published guidance on end-of-life care first issued to doctors in 2015.

This restated four essentials: the need for doctors to draw up a care plan, provide individualised symptom control, monitor patients daily and ensure adequate hydration. Most people, says Professor Gillian Leng, deputy chief executive of NICE, receive good end-of-life care 'but this isn't always the case'.

End-of-life champion: Felicity Warner established soul midwifery in 2004

Good care involves asking people about their preferences as well as controlling pain, adds Sam Ahmedzai, a retired professor of palliative care who worked on the latest NICE guidance.

Yet a recent study showed that only one person in seven who could communicate their desires had those wishes documented.

This is far from a new problem. Ten years ago, a major report, the End of Life Care Strategy, featured an innovative plan to end the situation where 'most people would prefer to die at home while only a minority manage to do so', as then Health Secretary Alan Johnson put it.

Along with improved palliative care, the plan involved healthcare practitioners working harder to 'identify people approaching the end of life and discuss with them their needs and preferences'.

DOCTORS CAGEY ABOUT THE TRUTH

Ten years on, although there has been a slight improvement (back then nearly six out of ten people were dying in hospital) there is still 'a long way to go', Claire Henry, chief executive of the National Council for Palliative Care, told Good Health this week.

So why is it still proving so difficult to get things right?

'Some deaths happen suddenly, out of the blue, while with some patients it's difficult to be sure whether they are dying or will recover,' says Professor Ahmedzai.

'That's why we say that every patient in the last days of life should be monitored daily in case there have been changes and there is a chance of recovery.'

Research shows that, in fact, in four out of five cases GPs can predict which of their patients will die within the next 12 months. And three out of four deaths are anticipated by medical teams, according to NICE.

Professor Ahmedzai says: 'We should be asking anyone admitted to hospital with a serious illness about their preferences for where and how they wish to die, should that look likely. But doctors often don't because they are embarrassed or just too busy to handle that conversation. It can't be an excuse. We must make time for the dying.'

Indeed, a major problem is that too often, dying patients simply are not told what their doctors know. Sometimes this is because doctors are unwilling to discharge patients so they can die at home because effectively 'such a decision can be seen as an acceptance of failure', the recent BMA report noted.

Research shows that in four out of five cases GPs can predict which of their patients will die within the next 12 months

Certainly, no one told Valerie or Colin that she was dying.

The banking relationship manager from Brentwood, Essex, had cancer diagnosed in 2013, two weeks after her 50th birthday, after noticing that the whites of her eyes were yellow.

Her GP referred her for an MRI scan, which revealed a large tumour wrapped around her bile duct.

She had surgery to remove part of her liver along with the gall bladder and bile duct, followed by three months of chemotherapy.

'After the treatment we began to be optimistic that she was recovering,' says Colin. But in October 2014 a scan identified nodules of cancer in the liver, too scattered to be removed surgically. In August 2015, Valerie took a sudden turn for the worse and had to be admitted to hospital.

'We'd just come back from holiday, when she'd canoed 15 miles down the River Severn,' recalls Colin. 'Then one day she woke up so weak she could barely stand.'

Even so, 'it didn't occur to me that she was gravely ill,' he recalls. 'No one at the hospital mentioned the word 'dying'.'

Valerie's discharge from hospital three days later depended only on a physiotherapist checking that she could walk upstairs, which the couple took to mean she was on the mend.

'But looking back on it, her doctors must have been aware that she was dying,' says Colin. Not least because the next day, after an appointment with the cancer specialist, she was referred to hospice care.

It was not her doctors but Valerie herself who first put what was imminent into words. 'Back at home, Valerie told me she was dying and I had to accept it,' recalls Colin. That was when she asked him to be her soul midwife, ensuring her dying days were as she wanted them.

CARERS TO EASE THE LAST DAYS

Soul midwifery is a unique approach to end-of-life care.

In the words of Felicity Warner, the woman who founded it, 'just as a birth midwife ensures a safe delivery into this world, the soul midwife's role is to do the same for the dying, to make a good death possible, a dignified, peaceful and even enriching experience'.

Ms Warner says the role of the soul midwife is to make dying 'a dignified, peaceful and even enriching experience'

This means 'providing comfort, continuous support and reassurance'  in practice, after a terminal diagnosis, this involves helping to support the patient as they make an end-of-life plan.

In the final stages the soul midwife might sit by the dying person, holding their hand, playing soothing music and burning appropriate oils. Krista Hughes, a soul midwife based in Chertsey, Surrey, works privately in people's homes but is often called to a hospice, she says, to work with those with 'terminal agitation'.

It is a term recognised by clinicians and often managed with sedatives, but as a soul midwife, she prefers gentle breathing, maintaining eye contact and softly repeating the person's name.

The work of soul midwives was recognised when Felicity Warner was named 2017 End of Life Care Champion by the National Council for Palliative Care and the Royal College of Nursing. The seed for soul midwifery was planted more than 20 years ago when Felicity, now 58, was working as a journalist and interviewed several women dying of breast cancer.

The women told 'how lonely it felt to be dying despite their medical care and their families around them'.

Not only were their doctors and nurses too busy to talk about death and dying but, surprisingly, Felicity found the women were becoming increasingly distant from friends and family who couldn't cope with the reality and masked it with platitudes such as: 'You'll be feeling better soon.'

Researching how people died before the rise of modern 'curative' Western medicine, Felicity found a range of practices 'that had in common the fact that they respected the act of dying as a sacred time'.

She established soul midwifery in 2004, and has since trained 600 soul midwives  many already have a health practitioner qualification  with an initial three-day course, followed by an apprenticeship lasting around a year.

Qualified soul midwives' costs are in line with local rates for services such as counselling, though many also work as volunteers at hospices or use the qualification to help care for a terminally ill relative.

Valerie herself had attended a three-day soul midwives' course shortly after recovering from the cancer surgery in August 2014.

'It was something she thought she would like to do one day when she was stronger,' recalls Colin.

So when Valerie told him she thought death might be near, he asked if she wanted him to contact the organisation to arrange for a soul midwife to visit.

Instead, she told him to read her copy of the soul midwives' handbook so he could take on the role.

Just as a birth midwife ensures a safe delivery into this world, the soul midwife's role is to do the same for the dying

For Colin, this meant as well as ensuring Valerie's comfort, he was her gatekeeper.

While many people want strong intravenous pain control in their last days, Valerie didn't  'she wasn't in much pain and wanted clarity of thought to the end, yet it took time and effort to stop the palliative care team administering the sedatives,' says Colin.

'I had to contact Valerie's GP and get him to approve her decision, then inform the hospice nurses.'

Three days before she died, the couple celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary. 'We wrote cards for each other and exchanged presents. The next morning, Valerie told me she had stayed for our anniversary and now she was ready to go. It was her time to die.

'She had told me she wanted to imagine she was floating away on a boat and asked me to play soothing background music. I lit candles and used essential oils.

'She had also warned me that the last sense to go would be her hearing, so I read prayers and spiritual affirmations.'

Soul midwifery will not be for everyone. But Colin is in no doubt that it helped Valerie to a comfortable and tranquil death.

'Of course I longed for a last-minute reprise, a miracle recovery that would keep her with me. But I recognised that Valerie knew what her body was telling her, and did my best to concentrate on our time well spent together. I'm certain she knew that, and appreciated it.'

The Soul Midwives' Handbook by Felicity Warner costs 14.99. Visit soulmidwives.co.uk. Marie Curie support line: 0800 090 2309.
Active: Suzi Quattro exercises five times a week

Can you run up the stairs?

Yes, no problem. I jog, go to the gym or do yoga five times a week. When Im touring, carrying a bass guitar weighing nearly as much as me, wearing hot leather, and jogging across the stage for two hours is enough exercise.

Get your five a day?

Definitely. I could live on vegetables. My favourite meal is vegetable pasta or Caesar salad.

Ever dieted?

No. Im disciplined. If I go to the cookie jar, Ill take one, whereas my husband (concert promoter Rainer Haas) will have four or five. Im 5ft 2in and weigh about 8st 2lb.

Any vices?

Yes, if you call liking a glass of wine or champagne at the end of the day a vice.

Any family ailments?

I inherited low blood pressure from my mother. If Im crouching down and get up too quickly, I sometimes feel faint.

Worst illness or injury?

In 2012 I was returning to the UK from a gig in Kiev and fell boarding the plane, breaking my right knee and left wrist. When I got to the UK, I went to hospital and they put my knee in a straight cast, but it should have been slightly bent. A surgeon had to break the bone again and re-set it.

Pop any pills?

When I suffer from jet lag I take melatonin [a hormone the body releases when its time to sleep]. If Im on a crazy schedule Ill take a Temazepam tablet to help me sleep.

Had anything removed?

A birthmark on the left side of my nose a few years ago.

Any phobias?

Flying. Funny since I take more than 80 flights a year.

Is plastic surgery for you?

Yes, Id have it if I really thought I needed it. Mind you, I have a fear of needles.

Is sex important?

Absolutely. It doesnt matter what age you are.

Suzi pictured in her younger days with her bass guitar. She describes herself as 'the eternal optimist'

Ever been depressed?

Not really. Im the eternal optimist. I face bad and frustrating news like everyone, but then move on.

Hangover cure?

I rarely have one. Hangovers are natures way of teaching you a lesson: dont drink so much!

What keeps you awake?

Online Scrabble. My guilty pleasure is playing it in bed. Sometimes Ill play 25 games simultaneously.

Like to live for ever?

No, but certainly for a long time.

Legends Live Tour 2017, featuring Suzi Quatro, David Essex, The Osmonds and Hot Chocolate, starts on October 13. Visitlegendslive.org
Learning to stop repetitive brooding on problems can lift people out of depression, a scientific study has found.

While it may seem a simple solution, helping sufferers to stop thinking over the same problems led to significant improvements in their mental health.

Professor Roger Hagen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said the approach was remarkably successful in a study of a treatment called meta-cognitive therapy (MCT).

Learning to stop repetitive brooding on problems can lift people out of depression, a scientific study has found

The method is similar to mindfulness techniques, encouraging patients to let go of thoughts entering their minds, without dwelling on them.

The experiment looked at 39 people suffering from depression, divided into two groups  one receiving MCT, the other untreated for ten weeks.

Six months after the trial, 80 per cent of the MCT group had achieved full recovery from their depression diagnosis, the researchers reported.

Professor Hagen said: The relapse rate in our study is much lower  only a few per cent.

He added that depressed individuals dont need to worry and ruminate and just realising this is liberating for a lot of people.

'Some people ruminate because they think going over a problem again and again will lead to a solution.

Professor Hagen said: Some people experience their persistent ruminative thinking as completely uncontrollable, but individuals with depression can gain control over it.

MCT, developed by Professor Adrian Wells at Manchester University, differs from one of the main approaches used by the NHS called cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which involves challenging negative interpretations of reality.

Professor Hagen said CBT may encourage the depressed person to address the content of their thoughts, but this can lead to them dwelling more.

Experts from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said encouraging sufferers to stop thinking over the same problems led to significant improvements in their mental health

Depression affects nearly one in six in the UK. Treatments include anti-depressants and talking cures such as CBT. Some NHS trusts offer mindfulness-based stress reduction, similar to MCT.

Professor Hagen said: The patients come in thinking theyre going to talk about all the problems they have and get to the bottom of it, but instead we try to find out how their mind and thinking processes work.

You cant control what you think, but you can control how you respond to what you think.

Asked whether the approach was similar to the Bobby McFerrin song Dont worry, be happy, he said it was more a case of Dont ruminate, be happy.

He added: As the Beatles song goes, Let it be. If you let your thoughts be, they will disappear.

Stephen Buckley, of mental health charity Mind, said: Its important people with depression are supported to find the right treatment for them, and having the broadest range of therapies available helps We would welcome further research that looked at longer-term outcomes.
Long before experts began parroting about getting five a day, an equally insidious mantra entered my head: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

As a child, I followed this religiously  easy to do when growing up in Kents fruit-growing belt, where I spent summer holidays picking apples. I liked the taste of them and, on the farm, they were free.

How was I to know I was condemning myself to years of misery?

When I think back to my youth, one thing above all sticks in my memory: the bloating. While to everyone else, I looked thin, they werent seeing what I saw. I looked down at my expanded belly and felt enormous. How could I eat more when I felt stuffed to the gunwales?

Sixty per cent of us cannot properly digest the sugar in fruit

When I was 14, my mother took me to a doctor, who got me to lie on a couch, squeezed around my midriff and decided that I didnt have a blockage in my bowels. Just a bit of colic, he suggested.

That bit of colic stayed with me for years, until, in my 20s, I finally asked: Why is it I feel worst after eating an apple? I had been having them nearly every day, and noticed on days I didnt, there were no symptoms. Applying the logic, I gave them up and immediately felt less bloated. But things didnt clear up completely.

Sometimes, I could eat all kinds of food without ill-effect; other times, it felt like my guts had turned into a microbrewery  one huge hissing, fermenting mass. At these times, I often felt a strange sense of gloom for several hours.

Always a bit of a hypochondriac, I developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of illnesses such as bowel cancer and coeliac disease.

Yet they all seemed to have serious symptoms I didnt have: I never felt ill, just full of wind. I thought maybe I was eating too quickly, so avoided curry and gassy beers. I wondered about oranges, as they often had a slight laxative effect. But then, I didnt have the same problem with grapefruit, which I thought of as pretty much the same fruit, only a bit less sweet.

'Sometimes, I could eat all kinds of food without ill-effect; other times, it felt like my guts had turned into a microbrewery'. Picture posed by model

It wasnt until 18 months ago, aged 48, when I woke up in the night belching after a dinner of pasta and tomato sauce that I decided I must solve the problem once and for all.

After yet another trawl on the internet through the usual inflammatory bowel diseases I always found, on an American website there was a condition that even I, as a seasoned hypochondriac, had never come across: malabsorption of fructose.

What caught my eye was its association with apples. But it wasnt just apples. Fructose is a natural sugar that occurs in most fruit and vegetables.

The body will try to absorb the sugar in the small intestine  but while some people are capable of doing this, many others struggle.

U.S. studies show 50 per cent of the population is unable to absorb 25g of pure fructose in one go  the sort of quantity you would find in a couple of apples.

Meanwhile, 80 per cent are unable to absorb 50g. Any fructose not absorbed in the small intestine passes into the large intestine where it ferments, producing gas.

Fructose is poorly absorbed by most of us, says Peter Whorwell, a professor of medicine and gastroenterology at the University of Manchester. Despite this, a lot of people can eat fruit without any problem  but if you have a particularly oversensitive gut, it will result in a lot of gurgling. This is due to wind moving in the gut.

The good news is that fructose is more easily absorbed when eaten with glucose. Peaches and grapes have a balance of 50 per cent fructose and 50 per cent glucose, and I can happily eat these. But others, such as melon and pineapple, like apples, contain more fructose than glucose and so cause me problems.

After finding a list of foods that contain more fructose than glucose, I decided to go a week without eating them. This included pears, mangoes, fruit juices, dried fruits  which have very high levels of fructose by weight  and honey. Some foods and sugary drinks use fructose-based sweeteners, but since I ate few processed foods anyway, I didnt have to worry about these.

Sad though I was to give up various foods, including a 30-year currant bun habit, the change was remarkable. Currants might be tiny, but the sugars in them are very concentrated. Within 48 hours, I felt, for the first time in my adult life, that the bloating had gone entirely.

My stomach was flatter than I could ever remember it. I kept expecting to suffer from wind at any minute, but didnt. Gone, too, was the sense of gloom that had accompanied my bloating.

For a condition I had never heard of, malabsorption of fructose is very common.

About 60 per cent of people have been shown to have a problem absorbing fructose, but not all will suffer symptoms, says Dr Ayesha Akbar of the British Society of Gastroenterology.

The fructose to glucose ratio in apples is higher than any food commonly eaten in Britain

I also discovered why I felt so gloomy. Malabsorption of fructose can induce a low mood as it interferes with the bodys production of serotonin, a chemical that induces a sense of wellbeing.

Serotonin is produced from an essential amino acid called tryptophan, says Dr Akbar. Too much fructose in the gut prevents the take-up of tryptophan by the body, and makes less serotonin as a result.

A week later, I ate an orange as an experiment  with the same effect as before. I had some peas, and the wind returned.

Armed with knowledge of the fructose and glucose content of food from foodintolerances.org, I made a list of three groups of foods: those I could eat with impunity, those to eat only in small amounts and those to avoid.

In the latter group are apples. Their fructose to glucose ratio is higher than any other food commonly eaten in Britain  topped only by mango, also banned, along with orange juice and melon.

I can, however, eat small quantities of apple cooked with sugar, as it reduces the ratio.

Now I see why I can eat grapefruit without any problem, but not oranges: the former has a better fructose to glucose ratio. Bananas are OK, but not every day.

Tomato juice has a higher fructose to glucose ratio. This explains why pasta sauce, with concentrated tomato juice, left me in agony. I can, however, eat the odd fresh tomato.

Some veg, too, can cause problems as they have high levels of fructans  sugars with a slightly different structure to fructose, but which have the same effect. Leeks, one of my favourites, I eat only in moderate quantities.

Ditto peas, green beans and cabbage. But I eat masses of salad with no problem, so I am not going to go short of vitamins.

So, where does this leave all the dogmatic advice telling us to eat more fruit and veg? This is the issue with one-size-fits-all health advice  everyones guts are different, says Professor Whorwell.

For some people, eating five fruit and vegetables a day is a good thing; but for others, three a day might be better. I have seen people who are eating five a day and suffering, so they then start eating seven a day, thinking that will make them feel better  and it just makes the problem worse.

Its a question of trial and error to see what affects you. If you have an uncomfortable tummy, its very important to have it checked out. But if nothing serious has been found, then its worth asking whether the problem is too many fruit and vegetables.

It is sad that I will never bite into a Coxs Orange Pippin ever again. And before English Apples & Pears (the trade association to promote English growers) writes in to complain, there are, of course, millions of people who can enjoy apples without ill effects.

But I do wish I had discovered long ago what was causing my belly to swell up like a Zeppelin.
Children who spend hours staring at smartphones have a raised risk of type 2 diabetes, experts have warned.

Youngsters who look at screens for more than three hours a day are fatter and have greater insulin resistance, a study found.

The findings applied to TV, tablets, mobile phones and computers, suggesting millions of children are at risk.

Youngsters who look at screens for more than three hours a day are fatter and have greater insulin resistance

COUCH POTATOES BY AGE SEVEN It's often thought that children dont begin to turn into couch potatoes until they are in their teens, after more energetic early years. But now a study suggests that physical activity may start tailing off when they are as young as seven. The authors of research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine examined data from around 500 youngsters. They had taken part in a study that gathered data on physical activity levels among children aged seven, nine, 12 and 15 between 2006 and 2015. Physical activity levels were measured using a small lightweight portable monitor worn for five to seven days at a time. Overall, the total volume of physical activity fell from the age of seven onward in both boys and girls, with the decline no steeper during adolescence than in earlier childhood. The study suggests that total volume of physical activity is already declining by age seven years in the UK, the authors wrote. Advertisement

Under-fives in Britain spend four hours and 11 minutes on average in front of electronic screens. Children aged five to 15 spend five hours and 33 minutes a day gazing at gadgets, according to communications watchdog Ofcom.

The latest research, by St Georges, University of London, suggests this behaviour is contributing to a worrying rise in diabetes.

There are four million people with diabetes in the UK, which costs the NHS nearly 10billion a year.

Type 1 diabetes is not affected by lifestyle and is not preventable.

Type 2 usually occurs when fat content in the body becomes so high that it stops insulin maintaining a normal blood glucose level. This often happens when someone has been overweight for a long time, which is why it usually does not strike until middle age.

Diagnosis of diabetes has risen by 60 per cent in a decade. To explore the increase, experts monitored 4,500 children aged nine and ten at London primary schools.

Those with more than three hours screen time a day were already showing warning signs of type two diabetes, according to the study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal.

There are four million people with diabetes in the UK, which costs the NHS nearly 10billion a year

Compared with those who spent less than an hour a day in front of screens, they had 3.3 per cent more body fat and 10.5 per cent higher insulin resistance.

The researchers wrote: Our findings suggest that reducing screen time may be beneficial in reducing type 2 diabetes risk factors, in both boys and girls and in different ethnic groups from an early age. This is particularly relevant, given rising levels of type 2 diabetes, the early emergence of type 2 diabetes risk, and recent trends suggesting that screen time related activities are increasing.

Dan Howarth, head of care at Diabetes UK, said type 2 diabetes in children is increasing at an alarming rate and should be of concern to everyone.

He said: As a nation, we should all encourage physical activity rather than a sedentary lifestyle for children and adults alike.
City-dwellers should stock up on B vitamins, experts claim.

A new study suggests that the supplements may play a critical role in reducing the devastating impact of air pollution.

In a trial on humans, scientists found just small doses could offset the deadly damage caused by tiny, toxic particles.

Experts believe the findings could have a significant public health benefit in heavily polluted cities across the world.

A new study suggests that B vitamins may play a critical role in reducing the impact of air pollution on humans

The World Health Organization estimates that 92 per cent of the world's population currently live in areas where pollution exceeds safety guidelines.

Considered the most dangerous form, PM2.5 includes various toxins like sulfate and black carbon.

These can penetrate deep into the lungs or cardiovascular system as a result of breathing them in.

Previous research has shown there to be no 'safe' level for humans, and long-term exposure is known to reduce life expectancy.

It is believed that they cause health damaging epigenetic changes - mechanisms that can switch genes on and off.

And the new study, published in PNAS, shows that the tiny particles can switch off cells in the immune system, the BBC reports.

In a trial on humans, scientists found just small doses could offset the deadly damage caused by tiny, toxic particles (stock)

The researchers, from Columbia and Harvard universities, used volunteers who were aged between 18 and 60 who were deemed medically healthy.

They were either given a placebo, or a supplement containing 2.5mg of folic acid, 50mg of B6 and 1mg of vitamin B12.

Wearing a facemask, the patients were exposed to particles from a heavily trafficked street in Toronto. Blood samples were also taken.

Study author Dr Jia Zhong, from Harvard University, said: 'The health effects of air pollution and how it plays a role in one's health raise many complex issues.

'Until we can attack the problem on an individual level we are a long way from fully tackling its challenges for the public's health.'

However, the scientists were keen to point out that further research is needed to validate the findings, especially in heavily polluted cities.

Professor Andrea Baccarelli, of Columbia University, said: 'While emission control and regulation is the backbone of prevention, high exposures are, unfortunately, the rule still in many megacities throughout the world.

'As individuals, we have limited options to protect ourselves against air pollution.'

Dr Pixie McKenna, who worked on hit TV show Embarrassing Bodies and currently practices on Harley Street, commented on the study findings.

Dr McKenna, who is also Superdrug's resident doctor, said: 'You might think there is only one vitamin B but there are actually 8 different types - that's why you hear people use the term vitamin B complex.

'B vitamins are fat soluble so our bodies don't store them. They are important for cell metabolism, are involved in the production of red blood cells and are an integral part of a healthy nervous system.

'This interesting recent research study has suggested they may even help to reduce the impact of air pollution.

'Whilst this study indicates a possible link between the vitamins and air pollution I would still tread cautiously about making grand assumptions when it comes to B vitamins.'
GPs are failing to diagnose patients with early dementia despite a major Government drive to improve detection rates, research shows today.

Experts say there is a reluctance amongst doctors to tell patients they have the disease as nothing can be done.

Other GPs are thought to be sending patients away telling them their symptoms are nothing to worry about, and a normal part of growing old.

But the findings by University College London academics are particularly worrying as ministers are trying improve early diagnosis rates as part of a key strategy to make dementia a national priority.

Failings: Experts say there is a reluctance amongst doctors to tell patients they have the disease as nothing can be done.

Launched under David Cameron in 2012, the Dementia Challenge aims to detect the illness as promptly as possible to enable patients to be offered drugs to slow the progression.

The Government has also doubled its research funding to 66 million a year in the hope of finding a cure for dementia by 2025.

In the first study of its kind, researchers assessed whether encouraging patients to see their GP with early symptoms improved diagnosis rates.

They looked at 14,558 patients at 22 GP surgeries based in North and East London, Hertfordshire and Essex.

Half of practices sent leaflets and personal letters to all patients over 70 urging them to see their GP if they had any confusion or forgetfulness.

Surprisingly although this resulted in many more patients booking appointments, it did not improve GPs diagnosis rates.

Incentive: The shocking findings emerge despite the government's Dementia Challenge, which launched in 2012 under former Prime Minister David Cameron

Researchers believe that many of these patients were sent away by doctors who either dismissed their symptoms or believed a diagnosis was pointless.

Professor Gill Livingstone, the psychiatrist who led the study, said she was surprised at how many families were struggling to get a diagnosis.

WHY IT IS SO VITAL TO KNOW THE TRUTH There is no cure for dementia but for certain types, such as Alzheimers, patients can be given drugs that reduce some symptoms and restore memory loss temporarily. However, these only work if given in the early stages. Although a dementia diagnosis is devastating for patients and their family, it reduces the sense of anxiety and uncertainty. Patients often feel empowered once they have the diagnosis and can plan for the future, both financially  for example by making a will  and practically, by arranging care, although they may have to fund it themselves. The diagnosis also allows relatives to provide extra support as patients with the early symptoms can be extremely vulnerable. They have to write their pin numbers down, or they may leave hobs on after cooking, posing a fire risk. Advertisement

There are an estimated 850,000 adults in the UK living with dementia but as many as one third have never been diagnosed.

This is expected to rise to one million adults by 2025 and two million by 2050, with the increase driven by the aging population.

Professor Livingstone  whose study is published in the journal PLOS Medicine  said: What I suspect is going on is that patients were coming forward at an earlier stage but GPs didnt change their practise.

We think there are three different reasons.

There are some GPs  only a minority  who think that if dementia isnt curable then its not worth knowing about. But diabetes can't be cured, yet we don't stop treating it. Others think patients don't want to be told they have dementia. But an early diagnosis has so many benefits.'

She said the third reason was that waiting times for memory clinics which diagnose the illness were too long  so GPs thought it wasnt worthwhile even referring them.

But she stressed there were so many benefits to diagnosing the disease early.

Patients can be given drugs which can control some symptoms and temporarily halt the decline in memory loss. It can also enable families to plan for the future and arrange extra support for their loved ones.

Statistics: There are an estimated 850,000 adults in the UK living with dementia but as many as one third have never been diagnosed

Patients with the early symptoms can be extremely vulnerable as they have to write their pin numbers down or may leave hobs on posing a fire risk, she said.

Dr Matthew Norton, Director of Policy at Alzheimers Research UK, said: It is disappointing that this trial did not achieve the results the researchers hoped for, and it will be important for future studies to explore alternative approaches to improving timely diagnosis.

These results suggest that to increase timely diagnosis, both GPs and patients may need targeting with information about dementia and the importance of a diagnosis. We know how challenging it is to diagnose dementia, particularly as the symptoms overlap with other health conditions, and research is crucial to improve diagnosis.

TOO MUCH SLEEP COULD BE DEMENTIA Sleeping for more than nine hours a night could be an early warning sign of Alzheimer's disease. Scientists last month found people who consistently spend this long in bed are twice as likely to develop dementia over the next decade. A change in sleep patterns is a red flag for Alzheimer's as it shows the brain, which controls wakefulness, has suffered damage. Researchers from Boston University Medical Center also found those who slept nine hours or longer also had smaller brain volumes, took longer to process information and showed signs of memory loss. Advertisement

We must continue raising awareness and investing in research if we are to offer doctors better tools to make an accurate diagnosis of dementia, and make a difference to peoples lives.

Dr James Pickett, Head of Research at Alzheimers Society, said: Its positive to see that encouraging patients worried about their memory to visit their GP actually does empower them to do so.

Unfortunately the study doesnt tell us why GPs did not refer more people for further investigation. GP practices and memory clinics need to work collaboratively to ensure people with complex cases are referred where necessary.

A timely diagnosis is extremely important so people with dementia can access the right information, support and treatments, and begin to plan for the future.

In 2014 the NHS launched a controversial scheme whereby GPs were given 55 for every new case of dementia picked up, to improve diagnosis rates. But this was scrapped the following year after campaigners condemned it as unethical.

Dementia detection rates have improved since the start of the Governments strategy and around two thirds of patients are now diagnosed. But the majority only find out they have the illness in the moderate or advanced stage, when very little can be done.

If diagnosed early, patients can be offered drugs such as Aricept or Exiba which can temporarily slow its progression.
Britain's leading private rehab hospital The Priory has been declared unsafe in a damning inspection report.

Patients on suicide watch are not properly monitored and there are not enough staff to provide safe care, the Care Quality Commission said.

Children and teenagers with eating disorders are at particular risk, with 95 incidents recorded among this group in the last six months alone, at least some of them during understaffed shifts, inspectors reported.

The private facility in south west London was ordered to make urgent improvements, with inspectors rating the safety of care as 'inadequate' - the lowest possible ranking.

Overall, the hospital was given a grade of 'requires improvement'.

The mental health hospital, which has treated celebrities including Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Robbie Williams, offers private patients an on-site restaurant and a gym with a personal trainer.

The mental health hospital, which has treated celebrities including Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Robbie Williams, was given the lowest possible ranking

But the CQC said it had failed to meet basic requirements such as providing enough nursing staff.

In some parts of the hospital nurses are not able to see all parts of the ward - a particular problem for patients at suicide risk.

The report said: 'The hospital environment, particularly on the acute wards, remained unsafe, due to poor sight lines, ligature anchor points, and access to vacant corridors and staff offices.'

A CQC spokesman said: 'Staff at the hospital had not taken sufficient action to reduce these risks.

'Although the hospital had introduced "safer rooms" to accommodate patients presenting a heightened level of risk, these were not yet completed to full specification.'

Priory Healthcare, which runs the hospital, said it was 'disappointed' the regulator decided to inspect its facility part-way through a 1.2million improvement programme.

But CQC argued that the hospital was not even providing safe levels of staffing to meet the needs of their patients.

The report said: 'There remained high vacancy rates for nurses across the hospital and particularly on the eating disorder service.

Patients on suicide watch are not properly monitored and there are not enough staff to provide safe care, the Care Quality Commission said (pictured from its grounds in Roehampton)

'This resulted in high use of bank and agency staff and there were also a significant number of shifts with below safe staffing levels.

'Records indicated that there were more incidents on shifts with insufficient staff on Priory Court, the eating disorders unit for children and adolescents. There had been 95 incidents on Priory Court in the six months prior to the inspection.'

Dr Paul Lelliott, the CQC's deputy chief inspector for mental health, said: 'The hospital must ensure it can meet the needs of patients they choose to admit whilst improvements to staffing and the environment take place.'

Dr Sylvia Tang, chief executive of Priory Healthcare, said: 'Roehampton is a safe hospital providing high quality care and treatment and we remain fully committed to making improvements for the benefit of all of our patients.

'Our 1.2million improvement programme at Roehampton is being led by a new management team and includes trialling a state-of-the-art patient monitoring system.

The hospital environment, particularly on the acute wards, remained unsafe, due to poor sight lines, ligature anchor points, and access to vacant corridors and staff offices Care Quality Commission inspectors

'It is disappointing that we have been re-inspected part-way through this programme when there were works in progress which have now been completed.

'Similarly, we question CQC's findings in relation to staffing - our rotas show that appropriate staff-patient ratios have been maintained and, over the last year, we have reduced the vacancy rate for nurses by more than 50 per cent, despite a national shortage of nurses.'

Inspectors also criticised the common practice of restraining patients, a tool that had been used 236 times in six months.

They wrote: Restraint of patients took place in full view of other patients. We saw many patients looking bewildered at witnessing restraints taking place.'

Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary Norman Lamb said: 'I am horrified by the heavy use of physical force and of restraint in front of other patients.

'I issued guidance when I was minister encouraging a substantial reduction in the use of force and an end to face-down restraint. It is wholly unacceptable that the use of force remains endemic in the system.

'There should be the same level of scrutiny for private healthcare providers as there is for state institutions.

'This is an incredibly important principle, especially for providers such as the Priory who are taking on a growing number of patients despite staff shortages.'

For confidential support call the Samaritans in the UK on 116123.
The growing monkey menace in the national Capital has forced hospitality establishments, lush farmhouses and even gated housing communities in tony localities to employ langurs to keep primates away from their premises.

Animal activists claim that the 'illegal' use of langurs as a deterrent to their smaller simian counterparts is rampant and organised gangs are behind it.

These 'service- providers' cater to farmhouses, plush bungalows, hotels, RWAs, societies, factories and even government offices in Delhi and NCR, they said.

A langur outside a five-star hotel in Delhi - the animals are increasingly being used for protection

The langur is listed under Schedule-II of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and under the IPC animal cannot be owned, traded, bought, sold or hired out. Any violation of this law entails a three-year jail term or a fine or both.

But Delhi-based animal activist Abhinav Srihan recorded statements of guards manning hotels and farmhouses in south Delhi's Chhatarpur in which it emerged that they were openly flouting rules and hiring langurs.

Srihan, who is founder of animal welfare NGO, Fauna Police, made these recordings public on Facebook and claimed that organised gangs have kept langurs in captivity for renting them out at a hefty fee.

Hospitality establishments, farms and gated communities are said to be employing langurs from organised gangs to keep monkeys away from premises

The process is only encouraging trafficking of animal as more and more people are renting langurs to keep monkeys away.

'Delhi lacks rescue facility and this is state subject. Wildlife department has only two inspectors and rescued animals are left to jungles of Asola where there are no fruit-bearing trees.

'Finally, rescued langurs are again caught of their traffickers and are pushed back into the business,' said Sukanya Berwal, who had conducted several raids for rescue of the animal and reported to cops and wildlife body for action.

Mail Today also did a reality check by posing as RWA president to call up one Shahid Khan, who provides a 'langur service' to many farmhouses in Chhatarpur.

Khan said he has been catering to over a dozen locations in south Delhi and charges between Rs 8,000 and Rs 15,000 per month depending upon the size and location of a premises.

When Mail Today questioned about the legalities of keeping the animal, Khan said: 'You just need to tell the cops that there is monkey menace in your locality, the rest will be taken care by our men.'

Monkeys in Delhi are becoming an 'increasing menace'

He gave assurance that nobody will interfere as Delhi is too big for cops and wildlife bodies to take action.

While the business of providing langurs with a caretaker is flourishing in Delhi, there is little being done on ground by the authority.

Langurs tied to a long rope and prodded to chase away monkey hordes was once a common sight in Delhi buildings and most government building in NDMC area used to hire langurs.

But in 2012, the Ministry of Environment and Forests wrote to all departments to tell them that owning, buying or hiring out of langurs was an offence punishable under the law.

The guidelines say even langur handlers can face prosecution.

'Even those hiring the animal can be prosecuted as they become an accomplice to the crime,' said Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder and CEO of Wildlife SOS.

His organisation is actively involved in rescuing and rehabilitating the animals but claims that the rate of prosecution is slower than the rate at which the illegal trade is increasing in Delhi and NCR.

Terming the situation 'grave', Satyanarayan said: 'We must look at a long-term solution for this problem. Dependency of monkeys on human settlement is increasing as we create food waste, which is a food source for them.'

'Solution lies in identifying the troop of monkeys as they live and move in group.

'Then condition them in taking food from certain area from where they can be caught and sterilised so that their population does not increase further.'

He said the same process was adopted in Agra which showed positive results.
A 27-year-old MPhil student of JNU was found hanging at his friend's home in south Delhi's Munirka on Monday.

Muthukrishnan's father Jeevanandhaam, along with other politicians, on Tuesday demanded a FIR instead of inquest proceedings, refusing the the hospital authority permission conduct a post-mortem.

'The body of Muthukrishnan, a student of MPhil in JNU has been preserved in the mortuary and the postmortem is likely to be conducted on Wednesday morning,' said Chinmoy Biswal, additional deputy commissioner of police (south).

Muthukrishnan, from Salem, Tamil Nadu, was found dead in a friend's home on Monday

'After looking at the posture of the body in AIIMS for the second time, I am not convinced that he had committed suicide,' said Jeevanandhaam.

He had also given a written statement to police requesting them not to consider the case as suicide but a mysterious death and demanded an FIR to be registered.

Claiming that his son could not commit suicide, he said: 'I had a word with him few hours before he was found dead under mysterious circumstances. He was facing constant caste-based harassment and discrimination in his academic pursuit from his centre and the JNU administration.'

Muthukrishnan, a native of Salem in Tamil Nadu, belonged to the Scheduled Castes and was an active member of the justice-for-Rohith-Vemula movement.

He was known on the campus as Krish, and had studied history at the Hyderabad University before heading to JNU for a MPhil in modern history last year.

Muthukrishnan was an active member of the justice-for-Rohith-Vemula (pictured) movement

Speaking to Mail Today, senior officials of south district police said the complaint has been received and the father's statement, along with the claims, is being scrutinised.

'Till then, inquest proceedings are being conducted and the autopsy report will further clear the exact cause of Muthukrishnan's death,' the official added.

JNU Students Union (JNUSU) alleged that Muthukrishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Vemula and the resultant depression made him take the extreme step.

Days before his mysterious death, Muthukrishnan updated a Facebook post criticising 'discriminatory' admission policies in JNU.

Muthukrishnan was studying at JNU for an MPhil in modern history

'There is no equality in M Phil/PhD admissions, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad - block, denying the education of the Marginals. When equality is denied everything is denied,' he wrote in his March 10 Facebook post.

Now, his post has been flooded with condolence messages.

Police, on the other hand, maintain that no prima facie evidence has been found indicating the JNU administration's role into the issue. No suicide note has been found in his possession.

'His mobile phone is being scanned and his profiles on the social networking sites are also being scrutinised,' said the official.

Tamil Nadu's various political parties, including the AIADMK and the DMK, on Tuesday expressed concern over the death and sought a probe into the matter.

AIADMK deputy general secretary T T V Dinakaran said Muthukrishnan's death at JNU and his references to 'inequality' has sent 'shock waves' across the state.

Referring to Muthukrishnan's links to a movement in support of 'justice' for deceased Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad last year, Dinakaran said: 'There are strong doubts if he really committed suicide.'

JNUSU president Mohit Pandey condoled Muthukrishanan's death and said he had met the scholar even a day before his death.

'I knew him not only as an activist but also as a brilliant student coming from marginalised community.'
The BJP'S landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh has provided much needed 'relief' to Haryana chief minister Manohar Khattar, who was facing a major challenge from the agitating Jat community.

Top Jat leaders told Mail Today that the 'movement', which was threatening to cut supplies to Delhi and block all entry and exit routes to the national Capital, is showing 'withdrawal symptoms'.

Political observers say the Jats of Haryana are now likely to get lesser support from their community members in western UP after their support to the BJP.

Jat leaders had warned that protestors from Haryana will choke basic supplies from west & south border points while Jats in UP will block north and east point

It has given a big jolt to the Jat community in Haryana, which had announced intensification of its stir from March 20 with an aim 'to choke Delhi'.

'The Jats of western UP have supported BJP in the recently-concluded assembly election. They were reportedly convinced by BJP national president Amit Shah that their grievances will be looked into,' said Yashpal Malik, president of Akhil Bhartiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (ABJASS).

'It now seems that Jats of western UP might participate in lesser numbers on the agitation planned for March 20,' Singh added.

Sources in the BJP said that a micro community management by Amit Shah just before the first phase of UP election to polarise voters similar to the 2014 parliamentary election led to such a scenario.

Women participating in Jat protest for OBC status and reservations at Jassia village (file pic)

They said that prominent Jat leaders of western UP had a meeting with some BJP leaders at a senior Haryana minister's house.

Malik, who had spearheaded the protest at Jantar Mantar on March 2, had announced in the presence of a large crowd that the agitation will be intensified from March 20 and all supply lines and road routes connecting the national Capital will be cut off.

However, the BJP's landslide victory in UP changed all equations.

'We will continue the agitation in Haryana and the Jat community in Delhi will support the cause,' Malik said.

The ABJASS leader had earlier claimed that community people from Haryana will choke basic supplies like water and roads from the western and southern sides, Jats of UP will block road routes from the northern and eastern sides, and Jats of 260 villages in Delhi will counter the central government from inside Delhi.

Last year's Jat agitation had claimed several lives.
Overwhelmed with the mandate received in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the BJP is in a fix on how to appoint a chief minister who balances the development discourse of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the caste and social equations in the state and the ideological expectations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Mail Today has learnt from highly placed sources that UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, who is strongly billed as the frontrunner along with MoS and Bhumihar leader Manoj Sinha and union home minister and Thakur stalwart Rajnath Singh, met the Prime Minister at his 7RCR residence late in the evening on Tuesday.

'Maurya has told the PM that he is a servant of the party and will continue to serve the party in whatever role it wants.'

BJPs UP chief Keshav Maurya (left) & home minister Rajnath Singh are currently billed as frontrunners for the post

A senior party leader who has been victorious in the polls and whose name has been floated as a prospective candidate for CM told Mail Today that 'people as well as the media should expect a complete surprise. The state of UP is so big and the mandate so humongous that it cannot be left just like that'.

Throughout Tuesday, the high command, especially party chief Amit Shah, remained busy in discussions with senior functionaries of the state as well as the central organisation.

Shah, reportedly, also went into a brainstorming session with RSS' interface with the BJP and Sangh's joint general secretary, Krishna Gopal.

Both are said to have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday as the BJP are look for popular leaders to take on the Chief Ministerial responsibility

Party sources said that three names as of now have emerged as the hot favourites, though some members also believe that the name has already been decided and the exercise is being done only to give the process a semblance of widespread consultation.

'It is not a coalition government. We have won a landslide victory behind Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and they are the right people to decide who will lead.'

Rumours were afloat that the RSS wanted Rajnath Singh as the chief minister, being the 'tallest' leader in the state.

The home minister will head to Nagpur on Wednesday to meet RSS leadership, sources said.

The choice of the chief minister is also expected to make the next cabinet reshuffle, slated for sometime in April, to become complicated.

'If Rajnath Singh leaves for UP, then the crucial post of home minister falls vacant. Even now Arun Jaitley is holding dual portfolios of defence and finance.

Singh's leaving Delhi could mean a fundamental reshaping of the cabinet,' said a senior party leader, who also hinted at party chief Amit Shah finding a place in the cabinet.
Demands: Nicola Sturgeon has called for another Scottish independence referendum

There is plainly something in the air in Scotland. First, the fund management deal between Standard Life and Aberdeen, then another independence referendum request from Nicola Sturgeon and now an all-share 2.2billion bid by Aberdeen-based oil services firm Wood Group for Amec Foster Wheeler.

The Wood premium for Amec shares is a modest 15 per cent or so.

Beggars cannot be choosers and Wood's benevolent move may have been preferable to a 500million rights issue and dividend cut at Amec.

Troubles at Amec partly stem from its ambitious purchase of Foster Wheeler in 2014 for 2.6billion (at the current exchange rate) just as oil prices collapsed.

Just like Cobham, American adventures have cost it dearly and makes one question the quality of the due diligence.

It may well be that Wood Group's timing turns out to be much better. The oil price has recovered somewhat but as critically, the Trump administration  with its steer away from climate change, its more friendly attitude to carbon fuels and interest in fracking  should be good for Amec, which earns 34 per cent of its income in the US and is strong on engineering and environmental services.

With a 10 per cent stake in Wood, Martin Gilbert of Aberdeen Asset Management will be a significant player in this deal.

The Tartan Army looks after its own. Unlike the Standard-Aberdeen deal, there is no question who will be in charge at Wood-Amec with Wood chairman Ian Marchant, chief executive Robin Watson and finance boss David Kemp all keeping their jobs.

No mystery, then, as to where most annual cost savings of 110million will come from. Game, set and match, as that other Scottish phenomenon Andy Murray might say.

Tucker return

Finding suitable chairmen for FTSE 100 companies is hard and it is even tougher if you need formal certification from the Bank of England.

Even if the Old Lady finds it tough to get its own ethical issues in order. HSBC has done well to find Mark Tucker, who ticks most of the boxes, importantly having worked in Asia where HSBC is best in class.

If there is carping to be done, it is over Tucker's brief sojourn at a fast expanding HBOS well before the crisis.

Tucker joins an elite who have been involved in bad banks and gone onto greater things, including DIY craftsman Sir Ian Cheshire, who is to chair Barclays' ring-fenced bank despite being on the board of Bradford & Bingley.

Tucker has shown his mettle by doubling the share price of AIA, the Pacific offshoot of AIG, and as a former member of the Bank of England's Court and director of Goldman Sachs.

Incidentally, Goldman is one of a small number of banks in London which has not bought into the Banking Standards Board which is seeking to improve the behaviour of lenders in the City.

The choice of Tucker opens the way for change at HSBC. Current incumbents Douglas Flint and chief executive Stuart Gulliver have faced daunting challenges.

They have been busy jettisoning a past legacy which included some terrible acquisitions including Household in the US, Mexico and the Safra private banks.

It has been bloody and left behind a trail of legal liabilities mounting to pages in the annual report. In simplifying the enterprise some 42,000 jobs have gone.

Unfortunately for Flint and Gulliver they also developed a reputation for crying wolf with their attacks on UK bank taxation, Brexit and the rest, threatening to leave these shores. If Tucker can bring an end to that it will be helpful.

Departure of a chairman makes it easier to move onto a new chief executive with Gulliver also following through on his promise to go.

His reputation never fully repaired from disclosure that at one point his salary was paid through an arrangement which involved the Geneva private bank and Panama so as to disguise it from colleagues.

An internal replacement in the HSBC tradition looks most likely with retail and wealth boss John Flint a leading candidate.

Hopes that Lloyds boss Antonio Horta-Osorio had of moving to HSBC were almost certainly destroyed by his Singapore shenanigans. Descendants of Calvinist Scots who hold sway at HSBC do not approve.

Sparkling rewards

Shed a tear for chief executive Mark Cutifani of diamond miner Anglo American. Future share awards will be capped at 300 per cent of salary against 350 per cent previously limiting his future overall earnings at 13.1million after last year's AGM revolt.

As chairman of the pay committee board, Sir Philip Hampton has failed both investors and government ambitions to curtail boardroom excess.

Should have tried harder.
You've sniffed out the best savings rate for your cash. Almost every penny is sheltered from the taxman's grasp. But after years of low rates, you're still struggling to plug the gaps in your income.

It's the same story for millions of beleaguered savers.

So where can they turn? For many, the answer will be taking a little more risk by investing in shares.

Dipping a toe in the stock market may sound scary and complicated, but it really doesn't have to be.

Take the plunge: Investing in shares may sound complicated but by taking a little more risk you could give your income a significant boost

By investing in shares, you're simply backing companies you think will do well  and sharing in their success.

And you don't need to be an expert, either, because there are professionals to pick the shares for you.

All you have to worry about is finding a fund manager who'll maximise your returns.

WHY YOU NEED AN INCOME FUND

Before you start, you need to be certain you could stomach losing some of your cash.

Financial advisers typically say you should aim to leave your investments for a minimum of five years (or, ideally, nearer ten) to ride out the bumps in the markets. If you can't commit to that, investing is not for you.

The benefit of investing in a fund, rather than individual shares, is that your money is pooled and spread across potentially 50 or more firms (although some funds are more focussed than this). Then if one company crashes, you won't lose nearly as much.

Fund jargon explained Open-ended funds are the most widely invested in product. Most of these will come with two different classes of fund Inc and Acc. These stand for income - the class which pays out dividends to investors - and accumulation - the class which reinvests those dividends in the fund. If you want to take dividend payouts choose the income version, if you want to reinvest them choose the accumulation version.

However, not all funds are right for income-seekers.

Some aim only to make money grow quickly, rather than paying out regular sums. These are known as growth funds.

Others invest in big companies that pay hefty dividends (the profits firms choose to pay out to shareholders).

These so-called equity income funds are ideal for savers starved of interest, as they typically pay out twice a year.

But they are not just useful for those looking to draw an income, they can also help build wealth. Reinvesting those dividends over the years means that returns compound up, and this can deliver a big boost to investment performance.

WHAT TO PICK FOR STEADY PAYOUTS

Some funds will tell you the returns they aim to deliver. For example, star income fund manager Neil Woodford will next launch a fund that in the first year aims to produce an income of 5p for every 1 invested at that launch.

That's the same as a 5 per cent income  or 500 on 10,000.

Overall, Mr Woodford aims to deliver an income of a fifth more than the yield of the FTSE All Share  a list of around 600 companies on the London Stock Exchange.

At current rates, that would mean an income of 4.2 per cent a year, but this could easily change.

Mr Woodford has yet to reveal which shares he'll buy for the Income Focus fund, except to say many will be UK-listed firms. The first quarterly dividend payment will be made in August 2017.

Elsewhere, wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown has just launched its own fund aiming to pay 3.9 per cent.

The HL Select UK Income Shares fund invests in 30 companies including Unilever, the company behind Marmite and Dove soap, fashion firm Burberry and Guinness-maker Diageo.

The fund also aims for growth, and so will help your pot grow.

FUNDS WHERE THE DIVIDEND CAN BE HIGHER OR LOWER

Other popular funds don't set the income they aim to pay.

John Monaghan, at investment research firm Square Mile, tips the Henderson Global Equity Income fund, which is currently paying out around 3.3 per cent a year.

More than 20 of every 100 in the fund is invested in computer giants such as American firms Microsoft and Cisco and pharmaceutical firms such as Roche, the largest maker of cancer drugs in Switzerland.

The fund has handed out 2,330 in income on a 10,000 investment over five years.

Mr Monaghan also recommends the Schroder Income Maximiser fund, which targets a hefty annual yield of 7 per cent.

It invests in out of favour companies, which can be more risky. He says this is not a fund for the faint-hearted.

More than 3 in every 10 is invested in UK financial companies, with HSBC the largest holding. It has paid 4,053 on a 10,000 investment over five years.

Mark Dampier, of Hargreaves Lansdown, recommends the J O Hambro Equity Income fund, which yields around 4.6 per cent and has a strong record of increasing payouts each year.

As well as oil, financial and mining firms, it invests in smaller companies such as Hollywood Bowl, the popular tenpin bowling operator. Over five years the fund has paid out 3,190 in income on 10,000.

New deal: For example, star income fund manager Neil Woodford will next launch a fund that in the first year aims to produce an income of 5p for every 1 invested

GET DECADES OF RISING PAYOUTS

You could also consider investment trusts. These are similar to investment funds, in that they have a manager picking what they see as the best shares, but are structured as companies that are listed on the stock exchange.

You buy into investment trusts by purchasing their shares. However, the investment trust's share price could be lower or higher than the sum of the parts it owns, known as a discount or premium to net asset value. This relationship can depend on whether a trust's investing style, management or the things it invests in are in or out of favour.

How to get advice If you're not confident about choosing the investments on your own, get independent advice. You can find a local adviser through unbiased.co.uk's service or call 0800 023 6868.

One useful feature of investment trusts is that they can deliver a steady income, even in times of crisis, by squirrelling away up to 15 per cent of their dividends each year. That means they can top up income in bad years.

It's allowed some trusts, such as City of London Investment Trust, to pay increasing dividends for 50 consecutive years. These trusts with long histories of raising payouts are known as dividend heroes, which you can see a list of here.

Mr Dampier tips Standard Life Equity Income Trust, which yields around 4 per cent. Its largest holding is Newcastle-based Sage, one of the world's largest payroll software companies. The fund has paid out 2,567 on a 10,000 investment over five years.

If at any point you don't need the income from investment trusts, you can reinvest the payouts. This means you buy more shares with your dividends, which in turn means your could receive more dividends in future.

What about a tracker fund? In an active fund, a manager picks shares, bonds or other assets that they think will beat the market. A passive or tracker fund will instead seek to mimic a set index - and not try to beat the market. The active fund manager is aiming to use their skill and expertise to beat a benchmark, or deliver a greater reward for less risk. They research investments and make decisions on what to buy or sell, and when to do it. In contrast, passive funds will buy every member of a certain index  for example, a stock market index such as the FTSE All-Share  with the aim of replicating its performance. There is no human element trying to find the best investments to buy or sell. This means that a passive fund wont beat the market, but neither will it make mistakes and buy the wrong things, leading it to substantially underperform. The return should be the same as that index, minus fees. These fees tend to be small, as index investing is a low-cost endeavour and traditionally doesnt come with all the management, research and marketing expenses that active funds often do  nevermind the high fund manager salaries. A FTSE All-Share tracker fund, which invests in the broad UK stockmarket, should deliver similar income to that index, which was 3.48 per cent at the end of February. The HSBC FTSE All-Share index fund has ongoing charges of just 0.07 per cent and pays 3.45% income. The BlackRock UK Equity Tracker has ongoing charges of 0.06 per cent and pays 3.42% income. Find out more about passive investment in our Index Investing section - Simon Lambert, This is Money
Bovis Homes has rejected takeover proposals from Redrow and Galliford Try

Shares in Bovis Homes soared yesterday as a bidding war broke out for the housebuilder.

The company rejected takeover proposals from Redrow and Galliford Try  arguing 'neither reflected the underlying value of the Bovis business'.

Analysts suggested a bid of more than 10 a share would be required to take control of Bovis.

Bovis has been forced to set aside 7million to deal with complaints over shoddy workmanship from customers.

Shares closed 10 per cent, or 82.5p, up at 910.5p.

A tie-up with a rival could create one the UK's largest housebuilders.
Takeover: Amec Foster Wheeler has agreed to be bought by Wood Group

Traders have cheered a 2.2billion takeover of troubled Amec Foster Wheeler  sending shares soaring 12 per cent.

The engineer has agreed to be bought by Aberdeen-based Wood Group in a deal which will create a major player in the offshore oil and gas market.

And the deal will see investment bankers, lawyers and spin doctors pocket tens of millions of pounds in fees.

City analysts welcomed the proposal, saying it would create a firm with greater staying power.

Amec's stock dived in October after bosses said they could be forced to cut costs to cope with a challenging environment.

Its problems stem from an ill-judged takeover of Swiss rival Foster Wheeler in 2014, shortly before the global slump in oil prices.
LINCOLN  A proposal to allow Nebraska teachers to use physical force on unruly students is queued up for debate by the full Legislature this spring.

Sponsored by state Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte and backed by the state teachers' union, the measure advanced with substantial changes Monday from the Legislature's Education Committee on a 5-2 vote.

The rewritten version of Groene's bill (LB595) specifies that a teacher must have acted in a "reasonable manner" when using physical force to be immune from legal action or workplace discipline.

Groene said the change addresses concerns by some of the bill's opponents that it gave teachers too much leeway.

He said he's received more phone calls about this bill (LB595) than on any other measure he's introduced  much of it positive feedback from teachers and administrators, as well as parents who feel the bill could protect their children from violent or destructive classmates.

Still, Groene expects some opposition within the full Legislature, including from Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers.

"It's going to be a fight," Groene said.

The bill would allow teachers to use physical force with students who become violent. More limited physical restraint is allowed to prevent a student from destroying school property.

The revised bill strikes an option to place students who are physically removed from class into an alternative education program, and replaces that option with the possibility of out-of-school suspension.

And while the original bill requires the teacher's permission for the student to return to class, the rewritten version provides exceptions for special-education students and allows the principal to return the student to class following a conference with the teacher and the student's parent or legal guardian.

Sens. Laura Ebke, Steve Erdman, Lou Ann Linehan, Adam Morfeld and Groene voted to advance the bill out of committee. Sens. Rick Kolowski and Lynne Walz opposed it. Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks was present but did not vote.

The bill is Groene's priority bill, meaning it has a good chance of being debated by the full Legislature this session.
Bailed-out bank Lloyds is plotting to transfer 20m customers' details to an offshore computer network, a union has warned.

The lender has been attacked for plans to outsource more than 1,900 jobs to IBM in a 1.3billion deal.

It is feared the proposals would leave hundreds of workers facing redundancy and worse terms and conditions.

And union leaders claimed that 20m customers' details would be shifted across to the new system  potentially putting their data at risk.

Safe haven? Lloyds is plotting to transfer 20m customers' details to an offshore computer network, a union has warned

The seven-year deal with the US IT giant would allow the bank to slash costs by nearly 760million and respond more quickly to rapid changes in technology.

But Lloyds Trade Union (LTU) warned that most of the staff transferred would be made redundant and replaced by cheaper workers within four years.

It claimed that 1,961 staff would be moved to IBM  mostly from data centres in Edinburgh and West Yorkshire.

'LTU will use whatever means are at its disposal to oppose this deal with IBM,' a union spokesman said.

The 35,000-strong union  which is not recognised by Lloyds' management  claimed senior IT bosses had raised concerns about the plan as it could lead to critically important systems moving out of their direct control.

'Customers will not be told that their personal banking data is being migrated onto a private cloud and managed offshore,' the spokesman said.

'Even the bank admits that the migration of the accounting details of 20m customers could 'weaken existing security controls and adversely effect the confidentiality and integrity of bank data'.'

It is likely to raise fresh concerns about the bank's security after hackers knocked its digital systems offline for two days earlier this year.

Lloyds suffered a 'denial of service' attack, in which websites are swamped with millions of viewing requests to overwhelm them. No customer information, however, was accessed or stolen.

Banks increasingly view cyber crime as one of the biggest risks, with hackers trying to breach their systems on a daily basis.

In November last year Tesco Bank suffered a digital heist and was forced to repay 2.5million to 9,000 customers who lost money as a result.

In Bangladesh last year, criminals used a messaging system called Swift to order the central bank to shift 651million into accounts elsewhere.

Although some of the cash was blocked, they were still able to move 55million to the Philippines.

Sam Hutton of cyber consultancy Glasswall Solutions said: 'Despite the high-profile risks, there is still little understanding of how cyber-criminals operate and the best ways to face them.

'As banks embark on operations to migrate data or make any changes to their critical systems and databases, they must ensure that the outsourced provider has cyber security policies in place that match or exceed their own capabilities to protect sensitive data from hackers. A breach could spell disaster for a bank.'

The other unions which represent staff are Accord and Unite. Unite said: 'We are in consultation over the bank's IT strategy.' Accord did not comment.

A Lloyds spokesman said: 'We are considering options to extend use of cloud technology in pursuit of the group's aim to be the best bank for customers.

'We do not comment on speculation, and if any decisions are made they will be communicated to our colleagues first.'
Tasteless tourists who post pictures of themselves breakdancing, doing handstands and even performing ballet at a holocaust memorial site where 10,000 Lithuanian Jews were murdered by the Nazis in one day are being shamed online.

The shocking images were taken in front of the mass murder memorial at Ninth Fort in Kaunas, where 9,200 children and their parents were slaughtered on October 29, 1941.

They show tourists grinning happily alongside hashtags such as #happy - apparently oblivious to the gravity of the massacre that took place behind them.

Now activist Richard Schofield has collected the photos, posted under the hashtag #Ninth Fort, to shame the tourists involved and to show that young people are not being educated on the horrors of the Second World War.

Selfies: Tourists are breakdancing, doing handstands and taking selfies at the memorial to the 50,000 Jews murdered in Luthania by Nazis during World War II

Campaign: British photographer and activist is naming and shaming tourists who pose for the tasteless photos at the site of the Kaunas massacre where 10,000 Jews died in one day Pictured: Gabriele said she doesn't believe taking pictures at the death site to be disrespectful

Gymnastics: Many of the tourists doing handstands and posing at the Nazi death site post their sickening pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #Ninth Fort. Pictured: Art student Monika who said: 'Unless it is obvious disrespect like spray painting, writing vulgar comments then it should not be taken as disrespect'

Ignorance: As a man is pictured hanging from the Ninth Fort memorial, many spoken to by MailOnline were aware of the site's dark past - but do not believe they have been disrespectful

Atrocity: In what became known as the Kaunas massacre, 4,273 children and their parents were murdered on October 29, 1941. A total of 50,000 Jews were murdered at the site in Lithuania during the Second World War

Ballet: Some believe the brutal history of Kaunas is being erased by tourists looking for the perfect Instagram post but Gabriele, above, who performed ballet on the monument, says it is more important that 'nobody damages this place and it's kept clean'

Holocaust memorial campaigner Simonas Dovidavicius, former leader of the Jewish community in Kaunas, told MailOnline he was sickened by the holocaust selfie trend: 'This is terrible. It shows how society is not in contact with what's happened.

'This place cannot be a place of enjoyment and relaxation. I've seen people sitting in the killing fields and having picnics or listening to music. People who were killed there deserve respect and some honour.'

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, General Director of the European Jewish Association, told MailOnline: 'It is one thing to take simple pictures of the memorial for the sake of remembrance, yet completely another to joyously pose in front of the camera with the place of mass slaughter in the background.'

The killings at Kaunus were the biggest single massacre of Lithuanian Jews during World War II.

The condemned were lined up at death site and shot dead before being buried in freshly dug trenches. In total 50,000 Jews were murdered at the site, as Ninth Forth became a Nazi killing station.

But to the horror of 52-year-old campaigner Mr Schofield that brutal history has been has been erased and ignored by tourists to the site posing for light-hearted selfies.

Smiling for the camera, visitors pose in front of the memorial where the victims' bodies lay, seemingly unaware of the mass murders that took place there 75 years ago. Some tourists have been pictured doing handstands, jumping on victims' graves and even performing ballet.

Strike a pose: One model climbed onto the rocky memorial to pose for stylish pictures, something that is heavily discouraged by the Lithuanian museum

Warning: The museum's director Jurate Zakaite told MailOnline: 'We try to stop selfies being taken because we think it's disrespectful to those who died here.'

Tasteless: Campaigner Richard Schofield said Lithuania is letting down its young people by not educating them about the Second World War as a male student poses gleefully in front of the museum's titanic jagged rocks, posting a photo using hashtags including #War and #Smile

Mr Schofield was prompted to take action by pictures like one of two teenage girls gazing into their camera for a selfie with the hashtag #Winterwonderland.

In another on the website two male friends grinned in front of the monument with the hashtags #happy and #day.

Another shows a man clinging onto one of the monument stones alongside the hashtag #hangingout.

Perhaps most disturbingly, despite museum bosses trying to discourage it, most of those MailOnline spoke to, knew what happened there  and didn't feel they were being contemptuous of its past.

Julija struck a model pose in front of the monument. She said: 'I knew we were taking pictures in a place where thousands of people were killed.

'But I don't think it's bad to make memories of visiting this place by taking pictures.

She added: 'It's more bad mannered to take wedding or birthday pictures there.

Sarune posted a photo of her laughing in front of the monument  and said: 'Taking selfies and photos isn't disrespectful. The place itself is full of monuments that are really beautiful so I think that it is normal to take photos.'

Misjudged: Laura, who posed with a friend, above, said she understood the place's 'tragic' history but believes making memories with a picture is not disrespecting what happened there

Ignored: Another gymnastics loving Instagram user failed to mention the memorial or the holocaust victims in her post and hashtagged #BestWork #Nature and #Gymnsatics instead

#Love: The monument has also become a photo opportunity for holidaying couples who pose lovingly in front of rocks, which Mr Schofield said wouldn't happen if they had been educated

Their views were shared by Gabriele, who posted a photo of her doing ballet at Ninth Fort on Instagram. She said: 'It's not ill-considered to take selfies there. it's more important that nobody vandalises the monument and keeps it clean.'

Rytis, the tourist pictured hanging from the memorial, admitted: 'It lacks respect, I think, but I don't care about it too much, because it's a monument.'

The museum's director Jurate Zakaite told MailOnline: 'We try to stop selfies being taken because we think it's disrespectful to those who died here.

'It's very strange that they know the history but still do it. If we catch them we ask them to stop. It's forbidden to climb on the monument.'

Mrs Zakaite gave permission for Lithuanian rapper Vaiper Despotin to record a music video at the site because the song was about the number of people who had died there.

But the museum boss immediately regretted it when the video featured a Yeti and a woman in tight black leather trousers.

Julia Mozer, spokeswoman for the CEJI A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe which is based in Belgium, slammed the visitors' activities, telling MailOnline: 'Taking happy selfies in front of Holocaust memorial sites is disrespectful and hurtful. Education that develops an appreciation for the impact of the Holocaust is absolutely essential. Memorial sites should also be monitored to prevent such exploitation.'

Defence: Blogger Karolina, above, posted pictures of her on the monument, and said: 'Some people will say its disrespectful, in my opinion there is nothing wrong taking selfies there'

Mr Schofield said his campaign to raise awareness, which includes going into schools to educate children about the holocaust to raise awareness has been positive.

The project is 'designed to begin breaking Lithuania's dominant Holocaust taboo and to encourage the next generation of the country's leaders and decision makers to start dealing with this difficult subject,' he said.

'We're not here to shame these young people. We know they're mostly good kids like most kids are. The problem lies with the Lithuanian State, which continues to let its young people down by not teaching them the full story of the Holocaust. '

Rock climbing: This is one of several people to post photos of themselves climbing the monument, which has prompted Mr Schofield to campaign to raise awareness of its dark past

Shamed: Mr Schofield, 52, originally from Newhaven in Sussex, has named and those who pose in front of the rocks and post it on social media because he wants more respect to be shown. Pictured: Two female friends laugh as the pose in front of the 75 year old memorial

Mr Schofield, from Newhaven, East Sussex, has been living in Lithuania 16 years. He is the former editor of a travel guide for Central and Eastern Europe and stayed in Lithuania because he liked it there.

As a photographer with a keen interest in history he began documenting Jewish life and became aware of how little was being taught about the Holocaust in schools and how little people knew about it.

He set up the NGO International Centre for Litvak Photography in 2015, one of the projects of which is Fifty Schools, which according to his website aims at working with '50 secondary schools around the country as part of an ambitious educational project to publish a unique e-book about Lithuania's sadly forgotten Litvak history, heritage and culture.'
A mother has revealed how her eight-year-old boy was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 'buddy' in his class, who threatened to 'kill him if he told anyone', leaving her son suicidal and afraid to go to school.

The horrific sexual abuse occurred over three weeks in 2014, according to the distraught mother-of-three, who claimed her son had told three teachers but been ignored.

After three weeks of 'daily' abuse the young boy, who had already told three teachers but been 'brushed off', told his mother another boy had 'touched him when he went to the toilet'.

The young boy - pictured here with his two brothers was told he was 'lucky he had autism because he would feel the full impact of the abuse' after he was assaulted for three weeks at school by a classmate

The young boy wrote this letter to other children who have been abused

'At that point I didn't know the extent of what happened  I was in shock,' the mother told Daily Mail Australia.

'We called the police and he told them what the other boy had done to him, and I just cried.'

The young boy, who lives with high-functioning autism, and his mother then met with the school principal.

'The principal told him he was lucky he was autistic because he ''wouldn't feel the impact of sexual abuse like other children'', but three years later he is still feeling it,' she said.

The boy is still scared to use any toilet other than the one he has at home, he has searched online about 'ways to kill himself' and has crippling anxiety.

The mother has moved her children twice since the abuse occurred  so her son wouldn't have to come face-to-face with his young attacker.

But she has since taken him and his younger brother, six, from yet another school.

'I got a phone call from the counsellor telling me that my son had told them he wanted to kill himself  I just want him to be safe so I have kept him home.

'A few days later I got a call from the truancy officer who told me that I had to send him to school or they would bring police to my door step to make them go.

'They threatened me with having the kids taken off me  but the only reason he is scared of going to school is because the system let him down in the first place,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

The young boy left this note for his mother a year after his abuse - on the day he brought a knife to school to attack his abuser who he would see on sport days despite moving schools

The family have struggled with the boy's crippling anxiety and fears since he was attacked in the school bathroom.

A heart-breaking note written by the young boy to other children experiencing sexual abuse highlights how much it impacted him.

'I tried to hurt myself I hated this,' he wrote.

'They made me change schools but I wanted to stay but the boy who did this to me got to stay.

'I'm sorry you're sad. I went through emotions like you.

'My principal said I'm lucky I have Autism because I won't feel what a normal person would feel but I don't feel lucky,' he wrote.

In fact for three years the young boy has been suffering following the abuse which he says started on his second day of school.

The student, who was in year three at the time, was excited to go to school in the beginning but after a few days ' changed his mind'.

His mother now realises she missed 'the signs something wasn't right' for three weeks.

'He was crying and didn't want to go to school, I just thought he was doing what young boys sometimes do and trying to get out of going.

'The teachers told me to just keep bringing him so I did.'

The young boy's mother, pictured here with her son, feels let down by the school system following the incident - and is speaking out after she was threatened by truancy officials

The young boy went from being bubbly and happy to sad, neurotic and anxious. 'He undid his bed and slept on his mattress on the floor.

'And went through a stage of making sure all the windows were locked.

'Once I found out about what had happened he told me the boy had threatened to kill him if he told anyone and had told him he would hide under his bed or outside the windows at night.'

The young boy started wetting the bed and was petrified he would put his family in danger if he told his mother what happened.

'He told three teachers and none of them did a thing,' the mother said.

'The first time it happened a teacher walked in on the other boy touching him when he went to the toilet  but my son was the one who got in trouble.

'Another day he ran to the teacher on duty in the playground and was told to 'stop making things up'.

'The third teacher, his classroom teacher, was too busy planning the end of term disco to listen to him.'

The mother said her son was desperate to be liked and didn't want the other boy in the class to make everyone else hate him.

'Once the school found out they said it would be best if he went to school and was still in the same class as this other boy.

'The school councellor told me he had to face the child. I had to drag him in to school.

'I felt so torn on one hand there were officials telling me what to do on the other hand was my son who was clinging on to the car door, screaming and refusing to go in. We didn't try again.'

The family changed schools and the young boy went to counselling.

'He was struggling with what had happened to him  he was asking if what happened meant he was gay and we had to keep telling him it wasn't his fault.'

The school was in the same area as the one where he was abused, so the young boy kept running into his attacker on sport days. A year later he tried to hurt the boy he still feared.

'One day he wrote me a suicide note and left it in his bed it said he loved me and he was sorry.

'I got a call from the school  he had taken a knife in and was going to hurt the other little boy then kill himself.

'When I got to the school police were giving him a stern talking to, until I told them what he had been through  then they just wanted to get him help  I was so angry the school didn't say anything.'

The mother moved her son to yet another school. 'I just needed to get him out of the area I didn't want him having to see that little boy anymore,' she said.

'He says he doesn't understand why he feels the way he does and he just wants it to stop  we had to get rid of all the knives from the house.'

The boy still won't go in 'any toilets without a lock' or any public toilets, preferring to wet himself than relive his traumatic experience.

'The little boy that did this was under 10 at the time so he wasn't legally responsible for what happened, but the school said they would look into his family.

The mother posted this on Facebook following her recent call from the department of education - but it has since been deleted

'He calls home his safe place which is why I am letting him stay here, I am going to home school him.

'I'm afraid if I force him to go back to school he just wont wake up one day.'

The mother who lives in NSW said she feels the education department has 'let her family down'.

'I feel unsupported, I feel like this horrible thing happened to my son then we were the ones who had to leave,' she said.

The mother said she always taught her children about stranger danger but the message has to be changed.

'I never talked to them about their friends or how they could abuse them  I never told my kids they were more likely to be hurt by people they know,' she said.

The mother also said she felt 'let down' by the teachers her son told  because if his complaints had been investigated earlier 'he could have avoided a lot of pain'.

The mother has booked her son in to see a psychologist following his recent admissions to the school counsellor  but is still on a waiting list.

She is speaking out following the phone-call from the department's truancy officer which demanded her son return to school and 'use the school bathrooms' like other students.

When Daily Mail Australia reached out to the Department of Education for comment, a spokesman said it was unable to provide information on the specific case.

'It is inappropriate for the Department to comment on the matters that are currently subject to proceedings before the court,' the spokesman said.

'In general terms, if a parent wishes to home-school their child they need to register with NSW Education Standards Authority. Until registration is completed, school-aged children are required to attend school.'

The NSW Education Standards Authority also told Daily Mail Australia it was unable to release personal and private information.

The Authority could not confirm whether the mother had lodged an application to home-school her children.
A gay rights activist, who moved to France to escape persecution, claims he was raped by an American man in Marseille who said 'you French people hate Trump'.

The 35-year-old says he was drugged at a bar on Friday by two men who were American and English, who then took him to a hotel room.

The LGBT activist claims the American said: 'You French peopleyou hate Trump. And you listen to black and Arabic music.'

He told a news website his alleged attackers beat him and tied his wrists and ankles with ripped up bedsheets.

The gay rights activist said he was drugged in a bar in Marseille and then raped by two men in a hotel room (file photo)

He said he escaped on Sunday morning when he called for help from policemen outside.

'I saw through an open window a police car on the Place de lOpera, with two policemen inside and one outside the car,' he said.

His alleged attackers are being held in prison.

It is believed that they both worked for the Foreign Legion.

Speaking of the attack he said: 'One of them went out and the other gave me a punch in the face, then raped me.

'Then I was smashed against the wall and my nose was struck hard  there was blood everywhere.'

He spent nine hours in hospital on Sunday afternoon, but is scared to go outside, according to an LGBT blog.

Pictures of his bruised face were shared on Facebook by a gay rights group.
Frontier Airlines and Silver Airways are dropping their routes to Cuba, saying other airlines are adding too many flights to the island nation and making the routes unprofitable.

US airlines rushed to begin flights to Cuba last year after the Obama administration allowed commercial service for the first time in more than half a century.

More Americans are visiting Cuba, but the glut of new flights has exceeded demand, resulting in many empty seats.

Silver Airlines, above, is dropping air service to Cuba, saying the routes aren't profitable; they will end April 22

About 285,000 tourists visited in 2016, up 76 percent from 2015; above, Old Havana, the capital of Cuba

Old Havana, on the UNESCO World Heritage List, saw a spike of tourism when the travel ban was lifted in 2016; but not enough to keep Silver and Frontier on their Cuba routes

Florida-based Silver said Monday that it will end Cuba service on April 22, just six months after it started flying between Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Cuban provincial capitals like Camaguey and Cienfuegos.

'Market conditions have failed to materialize there, and excess capacity has been allocated to the Florida-Cuba market,' said the airline in a statement.

Several of its Cuban destinations are also served by major carriers such as American Airlines.

Silver spokeswoman Misty Pinson said the number of seats on planes between the US and Cuba quadrupled because the airlines added so many flights, many of them with big planes. The glut of seats has made Cuban routes unprofitable for all carriers, she said.

Frontier had begun regular trips to various cities in Cuba on December 1 but found demand was not enough to sustain them

US visitors increased 125 percent in January; above, people stroll Old Havana among the colorful buildings

Denver-based Frontier Airlines will cancel its daily flight between Miami and Havana on June 4, said spokesman Jim Faulkner, because of heavy competition and higher-than-expected costs of providing service at the Havana airport.

Frontier had just begun its regular flights on December 1.

The bigger airlines have not been immune. American reduced daily flights to Cuba from 13 to 10 and switched to smaller planes on some flights.

Changes were on flights to smaller Cuban cities; American has not downgraded service to Havana. JetBlue Airways took out about 300 seats a day by using smaller planes.

Commercial air service helped fuel an historic, ongoing boom in US travel to Cuba. About 285,000 tourists visited in 2016, up 76 percent from 2015, and the Cuban government says US visitors increased 125 percent in January.
A New York City police officer who was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting his girlfriend's daughter on multiple occasions has been sentenced to just three years in prison.

Vladimir Krull, 39, was facing up to 21 years behind bars after a jury found him guilty on multiple counts of rape, sexual abuse, and committing a criminal sexual act along with a single count of endangering the welfare of a child on three incidents.

Those three incidents involved Krull and the daughter of a woman he dated for two years.

In both the initial report to police and her testimony at trial, the young victim spoke about how Krull raped her on two occasions when she was 13, while also forcing her to perform oral sex on him that same year while they sat in a car outside her school.

Krull had just taken the girl to her father/daughter breakfast when he forced her to engage in the sexual act with him, according to the complaint.

The victim had just lost her father the previous year at that time, and his passing was the reason Krull had been asked to accompany her to the event.

Going away: Vladmir Krull (above in court on Monday) was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the 13-year-old daughter of his then-girlfriend this past January

The victim testified in court that Krull began sexually assaulting her in September of 2013 when he kissed her on the mouth just a few weeks after she turned 13 and started the eighth grade.

Krull then raped the victim on at least two occasions according to the complaint and trial testimony.

Prosecutors then doubled that number after Krull's arrest, stating that the fourth and final time the civil servant forced himself on his girlfriend's child came exactly one year after that first kiss.

Mug: The 39-year-old was facing up to 21 years in prison for rape of a minor (mugshot above from February 2015)

The victim, who is now 16, testified under oath that Krull, who was 37 at the time, first forced her into having sex with him in her mother's apartment and later made her engage in intercourse while they were in his car.

Those two rapes occurred sometime between November of 2013 and February of the following year.

The aforementioned third incident took place in June 2014 according to the initial complaint and testimony from the trial, with the victim recounting how Krull forced her to give him oral sex in his car.

The prosecution had also stated that Krull had engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the victim up until just days before his arrest in February of 2015.

He was taken in after the victim's mother went into his work and told officers at the Midtown North Precinct that Krull had raped her daughter multiple times.

It was also the mother who reported the history of sexually explicit conversations between the two, stating that the most recent one had occurred just a few days prior between her daughter and her ex.

The jury deliberated for five days after sitting through four weeks of arguments and testimony in the case, and after handing down their verdict prosecutors for the Bronx District Attorney's Office pushed for Krull to receive a 15-year sentence.

In the end however, the former sergeant for the NYPD was given a three-year sentence for each of the three major charges.

He will also be able to serve those three sentences concurrently, thus commuting a nine-year sentence by two-thirds in the case.

Krull will also have to register as a sex offender and will be supervised and monitored for a five-year period after his release.

Roger Blank, who is representing Krull in the case, seemed content with the sentencing decision in court on Monday.

He had previously pointed out that while he accepted the jury's decision back in January, he did not believe there was enough forensic evidence in the case to convict his client.

Blank and the defense also played up Krull's many years of service, spending 12-years in the force starting with posts at the 46th Precinct in the Bronx and the 108th Precinct in Queens before moving to the Midtown North Precinct in Manhattan.

He was suspended without pay immediately after his arrest, and within days it was announced that he had been terminated following an investigation undertaken by the internal affairs bureau.

Face down: Krull was found guilty of charges relating to an incident when he forced the eighth-grade student to give him oral sex outside her school (above on Monday with lawyer Roger Blank)

Months before: The former NYPD sergeant (above being celebrated for his work two months before his arrested) served on the force for 12 years

It was only two months prior that Krull had been publicly lauded by the precinct, who posted a message on Twitter congratulating him for busting up a bank robbery.

'Great arrest by Officers Joaquin Navarro and Mike Ball and Sgt Vladimir Krull catching a bank robber in the act on Madison Avenue today,' read the post, referencing

In a statement released after Krull's conviction this past January, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark stated that he hoped Krull's fate would send a clear message to other adults looking to take advantage of children.

'The defendant horrifically abused the trust of this family and engaged in sexual acts with a child,' said District Attorney Clark.

'He now faces prison time for his depravity and I hope his conviction reinforces the message that we do not stop until we get justice for the most vulnerable of victims.'

He did not release a statement however after the verdict was handed down on Monday by Acting Bronx Supreme Court Justice Lester B. Adler, who also presided over the trial.

The Bronx District Attorney's Office were aided in the case by employees from the Child Abuse/ Sex Crimes Bureau, Public Integrity Bureau and Special Victims Division.
This is the 'disgusting' moment a French woman was caught defecating in the street outside a New Zealand business.

Nik Black, the owner of APET Racing repair shop in Dunedin, said he discovered something which 'didn't look like it came from an animal' in the gutter on Monday.

As he checked CCTV footage from two cameras outside his shop he watched in horror as a woman walked into the frame before squatting in the curb.

Nik Black, the owner of APET Racing auto repair shop in Dunedin, New Zealand, discovered footage on his CCTV cameras of a woman defecating in the curb outside

After completing her business, the woman can be seen pushing the waste into the gutter with a tissue before walking back up the street.

She then climbs back into a run-down van where she appears to be staying with her male partner.

Mr Black told Daily Mail Australia: 'They shouldn't be doing that in town. It's not the same as being out in the bush.

'It was pretty disgusting to see that sort of thing. There's a petrol station 100 metres up the road that's open 24 hours, so she should have gone there.'

Mr Black said he found waste that 'didn't look like it came from an animal' before checking the cameras and uncovering the 'disgusting' footage

Reporters confronted two French backpackers with the footage after the woman was seen getting into their van, but they denied any knowledge of it

Newshub reporters confronted the couple on Monday afternoon, who denied all knowledge of the incident.

The pair also told journalists that they had only stopped on the street because their van was broken, before driving away.

Mr Black added that they couldn't have gone far, because the vehicle did not appear to be in a good way.

It is illegal to camp in Dunedin inside a non-self-contained van, with offenders facing a fine of $200.
The three daughters of renowned violinist Roman Totenberg have heard the sound of their late father's Stradivarius for the first time nearly four decades after it was stolen.

The prized 18th century instrument came back to life on Monday at a private Manhattan concert, tucked under the chin of Totenberg student Mira Wang.

The violin disappeared in 1980 after a Totenberg performance in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The thief was an aspiring violinist who kept the Stradivarius hidden, patching some spots with glue. After his death, his ex-wife alerted authorities.

Violinist Mira Wang plays the Ames Stradivarius violin in New York. After a meticulous restoration that took more than a year, the Stradivarius returned to the stage in New York

Wang, a former student of Totenberg's, played the instrument at a private concert in New York

Found! Nina Totenberg (center), daughter of renowned violinist Roman Totenberg, along with sisters Amy (left) and Jill (right) were told their father's violin had been found in August 2015

'It has such a different sound than most violins, it's so rich and so deep, and it gave the three of us the feeling that our father was present in the room with us again tonight,' said Jill Totenberg, a public relations executive who sat in the audience alongside her sisters, Nina Totenberg, the National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent, and Amy Totenberg, a federal judge.

The 'Ames' Stradivarius, named after a violinist who once owned it, was made in Italy in 1734 and is now worth millions of dollars.

In the two years since it was recovered, the instrument has been impeccably restored by a team working with New York string instrument specialist Bruno Price.

'All three of us are so excited that it's back, it's in one piece and it plays,' said Jill Totenberg.

The family will sell the violin once the right new owner is found - to a performer or a sponsor who will make sure the instrument is played and heard.

Wang, a world-class soloist who has appeared at Carnegie Hall, is the natural choice to be playing her teacher's violin. She had immigrated to the United States from China 30 years ago to study with the Polish-born master who died in 2012 at 101.

The artistry Wang absorbed from him was heard Monday in chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn and Antonin Dvorak that she played with several other musicians.

Losing the violin was 'like if someone took your arm, just for fun, and never returned it,' says Wang.

And playing the long-dormant Stradivarius now 'is like discovering a sleeping beauty.'

The instrument was taken from the office of the virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1980, pictured here at his 90th birthday in 2001

Roman Totenberg performs with the Stradivarius in the 1950s. The instrument was reported stolen after it was taken from Longy Music School but police did not believe there was enough evidence to pursue the suspect

The loss and subsequent recovering of the instrument is a fascinating one.

The instrument was returned to the family in 2015 by Preet Bharara then the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.

Totenberg had left his beloved Stradivarius in his office while greeting well-wishers after a concert in 1980. When he returned, it was gone.

Its case was later found in the basement of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he taught. But Totenberg, who died in 2012 at the age of 101, never saw the instrument again.

Totenberg thought he knew who stole the violin, but there was never enough evidence to pursue a suspect.

First look: The violin, made in 1734, had been stolen from the office of Roman Totenberg at a Boston area music school in 1980

The trail went cold until June 2015, when his eldest daughter, Nina Totenberg, got a phone call from an FBI agent.

The agent said he was looking at the violin, which was in federal custody.

'I really could hardly believe it at the time,' Nina Totenberg, the legal affairs correspondent for NPR, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Wednesday. 'I said, 'I have to call my sisters. I'll tell them not to get their hopes up,' but he said, 'You don't have to do that. This is the violin.''

The violin, known as the Ames Stradivarius, was made in Italy in 1734 by Antonio Stradivari and is one of several hundred Stradivarius instruments known to exist.

They can fetch millions of dollars at auction, including a record $15.9 million in 2011.

The Ames Stradivarius violin, that was stolen in 1980 has undergone a years restoration

The violin - today worth millions - remained missing until it was discovered by chance in the belongings of Phillip Johnson after he died. Here, Totenberg poses with it in the 1950s

On the lookout: This handout photo provided by the FBI New York shows The Ames Stradivarius which was recovered by the FBI in June 2015

Nina Totenberg said the violin surfaced in June 2015 when a woman had it appraised in New York and the appraiser immediately contacted authorities.

The woman is the former wife of Philip S. Johnson, who died in California in 2011.

Johnson's obituary described him as 'a noted violinist of 40 years' but did not detail where or for whom he played.

Totenberg said he was an aspiring violinist seen around her father's office at the time of the theft.

Totenberg said that, lacking evidence, police weren't able to obtain a warrant to search for the Stradivarius.

'There was nothing to be done, and eventually he just moved on and bought another violin and lived the rest of his life,' she said.

Roman Totenberg holds the Stradivarius before a rehearsal in Aspen, Colorado, in the late 1950s. Izler Solomon (right) conducts the orchestra

Back in the family: Sisters Amy Totenberg, left, Nina Totenberg, center, and Jill Totenberg embrace after getting their first look at the Ames Stradivarius violin back in August 2015

A child prodigy in his native Poland, Roman Totenberg bought the Stradivarius in 1943 for $15,000  more than $200,000 in today's dollars  and it was the only instrument he performed with until it was stolen. He kept performing into his 90s and taught at Boston University until he died.

'This loss for my father was, as he said when it happened, it was like losing an arm,' said daughter Jill Totenberg, a public relations executive in New York. 'To have it come back, years after he died, to us, it's like having him come alive again.'

The story of its theft and recovery is not uncommon for Stradivarius instruments, which are virtually impossible to sell on the black market, said David Schoenbaum, a retired history professor and violin expert who wrote a book called 'The Violin.'

'The things are very valuable, they're very portable and they are appealing, tempting to steal, and there are famous cases of violins that were stolen and remained stolen for many years,' Schoenbaum said.

Chance: The violin - today worth millions - remained missing until it was discovered by chance in the belongings of Phillip Johnson after he died. Daughter, Nina Totenberg is pictured

Roman Totenberg performs with composer Samuel Barber. For violin historians it solved a mystery and leaves just one Stradivarius unaccounted for - the Davidoff-Morini Strad - which was taken from the apartment of violinist Erica Morini in 1995

'It's terribly hard to get rid of one. The whole world is on your tail, and if you go to a pawn shop, you'll get $35. You'd have to take it to a dealer, and the dealer would immediately call the cops.'

Another famous Stradivarius, the Gibson, was stolen in 1936, and the thief, a journeyman violinist, confessed on his deathbed in 1985. It's now owned by violinist Joshua Bell.

A Stradivarius violin belonging to Erika Morini was stolen from her apartment in 1995 by someone who had a key to the locked bedroom closet where she kept it.

Morini wasn't told about the theft before she died weeks later. The instrument has never been found.

The Ames Stradivarius had wear-and-tear that indicated it hadn't been professionally maintained, but it was in pretty good shape overall, suggesting it hadn't been played much, Nina Totenberg said.

Prosecutors don't plan to charge anyone in connection with the theft, Totenberg said, and the violin will be returned to the family. They plan to sell it, but not to a collector, she said.
This is the moment an A-10 fighter jet shoots bombs at a remote-controlled Humvee, utterly destroying it.

Video from AirSource Military shows the target practice at the Saylor Creek Training Range in Idaho, about 60 miles south of state capital Boise.

The footage uploaded to YouTube shows a remote-controlled Humvee, or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, driving across a barren dirt landscape with a container village in the background.

An A-10 fighter jet, pictured right, was conducting some target practice on a remote-controlled Humvee, pictured left, at Saylor Creek Training Range in Idaho

Footage shows the moment a laser-guided bomb called a GBU 12 hits a Humvee - or in the case of this photo, the ground right behind it

The bomb causes the ground to shoot up behind the Humvee and, in the process, forces the vehicle's back two wheels up

A-10 Thunderbolts from the 124th Fighter Wing zoom in and shoot at the vehicle, stopping it dead in its tracks.

The fighter jets, also known as Warthogs, shot GBU 12s, or 500-pound, laser-guided bombs, at the moving, unmanned vehicle, The Drive reported.

Footage showing the aftermath of the bombing illustrate the Humvee to be a shell of its former self.

Describing the testing process for vehicles used as target practice at the range, Officer Curtis Viall told The Drive: 'Once at the range the vehicles are prepped to go on range as targets.

'In some cases targets require no modification and can go directly onto the range to be used, but quite often we will make modifications to make them look more realistic.'

A sort of village is seen in the foreground of the carnage wreaked by the A-10, also known as a Warthog

An officer inspects the Humvee, which is left a shell of its former self following the carnage. The A-10 plane was a hero during Operation Desert Storm

The exercise follows an aquatic training operation during which Florida fishing captains recruited by the US Air Force played the role of Iranian missile boats in attack exercises.

A lieutenant colonel said 35 local vessels were brought in to perform 'realistic swarm attack formations' during the exercise at Choctawatchee Bay last week.

It is a response to complaints from the US Navy that Iranian missile boats are harassing American vessels, and is an indication of the threat the Islamic republic poses at sea.

A-10 Warthog tank busters, Canadian F-18 fighter jets and attack helicopters performed simulated 'real time kills' on the boats.

The 86th Fighter Weapons Squadron based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida enlisted the captains so the jets could practice strafing runs, where low-flying aircraft hit ground targets.

The US Air Force contracted some 35 local fishing boats in Florida to mimic the 'attack swarm formations' used small fast-moving Iranian missile boats as part of a training exercise

A-10 Warthogs were used in mock strafing runs lining up to attack the small boats

The Iranian boats, pictured in a stock photo, are low cost but are fitted with rockets and machine guns and can present a danger to a far larger naval vessel which could find difficulty engaging them

Known as the 'flying gun', the A-10 Warthog plane was a hero during Operation Desert Storm and often shoots at moving targets - hence why the Humvee was moving in the simulation.

But the plane has since been deemed vulnerable and costly to operate.

Now, Minnesota-based startup Stavatti has unveiled designs for a new attack plane called the 'Machete' that consists of a new metal foam developed in conjunction with the US Department of Energy.

The metal foam is lightweight and strong - and is capable of stopping bullets and other projectiles in much less space than traditional armor, while the plane boasts the same 30mm cannon as the Warthog it could replace.

The Machete is still in the concept stages, but is set to be released in to variants - the propeller-driven SM-27 and the jet-propelled SM-28. And the startup has also thrown around ideas for Machete models to be used in air-to-air combat and advanced training
Bali's Kerobokan Prison, Sara Connor's home for four years, has been compared to a brothel or a drug den.

The Byron Bay mother-of-two will sleep on a thin yoga mat beside ten other women in her cell - in a prison previously described by inmates as a 'hellhole' with frequent 'murders, rapes, drug overdoses and bashings'.

Connor, 46, was sentenced to four years in jail for killing Bali police officer Wayan Sudarsa on Kuta Beach last year, while her British boyfriend, David Taylor, 34, was sentenced to six years.

She will be one of 140 women detained in the overcrowded prison.

Sara Connor will spend four years inside 'hellhole' Kerobokan Prison for killing Bali police officer Wayan Sudarsa on Kuta Beach last year

The Bali prison has been home to riots, fires and the nightmarish realities of high-profile Australian criminals, Schapelle Corby, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran

Detainees have previously described Kerobokan as a 'mental camp' of 'murder, rapes, drug overdoses and bashings'

Rachel Dougall was jailed in the squalid prison for a year after failing to report a crime, and told Daily Mail she suffered a nervous breakdown after being locked up with drug addicts, HIV-positive inmates and sexually aggressive lesbians.

'Most of the women were on drugs virtually every day. If you had money the guards would get you anything you wanted,' she said.

'Inmates in the men's prison next door even paid prostitutes for overnight visits.'

She also revealed that she received several savage beatings in the prison nicknamed 'Hotel K' before she was released in May 2013.

Author of Hotel Kerobokan Kathryn Bonella previously told The Daily Telegraph that despite sex being banned in the prison, men and women 'partake in every available nook'.

Tensions were high at the prison after a change in management which led to rioting and claiming a guard tower

As many as 40 percent of prisoners in Kerobokan Prison have committed drug-related offences

New Zealander Paul Conibeer spent ten months inside Kerobokan and said guards would accept bribes for having pizzas and prostitutes delivered to cells

'The jail doctor rents out a mattress in the medical clinic for sex; guards rent out their offices - as well as some of them joining in and having sex with inmate girlfriends in the women's block,' the author said.

New Zealander Paul Conibeer spent ten months inside Kerobokan and said the notorious prison is overcrowded and flooding with crime and drugs.

'One of the things that really upsets me about it is that you get the death penalty for drugs and yet the very place they've been housed for the past 10 years is full of drugs,' Conibeer said.

Conibeer explained in his book 'I Survived Kerobokan' that guards would accept bribes for having pizzas and prostitutes delivered to cells.

The prison was built to hold just 300 prisoners but there are now 1378 inmates being held

Taylor re-enacted a scene on Kuta beach with a police officer who posed as murder victim Wayan Sudarsa during his trial

Connor has a week to decide on if she will appeal her sentence, however in doing so will run the risk of having it increased

'Kerobokan is one of the only jails in the world where the prisoners are in control,' Conibeer said.

The prison was built to hold just 300 prisoners but there are now 1378 inmates being held there, according to the Herald Sun.

Just metres away from paradise, the Kerobokan has been home to high-profile Australian drug smugglers Schapelle Corby, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Corby spent nine years in Kerobokan after being convicted for smuggling 4.1kg of cannabis in 2005.

Chan and Sukumaran were considered ringleaders of nine Australians who were caught trying to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin out of Indonesia.

They were executed in 2015 after spending a decade in Kerobokan.

The 46-year-old will be one of 140 women detained in the overcrowded prison

The Byron Bay mother-of-two will sleep on a thin mattress beside ten other women in her cell

Connor has been inside the prison since being arrested in August last year. Previously, Corby spent nine years inside after being convicted of smuggling 4.1kg of marijuana

Connor has a week to decide on if she will appeal her sentence, however in doing so will run the risk of having it increased.

The Australian and boyfriend Taylor were found guilty of fatal assault in company as Mr Sudarsa didn't die directly of his wounds but from a brain haemorrhage caused by them not being treated.

The judges said the Byron Bay woman sat on the officer's back not to break up the fight but to stop him from fighting back - leaving him defencesless to Taylor's blows.

They also found she cut up Mr Sudarsa's ID cards not to protect his identity and stop them from being stolen, but because she panicked and felt guilty.

The Australian and boyfriend Taylor were found guilty of fatal assualt in company as Mr Sudarsa didn't die directly of his wounds but from a brain haemorrhage caused by them not being treated

The crime scene on Kuta Beach is pictured after police officer Wayad Sudarsa was found dead
Joaquin Shadow Rams has been accused of killing his one-year-old son, Prince

A father killed his one-year-old son in order to cash in on $500,000 of life insurance payments, prosecutors claim - and believe he had killed before.

More than four years after the death of Prince McLeod Rams during a court-ordered, unsupervised visit with his father, Joaquin Shadow Rams has gone on trial accused of killing his son.

The child died in Virginia in October 2012. Prosecutors say he died after being drowned by Rams, but the defendant said his son had a fever-related seizure.

Investigators suspect it is not the first time he has killed, following the deaths of his mother and ex girlfriend.

In opening statements yesterday, Prosecutor James Willett told the judge that Rams 'had firsthand experience' with life insurance payouts, having received a $162,000 payment after his mother, Alma Collins, died in 2008.

Prosecutors now suspect Rams was responsible for his mother's death, even though it was ruled a suicide.

And they also suspect he killed his former girlfriend, Shawn Mason, in 2003. It is claimed he tried unsuccessfully to collect on a life insurance policy after Mason was shot and killed.

Tragic: One-year-old Prince McLeod Rams died in October 2012, and prosecutors say he was drowned by his father

A judge, though, ruled that evidence about the deaths of Collins and Mason cannot be introduced at Prince's trial, though Willett referred to Collins' death obliquely during opening statements.

Rams' murder trial began Monday in Prince William Circuit Court. In the years since Prince's death in October 2012, the case has taken a remarkable number of twists, including conflicting rulings from medical examiners on the cause of Prince's death and a unique arrangement between prosecutors and the defense that took a potential death penalty off the table in exchange for Rams waving his right to a jury trial. A judge will now decide Rams' guilt or innocence.

The state's chief medical examiner has overruled an initial finding that Prince died by drowning. Prince's official cause of death is now listed as undetermined.

Prince's official cause of death is now listed as undetermined, and both sides in the case will present contradicting medical evidence

Both sides plan to present medical experts with differing conclusions about how Prince died.

Defense lawyers said Monday that Rams was a loving father, and that witnesses saw him playing with the boy and doting on him the day he died.

The key witness on Monday was Rams' older son and Prince's half brother, Joaquin Rams Jr, who goes by Shadow. The boy, now 17, testified that he was sharing a bedroom with Prince the day he died.

Hera McLeod, pictured with Prince, has accused her former partner of being a killer

Shadow said he was playing video games on his computer while Prince slept in a crib.

He testified that his dad poked his head in to check on the toddler a couple of times. Then, Shadow said, his dad burst into the room and scooped up Prince, even though Shadow saw no evidence that his baby brother was in distress.

'He was acting like Prince was dying,' Shadow testified.

Rams took Prince into the bathroom and starting running water. Rams has said he splashed cold water on the boy in an effort to revive him. Prosecutors say he drowned the boy.

Prince's death occurred on just the fourth unsupervised visit that he had with his father. The boy's mother, Hera McLeod, unsuccessfully fought to deny Rams unsupervised visitation, saying she feared for her son's safety.

Rams faces life in prison if convicted.

Soon after her son's death, McLeod - who fled her relationship two weeks after Prince was born - said: 'Either he's the most unlucky bastard on this planet, or he's a killer.'
Marissa Mayer could get a $23million payout in her Yahoo severance package if the internet company fires her after Verizon's $4.48billion buyout.

At the helm of the company for nearly five years, Mayer's reign of the struggling business was met with much criticism as Yahoo never caught up to its internet counterparts.

Verizon's offer to purchase the company in a multi-billion dollar buyout was seen as a lifesaver, a way for Yahoo to recover and allow for a restructuring of management.

Monday's announcement that Thomas McInerney would lead the business after the sale, could mean a severance package of $23million for Mayer, contingent on the sale and her being fired without cause.

The large sum is still only half of what Mayer could have made when she exited the company, the original amount was $44million and announced back in September.

Marissa Mayer could get a $23million payout in her Yahoo severance package if the internet company fires her after Verizon's $4.48billion buyout, it was announced Monday

The $23million is about half of the $44million Mayer was originally set to take when she exited. Replacing her as CEO is Thomas McInerney (right). His salary will double what Mayer made in the same role

Still a hefty amount, the sum was reduced because the other $21million in stock options and other awards have vested in her account since then, the LA Times reported.

Her package comprises just above $3million in cash, equity that as of March 8 was worth nearly $20million, and benefits worth nearly $25,000.

Taking over Mayer's role is 52-year-old McInerney, a board member and former internet executive.

He will make a base salary double of what Mayer received in the same role, $2million annually, with the chance for 'a cash annual incentive award targeted at one hundred per cent of [his] annual base salary', according to his offer letter.

The internet pioneer said the sale of its main operating unit was on track to be completed in the second quarter, and that McInerney would head the financial holding company that remains, provisionally called 'Altaba.'

The main holding of Altaba would be its stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba, which is worth far more than the rest of the Yahoo operations.

Verizon is buying the internet company for the price of $4.48billion, even after Yahoo announced hackers stole personal data from more than 500 million accounts in September

McInerney has been a Yahoo board member since April 2012 and previously served as chief financial officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

'Today's filing represents an important step forward in the process of completing our transaction with Verizon,' Yahoo said in a statement.

'We will continue to move ahead expeditiously toward the closing, which we expect to occur in the second quarter of 2017.'

The statement noted that the current Yahoo chief executive Mayer and chief financial officer Kenneth Goldman will remain in their posts prior to the closing.

Yahoo and Verizon last month cut the price of the sale to $4.48billion -- a reduction of $350million -- following revelations of massive data breaches that could further erode the image of the onetime internet leader.

Yahoo still faces probes and lawsuits related to the cyber attacks, which affected more than 1.5 billion accounts, and the timing of the disclosures.

Yahoo announced in September that hackers in 2014 stole personal data from more than 500 million of its user accounts. And in December it admitted to another cyber attack from 2013 affecting more than a billion users.
Is a second referendum justified?

Theresa May argues there should not be a second vote, because only two-and-a-half years ago the Scottish people voted firmly  55 per cent to 45 per cent  for the Union.

She points out that Alex Salmond, first minister at the time, described the September 2014 vote as once in a generation.

But his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, argues last years Brexit referendum changes everything, because the people of Scotland voted by 62 per cent to Remain. This, she insists, marks a material change in Scotlands circumstances.

Disappointed 'Yes' voters at George Square in Glasgow reacting after Scotland's decision to stay in the union after the Scottish independence referendum in 2014

Whose decision is it to hold a referendum?

The legal authority to hold a referendum is held by the UK Parliament at Westminster.

Ms Sturgeon will next week request an order under Section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998, the legislation which enshrined devolution.

She will seek support for this in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP does not have a majority but she will get it through thanks to support from independence-supporting Greens. Mrs May will then have to decide whether to accept a second referendum. If she does, it needs approval from both the Commons and the Lords.

Who decides on timing?

This is a joint decision between Edinburgh and Westminster following negotiations.

If Mrs May agrees to a referendum, she will want to ensure it takes place after Britain has left the European Union.

Ms Sturgeon said she wants to hold the plebiscite in late 2018 or early 2019  before the UK is set to leave. Unionists say this is unacceptable and means people would be voting blind, as they will not know the shape of the final deal.

What happens if Westminster doesnt give permission?

The Scottish Government could decide to hold its own referendum, but it would not be legally binding.

And a vote could also fall foul of the Supreme Court, which may rule that an independence vote is only allowed with Westminsters consent under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998.

Nicola Sturgeon took journalists by surprise today when she announced, just as the Brexit Bill was being debated, that she was seeking a second Scottish referendum

Who decides on the question?

If things go the same way as the first referendum, the question will initially be set by the Scottish Government.

However, the Electoral Commission intervened last time to say the original wording was biased and would push people towards an independence vote. The SNP accepted a change to the form: Should Scotland be an independent country?.

Who is able to vote?

Everyone over the age of 16 is eligible, as are European Union and Commonwealth nationals living in Scotland.

But Scottish-born people living in the rest of the UK cannot vote. English, Welsh and Northern Irish people resident in Scotland can vote.

What do the polls show?

One poll found that only four in ten people in Scotland actually want a second vote  but support for independence has increased narrowly in recent weeks.

An Ipsos Mori poll for STV found the vote was split exactly 50/50. A BMG survey for the Herald suggested a narrow majority of 52 per cent supported the Union.

Could an independent Scotland stay in the EU?

In 2012, the EU said an independent Scotland would have to reapply for membership after leaving the UK. This could take years as Scotland would have to go through a long period of negotiation with Brussels.

It would also have to comply with a series of accession criteria including, potentially, joining the euro. There is also the possibility some EU countries would simply block membership. Spain, for example, is fighting off an independence drive from its region of Catalonia and could seek to prevent Scottish entry as a warning to secessionists.

Will there be a hard border?

At the last referendum, the Unionist side argued that passport checks would have to be introduced on the border between England and Scotland.

They will now argue that, post-Brexit, the threat of a hard border is stronger than it was because the UK is now leaving the single market.

This is because if Scotland stays in the EU, Brussels could demand checks to stop English people taking advantage of freedom of movement while the rest of the UK may want its own checks.

For a while during the 2014 referendum campaign it looked like the pro-independence side would win but in the end Scots voted to stay part of Great Britain

What currency will Scotland use?

Last time around, the SNP insisted Scotland would continue to use the pound  in effect a currency union with the rest of the UK.

But the Treasury said it would not support this, and it is likely Chancellor Philip Hammond would restate this position.

That would mean Scotland would be left with the choice of creating its own currency or the highly controversial option of joining the euro.

Where is the Labour Party?

In chaos, with leader Jeremy Corbyn making contradictory claims over whether he supports the right of Scots to hold another referendum. If Scotland walks away, it would have disastrous consequences for his party.

Traditionally, Labour has relied on more than 40 seats north of the border to help it win majorities at Westminster. However it gained just one MP in 2015, and fell to third place in last years Scottish elections.

Independence would rule out Labour ever regaining territory it once dominated, making it potentially impossible for the party to win a majority in the UK again.

How would Scotland leaving change the UK?

The Ministry of Defence would have to find another location for Trident, which is presently located in the west of Scotland at Faslane. The SNP has said it would demand the UK move its nuclear deterrent if it becomes independent.

The Union Flag  an iconic cultural symbol around the world  may also have to be changed, to remove the blue-and-white Scottish saltire.

There are also fears it could increase the clamour for Welsh independence and the unification of Ireland.
Trained killer: Vital Dapi, pictured above, lived a double life in the UK and Albania for 17 years before he killed grandparents Peter and Sylvia Stuart. The former Albanian special forces commando targeted the couple in a 'callous' attack at their Suffolk cottage

An Albanian who brutally murdered two pensioners used a stolen identity to claim asylum and live in Britain illegally for nearly two decades.

In a case that exposed a litany of immigration blunders, violent criminal Vital Dapi lived a double life in the UK and Albania for 17 years before he killed grandparents Peter and Sylvia Stuart.

The former Albanian special forces commando targeted the couple in a 'callous' attack at their Suffolk cottage because he thought they were millionaires and he needed cash to cover massive gambling debts.

Detectives admitted they knew 'precious little' about him when he went on the run last year after Mr Stuart, 75, was discovered dumped in a ditch with nine 'extreme' stab wounds. The body of retired insurance clerk Mrs Stuart, 69, has never been found.

Dapi was arrested in Luxembourg and admitted his true identity, but British officials did not believe him and he was put on trial under his false name, Ali Qazimaj.

Vita Dapi murdered retired couple Sylvia and Peter Stuart, pictured together above

Here Vita Dapi, above left, is pictured receiving British citizenship from the then Thurrock mayor Ian Harrison, above right, in 2005

Now, after a jury at Ipswich Crown Court took just three hours to convict Dapi, it can be revealed that he:

Sneaked into Britain in September 1999 clinging to the fuel tank of a truck;

Was granted asylum within six months after telling border officials he was fleeing the war in Kosovo where his entire family had been a victims of ethnic cleansing;

Proudly posed next to a portrait of the Queen at his UK citizenship ceremony in an Essex town hall in 2005  and sent the picture home to his mother in Albania;

Made regular trips home to his family in Albania, where he retained a passport and ID card in his real name and worked as a suspected hitman around the Balkans;

Was arrested three times in the UK before the murders, without the authorities realising he was living here under a false name.

Last night MPs questioned the 'extraordinary' failings that had allowed Dapi to live in the country illegally for so long.

The compulsive gambler, who spent up to 1,000 a day at bookmakers, killed the Stuarts to fund his addiction after being told they were millionaires who had easy access to cash, the court was told.

He made reconnaissance trips in his car near the Stuarts' remote Brick Kiln Cottage in Weybread, near Eye in Suffolk, in the weeks before the murders last summer.

Police found retired technician Mr Stuart's body on June 3. Dapi was also convicted of Mrs Stuart's murder, after her hair was found in his car. After killing the keen line-dancers  who had been married for 48 years  Dapi drove to Dover and fled across the Channel by ferry after using Mrs Stuart's bank card to take money from a cash machine.

Lies and blunders that led to murders In Kosovo: The innocent Ali Qazimaj and his wife Ardiana A series of blunders allowed Albanian double killer Vital Dapi to claim asylum under a false name and live undetected in Britain for 17 years: 1999 Dapi sneaks into Britain by clinging on to the fuel tank of a truck on a ferry from the Netherlands to Harwich in Essex, after telling relatives he wants to 'serve Tony Blair' 2000 Uses a stolen Kosovo passport in the name of Ali Qazimaj and an invented story about his family being ethnically cleansed in the Yugoslav civil war to successfully claim asylum here 2005 Granted full British citizenship in his false name and poses next to a portrait of the Queen at his citizenship ceremony at an Essex town hall, before sending the picture home to his family in Albania. 2006, 2010 and 2013 Arrested in Britain, once for assault, without the authorities realising he is living under a false identity 2005 to 2016 Makes repeated trips back to his family in Albania, where he keeps a passport and ID card updated in his real name 2009 Offers to help a relative in Albania also get stolen Kosovan identity papers to sneak into Britain 2015 Travels from UK to Albania and through Kosovo to carry out a suspected contract killing in Serbia 2016 Dapi finally admits his real name after being arrested for double murder, but his name is not thoroughly investigated and he is put on trial in his false identity as prosecutors initially mistakenly insist it is a 'lie' that he is Vital Dapi Advertisement

After his capture, he admitted being Dapi but said he had never been to the UK until his extradition, or used the name Qazimaj.

But worryingly, little was done to investigate this and prosecutors initially told the jury his claim to be Vital Dapi was a 'lie'. In fact, it was one of the few things he was telling the truth about.

The son of a plumber, Vital Dapi was born in 1972 in Elbasani, a town two hours from the Albanian capital of Tirana.

His sister Esmeralda Hasko said: 'He had a dream of the West. Every time he saw the Queen or Tony Blair on the television he would say, 'I want to serve you. I want to work for you'.'

In December 1998, Dapi paid a people trafficker to get him to Italy, and from there made his way to the Netherlands, where he smuggled himself on to a freight ship to Harwich in Essex on September 25, 1999.

His uncle, Murat Dapi, said: 'He clung to the fuel tank of a lorry for the entire journey. When he arrived in Britain, they couldn't believe he was still alive.'

In the UK he spent six months in a refugee camp. His brother-in-law, Ingrid Hasko, said: 'Vital bought a Yugoslavian passport from a Kosovar and switched the picture for his own.

'He knew that he needed to have documents from Kosovo to get permanent residency in England.'

To prevent the authorities doing background checks, Dapi told them his entire family had been wiped out. One of his cousins said: 'The English authorities believed his story, like they believed so many stories.'

Within six months he was granted asylum followed by permanent residency and citizenship in 2005.

Despite his new identity as Ali Qazimaj, he maintained a double life, returning to Albania several times a year where he retained citizenship as Dapi.

After working as a driver, shop assistant and in the Holiday Inn hotel in Islington, north London, Dapi settled in Tilbury, Essex, and acted as carer for the father and stepmother of the Stuarts' son-in-law, Steve Paxman, which is how he came to hear about the couple he would eventually kill.

In 2015, he carried out a suspected hit in Serbia after travelling from Albania, and later boasting to Mr Paxman about carrying out a 'contract killing'. The following year, desperate for more cash, he attacked the Stuarts.

Jurors yesterday found Dapi guilty after prosecutor Karim Khalil QC told them: 'He is an arrogant man, he is a professional deceiver, he is a callous murderer.'

Tory MP Charlie Elphicke said: 'This is an astonishing and extremely worrying story. It yet again underlines the vital importance of border security, tough checks and making sure people arriving are who they say they are.'

The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases. Dapi will be sentenced today  under the name of Ali Qazimaj.

Tell us where Mum's body is, daughter begs twisted killer

The daughter of Sylvia Stuart yesterday begged 'twisted' killer Vital Dapi to reveal where he had hidden her mother's body.

Christy Paxman, 42, said she hoped Dapi would one day have the 'moral courage' to reveal where her mother's remains were and give her family some peace after the 'senseless' murders of her parents.

Mother-of-one Mrs Paxman reported Mrs Stuart, 69, and her father, Peter, 75, missing last May, after they had failed to turn up at their line-dancing club.

Inquiry: Police at Christy Paxman's home. She is the daughter of pensioner Sylvia Stuart and her husband Peter who were murdered last year

Mr Stuart, a retired Tate & Lyle sugar factory worker, and his wife were last seen alive on May 29 when they were filmed on CCTV visiting Goodies farm shop in Pulham Market near Diss, Norfolk  six miles from their home.

Police eventually found Mr Stuart's battered body on June 3, face-down in a ditch and hidden under a tarpaulin, 50ft from the cottage he had renovated himself after retiring to the country a few years earlier.

But Mrs Stuart's body has not been recovered despite a massive search by police who followed 900 lines of inquiry.

Dapi was charged with both murders after Mrs Stuart's hairs were found in his abandoned car after he fled abroad.

Mrs Paxman and her husband Steven, who had lived next door to the Stuarts in Suffolk before moving to Leicestershire, gasped with relief when the guilty verdicts were announced at Ipswich Crown Court.

Mrs Paxman said outside court: 'To the twisted individual who committed this wicked crime, we hope you spend the rest of your miserable existence reflecting on the utter senselessness and brutality of what you did to two innocent people.'

She added: 'Maybe one day you will find the moral courage to tell us where Mum is so we can give her and our family some final peace.'
British Airways is facing a backlash from passengers after running out of food on flights.

The airline has also been caught out failing to stock enough loo roll.

The problems sparked a wave of complaints from customers, many of whom are still fuming over BAs recent decision to scrap free food on short-haul trips.

Customers have hit out at British Airways after the airline ran out of food and didn't stock enough loo roll during a flight. BA also scrapped food on short-haul trips recently, fueling discontent

One passenger flying to Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, from London Gatwick last week said cabin crew ran out of food by the time the trolley was halfway down the plane.

Tessa Evans Hurrell said that, having already endured a two-hour delay, her family was then only offered drinks three hours into the four-hour journey.

Our 11-year-old daughter was in tears she was so hungry

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, she added: They just had a couple of packets of biscuits and nuts [left] ... Our 11-year-old daughter was in tears she was so hungry.

Another passenger said the same thing happened on a flight back from Fuerteventura on Saturday.

Nancy Sproston wrote on Twitter: Terrible flight. Ran out of food altogether by row 19. Whats going on?

Another Twitter user, Rebecca Clifford, had a similar experience on another flight, writing: Rude staff at Geneva, unclear ski carriage policy, ran out of food almost instantly on an evening flight etc.

On a flight to London from Innsbruck, Austria, last week, there were just three sandwiches left for 110 passengers. And earlier this month a BA flight to Barbados was grounded at Gatwick for more than five hours because there was not enough loo roll on board. Passengers had to wait while ground crew restocked the plane.

The Boeing 777, which can carry 280 passengers, arrived at Bridgetown five and a half hours late.

Under EU law, those delayed for more than three hours can receive compensation of 520 (600), saddling BA with a bill of up to 145,600. The return flight was also delayed, taking the potential total payout to 291,200.

The airlines decision to stop giving out free food from January on flights of less than five hours has proved deeply unpopular.

British Airways fell out of the top ten best value short-haul carriers in a poll of 7,500 members of consumer group Which? The airline plan to reduce legroom by an inch on some of its planes next year - making them smaller than budget airline Ryanair

The airline is now offering pricey M&S food instead, including a 7.55 sandwich deal. Passengers have complained that BAs fares do not appear to have dropped to account for the loss of free food.

The airline has since fallen out of the top ten best value short-haul carriers in a poll of 7,500 members of consumer group Which?.

From next year BA also plans to reduce legroom from 30 inches to 29 on some of its planes  the same as on EasyJet and an inch smaller than Ryanair.

A BA spokesman said they regularly adjust stock levels, adding: Customers tell us they really appreciate the choice and quality of the M&S range and have already bought hundreds of thousands of items, including 39,000 bacon rolls and 14,000 bottles of prosecco, since they were introduced.
Footage has emerged of a fully-clothed man flipping into the Yarra River in front of pedestrians on a busy Melbourne road.

Electrician Chris Nicols, 22, filmed as the 37-year-old man climbed over the railings at Princes Bridge and front-flipped into the river water.

Mr Nicols told Daily Mail Australia that the man asked him to hold his belongings and that he was going to jump into the river for the second time that day.

The 37-year-old man brazenly scaled the railing and jumped into the Yarra River

Chris Nicol, 22, (pictured) filmed the entire incident and posted in onto Facebook

Crowds were around the Yarra River at Princes Bridge on Monday night for the Moomba Festival as the man performed his bizarre front-flip.

'I was getting dinner with my partner and this random guys asks me to hold his bag because he was going to jump into the river,' Mr Nicols said.

'I told him "no you're not" because there were trolleys lodged in the water but he said he had already done it. And he was telling the truth because his pants were soaked.'

The video shows the man climb over the railings and launch straight into the water while performing an elegant front flip.

The man launched himself into the river while shocked onlookers watched and filmed

As he jumped the man did a perfect front flip before landing into the murky river water

Mr Nicols said: 'He gets up and performs this great flip trick and I was worried because he stayed under for a while, but then he swam back to the ladder and climbed back up.'

'The police sort of took him away and sat him down and talked to him. It was really strange.'

Victoria Police told Daily Mail Australia that they were investigating the incident.

'Police spoke to a 37-year-old man from Hoppers Crossing after he jumped from Princess Bridge about 7.25pm on Monday night. Enquires into the matter are ongoing,' police say.
Pubs and clubs across the country are staging a boycott of Coopers after its beer featured in a Bible Group's video debate on marriage equality.

Coopers has denied paying for what appears to be a promotional partnership, but the South Australian brewery has released a range of light beer featuring Bible verses to celebrate 200 years of the Christian charity behind the video.

Footage has since emerged of a publican throwing cartons of Coopers beers into a bin as dozens of Australian institutions reject the beer for its stance in the debate.

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Bendigo Hotel in Melbourne posted a photo of a Coopers sign with the words 'RIP' written on it

The general manager of Fitzroy, Melbourne, venues Sircuit nightclub and Mollie's Bar and Diner threw out all remaining Coopers beers.

'Sircuit and Mollies, like beer companies, have choices. I have made mine,' Chris Driscoll wrote on Facebook.

Also in Fitzroy, the 86 announced a similar boycott.

'After their decision to endorse a group who used their association to release a bigoted video in defence of the "Bible's" definition of "marriage" and oppose #marriageequality in this country, we have decided that there is no place for Coopers in our fridge.

'May they decline into obscurity.'

One person even shared a photo of a Coopers beer in a toilet bowl

The Hollywood Hotel in Surry Hills has boycotted the beer until Coopers has something positive to add to the debate

George's Bar also announced Coopers beers would no longer be stocked at the Fitzroy venue.

'We have many other great beer choices made by great brewers who are more aligned with out beliefs,' the bar wrote on Facebook.

The Old Bar, again in Fitzroy, said Coopers beers would no longer be stocked.

'It's a sad day for us as over the many years we have built a strong relationship, yet after recent events it is very obvious that our values are at odds,' the bar wrote on Facebook.

The Hollywood Hotel in Surry Hills has also boycotted the beer.

The Union Hotel in Newtown is one of many pubs and clubs to have announce a boycott of Coopers beers

The 86 in Fitzroy, inner-city Melbourne, announced a similar boycott and wrote on Facebook: 'May they decline into obscurity'

'We have many other great beer choices made by great brewers who are more aligned with out beliefs,' Fitzroy's George's Bar wrote on Facebook

'We apologise but we are not serving Coopers beer until a positive response is received to the marriage equality debate,' Hollywood Hotel wrote over the Coopers tap.

Newtown's The Union hotel is donating revenue from their remaining Coopers to depression hotline Beyond Blue.

'We're huge fans of the beer, but nothing short of genuine public support from Coopers for marriage equality would get us back to pouring their good stuff,' the pub posted on Facebook.

Nearby, the Newtown Hotel is replacing Coopers stock and donating $1 of every pint this month to GetUp! campaign group.

The Hideaway Bar in Enmore said the beers would be taken out of the fridge.

Adelaide's The Mars Bar also announced it would not longer be continuing to purchase Coopers stock

The Hideaway Bar in Enmore said the beers would be taken out of the fridge

Several people on social media shared photos and videos of them pouring Coopers beers down the drain

Adelaide's The Mars Bar also announced it would not longer be continuing to purchase Coopers stock.

Coopers was trending on Twitter on Monday as Australians declared they would no longer be drinking the brewery's beers.

Some on social media posted photos and video of them pouring the beers down the sink.

Another put their Coopers branded hat in the rubbish bin and posted a photo online.

One person even shared a photo of a Coopers beer in a toilet bowl.

A boycott Coopers petition is calling on the brewery to show support for marriage equality.

The Bible Society video featured Liberal MPs Andrew Hastie (right) and gay politician Tim Wilson (left) debate marriage equality, while drinking and cheersing Coopers beers

The general manager of Fitzroy, Melbourne, venues Sircuit nightclub and Mollie's Bar and Diner threw out all remaining Coopers beers

One person put their Coopers branded cap in their rubbish bin, and shared an image on Twitter

'Sircuit and Mollies, like beer companies, have choices. I have made mine,' Chris Driscoll wrote on Facebook

Liberal MPs Tim Wilson and Andrew Hastie had 'kept it light' to debate marriage equality in the Bible Society video - while drinking and cheersing Coopers light beers.

The video drew the ire of LGBTQI Australians, many of whom said their equal rights was not a 'light' discussion.

Pedestrian.TV and SBS writer Ben McLeay noted that while Mr Whilson is gay, he was debating a member of his own party - which has so far declined to have a free vote on marriage equality in parliament.

'Truly groundbreaking of Coopers to get two dudes from the same party to politely debate an issue their party already has a stance on,' Mr Macleay wrote.

The Liberal MPs are pictured debating marriage equality in the Bible Society video with Coopers beers

The South Australian brewery has released a commemorative range of light beers with Bible verses on its cartons to mark the 200th anniversary of the Bible Society

'Unfortunately we will no longer be purchasing any stock from Coopers,' The Old Bar wrote

Coopers denied having any involvement with the Bible Society video.

'We want you to know that Coopers did not give permission for our Premium Light beer to feature in, or "sponsor" the Bible Society's "Keeping it Light" video,' the brewery said in a statement.

In an earlier statement, Coopers had not gone so far to distance itself from the video.

'With regards to the "Keeping it Light" video from the Bible Society featuring Andrew Hastie and Tim Wilson, this is a light hearted but balanced debate about an important topic within Australia,' the earlier statement said.

'Coopers isn't trying to push religious messages or change your beliefs by celebrating 200 years of charitable work undertaken by the Bible Society, in fact, over the years we have produced a number of different celebratory cans to recognise the historical achievements of a vast array of different organisations.'

Newtown Hotel said Coopers beers on tap would be replaced

The Coopers light beer to commemorate Bible Society with Bible verses on the carton is pictured

A spokesperson for the Bible Society told Daily Mail Australia: 'Coopers has definitely not paid any money or donated any money towards the video. It was produced solely by Bible Society Australia.'

In a statement, the charity said the Bible Society was 'entirely responsible' for the "Keeping it Light" video'.

'It was not sponsored by Coopers. No money has changed hands between Bible Society and Coopers in regards to this campaign,' the statement said.

'Bible Society remains grateful to Coopers for both the release of light beer commemorating our bicentenary and their support through their foundation for the distribution of bibles to the Defence Force and those who need them.

One social media user even posted a photo of a Coopers beer being poured down the drain

In a statement, Coopers put distance between the brewery and the Bible Society video

Coopers is releasing a range of light beer in partnership with the charity

'The interest from the public in this campaign reinforces the message of the video  that it is important for Australians to have respectful conversations about serious issues  "keeping it light".'

The Bible Society website says the Christian charity 'teamed up with Coopers Premium Light' to reach 'more Australians with God's word'.

The video zooms in and lingers on the Coopers bottles.

The brewery is releasing a range of light beer in partnership with the charity.

The cartons will have Bible verses written on them, and the cans will feature the Bible Society logo.

Coopers said the brewery respected community beliefs.

Tim Wilson, a gay Liberal MP, is pictured cheersing Coopers beers in the video

Tim Cooper (left) and Bible Society's Greg Clarke (right) are pictured together)

'We aren't trying to push a religious message, we see these commemorative cans as a celebration of the Bible Society's 200 years of charitable work in Australia,' the company said in its second statement.

'We respect the beliefs of our community and do not wish to try and change them.

'Our family brewery is made up of individuals from a number of different backgrounds, all of whom hold differing views on politics and religion, which we think is reflective of the wider community.

'We would like all Coopers fans to know that we support and embrace all of our beer drinking community.'

Coopers is a donor of the South Australian Liberal Party.

Coopers has not responded to requests for comment.

'If Coopers want to nail their political colours to the mast they must understand they'll put 50 per cent of their customers offside,' one person wrote on Twitter
British taxpayers are paying millions towards the extraordinary travel costs of MEPs and EU officials who demand business class flights, documents reveal.

They have racked up massive expenses bills in hotels and restaurants around the world.

Documents show that in only one year, MEPs submitted receipts for 10.4million on business class tickets  in spite of calls to limit their spending.

Travel receipts show a further 1.2million was spent on business class tickets for staff. On average, the 751 MEPs spend 26,500 each on flights alone every year.

The culture of largesse allowed them to spend 1.2million on just two trips to tropical locations where they dined at luxury restaurants.

Revelations about the excessive spending within the European Parliament, pictured above, come amid calls for the UK to pay even more money into its coffers

Revelations about the excessive spending within the European Parliament come amid calls for the UK to pay even more money into its coffers despite preparing to leave the EU.

Chiefs of the EU body have ignored a wave of criticism and called for a huge increase in next years budget, which would involve the UKs contribution for just 12 months jumping to 235million.

Now new figures reveal how the obligations will see British taxpayers spending millions so MEPs and their staff can travel across the world on costly tickets.

Forty-five MEPs ran up a 853,000 bill for an event at a five-star hotel in Fiji. During the three-day conference in 2015, they enjoyed poolside lunches with sea views at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva.

In the same year, another 46 officials travelled to Panama City for a conference at a cost of 355,000, partly funded by the UK.

Despite the generous allowances already on offer, proposals for next years budget include provisions to further increase expenses limits for officials, but not MEPs.

As well as flying in business class, MEPs  who enjoy basic salaries of 69,000  are allowed to take advantage of an array of other perks, such as first class train tickets and a fleet of drivers based at the parliament.

The politicians also receive 268-a-day allowance just for showing up, and generous pension payments.

Guidelines on how much MEPs can claim for flights do not include an upper limit and also allow them to bill the public for additional fees, such as if they fall foul of baggage rules.
A 14-year-old Queensland student was being badly bullied, but school officials wouldn't react - so his parents suggested he wear a hidden camera to school to document his abuse.

The parents reached out to the ABC with the idea and the result is a new documentary program, Bullied, hosted by former swimmer Ian Thorpe.

The Queensland student, identified as Kelsey, said he had been bullied since early primary school.

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Ian Thorpe hosts a new ABC program where the five-time Olympic swimming champion exposes bullying by equipping students with hidden cameras

A 14-year-old Queensland student was being badly bullied, but school officials wouldn't react - so his parents suggested he wear a hidden camera to school to document his abuse

The student suffered both physical and mental abuse, including sickening text messages telling him to 'kill/harm' himself

Mr Thorpe said he feels strongly about the issue of bullying. 'It's so hard to accept the unnecessary pain that people who experience bullying go through'

'I'm sensitive and aggressive ... it's like mixing dangerous chemicals together. It's just going to explode,' he told the ABC.

Kelsey suffered both physical and mental abuse, including sickening text messages telling him to 'kill/harm' himself.

His father said he have sat down with school administrators who admitted they were unable to deal with the problem.

'I met with the head of year, for Year 9, who sat in front of me and told me that he's at a loss and doesn't know how to deal with it and doesn't know how to fix the problem and doesn't know where to go to from here,' the father told the ABC.

In a video posted to his Instagram account, Mr Thorpe said he feels strongly about the issue of bullying.

'It's so hard to accept the unnecessary pain that people who experience bullying go through.'

The five-time Olympic gold medalist told ABC's News Breakfast schools generally react in two ways when they learn about the hidden camera project.

In a video posted to his Instagram account, Mr Thorpe said he feels strongly about the issue of bullying

'When we go to the schools and we explain to them this is what we're doing, the reaction is either, "Why is it at my school that you're doing this?" [or] the other one is, "If a student had to go to this length to try and get a problem resolved, obviously we're not getting it right."'

After watching a trailer for the show, some Australians took to social media to share their own experiences of bullying.

'I constantly wished for technology to be advanced enough to allow for a small camera to be placed on my glasses,' one woman wrote.

'Ironically I wasn't bullied for having glasses, but for being a scrawny imaginative "geek" who kept to herself most of the time. For some reason that was threatening to bullies who felt the need to "control" me by belittling me and my emotions.'

The five-time Olympic gold medalist told ABC's News Breakfast schools generally react in two ways when they learn about the hidden camera project: befuddlement, or introspection

'I hope this program Ian is a part of helps children and helps stop bullying by really looking at what is going on away from adults. I also wish adults would take it all the more seriously,' she continued.

Others were critical of the show's premise, saying it unfairly blames hard-working teachers.

'Hey why don't we start strapping GoPros on every child and set up a fully staffed 24/7 viewing room to see what goes on?' one woman wrote on Facebook.

'Seriously lay off teachers,' she continued. 'They juggle enough.'

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, a spokesperson for the Queensland Department of Education and Training said it is committed to making schools safe and that bullying is not tolerated.

The spokesperson added that the Department 'objects to the way source footage was obtained for this program.'

'The Department was prepared to participate in the program to reinforce its position and raise awareness of the extensive work schools are undertaking in this area,' the spokesperson added.
An Oregon father-of-three's Facebook post about his two-year-old daughter misbehaving at a restaurant has become an online sensation.

Daddy blogger Clint Edwards shared a photo showing him in a van with his young daughter on the social media platform March 5.

Edwards wrote on Facebook that the youngster 'had a meltdown because mom wouldn't let her throw chicken strips'.

Daddy blogger Clint Edwards is seen in a van with his upset daughter. The father's Facebook post about the girl misbehaving at a restaurant has become an online sensation

He continued: 'So she screamed, and screamed, and kicked and kicked, and since I was the only one finished with my meal, I had the pleasure of dragging her out of Red Robin.'

According to Edwards, 'I carried her past the bar and everyone stared at me, most of them childless, I assumed.

'No one with children would give me that straight faced, lip twisted, look that seems to say, "if you can't control your kid, then don't go out."'

The father explained: 'She's two and it's going to take years to teach her how to act appropriately in public, and the only way I am ever going to teach that is to take her out and show her what's right and wrong.

'By saying no a million times, letting her throw a fit, and telling her no again.'

Edwards wrote on Facebook that his two-year-old daughter 'had a meltdown because mom wouldn't let her throw chicken strips'

He said: 'I get it. Kids are irritating when they are loud in a restaurant. I know. I'm living it.

'But before you get angry and judgmental, realize that what you are witnessing is not bad parenting, but rather, parents working hard to fix the situation.

'You are looking at what it takes to turn a child into a person.'

Edwards' Facebook post has been shared more than 162,000 times on Facebook.

He was with his wife Mel and the couple's three children at the time of the young girl's tantrum, Fox News reports.

He told the news outlet: 'At first I was pretty surprised the post hit home like it did, but clearly it resonated with a lot of people.

'I think all parents have had their children throw a public meltdown. It's just part of parenting. It's universal.'
Page Content

Northern and sparsely populated areas (NSPA) make an important contribution to national growth and productivity and investment in these regions is to the benefit of the EU as a whole. This strong message from the OECD was presented at the launch of the territorial review of 14 NSPA regions at the European Committee of the Regions on 13 March.



The sparsely populated areas of Finland, Norway and Sweden are becoming increasingly important to the geopolitical and economic interests of these countries and the European Union. These regions in northern Europe are linked by a set of common characteristics, which are absent in other European regions, and are recognized in key national and EU policy frameworks. EU funding targeted to these regions has promoted development and structural adjustment of regions with extremely low population densities.

"The Northern Sparsely Populated Areas of Finland, Norway and Sweden have an important economic role within Europe. In order to reach their potential, future growth will need to come from increasing productivity and lifting workforce participation. The OECD Territorial Review of the NSPA finds that can be achieved by these regions implementing smart specialisation strategies, improving infrastructure and connectivity, and promoting service delivery innovation and extending broadband", concluded Mari Kiviniemi, Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD.

The OECD/NSPA study shows the challenges and opportunities of the NSPA regions, and how the NSPA together can create a common critical mass to truly strengthen the development opportunities in the European frontline, both geographically as a part of the European Arctic, and in creating development. The OECD policy recommendations for the NSPA regions include the importance of improving infrastructure for connectivity; the need to focus scarce economic development resources in areas of absolute advantage; and accounting for the higher unit costs of delivering public services (due to remoteness, low population densities, and the harsh climate).

"The OECD report delivers support for increased partnership on regional, NSPA, national and EU level for adapted strategies and support to release the regional potentials, including investments in infrastructure, broadband, smart regional specialisation and innovation. We look forward to now put this for us important study in practice in cooperation with our partners on all levels", says Erik Bergkvist, chair of Region Vasterbotten and Europa Forum Northern Sweden.

The study also sends a clear message to the national governments and the EU to continue to ensure that the unique characteristics of the NSPA regions (a harsh climate, long distances from markets, and a small number of isolated settlements) are effectively incorporated into national and European level policy settings for regional and rural development, and service delivery.

"This extensive Territorial Review provides evidence for the development of a place-based strategy, which can help realise the growth opportunities in the region. The NSPA regions account for 20 % of Finland's economy, 9 % in Sweden and 7 % in Norway, which is significant for the Arctic and the EU as a whole. Cross-border collaboration between NSPA and other EU regions and cities will help build up the needed human capital, skills, innovation and infrastructure", stated Markku Markkula, President of the European Committee of the Regions.

The regions are committed to investing and delivering on these policy recommendations with a strong and proactive leadership in their regions, in joint actions within the NSPA, calling for a strong and close partnership with the EU and national governments to unleash the potentials that exist. It is not only possible, it is a necessity to invest in those regions to the benefit of the countries and, not least, the EU as a whole.

Satu Vehreavesa, Chairwoman of NSPA highlighted that "the OECD study shows clearly that NSPA region is not only a target for support, but we also bring a significant added value for the European economic growth and development".

Full report: OECD Territorial review: Northern Sparsely Populated Areas

Background Information:

The Northern Sparsely Populated Areas, NSPA, is a network which consists of 14 regions of the northern Sweden, eastern and northern Finland as well as Northern Norway. These regions share many circumstances such as long distances, a sparse population and harsh climate. Within the EU, the NSPA regions have unique geographical features and are more similar to rural regions in countries such as Australia and Canada. The NSPA has a total population of 2.6 million over an area of 532 000 square kilometers. This is comparable to the population of Rome living in the entire area of Spain. The regions of NSPA are located in the periphery of Europe and are part of the passage to the Artic and eastern Russia. The climate change, access hydrocarbon, mineral resources and the altered relations with Russia are changing the economic and political environment. Therefore, the role of NSPA is becoming increasingly important to the economic and geopolitical interests of these regions and the EU.

The new study, OECD Territorial review. Northern Sparsely Populated Areas , is the product of two years of research and joint discussion between the OECD and the NSPA region. It sets policy recommendations at cross-border, national and regional scale to enhance prosperity and wellbeing across the NSPA. In a document published in September 2016, the Regional Outlook on development in sparsely-populated areas and low-density economies, the OECD concluded that low-density (rural) areas are places of unique opportunity. Both studies highlight the linkages between urban and rural policies and the need for countries to rethink rural development to better tap the productivity growth potential of all rural regions.

Press contacts:



East & North Finland EU Office : Kari Aalto, +32 2 239 22 21,

kari.aalto@eastnorth.fi



North Sweden European Office : Mikael Janson, +32 2 282 18 20,

mikael.janson@northsweden.eu



Mid Sweden European Office: Zofia Tucinska, +32 2 235 02 31,

zofia.tucinska@lvn.se



North Norway European Office: Trond Haukanes, +32 2 237 69 02, trond.haukanes@northnorway.org



Source: NSPA Network
Theresa May is today poised to emphatically reject Nicola Sturgeons timetable for a second vote on Scottish independence, amid fears it could undermine Brexit.

Scotlands First Minister yesterday declared she will push for another referendum just before the UK leaves the EU.

She insisted Scots deserved a real choice over EU membership and threatened to throw a grenade into Brexit talks by holding the vote between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

It provoked Mrs May to accuse her of playing politics with the future of our country.

The Prime Minister said the SNP had tunnel vision on independence and urged Miss Sturgeon to focus on improving Scotlands public services rather than more uncertainty and division, adding: Politics is not a game.

Government sources last night indicated Mrs May was set to insist any second independence vote is held after Britain has left the EU.

Battle royale: Nicola Sturgeon (pictured) is hell-bent on becoming the first Prime Minister of an independent Scotland - but Theresa May is today poised to emphatically reject Nicola Sturgeons timetable

It followed her crushing defeat of a threatened revolt as MPs decisively threw out two amendments to the Brexit Bill by the Lords.

Peers last night abandoned the amendments, allowing the legislation to be given royal assent this morning  the last step before Mrs May can trigger Article 50.

Yesterday a source described Miss Sturgeons intervention as unpatriotic and said the proposed timing could undermine negotiations by allowing Brussels to play Scotland off against the rest of the UK. Another said allowing a referendum during Brexit talks could only damage the chances of getting the best deal.

A Government spokesman described the suggested timetable as the worst possible. The warning came as the SNPs case for independence was undermined by a series of revelations, including:

Polls showed a clear majority of Scots do not want a second referendum, less than three years after voting by 55-45 to remain in the UK;

Brussels made it clear Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU if it separates from the UK  potentially leaving it outside its biggest markets for years;

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said an independent Scotland would have to raise taxes or cut spending to replace the huge subsidies it receives from England;

Business leaders criticised the move, with the Scottish Chambers of Commerce saying the continual uncertainty would have a material impact upon businesses in Scotland;

There were warnings about the implications for Scotlands defences as Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said it would have to re-apply to the security pact.

In 2014, the SNP said the referendum was a once in a generation chance. But Miss Sturgeon has been threatening a second referendum since last June when Scotland voted to remain in the EU.

Speaking at her official residence, Bute House in Edinburgh, the SNP leader said she would ask the Scottish Parliament to begin the legal process next week.

Prime Minister Theresa May insisted the majority of Scots did not want another referendum on independence despite Mrs Sturgeon's 'tunnel vision'

The latest poll on Scottish independence showed voters split with a very narrow advantage for staying inside the UK

Both the pro-independence and the pro-union camps were split over their attitudes in the Brexit referendum, according to YouGov

Although the SNP lost its majority at Holyrood, it has the support of the Greens on the issue, meaning Miss Sturgeon is likely to win parliamentary backing.

Nicola Sturgeon, left, and Mrs May at the dedication to the new Iraq and Afghanistan war memorial in London last week

But, under the terms of Labours devolution deal, any referendum also has to be approved by MPs at Westminster. Downing Street was tight-lipped yesterday on exactly how Mrs May will respond.

The PMs official spokesman said: We have said there shouldnt be a second referendum. But as for the issue, it hasnt gone through the Scottish Parliament yet  We are waiting for the Scottish Parliament to reach a decision. But we are 100 per cent clear that we do not believe there should be a second independence referendum. They said at the time this would decide the issue for a generation.

In a separate statement, a Government spokesman indicated Miss Sturgeons timetable was unacceptable, saying: Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time.

Miss Sturgeon yesterday accused Mrs May of failing to respect Scotlands interests, by insisting that the UK must leave the single market as part of Brexit.

She claimed her appeals to the Prime Minister on the issue had been met with a brick wall of intransigence. If Scotland can be ignored on an issue as important as our membership of the EU and the single market, then it is clear that our voice and our interests can be ignored at any time and on any issue, she added.

The First Minister said Scotland stood at a hugely important crossroads. She claimed leaving the EU would hit the economy and affect how open, welcoming, diverse and fair the country was.

In short, it is not just our relationship with Europe that is at stake, she said. What is at stake is the kind of country we will become.

Pro-independence campaigners waved saltire flags adorned with the word 'Yes' during a rally held at Glasgow's George Square

The move is the biggest gamble of Miss Sturgeon's political career, and will trigger a high-stakes clash with Downing Street over the timing of the vote

The 2014 referendum was held after David Cameron backed the SNPs demand for a vote on independence.

On that occasion, the Government gave the Scottish Parliament a relatively free rein on the timing, the question asked and the electoral franchise, which was extended to include 16-year-olds.

But ministers are not expected to give Miss Sturgeon a blank cheque if she presses ahead with her threat to hold a second referendum.

Her proposal threw Labour into chaos, with Jeremy Corbyn being forced to abandon his position that a second vote would be absolutely fine, after intense pressure from senior figures in the party.

A BMG poll for the Herald newspaper found only 39 per cent of Scots back a second referendum, with 49 per cent opposed. Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Miss Sturgeon had no mandate for a second referendum after losing her majority at Holyrood.

Shes trying to convert votes like mine, which were for Remain in the EU referendum, into votes for another independence referendum, Miss Davidson said.

The people of Scotland are angry at the First Minister today because she is not speaking for Scotland.

EU wouldn't let them in for years Nicola Sturgeon said she would demand authority from the Westminster government to hold a fresh Scottish independence referendum Brussels delivered a blunt assessment of Nicola Sturgeons plans last night, warning that Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU if it votes for independence. Officials suggested Scots would have to join the back of a queue containing several other countries, meaning the process could drag on for years. The lukewarm reaction appeared to pour cold water on the SNP leaders belief an independent Scotland will be offered fast-track EU membership. It reflects a deep unease among EU chiefs about offering the country special treatment in the fallout from Brexit. The warning was followed by another from Nato that Scotland may not be able to remain in the defence alliance if it gets independence. Jens Stoltenberg, the groups secretary-general, said: By leaving the UK, it will also be leaving Nato, but of course it is possible to apply for membership and then the allies would then decide. Despite Miss Sturgeons desire to remain in the EU, the bloc yesterday said it backed a doctrine laid out by former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who said during the first referendum that an independent Scotland would be left outside the EU. After initially ruling out becoming involved in the debate, the Commission yesterday said the legal view was still fully supported. While this approach still offers a path to rejoin the EU, experts believe the process would be fraught with difficulty and may lead to Scotland being left in limbo, cut off from both London and Brussels. A deal would have to be ratified by the European Parliament, as well as other member states, and would likely face significant opposition from Spain, which believes it could encourage separatists in Catalonia. The timescale of such wrangles is also likely to pale in comparison to the two years set out for Brexit negotiations, with recent ascensions taking around ten years. While some have suggested Scotlands current EU-compliant law-book could speed up the process, the blocs bosses may insist that Miss Sturgeon commits to joining the eurozone  leaving her with the daunting task of convincing voters to ignore the risks surrounding the ill-fated currency. Brussels could also demand measures to tackle Scotlands sizeable deficit. Advertisement

Scots warned of economic chaos: Country would have to raise tax or slash their spending if it became independent, says top economist

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the nation could also be pushed into joining the euro if it wanted to remain in the EU .

Scotland would be forced to raise taxes or slash spending if it became independent, a leading economist warned yesterday.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the nation could also be pushed into joining the euro if it wanted to remain in the EU.

And he pointed to how public spending is more than 1,000 higher per person north of the border, despite tax revenues being similar.

The fall in the price of oil had made Scotlands financial position more difficult since the last independence referendum in 2014, he said, adding that the Scottish economy could suffer even more if it loosened its trading ties with the rest of the UK.

We get just about as much tax per person from everyone in Scotland as we do in the rest of the UK, Mr Johnson said.

But spending in Scotland is more than 1,000 per person higher than spending in the rest of the UK. So what that means is that there is a big transfer of money from the rest of the UK to Scotland  if Scotland were to become independent it would have to either reduce its spending by more than 1,000 per head or increase its taxes by more than 1,000 per head.

The question of whether Scotland would be able to continue using the pound was a major argument in the 2014 vote. Yesterday, Mr Johnson argued Brexit could make it less likely.

But do Scots even want a poll at all? Theresa May questioned Nicola Sturgeon's mandate for a second independence referendum after a poll showed fewer than half of Scots actually wanted one. A BMG study for the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper found that when 'don't knows' were excluded, 56 percent of people did not want to re-rerun the vote, compared to 44 percent who do. The same poll found support for independence stood at 48 percent with 52 percent backing the UK. The PM said a referendum would cause huge uncertainty 'at a time when the evidence is that the Scottish people, the majority of the Scottish people, do not want a second independence referendum.' In total 57 polls have been conducted since the 2014 referendum on whether or not voters believe Scotland should leave the UK. Some 44 resulted in a majority for No. And out of 17 polls asking the respondents if they would vote for independence since the Brexit vote last June, only four have resulted in a win for the Yes campaign. Last night the First Minister was accused of 'playing poker' with Scotland's future. John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, added: 'The average of opinion polls this year, which is post-Theresa May's announcement, still have Yes at 48. Basically there has not been much movement but it does look like the country will be more divided than it was in 2014.' Advertisement

He said: It would clearly be more difficult to maintain the pound if the UK was outside the EU and Scotland was inside  the pressure on Scotland politically from the rest of the EU to join the euro would be significant.

He told BBC Radio 4s World At One: Two things have changed since the last Scottish referendum  the Scottish fiscal situation has got worse, relative to that of the rest of the UK, because the oil price has gone down 

Secondly, the Brexit vote means the UK looks like it is going to come out of the single market. But if an independent Scotland were to be in the EU, within the single market  that potentially hinders it very badly in terms of its access to the UK market. Business leaders warned a second vote would create uncertainty for firms.

Liz Cameron of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said Scotlands two referendums and two elections in less than three years had caused a continual uncertainty with a material impact upon businesses in Scotland.

She added: A further referendum would be no different. Sir Iain McMillan, ex-director of CBI Scotland, said: A never-ending debate about Scotlands position within the UK makes Scotland look, from the outside, politically unstable.

Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce added: Firms understandably fear that another drawn-out constitutional debate would divert both Holyrood and Westminster away from delivering the best possible environment for business and growth.

Theresa May warned the economic case for independence simply does not add up in a speech to the Scottish Tory Party earlier this month. There is no economic case for breaking up the United Kingdom, or of loosening the ties which bind us together, she said.

Labour disarray as Corbyn is forced into a farcical U-turn Coming or going? Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) did a rapid U-turn Labour was in chaos over Scottish independence last night, as Jeremy Corbyn was forced into a U-turn on the issue. The Labour leader outraged his own ranks at the weekend when he said it would be absolutely fine for the Scottish Government to hold a second referendum. One MP described Mr Corbyns intervention as moronic, pointing out that Labour would struggle to ever form a government again if Scotland becomes independent. But Mr Corbyn backed down yesterday, saying he was not in favour of a referendum. Lets be absolutely clear, I do not think there should be another referendum, he said. Independence would be economically catastrophic for many people in Scotland. To add to the confusion, Mr Corbyn said Labour would vote against a referendum in the Scottish Parliament, but would not vote against it at Westminster. Labour believes it would be wrong to hold another so soon and Scottish Labour will oppose it in the Scottish parliament, he said. If, however, the Scottish parliament votes for one, Labour will not block that democratic decision at Westminster. Labours Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale said: Labour believes that together were stronger. That is why we firmly oppose a second referendum and Scottish Labour MSPs will vote against the SNPs proposals next week. Advertisement

Scotland is on a knife edge: Polls since the 2014 referendum offer few clues to the second vote

Polls show Scotland remains deeply divided on the question of independence as most surveys show support for the Union only narrowly ahead.

The most recent survey out today showed support for the Union on 52 per cent against 48 per cent for independence, once don't knows are removed.

This is closer than the 2014 result and the SNP insist the increase in their vote during the last campaigns means a new one is winnable.

The turbulent political landscape since the No vote in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 has had pollsters recording surges and dips in support for an independent Scotland.

Polls since 2014 have generally shown support for the Union ahead - but often by less than the result at the referendum

A poll the month after the referendum found a majority would support independence, given the chance to vote again.

The YouGov poll for The Times found increased support for independence, with 49 per cent of the 1,078 adults surveyed between October 27 and 30 indicating they would vote Yes against 45 per cent voting No.

However, the bounce did not last and the following month a Survation poll for the Daily Record recorded Yes voters dropping to 44 per cent with No at 48 per cent.

A YouGov survey for the Times at the end of August last year putting Yes at 47 per cent and No at 53 per cent once the 'don't knows' were removed.

One of the most recent polls, conducted by BMG for the Herald at the end of January, showed support for independence rising following the Prime Minister's 'hard Brexit' speech.

The survey of 1,067 Scots found 49 per cent back independence while 51 per cent want to stay in the UK, when the 'don't knows' are excluded.

Current polls are closer than the 2014 result and the SNP insist the increase in their vote during the last campaigns means a new one is winnable

Professor John Curtice said the polls had been 'bouncing around a pretty constant average' between the independence and EU referendums, but neither side could be sure of securing their desired result if another Scottish vote was held.

He said: 'Basically, if we take the polls after September 18, 2014 through to June 22, 2016, they averaged about Yes 47% and No 53% with no discernible change. It's just been bouncing around a pretty constant average.

'Three polls had Yes ahead in the immediate aftermath of Brexit but since then were back to Yes 47%, No 53%.'

He added: 'There's more people in favour of Scottish independence than in 2014, that's absolutely clear but it's still not quite half.

'We're still in the situation where the SNP can't be sure of winning but equally Theresa May can't be sure of them losing another independence referendum.'
The family of murdered April Jones have reacted with fury after being told it would breach the human rights of paedophiles if they were on the sex offenders register for life.

The mother of the five-year-old, who was snatched outside her home by a sex predator just hours after he had been looking at child abuse images, is fighting to change the law so that criminals are never taken off the sex offenders register even after they have completed their sentence.

But yesterday it emerged that any attempt to see all sex offenders remain on the register indefinitely would violate their right to a family life under the Human Rights Act.

Any attempts to see all sex offenders listed on the register for life would be a breach of their human rights, the family of murdered five-year-old girl April Jones were told - mother Coral Jones had been campaigning in support

The grieving family hit out yesterday as it was also revealed none of the internet providers has responded to their campaign for tougher policing of online child pornography.

Aprils killer Mark Bridger had been looking at child abuse images just hours before he abducted April as she was was playing outside her home in Machynlleth, Mid Wales in October 2012.

Her body has never been found and during his trial Bridger refused to say what he did with her remains before he was sentenced to a whole life term for her abduction and murder.

Aprils mother is now applying to see Bridger in prison so she can confront him about what the murder.

A petition launched by the family calling for sex offenders to remain on the register for life has since reached over 126,000 signatures, triggering a Westminster debate on the issue yesterday.

But Home Office minister Sarah Newton told the family a Supreme Court ruling meant that sex offenders have to be given the opportunity to review their place on the register.

She said: In 2010 there was a Supreme Court ruling that prevented us from not giving opportunities for sex offenders to ever be removed from that register.

We were told there must be opportunities for them to be considered and it was this objection about their human rights not to be denied a family life.

Now at the time the Government was very disappointed by that ruling, and we remain disappointed so I am therefore very sympathetic to the demands of this petition and the concerns of the Jones family and I really understand why they feel that this petition is necessary.

Currently the length of time that someone is on the register is determined by their sentence.

Yesterday, on ITVs Good Morning Britain, Aprils mother Coral said: What about the children who have gone through what the paedophile has done to them? Does that child get a second chance?

But Aprils family want all those convicted of child sex offences and viewing child pornography to be on there for life, no matter what their crime is.

Yesterday Aprils mother Coral said told ITVs Good Morning Britain: What about the children who have gone through what the paedophile has done to them?

Does that child get a second chance?

She said sentences for sex offenders were not tough enough, saying: He (Bridger) had over 500 images on his computer, and if the police knew about that, April would have been here today.

I dont think the sentences are enough for the crime. Bridger looked at these photos, and a couple of hours later my daughter was murdered.

Were going through hell, and we dont want any other families going through what we went through.

Id ask him - why? What made you look at these images, what made you download these images, and what made you go from looking at the images to murdering a little girl?

Coral Jones added said sentences for sex offenders were not tough enough, saying: He (Bridger, pictured) had over 500 images on his computer, and if the police knew about that, April would have been here today.'

She said her daughters killer had searched for naked five-year-old before the murder, telling ITV News: It shouldnt be allowed to be that easy.

I find the internet needs to be stronger, and not as easy to get access to these images.

Aprils sister Jasmine said search engines had failed to respond to their campaign to clean up the web, adding: Internet search engines know what youve been looking for, so they could actually forward that on to the police and say this has popped up in this area, can you take a look at it?

Weve heard nothing from the search engines, absolutely nothing.

Yesterday MP Catherine McKinnell said Facebook execs must act after it emerged last week that the site had failed to take down images of child pornography and instead reported the BBC to police when it tipped them off to the problem.

The debate just weeks comes after Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs Council lead for child protection, said low risk offenders viewing child pornography who do not pose real danger to children should not be jailed as forces are swamped with child abuse cases.

He called for offenders to receive treatment instead but it emerged yesterday that there is only one place in the UK offering treatment for paedophiles.

The number of sex offenders in prison has reached its highest level since 2002 with 13,000 behind bars which is a nine per cent rise on last year.

Miss Newton said internet providers need to step up to the plate, and added that Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd had held meetings with such companies to discuss the issue.
A man has died at a worksite south of Perth after being hit by a falling wall panel.

Police confirmed to Daily Mail Australia the incident took place in Yarloop about 4.30pm on Monday afternoon and said man was believed to be 19-years-old.

The man is believed to have been rebuilding a house on Lawley Road when a wall panel fell and crushed him, reported the ABC.

Worksafe investigators are pictured arriving at a building site in Yarloop where a 19-year-old man was killed on Monday afternoon, after being hit by a falling wall panel

The man was constructing a pre-fabricated home - part of the rebuild of the town which was razed by severe bushfires in January 2016 (pictured)

It's believed the man was working on a crane crew constructing a prefabricated home for building company Gran Designs WA.

Home builder GranDesigns said the death of the worker was 'a tragedy' and their thoughts were with his family.

Yarloop was razed in severe bushfires at the start of 2016, which claimed the lives of two people, damaged hundreds of buildings and burnt out 58,000 hectares.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union told the ABC the death was a tragic start to 2017.

An aerial view of Yarloop after the bushfire, which killed two people, damaged hundreds of buildings and burnt 58,000 hectares

A police spokesperson said they would be preparing a report for the coroner.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Worksafe WA for a comment on the incident.

A spokesperson from Worksafe WA confirmed the death, but said they are yet to release any further details.
Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of 'playing politics with the future of our country', meaning Britain, not Scotland

Theresa May was last night poised to emphatically reject Nicola Sturgeons timetable for a second vote on Scottish independence, amid fears it could undermine Brexit.

Scotlands First Minister yesterday declared she will push for another referendum just before the UK leaves the EU.

She insisted Scots deserved a real choice over EU membership and threatened to throw a grenade into Brexit talks by holding the vote between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

It provoked Mrs May to accuse her of playing politics with the future of our country.

The Prime Minister said the SNP had tunnel vision on independence and urged Miss Sturgeon to focus on improving Scotlands public services rather than more uncertainty and division, adding: Politics is not a game.

Government sources last night indicated Mrs May was set to insist any second independence vote is held after Britain has left the EU.

It followed her crushing defeat of a threatened revolt in the Commons as MPs decisively threw out two amendments to the Brexit Bill made by the Lords. Peers were set to back down, allowing the Bill to be given royal assent this morning.

Yesterday a source described Miss Sturgeons intervention as unpatriotic and said the proposed timing could undermine negotiations by allowing Brussels to play Scotland off against the rest of the UK. Another said allowing a referendum during Brexit talks could only damage the chances of getting the best deal.

A Government spokesman described the suggested timetable as the worst possible. The warning came as the SNPs case for independence was undermined by a series of revelations, including:

Polls showed a clear majority of Scots do not want a second referendum, less than three years after voting by 55-45 to remain in the UK;

Brussels made it clear Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU if it separates from the UK  potentially leaving it outside its biggest markets for years;

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said an independent Scotland would have to raise taxes or cut spending to replace the huge subsidies it receives from England;

Business leaders criticised the move, with the Scottish Chambers of Commerce saying the continual uncertainty would have a material impact upon businesses in Scotland;

There were warnings about the implications for Scotlands defences as Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said it would have to re-apply to the security pact.

In 2014, the SNP said the referendum was a once in a generation chance. But Miss Sturgeon has been threatening a second referendum since last June when Scotland voted to remain in the EU.

Speaking at her official residence, Bute House in Edinburgh, the SNP leader said she would ask the Scottish Parliament to begin the legal process next week.

Although the SNP lost its majority at Holyrood, it has the support of the Greens on the issue, meaning Miss Sturgeon is likely to win parliamentary backing.

But, under the terms of Labours devolution deal, any referendum also has to be approved by MPs at Westminster. Downing Street was tight-lipped yesterday on exactly how Mrs May will respond.

A small posse of Scottish independence supporters protesting in Glasgow last night

The PMs official spokesman said: We have said there shouldnt be a second referendum. But as for the issue, it hasnt gone through the Scottish Parliament yet  We are waiting for the Scottish Parliament to reach a decision. But we are 100 per cent clear that we do not believe there should be a second independence referendum. They said at the time this would decide the issue for a generation.

But, in a separate statement, a Government spokesman indicated Miss Sturgeons timetable was unacceptable, saying: Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time.

Miss Sturgeon yesterday accused Mrs May of failing to respect Scotlands interests, by insisting that the UK must leave the single market as part of Brexit.

She claimed her appeals to the Prime Minister on the issue had been met with a brick wall of intransigence. If Scotland can be ignored on an issue as important as our membership of the EU and the single market, then it is clear that our voice and our interests can be ignored at any time and on any issue, she added.

The First Minister said Scotland stood at a hugely important crossroads. She claimed leaving the EU would hit the economy and affect how open, welcoming, diverse and fair the country was.

In short, it is not just our relationship with Europe that is at stake, she said. What is at stake is the kind of country we will become.

The 2014 referendum was held after David Cameron backed the SNPs demand for a vote on independence.

On that occasion, the Government gave the Scottish Parliament a relatively free rein on the timing, the question asked and the electoral franchise, which was extended to include 16-year-olds.

But ministers are not expected to give Miss Sturgeon a blank cheque if she presses ahead with her threat to hold a second referendum.

Her proposal threw Labour into chaos, with Jeremy Corbyn being forced to abandon his position that a second vote would be absolutely fine, after intense pressure from senior figures in the party.

A BMG poll for the Herald newspaper found that only 39 per cent of Scots support a second referendum, with 49 per cent opposed.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Miss Sturgeon had no mandate for a second referendum after losing her majority at Holyrood.

Shes trying to convert votes like mine, which were for Remain in the EU referendum, into votes for another independence referendum, Miss Davidson said.

The people of Scotland are angry at the First Minister today because she is not speaking for Scotland.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hun, pictured above is launching a public consultation which asks how long a minimum term of service for doctors should be

Junior doctors may have to work for the NHS for more than five years after they graduate  or pay back their training costs.

Announcing the plan last night, Jeremy Hunt stressed that it costs the taxpayer 230,000 to train each doctor in England.

Under current rules, students are free to leave the health service as soon as they finish their degree, although most put in at least two years work to qualify for registration with the General Medical Council.

But the Health Secretary, who will today launch a public consultation, wants to tie doctors to the NHS longer-term, by adopting rules already used by the armed forces.

Mr Hunt will ask how long a minimum term of service should be, with the longest option given as more than five years.

Hundreds of junior doctors are thought to have abandoned NHS careers after last years bruising row over working hours.

That argument, which saw doctors walk out on strike several times, ended when Mr Hunt forced through a new contract despite British Medical Association opposition.

Many doctors are thought to have left the UK to work in Australia and New Zealand, while others have taken up lucrative locum and agency jobs. Mr Hunts proposal would stop doctors taking that option.

Under current rules, student doctors are free to leave the health service as soon as they finish their degree (stock photos)

He said the move was mainly necessary as part of plans to train an extra 1,500 doctors every year, a scheme announced in October.

By expanding our supply of home-grown doctors and proposing that they serve patients in the NHS for a minimum term, we will ensure taxpayer investment in the NHS is returned, Mr Hunt said.

While we are proud of our workforce, for too long the NHS has relied too heavily upon locum and agency doctors, and superb staff from countries whose need for them is arguably greater than ours  all the while budding medics in England are turned away from medical school due to a lack of training places.

Currently more than 6,000 university training places are available each year for prospective new doctors.

Hundreds of junior doctors are thought to have abandoned NHS careers after last years bruising row over working hours - it sparked protests, such as the one pictured above, across the country

This will rise to 7,500 a year from 2018/19. Under the scheme, medical students would have to agree to serve for a continuous minimum period.

If they chose to leave early or go into private employment, they would be required to repay some of the cost of their education.

There would be certain exemptions, such as maternity leave.

The British Medical Association reiterated its opposition to the plan, warning that it risked demotivating doctors further.

When the idea of a minimum service term was first raised at the Conservative Party conference last autumn, its chairman Dr Mark Porter wrote to Mr Hunt saying: We believe that compelling medical graduates to work for the NHS for a minimum period of service, or face penalties, is misguided.

Patients deserve a health service in which doctors want to work, not one in which they are forced to work.

Rather than proposing policies which will only exacerbate the poor morale within the workforce and add to the apprehension of medical students, we believe the Government would do better to reflect on the reasons why doctors consider leaving the NHS.
SEAL Team Six is joining South Korean forces for the first time for military drills to 'incapacitate' North Korean leadership, according to a new report.

The US Navy SEAL Team Six, which killed Osama bin Laden, will join the Army's Rangers, Delta Force and Green Berets annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises between the US and South Korea, according to Yon Hap News.

'A bigger number of and more diverse US special operation forces will take part in this year's Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises to practice missions to infiltrate into the North, remove the North's war command and demolition of its key military facilities,' a military official told the news agency.

The SEAL Team will reportedly simulate a 'decapitation attack' to remove Kim Jong-un, Business Insider said several South Korean news outlets reported.

Republic of South Korea and US Marine soldiers attend combined training at the Pyongchang military training complex field in Seoul, South Korea on January 24

However, Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Gary Ross told the outlet that the US military 'does not train for decapitation missions.'

The allies have maintained that the exercises are purely a defensive move for South Korea.

'It will send a very strong message to North Korea, which is constantly carrying out military provocations,' a South Korean official told Joon Gang Daily.

The exercises started March 1 and will conclude the end of April.

The seat of North Korean power, Pyongyang, has said the exercises are a rehearsal for invasion and has claimed to be ramping up its nuclear and missile arsenal as a defense.

US troops numbering 3,600 will be added to the drills, in addition to the 28,000 US troops permanently stationed in South Korea. The drills include air, land, and sea and are designed to prepare in case of a conflict with North Korea, reported Business Insider.
Energy giants face a showdown with Theresa May over claims that the Government is to blame for soaring bills.

Britains second-biggest energy firm, SSE, yesterday announced a 14.9 per cent increase in electricity tariffs, adding more than 70 to annual bills.

It blamed Government levies which are designed to subsidise a shift to green power, as well as provide cheap insulation and discounts for low-income households.

SSE, Britain's second largest energy firm has announced a 14.9% rise in electricity tariffs - an increase that will cost consumers 70 annually. Firms claim government subsidies are to blame - potentially forcing a showdown with Prime Minister Theresa May

However, official figures from the industry watchdog, Ofgem, show the increase in these levies equate to a much smaller 2.5 per cent rise in costs.

SSE is the latest of the big six energy firms to announce price rises that will collectively add more than 730million a year to the cost of heating and lighting homes. Last week, the German-owned E.ON used the same tactic when announcing an increase of 13.8 per cent on electricity and 3.8 per cent on gas. SSE said: The price change reflects the increasing cost of supplying electricity, and specifically higher costs associated with delivering Government programmes designed to upgrade Britains ageing energy infrastructure and help the country move towards a low-carbon future.

But Ofgem said these claims are not at all borne out by the figures. It added: The cost of Government environmental and social programmes, while rising, make up only a small part of the costs facing suppliers overall. We urge customers facing price rises to shop around for a better deal.

On Thursday, MPs will be voting on whether to give the Government the power to cap rip-off standard variable tariffs, which most families are on but can cost 200-300 more than the cheapest tariffs on the market.

Attempts by energy firms to shift the blame for rising bills puts them on collision course with the Prime Minister.

Mrs May told the Tory Party conference in October: Its just not right that two-thirds of energy customers are stuck on the most expensive tariffs.

How eco levies can push up your bill The cost of Government green levies and social schemes have increased industry costs by 2.5 per cent in the past year, but energy companies claim they are the driving force behind much bigger price rises imposed on millions of struggling families. These programmes include the Renewables Obligation  a requirement to supply 15 per cent of all energy from renewables such as wind, solar, wave and nuclear by 2020. There is also the Energy Company Obligation scheme, which raises money through bills to provide free insulation and cheap energy-efficient boilers to the homes of the poor. A similar mechanism supports the Warm Homes Discount Scheme, which gives a rebate to some of the poorest households who rely on benefits. Ofgems breakdown of the impact of these on each households annual bill put the figure at 109 in 2013, 100 in 2014 and 86 in 2015  the last year it published the rate  which was about 5 per cent of the total bill. It is thought to be about 130 a year now  a small sum when set against SSEs average annual bill of 1,142. Advertisement

And she has repeatedly told MPs that tackling unfair energy bills is at the top of her agenda.

Industry critics in Parliament are being led by the former Tory Cabinet Office minister, John Penrose, who said: Loyal customers are being systematically ripped off by big energy firms, and its just not fair.

Mark Todd, of energy switching firm Energyhelpline, said: The hike is a hammer blow to households with many already struggling to make ends meet. There is no wholesale price justification for the rise and the regulator appears to be denying that there is sufficient other cost justifications.

And Martin Lewis, founder of the Money Saving Expert website, said: The picture is grim  everyone on a standard tariff from the big six is being ripped off.

SSE said last night it is launching a 5million fund to protect its poor and vulnerable customers.

Its managing director for retail, Will Morris, added: This is the first increase since 2013, but we have seen significant increases in electricity costs which are outside our control.

Without an increase we would have been supplying electricity to domestic customers at a loss.
British troops heading to Estonia this week have been warned to be aware of Russian honeytraps.

Soldiers were told in a pre-deployment briefing to be on their guard against intelligence gatherers and female fatales from the Russian secret service.

They were told to be wary of cleaners, local support workers, and especially seductive women in local bars who may be spies sent from Moscow.

MI6 have warned that Russias Federal Security Service is active in Tallinn (pictured) and will use a wide range of resources to gather information about the deployment

Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, announced yesterday that UK soldiers will head to the country in the coming days to deter Russian aggression.

The deployment of 800 troops, tanks and drones is part of the biggest military build-up on Russias borders since the Cold War.

Speaking in the Commons during defence questions, Sir Michael said: This is the year in which Nato is deploying its enhanced forward presence

Im proud that Britain is leading that deployment in Estonia and the first wave of our troops will be leaving for Estonia this week.

We will also be deploying in Poland and in Romania.

The best way to reassure our allies in Nato and to deter any Russia aggression - is for Nato to stand up.

Soldiers from the Queens Royal Hussars were briefed at Sennelager in Germany earlier this month in preparation for the deployment.

Senior officers from the Intelligence Corps warned soldiers to be on their guard against human intelligence gathering.

They will join troops from the 5 Rifles battle group in Estonias capital Tallinn.

The Ministry of Defence was passed an intelligence warning that Moscow has deployed a special undercover unit to the area collate information from soldiers.

MI6 have warned that Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) is active in Tallinn and will use a wide range of resources to gather information about the deployment.

UK security agencies believe the Russian secret service has deployed an undercover specialist human intelligence unit to Tallinn.

Members are working in bars and monitoring the UK presence, it is believed.

A senior source said: These people think totally out of the box and often do not work to the same principles that we might.

Young men and women will be vulnerable and they need to be aware of the threat.

A special team is working on the cyber threat assessment with the key information about femme fatales and phones coming from MI6 who have been operating in the region for many months.

The brief highlighted the threat that Russian operators are carrying specialist machines which can scan the phone of a person they are talking to.

They can also download the IP address - the unique identification number - of that phone.

Often emails are linked to a laptop and the IP address will allow a surveillance operative to download every key stroke that the owner of the phone makes.

A major concern is the threat of Russian operators posing as femme fatales in Tallinn who may try and befriend lonely soldiers to gather information.

Troops were warned to avoid using internet cafes, not to discuss the deployment in any detail on smart phones when in Tallinn or away from the base.

An MoD spokesperson said: The security of UK personnel serving with NATO in Estonia and Poland is of paramount importance.

We dont discuss our security measures.
Scientists say the bug is becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics

Soaring numbers of patients are succumbing to a potentially deadly superbug caught from salad leaves and petting farms, official figures reveal.

Rates of e-coli have jumped by 7 per cent in a year although some hospitals have reported a near doubling.

The bug can be fatal - particularly for young children and the elderly  and it is found in the guts of many animals.

It can be passed on by eating contaminated salad or fruit, cheese and meats as well as from stroking animals at farms or zoos.

The bug  whose full name is Escherichia coli  usually causes stomach pain but can lead to a form of kidney failure called haemolytic uraemic syndrome, which is sometimes fatal.

Experts say the rise in infections may be due to the fact that the bacteria is becoming stronger and more resistant to antibiotics.

But they are also worried that NHS officials have taken their eyes of the ball from trends in e-coli as they have been so focused on driving down the superbugs MRSA and C difficile.

The Government has promised to halve the numbers of the main superbugs by 2020 but the latest data suggests they will miss this target.

Figures from Public Health England analysed by the Health Service Journal show cases of e coli have increased from 35,764 in 2014/15 to 38,132 in 2015/16.

A sign outside a petting farm. Farms like these are being partly blamed for the rapid rise in e-coli rates

But 60 hospital trusts  a third - have reported increases of at least 10 per cent in the last year.

They include Yeovil District Hospital where cases have risen from 109 in 2014/15 to 193 in 2015/16.

John Illingworth, Improvement Fellow at the Health Foundation think tank, suggested the Government had been overly focused on reducing infections caught in hospital, which include MRSA and C Difficile.

The Governments plans seem to focus primarily on hospitals, when we know that the majority of E coli cases are acquired in the community. He said.

So a more joined up, whole system approach will be needed in order to make significant progress, tackling causes in the community as well as in hospitals.

Experts have suggested that the government re-orient its approach to fighting e-coli

Last July up to 150 people became infected and two died after catching e coli from bags of mixed salad.

Public Health England issued a warning to Britons to wash their salad and the bug was linked to a batch imported from the Mediterranean.

And in May 2014 four children were taken to hospital after catching the infection from a petting farm in Samlesbury, Lancashire.
Jurors in the double-murder trial of ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez viewed the 104-year-old gun that prosecutors say the former Patriots star used to kill two men in a drive-by shooting in 2012.

Prosecutor Patrick Haggan held the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, that was manufactured in 1913, high for police witnesses to identify in court on Monday.

Witnesses said investigators did not find Hernandez's fingerprints or DNA on the gun, but that usable fingerprints are only found on three to five per cent of all guns tested, reported the Boston Globe.

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Aaron Hernandez sits in court on Monday as the jury sees the gun that he is being charged with using in a July 2012 double murder

Prosecutors allege that Hernandez shot Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado on July 16, 2012, after de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez at the Cure Lounge, spilling his drink.

Hernandez is accused of later opening fire on the men at a stoplight, he has pleaded not guilty.

The revolver that was presented in court Monday was not found until nearly a year after the double-murder, when Jailene Diaz Ramos, a woman with links to Hernandez, was involved in a three-car crash on June 21, 2013.

Jurors viewed the 104-year-old gun that prosecutors say the former Patriots star used to kill two men in a drive-by shooting in 2012

Prosecutor Patrick Haggan held the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, that was manufactured in 1913, high for police witnesses to identify in court on Monday

The disgraced ex-NFL player (left) listens to defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden (right) question ballistics experts during testimony on Monday

State Police then found the gun in Diaz-Ramos' vehicle's trunk. It was locked in a briefcase with three rounds of ammunition and some condoms, Trooper Paul Aten testified Monday, according to the Globe.

A locked safe was also found in the truck, and a BB gun was found inside the car.

Boston detective Tyrone Camper, in the firearms analysis unit, conducted tests with and on the revolver.

He determined 'with a reasonable degree of ballistic certainty' that ammunition recovered from the scene of the double homicide was fired from the gun, reported the Globe.

Linda Kenney Baden, Hernandez's lawyer, pointed out that Camper also determined during testing in July 2012 that the ammunition fired could have come from a .38-caliber, 9 millimeter, or .357 handgun.

Safiro Furtado (L) and Daniel de Abreu (R) were shot dead in their car at a stop light in July 2012. Prosecutors say Hernandez killed them after a small altercation in a nightclub

Hernandez is accused of later opening fire on the men at a stoplight, he has pleaded not guilty

Camper responded that he narrowed his findings once he had a weapon to use for comparisons.

Defense also claims that the two victims were shot dead not by Hernandez, but by marijuana dealer Alexander Bradley, who was driving the 4Runner that night, over a drug deal.

Hernandez's lawyer Kenney Baden also asked Camper if he was aware that Bradley told authorities that the shots that killed the men were fired from a .357.

The ex-Patriots player was also charged in 2013 with shooting Bradley, who is currently serving time for shooting up a Hartford club in 2014. Hernandez is charged with witness intimidation in that altercation, which caused Bradley to lose an eye.

Prosecutors say that Hernandez shot him in an effort to silence him, and Bradley is expected to testify against him later in the trial in an immunity agreement.

Attorney Jose Baez, who helped Casey Anthony become acquitted in the death of two-year-old daughter Caylee, told jurors prosecutors had made a 'deal with the devil' by involving Bradley.

Prosecutors allege that Hernandez shot Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado on July 16, 2012, after de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez at the Cure Lounge, spilling his drink. Baden is seen again questioning a Boston police detective

Hernandez is already serving a life sentence for the June 2013 fatal shooting of Odin Lloyd.

No clear cut motive was ever given for Lloyd's killing and Hernandez still denies pulling the trigger.

Hernandez was released by the Patriots within days of his arrest for Lloyd's murder in 2013.

At the time he'd signed a $40million contract with the team and was living in a mansion with Jenkins and their young daughter.
The soaring popularity of gadgets which chronicle every moment of our lives leaves us wide open to blackmail and fraud, security chiefs warned last night.

Fitness trackers, smartphones and voice-activated gadgets are recording swathes of intimate information which is a gift for hackers.

Experts suggested it is almost inevitable that sophisticated criminal gangs operating online will move from targeting big businesses to individuals.

Senior figures are concerned that the rise of internet-connected devices, such as Fitbits, are opening the door to aggressive and confrontational hackers

Cyber crooks could steal personal pictures, videos and other sensitive information and use them to hold people to ransom or defraud them.

They could either encrypt information and demand a ransom to free it or threaten to publish embarrassing material unless money is paid.

Private details could also be used to impersonate victims and empty their bank accounts, seize assets and even remortgage their homes.

The deeply worrying findings were highlighted in a joint report by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Senior figures are concerned that the rise of internet-connected devices, from toasters to TVs, is opening the door to aggressive and confrontational hackers.

They highlighted the huge amount of personal information on consumer gadgets which could be exploited by criminals seeking to commit extortion or fraud.

The study forecasts that this year it is likely that ransomware will target connected devices containing data such as photos, emails and even information about the owners fitness levels.

This data may not be inherently valuable, and might not be sold on criminal forums but the device and data will be sufficiently valuable to the victim that they will be willing to pay for it, the report said.

Ransomware on connected watches, fitness trackers and TVs will present a challenge to manufacturers, and it is not yet known whether customer support will extend to assisting with unlocking devices and providing advice on whether to pay a ransom.

Analysts forecast that by 2020 there will be as many as 21 billion connected devices used by businesses and consumers around the world.

The surge of internet-ready products has sparked a string of security warnings, including suggestions baby monitors and pacemakers are vulnerable.

Spy agencies worldwide are well aware of this fact. A leaked document dump published last week revealed last week of how the CIA has been hacking its way across the globe.

Cyber crooks could steal personal pictures, videos and other sensitive information and use them to hold people to ransom or defraud them

Internal paperwork showed the agency had developed high-tech techniques to monitor suspects, including turning Samsung TVs into listening devices.

There was also evidence that spies are able to circumvent security to read popular messaging platforms such as Whatsapp and Telegram.

The NCA study notes that smart devices are still inherently more difficult to attack than traditional computers. It warned that many incidents are limited to users who download untested apps from third-party stores.

The NCSC, which is part of the Government listening station GCHQ, was launched amid mounting concern at cyber-attacks on Britains infrastructure.

In the three months after it opened its doors there were 188 high-level attacks as well as countless lower-level incidents.

Officials said the danger is varied and adaptable, ranging from high-volume, opportunistic attacks to highly sophisticated and persistent threats.

Internal paperwork showed the CIA had developed high-tech techniques to monitor suspects, such as circumvent security to read popular messaging platforms such as Whatsapp

They highlighted a string of raids including a huge theft from a Bangladeshi bank and the infiltration of the US Democratic Party ahead of last years American presidential election.

This has led the British security services to warn our political parties of the threat posed to democracy by Russian hackers.

In some cases cyber criminals are imitating suspected state-sponsored attacks to conceal their tracks and confuse those trying to identify culprits.

Ciaran Martin, who leads the NCSC, said: Cyber attacks will continue to evolve, which is why the public and private sectors must continue to work at pace to deliver real-world outcomes and ground-breaking innovation to reduce the threat to critical services and to deter would-be attackers.

Donald Toon, of the NCA, added: Businesses reporting cyber crime is essential if we are to fully understand the threat, and take the most effective action against it.
Government legal advisers have called for sweeping new rules to protect dementia sufferers (stock photo)

Thousands of people are being wrongly locked up in care homes and hospitals because of failing mental capacity laws, Government legal advisers said yesterday.

They called for sweeping new rules to protect dementia sufferers, or others who need to be confined to a home for their own good, from mistreatment or illegal detention.

They also demanded reforms to prevent social workers from seizing people and locking them up in care homes against their wishes and those of their families.

Fresh legal protection for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will mean wholesale rewriting of the Mental Capacity Act, the highly controversial law brought in by Tony Blair in 2005.

The Act was supposed to give control over their own lives, to those in danger of losing the ability to make decisions for themselves.

Key sections of the Mental Capacity Act  including its central purpose of allowing people to order in advance that doctors should cease keeping them alive if they lose the capacity to speak for themselves  have now proved unworkable.

The Law Commission, the body which produced yesterdays report, was called in by ministers after the gap in the law involving people locked up in care homes and hospitals was exposed three years ago.

Thousands of vulnerable people with dementia and learning disabilities are being detained in hospitals and care homes without the appropriate checks, due to a law unfit for purpose, the report by the Commission said.

Fresh legal protection for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will mean wholesale rewriting of the Mental Capacity Act - the highly controversial law brought in by Tony Blair in 2005 (stock photo)

Often those who lack the mental capacity to consent, like certain people with dementia or learning disabilities, need to be detained in a hospital or care home when it is in their best interests.

For example, a dementia patient may be kept in their care home to prevent them from wandering off, which could put them in danger. A proper authorisation process should be in place to ensure that this is done lawfully.

The sections of the Mental Capacity Act which concern deprivation of liberty safeguards were added to the law in 2007, and collapsed after a Supreme Court ruling in 2014.

The ruling, and a scathing report by a specially-created House of Lords committee, said more than 100,000 people whose detention should have been authorised by a court order were in fact unlawfully locked up.

Between April 2015 and March 2016 councils needed to apply to the courts for 195,840 applications to detain vulnerable people  up from 13,700 two years before.

The Commission said there should be a new scheme called Liberty Protection Safeguards, which would mean social workers would have powers to approve detention but their decisions could be tested in the courts.

The new system would mean there would be checks on whether detention was really necessary and regular checks on the treatment of people detained.

People detained under the new rules could be those living in their own homes or in supported housing as well as in care homes and hospitals, where the current detention rules apply.

The sections of the Mental Capacity Act which concern deprivation of liberty safeguards were added to the law in 2007 and collapsed after a 2014 ruling by the Supreme Court, pictured above

The report also said the Mental Capacity Act should be reformed to give better protection to people taken from their homes on the orders of social workers.

In future, peoples wishes and those of their families should carry much greater weight.

The Commissions report said: Local authorities, NHS bodies and care providers report that they are presently unable to cope with this additional demand without significant additional resources.

It referred to two notorious cases. In one, an autistic young man, Steven Neary, who was taken from his home by Hillingdon social workers and held for a year before being allowed home only after a powerful campaign by his father.

In another, a 91-year-old retired civil servant and former RAF gunner was taken from his home in 2013 by Essex social workers. The man, known only as RF, had not lost capacity to act for himself, the Commission report said.

But he was removed in his dressing gown without trousers or pyjama bottoms and the social worker involved threatened to call the police if he did not leave. The man was later forbidden to go to church or to see friends.

The demands for wholesale changes to the Mental Capacity Act follow changes to the workings of the law ordered by the senior family judge, President of the Family Division Sir James Munby, in 2015.

Under the Act, people are able to draw up living wills, or advance directives, which say doctors must allow them to die if they become incapacitated and unable to speak for themselves. This is usually done by withdrawing tubes that provide nutrition and hydration.

Sir James ruled that, contrary to the provisions of the Act, all cases in which someone is to die in such circumstances must be brought to the courts for a ruling on whether the death should be allowed.

Law Commissioner Nicolas Paines QC said: It is not right that people with dementia and learning difficulties are being denied their freedoms unlawfully. There are unnecessary costs and backlogs at every turn, and all too often family members are left without the support they need. The current system needs to be scrapped and replaced right away.

On top of the nearly 200,000 cases a year in which authorisation is needed to keep people detained in care homes or hospitals, the Law Commission said there are thousands more involving people living in supported and sheltered housing, and in ordinary homes.

Under the existing law, people should only be detained in supported housing or private homes with permission from a judge in the Court of Protection.

But the Law Commission said while 1,400 cases of people confined in supported housing or private homes go to the court, in all there are 53,000 people who are prevented from leaving such homes.
Just after 11.30am, Scotlands First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, stepped in front of a gilt-framed mirror at her official residence and tossed a caber into the works. She had chosen to wear scarlet. Power shoulders, too. Plus a look of affected regret.

I wish we werent in this position, she claimed with one of her Ronnie Reagan head wobbles.

Wonderful tosh! She was relishing her moment. In a few hours the House of Commons was again going to debate triggering Article 50. Miss Sturgeons intervention was attempted upstaging on a Mae West scale.

'I wish we werent in this position, Nicola Sturgeon (pictured) claimed disingenously

The microphones on the Bute House lectern, possibly erected only at the 11th hour, crackled and fluffed. Miss Sturgeon peered at the TV cameras, shrugged and rolled her dice. She was in front of the same chimney piece Alex Salmond used for a backdrop when he quit as First Minister after losing the 2014 referendum. High stakes. On the mantel were two antique urns, possibly good for ashes. It was a jolly pretty mirror, whatever else could be said about the tableau.

The London Government had not moved even an inch in reaching a compromise with her over Brexit, intoned Miss Sturgeon. (For the benefit of BBC reporters, an inch is 2.54 centimetres.) She said she had hit a brick wall of intransigence. Some of us, knowing the SNP, felt a smidgen of sympathy for the wall.

Mrs May was muscling in on Edinburghs powers, continued Miss Sturgeon in that grievance-brushed piccolo poet Shakespeare himself might have struggled to honour. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, did some more tweaks of her Emlyn Hughes barnet and bit on her lip, having remembered not to look too obviously delighted. Look at me, her body language was saying. I am important. I am greedy for some of this Brexit publicity.

If there is an independence referendum in Scotland it may turn into a wrestling bout between Miss Sturgeon and the Tories Scottish leader, Ruth Davidson. The latter was soon on our television screens, giving it some goodish welly from an interview spot outside the Edinburgh Parliament building. Last time, a leading member of the No to independence campaign was Labours Johann Lamont, a figure of Rosa Klebb frivolity. Miss Davidson is a punchier proposition. One would not envy the Pools panel having to predict the outcome of her match with Miss Sturgeon.

Mae West (pictured) was famous for upstaging other women

Three hours later the Commons opened for its week. The place was steaming. No, it really was. The Chamber was unbelievably hot. Something had gone wrong with the central heating and soon MPs were fanning themselves like senoras at a bull-fight. Sir Eric Pickles (Con, Brentwood & Ongar) had rashly chosen to wear a three-piece suit. Was that a mist of condensation rising from his bulging waistcoat? One had an awful image: RIVULETS of boob sweat!

At Defence Questions, Scots Nat MPs made themselves heard. They invariably do. They complained. They invariably do that, too. Whatever would we do without them at Westminster? Imagine: a Commons without Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil & S Perthshire). The good reporters of Hansard would weep with gratitude. Tasmina might not like it, though.

Michael Fallon, Defence Secretary, reminded MPs that a lot of his budget is currently spent in Scotland  at Rosyth, Leuchars, Lossiemouth and elsewhere. But when we reached the main debate of the day, about Brexit, the SNPs presence receded to the margins as Secretary of State David Davis, his shadow Sir Keir Starmer, Tory ex-Remainer Sir Oliver Letwin and Lib Dem melodramatist Dame Nick Clegg cantered over the arguments re: amendments to the Article 50 Bill.

No one, so far as Im aware, wishes to fetter the Government, burbled Dominic Grieve (Con, Beaconsfield). Oh no? Mr Grieve would quite possibly be delighted if Brexit were blown to smithereens by Scotland Yards anti-terrorism squad. He sat back in his seat with a look of delight at his cleverness. But his Remainer pals lost the evenings Commons votes.
A St Louis prosecutor released 'unedited' footage of Michael Brown's convenience store 'drug deal' after new surveillance video featured in a 'pathetic' documentary renewed protests in Ferguson.

Robert McCulloch, the prosecutor of St Louis County, released unedited tapes of the surveillance video that surrounded the case of 18-year-old Michael Brown's death, on Monday.

It was distributed after Stranger Fruit, a documentary that premiered Saturday at SXSW, featured never-before-seen footage of Brown that disputes the Ferguson police narrative that Brown robbed a store before he was shot dead on August 9, 2014.

McCulloch said filmmaker Jason Pollock's 'pathetic film' was a 'clear attempt to distort' the truth and he upheld police's judgement that the footage was 'irrelevant' to the investigation.

Nonetheless, the video was met with outrage from the Ferguson community, who protested in the streets on Sunday because they felt it challenged authorities' account of what happened.

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Robert McCulloch (pictured), the prosecutor of St Louis County, released unedited tapes of the surveillance video that surrounded the case of 18-year-old Michael Brown's death, on Monday

New footage shows Michael Brown appearing to give the store clerks an item, which according to filmmaker Jason Pollock was a bag of marijuana, during a previous visit to the shop in Ferguson. Pollock argues that it was part of an exchange and Brown didn't rob the store

McCulloch, the prosecutor for the Missouri county since 1991, said that although Brown attempted to barter for goods, no deal was made, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

He said: 'It's not as though [this footage] was hidden away somewhere, as this fellow with his video project was trying to say.

'Even his pathetic video shows the police report where he got the information. It's all there, and it's been there since 2014. It's all available and not edited.

'This is a clear attempt to distort this and turn it into something it isn't ... There was no transaction, but there certainly was an attempt to barter for these goods, but the store employees had no involvement in that, and when he left, they put everything where it belonged.

'It's very clear there was no transaction between Mr. Brown and the store employees and to suggest he's coming back to get what he bartered for is just stupid.'

In a fiery interview with Fox News, Pollock declared that the claims made in his documentary are accurate and said that the justice system 'failed' Brown.

He shouted: 'They failed. They all failed.

'You know how the systems works. These cops get off every single time.'

Police released shortly after Brown's death a video (pictured) that shows the teen pushing the store clerk - but didn't publish footage of his prior visit to the shop because it was 'irrelevant'

Pollock's Stranger Fruit documentary, released at SXSW on Saturday, disputes the Ferguson police's narrative that Brown robbed a store before he was shot dead. He was in a fiery interview on Fox News and said the justice system 'failed' the 18-year-old

"They failed him. They all failed." A fiery interview with @Jason_Pollock on the police shooting of Michael Brown. https://t.co/Nf5y1s2v8n pic.twitter.com/SOmRTPcPyG  Fox News (@FoxNews) March 14, 2017

After the news broke of the bartering clip, Ferguson had nearly 100 people take to the streets to protest after they believed police had covered up the video

A key element in the documentary is the never-before-seen video that suggests Brown did not rob a convenience store moments before his death, unlike what authorities said at the time.

The clip, which Pollock shared with the New York Times, shows Brown visiting Ferguson Market and Liquor around 1am on the day he later died.

He appears to be giving a small bag, which according to Pollock contained marijuana, to the employees, who in turn give him two boxes of cigarillos. The teenager starts to walk away with the cigarillos inside a bag, but comes back and gives them back to one of the clerks, who puts the bag behind the counter.

The video, according to Pollock and to Brown's mother, implies there was a previous understanding between Brown and the clerks when the teenager later came back to the store - and that he did not steal the cigarillos, but obtained them through a negotiated deal.

A never-before-seen video sheds new light on the Michael Brown case and suggests the teenager (pictured) did not rob a convenience store, unlike what authorities said at the time

Following the release of the film, protesters gathered outside the Ferguson Market on Sunday

In a preview of his documentary, Pollock makes a point of pointing out that authorities did not release the video of Brown's previous visit to the store.

The Ferguson Police Department however did publish a clip of the teenager shoving one of the employees, which some of the many protesters who rallied after his death saw as an attempt to tame the young man's image.

McGuire told the New York Times in an email Saturday that the the video of Brown's earlier trip to the store hadn't been released until now because the footage was not relevant to the investigation.

After the news broke of the bartering clip, Ferguson had nearly 100 people take to the streets to protest.

There were multiple arrests made after shots were fired when protesters gathered outside the Ferguson Market on Sunday and police were called in to control the crowd.

At least four people were arrested after gunshots were fired, according to ABC News.

The Ferguson Police Department however did publish a clip of the teenager shoving one of the employees, which some of the many protesters who rallied after his death saw as an attempt to tame the young man's image
A child killer with face and neck tattoos now has 97 convictions after he stabbed another murderer in the neck with a lightbulb.

Stephen Roger Williams, 42, choked Nikki Roper and stomped on his head after stabbing the fellow prisoner with a lightbulb and broken broom handle at Auckland Prison in December last year.

He had planned the murder for a month, and 'expressed regret and disappointment' when he found out Roper survived, the court heard, NZ Herald and Stuff reported.

Stephen Roger Williams, 42, choked Nikki Roper and stomped on his head after stabbing the fellow prisoner with a lightbulb and broken broom handle

Nikki Roper survived the attack on his life at Auckland Prison in December last year

The court heard Williams didn't like Roper because he thought he was a 'nark'.

He believed Roper had 'snitched' on him, the court heard.

Williams carried out the attack to ensure he stayed behind bars for the rest of his life, as 'punishment' to atone for the 2003 murder of his stepdaughter.

He had beat six-year-old Coral Burrows to death and dumped her body.

He was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 17 years.

In 2003, Williams beat his stepdaughter, six-year-old Coral Burrows (pictured), to death

Roper, 27, murdered Christchurch mother Alexsis Tovizi in 2010 and is serving a life sentence with a non-parole period of 14 years

On Tuesday, Williams was sentenced to 10 years and preventative detention, to be served concurrently with his murder sentence.

The court heard Williams now has 97 convictions.

Roper, 27, murdered Christchurch mother Alexsis Tovizi in 2010 and is serving a life sentence with a non-parole period of 14 years.
Has any recent Tory family benefited more from their political connections than the 3rd Viscount Hailshams, whose daughter, Bank of England deputy governor Charlotte Hogg, 46, is in trouble for failing to disclose that her brother, Quintin, worked for Barclays?

Hailsham, 72, was given a life peerage in 2015 after 31 fairly undistinguished years as a Tory MP. (As a hereditary peer, he didnt have a seat in the Lords.)

Notoriously he had attracted ridicule after claiming 2,000 expenses for cleaning the moat at his 13th century Lincolnshire manor house.

Hailsham, pictured above, was given a life peerage in 2015 after 31 fairly undistinguished years as a Tory MP

His wife, Sarah Hogg, 70, who ran John Majors policy unit, was elevated to the Lords as Baroness Hogg in 1995.

Charlotte herself might have been offered a Lords perch prior to her current difficulties.

The oddest moment of Englands 61-21 victory over Scotland at Twickenham on Saturday came 58 minutes and 55 seconds into the match when a TV camera picked up England captain Dylan Hartley with his arm draped round the shoulder of his hat-trick-scoring colleague, Jonathan Joseph, both of whom had been substituted, above.

Hartley has the index finger of his left hand in Josephs mouth. Flirtatiously, comments rugger website Ruck. Look out!

Hartley, pictured above left, had the index finger of his left hand in Josephs mouth during England's 61-21 victory over Scotland

My item about Spains King Felipe and Queen Letizia making a state visit to London this summer is confirmed by the Palace.

The Duchess of Cambridge will meet Letizia, a competitor in the royal glamour stakes and the first commoner queen in Spanish history.

Kate will be Britains first official commoner queen in our history.

Lord Prescott, 78, says in his Sunday Mirror column that, after failing his 11-plus exam, I left school with no qualifications except an A+ in resentment.

Shouldnt he instead marvel that, thanks to his trade union connections  and, of course, his natural, dazzling intelligence  he became a Labour MP for 40 years, a minister, a Deputy Prime Minister, a life peer and finally a prosperous elder statesman?

John Prescott, pictured above, says that after failing his 11-plus exam he 'left school with no qualifications except an A+ in resentment'

Is ex-royal butler Paul Burrells latest disclosure  that his late employer, Diana, talks to him every night in his dreams  intended to persuade Netflix to include a dramatisation of this somewhat tasteless concept in its ongoing series, The Crown?

And wholl play Burrell if Netflix decides to include him? Pinocchio, suggests a senior courtier.

Actor Paul Nicholas, who became famous in the 1970s starring in Jesus Christ Superstar, spoke fondly on Radio 4 about his late father, well-known London solicitor Oscar Beuselinck, who died in 1997 aged 77.

Paul Nicholas, pictured above, became famous in the 1970s starring in Jesus Christ Superstar

Sardonic Beuselinck was something of a rough diamond.

When, expecting sympathy, the late writer Keith Waterhouse confessed that a woman in his life had left him, Beuselinck observed: Youve p****d on the strawberries again.
The Anti-Defamation Commission quickly acted to remove the graffiti and has spoken out against the use of anti-Semitic symbols

A playground in a popular Jewish area has been vandalised with spray-painted swastika symbols on children's play equipment.

The swastikas were discovered in green spray paint at McKinnon Reserve in Glen Eira, Victoria - a community that is more than 50 per cent Jewish.

The anti-Semitic graffiti was quickly spotted by the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) in Caufield and removed from the area.

Dr Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the ADC told Daily Mail Australia the graffiti makes part of a wider neo-Nazi campaign that is 'seeping poison' into Victoria.

He said: 'There is something very troubling and unsettling happening in our country with a dramatic surge of white-Supremacist graffiti and activities as right-wing extremists are spreading their cancer of hate.

Imagine how distressed and traumatized a Holocaust survivor, taking their grandchild to this playground would be, when confronted with this potent symbol of genocide and xenophobia.'

Dr Abramovich added: 'It is incumbent on the entire community to speak up against the scourge of anti-Semitism, and we call on all leaders, especially mayors, to say in a strong and loud voice not in our city!'

There has been a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in Victoria that has shocked Jewish communities across the state.

A neo-Nazi group in the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava where anti-Semitic flyers with swastikas emblazoned on the front were handed out in public.

The flyers were stuck on lampposts by a group which calls itself 'Antipodean Resistance' which stated on its website that it distributed 'about a hundred or so' posters on the 'extremely Jewish Balaclava Road'.

A Nazi swastika symbol was spray-painted onto playground equipment at McKinnon Reserve in Caufield, Victoria

McKinnon Reserve (pictured) is a family area located in the heart of a Jewish community in Glen Eira, Caufield

Another incident in the Victorian town of Daylesford saw a man wearing Neo-Nazi clothing with the words 'Sieg Heil, F****ts and the Nazi swastika.

Of this incident, Dr Abramovich said: 'We find it absolutely outrageous and shocking that these two white-Supremacists, with hate in their hearts, were openly and brazenly displaying these virulently racist insignia, intimidating and victimising the LGBTI community and residents in the area.'

Wearing these shirts is an insult to the millions of innocent victims, including gays and lesbians, who were murdered by the Nazis, and an affront to those diggers who fought bravely to defeat Hitlers regime.'

He added: 'Clearly, white supremacists are becoming more visible and active in promoting their bigoted ideology, and this alarming escalation will leave many fearful for their safety.'

A man was spotted wearing an anti-Semitic shirt an a shopping centre in Daylesford, Victoria

The offensive t-shirt was captured by onlookers who were shocked to see the Nazi swastika printed on the back

Dr Abramovich told Daily Mail Australia the ADC was 'disgusted' to also find that Facebook had images of Hitler in its GIF section.

Among the GIFs are moving pictures of Hitler with headphones listening to music, SS officers break-dancing, Hitler with a Santa Clause hat dancing, a smiling Hitler with a young girl sitting on his knees, a flaming swastika and footage of Hitler giving the Heil Hitler.

The ADC has called on Facebook to remove the offending animations but Dr Abramovich said they are 'very difficult' to get in touch with.
Sara Connor squeezed the hand of the woman sitting by her side when she was sentenced to four years jail for killing a Bali policeman.

Translator Chandra Katharina sat by her side in Denpasar District Court on Monday when the woman from Byron Bay, in northern New South Wales, was found guilty, along with her British boyfriend.

She has revealed the mother was terrified inside.

Sara Connor (right) sat next to her loyal translator Chandra Katharina in the courtroom

Chandra Katharina (pictured) said Sara Connor showed no emotion during the sentencing

The glamorous, 28-year-old translator said Connor simply squeezed her hand after the sentence was read out, but otherwise showed no emotion.

She was just standing there not showing any emotion. She kept it to herself, she didnt say anything, Ms Katharina told Daily Mail Australia.

'She squeezed my hand a little bit after she heard the sentence, but that was all.

'She was just relieved the trial was over after so long.'

The loyal interpreter could tell Connor was scared and nervous as she listened to the panel of three judges summarise the evidence and case for an hour before their verdict.

She was very nervous, thats the one emotion I got from her. Once the verdict was read out that stopped, it was over so fast, she said.

Chandra Katharina (left) said Sara Connor was 'very nervous' as her sentence was read out

Sara Connor (right) listened to her translator during her sentencing at a Denpasar court

Unlike her boyfriend and co-accused David Taylor, who smiled at and hugged his parents on his way out of court after getting his six-year sentence, Connor just thanked Ms Katharina for her help and left straight away.

Connor was led away to a cell at the back of the prison where she is held, in a different area to usual where only family have access. There she spoke with her brother in private.

We usually chat before hearings because she needs someone to talk to, but because she was in that cell I only saw her in the hall just before we went into the courtroom, Ms Katharina said.

The mother-of-one described Connor as a really nice lady who was terrified and felt isolated and overwhelmed by the trial.

'She's really scared and doesn't really understand what's going on, she wants to know everything that's said in the courtroom,' she said during the trial.

'She kept saying she didn't do it.

Sara Connor left the courtroom as soon as she was sentenced on Monday

The Australian mother thanked her translator Chandra Katharina (left) after the sentence

Ms Katharina said lately Connor was holding her emotions in as the case moved towards its conclusion, perhaps resigned to her fate and hoping for a lighter sentence.

She said Connor and her lawyers were still deciding whether to appeal the sentence, but would call her to help if they decided to go ahead.

Connors lawyer Erwin Siregar said he had not spoken with his client since the verdict but would meet with her and her brother on Tuesday night to discuss it.

We are giving her some time to be with family and think about it. If you ask me, I think she should appeal the sentence to the High Court, but it is up to her, he told Daily Mail Australia.

Connor has seven days after the verdict to accept or appeal her four-year sentence. Taylor immediately accepted his six-year term as soon as it was read out.

She and Ms Katharina formed a close bond after the translator was brought in when Connor sacked her last one because he left her bewildered as to what was going on during the trial.

Ms Katharina has been a court translator for two years, charging about $50 an hour, after earning a law degree from Universitas Udayana in Denpasar in 2011.

Sara Connor leaving Denpasar District Court had being sentenced to four years' jail
Stacey Docherty and her young son Seth were found dead in their Hillsdale apartment (pictured together)

Gruesome messages written in blood were scrawled on the walls of a Sydney apartment where a mother and her four-year-old son were found dead.

Police discovered the bodies of Stacey Docherty, a New Zealand nursing assistant aged in her 20s, and her son Seth in their Hillsdale apartment at 1.20pm on Monday.

Their deaths are being treated as suspicious and officers are investigating if a third person was involved or if the pair died in a suspected murder-suicide.

The little boy's father Matt Davis - who is Ms Docherty ex-partner - has expressed his heartbreak as he revealed how the mother showed no signs of having suicidal thoughts.

'I'm very very shattered. I'm going to miss my son forever,' a tearful Mr Davis told Ten News.

'But I'm here today to actually try to sort of, let everybody know that Stacey was a beautiful mum. She did look after Seth and love him very very dearly.

'She never said to me she had suicidal thoughts. She vowed to me constantly that she would never do anything to hurt Seth.'

7 News reported the mother may have intended for her ex-partner to find their bodies when she sent a message telling him to come over.

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The little boy's father Matt Davis (pictured) has expressed his heartbreak as he revealed how the mother never showed any signs of having suicidal thoughts

Police were called to the apartment block about 1.20pm on Monday (pictured) and discovered their bodies inside

Indecipherable messages written in blood were discovered by police after they were called to Ms Docherty's eastern suburb apartment by her former partner, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

It is believed the man called police after he went to visit but no one answered the door.

Pictures of Ms Docherty, her son and her ex-partner are splashed across her Facebook page, showing the pair playing at various parks and sightseeing in Sydney.

Seth's father took to Facebook on Tuesday to thank his friends for their support after the tragic incident.

'I'm going through some gnarly process but will get through this,' he wrote.

'I will post some pics of me and my son for those (many) who never had the pleasure of seeing him. I feel grateful for a brief time I got to be a father to a beautiful little boy.'

'Vale Seth Bon Docherty!'

Pictures of Ms Docherty and her son are splashed across her Facebook page (pictured)

Ms Docherty's Facebook said she was from Christchurch in New Zealand

Ms Docherty's former partner called police to the scene after he couldn't get an answer (pictured)

A gas technician was called in to shut off the building's gas supply but police later revealed they were not gassed to death

Despite initial concerns, Ms Docherty and her son were not gassed to death, police say.

The apartment in a four-storey complex on Grace Campbell Crescent was set up as a crime scene on Monday afternoon as forensic officers swarmed the area.

Neighbours said police were previously called to Ms Docherty's apartment on numerous occasions.

Odysseus, who lives in the same apartment complex, told the Sydney Morning Herald Ms Docherty took a bat to three of her neighbours' cars during an argument over parking.

'My dad's van was parked here, and she smashed the front and back window,' Odysseus said.

Their deaths are being treated as suspicious, according to police

'I was at the local park and then [a neighbour] came and told me that she was going crazy here, and I came back and we all tried to stop her.'

'She started swinging at my dad and saying racist stuff about Assyrian people, that we're all terrorists and that. Then police came and stopped her.'

Family and Community Service workers often visited the young mother and Seth, neighbours also claimed.

'It's very tragic to have something like this happen in our area because our area itself is very quiet,' another Hillside resident said.

Police said a report will be prepared for the Coroner.

The apartment in a was set up as a crime scene on Monday afternoon as forensic officers swarmed the area

Officers are investigating if a third person was involved or if they died as the result of a murder-suicide
North Korea has warned the US of 'merciless' attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group infringes on its sovereignty.

North Korea, which has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a string of missile launches since last year, said the arrival of the US strike group - led by the USS Carl Vinson - was part of a 'reckless scheme' to attack it.

The North Korea's state KCNA news agency said: 'If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater.

'On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army,' KCNA said.

A US Navy spokesman said the Carl Vinson was on a regular, scheduled deployment to the region during which it would take part in exercises with the forces of ally South Korea.

North Korea has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a string of missile launches since last year

The US began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests

Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war.

The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to get a grip on North Korea.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday.

The threat represented by North Korea's growing nuclear and missile arsenal is the main reason for his trip to the region.

Tillerson arrives in Tokyo on Wednesday, moves on Friday to Seoul, which is in the grip of a political crisis, and then travels the next day to Beijing to hold talks with President Xi Jinping and other officials.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday

Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy and 'all options are on the table'.

Exacerbating regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system.

The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system is for defence against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security.

The US began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests.

South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on March 1.

The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale.

China has also repeatedly expressed concern about the U.S.-South Korean exercises, claiming they do nothing to ease tension.

China's Foreign Ministry called on all sides to end 'a vicious cycle that could spiral out of control.'

The US has also started to deploy 'Gray Eagle' attack drones to South Korea, a military spokesman said on Monday.
More than 1000 kilometres of mangrove forests died across Australia's north coast a year ago and scientists say extreme weather conditions are to blame.

It took only one month in early 2016 for an estimated 7400 hectares of mangroves to die along the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Dr Norman Duke, head of the Mangrove Research hub at James Cook University told Daily Mail Australia the Gulf incident was caused by a triple whammy of severe weather events.

'Extremely high temperatures, low rain fall sustained by a long dry season, and a drop in sea level of 20 centimetres for over a month. That combination of things would mean that the plants were moisture stressed and died of thirst.'

Views of seaward mangrove fringes showing foreshore sections of minor (left) and extreme (right) damage as observed in June 2016

Thousands of hectares of mangroves in Australia's remote north 'died of thirst' last year in the largest climate-related incident of its kind ever recorded.

Dr Duke said what was most shocking about the Gulf occurrence is that it all happened in one month and had never been seen before.

'Ultimately it's about the observations of the habitat but then it's about the consequences, in other words how is this effecting the bigger role that mangroves are giving us, their ecosystem services.'

Large swathes of dead mangroves in the Gulf of Carpentaria, north Australia

He said those services consist of supporting fisheries, shoreline protection and the mangroves capacity to store carbon.

'The fisheries impact we can quantify because there's a value associated with per hectare area of mangroves in the Gulf, there's going to be roughly $350 million dollars worth of loss of fisheries according to Queensland government offset calculators.'

Another quantifiable concern Dr Duke said is the carbon that is exposed when a mangrove is washed away.

The devastation of dead mangroves which effected over 1000km of North Australia last year

'Mangroves are world-renowned for their capacity to take up carbon, not only in the tree themselves but where they differ is because they put down more carbon than what is in the tree into the sediments in the ground,' he said.

'When those sediments are exposed and then washed away then all that carbon gets back into the atmosphere.'

In one month in early 2016 an estimated 7400 hectares of mangroves to die along the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Dr Duke told DMA there should absolutely be a responsibility for society to be aware of the role mangroves play in our ecosystem.

'They're giving us so much benefit, it's just that most people are unaware of those benefits and it's only people who go fishing and that have boats that are closer to that understanding.'

He is calling for a national shoreline monitoring program to oversee the worrying decrease in mangroves.

Next week leading experts including Dr Duke will hold a workshop during the Australian Mangrove and Saltmarsh Network annual conference to speak about the issue.
A unregistered doctor who was allegedly practicing in west Melbourne has been exposed by the industry regulatory body.

Phoebe Pacheco is believed to have provided care to patients at Werribee Cosmetic Clinic on Synnot Street in Melbourne.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) said Ms Pacheco consulted with patients from January 2013 to November 2016.

Phoebe Pacheco, who is not registered as a medical practitioner in Australia, is believed to have held GP-like consultations and performed minor procedures in Victoria for the past three years (stock image)

According to records obtained from the cosmetic clinic, Ms Pacheco is believed to have conducted GP-like consultations and carried out minor procedures with more than 145 patients during that time.

AHPRA believes more patients may have also seen Ms Pacheco, but the precise contact details of these people are not yet known.

The regulatory body is urging anyone who saw Ms Pacheco as a patient to consult their nearest medical practitioner.

The Department of Health and Human Services has also been informed.

According to Ms Pacheco's Linkedin profile she studied medicine at University of Santa Tomas in the Philippines from 1991-1996.

Her current job is listed as 'Physician Assistant, Experienced Medical Laser Therapist' at the clinic in Werribee.

She faces a fine of up to $30,000 for holding herself out to be a practitioner while unregistered.

Ms Pacheco was working at Werribee Cosmetic Clinic in west Melbourne (pictured) and is believed to have seen more than 145 patients from January 2013 to October 2016

Acting Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said there was no evidence of harm to patients.

'(But) anyone who saw Ms Pacheco at this site or any other site should see a GP as a follow up,' he said on Tuesday.

AHPRA Executive Director of Strategy and Policy, Mr Chris Robertson, said anyone with concerns that someone has been pretending to be a registered medical practitioner when they are not, should contact AHPRA.

'It's important that patients know that when they see a registered practitioner, they are seeing someone who has met high, national standards and are held to account if they deviate from them', he said.

'This same assurance cannot be provided by someone who is not registered', said Mr Robertson.
A 20-year-old university student accused of bashing her own mother to death with a piece of wood claimed intruders were behind the murder, a court has heard.

But there would have been 'absolutely no opportunity' for an intruder to plant the alleged murder weapon in the accused's bedroom, the prosecution said.

Simona Zafirovska has been charged with murdering her Macedonian mother Radica Zafirovska, who worked as a cleaner at Brisbane's Supreme and District courts.

University student Simona Zafirovska (right) has been charged with murdering her mother

Radica Zafirovska's bloodied body was found in her Brisbane home in October last year

The 56-year-old woman's bloodied body was found at her home at The Gap in outer north-west Brisbane on October 28, after her daughter raised the alarm.

Ms Zafirovska did not appear at a Supreme Court of Queensland bail hearing in Brisbane on Tuesday morning, where prosecutor Matt Hynes said the deceased had been struck at least 20 times with a timber paling that measured nearly one metre long.

The Crown alleged this was the weapon used in the 'gruesome' killing and it was found 'secreted' in Ms Zafirovska's bedroom, Mr Hynes said.

He said Ms Zafirovska was on the phone to triple-zero between 7am and 7.17am telling the operator there was one or more intruders in the house.

'She's telling them that as at 7.15am, police arrive at 7.17am,' Mr Hynes told the court.

'There is absolutely no opportunity for someone to have planted what we say is the murder weapon in her room.'

He said there were also no signs of forced entry or theft, and Ms Zafirovska's suggestion she'd been woken up by barking dogs didn't match with neighbours' statements about noise at the time.

The crime scene at The Gap in Brisbane's outer northwest at the end of October 2016

Mr Hynes said the deceased was in her bed when she was attacked - reducing the likelihood of an interrupted intrusion gone wrong.

He described Ms Zafirovska's claims as 'a little far fetched'.

But her defence team submitted the young woman appeared 'terrified' to first responders and could have been hiding under her doona in fear as someone entered and left her room.

The court heard it couldn't be ruled out that an intruder had placed the weapon in her room after the killing but before Ms Zafirovska realised there was someone in the home.

An unknown car was also seen leaving the area at about 7am, and a series of documents at the house appeared disturbed after the incident, it was also heard.

Justice Martin Daubney will make his decision to grant or deny bail later on Tuesday.
An Illinois state representative was handcuffed after he staged an hours-long sit-in following a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Chicago.

Democratic congressman Luis Gutierrez came to the 10am meeting with about 22 advocates, attorneys and community members.

Gutierrez discussed specific cases including that of Francisca Lino - a Mexican immigrant married to a U.S. citizen and mother to four U.S. citizens who is due to be deported in July - and ICE officials' conduct.

The official and seven others then stayed behind and demanded no future raids and reconsideration of specific deportation cases. Gutierrez wants Lino's deportation to be cancelled.

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Luis Gutierrez, a Democratic state representative for Illinois, was handcuffed after staging an hours-long sit-in after he felt he received lacking answers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials about ICE conduct and specific deportation cases at a Chicago meeting

Gutierrez, pictured with the seven other individuals who joined him in the sit-in, was not charged with any crime and was released. Federal Protection Services were called to the meeting to remove the individuals but stopped short of arresting them when ICE reneged

Spokesman Douglas Rivlin said Gutierrez 'decided that he did not get the answers he was looking for from the ICE regional director and he's going to be staying inside until he gets answers, even if that means risking arrest,' NBC News reported.

His spokesman added: 'Low priorities for deportation are being removed from the country and the congressman wants to get answers from the staff here, and he has not been

He was briefly handcuffed around 1.30pm, but his cuffs were later taken off and he was not charged with any crime.

Gutierrez has been called the 'Martin Luther King of immigration reform' for his championing of immigrant rights and his fights for individuals such as Lino and Army veteran Miguel Perez Jr, who has a green card but served time in jail for a drug conviction.

An ICE public affairs official said that when Gutierrez 'sought actions and assurances that ICE officials couldn't provide,' he began the sit-in.

The official said the group staging the sit-in was warned by Federal Protection Services called to the meeting room three times and each time refused.

The spokesman said: 'They were briefly placed in flexible plastic restraints before ICE officials relayed that they no longer wanted the individuals removed from the building.'

Gutierrez, pictured at a town hall meeting last week, was asking about specific deportation cases including that of Francisca Lino, who is due to be deported in July despite having a US-citizen husband and four children who are US citizens

Gutierrez's spokesman compared ICE's alleged lack of transparency to the situation following Donald Trump's first immigration ban, when officials often could not answer basic questions about what the policy was or how it was to be enacted.

Gutierrez said he was also banned, along with fellow members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, from a meeting with the acting ICE director in February and that he was prohibited from attending an invitation-only meeting by a Paul Ryan aide.

Gutierrez has been arrested before for civil disobedience related to immigration reform, including at a 2013 rally in Washington.
Notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is fast deteriorating in the New York cell where he is detained, his laywers have complained.

The criminal - who is likely to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison if convicted on a raft of firearms, drug trafficking and conspiracy charges - is accused of running one of the world's biggest drug empires.

Lawyers for the 59-year-old, who escaped twice from prison in Mexico, say his 'physical and mental health' is deteriorating, and he is suffering hallucinations.

El Chapo, head of the deadly Sinaloa cartel responsible for thousands of deaths in Mexico's brutal drug wars, has been held in solitary confinement since being extradited to the US on January 19.

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Mexican drug baron Joaquin Guzman aka 'El Chapo', one of the world's most notorious criminals, was extradited to the United States in January

Emma Coronel Aispuro (L), the wife of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, listens as his attorney Michelle Gelernt talks to the press outside the US Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York

In a 24-page letter to the judge overseeing the case, they wrote: 'He has difficulty breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches.

'He has recently been experiencing auditory hallucinations, complaining of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off.'

His lawyers asked Judge Brian Cogan that El Chapo be allowed to speak to his wife, 27-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro, either by person or by telephone, and be released from solitary confinement and placed in the general prison population.

EL CHAPO: DRUG CARTEL LEADER AND PRISON ESCAPE ARTIST El Chapo being arrested in Mexico in January last year El Chapo - a nickname that means 'Shorty' - is accused of having imported and distributed around 200 tonnes of cocaine from South America to the US, as well as tonnes of cannabis, heroin and other drugs. The US Treasury Department has branded him the 'most powerful drug trafficker in the world', and Forbes magazine ranked him as one of the most powerful people in the world every year between 2009 and 2011. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, El Chapo has as much influence and reach as Pablo Escobar, the notorious Colombian drug lord. His net worth is estimated to be around $1billion, and in 2011 he was named as the 10th richest man in Mexico. The drug lord has twice escaped from prison in Mexico before being recaptured last year In 2015 he escaped through a one mile tunnel that opened into his cell's shower at the Altiplano prison near Mexico City El Chapo was first captured in Guatemala in 1993, only to escape from a maximum-security prison in 2001. Mexican marines backed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration arrested him in 2014 in the Sinaloa resort of Mazatlan, where he was staying with his wife and twin daughters. But he escaped again just 17 months later. His henchmen dug a one-mile tunnel that opened into his cell's shower at the Altiplano prison near Mexico City, allowing him to slip out and flee on a remodeled motorbike that was fitted on tracks. Guzman was recaptured in January 2016. Authorities said they tracked him down after Guzman held a clandestine meeting with US actor Sean Penn and Mexican-American actress Kate del Castillo, with whom he exchanged flirtatious text messages. Advertisement

Amnesty International has previously condemned conditions at the unit where he is being housed as 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and incompatible with the presumption of innocence,' the letter said.

It is not the first time his legal team has complained about the draconian conditions of his incarceration.

They did so at a court hearing in Brooklyn on February 3, when Cogan declined to intervene at the time, saying it was up to the jail.

US authorities are adamant that El Chapo will have no chance of freedom.

Mexican drug lord extradited to the US Adrian Leung/John Saeki (AFP)

The letter said Guzman was confined to 'a small windowless cell' where he remains alone, except for an hour of solitary exercise in another cell with a treadmill and stationary bicycle Monday to Friday.

His meals are passed through a slot in the door and the light is always on, it said.

Guzman shivers from a lack of warm clothing and never goes outside, the lawyers added.

After the cartel chief was extradited, US Attorney Robert Capers told a news conference: 'He's a man known for no other life than a life of crime, violence, death and destruction and now he'll have to answer to that.'

Prosecutors are seeking to obtain a $14billion criminal forfeiture order against him.

In January a video emerged showing a group of inmates at a California correctional facility pledging to help El Chapo escape.

One inmate told the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel: 'Everything is ready for you. What you say is the law. Here you have more than 3,500 soldiers.'
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The late-season winter nor'easter that was predicted by forecasters to dump up to 2 feet of snow in New York City instead only hit the Big Apple with sleet and a few inches of snow.

Officials warned 50 million people on Monday to prepare for the would-be crippling effects of a blizzard that was supposed to hit the Northeast region of the country Tuesday with up to 24 inches of snow and 60mph winds.

A state of emergency was even declared in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland, as many flocked to prepare for what was thought to be the worst storm of the winter season.

But Tuesday morning around 9am, forecasters significantly downgraded their predictions of New York City receiving up to 2 feet of snow and canceled the blizzard warning, and instead now predict that the Big Apple will only receive 4 to 8 inches of snow.

The storm tracked a little farther west than forecasters originally anticipated, resulting in a sloppy mix of snow and sleet for larger portions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

With temperatures 15 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year, the harsh winter weather has already claimed lives in Milwaukee after two elderly men on different sides of the city collapsed while shoveling snow on Monday.

In addition, a teenage girl died in GIlford, New Hampshire when she crashed into a tree Tuesday morning, state police said. The girl crashed around 7am at the intersection of Rocky Road and Cherry Valley Road, as her identity has not been publicly released.

More than 7,600 US flights were cancelled for Tuesday, with airports in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia hardest hit amid reports that up to four inches of snow an hour will fall during the peak of the storm. Some 200 people were said to be stranded at John F. Kennedy Airport.

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Help: Despite being a milder storm than anticipated, Stella still dumped at least seven inches of snow in some parts of New York City on Tuesday. Above men work together to push a cab stuck in the snow in the city on Tuesday

The snow storm began hitting the Tri-State area early Tuesday morning causing thousands of flights to be cancelled. Above the 'Charging Bull' statue and the recently added statue of the Fearless Girl are covered in light snow in New York's Financial District on Tuesday

Damaged: A downed tree fell on a parked car in Baltimore, Maryland on Tuesday during the winter storm that was expected to be a blizzard, but was downgraded by forecasters

Despite the snowy conditions, people in Massachusetts still braved the cold weather to venture outside on Tuesday (above)

The winter storm that moved to the east coast on Tuesday dumped roughly 9 inches of snow in Milwaukee. Above a man pedals on his bike past some ice along Lake Michigan in downtown Milwaukee on Tuesday

No-mageddon after all: Officials have downgraded the blizzard warning in New York City Tuesday to a winter storm warning. Above a child is pulled on a sled across a snow-covered street in Brooklyn on Tuesday

The blizzard that wasn't: Nor'easter Stella hit New York City early Tuesday morning, but it's been downgraded as the city will not see feet of snow as predicted. Above children make snow angels in Brooklyn on Tuesday

A state of emergency had been declared in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland ahead of the storm. Above a man walks his dogs in Brooklyn Bridge Park on Tuesday during the storm

The region was expected to be hit with up to 24 inches of snow bringing along with it blizzard-like conditions and 60mph winds, but that prediction was significantly modified by forecasters Tuesday morning. Above the snow covered Metro North tracks are pictured in Greenwich, Connecticut on Tuesday

But Tuesday morning around 9am, forecasters significantly downgraded their predictions of the city receiving up to 2 feet of snow and canceled the blizzard warning. Above people cross country ski in the snow in Central Park on Tuesday

Instead, forecasters now predict the Big Apple will receive 4 to 8 inches of snow during the storm. Above motorists drive through a normally busy intersection at the Saw Mill River Parkway and Cross County Parkway during a snow storm

With temperatures 15 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year, the harsh winter weather has already claimed lives in Milwaukee after two elderly men on different sides of the city collapsed while shoveling snow on Monday. Above the Washington Monument is seen behind the snow-covered Mall on March 14 during the winter storm

The White House is pictured above on Tuesday during the winter storm Stella as fresh snow and sleet has been dumped

People walk through the Boston Garden during the winter storm on Tuesday

A pair of ponies were spotted prancing through traffic on Staten Island on Tuesday in the slushy streets near Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenues. Drivers posted photos of the pair on social media

The adorable ponies escaped from a stable Tuesday morning. They were eventually spotted by an off-duty officer on Hylan Boulevard

The NYPD assisted in safely returning the ponies to their owner after they seemingly enjoyed their brief prance through Tuesday's underwhelming snowstorm

The Northeast region of the country is being hit by a mix of snow, rain and sleet during winter storm Stella as of 4:40pm EDT

Forecasters predict the winter storm will continuing dropping a mix of snow and ice in cities like Philadelphia and New York, as upstate New York continues to get dumped with plenty of snow

Tuesday night's outlook sees more clear skies for parts of Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, as upstate New York will still be getting dumped with snow

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave a press conference Tuesday morning where he acknowledged that the storm was not as powerful as expected to be.

'Mother nature is an unpredictable lady, all of the forecasts said the storm would hit New York City and Long Island the hardest, so we deployed accordingly and New York City and Long Island had been the focus of our activity,' Cuomo said.

TUESDAY'S SNOWFALL STORM TOTAL Here are some top and notable snowfall reports by state as of 3:30pm EDT. Connecticut: North Granby - 18 inches Delaware: Pike Creek - 4.4 inches Maine: Kennebunk - 7.5 inches Maryland: Frederick, Thurmont and Cumberland - 10 inches Massachusetts: Hubbardston and Huntington -16 inches New Hampshire: New Boston - 10.6 inches New Jersey: Vernon - 19 inches New York: Norwich - 24 inches Albany - 13.0 inches NYC-Central Park - 7.2 inches Pennsylvania: Damascus - 30 inches Philadelphia Int'l Airport - 3.9 inches Rhode Island: Burrillville - 12 inches Vermont: Wilmington - 11 inches Virginia: Winchester - 8.1 inches West Virginia: Near Great Cacapon - 12 inches Source: weather.com Advertisement

'The way the weather pattern is actually shaping up, the storm has moved westward and is less than a snow storm in New York City and Long Island; it is more sleet and precipitation.

'This is basically good news from what we were expecting.'

But Cuomo warned that officials have to watch the temperatures outside, as the sleet could turn into ice and make commuting more difficult.

In addition, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also said the storm was very 'different than what was projected.'

'The National Weather Service does everything they know how to do. Mother Nature still makes its own decisions,' he said during a press conference Tuesday.

De Blasio said despite the change in the forecast, a state of emergency for the city will remain in effect until midnight.

National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pollina said a wintry mix would continue to fall into the early afternoon, then taper off by mid- to late afternoon.

'We're looking at four to six inches across much of New York City, maybe just over six inches for northern parts of the city, then lower amounts in Long Island,' Pollina said.

'As you head north into Westchester and northeast New Jersey up to a foot is still possible for the north,' he added.

A mix of sleet and snow was falling over the city, where residents on the Upper East Side left for work on the subway and buses were running, while others shoveled snow off the sidewalk.

Pollina added that it was no longer the worst New York storm of the season.

Officials announced that above ground subway service would resume on Tuesday beginning at 6pm.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Tuesday that the state of emergency he declared on Monday remains in his state.

'It's a tale of three storms for New Jersey,' Christie told CBS2. 'In the southern part of our state you're dealing with mostly rain, freezing rain and sleet.

'On the Jersey Shore this is going to be the most difficult time for us because high tide has come in and we're going to see some moderate flooding at the shore.

'Then here in the northern part of that state you're going to see a lot of snow, a lot of wind and it's going to make clearing the roads up here in the northern part of the state even more difficult.'

New Jersey State Police said they've responded to more than 80 accidents and more than 130 assistance calls since midnight, according to CBS2.

The blizzard warning that was issued in New York City is no longer in effect as the weather pattern has changed. Forecasters now issued a winter storm watch for New York City as the blizzard warning is for upstate New York and parts of Connecticut

Cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. are not forecasted to receive any more snow through Tuesday

Warning: Forecasters said there was more snow to come throughout Tuesday especially in upstate New York and neighboring states

Powerful: Winds of up to 60mph were expected to lash the Northeast with the storm expected to last most of Tuesday

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (center) gave a press conference Tuesday morning where he acknowledged that the storm was not as powerful as expected to be

Airlines cancelled more than 6000 flights on Tuesday given it promised to be the worst travel day across the Northeast for the late winter storm, according to flight tracking website FlightAware

Majority of flights were canceled at Boston's Logan International Airport on Tuesday as the nor'easter Stella crippled the country's air travel

Yvonne Mouskourie, of Tom's River, New Jersey was stranded at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday after her morning flight to Florida was canceled

Logan International Airport in Boston was practically deserted on Tuesday morning with airlines cancelling the majority of flights on Monday

FLIGHT DISRUPTIONS: 6,258 flights were cancelled as of Tuesday morning, with 2,861 delays. Airports with the most cancellations are Newark in New Jersey, LaGuardia in New York and Boston Logan International Airport. More than 750 flights have already been cancelled for Wednesday. 2,344 flights were cancelled on Monday. Source: Flight Aware Advertisement

Officials in several northeast states have warned of unsafe driving conditions caused by the snow, which have spurred statewide travel bans in Connecticut and modified public transportation services in several other states.

In Milwaukee, a 17-car pileup involving 12 cars and five tractor trailers crashed just before noon on Monday on the northbound lanes of I-43. Three people suffered minor injuries but there were no deaths.

Several crashes were also reported in Michigan due to the snowy weather.

Meanwhile, Illinois State Police say snowy weather conditions caused two crashes on a Chicago expressway that involved a total of 34 cars.

A State Police spokesman says seven people sustained minor injuries in Monday night's pileup on the Kennedy Expressway.

Both wrecks occurred in the express lanes of the highway on the city's North Side.

Police say both crashes happened in the same area and the express lanes were closed for hours. Local lanes of the expressway remained open.

Blizzard warnings were issued for areas in eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, southeast New York, Connecticut, northern Rhode Island, western/central Massachusetts, southeast New Hampshire and southern Maine on Monday.

As millions woke up to the storm Tuesday morning, attorney generals in New York and Pennsylvania issued a warning about price-gouging amid panic buying.

Above a boy pulls a sled on Brooklyn Heights Promenade during the mild storm on Tuesday

A man is determined to clear the snow off of his car on Riverside Drive in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood

Above a New York City Sanitation truck plows snow shortly after winter weather moved into the New York City

Above workers clear snow from the sidewalk in the East Village neighborhood of New York City early Tuesday morning during Winter Storm Stella

About three inches of snow was estimated to have fallen on New York overnight and pictures show how the usually packed Times Square in Manhattan was virtually empty apart from a few emergency crews clearing snow. Above city employees work to shovel snow clearing the streets in Times Square, New York in the early hours of Tuesday

Eric Schneiderman in New York said consumers should contact his office about 'excessive increases' in the price of goods and services. Examples include food, water, gas, generators, hotels and transportation.

The price-gouging law also could apply to snow removal and equipment, salt and contractor services for storm-related damage.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro also alerted consumers and businesses about potential scams, urging people to report any 'suspicious activity' about home repairs, snow plowing, government assistance programs and fraudulent disaster-related fundraising to his office's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Snow plows were working overtime in a bid to clear the streets of snow before rush hour Tuesday morning. This was the scene in Times Square early on Tuesday morning

A worker clears snow in Times Square Tuesday morning as snow continues to fall during the winter storm

Whiteout: This was the scene looking out across Hartford in Connecticut overnight as thick snow swept in across the area

A woman uses an umbrella as she crosses a snow-covered street as the winter storm swept through Philadelphia in Pennsylvania overnight

Clean up: After heavy snow overnight, a worker uses a shovel to clear a path in downtown Brooklyn on Tuesday morning

As daylight emerged, some brave commuters tried to make their way to work through the snow in Brooklyn, New York Tuesday morning

A taxi driver is pictured braving the elements and crossing a snowy Times Square in Manhattan in the early hours of Tuesday morning

NWS Meteorologist Sarah Johnson said the dividing line between snow and a mix of snow, sleet and rain has pushed west, from the Jersey coast into Philadelphia. She says that lowers anticipated snow totals, but increases the threat of icing from sleet and freezing rain along the Interstate 95 corridor.

While the snow totals might be lower, Johnson warned that New Jersey shore areas can still expect strong winds, with gusts between 50 and 55 mph. The I-95 corridor could get wind gusts of up to 40 mph.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo previously announced that a state of emergency would take effect state-wide beginning at midnight on Monday evening.

A snow alert was issued for Monday night into Tuesday, expecting snowfall rates of up to 2 to 4 inches per hour Tuesday morning and afternoon, with gusts of up to 60 mph.

New Jersey State Police officers take shelter from a snowstorm under the awning of a gas station while swapping vehicles, in Jersey City Tuesday morning

This was the scene in East Village, New York as snow was being removed form the streets in the early hours of the morning

Winter blast: A worker clears snow in the early morning hours in the Financial District of New York City ahead of rush hour

Braving the elements: A woman walks in front of the New York Stock Exchange in the early morning hours in the Financial District of New York City

President Trump sent a tweet urging for 'everyone be safe' as he met with local authorities in D.C. to discuss preparations there on Monday.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has allowed a three-hour delayed arrival for non-emergency employees at federal offices in and around the nation's capital because of the conditions.

OPM also announced Tuesday that non-emergency federal employees also have the option to take unscheduled leave or to conduct unscheduled telework. For those non-emergency workers headed to offices, the agency told them on its website that they 'should plan to arrive for work no more than three hours later than they would be expected to arrive.'

Snowfall: This was the scene in the early hours of Tuesday morning in downtown Manhattan as winter storm Stella swept across New York City and the northeast

Snow was already beginning to accumulate in the early hours of Tuesday morning in Manhattan. This was the scene at Cooper Square as the storm swept in

Roads were covered in snow at Astor Place in Manhattan as the storm gathered momentum in the early hours of Tuesday morning

Times Square Public Safety Sergeant Baldwin Davis captures falling snow with his cellular device in Times Square in Manhattan, New York early Tuesday morning

Workers clear steps in Times Square as snow falls in Manhattan early Tuesday during the winter storm

Two men play golf with a tennis ball as a snowstorm sweeps through Times Square overnight. The usually bustling tourist hotspot was eerily quiet on Tuesday morning

The agency added that emergency federal employees in the Washington, D.C., area are expected to report on time unless otherwise directed by their agencies. Emergency and telework-ready employees should follow their agency's policies, the office added.

The storm led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to postpone her trip to Washington for her first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump. Merkel had been scheduled to arrive late Monday night for meetings with Trump on Tuesday. The White House said the meeting was rescheduled for Friday.

New Yorkers began stocking up on groceries, salt and emergency supplies over the weekend through Monday as they prepared for a snow day inside.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced that all public schools in both cities will be closed Tuesday due to the storm.

Schools in New York City will reopen Wednesday, but they will remain closed on Wednesday in Boston.

Illinois State Police say snowy weather conditions caused two crashes on a Chicago expressway (pictured) as the blizzard moved in Monday night that involved a total of 34 cars

Police in Chicago say both crashes happened in the same area and the express lanes were closed for hours. A crash victim was seen being stretchered to a nearby ambulance as emergency crews worked at the scene

Snow was also starting to accumulate in Waterbury, Connecticut. Authorities have imposed a travel ban in the State

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey installed hundreds of pieces of snow equipment at the three New York area airports ahead of the storm.

In addition, thousands of tons of salt and sand were prepared for airport roads, parking lots, bridges and tunnels also ahead of the storm.

As some 50 million people along the Eastern Seaboard came under storm or blizzard watches, Washington, D.C., which often bogs down with even low levels of snow, was expecting up to 5 inches and twice that in outlying areas.

In Washington, the National Park Service warned that the cold could wipe out up to 90 percent of the capital's beloved cherry blossoms.

In New York, UN headquarters closed, inconveniencing thousands of delegates expected to attend a women's conference.

In the financial markets, much of Wall Street was expected to work from home with low trade volume anticipated, due partly to Wednesday's decision from the Federal Reserve on whether to raise interest rates.

A state of emergency has been issued in several states across the northeast for winter storm Stella. Above rescue crews are pictured at the scene of a crash involving a semi trailer under the Cooper Street bridge of Interstate 94 westbound in Jackson, Michigan as the storm swept in on Monday

States of emergency in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland took effect on Monday. Above Emergency crews are pictured removing wreckage after a crash in Jackson, Michigan on Monday

Chicago: University of Chicago students won't be biking any time soon after inches of snow covered the campus with up to five inches expected on Monday night

Detroit: Heaps of snow started to fall on Woodward Avenue on Monday and two to three more inches were expected to fall in the southeast area of Michigan before midnight

Trump urged everyone to stay safe as he met with local officials in Washington D.C. to discuss the city's preparations for winter storm Stella on Monday

The storm comes near the end of an unusually mild winter along much of the East Coast, with below-normal snowfalls in some areas, including New York City and Washington.

It was the warmest February on record in nearly the entire area, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center.

Last week in New York, temperatures hovered near 70 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Accuweather.com, hitting 60 or higher on six days in February.

In addition, Chicago is seeing its first snowfall since December after spending the entire months of February and January without snow - a first for the windy city in 146 years.

During the 2015-2016 year, the windy city saw 31.2 inches of snow fall, but this year forecasters think it will fall below that.

The first measurable snow fall occurred on December 4 when roughly six inches of snow fell around the Chicago area.

Each winter, the city averages over 40 inches of snow, and preparations for the brutal weather take place months ahead before the start of the cold season.

Meanwhile, in the western United States, the weather service forecast potentially record-setting heat in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, where temperatures were expected into the 90s in some places.
A constable has told the trial of a man charged with attacking two female backpackers at a South Australian beach, that one of the women was covered in blood when she saw her.

The court heard a backpacker, who was allegedly hit with a hammer four times and rammed with a 4WD at a remote South Australian beach, was drenched 'head to toe' in blood and appeared to be in a childlike state after the attack.

The German woman and another backpacker from Brazil were allegedly attacked by a 60-year-man who is on trial over the incident among the sand dunes at Salt Creek in February 2016.

A police officer has told the trial of a man charged with attacking two female backpackers at a South Australian beach, that one of the women was covered in blood when she saw her

Senior Constable Natasha Parsons was one of the first officers on the scene, arriving at the Salt Creek roadhouse around the same time as the injured backpacker.

The backpacker was driven there by a group of people who had found her stumbling along the beach drenched in blood.

'She was covered in blood from head to toe,' Senior Constable Parsons told the SA Supreme Court on Tuesday.

'I have never seen anybody with that much blood.'

Sen Const Parsons said the woman had a towel around her head but the blood was still pouring out.

The court heard a backpacker, who was allegedly hit with a hammer four times and rammed with a 4WD at a remote South Australian beach, was drenched 'head to toe' in blood and appeared to be in a childlike state after the attack

'So there was no way I was going to take the towel off her head,' she said.

'(Her hair) was completely matted with blood.'

She said the alleged victim at that time seemed to have an 'altered state of consciousness'.

'She seemed almost childlike to me. There wasn't any conversation coming from her,' the policewoman said.

Sen Const Parsons helped the backpacker into the roadhouse and sat her down until ambulance teams arrived.

The alleged attack took place at Salt Creek in the vast Coorong National Park. Senior Constable Natasha Parsons was one of the first officers at the Salt Creek roadhouse after the injured backpacker was driven there by people who found her stumbling along a beach

In the prosecutor's opening address last week, the court heard the German woman was struck over the head with a hammer and then run down by the man in a 4WD, with the wheels passing either side of her on one occasion.

The man is also accused of sexually assaulting the Brazilian backpacker on the beach after tying her up with rope and threatening her with a knife.

Both women managed to escape but the knife and hammer were never found despite police searching a large area of rugged dunes and dense scrub.

The man, who can't be named, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, kidnapping, indecent assault and other offences.

The trial continues before a jury of eight men and four women.
On Tuesday, Australian mother Sara Connor started a four-year jail term for her part in killing Indonesian police officer Wayan Sudarsa in Bali last year.

While the 'hellhole' prison conditions she faces will be harsh, her sentence seems particularly lenient, according to legal experts.

So, in a country where it is possible for Schapelle Corby to get 20 years for smuggling marijuana, why was Sara Connor not put away for longer?

Sara Connor was jailed for four years in Indonesia yesterday for her part in the death of police officer Wayan Sudarsa who was beaten to death in Bali last year

Legal experts said they were surprised at the leniency of her sentence, given the manner of Mr Sudarsa's death and the fact that prosecutors had asked for eight years

Schapelle Corby at the holding cells at the Denpasar District Court

Professor Tim Lindsey, an Indonesian legal expert at the University of Melbourne, believes the charges Connor faced, Indonesia's political situation, and a bias against foreigners involved in drug crimes all played a part.

Indonesia maintains the death penalty for serious crimes, such as for Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were killed by firing squad back in 2015 for smuggling heroin.

The penalty does exist for murder, but only if it was premeditated, or carried out during another offence, such as extortion or robbery.

Unpremeditated murder, which was one of the charges Connor faced along with British boyfriend David Taylor, does not carry the death penalty.

Fatal group assault, which is what Connor and Taylor were found guilty of this week, carries a far less serious sentence than murder, whether premeditated or not.

Because Connor claimed she only tried to split up the fight before fleeing, the Indonesian judges may have decided to be lenient, Mr Lindsey told News.com.au.

By contrast, drug offences tend to attract penalties at the top-end of Indonesia's sentencing range.

As part of his 2014 election campaign, President Joko Widodo promised to increase law and order, and harsh sentences for drug mules were part of that pledge.

David Taylor, Connor's British boyfriend and accomplice, was given six years behind bars after admitting beating Mr Sudarsa to death, but denying intent to kill

Schapelle Corby was arrested at Denpasar Airport when 4kg of marijuana was found in her luggage

In a speech shortly after his victory, Mr Widodo declared that he 'will never' grant clemency for those given the death penalty, to applause by the watching crowd.

Mr Lindsey told the ABC: 'There is rapidly increasing drug use and associated HIV infections related to injecting drug use and so forth.

'That feeds into national anxiety and leads to propaganda along the lines of drug traffickers being mass murderers and killing Indonesian youth.'

Rightly or wrongly, Mr Lindsey said, there is also the perception that foreigners are largely to blame for the problem, leading to harsh sentences for them.

'Even the Supreme Court have said in at least one sentencing decision, that being a foreigner is an aggravating circumstance,' Mr Lindsey added.

He also noted that the idea of a 'War on Drugs' was initiated in the West before gaining traction in south east Asia.

Despite all of this, Mr Lindsey said Connor's relatively short sentence had surprised him: 'It's a serious manslaughter in pretty repulsive circumstances.

Schapelle Corby reacts after being found guilty of drug smuggling charges at Denpasar Court in 2005

Indonesia maintains the death penalty for serious crimes, such as for Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan (right) and Myuran Sukumaran (left), who were killed by firing squad back in 2015 for smuggling heroin

'Can you imagine if a policeman on Bondi Beach was killed in a drunken rage by an international tourist? I think here, Indonesia has acted in a restrained fashion.'

Connor was on holiday with Taylor on Kuta Beach, in Bali, in August 2016 when she noticed her bag had been taken.

The pair began searching for it when Taylor noticed Officer Sudarsa acting suspiciously, and accused him of taking it.

He began fighting with the officer, beating him over the head with his binoculars before dealing the fatal blow with a broken beer bottle.

Connor maintains she tried to separate the pair before running and hiding, with Taylor coming to find her afterward.

The pair then destroyed Officer Sudarsa's identification documents and their own clothes before fleeing, though were caught before they could leave the country.

Taylor admitted beating Mr Sundarsa, but denied intentionally trying to kill him, and was jailed for six years.

Connor and Taylor were facing a maximum of eight years each.

Schapelle Corby, a beautician from the Gold Coast, was jailed for 20 years in 2005 for trying to smuggle 4.2kg of marijuana into the country in her boogie board bag.

Australian woman Sara Connor (right) listens to her translator during her trial at Denpasar court in Denpasar on Monday

Sara Connor is escorted for her trial before the verdict at the Denpasar District Court in Bali

She served nine years before being released, but has been forced to stay in Indonesia as part of her parole.

Unless she commits another crime she is due to be deported back to Australia in May this year, the first time she will have been to her home country since 2004.

Chan and Sukumaran were arrested at Denpasar Airport in 2005 and accused with seven other men to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin out of the country.

The following year they were sentenced to death by firing squad after Denpasar district court judges found they had provided the money, airline tickets, and hotels used in the smuggling operation.

Despite repeated appeals by lawyers and outcry in the international community against the sentence, the pair were shot dead in April 2015.
It's one thing to talk about changing allegiance to another country when a new president is elected. It's another thing to go ahead and do it.

But that's exactly what seems to be happening, on a small scale, in at least in one distant corner of the world.

In New Zealand, the number of Americans who applied for a grant of citizenship rose 70per cent in the 12 weeks following the election of President Donald Trump, compared to the same period a year earlier.

The number of Americans who applied for a grant of citizenship in New Zealand rose 70per cent in the 12 weeks following the US elections, compared to the same period a year earlier

Most Americans who apply for New Zealand citizenship must first live in the country for five years

The number of people applying for a grant of citizenship in New Zealand - the pathway for people without a family connection to the country - rose to 170 in the 12 weeks after November 8, 2016, compared to 100 during the same period the year before.

Among Americans with a New Zealand parent, citizenship applications after the election rose to 203 from 183 a year earlier.

The total number of Americans applying for New Zealand citizenship remains low, although some Americans living in New Zealand say their friends and family have been asking them about moving there since the election.

The interest has certainly skyrocketed online. In the two days after the US election in November, the number of Americans who visited New Zealand's website to find out about citizenship rose to 4,146 from 305 on the same two weekdays a month earlier, according to New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs.

Alanna Irving, from San Francisco, California, moved to New Zealand six years ago. She said: 'It's an extremely livable place'

AMERICANS SEEKING NEW ZEALAND CITIZENSHIP Americans applying for New Zealand citizenship by grant: Nov. 8, 2016, to Jan. 31, 2017: 170 Nov. 8, 2015, to Jan. 31, 2016: 100 Americans applying for New Zealand citizenship by descent: Nov. 8, 2016, to Jan. 31, 2017: 203 Nov. 8, 2015, to Jan. 31, 2016: 183 Citizenship-related visits to Department of Internal Affairs website from the U.S.: Nov. 8 to Nov. 10, 2016: 4,146 Oct. 4 to Oct. 6, 2016: 305 Work-visa arrivals from the U.S.: January 2017: 254 January 2016: 216 Visitor arrivals from the U.S.: January 2017: 34,240 January 2016: 28,992 Source: Department of Internal Affairs, Statistics New Zealand Advertisement

Alanna Irving, 33, a technology startup entrepreneur from San Francisco, moved to New Zealand six years ago and has since married a kiwi, as the locals are known.

'It's an extremely livable place and you can see and palpably feel the difference in how society is organized, and what people prioritize,' she said.

'New Zealand is a place that cares about equality, I think more. It's less individualistic, more community-minded.'

She said a friend of a friend was so disturbed by the outcome of the election that he immediately jumped on a plane and flew to New Zealand to check it out as a possible place to live. Irving said his visit exceeded his expectations.

The country is more than 6,000 miles from the mainland U.S. and is perhaps best known for its majestic landscapes. Farming remains central to the economy, with sheep outnumbering the 4.8 million people by about six to one.

Most Americans who apply for New Zealand citizenship must first live in the country for five years.

But Peter Thiel, the founder of Paypal and an avid Trump supporter, got to bypass the requirement when he received his New Zealand citizenship in 2011.

Thiel was granted citizenship due to 'public interest', according to documents cited by CNN, and the Department of International Affairs cited Thiel's investment in two New Zealand companies, along with his $1million NZD ($692,000 USD) donation to the Christchurch earthquake relief fund.

He wrote in his application that he would help mobilize entrepreneurs in the country, and said in his application that it would give him 'great pride to let it be known that I am a New Zealand citizen.'

Peter Thiel, the founder of Paypal and an avid Trump supporter, got to bypass the five-year residency requirement when he received his New Zealand citizenship in 2011

Cameron Pritchard, an immigration consultant at Malcolm Pacific Immigration in Wellington, said the increase in citizenship applications could be a result of people wanting to feel more settled in their adopted country, given the uncertain nature of the world.

He said his company noticed a big spike in inquiries from the U.S. during the election.

'It's been more of a flurry of excitement initially than anything that's translated into a huge avalanche of numbers,' he said.
The star of a government ad who was derided for her 'paleo pear and banana bread' comment was wrongly accused by her boss of adding the line to the script.

Earlier this year The Department of Finance posted a video promoting its graduate program which featured a cringeworthy exchange about hipster cafe items.

'Hey guys, I'm just heading downstairs for my paleo pear and banana bread. Would you like to join me?' a young graduate named Claire asked in the video.

Claire, left, the star of a government ad who was derided for her 'paleo pear and banana bread' comment, was wrongly accused by her boss of adding the line to the script

An older woman replies the choice of food was 'a little bit fancy for me' before replying she had something more important to do.

The viral clip was widely-ridiculed on social media and was the subject of a discussion at a Senate hearing of department matters earlier this month.

Deputy secretary of the Department of Finance David Fredericks told the committee it was Claire's idea to have the line added to the video.

'That was a change made in the script at the time of the filming. It was actually made at the request of the graduate,' he said, according to The Canberra Times.

Deputy secretary of the Department of Finance David Fredericks previously said it was Claire's idea to have the line added to the video

Mr Fredericks said the decision to let Claire influence the script was made as it was thought she would best know how to communicate with younger people.

But it has now been revealed that Claire had nothing to do with the inclusion of the line and Mr Fredericks has now written to the Senate committee retracting his claim.

He wrote that he has 'since been advised that a member of the production crew suggested this change to the script,' the paper reported.

According to Fairfax, Mr Fredericks' claim that the graduate had invented the line wasn't received well by his colleagues at the department.
A family has refused to pay council rates on their three properties, including a honey-making business, because 'the land belongs to God'.

The Beerepoot family owe more than $9,000 in unpaid rates for business Melita Honey Farm and two other properties at Mole Creek and Chudleigh in Tasmania's north.

On Tuesday, the Meander Valley Council voted in favour of selling the land lots, where the rates debt has accumulated since payments stopped in 2010.

'The law says if you own property you are required to pay rates,' Mayor Craig Perkins said.

Correspondence with owners Rembertus and Fanny Beerepoot has suggested the matter should be taken up with God.

When Daily Mail Australia contacted the owners for comment, they said the dispute is being dealt 'between us and heavenly father'.

The Beerepoot family owe more than $9,000 in unpaid rates for three properties, including honey-making business Melita Honey Farm (pictured)

Correspondence with owners Rembertus and Fanny Beerepoot (pictured) has suggested the matter should be taken up with God

In a recent letter to the council, the Beerepoot penned: 'We believe that our heavenly father is sovereign and that he reigns today, thus we worship him and him alone so that his will is established on the earth.

'You are asking us to bow down to a false god which is something we cannot do.'

Mr Perkins said the council has made repeated attempts to negotiate with the family but they have refused to pay rates.

'We have tried to convince the ratepayers that they are legally responsible to pay the rates and they have chosen not to,' he told The Mercury.

'Of course the ratepayers could turn up tomorrow with a cheque and pay the rates.

'The excess will go back to the property owners by law although they say they don't own the properties.'

The Beerepoot family owe more than $9,000 in unpaid rates for three properties, including the business Melita Honey Farm

The family has refused to pay council rates on the properties, including the honey-making business (pictured) because their 'land belongs to God'

Mr Perkins said the chances of council recovering the money owed through negotiation seemed unlikely.

'Usually we can come to an agreement with property owners so it doesn't have to reach this point but they have made their intentions clear,' he said.

'They have a nice little business at Chudleigh that does quite well.'

Council has made repeated attempts to negotiate with the family and in a report recommending the forced land sale, an officer relayed the latest discussions.

'They steadfastly reaffirmed their belief that the land was not theirs but that of the heavenly father, that council would be taking the land from him and that was a matter between council and God,' the officer wrote.

'It was clear following the meeting that the Beerepoots will not pay the rates.'

A letter from the Beerepoot's lawyer confirmed the land lots would be auctioned as occupied and 'vacant possession will not be given'.

'The purchaser can then take appropriate action to remove the occupiers after completion,' the lawyer wrote in October.
A British-owned cruise ship crashed into pristine coral reefs, causing extensive damage in a remote corner of Indoneisa known as one of the world's most biodiverse marine habitats.

Raja Ampat in eastern Indonesia has long been a top attraction for travellers and divers, home to palm-fringed islands surrounded by an underwater kaleidoscope of coral and fish.

But the 4,200-ton Caledonian Sky slammed into the reefs at low tide around Kri, one of hundreds of small islands in Raja Ampat, after completely a bird-watching tour on Waigeo Island on March 4.

The boat, which was carrying 102 passengers and 79 crew, became grounded on the reefs and had to be re-floated by a tug boat before continuing on its journey.

Caledonian Sky (pictured) slammed into the reefs at low tide around Kri, one of hundreds of small islands in Raja Ampat

It destroyed the ecosystem's structural habitat and the reduction or loss of diversity of eight coral genera, including acropora, porites, montipora and stylophora.

The accident damaged approximately 13,500 square metres of coral reef which could cost up to $16.2m to restore, according to Ricardo Tapilatu, a marine researcher from the University of Papua heading a team assessing the impact.

The ship had been grounded despite having GPS and radar instruments.

Mr Tapilatu said: 'A tugboat from Sorong city was deployed to help refloat the cruise ship, which is something that shouldn't have happened because it damaged the reef even worse.

'They should've waited for high tide to refloat the vessel.'

Environmental group Conservation International said the Bahamas-flagged ship had gone into an area it should not have entered due to the unique coral reefs

There has been outrage in the local tourism industry which relies on Raja Ampat's natural wonders for its survival.

Doug Meikle, from Stay Raja Ampat, a website that links tourists up with homestays, told MailOnline: 'There's a large amount of outrage in the local community. The damage done to the reef is not only a disaster from an environmental point of view, but also due to the fact that the livelihoods of local communities depend upon healthy reefs.

'To add insult to injury, local communities often derive no benefit at all from visits from ships like these.

'It's quite remarkable that the ship was so close to Kri Island in the first place, especially as the Dampier Strait is an environment famous for shoals, reefs and extreme tidal forces.

'Being in such a hazardous location, it seems crazy that no lookout was being kept. Crossover reef is quite visible from the gunwale of a longboat, even at high tide. From the vantage point of the bow of the Caledonian Sky, it would have looked like the ship was being approaching dry land - had anyone been looking!

'There is a strong case to completely ban ships like the Caldedonian Sky from Raja Ampat. Quite apart from the risk of accidents, just anchoring such ships does incredible damage to reefs as the vessels swing around in the tides and drag their anchor chains through the reefs.'

The cruise ship had set sail from Papau New Guinea on February 25 and was scheduled to arrive in the Phillipines on March 14.

Environmental group Conservation International said the Bahamas-flagged ship had gone into an area it should not have entered due to the unique coral reefs.

Victor Nikijuluw, the marine programme director at Conservational International Indonesia, told AFP: 'This is a very, very big loss for us.'

There has been outrage in the local tourism industry which relies on Raja Ampat's natural wonders for its survival

The cruise ship ran aground at Raja Ampat, one of the countrys most popular dive sites

The ship's operator, Britain-based tour company Noble Caledonia, said in a statement that it is 'firmly committed to the protection of the environment and as such deeply regrets any damage caused to the reef'.

Describing the incident as 'unfortunate', a spokesman said 'it is imperative that the reasons for it are fully investigated, understood and any lessons learned incorporated in operating procedures'.

He said the ship was operating in a remote area off Kri Island when it grounded on an unchartered shoal.

'The relevant authorities were immediately informed, and divers inspected the underwater part of the hull,' he said.

'The inspection revealed that the hull was undamaged and remained intact. The ship did not take on water, nor was any pollution reported as a result of the grounding.

'The vessel was relfloated on the next tide and was anchored safely nearby to allow a full assessment of the hull and machinery to be made.

'That inspection revealed nothing more than superficial damage and after liaison with the relevant local authorities, the ship sailed to take up a slightly revised version of her planned itinerary.'

Raja Ampat in eastern Indonesia has long been a top attraction for travellers and divers

The accident damaged an estimated 13,500 square metres (145,000 square feet) of coral reef

The Indonesian government said it was assessing the damage and would seek compensation from the company.

Due to Raja Ampat's special biodiversity, as well as the fact the damage occurred in a national park, the evaluation team will recommend the opertator pay compensation of $800-$1,200 (650-985) per square metre, for a total of $1.28m-$1.92m, according to Mr Tapilatu.

The remote archipelago of Raja Ampat - which means Four Kingdoms in Indonesian -- lies between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

A 2002 report from Conservation International said it was home to nearly 1,400 varieties of fish and 603 species of coral.
A city in Washington is suing a drug manufacturer over claims it let OxyContin flood the black market sparking an addiction epidemic in the community.

Everett, north of Seattle, is suing Purdue Pharma which makes the opioid pain medication.

The city, under mayor Ray Stephanson, says it has already spent millions combating OxyContin and heroin abuse after deaths from painkillers and heroin use spiked and street crimes increased.

In an unusual case, city chiefs are claiming that Purdue Pharma knowingly allowed pills to be funneled into the black market and the city of about 108,000.

A city in Washington is suing a drug manufacturer over claims it let OxyContin flood the black market amid an addition epidemic in the community. The city's mayor Ray Stephanson is pictured

The city says it has already spent millions combating OxyContin and heroin abuse after deaths from painkillers and heroin use spiked and street crimes increased. Pictures show police checking an area known for drug use in Everett

Everett alleges the drugmaker did nothing to stop it and must pay for damages caused to the community.

Everett's lawsuit, now in federal court in Seattle, accuses Purdue Pharma of gross negligence and nuisance.

The city seeks to hold the company accountable, the lawsuit alleges, for 'supplying OxyContin to obviously suspicious pharmacies and physicians and enabling the illegal diversion of OxyContin into the black market' and into Everett, despite a company program to track suspicious flows.

'Our community has been significantly damaged, and we need to be made whole,' said Stephanson, who grew up in Everett and is its longest-serving mayor, holding the job since 2003.

He said the opioid crisis caused by 'Purdue's drive for profit' has overwhelmed the city's resources, stretching everyone from first responders to park crews who clean up discarded syringes.

The lawsuit doesn't say how much money the city is seeking, but the mayor says Everett will attempt to quantify its costs in coming months.

Everett, under Mayor Ray Stephanson (pictured), alleges the drugmaker did nothing to stop it and must pay for damages caused to the community

A discarded syringe sits in the dirt with other debris under a highway overpass where drug users are known to congregate in Everett, Washington. As overdose deaths from opioids and heroin spiked the mayor of Everett, Ray Stephanson, took steps to tackle the epidemic

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma says the lawsuit paints a flawed and inaccurate picture of the events that led to the crisis in Everett.

'We look forward to presenting the facts in court,' the company said in a statement.

Purdue said it is 'deeply troubled by the abuse and misuse of our medication,' and noted it leads the industry in developing medicines with properties that deter abuse, even though its products account for less than two per cent of all US opioid prescriptions.

In 2007, Purdue Pharma and its executives paid more than $630million in legal penalties to the federal government for wilfully misrepresenting the drug's addiction risks.

The same year, it also settled with Washington and other states that claimed the company aggressively marketed OxyContin to doctors while downplaying the addiction risk. As part of that settlement, it agreed to continue internal controls to identify potential diversion or abuse.

While numerous individuals and states have sued Purdue, this case is different because Everett is getting at the results of addiction, said Elizabeth Porter, associate law professor at the University of Washington.

Social workers Staci McCole (left) and Kaitlyn Dowd wait with police officer Kevin Davis, (second right) and police Sgt. Mike Braley to cross a busy roadway after checking the overpass below them, a known place for drug use, in Everett, Washington

ILeroy Henry (center) steps out of his tent in the woods to talk with police officer Kevin Davis, (left) and Sgt. Mike Braley in Everett, Washington. An addiction epidemic is devastating this working-class city north of Seattle

She thinks Everett may have a shot at winning, though it will have to overcome some legal burdens, including showing that diverted OxyContin from rogue doctors and pharmacies was a substantial factor in the city's epidemic.

Stephanson said he was 'absolutely outraged' after the Los Angeles Times reported last summer it found Purdue had evidence that pointed to illegal trafficking of its pills but in many cases did nothing to notify authorities or stop the flow. That newspaper investigation prompted the city's lawsuit.

In response to the newspaper's reporting, Purdue said in a statement that in 2007, it provided LA-area law enforcement information that helped lead to the convictions of the criminal prescribers and pharmacists referenced by the Los Angeles Times.

The company also pointed to court documents that showed a wholesaler alerted the Drug Enforcement Administration about suspicious activity at a sham clinic noted in the newspaper's story.

Still, Everett contends Purdue created a market for addicts that didn't exist until the company let its pills flood the streets.

A police officer talks to a homeless man in Everett, Washington. Mayor Ray Stephanson has stepped up patrols, hired social workers to ride with officers and pushed for more permanent housing for chronically homeless people

The city contends Purdue's wrongful conduct fueled a heroin crisis in Everett, Washington

The region saw two spikes in overdose deaths: first from OxyContin and other opioid painkillers in 2008 and then, after the drug was reformulated in 2010, a spike from heroin as people switched to a potent but cheaper alternative, officials said.

The city contends Purdue's wrongful conduct fueled a heroin crisis in Everett. Between 2011 and 2013, nearly one in five heroin-related deaths in Washington state occurred in the Everett region.

In response to the drug epidemic, Everett last year began sending social workers on routine patrols with police officers. Sgt. Mike Braley says the community outreach and enforcement team strikes a balance between enforcement and connecting people to addiction treatment, mental health and other services.

'We understand that we can't arrest our way out of problems that addiction is causing our city,' Braley said.

A homeless man living in a shelter of tarps in the outskirts of Everett, walks back to his encampment in the woods after talking with police and social workers checking on him

Sometimes it takes many follow-ups and hours of handholding to get people help.

On their first stop one morning, Braley and his team check under a street overpass, a popular hangout for addicts. They find plenty of needles, drug packaging and mounds of garbage but none of the people they had encountered there recently.

They swing by a woody vacant piece of city property to follow up with a homeless man who told social workers he was on a housing list. He previously was reluctant to talk but opens up this time.

Social worker Kaitlyn Dowd offers to check on the man's housing status with a local nonprofit provider and then punches her number into a cellphone he recently got.

'You can call me, and I have your number,' she tells him.

Social worker Staci McCole said they come across many cases where highly functioning residents were introduced to opiates or heroin. 'So many of these people - somehow it's taken a hold of them, and their lives now have forever changed,' she said.
The wife of a Sydney bikie killed in a hail of bullets last week found out her partner had been shot dead while holidaying in Thailand - and does not believe claims he was in bed with another woman at the time.

Crime figure Kemel 'Blackie' Barakat, 29, was shot dead in his bed by a gunman who crept into his apartment in Mortlake, in Sydneys south, in the early hours of Friday morning.

Police have interviewed a mystery woman dressed in black who investigators have confirmed was inside the home at the time of the execution-style shooting.

There have been reports the woman, who has not been identified, was also in bed with him. It is understood Barakats wife and partner of 12 years has dismissed that claim as false, believing the mystery woman would have been shot or injured if she was laying next to him.

'He (Blackie) adored her,' a source told Daily Mail Australia. 'People who know him  they know how they love each other.'

'He was her protector and I'm telling you at home he was not a bikie he was just her loving caring husband, Blackie'.

'He adored her - she doesn't believe it': Kemal 'Blackie' Barakat is pictured here with his wife, Amanda, whose name and face he had tattooed on his body

Sources said Amanda does not believe claims the mystery woman found inside his apartment was 'in bed with him' and was holidaying in Thailand when she heard the horrifying news

Friends shared tributes to the 29-year-old Hells Angel bikie affectionately known to friends as 'Blackie' on social media

Previous arrest: Kemel Barakat is pictured here in 2013 being arrested in a police raid. He was found dead about 2.30am on Friday

Daily Mail Australia has learned Barakat had his body covered in tattoos bearing the name of his wife, Amanda.

He had her name on his right pectoral and written across the inside of his wedding finger.

'He adored her': Sources said Barakat and his wife were expecting to move soon to a larger place where they could raise a family

'Blackie' also had a capital A on his ring finger and a portrait of the happy couple together kissing etched into the left side of his chest.

The couple were affectionately known as 'Amanda and Blackie' to loved ones and were considered inseparable.

Family members have told police they believe the killing 'was a set up'.

Barakat's distraught wife  who declined to comment via a friend  was on the last day of a holiday to Thailand when she heard the shocking news.

A beauty expert, she was expecting her husband to pick her up from the airport the next day.

The couple were expecting to soon move from their two bedroom Bennett Street unit to a larger place where they could raise a family.

Instead, the wife returned home to be briefed that he had been found in his bed covered in blood and riddled with bullet holes.

The couple first met through one of his cousins and have 'been together since they were kids', the family source said.

A man was seen out the front of the security complex wailing: 'Where is my son?' last week

Emergency services were called to the property just after 2.30am

The other woman inside the Bennett Street apartment was believed to have only become acquainted with Barakat in the last two weeks of his life.

The woman has reportedly been questioned over whether she had any role in his slaying.

'She is someone we want to speak to and she is being cared for by police as we speak,' NSW Police Superintendent Mark Jones said on Friday.

'It is a very serious matter obviously and would be quite a stressful situation for her.'

Police have reportedly said there did not appear to be evidence of forced entry into the apartment complex.

A burnt-out Mercedes was found in Belmore in the hours shortly after the execution-style slaying and was being treated as a possible getaway car

Barakat was shot a 'large number of times'. A family source had been told as many as 30 shots had been fired in the two bedroom unit, but this figure was unconfirmed.

Barakat had been linked to the Hells Angels.

His assailant escaped and a car was found burnt out in the nearby suburb of Belmore the next morning.

His body has not yet been released to his loved ones.

The police investigation continues.

Do you know more? Email tips@dailymail.co.uk
Theresa May has been warned she faces 'war on two fronts' after Nicola Sturgeon demanded an independence referendum

Theresa May has been warned she faces 'war on two fronts' with Nicola Sturgeon and the EU after the Scottish First Minister demanded a fresh independence referendum.

Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague said Miss Sturgeon would exploit inevitable difficulties in Brexit negotiations to push the case for breaking up the UK.

Meanwhile, Brussels will use the need to appease Scotland to undermine the PM's attempts to drive a hard bargain.

The warning comes as the Brexit Bill officially enters the statute books, with the Queen due to grant Royal Assent later.

But although Mrs May is now formally authorised to trigger Article 50 and begin the Brexit process, she has put the moment off until the end of the month.

The premier will make a statement to MPs later in which she will furiously condemn Miss Sturgeon's bid to hold another independence vote.

The SNP leader insisted Scots deserved a real choice over EU membership and threatened to throw a grenade into Brexit talks by holding the referendum between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Mrs May responded by accuse her of playing politics with the future of our country.

The PM is set to stop short of refusing to allow a legally binding vote - which No10 fears would merely inflame nationalist sentiment.

But Mrs May will fight to ensure any second ballot is held after Britain has left the EU.

Lord Hague said nationalist forces in both Scotland and Northern Ireland - where Sinn Fein is threatening to collapse the powersharing deal - were now taking advantage of Brexit to mount a bid to 'pull the UK apart'.

'There can be no going back on the decision nevertheless taken by the British people as a whole to leave,' Lord Hague insisted.

'But the Government will now have to fight a war on two fronts, with each making an impact on the other.

Nicola Sturgeon, pictured holding a meeting of her Cabinet in Edinburgh today, said she would demand authority from the Westminster government to hold a fresh Scottish independence referendum

The move is the biggest gamble of Miss Sturgeon's political career, and will trigger a high-stakes clash with Downing Street over the timing of the vote

The latest poll on Scottish independence showed voters split with a very narrow advantage for staying inside the UK

'Every time EU negotiators warn there might be no deal or complain of British intransigence, they will be adding grist to the mill of the Scottish nationalists.

'And with each demand for special treatment for Scotland, those nationalists will weaken the ability of UK ministers to maintain tough positions that will lead to the best deal for the whole of the United Kingdom.'

Lord Hague said Miss Sturgeon had identified the tumultuous period as we leave the EU as her 'one best hope of destroying the UK' and would use 'any argument to achieve her ends'.

In 2014, the SNP said the referendum was a once in a generation chance. But Miss Sturgeon has been threatening a second referendum since last June when Scotland voted to remain in the EU.

Speaking at her official residence, Bute House in Edinburgh, the SNP leader said she would ask the Scottish Parliament to begin the legal process next week.

Prime Minister Theresa May insisted the majority of Scots did not want another referendum on independence despite Mrs Sturgeon's 'tunnel vision'

Polls since 2014 have generally shown support for the Union ahead - but often by less than the result at the referendum

But, under the terms of Labours devolution deal, any referendum also has to be approved by MPs at Westminster. Downing Street was tight-lipped yesterday on exactly how Mrs May will respond.

The PMs official spokesman said: We have said there shouldnt be a second referendum. But as for the issue, it hasnt gone through the Scottish Parliament yet  We are waiting for the Scottish Parliament to reach a decision.

'But we are 100 per cent clear that we do not believe there should be a second independence referendum. They said at the time this would decide the issue for a generation.

Lord Hague said Miss Sturgeon would deploy 'any argument' to achieve independence

In a separate statement, a Government spokesman indicated Miss Sturgeons timetable was unacceptable, saying: Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time.

Miss Sturgeon yesterday accused Mrs May of failing to respect Scotlands interests, by insisting that the UK must leave the single market as part of Brexit.

She claimed her appeals to the Prime Minister on the issue had been met with a brick wall of intransigence. If Scotland can be ignored on an issue as important as our membership of the EU and the single market, then it is clear that our voice and our interests can be ignored at any time and on any issue, she added.

The First Minister said Scotland stood at a hugely important crossroads. She claimed leaving the EU would hit the economy and affect how open, welcoming, diverse and fair the country was.

In short, it is not just our relationship with Europe that is at stake, she said. What is at stake is the kind of country we will become.

The 2014 referendum was held after David Cameron backed the SNPs demand for a vote on independence.

On that occasion, the Government gave the Scottish Parliament a relatively free rein on the timing, the question asked and the electoral franchise, which was extended to include 16-year-olds.

But ministers are not expected to give Miss Sturgeon a blank cheque if she presses ahead with her threat to hold a second referendum.

Brexit Secretary David Davis was among the ministers attending Theresa May's Cabinet meeting in Downing Street today

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, one of the Brexiteers in the Cabinet, was also at the gathering at No10 this morning

Her proposal threw Labour into chaos, with Jeremy Corbyn being forced to abandon his position that a second vote would be absolutely fine, after intense pressure from senior figures in the party.

But the move from Miss Sturgeon represents the biggest gamble of her political career, as she is far from certain to win.

Polls have shown support for independence running at below 50 per cent - far below the level nationalists previously suggested would be enough for them to call a new ballot.

A BMG poll for the Herald newspaper yesterday found only 39 per cent of Scots back a second referendum, with 49 per cent opposed.

Some 52 per cent said they would vote against independence, while 48 per cent were in favour.

Pro-independence campaigners waved saltire flags adorned with the word 'Yes' during a rally held at Glasgow's George Square

Both the pro-independence and the pro-union camps were split over their attitudes in the Brexit referendum, according to YouGov

EU wouldn't let them in for years Nicola Sturgeon said she would demand authority from the Westminster government to hold a fresh Scottish independence referendum Brussels has delivered a blunt assessment of Nicola Sturgeons plans, warning that Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU if it votes for independence. Officials suggested Scots would have to join the back of a queue containing several other countries, meaning the process could drag on for years. The lukewarm reaction appeared to pour cold water on the SNP leaders belief an independent Scotland will be offered fast-track EU membership. It reflects a deep unease among EU chiefs about offering the country special treatment in the fallout from Brexit. The warning was followed by another from Nato that Scotland may not be able to remain in the defence alliance if it gets independence. Jens Stoltenberg, the groups secretary-general, said: By leaving the UK, it will also be leaving Nato, but of course it is possible to apply for membership and then the allies would then decide. Despite Miss Sturgeons desire to remain in the EU, the bloc yesterday said it backed a doctrine laid out by former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who said during the first referendum that an independent Scotland would be left outside the EU. After initially ruling out becoming involved in the debate, the Commission yesterday said the legal view was still fully supported. While this approach still offers a path to rejoin the EU, experts believe the process would be fraught with difficulty and may lead to Scotland being left in limbo, cut off from both London and Brussels. A deal would have to be ratified by the European Parliament, as well as other member states, and would likely face significant opposition from Spain, which believes it could encourage separatists in Catalonia. The timescale of such wrangles is also likely to pale in comparison to the two years set out for Brexit negotiations, with recent ascensions taking around ten years. While some have suggested Scotlands current EU-compliant law-book could speed up the process, the blocs bosses may insist that Miss Sturgeon commits to joining the eurozone  leaving her with the daunting task of convincing voters to ignore the risks surrounding the ill-fated currency. Brussels could also demand measures to tackle Scotlands sizeable deficit. Advertisement

Scots warned of economic chaos: Country would have to raise tax or slash their spending if it became independent, says top economist

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the nation could also be pushed into joining the euro if it wanted to remain in the EU .

Scotland would be forced to raise taxes or slash spending if it became independent, a leading economist has warned.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the nation could also be pushed into joining the euro if it wanted to remain in the EU.

And he pointed to how public spending is more than 1,000 higher per person north of the border, despite tax revenues being similar.

The fall in the price of oil had made Scotlands financial position more difficult since the last independence referendum in 2014, he said, adding that the Scottish economy could suffer even more if it loosened its trading ties with the rest of the UK.

We get just about as much tax per person from everyone in Scotland as we do in the rest of the UK, Mr Johnson said.

But spending in Scotland is more than 1,000 per person higher than spending in the rest of the UK. So what that means is that there is a big transfer of money from the rest of the UK to Scotland  if Scotland were to become independent it would have to either reduce its spending by more than 1,000 per head or increase its taxes by more than 1,000 per head.

The question of whether Scotland would be able to continue using the pound was a major argument in the 2014 vote. Yesterday, Mr Johnson argued Brexit could make it less likely.

He said: It would clearly be more difficult to maintain the pound if the UK was outside the EU and Scotland was inside  the pressure on Scotland politically from the rest of the EU to join the euro would be significant.

But do Scots even want a poll at all? Theresa May questioned Nicola Sturgeon's mandate for a second independence referendum after a poll showed fewer than half of Scots actually wanted one. A BMG study for the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper found that when 'don't knows' were excluded, 56 percent of people did not want to re-rerun the vote, compared to 44 percent who do. The same poll found support for independence stood at 48 percent with 52 percent backing the UK. The PM said a referendum would cause huge uncertainty 'at a time when the evidence is that the Scottish people, the majority of the Scottish people, do not want a second independence referendum.' In total 57 polls have been conducted since the 2014 referendum on whether or not voters believe Scotland should leave the UK. Some 44 resulted in a majority for No. And out of 17 polls asking the respondents if they would vote for independence since the Brexit vote last June, only four have resulted in a win for the Yes campaign. Last night the First Minister was accused of 'playing poker' with Scotland's future. John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, added: 'The average of opinion polls this year, which is post-Theresa May's announcement, still have Yes at 48. Basically there has not been much movement but it does look like the country will be more divided than it was in 2014.' Advertisement

He told BBC Radio 4s World At One: Two things have changed since the last Scottish referendum  the Scottish fiscal situation has got worse, relative to that of the rest of the UK, because the oil price has gone down 

Secondly, the Brexit vote means the UK looks like it is going to come out of the single market. But if an independent Scotland were to be in the EU, within the single market  that potentially hinders it very badly in terms of its access to the UK market. Business leaders warned a second vote would create uncertainty for firms.

Liz Cameron of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said Scotlands two referendums and two elections in less than three years had caused a continual uncertainty with a material impact upon businesses in Scotland.

She added: A further referendum would be no different. Sir Iain McMillan, ex-director of CBI Scotland, said: A never-ending debate about Scotlands position within the UK makes Scotland look, from the outside, politically unstable.

Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce added: Firms understandably fear that another drawn-out constitutional debate would divert both Holyrood and Westminster away from delivering the best possible environment for business and growth.

Theresa May warned the economic case for independence simply does not add up in a speech to the Scottish Tory Party earlier this month. There is no economic case for breaking up the United Kingdom, or of loosening the ties which bind us together, she said.
A captain from the Irish Coast Guard helicopter which went missing off the west coast of Ireland today has died after being pulled from the Atlantic.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who had been with the search and rescue service for more than 20 years, went missing with another three crew members on board.

The 45-year-old Dubliner was a ground-breaking pilot well known for her starring role in a fly-on-the-wall television show called Rescue 117 about the life-saving service.

Meanwhile hopes are fading for her missing crew after the Dublin-based Sikorsky S92 vanished during an early morning rescue operation off the west of Ireland.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, 45, who had been with the search and rescue service for more than 20 years, went missing with another three crew members on board

The search continues for three crew members today after the Dublin-based Sikorsky S92 vanished during an early morning rescue operation off the west of Ireland

The aircraft was providing cover for another helicopter involved in the mission off the County Mayo coast when contact was lost with the crew at about 1am

Hopes are fading for finding the three missing crew members, according to the Coast Guard's acting director

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter returns to Blacksod, County Mayo, for refuelling today

Captain Fitzpatrick's devastated sister, Niamh Fitzpatrick, today paid tribute to her, describing her as a 'brave' woman.

She said: 'My brave sister Capt Dara Fitzpatrick lost her life in #Rescue116 crash. We are devastated. Please pray for recovery of 3 remaining crew.'

The aircraft was providing cover for another helicopter involved in the mission off the County Mayo coast when contact was lost with the crew at about 1am.

Captain Fitzpatrick was one of two female Coast Guard pilots who made Irish aviation history three years ago by flying the first all-woman mission for the service.

The pair flew a cardiac patient from west County Cork to Cork University Hospital before transferring a critically-ill five-year-old child from the hospital to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin.

Her devastated sister today paid tribute to her and described her as a 'brave' woman who sadly lost her life

A sea search is ongoing six miles west of Blacksod. Coast Guard helicopters from Sligo and Shannon plus the Air Corps maritime patrol aircraft Casa are involved

One casualty was located and plucked from the water at around 7am, according to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport

Eugene Clonan, acting director of the Irish Coast Guard, said the crew member found in the water at around 7am had been fighting for her life - but she has since died

A Coast Guard helicopter returns to Blacksod, County Mayo, for refuelling during the search

A sea search is ongoing six miles west of Blacksod. Coast Guard helicopters from Sligo and Shannon plus the Air Corps maritime patrol aircraft Casa are involved.

How Captain Dara Fitzpatrick made it into aviation history books Captain Dara Fitzpatrick had been carrying out search and rescue missions for over two decades and was recognised with honours and a place in the aviation history books. At the age of 18, she forsake a hoped-for career in business for daredevil missions in the skies after being 'hooked' on her first helicopter trip. 'I heard an ad on the radio for half an hour in a helicopter,' she said in 2007. 'I went up in the helicopter and that was it - I was hooked.' Two years later, while at Waterford Coast Guard helicopter base, she told the Munster Express newspaper it was an unlikely trajectory. 'If someone had told me when I was quite young that I'd be doing this for a living, I'd have thought they were nuts,' she said. 'I got my own licence and I was working for a businessman for a year, year-and-a-half when the Coast Guard advertised for co-pilots. 'That was at a time when Shannon was the only Coast Guard helicopter base in the country so I applied for it and got it. I stayed there until 2002 and came over to Waterford and I love it here.' After mastering a single engine aircraft, she got to grips with a twin engine and then flying the aircraft by instruments as she rose through the ranks to become one of the service's most experienced. A year long stint in Aberdeen, flying onto oil rigs, gained her valuable experience in piloting crew. After rejoining the Irish Coast Guard service, under the employment of CHC which is contracted to provide the service, Ms Fitzpatrick received an award in 2010 for her role in rescuing a stricken pilot when his light aircraft crashed into the Irish Sea. The same year she co-starred in Rescue 117, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series on State broadcaster RTE, given behind the scenes access to the Irish Coast Guard's helicopter search and rescue service. Just three years ago, she flew into the Irish aviation history books when, as one of two female Coast Guard pilots, she piloted the first all-woman mission for the service. The pair flew a cardiac patient from west Co Cork to Cork University Hospital before transferring a critically-ill five-year-old child from the hospital to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin. Ms Fitzpatrick later returned to her native Dublin to become captain of the Coast Guard helicopter base in the Irish capital. Advertisement

They have been joined by lifeboats from Ballyglass and Achill and five local fishing vessels.

Captain Fitzpatrick was located and plucked from the water at around 7am and taken to hospital, according to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

President Michael D Higgins led tributes, saying it was a 'dark day in the history of the Coast Guard'.

'On behalf of the people of Ireland, may I pay tribute to Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who died today,' he said.

'We are all grateful for the courage, resolution and exemplary commitment to the aims of the Coast Guard that Captain Fitzpatrick and her colleagues have consistently displayed.

'My thoughts are with her family at this difficult moment and also with the families of the missing crew.'

Mr Higgins said it was also appropriate to acknowledge and pay tribute to the efforts of Ms Fitzpatrick's colleagues at the Coast Guard 'who have been working at a time, which must be for them, a time of great grief and uncertainty'.

'May I also commend the other emergency services, as well as those from local communities in Mayo, who responded so valiantly, and in great solidarity, at this time of tragedy,' he added.

Earlier, Eugene Clonan, acting director of the Irish Coast Guard, said Captain Fitzpatrick was fighting for her life - but she was later revealed this afternoon to have died.

Mr Clonan said: 'At this particular point in time, hopes are fading of finding the remainder of the crew.'

Debris has been discovered on the surface of the water around one and half miles south-east of Blacksod Lighthouse.

Mr Clonan said it was a 'dark day' for Ireland's emergency services. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the families at this time,' he added.

The Coast Guard chief said contact was last heard from the missing helicopter at around 12.45am.

It had flown directly to the scene from Dublin, travelled around 10 miles out to sea, then turned back towards land to refuel.

Mystery surrounds what happened the aircraft in its final moments, with no indication of any problems in its final communications with the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centre in Malin Head.

Just before a planned landing on the Co Mayo coastline to refuel, the last transmission was: 'Shortly landing at Blacksod.'

Officals from the Air Accident Investigation Unit have been sent to the scene and will carry out a full investigation. Visibility was described as not good at the time.

When the helicopter failed to arrive, a Mayday signal went out and Coast Guard helicopters from Sligo and Shannon along with the Air Corps maritime patrol aircraft Casa were tasked to the scene.

They were joined by lifeboats from Ballyglass and Achill, and five local fishing vessels.

Members of the Garda Water unit prepare to join the search for an Irish Coast Guard helicopter

Debris has been discovered on the surface of the water around one and half miles south-east of Blacksod Lighthouse

The Garda Water unit are involved in the search for the Irish Coast Guard helicopter today

The Coast Guard chief said contact was last heard from the missing helicopter at around 12.45am

A Coast Guard spokesman said the missing helicopter had been providing cover in the evacuation of a crewman who needed urgent medical attention, from a UK-registered fishing vessel approximately 150 miles west of Eagle Island in Co Mayo.

'Owing to the distance involved, safety and communication support, known as top cover, was provided by the second Coast Guard helicopter, the Dublin based R116,' he said.

The search operation is being co-ordinated by the Coast Guard Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Malin Head.

Dublin's Transport Minister, Shane Ross, expressed his 'deep concern' over the helicopter's disappearance.

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter returns to Blacksod, County Mayo, as the search continues

An Irish naval vessel and other boats join the search for the Irish Coast Guard helicopter today

The naval ship is searching for the helicopter which went missing off the west coast of Ireland

A Coast Guard spokesman said the missing helicopter had been providing cover in the evacuation of a crewman who needed urgent medical attention (file picture)

The missing Sikorsky S92 is one of best helicopters that can be used in search and rescue operations and had a 'very good safety record', it has been claimed (file picture)

He said: 'As the search for the Dublin-based helicopter R116 is currently under way I would like to express my sincere support and sympathies for all those involved, particularly those family members who are awaiting news of their loved ones.

'This is an extremely difficult time for all concerned.'

Mr Ross appealed for space to be given to those involved in the search operation to complete their work.

'Once again, I send my utmost support to all those affected,' he added.

People took to Twitter to express their sadness about the missing Coast Guard crew members

The Naval Service's LE Roisin ship has arrived at the scene to help in the rescue effort.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny: My thoughts are with the crew's families Briefed: Taoiseach Enda Kenny Enda Kenny has said his thoughts are with the families of the crew of the Coast Guard helicopter that vanished off the Irish coast. Speaking from the US, where he is to meet President Donald Trump, the Taoiseach was being kept up to date with developments off Blacksod, which is in his Mayo constituency. 'I learned late last night of the lack of communication with Rescue 116 and to hear the tragic news this morning, on behalf of the government I want to issue our deepest sympathy in respect of the family of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, and the search continues arising from this particular tragedy.' Mr Kenny added: 'Clearly, the analysis and investigation into this, we want to uncover what exactly happened in respect of the lack of communication and loss of contact with rescue helicopter 116.' Transport Minister Shane Ross said he was deeply concerned about the incident and offered his support and sympathy for all those involved, 'particularly those family members who are awaiting news of their loved ones'. 'This is an extremely difficult time for all concerned,' he added. Sinn Fein fisheries spokesman Martin Ferris paid tribute to the 'selfless service' of the Coast Guard in saving countless lives. 'The rescue helicopters are a welcome sight, not just on the deck of a boat in trouble, but also to those injured and stranded on Ireland's mountains,' he said. 'This has been a painful year for the Coast Guard, having lost their comrade Caitriona Lucas last September.' Ms Lucas, a Coast Guard volunteer, died last September during the search for a missing man off the coast of Co Clare. 'This is testament to their bravery and dedication,' Mr Ferris said. 'My thoughts are with the families, comrades, and friends of the man recovered and those still to be found.' Advertisement

Mr Clonan said the missing Sikorsky S92 is one of best helicopters that can be used in search and rescue operations and had a 'very good safety record'.

Air accident investigators say recovering the missing Coast Guard helicopter's black box could be vital to solving what happened the aircraft.

The Sikorsky S92 - one of four in regular operation by the search and rescue service, with another on standby - was the last one acquired in an upgrade of the fleet completed three years ago.

Since then it has been central in hundreds of successful missions off the Irish coast, including casualty evacuations and long range operations.

Last year alone, the fleet was involved in 886 missions - the longest being at a range of 150 miles west of Loop Head, County Clare, last March.

The Sikorsky S92s - which replaced the old S61 models - are manufactured to allow for long range missions of up to 365 nautical miles and improved cruising speeds.

They are also equipped with enhanced technology, including forward-looking infrared low-light cameras, night sun searchlights, ambulance level paramedic care facilities and satellite communications.

They can hover in strong crosswinds or tailwinds of up to 35 knots.

Eugene Clonan, acting director of the Irish Coast Guard, said they are 'fairly new helicopters and very modern'.

'This helicopter has all the safety equipment onboard, with duplicate communications, flotation bags,' he said.

'The crew themselves would have immersion suits, life jackets, helmets and would have training for these types of emergencies.'

The immersion suits are designed to help crew survive for some time in the water.

Jurgen Whyte, Chief Aeronautical Officer with the unit, signalled the helicopter's black box could be crucial to learning what went wrong.

'These recorders are modern enough that we can actually - if we can recover the recorder and if it is functioning correctly - we can hopefully re-analyse the flight and actually get the aircraft to fly again digitally,' he said.

'That will help investigators a lot to actually determine what was happening in the final moments of the flight.'
Supermarket shoppers were joined in the aisles by an otter, who was filmed having a look around a Tesco in Ireland.

The aquatic animal was seen scuttling around the store during the bizarre incident in Castlebar, County Mayo, and did not want to leave without a fight.

Once it had gained access by opening the automatic doors, the otter fled under a meat fridge, trying to avoid capture.

Supermarket shoppers were joined in the aisles by an otter, who was filmed having a look around a Tesco in Castlebar, County Mayo

And when a customer did manage to get their hands on the critter, they were left needing medical attention following a vicious bite.

The shopper told the Irish Mirror: 'The poor little guy was very difficult to hold. He was squirming and was clearly very distressed. But I knew if I dropped him anywhere short of the lake he'd be close to traffic.'

'He got a hold of my finger at one stage and sank his tooth through my nail. I had to go to a GP for a tetanus shot afterwards but I guess it had to be done.'

Locals believe that the otter came from nearby Lough Lannagh - somewhat of a haven for river-dwelling creatures, and would have had to cross several busy roads to reach the store.

Once it had gained access by opening the automatic doors, the otter flees under a meat fridge, trying to avoid capture

A Tesco Ireland spokesman claim that the areas where the otter was roaming were properly cleaned afterwards.

The company said in a statement: 'Tesco Ireland confirms a surprise visitor entered its Castlebar store this morning when an otter from a nearby lake appears to have taken a detour.

'No contact was made with any foodstuffs during the incident.

'However, as a precautionary measure store management have taken the necessary actions to thoroughly sanitise the area and is operating business as usual.

'The otter was ushered safely from the store and returned to his natural habitat in a nearby lake.'
A factory worker has spoken of her trauma after her 'obsessed' colleague turned up at her home and stabbed her 20 times in a horror attack which left her for dead.

Brian Deakin, 46, turned up at Deborah Evans's home and launched the frenzied attack, lunging at her with a knife and repeatedly stamping on her neck until she lost consciousness.

The pair had met 15 months earlier at work and Ms Evans, 43, had tried to befriend him.

Factory worker Deborah Evans (left) has spoken of her trauma after her 'obsessed' colleague Brian Deakin (right) turned up at her home and stabbed her 20 times in a horror attack

But Deakin later discovered that Ms Evans was dating another co-worker and began a campaign of harassment.

He then unexpectedly turned up at her home in Manchester - under the premise of borrowing DVDs - where he attacked her.

Deakin was jailed in June 2015 for 15 years after pleading guilty to attempted murder at Liverpool Crown Court.

But Ms Evans - who is still suffering from the injuries - says she is still struggling following the attack.

'To this day, I cannot understand why his obsessive jealousy drove him to attack me,' she said.

'While he's behind bars my life has been changed forever. Parts of my face are still numb and I find it difficult to chew. I want to be able to forgive and forget but I can't.'

Ms Evans and Deakin first met back in July 2014 on the first day of a job working on the factory floor at AB World Foods in Leigh, Greater Manchester.

Working different shifts, the pair did not cross paths often and Deakin rarely socialised with his colleagues.

But Ms Evans got to know him slowly and encouraged him to go out with other colleagues.

Ms Evans - who is still suffering from the injuries - says she is still struggling following the attack. She is pictured with her cat Zeus

'He was very quiet and didn't have friends, but he seemed perfectly fine,' she said.

In April 2015, Deakin quit his job. After sending him a polite message wishing him luck for the future, Ms Evans didn't think she'd hear from him again.

She had started dating another colleague, Jonathan Clarke, who was 13 years her junior.

But, soon after, she received a completely out of the blue abusive phone call from Deakin.

'He rang me and called me all the names under the sun. It wasn't pleasant,' she recalled.

'He said, "Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend, you s***?" He obviously heard about me and Jonathan, perhaps on Facebook.

'Nobody wants to be verbally abused like that. I hadn't done anything wrong.'

Ms Evans blocked Deakin's number and deleted him on Facebook, thinking that would be the last she would hear of it.

But Deakin continued to make contact, sometimes messaging Ms Evans twice a day, even though she did not reply.

She said: 'He sent me a Skype message the next day apologising but I didn't reply. I told myself I'd have nothing more to do with him.

'Then, in December he sent another message saying, "Hi, how are you?" I ignored it, not wanting to start up any communication, but then the next day he sent the same thing.

'Every day  sometimes twice a day  he'd ask the same question.

After the attack, Ms Evans (left and right) suffered horrifying flashbacks. She also struggled to eat and speak, surviving on protein shakes because chewing solid food was too painful

'It scared me a bit. It was intense, but I thought it was best to ignore him and not give him what he wanted.'

Then, in December 2015, Deakin turned up at Ms Evans's home, demanding she give him some DVDs she had promised to lend him.

As she handed them over, he lunged forward, forcing his way into her hallway while clutching a knife.

From there, he launched a brutal attack, stabbing her repeatedly in the arms, head and chest.

Eventually, the blade came away from the handle, but instead of stopping, Deakin smashed Ms Evans's head against a wall and began to strangle her.

'He had his hands round my throat and started to squeeze. He just kept telling me he hated me,' she said.

'I could feel my life ebbing away but I vowed to myself, "I'm not dying today",' she said.

Deakin had wanted a relationship with Ms Evans (pictured) but his jealousy had spilled over into almost deadly violence

'I think instinct kicked in. With one hand, I prised his fingers from my neck and with the other I punched him hard between the legs.

'I'm a small person but I put up a good fight. There was no way I was letting him do that.'

Jumping back in pain, Deakin then lifted his foot and stamped down hard on Ms Evans's neck, causing her to pass out. When she came round, he was nowhere to be seen.

Ms Evans then called her boyfriend and an ambulance and was rushed to Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Doctors told her she'd suffered 20 stab wounds, broken her jaw and fractured 16 ribs.

'It was a miracle I survived,' she said. 'Brian was quickly arrested. I had so many questions, but mainly, "Why me?".'

Over the following months, Ms Evans suffered horrifying flashbacks. She also struggled to eat and speak, surviving on protein shakes because chewing solid food was too painful.

She also split with her boyfriend a few months later. Her cat Zeus was also afraid to go outside after the attack.

She went on: 'Whenever I walked up the stairs, I'd spot bloody splatters on the walls. I couldn't open the door to strangers or go out.

'But then I figured this is my home  I've lived here 18 years. Why should I move?'

At Deakin's trial, Liverpool Crown Court heard Deakin had wanted a relationship with Ms Evans, but his jealousy had spilled over into almost deadly violence.

As well as being jailed for 15 years, with an extended licence of five years, Deakin was given a lifelong restraining order, banning him from contracting her again.

Ms Evans, who is now working with charity Animals in Distress, helping care for Zeus after the trauma, said: 'I know I should feel relief that my attacker is behind bars, but I struggle to leave the house and I'm still not well enough to return to work.

'All I did was offer friendship, but I ended up befriending a monster.'
Dr Rajkumar Mazumder leaving his tribunal hearing at the GMC in Manchester

A GP allegedly put his hand down a woman's bra and groped her after he got 'tipsy' while he and his wife were flying home after visiting their grandchildren.

A tribunal today heard Dr Rajkumar Mazumder grabbed the passenger's breast and rubbed his groin on her waist after telling her his wife Dawn was being 'miserable,' it was claimed.

The sexual assault allegedly occurred as the lights were dimmed during the 13 hour journey from Charlotte Airport in North Carolina to London Gatwick.

The woman, who had been sitting in front of Mazumber, subsequently alerted stewards who moved her for the remainder of the 4,000 mile flight.

Police were called after the flight landed in the UK but no criminal charges were brought against Mazumber.

The GP claimed the woman had detailed her struggle with multiple sclerosis and he had offered her a medical examination.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service was told the incident occurred in September 2012 after the passenger - known only as Miss A - was returning to the UK after a two week trip visiting relatives.

The matter was not referred to the General Medical Council until three years later when Mazumder underwent Disclosure and Barring Service checks on his background.

Mazumder, then 66, and his wife, then 51, had been in the US visiting his grandchild when he began talking to the woman.

Mazumder, from Southgate, London attended voluntarily at a police station to be interviewed and denies misconduct

Counsel for the GMC Katie Jones, said: 'Miss A had significant health issues as a result of her MS.

'There was an initiated conversation that took place between herself and the doctor.

'She noticed him because rather than sit straight down he had stood behind her chair and leant on it. They made small talk and he asked about her trip and mentioned he was a doctor.

'A while later the doctor, who she states had been drinking alcohol during the flight, appeared to be tipsy and went for a walk. He stood up and initiated a second conversation, asking why she used a walking stick.

'At some point during the flight, once the lights had been dimmed, the doctor went for another walk and on the way back to his seat he rubbed his groin against her left side, specifically her waist, whilst doing that she felt he had an erection.

'She states she thought his behaviour was inappropriate. He really leaned over and rubbed his groin against her. He also put his hand down her top and inside her bra, grabbing her breast and nipple fairly hard.

'He hurt her when he grabbed her breast and remained there until she stood up. His action made her scared and frightened. He had not asked permission to touch her. She alleges his action was sexually motivated.

'She didn't tell anyone at the airport because she was scared and embarrassed. She told her best friend and later told her parents and the matter was reported to the police by her father.'

Mazumder, from Southgate, London later attended voluntarily at a police station to be interviewed.

Miss Jones added: 'He told the police she had told him she suffered from MS, she had volunteered that information and he was concerned about her on the flight and offered to examine her.

'She nodded and he had gone on to examine her in a non-intimate way.'

Now 70, Mazumder who currently lives in Spain denies misconduct.

The hearing continues.
An abusive caller threatened to shoot a Jewish gym owner in the head and demanded he 'get the f**k out of the country'.

The expletive-laden call was placed to self-defence gym IDF Training, run by outspoken Israeli army veteran and prominent community member Avi Yemini.

A recording of the conversation revealed the caller exchanged pleasantries with the gym's offsite reception, who offered to deliver a message to Mr Yemini.

'Is he the ex-IDF bloke?' the unidentified caller asked, to which the jovial call centre operator replied 'yeah 100 per cent'.

An abusive 'Palestine supporter' threatened to shoot Jewish gym owner Avi Yemini (pictured) in the head and demanded he 'get the f**k out of the country'

'So he knows how to shoot Palestinians?' was the response from the increasingly agitated caller on the recording obtained by Daily Mail Australia.

The staunchly professional operator took it in his stride, saying 'I'm not too sure to be honest with you', before the caller launched into an anti-Semitic tirade.

'He does, the f**kin' c**kscuker. Well I wanna learn how to shoot, because I wanna shoot him in the f**kin' head. He's a f**kin' c**ksuckin' zionist. Why are you even working there mate?'

After a short pause the operator repeated that he was just the offsite reception, but was quickly cut off.

The caller, who sounded creepy from the beginning, exchanged pleasantries with the gym's offsite reception, who offered to deliver a message to Mr Yemini

'You tell Avi to get the f**k out of the country, the f**kin' c**ksucking f**kin' Jew,' the caller snarled.

Mr Yemini said he did not know who the man on the line was, but had traced the call to Deer Park, a predominantly Muslim suburb of Melbourne.

He said the matter had been reported to police, who were trying to identify the caller.

Mr Yemini said the operator who took the call was 'very good under the circumstances. It was pretty vile and full on'.

'We've had threats and anti-Semitic things said to us in the past, but this is the worst ever,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Yemini said he did not know who the man on the line was, but had traced the call to Deer Park, a predominantly Muslim suburb of Melbourne

Mr Yemini said he was happy to debate issues with anyone, even if they were Muslim, but to attack someone for their religion or race was unacceptable.

'And then when you're talking about shooting someone in the face, you're crossing a line whether you mean it or not,' he said.

'I am outspoken and criticise aspects of Islam... which is often met with threats, but it won't stop me.'

Mr Yemini said his employees were on high alert for any potential threats and he was being more vigilant than usual about his and his family's safety.

'We are taking it seriously as a real threat and trying to shut it down before it escalates,' he said.

Mr Yemini said he was happy to debate issues with anyone, even if they are Muslim, but to attack someone for their religion or race was unacceptable

IDF Training runs a fitness gym and classes in Krav Maga, a martial art used by Israeli special forces.

It was frequented by 10-year-old Thalia Hakin, who was killed in the Bourke Street car rampage in January, and her sister Maggie who was injured.

Mr Yemini started a fundraising effort to help their family, which gathered about $142,000.

Caulfield Police Station, where the phone call was reported to, declined to comment on the progress of the investigation.
Pauline Hanson's favourite chocolate bar will become a guiltier pleasure for her after it was revealed the snack is halal certified.

Last year the Queensland senator waxed lyrical about the Chocolate Fish bar to Kyle & Jackie O, giving the Sydney radio presenters a taste test live-on-air.

But the Cadbury New Zealand website reveals the chocolate coated marshmallow bar has halal approved ingredients, rendering it acceptable under Islamic law.

Scroll down for audio

Pauline Hanson waxed enthusiastically hailed the Chocolate Fish bar with Kyle & Jackie O last year

The Cadbury New Zealand websits reveals the Chocolate Fish bar is made with halal approved ingredients

'It's chocolate with pink marshmallow in the shape of a fish,' Hanson explained, to which Jackie O replied 'that sounds awful.' But Ms Hanson insisted they were 'quite moreish.'

The Cadbury website outlines the ingredients, processing, hygiene and sanitation procedures in place to ensure the food meets requirements for halal certification.

'Halal certification is not intended to offend any member of the public of any cultural or religious belief,' the site reads.

'We do not believe it promotes one religion over another, rather provides people of Muslim faith with information about the food choices they make.'

Given how vehemently opposed to Islam and halal certification Ms Hanson has proven in the past, it's unlikely the disclaimer would set her mind at ease.

Last year, Ms Hanson's attempt to prove her pro-dairy farming credentials backfired spectacularly when she unwittingly revealed she purchased halal certified milk.

The anti-halal senator even invited the Sydney radio presenters to a taste test the bar live-on-air

Ms Hanson has been vehemently opposed to Islam and halal certification in the past
Paul Ryan said he would never defend or campaign for Donald Trump just weeks before he was named the 45th US president, leaked audio has revealed.

'I am not going to defend Donald Trump - not now, not in the future,' the Speaker told House Republicans in an extraordinary conference call slamming their nominee.

Mr Ryan, 47, was among dozens of Republicans in office who refused to endorse Trump in the lead up to his election battle against Hillary Clinton.

Dropped: Paul Ryan, right, told House Republicans he would never support or campaign for Donald Trump, left, in the weeks before he became the 45th president of the United States, leaked audio has revealed

The call was made on October 10, three days after a hot-mic recording of Trump making lewd comments about women to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush emerged.

Ryan is heard saying Trump's remarks that famous men can do 'whatever they want' to women were 'indefensible'.

In the recording, obtained by right-wing website Breitbart, he says: 'His comments are not anywhere in keeping with our party's principles and values.

'There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your Speaker.

'I am not going to defend Donald Trump - not now, not in the future... And I'm not going to be campaigning with him over the next 30 days.'

Ryan does not confirm whether he dropped his support for the reality TV star because of the damning footage, but tells House Republicans he has 'real concerns' with their nominee.

'To everyone on this call, this is going to be a turbulent month,' Ryan says on the phonecall to an unknown audience. 'Many of you on this call are facing tough reelections. Some of you are not.

Scandal: In a conference call made to House Republicans on October 10, Ryan said: 'I am not going to defend Donald Trump, pictured, not now, not in the future.' The call was made three days after footage showing Trump making lewd comments about women to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush emerged

Controversy: Ryan, pictured, is heard saying that Trump's sexist comments were 'indefensible' and 'not anywhere in keeping with our party's principles and values'

'But with respect to Donald Trump, I would encourage you to do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do. Personally, you need to decide what's best for you. And you all know what's best for you where you are.'

Ryan, who followed through on his promise not to campaign alongside Trump, went on to say he would not help his rival Clinton ascend to the White House.

He said: 'The last thing I want to do is to help Hillary Clinton get the presidency, and get Congress... She's a failed progressive. She's running an abysmal campaign.

'It's amazing how easily she could be beaten. She will take this country in the wrong direction.

'That's why I'm going to spend the rest of this month fighting for Congress, fighting for our majorities.

'I'm going to spend the next 28 days working hard with all of our members to get re-elected because we need a check on Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump and Mike Pence don't win the presidency. '

Game: Ryan, who followed through on his promise not to campaign alongside Trump, was heard saying that he would do everything he could to prevent Clinton from winning the election

It is unclear which and how many Republicans were in on the conference call, whether they knew it was being recorded or who made the recording itself.

Despite his fierce opposition to Trump during the election, Ryan has openly supported Trump since Inauguration Day.

He backed his executive order on immigration and refused to call in an independent probe into his alleged links to Russia.

Despite admitting there was no evidence to back up Trump's claims that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the election, he claimed Trump's paranoia was understandable.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today launched a new attack at the Netherlands, claiming the country is responsible for Europe's worst mass killing since World War II.

In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the infamous massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Erdogan said: 'We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today launched a new attack at the Netherlands, claiming the country is responsible for the Srebrenica genocide

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Erdogan's comments, calling them a 'disgusting distortion of history'

In 1995, more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were brutally slaughtered during the Bosnian War. Pictured, investigators clearing away soil and debris from dozens of Srebrenica victims buried in a mass grave

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Erdogan's comments, calling them a 'disgusting distortion of history,' as the diplomatic row between the two countries escalates.

WHAT HAPPENED IN SREBRENICA? In 1995, Serbs overran the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica at the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. The UN had declared Srebrenica a safe haven for civilians, but that didn't prevent Serb soldiers from attacking the town they besieged for years. As they advanced, most of the town's Muslim population rushed to the nearby UN compound in hopes the Dutch peacekeepers would protect them. But the outnumbered and outgunned peacekeepers watched helplessly as Muslim men and boys were separated for execution and the women and girls were sent to Bosnian government-held territory. Advertisement

'We will not lower ourselves to this level. It is totally unacceptable,' Rutte told Dutch broadcaster RTL Z.

This new spat comes after supporters of the Turkish president burned a French flag after mistaking it for Holland's and attempted to lynch a Norwegian woman thinking she was Dutch.

The flag went up in flames as protesters recited the Turkish national anthem amid heightened tension after the Netherlands refused to allow two Turkish ministers to enter the country for campaign rallies.

Demonstrators had mistaken the French flag for a Dutch one of the same colours in Samsun in Turkey and earlier a Norwegian journalist was told she 'would pay' for 'working for the Netherlands' by an angry mob supporting president Tayyip Erdogan.

A pro-Erdogan group is said to have harassed a number of journalists covering the clashes between Holland and Turkey.

A Norwegian national was targeted in Istanbul and two female reporters were victims of mobs in two separate incidents.

The flag, which bears the same colours as the French flag, is laid out in the street and doused with an accelerant

A man wearing a red hat holds the flag aloft as another man in the same headwear sets fire to it

The French flag, which was mistaken for a Dutch one, burns in the streets of Samsun, Turkey

A group of pro-Erdogan supporters recite the Turkish national anthem as the flag burns

Demonstrators approached one of the women and said: 'You are working for the Netherlands. I have recorded all of you. You will pay for it,' according to Stockholm CF.

It was reported Turkish police did not intervene and instead chose to watch.

The incidents are not the first ugly scenes to emerge since the ministers were blocked entry to Holland over the weekend.

Turkey on Tuesday hit back at the EU after the bloc criticised Ankara over a spiralling diplomatic spat with the Netherlands, saying its criticism had no value for the country.

'The EU's short-sighted statement has no value for our country,' the foreign ministry said in a statement.

A partially-burned French flag is doused once again by a mob of pro-Erdogan supporters

One flag is burnt by a group of men, while another four men hold up a Turkish flag behind them

Ankara claimed that rather than trying to calm the situation, the European Union was 'giving credit to xenophobia and anti-Turkish sentiment' by choosing to side with countries who violate diplomatic agreements and the law.

Brussels called on Turkey on Monday to refrain from excessive statements after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the Netherlands of acting like the Nazis.

Late Monday, Erdogan repeated his comments, saying what was happening in Europe was 'Nazism, we can call this neo-Nazism. A new Nazism tendency'.

Tensions between Turkey and EU member states increased after Germany and the Netherlands banned events where Turkish politicians wanted to rally support ahead of a vote next month.

Erdogan also hit out at Angela Merkel yesterday for supporting the Dutch, saying she was siding with terrorism after Holland expelled the Turkish family minister at the weekend.

The burning flag lies destroyed in the street after supporters mistook it for one from Holland

Mark Rutte, left, imposed the sanctions, but his competition for prime minister Geert Wilders (right) has called for Holland's borders to be closed to Turkish nationals amid the row

Angela Merkel (pictured) has sided with Mark Rutte and the Netherlands, prompting Tayyip Erdogan to say she is supporting terrorism

The Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday said that Turkish sanctions against the Dutch government in the wake of a diplomatic clash were 'not too bad' but were inappropriate as the Dutch have more to be angry about.

The sanctions include freezing all diplomatic communication but no economic measures.

'On the other hand, I continue to find it bizarre that in Turkey they're talking about sanctions when you see that we have reasons to be very angy about what happened this weekend.'

On Saturday the Netherlands blocked Turkey's foreign minister from landing on Dutch soil and later ordered the family affairs minister to leave after she tried to get to Rotterdam to address a crowd of President Tayyip Erdogan's supporters.

Rutte's government was angered by Erdogan referring to the Dutch as 'Nazis' and for his determination to hold a campaign rally for an April referendum on Saturday among Dutch Turks on Dutch soil without a permit.

The Dutch are voting in their own national election on Wednesday where Geert Wilders will mount a challenge to Rutte's position.

The far-right leader has used the recent clashes to ramp up his anti-Islam and anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying Holland's borders should be closed to Turkish nationals.

A Dutch riot policeman tries to get his dog to let go of a man after riots broke out during a pro Erdogan demonstration at the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam, Netherlands

Screaming men face off with Dutch riot police outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam

A man prepares to launch a metal railing as demonstrators and riot police clash in Rotterdam

Dutch riot police used powerful water cannons on protesters as violent clashes intensified

Dutch riot police battle pro Erdogan demonstrators after riots broke out at the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam

Violent clashes between protesters and Dutch riot police officers turned ugly quickly as 1,000 people turned up to voice their disapproval of the ministers' access to the country being blocked.

Some men were seen throwing stones, others were seen kicking police officers who had fallen to the ground and metal railings were also hurled in the riots.

In reaction, police used powerful water cannons in an attempt to control the crowds.

On April 16, Turks will decide whether to approve constitutional changes that would create an executive presidency, boosting Erdogan's powers.

But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said it was up to Berlin and The Hague to decide whether to allow Turkish politicians into the country to rally for a 'yes' vote.

The ministry slammed the EU's statement which 'contains wrong evaluations and combines different agendas to try to distort perception'.

'Our EU counterparts apply democratic values, fundamental rights and freedoms selectively,' the ministry added.

It condemned the EU's support for the Dutch government - which it accused of violating European values - saying it was 'extremely grave'.
A Calvin Klein advert showing a young woman pulling at her bra strap has been removed from a House of Fraser window after complaints that it sexualises children.

A number of people have protested to the Cheltenham store that the model in the picture looks like a child under the age of the 16 rather than a woman and that the pose is 'erotic.'

A House of Fraser spokeswoman said they had received a number of complaints and confirmed they have now pulled the campaign from their window displays.

A number of people have protested to the Cheltenham store that the model in the picture looks like a child under the age of the 16 rather than a woman - and that the pose is 'erotic'

Rachel Ashby said she was shopping with her daughter, 11, and her friend on Saturday when she spotted the 'offensive and irresponsible' photo in the store window.

'When I asked the children how old they thought the model looked they decided between the age of 12 and 14,' she said.

'This is an advert for women's lingerie, not children's underwear.

'While I realise it is likely she is probably of legal age to appear, the fact that she looks underage in terms of body shape and somewhat vulnerable facial expression combined with the fact that she is wearing very little and is adopting a strangely provocative pose means it could be deemed to sexualise children.'

Rachel Ashby said she was shopping with her daughter, 11, and her friend on Saturday when she spotted the 'offensive and irresponsible' photo in the store window

Ms Ashby added that while she had praised the company for its recent launch of a foundation helping charities, she said the advert was 'disappointing' considering it had adopted Action For Children as its lead charity in the foundation.

The New York-based model posing for the campaign is known as just 'Lulu'.

A House of Fraser spokeswoman said they had received a number of complaints.

'House of Fraser acknowledges the small number of customer complaints around the Calvin Klein advertising in some of our stores,' she said.

'We can confirm that the images in question are being removed.'

It is not the first time Calvin Klein has got into hot water over a campaign.

Last year the US-based company received complaints over a photo up the skirt of Danish actress Klara Kristin.

And in 2010 Lara Stone's Calvin Klein Jeans ad was banned in Australia for being 'suggestive of violence and rape'.
Bosses can ban workers from wearing headscarves, the top European Union's court has ruled.

It is the court's first decision on the issue of women wearing Islamic headscarves at work.

On the eve of the Dutch election where Muslim immigration has been a major theme, the Court of Justice gave a joined judgement in the cases of two women, in France and Belgium.

Employers are entitled to ban workers from the 'visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign', including headscarves

The wearing of religious symbols, and especially Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, has become a hot button issue with the rise of populist sentiment across Europe, with some countries such as Austria considering a complete ban on the full-face veil in public.

Critics quickly voiced fears the decision risked becoming a setback to all working Muslim women.

In a statement, Amnesty International said: 'Today's disappointing rulings ... give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women - and men - on the grounds of religious belief.

'At a time when identity and appearance has become a political battleground, people need more protection against prejudice, not less.'

The Open Society Justice Initiative, which submitted a brief supporting the women, also expressed disappointment.

'The group's policy officer, Maryam Hmadoum, said it 'weakens the guarantee of equality that is at the heart of the EU's antidiscrimination directive.'

The ECJ was ruling on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium.

At the time, the company had an 'unwritten rule' that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

In 2006, Achbita told G4S she wanted to wear the Islamic headscarf at work but was told this would not be allowed.

Subsequently, the company introduced a formal ban. Achbita was dismissed and she went to court claiming discrimination.

In her case, the ECJ followed the advice of a senior legal adviser to the court, who said companies should be allowed to have policies banning the wearing of religious and political symbols.

In the second case, French IT engineer Asma Bougnaoui was fired from consultancy firm, Micropole, following a complaint from a client about her headscarf.

Regarding that case, the court ruled that customers' concerns did not give companies a get-out clause from EU anti-discrimination law.

The ECJ did not rule on whether her dismissal was based on her failure to observe company policies, saying it was a matter for the French court.

The wearing of religious symbols, and especially Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, has become a hot button issue with the rise of populist sentiment across Europe

In a statement, the Court said: 'An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,' the Court said in a statement.

'However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer's services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.'

A spokesman for G4S told MailOnline: 'There is a long-standing custom in Belgium for organisations with diverse workforces to apply a policy of religious and political neutrality, especially where the organisation has staff who have contact with the public. Our policy is supported by employee representatives and has also been upheld at all levels in the Belgian courts.

'On the question that was raised by the Belgian Supreme Court, whether the neutrality policy constituted direct discrimination based on religion, the court has now ruled that this is not the case and it will now be referred back to the Belgian Supreme Court.

'It is our policy to comply with local laws in all countries in which we operate and this applies in relation to the wearing of religious symbols and dress. In many countries such as the UK where there is no strong tradition of religious and political neutrality, G4S permits the wearing of religious dress such as Islamic headscarves.'

Nick Elwell-Sutton, employment partner at law firm Clyde & Co, said: 'The judgment demonstrates to employers how critical it is for a businesses to have a well-documented policy and to apply it consistently across the workforce.'

Phil Pepper, employment law partner at Shakespeare Martineau, said: 'This is an interesting decision by the ECJ, but it will not mean that UK businesses will be able to ban religious clothing in the workplace overnight. It will not be that simple. A blanket ban on headscarves is not the answer and creates significant grey areas for many employers.

'Implementing dress neutrality policies is extremely difficult and in most cases, not realistic in the modern workplace. Any organisation that wants to adopt such a policy must give serious thought to how it would be implemented and received by employees. Get it wrong, and employers could easily end up on the wrong side of a discrimination case.

'It is likely that we may see a trend towards some leniency on dress policies in future, following this ruling.'
A Perth man has been sentenced to seven months in prison after he was busted with an illegal drug in his Bali home last year.

Giuseppe 'Joe' Serafino had lived in Bali for five years when he was arrested with less than 8 grams of hashish by Denpasar police on October on October 8.

Arriving at Court on Tuesday to hear his fate, the 49-year-old spat at an Australian cameraman and threw water at a photographer as he was being led in.

But he appeared calm as Chief Judge Erwin Djong sentenced him to seven months for drug use, finding he had used hashish to 'reduce his pain'.

Giuseppe 'Joe' Serafino (pictured) was sentenced to seven months in prison in Bali after being busted with hashish

Arriving in Denpasar Court on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Serafino spat on a cameraman and threw water on a photographer

The 49-year-old accepted the verdict with Chief Judge Erwin Djong finding that he had used the drug to 'reduce pain'

Serafino's seven month sentence is the same jail term as that handed to former Reuters war correspondent, British man David Fox, for also using hashish.

The Bali bar owner worked with local police, only hours after his own arrest, to set up a sting on Fox, with Serafino luring him to his On On Bar in Sanur.

With time already served, both men could be out of prison within two months.

Prosecutors, who had called for a one-year jail term, said they are still considering whether to appeal.

Initially facing charges of drug possession and transportation both Serafino and Fox could have faced 12 years in prison had they been convicted.

However both charges were downgraded to just use, which carries a maximum of four years.

The former Perth bricklayer moved to Bali five years ago where he managed a local bar

With time already served, Mr Serafino could be out within two months but prosecutors, who had called for a one-year jail term, said they are still considering whether to appeal

Serafino previously said he began using marijuana in 2007 while still in Australia for pain relief.

It was a practice he continued in Bali - buying hashish from someone at the fast food restaurant McDonald's for around three million rupiah ($A300).

In a letter handed to court earlier this month by Dr Colin Hughes said Serafino developed cervical spinal compression in 2006, resulting in severe pain.

While he was prescribed a strong pain killer and valium, Dr Hughes wrote that Serafino began to self-medicate with cannabis - resulting in addiction and an 'exacerbated ideation regarding jealousy towards his wife and moderately severe depression'.

Only hours after his arrest, Mr Serafino helped local police catch former British Reuters journalist, David Fox (right) with the drug

Mr Fox was also sentenced to seven months in prison and was found to have been using the drug to help his sleep as a result of trauma from reporting from war zones

In 2009, he developed further spinal problems before being diagnosed with a mouth condition in 2010.

Despite living in the popular tourist town Sanur for more than five years, Serafino told Denpasar Court during his trial that he did not know doing drugs in Indonesia was 'such a big crime'.

Judge Djong found Serafino, who is being held at Kerobokan prison, was polite during the trial and had no previous offences.

But he said there was 'no excuse or justification' for what he had done and that he needed to be rehabilitated.

Fox was found to have been using hashish to help him sleep as a result of trauma from reporting from numerous war zones.
A young woman who tortured during an horrific attack in her own flat later killed herself months later amid 'grave concerns' over her mental health care, an inquest heard.

Leah Ratheram, 20, was found hanged in woodland alongside Stratford canal in Birmingham on October 7 last year.

The previous February she had been beaten up after neighbour Lucy Regan and her boyfriend Omaij Christie forced their way into her flat and 'beat her with a dog lead' before 'pouring vinegar on her wounds to make them sting'.

Following the vicious attack, Miss Ratheram was under the care of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust, and then mental health service Forward Thinking Birmingham (FTB), and was living at Manningford Care Home in Druids Heath, at the time she died.

But the inquest heard issues arose during the transfer to FTB which led to initial assessments not being followed up.

Leah Ratheram, 20, pictured, was found hanged in Birmingham last year months after being brutally tortured in her own flat by neighbours. An inquest heard subsequent mental health assessments were 'not followed up'

Miss Ratheram already suffered from Autism, Aspergers Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome before the attack.

During the assault, she was punched by Regan, knocked over and then hit with the metal lead as she tried to protect herself.

Her friend Paul James-Lyons fell from her third floor balcony as hetried to escape when he was also attacked by Christie with the dog lead.

The inquest heard Miss Ratheram experienced extreme mood swings, had a history of self-harming and had also been a victim of domestic violence.

Recording a verdict of suicide, Senior Coroner Louise Hunt raised 'grave concerns' about her mental health care.

Debbie Moore, manager of Manningford Care Home, told the court they had become increasingly concerned for Miss Ratheram after she developed new ways of harming herself.

She said that the home had contacted the mental health team because they did not feel the level of care they could provide was sufficient any longer for her.

It was while Miss Ratheram was being assessed that her care was being transferred to the newly set up mental health organisation, FTB.

A doctor and representative from FTB initially visited the care home to assess Leah following attempts to hang herself.

Care home staff were under the impression further assessments were due to be made but the visit was not followed up by FTB, the inquest heard.

Lucy Regan (left), who lived in the same tower block, and her boyfriend Omaij Christie (right), were both jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for the vicious attack, in which they hit Miss Ratheram with a metal dog lead and 'poured vinegar on her wounds'

Coroner Ms Hunt said while she did not believe anything could have been done any differently to prevent Leah's death, she did have 'grave concerns' about the lack of continuity in her care, and called for a review of the way patients are assessed when they are being considered for sectioning under the Mental Health Act.

Miss Ratheram's foster parents, Marilyn and Steven Ratheram, described her as someone with a 'great sense of humour.'

'She loved everyone in her own way and was a great artist,' said Steven.

'But she struggled with accepting her problems. One minute she was happy, the next she was very sad.'

They said Miss Ratheram 'became involved with an older man who would beat her up', before she was the victim of the brutal attack at her flat.

But shortly before her death, she had found a new boyfriend who 'made her very happy', her foster father said.

But they often struggled to get their foster daughter the appropriate care for her mental health needs, he added.

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123, visit a local Samaritans branch, or see www.samaritans.org for details.
Captain Brian A. Stillman, 43, collapsed on March 10 during training exercises at Camp Atterbury

An Ohio National Guardsman collapsed and died during a training exercise in Indiana on Friday.

Captain Brian A. Stillman, 43, from Norton, Ohio, collapsed at around 12.30pm on March 10 during training exercises at Camp Atterbury in the town of Edinburgh.

Medics tried to revive the 19-year member of the Ohio Army National Guard but were unsuccessful.

Stillman was an operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 174th Air Defense Artillery Brigade.

His cause of death was not immediately released.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

The Captain had a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Akron, according to his Linkedin page.

'The entire Ohio National Guard is mourning the loss of a fallen brother and would ask for understanding and privacy toward his family and friends during the grieving process,' the Ohio Adjutant Generals Department said according to Ohio.com.

This is by no means the first death at a military or National Guard training camp in the US.

Last month, one person was killed and another injured in a training accident on a military range in southern New Mexico.

In July 2016, three soldiers DIED within one week of each other at Fort Benning, Georgia, Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and at Fort Carson, Colorado.

Medics tried to revive the 19-year member of the Ohio Army National Guard at the base (pictured) but were unsuccessful

One died in Ranger School - a grueling program designed to push soldiers to physical and mental limits in a 61-day course.

Last November, then Vice President-elect Mike Pence gave a Veterans Day speech at Camp Atterbury.

The Indiana training camp, built in 1942, was used as a prisoner of war camp in the Second World War housing German and Italian soldiers .

In recent years, thousands of regular and reserve forces received training at the camp before deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Claiming a snap referendum on independence can keep Scotland in the EU is absurd, Scottish Secretary David Mundell has warned.

Mr Mundell said an independent Scotland would have to join as a new member - making it likely it would be asked to join the euro.

Spain today warned Scotland would be at the 'back of the queue' for EU membership, adding it does not encourage 'secession'.

An independent Scotland would also have to rejoin Nato and would have to plot an economic future without the strong oil industry it relied on in 2014.

Ms Sturgeon today met her Cabinet in Edinburgh for the first time since announcing her plans to demand Westminster give permission for a second referendum.

Scottish Secretary David Mundell has warned claims a snap referendum on independence will keep Scotland in the EU is absurd

Nicola Sturgeon today met her Cabinet in Edinburgh for the first time since announcing her plans to demand Westminster give permission for a second referendum

Mr Mundell said today: 'Claiming having Indy Ref 2 soon allows Scotland to stay in EU is absurd.

'Independent Scotland will be outside EU and have to apply to join.'

Former SNP leader Alex Salmond today accused Theresa May of having underestimated Ms Sturgeon.

He told Bloomberg: 'She is now being faced with the reality Nicola Sturgeon is not to be underestimated.'

SNP external affairs minister Fiona Hyslop today insisted the collapsing oil price would not undermine the independence campaign.

She told the BBC Today programme: 'Our onshore economy is equivalent to the position of the UK.

'(Oil) matters to the United Kingdom. You saw in the 80s and 90s a recognition from consecutive UK government the oil bankrolled the Thatcher government.

'We have wealth and talent. We will have challenges - the UK is presenting the UK economy with a bill that will cost Scotland 11billion with Brexit.'

Ms Hyslop denied Scotland would have to join the Euro, adding: 'The number of members not in the Euro are considerable.'

David Mundell slammed the SNP plans for a second independence referendum

Spanish foreign minister Alfonso Dastis said: 'Spain supports the integrity of the United Kingdom and does not encourage secessions or divisions in any of the member states. We prefer things to stay as they are.'

He said Scotland 'would have to queue, meet the requirements for entry, hold negotiations and the result would be that these negotiations would take place'.

The European Commission, which is run by President Jean-Claude Juncker, yesterday insisted continuing membership was not available.

Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the so-called 'Barroso doctrine' continued to apply.

Former commission president Jose Manuel Barroso set out the legal view that if one part of an EU country became an independent state it would have to apply for EU membership.

At a briefing in Brussels, Mr Schinas said: 'The commission does not comment on issues that pertain to the internal legal and constitutional order of our member states.'

But he added: 'The Barroso doctrine, would that apply? Yes that would apply, obviously.'

The European Commission, run by President Jean-Claude Juncker, told Nicola Sturgeon today Scotland would not get to keep its EU membership if it voted for independence. Mr Juncker and Ms Sturgeon are pictured together in June 2016

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a similar message, telling Sky News Scotland would have to apply for membership as a new member

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Sky News Scotland would also have to apply to be a new member of the 28-member alliance.

He said the alliance had no view on the question of independence but warned the rules of the alliance were clear.

Mr Stoltenberg said: 'If it happens then the UK will continue as a member of Nato but a new independent state has to apply for membership and then it is up to 28 allies whether we will have a new member.

'All decisions are taken by consensus, we need the consensus of all allies to invite a new member.'

He added: 'By leaving the UK it would also leave Nato - of course it is absolutely possible to apply for membership and then the allies will then decide.'
An SAS veteran says he was on the verge of selling his war medals after being left 1million in debt following a ten-year legal battle against a cowboy builder.

David Bird, 60, and his wife Kerry, 56, bought a four-bedroom barn conversion for 355,000 in 2007 after selling their family home.

The couple regularly visited the site in Stretton Sugwas, Herefordshire, and were shown pictures of the 'luxury' property in a brochure during the building process.

SAS veteran David Bird, 60, and his wife Kerry, 56, say they have been left 1m out of pocket after a ten-year legal fight with a cowboy builder who left their dream home in ruins

Mr Bird, who served with the special forces between 1986 and 1991 (left), said he was on the verge of selling his war medals (with which he is pictured, right) to cover the bill

But, when they moved into their new home, they discovered it was an 'unfinished mess'.

The property had no building or electrical certificate and there were live electrical wires behind the wall.

Experts discovered the boiler was incorrectly wired and none of the doors or windows were fitted properly.

But the final straw was when they found the concrete floor under the living room carpet had not been screeded, leaving it covered in lumps.

Mr and Mrs Bird, who have three grown-up children, then instructed solicitors to sue developer Andrew Turvill.

But they claim he 'did everything in his power' to delay the legal process despite them winning all three court cases against him.

The Birds, who have been married for 26 years, eventually won a 100,000 payment from Mr Turvill after a Court of Appeal hearing in October last year.

But the couple say they have been left 1million out of pocket due to solicitors' fees and expenses incurred travelling to the numerous court appearances.

The couple became so desperate for money, Mr Bird was even considering selling his SAS war medals incase they lost the court case.

Mrs Bird said: 'The brochure showed it as a luxury barn conversion and it was going to be our last home.

The couple regularly visited the site during the building process but said that, when they moved into their new home, it was an 'unfinished mess'

Mr and Mrs Bird moved into the property in 2007 and said they had to strip back and renovate the entire upstairs (pictured)

Mr and Mrs Bird found the concrete floor under the living room carpet had not been screeded, leaving it covered in lumps (pictured)

Mr and Mrs Bird said 'everything you can think of was wrong'. Pictured are the sunken ceiling support beams (left) and chipped paintwork (right) from 2007 when the couple moved in

'Our worst moment was moving in here and finding it wasn't a luxury barn conversion at all, it was an unfinished mess.

'Anything and everything you can think of was wrong. We gave the builders a chance to put it right but they failed twice. We came back and the house was covered in dust.

'I just told them that was enough and to get out because we were taking them to court.'

The former SAS Sergeant, who served with the special forces between 1986 and 1991, added: 'It has cost us over 1million in total. Out of that we are only getting 100,000 back.

The Birds, who have three grown-up children, then instructed solicitors to sue developer Andrew Turvill

The couple say the pipes were poorly fitted, including on this radiator (pictured)

Experts discovered sockets behind plasterboard in the walls and found that the boiler wasnt wired correctly

'There was 800,000 in legal fees, then on top of that there has been when we have had to travel to court we've had to stay over in hotels.

'Then there is the expert witnesses and a lot of unaccounted costs that were on top of the 800,000. And there is the rebuilding programme that we are financing now.

'This house would have to sell for 1million for us to get back what we have lost.'

The couple's first court case at Liverpool Civil and Family Court in March 2014 was against Chartland LLP, who list Mr Turvill as a director.

They were awarded a payout of around 400,000 but never received any of the money because they claim Mr Turvill put the firm into liquidation to avoid the bill.

The Birds then sued Mr Turvill privately at the same court in June 2015 and were awarded a sum of around 100,000 for personal injury and costs.

The developer - who is listed as a director of Chartland Developments LLP - took the case to the Court of Appeal in London but a judge ruled in the Birds' favour for a third time in October last year.

The couple discovered that none of the doors or windows were fitted properly, meaning there was a draught running through the house

The property had no building or electrical certificate and there were live electrical wires behind the wall and hanging from the roof

This picture shows the rubbish hole which builders filled with materials from the Birds's home

The Birds were also shocked when they were told the barn conversion was not legal because the council had been told it was two-bedroom property.

They have now been forced to pay architects and submit plans to the authority to say it is a four-bedroom home.

The couple have already spent 38,000 to put the downstairs of their house right and expect to spend a similar amount of the upstairs which is going to take another six months to fix.

Mrs Bird added: 'Because of the problems we had the living room sealed off for eight years and used the back of the kitchen as a living area.

The Birds were also shocked when they were told the barn conversion (pictured in 2007) was not legal because the council had been told it was two-bedroom property

'Things like the guttering isn't fixed properly so the water is running down the walls.

'My husband is a security consultant, he has a good job and we were comfortable. But we used an endowment and used our savings so it does make us worry for the future.

'We may have to sell the house because we've got a mortgage of 250,000 to pay in five years which would mean we would have to go backwards.

'The stress has been awful, it just takes over your entire life. He has robbed us and the way the justice system works has robbed us.'

Developer Andrew Turvill, 49, who owns several expensive properties both in Shropshire and Hampshire, refused to comment.

He said: 'I have no comment to make, it is all in the public domain.'
Three primary school children kicked a flamingo to death at a zoo in the Czech Republic after throwing rocks at the birds in their enclosure.

The boys, aged five, six, and eight, attacked a flock of the American flamingos at Jihlava Zoo, in the Vysocina Region.

After scaling a fence, they hurled wood and stones at the birds and then kicked two of them.

One of the female birds was killed while the other received serious injuries.

The dead flamingo had been a survivor of the floods at Prague Zoo in 2002. He was 16 years old and father to eight babies. Flamingos tend to live to around 30-40.

Three primary school children kicked a flamingo to death at Jihlava Zoo, in the Czech Republic

The boys were caught as one of them was wearing a distinctive yellow jumper (pictured)

After the shocking incident, the boys fled into a nearby woodland but were caught as one was wearing a distinct yellow jumper. One managed to escape. The boys were detained in Jakubske Square.

Martin Malac, a spokesman for the zoo, told Czech media the boys had expressed no remorse for what they had done to the birds.

Another told MailOnline the birds had 'undergone severe stress shock.'

Police are now investigating and will ask the boys' parents for compensation following the sickening act.

Zoologist Jan Vasak said: 'First, they pelted them with stones and then one of them kicked it.

'Fortunately, one of them had a distinct yellow sweatshirt. We immediately phoned police officers and so two of them we managed to catch far from the park. The third escaped.'

After scaling a fence, the boys hurled wood and stones at the birds and kicked two of them

He said the flamingo was valued at 2,000 euros (more than 50,000 crowns).

Zoo employee Richard Viduna asked for the public's help in reporting cases of animal abuse, saying: 'It would be helpful for us if the visitors would pay attention to acts such as these and report them.'

'The zoo without bars' is home for 200 rare species of animals, including 17 species classified in European breeding programs.

Jihlava Zoo specialises in raising and breeding felines, apes and reptiles.
Theresa May hailed a 'defining moment' for Britain today after the historic Brexit Bill was passed paving the way for our depature from the EU.

The Prime Minister pledged to create a 'stronger, self-governing' country after the legislation was approved by parliament.

She also signalled that the government will play hardball with Brussels over money - insisting Britons had not voted for Brexit only to pay 'huge sums' into Brussels coffers.

As soon as the EU Bill is granted Royal Assent Mrs May will have the powers to trigger Article 50, the two year process for cutting ties with Brussels.

But she has indicated that she will wait until the end of this month to deliver the official notification.

Theresa May has updated MPs after attending an EU summit in Brussels last week

The Prime Minister hailed the passing of the Brexit Bill and said invoking Article 50 later this month would be a 'defining moment' for the whole country

She said the huge step, which comes more than eight months after the earthquake Brexit vote in the referendum, will change the country forever.

'This will be a defining moment for our whole country,' the premier said.

'We will be a stronger, self governing global Britain with control once again over our borders an our laws.'

Mrs May said she would be going into talks with the EU and pushing domestic policies with the aim of getting a 'better deal for Britain abroad and a better deal for Britain at home'.

But she urged people to stop describing our departure from the bloc as a 'divorce' - saying that implied there would be bad feeling involved.

She also delivered a brutal slapdown to Nicola Sturgeon in the wake of the First Minister's dramatic demand for a fresh Scottish independence referendum.

As their bitter public slanging match gathered pace, Miss Sturgeon branded Mrs May 'unelected' and insisted he had a mandate to call a new vote.

But the PM shot back that Miss Sturgeon was 'playing games' with Brexit rather than acting in the best interests of the UK.

Mrs May has been warned to get ready for 'war on two fronts' with Nicola Sturgeon and the EU after the Scottish First Minister demanded a fresh independence referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon, pictured holding a meeting of her Cabinet in Edinburgh today, said she would demand authority from the Westminster government to hold a fresh Scottish independence referendum

The PM accused Miss Sturgeon of 'playing games' with Brexit rather than acting in the best interests of the UK

Miss Sturgeon laid into the PM on Twitter this morning branding her 'unelected' and stressing the strength of her own mandate

Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague said Miss Sturgeon would exploit inevitable difficulties in Brexit negotiations to push the case for breaking up the UK.

Meanwhile, Brussels will use the need to appease Scotland to undermine the PM's attempts to drive a hard bargain.

The authorisation for Article 50 came after peers backed down and passed the Brexit Bill late last night.

They capitulated after MPs followed orders to delete an amendment on guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals, backing the Government 335 to 287, majority 48.

The Commons also defeated the second amendment on the timetabling of votes at the end of the negotiation by a majority of 45.

Theresa May pictured leaving No10 today on her way to the Commons

Viscount Hailsham, a Tory peer who voted in favour of the amendment last time, said: 'We have asked the Commons to think again, they have thought again, they have not taken our advice, and our role now I believe is not to insist.'

But former Ukip leader Nigel Farage complained that Brexit was not happening fast enough.

'It's been nine months since that joyous morning on June 24 when we realised that Brexit had won the referendum. Nine months - a full gestation - and still no delivery,' he told Sky News.

'Of course I'm disappointed. I'm pleased that we are through all these hurdles, but I'm just a bit surprised that Nicola Sturgeon's announcement should have put the Prime Minister off.

'Now that we are delaying the triggering of Article 50, what it means is that we will miss the summit of European leaders on April 6 at which Brexit could practicably have been discussed. Therefore, we've kicked it into the long grass until May.'

Mr Farage added: 'I'm concerned about the hesitancy, but I'm also concerned at the concessions that appear to have been made already.'

SNP leader Miss Sturgeon insisted yesterday that Scots deserved a 'real choice' over EU membership and threatened to throw a grenade into Brexit talks by holding the referendum between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Mrs May responded by accusing her of 'playing politics with the future of our country'.

Nigel Farage, pictured at the European Parliament in Strasbourg today, has complained that Brexit is not happening fast enough

The PM is set to stop short of refusing to allow a legally binding vote - which No10 fears would merely inflame nationalist sentiment.

But Mrs May will fight to ensure any second ballot is held after Britain has left the EU.

Lord Hague said nationalist forces in both Scotland and Northern Ireland - where Sinn Fein is threatening to collapse the powersharing deal - were now taking advantage of Brexit to mount a bid to 'pull the UK apart'.

'There can be no going back on the decision nevertheless taken by the British people as a whole to leave,' Lord Hague insisted.

'But the Government will now have to fight a war on two fronts, with each making an impact on the other.

The move is the biggest gamble of Miss Sturgeon's political career, and will trigger a high-stakes clash with Downing Street over the timing of the vote

The latest poll on Scottish independence showed voters split with a very narrow advantage for staying inside the UK

'Every time EU negotiators warn there might be no deal or complain of British intransigence, they will be adding grist to the mill of the Scottish nationalists.

'And with each demand for special treatment for Scotland, those nationalists will weaken the ability of UK ministers to maintain tough positions that will lead to the best deal for the whole of the United Kingdom.'

Lord Hague said Miss Sturgeon had identified the tumultuous period as we leave the EU as her 'one best hope of destroying the UK' and would use 'any argument to achieve her ends'.

In 2014, the SNP said the referendum was a 'once in a generation' chance. But Miss Sturgeon has been threatening a second referendum since last June when Scotland voted to remain in the EU.

Speaking at her official residence, Bute House in Edinburgh, the SNP leader said she would ask the Scottish Parliament to begin the legal process next week.

Prime Minister Theresa May insisted the majority of Scots did not want another referendum on independence despite Mrs Sturgeon's 'tunnel vision'

But, under the terms of Labour's devolution deal, any referendum also has to be approved by MPs at Westminster. Downing Street was tight-lipped yesterday on exactly how Mrs May will respond.

The PM's official spokesman said: 'We have said there shouldn't be a second referendum. But as for the issue, it hasn't gone through the Scottish Parliament yet  We are waiting for the Scottish Parliament to reach a decision.

'But we are 100 per cent clear that we do not believe there should be a second independence referendum. They said at the time this would decide the issue for a generation.'

Lord Hague said Miss Sturgeon would deploy 'any argument' to achieve independence

In a separate statement, a Government spokesman indicated Miss Sturgeon's timetable was unacceptable, saying: 'Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time.'

Miss Sturgeon yesterday accused Mrs May of failing to respect Scotland's interests, by insisting that the UK must leave the single market as part of Brexit.

She claimed her appeals to the Prime Minister on the issue had been met with a 'brick wall of intransigence'. 'If Scotland can be ignored on an issue as important as our membership of the EU and the single market, then it is clear that our voice and our interests can be ignored at any time and on any issue,' she added.

The First Minister said Scotland stood at a 'hugely important crossroads'. She claimed leaving the EU would hit the economy and affect how 'open, welcoming, diverse and fair' the country was.

'In short, it is not just our relationship with Europe that is at stake,' she said. 'What is at stake is the kind of country we will become.'

The 2014 referendum was held after David Cameron backed the SNP's demand for a vote on independence.

On that occasion, the Government gave the Scottish Parliament a relatively free rein on the timing, the question asked and the electoral franchise, which was extended to include 16-year-olds.

But ministers are not expected to give Miss Sturgeon a blank cheque if she presses ahead with her threat to hold a second referendum.

Her proposal threw Labour into chaos, with Jeremy Corbyn being forced to abandon his position that a second vote would be 'absolutely fine', after intense pressure from senior figures in the party.

But the move from Miss Sturgeon represents the biggest gamble of her political career, as she is far from certain to win.

Polls have shown support for independence running at below 50 per cent - far below the level nationalists previously suggested would be enough for them to call a new ballot.

A BMG poll for the Herald newspaper yesterday found only 39 per cent of Scots back a second referendum, with 49 per cent opposed.

Some 52 per cent said they would vote against independence, while 48 per cent were in favour.
A rare black rhino who was famed for blowing a kiss to the camera has been slaughtered by poachers.

Ruthless killers hacked off his horn, tail, ears and feet after shooting him dead.

The loveable rhino, called Wozani, lived on a game reserve near the Kruger National Park in South Africa and it is thought he wandered off in an attempt to find his pregnant mate, who had been killed a month earlier by the same brutal poachers.

The picture that gave Wozani worldwide fame of him appearing to pucker up for a kiss

The carcass of one of the two rhinos found near Letaba camp after it was shot on November 27, 2013 in Kruger National Park, South Africa

A black rhino in Kruger National Park, South Africa, where poachers are targeting the species

It is understood the rhino went in search of his mate called Busa, according to The Times.

The female rhino was pregnant, but was shot dead by the same poachers near Hoedspruit in Limpopo province last month.

Two groups of poachers targeted the same area over the weekend, but while one group were successfully deterred, a second group went unnoticed and targeted the rhino.

Images of Wozani pouting went round the world last year.

Photographer Sue Harwood, from Johannesburg, paid tribute to her 'famous friend', saying she was 'sickened' by the brutal killing.

Brutes shot dead Wozani in South Africa

She said: 'I was physically ill and moved to tears when I found out about Wozani this morning.

'He was so friendly and gave us the gift of many really close encounters with him and I am totally heartbroken.

'R.I.P. darling boy.'

It is the latest in a series of high-profile rhino killings after last Tuesday a white rhino was shot dead by poachers who broke into a Parisian zoo.

Four-year-old Vince was shot in the head three times and had his horn hacked off with a chainsaw.

Rhinos are often slaughtered for their ivory horns, which can fetch hundreds of thousands of pounds on the black market.

Sue reckons Wozani's foot and tail were also amputated to 'prove' he was a wild rhino, which makes him more valuable.

She added: 'Not only were his horns hacked off by the poachers, but his tail, ears and one of his feet was also amputated.

'No doubt this was to prove the horns are from a wild rhino who has been killed - a product that will now be perceived to be of superior quality and have more medicinal power.'
Heartbroken: Espoiro's owner Jennifer Birtwhistle (above) warned balloons and lanterns are causing huge damage to the countryside

The owner of a thoroughbred horse who was painfully killed by a helium balloon has criticised people who set off celebratory lanterns and balloons.

Jennifer Birtwhistle, 77, said letting off airborne items to mark occasions such as weddings, birthdays and funerals was 'self-centred'.

The leading horse breeder, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, said they were a dangerous fad causing real damage to rural England.

She said: 'God isn't sitting in his heaven gathering up all this airborne litter that is sent up with messages attached to it on pieces of string.

'It doesn't reach anyone, it is entirely self serving.'

Mrs Birtwhistle added: 'What in fact happens is that these balloons and lanterns land in the countryside and put animals at risk, beautiful ones like my horse who end up dying in agony.'

''This is becoming more prevalent and I want people to know the damage it is doing.'

Her comments come after her beloved horse three-year-old Espoiro died an agonising death from swallowing the string from a pink helium balloon.

Panic-stricken, the horse bolted through two gates at full tilt, breaking two legs and eventually her neck.

Her heartbroken owner Mrs Birtwhistle, who is a senior figure in the equestrian world, said: 'These are self-centred acts of sentimentality with no true purpose which are littering the countryside with helium balloons and lanterns.

'Aside from the mess and inconvenience people in the countryside face, it has now cost the life of a beautiful horse which died the most agonising death imaginable.'

Mrs Birtwhistle, a British Showjumping Association judge and a former chief examiner with the British Horse Society, was devastated by the death of the horse which was born on her farm.

Rest in peace: Espoiro (pictured right) was from an impressive bloodline of show-jumping horses but died after bolting through two gates and breaking her neck after accidentally eating the string of a helium balloon

She and her family nicknamed the 15,000 animal Feisty because of her bold nature and had high hopes she would follow her father Ramiro B into the world of equestrian eventing.

The stallion was ranked 12th in the world in 2012 and has sired four star eventers and Nations Cup show jumpers.

Mrs Birtwhistle choked back tears as she described Feisty's death.

She said: 'This wasn't an act of God, she wasn't standing there and was suddenly struck by lightning.

'She was in her field next to our home with her mother and she should have been safe from harm.

'But this pink helium balloon dropped into the field and the thick string lay there in the grass and she swallowed it and began choking.'

She said: 'She bolted across the field in a panic with the string down her throat. The rest of it wrapped itself around her neck and the balloon itself was over her face. She ran straight through a gate and broke two of her legs.

'Her power and panic took her across a lane and straight through another gate, breaking her neck.

Mrs Birtwhistle added: 'She was a beautiful horse with a lovely nature and she came from an impeccable bloodline.

'Her life was snuffed out before it had properly begun and that is absolutely heartbreaking. She was quite a valuable horse at around 15,000 but her financial value is entirely secondary to the pain we have felt at her truly awful death.'

Warning: Mrs Birtwhistle (pictured above) is a leading figure in the equestrian world and is warning people to think about the potential damage before letting off airborne items

Mrs Birtwhistle blames 'airborne littering,' mostly from towns and cities, in what she says is becoming a peril for livestock in the countryside.

She said: 'Balloons and lanterns are being released in what are self-centred acts of sentimentality.

'People release them at weddings, if someone goes missing, for birthday parties, if someone in the family dies.

'It's a fad, just a fashion but I'm quite sure if anyone knew the damage they were doing it would become a lot less popular.

Mrs Birtwhistle said: 'Why is it no longer good enough to go to a church and say a prayer or lay flowers on a grave to commemorate a person's passing? It has been good enough for many generations but no longer it seems.

'Just a fad': Feisty's owner Mrs Birtwhistle (pictured) described lanterns and balloons as a fashionable phase and asked why it was no longer considered good enough to pray for someone instead of sending off a balloon

Where the tragedy unfolded: Mrs Birtwhistle's stables in North Yorkshire where Feisty died from choking on a helium balloon

Local vet John Millar has backed Mrs Birtwhistle's warnings.

He said: 'People think these balloons and lanterns are just a bit of fun but they can cause devastation. When horses are panicked they will run through anything.'

Feisty's death is not an isolated incident as dozens of farmers and residents have reported injuries from airborne items in recent years.

A floating lantern nearly killed a mother and her two children when it landed on a partly-built extension and set fire to the roof insulation back in 2011.

While in 2010 a family fireworks party ended in horror when boiling wax fell from a Chinese lantern and landed on a three-year-old boy's face, almost blinding him.

Cael Jones and his family were gazing skywards as the paper lanterns drifted into the air, only for the freak accident to leave him with appalling burns.

And in just October last year, a horse in Essex was seriously burned by a flying object.

Banned: Councils across the UK have backed calls to prohibit Chinese lanterns but outdoor helium balloons are still allowed

He was found in a field with bits of the lantern stuck to his body and took weeks to recover.

The catalogue of incidents prompted the RSPCA and National Farmers' Union to call for a nationwide ban on lanterns.

It is estimated that over 200,000 lanterns, costing as little as 2 each, are sold in the UK every year for celebrations and party events.

Councils in Oxford, Brighton, Plymouth and Shetland have banned balloon releases.

Several states in the US, such as Florida and Virginia, and parts of Australia have also imposed a ban.

Last year the Marine Conservation Society also called for a ban.

A spokesman said: 'Many marine species, including turtles and dolphins, accidentally eat balloons because they think they are food. This blocks their stomach and can cause them to die. Animals also get entangled in balloons.

'This is really simple to stop  just don't release balloons. '
One week after the newly appointed president of Ivanka Trump's fashion empire declared that the company was experiencing some of the 'best performing weeks in the history of the brand' comes news of a major setback.

Abigail Klem has confirmed that moving forward the brand will no longer be producing a fine jewelry line, and instead focus on their more affordable collection of mass market trinkets.

'As part of our companys commitment to offering solution-oriented products at accessible price points, we have decided to discontinue the Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry collection,' said Klem in a statement on Monday.

It is a shocking move for the company given Ivanka's passion for her fine jewelry collection, which was the first fashion line she ever launched back in 2007 with a party celebrating the opening of the first Ivanka Trump store in New York City's Carlton Hotel.

Ivanka however had no say in the decision to stop producing the collection, having stepped down from her position in the company one week before she headed off to Washington DC with husband Jared Kushner and their three children.

Scroll down for video

Death of the diamonds: Ivanka Trump's brand is ending production of their fine jewelry line (Ivanka above last Wednesday in Washington DC)

End of an era: Ivanka launched her fine jewelry line in 2007 and it was her first venture into the fashion world (Trump Tower display in February above)

Juxtaposing jewelry: An $88 offering from Ivanka's mass market line (left) and a $14,500 piece from the fine jewelry collection (right)

Vanity Fair was the first to report that the brand would be ending production on their fine jewelry collection.

Klem made no mention of Neiman Marcus' recent decision to stop carrying the brand in her statement on Monday, choosing instead to explain that the brand would be 'focusing our efforts on existing and new categories that are most relevant to our loyal customers.'

The mass market jewelry line is one of those newer categories, having just been introduced last year and sells at what Klem described as 'price points that are aligned with the rest of our collection.'

The price point is the key difference between the fine jewelry line, which is sold in approximately 50 stores across the country, and the mass market collection, which can be purchased at Lord & Taylor.

A perfect example is the two pendant necklaces made by the brand, which share a slightly similar style and drastically different price tag.

One is constructed with faux pearl and goldtone zinc while the other features 18karat white gold, pearls and diamonds. That second offering also comes with a $14,500 price tag, as opposed to the $88 cost of the first necklace.

Ivanka was a big fan of the high end line, and frequently wore it for appearances on both television and while walking the red carpet.

It also landed her in hot water when the $10,800 gold and diamond bangle she wore during her father's first post-election interview on '60 Minutes' was blasted out to the media, thus using her father's position as president to promote her own business interests.

There is no line Ivanka has been so eager to promote and support over the years, ever since she first licensed her name back in 2007 and paired up with partner Moshe Lax, a New York diamond mogul.

In addition to her launch party in 2007, she has also used the brand to raise funds for The United Nations Foundation with a 2010 fundraiser and sponsor society events, like a premiere screening of the gal pal Wendi Murdoch's 2011 film 'Snow Flower And The Secret Fan.'

She also made appearances of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night With David Letterman and Oprah to promote the line, giving Winfrey a pair of her oval diamond earrings which retail for $13,440 during the show.

Oprah wore them throughout the episode and soon after when she celebrated her birthday, leading Ivanka to now refer to the diamond dangles as the 'O' earring.

Taking charge: The decision to hald production was announced by newly appointed president Abigal Krem (above with Ivanka)

Started from the bottom: Ivanka at the 2007 launch party for the fine jewelry line in NYC, which was attended by President Trump and the First Lady (above)

Now we here: Ivanka featured her collection at her father's properties when she was starting out in the business (above in 2007 by a display at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City)

In 2011 the brand also opened a fine jewelry store in Manhattan's fashionable Soho shopping district, in addition to the smaller kiosks found in places like the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and Trump Tower.

That Soho store was forced to shutter however in 2015, and since then the biggest seller of Ivanka's high-priced creations has been Neiman Marcus, which is why their decision to halt sales created such a problem for the brand.

In an interview with Refinery 29 earlier this month Klem spoke about the brand's strong sales, saying: 'Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand.

'For several different retailers Ivanka Trump was a top performer online, and in some of the categories it was the [brands] best performance ever.'

On Amazon, Ivanka has had the top selling fragrance for the past two weeks, new stock is frequently being added to her Zappos page, and on the London-based e-commerce startup Lyst has Ivanka as the eleventh best seller on the site for the month of February.

That represents an increase of 346% from January, when the brand ranked at 550 on the site.

'We actually feel super optimistic because, I think, one, a lot of people support Ivanka, even across both political parties,' said Klem, who is a registered Democrat.

'And then I think a lot of other people feel like, Oh, I didn't know Ivanka had a shoe line. Oh, I didn't know she had a handbag line. And they're buying it.'

There are no numbers however on in-store purchases of Ivanka brand merchandise, which is still carried by Macy's, Bloomingdales and Dillard's.

Over at Lyst meanwhile, shoes sold the best of Ivanka's goods, followed by dresses.

Ivanka's boys: President Trump at a 2010 fundraising event for the UN that her fine jewelry lines sponsored (left) and at the opening of their Soho store in 2011 with husband Jared (right)

Those in need: Ivanka's fine jewelry line was also kind enough to sponsor a 2011 screening of her billionaie friend Wendi Deng's movie 'Snow Flower And The Secret Fan'

Need friends indeed: Ivanka also used an appearance on The Oprah Show in 2011 to help out another billionaire, giving Winfrey a pair of her $13,440 diamong earrings (above)

February was a roller coaster month for the brand, from which Ivanka stepped down in January one week before she and her family moved to Washington DC.

It all began when President Trump lashed out at Nordstrom for dumping his daughter's clothing line.

'My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom,' the president wrote on Twitter last month. 'She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer then defended President Trump's comment later in the day, saying that he was responding to 'an attack on his daughter.'

Spicer also implied that the Seattle-based retailer made the decision to drop Ivanka's line because they did not agree with President Trump's ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations entering the country.

But Nordstrom revealed in a statement to DailyMail.com at the time that Ivanka was personally told about its decision in early January - weeks before the travel ban.

'To reiterate what weve already shared when asked, we made this decision based on performance,' read the statement. 'Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didnt make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.'

The statement went on to read: 'We've had a great relationship with the Ivanka Trump team. Weve had open conversations with them over the past year to share what we've seen and Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January.'

Scandal alert: Ivanka found herself in hot water this past November when she used an appearance on '60 Minutes' to promote her fine jewelry line (above)

Visions of Versailles: A shot of Ivanka used at her 2007 launch party in NYC

Spicer meanwhile justified Trump's tweet, saying: 'He has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.'

'So, look, when it comes to his family I think he's been very clear how proud he is of what they do and what they've accomplished. And for someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is just, is not acceptable. And the president has every right, as a father, to stand up for them.'

Spicer was later asked how Ivanka could be targeted seeing as she made the decision to step down from her eponymous fashion company last month, just before moving to Washington DC.

'I think there's clearly a targeting of her brand, and it's her name still out there. So while she's not directly running the company, it's still her name on it,' said Spicer.

'And there's clearly efforts that  to undermine that name based on her father's positions on particular policies, that he's taken.'

Spicer went on to state: 'This is a direct attack on his policies and her name. And so that  there's clearly an attempt for him to stand up for her, because she is being maligned, because they have a problem with his policies.'

The following day things took another turn when Kellyanne Conway promoted the brand during a television appearance.

She was later counselled after that move, which is an ethics violation.

White House lawyers then concluded that 'Ms. Conway acted inadvertently and is highly unlikely to do so again.'
A tour operator accused of complacency at the Tunisia beach massacre inquest has started selling holidays to Sharm el Sheikh again despite continuing Government advice urging Britons to stay away.

All tourist travel to the Egyptian resort was suspended in December 2015 after a Russian passenger plane crashed a month earlier, killing 224 people in what was believed to be a bomb attack by terrorists.

Since then the Foreign Office advice has warned that further atrocities are 'likely' because 'terrorists continue to plan and conduct attacks'.

But Thomson has now started accepting bookings for this autumn - along with rival firm Thomas Cook - despite the fact the trips may not go ahead if the warnings remain in place.

Thomson is offering holidays to Sharm el Sheikh, pictured, from autumn despite Foreign Office warnings over safety since a Russian passenger plane crashed in Egypt in 2015

Thomas Cook is also offering holidays to the Egyptian resort online, pictured

Barrister Andrew Ritchie, who represented 20 victims' families at the inquest earlier this year, said Thomson was 'utterly complacent in the face of the risk posed to its customers in Tunisia', while one of the survivors of the killings said the firm told him the country was '100 per cent safe' before the attack.

Now investigators for the consumer website www.aspokesmansaid.com found that little mention was made of the danger at Sharm el Sheikh when they attempted to make bookings.

They found a 1,411.98 seven-day holiday for two at SunConnect SUNRISE Diamond Resort with Thomas Cook from November 2 to the 9th.

But no mention was made of the current FCO advice at any point during the online booking process last week, the website claims.

Agents were also able to book a holiday at the same resort with Thomson, a seven-night break in October for 1,460.

But there were no warnings about the current FCO advice until the screen immediately before payment, investigators claim.

Small print at the bottom of the page reveals that the break will be amended or cancelled if the terror warning is still in place nearer the departure date.

The plane, pictured, is believed to have been brought down by a bomb in Sinai, Egypt, and ther Foreign Office has warned tourists similar atrocities are 'likely'

It reads: 'At present as a precautionary measure the government is advising against all but essential air travel to Sharm el Sheikh.

'Should the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advice not change, then we will be in direct contact with you to amend or cancel your booking.'

Thomas Cook has since updated its online booking system to contain a warning at the top of booking pages that the holiday may be cancelled if the FCO advice does not change.

But aspokesmansaid.com was unable to obtain a clear explanation from either Thomas Cook or Thomson when they directly asked about the terror risk.

Thomson told their investigators they would be refunded if the FCO advice remained in place, but were unable to say when that decision would be made.

When they quizzed Thomas Cook through its website's Live Chat facility, they were told that 'after November it is considered safe to travel so you can book your holiday'.

The rep added: 'As for the moment this is what the FCO advise and we follow it and offer holidays in the period that has been voted as safe so you shouldn't be worried and complete your booking.'

Thomson was also accused of complacency over the Tunisian beach massacre in which gunman Seifeddine Rezgui, pictured, killed 30 Britons

The agent was unable to make assurances about a refund.

However, the FCO said it has not issued any information suggesting it may change its advice on travelling to Sharm el Sheikh.

A spokesman told the website: 'Advisories are updated constantly and when new information comes in. If Thomas Cook has some advice we don't know about we'd be interested to see where it comes from.'

Consumer expert Fred Isaac described the companies' actions as 'breathtaking'.

He added: 'Both companies are cynically selling holidays and flights to a destination that the FCO is warning people not to fly to unless it's essential.

'Worse still, we have evidence of Thomas Cook saying they have advice that all will be well from November, which is absurd. Do they have a crystal ball?

'Plus, they're not even guaranteeing a refund! The fact that we were able to go ahead and book this holiday and get to the stage just before paying without any warning of of the current danger is scandalous.'

Families of the victims of Rezgui, pictured, are now taking legal action against Thomson

When approached for a comment, Thomas Cook said: 'Changes were made last week to make the advice clearer.

'We did have it displayed beforehand, however the bar which you should of seen the top of the page is now highlighted in orange to make it stand out more.'

Thomson said: 'We, like other holiday companies, offer customers the opportunity to book a wide range of holidays up to 12-18 months before they are due to travel.

'In this instance, we have a small number of holidays for sale to Sharm el Sheikh as part of our winter holiday programme, which begins in October.

'Customers are notified on our website at the time of booking that as a precautionary measure the government is advising against all but essential air travel to Sharm el Sheikh, although the overall security level of the resort has not changed.

'The situation in Egypt is under constant review and should the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advice not change, then we will be in direct contact with customers to amend or cancel their booking free of charge.'
Shocking CCTV footage captured the moment a petrol station worker was threatened with a large rock and a metal pole by armed robbers.

The pair burst into a service station in Blackburn, Lancashire and demanded cash and cigarettes as the victim stood behind the till.

When the worker ran off towards the toilets, the two men, wearing dark clothing with their faces covered, climbed over the counter and helped themselves.

This is the moment a man with a large pole threatened a petrol station worker in Blackburn

Police said the pair fled with a small amount of cash and cigarettes at around 10.15pm on Sunday night.

The terrified shop worker said he 'feared for his life' during the frightening incident.

He said: 'I was just stood behind the counter when they just stormed in and forced their way behind the counter.

'It was scary. I've never been in this sort of situation before. They had this metal pole and a big rock.

'It was big shock, I just didn't expect it. It was when they came at me the second time, that I just went to hide in the back in the toilet.'

Another man held a large rock as he and his partner stole cigarettes from the service station

The owner of Lock Mill service station, Mike Eccles, said this is the first time the petrol station had been targeted by thieves in 24 years.

Mr Eccles said: 'When I found out first of all my first thoughts were is anyone hurt, how much has been taken, did they get away and how much damage was caused?

'Luckily they managed to get away with very little and nobody was hurt. That's the best thing to say about it.

'I've been here for 24 years and I've never seen anything like this before. We've never had any problems.'

Petrol station owner Mike Eccles says he is relieved no one was injured during the raid

Detectives have launched an investigation into the robbery and DC Michelle Moffat said: 'Thankfully they didn't get away with much and the cashier wasn't hurt.

'But he is understandably shaken up after being threatened when he was simply just there to do his job.

'If you saw these men in the area before or after the incident or you have any information that could help us, please get in touch.'
A 17-year-old in Turkey was hospitalised with radiation poisoning after taking home a stick of iridium-192 from a construction site because he thought it was a string of prayer beads.

The child labourer, identified only as Eyup B, took the piece of iridium-192 home after using his cousin's ID to secure work.

He had only been working for two days on the construction site of the dam in the north-western province of Sakarya, 150km from Istanbul.

The child labourer, identified only as Eyup B, took the piece of iridium-192 home and was hospitalised when his eyes started to turn red and bruises appeared on his body

The Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK) conducted radiography tests on the construction site of the dam and notified authorities a radioactive material in a device had gone missing

He took the radioactive material home and showed it to his mother, daily Haberturk reported.

His 19-year-old pregnant sister, Kubra, 24-year-old brother Ibrahim and one-year-old niece Hira Nur also handled the object.

A short time later, his eyes started to turn red, bruises appeared on his body and he began vomiting.

As his condition worsened, he was rushed to hospital.

Doctors initially gave him an injection to relieve the pain but after he told them about the object, they carried out an examination on his body which confirmed the presence of radiation.

The Turkish Atomic Energy Authority conducted radiography tests on the construction site of the dam and alerted authorities that a radioactive material in a device had gone missing.

Eyup's family members who came into contact with the object showed no signs of radioactive effects, while his treatment in hospital is continuing.

His condition is improving and his bruising has disappeared, the newspaper reported.

The boy, 17, was hospitalised with radiation poisoning after taking home a stick of iridium-192

The family have filed a complaint against the company for not taking enough precautions regarding the radioactive material.

At the same time, the company filed a complaint against the teenager for applying to the job with someone else's ID and taking the radioactive material home.

The first hearing in the trial will be held on May 10.
A jail captain at New York's notorious Rikers Island prison has been caught on camera 'kissing' an inmate.

Cellphone footage of the incident reportedly shows Capt Shantay Dash speak with an inmate in his cell and then lean in for a kiss.

Dash, who lives in Brooklyn, is heard saying 'what the heck?' after the embrace and she then high fives him.

Dash resigned from her $80,000-a-year job on Monday after the video surfaced, PIX11 reported. She had been at the prison for almost 10 years but will receive no pension now she has quit.

Video courtesy of PIX11

The video was initially posted to Facebook group Question of the Day D.O.C. and then sent to PIX11.

The inmate, who has not been identified, appears to have recorded the incident on a contraband phone.

Dash has previous form for relationships with inmates. In January she was arrested for smuggling a tattoo gun into the prison so a female inmate lover could change an inking that linked her to a string of robberies.

Capt Shantay Dash is seen in the doorway of an inmate's cell speaking with him. She then enters the cell

Puckering up: Once inside the cell it appears Dash leans in for a kiss

According to the New York Post, Dash helped inmate Robin Hamilton by bringing the gun into the jail after a judge ordered that Hamilton's tattoo which spelled out ERICKA be photographed.

But when Hamilton went to have the tattoo photographed by the DA office she was found to have a new tattoo that had not healed and there was no sign of the ERICKA inking.

The prison launched an investigation and it was found that Dash had ordered the gun on Amazon and took it into the prison.

Dash is heard saying 'what the heck?' after the embrace and she then high fives him (pictured above)

Dash is seen above in Instagram photos. Before being placed on modified duty where she collected $81,000 a year, she was earning a salary of $134,287

After that arrest, Dash was placed on modified duty away from inmates, but did not lose her job, WPIX reported.

It is not clear when the video was filmed. Before being placed on modified duty where she collected $81,000 a year, she was earning a salary of $134,287.

A few weeks ago Commissioner Joe Ponte spoke to WPIX from inside the prison about inmate-staff relationships.

Dash is seen above left in a Linkedin photograph in her prison uniform and right in an Instagram photo

After that arrest, Dash was placed on modified duty away from inmates, but did not lose her job. She is seen above in an Instagram photo

'They develop relationships that are unhealthy,' Ponte told WPIX. 'They get staff -again, in small numbers - to bring in phones and contraband.'

The Department of Corrections said in a statement: 'That vast majority of Department of Correction staff perform their duties with the highest level of integrity and Commissioner Ponte has zero tolerance for those who don't.'
William L. Bates Jr., 24, is charged with two counts of attempted sodomy

A woman ran after a man and punched him for allegedly attempting to sodomize her two-year-old daughter at a playground.

William L. Bates Jr., 24, allegedly grabbed the toddler from a swing in Kansas City, Missouri, before pulling down her diaper, dropping his pants, and thrusting against her, her mother told police.

The two-year-old girl was on a swing at Kemp Playground with her mother, who later told police that Bates had been 'eyeballing' her children, KTLA reported.

Bates approached the girl from behind, grabbed her from the swing, and pulled her diaper down, the mother told police.

He then proceeded to lift his shirt and drop his pants before thrusting against the two-year-old, according to her mother.

Police said the woman knocked Bates to the ground and punched him before he managed to run away.

She ran to a homeless shelter and called the police before Bates was arrested near the playground with marijuana and a vile of fluid with a chemical odor, according to the arrest report cited by KTLA.

The toddler was at Kemp Playground (above) in Kansas City, Missouri, before Bates allegedly pulled down her diaper, dropped his pants, and thrust against her, her mother told police

The mother identified Bates from a police photo, and he told authorities he smoked a cigarette from another man at the park.

He did not remember anything from the incident, and believes he was drugged, he told police.

Bates, who is held on a $150,000 cash bond, is charged with first-degree attempted sodomy, and attempted statutory sodomy with a person less than 12 years old.
Via New Vision in Uganda, an AFP report: Mozambique Cholera Outbreak Infects Over 1,200. Excerpt:

Mozambique is battling a cholera outbreak that has infected 1,222 people and killed two, the country's health ministry said Tuesday, warning that it has been unable to slow its spread.

Four of Mozambique's 13 provinces have been affected since the infection spread from the capital Maputo on January 5, deputy director of public health Benigna Matsinhe told a press conference.

It is the third consecutive year that Mozambique has suffered a cholera epidemic with the two fatalities reported to be from the Maputo area.

In 2015, 41 people died in one of the country's worst ever cholera outbreaks.

"We have recorded less cases in recent days, but what worries us is that we have been unable to halt transmission of the illness," Matsinhe said.

Since the end of last week, the infection has spread in Tete province, on Mozambique's western border with Zimbabwe and Malawi, with 397 cases reported.

Cholera typically strikes during Mozambique's rainy season, between October and March, when unhygienic conditions and stagnant water cause the bacteria to flourish.

The infection can cause severe diarrhoea, dehydration and in the worst cases, death.

Mozambique has been been deluged by heavy rains since October following two years of drought.
The White House continued its assault on the Congressional Budget Office today, with Press Secretary Sean Spicer calling the nonpartisan entity's ability to gauge healthcare coverage numbers 'historically faulty.'

'CBO coverage estimates are consistently wrong and more importantly do not take into consideration the comprehensive nature of the three-prong plan to repeal and replace Obamacare with the American Healthcare Act,' Spicer said at the opening of his Tuesday briefing.

Members of President Trump's administration have been trying to discredit the Congressional scorekeeper after the outfit said in an analysis yesterday that said the GOP's health plan would throw 24 million Americans off the health rolls in the next decade  roiling its chance of passage.

Spicer revised President Trump's campaign promise to insure all Americans slightly, saying that the new healthcare law would allow all Americans 'the financial ability to get it.'

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer continued to call into question the numbers offered by the Congressional Budget Office yesterday, which said the GOP's healthcare plan would knock 24 million people off the rolls in the next decade

OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING: Budget Director mocked the Congressional Budget Office Tuesday after it said the GOP health bill would cause 24 million people to lose health coverage

'Everybody has a choice to get it. And that's what I think we want to do,' the White House official said.

Later in the briefing, Spicer repeated Trump's original pledge: 'The president's goal is to provide healthcare coverage to every American.'

The Trump spokesman reminded reporters that one of the largest components of Obamacare was the individual mandate that forced Americans to buy health insurance or face a tax penalty.

The White House is promising a three phase replace and repeal package that will offer what they consider to be additional incentives for people to buy healthcare  including less expensive, pared down plans that are not allowed under the current Affordable Care Act.

'It's like building a puzzle, if you only put a third on the table...[that] is not explaining to people how the whole thing comes together,' Spicer argued.

When a reporter asked for details on the two latter prongs, the White House referred him to House Speaker Paul Ryan, even though the second piece is 'administrative in nature' and will be determined by the president and the Health and Human Services secretary.

The final piece of the healthcare package will contain 'all of these things conservatives have been championing for a long time and frankly many Democrats agree with us on,' he asserted, including the sale of health insurance across state lines.

'The CBO's score didn't take into consideration any of that,' the press secretary said.

Those measures require 60 votes in the Senate. Spicer affirmed later in his briefing that the White House is confident it can get there, even though Republicans hold just 52 seats in the upper chamber.

Spicer's comments came after White House budget director Mick Mulvaney laced into the Congressional Budget Office during morning television appearances.

'Good morning from Washington whereas you can see according to the Congressional Budget Office it's sunny and 75,' said Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Fox and Friends, blasting the analysis as a blizzard bore down on Washington.

He repeated the joke in an appearance on MSNBC. 'Happy to be here on a beautiful, warm, sunny day,' he said.

'Horrible out,' responded cohost Mika Brzezinski.

'According to the CBO it's sunny and 74,' Mulvaney quipped.

In another blow, the White House had to nix a planned outing meant to woo restless lawmakers with a bowling night.

'No bowling in the executive office building tonight with the folks on the Hill,' Mulvaney, who was serving in Congress last year, said when asked. 'The snow ruins a bunch of different things.'

He made the joke a third time when he appeared on CNN's 'New Day,' where the weather notched up a degree.

'Good morning from Washington, and according to the CBO it's sunny and 75 degrees this morning. I had to  it's too easy,' he explained.

'According to the CBO it's sunny and 74,' Mulvaney quipped on MSNBC, taking a dig at the scorekeeping office that concluded the GOP bill backed by President Trump would cause 24 million Americans to lose insurance coverage

TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER: Mulvaney hauled out the joke about the CBO a third time on CNN

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE: Mulvaney made the joke about the sunny forecast while New York and Washington were getting socked by a blizzard

Health and Human Services Department director Tom Price played it straight, telling the Today show, 'Thanks so much on this chilly morning.' He helped select the head of the CBO when he ran the House Budget Committee

Congress relies on nonpartisan analysts at the CBO to score legislation  and conservatives like Mulvaney frequently cite its analyses when deciding whether to support or oppose legislation, understanding its potential impact on the budget.

Mulvaney said Tuesday that 'CBO is really good at counting money, but we have never understood why people expect them to be really good at counting insurance coverage. They are not very good at it.'

'Just three years ago when Obamacare was in full swing, 2013, the congressional budget office estimated that by this year, just three years later back then, by this year there would be about 24 million people on the exchanges. There is less than half of that,' he said, presumably referring to 2016 numbers.

Several hours later Spicer used a nearly identical line and cited the same 2013 figures while briefing reporters.

Of the CBO he said, 'They have a record that doesn't match up with the ability to count people.'

'They are pretty good at dollars, not as good at people,' Spicer quipped.

That allowed the press secretary to tout a part of the CBO report that Republicans like.

'In the portions of its analysis that focuses on what the office is really about the CBO concedes that the American Healthcare Act would actually reduce the deficit by over $330 billion and bring health insurance premiums down 10 percent, even before many of the significant reforms from prongs two and three have taken effect,' Spicer said.

Later, Spicer clarified, 'to look at them in terms of their budget numbers is one thing, that's their job,' but pointed to the CBO's record in gauging 'people in coverage' and noted 'they've been wrong.'

Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, sidestepped questions about whether people would lose their insurance under the GOP plan that the White House is pushing hard. 'Coverage is not the end,' he told MSNBC. 'They don't get better with coverage, they get better with care. You ask me about coverage, that's fine, but talk about how to afford to get it.'

Spicer also noted today that the OMB will not be making its own prediction on coverage losses, as that's not part of the agency's job.

Health and Services Department director Tom Price, who as chairman of the House Budget Committee helped select the head of the CBO, was less smug on NBC's 'Today' show about the weather.

MULVANEY: CBO is really good at counting money, but we've never understood why people expect them to be good at counting insurance coverage pic.twitter.com/AAwTUIUJDU  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 14, 2017

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the White House 'disagreed strenuously' with the CBO's estimate that 24 million people would lose health coverage under the House Republican plan by 2026

'Wonderful to be with you. Thanks so much on this chilly morning,' he said.

Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, slammed the pushback at CBO.

'The other thing that bothers me is this attack on the CBO. The CBO is in fact nonpartisan but its led by a Republican, the guy who's the head ofthe CBO was hired by [Speaker] Paul Ryan and [Senate majority leader] Mitch McConnell two or three years ago, worked in the Bush administration as an economist. Theyre straight shooters.'

'They may not like the numbers that they came up with, but theyre as good an estimate as were gonna get from an unbiased source,' King continued.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that 14 million Americans will lose their health insurance coverage by 2018 if the House Republicans healthcare bill goes into place.

An even greater number, 24 million, are forecast to lose coverage by 2026, the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper said in a report Monday, as changes to subsidies and Medicaid go into effect.

Those numbers are in contrast to how many people are insured under the current healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

At the White House shortly after the announcement, Price said, 'We disagree strenuously.'

'It basically says that we'll be back at pre-Obamacare status. That about 40 million people uninsured in this country,' Price said.

'We believe the plan we're putting in place will insure more individuals than are currently insured,' Price continued. 'So we believe CBO simply has it wrong.'

Keith Hall, who leads the CBO, was hand-picked to run the agency by Price, a former congressman who was chair of the House Budget Committee at the time.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (pictured) is one of the biggest proponents of the Republican plan, which was rolled out last week and passed through committees

Monday before the numbers were released, President Trump held a 'listening session' with 'victims of Obamacare' in the Roosevelt Room of the White House

Even before the numbers were released on Monday, Spicer tried to discredit the CBO.

'If you're looking to get a bull's eye accurate prediction to where it's going, the CBO was off by more than half last time,' Spicer told reporters during Monday's briefing.

Meanwhile, President Trump had hosted people to the White House Monday to tell Obamacare horror stories.

Republicans were expecting the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office to not be so great, with House Speaker Ryan saying Sunday that one can't compare the Republicans' new program to the existing one because the government will no longer be forcing Americans to buy health insurance.

Talking to CBS News' John Dickerson, Ryan said he fully expected the CBO to say 'Not as many people will get coverage.'

'You know why?' Ryan asked Dickerson. 'Because this isn't a government mandate. This is not the government makes you buy what we say you should buy and therefore the government thinks you're all going to buy it.'

The Affordable Care Act mandates that people get covered, or they must pay a tax penalty.

Republicans want to kill off this mandate as they seek to repeal and replace the law.

In the CBO's report, this is what accounts for the first big increase in those who would be uninsured by 2018.

MULVANEY: CBO is really good at counting money, but we've never understood why people expect them to be good at counting insurance coverage pic.twitter.com/AAwTUIUJDU  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 14, 2017

Citing the 14 million figure, the report says, 'most of that increase would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate.'

The legislation calls for swapping out the current Obamacare subsidies with tax credits, expanding health savings accounts and phasing out a planned expansion of Medicaid.

Once these aspects of the law go into effect, that's where the number of uninsured Americans ticks up again.

According to the report: 'Later, following additional changes to subsidies for insurance purchased in the nongroup market and to the Medicaid program, the increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number under current law would rise to 21 million in 2020 and then to 24 million in 2026.'

'The reductions in insurance coverage between 2018 and 2026 would stem in large part from changes in Medicaid enrollmentbecause some states would discontinue their expansion of eligibility, some states that would have expanded eligibility in the future would choose not to do so, and per-enrollee spending in the program would be capped,' the report continued.

'In 2026, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law,' the report added.

That is nearly double.

The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation found that the new law would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the 10 year period starting this year and concluding in 2026.

This money would be saved by tax dollars no longer paying for subsidies and because of the reductions in Medicaid.

The healthcare market, the report said, will remain stable under the new plan.

'Even though the new tax credits would be structured differently from the current subsidies and would generally be less generous for those receiving subsidies under current law, the other changes would, in the agencies view, lower average premiums enough to attract a sufficient number of relatively healthy people to stabilize the market,' the report said.

As for the price of Americans' premiums, in 2018 and 2019, the CBO believed that premiums would rise by 15 to 20 percent more than what they would have cost under Obamacare, but by 2020, premiums would go down and be cheaper than what's expected under the Affordable Care Act.

The initial price increase would be caused by people leaving the insurance market because they're no longer mandated to buy insurance.

By 2020, the cost would be offset by grants to states from the Patient and State Stability Fund, which would defray the cost to insurers for those with high-dollar claims.

Additionally, the Republicans' plan calls for killing regulations that require insurers to offer plans that cover a certain percentage of healthcare costs.

This would bring the cost of premiums down too.

Finally, the CBO tabulated that there would be a younger pool of people in the insurance market, which would also bring premium cost down.

But for those Americans hoping to see savings, age will matter, the report says.

The new law allows insurers to charge five times more for older enrollees than young ones.

The current law holds this price disparity to three times the cost of a young person's insurance.

'Although average premiums would increase prior to 2020 and decrease starting in 2020, CBO and JCT estimate that changes in premiums relative to those under current law would differ significantly for people of different ages because of a change in age-rating rules,' the report said.

While the White House complained about the CBO's estimate of the number of people who would lose insurance, Ryan pointed out the better parts of the report.

'This report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care,' the House speaker said. 'CBO also finds that this legislation will provide massive tax relief, dramatically reduce the deficit, and make the most fundamental entitlement reform in more than a generation.'

'These are things we are achieving in just the first of a three-pronged approach,' Ryan noted.

Price echoed that point, standing outside the White House Monday.

'Apparently what CBO looked at is simply the bill that's pending before Congress. It didn't look at the regulatory reforms that we're going to put in place,' he said.

'It didn't look at all of the pieces of legislation that are also pending out there that we call on our friends on the other side of the aisle to help us reform the insurance market so that we can provide for greater choices and greater competition,' Price added.

While the HHS secretary was correct in saying that Republicans will need at least eight Democratic votes in the Senate to push other healthcare reform bills through, the current piece of legislation is already in a politically tricky place and the CBO numbers likely won't help.

The plan for this bill was to pass it through a Senate process called reconciliation, which means only a simple majority are needed to get it passed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wondered how Republicans could look their constituents in the eye when 24 million of them could lose health insurance

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill 'Trumpcare' at a press conference Monday

However, conservative Republican senators have dubbed the House Republican bill 'Obamacare Lite,' calling the GOP peers to strip the tax credits out of the legislation, to further reduce costs.

Conservatives also want to see Medicaid phased out faster.

Democrats have never wanted to have anything to do with this bill, and Monday's news further cemented that.

'How can they look their constituents in the eye when they say to them 24 million of you are no longer going to have coverage,' remarked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, Monday evening on Capitol Hill.

When it was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's turn to speak, the New York Democrat played up the connection between Price and the head of the CBO.

'Now, the Republican hand-picked head of CBO has confirmed what we Democrats have been saying all along, Trumpcare would be a nightmare to the American people, causing tens of millions to lose coverage and millions more seeing the costs of their healthcare go up,' Schumer said.

Of the 24 million who could lose healthcare coverage, Schumer added, 'That's un-American and that's wrong.'

Schumer also picked up on CBO's statements about older Americans' healthcare expenses going up, as the new law would permit insurance companies to charge them higher rates, at least until the age of 65 when people would then be eligible for Medicare.

'If there was ever a war on seniors, this bill, Trumpcare, is it,' Schumer said.

Price said the GOP's plan is necessary to keep the market from collapsing in the five states where there is currently a solo insurer providing coverage.

'You tell me that that's what the plan was,' he said of Democrats' health law.

'The fact is that those folks have no choice whatsoever. The federal government has destined them to only have one opportunity to purchase coverage, and if that's not what they want, then tough luck. That's not our plan.'

Ryan, too, touted the fact that the Republican plan will allow for more choice.

'Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage,' Ryan said. 'It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford.'
A paranoid schizophrenic who shot dead a father and drowned his baby in a sink in 1987 will be executed in Texas on Tuesday.

James Bigby, 61, was sentenced to death for killing Michael Trekell and his infant son Jason in a Christmas Eve killing spree 30 years ago. He will be given a lethal injection anytime after 6pm in Huntsville in Texas on Tuesday.

Bigby's lawyer said he had no plans to try to stop his death and wanted to 'get it over with'.

Bigby was found guilty of capital murder in 1991 for killing Trekell, 26, and his baby. They were watching TV at Trekell's home in Arlington on the evening of December 2 3 when he shot him.

James Bigby, 61, (left recently and right in his 1987 mug shot) will be killed by lethal injection on Tuesday evening in Huntsville, Texas

He tried to kill baby Jason first by suffocating him with cellophane then drowned him in the sink.

Bigby then went on to shoot dead two other friends, Calvin Crane and Frank Johnson, that night but was never tried for their murders.

He was eventually arrested in a motel on Christmas Eve after a stand-off with police.

Bigby, who was a mechanic at the time, believed the men were conspiring against him on behalf of his former employer, Frito Inc, which he had just filed a lawsuit against, The Texas Star Tribune reports.

The baby's mother, who knew him, said he'd earlier told how he wanted to die in a 'blaze of glory'.

During his 1991 trial, Bigby boldly grabbed a loaded gun from behind the judge's bench during a recess and stormed into his chambers with it.

Bigby will die at the Huntsville Unit in Texas (above) anytime after 6pm on Tuesday

He will be given a lethal injection (file image of a death chamber, above). His attorney said he wanted to get it 'over with'

A jury rejected his insanity defense and sentenced him to death.

The sentence was upheld in 2005 when he was given a new sentencing trial to reflect changes in the law which meant jurors could take mental illness into account when reaching a decision on whether to give inmates the lethal injection or life without parole.

They stuck with Bigby's death sentence despite his earlier claim that he'd only been out of an asylum for 10 days when he committed the murders.

He told The Associated Press in 2001 that he had received shock treatment for his condition.

John Trickell, Bigby's attorney, said he was ready to die on Monday.

'I believe that [Bigby] is resigned to the fact that hes going to be executed, and I think he wants it over with,' he said.
A California father accidentally hit and killed his own three-year-old daughter after failing to see her playing in the driveway.

Little Rochelle Beserra had been outside the family's home in the historic town of Piru, California, without adult supervision when her father Anthony Beserra, 39, returned home in his Chevrolet Avalanche.

Unable to see his daughter, his truck collided with the youngster on Friday at around 2.45pm.

Anthony Beserra, 39, (left in his mugshot after being arrested for weapons offences later the same day) accidentally hit and killed his own three-year-old daughter Rochelle (right) after failing to see her playing in the driveway

Rochelle's distraught mother Destiney Aguilar, 30, said she had gone outside to see her daughter lying on the ground outside the fence's perimeter.

'At first I thought she was throwing a fit,' she told the Ventura County Star. It was only when she got closer, she noticed the blood.

Aguilar said she picked up her seriously injured daughter, and Beserra drove them all toward the nearest city - Fillmore.

'We couldn't call 911 because we didn't have our cell phones with us,' Aguilar said.

But the family were delayed when the truck stalled and they had to contact a relative to pick them up and take them to Fillmore Fire Station 91.

By the time they arrived, the girl was suffering a heart attack and respiratory arrest.

She was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Rochelle (left and with her mother Destiny, right) had been outside unsupervised when she was hit by her father's truck

Aguilar said she picked up her seriously injured daughter, and Beserra drove them all toward Fillmore

Beserra was arrested later that day on weapons-related charges, the California Highway Patrol said Monday.

He was booked into the Ventura County jail early Saturday morning on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition, possession of a high-capacity magazine and transporting a machine gun. He was released later that day after posting $60,000 bail.

Aguilar, who also has a one-and-a-half-year-old son with Beserra, said her daughter will be buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier in about two weeks.

The couple are from El Monte but live with Beserra's parents in Piru, near Powell Road and State Route 126, for most of the week as Beserra works for the family business.

The family stay in a trailer near the main house with a fence surrounding the area to stop the children from wandering into danger but Aguilar says her daughter must have somehow scaled the fence to get to the driveway.

By the time they arrived, the girl (family handout) was suffering a heart attack and respiratory arrest. She was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead

'I miss her so much!' she wrote on Facebook of her daughter's loss. 'I'm so lost without her. She was my baby girl.

'Why did God take her so soon for me? I want her bad with me at home. She was my partner. We did everything together.'

A GoFundMe page, set up by Aguilar's sister Desiree Cabrera, has already raised more than $1,900 towards funeral expenses.

Cabrera described her niece as a 'bundle of joy and also brought joy to many of us, her smile alone was priceless. She was a Happy, energetic loving little angel.'

Police have launched an investigation into the incident.
A man has admitted beating his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter to death with a plastic coat hanger and a belt after she accidentally soiled his bed.

Jamarius Devonti Graham, 21, of Jacksonville, Florida, was watching toddler Aaliyah Lewis on April 21, 2016, when her mother was at work.

Investigators say Graham admitted to spanking the girl 20 times with a belt and struck her with a plastic hanger.

Jamarius Devonti Graham, 21, beat Aaliyah Lewis in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 21, 2016, when her mother was at work

The child's mother told police her father was unavailable to babysit the girl as usual so she was left in Graham's care while she was at work, according to Jacksonville.com.

In a phone call at around midday, Graham told Aaliyah's mother he had belted the youngster but denied it was too hard.

When the mother returned from work, they waiting nearly 90 minutes before seeking help.

He lashed out at the two-year-old when she accidentally soiled his bed

When police arrived at UF Health Jacksonville hospital, the child's mother at first lied and said her daughter was watched by another baby sitter.

Later she admitted the child had in fact been with Graham.

The Medical Examiner's Office could not determine the cause of death.

Video courtesy of News4Jax

An autopsy found multiple traumatic injuries to her head, torso and extremities, as well as fluid and swelling to the lungs and brain, according to authorities.

Graham's sentencing is scheduled for April 17.

No charges have been filed against the girl's mother.

David Chapman, a spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, said: 'The aggravated child abuse charge against Graham carries with it a 30-year maximum and reflects the findings of the Medical Examiner's Office, which indicated the cause and manner of death could not be determined.'
Thomas Orchard, 32, died in hospital seven days after being arrested in 2012

Three police officers have been cleared of killing a church caretaker with mental health problems.

Thomas Orchard, 32, died in hospital seven days after being arrested and brought to Heavitree Road police station in Exeter, Devon, in October 2012.

Mr Orchard, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was held down, handcuffed and a large fabric webbing belt designed to restrain arms and legs was placed across his face.

Custody sergeant Jan Kingshott, 44, and civilian detention officers Simon Tansley, 38, and Michael Marsden, 55, insisted their actions were proportionate and lawful.

A jury at Bristol Crown Court found them not guilty of manslaughter by unlawful act and manslaughter by gross negligence following a 10-week trial.

A number of jurors wept as the verdicts of not guilty were delivered.

The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said: 'The defendants can be discharged from the dock.

'Members of the jury, thank you very much for your attention in this case.'

Speaking outside court, Mr Orchard's parents, Ken and Alison Orchard, said: 'Today we join a growing group of people who have lost loved ones in police custody and have found no sense of justice.

'Thomas cannot be brought back but we want his needless death to bring about change.

'The change we want most is in the attitude of the police, particularly towards those with mental health vulnerabilities.

'The pain for the past four-and-a-half years has diminished us and today is a setback but, on behalf of those vulnerable people and in memory of our Tom, our fight for truth and transparency continues.'

CCTV still issued by the Independent Police Complaints Commission of Jan Kingshott (left in doorway), Simon Tansley, (front left), and Michael Marsden (back right) carrying Thomas Orchard through Heavitree Road police station

Jan Kingshott (left in doorway), Simon Tansley, (front left), and Michael Marsden (back right) carrying Thomas Orchard in Heavitree Road police station

Michael Marsden (right) kneeling over Thomas Orchard as Jan Kingshott (right) takes away an Emergency Response Belt

Thomas Orchard in a cell at Heavitree Road police station after he was held down, handcuffed and placed in restraints - with one allegedly used to carry his head

Jurors were previously shown CCTV of Mr Orchard, who was handcuffed with restraints around his upper and lower legs, being lifted in the prone position - with an officer holding his head.

Mr Orchard was transported to the custody suite in the 20-cell unit at Heavitree Road police station, arriving in the secure rear yard at 11.18am.

By then, he had been in leg restraints for eight minutes and it had been 13 minutes since he was first approached by a PCSO.

Kingshott, Tansley and Marsden were working on the custody unit that day.

Mr Orchard's leg restraints were removed but he was still handcuffed to the rear and his legs were restrained above the knee by a strap.

The court heard that Mr Orchard kicked out and appeared to attempt to bite an officer, so was held to the floor and the lower leg restraints reapplied.

While being held to the floor for 32 seconds, Tansley pinned down Mr Orchard's right shoulder using his left knee and hand, the court heard.

Custody sergeant Jan Kingshott (right), 44, and civilian detention officers Simon Tansley (left), 38, and Michael Marsden (centre), 55, insisted their actions were proportionate and lawful

The Emergency Response Belt (ERB) used to restrain Thomas Orchard, while he was in police custody at Heavitree Road police station

Another officer, Pc Alexander Kennedy, covered Mr Orchard's left back with his knee, and pinned his head to the floor with his hand, the jury was told.

The court heard Mr Orchard was face down, restrained at three points and being controlled by three officers - Pc Kennedy, Pc Mark Nagle and Tansley.

Four other officers were immediately beside him, with two in the corridor area nearby, the court was told.

Tansley asked: 'Can you get the ERB for us?' and it was fetched by a female detention officer, the jury heard.

'It was then his decision and his request that led to this article being used on Mr Orchard,' Mr Heywood told the court.

The ERB is a tough fabric protective restraint device, consisting of a main body with webbing handles at each end.

It has a wide webbing strap sewn into one end, with Velcro fastenings that pass through a metal 'D' ring on the other end.

'It enables a subject to be wrapped securely and then lifted or controlled by using the looped handles and that is its primary function,' Mr Heywood said.

Alison and Ken Orchard, the parents of Thomas Orchard, speak outside Bristol Crown Court

Tansley, assisted by Pc Kennedy, placed the belt around Mr Orchard's face - apparently covering his whole face, it is alleged. It was in position at 11.23pm.

Mr Orchard was then lifted to waist height in the prone position after Tansley gave the command 'one, two, three, up', the court heard.

None of the four people involved in lifting him had sole control of his head and one was lifting him with one hand and holding the head in the ERB with the other, the jury heard.

The ERB was distributed in the UK by Pro-Tect Systems Limited, the company that had its Taser licence revoked in 2010 after it was found to have supplied non-approved X-12 Tasers. These were used during the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat in Northumberland in July 2010.

A training manual for the ERB advised that it could be used to prevent a detainee from spitting or biting, claiming that this was a common scenario inside police vehicles.

The family of Thomas Orchard at Bristol Crown Court earlier this year. Pictured are his mother Alison, brother Jack and sister Jo

The manual instructs those using the device about the head to do so lightly, without pressure.

This page was removed from the ERB manual in 2011 as it was uncommon for it to be used in this way, the court heard.

Devon and Cornwall Police did not receive the updated manual until they had a refresher ERB training session with the company after Mr Orchard's death.

Custody records show the force used the ERB around a detained person's face 55 times in the 12 months up to and including Mr Orchard's detention.

Giving evidence, all three defendants claimed Mr Orchard had posed a threat during his time in the custody unit and was saying 'I'll bite your f*****g face off'.

Sarah Green, deputy chairwoman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), said: 'Subsequent disciplinary proceedings are currently under consideration for the police officers and staff involved in the arrest and restraint of Mr Orchard.'

A spokesman added: 'The IPCC continues to examine Devon and Cornwall Police's corporate decision-making around the ERB. Investigators are conducting detailed analysis to fully understand the force's policies and processes governing its use.

'In addition, an independent expert with a background in health and safety has been instructed in relation to this matter.'

Mrs Orchard described her son as a 'country-loving, nature-loving, free child'

Mrs Orchard described her son as a 'country-loving, nature-loving, free child' who had found school difficult, in part due to hearing problems.

'He struggled in a number of different ways but he was a dear, dear boy,' she said.

'He was very sensitive. He was absolutely at home in trees or in the garden. He was an extremely fit young man - he loved playing football and he was a great Exeter City fan.'

In his mid-teens, Mr Orchard started taking recreational drugs but had developed more of an issue with them by the age of 18.

His sister Jo said she believed he was using drugs to self-medicate 'out of sheer fear' after starting to show signs of mental illness.

He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was placed on medication which, in addition to his Bell's palsy, made him dribble.

'He had very slow onset schizophrenia, it was a very slow slide,' Mrs Orchard said.

On his 21st birthday, police officers and doctors were called to the family home and Mr Orchard was sectioned.

Records show he was sectioned and detained in hospital for treatment five times between 2004 and 2009.

During his time in the mental health unit, Mr Orchard turned to Christianity and he later joined St Thomas's Church in Cowick Street, Exeter.

'He was always Tom as a child but he decided to change his name to Thomas,' Mrs Orchard said.

'They loved him at the church and it was another family for him. He shared his background with them and they were very accepting and understanding.'

In April 2011, Mr Orchard was living in supported accommodation and was physically and mentally well.

The keen reader began training at a gym and applied for a driving licence so he could learn to drive.

A six-month care review in June 2012, three months before his death, recorded 'positive signs of progress'.

Mrs Orchard said: 'He had turned a corner. One of the saddest things that Jo and I did was open his post after his death to find his provisional licence.

'It had been something he had worked hard for, it wasn't easy with his illness and medication.'

THOMAS ORCHARD'S LAST DAYS September 28 2012 - Mr Orchard tells staff at the supported housing residence where he lives that he is hearing voices. He is visited by a mental health crisis team. September 29 - Mr Orchard is seen again by the crisis team. October 1 - Staff at the housing association notice that Mr Orchard appears to be relapsing. October 2 10am - Mr Orchard is seen by a community health practitioner and the crisis team. 7.45pm - The crisis team visit Mr Orchard again at his home. October 3, 2012 9.30am to 10am - Mr Orchard sees the manager of the supported housing property and promises to be back for 11am for an appointment with the mental health team. 10.40am - Mr Orchard tells the curate at St Thomas's Church to "f*** off" and leaves. 11am - Mr Orchard is in Exeter city centre shouting and threatening members of the public, who believe he is mentally ill. 11.05am - Police arrive in Sidwell Street and arrest Mr Orchard on suspicion of a public order offence. He is handcuffed and restraints are placed above his knees and ankles. 11.09am - Mr Orchard is lifted and carried by four police officers to the van. He appears to make a biting movement towards Pc Alexander Kennedy. 11.13am - The police van leaves Sidwell Street for Heavitree Road police station. 11.18am - The van arrives at the police station. 11.21am - The lower leg restraints are removed but Mr Orchard is still restrained by his hands and above his knees. 11.22am - Mr Orchard is moved into the custody suite. He is able to 'bunny hop' into the police station with the help of Detention Officer Simon Tansley and two Pcs. 11.23am - His head appears to lunge towards the officers and he is lowered to the floor in the prone position. He is held there for 32 seconds by Tansley and two Pcs. The lower leg restraint is applied above the ankles. Tansley asks a colleague for the Emergency Restraint Belt. He places the belt around Mr Orchard's face. Mr Orchard is lifted in the prone position. 11.24am - Mr Orchard is carried 20 metres to cell M6, a journey that takes 28 seconds through three doorways. He is placed faced down on a mattress in the cell. He is searched as officers physically hold him. He shouts out. 11.25am - Detention Officer Michael Marsden takes over the hold of the ERB from Tansley. 11.26am - The lower leg restraints are removed. Mr Orchard shouts for the final time. 11.27am - The upper leg restraints are removed and Mr Orchard's legs are placed in a figure of four hold by a Pc. The handcuffs are removed and Mr Orchard is placed in a wrist lock and held down. Mr Orchard begins to violently struggle. 11.28am - All restraints have been removed and the officers release their grip. Mr Orchard has been restrained in the cell for four minutes and 39 seconds. The ERB has been around his face for five minutes. Mr Orchard is left alone in the cell. 11.33am - Marsden approaches the cell door and remains there for three minutes looking through the hatch. 11.39am - Marsden returns to outside the cell door with another detention officer and remains there for 34 seconds. 11.40am - There is a conversation between Marsden and Kingshott. 11.41am - They and others, including the custody nurse, enter Mr Orchard's cell and resuscitation commences. 11.42am - An ambulance is called. 11.47am - Paramedics arrive and take over resuscitation. 12.08pm - Mr Orchard is transported to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. 12.12pm - The ambulance arrives at the hospital. 1.35pm - Mr Orchard is admitted to the intensive care unit. October 10 6.05pm - Mr Orchard is declared dead. Advertisement

His sister added: 'He had just bought himself a new computer. He had turned a corner a long time ago and transformed his life.

'I think it was the first time he had been looking forward to the future.'

Mr Orchard had stopped taking his medication and suffered a relapse when he was arrested in Exeter city centre on October 3 2012.

He was physically restrained for a total of 22 minutes and then left in a locked cell at Heavitree Road police station, where he suffered a cardiac arrest.

'He would have been so scared,' Mrs Orchard said. 'He was acting the way he was because he was scared.'

His sister added: 'I think for someone going through a mental health crisis having something placed over your face would be very scary.

'If you factor in the adrenaline and how it affects your breathing, I can imagine it being horribly scary for Thomas.'
Ali Qazimaj was jailed for life today for the 'callous' murder of a retired couple in Suffolk

An Albanian asylum seeker who murdered an elderly couple then fled on a cross-channel ferry has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 35 years.

The body of Peter Stuart, 75, was found stabbed in shallow water in woodland near his home in Weybread, near Diss, Suffolk, on June 3 last year, and his wife, Sylvia, 69, is missing presumed dead.

It took a jury around three hours to find 43-year-old Ali Qazimaj guilty of their murders following a month-long trial.

Judge Jeremy Stuart-Smith sentenced Qazimaj to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 35 years on each count at Ipswich Crown Court today.

He told the defendant: 'These were terrible and exceptional crimes against an elderly couple who had earned the right to spend the rest of their lives in peace and tranquillity.'

Describing Qazimaj as a 'ruthless and accomplished killer', he told him: 'If there's any humanity in your bones you will one day at least grant the family some relief by telling them what you have done to [Mrs Stuart].'

Suffolk Police believe Qazimaj has been in the UK since 1999, is from Albania and claimed to be from Kosovo to gain asylum in the UK.

Peter Stuart, 75, was stabbed nine times. The body of his wife, Sylvia, has never been found

Mr Stuart's body was found in a ditch not far from the couple's home in Suffolk

Judge Stuart-Smith asked that the case be flagged to the Secretary of State as the defendant's asylum claim was 'based on an untruth'.

Prosecutors said Qazimaj had lived in Tilbury, Essex and was a carer to the father-in-law of the Stuarts' daughter, Christy Paxman.

Qazimaj had gambling debts and believed the Stuarts to be millionaires, the court heard.

The alarm was raised after they did not attend their regular line-dancing class.

In a victim personal statement read to the court by prosecuting barrister Karim Khalil QC, Ms Paxman said: 'I've had to explain to my daughter that her granddad was stabbed to death and we don't know where my mummy is.

'This evil person has deprived my daughter of her grandparents.'

Grey hairs belonging to Mrs Stuart were found in the boot of Qazimaj's car

Ali Qazimaj at the port of Dover was spotted at the Port of Dover as he fled the country

She continued: 'I used to always look for a silver lining.

'I've now seen a nasty side of life and it's really hit me and made me cynical.

'I find myself thinking about my and my family's safety.'

She said that through the course of the trial she 'had to listen to the defendant blatantly lie and not show a flicker of remorse'.

Mr Khalil said the murders were pre-planned, there was no evidence of a struggle, there was no trace of Mrs Stuart beyond DNA in the boot of Qazimaj's Citroen car, and Qazimaj had shown knowledge of contract killings in Europe.

Qazimaj continues to claim that he had never been to the UK before his arrest and extradition from Luxembourg, and maintains that he is actually 44-year-old Vital Dapi.

The couple are said to have been targeted for their money after a relative said they were rich

In a statement, translated from Albanian and read to the court by mitigating barrister Max Hill QC, the defendant said: 'I'm a just man who could never kill a fly, let alone two people.'

He continued: 'I want you to understand you're sentencing a man who is innocent.

'I feel sorry for the Stuarts' daughter but I can't help. I don't know where her mother's body is.'

The bearded defendant, who wore a grey flannel tracksuit, showed no emotion throughout the hearing.

Qazimaj showed no reaction as he was led to the cells.
Infamous jewel thief Doris 'Diamond' Payne, 86, was arrested after authorities said she failed to appear in court earlier this month

Infamous jewel thief Doris 'Diamond' Payne, 86, was arrested after authorities said she failed to appear in court earlier this month.

Payne was arrested on Monday at her Atlanta home by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.

She was sought after missing an arraignment on March 6 in an alleged 2016 jewelry theft at Perimeter Mall, about 13 miles north of downtown Atlanta.

The noted jewel thief faces a shoplifting charge for stealing a $2,000 diamond necklace from the Von Maur department store inside the mall on December 13, 2016.

Police said she put the $1,995 diamond necklace in her back pocket and tried to leave the Von Maur department store.

Payne is currently being held at the DeKalb County Jail.

Last month, a judge deemed Payne too ill to stand trial in connection with a 2015 theft charge.

Authorities said Payne stole a pair of Christian Dior earrings from Saks Fifth Avenue at Phipps Plaza in October 2015.

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Payne was arrested on Monday at her Atlanta home by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office. Payne is pictured during a court date in December 2016

Career criminal: Payne has a criminal record spanning six decades. She was arrested twice in 1965, first on May 10 (left), and again on June 3 (right)

However, that case is now on indefinite hold, according to an administrative order signed by Deputy Chief Judge Alford J. Dempsey Jr on February 23.

In December, Payne, who has stolen about $2million in jewelry over the last six decades and reflected on her crimes in a documentary, assured a judge that she's never been late for a court appearance.

She made her 'respect for judges' known, adding: 'I'm not denying that I have a history. I do.'

Payne was arrested on Monday at her Atlanta home by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office. She's pictured in 2015 during booking

When the judge set bond at $15,000, and restricted her from leaving the state, Payne promised to obey the law and thanked him for being fair.

Payne has traveled the world, swiping millions of dollars worth of jewels by making staff 'forget' she was carrying them.





The career criminal, who was once wanted on two continents, swore off her life of crime more than a decade ago. But it seems that old habits die hard.

Authorities said Payne has lifted pricey baubles from countless jewelry stores around the world, and the senior citizen once bragged about a $500,000 heist in Monte Carlo.

The legend of Payne's thefts have long fascinated the public and media, with countless news stories and a 2013 documentary film, 'The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne,' detailing her feats.

Matthew Pond, who co-directed the film, said Payne loved the attention and adrenaline rush, telling NBC: 'She likes playing the part and getting into the role. She's a bit of an actress.'

When asked about her exploits in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year, she said simply: 'I was a thief.'

Payne was sought after missing an arraignment on March 6 in an alleged 2016 jewelry theft at Perimeter Mall. She was also arrested in 2009, (left) and again in 2013 (right)

The noted jewel thief currently faces a shoplifting charge for stealing a $2,000 diamond necklace from the Von Maur department store inside the mall on December 13, 2016. She's pictured in January 2016 during an interview in Atlanta

Court papers in Atlanta reference six cases prior to the alleged theft last year, mostly in southern California, dating to 1999.

Payne's career as an international jewel thief began decades ago with a criminal record dating back to 1952.

Since then she has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry including her most notable theft - a 10-carat diamond ring, valued at $500,000, from Monte Carlo in the 1970s.

Payne fled to France, and was detained in Nice before being extradited back to Monte Carlo. She was held there for nine months before being released, as authorities were unable to locate the stolen gem.

Last month, a judge deemed her too ill to stand trial over a 2015 theft charge. She's pictured in her Dec 2016 mugshot

Authorities have said she has used at least 22 aliases over the years and probably got away more often than she was caught, though she has done several stints in prison.

The Jewelers' Security Alliance, an industry trade group, sent out bulletins as early as the 1970s warning about her.

Payne, who appeared effortlessly elegant and spoke with calm deliberation during the interview with the AP, nevertheless grew cagey when asked about her methods.

'I don't dictate what happens when I walk in the store. The people in charge dictate what happens with me when I walk in the store,' she said.

'I don't tell a person in the store I want to see something that costs $10,000. They make those decisions based on how I present myself and how I look.'

Born to a coal mining father and a seamstress mother in the remote and impoverished town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, in 1930, Payne was the youngest of six children.

Although a family move to Cleveland, Ohio, broadened her horizons somewhat as a teenager, she still faced the injustice and suppression that was the lot of many black women in those days of American history.

Kirk Marcolina, producer of The Life And Crimes Of Doris Payne, said: 'She always wanted to become a ballerina but one day somebody told her she couldn't - there were no black ballerinas.

'She realized she had to find another way of getting out of that small town and seeing the world. Stealing jewels eventually became the way she did it.'

In the documentary, Doris revealed how she first learned her trademark distraction trick as a teenager when a store clerk eagerly ditched her when a white customer came in.

She walked to the door, a small gold watch still clasped around her wrist. Although she gave it back that time, she realized how easy it would have been to walk away with the prize.

Sweet, elegant and immaculately turned out, Payne may be the world's most unlikely international jewel thief

From there, she worked her way up from bargain jewelry to some of the most expensive stores across the globe, hitting targets as far afield as Britain, France, Italy, Monaco and even Japan.

Aged just 23, she walked out of a Pittsburgh jewelry store with a diamond valued at $22,000.

She developed a winning strategy - dressing nicely, carrying a designer handbag and arming herself with a detailed story - that she used to charm jewelry store employees.

Faced with a well-to-do woman with money to spend, store employees would relax their rules and bring out multiple high-value pieces at once, and Payne would quickly slip the expensive baubles on and off until the employee lost track and she could easily leave with one in hand.

Over time, she has been connected to 22 aliases, nine dates of birth, and five Social Security numbers, but is nevertheless so brazen about her crimes that she once gave her occupation as 'jewel thief' in court papers.

But the international lifestyle has come at a heavy price for the cunning Payne: she has an Interpol file dating back to the 1970s, a US criminal record 20 pages long and has served a string of jail terms including a nearly five-year prison stint in Colorado.

In a 2005 jail interview, Payne remembered her exploits with amusement and explained how she stole diamonds because they were easiest.

For her, the thefts were about the thrill, not the money.

'Theres never been a day that I went to steal that I did not get what I went to do,' she said in her documentary.

A wanted poster was issued for Payne and her suspected accomplice Harold Brondfield in 1966 over the theft of two rings

The international lifestyle has come at a heavy price for the cunning Payne: she has an Interpol file dating back to the 1970s, a US criminal record 20 pages long and has served a string of jail terms, she is pictured in her cell at Clark County jail in Las Vegas, in 2005

Payne (pictured posing for a photo in Atlanta in January 2016) is currently being held at the DeKalb County Jail

'I dont have any regrets about stealing jewelry. I regret getting caught.'

That sentiment proves problematic for judges faced with the elderly offender.

In 2010, she asked one to be lenient because she was 'truly sorry that this went on as long as it did' but that wasn't enough.

'You won't stop,' Judge Frank Brown said at the time, explaining his decision to sentence her to five years which was at the high end of the possible verdicts.

'Thats the problem here... Shes a thief. Shes charming. Santa Clauss wife, thats who she is.'

After that punitive sentence, Doris vowed to leave her life of crime.

But in 2013, just three months after she had been released from jail, she was up to her old tricks.

When Doris walked into El Paseo Jewelers in Palm Desert, California, staff were delighted.

White-haired and elegant, not in the best of health but articulate and elegantly turned out, she told them she had just had a $25,000 insurance payout and wanted to spend the cash on a present for herself.

Salespeople fussed around her, helping her try on gem-encrusted necklaces and rings and, when her hip began playing up, finding her a chair to rest her legs.

After making arrangements to complete her purchase of a diamond and white gold pinkie ring the next day, they helped her hobble to the door.

What staff did not realize was that the $22,500 the ring was still on her finger.

Payne is pictured in court in 2013 after she walked out an El Paseo jewelers with a $22, 500 ring just three months after she was released

All a ruse: Over time, she has been connected to 22 aliases, nine dates of birth, and five Social Security numbers (Payne pictured in a Las Vegas courtroom in 2005)

The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of El Paseo Jewelers only realized that the ring was missing hours after she had gone.

She sold the ring to a nearby pawnshop for $800, and as part of the sale, she had to give her thumbprint, which eventually tipped off authorities.

In 2014, she was sentenced to spend two years in jail and two years under mandatory supervision after the judge took pity on her age and ill health.

After an early release, she was arrested again last year for allegedly pocketing a $690 pair of earrings from a Saks Fifth Avenue department store at a mall in Atlanta's upscale Buckhead neighborhood.

Payne is truly in a league of her own in the pantheon of jewel thieves, Jewelers' Security Alliance president John J Kennedy said.

'It's extraordinarily rare for a criminal to have that lengthy of a career,' he said. 'Usually they either stop because they have enough money and they don't want the risk anymore, or they're dead.'

Kennedy said people often ask him about her, fascinated and even amused by the story of this elderly woman who has committed so many thefts.

'We're all laughing, but it's not funny,' he said. 'She goes in and she takes product from people, and it causes a lot of grief for people.'
President Donald Trump is taking steps to ease restrictions on drone strikes that Barack Obama introduced to lower the number of civilian deaths and increase accountability.

Trump's administration is looking to make changes to rules Obama put in place in 2013 on strikes outside of war zones, US officials told The Washington Post.

If the Obama policy is lifted, the Pentagon will be able to approve targets without the White House and a standard meant to minimize civilian casualties could be abandoned.

Trump has also given the CIA authority to conduct drone strikes, a Wall Street Journal report says.

A U.S. Army drone is seen in this undated picture. President Donald Trump is taking steps to ease restrictions on drone strikes that Barack Obama introduced to lower the number of civilian deaths and increase accountability

Trump's administration is looking to make changes to rules Obama put in place in 2013 on strikes outside of war zones, US officials say

Coming into office, Trump said he would decimate terrorists in the Middle East and wanted a blueprint within 30 days.

More than 50 days into his presidency, the plan has been completed, but it's still under review by principals on the National Security Council, the White House says.

The National Security Council is concurrently conducting an assessment of the US drone strike program, the Post has reported. The review is expected to make it easier for the Trump administration to drop bombs on ISIS.

The government may not have to meet the 'continuing and imminent threat' bar for targets any longer. Drone rules could be rewritten to allow for strikes on persons that perform a 'key leadership function' or whose death would be a 'material setback' for a terrorist organization.

The 'near-certainty' standard that civilian lives will not be lost is also being debated.

The policy could be limited to women and children or temporarily waived in certain geographical areas.

A primary goal of the changes, an official told the Post, is 'getting the White House out of the way of itself.

'The president believes too much has been centralized in the White House, and he wants to push decisions down to the agencies.'

A Wall Street Journal report says that Trump has already given the CIA new authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, expanding the spy agency's paramilitary abilities.

The changes in their totality will give the Trump administration more freedom to conduct drone strikes in countries where the United States is not formally engaged in war.

'We are seeking ways to accelerate our operations against terror groups, and be more nimble and agile in our speed of response,' Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told the Post. 'But we always will maintain a commitment to minimizing, avoiding civilian casualties.'

Last July, the Obama White House admitted to killing as many as 116 civilians in 473 targeted strikes against extremists in non-combat areas like Pakistan and Yemen since 2009.

Obama signed an executive order at the same time mandating future presidents to report the number annually by May 1.

Independent groups say the number of deaths was twice that, ranging from 200 casualties to as many as 1,000.

As he announced the changes to America's drone policy in 2013 Obama said he was 'haunted' by the civilian deaths

As he announced the changes to America's drone policy in 2013 Obama said he was 'haunted' by the civilian deaths.

The strikes were legal and effective but may not have been moral, he said in the speech.

'It is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars,' the president stated. 'For the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss.'

Friday a group of 37 former US officials sent a letter to Trump urging him to keep Obama's policy on civilian casualties in place.

'Even small numbers of unintentional civilian deaths or injuries..can cause significant setbacks,' the letter said.

Trump's administration told the Post that even as it rolls back Obama's drone restrictions it intends to stay above the international standards for strikes.

'Some standard above [that] is wise,' a senior US official said.
Dubai Police arrested a man in on Tuesday after a video of him feeding a live cat to dogs went viral.

The man, who has not been publicly named, will be charged with animal abuse, Dubai police officials said.

The gruesome video shows the man feeding the cat to two dogs, believed to be rottweilers, and saying that he did so as a punishment after the cat had attacked pigeons and hens at his farm.

An investigation was launched after a gruesome video went viral showing a man in Dubai feeding a cat to two dogs

The man responsible for the video will be charged with animal abuse under Dubai's new animal cruelty laws

Outrage broke out among animal welfare workers on social media after the video went viral.

Major-General Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant to the Dubai Police Chief for Criminal Investigation Affairs, called the incident 'savage behaviour and strange behaviour in our society'.

The man who was arrested is the first to be brought to justice under the country's new animal welfare law, where he will face up to a year in prison.

Under the law that was issued late last year, those found guilty also face a fine under face a fine between Dh50,000 (11,200) and Dh200,000 (44,800).

The man says he fed the cat to the dogs as a punishment after the cat had attacked pigeons and hens at his farm

Outrage broke out among animal welfare workers on social media after the video went viral

The man who was arrested is the first to be brought to justice under the country's new animal welfare law, where he will face up to a year in prison.

'Animal cruelty is against our traditions and values in caring for animals and the man charged with abusing a cat will be brought to justice under the new animal welfare law,' Dr Thani Bin Ahmad Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, told Gulf News.

The new law will affect anyone who is found guilty of abusing animals or the illegal buying, hunting or selling of animals.

Dr Manal Al Mansouri of UAE Animal Welfare Group told Gulf News that the man's actions were an 'intentional, barbaric killing', calling the video 'unacceptable' and 'inhuman'.

'The man should not blame the cat for the loss of his hens and pigeons because the cat is following its instinct, he is the one who should be blamed because he should protect his farm well,' she said.
Saudi officials have been mocked for launching a Girls' Council without any girls at the launch.

It was meant to be an initiative to show the world the kingdom had moved on from oppressing women's rights, but when the Qassim Girls' Council was formed, the authorities appeared to have omitted a key ingredient at the launch event.

Instead 13 men introduced the initiative on stage, while it was reported the women were kept out of site in another room and contributed via video link.

The picture of the group of men on stage has sparked a wave of criticism online.

A photograph of the Qassim Girls Council, featuring 13 men and not a single woman

Prince Faisal bin Mishal bin Saud, al-Qassim's governor, spearheaded the launch, and even said he was proud to be a part of the first initiative of its kind in Saudi Arabia.

'In the Qassim region, we look at women as sisters to men, and we feel a responsibility to open up more and more opportunities that will serve the work of women and girls,'he said, according to the BBC.

Rana Harbi posted the picture with the caption: 'This is not a joke. I repeat, not a joke. The first meeting of the first "Girls Council" in Saudi Arabia.'

Fellow writer did the same with a caption reading: 'Satire? Comedy? No.

'This is actually happening: The very first meeting of the first "Girls Council" in Saudi Arabia... with ZERO girls.'

Jonathan Nicholas poked fun at Saudi Arabia's track record of women's rights, by saying: 'Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia the Qassim Girls Council meets again to discuss women's issues.

'Too important for women to be involved obviously.'

A Twitter user calling himself Maytham joked: 'Meeting of Qassim Girls Council Saudi Arabia.

'I did not know that Saudi girls have beards.

'Gillette can make lots of business there.'

The council is meant to be chaired by Princess Abir bint Salman, the prince's wife, but she does not feature in any of the photographs.

Saudi Arabia, which has strict segregation laws regarding unrelated men and women, is aiming for a major boost in female employment in the conservative Islamic kingdom but women need not go to an office, the labour ministry said on Monday.

'Telework' and work from home will generate up to 141,000 jobs by 2020, providing 'decent and proper' employment particularly for women and the disabled, the ministry said in a statement.

The term 'telework' applies to a variety of jobs done remotely outside of a company's office.

Under its Vision 2030 reform plan the kingdom, led by Saudi King Salman, wants to get more women working

As part of a wideranging social and economic reform drive to cope with lower oil revenues, Saudi Arabia is trying to get more women working.

But the ministry statement acknowledged 'a lot of social obstacles including transportation and family responsibilities' that hinder female labour market participation.

Saudi Arabia is the only country where women are not allowed to drive. Public transport is also limited, restricting mobility for those unable to afford a private driver.

The ministry said telework would also benefit those in remote parts of the kingdom where employment is even harder to find, but it gave no details of who exactly is going to create the 141,000 jobs.

Under its Vision 2030 reform plan the kingdom wants to boost the role of small and medium enterprises as well as broaden its industrial and investment base.

In the third quarter of last year the unemployment rate for Saudi women was 34.5 percent, compared with 5.7 percent for Saudi men, according to figures cited by the firm Jadwa Investment.

By 2020 the kingdom wants to boost the proportion of women in the workforce to 28 percent from 23 percent last year.

According to official data, at the end of 2015 the Saudi public sector employed 469,000 women while another 500,000 worked in the private sector, which the government wants to expand while reducing its own payroll.
An Atlanta woman's birthday party has gone viral online after she turned it into a swingers' event and invited couples to 'celebrate' with her.

Cidney Green, originally from Monroe, Louisiana, will be turning 27 and is hosting her party this coming weekend.

Her pay-to-attend event at a private location somewhere in Atlanta promises to include dinner, a meet-and-greet and overnight sexual activities.

Cidney Green, originally from Monroe, Louisiana, will be turning 27 and is hosting her party this coming weekend

After a Twitter hashtag linked to the event went viral the swingers' party quickly sold out, according to CBS 46.

The event costs $90 for single women, $160 for couples and $160 for single men.

Around 35 people are expected to attend the gathering.

In a message posted to her website, Ms Green wrote: 'This event is nothing like you have ever attended.

The event costs $90 for single women, $160 for couples and $160 for single men

'This is my 27th birthday and this overnight event will encompass everything I love and adore: great vibes, good ratchet music, amazing food.'

It adds: 'Sex is allowed and nudity is 100 per cent encouraged.'

On social media thousands of people reacted to the event and some voiced concern by pointing to Atlanta's high rate of sexually transmitted diseases.

In a message posted to her website, Ms Green wrote: 'This event is nothing like you have ever attended'

Marcellus King said: 'Concerning that whole Atlanta Orgy thing - take note that Atlanta has high HIV rates. Not to mention all of the other STDs.'

Kiayl B. added: 'I'm sorry but if they're not requiring STD screenings on the door then...'

Last year, Atlanta's HIV rate was compared to third world African countries.

'Downtown Atlanta is as bad as Zimbabwe or Harare or Durban,' said Dr. Carlos del Rio, co-director of Emory University's Center for AIDS Research.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used a separate email account under the name Wayne Tracker when he was CEO of Exxon, the New York attorney general revealed in a court filing asking to get more documents.

Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, used the Wayne Tracker account to discuss climate change, as well as other priority matters, according to a filing in connection with a lawsuit claiming the oil giant shielded its internal findings about climate change.

He used the account to 'send and receive materials regarding important matters,' Schneiderman's office wrote in a letter seeking to force more document production.

Tillerson used the previously secret account for 'secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics,' Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers told Bloomberg News.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is revealed in a court filing to have used the name Wayne Tracker in internal emails while he was CEO of Exxon

He began the practice after his main account got too many messages, he said.

The existence in the account may have been flagged by a small batch of documents that got handed over inadvertently.

'Despite the company's incidental production of approximately 60 documents bearing the "Wayne Tracker" email address, neither Exxon nor its counsel have ever disclosed that this separate email account was a vehicle for Mr. Tillerson's relevant communications at Exxon," Senior Enforcement Counsel John Oleske wrote in the letter, CNN Money reported.

Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in a statement: 'The email address, Wayne.Tracker@exxonmobil.com, is part of the company's email system and was put in place for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics.'

New York and Massachusetts are probing whether Exxon misled investors for years about its knowledge of whether its activities contributed to climate change.

CALL ME WAYNE: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets with Greece's Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias at the State Department on Monday

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office is investigating whether Exxon misled shareholders about climate change

IT'S A GAS: Former CEO Wayne Tillerson used the name Wayne Tracker on internal company emails, a legal filing revealed

It brings yet another email controversy close to the state department, an agency that was rocked by revelations about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server and private account.

Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was revealed to have her own email nom de plume: Diane Reynolds.

Although he has made few public statements and shielded himself from the press, Tillerson could have some sway over climate policy from his post at Foggy Bottom.

He could help shape whether the U.S. withdraws from the Paris climate accords.

The New York Times reported in 2015 that Schneiderman had begun probing whether the company shielded investors from what its own scientists had determined about the risks posed by climate change.

The internal conclusions came as the company funded outside research that was skeptical about climate change.

'If they had nothing to hide, then why the secret email account?" Jamie Henn, spokesman for the environmental group 350.org, told Bloomberg.

According to the letter to Judge Barry Ostrager, 'We write to notify the Court that Exxon Mobil Corporation (Exxon) has failed to comply in good faith with the subpoena issued by the New York State Office of the Attorney General (OAG), and this Courts previous orders, in connection with OAGs investigation into Exxons potential violations of New York consumer, business, and investor-fraud laws.'

'Exxon has continuously delayed and obstructed the production of documents from its top executives and board members,1 which are crucial to OAGs investigation into Exxons touted risk- management practices regarding climate change. We respectfully request that the Court now schedule a conference to ensure Exxons compliance with OAGs subpoena,' according to the letter.

'Documents relating to these email addresses should have been preserved from the outset, and should have been searched and produced prior to January 31, 2017, as part of the promised collection of management documents,' according to the letter.
This is the shocking moment a grandfather hauls his 11-year-old grandson out from a classroom and beats him with a wooden chair in southwestern China's Sichuan.

Video footage shows the old man grabbing the young boy's hoodie and forcefully dragging him down through a flight of stairs as other schoolmates watch on.

Police were called to the scene where they arrested and detained the 'out of control' pensioner.

The pensioner failed to get money from his son and turned to his grandson for revenge

The incident took place at Mingdexing Primary School, Yingshan city.

Primary school principal told qq.com that the grandfather came to punish his grandson as his son refused to give him money for medical treatment.

He hit the boy with a stool before dragging him down a flight of stairs.

The 11-year-old was hauled out from his classroom by his grandfather and dragged for about 400 ft.

The principal further explained that the grandfather had long cut off the relationship with the boy's father who works in another city.

Video footage shows the grandfather dragging his grandson down a flight of stairs in school

The grandfather was arrested by police for a minimum five days of administrative detention

The young boy was brought up by his grandmother until she fell sick recently.

In addition to that, the old man was in need of money for a hernia surgery.

Teachers and security guards stopped the grandfather when he attempted to open the school gate.

Local policemen arrived on scene shortly afterwards and arrested the grandfather under China's Law on Public Security Administration Punishments.

He is facing an administrative detention for five to 10 days.
It's a national treasure and as it get set to mark its 85th birthday, spectacular footage has emerged of Australia's most iconic landmark days after it opened to the public in 1932.

In a video released by the National Film and Sound Archive, curious pedestrians, cars, and the now-defunct trams can be seen crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The home video was taken by Melbourne man, Leslie Francis Farey, and shows a vastly different Sydney.

Scroll down for video

The home video, taken by Melbourne man, Leslie Francis Farey, shows the bridge days after it opened in 1932

Curious pedestrians could be seen examining the bridge as they walked along it for the very first time

Beginning with scenic shots of harbourside houses taken from the northern end of the bridge, Mr Farey's footage cuts to the famous structure known as 'The Coathanger' because of it's arch-based design.

The video also shows residents taking their first steps on the bridge, cyclists taking in the view, and cars driving along at snail's pace.

Tram lines, which were converted to extra lanes to hold more traffic in the 1950s, can also be seen.

A step back in time: The home movie also shows Sydney Harbour and Circular Quay in 1932

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is still recognised as one of Australia's most iconic landmarks

The Sydney Harbour Bridge will celebrate it's 85th birthday on Sunday

The footage finishes with the view of the harbour from the bridge, panning from Kirribilli on the city's north shore before finally cutting to Circular Quay.

The remarkable clip is part of an online exhibition by the NFSA to commemorate the iconic structure's anniversary.

Pre-war cars and tramlines can be seen on the famous bridge

At the time of its construction, 'The Coathanger' was regarded as one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the world
Jerry Balzano was captured on dashcam footage cursing and threatening the other driver as the victim's terrified wife called 911

A New Jersey mobster is back in jail after he was filmed stopping in the middle of a freeway to confront a driver in a road rage attack.

Jerry Balzano, an alleged member of the notorious DeCavalcante crime family, was captured on dashcam footage cursing and threatening the other driver as the victim's terrified wife called 911.

The mobster, who was out on supervised release for racketeering conspiracy, now faces charges for violating his release and has been detained in jail.

Dash cam footage, obtained by New York Daily News, shows Balzano slamming on the brakes, forcing the victims to come to a stop behind him on what appears to be the New York State Route 17.

He is then seen climbing out of his car, and striding up to the driver's side window, out of view of the camera.

'You want to play f***ing games, you little c***sucker?,' Balzano is heard asking aggressively. 'You wanna play f***ing games? I'll kick your f***ing head in you dirty scumbag.'

'You want to cut me off like a tough guy?' he adds.

The driver shouts for his wife to call 911 who makes a frantic call for help.

'Someone is hitting my husband!' she says, before a loud thud is heard. 'Oh my gosh!'

'Get out the f***ing car,' Balzano demanded.

At that point, another motorist who had stopped after seeing the confrontation intervened, pulling Balzano aside and walking him back to his car.

The 54-year-old then got back inside his car and sped off while his victim, whose wife was still on the phone to 911, was heard saying 'I'm not alright, he hit me.'

Authorities say Balzano also did not possess a valid license to drive a car.

Footage of the incident was played before a judge last week who ordered that Balzano should be detained on March 8.

He faces a violation of supervised release hearing next month.

The original charges were for a 2011 conviction for racketeering involving contraband cigarettes and the theft of a $15,000 tax refund check. He was among 100 mobsters and mob associates charged that year.

This is the second time Balzano has violated his release after serving two years in jail. The first violation was after he admitted having a firearm and ammunition.
A former patient of Sydney's 'fake doctor' has revealed he refused to give her vital heart medication.

Mother-of-two Amy Gleeson was treated by Shyam Acharya at Gosford Hospital in January 2014.

'He was very rude very abrupt, arrogant,' Ms Gleeson, who suffers from anxiety told 7 News.

Mother-of-two Amy Gleeson was treated by Shyam Acharya at Gosford Hospital in January 2014

Acharya also used his six-figure salary to take him on holidays across the world, as photos of him posing in front of the Louvre in Paris emerge on his private WhatsApp

Former patient of Sydney's 'fake doctor' Amy Gleeson (pictured with her family) has revealed he refused to give her vital heart medication

Ms Gleeson said Acharya told her: 'You're not getting anything (medication) it's all in your head.

'I was that bad that night that I felt I was going to die because I have a heart condition.'

Ms Gleeson's wife was forced to drive her from Gosford Hospital to Westmead Hospital for treatment.

This comes as a police task force has been set up to find the alleged fake doctor amid reports he has been found hiding in India.

Acharya went on the run days before he was due to face court last week over allegations he gained medical registration, was recruited and gained employment in four NSW hospitals using fake documents.

Mr Acharya, who's facing a $30,000 penalty on his return, has been tracked down in India, the Seven Network reported on Tuesday.

NSW Police would not confirm the details.

The State Crime Command had established Strike Force Mandine to handle the investigation, including locating Mr Acharya, a spokeswoman said.

Copy of Shyam Acharya's fake passport (pictured) registered under the name Sarang Chitale

A former patient of Sydney's 'fake doctor' has revealed he refused to give her vital heart medication

Ms Gleeson's wife was forced to drive her from Gosford Hospital (pictrured) to Westmead Hospital for treatment

The Indian national is said to have posed as UK doctor Sarang Chitale by entering Australia on a fake passport in 2003 and gaining registration with the Medical Board of NSW.

He worked in hospitals at Manly, Hornsby, Gosford and Wyong until 2014 while the real doctor practised as a specialist in the UK.

A branch of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) where Dr Chitale works said it was shocked to hear his identity had been allegedly misused.

'We would like to stress that Dr Chitale is very much the victim in this diabolical fraudulent act,' a statement from the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust said.

'The trust is providing Dr Chitale all the support and advice he needs to deal with this very upsetting case of identity theft.'

The General Medical Council was helping Australian health authorities with the investigation, it said.

NSW Health has launched an independent review into how authorities allowed and also failed to pick up the alleged masquerade for 11 years.

Patients who come forward with complaints about Mr Acharya will also have their matters reviewed.
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The dangerous Northeast blizzard predicted to cripple the country's air travel has forced the cancellation of 8,000 flights since Sunday.

While the nor'easter Stella was downgraded as it hit New York City on Tuesday with snow totals falling short of initial estimates, mass cancellations and states of emergency stayed in effect.

Airlines cancelled more than 6,000 flights as of Tuesday morning - a figure that is likely to grow - given it promised to be the worst travel day for the late winter storm.

Airports in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia were among the hardest hit, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

Nearly all flights at New York City's three airports were canceled on Tuesday, with similar issues at Boston and Baltimore. Most flights were cancelled before the day even began.

Majority of flights were canceled at Boston's Logan International Airport on Tuesday as the nor'easter Stella crippled the country's air travel

Airlines cancelled more than 6000 flights on Tuesday given it promised to be the worst travel day across the Northeast for the late winter storm, according to flight tracking website FlightAware

Other major airports in the Northeast, including Philadelphia, Washington Dulles and Washington Reagan National, also experienced major disruptions with about 50 percent of flights cancelled on Tuesday morning.

FLIGHT DISRUPTIONS: 6,477 flights were cancelled as of Tuesday morning, with 3,319 delays. Airports with the most cancellations are Newark in New Jersey, LaGuardia in New York and Boston Logan International Airport. More than 909 flights have already been cancelled for Wednesday. 2,344 flights were cancelled on Monday. Source: Flight Aware Advertisement

Authorities had been advising 50 million people to prepare for what could be the worst storm this winter season from New York City to Boston.

The region was expected to be hit with up to 24 inches of snow bringing along with it blizzard-like conditions and 60mph winds. Officials even declared a state of emergency in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland.

But forecasters significantly downgraded their predictions on Tuesday morning around 9am and instead predicted the Big Apple would receive 4 to 8 inches.

Airline officials had started preparing for the storm by cancelling flights ahead of time with more than 2,000 flights cancelled for Monday.

More than 900 flights have already been cancelled for Wednesday.

Amtrak also canceled and modified service up and down the Northeast Corridor. In New York City, the above-ground portions of the subway system were shut down on Tuesday morning.

PATH trains tweeted on Tuesday at noon saying they were now operating normal weekday services on all lines.

Yvonne Mouskourie, of Tom's River, New Jersey was stranded at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday after her morning flight to Florida was canceled

Workers shoveled snow outside Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Tuesday as majority of flights were cancelled

Logan International Airport in Boston was practically deserted on Tuesday morning with airlines cancelling the majority of flights on Monday

Getting ready: In preparing for the huge winter storm, airline officials have already begun cancelling flights ahead of time. Above a United Airlines plane departs at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on Monday during the snowstorm

Winter Storm Stella has already brought snow to Chicago on Monday. Above commuters wait for the train as the snow continues falling

With temperatures 15 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year, the harsh winter weather has already claimed lives in Milwaukee after two elderly men on different sides of the city collapsed while shoveling snow on Monday. Above a New York City Sanitation truck plows snow shortly after winter weather moved into the New York City

Tuesday's cancellations includes roughly hundreds of flights on Southwest Airlines, JetBlue and American Airlines.

More cancellations were expected, with Southwest planning to stop almost all of its Northeast flights Tuesday. Other airlines were considering similar moves.

Major US airlines will allow ticketed travelers affected by the storm to change their flights without an additional fee.

Officials are asking those with travel plans early this week to check with airlines ahead of time to see about possible cancellations or delays.

A state of emergency was issued in four states across the northeast as Winter Storm Stella is set to slam the area up until early Wednesday morning.

Winter Storm Stella is hitting the Northeast region of the country with a mix of snow and sleet as temperatures are in the high 20s and low 30s in several states

Forecasters predict the winter storm will drop a mix of snow and ice in cities like Philadelphia and New York, as upstate New York is getting dumped with plenty of snow

Tuesday night's outlook see more clear skies for parts of Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, as upstate New York will still be getting dumped with snow

The blizzard warning that was issued in New York City is no longer in effect as the weather pattern has changed. Forecasters now issued a winter storm watch for New York City as the blizzard warning is for upstate New York and parts of Connecticut

Boston is now predicted to get 5 to 8 inches of snow as Philadelphia won't likely even see an inch

Warning: Forecasters said there was more snow to come throughout Tuesday especially in upstate New York and neighboring states

Powerful: Winds of up to 60mph were expected to lash the Northeast with the storm expected to last most of Tuesday

State of emergencies in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland have all taken effect as of midnight on Monday and 50 million residents are being urged to prepare for the 'life-threatening' storm.

The harsh winter weather has already claimed lives in Milwaukee after two elderly men on different sides of the city collapsed while shoveling snow on Monday.

Officials have warned of unsafe driving conditions caused by the snow, which have spurred statewide travel bans in Connecticut and modified public transportation services in several other states.

Also in Milwaukee, a 17-car pileup involving 12 cars and five tractor trailers crashed just before noon on Monday on the northbound lanes of I-43. Three people suffered minor injuries but there were no deaths. Several crashes were also reported in Michigan due to the snowy weather.

A woman uses an umbrella as she crosses a snow-covered street as the winter storm swept through Philadelphia in Pennsylvania overnight

Defiance: A man ignores the freezing conditions as he salts a sidewalk in Jersey City, New Jersey this morning before daylight

A state of emergency has been issued in several states across the northeast as Winter Storm Stella is set to slam the area with up to two feet of snow on Tuesday. Rescue crews are pictured at the scene of a crash involving a semi trailer under the Cooper Street bridge of Interstate 94 westbound in Jackson, Michigan as the storm swept in yesterday

HOW MUCH SNOW? New York City: 8-12 inches Boston: 12 - 18 inches Philadelphia: Up to 12 inches Baltimore: 8 to 12 inches Washington D.C.: 6 - 8 inches Chicago: 3 - 6 inches Detroit: 2 to 3 inches Advertisement

The city previously issued a snow alert for Monday night into Tuesday, expecting snowfall rates of up to 2 to 4 inches per hour Tuesday morning and afternoon, with gusts of up to 50 mph.

'This would certainly be the biggest snowstorm of the 2017 winter season in New York City,' said Faye Barthold, a weather service meteorologist based on Long Island.

President Trump tweeted urging 'everyone be safe' as he met with local authorities in D.C. to discuss preparations there, where the region is experiencing a winter weather warning, alongside mid-Atlantic and Northeast cities including Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore.

Blizzard warnings have been issues for areas in eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, southeast New York, Connecticut, northern Rhode Island, western/central Massachusetts, southeast New Hampshire and southern Maine.

Authorities are warning residents across all affected areas to prepare for the possibility of widespread power outages, road closures and flight disruptions.

WINTER STORM STELLA TIMELINE Forecasters predict that Tuesday's commute will be dangerous as blizzard conditions will make roads and highways impassible. With winds of up to 50mph predicted, whiteout conditions will likely be created for many commuters along the Northeast. Winter Storm Stella is expected to dump up to two feet of snow in New York City, according to National Weather Service forecasters. Below is an hour by hour timeline of what to expect for this winter storm in New York City, according to weather forecasters: TUESDAY: Beginning after midnight snow will begin to fall in the city

Temperatures will drop to around 31 degrees overnight and stay there roughly throughout the morning

National Weather Service meteorologist Melissa Dispigna said around that 'the period of intense snow will probably start around 6am'

About 2 to 4 inches of snow per hour will fall along with winds gusting up to 50mph creating 'whiteout conditions'

At 10:20am, forecasters predict 2 to 3 feet of flooding in coastal areas which is around the time of high tide

In the late morning to early afternoon, snow may be interrupted with some precipitation during this period

By sundown around 7pm, the storm is expected to be roughly finished, though some snow flurries may continue through the evening into the night

Forecasters say winds will continue through the night with temperatures dropping to around 20 degrees WEDNESDAY: Forecasters say that temperatures will rise up to roughly 32 degrees as the winds will continue to blow around 20mph

Snow showers will happened occasionally throughout the day and into the afternoon THURSDAY AND FRIDAY: Forecasters say the sun should come out and temperatures will begin to rise, which will help to melt the snow

Thursday it is expected to be around 36 degrees in the day and on Friday it will be around 41 degrees Advertisement

The brunt of those cancellations took place at Chicago O'Hare International airport, where the city is anticipating its first snow of 2017, which is rare for the exceptionally cold city.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was installing hundreds of pieces of snow equipment at the three New York area airports.

Thousands of tons of salt and sand were prepared for airport roads, parking lots, bridges and tunnels.

'Significant amounts of snow are forecast that will make travel dangerous. Only travel in an emergency. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency,' the weather service said.

Dan Zionce refills the milk section for the third time since the morning at Gerrity's Supermarket in Luzerne, Pennsylvania on Monday. The store was bustling with shoppers buying milk, bread and other groceries in preparations for the storm

Gloria Ann Rinus, of Shavertown, places a half gallon of milk in her shopping cart at Gerrity's Supermarket, in Luzerne on Monday ahead of the storm

States of emergency in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland have all taken effect as of midnight on Monday and 50 million residents are being urged to prepare for the 'life-threatening' storm. Emergency crews are pictured removing wreckage after a crash in Jackson, Michigan yesterday

A Wisconsin Sate Patrol officer checks on a person involved in a crash on Interstate 41 southbound Monday while heavy snow falls during the winter storm that's heading east

Mayor Bill de Blasio warned New Yorkers that 'besides the snow, it will be cold,' while officials recommended that people avoid driving and use mass transit when possible.

Blowing snow and strong winds could lead to whiteout conditions with visibility as poor as a quarter mile, the service said.

Sub-freezing temperatures were forecast in the upper 20s Fahrenheit.

New Yorkers began stocking up on groceries, salt and emergency supplies over the weekend through Monday as they prepared for a snow day inside.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced that all public schools in both cities will be closed Tuesday due to the storm.




A Spanish farmer accused of murdering an American tourist after luring her off a pilgrim trail cut off her hands so no one could identify her, a court heard.

Miguel Angel Munoz Blas has gone on trial in Leon, Spain, accused of killing Denise Pikka Thiem, 41, of Arizona, whose mutilated body was found on his land five months after she disappeared in April 2015.

The 40-year-old may have painted yellow marker signs on a false route along the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail in the country's north west in a bid to lure his prey, it is alleged.

Miguel Angel Munoz Blas (pictured outside court today) has gone on trial in Leon, Spain, accused of killing Denise Pikka Thiem, 41, of Arizona, whose mutilated body was found on his land five months after she disappeared in April 2015

Ms Thiem (pictured) disappeared on April 5 as she was walking along the Camino de Santiago as it passes through Leon

Ms Thiem's hands had been cut off which, the prosecution will allege, was an attempt to disguise her identity and hide DNA under her fingernails when she tried to fight off her attacker. The missing hands have never been found.

Blas, who denies the murder, is facing 25 years in prison if he is found guilty. His defence lawyer says it is untrue that he originally confessed to the crime after being arrested by the police.

He was discovered with American dollars on him but contends he found the money and kept it because no-one claimed it.

Ms Thiem disappeared on April 5 as she was walking along the Camino de Santiago as it passes through Leon.

More than 300 people joined in the search for her but on September 12, the prime suspect was arrested in a bar in the Asturian town of Granda.

Ms Thiem's body was later found hidden on his farm between the towns of Santa Catalina de Somoza and San Martin de Agostedo.

Blas may have painted yellow marker signs on a false route along the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail in the country's north west in a bid to lure his prey, it is alleged (file picture of the trail)

There had been reports that the arrested man had earlier harassed other hikers on the trail, sometimes wearing a balaclava and chasing after them on a bicycle.

Following the death, the authorities issued a message of reassurance to the many thousands of tourists who walk the famous route, saying it was safe to do so.

The autopsy revealed that Ms Thiem suffered a brutal beating and had numerous fractures all over her body but she was not sexually assaulted.

She had a broken jaw, several broken teeth and several ribs and almost certainly died of her severe injuries.

The prosecution is expected to claim that Blas hit his victim on the back of her head with a stick, buried her in front of his house but later dug her body up and found a new more remote location.

Some reports suggest she was still alive when moved but that her attacker inflicted a deep cut to her throat.

Miguel Angel Munoz Blas (pictured) is accused of killing Denise Pikka Thiem whose body was found on his land

Blas says he only found Ms Thiem's body because it was his land and he knew where to look.

A claim of 450,000 euros is being made by the family's lawyer for compensation to her parents and brother.

The court is likely to hear that a yellow marker had been placed on the route pointing away from the correct path in the direction of the defendant's land instead.

The trial is expected to last until April 3 and more than 100 people are due to be called to give evidence, including more than 50 police officers.

Ms Thiem's brother is to give evidence via video conferencing from the United States.

The prosecution is asking for 20 years for murder and five for robbery with violence.
The British wife of embattled French presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been summoned to face magistrates over the fake jobs scandal.

Penelope, 61, who was born in Llanover, Monmouthshire, is suspected of doing little to no work for her salary as a parliamentary assistant.

But the couple insist she played a key role in managing affairs in his central Sarthe constituency.

She also faces allegations that she was unfairly paid 100,000 by a magazine called La Revue des Deux Mondes, owned by a close friend of her husband, for writing a number of short articles.

She has been summoned to appear before judges on March 28 to face the same charges as her husband.

Both have denied any wrongdoing in a case dubbed 'Penelopegate'.

Penelope, 61, who was born in Llanover, Monmouthshire, is suspected of doing little to no work for her salary as a parliamentary assistant

Fillon, a veteran politician who was prime minister from 2007-2012, is accused of using public funds to pay Penelope hundreds of thousands of euros for a suspected fake jobs as a parliamentary assistant.

He is also being investigated over payments to his two eldest children Marie and Charles when he was a senator.

Fillon said his children were paid as lawyers, for specific tasks. But neither was a qualified lawyer at the time.

The charges further damage his chances of winning the two-round April 23-May 7 presidential election, though he was once the front-runner.

He has denied any wrongdoing and claimed there is a 'witch hunt' against him. He has vowed to continue his stuttering campaign.

'The closer we get to the date of the presidential election, the more scandalous it would be to deprive the right and centre of a candidate,' he said.

He had initially said he would step down were he charged with allegations of financial impropriety.

The national financial prosecutor's office said investigating judges filed the charges on Tuesday.

His lawyer Antonin Levy told AFP: 'He was charged this morning. The hearing was brought forward so that it could take place in a calm manner.'

In total, Fillon is accused of misusing public funds, receiving money from the misuse of public funds, complicity in misusing public funds and improper declaration of his assets, among other charges.

He was also charged with misuse of corporate assets.

France's rightwing presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been charged with several offences over a fake jobs scandal

Francois and Penelope Fillon both face more than a decade each in prison if found guilty, but they insist they are popular enough to become President and First Lady of France.

This would allow them presidential immunity from prosecution, meaning they could technically postpone their trial until Fillon had completed his five-year term of office.

The couple met met in 1976 while Penelope was teaching in a French school on a year out from her Bristol University degree course and they married four years later.

They have five children, Marie, Charles, Antoine, Edouard and Arnaud.

Earlier this month, Mrs Fillon said having a corruption scandal named after her was like being 'hit by lightening'.

Speaking about 'Penelopegate', she said: 'When I saw that written for the first time, I was lost for words. That made me feel very bad, my name linked with this immense scandal.

'It really is the opposite of who I think I am. I felt like I'd be hit by lightening. It was the worst moment of my life.'

The charges further damage his chances of winning the two-round April 23-May 7 presidential election

Fillon was once the front runner in the race for the April 23-May 7 election.

However his support dwindled when he was accused of paying hundreds of thousands of euros to his family for work they may not have done.

The 63-year-old was then hit by further controversies last week. His party was forced to apologise on Saturday for tweeting a caricature of rival Emmanuel Macron that Fillon admitted was anti-Semitic.

And on Sunday it emerged an anonymous benefactor had paid nearly 48,500 euros for clothing for Fillon from the jet-set tailor Arnys since 2012.

Following that, he claimed he was the target of a 'witch hunt' by journalists.

Speaking yesterday, he said: 'I am the target of such a number of attacks that I can't consider them anything other than a sort of witch hunt, a kind of campaign against me.'

'What could explain that hundreds of journalists, at the very least dozens, go through my garbage to find out about my suits. Tomorrow it will be my shirts and then why not my underpants as well?' he added.

Fillon is now trailing in third behind centrist Macron, 39, and 48-year-old far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
An American UN official has been kidnapped by militia while travelling through the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Michael Sharp, 34, was among a team riding through the central African country by motorcycle on Sunday when they were abducted by the Kamwina Nsapu militia group, according to officials.

Fellow UN official Zaida Catalan, of Swedish nationality, and four Congolese were also taken near the near the village of Ngombe in the Kasai Central province.

Michael Sharp, 34, (left and right) was among a team riding through the central African country by motorcycle when they were abducted by an unidentified militia group

Fellow UN official Zaida Catalan, of Swedish nationality, and four Congolese were also taken near the near the village of Ngombe in the Kasai Central province

'The ambush took place in a bush where there is neither the police nor the army,' said Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, deputy prime minister in charge of the Interior, according to Jeune Afrique.

'It is indeed young drug addicts belonging to the militia of Kamwina Nsapu who attacked the two experts.'

Shadary also told Jeune Afrique that a Monusco helicopter flew over the area where the kidnapping took place but could not locate the UN experts.

'The administrative and security services are working ... in concert with Monusco (the U.N. mission) to obtain the liberation of the kidnapped persons,' the Congolese government statement signed by Information Minister Lambert Mende said.

Sharp and Catalan were among a UN panel of experts investigating the conflicts that have been simmering in Congo since the mid-1990s, when a civil war spawned dozens of armed groups and drew in half a dozen neighboring armies.

Fellow UN official Zaida Catalan (left and right), of Swedish nationality, and four Congolese were also taken near the near the village of Ngombe in the Kasai Central province

Sharp and fellow kidnap victim Catalan were among a UN panel of experts investigating the conflicts that have been simmering in Congo since the mid-1990s, when a civil war spawned dozens of armed groups and drew in half a dozen neighboring armies

Mende said the two experts left Kananga, the capital of Central Kasai province, where they had met with the head of the country's UN mission on Sunday, headed for the town of Tshimbulu. The town has seen furious clashes between militia and the state army in recent months leaving dozens dead.

Sharp and Catalan were 'accompanied by a Congolese translator, all aboard motorcycles driven by three other Congolese,' said Mende, who added that the local authorities had not been informed that the group would be travelling through.

They were ambushed and kidnapped on the Moyo bridge near the village Ngombe, later that day.

A U.N. spokesman confirmed they were missing and that U.N. peacekeepers were searching for them.

'The United Nations and MONUSCO are doing all that is possible at this moment to locate the two experts,' he said.

'Sadly, it is true,' Michael's father John Sharp, 65, of Hesston, Kansas, told NBC News. 'At one point [during the journey], they were surprised, confronted and taken.'

A U.N. spokesman confirmed that Sharp (pictured) was missing and that U.N. peacekeepers were searching for him

'He and a colleague, another member of a group of experts, and four Congolese people were together,' he said. 'Three were drivers, one a translator and they were going on a mission, we don't know what that mission was.'

The US State Department said it has 'no higher priority than protecting US citizens abroad.'

'When a US citizen is reported missing, we work closely with local authorities and fully cooperate with their research efforts,' he said.

Sharp is a 2001 graduate of Bethany Christian Schools in Goshen, Indiana, and a 2005 graduate of Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

He has been working as a UN expert on the DNC since April 2015. Prior to that, Sharp worked with the Mennonite Central Committee as the Eastern Congo Coordinator.

WHO ARE THE KAMWINA NSAPU MILITIA? Kamwina Nsapu is a militia of majority child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Half are under the age of 14. They are named after their former leader Kamwina Nsapu - born Jean-Pierre Pandi - who inherited the chiefdom from his late father. Nsapu was killed in August 2016 when he led calls to contest the Congolese government and attacked the local police. Congolese government often accuse the militia of being on drugs. Since 2016, the group has been involved in multiple bloody clashes with the state army. In January, four militia fighters were killed and two local police were wounded in clashes, while in February, fighting broke out in Tshimbulu between 300 militia and the armed forces which resulted in more than 100 deaths by the state military, according to the UN. The group have a history of kidnapping after they abducted a Roman Catholic priest from the St. Alphonsus parish in Kananga when he tried to stop the militia from taking children out of schools. He was later released. Advertisement

His father John is a professor at Hesston College in Kansas.

The college has since released a statement to the Mennonite saying the community is 'heavy-hearted at the news of the kidnapping of Michael J. Sharp . Our prayers are with John, Michele and their family as they await more news in this uncertain time, and especially with MJ, his colleagues and those seeking their safe return.'

Family and friends of Sharp have also asked for prayers on Facebook.

Kasai Central province, in remote, heavily forested central Congo, has been riven by clashes between security forces and a local tribal militia called the Kamuina Nsapu since July.

At least 400 people have been killed and 200,000 have been displaced since the fighting broke out when police killed the militia's leader last August, the U.N. mission says.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said last week that three mass graves had been discovered in the area where the clashes are taking place.

Security across Congo has worsened since President Joseph Kabila failed to step down when his mandate expired in December.
Witnesses claimed three officers used excessive force when attempting to arrest Rickeda Jobe (pictured)

An Arizona police department is under investigation after the release of body camera footage that showed them arresting a woman who claimed she was pregnant.

Witnesses claimed three officers used excessive force when attempting to arrest Rickeda Jobe who claimed she was pregnant at the time.

The Gilbert Police Department released on-body camera video taken by three officers during the arrest on March 5.

In the video, the officers are seen restraining Jobe against a police vehicle.

Officers were arresting Jobe for allegedly violating a court order to stay away from a home, according to 3-TV.

Jobe is seen in the video being combative as she kicked one of the officers and screamed: 'I got my son!'

She was referring to her son, who was reportedly down the street. Jobe also screamed that she was pregnant as she was placed in handcuffs.

The Gilbert Police Department released on-body camera video taken by three officers (pictured) during the arrest. In the video, the officers are seen restraining Jobe against a police vehicle on March 5

The officers said they were spit on, kicked and bit by Jobe, but the three camera angles only show her kicking them

The officers said they were spit on, kicked and bit by Jobe, but the three camera angles only show her kicking them.

One officer said: 'Ouch, she bit me in the finger!' And right after, Jobe screamed: 'You just hit me in the face!'

The video doesn't show an officer hitting her in the face nor does it show her biting an officer.

But bystander, Sophia Perez, captured Jobe's arrest on her phone. She claimed one officer 'pulled her hair' and 'they were being rough with her'.

'They were hurting her and she said stop hitting me and spit at an officer and the officer punched her in the face,' Perez wrote in the caption of the video she posted to YouTube.

In Perez's video, it did appear that Jobe spit on one of the officers.

Officers were arresting Jobe for allegedly violating a court order to stay away from a home. Jobe (left and right) is seen in the video being combative as she kicked one of the officers. She screamed that she was pregnant as she was placed in handcuffs

The video doesn't show the an officer hitting her in the face nor does it show her biting an officer. Two of the three officers involved in the arrest were placed on desk assignment pending the outcome of the investigation

And at the moment of the alleged punch in the face, Perez and her mother, both reacted and yelled at the officers: 'Hey! You can't hit her!'

'Why'd you punch her in the face?' Perez's mother screamed at the officer.

Two of the three officers involved in the arrest were placed on desk assignment pending the outcome of the investigation.

Jobe, who suffered some bruises from the arrest, was eventually taken into custody and booked on a number of charges, including aggravated assault on a police officer.
Brutal footage shows a pack of hyenas steal two potential dinners from a rival group of African wild dogs.

The footage was captured at South Africa's Kruger National Park, and shows the dogs trying to surround a lechwe at a waterhole.

It wards them off nobly - charging them with its horns - for quite some time and appears as though he may live to fight another day.

A pack of African wild dogs surround a lechwe at South Africa's Kruger National Park

At one point, the antelope manages to throw four of them off, as it desperately clings to live from the dogs, which have a predominantly black and golden coats, and white on the ends of their tails.

But suddenly, the larger, spotted hyenas appear on the scene and it becomes a question of which predators will take down the kill first, not if it will survive.

The lechwe still puts up a valiant fight, but one of the hyenas latches onto its rear, and a melee around the carcass ensues.

It wards them off nobly - charging them with its horns - for quite some time and appears as though he may live to fight another day

But then a pack of hyenas arrive and take the antelope down, as one of the predators latches onto its rear

A separate clip taken later on shows the African wild dogs feasting on an impala that they have successfully taken down.

But, clearly not satisfied from their earlier lechwe, the same hyena pack stumble across an opportunity for some free seconds.

They charge at the dogs, sending them scattering and picking up the pieces for themselves.



A separate clip taken later on shows the African wild dogs feasting on an impala that they have successfully taken down
Kellyanne Conway is one of the most visible Trump administration officials, often appearing on the cable networks to defend her boss.

Her sudden rise from GOP pollster to 'Trump whisperer' has made her the subject of intrigue since she led the president to a nationwide victory.

A profile in The Atlantic dives into Conway's present role as counselor to Donald Trump, which earned her the desk in the West Wing where Hillary Clinton used to sit, as well as her early years.

Bringing to light a prank that she and Republican pollster Frank Luntz used to play, The Atlantic says the friends would pretend to be a married couple in the throes of a quarrel.

A candid interview with her 73-year-old mother, Diane Fitzpatrick, also reveals Conway's mother's belief that the Obamas 'pitted the blacks against the whites.'

Kellyanne Conway's sudden from GOP pollster to 'Trump whisperer' has made her the subject of intrigue since she led the president to a nationwide victory

Luntz and Conway met in the 1980s when she was an exchange student at Oxford University.

'The smile, the blond hair, the vivaciousness, a little bit flirtatiousshe was just fun,' he told The Atlantic, recalling that she made him try on a Speedo once on a shopping with friends because they thought it would be funny.

They remained close after returning to Washington, D.C. where she attended law school at George Washington University before joining Luntz's polling firm.

It was during those years that they would pretend to be a couple having a heated argument in an elevator as a prank on strangers.

Luntz and Conway grew apart when she left his business to start her own polling company but have become friends again in the years since, the Atlantic's Molly Ball writes.

Ball also traveled to Conway's old stomping grounds of Atco, New Jersey, to speak to her mother.

Like mother, like daughter, Fitzpatrick tore into Ashton Kutcher for trashing Trump at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in the interview.

'Id like to kick the TV in, honest to God,' she said.

Fitzpatrick also ripped former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle.

'If something happened to a black person, he and his wife were right there. But if something happened to a white person, you never saw them, did you?' she stated.

Conway, the profile revealed, first met Trump in 2006, when she and her husband were living in Trump World Tower in Manhattan.

The condo board wanted to take the billionaire's name off the building and Conway's husband, George, a lawyer, argued in defense of him. George was then offered a seat on the association's board, but he declined. His wife accepted, instead.

Trump wasn't the first candidate she backed in the 2016 election - Conway was originally behind Ted Cruz. She switched her support to Trump when he became the GOP nominee and was brought on as him campaign manager in August.

Conway and Republican pollster Frank Luntz pretended to be a married couple in the throes of a quarrel in elevators as a prank when she worked for him, a profile on her revealed. Luntz and Trump are pictured at forum in 2015

She's been loyal ever since, arguing in the transition process that Trump should bypass Mitt Romney for secretary of state for the insults he hurled at him during the Republican primary.

'I just told him that I know how things go,' she told The Atlantic. 'Every single time Secretary of State Mitt Romney would have deplaned in a foreign country  they would go to the B-roll of him in front of the orange-and-white background, mocking Trump Water, Trump Steaks, Trumps character, his integrity, his messagehim. And that would never have gone away, and he deserves better.'

Her fierce loyalty to Trump, even after the release of the Hollywood Access tape of him bragging about sexual assault, earned her a spot in the West Wing at the desk that was previously Valerie Jarrett's.

It was also Karl Roves and former first lady Hillary Clinton's.

That loyalty has also kept Conway in Trump's good graces, despite verbal flubs about 'alternative facts' and the non-existent 'Bowling Green massacre.'

Conway told The Atlantic that no one cares about the 'alternative facts' gaffe except elites and pundits. 'It was haters talking to each other and it was the media,' she said.

Conway is performing for an audience of one, the president, and he told her to let Meet the Press host Chuck Todd know he was unhappy with the way she was treated in the contentious interview.

'So anybody trying to divide us here is going to have the opposite effect. He thought that was one of my best appearances. Because he watched the whole thing,' she said.
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Spanish police have released incredible images of an enormous weapons haul seized from an organised criminal gang.

The collection includes more than 10,000 assault rifles, machine guns, revolvers, pistols and 400 grenades and mortars.

Authorities said some of the weapons were even 'capable of shooting down aircraft.'

Spanish police have released incredible images of an enormous weapons haul seized from an organised criminal gang

Four men and one woman were arrested after raids in Cantabria, Girona, and Vizcaya in January.

The criminals had been operating under the front of a historical weapons workshop near Bilbao that bought supposedly defunct firearms online.

The weapons were restored and sold on the black market throughout Europe, according to police.

The haul is believed to have an estimated black market value of around 10 million (8.75 million).

The collection includes more than 10,000 assault rifles, machine guns, revolvers, pistols and 400 grenades and shells

Four men and one woman were arrested after raids in Cantabria, Girona, and Vizcaya in January. Cash amounting to 80,000 (70,000) was also seized

Cash amounting to 80,000 (70,000) was also seized.

Europol, which supported the operation, revealed the firearms were sold in Spain, France and Belgium.

It was previously reported that terrorists are finding it easier than ever to get guns because of the flow of illegal weapons flowing from the Balkans into the heart of western Europe.

The haul is believed to have an estimated black market value of around 10 million (8.75 million), according to police

A spokesman for the Spanish Government said at the time: 'This modus operandi used to purchase weapons is the same as the one used for the attacks carried out in Paris on January 7th, 2015, against employees of the satirical weekly "Charlie Hebdo", in which 12 people were killed and another 11 injured, all with recommissioned weapons acquired at the time from a Slovak gunsmith.'

The Spanish Government says police are continuing to crackdown on the illegal sale of weapons to organised crime gangs and terrorists.
Lisa Peterson has been jailed for life for shooting her husband dead after he told her he wanted a divorce

A wife shot her husband dead after he told her he wanted a divorce and took her to try to find a new home, a court heard.

Lisa Peterson, 57, called police in Oregon City and told them she was going to shoot herself - but then turned the gun on her husband of 16 years, Joseph Peterson, 59.

She has been jailed for life at Clackamas County Circuit Court having admitted carrying out the murder on February 11, 2016.

Last year it was reported that Peterson was left distraught when her husband announced his intention to divorce her in October 2015.

Court documents revealed how they had been looking for a new home for her the day the shooting took place, according to Oregon Live.

When they got home she took a .380-caliber pistol intending to shoot her husband, she told investigators.

But she ended up shooting him in the chest in the dining room of their home.

After the shooting, she called 911 to tell police what had happened.

She later claimed that she had intended to shoot herself after murdering her husband but that the gun had jammed, Oregon Live reports.

Peterson must spend 25 years behind bars before being eligible for parole.

Lisa Peterson, 57, was jailed for life at Clackamas County Circuit Court (pictured) having admitted carrying out the killing on February 11, 2016




Underworld figures have denied that Pasquale Barbaro was a police informant  a rumour believed to be closely tied to the kingpin's brazen execution.

An associate who wished to remain anonymous vowed the Mafiosa never ratted affiliates out during his high-profile bail deal with the authorities in 2013.

The infamous deal involved Barbaro trading in a cache of powerful guns for his release from remand on $300,000 bail, according to Sydney Morning Herald.

The flashy gangster was gunned down by two hooded hitmen while he sat in a silver Mercedes outside the home of an associate in Earlwood, in Sydney's southwest.

Underworld figures have denied that Underworld figure Pasquale Barbaro was a police informant

An associate who wished to remain anonymous vowed the Mafiosa never ratted anybody out during his high-profile bail deal

'They were his own guns and he never implicated anyone else but himself  so how does that make him a police informer?' the associate said.

Another veteran gangland figure cast doubt on the allegations, saying rivals only came out of the woodwork after he died.

'Nobody had the guts to say that to Pas' face when he was alive. But they've got no problem saying it now that he's dead, when there are no consequences.'

The rumour was believed to have gained traction after an estranged relative took to social media one day after the killing.

Barbaro was due to front the Sydney District Court in December over charges of manufacturing two kilograms of the drug 'ice'.

Underworld sources claim Barbaro, who was suspected of involvement in at least one murder, owed $1 million to a gang and wore a bullet proof vest in the weeks before his death.

The deal involved Barbaro handing in a cache of high-powered guns in exchange for his release from remand on $300,000 bail

Barbaro was due to front the Sydney District Court in December over charges of manufacturing two kilograms of the drug 'ice'
A Marine veteran has been held on a $3million bail suspected of stabbing an ordained minister to death after following him to the building site where he lived.

Mikhail Schmidt, 30, pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of Jacob Laughlin Bravo.

The victim's body was found dumped in a trailer on the Oceanside construction site on Windward Way where several million-dollar homes are being built in San Diego.

Mikhail Schmidt, 30, pictured here in the white top, is accused of the murder and has taken up triathlons since leaving the US Marines

Jacob Laughlin Bravo's body was found on Thursday with stab wounds to his neck and back

Mr Bravo, 37, was followed home to a trailer on a construction site before he was killed

Prosecuting attorney Cal Logan said Bravo was followed home to his trailer by his killer, who waited for him to fall asleep before plunging a knife into his neck and back several times.

Hours after the victim's body was found on Thursday, Schmidt was arrested.

He was just two blocks away from the scene of the crime.

Mr Bravo's family said he was a 'kind soul'

Defense attorney Brad Patton wanted his client's bail to be set at $1million because of Schmidt's clean record, but the judge disagreed and set it at $3million due to him being 'an extreme danger to the community', according to NBC.

The suspect served for eight years with the US Marine Corps and worked his way up to Staff Sergeant before leaving in August 2013.

He spent time stationed overseas in Iraq and his last post was as a Marine Combat Instructor with the Infantry Training Battalion-West at Camp Pendleton, according to a military source.

Since leaving the forces, he has taken up triathlons, and relentlessly posted about his training on social media.

The 37-year-old victim did not know his suspected killer.

He was an ordained minister thanks to a certificate from the Universal Life Church and his relatives have described him as a 'kind soul' and that 'his beautiful smile will always be remembered'.

Bravo was an avid snowboarder and was in the process of learning to become a plumber.

The motive for the murder is still unclear.
Alex Sanchez still remembers the first time he saw a machete whipped out in a gang fight in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It was during 'a rumble in a park with about 80 people fighting each other,' he says  and it marked a turning point for MS-13, the gang of Salvadoran immigrant children who formed his social circle and support network.

'It did have an impact, more like a psychological impact, on other gangs  which elevated the way that they respected' MS-13, he says.

Sanchez could not have realized it at the time, but he was witnessing the evolution of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha 13, which would become increasingly brutal and turn the gang into one of the most dangerous and feared criminal organizations operating across the country today.

Earlier this month, 13 MS-13 members were charged in a 41-count indictment on Long Island that included seven murder charges, racketeering, attempted murder assault, obstruction of justice and arson. The murders included the brutal September killings of teenage best friends Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, both students at Brentwood High School in Suffolk County.

MS-13 also made headlines this month after two suspected members in Houston were charged with allegedly murdering another teenage girl as part of a 'satanic' ritual  and the defendants were pictured grinning widely in court.

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Alex Sanchez, 44, became a member of MS-13 in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. He served time in prison and was deported before leaving the gang life behind and now serves as executive director of outreach non-profit Homies Unidos, which works for community intervention and prevention and seeks to help at-risk youth

Miguel Alvarez-Flores, left, and Diego Hernandez-Rivera appear in court on Thursday, March 2, 2017 in Houston. Both immigrants from El Salvador, who allegedly had a satanic shrine which one of their victims insulted, are charged in connection with the murder of one teenager and the kidnapping of another

MS-13 members have been charged on Long Island in connection with the murders of best friends Nisa Mickens, left, and Kayla Cuevas, right, who had been 'feuding' with gang members on social media. Authorities said Mickens was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time

But Alex Sanchez is one of the few who remembers the less murderous beginnings in the 1980s of Mara Salvatrucha 13, whose name meaning continues to be a source of debate. 'Mara' means 'group,' while 'Salvatrucha' could refer to Salvadoran Civil War guerrillas of the same name -but could also be a mash-up of words loosely translated to mean 'street smart.'

He came to the United States illegally in 1979 when he was seven years old; he had been raised from the age of three by neighbors on the outskirts of El Salvador's capital until his immigrant parents sent for him from Los Angeles. Together with his brother, he made the traumatic journey from Central America to California in the company of a couple who passed them off as their own children  then handed them back to Sanchez's parents in, of all places, Los Angeles' Skid Row. Nothing got easier from there; Sanchez had a tumultuous domestic life with the parents he didn't remember, was thrown into a school where he barely spoke the language and Salvadorans were vastly outnumbered by other Latinos.

He kept to himself until, in a heart-breaking anecdote, he was playing with a paper airplane at school one day when it landed on the feet of another student, a bully, who smashed the simple toy into Sanchez's face. The child saw red and beat the bully senseless.

'He became the receiver on the other end of all the anger that I was holding in inside, all the pain, all the abuse  everything that I was holding inside, this kid became the recipient of it,' he says. 'And there was no intervention, there was nobody to help me understand what I was going through, there was nowhere I could go.

'I learned that day that if I felt in any way disrespected or hurt, all I had to do was punch him in the mouth  because I felt good after I let out all that anger inside of me in this way. I felt great. I felt exhausted, but it was therapeutic for me.'

Not long after he discovered this affinity for violence, in middle school he befriended a group of kids  other Salvadorans  who had banded together and 'also had a lot of issues.'

'Some of them called themselves gang members,' he says. 'This El Salvadoran kid told me he was part of MS-13, but at that time it was MSS13.'

The extra 'S,' he explains, stood for 'stoner'  because the initial origins of the gang, while perhaps not ideal, were far from the violence which would come to strike fear into the hearts of MS-13 enemies.

'They were into heavy metal music and using marijuana, but in reality, it was more than that  it was kids, what they had done differently in regards to what I had done in dealing with the issues that I was facing they were facing, was the fact that I suppressed my identity. I suppressed who I was.

'With them, what they had done was they had reunited together to protect themselves and not losing that identity of who they were, and that's what they had called this group. They didn't even consider themselves a gang, they called themselves 'mara'. That wasn't a word that was used as a gang; it was just, 'la mara' is basically a word that was used to talk about your group of friends, hanging around with a crew of your friends. So that's what it was used for.

'Even the 13 wasn't related to the thirteenth letter of the alphabet,' he insists; many reports state the number was adopted in alliance with the Mexican Mafia because 'm' is the 13th letter of the alphabet.

'Thirteen was the gothic symbol of bad luck and gothic and kind of that heavy metal perspective at that time,' he says.

Eventually, though, MS-13 began drawn into the ubiquitous gang culture of Los Angeles as different cultures butted heads. It became more about ethnic protection than anything else as gangs attacked different groups to mark territory and establish dominance. Two MS-13 members  one of whom Sanchez knew personally  were targeted and murdered in such a way; MS-13 then joined the retaliatory, brutal cycle of violence. Incarceration for infractions ranging from minor to serious also solidified the gang transformation, he says  whereas intervention and recognition that these were disenfranchised kids who needed support could have perhaps put a stop to it.

13-SECOND INITIATION BEATINGS, A VOW OF LOYALTY AND A STRICT CODE OF SILENCE

'Once kids started going into juvenile hall with long hair, they were mandated to shave it off, 'he says, referring to MS-13's heavy metal origins. 'Suddenly our hair was slicked back and we looked similar to the other gang members in juvenile hall. By the time you end up coming out of jail, you know, you have this attitude. Already you've been influenced by the Chicano traditional gangs, and that's what happened with MS-13. It was transformed into a gang.'

Alex Sanchez pictured in Chuckwalla State Prison in Blythe, California, while he was still an active member of MS-13. He later left the gang to devote himself to his son and is a well-known violence prevention and youth activist in Los Angeles

Alex Sanchez was able to extricate himself from MS-13 without incident because the gang saw he was committed to his family. He says MS-13 will allow members out particularly if they turn to religion, though that was not the case in his story

The group was getting more brutal; Sanchez recalls his own initiation at the back of a building, when current members of the gang beat him for 13 seconds  a tradition which persists.

'I tried to punch back, but you can't take down six people punching you at the same time  so you go down,' he says. 'And then you just take cover. You cover your testicles, you cover your face, and then you ride with it.'

The initiation 'has to happen in the neighborhood,' he says.

The main rules, then and now, were to protect your own.

'One of the premier rules is to always back each other up, so if there's a confrontation, you need to back each other up. There'll be consequences' if you don't, he says.

'The other thing was, we don't tell . If we were to get arrested, not to talk to law enforcement, not to snitch. If we get beat up, we don't call the cops. We go to retaliate. Not to get the police involved in gang confrontation was an overall rule. Generally, people that would call police, it was looked at as weakness: you can't handle your own.'

He explains: 'An average day for us was, 'Let's go to the park, let's go get some food, let's get some marijuana.' It's all about hanging around. Typically, you'd go weeks without being confronted by violence  but the issue came when there might have been one of us in the group that was not having a good day.'

Someone may have gotten into a fight at home or in school or been dumped by a girlfriend, he offers as examples.

'And he comes to the neighborhood, he sees everybody just hanging around, and he says, 'You know what? We've gotta go put it somewhere, we've gotta go do something.'

That's when the gang would target a rival member to make trouble, he says  and to release that anger.

Weapons on display at the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston in June 2016 following the arrest of 56 members of MS-13. The gang is infamous for its violence, especially involving machetes - which are a traditional tool of life and work in El Salvador

A memorial pays tribute in Brentwood, Long Island to teenage victims Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, who was beaten so severely with bats and machetes that her body was nearly unrecognizable

But the machetes were really what set MS-13 apart from the other gangs. As in many indigenous Central American populations, they were a staple of the culture, used for everything from work to ornamentation. The kids from El Salvador had grown up around them but the blades strongly intimidated their rivals.

'The whole issue of the machete was enough, I guess, to change the level of shock that somebody with a machete running after you has,' he says.

But as MS-13 was evolving, so, too, was the gang violence in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 90s.

'So all of a sudden, when the MS-13 was being known as using machetes, other gangs came in with Uzis, right? Submachine guns,' he says. 'And then all of a sudden, you know, you're looking at AK-47s.'

YOUNG IMMIGRANTS WERE SCARRED AND DESENSITIZED BY WAR AND ATROCITIES BACK AT HOME

More and more young Salvadoran immigrants were pouring in, as well, who had witnessed the brutality of the country's notorious civil war between the military-led government and left-wing guerrilla groups. Even as the conflict ramped up before his 1979 departure, Sanchez says, it was not uncommon for him to come across decapitated bodies on his way to school.

'The level of violence that had been created in our country, many of the kids were being exposed to a lot of the inhumane tactics used by the military,' he says. 'The military was being trained by the school of the Americas.'

He adds: 'Many of the military people that were going after the so-called guerrilla fighters were using tactics to shock and awe. So one of the tactics they were using was dismembering people; they would decapitate a woman and put her head in the stomach and sit her on a stick in the community. Nobody could touch that woman for days.

'Why? Because it created a shock. They would say that they were sympathizers of the guerrillas. So what would happen? It will create this shock. Children were being exposed to this level of violence. So if the government is already teaching these kids how to act, how do you suppose we're going to act?'

Locals look down at the body of an executed man left beside a road on the outskirts of San Salvador, El Salvador on April 1, 1983. The country was engaged in what became a brutal 13-year civil war between right-wing government forces and left-wing guerrilla factions

Children in El Salvador during the civil war were often given military training by factions such as guerrilla group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN); even juveniles not involved in fighting were subjected to incredible levels of violence and atrocities

Government soldiers gather around the body of a rebel in the countryside of El Salvador during the country's civil war, which would eventually claim more than 75,000 lives before it ended in 1992. Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans fled to the United States to escape the violence during the conflict

Sanchez he didn't see anything of that level of violence during his MS-13 days, but it's widely accepted that many of the Salvadoran immigrant members of MS-13 were desensitized by the atrocities they had witnessed at home. Their tolerance for violence likely escalated the gang's tactics.

What Sanchez did witness, however, was a hardening of the gang. MS-13 members, including himself, were actively seeking to go to prison to prove themselves. He, for example, deliberately stole a car to get caught and imprisoned on a grand theft auto charge (GTA).

'We played for a GTA,' he says  which sent him to prison for two years  'because I wanted to beat my friends.

'You know the whole thing about going to prison as punishment? I didn't think of it as that way. As a matter of fact, gang members looked at going to prison as a rite of passage,' he says. 'I want to go to prison, I wanna go to the baddest prison to earn this reputation it'll give me.' The whole mentality of policymakers that you'd be afraid to go to prison, it doesn't make sense to the common gang member  because you never asked. You never get the involvement of those involved in gangs in regard to rehabilitation.

'I had a bet with one of my friends to see who got to prison first. We met in juvenile hall, so when I finally got to prison, I see him coming by all shackled up; I'm in a cage. Two guards are bringing him across from me and I see him. He looks at me and smiles. He tells me, 'I beat you.' I said, 'Only by a week.'

Tattoos were also taking on more importance to MS-13  not because they were mandatory, he says, but to show off and to show loyalty.

'It also showed that you'd been in places, tattoos of certain towers in prisons, because you started being influence by more traditional gangs, and those traditional gangs had tattoos,' he says.

'You start changing as you become more adapted to the gang lifestyle. You start believing in it, you start breathing it, you start creating it into a belief system that you've gotta die or kill for those letters and numbers  to the point that everything you do, your behavior, your thoughts, your actions lead to your attitude being changed around. Your life and everything is about your gang. So you end up separating it, you end up believing it as you would believe in a religion, in a cult-like setting.'

He was deported from prison back to El Salvador when he was 21, where he continued his affiliation with MS-13  not least because he hadn't lived in the country for 16 years, barely knew his family or the landscape and would be unable to get a job because of his gang tattoos. There he became a target of the death squads being deployed to eradicate the gangs; he repeatedly tried to get back to America illegally before finally succeeding in 1995. He had an infant son he'd never met in Los Angeles, and he was getting sick of gang life  though he knew little else and his MS-13 contacts helped him to get a minimum wage job back in LA.

Alex Sanchez, left, with a group of participants at a youth leadership community presentation. He left behind his gang life and now works with young people through Homies Unidos to implement programs for at-risk youth and their families, as well as advocating for intervention strategies, racial tolerance and cultural understanding

GETTING OUT IS POSSIBLE EVEN WHEN GANG LIFE IS ALL THAT MEMBERS HAVE KNOWN

'I said, 'Maybe I can stay out for a year, maybe I can stay out and be a father to my kid,' he says. 'I had to learn my way in the process of that. The gang left me alone; they saw that I was being a father to my son. They saw that I couldn't be actively involved in their daily gang activities, so they left me alone.'

His transition out of the gang was anticlimactic, and he says that  while different faction of MS-13 in different states or countries vary in their rules  the gang will usually let members leave if they commit to religion, family or a new, clear dedication.

Alex Sanchez believes the development of MS-13 could have been stopped by different policies or more support for young immigrants from Central America

He ended up co-founding the Los Angeles chapter of Homies Unidos, a non-profit organization which originated in San Salvador with the aim of helping disenfranchised youth. He has been active in gang intervention and prevention with the non-profit in Los Angeles since 1998, particularly within the Central American communities.

'It's not like I turned my back away from my old gang, but I turned around and I raised my arms to embrace them to come and seek help and not only them but all the gangs around here,' he says.

He has watched, however, as MS-13 has spread across the country and internationally, with many cliques operating by their own often dangerous and sensationalist rules. He points to documentaries and articles outlining some of the more gruesome acts attributed to the gang as possible recruiting tools or leaping points for spiraling violence.

'I think that sensationalism of the gang subculture has  many subgroups just start on their own without having properly been initiated by members of the gang. That I've seen. I've seen that whole cliques have never had somebody originally from the gang started it; they evolved on their own, behind what they've experienced or seen on the media or documentaries or whatnot.'

He points to the in Houston in which two young men  who became infamous for their courtroom grins  allegedly killed a teenager as part of a satanic sacrifice.

'The gang overall is not into sacrificing or devil worshiping; this is an isolated incident,' he says.

He does concede, however, that the continued close association between MS-13 cliques in Central America and the United States is influencing the escalating violence, though it may not happen on a regular basis or as an overall gang tactic.

'To decapitate a body, to dismember a body, to bury them, those are the things that governments were doing in Central America,' he says. 'It was never a tactic of gang members here in Los Angeles to get so close and personal.

Diego Hernandez-Rivera, left, and Miguel Alvarez-Flores, right, laughed in a Houston court and waved at news crews despite the severity of the charges against them and the brutality of the crimes they allegedly committed

Genesis Cornejo, 15, was allegedly killed as part of a satanic ritual by two Houston members of MS-13, which has spread across the United States and Central America. The teenager had been reported missing by her family before her body was found dumped on a street

Alleged MS-13 gang members lie on the ground during a raid in San Salvador, El Salvador in March 2012. While the gang originated in Los Angeles, it still has huge ties to El Salvador and has spread to other Central American countries such as Honduras and Nicaragua

Long Island authorities take into custody an alleged MS-13 member on March 2, 2017. Thirteen people, including ten immigrants, have been charged in connection with seven murders, racketeering, arson, conspiracy and other counts

'But it's the level of violence that exists around Central America and in Mexico, for that matter, that has impacted also the level of violence that the gangs [employ] and the way that they're using that on each other. It's the shock and awe attitude again.'

And despite of Sanchez's activism locally and nationally  he actually traveled to Long Island last autumn to advise about the gang problem  his transition from gang life hasn't been all smooth sailing. It certainly hasn't been made any easier by the government. US authorities tried to deport him again before he received political asylum in 2002, when it was determined his life would be in danger if he returned to El Salvador.

Then, in 2009, Los Angeles authorities arrested him under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act; prosecutors argued he was living something of a double life and remained a shot-caller for MS-13 who had ordered a hit. All charges were dropped in 2013.

'I'm still working, I'm still helping,' he says. 'I'll tell you what has happened, that now El Salvador has named gangs as terrorist organizations, now it impedes me from being able to connect with them directly to try to mediate or whatnot to create some type of truce. So I cannot communicate with them anymore, because the El Salvadoran government might say I'm abetting terrorism. How do we work with that?

'How do we work with the youth to help that need employment, that need re-entry, when the government's saying we're going to be abetting terrorism?'

He adds: 'There's always a constant fear that I need to be walking a straight line, because yes, they went after me on a federal RICO case, they've gone after me for deportation; I don't want them to go after me under terrorism. I don't want to end up in Guantanamo Bay next.

'But we need to do something about it, and the government's not doing it the way that it's supposed to.'
A BBC One sketch showing a mugging victim 'inviting' his ordeal by dressing a 'provocatively wealthy' has split opinion on the internet.

Tracey Ullman took a swipe at the 'victim blaming' culture of sexual assaults with a video showing an alternative crime being handled in the same way.

The victim, who was robbed at knifepoint, begins explaining his ordeal when Ullman, playing a detective, asks: Is this what you were wearing when it happened?

Tracey Ullman has taken a swipe at the 'victim blaming' culture of sexual assaults in her BBC One show with a video showing an alternative crime being handled in the same way

As he tries to gauge the relevance of her question, she butts in by adding: 'You look quite provocatively wealthy.'

He replies that he fails to see what this has to do with the crime, but she again interrupts with: 'Well, just a bit of an invitation, isn't it? Like you're advertising it'

She then beckons a counsellor into the room, who gives an insincere 'oh dear' when Ullman explains what has happened to the man.

The counsellor asks if he has been drinking, to which Ullman adds: 'Yes, because if you'd had a drink you could send out some confusing signals.

'Lead someone on with the nice suit and the phone, and then at the last minute say, "I don't want to be mugged".

The victim tries to explain that he had no choice but to hand over his belongings, Ulman asks: 'And you just gave them to him?'.

A man sat in a police station after just being mugged at knifepoint, but is bemused when Ullman begins asking him what he was wearing

She then beckons a counsellor into the room, who gives an insincere 'oh dear' when Ullman explains what has happened to the man

'Did you even scream?' The counsellor adds.

Ullman continues: 'See, how is somebody to know that you don't enjoy handing over your possessions, unless you make your intentions clear.'

They conclude that he is going to have to accept some of the responsibility for being mugged.

The skit ends with another officer telling Ullman that a citizen is receiving abusive emails, and she suggests that him using a certain type of font may have caused this.

Lindsey Kushner QC has warned women that, if they get drunk, they could be targeted by sex offenders

It follows one of Britain's most senior female judges warning drunken women that they will be a target for rapists as she retired from the bench last week.

Lindsey Kushner QC said all women were entitled to 'drink themselves into the ground' but she warned their 'disinhibited behaviour' put them in danger of being raped by men who 'gravitate' to drunken females.

She spoke out as she jailed a man for six years after he raped a drunken girl he met in a Burger King in Manchester city centre in July last year.

And the piece attracted praise from those who felt such an important issue needed sufficient coverage.

Honesty Willoughby posted: 'This is satire and clever because it exposes the warped logic about how women who've been raped or sexually harassed are treated by all aspects of society when they strike up the courage to actually say something. Many robbers who stole your objects which can be often replaced easily is jailed for longer time than rapists who stole your identity and self worth.'

Gillian Machin added: I applaud them for highlighting a very real issue. However, it seems to me that the trouble with using satire in this scenario is that it hits the mark with those who are already switched on to the issue, but goes completely wide of the mark with those who most need to understand.'

The piece attracted praise from those who felt such an important issue needed sufficient coverage

However, several people - mostly male - pointed out that the facts made in the skit about it being the man's fault are partially true.

David Bowdish said: 'Honestly, if you walk in the wrong place at the wrong time in expensive cloths and expensive jewelry flashing, you ARE increasing your odds of being robbed. It is a perfect analogy.

'It may not be the victim's fault, but there is no free pass if you are street-stupid. The more you make yourself a target, the greater chance that you become a victim.'
President Donald Trump tried to keep the focus on February job gains rather than his endangered health care plan, sending out a simple tweet declaring 'JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!'

Trump included a screen shot taken from the Fox Business Network, showing industry-by-industry gains in employment for his first full month in office  including 28,000 manufacturing jobs.

The source of the report was the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data was contained in a BLS report that came out four days ago.

Trump is putting much more stock in agency statistics now that he can cheer a jobs report that he likes, after questioning the government's statistics as 'phony' when jobs reports came in under President Obama during the campaign.

He sent the brief tweet on a day when his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, mocked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for its own numbers.

President Trump tweeted about four-day-old job statistics on a day when the GOP health bill he is backing was taking heat for a nonpartisan analysis showing 24 million would lose their health insurance

'CBO is really good at counting money, but we have never understood why people expect them to be really good at counting insurance coverage. They are not very good at it,' Mulvaney said Tuesday.

Mulvaney also mocked the CBO by saying it couldn't even describe the weather, saying during a blizzard that 'according to the Congressional Budget Office it's sunny and 75.'

Trump regularly hails job figures individual companies have promised to create. Last week, he hailed another statistic showing hiring, this one containing data from private payroll company ADP.

'Great news. We are only just beginning. Together, we are going to #MAGA!' Trump wrote, referencing his campaign slogan.

Trump hailed sector-by-sector job gains on Tuesday on Twitter

Trump hailed a private analysis of job gains last week

On Friday, the administration trumpeted Labor Department statistics showing employment gains of 235,000 jobs in February, with a decline of the unemployment rate to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent.

The report beat expectations, although it trailed February job gains in prior years.

"Great news for American workers: economy added 235,000 new jobs, unemployment rate drops to 4.7% in first report for @POTUS Trump," tweeted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

"Not a bad way to start day 50 of this administration," he said later. Spicer later took heat for apparently violating a rule on commenting on government labor stats during the first hour in which they are released.

The data Trump tweeted Tuesday showed manufacturing gains of 28,000 and health care gains of 27,000. Employment in private education rose by 29,000, and in construction rose by 58,000. There was a 26,000 drop in retail trade following a 40,000 gain in January.
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Twerking in full view of parents with young children, smoking joints and passing out drunk on the sand: Spring Break students caused chaos in Miami over the weekend and on Monday.

More than 5,000 college kids descended on the white sand of Miami Beach, Florida  causing a headache for cops charged with keeping the peace.

Many were smoking marijuana  a misdemeanor punishable with a year in jail and a $1,000 fine in Florida  and drug dealers were spotted openly plying their trade on the beach.

The penalty for drug dealing is jail time of five years for those with more than 20g of the substance on their person and a $5,000 fine, although that increases to 15 years and $25,000 for those with more than 2kg.

And despite alcohol being banned on the beach, many students were spotted swigging from bottles of tequila and brandy, as well as beer bought from stores on nearby Ocean Drive.

Despite the stiff penalties linked to smoking drugs, students spoken to by DailyMail.com appeared unconcerned.

Jessica, Susan, Margie and Felicia, all 21, who said they were University of Iowa students, were seen casually smoking weed on the beach with their friends.

Jessica said: 'We've been drinking vodka and smoking joints. All the other Spring Breakers come here to the beach too so it's really cool.'

She added: 'We're here until Friday. We're planning to go to the beach every day and party every night. Don't make us look too bad by the way - we do want to get jobs one day.'

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University of Iowa students (from left) Sudan, Margie and Jessica, all 21, and who said they were University of Iowa students, were seen casually smoking weed on the beach with their friends. One girl in the background looks on with a facial expression of half horror and half confusion

A boy in the group mugs for the camera with the joint to his lips, as his friends pose behind him

Expectation vs reality: But the act of smoking was more difficult for some than others. Jessica, a girl in the group (not pictured), said: 'We're here until Friday. We're planning to go to the beach every day and party every night. Don't make us look too bad by the way - we do want to get jobs one day'

Three women in skimpy bikinis make their way down the beach in Miami, Florida. More than 5,000 college kids descended on the area  causing a headache for cops charged with keeping the peace

Despite alcohol being banned on the beach, huge crowds of Spring Breakers formed - some raising fraternity flags - to party on the sand

A group of friends seemed to be loving their trip as they hugged each other and posed for a photo

Springbreakers also brought the party to the ocean, where they took turns drinking from a bag of wine - despite a ban on drinking on the beach

Perhaps in an attempt to get that perfect shot for Instagram, many got into creative positions near the water in order to fully showcase their tropical vacation

And students weren't the only ones to make the most of their vacation; one police officer joined the fun by laughing and talking with partiers

To add an element of danger to the mix, a man repping Ohio State even had a large snake wrapped around his neck

As a result, DailyMail.com witnessed a number being carried off the beach by friends, while others were given a helping hand by police.

By 6pm on Monday, as students began making their way off the beach, the cops were out in force, with a prison van driven on to the beach at 5pm in anticipation of arrests.

On Friday alone, 35 arrests were made  the majority for being drunk and disorderly  with a further 53 on Saturday and 41 on Sunday. Monday had the most, at 55, as the trend went up.

Officer J. Rodriguez of the Miami Beach police department said: 'There's always a few arrests every day during Spring Break  most for being drunk and disorderly.

'It's mostly because they [students] can't handle their liquor. Look at them  they can't handle it.'

He added: 'We're always expecting some trouble. Have a look at the beach between 5 and 6pm and it will all be going off.

'All of us are doing overtime during Spring Break  it goes on for five weeks. It's usually worse at the weekends. Come on Friday, Saturday or Sunday and you'll see cops everywhere.'

Ice, ice baby: This man clearly had the key to beach-side romance as he a clutched a pack of gum behind his back while a woman wrapped her arms around his neck

Other partiers had different accessories for the day: sunglasses and a bag of wine

The police officer chatting with partygoers was also spotted taking a picture with one woman, who stood on the back of his beach police crusier and stuck her tongue out

One woman sporting flash tats looked on with amusement as her friend twerked by the water's edge

She then clearly decided to get in on the fun and showed another friend her moves

The group of friends, each wearing colorful, patterned bikinis, took time away from dancing to take a photo together

Others seemed less content at their surroundings; two women spotted clutching drinks in pineapple cups looked unhappy as they checked their phones

A full range of beach attire was on display, as some opted for more simplistic choices

Three women in matching white bathing suits - who accessorized with pastel fannypacks - posed for the camera by the water

On the days DailyMail.com visited, 10 police ATV vehicles, four cop cars and a prison van could be seen patrolling the sand, while other officers kept an eye on the scene from a tower positioned at the top of the beach.

But that wasn't enough to deter students, some of whom had traveled from as far as Connecticut, from partying on the sand.

Most came prepared with portable speakers  playing loud rap music in defiance of a local ordinance banning thumping music on the beach, while cops turned a blind eye.

Others were spotted twerking in large dancing circles, flashing their breasts, sporting an array of highly revealing bikinis and openly smoking joints on the sand.

Later on, a number of students were seen fighting, including a couple whose bust-up became so vicious, it required an intervention from cops, who told them: 'You're here to have fun, you don't need a record as well'.

Not all of the college kids appreciated the police effort, however. Ali Castrovillari and Jessica Guardado, both 21 and students at the University of Rhode Island, told DailyMail.com: 'F*** the cops. Cops are no fun  they drive around and ruin everything.'

Jessica added: 'I'm here to party and I stayed up until 8am this morning. Miami is pretty expensive but you've got to live in the moment, and anyway, money is for spending.

'I'm here with all my best friends, so I'm having a blast.'

Armani Haas, 21, who traveled from Case Western University in Ohio, added: 'Miami has been a lot of fun, it has been great.

'The craziest thing I've seen so far is a couple banging in the ocean on the first night we were here. You see a lot of weird things.'

Miami is one of the most popular Spring Break destinations, despite being relatively expensive, and in south Florida, is only beaten by Fort Lauderdale  a 30-mile drive up the coast. It too had a string of arrests - 82 on Saturday, the same number on Sunday and 86 on Monday.

Other popular Florida destinations include Panama City Beach, Daytona Beach and the southernmost city in the U.S., Key West.

Events in Miami during Spring Break include boat and beach parties, as well as performances from artists like Ty Dolla Sign, who took to the stage at the popular club Liv on Sunday night.

One man walking out of the ocean looked a little worse for the wear as he held a bottle of peach brandy in one hand and his phone in the other

Later, his friend took time off from playing football to offer up the liquor to other partiers

Meanwhile, the police cruiser was back on the scene, winding its way through people lounging on the sand and talking in groups

A group of men celebrated Spring Break together under proudly displayed flags brought out for the occasion

But one of them, gripping the omnipresent bag of wine, was all too wary of the cop in their midst

No bag of wine, no problem: Other partiers went old-school and drank from red plastic cups in the ocean

One woman with outspread arms was spotting either celebrating a day well spent, or announcing her arrival to the beach scene

A woman who fell into the ocean, soaking her purse, didn't look too worried about the situation as her friend helped her up

Another partygoer was content dancing on her own, as she sported what looked like body paint

Two men, one on the left and one on the right, each had very different reactions to the two girls dancing in front of them

Three women clearly knew their best angles as they posed by the water in black hats

Others had a serene moment away from it all, looking off at the water while drinking from Solo cups

Two friends in sunglasses enjoy the sun as they pose with their arms around each other

Four women, all in matching red bathing suits, struck a pose together by the ocean

Two police officers, who shielded themselves from the sun under large umbrellas, sat back and watched the festivities unfold

Other events put on to appeal to Spring Breakers include the annual model beach volleyball tournament, which takes place on the second Sunday of March and sees teams from agencies such as Ford and Elite take to the field.

In the nation as a whole, Spring Break is worth an estimated $1 billion a year to businesses ranging from nightclubs, to bars, restaurants and hotels.

But for local law enforcement in Miami, as well as Panama City Beach, Fort Lauderdale and others, Spring Break can prove a nightmare, with arrests spiking in all three throughout the six-week season.

As a result, many visitors bureaus attempting to discourage Spring Breakers; among them being Fort Lauderdale, which saw four fights break out within the space of 20 minutes on Saturday afternoon.

Jessica Savage, of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau, told DailyMail.com: 'The behavior seen on Saturday is unfortunate and unwelcome.

'This is not the type of behavior or visitor that we encourage coming to Greater Fort Lauderdale.'

She added: 'We have worked hard for more than 25 years to evolve the destination from a Spring Breaker haven to one that welcomes more families, affluent travelers, meetings and conference attendees.'

Officer Alvaro Zabaleta, of Miami PD, told DailyMail.com that the department isn't expecting an unusual amount of trouble but is concerned about drug and alcohol use by students.

He said: 'We are concerned with the alcohol and drug use that can lead to dangerous situations.

'Most of the trouble our officers encounter is disorderly intoxication, battery, assaults and driving under the influence to name but a few.'

Officer Zabaleta added: 'We strongly encourage our college students visiting during Spring Break to enjoy themselves responsibly.

'Never travel alone. Do not leave your drink unattended and say no to drugs.'

Michael Hicks, of Visit Panama City Beach, added: 'In 2016, city and county leaders enacted ordinances to ensure Panama City Beach remains family-friendly year-round.

'To protect that year-round growth and visitation, a ban on alcohol consumption on the sandy beach has been enacted for the month of March, going forward.

'The party crowds moved on more or less immediately after that March ban went into place, and more importantly, new family-friendly events have been added to draw families and professionals to the beach during that time.

'Today's Panama City Beach is much more than past Spring Break headlines.'

Friends take a picture together as one man in the middle shows off a new trick with a Corona bottle - on a beach where drinking is banned

Miller (lite) time: A group of men pose on the sand with their beer of choice

Sharing is caring: A man gives another partier a hit of a suspicious-looking cigarette as a friend looks on

Pass the courvoisier: A man grips a handle of Hennessy and chats on the phone, while another holds a beverage looks off into the distance

Photo for mom? Two friends cozy up together in vacation shot with the sea serving as the background

Police officers convene in front of squad cars and bicycles. The local police department says Spring Break is one of its busiest times

Events put on to appeal to Spring Breakers include the annual model beach volleyball tournament, which takes place on the second Sunday of March and sees teams from agencies such as Ford and Elite take to the field

Competition was certainly fierce, as one athlete got into a splits-like position to hit the ball

A group of men, carrying a 'Don't Tread on Me' flag and pulling coolers, looked determined to take on the beach - while the partier in the back looked a bit wary

Help: Two people look down at their friend who's fallen down on the sand, as police officers stand by and access the situation
A Texas teacher was sentenced to no time behind bars and kept off the sex offender registry despite confessing to having inappropriate sexual relationships with two of her students.

Haeli Wey, a 29-year-old teacher from Austin, was given 10 years of probation and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service after one of her students said the two had sex more than 10 times over the course of a two-month period and another detailed how she seduced him in a public park.

Both of the students were 17 at the time and attended Westlake High School. The two teenagers stated in a 2015 affidavit that they first met Wey through ministry events.

Wey will also get to have the case completely dismissed and expunged from her record in 10 years if she does not violate her probation.

She entered a plea of guilty to two counts of improper relationship with a student back in February, and on Friday District Judge David Wahlberg let her walk free after a sentencing hearing that lasted less than four minutes.

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Out free: Haeli Wey, 29, received no jail time and will not register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to have an improper sexual relationship with two students (above on Friday at her sentencing)

Done: The former Westlake High School teacher received 200 hours of community service and will be on probation for 10 years

Clean slate: She will then have the case dismissed and her record expunged if she does not violate her probation

The Travis County Sheriff's Office was first alerted to Wey's relationship with one of the boys in October of 2015.

A female student who had seen exchanges that were sexual in nature between the victim and Wey alerted school administrators to the communication between the teacher and student.

They in turn contacted authorities, who notified the parents of the victim and asked if they would be willing to let him speak with authorities.

That was when the first student stated that he had been exchanging text and social media messages with Wey, who he had first met that July at a summer camp.

One of the exchanges between the pair occurred over Instagram, and confirmed rumors that the victim and Wey had met up with one another after school according to the affidavit.

That encounter last two hours and took place at Commons Ford park the victim told authorities, adding that it was Wey's idea to go to that site.

'The victim said they sat on a hammock for awhile and then began to kiss. Victim said he removed Ms. Wey's shirt and then she took his shirt off,' states the affidavit.

'Victim said Ms. Wey was not wearing a bra and reported they laid down and began to kiss. Victim said he touched and rubbed her breasts during this time.

'Victim said he also touched Ms. Wey's vagina over her clothing. Victim said Ms. Wey did not stop him while he rubbed her vagina over the clothing.'

That is when Wey asked the victim if he expected that the two would have sex according to the affidavit, to which he said that he did since 'a teacher just doesn't hang out with a student to hang out.'

Wey in her 2015 mugshot after her arrest

It appeared that the victim had managed to delete a good portion of the exchanges between himself and the teacher by the time authorities searched his devices, but they did find one conversation in which Wey told the victim: 'Delete your convo from Instagram please and don't let anyone get a hold of ur phone.'

After the first victim spoke with police another came forward, revealing to his parents that he had been having sex with Wey for two months over the summer.

He stated that he ended that sexual relationship once he learned that Wey had been intimate with his friend in a hammock at the park.

The family of the second victim was close to Wey and was so the boy, having also met her over the summer when she accompanied the group on a trip to Africa.

It was while away that the relationship between the two became physical, with the second victim stating in the affidavit they shared their first kiss overseas.

The second victim first had sex with Wey in August he told authorities, after she texted him to come over to her home.

'Victim said they spoke a little while and said Ms. Wey then then escorted him to the bedroom. Once in the bedroom they had sex,' states the affidavit, which also notes that the victim wore a condom.

He also spoke about the last sexual encounter between the two.

'The victim said Ms. Wey had pizza at her home. Victim said they watched a movie and then had sex,' states the affidavit.

Further details about their encounters contained in the affidavit revealed that the two had sex two or three times in a car, once in the parking lot of the same park Wey took her other victim and 'during their sexual encounters Ms. Wey performed oral sex on him and him on her at least two times.'

Nude photos were also sent by Wey to the victim he told authorities.

Moves: A 17-year-old student said that he and Wey had fondled one another in a hammock after she seduced him while hiking in a 2015 affidavit (Wey being booked in 2015 above)

More claims: Soon after a second student said that he and Wey had sex over 10 times in a two-year period

Wey's lawyer said his client was distraught over the death of a teenager at Austin Bible Camp at that time, where she was a counselor

That victim also told authorities that he had informed Wey he was speaking to them, saying she had become 'dramatic' after hearing the news, and repeatedly asked him 'what did you tell them?' and 'why did you tell them?'

Wey has never spoken publicly about her relationship with the two students, but her lawyer said her behavior was the result of a personal tragedy she had suffered at the time.

Larry Sauer, who represented the disgraced teacher, said that while his client accepted full responsibility for her actions, she was distraught at that time having recently witnessed the death of a teenager at Austin Ridge Bible Church, where she worked as a camp counselor over the summer.

The death of that girl occurred in the same month Wey met the two victims. Sauer also made a point of declaring how close Wey was to Sarah Pool, the 15-year-old girl who lost her life in a boating accident.

'That threw her out of balance,' explained Sauer.

He then addressed how his client was accepting responsibility for her actions.

'As a teacher she had a duty to not get involved with students,' said Sauer of Wey, who resigned from her job as soon as she learned that the victims had spoken to authorities.

'Because of circumstances in her life she made poor choices. She feels in a much better place in her life now and will never be in a situation like this again.'
Lopez-Ruiz was due to begin performing with the Miami Heat dancers

Victim was thrown 137 feet into the air after being struck

Had been free on bail but lost his appeal in the case

Plowed into her motorcycle with his car when twice the drink drive limit

A drunk driver who slammed into a Miami Heat cheerleader throwing her 137 feet into the air surrendered on Monday to begin serving 15 years in prison.

Mario Careaga, 46, was convicted for DUI manslaughter nearly three years ago, after he hit 22-year-old Nancy Lopez-Ruiz with his white Mercedes-Benz in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in September 2010.

But the insurance executive, who had a blood alcohol level three times the limit when he struck the cheerleader, had been free on a $100,000 bond pending an appeal.

'There is satisfaction,' her mother, Adela Ruiz-Lopez, told the Miami Herald. 'We've always believed in justice.'

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Nancy Lopez-Ruiz was killed when she was hit by the car Mario Careaga was driving with a BAC three times the limit. Careaga has exhausted his appeals and begun his jail sentence

Careaga was convicted nearly three years ago, but had been free on a $100,000 bond pending an appeal. Now the insurance executive has begun his 15 year jail sentence

Crash scene: Careaga allegedly crossed three lanes of traffic in his white 2009 Mercedes-Benz, right, and struck Lopez-Ruiz as she sat on her motorcycle that was pulled to the roadside

The 15 year sentence is the maximum penalty, and one that the victim's mother asked for in court at the sentencing hearing in 2014.

Lopez-Ruiz was born in Nicaragua but moved to the U.S. as an infant, and had just signed on to dance for the Heat when she was killed.

The cheerleader grew up in the Bradenton, Florida area and was a college student living in Plantation when she tried out and won a spot as a Miami Heat dancer.

She was supposed to start performing publicly with the team in October 2010.

'There are no words to explain how we feel that our daughter won't be coming back,' Ruiz-Lopez's mother said. 'For me, it still feels like the day she died.'

On the night of the deadly crash, the young professional cheerleader was reportedly coming home from practice.

Big dreams: The cheerleader, pictured, grew up in the Bradenton, Florida area and was a college student when she tried out and won a spot as a Miami Heat dancer

Drinking: Careaga, a wealthy insurance executive, was spotted at an event at a nearby mall shopping for jewellery with a glass of champagne in his hand just one hour before the collision

Meanwhile, Careaga, a wealthy insurance executive, was spotted at an event at a nearby mall shopping for jewelry with a glass of champagne in his hand just one hour before the collision.

Careaga's Mercedes supposedly crossed three lanes of traffic before striking Lopez-Ruiz, who was pulled off to the side of the road on her Suzuki motorcycle.

According to police, his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit, at .24 percent.

Police responding the incident say he was 'swaying from side to side and in a circular motion'.

They also said he had 'bloodshot, glassy eyes, slurred speech, the odor of alcoholic beverages coming from his person, unsteady balance and difficulty supporting himself'.
A driver rammed a ten year old boy who shot at his black Nissan Pathfinder with a toy gun in a case that is dividing Russian public opinion.

Now one of Vladimir Putin's most senior law enforcement officials has ordered the arrest of the motorist, named as Vladimir Belorusov, 53, but others blame the parents for 'negligence'.

CCTV footage shows how after the schoolboy 'shot' at the car on a slushy road, hitting the door with a toy plastic bullet, the driver turned his vehicle to follow the child, eventually ramming him as he fled.

He then manhandled the boy, called Ivan Shchegolev, and forced him to his knees while he called the police in Priozersk town, Leningrad region.

The child remained in this prone position for 15 minutes while police came.

Officers then took statements and drove the boy home.

Ivan was later taken to hospital and found to have suffered concussion and injuries to his head, knees and feet.

A Russian driver rammed a ten year old boy (pictured left in a wheelchair after the crash and his mother, right) who shot at his Nissan Pathfinder with a toy gun

He was pictured in a wheelchair in hospital.

The boy admitted he was playing with a friend, using his toy submachine gun to shoot at passing cars.

The driver 'threatened me that he had filmed a video and would upload it.

'We were just playing. And I shot the door of his car...

CCTV footage shows how after the schoolboy 'shot' at the car on a slushy road, hitting the door with a toy plastic bullet

The driver turned his vehicle to follow the child, eventually ramming him as he fled

'He forced me onto my knees. It was painful.'

The man bragged to Ivan's parents: 'I'm a lawyer, I'm a businessman. I know I will not be punished for this.'

But they lodged a complaint with police after seeing the video.

Father Yury Shchegolev said: 'This man actually hit my son.'

Now Alexander Bastrykin, a former Putin classmate and head of Russia's Investigative Committee, equivalent of the FBI, has ordered the driver's detention.

He then manhandled the boy, called Ivan Shchegolev, and forced him to his knees while he called the police in Priozersk town, Leningrad region

Ivan was later taken to hospital and found to have suffered concussion and injuries to his head, knees and feet

Most commenters are critical of the motorist for 'taking the law into his own hands'.

But others support his action, and complain about parents allowing the child to shoot at passing cars with a toy gun.

One Alexander Bogdanov, stated: 'He did right. Caught the hooligan, called the police and passed him to them. Everything right.

'And where are the parents of this little scum? Where is the upbringing?

Now Alexander Bastrykin, a former Putin classmate and head of Russia's Investigative Committee, equivalent of the FBI, has ordered the driver's detention

Most commenters are critical of the motorist for 'taking the law into his own hands'

'Why the hell is he shooting at cars?'

Others complained about the 'negligence' of parents in allowing the child to play close to a busy road, and brandish a toy gun 'which could be mistaken for a real weapon'.

'They are irresponsible to allow this behaviour, and to encourage use of guns,' said a comment.
The pensioner whose mysterious death on Saddleworth Moor sparked international intrigue killed himself using a type of poison, which is only sold in Pakistan.

As an inquest into the death of 67-year-old David Lytton opened, witnesses and experts have helped shed light on the mystery that has had detectives puzzled for more than two years.

His body was found on Saturday December 12, 2015, lying on a track close to the summit of Indian's Head above Dovestone reservoir in the Peak District.

Few clues to his identity were found on the body, although police recovered an empty bottle, inside which traces of poison were found.

Today, at his inquest, the court was told that 'on the balance of probability' the poison - a type of pesticide used to kill rodents and birds - was the cause of death.

The day before he was found dead on the moor, Mr Lytton had travelled by train from London to Manchester Piccadilly (pictured)

An open verdict was recorded by Simon Nelson, senior coroner for Greater Manchester North, who said a series of 'fundamental questions remain unanswered' over his death.

The inquest heard he was found fully clothed on a remote track near Indian's Head, the summit above Dovestone Reservoir.

The Londoner, who lived in Pakistan for around 10 years, had no obvious connections to the Oldham or Saddleworth areas and police appealed to the public for help in identifying him.

Detectives carried out painstaking enquiries over almost 12 months to uncover his identity.

According to reports, which emerged last month, Mr Lytton was originally called David Lautenberg but changed his surname to Lytton some time ago after a family feud.

It's believed he worked as a tube driver on the London Underground. He was found fully clothed lying prone on the ground by a cyclist on a track near to the remote reservoir.

Inquiries established that Mr Lytton flew from Lahore to London Heathrow two days before he boarded a train from Euston railway station to Manchester Piccadilly railway station.

CCTV images of a man matching the description of Mr Lytton had revealed his movements from Ealing Broadway station in London on the morning of December 11

He then went into The Clarence pub in Greenfield, Saddleworth, and asked the landlord the way to 'the top of the mountain'.

Cyclist Stuart Crowther discovered Mr Lytton's body at around 8.30am on December 12, 2015.

He called 999 and was asked to stay with the body and check his pockets for identification but found none.

He said the body was 'pale and still' and the man was lying with his head towards the peak of the hill.

DS John Coleman, of Oldham CID, led the investigation from day one and told the inquest that Mr Lytton's body was discovered high up on the Chew track, above Dovestones reservoir in a remote location.

He says the track is difficult to walk particularly for an older man.

He said Dovestone had been hit by one of the worst storms he could remember in the Oldham area.

'The rain was lashing in the wind was blowing down on the valley. Rain was coming in sideways almost as if there was no gravity. It was extremely cold, not a location I would like to spend time overnight.'

When he was discovered, Mr Lytton was wearing a pair of flat slip on shoes, Choudhury pants, a jumper and a coat, and all of the clothing was soaking wet.

DS Coleman added: 'We searched the body and there was no driving licence, bank cards or letters.'

He added that there were no injuries or marks on his body.

Mr Lytton went into The Clarence pub in Greenfield, Saddleworth, and asked the landlord the way to 'the top of the mountain'

He had three train tickets dated December 11 which were valid between London and Ealing Broadway and a return ticket to Manchester Piccadilly.

CHILLING DEATHS ON SADDLEWORTH MOOR Saddleworth Moor, which is situated in the South Pennines, became infamous in the 1960s as the burial site of four victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. The pair lured children and teenagers to their deaths, with their victims sexually tortured before being buried on the moor in Greater Manchester. In 1965, the bodies of Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride were discovered at the remote hillside, having been buried there during the previous two years. Saddleworth Moor was also the site of a 1949 plane crash. The twin-engined British European Airways Douglas Dakota plane crashed into the hillside after taking off from Belfast, killing 24. Advertisement

All three tickets were purchased with cash. Mr Lytton also had 130 in cash in 10 notes.

DS Coleman said: 'We attempted to trace the notes to see if they had been recovered from a bank but they were none sequential notes.'

He also had a small empty bottle with a cardboard container with the body.

DS Coleman said there were no other identifying items recovered from the deceased.

There was no evidence of anything untoward at that location or signs of third party involvement.

'It looked as though he had sat down and just lay backwards,' he said.

The detective said at that time it was thought Mr Lytton may have suffered a heart attack or another medical episode and had 'succumbed to the weather conditions' on the hill.

The body was taken to the mortuary at Oldham Royal Hospital where swabs and fingerprints were taken and checked against a national database. No match was identified.

He said: 'It began to dawn that this was a more unusual case which appeared to be taking us to the Ealing area of London.'

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123, visit a local Samaritans branch, or see www.samaritans.org for details.
A pregnant 19-year-old has been charged with raping a 14-year-old boy after she signed up for Medicaid and listed him as the child's father.

Mekenzie Leigh Guffey allegedly told police that she had sex with the boy multiple times in her car when she was arrested on Friday in Hollywood, Alabama.

Police said her relationship with the boy started in December when they were introduced via a mutual friend at a McDonald's restaurant.

Mekenzie Leigh Guffey, 19, allegedly told police that she had sex with the 14-year-old boy multiple times in her car when she was arrested in Hollywood, Alabama on Friday

Authorities began investigating Guffey when she applied for Medicaid this month and identified the 14-year-old as the baby's father.

'She was proud of him being the father until she found out we were going to become involved,' police chief Jason Hepler told AL.com.

'She told us she didn't count but it was more than a few times that they were together.'

The teenager posted news of her pregnancy on Facebook on March 2.

Authorities began investigating Guffey (pictured right in her mugshot) when she applied for Medicaid this month and identified the 14-year-old as the baby's father

The teenager posted news of her pregnancy on Facebook on March 2

'I found it a lot easier to announce it on here than texting all my family & friends individually, but welcoming my sweet little baby October 17th!!' Guffey wrote alongside a photo of a pregnancy test.

Guffey was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree sex abuse, enticing a child for immoral purposes and traveling to meet a child for an unlawful sex act.

She was also charged with possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography after police allegedly found naked photos on her phone that she and the boy had been sending each other.

Guffey was released from the Jackson County Jail on Tuesday on $25,300 bail, according to jail records.
Barack Obama made his way across the country over the weekend, starting off in New York City on Friday afternoon where he and Michelle joined U2 frontman Bono and his daughter Jordan Hewson for lunch.

Then it was off to the Great Plains, where on Sunday Barack joined billionaire Warren Buffett and his philanthropist daughter Susie for lunch at Happy Hollow Country Club.

Barack opted to go with the taco salad for his midday meal, which was later paid for by his host, whose Berkshire Hathaway offices are just a few miles from the club.

It was then back to the airport and off to California for Barack, who spent the night in the Bay Area before heading to meet with Silicon Valley executives at the Fairmont in San Jose on Monday.

Back that said farewell to The Golden State and Aloha to his home state of Hawaii, where he landed on Monday evening in time to join wife Michelle for dinner at Buzzs Lanikai.

His unannounced return to the islands surprised residents, and is is unclear how longer he plans to stay in the state.

Meeting up: Barack Obama left New York City to fly to Omaha, Nebraska, where on Sunday he had lunch with billionaire Berkshire Hathaway head Warren Buffett (Barack leaving lunch above in KETV video )

Great minds: The two were joined by Warren's philanthropist daughter Susie (above with dad Warren in KETV video), whose main charitable foundation focuses on public education grants

And he's off: Barack was back at Eppley Airfield right after lunch to take off for California (above)

Barack's lunch with the Buffetts lasted a little over two hours according to the Omaha-World Herald, with father and daughter both ordering the club's famed Thunderbird salad.

Susie spoke with one reporter from the paper after dining out with family friend Barack, but made it very clear that she was not going to be sharing any details about the topic of discussion during he meal.

'The three of us ate lunch,' offered Susie, who provided no further insight other than to declare the group was not speaking about a future fundraiser.

Both Warren and his daughter were vocal supporters of Obama and his administration, with Warren also offering up his guidance on a number of financial matters.

That favor was returned in a big way in 2011 when Barack presented the Oracle of Omaha with a Medal of Freedom at the White House.

Barack spent no additional time in Omaha, heading straight to lunch from the airport and then making his way right back to the plane, which could be seen quickly taking off in video posted by WOWT.

Strutting his stuff: Barack dressed down for his long flight to Hawaii on Monday afternoon (above approaching jet)

Man of the people: Barack took some time to shake hands and say hello before heading off to Hawaii (above at Moffett Airfield)

He arrived in California late that evening, but was out and about early Monday on his way to the Fairmont, where over a hundred fans lined the street to get a glimpse of the former president.

That was not to be however, with Barack making his exit and entrance in tucked away behind the tinted glass of his SUV in a four-car motorcade.

And just like his trip to Omaha, Barack left Moffett Airfield for the hotel and then the hotel for the airfield, with no additional stops.

This trip was also not on Barack's schedule, and the next stop in Hawaii followed that same pattern, allowing Barack to arrive to no fanfare or crowds.
The first assistant district attorney in Payne County is facing burglary charges for taking back a pair of jack stands worth $30 from his ex-wife's house.

Kevin Etherington is said to have nipped into house he shared with Aaron Etherington - herself assistant district attorney for Oklahoma County - when he dropped their nine-year-old daughter home.

Their messy divorce was finalized in July last year and when his former partner found out he had grabbed the jack stands from the garage, she filed theft charges against him.

Kevin Etherington, first assistant district attorney in Payne County, is facing burglary charges

The daughter is said to have let Mr Etherington into the home in Edmond, Oklahoma, on January 4.

His ex-wife told cops she found things out of place which prompted her to check out CCTV when she spotted her former husband.

She then text him about it and he admitted taking them and asked if he needed to bring them back.

A baffled Mr Etherington told the News Press the charge of larceny was 'for reclaiming property that was rightfully his own'.

'This is a property dispute that has arisen from a divorce and should have been handled as such,' he said.

'Once the truth comes out it will be obvious that a civil issue was transformed into a felony charge.

'It is my intent to fight this accusation to the fullest extent possible.'

Mr Etherington is said to have claimed back his $30 jack stands after his daughter let him in

Ms Etherington is pushing through with the case, the types of which are usually reserved for houseguests taking things of little value from their hosts.

Laura Austin Thomas, the Payne County District Attorney, told the News Press in a statement Mr Etherington is a current attorney for Prater's office and will continue to serve as the case makes its way through the criminal justice system.

If found guilty, he could potentially be disbarred.
Border officials are said to have difficulty distinguishing between the illegal immigrants and genuine passport holders because Sikh men are allowed to wear turbans in their ID documents

Hundreds of Afghan asylum seekers snuck into the UK using British Sikhs' passports - because turbans on their photos meant border officials couldn't spot the difference.

Border officials are said to have difficulty distinguishing between the illegal immigrants and genuine passport holders because Sikh men are allowed to wear turbans in their ID documents.

Today three Sikh men Daljit Kapoor, 41, Harmit Kapoor, 40, and Davinder Chawla, 42, admitted running a scam providing Sikhs from the war-torn country with passports of family members who most looked like them so they could pass themselves off as British citizens.

Around 30 people from the same Afghans Sikh community are said to have successfully claimed asylum after paying the trio 12,000 per family to enter the UK.

But the authorities believe there may be hundreds more as the scam is believed to have gone on for a number of years undetected.

The three will be sentenced at Inner London Crown Court later this month for their part in the smuggling racket.

A gang member would drive to Paris with genuine passports of family members and hand them over to men, women and children so they could get through airport security.

Once in the country the gang retrieved the passports and reused them with new groups and families.

The gang is also understood to have operated from Thailand.

It was not until easyJet staff noticed something was wrong and alerted French authorities that the conspiracy was unearthed.

In June 2014 Chawla drove to France and boarded a flight with around 11 Afghan Sikhs, making up three families, but were stopped when they entered the UK.

Edward Aydin, prosecuting at an earlier hearing at Camberwell Magistrates' Court, said: 'We say these three men are the facilitators in this organisation, this organised crime, where they are using genuine British passport holders within the Sikh community.

'It's a Sikh conspiracy and it's occurring because it's very difficult for the authorities at the border control to distinguish who's who on the passports.'

Outside court a legal source said: 'They would get the passports of their relatives and marry them up with the asylum seekers who most looked like them, obviously the beards and turbans made it easier.

'But it was also the women and children as well, whole families were being brought in.

'And once they are here, because they from Afghanistan and are claiming to be persecuted by the Taliban, they can't be sent back.

'They have been doing this for a long time, probably years, and have made a hell of a lot of money doing it, charging around 12,000 per family.

'We don't know for how long because they way they did it is virtually undetectable, there are probably hundreds of people who have come into the country this way that his group have helped.

'It was only when easyJet staff noticed something was wrong and alerted French authorities that we found out about it.'

The three will be sentenced at Inner London Crown Court later this month for their part in the smuggling racket

Both Kapoors, of Hounslow, who are cousins, and Chawla, of Isleworth, who is also a member of the same extended family, appeared at Inner London Crown Court and sat in the dock alongside two interpreters.

As their trial was about to start, three of the defendants pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to help asylum seekers to enter the UK illegally between May and June 2014.

Harmit Kapoor also admitted booking flights between June 8 and June 21, 2014, for the asylum seekers to get to Britain.

Chawla admitted hiring a vehicle to facilitate their entry into the country when he drove to Paris.

A fourth suspect, Joginder Dawan, 41, pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to help asylum seekers enter the UK and one charge of assisting the offence by allowing his passport to be used to book flights and travel.

Not guilty verdicts were recorded for both counts and he was discharged.

In February 2011 Chawla, along with four other men was jailed for five years for also helping illegal immigrants enter the country as part of an identical conspiracy.

The gang was given a total of 26 years between them.
A Sinn Fein MEP has told Theresa May to shove Irish border checks 'where the sun don't shine' in an extraordinary rant in the European parliament.

Martina Anderson delivered the crude harangue as she condemned the Prime Minister for pushing through Brexit.

The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is expected to be among the most difficult to resolve.

Martina Anderson delivered the crude harangue in the European Parliament as she condemned the PM for pushing through Brexit

Currently there are no checks, but after we leave the EU it could technically become the front line between the UK and the bloc.

There are fears that could undermine the Good Friday Agreement - which is already under threat with nationalists and unionists engaged in fraught powersharing negotiations.

Speaking in the European Parliament in Strasbourg yesterday, Miss Anderson complained Ireland was being told there would be a 'frictionless' border but no-one knew what that meant.

'No border hard or soft will be accepted by the people of Ireland,' she insisted.

'Theresa your notion of a border, hard and soft - stick it where the sun don't shine, because you're not putting it in Ireland.'

Mrs May hailed a 'defining moment' for Britain today after the historic Brexit Bill was passed paving the way for our depature from the EU.

The premier pledged to create a 'stronger, self-governing' country after the legislation was approved by parliament.

She also signalled that the government will play hardball with Brussels over money - insisting Britons had not voted for Brexit only to pay 'huge sums' into Brussels coffers.

As soon as the EU Bill is granted Royal Assent Mrs May will have the powers to trigger Article 50, the two year process for cutting ties with Brussels.

But she has indicated that she will wait until the end of this month to deliver the official notification.

Theresa May hailed Brexit as a 'defining moment' for Britain today as she updated MPs on an EU summit she attended in Brussels last week

She said the huge step, which comes more than eight months after the earthquake Brexit vote in the referendum, will change the country forever.

'This will be a defining moment for our whole country,' the premier said.

'We will be a stronger, self governing global Britain with control once again over our borders an our laws.'

Mrs May said she would be going into talks with the EU and pushing domestic policies with the aim of getting a 'better deal for Britain abroad and a better deal for Britain at home'.

But she urged people to stop describing our departure from the bloc as a 'divorce' - saying that implied there would be bad feeling involved.
Science enthusiasts, amateur astronomers, and those who love a dark night sky should set aside Saturday, April 29, 2017, and target Lordsburg and Animas, New Mexico. There, under one of the darkest night skies in North America, a unique star party will take place.

Astronomy Magazine Editor David Eicher and Senior Editor Michael Bakich will each present two talks, covering the latest discoveries about the universe, bizarre galaxies and nebulae, the coming total solar eclipse later this year, and a preview of what attendees will see at this star party, later the same evening.

Then the group will travel a short distance, from Lordsburg to Animas, for incredible dark sky viewing of the heavens. A variety of telescopes will be on hand for this purpose.

The star party will be unlike any other thats taken place before it. For more information and to register, see http://darkskynewmexico.com/blog/index.php/2017/02/23/dark-sky-hosts-star-party/

A full press release follows:

FOR RELEASE: March 6, 2017

On Saturday, April 29, 2017, a unique star party will take place in southwestern New Mexico. Americas Darkest Sky Star Party will occur with a variety of telescopes in Lordsburg and Animas, New Mexico, a lovely area dominated by antique silver mining that now boasts one of the best skies in the world for stargazing.

Astronomy magazine Editor David Eicher and Senior Editor Michael Bakich, well known astronomy personalities, will present several talks prior to the dark-sky observing. Eicher will speak on The New Cosmos: Great Discoveries of the Past Decade and 25 Exotic Targets for Deep-Sky Observers. Bakich will speak on The Great American Eclipse of 2017 and What Well See Tonight.

Eicher and Bakich are well known authorities in the field of astronomy. Eicher is author of 21 books on science and history, a member of the Board for the Starmus Festival, Editor-in-Chief of Asteroid Day, and an authority on deep-sky observing. Bakich is a frequent and popular speaker on astronomy and has also written numerous books.

The meeting and talks will take place beginning at 11 a.m. at the Hampton Inn in Lordsburg. Following the talks, the group will travel to the Dark Sky New Mexico Ranch in Animas, where attendees will enjoy a chuck wagon dinner. Participants will be able to interact with the astronomers during the event, but the party will really begin at sunset (7:55 p.m.), as the 3-1/2-day-old crescent Moon appears low in the west while brilliant Jupiter dominates the eastern sky. Then, as night truly falls (9:24 p.m.), the celestial scene opens up to star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.

The event is open and will be a magnificent time for the general public, for amateur astronomers (who can bring their telescopes if they choose), for the science curious, and anyone who would like to see what our universe is all about. For more information and to register for what promises to be a great astronomical get-together, head to Dark Sky New Mexicos website at http://darkskynewmexico.com/blog/index.php/2017/02/23/dark-sky-hosts-star-party/
Three vigilantes who beat up a mentally-ill man causing his death after they suspected him of mugging their grandmother were jailed for a total of 26 years.

Leon Dixon, 37, his half-brother Mason Adrien-Dixon, 22, and friend Daniel Murphy, 20, punched, kicked and stamped on the head of Reginald Ofei-Berko, 25, after spotting him in the street.

The Dixons' cousin, Franklin McDonald, who is still wanted by police, also threw a bicycle on top of Mr Ofei-Berko during the assault in Walworth, southeast London.

On 28 June last year Leon Dixon's (left) grandmother, 81, was robbed of a gold chain. Dixon believed the culprit was Reginald Ofei-Berko (right) was to blame and attacked him in the street

Mr Ofei-Berko suffered only minor injuries but is believed to have died of a heart attack.

At the time of the killing Leon Dixon was still on licence for an armed robbery on a travel agents in 2002.

He was sentenced to an extended sentence of ten years plus another five years. Adrien-Dixon was jailed for eight years and Murphy was jailed for eight years and eight weeks.

On 28 June last year Leon Dixon's 81-year-old grandmother was robbed of a gold chain by a tall black man with braided hair in Walworth Road.

Judge Stephen Kramer QC said: 'The cause of this attack was the robbery of the grandmother of Leon Dixon and Mason Adrien-Dixon of a gold chain. Rightly or wrongly they believed that the deceased was the robber.

Leon Dixon, 37, his half brother Mason Adrien-Dixon (left) and friend Daniel Murphy (right) punched, kicked and stamped on the head of their victim after spotting him in Walworth, southeast London

'They decided the time had come to take the law into their own hands.'

The judge told Leon Dixon: 'Your intention was to put right the hurt suffered by your grandmother.

'You did not intend to cause really serious harm but I cannot lose sight of the fact a life was lost as a result of your actions.'

John Paul Gillespie, 43, was jailed for 12 months for his involvement in planning the attack.

Mother-of-three Dipa Modhwadia, 36, who drove her partner Leon Dixon to and from the scene, was jailed for six months.

The victim's grandmother Margaret Berko said in an impact statement that she was 'still in deep shock'.

She said: 'How could some persons cruelly beat my only grandchild to death? His sudden violent departure has lashed the family like a storm.

'To those who planned and calculated to violently attack him, those who left him to die, I would say you have left me and the family devastated.

John Paul Gillespie (pictured) was jailed for 12 months for his involvement in planning the attack

'He had so much to live for if he had survived.'

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC said the Dixons' grandmother reported her mugging on Jun 28, 2016 to police but a culprit was never found.

He added: 'Leon Dixon, his half brother and their cousin Franklin McDonald believed Mr Ofei-Berko was responsible for the robbery.'

Two months later on August 25, McDonald spotted the victim by chance in the street in Walworth.

He contacted his cousins, who recruited Murphy, Gillespie and Dipa to help carry out surveillance.

Mr Aylett said: 'That culminated in getting the victim down a side road where he was attacked.

'Punches and kicks were thrown and on one occasion the victim was stamped on and a bicycle was thrown at his lower limbs. It was witnessed by two children.'

Mr Ofei-Berko, who was living in a hostel for people with mental health problems in Southwark, was found lying unconscious on the pavement outside a block of flats on Penrose Street at around 3.05pm. He was later pronounced dead in hospital.

Mother-of-three Dipa Modhwadia (pictured), 36, who drove her partner Leon Dixon to and from the scene, was jailed for six months

The post-mortem found no evidence of brain injury or obvious cause of death.

Mr Aylett said: 'Despite the apparent severity of the attack the only injuries identified were four small abrasions to the face, bruising to the left shoulder and a fracture to a fragile bone in the left eye socket.'

The prosecutor said that 'a process of elimination' led to a pathologist concluding that the victim had suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of concussive type trauma to the head.

Mr Aylett said: 'This is not a case where it can be said there was an intention to kill.

Mr Ofei-Berko (pictured) was living in a hostel for people with mental health problems in Southwark and was found lying unconscious on the pavement outside a block of flats

'There must have involved an intention to cause serious harm, but that is not the same as really serious harm.'

Dixon was arrested a week later in Margate after being linked to evidence left at the scene.

His barrister Michael Holland QC said Dixon now accepted 'he did not have a safe basis for assuming' Mr Ofei-Berko was the robber.

The court heard Leon Dixon has previous convictions for robbery, burglary, theft, assault, criminal damage and drugs offences.

In 2004 he was jailed for 15 years, later reduced on appeal to 11 years with five years extended licence, for a raid on a travel agents in Camberwell. Following his arrest for the attack on Mr Ofei-Berko he returned to prison.

Adrien-Dixon has previous convictions for robbery and blackmail, Murphy for robbery, theft and breach of ASBOs, Gillespie for assaulting a police officer and possessing a knife, and Dipa for obtaining property by deception.

Leon Dixon, of Crawley, West Sussex, Daniel Murphy, of Bermondsey and Adrien-Dixon, of Kennington, all admitted manslaughter. Murphy also admitted breaching an earlier suspended prison sentence.

John Paul Gillespie, of Kennington, admitted conspiracy to cause affray.

Dipa, of Bermondsey, admitted assisting an offender.

All five were originally charged with murder but their pleas to lesser offences were accepted by the prosecution last month.
President Trump's new administration isn't fighting any harder to have more of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails released.

In fact, based off of court proceedings this week, the Trump Justice Department is following the same playbook as President Obama's, with government lawyers saying they will continue to seek a dismissal of a Judicial Watch case that is trying to force them to locate more of Clinton's emails.

'It's incredible,' said Judicial Watch's head Tom Fitton to the Washington Post. 'They're taking the same position as the Obama administration on Clinton.'

Scroll down for video

President Trump's (left) Department of Justice is following in the footsteps of President Obama's and arguing a case compelling the government to dig for more of Hillary Clinton's (right) emails is moot

President Trump's Department of Justice is following the lead of President Obama's and arguing that a case to seek out more of Hillary Clinton's State Department emails is moot

Monday's U.S. District Court hearing came on the heels of a Court of Appeals decision that required Secretary of State John Kerry, now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to get the attorney general's help in recovering more of Clinton's emails from her time serving as secretary of state.

Kerry's State Department had already gotten this case dismissed under Judge James Boasberg.

However, in December, an appellate court overturned the dismissal.

The plaintiffs, Judicial Watch, a right-leaning watchdog group, and Cause of Action, which fights 'government overreach,' thought that the change of the administration would help their case.

That's especially in light of Trump's treatment of Clinton on the campaign trail, with his rallies often featuring the chant  'Lock Her Up!'  which insinuated she was guilty of some crime related to her emails.

Clinton used a private email address and homebrew server during her tenure as secretary of state.

Instead, the same lawyer that the Obama administration used, Carol Federighi, argued that the case was 'moot,' as the government had already publicly released 55,000 of Clinton's emails and the FBI had completed an investigation into whether the secretary of state broke laws in her handling of classified information.

Hillary Clinton (foreground) and Donald Trump (background) had an incredibly contentious relationship during the campaign, which is why lawyers for Judicial Watch and Cause of Action were surprised at the Trump Justice Department's actions

However James Peterson, representing Judicial Watch, and John J. Vecchione, representing Cause of Action, argued that they needed to know more.

'It's like peeling an onion,' Vecchione said, according to the Post's Dana Milbank's account.

The Trump administration lawyer didn't agree.

She said that if the case wasn't moot 14 month ago, it certainly is now, Milbank wrote.

'I thought it was clearly moot,' said Judge Boasberg, miffed at the appellate court's decision.

Fitton told the Post he believed the administration sided against Judicial Watch because there aren't enough political appointees in the Trump Justice Department yet to hand the case over to a new prosecutor.

'I don't think President Trump would be pleased,' Fitton said, of his Justice Department's current defense of the president's former political rival Clinton.
This Chinese couple have proved that love is not about physical appearance.

Lin Zhouqiang, 23, and his wife Xu Qinqin, 21, have melted millions of hearts in China with their extraordinary love story.

Qinqin had been ridiculed by her neighbours, colleagues and even family members for her disfigurements until she met Zhouqiang, who was deeply attracted to her kind heart, according to Chinese media.

Love conquers all: Lin Zhouqiang, 23, and his wife Xu Qinqin, 21, got married last month

Sad childhood: The woman, from China's Sichuan Province, has been ridiculed for her looks

The couple live in Yuechi County, south-west China's Sichuan Province, reported Chongqing Morning Post.

Their story has been widely discussed by residents in the village of Zhengjiaba after the couple got married last month.

According to the report, some locals are frightened by Qinqin because of her looks; while others praise the couple for their true love.

Qinqin was said to be disfigured when she was 29 days old after a rat bit off her nose as well as the flesh around her eyes.

Her mother, Lin Guangzhen, recalled the day when the accident occurred. The woman, who had five children, had to do farm work, so she put tiny Qinqin in a basket in her bedroom before heading out, leaving all her children unattended.

However two hours later, her eldest daughter rushed to the farm and told Guangzhen that Qinqin's nose had been bitten off by a rat.

Guangzhen rushed back home only to find Qinqin crying with blood on her face.

Qinqin survived the accident, but her face was disfigured.

To have and to hold: Zhouqiang was deeply attracted to Qinqin's kind heart and optimism

You stole my heart: The pair fell in love after getting to know each other on the internet

The woman was laughed by her playmates and classmates. She had to quit school at sixth-grade because she could no longer stand her classmates' bully.

At the age of 17, after failing to find work in her hometown Qinqin decided to leave Sichuan to find work in Guangzhou, a bustling metropolis.

With the help of a countryman, she was recruited by a clothing manufacture. Sadly Qinqin was constantly bullied by her colleagues, and she had to quit her job a year later.

Qinqin married her first husband at the age of 18. She was introduced to a man eight years her senior by her relatives. Two years later, the couple divorced.

Xu told a reporter: 'Every time when we argued, [my husband and his family] would say I was a freak and ask me to go back home.'

Since then, Qinqin decided to isolate herself from the society. She locked herself up in her room and barely stepped outside her home.

Qinqin had been ridiculed by her neighbours, colleagues and even family members for her disfigurements until she met Zhouqiang

Zhouqiang told a local reporter that the marriage between him and Qinqin 'might be fate'

Internet became her only connection to the outside world. And it was also the internet that helped Xu find confidence and romance.

Qinqin got to know her husband Zhouqiang on QQ, a Chinese messaging platform, on January 7 and the pair quickly became regular chatting buddies.

Zhouqiang told Qinqin that he came from the same village as her; and Qinqin told Zhouqiang that she doesn't have a nose.

Qinqin's looks didn't discourage the man. He discovered that Qinqin is a very optimistic, kind and happy person and quickly fell in love with her.

Zhouqiang told a local reporter: 'It might be fate. Since I knew her experience, I have felt that the girl had lived a tough life. I decided to marry her after knowing her for about a month.'

Many of their neighbours still shun Qinqin, but the couple are facing the hardship head-on

Lin said he would face rumours, criticism and ridicule with his wife for the rest of their lives

On February 10, the pair met for the first time on the central plaza of the town they live. The meeting strengthened Lin's resolution to marry Xu.

The next day, the man convinced her sister, who had previously opposed to his plan to marry, and asked his sister to go with him to find Xu again.

Lin proposed marriage to Xu in front of his sister, and Xu said yes.

As Lin is the only son in his family, his marriage shocked his parents and his neighbours.

Despite the setbacks, Lin said he would face the rumours, criticism and ridicule together with his wife for the rest of their lives.
Twitter, Facebook and Google were slammed for 'commercial prostitution' by a senior MP today in a heated hearing about online trolling.

Executives for the three internet giants astonished the Home Affairs Committee by insisting it was impossible for them to pre-moderate all content posted online.

The trio were lashed by the powerful committee for not proactively searching for hateful speech, racism and other trolling.

Senior Labour MP David Winnick said he would be 'ashamed' to work in social media and scoffed when Facebook executive Simon Milner said he was 'proud' of his work.

Google vice-president Peter Barron, Facebook policy director Simon Milner and Twitter's public policy chief Nick Pickles were grilled by MPs for more than two hours today

The trio were lashed by the powerful Home Affairs Committee for not proactively searching for hateful speech, racism and other trolling

Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said MPs could not understand why the firms could not search out offenders online.

And Bradford MP Naz Shah demanded answers on why all accounts were not verified by the companies before users were allowed to post content.

In one of the most heated exchanges, Mr Winnick asked the representatives if they felt 'any shame whatsoever'.

Mr Milner, Facebook's policy director for the UK, Middle East and Africa, insisted it was not a 'simple question' as he was barracked by the committee.

He said: 'I feel very responsible for the 1.9billion people using our service and I am very proud of the work we do.'

Mr Winnick replied: 'Proud? I am looking at some of the material sent to us - mainly its Twitter - and what I see before me is a group of Muslims engaged in rape and the person complaining is told he's a racist bigot.

'I see items equally obnoxious, for example, on Facebook, a Muslim at prayer and while he's at prayer there is a dog behind him.

'No shame? No apology?'

David Winnick accused the internet executives of being involved in 'commercial prostitution' while committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper demanded answers in proactive searches for illegal content

Twitter's UK Public Policy Manager Nick Pickles said: 'What is important to remember is we have people around the world who work very, very hard to address these concerns.'

He added: 'Let's be absolutely clear. We are never going to get to a point where internet companies pre-moderate content because for the 400 hours of YouTube going up every day, for the 500million Tweets that go up every day, if you want pre-moderation of internet platforms, there may well be no internet platforms.

Twitter executive Mr Pickles said anonymity was vital to users such as the Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently account in Syria

'We need to be very, very, clear about how we discuss this.'

Mr Winnick blasted: 'What came to mind... when it came to the amount of money made, the millions of dollars, the thought that came to my mind is it's a form of commercial prostitution. I think that's a good and apt description.'

He added: 'I would be ashamed, absolutely ashamed to earn my money in the way in which you three do.'

Ms Cooper questioned whether 'particular phrases' are searched to check what is being posted - particularly on child abuse, terrorism or hate crime.

Google vice-president Peter Barron said: 'We use technology pro-actively where it effective.'

Ms Shah - who was suspended from Labour over anti-Semitic Facebook posts - questioned why it was difficult for her to get an official MP page verified but any user could sign up for an account.

She said: 'It seems to me that between you guys, you have created a second world which is anonymous and you are not doing anything to stop that from happening.

'You are actively failing in dealing with what you have on there but what are any of you doing to stop new accounts?'

Facebook chief Simon Milner (left) defended the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg (right) in 2004 at the hearing into online trolling

Google executive Peter Barron defended the internet companies from criticism by the MPs

Mr Pickles said it was policy for people suspended from Twitter not to open new accounts - but warned some users were 'technically determined' to do so.

He added: 'We are a global platform and there are people around the world who if you say to them can you use your real name, to do so would put them in physical harm.

'That might be because their religion is not tolerated in the country they are in. It might be because they are in Syria.

'The people running the account Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently have been murdered for running that account.

'I am not going to ask those people to put their real name to that account and those tweets.

'Yes anonymity is a challenge but also that's why we have rules - it doesn't matter whether we have your real name or not'

Ms Shah insisted: 'That does not wash with me.'
The most senior Army officer to face court martial for 64 years was severely reprimanded today for using taxpayers' cash to pay his two sons' private school fees.

Brigadier Charles Beardmore, 51, who earns more than 100,000 a year, pleaded guilty to negligently performing his duty at Merville Barracks in Colchester, Essex.

He admitted he failed to reveal his wife Charlotte, 53, was not living with him for more than 90 days in a single year and continued to claim Continuity of Education Allowance for his sons.

The Army will not say how much he received but it can be as much as 7,245 a term for students.

Brigadier Charles Beardmore , 51, pictured at a charity event, earns more than 100,000 a year

The court martial heard there was no suggestion of dishonesty by Brig Beardmore, who appeared in full military uniform.

He was sentenced to forfeit all seniority as a brigadier by a board of three Army brigadiers today.

Forfeiture of seniority is a punishment that only applies to commissioned officers.

Guidelines published by the Military Court Service say forfeiture of seniority does not carry the same stigma as a reduction in rank, but the impacts on pay, pension and promotion prospects can be 'significant'.

Beardmore was also severely reprimanded and ordered to pay a service compensation order of 11,750 to the Ministry of Defence within 14 days.

Colonel Nigel Jones, prosecuting, told the original hearing Beardmore, from Whittington, Staffordshire, had claimed Continuity of Education Allowance for his sons without declaring his wife had not been living at the same address as him for more than 90 days in a single year.

In the dock: Brigadier Charles Beardmore , 51, pictured, pleaded guilty to negligently performing his duty at a court martial hearing in Colchester

Continuity of Education Allowance can be claimed by certain service personnel to help pay for boarding school fees.

The current rates allow claims of 5,470 per term for a junior school and 7,245 per term for a senior school.

80m bill for private school fees Continuity of Education Allowance is provided to eligible Service Personnel (SP) to assist with school fees if the mother or father is away frequently with the armed forces. CEA is available for children aged eight years and over and can be used in boarding schools and day schools. Parents can claim up to 7,245 per term. Last year 20 went to Eton. The idea is to ensure service personnel and their children are not disadvantaged by their service, whether keeping Britain safe at home or abroad. Despite cutting 30million from the annual bill, Continuity of Education Allowance was paid in respect of 5,520 children at a total cost of 80.9million in 2015/16. Advertisement

Col Jones said: 'This case relates to the previous claims for Continuity of Education Allowance in 2014 when Brigadier Beardmore was working and living in Germany.

'Under the rules, in order to claim, the brigadier's wife had to live with him and was only permitted under the rules to be absent from the place of work address for 90 days within any one-year period.

'The defendant accepts that his wife was not resident with him for these purposes within the rules.

'She was absent from the family home in Germany for more than 90 days and knowing what the rules were, after that, Brigadier Beardmore had a duty to monitor his wife's absences.

'He failed to seek the proper exemption.'

The starting salary for brigadiers in the British Army is 101,147.

Brigadiers are senior to colonels and outranked only by generals.

Top brass: The last British Army brigadier to appear before a court martial is thought to have been 'Mad' Mike Calvert, pictured

The last brigadier to face a court martial is believed to have been 'Mad' Mike Calvert, a former Second World War commander, in 1952.

He was found guilty of gross indecency with male persons, 15 years before homosexuality was decriminalised, but denied the charge until his death in 1998.

The former Royal Engineers and SAS officer vigorously denied the charge, insisting the top brass had wanted to get rid of him because he was unconventional and a heavy drinker.

In 2007, Colonel Jorge Mendonca of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment became the most senior officer in recent times to be court-martialled. He was cleared of negligently performing a duty after his soldiers were found responsible for the death of Iraqi civilian Baha Mousa in Basra in 2003.
An expert on South Korean politics whose serious interview on the BBC was gatecrashed by his curious children and his stressed-out wife has described it as a 'comedy of errors'.

The hilarious footage went viral after Professor Robert Kelly, questioned about South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, being ousted from power was eclipsed by the cute little toddler, who performed a comical dance in the background.

Prof Kelly said he usually locked the door of his study but he had forgotten and his daughter Marion swaggered in, wearing a bright yellow sweater.

Prof Kelly (left, with their son James) said the video was 'terribly cute' in hindsight. His wife Jung-a (right, with their daughter Marion) said: 'It happens all the time'

He told the Wall Street Journal: 'As soon as she opened the door I saw her image on my screen. She was in a hippity-hoppity mood that day because of the school party.'

Prof Kelly, 44, said he gamely tried to continue with the interview but then nine-month-old James tottered into the room. 'Then I knew it was over,' he said.

To complete the farce, his wife Jung-a Kim then came skidding through the door.

She grabbed the two youngsters and attempted to drag them out of the door, but one of them could be heard wailing and the baby's walker got stuck in the door.

Today he said he wanted to 'clear up rumours' sparked by the hilarious clip, telling a press conference: 'My wife Jung-a did not use too much force in removing the children from the room. People asked this.'

The South Korean politics expert whose BBC interview was gatecrashed by his two adorable children today spoke out to tell trolls that his wife had not used too much force in dragging them away - and addressed 'racist' assumptions she was his nanny

Today Prof Kelly said he wanted to 'clear up rumours' sparked by the hilarious clip, telling a press conference: 'My wife Jung-a did not use too much force in removing the children from the room. People asked this.'

'Our children were not hurt... we normally do not treat our children the way you saw in the clip.'

He added: 'We would like to clear up some of the rumours and controversies around the video. Yes, the woman in the video is my wife, not my nanny.'

Prof Kelly, 44, also revealed he was so anxious after the 'disaster' that he had apologised to the BBC and thought his career as an interviewer was over.

The hilarious footage went viral on Friday after Professor Robert Kelly, questioned about South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, being ousted from power was eclipsed by Marion, aged four, who performed a comical dance in the background.

She was followed by little brother James, aged just nine months, who swept in to the study in a fast-moving baby walker. Moments later a stressed-out Jung-a skidded into the room and grappled the children out of shot.

Prof Kelly's daughter Marion burst into the room in a bright yellow top and performed a hilarious dance behind him

Sitting alongside his wife and two children today, with Marion sucking a lolly and James munching on a rusk, Prof Kelly was keen to defend his wife against mean-spirited comments. He said:'It is quite apparent in the video that she is frantically trying to salvage the professionalism of the interview.

'When Marian our daughter speaks in the clip she says in Korean 'Why mum' because she was responding surprise because we do not usually treat out children the way you saw in the clip.'

The video has been viewed 84 million times on the BBC's Facebook page, the hashtag #BBCDad was trending on Twitter and the story has been covered by media from Uruguay to Australia.

Prof Kelly, who is from Cleveland Ohio, focused entirely on the camera as he attempted to blindly hand off his daughter, who was clearly curious about who he was talking to.

His mortification soon doubled as baby James excitedly made his way into the room under his own power in a walker.

Both parties tried to keep their cool despite the hilarious interruption from his children

His mortification doubled as his baby son excitedly made his way into the room in a stroller

Eventually, she managed to get them both out, and the interview continued.

When the interview finished, broadcaster James Menendez told him: 'There's a first time for everything. I think you've got some children who need you!'

Prof Kelly admitted today he was mortified at the time but in hindsight he could see the funny side.

He said his feelings about the incident had gone from 'surprise and embarrassment' to 'amusement' and finally 'love and affection'.

'It was terribly cute. I saw the video like everybody else and it's really funny,' said Prof Kelly.

He said the reaction on social media had been astonishing - and mostly positive - and he had been forced to switch off Twitter and Facebook alerts and put his phone on airplane mode.

'I'm not even going near YouTube or Reddit or whatever those other sites are,' said Prof Kelly.

Prof Kelly and his wife Jung-a have seen the funny side of it since the story went viral but at the time they were both horrified with embarrassment

His wife Jung-a told the Wall Street Journal: 'It happens all the time but not like this. This was the first time it happened during an interview.'

In the immediate aftermath of the video going viral many people on social media assumed she was his nanny or maid, rather than his wife.

Some people accused those who assumed she was the nanny of being racist, leading to some fairly aggressive Twitter fights.

In an interview with the BBC today Prof Kelly said: 'We were pretty uncomfortable with it.'

But Jung-a played it down and said: 'People should just enjoy it, not argue over these things. I hope they stop arguing.'

Prof Kelly said he was 'uncomfortable' with the fact that many people jumped to the conclusion she was his nanny, rather than his wife, but she said people should 'stop arguing' about it

Prof Kelly also spiked rumours on the Internet that he had not been wearing trousers during the interview

He added: 'I was not shoving Marion out of the way. When I tried to move her behind the chair. I was trying to slide Marion behind the chair because we have toys and books in the room.

'My hope was that she would play with the books for a few moments until the interview ended.'

He said they had initially been overwhelmed by the 'blooper' but were now able to laugh at it.

'My wife and I did not fight after the blooper, we did not punish our children. In fact, we thought that no television network would ever call us again.'

'We thought it was just a disaster,' said Kelly.

'I communicated with the BBC immediately afterward and I apologised to them. I said that if they never called us back or never asked me to be on television again, I would understand.'

More formal pose: Robert Kelly and his wife Jung-a and daughter Marion - who started the interruption which created a viral sensation.

Possibly the most hilarious moment in the farce was when his wife came skidding through the door to take the children off camera

Prof Kelly could be seen squirming in his chair as his wife grabbed the youngsters and attempted to drag them out of the door, with one of them wailing and the baby's walker stuck in the door

The hilarious footage was first tweeted by BBC producer Julia MacFarlane, who promptly deleted it 20 minutes later.

She wrote: 'When the kids interrupt you in the middle of live TV...A lovely moment and masterfully handled by our guest this morning on South Korea'.

Asked about becoming a 'poster child' for working fathers trying to balance office commitments with family life, he said today: 'You have to be flexible. For example, this was my home office space and normally I hope that my children don't come in; I can get more work done.

'But we want our children to feel comfortable coming into the room and being able to approach their father. And that means you can't keep that strict boundary where some rooms are off limits.'

Addressing rumours he didn't stand up because he was wearing pajamas or pantsm he said: 'Yes, I was wearing pants! Someone at lunch recognised me today and asked me if I was wearing pants.

BBC correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan revels in the return of the #BBCDad and his family

A BBC spokesman told MailOnline: 'We're really grateful to Professor Kelly for his professionalism. This just goes to show that live broadcasting isn't always child's play.'

A highly respected expert on South Korean politics, Prof Kelly has written for outlets including Foreign Affairs, The European Journal Of International Relations and The Economist.

He earned his bachelors degree in political science from the University of Miami and completed his PhD at Ohio State.

The incident, trending as #BBCDad, led to a spate of memes and parodies

And after the segment had finished, the presenter admitted on Twitter that he had struggled to keep it together during the episode

No sooner had the interview been broadcast that people were clamouring to share the clip online and Prof Kelly soon realised it was about to go viral

The stuff of memes: The internet was quick to react to the hilarious clip with Twitter users uploading and sharing memes

Another meme captured the exact moment despairing Professor Kelly realised his daughter was in the room and tried to nudge her out of shot

Only a tiny minority on social media did not see the funny side

Kelly's mother Ellen told DailyMail.com the clip was 'hilarious' and she had spoken to her son just as it started to become an internet sensation.

'First my sister called and then we spoke to Robert, who was a little disturbed - probably just embarrassed,' she said.

Mrs Kelly said she thought it was 'fantastic' and 'the best part' was when his wife came skidding into shot.

Ellen Kelly, 72, with her husband, Joseph, spoke to DailyMail.com and said she could be the reason behind the gaffe. She said that she regularly Skypes with the children and that 'the kids probably heard voices coming from the computer and assumed it was grandma'

Mrs Kelly, from University Heights, just outside Cleveland, told DailyMail.com she was exceptionally proud of her son and all of his accomplishments, and said he was a 'wonderful' and committed father.

She and her husband Joseph often Skype him, his wife and the two children.

She said: 'Robert usually Skypes with us from his home office, which is where he did the interview.

'The kids probably heard voices coming from the computer and assumed it was us,' she said laughing. 'It was just hilarious'.

Mrs Kelly, 72, said her son, who is an expert on South Korean politics, has done a number of interviews on network television for other outlets, including CNN, as well as CNBC, Sky News, and ITN.

She said: 'I just hope that he gains recognition for his expertise rather than for this - as great as it all is.'

'Life happens,' she said, laughing. 'The lesson is to lock the door!'

After the segment finished on Friday Menendez admitted on Twitter he had struggled to keep it together.

He posted a link to the video, with the words: 'Hard to keep a straight face.'

Afterwards, he added: 'It was the desperate reach for the door at the end that nearly did it for me.'
Police are hunting a group of men who did the mannequin challenge after two robberies and petrol thefts in Manchester.

The clips, which show a group of young men frozen on a street and in a car, were found on a mobile phone located in a blue Ford Focus after two robberies on November 14.

Greater Manchester Police said the mobile was one of many seized from the vehicle, which was used in eleven petrol station drive-offs, along with several stolen debit cards.

A group of men who made a Mannequin Challenge video are being hunted after two robberies

Clips of the challenge were found on a mobile phone located inside of a car which also contained several stolen mobiles and debit cards

Greater Manchester Police said the vehicle was also used in eleven petrol station drive-offs

The driver, Roger Bosion, 22, was arrested and bailed until December 13 pending further enquiries but he failed to return.

A warrant has since been issued for his arrest and efforts were made to trace him.

The first robbery took place at around 11.55pm when a man was attacked on Fredrick Road, Salford, by two men while another two other men stood and watched.

The victim saw the two men get out of a blue Ford Focus prior to the attack and return to the same vehicle after throwing him to the ground and demanding the password to his gold-coloured iPhone 5S before stealing the phone.

The video shows a group of young men inside of a car, while others are seen frozen on the street nearby

An examination of one of the phones revealed footage of two mannequin challenges police say happened before and after the robberies took place

The challenge became a global phenomenon after a group of students filmed themselves frozen while "Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd plays in the background

Around midnight on the same day, just five minutes after the first robbery, another man was sat at a bus stop on Eccles Old Road when he was approached by three men.

They grabbed him and dragged him to the floor before taking his Samsung S7 Edge, again demanding the password to the phone, and getting into a blue Ford Focus and driving away.

Driver of the vehicle, Roger Bosion, was arrested and bailed until December 13 pending further enquiries

Later that day, officers stopped the car on Deansgate in Manchester city centre and the phones and stolen debit cards were discovered.

An examination of one of the phones revealed footage of two mannequin challenges police say happened before and after the robberies took place.

Detective Constable Allan Barker, of GMP's Salford Borough, said: 'These two robberies happened in such quick succession that there was no regard for the safety of the victims who were left shaken, upset and terrified.

'We have been following a number of enquiries but we have not yet been able to identify those responsible so it is imperative that we speak to the group of people in the footage to be able to move forward with the investigation.

'Boison is actively evading police arrest and may be in London or the surrounding areas. If anyone knows where he is or if anyone has seen him, please get in contact with us as a matter of urgency.'
President Donald Trump and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman shake hands in the State Dining Room before lunch at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2017

President Donald Trump held his first White House meeting with a Muslim and Middle East leader Tuesday when he lunched with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

Trump said very little at two events where reporters got brief opportunities to see the president and his guests, who administer a country that is a key U.S. ally but also a relationship fraught with friction.

"Very nice people," Trump said while reporters viewed him inside the Oval Office, declining to answer shouted questions about health care.

Seated in the Oval Office were Vice President Mike Pence, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and chief of staff Reince Priebus.

President Donald Trump stands with Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before lunch in the State Dining Room of the White House

Assistant to the President for economic affairs, the Egyptian-born former Bush administration official Dina Habib Powell, was also there. The former Goldman Sachs exec has advised Ivanka Trump on women's empowerment issues.

Ivanka Trump was at the White House Tuesday. She shared videos shot in the snow on the White House grounds on Instagram. It was not known whether she would meet the visiting Saudi dignitaries.

She advises Ivanka Trump on initiatives related to empowering women. She said at the Republican convention: 'Policies that allow women with children to thrive should not be novelties, they should be the norm,' CNN reported.

When the White House determined it was time to leave, Bannon told reporters 'let's roll.'

President Donald Trump (R) meets with Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, at the White House. Trump sat across from Prince Salman. Seated at the head of the table was advisor Dina Habib Powell

The group was to dine in the State Dining Room, at a meal where water was the only beverage seen.

Prince Salman was joined by foreign minister Adel al Jubair, and Minister of State Musaed Al Abian.

The White House declined to provide an immediate readout of what happened during the daily press briefing.

Trump hosted Saudi Arabia's powerful Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House Tuesday, for talks expected to focus on the economy and rolling back Iranian influence.

Trump welcomed the young prince to the Oval Office, as both countries expect to improve ties that were frequently strained under Barack Obama's administration.

Trump's met with Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Oval Office

Saudi Arabia is likely to welcome Trump's harder line on its arch-rival Iran and there is likely to be less friction over Riyadh's war against Iranian-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia viewed Obama as being too accommodating towards Iran -- particularly amid negotiations on a nuclear deal -- while Washington held grave misgivings about civilian deaths in Yemen.

Trump's 50-plus days in office have given little indication about his stance on Saudi Arabia's war, but have seen a dramatic uptick in US action against Al-Qaeda's Yemen offshoot -- AQAP.

Second in line to the throne, Prince Mohammed is the son of King Salman and holds the post of defense minister, although much of his focus is on economic issues.

He is the chief proponent of Vision 2030, a wide-ranging social and economic reform plan begun last year to diversify the oil dependent economy.

He has also played a key role in the Yemen campaign.

TIGHT-LIPPED: Trump barely spoke when pool reporters were allowed into the Oval Office during the visit

Trump has expressed hope that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies can be helpful across a range of issues, from creating safe zones in Syria to solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Riyadh is also seen by the White House as pivotal in any effort to constrain Iran's influence across the Middle East.

But that strategy has been widely questioned.

"Anyone experiencing these visions ought to lie down and wait quietly until the sensation passes," warned Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky -- foreign policy advisors to Republican and Democratic administrations.

The pair warned in a Washington Post opinion editorial that "the president is likely to find that his vision of US interests, let alone strategy, doesn't mesh with that of the Arabs on whom he's relying."

Experts familiar with the region have also warned that any robust effort to counter Iran must be well thought through -- as Tehran is likely to hit back at US interests asymmetrically and in a non-attributable way.
Guilty: Teacher Kimberly Naquin, 27, pleaded guilty to having a year-long lesbian affair with a 16-year-old female student

A teacher at a Louisiana high school has tearfully confessed to having sex with a teenage student - conducting a year-long lesbian affair with the 16-year-old girl.

Kimberly Naquin, 27, a history teacher at Destrehan High School, in St Charles Parish, near New Orleans, was pleaded guilty after being charged with carnal knowledge of a juvenile and sexual conduct between a teacher and a female student.

Naquin is the daughter of St. Charles Parish School Board President Dennis Naquin, and her mother is also a teacher in area.

Judge June Darensburg of the 24th Judicial District Court gave her a suspended five-year and six-month prison sentences and ordered her to serve a total of five years on probation.

'I betrayed your trust,' Naquin told the now-17-year-old victim and her parents after she apologizing during the hearing on Monday.

Scene: Naquin was a teacher at Destrehan High School in St Charles Parish, near New Orleans

The court heard how Kimberly Naquin lived in fear of getting caught

The victim testified in court Naquin who was her world history teacher began trying to kindle a relationship with her one week after her 16th birthday.

'I thought she was cool because she paid special attention to me,' the girl told the court.

Naquin eventually began a sexual relationship with the girl, meeting at least 10 times at the teacher's Kenner apartment between October 2014 and August 2015, authorities said.

Police started investigating the teacher after a tip-off from a family member of the female student.

The girl, who was 16 and 17 during the relationship, told detectives it began around September 2014 and continued through to August 2015.

Most of the encounters occurred at Naquin's former home in Kenner, however some took place in the school.

Family ties: Kimberly Naquin (left, in her booking photo) is the daughter of St. Charles Parish School Board President Dennis Naquin (right)

The victim testified that Naquin cried after sexual encounters and said she'd go to jail and threatened to kill herself.

The victim told the court she only learned that she had been manipulated by her teacher after therapy.

The girls' father also testified during the hearing Monday, calling Naquin's actions 'selfish' and 'predatory.'

'School is supposed to be a safe place for children to mature and to learn, and this teacher has ruined that,' he said.

Naquin will have to register as a sex offender for 15 years, undergo a psychological evaluation and receive treatment if needed and have no contact whatsoever with the victim for one year, the judge ordered.

'I can guarantee you, if you violate any conditions of your probation, you will go to jail for five years,' the judge said.
Mischa Barton has said the sex tape of her being shopped around Hollywood is 'revenge porn' and was recorded by a former lover 'without her consent'.

Through her lawyer the troubled actress branded those who are shopping the tape around porn companies as 'disgusting'.

DailyMail.com revealed exclusively Monday that an x-rated video, which shows Barton having sex with a dark haired man, is being offered to the highest bidder with the starting price of $500,000.

The footage is being touted to online porn companies, with a number of porn industry giants considering the offer.

But today Barton's lawyer Lisa Bloom hit back in a statement, she said: 'Ms Barton does not consent to any disclosure of any such images. She believes that she was recorded without her consent by someone she was seeing at the time.

Mischa Barton is outraged over a sex tape featuring troubled actress being shopped around Hollywood with the starting price of $500,000, DailyMail.com can reveal. Pictured, Barton in a photo shoot in Malibu on Monday

The news comes just weeks after Barton's 'drug-induced' meltdown, when she was filmed by a neighbor hanging over a fence in her backyard and calling her mother a 'f****** witch'

Respected civil rights attorney Ms Bloom threatened those attempting to 'traffic' the tape of Barton, saying, 'we will come after you'

'There's a name for this disgusting conduct: revenge pornography. Revenge pornography is a form of sexual assault, and it is also a crime and a civil wrong in California. And we will not stand for it.'

Respected civil rights attorney Ms Bloom threatened those attempting to 'traffic' the tape, saying, 'we will come after you'.

She added: 'We will fully prosecute you under every available criminal and civil law. You proceed at your peril.'

The x-rated video, which shows Barton having sex with a dark haired man, is being offered to the highest bidder with the starting price of $500,000.

The footage is being touted to online porn companies, with a number of porn industry giants considering the offer.

Kevin Blatt, Hollywoods sex-tape broker, was approached by a third party with the video.

He told DailyMail.com: 'The tape is being shopped around porn valley, the asking price is $500,000.

'I know that at least three large online porn sites, YouPorn.com, Porn.com and RedTube.com have reviewed it and they're all seriously considering the offer.

'I've seen stills from the video, it's clearly Mischa in my opinion.

'She's seen performing a sex act on a guy and can be seen having sex in various positions.'

It's not clear who the man in the video is and Barton has not stepped out with anyone publicly in recent months.

It's believed the video was shot at a private residence in Hollywood within the past year.

As for the x-rated video of the actress, Kevin Blatt, Hollywoods sex-tape broker (pictured with Snoop Dogg), was approached by a third party with the video and is confident Barton is the woman in the scene

Barton is seen wearing a grey hoodie and nothing else having sex on a double bed with a man wearing just a black t-shirt.

The explicit footage appears to have been shot in a bedroom, the bed has a leather padded headboard and mirrored panels, while coffee cups and an empty bottle of Gatorade litter a bedside table.

Adding to the less than glamorous surroundings, there's also a flier on the table for CURRENT: LA, Los Angeles' first city-wide Public Art Biennial.

Sources close to the star fear for her emotional well-being, should the video be leaked online.

One source told DailyMail.com: 'This is the last thing Mischa needs. Her name has been dragged through the mud enough times, she doesn't need a sex scandal right now.'

Barton, 31, has had a series of private meltdowns this year that included screaming in her backyard while hanging over a fence and damaging her apartment building with a U-Haul moving truck.

The star had appeared to have sprung back to life, though, in a stunning photo shoot earlier this month.

The OC vet looked in great form as she was snapped wearing a skimpy string bikini while posing for a bottled water company on the shores of Huntington Beach, California.

But yet again it is her private life that continues to trouble the New York native.

The Beautiful Life: TBL star, who came to fame with 1999's The Sixth Sense, crashed a rented U-Hail truck into an apartment building in mid-February.

The Notting Hill actress was moving out of a building where she had been living in the same neighborhood.

Barton moved all of her belongings into the U-Haul truck and drove to another building located right below the Sunset Strip hitting an overhanging beam as she did.

According to TMZ, her old neighbors complained that Barton was disruptive 'to the point cops were called every few months.'

The London-born beauty has been busy with her career, with four films in post production and she has just completed Monsters at Large, a family film with Stephen Tobolowsky. She is pictured with Monsters co-stars Trevor Dolden, Matthew Kosto and Austin St John in May 2016

'I know that at least three large online porn sites, YouPorn.com, Porn.com and RedTube.com have reviewed it and they're all seriously considering the offer,' Blatt said about the tape

The star's outing came just weeks after she had a 'meltdown' in her backyard where two of her neighbors called 911 saying that Barton had threatened to kill herself.

Barton later claimed that she had been given the date rape drug GHB following the incident, which led to her being hospitalized after paramedics arrived on the scene.

In previously released footage of the meltdown, which appeared to be filmed by a neighbor, Barton could be seen ranting and raving while she hangs over a fence in her backyard.

The actress could be heard wailing as she rocked back and forth, even calling her a mother a 'f*****g witch.'

'Ah, planet Earth. Um, bye,' Barton says at the top of the video. 'Like, like anybody. Oh my God, it's over. I feel it. And it's angry.'

Barton then falls off the balcony and back onto her patio, but quickly gets back up.

Despite all the problems in her private life, the London-born beauty has been very busy with her career with four films in post production and she has just completed Monsters at Large, a family film with Stephen Tobolowsky.
A 27-year-old man will spend the rest of his life in prison after killing his infant son by stuffing a sock in his mouth to stop him from crying.

Gene Anthony Quinones-Rivera will serve life without parole - the maximum sentence for second-degree murder - after pleading no contest in Panama City, Florida, on Monday.

Quinones-Rivera confessed to killing his two-month-old son Gediaelamir Rivera in June 2015 before leaving the boy's body in a remote area in Florida's Panhandle.

Gene Anthony Quinones-Rivera, 27, will spend the rest of his life in prison after killing his infant son by stuffing a sock in his mouth to stop him from crying

The child's disappearance might have gone unsolved if Quinones-Rivera had not walked into a police station in December 2016 and confessed to killing his son more than a year before, Parker Police Chief Dennes Hutto said.

'I'm glad he did come forward,' Hutto told the News Herald. 'If he hadn't, no one would have ever known what happened to this infant.'

In an interview at the jail, Quinones-Rivera told the newspaper he had been smoking marijuana and was angry when he stuffed a sock into his son's mouth at his Panama City apartment.

Hours later, he found the boy had stopped breathing. He tried to revive the child with CPR and a cold bath, but Gediaelamir didn't respond.

Quinones-Rivera said he put the boy's body in a trash bag and left it in a wooded area without notifying authorities.

Quinones-Rivera (pictured during an interview in jail) of Guanica, Puerto Rico, said he had previously gagged his son in the same manner and taped his arms to his sides

Quinones-Rivera said he had previously gagged his son in the same manner and taped his arms to his sides.

'My son was crying, and I was angry with him for that,' he said. 'That's the only reason I was angry with my son.'

He decided to confess after a religious conversion, saying: 'Right now I don't have fear, but I know I needed to pay for that. I can't lie no more. I need to be free.'

Investigators later found the partial remains of a child in a remote part of Bay County described by Quinones-Rivera.

The mother, Yanoshua Ramos-Melendez, was arrested in New York and charged with aggravated manslaughter for the death of her child.
The Duke of Cambridge will travel to France with his father and brother to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

The trio will attend commemorations at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial on the site of the battle, near Lille in northern France, on Sunday April 9.

It comes after Prince William, 34, skipped a major Commonwealth ceremony with the Queen to party with friends in the Swiss Alps.

But he will now attend the special anniversary of the First World War battle which resulted in around 3,500 Canadian soldiers losing their lives.

The trio (pictured together) will attend commemorations at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial on the site of the battle, near Lille in northern France, on Sunday April 9

They were killed over four days in the assault, while another 10,000 were wounded.

Four Victoria Crosses were awarded for bravery and it is seen as Canada's most notable military victory and a symbol of the birth of the country's national pride.

It was the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Corps had attacked together.

Their achievement was a vital strategic breakthrough that had eluded their British and French allies for two years.

German forces had seized control of the ridge, overlooking the plains of Artois, in September 1914 and constructed deep defensive positions comprising bunkers, caves, passages and heavily protected artillery-proof trenches.

Attempts by French forces to seize control of the area in 1915 failed and they suffered 150,000 casualties.

In preparation, the Canadians constructed miles of tunnels through which soldiers could pass ready to attack without coming under shellfire.

A Canadian casualty of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917, being evacuated by stretcher bearers

At dawn on Easter Monday 1917, they launched their assault and within 30 minutes captured the German front line positions in spite of a snowstorm.

Charles is attending the event on behalf of the Queen, who is also Queen of Canada.

In 2007, the monarch travelled to France for the 90th anniversary and praised the 'courage and achievement' of Canadian forces for their 'stunning victory'.
An inmate who attacked convicted pedophile Jared Fogle says he did it out of anger at how the shamed former Subway spokesman was treated in jail.

Steve Nigg, who assaulted Fogle at a Colorado jail in January 2016, said that the 39-year-old was revered by fellow sexual predators.

'The other child molesters looked at him as if he was a god,' Nigg wrote to his family in a letter seen by TMZ.

Inmate Steve Nigg (left), who gave Subway pedophile Jared Fogle (right) a prison yard beating, said he did so because Fogle was revered by fellow child molesters

'Jared is their hero,' added the inmate, who is serving 15 years on gun charges - the same term as Fogle who was jailed for trading child pornography and having sex with underage prostitutes.

'You would not believe how arrogant Jared was. He hired bodyguards.'

Nigg also told his family members he thought child molesters, or 'chomos' as he called them, were being coddled in the minimum security prison and alleged Fogle had flashed his money around and paid for bodyguards.

According to the Denver Post, Nigg wrote to his family saying: 'The public believes these sick predators are being punished when they are sent to prison.

'The administration treats them like they are on the endangered species list.'

His brother Jimmy told the Post: 'Now they send in a celebrity chomo. He's flashing his money around. He hired two big convicts to protect him. He was paying for commissary.'

Steve Nigg, who assaulted Fogle at a Colorado jail in January 2016, said that the 39-year-old was revered by fellow sexual predators

Fogle (pictured in August 2015) was left with minor injuries after the attack in January 2016

According to the official report filed at the prison, Nigg 'assaulted Fogle by pushing him to the ground and striking Fogle multiple times in the face with a closed fist.'

'Fogle sustained a small cut on his hand and an abrasion on his left knee from the concrete during the assault.'

Nigg claims that Fogle's bodyguards did little to try and save him from the attack.

The 61-year-old was moved nearly 700 miles from Colorados Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood to a federal prison in Oklahoma City in solitary confinement following the attack, according to the New York Post.

He has also lost the use of email, commissary and time off for good behavior.

But Nigg insisted that he still has 'no regrets.'

Jimmy Nigg Jnr, previously told the New York Daily News : 'Jared's lucky he's still alive. My uncle was in a position to kill him.

Nigg also told his family members he thought child molesters, or 'chomos' as he called them, were being coddled in the minimum security prison (pictured)

Steve Niggs punched Fogle several times in January, leaving him with a bloody nose, scratched neck and a swollen face. Pictured, the prison incident report for the January 29 assault

'He got him down, then walked away. Hes not a violent guy, he doesnt have a violent history. Hes sending a message is what hes doing.

'A guy walks in with all this money and celebrity and instead of flying under the radar, hes going into the yard, walking around with big guys, saying no one can mess with me, flashing his money around and that's what (my uncle) is p****d off about.'

Jimmy Jr also added that his uncle attacked Fogle to get back at him for his crimes.

He added: 'He said these kids (the victims) got dads and uncles and they'd love to do what I just did. I'm doing it for the families. I couldn't help it.'

Steve, who was apparently pleased the beating became national news, also 'wanted people to know he was given an excessive sentence' in comparison to Fogle, his nephew Jimmy Niggs Jr. said.

Steve was convicted in 2012 for selling unregistered guns on Craigslist, according to court documents cited by the Post.

His nephew defended his uncle by saying: 'He's serving 15 years in prison for a non-violent crime and Fogle is serving the same sentence for raping kids.'

Fogle rose to fame when he appeared in the fast-food chain's adverts, after shedding more than 200lbs, in part by eating Subway sandwiches

Steve was previously jailed for three armed robberies, stealing $670 between 1976 and 1990.

Fogle rose to fame when he appeared in the fast-food chain's adverts. He allegedly shed more than 200lbs (91kg), in part by eating Subway sandwiches.

A raid on his suburban Indianapolis home and the resulting criminal case destroyed his lucrative career with the sandwich restaurant chain.

He pleaded guilty to one count each of travelling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and distribution and receipt of child pornography.

Fogle, a father-of-two, also admitted having sex with two prostitutes aged under 18 at hotels in New York City.

His earliest possible release date is July 11, 2029 - just a month before his 52nd birthday. His attacker, Nigg, is scheduled for a 2024 release from prison.




Relentless rain is continuing to drench the east coast of Australia, with the wettest March day ever in western Sydney, and up to 200mm recorded in a town near Noosa in less than 24 hours.

'Significant' showers brought Penrith its wettest March day in at least 21 years, with 51mm recorded since 9am Tuesday, Weatherzone meteorologist Rob Sharpe told Daily Mail Australia.

Rain and thunderstorms have been battering Queensland's Sunshine Coast, with 198mm smashing Tewantin, near Noosa, in less than 24 hours.

Petrie, just north of Brisbane, was hit with 57mm of rain in just 30 minutes.

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Rain is pictured flooding a home in western Sydney on Tuesday

Rain forecast to fall across Australia between Wednesday and Saturday is pictured

The small town of Esk, west of Brisbane, also received about 60mm of rain within a three-hour period.

Most of the rain fell overnight in the Sunshine Coast, where the majority of suburbs receiving between 70mm and 150mm.

Mr Sharpe said the rainfall in southeast Queensland was 'widespread and very heavy', and will continue with thunderstorms for the next few days.

The vast majority of Sydney has seen between 20mm and 60mm of rain since 9am Tuesday.

Penrith had its wettest March day in at least 21 years, but St Clair recorded the heaviest showers with 68mm.

The central-west of the Sydney basis has so far received the heaviest showers, but the coast will see more showers over coming days.

'We'll probably see at least a couple of showers every day until Sunday in the Sydney basin,' Mr Sharpe told Daily Mail Australia.

A woman posted a picture of the view from her office, with floodwaters covering the road

Dark clouds are pictured over North Star in NSW near the Queensland border earlier this week

Monday and Tuesday are expected to be clearer, however rain is expected to continue for coming weeks.

There will be substantial dry breaks between showers, Mr Sharpe said.

The heaviest and most frequent showers are expected to fall in the morning and evenings.

Showers are hitting the entire length of the New South Wales coast except for the very south tip.

West of the Great Dividing Range is not expected to receive more showers for this weather event.

Bureau of Meteorology put out a flood warning for parts of the state.

The Sydney Harbour and the Opera House are pictured on Tuesday

Clouds over Lawnton, north of Brisbane, are pictured earlier this week

'A coastal trough will deepen off the northern New South Wales coast on Wednesday and persist into the weekend, with the potential for significant rainfall totals to build up in the northeast by the end of the week,' a Bureau of Meteorology warning said on Tuesday.

'This rainfall has the potential to cause flooding to develop in the following river valleys from late Wednesday onwards.'

Affected areas include Brunswick, Wilsons, Orara and Bellinger.

Back in Queensland, Yeppoon, Baralaba, Woorabinda and Duaringa are on flood watch.

A severe thunderstorm warning for heavy rainfall is in place for the southeast coast and parts of the Central Highlands and Coalfields.

Locations which may be affected include Gold Coast, Coolangatta, Yeppoon, Baralaba, Marlborough and Woorabinda.

90 children needed to evacuated from a daycare centre in Orchard Hills, in Sydney's western suburbs after flood water rose

Four people needed to be rescued from flood waters that hit Sydney today, trapped in cars and homes inundated with water

Authorities are urging people to not enter floodwaters and if trapped by flash flooding to seek refuge in the highest available place

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Ben Harrison said there was the potential for more severe thunderstorms similar to the one that lashed Queensland's southeast region on Tuesday.

Central Queensland received up to 100mm of rain along the coast since 9am Tuesday, Mr Sharpe said.

But he said the storms would likely occur in the Darling Downs and Central Highlands.

Mr Harrison said heavy rainfall was predicted in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast over the weekend.

The wet weather forecast came just one day after it was revealed 87 per cent of Queensland was in drought, including parts of the southeast.

Wind warnings are in place in Victoria at the Central Gippsland Coast and the East Gippsland coast for Wednesday and Thursday.

Melbourne is enjoying sunny skies this week.

FORECAST FOR THE WEEK AHEAD SYDNEY Wednesday: Max 26 and showers Thursday: Max 26 and showers Friday: Max 25 and showers Saturday: Max 26 and showers Sunday: Max 26 and possible showers BRISBANE Wednesday: Max 29 showers Thursday: Max 29 and showers Friday: Max 29 and possible showers Saturday: Max 30 and possible showers Sunday: Max 29 and possible showers CANBERRA Wednesday: Max 26 and possible showers Thursday: Max 29 and possible showers Friday: Max 26 and possible showers Saturday: Max 27 and mostly sunny Sunday: Max 28 and mostly sunny DARWIN Wednesday: Max 33 and possible thunderstorm Thursday: Max 33 and possible thunderstorm Friday: Max 32 and possible thunderstorm Saturday: Max 32 and possible thunderstorm Sunday: Max 32 and possible thunderstorm MELBOURNE Wednesday: Max 33 and mostly sunny Thursday: Max 29 and clouds increasing Friday: Max 25 and mostly sunny Saturday: Max 31 and sunny Sunday: Max 32 and sunny ADELAIDE Wednesday: Max 34 and sunny Thursday: Max 26 and mostly sunny Friday: Max 28 and sunny Saturday: Max 34 and sunny Sunday: Max 34 and sunny PERTH Wednesday: Max 24 and mostly sunny Thursday: Max 28 and sunny Friday: Max 27 and mostly sunny Saturday: Max 24 and showers Sunday: Max 25 and clearing showers HOBART Wednesday: Max 30 and mostly cloudy Thursday: Max 24 and possible showers Friday: Max 22 and sunny Saturday: Max 26 and sunny Sunday: Max 30 and sunny Source: Weatherzone Advertisement

Dark clouds hang over Boondall in northern Brisbane earlier this week

Wednesday is expected to top 33 degrees in the city, followed by 29 degrees on Thursday.

Both Saturday and Sunday are expected to reach the early-30s as temperatures in the high-20s start next week.

In Sydney earlier in the week, Penrith SES volunteers were called into Erskine Park and Luddenham to rescue people trapped in cars and in buildings inundated with water.

About 90 children needed to be evacuated from a childcare centre in Orchard Hills, in the western suburbs, after flood water rose.

In a video posted to Facebook, Penrith SES volunteers showed the impact of flash flooding in low lying garages that are easily susceptible to rising water.

For flood emergency assistance contact the SES on 132 500

For life threatening emergencies, call Triple Zero (000) immediately

One happy punter took the opportunity to get out an inflatable boat to paddle down a flooded road in Tuggerah on the Central Coast

With many roads experiencing flash floods the opportunity to paddle proved too hard to resist for some

Hailstones larger than golf balls hit Coonamble earlier in the week
Indiana police investigating the slaying of two teenage girls say they have interviewed more than 300 people and are following up on thousands of tips.

Liberty German, 14, and 13-year-old Abigail Williams vanished on February 13 while hiking near Delphi, about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Their bodies were found the next day in a wooded area.

State Police Sgt Kim Riley said Tuesday that authorities have cleared more than 200 people identified as resembling a man shown in two grainy photos taken from one of the girl's cellphones.

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Indiana police investigating the slaying of two teenage girls say they have interviewed more than 300 people and are following up on thousands of tips

Liberty German, 14, and 13-year-old Abigail Williams vanished on February 13 while hiking near Delphi, about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Their bodies were found the next day in a wooded area

Mike Patty with his wife Becky at his side, spoke to reporters during a news conference for the about the investigation of the double homicide last Thursday

But Riley says investigators are still following up on tips from roughly another 100 people and authorities are still getting about 200 new tips a day in the investigation.

Authorities released a picture of a suspect last month, saying they were looking to speak to the man.

Liberty had taken the picture of the man on her cell phone before they were murdered.

An audio file from Liberty's cell phone was also released last month with police saying that she had 'the presence of mind' to turn her video camera on.

Indiana State Police Sgt. Tony Slocum said: 'This young lady is a hero. There's no doubt.'

The tape consisted of three words: 'Down the hill'. Police have asked for the public's help in identifying the voice.

Authorities said it was possible the voice belongs to the man in the photo but also said more than one person could be involved.

The two friends were active on social media on their phones before they disappeared, with Liberty posting a final Snapchat image of Williams walking on the bridge, which is 60 feet above the creek, at 2.07pm.

Authorities released a picture of a man (left and right) last month, saying they were looking to speak to the him. Liberty had taken the picture of the man on her cell phone before they were murdered

An audio file from Liberty's cell phone was released last month with police saying that she had 'the presence of mind' to turn her video camera on. Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter (above) said the voice of the killer was a key clue in the case

The two friends were active on social media on their phones before they disappeared, with Liberty posting a final Snapchat image of Williams (right) walking on the bridge (left), which is 60 feet above the creek, at 2.07pm

Liberty also managed to take a grainy image of a man, who can be seen walking with his head down and hands in his pockets, along the same bridge. He is dressed in jeans, blue jacket and a hat.

Sgt Slocum said: 'We are actively looking for this person. This person is our suspect.'

Authorities believe either the victims came across the killer by chance or the suspect knew their plans and was lying in wait.

Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter added: 'Someone knows who this individual is And if you're watching, we'll find you.'

He also reminded the public that tips could be submitted anonymously.

Law enforcement, including Captain David Bursten of the Indiana State Police (at the podium) released the recording last month in Delphi

Williams and German went missing on February 13 after going for a hike at 1pm near the Monon High Bridge along the Delphi Historic Trails.

They were reported missing when they failed to meet up with a family member at a prearranged location.

Their bodies were found on February 14 at 12.15pm, three-quarters of a mile upstream from where they were last seen.

A $41,000 reward has been put up in the case, using funds from the FBI, a local business and a local family. Indiana is a death penalty state.

The 24-hour tip line is 844 -459-5786.

This is the bridge where Abigail and Liberty were last seen alive on Monday, thanks to the Snapchat posts. Mourners left flowers in memory of the two teens
A 'beware of the Jews' sign has been put up in one of London's largest Orthodox Jewish communities.

The offensive signage was spotted near a synagogue in the Haredi Jewish enclave of Stamford Hill in north London.

The sign, which features a silhouette of an Orthodox Jewish man with a red border, similar to traffic signs, was reported to Hackney Council by Shomrim N.E. London.

A 'beware of the Jews' sign has been put up in one of London's largest Orthodox Jewish communities (pictured)

Shomrim are a community and neighbourhood watch group who operate in the Stamford Hill, Hackney and Haringey areas.

They tweeted this evening: '#Shomrim reported to @MPSHackney and @HackneyCouncil this offensive 'Beware of Jews' sign which was fixed onto a lamppost in #StamfordHill.'

Diane Abbot, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, has slammed the abuse and tweeting a link to Shomrim's post, she wrote: 'Disgusting. Unacceptable.'

Stamford Hill is home to more than 20,000 Haredi Jews and the community has thrived there since the the late 19th century.

Pictured: Labour MP Diane Abbott slammed the abuse as 'Disgusting' and 'Unacceptable'

The sign was erected as Jewish people celebrate the ancient festival of Purim, with youngsters in fancy dress spilling onto Stamford Hill's streets as they enjoy parties with friends and family.

Barry Bard, supervisor at Stamford Hill Shomrim, said that the offensive sign had sent shockwaves through the community.

He told the Evening Standard: 'The sign has caused a lot of concern amongst local Jewish residents, especially as it is in such close proximity to a Synagogue.'
The University of Minnesota has become the latest college to drop the tradition of Homecoming King and Queen, replacing them with gender-neutral Royals.

In what campus officials call a move 'toward gender inclusivity' that promotes 'a spirit of inclusion', students can now vote for two winners of any gender.

'This change allows the University to select the best student representatives for the U of M based on campus and community involvement  regardless of gender,' the university website states.

The University of Minnesota has become the latest college to drop the tradition of Homecoming 'King' and 'Queen', replacing them with gender-neutral 'Royals' (stock image)

Homecoming this year at the University of Minnesota (file image) will be held October 15-21

Marissa Suiter, who oversees the student board, told TwinCities.com the change was sparked by parent complaints last year about a pre-Homecoming childrens coloring contest, which named boy and girl winners in each age group.

The competition sparked discussion about how to make Homecoming more inclusive and the student board finally agreed to make the roles genderless.

A spokesman for the Student Unions & Activities said they didn't want students to be limited by gender identity.

'We look forward to crowning two students who respectfully represent the university's values, connect with the diverse members of the university community, and have excellent school pride,' the spokesman said.

Homecoming this year at the University of Minnesota will be held October 15-21.

The university will name 10 students to Homecoming court, 'only this year the mix won't necessarily be five men and five women.'

'Those 10 will be paired at random to compete in pre-Homecoming events, and their performance, along with a university-wide vote, will determine the two royals,' the Pioneer Press reports.

Royals get a scholarship and represent the U at on-campus and certain events.

The decision has sparked debate online with some claiming it is evidence that the 'prog-left is running the show'

The decision has sparked debate online with some claiming it is evidence that the 'prog-left is running the show.' Others accused the uni of being too 'PC'.

For others, it did not go far enough.

'Replaced with genderless royals!! Not good enough! Why not "non-binary common folk of social justice"! It's 2017!' one commenter tweeted.

But Minnesota is just the latest in a series of universities which have dropped the longtime tradition of Homecoming 'King' and 'Queen' in recent years.

San Diego State University replaced the titles with the gender-neutral term 'Royals' in 2015.

Applicants are now able to select gender-neutral terms to identify themselves in hopes of removing the common gender binaries of identifying people as solely masculine or feminine.

Christy Nierva Quiogue, director of the Center for Intercultural Relations told The Daily Aztec the change in homecoming titles is another way to raise awareness about gender equality.

'The reality is we don't live in a gender-binary system and so really recognizing that in a public way is really important and exciting,' SDSU Women's Resource Center Coordinator Jessica Nare added.

Appalachian State University and the University of Wisconsin-Stout have also done away with the tradition in recent years.
A tattooed convict who scammed a retired public school teacher out of his $674,000 inheritance from behind bars will serve just four years for the plot that likely drove his victim to suicide.

Oklahoma inmate Darrik A. Forsythe was sentenced to an additional 46 months prison on Monday in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut for his part in masterminding the vile scheme, to be served after his current 20-year robbery sentence expires in 2020.

'It's a horrible, horrible crime,' U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny said in court, of the extortion conspiracy that left the retiree victim penniless and dead of a presumed suicide, the Hartford Courant reported.

Forsythe, an admitted former member of the Five Deuce Mob Gangsta Bloods who goes by the alias 'Chili Willie,' has spent most of his adult life in prison.

Oklahoma inmate Darrik A. Forsythe was sentenced to an additional 46 months prison on Monday for extorting over $670,000 from a retired schoolteacher, money the 57-year-old man had planned to use to help pay for his two young nieces' college educations

The career criminal was kicked out of his family home at the tender age of 10 and was convicted as an adult on two felonies by age 15, he once told a courtroom after turning jailhouse snitch in a murder case.

Currently serving 20 years on a 2002 conviction for strong-arm robbery, Forsythe launched his latest crime from behind the bars of the Lawton Correctional Facility in Oklahoma.

The convict and his cronies lured gay men around the country using the dating service MegaMates, according to court filings.

Connecticut man Joseph Pappalardo, a retired public school teacher, joined the service in December of 2010 and a few months later matched with Forsythe and his jailhouse accomplices, who were posing as eligible single gay men, rather than hardened convicts.

Joseph Pappalardo lost his savings, and eventually his life, after the extortion scheme

Using a cell phone smuggled into the privately operated prison, the scammers had several 'phone dates' with Pappalardo.

The retiree, then 57, revealed to his 'date' that he was still in the closet, and he believed his mother and sister weren't aware that he was gay.

After about two weeks of phone conversations, Pappalardo's new 'friend' began requesting financial assistance, which the retiree sent him via a Green Dot cash card.

But when the 'date' asked Pappalardo for additional money, he refused.

That's when Forsythe and his crew threatened to expose the retired teacher's sexual orientation to his family, court documents show.

Further threats included threats to kill Pappalardo and kidnap his two young nieces, the victim later said.

Forsythe was serving a 20-year stint at the privately operated Lawton Correctional Facility in Oklahoma when he perpetrated the blackmail scam from behind bars

Forsythe and his co-conspirators used this dating website to lure gay men into their blackmail scam, threatening to out the men unless they sent money

From April to November of 2011, Pappalardo made 87 withdrawals from his bank accounts and sent his blackmailers a purported total of $689,250 in gift cards and Green Dot cards.

The blackmail scheme wiped out an inheritance from his father that the retired teacher had set aside to pay for college educations for his two nieces.

Financially ruined, Pappalardo finally came forward about the extortion scam.

In 2013, he filed a lawsuit against the company that operated the private prison, The Geo Group, alleging that they should have prevented inmates from illegally smuggling cell phones into the facility.

He wasn't seeking a windfall, his lawyer said, merely restoration of the lost inheritance money for his young nieces.

But when a judge threw out the suit in 2014 on a technicality, Pappalardo was apparently driven to despair.

The Connecticut man went missing, reportedly shortly after he'd picked up some sleeping medication, and his car was found abandoned in Norfolk.

For a year, his fate was unknown. Then in May of 2015, his remains were discovered in a wooded area near a cemetery in Norfolk.
Shortening the working week to four days to allow Australians to spend more time with their families has been suggested by Greens leader Richard Di Natale.

Di Natale called for a debate on the future of work in the nation, pointing to overseas models which have successfully implemented fewer working hours.

On average, Australians are working 44 hours a week which is more than any developed nation, Di Natale said on Lateline.

Di Natale called for a debate on the future of work in the nation, suggesting four-day working weeks could lead to greater productivity

'We are calling for a debate on what the future of work looks like and part of that discussion is around a shorter working week,' Di Natale said.

'Many Australians would rather work fewer hours to spend more time with families, leisure activities and things actually important in life.

'They want to work to live, not live to work.'

Di Natale said models in Sweden and Utah showed working shorter weeks can increase productivity.

Six-hour working days were implemented in Sweden's aged-care sector which showed employees were happier, healthier and more productive, the Greens leader said.

Di Natale also said a four-day working week trial in Utah received overwhelming support by workers in the public sector and unions.

On average, Australians are working 44 hours a week which is more than any developed nation, Di Natale said (stock image)

'We all strove hard to have shorter working weeks but we are going backwards, doing more hours a week than we were a few decades ago - that's not progress.

'We need to ask ourselves big questions about what a sensible work life balance looks like.'

The Senator will present the Greens' plans on the future of work when he addresses the National Press Club on Wednesday.
This is the woman accused of posing as a cosmetic doctor and treating more than 140 patients in Melbourne.

Phoebe Pacheco is understood to have provided care to patients at Werribee Cosmetic Clinic on Synnot Street in Melbourne.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) said Ms Pacheco consulted with patients from January 2013 to October 2016.

Phoebe Pacheco, who is not registered as a medical practitioner in Australia, is believed to have held GP-like consultations and performed minor procedures in Victoria for the past three years

According to records obtained from the cosmetic clinic, Ms Pacheco is believed to have conducted GP-like consultations and carried out minor procedures with more than 145 patients during that time.

AHPRA believes more patients may have also seen Ms Pacheco, but the precise contact details of these people are not yet known.

The regulatory body is urging anyone who saw Ms Pacheco as a patient to consult their nearest medical practitioner.

The Department of Health and Human Services has also been informed.

According to Ms Pacheco's Linkedin profile she studied medicine at University of Santa Tomas in the Philippines from 1991-1996.

Her current job is listed as 'Physician Assistant, Experienced Medical Laser Therapist' at the clinic in Werribee.

She faces a fine of up to $30,000 for holding herself out to be a practitioner while unregistered.

Ms Pacheco was working at Werribee Cosmetic Clinic in west Melbourne (pictured) and is believed to have seen more than 145 patients from January 2013 to October 2016

Acting Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said there was no evidence of harm to patients.

'(But) anyone who saw Ms Pacheco at this site or any other site should see a GP as a follow up,' he said on Tuesday.

AHPRA Executive Director of Strategy and Policy, Mr Chris Robertson, said anyone with concerns that someone has been pretending to be a registered medical practitioner when they are not, should contact AHPRA.

'It's important that patients know that when they see a registered practitioner, they are seeing someone who has met high, national standards and are held to account if they deviate from them', he said.

'This same assurance cannot be provided by someone who is not registered', said Mr Robertson.
MECHANICSBURG  A Texas truck drivers charges are heading to higher court in the death of another trucker on Interstate 81 two months ago.

A district judge on Monday found enough evidence against 56-year-old Alan Kegel to order all counts to Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas.

Kegel is charged with a felony count of accidents involving death or personal injury and seven related summary offenses for the Jan. 13 crash near the Mechanicsburg exit in Silver Spring Township. Zivko Lakic, 24, of Bronx, New York, was standing off the road next to his tractor-trailer when he was struck and killed.

Kegel told police he was fatigued and may have fallen asleep before he side-swiped the other truck. He said he knew there was damage to his truck tractor because debris flew into the cab when the impact smashed his passenger side window and mirror, charging documents state.

Kegel told police he pulled over farther up the interstate to inspect his truck, but he said he continued to a truck stop to sleep and report the incident because he believed it was not a big deal.

He denied knowing he struck a person, police said.

Kegel remains jailed in Cumberland County Prison on $150,000 cash bail. A formal arraignment is scheduled for May 18.
Thousands were driven out of their homes along the Feather River last month for fear that the winter's heavy storms might cause the the Oroville Dam in Northern California to burst.

But now it looks like those storms might attract many more people to the area, after experts announced that the winter storms had exposed 200-year-old gold seams and flushed out old mines, sending flakes of the precious metal into the river.

One prospective prospector, Curtis Barwick, told ChicoER News that he drove 89 miles south from Anderson to see what he could find - after all, he said, 'The odds are greater than winning the lottery.'

Heavy water: Rains led to the Oroville Dam overflowing and scouring away the hillside. Other rivers were also affected, though less dramatically. Still, many will now be laced with gold

Going for gold: Prospecters are now panning and using metal detectors in ex-mining rivers, as old mines will have been washed out and undiscovered seams exposed

It's an exciting time for hobbyist gold hunters, because the heavy rains and resulting flooding have displaced earth and scoured away rocks that have hidden gold for centuries.

And it's not just the Feather River that's sparkling now.

Other rivers once frequented by prospectors in the original 1848 gold rush, such as the American River, the Mokelumne and the Yuba, are also likely to have treasures.

Not that anyone can just pick up a pan and become a millionaire.

While there is gold in them there hills - just ask the unknown man who found a 5.18lb gold nugget worth as much as $400,000 in the Butte foothills in 2014 - you're unlikely to find anything quite so huge, even after the storm.

And since mechanical and motorized dredging tools are banned, hand-panning and metal detectors are the sadly slower way forward.

Keen-eyed seekers look for quartz crystals, which sometimes contain manganese, silver or gold.

Your time to shine? Many will be hoping for a fistful of gold (right: a vial of gold from 2008) but the reality for many will be a few flakes (right) being found at a time during a hard day's work

Others, such as 'Miner Gary' Thomas in Jamestown, Tuolumne County, 123 miles south east of Oroville, spend their free time panning for flakes of gold.

For them, the rains were a godsend, as the water cleared out their old, exhausted panning grounds and uncovered new areas to explore.

Rains also erode the lighter rock and soil, 'concentrating' the gold left behind.

'It's going to bring down more gold,' Thomas told CBS SF Bay Area. 'It's going to bring up new areas that I never got to.'

Visitors may want to make a beeline for the Oroville Dam and its Diversion Pool, which collects water - and after the dam's spillway crumbled - debris and dirt - from the dam.

But they'll be out of luck: The dam is still under repait day and night and workers are turning away anyone who gets too close to the area.

Bob Van Camp, known in the Oroville area as 'Digger Bob,' told ChicoER that the pickings will improve further into spring and summer.

That's because high waters will recede and leave behind their treasures.

He warns newcomers to the hobby not to expect to strike it rich, though - if they don't know what to look for they could find it frustrating, he said.

'But I dont want to discourage people from learning about history, getting some fresh air and enjoying themselves, even if they dont find anything,' he added.

'I'm going to have a ball this summer.'
Chiengkham 'Cindy' Vilaysane was arrested after reportedly leaving her two-year-old daughter at a Food-4-Less in Riverdale, California intentionally on Sunday evening

A mother who intentionally left her two-year-old daughter in a grocery store on Sunday has been arrested after a manhunt.

After issuing an appeal to the public, police arrested Chiengkham 'Cindy' Vilaysane, 31, who was taken into custody on suspicion of child endangerment, child neglect and being under the influence of controlled substances.

The child wandered away from Vilaysane while they were in the Riverside store together on Sunday.

When another shopper brought her daughter back to the her, Vilaysane said to 'just leave her', according to police.

Vilaysane then continued her shopping, checked out at the cashier's desk, and exited the store without her daughter.

The girl was found around 5pm at the Food-4-Less on Van Buren Boulevard, unharmed but alone.

Scroll down for video

The California mother who intentionally left her toddler daughter in a grocery store has been arrested. She is seen in surveillance footage above

Surveillance footage shows the unknown mother entering the store with her child trailing behind her, but she left without her after finishing her shop

When police showed the toddler the surveillance video, she identified Vilaysane, in a black tank top and shorts, as 'mommy'.

On Monday, police released surveillance footage of Vilaysane in the grocery store with her daughter in an appeal to the public since her identity was still unknown.

When Vilaysane walked into a bank around 5pm on Tuesday, a teller recognized her from news reports and called the police.

She was arrested and booked on suspicion of child endangerment, child neglect and being under the influence of controlled substances.

Social media pages of Vilaysane's list her as being 32 years old

Vilaysane was once placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold, and had run-ins with the police for drug and alcohol offenses, Miranda told the LA Times. She was also recently kicked out of her family home, according to Miranda.

Vilaysane's daughter was placed in the care of Child Protective Services as of Monday evening.

Miranda told DailyMail.com: 'She is safe as we speak, and in good health other than being shaken up by what's going on.'

He said authorities 'wouldn't be where we are without the public help,' after many sprang to action after seeing the heartbreaking surveillance footage.

They have since been able to locate the girl's family members who are aiding in the investigation.

Vilaysane's social media pages list her as being 32 years old and say that her daughter's name is Danica.

She posted a number of loving photos of the two together, but posted on March 2 that she was 'ready to leave whenever' with her 'husband to be'.

Vilaysane also has an older daughter, who lives with her father, police said.

She posted a number of loving photos of the two together, but posted on March 2 that she was 'ready to leave whenever' with her 'husband to be'

Her Facebook page also lists her as a junior production officer at the Department of Defense

The Riverside Police sheriff said on Twitter that they have no record of a woman with her name as working at the Riverside Police Department

Her Facebook page also lists her as a junior production officer at the Department of Defense.

Press Enterprise reported that a social media account for Vilaysane listed her as working at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department as an assistant section officer.

But the Riverside Police said on Twitter that they have no record of a woman with her name as working at the Riverside Police Department.

When police showed the toddler the surveillance video, she identified Vilaysane, in the black tank top and shorts, as 'mommy'
Get the diary out and start calling your significant other - Scoot is having a sale.

If a winter getaway is your kind of thing, then flights from Australia to Europe starting at just $349 will be available from 1pm AEST today.

Singapore from $109, Chiang Mai, in Thailand, from $189 and Guangzhou, in China, from $169 will also be on offer from this afternoon.

Scoot Airlines has announced a sale from 1pm today to mark that fact that 50 million passengers have flown with the carrier

Tickets to Athens, in Greece, are being sold for $349 from Perth, with those travelling from Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast paying just $399

The $349 ticket is for travel to Athens, in Greece, and requires passengers to leave from Perth between July 25 and October 28, flying one-way.

The same trip from east coast destinations such as Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast will be on offer from $399.

Travel dates for flights to Athens are July 25 to October 28 2017, while other destinations are between March 15 and October 28.

Singapore is another destination being offered for $109. All tickets are priced one-way, with checked baggage and meals costing extra

Flights to Chiang Mai, in Thailand (pictured), will cost $189, while Gangzhou in China will be priced at $169. All tickets go on sale at 1pm AEST on Wednesday

Tickets are all priced one-way, with checked baggage and meals costing extra.

Scoot announced the sale to mark the fact that 50 million passengers have flown with the carrier.

The sale fares end at 2.59am on March 19, but it's doubtful that the best fares will hang around for that long.
Merrilee Bonnie Cooley, 68, was found dead in her car trunk on January 5, police are still trying to figure out what happened

Police are offering a $2,500 reward in a bid to solve the baffling case of a grandmother who was found dead in her trunk handcuffed alongside a bottle of water, a bag of cookies and used duct tape.

Merrilee Bonnie Cooley, 68, of Johnson City, Oregon, was killed but authorities have not yet said how, according to Oregon Live.

Family believes she went missing on December 27.

Her body was found in the trunk of her black Kia Optima on January 5 parked in an apartment complex lot at the Miramonte Lodge Apartments in Milwaukie.

The doors were unlocked and the keys were still in the ignition.

A neighbor said the car had been parked there for nearly a week, about as long as Cooley had been missing.

Cooley, above, was last seen in her Johnson City home in Oregon on December 26 by her son, what happened after that remains a tragic mystery

Cooley's black Kia, above, was found parked in an apartment complex in Milwaukie, she one handcuff around a wrist, a bottle of water, a plastic bag of cookies and used duct tape

The Kia was found parked in this apartment complex and neighbors said it had been there as long or nearly as long as Cooley had been missing

She was found January 5, nine days after a friend reported her missing on December 28.

The friend had gone to her home and found Cooley's Kia missing, one of her slippers in the driveway, and her doors unlocked.

Her car keys were gone, a living room chair was overturned and her purse was dumped onto the couch.

The friend was alarmed to see that her Cooley's walker was still in the home.

Family said Cooley loved children and for many years ran a daycare center; she had six grandchildren

Cooley uses a walker or wheelchair to get around, and could not have walked more than a few steps without one.

Although furniture in the house appeared disturbed, a friend told KGW that the house was not ransacked, as initially reported.

Cooley's son, Bryan Eilers, told investigators he had last seen her on December 26, when he'd visited her at her home.

'We're trying to figure out why anybody would want to do anything to her or take advantage of her in any way,' said son Bryan Eilers

'We're trying to figure out why anybody would want to do anything to her or take advantage of her in any way or why she would end up missing, I don't know,' he told KGW.

Family said on Facebook that Cooley posted a 'funny t-shirt picture on FB at 3:45-ish in the afternoon. After that, the next 24 hours are a mystery.'

On January 3, two days before her discovery, the family wrote: 'Still no leads. We are getting extremely frustrated. The fact that no one saw her at all on Tuesday is just odd to us. We know she was home that day.

'She lived in a neighborhood that everyone looks out their window as you drive down the street. At night, there is a streetlight directly across the street. It is lit up as bright as day. There is no way someone could have arrived or left her house without someone seeing something. We feel someone knows something and is not coming forward.

Police have no suspects and Crime Stoppers of Oregon is offering a reward of up to $2,500 for any information leading to an arrest.

Sgt. Brian Jensen of the Clackamas Sheriff's Office said that locals weren't in danger 'any more so than before' Cooley's murder.

Cooley is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, a stepdaughter, and six grandchildren.

'Merrilee spent her life caring for children. That was her greatest passion. She was a mother, a grandmother, an aunt, a nanny, a daycare owner, and everyone's favorite 'Meme,'' said her obituary.
A two-foot-long, venomous cobra has been missing in a Florida neighborhood since Monday night.

The suphan, tan-and-yellow and monocled cobra was reported missing by its owner Brian Purdy, who has a venomous reptile permit, around 11.15pm Monday.

The snake escaped from a house at 905 NE Fifth Street in Ocala, 70 miles northwest of Orlando, the Ocala Star Banner reported.

Purdy was training another man to handle the venomous creature when it escaped around 9pm.

Officer Steve McDaniel told WFTV: '[The trainee] didn't see the snake in the case, and was just concerned about it and wanted to make sure it was OK, so he opened the cage to check on it.'

What they are up against: The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission released a file photo of a suphan cobra, pictured, to give Ocala residents an idea of what the snake might look like

Brian Purdy, pictured, owns the two-foot-long, tan-and-yellow and monocled cobra. He has a license to do so. He was training an individual to handle venomous reptiles. Said individual accidentally let snake escape

The cobra escaped from a house at 905 NE Fifth Street in Ocala, 70 miles northwest of Orlando

The trainee tried to get the cobra to move around and lifted its cage's cover, at which point the snake jumped at him and then slithered off.

Purdy searched for the snake in his home and, unable to find it, called authorities.

Neighborhood residents were notified about the cobra last night.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said the reptile might have been eaten by a lizard in the home.

Said lizard was taken for an X-ray this morning that yielded 'inconclusive' results.

A Twitter account for the escaped cobra serves to both spread awareness about the reptile and have some fun at the situation's expense. The neighborhood was notified late last night that an escaped cobra was slithering around near their homes

A fake Twitter account for the Ocala Cobra was set up to cheekily help the investigation.

The incident follows a September 2015 episode in which an 8-foot king cobra named Elvis escaped from a home near an elementary school in Orlando, Click Orlando reported.

The snake was found behind a woman's dryer in October 2015.

Mike Kennedy, the Discovery Channel star who owned the snake, is expected to go on trial this March over the matter.
Theresa May heaped pressure on Nicola Sturgeon today by insisting Scotland will leave the EU even if it votes for independence.

The Prime Minister insisted there was no possibility that the First Minister's planned referendum could result in the country staying in the Brussels club.

The blunt message came as Miss Sturgeon suffered a big blow to her ambitions with four polls showing she faces defeat if the ballot is held.

Theresa May warned during PMQs today that Scotland would be leaving the EU whether or not it votes for independence

Four polls today delivered serious blows to Nicola Sturgeon's ambition of Scotland becoming independent

She is expected to respond to the glaring evidence that she is out of step with public opinion by calling for an independent Scotland to have a looser Norway-style link with theEU, rather than full membership.

The array of surveys today showed there is still a significant majority in Scotland in favour of remaining in the UK - and people do not want a ballot staged before Brexit happens.

Research for the Scottish Daily Mail suggested 53 per cent want to stay in the union once you exclude those yet to decide. By a margin of 46 per cent to 41 per cent people oppose Mrs Sturgeon's call for a referendum to be held before the divorce process from the EU is complete.

A YouGov poll for The Times put the majority against independence even higher at 57-43.

ComRes research for the Sun found just 25 per cent of Scots thought the country should be fully independent, against 58 per cent who thought it should not and 17 per cent who were not sure.

Meanwhile, the huge annual Scottish Social Attitudes Survey included evidence of a sharp rise in Euroscepticism.

Two thirds of the public north of the border would want Brussels to have reduced powers or for the UK to leave the EU completely, according to the research.

Nicola Sturgeon (pictured) called for a second independence vote for Scotland

The Mail's poll of 1,019 Scots, carried out by Survation, between March 8-13, found that 46 per cent oppose Nicola Sturgeon's plan to hold another independence referendum before Brexit, while only 41 per cent support it and 13 per cent were undecided or didn't know.

It also revealed that 48 per cent of Scots would vote No again if there was a referendum, compared to 43 per cent that would vote Yes and nine per cent who were undecided. When undecided voters are stripped out, it gives No a 53-47 majority.

Crucially, the poll also found majority support for Mrs May rejecting any demand from the SNP to hold a referendum before Brexit, with 36 per cent of respondents saying the Prime Minister should reject any request to hold another vote, a further 18 per cent saying she should accept the request but only allow the vote after Brexit, and 31 per cent saying she should devolve the power.

In the wake of the boost, Mrs May told MPs at PMQs today: 'Scotland will be leaving the EU.

'It will leave the EU either as a member of the UK or were it independent ...

'What we need to do now is unite ... and make sure that we can get the best deal for the whole of the UK.'

A Daily Mail poll today showed there is still a solid majority in Scotland against independence

Ms Sturgeon (picutred) met her Cabinet in Edinburgh for the first time after she shocked Westminster by declaring her plans for a new vote

The EU has flatly dismissed the prospect of Scotland staying inside the club if it splits - with Spain fiercely opposed because of fears about encouraging its own Catalan separatists.

There are also claims that one of Miss Sturgeon's top advisers believes the Scottish economy could take a decade to recover after independence.

In a sign of the nerves among the nationalists, the SNP's Westminster leader Angus Robertson today stressed that there was still time to avert an independence referendum.

The MP said the party's 'efforts are currently focused' on persuading Theresa May to give them guarantees about access to the European single market.

PM WARNED SHE MUST CAVE IN TO DEMANDS WITHIN DAYS TO STOP NEW REFERENDUM The SNP's Westminster leader has warned that a referendum could be locked in within days unless Theresa May caves in to Nicola Sturgeon's demands. Angus Robertson insisted the party was still putting 'all our efforts' into reaching a compromise. But he said time was running out for Mrs May to give concessions that Scotland will have special status in the Brexit deal. Mr Robertson told the Guardian: 'There may only be days, may only be weeks, but where all of our efforts are currently focused is trying to convince the UK Government to come to a compromise agreement protecting Scotland's place in Europe. 'If that road runs out and if we have to have that referendum, we will be turning our attention to making sure that we are making the case publicly, intellectually and in every other way so people understand the choice of a hard Tory Brexit Britain or a Scotland able to maintain its relations with the rest of Europe.' Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson hit back, branding the comment 'surreal'. 'How can he say the SNP is focused on negotiations with the UK Government when Nicola Sturgeon has just broken off those talks to unilaterally declare another divisive referendum on independence?' Advertisement

But he also warned that there were only 'days, maybe weeks' to avert the prospect of a vote.

Mrs May is looking to build support for her approach to Brexit by embarking on a tour of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before she triggers Article 50 later this month.

Her visit to Scotland could be crucial in determining whether Mrs Sturgeon pushes ahead with a vote.

The Scottish Social Attitudes survey of 1,237 voters has asked the same questions about independence and the EU every year since 1999 and reveals growing Euroscepticism.

It found that 67 per cent of Scots are unhappy with the EU - including 25 per cent of Scots who want to leave entirely and 42 per cent who want its powers to be reduced.

The polling evidence has crystalised fears that Miss Sturgeon's demand to stay fully within the bloc might turn off 400,000 voters who backed both independence and Brexit.

The last referendum in 2014 - which the SNP said would settle the issue for a 'generation' - delivered a 55 per cent majority for staying the UK, equivalent to two million votes.

SNP sources were this morning trying to play down reports that Miss Sturgeon would downscale her ambitions to membership of the European Free Trade Association.

Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are all in that group, giving them access to the single market.

But they have to comply with rules imposed by Brussels and have no real input into legislation which is drawn up in the Belgian capital.

Scotland was warned that if it chooses to leave the UK, it will also be leaving the EU and would have to rejoin as a new member. All new members since 1999 have been obliged to join the Euro.

Andrew Wilson, who heads up the Growth Commission set up by Miss Sturgeon to examine the economic prospects for an independent Scotland, apparently made a dire prediction about the fallout from leaving the UK.

At a summit of senior party figures in January, he suggested it would take five to 10 years for the economy to return to the position it is now, according to Holyrood magazine.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, said: 'The SNP's plans to impose a referendum on independence in Scotland have unravelled within 24 hours.'

And in a move which could deal another blow to Ms Sturgeon, Prime Minister Theresa May told the Commons that after visiting Brussels she could not foresee Scotland being allowed to join the EU if it became independent.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives slammed the SNP's plans and said that they 'unravelled' in just 24 hours and were left in 'total confusion', reports the newspaper.

It also came on the same day Spain warned Scotland it would be at the 'back of the queue' for EU membership if it voted for independence.

Ms Sturgeon is demanding a second independence referendum take place once the outline of Brexit is clear but before it takes place

Her announcement infuriated Prime Minister Theresa May (pictured) who has hinted that she could not see Brussels allowing an independent Scotland to join the EU

The Mail poll found 46 per cent of Scots oppose holding a second independence referendum

Alfonso Dastis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, said Spain would do nothing to encourage 'secession' in other countries.

The Spanish government has a long dispute with its own Catalonia region.

Mr Dastis said: 'Spain supports the integrity of the United Kingdom and does not encourage secessions or divisions in any of the member states.

'We prefer things to stay as they are.'

Miss Sturgeon and Mrs May engaged in an extraordinary public slanging match yesterday after the threat to call another referendum.

The First Minister branded the PM 'unelected' and dismissed jibes that she did not have a mandate to trigger a fresh ballot so soon after the issue was meant to have been settled.

But Mrs May accused Miss Sturgeon of 'playing games' with the future of the UK, saying she was willing to do anything to fulfil her ambition of breaking up the union.

The Westminster government has to give approval for a binding referendum to be held, meaning that the PM could theoretically block a pol.

However, ministers are resigned to the prospect of a vote as they believe refusing would just fuel nationalist sentiment.

Instead Mrs May is preparing for a pitch battle with Miss Sturgeon over the timing of the referendum - insisting her preferred schedule of Autumn 2018 is unacceptable and the ballot cannot be held before Brexit is finalised the following year.
The crisis in Ukip hit new heights last night as one of its biggest donors threatened to start a new party after being kicked out.

Insurance tycoon Arron Banks has been embroiled in a row with Ukip leader Paul Nuttall, claiming he couldnt knock the skin off a rice pudding and saying the party was being run like a jumble sale.

Yesterday, after Ukip refused to renew his membership, Mr Banks promised a new movement and wrote on Twitter: Ukip 2.0, the force awakens.

Walking away: Leading Ukip donor Arron Banks has threatened to start a new party

Mr Banks, who funded the Leave.EU campaign in last years Brexit referendum, gave 1 million to Ukip ahead of the 2015 general election. But last month he warned he would pull his funding unless he was made chairman so he could purge its only MP, ex-Tory Douglas Carswell.

The row is the latest setback for Ukip after Mr Nuttall lost in the Stoke-on-Trent by-election last month and faced accusations he lied about losing close friends in the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Banks claimed he was told he had been kicked out after refusing to attend a meeting of the partys national executive committee (NEC) to explain his criticisms.

He said: Ukip has somehow managed to allow my membership to lapse despite having given considerably more than the annual membership fee over the past 12 months.

On reapplying I was told my membership was suspended pending my appearance at an NEC meeting.

Mr Banks, pictured with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, donated 1million to the party ahead of the 2015 general election

Apparently, my comments about the party being run like a squash club committee and Mr Carswell have not gone down well.

I now realise that I was being unfair to squash clubs all over the UK and I apologise to them. We will now be concentrating on our new movement.

A Ukip spokesman said: Mr Banks was notified last year that his membership was due for renewal at the start of October but chose not to renew, despite reminders. With this his membership expired on January 1, 2017.

In a letter to Mr Banks, Mr Nuttall turned down his request to become party chairman. He wrote: Any and all contributions to our work are welcome. However, I should make clear that, whilst I am open to working with you on improving and enhancing our party, the party chairmanship is not on offer.

Mr Banks said Ukip leader Paul Nuttall, pictured, 'couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding'

In addition, whilst the NEC are keen to discuss your ideas, they are concerned about continuing negative and damaging publicity.

Mindful of their primary responsibility to safeguard the reputation of Ukip, they have asked me to tell you that should you choose to further criticise Ukip in either the media or on social media, they will withdraw their invitation.

Mr Banks last year gave Ukip 199,000 making him the partys third biggest donor.

Earlier this month Mr Nuttall claimed the party would be able to survive without his funding, telling the BBCs Andrew Marr: Arron has never been Ukips major donor. I have got a commitment from a consortium of Ukips biggest donors that we are financially secure.

In 2014, ex-Tory donor Mr Banks upped a payment to Ukip from 100,000 to 1million after William Hague played down his defection, saying: We have not heard of him.

Last month he caused controversy by saying he was sick to death of hearing about Hillsborough.
This is the shocking moment parents encourage their eight-year-old daughter to run in front of cars in a bid to claim compensation money.

Dashcam footage shows a man and woman from south China watch as their child walks out into moving traffic.

The young girl quickly collides with a moving vehicle and bounces off the bumper to the tarmac.

This is the shocking moment parents encourage their eight-year-old daughter to run in front of cars in a bid to claim compensation money

The young girl quickly collides with a moving vehicle and bounces off the bumper to the tarmac

The shocking video was filmed on March 3 in Huizhou, southern China's Guangdong Province, according to a video report on People's Daily Online, citing China Central Television Station.

After the girl ran into the car and fell down, her parents walked up to her and picked her up from the ground. They approached the driver and intended to ask for compensation.

The driver immediately reported the case to the Huiyang Public Security Bureau.

The police discovered the couple's scam after viewing the dashcam footage.

Another clip in the video montage show the child's step mother getting hysterical at the police station on March 6 after being detained by the police for questioning.

She is seen sitting on a counter top and shouting out at officers as she is filmed.

Police released videos of the incidents in a bid to warn against the 'crash for cash' trend, where people try and claim compensation by feigning accidents

Another clip in the video montage compiled by CGTN show the child's step mother getting hysterical at a police station after being reported

Li Bin, a police officer from Huiyang Public Security Bureau, told CCTV: 'Their behaviour has obviously disrupted the order of police operations.

'They want to achieve their personal goals by confusing the public opinion.

The pair have reportedly been detained by police on suspicion of fraud and the young girl has been sent to a welfare home.

Police released videos of the incidents in a bid to warn against the 'crash for cash' trend, where people try and claim compensation by feigning accidents.

Police discovered the girl was the birth daughter of the male suspect and his ex-wife.

Another clip shows the duo employing a similar tactic on another stretch of road

The girl would allegedly run out into roads at intersections where traffic was slowing down and pretend to get hit

It was reported that him and his new partner had been spotted several times in the busy streets of Huizhou city over the past few months.

Another undated clip in the same video shows the duo employing a similar tactic on another stretch of road.

The girl would allegedly run out into roads at intersections where traffic was slowing down and pretend to get hit.

However, on several occasions the youngster allegedly got injured when drivers failed to stop in time.
Footage of a Chinese woman sabotaging products in a South Korean supermarket has sparked a backlash, with viewers deeming her actions 'moronic' and a form of 'vandalism.'

The 49-second long video posted to Kuai Shou, a popular Chinese live-streaming site, shows the female shopper smashing up boxes of instant noodles, ripping open packaging and brazenly swigging from a carton of fruit juice before putting it back on the shelf.

She was filmed in action at a Lotte Mart in north-east China's Shenyang city. The supermarket chain has come underfire recently after providing land outside Seoul for a U.S. missile-defence system.

The video of the woman demonstrating her distastes towards the move spread across social media over the weekend.

While many Chinese citizens are against Lotte Mart's political and military involvement, the majority of people criticized the female protester's 'immature' actions.

Indeed, one commenter wrote: 'Boycott Korean goods? First boycott this moron.'

Another added: 'This so-called patriotism is just vandalism in disguise.'

According to People's Daily China, the incident is being investigated by police and the woman has been arrested.

Footage of a Chinese woman sabotaging products in a South Korean supermarket has sparked a backlash, with viewers deeming her actions 'moronic' and a form of 'vandalism'

The 49-second long video posted to Kuai Shou, a popular Chinese live-streaming site, shows the female shopper smashing up boxes of instant noodles and ripping open packaging

She was filmed in action at a Lotte Mart in north-east China's Shenyang city - the supermarket has come underfire recently after providing land by Seoul for a U.S. missile-defence system

Lotte supermarket has also been alerted to the misconduct.

This month South Korean companies bore the brunt of a perceived backlash from China over the deployment of a U.S. missile system outside Seoul, with shares tumbling on media reports of Beijing telling tour operators to stop selling trips to the country.

Several of Korea's biggest news outlets cited unidentified sources as saying Chinese government officials had given the verbal guidance just days after the Seoul government secured land for the missile system from Lotte Group.

South Korea and the United States say the missile system is defence against nuclear-armed North Korea, but China says its territory is the target of the system's far-reaching radar.

Lotte has invested more than $8 billion in its Chinese operations and has a total of 120 outlets across the country, such as this store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province

Beijing fears the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system will undermine its own ballistic capabilities

The first parts of the system - intended to guard against threats from nuclear-armed North Korea - arrived last week and China fears it would undermine its own military capabilities.

To protest the deployment, Chinese state-run media have called for a boycott of South Korean products.

Chinese officials have shut down 39 out of retail chain Lotte Mart's 99 stores in the country over fire safety concerns, a Lotte spokesman told AFP.

Each Lotte Mart employs about 130 Chinese workers, the spokesman said, adding the suspensions, if prolonged, would put nearly 5,000 jobs at risk.

The Chinese are also by far the biggest spenders in South Korea's tourism industry.
This is the heart-warming moment a sperm whale felt reluctant to leave its rescuers after they freed it from a fishing net on the coast of southeast China's Shenzhen sea.

Measuring 33 feet in length and 472 stone in weight, the whale was spotted on the morning of March 12 by scuba divers who swam out to cut the nets off its mouth and body.

Video footage documents part of the three-hour rescue effort, with the mammal seen patiently hanging in the water as it is detangled. When it is freed, it seems cautious to leave its rescuers.

Fishermen drove the scuba divers to help removing the obstacles on the whale

Fishing nets were found tangling around the 33 ft long sperm whale's mouth and back

According to People's Daily Online, the sperm whale was found stranded at the open sea opposite of Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant by a group of fishermen around 10am.

One witness, Ah Cai, 30, reported the sighting of sperm whale to the local fishery department.

'I could see a lot of fishing nets tangled on the whale's back.

'I didn't know if was safe to go close to the whale but I had already called a nearby scuba diving club and asked for help,' he explained.

Rescuers collected the fishing nets from the mammal's back and attempted to guide the whale

After a three-hour rescue, the sperm whale was set free but it stayed around the shore area

'Dive For Love' sent six experienced scuba diving instructors to rescue.

Footage captures the moment the instructors go into the water and cut off the net on the whale's body.

Sun Zitong, told the reporter that they also found fishing nets in the whale's mouth.

'I have to put my hands inside its mouth and pull out the fishing nets. Then slowly, the whale is opening its mouth,' said Sun.

Dapeng Fisheries Department arrived on the scene shortly and helped to remove the obstacles on the mammal's back.

The rescue lasted about three hours after they cleared all the nets from the sperm whale.

Fisheries officers also identified few cuts on the whale's back and mouth.

However, the sperm whale did not seem to leave the shore area after the rescue.

The whale was stranded in shallow waters and rescuers worried about its chances of survival

Marine experts attempted to use sonar devices to lead the mammal back to deep sea

Mr Han, from Dapeng Fisheries Department said the whale was 'keep swimming in circles' though they tried to use a boat to lead the whale to deeper parts of the sea.

Morgan Xia, a volunteer from 'Dive For Love' expressed his concern as the whale might die of hunger at the shallow shore area.

At 6:30pm local time, the sperm whale was reportedly to be staying at a deeper region near Huizhou.

Marine Department officers and Chinese marine experts arrived on the scene yesterday, attempting to use sonar devices to lead the mammal back to the open sea.

They worried the sperm whale would end up stranded and die of hunger. Rescuers told the reporters that the whale kept spraying water out of its blowholes.

Experts said the sperm whale failed to use its sonar to navigate directions and is currently in critical condition.

Sperm whales are listed as endangered in the red list of threatened species of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
PORTAGE, Pa. (AP)  Facing a growing number of vacant, neglected structures, Portage Borough Council has taken an unusual approach for encouraging reuse of several former church properties.

Council voted last week to explore revoking tax-exempt status for the former Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish church buildings and a former church school.

Council President Sharon McCarthy said she came up with the idea after hearing community frustration about the vacant buildings.

We are not after this for getting the tax money, McCarthy said. The purpose is: If they continue to deteriorate, who does it come back on?

The elected officials and the taxpayers money.

McCarthy brought the suggestion to council in February and asked borough Solicitor Michael Emerick to look into property-tax exemption for churches. At this months meeting, Emerick read part of the law, saying it applies to actual places of worship.

Since the churches are no longer used by the parish, they may not qualify for real estate tax exemption, he said.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was merged with the former St. Joseph Church in 2015, combining three former active congregations into one, renamed the Holy Family Parish.

Mass is now held in the former St. Joseph building on Caldwell Avenue.

Both Sacred Heart parish church buildings remain vacant and are listed for sale, along with the former school.

They include the former Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church on Hammers Street and the former Sacred Heart of Jesus Church on Mountain Avenue at Orchard Street. The two were merged in 1999 to create the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish.

A lot of interest

The original Sacred Heart church properties on Mountain Avenue include an attached rectory, a former school and two-car garage.

Deeds show the property is owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, in trust for the local congregations. Holy Family continues to pay for utilities and maintenance on the vacant buildings, McCarthy said.

Councils action to tax the properties may be intended to push the diocese to sell the buildings.

Johnstown Century 21 All Services Inc. real estate agent Scott Morris said he has a sales agreement for the Mountain Avenue properties, but is waiting for the diocese. Morris also is trying to sell the Assumption building.

Weve had a lot of interest from a lot of different people, Morris said. We are just waiting for the diocese. They have some things they need to work out.

If the sale goes through, Sacred Heart will become the new home for Johns-towns Holy Cross Parish of the Polish National Catholic Church, 534 Woodland Ave., the Rev. Paul Zomerfeld said.

Our building here in Moxham is almost 100 years old, Zomerfeld said. It needs a lot of repairs. With all the shootings, I dont want to live here no more because it has become too dangerous.

A canonical process

None of the 10 active members lives in Johnstown, but some live in the Portage and Lilly areas, he said, adding that the members see the move as an opportunity to grow.

Zomerfeld said the church has put a deposit on the Sacred Heart Property and the sale was accepted by the Holy Family congregation. He has contacted the diocese numerous times about the delay, but received no answers.

Although he said he does not know why the sale has not been finalized, he said the relationship with Altoona has a history of tension. When Johnstown catholic churches were being closed, Zomerfeld said parishioners were discouraged from moving to the Polish National Catholic Church.

Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said the delay is necessary.

The diocese is by no means holding up the sale of the properties, DeGol said in an email. But there are many factors involved in matters such as this, including a canonical process that all dioceses must follow before selling property.

Both the Diocesan College of Consulters and Finance Council must approve potential sales, and those steps are currently being undertaken with regard to the Holy Family properties.
With expressions of delight on their faces, these bathing pandas appear to be having lots of fun in the tub.

The black and white bears from China almost drift off to sleep as they submerse their fuzzy bodies in shallow rock pools.

However, before they rest, many of the bruins merrily indulge in a spot of splashing.

With expressions of delight on their faces, these bathing pandas appear to be having lots of fun in the tub

The black and white bears from China almost drift off to sleep as they submerse their fuzzy bodies in shallow rock pools

One panda ecstatically splashes water over its lap.

Another relishes the feeling of water on its body as it sits in a waterfall.

Many of the pandas simply lay back and chill out, seemingly lost in thought.

At times it appears as though they are on the verge of napping. One panda shares its bath time with a friend and the duo take it in turn to rub each other down.

And after all of that bathing, how do the bears dry off?

It appears that a thorough shake is all that's required for the bears to get all of the drips off and one panda demonstrates the move.

The video was shared by People's Daily Online on its YouTube page. It was produced by iPanda, a website dedicated to promoting the fluffy animal.

Before they rest, many of the bruins merrily indulge in a spot of splashing

Many of the pandas simply lay back and chill out, seemingly lost in thought

One panda shares its bath time with a friend and the duo take it in turn to rub each other down

Last autumn the black and white bear, a symbol of China, was finally shifted off the endangered species list after years of intensive conservation efforts.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in a report released on Sunday that the animal is now classified as a 'vulnerable' instead of 'endangered' species, reflecting its growing numbers in the wild in southern China.

It said the wild panda population jumped to 1,864 in 2014 from 1,596 in 2004, the result of work by Chinese agencies to enforce poaching bans and expand forest reserves.

The IUCN report warned that although better forest protection has helped increase panda numbers, climate change is predicted to eliminate more than 35 per cent of its natural bamboo habitat in the next 80 years, potentially leading to another decline.

Last autumn the black and white bear, a symbol of China, was finally shifted off the endangered species list after years of intensive conservation efforts
This is the moment an injured eight-year-old boy from China leaves his rescuers perplexed as he makes a call to check his teacher is okay with him going to hospital.

The youngster, from the southern city of Hechi, was playing with his friends in a park when he accidentally fell under a swinging bench.

Video footage shows him crying in pain and complaining he can't feel his legs before he makes a teary telephone call to make sure his school knows about the incident.

This is the moment an injured eight-year-old boy from China leaves his rescuers perplexed as he makes a call to check his teacher is okay with him going to hospital

According to a report in People's Daily, rescue workers were amused by his actions.

His first concern didn't appear to be his own well-being but rather the fact he would be gone from lessons for the day.

The child was apparently worried that his teacher would be angry if he did not show up for class. The incident took place around 2pm.

It took fire fighters around two minutes to free his legs from the metal bench. He was seen with bloody grazes and indented skin on his knees.

The youngster, from the southern city of Hechi, was playing with his friends in a park when he accidentally fell under a swinging bench

Video footage shows him crying in pain and complaining he can't feel his legs before he makes a teary telephone call to make sure his school knows about the incident

When the rescuers said they would take him to hospital, he asked if he could borrow their mobile phone.

Footage of the incident shows him crying on the phone to his sister, saying: 'My legs got stuck at Weibaqun Square. Ive already been rescued.'

Through his tears, he adds: 'But I have to go to the hospital now. Sister, please ask my teacher for leave.'

The boy is reported to have made a full recovery after receiving hospital treatment.

It took fire fighters around two minutes to free his legs from the metal bench - he was seen with bloody grazes and indented skin on his knees

It took fire fighters around two minutes to free the boy's legs from the metal bench
In its drive to become a city of the future, authorities in Dubai have purchased a network of robotic pods to shuttle people to a man-made island.

The transport system will see 25 driverless buses connecting Bluewaters island, which is currently under construction, with the mainland.

It is hoped that the system will one day ferry up to 10,000 people back and forth every hour.



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A new network of 25 driverless buses will connect a man-made island, which is currently under construction, with mainland Dubai. Pictured is a pod which operates under Masdar City in neighbouring emirate Abu Dhabi. The Dubai vehicles will be much larger

DUBAI'S ROBOT BUSES The automated transport system will feature 25 driverless group rapid transit vehicles capable of carrying 24 passengers each. They will connect stations on the island and Nakheel Harbour and Tower Metro Station approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km) apart. The capacity will initially be 3,750 people per hour per direction, which may eventually increase to 5,000. The trip time will be just under five minutes. The network is due to become operational in late 2018/early 2019. Advertisement

Dutch technology firm 2getthere was awarded the contract to provide a new automated vehicle system that will link Bluewaters Island with the city's network of metro stations.

The firm is behind a network of driverless 'pods' which operate under Masdar City in neighbouring Abu Dhabi, carrying four passengers at a time.

The Masdar City network transported its two millionth passenger in November 2016.

The Dubai system will feature the firm's third generation group rapid transit (GRT) vehicle.

The network is due to become operational in late 2018 or early 2019.

It is part of Dubai's efforts to ensure 25 per cent of all trips in the city are completed by automated systems by 2035.

Bluewaters Island is a man-made area of the city currently under construction off the coast of Dubai.

It will be home to Ain Dubai, which will be the tallest and largest observation wheel in the world upon its completion, which is expected in the next year.

It is currently being built 500 metres (1,600 ft) off the Jumeirah Beach Residence coastline.

The automated transport system will feature 25 driverless GRT vehicles capable of carrying 24 passengers each, larger versions of the pods being used in Masdar City.

Bluewaters Island will be home to Ain Dubai, the tallest and largest observation wheel in the world (artist's impression pictured)

They will operate on special 'tracks', although the firm behind them, based in Proostwetering in the Netherlands, hopes they will one day be able to allowed to operate amongst other traffic.

Initially they will be able to carry 3,750 people in each direction per hour, but this will eventually increase to 5,000.

Stations on Bluewaters Island will be connected to the Nakheel Harbour and Tower metro stations, approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km) apart.

The trip time will be just under five minutes.

Bluewaters Island will be connected to the Nakheel Harbour and Tower metro stations, approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km) apart

The trip time will be just under 5 minutes and the network is due to become operational in late 2018/early 2019 (stock image of Dubai skyline)

TESLA'S LATEST AUTOPILOT CARS Tesla announced an updated version of their autopilot hardware in December last year, named HW2. The latest update pushes Tesla's autopilot capabilities even further towards full automation, enabling Level 5 automation of vehicles. HW2 enables a host of features, including autosteer, forward collision warning, parking assistant, blind spot detection, auto-barking and parking assist. The updated hardware and software will only ready the vehicles for the highest levels of automation in the US as legislation changes and further advances emerge. Advertisement

About the project, 2getthere CEO Carel van Helsdingen said: 'We believed from the start that our system and technology provided the best fit for the application. It is rewarding to be under contract.

'The award of the project clearly shows the increased interest in 2getthere's systems throughout the Middle East.

'This is based to a large extent on our excellent track record in Masdar City and Singapore, where we operate comparable systems with a high availability and reliability in harsh climate conditions'.

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has set a goal of making Dubai the 'smartest city' by 2020.

As part of this initiative, a fleet of 200 of Tesla's self-driving, electric taxis will hit its roads by 2020.

The cars will initially be used on 'autopilot', meaning a human driver has to be behind the wheel for emergencies, but will come with the hardware needed for full self-driving capability.

The world's first fleet of self-driving cars could be deployed a long way from where they were invented. The city of Dubai will have 200 self-driving Tesla taxis, including Tesla's Model S pictured here, on its roads by 2020

The RTA is buying Model S sedans and Model X SUVs to be used by the Dubai Taxi Corporation, which operates taxi services in the emirate, RTA said in a statement.

In October last year, Tesla founder Elon Musk announced that all future Tesla models will come equipped with hardware that can be upgraded to give the cars self-driving capabilities.
First there was the scandal of smart TVs apparently eavesdropping on their owners through built-in microphones.

And while that seems scary enough, the latest technological threat to our privacy is a lot more intimate.

A sex toy company was ordered to pay customers up to 6,120 each, after it used its remote-controlled gadgets to gather information about users' habits in the bedroom.

The 115 We-Vibe 4 Plus, available from retailers including Ann Summers and Amazon, surreptitiously collected details including when and where owners used the device.

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A court in the US has ordered the firm behind the We-Vibe smart dildo to payout $3 million (2.4 million), after the device was found to be tracking intimate details of use by customers

It also tracked minute-by-minute temperature changes, the settings users chose, and their email addresses.

The marital aid, which is still on sale in the UK, is designed for couples to use together even when they are miles apart.

WE-VIBE The We-Vibe 4 Plus costs around 90 ($110) and has 10 modes to choose from including 'pulse', 'wave', 'surf', 'peak' and 'cha-cha-cha'. It also allows users to adjust the intensity. The device is curved to 'fit snugly in place' inside the woman and is also 'compact and discrete' for easy storage. It is compatible with iPhone 4S phones or newer devices, Android phones and uses either wireless or mobile data connection. Advertisement

It connects to a user's smartphone via Bluetooth, allowing their partner to download an app called We-Connect to control the device remotely.

But couples found their private moments were not so private after all  and that their information was being sent back to Standard Innovation, the toy's Canadian manufacturer, without permission. The firm will pay a settlement of 2.4million, including 6,120 to everyone who bought a We-Vibe 4 Plus and downloaded the app before September 26 last year.

Those who bought the device without using the app are entitled to 120.

The company was also forced to delete the data it had collected after the case in Illinois, brought by two anonymous women who used the gadget. 'Unbeknownst to its customers, [Standard Innovation] designed We-Connect to collect and record highly intimate and sensitive data regarding customers' personal We-Vibe use ... to its servers in Canada,' the complaint alleged.

Standard Innovation said it took privacy very seriously, and had made changes to give users more choice over the information they were sharing.

'We have enhanced our privacy notice, increased app security ... and we continue to work with leading privacy and security experts to enhance the app,' it said in a statement. Around two million devices are thought to have been sold by the company, which makes sex toys under two different brands, We-Vibe and Laid.

Experts have warned that hackers could exploit security vulnerabilities in devices connected to the internet. Hacking a vibrator raises the prospect of a total stranger being in control during a person's most intimate moment

INTERNET OF THINGS The internet of things (IoT) is a broad category that refers to devices or sensors that connect, communicate or transmit information over the web. Products range from printers and baby monitors to thermostats and fridges. Research firm Gartner predicts there will be 8.4 billion connected 'things' in use in 2017, up 31 per cent from 2016. By 2020 this number could reach 20.4 billion, with smart TVs and digital set-top boxes the most popular consumer gadgets. While they are convenient, such gadgets can present an easy targets for hackers. Advertisement

The privacy issue was uncovered at the DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas last year. Not only was the We-Vibe found to be relaying information back to Standard Innovation, but hackers could also break into the device remotely and activate it without the user's permission.

One of the hackers, who goes by the pseudonym 'Follower', said: 'The company that makes this vibrator ... have over two million people using their devices ... If you come back to the fact that we're talking about people, unwanted activation of a vibrator is potentially sexual assault.'

The news follows earlier revelations about internet-enabled TVs apparently spying on their owners. Samsung came under fire over its voice-activated smart TVs, after its small print revealed they could record conversations and potentially send them to a third party.

Earlier this month, documents published by Wikileaks suggested the CIA was able to hack into smart TVs and turn them into listening posts.
Scientists have developed 'robo-hands' that can be worn by surgeons to remotely control tools inside patients' bodies.

The exo-skeleton device will fit comfortably over the surgeons' hands to perform minimally invasive keyhole operations.

Wearers will control a 'gripper' with their thumb and fingers, and will even be able to feel the tissue and organs.

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Scientists have developed 'robo-hands' that can be worn by surgeons to remotely control tools inside patients' bodies

HOW WILL THE 'ROBO- HANDS' WORK? Created by scientists at the University of the West of England, Bristol, the 'robo-hands' can be worn by surgeons. Designed to fit over their hands, they will allow wearers to control a 'gripper' with their thumb and fingers. Surgeons will also be able to feel the tissue and organs during the minimally invasive keyhole surgeries. The exo-skeleton records the position of the fingers in the body before passing this back to the robotic tools. Advertisement

It will be able to record the position of the fingers in the body, communicating this back to the robotic tools.

Experts hope the system will replace laparoscopic tools for keyhole surgery in several clinical areas, and be easier to use.

As part of the 3.5 million ($4.3 million) project, British researchers will also work to develop and create 'smart glasses'.

It is hoped they will give surgeons the ability to see inside the body, allowing them to position themselves anywhere in the operating theatre.

A prototype has been created by researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and is set to be developed further.

Professor Sanja Dogramadzi, of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, said: 'We want to give existing processes a more natural interface - operating surgeons will not have to do any unusual or unnatural movement.

'They will be able to use their hands as they would in open incision surgery.

'This also means that training to use the robotic technology for surgery will be quicker.'

The device will be able to record the position of the fingers in the body, communicating this back to the robotic tools

She added: 'The other part of our system will be smart multi-functional glasses, which will relay live images from inside the body.

'This is an advance compared to current systems, which use a flat TV-like screen to relay images back to the surgeon.

'The research will use the expertise and feedback of senior surgeons to develop the tools.'

Experts hope the system will replace laparoscopic tools for keyhole surgery in several clinical areas, and be easier to use

A prototype has been created by researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and is set to be developed further

It is hoped that the research will help to expand the range of surgical procedures that can use robotic systems.

This comes just a week after Belgian scientists announced the creation of a new 'robo nurse'.

Designed by BeWell Innovations, the self-testing health kiosk lets people measure their own blood pressure and weight without the need of medical assistance.

With the classic measurements taking three minutes on average, transferring the tasks could free up crucial time for nurses.
Amazon Echo is strange enough - especially with fears that Alexa, its intelligent personal assistant, is listening to our every word.

But a robot enthusiast has just made it even creepier by transforming his Alexa into a terrifying talking skull.

Not only does this skull appear to talk, but it can also nod, tilt its head and even move its eyeballs at the same time.

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A robot-enthusiast called Mike McGurrin from Virginia has created a macabre contraption that has transformed his Alexa into a terrifying talking skull

THE YORICK PROJECT The skull is made by an American computer and robotics fanatic called Mike McGurrin who lives in Virginia. The key components are the skull, an Alexa and a special chip. The Alexa personal assistant looks like its talking through the skull which even nods, tilts its head and moves its eyeballs as it talks. Mr McGurrin believes the whole thing could be put together in ten hours. Advertisement

The intelligent personal assistant was created by Mike McGurrin, a computer and robotics fanatic who lives in Virginia.

Called Project Yorick, the creepy contraption is made from a three axis talking skull with moving eyes that was an old Christmas present to Mr McGurrin from his wife.

'I like to decorate for Halloween, including various talking skeletons that I've set up over the years,' said Mr McGurrin on his Aspiring Roboticist blog.

'For Christmas 2015, my wife gave me a great three axis talking skull with moving eyes so I could upgrade one of the skeletons from just a moving jaw skull.'

Mr McGurrin came up with the macabre idea after seeing a talking Billy Bass fish turned into a body for the Alexa personal assistant.

The Billy Bass moved in time with the Alexa and its mouth matched the words.

If you're feeling adventurous and would like to make one yourself Mr McGurrin says the device could be put together in ten hours.

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR OWN - A talking skull with moving eyes - Powered speakers - you will need amplified speakers either battery-powered or from line current - A mini Maestro Servo Controller - Mr McGurrin used the 12 channel version although he believes that bigger versions should also work - An Audio servo driver board - in this case a ST-200 board was used - AlexaPi - the open source client software for Amazon's Alexa - A USB mini microphone - A chip with WiFi - Mr McGurrin used the Raspberry Pi 3 Advertisement

'The key elements are the talking skull, a Raspberry Pi and the AlexaPi software for turning the Pi into an Alexa client device, the audio servo controller for turning the output sound into servo commands for the jaw, and the servo controller for controlling the nod, turn, tilt, and eye servos of the skull', Mr McGurrin wrote on his blog.

'The skull motions for each state are predefined and fixed (the routines are looped as needed for the typically longer lasting states (get response and speak response)', he said.

'The one key tip is to slow down the servos in order to look more realistic.'

Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled smart speaker that works alongside a smartphone app.

Using a virtual assistant called Alexa, the speaker can respond to voice commands from the user, such as setting an alarm or ordering a cab.

Echo also works with services like Spotify as a 360-degree wireless speaker.

Alexa is the 'wake word' for the internet-connected speaker.

Called Project Yorick, the creepy contraption is made from a three axis talking skull with moving eyes that was an old Christmas present to Mr McGurrin from his wife

It can respond to voice commands with actions such as setting an alarm, or simply by providing a spoken answer to a question.

Shoppers can also ask Alexa to put products on their Amazon shopping list.

Alexa has seven hidden microphones to ensure that it can pick up voice commands from anywhere in the room.

This macabre contraption can be used in exactly the same way.




The world's first fluorescent frog, which glows bright green under UV light, has been found in Argentina.

Researchers stumbled upon the bizarre creature by accident while studying the skin pigments of polka-dot tree frogs in the Amazon.

The frog is a dull green/brown with red spots in normal light but the researchers were surprised to find that it gleamed with fluorescent light under their UV torches.

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The world's first fluorescent frog (pictured), which glows bright green under UV light, has been found in the Amazon basin in Argentina

FLUORESCENT FROG The tree-frog was discovered in the Amazon basin in Argentina. In daylight it appears to have brown-green skin with red dots. Under UV light it glows a fluorescent green. They can project up to 18 per cent as much visible light as a full moon. It can do this because its skin a compound that absorbs light at short wavelengths and re-emits it at longer wavelengths. The compound causing the glow not previously thought to exist in vertebrates. Advertisement

Fluorescent skin pigments absorb light at short wavelengths and re-emit it at longer wavelengths.

They are uncommon in animals that live on land, but can be found in some underwater creatures such as certain species jellyfish and anglerfish.

The glowing frog was found to fluoresce using both lymph and glandular secretions.

The chemical that gives the frog its greenish glow had never been found in vertebrates before.

'This is very different from fluorophores found in other vertebrates, which are usually proteins or polyenic chains,' Dr Maria Gabriella Lagoria, a photochemist at the University of Buenos Aires and study co-author, told Chemistry World.

The researchers, from the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, found that the frog's fluorescence boosted its brightness by up to 30 per cent.

Researchers stumbled upon the bizarre creature by accident while studying the skin pigments of polka-dot tree frogs. The frog is a dull green colour with red spots in normal light but the researchers found that it gleamed with fluorescent light under their UV torches

Fluorescence is rarely found in animals that live on land, but can be found in some underwater species. Fluorescent skin pigments absorb light at short wavelengths and re-emit it at longer wavelengths

They can project up to 18 per cent as much visible light as a full moon.

This depended on the level of ambient light in its environment.

The discovery could mean that other amphibious species have a fluorescent glow.

Particularly, the researchers say, amphibians with translucent skin like the frog they found.

Co-author Dr Julian Faivovich said he hoped that the discovery would inspire other scientists to search for more glowing amphibians.

He said he hoped scientists would 'start carrying a UV flashlight to the field'.
It is one of historys most notorious psychological experiments, which horrified the world.

The Milgram experiment of 1961 showed ordinary people were willing to inflict terrible pain on a stranger when following orders.

It was carried out by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, who examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials.

Now, after more than 50 years, a re-run of the experiment has produced the same result.

People will deliver a series of increasing electric shocks to someone behind a wall who is screaming in pain, just because someone in authority is telling them to.

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The Milgram experiment of 1961 showed ordinary people were willing to inflict terrible pain on a stranger when following orders. Derren Brown recreated the experiment in his 2006 documentary The Heist (pictured) finding that most subjects would harm others

WHAT WERE THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENTS? Milgram undertook several psychological experiments, but his most famous was 'experiment 2' in 1961, and this was the study recreated by the Polish scientists. In the experiment, a group of people overseen by an authority figure are told to administer electric shocks to a learner, played by an actor, when they get answers wrong. The had up to 30 buttons to press, each a higher shock level. With each level, they heard screams coming from a separate room. While the victim in each case was not hurt, all participants, who saw electrodes being strapped to the learners wrist before the study began, thought they were in pain. Very few participants in both studies expressed doubts in what they were doing. Those who did hesitate were encouraged to keep going by a psychology professor in a suit and tie, sat 10 feet away - also an actor. This person told them Please continue, The experiment requires that you continue, It is absolutely essential that you continue and You have no other choice, you must go on. The professor's encouragement almost always caused participants to continue electrocuting the man. Advertisement

Polish researchers who carried out a modern-day version of the experiment found 90 per cent of people will still push a button to deliver the highest level of electric shock.

Even those who express doubts about hurting a stranger who answers questions wrongly will usually keep doing it after being told The experiment requires that you continue or You have no other choice, you must go on.

In the original 1960s study, people continued to shock an actor pretending to be a mild-mannered 47-year-old accountant, even when he told them he had heart problems and begged them to stop.

The updated experiment did not go as far, but is the first to establish that people are three times as likely to refuse to hurt a woman than a man.

It comes a year after a similar psychological experiment by illusionist Derren Brown saw people persuaded by an authority figure to push a man off a roof, seemingly to his death, after just a matter of hours.

A diagram showing how the original Milgram experiment was performed in 1961. In the experiments, an actor 'learner' (S) was hooked up to fake electrical circuitry (red line) that test subject 'teachers' (L) had control of in a separate room. An 'examiner' (V) was sat in the room with the contestant

Co-author Dr Tomasz Grzyb, a social psychologist at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland, said: Half a century after Milgram's original research into obedience to authority, a striking majority of subjects are still willing to electrocute a helpless individual.

He added: Upon learning about Milgram's experiments, a vast majority of people claim that I would never behave in such a manner. Our study has, yet again, illustrated the tremendous power of the situation the subjects are confronted with and how easily they can agree to things which they find unpleasant.

The Milgram experiment came just a decade before the similarly notorious Stanford Prison Experiment, which showed how easily people became sadistic bullies when given a position of authority as prison guards. The study, intended to last an fortnight, had to be stopped after six days because of levels of brutality towards prisoners.

The test subject would then 'test' the actor on the other side of the wall by asking them questions. Every time the learner got a question wrong the teacher was supposed to electrocute them with increasingly high voltage shocks

Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, was inspired to test social compliance, by the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, whose defence for arranging the mass killing of Jews was that he was only following orders.

The Polish researchers re-ran Experiment 2 from 1961, where a group of people overseen by an authority figure are told to administer electric shocks to a learner when they get answers wrong.

The 80 participants, half male and half female, aged 18 to 69, had up to 10 buttons to press, each a higher shock level. With each level, they heard screams coming from a separate room.

While the victim in each case was not hurt, all participants, who saw electrodes being strapped to the learners wrist before the study began, thought they were in pain.

The actor who played the 'learner' would scream with pain each time he got shocked and would even plead for mercy. Teachers who expressed discomfort at what they were doing almost always carried on when told to do so by the examiner

Dr Grzyb said: The vast majority of people were highly moved by what they did. Almost all somehow presented their disappointment during the procedure - it was really visible on their faces and in their behaviour - they were sweating, nervous.

Some said it was uncomfortable for them, hearing a screaming person in the next room. Others simply said Its bad, I don't want to do this, I'm hurting this poor person next door. But when the experimenter insisted they continue, they did.

Just 21 people expressed doubts, two-thirds of them women, who were encouraged to keep going by a psychology professor in a suit and tie, sat 10 feet away.

This person told them, just like the experimenter in the Milgram experiment of 1961, Please continue, The experiment requires that you continue, It is absolutely essential that you continue and You have no other choice, you must go on.

In the new study, just 21 people expressed doubts, two-thirds of them women, who were encouraged to keep going by the examiner in a suit and tie, sat 10 feet away

This person told them, just like the experimenter in the Milgram experiment of 1961, Please continue, The experiment requires that you continue, It is absolutely essential that you continue and You have no other choice, you must go on

The modern experiment stopped at a 10th level of shock, not after 30 levels as in Milgram, because that study showed the 10th was the point of no return. They did not replicate Experiment 5, where the victim said he had a heart problem and begged the participants not to continue.

The study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, says that the Polish participants were spoken to by psychologists after the study. While some blamed the experimenter, some of the group said they were terrified by what they had done.

The authors concluded: It is worth remarking that although the number of people refusing to carry out the commands of the experimenter was three times greater when the student (the person receiving the shock was a woman, the small sample size does not allow us to draw strong conclusions.
He is one of the most famous figures in history, famed for securing Scotland's independence from England in 1314.

But until now, little has been known about what Robert the Bruce looked like.

Now a new bust based on his skull could give us a clearer idea of the face of the King of Scots.

The bust has been hailed 'the most important artistic interpretation of King Robert' for 53 years, and suggests Bruce did not have leprosy, as was widely believed.

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The lifesize forensic facial reconstruction was made by royal sculptor Christian Corbet, using a cast of the skull of Bruce from his resting place in Dunfermline Abbey

WHO WAS ROBERT THE BRUCE? Robert Bruce was king of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329, aged around 55. He waged war to wear down his Scottish opponents and the English regime in Scotland, culminating in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, where he freed Scotland from English rule. To legitimise his kingship and free his kingdom, Bruce also campaigned in northern England and Ireland. Advertisement

It was created after a team of scholars concluded the monarch, who reigned from 1306 to 1329, never suffered from leprosy.

They now believe the story was concocted as a slur on the warrior king.

The lifesize forensic facial reconstruction was then made by royal sculptor Christian Corbet, using a cast of the skull of Bruce from his resting place in Dunfermline Abbey.

An unveiling ceremony will be held on Thursday March 23 at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, close to the scene of Bruce's most famous victory, at the Battle of Bannockburn, in 1314.

The bronze will sit on a plinth made from wood from the historic Bruce Oak tree in Loch Lomond National Park and timber from the estate of the Chief of the Clan Bruce, the Earl of Elgin at Broomhall, near Dunfermline, in Fife.

It will be displayed alongside the Smith's own cast of Bruce's skull.

Smith director Elspeth King said: 'We are delighted to be selected as the home for this new sculpture.

Robert the Bruce was long been believed to have suffered from the leprosy disfiguring contagious disease, but Dr Nelson, together with a team of specialists who examined a cast of his skull, concluded it was not 'representative of an individual with leprosy'

Mr Corbet, who sculpted the bust, built the face up and the noticed a scar above the good king's left eye

'It is the most significant depiction of Bruce since the Pilkington Jackson's statue at Bannockburn. In the interim, there have been other interpretations of a man so disfigured with leprosy.

The bronze will sit on a plinth made from wood from the historic Bruce Oak tree in Loch Lomond National Park

'This one is based on scientific research, and shows him as he really was - battle-scarred but without signs of leprosy.

'We have a significant collection of items relating to Bruce, including a cast of his skull.

'But this is one of the most important acquisitions we have ever had in the Bruce story. It will be one of our star objects.'

The unveiling ceremony will be conducted by Lord Charles Bruce, alongside Stirling Provost Mike Robbins.

The work was completed following extensive research by Dr Andrew Nelson, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario, in Canada.

Robert the Bruce was long believed to have suffered from the leprosy disfiguring contagious disease, but Dr Nelson, together with a team of specialists who examined a cast of his skull, concluded it was not 'representative of an individual with leprosy'.

DID ROBERT THE BRUCE HAVE LEPROSY? Robert the Bruce was long been believed to have suffered from the leprosy disfiguring contagious disease, but Dr Nelson, together with a team of specialists who examined a cast of his skull, concluded it was not 'representative of an individual with leprosy'. Dr Nelson said: 'I went back to the literature that describes leprosy, particularly how it is manifested on the face. I came to the conclusion that I didn't think that he actually did have leprosy. 'Robert the Bruce was not loved by the English. In the history that was written later in the 14th century, a Franciscan monk accused Robert of being a leper. 'That was probably the worst insult that he could possibly think of to describe Robert the Bruce. 'For the Scots who view Bruce as a hero - as their founding king - removing that stigma so that he is not a leper but a noble warrior, I think is probably quite important to the national pride.' Advertisement

Dr Nelson said: 'I went back to the literature that describes leprosy, particularly how it is manifested on the face. I came to the conclusion that I didn't think that he actually did have leprosy.

'Robert the Bruce was not loved by the English. In the history that was written later in the 14th century, a Franciscan monk accused Robert of being a leper.

'That was probably the worst insult that he could possibly think of to describe Robert the Bruce.

The new bust was created based on this cast of the skull of Bruce from his resting place in Dunfermline Abbey

'For the Scots who view Bruce as a hero - as their founding king - removing that stigma so that he is not a leper but a noble warrior, I think is probably quite important to the national pride.'

Mr Corbet, who has sculpted Prince Philip and top figures, added: 'There was never any clear evidence that King Robert had leprosy.

'I built the face up and the one major thing that I noticed was a scar above the good king's left eye.

In December, researchers from Liverpool John Moores University used a computer to digitally recreate what he might have looked like

'I've also depicted him as clean shaven. You don't want to hide the face of a great man, but it's also on record that he had a personal shaver.

'This is a new face to a great king, and a great man. It shows him dignified and strong but still cautious.'

This isn't the first time that someone has attempted to recreate the face of Robert the Bruce.

Unlike the new bust, the digital reconstruction was based on the assumption that Bruce had leprosy, so many of his features appeared as disfigured, including his nose and jaw

In December, researchers from Liverpool John Moores University used a computer to digitally recreate what he might have looked like.

They used a 3D scanner on his skull to try to understand the intricacies of his face.

But unlike this new bust, the digital reconstruction was based on the assumption that Bruce had leprosy, so many of his features appeared as disfigured, including his nose and jaw.
In the Terminator films, Skynet was a self-aware AI hellbent on taking on humanity.

However, the version the US Air Force has bought is a little more low tech.

The anti-drone 12 gauge shotgun shells release a five foot net to trap the drone's propellers causing it to fall from the sky.

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The US Air Force is getting a new weapon to take down devious commercial drones. Called Skynet, these anti-drone 12 gauge shotgun shells release a five foot net to trap the drone's propellers causing it to fall from the sky

WHAT IS SKYNET? The US Air Force has contracted AMTEC Less Lethal Systems to use their technology to take down drowns. Skynet is a 12 gauge anti-drone round designed to be rapidly deployed against commercially available drones being utilized for illegal purposes. The Air Force are able to shoot the shells from standard Remington Model 870 shotguns. However, for the cartridge to function properly, shooters will first need to install a 'choke tube' to the gun's muzzle  this is the only way to rotate Skynet once it is released. Upon firing through a choke barrel, the five tethered segments separate with centrifugal force and create a five foot wide capture net to effectively trap the drones propellers causing it to fail. Advertisement

The military agency has purchased 600 rounds to conduct tests and if satisfied, they plan to place an order for another 6,400 shells.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) has revealed its plans to buy and test 600 rounds from AMTEC Less Lethal Systems (ALS), according to The Drive.

The move is a result of the Department of Defense (DoD) tasking the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell (JRAC) 'to provide a solution to counter an immediate unmanned aerial system (UAS) threat to vital national assets,' according to the 'Justification and Approval' document.

Requirements for the tools were low cost, high performance and readily available, and Skynet is said to be all three  specific commands and its area of responsibility were censored in the document filed by AFLCMC.

'Skynet system is the system of choice for required net gun capability, as it is the only current product on the market that is immediately field-able using inventory shotguns for a long range kinetic net solution, and controls the data and patent rights to the only currently proven technology that makes a shotgun net round feasible and the required distance,' the document states.

The Drive explained that federal agencies wishing to award 'sole source' to a specific company without conducting competitions must submit a formal justification form.

'The current technology set of net projectiles is a very immature market,' the contract review explained.

'The Skynet Net Gun system has been demonstrated at several locations in varying conditions during testing as part of the 2016 Air Force Research Laboratory Commander's Challenge.'

The Air Force is set to fire the shells from standard Remington Model 870 shotguns.

However, for the cartridge to function properly, shooters must first install a 'choke tube' to the gun's muzzle  this is the only way to rotate Skynet once it is released.

Military agency is set to receive 600 rounds to conduct tests and if satisfied, they will put in an order for another 6,400 shells

And the contract shows the agency is considering purchases 100 of these devices.

'Upon firing through a 12 gauge rifled choke barrel, the five tethered segments separate with centrifugal force and create a five foot wide capture net to effectively trap the drones propellers causing it to fail,' reads the ALS website.

The military has been criticized in the past for 'moving too slowly' in protecting nuclear sites from commercial drones.

'We're going too slow,' U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said during a press conference.

'We have to get the right policies and authorities out there so our defenders know exactly what to do, and then we have to give them material solutions to allow them to react when they see a threat and identify that there is a threat so they do they right things.

The Air Force is set to fire the shells from standard Remington Model 870 shotguns. However, for the cartridge to function properly, shooters must first install a 'choke tube' to the gun's muzzle

DRONEGUN TAKES DOWN DRONES 1.2 MILES AWAY The DroneGun, a signal-jamming rifle capable of taking out an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) from 1.2 miles (2km) away. The DroneGun is the brainchild of tech firm DroneShield, a self-proclaimed 'worldwide leader' in drone detection and protection technology based in Sydney and Virginia. The gun is designed to stop drones with explosives or other weapons strapped to them using radio waves. The weapon works by jamming a Radio Frequency signal in the drone, taking away control from the pilot and gently landing the drone safely on the ground. This controlled vertical landing stops weaponize drones from flying into targets even when disabled. Advertisement

'We're just going way too slow across policy, authorities and material solutions.'

The statement was made earlier this month, but it seems the military agency has stepped up with testing of Skynet.

However, there have been some questions regarding situations when the net misses the drone, as it the projectiles could cause damage to other objects and even casualties.
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Recent political events have turned the world upside down.

The UK voting for Brexit and the US electing Donald Trump as president were unthinkable 18 months ago.

In fact, they're so extraordinary that some have questioned whether they might not be an indication that we're actually living in some kind of computer simulation or alien experiment.

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Less than two years ago, the US electing Donald Trump as president was unthinkable, the researcher argues. President Trump is pictured above in January, with a signed executive order to advance construction of the Keystone XL pipeline

IS REALITY MERELY AN ILLUSION? The question of whether we are actually aware of the real world is one which has been continually asked by philosophers. The earliest mentions of the debate can be found in Plato's Republic, where the Allegory of the Cave describes the illusory existence led by most unthinking people. Plato suggested that the only way to come to a realisation of the real world was an in-depth study of maths and geometry, which would give students an undestanding of the real nature of the world. French philosopher Rene Descartes raised the problem as a thought experiment to lead readers to a position of radical doubt. His philosophy was built on the idea that nothing that is perceived or sensed is necessarily true. The only thing that is true that there is a mind or consciousness doing the doubting and believing its perceptions. This lead to the famous saying 'I think, therefore I am.' Critics of his work, however, say that just because there are thoughts, there is no guarantee there is really a thinker. Advertisement

These unexpected events could be experiments to see how our political systems cope under stress.

Or they could be cruel jokes made at our expense by our alien zookeepers.

Or maybe they're just glitches in the system that were never meant to happen.

Perhaps the recent mix-up at the Oscars or the unlikely victories of Leicester City in the English Premier League or the New England Patriots in the Superbowl are similar glitches.

The problem with using these difficult political events as evidence that our world is a simulation is how unethical such a scenario would be.

If there really were a robot or alien power that was intelligent enough to control all our lives in this way, there's a good chance they'd have developed the moral sense not to do so.

Philosophers have been discussing the prospect that the world is just an illusion for hundreds of years.

It most recently returned to public attention when SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk suggested we are probably living in a computer simulation, a real-life version of The Matrix.

Echoing philosopher Nick Bostrom, Musk reasoned that computing power is growing so quickly that our descendants would find it easy to run as many universe simulations as they like.

This would lead to an unlimited number of simulated universes, but there would still only be one real universe.

The odds of ours being the real one would be infinitesimal.

Bostrom concludes one of three things must be true.

Either humanity goes extinct before developing the technology to make universe simulations possible.

Or advanced civilisations freely choose not to run such simulations. Or we are probably living in a simulation.

The UK voting for Brexit was unthinkable 18 months ago, the researcher argues. Brexit supporters are pictured in November 2016

Bostrom and Musk put their money on this last option.

The question we're faced with is whether unexpected events such as Trump and Brexit make it more or less likely that we are living in a simulation.

Are they the kind of thing we should expect to see in a simulated universe?

Political scientists usually can't run experiments in the real world to test their theories like other scientists can.

But what if they could run a giant computer simulation to get the data? Brexit and Trump might be deliberate experiments designed to see what happens when key features of our world are put under strain.

DO WE LIVE IN A SIMULATION? 'PROBABLY,' SAYS ELON MUSK Last summer, when asked at the Code Conference in southern California if the answer to the question of whether we are in a simulated computer game was 'yes', Elon Musk said the answer is 'probably'. Musk believes that computer game technology, particularly virtual reality, is already approaching a point that it is indistinguishable from reality. 'If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable,' he said. 'Even if the speed of those advancements dropped by 1000, 'We are clearly on a trajectory to have games indistinguishable from reality, and there would be billions of there. 'It would seem to follow that the odds that we're in 'base reality' is one in billions', Mr Musk said. Elon Musk is one of many who have suggested reality may not be as we think. Last summer, when if the answer to the question of whether we are in a simulated computer game was 'yes', Elon Musk said the answer is 'probably' Advertisement

Is the American constitution self-supporting, even when officials are malevolent or incompetent? Can Britain thrive outside the EU? Can democracy survive without protection from NATO?

But experiments in global politics in the real world wouldn't just be prohibitively difficult and expensive.

They would also be unethical. It's wrong to make research subjects suffer without their informed consent.

Knowledge may be valuable, but it is not valuable enough to justify cruelty in its pursuit.

Increasingly, we're coming to realise that these ethical limitations apply not only to our fellow humans, but to all beings capable of suffering  including both animals and sentient artificial intelligence.

This is good reason to think that advanced civilisations would choose not to simulate our world, the researcher says, even if they had the technical capacity to do so, because doing so would be morally wrong

Bostrom has argued that as long as a consciousness is capable of subjective experience, pain and fear are experienced the same way, regardless of whether they are manifested in neurons or circuits.

We might not have sentient AI yet, but the EU is already drafting proposals for the protection of 'electronic persons.'

And, just as it would be wrong for us to conduct cruel experiments on sentient AI, so too would it be wrong for our digital overlords to conduct them on us.

This is good reason to think that advanced civilisations would choose not to simulate our world, even if they had the technical capacity to do so, because doing so would be morally wrong.

Bostrom argues that it's not clear that creating a universe like ours would be wrong, despite the suffering that exists.

He also points out that our possible digital overlords, like the gods of traditional religions, could reward us with a blissful (simulated) afterlife.

This is a traditional theological response to what is known as the problem of evil. But it still leaves the question of whether it is ethical to make us suffer first and only provide compensation later.

This argument also won't save the suggestion that recent events make a simulation more likely  quite the opposite.

The worse the world gets, the less likely it is that it's morally acceptable to have created it.

Of course, even if simulating our world is wrong, our digital masters might do it anyway. Not all technically advanced civilisations are moral.

The Nazis were famously adept technologically.

It's not crazy to think that a German victory in World War II, while a moral monstrosity, would not have been a disaster for science.

But there's a reason why the world depicted in Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which portrays just such a situation, is threatened by imminent nuclear destruction.

Without ethics to limit its use, science and technology are grave dangers to human survival.

Which makes it much more likely that a universe simulation would never be created.

Either our descendants will be ethical enough not to destroy one another and so ethical enough not to simulate suffering like ours, or humanity will go extinct before it is able to.

As W H Auden said, 'we must love one another or die'. And we would never put creatures we love into a simulated world filled with malaria, famine, civil war  and Donald Trump.
NASA researchers are developing origami-inspired robots that could soon be used to explore extreme alien environments.

The Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robots, or Puffers, have a collapsible design and are small enough to hitch a ride on another craft, such as a Mars rover or Europa lander.

According to the space agency, these adorable robots will be able to reach areas that the larger vehicles cannot, allowing them to investigate caves and lava tubes on Mars, or the icy chaos terrains of Europa.

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NASA researchers are developing origami-inspired robots that could soon be used to explore extreme alien environments. The Puffers have a collapsible design and are small enough to hitch a ride on another craft, such as a Mars rover or Europa lander

NASA'S 'PUFFER' BOTS Not only are these bots similar in size to a smartphone when folded, they also have a comparable weight and volume. This could allow rovers like Curiosity to deploy numerous smaller craft to explore previously unreachable areas. A larger rover or lander could carry a collection of Puffers, and eject one or more bots when it spots an area of interest. Then, the smaller craft can press on to investigate the alien terrain. According to NASA, these adorable robots will be able to reach caves and lava tubes on Mars, or the icy chaos terrains of Europa. Advertisement

The Puffer robots fold up to be just about the size of a smartphone, according to NASA.

But, they are incredibly hardy.

Videos of recent tests on the Puffer bots show they can withstand a three-meter drop onto concrete (simulating Mars gravity), traverse a rocky slope, and even climb a hill of ice.

Equipping the bot with spikey wheels, for example, allows it to drive up a 45-degree rough incline.

And, on a slippery slope, it can adjust the angle of its wheels to optimize its grip on the surface.

The robots are part of an 18-month project led by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

According to the space agency, this system could allow rovers like Curiosity to deploy numerous smaller craft to explore previously unreachable areas.

Videos of recent tests on the Puffer bots show they can withstand a three-meter drop onto concrete (simulating Mars gravity), traverse a rocky slope, and even climb a hill of ice. Equipping the bot with spikey wheels, for example, allows it to drive up a 45-degree incline

Not only are these bots similar in size to a smartphone when folded, they also have a comparable weight and volume.

This compactness allows a large number of Puffers to be packed into a larger parent spacecraft at low payload cost, and then used by the parent spacecraft to provide increased surface mobility, according to NASA.

Example missions could include a planetary lander that requires small rovers for increased exploration.

The robots are part of an 18-month project led by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. According to the space agency, this system could allow rovers like Curiosity to deploy numerous smaller craft to explore previously unreachable areas

According to the space agency, these adorable robots will be able to reach areas that the larger vehicles cannot, allowing them to investigate caves and lava tubes on Mars, or the icy chaos terrains of Europa

Alternatively, a larger parent rover could use a collection of Puffers to explore extreme terrains that are easier to access with a small, low-cost child rover.

When the parent spacecraft finds an exciting region for exploration, it simply ejects one or more Puffers, which can then pop-up and go on to explore the target of interest.

The effort also includes researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and at Distant Focus Corporation in Champaign, Illinois.

NASA has plans to put the prototypes through Mars-analog field tests this year in the Mojave Desert.
Adventure it was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon, wrote the American journalist John Reed.

His eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ten Days That Shook The World, told the gripping story of the Bolshevik revolt against the tyranny of the ruling Tsars.

Lenin and Trotsky, the leaders of the uprising, were committed to creating a brave new world via brave new art. As Lenin once remarked: 'Art is the most powerful means of political propaganda for the triumph of the socialist cause.' That art is the subject of a new exhibition of the avant-garde, Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932 at London's Royal Academy (until April 17).

Toppled tsars: The Winter Palace was one of the key scenes of the Russian Revolution

Many of these works by artists such as Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Boris Kustodiev and Pavel Filonov have not been seen in Britain before.

The show marks 100 years since the demonstrations in February in St Petersburg that led to the toppling of the Romanov family and their later execution.

But if you don't know your Marx from your Engels and you're wondering why the corpse of Rasputin, the Tsarina's favourite, ended up in the river Neva, don't worry  you're not alone.

One way to brush up your history  and full Marx to you for effort  is on location in St Petersburg. Now is a perfect time to visit the old imperial capital that gave birth to Bolshevism.

During the 'white nights' of summer, the city teems; but in the 'white days' of frozen winter, it's delightfully uncrowded.

Treasure chamber: It would take six years to view all of the Hermitage's three million artefacts

Take warm layers and a furry hat with ear flaps (ushanka), and you'll survive. Besides, as one local reassures us: 'It never really gets cold. Well, not much below minus 12.' It's possible to manage the sights (and that dastardly Cyrillic alphabet) without a guide. But once I meet Alexei, an art historian, I can throw away my stuffy old history books.

He whisks me through the Hermitage, the complex of buildings that houses the Winter Palace, the former home of the Romanovs, to the spot where it all began. It was in the palace's Small Dining Room that the Red Guard overpowered the provisional government on the night of October 25, 1917.

The clock on the mantelpiece has been stopped at 2.10am, the moment Russia became a communist state. And, without Alexei, I might have missed the significance of St George's Hall where Nicholas II ceded power.

It was his ancestor, Peter the Great, who chose the marshes on the Gulf of Finland to build his new Western-style capital in the 18th century, excavating canals and throwing up grand palaces for the aristocracy.

With more than three million artefacts, it would take a visitor six years to see all the treasures of the Hermitage. So we make do with a few masterpieces by Da Vinci, Titian and Rembrandt before heading across Palace Square for coffee and cream cakes in the General Staff Building. An extension of the Hermitage, it opened three years ago and houses much of the Impressionist art that Lenin confiscated from private collectors.

Stalin disliked the avant-garde, favouring realistic painting that told a simple story. After he came to power in 1924, these works by masters such as Matisse and Chagall were hidden away, until his death in 1953 when they were displayed once more.

Avant-garde: The Bolshevik by Boris Kustodiev, from 1920, is on display at the Royal Academy

When the sunlight plays on the marble facades and the golden domes, St Petersburg dazzles in pink and gold. Of course, there is so much more to this city than bling on the Baltic: my front row seat for Don Quixote at the world's most famous ballet company, the Mariinsky (formerly the Kirov), cost just 67.

And there are welcoming restaurants such as Gogol (restaurant-gogol.ru) and the Russian Vodka Room No. 1 (vodkaroom.ru), where you can always find salmon caviare, hearty beef stew and warming vodka.

There's more bling on view in the Faberge museum, which displays the extravagant jewelled eggs and knick-knacks the royal family exchanged as their subjects starved. As you press your nose against the display cases, your inner conscience will scream: 'Those Romanovs had it coming!'
If you have champagne taste but only beer money, fear not, a spring getaway is still possible with careful planning.

Savvy travellers should head to Albufeira, Portugal; Benidorm, Spain, and Prague, Czech Republic, for the best value spring breaks, according to a new report revealing the top ten destinations for those with a budget of 1,000 per person.

British holidaymakers are encouraged to maximise the length of their trips by swapping popular city break destinations for longer more affordable stays at Mediterranean resorts.

A flight to the most affordable spot, Albufeira (pictured), costs on average 193 while hotels cost 90 a night

TripAdvisors TripMaximiser Report has calculated the number of nights tourists can spend at spots between 1 March and 31 May 2017, based on the average British travellers holiday spend of 1,000 per person on accommodation and flights

Choosing ten popular destinations for spring holidays, TripAdvisors TripMaximiser Report has calculated the number of nights tourists can spend at spots between 1 March and 31 May 2017 with a budget based on the average British travellers holiday spend of 1,000 per person on accommodation and flights.

Albufeira, Benidorm and Prague top the ranking to offer 18, 17 and 13 nights respectively.

A flight to the most affordable spot, Albufeira, costs on average 193 while hotels cost 90 a night.

However, holidaymakers would have to fork out on average 528 per person for flights and an average nightly hotel rate of 293 in New York, meaning that for the same budget only three nights could be enjoyed in the Big Apple.

Hong Kong and Dubai are similarly costly, allowing travellers a four-night break for the same budget.

Despite Bangkoks long haul flight costing nearly six times more than Paris at 619 versus 109, the average nightly hotel rate for Bangkok (pictured) compared to Paris evened out the destinations, with 1,000 getting tourists nine nights in Paris and eight in Bangkok

More affordable than these bustling hubs yet still pricier than a Mediterranean getaway are Paris and Bangkok.

Despite Bangkoks long-haul flight costing nearly six times more than Paris at 619 versus 109, the average nightly hotel rate for Bangkok compared to Paris evened out the destinations, with 1,000 getting tourists nine nights in Paris and eight in Bangkok.

Commenting on the inaugural report, TripAdvisor spokesperson Hayley Coleman said: TripAdvisor knows that when people plan a trip they want to ensure they unleash its full potential and that means maximising their experience as well as their budget.

The TripMaximiser Report helps travellers by revealing just how many nights away Brits can get for the same budget at popular destinations across the world.

Travellers who are willing to be flexible on a holiday destination stand to get the best value when booking a trip this spring.
Tour operators have begun selling holidays to Sharm el Sheikh again - despite continuing Government advice urging Britons to stay away.

All tourist travel to the Egyptian resort was suspended in December 2015 after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky, killing 224 people. Since then the Foreign Office advice has warned that further atrocities are 'likely' because 'terrorists continue to plan and conduct attacks'.

But Thomas Cook and Thomson have now started accepting bookings for this autumn - despite the fact the trips may not go ahead if the warnings remain in place.

British holidaymakers can now book trips to Sharm El Sheikh from October this year through Thomson and Thomas Cook despite unchanged FCO warnings against all but essential air travel (file image)

Investigators for the consumer website www.aspokesmansaid.com found a 1,411.98 seven-day holiday for two at SunConnect Sunrise Diamond Resort with Thomas Cook from November 2 to the 9th.

Agents were also able to book a holiday at the same resort with Thomson, a seven-night break in October for 1,460.

With Thomson there were no warnings about the current FCO advice until the screen immediately before payment, investigators claim.

Small print at the bottom of the page reveals that the break will be amended or cancelled if the terror warning is still in place nearer the departure date.

It reads: 'At present as a precautionary measure the government is advising against all but essential air travel to Sharm el Sheikh. Should the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advice not change, then we will be in direct contact with you to amend or cancel your booking.'

Thomson told their investigators they would be refunded if the FCO advice remained in place, but were unable to say when that decision would be made.

A spokesperson for Thomson told MailOnline Travel: 'We, like other holiday companies, offer customers the opportunity to book a wide range of holidays up to 12-18 months before they are due to travel.

Despite tour operators gearing up for the resort's recovery, the FCO said it has not issued any information suggesting it may change its advice on flying to Sharm el Sheikh. Above is the deserted airport

'In this instance, we have a small number of holidays for sale to Sharm el-Sheikh as part of our winter holiday programme, which begins in October.

'Customers are notified on our website at the time of booking that as a precautionary measure the government is advising against all but essential air travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, although the overall security level of the resort has not changed. The situation in Egypt is under constant review.'

Thomas Cook has a warning at the top of its online booking pages stating that holidays to the Egyptian resort may be cancelled if the FCO advice does not change.

A spokesperson for Thomas Cook told MailOnline Travel: 'While we do need to forward plan for next winter's holidays, we never take customers on holiday against the advice of the UK Foreign Office and if there's no change then we will cancel all holidays to Sharm and offer a full refund or destination change free of charge.'

He added that the company would have to 'take a view on the situation later in the year'.

Despite tour operators gearing up for the resort town's recovery, the FCO said it has not issued any information suggesting it may change its advice on travelling to Sharm el Sheikh.

Consumer expert Fred Isaac of Aspokesmansaid described the tour operators' actions as 'breathtaking'.

He added: 'Both companies are cynically selling holidays and flights to a destination that the FCO is warning people not to fly to unless it's essential.'

All British tourist travel to the Egyptian resort was suspended in December 2015 after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky, killing 224 people. Above, a hotel employee works on the empty shoreline in the resort town of Naama Bay in April 2016

The news comes following reports by MailOnline, last September, that Theresa May had been urged to give the go-ahead for flights to resume between the UK and Sharm el-Sheikh by the head of the cross-party parliamentary group on Egypt.

The group's chairman, Sir Gerald Howarth, had written to the Prime Minister asking her to end the ban and claimed that significant progress has been made on tightening security checks at the Red Sea resort's airport.

He also warned that there was a risk of people in Sharm becoming 'radicalised' if the area's tourism industry continued to suffer.

At the time it was reported that Mrs May welcomed Egypt's efforts to improve security at Sharm airport in a phone conversation with the country's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

But an account of the call released by Downing Street gave no indication that the Prime Minister was ready to ease Government advice, saying only that the UK would continue 'working closely' with Cairo on the issue.

Last month, it was also reported that international tourists are slowly returning to Egypt, easing pressure on a key sector battered by years of turmoil.

'There is an increase in the number of tourists. This situation was much better in January than in previous years,' tourism ministry spokeswoman Omaima al-Husseini said.

Visitors from China, Japan and Ukraine account for a large part of the growth.

In June 2015, a massacre of tourists at a Luxor temple was narrowly averted when assailants armed with assault rifles and explosives bungled the attack and were intercepted by police.

But in October that year, Islamic State group jihadists, who are waging an insurgency in the eastern Sinai Peninsula, struck again. They bombed a Russian airliner carrying holidaymakers home from Sharm el-Sheikh.

Russia suspended flights to Egypt and Britain cut air links with Sharm el-Sheikh.
In movies the line 'is there a doctor on board?' is always delivered in panicked tones.

But in reality, it needn't be, because most of the time a doctor is actually on board a flight, a new study has revealed.

There's a 92 per cent chance of a trained physician being on board  or on 11 out of 12 flights - according to the research, meaning that a plane is a good place to fall ill.

There's a 92 per cent chance of a trained physician being on board a flight

Additionally, the study, by Gatwick Airport, found that the chances of a doctor being on a flight are improved if you're flying to Italy, because it's a favoured location for medical conferences.

Flights there account for 12 per cent of the instances of doctors being on a plane.

These statistics emerged after Gatwick analysed how often and where people in jobs travel for business.

Management consultants flew on business most  with more than half (53 per cent) jetting off at least 12 times a year.

The next most-frequent flyers were finance professionals (44 per cent), followed by sales people (43 per cent), media workers (38 per cent), IT workers (36 per cent), engineers (32 per cent), marketing professionals (26 per cent), doctors (23 per cent) and scientists (20 per cent).

The study, by Gatwick Airport (pictured), found that the chances of a doctor being on a flight are improved if you're flying to Italy, because it's a favoured location for medical conferences

The most popular destinations to travel to for business are in Europe, including Spain (24 per cent), France (20 per cent), Italy (19 per cent), Germany (19 per cent) and the Netherlands (11 per cent), according to the study.

Outside of Europe, 15 per cent flew to the States for business.

Half (50 per cent) of those who travelled for business said they viewed business travel as a perk of the job, and almost two thirds (61 per cent) said they had combined a business trip with annual leave to take advantage of sightseeing whilst they were there.

However, given the opportunity to change to a career with more travel, just under a quarter (24 per cent) would take it, and almost a fifth (18 per cent) said they would prefer to travel less.

When asked what people miss the most when they are away on business, respondents said their family or partner (60 per cent), their own bed (16 per cent) and home cooking (seven per cent).

Guy Stephenson, Chief Commercial Officer, Gatwick Airport, said: 'One in five of our passengers travel for business so it's important for us to understand our business travellers better. In doing so we are also able to answer the age-old question of whether there is a doctor on board.

'European destinations are the most popular for our business passengers but an increasing number are using Gatwick's growing long haul network which now boasts over 50 routes across the globe. We expect our long haul network to grow further this year so we can expect to see more business passengers travelling further afield than ever before.'
She's the Sydney Housewife whose known for her outspoken personality.

And Lisa Oldfield has spoken of the moment she nearly drown while they were filming an episode of Real Housewives of Sydney in Queensland's Whitsundays, last October.

The 41-year-old, whose husband is ex-politician David Oldfield, said she almost drowned while snorkeling in a report by NW.

Near death experience: Lisa Oldfield (pictured after spinal surgery) has spoken of the moment she nearly drown while they were filming an episode of Real Housewives of Sydney in Queensland's Whitsundays

Lisa, along with the other housewives, were invited to a weekend getaway by Victoria Rees following Matty Samaei and AthenaX Levendi's clash.

She told the publication the incident happened while she was swimming with Matty and Nicole.

The raven haired businesswoman said she was caught in a rip and was desperately calling out for help.

Close call: She claims that the incident and trip to the hospital changed her outlook

Weekend getaway with the girls: The housewives were invited to a weekend getaway by Victoria Rees following Matty Samaei and AthenaX Levendi's firey clash

To add to the drama, she was still on painkillers following spinal surgery two months earlier, according to a report by The Daily Telegraph.

She told to magazine: 'with a couple of champagnes under my belt, I really wasn't able to cope with it. I panicked!'

Lisa tried to swim across the rip, but was eventually rescued and taken to a medical centre in Airlie Beach for treatment, as the other housewives feasted on a seafood banquet.

Adding to the drama: While she was swimming with fellow housewives Matty and Nicole, Lisa was caught in a rip and was desperately calling out for help (pictured with Melissa Tkautz)

A life changing experience? Lisa said that after her the near death encounter she felt like she can do almost anything (pictured alongside husband ex-politician David Oldfield)

'In the end, a man on a giant blow-up swan came to save me... It was so surreal,' she said.

The fearless housewife added that after the near death experience she feels like she can do almost anything.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Foxtel for comment.
They first met in 2015 while starring in the Broadway show, The Way We Get By. And now the two are have a baby together.

On Monday, Amanda Seyfried stopped by an LA set to visit fiance Thomas Sadoski for lunch.

For her appearance, the 31-year-old was dressed comfortably in loose-fitting clothing, but she still couldn't conceal her big bump.

Supportive: On Monday, Amanda Seyfried, 31, stopped by an LA set to visit fiance Thomas Sadoski, 40, for lunch

The Clapper star paired a simple T-shirt with a set of drawstring trousers.

The pretty blonde completed her look with a pair of slides and shades.

Joining the actress for her visit was the couple's pup Finn, who's often seen walking with the duo on various occasions.

Comfortable: The Clapper star paired a simple T-shirt with a set of drawstring trousers

The couple first met in 2015 while starring in a Broadway show, but did not start dating until they reunited the following year for the film, The Last Word.

They became engaged in September 2016 and announced Amanda's pregnancy that November.

In an interview with news.com.au , the Dear John star discussed love, her pregnancy and upcoming marriage.

'The lead actor cancelled five days before the shoot and Tommy (her fiance) was on a list of a couple of guys. And I was like, "Come on! This is a no brainier!"' she said.

'And so there I was with him on set. I'll never forget it. I don't think my kid will either, even though [he/she] wasn't there.'

Chatting: Amanda looked to be in conversation with another woman while her fiance worked on his meal

As for her pregnancy, the Pennsylvania-born actress admits hers is 'uncomfortable' at times, but also understands she doesn't have it as hard as others.

'We wouldnt want to get these babies out if it wasnt uncomfortable, and so it all makes sense to me. Im so ready now! All I want to do is start. I really want it to come early because I cant wait.'

'The pregnancy has been fine, other than really bad heartburn. For everybody whos had babies, the second trimester is as though youre not even pregnant. You just get to hang out and build a human without really feeling all the symptoms, if youre lucky. But I know people have had difficult pregnancies, and Im grateful that mine wasnt.'

Still, she's excited for her new arrival.

'I was born to be a mother. I've known that since I was little,' she said.
She recently opened up about her struggle with mental health problems, saying that there have been times where she hasn't wanted to leave the house.

New author Gillian Anderson, who has written a book about her battle with depression, stopped by the AOL Building in New York to promote it on Monday.

The 48-year-old actress looked chic in an all-black ensemble, sporting cropped trousers, a black t-shirt and a professional matching blazer.

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Author: Gillian Anderson, 48, stepped out in a sleek all-black ensemble as she promoted her new book, We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere, in New York on Monday

She wrapped up against the Manhattan chill in a fluffy textured coat.

The Fall star injected some glamour into her somewhat sombre outfit by donning a pair of stiletto pointed-toe pumps.

The fair actress styled her strawberry blonde locks simply, teasing her tresses into a loose ponytail and allowing strands to fall forward and frame her face.

Revelations: Gillian posed for pictures with her friend and journalist Jennifer Nadel with whom she wrote her new self help book

Opening up: Gillian has revealed that at her lowest point in her battle with mental health problems she did not want to leave the house

Strawberry blonde: She styled her fair hair simply, in a ponytail with strands framing her face

Sombre: She cut a low-key figure in a black blazer, t-shirt and matching cropped trousers

She was clearly in work mode as she entered the building wearing a pair of black-rimmed spectacles.

It was a busy day of promotion for Gillian as she was earlier seen making her way into the studio of American chat show The View.

The actress clutched a cup of coffee which must have helped her keep up with her hectic schedule of interviews.

Gillian wrote her book, We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere, with her friend and journalist Jennifer Nadel.

Smiles: She beamed for photographers as she prepared to speak about her experiences

Keeping warm: She popped on a fluffy textured coat to keep out any Manhattan chill

Caffeine required: The Fall star was spotted clutching a cup of coffee as she entered the studio of American chat show The View

Work: The actress looked a little preoccupied as she entered the TV studio to discuss her new book

Gillian, who has had therapy since the age of 14, told the Guardian: 'There were times when it was really bad. There have been times in my life where I havent wanted to leave the house.'

She said she hoped that her new book, which she wrote with friend and journalist Jennifer Nadel, would help others struggling with self-esteem - something that she has struggled with herself.

She has also spoken about her fear that she might have dyslexia as she has issues with memory - although luckily that doesn't include remembering her lines.

Gillian said a friend had suggested she might be dyslexic.

'I havent wanted to leave the house': Gillian Anderson has revealed her struggle with mental health problems, saying there have been times where it has been 'really bad'

Opening up: The X-Files actress also spoke about her fear that she might have dyslexia as she has issues with memory

She said: 'Id always been afraid to look into it, because I was afraid that if I found something out, I would think that I couldnt do anything that I wanted to do.'

Gillian recently stressed the importance of opening up about and sharing problems with other women.

In an interview with Red, she said: 'I want women to feel that they are not alone. Getting honest is really important.

Well-being: She hopes her new book We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere, would help others struggling with self-esteem

Viceroy's House: Gillian stars as Lady Mountbatten, alongside Hugh Bonneville who portrays her powerful husband

'I think, had I not found tools to help me out of that pain, or to show me that there were people out there who were on a similar journey, the combination of those two things most certainly have contributed to me still being on the planet.'

The actress plays Lady Mountbatten in new film Viceroy's House, alongside Hugh Bonneville who portrays her powerful husband.

The movie takes place in 1947, during the Partition of India, and follows life in the famous Viceroy's House - the official home of the country's President in New Delhi.

Sophisticated: Her ensemble comprised black trousers, heels and a Bella Freud jumper

Chatting away: She was there to talk about women and her new book
Hearts across the globe melted when Andrew Lincoln turned up on Keira Knightley's doorstep in the 2003 flick with the sign reading: 'To Me, You Are Perfect.'

And in the first teaser released on behalf of the upcoming Love Actually BBC Comic Relief special, the actor can be seen re-enacting the iconic scene as he encourages viewers to tune into the short movie spectacle on 24th March.

The now 43-year-old hunk stares directly at the camera as he holds up a series of cards, which reads: 'Hello, I just wanted to ask, without hope or agenda (and just because it's nearly Red Nose Day) that you'll join us for a very special reunion called Red Nose Day Actually on Friday 24th March BBC One...'

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Exciting! In the first teaser released for the upcoming Love Actually's BBC Comic Relief special, Andrew Lincoln can be seen re-enacting his iconic scene as he encourages viewers to tune in on 24th March

He then switches to the last card which reads: 'Actually,' before breaking his brooding aura by cracking a huge smile.

In the original movie, Keira's character Juliet is convinced her husband's pal Mark, (Lincoln), can't stand her, until she discovers the wedding video he made which features solely on her.

It's only then she realises he is actually in love with her. He later turns up her house with the cards, telling her: 'To me, you are perfect.'

Declaration of love: Hearts across the globe melted when Andrew turned up on Keira Knightley's doorstep in 2003 flick with the sign reading: 'To Me, You Are Perfect'

'Without hope or agenda': The now 43-year-old sported a more bearded appearance as he promoted the reboot

'Because it's nearly Red Nose Day': He let the cards do all the talking

'Join us for a special reunion': Fans have been eagerly anticipating the special after it was announced last month

They then kiss and he says, 'Enough now, that's enough now,' as he leaves her to get on with married life.

Keira was pictured filming Love Actually's Comic Relief for the first time on Wednesday with Chiwetel Ejiofor, [Peter] and Andrew.

The 31-year-old movie star was pictured filming with her onscreen husband AND his best friend, leading viewers to wonder how their story has developed.

'Red Nose Day': The British hunk expertly recreates the scenario from 14 years ago as he relays his message

'Friday 24th March on BBC One': Andrew ensures to let everyone know the date

'Actually': He then breaks his brooding aura by cracking a huge smile

Someone got it wrong: In the original flick, Keira seems surprised after mistakenly believing that Andrew's character couldn't stand her

Standing on a London doorstep, Keira wore a cream jumper with the word: 'LOVE' emblazoned on the front as she looked as youthful as ever and Theory scarf print wide trousers.

Andrew could be seen nearby during filming, wearing an oversized jacket by John Varvatos and sporting longer curly hair than before, while director Richard Curtis hovers close to him.

Emma Freud, who's married to director and writer Richard Curtis has been busy tweeting behind-the-scenes snaps from the set of the film, posting a snapshot of Kate Moss on set alongside the caption: 'Oh. What's SHE doing here?'

Last night, our last night on #rednosedayactually. Marital bliss, the best pyjama bottoms I've ever seen, and major #jerseyenvy #shallow pic.twitter.com/Zk8bDkCrYn  emma freud (@emmafreud) 8 March 2017

Wrong or right? After he shows her the sign, they kiss and he says, 'Enough now, that's enough now,' as he leaves her to get on with married life

It was 13 years ago. There is more facial hair now. But he still loves her.... #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/0Zhz341Jj4  emma freud (@emmafreud) 8 March 2017

At least someone thinks Andrew Lincoln is funny. Keira Knightley more beautiful than ever. #tomeyouareperfect #rednosedayactually #march24th pic.twitter.com/0NoKrKmPeC  emma freud (@emmafreud) 7 March 2017

The sighting follows Richard Curtis's words during a recent interview with Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain last week.

He said: 'Someone's died, someone's got lots of kids, someone's been voted out of office and voted back into office.'

Also pictured filming during the last few weeks, were Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon, whose characters David and Natalie are now married.

During a break from filming, Hugh, who plays the Prime Minister told the camera: 'It's going very badly. I can't remember my lines or the character. Everyone hates me.'

The PM, his wife and the writer who never worked out a good camera face. #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/TT0pZB5p2P  emma freud (@emmafreud) 5 March 2017

'To me, you are perfect': Keira was pictured filming Love Actually's Comic Relief for the first time on Wednesday with Chiwetel Ejiofor, [Peter] and Andrew

They're actually still in love: In one still, Keira can be seen cuddling up to her husband Peter (Chiwetel) on the sofa... as they giggled during filming

Red hot: Whilst filming Red Nose Day Actually, Andrew Lincoln modelled a Red Nose Day T-Shirt, designed by Rankin available from TK Maxx stores and online

Colin Firth, who plays Jamie, was spotted on the set of the eagerly awaited Love Actually sequel at the BBC Langham Place Piazza in central London last week.

And 64-year-old Liam Neeson, [Daniel] was pictured with his onscreen stepson Thomas Brodie-Sangster [Sam], who is now 26, filming in London's Southbank, along with Olivia Olsen, [Joanna].

Emma Thompson has ruled out a part in the Comic Relief special as she can find 'no comedy' since the death of her co-star, Alan Rickman.

She told PA: 'It's too soon. It's absolutely right because it's supposed to be for Comic Relief but there isn't much comic relief in the loss of our dear friend really only just over a year ago.'

Love still all around on set yesterday. #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/zWnhQFqjc6  emma freud (@emmafreud) 8 March 2017

Brothers in arms. And noses. Everyone on the #rednosedayactually SO happy these guys are here tonight. Esp me. pic.twitter.com/BkR2ZMrG66  emma freud (@emmafreud) 7 March 2017

Oh Rufus. There's something unexpected in the bagging area. #rednosedayactually day 2. Done. pic.twitter.com/fnk6lNZmyr  emma freud (@emmafreud) 23 February 2017

Reprising her role: Keira plays Juliet in the 2003 movie (right), who doesn't realise her husband's best friend is in love with her
She tied the knot last month.

And Ali Fedotowsky-Manno had swapped her white dress for all-black on Monday in Hollywood, California.

The 32-year-old television personality looked stunning at the Hollywood Today Live studios, in the spaghetti strap fitted dress, which clung to her fabulous physique.

Simple style: Ali Fedotowsky-Manno stepped out in all-black on Monday in Hollywood, California

The newly-wed mother-of-one looked radiant, with her simple and stylish choice complemented by tan heels.

The Bachelor and The Bachelorette star wore her blonde tresses up, with loose tendrils framing her pretty features.

She kept her make-up light and fresh, with a peach blush, mascara and a slick of gloss to her bright smile.

Pretty: The 32-year-old television personality looked stunning at the Hollywood Today Live studios, in the spaghetti strap fitted dress, which clung to her fabulous physique

Ali married radio personality Kevin Manno last month at the Terranea Resort in California after they started dating in 2013 and announced their engagement in 2015.

They revealed they were expecting their first child in January 2016 and welcomed their daughter, Molly Sullivan, several months later on July 6, 2016.

The couple originally decided to tie the knot in January 2016 but had to push the wedding back when the found out Ali was pregnant.

Marriage suits her! The newly-wed mother-of-one looked radiant, with her simple and stylish choice complemented by tan heels

Looking good: The Bachelor and The Bachelorette star wore her blonde tresses up, with loose tendrils framing her pretty features

Once Molly was born, Ali and Kevin were all set to say 'I do' in Mexico recently but they unfortunately had to cancel their plans due to the Zika outbreak.

Instead they had outdoor nuptials in California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which Ali said was one of the best days of her life.

'Today has been far better than anything I could have dreamt up,' Ali gushed. 'Kevin is the one true love of my life, and I feel insanely lucky to call him my husband. I am honored to be Mrs. Manno.'

'Throughout my life, I've always imagined what my wedding day would be like,' she added.

The star-studded gathering included Kaley Cuoco, Lacey Chabert, Haylie Duff, Amy Davidson and fellow Bachelorette Andi Dorfman.

Ali starred in season 14 of The Bachelor and season six of The Bachelorette.

During the Bachelorette season finale, Roberto Martinez proposed to her, but the duo called off their engagement shortly after.
Her foray into the restaurant business hasn't been a smooth one.

Four years after she gave up majority interest in her Las Vegas Strip eatery, Eva Longoria has also shuttered her Hollywood restaurant.

Beso on Hollywood Boulevard closed its doors last July to undergo a remodel and now it's revealed the restaurant will reopen this week under new ownership and with a new name - Viva Hollywood.

A source close to the actress told DailyMail.com Monday she is still in discussions about whether or not to maintain an ownership stake in the new eatery.

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Moving on: Eva Longoria, pictured in Miami Sunday, has closed her Hollywood restaurant Beso which is relaunching this week under new ownership

Under new ownership: The actress, 41, opened the Latin eatery on Hollywood Boulevard in 2008. It's re-opening as a Mexican restaurant called Viva Hollywood

The former Desperate Housewives star opened Beso in 2008 with Chef Todd English.

In December, the eatery was hit with a lawsuit over an alleged assault that took place there at a movie premiere after-party.

Michael Paul Flores filed legal documents in Los Angeles claiming he'd been beaten up by a member of the business's security staff in June following the screening of the movie Lowriders that starred Longoria.

According to the filing, Flores asserts that the restaurant should have been prepared for violence since the film 'dealt with the lowrider subculture of East Los Angeles.'

Longoria was not named in the suit.

Legal woes: Beso had been sued by Michael Paul Flores after he was allegedly assaulted by a security staffer during a post-premiere party in June that Longoria attended, pictured. The actress was not named in the suit

The actress has expanded her business interests into clothing lines, a watch collection and other ventures.

In May 2016 she wed Mexican media mogul Jose Baston and divides her time between the U.S. and Mexico.

On Sunday she was in Miami for a promotion at a mall there for her TechnoMarine watch collection.
She's the Australian model who found success in the US.

But amidst her busy schedule, Shanina Shaik has managed to find time to enjoy the sun and sand of Antigua before heading back to her base in New York.

The 26-year-old took to Instagram to share a racy post of her ample assets in a blue and white crochet bikini top which she hashtagged #nochickenfillets.

Busty outlook: Australian model Shanina Shaik has shared a racy Instagram post of ample assets in a white crochet bikini top

Shanina has been in Antigua since Saturday shooting a campaign for Australian designer Johansen.

The Melbourne-born beauty was due to flight out of island but had been forced to stay back on the Caribbean island following a blizzard warning in New York, according to the National Weather Service.

The Victoria's Secret model received plenty of comments from her fans complimenting her busty display as well as her bikini.

Waiting out the storm: The 26-year-old model has been in the Caribbean Island of Antigua shooting a campaign for Australian designer Johansen

Fan love: She received plenty of comments from her followers complimenting her busty display as well as her bikini

One commented: 'Beautiful as always.'

Another simply said: 'this bathing suit.'

She also shared a photo of herself by the beach with the caption: 'By the beach in Antigua #wishyouwerehere.'

Wish you were here: Shanina was due to fly back to New York but a blizzard warning in New York forced her to stay back

Love birds: Shanina is engaged to DJ Rukus a.k.a Greg Andrews

Shanina is currently engaged to DJ Rukus a.k.a Greg Andrews and the couple are in no rush to tie the knot.

The model told the Today show earlier this year: 'We're doing it slowly, we have a long engagement which is quite nice.'

'But I can tell you I do have an idea for my dress, so I'm really happy about that,' she added.

Glammed up: She said that they are in no rush to get married since getting engaged in January 2016

Genetically blessed: Shanina said her Australian, Lithuanian, Pakistani and Saudi Arabian heritage helped her get work following her move to New York

She also recently opened up about how her multi-ethnic genes (her Lithuanian mother, and her Pakistani and Saudi Arabian father) helped her book jobs just days after landing in New York before turning 18, The Daily Telegraph reported.

'The scene in the US was so different (to Australia) because culturally you could be anything,' she said.

'There's certainly more acceptance and understanding about cultures now and that there is not just one look, but so many that can be celebrated,' the model added.
She spoke about her 'difficult' split with Brad Pitt for the first time last month.

But Angelina Jolie appeared to be in very good spirits during a family day out with her children in London on Monday.

The 41-year-old actress beamed as she visited a Waterstone's store in a stylish white trench coat, paired with a floating pleated dress underneath.

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All white: Angelina Jolie appeared to be in very good spirits during a family day out with her children in London on Monday

Family time: The 41-year-old actress stunned in a stylish white trench coat as she enjoyed a day in the capital with twins Vivienne and Knox, eight

The stylish mother-of-six was seen sashaying through the streets in an all-white ensemble while holding hands with daughter Vivienne, eight.

She was also accompanied by Vivienne's twin brother Knox, and Shiloh, 10, on the outing.

Wearing her glossy brunette locks swept back off her face, the Maleficent star completed her sophisticated ensemble with a pair of nude heels.

Covering her eyes in dark shades, she added a touch of glamour with a bright red lipstick and diamond earrings.

Story time: Angelina was also accompanied by Shiloh, ten, as they popped into Waterstone's

Beaming: She had a broad smile on her face as she visited the bookshop with her children

Stylish: The mother-of-six wowed in a floating pleated dress underneath her trench coat

All smiles: The Maleficent star was clearly enjoying spending quality time with her children

With a cuddly toy poking out of her Waterstone's bag, Angelina was the picture of a model mother as she strolled out of the bookshop.

The UN special envoy has been in London for the fifth anniversary of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI), which she helped to set up in 2012.

She spoke at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Monday about what more needs to be done to protect vulnerable victims across the world.

Angelina is backing the Time to Act initiative, calling for sexual offenders to be held accountable for their crimes in conflict zones.

She told People magazine: 'When this kind of violence and abuse happens in peacetime, we are absolutely clear it is a crime that deserves to be punished by law.

Glamorous: Covering her eyes in dark shades, she completed her sophisticated look with a red lipstick and diamond earrings

Day out: Angelina was the picture of a model mother as she strolled out of the bookshop

Mummy duty: Angelina, who is also mother to Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 11, looked completely relaxed during the day out in London

'But when it happens in the middle of a conflict, on a mass scale, with such brutal violence, it is treated as something impossible to prevent or somehow justified by the climate of war.'

Angelina, who is also mother to Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 11, opened up about her split with Brad last month.

Speaking on Good Morning America earlier this month, she said the family is doing alright in the wake of the split.

Sophisticated: Wearing her glossy brunette locks swept back off her face, Angelina was the picture of elegance during the outing on Monday

Avid readers: The actress was seen helping Shiloh pick out some books at the store

Twins: Vivienne and Knox were guided to the book store by Angelina, who made parenting look very easy during the outing

Family affair: Shiloh followed behind as Angelina and the twins led the way to the shop

High spirits: Angelina looked to be in a very good mood during the family outing

'We are ... we are focusing on the health of our family. And so we will be [healthier],' she said.

'We will be stronger when we come out of this, because that's what we're determined to do.'

The actress was spotted with all of her children at Los Angeles Airport on Saturday as they made the journey to London.

Going solo: The actress appeared to be in good spirits following her split from Brad Pitt

Like mother, like daughter: Angelina was seen with a cuddly toy poking out of her canvas bag, while Vivienne was also seen clutching on to her toy

Model mum: She has been in London for the fifth anniversary of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) that she helped to set up in 2012

Holiday read? The newly-single mother was seen browsing the shelves, perhaps looking for a novel for herself

Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie's ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton quashed claims she should stop getting tattoos of her partners.

The Hollywood beauty famously had her inking of his name removed following their split in 2002.

Quizzed by TMZ whether it was a bad idea, Billy casually replied that she could always rework her body art.

Close bond: Angelina held onto the eight-year-old's hand as they left the store together

Moving on: Angelina appears to have put the split with husband Brad Pitt behind her

Putting the kids first: She said in an interview that she was 'focusing on the health of our family'

His comments come after never-before-seen images of Angelina surfaced showing the star being tattooed by ex Thai monk Ajarn Noo Kanpai alongside her estranged husband Brad Pitt in Siem Reap in Cambodia.

The Hollywood actress - who was directing her Netflix movie First They Killed My Father at the time in the country - had flown the tattoo artist from Bangkok to work on the symbolic inkings for her and Brad in February 2016.

Ironically, the former couple's designs were intended 'to symbolically bind them as husband and wife', yet their marriage didn't stand the test of time.

Famous shopper: Angelina and her children browsed alongside other shoppers in the store
She's the Sydney PR maven, whose husband Oliver Curtis was imprisoned in June last year, for conspiracy to commit insider trading.

And Roxy Jacenko told Mia Freedman on the No Filter podcast this week, that she's 'still angry' at her husband's crime, admitting: 'I wouldnt have had children until this situation was sorted out, because it's not right.'

Following the revelation, the 36-year-old took to Instagram on Tuesday, sharing a precious snap of her cuddling up to son Hunter, two, at breakfast.

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Doting mother! Roxy Jacenko, 36, took to Instagram on Tuesday, sharing a precious snap cuddling up to son Hunter, two, at breakfast

'Breakfast with @huntercurtis14,' Roxy captioned the snap alongside an emoji with love heart eyes.

The image shared with the entrepreneur's 153,000 Instagram followers, saw Roxy seated at a cafe, dressed in a chic black number, her signature blonde locks framing her face.

Holding onto a piece of toast with Vegemite spread, the mother-of-two held Hunter on her lap, who was cute-as-a-button in a white T-shirt and navy zip-up jacket.

Roxy's affection for her toddler was evident as she appeared ready to plant a kiss on his cheek.

Candid: The precious moment came shortly after Roxy revealed during Mia Freedman's No Filter podcast, that she 'wouldn't have had children' until husband Oliver Curtis' legal woes were sorted. Pictured with Oliver and their two children Pixie, five, and Hunter, two

The precious moment came shortly after Roxy revealed during Mia Freedman's No Filter podcast this week, that she 'wouldn't have had children' until husband Oliver Curtis' legal woes were sorted.

Roxy is a proud mother to daughter Pixie, five, and Hunter, two.

'I wouldnt have had children until this situation was sorted out, because it's not right,' she candidly admitted.

'If I hadve had the choice, I probably wouldve done things very differently,' the founder of Sweaty Betty PR stated.

Earlier in the conversion Roxy shed light into how seriously she views her duties as a mother.

Revelation: 'I wouldnt have had children until this situation was sorted out, because its not right,' Roxy candidly admitted

'If you have children, you have an obligation,' Roxy said.

'I would forego my own happiness for my children's happiness,' she added.

The blonde beauty described the difficulty of maintaining the story she had told the children that their father was abroad in China, instead of behind bars in Cooma.

Trying times: The blonde beauty described the difficulty of maintaining the story she had told the children that their father was abroad in China, instead of behind bars in Cooma

Maternal: Earlier in the conversion Roxy shed light on how seriously she views her duties as a mother

She even went to the trouble of telling her son they were headed to Asia to visit his father when they took a private plane to see him.

'He actually believed it,' she relayed. 'It was 45 minutes to China!'

When asked if they speak to him on the phone, Roxy replied that Hunter does but her daughter Pixie refuses to.

Speculation: Rumours surrounding their marriage continue to plague Roxy, who told Mia that she's 'still angry' at her husband's crime

Priorities: 'I would forego my own happiness for my children's happiness,' she added on the podcast

'She has an absolute meltdown and I won't do it to her,' she said.

The public relations maven insisted 'I'm still married' on Monday's episode of The Morning Show when asked if her union with Oliver was going strong.

A source in Cooma Correctional Centre told Daily Mail Australia Roxy had been to visit her husband only three times since he was sent there almost nine months ago.
Hailey Baldwin has made her body a focus of her social media posts.

And on Monday the blonde model was at it again as she shared two images where she was in a Zigilane bikini.

In one image the daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin had a toothbrush in her mouth as she stood in a bathroom and in another she was posed against a wall.

Fit: Hailey Baldwin has made her body a focus of her social media posts. And on Monday the blonde model was at it again in a Zigilane bikini

Ready for the beach: Her bathing suit looked very sport with the main color being mossy green with blacl bold straps

Her bathing suit looked very sport with the main color being mossy green with blacl bold straps.

The star looked to have wet hair but full makeup on.

These images comes after she was seen with her dad in West Hollywood on Friday.

The 20-year-old model-of-the-moment flaunted her enviably chiselled abs in a skin-tight crop top and satin joggers, while the actor, 50, rocked a more casual ensemble.

Daddy/daughter outing: Hailey and dad Stephen stepped out together in West Hollywood on Friday

Hailey's super short clingy top bared her enviable stomach, proving why she was discovered by Ford Models back in 2014, before going on to appear on the pages of Vogue, Teen Vogue, Glamour and Marie Claire.

The American star teamed the look with a cool denim jacket, which was casually slung off one shoulder, and a pair of maroon-coloured bottoms.

The blonde bombshell's locks were expertly styled upon her shoulders, while a pair of large silver hoops framed her make-up honed features.

Hot on her towering grey-clad heels was her dad Stephen, who opted for a grey cardigan, black tee and denim jeans.

Impressive figure: The 20-year-old model-of-the-moment flaunted her enviably chiselled abs in a skin-tight crop top and satin joggers

In a candid new interview with The Times Magazine on Saturday, Hailey confessed that she didn't agree with her dad's public support of President Donald Trump.

Stephen had initially faced backlash for praising Trump on social media, and publicly slammed his brother Alec's satirical impression of the businessman on Saturday Night Live.

Hailey had previously admitted on This Morning Show that the biggest struggle of his political standpoint was how it 'reflects' on her as someone starting out with a career.

However talking about his beliefs three months later to the magazine, the model admitted: 'It was a very big issue for me, but my dad's still my dad. I would never let politics get in the way of family. It's over now, and his opinions have changed with how everything's now unfolding.'

Differences: Despite admitting that her family are incredibly close, the model did confess that her dad's support of new President Donald Trump was a source of contention between them

She also admitted she wasn't keen on social media sited, revealing: 'It does affect you. People tell me I'm ugly, fat.

'I try not to care but the fact is, everyone wants to see what people are saying about them. Whoever says they don't google themselves is a liar.'

Hailey has carved a successful career as a model so far - having just returned to LA from the prestigious Paris Fashion Week with Kendall Jenner and the Hadid sisters.

Proving her prowess in the industry the blonde, who is the niece of Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin, had even taken centre stage at the Elie Saab AW17 catwalk show on Saturday.
Christian Bale reprised his favorite role on Monday - that of doting daddy to toddler son Joseph.

The Oscar winner enjoyed a lunch outing with the two-year-old whom he shares with wife Sibi Blazic.

Christian, 43, was casually dressed in navy cargo shorts and a baggy black t-shirt with blue trainers.

Daddy and me time: Christian Bale took his two-year-old son Joseph for lunch in the Brentwood neighborhood of LA on Monday

The actor carried a backpack and kept a close eye on his youngster.

Little Joseph wore dark blue sweatpants with matching sneakers and a two-tone jersey.

He seemed animated as they left the eatery in LA's Brentwood neighborhood and pointing to something that caught his eye.

Relaxed: Christian, 43, was casually dressed in navy cargo shorts and a black t-shirt with blue trainers while his mini me wore blue sweatpants with matching sneakers and a two-tone jersey

Family man: Joseph is the actor's youngest child with wife of 17 years Sibi Blazic. He's also dad to 11-year-old daughter Emmaline

Close: Joseph was animated as he left the eatery with his doting dad who made sure to keep a close eye on his little boy

Christian also has a daughter Emmaline, 11, with his wife of 17 years.

The Fighter and American Hustle star has some downtime between projects right now.

He wrapped production on his newest movie back in the fall.

He stars with Ben Foster and Rosamund Pike in the western Hostiles, set for release later this year.
Every girl dreams of having their father walk them down the aisle on their wedding day, as their mum beams proudly from the front row.

But for Bride and Prejudice's Charity Turner it was a dream that didn't come true, after her religious parents refused to attend her nuptials to same-sex partner Phoebe in Monday night's episode.

Opening up about her sexuality in a candid article on Mamamia, Charity revealed 'I'm a girl that happens to love another girl. It's not about religion'.

'I'm a girl that happens to love another girl': Charity (right) opened up about her love for partner Phoebe (right), saying that love is not a matter of religion or politics

Charity explained that the first time she fell in love it was with another Pastor's daughter, stating: ''We were two women who believed in God and yet we were in love'.

Just nineteen at the time, the blonde beauty said it was the 'strangest feeling' but there was 'no choice' in how they felt.

As their love blossomed, Charity wrote how she was 'forced to face the reality that love was love'.

Wedding day: The first time Charity fell in love it was with another Pastor's daughter, with the blonde beauty going on to marry partner Phoebe years later

'Love is love': Charity's first relationship helped her realise that love does not discriminate

Blushing bride: Phoebe was overjoyed to tie the knot with Charity, having been propsed to in a helicopter over Sydney Harbour

After proposing to partner Phoebe in a helicopter over Sydney Harbour, Charity realised that her story was no different from other around Australia, except for the fact she could not legally marry.

Being told by friends and family closest to her that her marriage was not the same as theirs led to her feeling less their equal and the conclusion that 'It's not a matter of religion. It's not a matter of politics. It's really quite plain and simple. It's just about love'.

On Monday night's explosive episode of Bride and Prejudice, Charity and Phoebe finally tied the knot in New Zealand.

However, Charity was left devastated after her parents failed to front at her wedding ceremony.

New Zealand nuptials: On Monday's episode of Bride and Prejudice Phoebe (left) and Charity (right) tied the knot, however Charity's parents did not attend despite her pleas for them to change their minds

Walking down the aisle: With her father not attending the wedding, Charity's brother filled in, walking his sister down the aisle

'I respect my parents, but I expected more from them,' the bride candidly revealed.

While Phoebe's mother was supportive of their wedding, Charity's religious parents did not attend the nuptials.

'They're pastors of the church. They believe what it says in the Bible, and that is marriage between a man and a woman,' Charity said.

As Phoebe and Charity prepared to fly to New Zealand for their wedding, Charity tried one last time to reach out to her mother, holding out hope she would attend.

Making a video-recorded plea, Charity said, 'This is who I am. I can't change. We leave for New Zealand now. It would make me really happy if you came, and that door is always open.'

Despite her parents no show, Charity called the pair 'beautiful humans' in her article and urged people to be more loving.

First love: Just nineteen when she fell in love the first time, Charity said it was the 'strangest feeling' but there was 'no choice' in how she felt.
Chrissie Swan's Nova FM show has enjoyed an incredible ratings spike FM show to beat Fox FM and Fifi Box in Melbourne's fierce breakfast radio battle.

The former Big Brother star and co-stars Jonathan Brown and Sam Pang jumped 1.7 per cent in the first ratings of 2017, to pull off the incredible feat and take top spot.

And it seems many of their new listeners may have come from Fox FM, their biggest competitor, with the team of Fifi, Dave Thornton and Brendan Fevola suffering a disastrous 1.8 per cent loss in their share of the market.

Celebrate good times! Chrissie Swan and her Nova FM team have enjoyed an incredible ratings spike, beating Fox FM and Fifi Box in Melbourne's fierce breakfast radio battle

From a 9.4 rating and the number on spot when the radio survey was last done in late 2016, the trio dropped two positions down to third in the commercial market.

Also beating the one-time powerhouse was Triple M, who despite losing a 0.3 per cent share of the market jumped up to second overall.

Eddie McGuire, Luke Darcy and Mick Molloy managed to just scrape in second position, coming in 0.1 per cent ahead of Fox FM.

In more positive news for the Nova brand, their sister station Smooth FM enjoyed a 0.7 per cent rise to reach fourth position with a rating of 7.0.

Ouch! Fox FM's team of Fifi, Dave Thornton and Brendan Fevola suffered a disastrous 1.8 per cent loss in their share of the market

Despite a 0.6 per cent drop 3AW held on to top spot in the AM market with 18.3, while the ABC saw minimal growth to take its share to 13.3 per cent.

While there was change in Melbourne, further north in Sydney top rating duo Kyle and Jackie 'O' maintained their hold on the number one spot.

The KIIS FM pair saw no change to their rating to comfortably remain on top of the commercial market at 10.5 per cent.

Em Rusciano made a strong start in her role as host of 2Day FM breakfast, making an instant impact on listeners to grow the dismal audience of predecessors Rove and Sam Frost.

Number one: But there's still daylight between them and KISS FM's Kyle and Jackie 'O', who comfortably remained top of the commercial market

Strong star: Em Rusciano has made a strong start in her role as host of 2Day FM's breakfast radio show, growing the dismal audience of her predecessors Rove and Sam Frost

The pint-sized presenter took over from the struggling comedian and reality TV star in January and already the show's share of the market has grown from 3.8 to 4 per cent.

Elsewhere it was also good news for Nova FM duo Fitzy and Wippa, who saw a slight improvement on the final ratings from 2016 while the biggest growth for a program overall went to Triple M and their 'Grill Team' who rose 2.2 per cent to 7.8.

Outside of the commercial networks it was Alan Jones and AM network 2GB who held onto top billings, with a 12.9 per cent share of the market.
Melissa George visited a real estate agency in Paris on Monday, the same week she slammed incorrect reports she attempted to 'escape' with her children to Australia.

The actress appeared a little tense as she exited the premises dressed in a chic white shirt with wide legged blue trousers and a pale blue sweater tied over her shoulders.

The Daniel Feau 7eme agency offers luxury properties and homes for sale and rent and is part of the upmarket Christie's auction house.

Worried? The Aussie looked to be deep in thought as she left the agency, biting her lip at times and resting her hand on her back as she walked

House hunt? Melissa George visited a real estate agency in Paris on Monday, the same week she slammed incorrect reports she attempted to 'escape' with her children to Australia

The Aussie looked to be deep in thought as she left the agency, biting her lip at times and resting her hand on her back as she walked.

This comes after 'fabricated' reports that Melissa attempted to use a Russian billionaire's private jet to take her two children, who are living in France with their father Jean-David Blanc, to visit family with her in Australia.

But now the Australian actress has come out to slam the shocking allegations as 'totally fabricated.'

In an exclusive statement to New Idea, the 40-year-old's rep said: 'The allegations of Melissa kidnapping her children are fabricated.'

Luxe locations: The Daniel Feau 7eme agency offers luxury properties and homes for sale and rent and is part of the upmarket Christie's auction house

Pensive: The actress appeared a little tense as she exited the premises dressed in a chic white shirt with wide legged blue trousers and a pale blue sweater tied over her shoulders

Allegations: This comes after Melissa hit the headlines this week following incorrect reports that she attempted to use a Russian billionaire's private jet to take her two children, who are living in France with their father Jean-David Blanc, to visit family with her in Australia

Denial: Melissa has slammed reports that she planned to exit France following a domestic violence incident with former lover Jean-David Blanc

Melissa herself added: 'I am not taking these allegations lightly and it is in the hands of my lawyers.

'I deny these allegations and all actions today and always will be in the best interest of my sons Raphael and Solal.'

Melissa has slammed reports that she planned to exit France following a domestic violence incident with former lover Jean-David Blanc.

The 40-year-old Australian-born actress had kept a low-profile following the alleged incident last September.

Split: Her lawyer this week revealed her now former partner Jean-David Blanc (pictured) had refused to allow the couple's two sons to leave with their mother

Her lawyer this week revealed her now former partner had refused to allow the couple's two sons to leave with their mother.

Melissa's lawyer, Christophe Ayela, has told News Corp, that her former lover's refusal to allow their two sons, Raphael, three, and Solal, one, to leave France, has prevented the actress from securing work.

'It's terrible for her career, disastrous,' the representative said, in relation to a Family Court order in France, that requires a written consent by the father.

'The two children are forbidden to leave the country without the written consent of the father. And of course he refuses to allow this,' Christophe told News Corp.
Candice Swanepoel doesn't need wings to soar.

The Victoria's Secret Angel performed some impressive acrobatic maneuvers while dressed in lingerie during a photoshoot for Vogue Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.

In the images released on Monday, the blonde is seen suspended above the Fasano Hotel pool as she clings to a trapeze apparatus and showcases a sultry pair of over-the-knee boots.

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The Angel soars! Candice Swanepoel performed some acrobatic moves while suspended above water for a Vogue Brazil photo shoot in Rio de Janeiro

The bombshell swung her body in different positions above water while wearing a black bra and panties with sheer detail.

She later switched into a color off-the-shoulder bodysuit that featured sheer black sleeves teamed with a pair of embellished black sandals.

The knockout appeared to be in good company among the staff, and giggled as she sat with a glam squad for hair and make-up.

Look at me! Candice showed off every inch of her incredible figure

Familiar face: Candice has appeared on the covers of Australian, Mexican, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese Vogue

Lovely in lingerie: The supermodel showcased her impressive body in a black bra and panties set with over-the-knee boots

Glamour girl: The model enjoyed her time behind the scenes with a glam squad

The South African stunner's star continues to rise. Last year Forbes ranked her No. 8 on its list of The World's Top-Earning Models with an estimated $7 million in earnings.

Candice has appeared on the covers of Australian, Mexican, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese Vogue, among others, and has walked the runways for major fashion houses such as Fendi, Chanel, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabbana, and Michael Kors.

Fly girl: The blonde was dangled over a pool

The set up: The bombshell swung her body in different positions

In demand: Last year Forbes ranked her No. 8 on its list of The World's Top-Earning Models with an estimated $7 million in earnings

Sultry in sandals: Candice swapped out her over-the-knee boots for embellished sandals that featured chunky block heels

However it is her role as a Victoria's Secret model since 2007 that has made her a household name. She was promoted to an Angel in 2010.

Three years later she scored a career highlight when she was chosen to wear the Fantasy Bra for the 2013 Fashion Show.

The bra featured 4,200 precious gems, including rubies, diamonds and yellow sapphires set in 18 carat gold with a 52-carat ruby at the center.

Catwalk queen: She has walked the runways for major fashion houses such as Fendi, Chanel, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabbana, and Michael Kors

Finishing touches: The supermodel's team took care of odds and ends from the water
Comedian and Family Feud host Steve Harvey has revealed he still faces consequences stemming from his highly-publicized flub when hosting the Miss Universe pageant in 2015.

He faced a fierce backlash including death threats after he crowned Miss Columbia with the title when the real winner was Miss Philippines.

As a result, he tells the April issue of Cigar Aficionado, he and his family still have round-the-clock protection.

Guarded: Steve Harvey, pictured January 29, has revealed he still has 24-hour armed security at his home following death threats he received following his Miss Universe gaffe in 2015

'I live on a dead-end street  and it got real when things started coming over the gate. Empty boxes with bows and pictures of bombs. And these with death threats on social media that would pop up from fake IP addresses,' Harvey, 60, explained.

'I wound up with 24-hour armed security at my house. I have two armed guards there full-time to this day,' the TV personality revealed.

Target: The comedian and TV personality ,pictured hosting the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, said he'd get boxes sent to him with pictures of bombs and threats via social media

Oops! It followed his mix up that resulted in Miss Colombia being crowned Miss Universe before having to give up the crown to real winner Miss Philippines

Harvey also spoke to the magazine about his decision to quit stand up.

He said he 'cried so hard' after his very last performance.

'It was crazy to walk away from something that meant so much to me,' Harvey said.

'Nothing can ever come close to what it feels like when youre on stage and its 12,000 people and its you and a spotlight, a bar stool, a glass of water and a microphone. Theres nothing like that.'
She's been sure to hot things up in Iceland with her barely-there displays.

And Olivia Buckland once again sizzled as she took to Instagram with an attention-grabbing bikini snap on Monday.

The 23-year-old Love Island star, who is on the getaway with her fiance Alex Bowen, flaunted her toned abs and busty cleavage floral swimsuit as she stared seductively into the camera.

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Hotting things up! Olivia Buckland, 23, flaunted her toned abs and busty cleavage floral swimsuit as she stared seductively into the camera during her Icelandic getaway

The tiny number was sure to emphasis her ample cleavage, before baring her inked torso and gym-honed pins.

She sported wet locks and a smoky coating of eyeshadow and she gave off her best sex-kitten impression.

One hand was sexily raised to her band and she ensured to find her best angle by placing one foot in-front slightly.

On Sunday, she flaunted her voluptuous figure in a red halterneck bikini with matching bottoms while on holiday in the Blue Lagoon spa in Iceland.

Sexy display: On Sunday, she flaunted her voluptuous figure in a red halterneck bikini with matching bottoms while on holiday in the Blue Lagoon spa in Iceland

The Love Island star shared the sizzling snap with her one million Instagram followers while on vacation in the exotic location with her fiance Alex Bowen.

Olivia posed confidently in the holiday picture, proudly displaying her tattoo collection as she pointed her foot to make sure her legs were captured at the most flattering angle.

Alex and Olivia have been inseparable in recent weeks - especially after OIivia was involved in three car collision in London earlier this month.

The beauty sustained an injury to her head in the terrifying crash, when a van ploughed into the back of her taxi as she was travelling home from a showbiz bash.

Through thick and thin: Alex and Olivia have been inseparable in recent weeks - especially after OIivia was involved in three car collision in London earlier this month.

Love story: Alex and Olivia met 10 months ago on the 2016 series of Love Island, and swiftly became engaged in December during a romantic trip to New York City

However she took to Twitter to confirm she was not more seriously hurt, and to explain that Alex had picked her up from the scene - proving their relationship to be as solid as ever.

Alex and Olivia met 10 months ago on the 2016 series of Love Island, and swiftly became engaged in December during a romantic trip to New York City.

Recently speaking to new! magazine about whether she'd invite the Love Island girls to her hen do, Olivia said: 'Yeah, I've spoken to a few of them.

Everyone is welcome! Recently speaking to new! magazine about whether she'd invite the Love Island girls to her hen do, Olivia said: 'Yeah, I've spoken to a few of them.

'I still speak to Cara quite a lot, so she's definitely going to be there. Yes. [She might be a bridesmaid]. We're still really close.'

Olivia then admitted that she and Alex do have plans for children - but are keen to spend time alone as a couple before adding to their brood.

She said to MailOnline: 'We have said we want kids eventually. We just want to enjoy our time together, we have a lot to do, experiences to have, holidays to take.

'It will be nice but maybe not in the next seven years. I'm still a baby anyway. I would never let my kids watch Love Island! There's not as much controversy in sex on TV as there used to be. But I won't be showing my kids Love Island. Maybe keep it secret from them for quite a while.'
She has long been an advocate for adoption, having adopted two children with husband Hugh Jackman.

And now Deborra-Lee Furness, 61, has spoken of the stigma that surrounds the process of helping vulnerable children.

Speaking to Mamamia, the social activist explained that: 'In some countries, adoption is culturally shunned, and I do think the shame still exists.'

Adoption advocate: Deborra-Lee Furness has spoken out about the stigma that still surrounds adoption in Australia and across the world

'However, through creative re-positioning of perspective, I believe this can be addressed and shifted,' she added.

She then urged Australians wanting to adopt to speak up to their parliament members to try and make a difference in the 'slow moving system'.

'Australians who care about vulnerable children, and particularly those wanting to adopt, need to be vocal and outspoken... By speaking out you are advocating for a child to find a home.'

Talk about it: The 61-year-old urged people to talk about adoption and bring their thoughts to politicians who can make a difference to the 'slow-moving system'

'I do think the shame still exists': Encouraging people to advocate for adoption, Deborra-Lee highlighted some of the stigmas still facing the process

The star said she felt hopeful for the future though, getting the issue 'back on the agenda' and praising the 'courageous politicians' who spoke out to create a better system.

It comes days after the 61-year-old, who adopted her two children Ava, 11, and Oscar, 16 with Wolverine husband Hugh Jackman, was honoured with a Leadership Award from the UN Women for Peace Association.

On Saturday the mother was honoured for her advocacy work by friend Cate Blanchett, 47, at the 2017 UN Women for Peace Association March Luncheon at ONE UN in New York.



Doting parents: Deborra-Lee and husband Hugh Jackman adopted their two children, 11-year-old Ava and 16-year-old Oscar

Speaking to Fox5 after receiving her award, Deborra-Lee talked about her organisation Hopeland and how they address the global issue of orphans and abandoned children.

She clarified that Hopeland was not an adoption agency but rather 'a platform to raise awareness around orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children.'

'UNICEF says a hundred 157 million orphans in the world of those orphans about 80 per cent of them have living parents, but because of war, and drugs and disease and domestic violence that they're separated from families,' she said.

The internationally-acclaimed actress founded National Adoption Awareness Week (NAAW) in Australia to raise awareness and create a more positive outlook around adoption.

Deborra-Lee also went on to establish the Adopt Change organisation and sits on the board of World Wide Orphans Australia.

Children's rights: Sitting on the board of World Wide Orphans Australia and having established the advocacy organisation Adopt Change are some of the ways Deborra-Lee is helping change the way people think about adoption
How'd You Get So Rich?

Rating:

Broadchurch

Rating:

Guilty pleasures. Television does them so well, shows that hold you entranced but, once theyre over, leave you feeling slightly mucky for watching.

Howd You Get So Rich? (C4) is as shamefully satisfying as eating ice cream from a plastic tub, on the sofa, with your fingers. Its bad, but sometimes thats great.

The premise is simple. Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan spends a day with ostentatiously and eccentrically wealthy characters, poking a little fun at them and finding out how they came by their millions.

Howd You Get So Rich? is as shamefully satisfying as eating ice cream from a plastic tub, on the sofa, with your fingers. Its bad, but sometimes thats great

Ryan pretends to mock. She peers inside the gaudy supercars on the Kings Road in Chelsea, and sips champagne at a barefoot party on a billion-pound yacht in Monte Carlo harbour, cooing praise with deadpan irony.

Sitting in an electric blue Bentley with multi-millionaire plumber Charlie Mullins, she flatters him, Youre like James Bond! At 64, with a blond thatch and skin like stretched leather, Charlie is no 007, of course  he looks more like a Cliff Richard wannabe.

But were not here really to scoff at the vulgar rich. Were here to ogle. Ryan can barely hide her relish as she surveys the spectacular Thames view from Charlies penthouse, and when he flies her to Marbella in a private jet to go shopping for a villa, shes panting with pleasure.

Channel 4 is developing a clever line in these faux-satirical shows. The half-hour series Travel Man sees comic actor Richard Ayoade taking weekend breaks in the worlds most cultured cities, and complaining about everything he sees. The joke is that we know hes having the time of his life  he just wont admit it.

Ryan has uncovered an even juicier source of material. Theres no end to the number of super-rich show-offs willing to be sent up, in exchange for a chance to flash their tawdry glitter on TV.

And Katherine will never tire of cosying up to them. Her childish excitement when she spotted Prince Albert of Monaco on the yacht was unfeigned  shes a sucker for royalty.

In last night's episode Katherine Ryan spent a day with multi-millionaire plumber Charlie Mullins (both pictured)

The only grown-up on the show was ten-year-old Isabella Barrett, who wears make-up like a woman in her 40s and runs three successful fashion and jewellery lines for pre-teen princesses.

Isabella, a beauty pageant star since she was old enough to walk, made her first million by the time she was six. Now her parents wont let her know exactly how much money she has in the bank.

Sensibly, she thinks the cash doesnt really matter, and her ambition when shes older is to be a teacher. No millionaire could have bought the look of bafflement on Ryans face at that. It was priceless.

Money cant buy the chemistry between the all-star cast in Broadchurch (ITV) either. Too often, the clash of egos and petty scene-stealing on a big-name production ruin the drama, but here the famous actors work together beautifully.

A stand out scene in Broadchurch was a confrontation between Olivia Colman, as Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, and Lenny Henry (pictured), playing an obnoxious shop boss

Stand-out scenes included the anguished conversation on the beach between Julie Hesmondhalgh and Sarah Parish, as the rape victim Trish and her slippery best friend, Cath.

Also brilliant was the confrontation between Olivia Colman, as Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, and Lenny Henry, playing an obnoxious shop boss who seemed to think women were assaulted only when they asked for it.

The lingering repercussions of a boys death in the first series drag the story backwards.

A fresh start would have been better. But with the turbocharged cast blazing away on all 12 cylinders, it doesnt matter.

DAFT IDEA OF THE NIGHT: Among the prize ninnies on Meet The Lords (BBC2), Lord Blencathra stood out for his idea of building a 30ft Portakabin complex in Deans Yard, Westminster Abbey, as a temporary parliament. Ludicrous.
It was just last month that her niece Maddie Aldridge was in critical condition from an ATV accident.

But thankfully, the little one made a full recovery- which called for a celebration.

On Monday, Britney Spears, along with her entire family, headed to Disney World to attend the grand re-opening of Planet Hollywood at Disney Springs.

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Family trip! On Monday, Britney Spears, along with her entire family, headed to Disney World to attend the grand re-opening of Planet Hollywood at Disney Springs.

The gorgeous blonde wore a sheer top blouse over a tank top, paired with shorts.

Britney styled her long locks down and in waves.

The 35-year-old accessorized with a ring, bracelet and a trendy choker necklace.

Cute style: The gorgeous blonde wore a sheer top blouse over a tank top, paired with shorts

The gang: Britney was also joined by sons Sean and Jayden Federline, her nieces Maddie and Lexie, her mum Lynn, sister Jamie and Jamie's husband Jamie Watson

All there for Britney! As they left the venue, the family was greeted by a huge crowd of fans

Wow! Planet Hollywood shared a shot of the large crowd

Britney was also joined by sons Sean and Jayden Federline, her nieces Maddie and Lexie, her mum Lynn, sister Jamie and Jamie's husband Jamie Watson.

A source told Us Weekly, the pop princess whisked the family away via a private plane on Sunday.

While there, the family walked the red carpet and enjoyed a meal, which included a delicious selection of over-the-top shakes.

Following their meal, the family headed to the souvenir shop for gifts, according to a Planet Hollywood rep.

As they left the venue, the family was greeted by a huge crowd of fans.

True adventure! The group, wearing red shirts with their names on them, took a ride down Splash Mountain

Spinning around! They also had fun in the popular teacup ride

The fun didn't stop there.

The group, wearing red shirts with their names on them, took a ride on the teacups and down Splash Mountain.

'Great day with the fam  Thanks @planethollywoodintl!!,' wrote Britney, in a series of snaps posted to Instagram.
As wife of the heir to the throne, the Duchess of Cornwall might expect her 70th birthday to be celebrated with grand public events.

I hear that the July milestone will, however, go largely unmarked amid fears that it would be overshadowed by extensive commemorations of the 20th anniversary of Princess Dianas death the following month.

Camilla is going out of her way to be as low-key as possible for her 70th, so that she doesnt appear to be clashing with Diana, a royal source tells me.

Camilla is going out of her way to be as low-key as possible for her 70th, so that she doesnt appear to be clashing with Diana, a royal source tells me

There were originally plans for a television documentary on Camilla for her birthday, presented by Paul OGrady, but this all seems to have been dropped as well, as it would have seemed to have been too attention-grabbing during the Diana commemorations.

Comedian and presenter OGrady declines to comment on the claims, but a source at Clarence House, the London residence Camilla shares with Prince Charles, confirms there are no public events planned to mark the milestone.

Her Royal Highness has always been very low-key about her birthdays, says the source.

There will be a small event for the charities shes involved with  possibly a tea at Clarence House.

A wide range of events are planned to mark Dianas death, including the unveiling of the first sculpture of her at Kensington Palace, where an exhibition of her dresses is already proving hugely popular.

A Clarence House spokesman declines to comment on Camillas 70th birthday plans.

The Diana Award  a charity established to promote the Princesss belief in the positive power of young people  will commemorate her life with a range of events from the launch of a major international award, a groundbreaking app and a national Kindness Day.

Perhaps for Camilla there could be a national Marry Your Mistress Day?

Velvet-voiced Peter Egan, who played the Marquess of Flintshire in Downton, bemoans the change in his sex symbol status over the years.

Speaking at the Brighton VegFest, Egan, 70, admits: I used to get people coming up to me and saying: My sister really fancies you. Then later it became: My mum really fancies you. And now its: My nan really fancies you. 

Del Boy's grudge over posh Pythons

Sir David Jason bore a grudge at not being allowed into the Oxbridge Monty Python gang, Michael Palin has admitted

Sir David Jason  Del Boy in Only Fools And Horses  bore a grudge at not being allowed into the Oxbridge Monty Python gang, Michael Palin has admitted.

Jason made his name in Do Not Adjust Your Set, a late-Sixties ITV precursor to Python, which featured Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle. But while Jasons comedic pratfalls were popular with his viewers, he wasnt invited to join the Flying Circus when his colleagues took their ground-breaking show to the BBC.

There were certain tensions, Palin told me at a private viewing of the classic Sixties show at the BFIs Archive in Berkhamsted. David was saying Oh, you all went off to do Python because you went to university together. But that wasnt the case.

Health food guru Ella Mills  aka Deliciously Ella  admits she and husband Matthew Mills are too busy to start a family. Asked if shes ready for children, Ella, 25, replies: Not yet  we definitely have a habit of doing everything at lightning speed, but feel like we have quite a lot on, so wed probably make quite irresponsible parents.

'Dreadful' scammers steal Sandra Howard's identity

Sandra Howard, former Sixties model, has had her identity hijacked. An image of her was used under the name of one Madison Wilson on a website called World Film Presentation

Who wouldnt want to be Sandra Howard? The former Sixties model, who was the only woman to appear on the cover of American Vogue two months in succession, has had her identity hijacked.

The model-turned-author wife of former Tory leader Michael Howard has issued a warning on her Facebook page about a scam film website which has used a smiling picture of her under the name of one Madison Wilson, who is billed as marketing head of the website, World Film Presentation.

Sandra, 67, said yesterday: Please be aware that this website is a fake. They have used a pic of me under name of Madison Wilson.

Apparently pictures of other staff on the site are fakes too.

Sandra adds: Dreadful, these scams, hope I can get it taken down.
Khloe Kardashian pulled out all the stops for her new boyfriend's 26th birthday on Monday.

The reality television star spoiled Tristan Thompson with a lavish party, filled with balloons and donuts.

Khloe, 32, shared a video of the celebration with Snapchat followers, alongside her Cleveland Cavaliers beau.

Birthday bash! Khloe Kardashian pulled out all the stops for her new boyfriend's 26th birthday on Monday

Attention to detail: Gold balloons spelled out: 'Happy Birthday T', and the gold theme - presumably in keeping with his team colors - was continued throughout

Gold balloons spelled out: 'Happy Birthday T', and the gold theme - presumably in keeping with his team colors - was continued throughout.

She revealed a box of ring donuts which had gold icing drizzled across them.

Khloe had also surprised him with gold KitKat bars, and gold tinsel and ribbons around the place.

Couple: She posted with her Cleveland Cavaliers beau

Khloe wore her hair in Dutch braids and appeared to be clad in black.

Tristan looked ready to party in an Hawaiian print T-shirt, which he teamed with a giant gold cross around his neck.

He was wearing his baseball cap backwards.

Lovely girlfriend! The reality television star spoiled Tristan Thompson with a lavish party

Thoughtful: Khloe, 32, shared a video of the celebration with Snapchat followers

Tropical fashion: Tristan looked ready to party in an Hawaiian print T-shirt, which he teamed with a giant gold cross around his neck

Casual: He was wearing his baseball cap backwards

Bling fingers: Khloe had also surprised him with gold KitKat bars, and gold tinsel and ribbons around the place

Carb fest: She revealed a box of ring donuts which had gold icing drizzled across them

Cute touch: These appear to be photos of the couple and others

Sparkles: There were gold streamers seen everywhere

Khloe was seen inroducing her new boyfriend Tristan Thompson to her family during Sunday's season premiere of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

The star was asked by sister Kourtney about her new boyfriend Tristan and their recent trip to Mexico.

'My boyfriend's name is Tristan Thompson, he is a Pisces, he is Jamaican from Toronto and he plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers,' Khloe told the cameras.

'We had just the best time,' she told Kourtney about their trip to Mexico.

'Right now my relationship is really new and I want to keep it close to my heart and not shout everything out from the rooftops. I have learned from the past and it is a lot of pressure to put your relationship out there,' she said.

'I don't need someone directing Tristan and I, so I am very choosy as to who I share my dating life with,' Khloe said.

Sunny break: The star was asked by sister Kourtney about her new boyfriend Tristan and their recent trip to Mexico on Sunday's KUWTK

Khloe told her sister the family was 'intense' and she wanted to keep it 'confined.'

Khloe and Tristan have been an item since at least September. In that time, Thompson's ex-girlfriend Jordan Craig gave birth to his newborn son Prince.

As well as her younger boo's birthday, Khloe had a busy weekend celebrating the premiere of the 13th season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which started Sunday night on E!
Bella Hadid had some extra bounce in her step, thanks to a new 'do.

The 20-year-old stepped out on Monday in New York City with corkscrew curls after debuting the look earlier in the morning on social media.

The supermodel looked confident on her outing clad in a black denim jacket with matching jeans and white booties.

Curls for the girl! Bella Hadid enjoyed an outing on Monday with her new corkscrew curl style while clad in a denim jacket and trousers in New York City

Lady in black: Bella Hadid shared a selfie Monday wearing a shiny one-piece and curly hair

She teamed the look with a graphic T-shirt over a mesh turtleneck top, and she accessorized with dark sunglasses, a silver necklace and a chic handbag.

The knockout donned an alluring all-black look earlier in the day when she surprised her social media fans with the new hair.

In the Instagram picture she highlighted her enviable figure in a one-piece and over-the-knee boots.

Confident: The 20-year-old looked thrilled with her makeover

So chic: Bella teamed her double denim look with a pair of white booties

She wrote in the caption for her more than 11 million followers: 'still goin'.

Bella captured the image with her cell phone with a red personalized case.

She sat in a stylist's chair with another frizzy black wig resting on a mannequin head in the background.

Bella recently returned from Paris where she promoted her new clothing line during Paris Fashion Week.

The finishing touch: The knockout accessorized with dark sunglasses, a silver chain and a handbag

Test drive: The beauty revealed the look to her Instagram followers before debuting it on the streets of the Big Apple

Top model: The Los Angeles native is shown earlier this month promoting her Chrome Hearts collaboration as part of Paris Fashion Week

She collaborated with Chrome Hearts for a new collection and was spotted wearing her own clothing range Friday in New York City.

Bella was out and about in the Big Apple with her 53-year-old former model mother Yolanda Hadid.

They enjoyed some bonding time following a jet-setting month of couture shows for Bella during biannual fashion week.

Social media: Bella took to Instagram last week to showcase a range of new designs from good friend and fashion designer Alexandre Vauthier

She walked the H&M show and the space-themed Chanel show during Paris Fashion Week.

The runway at the Chanel show was a sister act as she was joined by her older sister Gigi, 21.

She recently shared photos of herself showing a range of new designs from good friend and fashion designer Alexandre Vauthier.
They're used to temperatures being high in the kitchen.

And at the dining table on My Kitchen Rules on Tuesday, things got heated when judges Colin Fassnidge and Pete Evans had a fiery clash over pasta during the sudden-death cook off.

The duo - alongside Manu Feildel, Guy Grossi, Karen Martini and Liz Egan - were critiquing the entrees of Mark and Chris and Caitie and Demi, when the heated exchange occurred.

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Showdown! On My Kitchen Rules on Tuesday, things got heated when judges Colin Fassnidge (L) and Pete Evans (R) had a fiery clash over pasta during the sudden-death cook off

After tasting the girl's gnocchi with sage and burnt butter sauce, the judges then tried the boy's fettuccine carbonara.

'We've had a lot of bad pasta over the years, and this is one of the best ones we've had,' Colin said, with Pete saying he thought the complete opposite.

'I disagree, the pasta is way under-cooked and I think the egg hasn't been cooked properly and the pancetta hasn't been cooked properly,' he said.

The dish that caused the spat! After tasting the girl's gnocchi with sage and burnt butter sauce, the judges then tried the boy's fettuccine carbonara (pictured)

Manu added the dish was 'technically incorrect.'

The Frenchman added about both team's dishes: 'Two beautiful recipes...straight forward. But they haven't been done well.'

Karen and Guy said the fettuccine was cooked very 'al dente', or firm, while Guy added the egg should of been cooked more.

The girls meanwhile were slammed for their gnocchi, with the judges saying they shouldn't have put their potato through a processor.

Sure you want to that? The girls meanwhile were slammed for their gnocchi, with the judges saying they shouldn't have put their potato through a processor

Not the best: Pete said 'The gnocchi is stodgy, it's rubbery' (pictured is the girl's dish)

'I don't think this is the best method,' Karen said.

Liz said the flavours were nice but the gnocchi wasn't cooked right.

Pete added: 'The gnocchi is stodgy, it's rubbery and the sauce isn't great. There really should be no excuse in an hour and a half, to create these, at this stage of the competition.'

Unimpressed: Manu Feildel said about both team's dishes: 'Two beautiful recipes...straight forward. But they haven't been done well'

The girls cooked an entree of gnocchi with sage and burnt butter sauce, a main of pumpkin and olive risotto with zucchini flower, and a dessert, being an Italian ricotta pie with raspberry cream.

The boys cooked fettuccine carbonara for entree, a main of beef fillet with mushroom gratin and capsicum puree, and a dessert of peanut butter parfait with salted caramel sauce.

Ahead of the challenge, the two teams said they didn't want to verse each other because of their close friendship.

Going head-to-head! Ahead of the challenge, the two teams said they didn't want to verse each other because of their close friendship




Editor's Note: In an interview held Monday with Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Daily Journal covered issues pertaining to American education, the proposed Republican replacement for Obamacare and investigations into possible ties between President Donald Trump and the Russian government. The senator was also asked to discuss issues he is working on in Washington D.C. for his constituents.

Russia-Trump Investigation

DJ: Several weeks ago you called for an investigation into the possible connection between President Trump's campaign and the Russian government. Do you think these investigations can be carried out in a non-partisan manner by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate or do you believe a special prosecutor should be appointed?

Sen. Blunt: "I think these investigations are best handled by the House and Senate. The intelligence committees in each place are used to working with the agencies that have access to information. I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I was out at the CIA twice in the last 10 days looking at the information that's available.

"I think the president is best served by getting this issue behind us and that means you look at everything that a reasonable person would think you should look at. You talk to everybody that a reasonable person would think you should talk to and determine what happened. The Obamaappointed head of the National Intelligence Agency, General Clapper, said a week ago that there was no evidence of any collusion between the campaign and the Russian interference with our election. So we'll see if we can clearly substantiate that view or if there is a reason to question it.

"There's no question that the Russians here and right now in Germany and France have been involved in Eastern European elections almost constantly since the [Berlin] wall came down. We need to be sure that we do our part of letting other countries know what the potential problems are and how you defend against those problems."

The American Health Care Act

DJ: Last week's unveiling of the Republican answer to Obamacare  the American Health Care Act  has been greeted by complaints from liberals and conservatives alike. Do you foresee that major changes will have to be made in the plan if there is to be any hope that it will be approved in the Senate?

Sen. Blunt: "I think some changes will be made even in all likelihood before the House votes, based on the original plan. I think some changes have already been made. President Obama's plan is collapsing under its own weight. In the state of Missouri we have 115 counties, if you count the city of St. Louis, yet 97 of those counties only have one insurance company willing to offer insurance on the individual market.

"Instead of working for more competition and more choices for people looking for insurance to meet their needs and their family's needs, Obamacare has actually led to a lot less competition than we had before. So, working toward people having more choices, eliminating taxes on things like medical devices and insurance policies themselves is an important step in the right direction. And then the secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. [Thomas] Price, will have enough rough areas that he can look at and decide if the rules for what we have had need to be changed.

"I think there are 1,400 places in the Obamacare law that say the secretary of Health and Human Services shall further define this or make a rule to decide, for instance, what do you have to have to have a minimum insurance policy. The insurance policies that a lot of families used to have worked a lot better for them than the insurance policies that they either couldn't afford or didn't have much coverage under Obamacare.

"We have a situation where choices were going down, premiums were going up and coverage was going down. None of that was a sustainable thing, so I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do to get more patient-focused healthcare and have people have more choices, including going to the doctor they want to go to."

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

DJ: Betsy DeVos, President Trump's highly controversial Cabinet choice for education secretary was criticized during her confirmation hearing both for her lack of public school experience, as well as her strong endorsement of charter schools and vouchers. With rural Missouri's demand for quality public education for their children, how do you believe Secretary DeVos will approach her job?

Sen. Blunt: "Like a significant majority of the people that I work for, I went to public school. I taught high school history in public school. It is a foundational cornerstone of who we are and of opportunity in our country. I think where public schools aren't doing what families want them to do that the state has every right to think about what alternatives they might want to look at. I think what people are going to see with Secretary DeVoss is that she will not think that decision should be made in Washington, D.C.

"I think concerns on that front are not going to be found to be justified. She may talk more about some of the options to public schools and her discussions about when public schools aren't working. Of course, in our state, where public schools have been the most challenged, we have public charter schools. That was a decision that the Missouri General Assembly had to make, not anybody in Washington made.

"As the chairman for the funding committee for the Department of Education, I'm certainly going to be looking carefully to be sure that public schools continue to be a priority and that we don't think that any school should be run from Washington, D.C. We don't need a national school board. We have local school boards where we have parents and teachers who are in a much better position to decide what ought to be happening in local schools than somebody in Washington. What I think we're going to see is a significant reversal in the idea that one test works for everybody or that one way to run schools works for everybody  and that's a good thing."

Missouri Issues in the Senate

DJ: Are there any issues you're working on at this time in the Senate that you believe are of specific interest to your Missouri constituents?

Sen. Blunt: "A couple of things come to mind. I'd like to see us go back to the year-round Pell Grant in schools like Mineral Area College and Three Rivers Community College where often the student there is the first person in their family to go to college  or they're an adult returning to school. Whatever you do that lets that process go forward uninterrupted is most likely to produce a college degree.

"So if you've got everything working for you and you're returning to school as an older student  you and your family have figured out how to make this thing work  you need to get as quickly behind you as you can. We had year-round Pell Grants prior to the Obama administration and I'd like to get back to that.

"I am the first person in my family to ever graduate from college. I went to college in three years and three summers and it was critically important to me that I get that done that way. Anytime you disrupt that, you increase the likelihood that somebody never quite finishes. So having all-year Pell Grants would basically mean you could stay in school during the summer  you just go year-round until you're done.

"If you qualify for a full Pell Grant, it pays for tuition, books and fees at everyone of our community colleges in Missouri. From the school perspective, you'd have an opportunity for two years of free college. What the Pell Grant helps you do is take full advantage of that.

"The other thing I think makes a big difference for where we live is infrastructure. If you look at a highway map of America, or a railroad map of America, or a river map of America and try to determine where any of those maps come together, you're looking right at our state.

"So the president's initiative on infrastructure improvements for us not only mean the jobs that makes those improvements, but also where we live, the critical opportunity to compete because we have an infrastructure that works better together  including the port system, the railroads and the highways."
She recently ended her high profile lesbian relationship with Megan Marx.

And Tiffany Scanlon has revealed the toll the split has taken on her body, detailing how she lost five kilos off her already petite frame in a month due to 'anxiety and stress'.

On Tuesday, the Perth beauty said she unintentionally shed weight after the breakup, but had recently regained three kilos after getting 'back on my feet again'.

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'I had unintentionally lost about 5kg in a month': Bachelor's Tiffany Scanlon reveals her weight plummeted due to 'stress and anxiety' following her split from girlfriend Megan Marx (pictured left at the beginning of filming for The Bachelor in March 2016, right a week ago)

The 30-year-old fitness fanatic took to Instagram to set the record straight after being questioned over her weight loss.

Tiffany regularly posts scantily-clad bikini pictures or photos of her working out to social media, making her recent loss noticeable.

'It is true, I had unintentionally lost about 5kg in a month due to stress and anxiety,' she wrote on Tuesday.

Setting the record straight: The 30-year-old fitness fanatic took to Instagram to set the record straight after being questioned over her weight loss

Noticeable: Tiffany regularly posts scantily-clad bikini pictures or photos of her working out to social media, making her recent loss noticeable

'People handle stress differently and for me it meant I did little to no exercise and had no appetite.'

The reality TV star went on to stress that she did not want to encourage her fans to follow her example.

She also said that while she had been doing the Bikini Body Guide 12 Week Transformation at the time of breakup with Megan, she would not be sharing a before and after photo because 'it would not show a true representation of what can be achieved'.

Doesn't want to encourage others: The reality TV star went on to stress that she did not want to encourage her fans to follow her example

'I do NOT encourage people to lose weight in unhealthy ways': She also said that while she had been doing the Bikini Body Guide 12 Week Transformation at the time of breakup with Megan, she would not be sharing a before and after photo because

'I do NOT encourage people to lose weight in unhealthy ways. I encourage regular exercise and a healthy fresh meal plan,' Tiffany continued.

'I was not trying to lose weight nor do i want to lose weight and I am pleased to report I have regained about 3kg now that I'm back on my feet again.'

Tiffany and Megan met while competing for Richie Strahan's affection as contestants on last year's season of The Bachelor.

After months of speculation the couple confirmed they were an item late last year, moving to a Bali love nest in January.

Unconventional start: Tiffany and Megan met while competing for Richie Strahan's affection as contestants on last year's season of The Bachelor

But the romance abruptly ended a fortnight ago with Tiffany returning to Australia and Megan confirming last week that they had broken up.

Tiffany has recently made a bid for a role to be an ambassador for youth travel company Busabout Tours, uploading a video resume on Youtube.

'I guess I'm at this point where I'm trying to make sense of the past year and wondering what it all meant,' she told Daily Mail Australia last week.

'Maybe it all had to happen the way it did so that I would end up applying for this job.'
Even on a day off there is no time to waste for Elizabeth Olsen.

The 28-year-old stomped out in sneakers and a shirt-dress on Monday in Beverly Hills, California, to take care of errands.

One of her stops included a pickup of clothes from the dry cleaners, where she emerged with her hands full.

Laundry day! Elizabeth Olsen stomped out of the dry cleaners with her hands full of clothes on Monday in Beverly Hills, California

The load was a bit of a burden on the petite starlet, who used her mouth to maneuver sunglasses back onto her face, but the struggle was made worse as a long dress got caught between her feet.

The sister of Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen was casual for the solo outing and kept her look simple from head to toe.

Her ombre tresses were styled loose and rested around her shoulders, and she opted to go make-up free.

Balancing act: The sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen used her mouth to maneuver her sunglasses back onto her face

Last month she celebrated her birthday with friends, and there are more big things ahead for the movie star to celebrate, as her big screen career is busier than ever.

The beauty is currently reprising her role as Scarlet Witch in the third installment of the Avengers, which will hit theaters next year.

In January she wrapped promoting her two forthcoming pictures at the Sundance Film Festival, Wind River and Ingrid Goes West.

Casual cool: The Avengers actress had on two long shirts teamed with sneakers

In the drama Wind River, she plays opposite her Avengers co-star Jeremy Renner as a rookie FBI agent who teams up with the US Fish & Wildlife agent in the investigation of a dead and raped teenage girl who was discovered in Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation.

In the dark comedy Ingrid Goes West, Elizabeth stars as Taylor, a social media influencer whose e-fame enraptures an unhinged woman played by Aubrey Plaza.
She is no stranger to making spectacular appearances on the red carpet.

And Penelope Cruz maintained her glamorous reputation on Monday in Madrid when she arrived at the Union Of Actors Award.

The Spanish beauty cut an elegant figure at the 26th ceremony wearing a sheer black gown teamed with red pumps.

Queen of the night! Penelope Cruz looked chic in a sheer dress on Monday at the Union Of Actors Awards in Madrid

The dress featured sheer material with embroidered floral detail around the sleeves and decolletage. The skirt incorporated tiered layers of tulle fabric down to the ankles.

She added a pop of color with a pair of red suede pumps, and sparkled with diamond rings and earrings.

The 42-year-old styled her brown hair in a shag cut that rested on her shoulders. And she completed the sultry look with dark eyeliner and a dark pink lip.

Red hot: She added a pop of color with a pair of red suede pumps, and sparkled with diamond rings and earrings

Details: The dress featured sheer material with embroidered floral detail around the sleeves and decolletage

Ahead of her arrival, the knockout told her Instagram fans how proud she felt about earning a nomination in the Best Actress category for her role in The Queen Of Spain.

'So happy with my best actress nomination for #thequeenofspain at the @uniondeactores Thank you!! And thank you #fernandotrueba Congratulations and #goodluck to all the nominees,' she captioned a photo from the comedy-drama.

In the Spanish-language picture, Penelope stars as Macarena Granada, a 1950s actress who becomes the toast of Hollywood and returns to Spain to film a period film about Queen Isabella I of Castile.
He's been keeping busy since it was revealed he and partner Michelle Bridges wouldn't be returning to their star making Channel Ten weight loss show in 2017.

And as The Biggest Loser: Transformed was slated for premiere on Tuesday night, Steve 'Commando' Willis went shirtless in a sarong while hosting a fitness class for a throng of grinning women.

The 40-year-old is in Tahiti this week as he hosts a luxury fitness boot camp costing up to $6500 per person.

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On island time! Commando Steve goes shirtless in a sarong while hosting fitness class for throng of grinning woman in Tahiti

Steve is hosting the camps solo as his partner of more than three years Michelle Bridges promotes her line of Big W activewear in Australia.

In the photo shared to Instagram, Steve bares his ripped chest and tattoos in a sarong as he prepares to lead a group of the camp's female participants in exercise.

As a relaxed Steve looks ready to start the workout, the women in the class smile enthusiastically at the famous fitness fanatic.

Not coming back: After no series of The Biggest Loser in 2016, it was revealed last September that the show would be returning in 2017 without trainers Michelle and Steve

'Getting our afternoon training session done, Island style,' he captions the photo.

Michelle and Steve began dating in 2013 amid a Woman's Day report that Commando had left the mother of two of his children for Michelle, who had recently separated from her husband Bill Moore.

After no series of The Biggest Loser in 2016, it was revealed last September that the show would be returning in 2017 without trainers Michelle and Steve.

The two had opted out of the show as it sought to make itself more 'relatable' to everyday Australians, News Corp Australia reported.

New projects: The two had opted out of the show as it sought to make itself more 'relatable' to everyday Australians

'The biggest difference for me this time around is that the show is going to be much more relatable to a wider audience,' Shannan said.

This year's Biggest Loser will have two winners - one who has achieved the most weight loss and another who has transformed their life the most, as voted by the public.

Shannan had previously complained to Mumbrella that the weight loss show had become more about stunts and less about making healthy changes in people's lives.
Chad Michael Murray is one proud dad.

The former One Tree Hill star welcomed a baby girl with his wife, Sarah Roemer, 32, on Monday, and quickly took to Instagram to share a touching photo to mark her arrival.

In the photo, Chad's newborn daughter's tiny hand can be seen wrapped tightly around one of her dad's fingers.

Welcome to the world: Chad Michael Murray shared this heartfelt post on Instagram following the birth of his daughter on Monday

Protective dad: 'Don't worry little girl you can hold on as tight as you want for as long as you want, I'm already yours & I'll never let go,' the actor wrote after his daughter was born

'Don't worry little girl you can hold on as tight as you want for as long as you want, I'm already yours & I'll never let go,' he captioned the heartfelt image. 'I've now two incredible women in my life. My son & I are two lucky guys.'

The couple are already parents to a two-year-old son, after marrying in 2015.

Speaking about fatherhood, the actor said becoming a dad was by far the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Proud parents: The One Tree Hill star and his wife, actress Sarah Roemer, are also parents to a two-year-old boy

A changed man: 'Having kids is a game changer and I think you're always walking around with the mentality that you want to make sure that they're proud,' he said

'Having a family just changes your perspective on everything,' he told ET last year. 'I mean, it's a world changer.'

He says it's made him a better person, too.

'For me, it was the greatest thing that's ever happened to me,' added. 'Having kids is a game changer and I think you're always walking around with the mentality that you want to make sure that they're proud and you want to represent them well and just be a great leader.'

Beaming: 'I've now two incredible women in my life. My son & I are two lucky guys,' the 35-year-old actor wrote on Instagram following the arrival of his daughter on Monday

So in love: 'She Always Glows...' Chad captioned this photo of his then heavily pregnant wife on Instagram

Consequently, the 35-year-old says he's now selective about the roles he plays and the projects he takes on.

'Just last week a project came up, and just due to the content alone, it wasn't something that I [want] my son to see when he grows up,' he confessed. 'It's not the type of material and I didn't feel like the payoff was worth it.'

'You really have to weigh each choice, but at the same time, it is a job and it is just a craft - it's art performances. I dont take it too seriously but I also want it to creatively push me. I want to take chances and I want to do things that are going to scare the crap out of me.'
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Porn industry giants are currently bidding upwards of $500k for a sex tape reportedly featuring The OC's former leading lady.

But embattled actress Mischa Barton had her mind on work on Monday, as pictures obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com show the actress at the heart of the scandal posing for a laidback bikini photoshoot in Malibu.

While video stills said to feature the 31-year-old engaged in provocative acts are currently being shopped around to high profile companies, the gorgeous star certainly seemed to have other things on her mind.

Model figure: Mischa Barton was spotted posing for a bikini photo shoot in Malibu on Monday, in pictures obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com

Scandal on horizon: While a video said to feature the OC alum engaged in provocative acts is currently being shopped around to high profile porn companies

Mischa even seemed positively carefree, captured sticking her middle finger up playfully at those ont he beach and smoking a cigarette seductively on-set.

The honey haired actress was confident in a white bikini, showcasing her svelte figure, and embodied the ultimate all-American girl in a Nineties' style crop top.

A one-time screen teen star, the actress was turning her hand to modelling once again for a 138 Water Commercial with fashion photographer Malachi Banales.

White hot: The honey haired actress was seen wearing a white bikini, showcasing her svelte figure

Co-star: It's not clear who the man in the video is and Barton has not stepped out with anyone publicly in recent months

Details: In the video, Misch is 'seen performing a sex act on a guy and can be seen having sex in various positions'

Model figure: Mischa Barton was spotted posing for a bikini photo shoot in Malibu on Monday, in pictures obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com

Earlier on Monday, DailyMail.com revealed that a sex tape said to be featuring Mischa is being passed around Hollywood.

The X-rated video, which is believed to show Barton having sex with a dark haired man, is being offered to the highest bidder with the starting price of $500,000.

The footage is being touted to online porn companies, with a number of porn industry giants considering the offer.

Flashback: Adding a touch of Nineties glamour, Mischa wore a yellow embroidered crop top as she posed seductively for the cameras

Distracted: The gorgeous star certainly seemed to have other things on her mind

Keeping hydrated: The star was modelling once again for a 138 Water Commercial with fashion photographer Malachi Banales

Uh-oh: Earlier on Monday DailyMail.com revealed that a sex tape said to be featuring Mischa is being shopped around Hollywood.

Risque: The x-rated video, which is said to show Barton having sex with a dark haired man

Pricey: It is being offered to the highest bidder with the starting price of $500,000

Kevin Blatt, Hollywoods sex-tape broker, was approached by a third party with the video.

He told DailyMail.com: 'The tape is being shopped around porn valley, the asking price is $500,000.

'I know that at least three large online porn sites, YouPorn.com, Porn.com and RedTube.com have reviewed it and they're all seriously considering the offer.

Shopping around: The footage is being touted to online porn companies

In the mix: A number of porn industry giants are considering the offer

For sale: Kevin Blatt, Hollywoods sex-tape broker, was approached by a third party with the video

Proof: He told DailyMail.com  'The tape is being shopped around porn valley, the asking price is $500,000

When not if: 'I know that at least three large online porn sites, YouPorn.com, Porn.com and RedTube.com have reviewed it and they're all seriously considering the offer,' Blatt said

Counter: Mischa switched from healthy water to less healthy cigarettes for a few black and white snaps

'I've seen stills from the video, it's clearly Mischa in my opinion. She's seen performing a sex act on a guy and can be seen having sex in various positions.'

It's believed the video was shot at a private residence in Hollywood within the past year.

And, while it's not clear who the man in the video is and Barton has not stepped out with anyone publicly in recent months.

Salute: She extended a good-natured middle finger to one of the crew at one stage

Barton is said to be seen wearing a grey hoodie and nothing else having sex on a double bed with a man wearing just a black T-shirt.

The explicit footage appears to have been shot in a bedroom, the bed has a leather padded headboard and mirrored panels, while coffee cups and an empty bottle of Gatorade litter a bedside table.

Adding to the less than glamorous surroundings, there's also a flier on the table for CURRENT: LA, Los Angeles' first city-wide Public Art Biennial.

Chilly: She donned a pair of wide legged trousers as the sun dipped

Company: A dog photobombed the shoot for a moment

Best side: An assistant helped refocus the dying light with a reflector

Sources close to the star fear for her emotional well-being, should the video be leaked online.

One source told DailyMail.com: 'This is the last thing Mischa needs. Her name has been dragged through the mud enough times, she doesn't need a sex scandal right now.'

Barton, 31, has had a series of private meltdowns this year that included screaming in her backyard while hanging over a fence and damaging her apartment building with a U-Haul moving truck.

In February, Mischa was pictured drinking, smoking and partying until 3am just weeks after her shocking 'meltdown'.

Setting: It's believed the video was shot at a private residence in Hollywood within the past year

Wardrobe: Barton is said to be seen wearing a grey hoodie and nothing else having sex on a double bed with a man wearing just a black t-shirt

The outing came shortly after two of her neighbours called 911 to seek help for the actress, who was reportedly threatening to kill herself.

'My downstairs neighbor is hysterically crying in the backyard and says she's going to kill herself,' said a female neighbor in a 911 tape obtained by TMZ.

'She's screaming and she just keeps on saying "I want to die" and then she's like "I'm going to kill myself" and then she just keeps on, yeah, it's all nonsensical. But I'm very concerned.'

Barton, 31, claimed that she had been given the date rape drug GHB following the incident, which led to her being hospitalized after paramedics arrived on the scene.

In previously released footage of the meltdown, which appeared to be filmed by a neighbor, Barton could be seen ranting and raving while she hang over a fence in her backyard.
Alongside her sister Paris, she is famed for her impeccable sense of style.

And Nicky Hilton once again illustrated her sensational sartorial prowess as she dazzled at the Art Production Fund's Bright Lights, Big City Gala in New York on Monday evening.

The 33-year-old hotel heiress looked stunning as she borrowed from the style of the Fifties in a slinky red dress with a Bardot neckline paired with dripping jewels.

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Stunning: Nicky Hilton once again illustrated her sensational sartorial prowess as she dazzled at the Art Production Fund's Bright Lights, Big City Gala in New York on Monday evening

Nicky led the stars at the bash in which she borrowed from retro Hollywood in her red gown which fell off her slender shoulders while clinging to every inch of her lithe physique - honed no doubt by hours in the gym.

She added to the glamour of the look with the addition of a string of diamonds on her delicate necklace, which helped boost the already wildly chic look.

Atop the stunning necklace, Nicky also slipped on an eye-popping diamond ring while also sporting her dazzling engagement ring, sitting at an estimated eight carats, gifted to her by her husband James Rothschild in 2014.

Far from settling for a sizzling gown with envy-inducing jewels, she gave the ensemble an edgy touch through her leopard print heels and handbag.

Look at me! The 33-year-old hotel heiress looked stunning as she borrowed from the Fifties in a slinky red dress with a Bardot neckline paired with dripping jewels

The staggering stilettos complete with a sharp pointed toe, with the print coordinating beautifully with her clutch bag.

Nicky's scraped her blonde tresses into a high ponytail with the body tumbling over her shoulder and the top pulled back tight to best show off her pretty features.

Her make-up was flawlessly applied with a slick of liquid eyeliners drawing out the twinkly blue colour while she added a slick of lip gloss on her plump pout.

Clearly loving her look, the blonde beauty took to Instagram ahead of the night out to share a selfie with her 1.1million followers.

Dazzling: Nicky led the stars at the bash in which she borrowed from retro Hollywood in her red gown which fell off her slender shoulders while clinging to every inch of her lithe physique - honed no doubt by hours in the gym

The dancer: With her red dress and super glam ensemble, she likened herself to the instantly recognisable dancer Emoji - an image of a flamenco dancer in a red dress

Chic: It was a meeting of style minds at the bash

Stunners: She was joined at the bash by a bevy of stars including Cleo Wade, Zoe Buckman and Mia Moretti

Stylish: Freja Harrell and Nazy Nazhand wowed in slinky ensembles

With her red dress and super glam ensemble, she likened herself to the instantly recognisable dancer Emoji - an image of a flamenco dancer in a red dress.

She was joined at the bash by a bevy of stars including Cleo Wade, Zoe Buckman and Mia Moretti

Nicky and financier husband James, who are parents to eight-month-old daughter Lily, got engaged in August 2014 while vacationing in Lake Como, Italy and tied the knot at Kensington Palace in London in July 2015.

Banking scion James is the heir to a European banking firm and some reports say that the Rothschilds are worth more than $700 trillion.
Stephen Hillenburg, creator of the enduring hit cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants has revealed that he's been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Despite the diagnosis, the 55-year-old animator has vowed to continue his work on the Nickelodeon favoutite as he fights the neurodegenerative disease.

He said in a statement: 'I wanted people to hear directly from me that I have been diagnosed with ALS. Anyone who knows me knows that I will continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants and my other passions for as long as I am able.

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Announcement: SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg has announced that he's been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease

'My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time.'

The news comes as famed Hollywood publicist Nanci Ryder - who has represented such stars as Reese Witherspoon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Renee Zellweger is battling advanced stages of the same disease.

ALS rose to international prominence in the summer of 2014, when dozens of celebrities - and countless others - participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise funding for research into the debilitating condition.

Super talent: The animator's Nickelodeon show is an international hit and has spawned two successful movies, as well as a musical, which is heading to Broadway later this year

Since its 1999 release, SpongeBob SquarePants has become a children's favourite around the world, and has scooped a plethora of accolades, including two Emmy Awards, 12 Kids' Choice Awards, and two BAFTA Children's Awards.

It has also spawned two hit moves and generated more than $12 billion in branded merchandise for TV network Nickelodeon.

In the summer, The SpongeBob Musical enjoyed its world premiere in Chicago, with the stage production including original songs from such stars as John Legend, David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, The Flaming Lips, T.I., Lady Antebellum, Panic! At the Disco, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, among others.

Award-winning: Over the years, SpongeBob has scooped a plethora of accolades, including two Emmy Awards, 12 Kids' Choice Awards, and two BAFTA Children's Awards

Songs: The musical includes original songs from music artists including John Legend (left), the late David Bowie (right), The Flaming Lips, T.I., Plain White T's and They Might Be Giants

It was co-conceived and directed by Tina Landau with a book by Kyle Jarrow and music supervision by Tom Kitt.

'SpongeBob has transformed television, fashion and the art community,' Russell Hicks, Nickelodeon's president of content development and production told the Chicago Tribune at the time. 'The theatre will be next.'

The SpongeBob Musical played at Chicago's Oriental Theatre for a month, and bosses are now making plans to take to production to New York City's Broadway later this year.

Show: Producers have called the musical 'a rousing tale of a simple sea sponge who faces the unfathomable' and 'a celebration of unbridled hope, unexpected heroes, and pure theatrical invention'

Stars: Other musical artists who have written songs for the musical include Cyndi Lauper (left), T.I. (right), Lady Antebellum, Panic! At the Disco, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry

Producers call it 'a rousing tale of a simple sea sponge who faces the unfathomable. It's a celebration of unbridled hope, unexpected heroes, and pure theatrical invention.'

'All of those amazing composers are fans of SpongeBob,' Hicks told the Tribune.

'Music has always been an important part of the show and everyone saw this as a real creative challenge. We were excited by everyone who wants to write songs for him.'
She's the breakout star of Married At First Sight who became an early favourite to be the next Bachelorette after failing to find love on the TV 'social experiment'.

But Cheryl Maitland claimed she does NOT want to follow in the footsteps of Georgia Love, in a live Q&A session with her fans via Instagram Story on Tuesday afternoon.

The Gold Coast socialite, 25, was also joined by her gay best friend Jordan Galleio, who joked that she had 'too many scandals' to possibly be a candidate.

Enjoying the single life? Married At First Sight's breakout star Cheryl Maitland has claimed she does NOT want to be the next Bachelorette, despite public support for her to fill the role

Cheryl appears to be enjoying the freedom of single life at the moment, telling her Instagram followers she 'wouldn't want to give anyone a rose'.

In the past few weeks, the Scottish-born glamour model has emerged from a series of tabloid scandals to become Married At First Sight's fan favourite.

She has drawn sympathy from viewers after her first 'husband' Jonathan Troughton was caught texting another contestant behind her back, only to be verbally disrespected by her second match, firefighter Andrew 'Jonesy' Jones.

She has also clashed with racing commentator Anthony Manton - himself a 'villain' due to his treatment of 'wife' Nadia Stamp - during a particularly heated dinner party.

Q&A session: The Gold Coast socialite, 25, was also joined by her gay best friend Jordan Galleio (right), who joked that she had 'too many scandals' to possibly be a candidate

Previously, Cheryl was making headlines for the wrong reasons - as photos of her as a topless waitress and a video of her snorting white powder off her breasts resurfaced online.

At the time, she told Daily Mail Australia the video was just a 'joke' and she regretted appearing in it. Cheryl also told the Herald Sun her work as a topless waitress is 'well and truly in (the) past'.

She is also controversial for being associated with Gold Coast multimillionaire tobacco tycoon Travers Beynon, aka The Candyman, and attending his lavish parties.

What a comeback! Before becoming a fan favourite on Married At First Sight, Cheryl made headlines for the wrong reasons, as photos of her as a topless waitress resurfaced online

'Joke': A video of Cheryl snorting white powder off her breasts also emerged, but she previously told Daily Mail Australia it was just a 'joke' and she regretted appearing in it

Fan favourite: But these scandals were soon forgotten as fans witnessed Cheryl being mistreated by the 'grooms' on Married At First Sight, and she was widely praised on social media for handling herself with dignity. Some even called for her to be the next Bachelorette

But these scandals were soon forgotten as fans witnessed Cheryl being mistreated by the 'grooms' on Married At First Sight, and she was widely praised on social media for handling herself with dignity.

Some even called for her to be the next Bachelorette - but as she herself made clear on Tuesday, that does not appear to be high on her list of priorities.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Cheryl for further comment.
Samuel L. Jackson claimed last week that American directors are casting black British actors in their projects because they are cheaper - when African-American stars could do a more authentic job.

However David Harewood has now hit out at the actor's claims by admitting that British stars are chosen because they are 'damn good' at the job.

The Homeland star, 51, explained to the Guardian on Monday that black British actors are often the preferred choice as they can separate themselves from the American history - before joking that he is certainly not a budget option after years of hard work in the US.

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Retaliation: David Harewood (L) has hit out at Samuel L. Jackson's claims that black British stars are 'cheaper' than African-Americans by explaining Brits are just 'damn good' at the job

The Birmingham-born star retaliated to Jackson's claims in a letter on the site, which addressed the simple fact that Brits are often cast in American dramas due to their talent, and not for any financial reason.

He said: 'The idea that American producers and directors are choosing black British talent to save themselves a buck or two is ridiculous  its because were damn good.'

Having starred in big-time series such as Homeland and The Night Manager, as well as blockbusters like Blood Diamond, David then added that his successful career certainly does not make him a bargain to hire.

He joked: 'Ive worked extremely hard in the US for the last few years now, and I can tell you Im not exactly a budget option!'

Self-belief: He said: 'The idea that American producers and directors are choosing black British talent to save themselves a buck or two is ridiculous  its because were damn good'

Also taking issue with Samuel L.Jackson's claims was former Hollyoaks star Ricky Whittle, who is currently starring in US TV series, American Gods.

Speaking to TMZ, he scoffed: 'That's hilarious, Sam that's not the conversation we need to be having right now!

If you think I don't know what it's like to experience racism... At the end of the day, who cares, it doesn't matter.

'We all know know what it's like to experience prejudice. You think there's no racism in England? Racism is everywhere.'

Understanding: The True Romance star had gone on to say that African-American actors would do a more effective job - as they understand and have lived through the history behind it

Not true: However David added it is this notion of history that often makes British stars more suitable - as Brits can 'unshackle' themselves from it and simply 'play what's on the page'

David and Ricky were addressing claims made by Samuel L. Jackson last week that black British stars are often hired because they are 'cheaper' and thought to have better training.

However the True Romance star went on to state his belief that African-American actors would do a more effective job in the same roles - as they understand and have lived through the history behind it.

Talking to Hot 97.1 radio station, the Pulp Fiction star used Londoner David Kaluuya's role in horror movie Get Out, which sees a black photographer date a white woman, as an example.

He said: 'There are a lot of black British actors in these movies. I tend to wonder what that movie [Get Out] would have been with an American brother who really understands that.'

'Daniel grew up in a country where they've been interracial dating for a hundred years. What would a brother from America have made of that role? Some things are universal, but everything ain't,' he added.

'Racism is everywhere': Also taking issue with Samuel L.Jackson's claims was former Hollyoaks star Ricky Whittle, who is currently starring in US TV series, American Gods

While Jackson later clarified he had not intended to 'slam' British actors, but was simply noting the 'interesting way' Hollywood works, David then added it is this notion of historical understanding that often makes British stars more suitable.

He explained that black Brits can disregard any preconceptions or previous knowledge of the situation in front of them, and simply play the role in the script - making for a more authentic and original portrayal.

He said: 'Perhaps its precisely because we are not real American brothers that we black British performers have the ability to unshackle ourselves from the burden of racial realities  and simply play whats on the page, not whats in the history books.'

Daniel himself then spoke out against his claims himself on Tuesday in an interview with GQ.

Leading Londoner: The Pulp Fiction star used David Kaluuya's role in Get Out as an example - stating: 'Daniel grew up in a country where they've been interracial dating for a hundred years. What would a brother from America have made of that role?'

The actor, who rose to fame in E4's Skins, began: 'Big up Samuel L. Jackson, because heres a guy who has broken down doors. He has done a lot so that we can do what we can do.'

However he went on to detail his own struggle as a black person in the UK, arguing that Brits have just as much of a fraught history as Americans - mentioning the Brixton, Tottenham and 2011 riots.

He continued: 'This is the frustrating thing, broin order to prove that I can play this role, I have to open up about the trauma that Ive experienced as a black person. I have to show off my struggle so that people accept that Im black.'

Before adding: 'I resent that I have to prove that Im black. I dont know what that is. Im still processing it.'

Harewood also touched upon Jordan Peele's recent comments on the situation in his letter, as director of Get Out.

He recently came forward to admit that he had not wanted to cast a British actor originally - but that Kaluuya's audition had simple been unbeatable.

Talking to the publication, he revealed that he had a lengthy discussion with Kaluuya about how 'universal' the issue of the African-American experience is, which made it far easier to cast him as the role of photographer Chris Washington.

He said: 'At the end of the day, he was the best person for the role. He did the audition and it was a slam dunk'.

No drama: However, the Jackie Brown star later explained his remarks had not meant to insult Brits at all - but were instead a general observation of how the industry works as a whole

Jackson's comments had caused a stir among fans last week, after he also used British actor David Oyelowo's portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. as an example, in the 2014 biopic Selma.

He said in the radio interview: 'A brother from America could have been in that movie that would have had a different idea about how that works, how King thinks or how King felt.'

'I don't know what the love affair is with all that, it's all good. Everybody needs to work, but there are a lot of brothers here that need to work,' Jackson finished.

However, the Jackie Brown star later explained his remarks had not meant to insult Brits at all - but were instead a general observation of how the industry works as a whole.

Good work: Samuel had also praised Idris' role as Baltimore native Stringer Bell in The Wire during his interview

He said his words were not intended to be a 'slam against [British actors] ... it was just a comment about how Hollywood works in an interesting sort of way sometimes'.

He had gone on to give a nod to English actor Idris Elba, 44, in his interview - for his portrayal of Baltimore drug kingpin Stringer Bell on the critically acclaimed HBO show The Wire.

He praised the actor by questioning: 'How long did it take you to figure out that [Stringer] Bell wasn't just a brother from Baltimore until you heard Idris talk?'
The Park Hills City Council will meet tonight at 6 p.m. for a regular session in the municipal court chambers at city hall, located at 9 Bennett St.

First on the agenda will be two visitors from the community who requested to speak before the council.

Theresa Naucke will be addressing the council concerning the citys personnel manual. Mark Strother will be addressing council members about positive actions of the fire department during a recent fire.

New business will include a proclamation memorializing former councilman Larry Kelly and another proclamation declaring April as Fair Housing Month. The council will review and discuss bids for the public works building project and will consider approval of the mayors appointment to the board of adjustment. In addition, a public hearing will be set regarding a zoning change.

Along with a mayor and council member discussion period, City Administrator Matt Whitwell will give reports on the citys Parks and Recreation, Public Works and Utilities departments.

The meeting is open to the public.

The Leadington Board of Aldermen will meet in regular session at 6 p.m. tonight at the municipal building located at 12 Weir St.

According to the tentative agenda, the board will hear first from St. Francois County 911 Director Alan Wells before moving to new business.

In new business, the board will open cemetery lawncare bids, as well as discuss mosquito control; police equipment and repairs; spring clean-up; an office shredder; telephones; LETSAC training; a police chaplain; Data Tec training; check signers; elected official training; the Woodlawn widening project; the road fund; and USDA-Rural Development.

The meeting is open to the public.
Angelina Jolie today defied her nerves to deliver a lecture on Women, Peace and Security in a new role at theLondon School of Economics.

The filmmaker and human rights advocate, 41, said she was 'feeling butterflies' before the lesson, beginning a new master's course on the impact of war on women.

She embodied her new, visiting professor mantle perfectly, paring down her iconic Hollywood image in favour of a simple yet sophisticated longline coat.

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A new role: Angelina Jolie arrived to address post-graduate students at the London School of Economics on Tuesday morning

Humanitarian work: Angelina accepted the new role of professor in practice for Women, Peace and Security last year

Angelina told London's Evening Standard: 'Im a little nervous, feeling butterflies. I hope I do well. This is very important to me.'

One starstruck attendee reassured the 'nervous' speaker by saying: 'Ms. Jolie, you did wonderfully!' while another simply said: 'Incredible lecture by Angelina today'.

After the lecture, Angelina was joined by her son Maddox as they took the short trip from their lavish hotel to Buckingham Palace.

Dressed appropriately in a smart black evening dress and matching leather boots, Angelina looked typically elegant as they made their way towards a waiting car.

It is understood Angelina and Maddox were given a highly unusual private tour of Buckingham Palace, where no members of the royal family were present.

The actress addressed a class of students taking the same-titled postgraduate course, Women, Peace and Security - and her speech went down well with the class, who described the presentation as 'wonderful'.

The course helps scholars, practitioners, activists, policy-makers and students to develop strategies to promote justice, human rights and participation for women in conflict-affected situations around the world.

Later in the evening, the actress and her son Pax were seen leaving their hotel to go to Buckingham Palace

Dressed appropriately in a smart black evening dress and matching leather boots, Angelina looked typically elegant as the pair made their way towards a waiting car

They conduct original research and teach with the aim of promoting gender equality and enhancing womens economic, social and political participation and security.

As part of her fellowship, Angelina will also be able to conduct her own research in the field.

The activist spoke about her experience and what has motivated her work as United Nations Special Envoy.

High praise: Students from the lecture were full of high praise for the actress on social media after the lecture

Calming her nerves: She was told that her lecture was 'incredible'

Afterwards, students were full of praise for the actress, sharing pictures from inside her lecture and calling her presentation 'wonderful'.

Another post-graduate student added: 'She'll make an amazing visiting professor. So honored to hear her inaugural lecture at LSE on sexual violence, rape, working w/ refugees'.

One other shared a group picture with the actress and captioned it: 'When Angelina Jolie is the guest lecturer at LSE'.

Visiting: It is understood to be her first lecture at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security

In her new role, Angelina is invited to attended public events and workshops in association with the course, 'as her schedule allows'.

She co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative - aiming to end the stigma suffered by survivors of sexual violence, and children born of rape - five years ago.

Her work includes minimising the long term consequences this may have in communities as well as reconciliation and peacebuilding.

The school announced the presence of Angelina on their own social media account on Tuesday morning and word quickly spread across campus.

New work: Angelina (seen here giving evidence at the House of Lords committee, in 2015) may be best known publicly for her acting and directing but her work as United Nations Special Envoy has set her on a global mission to end the stigma suffered by survivors of sexual violence, and children born of rape

Activism: Angelina (here at Global Summit on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict in June 2014) launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative five years ago

For the cause: In her new role, Angelina (seen here again at the Global Summit in 2014) will be able to conduct research but also educate students on her experiences as United Nations Special Envoy

'Was just sitting in an LSE cafe waiting for my lecture,' one stunned Facebook user wrote. 'And Angelina Jolie strolls past and into the upstairs offices followed by flashing cameras.

'Needless to say, I was looking fairly out of place, we made eye contact and I saw my life flash before my eyes... Jokes but seriously if you're around on campus, Angelina is currently in Tower 2'

Naturally, the moviestar's visit wasn't without anticipated hysteria with some even suggesting that it was the best thing to happen to the university during their study.

'Angelina Jolie on campus,' one gushed. 'I'm finally seing the advantages of going to LSE jk'

Another concurred: 'Everybody sharing that picture of Angelina Jolie at LSE bc it's the best bit of being here'

Buzzing: The student body was awash with hysteria about the moviestar's visit to campus

Noticing the student body buzz, one other added: 'Angelina Jolie just gave a lecture at LSE and everybody is going crazy lol'

The not-so subtle attention Angelina had drawn was not to every student's taste and another joked: 'Is Angelina Jolie on campus today? If only loads of people shared it on every social media platform, we'd know.'

Announcing her role back in May, Angelina originally said: 'I am looking forward to teaching and to learning from the students, as well as to sharing my own experiences of working alongside governments and the United Nations.'

In the unpaid role, Angelina, alongside ex-foreign secretary William Hague, has agreed to teach a minimum of one lecture in the one-term master's course.

From September, the course will develop students will be able to take an entire masters - which makes the London School of Economics the first to offer this.

Professor Christine Chinkin, Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, said in a statement issued to MailOnline: 'I am delighted that LSE postgraduate students have had the unique opportunity to learn directly from the valuable insights, perspectives and experiences that Angelina Jolie brought to the class.'

Big voice: She this week celebrates the fifth anniversary the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative

Working hard: The initiative aims to end the stigma suffered by survivors of sexual violence, and children born of rape

Chinkin continued: 'Global action to enhance women's human rights, and the economic, social and political participation of women takes place at all levels  through local activism, international institutions, and cross-border initiatives.

'Critical and constructive engagement with this work is at the core of the education programme of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security.'

Previously, Angelina was there to see the centre opened in February 2015 and has therefore been a supporter ever since.

It was Angelina's humanitarian work that brought her to London from Los Angeles with her six children, at the weekend.

Delighted: Angelina came over to London from Los Angeles for work, this week

Unsupported by ex-husband Brad Pitt during her visit to the British capital, Angelina has been looking after Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox, all by herself.

Angelina filed for divorce from her husband Brad in September 2016 after 10 years together, and confirmed that the family was 'coping' after a 'difficult time', last month.

So far, the family's stay has seen them stocking up on books at Waterstone's and also treated to new toys at Hamley's.

Working mum: With her she brought her six children Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox

On Monday, Angelina commenced a busy week by taking part in a panel discussion at World Vision UK HQ on the 5 year anniversary of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative.

Angelina said: 'All of us involved in PSVI are proud of the work so far.

'But with much more to do we are very focused on the next steps: taking the tools that have been developed into the field to help document crimes and support prosecutions, working with militaries to change doctrine and training, and pushing for the implementation of laws to protect the very vulnerable victims.'

Angelina is now promoting the Time to Act initiative and work will place a greater focus on dealing with trauma and support to child and male survivors.
She's been enjoying a romantic break with her boyfriend Chris Zylka in Mexico.

And Paris Hilton looked loved-up as ever as she headed out for the day with her hunky new man, 31, working up a sweat as they cycled along the streets of Tulum on their bikes on Monday.

The 36-year-old socialite was embracing a sporty look, rocking a slogan T-shirt with the title lyric from The Weeknd's song I Can't Feel My Face When I'm With You on it.

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Smitten: Paris Hilton looked loved-up as ever as she headed out for the day with her hunky new man Chris Zylka in Tulum, Mexico on Monday

Paris kept her beauty look minimal and wore her blonde hair pulled back a ponytail, with a cap topping off her look.

Chris took a more laid-back approach to the bike ride, puffing on a cigarette as he followed behind the hotel heiress.

The model-turned-DJ and The Leftovers actor are staying at an exclusive beachfront nature-centered resort in Mexico that offers organic food, a holistic wellness spa, and daily yoga, for a price starting at a cool $1,200 per person, per night.

Casual: Chris took a more laid-back approach to the bike ride, puffing on a cigarette as he followed behind the hotel heiress

The VIP destination also features a private, secluded beach, trips to local waterfalls, musical guests and performances in the evenings, and a beachfront restaurant serving up food inspired by Mayan culture.

The upscale digs are decorated in a bohemian, spiritual style, and guests can choose from fully furnished 500 sq foot private jungle rooms or beachfront lodging. Rooms include outdoor, under-the-stars showers.

The hotel promises that their guests' stay will be 'an extraordinary experience,' in 'an environment full of just the right amount of care and attention to detail.'

VIP treatment: The model-turned-DJ and The Leftovers actor are staying at an exclusive beachfront nature-centered resort in Mexico that offers organic food, a holistic wellness spa, and daily yoga, for a price starting at a cool $1,200 per person, per night

It seems things are heating up between the couple , who first sent fans into a frenzy when Paris posted a photo of the two of them captioned: 'My #Valentine' on February 19.

Later that week, she shared another intimate snap with her Instagram followers, hinting that their relationship was getting serious as she captioned a number of selfies with the pair: 'Home is where you are.'

Zylka's previously had a splintered engagement with DVF brand ambassador Hanna Beth Merjos. He also dated Pretty Little Liar's Lucy Hale in 2012.

Hilton's ex-fiances reportedly include model Jason Shaw and a fellow Paris, heir to the Latsis shipping family.
It's been 14 years since her Love Actually character Natalie warmed the hearts of cinema lovers with the perpetual phrase 'thighs the size of big tree trunks'.

Now reprising her beloved role, Martine McCutcheon, 40, has opened up about reuniting with co-star Hugh Grant for the film's Comic Relief Red Nose Day special on March 24.

Speaking to Heat magazine, she admitted the 56-year-old actor - who reprises his role of the Prime Minister in the teaser - are complete opposites, yet they bring out the best in each other on set which makes for great takes.

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Happy: Martine McCutcheon has opened up about reuniting with Hugh Grant - who plays love interest Prime Minister David - for a Comic Relief Red Nose Day special on March 24

She explained: 'Me and Hugh are like chalk and cheese - that's what makes us work. He's nervous about dance scenes, where as I go, "Yeah!" and get stuck in. We bring the best out of each other.'

Over 14 years since the first Richard Curtis offering, the Golden Globe winner revealed it's interesting to see how the original cast - including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Liam Neeson and Colin Firth - have matured in the time since they filmed the much-loved flick.

She added: 'Crikey, we don't! I could tell she's [Natalie] definitely matured. We've all gone through loads, so it's nice to see us all looking well. The only sad thing was that we didn't have Alan [Rickman]'.

Since filming the festive flick in the early noughties, Martine has become mother to two-year-old Rafferty while Hugh has become a doting parent to four.

Maturing: Over 14 years since the first Richard Curtis offering, the Golden Globe winner revealed it's interesting to see how the original cast have matured in the time since they filmed the much-loved flick

Love: Since filming the festive flick in the early noughties, Martine has become mother to two-year-old Rafferty while Hugh has become a doting parent to four

The Loose Women panellist admitted Hugh - who welcomed four children from his relationships with Anna Eberstein and Tinglan Hong - doesn't need any parenting advice.

She joked: 'No! I think he's definitely good at that'.

It was previously revealed that their characters - who enjoyed a romance in 2003's offering - are married in the reboot.

Advice: The Loose Women panellist admitted Hugh - who welcomed four children from his relationships with Anna Eberstein and Tinglan Hong - doesn't need any parenting advice

Confirming the exciting fate however was the short's director Emma Freud - who shared a photo of Martine in front of the camera on her Twitter page with the caption: 'Our pm is still married. And she's still lovely. #rednosedayactually'.

Martine is reprising her character Natalie, who began as a junior member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street.

Having battled against their spark during the whole flick, the brunette went on to score a happy ending when she won the affections of the PM - with him visiting her home out in Wandsworth to declare his love.

Martine's candid admission comes after the first teaser of the upcoming Love Actually BBC Comic Relief special was released.

Actor Andrew Lincoln can be seen re-enacting the iconic scene as he encourages viewers to tune into the short movie spectacle later this month.

The now 43-year-old hunk stares directly at the camera as he holds up a series of cards, which reads: 'Hello, I just wanted to ask, without hope or agenda (and just because it's nearly Red Nose Day) that you'll join us for a very special reunion called Red Nose Day Actually on Friday 24th March BBC One...'

Exciting! In the first teaser released for the upcoming Love Actually's BBC Comic Relief special, Andrew Lincoln can be seen re-enacting his iconic scene as he encourages viewers to tune in later this month

He then switches to the last card which reads: 'Actually,' before breaking his brooding aura by cracking a huge smile.

In the original movie, Keira's character Juliet is convinced her husband's pal Mark, (Lincoln), can't stand her, until she discovers the wedding video he made which features solely on her.

It's only then she realises he is actually in love with her. He later turns up her house with the cards, telling her: 'To me, you are perfect.'

Declaration of love: Hearts across the globe melted when Andrew turned up on Keira Knightley's doorstep in 2003 flick with the sign reading: 'To Me, You Are Perfect'

'Without hope or agenda': The now 43-year-old sported a more bearded appearance as he promoted the reboot

'Because it's nearly Red Nose Day': He let the cards do all the talking

'Join us for a special reunion': Fans have been eagerly anticipating the special after it was announced last month

They then kiss and he says, 'Enough now, that's enough now,' as he leaves her to get on with married life.

Keira was pictured filming Love Actually's Comic Relief for the first time on Wednesday with Chiwetel Ejiofor, [Peter] and Andrew.

The 31-year-old movie star was pictured filming with her onscreen husband AND his best friend, leading viewers to wonder how their story has developed.

'Red Nose Day': The British hunk expertly recreates the scenario from 14 years ago as he relays his message

'Friday 24th March on BBC One': Andrew ensures to let everyone know the date

'Actually': He then breaks his brooding aura by cracking a huge smile

Someone got it wrong: In the original flick, Keira seems surprised after mistakenly believing that Andrew's character couldn't stand her

Standing on a London doorstep, Keira wore a cream jumper with the word: 'LOVE' emblazoned on the front as she looked as youthful as ever and Theory scarf print wide trousers.

Andrew could be seen nearby during filming, wearing an oversized jacket by John Varvatos and sporting longer curly hair than before, while director Richard Curtis hovers close to him.

Emma Freud, who's married to director and writer Richard Curtis has been busy tweeting behind-the-scenes snaps from the set of the film, posting a snapshot of Kate Moss on set alongside the caption: 'Oh. What's SHE doing here?'

Last night, our last night on #rednosedayactually. Marital bliss, the best pyjama bottoms I've ever seen, and major #jerseyenvy #shallow pic.twitter.com/Zk8bDkCrYn  emma freud (@emmafreud) 8 March 2017

Wrong or right? After he shows her the sign, they kiss and he says, 'Enough now, that's enough now,' as he leaves her to get on with married life

It was 13 years ago. There is more facial hair now. But he still loves her.... #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/0Zhz341Jj4  emma freud (@emmafreud) 8 March 2017

At least someone thinks Andrew Lincoln is funny. Keira Knightley more beautiful than ever. #tomeyouareperfect #rednosedayactually #march24th pic.twitter.com/0NoKrKmPeC  emma freud (@emmafreud) 7 March 2017

The sighting follows Richard Curtis's words during a recent interview with Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain last week.

He said: 'Someone's died, someone's got lots of kids, someone's been voted out of office and voted back into office.'

Also pictured filming during the last few weeks, were Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon, whose characters David and Natalie are now married.

During a break from filming, Hugh, who plays the Prime Minister told the camera: 'It's going very badly. I can't remember my lines or the character. Everyone hates me.'

The PM, his wife and the writer who never worked out a good camera face. #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/TT0pZB5p2P  emma freud (@emmafreud) 5 March 2017

'To me, you are perfect': Keira was pictured filming Love Actually's Comic Relief for the first time on Wednesday with Chiwetel Ejiofor, [Peter] and Andrew

They're actually still in love: In one still, Keira can be seen cuddling up to her husband Peter (Chiwetel) on the sofa... as they giggled during filming

Colin Firth, who plays Jamie, was spotted on the set of the eagerly awaited Love Actually sequel at the BBC Langham Place Piazza in central London last week.

And 64-year-old Liam Neeson, [Daniel] was pictured with his onscreen stepson Thomas Brodie-Sangster [Sam], who is now 26, filming in London's Southbank, along with Olivia Olsen, [Joanna].

Emma Thompson has ruled out a part in the Comic Relief special as she can find 'no comedy' since the death of her co-star, Alan Rickman.

She told PA: 'It's too soon. It's absolutely right because it's supposed to be for Comic Relief but there isn't much comic relief in the loss of our dear friend really only just over a year ago.'

Love still all around on set yesterday. #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/zWnhQFqjc6  emma freud (@emmafreud) 8 March 2017

Brothers in arms. And noses. Everyone on the #rednosedayactually SO happy these guys are here tonight. Esp me. pic.twitter.com/BkR2ZMrG66  emma freud (@emmafreud) 7 March 2017

Oh Rufus. There's something unexpected in the bagging area. #rednosedayactually day 2. Done. pic.twitter.com/fnk6lNZmyr  emma freud (@emmafreud) 23 February 2017

Reprising her role: Keira plays Juliet in the 2003 movie (right), who doesn't realise her husband's best friend is in love with her
She's a global sex symbol and was once branded 'Earth's hottest girl' by Maxim.

And it wasn't hard to see why Megan Fox has earned her pin-up reputation as she sizzled in the stunning new Frederick's of Hollywood Campaign lingerie campaign.

The 30-year-old actress looked simply sensational as she posed up a storm in an array of sexy ensembles, shot by celeb photographer Ellen Von Unwerth in the Hollywood Hills.

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Stunning: Megan Fox looks simply sizzling in the stunning new Frederick's of Hollywood Campaign lingerie campaign

The 30-second spot, titled Fredrick's Gets Foxy, features the global underwear brand's new Spring 2017 collection in all its glory.

The Hollywood beauty - who shot the campaign just a few months after welcoming her third child - wows in a black silk negligee complete with seductive stocking as she poses like a pro.

Megan slips into sheer lace lingerie that highlights her ample assets, licking food off her fingers.

The stunner slips into an array of rainbow-hued lingerie that makes the most of her killer curves.

New ad: The 30-second spot, titled Fredrick's Gets Foxy, features the global underwear brand's new Spring 2017 collection in all its glory

Feline fine: The stunner poses in a black teddy and sheer cut-out bra, working her magic for the cameras

Pin-up perfection: With her glossy brunette locks and bright red lips, Megan looks like the ultimate pin-up

Leggy lady: One quirky shot sees the New Girl actress kicking her stocking clad legs in the air

The brunette bombshell also models a PVC bodysuit, exuding sex appeal as she gazes into the camera.

Last September, the New Girl actress signed a deal with Fredericks of Hollywood to be their brand ambassador, stakeholder, and creative partner.

She previously told WWD: 'Ive been reluctant in the past to work with brands because theres a lot of politics behind it and its a big deal to lend your name and image to something.

Peekaboo: Megan doesn't take herself too seriously in the cheeky advertorial

Smoking hot: Megan slips into a PVC one-piece with a zip running down the front

Last September, the New Girl actress signed a deal with Fredericks of Hollywood to be their brand ambassador, stakeholder, and creative partner

She previously told WWD: 'It gives me an opportunity to be passionate about what Im promoting'

'But by offering me ownership in the company and some creative say, it gives me an opportunity to be passionate about what Im promoting.'

The stunner has created a capsule collection for the company, as well as playing the part of model.

Megan has previously fronted campaigns for the likes of Giorgio Armani Beauty, Armani Jeans and Avon.

Hard to believe: The Hollywood beauty shot the campaign just a few months after welcoming her third child

Saucy: The stunner has created a capsule collection for the company, as well as playing the part of model
It was announced on Friday that they had welcomed their second child together.

And Marvin Humes was back at work on Tuesday, stepping out solo to attend the TRIC Awards 2017 (The Television And Radio Industries Club) in London, just four days after wife Rochelle gave birth.

The dapper chap, 31, was looking a little tired, yet sharp in a smart grey suit as he posed on the red carpet, looking a little tired after a couple of no doubt sleepless nights.

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Back at work: Marvin Humes attended the TRIC Awards 2017 (The Television And Radio Industries Club) in London, just four days after wife Rochelle gave birth

Happy families: On Friday, it was announced that Rochelle and Marvin had welcomed baby daughter Valentina Raine

Marvin injected some cool points to his look thanks to a patterned pocket square and a pair of leather tipped trainers.

The former JLS star no doubt ensured his attendance was fleeting, rushing back home to his wife and two daughters after the main event.

Meanwhile, Rochelle caused a stir when she took to Instagram on Sunday to post an image of the tot's dehydrated umbilical cord shaped into the word love and framed.

The 27-year-old Saturday songstress shared the image with her 1 million followers, who appeared divided by her choice of art, which she posted alongside an image of her placenta in pills.

Dapper chap: Marvin injected some cool points to his look thanks to a patterned pocket square and a pair of leather tipped trainers

'I just got sick': Rochelle is ensuring she remembers baby Valentina Raine is a unique was as she took to Instagram on Sunday to post an image of the tot's dehydrated umbilical cord shaped into the word love and framed

Rochelle, who is already mum to three-year-old daughter Alaia-Mai, announced the news of social media on Friday by posting a heartwarming snap of herself cradling her newborn child, with the caption: 'The Our world is now complete'.

After days of delighting in new motherhood, she remained silent on social media until Sunday when she shared a gift box sent to her by celebrity favourite Placenta Plus, a company that includes Rebekah Vardy among its clientele.

The gift box included a pack of pills made from Rochelle's placenta, a frame with the dried umbilical cord shaped into the word love and a handwritten note reading: 'To Rochelle and Marvin, Congratulations on the birth of your baby girl, love Danielle!'

Our world: Rochelle, who is already mum to three-year-old daughter Alaia-Mai, announced the news of social media on Friday by posting a heartwarming snap of herself cradling her newborn child, with the caption: 'The Our world is now complete'

She added a caption on the image reading: 'After being very curious I took the plunge, so excited to feel the benefits..Thanks so much Danielle'.

While placenta pills are coming to be an increasingly popular trend, it seems the umbilical cord art irked some of Rochelle's followers, who penned: 'High five to the tablets but the picture just no... I'm sorry but that picture is horrible! The tablets I understand but I just couldn't have that picture!...

'i would give the pills a go but the picture. i think i just got a little bit sick in my mouth. but i wouldnt want to keep the cord, baby teeth, hair any of that stuff makes me heave. oh wants to keep all that shiz, this house is divided x...

'Next time I have a baby I'm defiantly trying the pills xx not sure about the picture. But that's just my preference xx but heard so many good things about the pills xx'

Thanks! The gift box included a pack of pills made from Rochelle's placenta, a frame with the dried umbilical cord shaped into the word love and a handwritten note reading: 'To Rochelle and Marvin, Congratulations on the birth of your baby girl, love Danielle!'

Hey! Other fans however threw their support behind products: 'Some people have to have their say on everything and anything.... a picture made from the placenta, the cord that was used to supply her baby with food and everything else it needed to survive for 9 months inside....

Placenta Pills: A fad or essential for new mums? Placenta is the organ from which the mother connects to the baby to provide nutrition in the womb The organ acts to protect the baby at the end of pregnancy and has been feted in ancient medicine for its qualities Key nutrients included in the placenta include Stem Cells and Growth Factors, Iron  essential for oxygen absorption in the cells and Vitamins B6  aids in the making of antibodies There are two methods to make placenta pills: Traditional Chinese Medicine involves steaming the placenta before dehydration, while the Raw Dried method, involves the dehydration of raw placenta. Both methods involve grinding and encapsulating after dehydration. Advertisement

Other fans however threw their support behind products: 'Some people have to have their say on everything and anything.... a picture made from the placenta, the cord that was used to supply her baby with food and everything else it needed to survive for 9 months inside....

'please tell me how this can be so wrong like some have protested??? Sometimes I lose my faith in humanity!... Rochelle has posted on social media so something like that is going to divide opinion...

'i just don't think everything needs to be seen there are lots of bodily functions etc that have helped create and bring a beautiful baby safely into the world but we don't have to frame all the gory bits...

'it's really none of your business! Surely every one is entitled to making their own personal choice! Leave her to get on with caring for her newborn. Negative comments are all a new mum needs.'

The framed cord in a hot seller on Placenta Plus, marketing between 10 to 40, with the website's description reading: 'A framed cord keepsake is simply your cord keepsake in a frame. We offer a choice of colours to suit your preference...

'A cord keepsake is your babys umbilical cord dehydrated into the shape of a heart or the word love. It is possible to have your babies name but the cord has to be long and the name short.'

A good thing? The framed cord in a hot seller on Placenta Plus, marketing between 10 to 40, with the website's description reading: 'A framed cord keepsake is simply your cord keepsake in a frame. We offer a choice of colours to suit your preference...

Aside from the umbilical cord preservation, Danielle Kinney, the placenta encapsulation specialist who turns the stars' organ into pills, relayed the health pros of the method to The Mirror.

She said: 'The benefits include a faster recovery all over, a reduction of postpartum bleeding, production of more breast milk and it helps your energy levels  the list is endless. The rise in placenta encapsulation is because mums of multiple children need that extra help.'

The process, which costs 200, takes 24 hours and consists of the dried placenta being ground up into power - which in return are taken by new mothers for anything between six weeks and six months.

Curious... The process, which costs 200, takes 24 hours and consists of the dried placenta being ground up into power - which in return are taken by new mothers for anything between six weeks and six months
He was previously linked to reality star Pettifleur Berenger.

And two months after denying romance rumours with the Real Housewives of Melbourne star, Rob Mills has confirmed his split from girlfriend Ellen Simpson.

The 34-year-old Neighbours star told The Daily Telegraph this week that he ended his relationship with Ellen three months ago.

Over: Rob Mills has confirmed his split from girlfriend Ellen Simpson

'I have just broken up with my partner, Ellen Simpson, late last year. We're still very good friends,' he said.

In January, the Australian Idol star was subject to flirting rumours with Pettifleur, 52, but he insists the false reports had nothing to do with his breakup.

'It is just silly, isn't it ... we [Ellen and I] just laugh about it. I think it is hilarious. I'm pretty open with my relationships,' he said.

Mutual: The 34-year-old Neighbours star told The Daily Telegraph this week that he ended his relationship with Ellen three months ago

He went on to add that romance rumours surrounding himself and the Melbourne property developer are inappropriate particularly because she has a long-term partner businessman Frank Palazzo and children.

'No, she's sixty and married but thanks. She's lovely but I'm not a homewrecker ... She finds it funny as well,' he said.

A source previously told New Idea magazine the pair attended an event where they were 'very intimate all night' and 'sent tongues wagging' with their unexpected show of affection.

Candid: 'I have just broken up with my partner, Ellen Simpson, late last year. We're still very good friends,' he said

But Rob, who was once linked to Paris Hilton, previosuly said their friendship is platonic, saying that while Pettifleur is 'beautiful', they are just acquaitances.

'A peck on the lips to say hello is not a pash,' he told Sydney Confidential.

'She's a very beautiful woman but absolutely not, there was no romance with Pettifleur.'

The report had seemed unlikely considering Pettifleur has been in a relationship with Frank for nearly a decade.

Just pals: Rob was pictured at a party alongside Pettifleur Berenger, 52, in Melbourne earlier this year

During a night out, the reality TV star shared a snap of herself and Rob as they mingled with other guests at St. Kilda's exclusive venue, The Deck at Circa.

'Hanging with the fabulous Rob Mills,' Pettifleur wrote alongside the snap she shared with her 30,200 Instagram followers.

Rob later commented: 'Thanks for a fun night guys. Xo.'

Rob has also been linked to Beauty and the Geek winner Emma Cam, but his most notable previous love interest was hotel heiress Paris Hilton, 35.

Revealing all: Rob told the Sydney Morning Herald: 'We did pretty much everything but (sex) and then we caught up at the races (Melbourne Cup in 2003) a week after'

The pair enjoyed a brief fling back in 2003, after first meeting at a party at Sydney Opera House.

They later headed back to The Bachelor presenter Osher Gunsberg's house for an after party.

Rob revealed in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald the pair left the do and headed for Paris's hotel.

'We did pretty much everything but (sex) and then we caught up at the races (Melbourne Cup in 2003) a week after,' he told the publication.
Nick Viall proposed to Vanessa Grimaldi on Monday's finale of The Bachelor.

But soon after their After The Final Rose special aired, fans accused the engaged couple of being 'awkward.' The reality star told People, 'You can never make people happy.'

Also on Monday, Viall shared several cute photos with his new fiancee as they mugged for the camera during selfies.

Happy with her rock: Nick Viall proposed to Vanessa Grimaldi on Monday's finale of The Bachelor. But soon after their After The Final Rose special aired, fans accused the engaged couple of being 'awkward.' Here they are seen in new selfies

He doesn't care about the haters: The reality star told People, 'You can never make people happy'

He added: 'I hope we came across as in love and passionate tonight. The reality is  we joke about it, but its true  we dont know what its like to go to the movies together, we dont know what its like to spend time together in the real world.

'Our relationship has been based off of stressful situations,' said Viall.

So the couple are focused on their future.

Another: The stars looked to be hamming it up big time for the camera

'I was excited for it to come to an end, but now I am sad,' she said.

'I mean, Im excited for us to start our real life together.'

Nick then said: 'Shes very much looking forward for this to be over. It was very difficult for us as a couple at the end.'

The truth: He added: 'I hope we came across as in love and passionate tonight. The reality is  we joke about it, but its true  we dont know what its like to go to the movies together, we dont know what its like to spend time together in the real world'

They also said they have 'a long way to go' and 'are getting to know each other' before they wed.

'I dont think any relationship is perfect,' said Grimaldi.

The stars were quick to share some selfies after they got engaged.

Two sweet: And then Grimaldi shared an image from Finland where she held out her hand showing off her ring as she was carried by Nick

In one Vanessa, in a black dress, shows off her ring.

She also hams it up by sticking her tongue out Miley Cyrus style.

And then Grimaldi shared an image from Finland where she held out her hand showing off her ring as she was carried by Nick.

Bach bling! When Nick proposed to Vanessa on Monday's finale of The Bachelor it was with a stunning diamond ring

And then there is her stunning diamond ring.

On Tuesday it was revealed by E! News that the Neil Lane designed wonder is estimated to be worth as much as $100,000.

The ring has a total of four carats and is a 'romantic' design with a large main stone surrounded by pave diamonds set in platinum.

Expensive! The Neil Lane designed wonder is estimated to be worth as much as $100,000, according to E! News

Diamonds are all around the band too.

'It's a traditional ring with an old-fashioned feel. It's got an old-soulit's classic and elegant,' another source shared told E! 'He chose it because that's what he thinks of her.'

The 29-year-old special ed teacher from Montreal accepted his proposal after much doubts and pontificating and they rode off together.

'Shall we go start our life?' said Nick, a 36-year-old Wisconsin native who's been heartbroken on the show twice before.

Here it comes: The star took it out of the box as he asked for her hand in marriage

There it goes: Viall slipped the rock on her left hand that had a pretty pink manicure

Stunning: The ring has a total of four carats and is a 'romantic' design with a large main stone surrounded by pave diamonds set in platinum

Sealed with a kiss: He went in for a smooch after she accepted his proposal

The devastated runner-up was Raven Gates, a 25-year-old fashion boutique owner from Arkansas, who left sobbing in a limo.

The show opened in snow-covered Rovaniemi in northern Finland.

'Apparently Santa Claus lives here,' said Nick.

Raven met his parents for the second time.

Nick's little sister Bella was gunning for Raven, while his father Chris deemed her 'mature' and 'a great partner for Nick'.

There it is: While on After the Final Rose with Chris Harrison, Vanessa showed off the ring on her left hand

His mother Mary called her 'honest and true'.

It was his family's first meeting with Vanessa.

She wooed them with the story of their first date, but expressed hesitation about rushing into marriage.

'There's a lot of things I want to talk about with Nick before the actual proposal date,' she told his father tearfully.

Each woman had one final date with Nick in Lapland.

Getting closer: The camera came in nicely to get a better look at the wonder

At the ceremony, Raven was the first to come in.

'I think about how much I've grown to care about you, respect you, and I feel, like, how much love I have for youI just don't know if I'm in love,' he sniffed.

'Like my heart's somewhere else,' he admitted.

'I'm torn up inside letting you go. I'm sorry,' he told her.

The man behind the ring: Neil Lane designed the gem, which he has done for all the Bachelor shows since the series began in 2002

Vanessa appeared and he spilled his guts. 'I will never forget the moment I saw you,' he told her.

'I don't want to fight it anymoreI'm in love with you,' he cried, getting down on one knee as he asked her to marry him.

Vanessa said yes and then formally accepted the final rose.

Nick previously tried finding love on two seasons of The Bachelorette and on Bachelor In Paradise.

After the show the two were seen on After The Final Rose then Jimmy Kimmel.
Mel B has paid an emotional tribute to her father Martin Brown, ten days after he died from cancer.

The 41-year-old former Spice Girl posted a poignant picture of flowers, cards and a candle on her Instagram account on Tuesday alongside a heartfelt caption.

'Thank you for everyone's kind gestures and words of support it really does mean a lot,' she wrote. 'If anyone wants to donate to St Gemmas hospice in Leeds, pls feel free to do so. They took such great care of my dad in his last few days on this earth.

Sad loss: Mel B posted a tribute to her father Martin who passed away just over a week ago

Poignant: Mel B paid tribute on Instagram to her father Martin Brown who passed away last week after a five year battle with cancer

'But I no (sic) he is in a better place now and I'm thankful phoenix and I got to hug him tell him how much we love him #restinpeacedaddy.'

The grieving star also posted an inspirational quote on her Instagram which read: 'You have to be at your strongest when you're feeling at your weakest.'

Mel shared the sad news a week ago, with a black and white picture of she and her sister holding her father's hands.

She wrote: 'It is with great sadness after a 5yr battle to multiple myeloma cancer our loving father Martin Brown passed away age 63 peacefully yesterday.

Inspirational: Mel reminded her followers of the need to be strong when feeling 'weak'

'Both of us his children were by his side and would like to say thank you to St Gemma's and all the doctors and nurses for there amazing care and support over the years.

She added 'Please respect our privacy and let us as a united family grieve. With love and respect. Melanie and Danielle Brown x'

The former Spice Girl signed off the note with 'Be Free Dad'

Sad news: Mel B announced on Sunday that her father Martin Brown has passed away aged 63

The TV star is pictured with her father Martin (right) and husband Stephen Belafonte in November 2007

Following the news, filming of America's Got Talent was cancelled by producers, TMZ reports.

Meanwhile Mel's sister Danielle, 36, posted the exact same photo and message on her Instagram announcing her father's death.

It appears the siblings have put aside their differences to be with their father following a long-running feud and complicated family history which has seen Mel not speak to some of her family, including mother Andrea, for years.

Family rift: It appears Mel and her sister Danielle (pictured in 2004) but their differences aside to be by their father's side in hospital this week. Danielle shared the same black and white photo on her Instagram on Sunday

Mel, 41, has reportedly recently mended her rift with her mother Andrea. The duo are pictured in 1997

In February Danielle took to Twitter to shoot down speculation that they'd reconciled following reports Mel had invited she, Andrea and father Martin to spend time at her family home in Los Angeles.

After alluding to 'family dramas', she wrote on February 12: 'Just 2 put the record strait! Ive Not seen my sister for 8 years,there is no family reunion planned,it is what it is #dontbelivewhatyouread (sic).'

Mel has daughter Madison, five, with husband Stephen Belafonte, daughter Angel, nine, with ex Eddie Murphy and daughter Phoenix with ex Jimmy Gulzar, 18.

Mel completed her final performance in the Broadway musical Chicago last month and currently hosts the second season of Lip Sync Battle UK, which airs Fridays on Channel 5.

Mel has daughter Madison, five, with husband Stephen Belafonte, daughter Angel, nine, with ex Eddie Murphy and daughter Phoenix with ex Jimmy Gulzar, 18.




The status of their on/off romance set tongues wagging after her pregnancy announcement.

Now, Binky Felstead, 26, and Josh 'JP' Patterson, 27, proved their relationship is going from strength to strength as they stepped out together for the first time since confirming their romance at the TRIC Awards at The Grosvenor House in London on Tuesday.

The pregnant Made In Chelsea star looked radiant as she sported a bump skimming burgundy number for the star-studded occasion that honours the best in television and radio.

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Loved-up: Binky Felstead, 26, and Josh 'JP' Patterson, 27, stepped out together for the first time since confirming their romance at the TRIC Awards on Tuesday in London

Binky glowed in the calf-length jersey dress that featured a stomach framing frill detail which grazed her blossoming bump.

The strapless number teased at her cleavage as she wrapped her arms around her hunky other half.

Looking the picture of happiness, the E4 darling's number highlighted her slender pins as she added inches to her petite frame with a pair of suede pointed heels.

Combating the Spring chill, she draped a collarless white three-quarter length sleeve over her blossoming figure, while she accessorised her red carpet look with two delicate chokers with circular detail and a taupe bag.

Radiant: The pregnant Made In Chelsea star looked radiant as she sported a bump skimming burgundy number for the star-studded occasion that honours the best in television and radio

Blossoming: Binky glowed in the calf-length jersey dress that featured a stomach framing frill detail which grazed her blossoming bump

The fashion entrepreneur worked her brunette locks into a tousled wave as she accentuated her radiant glow with a dusting of highlighter.

Complementing his lady-love, Josh looked suave in a navy double breasted blazer and matching suit trousers as he kept the reality star close to him.

He teamed his dapper ensemble with Binky's by bringing in touches of burgundy to his attire in the form of a tie, pocket square and velvet loafers.

Baby on board: Complementing his lady-love, Josh looked suave in a navy double breasted blazer and matching suit trousers

Their loved-up display comes days after Binky confirmed to MailOnline that she and Patterson - who announced in January that they are expecting a child together - were a couple once again.

Their relationship has had its ups and downs since it started to blossom during Made In Chelsea's ninth season.

'When this first started out, we werent together,' JP said of their relationship status at the time Binky told him she was expecting. 'We came to the conclusion that we werent going to just automatically get back together just for the child. It had to be right for us.

'Yes, we're back together': Binky and Josh insisted they 'never stopped loving each other' and that they've not reconciled JUST for their future baby

'But it happens organically when you are suddenly spending more time together. Ad so now I'd say that, yes, we are back together.'

Confirming this, Binky said: 'We are beyond the boyfriend and girlfriend thing. A lot of people automatically thought that the baby could be a bad thing for our relationship, and that if we got together again it was just for the baby.

'But we have always loved each other. The love was never gone. When we broke up last year, it was only a couple of weeks before we found out about me being pregnant. And for me, those two weeks showed me that Ive always missed him.'

'We have always loved each other': Binky has revealed that she never stopped loving JP

Big news: Despite taking time apart from one another in terms of their relationship, Binky and JP were still 'hanging out' - hence the sudden revelation that they were to become parents (pictured: Binky tells (L-R) Rosie Fortescue, Louise Thompson and Steph Pratt the news)

The couple's 'split' wasn't necessarily a 'split'; despite taking time apart from one another in terms of their relationship, Binky and JP were still 'hanging out' - hence the sudden revelation that they were to become parents.

And although Made In Chelsea has documented their romance in all it's highs and lows, the pair insist that everyone's circumstances are totally different.

'Relationships are not black and white,' JP went on. 'People just wrote us off because of the dramatic stuff that went on. So now its a true testament to how much we care for each other, because we have surpassed all that.

'Just because a couple has arguments and disagreements it doesn't mean that it's not meant to be!'

Relationship virgin: When he first appeared on the show as the series' resident hunk, JP made no secret that Binky was his first committed girlfriend

Going public: And Binky insists that their run-ins and doubts were normal for a new couple, but that their relationship just happened to play out on national TV

JP was notoriously a 'relationship virgin' when he first appeared on the show as the series' resident hunk; and it's no secret that Binky was his first committed girlfriend. And Binky insists that their run-ins and doubts were normal for a new couple, but that their relationship just happened to play out on national TV.

The former rugby player told co-star Sam Thompson and former co-star James Dunmore about the baby before anyone else; and expressed that he'd like James to return to the show for the pregnancy storyline, alongside girlfriend Lucy Watson.

'I would love James and Lucy to come back,' he said. ' This is a moment Id love to share with James on the show. And I am lucky to have Sammy [Thompson].'

He also admitted that he was terrified when Binky first told him the news: 'It scared the s**t out of me. Having a baby is one thing  but to do it on camera!

Old pals: The former rugby player told former co-star James Dunmore about the baby before anyone else; and expressed that he'd like James to return to the show for the pregnancy storyline, alongside girlfriend Lucy Watson (pictured)

'But Made In Chelsea have been amazing, in terms of support and the way things have been shot.'

Of the fact that this will be the first Made In Chelsea baby, Binky retained that it's a bit 'weird'.

'It does feel strange, and weird. But it's such a wonderful thing, and it's very exciting,' she explained. 'And now there's really no need for us to be involved with all the drama. I need a break from it. I've been doing it for six years!'

'A bit weird': Of the fact that this will be the first Made In Chelsea baby, Binky retained that it's been a strange feeling

Back seat? Despite the fact that the pregnancy will be well documented on the forthcoming show, which returns next week, Binky said her future on the series is up in the air when it comes to the child's birth

She added: 'Everyones so excited; even Victoria [Baker Harber]. She came up and spoke to JP. Never in her life had she done that!'

Despite the fact that the pregnancy will be well documented on the forthcoming show, which returns next week, Binky said her future on the series is up in the air when it comes to the child's birth.

'I dont know what will happen after the baby comes. I might take a back seat. But at the end of the day, it would be weird for me to completely leave the show,' she said.

Made In Chelsea season 13 starts on March 20 on E4.
Real Housewives Of Sydney's Nicole O'Neil has revealed she doesn't believe her children are spoiled.

The Miss Australia winner proudly dresses her kids in designer clothes, and even recently walked them through economy class on a plane to see the 'squashed in' people - but she doesn't believe it's the Australian public's place to judge.

'Meet my children before you judge them,' the reality star told The Daily Telegraph this week, before clarifying her comments.

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'Not spoiled': RHOS' Nicole O'Neil has come out in defense of claims her kids are 'spoiled,' denying it saying critics should 'meet her children' before they judged them

'No one who has met them has ever told me they are spoiled, which is a great compliment to myself and my husband,' Nicole said.

The model recently clarified comments about walking her kids Neve, 11, and Nawal, 12, through economy class furing flights.

'That was taken out of context, it was part of a long conversation,' she stated.

The report also noted that Nicole dressed her children in one of Dolce and Gabana's hottest dresses to the premiere of Beauty and The Beast.

Lucky! The comments come after Nicole said on the show she walked Neve, 11, and Nawal, 12 through economy class on a plane to see the 'sqaushed in' people so they could see how lucky they were

Clarified! In an interview published Tuesday, the Miss Australia winner defended the statements, saying 'That was taken out of context, it was part of a long conversation'

On the latest episode of the show, the personality had other drama on her mind.

Following Victoria Rees' heated lunch on last week's episode of The Real Housewives of Sydney, Lisa Oldfield and Nicole met up for a quiet breakfast together to discuss the drama that went down between AthenaX Levendi and Matty Samaei.

'I think we need to tell Athena that she needs to apologize to Matty,' said Nicole, referring to Athena's comments to Matty about the beautician's Botox.

Athena then joined the twosome, and as usual, it didn't take her long before she started to rant about her spirituality.

'I think we need to tell Athena that she needs to apologize to Matty': Lisa Oldfield, Nicole and AthenaX Levendi met up for breakfast to discuss Athena's fight with Matty Samaei

Lisa and Nicole tried to explain to the enlightened artist that she may have put some of the other women off and crossed the line with Matty, but she still wasn't convinced that she was in the wrong.

She then accused Matty of trying to make her look 'un-spiritual', to which Lisa responded: 'I just wish you wouldn't talk so much.'

'I think you're right,' mused Athena, who then finally agreed to try and make things right with Matty.

Athena accused Matty of trying to make her look 'un-spiritual', to which Lisa responded: 'I just wish you wouldn't talk so much!'

'I think you're right,' mused Athena, who then finally agreed to try and make things right with Matty

Meanwhile, Melissa Tkautz was busy meeting with the director of her new horror movie, the expletive-ridden killer pig flick Boar.

'There's nothing better than a blonde chick punchin' a f***er out in the pub!' exclaimed director Chris Sun as they watched some rough footage from the film together.

Matty then arrived to give her opinion on the footage, and she seemed quite impressed.

Blockbuster? Matty went to Melissa Tkautz's to watch some scenes from the star's upcoming movie, a killer pig thriller called Boar

'There's nothing better than a blonde chick punchin' a f***er out in the pub!' exclaimed director Chris Sun as they watched some rough footage from the film together

'Babe worked, so why wouldn't a big angry pig work?' she said.

The topic soon turned to Athena, with Matty saying that the artist 'hides behind her spirituality', while Melissa labeled her behaviour at the lunch 'disgusting.'

Later that night, Lisa enjoyed a family dinner with husband David, her dad, and her niece.

'Babe worked, so why wouldn't a big angry pig work?' Matty said about the movie

The pair soon talked about Athena, with Matty saying that the artist 'hides behind her spirituality', while Melissa labeled her behaviour at Victoria's lunch 'disgusting'

However, things became tense as the controversial couple started to bicker over cleaning and other issues.

'I think David is angry because I'm not spending enough time with him and he does feel ignored, so he's very much gone from being my biggest supporter to my biggest critic,' Lisa said in her confessional.

By the end of the dinner, David had told Lisa she was going to hell while the brunette snapped at her husband to 'f**k off'.

Later that night, Lisa enjoyed a family dinner with husband David, her dad, and her niece

No love: Things became tense as the controversial couple started to bicker over cleaning and other issues

A few days later, the ladies got together for Athena's glamorous 'Greek goddess' themed 41st birthday bash.

Everybody showed up except for Matty, who decided at the last minute not to attend after failing to receive a phone call or apology from Athena after their spat at Victoria's lunch.

The women then sat down to eat, where Melissa broke the news to Athena that Matty wasn't attending.

Let's party! A few days later, the ladies got together for Athena's glamorous 'Greek goddess' themed 41st birthday bash

No show: Krissy and Melissa spoke to Matty on the phone, who said she wasn't coming to the party because AthenaX hadn't apologised for their fight

'Matty's a really nice person,' said Melissa. 'If you want to be friends and get over this hump, you need to make that phone call.'

'But I've already done that!' replied Athena, to which Melissa shrieked back: 'No you haven't!'

Athena then read out the text message that she'd sent to Matty, which was a friendly invitation to her birthday, but contained no apology.

Hashing it out: The ladies sat down for dinner and to discuss Matty's absence

'Matty's a really nice person,' said Melissa. 'If you want to be friends and get over this hump, you need to make that phone call'

Athena read out the text message that she'd sent to Matty, which was a friendly invitation to her birthday, but contained no apology.

Fed up with the drama, Lisa pulled Victoria away for a private chat - and then began to confess her marital problems with David.

'I feel like I'm a failure as a mother and a wife,' sighed Lisa. 'There doesn't feel like there's any love or support there, and I feel very lonely.'

'I f***in work my ass off and pay for the mortgage and everything else. I love where we're living, I love my children, I love all my animals, I love my beautiful home... I just hate the mongrel that I'm living with,' she revealed.

Fed up with the drama, Lisa pulled Victoria away for a private chat - and then began to confess her marital problems with David

'I feel like I'm a failure as a mother and a wife,' sighed Lisa. 'There doesn't feel like there's any love or support there, and I feel very lonely'

The brunette went even further, admitting that her two young sons have no respect for women, or for her as their mother.

By the time she revealed that her two sons called her a 'bad mum', the outspoken star could no longer hold back the tears.

Victoria then urged Lisa to divorce David for the good of her children, before giving her the name and number of her lawyer.

Tears: Lisa revealed that her two sons called her a 'bad mum', the outspoken star could no longer hold back the tears
A local foods workshop to help farmers market vendors increase sales is set for 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 25 in North College Center at Mineral Area College.

The session gives farmers market vendors information on a variety of topics. Extension specialists will discuss the Food Safety Modernization Act and how it affects vendors. Vendors will learn proper food storage and handling methods along with sampling at the market. Farmers market vendors must follow state regulations and county health codes.

University of Missouri Extension horticulture specialist Donna Aufdenberg says vendors will learn how to give samples of their products following health regulations. We know that sampling at the market can increase sales and customer loyalty, but it must be done right to protect the vendors and their customers, said Aufdenberg.

Katie Kammler, MU Extension horticulture specialist, will talk about weed control methods. MU Extension agronomist Rusty Lee will talk about integrated pest management practices for cucumber beetle. There also will be a program on grading, quality and pricing data gathered from markets around Missouri. Missouri Department of Agriculture representatives will let vendors know about funding available for markets. Scale certification also will be available.

Mineral Area Colleges North College Center is at 5270 Flat River Road, Park Hills. Contact Katie Kammler at kammlerk@missouri.edu or 573-883-3548 for more information. The registration flier is available under Upcoming events at extension.missouri.edu/stegenevieve, or you can request that one be mailed to you. Registration is $15 and includes lunch. Register by March 20.
She is known for her selection of stunning dresses worn during her regular appearances on Countdown.

And Rachel Riley looked as glamorous as ever on Tuesday, as she arrived at the TRIC Awards, hosted by the Television And Radio Industries Club, in London.

The 31-year-old showed off her enviably slender figure in a sexy but sophisticated blue lace midi dress as she made her glamorous arrival at the star-studded bash.

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Lace dream: Rachel Riley looked as glamorous as ever on Tuesday, as she arrived at the TRIC Awards, hosted by the Television And Radio Industries Club, in London

The blonde looked truly stunning in the frock, which saw a figure-hugging strapless dress layered beneath a thin layer of delicate blue lace.

With the under-layer cutting off in a sweetheart neckline, the semi-sheer material gave a sexy glimpse of her bust by pulling into a high neck over her bare skin.

Keeping utterly sophisticated however, the dress then cinched in at her slim waist with a satin belt, before skimming her slender figure all the way to its classy knee-length hem.

Stunning: The blonde looked truly stunning in the frock, which saw a figure-hugging strapless dress layered beneath a thin layer of delicate blue lace

Sexy chic: With the under-layer cutting off in a sweetheart neckline, the semi-sheer material gave a sexy glimpse of her bust by pulling into a high neck over her bare skin

Accessorising with simple nude pointed heels and a metallic clutch, Rachel kept all eyes on her show-stopping look as she comfortably posed for cameras.

The former Strictly Come Dancing star styled her hair into big, bouncy curls and added a heavy slick of eyeliner for a finishing touch of glamour.

The blonde mingled with a number of stars at the event, including TV favourite Eamonn Holmes - but left her beau Pasha Kovalev at home.

Friends in high places: The blonde mingled with a number of stars at the event, including TV favourite Eamonn Holmes - but left her beau Pasha Kovalev at home

Confidence is key: Accessorising with simple nude pointed heels and a metallic clutch, Rachel kept all eyes on her show-stopping look as she comfortably posed for cameras

Glowing: Rachel added a sweeping of bronzer and a hint of rosy blusher to draw attention to her naturally pretty features

Rachel was perhaps trying to avoid any embarrassment from her Strictly Come Dancing star boyfriend, who recently spelled out a rude word on a celebrity special of Countdown.

The Oxford-educated beauty was red-faced as the "Letters Round" saw her beau, who was sitting in as a lexicographer, spell out the word 'Phallus', a term for a penis - much to the cast's amusement.

The pair who met on the beloved BBC reality show in 2013, have been dating since September last year, following Rachel's split from her husband Jamie Gilbert.

Cuddling up: Rachel appeared to be having a ball at the bash as she mingled with Eamonn and a number of other stars

Also present at the event was Marvin Humes - stepping out solo to attend just four days after wife Rochelle gave birth.

The dapper chap, 31, was looking sharp in a smart grey suit as he posed on the red carpet.

Marvin injected some cool points to his look thanks to a patterned pocket square and a pair of leather tipped trainers.

The former JLS star no doubt ensured his attendance was fleeting, rushing back home to his wife and two daughters after the main event.

TRIC AWARDS - WINNERS REALITY PROGRAMME Britain's Got Talent Strictly Come Dancing- WINNER X Factor SOAP PERSONALITY June Brown Kym Marsh - WINNER Tina O'Brien FACTUAL PROGRAMME DIY SOS Planet Earth II - WINNER The Real Marigold Hotel DIGITAL RADIO PROGRAMME Heart Breakfast - Jamie Theakston & Emma Bunton - WINNER Vodafone Big Top 40 Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show SPORTS PRESENTER Jeff Stelling - WINNER Gaby Logan Sue Barker NEWS PRESENTER/REPORTER Evan Davis - WINNER Jeremy Thompson Victoria Derbyshire TV PERSONALITY Ant & Dec Holly Willoughby - WINNER Keith Lemon SATELLITE/DIGITAL PROGRAMME Celebrity Juice - WINNER Made In Chelsea TOWIE HD DRAMA PROGRAMME Cold Feet Poldark - WINNER Vera DAYTIME PROGRAMME BBC Breakfast Sunday Brunch This Morning - WINNER CRIME PROGRAMME Death In Paradise - WINNER Happy Valley The Night Manager TV SOAP OF THE YEAR Coronation Street EastEnders - WINNER Emmerdale ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME Gogglebox Have I Got News For You Saturday Night Takeaway - WINNER ORIGINAL OTT STREAMED Grand Tour The Crown - WINNER House Of Cards HD SPORTS PROGRAMME A League Of Their Own Match Of The Day - WINNER The Last Leg RADIO PRESENTER Dave Berry Simon Mayo Emma Bunton - WINNER WEATHER PRESENTER Carol Kirkwood - WINNER Laura Tobin Nazaneen Ghaffar TRIC SPECIAL AWARD June Brown Advertisement

Back at work: Also present at the event was Marvin Humes - stepping out solo to attend just four days after wife Rochelle gave birth

Happy families: On Friday, it was announced that Rochelle and Marvin had welcomed baby daughter Valentina Raine

Dapper chap: Marvin injected some cool points to his look thanks to a patterned pocket square and a pair of leather tipped trainers

Rochelle, who is already mum to three-year-old daughter Alaia-Mai, announced the news of social media on Friday by posting a heartwarming snap of herself cradling her newborn child, with the caption: 'The Our world is now complete'.

Meanwhile, Rochelle caused a stir when she took to Instagram on Sunday to post an image of the tot's dehydrated umbilical cord shaped into the word love and framed.

The 27-year-old Saturday songstress shared the image with her 1 million followers, who appeared divided by her choice of art, which she posted alongside an image of her placenta in pills.

'I just got sick': Rochelle is ensuring she remembers baby Valentina Raine is a unique was as she took to Instagram on Sunday to post an image of the tot's dehydrated umbilical cord shaped into the word love and framed
They've decamped to Australia for a six-week escape in the sun.

But Gaz Beadle's girlfriend Emma McVey was on her own this week, soaking up the opportunity of some sunshine in the Geordie Shore star's absence.

She certainly won't have escaped many sun-worshippers' attention on the beach because her lithe model figure was a site for sore eyes.

Bikini babe: Gaz Beadle's girlfriend Emma McVey looked incredible when she hit the beach in Australia this week

British model Emma looked lithe in a green floral bikini, which featured a soft scalloped edge and ribbon ties.

With a deep tan, the brunette could boast a set of well-defined abs but also showed off her peachy rear from behind.

Despite enjoying the sea and sand in the soaring temperatures, she was remarkably well-groomed with her brown hair left loose and glossy and shades on her head.

Cheeky: Ready for sun, sea and sand in a teeny tropical bikini

Topping up her tan: The brunette topped up an already impressive tan on the sands

Gaz has recently finished filming the latest series of Geordie Shore and told his followers that he would be Down Under with Emma for the time being.

The duo flew out last Wednesday and aren't due home in the UK for another month and a half.

Emma and Gaz went public with their relationship last August and have been a happy couple ever since.

Having previously been scolded for cheating on Charlotte Crosby, Gaz recently insisted that he would never be unfaithful to girlfriend Emma.

Gorgeous: The British model was enjoying some time alone, without Gaz

He told The Sun: 'I was with the right girls at the wrong time. Ive made mistakes, like cheating, but Im trying not to do that again. My current girlfriend Emma is great.

'Our relationship is different to ones Ive had before, because they were all in the public eye. This relationship feels more normal.'

He added: 'You wouldnt think it, but I am quite shy. I can have sex on camera on Geordie Shore because thats just me with one person in a room, but put me in front of 50 people with a microphone and I would freeze.'
They welcomed their first baby - a boy named Monte - last August.

And proud parents Guy Pearce and his actress partner Carice van Houten made a rare outing in Amsterdam with their six-month-old bundle of joy.

Dressed casually in a black jacket, scarf and black jeans, the Australian actor pushed the pram while 40-year-old Carice strode alongside.

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Proud parents: Guy Pearce and his partner Carice van Houten stepped out in Amsterdam with their son Monte

The actress, who plays Red Priestess Melissandre in hit drama Game Of Thrones, looked a far cry from her elaborately dressed alter-ego, sporting a pink hat and black coat.

Sporting glasses and a black shoulder bag, Carice teamed her outfit with glasses, white jeans and black boots.

The couple, who are based in the Dutch City, looked very much in love, with Guy wrapping his arm around Carice during their stroll.

Parenthood: Carice welcomed the couple's first child back in August 2016

The couple announced the birth of their baby via Twitter last summer, with Guy posting: 'A cute little package arrived and told us his names Monte Pearce. We think were gonna keep him. Placenta smoothie anyone?'

Tagging his partner in the up-beat tweet, Carice then responded with a slew of cute baby emojis.

Since the birth, the couple have kept a low profile, although Carice occasionally posts about parenthood via her Twitter account.

Low key: The couple have been rarely spotted out and about with their six-month-old

'Oh maaan, we made such a cute little baby @theguypearce,' she posted to Twitter back in January.

And a month earlier, the besotted actress added: 'The softness of my baby's skin is INSANE. End of message.'

Guy is also clearly enjoying fatherhood, tweeting last year: 'Thanks for all the lovely birthday wishes everybody !! My first as a Dad. It might still be a while before I hear "Happy Birthday Papa" tho.'

Tweet messages: Carice occasionally posts about how besotted she is with the new arrival on Twitter

Guy and Carice made their relationship official in 2015, and confirmed she was pregnant with the couple's child in March 2016 - little Monte is both Carice and Guy's first child.

Carice has found international fame with her role in Game of Thrones, but has starred alongside the likes of Tom Cruise in Valkyrie.

Her beau is famous for his roles blockbusters, such as, Memento, Iron Man 3 and LA Confidential - before hitting the big-time in Hollywood, Guy starred as Mike Young in Aussie soap, Neighbours.
Khloe Kardashian sure is relentless about plugging her Good American denim line.

On Tuesday the 32-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star was at it again as she shared three images in the brand on Instagram.

This comes the day after she pulled out all the stops for her new boyfriend's 26th birthday on Monday. The reality television star spoiled Tristan Thompson with a lavish party, filled with balloons and donuts.

Kute: Khloe Kardashian sure is relentless about plugging her Good American denim line. On Tuesday the 32-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star was at it again

Bottoms up! Her light blue jeans were skintight and showed off her large bottom, tiny waistline and toned legs

The outspoken Kardashian looked sensational in a light blue denim snap shirt over a silver bra.

Her light blue jeans were skintight and showed off her large bottom, tiny waistline and toned legs.

The daughter of Kris Jenner added denim heels to make her look complete.

Nice kicks Koko: The daughter of Kris Jenner added denim heels to make her look complete

Birthday bash! Khloe pulled out all the stops for her new boyfriend's 26th birthday on Monday

Attention to detail: Gold balloons spelled out: 'Happy Birthday T', and the gold theme - presumably in keeping with his team colors - was continued throughout

Khloe, 32, shared a video of the celebration with Snapchat followers, alongside her Cleveland Cavaliers beau.

Gold balloons spelled out: 'Happy Birthday T', and the gold theme - presumably in keeping with his team colors - was continued throughout.

She revealed a box of ring donuts which had gold icing drizzled across them.

Khloe had also surprised him with gold KitKat bars, and gold tinsel and ribbons around the place.

Couple: She posted with her Cleveland Cavaliers beau

Khloe wore her hair in Dutch braids and appeared to be clad in black.

Tristan looked ready to party in an Hawaiian print T-shirt, which he teamed with a giant gold cross around his neck.

He was wearing his baseball cap backwards.

Lovely girlfriend! The reality television star spoiled Tristan Thompson with a lavish party

Thoughtful: Khloe, 32, shared a video of the celebration with Snapchat followers

Also on Tuesday she talked on khloekardashian.com about keeping her weight down.

'Getting in shape is NOT about a weight number, dolls! Relying on the scale can really kill your motivation because you'll often lose fat but gain muscle, which means those numbers can often be discouraging.

'So here's the deal: The way your body LOOKS is the #1 best way to tell that you're moving forward.

'Taking progress pics of yourself about every four weeks will allow you to see how your body is changing over time. Nothing is more motivating and rewarding than when you compare your pics and actually see the payoff! So get busy, my selfie sistasthe camera never lies!'

Tropical fashion: Tristan looked ready to party in an Hawaiian print T-shirt, which he teamed with a giant gold cross around his neck

Bling fingers: Khloe had also surprised him with gold KitKat bars, and gold tinsel and ribbons around the place

Carb fest: She revealed a box of ring donuts which had gold icing drizzled across them

Cute touch: These appear to be photos of the couple and others

Khloe was seen introducing her Thompson to her family during Sunday's season premiere ofKeeping Up With The Kardashians.

The star was asked by sister Kourtney about her new boyfriend Tristan and their recent trip to Mexico.

'My boyfriend's name is Tristan Thompson, he is a Pisces, he is Jamaican from Toronto and he plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers,' Khloe told the cameras.

'We had just the best time,' she told Kourtney about their trip to Mexico.

'Right now my relationship is really new and I want to keep it close to my heart and not shout everything out from the rooftops. I have learned from the past and it is a lot of pressure to put your relationship out there,' she said.

'I don't need someone directing Tristan and I, so I am very choosy as to who I share my dating life with,' Khloe said.

Sunny break: The star was asked by sister Kourtney about her new boyfriend Tristan and their recent trip to Mexico on Sunday's KUWTK

Khloe told her sister the family was 'intense' and she wanted to keep it 'confined.'

Khloe and Tristan have been an item since at least September. In that time, Thompson's ex-girlfriend Jordan Craig gave birth to his newborn son Prince.

As well as her younger boo's birthday, Khloe had a busy weekend celebrating the premiere of the 13th season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which started Sunday night on E!
Michelle Connor, played by Kym Marsh, has already suffered a tragic stillbirth on the ITV soap this year.

But Coronation Street fans are only set for further heartbreak, as Sinead Tinker will also lose her baby in the coming episodes.

According to The Sun, The Underworld employee, played by Katie McGlynn, endures the devastating loss just weeks after unexpectedly discovering she had fallen pregnant with her new boyfriend Daniel Osbourne's baby.

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Further tragdy: Coronation Street is set for further heartbreak this year, as Sinead Tinker played by Katie McGlynn (above) will also lose her baby in the coming episodes

More heartbreak: Michelle Connor, played by Kym Marsh, has already suffered a tragic stillbirth on the ITV soap this year

Sinead has only just discovered she is expecting with Daniel (Rob Mallard) - after recently leaving her boyfriend Chesney Brown to embark on the new relationship.

However things are set to take a heartbreaking turn for Sinead, as she goes on to lose the unborn child following a row with Daniel's father Ken Barlow.

Upon discovery of the baby news, Ken, played by William Roache, erupts into rage at Sinead - in light of his son having just scored a place on a Masters course at Oxford University.

Fraught: Things are set to take a heartbreaking turn for the youngster, as she reportedly miscarries the child following a row with Daniel's father Ken Barlow

Not wanting the baby to affect his son's future potential, the ITV stalwart urges Sinead to break things off with Daniel so he can continue with his education.

It is not known whether the stress of the row sparks the tragedy, but Sinead sadly loses the baby soon afterwards.

Recently talking to the Daily Star about the heartbreaking scenes, actress Katie admitted: 'Sinead is in tears and Daniel is devastated when they find out.

Shock: Upon discovery of the baby news, Ken, played by William Roache, erupts into rage at Sinead - in light of his son having just scored a place on a Masters course at Oxford University

'They've had to deal with so much when they still should have been in the honeymoon period of a relationship.'

She added: 'They've just had bad luck, especially so early in their relationship.'

The scenes will no doubt cause fresh heartbreak among viewers - who have already seen Kym Marsh's character Michelle Connor tragically endure a stillbirth this year.

In January, the actress was highly praised by viewers for her gut-wrenching portrayal of a distraught Michelle.

Heartbreaking: Sinead has only just discovered she is pregnant with Daniel's baby - after recently leaving her boyfriend Chesney Brown to embark on the new relationship

In the harrowing scenes, her character was seen getting rushed to hospital as she went into labour just 23 weeks into her pregnancy.

Talking to her husband Steve, played by Simon Gregson, on the phone, she said: 'My waters have broken. It's too early, I'm scared.'

Sobbing as she realised she was losing her baby, she said: 'What did I do wrong Steve? No please no. It's just an innocent baby, I am just a rubbish mum.

'I was meant to take care of him Steve, I can't give birth knowing he is going to to die. I want him to come home with us.'

Sensitive: The scenes will no doubt cause fresh heartbreak among viewers - who have already seen Kym Marsh's character Michelle Connor tragically endure a stillbirth this year

The scene was only made more heartbreaking by the fact that both Kym and Simon have lost babies in real life.

The 42-year-old actor has suffered 11 miscarriages with his wife Emma, while Kym lost her baby Archie after he was born prematurely at 21 weeks in 2009.

Viewers flooded to Twitter immediately after the episode to praise the duo on their heart-wrenching portrayals, leaving many viewers in tears.

Addressing the co-stars directly, one moved viewer wrote: 'What brilliant actors. Such a personal experience for both involved and still done with such pride.'

Good work: Viewers flooded to Twitter immediately after the episode to praise Kym and on-screen husband Simon Gregson (R) on their heart-wrenching portrayals

While another stated: 'Amazing scenes earlier. Kym Marsh you were incredible especially having already gone through it, such a brave thing to do.'

In light of the dramatic episodes, it has since been reported that Kym will now star in the soap until 2018 - having impressed ITV bosses with the sensitive portrayal.

The 40-year-old actress had drawn on her own experience when she performed the heartbreaking miscarriage scenes - having lost her son Archie Jay Lomas eight years ago just moments after he was born.

TV insiders now say that Kym's nuanced performance wowed bosses and viewers alike, and now she's been rewarded with a new contract.

Impressive: In light of the dramatic episodes, it has since been reported that Kym (above) will now star in the soap until 2018 - having impressed ITV bosses with her sensitive portrayal

A source told The Sun: 'Over the past year she has been handed some really challenging storylines, and she has handled them all brilliantly, but it was the miscarriage scenes that really blew them away.

'Over the years Michelle has become a real Street favourite and everyone is pleased that Kym has signed for another year.'

Kym recently revealed that she had plumbed her own painful experience to bring Michelle's story to life.

'My reasons behind agreeing to go ahead with it were in the hopes that it might help someone somewhere,' she told Good Morning Britain, 'or that someone might relate to it and it would help people to talk.'

The star also reiterated her desire for a change in the law for parents of stillborn babies to be given birth certificates, while she appeared on the show.

'That was one of the things for me when I lost Archie eight years ago which grated on me,' she admitted. 'Why is my son not registered?

'A lot of parents who have lost children feel the same way.'
She's an aspiring model.

And Lisa Rinna's daughter Amelia Hamlin, 15, did her best to prove she belongs in that crowd during a night out at The Nice Guy in West Hollywood on Monday.

The youngest daughter of Lisa and Harry Hamlin bared her midriff in a lace-up crop top and high-waisted jeans.

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Aspiring model: Lisa Rinna's daughter Amelia Hamlin, 15, enjoyed a night out at The Nice Guy in West Hollywood on Monday

Amelia paired her revealing outfit with high-heeled suede boots and a black zip-up jacket that she left open and wore slightly off the shoulder.

She wore her hair casually parted down the center and hanging straight around her shoulders.

The teen kept her makeup fresh and clean as she needed very little to allow her naturally glowing and youthful skin shine through.

There was no sign of her older sister or famous parents as she enjoyed her moment in the limelight, happily smiling for the photographers.

Celebrity offspring: The youngest daughter of Lisa and Harry Hamlin bared her midriff in a lace-up crop top and high-waisted jeans

Getting her foot in the door: She's hanging out a lot in Hollywood in hopes that her career will take off

Amelia, whose sister Delilah signed a contract with Elite Models last summer and walked in Tommy Hilfiger's NY Fashion Week Show last September, also has aspirations to be a model.

She has yet to be signed to any modeling agency, but don't expect mom Lisa help them get a foot in the door.

In an interview with ET in December, the Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star insisted that her girls are getting ahead all on their own merit.

'I didn't do anything to help them do anything, to be honest,' she said.

'They've done everything on their own. They work very hard.'

Doing it on her own: Her sister Delilah signed a contract with Elite Models last summer and Amelia is trying to get her own gig
Jennifer Garner jetted off to Mexico for just 48 hours over the weekend.

The 44-year-old actress looked summery yet stylish in a black swimsuit and matching cover-up as she chatted with girlfriends on the beach.

The group of women sat chatting in a shaded cabana just steps away from the ocean.

Quick break: Jennifer Garner enjoyed a quick trip to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico over the weekend

The Daredevil star wore her brunette locks pinned up in a bun and shaded her eyes with fashionable shades.

It's not clear what the occasion was but it was a flying visit for the mother-of-three who was spotted back home in Los Angeles on Monday.

Puerto Vallarta is just a three-hour flight from Los Angeles so makes for the perfect weekend getaway.

The 44-year-old actress was seen with girlfriends hanging out at some beach cabanas

Winter sun: The mother-of-three donned a black bikini and cover-up as she enjoyed a little quality time with pals

This comes after estranged husband Ben Affleck revealed that he has been in a rehab facility getting help for alcohol addiction.

In a statement he posted to his Facebook page, the two-time Oscar winner said: 'I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction; something I've dealt with in the past and will continue to confront.'

'I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be. I want my kids to know there is no shame in getting help when you need it, and to be a source of strength for anyone out there who needs help but is afraid to take the first step.'

Catch-up time: The Daredevil beauty looked a little distracted as she sat in a cabana with her girlfriends

Flying visit: Puerto Vallarta is just a three-hour flight from LAX so was a perfect weekend destination for the star

Affleck, who separated from Garner in 2015 but never divorced, thanked his actress wife and his friends for standing by him.

'I'm lucky to have the love of my family and friends, including my co-parent, Jen, who has supported me and cared for our kids as I've done the work I set out to do,' he wrote.

There have also been reports that the actress has called off her divorce from Ben.

The couple announced they were divorcing in June 2015 after 10 years of marriage.

But according to People Jennifer has now decided to call of the divorce as the pair are in 'marriage-repair mode'.

Summer vibes: The movie star looked stylish with her long brunette locks pinned up in a bun and shaded her eyes with sunglasses

She was set to move ahead with the divorce a month ago but their relationship made an abrupt turn.

'Jen has called off the divorce. She really wants to work things out with Ben. They are giving things another try,' a source close to Jennifer told the magazine.

Jennifer shares children Violet, 11, Seraphina, eight and five-year-old Samuel with the Argo star.

Time away: The star is yet to proceed with her divorce from estranged husband Ben Affleck who she split from in 2015

Fun in the sun: Jennifer covered up with a sun hat as the ladies got situated

Nice spot: The cabanas were just steps away from the water

'This was the first of many steps': Her estranged husband Ben Affleck revealed that he has completed treatment for alcohol addiction
She recently revealed that vile trolls called her a 'horrible fat cow' during her presenting stint on I'm A Celebrity Extra Camp.

But Vicky Pattison appeared to have put all that behind her as she arrived at the TRIC Awards at London's Grosvenor House on Tuesday.

The reality star, 29, showed off her enviably svelte figure in a stunning embellished dress, which featured a vintage-inspired sheer cape.

Classy look: Vicky Pattison showed off her svelte figure in a stunning embellished dress

The brunette beauty displayed a hint of cleavage in the flirty white number, which plunged into a low V.

Pulling the look together with metallic accessories, she teamed the dress with a gold clutch bag and a pair of matching heeled sandals.

Wearing her glossy tresses in loose waves, Vicky finished off the sophisticated look with lashings of mascara and a nude lipstick.

High spirits: The reality star, 29, flashed a wide smile as she appeared on the red carpet

Glamorous: The sophisticated white dress featured a vintage-inspired sheer cape

Vicky joined some of television's biggest names at the glitzy awards ceremony, which is also known as the The Television and Radio Industries Club Awards.

The former Geordie Shore star recently revealed that her self-esteem had suffered thanks to trolls during her TV presenting stint last year.

Speaking to the Daily Star On Sunday, the Geordie Shore star admitted that viewers had cruelly branded her 'a horrible fat cow, a bad role model and a s*** TV presenter' during her time fronting I'm A Celebrity: Extra Camp.

Vicky jetted to Australia in November to join the presenting team on the ITV2 spin-off show alongside Stacey Solomon, Joe Swash and Chris Ramsey - having won the beloved jungle series herself in 2015.

Despite winning the hearts of her fans, some viewers proceeded to lash out at the star's appearance - becoming particularly riled up when she introduced the show as The Xtra Factor in a confused moment.

Beaming: The stunning star flashed a mega watt grin at the cameras as she posed for pictures

Stunning display: Pulling the look together with metallic accessories, she teamed the dress with a gold clutch bag and a pair of matching heeled sandals
A busy day in London culminated in grand surroundings on Tuesday evening as Angelina Jolie paid a visit to Buckingham Palace.

The Hollywood actress, 41, was joined by son Maddox as they took the short trip from their lavish hotel, just hours after she accepted a new role as professor in practice of London School of Economics.

Dressed appropriately in a smart black evening dress and matching leather boots, Angelina looked typically elegant as they made their way towards a waiting car.

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Surprise appearance: A busy day in London culminated in grand surroundings on Tuesday evening as Angelina Jolie paid a visit to Buckingham Palace

With her brunette hair swept back, Angelina revealed her sharply defined features, accentuated by deft touches of make-up.

Walking alongside his mother, Maddox appeared to be in high spirits ahead of their visit to the Queen's historic London home.

Given their destination the 15-year old looked surprisingly casual in a loose fitting shirt, jeans and trainers.

In good company: The actress was joined by son Maddox ahead of the visit

Let's go: The pair were side by side as they edxited their hotel and made their way towards a waiting car

Natural beauty: With her brunette hair swept back, Angelina revealed her sharply defined features, accentuated by deft touches of make-up

With a hotel doorman quietly observing, the pair offered bystanders a polite smile as they climbed into their vehicle.

Moments later their car was been being accepted through the wrought iron gates of the Palace.

It is understood Angelina and Maddox were given a highly unusual private tour of Buckingham Palace, where no members of the royal family were present.

The Palace will be open daily for visits to its State Rooms from 9:30am to 7:30pm from July 22 to August 31.

It will reopen for tourists from September 1 to October 1, with exclusive evening visits running from 5:30pm.

Walk this way: A doorman observed the actress and her young son as they swept past

Looking good: Dressed appropriately in a smart black evening dress and matching leather boots, Angelina looked typically elegant

Upbeat: Walking alongside his mother, Maddox appeared to be in high spirits ahead of their visit to the Queen's historic London home

Earlier that day the star said she was 'feeling butterflies' before she lectured at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, beginning a new master's course on the impact of war on women.

Despite her nerves, she embodied her new, visiting professor mantle perfectly, paring down her iconic Hollywood image in favour of a simple yet sophisticated longline coat.

Angelina told London's Evening Standard: 'Im a little nervous, feeling butterflies. I hope I do well. This is very important to me.'

Leading the way: Angelina walked ahead of her son as they began their journey on Tuesday evening

Busy: The actress was making her way to the Palace just hours after she accepted a new role as professor in practice of London School of Economics

Here they come: Angelina's car was later seen making its way through the wrought iron gates of Buckingham Palace

The actress addressed a class of students taking the same-titled postgraduate course, Women, Peace and Security - and her speech went down well with the class, who described the presentation as 'wonderful'.

The course helps scholars, practitioners, activists, policy-makers and students to develop strategies to promote justice, human rights and participation for women in conflict-affected situations around the world.

They conduct original research and teach with the aim of promoting gender equality and enhancing womens economic, social and political participation and security.

As part of her fellowship, Angelina will also be able to conduct her own research in the field.

A new role: Angelina arrived to address post-graduate students at the London School of Economics on Tuesday morning

Humanitarian work: Angelina accepted the new role of professor in practice for Women, Peace and Security last year

'Amazing': Angelina's presence at LSE went down very well on Tuesday

High praise: Students from the lecture were full of high praise for the actress on social media after the lecture

Calming her nerves: She was told that her lecture was 'incredible'

The activist spoke about her experience and what has motivated her work as United Nations Special Envoy.

Afterwards, students were full of praise for the actress, sharing pictures from inside her lecture and calling her presentation 'wonderful'.

One starstruck attendee reassured the 'nervous' speaker by saying: 'Ms. Jolie, you did wonderfully!' while another simply said: 'Incredible lecture by Angelina today'

Another post-graduate student added: 'She'll make an amazing visiting professor. So honored to hear her inaugural lecture at LSE on sexual violence, rape, working w/ refugees'

Praise from the students: She was told that she would be welcome to come back

Visiting: It is understood to be her first lecture at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security

One other shared a group picture with the actress and captioned it: 'When Angelina Jolie is the guest lecturer at LSE'

In her new role, Angelina is invited to attended public events and workshops in association with the course, 'as her schedule allows'.

She co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative - aiming to end the stigma suffered by survivors of sexual violence, and children born of rape - five years ago.

Her work includes minimising the long term consequences this may have in communities as well as reconciliation and peacebuilding.

The school announced the presence of Angelina on their own social media account on Tuesday morning and word quickly spread across campus.

New work: Angelina (seen here giving evidence at the House of Lords committee, in 2015) may be best known publicly for her acting and directing but her work as United Nations Special Envoy has set her on a global mission to end the stigma suffered by survivors of sexual violence, and children born of rape

Activism: Angelina (here at Global Summit on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict in June 2014) launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative five years ago

For the cause: In her new role, Angelina (seen here again at the Global Summit in 2014) will be able to conduct research but also educate students on her experiences as United Nations Special Envoy

'Was just sitting in an LSE cafe waiting for my lecture,' one stunned Facebook user wrote. 'And Angelina Jolie strolls past and into the upstairs offices followed by flashing cameras.

'Needless to say, I was looking fairly out of place, we made eye contact and I saw my life flash before my eyes... Jokes but seriously if you're around on campus, Angelina is currently in Tower 2'

Naturally, the moviestar's visit wasn't without anticipated hysteria with some even suggesting that it was the best thing to happen to the university during their study.

'Angelina Jolie on campus,' one gushed. 'I'm finally seing the advantages of going to LSE jk'

Another concurred: 'Everybody sharing that picture of Angelina Jolie at LSE bc it's the best bit of being here'

Buzzing: The student body was awash with hysteria about the moviestar's visit to campus

Noticing the student body buzz, one other added: 'Angelina Jolie just gave a lecture at LSE and everybody is going crazy lol'

The not-so subtle attention Angelina had drawn was not to every student's taste and another joked: 'Is Angelina Jolie on campus today? If only loads of people shared it on every social media platform, we'd know.'

Announcing her role back in May, Angelina originally said: 'I am looking forward to teaching and to learning from the students, as well as to sharing my own experiences of working alongside governments and the United Nations.'

In the unpaid role, Angelina, alongside ex-foreign secretary William Hague, has agreed to teach a minimum of one lecture in the one-term master's course.

From September, the course will develop students will be able to take an entire masters - which makes the London School of Economics the first to offer this.

Professor Christine Chinkin, Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, said in a statement issued to MailOnline: 'I am delighted that LSE postgraduate students have had the unique opportunity to learn directly from the valuable insights, perspectives and experiences that Angelina Jolie brought to the class.'

Big voice: She this week celebrates the fifth anniversary the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative

Working hard: The initiative aims to end the stigma suffered by survivors of sexual violence, and children born of rape

Chinkin continued: 'Global action to enhance women's human rights, and the economic, social and political participation of women takes place at all levels  through local activism, international institutions, and cross-border initiatives.

'Critical and constructive engagement with this work is at the core of the education programme of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security.'

Previously, Angelina was there to see the centre opened in February 2015 and has therefore been a supporter ever since.

It was Angelina's humanitarian work that brought her to London from Los Angeles with her six children, at the weekend.

Delighted: Angelina came over to London from Los Angeles for work, this week

Unsupported by ex-husband Brad Pitt during her visit to the British capital, Angelina has been looking after Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox, all by herself.

Angelina filed for divorce from her husband Brad in September 2016 after 10 years together, and confirmed that the family was 'coping' after a 'difficult time', last month.

So far, the family's stay has seen them stocking up on books at Waterstone's and also treated to new toys at Hamley's.

Working mum: With her she brought her six children Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox

On Monday, Angelina commenced a busy week by taking part in a panel discussion at World Vision UK HQ on the 5 year anniversary of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative.

Angelina said: 'All of us involved in PSVI are proud of the work so far.

'But with much more to do we are very focused on the next steps: taking the tools that have been developed into the field to help document crimes and support prosecutions, working with militaries to change doctrine and training, and pushing for the implementation of laws to protect the very vulnerable victims.'

Angelina is now promoting the Time to Act initiative and work will place a greater focus on dealing with trauma and support to child and male survivors.
It's set to get it's world premiere at revered film festival SXSW on Friday.

And film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson are already kicking off promo for the sci-fi flick Life as they attended a photocall for the film in Berlin on Tuesday.

Swedish beauty Rebecca stunned in a light pink suit which she wore with a simple 'Prince' T-shirt.

Smart act: Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson are already kicking off promo for the sci-fi flick Life as they attended a photocall for the film in Berlin on Tuesday

Her handsome co-star looked equally as smart for the occasion.

Jake wore a dapper black suit which he teamed with a white shirt and spotty black tie.

The duo cosied up for a photoshoot as they hit the European promo trail for their highly anticipated new sci-fi movie.

Pretty in pink: Swedish beauty Rebecca stunned in a light pink suit which she wore with a simple 'Prince' T-shirt

Handsome: Jake wore a dapper black suit which he teamed with a white shirt and spotty black tie

Promo trail: On Monday, Jake and Rebecca kicked off promo for the sci-fi flick Life as they attended a photocall for the film in Paris

Rebecca sported a white Ralph Lauren collection tuxedo as she cosied up to her handsome co-star for the cinematic event.

Her sartorial look highlighted her slender figure as she slipped on a longline blazer with silk lapels while resting her ring decorated hand on Jake's chest.

Adding to her textured look, she teamed her two-piece with a matching silk shirt which she kept buttoned all the way to the top.

Injecting height into petite frame, she adorned her feet in a pair of peep-toe platform wedges that elongated her palazzo pant covered pins.

Looking effervescent, the Girl On A Train actress worked her brunette tresses into a curl which fell down her shoulders in a tousled style.

Style stars: 33-year-old Swedish beauty Rebecca stunned in a white Ralph Lauren collection tuxedo as she cosied up to her handsome co-star for the cinematic event

Sartorial: Injecting height into petite frame, she adorned her feet in a pair of peep-toe platform wedges that elongated her palazzo pant covered pins

Complementing his co-star Jake, 36, sported a dapper look for the photocall as he donned a charcoal grey double buttoned suit.

The BAFTA winner teamed his tailored look with a light blue shirt and patterned tie, while working a leather dress shoe for the occasion.

Jake - who is currently starring on Broadway in Sunday in The Park With George - worked his trademark scruff and slicked back his dark locks off his face.

Work it: Adding to her textured look, she teamed her two-piece with a matching silk shirt which she kept buttoned all the way to the top

All white: Her sartorial look highlighted her slender figure as she slipped on a longline blazer with silk lapels while resting her ring decorated hand

Dapper: Complementing his co-star Jake, 36, sported a dapper look for the photocall as he donned a charcoal grey double buttoned suit and leather dress shoe for the occasion

Noticeably absent from the photocall was Hollywood star and Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds - who plays Roy Adams.

The movie's first trailer was released by Sony Pictures last month, giving fans a first look at the Sci-fi thriller due out later this year.

Jake and Ryan play astronauts who are a part of a team of scientists aboard the International Space Station who fight to save Earth from an evolving life form on Mars.

Tailored: The BAFTA winner teamed his tailored look with a light blue shirt and patterned tie

Trademark: Jake - who is currently starring on Broadway in Sunday in The Park With George - worked his trademark scruff and slicked back his dark locks off his face

At ease: The pair looked at ease in each other's company at the photocall

The pair star alongside Ariyon Bakare, Rebecca Ferguson as well as Hiroyuki Sanada and Olga Dihovichnaya.

It's set directed by Daniel Espinosa and written by Deadpool screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese.

The highly-awaited flick is set to hits theatres on March 24.
There's another wedding in Summer Bay, and with characters Evie and Matt set to walk down the aisle, who else other than Home And Away's most beloved character Alf Stewart could take the role as celebrant?

Actor Alec Snow who plays the role of Matt described the experience to The Daily Telegraph as 'weird' locking lips with actress Phillipa Northeast who plays Evie, with the veteran actor in the background.

One character who has remained in Summer Bay since the start is iconic Alf, played by Australian actor Ray Meagher.

Wedding bells! There's another wedding in Summer Bay with Home And Away characters Evie and Matt walking down the aisle

Weird! Actor Alec Snow who plays the role of Matt described the experience as 'weird' locking lips with actress Phillipa Northeast who plays Evie, with the veteran actor in the background

Wedding celebrant! Iconic character Alf Stewart will be the wedding celebrant

Since appearing in the Channel Seven show's debut episode back in 1988, Alf's loveable nature has managed to stand the test of time, as have his memorable catchphrases 'strewth' and 'stone the flaming crows', along with his warm on-screen presence.

Sporting a generous mop of brown hair back in the early days, before transitioning to a blond look and then his naturally greyed, thinned out hair, Alf's locks may have changed but his stern stares and mannerisms haven't altered one bit.

The active Summer Bay resident, with a keen interest in fishing and the community, has fronted the bait shop for many years as well as giving a hand in the local diner.

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Strewth! Home And Away's Alf Stewart, played by Ray Meagher, has been on the show since 1988 and while his hair has changed, his stern stares and mannerisms haven't - pictured now (L) and in 1988 (R)

In the pilot episode he was the owner of the Summer Bay caravan park, before selling the business to Tom and Pippa Fletcher.

Mourning the death of his wife Martha, he then forged an onscreen relationship with Ailsa Hogan played by Judy Nunn.

Back in the day: Since appearing in the Channel Seven show's debut episode back in 1988, Alf's loveable nature has managed to stand the test of time

No doubt over two decades in the Bay have resulted in varied experiences for Alf.

From seeing his love Ailsa pass away in 2001, to later discovering he had a brain tumour, heartbreak has been unavoidable at some stages of his life.

Progressing: He sported a generous mop of brown hair back in the early days of the soap before transitioning to a blond look

Mourning: Alf pictured in 2001 when his love Ailsa passed away

Fans will note the strong bond Alf shared with Sally Fletcher over the years, played by Kate Ritchie who was on the show from 1988 to 2008.

In 2008 Alf was left devastated when Sally decided to leave Summer Bay, but the pair were briefly reunited five years later when Sally returned with her daughter for a short time.

As the longest-standing original cast member on the show, Ray admitted last year that he is still just as much in love with the show as he was when he started.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph in September last year he said: 'I'm still upright, I've still got a pulse, I still enjoy it more than 90 per cent of the time I am there and the new kids coming through keep it fresh'.

Summer Bay resident: In times of need, those in the bay have called upon Alf Stewart to give them a hand
It looks like the press took a snow day following a blizzard that hit New York on Tuesday.

But the blizzard didn't stop Ewan McGregor fulfilling his promotional commitments for Trainspotting 2 and the actor discovered he was the only one to turn up.

Sharing a photo of a row of empty seats the 45-year-old star wrote: 'T2 press day. NY. Where are the press though?'

Where is everybody? Ewan McGregor found he was the only one to turn up to his press event in New York thanks to a snowstorm

In a follow up snap Ewan can be seen waving next to his movie poster with the reporters still a no-show.

'Well I am here!' he wrote alongside the snap.

During the morning Ewan headed to the Good Morning America studios unperturbed by the icy conditions.

That's commitment! Ewan made his way through a blizzard to fulfill his promotional duties for Trainspotting 2

All alone: The actor shared snaps of an empty hallway which would usually be bustling with press

Chilly: The 45-year-old star wrapped up in a winter coat and grey scarf as he made his way to the Good Morning America studios on Tuesday morning

Later in the day Ewan was joined by his Trainspotting co-stars Jonny Lee Miller (right), Ewen Bremner and director Danny Boyle (left)

The actor bundled up in a black winter coat and grey scarf as he clutched a coffee.

He also sat down for a Q&A with at the AOL offices where he was joined by Trainspotting co-stars Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and director Danny Boyle.

Trainspotting 2 reunites Ewan with his fellow castmates as well as Boyle, nearly 20 years after the first film debuted in theaters.

Buzz cut: The Scottish star has been sporting a shaved head lately ahead of his role in Fargo

Long time coming: The sequel sees a recovered Mark Renton (Ewan), returning to Scotland to make amends with Spud (Ewen) and Sick Boy (Johnny)

Having a giggle: The co-stars were in great spirits during the promotional event

The sequel sees a recovered Mark Renton (Ewan), returning to Scotland to make amends with Spud (Ewen) and Sick Boy (Johnny).

'It's not a reflective experience  it's a compulsive, immersive experience like the first film,' Boyle told Yahoo.

Ewan was sporting a shaved hairdo for the event, a style he has been rocking since last Novemeber for his role in the TV adaptation of Fargo.

He first debuted the new look at the Saban Community Clinic's 40th Annual Dinner Gala in Los Angeles.

Coming soon: Trainspotting 2 is released in US on March 31

Globetrotting: Danny and Ewan were in Austin Texas on Monday for the South By Southwest festival

Meanwhile, Ewan revealed he was originally hesitant to shoot Trainspotting 2 in a live BUILD interview at 692 Broadway in NYC.

He explained: 'Early on I was very reluctant to it and also I have to be honest, I wasnt moved by Porno the novel as I had with Trainspotting the novel. 'It didnt touch me nearly as deeply and so I thought if we made a movie based on that book its just going to be a lesser movie, so I never wanted to do it.'

'But when we did eventually receive a script, maybe two or three years ago, it was a blinder.

'John Hodge had written such a beautiful piece of work that there was no question that I wanted to be in it.'

Trainspotting is released in the US on March 31.

Dapper: Ewan posed on the red carpet ahead of the Q&A and screening session
Nicole Kidman has revealed that husband Keith Urban, 49, sees her as 'too eager to please'.

Speaking with Global Connection magazine, the Australian actress said: 'My husband always says that I'm too eager to please, I guess that's how I was brought up'.

The 49-year-old continued, 'I let my emotions show, but also I try to keep a stiff upper lip'.

Eager beaver: Nicole Kidman revealed husband Keith Urban sees her as 'too eager to please'

The Big Little Lies star refuted the idea that her life is 'perfect' and admitted she 'fears' for young children.

'Even though it seems I have a perfect life, I worry about my kids too. I want them to be safe. I worry about my family. I have fears just like the rest of us,' Nicole admitted.

The Oscar winner added, 'I can't really say what 'perfect' means, as it's so relative. But I do know that people look up to my life and that it seems perfect'.

However she countered, 'This frightens me because none of this has come that easy. I've been on set since I was 14, and I've always worked at it really hard'.

Fears? The Big Little Lies star refuted the idea that her life is 'perfect' and admitted she 'fears' for young children

Speaking with Global Connection magazine the Australian actress said: 'My husband always says that I'm too eager to please, I guess that's how I was brought up'

Meanwhile, it's been revealed that Nicole and Keith may soon make Australia home again.

The pair are believed to be in secret negotiations to return to Australia permanently, Daily Mail Australia can reveal.

Two independent sources in Keith's hometown of Caboolture have confirmed the couple is actively hunting for a stunning bush property.

Meanwhile, it's been revealed that Nicole and Keith may soon make Australia home again

Caboolture is a quiet community in Southern Queensland, where the superstar couple will live with their daughters Sunday, 8, and six-year-old Faith.

It's believed the pair are eyeing up two of the grandest properties within the same ultra-private gated community Thornhill Estates.
She was allegedly involved in an altercation with her partner Jean-David Blanc in September and reportedly hospitalised.

And Melissa George, 40, is set to break her silence about her troubled relationship with the French entrepreneur in a tell-all interview with Channel Seven's Sunday Night.

'I've been hit, I've been in a fight, I've got my babies... I couldn't walk,' the teary-eyed actress claims in a preview clip for Sunday's episode.

The Australian star appears to go into detail about the alleged domestic assault that saw her being 'taken to Cochin hospital in Paris' in the early hours of the morning.

'I couldn't turn my neck,' she recalled.

'The lies... people being bribed,' said the mother-of-two, who is reportedly facing kidnapping charges after she hoped to leave the country with her sons Raphael, three, and Solal, one.

'I've been hit': Actress Melissa George breaks down as she speaks out following assault claims against ex-partner Jean-David Blanc

'I couldn't walk': The 40-year-old actress teared up as she appeared to go into detail about the alleged domestic assault that saw her being 'taken to Cochin hospital in Paris' in September

When Sunday Night reporter Steve Pennells suggested that she was taking a 'big risk' by giving the interview, the former Home And Away star said she has 'no other choice'.

In September, Melissa was admitted to Cochin Hospital after turning up to a local police station with bruises and complaints of pain.

Melissa was allegedly suffering from bruising to her face and said she was in pain and feeling faint.

'Big risk': The actress admitted she had 'no other choice' but to speak out, amidst reports she's facing kidnapping charges after she hoped to leave France with her two sons

Allegations: Melissa's interview follows claims she was assaulted by her ex-partner Jean-David Blanc in Paris last September

The Perth-born star was allegedly assaulted by her partner of four years - allegations Jean-David Blanc denies, according to a report in French newspaper Le Parisien.

M6info reported at the time: 'According to statements by the actress ... she was assaulted by her companion.

'The police were called last night to intervene in the centre of Paris.

Court battle: Melissa (pictured) and her ex were seen separately outside a Parisian court in October, where Jean-David Blanc appeared on charges of domestic assault

'In shock, Melissa George, had a swelling of the face and complained of pain, nausea and dizziness.'

The pair were seen separately outside a Parisian court back in October, where Jean-David Blanc appeared on charges of domestic assault against her. He denied the allegations and also pressed assault charges against her.

Last month, a judge convicted both of them of assault and ruled it impossible to determine who started the fight, as Melissa and Jean-David were both showing injuries.

Custody battle: Melissa and her former lover are embroiled in a custody battle, with the French entrepreneur refusing to allow the pair's son Raphael and Solal to leave France

Court ruling: Last month, a judge convicted both Melissa and Jean-David of assault in relation to the September altercation and said it was impossible to determine who started the fight

Jean-David, a very wealthy businessman, reportedly accused the actress of trying to leave France with their two sons on a private jet, just days after the alleged altercation last year.

Melissa slammed the shocking allegations as 'totally fabricated.'

'The allegations of Melissa kidnapping her children are fabricated,' a representative for the star told New Idea in a statement.

'I deny these allegations': The Perth-born actress denied allegations of kidnapping after it was alleged she attempted to use a private jet to fly out of France in September with her two children

Melissa herself added: 'I am not taking these allegations lightly and it is in the hands of my lawyers.

'I deny these allegations and all actions today and always will be in the best interest of my sons Raphael and Solal.'

And earlier this month, Melissa's lawyer, Christophe Ayela, told News Corp that her former lover's refusal to allow their two sons to leave France has prevented the actress from securing work.

Speaking out: Melissa's lawyer, Christophe Ayela, has told News Corp that her former lover's refusal to allow their two sons to leave France, has prevented the actress from securing work

In happier times: Melissa first met the wealthy businessman at a BAFTA after-party in 2011

'It's terrible for her career, disastrous,' the star's representative said.

'The two children are forbidden to leave the country without the written consent of the father. And of course he refuses to allow this,' Christophe told News Corp in direct relation to France's Family Court order.

'It is scandalous that Australian kids (the children have triple nationalities - French, Australian and American) can't even go to visit their relatives in Australia.

The couple first met in 2011 at a BAFTA after-party and welcomed their first son Raphael in February 2014 and their second son Solal in November, 2015.
When she was growing up, pizzas were only just becoming popular in the UK  and the first delivery company was still years from being founded.

But Mary Berry nevertheless shocked her fans by admitting she has never once ordered a takeaway pizza.

The veteran chef, 81, was about to demonstrate her favourite pizza recipe during her BBC show Mary Berry Everyday when she confessed: I have never had a home delivery of a pizza.

Not getting a slice of the action: Mary Berry shocked fans by admitting that she has never ordered a takeaway pizza during her BBC show Mary Berry Everyday

Her fans could hardly believe her confession, given the immense popularity and ease of having pizzas delivered to the doorstep.

One said: Mary Berry has just been knocked off the pedestal I had her on. She hasnt ever had a takeaway pizza.

Far from being endeared by Miss Berrys desire to cook pizzas herself, another said: Sort her out.

Puree commotion: The 81-year-old chef's fans could hardly believe her confession, given the immense popularity and ease of having pizzas delivered to the doorstep

Britains largest pizza delivery company Dominos opened its first UK store in 1985, and there are now more than 900 stores. Customers can now order pizzas using smart watches and social media.

Miss Berrys surprising revelation came just a week after she ignited a national debate about the way to cook Spaghetti Bolognese.

She recommended adding double cream and white wine to the sauce, which was considered sacrilegious by many fans of the Italian pasta dish  despite her recipe being very similar to old-fashioned Italian recipes.

Outraged: Twitter was awash with confused angry pizza fans trying to digest the news

Tucking in: Mary seemed the homemade pizza she made on the programme

Whilst she was universally adored during her time as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, she seems unable to get through an hour of solo TV without being scrutinised by viewers.

Indeed, in her BBC show Mary Berrys Foolproof Cooking last year she came under fire for using shop-bought pesto, and for making a Beef Wellington with a soggy bottom.

Just under two million people tuned in for the third episode of Miss Berrys series on Monday, down 160,000 on last week. She is expected to cook a sticky toffee pudding and a great British pie in next weeks episode.
Actress Emma Watson attends the New York special screening of Disney's live-action adaptation 'Beauty and the Beast' on March 13, 2017

It is a tale as old as time (or one dating back to the 1990s, at least): Disney dusts off an animated classic, adds bells, whistles and real people, and everyone makes a fortune.

Since Jason Scott Lee annoyed purists as a grown-up Mowgli in "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book" (1994), the company has churned out numerous big-screen live-action remakes of its hand-drawn favorites, recouping $4 billion worldwide.

The latest to get the Mouse House makeover is "Beauty and the Beast," set for release on Friday with an all-star cast led by Emma Watson, 26, who grew up playing Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" films.

No movie will arrive in theaters this year weighed down by as much expectation, in the wake of a 90-second trailer that generated a record 92 million views in its first day online.

"Beauty and the Beast" -- which revisits the smash hit 1991 cartoon starring the voice of Paige O'Hara as Belle -- had a whopping $300 million production and marketing budget but shouldn't struggle to turn a profit.

It is already the fastest selling family film in history, outpacing previous record-holder "Finding Dory," according to online ticket seller Fandango, with analysts projecting a $150 million opening weekend.

Josh Gad plays Le Fou in "Beauty and the Beast", Disney's first ever out LGBT character

It could also be the most controversial Disney remake in history -- and the bar is higher than you might think -- having weathered all manner of social media storms over its production and stars.

Among the more trivial controversies was an angry fan reaction to the design of teapot character Mrs Potts, who doesn't have a spout for a nose in the new version as she did in the animated classic.

- Capturing hearts -

More recently, critics made snarky remarks about a revealing Vanity Fair photo shoot by Watson, claiming that exposing flesh wasn't in keeping with the United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador's feminist image.

And then all hell broke loose when it emerged that Le Fou, the sycophantic sidekick to antagonist Gaston, was being portrayed by comedian and actor Josh Gad as a gay man, making him Disney's first ever out LGBT character.

The move sparked an international controversy, with at least one theater in Alabama refusing to show the film and the Russian government considering a ban before settling on an adults-only rating.

"What has this story always been about for 300 years? It's about looking closer, going deeper, accepting people for who they really are," director Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters," "Twilight: Breaking Dawn") told journalists in Beverly Hills last week.

"In a very Disney way, we are including everybody. I think this movie is for everybody and I think on the screen you'll see everybody, and that was important to me."

Six years after the last of her eight "Harry Potter" movies, Watson -- who turned down Emma Stone's Oscar-winning role in "La La Land" -- is taking on by far her largest role as an adult.

"The tagline of the movie is 'a tale as old as time' and it's true," said the actress -- a fan of the 1946 Jean Cocteau version as well as the 1991 film -- at the star-studded US premiere in Hollywood on March 2.

"It's been retold in so many different ways... but I think there's just something about the Disney version that was really a telling of it that was so inspiring and really captured people's hearts."

- Activist -

She and co-star Dan Stevens ("Downton Abbey") as the Beast lead a stellar cast including Oscar winners Kevin Kline and Emma Thompson as well as Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen and Stanley Tucci.

Watson told the Beverly Hills news conference that the character from the 1991 movie had helped shape the adult she became, and she wanted her version to embody the same spirit and values.

"I love that in our version Belle is not only odd and doesn't fit in -- you see her reading and you see her not really a part of the community. In our film, she's actually an activist within her own community," she said.

If you're not a big fan of Disney's live-action remakes, you might want to crawl under a rock for the next few years, as another 13 are in various stages of production.

"Cruella" and "Mulan" are both scheduled for release next year, and Tim Burton's "Dumbo," Guy Ritchie's "Aladdin" and Jon Favreau's "The Lion King" are due to follow.

"The Little Mermaid" will see Lin-Manuel Miranda of "Hamilton" fame collaborating with legendary Disney composer Alan Menken, while two remakes of "Peter Pan" are in the works along with new versions of "Winnie the Pooh," "Fantasia," "Pinocchio," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "The Sword in the Stone."
China is the world's largest coal producer, and deadly accidents in mines are common

Seventeen Chinese coal miners were killed when a lift used to move workers fell down a shaft, state media reported, the latest deadly mishap in the country's accident-prone coal-mining industry.

The accident occurred Thursday when a cable supporting a mining cage caught fire, causing the rig to tumble down into a state-operated coal mine in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Xinhua news agency said.

An operation to extract the trapped miners from the wreckage was launched at the time but rescue workers could not reach them until Monday, finding them all dead, Xinhua said.

The mine, the Dongrong Second Mine under the Longmay Mining Holding Group, is located near the city of Shuangyashan.

Two welders have been detained by police over "allegedly serious violations" of safety regulations, Xinhua said.

The mine's manager also has been suspended from his post, it quoted the local government as saying.

China is the world's largest coal producer, and deadly accidents in mines are common.

In December, explosions in two separate coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and in Heilongjiang killed at least 59 people, according to state media reports.

Thirty-three miners were killed in a colliery explosion in October in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.
Up on the roof, revamping Istanbul's Grand Bazaar

Atop Istanbul's iconic Grand Bazaar -- the scene of a high-speed motorbike chase in the 2012 James Bond film "Skyfall" -- a full force drive to revamp it has begun.

The centuries-old marketplace has already undergone a security upgrade after a spate of terror attacks in Istanbul. For the bazaar's traders, the primary concern now is not the restoration but lack of tourists.

Round-the-clock workers on the roof take the cats' path to renovate the bazaar, which topped the list of the world's most visited destinations in 2014.

Up on the roof, revamping Istanbul's Grand Bazaar

The roof renovation is estimated to cost 10 million Turkish lira (2.6 million euros, $2.7 million). Work began on July 14 last year -- only one day before a coup attempt to oust the government, but the work went on.

The restoration of the entire bazaar is likely to cost 200 million Turkish lira and is expected to take four years to complete, but officials add that there will always be work needed at the Grand Bazaar because of its historic identity.

"The Grand Bazaar is a historical place. It's not possible to complete the restoration from today to tomorrow," said Okan Erhan Oflaz, deputy mayor of the Fatih municipality where it is located.

One of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, the Grand Bazaar was a trade hub during the Ottoman Empire which dominated swathes of the Middle East and North Africa for more than six centuries until it collapsed at the end of World War I.

Construction of the marketplace began in 1455, two years after the Ottomans seized Istanbul then known as Constantinople from the Byzantines, under the reign of Sultan Mehmet II -- Fatih the Conqueror.

With the rise of the empire, the bazaar thrived and by the 17th century it had taken on its current shape, giving the bazaar its Turkish name Kapalicarsi (Covered Market).

Situated in Istanbul's historic peninsula -- home to the Sultanahmet mosque and Hagia Sophia -- the Grand Bazaar plays host to around 3,000 shops where over 30,000 people work.

- Shop owners wait -

Authorities say the bazaar is currently earthquake resistant but what makes it vulnerable is the modifications done by property owners changing its structuring.

Over its long history the structure has suffered quake and fire damage. Today it is in dire need of a facelift, with shop owners lamenting roof leaks and bad air conditioning.

Numan, who owns a souvenir shop selling traditional pots and plates, said he believes the renovation will be a plus.

"I think it will have a positive impact on the bazaar because there will be air conditioning for the summer and a heating system will be established for the winter after the work is done," he said.

Omer, 48, who sells embroidered pillow cases, complained that he has seen no improvement, although shop owners pay a monthly fee of about 75 euros.

"We give money but there's nothing happening. We clean here in the evening and in the morning all in dirt. When it rains, it's afloat," he said.

"The roof needs to be fixed. It's much worse in the winter. They are insulating (the roof) but we don't know how it will be."

And the Grand Bazaar saw damage to its structure when it hosted the motorcycle chase scene in the Agent 007 film "Skyfall".

Up on the roof, revamping Istanbul's Grand Bazaar

But Oflaz said the damage caused "by the friends in Hollywood" was almost nothing compared to the wear and tear on the market over the years.

"A few bricks might have been broken but when you now take a look at the Grand Bazaar, there are no bricks that are not broken," he said.

- 'Security doubled' -

A slew of attacks blamed on Kurdish militants and Islamic State jihadists over the last year have dealt a blow to tourism in Istanbul, where top destinations such as Sultanahmet were targeted.

Turkish authorities say the Grand Bazaar could be a possible target and so they have "doubled security measures compared to the past", said Oflaz.

Detector gates, X-ray scanning as well as the deployment of additional police provided by the governor's office around the historic neighbourhood are aimed at keeping it "away from a terror threat," he said.

But more than the renovation, shop owners and sales people are primarily concerned with getting back to business, longing for the good old days when tourists flocked to the bazaar.

"I've been at the Grand Bazaar for 35 years. At that time, it was good, there were tourists, Europeans," Omer said.

But now "things are getting worse. People barely pay their rents," he added.

Oflaz admitted there has been a decline in the number of visitors to the bazaar from over 90 million in 2014 -- though officials have given no specific numbers.

The bazaar is an "army in itself" with its 30,000 sales people, said Oflaz.

And not only tourists visit, locals do too. "The Grand Bazaar is not that much alone. It is a place where many people stop by all the time," he said.
Australian businessman Giuseppe Serafino is taken to a holding cell after his trial at a court in Denpasar on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on March 14, 2017

An Australian businessman was Tuesday handed a seven-month jail term for using hashish on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

But Giuseppe Serafino will be released from prison in two months as his sentence was reduced by the amount of time he has already spent in custody since his arrest in October.

The 49-year-old, who ran a bar on Bali, was detained for using hashish on the island with British former war correspondent David Fox, 55. Fox was handed the same jail sentence last week, and is also set to be released in May.

The men could have been jailed for several years under Indonesia's tough anti-drugs laws, which include the death penalty for traffickers, but judges ruling on the cases said the pair had admitted their wrongdoing and acted politely.

Serafino and Fox were caught with several grams of the drug each. Serafino told his trial that he had been using hashish for nine years to help alleviate the symptoms of mouth cancer.

Handing down the verdict in his case, presiding judge Erwin Djong told the court in the Balinese capital Denpasar he had been found "convincingly guilty of committing the crime of illegally using narcotics".

Serafino's lawyer Desi Widyantari said her client would not appeal.

Prosecutors had recommended a one-year jail term for both Serafino and Fox.

Authorities raided Serafino's house and found about seven grams (a quarter of an ounce) of hashish, after which the Australian said Fox had helped him buy the drugs.

Fox was then arrested and police found small amounts of the drug. Fox argued during his trial that he used hashish to relieve post-traumatic stress disorder that he developed while covering numerous conflicts.

Foreigners are regularly arrested for drugs offences on Bali, which attracts millions of visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.
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Displaced Mosul residents gather at an empty building near Hamam al-Alil, south of Iraq's second city

Iraq's interior ministry is holding over 1,200 men and boys suspected of ties to jihadists in "horrendous conditions" without charge at facilities south of Mosul, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

Iraqi forces are fighting to retake second city Mosul from the Islamic State jihadist group, recapturing its east before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely-populated west.

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of west Mosul since February 25, and security forces are searching for IS jihadists trying to sneak out of the city among civilians.

"The Iraqi interior ministry is holding at least 1,269 detainees, including boys as young as 13, without charge in horrendous conditions and with limited access to medical care at three makeshift prisons," HRW said in a report.

"At least four prisoners have died, in cases that appear to be linked to lack of proper medical care and poor conditions and two prisoners' legs have been amputated, apparently because of lack of treatment for treatable wounds," the watchdog said.

The interior ministry's spokesman said he could not comment on the report until it had been reviewed by the minister.

The facilities are located in Qayyarah and Hamam al-Alil, said HRW, which visited some of them earlier this month.

The rights group said that the makeshift prisons were under the authority of the interior ministry intelligence service, which is interrogating people handed over by security forces fighting IS.

Iraq was under heavy pressure to improve its procedures for the Mosul operation after people reported torture and other abuses during screening of those who fled Fallujah, which Baghdad's forces retook from IS last year.

While changes do seem to have been made, the HRW allegations indicate that significant problems remain with screening procedures -- problems that breed anger and resentment that drives more people into the arms of militants.
South Korea's impeached ex-president Park Geun-Hye left the presidential Blue House, two days after the Constitutional Court's verdict removing her from office over a massive corruption scandal

South Korea's ousted president Park Geun-Hye might need all the allies she can get, but she left nine of man's best friends behind when she exited her palace in disgrace.

Howls of outrage erupted on social media Tuesday over the fate of the nine Jindo dogs - a Korean hunting breed renowned for its loyalty.

When Park took office in February 2013, she moved into the Blue House with two puppies named Saerom and Heemang -- 'New' and 'Hope' in Korean -- given to her by her former neighbours.

The dogs became instant stars, with unmarried Park regularly posting photos of herself cuddling her four-legged family on her Facebook page, and jokingly referring to them as the "real power holders" at the complex.

They have since had two litters, the latest, of seven puppies, only born in January.

But when the former president, now a criminal suspect, moved out on Sunday evening after the Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment by parliament, she left all nine behind.

A presidential spokesman confirmed that the dogs were being looked after by Blue House staff for the time being -- and would be found new homes.

"We plan to give them away to people who will take good care of the dogs," he told AFP.

Park's abandonment of her furry friends sparked fury on social media.

"How can you abandon your own family like you would throw out old pair of shoes?" said one user on Instagram.

An animal rights group said it has filed a complaint against her for violating animal protection law and another activist organisation -- which has regularly written to her urging her to make eating dog illegal in South Korea -- volunteered to take in the nine.

A Twitter poster said: "Jindo dogs never betray their master but it was Park that betrayed them."

Social media users in Britain similarly got their claws out after former prime minister David Cameron left his residence at 10 Downing Street last year without Larry the cat.

Cameron defended his affection for the mouser but said the cat belonged to the house and not to him personally, adding he wanted to put to rest "the rumour that I somehow don't love Larry".
More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in Syria in March 2011

The UN rights chief warned Tuesday that a "tidal wave of bloodshed" over more than six years of war in Syria had effectively turned the country into a "torture chamber".

"As the conflict enters its seventh year, this is the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II," said Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.

In an address to the UN Human Rights Council, Zeid said that his office had been refused access to the country and that no international human rights observers had been admitted to places where "very probably tens of thousands of people are currently held. They are places of torture."

"Indeed, the entire conflict, this immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity, began with torture," he said, citing as an example the torture of a group of children by security officials over anti-government graffiti six years ago.

- 'Savage horror' -

"Today, in a sense, the entire country has become a torture chamber, a place of savage horror and absolute injustice," he said.

The UN and other organisations have repeatedly accused the Syrian authorities of widespread torture.

Amnesty International said in a report last August that an estimated 17,700 people had died from torture in custody since the beginning of the conflict, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number at at least 60,000.

Many others have been executed, and far more have simply disappeared, according to the reports.

"We're speaking of a daily continuous massacre that has been going on for six years," Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer who was detained for more than three years, told the UN rights council.

"While we are here today, there are civilians, women, children, innocent people who are being killed under torture," said Darwish, one of several Syrian victims and activists who spoke to the council during a special session on Syria.

Zeid criticised international leaders for failing to act decisively to ensure accountability for the abuses.

"Vetoes have repeatedly pushed back hope for an end to this senseless carnage and for referral of alleged international crimes to the International Criminal Court," he said.

He was referring to a blocked UN Security Council, where Russia in particular has vetoed several attempts to bring a case against Syria before the ICC in The Hague.

But Zeid welcomed the UN General Assembly's agreement in December to set up a body to gather evidence on war crimes in Syria, which would build up "the basis for criminal proceedings against individual perpetrators."

"Ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations must happen if the Syrian people are ever to find reconciliation and peace," he said.
A displaced Iraqi woman from Mosul walks with her children under the rain at the Hamam al-Alil camp on March 13, 2017

A sea of tents stretches to the horizon at a camp for displaced near Mosul but Ahmed Hassan says he and 17 relatives have to sleep outside because there is no room.

Tens of thousands of civilians have poured into camps set up around Mosul as Iraqi forces battle to retake the city from Islamic State group jihadists.

"It's a nightmare. No camp will take us in. They're all full," says Hassan, a short man in his fifties who wears a traditional headdress and a grey coat over his white robe.

Instead, Hassan, two cousins and their families -- 18 people in all -- have set up camp with other displaced Iraqis inside the concrete shell of an unfinished building just outside a camp in the Hamam al-Alil area.

White and blue tarpaulin sheets stretch between the building's naked columns to block the battering wind. Clothes are hung to dry.

Women and children wearing dirty pyjamas sit on dusty blankets on the ground, surrounded by their meagre possessions: a few chickens, sacks of rice and bottles of water.

"We don't know where to go. It's cold here. Children and women are in the street," says Hassan, who fled fighting in the Badush area northwest of Mosul.

Aid groups working in the nearby camp have brought him and his family food, blankets and grey mattresses.

But, says his neighbour Abdullah Khidr, tents have run out.

"We eat well here, but there are so many displaced people -- so many -- that there are no more tents," says the man in his sixties who also fled Badush.

Khidr, his wife and their seven children were escaping fighting for the second time after fleeing west Mosul just three months before.

A displaced Iraqi boy from Mosul walks under the rain at the Hamam al-Alil camp on March 13, 2017

Iraqi forces launched an assault to retake Mosul from IS in October, more than two years after the jihadists took control of the northern city, Iraq's second largest.

- 'Lost dreams' -

After recapturing the east of Mosul, Iraqi forces last month set their sites on the west, where hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped.

More than 68,000 people have fled west Mosul since February 25, streaming to camps around the city, according to the International Organization for Migration.

"We have not got to that stage yet where there is no capacity whatsoever in the camps," says Hala Jaber, IOM spokeswoman for the Mosul crisis, who says there are 17 camps in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.

"Large numbers of people are arriving on a daily basis," she says. "Some procedural checks needed to be undertaken by the government before people are moved. Things may be getting slightly backlogged and people ending up staying more than a day or two."

Melany Markham, spokeswoman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which recently took over the management of Hamam al-Alil, says an extension to the site is planned in coming weeks.

"There will be room for around 30,000 people with about 4,000 tents," she says.

Behind her, a stream of buses ferries in hundreds more displaced Iraqis, who wait for someone to look after them in a vast muddy area outside the camp.

Omar Ahmed, 22, is among the lucky ones to have made it inside.

"There are four or five families per tent. Men sleep outside while women and children are inside," he says.

When IS overran Mosul in mid-2014, Ahmed still had a year left of secondary school, shattering his hopes of heading to university to become a teacher.

Displaced Iraqis from Mosul arrive at the Hamam al-Alil camp on March 13, 2017

"Before we could have dreams. Now they're lost," he says.

Rain gushes down on the Hamam al-Alil camp, transforming its alleyways into slushy swamps.

In one, three children in their pyjamas try to clean their muddy plastic sandals by dipping them in a puddle.
An armed Somali pirate walks along the coastline near Hobyo in 2010

Suspected pirates boarded an oil tanker and forced its Sri Lankan crew to change course towards the northeastern Somali coast, in what could be the first such attack since 2012.

The armed men then demanded a ransom for the ship's release, according to the EU Naval Force who established contact with the oil tanker.

After sending a distress signal on Monday afternoon, the assailants boarded the Aris 13, taking its eight crew members hostage and forcing the vessel to change course.

"What we know for sure is that a small tanker has been attacked and has diverted," John Steed, a former British army officer who heads the Horn of Africa section of the Oceans Beyond Piracy NGO, said Tuesday.

"Whether this is a pirate attack needs to be confirmed. We do not know what the demands of those men are. But this looks pretty much like the old piracy attack scenario," he said.

The US, UN and EU intervened in 2012 after piracy cost the global economy $5.7 - 6.1 billion

Earlier reports said the vessel was Sri Lankan-flagged, but the foreign ministry in Colombo denied the claim.

"The ministry is taking action to verify the alleged incident, and initial enquiries have revealed that while the vessel involved is not registered under a Sri Lankan flag, it has an eight-member Sri Lankan crew," it said in a statement on Facebook.

According to the Marine Traffic website, which lists the movements of ships around the globe, the Aris 13 is a Comoros-flagged vessel.

- Contact made -

The EU Naval Force, the bloc's counter-piracy military operation, said late on Tuesday that its headquarters in London was able to make telephone contact with the ship's master.

"The master confirmed that armed men were on board his ship and they were demanding a ransom for the ship's release," a statement said.

The tanker was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu when it was seized.

"Yesterday afternoon, the ship reported that it was followed by two skiffs. After that, it went silent and the owner of the ship was not able to get into contact," said Steed.

The European Union launched Operation Atalanta -- an anti-piracy mission to protect maritime vessels in the Horn of Africa -- in 2008

"There has not been an attack of a commercial ship by Somali pirates since 2012," he added.

The Aris 13 was reportedly forced to dock near the town of Alula on the Somali coast.

"Armed men are holding the boat and its crew near Alula," Muse Mohamed, a coast guard official in northeastern Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, told AFP.

A traditional chief in the region, Abdihakim Mohamed Jama, contacted by telephone said more than 20 men, heavily armed, were on board the tanker and that the suspected pirates "are claiming to be fishermen".

Somali pirates began staging waves of attacks in 2005, seriously disrupting a major international shipping route.

In 2012 the trend cost the global economy $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion (5.4 to 5.7 billion euros), prompting interventions by the United Nations, the European Union and NATO.

Many commercial shippers began hiring private armed guards for their vessels.

At the peak of the piracy crisis in January 2011, 736 hostages and 32 boats were held.

Though anti-piracy measures ended attacks on commercial vessels, fishing boats have continued to face attacks.
A fragile December truce has been jeopardised by fighting across swathes of Syria

A third round of Russian-backed talks on the Syrian war opened in the Kazakh capital Astana on Tuesday without armed rebel groups, leaving little hope for a breakthrough in ending the six-year conflict.

The talks, sponsored by regime allies Russia and Iran and rebel-backer Turkey, come as other diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed have proved fruitless.

Regime negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria's ambassador to the UN, slammed the decision by the rebels to snub the talks but insisted that progress could still be made in their absence.

"We are eager to ensure the success of the Astana path... whether or not the armed factions attend," Jaafari was quoted as saying by Syria's SANA news agency.

"The failure of the armed factions to attend Astana shows the indecency of their politics."

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

Jaafari said the regime delegation had come to Astana primarily to meet with Russia and Iran, and not armed opposition groups.

He said that the sides would discuss "separating the opposition from the terrorists", SANA reported.

Previous rounds of talks in Astana were focused on bolstering a frail nationwide truce brokered by Moscow and Ankara in December that has been jeopardised by fighting across swathes of Syria.

A Syrian rebel spokesman on Monday said the delegation was skipping the Astana talks because of the regime's "unfulfilled pledges related to the cessation of hostilities".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that the Astana talks were "from time to time truly complicated by the existing differences in the different sides' approaches".

A new round of negotiations in Geneva is set to begin on March 23 and will focus on governance, the constitution, elections, counter-terrorism and possibly reconstruction, according to the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.
Thousands of Kenyan herders have invaded ranches, slaughtering animals and destroying pasture. Eight people have been killed in the land invasions since December

A Kenyan court on Tuesday remanded a suspect in custody over the murder of a British man who was shot dead on his ranch earlier this month.

Samson Lokayi, 25, was detained on Sunday. He will remain behind bars until March 28, pending investigation into Tristan Voorspuy's killing on March 6.

Thousands of herders -- some armed with spears, others with AK47s -- have invaded private ranches and wildlife parks with their livestock, slaughtering animals and destroying property in central Kenya's Laikipia, as they go in search of pasture in the drought stricken-country.

Voorspuy, a British citizen who was born in South Africa, had gone to inspect damage on his ranch caused by the raiders when he was killed.

"We have strong reason to believe that the man we have in custody was involved in the killing of the British rancher," a senior police officer told AFP Monday.

"We want more time to carry out investigations on his involvement because there are two others out there whom he must have worked with," he added.

The judge had to postpone the suspect's first hearing because he only speaks his tribe's Pokot dialect, and no translator was available.

Voorspuy spent three years in the British army before moving to Kenya and founding a company specialising in horseback safaris, according to his website.

He and several other shareholders also restored the once derelict Sosian ranch.

In January herders swept into the nearby 44,000-acre (17,600-hectare) Suyian ranch, burning thatched huts for tourists.

- Fear and siege -

Elephants, lion, buffalo and zebra have been slaughtered by the herders who come with tens of thousands of livestock, and black and white landowners alike speak of invasions, fear and siege.

The reasons behind the invasions are complex.

While some point to the drought gripping the country, and a spike in human and livestock populations, others say the looming election in August and long-running land gripes have sparked tensions.

Local media have reported that votes are being offered in exchange for land grabs.

The government has done little to stop the invasions and with elections around the corner, few expect vote-costing action against the illegal grazers.

And the ethnic logic of Kenyan politics means some candidates stand to benefit from a favourable shift in population dynamics ahead of the vote.

An MP for the region, Matthew Lempurkel, was charged on March 8 with inciting violence for allegedly encouraging the wave of land invasions.

Since December, eight people have been killed and 10 others injured in these invasions.
In 2015, 41 people died in one of Mozambique's worst ever cholera outbreaks

Mozambique is battling a cholera outbreak that has infected 1,222 people and killed two, the country's health ministry said Tuesday, warning that it has been unable to slow its spread.

Four of Mozambique's 13 provinces have been affected since the infection spread from the capital Maputo on January 5, deputy director of public health Benigna Matsinhe told a press conference.

It is the third consecutive year that Mozambique has suffered a cholera epidemic with the two fatalities reported to be from the Maputo area.

In 2015, 41 people died in one of the country's worst ever cholera outbreaks.

"We have recorded less cases in recent days, but what worries us is that we have been unable to halt transmission of the illness," Matsinhe said.

Since the end of last week, the infection has spread in Tete province, on Mozambique's western border with Zimbabwe and Malawi, with 397 cases reported.

Cholera typically strikes during Mozambique's rainy season, between October and March, when unhygienic conditions and stagnant water cause the bacteria to flourish.

The infection can cause severe diarrhoea, dehydration and in the worst cases, death.

Mozambique has been been deluged by heavy rains since October following two years of drought.

Malaria cases have also spiked with 1.48 million diagnoses -- an 11 percent jump compared to a year earlier -- and 288 deaths since January 2017.

"We have seen an increase in cases of malaria in recent years explained by progress in our screening programme and in our community treatment projects," said Lorna Gurjal, the head of the health ministry's epidemiology department.

The number of deaths and serious cases are however decreasing, she said.
Some 400,000 people participate each year in what is usually a festive Gay Pride parade in the city of Los Angeles

The annual Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles, the second-largest US city, will be transformed into a protest march for this year's edition, according to organizers.

"When any American's rights are under threat, all our rights are threatened," ResistMarch.org, the nonprofit that is organizing the event, said on its website on Monday.

"We are calling on everyone to peacefully march with us on June 11th... Instead of a Pride Parade meant to celebrate our past progress, we are going to march to ensure all our futures," it said.

US advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have been vocal opponents of efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to roll back hard-won protections, most recently a reversal of federal protections on bathroom rights.

Many LGBT activists say the White House's decision to allow states and school districts to decide whether students can access bathrooms of their choice violates civil rights that should be enshrined at the national level.

Fewer than half of all states currently ban restricting access to public accommodations based on gender identity, while four Republican states actively restrict bathroom access or laws that would prohibit such restrictions.

"We're getting back to our roots," Brian Pendleton, a ResistMarch.org board member, told The Los Angeles Times.

Some 400,000 people participate each year in what is usually a festive Gay Pride parade in the city.

The first parade was held in 1970, and it has grown to be one of the world's premier Gay Pride celebrations.
Nine political parties plan to run separately in The Gambia's legislative election in April

The Gambia's ruling coalition has broken apart ahead of a parliamentary poll next month, dealing a blow to new President Adama Barrow as he overhauls the country's political system following his shock election victory.

Nine political parties will run separately in the April 6 election, seven of which had united last December to oust veteran leader Yahya Jammeh, who ruled the tiny west African nation with an iron fist for 22 years.

Barrow had promised in January following his surprise defeat of Jammeh that the coalition would "continue as a family".

But documents issued by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Monday showed that 239 candidates will stand in April, representing nine separate organisations, with some running as independents.

The national assembly was long seen as a rubber stamp for Jammeh's executive decrees, but the new president has promised to work in tandem with lawmakers, notably on constitutional reform in the former British colony.

The coalition split is likely to embolden Jammeh's Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), which remains a major force in Gambian politics although the former president is now in exile in Equatorial Guinea.

The APRC took 43 of the 48 seats contested during the last parliamentary election in 2012, which was boycotted by the vast majority of opposition parties.

Five seats are also appointed by the president to give an overall 53 seats.

Barrow had barely finished putting his cabinet together before disagreements broke out last week over the poll, with one senior government source warning at the time that talks for an ongoing alliance were close to collapse.

Disagreements over representation and allocation of seats had caused tensions, the source said.

Barrow was formerly a member of the United Democratic Party (UDP), the largest opposition grouping in the Jammeh era, but resigned to run as the coalition candidate.

Campaign for the poll begins on Wednesday and ends on April 4.
Pro-regime fighters at the Ain al-Fijeh water pumping station, on January 29, 2017

The Syrian government intentionally bombed the Ain al-Fijeh spring in December, leaving more than five million people in Damascus without access to water, a UN probe said Tuesday, branding the strike a "war crime".

"The information examined by the Commission confirms that the bombing of (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring was carried out by the Syrian Air Force," the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report.

The report, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council Tuesday, dismissed regime allegations that rebels had contaminated the water.

Around 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs were cut off from water when fighting intensified in Wadi Barada near the Syrian capital in late December.

The regime accused the rebels of poisoning water resources and cutting off the mains, while the armed opposition said regime bombardment had destroyed the infrastructure.

The UN commission, which has never been granted access to Syria and bases its reports on interviews and documents, said it had found no "indications that the water was contaminated" before the spring was bombed on December 23.

"On the contrary, interviewees say that Wadi Barada residents used water up until the bombing of 23 December and no one experienced any symptoms of contamination," the report said.

Following the bombing, the water was contaminated after shrapnel damaged fuel and chlorine storage facilities, it said.

The bombing itself indicated that the "spring was purposely targeted," said the commission, headed by Brazilian academic Paul Sergio Pinheiro.

"While the presence of armed group fighters at (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring constituted a military target, ... the damage caused ... was grossly disproportionate to the military advantage anticipated or achieved," it said.

- War crime -

"The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks," the report concluded.

At the end of January, Syria's army regained control of Wadi Barada, which rebels first seized in 2012.

Syria's representative to the rights council, Hussam Aala Edin, on Tuesday reiterated accusations that the commission was politicised, and slammed its "amateurish approach" and "naive conclusions".

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.

Tuesday's report also detailed a range of other war crimes committed in Syria since last July, including a series of attacks last October on schools in Haas, in Idlib province, that killed 36 civilians, 21 of them children.

Two weeks ago, the commission also released a report on the regime's five-month siege of eastern Aleppo, describing war crimes by all sides, including chemical weapons attacks, civilian executions and forced displacements following the rebel defeat.

"The government's siege tactics proved repulsively successful: eastern Aleppo is reduced to rubble, while survivors have been forced to leave their homes and face an uncertain future elsewhere," Pinheiro told the council.

Earlier Tuesday, UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein described the Syrian conflict as an "immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity," and "the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II".
A general view shows an oil refinery in Libya's northern town of Ras Lanuf on January 11, 2017

Troops commanded by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar announced the recapture Tuesday of two key oil installations, as fighting raged in Tripoli where a rival government has struggled to assert its authority.

Libya has experienced years of violence and lawlessness since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival parliaments and governments trading barbs and militias fighting over territory and the country's vast oil wealth.

Forces loyal to Haftar mounted a day-long assault by land, sea and air to retake the oil export terminals of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra, after both sites were seized by a rival, Islamist-led force earlier this month.

"The armed forces... have liberated the whole of the oil crescent," said Ahmed al-Mesmari, a spokesman for pro-Haftar forces.

Ahmed al-Mesmari, a spokesman of Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces, announces the recapture of two key installations, at a press conference in Benghazi on March 14, 2017

He said 10 fighters of Haftar's forces were killed and that rival fighters of the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) were being chased back to their barracks.

The head of the oil installation guards, General Meftah al-Megaryef, also said the two terminals had been recaptured.

Basset al-Shairi, a commander of the BDB which had seized the two sites on March 3, said Ras Lanuf had fallen, but without specifying the outcome in nearby Al-Sidra.

In September, pro-Haftar forces had already captured the terminals and two other eastern oil ports in a blow to the authority of the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli.

Haftar backs a rival administration in the country's far east that has refused to cede power to the Government of National Accord (GNA) working in the capital since last year.

Oil accounts for more than 95 percent of Libya's revenues.

Haftar's forces, which call themselves the Libyan National Army (LNA), have battled jihadists in second city Benghazi for more than two years.

- Tanks 'under our balcony' -

In Tripoli, fresh fighting raged on Tuesday between rival armed groups, authorities in the capital said, causing UN Libya envoy Martin Kobler to call for an "immediate ceasefire".

"Civilians at grave risk in ongoing clashes," he wrote on Twitter.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard in two neighbourhoods west of the city centre, witnesses said, and several key thoroughfares were blocked, leaving many trapped in their homes.

Witnesses said tanks had deployed in the neighbourhoods of Hay al-Andalus and Gargaresh, after the fighting broke out late Monday.

"Early this morning, several tanks and vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft weapons passed under our balcony," Abdel-Nur Bachir, a retired 80-year-old businessman living in Gargaresh, told AFP.

It was not immediately clear who was involved in the clashes.

Forces loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord man a checkpoint in Tripoli on March 14, 2017

The Tripoli police, who are loyal to the GNA, said they were "purging" the area of "outlaws", but did not announce any casualties.

A resident of Hay Al-Andalus, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was trapped indoors.

"We have nowhere to go to escape the fighting. All we can do is pray that no shelling hits the house," she said.

"People are holed up indoors. Schools are closed."

- 'Complex' ties -

Since Kadhafi's fall, several armed groups have battled for control of the capital in the absence of a regular army or police force.

The GNA has denied having any connection to the takeover of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra earlier this month.

A Libya expert, in a briefing released last week, described the relationship between the GNA -- and the Presidential Council (PC) that heads it -- and the BDB that led the attack on the oil terminals as "complex and somewhat unclear".

"While the GNA's Minister of Defence, Mahdi al-Barghati, supports the group, as do some members of the PC, the PC has officially condemned the attack and stated it had no ties to the BDB," Claudia Gazzini of the International Crisis Group think-tank said.

The BDB were formed in 2016 by fighters including Islamists ousted from Benghazi by Haftar's forces.

The GNA said last week that it had ordered oil installation guards who are loyal to it to secure the two terminals.

Last month, Haftar and GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj agreed to form a committee to explore amending the UN-backed agreement that gave rise to the unity government.

But the pro-Haftar eastern parliament, which was elected in 2014, last week suspended its participation in political dialogue and called for presidential and legislative elections to be held before next February.
Members of the Iraqi forces advance towards the Old City in western Mosul on March 13, 2017

Iraqi forces said Tuesday they recaptured Mosul train station, once one of the country's main rail hubs and the latest in a series of key sites retaken from jihadists.

Baghdad's forces launched a major drive last month to oust the Islamic State group from west Mosul, a battle that has pushed more than 80,000 people to flee their homes in less than three weeks.

Iraqi forces have now taken back a series of neighbourhoods as well as sites including the city's airport, the Mosul museum and the provincial government headquarters since the operation began.

Some, including the museum which was vandalised by IS, have been heavily damaged, and it is likely to be a long time before trains again run to and from Mosul.

But retaking the sites has meant symbolic victories for Iraqi forces and also brings them closer to fully recapturing west Mosul, despite the prospect of tough fighting ahead.

Iraqi forces seize Mosul train station

Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, the commander of the federal police, said his forces have retaken the train station and a nearby bus station, both of which are southwest of Mosul's Old City.

The train station was the "main corridor from the north to the south and carries goods from Turkey and Syria to Baghdad and Basra", Salam Jabr Saloom, the director general of Iraq's state-owned railway company, told AFP.

Because of its importance, the station was "exposed to many terrorist attacks before the entry of Daesh", Saloom said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Built in the 1940s, it was "very important from a trade standpoint" as it was a "launch point for trains carrying goods to Syria and Turkey and back", railway company spokesman Abdulsattar Mohsen said.

"But it stopped after the Daesh attack on Mosul," Mohsen said, referring to an IS offensive that overran the city and swathes of other territory north and west of Baghdad in 2014.

Iraqi troops fire artillery towards Islamic State group positions in west Mosul on March 11

Trains also once carried passengers to and from Mosul, but have not done so since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led forces in 2003, he said.

- 'Horrendous conditions' at prisons -

Iraqi forces are operating on the edge of the Old City, a warren of narrow streets and closely spaced buildings where hundreds of thousands of people may still be living.

The area, in which they will have to advance on foot when armoured vehicles cannot enter the small streets, could see some of the toughest fighting of the Mosul campaign.

Iraqi forces are also battling IS outside the city, with the Joint Operations Command announcing that soldiers from the 16th Division had recaptured the villages of Sheikh Mohammed and Al-Jamaliyah northwest of Mosul.

More than 80,000 people have fled west Mosul since February 25, according to the International Organization for Migration.

And 238,000 people are currently displaced due to fighting in the Mosul area, while more fled but later returned to their homes, the IOM said.

Security forces are searching for jihadists trying to sneak out of the city among civilians, and according to Human Rights Watch, more than 1,200 men and boys suspected of IS ties are being held in "horrendous conditions" at sites south of Mosul.

"The Iraqi interior ministry is holding at least 1,269 detainees, including boys as young as 13, without charge in horrendous conditions and with limited access to medical care at... makeshift prisons," HRW said in a report.

"At least four prisoners have died, in cases that appear to be linked to lack of proper medical care and poor conditions and two prisoners' legs have been amputated, apparently because of lack of treatment for treatable wounds," it said.

The facilities are in Qayyarah and Hamam al-Alil, said HRW, which visited some of them earlier this month.

The rights watchdog said the makeshift prisons were under the authority of the interior ministry intelligence service, which is interrogating people handed over by security forces fighting IS.

Iraq was under heavy pressure to improve its procedures for the Mosul operation after people reported torture and other abuses during screening of those who fled Fallujah, which Baghdad's forces retook from IS last year.

While changes do seem to have been made, the HRW allegations indicate that significant problems remain with screening procedures -- problems that breed anger and resentment that drives more people into the arms of militants.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas (R) meets Jason Greenblatt, the US president's assistant and special representative for international negotiations, at his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 14, 2017

US President Donald Trump's administration waded into the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Tuesday as one of his top advisers held his first meeting with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

After five hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday night, Jason Greenblatt met Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting that "we had a positive, far-ranging exchange about the current situation".

"President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement," he wrote.

US officials have described the visit by Greenblatt, Trump's special representative for international negotiations, as a fact-finding mission as the White House seeks a way forward in restarting long-deadlocked peace efforts.

But it comes after Trump cast uncertainty over years of international efforts to foster a two-state solution to the conflict when he met Netanyahu at the White House last month.

At that meeting, Trump broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to the conflict and would be open to one state if it meant peace.

He has also sparked concern among Palestinians and others by pledging during his campaign to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the status of which is one of the thorniest issues of the conflict.

Trump has since backed away, with US officials saying the decision-making process on the issue was in the early stages.

US President Trump cast uncertainty over years of international efforts to foster a two-state solution when he met Netanyahu at the White House

There have been mixed signals over how Trump will approach his efforts to restart negotiations, with the conflict having confounded US leaders for decades.

Trump spoke with Abbas in their first phone call on Friday, inviting him to visit the White House soon.

The US president has also asked Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit", and there have been warnings that unilateral action by Israel such as moving to annex the West Bank would provoke a crisis with Trump's administration.

There has been growing concern that Israeli settlement building is eating away at prospects for a two-state solution, the basis of years of negotiations.

Settlements are seen as illegal under international law and a major stumbling block to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

- Palestinians pessimistic -

In a rare move, former US president Barack Obama, in the waning days of his administration, declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building, allowing it to pass.

Trump had called on Obama to veto the resolution.

After Monday night's meeting, Netanyahu's office and the US embassy issued a joint statement saying he and Greenblatt discussed settlement construction and ways to reach peace.

The two "continued discussions relating to settlement construction in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security".

According to the statement, Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations".

The statement cited Netanyahu as telling Greenblatt he believed "it is possible to advance peace" while Trump is in the White House.

Greenblatt himself wrote on Twitter that he had a "very positive and productive meeting" with Netanyahu during which they discussed the "regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements".

There is widespread pessimism among Palestinians.

Poll results released on Tuesday showed only nine percent of Palestinians believe Trump's administration will lead to a renewal of the peace process.

At the same time, 50 years after Israel's occupation began, 44 percent of Palestinians believe that "the standing of Palestine today is worse" than half a century ago, according to the poll.

Sixty percent say that a two-state solution is no longer viable because of Israeli settlement expansion.

On the Israeli side, Netanyahu has found himself caught between maintaining relations with Washington and holding together his governing coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history.

On Tuesday, pro-settlement members of the coalition sought to advance a bill to annex a large Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem of some 37,000 people called Maale Adumim.

The bill was on the agenda for a ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday, but was put off for another week.

Netanyahu has reportedly been seeking to delay the bill due in part to concerns over how it will affect US relations.
The death toll from a landslide at Ethiopia's largest rubbish dump has risen to 72

The death toll from a landslide at Ethiopia's largest rubbish dump reached 72 on Tuesday as the country's parliament declared three days of national mourning, a government minister told AFP.

"The death toll is 72 so far," Communications Minister Negeri Lencho said, adding that rescuers were still searching for survivors and victims' bodies.

Part of the largest hill at the Koshe rubbish dump in the capital Addis Ababa gave way on Saturday, swallowing up a slum that had been built on the trash and burying families alive in their homes.

Most of the dead are women and children.

Rescuers on Tuesday pulled a woman alive from the rubble more than two days after the disaster, said Dagmawit Moges, a spokeswoman for the Addis Ababa city administration.

Starting Wednesday, flags in Ethiopia will fly at half-mast as the country observes three days of mourning for the victims.

The Koshe landfill, the country's largest, has for more than 40 years been the main garbage dump for Addis Ababa.

Hundreds of people lived at the landfill on the outskirts of the capital, collecting recyclables trucked in from neighbourhoods around the city of about four million people.

The government tried last year to close the dump and move it to a different location, but opposition from residents at the new site forced the authorities to back down.

Residents who spoke to AFP blamed the landslide on the construction of a new biogas facility on top of the rubbish.

They claimed the facility had destabilised the hill that makes up the landfill.

Lencho rejected that claim, saying slum dwellers had caused the collapse by digging into the soil to find rubbish to sell.
The radical Islamist group Ansaru was formed as a Boko Haram splinter group in 2012

Nigeria on Tuesday charged the leader of Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru with the abduction and murder of 10 foreigners, in one its highest-profile cases yet against Islamist militants.

Khalid al-Barnawi, one of three Nigerians listed by the US government as a "specially designated global terrorist", appeared in court alongside six other defendants and denied the charges.

The charges relate to a series of kidnappings and killings of foreign workers between 2011 and 2013, including Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and his British colleague Chris McManus.

Both were killed by their captors in the northern city of Sokoto just after the start of a joint British-Nigerian rescue operation at the compound where they were being held in March 2012.

Barnawi is also accused in connection with kidnapping Frenchman Francis Collomp and German national Edgar Raupach.

Collomp was kidnapped in December 2012 and held by Ansaru for nearly a year before he managed to stage a dramatic escape in November 2013.

Raupach's abduction was initially claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to which Ansaru has been linked. He was killed during a military raid in Kano, northern Nigeria, in May 2012.

The other kidnapping and murder charges relate to seven foreign nationals -- two from Lebanon, two Syrians, an Italian, a Greek and a Briton.

They were seized from a construction site in the northern state of Bauchi in 2013.

According to the charge sheet, the seven were taken to Sambisa Forest area of northeaster Borno state and held for about 10 days before they were killed and buried in a shallow grave.

Halima Haliru, Barnawi's second wife, faces only one charge -- failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

- Most wanted -

Nigeria's military announced in April last year that Barnawi -- who is also known as Mohammed Usman -- had been arrested in Lokoja in central Nigeria.

He was described as "on top of the list of our wanted terrorists" because of his alleged links to the wider jihadist network in west and north Africa.

Barnawi assumed the leadership of Ansaru following the death of the group's founder Abubakar Adam Kambar in a military raid on his hideout in Kano in March 2012.

Both Barnawi and Kambar were former close allies of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009, which then saw his deputy Abubakar Shekau take over.

Under Shekau's leadership, at least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million forced from their homes.

Ansaru, whose members trained in AQIM camps in the Algerian desert, broke away in protest at Shekau's indiscriminate violence and targeting of civilians.

Also known as Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladissudan ("Vanguard for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa"), it specialised in high-profile killings and attacks on foreigners.

Omar Mahmood, of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said the charges were significant and made Barnawi "perhaps the highest profile Nigerian jihadist to go on trial" in recent years.

He was a "prominent leader" and "represented a more internationally focused and connected wing of the Nigerian jihadist movement", he added.

The trial will be closely watched because Nigeria has failed to bring many captured jihadists to trial, possibly because of the sheer numbers involved or lack of evidence.

- Boko Haram video -

Boko Haram meanwhile published a new video online on Monday evening, depicting a gruesome execution similar to propaganda images from the Islamic State group to which it is affiliated.

The video, seen by AFP, shows masked militant fighters accusing three men dressed in knee-length orange kaftans of spying for the Nigerian government.

They are questioned in front of an IS flag, after which at least one of them is beheaded with a sabre.

Boko Haram has previously released videos of executions, including one of a captured Nigerian Air Force pilot who was decapitated, as well as amputations and beatings of civilians.

Yan St-Pierre, from the Modern Security Consulting Group in Berlin, told AFP the video could be an attempt by Shekau to show the group "is still a force to be reckoned with".

Nigeria's military has repeatedly said Boko Haram is weakened and divided, particularly since IS last year announced it had appointed Yusuf's son Abu Musab al-Barnawi as leader.
Rescue workers inspect a body after a fireworks warehouse blaze in the Israeli village of Porat on March 14, 2017

A fireworks warehouse in northern Israel went up in flames on Tuesday, killing two people, injuring at least two more and setting off a series of loud explosions, authorities said.

Firefighters worked to douse the large fire at the structure around Porat, a village near the coastal city of Netanya, while evacuating residents and preventing the blaze from spreading to nearby homes.

Police said two bodies were recovered from the warehouse and an investigation into the fire was continuing.

A fire service spokesman called it "a very big fire, including explosions and fireworks being shot into the air".

Israeli firefighters douse flames after a fire at a fireworks warehouse in Porat village killed at two people on March 14, 2017

Medics also took a 50-year-old man suffering burn wounds to hospital in serious condition, while at least one other person was less seriously hurt.

Authorities had initially spoken of seven injured.

Images distributed by police showed thick black smoke billowing, as fireworks exploded in the sky behind.

Police closed off the area and sent emergency units to the scene.
Yemeni women chant and wave their national flag during a sit-in outside UN offices in Sanaa on March 14, 2015 to demand an end to their country's devastating war

Dozens of women staged a sit-in outside UN offices in Yemen's capital Tuesday demanding an end to the country's war that has left millions displaced and at risk of famine.

Girls and women of all ages carried the red, white and black Yemeni flag as they sang the national anthem, some with their babies wrapped in the flag or sporting nails painted in national colours.

"We are here to speak for the women of Yemen who are calling for peace -- true peace, peace for us and our children," read a statement in Arabic distributed by protesters at the sit-in, which is scheduled to last three days.

"We watch as our families are rendered homeless, our men are murdered, our homes destroyed and our children's futures are lost before our very eyes," it added.

"We watch as our society is destroyed, as most of our people are driven below the poverty line."

A Yemeni woman carries a child wrapped in the national flag at a sit-in outside UN offices in Sanaa to demand an end to their country's two-year-old conflict on March 14, 2017

Women at the sit-in carried signs calling for the lifting of an air and naval blockade imposed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition on areas controlled by anti-government rebels in Yemen.

Other signs demanded the UN press Saudi Arabia and its allies to allow the delivery of food and medical aid into Yemen, which UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien has described as the "largest humanitarian crisis in the world".

Protesters erected colourful tents on Tuesday afternoon as they prepared to spend their first night outside the Sanaa offices of the United Nations.

The conflict in Yemen has left more than 7,400 people dead and 40,000 wounded since the Saudi-led coalition intervened on the government's side against Iran-backed rebels in March 2015, according to UN figures.

In the past two months alone, more than 48,000 people have fled fighting in the Arab world's poorest country, O'Brien has said.

Two-thirds of Yemen's population, or 18.8 million people, are currently in need of assistance and more than seven million have no regular access to food.

The UN has warned the country faces a serious risk of famine.
Afghan policemen arriving outside a military hospital during an attack in Kabul on March 8, 2017

The Afghan security leadership has come under scathing criticism from lawmakers and social media users over a catastrophic insurgent attack on the country's largest military hospital, with many calling for their impeachment.

Gunmen disguised as doctors stormed Sardar Daud Khan hospital in Kabul last Wednesday, with multiple surviving staff telling AFP that insiders including two interns were among the attackers.

The carnage inside the heavily guarded hospital points at a spectacular intelligence failure and spotlights how insurgents have managed to infiltrate top government and military institutions in Afghanistan.

"If I were the minister of defense, or intelligence chief or the minister of interior, I would submit my resignation over the incident in the 400-bed hospital," MP Nawab Mangal was quoted as saying in the local media Tuesday.

Another lawmaker Humayoun Humayoun heaped scorn on Defense Minister Abdullah Habibi, who has been regularly mocked for social media images of him dozing off in official meetings.

"The minister of defense is sleeping 24 hours a day," he said.

"I think if we put him in a bag, close it and send it to another country, then the minister will see that he has been taken to another country without a visa and passport."

The defence ministry insists only around 30 people were killed by five attackers. But security sources and the survivors, some of whom counted dead bodies, said the death toll exceeded 100.

MPs are calling for the impeachment of Afghanistan's defense and interior ministers and the intelligence chief, as the country braces for an intense fighting season in the spring.

"How long should Afghan people tolerate this kind of negligence and unprofessional behaviour by (President Ashraf) Ghani and his unqualified security team?" one Afghan asked on Facebook, echoing a deluge of similar comments.

For its part, the defence ministry said a government commission had been set up to investigate the attack.

Public anger has grown over the episode, with speculation swirling on social media that such a brazen attack on the tightly guarded hospital could not have happened without the complicity of high-ranking officials.

The savagery of the assault was characterised by how the assailants stabbed bed-ridden patients, threw grenades into crowded wards and shot people from point-blank range.

The Islamic State group claimed it was behind the attack via its propaganda agency Amaq -- hours after the Taliban denied responsibility.

But the survivors AFP spoke to said the attackers chanted "Long live Taliban" in Pashto and attacked all but two wards on the hospital's first floor where Taliban patients were admitted.
Members of the Jewish community inspect toppled headstone at Washington Cemetery in the New York burough of Brooklyn on March 5, 2017

On Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, a mixed community where Jews and Muslims interact with ease, sits a Jewish center for the elderly.

Last week, the center was the victim of a bomb threat -- one of more than 150 targeting American Jewish institutions since the start of the year. Swastikas have appeared on walls: cemeteries have been desecrated.

But the recent spike in threats has not shaken the community. Many Jews in the United States -- which has been largely spared from anti-Semitic attacks over the past 50 years -- say they feel safe.

Stuart Gourdji, a 25-year-old who runs Yachad Gifts, a shop specializing in Kosher gift baskets, had to evacuate when the bomb threat to the community center was received. "It was scary," he admitted.

He says he has lost count of the reports of threats he has seen on television, but he and his employees are not worried, and Gourdji would never think of removing his yarmulke in public for safety reasons.

"You have one stupid person probably ringleading this thing," he told AFP. "He will end up being arrested -- it will pass."

But not everyone is as calm as Gourdji.

"I have seen an enormous amount of anxiety," especially among the parents of children who attend schools that have been targeted, explains retired rabbi Jack Moline.

The 64-year-old Washington resident says he has never seen such a wave of anti-Semitic threats in his life.

"The clear purpose of those acts is to unsettle Jewish life in this country," he said.

Like Gourdji, Moline says the threats experienced in the United States pale in comparison to those experienced in Europe and especially in France, where there have been deadly attacks -- notably on a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 or the siege of a Kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015.

Both also agree that the threats should serve as a wake-up call to the nearly six million Jews in America.

"Anti-Semitism exists," Gourdji said.

- 'Thing of the past' -

Many had believed that anti-Semitism was a thing of the past because of the "tremendous improvements" made since the end of World War II, said Kenneth Jacobson, the deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The group, one of the oldest battling anti-Semitism and discrimination, has been the target of several recent threats.

In the period between the world wars, anti-Semitism was not uncommon -- and such views were vocally expressed by auto industry baron Henry Ford in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent.

The bomb threats to Jewish community centers

Aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh and controversial priest Charles Coughlin also delivered anti-Semitic screeds to millions to Americans.

There also were unofficial quotas at universities and for housing, and even restrictions on Jews getting certain jobs, Jacobson explained.

"All of that is a thing of the past," he said.

"In the 2,000 years of the Jewish diaspora, there has never been a Jewish community that has felt as comfortable and equal citizens as American Jews have felt for the last 50-60 years, and we still believe that to be true."

Since 1964, the ADL has regularly gauged the level of anti-Semitic sentiment in the country.

Once as high as 29 percent, that figure has dropped to 12 or 13 percent in recent years -- a major improvement, though "that still means 30 to 35 million Americans" feel that way, he noted.

- Hate speech liberated? -

For Jacobson, the other major victory for the Jewish community in recent years has been the stigmatization of racist and anti-Semitic speech.

"When public figures would engage in hate speech of any kind, they would have their reputation ruined, they would sometimes lose their jobs," he said.

But the ADL official says that progress is now under threat -- and he points the finger of blame at President Donald Trump.

Jacobson does not consider Trump to be anti-Jewish -- the Republican leader has strong support among a certain part of the community for his fierce support of Israel.

But by targeting Muslims, women and Mexicans for criticism and sometimes ridicule, and by winning the presidency despite all that, Trump has helped liberate those "who may have harbored hatred" to speak out, he said.

"There is a feeling of empowerment... and so the anti-Semites felt it was their moment to come out," Jacobson said.

Some like Moline are angry at the Trump administration for not being "more diligent in separating themselves from groups" like far-right nationalists who supported the billionaire's candidacy.

Jacobson said the ADL recently "suggested five or six different things" to the White House as possible ways to improve their communications.

In the face of racism and anti-Semitism, "there needs to be more of a consistent kind of articulation from the bully pulpit -- and the president has the number one bully pulpit in the country," he said.
Valeant shares plunged after Bill Ackman's hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, sold its investment in the drug firm at a loss

Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International plunged Tuesday following news that activist investor Bill Ackman exited the controversial drug company.

Shares of the Canadian company dived 10.9 percent to $10.80 by midday after an announcement that Ackman's hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, sold its investment in the drug firm at a loss.

In addition, Ackman and fellow Pershing executive Stephen Fraidin said they would step down from the Valeant board.

The investment in Valeant accounted for just 1.5 to 3.0 percent of the value of Pershing's funds, but "required a disproportionately large amount of time and resources," the firm said in a statement.

"As a result, we elected to sell our investment and realize a large tax loss which will enable us to dedicate more time to our other portfolio companies and to new investment opportunities."

Analysts at BMO Capital Markets expressed surprise that Pershing Square opted to sell its entire stake in the company, saying the "throwing in the towel" stance "sends a poor signal regarding the road ahead for Valeant."

Pershing Square, which held about 5.3 percent of Valeant shares at the end of 2016, had stood by the drugmaker when it came under fire for hefty price increases and criticism over its accounting and business practices.

The company disclosed investigations by about a dozen government agencies in its most recent annual securities filing.

Valeant has taken steps to remake itself in response to critics, replacing its chief executive, divesting some divisions to reduce debt, and taking steps to advance a number of new drugs for regulatory approval.
Seized smuggled rhino horns are displayed at a customs office in Hanoi on March 14, 2017

Vietnam police seized more than 100 kilograms of rhino horn smuggled into the country in suitcases from Kenya on Tuesday, the latest illegal haul in the wildlife trafficking hub.

Vietnam is a hot market for rhino horn, believed to have medicinal properties and is in high demand among the communist nation's growing middle class.

The country is a popular transit point for illegal animal products, which often move from Africa through Vietnam to other parts of Asia.

The latest haul of the prized animal parts at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport were found hidden in luggage on a flight from Nairobi, according to the official publication of the Hanoi police department.

"After scanning and checking, customs officials discovered the two suitcases of 57 kilograms (125 pounds) and 61 kilograms were full of suspected rhino horns," the online Capital Security Newspaper reports said.

Photos showed the huge haul in suitcases and stacked on tables.

Conservationists have warned that rampant demand for rhino horn in China and Vietnam, where it is falsely believed to cure cancer and treat hangovers, is decimating African rhino populations.

A single kilogram of rhino horn can fetch up to $60,000 on the local market, according to reports.

Britain's Prince William delivered an urgent plea in Vietnam in November to end wildlife trafficking to save critically endangered species such as rhino, elephants and pangolins.

Wild rhino populations have dwindled to just 29,000 from half a million at the beginning of the 20th century, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

Trade in rhino horn was banned globally in 1977 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed (L) shakes hands with the head of the Tunisian elections body, Chafik Sarsar, during a meeting in Gammarth near the capital with all political parties to decide on the date of municipal elections, on March 14, 2017.

The body in charge of organising elections in Tunisia on Tuesday proposed November 26 as the date for holding the first municipal polls since the country's 2011 revolution.

"It is still possible to hold the elections in 2017," said the president of the electoral body, Chafik Sarsar, at a meeting with Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and party officials.

He proposed November 26, a date which he said could be delayed until the first half of December, while calling for the timing to be decided this week.

It could even be pushed back to March 2018, he said.

But Sarsar warned that delays could be "a bad sign for Tunisia", whose revolution toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and signal "an incapacity to move forward with the democratic transition".

Chahed said it was "necessary for the elections to take place in 2017", but the different party officials disagreed on a date at Tuesday's meeting.
Syrians children play during a sandstorm in the once rebel held Karm al-Jabal neighbourhood in the northern city of Aleppo on March 10, 2017

The EU unveiled an ambitious plan Tuesday to support the reconstruction of war-torn Syria, calling it a "dividend" to encourage warring parties to reach a peace deal.

Ahead of an April 5 Syria conference in Brussels, European Union foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini released proposals ranging from demining to organising elections.

"Too many times the international community has not prepared the post-conflict period in time. This time we want to be ready," Mogherini told reporters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Mogherini said the EU was "looking beyond the current situation as a dividend for peace that could encourage parties in Syria to make necessary compromises".

She has pushed the 28-nation EU to play a leading role in post-conflict Syria so as to avoid the mistakes made in Libya and Iraq when the international community effectively left them to their own devices with disastrous results.

The former Italian foreign minister said the EU was ready to do its bit once a "genuine political transition" from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule was underway.

The April 5 conference would provide the opportunity for the parties to begin coordinating their efforts now, she said.

Mogherini highlighted the importance of getting regional players onside -- especially Saudi Arabia, opposed to Assad, and Iran which backs the president and rejects demands for him to step down.

An accompanying document issued by the European Commission said among steps Brussels could take would be to mobilise funding to support reconstruction efforts, including helping with security, demining and monitoring of the ceasefire.

Mogherini said the EU had already mobilised some 9.4 billion euros, of which nearly a billion ($1.10 billion) had been spent inside Syria on humanitarian missions.

The EU could also help restore basic services -- water, health and education -- to show that peace was providing real benefits, the document said.

"The EU could support the drafting of a new constitution and the organisation of elections, notably through assistance to election management and an EU electoral observation mission," the document added.

The EU has consistently backed UN efforts to end the conflict in Syria which has cost some 320,000 lives and displaced millions since 2011 when protests against Assad descended into all-out civil war.

Assad's future is the key question, with the various rebel groups backed by the United States and Turkey demanding that he step down in any settlement while long-time ally Russia has backed him militarily against the rebels.
Moussa Faki Mahamat Faki, seen in 2014, takes over leadership of the 54-country AU bloc days after the UN announced that food emergencies in four countries, including three in Africa, constituted the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II

Chad's former foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat assumed office as head of the African Union Commission on Tuesday, pledging to reform the institution and tackle the continent's many crises.

Faki takes over leadership of the 54-country continental bloc days after the United Nations announced that the food emergencies in four countries, including Somalia, South Sudan and northeast Nigeria, constituted the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

"The famine that ravages vast areas of Africa these days is a real humiliation for us," Faki told delegates at the commission's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

"The immense potential of our continent and the enviable rate of economic growth of many member states of the union leave us no justification for this hideous human tragedy".

An ally of Chadian President Idriss Deby, Faki, 56, campaigned on putting "development and security" at the top of his agenda.

As foreign minister, he was seen as taking a strong position against Islamic extremism in Mali, Nigeria and the Sahel.

Faki was elected AU chairman in January after seven rounds of voting, triumphing over Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed and candidates from Senegal, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.

In his speech, Faki embraced what he said was an "enlightening" report by Rwandan President Paul Kagame that recommended ways to reform the AU.

The report called for the institution to better distinguish itself from other regional blocs and focus its efforts only on key areas like political affairs and peace and security.

Faki takes over from Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who championed the commission's Agenda 2063 development program but was seen as being weak on peace and security issues and distracted by her own political aspirations in her home country South Africa.
General Robert Neller listens during the Senate Armed Services Committee on Information Surrounding the Marines United Website at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 14, 2017

Senior US lawmakers on Tuesday blasted the leader of the Marine Corps over a "repugnant" scandal involving the nonconsensual posting of nude photos of women Marines online.

The scandal has rocked the Marines, which tout their "core values" of honor, courage and commitment, and have built a proud legacy in the American psyche of iconic moments such as the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

General Robert Neller, the Marine Corps's commandant, faced withering criticism from the Senate Armed Services Committee over his handling of the case that saw pictures of female Marines in various stages of undress shared via a secret Facebook group called "Marines United."

Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said it was a "serious problem" that there had been "no response" from Marine leadership.

"Your answers today are unsatisfactory. They do not go far enough," said Gillibrand, who highlighted that the Corps had been aware of the "online exploitation" of other Marines since 2013.

"Who is being held accountable for doing nothing since 2013? Who? Which commander?" she asked.

During a hearing before the panel, Neller offered what he described as a "lame" answer and accepted responsibility for a "problem" within Marine culture.

"I'm responsible. I'm the commandant, I own this and we are going to have to ... change how we see ourselves and how we treat each other."

Senator Jack Reed said the matter was "repugnant and just plain wrong and inexcusable."

- 'Misogynistic culture' -

General Robert Neller, Secretary Sean Stackley and SGT Major MC Green attend the Senate Armed Services Committee on information surrounding the Marines United Website at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC on March 14, 2017

Women have long been part of the US military, and last year under former president Barack Obama, all branches opened up all jobs to women, including combat units.

Of all the services, however, the Marines have been most resistant to accepting women in combat roles.

In an opinion piece in USA Today on Monday, Rachel VanLandingham, a law professor and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, called for Neller's head.

"Not only does Neller's dereliction of duty warrant his firing, subordinate Marine Corps leaders need such an unequivocal signal that failure to exercise their command to safeguard their female members will not be tolerated," she wrote.

"This latest Marine Corps nude photo scandal -- not the first -- demonstrates the lamentable misogynistic culture that still exists in the Corps."

Membership in the "Marines United" group was restricted to current and former Marines, but it had as many as 30,000 members before it was taken down.

The story was first reported by The War Horse, a news group run by Marine veteran Thomas Brennan.

He said some of the photos were taken surreptitiously, while others had been taken by the women themselves but shared without their consent.

The pictures, often accompanied by lewd commentary, gave the women's names and units in some cases.

Another report last week, said hundreds of pictures of naked women from all the military services were being shared on another image-sharing site, AnonIB.

Because the Marine Corps is part of the Navy Department, the scandal is being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

"We will prosecute the matter of Marines United to the full extent of our abilities," Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley told lawmakers.

He said "every resource" would be made available to victims, and vowed to "eradicate this cancer" via a task force working on the issue.
Doctors in Kenya have been protesting at poor salaries and working conditions

Kenyan doctors signed a deal on Tuesday to end a strike over pay and working conditions that has crippled public hospitals for 100 days.

The government had threatened repeatedly to fire the strikers and hire foreign doctors, and union officials were even briefly jailed in a bid to end the country's longest-ever medical strike.

Poor salaries and working conditions -- such as a lack of vital drugs and equipment -- have pushed Kenyan doctors to flee the public sector or go to other countries where there are better opportunities.

The deal, signed at a ceremony broadcast on television, followed intense negotiations brokered by religious leaders.

"We have concluded a return-to-work formula between the government and ourselves bringing to an end the strike by doctors that has consumed the country for 100 days," said Ouma Oluga, the head of Kenya's main doctors union, the KMPDU.

"It has been one of the most difficult industrial relations in the country", he told a joint news conference with Peter Munya, the chairman of the Council of Governors, which comprises the heads of the 47 counties.

No details were released on the accord, but Munya said they have not yet concluded a pay deal.

"What we have signed today with the doctors' union officials is a return to work formula that will pave way for further negotiations on the pay increase demands", he said.

He described the strike, which began on December 5 in state hospitals, as "one of the most painful experiences for Kenyans".

At the root of the strike was a Collective Bargaining Agreement agreed between the government and the unions in 2013.

The document promised to triple salaries but also to improve often dire conditions in public hospitals -- which the striking doctors point to when accused of being greedy.

The KMPDU union says the country has one doctor to 17,000 patients, while the World Health Organization recommends one to 1,000.

The government said the CBA was still being fine-tuned but doctors had argued it was a legal deal which they wanted implemented immediately.

A furious President Uhuru Kenyatta last week lambasted the some 5,000 striking doctors, accusing them of "blackmail".

University lecturers also went on strike in January, a double blow to Kenyatta's government just five months before a general election.

A series of corruption scandals -- including in the health ministry -- are fuelling the discontent, as is anger towards lawmakers who are among the best paid in the world and have voted themselves new benefits while claiming to be unable to meet the demands of doctors and lecturers.
Commuters drive down a main street in 2016 inl Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, where there was a reported increase in oil production for February, with the country saying it pumped 10.011 million bpd last month, up from 9.748 million bpd in January

Saudi Arabia is committed to stabilising the global oil market, the energy ministry of the world's biggest oil exporter said on Tuesday, as prices fell below $48 a barrel.

OPEC and non-OPEC countries last year pledged to reduce output by around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) as part of a concerted effort to curb a global oil glut.

Saudi Arabia "is committed and determined to stabilise the global oil market by working closely with all other participating OPEC and non-OPEC producers", the energy ministry said in a statement.

An OPEC report released Tuesday said that Saudi Arabia reported an increase in oil production for February, saying it pumped 10.011 million bpd last month, up from 9.748 million bpd in January.

But the energy ministry said the amount of crude it supplied to the market in February was 9.9 million bpd, down from 9.99 in January.

"The difference between what the market observes as production, and the actual supply levels in any given month, is due to operational factors that are influenced by storage adjustments and other month to month variables," it said.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouk, head of a committee overseeing the decreases in oil production, said last week that OPEC compliance with the output reductions had exceeded the target because of higher Saudi cuts, but non-OPEC compliance has been modest.
Attorneys for the ACLU, Omar Jadwat (L) and Justin Cox (R) deliver remarks to the media outside US District Court, Southern District of Maryland, March 15, 2017, in Greenbelt, Maryland

President Donald Trump's revised travel ban faced a trio of legal challenges in federal court Wednesday before judges who could conceivably halt the order a day before it is due to take effect.

A 90-minute hearing was held in Greenbelt, Maryland near Washington and Judge Theodore Chuang said afterward he hoped to announce a decision later Wednesday.

Another federal court hearing on the travel ban targeting all refugees and people from six mainly Muslim countries was underway in Hawaii, officials said, while a third was due to start in Washington state later Wednesday.

The US travel ban bars all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travelers from six mostly-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days

The judge in Hawaii said he will issue a decision before the new travel ban takes effect at 6 pm local time (0400 GMT), media reports said, while the judge in Washington state could also make a decision later in the day.

Chuang heard a complaint filed by a coalition of advocacy groups that included the American Civil Liberties Union, the most powerful US human rights organization. They argued that Trump's amended order, like his first one, discriminates against Muslims.

"In his mind, the danger of Muslims and the danger of refugees is all combined danger," Omar Jadwat, a lawyer for the ACLU, said of the president.

Justin Cox, another attorney for coalition of plaintiffs, said "We are very hopeful that by 12:01 tomorrow, when this executive order is supposed to be in effect, we will have an injunction blocking it for the reasons we have argued."

Under the US legal system, a federal judge can suspend all or part of the Trump executive order, with nationwide effect.

"Our claim is the executive order in purpose and effect is intended to discriminate against Muslims and it condemns their religion," Cox added.

- No 'religious distinction' -

The US District Court, Southern District of Maryland in Greenbelt, where judges will hear challenges to US President Donald Trump's revised travel ban

The first version of Trump's order triggered protests at home and abroad as well as chaos at US airports as people were detained upon arrival and either held for hours or sent back to where they came from.

The Trump administration narrowed the restrictions in its revised order to try to ensure it will be unassailable this time around -- after the initial ban was put on hold by the federal courts.

"This order doesn't draw any religious distinction at all," said Jeffrey Wall, a government attorney.

Questioned about tweets that Trump sent and statements he made during the presidential campaign in which he promised to enact a "Muslim ban," Wall said: "There is a difference between a president and a candidate."

The first version of Trump's order triggered howls of protest at home and abroad as well as chaos at US airports as people were detained upon arrival

Several states along with refugee assistance programs and rights groups have brought suits over the Republican leader's revamped version of the order he issued on January 27.

A group of 58 companies, including Lyft, Airbnb and Dropbox, submitted documents backing the Hawaii lawsuit, saying it would "inflict significant and irreparable harm on US businesses and their employees."

Trump's new measure aims to bar all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travelers from six mostly-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days.

Iraq was dropped from the list in the second order, which also explicitly exempts legal permanent residents and valid visa holders.

Trump's administration says the travel ban is necessary to keep extremists from entering the United States.

But critics say the new order essentially remains a ban on Muslims coming to the United States, and therefore unconstitutional because it singles out people of a certain religion for discrimination.

- Coast to coast -

Since September 11, 2001, the worst attacks in the United States have been committed either by radicalized Americans or by people from countries not on the Trump travel ban list.

Critics also argue that it will have a very negative effect on schools and universities and the business world, mainly the high tech sector, which employs many highly skilled immigrants.

The new battle against Trump's order is being played out on several geographical fronts, but mainly on the west coast, which tends to be pro-Democrat.

The state of Washington, joined by five other states, filed a complaint Monday with the same Seattle judge who stayed Trump's original travel ban in February.

Trump responded by insulting that federal magistrate, James Robart, calling him a "so-called judge."

It is Robart who will oversee the Washington state hearing on Wednesday and he could once again suspend all or part of the new order.

Hawaii has also filed its own, separate request for an injunction. The far flung Pacific state is home to many people of non-US origin.

The US government filed an opposing motion in Hawaii, saying the travel ban is "a valid exercise of the president's broad statutory authority to 'suspend the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens.'"
The CIA first used its new powers to strike with drones in February, when it apparently killed Al-Qaeda leader Abu Khayr al-Masri in a strike in Syria

President Donald Trump's administration has given new powers to the CIA to conduct drone strikes against extremist targets in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The move would represent a change from Obama-era policies that limited the spy agency's role in conducting paramilitary strikes, pushing responsibility for these to the Pentagon.

Obama had insisted on a more cooperative approach in drone strikes, with the Pentagon using intel from the CIA before the Pentagon conducted the attack itself.

According to the Journal, the CIA first used its new powers in February when it apparently killed Al-Qaeda leader Abu Khayr al-Masri in a strike in Syria.

US officials have not confirmed the strike, but Al-Qaeda said Masri was killed "during a Crusader drone strike" in Syria.

The CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment on the Journal report.

Typically, the Pentagon details its strikes, but it has said nothing about the Masri killing.

Separately, The New York Times this week reported that the Trump administration is also working to loosen Obama-era rules that aimed to limit civilian deaths in drone strikes.

Trump has already granted a request to declare parts of Yemen to be areas of "active hostilities," where the rules around strikes require less coordination with Washington, the Times said.

That paved the way for a botched January 29 special operations raid which resulted in the deaths of a Navy SEAL and multiple civilians -- including women and children.

Trump is also weighing a request for a temporary loosening of rules in Somalia, the Times said.

On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said the ongoing authorities for strikes in Yemen were granted at the same time as the approval for the ill-fated raid, the first under Trump's presidency.

In July, the administration of Barack Obama provided fatality estimates for 473 strikes between 2009 and 2015 that were conducted outside principal war zones.

Officials claimed anywhere from 64 to 116 civilians were killed in the strikes, and up to 2,581 combatants -- but critics have constantly said the government underestimates civilian deaths.
US student Otto Frederick Warmbier, who was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a political banner from a hotel, stands on trial at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang on March 16, 2016

The US State Department on Tuesday urged North Korea to pardon an American student who was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a political banner from a hotel.

The call for the "immediate release" of Otto Warmbier, who is in his 20s, came as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on his way to Japan, South Korea and China to discuss Pyongyang's drive to field a nuclear-armed missile.

"We believe his sentence of 15 years hard labor is unduly harsh for the actions that Mr. Warmbier allegedly took," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

"And we urge North Korea to pardon him and grant him special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds."

Toner also asked that the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which offers limited consular services to US nationals incarcerated in North Korea, be allowed regular access to the student.

Warmbier was handed the tough sentence on March 16 last year by North Korea's supreme court after he admitted stealing a propaganda banner from a staff area of the Pyongyang hotel where he was staying on an organized tour.

On Tuesday, the State Department again discouraged US citizens from visiting the communist country, with which it has no diplomatic relations.

In addition to Warmbier, who was a student at the University of Virginia, Korean-American pastor Kim Dong-Chul, in his sixties, was sentenced last April to 10 years of hard labor for espionage.

Pyongyang has in the past used the detention of US citizens as a bargaining tool.

Former president Bill Clinton in 2009 and then director of national intelligence James Clapper in 2014 travelled to North Korea to negotiate and bring back convicted and jailed Americans.
NEW YORK (AP) - A fired federal prosecutor returned to his office on Monday to say his goodbyes and tell the staff of one of the highest-profile groups of prosecutors in the nation to keep up their good work.

Preet Bharara's return came two days after he was fired after refusing to submit his resignation along with 45 other appointees of Democratic former President Barack Obama who were asked to step down Friday.

Inside the Manhattan building, Bharara spoke to dozens of employees who had worked for him since his summer 2009 appointment to an office that has proved to be a hotbed of future leaders in government and the law. He told them that he hoped his children would grow up with the moral code and character of those who inhabit the office and that the workers would continue the quality of work they had done for generations, according to several people who heard him speak.

In this image made from a video, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, walks down a line of applauding well-wishers Monday, March 13, 2017, in front of the New York office where he worked until he was fired by President Donald Trump's administration over the weekend after refusing to resign. (AP Photo/Larry Neumeister)

The workers later formed parallel rows behind barricades outside the building before Bharara, wearing only a suit in freezing temperatures, walked through the column to steady applause, shaking hands and hugging employees.

A small group of reporters approached him, and he was asked if he had a message for Republican President Donald Trump. It was unclear if he heard the question.

"I love New York. And this is the best, the best prosecutor's office you've ever seen," the misty eyed prosecutor said, pointing toward the workers as he headed back their way.

The request to resign from the office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions came as a surprise to federal prosecutors after Bharara had been asked by Trump and Sessions during a meeting at Trump Tower in late November to continue his work.

But the firing of prosecutors appointed by previous presidents is common when a new administration takes over, though it does not always occur abruptly before new prosecutors can be put in place.

Some legal observers have suggested that Bharara may have been responsible for overseeing probes that touched on the Trump administration, including how the Russians might have tried to affect last year's presidential election.

Bharara, after announcing his firing on his Twitter account on Saturday, sent a tweet Sunday saying: "By the way, now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like."

In 2013, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo formed the Moreland Commission to investigate public corruption, but then in 2014 he abruptly shut it down.

After Bharara's walk outside Monday, he greeted his deputies, including Deputy U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim, who will serve as acting U.S. attorney, at the building's front door.
TORONTO (AP) - A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner in Canada was recovering Monday after a 19-hour shoulder operation at the University of Alberta Hospital, his lawyer said.

Omar Khadr underwent the complex procedure Friday to address wounds to his shoulder that he suffered in Afghanistan before his capture in 2002, said Dennis Edney, a lawyer who worked to secure his release from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and allowed the former prisoner to live at his home in Canada after his release.

Edney said Khadr was in intensive care and it was not clear how long it would take the 30-year-old to recover

The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo and ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission.

He pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murder and was sentenced to eight years plus the time he had already spent in custody. He returned to Canada two years later to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) - Memphis Grizzlies forward Chandler Parsons, the team's biggest offseason free agent acquisition, is out indefinitely because of a partial tear of the meniscus in his left knee.

Parsons, who signed a four-year, $94 million contract over the summer, has had two surgeries on his right knee within the last two years. Earlier this season, the team announced he bruised his left knee in a Nov. 18 game against the Dallas Mavericks.

The Grizzlies said in a statement Monday before their game against the Milwaukee Bucks that they are still evaluating the injury to take "the appropriate course of action."

Parsons has been on a minutes restriction this season because of the knee problems. The 6-foot-10 forward has not performed up to hopes, averaging 6.2 points. He has not played more than 25 minutes in a game this season.
VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) - The police chief in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo said Monday that he ordered an investigation into the use of force by an officer seen punching and hitting a man with a flashlight in a video that spread online and drew outrage.

Chief Andrew Bidou said that once the internal affairs division completes its inquiry, he will review it and decide how to proceed. He asked for patience as the investigation plays out.

"We are aware of the attention this particular incident has gained and therefore I have ordered a full and complete investigation," he said in a statement.

The confrontation happened Friday afternoon at a gas station after police were called about a man acting erratically, threatening people and simulating a gun with his fingers, the department said.

Footage of the confrontation shows the officer punching the man and then hitting him with his flashlight after a second officer arrives to help subdue him.

One officer was injured. The man was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest and being under the influence. His condition was not available Monday.

Police said the officer will remain on leave during the investigation and that officers should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death.

Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed Feb. 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport. North Korea - widely suspected of being behind the attack - rejects the findings.

FILE - In this Sept. 24, 2016 file photo, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi addresses the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. Zahid said Tuesday, March 14, 2017, that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed in February, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported. News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

Zahid said Kim's body was taken out of the hospital morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital for the embalmment procedure and has been returned. He declined to say when it was done.

"As it is kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose, so we did this to preserve the body," he told reporters in Parliament.

Health officials have said Kim's relatives will be given two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

North Korea has demanded the body back and objected when Malaysia conducted an autopsy. Pyongyang also has refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and has referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam were the same person, but refused to say how they confirmed that.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply since Kim's death, with each expelling the other's ambassador. Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a "fair settlement" of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Zahid, who earlier said negotiations were ongoing, said Tuesday that about 50 North Koreans detained in eastern Sarawak state for overstaying their work permits will be sent back to Pyongyang soon. He didn't give details nor say why they would be deported amid the exit ban.

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea - three embassy staff members and their family members. About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries also scrapped visa-free travel for each other's citizens.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapon.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korea on Monday sought to shift the blame for Kim's death to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, said in New York that "from A to Z, this case is the product of reckless moves of the United States and South Korean authorities," who he said are trying to tarnish the North's image and bringing down its social system.

The ambassador said the U.S. is one of the few countries that can manufacture VX, and has also stockpiled chemical weapons in South Korea, which could have provided the chemical agent for the attack on Kim Jong Nam.

The attack was caught on surveillance video that shows two women going up to Kim and apparently smearing something on his face. He was dead within 20 minutes, authorities say. The women - one Indonesian, one Vietnamese - have been charged with murder but say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank.
ASIA:

SKOREA-POLITICS - South Korea's acting leader on Tuesday turned down the resignation offers made by senior advisers to ousted President Park Geun-hye. SENT: 300 words.

SKOREA-POLITICS-STUDENT MOVEMENT - When the Constitutional Court removed South Korean President Park Geun-hye from office, there were waves of messages thanking students at one South Korean university for starting the historic change. By Youkyung Lee. UPCOMING: 1,000 words, photos.

MALAYSIA-NORTH KOREA - Malaysia's deputy premier says the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported. SENT: 450 words.

NEW ZEALAND-TRUMP IMMIGRATION - It's one thing to talk about changing allegiance to another country when a new president is elected. It's another thing to go ahead and do it. By Nick Perry. SENT: 850 words, photos.

MALAYSIA-BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - Walt Disney has shelved the release of its new movie "Beauty and the Beast" in mainly Muslim Malaysia, even though film censors said Tuesday it had been approved with a minor cut involving a "gay moment." By Eileen Ng. SENT: 330 words, photos.

CHINA-POLITICS-GREAT HALL-TINY MOMENTS - The annual session of China's ceremonial legislature is designed to awe onlookers with its size and sweep, with nearly 3,000 delegates and hordes of journalists and others gathered in the cavernous auditorium of the hulking Great Hall of the People. SENT: 250 words, photo gallery.

FINANCE AND BUSINESS

FINANCIAL MARKETS - Asian stock markets drifted with little movement on Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of the Federal Reserve's meeting and a batch of economic and political events around the world later this week. By Youkyung Lee. SENT: 430 words, photos.

___

HOW TO REACH US:

The editor in charge at the AP Asia-Pacific Desk in Bangkok is Scott McDonald. Questions and story requests are welcome. The news desk can be reached at (66) 2632-6911 or by email at asia@ap.org. The Asia Photo Desk can be reached at (81-3) 6215-8941. Between 1600 GMT and 0000 GMT, please refer queries to the North America Desk in New York at (1) 212-621-1650.

Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://www.apexchange.com. For access to AP Exchange and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport@ap.org or call (1) 877-836-9477.
On a hot summer day in 2014, Syed Bashir Bukhari set himself on fire in the main square of his Kasmiri village and died the next day in a hospital.

According to his wife, Safeena Bashir, the former fighter from the western village of Kreeri had faced problems after giving up the rebellion against Indian rule.

His family was denied Indian citizenship after returning from the Pakistan-controlled side of the disputed Himalayan territory. His teenage son was refused school admission, and his Pakistan-Kashmiri wife and five daughters felt ostracised.

Pakistan-Kashmiri Safeena Bashir, second right, wife of former Kashmiri militant Syed Bashir Bukhari who committed suicide, sits along with her daughters Saba, right and Beenish, and her granddaughter Mehak at her residence in Kreeri, 35 km north of Srinagar (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

After two years of struggle, he'd had enough.

'We were cheated,' Safeena said about the family's decision to accept an Indian deal promising citizenship and reintegration in exchange for giving up the fight against Indian rule.

Though her son, now 21, is supporting the family as a coppersmith and her daughters are now in school, Safeena wants to return to the Pakistani side where she felt welcome. 'This is no life here,' she said.

The family is part of the latest generation caught up in a violent conflict that has dominated Kashmiri life since 1947, when India and Pakistan gained independence from the British Empire and almost immediately began fighting over rival claims to this mountain territory.

Alisha, daughter of former Kashmiri militant Syed Bashir Bukhari who committed suicide, poses with a photograph of her father (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

The two countries have fought two wars over their claims to Kashmir since, and each now administers a part of it - separated by a militarised Line of Control that snakes through valleys and across mountains.

Bukhari was among tens of thousands of young Kashmiris who in 1989 rose up against Indian rule and launched a bloody rebellion, demanding Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan.

Many crossed over to the Pakistan-controlled side, training in guerrilla tactics and launching cross-border attacks. Thousands of the militants were killed in clashes with Indian troops or in the Indian crackdown, or were arrested during raids.

In 2010, after the rebellion had largely been crushed, India rolled out a rehabilitation program inviting former fighters home, provided they renounce militancy.

Beenish, daughter of Syed Bashir Bukhari, engraves motifs on copper vessel as her mother Safeena Bashir, right, and her sister Bismah watch (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Some 377 men did, bringing another 864 family members with them, according to state records.

But the former fighters were never granted any promised benefits and their families were denied Indian citizenship. They cannot get travel documents or hold government jobs.

Admission to school is not guaranteed, as it is for documented Kashmiris.

They can't open a bank account or legally apply for a cooking gas connection and buying property is out of the question.

Qazi Barat, a former Kashmiri militant works inside his bakery in Delina, 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

The one document they can get without a problem is an ID that allows them to vote in Indian elections.

'For us, everything here happens by "jugaad," said former fighter Shabir Ahmed Dar, using the colloquial Indian term for a cheap and improvised fix.

He spoke to The Associated Press at the hardware shop where he helps with the bookkeeping, doing work that must be paid in cash, in the region's main city of Srinagar.

His daughter had been in the first year of medical school in the Pakistani city of Karachi but was barred from continuing her studies on the Indian side after the family returned.

Sonaullah Dar, a former Kashmiri militant, shows citizenship certificates of his family issued by authorities in Pakistan administered Kashmir at his residence in Delina (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

The Indian government says the former fighters forfeited their rights by re-entering the country through Nepal or Bangladesh - and not through three designated points along the India-Pakistan border or through the international airport in New Delhi.

Officials would not explain why they needed the returnees to go through one of the four border points.

Some former militants said Indian soldiers had blocked them at those designated border points. Others said that because Pakistan was never on board with the rehabilitation deal, the Pakistanis did not facilitate crossings.

They now accuse India of being dishonest.

Sonaullah Dar, left, a former Kashmiri militant watches as her daughters Malaika and Emaan along with their mother Imrana Mehar eat lunch a

'This is plain cheating,' Ahmed Dar said. 'If we came back via non-approved routes, why didn't they stop us or repatriate us' back to Pakistan?

Authorities acknowledge their hardship, but say their hands are tied.

'There are issues, but we can only execute the government orders,' said SP Vaid, Kashmir's director-general of police.

The region's highest elected official also reaffirmed that the former fighters can't be fully rehabilitated because they came back the wrong way.

An Indian paramilitary solider stands guard inside a mobile bunker in central Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir where violent conflict has dominated life since 1947 (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

'Since these youth have not returned via approved routes, they are not entitled to any benefit available under the policy of 2010,' Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said earlier this year while speaking in the state assembly.

Mufti has asked India's home minister to include the Nepal route, which most former fighters had used, on the list of formal entry points.

Former fighters who have returned are also under constant police surveillance, adding to their stress, according to 10 former rebels interviewed by the AP.

Some within the local Indian Kashmiri society view them as traitors, or deserters from the cause of Kashmir's struggle against Indian rule.

Former Kashmiri militant Ahsan-ul-Haq, right, drinks tea as his friend Dawood Ahmed looks on as they sit Inside their shop in Srinagar (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

The cold reception they've received, both from civilians and from authorities, has discouraged many other fighters from returning.

'We were lured to return to abject humiliation and deprivation,' said former fighter Sonaullah Dar, now living in a single room with his Pakistani wife and two daughters since returning in 2013.

He keeps their Pakistani birth certificates carefully wrapped in a plastic bag. Four years later, he is still spending his days running between government offices hoping to one day secure legitimate papers for India.

Some former fighters say they regret bringing wives to live in poverty, unable to see their families or where they grew up.

Tariq Ahmed Khan said he made a mistake going to Pakistan for the rebellion. But 'returning was a graver mistake and robbed our children of a better future.'

Some have even tried going back to the Pakistani side.

A year after Syed Munir-ul Hassan Qadri brought his wife and three children to the Indian side, he attempted to take them and four other families back over the highly militarized Line of Control to the Pakistani side of Kashmir in 2013. But they were detained by Indian soldiers near the de facto border.

He became an advocate for the dignity and rights of former rebels. He was in the hospital at the bedside of one dying Pakistani woman named Saira Bano who, distraught at not being able to visit her family in Pakistan, had set herself on fire in 2014, a year after arriving with her ex-fighter husband and two daughters.

'I vividly remember her last words,' Qadri said. ''Take me back. I can't live here.''
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe's worst mass killing since World War II.

In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Erdogan said: "We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses to health sector workers at his palace in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Erdogan has called Germany and the Netherlands "bandit states" that are harming the European Union amid Turkey's growing tensions with the two countries over Turkish ministers' plans to hold campaign meetings there.(Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Service, Pool Photo via AP)

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Erdogan's comments, calling them a "disgusting distortion of history."

"We will not lower ourselves to this level. It is totally unacceptable," Rutte told Dutch broadcaster RTL Z.

It was the latest in Erdogan's war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend. The two ministers had sought to campaign for an April 16 referendum on expanding Erdogan's powers, courting the votes of eligible Turks in the Netherlands.

Around 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

The Turkish leader previously called the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" and also accused it of "fascism."

Earlier, Turkey criticized the European Union for siding with the Netherlands in the row. In a statement Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the EU's stance on Turkey was "short-sighted" and "carried no value" for Turkey, as well as lending "credence" to extremists.

The ministry argued that the European bloc had "ignored the (Netherlands') violation of diplomatic conventions and the law" after Dutch authorities escorted the Turkish family affairs minister out of the country and denied the foreign minister permission to land.

The diplomatic spat between the two countries escalated swiftly with Erdogan making several Nazi comparisons with EU member states Germany and the Netherlands. The EU has called on Turkey to cease "excessive statements."

The fight has raised concerns that cooperation between the EU and Turkey on a number of issues, such as dealing with the flow of migrants from war-torn Syria, may start to fray.

The tensions spilled over into the parliamentary election the Netherlands will be holding on Wednesday. The Dutch-Turkish leader of a pro-migrant political party pulled out of an election eve debate in the Netherlands on Tuesday.

National broadcaster NOS says Tunahan Kuzu of the Denk (Think) party he did not want to appear on the same stage as a right-wing populist.

During the nationally televised debate, the right-wing candidate, Jan Roos later called Kuzu a "lapdog of (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan" and his absence "cowardly and contemptuous of democracy."

On Monday, Turkey slapped a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands, including halting political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish airspace to Dutch diplomats. Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps "to redress" the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

Erdogan said Tuesday there could be more sanctions but did not elaborate. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Turkey Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci as saying economic sanctions "could come to the agenda in the period ahead."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also backed the Netherlands in its diplomatic fight with Turkey, pledging her full support and solidarity with the Dutch and saying the Nazi jibes were unacceptable.

Erdogan responded angrily to Merkel's support for the Netherlands, exclaiming "Shame on you!" during a television interview on Monday. On Tuesday, Erdogan described both Germany and the Netherlands as "bandit states" that were harming the European Union.

Merkel has refrained from reacting to Erdogan.

"The chancellor has no intention of participating in the race of provocations," Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said late Monday. "She won't play along. The accusations are recognizably absurd."

Responding to another charge by Erdogan - that Germany supported terror groups in Turkey - German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said his country did not need "extra tuition" from Ankara on fighting terrorism.

Also Monday, the German Foreign Ministry amended its travel advice for Turkey, noting that "elevated political tensions and protests that could also be directed against Germany" should be expected during the referendum campaign. It recommended that travelers stay away from political events and large gatherings of people.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Rotterdam said that specialized armed security forces he sent to a standoff with Turkish Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya on Saturday night had permission to open fire, if necessary.

Speaking late Monday night on a television talk show, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said he sent the special armed intervention unit to the Turkish consulate amid fears that a 12-man security detail that had driven to the Netherlands from Germany with the minister could be armed.

Aboutaleb said it was important to "be sure that if it came to a confrontation that we would be the boss" and that the unit had been given "permission to shoot."

The Turkish minister was eventually escorted out of the Netherlands in the early hours of Sunday.

Earlier, the Dutch also had refused Turkey's foreign minister permission to visit. Both ministers wanted to address rallies about next month's constitutional reform referendum on giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more power.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte repeated Tuesday - the last day of campaigning for Dutch elections that have been overshadowed by the diplomatic crisis - that Dutch authorities are working to de-escalate tensions with Ankara.

__

Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

A poster with a picture of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is seen on a building, in central Istanbul's Taksim Square, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe's worst mass killing since World War II. In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
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KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - The mysterious Facebook blogger kept dishing up alleged government secrets. One day it was a shadowy faction looting cash from Uganda's presidential palace with impunity. The next was a claim that the president was suffering from a debilitating illness.

For authorities in a country that has seen just one president since 1986, the critic who goes by Tom Voltaire Okwalinga is an example of the threat some African governments see in the exploding reach of the internet - bringing growing attempts to throttle it.

Since 2015 about a dozen African countries have had wide-ranging internet shutdowns, often during elections. Rights defenders say the blackouts are conducive to carrying out serious abuses.

FILE - In this Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016 file photo, a man walks past listening to news on a portable radio as military police deploy, shortly after the election result was announced, and social media had been blocked, in downtown Kampala, Uganda. Since 2015 there have been wide-ranging internet shutdowns in about a dozen African countries, often during elections, and the trend worries rights defenders who say such blackouts are conducive to carrying out serious abuses against civilians. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

The internet outages also can inflict serious damage on the economies of African countries that desperately seek growth, according to research by the Brookings Institution think tank.

Uganda learned that lesson. In February 2016, amid a tight election, authorities shut down access to Facebook and Twitter as anger swelled over delayed delivery of ballots in opposition strongholds. During the blackout, the police arrested the president's main challenger. Over $2 million was shed from the country's GDP in just five days of internet restrictions, the Brookings Institution said.

The shutdowns also have "potential devastating consequences" for education and health, says the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organization founded by a mobile phone magnate that monitors trends in African governance.

As more countries gain the technology to impose restrictions, rights observers see an urgent threat to democracy.

"The worrying trend of disrupting access to social media around polling time puts the possibility of a free and fair electoral process into serious jeopardy," said Maria Burnett, associate director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

In the past year, internet shutdowns during elections have been reported in Gabon, Republic of Congo and Gambia, where a long-time dictator cut off the internet on the eve of a vote he ultimately lost.

In Uganda, where the opposition finds it hard to organize because of a law barring public meetings without the police chief's authorization, the mysterious blogger Okwalinga is widely seen as satisfying a hunger for information that the state would like to keep secret. His allegations, however, often are not backed up with evidence.

It is widely believed that Uganda's government has spent millions trying to unmask Okwalinga. In January an Irish court rejected the efforts of a Ugandan lawyer who wanted Facebook to reveal the blogger's identity over defamation charges.

"What Tom Voltaire Okwalinga publishes is believable because the government has created a fertile ground to not be trusted," said Robert Shaka, a Ugandan information technology specialist. "In fact, if we had an open society where transparency is a key pillar of our democracy there would be no reason for people like Tom Voltaire Okwalinga."

In 2015, Shaka himself was arrested on suspicion of being the blogger and charged with violating the privacy of President Yoweri Museveni, allegations he denied. While Shaka was in custody, the mystery blogger kept publishing.

"Who is the editor of Facebook? Who is the editor of all these things they post on social media? Sometimes you have no option, if something is at stake, to interfere with access," said Col. Shaban Bantariza, a spokesman for the Ugandan government.

Although the government doesn't like to impose restrictions, the internet can be shut down if the objective is to preserve national security, Bantariza said.

In some English-speaking territories of Cameroon where the locals have accused the central government of marginalizing their language in favor of French, the government has shut down the internet for several weeks.

Internet advocacy group Access Now earlier estimated that the restrictions in Cameroon have cost local businesses more than $1.39 million.

"Internet shutdowns - with governments ordering the suspension or throttling of entire networks, often during elections or public protests - must never be allowed to become the new normal," Access Now said in an open letter to internet companies in Cameroon, saying the shutdowns cut off access to vital information, e-financing and emergency services.

In Zimbabwe, social media is a relatively new concern for the government following online protests launched by a pastor last year. Aside from blocking social media at times, the government has increased internet fees by nearly 300 percent.

In Ethiopia, where a government-controlled company has a monopoly over all telecom services, internet restrictions have been deeply felt for months. The country remains under a state of emergency imposed in October after sometimes deadly anti-government protests. Restrictions have ranged from shutting down the internet completely to blocking access to social media sites.

Just 30 days of internet restrictions between July 2015 and July 2016 cost Ethiopia's economy over $8 million, according to figures by the Brookings Institution. The country has been one of Africa's fastest-growing economies.

Ethiopia's government insists social media is being used to incite violence, but many citizens are suspicious of that stance.

"What we are experiencing here in Ethiopia is a situation in which the flow of information on social media dismantled the traditional propaganda machine of the government and people begin creating their own media platforms. This is what the government dislikes," said Seyoum Teshome, a lecturer at Ethiopia's Ambo University who was jailed for 82 days last year on charges of inciting violence related to his Facebook posts.

"The government doesn't want the spread of information that's out of its control, and this bears all the hallmarks of dictatorship," Seyoum said.

___

Associated Press writers Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Christopher Torchia in Johannesburg contributed.

FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 15, 2016 file photo, residents hide behind a metal shop security grille and take photos using a mobile phone as outside riot police chase angry supporters of opposition leader Kizza Besigye after he was prevented by police from reaching one of his campaign rallies near the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Since 2015 there have been wide-ranging internet shutdowns in about a dozen African countries, often during elections, and the trend worries rights defenders who say such blackouts are conducive to carrying out serious abuses against civilians. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 10, 2016 file photo, Ethiopian men read newspapers and drink coffee at a cafe during a declared state of emergency in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Since 2015 there have been wide-ranging internet shutdowns in about a dozen African countries, often during elections, and the trend worries rights defenders who say such blackouts are conducive to carrying out serious abuses against civilians. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)
White House releases Trump tax info ahead of TV report

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says President Donald Trump made more than $150 million in income in 2005 and paid $38 million in income taxes that year.

The acknowledgement came as MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said she has obtained part of Trump's 2005 tax forms, and prepared to discuss the document on her Tuesday night show.

The records have become highly sought-after because Trump refused to release his returns during the campaign, breaking a decades-long tradition. He claimed he was under audit.

The White House pushed back pre-emptively Tuesday night, saying that publishing those returns would be illegal.

"You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago," the White House said in a statement.

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Defiant conservatives still fighting Trump's health bill

WASHINGTON (AP) - Undaunted by fellow Republicans' defiance, GOP leaders and the White House redoubled their efforts Tuesday to muscle legislation overhauling America's health care system through Congress following a sobering report about millions being shoved off insurance coverage.

President Donald Trump, whose strong Election Day showing in GOP regions makes him the party's ultimate Capitol Hill vote wrangler, discussed the legislation by phone with the House's two top Republicans. He also dispatched Vice President Mike Pence and health secretary Tom Price to hear GOP senators' concerns.

With leaders hoping to move the measure through the House next week so the Senate can debate it, changes in the measure seemed all but certain. Trump's spokesman acknowledged they were open to revisions to win support.

"This has never been a take it or leave it," said Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

The GOP bill is the party's response to seven years of promising to repeal President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul. It would undo that law's individual mandate, which requires most people to have coverage, by ending the tax penalty on those who don't.

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Democrats say Trump's pick for trade post needs waiver

WASHINGTON (AP) - Even as they praised him, Senate Democrats said Tuesday that Donald Trump's pick to represent the U.S. in trade negotiations needs a waiver from Congress to legally hold the job because of his previous work for foreign clients.

Republicans disagree but the dispute could slow the confirmation of Robert Lighthizer to become the U.S trade representative.

Lighthizer is an experienced trade official who, in private practice, represented "a small number of foreign clients in the late 1980s and early 1990s," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

A 1995 law prohibits anyone who has represented a foreign entity in trade negotiations with the U.S. from being the nation's top trade representative. Nevertheless, Hatch said the Justice Department does not believe Lighthizer requires a waiver.

Several Democrats disagreed at Lighthizer's Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday.

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AP FACT CHECK: Both sides loose with facts in health debate

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Congressional Budget Office report on a Republican health care bill set off an intense reaction in Washington, and some on both sides of the debate are playing loose with the facts.

Republicans are overlooking President Donald Trump's promise to deliver "insurance for everybody," which the CBO makes clear will not happen if the legislation becomes law. Democrats are assailing Republicans for "attacking the messenger," seeming to forget all the times they assailed the budget office themselves.

The Congressional Budget Office is respected for nonpartisan rigor in its estimates of the costs and impacts of legislation. But no projection is infallible, particularly when it comes to large, complex programs. For example, the agency in 2010 overstated the number of people expected to buy insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law, misjudging how many would join because of the threat of tax penalties.

Yet, CBO's neutrality has been valued by both parties - though not always at the same time. It depends whose ox is being gored.

A look at statements in the debate and how they compare with the CBO's estimates and the underlying facts:

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OAS head urges bloc suspend Venezuela over elections

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the Organization of American States wants regional governments to suspend Venezuela from the Washington-based group unless general elections are held soon to break a political impasse that he said Tuesday is destroying the country's democracy.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro made the request in a 75-page report on Venezuela's political crisis, in which he accused President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government of systematically violating human rights and standards of democracy enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to which Venezuela is a signatory.

Maduro's government had no immediate comment, but in the past it has accused Almagro of doing the bidding of the U.S. government and trying to isolate Venezuela.

Almagro asked the OAS's 34 member states to intervene in Venezuela's crisis almost a year ago after Maduro's government disavowed a landslide loss to the opposition in legislative election and then suspended a constitutionally allowed recall campaign seeking to force him from office before the 2018 election.

But regional governments, many of them ideologically aligned with Maduro's leftist administration or recipients of subsidized Venezuelan oil shipments, voted against intervention and instead threw their weight behind an attempt at dialogue between his government and the opposition.

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Mexican official: 250 skulls found in clandestine graves

MEXICO CITY (AP) - More than 250 skulls have been found over the last several months in what appears to be a drug cartel mass burial ground on the outskirts of the city of Veracruz, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Veracruz state's top prosecutor, Jorge Winckler, said the clandestine pits appeared to contain remains of cartel victims killed years ago.

The news came as no surprise to Lucia Diaz, one of the mothers of people who have disappeared whose group is known as Colectivo Solecito.

The mothers pushed authorities to investigate the fields where the skulls were found because they suspected more than a year ago that the wooded area known as Colinas de Santa Fe was a secret burial ground.

In the face of official inaction, the activists themselves went to the fields starting in August 2016, sinking rods into the ground to detect the telltale odor of decomposition, and then digging.

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'A real kick in the rear': Northeast hit by late-season snow

NEW YORK (AP) - A blustery late-season storm plastered the Northeast with sleet and snow Tuesday, paralyzing much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor but falling well short of the predicted snow totals in New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

The powerful nor'easter, which came after a stretch of unusually mild winter weather that had people thinking spring was already here, unloaded 1 to 2 feet in many places inland, grounded more than 6,000 flights and knocked out power to nearly a quarter-million customers from Virginia northward.

By the time it reached Massachusetts, it had turned into a blizzard, with near hurricane-force wind gusting over 70 mph along the coast and waves crashing over the seawalls. Boston ended up with 6.6 inches of snow, less than the predictions of up to a foot.

It was easily the biggest storm in a merciful winter that had mostly spared the Northeast, and many weren't happy about it.

"It's horrible," said retired gumball-machine technician Don Zimmerman, of Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, using a snowblower to clear the sidewalk along his block. "I thought winter was out of here. ... It's a real kick in the rear."

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Marine leaders vow to combat online nude photo sharing

WASHINGTON (AP) - Declaring "enough is enough," the top U.S. Marine on Tuesday told senators that he intends to fix the problem that led to current and former Corps members sharing nude photos of female Marines online and making lewd or threatening comments about them.

But angry and skeptical members of the Senate Armed Services Committee demanded more, saying the military hasn't done enough to combat sexual assault and harassment despite years of complaints and problems. A House panel hearing on the issue next week will include representatives from all the military services.

Gen. Robert Neller, the Marine Corps commandant, vowed to hold Marines accountable through whatever legal and other means possible. He acknowledged the scandal may hurt female recruiting and that changes have to be made in the Marine Corps culture, where some male Marines don't accept women in the ranks.

To some senators, his testimony rang hollow. He faced a particularly fierce barrage of questions and criticism from the women members of the panel.

"This committee has heard these kinds of statements before," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat.

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Texas executes man who killed 2 and tried to attack judge

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Texas executed on Tuesday a man convicted of the 1987 killings of a father and his infant son and who three years later at his capital murder trial grabbed a loaded gun from a drawer in the courtroom and tried to attack the judge.

James Bigby, 61, became the fourth inmate in Texas and the sixth nationally to be executed by injection this year.

Strapped to the death chamber gurney, Bigby looked directly at six relatives of his victims watching through a window a few feet from him and repeatedly said he was sorry.

"I hope this will bring you peace and I'm sorry for all the pain and suffering," he told them, his voice cracking at times. "I hope that you could forgive me, but if you don't, I understand. I don't think I could forgive anyone who would have killed my children."

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he prayed and said several times: "I promise, I'm sorry." He was singing "Jesus Loves Me" as the drug took effect, took a few breaths, started snoring and then stopped all movement.

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Rutte vs. Wilders puts Dutch elections in a stark light

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Amid unprecedented international attention, the Dutch go to the polls Wednesday in a parliamentary election that is seen as a bellwether for the future of populism in a year of crucial votes in Europe.

With the anti-Islam, far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders running just behind two-term right-wing Prime Minister Mark Rutte in polls, the Dutch vote could give an indication of whether the tide of populism that swept Britain toward the European Union exit door and Donald Trump into the White house has peaked.

The election in the Netherlands comes ahead of polls in France and Germany over the next half year, when right-wing nationalists will also be key players.

During a final election debate among leaders from the parties vying for seats and control of the government, Wilders piled on the anti-Islam invective while Rutte sought to underscore his leadership experience.

None of the party representatives made a critical faux-pas or scored points that should alter campaign dynamics established over months.
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - One year after Islamic extremists attacked an Ivory Coast beach resort and made clear their reach was growing in West Africa, this nation has tightened its security but still feels some economic pain.

Police patrols continue along the Grand Bassam beach where 19 were killed and 33 wounded, including tourists and special forces members, on March 13, 2016. Armed guards now walk the shores watching for suspicious movement, and the streets are monitored by special units at strategic points.

"We fear this type of attack will happen again," said Amadou Sangare, a local craftsman.

FILE- In this Monday, March 14, 2016 file photo, local people stand near a taped off area that formed part of the crime scene outside the Nouvelle Paillote Hotel, one of the three hotels involved in an attack at Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast. One year after Islamic extremists attacked an Ivory Coast beach resort and made clear their reach was growing in West Africa, this nation has tightened its security but still feels some economic pain. (AP Photo/Christin Roby, File)

Ivory Coast marked a year after the attack with a walk of silence to pay respect to victims.

"The people have not backed down no matter the situation, we must continue to stand," Vice President Daniel Kablan Duncan said.

But there has been a marked downturn in tourism and hotel rooms are about 50 percent full, according to the Ivory Coast Tourism board.

National Prosecutor Richard Christophe Adou said the country is on the right path in terms of security.

"The investigation into the attack is progressing. It has already led to the arrest of 38 people in total, including 26 in Ivory Coast, six in Burkina Faso, four in Mali and two in Senegal," he said.

Only one assailant with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the extremist group that claimed responsibility for the attack, remains at large, Adou said.

FILE- In this Monday, March 14, 2016 file photo, grenades and ammunition lay in a tire outside the Nouvelle Paillote Hotel, one of the three hotels involved in an attack at Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast . One year after Islamic extremists attacked an Ivory Coast beach resort and made clear their reach was growing in West Africa, this nation has tightened its security but still feels some economic pain. (AP Photo/Christin Roby File)
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police on Tuesday burst into the offices of a Palestinian cartographer who tracks Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and detained him for several hours, accusing him of illegally working for the Palestinian Authority.

It was believed to be the first arrest of its kind since Israel banned the Palestinian Authority from carrying out official business in east Jerusalem in 2001. It also illustrated the deep sensitivities over east Jerusalem, an area with deep religious and strategic significance claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians.

Khalil Tufagji, a former Palestinian negotiator, said police entered his office early Tuesday and confiscated computers and files before taking him away. He was released after several hours. Tufagji denied working for the Palestinian Authority.

A man takes a photo of the sealed offices of Khalil Tufagji, a prominent Palestinian cartographer, in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Israeli police have raided Tufagji's office accusing him of working illegally on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. In a statement, police accused Tufagji of conducting research for the Palestinian Authority, including gathering information on Israeli development of east Jerusalem. His office is to remain closed for six months. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Tuesday's incident reflected the deep sensitivities on both sides over the status of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. The conflicting claims lie at the core of the conflict.

Since 1967, Israel has ringed east Jerusalem with more than half a dozen housing developments meant to cement its control. In addition, settler groups have set up small enclaves in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods - an effort the Palestinians say is meant to erode their presence in the city.

In a statement, Israeli police accused Tufagji of conducting official research for the Palestinians on Israeli land activities in east Jerusalem and presenting them as "land theft."

They claimed that he was in "constant contact" with Palestinian security forces and that his research included details on Palestinians who intend to sell east Jerusalem properties to Israelis. Palestinians consider such land sales treasonous.

"Activity by the Palestinian cartography office is part of the Palestinian Authority's plan to harm our sovereignty in Jerusalem and even to threaten Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city," said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. He vowed to "prevent a foothold of the Palestinian government in Jerusalem."

He said Tufagji's office would remain closed for six months. But several hours later, Tufagji was freed without further comment by police.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Tufagji denied all the claims against him and said he would be permitted to reopen his office immediately.

"I proved that I have no direct connection with the Palestinian Authority. We are an NGO funded by foreign donors, not the Palestinian Authority," he said.

Tufagji is considered the foremost Palestinian expert on Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

His activities include monitoring Israeli newspapers for advertisements announcing plans to develop areas of east Jerusalem.

He said he receives funding from Arab donors, though he shares his research with Palestinian officials, including a vast database on Israeli settlements. He said he has no contact with Palestinian security forces.

More than 200,000 Israelis now live in east Jerusalem, along with a similar number of Palestinians. Israel considers its developments to be neighborhoods of its capital, but the Palestinians and most of the international community label them as illegal settlements.

Following interim peace accords in the 1990s, Israel allowed the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, to have a limited presence in east Jerusalem.

But after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2001, it banned the authority from carrying out any political activities in the city.

Tufagji's arrest was the first of its kind, but over the years, Israel has enforced the ban in other ways, said Jawad Bulous, a Palestinian lawyer.

For instance, he said Israel has arrested a handful of Palestinian policemen who lived in east Jerusalem.

In 2005, Israel briefly detained a West Bank activist who was running in the Palestinian presidential election and tried to campaign in east Jerusalem, accusing him of illegally entering the city.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A north Florida man has pleaded guilty to aggravated child abuse in the death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, according to reports.

Local media outlets cite authorities as saying 21-year-old Jamarius Devonti Graham of Jacksonville was watching Aaliyah Lewis on April 21, 2016, when she accidentally soiled his bed.

Investigators say Graham told them he spanked the girl 20 times with a belt and struck her with a plastic hanger. Authorities say that the child began having breathing difficulties before help was sought.

The girl died at a hospital. An autopsy found multiple traumatic injuries to her head, torso and extremities, as well as fluid and swelling to the lungs and brain, according to authorities.

Graham's sentencing is scheduled April 17.

No charges have been filed against the girl's mother.
BOSTON (AP) - A federal judge says he will allow a jury to deliberate in the case against a former top executive at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy blamed for a national meningitis outbreak in 2012 that killed 64 people.

The Boston Globe reports (http://bit.ly/2mm3hK9 ) that jurors are slated to start deliberating on Wednesday in the trial of Barry Cadden.

Cadden is charged with 25 counts of second-degree murder and other offenses under federal racketeering laws. He is the co-founder and former head pharmacist of New England Compounding Center in Framingham.

Prosecutors allege that the center used expired ingredients and failed to follow industry cleanliness standards, resulting in tainted steroid injections.

Cadden's lawyers argued Monday that no "reasonable jury" could convict Cadden based on the evidence that was introduced in the trial.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Croatia and Romania's foreign ministers say they support the enlargement of the European Union in eastern Europe as a tool for regional stability.

Croatian Foreign Minister Davor Ivo Stier, on a visit to Bucharest, said the two countries agree on the need to "continue the support for enlargement policy of the EU," after talks on Tuesday with Romanian counterpart Teodor Melescanu.

The ministers also discussed Moldova, which signed an association agreement with the EU in 2014, and the situation in Ukraine.

Croatia's Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Davor Ivo Stier, left, shakes hands with Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu after a press briefing in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Stier said Romania and Croatia, both NATO members, share "views about the eastern partnership and how to bring these countries (closer) to" Europe.

Melescanu said there was a common interest in "anchoring the region irrevocably and irreversibly on the European path."
JERUSALEM (AP) - A Palestinian doctor has pleaded with Israel to apologize for killing three of his daughters and a niece in a 2009 shelling attack on his Gaza home.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, struggling to compose himself at a news conference on Tuesday, urged "officials who live in denial to take responsibility."

His loss was seared into the memory of many Israelis. On Jan. 16, 2009, during an Israel-Hamas war, Abuelaish phoned an Israeli journalist live on the air, moments after the deadly strike, to plead for help in evacuating the wounded.

In 2010, Abuelaish filed a civil suit, seeking an apology and compensation from Israel. A court hearing is set for Wednesday.

Israel has said it bears no responsibility for the war-time incident. Israel reportedly now alleges that the doctor's home contained a weapons cache.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - An Oklahoma prisoner who authorities say masterminded a scheme to extort about $674,000 from a retired Connecticut school teacher has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

Prosecutors said at sentencing in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut, on Monday that Darrik Forsythe and other inmates, using cellphones smuggled into their prison, befriended the victim through an online dating site and extorted money from him by threatening to reveal that he was gay or threatening to harm relatives.

The Journal Inquirer (http://bit.ly/2mW2l2j ) reports the judge said the scheme "appears to have caused severe psychological harm," to the victim, who was found dead in April 2015. He had reportedly been suicidal.

A spokesman for the Connecticut U.S. attorney's office says the federal sentence will be served when Forsythe's 20-year state sentence ends in 2020.

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Information from: Journal Inquirer, http://www.journalinquirer.com
LONDON (AP) - When investigators Peter Humphrey and Yu Yingzeng were hired by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline in 2013, their job was to look into a former employee in China who, they were told, was making false allegations about the firm.

The person, it turns out, was a whistleblower who had revealed GSK's practice of bribes in China. And when Chinese authorities cracked down on GSK, they also swept up the husband-and-wife team of investigators, imprisoning them for two years for "illegally acquiring citizens' information."

Humphrey and Yu, back in Britain with health problems and in financial ruin, are now suing GSK for allegedly misleading them on what the job was about and exposing them to legal risks in China they could not have foreseen. GSK says there's no merit to the claim.

Investigator Peter Humphrey poses for portraits at his home near Redhill, England, Tuesday, March 7, 2017. When investigators Peter Humphrey and Yu Yingzeng were hired by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline in 2013, their job was to look into a former employee in China who, they were told, was making false allegations about GSK. The employee, it turns out, was a whistleblower who had revealed a GSK practice of bribes in China. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

The case sheds a light on how a small business became collateral damage in the fight between one of the world's biggest pharma companies and Chinese state power.

"Peter was directly misled about what he was being hired to do," says John Zach, the New York-based lawyer for Humphrey, 60, and Yu, 63. They are seeking unspecified damages from GSK, with Zach filing the latest response in the litigation this month.

The Chinese government's investigation into GSK ended in 2014 with the company paying $490 million, China's biggest ever corporate penalty, for bribing doctors and hospitals to promote its products.

The authorities also went after Humphrey and Yu, who were not covered by GSK's legal defense and ultimately imprisoned for allegedly spying on a Chinese citizen.

The couple was paraded on Chinese television purportedly confessing their crimes. Jailed separately, they endured conditions that allegedly left them with serious health problems, including, in Humphrey's case, prostate cancer he says went untreated during his incarceration.

"They knew I had a prostate problem but refused to investigate and treat it whenever I asked, telling me I must first sign a confession of crimes I hadn't committed," Humphrey said. He also developed a hernia, chronic arthritis and osteoporosis, aggravated by the lack of sunlight, fresh air, exercise and decent nutrition. Yu developed kidney disease.

Chinese authorities have denied accusations that the two were mistreated.

The couple were released in mid-2015 and deported to Britain. Humphrey was banned from China for 10 years; U.S. citizen Yu is unlikely to be granted a visa to return. In China, their company, which had 15 employees, went bankrupt, their property was seized, and bank accounts cancelled.

The lawsuit against GSK was lodged in November in Pennsylvania, where GSK's U.S. operations are based.

GSK has asked the Pennsylvania court to dismiss Humphrey and Yu's writ. In documents seen by AP, the company says there is no U.S. jurisdiction, as the couple's company was hired in Shanghai by GSK's China operation. They should take their claim back to China for arbitration, it says.

"We do not believe this case has any merit," GSK said in a statement.

However it ends up, the case illustrates some of the legal risks small businesses can run into when deal with developing economies like China, as well as the difficulty of taking on a multinational with deep pockets. The lawsuit is not a big financial threat for GSK.

"They can ride out the scandals as the cost of doing business, and those who get caught up on the periphery are collateral damage," said Tim Reed, executive director of Health Action International, a non-profit group representing consumer interests in drug policy.
JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) - Daniela Vargas, the young Argentine immigrant detained after speaking out in Mississippi, is speaking about her time behind bars.

The Clarion Ledger reported (http://on.thec-l.com/2n5RR0F ) that she was one of 70 women held in a facility in Jena, Louisiana, where she was barked and whistled at on arrival. She refused to eat at first, and it took her days to summon the courage to take a shower. She made friends, only to see them deported.

Vargas, 22, was arrested after immigration agents detained her father and brother, all Argentine nationals who violated a visa waiver program when she was 7. She said she didn't think she'd be detained as well after speaking out at a press conference.

"I wanted to freely say what I wanted to say and mean it," she said. "I wanted this country, or the president, to know that we are an asset to this country. We're not just here to steal jobs. We're here doing nice things. We're working. We're contributing. We're doing the best we can."

She said immigration agents asked about her mother's location. The paper reported that her father has been released, but her brother's status is uncertain. A bright moment in detention came when Vargas saw her father and brother through glass. They touched fingertips as her father called her "Champ."

She made friends after some women made her Ramen noodles, mixed with leftover lettuce.

"That touched my heart," she said. "I realized they were all my age. We all wanted the same things. We all wanted this dream to be here."

One woman gave her a rosary that belonged to her deceased father. Another gave her a book about trusting God. Both were deported.
KENTWOOD, Mich. (AP) - State police say a trooper followed agency protocol in a high-speed chase in western Michigan that ended with a crash that killed two people.

Lt. Chris McIntire says he reviewed in-car video and talked with the trooper following the chase, which began Saturday night with an attempted traffic stop of a car going 90 mph in Kentwood, near Grand Rapids. McIntire says he believes the pursuit was justified.

Police say the fleeing vehicle slammed into a car that 21-year-old Tara Oskam of Grand Rapids was driving to Calvin College. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

A passenger in the vehicle being chased also died. He's identified as 15-year-old David Torrez of Grand Rapids.

The driver of the vehicle police were pursuing had serious injuries. His name hasn't been released.
TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Italy's foreign minister is urging the European Union to send a strong message of commitment to western Balkan countries to help counter the nationalist rhetoric of some leaders in the region.

Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano on Tuesday was in Albania as part of preparations for a summit of some EU and western Balkan nations to be held in Trieste, Italy on July 12.

Launched by German Chancellor Angela Merkel four years ago, the so-called Berlin process each year gives leaders in the western Balkans a chance to discuss joint projects or platforms with help from the EU.

Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo are at different stages of being integrated into the bloc.

Domestic politics and tense relations in the region have been obstacles in the process.

"Due to that situation the EU should reaffirm its role as a main partner in the region and send a strong and concrete message of cooperation and commitment to all the western Balkan countries," Alfano said.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini toured the region earlier this month, trying to reassure Balkan countries that the EU remains open to enlarging despite discord in the 28-nation bloc.

Alfano said both the western Balkan countries and the rest of Europe would benefit from cooperation.

"The EU is not at an easy moment. But it is the most achieved institutional and political experiment of the world history," he said. "There is no other case where people at war, with millions of people dead, in a few decades achieve freedom, democracy, well-being and turn into the second industrial power in the world."
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Thousands of doctors at Kenya's public hospitals have agreed to end a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care, an official with the doctors' union said Tuesday.

The strike was blamed for dozens of deaths, as the majority of Kenyans cannot afford private health care. Deputy Minority leader Jakoyo Midiwo said during a TV interview that 24 of his constituents had died due to lack of care during the period.

The government and union officials signed a deal to address pay and other issues in dispute, said Dr. Ouma Oluga, the secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017 file photo, a striking doctor holds his stethoscope in the air as he and other medical staff protest the detention of their union leaders, outside an appeal court in Nairobi, Kenya. Thousands of doctors at Kenya's public hospitals have agreed to end a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care, an official with the doctors' union said Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

Doctors will resume work Friday even though the agreement says they should resume immediately, he said.

"It is regrettable that it took so long. Kenyans have suffered ... we cannot fathom the extent of pain which Kenyans felt in the 100 days," said Kenya's health minister, Cleopa Mailu.

President Uhuru Kenyatta last week threatened to fire the 5,000 doctors if they didn't return to work, but doctors defied him. Earlier, seven union officials were jailed for a month for contempt of court for not ending the strike.

Oluga said the biggest achievement in the agreement is that doctors now will work just 40 hours a week and will be compensated for extra hours. Previously, doctors in public hospitals were on call at all times.

"It's a win-win for everybody," Oluga said.

Doctors had pushed for the implementation of a 2013 collective bargaining agreement that committed the government to increase pay, restore dilapidated public health facilities and consistently train doctors, among other issues. It also set out measures to address the East African country's huge shortage of doctors.

The government has said it does not recognize the 2013 collective bargaining agreement

Now the labor court will oversee the implementation of the agreement in 60 days, Oluga said.

Kenya's public doctors, who train for six years at universities, earn a basic salary of $400-$850. That's similar to some policemen who train for just six months. Doctors now are expected to get an increase of $700 to $1,000 based on their seniority, Oluga said.

Kenya's doctors also went on strike in 2012 to protest the bad state of public health care. Emergency rooms in some public hospitals frequently don't have gloves or medicine, and power outages sometimes force doctors to use their cellphones to provide adequate light for a surgical procedure.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's prime minister says a government-proposed bill calling for the dismissal of Foreign Ministry staff and diplomats who worked under communism is "necessary."

The ruling conservative party has made it a priority to remove from top state jobs people whose careers developed under communism.

On Tuesday, the government of Prime Minister Beata Szydlo approved a draft law that would lay off all Foreign Ministry employees hired before communism ended in 1989.

Szydlo said the proposal, which still faces a vote by legislators, would improve Poland's diplomatic work.

It would not cover Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, who joined the ministry in 1992.

Recently revealed documents allege that Poland's ambassador to Germany, Andrzej Przylebski, collaborated with communist-era secret security.
Here's a look at stories The Associated Press plans to cover in Europe from Saturday, March 18, through Monday, March 20. Questions about coverage plans can be directed to the Europe Desk at eurdesk@ap.org.

SATURDAY

GERMANY-G20-FINANCE MINISTERS - The world's top finance officials conclude a two-day meeting, with the focus on whether the US waters down the Group of 20's commitment to free trade. By David McHugh. UPCOMING 500 words by 1200 GMT, updates with final statement and newser around 1700 GMT.

FRANCE-BRITISH ROYALS - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Princess Kate, visit Paris sites, meet with terrorism victims and attend a rugby match. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1300 GMT. AP Photos.

FRANCE-ELECTION - French far left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon holds his biggest campaign rally, expected to draw thousands attracted more than ever by his anti-globalization, anti-establishment vision. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1500 GMT, developing. AP Photos.

RUSSIA-MOSCOW-POSTCARD - A former Moscow correspondent looks at how the Russian capital has changed since leaving in early 1990s. By Brian Friedman. UPCOMING: 1,200 words, photos by 1000 GMT.

SERBIA-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - Liberal candidate for April presidential elections, Sasa Jankovic, told hold a pre-vote rally at the site of a shady demolition last year that triggered months-long protests against the populist government. Starts at 1600 GMT. All formats.

POLAND-PROTEST - Downtown march by Committee for the Defense of Democracy in defense of independent courts and local administration. NN by 1300GMT. 500. By Monika Scislowska. With AP Photos.

SUNDAY

TURKEY-REFERENDUM - While Turkey's president has slammed European countries for not allowing Turkish ministers to campaign on their soil for an upcoming vote on expanding his powers, his opponents at home say their campaigns have been hampered by lack of TV airtime, threats, violence, arbitrary detentions and even sabotage. By Suzan Fraser. UPCOMING: 860 words, photos by 1000 GMT.

BRITAIN-BREXIT-EUROPEANS IN LIMBO - Sam Schwarzkopf, a German neuroscientist at University College London, was startled to receive a letter from the British government telling him his application for permanent residence had been rejected and he should prepare to leave the U.K. He is one of hundreds of thousands of Europeans in the U.K. battling British bureaucracy to confirm their legal status - and sometimes discovering that the process just increases their uncertainty. By Jill Lawless. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos by 0800 GMT.

FRANCE-ELECTION-MILITARY BUILDUP - French election front-runner Emmanuel Macron is laying out his plans for better defending France from today's threats, as the U.S. pressures European NATO allies to spend more on their militaries and as far right leader Marine Le Pen has set the French campaign agenda with her tough security stance. UPCOMING: 400 words by 1400 GMT. AP Photos

GERMANY-PRO-EUROPE PROTESTS - Thousands of people are expected to join weekly rallies across the country by people who support the European Union. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1400 GMT

GERMANY-SOCIAL DEMOCRATS - Members of Germany's center-left Social Democrats meet to confirm Martin Schulz as the party's top candidate for a general election in September. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1300 GMT. More on merits

GERMANY-JAPAN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe open the CeBIT computer fair. In Hannover UPCOMING: 130 words by 1900 GMT.

ROMANIA-PROTEST - Another protest in the Romanian capital against corruption. Demonstrations started in January. Protest peaks at about 1900 GMT. Will file on merits.

MONDAY

BREXIT-GIBRALTAR - Life in Gibraltar is about to change. This low-tax, business-friendly rocky outcrop on the Mediterranean is a British territory and gains hugely from unfettered access to the EU market, including its neighbor Spain. If, or when, that ends, it will have to reinvent itself, potentially changing life for some 300,000 people in the region. By Aritz Parra, UPCOMING 900 words by 0730 GMT, photos, video..

FRANCE-THREATENED ANTIQUITIES- The Louvre Museum hosts an international conference to raise money for protecting threatened art and antiquities in war zones like Syria. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1000 GMT, developing. Photos.

FRANCE-JAPAN - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Paris as part of a European tour. UPCOMING: 130 words by 2000 GMT. Photos.

HUNGARY-MIGRANTS - Hungarian authorities inaugurate a military base near the border with Serbia and Croatia meant for soldiers deployed to prevent migrants from entering the country. Hungary fears that the deterioration of the EU-Turkey deal means the flow of migrants will increase this year. By Pablo Gorondi, 130 words by 1200 GMT, photos, video.

SWITZERLAND-AFRICA - Business leaders from across Africa gather in Geneva to plot out ways of boosting trade, investment and economies across the continent. ON MERIT
SAN BENEDETTO DEL TRONTO, Italy (AP) - Nairo Quintana won the Tirreno-Adriatico race for a second time in three years on Tuesday, while Rohan Dennis was fastest on the final stage, an individual time trial around San Benedetto del Tronto.

Quintana had started the day with a 50-second advantage over Thibaut Pinot and the Colombian rider's 45th place finish, 41 seconds behind Dennis was enough to secure the overall victory.

"The Tirreno-Adriatico is a race I like very much," said Quintana, who won it in 2015. "I'm happy to win it for the second time, and repay my team for the efforts they did for me.

Colombia's Nairo Quintana pedals during the 7th stage of the Tirreno Adriatico cycling race, in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (Dario Belingheri/ANSA via AP)

"It was a fast time trial today. I was never worried because the seconds were in my advantage before the start."

Dennis was three seconds faster than Jos van Emden on the 10-kilometer (6-mile) course to move into second place overall, 25 seconds behind Quintana.

"It's been a great week for BMC as we started with a team time trial victory and we finish with an individual time trial victory," said Dennis, who is Australia's national time trial champion. "We've had some ups and downs but overall it's very good.

"It was a tough course today with the headwind but I managed to keep some strength for the second half of the race."

Pinot ended up third overall, 36 seconds behind Quintana.

Michael Hepburn of Australia was third on the day, just behind Van Emden.

Colombia's Nairo Quintana celebrates winning the Tirreno Adriatico cycling race in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (Dario Belingheri/ANSA via AP)

Colombia's Nairo Quintana celebrates winning the Tirreno Adriatico cycling race in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (Dario Belingheri/ANSA via AP)
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Dozens of asylum-seekers in Hungary continued their hunger strike for a second day Tuesday, demanding to be released from detention, authorities said.

The protest coincided with a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in favor of two asylum-seekers from Bangladesh found to have been detained and deported illegally by Hungary in 2015.

The 80 detainees on hunger strike are part of a group of the 102 asylum-seekers, mostly from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria, being held at the closed reception center in the southeastern city of Bekescsaba.

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 7, 2015 file photo, migrants and refugees queue as they wait for a police bus to take them to a detention center close to Hungary's border with Serbia in Roszke, Hungary. Dozens of asylum-seekers in Hungary are continuing a hunger strike launched this week, demanding to be released from detention, authorities said Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic, File)

Images broadcast on Hungarian state television showed some of those inside the reception center holding a sheet saying "We are refugees, we are not terrorists" through a barred window.

Hungary's Office of Immigration and Asylum said in a statement to The Associated Press that it boosted medical services because of the hunger strike, with social workers and armed security guards monitoring the asylum-seekers for any signs of sickness. Ninety-four detainees began the strike on Monday.

According to a ruling by European Court of Human Rights, Ilias Ilias and Ali Ahmed were each awarded 10,000 euros ($10,645) plus costs because of their detention in a transit zone at the Hungarian border with Serbia, where both applied for asylum, and later deportation to Serbia.

Among other issues, the court found that Hungarian authorities had failed to carry out an individual assessment of each applicant's asylum case and put them at risk of being sent back all the way to Greece "to face inhuman and degrading reception conditions."

The court also found that the 23 days the two men were held at the fenced and guarded transit zone "amounted to detention, meaning they had effectively been deprived of their liberty without any formal, reasoned decision and without appropriate judicial review."

Late in 2015, Hungary built fences protected by razor wire on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia to stop the migrants from moving through the country toward Western Europe. Legislation adopted last week would keep all asylum-seekers at container camps on the Serbian border. Human rights organizations have asked President Janos Ader to veto the bill.

The ruling would clear the way for every asylum-seeker detained in Hungary to seek compensation at the European court, said the Hungarian Helsinki Foundation, which represented the two men in the lawsuit.

Hungary's governing Fidesz party said it was "absurd" that the country had to pay "for protecting not only the country's borders, but Europe's too."

"We maintain that the migrant crisis can be handled with the forceful protection of the borders," said Balazs Hidveghi, the party's communications director.
SAO PAULO (AP) - A former Brazilian president denied in court Tuesday that he was part of a plot to impede the sprawling corruption probe at the state oil company and likened the barrage of media attention on the charges against him to a "massacre."

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been accused, along with several others, of plotting to buy off or otherwise prevent a former Petrobras executive from revealing what he knew about the bribery scheme. Silva testified he didn't even know former oil company director Nestor Cervero and never had contact with him.

"I have absolutely no reason to have any problem with the testimony of Cervero - no reason at all. I don't know (him)," Silva said, according to a video provided by the court.

Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gives a thumbs up as he arrives for the opening of the Rural Workers National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, March 13, 2017. Lula is expected to testify before a federal judge on Tuesday in the "The Car Wash" bribery scandal. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

State oil giant Petrobras is at the center of a wide-ranging investigation into kickbacks and inflated contracts at state companies. The probe has ensnared dozens of high-level politicians and executives. Cervero was convicted in connection with the probe and is cooperating with prosecutors.

At the beginning of nearly an hour of testimony, Silva was asked if he was familiar with the accusations against him and whether they were true. He responded: "The information is false."

Silva, who was president in 2003-2010, is also facing charges in a handful of other cases linked to the probe. He has maintained his innocence in all of them, saying the allegations are politically motivated. Despite these legal challenges, Silva is leading some polls for next year's presidential election.

The former president occasionally appeared emotional, frustrated or even angry during his testimony. He made several self-aggrandizing claims, including that his presidency turned Brazil into a major player on the world stage, that he is considered the most important president in Brazil's history and that Brazilians see him as the most important world leader of the beginning of the 21st century.

He contrasted these successes with the indignity of seeing headlines every day claiming that some business executive or politician was going to level a new accusation against him.

"For about three years now, I have been the victim of, I would say, almost a massacre," he said.

Silva, a union leader turned politician, testified that he was exceptionally careful during his eight years in office to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, saying he skipped dinners, birthday parties and weddings, so he wouldn't find himself in a situation where someone might ask a favor.

The Petrobras probe has grown into the biggest graft investigation in Brazil's history and has shocked even the most cynical of Brazilians for the scale of corruption it has revealed. Prosecutors have relied heavily on signing plea bargains with certain defendants to make cases against others.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Rodrigo Janot asked the Supreme Court to open 83 corruption inquiries into sitting politicians who have the right to have their cases heard by the highest court.

He also sent more than 200 other cases to federal prosecutors around the country, so they could decide whether to ask for inquiries. The defendants in those cases could include former or lower-level politicians who do not have the privilege of being tried at the Supreme Court.

The evidence supporting Janot's requests comes from 77 plea bargains signed with executives and former executives at construction giant Odebrecht, which is a central player in the Petrobras scandal.

Brazil has been waiting to see who is named in the new investigations, which many expect to reach the highest levels of government. The names of the accused, and any evidence against them, remains secret unless the Supreme Court justice charged with the case lifts the seal.

Also Tuesday, federal police arrested two Rio de Janeiro state officials on charges of money laundering and accepting bribes in exchange for contracts for a subway line for the 2016 Olympic Games.

The arrests of Luiz Carlos Velloso, the state's undersecretary for tourism and former deputy secretary of transportation, and Heitor Lopes de Souza, a director for Rio's subway operator, are part of the larger Petrobras probe.

___

Associated Press writer Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks at the opening of the Rural Workers National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, March 13, 2017. Lula is expected to testify before a federal judge on Tuesday in the "The Car Wash" bribery scandal. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Supporters carry posters written in Portuguese "2018" and "Strength Lula," after Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived at the headquarters of the Federal Court, in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Lula da Silva has denied in court that he was part of a plot to obstruct a massive corruption probe by keeping a former executive-turned-state's evidence from revealing what he knew. In testimony published Tuesday, March 14, in Brazilian media, the former President told a federal court in Brasilia that he didn't even know Nestor Cervero, the former director of state oil company Petrobras. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

In this March 13, 2017 photo, Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva looks during an event with rural workers in Brasilia, Brazil. Brazil's former president has denied in court on March 14, that he was part of a plot to obstruct a massive corruption probe by keeping a former executive-turned-state's evidence from revealing what he knew. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

In this March 13, 2017 photo, Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rubs his face during an event with rural workers in Brasilia, Brazil. Brazil's former president has denied in court on March 14, that he was part of a plot to obstruct a massive corruption probe by keeping a former executive-turned-state's evidence from revealing what he knew. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio activist is suing Oscar nominee James Woods for defamation over a tweet he sent out during the presidential campaign season.

The Chillicothe Gazette reports (http://ohne.ws/2lXnHwP ) Portia Boulger, a supporter of Bernie Sanders, filed a federal lawsuit this month.

The Twitter account @voxday identified Boulger as a woman in a Donald Trump T-shirt appearing to give a Nazi salute during a March 2016 rally for Trump.

Woods' account tweeted the photo and information, asking, "So-called #Trump 'Nazi' is a #BernieSanders agitator/operative?"

The same day, @voxday issued a correction, saying the woman wasn't Boulger. Woods tweeted 10 days later that she wasn't Boulger.

Woods' attorney calls the lawsuit "patently bogus."

Boulger is seeking millions in damages.

Woods received best-actor Oscar nominations for his roles in "Salvador" and "Ghosts of Mississippi."

___

Information from: Chillicothe Gazette, http://www.chillicothegazette.com
LONDON (AP) - Britain's Parliament has told Prime Minister Theresa May she can file for divorce from the European Union. She will send the formal letter by the end of March. Then comes the hard part - the arguments, the lawyers, the squabbles over money.

Here's a look at the main issues and what happens next.

WHAT IS THE EU AND WHY IS BRITAIN LEAVING?

British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, in London, Monday March 13, 2017. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)

The EU is a bloc of 28 nations sharing relatively open borders, a single market in goods and services and - for 19 nations - a single currency, the euro. Britain joined in 1973, but has long been a somewhat reluctant member, with a large contingent of euroskeptic politicians and journalists regularly railing against regulations imposed by EU headquarters in Brussels.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron offered voters a referendum on EU membership, and in June they voted by 52-48 percent to leave.

___

HOW DOES BRITAIN FILE FOR DIVORCE?

A bill passed by Parliament late Monday authorizes the British government to invoke Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which says a member state may "notify the European Council of its intention" to leave the bloc.

Later this month, May is expected to send the notification in a letter to Council President Donald Tusk and then announce the news, probably to Parliament.

That sets a clock ticking: Article 50 says that two years from the moment of notification, "the Treaties shall cease to apply" and Britain will no longer be an EU member.

___

WHOSE MOVE IS IT NOW?

The timing of Article 50 was up to Britain. What happens next is up to the EU.

Tusk says that that once EU officials get Britain's notification, they will respond within 48 hours, offering draft negotiating guidelines for the 27 remaining member states to consider. Leaders of the 27 nations will then meet in April or May to finalize their negotiating platform.

"Then we meet and we start," U.K. Brexit Secretary David Davis said Sunday. "And I guess the first meeting, bluntly, will be about how we do this? How many meetings, you know, who's going to meet, who's going to come."

Substantial talks may have to wait until after France's two-round April-May election for a new president. Another hiccup could be Germany's September election, which will determine whether Chancellor Angela Merkel gets another term.

___

WHO CONDUCTS THE NEGOTIATIONS?

On the British side, Davis will take the lead, reporting to May. Britain's ambassador to the EU, Tim Barrow, will also play a major role, and the Foreign Office will talk to individual member states to try to get them on its side.

On the EU side, it's complicated. As Britain's Institute for Government recently pointed out, "the U.K. is negotiating with 27 member states, not a unified bloc."

French diplomat Michel Barnier is the chief negotiator for the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm. He'll receive direction from the Council, which represents the leaders of the member states.

The European Parliament also wants a say, and will have to approve the final deal between Britain and the bloc.

___

WHAT IS THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE?

Britain's vote to leave the EU has meant uncertainty for 3 million EU citizens living in the U.K., and 1 million Britons who reside in the 27 other nations of the bloc. Both sides agree that giving such citizens a guarantee that they will be able to stay where they are is a top priority.

___

WHAT WILL BE THE MAIN CONFLICTS?

The first major battle is likely to be about money. The EU says Britain must pay a hefty divorce bill of up to 60 billion euros ($64 billion), to cover EU staff pensions and other expenses the U.K. has committed to. Britain hasn't ruled out a payment, but is sure to quibble over the size of the tab.

There's also likely to be friction over Britain's desire to maintain free trade in goods and services with the bloc, without accepting the EU's core principle of free movement of workers. Britain has said it will impose limits on immigration, and so will have to leave the EU's single market and customs union. That makes some barriers to trade seem inevitable.

___

WHEN WILL IT BE OVER?

Under the terms of Article 50, Britain will cease to be an EU member in March 2019.

But EU negotiators warn it could take two years just to settle the divorce terms; agreeing on a new relationship for the U.K. and the EU could take years longer. If the rest of the EU agrees, the two-year negotiating period can be extended, leaving Britain in the EU for a while longer. Or, the two sides could agree on a transitional period.

There's also a chance Britain could walk away early without a deal if it thinks the talks are going nowhere.

___

IS BREXIT A ONE-WAY TICKET?

The British government has said firmly that it will not backtrack on Brexit. But it's unclear whether Article 50 is legally reversible. Former British ambassador to the EU John Kerr, who wrote Article 50, says "it is not irrevocable. You can change your mind while the process is going on."

However, domestic political pressures make it unlikely that the British government would try a U-turn. May will probably take her cue from a catchphrase of predecessor Margaret Thatcher: "The lady's not for turning."

___

Follow Jill Lawless on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

In this frame grab taken from video, the result of a vote on the Brexit Bill in the House of Lords, London, in the House of Commons, London, Monday, March 13, 2017. Britain's House of Commons has rejected an attempt to make the government promise - before European Union exit talks start - that it will guarantee the right to remain of EU citizens living in the U.K. By a vote of 335 to 287, lawmakers overturned an amendment to the government's Brexit bill inserted by the unelected House of Lords. (PA via AP)
KOBOKO, Uganda (AP) - South Sudan's government has begun a campaign of "population engineering" to relocate people over their ethnicity, a United Nations expert said Tuesday, as civil war continues under warnings of genocide.

Yasmin Sooka told the U.N. Human Rights Council that a government redrawing of state borders has depopulated ethnic Shilluk and Nuer inhabitants of the Upper Nile region.

Aid workers estimate that 2,000 mostly Dinka people were transported to Wau Shilluk town after fighting caused Shilluk people to flee, Sooka said. President Salva Kiir is Dinka.

The government then asked that the new arrivals get international humanitarian aid "while at the same time denying access to citizens who are starving in opposition areas," Sooka said.

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013, and a peace deal backed by the United States collapsed in July. Fighting has spread to new parts of the country since then, and the U.N. has warned of ethnic cleansing.

Sooka reported a "massive increase" in human rights violations over the past nine months in the East African nation. "What's chilling is that they are occurring in many more parts of the country than before."

Unlawful arrests, rape, torture and killing have become the norm, the U.N. expert said, describing whole villages burnt to ashes and attacks on hospitals and churches.

Spokespeople for South Sudan's government and army were not immediately available for comment.

Last month, First Vice President Taban Deng told the Human Rights Council that the decision to redraw the state borders in South Sudan has created peace between the Shilluk and Dinka tribes, according to his statement obtained by The Associated Press.

"I can state with confidence that the notion of a looming genocide and possible ethnic cleansing is fading away," Deng said.

South Sudan's government has committed to a hybrid court to investigate war crimes. The African Union has been tasked with creating the body, but progress has been slow.

Ken Scott, a member of the U.N. commission of inquiry on South Sudan, told the Human Rights Council on Tuesday that some officials in the region say the hybrid court will never be created.

Jacob Enoh Eben, a spokesman for the AU, told the AP earlier this month that the court will be created "as soon as the conditions for its establishment are set," but he declined to say what actions were being taken.

Sooka said the deterioration of human rights in South Sudan is directly attributable to the impunity that continues unabated.

"Alleged perpetrators still occupy senior political and military positions," she said.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - On the eve of Dutch Parliamentary elections, polls are suggesting a knife-edge vote. Political veterans and relative newcomers are moving into the spotlight as possible members of the next ruling coalition after Wednesday's election. The leaders of five top parties span the nation's political spectrum.

____

MARK RUTTE: Two-term prime minister and leader of the increasingly right-wing VVD party, Rutte portrays himself as an optimist, statesman and safe pair of hands who has guided the Dutch economy out of crisis and into robust growth.

Right-wing populist leader Geert Wilders and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, right, leave the stage after a national televised debate, the first head-to-head meeting of the two political party leaders since the start of the election campaign, at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Monday, March 13, 2017. (Yves Herman POOL via AP)

A 50-year-old bachelor, Rutte has had his optimism repeatedly tested since first taking office late in 2010, with the absolute low point the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight, including nearly 200 Dutch citizens were killed.

Rutte has been plunged into a diplomatic storm in the days leading up to Wednesday's election, with Turkey unleashing a stream of invective against the Netherlands after the government banned two Turkish ministers from addressing weekend rallies in Rotterdam to promote a referendum on constitutional reform that would give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more powers.

A history graduate and former human resources manager at Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, Rutte is a classic Dutch consensus-builder who has repeatedly managed to hammer out ad-hoc coalitions with opposition parties to force legislation through Parliament.

____

GEERT WILDERS: Dutch firebrand Wilders has the eyes of the world on him, with expectations that his fortunes in Wednesday's elections will be a guide to the rise or fall of populism in Europe this year.

The shock of his blond-dyed hair is matched by the fire of his strident anti-Islam rhetoric that has repeatedly tested the limits of Dutch freedom of speech. Even after a court found him guilty late last year of inciting discrimination against Moroccans, he responded during the election campaign by blaming "Moroccan scum" for street crime.

That kind of language has boosted his popularity in a nation where anti-immigrant sentiment has been growing for years as efforts to integrate hundreds of thousands of migrants from countries including Turkey and Morocco have faltered. His strident attacks on Islam have brought death threats, forcing him to live under extremely tight security for the last 12 years.

____

JESSE KLAVER: If Canada has Justin Trudeau and France has Emmanuel Macron, youthful political vigor in the Netherlands is embodied by 30-year-old Jesse Klaver, leader of the Green Left party.

In a sense, Klaver is a throwback to the iconoclastic 1970s, when the Dutch were known for their tolerance, welfare state left-wing policies and progressive stances on everything from drug use to abortion.

Look for the opposite of Geert Wilders and you stare Klaver in the face. His embrace of a multicultural society hits close to home, since he has a Moroccan father and a mother of Indonesian descent. As leader of the Green Left he defends something as traditionally Dutch as can be: the use of windmills to counter climate change.

____

ALEXANDER PECHTOLD: An old-school Dutch moderate centrist and strong supporter of the European Union, Alexander Pechtold is, along with Rutte and Wilders, one of the most experienced lawmakers heading into the election, having led his liberal-democratic D66's parliamentary bloc since 2006.

An art history graduate and former auctioneer, Pechtold has been a key member of what Mark Rutte has called the "constructive opposition" in recent years, helping the government pass legislation through both houses of Parliament.

Pechtold was a vocal backer of a new law allowing advisory referenda in the Netherlands, but saw the first such vote last year backfire on his party's pro-EU stance. Voters in a referendum rejected a pact between the EU and Ukraine, in what was widely interpreted as an anti-EU protest.

As Dutch politics has become more polarized, Pechtold appears to be profiting from occupying an increasingly lonely middle ground. He says his party could have its best election result ever on Wednesday.

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SYBRAND BUMA: As Wilders' fierce nationalism and anti-Islam rhetoric has dominated Dutch politics, Sybrand Buma has pushed the traditionally center-right Christian Democrats further to the right. The tactic appears to be paying off for a party that long was a mainstay of ruling coalitions but has spent the last four years in opposition.

Polls ahead of the election have put the Christian Democrats in third place, narrowly behind Wilders' PVV.

Buma, a law graduate, made headlines late in the campaign by proposing populist, nationalist policies including having school children sing the Dutch national anthem in class and stripping Dutch citizens with dual nationality of their second passports - up to and including the country's Argentine-born Queen Maxima.

Right-wing populist leader Geert Wilders gestures during a national televised debate with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the first head-to-head meeting of the two political party leaders since the start of the election campaign, at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Monday, March 13, 2017. (Yves Herman POOL via AP)
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - President Juan Manuel Santos apologized to Colombians on Tuesday after revelations that a scandal-tarred Brazilian construction company illegally paid costs related to his 2010 campaign.

Santos' apology came after his former campaign manager, Roberto Prieto, acknowledged for the first time that Odebrecht paid $400,000 to a vendor to print 2 million campaign posters during the final stretch of the 2010 race, though he said the president had no knowledge of the irregular payment.

"I deeply regret and ask forgiveness to Colombians for this embarrassing act that should never, never have happened and about which I just found out," Santos said in a video message. "I never authorized nor did I have knowledge of these actions, which were carried out in direct violation of the ethical norms and controls I demanded be put in place during the campaign."

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos wipes his face as he listens to Vice President German Vargas Lleras present an annual report in Bogota, Colombia, Tuesday, March, 14, 2017. Earlier in a video message, Santos apologized to Colombians Tuesday after revelations that a scandal-tarred Brazilian construction company illegally paid costs related to his 2010 campaign. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

The revelation that surfaced in local media last week is the latest to tarnish Santos' reputation for rectitude by associating the Nobel Peace Prize winner with Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying almost $800 million in bribes across Latin America.

Last week, a polling company that worked for Santos' 2014 re-election said it received $1 million from the Brazilian company. Prieto himself has been accused by a jailed lobbyist hired by Odebrecht of receiving $1 million in cash for the Santos campaign, an accusation Prieto denied in an interview Tuesday with Blu Radio. Odebrecht is also accused of covering $1.6 million in campaign bills for Santos' conservative rival in the 2014 race.

For many Colombians tired of shady dealings from the country's political elite, the accusation recalled the covert way the Cali drug cartel funded President Ernesto Samper's 1994 campaign. Presidential campaign contributions by companies are illegal in Colombia, but like many places throughout Latin America, candidates regularly keep a second, undeclared war chest of private contributions to finance the high cost of running for office.

Although Santos is at no risk of being impeached like Samper nearly was, the accusations are likely to further damage his standing with elections to choose his successor 14 months away and an uneasy coalition in congress needed to implement a peace accord with leftist rebels showing signs of fraying.

Santos' approval rating stood at 24 percent in February, close to the lowest since he took office. The same Gallup survey found that Colombians for the first time in more than 12 years of polling consider corruption the country's top problem, even more than traditional concerns of public safety and the lack of economic opportunity in the war-torn country.

In another sign of how corruption is dominating voters' sentiment, the government's independent comptroller general on Monday launched a probe of more than 30 high-ranking officials, including the current defense and finance ministers, for alleged negligence and mismanagement in the expansion of a state-owned oil refinery. The project at the Reficar refinery was originally budgeted at $3.5 billion but ended up costing almost triple that amount, with cost overruns that exceed the $5 billion price tag of the recent Panama Canal expansion.

Santos on Tuesday repeated his claim that Odebrecht, one of the biggest state contractors in Colombia over the past decade, did not receive any special treatment from his government and he called on his aides to assume responsibility for their actions.

"This violation of the campaign rules doesn't presume, nor can it, that corruption took place in my government," he said.

When Odebrecht agreed in December to pay a $3.5 billion fine as part of the biggest foreign bribery case in U.S. history, Colombian authorities responded swiftly, becoming the first in Latin America outside Brazil to arrest former officials accused of taking bribes. As part of the plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, Odebrecht acknowledged paying $11 million in corrupt payments to officials in Colombia since 2009.

Santos has cheered on the probe, while asserting he had no role in any wrongdoing.

Odebrecht was awarded only one of the 22 public works projects it bid for during his government, Santos said at a recent rally, leaving the company "begging like dogs at Mass" outside the church door.

"Colombia was penetrated, but this government built a wall they couldn't cross," he said.

Others doubt the president's account and question why the company was awarded without bidding a multi-million-dollar addendum to a major highway contract signed by Santos' predecessor.

___

Joshua Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman
Whoopi Goldberg is blasting a fake-news website that ran a story she claims 'endangered' her life.

The host of ABC's The View on Monday condemned a story that circulated last week falsely claiming that she said Navy SEAL widow Carryn Owens appeared at President Donald Trump's speech to Congress for the 'attention.'

Goldberg said this 'horrible lie' jeopardized many great relationships she has with vets and their spouses and that it 'endangered' her family's life and her own.

Whoopi Goldberg is blasting a fake-news website that ran a story she claims 'endangered' her life

The Underground Report, which has removed the story, calls itself 'a news and political satire web publication' reporting 'often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways.'

Unsatisfied with that fine-print disclaimer, Goldberg vowed to take legal action against the Underground Report writer, warning, 'I'm gonna get my lawyer and I'm coming for you.'

The host of ABC's The View on Monday condemned a story that circulated last week falsely claiming that she said Navy SEAL widow Carryn Owens appeared at President Donald Trump's speech to Congress for the 'attention.'

Carryn Owens received a standing ovation after she was introduced by Trump during the February 28 speech at the Capitol.

She is the wife of Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens, who was killed in a late January raid in Yemen.

During the March 1 episode of The View, Goldberg was critical of Trump's approval of the raid and she posed the question of whether his introducing the widow during his speech was 'a tribute' or 'damage control.'
NAPA, Calif. (AP) - Police shot and killed a man in California who was armed with a knife and acting "high" or "crazy" in a parking lot, authorities said.

Isidro Zarate, a homeless man who stays in the area, told KTVU-TV (http://bit.ly/2nkxI7o) that the man appeared angry as he waved a foot-long knife and confronted two of Zarate's friends.

A police statement said numerous people called 911 Monday evening saying a man was "walking around near the front of the Home Depot with a knife in his hand and acting 'high' or 'crazy.'"

He then walked across the street to a parking lot.

Two officers were responding to the 911 calls when they encountered the man and fired their guns at him, the Napa Police Department said.

The officers were placed on paid administrative leave as the Napa County Sheriff's Office reviews the incident.

Napa police Capt. Jennifer Gonzales said Tuesday she had no details on the man who was killed. Zarate described him as being in his 20s.

The two officers were not wearing body cameras.

___

This story has been corrected to say the shooting took place across the street from a Home Depot store, not in the Home Depot parking lot.
Editors/News Directors:

Calling your attention to the following story for Sunshine Week and the AP video, both of which moved early this morning. The full Sunshine Week digest follows.

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SUNSHINE WEEK- FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government. For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn't find a single page of files that were requested. By Ted Bridis. 750 words. Photos. Moved Tuesday.

___

The American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2005 launched the first national Sunshine Week. The celebration of access to public information has been held every year since to coincide with the March 16 birthday of James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution and a key advocate of the Bill of Rights.

This year, ASNE (now the American Society of News Editors), The Associated Press and the Associated Press Media Editors, a group representing AP-affiliated news organizations, are teaming up to mark the importance of press freedoms for Sunshine Week and beyond.

The ongoing collaboration will help the public understand the necessity of a free press, the importance of a transparent government and the role that a free flow of news and information play in a well-informed citizenry. It will involve explanatory and accountability-related news stories and related content, as well as opportunities for public engagement in local communities to promote media literacy.

The effort will kick off during Sunshine Week, which begins Sunday, with the following stories. The stories and photos have moved in advance, embargoed for use Sunday and thereafter.

For questions or more information, contact Tom Verdin, the AP's national editor for state government coverage, at taverdin@ap.org

___

SUNSHINE WEEK-FIRST AMENDMENT

NEW YORK - Journalism marks its annual Sunshine Week at an extraordinary moment in the relationship between the presidency and the press. First Amendment advocates call the Trump administration the most hostile to the press and free expression in memory. In words and actions, they say, Trump and his administration have threatened democratic principles and the general spirit of a free society. Yet free speech advocates say the press, at least on legal issues, is well positioned to withstand Trump. By Hillel Italie. 1,300 words. Photos. Video. Moved Sunday.

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SUNSHINE WEEK-INFORMATION UNDER ATTACK

WASHINGTON - Wondering who is visiting the White House? The web-based search has gone dark. Curious about climate change? Some government sites have been softened or taken down. Worried about racial discrimination in housing? Laws have been introduced to bar federal mapping of such disparities. Federal rules protecting whistleblowers? At least one has been put on hold. Since taking office, the Trump administration has made a series of moves that have alarmed groups with a stake in public access to information. Some are so concerned they have thrown themselves into "data rescue" sessions nationwide, where they spend their weekends downloading and archiving federal databases they fear could soon be taken down or obscured. Previous presidential transitions have triggered fears about access to government data, but not on this scope. By Stuart Leavenworth and Adam Ashton, McClatchy. 1,500 words. An abridged version also has moved. Photos. Moved Sunday.

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SUNSHINE WEEK-DAZED AND CONFUSED

Fake news, social media bots, a post-fact world. One of the great lessons of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is that people could not - or would not - distinguish between actual news stories and fabrications. More fact-checking may or not be the answer, given the information bubbles most people inhabit and a president-elect who routinely distorts reality to create his own narratives. Why is it important to solve the fake news conundrum, and is it even solvable? By Arek Sarkissian, USA TODAY Network. 1,000 words. Photo. Moved Sunday.

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SUNSHINE WEEK-TEXAS RECORDS

DALLAS - When Texans ask state and local officials for records detailing their operations, more and more the answer is no. The reason why is in dispute. A quirk of the Texas public records law, adopted almost 45 years ago, says that when officials deny the public the right to see something, they usually have to run that decision by the state attorney general's office. The number of those denials has been soaring. In the fiscal year that ended in August 2001, governments forwarded about 5,000 denied record requests to the attorney general's office for review. That number had jumped to more than 27,000 by 2016. By Terri Langford, The Dallas Morning News. 1,300 words. Photos. Moved Sunday.

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SUNSHINE WEEK-RHEE COLUMN

As I've listened to President Donald Trump go on tirades against the "very dishonest" media, I've tried not to take his criticism personally. Lord knows, I've made my share of mistakes in my career. But they've never been on purpose, or out of malice. So here's the truth: The press is not the opposition party. The media is not the enemy of the American people. Negative stories are not fake news. And when Trump keeps making these claims, he isn't just attacking the press; he is chipping away at one of the pillars of our democracy. By Foon Rhee, The Sacramento Bee. 900 words. Photo. Moved Sunday.

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SUNSHINE WEEK-STEWART COLUMN

Now, more than ever, Americans are urged to recognize the importance of open government to a robust democracy. Access to meetings, minutes and records of our elected and appointed representatives is a key element of the constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It is not strictly for the benefit of the news media. By Mizell Stewart III, Gannett/USA TODAY Network. 650 words. Photo. Moved Sunday.

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SUNSHINE WEEK-EDITORIAL CARTOONS

The Trump administration's attacks on journalism and public access to information is providing plenty of fodder for the nation's editorial cartoonists. 300 words. Moved Sunday.

With:

- Moving with a selection of editorial cartoons drawn for Sunshine Week.

___

The AP
BAYTOWN, Texas (AP) - A Houston-area man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for forcing his teenage daughter to work as a prostitute.

The Harris County district attorney's office says a 46-year-old resident of Baytown was sentenced Monday after earlier pleading guilty to aggravated compelling of prostitution.

Authorities say the man took his daughter to truck stops to offer sex in exchange for money that he then took from her.

The girl, who was 16 at the time, told investigators she would have multiple customers in a night.

Authorities say the father also placed an online ad featuring his daughter as an escort.

He was first arrested in June 2015.

The Associated Press is not naming the man because it could identify his daughter, a sex-crime victim.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Oregon's chief medical examiner said Tuesday that an infant born to members of a church that practices faith healing died from complications of prematurity as authorities conducted a criminal investigation into the child's death.

The baby, Gennifer, was probably "a couple of months" premature and her lungs were too underdeveloped to allow her to breath unassisted for long, Dr. Karen Gunson, the chief medical examiner, said in a phone interview.

Clackamas County sheriff's investigators will present the case to prosecutors but have not finished interviewing witnesses, Sgt. Brian Jensen told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

FILE--In this Sept. 14, 2011, file photo, the Followers of Christ Church is shown in Oregon City, Ore. Gennifer Mitchell, a girl born to members of the church that practices faith healing, died from complications of prematurity, a medical examiner has ruled. Several members of the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City have been convicted for failing to seek medical care for their children. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, file)

She died a few hours after her birth at her grandparents' home on March 5 in Oregon City, where the Followers of Christ Church is based. Her birth was attended by three traditional midwives, family members and other church members, authorities have said.

No one called 911 when the baby began to have trouble breathing, Jensen said.

A deputy medical examiner responding to a call about Gennifer's death noticed the surviving twin, Evelyn, was also struggling and called law enforcement, who persuaded the parents to get her medical treatment.

That baby girl is doing well in the neonatal intensive care unit at Oregon Health & Science University, Gunson said.

"Given the fact that her sister is doing pretty well, I suspect she probably would have done pretty well too," she said. "I can't tell you for sure whether she would have survived, but the fact is, there's a twin that is doing well."

Gennifer and Evelyn's parents, 24-year-old Sarah Mitchell and 21-year-old Travis Mitchell, did not return a telephone message seeking comment. Gunson said Sarah Mitchell did not know how far along the pregnancy was because the mother received no prenatal care.

The church, which operates in Oregon and Idaho, has about 1,000 members and is rooted in Pentecostalism, although it is not affiliated with any denomination.

Members believe in a literal translation of the Scripture, which states that faith will heal all and if someone dies, it is God's will. The congregation shuns traditional medicine in favor of prayer, the laying on of hands and anointing the sick with oils.

Several members of the church have been convicted of crimes for failing to seek medical care for their children, including Sarah Mitchell's sister and brother-in-law. Children born to church members have also died in Idaho.

In 2011, a judge sentenced Sarah Mitchell's sister and brother-in-law to more than six years in prison after a manslaughter conviction in the death of their son, David. The boy was born prematurely and weighed less than 4 pounds.

An autopsy determined he died of staph pneumonia and complications from a premature birth, including underdeveloped lungs.

Another couple was convicted that same year of first-degree criminal mistreatment and sentenced to 90 days in jail for not getting medical treatment for their infant daughter, who developed an abnormal mass of blood vessels across her face and left eye.

A third couple was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and sentenced to 16 months in prison after their 15-year-old son died of a urinary tract blockage.

Of 78 children buried in the church's cemetery from 1955 to 1998, at least 21 could have been saved by medical intervention, according to a 1998 analysis by The Oregonian.

In 1999, state lawmakers passed a law that eliminated religious protections in cases of second-degree manslaughter and first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment.

The law left religious immunity in place for some other crimes but gave prosecutors more options for charging parents in such cases.

Repeated attempts to pass bills in Idaho to loosen religious exemptions in such cases have failed.

A vigil for the dead children of the church's members is planned by former church member Linda Martin at the Idaho statehouse on March 21.

____

Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) - More than 5,000 people, including women and children, have been freed from extremist captivity and at least 60 Boko Haram fighters have been killed by Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers in operations since the end of January, Cameroon's minister of communication said Tuesday.

Thousands of Cameroonian soldiers, supported by Nigerian troops, have been launching raids on Boko Haram strongholds in the Mandara mountains that straddle the two countries since Jan. 26, said the minister and government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary.

"At least 60 terrorists were killed, 21 suspects were arrested and are helping Cameroon and Nigerian military in their investigations," Bakary said. "A refuge center for the insurgents is entirely destroyed on the Mandara highlands, a petroleum depot destroyed and an explosive factory destroyed."

Soldiers have also destroyed the residence of a Boko Haram leader which also served as a hideout for the extremists, along with a huge consignment of weapons, vehicles and motorcycles, he said. No soldiers have been killed, he said.

The more than 5,000 people freed, including elderly persons, have been transported to a camp for displaced people in the Nigerian town of Banki, where they are receiving treatment from both Cameroonian and Nigerian military health workers, he said.

In December, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari announced troops had chased Boko Haram militants out of their key remaining base in the Sambisa forest, another former stronghold that straddles Cameroon's border with Nigeria.

Cameroon and Nigeria that same month reopened the border between the two countries for the first time in three years.

Cameroon has since called for vigilance and collaboration between its military and the population, stating that the insurgents had resorted to large scale suicide bombings as their firepower was greatly reduced.

Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, left 2.6 million homeless and more than 5 million refugees in urgent need of food aid.
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A retired Navy admiral and eight other current and former military officers were bribed with sex, trips and other lavish perks, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday in a burgeoning scandal involving a Malaysian defense contractor nicknamed "Fat Leonard."

Retired Adm. Bruce Loveless, 53, and the others were accused of accepting the services of prostitutes and other bribes from Leonard Francis in exchange for classified information that helped his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia.

The indictment says Francis once rented the MacArthur Suite at the Manila Hotel, where memorabilia of Gen. Douglas MacArthur was used for sex acts with prostitutes.

This undated image released by the U.S. Navy and provided by The San Diego Union-Tribune shows Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless. An indictment unsealed Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in federal court in San Diego alleged that retired Adm. Bruce Loveless and the other officers accepted the services of prostitutes, lavish meals and fancy trips from Leonard Francis in exchange for helping his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia. (U.S. Navy/Courtesy The San Diego Union-Tribune via AP)

Francis also is accused of paying for meals that cost as much as $12,000 and included foie gras, ox tail soup, expensive wine and cigars worth $2,000 a box.

Prosecutors say the defendants called themselves the Lion's King Harem, Brotherhood, Wolfpack and other names as they worked to recruit others for the scheme. They were accused of using fake names and foreign email service providers to cover their tracks.

Prosecutors say Francis, whose nickname comes from his wide girth, bilked the Navy out of nearly $35 million - largely by overcharging for his company's services supplying Navy ships in the Pacific with food, water, fuel and other necessities.

Navy officers provided classified information to Francis that helped him beat out the competition and in some instances commanders steered ships to ports in the Pacific where his company could charge fake tariffs and fees, prosecutors said.

It was the latest indictment in the three-year-old case that has produced charges against more than 20 former or current Navy officials and marks one of the worst Navy corruption scandals in history. Loveless is the second admiral charged in the case. It is extremely rare for an admiral to face criminal proceedings.

Adm. John Richardson, the Navy's top officer, vowed to repair damage caused by the scandal.

"This behavior is inconsistent with our standards and the expectations the nation has for us as military professionals," he said. "It damages the trust that the nation places in us, and is an embarrassment to the Navy."

Loveless made no substantive comments during a brief hearing hours after his arrest at his Coronado home near San Diego. Magistrate Judge Mitchell Dembin entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and ordered him released without bail. He did not yet have an attorney,

In the military, Loveless was responsible for collecting foreign intelligence for the Navy's Seventh Fleet, Patrick Hovakimian, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the judge.

"Far from doing that, over the course of many years, this defendant participated in wild sex parties," Hovakimian said. "He has shown callous disregard for his duties."

The judge also entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Enrico DeGuzman, a former Marine colonel, and allowed him to remain free. His attorney didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Five defendants were arrested Tuesday in Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado and Virginia. None had attorneys listed in court documents.

"This is a fleecing and betrayal of the United States Navy in epic proportions, and it was allegedly carried out by the Navy's highest-ranking officers," said Acting U.S. Attorney Alana W. Robinson.

She added that "the alleged conduct amounts to a staggering degree of corruption by the most prominent leaders of the Seventh Fleet - the largest fleet in the U.S. Navy - actively worked together as a team to trade secrets for sex, serving the interests of a greedy foreign defense contractor, and not those of their own country."

Francis has pleaded guilty to fraud and is awaiting sentencing.

Twenty of the defendants are current or former U.S. Navy officials and five are executives of the Singapore-based company of Francis.

To date, 13 have pleaded guilty, including another admiral who was sentenced in June and is believed to be the first active-duty Naval flag officer charged in federal court. Other cases are pending.

___

This story has been corrected to say six people were arrested Tuesday, not nine.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Jordanian woman has been charged in connection with a 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizza restaurant that killed 15 people and injured dozens of others.

The case against Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi was filed under seal in 2013 but announced publicly by the Justice Department on Tuesday.

The FBI has added Al-Tamimi, who served eight years in prison after pleading guilty in an Israeli court, to its list of Most Wanted Terrorists. U.S. officials are also seeking to take her into custody, though it was not clear Tuesday that she would ever be brought to the U.S. to stand trial.

This image provided by the FBI is the most wanted poster for Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian woman charged in connection with a 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizza restaurant that killed 15 people and injured dozens of others. The case against Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi was filed under seal in 2013 but announced publicly by the Justice Department on March 14, 2017. The FBI has added Al-Tamimi, who served eight years in prison after pleading guilty in an Israeli court, to its list of Most Wanted Terrorists. (FBI via AP)

The charge against Al-Tamimi stems from an Aug. 9, 2001, bombing at a Sbarro restaurant that, in addition to killing 15 people, also injured roughly 122 others. Two of those killed were U.S. nationals.

The criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday charged Al-Tamimi, who worked as a journalist at a television station, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S. against U.S. nationals.

Federal prosecutors accuse her of having agreed in the summer of 2001 to carry out attacks on behalf of the military wing of Hamas and having traveled with the restaurant suicide bomber to Jerusalem. Prosecutors say she instructed the bomber to detonate the explosive device, which was hidden in a guitar, in the area.

Al-Tamimi was freed from prison in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas. She was returned to Jordan, and though the Justice Department says it's working to bring her into custody, Jordanian courts have said their constitution does not allow for the extradition of Jordanian nationals.

It wasn't immediately clear if she had a lawyer.

Mary McCord, the acting head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, called Al-Tamimi an "unrepentant terrorist."

"The charges unsealed today serve as a reminder that when terrorists target Americans anywhere in the world, we will never forget - and we will continue to seek to ensure that they are held accountable," McCord said.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin election officials on Tuesday blamed undertrained poll workers and Sen. Bernie Sanders' social media posts for dozens of instances in which 17-year-olds managed to vote in last year's state presidential primary.

A commission report found that as many as 70 teenagers in nearly 30 Wisconsin counties voted illegally in the April election. Sanders won the Democratic side of the primary; Ted Cruz won the Republican side.

Many states allow 17-year-olds who will be 18 by Election Day to vote in their primaries, but Wisconsin requires voters to be 18 to vote in its.

From left, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., listen during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, about the Family Act. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

In its report, the commission determined that "some political campaigns" provided false information about 17-year-olds being able to vote in primaries and it circulated on social media, creating confusion and driving the Wisconsin teens to the polls.

The report doesn't name a specific candidate or provide examples of the alleged false information. But commission officials on Tuesday said it was primarily Sanders' campaign, though commission spokesman Reid Magney acknowledged that staff didn't see anything misleading from Sanders about Wisconsin laws, specifically. Magney said the report was based on "anecdotal" information the commission received from multiple sources.

Andrea Kaminski, executive director of Wisconsin's League of Women Voters chapter, told the commission she was "distressed" to read about the 17-year-olds voting, saying voters and poll workers need to be better educated about voting laws.

Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen responded by telling her that Sanders' national campaign "blurred the differences" in states' laws in its messaging and "the candidate has to have responsibility for those errors."

Asked during a break how Sanders could be held responsible for internet users misinterpreting his messages, Thomsen said he thinks candidates for national office need to keep in mind that election laws vary from state to state.

"It's your obligation to tell your campaign people and the voters what the rules are in your jurisdiction," Thomsen said. "You can just sit in D.C. and say here it is. I would hate to see youthful exuberance end up in criminal prosecution."

Sanders' campaign didn't immediately reply to an email seeking reaction to Thomsen's remarks. The Vermont senator enjoyed strong support among young voters and he pushed for the inclusion in primaries of 17-year-olds who would be eligible to vote on Election Day, successfully suing for that right in Ohio just weeks before Wisconsin's primary.

Commissioner Ann Jacobs said during Tuesday's meeting that it's unclear who's responsible for what appears online. Sanders may have said 17-year-olds could vote in one state and his supporters or kids twisted the message as it spread across the internet, she suggested.

"To say the campaign itself promulgated it may be the case, or it may not be the case," she said.

Commissioner Julie Glancey said she didn't want to point fingers at any campaigns. The panel ultimately voted unanimously to remove the phrase "some political campaigns" from the report and simply say false information spread through social media.

Thomsen added that it's troubling Wisconsin poll workers allowed the 17-year-olds to vote. The commission will look at training to "make sure we're not encouraging 17-year-olds to commit crimes."

The commission consists of three Republicans and three Democrats. Thomsen, Jacobs and Glancey are all Democrats.

The 17-year-olds who voted were referred to local prosecutors. District attorneys in counties with the most underage voters told The Associated Press they chose not to charge them because they genuinely believed they could vote and didn't intend to commit fraud.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat, told The AP on Tuesday that he has reached deferred prosecution agreements in four of the seven cases that reached his desk. Deferred prosecution agreements are deals in which first-time offenders can avoid a conviction if they satisfy conditions such as completing community service.

Ozanne said he hasn't decided whether to charge the remaining three teens. He declined to comment on whether he felt the teens intentionally tried to commit fraud.

Gov. Scott Walker told reporters in Milwaukee that 17-year-olds voting is all the more reason why voter photo identification is so important. He said he anticipates poll workers will probably make a point of checking birthdays as well as names on the cards from now on.

President Donald Trump has called for a "major investigation" into voter fraud and alleged, without any evidence, that 3 million to 5 million people may have voted illegally in the November general election. The commission report lists no instances of underage voters casting ballots in Wisconsin's general election.

___

Associated Press writer Cara Lombardo contributed to this report.

___

Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trichmond1

Follow Cara Lombardo on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cararlombardo
NEW YORK (AP) - Orson Welles' last film finally has a home.

Netflix has acquired the global rights to Welles' "The Other Side of the Wind" and will finance its completion and restoration.

Netflix's announcement Tuesday brings to a close the decades-long mystery surrounding one cinema's greatest filmmakers. Welles began shooting the film in 1970 but never completed it. The "Citizen Kane" director died in 1985.

FILE - This Feb. 22, 1982 file photo shows actor and movie director Orson Welles during a press conference in Paris. Netflix has acquired the global rights to Welles' "The Other Side of the Wind" and will finance its completion and restoration. Netflix's announcement Tuesday, March 14, 2017, brought to a close the decades-long mystery surrounding one cinema's greatest filmmakers. (AP Photo/Jacques Langevin, File)

"The Other Side of the Wind" is a Hollywood satire about a filmmaker attempting a comeback. Its stars include John Huston, Dennis Hopper and Peter Bogdanovich, who has helped in its editing.

Producer Frank Marshall will oversee the film's completion.

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos says he grew up worshipping Welles so releasing Welles' last film "is a point of pride" for him and for Netflix.
Former Chelsea and Ghana midfielder Michael Essien has joined Indonesian side Persib Bandung.

The 34-year-old, who has also played for Bastia, Lyon, Real Madrid, AC Milan and Panathinaikos during his illustrious career, has signed a one-year deal with the option of an extension.

Essien told the clubs official website: Thank you for bringing me here. Im excited and want to give my best.

Michael Essien in action for Ghana

Teddy Tjahyono, part of the Persib Bandung management, added: The reason to bring Michael Essien is in order to increase the value of competition in Indonesia. Opening the door to the other world players to strengthen the team in Indonesia.

The process to bring in players to this part of the world is quite difficult. It took months to negotiate.
Waitrose has attracted ridicule on social media for selling empty jam jars for 2  29p more than the cost of a full one.

Waitrose shopper John Kilbride, from Glasgow, noticed that a store was simultaneously selling the luxury Bonne Maman conserve for 1.71 and an empty jar for 2 and put pictures of them on Twitter in a post that has been liked more than 5,000 times.

At @waitrose you can buy an empty jam jar for 2 or an identical one full of jam for 1.71. You decide... pic.twitter.com/2Ac4qaUlfw  John Kilbride (@karnag) March 12, 2017

Some consumers defended the grocer, pointing out that the Bonne Maman was on temporary offer and the empty jar was bigger, despite their near-identical appearance complete with red gingham-patterned lids.

Others, however, suggested that the supermarket was clearly targeting middle-class jam makers and joking that it was clearly the preserve of the wealthy.

Some shoppers commented that the product should be re-labelled as Waitrose Bottled Fresh Air.

(Anthony Devlin/PA)

A Waitrose spokeswoman said: Our Bonne Maman conserves are on a temporary promotion and are great value for money.

The WI advises that sterilising jars for home-made jam simply requires washing them in very hot, soapy water, rinsing well and placing them on a baking tray in the oven to dry completely.

Last year analysts Kantar Worldpanel reported a resurgence in packed lunches, with 25 to 35-year-olds the most likely to swap bread-based meals for lighter, healthier options.

It said 2015 saw seven million more packed lunches consumed in the UK than in the previous year, with many preferring to transport their meals in jars.
Elliot Daly remains in contention for the final hurdle of Englands Grand Slam defence after being retained in a 25-man squad for Saturdays clash with Ireland.

Daly was the victim of a tip tackle by hooker Fraser Brown in the 61-21 victory over Scotland at Twickenham and has so far passed the return to play protocols for concussion.

The Wasps wing has two more stages to negotiate  Thursdays full contact practice is the final element  and England hope he will be given the all clear for the climax to the 2017 RBS 6 Nations in Dublin.

England's Elliot Daly (Andrew Matthews/PA)

 SQUAD UPDATE | Eddie Jones retains 25 players to prepare for Saturday's Ireland match.



Find out who  https://t.co/HVzePHb14b pic.twitter.com/gH1JiJhXwJ  England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) March 14, 2017

The champions, who retained their crown against Scotland, are likely to name an unchanged matchday 23 if Daly proves his fitness.

The biggest selection call facing Eddie Jones is at number eight where Billy Vunipola could be recalled in place of Nathan Hughes.

Vunipola made a successful international comeback against Scotland after three months out with a knee injury, crossing for a try as a second-half replacement, but it was also Hughes strongest performance of the Six Nations.

Wasps hooker Tommy Taylor has been retained with the squad and is destined to perform travelling reserve duties alongside wing Jonny May.
By John Davison

MOSUL, March 13 (Reuters) - Iraqi forces battling Islamic State faced tough resistance from snipers and mortar rounds on Monday as they tried to advance on Mosul's Old City and a bridge across the Tigris river in their campaign to retake the western part of the city.

Progress by Rapid Response units was slowed by heavy rain on Monday morning, but they were only 100 metres (yards) from the Iron Bridge which connects the Old City with the eastern side of Mosul, military officials said.

Since starting the campaign in October, Iraq forces with U.S.-led coalition support have recaptured eastern Mosul and around 30 percent of the west from militants who are outnumbered but fiercely defending their last stronghold in Iraq.

Federal police and Rapid Response brigades, an elite Interior Ministry unit, said at the weekend they had entered the Bab al-Tob area of the Old City, where fighting is expected to be toughest because of its narrow alleyways where armoured vehicles cannot pass. But the advance there stalled on Monday.

"Due to the bad rainy weather, operations have been halted for now. We are facing stiff resistance from the Daesh (Islamic State) fighters with sniper shots and mortars," a rapid response unit officer told Reuters.

A Reuters reporter on the ground said mortar rounds and sniper fire hit near the Mosul museum area, which Iraqi forces had seized from militants a few days ago. The stench of tear gas hung in the air.

Federal police forces also fighting in areas close to the Iron Bridge were battling pockets of militants in Bab al-Tob district and carrying out house to house searches, a federal police commander's spokesman said.

A military statement said on Monday that Iraqi elite Counter Terrorism Service troops, known as CTS, managed to retake al-Nafut district of west Mosul.

As many as 600,000 civilians are caught with the militants inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi forces include army, special forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite militias.

More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October, of which more than 65,000 fled their homes in the past two weeks alone, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Capturing the Iron Bridge would mean Iraqi forces control three of the five bridges spanning the Tigris river between eastern and western Mosul, all which have been damaged both by Islamic State fighters and U.S.-led air strikes. The southernmost two have already been retaken by Iraqi forces.

Losing Mosul would be a major strike against Islamic State. It is by far the largest city the militants have held since their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself leader of a self-styled caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from a mosque in Mosul in the summer of 2014.

As Iraqi forces slowly take territory from the group, more evidence is emerging of war crimes committed by the Sunni Islamist militants, who targeted Shi'ite Muslims and religious minorities as well as opponents from their own sect. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; writing by Patrick Markey)
By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA, March 14 (Reuters) - A self-confessed assassin who testified to being in a "death squad" under Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte will soon file a case at the International Criminal Court accusing the president of crimes against humanity, his lawyer said on Tuesday. More than 8,000 people have died since Duterte took office in June and unleashed a bloody war on drugs, a third in raids and sting operations by police who say they acted in self-defence.

Duterte and the police have denied links to the other killings, many of which rights groups say bear the same hallmarks as hundreds of suspicious deaths of criminals in Davao City during the 22 years Duterte was its mayor.

Two men have testified before the Senate saying they were part of an alleged hit squad in Davao they said killed at Duterte's behest. Legislators found no proof of their testimony, which the president's aides dismiss as fabrication.

The ICC case will come from Edgar Matobato, who came out of hiding last week and testified in September to have killed more than 50 people in the Davao area.

In a television interview, his lawyer, Jude Sabio, said Matobato would file a case with the court in The Hague this month or in early April.

"Murder is a serious crime. If it is committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population, it constitutes a crime against humanity," Sabio said.

Retired policeman Arturo Lascanas has testified to killing alongside Matobato and last week said he believed more witnesses would speak against Duterte to prevent themselves being "erased".

Duterte's chief lawyer, Salvador Panelo, said the president was not threatened by any possible international court case.

"The extrajudicial killings here are being done by the members of the (drug) syndicate themselves," Panelo told news channel ANC.

"The president is not behind it, neither (are) the police."

In a report last month, Amnesty International said the drug killings appeared to be "systematic, planned and organised" by authorities and could constitute crimes against humanity.

In a series of reports last year, Reuters showed police had a 97 percent kill rate in drug operations, the strongest proof yet that police were summarily shooting suspects.

An ICC prosecutor in October said the tribunal might have jurisdiction to prosecute those accused of the killings.

Duterte has little love for the ICC and has described it as "useless".

Asked on Monday about the prospect of going to jail, Duterte stood by what he said were clear instructions to police to kill if their lives were in danger, and reiterated that he took full responsibility for the crackdown.

"I will do what I say in public and I am ready to face the consequences," he told a news conference. "If I go to prison, so be it." (Editing by Martin Petty and Nick Macfie)
DUBAI, March 14 (Reuters) - State-owned Qatargas said on Tuesday it had agreed to increase the volume of liquefied natural gas which it supplies to Polish Oil and Gas Co to 2 million tonnes per year.

The new deal will come into effect at the start of 2018 and run until June 2034, it said. Poland has been trying to diversify away from its reliance on Russian pipeline gas.

The LNG will be supplied from Qatar Liquefied Gas Co, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and Mitsui & Co, and will be delivered by Q-Flex LNG vessels to the President Lech Kaczynski LNG Terminal in Swinoujscie, Poland.

A long-term deal signed in 2009 provided for Poland to import 1.3 billion cubic metres of LNG from Qatar annually, and those deliveries began last June. (Reporting by Andrew Torchia)
By Hongji Kim and Sang-gyu Lim

ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON, March 14 (Reuters) - As the USS Carl Vinson ploughed through seas off South Korea on Tuesday, rival North Korea warned the United States of "merciless" attacks if the carrier infringes on its sovereignty or dignity during U.S.-South Korean drills.

F-18 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered carrier in a dramatic display of U.S. firepower amid rising tension with the North, which has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since last year.

"While this is a routine deployment for the Carl Vinson strike group, really the centrepiece for us ... is this exercise we're doing with the ROK navy called 'Foal Eagle'," Rear Admiral James W. Kilby, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 1, told reporters, referring to South Korea as the Republic of Korea.

North Korea said the arrival of the U.S. strike group in the seas off the east of the Korean peninsula was part of a "reckless scheme" to attack it.

"If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater," the North's state news agency KCNA said.

North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army," KCNA said.

Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war.

The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to handle North Korea.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday.

Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy and "all options are on the table".

CHINESE OPPOSITION

Compounding regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. anti-missile system.

The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system is for defence against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security.

The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests.

South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on March 1.

The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale.

The United States has also started to deploy "Gray Eagle" attack drones to South Korea, a U.S. military spokesman said on Monday.

China says the exercises do nothing to ease tension.

Last week, it called on North Korea to stop its weapons tests and for South Korea and the United States to stop their drills.

"We hope the relevant side can respect the security concerns of countries in the region, can take a responsible attitude and do more to benefit the easing of tension, rather than irritating each other," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing, referring to the United States. (Additional reporting by Hyunyoung Yi, Ben Blanchrd in BEIJING; Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez)
By Maria Tsvetkova and Raushan Nurshayeva

MOSCOW/ASTANA, March 14 (Reuters) - Russian-led peace talks on Syria were derailed on Tuesday as rebels backed by Turkey boycotted a third round of meetings in Kazakhstan and the Kremlin indicated there were international divisions over the process.

Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, said the rebels' reasons for staying away were unconvincing and their decision came as a surprise. Describing the rebels as Turkish proxies, the Syrian government envoy said Ankara had broken "its commitments" to the Astana process.

The rebels said they would not attend the talks, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, because of what they called Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes on rebel-held areas and its failure to get the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militia to abide by a ceasefire.

Russia has sought to revive diplomacy over Syria since its air force helped government forces defeat rebel groups in eastern Aleppo in December, Assad's biggest victory of the war.

The cooperation of Turkey, one of the main backers of rebel groups fighting in northern Syria, has been crucial to the Russian diplomatic effort, helping to broker a ceasefire in December after the rebels' Aleppo defeat.

Two previous rounds of Astana talks have sought to consolidate that ceasefire, reflecting an improvement in Russian-Turkish ties that had been strained to breaking point by the Syrian war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russian Defence Ministry was in touch with Syrian rebel leaders who boycotted the talks, the Interfax news agency reported. He said Russia was dealing with the situation.

The Kremlin spokesman described the talks as hugely complex. "Sometimes the situation at these talks is really complicated because of substantial differences in approaches of various countries," Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call.

Alexander Lavrentiev, the head of the Russian delegation in Astana, told reporters the opposition's absence was "sad" but there was still "many things to discuss and make decisions about".

SYRIAN ENVOY ACCUSES TURKEY

Russian President Vladimir Putin had credited the Kazakhstan talks, which focus on reducing the fighting, with jumpstarting U.N.-led peace talks in Geneva seeking a political settlement to the six-year conflict.

The Geneva talks broke off without any progress as seemingly unbridgeable divisions persist, chiefly over the future of Assad who seems militarily unassailable in the areas of western Syria under government control.

The previous Astana talks had been attended by rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner. A spokesman for the rebels on Monday accused Russia of "continuing its crimes" against civilians in Syria - a reference to Russian air strikes - and of supporting "the crimes of the Syrian regime".

The spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, which groups armed and political opponents of Assad, suggested the rebels could yet go to Astana, though the decision was so far not to. "They are waiting to hear a response from Russia, but until this moment nothing came," Salem al-Muslat told the al-Hadath news channel in an interview.

The rebels say Russia has failed to live up to its commitments as a guarantor of the ceasefire, saying government and allied forces continue to press attacks on remaining rebel-held areas in western Syria.

The Syrian government envoy to the talks said his delegation was in Astana to meet Syria's Russian and Iranian allies, not the rebel factions.

"When one of the three guarantors breaks their commitment - and I mean Turkey - this means that Turkey must be the one that is asked about the non-attendance or participation of these armed groups," Bashar al Ja'afari, the envoy, said in broadcast remarks from Astana.

Last week, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was in Moscow seeking to build cooperation with Putin over military operations in Syria.

Turkey is attempting to create a border "safe zone" in northern Syria free of Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG militia. The Russian-backed Syrian army has advanced to the frontier of YPG-held areas, but is not fighting the Kurds. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones)
MANILA, March 14 (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday poked fun at the dismissal of his foreign minister by lawmakers, delivering jokes in an American accent about a citizenship scandal that led to the downfall of one of his top loyalists.

Showing the comedic style that helped win him an election last year, Duterte mocked former Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, rejected by a house appointments commission last week over his failure to prove he was not a U.S. citizen when he took the job eight months ago.

"I don't know why I was ousted by the commission on appointments but I did not lie," Duterte, impersonating Yasay and using an American accent, told a audience of hundreds of mayors.

"If you did not lie, why are you out of the cabinet?" he said to laughs and applause.

Duterte's remark makes light of what has been one of the biggest embarrassments of his presidency so far. Yasay, a U.S.-trained lawyer, is a member of his inner circle with whom he shared a dormitory while studying law.

Yasay played a crucial role driving Duterte's policy of diversifying foreign relations beyond ally the United States, describing it as a "shackling dependency".

In scathing posts on Facebook, Yasay chided Washington for what he said was shirking its treaty obligations to protect the Philippines. He said breaking away was "imperative in putting an end to our nation's subservience to United States' interests".

Yasay was accused by critics of contradicting statements that were made under oath before the appointments commission and during media interviews about his citizenship and passports.

While the commission made no conclusion about his citizenship status, its members agreed unanimously that he was not telling the truth.

Critics say Yasay's applications to run for the Senate, vice presidency and head of the Securities and Exchange Commission - a post he won - were now in question too.

Yasay has denied lying to the commission. (Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick Macfie)
BERLIN, March 14 (Reuters) - Germany has mounted a good initial response to a large wave of migrants and now needs to step up investments to ensure they have prospects beyond low-skilled jobs, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said.

The first of the estimated 1.2 million people who arrived in Germany in 2015 and 2016 from countries including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are starting to enter the labour market. About 14 percent have found a job.

According to a survey of 2,200 German employers published by the OECD on Tuesday, most refugee hires have been for low-skilled positions. A large majority of employers are happy with their hires, although they are generally made for social reasons, not to plug skills gaps.

The number of native Germans entering the workforce is beginning to slow as the population ages, opening up a demographic hole that many experts hope refugees can help fill.

"This is not the workforce of today but tomorrow - maybe the day after tomorrow," German Labour and Social Affairs Minister Andrea Nahles told a conference in Berlin.

With an unemployment rate of just 5.9 percent, the lowest since German reunification in 1990 and one of the lowest in the OECD, Germany is one of the world's most favourable job markets for new arrivals, the OECD said.

Thomas Liebig, co-author of the OECD report, said firms would now have to make significant investments in on-the-job training to ensure that refugees continue to be employable.

"The real challenge is now. We have to keep up the drive, especially the companies," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

ACCESS TO JOBS

Germany has taken measures to make it easier for asylum-seekers to enter the workforce - for example, most can now access the labour market after three months compared with nine months previously and as long as a year in Britain.

But about 30 percent of those who arrived in the first half of 2016 had no formal schooling or had only attended primary school and fewer than 20 percent had a university degree. Iranians and Syrians had the highest levels of education.

More than three quarters of the employers who took part in the survey - which was carried out together with the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the German ministry of labour and social affairs - said they had few or no difficulties in daily work with the refugees they had hired.

Those who did have difficulties most frequently cited a lack of German-language skills, vocational skills, different work habits and uncertainty relating to the length of the employee's stay in Germany. (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Gareth Jones)
By Steven Scheer

JERUSALEM, March 14 (Reuters) - Israel's government will receive about 4 billion shekels ($1.1 billion) after Intel's planned $15.3 billion purchase of self-driving car tech firm Mobileye, helping the government cut more taxes, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said on Tuesday.

Kahlon said that the extra revenue was small compared with the total annual tax take of almost 300 billion shekels but that it would help the government cut other taxes.

The funds from the Mobileye deal will come from capital gains taxes of as much as 30 percent that top shareholders will pay when they sell their stakes in the company.

Kahlon said even without the Mobileye deal, the largest technology takeover in Israel's history, he was planning tax cuts.

"I am in favour of lowering taxes. I have lowered taxes in the past. It's my policy," Kahlon said on Army Radio.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and Kahlon had agreed to formulate a plan to reduce taxes to further stimulate economic activity.

The Bank of Israel opposes tax cuts, believing excess revenue should go towards debt reduction.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said funds from the Mobileye deal should be diverted to bolstering the public health system.

Israel's economy grew 4 percent in 2016 but growth is expected to slow to around 3.5 percent this year.

In January, Kahlon said he would consider more tax cuts this year if tax revenue kept exceeding expectations. He lowered corporate tax by one point to 24 percent at the start of 2017, and the rate will drop to 23 percent at the start of 2018. Income taxes were also reduced.

Kahlon declined to detail what taxes would be lowered in the next round but local media said value-added tax would fall from the current 17 percent while corporate taxes would be cut again.

A spokesman for Kahlon was not available to comment.

In the first two months of 2017, Israel collected 51.8 billion shekels in tax revenue, 6 percent more than a year earlier. ($1 = 3.6600 shekels) (Editing by Hugh Lawson)
By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI, March 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Many South Sudanese child refugees arriving in Uganda are too traumatised to speak and do not know whether their parents are dead or alive, the charity Save the Children said on Tuesday.

Thousands of South Sudanese are arriving each day in Uganda, which has received more than 700,000 refugees from its famine-stricken neighbour since war erupted there in December 2013.

"I've seen children tied to their dead mother and thrown in the river - soldiers have been doing this a lot," Save the Children cited one 31-year-old woman, Sylvia, as saying.

South Sudan is Africa's largest refugee crisis, with more than 1.5 million people fleeing since 2013, when President Salva Kiir fired his deputy Riek Machar, sparking a conflict that has split the world's youngest country along ethnic lines.

The United Nations declared last month that parts of South Sudan are experiencing famine, the first time the world has faced such a catastrophe in six years.

Almost nine in 10 refugees arriving in Uganda are women and children, often hungry, terrified and alone, Save the Children said.

"They are telling us that back home they have witnessed their parents being killed," one Save the Children worker said in a statement.

"One boy said his father was hung next to him - it comes to him in his dreams and the next morning he wakes up and he's speechless."

Sylvia arrived in Uganda with a two-year-old baby girl that she found by the roadside.

"I found her crying in a ditch," she told Save the Children. "She was naked, malnourished and dehydrated."

Other women told the charity they had seen women and girls being raped by up to 10 soldiers.

"The testimonies we are hearing are horrifying," Pete Walsh, Save the Children's South Sudan country director said.

"All parties to the conflict must ensure civilians are protected and aid workers are able to continue delivering life-saving healthcare and protection."

Aid workers have been unable to reach tens of thousands of people in need for months due to clashes, denial of access at checkpoints and looting of humanitarian compounds, according to the United Nations.

More than 100,000 South Sudanese are experiencing famine, with a further one million on the brink of starvation, it says. (Reporting by Katy Migiro @katymigiro; Editing by Emma Batha. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)
By Margarita Antidze

BAKU, March 14 (Reuters) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) sees the economy in oil-rich Azerbaijan contracting this year despite some positive developments and wants to see more reforms aimed at diversifying the country's revenues, the bank's local manager told Reuters.

The slide in the price of oil, which with gas accounts for about 75 percent of the state revenues and 45 percent of the gross domestic product, has hit growth, the budget, the balance of payments, the manat currency and foreign exchange reserves.

The ex-Soviet country's gross domestic product shrank by 3.8 percent year-on-year in 2016, down from 1.1 percent growth in 2015, but rose by 0.8 percent in January. The government expects the economy to grow by 1 percent this year.

"Our preliminary assessment (for the growth in 2017) as of today is minus 1.1 percent ... and it's most likely that our ... assessment of GDP for this year will remain at the negative level," Nariman Mannapbekov told Reuters in an interview.

He said the ADB, one of the major lenders to Azerbaijan, wanted to see more measures "to diversify the economy, to create jobs and to boost social-targeted assistance through reforms".

"I know that the government is also keen to develop in this direction," Mannapbekov said.

He said the ADB might consider two loans for Azerbaijan this year, one of which in an indicative amount of $400 million would be for a railway upgrade project.

The ADB disbursed a $500 million countercyclical support facility loan last December to help Azerbaijan to tackle economic and social issues, mitigating the adverse impact of a decline in oil prices.

"We are pleased that the disbursement of this loan among others has also helped to reduce the state budget's deficit recorded at 0.5 percent in 2016, much lower than it was projected in February last year," Mannapbekov said.

He said that the government might be able to keep the budget deficit at 1-2 percent in 2017, if oil prices stay at around $56-$57 per barrel during the year. Brent crude oil was down to $50.7 per barrel on Tuesday.

Mannapbekov praised the government's efforts aimed at fiscal consolidation, with tax and custom revenues rising in the first two months of 2017 as well as some improvements in the financial sector, including stable non-performing loans ratio and rising appetite for short-term loans in manats.

Mannapbekov said "continued constructive engagement is always better than disengagement" when asked to comment on the outcome of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Board meeting in Bogota last week.

Azerbaijan has left the EITI after a prominent international coalition suspended the country's membership because of its concern about limits on civic freedoms in the South Caucasus country of about 9 million.

"Azerbaijan is ADB member, and based on our partnership, we stand ready to assist with relevant government requests," Mannapbekov said. (Editing by Katya Golubkova and Alison Williams)
By Lauren Hirsch and Sruthi Ramakrishnan

March 14 (Reuters) - Luxury fashion retailer Neiman Marcus Group Ltd LLC said on Tuesday that it was exploring strategic alternatives, including changes to its capital structure or a sale of the company, as it seeks relief from its swelling debt pile.

The announcement follows a Reuters report earlier this month that the company had turned to investment bank Lazard Ltd to explore ways to bolster its balance sheet. Neiman Marcus has total liabilities of $6.4 billion, including $1.2 billion of deferred income taxes.

Hudson's Bay Co, owner of the Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue retail chains, is in exploratory talks about acquiring Neiman Marcus, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Tuesday that Hudson's Bay was seeking a deal that would give it control of the business without having to assume Neiman Marcus' debt. It did not provide details as to how this can be achieved.

It was not immediately clear how the company's capital structure could allow for a sale that would be in compliance with its debt obligations without some arrangement with creditors. Hudson's Bay and Neiman Marcus declined to comment.

Neiman Marcus also said it made changes to its corporate structure, including naming subsidiary online store My Theresa and some of its properties in Virginia and Texas "unrestricted," meaning not subject to the same rules under credit agreements as other units of the company.

However, experts said this was aimed more at helping the company better manage its debt liabilities.

"They want to increase flexibility to deal with creditors," said Anthony Canale, head of high yield research at research firm Covenant Review LLC. "They want a bargaining chip."

Hudson's Bay had approached department store operator Macy's Inc earlier this year about an acquisition, but its bid stumbled as it struggled to line up equity financing, sources told Reuters earlier this month.

Neiman Marcus would be a significantly smaller acquisition. It had $4.9 billion in sales in 2016, compared with Macy's $25.8 billion, and has roughly 40 stores, compared with more than 700 stores operated by Macy's.

Neiman Marcus has been challenged by the same problems as other U.S. retailers: pressure to offer discounts to entice shoppers who increasingly prefer the price and convenience of buying online.

Meanwhile, shares of Hudson's Bay tumbled more than 20 percent to a record low in January after it cut its revenue forecast for the year ended on Jan. 28 for the second time, citing a challenging retail environment in the United States and Europe.

Hudson's Bay shares were down 1.2 percent to C$11.75 in Toronto on Tuesday afternoon, giving it a market capitalization of C$2.1 billion.

Dallas-based Neiman has also been challenged as affluent Texans have cut back on buying because of a drop in energy prices, while a stronger U.S. dollar has restrained spending at its Bergdorf Goodman department store, a popular New York tourist destination.

Neiman Marcus on Tuesday reported a 6.1 percent drop in quarterly revenue and a net loss of $117 million, compared with year-earlier net earnings of $7.9 million. It blamed the results in part on an inventory management system that failed to work properly, leaving it unable to fill orders.

The company also wrote down the value of the Neiman Marcus brand by $153.8 million, after having reduced it by $466.2 million last September.

Private equity firm Ares Management LP and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board had acquired Neiman Marcus for $6 billion in 2013.

Despite its challenges, Neiman Marcus has been renovating existing stores and still plans on opening new ones, including a flagship location at New York City's Hudson Yards development.

(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru and Lauren Hirsch in New York; additional reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Lisa Von Ahn)
By Ercan Gurses and Humeyra Pamuk

ANKARA/ISTANBUL, March 14 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned the Netherlands that he could take further steps in a deepening diplomatic row, while a government spokesman in Ankara said economic sanctions could be coming.

Incensed by Dutch and German government bans on his ministers from speaking to rallies of overseas Turks, Erdogan also accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of siding with the Netherlands in the fight between the NATO allies.

Turkey suspended high-level diplomatic relations with the Netherlands on Monday, banning the Dutch ambassador from the country and preventing diplomatic flights from landing in Turkey or using its airspace.

Those steps were taken after Erdogan branded the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" at the weekend for muzzling his ministers.

"The cabinet took action yesterday but there are many other things that could be done against the Netherlands," Erdogan said in a speech broadcast live on television.

"We will show those who think they can get away with an apology that they are making a mistake," said Erdogan, who is campaigning for an April 16 referendum on boosting his powers and has been looking to the large number of Turks living in Europe to help secure victory.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus later told broadcaster CNN Turk that economic sanctions could be in the works.

"Pressure will continue against the Netherlands until they make up for what they did. We've started with the political, diplomatic sanctions, and economic sanctions may follow," he said.

Erdogan has threatened to take the Netherlands to the European Court of Human Rights over the ban on his ministers, which both the Dutch and Germans have imposed citing fears of unrest.

Dutch police used dogs and water cannon on Sunday to disperse hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags outside the consulate in Rotterdam. Some protesters threw bottles and stones and several demonstrators were beaten by police with batons, a Reuters witness said. Mounted police officers charged the crowd.

SAARLAND, BELGIAN BANS

The small western German state of Saarland said on Tuesday it would ban political campaigning by foreign politicians.

"Internal Turkish conflicts have no place in Germany. Election appearances which put at risk domestic peace in our country must be banned," State Premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in a statement.

"The atmosphere that has been created by Nazi comparisons and insults must not be allowed to escalate," she said.

The Belgian city of Antwerp said it would not allow a politician from the nationalist MHP party to speak at an event, although Ali Guler was still set to appear on Sunday at a Turkish restaurant in Genk, in the east of the country.

While Turkish law forbids election campaigning abroad and in diplomatic missions, ministers are circumventing the ban by holding what they say are cultural events with Turkish citizens.

Erdogan has said that those who oppose the referendum, are aligning themselves with terrorists. He has also accused European states, including Germany, of harbouring terrorism, an allegation they deny.

SHARP WORDS FOR MERKEL

EU states are also unhappy with what they see as an increasingly authoritarian tone from Turkey and the spat is likely to further dim Ankara's prospects of EU membership.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn called on Turkey to moderate its language and avoid further escalating the dispute.

Erdogan renewed his attack on Merkel after she criticised his "Nazi remnants" jibe against the Dutch.

"The countries that have embraced this thuggery have lost all their credibility. The Chancellor of Germany has come out and said she supported the Netherlands. We know that you are no different than them," Erdogan said.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Turkish sanctions, while "not too bad", were inappropriate as the Dutch had more to be angry about.

Ankara's foreign ministry said the European Union was exercising democratic values selectively.

"It is very grave for the EU to hide behind member country solidarity and stand by the Netherlands, which has clearly violated human rights and European values," it said.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul; Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Jon Boyle and Toby Davis)
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.
BERLIN, March 14 (Reuters) - Germany's Transportation Ministry on Tuesday denied a report in the Handelsblatt newspaper saying it would delay introduction of a new highway toll for cars until 2020, three years later than expected.

"The Handelsblatt report ... is obviously based on old documents and is not relevant," the ministry said in a statement.

Germany's cabinet in January approved plans to introduce a highway toll for cars registered abroad, with less polluting cars to pay a lower rate.

Handelsblatt had cited tender documents related to the new system in its report. It said they also showed the tax system could be expanded to buses and motorcycles at some undisclosed future point.

"Tender documents are still being developed and not yet available," the ministry said.

Germany expects to raise 500 million euros ($530 million) a year with the new road tax. ($1 = 0.9421 euros) (Reporting by Thomas Seythal; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Alison Williams)
Although heavy metals could give rise to health risks, the biggest problem related to canned fish revolves around the amount of mercury/ methyl mercury found in the canned fish.

In relation to canned fish, lab tests are not conducted in Sri Lanka.

No research has been conducted in Sri Lanka so far with regard to the adverse health implications of consuming canned fish

Canned fish is the ready-to-eat, convenient choice of food for anyone who loves to indulge in the tempting fish cutlet, for those planning to whip up a quick meal or simply for anyone who loves fish. Canned fish such as Tuna, Mackerel and Sardines are believed to be enriched with the high nutritious value of Omega 3 fatty acids that are quintessential to cut down on cardiovascular diseases, fight back depression and improve brain health and thereby to improve ones overall well-being. However, experts harbour different opinions with regard to the various health implications of over consuming canned fish due to the heavy metal content such as methyl mercury found in canned fish. Enlightening us on the subject further, several experts shared their expert opinion with Dailymirror concerning the benefits and adverse effects of consuming canned fish.

Sri Lanka needs to have a proper regulatory body to test fish for heavy metals



- Hemantha Withanage



Expressing his views on the subject, Executive Director of the Centre for Environment Justice and Environmental Activist Hemantha Withanage affirmed that canned fish definitely contains certain heavy metals given the fact it is also stored in a metallic can. To my knowledge, no research has been conducted in Sri Lanka so far with regard to the adverse health implications of consuming canned fish and on how marine pollution has an adverse effect on canned fish.

However, we conducted a survey in the Negombo Lagoon area; both at the lagoon fishery and with regard to the Seer Fish caught by trawler boats in the area. During our survey, we identified small fish that contained high levels of mercury in them. Samples of human hair also indicated that 4.77 g of mercury were found in them. Usually Sword Fish and Seer Fish are exported to the European market from Sri Lanka. However, if tests by European regulatory bodies indicate that there are heavy metals in these fish, such fish are then not permitted to be sold in the market. Although mercury levels evident in canned fish have not been a serious issue in the context of Sri Lanka, it is time that our country also has similar regulatory bodies in place to test the quality and freshness of the fish sold to our consumers Withanage said.

Extracting fish oil from its primary source is the best way to avoid heavy metals



- Dr. Waruna Gunathilake

Explaining on how our food chain is concentrated with high levels of heavy metals, Dr. Waruna Gunathilake, Consultant Physician and Head of the Toxicology and National Poisons Information Centre at the National Hospital of Colombo,Sri Lanka said that canned fish could be very useful although it is not always the healthy option available. This is mainly because canned fish contains a very high level of sodium which could give rise to health risks such as high blood pressure.



We should be careful when consuming canned fish because consumers are not aware of the source or origin, from where the fish are harvested. Fish can easily get poisoned with heavy metals due to water pollution. This is not the case only for canned fish but also for fresh fish. Most importantly, it should be noted that there is a significant threat of heavy metals entering the human body through the food chain. Consumers are usually not aware whether the fish is harvested from shallow water or deep sea water or if the fish is obtained from a polluted water source that is contaminated with heavy metals. Apart from the salted water, canned fish may contain a lot of other ingredients such as tomato sauce and other flavour enhancers such as food additives, preservatives, colouring or pigmentation.

Therefore, it is important to ensure that canned fish is labelled with the ingredients and the origin of the fish clearly mentioned.



Although heavy metals could give rise to health risks, the biggest problem related to canned fish revolves around the amount of mercury/ methyl mercury found in the canned fish. Our food chain gets contaminated with heavy metals like mercury through fish owing to the pollution of sea water and fresh water. These heavy metals get concentrated in the food chain according to the ascending order; thus the amount of heavy metals in fish would be very high by the time it reaches the consumer.



Apart from the canned fish we consume often, people also tend to consume fish oil as a means of obtaining more nutrition for the body. However, the majority in the pharmaceutical industry today have resorted to extracting fish oil from its primary source such as through algae, sea planktons and aquatic plants instead of obtaining fish oil from the fish. This is mainly because extracting fish oil from its primary source is one of the best ways to avoid the increased levels of heavy metal found in fish. However, it should be noted that this is still a debatable topic in the scientific circle, Dr. Gunathilake said.

Fish such as groupers and sardines caught from coastal areas are definitely affected from coastal pollution



- Dr. Terney Pradeep Kumara

Commenting further, General Manager of the Marine Environment Protection Authority and Former Head of the Department of Oceanography and Marine Geology, University of Ruhuna, Dr.Terney Pradeep Kumara said that canned fish such as Tuna fish are often caught from offshore areas and not from shallow water or coastal areas. He said that these kinds of fish are not much affected directly by coastal pollution. For instance fish such as groupers and sardines caught from coastal areas are definitely affected from coastal pollution unlike Tuna caught from the ocean. The coastal pollution mainly occurs due to sewage, agro-chemicals, pharmaceutical residuals and plastic-polythene and micro plastic that are released to the water. For instance, the pharmaceutical residual and agro-chemicals are the main chemicals which get bio-magnified. Bio magnification refers to an instance where the chemicals are consumed by a fish. If this fish is consumed by another big fish, the predator will accumulate ten times more concentrated toxicants into the body compared to its prey.



Therefore, if we consume a carnivore fish the possibility of getting contaminated with a high dose of toxins is greater compared to when we consume an herbivore fish. However, it is not a practical approach to distinguish between carnivore and herbivore fish when purchasing fish from the market. These fish could be contaminated with heavy metals or inorganic compounds. To date, no one has conducted any research on the Sri Lankan context with regard to the coastal pollutions effect on fish and the contaminated fishs impact on human health Dr. Kumara said.



When inquired whether any action has been taken against the coastal pollution in Sri Lanka, he said that the Marine Environment Protection Authority has taken measures to observe the quality or parameters of water especially in public beach areas. He said that their analysis indicates that almost all the beaches are polluted especially with E. coli bacteria found in sewage water. We found that the water is also polluted with fecal matter. In fact hotel waste, canals and rivers are all contaminated to a certain extent, which has given rise to coastal and lagoon water pollution. However, it should be noted that the deep ocean fish are not affected by this pollution. Increased awareness is the key to bring this water pollution under control Dr. Kumara added.

We are not aware if the canned fish that is imported to Sri Lanka is tested for Bisephenol A



- Dr. Ruwan Wijayamuni



Speaking to Daily Mirror, Chief Medical Officer of the Colombo Municipal Council Dr. Ruwan Wijayamuni shared his views concerning the benefits and risks involved with over-consuming canned fish. He said that in relation to canned fish, lab tests are not conducted in Sri Lanka. However, he stressed the importance of ensuring that stringent standards are maintained in the processing and canning procedure of canned fish. Basically, when we talk about canned fish, the most common canned fish we find in the Sri Lankan market is tuna, sardine and mackerel. Also there can be red salmon. These are the commonest types of canned fish that we find. However, in our part of the world, even tuna is not very popular

. Our consumers tend to have a greater preference for sardines and mackerel than for tuna. The mackerel fish is not found in the Indian Ocean. It is found in areas around the Pacific Ocean. That is why our fish canning industry has relatively failed since we do not have the required fish resources. Basically, canned fish is not a bad health option because it gives a lot of protein. Also, the bone part of the canned fish is very soft as a result of the very high temperature and high pressure applied on it. So the bones become very soft and are easily edible unlike the ordinary fish bones.

These fish bones are a rich source of calcium and protein. Therefore, canned fish is generally considered as a very good source of protein and calcium for people. Canned fish is also an excellent source of Omega 3 fish oil which is really beneficial for the cardiovascular system and to lower the level of bad cholesterol in the body. These are the benefits of consuming canned fish Dr. Wijayamuni said.



However there are certain health risks involved with consuming canned fish. Firstly, canned fish should be processed in the correct manner. Secondly, it should be canned in a proper container. The processing mechanism and the container in which the fish is stored are very important elements that should be taken into account by canned fish manufacturers. Usually, the fish is canned in a low acidic media that is higher than the value of 4.5 pH. Therefore, this is not a great level of acid concentration where microorganisms or bacteria are killed. So there is a great potential that microorganisms could still thrive in the canned fish since fish blood and intestines could still contain certain microorganisms. Canned fish could also be a carrier of micro elements such as mercury.

It could also contain radioactive elements mainly due to undersea bombing/nuclear testing. These radioactive elements have a high potential of being absorbed by fish flesh. This is why it is not advisable to over consume canned fish. However, canned fish has become a common food between middle income, lower middle income and lower income people.



Canned fish could also contain lots of spores present in their inactive form and the outer layer of these spores act as a protective layer for bacteria when the bacteria is encountered with unfavourable grounds. Therefore, it is vital that heat and pressure should be applied in a proper manner to kill the bacteria found in fish. There are also views put forward in the scientific circle that the outer lining of the can is coated with Bisephenol A (BPA)  applied inside the can as a coating. Acidic reactions may sometimes occur when the chemical coating comes into contact with the lower acidic solution in which the fish is generally immersed. It should be noted that these chemicals will not be destroyed during cooking. Therefore, it could affect the immune system and metabolism while giving rise to hypertension mainly due to the high salt or sodium concentration evident in canned fish.

While research is currently being done with regard to these factors, it should be noted that countries like Canada including a few states like the U.S. have banned the coating of tin containers with Bisephenol A. However, we are not aware if the canned fish that is imported to Sri Lanka is tested for Bisephenol A he further explained. Dr. Wijayamuni said that most canned fish is consumed readily and is not cooked before consumption. According to him, if by chance canned fish is contaminated with bacteria, it could enter ones body unless necessary precautions are taken to cook it properly.



Decades ago, there was a very nasty pathogen known as Clostrivium Botulini that was present in canned fish. This could produce a neuro toxin that affects an individuals nerves. Canned fish initially came into the scene during World War 1 and became very popular by the time of World War 11. At the early stages, the presence of Clostrivium Botulini in canned fish resulted in giving rise to deaths among its consumers. The very first symptoms of Botulism are related to the blurring of vision, loss of consciousness, confusion, lack of coordination, affects the optic nerve system and could even result in death. Consumers should be very careful when purchasing canned fish. Disfigured or bloated cans should be avoided and if a consumer comes across such a can, he or she must immediately bring it to the notice of the shop owner he added.
SYRIA, UNICEF, 13.03.2017 - UNICEF reported Monday, hundreds of children were killed in Syria in 2016, the most since UNICEF began keeping records.



Geert Cappelaere, UNICEFs Middle East regional chief said the depth of suffering is unprecedented.



According to the report the number of children killed in the war is the highest tally since UNICEF began verifying the number of deaths in the conflict. Mondays report says schools, hospitals, playgrounds and other areas children usually use are becoming increasingly unsafe as they are targets for attacks. UNICEF says at least 255 children were killed in or near schools in 2016.



The grim report adds 6 million children in Syria depend on humanitarian aid, but about 250,000 children remain in besieged areas, cut off from receiving aid. A lack of medical assistance and doctors has lead to more children dying from easily treatable illnesses or injuries the report added.
The Government would not stop arresting Indian fishermen and trawlers if they crossed the International Maritime Boundary Line and engaged in fishing in Sri Lankan waters, Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said today.

He said any Indian fishermen would be arrested if found fishing in the Sri Lankan waters and all captured trawlers would be confiscated.

About 5,000 Indian trawlers enter in to our waters and take our resources forcibly, destroying our maritime resources, he noted.

The issue has been there for the last 30 years but no previous Government could find a sustainable solution.

But as the present Fisheries Minister, I have given the orders to arrest the fishermen who trespassed into the Sri Lankan waters. Trawlers and other fishing gear confiscated before 2015 were released.

But the same Indian fishermen came back in to Sri Lankan waters for fishing after getting their trawlers back, the Minister said.

He said the seized trawlers would not be released anymore and there were about 128 trawlers under Sri Lankan custody.

Indian fishermen used to do illegal fishing thrice a week in our waters. Most of them come with steel boats and they would crash in to our boats leaving behind heavy damages to our fishermen.

However the Indian Government has accepted the complaints made by us saying the Indian fishermen were used to do illegal fishing methods such as bottom trawling, which destroys maritime eco system.

He said that another round of discussions would be held in Sri Lanka in April to discuss the issues, he said.

I will get involved to find better solutions, while developing the good-will between the countries.

By now, the Indian Government had informed the Ministry that they had taken fir solutions over the issues, he said.

About 92 bottom trawling Sri Lankan fishermen had been sent to international waters for deep sea fishing. Also, steps have been taken to give more openings in various fishery-related fields for employment among the fishing communities, he said.

However, Minister Amaraweera said Indian Government had informed him that the Indian Government had barred issuing licences for bottom trawling for Indian Fishermen. (Chaturanga Pradeep)
Thomson Reuters Foundation: The worst drought in five years has pushed 900,000 people in Sri Lanka into acute food insecurity, the World Food Programme (WFP) says.

An unpublished survey conducted by government agencies and relief organisations in February found that both food insecurity and debt were rising sharply among families hit by drought, the WFP office in Sri Lanka confirmed to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The countrys rice harvest could be the worst in 40 years, charity Save the Children predicted. The just-completed harvest was 63 percent below normal, it said.

The survey found that over one third of the drought-affected households had seen their income drop by half since September and 60 percent of the households surveyed were in debt.

The average amount of debt was about Rs.180,000 or US $ 1,200, WFP said.

The survey findings are expected to be formally released later this month.

Sri Lankas government said over 1.2 million people have been affected by the countrys current drought, which began last November and continues despite some occasional rainfall over the last two months. Save the Children estimates that over 600,000 of those affected  two thirds of the total  are children. The Western and Northern Provinces have been worst hit, with over 400,000 people struggling with drought in each province.

Rice harvest halved

Government and the WFP assessments suggest Sri Lankas 2017 rice harvest could be less than half the three million metric tons recorded last year.

According to the WFP assessments, the island needs 2.3 million metric tons of rice for annual consumption but the overall 2017 rice harvest is projected to yield just 1.44 metric tons.

The government has already taken steps to increase rice imports to stave off shortages, Disaster Management Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said.

We have a shortfall in the rice harvest. We have been taking action to prevent any shortfalls and will allow for tax-free rice imports until the harvest recovers, he said.

Worst-affected by the drought have been farmers and those relying on agricultural work for income. The joint WFP and government survey indicated that one out of five farmers and one out of four farm labourers is now classified as food insecure in the drought region.

Preliminary data in the survey also indicated that female-headed households in drought areas were faring worse than others, with almost 20 percent reporting poor to borderline ability to access enough food as a result of the drought.

Yapa said that the government was devising a plan to help those affected and we will begin cash assistance very soon.

The initial plan is to provide 500,000 persons with cash assistance, he said. The government has so far set aside Rs.8 billion (US $ 52 million) for cash-for-work programmes in drought-hit areas.

Over Rs.50 million (US $ 300,000) has been allocated to distribute water to affected populations in 22 of the islands 25 districts, he said.

The drought is expected to continue into April, according to seasonal forecasting by the Meteorological Department.

The big rains will come with the next monsoon, which is expected to arrive in late May, said Meteorological Department Director General Lalith Chandrapala.
Today is world Consumer Rights Day and the Consumers International Movement says the theme for this year will be consumer rights in the digital age, considering its contemporary significance for developing and developed countries. The CI says that more than 3 billion people or some 40% of the worlds population is online now, compared with only 1% in 1995, with projections indicating the number will continue to rise.

Although this still leaves many consumers who are struggling to access these technologies, rapid growth of the internet and its usage becomes a vital trend of e-marketing. The rapid increase of smart mobile phone usage and other digital devices has created opportunities and also challenges for millions of consumers around the world. Over time, the consumer movement has developed this vision into a set of eight basic consumer rights that now define and inspire much of the work done by the CI and its members. According to CI, it works with its members and partners globally, to empower and champion the rights of consumers, and ensure they are treated safely, fairly and honestly.



There are eight basic consumer rights: The right to satisfaction of basic needs - to have access to basic, essential goods and services: adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, public utilities, water and sanitation.The right to safety - to be protected against products, production processes and services that are hazardous to health or life.



The right to be informed - to be given the facts needed to make an informed choice, and to be protected against dishonest or misleading advertising and labelling. The right to choose - to be able to select from a range of products and services, offered at competitive prices with an assurance of satisfactory quality. The right to be heard - to have consumer interests represented in the making and execution of government policy, and in the development of products and services.



The right to redress - to receive a fair settlement of just claims, including compensation for misrepresentation, shoddy goods or unsatisfactory services. The right to consumer education - to acquire knowledge and skills needed to make informed, confident choices about goods and services, while being aware of basic consumer rights and responsibilities and how to act on them. The right to a healthy environment - to live and work in an environment that is non-threatening to the well-being of present and future generations.



What is the situation and attitude of consumers in Sri Lanka today? When the consumer protection act was proclaimed by the J. R. Jayawardene government, after it implemented the globalised market economic system, the then Trade Minister proclaimed that the consumer would be king or queen. Some 40 years later there are major questions as to whether most consumers are kings or queens or whether they are treated more like commodities in a massive business syndicates if not mafia operated by big national and international companies.



According to Sri Lankas Consumer Affairs Authority, currently we have about 6 million internet users -- 29% of the total population. The internet has changed life style of people and people tend to log on to the internet for their entertaining purposes rather than watching television or listening to radio.

According to the International Telecommunication Union statistics, Sri Lanka has relatively high mobile penetration than the regional average. The population falls between the age groups of 25 to 34 years account for the highest number of users with the 35 to 44 years and 18 to 24 age groups falling in second and third places respectively.



Whether we are e-consumers doing mainly e-marketing or ordinary consumers doing ordinary marketing, an important resolution for today would be to become a good and responsible citizen that means we need to intelligently and powerfully exercise our consumer rights, question the quality and prices of products so that no trader, big or small will dare treat even the poorest consumer

as a commodity.
Turkish ministers have been forced out of Holland sparking mass riots on the streets of Rotterdam as protesters and police became embroiled in violent clashes. Many of those protesting were Turkish nationals living in the Netherlands. Water cannon were fired at demonstrators in an attempt to control the crowds who were seen to be kicking police officers on the ground as well as throwing stones and metal railings.



The ugly scenes were in reaction to two Turkish ministers being blocked from entering the country by officials, which prompted Tayyip Erdogan to label the Dutch Nazi remnants and fascists.



Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam demanding action after the Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was denied entry into the country.



Turkeys families minister, Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, was also blocked by Dutch police from entering the consulate and escorted to the town of Nijmegen, near German border.

Both have since been escorted out of Holland.

(Daily Mail, London),

12 March 2017 -
The Attorney General today informed the Court of Appeal that MP Geetha Kumarasinghe was still a citizen of Switzerland and according to the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, a person who has dual citizenship cannot be an MP.

Deputy Solicitor General Janak De Silva informed Court that, according to clause 91(1) of the Constitution, she was not entitled to Parliamentary privileges and could not be a Member of Parliament.

J.C. Weliamuna, counsel for the petitioners informed Court that the respondent Geetha Kumarasinghe had requested the Swiss authorities to relinquish her Swiss citizenship on August 25.

But there was no documentary evidence to prove that they had revoked her Swiss citizenship.

DSG de Silva said that though the respondent Kumarasinghe had asserted that she had given up her dual citizenship, she had failed to submit any documentary proof of it.

The Court of Appeal Bench,comprising Justices Vijith Malalgoda and Prithi Padman Surasena directed both parties to file written submissions on or before April 5, and fixed the order for May 3.

Four residents of Galle had filed a writ application before the Court of Appeal to remove Geetha Kumarasinghe from her position as an MP. (Thilini De Silva and Ranjan Katugampola)
There is a madam holding a high office at national level. According to official records, the lady attends office in her official car from a distant place in the South, a distance of 225 kilometres back and forth.



She has claimed a fuel allowance of Rs. 517,583 for the last year. She has received Rs.54,450 by way of reimbursement of the total she claimed to have paid for using the Southern Expressway during the year. She has claimed a total of Rs.271,752 as holiday pay for the year. This means the Ministry has incurred an expenditure of Rs. 843,785 on her account during the year in addition to paying her a big salary. When the top team member handling the Ministry is setting an example in simple living, the madam has become a public fund gobbler, say the employees.
HNB Assurance PLC (HNBA) released its integrated annual report for the financial year 2016 which highlighted the growth in life insurance as well as the general insurance business.

The annual report of the company showcased its journey of 15 years and the impact which the business has created on all stakeholders throughout its journey.

Sharing her views on the performance of HNBA and HNB General Insurance Limited (HNBGI) over 2016, of HNBA and HNBGI Chairperson Rose Cooray stated, It surely was a year of stiff competition across the entire industry. Owing to the regulatory requirements and fulfilling the legal and social obligations, several strategic changes were made in order to secure market share and to achieve a favourable business growth. In comparison with the previous financial results of 2015, I am indeed pleased to state that performance of both HNBA and HNBGI resulted in a 22 percent top line growth and a growth of 228 percent in the bottom line.

The life and general insurance industries in Sri Lanka are highly competitive and dynamic. The regulatory measures have brought in a framework for the governance structure and the effective use of capital. The life insurance industry as a whole recorded a growth of 19 percent and general insurance segment posted a growth of 14 percent as opposed to the growth of the life insurance industry of 20 percent in 2015 and the growth of the general insurance segment of 15 percent in 2015. HNBA and HNBGI surpassed the industry growth rates recording growth rates of 27 percent in its life business and 16 percent in its general business, she added.

Speaking further on the growth perspectives of the group, Cooray added, The group was able to record a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs.647 million, showcasing a growth of 228 percent over 2015. This was the highest PAT the group recorded since its inception. It is important to note that the group recorded this significant achievement as a result of the turnaround of HNBGI from loss to profit.

Sharing his views on the performance of 2016, HNBA and HNBGI Chief Executive Office Deepthi Lokuarachhci stated, 2016 was a challenging year for the entire Insurance industry and the key challenges faced included the high settlement of claims which arose from two devastating catastrophes. Yet, the business was successful in deploying its strategies and capabilities across the group, which led both businesses to yield a profitable growth. The transition from the solvency regime to the risk-based capital (RBC) brought in significant changes in valuing insurance contract liabilities and regulatory reporting.

Speaking on the performance of each category, Lokuarachchi stated, The life business showed a remarkable growth surpassing the industry growth and was able to retain an industry rank of six. HNBA was able to record its highest net profit of Rs.600 million as opposed to Rs.427 million in 2015. The life business showed a GWP of Rs.3,554 million and a net income of Rs.4,427 million, whereas the general business showed a GWP of Rs.3,142 million and a net income of Rs.2,516 million.

The Life Fund reached an 8.6 billion rupee mark over 2016. HNBA was able to declare a maximum bonus of Rs.54 per Rs.1,000 to its policyholders and a dividend rate of 8 percent for policyholders of the fund-based product category.

The general insurance business was able to maintain a healthy balanced mix between the motor and non-motor segments. The brand was able to retain its position within the top ten general insurers of Sri Lanka. With this growth momentum, the board as well as the management of HNBA and HNBGI has derived sustainable business strategies which would allow the business to compete in a challenging business environment and to post a steady growth during the course of 2017.

HNBA is one of the fastest growing insurance companies in Sri Lanka with a network of 56 branches. HNBA is a life insurance company with a rating of A (lka) by Fitch Ratings Lanka for national insurer financial strength rating and national long-term rating. Following the introduction of the segregation rules by the insurance regulator, HNBGI was created and commenced its operations in January 2015; HNBGI continues to specialize in motor, non-motor and Takaful insurance solutions and is a fully-owned subsidiary of HNB Assurance PLC.

HNBA is rated within the Top 100 Brands and Top 100 companies in Sri Lanka by LMD and HNB Assurance has won International awards for Brand Excellence, Digital Marketing and HR Excellence and also won many awards for its annual reports at the award ceremonies organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA).
Aware of the growing threat of bomb-laden mini drones that recently emerged in Iraq and Syria, the US Army is rushing to field countermeasures and kinetic effects designed specifically to defeat drones. counter-drone capabilities seeking For the Defeat part of the engagement, the Army considers hard kill and soft kill options. Hard kill capabilities employ kinetic munitions to defeat enemy UAS, and soft kill capabilities employ electronic warfare to defeat them. To integrate soft kill capabilities DRS is employing jammers provided by SRC on combat platforms which will soon deploy in support of an urgent operational need. A hard kill system based on remotely operated weapon station employs the Moog Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP). The two companies are on schedule to demonstrate this C-UAS kinetic defeat capability in October 2017.

In recent years the U.S. Army prioritized the development of three critical components in Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) capabilities to Detect, Identify and Defeat enemy drones. At the AUSA convention taking place at Huntsville AL this week, DRS showcases its latest C-UAS capabilities based on the integration of existing and new systems.

Partnered with RADA, DRS recognized the value of the Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar (MHR) for the detect portion of the C-UAS mission. A small, lightweight, radar, MHR has proven itself as accomplished of detecting low, slow, small UAS at several different government tests, highlighted by the Maneuver and Fires Integration Exercise (MFIX) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Black Dart at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Recently at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, the MHR excelled at detecting Group 1 and Group 2 UAS at ranges more than five kilometers. Because of its small size and weight, MHR is a perfect candidate solution for an on-board vehicle mounted C-UAS detect capability which can be optimized to address different threats and missions. The MHRs ability to cue multiple sensors makes the transition to the identify task seamless.

Working from the radar cue, DRS developed the software to slew its stabilized, high-quality scout sensor, Surveillance And Battlefield Reconnaissance Equipment (SABRE), to quickly allow an operator to positively identify aerial targets at significant ranges. With the auto-tracker engaged, the operator can zoom in and identify critical characteristics of the UAS such as size, fixed or rotary wing, any large payloads, etc.

Using existing Army command and control systems, the operator can rapidly populate the common operational picture (COP), warning fellow soldiers of an existing aerial threat. With the proliferation of friendly UAS capabilities at much lower levels in a formation, the air space at brigade level has become increasingly more crowded. Being able to positively identify targets as friend or foe at significant ranges is important, and the DRS SABRE provides that capability. SABRE has also proven itself at MFIX, Black Dart and most recently at the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) at Fort Bliss, TX. Because of its proven performance and potential operational value as a mobile C-UAS identify solution, SABRE was recently deployed to Europe on the C-UAS Mobile Integrated Capability (CMIC) vehicle as part of an operational experiment. Over the next several months, Soldiers will provide real-time feedback on this evolving capability.

For the Defeat part of the engagement, the Army considers hard kill and soft kill options. Hard kill capabilities employ kinetic munitions to defeat enemy UAS, and soft kill capabilities employ electronic warfare to defeat them. To integrate soft kill capabilities DRS is employing jammers provided by SRC on combat platforms which will soon deploy in support of an urgent operational need. A hard kill system based on remotely operated weapon station employs the Moog Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP). The team is on schedule to demonstrate this C-UAS kinetic defeat capability in October 2017.

In addition, slewing from cues from the MHR radar, identifying targets using the Improved Bradley Acquisition Subsystem (IBAS) Block 2 sight, will enable ground-based units to engage and defeat drone threats using precision direct fire.
A young woman forced by a lifelong condition to have both her legs removed has amazed doctors by becoming a mother. Lizzy Georgeson, 26, suffered months of agony throughout her pregnancy to give birth to son Henry. Doctors had been worried about the extra weight pressure on her prosthetic legs, which did cause her to topple over on a number of occasions. Mrs Georgeson, who became the UKs first double amputee model, after she signed up to a modelling agency, said: Doctors were worried about me carrying so much more weight in front and it did affect my balance and I did have a few falls.



There was so much pressure on my hips I developed a painful condition which made it difficult to walk and I spent a lot of time in a wheelchair, especially towards the end of my pregnancy. But I would go through it all again to have Henry. Hes an amazing baby and I feel so lucky to be a mum after everything Ive been through.



Mrs Georgeson and her husband Lewis, who live in Leeds, were thrilled when she discovered she was expecting a baby in February last year.



Henry was born by caesarean section in October at St Jamess Hospital in Leeds when Mrs Georgeson was 39 weeks pregnant, weighing a healthy 8lb5oz. Mrs Georgeson was born with club foot - meaning both her feet were back to front. She has suffered a lifetime of chronic pain and endured 36 operations - the first when she was just ten weeks old.
Oman Air, the national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman, successfully participated at ITB Berlin from 8  12 March 2017. In addition to celebrating its dynamic programme of fleet and route expansion, the airline also celebrated its fourth consecutive Media Awards for German media.

The airline has exhibited at ITB Berlin, the worlds leading trade event, for the past ten years. The event has been an important venue for Oman Air to showcase the airlines growing network and award-winning products and services as well as making and renewing relationships. With a growing presence in Europe and increased frequencies on European routes announced in 2016, there was significant interest from both trade and consumer visitors at the show.

Whilst at ITB Berlin, Oman Air promoted its recent developments and future expansion plans. At the end of 2016 Oman Air introduced its first destination in China, Guangzhou and the commencement of a four times weekly flight to Najaf, Iraq in November last year. Network developments are continuing apace in 2017 with the revised flight agreement with the Government of India resulting in increased frequencies to five of Oman Airs 11 Indian destinations and news of a new four times weekly flight from Muscat to Nairobi, Kenya to be launched at the end of March this year. Also a new daily flight to Manchester, UK starting from 1 May 2017 and the increase of services to Pakistan with the launch of a new Muscat to Peshwar flight later in the year.

Paul Gregorowitsch, Oman Airs Chief Executive Officer, commented: ITB Berlin is the ideal stage for us to promote Oman Air to a huge trade and consumer audience and to highlight our award-winning service, growing network and world class fleet. We are continuing with our ambitious expansion plans in 2017 with three new additions to the fleet already. The latest aircraft is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which joined the fleet on 23 February 2017, beside two new 737-800 were added to the fleet in January and February this year. In addition, a new Dreamliner B787-9 which will be joining Oman Airs fleet in the coming April

Oman Airs Media Awards winners were announced at an official reception, held at Oman Airs stand at ITB Berlin on 8th March. Building on the success of previous Media Awards, a panel of experts recognized the best articles on Oman from an impressive number of entries of the highest standard from journalists and bloggers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The winners were:

 Lange Simon - Neue Presse Hanover (Madsack Media Group) - Best article about Oman in a daily publication

 Olaf Tarmas - Welt am Sonntag - Best article about Oman in a weekly publication

 Frauke Hunfeld - Stern - Best article about Oman in a magazine

 Kristina Kreisel - Focus Online - Best article about Oman travel in online media

 Frank Littek - Aero International - Best airline portrait of Oman Air

 Ute Werner- TV station Saarlandischer Rundfunk (ARD) - Special Award for destination coverage



The overall winner was Olaf Tarmas who received a long-weekend break for two in Muscat, including Business Class return flights from Frankfurt, Munich or Zurich, airport transfers and three nights half-board accommodation in one of Muscats most luxurious hotels.

Paul Gregorowitsch, Oman Airs Chief Executive Officer, said: We were delighted with the response to our Media Awards this year and received a high number of outstanding entries. This is a great opportunity for us to recognise and thank the media for the role they have played in building our reputation as a world class airline. There is no doubt that the media has played a crucial part in helping us raise our profile in the European market.

For further information on Oman Air, visit www.omanair.com
Her soothing and almost musical voice reverberated through the audience of the BMICH committee room when she delivered her much awaited Dhamma talk.

I decided to give up university studies, relationships and a brilliant career for the Dhamma and today I have absolutely, absolutely no regrets, said the American Buddhist nun Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka.



The emphasis on the word absolutely was well intended. She has found her peace, her Truth.

However still the scholar Bhikkhunis mellifluous voice and serene countenance defied the steely determination with which she crossed continents and embraced alien cultures in many faraway lands in her quest for the ultimate Truth.



The recipient of the 2006 Outstanding Woman in Buddhism Award, the founder of Dhammadharini Vihara in Sonoma Hills California and co-founder of Aranya Bodhi Hermitage in Sonoma Coast, the story of Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka epitomises the extent to which a courageous and intelligent woman would go in pursuit of her true liberation.



Born in Washington to scientist parents in 1968 Heather Buske had the world at her feet. Young Heather was spiritually inclined as a teenager and her parents encouraged their daughter to have her independent line of thinking on spirituality.



When Heather was 20 and studying at college a very close friend of hers passed away quite unexpectedly. That shock jolted the young Heather from the American dream. It awakened her to the reality of the impermanence of life. It dawned upon her that externals would never give the stability that one longed for in life. Anything could be taken away from one any time.

Heather started questioning the meaning of existence. Strong doubts were cast over the bubble of the American dream.



She left college and went in search of the truth of life. The determined young woman travelled through Europe and then to India and became an Anagarika, a lay person fully committed to practising Buddhism.



Further travelling saw her meeting her mentor, South Korean senior Bhikkhuni Myeong

Seong Sunim.



The young Anagarika was trained under the teacher for ten long years. In 1993 she received her Going forth and two years later was inducted as a Samaneri (novice).

The new Samaneri returned to United States in 1996 having found what she had been looking for all the past years. The following year she received Bhikkhuni ordination in California in the presence of an international gathering of Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni Sanghas. The newly ordained Buddhist nun  now Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka or Ayya (Honourable in Pali) Tathaaloka, was quite determined to share the Dhamma she learnt, through research and practicing for nearly two decades, with the rest of the world so that they too could see life for what it was.



She was especially concerned about the welfare of the women, who were into monastic life. There were small burgeoning communities of Theravada Bhikkhunis and Samaneris in the United States and the need for an umbrella organization for those scattered communities was strongly felt by Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka. She proposed and took part in establishing the North American Bhikkhuni Association (NABA) in 2005. The years that passed saw her founding two monasteries for Bhikkhunis  Dhammadharini Vihara and Aranya Bodhi Hermitage both in California.

After ten years into her ordination Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka was offered the higher ordination as a senior Bhikkhuni and she gained reputation as an eminent Bhikkhuni preceptor owing to her vast knowledge on Dhamma. In the years that followed she took part in a slew of Samaneri and Bhikkhuni ordinations as a Bhikkhuni preceptor in the USA, Australia and Thailand including the much spoken about initiation in Perth in 2009 facilitated by Ajahn Brahmavamso and Bhante Sujato. Today Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka is a beacon of inspiration to informed Buddhist women, both lay and clergy, all over the world. Though a frequent traveller, for some reason the Venerable Bhikkhuni had not been able to visit Sri Lanka till late February this year. This is despite her longing to visit Anuradhapura and pay respect to Sanghamitta stupa ever since she had heard about the monument.

From the moment she landed in the thrice blessed island where Theravada Buddhism has been flourishing for more than two and half millennia, Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka had felt an overwhelming feeling of blessedness.



The eminent scholar Bhikkhuni almost ran out of words when she described what exactly she felt during her Dhamma talk at the BMICH. I was not in the best of health when I left (US) but am already feeling better a week into my arrival here, she said smiling.

The sight of the ever present Bo Trees and Buddha statues which are a rarity in her own land and elsewhere, the Venerable Bhikkhuni said, made her feel blessed and fortunate by the very experience. For the attendees of the talk no doubt it was a reminder of the extent to which they themselves have taken these ubiquitous symbols of Buddhism in their own land for granted.

A country with a long lineage of Bhikkhunis Sri Lanka has also spared her of confusions that she often experiences elsewhere. Laughingly the Venerable Bhikkhuni told the audience that she was not even once mistaken as a monk during her visit from airport restroom onwards.

Referring to Sri Lanka as Dhammadipa Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka drew attention to the fact that Sri Lankans have been truly blessed with the wide availability of the Dhamma and the presence of good Dhamma teachers.



Following the ice breaker and pleasantries the Bhikkhuni introduced her topic -the need for better recognition of Bhikkhuni Sangha, all over the world. This means offering it the same degree of respect, dignity and recognition accorded by Buddha himself. Debunking misconceptions and misinterpretations on Buddhas stand on Bhikkhuni Sasana the scholar nun presented a slew of examples from Pali Canon to substantiate her argument that Buddha accorded equal status to women in his Sasana.



When queried by the audience on Buddhas postponement of ordaining her foster mother, Bhikkhuni Tathaaloka reminded that Buddha rejected his own father King Suddhodanas request for ordination.

She requested Buddhist here to create conditions for a renaissance of the Bhikkhuni order which had gone through some challenging times as regards parity of institutional recognition. Dozens and dozens of female Bhikkhunis like Tathaaloka continue to cross continents and oceans seeking Dhamma even 2600 years after the Great Renunciation of Prince Siddhartha marked with the crossing of river Anoma.



This no doubt speaks volumes of the strength and commitment of women who aspire to be liberated through Dhamma just much as the power of Dhamma itself to stand the test of time  more than two and half millennia.



In their call for the due recognition of the Bhikkhuni Sasana these female renunciants join hands with the hundreds of Asian renunciants - Bhikkhunis and samaneris, who have committed themselves to Buddhas teaching,



Its high time that the relevant authorities and institutions give the much deserved attention to this matter which has been dragged on for too long.
As a means of facilitating its inquiry into the SAITM issue the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has decided to summon on March 20, all those who served in the various committees appointed by the previous government.

It includes the committee members appointed by the then Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena -- a member of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa's Cabinet -- to inquire into the SAITM issue.

The committee members, appointed by the then health minister, includes then health ministry secretary Dr. Ravindra Ruberu, former deputy director general of Education, Health Ministry Training and Research Director Dr H.R.U. Indrasiri, the Director of the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, Prof. Jayantha Jayawardena, former director of the World Health Organization, Dr Palitha Abeykoon and Health Ministry Legal Officer A. R. Ahamed.

This committee had said SAITM had distorted information to obtain BOI approval. The report of this committee was handed over to former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2012. (Yohan Perera)
Indika Kiriwandeniya- General Manager of Sanasa Insurance (second from left) with the award. From L-R: Country Manager ACCA Sri Lanka Nilusha Ranasinghe, Chief Guest Resident Representative UNDP Sri Lanka Una McCauley, President Member Network Panel of ACCA Sri Lanka Adrian Perera

Sanasa Insurance Company Ltd (SICL), a leading micro insurance provider with an aim to improve and uplift peoples lives all across the country, emerged as the winner in the SME category at the recent ACCA Sustainability Reporting Awards.

Held at Cinnamon Grand on February 28th, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Sri Lanka rewarded the countrys most transparent, accountable and responsible entities at its annual flagship event, which is a competition with a view to recognizing business entities striving to comply with GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) standards and have demonstrated excellence in sustainable development.

Indika Kiriwandeniya, General Manager of SICL, said We are delighted to have been recognized as one of the most responsible business entities in Sri Lanka. This goes on to exhibit our commitment in going beyond the expectation in improving quality of lives and also posses the highest level of sustainability compliance in the industry.

The company seeks to uplift peoples lives by focusing on them at a grass root level as most have no access to financial assistance from banks due to a lack of assets. Its micro insurance policies are geared to improve the current living standards for those seeking assistance. SICL is a unique company in the industry as it goes hand in hand with the Sanasa movement and does not belong to one individual owner but to the community at large. 95pct of the benefits are flown to every member through the Sanasa societies in villages, Kiriwandeniya added.

Sanasa maintains relationships with 8400 societies throughout the villages in Sri Lanka, with a membership of over 3 million Sri Lankans. The micro insurance schemes offered by the company are available to every member through these societies.

Unlike the traditional structure of a corporate where documentation plays a vital role, here a villager who seeks to receive a loan must get the approval of the board of members in his or her Sanasa society. As the community at large in a rural village are familiar with each others history and can vouch for a person, the society can make an accurate decision regarding whether an individual can be trusted.

The event recognized companies under the categories Conglomerates and Diversified, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, SME (turnover less than Rs. 1 bn), Retail and Trading, Leisure and Connected Services and General Services and Utilities.

Sanasa Insurance Company Ltd is a leading micro insurance provider focused on uplifting and empowering the people at the grass root level. The company has conducted numerous programs in villages to maintain and develop sustainability. While the micro insurance schemes aid them in developing their living conditions and entrepreneurial endeavors, the company also focuses on better educating the children of the communities, encouraging their talents to shine through various programs, amongst others. SICL continues to work with the Sanasa Movement to improve the society.
REUTERS: Hong Kong-based Shangri-La Asia has increased its investment in Sri Lankan properties by 60 percent to US $ 800 million, in order to meet demand for larger-than-planned apartments in Colombo, an official said yesterday.

The international hotel brand had originally planned to invest US $ 500 million in a 541-room hotel and 390 apartments in Colombo and another 300-room resort in the island nations southern district of Hambantota.

Investment has increased because of the project enhancement, Shangri-La Hotels Lanka (Private) Limited Head of Sales and Marketing Neluka de Alwis told Reuters.

The company has changed the design of the apartments due to demand for larger units, de Alwis added.

Shangri-La, in 2012, had estimated that the total cost of the project could climb by 10 percent to US $ 550 million due to last-minute design changes.

De Alwis said the Colombo hotel was expected to be completed by 2017, later than an initial target of 2015, while the apartments, shopping complex and conference facilities would be finished by 2018.

Shangri-La has already opened the resort in Hambantota, where Sri Lanka is considering creating a special economic zone for Chinese investors. The 300-room Hambantota resort on 145 acres of beach-front land is the first of the two luxury property projects in Sri Lanka that the Hong Kong-listed group has planned in a bid to cash in on the boom in tourist arrivals following the end of the countrys 26-year war nearly eight years ago. Sri Lankas tourist arrivals and revenue from tourism hit record highs in 2016.

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts currently manages 99 hotels around the world under the Shangri-La brand with a room inventory of over 40,000.
It has been confirmed that eight Sri Lankans were on board the tanker that is believed to have been hijacked by Somali pirates off the seas of Djibouti on Monday, the Sri Lanka Navy said.

Navy Spokesman Lt. Commander Chaminda Walakuluge said the French Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Center (MRCC) had informed the Rescue Coordinating Center (RCC) in Sri Lanka of the incident.

Disputing the prior belief that the ship sailed under a Sri Lankan flag, the Navy spokesman said the ship was infact owned by a company based in the United Arab Emirates and sailed under the flag of the Comoros Island.

The UAE company confirmed that the eight Sri Lankans were part of the crew. We will request the vessels in the area to look into the incident and the whereabouts of the crew, the spokesman said.

The pirates had chased the tanker, Aris 13, on two high speed boats before capturing it in between Djibouti and Somalia.

International news agencies reported that the incident would be the first successful hijack of a commercial ship by Somali pirates since 2012. At least eight suspected pirates were involved in the attack.

An aircraft from the regional EU Naval Force had flown overhead to track the ships progress and tried to determined what had happened.

The ship had sent a distress call and then turned off its tracking system. It is now reportedly anchored near the Puntland's Alula district in Caluula, Somalia.

At its peak in 2010/11, Somali piracy had an economic impact of around $7 billion, with more than 1,000 hostages taken captive with pirates receiving multi-million-dollar ransoms each month.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Ministry was taking action to verify the news, and initial enquiries had revealed that the vessel involved was not registered under Sri Lankan flag, but it did have eight Sri Lankans were among the crew.

The Ministry continues to remain in touch with the shipping agents, concerned authorities, as well as relevant Sri Lankan Missions overseas to ascertain further information on the matter in order to ensure the safety and welfare of the Sri Lankan crew, the Ministry said.

Therefore, as and when confirmed information becomes available, the Ministry will share information in a manner that would not be prejudicial to the safety of the crew, the Ministry said.(Darshana Sanjeewa)

Video by Indika Sri Aravinda

Video by Indika Sri Aravinda
This is not an economic developmental ideology; it is the project of being a stopover point and service station for visiting navies; the consciousness of a brothel owner in a port city.

Democracy must not be confused with liberalism. This government may be liberal but it is not exactly democratic. Liberalism is laudably concerned with individual freedoms. Democracy is primarily about the character of government as defined by the key variable of representation. Democracy is about being governed by chosen representatives of the people: government of the people, for the people, by the people (Lincoln). If the governed arent freely and adequately represented among the rulers/governors and the government-in-waiting (the Opposition), then even if the political atmosphere is relaxed and the freedom of individual expression is in evidence (liberalism), that political orders democratic character and therefore legitimacy are questionable.

Progressive opinion always criticized the post-Independence disenfranchisement of the hill country Tamils of recent Indian origin who had voted at the 1947 general election. Now we have a second disenfranchisement or semi-disenfranchisement. I refer to the partial disenfranchisement of the millions who voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa and against the slogan of a National Government at the August 2015 parliamentary election.



Not only dont they have their 95 seats, they have been deprived of the leadership of the opposition that their 51 seats entitle them to according to all tenets of logic, arithmetic, fair play and natural justice. Instead we have a bogus Opposition, a fraudulent Opposition, an entirely ethnic opposition which has only 16 seats, represents an ethnic minority and two provinces of the island. There is no mainstream opposition that is adequately permitted.



This structural fraud, this confiscation and suffocation of popular sovereignty, renders the political order illegitimate and therefore not entitled to the stipulation that goes with legitimacy, namely that such a political order can and must be replaced only through electoral and systemic means. If a political order ignores the results of an election, violates it and actually stands it on its head, then its degree of illegitimacy is such that extra-electoral methods of direct action and peoples power almost automatically come onto the agenda.



The eviction of the moderate Dinesh Gunawardena, from parliament for a week while disallowing Dullas Alahapperuma, a social democrat, to stand-in for him, smacks of a trial run to reduce the already restricted political space of the legitimate Opposition, the JO.



One can readily imagine the fate of democracy if a Third Republican Constitution is promulgated in which the executive Presidency stands abolished and executive power transferred to this Prime Minister and this Parliament as it is currently configured, or rather, distorted -- with a 16 member party as Opposition, a five member party as Opposition Whip and a 51-member coalition with no official status whatsoever!



Political stability has been already undermined also by the depletion of the SLFP at the hands of CBKs manoeuvre. That depletion is not because the SLFP hasnt been modernized as CBK wants it to be. The UNP was the party of pro-western modernity and the SLFP could compete on that terrain (1994) only when it was a competitor, offering an alternative, social democratic modernity. Modernity and moderation cannot save the SLFP today so long as it is in alliance with the UNP. The SLFP was always the dominant partner of either a centre-left governing or oppositional coalition, while today it is neither, and is tailing behind its traditional foe, the UNP. It can be resurrected only if it resumes one of its two normal historical roles.



The Wickremesinghe governments macroeconomic vision is to open up unconditionally and sell itself to all comers passing through the Indian Ocean or better still, the Asia-Pacific region. This is not an economic developmental ideology; it is the project of being a stopover point and service station for visiting navies; the consciousness of a brothel owner in a port city.



Any self-respecting government (e.g. Premadasas or Mahindas) would have responded to Tamil Nadu piracy in our Northern waters, Delhis failure to rein it in and the arrogant capture of Sri Lankan fishermen, by resort to asymmetric diplomacy and the principle of linkage, postponing talks on both ECTA and the Trincomalee oil tank farm. But thats what a self-respecting government would do.



Instead, in the service of its project of prostituting the nation, the UNPs old aggressive behaviour is back. The UNPs polarizing policies of 1951-1956 generated a massive social uprising in August 1953, radicalised the Sinhala Buddhists and swerved SWRD and the SLFP to a Sinhala Only platform by 1956. The UNPs policies of 1965-70 catapulted a strong left-of-centre coalition into office, but more significantly, gave birth to an armed revolutionary movement by the late 1960s; a movement that armed itself due to a fear that the UNPs right-wing (of which the present PMs father was the ideologue) would outmanoeuvre the liberal leader of the country Dudley Senanayake, postpone elections and install a Rightist dictatorship.



In the 1980s, the UNP weakened the parliamentary Opposition by hauling up Srimavo Bandaranaike before a Commission and removing her civic rights, throwing Vijaya Kumaratunga in jail, and holding a fraudulent and coercive referendum to extend the term of Parliament.



The descent into hell began six months later with Black July 83, the police shooting students in 84, the JVP and its radical rivals going underground, the police killing a youngster at the May Day rally of Dinesh Gunawardana in 87, civil war in the South, secessionist war in the North, foreign intervention and a barbaric backlash, culminating in a situation in which UNPers were not only murdered but could not be carried above the knee in funeral processions - a horrific situation from which the populist dissenter and archetype Outsider, Ranasinghe Premadasa, rescued his party and country. Todays UNP has only insiders; no rescuing superhero.



As in the 80s, the UNP is persecuting the legitimate Opposition because it wants to evict it from all political space, and it wants to do this because of the same reasons that motivated it in the early 80s. The UNP wants to win a referendum.

The UNP wishes to push through the Third Republican Constitution that it has promised its Tamil voters, its TNA partner, its Tamil Diaspora allies, and its foreign sponsors. It also wants to cripple both wings of the SLFP.

It plans to cripple the progressive (JO/MR) wing, just as it attacked the SLFPs Vijaya Kumaratungaled progressives in the 1980s on the pretext of the absurd Naxalite Plot - and actually shot at Vijaya at the Mahara by-election (where the UNPs present leader had been appointed political authority of the UNPs campaign).

It also wants to cripple a once and future electoral competitor, the more liberal, moderate SLFP which is currently its coalition partner, by abolishing the executive presidency and transferring power to the UNP Prime Minister and his allies, the TNA-SLMC Chief Ministers of the North and East.

What injects some black humour into the situation is the square box the UNP-CBK partnership has got itself trapped in: (1) If the Presidential system is abolished, MR has a great chance of beating Ranil and becoming the countrys leader again; (2) if it is not, then MR cannot run but Gotabhaya has an excellent chance of beating Ranil and becoming President (because the 2015 proxy ploy cannot be pulled off again); (3) if both the Rajapaksas are deprived of their civic rights, theres a senior Rajapaksa who can reunite the SLFP and win an election, restoring his brothers to their full status; (4) if all the Rajapaksas are framed, then in a situation of mounting economic crisis - and despite US warships showing the flag in Hambantota - a social uprising and supportive military revolt could consume the manipulative governing elite in an inferno of national rebellion.
World Consumer Day which falls today (15) is a time for celebration, activism, and solidarity, among the consumer and consumer organizations worldwide.



World Consumer Day originated in 1983 and subsequently consumer rights gained international recognition and legitimacy when guidelines set by the United Nations were adopted. On March 15th 1962 John F Kennedy announced that consumers, by definition, were the largest economic group that effect and are affected by almost every private and public economic decision made, yet they are the only important group whose views are often not heard.



Today things have changed, as in the West the consumer is both organised and powerful. World Consumer Day is a day to celebrate and acknowledge the strength and power of the consumer. Seminars, workshops and shows of activism give a sense of power and strength to the consumer. In this context, todays junk food generation has come in for much discussion and the adverse effects of junk food on the health of the human beings-especially children- has been a popular and important topic of discussion on a day such as today. Some topics chosen for discussion on this day in the past were Unethical Drug Promotion (2007), GM Food (2005) Consumers and Water (2004) and Control of Food Chain (2003).



The fact that the same topic, Junk Food, has been taken up for discussion consecutively for two years indicates the importance of the issue. Twenty-two million children around the world are already overweight. Children are often targeted by multinational organisations for their commercials and promotions. As a result there is a long-felt need to urge the world to introduce an international code of conduct when marketing unhealthy food items directed at children.

World Consumer Day focuses on initiatives, planned functions and projects carried out by consumer organisations on every continent. This takes the shape of special campaigns press conferences, exhibitions, workshops, publications and similar events targeting consumerism. There are websites, Magazines, books, and

on-going activities promoting the rights of the citizen. Unfortunately in Sri Lanka there is less activism in this regard leaving the consumer at the mercy of errant traders and industrialists who continue to exploit them freely.

CONSUMER

The Consumer is defined in the Consumer Affairs Authority Act No 9 of 2003, as any actual user of any goods or services made available for a consideration by a trader or manufacturer which is a unique and a broader definition from the common law perspective. In a literal sense, a consumer is one who preachers goods or services (Longman Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd Ed.) (Harlow: Longman1991) For the purpose of the English consumer protection law, the term consumer has narrower meaning which is based on the capacity in which the consumer and the supplier of the goods have acted. Until the introduction of the CAA act of 2003-hereafter known as the Act, by replacing Consumer Protection Act, no 1 of 1979, Fair Trading Commission Act No 1 of 1987, and the Control of Prices Act (Chapter 173), consumerism in Sri Lanka was primarily governed by principles of English Law which desires to provide for better protection of consumers through the regulation of trade and the prices of goods and services and to protest against traders and manufacturers, against unfair trade practices and restrictive trade practices and promoting competitive pricing wherever possible and ensure healthy competition among traders and manufactures of goods and services. This is a complete transformation of the principle and procedure of price control to Regulation and Competitive trade, which is a mixture of how the US, Australian and European models work.

Definition

The definition covers actual and potential users of goods and services which gives a further and broader meaning and an area including every citizen worldwide in the definition who is a potential consumer in this competitive and developed world. The standard perception of a consumer is of an individual purchaser of goods or services and in most cases it will be the case. Most of the provisions of the Consumer Credit Act, 1974 (CCA) (UK) only apply where the debtor is an individual under English Law, and generally a non-business purchaser. In the Sri Lankan context any actual user could be a company or a juristic personality. In the UK much of the legislation can be regarded as being directed towards fair trading rather than consumer protection. Many modern consumer protection measures no longer require proof of fraud. A trader can be found guilty of a criminal offence without proof of criminal intent.

CAA- Consumer Affairs Authority - the Main Regulator in Sri Lanka

The main legislations on consumerism in Sri Lanka before and during the introduction of the Act - some of which are replaced, amended, and replaced were the Consumer Protection Act, Fair Trading Commission Act, Control of Prices Act, Trademarks Ordinance, Prisons, Opium, and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Control of Prices Ordinance, Weights and Measures Ordinance, Food and Drugs Act, Control of Prices Act, Food Control Act, Licensing of Traders Act, Bureau of Ceylon Standards, National Prices Commission Law, Consumer Protection Act, Code of Intellectual Property Act, Petroleum Products Act, Food Act, Cosmetic Devices and Drugs Act, Consumer Credit Act, Sri Lanka Standards Institution Act, Fair Trading Commission Act, Measurement United Standards and Services Act, Unfair Contract Terms Act. Today the concept of price control is replaced by regulatory powers where it is controlled by regulation, indirect means and competition. How far and whether this is a success is a moot issue.

Are We At The Doorsteps Of The Digital Age?

Consumer International selects timely topics in the process of activism for consumers worldwide. It was fix your phones right, healthy dilates in 2015 and antibiotic resistance in 2016, which were current and timely then. The world is fast approaching the digital age with 3 billion citizens worldwide going online daily, which is 30% of the world population. Sri Lanka presently has 23 million mobile phones, 5 million internet users and 3.5 million people using facebook, which is close to international standards, when almost every citizen possesses a mobile phone and with a substantial decrease in the number of landlines. Online shopping on sites such as E-Bay and Amazon is growing fast with an enormous future potential predicted. Meanwhile, consumerism in Sri Lanka is lagging behind with no amendments being made to the Consumer Affairs Authority Act now considered to be archaic with no changes or improvements being made to it since 2003, with a question mark remaining on the legal protection provided by the main regulator in the country. Online shopping, credit cards, local digital platforms and worldwide platforms such as eBay, and major players are freely available in Sri Lanka with the clientele increasing fast unnoticed and untouched by the traditional regulatory procedures in the absence of a mechanism and lack of knowledge of the Sri Lankan regulators in the dark on the digital age.

Building A Digital World the Consumer Can Trust-Theme of 2017

CAA is the main regulator in the country on consumerism responsible for regulating the quality, standards, prices, and access to consumer items and services at a reasonable price without poisonous and hazardous matter and providing services of accepted standards to the consumer freely, through regulatory powers. This mechanism is important as it involves the future, health, wealth and the existence of the nation.

In 2017 with the theme Building A Digital World the Consumer Can Trust we hope the momentum that was gathered by the programme planned during this period would continue till next year. We wish and pray that all the parties concerned, namely the consumer, trader, manufacturer, industrialist, and the State (CAA and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs) will work hand in hand realizing and aiming at their honourable aims and objectives in making the consumer happy and satisfied.

Consumer Trust

Developing consumer trust is an arduous task in the highly complicated digital era. Digital Storms are blowing away the human mind which is the most advanced computer now depending on artificial intelligence and advanced digital technological developments. We are at the door steps of the modern digital transforming the entire style on the modern advanced systems and innovations in all areas of human life. Consumers are inadequately protected by traditional safeguards provided by respective legal systems worldwide and out-dated regulatory powers in Sri Lanka incapable of meeting the modern challenges in the digital e-com age. Consumer trust will be developed with the modern trends with the success of a mechanism which is not introduced yet meeting the new trends needs and requirements. For example the world and local e-sale-business transactions platforms have their own regulatory powers and remedies due to ferocious competition and self-regulation to safeguard their present and future customers/ consumers in the hands of their mercy.

Sections 7,8, 9,10,12,13,15,16,17,18,19,21,22,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,34,35,36, 39,45, of the act which deal with the operational and conceptual matters have to be adopted/amended to meet the current challenges and a discussion and complete overhaul of the act and the working procedure is an urgent necessity to meet the digital challenges.

Way Forward For The Happiness And The Satisfaction Of The Consumer

In the United Kingdom magazine Which media, Citizen Advice Bureaux, Legal Aid System, Consumer organizations, NGOs with the State are protecting the consumer with the network of the consumer organizations and consumer groups. Citizen is used to look upon which magazine for directions and information which is a medium for information, advice and guidance, available to the citizen. The European Union spreads its tentacles over the member countries in safeguarding consumer by/through directions. Consumerism in India is organized and powerful with governmental support, legislation, legal system and separate Consumer Courts for implementation with the Judiciary favouring public interest litigations and class actions as in USA and UK even against giant multinational Cola, and Junk food Chains poisoning and making the entire world potential patents. Consumerism and consumer protection models are organized and effective in the Socialist Block and the Commonwealth with different legal systems. There is uniformity in the Commonwealth including Canada, Australia, with similar legal systems and its Sri Lankan model is a mixture of Australian, UK, models and European concepts. The Consumer is powerful and considered to be a King in other parts of the world able to flex muscles on the parties concerned for just and fair treatment on consumerism, with the adage Consumer is always Right practised in the competitive trade. It is a satisfactory trend that the CAA, IPS and Consumer Organization led by powerful activists have organized events with the participation of Mr Satya representing the World Consumer Federation based in the United Kingdom and we hope a new chapter and a trend will emerge as a result with the influence and participation of the Consumer International , State, Trader, Industrialist, and the Consumer with a joint and consorted effort achieving happiness and satisfaction of the consumer badly in need of assistance. We hope and pray Sri Lanka will have the strength and vision to set up a network of consumer organizations, a proper legal mechanism with amendments to meet the modern challenges, with the concept alert consumer and just trader, to work with all concerned parties namely consumer, trader, industrialist and the state hand in hand in the interest of the citizen deserves closer attention.

Author could be reached on sarath7@hotmail.co.uk
Vajira turns 85 today

The first ballet Kumudini was done when she was only 19

The Sydney Morning Herald of Saturday, February 16, 1963 paid glowing tribute to Vajira

She created 17 childrens ballets in total

There is a little girl. About 15 years old. She sits across the table from me. Her voice is firm and her eyes dance as she speaks about her love. She is young enough and old enough to identify true love among passing fancies, infatuation and hero-worship. There was a time when she would prefer to do other things, as much as she adored this love, but that was before. That was when she was less than 10 years old. But now, somewhere in 1947, she knew enough to weigh heart and mind, direct them to acquire the most fruitful engagement with the world around her in its wholeness and constituent parts.

Her name is Vajira

Sitting right in front of me, the little girl became a young woman, and then a mother. She became a grandmother and a great grandmother too. And through it all, her voice remained firm. Her eyes continued to dance. And with an unwavering voice, she transcribed memories into words, traced the dance steps from then to now in a choreography that did justice to a life dedicated to uphold the sacredness of the dance.



Her mother had specific plans for all her children. She had wanted Vajiras sister to become a doctor, and she did. The brothers were to study law, but they ended up as engineers. She wanted Vajira to dance and learn music. She was sent for Violin classes and dance classes too. She danced.

When she was about eight, Vajiras mother had sent her to Sripalee. Rabindranath Tagore had helped set up this institution, then dedicated to music and dance. At the time, Vajira had been attending Kalutara Balika Vidyalaya. Anangala Athukorale, a part-time dancer teacher at her school who also taught at Sripalee, had played a pivotal role in this decision.



Her father, employed at the Urban Council, was in charge of letting out the Town Hall for various performances. He ensured there was always a row of seats for his family, and that is how the iconic Chitrasena had come into their lives. He had come to perform. Vajiras mother had immediately arranged for him to conduct classes at home. She had got hold of her friends and urged them to send their children for this class. There had been eight in all, including Vajira and her sister.

Vajira was interested and talented, but she was still a child. She had other interests as well and did her best to bunk these classes. Chitrasena had visited Kalutara for a while and the two families had become good friends. Later, when Vajiras sister needed a place to stay in Colombo as she was attending Medical College, their mother had approached the Chitrasenas who had arranged for her to stay with them as a boarder.



When Vajira was around 11, her mother had decided that she should study in Colombo. She was duly enrolled at Methodist College, which was located right opposite

Chitrasenas house.



And so, she too was boarded there. That house was all about music and dance. Vajira went to school in the morning and in the evening, would attend Chitrasenas dance classes and also learn Sitar from Edwin Samaradiwakara. Once she reached 15, it was all about dance and nothing else.

Naturally, I followed Chitra everywhere. I went for every show. I must have started to like him at some point. I was 18 when we got married.



By that time, she was the lead female dancer of the troupe, but apparently she lacked the physique to play the lead female roles. In Nala-Damayanthi, for instance, she always played the Swan while various dancers played Damayanthi. When it was first produced, Chitrasena had done the choreography. But later in 1963, when they performed Nala-Damayanthi in Sydney, he had let Vajira handle it. He probably thought I was, by that time, capable of handling my own scenes, Vajira said. The Sydney Morning Herald of Saturday, February 16 paid glowing tribute to Vajira.

Balletomanes who see the second programme of the Chitrasena Ballet, which was presented at the Elizabethan Theatre last night, will receive a shock, for there they will find the original of their beloved classical-romantic ballet, Swan Lake.



The various pas de deux, performed by Vajira, as the Chief Swan, and Wimal, as the noble King Nala, leave, it must be confessed, our Swan Lake sadly lacking in imagination and understanding.

This critic has not seen in Western ballet mime, acting and dancing, capable of evoking the nature and spirit of the swan, to compare with the performance of Vajira in this role.

The show must go one, Chitrasena often said, she recalls. And so it did. Her involvement was intense and passionate, even while pregnant she had continued to dance and choreograph although she didnt perform.



By and by she came to creating her own ballets. The first, Kumudini was done when she was only 19. The following year she created Hima Kumariya and in 1955, Sepalika. By this time she was a part-time dance teacher in schools and she experimented with her young students. In 1956, she produced Kindurangana. She created 17 childrens ballets in total.



Some of these she remembers on account of them being landmark creations of a kind. For example, Rankikili, a childrens ballet, is remembered because her daughter Upekha was by that time big enough to perform the lead role of the Kikili. Her other daughter Anjali played the role of the old lady who kept

the fire going.

But what was most significant about this ballet, first performed in 1968, was that it was the first time a ballet was performed without any words or songs, just melody and dance. It was artistically of a very high standard, Vajira recalls.



Nil Yaka, was based on a story by the most accomplished writer of childrens stories, Sybil Wettasinghe. Sybil incidentally had done the decor and created the set.

Seventy years is a long time. Time enough to be afflicted with selective memory, time enough to even forget and be forgiven for it. But Vajira remembers that Chitrasenas first student, Somabandu, usually handled the decor and costumes. Samaradivakara and Titus Nonis were both music teachers and had created the melodies for the childrens ballet Hapana in 1979. Victor Perera had composed all the melodies for Andaberaya in 1976. As for her, she claims she had mostly drawn inspiration from something she had read.



Vajira remembers Kinkini Kolama, a story about how the nilames or the lords responded to a man who fell in love with a low-caste girl. It was Chitrasenas concept. I added the dance and we drew from the nadagam style. This was Upekhas first in a lead role. In a way, it was the show which introduced her as the lead female dancer

of the troupe.



There had been hiccups of course. In the beginning, they did not have a permanent place to rehearse until E.P.A. Fernando, a friend of Chitrasenas father, had let him conduct his work at his place. In a more here-and-now incident, Vajira had sprained her ankle on the opening night of a Moscow performance, just as she was to enter. Immediately, her sister Vipuli had taken over. It was a seamless transition and apparently no one had known, except the troupe of course. On another occasion, when they had gone for a performance in Australia, the drums had been quarantined causing much anxiety. Vajira remembers Chitrasena eventually emerging with the drums, all smiles.

That is how it has been. It is about continuity. It is about the show going on. There is Vajira and then there was Upekkha. And now there is Thaji, Vajiras granddaughter. Passion, dedication, endless striving for perfection and the grace in mind and body that inevitably results. Sacred is the word Chitrasena used. The Kalayathanaya produced many, many ballets. Vajira created the dances, did the choreography and taught the dancers, always under the watchful eyes of Chitrasena, she says.

The names go together: Chitrasena-Vajira. It is hard to say what one would have been without the other, but for Vajira it is easily resolved.

It was always under his guidance and permission that I had to get the production ready. He handled the direction and was in charge of the presentation. He was the inspiration. He was our strength. Part of my confidence in all this can be attributed to him being there, always watching and ready to put things right in case anything went wrong. His blessings were always there. He taught us so much and what we learnt we pass on to our students. He is always present in the work we do.

And yet, she said there were times she missed his physical presence. That is how it is with those who are ahead of their times and who tower over the present on account of vision and realisation.

It was not just Chitrasena though. Vajira is ever grateful to her mother, Chitrasenas mother and his unmarried sisters who took care of everything so that all she had to do was dance, and teach. After sometime, Chitrasena had given up teaching and thereafter Vajira had to be in charge of instruction, creation and continuity. Those responsibilities have now been handed over to Upekha.

I never stopped teaching. I created the syllabus and it is still being used. I created special exercises that made it easier to learn traditional movements. Now, I dont demonstrate. I use a good student for this.



In 1963, Anna Ilupina wrote in Izvestia: Every gesture in her slender hands, every glance from her beautiful oval eyes, every movement is full of inexpressible grace. She might as well have been writing about Vajira today.



There is a young girl sitting across the table from me. Her voice is firm and her eyes dance as she speaks about her love. She is young enough and old enough to identify true love among passing fancies, infatuation and hero-worship. And she knows that it is sacred. She is 85 years old. She says I am happy to have contributed to the dance  in my young days, and even now, and until I die.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who writes a weekly column titled Subterranean Transcripts for the . His articles can be found at www.malindawords.blogspot.com. His poetry: www.malindapoetry.blogspot.com
The Bharatiya Janata Party's resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh has critics running for cover. The sheer magnitude of the sweep not only caught most analysts and almost the entire media unaware, it also appears to have knocked the life out of opposition parties, certainly for now.

Blaming the EVMs is not just a lame excuse but also an exercise in self-delusion. Mercifully other political parties have resisted the temptation to fall for this mother of all excuses. The plain truth is that the Opposition had no answer to Narendra Modi's charisma, or the BJP's social engineering, its planning and the execution of its electoral strategy.

The Opposition is also deluding itself if it credits the BJP sweep to mere polarisation of votes. True there was a conscious attempt to polarise voters after the third phase of elections. But to single that out as the sole reason for their comprehensive rout will be nothing short of turning its face from the truth.

The fact is in Modi the BJP has a leader whose credibility and hold over the electorate remains unmatched at this moment in time. So much so that people bought his demonetisation and viewed him as a Robin Hood out to benefit the poor at the cost of the rich.

Coupled with that was vast social arithmetic that Amit Shah had assiduously put in place months ahead of the polls.

In Modi, the BJP has a leader whose credibility and hold over the electorate remains unmatched at the moment.

Having learnt their lessons from the defeat in Bihar, the BJP decided to expand its social base and set about winning over the non-Yadav OBCs. It also brought into its fold leaders with clout amongst the EBCs like the Kushwahas Patels, Baghels, Sainis to add to their support base among the Brahmins, Thakurs and Banias. In doing so it had in place a much larger social base than the SP and the BSP.

The BJP's strategy paid off rich dividends enabling it to romp home in areas and on seats that had a large Yadav, Muslim and Dalit population.

Of the 89 Assembly seats where the Muslim population is 25 per cent or more the BJP won 64 seats, the SP 18, the BSP 4 and the Congress 3. Of the 90 Dalit seats where Dalit population is more than 25 per cent, the BJP won 75 seats, the BSP 6 and the SP 9.

If it undercut the SP by wooing away the non-Yadav OBCs, it outflanked Mayawati by winning over some of her rebels like influential Kushwaha leader SP Maurya.

Amit Shah also successfully targeted the non-Jatav vote thereby undercutting her support base. The BJP succeeded in painting the SP as a party of the Yadavs and Muslims, and the BSP as the Jatav-dominated Dalit party. The BJP in the OBCs got 57 per cent of the Kurmi votes and 67 per cent of the Lodhi votes. The BJP won 32 per cent Jatav votes and 34 per cent ST votes .

The message is loud and clear for the opposition parties: they need to wake up to new ground realities. The ground has shifted from under their feet. They must either wake up and smell the coffee or they can forget about challenging the BJP, leave alone wresting power away from it.

The Congress, BSP and the BSP face an existential threat, and the problem cannot be wished away. The Congress party needs to undertake some drastic restructuring, it has to come back to its centrist moorings. Additionally, it cannot cede the nationalist plank to the BJP, or being seen as party whose whole existence revolves around opposing the BJP. It must be able to come up with a counter-narrative.

If the Opposition hopes to make a fight of it in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls it needs to put together coalition of as many non-BJP parties as possible and find a leader with the requisite credibility and track record whom it can project.
So, the BJP is set to form the government in Manipur and Goa, adding two more states to its kitty. In both states the pattern is disturbingly similar: a hung Assembly where the Congress is the single largest party but just short of a majority, the BJP is a relatively distant second (but with a higher vote share), and smaller parties hold the key to government formation.

In both states, the governors are elderly BJP leaders enjoying the sinecure of a Raj Bhavan, and in both states, frankly, the BJP has moved faster and with greater desire than the Congress to capture power.

In a tweet I described the speed with which the BJP moved as a sign of the party's "hunger" for power. It's a "dil maange more" avaricious mindset that has led the BJP to try and gobble up one state government after another. When I tweeted this, I was accused by a Congress spokesperson of justifying "horse-trading" and the failure of the governor to invite the single largest party to form a government. Wrong I say on both counts.

I wasn't justifying horse-trading at all or making it seem virtuous: the fact is, in small state Assemblies in particular, "jod-tod" is a dark but inescapable part of the political landscape. The Congress has done it in the past, now the BJP is just as adroit at playing the "Aya Ram, Gaya Ram" game (or in Goa in the past described as "aya D'souza, gaya D'souza!").

Unless the political culture changes and ethical behaviour is rewarded by voters, the temptation will always be there to make or break governments by switching sides. Moreover, there is nothing in the Constitution that mandates that only the single largest party must be invited to form a government; the principle now very clearly is to invite the party which can offer the possibility of a "stable" government.

Truth is, in both states, the smaller parties and independents have chosen the BJP over the Congress, largely because a Narendra Modi-led BJP is a more viable political brand across the country. Truth also is that the ruling party at the Centre has a greater chance to woo smaller parties with various inducements. Why should a four-MLA Naga party, for example, side with a three-time Congress chief minister like Ibobi Singh who they accuse of marginalising them when they could easily cut a deal with the Centre?

That BJP has agreed to send back its Union defence minister for government formation is a sign of its willingness to go the extra mile.

Ditto with the smaller parties and independents in Goa. Truth again is, money power does play a major role in such dealings and the BJP is arguably the most cash-rich party in the country at the moment much like the Congress was in its pomp.

My own belief therefore is that both the major parties should get off their moral perch. The BJP can no longer call itself a party with a difference. It has openly encouraged defections in Uttarakhand from the Congress, it has swallowed up the Congress in Arunachal and now threatens to do the same in Manipur. In Goa too, it has pushed to form a government even after its sitting chief minister and several ministers were defeated.

That it has agreed to "sacrifice" and send back its Union defence minister for government formation is a sign of its willingness to go the extra mile, and perhaps even its desperation not to lose out in the power game. The "saam daam" rajneeti is now just as much a part of the BJP's DNA as it has been of the Congress in the past.

Let not Mr Modi or Amit Shah kid us that the BJP is pure like "Maa Ganga": the pollution of power has affected it too. At the same time, politics is not an "ashram" for saints: the relentless pursuit of power is at the core of politics. Morality is for TV studio discussions, not for the real world of rajneeti.

While the BJP ponders over its moral corrosion, the Congress needs to take a hard look at another stark fact: the kingmakers in both states are, ironically, former Congressmen. In Manipur (also referred to as "Money-pur" in these unstable times), it is the BJP's north-east "hitman" Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma who has been organising the BJP's strategy along with party general secretary Ram Madhav, while in Goa, it is Vijai Sardesai, who has emerged as the key player.

Biswa Sarma was once the right hand man of Assam Congress strongman, Tarun Gogol, but left the party after he found himself being sidelined by the decision to promote Gogoi's son Gaurav, in another typical example of dynastical raj. Sarma has also claimed that he when he tried to meet Rahul Gandhi, he found that the Congress vice-president spent more time feeding biscuits to his pet dogs.

Sardesai claims to have been similarly "humiliated": ahead of the Goa elections, he wanted to align his Goa Forward party with the Congress but was reportedly kept waiting endlessly and eventually rejected. Both Sarma and Sardesai are talented gen-next leaders, both politicians with the political nous and drive that is sorely lacking in the Congress.

A Congress of an earlier era would have embraced a Sarma or a Sardesai as their future but a "high command"-led feudal party which is comatose has little space for those who wear their ambitions on their sleeve.

On the flip side, both Sarma and Sardesai can also be labelled as rank opportunists. Both were once firm critics of the BJP: Sardesai once described the BJP as a party of "narkasurs" and the man who will be his chief minister now, Manohar Parikkar was his prime target.

But that is now in the past and in politics, the past is always dispensable. To quote Chanakya: "there is some self interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interest. That is the bitter truth."

It's a truth Goans and Manipuris are coming to terms with.
BJPs decision to rush headlong to form a government in Goa and Manipur has taken the sheen off Prime Minister Modis moral grandstanding over the landslide Uttar Pradesh Assembly election verdict.

Even as Modi was unveiling his new India vision at a victory parade meeting at the BJP headquarters in Delhi, party apparatchiks in Panaji and Imphal were busy shredding his project into smithereens.

Behind the veneer of moral grandstanding was political gut instinct at work. There was reassertion of realpolitik over reason, and crass cynicism over value-based politics.

The speed at which BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and senior minister Nitin Gadkari moved to cobble together a majority despite being in minority in both Goa and Manipur is symptomatic of the "chaal, charitra and chehra" of Modis BJP.

Its true of Modi and his persona.

There are two elements to the Goa and Manipur developments as far as Modis script is concerned.

Firstly, one can see a calculated, professional approach to the politics. Modi has defined this approach and a cool and calculated Amit Shah executes his project.

This is a no-holds-barred approach, which is new to India. The Modi-Shah duo has corporatised the BJP's working. Now, party managers plan, strategise, work, move and manipulate like corporate raiders. Speed counts but morality is at a discount.

Secondly, speed is an important factor in the manner by which Modis frequent moral grandstanding is upended. Modis own script, as it appears on the surface, is wiped clean.

Two grand narratives unfold simultaneously and in parallel.

Was Modi unaware of the unfolding drama in Panaji as he held forth on the importance of consensus in nation-building enterprise?

In public, but outside the cut-throats of competitive politics, Modi presents a narrative that sounds almost emancipating and epoch-making in the task of nation building. His victory speech at the BJP headquarters was a typical example of the PM trying to rise above partisan politics and appearing to cast his persona in a statesman-like mould.

Unsuspecting people and a large section of the media fall victim to Modis non-partisan, statesman-like narrative. A grand facade, or mukhota, is built, which hides the political greed and grime.

Goa and Manipur electoral verdicts have delivered no ambiguities. BJP lost Goa fair and square. A verdict of 13-17 leaves no room for doubt about the victor and the vanquished. Chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar and as many as six out of the eight ministers lost the election.

Congress emerged as the single largest party even as it failed to get the numbers to form a majority government. The governor, Mridula Sinha, was duty-bound to invite the leader of the Congress party to give him a shot at government formation under the established norms.

If BJP managers had carefully listened to Modis speech and gone by its letter, they could have waited for the Congress to exhaust its chances at government formation.

Nitin Gadkari and his people had every right to work and persuade the smaller entities of MGM and GFP not to cast their lot with the Congress. But BJP had a duty and obligation to stake claim to form government only after the Congress had failed.

Evidently, there is a larger script at play in the BJP than what appears on the surface. Who could have instructed Gadkari to defy the established norms of single largest partys bring the first claimant to get the first shot at government formation?

Was Modi unaware of the unfolding drama in Panaji as he held forth on the importance of consensus in nation-building enterprise? Was Modi kept in the dark about his own moral project being torn into pieces by his own party leaders?

Unlike Goa, BJPs stellar performance in Manipur was worth and credible to get a chance to form the government. But again, the Congress deserved to be called first by virtue of being the single largest party.

Looking at the gravity of the situation and BJPs total disregard for established norms and conventions, the Supreme Court has urgently agreed to hear a Congress plea challenging Goa governors hasty decision to invite Manohar Parrikar to form the government. The chief justice has constituted a two-member bench to hear the case.

In the past, the Supreme Court has scolded state governors for disregarding the claims of the largest party, and for not being invited first to stake claim to form the government. BJP will be embarrassed if the SC sets aside Parrikars claim at government formation, reinforcing the established single largest party norm.

Its likely that the Congress might fail to cobble together a majority in the Goa Assembly. MGP and GFP are likely to stick to their decision to cast their lot with the BJP, and Manohar Parrikar will most likely be the new chief minister at the head of a coalition government.

However, any adverse observations of the Supreme Court against the state governor will be the first major and terrible blow to the Modis post-UP verdict avatar of having emerged as the tallest leader in the country.

It will expose the real face of the BJP that Modi has so smartly tried to hide behind the seemingly all-inclusive UP election verdict.
Two years ago, the Indian Express frontpaged Yakub Memon's hanging with this headline: "And They hanged Yakub Memon."

Who were "They"? Clearly the heartless State and the amorphous Indian who thought Memon (a terrorist convicted by the Supreme Court, after several years of hearings, witness testimonies, forensic evidence and repeated appeals, for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial terror attack which killed 257 people) was guilty as charged.

The headline and the story that followed implied that the State had erred grievously. Memon was a victim, not a terrorist.

"They" were the majority. The "others", who defended Memon, even forcing an unprecedented post-midnight Supreme Court hearing to appeal against Memon's hanging, were the conscientious minority: many of them routinely defend Maoists, call for Kashmir's independence from India and contest Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a "New India" following his historic Uttar Pradesh election victory.

The defenders of Memon form a disparate cabal: high-minded public intellectuals with ideas mired in the Fabian 1930s; Left-leaning NGOs who outrage selectively, rarely standing up, for example, for the rights of Kashmiri pandits; Islamist clerics who issue fatwas against Muslim women's long battle to outlaw the medieval practice of triple talaq; and journalists who have long fed off crumbs of Lutyens' Delhi tables.

It is this hoary cabal that is most devastated by Modi's rout of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Congress and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.

Just as they did not read the public anger against Yakub Memon, this cabal has misread Modi for three years.

But what of Modi himself?

After his historic victory in Uttar Pradesh, he spoke on Sunday, March 12, of a "new India", of an inclusive society and being a government for all, not just for those who voted for the BJP.

And yet there is not a single Muslim from the BJP in UP's new state Assembly. But then it's only when such religious distinctions are consigned to history that UP and India will be truly secular.

In a modern society only merit, not religion, caste, gender or lineage, should matter.

And yet there is not a single Muslim from the BJP in UP's new state Assembly. Photo: PTI File

Hindu hyper-nationalism, too, needs to be damped down. Building a Ram temple based on the long-pending Supreme Court verdict is fine. Establishing a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is fine.

Fighting alongside Muslim women to outlaw triple talaq is fine.

What isn't fine is scaremongering about Muslims in India becoming the largest majority in the world. A recent international research report on this has been mangled in its interpretation.

Social media has gone viral with "statistics" claiming that by 2040 Hindus will be a minority in India.

Here are the facts:

According to the 2011 Indian Census, Muslims comprise 17.22 crore of India's 121-crore population. Christians constitute 2.78 crore and Hindus 96.62 crore.

The rest are Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and others.

In 2040 India's population, according to credible global and Indian projections, is estimated to be 150 crore.

It will have the following break-up: Hindus: 114 crore; Muslims: 28 crore; Christians: 3 crore; the rest: 5 crore.

This assumes a net Hindu birth rate-death rate differential of 1 per cent (2 per cent birth rate minus 1 per cent death rate) and a double net Muslim birth rate-death rate differential of 2 per cent (3 per cent birth rate minus 1 per cent death rate).

Despite the scaremongering, and Muslims' much higher birth rate, 28 crore Muslims will still comprise only 18.50 per cent of India's population of 150 crore in 2040 while 114 crore Hindus (excluding Jains) will constitute 76 per cent and 3 crore Christians 2 per cent.

The BJP's massive mandate in Uttar Pradesh is a double-edged sword. Photo: Reuters

However, if Muslim education levels improve by 2040, birth rates in the community will fall.

The number of Muslims in 2040 too could decline from an estimated 28 crore to around 26 crore - 17 per cent of India's total population in 2040.

Those who circulate false projections of Muslim population ratios by 2040 to alarm Hindus are promoting communalism by fear, not secularism - real secularism seeks to integrate, not segregate.

Modi has understood this as his "New India" speech clearly demonstrated. Many of his followers have not.

Modi is already looking at 2022, independent India's 75th anniversary, sending a subliminal message that the 2019 Lok Sabha election is a done deal.

It isn't of course.

Two years is an eternity in politics. The BJP's massive mandate in Uttar Pradesh is a double-edged sword.

If its state government doesn't perform on law and order, jobs, power, infrastructure, and rural distress, it will have no one but itself to blame. 2019 will suddenly look more challenging than it does today.

Apart from the communal SP and Congress who have made a career of appeasing but not empowering Muslims, the biggest losers in the UP election were large sections of the mainstream media.

Ground reportage predicting a BJP rout due to demonetisation was inaccurate and biased. Some famous bylines will find it hard to recover what is left of their reputations.
Oct. 28, 1924  March 4, 2017

Audrie Turner, died peacefully in her sleep on March 4, 2017, she was 92 years old.

Audrie was born in Shamrock, Oklahoma on Oct. 28, 1924, to Andrew Lee Brittain and Jessie Halsted Brittain.

She married Claude Allen Turner on Feb. 14, 1940, in Oilton, Oklahoma. They lived in Oklahoma, Kansas and California before moving to Oregon in 1950.

Audrie had a gift of making the people around her feel loved and cared for. She was a loving and generous mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend. She was very creative and would share generously whatever she

had. She was a founding member of Egg Artists of Oregon and taught her craft to many others. She created two decorated eggs for the White House that now reside in the Smithsonian.

Audrie was preceded in death by her husband of 64 years, grandson, brother and two sisters. She is survived by her children, Anna Gallaher (Edward), Kathryn Goe, David Turner (Becky), Clifford Turner (Kandace Brewer); ten grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; 11 great-great-grandchildren; and numerous nieces and nephews. She is also survived by her family of choice, Carol Bispham Hashagin (Keith), Julie, Trevor, Matthew, Preston and Phil Krussow.

In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Willamette Valley Hospice.

A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 18, 2017 at St. Hilda's Episcopal Church, 245 Main St. W., Monmouth, Oregon 97361.
Jan. 23, 1927  March 10, 2017

Mary Ellen Jensen was born Mary Ellen Marchman on Jan. 23, 1927. Her parents, Charles and Mary Marchman, raised her and her two brothers, Richard and Gordon, in Chicago, Illinois. This is where she attended Amundsen High School and the University of Illinois.

After 90 wonderful years, she passed away on March 10, 2017. She will always be remembered by her catch-phrase "It will all work out for the best. Through thick and thin she lived by this motto and it showed in her quiet, steadfast resolve. She was never one to complain or criticize and was always quick to give encouragement to others.

Her quiet resolve belied strong core strength beneath the surface. She was never one to conform to the norm so it was of no surprise when she took part in fire walking at self-improvement seminars, sky diving on her 50th birthday or hot air ballooning on her 60th birthday. She was also always open to alternatives when it came to caring for her family. She was a health food nut back in the 60s and 70s, way before the term was coined, which was probably why her children didn't get many repeat dinner guests.

She was a resolute Catholic and attended Mass regularly when she could. At times while traveling she would attend Spanish masses even though she spoke no Spanish. The other church goers would nod and greet her silently. She would smile and do the same, feeling perfectly at home knowing that, no matter what the language, we are all children of God.

She volunteered her time for organizations such as Corvallis Manor Nursing Home and Stone Soup in Corvallis.

She and her husband Richard took a seven-year adventure to explore every state of the union and parts of Canada and Mexico. When not traveling, they lived in Chicago, Phoenix, Corvallis, Harlingen and finally Philomath.

She is survived by her husband of 50 years, Richard; children Richard, Marianne, Patricia, Daniel and Karen; grandchildren Erica, Samantha, Cadence and Eden. She is also survived by her son-in-law, Donald; daughters-in-law Candy and Ruth; and stepdaughter Coral, husband David and their children, Jamie and Jason.

She was predeceased by her stepson, Richard Jr.

Donations will be accepted in her name at Stone Soup at Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Corvallis (541-757-1988).
July 3, 1940  March 3, 2017

Roger Richard Paul of Corvallis passed away at the age of 76 from heart failure on Friday, March 3, 2017, at the Samaritan Evergreen Hospice House in Albany.

Roger was born on July 3, 1940, in Portland to Richard and Kathleen (Porath) Paul.

He is survived by his wife, Sandra; four children, Dylan Paul, Jennifer Paul, Aaron Paul and Jessani Miner; five grandchildren, Ethan, Collin and Neelima Paul, and Leighen and Brentsen Miner; and two sisters, Joan Baum of Ephrata, Washington, and Judy Hickman of Portland.

In 1958, he graduated from Wilson High School in Portland. He then attended Pacific Lutheran University in Washington. In 1963, he graduated with a degree in fisheries and wildlife from OSU. He also served in the Army Reserve. Later in life, he earned a masters degree in marriage and family therapy from Northwest Christian College.

His professions included working for the Fisheries and Wildlife Department in Alaska, for OSUs Oceanography Department, and as a patrolman on the Corvallis Police Department. He fished commercially in Alaska, was a carpenter, a salesman at a local lumber yard and a marriage and family counselor. Roger spent countless hours building three homes for his family and helping others with their remodeling projects.

Roger loved his family, nature and learning. He treasured his grandchildren deeply, often telling them stories and giving them back rubs. Drawn to nature early in life, he joined the Mazamas, Portlands mountaineering club, in his teens. In the mid-1960s he was a volunteer for the Hoodoo Ski Patrol. Throughout his life he fished, hiked, biked, rock and mountain climbed all over the Pacific Northwest. Roger was also a prolific writer of life stories, poems and letters to the GT. Everywhere Roger went he carried a book. He was constantly learning, even up until the end.

Rogers unique sense of humor, tender heart and warm hugs will be deeply missed.

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 25, at Northwest Hills Community Church, 3300 N.W. Walnut Blvd., Corvallis. A reception will follow. All are welcome to attend.
Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.
ALBANY POLICE

Criminal mischief arrest  3:06 p.m. Saturday, 1000 block Sixth Avenue S.W. A caller reported that a man was lying in the middle of the street and had an electrical cord stretched across the roadway. Nathan Randal Vanek, 44, of Albany, was arrested on charges of first-degree criminal mischief, second-degree disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. His initial bail was set at $10,000.

LINN COUNTY SHERIFF

Criminal mischief arrest  12:19 a.m. Sunday, Linn County Jail. Jeremy Don Ellis, 35, of Mehama, was arrested on charges of first-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and driving while suspended. He was released from jail without posting bail and scheduled to appear in court on April 5.

LEBANON POLICE

Criminal mistreatment arrest  6:45 p.m. Friday, Linn County Jail. Michael Richard Baxter, 36 of Lebanon, was arrested on charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment and third-degree assault. He was released from jail without posting bail and scheduled to appear in court on March 22.
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.
The Piedmont Housing Alliance has spent the past 18 months developing a plan to quadruple the residential density at a redeveloped Friendship Court, and it has now hired an architectural firm with Charlottesville ties to create the first of several blueprints.

Grimm and Parkers work will be to create the footprint, [establish] typical unit types and do site plan work that will tie into the engineering to move forward with the citys approval of the first phase, said Karen Reifenberger, acting chief executive officer of the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Friendship Court has been owned by the National Housing Trust and the Enterprise Preservation Corp. as a joint venture since 2002, but the Piedmont Housing Alliance is a minority partner that will exercise an option to buy the site outright late next year.
Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of the death of James McConnell, the University of Virginia alumnus-turned-World War I pilot memorialized with a statue on Grounds. The university will honor McConnell in a ceremony Thursday.

The list of speakers includes Edwin Fountain, vice president of the World War I Centennial Commission, and UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan. The universitys Air Force ROTC unit will present the colors and lay a memorial wreath at the memorial statue, also known as The Aviator, outside Clemons Library. The university has invited members of the McConnell family.

The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. in the auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, then move to the statue, which is located between Alderman and Clemons libraries. The Small Special Collections Library will host an exhibition of the aviators letters, photos and artifacts from his life, including fragments of the plane he flew in France.

McConnell studied at UVa from 1908 to 1910. He joined the war effort in 1915  two years before the United States entered the conflict  and worked in the American Ambulance Corps before volunteering for the French Air Service. He served in the Lafayette Escadrille, which consisted mainly of American volunteers.

He was shot down over northern France on March 19, 1917.

UVa commissioned Gutzon Borglum  the sculptor who went on to design Mount Rushmore  to design a memorial, and The Aviator was dedicated in 1919.
RICHMOND  Campaign staffers for two statewide Republican candidates camped in the cold in downtown Richmond over the weekend, in the mistaken belief that doing so would help get their candidates' names listed first on the June 13 primary ballot.

The chilling reality, however, was that they had received bad advice from a Virginia Department of Elections employee. And the camping was pointless.

Then, the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Corey Stewart falsely stated in a news release that GOP rival Ed Gillespie and his lawyers were manipulating the State Board of Elections.

Candidates for statewide office must collect signatures of registered voters from within each congressional district in order to make it onto the ballot. This year, the statewide offices of lieutenant governor, attorney general and governor are up for election. Monday was the first day that the petitions, a declaration of candidacy and a receipt for a filing fee paid to the local party could be submitted to the state Department of Elections. The filling opened at noon.

State law says whoever files first gets first placement on the ballot - a coveted position for a candidate. If two candidates file at the same time, the law says, the ballot order will be determined "by lot" by the State Board of Elections.

On March 6, Reeves' political director, Matthew Gruda, emailed an official with the Republican Party of Virginia asking about the process for submitting petitions. He asked what time campaign staff would be allowed inside the Department of Elections and where they could line up to make sure they were first.

The Republican Party sent the questions to the Department of Elections, and Policy Analyst Brooks Braun sent the Reeves staffer a reply. Although Braun said no petitions would be accepted until noon Monday, he added, "Youre welcome to come early and stick around until noon if youd like to save a spot."

Braun also wrote: "The building opens around 7:30 or so. After that youll have to wait outside our office door until 8:15 and after that you can wait in our lobby."

To the Reeves campaign, the email - and a follow up discussion on Friday between Braun and the Reeves campaign on the same points - meant that getting in line early was important to ballot placement.

Campaign staffers took turns sitting in the cold - including overnight - starting on Friday, said Samantha Azzarelli, the Reeves campaign spokeswoman.

On Sunday night, representatives from Stewart's campaign for governor - including campaign manager Spence Rogers - also showed up to sit in the cold.

On Monday morning, a Department of Elections staffer not involved in the petitions was the first to arrive at the entrance where the campaigns were camped. Not knowing what to do, he jotted down names and times and took the information to the department's policy team, said Edgardo Cortes, commissioner of the Department of Elections.

When told that anyone there by noon would be considered as having filed simultaneously, representatives of the Reeves and Stewart campaigns were naturally upset.

Cortes said he met with the campaign representatives around 11 a.m. to tell them the law was clear, and that being in line early wasn't a factor. He said he apologized for the email from Braun.

"I apologized for the information, for the way that it was communicated to them and the fact that some had been waiting," he said. "I feel terrible that folks were out there overnight or however long they were out there."

The department will address the communication as a personnel issue, he said.

The law hasn't changed, Cortes said, regardless of what a Department of Elections staffer told the Reeves campaign.

Noel Fritsch, a spokesman for the Stewart campaign, said Spence Rogers, the campaign manager, called the State Board of Elections on Wednesday or Thursday of last week and was told by a woman who answered the phone that being first in the building would factor into who was considered to have filed first. Rogers did not know the name of the woman he spoke to, Fritsch said.

Reeves and Stewart could still end up first on their respective ballots. Stewart will draw straws with Gillespie for the spot, and Reeves will draw straws with campaign rival Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr. because they all submitted their signatures at noon Monday.

Another candidate for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, did not yet submit signatures to get on the ballot.

Nor have two other GOP candidates for governor, state Sen. Frank W. Wagner of Virginia Beach, and distillery owner Denver Riggleman.
RICHMOND  The new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be in town Wednesday working on one of his top priorities - fighting violent crime.

According to the Department of Justice, Sessions will "speak with federal, state and local law enforcement about efforts to combat violent crime and restore public safety."

Not invited was Brian Moran, Gov. Terry McAuliffe's secretary of public safety and homeland security, and Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring, both Democrats. Herring's office, the state government's law firm, works closely with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

Moran, head of agencies that includes the Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections, said Tuesday there was a slight increase in crime last year, but, "with all due respect for the (U.S. attorney general), public safety does not need to be restored in Virginia. We do a damn good job already."

Herring's office said it was surprised the state's attorney general was not contacted.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said invitations for the event went to police chiefs, sheriffs and top federal agency special agents in Central Virginia. Sessions' remarks "will build on his recent actions highlighting the disturbing rise in violent crime in our nation," Carr said.

Criminologist William V. Pelfrey, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, said Tuesday that "crime, particularly violent crime, in Virginia, and nationally, has experience a downward trend of historic proportions."

He said there are exceptions elsewhere, such as in St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Chicago - cities that are experiencing rising violent crime. But, Pelfrey said, "these increases tend to be concentrated in dense urban areas with serious economic and police/community relations issues."

"Richmond police ... work extremely hard to maintain a high degree of police/citizen cooperation," Pelfrey said. "Police who work hard to treat citizens with respect may not appreciate being told that public safety needs to be restored. Instead, public safety could be enhanced or further developed."

Alfred Durham, Richmond's chief of police, is among those set to attend. Violent crime in Richmond dropped steadily for 12 years to 2015, which was a 45-year low. However, last year violent crime was up 17 percent in the city and homicides have shown a recent uptick.

The number of killings peaked in Richmond in 1994 at 160, and then dropped steeply in 1998. Since 2008 the annual toll has been generally in the 30s and 40s. But homicides spiked last year to 61 slayings - the most in a decade. There have been 14 killings in the city so far this year, putting the city on the same pace as last year.

Others set to attend the meeting with Sessions on Wednesday are Col. W. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, and Lt. Colonel Gary Settle, director of the state police's bureau of criminal investigation.

According to statewide figures from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, in 2015, Virginia's violent crime rate ranked 48th out of the 50 states in the U.S. Only Maine and Vermont reported a violent crime rate lower than Virginias.

The number of violent crimes decreased by 28 percent from 2006 to 2015, and the rate of violent crimes - per 100,000 population - decreased by 34 percent. The drops occurred during a decade when the state's population grew by almost 10 percent from 7.7 million in 2006 to 8.4 million in 2015.

Last month, the creation of the U.S. Department of Justice Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety was announced in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The department describes the task force as "central to the attorney generals commitment to combating illegal immigration and violent crime, such as drug trafficking, gang violence and gun crimes, and to restoring public safety to all of the nations communities."

The president issued an executive order, and I feel strongly about it, said Sessions in a news release.

Turning back our nations recent rise in violent crime is a top priority for the Department of Justice, and it requires decisive action from our federal prosecutors," Sessions said. "Im urging each of them to continue working closely with their counterparts at all levels, and to use every tool we have to put violent offenders behind bars and keep our citizens safe."

Carr said Sessions' remarks on Wednesday "will build on his recent actions highlighting the disturbing rise in violent crime in our nation." He said Sessions' opening remarks will be public but a following discussion with officials will be closed to allow the participants to convey "law-enforcement sensitive information."

Michael Kelly, a Herring spokesman, said he thought the attorney general's office would have been invited. "Weve worked extremely well with (the Department of Justice) on gun crimes, heroin traffickers and more." said Kelly. He said the attorney general's office "has been working throughout Virginia to reduce violent crime, prevent gun crime, and address the heroin and opioid epidemic."

Two weeks ago a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation led to dozens of arrests in the Hampton Roads area. The ATF worked with Norfolk police, the Virginia State Police and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Virginia Attorney General's Office, and the Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

However, Herring's office also has many non-law enforcement responsibilities and among Herring's current priorities has been opposing Trump's travel ban.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist

James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.

Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

Albert Einstein
President Trumps proposed budget includes grand plans to reinvigorate an underfunded military and to build a mighty wall across much of the U.S.-Mexico border. To fund these initiatives, the administration is considering cuts of $2.7 billion to Homeland Security. Of that departments agencies, the Coast Guard would suffer the deepest cut: a $1.3 billion reduction in an operating budget of $9 billion.

The proposed cuts make little sense. The U.S. Coast Guard, in addition to its primary mission of ensuring the nations maritime safety, security and stewardship, has played a huge role in drug and illegal migrant interdiction. In 2016 alone, the service seized more than 200 metric tons of cocaine at sea  more than three times the amount of cocaine seized at our borders and within the country combined. And ironically, the Coast Guard is now required to perform the additional costly task of conducting safety operations and monitoring coastal waters near Mar-a-Lago when the president is there.

The proposed cuts would also affect the Coast Guards presence in the Arctic at a time when Russia has been rapidly expanding its presence in the area by building new installations and holding large-scale exercises. The Coast Guard is charged with ensuring the U.S.s continuing access to the region via its operations of Americas icebreaking cutters. Currently, Russia has 40 icebreakers; the U.S. Coast Guard has two. The presidents budget would also scuttle a contract for an additional cutter.

The drafted budget plans are not sitting well with many members of Congress. In a letter sent to Trump, California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter wrote, Such a drastic reduction in Coast Guard funding would not only diminish the Coast Guards standing and mission . . . (it) would severely undermine U.S. national security. Mississippi Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson says the cuts would reduce our readiness and effectiveness in preventing potential attacks and responding to disasters.

It makes little sense to spend $54 billion reinvigorating a military charged with fighting foreign enemies if we do so by crippling the maritime service responsible for protecting our shorelines from those who would harm us here at home.
LONDON  England  Theresa May, Britains Brexiteering PM has vowed to give England and Wales a referendum on whether to keep Scotland.

We pay them all that money and yet theyre moaning and groaning about one thing or another. I say we hold a referendum on whether Scotland should be a part of the United Kingdom, Mrs May told the House of Commons, much to the derision of SNP members present.

According to the Barnett Formula an extra 1,623 per head, or 19 per cent, is given to Scotland compared to England.

In 2013 Scotland got 10,152 per head, Wales got 9,709 and England got 8,529.

If the moaning Sturgeon, a rogue element just out to stir shit, does not appreciate the sacrifices England makes to keep Scots up to their eyeballs in cheap heroin, deep fried mars bars, waning North Sea reserves and booze, then it is obvious that a new even higher Hadrians Wall should be built, and the Scots should be left in their own destitution.

Under new plans, we would build a wall so high bordering England and Scotland that it would resemble something from Game of Thrones. Let them squabble amongst themselves, the snivelling conniving shisters they are, an angry Englishman revealed whilst downing a large pint in some pub yesterday.
LONDON  England  Do not be easily pleased by the Lords and House of Commons finally passing the Brexit papers, there is a long road ahead to leave the EU.

Yes, there are many perils ahead, but these will be dealt with with the stiff upper lip that is the English way. Britain has survived for centuries without being under the EU, and it will continue to survive and thrive for centuries as a free thinking economically robust nation away from the EU.

Britain must sail forth, regain its own laws, regain its own trade deals and not be constrained by the cumbersome shackles of an EU superstate that has become so invasive and totalitarian, that it is near on impossible to leave. The EU much-like a cancerous growth does not allow many survivors to its tumorous, invasive apheliotropism.

If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.

The EU has shown itself to be a vindictive onerous machine that seeks to punish dissent with daily threats thrown from the parapets of Brussels and the unelected corrupt maliferous cronyism that inhibits human freedoms.

We have overcome the treacherous traitors and their Project Fear, spearheaded by Osborne and Mandelson, in cohort with the evil pestilence of the Butcher of the Middle East, Tony Blair.

As the collective moaning of the Remoaners reached crescendo level, and Obama visited briefly telling us we were back of the queue as opposed to the Americanism back of the line in trade deals, Project Fear was there always drumming into the people with its doom laden propaganda lies and fake news.

The treachery of David Cameron will never be forgotten, he was the Chamberlain of the era, a simpering shiny maggot who kowtowed to Brussels, a traitor to the country who would have willingly sold off everything for a pittance with his pathetic so-called deals and relegated Britain to be an eternal inconsequential sector to the EU.

The ignorance of many remainers was that they did not understand what the EU was, and how it functioned. They did not even know what collectivism is, or the EUs staunch cleverly cloaked communistic ideals omnipresent under the radar. The remainers of Britain, would have in 1941 gladly welcomed Hitlers forces, and would have sold out Britons to the all-conquering Germanic Nazis without a blink of an eye such was their blind faith to perfidious deceit and betrayal.

The fiascos of the Gina Miller court cases revealed the treacherous underbelly of Britain, and of course, the lawyers wanted their lucrative share of the proceedings. We can only hope that Miller is bankrupted completely and as the most hated woman in Britain, apart from Nicola Sturgeon, leaves these shores to go back home.

Throughout all of this, the Daily Squib has been a vanguard staunch defender of Britain, and we ask for nothing, as we receive nothing, but we have been there fighting for what is right, for freedom to make our own laws, and freedom to sail to whichever port we wish to sail. Our credo is to fight for justice, freedom, honour and the right to free expression and speech.

[Gratuitous ranting interlude] Our site has been sabotaged and maimed so many times by the dominant internet controller, and our advertising revenue decimated by an internet monopoly, that we are now barely functioning. Such is the tragedy of not having any freedom on the internet today, as one singular entity controls everything and is the lord of all. To be thus censored, pilloried and mutilated by such an encompassing force has left us fighting a behemoth as big as the EU itself, or even bigger. As mavericks, the underdogs, we fight with rabid teeth, we fight for our very right to free speech and to convey what we want through every pore of our existence. The internet monopoly in question can wipe us off the face of the Internetverse, but we will fight outside it, and never relinquish ourselves to these illiterate bullies, and their demonic digital empire that proclaims itself not evil yet inhibits human freedom of expression and thought. Fuck you from the bottom of our hearts, fuck you with all our might, and may a thousand daggers disguised as words pierce those black lobotomised Obaminoid abominations you call brains.[End]

We will fight on, and maybe one day the internet will not be controlled by one singular unjust freedom hating entity, as much as Britain has broken free from the tentacles of the EU, and stands to sail forth into the wind and open seas.

There are many battles still to be fought however, as much as the hurdles have been vanquished so far, the fact is that within the Cabinet there are still many remainers, and within parliament there are still many who wish to thwart a true Brexit, who utilise delaying tactics, and there are many who wish to water down the true Brexit that was voted by the people. There will be many obstacles thrown in the path from the likes of Scotland, and other Remoaner regions.

This fight will be ongoing, arduous and will test many, but hopefully Britain will break free from the EU once and for all, and we the people will get the Brexit we voted and fought for.

This is only the beginning
Mumbai: Trading platform Alibaba.com today hosted a workshop for Indian resellers of gold, jewellery and handicraft products here to help improve their

business and expand their presence in the global markets. Alibaba.com is the global wholesale trading platform of Alibaba Group.

Over 350 resellers from these sectors came together to explore trade opportunities through e-commerce and mobile technology, it said in a statement.

They discussed how to leverage online resources including the logistics and finance resources provided by Alibaba.com's partners to boost business locally and globally, the statement added.

"The gold, jewellery, handicraft as well as textile and leather industries are a major source of employment and revenue generator in the Indian market. The exports from India contribute significantly to the global market demand. However,

we strongly believe that these sectors haven't been tapped to its full potential," said Chris Wang, Country Head, Alibaba.com, India.

"By organising the workshop with sellers in Mumbai, Surat and Kanpur, we were able to showcase how technology can enable the community to grow their business and expand to the global markets in the most cost-effective way," he said.

By working with local partners, they want to support the manufacturing clusters in India to expand their export globally, he added. The workshop follows the Jewellery Fest in Jaipur in early 2016, and resellers workshops in textile in Surat, and leather in Kanpur last month.
New Delhi: Home-grown FMCG firm Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) has increased its stake in Africa's hair and skin care firm Weave Senegal to 100 per cent for an undisclosed sum.

"The company, through its subsidiary, has increased its stake from 51 per cent to 100 per cent in Weave Senegal Ltd. The company...has also reduced one layer of non-operational investment holding company in Mauritius," GCPL said in a BSE filing today.

The company did not disclose further details of the deal, citing confidentiality. In August last year, GCPL acquired 100 per cent shares in in Zambia's Hair Credentials Zambia and 51 per cent in Senegal's Weave Senegal to ramp up presence in African market. Shares of Godrej Consumer Products closed 2.18 per cent higher at Rs 1,648.05 on BSE.
New Delhi: International SIM card and global calling card companies have caught the attention of telecom regulator TRAI over instances of unsatisfactory service quality provided to consumers when they are travelling abroad.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), last week, called a meeting of 8-9 players and asked them to explain the reason for the poor service, which causes huge inconvenience to customers when they are abroad.

A few operators who were part of the TRAI meeting included Matrix, Uniconnect and Oneworld Teleservices. The move came only months after an SMS-based survey initiated by the regulator revealed that nearly half the consumers who used the services felt that it worked partially or did not work at all.

"The SMS-based survey asked consumers whether their international SIM cards worked when they were abroad. Close to 50 per cent of the people responded saying it worked. Of the rest, nearly 30 per cent said it did not work at all and 20 per cent said it worked partially," a TRAI source said.

Given the high proportion of respondents claiming that their cards did not work, TRAI reached out to the SIM card companies to seek an explanation. "We asked them what are the reasons, how can the situation be improved.

What are the issues...is it to do with the SIM cards, or connectivity problem at the level of local country specific operator, or is it that people did not follow proper procedure for dialling," the source said.

The companies have been asked to check their records, analyse the issue and revert with their responses over the next few days. The official said that the issue could prompt the regulator to recommend tightening of service quality measures around international SIM card and global calling cards sold in India.

"The options may include mandating a toll-free number or a 24-hour call centre number where consumers can call for help. TRAI could also mull recommending refund of money, depending on the situation," the source added.
Trading in gold ETF segment has been tepid during the last three financial years.

New Delhi: Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw a net outflow of Rs 46 crore in February, taking the total to Rs 695 crore in the first 11 months of the current fiscal, primarily on account of profit booking.

The outflow meant asset under management (AUM) of gold funds plunged by 10 per cent so far in the current financial year. Trading in gold ETF segment has been tepid during the last three financial years.

They had witnessed an outflow of Rs 903 crore, Rs 1,475 crore and Rs 2,293 crore in 2015-16, 2014-15 and 2013-14, respectively. However, the pace of outflow slowed in 2015-16 as against the preceding two years on account of a sluggish equity market.

According to the latest data available with Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), a net sum of Rs 46 crore was pulled out of 14 gold-linked ETFs in February as compared to Rs 35 crore in January this year.

This takes the total outflow to Rs 695 crore in the first 11 months (April-February) of the ongoing fiscal, 2016-17. The asset base of gold ETFs dropped to Rs 5,766 crore at the end of February from Rs 6,346 crore in March-end.

"Barring October, gold ETFs have seen net outflows for the whole of this fiscal. October saw net inflows propping up marginally on festival demand and that trend reversed in November and outflow continued till January," FundsIndia.com

Head of Mutual Fund Research, Vidya Bala said. "Domestic gold delivered about 15 per cent in the past one year could also have seen some investors, who were waiting for opportunities to exit, book profits in the instrument," she said.

Gold ETFs are passive investment instruments that are based on gold prices and invest in gold bullion. There is a complete transparency on the holdings of an ETF because of its direct gold pricing.
Mumbai: The Confederation of All-India Traders (CAIT) today raised their concern over the GST clause which links availability of input tax credit to payment of tax by their suppliers.

If availability of input tax credit is linked to tax payment by their suppliers, it will worsen the situation of small businesses, CAIT said in a statement and pointed out that this is despite the fact that they fully support GST, which is likely to come to force since July 1.

Under the GST law, input credit against taxes paid by the purchaser can be availed of only if the seller deposits the tax. In the event of non-compliance at the end of seller, it is the purchaser who will be denied input credit.

Over 6 million businesses are due to fall under the GST net and most of them are MSMEs. These businesses suffer from uneven cash flows but are largely compliant, claimed the association.

If availability of input tax credit is linked to payment of tax by their suppliers, it will worsen the situation of these small businesses, the CAIT statement said. "We are happy that the GST Council has cleared the way for the new law to get implemented.

The trading community and other small businesses will benefit from the single tax regime undoubtedly," Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT secretary general said. "However, the provisions in the law to do with input tax credit availability if not corrected will be detrimental to their survival.

Therefore on behalf of the entire traders, we urge the finance minister to remove this roadblock so that GST can be a great law for all," he said.
Mumbai: Actor-producer Nitin Kapoor, husband of actress-politician Jayasudha was found dead in Mumbai on March 14, reports ANI.

Nitin reportedly jumped off a building and committed suicide, though no concrete clarification substantiating the same has come out. Nitin is the cousin of yesteryears Bollywood superstar Jitendra.

There are also rumours stating that Nitin had been suffering from severe depression, having been under psychiatric treatment for the same.

Nitin married Jaysudha in 1985, after two years of courtship. Further details are awaited.
Akshay was last seen in Subhash Kapoor's 'Jolly LLB 2,' which grossed over a 100 crores.

Mumbai: Akshay Kumar, who's fresh from the success of Subhash Kapoor's 'Jolly LLB 2,' which became fourth straight 100-crore grosser, has finally commenced shoot of his highly anticipated 'Padman'.

The film, which marks the superstar's first collaboration with acclaimed director R Balki, also marks wife Twinkle Khanna's maiden advent into production.

Akshay took to Twitter to share an adorable snap of himself with Twinkle, also informing the start of shoot.

The film also stars Sonam Kapoor and has Radhika Apte playing Akki's wife.

Twinkle turns producer with the film which is based on the story 'Sanitary Man,' from her recently released book, The Legend of Laxmi Prasad'. The story revolves around Arunachalam Muruganantha, who campaigned extensively for menstrual hygiene in rural India and was known as the Sanitary Man.

Akshay who has been widely appreciated for his recent choice of films, will next be seen opposite Bhumi Pednekar in 'Toilet- Ek Prem Katha'.
Mumbai: Shabana Azmi has warned against painting all Muslims as one for "narrow political gains", saying it would negate the complex layers of culture in shaping a person's identity.

Addressing an event in the UK Parliament complex, she said, "Do not box me, do not try to restrict me in the desire 'to integrate'. For narrow political gain do not polarise the atmosphere and force people to create a 'model community'  a model community of either women, dalits, tribals or any other label that can be used to make me feel like 'the other'".

The 66-year-old actor-activist is on a UK tour with her one-woman play 'Broken Images' to mark the 10th anniversary of arts organisation Baithak UK and film 'Chalk and Duster', which is screening at the annual Tongues on Fire: London Asian Film Festival.

"If you ask me who I am, I will say Im a woman, an Indian, a daughter, wife, actress, Muslim, activist etc - my being Muslim is only one of the aspects of who I am but all over the world it seems as though a concerted effort is being made to compress identity into the narrow confines of the religion I happen to have been born into at the exclusion of all other aspects of my identity," she added.

Addressing the 16,000-member Indian Ladies in UK (ILUK) group at the launch of its new website, she called on women to stand together against attempts at polarisation.

"To paint all Muslims as one would be negating the complex layers of culture in shaping a person's identity. I am not a practising Muslim...For me Muslim means Urdu, Biryani, Eid, the Urdu language and my ganga jamuni tehzeeb, my composite culture.

"I am an Indian Muslim and I feel no affinity to the Saudi Arabian Muslim. I feel much closer to my Indian Hindu, Indian Christian and Indian Sikh friends. What I have with them in common is a shared history, a shared identity and a shared future," she added.

The speech coincided with International Women's Day celebrations in London last week.
Mumbai: Kangana Ranaut blaming Karan Johar for nepotism in Bollywood has created a huge storm in the industry with many reacting very strongly to it.

On his 52nd birthday, while speaking to the media here, when Aamir Khan was asked to share his thoughts on the same, he preferred giving a generalised answer, instead of reaction to one specific issue.

Terming "helping your loved ones" to be "very normal human nature," the 'Dangal' actor said that he tries "not to allow that to interfere" in his work.

"It is a very normal human nature to try and help people who you love and care for. It is a very natural thing. It doesn't need to be part of your family. It can be anyone you care for. In my work, I try not to allow that to interfere. I think, my responsibility as an actor is towards my audience and I give that the most importance. I try not to bring in emotions in my work," said Mr. Perfectionist.

Further when he was asked about the four ' Dangal' girls- Fatima Sana Shaikh, Zaira Wasim, Sanya Malhotra and Suhani Bhatnagar- Aamir said, "they will be big asset to the industry."

"All four of them are very talented, bright and intelligent girls. I don't think they need my advice. If they do, I am always there for them, I think they will be big asset to the industry," he said
The actress shared the pictures on her Instagram account.

Mumbai: When the entire country was celebrating Holi with their loved ones yesterday, our Bollywoods Desi Girl was feeling homesick in NYC. However, the actress paid Jimmy Fallon a visit on his show in United States where she painted the host in different Indian colours.

In the short clip shared by the shows official account, we see Priyanka and Jimmy applying colour on each other. With his face painted blue and red, Jimmy looked happy as he shared a selfie on his Instagram account.

Priyanka also shared a picture from the set.

Later, the actress celebrated the occasion with her close friends in her house.

Priyanka took to her official Instagram account and shared pictures from the celebration with her friends.
Mumbai: The festival of Holi was celebrated with a lot of fanfare in India and other parts of the world on Monday with colours, water, music and much more.

Several Holi parties were also thrown by B-Town celebrities and most of the stars also to Twitter to convey their Holi wishes.

Shah Rukh Khan also wished his massive number of fans on Twitter.

His tweets were, however, very interesting. The superstar said that his neighbours were playing loud music since noon and that he was also happy to hum Ed Sheerans popular song Shape of You instead of working on the festival.

His son AbRam also had an interesting way to celebrate the festival, as he played with colourful Legos. The superstar also said that he was happy with it as long as the 'colours colour us'.

The picture is just one of the several cute pictures of the little one that the superstar keeps sharing on social media.

On the professional front, the superstar will be seen in a cameo in Salman Khans Tubelight.
I am a retired newspaperman. I am 69 and live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 45 years, Lou Ann. We grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather.

More on who I am is here.

Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com
Malavika Mohanan, daughter of celebrated cinematographer KU Mohanan, has primarily acted in a handful of Malayalam ventures. She made her debut opposite Dulquer Salmaan in Pattam Pole and followed it up with a couple of other Mollywood projects. She also forayed into Kannada with Naanu Mattu Varalakshmi.

After her Malayalam flick, The Great Father, also starring Mammootty, Arya and Sneha, the three-film actress has now managed to impress the maverick Iranian director Majid Majidi  and has been cast in his latest!

The auteur earlier announced that his dream project, Beyond The Clouds, is an international project that is set in India. The film made headlines when actress Deepika Padukone was called in for a look test  and later, her pictures from the sets went viral. Reportedly, this PR stunt didnt go down too well with the filmmaker, and that was the reason he started looking for a replacement.

Majidi then spotted Malavika and called her in for a screen-test. Impressed by her performance, he then roped her in as the leading lady in the film. A source in the know reveals, Majidi found his leading lady in Malavika, as he was looking for a face that could fit the character.

Speaking to DC, Malavika says, It is definitely a great opportunity to have bagged this project. At this point, I wouldnt be able to reveal anything about my character, except that I was signed on for the role that Deepika initially auditioned for. I have already started shooting for the film in Mumbai.

An excited Malavika adds, Im really excited as itll be my first Hindi film. Itll also do the international circuit of film festivals, etc  and the exposure will be immense.

As described by the makers, Beyond The Clouds is a heart-wrenching story that focuses on the relationship of a brother and sister. Interestingly, the film also marks the debut of Shahid Kapoors brother Ishaan Khatter, who has been shooting for a month now. Also, filmmaker Goutam Ghose will play a significant role in the film produced by Zee Studios and Eyecandy Films. The music will be composed by AR Rahman.
Manchu Vishnu returns to comedy for the third time with Achari America Yatra, along with actor-director G. Nageswara Reddy, who earlier delivered hits like Denikaina Ready and Edo Rakam Ado Rakam.

Well-known comedian Brahmanandam also stars in this film, which is touted to be an entertainer. The film is going to be full of comedy and will be launched on March 19, on the occasion of Mohan Babu garus birthday. We are planning to shoot most of the film in US, says producer M.L. Kumar Chowdary. Director G. Nageswara Reddy, who is known for his comedy films, has prepared a script keeping Vishnu and Brahmanandam in mind. Popular writer Malladi Venkata Krishnamurthy has provided the story for this film.
Washington: A substantial chunk of summer sea ice loss in the Arctic in recent decades is due to natural variability in the atmosphere, although climate change driven by human activities is still playing a key role, a new study has found.

Arctic sea ice in recent decades has declined faster than predicted by most models of climate change, researchers said. Many scientists suspect that the trend now underway is a combination of global warming and natural climate variability.

"Anthropogenic forcing is still dominant - it is still the key player," said Qinghua Ding, a climate scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara. "But we found that natural variability has helped to accelerate this melting, especially over the past 20 years," said Ding. Previous research found changes in the tropical Pacific Ocean have created a "hot spot" over Greenland and the Canadian Arctic that has boosted warming in that region.

The hot spot is a large region of higher pressure where air is squeezed together so it becomes warmer and can hold more moisture, which brings more heat to the sea ice below. The study focuses specifically on what this atmospheric

circulation means for Arctic sea ice in September, when the ocean reaches its maximum area of open water.

"The idea that natural or internal variability has contributed substantially to the Arctic sea ice loss is not entirely new," said Axel Schweiger, polar scientist at

University of Washington. "This study provides the mechanism, and uses a new

approach to illuminate the processes that are responsible for these changes," said Schweiger.

Ding designed a new sea ice model experiment that combines forcing due to climate change with observed weather in recent decades. The model shows that a shift in wind patterns is responsible for about 60 per cent of sea ice loss in the

Arctic Ocean since 1979. Some of this shift is related to climate change, but the

study finds that 30-50 per cent of the observed sea ice loss since 1979 is due to natural variations in this large-scale atmospheric pattern.

"What we've found is that a good fraction of the decrease in September sea ice melt in the past several decades is most likely natural variability," said David Battisti, a UW professor. "The method nails down how much of the observed sea ice trend we've seen in recent decades in the Arctic is due to natural variability and how much is due to greenhouse gases," said Battisti.

The long-term natural variability is ultimately thought to be driven by the tropical Pacific Ocean. Teasing apart the natural and human-caused parts of sea ice decline will help to predict future sea ice conditions in Arctic summer. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Bengaluru: A BJP councillor was on Tuesday hacked to death by unidentified assailants at Anekal in Bengaluru rural district, police said.

"BJP councillor and Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad, popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu, was stabbed with sharp weapons around 5 AM," Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police Vinit Singh said over telephone.

On the motive behind the crime, Singh said, "It is too early to comment on it as we are investigating the case."

On October 16, an RSS worker was hacked to death in Bengaluru, which triggered massive protests by BJP and RSS workers.

Reacting to the incident, RSS Media Coordinator for Karnataka, Rajesh Padmar said the state government should take strong steps to stop such politically-motivated killings.

He also demanded an immediate and an impartial probe into it. "In the last two years, more than 10 RSS-VHP-BJP activists have been killed.It is a dangerous development in a democratic set-up," Padmar said.

He also said that the deceased was a soft-spoken person and has no criminal cases against him.
Uttar Pradesh police searching Cabinet minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati's official residence at Gautam Pali in Lucknow. (Photo: PTI/File)

Lucknow: As many as three persons have been detained in connection with the rape case involving Uttar Pradesh Minister Gayatri Prajapati.

Two of Prajapati's sons have also been detained for giving shelter to the accused.

In a major breakthrough, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) had last week arrested two more persons from Noida in connection with this case.

The Supreme Court has refused to stay the arrest of absconding Prajapati and asked him to approach the concerned court.

Prajapati, who has been on the run since February 27 after an FIR was lodged against him, had approached the top court for a stay on his arrest.

An apex court bench headed by Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri made it clear that it won't modify its order.

Prajapati is accused of raping a woman and molesting her minor daughter in 2014.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had issued non-bailable warrants against Prajapati and six others in connection with the rape charges.

Prajapati's passport was earlier revoked for four weeks to prevent him from attempting to flee out of the country.

Earlier last week, the police also initiated proceedings for a look out notice against Prajapati following reports that he may try to escape abroad to evade arrest.
Lucknow: Three more accomplices of absconding rape-accused minister Gayatri Prajapati were today arrested by the UP Police in connection with the case against the SP leader.

With this, six persons named in the FIR against the 49-year-old SP leader have been picked up.

"Today's arrests were made from Hazratganj area in central Lucknow," IG (Lucknow) A Satish Ganesh said.

Earlier Prajapati's two aides were arrested from Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway on March 7.

The minister's security guard Chandrapal was arrested on March 6 near Lucknow Police lines.

Prajapati was booked on a Supreme Court directive and an FIR was lodged on February 17 against the minister and six others for allegedly gang-raping a woman and alleged attempt to rape her minor daughter.

The apex court had asked the UP Police to submit an action taken report regarding the incidents in eight weeks.

UP Police plans to attached two properties of the minister in Lucknow and one in Amethi, his assembly constituency, to force him to surrender, SSP Lucknow Manzil Saini said.

A Look Out notice has already been issued against him as also a Non-Bailable Warrant. His passport too has been impounded.

Earlier, airports across the country were alerted about the possibility of Prajapati trying to flee the country.

In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost from Amethi, the seat he held, to BJP.
Hyderabad: North zone police arrested 17 people, including two advocates and an ex-corporator, for carrying demonetised currency worth Rs 1.20 crore. Police said the gang was trying to exchange the currency by offering a huge commission.

Police raided a flat in Begumpet and recovered the stash. DCP B. Sumathi said the gang was trying to dupe people by offering them commission to exchange the old notes.

The money belongs to two people, Shaik Subhan, a realtor, and Maram Reddy Pavan Kumar Reddy, a hookah parlour owner. Subhan, who belongs to Nellore, had brought Rs 90 lakh while Pavan Kumar had brought Rs 30 lakh, said the DCP.

Both the suspects could not exchange it so far. The duo then came in contact with the other suspects, who planned to cheat people, police said. The gang was trying to get people pay new currency for old ones. They offered double the amount in old currency for new ones, the DCP said.

Police also suspect the gang was also exploring the possibility of exchanging the currency at the RBI with the help of others before the March 31 deadline. Police said that on Monday midnight sub inspector U. Madhu of Begumpet found a group near the arch of Pochamma Temple while patrolling.

When the SI questioned them they could not give a proper reply and one of them started running away. Following him, police found the apartment, where the cash was stashed up.
President of JD Mara Slum Community Hall filed a complaint stating that he was kidnapped, assaulted at gun point and robbed of Rs 10,000 by a gang of men on Sunday. (Representational image)

Bengaluru: The Kengeri police have arrested a gang of eight, including two women who had allegedly given supari to murder a person to settle personal scores.

Selvi, 40, a resident of JD Mara Slum, Kamakshi, 59, of Ragigudda, and six other men have been arrested by the police. R. K. Kuppanna, 40, the president of JD Mara Slum Community Hall and General Secretary of Bidugadeya Chirategalu organisation had filed a complaint stating that he was kidnapped, assaulted at gun point and robbed of Rs 10,000 by a gang of men on Sunday.

He also alleged that accused Selvi and Kamakshi were members of the Bidugadeya Chirategalu organisation and they were conspiring to sell off the JD Mara Slum area to other parties and pocket a fortune.

He stated that as he objected and had staged protests against them, he suspected their role behind the incident. Based on his suspicion, the accused women were picked up for questioning and they confessed to the crime.
New Delhi: The states have been asked to formulate a framework to meet potential challenges of radicalisation in cyberspace and misuse of social media, the Centre said on Tuesday.

Responding to a written question, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Hansraj Gangaram Ahir informed the Lok Sabha that meetings under the chairmanship of Home Minister and Home Secretary have been held wherein states were advised to formulate a framework to tackle radicalisation through internet and social media.

He said it was the firm stand of the government not to arrest or harass anyone for alleged radicalisation in the absence of solid evidence.

"The terrorist outfits use various platforms, including online portals to propagate their ideology. The intelligence and security agencies maintain a close watch to identify those engaged in such anti-national activities and action is initiated against them under relevant laws," the minister said.
New Delhi: The Dalit JNU scholar who allegedly committed suicide had previously been a student of the Hyderabad University and was at the forefront of the movement against the varsity's administration following the suicide of Rohith Vemula.

Twenty-eight-year-old Muthu Krishnan, who was from Tamil Nadu's Salem district, completed his MPhil from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 before joining JNU for his PhD.

The deceased student, a resident of JNU's Jhelum hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a friend's residence in South Delhi's Munirka area yesterday.

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) is alleging that Krishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Rohith Vemula and depression made him take the extreme step.

While Krishnan has not left any suicide note, a recent Facebook post by him criticising "discriminatory" admission policies in JNU is being widely circulated on social media.

"There is no Equality in M.phil/phd Admission, there is no equality in Viva - voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad - block, denying the education of the

Marginal's.

"When Equality is denied everything is denied," he wrote in the Facebook post on March 10.

Police, on the other hand, is maintaining that no prima facie evidence has been found indicating JNU administration's role into the issue.

"Till now no evidence has been found that the extreme step was taken by the student owing to any issues at the university," said a senior police officer, adding, "He is said to have been depressed for sometime over some personal issues".

"A PCR call was received at 5.05 PM yesterday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar. On reaching the spot, police forced open the door as a portion of the latch was uprooted from inside," he said.

Meanwhile, the JNU authorities are keeping mum over the incident, saying police is investigating the issue.
Following his prescient piece from last year, Tom Wright has a provocative new essay on Donald Trumps foreign policy in Politico. He suggests that Trump foreign policy has Jeckyll and Hyde qualities. While Trump (and Bannon) are committed to a radical vision to upend establishment foreign policy, they hold a minority view in the government. To staff his administration, Trump has largely turned to establishments folks like Mattis, Kelly, McMaster, among others. This means that there isnt really anyone to implement that radical vision, leaving Trumps views to express themselves on a few issues like Islam and trade where they have wider currency.

Dan Drezner has an interesting rejoinder and notes that one way the Bannonites are able to overcome and enhance their power is by vetoing appointments and through budget cuts. With few political appointees and agencies cash-strapped to do international work, the U.S. government wont have the capacity to respond to global emergencies when they arise. For the America First and Only crowd, this is exactly as they want it.

Trumpism/Bannonism may currently be self-limited by having few adherents, but as Drezner argues, it is still able to do tremendous harm through personnel and budget processes. A third possibility is more worrisome still. What would happen to U.S. foreign policy if this strain of nationalism were to take root in the Republican party and crowd out establishment thinking?

(To be fair: the foreign policy blob has made its share of mistakes [witness Iraq], but as Frank Gavin and Jim Steinberg argue in a recent War on the Rocks podcast, the establishment has much to commend it. Ending and winning the Cold War peacefully anyone?).

Here, Ron Krebs important book Narrative and the Making of US National Security may be instructive. Krebs reminds us that presidents, particularly during unsettled narrative moments, have tremendous power of the bully pulpit to recast the dominant narrative underpinning U.S. foreign policy. If Trump succeeds in building a coterie of followers and adherents to his vision of the world, it could last well beyond the current moment.

One of my side ventures is serving as one of the editors of International Politics Reviews. In our latest issue, we feature a reviews exchange on Krebs book. The exchange includes reviews from Michelle Murray, Dan Drezner, and me, along with a response from Krebs. (All are available open access through the ReadCube platform on the links above).

Settled and Unsettled Moments

As Krebs argues, there are times in American foreign policy when narratives are relatively settled, which means that the rhetorical space that actors have to depart from the dominant narrative is limited. Those who deviate too far from the dominant narrative are punished and pushed to the margins. Here, after the events of September 11, 2001, George W. Bush was able to craft a narrative of the War on Terror which came to dominate and cast a wide shadow over what other political figures could say. It meant that even an erstwhile critic, Barack Obama, had to craft his critique of the Iraq War by saying it was a diversion from the good war and true fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.

Unsettled narrative situations give actors, particularly presidents, more leeway to craft new narratives, to carry out storytelling. Leaders who seize the moment are well-placed to redefine the dominant narrative, as FDR did in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Leaders who choose to argue over the merits and demerits in unsettled moments will be less successful. By the same token, leaders that try to tell new stories when narratives are relatively settled, as Reagan did in the 1980s in relation to the Contras in Nicaragua, will often struggle. The rhetorical mode, Krebs argue, has to match the moment.

Trumps inaugural address and efforts by Bannon and others suggest they are trying to use threats of terrorism and foreigners to foster a Sovereignty and Me First mindset in the United States and around the world.

Are We Living in an Unsettled Moment?

The question becomes: are we living in an unsettled narrative moment that is ripe for such storytelling?

For Krebs, answering this question is an empirical matter that requires us to evaluate the degree to which elites legitimate their arguments in reference to a single narrative or if multiple narratives swirl in a relative unstructured space. While we might think that crisis is the main driver unsettling narratives, Krebs argues that policy success can allow leaders to deviate from orthodoxies.

Does unsettled describe the Trump era? Or, does the master narrative of the war on terror still constrain elites? What power does the still older Cold War narrative of liberal internationalism retain? In his review of Krebs book, Drezner thinks it may well be Trumps moment to seize:

On almost every dimension of foreign policy, Trump eschewed the dominant narrative and yet he won the election. Is this a sign that we have moved to an unsettled period or not? It is unclear if the techniques Krebs used to identify the Cold War consensus would work in an age of more balka nized media and national security conversations (Drezner, 2017 ). Are there ex ante ways of identifying period when the national security narrative is contested?

In his response to the reviews, Krebs is not sure:

Drezner believes that Trumps rise signals that we live in unsettled times. Im not sure, for I am struck by how little impact Trump had during the campaign on the central lines of elite debate over foreign policy.

He suggests that Trump is taking advantage of gaps between elites and mass publics and using those gaps to win support, but thus far, he has had little impact on elites who continue to resist him.

What Trump is exploiting is not an unsettled narrative situation, but a longtime, substantial gap between dominant elite and pop ular narratives on a wide range of issues. In this populist moment, the bonds tying masses to tra ditional elites have suddenly weakened. As a result, elites can patrol the boundaries of legiti mate debate over foreign affairs and national security, but they cannot enforce them.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Monday asked the petitioners, managements of Agri Gold and Akshaya Gold and TS and AP governments to suggest alternatives to auction the properties of the two companies without the involvement of the court. A division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubra-manian and Justice S.V. Bhatt was dealing with a batch of petitions filed by AgriGold and Akshaya Gold Depositors and the agents and depositors associations and others seeking a CBI probe into the scam and for recovery of the money.

The bench said that in view of the poor response, and successful bidders backing off, some depositors asking for land instead of deposits, it was not possible to satisfy all 32 lakh depositors. Mr K. Sravan Kumar, counsel for the petitioners, said the CID had not filed a chargesheet in three years. He urged the court to adopt the procedure followed by the Supreme Court in the Sahara case, and to examine the issue of constitution of a committee as was done in the Satyam case.

Mr L. Ravi Chander, senior counsel, appearing for AgriGold, said that it was not possible to deposit money as in the Sahara case. Mr Krishna Prakash, special counsel of AP, said there was no truth in the petitioner's allegation as the CID probe was going on and several arrests had been made. The bench posted the matter to March 22.
New Delhi: A day after a 27-year-old Dalit student allegedly committed suicide at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, police on Tuesday said he was not part of any politically active group on the campus.

The deceased Muthu Krishnan, who had named himself 'Krish Rajini' on Facebook, hanged himself at his South Korean friend's house in Munirka using a blanket on Monday.

While the JNU students shared Krishnan's Facebook posts condemning the hyderabad varsity's alleged role in dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide last year and criticism of JNU's new admission policy, police ruled out any political affiliation of the victim.

"It is too early to comment on his association (with Rohith Vemula). But so far, we know that he (Krishnan) was not associated with any student groups active in JNU. He neither made any complaint to the JNU administration nor was there any complaint against him by the administration," DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

The reason why the student took the extreme step is not known yet since no suicide note has been recovered, said the officer.

"It is an unfortunate incident. We conducted a search of his hostel room and the room where his body was found. But no suicide note has been recovered. We have sealed both the rooms. Forensic teams will be examining the rooms again," he added.

Krishnan's body was discovered by his friend Gomen Kim, a South Korean national, and two other students  Lakshyajeet and Issac  at Kim's home where they had gone for lunch.

The victim had retired to a room, saying that he had slept at 3 AM the day before and wanted to rest, police said.

Around 4.30 PM, his friends called him and when he did not respond, they tried to break open the door and saw him hanging following which they alerted the police.

Police said they will be scanning Krishnan's Facebook posts and call records to ascertain what could have triggered such an extreme step.

We have requested for a medical board to carry out his post-mortem, they added.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated Manohar Parrikar after he was sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Goa.

"Congratulations to @manoharparrikar and his team on being sworn in. My best wishes in taking Goa to new heights of progress," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

Parrikar, who on Monday resigned as the Union Defence Minister, was sworn-in as the Chief Minister at the Raj Bhavan in Panaji earlier in the day.

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha administered the oath of office to the BJP leader.

MGP's Manohar Ajgaonkar, Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte and seven others also took oath as ministers.

BJP chief Amit Shah and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari attended Parrikar's swearing-in ceremony. Former Goa chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar was also present.

Parrikar had on March 12 submitted evidence before the Governor showing the support of 13 MLAs of the BJP, three MLAs of the MGP, three of the Goa Forward Party and two Independent MLAs, thus having a total strength of 21 MLAs in the 40-member assembly.

The Goa Governor had then invited him to form the government in the state.

Crying foul, the Congress yesterday filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Governor's decision to appoint Parrikar as the chief minister.

The apex court earlier in the day refused to stay the swearing-in of Parrikar and ordered a floor test on March 16.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, the MGP (3), the GFP (3), the NCP (1) and Independents (3).
New Delhi: After massive defeat in Uttar Pradesh where it had forged an alliance with Samajwadi Party to take on the BJP, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said that there is a need to make structural and organisational changes in the party.

Commenting on the power struggle in Manipur and Goa, where the Congress won majority of seats but the BJP staked claim to form government, Rahul said the BJP is misusing money for power.

Rahul also accused the BJP of "stealing" the mandate of people and "undermining democracy" in these states by use of money power. He alleged that the Goa Governor acted in a "partisan" manner.

"They are saying that it is okay for them to misuse the office of the Governor...In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP," he told reporters outside Parliament.

Speaking out for the first time after the results of the elections to five states were declared on March 11, Gandhi said, "Our fight with the BJP is an ideological fight. What the BJP has done in Manipur and Goa is their ideology  and that is what we are fighting."

"It is a question of how much the BJP has thrown to steal the mandate of people of Manipur and Goa. That is the question. It is not about how soon they went, but with how much money the BJP gave to steal the mandate of Goa and Manipur," Gandhi said on queries as to why Congress "delayed" staking claim for government formation.

Alleging that the Goa Governor acted in a "partisan" manner, he said a letter was issued in favour of Manohar Parrikar even before the Congress staked its claim.

"(Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun) Kharge ji showed me a letter of the Governor appointing Mr Parrikar as Chief Minister before any floor test or anything happened. So it is difficult for us to stake claim if the Governor is already acting in a partisan manner," he said.

The Congress leader said BJP's win in Uttar Pradesh was largely due to polarisation.

"I would like to say that the BJP won the election in UP and I would like to congratulate them. Why they won it, there are multiple reasons. Large part of it is polarisation. But the fact is that they won the election," he said.

Stating that there are "ups and down" for every party, he stressed, "We had a little down in UP which is fine, we accept it. But we have a ideological fight with the BJP and we will continue to do that."

Gandhi said in the five assembly elections, the Congress formed its government in Punjab and won the election in Manipur and Goa. "That is not a bad result. It is true that we lost the election in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand," he said.

The Congress leader said in Punjab as well as other states, it is the regional leaders who fought elections and won.

"They are the people who fight these elections and they are successful in Punjab, successful in Goa and in Manipur," he said.

The BJP won 312 of the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and its allies emerged victorious in 13 seats. In Uttarakhand, the BJP won 57 of the 70 seats at stake.
Chennai: Expelled AIADMK leader and former chief minister O Panneerselvam will lead a nine-member delegation to the Election Commission of India on Wednesday on the issue of V K Sasikala's appointment as AIADMK chief.

Sources in the Panneerselvam camp said he will be accompanied by, among others, Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan and former Ministers Natham R Viswanathan, KP Munusamy and S Semmalai.

The delegation is scheduled to meet Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi around noon on the "recent developments in the AIADMK," they added.

The Panneerselvam faction has already challenged before the EC Sasikala's appointment as AIADMK general secretary in December following her predecessor J Jayalalithaa's demise.

The Commission had issued notice to Sasikala, serving a jail term in connection with a Rs 66 crore disproportionate assets case and she had sent her response last week.

Panneerselvam had revolted against Sasikala on February 7, saying he was forced to make way for her elevation as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu following her election as AIADMK Legislature Party leader earlier.

She had later expelled him and some of his supporters from the AIADMK.
12 CRPF were personnel killed in an ambush by naxals in Chhattisgarh. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday called for "introspection" following the killing of 12 CRPF personnel in an ambush by naxals in Chhattisgarh and said he has ordered an inquiry to identify lapses behind it.

He told the Lok Sabha that the attack on security personnel in the Sukma forests was an outcome of desperation among the Left Wing Extremists (LWEs) as they had suffered unprecedented losses last year.

"However there is a need for introspection over this incident. I have directed the DG, CRPF, to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident so that the lapses that led to it can be identified, as this will reduce the possibility of repetition of such incidents in the future," he said.

The unprecedented success of security forces of late has led to "evident uneasiness" among the LWE groups, he told lawmakers.

Security forces have achieved tremendous success during 2016 in all LWE affected states, particularly in Chhattisgarh where 135 LWE cadres were killed, 779 arrested and 1198 surrendered, Singh said.

The number of violent incidents in Chhattisgarh also dropped by 15 per cent from 466 in 2015 to 395 in 2016.

The number of LWEs killed increased by 150 per cent (89 in 2015 to 222 in 2016) in 2016 while surrenders and arrests registered a combined increase of 47 per cent over 2015 (2238 to 3282), he said.

Security personnel lost only three 2016 against 15 in 2015, he said.

CRPF personnel were ambushed on March 11 by Maoists with heavy firing and simultaneous use of IED blast, the Home Minister said, adding that two of them were seriously injured but are out of danger.

The extremists took away 13 weapons and 2 wireless sets of the security personnel.

Singh named all the personnel killed and gave details of compensation given to their families.

The next of kin of the martyred CRPF personnel will be provided Rs 35 lakh as ex-gratia from the central government, Rs 20 lakh from the CRPF's risk fund and Rs one lakh from the CRPF welfare fund, the Home Minister said.

They will also get Rs 25 lakh as insurance benefits and Rs three lakh as ex-gratia from the Chhattisgarh government, and the the next of kin will get full salary till the age of superannuation of the personnel martyred under the Liberalised Pensionary Award (LPA), he said.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the swearing in of BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of Goa and ordered a floor test on March 16.

A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar directed that the Assembly session be called at 11 on March 16 and made it clear that the only business of the House would be the holding of floor test after swearing in of the members.

The bench also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R K Agrawal directed that all pre-requisites for holding the floor test be completed by tomorrow including the Election Commission related formalities.

The apex court disposed of the petition of Congress, challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint Parrikar as CM, and said all issues raised in it can be resolved by a simple direction of holding the floor test.

The bench also requested the Governor to summon the House for conducting the floor test.

It said Congress has failed to come out with affidavits of any elected MLAs of two regional parties, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP), or the independents indicating support to it.

It also took on record a letter showing support of three members of MGP, three of GFP and two independents to BJP taking the party's strength to 21 in the House of 40.

During the hearing, the bench said, "You (Congress) don't have the numbers and that is why you did not claim to form government. You have not demonstrated before the Governor that the number is in your favour."

The court told the Congress that instead of putting forth their arguments before the court, the party should have done so before the governor.

The bench also said that the pleadings of the Congress leader were not proper as they have not impleaded Manohar Parrikar, who has been invited to form the government, as a necessary party.

"You (Congress) know his name (Parrikar). He has been the defence minister of the country", the bench said and added "you don't even implead the CM. You don't have the affidavit of the members who are supporting you. So sensitive the matter is and you don't do anything."

The bench refused the plea of Goa Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Chandrakant Kavlekar whose counsel and senior advocate Abhishek Mani Singhvi wanted a composite floor test before the oath taking of Parrikar as CM.

The petition was filed yesterday evening by the CLP leader and it was mentioned at the residence of the CJI who had agreed to give an urgent hearing today.

A special bench has been constituted as the apex court is on Holi break for a week.

Besides staying Parrikar's swearing-in, the petition has also sought quashing of the decision of the governor to appoint the BJP leader as the chief minister.

The petition, filed by advocate Devdutt Kamath, has made the Centre and Goa as the parties.

The Goa CLP leader has argued that the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the polls and under the constitutional convention, the Governor was bound to invite the single largest party to form the government and give it the opportunity to prove majority in the floor test.

It said the decision of the governor is a blatantly unconstitutional action and is illegal, arbitrary and violative of the basic features of the Constitution.

He added that the decision was hastily taken by the governor on March 12.

Further, the advocate has said it was wrong on the part of the Governor to invite the BJP-led alliance for government formation as there was no pre-poll alliance.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, the MGP (3), the GFP (3), the NCP (1) and Independents (3).

Parrikar had on March 12 submitted evidence before the Governor showing the support of 13 MLAs of the BJP, 3 MLAs of the MGP, 3 of the Goa Forward Party and two Independent MLAs thus having a total strength of 21 MLAs in the 40-member assembly.
Sri Lankan Navy handed over the 77 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, arrested over the past two months, to Indian Coast Guard at the International Maritime Boundary Line in the Palk Bay.

Rameswaram: Seventy-seven Indian and 12 Sri Lankan fishermen were on Tuesday repatriated in line with the decision taken by two countries to set free fishermen in each other's custody to defuse tension following the killing of an Indian fisherman last week.

Sri Lankan Navy handed over the 77 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, arrested over the past two months, to Indian Coast Guard at the International Maritime Boundary Line in the Palk Bay.

Similarly, 12 Sri Lankan fishermen, released from the Puzhal Prison in Chennai on March 10, were handed over to the Sri Lankan Navy.

The twelve were arrested off Nagapattinam coast separately on March 8 and 9 for allegedly fishing in Indian waters.

The Tamil Nadu fishermen are expected to arrive at Karaikal coast in two ICG ships, "Rani Durgavati" and "Abith" by 6 PM, police said.

Later, they would be taken to their respective destinations.

The 77 fishermen from Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram districts were arrested by the Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters between February and March and lodged in Jaffna and Vavuniya prisons in the island nation.

Sri Lanka and India had on Wednesday agreed to release fishermen held in each other's custody after a high-level discussion between the two sides in Colombo in a bid to defuse the tension following the killing of the 22-year-old Indian fisherman, Bridgo.

Meanwhile, eight fishermen from Karaikal are still in Trincomalee prison there, police added.
In a step towards becoming disabled friendly, Braille signage boards were inaugurated at Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Station on Tuesday to help the visually impaired.

Bengaluru: In a step towards becoming disabled friendly, Braille signage boards were inaugurated at Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Station on Tuesday to help the visually impaired. South Western Railways (SWR) has installed 600 metallic Braille boards across the station to guide the visually impaired move around through the station without any help.

There are two tactile maps at the entrance, which will provide direction to ticket counters, platforms, washrooms and restaurants. A visually impaired person can feel the Braille signs and navigate," said Sanjiv Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, SWR.

There will also be Braille signs on railings of staircases leading to various platforms, in both Kannada and English languages. These measures are expected to provide greater accessibility to the visually impaired.

Pranesh, Director of Enable India, an NGO working with the disabled said, "This is a great move and must be appreciated. Also, we have to make sure the person knows how to get to the braille signs and it must be located at a proper height for all."

Responding to the above query, Sanjiv Agarwal told Deccan Chronicle, "A disabled person entering the station, will first feel the tactile maps installed on 2 columns at the concourse. From there, they will be able to walk to wherever they need to go. As for the height even a child can access it."

The Braille boards were developed by Anuprayas, a NGO and the funding was provided by Altius Reality as part of their CSR initiative.
Devatalagutta Parirakshana Committee president Mahesh demanded action against the builder for illegally constructing buifdings. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: HMDA officials razed illegal structures, including internal roads, at the Pride India project near Balapur on the citys outskirts.

The action was taken after the builder took up construction of buildings violating court orders.

Devatalagutta Parirakshana Committee president Mahesh demanded action against the builder for illegally constructing buifdings.
Victims are under treatment at the hospital. Photo by Nguyet Trieu

Workers were rushed to hospital in Binh Duong Province suffering from severe burns.

An explosion ripped through a steel plant in Vietnam's southern province of Binh Duong on Tuesday morning, injuring eight workers.

The explosion happened at around 5.40 a.m. at the Nam Kim Steel plant at an industrial park in Binh Duong Province, 60km (37 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City, state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.

The molten metal explosion occurred while workers were handling a smelting pot filled with zinc and aluminum.

The accident injured eight workers, four of whom suffered extensive burns to more than 70 percent of their bodies.

The victims were rushed to Binh Duong Hospital for treatment.

Six people with severe burns have been transferred to Cho Ray Hospital, a doctor later said.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

Nam Kim Steel, based in Thuan An Commune, is a top steel producer with three plants in Vietnam.

The company controlled 15.2 percent of Vietnams galvanized sheet steel market and 5.14 percent of its galvanized steel pipe market last year, data from the Vietnam Steel Association showed.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the TS government on a PIL seeking to declare as illegal Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao using public money to fulfil his personal vows.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice Shameem Akhter, while admitting the PIL by social activists Kancha Ilaiah and G. Ramulu, asked the Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary to Endowments department to file counter affidavits giving details of the offering made by the state government.

The petitioners brought to the notice of the court that the Endowments department of the state has issued two GOs on February 24, 2017, releasing about Rs 5 crore for the offerings from the Common Good Fund.

A. Satya Prasad, senior counsel appearing for the petitioners, contended that the CM cannot use the CGF funds for his personal vows and it was against the Constitution and also contrary to the principle of a secular state.

When the bench sought to know about the CGF, counsel explained that the Fund is meant to meet salaries of Archaks and expenses of daily prayers of temples.

The bench adjourned the case for four weeks after directing the respondents to file their affidavits.
Mangaluru: An attendant at Gundmi toll gate on the Kochi-Mumbai National Highway on Saturday swiped Rs 4 lakh instead of Rs 40 from a doctors debit card.

According to a report, the incident took place on Saturday night when the doctor from Mysuru, Karnataka, was heading to Mumbai in his car. The doctor handed over his debit card to his driver to pay the toll fee and collected the receipt.

However, minutes later he received the transaction detail via text message and told the toll gate staff that he had been charged Rs 4 lakh. For two hours the doctor tried to get his money but in vain, as the toll gate staff refused to accept the error.

Failing to retrieve his money, the doctor lodged a complaint at a police station, located about 5 kms away in Kota.

The toll staff admitted the error when he returned with a constable. They then contacted their superiors and returned Rs 3,99,960 in cash to the doctor.
Hyderabad: Thirty-year-old N. K. Krishnaya from Mahabubnagar died on Monday night and his relatives allege that he was not given oxygen by the ward boys at the Chest Hospital.

On their complaint, two ward boys, Dhanajay Raju and Mohammed Nadeem, were suspended by the hospital superintendent, Dr Sai Kumar, on Tuesday morning. The patient Krishnaya was suffering from bilateral tuberculosis and both his lungs had collapsed.

According to his wife K Lakshmi, who complained to the hospital, The first oxygen cylinder given in the morning got over by one oclock in the afternoon. We told the nurses and they instructed the ward boys to bring one more cylinder. But they (the ward boys) demanded Rs 150 for doing that. We said we have no money as we are poor. They didnt get the cylinder at all and he died.

Lakshmi also complained to the duty doctors who screamed at the ward boys and asked them to help the patient by getting the cylinder. But the ward boys didnt listen to them either.

A senior doctor, on condition of anonymity, explained that for work like this, the ward boys are in charge as they are the ones who pull the stretcher or move the cylinder from the store room to the ward. The patient came in a very severe condition and his wife was very restless. She asked the nurses to look at him because of his failing health. The nurses also instructed the ward boys to get the cylinder quickly. They complained to the resident medical officer about the behaviour of the ward boys.

Ward boys are class IV employees and they demand bribes from every patie-nts relative. Those who pay the bribe, which starts at Rs 20, are looked after properly. This shocking practice is widely prevalent in government hospitals. After her husbands demise, Lakshmi and other relatives refused to leave. They first lodged a complaint with the superintendent, Dr Sai Kumar.

They have named both the ward boys in their complaint and we have suspended them, said Dr Sai Kumar. We are going to investigate the matter and find out what actually transpired. The patient came in a very critical condition as both lungs were completely damaged due to which he could not survive. But whether the cylinder got over by noon and why were the instructions of the RMO not followed will be investigated.

Senior doctors leave the hospital around 2 pm and patients are then at the mercy of ward boys and nurses. Junior doctors and in-charge post-graduates present are unable to exert their authority over the ward boys who are said to rule over the hospital.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley and minister of petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan during Holi celebrations in New Delhi on Monday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley was on Monday given the additional charge of the defence ministry after Manohar Parrikar resigned to take on the new role of Goa Chief Minister.

A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said that the resignation of Mr Parrikar as the defence minister, on the advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been accepted with immediate effect.

Mr Parrikar had submitted his resignation after the BJP staked claim to form an alliance government in Goa. He will be heading the BJP-led ministry which has the support of regional outfits and Independents.

Meanwhile, the Congress moved the Supreme Court challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinhas decision to appoint Mr Parrikar as the chief minister. The hurriedly filed petition late in the evening was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice J.S. Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing on Tuesday. The petition filed by Goa CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar has sought a stay on the swearing-in of Mr Parrikar as the CM.

In Manipur, N. Biren Singh was unanimously elected leader of the BJP Legislature Party, paving the way for his becoming the next chief minister, more so as a reluctant Ibobi Singh of Congress put in his papers as Chief Minister on Monday after having threatened to stay on against the Governors wishes. N. Biren has been unanimously elected leader of the BJP LP. He is the partys CM candidate, Union minister Piyush Goel told reporters. Mr Biren will meet Governor Najma Heptullah and stake claim to form the next government, said Mr Goel, who was present at the meeting, adding we have the support of smaller parties.

A minister in the Ibobi Singh-led Congress government, Mr Biren said, I had left the Congress protesting against its misrule and misgovernance, he said.

Congress says it is a murder of democracy

Even as the BJP said it had the legitimacy and the numbers to form the governments in Goa and Manipur, the Congress cried hoarse saying it is a murder of democracy. In both these states, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly elections.

Hitting out at the BJP, the Congress said the party should be aware that governments are not formed on the basis of popular vote share. Parrikar did not contest polls? So how do we know that he is popular among the people? This is the murder of democracy in broad daylight, Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said.

With the BJP staking claim to form governments in Goa and Manipur, Mr Jaitley said the Governor is right in case of a hung verdict in inviting the leader of the majority coalition.

In a hung Assembly, if majority of the elected MLAs form a coalition, the Governor would be constitutionally right in inviting the leader of the majority coalition to form the government and prove their majority within a short period, Mr Jaitley tweeted.
New Delhi: The issue of government formation in Goa and Manipur is set to rock the Lok Sabha with the Congress deciding to move an adjournment motion today.

Sources said that the leader of Congress in the lower house, Mallikarjun Kharge, along with some other party MPs, will move the motion while seeking to raise the issue and demand a discussion on it.

The Congress has alleged that the BJP is moving against the law and precedent in forming their governments in Goa and Manipur, saying they are the single largest party in both states.

In Goa, the Congress has 17 legislators followed by BJP with 13, Goa Forward Party and MGP with three each, three independents and NCP (one).

The party has won 28 seats in Manipur while the BJP has secured 21. The NPP and the NPF have won four seats each, with the LJP and the Trinamool Congress bagging one seat each.

The BJP leadership with their MLAs had met the Manipur governor along with the NPP president, the four MLAS of his party and the lone LJP and TMC MLAs, besides one from the Congress.

The saffron party has claimed it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur assembly.

Peeved with the BJP, many Congress leaders have said that the single largest party should have been invited by the governors of both states to form the government.

The Congress has already moved the Supreme Court challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of the state. In Manipur too, the Congress is exploring legal options.
The date has been set. Former chief minister S.M. Krishna will join the BJP on March 15 in Delhi, giving the saffron party a better shot at winning over the Vokkaligas of the state, particularly in the old Mysuru region, in the run-up to the 2018 assembly polls.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, senior BJP leader, R. Ashok said Mr Krishna, who has also served as a former External Affairs Minister of the country, would be inducted into the party by BJP national president Amit Shah, at the BJP headquarters in the presence of state party chief, B.S.Yeddyurappa and other leaders.

"Mr Krishna's entry into the party will strengthen our presence in the Vokkaliga stronghold of old Mysuru. We don't have a tall Vokkaliga leader currently in the party and his entry will fill this vacuum," he admitted.

The BJP, which is looking to counter the strong presence of the Janata Dal (Secular) in the old Mysuru region, believes the veteran leader, who has spent most of his political life in the Congress, will help its chances greatly.

Going by BJP sources, while Mr Krishna has set no demands to join the party, having sought neither a party post nor any other position, he could be made Governor of a state by the Union government.

The party believes this could be up his street as he is not keen on contesting elections anymore given his advancing age.

For the immediate future, the BJP is banking on him to campaign for its candidates in the Nanjanagud and Gundlupet by-elections, sources reveal.
Former Union minister Srinivasprasad who will contest next months by poll to the Assembly from Nanjangud on a BJP ticket

Former Union minister Srinivasprasad who will contest next months by poll to the Assembly from Nanjangud on a BJP ticket, charged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with making attempts to drive a wedge between dalits, and to weaken their leaders.

Reacting to statements against him by Mr Druvanarayan, MP, he told the media on Monday: "It is Mr Siddaramaiah's conspiracy to finish Dalit leaders by instigating one against another. Earlier, Mr Siddaramaiah said PWD minister Dr Mahadevappa's son will be the candidate for the bypoll but kept him away. Now, they (Congress leaders) are fielding Kalale Keshavmurthy, a relative of Mr Druvanarayan. Now, Mr Druvanarayan is speaking against me, but he should be aware that even he will be sent out some day.".

Srinivas Prasad did not spare Dr Mahadevappa during his diatribe. "Dr Mahadevappa is disappointed as he hoped his son will be fielded in Nanjangud. He fell unconscious during his son's wedding, but comments on my health."
Imphal: Four Naga People's Front (NPF) MLAs today met Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla and extended their support to the BJP for formation of the new government in the state.

The NPF is a constituent of the NDA. Earlier, four National People's Party (NPP) legislators had extended their support to the BJP.

"Four NPF MLAs met the Governor and extended their support to the BJP for government formation," a highly placed Raj Bhavan source said.

The BJP has claimed that it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly.

A BJP delegation had met the Governor on Sunday with 21 party MLAs besides 4 NPP MLAs, one LJP and TMC MLA and a Congress MLA.

BJP had also claimed that they have the support of the NPF and also submitted a letter from the Naga People's Front president pledging their support to the BJP to form the government.

Raj Bhavan sources had earlier said that the Governor wanted to meet the NPF MLAs and verify on her own as to whom they are supporting in the formation of the next government in the hung Manipur Assembly.

The Congress has won 28 seats in Manipur while the BJP has secured 21. The NPP and the NPF have won four seats each. Lokjanshakti Party and Trinamool Congress bagged one seat each.
While acknowledging that social media, especially WhatsApp had played a major role in the BJP's stellar performance in Uttar Pradesh and other states in the recent elections, he claimed he had planned to use social media for his party's campaign around two months ago. (Photo:AFP)

Stealing a march over the BJP, which is expected to use social media in a big way to reach out to people in the run- up to the 2018 polls in Karnataka, Janata Dal (S) chief, H.D. Kumaraswamy announced his presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud and Google Plus on Monday, showing he means to connect to voters in every way possible. While acknowledging that social media, especially WhatsApp had played a major role in the BJP's stellar performance in Uttar Pradesh and other states in the recent elections, he claimed he had planned to use social media for his party's campaign around two months ago. "A team of 35 has been working on this for the party. I intend to spend at least 4-5 hours a day in live chatting with people over Twitter and Facebook," he told reporters .
Nongthombam Biren Singh is greeted after he was elected at BJP legislature party leader in Imphal. (Photo: PTI)

Imphal: Manipur Governor Najma Heptullah on Tuesday invited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form government in the state. BJPs Nongthombam Biren Singh will take oath as the Chief Minister on Wednesday.

BJP chief Amit Shah and Union Minister Jitendra Singh will attend the swearing in ceremony to be held in Imphal on Wednesday, ANI reported.

Singh was unanimously elected as the leader of the BJP Legislature Party on Monday. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Singh said the BJP's only motto is "United Manipur".

"Legally we have the right. We have to form the government in Manipur. My message to Manipur is please cooperate with the coming BJP government. We will serve the people of Manipur without making any difference, all will be treated equally. Basically our motto is united Manipur," Singh told ANI.

Lauding the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh said the 'Modi magic' is driving the people of Manipur 'crazy'.

"More responsibility will be there because the magic of Modi ji is making the people crazy. What he said he did. He thought for the poor of the poorest," said Singh.

"Right now, the state is bankrupt. So, our plan is to seek everything from the Centre because we do not have our own resources," he added.

The BJP, which won 21 seats in the 60-member Manipur Assembly, had managed to secure support of the the Naga People's Front (NPF), the National People's Party (NPP), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and other newly elected MLAs.

Ibobi Singh who has been serving as chief minister for 15 years since 2002, was reluctant to resign from the post on Sunday. However, he later submitted his resignation to the Governor and was again elected the leader of the Congress Legislature Party. Late on Monday night, he had staked claim to form the government.

Ibobi Singh has argued that Congress being the single largest party with 28 seats should be given the first opportunity to form the government. "I am ready for a floor test and I have the numbers with me," he said.

In his meeting with Heptullah last night, he claimed to have the support of four National People's Party MLAs. "On seeing names of four NPP MLAs on an ordinary piece of paper, Heptullah asked Ibobi Singh to bring the NPP president and the MLAs," a Raj Bhavan source said.

NPP general secretary Vivek Raj, however, said that the party and all its MLAs were with BJP.

BJP on Monday claimed that it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly, one more than the required number of 31.

BJP claimed to have support of Shyamkumar, one of the 28 Congress MLAs, the lone MLA of both LJP and All India Trinamool Congress, besides four MLAs each of NPP and NPF.

Outgoing Deputy CM, Gaikhangam, however, described as "completely baseless" reports that Congress legislators including Shyamkumar, were in touch with the BJP.

State Congress general secretary Vidyapati Gautam accused the BJP of indulging in "horse trading". N Biren Singh, however, denied the charges.
Containers transporting coal sit at the dock before being loaded onto a Chinese ship at a port of the Cua Ong Coal Preparation company in Cam Pha town, Vietnam. Photo by Reuters

The planned location is too close to Ho Chi Minh City, threatening air and water pollution to home of about 13 million people.

A project to build a $5-billion coal-fired power plant just outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest, has raised concerns over environmental impact.

Vietnam has been under pressure to raise its power generation capacity to meet an economic expansion above 5 percent in recent years, while the Southeast Asian nation still relies heavily on coal-fired power plants, a factor criticized by environmentalists due to air pollution and its serious impact on human health.

The government is planning to build a thermal power complex comprising the 2,800-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Long An Province, the southwestern neighbor of Ho Chi Minh City, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade has sought opinions on two sites for construction, the Saigon Times reported.

The plant project is part of Vietnams broader efforts to meet energy demand, which grew more than 20 percent per year throughout the 1990s, and 15 percent on average in the 2000s based on a World Bank report last month.

Designed to use coal imported from Indonesia and Australia, the plant should be near a port which is capable of accommodating tankers of up to 50,000 dead-weight tons, the newspaper cited the transport ministry as saying.

But the proposed location in close proximity to Ho Chi Minh City, home to about 13 million people, will threaten the environment with air and water pollution, said the city government, which has plans to develop a new urban area of 1,354 hectares (3,300 acres) adjacent to Long An Province.

Coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and the leading source of carbon-dioxide emissions.

The countrys emissions of carbon dioxide will rise as more coal-fired power plants are under construction. Coal plants are forecast to emit three times more ash by 2030, according to Hanoi-based sustainability advocate organization GreenID.

Air pollution from Vietnamese coal-fired power plants killed 4,300 people in 2011, Vietnam News cited a Harvard University study as saying. Air pollution has attracted more public attention in the past few years as heavy smog envelops swathes of the nation including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The level of PM2.5, the small particles that pose the greatest risk to human health, averaged 50.5 micrograms per cubic meter last year in Hanoi, double the national standard and five times higher than WHO standards, based on a Green ID report.

Compared to Hanoi, the pollution problem in Ho Chi Minh City was less severe. Last year, the southern metropolis only experienced 14 polluted days by national standards and 175 days by WHO standards.

Green ID said both cities were swamped in exhaust fumes emitted by a huge number of vehicles, industrial zones, construction sites, thermal power plants, waste incineration, household cooking and trans-boundary pollution.

Broader trend

Vietnam plans to cut electricity generation by coal-fired thermal power plants to 53.2 percent of the total electricity generation by 2030, from 56.4 percent now, in a bid to slash the concentration of pollutants.

The country is also turning to renewable energy, particularly solar and wind energy, with a target of 10.7 percent of the total electricity generation by 2030 coming from renewables compared to just 3.7 percent in 2013.

But Vietnam still has a long way to go to ease its reliance on fossil fuels for power generation.

Formally a net coal exporter, it had recently turned into a net importer of the fossil and bought in 13.3 million tons last year, a 92.4 percent surge from 2015, customs data showed.

The industry and trade ministry has projected coal import to soar to 35 million tons a year by 2020 and 80 million tons by 2025.
Bengaluru: Evidently miffed with some party leaders of Odisha unit as well as leaders of the students' wing, and differences with them which resulted in a dismal show by the Congress in recent zilla parishad polls, AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad has quit his post as well as membership of the AICC Working Committee.

He told the media here that he originally offered to resign on March 9 owning moral responsibility for the party's poor show in these polls. He, however, ruled out quitting the party as he was a loyal party worker. "I will not think of quitting the party even in my wildest dreams," he added.

Soon after the death of Odisha Congress leader Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra's death, differences within the state unit had increased. The upshot: Mr Hariprasad had to face the ire of students' leaders in Odisha, leading to suspension of some of them. The students' wing threatened Mr Hariprasad that he would be greeted with black flags through his tour of Odisha. Such differences resulted in BJD returning to power in many zilla parishads, and the Congress making way for BJP to occupy the position of principal opposition party.
New Delhi: Congress and its UPA allies on Tuesday staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha to protest the alleged efforts to install BJP government in Goa and Manipur despite it having the numbers.

Members of Congress, NCP and RJD raised the issue during Question Hour. Congress leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that democracy is being murdered.

When the Speaker said she would not allow the Question Hour to be disrupted and members should raise such matters in the Zero Hour, Kharge said if they are not allowed to raise the issue in the House, where else would they go.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said since the Congress leader has used "strong words", they should either be expunged or the government be allowed to respond.

The Speaker said nothing beyond the questions and answers will be allowed to go on record.

The Congress, NCP and RJD members then staged a walkout. The Congress has alleged that the BJP is moving against the law and precedent in forming their governments in Goa and Manipur, saying they are the single largest party in both the states.
Chennai: The battle lines for R K Nagar bypoll will become clearer this week as leading parties are involved in selection of candidates, while others are seriously deliberating the pros and cons of picking up the gauntlet.

The ruling AIADMK will hold its governing council meeting on March 15 to decide on its candidate. No other name except that of party deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dinakaran has cropped up in the party circles so far.

The breakaway group headed by former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam too has formed a governing council to choose the candidate. AIADMK presidium chairman E. Madhusudanan had contested in the seat in 1989 as the nominee of Jayalalithaa faction of the AIADMK and got over 25 per cent votes. Later, he was elected from the same seat in 1991 and became a minister. But, his age and health condition can hamper him from carrying out a hectic campaign.

All parties are keenly watching the move of the BJP following indications that state president Tamilisai Soundararajan could be fielded in RK Nagar, in the national partys first initiative to storm the Dravidian citadel after a fabulous victory in Uttar Pradesh.

Showing surprising quickness, DMDK leader Vijayakanth, who used to delay any decision related to polls till the final hour, was the first to announce his North Chennai district secretary Madhivanan as the party candidate.

MDMK led by Vaiko had decided to wait and watch the developments in the other parties before making up its mind over throwing its hat in the ring.

The partys high level meeting in Tiruchy on March 18, two days after the nomination date, will take a decision on contesting the bypoll. The PMK remains silent on by bypoll, while Naam Thamizhar has not announced its candidate.

The nominations for the bypoll will begin on March 16, but the parties have time till March 23. However, the bypoll seen as an indicator of the changing dynamics in state politics after Jayalalithaas demise, parties are very crucial for all parties. So, they are mostly likely to finalise their position and strategy before the end of this week to gain a headstart over their rivals.

Exemptions for travel expenses: Ahead of the RK Nagar by-election, exemptions for travel expenses should be communicated to the Election Commission of India/ Chief Electoral Officer on or before March 23, a week from the publishing of notification for the constituencys by-election (March 16). The benefit will be available for maximum of 20 in the case of unrecognised political party and 40 for recognised political party.

DMK to announce RK Nagar bypoll candidate today

DMK working president M.K. Stalin on Monday conducted the interview for selection of candidates for RK Nagar bypoll and said the party nominee would be announced on March 14.

About 17 candidates including Shimla Muthuchozhan had attended the interview for candidate selection on Monday. Stalin was accompanied by DMK general secretary K. Anbazhagan and principal secretary K. Duraimurugan in the interview.
New Delhi: After the drubbing at the hands of the BJP in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections, Congress vice-resident Rahul Gandhi called for structural changes in the party. He broke his silence on Tuesday and stressed that the results were not bad though the party was a little down in Uttar Pradesh.

It was the grand old partys worst performance in Uttar Pradesh where it could only manage 7 out of the 403 assembly seats even after a pre-poll tie-up with the ruling Samajwadi Party.

Mr Gandhi alleged that the success of the BJP was largely due to polarisation of voters. Earlier, he joined the chorus of party leaders denouncing the BJP, accusing the saffron party of undermining democracy in Goa and Manipur by use of money power.

They are saying that it is okay for them to misuse the office of the Governor...In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP, he said.

Talking to mediapersons about questions about his leadership after the poll debacle, he called for initiating changes within, and hailed the role of regional leaders who fought and emerged victorious. He said, As far as the Congress party is concerned, we do need to make structural and organisational changes and that is a fact.

That is not a bad result. It is true that we lost the election in UP and Uttarakhand, he said. There are ups and down for every party, Mr Gandhi said, adding, We had a little down in UP which is fine, we accept it. But we have an ideological fight with the BJP and we will continue to do that.

Several senior leaders of the Congress have already started demanding accountability to be fixed for the poll debacle.
Hyderabad: Stating that the mega annual Budget indicated that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was inclined to go for snap polls in 2018, , TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Tuesday said that the Congress was ready to face the electorate, be it in 2018 or 2019.

Speaking to newsmen at Gandhi Bhavan, Mr Reddy said that the Congress, as main Opposition in the state, has the right to question the misdeeds and misuse of funds by the TRS government.

We have the right to question the government when it wasted over `70,000 crore in just 2.5 years and was now mortgaging state assets. It has brought no tangible results nor any improvement of the states economy, he said.

The TPCC chief said: Except making the state No. 1 in respect of liquor consumption and massive defections of legislators into the TRS, there is no other achievement which the state can boast of.

Responding to minister K.T. Rama Raos snide remark that Congress will not win as long as Rahul Gandhi was at the helm of affairs, Mr Reddy said: KTR is ignorant of the sacrifices Rahul Gandhi and his family members made for the nation. Rahul is not like KTR who came back from US only to loot the state.

Responding to minister Harish Raos comments on the Congress highlighting fudging of GSDP figures, Mr Reddy said, Probably Harish Rao may not aware that it is the state government that provides the figures to the Centre which in turn put them on the website."
Hyderabad: Jana Sena chief and actor Pawan Kalyan on Tuesday announced that his party will field candidates in the 2019 general elections in both the Telugu states.

Speaking to the media after launching his partys website on its third anniversary, Mr Kalyan said that his brother K. Chiranjeevi wouldnt be joining the Jana Sena as their ideologies were different.

Regarding political alliances, he said that the partys leadership would discuss this after its structure is set up. Jana Sena would allot more than 60 per cent of seats to the youth. I will contest from Anantapur, Mr Kalyan said.

He said that people of both the Telugu states were waiting for a youthful leadership as the existing and ruling parties have ditched them on all fronts.

The actor-politician said that coming to power was not the main agenda of his party, rather, clean politics without the influence of money and resolution of peoples problems were the top priorities of the Jana Sena.

He said that the Jana Sena would always fight for the wellbeing of the people, irrespective of the outcome of elections. Mr Kalyan said that he was searching for a proper young leader who has the peoples confidence.

He said that it was not correct to criticise the TD government in AP and added that the policies and programmes of the government were not reaching the people properly.

He said that the Jana Sena would be quite selective when admitting senior leaders into the party. Mr Kalyan also disclosed that he would be touring TS soon.
After the results of the recently-concluded Assembly elections in five states, several questions are being asked. Is this verdict an indication of approval of the policy of demonetisation? Should these results be interpreted as an endorsement of the policies pursued by the Narendra Modi government? More political questions are also being asked  Is the country moving towards a Congress-mukt Bharat? Is this an end to the Aam Aadmi Partys national expansion ambitions?

The BJPs massive victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand clearly indicates that the people did not object to the policy of demonetisation. However, it would be too early to conclude that the note ban got widespread approval across the five states where the elections were held.

The BJP registered a massive victory in two states, winning 325 seats with 39.7 per cent votes in Uttar Pradesh and winning 57 seats with massive 46.5 per cent votes in Uttarakhand, but it may be difficult to conclude that this victory is largely an endorsement of the policy of demonetisation.

An unconditional approval of the policy of demonetisation should have helped the BJP to win by a large margin in Goa and, at least, being able to increase its voteshare in Punjab. It did manage to make its presence felt in Manipur in a big way, getting the largest share of the popular vote, but it may not be attributed to voters support for demonetisation.

One factor that worked in favour of the BJP in these elections was the popularity and image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the enormous goodwill he commands and tremendous faith that the people have in him for development of the country. In fact, after demonetisation, one important image which Mr Modi has been able to add to these qualities is his commitment to work for the poor even at the cost of the rich, who are seen as corrupt and dishonest.

Along with his image of being honest and his commitment for development, this new addition appealed to voters in five states. The policy of demonetisation indirectly helped the BJP in consolidating support though this new pro-poor brand of Mr Modi.

The issues that were being raised by the BJP clearly indicate that the party was not trying to contest these elections on the basis of its achievements at the Centre. The elections were largely contested on local issues. This doesnt mean these results in any way indicate a rejection of policies of the Central government. But one should not forget such a victory of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh is also credited to a cleverly crafted social coalition of upper castes, non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav dalits who seemed to have voted for the party in large numbers, while it also attracted votes from other communities.

In Goa, though the party actually won fewer seats than the Congress, it was ahead of the Congress in terms of voteshare (BJP 32.5 per cent Congress 28.4 per cent). In Manipur, a state where the BJP had no presence in the 2012 elections, it managed to not only win 21 of the 60 Assembly seats, but left behind the Congress with regard to the popular vote (BJP 36.3 per cent, Congress 35.1 per cent).

It is only in Punjab that the voteshare of the BJP declined from seven per cent in 2012 to 5.4 per cent in the recent elections, where the Congress registered a landslide victory, winning 77 of the total 117 Assembly seats, though its voteshare declined from 40 per cent in 2012 to 38.5 per cent in these elections, much of which was cornered by the AAP. But with such a verdict, can we conclude that the country is moving towards a Congress-mukt Bharat  a dream which many BJP leaders want to fulfil?

In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress had been lying low. It made an attempt to revive itself by aligning with the Samajwadi Party, but failed miserably. They Congress lost Uttarakhand badly, but managed to win comfortably in Punjab.

In Manipur, while the BJPs performance was exceptional, the Congress, which failed to form a government for the fourth term, still managed to hold on to 15 years of anti-incumbency by emerging as the single-largest party in terms of seats.

Similarly, in Goa, while the BJP secured a higher voteshare vis-a- vis the Congress, in terms of seats, the Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 17 seats, the highest number of seats it has received in Goa after 1999. Though the Congress did not perform well in these elections, the overall situation of the Congress did not deteriorate further, and based on the verdict of the five states one can argue that there hasnt been any further movement on the BJPs pipedream of a Congress-mukt Bharat.

The AAP managed to perform much below its expectations, but by no means can its achievements be ignored. The party managed to win 20 Assembly seats, and emerged as the principal Opposition in the Punjab Assembly. The AAP managed to garner sizeable support, polled 24 per cent votes. For any new party this is a decent performance, it looks poor only if one compares it with the tall claims which several leaders of the party made time and again during the elections of not only winning but sweeping the polls in Punjab. The results of the Punjab Assembly elections could act as a dampener but it doesnt put a full stop to the AAPs plans to expand beyond Delhi. I think it is time for the leaders of the party to realise that a successful national expansion is possible only through hard work, and not merely by rhetoric.
There is no doubt that the Sino-Indian border has become more problematic than what it was 100 years ago. And the bad news is that both sides have to answer first to their domestic audience before addressing the bilateral issue.

A media report China ready to cede land for part of Arunachal? made an interesting point, but without substance, as several unanswered questions instantaneously crossed ones mind. Thoughts went back and forth to several media stories of the late 1950s and the news of that fateful day of the Chinese attack on the Kameng sector of Arunachal Pradesh, then the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), in India, Bhutan and Tibet trijunction, early in the morning on October 20, 1962, in which the rag-tag, ill-equipped, starving, ammunitionless, shorn of woollens and obsolete, 303 bolt rifles (with 10-round capacity) grasping Indian soldiers of four crack units of 1 Sikh, 2 Rajput, 9 Punjab and 1/9 Gurkhas were wiped out followed by the forlorn brigadier, of 7th Brigade of 4 Infantry Division of IV Corps, being taken prisoner of war by the PLA.

Fifty-five years later, the Chinese have now (reportedly) come up with a new formula to settle the dispute. What is this new formula? And what was the old one? In what way is the new formula an improvement over the old one? One has to first try and analyse the new formula, and then compare both.

The new Chinese proposal wants India to cede the Tawang tract to pave the way for a settlement. How? According to the Chinese: If the Indian side takes care of Chinas concerns on the eastern section of the border, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address Indias concerns elsewhere. India to take Chinas concerns on the eastern section of the border. Specific. Precise. It is Arunachal Pradesh. But Indias concerns are unaddressed, unfocused and unspecified. It talks of Indias concerns elsewhere? What and where is this elsewhere? North, south, central, west of the Himalayas, where? Though unsaid and unspecified, elsewhere implies the eastern border/sector of Jammu and Kashmir as it simply cannot be Rajasthan, West Bengal, Punjab or Haryana. But why this sudden shift of goalposts after more than five decades? It is time to explore and remind the Chinese of some salient features of the issue.

Let the fundamentals be clear  that the present Sino-India border imbroglio is the legacy inherited from the 19th-20th century competitive imperialism of London and Moscow, with a comparatively weaker, and hence smaller, imperial China trying hard to remain relevant in the periphery/tertiary, with its own territorial ambition; an enterprise which, however, ceased to exist in 1911-1912, on the eve of the First World War (1914). The entire gamut of Great Eurasian border games peaked as an Anglo-Russian bilateral, which soon created multiple and multi-front situations after the Second World War and the unavoidable imperial retreat of the West. The retreat, in its turn, however, left behind a vitiated vacuum filled by competitive and overlapping nationalist Sino-Indian aspirations around and across the Himalayas, leading to the October 1962 Sino-Indian war.

In fact, contrary to what the Chinese are suggesting today, their illustrious predecessor, Zhou Enlai, had crisply clarified the genesis of the problem: The McMahon Line was a product of the British policy of aggression In view of the various complex factors, the Chinese government on the one hand finds it necessary to take a more or less realistic attitude towards the McMahon Line and, on the other hand, cannot but act with prudence and needs time to deal with this matter. Zhou had made his point. There were two front problems. Arunachals McMahon Line in the east and Ladakh/Aksai Chin sector, constituting the north-eastern frontier of J&K, adjoining western Tibet. The interesting point is that whereas the McMahon Line constituted the sole point of difference of opinion between China and India, the western sector of Ladakh-Aksai Chin-Lhasa axis had multiple demarcated or delineated borders at different times by different personalities, thus making it more complex and complicated for both China and India to come to a common minimum (base) agreement.

In the western sector there are at least four lines which overlap/ differ with each other, thereby creating complications. First, the Foreign Office line of 1873, falling south of the Karakoram range, takes Indias northern border from north of Galwan river to a straight south-eastern point of Lanak La. The second is the Macartney-MacDonald line of 1899, beginning at the Karakoram Pass, which forms a watershed (in line with the Karakoram range) between two systems of rivers. The first system, north of the line, consists of Karakash river, flowing south to north (which shows it to be beyond India). The second system of rivers, south of the line, Chip Chap, Galwan, Chang Chenmo and Shyok flowing north to south and falling under the Indian side. The third is the Johnson-Ardagh Line, beginning north of Karakoram range (from Shahidullah) and running northwest to southeast (north of Haji Langar), turning sharply to south from Kunlun Mountains, and ending at Lanak La (which is virtually at the southernmost tip of the Karakoram range). And finally, there stands the alignment of British Boundary Commission of 1946-1947. All four taken together make a royal British imperial frontier cocktail of the orient, thereby leaving Beijing and New Delhi to thrash out the knotty boundary issue through mutual thrashing of each others soldiers in the high hills of the Himalayas.

There is no doubt that the Sino-Indian border has become more problematic than what it was 100 years ago. And the bad news is that both sides have to answer first to their domestic audience before addressing the bilateral issue. In this situation, the fresh Chinese proposal does not help anyone at all. Indias Arunachal of 1947, 1949 or 1962 cannot be compared to the Arunachal of 2017.

No doubt the Dalai Lama crossed over to India on March 30, 1959 through Tawang, Arunachal, and was received by Indian officials at Tezpur on April 18, 1959. Nevertheless, China needs to understand that their tacit consent to accept the McMahon Line as the de facto Sino-Indian border in the 1950s must have been in their mind when they retreated to the prewar Line of Actual Control in the aftermath of the October-November 1962 war, thereby giving credence to the McMahon Line as the mutually accepted and acceptable border in Indias Northeast.

Chinas position, unlike that of India, in Central Asian topography is unlikely to be a bed of roses owing to non-Indian factors. As it is, India, after having faced ceaseless invasions through its northwest frontier, before and since 1947, also found China fully exploiting the situation, first with its military alliance with Pakistan, and then with the CPEC. Although, initially the former prima facie, did not violate Indias J&K territory, CPEC constitutes a direct assault on Indian sovereignty. And that must not be ignored or overlooked by China even as it now proposes to make an impossible-to-accept, change of border-resolution goalpost.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has looked for many different signs of alien life, from radio broadcasts to laser flashes, without success. However, newly published research suggests that mysterious phenomena called fast radio bursts could be evidence of advanced alien technology. Specifically, these bursts might be leakage from planet-sized transmitters powering interstellar probes in distant galaxies.

"Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," said theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking."

As the name implies, fast radio bursts are millisecond-long flashes of radio emission. First discovered in 2007, fewer than two dozen have been detected by gigantic radio telescopes like the Parkes Observatory in Australia or the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They are inferred to originate from distant galaxies, billions of light-years away.

Loeb and his co-author Manasvi Lingam (Harvard University) examined the feasibility of creating a radio transmitter strong enough for it to be detectable across such immense distances. They found that, if the transmitter were solar powered, the sunlight falling on an area of a planet twice the size of the Earth would be enough to generate the needed energy. Such a vast construction project is well beyond our technology, but within the realm of possibility according to the laws of physics.

Lingam and Loeb also considered whether such a transmitter would be viable from an engineering perspective, or whether the tremendous energies involved would melt any underlying structure. Again, they found that a water-cooled device twice the size of Earth could withstand the heat.

They then asked, why build such an instrument in the first place? They argue that the most plausible use of such power is driving interstellar light sails. The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth.

"That's big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances," added Lingam.

To power a light sail, the transmitter would need to focus a beam on it continuously. Observers on Earth would see a brief flash because the sail and its host planet, star and galaxy are all moving relative to us. As a result, the beam sweeps across the sky and only points in our direction for a moment. Repeated appearances of the beam, which were observed but cannot be explained by cataclysmic astrophysical events, might provide important clues about its artificial origin.

Loeb admits that this work is speculative. When asked whether he really believes that any fast radio bursts are due to aliens, he replied, "Science isn't a matter of belief, it's a matter of evidence. Deciding whats likely ahead of time limits the possibilities. It's worth putting ideas out there and letting the data be the judge.

The paper reporting this work has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available online.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

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There is need for regulation and monitoring of social media platforms and the medium cannot be allowed to turn into a "weapon of misogyny and harassment" against women in the name of freedom of expression, a top Indian-origin UN Women official has said.

UN Women Deputy Executive Director Lakshmi Puri voiced concern over the growing prevalence of cyber bullying, trolling and voyeurism, saying that such threats are "magnified" for women and girls and pose a big risk for them.

"We are very much in favour of regulation and monitoring of the world wide web and different platforms that exist like Facebook to say that you cannot, in the name of freedom of expression, allow this medium to be turned into another weapon of misogyny, harassment and violence against women and girls," Puri told PTI.

She said technology is a very powerful medium that can help fight stereotypes and the online platforms can be used for positive campaigning and creating positive social norms as well as for encouraging voice participation and women's leadership across different sectors.

"We very much call for bridging the digital divide for women and girls," she said.

Puri also described as "worrying" the huge wage gap that exists between men and women for equal pay for work of equal value.

Citing the figures for India, she said women's equal participation in the economy can further increase GDP by 27 per cent. She expressed concern that the female labour force participation in India is declining and currently stands at 22 per cent.

Gender wage gap across sectors in the country is as high as 50-75 per cent and 93 per cent of the labour force is in the informal employment. Of this a large proportion is women who have little or no social protection.

"The whole issue of recruitment, retention and promotion needs to be addressed in a totally different way because women face barriers at every stage," she said.

"On the issue of unpaid care work, work at home is not considered work. It's about changing the whole mindset about valuing women's work as work. It may not be employment because it is not remunerative in the same way but it is not a question of paying but of recognising that that is work too," she said.

Puri cited estimates to point out that the value of women's unpaid care work and domestic work could be as high 16 trillion dollars but said it is appalling that this does not show up in any GDP. She welcomed the Indian Parliament approving a bill granting women working in the organised sector paid maternity leave of 26 weeks, up from 12 weeks now.

"How much of a difference does a longer maternity leave that gives women time to recover and be able to take care of a new born makes. A longer maternity leave is also very important for retention of the women employee," she said.

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The long-lost Mickey Mouse in Vietnam film Disney didn't want you to see

Keep in mind that its not the usual happy-go-lucky Mickey story.

One of the perks of surfing the internet with no real purpose in mind is that you can stumble across all sorts of surprises.

And apart from those Trojan horse viruses (and other things that may require an immediate wipe of your browsing history), lets say the internet goddess tends to reward those who love to wander around the worldwide web.

Heres what is going to happen to you when you randomly google Mickey Mouse from Vietnam: you will find an amazing one-minute anti-war film that you will spend the rest of the day thinking about.

The long-lost Mickey Mouse in Vietnam film Disney didn't want you to see The long-lost Mickey Mouse in Vietnam film Disney didn't want you to see

The underground silent short film was created in 1968 by Lee Savage and Milton Glaser. The concept is very simple: the iconic character is shipped to Vietnam and only moments after his arrival, hes dead, his smile fading.

Various media reports suggest the film had been lost for many years until it was discovered in 2013 and posted on video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo, despite Disneys alleged efforts to destroy every copy. (The version in this article was retrieved from Foo Bar on YouTube.)

In an interview with Buzzfeed in 2013, Glaser said the famous Disney character was chosen as a symbol of the U.S.

Well, obviously Mickey Mouse is a symbol of innocence, and of America, and of success, and of idealism  and to have him killed, as a soldier is such a contradiction of your expectations, he was quoted as saying.

Glaser confirmed that the film was made for the Angry Arts Festival, which he described as a kind of protest event, inviting artists to produce something to represent their concerns about the war in Vietnam and a desire to end it.

Glaser is one of the most respected graphic designers in the U.S., best known for the I NY logo.

Related news:

>Disney's China fairytale begins with $5.5 bln park opening, eyes expansion
Progress reports are sent through the cloud to a remote physiotherapist, who can alter the exercises by sending instructions back to the tablet for the patient to see.

When Virgilio Bento's brother had to go to Cuba 20 years ago to receive cheap physiotherapy as he recovered from a life-threatening car crash back home in Portugal, he did not know it would inspire an innovation.

Now, after developing technology that uses body sensors and artificial intelligence for his doctorate in electronic engineering, Bento aims to transform the way victims of strokes and accidents physically recover.

The Stroke Wearable Operative Rehabilitation Device (SWORD) provides an exercise program on a tablet computer, which gives instructions to a patient, whose movements are monitored by sensors strapped to the body.

Progress reports are sent through the cloud to a remote physiotherapist, who can alter the exercises by sending instructions back to the tablet for the patient to see.

"It's not magic, it's simple," said Bento, explaining how his system could mark a sea change by dramatically reducing the cost of physical rehabilitation and making it affordable to millions.

"I saw first hand very vividly the challenges that my parents faced to provide intensive physical rehabilitation," he said. "I thought to myself 'ok this is a huge challenge that nobody is looking at, nobody is trying to solve, I will try to solve it'."

The market place for medical technology is exploding, but few solutions have been designed to aid the intensive physiotherapy required for serious conditions like stroke. Alternatives, like robotics, are vastly more expensive.

"There aren't enough therapists and the numbers (who need them) are only going to go up (as populations age)," said Tom Paprocki, managing director of the innovation and technology center at Direct Supply, America's leading provider of equipment and services to senior homes. "This kind of technology will help bridge that gap."

Paprocki has vetted 1,400 technology start-ups in the sector and says Bento's system is in the top five.

Bento's idea is simple -- to offer patients physical, interactive rehabilitation in the comfort of their own home by getting rid of the need for difficult and expensive visits to a physiotherapist at a clinic.

It has taken years to refine and adapt, relying on unique sensor technology and the latest advances in cloud computing. Initial results show 93 percent of patients improved their motor performance using the exercises provided by the system.

The yearly estimated cost of treating and caring for stroke survivors - where Bento has concentrated his research - is 30 billion euros ($32 billion) in Europe and 57 billion euros in the U.S., according to a report provided by Bento's company to the European Commission.

Bento says his system, which gives patients immediate feedback and a score on the number of right and wrong movements they perform, will cost one tenth of physiotherapy.

"At the end of each exercise the results appear, how many times I did the movements, how many medals I won," said Alvaro, 56, who has used the system after hip surgery. "There is virtual compensation if you do the exercises well, it's kind of fun and ends up being a bit of a game as well."

Bento won a development grant of 1 million euros from the European Union in 2014 under a program for technology models promising to "ultimately disrupt existing markets."

He has raised 1 million euros from private investors and is now launching another financing round of 3 million euros as he rolls out SWORD in the U.S. market.

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On the other side of the coin, the United States has been one of the most active in trying to create uniformity in the rules.

Despite preventative measures against bankruptcy fraud and money laundering, criminals are finding ways to exploit differing regulations in the United States and Europe.

In a recent study, two UT Dallas alumnae examine the frequency and implications of bankruptcy fraud and money laundering. They also assess the degree of cultural and ethical differences between these acts in the United States and Europe, where the crimes are more prevalent.

"The lack of uniformity between the financial systems and their regulations makes a lot of room for criminals to participate in these illegal activities. If somehow the nations of the world were able to create uniformity within their financial systems and the way regulations work, it would eliminate a lot of the crime that is happening right now," said co-author Brenda Limon.

The study found that while auditors and financial analysts are in the process of reducing bankruptcy fraud and money laundering, completely nullifying these issues may never be possible without a uniform structure of financial regulations.

The researchers analysed Hofstede's cultural model and how it pertains to financial regulations between the US and Europe.

"It was interesting to see the cultural differences across different nations and how they manifest in the policies and financial regulations," said co-author Pamela Wong.

She added, "Specifically for the US, one of the dimensions is low power distance, which means Americans prefer an equal distribution of power amongst individuals. This is exactly why the US has strong whistleblower protection against retaliation for people who speak out against corporations that commit these types of fraud."

"We found this tendency to look for short-term results sometimes pushes people in influential positions to commit crimes, either money laundering, bankruptcy fraud or the manipulation of financial statements," Limon said. "Because they find themselves under pressure to show stockholders that the company is growing, or has closed a deal, that pressure instigates them to make the mistake of doing whatever it takes to get quick results.

"On the other side of the coin, the United States has been one of the most active in trying to create uniformity in the rules. They're one of the countries trying to come up with regulations that fit not only their standards, but standards of other countries that are strongly tied to them financially."

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Reliance Jio after disrupting the telecom industry with its dirt cheap offers and data plans, the company is reportedly working on a low-cost 4G-enabled smartphone in collaboration with search giant Google.

The reports claim that the device will run exclusively on Google Android platform and is expected to the hit the shelves by the end of the year. This move will allow Reliance Jio to cater a larger audience using Googles worldwide network. The report also suggests that the Jio apps will also be well-integrated with Android 7 Nougat.

The report also claims that the companies have separately partnered for Jios smart TV services. Google will be providing the software for the TV services.

The report follows a statement by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during his India visit in January this year, where he said that there is huge need $30 smartphones in India. This could also boost Googles Android One plans which are currently on hold.

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Washington: A powerful nor'easter in the forecast has delayed a meeting between President Donald Trump and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, until later this week.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday has been postponed until Friday because of the coming storm.

The meeting will be the first between the two leaders. Their itinerary is set to include discussions on NATO, the Islamic State group and Ukraine's conflict, all matters that require close cooperation between the US and Germany, as well as a joint press conference.

A blast of late winter weather is expected to blanket much of the Northeast this week, with up to 8 inches of snow and sleet accumulation forecast for Washington, starting on Monday evening.
Seema Verma testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on her nomination to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: President Donald Trumps pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, Indian-American Seema Verma, won confirmation on Monday from a divided Senate as lawmakers braced for another epic battle over the governments role in health care and societys responsibility toward the vulnerable.

An Indiana health care consultant and a protege of Vice President Mike Pence, Verma was approved by a 55-43 vote, largely along party lines. Shell head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a $1 trillion agency that oversees health insurance programs for more than 130 million people, from elderly nursing home residents to newborns. Its part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Verma, a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from India, takes over at CMS as a House Republican health care bill backed by Trump would make sweeping changes to the agency.

That legislation would roll back key elements of former President Barack Obamas health care law, including its Medicaid expansion for low-income people. More significantly, the GOP bill would limit overall federal financing for Medicaid in the future. Taken together, those changes could leave 24 million more people uninsured by 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday in an assessment thats bound to complicate the bills already difficult path.

With a background in public health, Verma has said she wants government programs to improve health, not just pay bills. Shes been critical of Medicaid, saying the status quo is not acceptable for the federal-state insurance program that covers more than 70 million low-income people.

In Indiana, Verma designed a Medicaid expansion along conservative lines for Pence. Most beneficiaries are required to pay modest premiums. And the program uses financial rewards and penalties to steer patients to primary care providers instead of the emergency room. Critics say the plan has been confusing for beneficiaries and some have incurred penalties through no fault of their own.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Verma defended her approach by saying that low-income people are fully capable of making health care decisions based on rational incentives.

She also said she does not support turning Medicare into a voucher plan under which retirees would get a fixed federal contribution to purchase private coverage from government-regulated private insurance plans. Her boss, HHS Secretary Tom Price, is a prominent advocate of such an approach. Medicare covers more than 56 million seniors and disabled people.

Some state officials are welcoming Vermas arrival as a sign that Medicaid has come of age at an agency where it traditionally came in second to Medicare.

With Vermas confirmation and Price as health secretary, Trump has two of the most senior HHS officials in place. Last Friday, the president nominated Dr Scott Gottlieb to run the Food and Drug Administration. Nonetheless, many senior political appointee positions at HHS remain unfilled.
BJP workers play holi with a giant cut-out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they celebrate the partys victory in the UP and Uttarakhand Assembly elections, at the party headquarters in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a clear favourite for the 2019 general elections after the BJP's landslide victory in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, top US experts on India have said.

While one of the expert noted that the electoral results of the just concluded Assembly polls in five states show that the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were not an aberration, another noted that Modi would continue to lead India after 2019.

The Assembly elections do not signal much of a change. The Uttar Pradesh election results showed that the 2014 general elections were not an "aberration". Same is the case with Punjab, Adam Ziegfeld, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University said.

"It was a big win for the BJP. Its candidate won with much larger margin of victory than compared to the two previous winners - BSP and Samajwadi Party," he said.

Modi has been established by this election as the "clear and favourite winner" for the 2019 elections, Sadanand Dhume, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said.

"Modi is the front runner (for 2019)," he said. Irfan Nooruddin, a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at the Georgetown University predicted that in 2019, the BJP is unlikely to be get a simple majority and Modi would rather be heading a coalition government.

BJP is running a disciplines election campaign state-by-state, while the Opposition fails, he said. The party does not do good in a state where it faces a direct opposition. BJP is beatable if the Opposition comes together, Nooruddin said, adding that the party gains where it faces a fragmented opposition and in 2019, anti-incumbency would kick in.

In this election, the BJP played the cast card while pretending to be above it, Dhume who was in Uttar Pradesh during the elections, said.

"Demonetisation is extremely popular. Indian people who have suffered themselves in the wake of the policy, it won their heart and mind. Here is this man of sincerity who struck a principled blow to corrupt and the rich," he said referring to his conversation with people in the state.

Dhume, however, noted that Modi after this historic victory in Uttar Pradesh is unlikely to go for the kind of economic reforms the private sector would like to have.

India is going to bump up its economic reforms that directly effects the people of the country, said Alyssa Ayres, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the

Council on Foreign Relations

Picking up four governments in states all across India, and having future prospects, it is unlikely to have an impact on foreign policy. Like demonetisation #IamNewIndia is the pledge that the Prime Minister is asking citizens to be part of his new India campaign.

BJP will now pick up a lot of seats in Rajya Sabha which would help the ruling party to carry out its long pending reform like the land acquisition reform and labor reforms.

They would tart picking up seats is early as 2018. BJP is looking at 2019 and beyond.
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that 50 North Koreans would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban. (Photo: AFP)

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia will deport 50 North Koreans for overstaying their visas, the deputy prime minister said on Tuesday, in an apparent exception to a departure ban after the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam.

The killing of the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un last month in Malaysia with VX nerve agent triggered an angry standoff between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang that has seen them expel each other's ambassador and refuse to let their citizens leave.

But on Tuesday Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters that 50 North Koreans working in the state of Sarawak on Borneo island -- home to coal mines which often employ foreign workers -- would be deported from Malaysia despite the ban.

"We will send the North Korean workers in Sarawak who have exceeded their (working) visa back to Pyongyang for overstaying," he said. "They will be deported soon."

He did not say why the government had decided on the expulsion despite Kuala Lumpur's bar on North Korean nationals leaving the country -- a tit-for-tat measure put in place after Pyongyang prohibited Malaysians from leaving its borders last week.

The diplomatic crisis erupted last month after North Korea attacked the Malaysian investigation into Kim's killing as an attempt to smear the secretive regime. Three Malaysian embassy staff and six family members are stranded in North Korea as a result.

Pyongyang, which has never confirmed Kim's identity, has repeatedly demanded the return of his body but Malaysian authorities have refused to release it without a DNA sample from next-of-kin.

The body, which is currently kept in a morgue in the capital, has been embalmed to prevent it from decomposing more than a month after the assassination, the deputy prime minister said.

"It's an effort to preserve the body, because if it is kept in the mortuary it might decompose so we did this to preserve the body," he said.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian  have been arrested and charged with the murder. CCTV footage shows them smearing the 45-year-old's face with a piece of cloth.

Pyongyang has insisted that he most likely died of a heart attack. Relations between North Korea and Malaysia had been particularly warm, with a reciprocal visa-free travel deal for visitors, prior to the high-profile killing.

Up to 100,000 North Koreans are believed to be working abroad and their remittances are a valuable source of foreign currency for the isolated regime.
The charges against Ma Ying-jeou carry a maximum sentence of three years each. (Photo: AP)

Taipei: Prosecutors in Taiwan on Tuesday indicted the island's China friendly ex-president Ma Ying-jeou over the leaking of classified information involving suspected influence peddling by a powerful opposition lawmaker.

The Taipei District Public Prosecutor's Office found after a six-month probe that Ma broke laws on the protection of personal information, release of secrets and communications security and surveillance, office spokesman Chang Chieh-chin said.

Ma, 66, a US-educated legal scholar, was credited with substantially improving Taiwan's relations with rival China during his two terms in office from 2008 to 2016. However, his push for ever-closer ties sparked a backlash, especially among young Taiwanese wary of China's intentions toward the island it considers its own territory to be brought under control by force if necessary.

That led to the Nationalists losing both the presidency and their parliamentary majority in polls in January 2016.

Ma's indictment on Tuesday comes more than a year after his Nationalist Party was soundly defeated at the polls by the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, which has sought to maintain ties with the mainland while asserting the self-governing island's own place in international society.

China responded by cutting off contacts with Taiwan's government in May in protest at new President Tsai Ing-wen's refusal to acknowledge its claim that Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are part of a single Chinese nation.

The charges against Ma stem from a 2013 lawsuit brought by DPP lawmaker Ker Chien-ming. Ker accused the then-president of leaking information taken from a wiretapped conversation between him and powerful Nationalist lawmaker Wang Jin-pyng, who at the time was speaker of the legislature and Ma's main political rival within the party.

The charges against Ma carry a maximum sentence of three years each. Ma was barred in June from visiting Hong Kong under a state secrecy law restricting travel by former top officials for three years after leaving office.

Ma spokesperson Hsu Chao-hsin said the former president's denial of the accusations was rejected by prosecutors. "There's no way he should have been charged," Hsu said. "Where is the justice?"
Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the body of Kim Jong Nam has been embalmed to better preserve it. (Photo: AP)

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed in February, has been embalmed to better preserve it and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other's citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim's death.

Malaysian authorities say the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was killed February 13 after two women smeared his face with the banned VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur's airport. North Korea, widely suspected of being behind the attack, rejects the findings.

Zahid said Kim's body was taken out of the hospital morgue at a Kuala Lumpur hospital for the embalmment procedure and has been returned. He declined to say when it was done.

"As it is kept in the mortuary, the body might decompose, so we did this to preserve the body," he told reporters in Parliament.

Health officials have said Kim's relatives will be given two to three weeks to claim his body before deciding what to do with it.

North Korea had demanded the body back and objected when Malaysia conducted an autopsy. Pyongyang also had refused to acknowledge that Kim Jong Nam was the victim and referred to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport Kim was carrying when he was attacked in a crowded airport terminal.

Malaysian police said Friday that Kim Chol and Kim Jong Nam were the same person, but refused to say how they confirmed that.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply since Kim's death, with each expelling the other's ambassador.

Last Tuesday, North Korea blocked all Malaysians from leaving the country until a "fair settlement" of the case was reached. Malaysia then barred North Koreans from exiting its soil.

Zahid, who earlier said negotiations were ongoing, said today that about 50 North Koreans detained in eastern Sarawak state for overstaying their work permits will be sent back to Pyongyang soon. He didn't give details nor say why they would be deported amid the exit ban.

There are nine Malaysians in North Korea three embassy staff members and their family members. About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia, according to Malaysian officials.

Both countries also scrapped visa-free travel for each other's citizens. Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the attack, many speculate that Pyongyang must have orchestrated it.

Experts say the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapon.

Four of the seven North Korean suspects being sought by Malaysia are believed to have left the country the day Kim was killed. Police say the other three, including a North Korean diplomat, are believed to be in the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
The ECJ said that European Union law does bar discrimination on religious grounds but that G4S's actions were based on treating all employees the same, meaning no one person was singled out for application of the ban. (Photo: Representational Image)

Luxembourg: EU companies can ban employees from wearing religious or political symbols, such as the Islamic headscarf, the bloc's top court ruled Tuesday in a landmark case.

The European Court of Justice said it does not constitute "direct discrimination" if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of "any political, philosophical or religious sign."

The wearing of religious symbols, and especially Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, has become a hot button issue with the rise of populist sentiment across Europe, with some countries such as Austria considering a complete ban on the full-face veil in public.

The ECJ was ruling on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium.

At the time, the company had an "unwritten rule" that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

In 2006, Achbita told G4S she wanted to wear the Islamic headscarf at work but was told this would not be allowed.

Subsequently, the company introduced a formal ban. Achbita was dismissed and she went to court claiming discrimination.

The ECJ said that European Union law does bar discrimination on religious grounds but that G4S's actions were based on treating all employees the same, meaning no one person was singled out for application of the ban.

"The rule thus treats all employees of the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally," the ECJ said.

"Accordingly, such an internal rule does not introduce a difference of treatment that is directly based on religion or belief," it said.
In an address to the UN's top rights body, Zeid said that his office had been refused access to the country. (Photo: AP)

Geneva: The UN rights chief warned on Tuesday that a "tidal wave of bloodshed" over more than six years of war in Syria had effectively turned the country into a "torture chamber".

"As the conflict enters its seventh year, this is the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II," said Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.

In an address to the UN's top rights body, Zeid said that his office had been refused access to the country and that no international human rights observers had been admitted to places where "very probably tens of thousands of people are currently held. They are places of torture."

"Indeed, the entire conflict, this immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity, began with torture," he said, citing as an example the torture of a group of children by security officials over anti-government graffiti six years ago.

"Today, in a sense, the entire country has become a torture chamber, a place of savage horror and absolute injustice," he said.

The UN and other organisations have repeatedly accused the Syrian authorities of widespread torture.

Amnesty International said in a report in August 2016 that an estimated 17,700 people had died in custody since the beginning of the conflict, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number at at least 60,000.

Zeid criticised international leaders for failing to act decisively to ensure accountability for the abuses.

"Vetoes have repeatedly pushed back hope for an end to this senseless carnage and for referral of alleged international crimes to the International Criminal Court," he said.

He was referring to a blocked UN Security Council, where Russia in particular has vetoed several attempts to bring a case against Syria before the ICC in The Hague.

But Zeid welcomed the UN General Assembly's agreement in December to set up a body to gather evidence of war crimes in Syria, which would build up "the basis for criminal proceedings against individual perpetrators."

"Ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations must happen if the Syrian people are ever to find reconciliation and peace," he said.
London: Prime Minister Theresa May has won the right to launch divorce proceedings with the European Union and begin two years of talks that will shape the future of Britain and Europe.

May, who was appointed prime minister shortly after Britain voted to leave the EU in June, faced down attempts in both the lower and upper houses of parliament to add conditions to legislation giving her right to launch the divorce.

Both houses backed the so-called Brexit bill and after securing symbolic approval from Queen Elizabeth, which could come early on Tuesday, May has the right to begin what could be Britain's most complex negotiations since World War Two.

But beyond saying she will begin the formal process by the end of this month, May has yet to answer the question of exactly when, and end nine months of guesswork as to how her government will approach the unchartered territory of leaving the EU.

"We are now on the threshold of the most important negotiation for our country in a generation," Brexit minister David Davis said in a statement after parliament approved the legislation on Monday.

"We have a plan to build a Global Britain, and take advantage of its new place in the world by forging new trading links."

The date of when she will trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty and start the divorce has all but overshadowed new complications to the talks: Scotland's demand for a new independence referendum and a call by Northern Ireland's largest party for a vote on splitting with Britain.

Her spokesman dismissed as "speculation" media reports that the prime minister would launch the talks on Tuesday, and instead gave the biggest hint yet it would be toward the end of the month: "I have said 'end' many times but it would seem I didn't put it in capital letters quite strongly enough."

But whenever May decides to launch the talks, her government will have to weigh up competing demands during the two years of talks provided for by Article 50, which envisages a deal on divorce terms while "taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union".

May has revealed little of her strategy but has a long wish list - wanting to win a free trade deal, maintain security cooperation, regain control over immigration and restore sovereignty over British laws.

The EU has balked at her demands, saying they amount to "having your cake and eating it", and May's government acknowledges it is a bold opening position.

While the government has signalled areas for compromise and is keen to remind EU leaders of the benefits of cooperation, May's government is also preparing for the possibility of crashing out of the bloc with no deal.

An aide at one department said last month that there was a backlog at May's office as her team scrutinises all departmental reports, leading some to question whether her team is ready for the talks which could soon get bogged down.

Britain's commitments to pay into the EU budget -- which officials in the bloc estimate to reach around 60 billion euros -- are shaping up to be one of the first, and possibly the most contentious parts, of the divorce talks.

"There will be a lot of different issues jostling for attention so I think what will happen is we will get into in a bit of a holding pattern," said Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank.

"I don't know for how long, but I can't see this being resolved in the two years."
Jerusalem: An elderly man burnt a nurse alive at a clinic in central Israel on Tuesday after apparently being dissatisfied by the treatment he had received, police said.

The suspect, in his late 70s, fled the scene in his car after the incident in Holon, southeast of Tel Aviv, but was later arrested, police said. The nurse who died was a woman named Tova Kararo, 56.

A senior police officer at the scene told news site Ynet that "a man went to receive medical treatment at the clinic here in Holon. "We understand he wasn't satisfied and during a verbal exchange poured flammable fluid on the nurse taking care of him," the officer said.

The director of the Clalit health service that operates the clinic said in an interview with public radio that the perpetrator's "medical background" was known, implying the patient might have had mental issues.

A police spokeswoman confirmed the perpetrator was apparently "mentally unstable." Media reported he was a Holocaust survivor who had received a vaccination last week which he thought was an attempt to poison him.

The Histadrut labour union announced a two-hour strike on Wednesday morning in tribute to Kararo and in solidarity with health workers.
Jerusalem: US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt met Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in Jerusalem, as the White House put out feelers on reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The US State Department described the visit by Trump's special representative for international negotiations as an orientation trip to enable him to get a sense of how "we can create a climate that leads to eventual peace negotiations".

"I hope that we can do some good things together," Netanyahu told Greenblatt at the start of their meeting, according to a video posted by the premier's office.

Greenblatt replied: "I think we're gonna do great things together." He is due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Greenblatt would be doing "a lot of listening, discussing the views of the leadership in the region, getting their perspectives on the current situation and how progress towards eventual peace can be made".

"I characterise it as the first of what will become many visits to the region," Toner added.

He said that the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank was likely to be discussed, although he did not expect immediate movement on the issue.

"We see them as a challenge that needs to be addressed at some point," Toner said. Trump on Friday invited Abbas "to visit the White House soon to discuss ways to resume the (Palestinian-Israeli) political process," in their first telephone conversation since Trump's inauguration in January.

Greenblatt advised Trump on the Arab-Israeli conflict during the presidential election campaign. Trump received Netanyahu at the White House in mid-February and broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli daily Haaretz on Monday quoted Palestinian Authority officials as saying "the Palestinians will make it clear they are interested in the Trump administration presenting its own peace plan".

The peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 following the collapse of indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry.

Since Trump came to power, having pledged to lead the most pro-Israel US administration in history, Palestinian officials have been quietly alarmed by their lack of access to senior White House figures.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will meet President Donald Trump at the White House in the highest-level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal since November's presidential election. (Photo: AP)

Riyadh: The White House confirmed on Monday that President Donald Trump will meet this week with Saudi Arabia's second-in-line to the throne in the highest-level visit to Washington by a Saudi royal since November's presidential election.

In his daily press briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the meeting with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also defence minister and King Salman's son, will take place on Thursday at the White House. No other details were provided.

The Saudi royal court, in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency earlier on Monday, said that Prince Mohammed will meet with Trump and a number of US officials to discuss "the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two countries and regional issues of mutual interest."

The prince, who departed for Washington on Monday, is spearheading the kingdom's economic overhaul to become less dependent on oil and its major investments in US technology firms.

He will be the first Gulf Arab royal to meet the president since his inauguration. Key issues at the top of the agenda are likely to include global energy prices, as well as the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition backed by Washington has been bombing Iran-backed Shiite rebels for nearly two years.

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and biggest buyer of American-made arms, is also part of the US-led coalition bombing campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Saudi relations with Washington cooled under President Barack Obama after his administration secured a nuclear deal with regional rival Iran. The deal has been heavily criticized by Trump.

Obama had also openly criticized Gulf Arab countries, expressing frustration at their feud with Iran.

In contrast, the kingdom has expressed optimism about rebuilding its alliance with Washington and working with the Trump Administration to contain Iran's reach in the region.

In a call between Trump and King Salman in January, the two agreed to back safe zones in Syria and Yemen, according to a White House statement. The monarch is currently touring Asia in a visit aimed at building alliances with other partners.
Tehran: Iran has sentenced the son of an opposition leader to six months in prison for propaganda against the regime, Iranian media reported Monday.

Hossein Karroubi, eldest son of Mehdi Karroubi, was detained by officials for publishing a letter his father sent last year to President Hassan Rouhani, according to Ebtekar daily and ILNA news agency.

"Karroubi wrote a letter in (April 2016) to the president and demanded... a trial from an authorised court to examine his charges," said Hossein's lawyer, Mohammad Jalilian.

Mehdi Karroubi has been under house arrest along with fellow opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi since 2011, following the violent protests that erupted against the re-election of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

Mousavi and Karroubi alleged that the vote was rigged and encouraged people to take part in public protests. They were eventually put under house arrest in 2011 but have never been officially charged by a court.

Security officials have filed a complaint against Karroubi's son for "propaganda against the regime", the lawyer added. Hossein Karroubi denies the charges and said he will appeal the decision.
Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of west Mosul since February 25. (Photo: Representational/AFP)

Baghdad: Iraq's interior ministry is holding over 1,200 men and boys suspected of ties to jihadists in "horrendous conditions" without charge at facilities south of Mosul, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

Iraqi forces are fighting to retake second city Mosul from the Islamic State jihadist group, recapturing its east before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely-populated west.

Tens of thousands of people have streamed out of west Mosul since February 25, and security forces are searching for IS jihadists trying to sneak out of the city among civilians.

"The Iraqi interior ministry is holding at least 1,269 detainees, including boys as young as 13, without charge in horrendous conditions and with limited access to medical care at three makeshift prisons," HRW said in a report.

"At least four prisoners have died, in cases that appear to be linked to lack of proper medical care and poor conditions and two prisoners' legs have been amputated, apparently because of lack of treatment for treatable wounds," the watchdog said.

The interior ministry's spokesman said he could not comment on the report until it had been reviewed by the minister.

The facilities are located in Qayyarah and Hamam al-Alil, said HRW, which visited some of them earlier this month.

The rights group said that the makeshift prisons were under the authority of the interior ministry intelligence service, which is interrogating people handed over by security forces fighting IS.

Iraq was under heavy pressure to improve its procedures for the Mosul operation after people reported torture and other abuses during screening of those who fled Fallujah, which Baghdad's forces retook from IS last year.

While changes do seem to have been made, the HRW allegations indicate that significant problems remain with screening procedures -- problems that breed anger and resentment that drives more people into the arms of militants.
Mosul: Iraqi special forces are engaged in a punishing and paranoid close-quarters battle against Islamic State in western Mosul as they seek to drive the jihadists out of their last urban bastion in Iraq and deal a major blow to their self-styled caliphate.

Mosul is divided by the Tigris river that runs through it, north to south. Iraqi forces, supported by a US-led coalition, pushed into the western side of the city last month after recapturing the east in an offensive that began late last year.

The urban warfare is now more intense than ever, both because Islamic State fighters have been backed into one half of the city and because the west - home to the old city and city centre - is more densely populated.

The fighting is at much closer quarters. It was street-by-street  now its house-by-house, said Iraqi commando Alaa Shaker, 32, a member of the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS).

We are often literally in the same house, on the roof, and Daesh (Islamic State) is downstairs. Sometimes we drop grenades. If there are civilians, families in the homes, we shout to them to take cover inside a room.

Seif Rasheed, a 28-year-old CTS medic, said one commando had been killed earlier that day in the same area, shot through the head, and another wounded, shot through the neck and hip.

Daesh are hiding in homes, opening doors and shooting at troops from just a few metres away, he said.

The men were speaking as they took a break from the fighting to eat lunch in the courtyard of a western Mosul home, in a neighbourhood recaptured from Islamic State the day before.

No one can drop their guard. Shaker paused mid-mouthful, stood up, and brought over two assault rifles that were leaning against the wall, setting them down within arms reach.

Just in case, he said, miming that a member of the family living inside might otherwise pick one up and turn it on the soldiers eating there. That hasnt happened so far, but you have to be careful  we dont know these people. Islamic State have left supporters and sleeper cells behind.

Shrapnel Flies

Mosul, in the far north of Iraq, is by far the largest city in the caliphate that Islamic State declared over parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The few thousand militants still fighting in the west of the city are overwhelmingly outnumbered by a 100,000-strong array of Iraqi forces, and the head of the CTS said they could be dislodged within weeks.

But the militants tactics so far in the Mosul battle - digging in among civilians, and using suicide car bombs, snipers and a network of tunnels to launch waves of attacks - have enabled them to hold out much longer than the governments initial predictions.

The CTS had stationed armoured Humvee vehicles in the street outside the Mosul home, and officers inside studied a map on a mobile phone as their radio constantly crackled with updates.

The frontline of the battle had moved forward, but the neighbourhood was not completely secured.

Rasheed peered down a street outside, but cautioned against walking down it. Seconds later, an Islamic State shell slammed down into the road, sending shrapnel fizzing off in all directions. Rasheed moved indoors again.

The impact of explosions from the fighting could be felt.

Another CTS commando, Wamid Salam, calmly identified the blasts as rocket-propelled grenades.

Salam, 33, said he was looking forward to his next leave, to visit his pregnant wife in southern Iraq.

Salam wore new glasses, which were prescribed after the blast from an Islamic State car bomb damaged his vision late last year. It knocked me to the floor, and I hit my head hard. I also got some shrapnel just below the eye, he explained.

As he spoke, two armoured vehicles drove back from the front line, their bulletproof windows riddled with machine gun fire.
Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from April 7 to 10 to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship

between the two neighbours, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said. The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, according to the statement issued here.

"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders," said the statement jointly issued by the two sides.

Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modi's visit to Bangladesh in June 2015. She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a

suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April. Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said they were attaching "highest importance" to the visit, the Bdnews24 reported.

Hasina is the head of government of "a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time," Shringla was quoted as saying.

The envoy also said that President Pranab Mukherjee in an "exceptional" gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit.

"Everything is work in progress. We'll have to see what is possible and what is not possible," he said when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal.
Beijing: China today called for a "package solution" accommodating "concerns and interests" of all parties to reform the UN Security Council after India along

with other G4 nations offered to initially forgo veto powers to secure a permanent seat on the world body's top organ.

In a guarded reaction to the G4 countries' offer, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said China supports UN Security Council (UNSC) reform and maintains that developing countries should have more representation and voice.

"Security Council reform concerns issues like membership categories, regional representation, veto power," Hua said in a written response to PTI.

She was responding to a question related to a joint statement delivered by India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin on March 7 at an inter-governmental negotiations meeting of the G4 nations -- India, Brazil, Germany and Japan.

These issues "can only be addressed by reaching a package solution that accommodates all parties' interests and concerns through broad-based democratic consultations," Hua said.

Pakistan, a close ally of China, opposes any additional permanent members. Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group has proposed a new category of members -- not permanent -- with longer duration and a possibility to get re-elected once.

China is part of the veto-wielding permanent five members which also include the US, Russia, France and the UK. On March 7, the G4 members in a bid to get the UN reform process moving said they were open to innovative ideas and willing to forgo veto power as permanent members of a reformed Security Council until a decision on it has been taken.

The G4 joint statement emphasised that an overwhelming majority of the UN member states supports the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent membership in a reformed Security Council.

As India pushed hard for the reform of the UNSC in the last few years staking its claim for the permanent membership, China struck an ambivalent stand saying that it understands New Delhi's aspiration to play a bigger role in the UN.

Other four permanent members -- the UK, the US, France and Russia -- backed India's quest to become a permanent member. On the issue of the veto, Akbaruddin said the question of veto has been addressed by many from differing perspectives but the G4 approach is that the problem of veto is not one of

quantity (of extending it immediately to new permanent members) but of quality -- of introducing restrictions.

The bloc had warned that the issue of veto was important but member states should not allow it to have a "veto over the process of Council reform itself."

While the new permanent members would in principle have veto powers that the current five have, Akbaruddin had said, "they shall not exercise the veto until a decision on the matter has been taken during a review".
On March 6, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles that flew about 1,000 kilometers, with three of them landing in Japans exclusive economic zone, according to South Korean and Japanese officials. This is the latest in a series of missile test-launches of various ranges in recent months.

In response to this ongoing threat from North Korea, the United States and South Korea committed in July 2016 to the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD, to South Korea. United States Pacific Command, or PACOM, recently deployed the first elements of THAAD.

North Koreas accelerating campaign of nuclear and ballistic missile tests threaten international peace and security and violate multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, Pacom officials said, adding that the THAAD deployment contributes to a layered missile defense system thereby enhancing the alliances defense against North Korean missile threats.

"Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include [the March 6th] launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea," said Navy Admiral and Pacom commander Harry Harris. "We will resolutely honor our alliance commitments to South Korea and stand ready to defend ourselves, the American homeland, and our allies."

THAAD is a strictly defensive system, and poses no threat to other countries in the region, Pacom officials said. It is designed to intercept and destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere during their final phase of flight.

Pacom joint military forces remain vigilant in the face of North Korean ballistic missile threats and provocations and are fully committed to working closely with South Korea to maintain security in the region.
Karachi: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said that forcible conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions is a crime in Islam and in Pakistan as he greeted the Hindu community on the occasion of Holi.

Addressing a function to celebrate Holi with Hindus here, he insisted that it was not anyone's job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

In his inclusive message to minorities in Pakistan, the prime minister said "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion".

"Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan," Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress and develop into an Asian tiger.

"There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and don t want to see this country develop or prosper," he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

"Pakistan didn't come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone," the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

"Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief."

The Hindu community celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm in Karachi with functions held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hinderance.

Sharif greeted the gathering with 'Happy Holi'. He also referred to L K Advani when someone mentioned his love for the famous Hindi song 'Baharo phool barsao', saying a decade ago he (Sharif) could sing this song as melodiously as Mohammad Rafi.

He also said that Health cards should be started in Sindh and announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.
Beijing: The Chinese government, calling India and Pakistan good friends urged both countries to enhance mutual trust and improve relations through more dialogue.

In an official statement, Chinas Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said, China looks forward to the early accession of India and Pakistan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as full members.

China also urges both nations to contribute to security, stability, common development and common prosperity of the region along with existent members, Chunying said.

The statement said that the memorandum on the obligations for India and Pakistan to obtain membership in the SCO was signed at the SCO Tashkent Summit in 2016.

Currently, all sides are going through relevant legal procedures in accordance with the memorandum, noted the spokesperson.

Citing India and Pakistan as China's important neighbours and countries in South Asia, spokesperson said, China hopes that India and Pakistan can enhance mutual trust and improve relations through more dialogue.

The spokesperson also said that this is conducive to not only the two countries themselves but also to regional prosperity and development.
The Internets battle against bots has been epic so far, and it just took another big step, with Invisible Captcha, a new version of captcha codes. At first the powers that be, came up with something called Captcha, a blockade made of obfuscated text, that could be read by humans, but gave bots a tough time. This was replaced by ReCatpcha, which followed the same concept as Captcha, but used actual texts from books, using the human answers for digitisation.

Eventually, Google bought ReCaptcha and later came up with the No Captcha ReCaptcha, which was a way to have users click a button to separate humans from computers. For this, Google would simply put a button on the web page, asking users to click on it. The company then used all its machine learning knowledge and advanced risk management to tell bots from users.

However, the introduction of No Captcha Recaptcha, in 2014, was a stepping stone to something greater. Google also tried other versions of Captcha after this. Websites would have prompted you to identify photos of cars from a grid displayed on the screen. Sometimes, numbers pop-up within the captcha boxes, which look like addresses. Little known to you, each time you identified these photos in order to pass the captcha blockade, you inadvertently helped Google perfect its machine learning efforts.

The idea to use Captcha for other purposes was originally proposed by Carnegie Mellon professor, Louis Von Ahn, who is also the founder language learning app Duolingo. Ahn proposed that the word user enter into the text boxes could be used for digitising old newspapers, books etc.

However, the inherent problem with this system was that computers couldnt yet read books. This meant the distorted words you see would be unknown for the machine, which made it impossible for it to identify you. To solve this, Ahn proposed putting two words together, one that the machine could already read, and another from a book or other medium. The unsolved word would then be solved by humans whenever they entered text into captcha boxes.

A version of this has been put to use for identifying photos too. For example, some websites will prompt you to identify photos of cars from a random grid. This, could help perfect technology like Google Photos. In fact, given that this is a version of Recaptcha (that Google bought), you probably helped train its machine learning AI for Google Photos too.

The newest method for identifying humans, though, is tougher to explain. Google calls it Invisible Captcha, and the company has, perhaps deliberately, not explained how it works. Powering these advances is a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis, Google says in its launch video.

It seems like a version of No Captcha Recaptcha, but users will apparently see nothing. Human users will be let through without seeing the "I'm not a robot" checkbox, while suspicious ones and bots still have to solve the challenges, Google says.
Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's predictions state the Galaxy S8 may sell about 40-45 million units, at a lesser momentum than the 2016 Samsung flagship, Galaxy S7.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 lineup will struggle to sell more units than its predecessor, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, states noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a latest report, the analyst has stated that the Galaxy S8 lineup may not have sufficiently attractive selling points, and as a result, could end up with lesser momentum of sales. In turn, Kuo has stated that the main focus will be on Apples iPhone 8, which is said to flaunt an OLED display panel.

Kuo has projected Galaxy S8 shipments in the range of 40-45 million units, lesser than the estimated 52 million Galaxy S7/S7 edge units that Samsung is believed to have sold last year. He has further added that with these two flagship phones, Samsungs contribution to the supply chain will be limited. In comparison, Kuo has stated strong sales forecasts for the upcoming anniversary edition iPhone, and has hinted that the new iPhone will sell more units than the Galaxy S8 lineup. He has, however, refrained from putting a figure on his estimates.

After the infamous Galaxy Note7 fiasco in 2016 that led to the eventual recall of 2.5 million units worldwide and an estimated $3.1bn loss in operating profit, Samsung Mobile has been heavily billed to come back strong with the new Galaxy S8 lineup. The latest series of leaks and rumours have pointed at two screen sizes - 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch, both with dual-edge curved displays with nearly no bezels. Samsung is also said to have exclusive first launch rights over Qualcomms new generation flagship SoC, the Snapdragon 835, and is said to host an iris scanner in front. The new smartphones are expected to remove the physical home button and the Samsung logo from the front as the display takes up almost the entirety of the front facade, and are also expected to retain the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Apple, meanwhile, is expected to introduce three iPhone variants this year, with two of them being incremental upgrades to the present iPhone 7 lineup, and the third a special variant that may cost $1,000 or more. The special, or anniversary edition iPhone is expected to flaunt an OLED display panel, along with a new design, a 3D Touch Home button, improved dual-camera setup and more. Apples new phones are usually launched in the second half of the year, while Samsung is now expected to host the Galaxy S8 launch on March 29, 2017.

Samsung certainly has a lot riding on the Galaxy S8, and launching its flagships early may see the company gaining a head start over Apples new iPhones. The two companies have vied for the number one spot in flagship phones for a while now, and this year will be particularly crucial for Samsung, following the Note7 mishap. The Korean electronics giant was also rumoured to be planning to introduce a reworked Galaxy Note7 in select markets, India included, to cut down on losses, but such plans were subsequently refuted by the company itself.

It remains to be seen how the eventual sales figures turn out. Samsung is also expected to price its new flagships around the $1,000 mark, which makes the brewing 2017 flagship smartphone battle even more exciting.

Manufacturers like LG, Huawei and Sony have already introduced their 2017 flagships, with Sony stealing the show in terms of the specifications on offer. These handsets may eventually be overhauled by Samsung and Apple, all of which depend on the coming months.
West Africa-focussed mineral exploration and development company Kodal Minerals announced the results of the recently-completed trenching campaign and update on high-grade rock chip samples returned from the ongoing exploration programme at the Bougouni Lithium Project in Southern Mali on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm also announced the commencement of reverse circulation drilling at the project with drilling planned to target extensions to the excellent results returned previously from the Ngoualana prospect as well as complete reconnaissance testing of those new priority targets.

High grade intersections in the report included 27m at 1.38% Li2O in trench MDTR005 at the Sogola-Baoule prospect, 10m at 1.67% Li2O in trench MDTR002 at the Filon B prospect, and 6m at 1.61% Li2O in trench KLTR007 at the Orchard prospect.

The board said the Sogola-Baoule prospect outlined an extensive outcropping spodumene rich pegmatite vein with a current strike length exceeding 200m.

It said the trenching programme consisted of 14 trenches for 862m, and five trenches were not sampled due to extreme weathering.

High-grade rock chips of up to 2.52% Li2O were returned from pegmatite samples at the newly defined Boumou prospect, and trenching confirmed extensions of pegmatite, however highly weathered rock was not sampled.

Reverse circulation drilling had commenced at the Sogola-Baoule prospect to outline the extent of high-grade mineralisation.

The drilling would then target the Ngoualana prospect where previous drilling confirmed wide, high grade mineralisation up to 28m at 1.84% Li2O, and the drilling would then target strike extensions, test depth continuity and define the high grade mineralised zones

We have achieved consistently positive results from trenching and rock-chip sampling at our Bougouni Lithium Project, further highlighting the significant prospectivity of this asset, said Kodal CEO Bernard Aylward.

Drilling has now commenced at the high-grade Sogola-Baoule prospect and, once completed, as part of our accelerated development schedule, drilling will commence immediately thereafter at the priority Ngoualana prospect.

Aylward said the ongoing exploration programme is designed to support the companys strategy of developing a mining hub at Bougouni based on multiple high-grade lithium pegmatite veins within the project area.

The recent investment by Singapore based Suay Chin International, as announced on 10 March, underscores the potential of the project, and the due diligence review has commenced to support completion of the Stage 2 placement of up to 4.3m.

We continue to work closely with Suay Chin to ensure that the review is completed satisfactorily in the short timeframe allowed.

We expect to maintain a very busy exploration campaign with drilling and metallurgical test work.
Metminco announced on Tuesday that it received an updated and improved mineral resource estimate for the Miraflores gold deposit in Colombia prepared by Metal Mining Consultants based in Denver, Colorado, in accordance with the guidelines of the JORC Code.

The AIM-traded firm said the updated mineral resource estimate, which was undertaken to provide the basis of the detailed mine plan for the Miraflores Feasibility Study, replaced the previous JORC statement completed by MMC that was released to the market on 21 July 2016.

It said the new JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate represented an increase in gold contained in the measured and indicated resource and inferred resource categories.

The report estimated measured mineral resources of 2.95Mt @ 2.98g/t Au and 2.5g/t Ag, and indicated mineral resources of 6.31Mt @ 2.74g/t Au and 2.9g/t Ag.

Measured and indicated mineral resources totalled 9.27Mt @ 2.82g/t Au and 2.77g/t Ag, and inferred mineral resources were 0.49Mt @ 2.36g/t Au and 3.64g/t Ag.

The estimate represented an increase in measured and indicated resources of approximately 8,000 oz contained gold and inferred resources of approximately 29,000 oz contained gold

Total measured and indicated resources contained 840,000 oz Au and 826,000 oz Ag.

The mineral resource estimate was based on 25,884 metres of drilling in 73 diamond drill holes and 236 metres of underground channel samples and using a 1.2g/t Au cut-off grade.

The company, together with its engineering consultants, are making excellent progress on the feasibility study for the potential development of the Miraflores Gold Project located at Quinchia, in the Department of Risaralda, Colombia, with the date for completion of the feasibility study anticipated to be end of May 2017, said managing director William Howe.

GR Engineering, a Perth, Australia, based consulting engineer has been commissioned by the company to complete the feasibility study encompassing an underground mine, processing facilities, infrastructure and tailings facility.

Howe said the company continued to work closely with governmental authorities and the community in relation to the potential mine development, with preparation of the EIA for development also progressing well and the company anticipating submission of the EIA to the relevant government authorities by the end of 2017.

At these updated resource tonnages and grades Miraflores represents a high quality gold project that is on par with other Colombian gold mines coming on stream or already in production.

Additionally, Miraflores will represent the first of a number of potential projects within the Quinchia portfolio.

The focus remains to advance Miraflores through the remainder of this year and to further derisk the project.
These were the movements in some of the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:

US: 2.59% (-4bp)

UK: 1.22% (-2bp)

Germany: 0.45% (-3bp)

France: 1.09% (-0bp)

Spain: 1.87% (-4bp)

Italy: 2.34% (-2bp)

Portugal: 3.97% (-5bp)

Greece: 7.29% (+8bp)

Japan: 0.10% (+1bp)

Traders pushed longer-term sovereign bond yields lower ahead of the US central bank's policy announcement and the Dutch elections the next day, with the exception of those on Greek debt.

Investors were pricing in a likely 25 point basis point hike by the Fed on Wednesday to between 0.75% and 1% and were keen for signals on when the central banks next rate hike might arrive.

Analysts at Oxford Economics expect this week's likely hike will be the first of three 25 basis points rises this year, with the target Fed funds rate range expected to end 2017 at 1.25% to 1.5%.

Back in Europe, the Dutch Treasury sold a total of 2.28bn of five-year debt at a yield of -0.197%.

For some in the markets, the result of the auction marked a vote of confidence in the country before voters cast their ballots.

In a sign of the times perhaps, earlier in the day the ZEW institute's gauge of German economic confidence rose from a reading of 10.4 for February to 12.8 in March (consensus: 13.0).

It also continued to fall short of its long-term average of 23.9.

" A positive but below-average expectations component indicates cautious optimism for the months ahead as the future outlook remains surrounded by increased uncertainty due to upcoming political elections in major European trading partners (Netherlands, France) and Germany, as well as further policy uncertainty in the US (eg, corporate tax reform, protectionist measures) and approaching Brexit negotiations," Barclays Research said following the release.

Similarly, euro area industrial production gained 0.9% on the month in January (consensus: 1.3%).

On Greece, European Central Bank supervision chief Daniel Nouy told Greek media the situation of the country's lenders had improved substantially over the past two years and she was confident the new legal framework due to come into effect would address the bad loan problem.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May cleared her first major hurdle towards Brexit after parliament on Monday night approved the Bill that allows her to trigger the process of leaving the European Union.

The House of Commons reversed two amendments introduced by the House of Lords that would have guaranteed the rights of EU citizens already living in the UK and also give parliament a vote on whatever deal on Brexit May brought back from Brussels.

Peers rolled over when the Bill was returned to the Lords for its second reading and did not challenge their counterparts in the lower house.

The bill is expected to receive Royal Assent and become law on Tuesday, leaving May free to invoke Article 50, the formal trigger for exit talks - by the last week of March.
The OPEC cuts arent enough

Oil prices slumped to a three month low on Wednesday having just suffered the biggest weekly decline since October. More losses could be on the way.

The resurgence of US oil production in conjunction with a steady expansion in oil rigs is undermining confidence that OPEC output cuts will end the supply glut. Even if the OPEC and non-OPEC output cuts were enough to offset US production, evidence from OPECs own monthly report in March suggests member nations are not complying with the agreed quotas.

OPEC vs non-OPEC

The battle lines are being drawn by non-OPEC. US shale as well as other beaten-down parts of the oil industry including in the North Sea are coming back to life. New efficiencies, including a lot of job cuts mean an oil price above $50 per barrel is profitable for many producers.

Its not just US shale but Big Oil that deserves consideration. Oil majors are finally reversing the pause in production growth with a combined 15% increase in total crude output planned by 2021 according to Reuters.

Donald Trumps executive orders to build the Keystone and Dakota pipelines suggest US energy policy is shifting. All signs are that Trumps America will rely more on carbon energy and produce more oil.

A chance the Saudis backtrack

Saudi Arabias oil minister Khalid al-Falih told a conference of oil magnates in Texas that the OPEC deal was sowing "green shoots" for the US shale industry. Mr Falih is voicing what many oil traders have been thinking.

It was the concern that cutting OPEC output would play into the hands of producers who were not part of the agreement that led to Saudi Arabias recently abandoned policy of non-intervention in the first place. We were surprised by the OPEC decision to cut output in November because we thought Saudi Arabia understood it would be ineffective.

It beggars the question: Why did the Saudis reverse their opinion on an OPEC price cut? It is our opinion that the OPEC production cut is a face-saving campaign for a redundant cartel. The Saudis seem to have decided that supporting higher-cost producers within OPEC was for the greater good of the cartel, even if it meant losing market share.

Record bullish oil bets call a top

The OPEC & non-OPEC supply deal generated record bets on a rise in the price of oil, but so far they havent paid off. CFTC data from Friday March 10 showing a record net long position of nearly one billion barrels of oil was a sentiment extreme. The result is the market has rolled over. Quite simply, almost everyone in the market was long already and it wasnt sustainable.

The bullish bets at the top of the 9-month old $45 - $50 per barrel price range clearly reflected the belief in a breakout into a new bullish trend. Now that the breakout has not materialised, we suspect a bigger unwind of the bullish positions will carry the price lower still.

Oil will stay in a price range

The oil market is in a new paradigm where prices are not controlled by OPEC supply, but rather by the profitability of private, competitive US producers.

Once Saudi Arabia starts to see the fallacy of the output cuts, we think there is a good chance the quotas are once again abandoned. This is not a base case scenario but the increased threat of it from falling oil prices puts additional downside pressure on oil. Even if OPEC complies with existing quotas, or makes additional cuts, the reaction to the resulting price rise will be higher US output which eventually drives the price lower. Hence we see oil in a $40 - $60 range into 2018.

The information and comments provided herein under no circumstances are to be considered an offer or solicitation to invest and nothing herein should be construed as investment advice. The information provided is believed to be accurate at the date the information is produced. Losses can exceed deposits.

- By Jasper Lawler, Senior Market Analyst at LCG -
British prime minister Theresa May has responded quickly and abruptly to calls for a referendum on Northern Ireland's membership of the United Kingdom, rejecting the idea outright.

On Monday, Sinn Fein leader Michelle O'Neill said that the fallout from Britain's exit from the European Union would be a "disaster" for NI, and called for a border poll "as soon as possible".

During a debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday, May said the focus for the only isolated region of the UK should be on returning to government after a turbulent few months which culminated in a snap election earlier this month.

"The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has looked at this issue," said May. "It is not right to have a border poll at this stage."

"What we should all be focusing on is bringing the parties together to ensure that we can continue to see the devolved administration in Northern Ireland working, as it has done, in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland."

O'Neill replaced Martin McGuinness as leader of the nationalist party in January after McGuinness' resignation brought down the Northern Ireland Assembly. She said that Brexit would have an overly adverse affect on stability in NI.

"Brexit will be a disaster for the economy, and a disaster for the people of Ireland. A referendum on Irish unity has to happen as soon a possible," she said.

A majority of voters in Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the UK in last June's referendum, with just under 56% opting to stay in the bloc, but the UK as a whole voted to Leave.
Newly-appointed Bank of England deputy governor Charlotte Hogg resigned on Tuesday after MPs questioned her competence in failing to declare her brother worked at Barclays.

Having offered her resignation last week, but had it refused by the Bank's governing Court, Hogg wrote a further letter on Monday night, which was accepted on Tuesday.

In her letter Hogg insisted her resignation be accepted over the fact she "made a mistake" in not declaring her brother's role.

A report from the House of Commons Treasury committee questioned Hogg's professional competence due to her failure to follow the rules, as well as criticising the process of her promotion from chief operating officer to deputy governor.

Led by MP Andrew Tyrie, the committee noted that by failing to declare her brothers position at Barclays, this meant that from the time she first was hired in July 2013 until 2 March 2017, she had not been compliant with the Banks code of conduct nor the "values and ethics policies" that existed prior to the code coming into effect.

The committee suggested that were it not for a questionnaire sent by the MPs, "the clear perceived and potential conflicts that would arise in her new role may never have come to light".

In her letter, Hogg said she was "very sorry for that mistake. It was an honest mistake: I have made no secret of my brothers job - indeed it was I who informed the Treasury Select Committee of it, before my hearing."

Hogg's declaration that I do not anticipate that an actual or potential conflict will arise in the future was, the committee said in its report, "a serious misjudgement" as a role on the BoE Prudential Regulation Committee would involve reviewing highly commercially-sensitive information and making supervisory judgements on specific high street banks, including Barclays.

"Professional competence for this role includes an ability to follow the rules, particularly those that one has had a hand in writing and enforcing; an understanding of why those rules are important; and an awareness of the risks arising from actual and potential conflicts of interest, and the perceptions of conflict.

"Ms Hoggs oral and written evidence has given the committee grounds for concern on all three counts. The committee considers that her professional competence falls short of the very high standards required to fulfil the additional responsibilities of deputy governor for markets and banking," the report said.

Bank Governor Mark Carney said he "deeply" regretted that Hogg had chosen to resign, hailing her role in transforming the Bank's management and operations.

Anthony Habgood, chair of the Court, said: "No one who knows her doubts her track record or her integrity. While Charlottes decision by any measure exceeds the standard that would be expected in the private sector or would be required under statute, it is understandable in the circumstances and she has taken it with the best interests of the Bank at heart.
One of the biggest barriers to playing a number of video games was set to be removed, as Sony confirmed plans on Tuesday to let PC owners play PlayStation 4 games on their machines.

Previously, titles released exclusively for the Japanese gaming giants console required a user to invest in the PlayStation 4 equipment - an expensive and bulky purchase, especially for gamers who were only interested in one or two titles.

But in a blog post on Tuesday, Sony spokesman Brian Dunn said it would extend its PlayStation Now streaming service to PCs - although the post was light on details, offering no information as to a launch date or any features or restrictions on the PC service.

PlayStation Now allows a user to stream a video game to their PlayStation console, without having to download the entire game or purchase a physical copy on disc.

It is currently priced at 12.99 per month, and already allows users to play older PlayStation 3 titles on their PC, but not the newer PS4 titles.

The move would likely be a boon for Sony as its console reaches the middle of its life, having been released in 2013, and with competitors such as Nintendo releasing their own new products this year.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun gaming website writer Brendan Caldwell said the service would allow PC gamers to try console-exclusive titles such as Resogun, Bloodborne, The Order: 1886, and Horizon: Zero Dawn.

But he was sceptical as to whether Sony would be willing to let these recently-released, exclusive titles onto the PC service so early.

It's unlikely that all of these are going to be available straight away, he wrote, adding: but those which were released early in the machine's life will probably appear.

Sonys competitor-across-the-road, the fellow Japanese firm Nintendo, released its latest console earlier this month.

But the Switch has been plagued with teething troubles, including a massive number of customer complaints about the machines quality.
Dutch leader Rutte improves standing ahead of national election

Tensions between Turkey and the Netherlands were strained even further on Tuesday as Ankara imposed diplomatic sanctions over the decision to ban Turkish MPs from addressing rallies on Dutch soil.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also rejected calls from the European Union to use less inflammatory language after he had earlier called the Dutch nazis and facists.

The Dutch ambassador to Turkey has been barred from returning to the country and all other high-level diplomatic communications have been cut off.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte brushed aside the sanctions as not too bad. His popularity has increased during the very public row with Erdogan as voters in the Netherlands head to the polls on Wednesday.

Rutte is fighting a fierce battle with the far right leader Geert Wilders, but opinion polls suggest that his willingness to stand up to Erdogan's rhetoric has improved his standing with voters on both sides of the political divide.

The row centres over the decision to stop Turkish politicians from addressing expatriates in the EU and getting them to vote 'Yes' in a referendum on 16 April on expanding Erdogan's powers.

There are around 5.5m Turkish expatriates, with an estimated 400,000 in the Netherlands.

The Dutch authorities barred two Turkish cabinet ministers from addressing crowds in the city of Rotterdam, with Minister of Family Affairs Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya escorted to the German border after entering the Netherlands by land.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn on Monday issued a statement calling for Turkey to end excessive statements.

They also expressed concerns about the Erdogan's plans to give himself more power, described as the excessive concentration of powers in one office, with serious effect on the necessary checks and balances and on the independence of the judiciary.

 It is also of concern that this process of constitutional change is taking place under the state of emergency, they added.

The proposed amendments, if approved at the referendum of 16 April, and especially their practical implementation, will be assessed in light of Turkey's obligations as an EU candidate country and as a member of the Council of Europe.
Defensives edged higher as investors kept to the sidelines ahead of multiple key risk events the next day, including the US central bank's policy decision and the result of the Dutch elections.

Against that tense backdrop, news that Saudi Arabia increased its output in February sent crude oil futures reeling, sending shares in both oil services and so-called Big Oil all lower.

Saudi Arabia had notified the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries it hiked its output by 263,300 barrels a day last month to 10.011m a day, reversing roughly a third of the reductions it undertook in January, the cartel's latest Monthly Oil Market Report revealed.

That saw front month Brent crude oil futures retreat 1.22% to $50.73 a barrel on the ICE, as traders waited on the latest weekly oil inventory statistics from the American Petroleum Institute which were due out after the close of markets.

Evraz accounted for weakness in Metals & Mining despite stronger-than-expected data on Chinese industrial production and private investment for the months of January and February combined.

Nonetheless, analysts at Capital Economics sounded a cautious note, telling clients "we are wary that this may represent the high point of 2017, given signs of a steadily tightening policy environment.

"Notwithstanding our estimate of robust domestic steel demand, it is hard to justify the scale of the rally in steel prices. (See Chart 6.) Moreover, steelmakers are now responding to significantly higher prices. Data also released today showed steel output growing by 5.8% y/y in the first two months of the year. Admittedly, this was from a low base a year earlier but it also suggests that the price rise is overdone," said Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist at that research outfit.

Banks were also lower heading into Federal Reserve's policy announcement the next day, alongside a dip in benchmark 10-year Gilt yields of two basis points to 1.22%.

Top performing sectors so far today

Beverages 18,223.05 +0.92%

Personal Goods 35,571.61 +0.92%

Tobacco 58,756.99 +0.62%

Gas, Water & Multiutilities 6,209.44 +0.55%

Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 14,538.40 +0.55%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 15,350.25 -5.20%

Oil & Gas Producers 7,789.29 -1.58%

Industrial Metals & Mining 2,129.08 -1.54%

Banks 4,279.10 -1.11%

General Industrials 6,027.27 -0.98%
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By GILLIAN FLACCUS

Associated Press

LOSTINE, Ore.  These speckled, rose-tinted fish haven't been spotted in this bubbling river in remote northeastern Oregon for more than 30 years  until now.

But last week, the waters of the Lostine River suddenly came alive as hundreds of the 4- and 5-inch-long juvenile coho salmon shot from a long white hose attached to a water tanker truck and into the frigid current. The fish jumped and splashed and some, momentarily shell-shocked, hid along the bank as onlookers crowded in for photos.





. . .
The world faces its largest humanitarian crisis since the UN was founded in 1945, with more than 20 million people in four countries facing starvation and famine, the UN humanitarian chief said on Friday. Stephen O'Brien told the UN Security Council (UNSC) that ''without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death'' and ''many more will suffer and die from disease''. He urged an immediate injection of funds for Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria, plus safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid ''to avert a catastrophe''. ''To be precise,'' O'Brien said, ''we need $4.4 billion by July.'' Without a major infusion of money, he said, children will be stunted by severe malnutrition and won't be able to go to school, gains in economic development will be reversed and ''livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost''. UN and food organizations define famine as when more than 30 per cent of children under age five suffer from acute malnutrition and mortality rates are two or more deaths per 10,000 people every day, among other criteria. ''Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations,'' O'Brien said. ''Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine.'' O'Brien said the largest humanitarian crisis is in Yemen where two-thirds of the population -18.8 million people - need aid and more than seven million people are hungry and don't know where their next meal will come from. ''That is three million people more than in January,'' he said. The Arab world's poorest nation is engulfed in conflict and O'Brien said more than 48,000 people fled fighting just in the past two months. During his recent visit to Yemen, O'Brien said he met senior leaders of the government and the Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa, and all promised access for aid. ''Yet all parties to the conflict are arbitrarily denying sustained humanitarian access and politicise aid,'' he said, warning if that behaviour does not change now ''they must be held accountable for the inevitable famine, unnecessary deaths and associated amplification in suffering that will follow''. For 2017, O'Brien said $2.1 billion is needed to reach 12 million Yemenis ''with life-saving assistance and protection'' but only 6 per cent has been received so far. He announced that secretary-general Antonio Guterres will chair a pledging conference for Yemen on 25 April in Geneva. South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria

The UN humanitarian chief also visited South Sudan, the world's newest nation which has been ravaged by a three-year civil war, and said ''the situation is worse than it has ever been''. ''The famine in South Sudan is man-made,'' he said. ''Parties to the conflict are parties to the famine - as are those not intervening to make the violence stop.'' O'Brien said more than 7.5 million people need aid, up by 1.4 million from last year, and about 3.4 million South Sudanese are displaced by fighting including almost 200,000 who have fled the country since January. ''More than one million children are estimated to be acutely malnourished across the country, including 270,000 children who face the imminent risk of death should they not be reached in time with assistance,'' he said. ''Meanwhile, the cholera outbreak that began in June 2016 has spread to more locations.'' In Somalia, which O'Brien also visited, more than half the population - 6.2 million people - need humanitarian assistance and protection, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate help ''to save or sustain their lives''. He warned that close to one million children under the age of five will be ''acutely malnourished'' this year. ''What I saw and heard during my visit to Somalia was distressing - women and children walk for weeks in search of food and water. They have lost their livestock, water sources have dried up and they have nothing left to survive on,'' O'Brien said. ''With everything lost, women, boys, girls and men now move to urban centres.'' The humanitarian chief said current indicators mirror ''the tragic picture of 2011 when Somalia last suffered a famine''. But he said the UN's humanitarian partners have a larger footprint, better controls on resources, and a stronger partnership with the new government which recently declared the drought a national disaster. ''To be clear, we can avert a famine,'' O'Brien said. ''We're ready despite incredible risk and danger... but we need those huge funds now.'' In northeast Nigeria, a seven-year uprising by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people and driven 2.6 million from their homes. A UN humanitarian coordinator said last month that malnutrition in the northeast is so pronounced that some adults are too weak to walk and some communities have lost all their toddlers.








A report released this week shows Alabama among the top three U.S. states in unemployment. At 6.4 percent, Alabamas jobless rate is about one-third higher than the national average of 4.7 percent. In the Dothan metropolitan statistical area, the most recent unemployment rate (Nov. 2016) is 6.2 percent.

That should give Alabama lawmakers something to chew on during their days in the statehouse this legislative session. They already have significant issues to tackle, such as re-configuring a dozen legislative districts under order of the federal courts, considering an enormous bond issue to build new prisons that wont address the states prison overcrowding issue, and, presumably, finding a workable solution to the states chronic budget shortfalls.

However, a growing unemployment rate is particularly troubling, and should rise to the top of the legislative priority list.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Alabamas rising unemployment rate follows an influx of about 10,000 workers into the states labor pool last month. Only about 6,500 of those people found work.

It seems to be simple arithmetic; without enough jobs being created, there wont be enough jobs to fill.

However, its not quite that simple. State officials say there are about 25,000 jobs available in the state for job seekers.

The variable in this equation lies in making a good fit for both employee and workplace.

Lawmakers should be troubled by the rising unemployment rate, and pursue strategies that would create an environment that would attract new business and encourage the expansion of existing business. It should also review current strategies for job placement to ensure that the sorts of jobs being sought are the sort of jobs available.
Consolidation of Northview High School and Dothan High School appears to be off the table for a series of proposals the Dothan City School Board will vote on next month.

The board will vote on Superintendent Chuck Ledbetters More Dothan plan in April. The plan originally called for a number of changes, including consolidating Dothan High, allowing parents to choose which elementary schools their children attend, implementation of an International Baccalaureate program and other new programs.

Since being introduced, the More Dothan plans have been examined and tweaked by several committees of local residents. The finalized plans will be presented to the board at its regular April meeting.

Ledbetter says nothing has been finalized, but it does appear that consolidation is off the agenda. Ledbetter suggested consolidation to allow more efficient use of staff and resources.

There doesnt appear to be an appetite for it in the community, he said.

Ledbetter said the school choice proposal has been scaled back somewhat. He said the proposal will most likely include a pilot program that allows school choice at some schools around the city.

Ledbetter presented his More Dothan plan in March 2016.

At the time, Ledbetter said consolidating Dothan High School and Northview High School would allow the system to get more out of its limited funding. He said a combined school would allow for more economization and efficient use of resources. It would also allow better use of the Dothan Technology Center, which is located at Northview.

Ledbetter said the consolidation would likely involve turning the Dothan High campus into a ninth grade center and the Northview campus into a facility for grades 10-12.

The International Baccalaureate program is an internationally recognized standard of education. By incorporating the Swiss-designed program into the school system, Ledbetter said city school students would benefit from the opportunity to earn an IB diploma.
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NBCC bags a 250cr project; stock up by 4 %

State owned infrastructure-general sector giant, NBCC, saw a surge in its stock value as it bagged a contract worth Rs 250 crore from the Mauritius government on PMC basis.



The agreement signed between NBCC and the Mauritius government and Landscope (Mauritius) is for the construction of a new Supreme Court building in Mauritius within a time span of 24 months.



At present, the stock price of NBCC is valued at Rs 175.20, which has increased by 2.82 per cent on BSE. In the last 5 days the stocks have been trading between Rs 173.55 and Rs 178.20.



While, post the announcement of signing the agreement, the company's stock prices have surged by 4 per cent.
The VIP (Virtual Incubation Programme) 2017 was launched today at Creative Spark in Dundalk and addresses the notion that the physical space offered by an incubation centre may not always suit the needs of some start-up enterprises yet select services and supports offered by those centres could be key.

This collaborative project between Creative Spark, Dundalk and Millmount Development Centre, Drogheda (managed by Dundalk Institute of Technology) is targeted at knowledge-based micro-businesses or new start-ups operating in any sector.

Participating businesses can benefit from access to the VIP which includes business support, training, advice and mentoring (which can be activated remotely), access to state-of-the-art facilities, and shared equipment coupled with a credible business address in either Dundalk or Drogheda.

Supported by Enterprise Ireland, the programme recruited four businesses through an application process in 2016 and seeks to double the number to be brought through the programme in 2017.

Speaking about the programme, Paschal McGuire, Enterprise Ireland Director for the Border Region, said The Virtual Incubation Programme underlines the commitment of Enterprise Ireland, Creative Spark and Millmount Development Centre to creating sustainable businesses and employment in the Knowledge Economy through the inclusion of a wider client base across the region.

The Virtual Incubation Programme 2017 phase will run for of 6 months commencing in April.

Applications must be received by 5pm on Friday 31 March. Applicants must be available for interview (in person or via skype) on Tuesday 11 April.

Apply online at www.creativespark.ie/VIP

Creative Spark, a centre for creativity and innovation, welcomes and supports new and established businesses operating within the creative industries, innovation, technology, and sustainable energy sectors. Providing dedicated training and learning lab facilities and affordable workspace, Creative Spark offers an environment where innovation and creativity can flourish.

Creative spark is also a place to learn and grow your own business. We have Enterprise training in Creative Spark such as Social Media Workshop on Tuesday 21, Photography Workshop for Retailers on Tuesday 28 and Writing a Business Plan Thursday 30 supported by the Local Enterprise Office and all taking place this month in Creative Spark. Lunch and Learn take place on the last Thursday of every month. This is a great opportunity to network and meet people within the creative industries.
A civil action for breach of copyright by Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Limited against a County Louth man was adjourned for a second time to fix a date for it to be heard.

Proceedings by another publisher CCC Nuacht Teoranta against Leo Sherlock of Glenvar, Ardee Road, Collon were also before Ardee Court on Monday last and put back to the sitting on April 10.

Paul Meagher solicitor for Independent Newspapers said an appearance and defence had been received since the last date, and he applied to have a motion for judgment struck out.

The case could take two hours to hear. There were three witnesses for Independent Newspapers. He said both actions were related to breaches of copyright.

Mr Meagher at the February sitting described the alleged infringement involving his client as very serious and sought the earliest possible hearing date.

Mr Malachy Steenson solicitor appeared for Mr Sherlock who represented himself on the February date and said then he intended to give evidence in the case.

Mr Sherlock said it was his first time ever in court. He explained that he

had not handed in papers into the court as he had been in very bad health for the last 14 years and had been in and out of hospital. It was a complete oversight.

He said he wrote to Independent and explained the situation before Christmas. Unfortunately they didnt accept it.
There has never been a better time for Australian companies to expand into Asia. Today, China is Australias largest trading partner for both imports and exports.

Opportunities abound, as China now has the worlds largest middle class population which leads it increasingly towards a market for high grade goods and services. For example, China is currently the biggest international market for Australias education industry. This trend continues across Asia, as manufacturing moves into cheaper labor markets, and the demand for quality increases. This creates a unique opportunity for Australian SMEs to expand. No longer is the move into Asia solely for large corporations with international reach.

SMEs often believe that size is essential in a market such as China, however this is not necessarily the case. Online marketing and e-payment measures have changed that.

There is much support for Australian SMEs looking to expand internationally. Organisations such as the Australian China Business Council and Austrade are committed to helping Australian companies succeed in China. There are also individual companies whose businesses are built on providing support for growing Australian companies and helping them in global markets. It is essential that Australian SMEs understand that there is no need to recreate the wheel and break into international markets on their own.

In a global market, in which Australian companies are increasingly competing, it is becoming more and more common for companies to be headquartered in Melbourne, have a factories in China and a logistics centre in Singapore; or based in Perth, with a call centre in Mumbai servicing multiple global markets. Working across time zones, cultures and IT systems isnt free of challenges. These are just some reasons that using the correct partner is important. SMEs should only select partners that truly understand the environments in which they are operating and that can provide the support needed for SMEs to fully reach their potential in a new market.

The Chinese market, whilst lucrative, is notoriously difficult to succeed in. Many in the West understand today that China is a guanxi culture  a culture based on personal relationships. But personal relationships have to continue after the banquet dinners are over and the parties have returned home. Thats where telecommunications comes into play. Having the right partner will mean the difference between good and bad communication for beyond what guanxi allows.

Australian SMEs must ensure that they do their due diligence before venturing into Asia. This applies to everything from suppliers and distributors to picking the right telco partner. With the right partners on side, Australian SMEs can operate and excel across the global marketplace.

About the author

Erica Liu is General Manager  Australia with China Unicom, a Fortune 500 telecommunications provider with a presence in 70 countries and regions.
When it comes to measuring success, everyone has their own metrics. In business, however, high achievers possess the same characteristics. Creativity, flexibility, forward-thinking, self-motivation, organisational skills and a willingness to take risks are all essential for business owners. Here are some other traits you should seek to embody as you drive your business to greatness:

1. Know when to outsource to the experts

You might be a natural leader but it doesnt mean youre the best person for every job in your business. Successful business owners know when to step back and outsource services to the experts. For example, while a targeted investment in technology can boost the finance, marketing and customer service functions of your business, the last thing you need is to be distracted from what you do best because youre caught up troubleshooting related IT issues. Outsourcing IT support to experts will allow you to focus on the bigger picture business strategy while leaving you confident this function will be carried out properly.

2. Project a positive business image

Never underestimate the power of a positive business image. Your message and the image you project as a business owner i.e. your personal brand  will play a vital role in the success of your business and should be reviewed on a regular basis. From your marketing materials and your attire to how others perceive you, including your trustworthiness, and the company you keep (e.g. employees, suppliers, associates)  everything needs to tie together.

3. Hire people who are better than you

Being successful isnt about being the best at everything nor does it involve doing everything yourself. The wisest businesspeople resist the urge to take a hands-on approach with every facet of their business; instead, they surround themselves with  and delegate to  a team of complementary professionals whose strengths make up for their weaknesses and who they can learn from.

4. Exhibit a competitive spirit  without being obnoxious

To be competitive, you need to perfect the fine art of promoting your strengths without being obnoxious. Find a way to create a competitive advantage  a unique selling proposition that helps your business stand out from the pack  then let the world know about it. Self-promotion is a beneficial albeit underutilised marketing tool but be careful not to blow your own horn too much or you run the risk of scaring off potential customers.

5. Become an expert

Be seen as an expert in your field and as someone who keeps their finger on the pulse. In addition to reading business and marketing books, devour industry publications, newsletters and journals  and surround yourself with other like-minded experts. Furthermore, attend as many seminars, workshops and courses as you can to help build a rock-solid reputation. Maintaining an up-to-date and accurate blog on your website is a useful way to communicate to potential clients and other influencers that you are the go-to information source in your industry.

About the author

Jayde Ferguson is a writer for Office Solutions IT, a Perth-based IT services and solutions company that offers support in projects, advisory and more. You can catch her on Google+.
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ELKO  Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital provided a free blood draw and lab work at the Health and Fitness Fair on Saturday. More than 4,000 people attended the annual event held at the Elko Convention Center, and nearly 500 participated in the blood draw.

This is the first year that weve offered the blood draw at the Convention Center, so it was a challenge working out some of the logistics, said Steve Burrows, director of community relations at NNRH. However, we know that for some folks, this is the only health screening theyll receive all year. Instead of asking you to come to the hospital, we figured wed bring the hospital to you.

In addition to free lab work, the hospital offered free blood pressure checks and an ankle-brachial index (ABI) screening for peripheral arterial disease. Jennifer Koopman, NNRH director of physician relations and industry, oversaw the ABI station at the health fair which was staffed by student nurses from Great Basin College.

It was a pleasure working with the GBC nursing students and their instructors, all of whom volunteered their time, said Koopman. I am extremely grateful for their recognition of the importance of volunteer service and community health, and for all their hard work to make the screenings a success.

Rick Palagi, CEO at NNRH, said he was impressed with the number of people attending the fair.

Its encouraging to see so many people taking their Saturday to learn more about healthy living, Palagi said. We have six doctors here today, and theyve been answering questions and visiting with people non-stop. Our mission at NNRH is to make communities healthier, so we are more than happy to be a part of something like this.

Several other clinics and organizations also offered free screenings to the public. Dr. Fred Fricke measured attendees body-mass index (BMI) and provided education on combatting obesity. Troy Eden, a Certified Physician Assistant from Eden Medical Clinic, screened participants for plaque in the carotid arteries, a condition which can be a precursor to stroke.

One of the most visually striking exhibits was a 30-foot inflatable colon which was sponsored by the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. Attendees could stroll through the colon while learning the warning signs for colorectal cancer.

The Health and Fitness Fair is sponsored each year by Ruby Radio Corp. This years event included nearly 80 exhibitors from Nevada, Utah and Idaho. For the first time, the event expanded to fill both the Convention Center and the newer Conference Center building.
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Officials from

Enbridge Energy Partners insisted on the structural safety of its 64-year-old pipelines that pass under the Straits of Mackinac even though a company-commissioned study found that the lines protective coating has deteriorated in some areas.

I believe this pipeline is in as good of condition as it was on the day it was installed, Enbridges director of integrity programs Kurt Baraniecki said at a Pipeline Safety Advisory Board meeting in Lansing, Michigan on Monday.

But the 250 protestors who showed up to the meeting responded to the comments with derisive howls and laughter, the

Detroit Free Press reported.

[facebook https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10210711635280540&set=a.2682753701591.137769.1038790069&type=3&theater expand=1]

The meeting was centered around the Canadian oil transport companys heavily contested Enbridge Line 5 that lies just west of the Mackinac Bridge and carries roughly 23 million gallons of crude oil and liquid natural gas each day.

Built in 1953, the 645-mile, 30-inch-diameter pipeline runs from Superior, Wisconsin, across Michigans Upper and Lower Peninsulas before terminating in Ontario, Canada. As it travels under the Straits of Mackinac, a narrow waterway that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, Line 5 splits into twin 20-inch-diameter, parallel pipelines.

Enbridge Line 5 is a six-decade old major pipeline that carries petroleum to eastern Canada via the Great Lakes states. Enbridge Energy Partners

Environmentalists fear that a

potential rupture of oil lines that run through the heart of the Great Lakes, which contains 21 percent of the worlds surface fresh water, would be an ecological disaster.

The straits strong currents reverse direction every few days and a spill would quickly contaminate shoreline communities miles away, a University of Michigan study commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation found.

[facebook https://facebook.com/EcoWatch/videos/1483399671672965/ expand=1]

Not only that, opponents cite Enbridges numerous and well-documented spills. The company was responsible for more than 800 spills between 1999 and 2010, totaling 6.8 million gallons of spilled oil. Most notoriously in 2010, an Enbridge line spilled more than 800,000 gallons into the Kalamazoo River in Michigancreating the biggest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

A protestor named Fred Harrington and his 8-year-old grandson Riley Sargent of Petoskey showed up to the meeting covered in brown cake batter to make a point.

We wanted show you what the birds will look like, what the fish will look like, what the shoreline will look like if that pipeline breaks, Harrington said at the meeting. If we continue to let it run and run and run year after year, it will break.

https://twitter.com/garretellison/status/841359216363343874

Last September, Enbridge filed a work plan with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identifying 18 holidays on Line 5an oil and gas industry term that refers to areas on a pipeline where anti-corrosive coating is missing

But Baraniecki, the companys integrity programs director, said at the meeting that the report used imprecise language.

As the Detroit Free Press reported:

What was actually identified on the underwater pipes were 18 locations where an outer, glass-fiber coating has come off that doesnt provide corrosion protection, he said.

Referring to those spots as holidays, exposed areas of pipe, in the companys Biota Investigation Work Plan was incorrect, he said.

The consultants had generalized this, Baraniecki said. These were locations we have identified that could potentially have coating holidays.

But opponents are calling foul on the oil companys claims.

Enbridge began by saying Line 5 is as good as the day it was constructed 64 years ago. Then they went on to admit the protective coatings are peeling off while saying it really doesnt matter, David Holtz, executive committee chair of the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club, told EcoWatch.

This is the same company that claimed their pipeline 6B near Marshall Michigan was safe just weeks before it ruptured more than a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, Holtz continued.

Environmental advocates are also calling on Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette to decommission the line.

Oil pipelines dont belong in the Great Lakes and the governor needs to begin the process now to decommission Line 5 before theres a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes, Holtz said.

The Pipeline Safety Advisory Board is expecting reports from two independent contractors by June. The contractors will assess worst-case-scenarios from a Straits pipeline leak and analyze safer alternatives to transport oil and gas around the Great Lakes.

Holtz said that the Sierra Club plans to continue citizen pressure on Gov. Snyder and AG Schuette as the state prepares for public comment on the reports.
Rex Tillerson used an email address registered under the name Wayne Tracker to discuss climate policies while CEO of ExxonMobil, according to a letter sent by the New York attorney generals office to a New York Supreme Court justice Monday.

OMG! White House Plagiarizes Statement From Exxon Touting Plans for Expanded Fossil Fuel Projects https://t.co/ScgWFNA7xY @greenpeaceusa  EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) March 7, 2017

In the letter, lawyers for AG Eric Schneidermans office allege that Exxon did not disclose the existence of this false address in court documents and failed to provide correspondence from the account in its reply to the AGs subpoena investigating the companys public and private climate policies.

Exxon executives responded that the Wayne.Tracker@exxonmobil.com address, in use between 2008 and 2015, was put in place for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics.

For a deeper dive:

The Hill, Bloomberg, Buzzfeed, InsideClimate News

For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
(Photo: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst)U.S. President Barack Obama chats with moderators Enrique Acevedo (L) of Univision and Jose Diaz Balart (2nd L) of Telemundo during a commercial break in a town hall-style television forum to encourage Latino Americans to enroll in Obamacare health insurance plans, at the Newseum in Washington March 6, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court could dodge the contentious question of whether corporations have religious rights when it weighs objections to an Obamacare requirement that employers provide insurance coverage for contraception.

The court, which hears oral argument in two consolidated cases on March 25, could rule that individuals who own closely held companies, rather than the corporations themselves, can argue their religious rights have been violated. Such a ruling would allow the court to avoid criticism that it favors corporate rights too much.

The latest challenge to part of President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare overhaul is one of the most closely watched cases before the nine justices this year, mixing religion, women's rights and politics.

The cases were brought by owners of companies that want an exemption from the so-called "contraception mandate" provision. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

The justices will weigh whether the companies or their owners have a claim under a 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ensures the free exercise of religion. Religious institutions are exempt from the regulation.

One option for the justices is to adopt the approach a federal appeals court in Washington took in one of dozens of cases being litigated around the country and rule owners have a right to object, ignoring the question of whether companies can.

"It does kind of give a middle way to duck the legally controversial question," said Francis Manion, a lawyer for Roman Catholic brothers Francis and Philip Gilardi in the case decided by the Washington, D.C., court. The brothers own Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics in Sidney, Ohio, and object to providing insurance that covers all federally approved contraceptives.

Obamacare has faced political and legal hurdles, especially from Republicans, since the president, a Democrat, made it his signature policy. In June 2012, the justices upheld by a 5-4 vote the constitutionality of Obamacare's core feature that requires people to get health insurance. This issue is the first Obamacare case the court has taken since then.

The companies involved do not all oppose all forms of contraception. The contraceptive mandate covers various types of contraception approved by the federal government, including Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill, to which some Christians especially object, viewing it as akin to taking a life.

RELIGIOUS RIGHTS FOR CORPORATIONS?

The first of the two consolidated cases was brought by two plaintiffs, arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and Mardel, a chain of Christian bookstores. Both are owned and operated by David and Barbara Green and their children, who are evangelical Christians.

The other case was brought by a Mennonite family that has a company in Pennsylvania, Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. This is owned by Norman and Elizabeth Hahn and their three sons.

Hobby Lobby has around 13,000 full-time employees while Conestoga Wood has 950.

A ruling from the high court similar to the Gilardi decision in Washington would enable the justices to duck the kind of criticism they faced, mainly from liberals, four years ago when the court was seen to side with the notion of corporate personhood. On a 5-4 vote, the court endorsed broad free-speech rights for corporations in the campaign finance context in a case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The second question for the court is whether the religious objections have any merit. The Washington, D.C., appeals court ruled for the Gilardis on that question too, awarding them a preliminary injunction that prevents the mandate from being enforced against them.

The Supreme Court could follow suit, or it could issue a split ruling in which it finds the company owners have the right to make a claim but then concludes that the argument has no merit. In that scenario, the court would find that the mandate furthers a compelling government interest and does not unduly burden the company owners.

DIFFERENT CONCLUSIONS

The federal appeals courts to have ruled on the issue so far have reached different conclusions. In the Hobby Lobby case, the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the company could make a successful claim. By contrast, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that neither Conestoga Wood nor its owners had a viable claim.

The Washington, D.C., federal appeals court was the only one that found the individual company owners but not the corporation could make a claim. In the November 2013 ruling, the court said on a 2-1 vote that the government could not enforce the mandate against the Gilardi brothers and their companies while litigation continued.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote for the majority that, as a result of the regulation, the brothers "can either abide by the sacred tenets of their faith, pay a penalty of over $14 million, and cripple the companies they have spent a lifetime building, or they become complicit in a grave moral wrong."

The Obama administration's position is that neither the owners nor the companies have the legal grounds to challenge the mandate. The challengers seeking the exemption see the litigation in starkly different terms.

"It's about religious freedom," said Mark Rienzi, a lawyer representing the Green family in the Hobby Lobby case. "It's about whether you give up your religious rights when you open a business."

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Stephen Powell)
(Photo:  Peter Kenny / Ecumenical News)Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, who heads the Holy See delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, at a UN event on June 15, 2015.

While the world works to choose a new director general of the World Health Organization and U.S politicians are toiling feverishly on the health system, the U.N. Human Rights Council has heard from the Vatican about the "moral obligation" of universal access to medicines.

Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, Vatican representative to the United Nations in Geneva, on March 10 addressed the Human Rights Council saying that policy coherence is necessary to achieve the "moral obligation" of universal access to medicines.

He noted that working for "a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and of human labour is not mere philanthropy," it is a moral obligation.

"Access to affordable medicines no longer represents a challenge only for the least developed and other developing countries; it has also become an increasingly urgent issue for higher-income countries as well. States find themselves unable to combat antimicrobial resistance," for instance Jurkovic said.

Speaking in Geneva he said, "In relation to pursuing of the double goals of access to medicines and necessary medical innovation, policy coherence is fundamental for effective, sustainable and equitable progress towards universal health coverage and improved health outcomes for all."

The archbishop said that to promote human dignity and to adopt policies rooted in a human rights approach, "we need to confront and remove barriers, such as monopolies and oligopolies, lack of access and affordability and, in particular, both overwhelming and unacceptable human greed."

Jurkovic said that in regarding the pursuit of the double goals of access to medicines and necessary medical innovation, "policy coherence is fundamental" for effective, sustainable and equitable progress towards universal health coverage and improved health outcomes for all.

The adoption of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals has created an enabling framework for progress toward the achievement of both access and innovation.

SDG 3, in particular, includes the targets to support "the research and development of vaccines and medicine for the communicable and non-communicable diseases that primarily affect developing countries."

It also seeks to provide "access to affordable essential medicines and vaccines, in accordance with the Doha Declaration on TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement and Public Health."

In this sense, said the archbishop, the Holy See appreciates the entry into force in January of the amendment to the TRIPs Agreement at the World Trade Organization.

"The amendment provides a secure and legal pathway to access affordable medicines and helps the most vulnerable access treatments that meet their needs, including those related to HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, as well as other epidemics," he said.
Theres a race going on for states to file or join new lawsuits against President Trumps second executive order temporarily halting entry into the U.S. for some people from a few terror-plagued countries. The new actions promise to be rehashes of the states earlier suits against Trumps original order. Washington State, for example, which managed to stop the first order, has gone so far as to argue the new order and the now-rescinded original measure are identical, and has asked a judge to simply apply his emergency stop to the new order as if nothing has changed.

But the first state to file suit against the new order, Hawaii, has taken a new tack from the suit it filed on Feb. 3 against Trumps original order. The new Hawaii suit, which will come before a federal judge on Wednesday, relies not only on claims of economic damages to the state resulting from the Trump order but also on claims of damages to Hawaii Muslims feelings and perceptions of the world.

The original Hawaii suit was simply the state versus the president and his administration. The new suit adds a new plaintiff, a man named Ismail Elshikh, who is identified as an American citizen of Egyptian descent who has lived in Hawaii for more than a decade and is now imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii.

The Trump order inflicts a grave injury on Elshikh and other Muslims in Hawaii, the suit says, by subjecting them to discrimination and second-class treatment.

The order denies them their right to associate with family members overseas, the lawsuit alleges, and forces Elshikh and other Hawaii Muslims to live in a country and in a state where there is the perception that the government has established a disfavored religion.

Elshikhs particular problem is this: His wife, the suit says, is an American citizen of Syrian descent and is also a resident of Hawaii. She and Elshikh, who has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from an Egyptian university, have five children, all of whom, according to the suit, are American citizens and residents of Hawaii.

Mrs. Elshikhs mother, Ismail Elshikhs mother-in-law, is a Syrian national, living in Syria. According to the suit, she wants to come to the United States. Elshikhs mother-in-law last visited the family in 2005, when she stayed for one month, the lawsuit says. She has not met two of Dr. Elshikhs children, and only Dr. Elshikhs oldest child remembers meeting her grandmother.

The suit says that in September 2015, Elshikhs wife filed an I-130 petition on behalf of her mother in Syria. United States Citizen and Immigration Services describes the I-130 as a form for citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States to establish the relationship to certain alien relatives who wish to immigrate to the United States.

The mother-in-laws I-130 petition was approved in February 2016, according to the suit, but so far, the suit says, Elshikhs mother-in-law does not currently hold a visa to enter the United States.

Eleven of the 12 months during which Elshikhs mother-in-laws I-130 petition was approved but she was not granted a visa occurred during the Obama administration, which boasted of the thorough, time-consuming, multiyear vetting process it applied to Syrians attempting to come to the United States. Elshikh did not sue the government during that time. After Trump declared a 90-day moratorium on visas, Elshikh went to court.

On January 31, 2017  after the first Executive Order was put in place  Dr. Elshikh was notified by an individual from the National Visa Center that his mother-in-laws application for an immigrant visa had been put on hold. Then, on March 2, 2017  after the first Executive Order was enjoined  Dr. Elshikh and his family were notified by the National Visa Center that his mother-in-laws visa application had progressed to the next stage of the process and that her interview would be scheduled at an embassy overseas. Under the new Executive Order, however, Dr. Elshikh fears that his mother-in-law will, once again, be unable to enter the country under Section 2 of the Executive Order.

The suit says that Elshikhs children, who were apparently not harmed by the Obama administrations (and Congresss) action to make it difficult and time-consuming for Syrians to come to the U.S., are deeply affected by Trumps executive order. It conveys to them a message that their own country would discriminate against individuals who share their ethnicity, including members of their own family, and who hold the same religious beliefs.

We feel both bans, Version 1 and Version 2, are delivering on Trumps promise to some of the far-right groups that he is going to have a Muslim ban, Hakim Ouasanfi told me by phone Thursday. Our viewpoint is that any discrimination is not acceptable. It is not the way to keep our country safe.

How can you explain to a daughter that your grandmother will not be able to visit?

I asked Ouasanfi whether the temporary nature of Trumps action made it less burdensome. If my daughter is graduating in 90 days, then it is a burden, he answered. If the wedding is planned for May, that is a burden. I dont think Muslims should plan their lives around Trumps decision.

On the other hand, Elshikhs mother-in-law has not visited in 12 years  for whatever reason, she did not visit for the births of grandchildren or the various milestones in their lives. And now this 90-day delay is a violation of her familys constitutional rights?

The plaintiffs did not file suit over earlier government actions that made coming to the United States a difficult and drawn-out effort. Some in the Obama administration made clear that it could take years for a Syrian to be admitted to the U.S. But when Trump announced a 90-day delay, the Hawaii plaintiffs went to court. Why?

Perhaps there is a clue in some of the words in the lawsuit that convey emotion. Elshikh and other Muslims feel this or that, or they are devastated, or there is this or that perception, or this or that message conveyed. It could be that much of the energy behind the lawsuit is emotional, caught up in a hysteria about Donald Trump as much as a rational reading of the new executive order.

Now the Hawaii case goes to court. The new Trump order was amended specifically to address some of the legal objections raised against the original order in court challenges across the country. But how to craft an order to protect feelings?
As states overhaul their accountability systems under the new federal K-12 law, officials in some are pushing to replace or revamp A-F grading for schools, which supporters tout as an easy way to convey to the public how schools stack up.

In recent years, at least 18 states have adopted some version of a system that relies mostly on standardized-test scores and graduation rates to generate letter-grade report cards, similar to the ones students receive throughout the school year. Legislation is pending in a handful of states to join that group.

But in some states that already have them, A-F systems have received fierce backlash from local superintendents and school board members. They complain that the letter grades oversimplify student success or shortfalls, increase pressure to pay attention to tests, ignore school quality factors other than test scores, and demoralize teachers and parents.

Local officials in at least four states are using this years window of opportunity provided by the Every Student Succeeds Act to push back against A-F systems. ESSA, which goes into full effect for the 2017-18 school year, requires states to change several components of their accountability systems, including the measures states must use to calculate rankings and how often they report rankings to the public.

In West Virginia, recently elected Democratic Gov. Jim Justice said in his State of the State speech this year that he always thought his states letter-grade system was ineffective, and he ordered his education department to replace it with a new one.

Which States Grade Their Schools? At least 17 states have or are developing some form of A-F grading system for their schools. Proponents say the format makes it easier for the public to understand where schools stand academically. Critics say the letter grades oversimplify the picture of student success and school quality. Source: Education Commission of the States

More than 200 local superintendents in Texas are urging their state legislaturewhere the leadership remains in favor of the A-F grading systemto repeal it before it goes into full effect next year, after a what-if set of grades was released by the state department earlier this year that ranked many of the states well-respected suburban districts as performing below average.

And a group of Louisiana superintendents who have long complained about the states A-F system are attempting to delay its ESSA accountability plan from being submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. They say they will create their own accountability system if the state superintendent moves forward with one they say places their already-ambitious A-F accountability system on steroids.

Accountability needs to bring gentle pressure to all of us, said Hollis Milton, the superintendent of the West Feliciana Parish schools and the president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents. But when it becomes Draconian, it begins to affect morale.

Cautions Raised

Advocacy organizations such as the Foundation for Excellence in Educationfounded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bushand Chiefs for Change have urged states to hold fast to A-F systems or other systems that rank schools in an easy, understandable way for the public. Letter grades in particular, they say, force districts to pay attention to disparities between black and Latino students and their white peers and can spark rapid change.

States should have clear and transparent summative-rating systems that are actionable for parents, teachers, and other stakeholders in communities and are clearly communicated for all stakeholders, said Mike Magee, the CEO of Chiefs for Change, which includes state and district superintendents.

Any new overhauls of accountability systems in these states, officials with the Foundation for Excellence in Education have told state officials during ESSA strategy sessions, will result in a tipping point that would reverse academic growth.

ESSA and School Report Cards

ESSA requires states to evaluate schools based on English-language proficiency, graduation rates, and scores on statewide achievement tests. They also must add at least one new indicator of school quality or student success, such as school climate, chronic absenteeism, discipline, or college and career readiness. The law also requires statewide report cards to be issued on an annual basis and to report more information to the public, such as per-pupil spending.

Governors and legislators, who shoulder a growing share of education costs, often butt heads with state education departments and local officials on just how straightforward and transparent theyre being with the public about the academic status of their districts. And parent groups and accountability hawks have long complained that slogging through more-traditional state report cards filled with reams of data, caveats, and online drop-down menus will give even the most data-tolerant of education wonks a pulsating headache.

But as education departments have begun to release the first rounds of letter grades in recent years, local officialsespecially suburban superintendentshave taken exception to the way the grades are calculated. Such systems fail to convey the dynamics of all that goes into a students success, they argue, and they take issue with the kinds of data sometimes folded into the grades.

To many district superintendents, ESSA is a prime opportunity for their education agencies to break away from a corporate-style accountability movement in the past decade that, in their view, led to mass firings of teachers, state takeovers of schools, and swift administrative turnover with few academic gains to show for it.

The A-F approach still has momentum in some places. Currently, according to the Education Commission of the States, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Washington have bills to introduce letter grades to their report cards.

Jim Justice, West Virginias new governor, laid out one rationale for replacing those systems in his annual speech to legislators.

Think about A through F for our schools, he said. We do it on a bell curve. ... These get an A. These get an F. All the big meat and potatoes [schools] get a C. And we call out to the world and say, Come to West Virginia. Our schools are mostly all Cs. I dont get it. Thats got to go.

In Louisiana, the states accountability system has created a fissure between the state chief and local superintendents.

John White, the appointed state superintendent, has proposed raising the academic bar for schools in order to receive an A on the state report card, which has upset local superintendents. They have pushed for the state to wait until September to turn in its ESSA accountability plan instead of April. Whites department did not respond to a request for interviews.

Policy Splits

In some states, such as Alabama and Texas, the first round of letter grades has sparked a fierce backlash from local superintendents.

Alabamas legislature in 2012 ordered that by 2014 the education department issue letter grades, but the department has yet to do so. The state board and state Superintendent Michael Sentance decided late last year to give the public raw information that would determine the letter grades, but not the letter grades themselves. Sentance told local news media that he has seen negative effects that letter grades have had across the country.

Texas released preliminary grades on its website earlier this school year, with a memo from Mike Morath, the state chief that said: The ratings in this report are for informational purposes to meet a legislative requirement and represent work-in-progress models that are likely to change before AF ratings become effective in August 2018. No inferences about official district or campus performance in the 2015-16 school year should be drawn from these ratings, and these ratings should not be considered predictors of future district- or campus-performance ratings.

More than half of Texas schools got a C or lower in student achievement. More than 200 of the states superintendents quickly denounced the grades as flawed, simplistic, and demoralizing.

Debbie Gillespie, a school board member of the Frisco Independent district, a wealthy system outside Dallas, said her district sent out waves of communication to explain that its C in the college- and career-readiness category was based on the districts absenteeism rate, not the quality of its dual-enrollment or Advanced Placement courses.

Our grade is lower than what the perception is, Gillespie said. We have outside forces telling us that were failing, and thats not true. When you look at these grades, its meant to shame us. Were not shameful. Were doing great things.

Not every superintendent agrees.

Last week, the school board of Comal Independent, a suburban district outside San Antonio, passed a resolution in support of the letter grades. Thats despite the two Cs and two Bs the district got on its report card.

I think the bottom line for us is, we philosophically believe that accountability is a good thing, said Kerry Gain, the districts assistant superintendent for curriculum and academic services. We serve our public school children, and we believe we should be held accountable on whether or not they are learning. That could be a crazy stance, but thats where we are.
CARSON CITY  The air in the Legislature on Monday was a little bit different as the Senate and Assembly prepared for a joint session address by U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev.

Having received threats from local progressive organizations of a protest asking for a town hall, the Legislative Police were in their best uniforms and the sergeants-at-arms were posted aroun the Assembly gallery.

Outside the building, about 50 protesters stood with signs along Carson Street. One of these was Rick Shepherd of Sparks, who has declared his candidacy as a Democrat running for Congress in Nevadas 2nd Congressional District. He spoke largely in favor of continuing the Affordable Care Act, and joined the voices asking for a town hall with Amodei.

In his usual fashion, Amodei walked in the front door of the Legislature, smiling and waving to the protesters, but continuing silently into the building. He began his address by reminding the Legislature of his tenure in the body, and how even then he did not believe in congressional addresses in the Legislature.

He then joked about what he called the everybody loves everybody environment in Washington, D.C.

Amodei spoke about the Affordable Care Act, saying Congress will continue to study the issues, and that when it comes to it, his primary question will be how does this affect Nevada?

Amodei then gave a tribute to former Nevada senator Harry Reid for his work on public lands management. He promised more work would be done to deliver public lands to the hands of the local governments that have asked.

The last part of the congressmans speech started with a story about being in Elko three years ago and meeting with PICON: People in Charge of Nevada. He told the body that initially he had thought the group was based around the famous Basque drink, but he soon learned differently. He said the group had exploded and opened multiple chapters in the state since then, and he said it was time for a state chapter. With that, he gave out PICON hats to the governor, Constitutional officers, Supreme Curt justices, and legislators of both the Assembly and the Senate.

Amid applause and laughter, Amodei then left the chamber, and the joint session adjourned with a vote thanking Representative Amodei for his service to Nevada.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  In the past five months, two pregnant women in Utah lost their babies in the first trimester after contracting Zika, according to a state health department report released Monday.

The report by Utah's department of health shows that since the beginning of last year, 11 pregnant women have contracted Zika in Utah.

Amy Steele, an epidemiologist at Utah's Department of Health, said eight of those pregnant women did not pass on the virus to their children and one woman left Utah and wasn't tracked.

The two women who did pass on Zika to their unborn babies were in their first trimester of pregnancy when they contracted the virus while traveling outside of the country.

"Two dying in the first trimester due to Zika seems to align with what they have found in Brazil and in the states," said Steele.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between 2016 and 2017, there have been five cases of pregnancy losses with birth defects involving Zika in the U.S. It's not clear whether they used the same criteria or timeframe as Utah's department of health to measure these losses.

Officials with CDC were not immediately available.

Overall, the CDC reported more than 5,000 cases of Zika in the U.S. Most were travelers returning from affected areas, but about 220 people were infected by mosquitoes in Florida and Texas, and about 72 were infected in other ways, including sexual contact with an infected person.

In Utah, 29 people have contracted Zika since the beginning of 2016, according to Utah's department of health report. One of them was infected while in the state after touching his dad's tears or sweat while his father was infected.

The virus causes only a mild illness in most people. But during recent outbreaks in Latin America, scientists discovered that infection during pregnancy has led to severe brain-related birth defects.

Meanwhile, on Monday the CDC advised men from three Florida counties they shouldn't donate sperm because of a small risk of spreading Zika.

The guidance had previously applied to Miami-Dade County, the only place in Florida where there's evidence the virus was spread by mosquitoes. But infections were reported in people in South Florida who couldn't clearly be linked to Miami-Dade.
Patient transfers, livestock worrying to be discussed in Keys



Bridgewater Cars in Liverpool currently take patients from the airport to hospital appointment.

Transport for patients, the future of the former Park Road School site and livestock worrying will be discussed in the House of Keys this morning.

Health Minister Kate Beecroft will be asked to provide an update on the transfer arrangements for Manx patients needing treatment in the UK.

Ayre and Michael MHK Tim Baker puts the question to the Minister after a public backlash to news that a new taxi company will take over patient transfers in Liverpool.

Mr Baker is also seeking statistics over incidents of livestock worrying on the Island in the last three years, and what punishments those prosecuted can expect to face.

Douglas North member David Ashford wants to know what plans there are for the Park Road School site, as well as the former Lord Street Bus Station site.

The sitting gets underway from 10am.
House of Keys to mark 150 years of public elections

The House of Keys will mark the 150th anniversary of the introduction of public elections on the Isle of Man later today.

Members of the Manx public have been able to decide who sits in the House of Keys since 1867.

A sitting of the House to mark the occasion will take place in the old House of Keys in Castletown this afternoon, after this morning's weekly Keys sitting in Douglas.

Members will hear about the introduction of democratic elections, as well as their impact on Manx politics over the last 150 years.
Scotland air route deal imminent

The Infrastructure Minister says plans to restore an air route between the Isle of Man and Scotland are being finalised.

No operator has stepped in to take over the Glasgow route since CityWing announced it was going into liquidation last week, leaving Ronaldsway without a direct connection to Scotland.

Ray Harmer confirmed in this morning's sitting of the House of Keys that further announcements should come in the next few days, with a deal to resume flights to Scotland imminent.

The Minister also revealed the Belfast City flights will go back to twice daily with some weekend services by the end of the month.

Two of the virtual airline's five routes have already been taken over by Eastern Airways, but the future of the Blackpool and Gloucester routes remains uncertain.
Syrian refugee Khaled al Dieri, now in Madrid. Bernardo Perez

Do you want to be a refugee here?" When he heard the question, Khaled al Dieri, 26, says he felt an inner peace that had been missing for a long time. Yes, he replied without hesitation.

That was September 21, 2014. Khaled had fled Syria three years earlier, after shrapnel got lodged into his foot at a street march in his hometown of Deraa, the birthplace of the protests that led to civil war.

At that point, Khaled could not even imagine he would eventually end up in Spain and become the first person to file for asylum at the Melilla border. Nor was he aware that there was another enemy waiting around the corner: the complicated rules that govern refugee applications in Spain, and that are highlighting Europes lack of solidarity towards the flood of people from around the world seeking protection.

I always heard that Europe was the best place, says Khaled, sitting on a bench inside a park in the north of Madrid, where he is now studying and working as a cook.

Last year, Spain received 15,570 asylum applications, of which nearly 3,000 were filed by Syrian nationals

But to test that claim, this Syrian, who is always smiling, had to cross many borders and experience first-hand the contradictions inherent in Europes immigration and asylum policies  from overcrowded shelters to deportations backed by the Dublin regulation, which says migrants must request asylum in the first European country they enter.

After traveling to Jordan in the hopes of receiving surgery for the wound in his foot, he moved on to Egypt, then Algeria, and finally to Morocco. There, he refused to pay the mafias that block the route to the Spanish border station of Beni Ensar, which provides access to the Spanish exclave of Melilla. It took him three attempts, but he made it through.

They told me I was the first person to come through legally in who knows how long, he recalls.

Beni Ensar has since become the Spanish entry point that receives the most applications, says Maria Jesus Vega, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR) in Spain. After Khaled, around 10,000 more people managed to request international protection at this border outpost, although that figure has been dwindling because Algeria and Tunisia have begun asking Syrians for visas.

Last year, Spain received a record number of asylum applications: 15,570, of which nearly 3,000 were filed by Syrian nationals, according to the latest Eurostat figures. Of the 10,250 requests that were processed, nearly 7,000 received favorable answers.

On the other hand, a 2009 legal reform has practically eliminated the possibility of requesting asylum at Spanish embassies abroad, meaning that protection seekers are forced to risk their lives to apply in person at a Spanish border point.

I spent a month on the streets and then had to go back to Melilla Khaled

ACNUR established a permanent presence at the Beni Ensar border station in June 2014, when there was a spike in Syrian arrivals. In early 2015, the Interior Ministry set up an office to speed up processing. But these options are out of reach to citizens of specific countries, who have no choice but to try to jump the fence and gain illegal entry into Spain.

Moroccos role as a policeman has had consequences: Syrians and Moroccans have to pay the mafias, while sub-Saharan Africans have no way in, says Antonio Zapata, a lawyer in Melilla.

All asylum seekers at the border have to wait inside a facility known as CETI (Temporary Immigrant Stay Center) until their application is either approved or rejected. The law says this should not take longer than four days, but this period is hardly ever observed. And the Melilla CETI is overcrowded and lacks the conditions to be considered a place of shelter, says Vega.

The problem is that, due to Spains bad practices, they have become long-term centers where applicants rights are not respected, says Paloma Favieres, who coordinates the legal services at the Spanish Refugee Aid Commission (CEAR).

Khaled spent three months at the Melilla CETI while his own application was being processed. He compares it to an animal house. He slept in bunk beds under the roof, and one day when it rained, the room flooded and the water reached up to his back  a back already hurting from the beatings he received in a Syrian prison, where he was held for over a year after telling a classmate at school that he disagreed with the policies of President Bashar al Assad.

Once he received his red card, a temporary document that does not allow recipients to leave the country, he was transferred to Malaga. But things did not improve. I spent a month on the streets [until I was told] that there was a problem with my name and that I had to go back to Melilla, he recalls.

Instead, he fled to France and Belgium. From day one I had a place to sleep, eat and learn the language. But the Dublin law was enforced, and he was sent back to Spain. I felt awful, I didnt want to be back here, he confesses.

Khaled had fled Syria after shrapnel lodged into his foot at a protest march in his hometown of Deraa

After spending time at two different Madrid shelters, Khaled was finally granted refugee status  later than the legally established deadlines. Cristina Gortazar, a researcher on refugee issues at Pontificia Comillas University, notes that applications should be processed in six months. But this does not happen: decisions take two years and more, she says.

Now, Khaled wants to stay in Spain. He is renting out a room and found a job three months ago at a restaurant chain, where he works as a cook. He wants to pursue his childhood dream of opening his own restaurant one day, and is taking online courses thanks to help from a social worker.

Most of his family is still back in Syria, except for his father, who fled to Kuwait, and a sister, who made it to Turkey, a country that Khaled describes as very dangerous.

He is proud of himself because last month, for the first time, he was able to send money back to his family. The shrapnel is still stuck in his foot, though.

You know what? he says. It hurts, but I dont care anymore.

This story is part of a project called The New Arrivals, funded by the European Journalism Centre with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, in which EL PAIS is a participating member together with The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Le Monde.

English version by Susana Urra.
MediaTek and TSMC previously worked together and now these to tech companies will again collaborate its efforts to create a 7nm smartphone chipset. This upcoming processor expected to challenge Samsung and Qualcomm's Snapdragon.

Phone Arena has learned that MediaTek and TSMC formerly worked together way back in 2015 to create the Helio X20 and X25 chipsets which were armed with 10 CPU cores. These two chipset makers also work together to develop the Helio X30 which was finally launched last month.

Nevertheless, there have been problems with the shipments of Helio X30. As a matter of fact, DigiTimes stated in its article that the 10nm process of TSMC has generated low and problematic rates. With this, scenario there has been negative effects to the shipments of the Helio X30. MediaTek conversely denied that the schedule of delivery for the 10nm chips has been altered and it even assured that the fans could expect the flagship chips to be rolled out within the second quarter of this year. As of this moment, it was said that the 10nm Helio X30 is currently in mass production.

Moreover, there have been reports earlier this month that MediaTek has surrendered the battle with Qualcomm in manufacturing ARM chips for Windows 10 PCs. This decision of the Taiwanese company came about after Microsoft and Qualcomm come into contact with a deal to have Windows 10 support ARM chips with X86 emulation.

But then, despite the fact that MediaTek already gave up with the ARM race for Windows 10, the company still challenges Qualcomm's newest chipset; the Snapdragon 835. With the helping hand of TSMC, MediaTek hopes that the 7nm manufacturing process will be the key to producing a 12 core processor that is a mile better than the processors release up to date

Aside from that, MediaTek and TSMC tie up will also have another rival in form of Samsung which was believed to have scheduled to mass produce its 7nm processors early next year. If the South Korean tech giant's plans happen, its much-owned 12 core CPU will be launched in 2018 just a perfect time for the Galaxy S9 to be the first to come out engineered with the 7nm chipset.

As of now, MediaTek and TSMC haven't stated any word yet regarding the 7nm smartphone processor release. Moreover, the company's patrons hope that these two chipset makers to be successful in its endeavors.
The creator of "The Vampire Diaries" Julie Plec just hinted that there might be a spin-off of the show and Nina Dobrev might also take part in the said project. If this is the case, there is a possibility that the actress will join a second spin-off show which will center on the character of Caroline Forbes.

"The Originals" debuts its fourth season on March 17 but it seems like producers of the show are thinking of other plans and of another story. Some insiders think that a spin-off will be created that will center on the story of Caroline played by Candice King and Klaus played by Joseph Morgan.

It can be recalled that when Nina Dobrev returned to "The Vampire Diaries," a lot of the show's fans were surprised and thrilled. That's why a lot of the fans are also wondering if Nina Dobrev needs to return too as her comeback in the series was one of the most anticipated events in the history of the series as reported in Hollywood Reporter.

In fact, the return of Elena Gilbert in "The Vampire Diaries" created media hype since she was one of the biggest names in the series. Therefore, it will no longer be surprising if people and the fans would want to see a lot of her in the future.

Julie Plec shared that the producers have so many crossover elements in the upcoming season of "The Originals.' With this, she is also thinking if she will be working on a future for the said show or another show which is to be launched at the end of "The Originals." She is looking forward to that idea and see if she can produce and create something out of it.

But the issue here is whether Nina Dobrev will like to return full-time on television after "The Vampire Diaries" since she mentioned before that she wasn't to transition from small screen to big screen as per TV Line. She just recently joined the cast of "xXx: The Return of Xander Cage."

One thing more, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder also mentioned before that they will not be returning to any spin-off shows for "The Vampire Dairies." With this, time will only tell if Nina Dobrev will also follow them or if she will please the fans of "The Vampire Diaries" and will play Elena Gilbert on a future show or series.
Prince William has been spotted in France enjoying a ski holiday with his friends and pals while Kate Middleton was left on their home with Prince George and Princess Charlotte. With that, it looks like the Duke spent some rare downtime away from his family.

Prince William spent a weekend holiday on the slopes in Verbier with his close pals which included Guy Pelly, Prince George's godfather. Because of this, the Duke has been absent from the celebration of the Britain's Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey last Monday.

The Duke of Cambridge only jetted home just this weekend on Sunday and the Kensington Palace released a statement that it was part of Prince William's private schedule and will not offer further comment on it. Kate Middleton's husband was seen in the exclusive ski region enjoying drinks with his pals until the wee hours of the morning at a nightclub as per Independent News.

Before that party, he was spotted making new friends which included Australian model Sophie Taylor. She later joined Prince William's friends later that night at Farinet where her boyfriend Aaron Goodfellow also is working. Meanwhile, Kate Middleton was also missing from the occasion yesterday and from the event at the Westminster Abbey. Prince Harry attended the said occasion together with Prince Charles and Camilla alongside Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth.

As of now, Prince William and Kate Middleton are residing in their palatial Anmer Hall home in Norfolk together with their children, George and Charlotte. However, reports were claiming that the royal couple is planning to move to London full-time. In fact, there were reports suggesting that the royal couple is planning an extension at Kensington Palace as per Yahoo.

It has been reported too that Prince William and Kate Middleton will be visiting Paris this weekend and will be arriving there this Friday. This trip will be surely emotional for the prince as this happens five months prior to the death anniversary of his mother, Princess Diana.

It will be the first time Prince William will be visiting the place since the death of his mother there last 1997. During their stay, William and Kate Middleton will attend eight engagements.
Deception has proven itself as a valid form of defense for millennia  a fact to which militaries, nature and attorneys can attest.

However, effective deception takes skill, with many claiming that deception is more of an art than a science.

In the world of IT, the concept of deception proves tricky simply because information systems are designed to record, process and report data accurately. The contradiction of deception in an environment designed for truth has created a conundrum. One that has culminated in InfoSec practitioners creating technological deceptions such as honeypots, which may fool some attackers but rarely lead to catching those attempting to compromise systems.

Therein lies the real challenge: how can IT professionals practice deceptive techniques that can lead to more than just a temporary reprieve from attack?

TopSpin Security, based in Herzliya, Israel, aims to answer that query with their DECOYnet platform, which is designed to deceive and then trap intruders  trap, as in engage an intruder to record their actions and gather intelligence, while also preventing the intruder from obtaining anything of value.

In essence, TopSpin Security has created a paradigm shift around information security, one that works more like a Venus flytrap, as opposed to the traditional firewalls and gateways that once defined a strong defense. That is not to say that DECOYnet replaces those established technologies; it supplements them by reducing the attack surface of a network by redirecting attackers into well-placed traps.

InfoSec Pain Points Addressed

Many IT security professionals have come to rely on perimeter defense technologies, which have fallen short in some situations, leaving attacks undetected and critical data exposed. However, there is an even bigger issue here: attacks have transitioned from drive-by style intrusions to orchestrated and persistent elements that are not prevented by traditional InfoSec measures.

That situation has forced InfoSec professionals to adopt post-breach detection methodologies to investigate the source of attacks and to use the forensic data gathered to create new policies or controls to prevent similar attacks from happening in the future. However, there is a major problem with that approach, one that can be summed up as an attack has already happened. Whats more, the damage from that initial attack may be hard to measure and, worse yet, may have gone undetected for a significant amount of time. Most alarming of all, by the time new policies and controls have been put in place, the attack vectors have evolved into something new, which may defy detection.

DECOYnet leverages digital deception, which employs decoys and traps, backed by multiple analysis engines, internal correlation and the obfuscation of an enterprises digital assets. More simply put, TopSpins technology creates the bait, and then primes the trap to catch hackers.

A Closer Look at DECOYnet

The DECOYnet platform is a software appliance that can run on physical or virtual hardware. One of the key elements for setting up DECOYnet comes in the form of properly configuring the network settings. For example, the DECOYnet configuration requires that a static IP address be assigned, management ports (443 and 22) be configured, as well as setting up access to a network SPAN port and a network trunk port.

While deployment and configuration are not complicated, they are best left to those who have network experience and understand the principles of TCP/IP, as well as how to configure routers, switches and VLANs. Administrators also have the option of configuring a cloud connection to TopSpin to receive reputation updates, as well as other information that helps to improve the effectiveness of the platform.

Installation on a physical server follows normal software conventions, meaning that an installation wizard handles most of the chores. For virtual environments, TopSpin provides an OVA file, which can be imported as a virtual appliance onto a virtual server. Either way proves to be straightforward and enables administrators to move on to configuring the management console and options associated with the platform.

Once initial configuration is completed, administrators need only to browse to launch the management console. First timers will need to logon with the appropriate credentials (as outlined in the installation documentation), install the appropriate license files and then create users. The platform supports multiple user roles, such as administrators and other roles with less privileges. User account information is independent of the network, and integration with Active Directory (AD) or other directory services would be a nice addition to the platform.

DECOYnet is all about sensors, traps, traffic monitoring and the analysis of traffic flowing across the network. That said, the platform requires unfettered access to the network and also requires the deployment of sensors, which are pieces of client code that record activity so that decoys can be defined and traffic analyzed. It is important to understand the relationships between sensors, decoys and the overall platform. Those components all work in concert to garner understanding of the network and its resources to effectively devise a deception strategy.

Hands on with DECOYnet

From an operational standpoint, the DECOYnet platform proves rather easy to understand. It is a combination of intelligence-gathering tools, which are then used to define decoys and traps and, most importantly, to provide the data for real-time analytics.

Administrators will start most endeavors from the main console, or in TopSpins parlance, the main dashboard, which shows summary information about the various types of activity detected in DECOYnet. The dashboard does an excellent job of visualizing that activity and provides a graph view of all the incidents, decoy activity, number of uploads and network activity detected in the platform. It highlights suspicious activity, as well as identified infections and/or attacks, making it very easy for administrators to spot trouble. Because DECOYnet has a traffic analysis engine on top of the deception engine, its dashboard provides a very rich set of data, including, for example, information about the number of assets in the network, the type of assets, the various subnets, the number of decoys, the deception coverage area and more.
If Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom following agreement with London and in accordance with the law, Spain would respect the move, but would not allow the country to remain in the European Union following Brexit . For Madrid, Scotland is only part of the EU if the United Kingdom is .

The Union Jack flies in Scotland. Andy Rain (EFE)

Thats the position of the Spanish government, which was outlined by Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis in the Peruvian capital of Lima on Monday during the first leg of a Latin American tour. Were Scotland to become independent, following a 2018 referendum that was proposed this week by Scotlands first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the country would be treated as a third state and would have to get in line to join the EU.

Spain will not encourage any secessionist movements within the European Union

Clearly referring to the demands of pro-independence parties in Catalonia, Dastis said that Spain would not encourage any secessionist movements in Europe. The tough stance comes as no surprise: Spain is one of the few European countries not to have recognized Kosovos independence almost two decades after a NATO campaign separated the mainly Albanian province from the rest of Serbia. The message is clear: an independent Catalonia, even hypothetically speaking, would start life out in the cold, unprotected economically and institutionally by the EU, or militarily by NATO.

At the same time as Madrid is refusing to accept the idea of an independent Scotland, it says it might be prepared to make an exception in the case of Northern Ireland on the basis of its special relationship with the Republic of Ireland and the fact that an open border between the two parts of the island are fundamental to the 1998 Good Friday agreement that brought an end to three decades of violence between Catholics and Protestants. Spain is prepared, under certain conditions, to look into maintaining the free movement of people between the two Irelands, which would become an EU border following Brexit.

Spain might consider a special status for Gibraltar

But while Scotland cannot be compared to Catalonia, neither can Northern Ireland be likened to Gibraltar, says Madrid. Dastis made it clear that the formula Spain is prepared to apply to Ulster cannot be transferred to The Rock. Gibraltar, whose territorial jurisdiction statutes means its foreign affairs are decided by London  it is a non-self-governing territory pending decolonization, according to the United Nations  would leave the EU with the United Kingdom, and the frontier between Spain and Gibraltar would become an EU foreign border.

Spain is prepared to look into a special status for the British Overseas Territory, in part to facilitate the movement of thousands of Spaniards who work in Gibraltar, but that would require a bilateral agreement between London and Madrid to be conducted separately to the Brexit negotiations.

English version by Nick Lyne.
Written by ACM





*Strasbourg/Angelo Marcopolo/- A clear Majority of Top French Politicians, Uniting for the First Time all the Right side of the Political spectrum, from Center-Right "Republicans" and their Centrist Allies, to the Rightists of "National Front", including 2 independent "Neo-Gaullists", but Spreading also Towards the Left, with the "Greens" and even several "Socialists", (joined, later-on, by other Frontrunner Candidates to the Presidential Election, etc), strongly Criticized a Controversial Decision by the Out-Going "Socialist" Government to become, Today, the Only EU State which would Allow Turkey's Government Officials to Import inside Europe their Political Propaganda Campaign among many Thousands of galvanized Turkish Immigrants, Contrary to a Series of various Refusals, that they have notoriously Faced recently in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, etc.



Ankara's Government reacted to the Latter with Gross Insults (Claiming to face "NAZIsm", "Fascism" and/or "Racism", etc), and Threats, which Triggered in EU circles vibrant Calls for "European Solidarity" among Affected EU Countries, and a Debate about possible "Sanctions" against Turkey, (See Infra).





-------------------

"Snowball"

--------------------------



The Move "SnowBalled" accross the French Political World, with an incredible Speed, starting at almot Grassroots level, but rapidly Spreading around the Middle, until it extended up to the 3 most important Frontrunners in the forthcoming Presidential Election of April/May 2017 (according to Most Polls) !



- First at the Right side, (F.ex. Francois Fillon, Marine Le Pen, Dupont Aignan, Henri Guaino, etc), and Afterwards at the Center-Left, (f.ex. the "Green" Party, and, at least Partly, Emmanuel Macron, etc), but also Beyond them, (f.ex. even a Local "Socialist" Representative, and/or various Other Politicians, etc), as we shall See Infra, with full concrete details.



------------------------------



It Started almost unexpectedly, with a Young Rising Star of the mainstream Opposition, Center-Right "Republican" Party, Elsa Schalck, vice-President of the "Great East" Region, and Candidate for the Parliamentary Elections of June 2017 in Strasbourg's 1st Constituency, there where controversial Turkish Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan had already hald a Meeting with Thousands of Turkish Immigrants from several EU Countries, Back on October 2015, (when he spoke against "Terrorism" in general, but curiously Ommitting even to Mention the "Islamic State" ! (See : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/erdoganspeechonterroromitsisis.html).



Elsa, Questioned by "Eurofora" after a Gathering of Local Militants, at a Moment when the Turkish Government had just launched a Series of Gross Insults against Germany, the Netherlands, and even EU Commission, Accusing them for "NAZI remnants", "FASCIST practices", and "RACIST trends", respectively, to which, their Leaders reportedly Replied that, abuse of such, obviously excessive "Verbal Aggressions", was "Absolutely Inexcusable", and even "Shameful", etc. She Expressed, in substance, the Hope that another Erdogan Public Political Propaganda Meeting with Turkish Immigrants does Not take place in Strasbourg Nowadays, particuarly in such conditions of Tension, and Criticaly Observed that the current Turkish Government would Better Deal with the Seriously Aggravated Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law Problems that several CoE's competent bodies in Strasbourg, and even UNO's High Commissioner on Human Rights, at nearby Geneva, had just Denounced, (See : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/elsachalcknoerdogangatheringshere.html).



It was, then, as Early as on Thursday, March 9, i.e. shortly Before that Controversial Decision by the OutGoing "Socialist" French Government to exceptionaly Allow a Public Meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglou, at Nearby Metz (See Infra), but she soon proved to be Premonitory :



-------------------



- Indeed, just 2 Days Later, on Saturday, March 11, 2017, the Experienced MP, and former Minister for EU Affairs, Pierre Lellouche, (also a Center-Right "Republican", who had served in the French Government under former President Nicolas Sarkozy), was practicaly the 1st to Strongly React in public, against such a Controversial Decision taken, Meanwhile, by the "Socialist" Foreign Minister, and former Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault (Comp. Infra), qualifying it as "Incomprehensible".

- "Such a Lack of Solidarity between European Democracies does Not Honour this Socialist Government", Lellouche criticized.

- "It's Out of Question to accept that Foreign Governments, which Trample underfoot Democracy in their Country, abuse, Shamelessly, of Our Democratic Principles, in order to launch Political Campaigns inside Our Country, vis-a-vis Their Citizens, who are Immigrants in Our Country", he Denounced.





-------------------------------



+ He was Soon Joined, Next Morning, on early Sunday, 12 of March, 2017, by the MP of the Rightist "National Front", Gilbert Collard, a Lawyer, who Slamed the Fact that "a Turkish Minister expulsed by the Netherlands, ...is, nevertheless, Allowed to hold a Meeting, this Sunday, at (nearby) Metz !..."



- "Poor France, it Accepts what others Reject from a Dictator !", Collard Denounced, (apparently referring to Erdogan).

------------------------------------



++ He was, almost Immediately, Followed also by a Vice-President of his own Rightist Party "FN", the MEP Florian Philippot, who Reminded "those Pro-Communautarianist (i.e. "Pro-AppartHeid", "Pro-Ghetto") Speeches, Against France, at that (Erdogan's) Meeting of October 2015 in Strasbourg", (Comp. Supra).



- Based particularly on that fact, MEP Philippot slamed as "Irresponsible" the Controversial Decision "to Accept that Meeting Turk at Metz !"



-----------------------



+++ Shortly Afterwards, also another pro-Sarkozy Politician (Comp. Supra for Lellouche), former Minister and Ambassador to the OECD, currently Senator, Roger Karoutchi, Criticaly observed the Fact that "a Turkish Minister holds a (Political, Public) Meeting for Erdogan at Metz, this Evening", while, on the Contrary, "such Meetings are Prohibited in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria", etc.



=> - "What Explication has to give the (Out-going, "Socialist") Government ?", Senator Karoutchi Questioned, (See also Infra).



--------------------------



++++ Advancing Further, in a Concrete manner, a 3rd, and even Closer pro-Sarkozy Center-Right Politician, former No 1 Counselor at the Presidential "Elysee" Palace, currently MP and Independent, "Gaullist" Candidate to the 2017 Election, Political Theorist Henri Guaino, (Comp. various Guaino Statements to" Eurofora", both in the Past and on 2016, etc), clearly Found - "Absolutely AbNormal for a Foreign Minister to go make a Political Campaign vis a vis His Citizens, inside anOther Country".



- And, "If Europe Means a form of Solidarity among the various European Countries, then, France should Stand By the Netherlands and/or Germany, which are treated as "NAZI"" by the Turkish Government, Guaino added in a TV Debate Today.



- In Fact, "it's Mr. Erdogan who is Dangerous for Democracy", he Warned, (speaking shortly after CoE's "Venice Committee" of Top Experts on Constitutional Law, found that Ankara Government's current attempts to Modify the National Constitution, are, indeed, "a Dangerous step Backwards").



=> Thus, "European Solidarity requires that All European Countries, and First of all France, launch a Strong Protest vis a vis the Turkish Government". And, "at least for that reason, France should Not have Accepted that the Turkish Foreign Minister comes to such a (Public, Political) Meeting" inside the EU, he pointed out.



---------------------------



+++++ Even More Sharply, a well-known "Neo-Gaullist" (Right) Independent Candidate to the forthcoming Presidential Election, MP Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, observed that "the Dutch Government had the Guts to Refuse such a Turkish Interference inside Europe", while "Germany and Switzerland did alike", (concerning "President Erdogan's involvement in a Campaign for a Referendum due to Beef up his Power, shaken by Many Crises", recently, and the Turkish Government's demands to hold many Pubiic Political "Meetings" with "Turkish Communities in France" and/or other European Countries, as Now "in Metz").



- But, the Out-Going "Socialist" "French Authorities have Chosen, once again, to DisHonour themselves" : They "did Not (even) Protest". On the Contrary, that "Government keeps a Shameful Silence", (vis-a-vis Turkey's Insults against Germany, the Netherlands, and even EU Commission : Comp. Supra), "and Bows (Yields) under Turkey's Requests", he Denounced.



- "France Must Not Yield under Pressure from a Foreign Country !" Because "France is Not a Rag for (Turkish) President Erdogan's Political Ambitions", stressed Dupont-Aignan, (probably refering to Ankara's notorious Blackmail and/or even open Threats, f.ex. against the Netherlands, but also the EU itself, etc).



- Indeed, Recently, "Turkey regularly Threatens to Drop" that "Scandalous Deal, about receiving Migrants", that "EU Member States signed Last Year (2016), when they had (practicaly) Abandoned their (External) Borders' control (initialy) to Turkey". That's why some of them "are Ready for Any Cowardise", he Criticaly Warned, (withOut Mentioning, However, also the Fact that the "Closure of the Western Balkans' route" for Mass Asylum Seekers/Irregular Migrants, since February 2016, has Succeeded to considerably Diminish that Massive Influx of the 2015-2016 Past through Turkish Smugglers : See, f.ex., among others, also ..... + ....).



=> Therefore, "Turkey's Contempt of European Countries Must Stop !", Dupont - Aignan concluded Today.



- "It's a Shame ... when one lets organize a Political Meeting for a Turkish Dictator's apprentice, who shows Contempt for Europeans, Threatens us, and Calls (the German Chancelor) Mrs Merkel a "NAZI" !... I Do Not Accept to call a Friendly Country as a "Nazi" : It's Not Decent", he Added in a TV Debate.



-------------------------------------------



+++++++ More Concise, the President of Rightist Party "National Front", and Frontrunner Candidate for the April/May 2017 Presidential Election in France, MEP Marine Le Pen, (that most Polls show as No 1 for a win on the First Round, even is she Risks to Lose on the Second Round, if she's isolated), went, shortly Afterwards, Straight to the most Urgent Point now :



- "Why should we Tolerate, in our Land, such (controversial) claims, that Other (European+) Democracies Refuse ?", she Wondered.



=> - "No Turkish Electoral Campaign in France !", MEP Marine Le Pen clearly Urged, in conclusion.



--------------------------------------------------------



++++++++ But the Strongest Move, seems well to be that which was made, this Afternoon, by MP Francois Fillon, a Frontrunner Candidate in the forthcoming French Presidential Election of April/May 2017, from Mainstream Center-Right Party "the Republicans", and former Prime Minister, who has just Published a Written Press Communique, in which he clearly stresses that : - "The French Government should have Stoped that (Controversial, Turkish Government Political Campaign's) Meeting" at Metz ToNight.



- Inter alia, also Because "that Political Meeting" (of a controversial Foreign Government, Abroad, at anOther Country), "had been Refused by our Friends in the Netherlands, and some Days ago, also Germans", he observed. - But, on the Contrary, "the Turkish Minister" (who had just been "Refused Entry by the Dutch Government"), "was Immediately Received in France, where the (Outgoing "Socialist") Government of Francois Hollande, rushed" to accept him...



>>> - "By doing so, Francois Hollande committed a Flagrant Breach of European Solidarity", Fillon Denounced.



- "While it's obvious that a Common Position (of the concerned EU Countries) Should have been prefered, on how to Deal with the Turkish Demands", and "the French Government should have Prevented that (controversial) Meeting", he clearly wrote.



+ "Moreover, 2 of our Closer Allies, Germany and the Netherlands, have been Insulted in Public, in an Awful way, by the Turkish Officials", Fillon Denounced, (Comp. Supra).



=> Therefore, "while Still Waiting for a Strong Reaction from the (current) French Authorities, I Want to Ensure our Dutch and German Friends for my Solidarity and Friendship, Standing by their Side", the Front-runner Candidate of the mainstream Center-Right for the Presidential Election of April/May 2017 stressed.



- Criticizing "the (Out-going) Socialist Government" to have made a "totaly Bad Management of this Affair", Fillon also Observed that "this also Proves, if need be, that Turkey is Distancing itself, each Day, even Further Away from the Values on which is Based the European Project",



as he Topicaly said, at the Eve of an Important EU Summit, the Week After, in Rome, on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary since the Signing of EU Treaties, which (according to the "Bratislava Roadmap", adopted by EU Heads of State/Government in the Slovak Capital, on September 2016), is due to Review EU's History and Start Highlighting its Future choices, (See, f.ex. a relevant "Eurofora"s NewsReport from that EU Bratislava Summit also at: ...).



=> Therefore, Fillon Concluded that, "it's now Time to Clearly say that Truth to those who Govern" Turkey : - "As, I've already reiterated, some Weeks Ago, - There is No Room for Turkey inside the European Union" !



--------------------------------

+ Reactions spread even Leftward...

------------------------------------------------------



But, Meanwhile, various Critical Reactions to those Controversial Turkish Moves inside Europe, in Addition to their obvious Effect on Bringing All the Political Leaders of the French Right Together, at least on this Topical and "Hot" Issue, also Started to Spread Towards the Centre-Left, and even to the Left side of the Political Spectrum :



- Already, since Saturday Evening, 11 March 2017, (i.e. just After Lellouche's Move, from the "Republican" Party : Comp. Supra), a Senator from the "Greens", Esther Benbassa, (who had even reportedly been Born at Istanbul), Denounced the "Monstruous Persecutions in Turkey, by Erdogan" regime.



- And, Observing the Fact that f.ex. "Germany and the Netherlands" (etc) "Prohibit" those controversial Ankara Government's Political Public "Meetings" for Turkish Immigrants inside Europe, Mrs Benbassa expressed her Astonishment for the Fact that, on the Contrary, "We (i.e. the Out-going "Socialist" French Government) Give a Permission for that"....



+ This First Move from the "Greens" soon Became much Broader, since, Afterwards, this Sunday, 12 March, it's Now ALL the Party of "Europe - Ecology - the Greens" (EELV : Center-Left), which Officially Decided to Publish a Collective Denonciation of the Fact that, the Acceptance of Such Controversial Meetings "Push France to (practicaly) Cover-Up the Serious Authoritarian Slipery Slope that Tyrkey experiences Nowadays".



- On the Contrary, "the Duty of France and of the European Union should be to Support the Movements of (Democratic) Progress (by currently oppressed dissidents), and to incessantly Denounce the Authoritarian Drift of that (Erdogan) Regime, Nonobstant that (Political) Campaign Launched by the Turkish Government, Far Beyond its (National) Borders, and Everywhere exists a Turkish Lobby inside Europe", the French "Green" Party Criticized.



=> Thus, for Not Doing So, but by Yielding to Ankara's Pressure for Such Meetings, the Out-Going "Socialist" Government "implicitly Makes France an ACCOMPLICE OF the TOTALITARIAN DRIFT that Turkey experiences nowadays, at the Doors of Europe", the "Greens" Warned.

---------------------------------------



++ However, things Started to go Even More Nasty, as Indigations Extended also at the Electoral Basis of the Out-Going "Socialist" Government, when, f.ex., around Noon, Today, a Federal Secretary of the "Socialist" Party itself, Benjamin Cafora, located at Strasbourg's Region of "Great East", at the Moselle's area, i.e. there where that Controversial Turkish Foreign Minister public political Meeting had been Authorized to take place, in the City of Metz, added also his name among Critics, by Launching a Short but Sharp Attack against such a Dubious Move :



- Cafora, indeed, Denounced (by Writing) as "UnAcceptable" to "receive at Metz such a Key Representative of the Arbitrary and Authoritarian Turkish Regime", of Mr "Erdogan", as he called Cavusoglou.



----------------------------------------------------------------



=> After all that, it obviously had become practicaly Impossible, for another Center-Left Frontrunner Candidate to the French Presidential Election of April/March 2017, who is even expected to Later Meet briefly with German Chancelor Angie Merkel Next Week : the former Economy Minnister of "Socialist" President Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, to stay longer without saying Nothing on such a "Hot" matter, particularly since the Turkish Government has notoriously launched some exceptionaly Gross Insults, First of all Against Germany...



- Therefore, Later this Evening, of Sunday, 12 March, Emmanuel Macron, indeed, issued, at last, a Critical Note, by Criticizing, at least, the "UnAcceptable Comments" of the Turkish Government, (Comp. Supra), which are Against "European Values", and "our Closer Partners, particularly Germany and the Netherlands".



- Macron, thus, "Strongly Condemns" such "Provocations" from Turkish Officials, and Called on France to Support its European Partners, by "Reject(ing) the Turkish Government's Abuses", stressing, him too (Comp. Supra), that "the European Union Must have a United Reply" to such a behavior, as he wrote in a Press Release published at the End of this Sunday.



- "These Last Days, the Turkish Government had some UnAcceptable Claims"; and "there canNot be any Hesitation in Front of such Attacks". In Particular, "France Must Express a Firm Support" to the EU Countries so seriously Aggressed verbaly by Ankara, "and Reject the Turkish Government's Drifts", as he said.



Nevertheless, the French Press obserbed the Fact that Macron "does Not Criticize the (OutGoing, "Socialist") Government" in Paris, and "does Not even Mention that (Controversial) Meeting" of a Turkish Minister in Metz, which was Allowed by the current French Government, just after having been Refused almost Everywhere Else in Europe...



>>> Indeed, Many Refusals of such Controversial, Political Public Meetings, with various Turkish Government Members, Seeking to make Open Propaganda and Pre-Electoral Campaigns Far Away from their Country, and Inside European Countries, have been already Opposed by National and/or Regional Authorities in the EU, reportedly, f.ex., also in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, and even Sweden, etc.



So that nowadays France, of the OutGoing "Socialist" Government of Hollande, (who does Not Participate in the New Presidential Elections), is, until now, the Sole Exception !



=> A Fact which Explains evenmore all those Fast Growing Criticisms from so Many Top French Politicians, which Resulted, Today, for the 1st Time, in a kind of Unity of All the Political Forces of the Right, Afterwards Spreading Even in certain Parts of the Center-Left, (Comp. Supra), i.e. practicaly Creating an Original but Crystal-Clear, Big Political Majority with an Alternative Policy in France.



-------------------------------------



- It's also True, However, that even the current French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, a former Prime Minister, notoriousy Speaking German, while Accepting that Controversial Turkish Government-fueled Public Political Mass Meeting at Metz, Contrary to the Refusals already Opposed in 6 Other European Countries, (Comp. Supra), to such Attempts, particularly by that Foreign Government currently Accused by several CoE's competent Bodies and even UNO's Human Rights' bodies, for a Dangerous Aggravation of Serious and Massive Violations of Human Rights, and/or Anti-Democratic Setbacks, etc, (See, f.ex., among others, also : ....), Nevertheless, he also "Invited the Turkish Authorities to Avoid the Provocations and Abuses", as he Criticized in a Written Communique.

- However, the French Foreign Minister's call was apparently Ignored by Turkish Minister Cavusglou at nearby Metz this Evening, since, among others, he reportedly abused of this opportunity in order to nick-named Netherlands as "the Capital of Fascism" (sic) !



- But Ayrault also "Called for a DesEscalation" of the current tension, and "to Avoid Useless Controversies", as he apparently named the Strong Criticism of the current Turkish Govenrment's notoriously Gross Violations of Human Rights and Recent Attempts to "Spy" (as the German and/or Dutch, a.o. European Countries' Authorities and Mainstream Press have clearly Denounced lately) and/or launch Gross Insults against several Key European Countries, and even Top EU Officials, (Comp. Supra)



- Moreover, Ayrault's Communique's additional Claim, that such Controversial Public Political Mass Meetings, Organized by the Turkish Government, at the Present Circumstances, inside several European Countries, systematicaly and repeatedly Gathering there Thousands of Turkish Immigrants, added to a notoriously quite "Hot" Rhetoric, in his view, "did Not Present Any Possibility for Interference in the French Political Life" by a Foreign Governement, seems Less sure...



Obviously, it's only if someone spoke the ...Turkish Language, (in Addition to Reading the Turkish Press, which is, howeever, published only long Afterwards), that he would manage to Timely and seriously Attest whether, in such Controversial Meetings, at the Present "Hot" Circumstances, there might, eventualy, have been Not Any Attempts at all for a Foreign Government's "Interference" in the Crucial for all Europe, Forthcoming Presidential and/or Parliamentary Elections, both in France (from Aprii 2017), and/or in Germany (September 2017), the Netherlands (March 2017), perhaps also Austria (at the latest on 2018), etc.



When, f.ex., Turkish President Erdogan, and/or Other Ankara Officials, notoriously "Thanked" just the Out-Going "Socialist" Government in France, for being, at least until now, the Only One in Europe to Accept such a Controversial Turkish Government Public Political Mass Meeting, while, at the Same Time, on the Contrary, he openly and loudly Slandered the Center-Right Governments in Germany and in the Netherlands, at the Eve of National Elections in all these European Countries, where many Thousands of Turkish Immigrants are still residing, is it so sure that there wasn't yet, and/or won't be, really any Attempt to Influence the Forthcoming Elections by such a particularly controversial Foreign Government ?



+ In Addition, and as far as Elementary Human Rights, as well as Public Order and all People's Safety is concerned, it's Naturaly at least Dangerous to knowingly Allow Spreading accross many Thousands of Turkish Immigrants and Lobbies currently residing inside Europe, such Gross Insults and Verbal Aggressions as to openly Target and Slander certain Persons and/or EU Countries by loudly Calling them in Public "NAZI", "FASCIST" and/or "RACIST", etc., as Many Turkish Government Senior Officials notoriously did several Times during these Days : If such Gross Insults, Risking to Provoke Hate and Tension, can be so Freely Launched by Turkish Officials, without Any Sanction at all, Even Against so Powerful European Leaders as f.ex. the German Government, the Dutch Government, and/or even EU Commission's President, Jean-Claude Juncker himself, (Accused to yield towards "Racist trends" by the Turkish Minister for EU Affairs, Mr. Omar Tcelik), then, How could ...Simple EU Citizens Protect themselves, and/or their Families, Work and Individual Freedoms, against the Obvious Dangers than can Provoke such a Blatant and Noisy "Hate Speach" currently diffused with Total Impunity here, by several Turkish Government Officials, in such Mass Meetings of Thousands of extremely politicized, often fanatical and openly galvanized Turkish Immigrants' Lobbies inside Europe ?



Apparently, all those French Critics cited above, seem, there, to have a Point....



Particularly when, all this sudden Tension is Provoked also at an Exceptionaly Dificult Moment for our European Countries, as that which has notoriously resulted by Too Many Recent Violent Incidents, (and even various More these Last Days), of Bloody and/or Deadly apparently Islamist Terrorist Attacks, (f.ex nowadays again in Germany, etc), Targetting Innocent Civilian People, even Elders Aged 80 Years Old, (as f.ex. that Victim who was just Murdered in Dusseldorf), and simple Young Girls aged Only 13 y.o., (as, f.ex., that Child Passenger in a Tram, who was reportedly Brutaly Attacked from Behind with an Axe, also at Dussedorf's Railway Station nowadays), ETC+...



------------------

=> EU "Sanctions" ?

--------------------------



So that, when, f.ex., another Turkish Minister, who had been, however, clearly Warned previously that she was "UnDesirable" to Hold a Political Public Meeting in the Netherlands Today, at the Eve of Next Week's crucial Parliamentary Elections, reportedly Found "Ugly" the way that the Dutch Authorities Tried to make a Stones and Bottles Throwing Turkish Mob, which Smashed several Shops' Windows, (according to International Mainstream Press), to Respect that European Country's Decisions, by being Obliged to Intercept that Turkish Senior Official, when she Attempted to Penetrate in the Country Secretly, with a banalized Car which even Left, by a Worrying Coincidence, almost those Same Days, and from the Same City, where 2 or 3 Bloody and/or Deadly Brutal Attacks against Innocent and Fragile Civilian People were notoriously Launched by various Muslim Immigrants from the South-East, eventualy Motivated by ISIL and/or Other Negative Influences, which might have, If Not properly Guided, perhaps Exploited and/or Manipulated, or at least Provoked those Criminals' "Weak" Points, obviously European People's and Top Politicians' Concerns seem Legitimate.



(Comp. also several other relevant Facts already cited, previously, at : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/elsachalcknoerdogangatheringshere.html).



F.ex., Rotterdam Mayor, Mr. Ahmed Aboutaleb's Denonciation that Turkeys Consul had given him False assurances that Ankara's Minister would Not be going to the Consulate, But, in fact, - He Lied flat out", since, at the Same Time, "He called" on Turkish Groups "to come to the Consulate where the Minister would be giving a Speech", (as UK's Leftist mainstream Newspaper "Guardian" reported), obviously canNot be attributed to "Racism"...



So that, when even a "Socialist" like the New Chancelor of Austria, Christian Kern, reportedly asks for an EU- Wide Ban on Turkish Government's Rallies inside Euerope, while, at almost the Same Time, EU Commissioner on EU Enlargement and Good Neighborhood relations, Johannes Hahn, hints at a Growing Risk for EU Funds' flow, earmarked for Turkey, to be Restricted as a Result of Ankara Governments recently Growing Anti-Democratic Drift Risks and Human Rights Mass Violations, while also EU Budget's Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, anew expresses Doubts for Turkey's controversial and unoppular EU bid, added to Experienced German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Shauble's Warning, that if Ankara's Government persists to provoke such Tensions, then it would make it mich Harder to cooperate on Billions of EU Funds initialy reserved for a controversial EU - Turkey Deal (notoriously obtained by Ankara under Heavy Pressure and Blackmail over Europe during the 2015-2016 unprecedented "Tsunami" of Mass Asylum Seekers/Irregular Migrants send to Europe mainly by Turkish Smugglers), almost at the Same Time that German Home affairs Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, reportedly Warned (without Excluding eventualy about possible "Prosecution" against anyone who might so Grossly Insult Germany and/or its Constitutional Order "in a Malicious way", shortly after EU Foreign Policy Head, Federica Mogherini, Warned Turkey to "Refrain from Excessive Statements and Actions which Risk further Exacerbating the situation", (etc), among many and various such Recently Converging Moves, (including at the CoE, inside EU Parliament, UNO, etc), Growing EU Attempts to Reply by Imposing some kind of "Sanctions" on the Turkish Government, canNot be Excluded at all.



Inter alia, Significantly, the Results of an On-line Poll, published by the Biggest French Newpaper "Figaro"s Website, on the Topical Question whether "Europe should use Sanctions on Turkey", particularly "after its Accusations of NAZIsm against Germany and the Netherlands", (and we are Speaking of France, whose People has notoriously witnessed How a Real "Nazism" regime was in a Remote Past, Contrary to Nowdays Modern, Peaceful and Democratic, Friendly core European partner Germany), are Impressively Crystal-clear :



- A very Strong Qualified, Big Majority of about 82% against a Small Minority of Only 18%, among Many Tens of Thousands of People Voting, has just Replied : - "Yes !"

(../..)

***

(NDLR : Includes Fast Translation from the Original in French)

+

("Draftnews", as already sent to "Eurofora" Subscribers/Donors, earlier. A more accurate, full Final Version, might be published asap).

***
Artur Mas, the former premier of Spains Catalonia region, has been barred from public office for two years for using his position to hold a non-binding plebiscite on the issue of independence for the region on November 9, 2014 despite the ballot having been blocked by Spains Constitutional Court. The former premier had perverted democratic principles, said the Catalan regional High Court, handing down on Monday the maximum possible sentence for disobedience.

Artur Mas after learning of the sentence on Monday. Joan Sanchez

Ex-deputy premier Joana Ortega and ex-education chief Irene Rigau were also hit with bans from office  Ortega for 21 months and Rigau for 18 months  for their role in the participatory process.

The court also ordered Mas to pay a fine of 36,500 while that sum was 30,000 for Ortega and 24,000 for Rigau.

The Catalan court noted Artur Mas had done nothing to prevent the vote going ahead

All three were found not guilty, however, on charges of gross misconduct.

Prosecutors had originally called for Mas to be hit with a ten-year public ban on charges of disobedience and gross misconduct and for Rigau and Ortega to be barred for nine years.

The three defendants have announced they will appeal the 98-page ruling, which sees them barred from holding any form of public office at local, regional or state level.

Rigau  the only member of the group to currently hold public office  will be able to continue carrying out her duties as a deputy in the regional party with the pro-independence Junts pel Si group during the appeals process. But the ruling complicates the political future of Artur Mas as Spanish electoral law dictates he is unable to present himself as a political candidate until the conclusion of the appeals process.

Mas, who stepped down as the regions premier in 2015 after failing to win support for his candidacy from coalition partners in the regional parliament, is expected to run as a candidate with the Democratic Party of Catalonia (PDECat), formerly known as Convergencia, in upcoming regional elections. But the ruling means he is currently ineligible to do so.

The court ordered Mas to pay a fine of 36,500 while that sum was 30,000 for Ortega and 24,000 for Rigau

In its ruling, the court named Mas as the mastermind behind the decision to hold the non-binding independence vote in 2014, which had been blocked by Spains Constitutional Court just days earlier.

Mas was perfectly aware of the content and the effects of the regional resolution to push on with the vote but did nothing to stop it going ahead, the court stated, noting work had continued on projects including, for example, a publicity campaign and the organizing of insurance for volunteers participating in the plebiscite even after the Constitutional Courts ruling had been handed down.

The Catalan court also dismissed arguments from Mas that the Constitutional Courts ruling had been unclear and that he had not been notified personally of the decision. Mass argument that he had found himself trapped in a political dilemma and having to choose between obeying the Constitutional Courts ruling and the noise from the street calling for a referendum was also dismissed.

There was no express will to commit any crime or to disobey anybody, said Mas during the trial in February.

Mas and his fellow defendants were acquitted of charges of gross disobedience

Around 2.3 million people voted in the participatory process held on November 9, 2014 out of an eligible voter pool of 6.3 million, according to the regional governments own figures.

Although 80% voted in favor of independence, it was dismissed by international observers as lacking sufficient guarantees of objectivity, given that it was organized and counted by pro-sovereignty activists and that many detractors of independence simply did not participate.

English version by George Mills.
On Friday, the investors got another dose of heightened volatility in bitcoin, when the price of bitcoin first jumped to $1350 and then fell to $975, all in the matter of a few hours.

That is a drop of 27.7%, large enough to have wiped off many small traders.

The reason for the fall was the US Securities and Exchange Commissions rejection of the request to list the bitcoin ETF proposed by the Winklevoss twins.

In the run-up to the decision, a number of positions had been built expecting a green signal by the SEC. Nevertheless, after the initial disappointment, investors jumped on to the opportunity to buy bitcoin below $1000 and the slide was arrested.

The recovery was buoyed by talks that the fund can be listed elsewhere other than the US or another proposal with a mixture of different digital currencies and government bonds can be sought. The hope that an ETF will see the light of the day soon, either in this form or the other saw buyers back into bitcoin.

How should traders approach bitcoin now?

After the crash on Friday, traders waiting on the sidelines to enter the digital currency at lower levels pounced on the opportunity and led the recovery. Bitcoin has recovered most of the losses as it trades at $1232.

After the large one day volatility, it is likely that the pullback will reach $1250 levels where it should face some resistance.

It is unlikely that the zone between $1250-$1300 will be crossed easily. Hence, traders who went long at lower levels should book profits at this resistance and wait for dips to enter again.

The uptrend remains intact and all dips should be used as a buying opportunity as long as bitcoin trades above $1090 levels.
Bitcoin has completely shrugged the negative news of the SECs rejection of the Bitcoin ETF, the likely regulations by the PBoC China and has marched ahead. It had recovered to $1247 levels at the time of writing of this article.

Issues plaguing bitcoin

Peoples Bank of China Director Zhou Xuedong has said that most bitcoins investors are young people and that exchange behavior such as faking trading volumes should be examined and regulated, reports the Coin Telegraph. He also warned that the bitcoin feature in China cannot work out without regulations.

Another issue bothering bitcoin traders is the scaling debate.

The fear is that bitcoin may split with one supporting the existing software, and the other backing Bitcoin unlimited.

"If bitcoin splits, I recommend selling everything and buying back later. It's a trust failure much larger than MtGox. Big haircut expected," said Henry Brade, co-founder of physical bitcoin supplier Denarium, reports the Coin Desk.

Other cryptocurrencies are following bitcoin higher

Any adverse news in bitcoin is increasing the demand for other cryptocurrencies like Ether. The rally in Ether sent its market capitalization above $2 billion on Monday, according to price tracking website CryptoCompare.

"With the recent bull run on bitcoin due to the anticipation of the SEC decision on the bitcoin ETF, traders had more bitcoin purchasing power that they could use to exchange for other blockchain assets such as ether. With the ETF rejection, ether benefitted from this liquidity spillover, as traders saw more value in exchanging bitcoin for another cryptocurrency, with long-term promise, rather than fiat," said Aurelien Menant, founder and CEO of Gatecoin, a blockchain assets exchange based in Hong Kong, reports CNBC.

The market capitalization of Dash is $556.9 million and that of Monero is $248 million, according to price tracking website Coinmarketcap.com.
Theodore Atalla, the owner of a small industrial lighting company in the central Mexican city of Puebla, not only backs Donald Trumps controversial plans to build a wall along the US-Mexican border , but has also asked to take part in its construction. Ecovelocity is the only company registered in Mexico among the more than 600 that have joined the bidding process for what has become a symbol of the US presidents election promises, and a humiliation for Mexico .

A stretch of the frontier between Mexico and the United States. AFP

Born in Egypt, Atalla previously lived in the United States and has been a resident in Mexico for the last 22 years. He has Egyptian and US nationality, and is applying for Mexican citizenship. He believes he will spend the rest of his life in Mexico, and sees nothing wrong in wanting to help build the wall, describing it is a way to improve Mexico. Im not betraying anybody. Whats more, we need to support each other here in Mexico, he says.

Atalla, who refused to be photographed, says he wants to provide the lighting for the wall on its southern side. We are a Mexican company, I doubt they will give us work on the other side, he explains, adding that either way, he doesnt believe his company stands much of a chance of winning the contract.

I dont believe they will hire a Mexican company that imports lighting from China Theodore Atalla

To tell the truth, I doubt it. I just signed up for the bidding process to see what would happen. The reality is that I dont believe they will hire a Mexican company that imports lighting made in China and other countries, he says.

He founded Ecovelocity in 2013, a company specializing in industrial LED lighting, but says he stopped bidding for contracts issued by the Mexican government because he refused to become involved in corruption.

Atalla believes Trumps wall is a win-win for Mexico and the United States, and insists that Mexico will not pay for it, despite the US presidents insistence. But he does think it likely that Trump will try to take advantage of trade. Mexico is going to be okay, it isnt going to affect us at all.

It will benefit both countries, it has to be built, there are a lot of problems there, he says, adding that Mexico should build its own wall along its southern border, a project he would like to take part in: We should build a wall there because we are seeing a lot of immigrants in Puebla who come here and commit robberies, they are criminals, he says about undocumented Central Americans crossing into Mexico from Guatemala.

What Mexico needs, says Atalla, is its own version of Trump

The businessman says he is not offended by Trumps incendiary comments, notably the presidents claims while on the campaign trail accusing Mexico of sending its rapists and criminals to the United States. He says he has seen bastards being released from prisons along the border so that the United States can deal with them.

What Mexico needs, says Atalla, is its own version of Trump, a political outsider who would take on the establishment: Im not attacking him, he is doing things for his country  I would like to have somebody like him to defend us from the rats that are in politics.

English version by Nick Lyne.
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With the Japanese-themed bar Hanzo slated to open later this month, expect plenty of far out, Far East flavor for the eyes as well as the lips.

Look up in the cozy tavern just north of The Shops at Lincoln Heights and you should spot handmade red fringe lampshades that complement a gaggle of colorful lantern-like wall lamps, the perfect kitschy illumination to light up the likes of vintage Japanese-themed calendar wall art and a needlepoint scene with geisha-like women and frolicking children. That is, when youre not drinking in the veritable works of art on the bar or tabletop  the chic yet understated ceramic sake cups, ginger wasabi plates and ramen bowls.

It just goes to show that, true to her name, Sunshine Thacker loves brightening up a space with her artistic vision.

I would say I like to bring a lot of verve, a lot of energy to my work, said Thacker, the San Antonio artist behind Dark Horse Effect ceramics, interiors and originals. Im not afraid of using color. At the same time I really like to balance it so Im not going to barf a bunch of color all over your place.

Call it a sweet sickness thats catching on with more discerning clients.

After sweating out some 450 tableware pieces for San Antonio bar entrepreneur Steve Mahoney last summer, the owner of the Blue Box bar at The Pearl and the now-closed Francis Bogside pub also sought Thacker for some interior design aspects of his upcoming bar Hanzo.

Meanwhile Thacker is working on a line of what she calls luxe-ethnic vases and other decorative pieces for Citrine Home decor and home furnishings in San Antonio, in addition to working on her online presence at darkhorseeffect.com to open later this year.

The more you do what you love, the more successful you are at it, Thacker said. Things have really snowballed for me over the last year.

Mahoney has known Thacker for around three years, but it wasnt until a year ago he discovered her ceramic skills and eye for interiors, what he calls a little hidden secret sure to break wide as more people see her work.

For me its just the quality, Mahoney said. She has an amazing eye for detail and shes an absolute perfectionist. So everything she does is done right the first time.

For Hanzo, that means incorporating green barstools and some purple ones too, as well as a fun yellow and green sofa for a conversation pit  pops of color that mirror the brio on the walls, such as the aforementioned calendar prints and the equally vibrant, map-like cityscapes of Japanese artist Risaburo Kimura.

Then there are those little lighthearted details, such as Thackers fringe lampshades and the naughty wall hook called a Wall Willy shes selected for hanging purses in the pubs ladies room.

As for her tailored serving ware, Thackers earthy and understated pieces should complement Hanzos plans for a small, five-item menu, not to mention Hanzos wood flourishes such as its mahogany bar, to serve as a warm and rich balance to the pubs punchier features.

The result: a vibrant yet casual tavern thats comfortable but with something unexpected around every corner.

Casey Roy, owner of Citrine Home and interior design firm Casey Roy Design in San Antonio, fell in love with Thackers ceramics last year around Thanksgiving. She praises Thackers work for its hip, handmade yet refined vibe, with a tried and true artisanship whose finishes, glazings and guildings provide just the unique flair.

Shes put a new spin on an old craft, Roy said.

I sort of think of working with me as working with your best friend who has a really good eye  I hope, Thacker said. Im having so much fun it doesnt really feel like work, which I think is the best.

Back in 1995 when her high school art teacher let her ditch just about all her classes, Thacker was afraid such fun would only make her another starving artist. So she passed on going to art school to focus on architecture and land development at Texas A&M University. That led to a 15-year career in commercial real estate development, split between Galo Properties and then her co-owned firm Landbridge Partners.

The problem: I wasnt happy, Thacker said. And I wasnt fulfilled.

By the middle of 2014, she stopped actively pursuing real estate and spent about a year and half exploring how to make her original creative interests into a second career.

Thacker credits her husband Brett, a former Express-News editor whos now director of content marketing at USAA, for helping her turn that dream into a reality, mainly by turning their garage into her pottery studio and their split-level Monte Vista home into a springboard for her pursuit of interior design.

I literally designed the house right down to the inch, she said.

Thacker considers her influences all over the place, though she favors contemporary forms and minimalist designs in her ceramics and the refined yet down-to-earth California cool of Los Angeles-based design firm Commune in her interiors.

But as much as Thacker enjoys dolling up houses, she prefers the design latitude of commercial projects such as Hanzo. Because how many homes welcome so much dynamic Japanese imagery, let alone penile purse hooks for the powder room?

And just wait until she realizes her vision for Blue Box  a vision she calls the back-sofa lovechild of David Bowie and Prada head designer Miuccia Prada. Think sophisticated yet colorful, cerebral but with pop.

I want to surprise you, Thacker said. I want the space to make you really happy, joyous. Maybe its sort of a reflection of where Im at in my life.
WASHINGTON  House Speaker Paul Ryans proposal to revise the Affordable Care Act would lower the number of Americans with health insurance by 24 million while reducing the federal deficit by $337 billion by 2026, congressional budget analysts said Monday.

According to a Congressional Budget Office projection, 14 million fewer people would have health insurance next year alone. Premiums would be 15 percent to 20 percent higher in the first year compared with the Affordable Care Act and 10 percent lower on average after 2026. By and large, older Americans would pay substantially more and younger Americans less, the report said.

The report fueled concerns that the GOP health care plan would prompt a dramatic loss in health-insurance coverage, potentially contradicting President Donald Trumps vow that health care reform would provide insurance for everybody and threatening support from moderate Republicans.

The analysis immediately prompted a clash of reactions between the White House and Republican leaders.

Trumps budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said the report is just absurd, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said: We disagree strenuously with it.

Ryan defended the report, saying it proves the proposal will dramatically reduce the deficit and usher in the most fundamental entitlement reform in a generation.

Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage, he said. It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. Thats what this report shows.

Republican Congressman Lamar Smith of San Antonio agreed: We are currently in a dire health care situation because of the Affordable Care Act. Under the ACA, premiums and deductibles rose and choice was limited. Under (the) Republicans plan, our budget deficit is reduced, Americans premiums will trend downward over time and individual choice will be increased.

The release of the CBOs report marks the beginning of a new phase in the debate over the week-old health care bill, which is moving through the House on an accelerated timetable despite opposition from Republicans, Democrats and virtually every sector of the U.S. health care industry.

Democrats cited the CBO numbers to support their flat-out opposition to the plan.

President Trump and congressional Republicans have proposed a health-care plan that will result in 24 million fewer Americans with insurance in 2026. Congress should fine tune the Affordable Care Act, not put millions of lives at risk with a seriously flawed piece of rushed legislation, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, posted on Facebook.

The CBO score shows just how empty the presidents promises, that everyone will be covered and costs will go down, have been, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. This should be a looming stop sign for the Republicans repeal effort.

U.S. Rep Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said he intends to continue doing everything possible to prevent the Houses plan from going into effect.

This nonpartisan evaluation of the Republican plan shows that it would destroy health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, Doggett said. Little wonder that Republicans kept their proposal locked away from public view until just before rushing it through our committee in an all-night session that blocked all amendments.

Doggett serves on the Ways and Means Committee, where he opposed the plan during an 18-hour session last week.

The ACA has increased coverage by 20 million to 22 million almost half of those through the insurance markets the law created for people who cannot get affordable coverage through a job and the rest through an expansion of Medicaid in 31 states and the District of Columbia. Texas was not among them, however. Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican-controlled Legislature opted not to expand Medicaid coverage under Obamas Affordable Care Act, forgoing about $9 billion a year in federal funds.

Under Texas rules, few adults now qualify. Parents of children on Medicaid may also receive benefits only if their household income is very low. For example, a family of four with two parents couldnt make more than $3,420 per year to qualify. More than 4 million people in the state were enrolled in 2015, and those include low-income pregnant women, children, some elderly, the disabled and women with breast or cervical cancer.

Andrea Guajardo, director of community health at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health System in San Antonio and co-chair of Enroll SA coalition, said the proposed Republican changes and cuts to Medicaid funding are major worries.

CHRISTUS is a hospital that serves a large portion of the Medicaid population in San Antonio, she said. We're very concerned about any kind of per-capita cap or any kind of block grants that might limit the amount of Medicaid anyone can access or that can be reimbursed for because obviously that limits our ability to take care of children.

Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of the Austin-based think tank the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said on the groups website that the House plan would make it hard to improve anything that we are not doing well today.

For example, Texas hasnt given doctors regular pay increases under Medicaid since 1993, and there would be no space under a cap to improve that, she said. At the same time, it would shift more costs to states.

According to the report, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured in 2026, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under the current law.

Obviously, we want to improve those coverage numbers, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas. But when you dont punish people for their refusal to buy a government-approved insurance (plan), some people are going to make the decision not to buy it.

This reasoning would only account for the immediate increase in the uninsured, according to the CBO.

Eventually, many people would lose health insurance because the legislations tax credits would be less generous than those in the current law and because some states might undo the expansion of their Medicaid programs.

Express-News Staff Writer Brittney Martin contributed to this report.
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1 View AFBF tour Ohio Farm Bureau county presidents and state leaders toured the offices of American Farm Bureau during the first day of the Count Farm Bureau President's Trip March 13.

2 View Sherrod Brown Over breakfast, Sen. Sherrod Brown addresses Ohio Farm Bureau leaders by sharing his thoughts on agricultural trade and taxes as well as health care and the opioid crisis.

3 View Presidential suite During a tour of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Ohio Farm Bureau leaders toured the stately office of AFBF president Zippy Duvall.

4 View Western Ohio Farm Bureau members A group of western Ohio Farm Bureau members get together for a picture at the County Farm Bureau Presidents' trip in Washington, D.C.

5 View Meeting on the Hill A group of Ohio Farm Bureau county presidents and organizational directors from northeast and northcentral Ohio had the opportunity to meet with their district representatives March 15.

6 View The United States Capitol (Farm and Dairy file photo)

7 View Zippy Duvall Winter weather may have caused some of the plans for the D.C. Trip to be cancelled, but Farm Bureau members were surprised with a visit and speech from American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall.

8 View Crashing the president's office Ohio Farm Bureau county leaders made themselves at home in Zippy Duvall's presidential suite at American Farm Bureau.

9 View farm bureau dc group2 Ohio Farm Bureau member from Ohio Congressional District 6, met with representative Bill Johnson, to discuss the issues important to them.

10 View National Cattlemen's A small group of Ohio farmers met with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association to discuss the future of the beef industry.

11 View Sen. Portman supports agrciculture Ohio Senator Rob Portman (R), discussed the importance of reigning in agencies like the EPA and updating NAFTA, during breakfast with Ohio Farm Leaders March 15.

12 View Full house Over 100 Ohio Farm Bureau county presidents, organizational directors and state leaders gathered at American Farm Bureau, March 13, for their first day at the Capitol.

13 View Gibbs introduces Ryan Ohio Congressman Bob Gibbs introduces U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to Ohio Farm Bureau leaders at the county presidents' trip March 15.

14 View Another full day Ohio Farm Bureau leaders had another full day of policy talks with visits from Sen. Sherrod Brown, AFBF President Zippy Duvall, the Mexican Embassy and visits with national commodity groups.

15 View County leaders Bernard Heffelbower, of Carrol County, John Seleski, of Columbiana County, Duayne Wetherell, of Jefferson County, and Dale Vollnogle, of Columbiana County, visited with representative Bill Johnson (OH-6), March 15, in Washington, D.C.

16 View Ohio Farm Bureu leaders talk policy Farm Bureau members from the 6th Congressional District met with representative Bill Johnson to discuss agriculture policy such as the farm bill and agriculture regulations during the Ohio Farm Bureau County Presidents Trip in Washington, D.C., March 15. (Catie Noyes photos)

17 View Ohio Congressional District 16 Farm Bureau leaders from Ohio Congressional District 16 were unable to meet with Rep. Jim Renacci, but shared their stories with his staff March 15.

18 View Office with a view This is the view American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall has as he sits in his office in Washington, D.C.

19 View National Cattlemen's office The stylish new office of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Washington D.C.

20 View The White House

21 View Conversations with EASE Lindsay Calvert, with American Farm Bureau, talks with Ohio Farm Bureau county leaders about telling their story and engaging consumers.

22 View Up on the roof During a tour of the American Farm Bureau Federation, in Washington, D.C., Ohio Farm Bureau members posed for a photo on the roof.
WASHINGTON  Since arriving in Washington, D.C., Ohio farm leaders have revealed a mixed bag of emotions when it comes to policies that affect agriculture.

County Farm Bureau members, organizational directors and state leaders from Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF) have converged on the Capitol for the County Farm Presidents Trip in Washington, D.C. March 13-15.

Somber attitudes toward the ag economy are met with optimism from those leaders who came to the Hill to make change.

Recap of policies

Upon arriving in the Capitol, OFBF members were taken on a roller coaster recap of the farm economy as well as a slurry of policies to be considered, to which Nathan Brown, of Highland County, said it was enough to make your head spin.

Farmers know about these policies and how important they are, but having them all laid out at once just reiterates the importance of the issues.

Kevin Henry, of Logan County, said a lot of the proposed legislation and regulations coming down the pipeline are scary. Henry is a third generation farmer who farms 3,500 acres of corn and soybeans and raises dairy cattle with his family.

People are making decisions about important issues based on public opinion instead of science. We have too many people who dont know enough about ag and thats why we are here, he said.

Adam Sharp, executive vice president of OFBF, and Frank Burkette, OFBF president, said the county presidents trip is important for multiple reasons. It gives county leaders an idea of how the regulatory process works, it gives them an opportunity to advocate for their fellow farmers back home, and build relationships with the elected officials who represent their counties, explained Sharp.

So whats on farmers minds? With the new administration, farmers are concerned with the type of policies that will be put into play, particularly those surrounding trade, immigration and the new farm bill, explained Sharp.

Related: Ohio Farm Bureau leaders told to expect the unexpected with Trump

Trade

Trade has been a hot topic among farmers. Trade is important, we dont want to go backwards, said David Salmonsen, senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation. With the Trump administration throwing out TPP, there is still uncertainty in the future of trade.

According to Salmonsen, as it stands now, we dont have a clear idea of where trade policies are heading, but OFBF members want to make sure it is on the minds of their legislators.

Trade, as a young farmer, is a big deal, said Brown. When he traveled to China and Vietnam, Brown saw firsthand how important it is to have trade relations.

I was for TPP, he said. If we start getting into trade wars it could mean bad news for farmers.

When those trade disputes break out, countries start picking sensitive crops to pull out, explained agricultural economist Matt Roberts.

Roberts doesnt foresee a decrease in foreign interest in commodities like pork, beef and soybeans, but if a trade war were to break out with a country such as China, soybeans would make an attractive target, he said.

We are all concerned with the trade aspect, said Michael Kauffman, president of Wayne County Farm Bureau. As important as exports are for us, we also need to look at imports.

We dont always look at the big picture, but we need to look at whats in the best interest of everyone to make it better.

Farm bill

Of course, as the preparations are being made for the new farm bill, there is a lot of concern around farm safety net programs like crop insurance and the Dairy Margin Protection Program.

According to John Newton, director of market intelligence for AFBF, the dairy safety net is broken. Last year dairy producers paid around $100,000 million in premiums and only received $12 million back in payments. Milk prices fell by half and MPP couldnt make up for the loss because of the decline in corn, soybeans and wheat prices as well.

AFBF is proposing the Dairy Revenue Protection plan, which will be submitted to the USDA in April, that will offer dairy farmers more options. Farmers will have four decisions on how to cover their milk. Producers can set a milk price to insure (based on market price), the amount of milk to cover, a coverage level and which quarters they wish to insure.

Newton said this is not a replacement to MPP, but another option for dairy farmers.

We need to fix dairy, said Kauffman, who hails from a dairy heavy county. He is hopeful that a program similar to this can be put in place for farmers.

Other safety nets like crop insurance are also important to Ohio farmers. Crop insurance has been important to me. I know that I am guaranteed to have enough revenue, said Brown, who farms 1,100 acres of corn, soybeans and a little wheat.

Tight margins

Ron Burns, a grain farmer from Union County, commented on the tight margins and farm economy, another hot button topic among farmers. Weve been facing low prices for a few years now and we are just trying to get by, he said.

Tough times force farmers to reevaluate their business plans, their cost of living and make decisions that will help their farms grow. And its all about passing that farm on to the next generation, said Burns.

Roberts said the farm economy will be tough for the next few years. But the good news is, the good farmers will separate themselves.

As county leaders prepare to meet with their district representatives March 15, these topics and many others will be on their minds. Its good to be here and talk with our (representatives), said Brown.

A lot of this stuff is real and it matters to Logan County farmers, added Henry.

Images from Ohio Farm Bureau leaders trip to the Capitol
Ray and Colin Batt were the only two breeders representing the Ile de France breed for the third time at the Make Smoking History Wagin Woolorama, but that didn't diminish the excellent quality of the 19 entrants in this section.
A small indigenous community in the Sonoran Desert has opened up a new front in the battle against US President Donald Trumps plans to build a wall along the superpowers southern border with Mexico.

Jacob Serapo, Tohono Oodham rancher Tohono O'odham

More information La tribu que quiere plantar cara al muro de Trump

The Tohono Oodham  the name means desert people  have lived on both sides of the border since their lands were arbitrarily divided between the United States and Mexico some 160 years ago. Around 30,000 members of the nation live in Arizona. Meanwhile, several thousand more  and the majority of the nations sacred sites  can be found in Mexico.

Trumps wall would be a coup de grace for a nation whose territory doesnt respect international borders and the Tohono Oodham have taken the fight to protect their lands to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Our nation has been very poorly treated historically Oscar Velasquez, Tohono O'odham governor

If they build the wall, it will be over my dead body, says Verlon Jose, Vice President of the Tohono Oodham nation.

There is no word for wall in our language, explains Jacob Serapo, an indigenous rancher, speaking in a video released by the group to explain its point of view on the issue of the wall.

The vast territory of the Tohono O'odham Nation is roughly the size of the US state of Connecticut and extends along 150 kilometers of the border. This territory was split in two in 1854 with the Gadsden Purchase which saw the US buy parts of southern Arizona and New Mexico from the Mexican government.

Tohono Oodham tribal authorities in Mexico have asked for the countrys National Commission for the Dialog with Indigenous Peoples (CDPIM) to mediate as they fight to prevent the building of a structure along the border.

This is a clear no to the wall because it would affect our ancestral lands, and the flora and fauna of the region, and it would be like eliminating us, especially for members of the nation in Mexico, says Oscar Velasquez, a Tohono Oodham governor.

Tohono Oodham territory was split between Mexico and the United States with the Gadsden Purchase of 1854

Velasquez adds that the group has not received the support they expected from the Mexican government. Our nation has been very poorly treated: historically they stripped us of our land and our sacred sites and now they are not paying attention to us, he says, noting that until the terror attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, Tohono Oodham people could freely cross the US-Mexico border, but that right is now gone.

Representatives of the nation from the US side of the border have worked with authorities to stop the flow of both migrants and drugs into the United States and are willing to maintain border controls  but without the fence.

Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director of the US National Congress of American Indians and advisor to the Tohono Oodham in the dispute over Trumps proposed wall, says there is a legal limbo on the question of whether the US president can issue an order to build a wall on Indian reservations on the pretext of bolstering national security. If Trump does do so, he may hit a roadblock in the form of a court battle.

If they build the wall, it will be over my dead body Verlon Jose, Vice President Tohono Oodham Nation

But Pata believes a negotiated solution is possible and says a lawsuit against the government of the United States is not the only way forward.

We are convinced that the tribal nationals are sovereign governments in the same way that federal and state authorities in the United States are, and we believe we have the right to be heard and to make decisions about our people and our land, she says, noting that five other nations along the US-Mexico border and along the US-Canada border could be affected by Trumps migration policies in the same way as the Tohono Oodham.

English version by George Mills.
Alessandra Ambrosio snacked on a scorpion whilst in China.

Alessandra Ambrosio eating scorpion (c) Instagram

The 35-year-old model has been in the Far East country on a promotional trip to open the new Victoria's Secret store in Chengdu.

Away from her duties as an Angel, Alessandra has been seeing the sights and enjoying the local culture and cuisine which includes dining out on a cooked arachnid.

The Brazilian beauty - who has children Anja, seven, and Noah, three, with fiance Jamie Mazur - uploaded a photo of herself chowing down on the scorpion on a stick on her Instagram account.

The accompanying caption read: "Snack time #WheninChina (sic)"

Alessandra also used her account on the photo-sharing website to reveal what a great time she had at the opening of the lingerie specialist shop.

She wrote: "Amazing China #vsloveschina #VSstoreopening #chengdu ... Sending love from the new @victoriassecret store in #chengdu (sic)"

Before heading to Chengdu, Alessandra made a stop off in Shanghai to unveil a wax model of herself at Madame Tussauds Shanghai.

Sharing her excitement to be immortalised modelling as an Angel by the attraction, she posted: "FOREVER So honored to be a part of @madametussauds #Shanghai (sic)"
Lucy Watson's dog has to be stroked at all times.

Lucy Watson and James Dunmore

The former 'Made In Chelsea' star has taken to social media to show how needy her pet pooch named Digby is.

The brunette beauty shared a video on her Instagram Story, which lasts on the photo-sharing site for 24 hours, of her stroking the furry four-legged animal's stomach and chin.

On the clip she wrote: "He doesn't like it when I stop (sic)."

However, when Lucy pulled her hand away her pet reached out to grab her arm, as if to bring it back to caressing him.

And Lucy, who is an ambassador for cruelty-free organisation Peta, is taking to the streets to campaign against animal cruelty and the use of fur in fashion.

Speaking in a clip on Instagram about her latest project and support for the charity organisation, she said: "I'm campaigning with Peta today against Canada Goose."

The television personality and activist then panned to the group of people who joined her to campaign, which saw one woman standing with her leg in a mock bear trap with fake blood dripping down her leg in a bid to attract awareness.

Lucy - who is currently dating former E4 co-star James Dunmore - said: "These are the traps people use to cut furs."

by Charlotte Hough for www.femalefirst.co.uk


Matthew Vaughn is reportedly wanted to direct 'Man of Steel 2'.

Matthew Vaughn with Claudia Schiffer

The 46-year-old British director-and-producer has opened initial talks with Warner Bros. Pictures about taking the reins on the second standalone Superman movie starring Henry Cavill as the Son of Krypton, according to website Collider.

Plans for the sequel were announced last August and the 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' filmmaker is the studio's top choice to take control of the latest film set in the DC Extended Universe.

Vaughn previously pitched a new Superman movie to Warner Bros. back in 2010 before they decided to reboot the character on the big screen with 'Man of Steel' - which was conceived by 'The Dark Knight' director Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer and helmed by Zack Snyder.

Speaking previously about what he believes a Superman film should be, Vaughn said: "I think that's the one thing not to do with Superman, trying to do the serious 'The Dark Knight' version. Superman is about colour and fun, or it should be, for me."

Vaughn - who is married to German supermodel Claudia Schiffer - has experience when it comes to the comic book genre as he was responsible for helming 2010's 'Kick-Ass' and making 2011's 'X-Men: First Class' and he also acted as a producer on 'Kick-Ass 2', 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' and 'Fantastic Four'.

'Man of Steel' was followed by 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' which pitted DC's two iconic characters against each other and acted as a set up to the 'Justice League' film which is coming to cinemas this November.

Since those movies the DC Extended Universe continues to expand with the release of 'Suicide Squad', while 'Wonder Woman' starring Gal Gadot hits the big screen on June 2 then 'Aquaman' starring Jason Momoa will follow in 2018.

Warner Bros. has also confirmed that 'Cloverfield' director Matt Reeves is to take control of 'The Batman', in which Ben Affleck will reprise his role as The Caped Crusader.
Sir Ridley Scott is to direct upcoming kidnapping film 'All The Money In The World'.

Sir Ridley Scott

According to Deadline, the 79-year-old director is "finalising" plans to steer the cast and crew on a drama about the 1970s kidnapping case of oil firm heir John Paul Getty III - the grandson of ultra-rich tycoon J. Paul Getty.

John Paul was just 16 when he was grabbed during a night out in the Piazza Farnese in Rome, Italy, on 10 July 1973 and then kept chained in a cave for six months with a ransom note demanding $17 million delivered to the family.

Initially his grandfather believed that his grandson may have staged the kidnap himself and refused to pay anything, also fearing if he paid up then all of his other grandchildren would be targets.

He also ignored the pleas of his own son, John Paul Getty, Jr, to free him and of John Paul's mother Gail Harris as she had divorced his son and had refused his money to raise her family alone, however, when one of his ears was sent through the post to a newspaper along with a lock of his hair the tycoon eventually paid $2.9 million to free him.

Nine of the kidnappers were eventually arrested and two were sent to prison.

But John Paul - whose son is actor Balthazar Getty - never fully recovered from the harrowing ordeal becoming an alcoholic and drug addict. He eventually died at the age of 54 following a long battle with ill health which began when he took a cocktail of Valium, methadone and alcohol in 1981 which caused liver failure and induced a stroke which left him a quadriplegic and nearly blind.

Angelina Jolie has been approached to play Gail Harris but a clash with her other work commitments means that Natalie Portman is now in the frame.

Scott is also searching for a "big star" to play J. Paul Getty, with sources saying he has met with Hollywood icon Jack Nicholson to discuss the part.

'All The Money In The World' is apparently going to be Scott's next project with his planned adaptation of Don Winslow's book 'The Cartel' pushed back.

His 'Prometheus' sequel and 'Alien' prequel 'Alien: Covenant' hits cinemas in May.
Kristen Stewart has teamed up with synth-pop group Chvrches on a mystery collaboration for Planned Parenthood.

Kristen Stewart

The 26-year-old actress had her foray into the music world when she shot scenes for the Rolling Stone's music video for 'Ride 'Em On Down' from their 2016 covers album 'Blue & Lonesome', and now she has written a "narrative" potentially for another music video with the Glaswegian rockers.

The new project with the group - comprised of multi-instrumental musicians, Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty and Iain Cook - comes with a hard-hitting message to US President Donald Trump, who has signed a contract to cut funding to the non-profit organisation that provides reproductive health services worldwide earlier this year.

Of the collaboration, the 'Personal Shopper' star told the Los Angeles Times newspaper: "I had been asking them to let me do something for them for a while. They're so good. I ended up with a pretty simple but definitive narrative arc that highlights the cause in a sweet but quiet and confronting way."

Kristen is not the only celebrity getting behind Planned Parenthood as pop superstar Katy Perry - an avid Hillary Clinton supporter - donated $10,000 to the organisation,

amid concerns that the new US government could cut their funds.

In November, she wrote: "I am making a public donation to Planned Parenthood for the teenage me who made several visits to first a clinic in Santa Barbara and then Los Angeles, CA to educate myself on my sexual health, a subject I had little to no information on because of my sheltered upbringing. I had no idea how things worked down there, and had no idea how to make a plan for them.

"Planned Parenthood educated me on my body and my reproductive health, so that I could focus on my dreams and using my voice until I knew the timing was right for me to make a plan to have a family. Since then, I have been able to focus wholeheartedly on bringing messages of strength and becoming a voice for others. Without this education, I may have had a different life path.

"That is just my experience, but I know Planned Parenthood's broader range of services can sometimes be the only medical support low-income families ever see. I know what it's like to need help. I came from a lower- to middle-class family and never grew up with the option of health insurance. I remember having 13 cavities as a teenager, and the best option my parents could come up with was to try and take me to Mexico because we couldn't afford anything in California.

"Now, more than ever, we all need to protect and create safe places for each other. I hope I can help inspire you to make a gift as well, and become a member and an ally."
A $225,000 tiara from Princess Diana's family has been sold.

Princess Diana

The expensive diamond tiara belonged to the great aunt of the late royal - who passed away in 1997 after being fatally wounded in a car crash in Paris - and was sold at a well-known art fair in Holland last week.

People magazine reports the tiara was set with over 800 diamonds, and was originally meant as a wedding gift for Lady Delia Spencer from her father Charles, the sixth Earl Spencer, when she married the Honourable Sir Sidney Peel in 1914.

The tiara has an estimated weight of 48 carats, and was designed in a way which means it can be worn in a variety of different ways. As well as being a headpiece, the central three sections can transform into a choker necklace, leaving the remaining two sections to form a matching bracelet.

Guy Barton of the high-end jewellery company Hancocks London told the publication: "The tiara is a wonderful example of superb craftsmanship with a unique provenance."

The tiara was reportedly bought within just hours after it was first shown at TEFAF, an art fair which claims to be the "champion the finest quality art from across the ages by creating a community of the world's top art dealers and experts to inspire lovers and buyers of art everywhere."

Meanwhile another tiara, worn by Diana herself, is reportedly being used by her youngest son Prince Harry, 32, in order to make an engagement ring for his girlfriend Meghan Markle.

A source said: "Diana's jewellery collection was left in trust for the boys and Meghan apparently loves emeralds. For Harry, like Wills before him, using his mother's gems means the two loves of his life will forever be linked.

"After Diana died, the boys both chose a keepsake from Kensington Palace when they moved to Charles' rooms in St James's Palace. Prince William picked his mum's Cartier watch, and Harry picked her sapphire and diamond engagement ring.

"But they had an agreement that whoever got engaged first would have Diana's ring - and of course that was William and Kate. Harry wants the same sentiment when he proposes to Meghan, so he is working with the jewellers to design something incredible."
Lets face it  those of us who binged on the incredible true crime documentary series that was Making A Murderer on Netflix have been looking for something similar to devour ever since, but in the hunt many of us have come up a little short. We know a second season of Making A Murderer is in the works, but without a premiere date, we need something else to bridge that gap and get our detective juices flowing. So, weve put together a list of five incredible true crime documentaries that all fans of Making A Murderer should love

5. Beware the Slenderman (2016)  Available on iTunes

The Slenderman may be a completely fictional character, but that didnt stop the attempted murder of a 12-year-old girl in America, who was stabbed multiple times by two other 12-year-olds who claimedthe Slenderman had forced them to do it. Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, the film premiered in March 2016 at South by Southwest, before being picked up by HBO in the States. Earlier this year, the piece debuted both in the States and the UK on Sky Atlantic, showcasing the investigation and the 18 months that went into filming, including interviews with the families of the two suspects. Its a riveting look into how an urban legend can work its way into impressionable minds and cause havoc; certainly worth a look if youre a fan of the true crime genre.

4. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015)  Available on iTunes

Robert Durst is a very intriguing individual. All of his life hes had access to money, but not a lot of peace and relaxation. While one half of America thinks hes a murderer, many others believe his innocence and so, in this incredible miniseries, he himself steps back into the spotlight to speak about the accusations, his past and the many different criminal cases hes been a part of. Directed by Andrew Jarecki, the final episode of the series originally aired just one day after Robert Durst was arrested in New Orleans on a first degree murder warrant, in connection to the 2000 death of Susan Berman, thanks to new evidence that was presented in the miniseries. Watch this one and make your own mind up

3. Amanda Knox (2016)  Available on Netflix

Another great new documentary that involves interviews with the subject in question is Netflix original, Amanda Knox. Having spent almost four years in an Italian prison following her conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher, Knox saw her sentence overturned in 2015 when she was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Cassation. Here, she steps forward once again to plead her innocence alongside various experts, those involved in the case and journalists who followed it intently. While they make their own decisions as to whether or not they believe Knox is innocent, the viewer is tasked with doing the same, despite the exoneration.

2. Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)  Available on Netflix

Aileen Wuornos was a very conflicted woman. Executed despite her being of unsound mind, this incredible feature-length documentary film focuses on an evidentiary hearing held in Florida back in 2001, which was the site of some of Wuornos murders. Wuornos own interviews are also included in the film, as well as footage of a prison spokesman who read her final statement. It said: Im sailing with the Rock, and Ill be back. Like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mothership and all. Ill be back. A compelling watch, for sure.

1. Cropsey (2009)  Available on Amazon Prime Video

Cropsey is a great watch because it never borders on offensive and exploitative with the subject matter. Following a series of kidnappings, this tells the true story of a myth that becomes reality, as missing children and courtroom drama takes centre-stage. Andre Rand is the man convicted of the killings, who agreed to take part in the documentary before pulling out at the last minute. Fortunately, his time on the film isnt something that was necessary to make it a success.

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Jack Black and his wife Tanya celebrate their wedding anniversary today so we reflect on their marriage with some things you might not know about the couple.

Jack and Tanya Black (Credit: Famous)

1. Black has known cellist, former member of 'Black Dog' and daughter of bassist Charlie Haden, Tanya Haden, since he was young.

2. They first met at Crossroads School, a private school in Santa Monica, however went their separate ways after graduation.

3. Fifteen years later they met again at a friend's birthday party and they began seeing each other romantically afterwards.

4. Black proposed to Haden over Christmas 2005 after they had been dating for less than a year.

5. They married on March 14th 2006 in Big Sur, California.

6. The couple now have two sons together Samuel Jason, who was born on the 10th June 2006 in Los Angeles and on 23rd May 2008, they had their second son Thomas David.

Happy Wedding Anniversary Jack and Tanya!

Source: Wikipedia and IMDB.

by Lucy Moore for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Vidya Balan is stepping into the shoes of a woman torn between India-Pakistan in her next 'Begum Jaan' and the actress says the film will bring out an interesting story revolving around women during Partition.



'Begum Jaan' is a Hindi adaptation of director Srijit Mukherji's Bengali film 'Rajkahini'.



The Hindi version stars Vidya in the lead as a madam of a brothel.



The film chronicles the lives of women living in a brothel, who find themselves divided by the newly-drawn LoC with half of the house in India and the other half in Pakistan post-partition and how these women fight for their rights.



"I don't think beyond textbooks we know anything more about Partition. There are not many films on Partition and not on women especially as in what happened to them. So it's an interesting story to tell," Vidya told PTI.



The National Award-winning actress says considering the topic the film is dealing with, it features a lot of "emotional and mental" violence, which was difficult for her to bring out convincingly.



"I am the madam of a brothel and the film is set in the Partition times and we are at the risk of losing our house, our space so there is lot of emotional, mental and sexual violence and not physical violence. It was difficult to do the film as I am doing it for the first time," she says.



When asked if she thinks that perception of people would change towards women working at brothels after watching the film, Vidya says, "People will think about how they think of women and prostitutes. Lot of things that I have felt strongly about have found voice in this film. I don't know about that as it would be presumptuous of me to hope for such a big change."



With the two posters of 'Begum Jaan' garnering positive response, Vidya is elated with the appreciation coming her way.



"Everyone is aware about the film so it feels good, people are talking about it and have liked the look. So, it's a positive thing for us as there is curiosity about the film."



The film boasts of stars like Naseeruddin Shah, Ila Arun, Pallavi Sharda, Rajit Kapoor, Gauhar Khan, Ashish Vidyarthi, Vivek Mushran and Chunky Pandey among others.



'Begum Jaan' is scheduled to arrive in cinema houses on April 14.




Specialty chemicals producer Archroma has signed an agreement with Ethical Affair, to provide training, skills development and technical assistance to women entrepreneurs in the Pakistan textile industry. Women entrepreneurs will be provided a tool kit in areas such as technical know how pertaining to textiles from initial to the final stage.Apart from this, Archroma will offer international textile market features, sustainability development, or understanding cost and value creation for local and foreign markets.

Specialty chemicals producer Archroma has signed an agreement with Ethical Affair, to provide training, skills development and technical assistance to women entrepreneurs in the Pakistan textile industry. Women entrepreneurs will be provided a tool kit in areas such as technical know how pertaining to textiles from initial to the final stage.#

Archroma will play a pivotal role to impart technical know-how, training and re-training through active platform of Ethical Affair."Empowering women entrepreneurs to enter into the mainstream will certainly add value coupled with creativity for the textile industry," Mujtaba Rahim, CEO of Archroma Pakistan said. "Women are already taking initiatives in establishing their own businesses especially in the last five years and only need technical training and hands on experience."

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics  Spring Edition 2017, the world's largest trade event for the spring summer season will play host to over 3,300 exhibitors from 26 countries and regions. Yarn Expo Spring, Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles  Spring Edition, CHIC and PH Value fairs will also take place concurrently with Intertextile in Shanghai.

The three-day fair that will begin on March 15, is being organised by Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd, the Sub-Council of Textile Industry, CCPIT and the China Textile Information Centre.

"With 2016 certainly a challenging year for some in the industry, we found that this fair became even more important for our international exhibitors and buyers as a key meeting place where business was still being conducted. After strong growth in recent years, the current scale and quality of the fair, particularly with the industry-leading brands that both exhibit and source here, now makes this event an unrivalled business platform for the global industry to connect with the Chinese market, and vice versa," said Wendy Wen, senior general manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd.

Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics  Spring Edition 2017, the world's largest trade event for the spring summer season will play host to over 3,300 exhibitors from 26 countries and regions. Yarn Expo Spring, Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles  Spring Edition, CHIC and PH Value fairs will also take place concurrently with Intertextile in Shanghai.#

The SalonEurope section of the International hall will house the Milano Unica Pavilion, as well as the France & Germany Zones. In addition, Asian Pavilions from India, Japan, Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan, and Group Pavilions by Dyetec, Convergence Institute of Natural Materials and Lenzing will feature alongside individual exhibitors from numerous countries.

Key products groups are located in distinctive zones in order to ensure ease of sourcing for buyers and increased exposure for exhibitors. In the International hall, All About Sustainability, Functional Lab, Premium Wool Zone and Verve for Design feature the latest products, technologies and trends in these respective sectors, while Beyond Denim and Accessories Vision are in halls 6.2 and 8.1, respectively. Chinese exhibitors are grouped by product end-use along with a number of regional and association pavilions, said the organisers in a press release.

Adding to the product diversity is the fair's fringe programme, which features a range of seminars and panel discussions along with four S/S 2018 trend forums: the Intertextile Directions Trend Forum and three Fabrics China Trend Forums for Fashion Focus, suiting and ladieswear. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
HON PM VOREQE BAINIMARAMA AT THE OPENING OF RURAL ACCESS ROADS AND ASSOCIATED INFRASTRUCTURE





Permanent Secretaries

Vanua o NadiLadies and gentlemen.Bula vinaka and a good morning to you all.Im delighted to be here in Malolo to officially commission an entire network of upgraded rural access roads across the sugar cane belt. These roads will serve our farmers in Malolo, Drasa and Koronubu and allow farmers to transport cane to mills and produce to market safely and conveniently.There are more than 1,800 sugar cane farmers and their families in Malolo, Drasa and Koronubu. You are a part of a community of more than 200,000 Fijians throughout our country who rely on the health and vitality of our sugar cane industry for their livelihoods. And my Government has a steadfast commitment to not just sustain this industry, but to keep it growing well into the future. We cannot do that without proper agricultural infrastructure.These new rural access roads bring that promise of connectivity here. They will ensure that your communities remain a part of the growth that Fiji is enjoying. The road to markets in Fiji and beyond begins here, where you take produce and cane that you have just harvested from the fields. These roads will reduce delays and unnecessary labour, and they will help ensure that as our sugar cane industry grows and remains a sustainable source of livelihood for our people, your cane will get to the mills and your crops will reach markets in Fiji and beyond. They hold the promise that the way of life you all know and cherish can continue unabated.The days spent worrying about the quality and condition of roads you depend on are over. Journeys that were once arduous and inconvenient are quicker and, most importantly, safer than they have ever been. These new roads dont just offer an easier ride to town. They have brought infrastructure that you can rely on, with the proper drainage and crossings to resist the rains and flooding that are becoming more frequent and more severe in your communities.We had a torrential thunderstorm last week. I think it was Wednesday night. Rain came down in buckets for more than an hour, and the thunder sounded like cannon fire. And believe me, I know what cannon fire sounds like. It almost had me running for cover.As I sat in my house, I couldnt help thinking about how the unusual storms we have been experiencing can flood your fields, wash out your roads in a heartbeat, and leave your roads in a deteriorated state.The changing climate is placing challenges before all of us, which is why I will be dedicating a good part of the next year to leading the global effort to slow that change down and help people adapt to it. It is so important that I have decided that Fiji will defer our candidacy for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. We are a small country, and this year our Ambassador in Geneva and our foreign-policy resources need to be focused on climate change and our presidency of COP 23. We simply cannot do them both and do them well. And right now, climate change is the wolf at our front door. But I can assure you that we will renew our candidacy following our presidency of COP 23.I dont have to tell any of you here what climate change has to do with our roads, because every unpredictable storm, every season that is unusually wet or unusually dry, can mean hardship and financial loss. But today we have THESE roads, and they will keep your communities connected to the rest of Fiji for generations to come. They are your bridge to the outside world, to the markets you depend on, and to the enormous possibilities that our growing economy offers every Fijian.As I have mentioned, it's not just our sugar cane farmers who will benefit from this infrastructure. This project will make a major difference for the nearly 6,000 households in these three sectors who depend on other types of farming, farming that produce crops that need to reach their markets before they lose their freshness and quality. Those farmers can use this same road network to bring their goods to market, and they have the same opportunity to find success through their own hard work and diligence.But these roads have meaning beyond the growing and marketing of sugar cane. They build communities because these roads will also help your children get to school, and help you get medical care when you need it, and help your families travel to take care of the many things they need to do.These upgraded access roads come under the four-year development assistance programme with the European Union to empower our local communities who depend on farming. I want to thank the EU for this invaluable assistance on behalf of our cane cutters, our lorry operators and all of our farmers and their families whose secure future is guaranteed by the long-term strength of this industry. I also want to commend the EUs larger work with my Government to reshape our sugar cane industry to make it the most competitive and productive it has ever been, even in an era of great change in the global sugar market.The new reform programme for our sugar cane industry will guarantee that these new access roads always carry your cane to mills where it can be crushed and prepared to send on to eager buyers in markets all over the world, where Fijian sugar is definitely in demand. And it will also ensure that we get the best return possible from every stalk of sugar cane we produce as we improve productivity and find new ways to use cane and its by-products.Today, you join the many thousands of Fijians who are enjoying the modern, capable infrastructure projects my Government is delivering throughout the country. But I will confess to having two regretsthat governments before us did not take on this task seriously and conscientiously, and that we cant do everything that needs to be done at once. But with the capacity existing in Fiji, we have to make hard choices. We must make our plans to improve conditions year by year and stick to those plans until every cane farmer is as connected, protected and supported as you are today.Our commitment to you all and to this industry doesnt end with this project. Our sugar cane industry is here to stay, and so is my Governments support to our sugar cane farmers. We are with you, we support you and we will do whatever is necessary to keep your interests protected. These new access roads are testament to that commitment.As you know, I believe strongly that we must depoliticise our sugar sector and take a technical and commercial approach to the relationship between the Government and the industry.Infrastructure is a part of that. But it also means bringing in new technology to increase yields and reduce yield costs. It means giving our farmers the advantages of the latest scientific research. And it means bringing government resources togetherin a prudently and intelligent wayto support the sector. You may have seen in the papers that we are seeking proposals to purchase cane harvesters. I am happy to announce as Minister for Sugar that I have approved an expenditure of $2 million, which we will make available to sugar cane cooperatives to help them purchase the harvesters. And we will be announcing more initiatives like this by Government and FSC in the next few months.I wish you all every success as you being this exciting new chapter of sugar cane farming in these sectors. I encourage you all to be ambitious, take advantage of this infrastructure and work in confidence knowing that our sugar cane industry is strong today and will remain strong in the years to come.Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you.
Sonam Finds It Entertaining

"I said it was very entertaining. Every morning I wake up and it's great bathroom reading. It's mudslinging of the worst kind," told Sonam.

Sonam On Kangana

"I don't know Kangana. I know Karan very well. I find Kangana very entertaining and that's about it. I don't want to comment on something that looks opportunistic, honestly. And I believe you are a feminist when you build other people up, especially other women. All I can say is that I respect the choices that she has made in her career till now. "

Did Sonam Take A Dig At Kangana?

"I made a decision when I was very young after my second or first Koffee With Karan - it was that I would not do mudslinging when other actors and actresses are concerned because I would not do it for TRP's, I would not do it for a channel."

I Find It Very Distasteful

"I felt if I have to give an opinion or be opinionated, it would have to be for something that is relevant and I don't think dragging someone down or criticizing someone or having this public spat - I find it very distasteful. You can set examples without washing your dirty linen in public."

She Further Added..

"I'm very close to Aanand Rai and I'm very close to Swara Bhaskar and very close to Karan. These 3 people, I know are very idealistic and ethical human beings. Aanand L. Rai made a Raanjhanaa with me. He's also made Tanu Manu 1 and 2 with Kangana and if anything, his female protagonists are very strong."

Sonam On Karan

"Swara Bhaskar is one of my closest friends and Karan has only taken me in one movie - I Hate Luv Storys, 9 years back and if he really was someone who was a flagbearer of nepotism, I'm sure he wouldn't have launched 12 directors."

And, Heres How She Concluded..

So, both of them are right in their own way. I just find this argument, something that I feel like, I don't want to be a part of and I don't want to comment on. I don't see anything that is worth commenting on."
Rumours had it that the celebrated Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger would consider himself for a run at the US senate in 2018, replacing Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic Senate.

However, the former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied all the claims of his senate run and stated that he has much responsibilities to look after before taking such decisions.

Schwarzenegger took to his social media handle and posted that, "I'm deeply flattered by all of the people who have approached me about running for Senate, but my mission right now is to bring sanity to Washington through redistricting reform like we passed here in California."

The Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger also mentioned in his post that it is imperative to repair the already corrupt political system from the outside.

"Gerrymandering has completely broken our political system and I believe my best platform to help repair it is from the outside, by campaigning for independent redistricting commissions." Said Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger also acknowledged all his supporters and fans and urged them to support in his political endeavour for redistricting commissions.

"Thank you for your kind messages and all of the support and I hope you'll join me in my battle against gerrymandering with the same enthusiasm," Schwarzenegger added further.
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
Celebrated Hollywood actor Clive Owen said that he feels uncomfortable to wear outfits which are "too colourful" or "too loud" and he, therefore, often prefers to wear clothes that are monochrome.

The actor said that he also tries often to tone down his outfit and keep his style simple and quiet with mostly blacks and whites particularly when he ventures out.

"I find it difficult wearing anything too loud, too colourful. I like to tone things down and keep my style quiet, especially when I'm out and about. As a general rule, I try to stick to blacks and whites wherever I can," Clive Owen said in a statement.

When asked about his favourite place in the world, Clive Owen said that it certainly has to be Paris, France, also known as the Europe's fashion capital.According to the actor, Paris is the "most magical city on the planet."

"It sounds like a cliche but Paris really s the most magical city on the planet. The first place Ernest Hemingway and his wife stayed when they moved to the city in 1921 is still there and it's fantastic - the Hotel d'Angleterre." Explained the actor.

"If you're lucky, you can even stay in their room, No. 14, which is a real treat." Clive Owen added.
Oru Mexican Aparatha, which has taken the theatres by storm has provided a solid start to the month of March. The film has set the cash registers ringing and has been reciving some great reviews, especially from youngsters.

Now, here is a happy news for all the fans of Oru Mexican Aparatha. If reports are to be believed, Tom Emmatty, the director of Oru Mexican Aparatha is all set to join hands with Tovino Thomas, yet again.

According to the reports, the upcoming film will be a big budget venture, which will be a period drama. In a recent interview, director Tom Ematty had opened up about his next venture. The director stated that his next venture, which is in its planning stages, will revolve around the story of an elephant and a mahout.

Reportedly, the upcoming film will be based on a true story and the makers are planning to make the film in 3D. Reportedly, the movie has been tentatively titled as Hano. Nothing much has been revealed about the rest of the cast and crew of the movie.

Meanwhile, actor Tovino Thomas has some big projects in his kitty. The actor's next big release is Godha, directed by Basil Joseph. He will also be seen doing the lead role in Vivek Anirudh's Tik Tok, which will be the first time-travel movie in Malayalam.
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai actors were in Bikaner for shooting the wedding sequence of Kartik (Mohsin Khan) and Naira (Shivangi Joshi). The team had a blast while shooting. The reel wedding was a grand event and it looked like real wedding for some on-lookers! Even Shivangi Joshi felt like real marriage was taking place!

It is known that the reel life couple Kartik and Naira are dating in real life as well. Mohsin had confirmed about their relationship (dating). Now that the reel wedding was done and the couple are dating, Shivangi was asked about her real marriage.

The actress clarified that she doesn't intend to get married in real life anytime soon. Read on to know what the actress had to say....

Shivangi Joshi Shivangi was quoted by IANS as saying, "It literally felt like a real marriage is taking place. For once, even the on-lookers who gathered at Lalgarh Palace when we were shooting thought it was a real wedding." Shivangi About Reel Life Wedding The actress added, "This is proof enough for the kind of treatment and magnificence my reel wedding has." Shivangi Says Her Real Wedding Will Take Time! Shivangi said, "I've been wearing this bridal attire for the last 20 days now and I think for now this experience is the best I've had, my real wedding will take time." Shivangi Cried A Lot! "I've cried so much for my bidaai sequence that I am sure as hell that I won't be crying on my real wedding." Shivangi In Kala Chashma Swag The actress recently shared a picture from the sets. She looked gorgeous in the bridal avatar. Shivangi asked her fans to caption the picture in which she was seen wearing a bridal outfit with a kala chashma'. When Dulhan Is Angry... Mohsin too, shared a couple of videos and pictures. Sharing a video clip which featured Naira (Shivangi), Mohsin wrote, "When my #dulhan is angry wid me... ." When Dulhan Is Happy Sharing another video in which both Mohsin and Shivangi were seen all set to get married, Mohsin wrote, "& when my cutie #dulhan is happy." Mohsin, The Dulha! Mohsin also shared his dulha avatar. He looked royal in cream coloured sherwani and pagdi'. Sharing the picture Mohsin wrote, "#suitup coz Its #time." Mohsin With His Unth! Mohsin posted a picture with his camel and wrote, "Searching for a Hot Uthni for my friend hereMiss u buddy..."

Currently, on the show, Kartik and Naira are set to get married. Kartik gets nervous ahead of his wedding and shares the same with Kriti. She tells him to not to think much and love his wife Naira throughout the life.

When Kartik asks Kriti about her married life, she lies to him! Will Kartik ever get to know about Aditya's reality?

On the other hand, Naira gets dressed up as a bride. She wears her mother's lehenga. Dadi complements her and gifts her necklace. Apparently, she would have requested Dadi if she could wear that lehenga as Akshara had ordered it for her marriage. Dadi agrees as it was Akshara's last wish.

As they cannot see each other, Kartik and Naira talk over the phone. Naira even asks Kartik not to think of her mumma's death.

Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai: Kartik-Naira Wedding: Dulha Swap Drama; KaIra To Go On Honeymoon Soon!

In the upcoming episode, Kartik and other dulha get swapped. The other dulha reach Naira's place and she hits the dulha, thinking someone is cheating them!

Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai: Kartik & Naira's Royal Wedding Spoilers; Mohsin Says He Is SRK's Fan!

(With IANS Inputs)
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.
SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/22/17 -- CFN Media Group ("CannabisFN"), the leading creative agency and digital media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces the publication of an article discussing Laguna Blends Inc.'s (CSE: LAG) (OTC PINK: LAGBF) plans to acquire a leading global cannabis firm and grow into a leader in the space.

The hemp-derived cannabidiol ("CBD") market has been growing at a rapid pace over the past few years. The Hemp Business Journal estimates that consumer CBD sales will soar more than 700% to $2.1 billion by 2020. Greenwave Advisors is even more optimistic about the growth in the CBD market, with Founder Matt Karnes telling Forbes that it could reach $3 billion by 2021 -- a significant growth rate and market for emerging companies.

Laguna Blends aims to become a market leader in the distribution of hemp and CBD products by acquiring and incubating companies in the space. Recently, the company announced that it signed a letter of intent to acquire a leading cannabis firm with unaudited annual sales of $12 million and adjusted EBITDA of $1,588,000. The transaction would occur for cash and stock consideration totaling $12.5 million, making it an attractive acquisition for shareholders.

In addition to its acquisition strategy, the company owns and operates a business-to-business network of affiliates and an online marketplace lagunablends.com to extend distribution. Currently, the company sells a complete line of CBD-infused skincare products through its Cannaceuticals website at www.cbdskincream.com. These products target everything from exfoliation to anti-aging and harness the power of CBDs and other cutting-edge compounds.

The potential acquisition of a revenue-generating firm in the space could provide the financial leverage to accelerate the company's acquisition strategy over the coming quarters as well as bolster its other internal efforts. At the same time, the company's online marketplace and affiliate network could open the door to significant synergies between acquired companies and generate significant long-term revenue for shareholders.

Please follow the link to read the full article:

http://www.cannabisfn.com/laguna-blends-moves-acquire-global-cannabis-leader/

Learn how to become a CFN Media featured 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 your smart phone: 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) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help 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.

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/.

Frank Lane

206.369.7050

flane@cannabisfn.com




WEST CHESTER, OH -- (Marketwired) -- 03/13/17 -- AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) said today that members of the United Steel Workers (USW) Local 169 have ratified a four year labor agreement covering about 300 hourly production and maintenance employees at the company's Mansfield (OH) Works. AK Steel said that USW officials notified the company that the contract was ratified in voting held today in Mansfield. The agreement will be in effect until March 31, 2021.

"We appreciate the work of the Union leadership with our management team to achieve a contract at Mansfield Works that addresses both employee and company needs ahead of the expiration date," said Roger K. Newport, Chief Executive Officer of AK Steel. "This early resolution positions us well to meet the future needs of our customers, as we continue to drive our sales of more value-added and innovative products."

Mansfield Works produces a variety of stainless steels used predominately in the automotive industry.

AK Steel

AK Steel is a leading producer of flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products, and carbon and stainless tubular products, primarily for automotive, infrastructure and manufacturing, electrical power generation and distribution markets. Headquartered in West Chester, Ohio (Greater Cincinnati), the company employs approximately 8,500 men and women at eight steel plants, two coke plants and two tube manufacturing operations across six states (Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and one tube plant in Mexico. Additional information about AK Steel is available at www.aksteel.com.

Contacts:

Media - Lisa H. Jester

Corporate Manager, Communications and Public Relations

(513) 425-2510



Investors - Douglas O. Mitterholzer

General Manager, Investor Relations

(513) 425-5215




NEW ORLEANS, LA--(Marketwired - March 13, 2017) - Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., alert investors that shareholder class actions have been filed against Mallinckrodt Public Limited Company (NYSE: MNK), including one filed by KSF on behalf of those who purchased or otherwise acquired the Company's securities between July 14, 2014 and January 18, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The KSF action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Earlier-filed class actions allege a class period between November 25, 2014 and January 18, 2017, inclusive.

What You May Do

If you purchased shares of Mallinckrodt and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com). If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by March 27, 2017.

About the Lawsuit

The complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Mallinckrodt and its CEO, Mark Trudeau, made a series of false and misleading statements and failed to disclose material adverse facts about the long-term sustainability of Mallinckrodt's revenues for HP Acthar Gel ("Acthar"), the only FDA-approved adrenocorticotropic hormone preparation. The action alleges that Acthar's monopoly status was the product of unlawful anticompetitive practices and failed to disclose that its increasing reliance on Medicare and Medicaid meant that Mallinckrodt's monopolistic Acthar revenue would be threatened if the government took action to limit the price paid for this drug by taxpayers.

About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana.

To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

Contact:



Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

Lewis Kahn

Managing Partner

lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com

1-877-515-1850

206 Covington St.

Madisonville, LA 70447
HONG KONG, CHINA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/13/17 -- Artesyn Embedded Technologies announced a new hyperscale media acceleration server sled based on the CG-OpenRack-19 architecture, which is inspired by rack-scale architectures. Artesyn's new platform, named the CG-19-GPU, will be used by carriers to add NVIDIA Tesla P4 processing to their network infrastructure systems. Optimized support for GPU and media processing workloads enables carriers to enhance their networks with improved video streaming and services that use video such as digital advertising and augmented reality. Carriers also benefit from dramatically increased performance density and the ability to deploy new applications such as advanced analytics.

CG-OpenRack-19 is an open-source specification for scalable carrier-grade rack-level systems that integrate high-performance compute, storage and networking in a standard rack. It is designed to enable revenue-generating applications to be deployed very quickly on off-the-shelf servers and storage systems. The specification offers technical benefits related to power and physical footprint, scalability and maintenance. The specification, adopted and deployed in tier one carrier networks, has a growing ecosystem of vendors developing components for CG-OpenRack-19 systems. Artesyn has a long history of serving the telecom industry and understands the importance of open specifications as the carrier business and deployment model changes.

Linsey Miller, vice president of marketing for Artesyn Embedded Technologies, said: "Carrier networks need to rapidly deploy new applications on datacenter infrastructure, and open source hardware standards such as CG-OpenRack-19 are critical to this network transformation. We are bringing our deep knowledge of how to apply off-the-shelf technology along with our breadth of product and third-party ecosystem to solve today's application deployment challenges, so that service providers can buy with confidence."

Leveraging the power of GPU computing inherent in the NVIDIA P4 hyperscale accelerator, Artesyn's CG-19-GPU provides key functionality within the growing multi-vendor ecosystem of carrier-grade open compute products. This ecosystem aims to lower the cost of keeping up with network and processor technology by reducing forklift upgrades and enable carriers to bring new capabilities to their networks more quickly and easily.

"NVIDIA lets companies like Artesyn, and its telecom customers, deploy a GPU computing platform that powers AI applications capable of creating additional growth opportunities," said Craig Weinstein, vice president of the America's Partner Organization at NVIDIA. "The Tesla P4 hyperscale GPU enables superior carrier services including, virtual reality, augmented reality and improved video streaming."

About Artesyn Embedded Technologies

Artesyn Embedded Technologies is a global leader in the design and manufacture of highly reliable power conversion and embedded computing solutions for a wide range of industries including communications, computing, medical, military, aerospace and industrial. For more than 40 years, customers have trusted Artesyn to help them accelerate time-to-market and reduce risk with cost-effective advanced network computing and power conversion solutions. Artesyn has over 20,000 employees worldwide across ten engineering centers of excellence, four world-class manufacturing facilities, and global sales and support offices.

Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Artesyn and the Artesyn Embedded Technologies logo are trademarks and service marks of Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Inc. All other names and logos referred to are trade names, trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective owners.  2017 Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. For full legal terms and conditions, please visit www.artesyn.com/legal.

Alice Hui

+852 2176 3548

Email Contact




HONG KONG, CHINA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/13/17 -- Following a hiatus from attending events in Hong Kong, well-known Korean celebrity Park Hae-jin today unveiled his wax figure at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong with cheering fans who were selected from an official social media campaign for the special occasion. Park Hae-jin's figure officially arrived at K-wave zone and will be on display for three months. Fans and visitors can meet with their favourite idol at The Peak.

Dressed in a navy blue suit with black bow tie, the wax figure of Park Hae-jin sits on a stool and holds a bouquet of roses. It looks just as fondly as Park Hae-jin himself and exudes his signature gentleness and tenderness. At the ceremony, Park Hae-jin dressed in the same outfit as and sat side by side with his figure; all media and fans were surprised by the resemblance. According to Park, he wishes this pose can encourage fans to get up close and create more unforgettable memories with his figure.

Park says: "I deeply appreciated the professionalism of the team. During the sitting, the team asked me to hold the exact same pose. Although I chose a sitting pose for my figure, it is not easy at all. The moment of unveiling was truly magical. When I looked at my wax figure, it's as if I was looking into a mirror! Thank you Madame Tussauds Hong Kong. I am thrilled to have a wax figure of myself."

Park Hae-jin made his debut in 2006 and participated in many famous dramas. Starring in My Love from the Star as Lee Hwi-kyung, Han Jae-joon / Lee Sung-hoon in Doctor Stranger and Yoo Jung in Cheese in the Trap gained him nationwide recognition and skyrocketed his popularity. Park is also known for his philanthropy and volunteerism. He is the first South Korean to be invited and honoured by the 'Civic Public Welfare Award' in China in 2014.

"Mr. Park devotes his efforts to his acting career as well as participates in volunteer work proactively. I am sure our guests will be excited to see Park at our attraction and it will definitely enhance interaction with visitors. It also makes our star-studded Madame Tussauds Hong Kong continue to dazzle at The Peak," commented Jenny You, General Manager of Madame Tussauds Hong Kong.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3118930

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3118933



For Enquiries:

BoBo Yu

Madame Tussauds Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2849 2183 / 6427 1212

Email: Email Contact



Bernadette Chow

Madame Tussauds Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2849 2763 / 6434 2756

Email: Email Contact




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

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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

Google Ad

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




Andy Ahn Head of Marketing, Suprema Inc. Email: andyahn@suprema.co.kr

SEOUL, KOREA, Mar 14, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - Suprema, a global leader in biometrics, today announced the launch of its new SFM6000 Series fingerprint embedded modules.Loaded with the range-leading 1GHz CPU and latest Suprema algorithm, the new SFM6000 Series achieves the world's fastest matching speed of up to 5,000 matches per second and massive user capacity of up to 25,000 fingerprint templates. For developers, the new SFM6000 Series now allows the easier integration by supporting open source hardware platforms including Arduino and Raspberry pi.SFM6000 Series is designed to provide optimal fingerprint authentication solution for various areas including access control terminals, time attendance devices, door locks, alarm panels, safes, vending machines automotive, ATMs and fast-growing IoT applications.Moreover, SFM6000 Series brings significant improvements on hardware side to provide a robust solution for applications with harsh environment. The new improved optical sensor structure now provides IP65-rated ingress protection and operating temperature is also extended from -15 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius.SFM6000 Series also provides complete backward compatibility by maintaining SFM5000 & 3000's form factor and sensor types. This allows existing customers of SFM5000 & 3000 Series to put minimal effort in adoption of improved benefits of SFM6000 Series fingerprint modules."Suprema's new SFM6000 Series is our answer to dynamic market demands from leading global manufacturers. SFM6000 Series will be the first choice for those who aims to build a best-of-breed fingerprint terminals and will also address growing demand from open source hardware applications," said Brian Song, CEO at Suprema. "With biometrics becoming more popular for IoT, SFM6000 Series will provide our customers better opportunity to penetrate their business into this emerging market," Song added.Suprema is the world's largest provider of fingerprint embedded modules and has shipped more than a million modules till today. For more information, visit www.supremainc.com.About Suprema Inc.Suprema is a leading global provider of biometrics and ID solutions. By combining world renowned biometric algorithms with superior engineering, Suprema continually designs and develops industry-leading products and solutions. Suprema's extensive range of portfolio includes fingerprint authentication/enrollment scanners, identification solutions and physical access control solutions. Suprema has worldwide sales network in over 130 countries and is one of the world's Top 50 security company in its turnover (ranked in A&S's Security 50, 2010-2016). For more information, please visit www.supremainc.com.Source: Suprema Inc.Contact:Copyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Australian dollar weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Tuesday, after data showed that the business confidence in Australia deteriorated in February.



Data from the National Australia Bank showed that the business confidence in Australia deteriorated in February, with an index score of +7. That's down from +10 in January.



Business conditions also slipped in February, with the index dropping to +9 from +16 in the previous month.



Meanwhile, the currency showed muted reaction to the China data.



Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that China's industrial production increased at a faster-than-expected pace in the first two months of the year. Industrial output climbed 6.3 percent in the January to February period from a year ago, just above the 6.2 percent rise expected by economists.



During the first two months of 2017, retail sales surged 9.5 percent as compared to the same period of last year. That was slower than the expected growth of 10.6 percent.



Monday, the Australian dollar showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the aussie rose against the U.S. dollar, the euro, the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars, it held steady against the yen.



In the Asian trading, the Australian dollar fell to 1.4112 against the euro and 86.71 against the yen, from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.4069 and 86.96, respectively. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.45 against the euro and 85.00 against the yen.



Against the U.S., the Canadian and the New Zealand dollars, the aussie dropped to 0.7549, 1.0155 and 1.0911 from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.7571, 1.0174 and 1.0932, respectively. The aussie may test support near 0.74 against the greenback, 1.00 against the loonie and 1.06 against the kiwi.



Looking ahead, the German final CPI data for February, Eurozone industrial production for January and German ZEW survey's economic sentiment index for March are due to be released later in the day.



In the New York session, U.S. NFIB small business index and U.S. PPI, both for February, are slated for release.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Ithaca Energy Inc (TSX: IAE) (LSE: IAE)

TSX: IAE, LSE AIM: IAE

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN, INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS IN THAT JURISDICTION.

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION AS STIPULATED UNDER THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION (EU NO. 596/2014).

Ithaca Energy Inc.

Directors' Circular Issued - Recommended Takeover by Delek

14 March 2017

Ithaca Energy Inc. (TSX: IAE, LSE AIM: IAE) ("Ithaca" or the "Company") announces that it will today mail to shareholders the Directors' Circular in respect of the previously announced cash takeover offer by Delek Group Ltd ("Delek") for all of the issued and to be issued common shares of the Company not currently owned by Delek or any of its affiliates for C$1.95 per share (the "Offer"). This Offer equates to  1.19 per share based on the exchange rate on 10 March 20171.

The Offer is being made by DKL Investments Limited (the "Offeror"), an affiliate of Delek, which is currently Ithaca's largest shareholder and holds approximately 19.7% of the currently issued and outstanding common shares of the Company.

As previously announced, the Board of Directors excluding the Delek related party directors (the "Directors"), after consulting with its financial and legal advisers, considers the terms of the Offer to be in the best interests of Ithaca and its shareholders and accordingly unanimously recommends that shareholders accept the Offer and deposit their shares.

The Directors of Ithaca have agreed to an initial deposit period of 36 days. As such, the Offer will be open for acceptance until 17.00 (Toronto time) on 20 April 2017 (the "Expiry Time"). Shareholders wishing to accept the Offer must take action to deposit their shares.

Successful completion of the Offer is conditional upon, amongst other things, more than 50% of the common shares outstanding (excluding the shares already owned by the Offeror and its affiliates) being validly deposited under the Offer prior to the Expiry Time (the "Minimum Tender Condition"). No deposited shares will be purchased by the Offeror if the Minimum Tender Condition is not satisfied.

The Offeror has today also launched the Offer by mailing the takeover bid circular containing the Offer and other related documents to Ithaca shareholders.

Full details of the Offer are contained in the documents noted above, all of which are available on the Company's website (www.ithacaenergy.com) and on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

Brad Hurtubise, Non-Executive Chairman, commented:

"The unanimous recommendation of the independent Directors to support the takeover offer was made after careful evaluation and deliberation. The principal reasons for this recommendation are based on the fullness of the Offer relative to the future upsides and execution risks of the business. We firmly believe that it provides all shareholders with a highly attractive opportunity to secure a premium, risk free cash value for their investment at a favourable point in the Company's evolution."

Reasons to Accept the Offer

In reaching its unanimous recommendation to shareholders to accept the Offer, the Directors evaluated multiple factors, including those summarised below. The evaluation and its conclusion was made in light of the Directors' own knowledge of the business, the industry and the financial condition and prospects of the Company and based upon the recommendation of a special committee of independent directors ("the Special Committee"), which has been advised by RBC Capital Markets ("RBC") in its capacity as financial advisor to the Company.

The principal reasons for the recommendation are centred on an evaluation of the fullness of the Offer relative to the future risk profile of the business.

Offer Price at the Upper End of Independent Valuation Range. The Special Committee engaged GMP FirstEnergy, as an independent valuator, to prepare a formal valuation in connection with the Offer in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). GMP FirstEnergy was of the opinion that, as of 9 March 2017, the fair market value of the common shares was in the range of C$1.60 to C$2.10 per common share.





Premium to Analyst Consensus Price Targets. The Offer price represents a premium of approximately 20% to the average analyst consensus target price of C$1.60 per share as at 3 February 20172.





Favourable Transaction Timing. The consideration payable for oil and gas company transactions is driven predominantly by calculations of discounted future cash flows, with risk factors applied to development projects dependent on remaining uncertainties. For this reason, the Directors consider entering into the transaction shortly before Stella first hydrocarbons to be highly advantageous for realizing full value without taking exposure to post start-up operational risk.





Avoidance of Operational and Refinancing Risks. The Company has near term operational and re-financing execution risks ahead of it, the most immediate of which include: bringing the Stella field into full production in line with expectations; executing Harrier development drilling on budget and with reservoir performance in line with expectations; and, refinancing the aggregate approximately US$910 million3 of existing bank facilities, senior notes and prepayment facilities. While the Company expects it would be able to successfully navigate such risks, the Directors do not consider that the resultant shareholder value creation is likely to be sufficiently in excess of the Offer Price to compensate for taking such risks.





Reliance on Greater Stella Area Satellites. The Company intends to build out the Greater Stella Area ("GSA") production hub through securing satellite field tie-backs. If these are not secured, the potential benefits of the hub will be diluted. One of the anticipated near term tie-backs, Vorlich, is not solely under the control of the Company. While the Company believes the most efficient development solution for the Vorlich field is a tie-back to the GSA infrastructure, the field development plan has yet to be agreed with the operator, who owns other infrastructure in the area, and the UK Oil and Gas Authority. The potential impact of this risk has been considered by the Directors in recommending the Offer.





Future Growth Potential. Notwithstanding the successful track record of the Company, at this point in the lifecycle of the UK Continental Shelf oil and gas sector, the Directors believe that there are limited prospects for delivering a step change in the scale and operations of the Company without the addition of significant capital. There can be no guarantee that such capital would be available to the Company in the timeframes or on the terms required to provide shareholders with the prospect of a satisfactory equity rate of return.





Review of Alternatives. The Special Committee, after thorough review and discussion with its financial advisor, believes that there are limited prospects for alternative transactions that provide an immediate premium cash consideration to shareholders given the lack of potential acquirers of UK North Sea oil and gas companies.





Immediate Cash Premium to Shareholders. The Offer provides shareholders with the opportunity to crystallise the value of their holdings in cash, with the Offer price representing a 12% premium to the Toronto Stock Exchange closing price on the 3 February 2017 (being the last trading day before announcement of the Offer) and a 27% premium to the 60 day volume weighted average trading price to 3 February 2017.





Capitalising on Share Price Appreciation. The Offer allows shareholders to capitalise in cash on the value of the Company's sustained share price growth over the last 12 months, with the Offer price of C$1.95 per share being more than 360% higher than the 30 day volume weighted average trading price to 6 February 2016.





A fuller explanation of the reasons underlying the recommendation to accept the Offer is contained in the Directors' Circular, along with a full summary of the definitive support agreement entered into between Ithaca and Delek on 6 February 2017.

The Directors' Circular also sets out other factors concerning the Offer that shareholders should be aware of, including:

There is no obligation on the Offeror to complete a compulsory acquisition of any shares not tendered to the Offer.





While the AIM Rules for Companies ("AIM Rules") do not prescribe the required levels of free float for a company to be eligible for trading on AIM, depending on the number of shares purchased pursuant to the Offer it is possible that the subsequent remaining free float could be insufficient to satisfy the criteria for continued admission of the shares for trading on AIM.





If the Offeror acquires sufficient shares under the Offer it could be in a position to force delisting or cancellation of the Company's shares from AIM. Under the AIM Rules, cancellation of a company's shares from trading on AIM is generally conditional upon the consent of not less than 75% of votes cast by its shareholders given in a shareholder meeting.





The rules of the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") establish certain criteria, which if not met, could lead to the cessation of trading and delisting of the Company's shares from the TSX.





Lock-Up Agreements

Based on the reasons underpinning the Directors' recommendation, all the Directors and officers of Ithaca have entered into lock-up agreements under which they have irrevocably undertaken to tender their own beneficial shareholdings in the Company, which amount in aggregate to 11,275,940 common shares (excluding common shares issued under options with an exercise price higher than the Offer price), representing approximately 2.6% of the entire issued and to be issued common shares of Ithaca. The lock-up agreements are subject to customary termination provisions. There are no agreements or arrangements in place between the Directors and officers of Ithaca and Delek providing any payment or other benefit proposed to be made or given by way of compensation for loss of office or their remaining in or retiring from office if the Offer is successful.

Information on Depositing Your Shares

The Offeror has engaged Computershare Trust Company of Canada to act as depositary (the "Depositary") for the Offer. If assistance is required with depositing shares, the Depositary can be contacted on +1 800 564 6253 or +1 514 982 7555 (collect calls accepted) or by e-mail at corporateactions@computershare.com. Shareholders who hold AIM market Depository Interests who require assistance depositing their shares should contact the Depository on +44 (0)370 703 6347 or RD:IR at corporateactions@rdir.com.

Questions can also be directed to the information agents, Laurel Hill Advisory Group and RD:IR. Laurel Hill Advisory Group can be contacted on +1 877 452 7184 (within North America) or +1 416 304 0211 (outside of North America) or by e-mail at assistance@laurelhill.com. RD:IR can be contacted on +44 (0)207 492 0518 or by email at corporateactions@rdir.com.

2016 Financial Results

The Company is scheduled to release its full year 2016 financial results on 23 March 2017 along with the results of its year-end independent reserves evaluation, which is being performed by Sproule International Limited ("Sproule"). A full operations update will also be provided, including up to date information on the initial performance of the Stella field and the status of operations on the on-going dynamic commissioning programme of the FPF-1 gas processing and compression facilities.

A conference call and webcast for investors and analysts will be held on the same day at 12.00 GMT (08.00 EDT), with a playback facility being made available on the Company's website later that day. Listen to the call live via the Company's website (www.ithacaenergy.com) or alternatively dial-in on one of the following telephone numbers and request access to the Ithaca Energy conference call: UK +44 (0)203 059 8125; Canada +1 855 287 9927; US +1 724 928 9460.

- ENDS -

Enquiries: Ithaca Energy Les Thomas lthomas@ithacaenergy.com +44 (0)1224 650 261 Graham Forbes gforbes@ithacaenergy.com +44 (0)1224 652 151 Richard Smith rsmith@ithacaenergy.com +44 (0)1224 652 172 FTI Consulting Edward Westropp edward.westropp@fticonsulting.com +44 (0)203 727 1521 Kim Camilleri kim.camilleri@fticonsulting.com +44 (0)203 727 1349 RBC Capital Markets Matthew Coakes matthew.coakes@rbccm.com +44 (0)207 653 4000 Martin Copeland martin.copeland@rbccm.com +44 (0)207 653 4000 Cenkos Securities Neil McDonald nmcdonald@cenkos.com +44 (0)207 397 8900 Beth McKiernan bmckiernan@cenkos.com +44 (0)131 220 9778 Nick Tulloch ntulloch@cenkos.com +44 (0)131 220 9772

Notes

1. Closing exchange rate source: Capital IQ

2. The average analyst consensus target price as of 3 February 2017, being the last trading day prior to announcement of the Offer, is calculated based on the targets produced by the institutions that cover the Company, being: Barclays, BMO, Canaccord Genuity, Cenkos, FinnCap, GMP FirstEnergy, Investec, Mackie Research Capital Corporation, Macquarie, Peel Hunt, RBC. Price targets quoted in pounds sterling have been converted to Canadian dollars using the exchange rate on 3 February 2017.

3. The aggregate amount includes the Company's existing US$535 million senior reserves base lending facility, US$300 million senior unsecured loan notes and approximately US$75 million oil and gas prepayment facilities.

Advisors

RBC is acting as financial advisor to the Company and has delivered a fairness opinion addressed to the Special Committee. GMP FirstEnergy is acting as the formal valuator under the terms of MI 61-101. Pinsent Masons LLP and Burstall Winger Zammit LLP are acting as legal counsel to Ithaca. The Company has also received strategic advice from Geopoint Advisory Limited.

About Ithaca Energy

Ithaca Energy Inc. (TSX: IAE, LSE AIM: IAE) is a North Sea oil and gas operator focused on the delivery of lower risk growth through the appraisal and development of UK undeveloped discoveries and the exploitation of its existing UK producing asset portfolio. Ithaca's strategy is centred on generating sustainable long term shareholder value by building a highly profitable 25kboe/d North Sea oil and gas company. For further information please consult the Company's website www.ithacaenergy.com.

About Delek

The Delek Group, Israel's dominant integrated energy company, is the pioneering leader of the natural gas exploration and production activities that are transforming the Eastern Mediterranean's Levant Basin into one of the energy industry's most promising emerging regions. Having discovered Tamar and Leviathan, two of the world's largest natural gas finds since 2000, Delek and its partners are now developing a balanced, world-class portfolio of exploration, development and production assets. Delek's head office is located at 19 Abba Eban Blvd., P.O.B. 2054, Herzeliya 4612001, Israel.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement may contain, in addition to historical information, certain forward-looking statements related to the Company, including anticipated future events and circumstances, including in particular, but not limited to, statements relating to the Offer, satisfaction of the conditions to the Offer, certain strategic and financial benefits expected to result from the completion of the proposed acquisition by the Offeror of more than 50% of the outstanding common shares not already owned by the Offeror or its affiliates and the intentions, and plans and future actions of the Company, the Offeror and Delek. Forward-looking information is provided to assist the reader with understanding the Company's expectations, plans and priorities for future periods or with respect to applicable events. Readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. This information is based on the estimates, beliefs and assumptions of the directors and management of the Company regarding the markets in which the Company operates. In some cases, forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "anticipate", "believe", "could", "expect", "plan", "seek", "may", "intend", "will", "forecast" and similar expressions.

Such forward looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements of Ithaca to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking statements, including the risk that all conditions of the Offer will not be satisfied. Many of these risks and uncertainties relate to factors that are beyond Ithaca's ability to control or estimate precisely, such as future market conditions, changes in regulatory environment, the behaviour of other market participants and the failure to satisfy the conditions to completion of the Offer (including the Minimum Tender Condition and receiving any required regulatory approvals), the risk of unexpected costs or liabilities relating to the Offer. Some of these risk factors are largely beyond the control of the Company. These are not necessarily all of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any of the Company's forward-looking statements. Other unknown and unpredictable factors could also impact its results. Ithaca cannot give any assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to have been correct. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this announcement. Ithaca disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

For additional information on assumptions used to develop forward-looking information and risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking information, please refer to the "Risks and Uncertainties" section of the Company's Management Discussion & Analysis for the period ended September 30, 2016, and the "Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" sections of the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2015, which are available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. Such an offer may only be made pursuant to an offer and takeover bid circular filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada and pursuant to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any other applicable jurisdiction. The distribution of this press release in or into certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law and therefore persons into whose possession this press release comes should inform themselves about, and observe, such restrictions. Any failure to comply with the restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities law of any such jurisdiction.

This material is not a substitute for the offer and takeover bid circular or the Directors' Circular which will be filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada regarding the proposed transaction or for any other document which Ithaca or Delek or the Offeror may file with securities regulators and send to Ithaca shareholders in connection with the proposed transaction. SECURITY HOLDERS OF ITHACA ARE URGED TO READ ANY SUCH DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. If and when they become available to eligible viewers, the offer and takeover bid circular and the Directors' Circular, along with any related documents, will be available free of charge under the profile of Ithaca on the website maintained by the Canadian securities regulators at www.sedar.com.

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

Enquiries:



Ithaca Energy

Les Thomas

lthomas@ithacaenergy.com

+44 (0)1224 650 261



Graham Forbes

gforbes@ithacaenergy.com

+44 (0)1224 652 151



Richard Smith

rsmith@ithacaenergy.com

+44 (0)1224 652 172



FTI Consulting

Edward Westropp

edward.westropp@fticonsulting.com

+44 (0)203 727 1521



Kim Camilleri

kim.camilleri@fticonsulting.com

+44 (0)203 727 1349



RBC Capital Markets

Matthew Coakes

matthew.coakes@rbccm.com

+44 (0)207 653 4000



Martin Copeland

martin.copeland@rbccm.com

+44 (0)207 653 4000



Cenkos Securities

Neil McDonald

nmcdonald@cenkos.com

+44 (0)207 397 8900



Beth McKiernan

bmckiernan@cenkos.com

+44 (0)131 220 9778



Nick Tulloch

ntulloch@cenkos.com

+44 (0)131 220 9772




Focus on developing innovative satellite-based business solutions

SES S.A. (Euronext Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG) announced today that it has signed a partnership agreement with the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST).

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005632/en/

From left to right: Jos Giannandrea, Vice President, Projects Services, SES Techcom Services, Lucien Hoffmann, Director of the "Environmental Research and Innovation" department- LIST, Gerhard Bethscheider, Managing Director, SES Techcom Services, Jacques Noppeney Senior Legal Counsel, SES, Fernand Reinig, CEO a.i.- LIST, Alan Kuresevic, Vice President, Engineering, SES Techcom Services, Frank Zimmer, Senior Manager, System Engineering, SES Techcom Services, Thomas Schoos, Head of External Communication-LIST (Photo: Business Wire)

The new cooperation framework with LIST complements the existing SES partnership agreement with the Luxembourg University Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), and widens the scope of SES's international research activities together with other reputable universities. Under the agreement, SES and LIST will cooperate through their international network of research partners with unique expertise in satellite communications (SATCOM), to transform basic research into innovative space applications. LIST will therefore become another close technology partner of SES in the development of pioneering SATCOM commercial products and services to inspire or "disrupt" the market with new satellite platforms, analysis tools and innovative ground infrastructure.

The new partnership agreement further enhances Luxembourg's technology ecosystem by attracting start-ups to develop their businesses in Luxembourg, and will facilitate the transfer of new technologies stemming from national public and private research. Those activities will be done in close coordination with the existing national funding initiatives, such as the Digital Tech Fund, with SES being a key stakeholder.

The first activities SES and LIST will focus on are related to the 'Smart Space' initiative, which includes research and development of applications in the context of High Performance Computing (HPC), aiming to establish a unique space ecosystem by building on Luxembourg's competitive advantages, including global satellite communications and telecommunications networks, data centers and connectivity, and existing service providers. The parties will develop a European Centre of Excellence to address societal challenges such as climate change, environment, green mobility, security and healthcare. SES and LIST will also work on developing commercial applications in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT), e-platform solutions and optical communications. In addition, SES and LIST will jointly assess the development of competences in other satellite-related application areas, such as connected cars.

"Innovation is not only the driving force of the satellite industry, but also of our society in general. We are therefore proud to be an integral part of a large network of leading institutions and research and development partners, which is paramount in developing our future. Our collaboration with LIST is a perfect illustration of how we can combine and augment our existing SATCOM knowledge in Luxembourg to increase the speed of innovation and to shape the future together," said Gerhard Bethscheider, Managing Director at SES Techcom Services. "This partnership will contribute to the creation of the space applications ecosystem, and will further reinforce Luxembourg's leading position in the space domain. It also complements our successful long-term cooperation with the University of Luxembourg through its specific focus on impact-driven applied research."

Fernand Reinig, Chief Executive Officer at LIST, said "SES's expertise in the space industry and our research and development activities organically complement each other. We are delighted to partner with this world-leading company and contribute to shaping a better future for the benefit of Luxembourg and society in general."

Follow us on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SES_Satellites

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ses

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SES.Satellites

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/SESVideoChannel

Blog: https://www.ses.com/news/blogs

Media Gallery: https://www.ses.com/media-gallery

SES White papers are available under: https://www.ses.com/news/whitepapers

About SES

SES is the world-leading satellite operator and the first to deliver a differentiated and scalable GEO-MEO offering worldwide, with more than 50 satellites in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and 12 in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). SES focuses on value-added, end-to-end solutions in four key market verticals (Video, Enterprise, Mobility and Government). It provides satellite communications services to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators, governments and institutions, and businesses worldwide. SES's portfolio includes the ASTRA satellite system, which has the largest Direct-to-Home (DTH) television reach in Europe, and O3b Networks, a global managed data communications service provider. Another SES subsidiary, MX1, is a leading media service provider and offers a full suite of innovative digital video and media services.Further information available at: www.ses.com

About LIST

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) is a mission-driven Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) that develops advanced technologies and delivers innovative products and services to industry and society. As a major engine of the diversification and growth of Luxembourg's economy through innovation, LIST supports the deployment of a number of solutions to a wide range of sectors, including space, ICT, telecommunications, environment, agriculture, and advanced manufacturing at national and European level. Thanks to its location in an exceptional collaborative environment, namely the Belval Research Innovation Campus, LIST accelerates time to market by maximising synergies with different actors, including the university, the national funding agency and industrial clusters.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005632/en/

Contacts:

SES

Markus Payer

Corporate Communications

Tel. +352 710 725 500

Markus.Payer@ses.com
Tim Stewart to Lead Sydney Office

BOSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Gordon Brothers, the 114-year-old global advisory, restructuring, and investment firm, announced today that the company has expanded its footprint to Australia. Based in Sydney, the new office will be led by seasoned restructuring and turnaround management professional Tim Stewart, who will serve as Managing Director, Australia.

"We at Gordon Brothers see tremendous opportunity in the Australian market," said Frank Morton, CEO, International. "Tim's restructuring expertise and ties to the local turnaround community are extensive. Under his leadership, and in partnership with Gordon Brothers Finance Company, we will deliver capabilities and capital long overdue in the Australian market."

"I am thrilled to lead Gordon Brothers' expansion into Australia," said Stewart. "The economy presents outstanding asset-based finance opportunities. We look forward to partnering with retail, commercial and industrial firms -as well as the professionals who advise them - to move forward through change."

Prior to joining Gordon Brothers, Stewart was managing director and head of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Plc's restructuring team in the Asia Pacific region. He was responsible for managing distressed and underperforming assets across India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Malaysia and Australia and led financial and operational restructures, debt for equity swaps and turnarounds. Stewart held a number of other roles and responsibilities during his time at RBS, including managing director of the strategic disposals group, Chief Risk Officer of the RBS Australia Branch and head of structured asset finance, Australia. Stewart is the current chairman of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) in Australia and the immediate past president.

Joining Stewart in the Sydney office will be Christopher Shaw, an eight-year veteran of the firm. Shaw's expertise includes inventory and brand valuations, restructuring and corporate finance. Shaw will relocate from Gordon Brothers' London office.

Gordon Brothers operates out of 26 offices spread across five continents. International markets include: Europe, with a major presence in London; Asia, with Tokyo-based operations; and South America, where the company recently opened offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Gordon Brothers is headquartered in Boston.

To learn more visit gordonbrothers.com/australia

About Gordon Brothers

Since 1903, Gordon Brothers (www.gordonbrothers.com) has helped lenders, operating executives, advisors, and investors move forward through change. The firm brings a powerful combination of expertise and capital to clients, developing customized solutions on an integrated or standalone basis across four service areas: valuations, dispositions, operations, and investments. Whether to fuel growth or facilitate strategic consolidation, Gordon Brothers partners with companies in the retail, commercial, and industrial sectors to put assets to their highest and best use. Gordon Brothers conducts more than $70 billion worth of dispositions and appraisals annually. Gordon Brothers is headquartered in Boston, with 26 offices across five continents.

Contact:

Colleen Arons

Gordon Brothers

carons@gordonbrothers.com

617.422.7855

Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/474446/Gordon_Brothers_Logo.jpg

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gordon-brothers-expands-into-australia-300422043.html
Kalray will be demonstrating its deep learning processing solution at Embedded World, March 14-16, 2017 in Nuremberg, Germany

NUREMBERG, Germany, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Rounding out its embedded technology offer, Kalray has expanded its processing capabilities to the world of artificial intelligence. The company is introducing a highly optimized deep learning solution targeting embedded applications like autonomous cars, avionics, drones, robotics and more. The solution is capable of supporting all of the most commonly-used deep learning neural networks and framework, such as GoogleNet, Squeezenet, CAFFE and more.

Kalray's deep learning solution includes:

MPPA2-256 Bostan manycore processor: industry-recognized 288-core processor

Kalray Neural Network (KaNN): deep learning software tool used in the development and evaluation of neural networks on MPPA. KaNN is compatible with all commonly-used deep learning networks.

In terms of pure performance, Kalray is able to leverage the 288 cores of its MPPA2-256 Bostan processor in order to efficiently process notoriously compute-heavy deep learning algorithms. To do this, the solution uses the extensive on-chip memory of the Bostan processor and it spreads the compute-heavy aspects of deep learning - data dependent layers and weight parameters - across the MPPA's numerous cores. The result is particularly efficient processing - up to 60 frames per second while running "GoogleNet"- outperforming the most efficient GPUs addressing today's embedded market.

But developing a deep learning embedded application is much more than pure performance. Beyond basic deep learning processing, the system has been honed to respond to the specific needs of the highly demanding embedded applications market. This means that the chip, in addition to highly efficient processing, also responds to the constraints of the embedded industry, offering low latency, low power consumption, certifiability, parallel processing - all at an affordable cost. The chip will be used for deep learning purposes in autonomous vehicles, drones, robotics, visual inspection, avionics, aeronautics and more.

Kalray's deep learning solution offers:

40 MB on-chip memory: allowing for the storage of the neurons and the weight parameters for compute efficiency.

Memory bandwidth: high-speed internal memory used to store intermediate data or even to pre-fetch data from the global memory, avoiding latency associated with data access. Overall, brings more than 1 TB/s on-chip memory bandwidth capabilities.

Low-latency Network-on-Chip (NoC): carries out high-bandwidth data transfers between clusters, with broadcasting capabilities.

288 energy-efficient cores: each core is 5-issue VLIW with simple and double-precision floating-point operations, offering 1 TFLOPS on-chip processing capability.

KaNN will be the first version of Kalray deep learning dedicated solution. The company already anticipates sampling a second generation in 2018, providing a factor 20 performance improvement.

Kalray will be demonstrating this solution at the 2017 edition of Embedded World, March 14-16 in Nuremberg, Germany. The company will be located at booth 4A-330.

About Kalray

Kalray Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company and pioneer in manycore processor solutions. Its innovative MPPA architecture delivers real-time and low-latency processing for embedded applications, including avionics, aeronautics, automobile and more. For more information, visit http://www.kalrayinc.com

Press Contact

Andrea Busch

abusch@kalrayinc.com

+1650-469-3729

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/329978/logotype_a3_300dpi_id_9125304ee784__Logo.jpg
DUBLIN, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Alchemy Utilities Limited, a revolutionary new utility company head quartered in Dublin, Ireland is launching its unique range of complementary technologies at the SEAI Energy Show on April 5th at the RDS Arena. Believed to be the world's first completely sustainable multi-utility company, Alchemy Utilities are specialists in the complex field of waste to synthetic gas production, renewable energy and the conversion of contaminated water into drinking water.

The Global Intellectual Property rights behind the waste to energy, water and gas technologies are to be further enhanced at research facilities based in Dublin and in addition most probably Cork or Limerick where the growing research and development teams will be recruited. The investment in R&D facilities is to support the manufacturing of two new technologies to be produced in Dublin for worldwide distribution. In addition to the suite of technologies at their disposal, Alchemy Utilities are keen to deliver carbon reduction to those service-based companies who have high CSR objectives and are actively in pursuit of projects which can provide such a platform for investment.

Export markets in Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India, South America and Australasia are already showing strong interest and are expected to be the early adopters driven by their need to combat severe shortages of clean water for both drinking and irrigation as well as unstable electricity and energy supplies for manufacturing and food processing. In remote third world countries, Alchemy's products are able to supply off-grid renewable electricity and pure drinking water derived from organic waste and contaminated water supplies. The bi-product of highly nutritious 'bagged organic fertilizer' in pellet form further enhances the value of the technologies' output in world markets.

Alchemy Utilities chose Ireland as its base due to the wealth of agricultural knowledge, expertise and scientific research facilities founded on a strong culture and commitment to best sustainable farming practices. "The commitment in Ireland to sustainable farming is universal within the whole food production chain from start to finish and it is on this solid foundation that we believe we can best sell our leading 'waste' technologies to create a true circular economy throughout the world," said CEO Richard Griffin on his return from Indonesia this week. "The whole of Asia and Australasia offer huge potential and we believe this will be mirrored in the Americas where similar conditions exist. To produce organic fertilizer, clean water and energy all from discarded waste is a compelling solution for every country and Ireland should benefit significantly from the export of these technologies."

Actively working alongside the IDA, Sustainable Nation and KPMG to develop domestic and global markets, the 19th SEAI Energy Show provides a perfect platform for Alchemy Utilities LTD's technology launch. The SEAI Energy Show showcases world leading suppliers of energy efficient and renewable energy products and services from Ireland and Europe.

Notes to Editor:

Photos are available on request

Feature technologies key benefits available on request

SEAI Energy Show Press & Media Schedule available on request

Links:

http://www.alchemyutilities.ie

http://www.lombokpost.net/2017/02/21/awas-investor-php/

https://mataramnews.co.id/mataram-metro/item/7398-ditawaran-investasi-pengolahan-sampah-lagi-kadis-lh-kita-dalami-dulu

http://www.seai.ie/EnergyShow/
GUILDFORD, England, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

PRESS RELEASE - CORRECTION

Positive scientific opinion under Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS) recognises burden of severe atopic dermatitis and the significant unmet need of patients

Sanofi, and its specialty care global business unit, Sanofi Genzyme, announced today that the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted dupilumab, an investigational treatment for atopic dermatitis (AD), a positive scientific opinion through the Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS). The decision means that eligible adults with severe AD can access dupilumab before the drug is granted marketing authorisation in the UK.

"The EAMS positive scientific opinion from the MHRA is an important development for people with atopic dermatitis," said Carla Jones, Chief Executive, Allergy UK. "Allergy UK supports patients with a range of allergic conditions, including atopic dermatitis, and we see the impact this debilitating, life-altering condition can have on people's day-to-day functioning, making simple tasks such as dressing or bathing difficult. These individuals have suffered for most of their lives with widespread inflamed skin, intense itch and sleep disturbances, often causing symptoms of anxiety, depression and a sense of isolation."

"People dismiss atopic dermatitis as 'just a skin condition', but it is much more than that. Atopic dermatitis is a chronic, systemic, inflammatory disease that can have an immense impact on sufferers' lives," said Prof Michael Cork, Consultant Dermatologist, Professor of Dermatology and Head of Sheffield Dermatology Research, University of Sheffield. "Up until now, doctors have had little to offer even the most severe patients beyond an escalating routine of topical treatments and immunosuppressants. Dupilumab targets an underlying cause of the condition and gives us a new treatment approach for patients with the most clinical need."

The aim of EAMS is to provide early availability of innovative new unlicensed medicines to UK patients that have a high degree of unmet clinical need. The medicines included in the scheme are those that are intended to treat, diagnose or prevent seriously debilitating or life-threatening conditions where there are no adequate treatment options.[1] Previous products approved under EAMS have mainly been for life-limiting conditions, such as cancer. The inclusion of a treatment for atopic dermatitis, a type of chronic eczema, recognises how debilitating this condition can be and how much impact it can have on people's physical and psychological wellbeing.

Under EAMS, dupilumab is being made available to eligible adult patients throughout the UK who have severe AD that has failed to respond to all currently approved therapies, as well as patients with severe AD who are intolerant of, or ineligible for, all approved treatments.

AD (also known as atopic eczema) is the most common form of eczema.[2] It can present on any part of the body, and the inflamed and dry skin that is symptomatic of the condition, and the symptoms of potential infections, can be extremely difficult for people to deal with, both physically due to the pain and discomfort, as well as psychologically, socially and emotionally. AD can be painful and itchy, and affect a person's ability to sleep, to concentrate, their personal relationships, their confidence to socialise, and their career.[3] This is not widely understood in society, where it is often viewed as a purely physical condition. Many patients express feelings of frustration, embarrassment and anger about their appearance.[3]

"Sanofi is committed to ensuring that people who really need dupilumab have access to it as soon as possible - which is why we applied for EAMS. MHRA recognising the innovation that dupilumab represents for people living with atopic dermatitis is a significant step forward," said Dr Jasmin Hussein, Head of Atopic Dermatitis and Asthma, Sanofi Genzyme UK & Ireland.

Dupilumab is currently under joint development with Regeneron and Sanofi and its safety and efficacy have not been fully evaluated by any regulatory body. The formal EU regulatory application for dupilumab is currently under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

About dupilumab

Dupilumab is an investigational fully human monoclonal antibody. It is a targeted immunotherapy that inhibits signalling of IL-4 and IL-13, two key cytokines required for the Type2 (including Th2) immune response, which is believed to be a fundamental driver of inflammation associated with atopic dermatitis.

If approved, dupilumab would be commercialised by Regeneron and Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi.

About Sanofi

Sanofi, a global healthcare leader, discovers, develops and distributes therapeutic solutions focused on patients' needs. Sanofi is organised into five global business units: Diabetes and Cardiovascular, General Medicines and Emerging Markets, Sanofi Genzyme, Sanofi Pasteur and Consumer Healthcare. Sanofi is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: SAN) and in New York (NYSE: SNY).

Sanofi Genzyme focuses on developing specialty treatments for debilitating diseases that are often difficult to diagnose and treat, providing hope to patients and their families.

References

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Guidance. Apply for the early access to medicines scheme (EAMS). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-the-early-access-to-medicines-scheme-eams. (Accessed March 2017 ). NHS Choices. Atopic Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis). Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Eczema-(atopic)/Pages/Introduction.aspx. (Accessed March 2017 ). Anderson RT, Rajagopalan R. Effects of allergic dermatitis on health-related quality of life. Curr Allergy Asthma Rep 2001; 1(4): 309-315

SAGB.DUP.17.03.0301(1)Date of preparation: March 2017
LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Roxy Media, the team behind the much celebrated Bingo Hollywood, is set to launch a new addition to their network. Big Tease Bingo launched in February 2017 and is going to be the first of many new sites from the network.

Sister Site to Bingo Hollywood

Veteran bingo operators Roxy Media have been in the industry for nearly two decades and are hoping to fill a gap in the market. This new network will be built with the aim of making bingo fun again and Roxy certainly have the skills and the experience to do that.

Dragonfish Games and Software

The new site will continue to operate on the Dragonfish software that players know and love but Big Tease will be no ordinary site. The theme will be very tongue in cheek with luscious ladies, cheeky chat and spicy promotions to get the heart racing.

Big Tease will also come with a suite of 286 casino games and 16 distinctive bingo games. There will also be automated chat games provided by industry leader Gameworkz Inc.

Exclusive Promotions and Rewards

Although currently part of the same shared network, Bingo Hollywood and Big Tease Bingo will each have their own distinctive promotions and chat games. Both sites will also feature the most generous first deposit and redeposit bonus programs and the most generous free spin offers in the industry.

This is to be the beginning of an interesting network of new sites, with an emphasis on high quality and consistent gaming. This will appeal to experienced players from sites like Bingo Hollywood but it should also draw in a host of new gamers looking for something fun and different. The pay to play bingo market is more competitive than ever but Big Tease could be the new break through experience.
Three-day London event will give those who sell, service, and support technology the opportunity to build industry connections and learn new ways to grow their businesses



LONDON, 2017-03-14 10:00 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the deadline to sign up for the first-ever IT Nation Europe quickly approaching, ConnectWise partners, prospective partners, sponsors, and industry pioneers should register now to reserve their spot at the 25-27 April gathering in London.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/386ba383-1db5-4782-8d15-b8432 ddd701e



Hosted by Arnie Bellini, CEO of ConnectWise, and David Bellini, President and Managing Director of ConnectWise International, the three-day conference will bring together members of the IT solutions market for three days of collaboration, networking, and educational content.



"ConnectWise's annual IT Nation gathering in Orlando, which saw almost 3,000 attendees in 2016, has earned a reputation as the must-attend gathering of IT solution providers in the United States," said Arnie Bellini. "It's now time to give the ConnectWise community in Europe the same opportunity to learn and share best practices in a venue closer to home. The inaugural IT Nation Europe will do just that."



The three-day event schedule includes the following:



-- Nine hours of dedicated ConnectWise product training by ConnectWise experts and thought leadership from successful partners, including dedicated content focused on ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, and ConnectWise Sell -- A keynote address from Arnie Bellini, who was recently recognised as one of CRN's 2017 Channel Chiefs -- A second keynote address from Gary Pica, a pioneer in the managed services field and CEO of TruMethods, a training, peer and accountability firm aimed at helping IT solution providers reach their full potential as MSPs and cloud providers -- Opportunities to network with other IT solution providers, ConnectWise colleagues, and more than 15 leading industry vendors



David Bellini said that the enthusiastic response he's seen to a series of half-day ConnectWise partner events during the last two years has served as the impetus for launching IT Nation Europe. "As our business footprint in Europe grows, I hear requests from our community for more training, more networking opportunities, and more ideas about how to increase profitability. We're answering their call and hope to see many of them next month for the kickoff of our first multi-day event," he said.



Paul Tomlinson, Founder and Managing Director of UK-based Mirus IT, attended IT Nation in the United States last November and is looking forward to next month's event in Europe. "The industry connections I made in Orlando - as well as the discovery of new methods and tools that I've used to grow my business and increase profitability - have been invaluable. I can't even tell you how pleased I am that my industry colleagues and I will now have our own IT Nation on this side of the ocean," he said.



Learn more and register today for the event, which will take place at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in London, visit the IT Nation Europe website.



Follow ConnectWise LinkedIn ConnectWise Blog Twitter Facebook YouTube



About ConnectWise ConnectWise transforms how technology solution providers successfully build, manage and grow their businesses. Our award-winning set of software solutions provide a fully integrated, seamless experience to companies in more than 50 countries, giving them the ability to increase their productivity, efficiency and profitability. When combined with our relentless commitment to innovation, powerful network of ideas and experts, unparalleled passion for our users, and more than 30 years of experience, ConnectWise software solutions deliver the support companies want at each step of their business journey. For more information, visit www.connectwise.com/.



Copyright  2017 ConnectWise. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. All other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others and are the property of their respective owners.



Contact Info Diane Rose for ConnectWise diane@dkrcomms.com +1 727.238.7567

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: MPW) announced today that its operating partnership, MPT Operating Partnership, L.P. (the "Operating Partnership"), and MPT Finance Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Operating Partnership ("MPT Finance" and, together with the Operating Partnership, the "Issuers"), intend to offer, subject to market and other conditions, 500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes (the "Notes"). The Notes will be senior unsecured obligations of the Issuers, guaranteed by the Company.

The Issuers intend to use approximately 200 million of the net proceeds from this offering of Notes to prepay and extinguish the 200 million of outstanding term loans under the euro-denominated term loan facility portion of the revolving credit and term loan facilities, and accrued and unpaid interest thereon. The Issuers intend to use approximately 200 million of the remaining net proceeds from this offering to finance the remaining closings of the real estate assets that the Company previously announced it would acquire from the Median Kliniken group S.a r.l. ("MEDIAN"), including related fees, expenses, real estate transfer taxes and capital gain taxes, and the remainder of the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include investing in additional healthcare properties. Credit Agricole CIB, Goldman, Sachs Co., Barclays, BofA Merrill Lynch, BBVA, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as joint book running managers for the offering of the Notes; KeyBanc Capital Markets, MUFG, RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank, Stifel, and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey are acting as co-lead managers.

The offering of the Notes will be made under an effective shelf registration statement of the Company, the Operating Partnership and MPT Finance. The Company intends to file a preliminary prospectus supplement with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") for the offering of the Notes to which this communication relates. When available, the preliminary prospectus supplement may be obtained from Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, Attn: DCM Syndicate, Broadwalk House, 5 Appold Street, London EC2A 2DA, telephone: +44 207 214 5217, email: syndicate@ca-cib.com or from Goldman, Sachs Co., Attn: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, telephone: (866) 471-2526, email: prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com; or by visiting the EDGAR database on the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company or any of its subsidiaries, nor shall there be any sale of any such securities in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

About Medical Properties Trust, Inc.

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. is a self-advised real estate investment trust formed to capitalize on the changing trends in healthcare delivery by acquiring and developing net-leased healthcare facilities. MPT's financing model allows hospitals and other healthcare facilities to unlock the value of their underlying real estate in order to fund facility improvements, technology upgrades, staff additions and new construction. Facilities include acute care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals and other medical and surgical facilities.

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of securities laws of applicable jurisdictions. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "will", "would", "could", "expect", "intend", "plan", "aim", "estimate", "target", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "objectives", "outlook", "guidance" or other similar words, and include statements regarding MPT's plans, strategies, objectives, targets, future expansion and development activities and expected financial performance. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the Company, the Issuers or future events to differ materially from those expressed in or underlying such forward-looking statements, including without limitation: the satisfaction of all conditions to, and the timely closing (if at all), of the remaining previously announced acquisitions of real estate assets from MEDIAN and related transactions; the ability of the Issuers to consummate the offering of Notes and the intended use of proceeds therefrom; and the factors referenced under the section captioned "Item 1.A Risk Factors" in the combined annual report of the Company and the Operating Partnership on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, which is incorporated by reference into the preliminary prospectus supplement related to the offering of the Notes. Actual results, performance or achievements may vary materially from any projections and forward looking statements and the assumptions on which those statements are based. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by the federal securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update the information in this press release.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005681/en/

Contacts:

Medical Properties Trust, Inc.

Tim Berryman, 205-969-3755

Director - Investor Relations

tberryman@medicalpropertiestrust.com
Guidewire speeds up claims processing for its London Market customers

Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE), a provider of software products to general insurers, today announced that its claims management system, Guidewire ClaimCenter, has passed market acceptance testing for the London Market Electronic Claims File Write-Back (ECF). The company has been accredited as a London Market Write-Back Technology Vendor, a distinction held by a limited number of vendors.

Lloyd's Syndicates and the London company market (IUA) can now use Guidewire ClaimCenter to exploit fully the benefits of the shared electronic claims file system, shortening significantly the length of the claims lifecycle from first notice to settlement.

Guidewire's ECF Write-Back functionality is the latest investment from Guidewire in providing seamless London Market connectivity for its customers who benefit from the capability to employ Guidewire technology across their business globally, supporting full cycle personal, commercial and London Market businesses.

The new Write-Back functionality is designed to provide London Market businesses with greater flexibility when managing and handling claims. It removes duplication and inefficiencies by offering enriched claims data, transparency, and management information while giving near real-time claim notifications.

Through integration with Guidewire ClaimCenter, brokers' data and documents can flow into the insurers' own systems within minutes, enabling insurers to interact much more quickly while having the flexibility to build their view of the claim from enhanced pre-agreed data. Each insurer can then respond to the claim, sending data back into the market's central systems, improving the electronic claim handling and management process, and increasing the degree of interaction.

"Beazley has worked closely with Guidewire to add ECF Write-Back to the Guidewire London Market claims functionality," commented Steve Flood, Group Claims Operations Manager, Beazley. "The two-way interaction with the IMRi and ECF from within the Guidewire platform is a great improvement on the pre-Write-Back world and will allow insurers to standardise their claims management globally on the ClaimCenter platform, and deliver tangible benefits."

"ECF Write-Back represents a significant advance for claims processing and resolution in the London Market," said Craig Beattie, senior analyst, Celent. "It offers immediate benefits to insurance carriers which, in turn, can afford enhanced customer service. Guidewire's accreditation illustrates its continuing commitment and focus on serving the London Market insurance community, something usually reserved only for local, smaller software providers. It is good to see strong, international software vendors investing in the London Market standards."

"During the last year we have worked very closely with the London Market and our customers there to develop and optimise the integration between Guidewire and London Market claims systems," said Keith Stonell, managing director, EMEA, Guidewire Software. "We are extremely pleased to have passed this important milestone and provide a solution that delivers real benefits. By becoming a Write-Back technology vendor, Guidewire further enhances the support we provide to customers as they modernise their businesses and deliver better customer experiences in claims processing and settlement."

The London Market claims community gathered in the Lloyd's Old Library on 21 February 2017 to meet with all eight approved software providers. Each vendor presented their functionality, their vision and commitment in the London Market.

About Guidewire Software

Guidewire delivers the software that general insurers need to adapt and succeed in a time of rapid industry change. We combine three elements core processing, data and analytics, and digital engagement into a technology platform that enhances insurers' ability to engage and empower their customers and employees. More than 260 general insurers around the world have selected Guidewire. For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com. Follow us on twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

NOTE: Guidewire, Guidewire Software, Guidewire ClaimCenter, Guidewire PolicyCenter, and Guidewire BillingCenter are registered trademarks of Guidewire Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

iIMR is the Insurers' Market Repository. This supports the electronic processing of premiums, policies and claims for insurers and brokers in the London Market.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005340/en/

Contacts:

onechocolate Communications

Daniel Couzens, +44(0)20 7437 0227

guidewire@onechocolatecomms.co.uk

or

Guidewire Software, Inc.

Louise Bradley, +44(0)7474 837 860

PR Communications EMEA

lbradley@guidewire.com
PANASONIC TO UNVEIL "ELECTRONICS MEETS CRAFTS:" AT MILANO SALONE 2017

Panasonic's cutting-edge technology fuses with traditional Japanese craftsmanship to create an inspiring space that can be visited from April 4th to 9th in Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera

Panasonic Corporation will take part in Milano Salone 2017, to be held in Milan, Italy, from April 4to 9, 2017. This year, Panasonic will present at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, an exceptional installation and various design products, showcasing state-of-the-art craftsmanship and aesthetic awareness that highlight the theme, "Electronics Meets Crafts."

Panasonic's installation will bring to light an aesthetic awareness and allure of space combined with Panasonic's imaging and audio technologies. This outdoor exhibition features an installation where Panasonic's projectors, speakers, and lighting create not only an inspiring space for visitors but also stimulate their five senses through touch and sensation.

Through this exhibition, Panasonic promotes the "Future Craft" philosophy. With dedication and thoughtful consideration for people and the environment,Panasonic strives to provide a better future for the next century through visionary designs. Detail and refined craftsmanship are inherent in all Panasonic products, which is the company's basic philosophy toward design.

Panasonic has been working with GO ON, a joint collaboration of Kyoto craftspeople, who apply time-honoured techniques of Japanese crafts to create inspiring, new designs with international and contemporary appeal. This collaboration leads to the theme of this year's Milano Salone exhibition: "Electronics Meets Crafts."

Panasonic's philosophy fits in perfectly with GO ON's collaboration of traditional crafts, materials, and several hundred years of Japanese design heritage. Through this partnership with GO ON, which has been attracting attention in luxury markets globally, Panasonic's exhibition aims to resonate with people, in both their imagination and their five senses.

In this exhibition, Panasonic's cutting-edge audio, imaging, and lighting technology will fuse with traditional Japanese craftsmanship. "Electronics Meets Crafts" will highlight Panasonic's technologies including vibrating speakers and LED lamps made out of textiles which interact with an innovative induction heating table.

Panasonic will also collaborate with Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, the venue of this year's exhibition, and the students of the academy. These next-generation artists will exhibit their installations which will showcase the expanding possibilities of electronics.

Michiko Ogawa, Executive Officer of Panasonic Corporation, commented that: "I am extremely grateful to have developed this project together with amazing partners, such as GO ON and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, in the incredible city of Milan. We hope everyone can experience dreams and possibilities through their five senses at our installation. Panasonic will continue to contribute to the realization of 'A Better Life, A Better World' through our advanced product design and trust-building craftsmanship developed from a careful consideration of people and the environment."

Panasonic will pursue the mission to make people's lives better through the fusion of Italian and Japanese sensibilities and technologies, merging traditions and cultures that these two countries have nurtured through their long history.

"Electronics Meets Crafts:"

April 4th 9th, 2017

Opening time: 11:00 21:00

Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Via Brera, 28, 20121, Milan, Italy

URL for Panasonic Milano Salone 2017:

http://news.panasonic.com/global/presskits/milanosalone2017

Available to view and download materials related to Panasonic booth at Milano Salone 2017.

About Panasonic

Panasonic Corporation is a worldwide leader in the development of diverse electronics technologies and solutions for customers in the consumer electronics, housing, automotive, enterprise solutions and device industries. Since its founding in 1918, the company has expanded globally and now operates 474 subsidiaries and 94 associated companies worldwide, recording consolidated net sales of 7.553 trillion yen for the year ended March 31, 2016. Committed to pursuing new value through innovation across divisional lines, the company uses its technologies to create a better life and a better world for its customers. To learn more about Panasonic: http://www.panasonic.com/global.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005694/en/

Contacts:

For media inquiries, please contact:

Panasonic Corporation

Global Communications Department

Media Promotion Office

presscontact@ml.jp.panasonic.com
OCEAN VIEW, Delaware, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The industry trends report "Automotive Aftermarket Size By Vehicle Part (Replacement Parts [Belt, Brake, Clutch, Lighting, Electrical, Engine & AC, Exhaust, Filters, Suspension, Transmission, Wiper], Accessories), By Sales Outlet (Professional [Garages & Service Stations, Automobile Dealerships, Government], DIY, OEM), By Region (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, GCC), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Growth Potential, Price Trends & Forecast, 2016 - 2024" by Global Market Insights, Inc. says Automotive Aftermarket Industry size is slated to cross USD 680 billion by 2024.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/799556-a )



Shifting consumer preference towards vehicle comfort, enhancing efficiency and customization for aesthetically pleasant vehicles are the key factors driving the automotive aftermarket demand.

Request for a sample of this research report @https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1166

Increasing vehicle wear and tear due to poor road infrastructure particularly in developing countries have led to more replacement parts consumption which will support the product penetration. Rise in average distance driven per vehicle has resulted in increasing requirement for maintenance encouraging vehicle parts replacements.

Professional sales outlet is the major revenue generating segment for automotive aftermarket and was valued over USD 300 billion in 2015. Moreover, additional services provided by the outlets for customer delight including free periodic servicing, insurance to damaged parts and delivery facilities will fuel the automotive aftermarket industry growth.

Asia pacific, led by China, India and Thailand is estimated to witness CAGR over 6% up to 2024. Growing consumer spending on automobiles coupled with rapid urbanization and increasing population are the key factors fueling regional demand. High economic resource availability, workforce and land availability in this region will propel the market growth.

Stringent regulations regarding emission control and safe transport has resulted in increased maintenance of the vehicle. Shifting trend for vehicle customization which includes lighting system, vehicle graphics, spoilers to achieve optimum performance is the key factor driving global automotive aftermarket demand.

Rising demand for the vehicle durability has increased the scheduled maintenance frequency to achieve better performance. This has resulted in increasing replacement of original parts driving the automobile aftermarket industry size.

DIY automotive aftermarket industry generated revenue over 100 billion in 2015. Low operation cost is the substantial factor driving the product development in this segment. Rising consumer awareness pertaining to online maintenance tutorials is the key factor positively influencing the market growth.

Browse key industry insights spread across 200 pages with 81 market data tables & 13 figures & charts from this 2017 report Automotive Aftermarket in detail along with the table of contents at:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automotive-aftermarket

Favorable FDI policies in developing countries has led to increasing number of manufacturing plants. Additionally, rising customer base of international market players across the globe along with increasing number of service centers are the driving factors for the automobile aftermarket industry growth.

Legal issues regarding patent and copyright infringement are restraining factors to automotive aftermarket industry. Increasing on-road vehicle usage coupled with rising vehicle average age are the key factors driving the global automotive aftermarket demand. Tires, electrical parts and brakes are among the highest revenue generating parts accounting for over 50% of total revenue generated from replacement part segment.

Easy replacement parts availability accompanied by ease in operations like changing oil, tires, mirrors with minimum requirement of tools are driving the DIY sales outlet market size. Mexico is one of the major exporters of the vehicle replacement components particularly for the U.S. with favourable import policies will positively influence the automotive aftermarket demand.

Growing demand from replacement components, owing to more usage of older vehicles in Latin America will drive the product penetration. This is due to more than 50% of the vehicles in Mexico are older than 10 years.

Europe led by Germany, UK and France will witness more than 4.5% growth. Large presence of original equipment manufacturers along with regional players will drive the regional demand. Stringent government regulations for improving fuel efficiency will result in frequent maintenance of older vehicles should fuel the market demand.

Global automotive aftermarket industry share is highly fragmented. The key market players include Denso Corporation, Magneti Marelli, Continental AG, Akebone Brake Corporation, 3M Company, Cooper Tire and Rubber Company.

Other participants in the industry include Yazaki, ALCO Filters, Lear Corp, Johnson Controls, Magna International and BASF SE.

Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1166

Automotive aftermarket industry research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms revenue in USD billion from 2013 to 2024 , for the following segments:

Automotive Aftermarket Industry By Product

Replacement parts

Accessories

Automotive Aftermarket Industry By Sales Outlet

Professional Garages & Service Stations Automobile Dealerships Government Others

DIY Discount Department Stores Auto Parts Stores

OEM

The above information is provided on a regional and country basis for the following :

North America U.S. Canada

EU Germany UK Russia

Asia Pacific China India South Korea Japan Indonesia Thailand

Latin America (LATAM) Brazil Mexico Argentina

(LATAM) Middle East and Africa South Africa GCC

and

Browse Related Reports:

Automotive Collision Repair Market Size By Vehicle Type (Heavy-duty, Light-duty), By Product (Consumables, Paints & Coatings), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada , Mexico , Germany , UK, France , Italy , China , India , Japan , Brazil ), Application Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2015 - 2022

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automotive-collision-repair-market-report

Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Market Size By Vehicle Type (Commercial Vehicles, Passenger Vehicles), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada , Germany , UK, France , Italy , Russia , China , Japan , South Korea , Brazil , Mexico ), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2024



https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/bitumen-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.



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Corporate Sales, USA

Global Market Insights, Inc.

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MADRID, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --The fifth annual World ATM Congress concluded Thursday, 9 March. As the world's largest air traffic management (ATM) exhibition, the Congress attracted a record-breaking 7,757 registrants and 230 exhibitors from 131 countries.

Anigo de la Serna Hernaiz, Spain's Minister of Public Works and Transport, opened the three-day Congress and the keynote speakers were Violeta Bulc, EU Commissioner for Transport and Willie Walsh, Chief Executive Officer of IAG and Chair of the Board of Governors of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The conference explored how best to 'create the right culture' to facilitate desired change resulting from new technologies, new entrants to airspace such as drones, competition, and pressure to improve performance. Several events took place, including the European Commission's Single European Sky Awards and the IHS Jane's ATC Awards.

Five theatres featured over 120 hours of education, including panel discussions, technical presentations, and product demonstrations and launches, from nearly 100 leading aviation professionals from industry, government, labour, and educational institutions.

"World ATM Congress continues to grow and expand its reach," said ATCA President and CEO Peter F. Dumont. "The event provides attendees with the inside information they need to safeguard the airspace, grow their businesses, and advance their careers. World ATM Congress brings together governments, industry, academia, and frontline users from across the world, all with the aim to enhance and improve the safety and efficiency of the global airspace. As the aviation industry continues to modernise, World ATM Congress has become fertile ground for the conversation and technologies that will shape aviation for years to come."

CANSO Director General Jeff Poole said, "World ATM Congress is produced by the industry for the industry and importantly, meets the needs of the industry. This year, the content was richer than ever in every respect. The event is driven by the exhibitors, speakers, and visitors and we work hard to satisfy their requirements. It is also where the most senior aviation leaders and other important stakeholders come speak to the entire ATM community in one place and discuss their expectations and requirements. World ATM Congress will continue to listen to the needs of the industry and its stakeholders and reflect them as it develops the event in the years to come."

World ATM Congress is operated by the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) in partnership with the Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA), with support from platinum sponsors Boeing, Indra, Leonardo, and Thales. World ATM Congress will reconvene 6-8 March 2018. Exhibition space and sponsorship opportunities are now available for 2018.

For more information, contact Abigail Glenn-Chase at +1 703 299 2430 x308orabigail.glenn-chase@atca.org.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/446757/World_ATM_Congress___5th_Anniversary.jpg
Integrated solution personalizes live engagement across digital touchpoints to help businesses enhance customer experiences and agent productivity

NEW YORK, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --CafeX Communications, a leading supplier of mobile and web engagement solutions, announced the availability of CafeX Live Assist for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for public preview. The omni-channel solution is now open for free 30-day trials globally. Watch this video to see how to get started. It is orderable in North America and Europe with expansion slated for Asia and other regions starting later this month. As part of the global launch campaign, CafeX is showcasing Live Assist for Dynamics 365 this week at the eXtreme365 conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

As this video shows, the integrated service offers customers one-click personalized assistance from an agent while browsing a company's website or mobile app. From within Dynamics 365, the agent can provide helpful tips over web chat, see exactly what the customer sees, spotlight important information, as well as share images, links and other relevant content within the customer's application to resolve issues faster with higher online conversion rates.

Along with increased customer satisfaction, this integrated service also helps agents become more productive. An agent can access co-browse, chat and other customer engagement options directly within Unified Service Desk or web clients for Dynamics 365 without switching to a different screen or application. From an administrative viewpoint, deployment and management are streamlined through single sign-on and a unified provisioning flow through Microsoft Office 365.

This integrated solution also creates new business opportunities for Microsoft Partner Network members looking to expand their omni-channel capabilities. CafeX is eager to work with these partners to bring the solution's full power to bear in customer implementations through value-added services.

"Since the initial announcement last October, companies around the world, ranging from top retailers, banks and manufacturers in the Fortune 50 to small businesses next door, have been actively investigating and previewing this immersive solution for digital customer engagement," said Sajeel Hussain, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of strategic partnerships for CafeX. "We continue to explore further areas of synergy between our respective platforms to help enterprises transform in-app customer experiences towards more personalized and intelligent service."

Jujhar Singh, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics 365, said, "Enterprises continue to tell us how critical omni-channel engagement is to the success of their customer experience strategies. Enhancing the customer benefits for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CafeX Live Assist helps businesses engage customers proactively with rich content, while preserving context at each step of the journey."

"Our goal is to help our customers deliver world-class omni-channel experiences. This new integrated offer from CafeX for Microsoft Dynamics 365, combined with our industry and implementation expertise, helps our customers deliver the types of experiences that increase satisfaction, loyalty, and value for their customers," said Michael Strand, senior vice president, Hitachi Solutions.

Businesses can sign up for a free 30-day trial of this omni-channel service via this link. Watch this short video to see how to step through the trial process and order the solution. To request a demonstration of CafeX Live Assist for Dynamics 365 or for more information, please contact CafeX at MSLiveAssistsales@cafex.com.

Supporting Resources

Website: https://liveassistfor365.com/

Get Started Video: https://youtu.be/q49K04Lw_38

Live Assist Brochure

Bringing Omnichannel to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Whitepaper

About CafeX

CafeX makes it easier for companies to enhance live engagement within web and mobile applications. Trusted by many Global 2000 companies, CafeX's award-winning collaboration software operates within the context of business workflows to increase customer satisfaction and workforce productivity. For more information about CafeX, please visit www.cafex.comor follow @CafeXComms.

CafeX Communications and CafeX Live Assist are trademarks of CafeX Communications, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact

Sajeel Hussain

CafeX Communications

+1 (646) 351-0054

shussain@cafex.com

John Stafford

Parallel Communications

+1 (515) 708-1296

jstafford@parallelpr.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Quanta Services Inc. (PWR) said Tuesday that the litigation initiated by Dycom Industries related to the non-compete agreement entered into in connection with Quanta's disposition of certain telecommunication construction operations to Dycom in December 2012, has been resolved. Terms of the resolution are confidential. 'We are pleased with this outcome. As we recently discussed on our earnings call, we began the expansion of our U.S. telecom infrastructure services operations following the expiration of our prior non-compete agreement in early December 2016, and with this litigation now behind us, our ability to continue our U.S. expansion efforts is unencumbered,' said Duke Austin, president and chief executive officer of Quanta Services. 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.
DUBAI, UAE, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

 Group to open 30 stores in 5 years

 5000 employees from 260 nationalities will work with Paris Gallery

 Total projected retail areas to reach 3.2 million square feet by 2021

The Paris Gallery Group of Companies has announced its five-year plan (2017-2021) aimed at strengthening its retail presence in the GCC region in particular and the Middle East region in general.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478254/Mohammed_Abdul_Rahi.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478255/Paris_Gallery_1.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478256/Paris_Gallery_2.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478258/Paris_Gallery.jpg )



Paris Gallery has also announced a well-researched strategic expansion plan that includes opening 30 new stores for the Group's various brands and subsidiaries. The expansion plan will take the total number of Paris Gallery stores to 116 stores by 2021. To date, Paris Gallery's existing stores number 86 branches across the UAE, KSA, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq, Azerbaijan and other countries.

The Group's total workforce after implementing the new five-year regional expansion plan will reach a total of 5,100 employees. The current number exceeds 3,500 employees from 160 different nationalities from around the world. The UAE-based Group also confirmed that its total retail areas will reach 3.2 million square feet by 2021, compared with 2 million square feet currently.

"Since 2006, the Group has developed a gradual plan to move its brand focus from the local to regional and global status. As a result, the Group has become one of the most famous luxury groups in the region and the world, thanks to its excellent customer service, unique shopping experience and high quality services," said Mohammed Abdul Rahim Al Fahim, CEO of Paris Gallery Group of Companies.

"The Group has recorded steady growth in the retail and distribution business since 2006. We followed the corporate governance concept from the very beginning, which is considered a crucial and rewarding step. Thus, we have recorded steady growth in revenue, profits and assets," Al Fahim added.

"We are keen to study and analyze the market to identify trends and opportunities in the retail sector. Our partners get the ideal support from our skilled teams in the areas of logistics, finance, marketing, human resources, services and others. The distribution arm of the Group has one of the largest networks in the UAE," he added.

Paris Gallery Group focuses on the luxury products sector and has a wide range of products including perfumes, cosmetics, watches, eyewear, accessories, leather goods and fashion, from more than 800 global brands.

Al Fahim pointed out that customer satisfaction and maintaining the right communications with them, keeping abreast of trends as well as understanding customer preferences are the best tools for Paris Gallery as local retailers with vast history in serving the region.

"Corporate governance practices that we follow can protect the reputation of our brands and strengthen our relationships with them. We work in close partnership with the managements of trade centers, government agencies and private customers to protect and promote the interests of these brands in the market. We also work hard to attract new customers and deepen the loyalty of existing ones. Our vast knowledge in the local market, culture and the art of negotiation is considered an invaluable asset to our partners," Al Fahim concluded.

Ylova Hamdan +971-4-237-2222, Ext. 404
LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Telehouse, a leading global provider of data centre services, today announced the launch of Telehouse Cloud Link, a connectivity exchange that provides its customers with private, secure and low latency connections to multiple cloud service providers. The new Cloud Link service is officially available from April 2017 with one of the leading cloud connectivity services, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, through a direct connection in the Telehouse London Docklands campus. Telehouse customers benefit from the ability to procure and manage connections in real time through the dedicated Cloud Link online portal.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478270/Telehouse_Logo.jpg )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478269/Telehouse_Cloud_Link.jpg )

Telehouse's collaboration with Microsoft allows enterprises, and their IT infrastructure partners to seamlessly provision and manage private connections to Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365 using a dedicated and predictable connection. The availability of Microsoft ExpressRoute further enhances the connectivity available at Telehouse London Docklands, already the most connected campus in Europe, making it the ideal environment for enterprises and service providers to build their hybrid IT solutions, and for cloud providers to host part of their infrastructure.

Telehouse customers can provision connections instantly through the online portal, and can scale bandwidth as their business demands. The dedicated IT Operations Centre provides a single point of contact to support our customers' needs 24/7. Additional cloud service providers are expected to be added to Cloud Link in the near future and this ability to connect to multiple clouds through a single source removes the complexity of traditional network procurement.

Businesses are demanding private and secure connections to the cloud to ensure optimal performance and scalability. According to publisher Data Economy, the rapid adoption of cloud services worldwide has driven the market to grow 25 percent year-on-year and to reach $148 billion in operator and vendor revenues[1] .

Michelle Reid, Sales and Marketing Director of Telehouse Europe said: "We are delighted to support the rapid growth in enterprise cloud adoption with our new Cloud Link service and to collaborate with Microsoft to deliver its cloud connectivity service to our customers via a secure, private connection. Cloud Link demonstrates Telehouse's ability to offer a highly interconnected infrastructure within its data centres, from which businesses can access new services and grow."

"The cloud is driving transformation through new business models, global expansion and accelerated innovation," said Ross Ortega, Partner PM, Microsoft Azure at Microsoft Corp. "We are pleased to team with Telehouse to enhance the experience of our mutual customers."

To learn more about Telehouse, visit http://www.telehouse.net. For all of our latest news follow us on Twitter via @TelehouseEurope or find our Telehouse Europe LinkedIn company page.

References:

Data Economy https://data-economy.com/cloud-nets-148bn-2016/

About Telehouse

Telehouse is the pioneering data centre colocation provider established in 1989. It is an owner operator of global data centres, connectivity and managed ICT solutions to over 3000 corporations around the world. Telehouse is the data centre subsidiary of Japanese corporation KDDI, a leading Japanese mobile and fixed-line telecommunications and ICT solution provider with 106 offices in 28 countries around the world and a Global Fortune company.

Further Telehouse press information: marketing@uk.telehouse.net

Contact: James Davies, james.davies@uk.telehouse.net
SCOTTS VALLEY, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Semblant, the market leader in nanocoatings and liquid damage protection for electronic devices, announced that it has experienced a record compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 173% in licensing sales. Following the introduction of its MobileShield technology, the company is seeing accelerated growth due to increased demand among Chinese smartphone manufacturers for top-of-the-line waterproofing technology. Since the technology was launched at Mobile World Congress in February 2016, it has been decorated with several industry awards.

"Having invested heavily to develop a portfolio of differentiated IP in electronics waterproofing, winning these awards is extremely meaningful to our company -- it validates all the hard work we've done to date," said Simon McElrea, CEO of Semblant. "Consumers are demanding more robust phones, and major smartphone brands are responding by adding even more advanced features and capabilities, such as waterproofing. Our proprietary nanocoating solutions are effortless to implement and offer numerous advantages over traditional methods of waterproofing electronics in terms of overall cost, reliability, scalability and environmental impact."

In parallel with record revenue and licensing growth, 2016 brought significant attention to Semblant's proprietary coating technology. Over the past six months, the company has received six industry awards and recognitions, including:

Won an R&D award in the Mechanical/Materials category

Recognized as a CES Innovation Awards Honoree in three product categories:

-- Tech For A Better World

-- Eco-Design & Sustainable Technologies

-- Embedded Technologies



-- Tech For A Better World -- Eco-Design & Sustainable Technologies -- Embedded Technologies Won the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 Award for Best Use of IP



Awarded the No. 7 ranking out of the top 100 growth businesses in the United Kingdom in the 16th annual Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table (Tech Track 100)

Semblant's MobileShield waterproofing technology allows users to benefit from longer device life and the freedom to take their smartphones almost anywhere. For smartphone manufacturers, there are significant economic benefits; in addition to giving devices a first line of defense against common sources of damage, MobileShield coatings also enable repair at the component level. This substantially reduces device replacement expenditures for consumers, retailers and manufacturers alike. Last year alone, consumers spent $23 billion replacing mobile phones.

MobileShield technology can be seen protecting a smartphone against water ingress and resisting corrosion from nitric acid in Semblant's recent videos.

About Semblant

Semblant is the global leader in innovating and deploying protective nanomaterials in the electronics industry. The company's unique nanoshield nanotechnology solutions, backed by a broad range of fundamental patents, have been designed specifically to protect electronic devices from liquid ingress, corrosion and many other forms of damage. This saves the industry billions of dollars each year in return and repair costs. Semblant's nanocoatings are also environmentally friendly and release no hazardous materials in the manufacturing process. The company provides solutions to the mobile phone, wearable, enterprise computing, network infrastructure, medical device, automotive and space/military/aerospace markets, as well as the printed circuit board and semiconductor/semiconductor packaging industries. For more information, visit us at www.semblant.com, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

Contact:

Henri Vies

C: 650-776-9289

E: henri@impresslabs.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 --

Highlights: NB-17-332: 42.7m @ 0.78 g/t Gold & 15.2m @ 0.82 g/t Gold NB-17-333: 19.8m @ 1.05 g/t Gold NB-17-338: 15.2m @ 0.98 g/t Gold NB-17-340: 12.2m @ 0.88 g/t Gold & 11.2 g/t Silver

Corvus Gold Inc. ("Corvus" or the "Company") (TSX: KOR)(OTCQX: CORVF) announces results from an additional nine holes in the Western Zone (Table 1). These latest results continue to outline a broad zone of near surface, shallow mineralization over a strike length of at least 700 metres and over a width of at least 200 metres, which lies immediately west of the current designed pit perimeter (Figure 1). The Western Zone has two, broad, higher grade, and structurally controlled, stockwork quartz zones internally, with grades above the 0.52 g /t mill cutoff grade and is believed to have higher grade potential at depth. It appears the Western Zone remains open to the south, west and at depth and is an immediate follow-up drill target for further potential resource expansion.

Figure 1 Map showing new Western Zone drill hole locations: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1088669m.jpg

Jeff Pontius, President and CEO of Corvus said, "The follow-up results from our drilling on the Western Zone have been encouraging and are outlining what appears to be a potential expansion of the main deposit to the west under shallow gravel cover. As this zone is still open in many directions, its impact on any potential resource expansion is unconstrained at this point. For the past 4 weeks Corvus has been testing our first group of "New Discovery" targets away from the main deposit area and we are encouraged by the strength and size of the alteration systems we have been intersecting, with initial results expected in the next few weeks. We are of the view that the more we work and drill on the North Bullfrog project, the more potential emerges for a major discovery."

Table 1

Phase II Drill Results - Western Zones

(Reported drill intercepts are not true widths. At this time, there is insufficient data with respect to the shape of the mineralization to calculate its true orientation in space.)

From To Length Gold Silver (m) (m) (m)(i) (g/t) (g/t) ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-332 47.24 184.4 137.16 0.45 1.15 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-70 inc 51.82 67.06 15.24 0.82 1.59 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 80.77 123.44 42.67 0.78 1.38 ------------------------------------------------------------ 188.98 213.36 24.38 0.13 0.30 ------------------------------------------------------------ Hole ended in gold mineralization ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-333 88.39 190.5 102.11 0.38 0.93 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-65 inc 91.44 111.25 19.81 1.05 1.85 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-334 76.20 155.45 79.25 0.31 0.76 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-55 inc 76.20 80.77 4.57 0.56 0.85 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 124.97 138.68 13.71 0.60 1.35 ------------------------------------------------------------ 167.64 172.21 4.57 0.12 0.36 ------------------------------------------------------------ 176.78 214.88 38.10 0.25 1.14 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 192.02 196.60 4.57 0.97 4.01 ------------------------------------------------------------ Hole ended in gold mineralization ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-335 64.01 92.96 28.95 0.49 1.97 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-55 inc 67.06 79.25 12.19 0.78 2.34 ------------------------------------------------------------ 99.06 160.02 60.96 0.31 6.28 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 132.59 135.64 3.05 1.04 7.00 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 140.21 141.73 1.52 1.01 18.00 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 147.83 149.35 1.52 0.76 59.00 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-336 42.67 48.77 6.10 0.26 0.37 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-45 57.91 65.53 7.62 1.04 0.69 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 59.44 62.48 3.05 2.18 0.94 ------------------------------------------------------------ 109.73 114.30 4.57 0.38 0.74 ------------------------------------------------------------ 137.16 140.21 3.05 0.31 0.80 ------------------------------------------------------------ 146.30 179.83 33.53 0.34 0.41 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 150.88 152.40 1.52 0.95 0.41 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 160.02 164.59 4.57 0.61 0.66 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-337 30.48 41.15 10.67 0.36 0.46 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-50 inc 38.10 39.62 1.52 1.21 1.34 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-338 45.72 70.10 24.38 0.71 1.33 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-50 inc 47.24 62.48 15.24 0.98 1.65 ------------------------------------------------------------ 76.20 91.44 15.24 0.26 0.53 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-339 132.59 134.11 1.52 0.34 0.49 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip -55 ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-340 65.53 68.58 3.05 0.58 0.45 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-60 inc 67.06 68.58 1.52 1.03 0.60 ------------------------------------------------------------ 73.15 150.88 77.73 0.43 2.67 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 76.20 79.25 3.05 0.93 2.38 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 105.16 117.35 12.19 0.88 11.22 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 129.54 137.16 7.62 0.94 0.65 ------------------------------------------------------------ (i) Mineralized thickness calculated @ 0.10 g/t Au cutoff with internal intervals calculated @ 1.0 g/t Au cutoff

Western Zone

The mineralization intersected in the Western Zone is controlled by a large northeast trending structural zone which can be tracked for a strike length of nearly 1.5 kilometres. Drilling to date has tested about 1/2 the length of the Western Zone structural extent. The zone contains two discreet fault zones that host higher grade mineralization and display good continuity along strike. These zones have been intersected from near surface down to a vertical depth of about 150 metres which is the depth of the currently designed pit to the east.

Additional potential exists for one or more zones to develop to the west of the current drill area as illustrated in prior hole NB-17-329 (NR17-2, February 23, 2017) with 38.1m @ 0.97 g/t gold from a new zone. In addition, exploration in 2014 tested a structural target some 300 metres west of the Western Zone and outlined a small higher grade resource whose expansion potential has yet to be followed up. The Western Zone and the large area of shallow gravel cover which could host a number of new zone of shallow, higher grade mineralization.

About the North Bullfrog Project, Nevada

Corvus controls 100% of its North Bullfrog Project, which covers approximately 72 km2 in southern Nevada. The property package is made up of a number of private mineral leases of patented federal mining claims and 865 federal unpatented mining claims. The project has excellent infrastructure, being adjacent to a major highway and power corridor as well as a large water right.

The North Bullfrog project includes numerous prospective gold targets at various stages of exploration with four having NI 43-101 mineral resources (Sierra Blanca, Jolly Jane, Mayflower and YellowJacket). The project contains a measured mineral resource of 3.86 Mt at an average grade of 2.55 g/t gold and 19.70 g/t silver, containing 316.5k ounces of gold and 2,445k ounces of silver, an indicated mineral resource of 1.81 Mt at an average grade of 1.53 g/t gold, and 10.20 g/t silver, containing 89.1k ounces of gold and 593.6k ounces of silver and an inferred resource of 1.48 Mt at an average grade of 0.83 g/t gold and 4.26 g/t silver, containing 39.5k ounces of gold and 202.7k ounces of silver for oxide mill processing. The mineral resource for the mill process was defined by Whittle optimization using all cost and recovery data and a breakeven cut-off grade of 0.52 g/t gold. In addition, the project contains a measured mineral resource of 0.3 Mt at an average grade of 0.25 g/t gold and 2.76 g/t silver, containing 2.4k ounces of gold and 26.6k ounces of silver, an indicated mineral resource of 22.86 Mt at an average grade of 0.30 g/t gold and 0.43 g/t silver, containing 220.5k ounces of gold and 316.1k ounces of silver and an inferred mineral resource of 176.3 Mt at an average grade of 0.19 g/t gold and 0.67 g/t silver, containing 1,077.4k ounces of gold and 3,799.2k ounces of silver for oxide, heap leach processing. The mineral resource for heap leach processing was defined by Whittle optimization using all cost and recovery data and a breakeven cut-off grade of 0.15 g/t.

Qualified Person and Quality Control/Quality Assurance

Jeffrey A. Pontius (CPG 11044), a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), has supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Pontius is not independent of Corvus, as he is the CEO & President and holds common shares and incentive stock options.

Carl E. Brechtel, (Nevada PE 008744 and Registered Member 353000 of SME), a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has coordinated execution of the work outlined in this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Brechtel is not independent of Corvus, as he is the COO and holds common shares and incentive stock options.

The work program at North Bullfrog was designed and supervised by Mark Reischman, Corvus Gold's Nevada Exploration Manager, who is responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control/quality assurance program. On-site personnel at the project log and track all samples prior to sealing and shipping. Quality control is monitored by the insertion of blind certified standard reference materials and blanks into each sample shipment. All resource sample shipments are sealed and shipped to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, for preparation and then on to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, or Vancouver, B.C., for assaying. ALS Chemex's quality system complies with the requirements for the International Standards ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 17025:1999. Analytical accuracy and precision are monitored by the analysis of reagent blanks, reference material and replicate samples. Finally, representative blind duplicate samples are forwarded to ALS Chemex and an ISO compliant third party laboratory for additional quality control.

For additional information on the North Bullfrog project, including information relating to exploration, data verification and the mineral resource estimates, see "Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for Combined Mill and Heap Leach Processing at the North Bullfrog Project, Bullfrog Mining District, NYE County, Nevada" dated June 16, 2015 as amended and restated May 18, 2016 which is available under Corvus' SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

About Corvus Gold Inc.

Corvus Gold Inc. is a North American gold exploration and development company, focused on its near-term gold-silver mining project at North Bullfrog, Nevada. In addition, the Company controls a number of royalties on other North American exploration properties representing a spectrum of gold, silver and copper projects. Corvus is committed to building shareholder value through new discoveries and the expansion of those discoveries to maximize share price leverage in a recovering gold and silver market.

On behalf of

Corvus Gold Inc.

Jeffrey A. Pontius,

President & Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the potential for new deposits and expected increases in a system's potential; anticipated content, commencement and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the potential to develop multiple YellowJacket style high-grade zones, the Company's belief that the parameters used in the Whittle pit optimization process are realistic and reasonable, the potential to discover additional high grade veins or additional deposits, the potential to expand the existing estimated resource at the North Bullfrog project, the potential for any mining or production at North Bullfrog, are forward-looking statements. Information concerning mineral resource estimates may be deemed to be forward-looking statements in that it reflects a prediction of the mineralization that would be encountered if a mineral deposit were developed and mined.

Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, variations in the market price of any mineral products the Company may produce or plan to produce, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's 2014 Annual Information Form and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada and the Company's most recent filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings in Canada may be accessed via www.sedar.com and filings with the SEC may be accessed via www.sec.gov and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

Cautionary Note Regarding References to Resources and Reserves

NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource estimates contained in or incorporated by reference in this press release have been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and the guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (the "CIM") Standards on Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council on May 10, 2014 (the "CIM Standards") as they may be amended from time to time by the CIM.

United States investors are cautioned that the requirements and terminology of NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards differ significantly from the requirements and terminology of the SEC set forth in the SEC's Industry Guide 7 ("SEC Industry Guide 7"). Accordingly, the Company's disclosures regarding mineralization may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Without limiting the foregoing, while the terms "mineral resources", "inferred mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" and "measured mineral resources" are recognized and required by NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards, they are not recognized by the SEC and are not permitted to be used in documents filed with the SEC by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability, and US investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a mineral resource will ever be converted into reserves. Further, inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and as to whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher resource category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of a feasibility study or prefeasibility study, except in rare cases. The SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves" as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit amounts. The term "contained ounces" is not permitted under the rules of SEC Industry Guide 7. In addition, the NI 43-101 and CIM Standards definition of a "reserve" differs from the definition in SEC Industry Guide 7. In SEC Industry Guide 7, a mineral reserve is defined as a part of a mineral deposit which could be economically and legally extracted or produced at the time the mineral reserve determination is made, and a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves, the three-year historical price is used in any reserve or cash flow analysis of designated reserves and the primary environmental analysis or report must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority. U.S. investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our latest reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. You can review and obtain copies of these filings at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. U.S. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any defined resource will ever be converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant reserves.

This press release is not, and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States.

Contacts:

Ryan Ko

Investor Relations

info@corvusgold.com

1-844-638-3246 (toll free) or (604) 638-3246




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Kilo Goldmines Ltd. ("Kilo" or "KGL" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: KGL)(FRANKFURT: 02K) is pleased to provide an update on the exploration program on its Imbo Licence (PE9691) within the Ngayu greenstone belt in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo ("DRC").

Drilling

The drilling programme currently underway on the Imbo licence is designed to test coincident gold-in-soil and magnetic anomalies at the Adumbi South, Adumbi West and Kitenge Extension targets, as shown in Figure 1 and detailed in the Company's press release of 2nd November 2016. The three targets are located within 4 km of the Company's Adumbi prospect, which has an Inferred Resource of 19.11 Mt @ 2.2 g/t Au for 1.362 Moz of gold. To date 30 holes have been completed for a total of 4,620 m, as follows:

Adumbi South:

The Adumbi South target lies 480 m to the south of the Adumbi prospect, and is defined by a 1.4 km-long magnetic anomaly that appears to be demagnetized in places, and a greater than 200 ppb gold-in-soil anomaly. To date a total of 9 holes (1,407 m) on 3 traverses at a spacing of 160 m have been completed (Figure 2). The drilling has shown that the linear magnetic feature is caused by magnetite-bearing chlorite schist, and supports the interpretation that the lithologies at Adumbi South are similar to those at the Canal prospect, which forms the southeastern extension of the main Adumbi mineralization. Hydrothermal pyrite locally replaces disseminated magnetite in the chlorite schist, which together with a deeper weathering profile, is likely responsible for the weakening of the magnetic response on traverses ALS2 to ALS4. Other hydrothermal alteration comprises zones of foliation-parallel quartz veining up to 11 m in width (with individual veins less than 1 m across); pyrite, +/- pyrrhotite, +/- arsenopyrite occurs locally within the veins and sheared country rock.

Analytical results have been received for 6 of the 9 holes drilled to date, the best intersection being 1 m @ 3.85 g/t Au in hole ASDD003.

Kitenge Extension:

The Kitenge Extension target lies to the northwest of the Kitenge prospect, and is defined by an approximately 2 km-long magnetic feature with a coincident gold-in-soil anomaly with values from 50 ppb to 450 ppb. The planned programme comprised 17 drill holes totalling 2,435 m, on 7 traverses at a spacing of 320 m along strike. To date, a total of 14 holes (2,163 m) have been completed on 6 traverses (Figure 3).

The drilling has shown that the linear magnetic feature is caused by magnetite-bearing chlorite schist within a package of quartz-carbonate schist, and the lithological sequence is similar to the Canal prospect southeast of Adumbi. Hydrothermal alteration is associated with strike-parallel shear zones, some of which affect earlier breccia zones containing clasts of vein quartz and country rock, indicating several phases of tectonism and alteration. The hydrothermal activity has caused a general "bleaching" of the sheared host rock, and quartz veins parallel to the foliation are common. Disseminated sulphides (pyrite, +/- pyrrhotite, +/- arsenopyrite) are locally associated with the veins and sheared host rock.

Analytical results have been received for the first two drill holes:

SKDD060: 2.90 m @ 1.05 g/t Au from 102.00 m; 1.00 m @ 0.77 g/t Au from 167.00 m.

SKDD061: 1.63 m @ 3.05 g/t Au from 68.40 m; 1.60 m @ 10.52 g/t Au from 84.00 m.

Drilling at Adumbi South and Kitenge Extension has confirmed the presence of the mineralized structures that the program was designed to test, and further drilling at these targets will be subject to assay results from the holes which are not yet available.

Adumbi West:

The Adumbi West target is defined by a 1.7 km-long linear magnetic anomaly and a coincident gold-in-soil anomaly with values from 50 ppb to 1,000 ppb. This magnetic feature is similar to that which defines the banded ironstone formation (BIF) at the Adumbi prospect. To date, 7 holes (1,050 m) have been completed on traverse AWL2 (Figure 4).

Drilling on traverse AWL2 has shown that the strong magnetic anomaly is caused by chlorite schist with abundant disseminated magnetite, rather than the expected BIF. The magnetite-chlorite schist is interpreted as a facies equivalent of the Adumbi BIF, and represents an area where a greater proportion of clastic material was deposited with the chemically precipitated iron oxide.

In drill holes AWDD002 and AWDD004, a 1.4 to 4.3 m-wide zone of quartz veining and silicification with abundant pyrite was intersected, which is on strike with the Dieu Merci artisanal workings to the northwest (Figure 4). This zone could represent the north-western strike extension of the Adumbi structure, and indicating that the structure is cross-cutting the lithological strike at an acute angle. Whereas at Adumbi the structure is hosted by the chemically reactive BIF, at Adumbi West it is within quartz-carbonate schist in the hangingwall of the Fe-rich horizon.

Drilling will now move to traverse AWL5 where four holes will be drilled to further test the interpreted extension of the Adumbi structure, and the area of the magnetic anomaly. Drilling at Adumbi West will then be suspended until assay results are available.

Adumbi Prospect:

Four drill holes totalling approximately 1,900 m are planned to test the depth extensions of a zone of high grade mineralization defined by geological and mineralization modelling of the Adumbi drill hole core. This zone of mineralization is associated with alteration and structural deformation that has completely destroyed the primary host lithological characteristics and is termed Replaced Rock Zone ("RP Zone") (Figures 5 and 6).

The RP Zone has been traced along strike for 840 m and down dip to 275 m below surface. The average true width and weighted average grade of all drill hole intersections of the RP Zone is 4.91 meters @ 5.44 g/t Au. In the central 480 m portion of the Adumbi prospect the average is 6.41 meters @ 6.25 g/t Au.

The four planned drill holes will target the down-plunge extensions of relatively high grade shoots within the RP zone, with the aim of intersecting the mineralization about 100 m below the previous deepest drilling (Figure 7). The RP zone is seen to have potential for underground exploitation, and establishing depth continuity could add significantly to the Company's resource base.

Other Exploration

Exploration will shortly recommence in the eastern part of the Imbo Licence area, where stream sediment and rock chip sampling indicate an extension of the Adumbi/Kitenge/Manzako mineralized trend over a strike of about 7 km (see the Company's press release of 23 September 2015). The programme will entail soil sampling at 40 m intervals along 160 m-spaced lines, over an area of 4 km x 1.5 km in the central part of the target (Figure 1). This will be accompanied by geological mapping, rock chip sampling, channel sampling, and trenching/augering, with the objective of defining targets for drilling in the third quarter of 2017.

About Kilo

Kilo Goldmines Ltd. is a Canadian gold exploration company that is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol 'KGL' and on the Frankfurt Exchange under the symbol '02K'. The Company holds about 2,417 km2 of prospective Archaean Kibalian greenstone in the Kilo-Moto area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Incorporated within these licences is:

-- the Somituri project (71.25% owned by KGL), comprising six contiguous licences (361km2) held by KGL-Somituri SARL -- the KGL Isiro SARL Joint Venture (JV) with Randgold Resources Ltd (2,056 km2), for gold and associated minerals only. The JV is managed by Randgold and financed by it to a pre-feasibility (PFS) for a 51% participation interest. Upon completion of the PFS, KGL can participate in funding or Randgold will increase its participation to 65% by completing a Feasibility Study. Areas which may be deemed of no interest to Randgold will be returned to KGL.

KGL has retained the rights to explore for and develop iron ore resources and other minerals associated with the licences held by KGL Isiro SARL.

Qualified Person

Howard Fall, B.Sc., PhD, MAusIMM, QP (Geo) is the 'qualified person' (as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101) of Kilo and has reviewed the scientific and technical information contained in this release.

Disclaimer

This news release may contain forward looking statements concerning future operations of Kilo Goldmines Ltd. All forward looking statements concerning Kilo's future plans and operations, including management's assessment, project expectations or beliefs may be subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties beyond Kilo's control. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual performance and exploration and financial results may differ materially from any estimates or projections. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as defined in the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration is available.

To view Figures 1-7, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1088672_Figures_1-7.pdf

Contacts:

Philip Gibbs

Interim CEO

+1 416 360 3406

philip.gibbs@kilogoldmines.com

www.kilogoldmines.com




MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Amex Exploration Inc. (TSX VENTURE: AMX) ("Amex" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a purchase agreement (the "Agreement") with Stellar Africa Gold (TSX VENTURE: SPX), to acquire its Eastmain River North and South properties (the "Properties") which are adjacent to Amex's properties at Eastmain River, to consolidate its land position in this strategic area. (see figure 1: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1088660.pdf).

The Properties are situated in the Eeyou Istchee Territory, James Bay, Quebec, approximately 350 km north of the town of Chibougamau and are accessible from Chibougamau by the new 243-kilometer-long all-season road to Stornoway's Renard diamond Mine (route 167 extension from Temiscamie).

Stellar's Eastmain South property consists of 37 claims totalling 1,950 hectares and is adjacent to the Eastmain Mine property owned by Eastmain Resources and to Amex's Eastmain South property. The property boundary is located just about 2 km to the east of the former mine site and in the hinge of a major regional fold that affects the entire Eastmain Greenstone Belt that is hosting the Eastmain gold mine.

Stellar's Eastmain North property consisting of 16 claims totalling 840 hectares, is adjacent to SOQUEM Lac Harbour gold property located at about 25 km to the North of the Eastmain Mine and directly to the NE of Amex Eastmain North property. Geologically, the property is laying over the contact zone between the NE arm of the Eastmain Greenstone Belt and Granitoid rocks of the Canadian shield.

Mr. Victor Cantore, President of Amex Exploration stated, "My geological team identified the Properties as desirable targets due to their favourable geology and proximity to our properties as well as the Eastmain Mine. With this acquisition we continue to accumulate land blocks that host the Eastmain Greenstone belt which is prospective for ore deposits. This region has been vastly underexplored and our near-term goal is to build a sizable land position in the area that has excellent exploration potential."

Pursuant to the Agreement, Amex will be issuing 350,000 common shares of the Corporation to Stellar. Under the terms of the Agreement, Amex will have no further financial obligations to Stellar Africa Gold with the exception of a 1.5% Net Smelter Return(NSR) from the proceeds of any commercial production. Half (0.75%) of the NSR can be bought back anytime for an amount of $750,000. The common shares issued to Stellar Africa Gold in counterpart of the acquisition will be subject to a hold period of 4 months. The transaction is subject to the TSX Venture Exchange approval and is expected.

About Amex

Amex Exploration Inc. is a junior mining exploration company, the primary objective of which is to develop and bring into production viable gold and base metals deposits in mining-friendly jurisdictions. Amex has two main projects: the 100% owned Perron gold project located 110 kilometres north of Rouyn Noranda, Quebec, consisting of 116 adjacent claims covering 4518 hectares; and the 100% owned Eastmain River gold properties consisting of 79 claims covering 4,173 hectares.

Forward-looking statements:

Except for statements of historical facts, all statements in this news release regarding, without limitation, new project acquisitions, future plans and objectives are forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

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.

Contacts:

Amex Exploration Inc.

Victor Cantore

President and Chief Executive Officer

514-866-8209




The Company Debuted High-capacity E2 Model, and High-power P3 Model at Energy Storage Europe 2017

Showcased High-volt Residential ESS, a Perfect Alternative to Lead-acid Batteries

Samsung SDI (KRX:006400) launched its new ESS products that adopted innovative design technology.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005683/en/

Samsung SDI presented new lineup of its comprehensive ESS solutions at the Energy Storage Europe 2017. New ESS products, High-capacity E2 Model and High-power P3 Model, greatly increases the capacity and energy density by deploying innovative configurations. (Photo: Business Wire)

Samsung SDI presented new lineup of its comprehensive ESS solutions at the Energy Storage Europe 2017, an international exhibition held for three days from March 14, 2017 in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Being an exhibition dedicated to ESS batteries and renewable energies, the Energy Storage Europe 2017 was taken part by more than 100 companies in ESS-related front and rear industries from around 50 countries, including major ESS companies such as ABB, Siemens and Younicos that have operations in Europe and Global Market.

The company showcased new ESS products at the exhibition, high-capacity E2 and high-power P3 models, whose energy density is sharply increased.

E2 model is a high-capacity ESS battery that substantially increased the number of cells integrated in the container by adopting innovative design technology. Samsung SDI dramatically raised intensity of space in the ESS container by upgrading module design and rack arrangement technology.

The company designed a compact module by reducing its size from 42 liter to 35 liter, while configuring it to increase the number of integrated cells in the module by 10% from 20 in previous modules to 22 cells. Its design is innovated to integrate larger number of cells in a smaller space. And the container is designed to enclose larger number of ESS modules by adopting a new rack arrangement method that removed passages in the ESS container. The company prevented any problem in managing ESS by adopting improved cooling technology and installing gates on both sides of the container while removing passages.

As a result, E2 model realized the high-capacity ESS battery by enclosing the capacity of 9.1MWh in the container, nearly twice larger than previous products.

E2 model is developed targeting utility ESS market that requires large capacity. Needed for storing energy during low-demand hours and using it in high-demand hours, utility ESS batteries are widely used in recent years in connection with renewable energies such as solar photovoltaic power and wind power. As a utility ESS with larger capacity can store more energy, it can supply energy to larger number of facilities.

Samsung SDI also unveiled P3, a further upgraded high-power model. P3 is designed to maintain high-power for longer time by using 78Ah high-power and high energy density cells with 15% increased capacity without changing the size of 68Ah battery cells adopted for previous models.

P3 model can be used for power stabilization that requires high-power ESS. An ESS for power stabilization plays the role of stabilizing quality of power at the substation by maintaining power of the generator at a certain value. ESS allows supplying high quality power by storing power when it exceeds standard value and discharging power when it is in shortage. And when power is insufficient, it needs high-power ESS that can supplement strong energy in an instant.

The common feature of E2 and P3 is that their energy density is improved by increasing capacity while retaining the size of previous ESS containers. ESSs with increased energy density can save construction and facility management costs by reducing scale of ESS facilities. Eventually, this will lead to reduction in investment on the part of customers.

In addition, Samsung SDI displayed two new residential ESS modules. One of them is an advanced lithium-ion ESS battery that can replace previous lead-acid battery by adopting a technology of delivering 48V, the same voltage as the lead-acid battery. The other is an ESS product that can reduce cost of ESS system by providing high voltage.

"The new lineup further sharpens competitive edge of our ESS products. We will lead the world market by developing advanced ESS technologies ahead of others," said Sewoong Park, vice president for ESS Team, Samsung SDI.

Navigant Research expects that the world ESS market will grow by around 50% to 4.3GWh in this year, and sharply increase by around 60% annually by 2020 to 14.8GWh. In its report on the world ESS market for 2015, B3, a market research institution, announced that Samsung SDI ranked first in the market by taking 18% of its share.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005683/en/

Contacts:

Samsung SDI

Yongdoo Shin, +82-2-2255-2614

ydoo.shin@samsung.com
StepInside will enhance shopper's experience and enable retailers to connect with their customers

Senion today announced that its robust indoor positioning system (IPS), StepInside, is installed in the world-class GINZA SIX retail complex in Tokyo, Japan. When it opens April 20, GINZA SIX will be the largest commercial establishment in the prestigious Ginza district, and the first in Japan to have an indoor navigation system according to complex officials. StepInside will help shoppers navigate the expansive, 19 floor, state-of-the-art facility with retail space spanning 500,000 square feet over eight floors using their smartphones.

GINZA SIX will feature 241 brands including flagship luxury stores and notable restaurants and is committed to providing shoppers with a superior and smooth shopping experience. Senion's indoor positioning system technology, coupled with the GINZA SIX mobile app developed by Tigerspike, will enable shoppers to understand their location within the vast facility, and will show them the shortest route to their destination.

More than 20 million people are expected to visit GINZA SIX each year, many of whom will be tourists unfamiliar with the enormous facility. Shoppers can download the free GINZA SIX mobile app and use it for indoor navigation, to receive the latest news and promotions from stores, to make reservations for dinner or services, and many more useful functions to enhance their visit.

"GINZA SIX Management Co. recognizes that shoppers are looking for unique services and personalized attention when going to a mall, and StepInside is an effective tool for providing an interactive and personalized shopping experience," said Dr. Christian Lundquist, Senion CEO and Co-Founder. "Our technology also offers a valuable channel for retailers to connect with the consumer, which can be challenging for brick-and-mortar retail establishments."

StepInside comprises IPS hardware (including enterprise-grade beacons) and software solutions from Senion in a comprehensive suite designed for accurate indoor positioning for mobile devices. StepInside provides a smooth, accurate and responsive user experience, in real time.

About Senion

Senion is a global leader in indoor positioning solutions, bringing a seamless, responsive, and consumer-friendly foundation for location-based services applications. Senion comprehensive IPS services include analytics, wayfinding, geofencing, friend finder and tracking. With more than 300 IPS installations globally, Senion has worked closely with shopping malls, hospitals, corporate campuses and more to improve workflows. Senion is headquartered in Linkoping, Sweden, and San Francisco. Find us on the web at www.senion.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005767/en/

Contacts:

Rainier Communications (US)

Alan Ryan, (00) 1-508-475-0025 ext. 116

Senion@Rainierco.com


WOLFSBURG (dpa-AFX) - German automaker Volkswagen Group (VKW.L, VLKAF.PK, VOW.BE) announced Tuesday that it expects fiscal 2017 sales revenues to grow by up to 4 percent year-on-year. In terms of the operating result, Volkswagen anticipates an operating return on sales of between 6 and 7 percent. Deliveries in 2017 are expected to moderately exceed the prior-year volume amid persistently challenging market conditions.



The company also reaffirmed the financial targets associated with 'TOGETHER - Strategy 2025'. The operating return on sales is expected to increase to 7 to 8 percent and the return on investment in the automobile sector to more than 15 percent.



In a statement, the company noted that challenges will arise particularly from the economic situation, intense competition in the market, volatile exchange rates and the diesel issue.



At the presentation of the 2016 annual financial statements in Wolfsburg, CEO Matthias Muller said, 'The last year was a challenging yet remarkably successful year for us. In 2016 we set the course for the biggest transformation in the history of the company - while at the same time performing better in our operating business than many thought possible. Volkswagen is back on track.'



The company noted that all brands contributed to its success in 2016 by delivering a positive operating result.



In fiscal 2016, Volkswagen reported a profit share of 5.1 billion euros for shareholders. With 7.1 billion euros, operating result turned positive, despite special items. The operating return increased to 3.3 percent from negative 1.9 percent last year.



In the previous year, expenses related to the diesel crisis amounted to 16.2 billion euros. The adjusted operating result of 14.6 billion euros exceeded the previous year's figure significantly, due particularly to optimized product costs and improvements in the mix.



Sales revenue of the Volkswagen Group of 217.3 billion euros exceeded the expected figure by around 4 billion euros.



The company also exceeded forecast by delivering 10.3 million vehicles to customers in 2016. Volkswagen sold 4.0 million units in China, 12.2 percent more than in the previous year.



Further, the company said its Board of Management and Supervisory Board will propose a dividend of 2 euros per ordinary share and 2.06 euros per preferred share to the Annual General Meeting.



Regarding its 'TOGETHER - Strategy 2025' future program, the company reported noticeable progress in all four of the strategy's core fields of action.



Muller added, 'The transformation of the core automotive business is on track, the new mobility services business unit is taking shape, our traditionally high innovative strength has been given yet another solid boost and financially, we have the realignment process well under control.'



For the current year, the company aims to step up the pace of its Strategy 2025 implementation. The company plans to continue the SUV campaign already underway with a total of seven new models. The planned economy vehicle partnerships are expected to commence operations in 2017 with the first models planned for 2018 and 2019.



Further, the company plans for more than ten electrified models in 2017/2018 and more than 30 new, entirely battery electric vehicles by 2025.



In Germany, Volkswagen shares were trading at 143.85 euros, down 0.21 percent.



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SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- NGINX, Inc., the engine delivering sites and applications for the modern web, today announced the availability of NGINX Plus Release 12 (R12), the latest release of its application delivery platform. NGINX Plus R12 significantly improves NGINX's high-performance load balancer, content cache, and web server, providing enterprises with even more features for delivering applications with performance, reliability, security, and scale.

NGINX Plus R12 was developed in response to user requests for more programmability, scalability, and automated management. To this end, NGINX Plus R12 focuses on configuration management within a cluster, enhanced programmability with nginScript, deeper monitoring and instrumentation of key application resources, and the ability to safely autoscale load-balanced applications with proactive application-level health checks. Together, these advances deliver a compelling suite of capabilities for both dynamic, web-scale application providers, and forward-leaning enterprises seeking to ready their IT infrastructure for the demands of modern digital business.

"In today's digital environment, it's more important than ever to deliver feature-rich sites and applications, without downtime or delays," said Gus Robertson, CEO of NGINX, Inc. "Today's updates to NGINX Plus will empower organizations to deliver the outstanding digital experiences that users rely on, while ensuring they can easily monitor and maintain them on the backend with detailed monitoring and health checks."

Key new capabilities in the NGINX Plus R12 release include a new process to reliably check and distribute load-balancing and web serving configuration within a cluster of NGINX Plus servers. Additionally, the nginScript configuration language has reached maturity and is fully supported in NGINX Plus. Advances in monitoring and instrumentation provide actionable insights on application performance and NGINX Plus tuning, and new caching features improve performance to enhance the end-user experience. Finally, NGINX Plus load balancing has been enhanced with new application-level health checks features to support the autoscaling of application resources in a safe, controlled fashion.

NGINX Plus extends open source NGINX with advanced features and support, for an enterprise-ready solution. The NGINX, Inc. support team was recently recognized with a Gold Stevie Award in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

To see a full list of new and improved features in NGINX Plus R12, please visit: https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-plus-r12-released/

To learn more about NGINX, visit www.nginx.com. Join the conversation by following @nginx on Twitter.

About NGINX, Inc.

NGINX is the heart of the modern web -- helping the world's most innovative companies deliver their sites and applications with performance, reliability, security, and scale. The company offers an award-winning, comprehensive application delivery platform in use on more than 300 million sites worldwide. Companies around the world rely on NGINX to ensure flawless digital experiences through features such as advanced load balancing, web and mobile acceleration, security controls, application monitoring, and management. More than half of the Internet's busiest websites rely on NGINX, including Airbnb, Box, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, SoundCloud, and Zappos. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with its EMEA headquarters in Cork, Ireland, and additional offices in the US and Europe. Learn more at https://www.nginx.com/

U.S. Press Contact

Chad Torbin

Email Contact

415.548.6536




NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - March 14, 2017) - In a new, first of its kind analysis of combined online and offline consumer conversations, Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) released its TotalSocial rankings on the top performing airline companies in the U.S. and identified JetBlue and Alaska Airlines as the leading airline brands in consumer engagement.

The rankings of the top U.S. airlines are based on Engagement Labs' proprietary TotalSocial data, which measure the most important drivers of brand performance in a detailed and continuous analysis of social media and word of mouth conversations.

As a whole, the airline category performs better in terms of the quality of face-to-face conversations as compared to online social media. Consistent with its category, JetBlue tops the chart with a stronger offline score, which may be attributed to its in-person pop-up stunts and unique campaigns, such as its recent takeover of New York's Jamaica Station, offering local commuters a special flight promotion. Interestingly, JetBlue secures the top rating despite falling short of being the leader on any individual metric, such as volume, sentiment, brand sharing or influence. What allows Jet Blue to rise to the top is that it shows a higher relative consistency across all dimension compared to other airlines.

"JetBlue and Alaska Airlines have been very effective in generating meaningful and positive consumer conversations, both offline and online, and they are performing well with regard to the range of metrics that must all work together to drive consumer engagement; other airlines such as Delta, United and Spirit have yet to crack the code," said Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs. "As shown in our data, JetBlue and Alaska are dominating conversations as a result of their innovative marketing tactics which go beyond the typical service expected from airlines and also go beyond the screen to consider how they can drive the all-important offline recommendations as well as tapping into social media. Other carriers seem to be playing it conservatively, and as a consequence, are suffering from sentiment lag. Picture these brands as an aircraft stuck taxiing without yet taking off."

The airline which is the most talked about offline is American Airlines, while Delta leads in volume of online conversations. At the same time, smaller airlines such as Southwest and Alaska are winning the category on sentiment. Known for its discount flight promotions, Southwest Airlines is the front-runner in its category in terms of sentiment in face-to-face conversations. Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines, which reported a $911M profit in 2016, tops the category's rankings for its online sentiment.

With the biggest discrepancy between its online and offline scores, American Airlines ranks as the top airline in Engagement Labs' recently released Social Misfits report. A Social Misfit is defined as a brand that performs very well socially either online or offline, but not both, suggesting an opportunity for the brand to improve performance that could drive enhanced marketing effectiveness and ROI.

Download Engagement Labs' e-book to learn more about the Social Misfits rankings data at socialmisfits.engagementlabs.com.

To learn more about Engagement Labs or TotalSocial insights and how to increase your brand's word of mouth in real life and online, reach out at: totalsocial@engagementlabs.com.

About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) is the world's first TotalSocial' company, offering intelligent data, analytics and insights for marketers. We are leaders in tracking, measuring and benchmarking the impact of conversations happening around a brand and industry - both online and offline. Consumer conversations are a proven driver of critical business outcomes, including sales. The patent pending TotalSocial data solution provides brands with unique insights and powerful analytics to understand online and offline social impact and drive business results. TotalSocial demonstrates to marketers how their online and offline conversation compare and contrast and helps identify areas of competitive opportunity or significant emerging threats. TotalSocial is an "always-on" proprietary scoring system, based on the most important drivers of brand performance: Volume, Sentiment, Brand Sharing and Influence. TotalSocial was built on the pillars of Engagement Labs' patented social media measurement tool and the world's only offline word of mouth tracking system for brands and tracks 500 brands within the U.S. across 17 major industry categories, and 350 brands in the UK.

To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.totalsocial.com.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/3/13/11G132955/Images/Airlines_Ranker_v2-e394d482413aaafd88b80ffdc9030e6c.jpg

For media inquiries please contact:



Kate Tumino

KCSA Strategic Communications

ktumino@kcsa.com

212-896-1252


LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Bank of England's Charlotte Hogg offered her resignation after lawmakers sharply criticized her for not disclosing about her brother's job in Barclays Plc.



The Treasury Select Committee remarked in a report, published Tuesday, that Hogg's 'professional competence falls short of the very high standards required to fulfill the additional responsibilities of Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking'.



Hogg voluntarily offered her resignation on Monday, admitting the mistake in declaring the conflict of interest.



She acknowledged in a letter on March 3 that she formally disclosed her brother's position as Director, Group Strategy at Barclays for the first time only in a response to a questionnaire from the lawmakers for appointment scrutiny.



'I have made no secret of my brother's job - indeed it was I who informed the Treasury Select Committee of it, before my hearing,' she said in her resignation letter addressed to BoE Governor Mark Carney and Anthony Habgood, the chair of the bank's governing court.



'I have not shared confidential information or misused it in any way.'



'I do not have any financial relationship with my brother and I am utterly committed to the safeguarding of confidential information and the separation of a home and work life,' she wrote.



Hogg became the first chief operating officer of the BoE in 2013 and took charge as Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking on March 1.



Governor Carney expressed deep regret that Hogg has chosen to resign from the bank.



'The Bank of England today is stronger, more diverse, secure and effective in large part because of Charlotte Hogg,' Carney said in a response letter to Hogg's resignation.



'We will do everything we can to honor her work for the people of the United Kingdom by building on her contributions.'



Hogg, a member of one of Britain's influential political families, would have been in charge of the central bank's asset purchases in her role as the deputy governor. Her resignation comes at a crucial juncture as the country's prepares to trigger its exit from the European Union at the end of March.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Oskanian says their trio excludes the return of territories (video)

We are moving ahead with a well-known principle: one step forward, two steps back. We are going to put an end to the atmosphere of injustice, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, who leads the list of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) alliance, said in Vayk town as he campaigned for the opposition bloc. Ohanyan says he is often asked whether he had any benefit from his involvement in the race. I always answer that we shall either have victory or people will continue to stay in this condition, he stressed. We can achieve changes through elections; they are an important tool for solving serious problems. I promise here looking into the eyes of each of you that we shall frequently come here to report about what we have done for this country, Mr Ohanyan said. He says 'the allaince has a large team of supporters' and asks them to go from one house to another to inform everyone that the ORO will stand by the people. Armenia is already considered an authoritarian state, said former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. In the past, Armenia was considered a free country in terms of press freedom while today the press in Armenia is considered not free. Ironically, Armenia has dropped from the 101st to the 121st position according to the corruption perceptions index. If we come to power, we will change this situation, he said. Oskanian added that their trio excludes the return of territories. The alliance will next meet residents of Syunik marz.


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The euro slipped against its major counterparts in the European session on Tuesday, as data showed that German economic sentiment improved less than expected in March, as well as on concerns over the Netherlands' elections tomorrow, amid rising tide of populism in Europe.



Survey data from the the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research/ZEW showed that the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment gained 2.4 points to 12.8 in March. The score was below the long-term average of 23.9 and the expected level of 13.0.



The current conditions index of the survey rose 0.9 points to 77.3 in March. The expected reading was 78.0.



Preliminary data from Eurostat showed that Eurozone industrial production growth eased at a faster-than-expected pace at the start of the year amid weaker gains in almost all sectors.



Industrial production rose 0.6 percent year-on-year following 2.5 percent growth in December, which was revised from 2 percent. Economists had forecast 0.9 percent gain.



With Dutch Parliamentary election due tomorrow, investors fret over strong showing of the eurosceptic candidate Geert Wilders in polls, which risks fragmentation of the currency bloc.



Opinion polls were divided on Monday, with two showing the ruling party ahead of the anti-European Union Freedom Party, while the other showed both of them are running almost neck-and-neck in the tight race.



The euro held steady against its major counterparts in the Asian session, with the exception of the pound.



The single currency dropped to a 4-day low of 1.0629 against the greenback, compared to Monday's closing value of 1.0651. Continuation of the euro's downtrend may see it challenging support around the 1.05 zone.



The euro declined to a 4-day low of 1.0719 against the Swiss franc and held steady thereafter. Further weakness may take the euro to a support around the 1.06 region.



Pulling away from an early high of 122.63 against the Japanese yen, the common currency slid to a session's low of 122.14. The next possible support for the euro may be located around the 120.5 area.



The euro pared gains to 1.5374 against the kiwi, from a high of 1.5431 hit at 4:00 am ET. The euro is poised to find support around the 1.52 region.



The euro weakened to a 3-day low of 1.4053 against the aussie, after climbing to 1.4112 in the Asian session. The euro is seen finding support around the 1.39 zone.



On the flip side, the euro held firm against the pound with the pair trading at 0.8766. The pair was valued at 0.8718 when it finished Monday's trading.



Bank of England's Charlotte Hogg offered her resignation after lawmakers sharply criticized her for not disclosing about her brother's job in Barclays Plc.



The Treasury Select Committee remarked in a report that Hogg's 'professional competence falls short of the very high standards required to fulfill the additional responsibilities of Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking'.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Abenteuer Resources Corp. ("Abenteuer" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: ABU), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Roughrider Energy Corp., is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement to acquire (the "Proposed Acquisition") the Temiskaming & Fabre Cobalt - Silver property ("the "Property") located in Quebec's Fabre Township. The Property is located immediately east of the shores of Lake Temiskaming across from the historical mining-town of Cobalt, Ontario within the eastern extent of the famous Cobalt Silver Mining Camp. The northern portion of the Property, known as Temiskaming, is composed of twenty-seven contiguous claims covering an area of approximately 1577 hectares and the southern portion of the Property, known as Fabre, is composed of eleven contiguous claims covering an area of approximately 643 hectares.

Highlights of the Proposed Acquisition:

-- Located in mining friendly jurisdiction of Quebec underlain by geology that is prospective for Cobalt and other minerals; -- Previous historical exploration efforts and government reports identified compelling targets that have not been followed up on; -- Project is road accessible year round by Quebec Highway 101, which runs through the Property; -- The "Fabre Showing", situated immediately in between Temiskaming and Fabre, was drilled by Techni-Lab Abitibi Inc. in 1995, discovering two high grade zones mineralized with Cobalt, Silver and Bismuth (Cobalt values up to 8%, Silver grades as high as 714 g/t, and Bismuth grades up to 1.1%). (1)

The areas in proximity to the historically significant mining-town of Cobalt, Ontario have recently been the focus of heightened activity and exploration efforts in an attempt at identifying and uncovering new Cobalt discoveries. In what was largely seen as a silver camp during the period 1900 to 2000, the prospective for cobalt occurrences in Ontario and Quebec have sparked renewed interest in these areas. As demand for electric vehicles and energy storage continues to escalate, cobalt (which is a vital component of Lithium-ion batteries - comprising up to 60% of the commodity inputs) is fast becoming a highly strategic and sought after metal. It is estimated that 98% of the world's cobalt production is produced as a result of by-product mining from copper and nickel operations. By virtue, with curtailments in recent years of copper and nickel production, cobalt production has decreased in lockstep. Further, with approximately 60% of current global cobalt supply coming out the Democratic Republic of the Congo, end users are in search of supply sources that are domiciled in politically stable jurisdictions.

(1) This information is taken from Quebec historical GESTIM report number GM53265. The report is available to purchase on Quebec's Le SIGEOM a la carte.

Transaction Terms

The Company is acquiring the Property from arm's-length vendors in exchange for 4.5 million common shares of the Company (the "Consideration Shares"). The vendors have agreed to a voluntary pooling of the Consideration Shares whereby 50% of the Consideration Shares will be released after expiry of the 4 month plus one day hold period and the remaining 50% of the Consideration Shares will be released nine months after the initial issuance.

The Proposed Transaction is subject to approval from the TSX Venture Exchange.

About the Property

The Property geology is Proterozoic and Archaean in age. On Temiskaming, the bedrock geology is comprised primarily of sedimentary rocks: conglomerate, quartz arenite, arkose and mudstone. These sedimentary rocks have been intruded by gabbro. Further, there is a minor andesite component in the northeastern part of Temiskaming, the rock type that hosts the "Fabre Showing". The bedrock geology of the southern Fabre block consists of a complex geology in the west. The western portion is a sedimentary package and gabbro intrusive with an accessory amount of volcanic tuff. The central and eastern parts of Fabre are composed primarily of an anorthosite-gabbro intrusive. The margins of the Property are mapped as tonalite. Located immediately in between Temiskaming and Fabre is the Fabre Showing. Drilled in 1995 by Techni-Lab Abitibi Inc., two high-grade zones mineralized with Cobalt, Silver and Bismuth were discovered. The highest grades appear to be present in veins mineralized with sphalerite, chalcopyrite and pyrite set within an altered andesite. The discovery of the Fabre Showing pre-dates National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") and as a result this work was not necessarily prepared under the supervision of a qualified person. The Company has not independently confirmed nor verified the historical work.

Table 1: The Fabre Cobalt-Silver Showing Drill Intercept (taken from report: GM53265) (2)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DDH From To Length Cobalt Cobalt Silver Bismuth Number (metres) (metres) (metres) (Percent) (g/t) (g/t) (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- FU-95-1 113.10 115.95 2.85 0.55 5,500.00 150.67 2,244.00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Including 114.73 115.30 0.57 2.70 27,000.00 714.20 11,000.00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- FU-95-1 131.41 134.49 3.08 0.93 9,300.00 166.11 490.97 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Including 131.41 131.90 0.49 8.00 80,000.00 600.00 4,200.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interpretations and Exploration Targets on Temiskaming

Previous historical exploration work was conducted by SOQUEM, a government agency founded in 1965 with a mandate to explore, discover and develop mining properties in Quebec. SOQUEM noted a thin syenite intrusive and suggested that instrusives are a key factor leading to mineralization in the thick sedimentary package when they drilled the Property in 1966. This is the case across the lake in Cobalt, Ontario. Analysis of historical drill logs has indicated that chalcopyrite and pyrite mineralization is most common near veins and or alteration zones. These alteration zones seem to be present near veins as well as intrusives. As a result, these alteration zones and contact points are the key exploration targets on the Property. Initial geological interpretation and analysis has identified five key prospective targets for the Company to focus on as outlined in Table 2. All quoted historical data, drilling and core logging pre-dates NI 43-101 and as a result was not supervised by a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. The Company has not independently confirmed nor verified the historical work.

(2) Refer to a news release by Tres-Or Resources at www.tres-or.com/announcements/tres-or-exploration-update-and-drill-program-in-quebec.

Table 2: Key Exploration Targets on Temiskaming

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exploration Target Description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DDH B-3.20-61 The drill log describes a sandstone mineralized with pyrite and chalcopyrite. The sandstone also had accessory amounts of mudstone, conglomerate and syenite. The drill log also suggests alteration could be due to a proximal gabbro intrusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DH 293 The drill log described mineralized bands of chalcopyrite and pyrite within sediments appearing to be present along bands that display different grain sizes in the sedimentary package. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geological Contacts Significant focus on where the gabbro contacts sedimentary rocks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nickel Potential in In 1998 Pro Or conducted Nickel exploration in the Gabbro area (including the Property). Samples with grades up to 1.74% Nickel and 5.33% Chrome in a magnetic gabbro were observed. Canadian Cobalt production is primarily associated with Nickel mining. It is uncertain what exact nickel and chrome sample values were taken on the Property. Future work will aid in determining if there is any potential for such mineralization on the Property. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gold potential Pro Or also sampled for Gold in the Fabre area (including on the Property). A series of 7 samples with anomalous Gold values over 1 g/t were noted with the highest grade being 23.69 g/t. It is uncertain what gold sample values were taken on the Property. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interpretations and Exploration Targets on Fabre

A total of five diamond drill holes were drilled on the Property by the Quebec government between 1962 and 1975. Although the historical reports did not contain assay values, the drill holes intercepted arkose mineralized with chalcopyrite as well as conglomerates, siltstone, argillite and granodiorite. It appears that the best exploration targets are located on the western portion of the Property in the general area of historical drilling. Targeting the contact points between sedimentary or volcanic rocks against intrusives appears to offer the most prospective geological environment for mineralization. All quoted historical data and drilling pre-dates NI 43-101 and as a result was not supervised by a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. The Company has not confirmed nor verified the historical work.

Table 3: Key Exploration Targets on Fabre

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exploration Target Description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DDH 1 (Report GM27945) Drilled proximal to the contact of the gabbro and conglomerate. A mineralized quartz vein was noted in the drill log and is a target. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DDH 2 (Report GM27945) Like DDH 1, this hole was drilled proximal to the contact of the gabbro and conglomerate. A mineralized quartz vein was not noted in the drill log. Either the hole was stopped early or the vein is not present in this location. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabbro and Volcanic Rocks Gabbro and volcanic rocks dominate the central portions of the property. These rocks, especially the interface between gabbro and volcanics, are key targets. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sedimentary - Gabbro Contact This contact appears as an additional target to examine in future work programs on the Fabre property. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Thomas Clarke P.Geo., Pr.Sci.Nat., a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101.

About the Company

Abenteuer is an energy company that currently has stable oil production through operations in southeastern Saskatchewan. The Company is focused on adding, creating and increasing value through the acquisition, development and production of conventional oil and gas assets as well as alternative energy sources such as cobalt and lithium, particularly in North America.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statements regarding Forward-Looking Information:

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information as defined by law including without limitation Canadian securities laws and the "safe harbor" provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("forward-looking statements"). These forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. All statements including, without limitation, statements relating to the potential mineralization and geological merits of the Temiskaming-Fabre area and the Company's properties and other future plans, objectives or expectations of the Company are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's plans or expectations include risks relating to the actual results of current or future exploration activities, fluctuating commodity prices, possibility of equipment breakdowns and delays, exploration cost overruns, availability of capital and financing, general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes, timeliness of government or regulatory approvals and other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation.

Contacts:

Abenteuer Resources Corp.

Jeff Davis

(604) 312-5189




Industrial DFX memory tokens are available at booth #4A-351

ATEK Access Technologies today announced it has expanded its Datakey RUGGEDrive line of USB flash drive and SD memory tokens with a new line of industrial models, providing industrial SD card functionality in the unique RUGGEDrive form factor. The new Industrial DFX memory tokens add industrial temperature operation, a fixed bill of materials and SLC NAND flash capabilities. The new RUGGEDrive models will be on display at Embedded World 2017, March 14-16 in Nuremberg, Germany at the Datakey booth (#4A-351).

Consumer-grade SD cards that meet the SD specification operate over the temperature range of -25C to +85C. The Datakey Industrial DFX models operate over the full industrial temperature range of -40C to +85C. This expanded lower temperature range can be important for certain military, agriculture and industrial applications. The Industrial DFX memory tokens also feature a fixed bill of materials (BOM), which ensures consistent performance over time.

"The main components that make up an SD card are the controller IC, the firmware it runs and the NAND flash," said Paul Plitzuweit, Senior Product Manager for the Datakey line. "With consumer SD cards, these components can change from lot-to-lot, resulting in varying levels of performance and reliability."

The new Industrial DFX memory tokens are available with either Multi-Level Cell (MLC) or Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND flash. SLC NAND flash has several advantages over MLC NAND flash, which can be important in some applications, including:

Increased Program/Erase Cycles

NAND flash memory cells wear down with use. MLC cells are commonly rated for 3,000 program/erase cycles, where SLC cells are commonly rated for between 60,000 and 100,000 cycles, making it a better choice for write-intensive applications.

NAND flash memory cells wear down with use. MLC cells are commonly rated for 3,000 program/erase cycles, where SLC cells are commonly rated for between 60,000 and 100,000 cycles, making it a better choice for write-intensive applications. Faster Write Speeds

With only a single bit being stored per cell for SLC, there is less logic required to write to a cell as compared to MLC, which stores two bits per cell.

With only a single bit being stored per cell for SLC, there is less logic required to write to a cell as compared to MLC, which stores two bits per cell. Longer Product Life Cycles

With SLC largely restricted to non-consumer embedded applications, it does not face the same pressures to continually shift to smaller die geometries and higher densities. Therefore, SLC products have better long-term product availability.

With SLC largely restricted to non-consumer embedded applications, it does not face the same pressures to continually shift to smaller die geometries and higher densities. Therefore, SLC products have better long-term product availability. Better Unpowered Data Retention

For applications where there will be long periods when the memory device will be unpowered, SLC NAND flash will provide longer data retention. This is especially important if the device will be stored in a high temperature environment.

First launched in late 2010, the RUGGEDrive line gives embedded systems designers a more rugged and secure alternative to consumer USB flash drives and SD cards. The proprietary shape of the RUGGEDrive memory token prevents it from plugging into standard ports. Instead, RUGGEDrive receptacles are used on the embedded device. This prevents unapproved devices (like USB flash drives or SD cards) from connecting to the system. The RUGGEDrive token also utilizes solid over-molded construction, making it many times stronger than traditional SD cards (see destructive testing video).

Stop by the Datakey booth (#4A-351) at Embedded World to see new Industrial RUGGEDrive products and follow Datakey on Twitter for updates using the hashtag ew17.

For more information about the Datakey Industrial and Commercial RUGGEDrive Line products, visit www.datakey.com.

About ATEK Access Technologies

ATEK Access Technologies, LLC is part of the ATEK Companies group of technology and manufacturing businesses. Its industry-leading brands use the power of advanced machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies to provide customers access to superior efficiencies and savings, essential data and systems, improved safety and control, and expert solutions and support. Its brands include Datakey, Larco, TankScan and AssetScan. For more information, visit www.atekaccess.com.

ATEK's Datakey product line features portable memory devices that utilize solid over-molded construction, industrial-temperature electronics, redundant electrical contacts and harsh-environment, high cycle-life receptacles. Additionally, Datakey products have a proven history of long-term availability that consumer memory products, like USB flash drives and SD cards, lack. Since 1976, Datakey products have been the preferred portable memory solution by many of the world's largest defense, medical and commercial OEMs. For more information, visit www.datakey.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005901/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Christina Alvarez

Mulberry Marketing Communications

214-720-5943

calvarez@mulberrymc.com
NEW DELHI, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

- Global Visionaries, Thinkers and Business Leaders From 20 Countries Will Congregate in New Delhi on March 27-28

- Andhra Pradesh as the Official State Partner Bets Big on Investments at Global Business Summit 2017

With historic addresses made at the last two years' Global Business Summit on India's strategic roadmap, Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will once again be the star attraction at this year's Global Business Summit (GBS) presented by YES Bank and The Economic Times on March 27-28in Delhi with Andhra Pradesh as the official state partner. It was at the first GBS, where he had dared Indian business leaders to dream of a $20 trillion economy. And, at last year's edition of the event, he spelt out his elaborate vision for rebooting India. The Prime Minister is yet again expected to deliver a thought-provoking and inspirational address reinstating his vision of a 'new age India' amidst a dynamic global environment.

Built around the theme 'Conquering Uncertainty, Discovering Opportunities', the two-day summit will host thoughtful discussions on issues relevant to India and the world as a whole - India's digital reforms, Post Trump America, Brexit fallout, fate of Eurozone, China slowdown and the steps needed to deal with surprises and shocks of 2017.

This year's summit has already garnered an enviable roster of global thought leaders and delegates including Dick Cheney, Former Vice President of the United States; Shane Smith, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Vice Media; Lei Jun, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Xiaomi; Peter G Hall, Vice-President and Chief Economist - Export Development Canada; Vimal Shah, Chief Executive Officer - BIDCO (Africa); Marco Gloria, Chairman and CEO - GFB (Mexico); Benny Landa, an industry pioneer from Israel with over 800 patents to his credit and Avi Luvton - Director of Innovation Authority in Israel amongst many other leaders.

One of the key sessions will bring together Andy Xie, Renowned Chinese Economist and Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser who will discuss the future of Asian economies in the wake of global changes.

Another anticipated session will be CEO's talk with Vanitha Narayanan, Chairman, IBM India; Amit Midha, President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Dell; Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman, BCG (Asia-Pacific); Guenter Butschek, CEO, Tata Motors and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, Paytm, who will expedite on one of the most discussed topics in the recent times - 'Navigating Digital Disruptions'.

Andhra Pradesh, being the official state partner, will have a large delegation to be led by Hon'ble Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who is expected to make strong pitches to global leaders and investors for bringing in investments in the state on the back of conducive business environment.

As with the last two years, this year's summit will also bring together a large contingent of delegates from across the globe, the who's who of the Indian political elite and industry thought leaders making it an even grander platform for rendezvous and thoughtful interactions.



Media contact:

Japneet Kathuria

Japneet.Kathuria@bm.com

+91-9899594910


PUNE, India, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

According to the new market research report "Wireless Power Transmission Market by Technology (Induction, Magnetic Resonance), Implementation, Transmitter, and Receiver Application (Smartphones, Electric Vehicles, Wearable Electronics, and Furniture) and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets, the market is expected to be worth USD 11.27 Billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 23.15% between 2017 and 2022.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse73 market Tables and62 Figures spread through 163 Pages on"Wireless Power Transmission Market"



http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/wireless-power-market-168050212.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The factors that are driving the growth of the wireless power transmission market include the convenience offered by and consumer preference for wireless connectivity and need for effective charging systems. The market has also witnessed significant developments for wireless charging as many start-ups have developed the products based on laser and microwave technologies, which can charge multiple devices at a time.



"Magnetic resonance technology is expected to make inroads in the wireless power transmission market "

The companies and researchers have invested significantly in the development of resonance technology. This technology has growth potential in applications such as smartphone charging, electric vehicle charging, wearable electronics charging, and industrial. Due to its user friendliness, the market for this technology is expected to witness the highest growth between 2017 and 2022.

Download PDF Brochure @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=168050212

"Electric vehicle charging application is expected to surge the wireless power transmission market between 2017 and 2022."

The wireless charging technology is considered as the best solution for charging electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. Wireless electric vehicle charging is possible through inductive technology, and many companies are providing the complete wireless charging solution for the electric vehicles; however, wireless charging yet to realize its full potential and come to the mainstream. In 2017, Mercedes-Benz (Germany) is expected to launch the luxurious hybrid-powered sedan car (probably from S-Class series) that is enabled with the wireless charging technology. BMW AG (Germany) is also on the list of future wireless charging car manufacturers. Toshiba Corporation also had a trail run for 45-seaters electric bus for wireless charging. The contactless charger based on the magnetic resonance technology is designed in association with the Waseda University.

"European market is expected to grow at the highest rate between 2017 and 2022"

Europe, being one of the early adopters of this technology, is expected to grow at a high rate. Europe is the automotive hub, and the developments in the European market, especially in electric vehicles and wearable electronics, are expected to boost the growth of the wireless power transmission market in this region. The European Green Vehicles Initiative Association (EGVI), a Europe-based company, has undertaken UNPLUGGED and FABRIC projects on wireless charging of electric vehicles.

Inquiry Before Buy @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=168050212

The major players involved in the wireless power transmission market include Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Qualcomm Inc. (U.S.), Texas Instruments Inc. (U.S.), TDK Corp. (Japan), Witricity Corp. (U.S.), and Integrated Device Corp. (U.S.).

Various start-ups in the wireless power transmission market include Ossia, Inc. (U.S.), Wi-Charge Ltd. (Israel), Energous Corporation (U.S.), Humavox Ltd. (Israel), and Fulton Innovation LLC (U.S.).

Browse Related Reports

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Market by Charging Station (AC Charging Station, DC Charging Station, Inductive Charging Station), Connector Type (Chademo, CCS, Others), Location (Public, Private), and Geography - Global Trend and Forecast to 2022

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-market-21599205.html

Wireless Connectivity Market by Connectivity Technology (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, NFC, Cellular, Enocean), Application (Wearable Devices, Healthcare, Automotive & Transportation, Consumer Electronics), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/wireless-connectivity-market-192605963.html

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San Daniele Del Friuli, Italien (ots/PRNewswire) -Lima Corporate, ein multinationales Unternehmen im Bereich Medizingerate mit Niederlassung in Villanova in San Daniele del Friuli, hat fur heute eine besondere Version seines jahrlichen Treffens der erweiterten Managementteams organisiert. Das erweiterte Managementteam umfasst alle direkten Untergebenen des Managements auf internationaler Ebene. Dies ist die Gelegenheit, das Team in Bezug auf alle wichtigen Themen im Rahmen der Unternehmensstrategie auf einen Nenner zu bringen und Ideen zu solchen Themen auszutauschen. Am Meeting nehmen ca. 80 Personen aus nahezu 20 Landern teil.(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150417/739765 )Dieses Jahr liegt der Schwerpunkt auf "Wertschopfung", und es geht darum, wie jeder der Teilnehmer zusammen mit seinem Team in der taglichen Arbeit seinen Beitrag zur Erreichung der Unternehmensziele leisten kann. Zwei besondere Gaste wurden eingeladen, um die Bedeutung der Wertschopfung zu betonen. Sie stehen fur hervorragende Leistungen im Bereich Orthopadie: Louis Shapiro, Prasident und CEO des Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) und Elena Bottinelli, CEO des Galeazzi-Instituts fur Orthopadie. Sie werden hilfreiche Einsichten in die Bedeutung des Begriffs "Wertschopfung" in ihren Organisationen vermitteln. Dies ist ein besonderes Ereignis, in dem alle Funktionsbereiche des Unternehmens (nicht nur Vertrieb und Marketing, wie sonst ublich) sich mit der obersten Fuhrungsebene von Krankenhausern austauschen konnen."Lima investiert schon seit Langem in die Innovation von Systemen, Prozessen und Produkten in der Orthopadie. Dies ist eine auergewohnliche Gelegenheit, die verschiedenen Gesundheitsversorgungsmodelle und -markte zu vergleichen und die Elemente der Diversitat zu bestimmen, zu denen Lima und alle unsere Mitarbeiter Beitrage leisten konnen, um fur alle Beteiligten Werte zu schaffen", sagt Luigi Ferrari, CEO von Lima Corporate.http://www.hss.eduhttp://www.galeazzi.grupposandonato.ithttp://www.limacorporate.comOTS: Lima Corporate newsroom: http://www.presseportal.de/nr/116744 newsroom via RSS: http://www.presseportal.de/rss/pm_116744.rss2Pressekontakt: Melissa Della Putta +39-0432-945-447 melissa.dellaputta@limacorporate.com
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- EchoPixel today announced progress in the clinical adoption of its True 3D Viewer Software for pediatric surgical procedures that allows clinicians to use real patient image data in a desktop virtual-reality environment. At several leading clinical sites, surgeons and radiologists are adopting the True 3D Viewer Software, powered by innovative HP displays, to develop surgical plans, effectively communicate in a common 3D language, and assist in challenging procedures. EchoPixel's True 3D Viewer Software translates DICOM image data into life size virtual-reality objects, allowing physicians to move, turn, dissect, and closely examine patient-specific anatomy.

At Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, doctors have used EchoPixel's True 3D Viewer Software -- in conjunction with the HP Zvr virtual reality Display and HP Z440 Workstation -- to assist in a number of surgical procedures. In December, doctors used EchoPixel's technology to assist with a groundbreaking seventeen-hour surgery that successfully separated twin girls who were conjoined from the sternum down. True 3D's unique interactive 3D views helped doctors gain a more complete understanding of the unique anatomy prior to, and during, the operation.

At Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, physicians have incorporated EchoPixel's True 3D Viewer Software into an integrated 3D lab, with the goal of establishing 3D technology as a diagnostic tool. The center has focused on using interactive virtual reality to better differentiate certain vascular anomalies in congenital heart disease.

"We're excited to establish 3D virtual viewing as part of our 3D program," said Steve Muyskens, M.D., cardiologist at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. "Having this technology, in addition to 3D printing capabilities, allows Cook Children's cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons to improve the planning of complex procedures and surgeries. We believe this approach will eventually lead to less time in the operating room and fewer complications."

In addition to Packard Children's and Cook Children's, pediatric sites, including Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami and Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, are also embracing EchoPixel's technology. Building on success in clinical uses, the company is looking to expand the role of interactive virtual reality in pediatrics.

"Our True 3D Viewer Software has demonstrated significant results in a range of applications, from septal defects to cardiac valve defects, this is why we're particularly excited about our progress in pediatric cardiology," said Ron Schilling, CEO of EchoPixel. "We're honored to play a role in the success of these complex and difficult operations, and to assist physicians in understanding and working with patient anatomy."

Collaboration with HP

"Our customers rely on HP to help transform lives through innovative solutions," said Reid Oakes, senior director, Worldwide Healthcare, HP Inc. "We've seen the value in EchoPixel's technology and our collaborative approach, and we're excited about virtual reality's ability to change the face of healthcare. The success of the EchoPixel True 3D powered by HP system in pediatrics really validates this as a game-changing tool for doctors."

About EchoPixel

EchoPixel is building a new world of patient care with its groundbreaking medical visualization software. The company's FDA-cleared True 3D Viewer Software uses existing medical image datasets to create virtual reality environments of patient-specific anatomy, allowing physicians to view and dissect images just as they would real, physical objects. The technology's goal is to make reading medical images more intuitive, help physicians reach a diagnosis, and assist in surgical planning. Leading institutions, including the University of California, San Francisco, the Cleveland Clinic, the Lahey Clinic, and others are using True 3D Viewer Software in clinical and research applications. EchoPixel is a privately held, venture backed company located in Mountain View, CA.
Consumers Show Strong Preference for Mirrored Solutions Over Embedded Systems

BOSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent user evaluation from the In-Vehicle UX (IVX) group at Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com) has assessed the 2017 Honda Civic EX-L in-vehicle infotainment system. While the specifications for this system ticked all the desirable boxes for a mid-range model - such as a slick touchscreen interface, embedded speech recognition, Garmin-designed navigation, and integration with CarPlay and Android Auto - unintuitive labelling and UI layout led to problems for consumers completing the most basic tasks such as radio tuning and storing presets.

Surveying consumers in the US using the infotainment system of the 2017 Honda Civic EX-L, Strategy Analytics found that first-time users were confused with the varied functions between the embedded and mirrored systems; and had trouble going back and forth between them. In addition, Honda's embedded system also contained several features which could be accomplished in CarPlay or Android Auto, such as playing a Pandora station or setting a destination via speech recognition. Overall, this led to consumers' positive experiences referencing some aspect of CarPlay and Android Auto, while their negative experiences referenced some aspect of the embedded system.

Click here for report: http://sa-link.cc/1jx

Derek Viita, Senior Analyst and report author commented, "In general, automakers such as Honda are to be commended for adopting a consumer-centric strategy toward availability of CarPlay and Android Auto. Mirrored systems provide an excellent modality for completing several advanced in-car infotainment tasks that previously would have been accomplished in an unsafe manner on the handset."

Continued Viita, "Providing options to the user is always best, but when compared side-by-side for certain tasks, consumers are beginning to show strong preference for mirrored solutions over embedded systems."

Chris Schreiner, Director, IVX added, "In the 2017 Honda Civic, this meant that even an embedded navigation system from Garmin, with its familiar and intuitive UI, was seen as a step down from the mirrored navigation experience."

About Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics, Inc. provides the competitive edge with advisory services, consulting and actionable market intelligence for emerging technology, mobile and wireless, digital consumer and automotive electronics companies. With offices in North America, Europe and Asia, Strategy Analytics delivers insights for enterprise success. www.StrategyAnalytics.com.

About In-vehicle UX

The In-vehicle UX group forms part of the User Experience Innovation Practice (UXIP) at Strategy Analytics. Focusing on user behaviors, motivations and interests within in-vehicle, mobile device, connected home and media & services research areas, UXIP helps clients meet consumer needs, develop usable solutions and deliver compelling user experiences. Extensive expertise and highly experienced in large-scale survey work, in-depth interviews, focus groups and observational sessions, UXIP's research methodology allows strategic user-centric analysis on the potential for new technologies that would otherwise be unavailable. Providing actionable insight, go-to-market strategies and business recommendations, UXIP is a leading supplier of consumer knowledge to the technology industry. Click here for more information.

Press Contacts

US Contact: Derek Viita, +1 617 614 0772, dviita@strategyanalytics.com

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VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

In packaging industries, plastic and metal have always been looked at as alternative materials for glass. On the same lines, demand for glass packaging is expected to lose traction against rising preference for plastic bottles and metal cans. Nevertheless, such preferences get reversed when it comes to packaging highly-reactive fluids, industrial solvents, and alcoholic beverages. Future Market Insights predicts that the growth of global glass container market is, thus, contingent upon growing consumption of such liquids, and alcoholic drinks & beverages.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161020/430874LOGO )



In 2016, more than US$ 46,500 Mn worth of glass containers were consumed globally. Key findings from Future Market Insights' report estimate that the market will be valued at US$ 65,569.4 Mn by the end of 2026. Although, during this forecast period, the global glass container market will exhibit a moderate revenue growth at 4.1% CAGR.

Request a Sample Report with Table of Contents: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-935

Impact of Plastic and Metal Packaging

The report has compiled several factors that impact the growth of global glass container market, and highlighted the ones that restrain the market from attaining steady expansion. First off, the global market for glass containers is expected to continue facing challenges as companies struggle to keep up with pricing pressures. Continuous consolidation of consumer base for glass containers has intensified pricing pressure on manufacturers, compelling them to cater to big clients - the ones demanding their products at low prices.

Then, there's the inexorable competition arising from plastic bottles and metal cans. Baby food, coffee, sauces, and several other such products, which were once packaged in glass containers, are now available in plastic bottles & metal tins. High cost of producing glass containers, their fragile composition, and heavy weight are also prompting food & beverage makers for shifting towards metal or plastic packaging.

Preview Analysis on Glass Container Market Segmentation By Product Type - Glass Bottle (Sauce/Syrup Bottle, French Bottle, Boston Round Bottles, Glass Jugs, Others), Glass Jars (Mason Jars, Hexagonal Jars, Paragon Glass Jars, Straight Jars, Other Jars), Glass Vials (Food Grade Vials, Pharma Grade Vials) and Candle Glass Container; By End Use - Cosmetics & Perfumes, Pharmaceuticals, Food Packaging, Beverage Packaging; By Colour - Amber Glass Containers, Blue Glass Containers and Clear Glass Containers: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/container-glass-market

Rising Demand for Lightweight Glass Bottles

Industry leaders will continue to strive for reducing the weight of glass containers, thereby increasing their sustenance in logistics operations. Lighter glass containers will also gain traction by providing added advantage to manufacturers and increasing profit margins of packaged products. The report reveals that throughout the forecast period, more than two-third of global glass container revenues will be accounted by glass bottles. The demand for glass jar will also be high, while candle glass containers and glass vials will witness a downtrend in terms of consumption.

A majority of glass containers sold in the world are consumed for packaging beverages. In 2016, more than US$ 31,000 Mn worth of glass containers were used for beverage packaging, which alcoholic beverages accounting for 80% of these revenues. Demand for glass containers is also projected to be high in cosmetics & perfumery, revenues from which are likely to soar at 4.6% CAGR. Apart from their end-use and shape, glass containers are also being purchased according to their colour. Almost 45% of the global market value is procured from sales of amber glass containers across the globe. By 2026, more than 32,000 KT of amber glass containers will be consumed globally, according to the report. Clear glass containers, on the other hand, will have procured over 28% share in the global glass container market value by the end of 2026.

Speak with Analyst for any Report Related Queries: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-935

In the report, titled "Glass Container Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026," Europe is identified as the largest market for glass containers. Although, Europe's market value share is expected to be just a tad higher than Asia-Pacific's glass container market, which is procuring around 33% share through 2026. Leading glass container manufacturers in the world are profiled in this report, which include Vidrala SA, Amcor Limited, Owens-Illinois, Inc., BA Glass, Saverglass Group, Ardagh Group SA, Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd., Hindusthan National Glass & Industries Limited, Nampak Ltd., and Wiegand Glas.

More from FMI's Cutting-edge Intelligence:

Decorative Paints Market Segmentation By Product Type - Water Based Paints and Solvent Based Paints, By Formulations - Emulsions and Distemper, By Price - Premium Range, Medium Range and Distemper Range, By Application - Interior and Exterior, By Sales Channel - Offline Store and Online Store: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/decorative-paints-market

PP Homopolymer Market Segmentation By Processing Technology - Injection Moulding, Film, Other Extrusion and Fibre, By End Use - Packaging, Electrical And Electronics, Textile, Automotive, Building and Construction: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/pp-homopolymer-market

Industrial And Institutional Cleaning Chemicals Market Segmentation By Application - Industrial (Hand Hygiene Chemicals, Building Care Chemicals and Others), Commercial, Domestic (Kitchen Care Chemicals, Building Care Chemicals, Hand Hygiene Chemicals, Laundry Care Chemicals and Others): http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/industrial-institutional-cleaning-chemicals-market

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OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. ("Tetra" or the "Company") (CSE: TBP)(CSE: TBP.CN)(OTC PINK: GRPOF), announced today it has entered into a binding term sheet with Panag Pharma Inc. for the development and commercialization of novel cannabinoid based formulations for the treatment of pain and inflammation. Combined total market potential of both products in the USA in 2014 is estimated over US$5.5 billion.

Per the binding term sheet, Tetra will have exclusive access to sell the ocular and topical drug products in North America with right of first negotiation for outside U.S. and Canadian territories. In addition, Tetra will have a right of first negotiation for future products.

Tetra will be working in close collaboration with Panag's team of experts to ensure a rapid and successful development. Tetra shall be responsible for 100% of the research and development of the Licensed Products. Tetra will own and control all regulatory approvals in the Territory, including the application and any other marketing authorizations within the Territory and shall be responsible for all aspects of commercializing the drug products.

Panag has developed potential new cannabinoid-based therapies for ocular and topical anti-inflammatory and pain markets. The total ocular anti-inflammatory market was estimated at over $3 billion in the USA in 2014 and includes conditions such as post-op inflammation, allergic conjunctivitis and inflammatory dry eye. Panag also developed a cannabinoid topical drug product for the treatment of local neuropathic and non-neuropathic pain. In 2014, the over the counter sales of topical analgesics were estimated at over $2.5 billion according to IMS.

"This announcement further demonstrates Tetra's commitment to shareholders to add future products to our product portfolio in an effort of building a leading bio- pharmaceutical organization," said Andre Rancourt, CEO of Tetra Bio-Pharma. "This will further allow Tetra to generate revenues in 2017 through its partnership with Panag. Tetra is going to work closely with Panag to exploit its innovative technology that indirectly acts on the CB2 receptor with the goal of launching several products in the retail market. This is in-line with Tetra's goal of commercializing products pending legalization."

According to Guy Chamberland, Chief Scientific Officer of Tetra Bio-Pharma, "We are going to prioritize the development of the ocular therapy as this is a promising innovative product and the potential financial reward will be significant. Tetra had already positioned itself to become a leader in topical pain relief with its PPTGR technology. With the Panag partnership, Tetra is going to modify its development plans to accelerate bringing an innovative cannabinoid topical drug product to the market. The Panag team is going to strengthen Tetra's overall scientific knowledge and expertise base making it one of the leading biotechnology companies developing cannabinoid-based therapies."

About Panag Pharma:

Panag Pharma Inc. is a Canadian based bio-tech company focused on the development of novel cannabinoid based formulations for the treatment of pain and inflammation. Panag believes that pain relief should be safe, non-addictive and above all; effective. The Panag Pharma team of PhD scientists and medical doctors are among the world's leading researchers and clinicians in the area of pain treatment and management. They bring a combined experience of over 100 years in research and clinical care of people dealing with chronic pain and inflammatory conditions. Panag's current pipeline of pain relief products include formulations for the topical application to the skin, the eye and other mucous membranes. Recently approved by Health Canada and currently undergoing clinical trials, Panag Pharma's Topical AOTC provides a new approach to the treatment of chronic pain and inflammation.

About Tetra Bio-Pharma:

Tetra Bio Pharma is a multi subsidiary publicly traded company (CSE: TBP)(CSE: TBP.CN)(OTC PINK: GRPOF) engaged in the development of Bio Pharmaceuticals and Natural Health Products containing Cannabis and other medicinal plant based elements.

Tetra Bio Pharma is focused on combining the traditional methods of medicinal cannabis use with the supporting scientific validation and safety data required for inclusion into the existing bio pharma industry by regulators physicians and insurance companies. More information is available about the company at: www.tetrabiopharma.com.

The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") has not reviewed this news release and does not accept responsibility for its adequacy or accuracy.

Forward-looking statements

Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than 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 regarding potential acquisitions and financings) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, the inability of the Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, GrowPros MMP Inc., to obtain a licence for the production of medical marijuana; failure to obtain sufficient financing to execute the Company's business plan; competition; regulation and anticipated and unanticipated costs and delays, and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. 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 an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.

Contacts:

Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Dr. Guy Chamberland

Chief Science Officer

(514) 220-9225



Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Andre Rancourt

Chief Executive Officer

(343) 689-0714

www.tetrabiopharma.com




Candidate: We can even have casualties (video)

The parliamentary election candidates of the Free Democrats Party do not compete with one another, rather, they want to get as many votes as possible to have seats in the next parliament. The party has fielded six candidates in Constituency N1 that covers Nor-Nork, Avan, Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts. It does not matter whether the ballots will be cast for Stepan Safaryan, Hripsime Bocholyan or Hovsep Avetisyan because our aim is to bring victory to our people, says Stepan Safaryan. Activists and candidates of the Free Democrats party today held a campaign rally in Yerevans Nor Nork district. Walking through the streets, they handed out campaign booklets to passersby and urged voters to back their party in the April parliamentary elections. Some were delighted to see Stepan Safaryan in their neighborhood while others refused to take the booklets. The pledges of the party did sound convincing to a saleswoman at a local market, who is an ardent supporter of Gagik Tsarukyan. His mother, Roza Tsarukyan, can sit on the throne and live her life to the fullest but she works and breeds bees, said the woman who lives in Abovyan city. Mr Tsarukyan is sitting in a saddle warmly and we are freezing here. I live in this district [Nor Nork] and I see how it is being destroyed like a jungle, said Hovsep Avetisyan, another candidate from the Free Democtrats party. The candidates expressed their concerns about the recent incident in Jrarat village in which representatives of the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) attacked and injured supporters of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian alliance. We can even have casualties. Nothing is excluded as law enforcement agencies do not ensure the safety of people during the campaign. You also see that the situation is very tense. One of our political figures said that the race has turned into a gladiatorial game, said candidate Gagik Baghdasaryan. He thinks the number of incidents will increase as election day draws near.
OULU, Finland, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Arctic Europe - Northern Finland, Sweden and Norway - is the 10th largest economical region in the world. The Arctic region can develop into Europe's largest area of investment: from 2016 to 2025 investments in the region can exceed 100 billion euros.

City of Oulu is participating in MIPIM expo together with the two other arctic cities, Lulea and Tromsoe.

- This Arctic Europe collaboration has already bred a new intercity flight route 'Arctic Airlink', increased cooperation between the universities, and created export opportunities to Northern companies. Logistics, research, and business is a cooperation whole, which will showcase the immense potential of the Arctic areas internationally, BusinessOulu's Head of Marketing and Communications, Pauliina Pikkujamsa, believes.

Arctic Europe is the shortest airway to Northern America and Northern Asia from Europe. Arctic Europe gathers together an area under the same brand, where the understanding of the Arctic, world-class know-how, and immense natural resources. Logistics - expanding a Europe-wide transport network, and building an international digital communication cable connection - is also part of the Arctic area's growth potential that is being boosted by nearly 200 billion in investments in the following 10 years.

Oulu, in Northern Finland, is a world-class high-tech city: 2.6 billion people around the world use ICT technology developed in Oulu. The city is not only the fastest growing region in the Nordics, but also has the youngest population in Europe.

Lulea, in Northern Sweden, is the Growth Municipality of the year 2015 as well as the home city of Facebook in Europe. Lulea University of Technology is the international competence center for research in the field of minerology and metallurgy.

Troms, in Northern Norway, is the home of major institutions of Arctic international and national policies. The city is known for its highly skilled workforce in research and development. Troms boasts fast growing industries in space technology, marine resources, tourism and energy/environmental technology.

The stand P-1.K1 in MIPIM features the City of Oulu, Invest in Lapland, Health City, the City of Pudasjarvi, Lukkaroinen, Maikkula Estate, Lehto Group, CubiCasa, GBuilder, Pave Architects, the City of Lulea, Arctic Airlink, Lulea Airport, Treeohotel, Port of Lulea, the City of Tromsoe, and Arctic Center.
Alytus, Lithuania, 2017-04-04 08:32 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The address of head office Pramones str. 6, Alytus, the company code 249664610 (hereinafter, the "Company").?he ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (hereinafter, the "Meeting")date - 25 April 2017.



The place of the meeting -at AB "Snaige" office, at the address Kareiviu str. 6, Vilnius, Lithuania.



The Meeting commences - at 10 a.m. (registration starts at 9.45 a.m.).



The Meeting's accounting day - 18 April 2017 (the persons who are shareholders of the Company at the end of accounting day of the General Meeting of Shareholders or authorized persons by them, or the persons with whom shareholders concluded the agreements on the disposal of voting right, shall have the right to attend and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders).



The Right's accounting day - 10 May 2017.



The Board of directors of the Company initiates and convenes the meeting.



Agenda of the Meeting:



1. Consolidated annual report of "Snaige" AB on the company's activity for 2016



2. Auditor's conclusion on the company's financial statements for 2016.



3.Approval of the set of financial statements of the company for 2016.



4.Approval of distribution of profit (loss) of "Snaige" AB for 2016.



5.The Board members election;



6.Election of the audit firm for auditing purposes of financial statements and establishment of terms regarding the payment for audit services;



The Company shall not provide the possibility to participate and vote in the Meeting through electronic communication channels.



Draft resolutions on agenda issues, documents be submitted to the General Meeting of Shareholders and other information related with the exercising of the shareholders' rights are available on the website of the Company www.snaige.lt on menu item "For investors". This information will be also available for the shareholders at the head office of the Company (Pramones street 6, Alytus) on business days from 9:00 am. till 16:00 pm. (on Fridays till 14:00), tel. +370 315 56206, +370 5 2361970.



Shareholders holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes shall have the right of proposing to supplement the agenda of the Meeting by providing the Meeting draft resolution on each additionally proposed issue or in case no resolution is required - the explanation. The proposals to supplement the agenda shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals shall be presented in writing to the Company on business days or by sending it by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175 Alytus, Lithuania. The proposals submitted via the e-mail shall be sent on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The proposals to supplement the agenda with the additional issues shall be submitted till the 10 April 2017, 4:00 p.m. In case the agenda of the Meeting is supplemented the Company will report on it no later than 10 days before the Meeting in the same ways as on convening of the Meeting.



Shareholders holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes shall have the right of proposing new draft resolutions on the issues already included or to be included in the agenda of the Meeting, audit firms for auditing purposes of financial statements. The proposals shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals shall be presented in writing to the Company on business days till 24 April 2017, 2 p.m. or by sending it by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175 Alytus, Lithuania. During the Meeting the proposals shall be submitted to the Chairman of the Meeting after he announces the Meeting agenda and no later than the Meeting starts working on the issues of agenda. The proposals submitted via the electronic mail shall be sent on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The proposals submitted on this e-mail till 24 April 2017, 2:00 p.m. will be discussed during the Meeting.



The shareholders shall have the right to present questions related to the General Meeting of Shareholders' agenda issues to the Company in advance in writing. The shareholders shall present the questions not later than 3 business days before the Meeting via the electronic mail on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The Company undertakes to respond to the submitted questions via the electronic mail till the Meeting day, except the questions related to the Company's commercial secret and confidential information.



During the registration to attend the Meeting the shareholders or the persons authorized by them shall submit a document which is a proof of his identity. The shareholders' authorized persons shall submit the power of attorney confirmed by the established order. The power of attorney issued by the natural person shall be notarized. A power of attorney issued in a foreign state must be translated into Lithuanian and legalized in the manner prescribed by law. Representative can be authorized by more than one shareholder and shall have a right to vote differently under the orders of each shareholder. The shareholder holding shares of the Bank, where the shares have been acquired on his own behalf, but for the benefit of other persons, must disclose before voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders to the Company the identity of the final customer, the number of shares that are put to the vote and the content of the voting instructions submitted to him or any other explanation regarding the participation agreed upon with the customer and voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders.



Shareholder shall also have the right to authorize through electronic communication channels another person (natural or legal) to participate and vote in the Meeting on shareholder's behalf. Such authorization shall not be confirmed by the notary officer. The power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels must be confirmed by the shareholder with a safe electronic signature developed by safe signature equipment and approved by a qualified certificate effective in the Republic of Lithuania. The shareholder shall inform the Company on the power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels by e-mail vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt no later than the last business day before the meeting at 2:00 p.m. The power of attorney and notification shall be issued in writing. The power of attorney and notification to the Company shall be signed with the Electronic Signature but not the letters sent via the e-mail. By submitting the notification to the Company the shareholder shall include the Internet address from which it would be possible to download free of charge software to verify an Electronic Signature of the shareholder.



Each shareholder or representative thereof shall have the right to cast his/her vote in advance in writing by filling in a general ballot paper. The general ballot paper form is on the Company's website www.snaige.lt on menu item "For Investors". Upon the written shareholder's request, the Company no later than 10 days before the Meeting shall send a general ballot paper by registered mail or hand it in person against signature. The general ballot paper filled shall be signed by the shareholder or his/her representative. In case the ballot paper is signed by the shareholder's authorized representative, such person along with the filled ballot paper shall submit the document to confirm the voting right. The ballot paper filled and the document confirming the voting right (if required) shall be submitted in a written form to the Company by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175, Alytus, Lithuania, or by submitting it to the Company. Validated will be dully filled-in ballot papers, received until the meeting.



The following information and documents are available on the website of the Company www.snaige.lt on menu item "For Investors":



- report on the convening of the Meeting; - the total number of the Company's shares and the number of shares with voting rights on the convening day of the Meeting; - draft resolutions on each agenda issue (in general ballot paper) and other documents to be submitted to the Meeting; - general ballot paper form.



Additional information on the stock event is provided by telephone: +370 5 2361970.



Draft resolutions of the General Meeting of Shareholders are attached.





Managing Director Gediminas Ceika +370 315 56206



Attachment:

https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=623718

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
PENTICTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Structurlam is pleased to announce that the mass timber manufacturer has received accreditation from Intertek Testing Services, certifying that the CrossLam cross laminated timber (CLT) product has qualified under ASTM E119-16a and CAN/ULC S101 Standard Test Methods for Fire Tests of Building Construction and Materials. The product achieved a fire resistance rating of 150 minutes (2 1/2 hrs).

On February 22, 2017, Intertek conducted testing on Structurlam's CrossLam CLT Un-restrained Load-Bearing Floor/ Ceiling Assembly. The fire resistance test evaluates the duration for which a building material can be exposed to fire and maintain its structural integrity.

The fire endurance test took place over 2 1/2 hours, during which CrossLam CLT paneling was exposed to fire reaching extremely high temperatures. Based on the test results, the product sustained total load of 4.35 kPa (90 psf) throughout the test duration. No flaming was observed on the exposed side of the panel for the duration of the test. This resulted in a fire resistance rating of 150 minutes.

This certification demonstrates the superiority and safety of CrossLam CLT as a construction material, challenging preconceptions surrounding the fire resistance of engineered mass timber products.

"This test involved burning our CrossLam CLT product at very high temperatures," explained Bill Downing, President of Structurlam. "It demonstrates the charring quality of our engineered mass timber products. This product has the ability to maintain its structural integrity for a long time in the event of a fire, and provides sufficient time to vacate the structure. After 2 1/2 hours of burning, the mass timber panel was still able to support the weight of an adult man without issue."

As an industry leader in the highest quality engineered mass timber products, this recent certification signifies that Structurlam holds their product to the highest possible safety standards. The ASTM E119-16a, Standard Test Methods for Fire Tests of Building Construction and Materials was issued to Structurlam Products February 22, 2017.

View the certification here. For more information about Structurlam, please visit: www.structurlam.com.

About Structurlam Products

Structurlam is a provider of the most innovative and cost-effective structural laminated mass timber solutions and industrial matting. Structurlam's mass timber solutions cover the spectrum from simple beams and panels to the most complex and beautiful mass timber structures in the world. Their value-added production includes the best people and state-of-the art technology coming together to create glue-laminated beams and cross-laminated panels showcasing premium British Columbian fibre. Structurlam's industrial mats are built with cross-laminated timber engineering, tested by one of the largest oil field equipment companies in the world. Using mass timber for both its strength and beauty, Structurlam works closely with customers to create complete solutions including connection design, engineering and installation. Their world-class reputation is a result of more than 50 years of innovation and quality. For more information, please visit http://structurlam.com.

Contacts:

Media Contact

Miranda Thorne

Talk Shop Media

604 738 2220

miranda@talkshopmedia.com




MANCHESTER, England and DORTMUND, Germany, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Customers are crying out for vendor relationships they trust to support their complex airport operations

In a market that is now evolving more rapidly than at any time in the last 20 years, Ultra Electronics Airport Systems und Materna continue to strengthen their partnership in the field of Airport Operations and Passenger Processing Systems.

As the airport IT market diverges, requiring a broad range of technologies in the passenger processing space concurrently with operations systems capable of delivering efficiency in complex terminal environments, the vendor challenge is to deliver excellence in both fields. Ultra and Materna's solution to the market challenge is collaboration, not competition.

Ultra Electronics - already recognized as the leader in Airport Operational Systems - will invest further in this product suite, and the business process expertise within the organization. Simultaneously, their highly successful cloud-based, Baggage Management System will be offered as the industry solution to IATA's Resolution 753.

Materna, pioneers in self-service kiosks and automated bag drop solutions, have integrated the UltraCUSE (CUPPS) platform to expand their Passenger Processing capability. This enables a single, harmonized environment for Materna's entire set of Passenger Processing technologies: from agent-facing (CUPPS); to passenger self-service (CUSS and SBD). Moreover, Materna will lead further developments and application certifications for all Passenger Processing solutions.

Sebastien Jodeau, Managing Director for Ultra, confirms that "Airports and airlines are increasingly frustrated with the implementation of airport technologies. You have to draw the conclusion that the current vendor approaches are not delivering the solutions that airports need. We believe that our collaboration offers a better way to implement business solutions that actually improve airport processes and efficiency".

Individually, Ultra and Materna are already recognized as offering business solutions to the industry, not simply products alone. Together, they will now offer their customer community the full breadth of Airport Operations and Passenger Processing expertise - whilst retaining a single contractual relationship and a common service approach - giving customers quality and choice.

Gary McDonald, President, North America at Materna Inc., said "Materna shares with Ultra a common culture of engineering excellence, a commitment to service quality, and to forging deep and strategic relationships with selected customers. We have invested in the partnership with Ultra and the market response has been amazing. Customers are crying out for a vendor relationship they trust to support their complex airport operations".

Both Materna and Ultra will be at the Passenger Terminal EXPO in Amsterdam, 14-16 March 2017 and welcome customers to their respective stands who want to know more about the opportunities that collaboration presents.

About Ultra Electronics Airport Systems

Ultra Electronics Airport Systems is a global provider of transportation infrastructure operational performance systems. Its wide ranging portfolio of operational, passenger, baggage and business intelligence solutions is underpinned with a comprehensive suite of services for systems integration and managed service provision.

About Materna

Under the brand Materna ips (Integrated Passenger Services) and as one of the most well-known suppliers for airports and airlines worldwide, Materna delivers solutions for automated passenger handling at airports. In addition to the European market, Materna's Integrated Passenger Services portfolio also focuses on the North-American market, with its own subsidiary in Orlando, Florida, and on the Asian market.

Enquiries:



Paul Drury, VP, Americas

Ultra Electronics

+1-941-928-0046

paul.drury@ultra-as.com

www.ultra-as.com



Christine Siepe

Materna

+49-231-5599-168

Christine.Siepe@Materna.de

www.materna-ips.com


OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Government of Canada

A modern fighter jet fleet is essential for defending Canada and Canadian sovereignty, especially in our northern skies.

Canada has been exploring the potential acquisition of new Super Hornet aircraft to supplement the current fleet until an open and transparent competition can be completed to replace Canada's legacy CF-18 fleet. Over the course of the last few months, Government of Canada officials have been meeting with United States (U.S.) government officials, and with Boeing, on a regular basis to discuss meeting this interim need.

Yesterday, the Government of Canada took another important step toward the potential acquisition of an interim fleet. In a Letter of Request submitted to the U.S. government, Canada outlined its requirements on capabilities, schedule and economic benefits for 18 Super Hornet aircraft.

Canada has confirmed to the U.S. government its commitment to applying its Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy on this potential acquisition, which requires suppliers to make investments in Canada equal to 100% of their contract value. This policy will provide Canadian companies with opportunities to directly participate in this procurement, develop Canadian-based suppliers, support innovation through research and development, grow export opportunities for Canadian firms, and create jobs for middle-class Canadians.

Following receipt of this letter, the U.S. Department of Defense will engage Boeing and other suppliers to develop an official proposal. This process includes the U.S. government's notification to its Congress about the potential sale of Super Hornets to Canada.

As early as fall 2017, Canada expects to receive a response from the U.S. government. The proposal will be reviewed to determine if the U.S. government can provide the interim solution at a cost, schedule, level of capability and economic value acceptable to Canada. If this process is successful, Canada could enter into a formal agreement with the U.S. government for the interim aircraft and associated elements of in-service support as early as the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

In parallel, Canada will also undertake formal discussions with potential suppliers regarding economic benefits for Canadian industry to meet the requirements of the Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy. This will ensure that the potential procurement of interim aircraft will help grow Canada's aerospace and defence sector, create high-value jobs and support Canadian innovation.

The Government of Canada will continue to provide updates and keep Canadians informed of its progress as it moves forward on replacing and supplementing Canada's fighter aircraft.

Quotes

"The Letter of Request to the U.S. government is an important step that outlines our requirements on capabilities, schedule and economic benefits for 18 Super Hornets. This should address the interim needs of the Canadian Armed Forces until the permanent replacement fleet is in place and operational. Our government is committed to leveraging the procurement to ensure our women and men in uniform get the equipment they need, while maximizing economic benefits for Canadians."

The Honourable Judy M. Foote, Minister of Public Services and Procurement

"Today's announcement shows important progress toward getting the brave women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces the equipment they need to protect Canadians and Canadian values around the world. We will assess whether an interim Super Hornet fleet purchase will help ensure Canada remains a credible and dependable ally for many years to come."

The Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of National Defence

"The application of the Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy will ensure that the potential acquisition of 18 new Super Hornet aircraft will result in economic benefits for Canadians. The policy requires potential suppliers to make investments in Canada equal to the value of their contract. These investments will grow Canada's aerospace and defence sectors, support Canadian innovation through research and development, increase export opportunities for Canadian firms and ultimately create high-value jobs for middle-class Canadians."

The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development

Associated Links

CF-18 Replacement Project

Replacing and supplementing Canada's CF-18 fleet

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Facebook

Contacts:

Annie Trepanier

Office of the Honourable Judy M. Foote

819-997-5421



Media Relations

Public Services and Procurement Canada

819-420-5501

media@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca



Jordan Owens

Office of the Minister of National Defence

613-996-3100



Media Relations

Department of National Defence

613-996-2353

Toll-free: 1-866-377-0811

mlo-blm@forces.gc.ca



Nilani Logeswaran

Office of the Minister of Innovation,

Science and Economic Development

343-291-2500



Media Relations

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

343-291-1777

ic.mediarelations-mediasrelations.ic@canada.ca




OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, wrapped up a two-country Asian trade mission, strengthening agricultural bilateral ties and exploring market access opportunities for Canadian food and agri-food businesses.

The Government of Canada is committed to strong relationships with both Vietnam and India, and to expanding trade across the Asia-Pacific region - a priority market for Canadian agriculture and agri-food products. Deepening commercial ties will help Canada as well as Vietnam and India grow their respective economies, create new opportunities for Canadian businesses, and help create jobs and foster long-term growth for farmers and Canadian families.

While in Vietnam, Minister MacAulay met with his counterparts at various ministries and facilitated business-building opportunities to promote Canadian agricultural, agri-food and seafood products such as lobster, livestock genetics, blueberries, grains and oilseeds. He also participated in events showcasing Canadian agricultural products, including beef and seafood. Industry estimates that, added together, the market for these products in Vietnam could be worth $190 million in annual exports.

Continuing to India, Minister MacAulay and a delegation of Canadian industry participants representing various sectors promoted Canadian agricultural products in New Delhi and Mumbai. The Minister met with his counterparts, various agriculture and agri-food businesses, as well as importers and exporters. The Minister helped secure several Memoranda of Understanding between Canadian canola oil distributors and Indian retailers. He also opened the Canada Pavilion at AAHAR, India's largest food and hospitality fair, where 16 Canadian companies and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec showcased a variety of agriculture and agri-food products. Canadian industry representatives reported qualifying nearly 400 leads and nearly $3.5 million in anticipated sales over the next year.

Minister MacAulay held talks with Indian Ministers highlighting the quality of Canadian pulses and the importance of ensuring trade predictability. Discussions are on-going towards a resolution on this front.

Quote

"Canada is committed to expanding global trade opportunities in Asia and around the world. Vietnam and India have seen rapid economic growth in recent years, and the emergence of a vibrant consumer middle class in both countries represents new opportunities for Canadian agri-food producers that will strengthen bilateral trade, benefit the middle class, and grow the Canadian economy."

- The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Canada's Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

Quick facts

-- With a population of more than 90 million (14th largest in the world), Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. -- Sales of Canadian agriculture, agri-food and seafood products to Vietnam in 2015 were worth more than $357 million, an increase of 144% from the previous three years. -- India is the second-most populous country in the world with 1.2 billion people. The population is expected to reach 1.3 billion this year. -- In 2015, Canadian agriculture, agri-food and seafood exports to India were valued at $1.5 billion, more than twice the amount it was two years earlier. -- Economic growth in both Vietnam and India is between 6% and 7% a year.

Additional links

- Food service profile in Vietnam

- The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service in Vietnam

- India - At a Glance

- Agriculture, Food and Beverage Sector Profile - India

- The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service in India

- Snapshot of Opportunities in India's Pulse Sector

Follow us on Twitter: @AAFC_Canada

Like us on Facebook: CanadianAgriculture

BACKGROUNDER

Vietnam

Minister MacAulay:

-- Participated in a meeting with Dabaco Group, a major agri-business, to discuss opportunities for Canadian swine genetics, grains and oilseeds. -- Met with his counterparts at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry of Trade. -- Led a roundtable discussion with key Vietnamese associations and Canadian industry in Hanoi to gain an understanding of the market opportunities for Canadian products such as beef, fish & seafood, fruits, wheat, soybeans, genetics, and animal feed. -- Toured VinMart Supermarket, a major retailer of agri-food/seafood that sells Canadian products such as lobster and apples, and gained insight on the preferences and tastes of local consumers. -- Met with the Saigon Union of Trading Cooperatives, a leading retailer in Vietnam and the Asia-Pacific region, to foster stronger business relationships in the agri-food sector and expand imports of Canadian agri-food products. -- Met with representatives of Vinamilk, one of the largest agri-food corporations in Vietnam to discuss opportunities for Canadian genetics and oilseeds, and with CFoods, to discuss prospects for growth of Canadian fish and seafood products (including Pacific oysters, lobster, Atlantic and Pacific salmon, snow crab, and black cod) in the market. He also met with Dan-On Foods, a successful Canadian company in Vietnam to better understand the business environment in the country. -- Led a roundtable discussion between key Vietnamese importers and business representatives and Canadian food industry in Ho Chi Minh City, and participated in networking receptions to advance Canada's interests in agricultural trade with Vietnam.

India

Minister MacAulay:

-- Met with his counterparts at the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. -- Met with representatives from Dalmia Global to discuss opportunities for Canadian canola oil in India, with McCain Foods to get a better understanding of doing business in India, and with the Forum of Indian Food Importers to discuss market opportunities for Canadian agri-food products in India and the regulatory challenges. -- Opened the Canada Pavilion at AAHAR, India's largest food and hospitality trade exhibition, which showcased some of the most innovative ideas in the food industry, to help promote Canadian products. In addition, AAHAR organizers awarded the Canada Pavilion first place for best international pavilion at the show. -- Gave keynote speech at a networking reception with 350 people in attendance, including members of the Canadian and Indian agriculture and agri-food industry including Tata Global Beverages, Indian government officials to advance Canadian opportunities in India. Also launched the Pulse Innovation Platform-India at the reception, designed to bridge gaps and build synergy between pulse production, its processing, and its contribution to human and environmental health. -- Met with representatives from Canadian Agro India Private Ltd, one of Canada's largest canola oil trading companies, and took part in a signing ceremony for four Memoranda of Understanding between Canadian Agro India Private Ltd and various retailers. -- Held a roundtable discussion between members of Pulse Canada and representatives from the Indian pulse industry and participated in a reception with Canadian and Indian industry representatives to advance Canada's interests in agricultural trade with India. -- Witnessed the unloading of a shipment of yellow peas from Vancouver at Mumbai's port.

Contacts:

Guy Gallant

Director of Communications

Office of the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay

613-773-1059



Media Relations

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Ottawa, Ontario

613-773-7972

1-866-345-7972




VILNIUS, Lithuania, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Patients suffering from rare blood disorders will benefit from networks of excellence across the European Member States.

At the third conference on European Reference Networks (ERNs) yesterday in Vilnius, Lithuania, EuroBloodNet was officially awarded as one of the recently approved ERNs.

ERNs is an initiative of the European Commission and consist of networks of healthcare providers and centers of excellence in Europe aimed at improving quality, safety, and access to highly specialised healthcare. Through these networks healthcare providers have access to a much larger knowledge pool and patients have better changes to receive the best treatment.

EuroBloodNet, the ERN on rare hematological diseases, results from joint efforts of the European Hematology Asssociation (EHA), and the European Network for Rare Congenital Anemias (ENERCA). It is coordinated by Prof. Pierre Fenaux from the Hopital Saint Louis , Paris, together with Prof. Beatrice Gulbis from the University Hospital Erasme , Brussels. The network brings together 66 highly specialized hospital centres with expertise on malignant and non-malignant rare hematological diseases.

Patient involvement is key in ERNs. For EuroBloodNet the hematology patient community elected five representatives: Amanda Bok (European Haemophilia Consortium), Angelo Loris Brunetta (Associazione Ligure Thalassemici Onlus), Jan Geissler (Leukemia Patient Advocates Foundation), Ananda Plate (Myeloma Patients Europe) and Sophie Wintrich (MDS UK Patient Support Group) successfully ensured that the patient voice is fully represented in the ERN Board and sub-clinical committees - a great achievement and a milestone in increasing the role of patients in clinical care as it evolves in Europe.

After their first meeting in January 2017 in Paris, EuroBloodNet will gather again at the congress of the European Hematology Association, from June 22-25, in Madrid, Spain.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Gem International Resources Inc. (the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: GI) as disclosed in its news release dated February 24, 2017, has completed a private placement through the issuance of 18,000,000 units at a price of $0.05 per unit. The funds will in part be used towards advancing its Dala Project in Angola, which has potential for both new kimberlite discoveries and near term alluvial diamond production. The property was previously explored by Moydow Mines Ltd. during the period 2004 - 2008 at a cost of over US $12 million. Moydow's program was focused on kimberlite exploration and discovered several kimberlite pipes using detailed airborne and ground magnetic surveys. The historical data generated from their program also defined multiple geophysical kimberlite targets, including those confirmed by drilling. The kimberlites found were not comprehensively tested, and numerous untested kimberlite targets remain to be evaluated on the property.

The Company is currently in the process of acquiring Moydow's historical database, and has commissioned an independent due diligence evaluation of the dataset, and the preparation of a NI 43-101 level Independent Technical Report, and updated exploration recommendations for the property.

Denis Hayes, the Company's CEO, stated, "We are pleased with the successful completion of our initial private placement, which we see as an initial turn-key event directed towards developing the full potential of our Dala Project. The acquisition and due diligence on the historical dataset will allow us to focus and fast track our kimberlite and alluvial exploration of the property."

Ian Ransome, Pri. Sci. Nat., who is a Qualified Person according to NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the content of this news release.

Gem International Resources Inc.

Denis Hayes, CEO / Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Contacts:

Gem International Resources Inc.

(604) 871-9916

(604) 871-9926 (FAX)

www.gemdiamondmining.com




FLORENCE, Italy, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Menarini Group has consolidated its presence in Latin America with new affiliates in Colombia and Peru. Both countries have emerging economies which offer the company opportunities for market expansion with its high-quality, made-in-Italy pharmaceuticals.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478482/Alberto_Giovanni_Aleotti.jpg )



(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478483/The_Menarini_Group_Logo.jpg )



"We are enthusiastic about increasing our presence in Latin America with the opening of our branches in Peru and Colombia, strategic countries where Menarini has decided to strengthen its commitment to guarantee that patients have access to extremely high-quality medicinal products manufactured at our 15 Menarini sites," explained Alberto Giovanni Aleotti, Vice Chairman of the Menarini Group. "This," he added, "represents a stepping stone for international growth of the Group, which is currently present in over 130 countries, with its presence in the USA being a particularly notable success."

The Menarini Group has a global annual turnover of 3.46 billion.

2017 opens with a new challenge for the Italian company which is specialised in medicinal products for pain relief and cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive tract and urological treatment and research and development into new cancer treatments.

Colombia, a country with a population of over 47 million, is among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of the amount of direct foreign investment it receives, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). On 9 March, Menarini inaugurated its new office in Bogota, where 40 people are now employed. The inauguration event was held at the Italian Embassy with Italian Ambassador Caterina Bertolini.

On 7 March, with an event held at the Lima Art Museum, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Menarini in Peru with Italian Ambassador Mauro Marsili was celebrated, which currently has 30 employees.

The first Menarini branch in Latin America was opened 38 years ago in Guatemala, and in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize. In these Central American countries and in the Caribbean, Menarini recorded an increase of 11% in the turnover for 2015, equal to 93 million for the year. The Italian company has also had a direct presence in Mexico since 2009, and through its distributors in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, offering work to almost 600 employees and in constant growth.

More information at http://www.menarini.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) have entered into settlement agreements with B.C. resident Winston King-Loong Kuit.

In his agreement with the BCSC, Kuit has admitted that he engaged in unregistered trading, unregistered advising, and distributing securities without a prospectus.

Between August 2010 and September 2014, Kuit acted as a finder for SBC Financial Group Inc. (SBC), a B.C. company that has never filed a prospectus in respect of the distribution of its securities. In his role as a finder, Kuit solicited investors, many of whom were his friends, family and clients, to invest in SBC. The investors that Kuit introduced to SBC collectively invested approximately $2.4 million. Approximately $1.8 million of those distributions did not qualify for any exemptions from the prospectus requirements of the Securities Act (the Act).

The agreement also states that although Kuit was registered under the Act for most of the relevant period, his registration category did not permit him to trade in SBC securities.

In his agreement with the MFDA, Kuit has admitted that between 2010 and August 2013 he solicited approximately $1.55 million in investments in SBC from 18 investors, most of whom were either clients or former clients, outside the facilities of his MFDA Member firms. He also admitted that he provided false or misleading information on a compliance questionnaire submitted to the Member in November 2012, which interfered with the Member's ability to supervise his conduct.

For his misconduct, Kuit has agreed to disgorge $147,500 to the BCSC, which represents the commissions he received from his misconduct. He has also agreed to pay $20,000 to the BCSC in respect of settlement of this matter.

The BCSC has also banned Kuit from trading or purchasing any securities (with limited exceptions), relying on any exemptions set out in the Act or the regulations, and becoming or acting as a director or officer of any issuer or registrant (with limited exceptions). He is also banned from becoming or acting as a registrant or promoter and acting in a management or consultative capacity in connection with any activities in the securities market and engaging in investor relations activities. Kuit's bans are to remain in effect for a period of 15 years.

Under the terms of the MFDA settlement, Kuit has been permanently prohibited from conducting securities related business in any capacity while in the employ of or associated with any MFDA Member.

Both settlement agreements acknowledge Kuit's cooperation with investigators from the respective organizations. The Executive Director of the BCSC also noted that Kuit sold his home to pay the proceeds towards the disgorgement order, which would return some money to SBC investors.

The BCSC acknowledges that settlement of this matter was a joint effort with the MFDA and thanks the MFDA for its cooperation.

You may view the BCSC's settlement agreement on our website, www.bcsc.bc.ca, by typing Winston King-Loong Kuit or 2017 BCSECCOM 43 in the search box. Information about disciplinary proceedings can be found in the Enforcement section of the BCSC website. A copy of the MFDA Settlement Agreement is available on the MFDA website at www.mfda.ca.

Please visit the Canadian Securities Administrators' (CSA) Disciplined List for information relating to persons disciplined by provincial securities regulators, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the MFDA.

About the British Columbia Securities Commission (www.bcsc.bc.ca)

The British Columbia Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating capital markets in British Columbia through the administration of the Securities Act. Our mission is to protect and promote the public interest by fostering:

-- A securities market that is fair and warrants public confidence -- A dynamic and competitive securities industry that provides investment opportunities and access to capital

About the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (www.mfda.ca)

The MFDA is the self-regulatory organization for Canadian mutual fund dealers, regulating the operations, standards of practice and business conduct of its Members and their approximately 83,000 Approved Persons with a mandate to protect investors and the public interest. For more information about the MFDA's complaint and enforcement processes, as well as links to 'Check an Advisor' and other Investor Tools, visit the For Investors page on the MFDA website.

Learn how to protect yourself and become a more informed investor at www.investright.org

Contacts:

BCSC Media Contact:

Alison Walker

604-899-6713



Public inquiries:

604-899-6854 or 1-800-373-6393 (toll free)

inquiries@bcsc.bc.ca



MFDA Contacts:

Charles Toth

Director, Litigation

416-943-4619

ctoth@mfda.ca



Jeff Mount

Vice-President, Pacific Region

604-694-8846

jmount@mfda.ca




IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Burnham Benefits Insurance Services -- one of California's most dynamic employee benefits brokerage firms -- announced the promotion of two new vice presidents from within the firm: Rachel Aleknavicius and Helen Vits. With a 95 percent client retention rate and consistent growth throughout its 20-year history, Burnham Benefits is ranked among the top 50 benefits brokerages in the U.S. The promotion of these two well-deserving employees reflects the successful trajectory of the firm's continued growth.

"It has always been our goal at Burnham to strategically leverage and harness our team members' skills to both advance their own careers, and also to provide the best service possible to our clients," said Kristen Allison, president and CEO of Burnham Benefits. "I am so proud of the talent found within our company, and I believe it is due to their expertise and passion that Burnham is able to continue being so successful."

Rachel Aleknavicius, Vice President, joined Burnham in 2013 and has more than 15 years of industry experience. With her consumer-driven health plan knowledge, Aleknavicius excels at designing competitive benefit plans, cultivating new business, navigating mid- and large-sized clients through the complexities of the healthcare landscape and intuitively offering strategy development, particularly in the realm of healthcare reform. She is recognized as a leader in the industry, garnering the support of carrier partners in the market, as well as the support and collaboration of the Burnham internal team.

Helen Vits, Vice President, has been with Burnham since 2014 and has more than a decade of industry experience. With her energetic dynamic and natural instinct, Vits demonstrates an innate ability to provide sound strategic guidance, technical support and effective communication for her clients. Her solid relationships with clients, carriers and the Burnham team has consistently grown her book of business year over year, and her competence provides value to the organization overall.

"Each of these amazing women is deserving of this promotion in her own way, and each has been able to direct her career path to warrant this exciting step forward," said Allison. "As we continue to provide clients with superior knowledge and exceptional service, we are simultaneously taking care of our own employees."

About Burnham Benefits Insurance Services: Burnham Benefits Insurance Services, Inc. is a privately held, full-service employee benefits consulting and brokerage firm headquartered in Irvine, Calif. The firm is among the largest in the state to specialize solely in strategic employee benefits consulting and brokerage services. With a comprehensive offering of client-first health and wellness programs, Burnham effectively manages over $1.7 billion in premiums for more than 475 clients. A certified Benefits Corporation (B Corp), the firm maintains a more than 93 percent client retention rate and has averaged 23 percent growth annually over the past 10 years. Because Burnham Benefits does not have outside shareholders, it can easily adapt and create customized solutions that fit clients' best interests -- investing in cutting-edge technology and the tools and resources needed to provide the specialized level of service that today's rapidly challenging climate demands. Its team of more than 80 highly skilled industry professionals includes in-house underwriters, compliance officers, healthcare reform consultants, communications specialists and wellness experts. Through a strategic partnership with Burnham Gibson Wealth Advisors, Inc., Burnham also provides retirement planning and wealth management services. Burnham Benefits' footprint currently spans offices in Orange County, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sacramento and San Diego, Calif., as well as a satellite office in the Washington D.C. metro area. Burnham Benefits holds national recognition as Business Insurance's #1 Best Places to Work in Insurance 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, has been ranked a Best Place to Work by the Orange County Business Journal for six years running. Burnham Benefits president and CEO Kristen Allison earned the Distinguished Founders Award from the Annual Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) in 2016. For more information, visit www.burnhambenefits.com.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3119207

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3119210



MEDIA CONTACT:

Leslie Licano

Beyond Fifteen Communications, Inc.

949.733.8679

leslie@beyondfifteen.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Valens GroWorks Corp. (CSE: VGW)(CSE: VGW.CN) (the "Company" or "Valens") is pleased to announce that Mr. Mark Doucet has joined the Company as its President.

Mark Doucet has more than 25 years of senior executive experience. He has been involved in and advised on capital markets, infrastructure, commercial real estate, precious metals and other industries both foreign and domestic. Past service includes: President of a US junior exploration company, President of a business/government relations company, Founder and President of a wireless application company, and Vice President for several Canadian junior exploration companies, an international government/business consulting firm and an Atlantic Canada restaurant franchise. Mark served as Financial Officer and Development Planner for the privatization and redevelopment of Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Mark and his wife have two boys, and reside in Ottawa.

Mark commented "Valens GroWorks Corp. has vastly superior products and people completely motivated to realize their vision of excellence by leading this quickly evolving industry. Drawing on this vision, I am passionately energized to help the Valens GroWorks team become an industry leader in this space."

Rob van Santen, the Company's CEO and Chair commented "I am particularly pleased that a seasoned and visionary leader like Mark has chosen our Company and its team as his vehicle to enter into this rapid-growth sector as the repeal of prohibition looms in Canada. The industry is in transition from the legacy world of commercial marijuana -- legal, quasi-legal, gray market, illicit -- to the future, which will see a fully institutionalized market."

Option Grant

The Company is granting stock options to acquire an aggregate of one million common shares in the capital of the Company at an exercise price of $1.40 per common share, expiring on the fifth anniversary of the grant (collectively, the "Stock Option"). The Stock Option vests in stages over the course of two (2) years with 12.5% to vest immediately and a further 12.5% to vest in each three-month period thereafter, and is exercisable quarterly after 12 months, with the balance after 24 months from the Commencement Date. The Stock Options are being granted in accordance with the Company's stock option plan, and are subject to regulatory approval.

About Valens GroWorks Corp.

Valens GroWorks Corp is a Canadian Securities Exchange listed company with an aggressive acquisition strategy in progress, providing management, consulting, testing and support services to domestic and international licensees, as well as financing the buildout of established, fully-licensed operations pursuant to its investment in Arizona. The Company seeks to capture a broad spectrum of medical marijuana users, as well as recreational users once legalized, in pursuit of its ambitious seed to sale and farm to pharma objectives.

The Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Valens Agritech Ltd. ("VAL"), is a post-inspection applicant awaiting the granting of a Controlled Drugs and Substances Dealer's Licence for the cultivation and processing of marijuana. Based in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, VAL anticipates participation in selective clinical trial programs researching the efficacy of medical cannabis.

The Company is about to close the signed Share Exchange Agreement (SEA) with Supra THC Services Inc. ("Supra") which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary. Supra holds a Health Canada Dealer's Licence and is providing sector-leading analytical services for Licensed Producers and ACMPR patients.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

VALENS GROWORKS CORP.

(signed) "Robert van Santen"

Chief Executive Officer

Notice regarding Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of such statements under applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking statements throughout this news release. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The Corporation is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law.

The CSE or other regulatory authority has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this press release. We seek Safe Harbour.

Contacts:

Greg Patchell

Telephone: +1.250.860.8634




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Versus Systems, Inc. (the "Company" or "Versus") (CSE: VS)(CSE: VS.CN)(OTCQB: VRSSF)(FRANKFURT: BMVA) today brings on Avril Millar, author, director, and strategic advisor, to the Versus Systems advisory board. In her role as advisor to the Versus board of directors, Ms. Millar will consult on overall business strategy - in particular the advancement of Versus Systems into the European markets, and the development of prizing, advertising and promotions platforms.

"We are fortunate to be able to work with Avril Millar," said Matthew Pierce, CEO of Versus Systems. "Her work at FxPro alone, independent of her strategic expertise, her book 'The Kama Sutra of Work', and her contacts throughout Europe, make her a fantastic addition to the team."

"Interactive media continues to evolve and expand with virtual reality and augmented reality creating more ways to play, inviting more consumers into the fold," says Ms. Millar. "Versus has a unique approach to marketing to this audience with an engine that drives players, spectators, and streamers to new levels of engagement with brands. This engine has massive potential."

Avril Millar is a non-executive director of FxPro, PassFort and The Security Circle, and advises Kepler Partners and many others. A civil engineer by training, having then built her own Wealth Management business from the mid 80s over 20 years, she has spent the last decade since its sale entirely sector neutral, leveraging her extensive business knowledge, personal contacts and strategic vision to support her client companies and their Executive teams through step changes to sustainable success. She is also the author of The Kama Sutra of Work and the mother of an Olympian.

Versus Systems, Inc. has developed a proprietary in-game prizing and promotions engine featuring conditional prizing and dynamic regulatory compliance. Versus Systems allows game developers and publishers to provide players and spectators with a steady stream of fresh content in the form of prizes that players can select before they compete in-game. Prizes including gear, apparel, concert tickets, energy drinks, DLC, and cash - all from brands gamers care about like Rockstar, Han Cholo, Tier 1 Games and others. Versus wants every gamer at home to feel like an eSports phenomenon playing for real stakes and real prizes. See how Versus works here: https://youtu.be/a37iab8qGbY.

To learn more about Versus, see the website at www.versussystems.com, or watch their recent video on YouTube.

Reader Advisory

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which include regulatory approvals, development of technology, timing of completion of technology and other matters. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding looking wording such as "may", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intend", "believe" and "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward looking statements will not occur. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the management of the Company including the development of its technology, including the effectiveness of the technology. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include consumer sentiment towards the Company's technology, technology failures, competition, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company in securities filings.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made by, third parties in respect of the matters discussed above.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, nor approved the content of the contents of this news release.

Contacts:

Versus Systems, Inc.

Liz Pieri

liz@pieripr.com

626-818-7580



Versus Systems, Inc.

Brandon Boddy

info@versussystems.com

604-787-1432




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/14/17 -- Finore Mining Inc. ("Finore" or the "Company") (CSE: FIN)(CSE: FIN.CN)(OTC: FNREF) announces the termination of the Securities Exchange Agreement dated January 25, 2017 among the Company, Kushtown USA, LLC ("Kushtown") and the members of Kushtown (the "SEA") with respect to the acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding membership interests of Kushtown (the "Transaction"). The Transaction was announced in the Company's news release dated January 26, 2017. The Company and Kushtown members have mutually agreed to terminate the SEA due to irreconcilable differences on operating the business on a going forward basis.

The Company currently has approximately $3,000,000 in cash and management intends to immediately begin assessing other opportunities to increase shareholder value.

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date of this press release and, except as required by applicable law, the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. By its very nature, such forward-looking information requires the Company to make assumptions that may not materialize or that may not be accurate. This forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, levels of activity and achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such information.

Listing: CSE - Symbol: FIN, OTC: FNREF

Contacts:

Finore Mining Inc.

info@finoremining.com




Substantial improvement in the operating result (-10.3m)

Annual growth driven by China (+25%) and France (+21%)

Improvement in the gross margin on sales to 43.2%

Venture loan obtained, principles of a capital increase

Regulatory News:

SuperSonic Imagine (Paris:SSI) (Euronext: SSI, FR0010526814, PEA-PME eligible), a company specialized in ultrasound medical imaging, today announces its financial results for the year ending December 31, 2016, as approved by the Board of Management on March 13, 2017.

Michele Lesieur, CEO and President of SuperSonic Imagine, comments: "The growth recorded in 2016, combined with our tight control over operating expenses and the improvement in our margins, enabled us to generate a substantial improvement in our operating result. Our teams have done a great job in implementing our new strategy focusing on clinical segments with strong potential and to rapidly obtain the first results. The financing we are announcing today, along with the continuous improvement in our performance, should provide us with additional financial means to strengthen our commercial footprint and our R&D activities. In 2016, we began to refocus our activities and we now intend to pursue this momentum to achieve the objectives as defined at the time of our IPO hereunder to break even in terms of EBITDA in 2019.

In thousands of euros 2016 2015* Change (%) Sales 22,217 20,064 +10.7% Other revenue 1,023 1,655 -38.2% Total revenue 23,240 21,719 +7.0% Cost of sales -12,628 -11,495 Gross margin 10,611 10,224 +3.8% Gross margin on sales1 9,588 8,569 +11.9% Gross margin as a of sales2 43.2% 42.7% +0.5 pp Operating expenses -20,883 -21,864 Core operating result -10,272 -11,640 Operating result -10,272 -12,540 Financial result -221 -71 Net profit/loss -10,555 -12,758

As indicated when the Company published its 2016 annual sales in January, SuperSonic Imagine recorded growth of +11% in 2016, reflecting the very first definitive results from the strategic refocusing defined in late 2015, based on clinical indications with greater potential (liver and breast). Furthermore, the Company saw its Services activity improve every quarter.

Taking other revenue essentially consisting of non-recurrent fees to access the Group's technology into account, SuperSonic Imagine's total revenue was 23.2 million in 2016, up +7% compared with the figure at December 31, 2015.

As of December 31st, 2016, SuperSonic Imagine had an installed base of more than 1,600 Aixplorer systems worldwide, a growth of over 20% compared with December 31, 2015. The breakdown in this installed base was as follows: 47% in EMEA countries, 29% in Asia and 24% in the Americas.

Substantial improvement in the operating result

The gross margin on sales improved by 0.5 pp to 43.2% in 2016 from 42.7% in 2015. This improvement was a result of the 1.0% increase in the gross margin on platform sales, thanks to the improvement in product cost prices offsetting a slight decrease in selling price.

As of December 31st, 2016, the core operating loss was 10.3 million (vs. 11.6 million in 2015), an improvement of 1.3 million thanks to the substantial efforts undertaken to reduce operating expenses for the first time since the IPO. Thus the expenses were reduced to 20.9 million in 2016 from 21.9 million in 2015, i.e. a reduction of 1.0 million. The operating loss over sales ratio thus saw a strong improvement to 46.2% (vs. 62.5% in 2015).

The Company is maintaining its Research Development efforts, with 9.1 million invested in 2016, or 40.8% of sales (vs. 9.2 million and 45.9% of sales in 2015).

The Company improved its Sales Marketing efficiency. The proportion of the latter decreased from 61.0% in 2015 to 54.0% of sales in 2016, with expenses totaling 12.0 million in 2016 compared with 12.2 million in 2015.

The proportion of General Administrative costs decreased significantly to 24.5% of sales in 2016 vs. 29.5% in 2015, to 5.4 million in 2016 from 5.9 million in 2015.

Once non-current operational elements and the financial loss are taken into account, SuperSonic Imagine recorded an Operating Loss of 10.3 million in 2016 (vs. 12.5 million loss in 2015) and a Net Loss of 10.6 million in 2016 (vs. 12.8 million loss in 2015), i.e. an improvement of 2.2 million.

EBITDA3 improved by 2.5 million, with a loss of 7.8 million in 2016 versus 10.3 million loss in 2015.

As of December 31st, 2016, the Company had a cash position of 11.3 million (vs. 29.5 million at end 2015). Cash burn was 18.2 million in 2016, and broke down as follows:

9.0 million cash burn associated with operating activities in 2016 (vs. 10.7 million in 2015), an improvement of 1.7 million;

5.1 million cash burn associated with investment activities in 2016 (vs. 4.0 million in 2015), driven by the increase in spending for the next generation of products;

3.8 million cash burn associated with financing activities

0.3 million cash burn associated with an effect of exchange rate fluctuations on cash.

SuperSonic Imagine had a workforce of 161 staff as of December 31st, 2016, versus 164 at the end 2015.

Additional financial resources made available

In order to accelerate its growth strategy, SuperSonic Imagine has decided to acquire additional financial resources, via today's granting of a Venture Loan and the announcement of a planned capital increase.

Regarding the Venture Loan from Kreos Capital V (UK) Limited ("Kreos")

The Venture Loan from Kreos, in a total amount of 12 million, consists of two tranches of bonds with warrants attached ("OBSAs") of 6 million each, and will enable SuperSonic Imagine to finance its commercial development and repay some of its existing debts.

The first tranche was subscribed on March 13th, 2017 at the outcome of the management board meeting.

The terms and conditions of the Venture Loan are as follows:

the loan has a term of 42 months and bears interest at an annual rate of 10.75%,

SuperSonic Imagine is providing the usual security,

the first tranche of 6,000,000 OBSAs is being issued with preferential subscription rights waived for the benefit of Kreos under the grant of authority given to the management board by resolution 14 of the combined general shareholders' meeting of June 24, 2016,

the second tranche of 6,000,000 OBSAs will be issued by December 31st, 2017 at the management board's request, subject to authorization by the supervisory board and the completion of the planned capital increase described below,

each warrant will entitle its holder to subscribe a number of shares calculated as follows (the "Exercise Ratio

R [ 1,320,000 P * 0.5 [ 0.5 ( N OBSA 12,000,000 ] ] N OBSA

where:

R is the Exercise Ratio

P is the volume-weighted average price of the Company's shares on NYSE Euronext's Paris market during the period of 90 days before the date on which the OBSAs are issued, and

N OBSA is the number of OBSAs subscribed by warrant holder on the date the warrants are exercised.

Accordingly, each warrant-holder will be able to subscribe a number of shares ("N") equal to the result of the following formula:

N R N BSA

Where:

R is the Exercise Ratio and

N BSA is the number of warrants held by the warrant-holder concerned.

The maximum dilution caused by the warrants attached to the first tranche of bonds represents 473,684 shares and a total maximum amount of 989,999.56.

A shareholder holding 1% of the share capital prior to the issue would hold approximately 0.96% of the share capital following the exercise of all the warrants attached to the two tranches on the basis of a "P" price of 2.09.

A representative of Kreos will be entitled to take part in SuperSonic Imagine's supervisory board meetings as a board advisor ("censeur

Regarding the planned capital increase

SuperSonic Imagine considers otherwise, during the first half of 2017, to carry out a capital increase in the form of a public offering with maintained preferential subscription rights for a total of between 7 and 10 million (premium included), subject to market conditions and the grant of a visa from the "Autorite des Marches Financiers" on the prospectus. This issuance should be supported by Bpifrance and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, long standing shareholders of the Company, that have already expressed the intention to participate for at least half of this operation in order to facilitate its implementation. SuperSonic Imagine will soon hold a Shareholders' Meeting in order to enable the launch of this operation.

Elisabeth Winter, Executive VP and Finance Director of SuperSonic Imagine, says: "Beyond our positive 2016 results versus prior year, the Company is strengthening its financial means via the new venture loan with Kreos Capital and the project of a capital increase supported by its longstanding shareholders. This additional financing will enable us to carry out the necessary investments in Research Development as well as on the sales front. They will be backed by the setting up of short-term financings in order to optimize the financing of our working capital requirements and thus ensure the Company's growth

Next financial press release: Q1 2017 sales, on April 20, 2017

About SuperSonic Imagine

Founded in 2005 and based in Aix-en-Provence (France), SuperSonic Imagine is a company specializing in medical imaging. The company designs, develops and markets a revolutionary ultrasound system, Aixplorer, with an UltraFast platform that can acquire images 200 times faster than conventional ultrasound systems. In addition to providing exceptional image quality, this unique technology is the foundation of several innovations which have changed the paradigm of ultrasound imaging: ShearWave Elastography (SWE), UltraFast Doppler, Angio PL.U.S Planewave UltraSensitive Imaging and more recently TriVu. ShearWave Elastography allows physicians to visualize and analyze the stiffness of tissue in a real-time, reliable, reproducible and non-invasive manner. This criteria has become an important parameter in diagnosing potentially malignant tissue or other diseased tissue. As of today, over 300 peer-reviewed publications have demonstrated the value of SWE for the clinical management of patients with a wide range of diseases. UltraFast Doppler combines Color Flow Imaging and Pulsed Wave Doppler into one simple exam, providing physicians with exam results simultaneously and helping to increase patient throughput. The latest innovation, Angio PL.U.S, provides a new level of microvascular imaging through significantly improved color sensitivity and spatial resolution while maintaining exceptional 2D imaging. SuperSonic Imagine has been granted regulatory clearances for the commercialization of Aixplorer in key global markets. SuperSonic Imagine is a listed company since April 2014 on the Euronext, symbol SSI. For more information about SuperSonic Imagine, please go to www.supersonicimagine.com.

Disclaimer

This press release and the information it contains are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy or subscribe to any SuperSonic Imagine securities, in any jurisdiction. Any public offering of SuperSonic Imagine securities would be made by means of a prospectus previously approved by the AMF that contains detailed information about SuperSonic Imagine.

The disclosure, distribution and publication of this press release may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions and persons into whose possession any document or other information referred to herein comes should inform themselves about and comply with any such restrictions. SuperSonic Imagine takes no responsibility for any violation of any restrictions by any person. In particular, securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration under the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended. SuperSonic Imagine does not intend to register securities or conduct a public offering in the United States.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of SuperSonic Imagine, which shall not be considered per se as historical facts, including the ability to manufacture, market, commercialize and achieve market acceptance for specific projects developed by SuperSonic Imagine, estimates for future performance and estimates regarding anticipated operating losses, future revenues, capital requirements, needs for additional financing. In addition, even if the actual results or development of SuperSonic Imagine are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, those results or developments of SuperSonic Imagine may not be indicative of their in the future.

In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by words such as "could," "should," "may," "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "aims," "targets," or similar words. Although the management of SuperSonic Imagine believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonably made, they are based largely on the current expectations of SuperSonic Imagine as of the date of this press release and are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievement expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In particular, the expectations of SuperSonic Imagine could be affected by, among other things, uncertainties involved in unexpected regulatory actions or delays related notably to building and operating permits and renewable support policies, competition in general or any other risk and uncertainties developed or identified in any public documents filed by SuperSonic Imagine with the AMF, included those listed in chapter 4 "Risk factors" of the 2015 document de reference approved by the French financial market authority (the Autorite des marches financiers - the "AMF") on April 28, 2016 under number R.16-038. In light of these risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements made in this press release will in fact be realized. Notwithstanding the compliance with article 223-1 of the General Regulation of the AMF (the information disclosed must be "accurate, precise and fairly presented"), SuperSonic Imagine is providing the information in these materials as of this press release, and disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

1 Gross margin on sales Sales Cost of sales

2 Gross margin as a of sales Gross margin on sales Sales

* Presentation reclassifications have been carried out in the income statement, which thus indicates different figures at December 31, 2015 than previously published.

3 2016 EBITDA corresponds to the net loss of 10,555 thousand, to which is added back net financial expense of 221 thousand, tax expense of 441 thousand, and depreciation, amortisation and provisions of 2,088 thousand (2,598 thousand of depreciation and amortisation less 510 thousand of capitalised costs). 2016 EBITDA therefore amounts to a loss of 7,805 thousand. 2015 EBITDA corresponds to the net loss of 12,758 thousand, to which is added back net financial expense of 71 thousand, tax expense of 731 thousand, and depreciation, amortisation and provisions of 1,649 thousand (2,118 thousand of depreciation and amortisation less 469 thousand of capitalised costs). 2015 EBITDA therefore amounts to a loss of 10,307 thousand.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CANADA, AUSTRALIA AND JAPAN

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006419/en/

Contacts:

SuperSonic Imagine

Marketing Communication

Emmanuelle Vella

emmanuelle.vella@supersonicimagine.com

+33 4 86 79 03 27

or

Pascale Communication

Media Relations US

Amy Phillips

amy@pascalecommunications.com

+1 412 327 9499

or

NewCap

Investor Relations EU

Pierre Laurent Florent Alba

supersonicimagine@newcap.fr

+33144719855
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 14, 2017) - Jaxon Minerals Inc. (TSXV: JAX) (FSE: 0U3) ("Jaxon" or the "Company") has signed a definitive agreement to purchase the gold-silver Wishbone property from vendor Lorne Warren. The 3,900 hectare property is located in western British Columbia, Canada, approximately 30 kilometres southeast of the Nova Gold/Teck-owned Galore Creek property.

The terms of the purchase agreement are as follows:

$10,000 and 100,000 Jaxon shares on signing

$15,000 and 100,000 Jaxon shares on 1st anniversary

$25,000 and 100,000 Jaxon shares on 2nd anniversary

$25,000 and 100,000 Jaxon shares on 3rd anniversary

$50,000 and 200,000 Jaxon shares on 4th anniversary

$50,000 and 200,000 Jaxon shares on 5th anniversary

$20,000 per year advanced royalty payments beginning 6 th anniversary

2% NSR with $1,000,000 per 1% buy out

200,000 Jaxon shares on commercial production







The company also announces that it has arranged a non-brokered private placement of up to 5 million units at a price of $0.07 per unit for gross proceeds of up to $350,000. Each unit will comprise one common share and one common share purchase warrant. Each share purchase warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share at $0.12 per share with an expiry date of two years from the closing of the private placement. A finder's fee commensurate with TSX Venture Exchange policies will be paid where applicable.

The funds raised will be used to conduct further review of historic data from the company's Price Creek and Wishbone properties and for general working capital purposes.

The terms of the Wishbone acquisition remain subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.

ON BELHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

JAXON MINERALS INC.

"Jason Cubitt" ______

Jason Cubitt, President.

For further information regarding Jaxon Minerals Inc., please contact Jason Cubitt at 604-608-0400, Toll free: 1-877-608-0007.

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.
Regulatory News:

SoLocal Group (Paris:LOCAL) specifies that the cash subscriptions made, directly or indirectly, by the Company's top management1, to the rights issue of SoLocal in the amount of approximately 398.48 million, totaled more than 1.5 million.

In particular, Mr. Robert de Metz, Chairman of the Board of Directors, subscribed to 512,459 shares and Mr. Jean-Pierre Remy, Chief Executive Officer, to 203,832 shares.

These subscriptions have been or will be the subject of the required declarations in accordance with the applicable legal and regulatory provisions.

About SoLocal Group

SoLocal Group, European leader in local online communication, reveals local know-how, and boosts local revenues of businesses. The Internet activities of the Group are structured around two business lines: Local Search and Digital Marketing. With Local Search, the Group offers digital services and solutions to clients which enable them to enhance their visibility and develop their local contacts. Thanks to its expertise, SoLocal Group earned the trust of some 490,000 clients of those services and over 2.4 billions of visits via its 4 flagship brands (PagesJaunes, Mappy, Ooreka and A Vendre A Louer) but also through its partnerships. With Digital Marketing, SoLocal Group creates and provides the best local and customised content about professionals. With over 4,400 employees, including a new orders force of 1,900 local communication advisors specialised in five verticals (Home, Services, Retail, Health Public, BtoB) and Internationally (France, Spain, Austria, United Kingdom), the Group generated in 2016 revenues of 812 millions euros, of which 80% on Internet and ranks amongst the first European players in terms of Internet advertising revenues. SoLocal Group is listed on Euronext Paris (LOCAL). More information may be obtained at www.solocalgroup.com.

1 Directors (excluding the director representing the staff), Chief Executive Officer, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006458/en/

Contacts:

Press

Delphine Penalva

+33 (0)1 46 23 35 31

dpenalva@solocal.com

or

Edwige Druon

+33 (0)1 46 23 37 56

edruon@solocal.com

or

Alexandra Kunysz

+33 (0)1 46 23 47 45

akunysz@solocal.com

or

Investors

Emmanuelle Vinel

+33 (0) 1 46 99 41 80

evinel@solocal.com

or

Sebastien Nony

+33 (0) 1 46 23 49 03

snony@solocal.com
GuestToGuest, a Paris, France-based global community for home exchange, raised 33m in funding.

MAIF, a French mutual insurance company, made the investment.

The company intends to use the funds to acquire U.S.-based international home swapping company HomeExchange and to reach one million users by 2019.

Co-founded in 2011 by Charles-Edouard Girard and Emmanuel Arnaud, GuestToGuest is a peer-to-peer home exchange platform that connects individuals who wish to exchange their home for short or long stays. The exchange system is based on a website and apps where users can register for free and offer one or more homes for exchange. Each house is assigned a point value in GuestPoints that the guest user transfers to the host in the event of a non-reciprocal exchange.

GuestToGuest lists 280,000 homes in 187 countries and is known in European markets while HomeExchange boasts 65,000 home listings in 150 countries and is established in the United States market. The combination of GuesttoGuest and HomeExchange will allow expanded, synergistic coverage of the travel market. GuesttoGuest will remain free for users and target a younger audience while HomeExchange, which charges an annual membership fee depending on level of access, will continue pursuing a more established type of traveler in search of premium experiences.

FinSMEs

13/03/2017
Ideal Cures Private Limited, a supplier of ready-to-use coating products and excipients for tablets and capsules to the pharmaceutical and allied industries, received a private equity investment from TA Associates.

The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. In conjunction with the deal, Dhiraj Poddar, Country Head of India, TA Associates Advisory Private Limited, will join the Ideal Cures Board of Directors.

Founded in 1999 in India by Suresh Pareek, Managing Director, ald also led by Kamlesh Oza, President  Global Business Development, Ideal Cures is a manufacturer and exporter of pharmaceutical excipients and ready-to-use coating systems for solid oral dosage forms. Its products are used to provide aesthetic coatings as well as functional coatings for tablets and capsules. Aesthetic sugar or film coatings allow for swallowability and taste masking. They also aid brand recognition, authentication and differentiation. Functional coatings serve a number of purposes ranging from moisture, oxygen and light protection of drugs to controlling drug delivery to a specific part of the gastrointestinal tract.

The company also produces specialty excipients such as neutral pellets, cooling compounds, taste masking agents, controlled release polymer blends and pharma acrylic polymers.

Ideal Cures has three manufacturing plants located in Vasai, Jammu and Khambat; and two R&D facilities in Mumbai and Vasai. Another plant is under construction in Sikkim.

FinSMEs

14/03/2017
Peloton Therapeutics, Inc., a Dallas, TX-based drug discovery and development company, raised an additional $22.2m in Series D funding.

This adds to the earlier Series D close of $52.4m, bringing the full amount raised in the Series D financing round to $74.6m.

Led by John A. Josey, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, and Michael F. Haller, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer, Peloton Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that discovers and develops novel small molecule cancer therapies targeting unexploited molecular vulnerabilities. Its lead programs are small molecule inhibitors targeting hypoxia inducible factor-2 (HIF-2), a transcription factor implicated in the development and progression of kidney and other cancers.
ShopClues co-founder Sandeep Aggarwal on Monday said he has filed a criminal defamation case against other co-founders -- Sanjay Sethi and estranged wife, Radhika -- in Delhi courts earlier this month alleging them of downplaying his role in creation of the online marketplace.

The statement, issued by Sandeep's press team, comes a day after he made several allegations against Radhika in a series of Facebook posts.

ShopClues was valued at over US $1 billion last year. Its investors include GIC Pte Ltd, Tiger Global Managment LLC and Nexus Venture Partners.

Apologising for the emotional outburst on social media and saying such acts will not happen again, the statement said, "Sandeep has been wronged on multiple counts by people he trusted the most. He is deeply hurt and while he stands by each and every word, he regrets having made the emotional outburst and using public media to express it."

"He lost the love of his life, ShopClues, and hardly gets to see kids and that took a toll on his emotions...while he stands by each and every word, he regrets having the emotional outburst and using public media to express it," it said.

ShopClues, an online marketplace that is focussed on tier II and III cities, was founded in 2011 by the Aggarwals and Sanjay Sethi. Sandeep handed over the reins of the company to his wife as he was allegedly involved in an insider trading case in the US in 2013. Since then, he had not been actively involved with Shopclues.

When contacted, ShopClues denied any knowledge about the defamation cases filed by Sandeep. "The company is not aware of any of those cases. Officially, we are aware of the two cases FBI and SEC (in the US) have against him - both of which he has pleaded guilty to and he is awaiting sentencing in both of those. Sandeep has been separated from the company since 2013 after his indictment," a ShopClues spokesperson wrote in an e-mailed reply to PTI.

"Sandeep filed an adultery case in district court of Gurgaon against Sanjay Sethi in December 2016. This case is being actively investigated as part of judicial process. Sandeep also filed a criminal defamation case against Sanjay and Radhika in Delhi courts in March 2017 as they have been lying in press and media and minimise Sandeep's role in creation of ShopClues," the statement issued on behalf of Sandeep said.

Radhika, who is currently the chief business officer at ShopClues, said she is shocked by the unfounded and baseless allegations made in Sandeep's Facebook posts.

"I am shocked by unfounded and baseless allegations being made. In the interest of the privacy of my family, I will not be commenting on any personal matters. However, ShopClues was always a team effort and by God's grace and hard work of a strong team, ShopClues has become a force to reckon with and I want to focus my time and energy to do what I owe to my employees, my investors, my country and myself," she said.

Sandeep, through Facebook posts had questioned Radhika's educational and professional credentials and alleged that she had fraudulently taken away his voting rights in the firm. Sandeep is the largest individual shareholder in ShopClues and majority holder of the company's common shares, he said in a statement.
Srijit Mukherji's upcoming period drama Begum Jaan revolves around a brothel located in Punjab during the troubled times of the Partition. The sex workers of the brothel are indifferent about India's Independence until they are informed that the line between India and Pakistan is going to cross their brothel.

The trailer of the film shows how Begum Jaan, the madam of the brothel, played by Vidya Balan, declares a war against the authorities who want them to evacuate the brothel at once. Balan displays a range of moods in the trailer. She is laid back and confident as she sips on the hookah. She is fierce and vulnerable as she fights tooth and nail against the authorities.

The major highlight of the trailer is its final moments when Balan makes a rare yet bold reference to mahina or menstruation. Given that menstruation is a taboo in India, it is arguably the first time that a reference to the same has been made so emphatically in the trailer of the film.

The trailer solely focuses on Balan's character and features fleeting glimpses of the other sex workers played by the talented likes of Ila Arun, Pallavi Sharda and Gauhar Khan among others. It also shows Naseeruddin Shah as the king of a princely state. It will be interesting to see him share the screen space with Balan after Abhishek Chaubey's 2010 dark comedy Ishqiya and Milan Luthria's 2011 film The Dirty Picture. Also, Chunkey Pandey, well known for his comical roles, has never looked more menacing than in the trailer of this film.

As reported earlier, Amitabh Bachchan's unmistakably recognisable baritone explains the historical setting of the film in the beginning of the trailer. Needless to say, he paints a beautiful picture with his words.

Begum Jaan is produced by Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt's Vishesh Films which has completed 30 years since its inception back in March 1987. The film is slated to release on 14 April.
Among a devoted online audience, Jordan Peele is known as one half of a sketch show double act called Key & Peele which airs on Comedy Central. It has gained a reputation for the pairs spot-on impersonations and short-form racial satire. This racial satire translates beautifully onto the silver screen in Peele's directorial debut, Get Out.

Peele's directorial debut is one of the scariest films in 2017. Get Out looks at the experience of a young black man, played by the British actor Daniel Kaluuya, when he is introduced to his white girlfriend's parents.

It's by turns tense, funny and terrifying. It draws the comedic inspiration from Sidney Poitier's Guess Who's Coming To Dinner and in an era of Donald Trump and Black Lives Matter, it taps into America's racial tensions in the most unsettling and yet compelling fashion.

The New York Times points out how the opener  a black man talking on a cellphone on an empty suburban street  briskly sets the tone, unsettles the mood.

Peele spoke about the racial implications of the film at a secret screening of the film at the Sundance film festival.

Deadline reported him saying that, "We had this black president and we're living in this post-racial lie. This whole idea that weve passed it all. For me, and many black people out there, there's racism. I experience it on an everyday basis. This movie was meant to reveal that there's the monster of racism lurking underneath these seemingly innocent conversations and situations. It's been fascinating watching the last few years develop, because now the movie is coming out in a very different America from where it began. I think it's more important now, and far more interesting now. I respect Universal for having the f*cking balls leaning into this kind of sh*t."

Get Out rolls into cinemas on 17 March 2017 to scare you out of your wits. Watch the trailer here:
The satellite television rights of Rajinikanth-Akshay Kumar sci-fi thriller 2.O have been sold for a record high of Rs 110 Cr to Zee Television.

Zee TV Network will hold the Tamil, Telugu and Hindi satellite rights for a period of 15 years. It is the biggest satellite deal cracked in Indian motion picture history. The previous biggest deal was a few months back when Zee picked up Aamir Khans Dangal for Rs 75 Crore.

Confirming the deal, Lyca Productions' creative head Raju Mahalingam (the producers of the ambitious Rs 400 Crore 2.O) told The Hindu: Rs 110 Crore is only for the films satellite rights. We are in talks with Amazon and Netflix for the films digital rights.

Another advantage the producers have is that it is not a perpetual right given away, instead it is only for a period of 15 years.

The Shankar directed 2.0 is being touted as Indias most expensive film at Rs 400 Cr, where Rajinikanth is pitted against Bollywood star Akshay Kumar as the main antagonist.

It is a win-win situation for Lyca Productions as they have already got 25 % of their budget upfront via the sale of satellite television rights. They are expected to make another 400 Crore from theatrical sale of overseas, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu rights. They are also in talks for the Chinese and Japanese dubbing rights of the film.

The producers have also pulled off the impossible by selling the satellite rights at a time when the market is at an all time low. Rajinikanths previous film Kabali's satellite television rights in Tamil is yet to be sold, though Hindi, Malayalam and Telugu rights have been sold separately.

2.O is in the final stages of shoot and post-production work is going on simultaneously. Last week, Shankar put out a group picture of him and his technical crew and tweeted  With my team after finishing a major scene of #2.0. One song and some patch works are only the balance.

The film is looking for a worldwide Diwali 2017 release.
On Holi, an anonymous writer wrote a blog on Medium about how during her tenure as an employee with The Viral Fever, founder Arunabh Kumar harassed and molested her multiple times, allegedly right through their popular shows, Pitchers and Tripling.

The blog, titled 'The Indian Uber - That is TVF' has now gone viral and has resulted in multiple other women coming out and speaking about their bad experiences with Kumar.

And now, Arunabh has spoken about the claims to Mumbai Mirror, where he categorically denies any such event happening. He states that the claims are fake, and urges the victim to file a police complaint or bring up the issue with TVF HR.

He says, "I unconditionally and unequivocally deny all these allegations. Social media has already declared me an offender, but I am ready to address all the allegations against me. I am open to receiving a police complaint so that I can respond legally as well. TVF is bigger than me and if there is a remote chance that I have done any wrong, let me be persecuted."

Kumar also revealed that TVF has approached Medium to check the credibility of the blog. The blogging website has informed them that in the next 48 hours, if the post turns out to be inauthentic, it will be taken down.

Meanwhile, other members of TVF have also spoken about the issue. Biswapati Sarkar, who is known for his spoofs on Arnab Goswami, tweeted about the issue.

Sensationalism > Facts  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

After working for two straight nights, I wake up to an unverified article written by a non-existent person. People sharing, calling us names  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

I read another which claims TVF has no HR team. Again, no verification. People still sharing baseless articles.  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

It makes for a great fictional story. I'm sure more anonymous 'ex-TVF' employee stories will drop in.  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

I know a lot of people love the sensationalist story behind it. But sadly, it isn't true. But still...  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

I am working really hard and I won't waste any more of time trying to convince random people about baseless rumours.  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

Other TVF members, Nidhi Bisht and Amit Golani, also tweeted about their stance:

For a company that specially champions and has a woman centric channel @Girliyapa it's disheartening to see people question our culture  Amit Golani (@GolOpinions) March 13, 2017

It is important to note that in the Mumbai Mirror report, Arunabh has agreed that in an earlier issue involving ex-TVF employee Aayushi Aggarwal, a case of harassment was filed against him and a committee looked into the matter.

Meanwhile, responses from the TVF have been mostly on the defensive, calling the victims "random" and fake, apart from Nidhi Bisht, who asks for any female employees to speak up about any sort of issue they have faced with TVF.
Arunabh Kumar, CEO and founder of The Viral Fever (TVF), a leading web production house in India, has been accused of sexual harassment by one woman in an article on Medium, another woman in a Facebook post, and one more in an interview with The Quint. They have all described the situations in which Kumar encountered and molested them. TVF has denied all allegations so far, while also claiming that they are investigating the Medium blog for its authenticity.

Kumar himself has responded to the allegations, by claiming he welcomes the victim to file an FIR.

Here's what people who work at TVF and others on Twitter had to say about the issue.

Nidhi Bisht said that she thinks TVF is one of "the best places for women to work". She says that the reason she dismissed the Medium article was because she does not remember any employee by that description. She also said that allegations about TVF's lack of human resource and sexual harassment redressal systems are false.

Biswapati Sarkar, creative director at TVF, posted multiple tweets.

An image is tarnished. Some people will still believe fiction over facts and refuse to accept the simple truth.  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

Stand-up comic Aditi Mittal criticised the comedy industry for its "defeaning silence".

Silence from the comedy community is deafening.EVERYONE still"texting contacts"/"verifying facts" inspite of hearing stories abt it for yrs?  Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) March 13, 2017

She says that this is the reason why the proportion of women in the Indian comedy scene is so low.

And THAT my friends is why "there are so few female comics" a question that I get CONSTANTLY asked as if I should have the ans to the ques.  Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) March 13, 2017

Amit Golani, director at TVF, defended the company in this manner:

For a company that specially champions and has a woman centric channel @Girliyapa it's disheartening to see people question our culture  Amit Golani (@GolOpinions) March 13, 2017

Mittal said that content producers use feminism as a sales strategy, also adding that journalists reporting the story should be speaking to male comedians, not female ones.

The fact that the diggaj-log of comedy who make videos & even take money from brands for their saleable feminism are quiet today is telling  Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) March 13, 2017

Journos calling all the women in comedy to go on record-- NO. Call the men. See how much they defend their brohood now. Enough is enough.  Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) March 13, 2017

Utsav Chakraborty, a stand-up comic, made a point about how the anonymity and alleged false nature of the victim's article had led to other women coming out with similar stories.

It's like someone saying that superheroes don't inspire acts of goodness from their readers because they're fictitious and wear masks.  Utsav Chakraborty (@Shockraborty) March 13, 2017

Twitter user @LiteraryBadass emphasised that many women do not complain about incidents of abuse because they fear that they will lose their jobs.

9 times TVF founder was accused of harassment by female colleagues and how we cannot report it because bread and butter  Mo (@LiteraryBadass) March 13, 2017

Buzzfeed editor Rega Jha echoed this sentiment, adding that reporting abuse may lead to being criticised by the entire industry.

worth note: it's difficult for women in content/comedy to call out harassment, speaking up can make you the girl who "can't take a joke"  Rega Jha (@RegaJha) March 13, 2017

The founders of All India Bakchod (AIB) spoke and about the role of the organisation in such cases, the fact that such an incident took place at all, and what should be done.

I know many founders are reading this right now - do a townhall tomorrow. Tell your employees that there is a way to address their problems.  Tanmay Bhat (@thetanmay) March 13, 2017

Sickened by all the allegations coming to the fore. There's no place for such behaviour in 2017.  Ashish Shakya (@stupidusmaximus) March 13, 2017

What can I do to reassure the people that work with/for me? Is this a safe, fair space for them? And if it's not, what has to change?  Rohan (@mojorojo) March 13, 2017

They were also accused of taking advantage of this situation to verbally beat up their competitors. Rohan Joshi responded to such tweets with this:

Opportunistic if we speak up for better practices, cowards if we don't. Fuck you all. Bear your own crosses, I'm not doing it for you https://t.co/MlUJUOZRNh  Rohan (@mojorojo) March 13, 2017

Sorabh Pant, founder of East India Comedy, said that the issue was larger than the industry.

FYI: this is not about comedy. Or, TVF (who I really like) V. EIC V. AIB. This is about something way bigger. And, it cant be ignored.  Sorabh Pant (@hankypanty) March 13, 2017

Many Twitter users took to "correcting" the official response put out by TVF. Kaanmasti creator and ex-VJ Jose Covaco was one of them.

Stand-up comedian Kanan Gill said that what may be "acceptable" for some could still make others uncomfortable.

It's vital to learn what sexual harassment is. The "harmless" things you think you say and do could be making people very uncomfortable  Kanan Gill (@KananGill) March 14, 2017

it doesn't matter whether this behaviour is normal in the pop culture you consume. Barney saying it on HIMYM doesn't absolve you  Kanan Gill (@KananGill) March 14, 2017

Filmnaker Apurva Asrani said that he was sharing the Medium article because he knew someone else who went through the same situation. He added that TVF had not followed protocol.

Sharing this because I know another girl who went through the same ordeal recently. #TVF #ArunabhKumar https://t.co/iAw5WWLu3c  Apurva Asrani (@Apurvasrani) March 13, 2017

If the mandatory #Vishaka guidelines had been followed, #TVF would have announced an 'investigation' and not a 'severe justice' warning. pic.twitter.com/0SIEo1mMNN  Apurva Asrani (@Apurvasrani) March 13, 2017

Hansal Mehta, director of Aligarh and Shahid, said that harassment of all kinds must be denounced and emphasised that the root of it is perceived power that some employees have over others.

Harassment at the workplace must be denounced. Whether it is sexual, mental or the result of a person's perceived power over the other.  Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) March 13, 2017
The trailer of A Family Man was released by Voltage Pictures on 10 March, 2017. Starring Gerard Butler, Alison Brie, Gretchen Mol, Alfred Molina and Anupam Kher, this film has a heartwarming, touching feel to it.

As soon as Gerard Butler's character Dane utters the words, "I'm a headhunter, the purest form of salesman," you can sense just how competitive he is. In A Family Man, he is competing with Alison Brie's character for a top-level position, and as a result, he begins to put his family life on the back burner. You can tell how driven Dane is through lines such as, "This job is a desk, a phone, a chair and your ass," and the declaration, "I'm an American hero."

Things begin to change when Dane takes his oldest son for a run and realises that he is not healthy. One day when he comes back from work, he finds that his son is very sick and they take him to a doctor, only to find out that he has cancer. Veteran actor Anupam Kher plays the doctor.

The trailer ends with two very significant lines. "Every family has its issues, but you only have one family," says one of Dane's relatives to him. Dane's boss eventually asks him if he wants the job, to which he replies, "Everything I need, I already have."

A Family Man has been directed by Mark Williams. Anupam Kher tweeted the trailer of this film on 12 March, 2017.

Delighted to share the trailer of my upcoming film 'A Family Man' with Gerard Butler, Willem Deffo & Gretchen Moi.:) https://t.co/pwnoVRbXh9  Anupam Kher (@AnupamPkher) March 12, 2017

Watch the trailer here:


By Tulay Karadeniz and Ercan Gurses

| ANKARA

ANKARA Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan on Monday threatened to impose sanctions on the Netherlands and take it to the European Court of Human Rights over a ban on his ministers speaking at rallies in Dutch cities, deepening a row with a NATO ally.Erdogan, who is seeking support from Turks in a referendum on boosting his powers as president, had previously accused the Dutch government of acting like "Nazi remnants" for barring his ministers from addressing expatriate Turks to drum up votes.The row marks another low point in relations between Turkey and Europe, further dimming Ankara's prospects of joining the EU. It also comes as Turkey is caught up by security concerns over militant attacks and the war in neighbouring Syria.A source close to the government earlier told Reuters that sanctions were expected to be discussed by ministers on Monday."We will carry out whatever our diplomatic sanctions are ... We will make sure the Netherlands are rapidly held accountable for this," Erdogan said in comments broadcast live on television. "They use international law whenever it suits them, they make excuses for it. We will go to the European Court of Human Rights as well. Our friends are currently making the necessary preparations."He did not say whether the government would also impose economic measures against the Netherlands. A source in Ankara had earlier said sanctions could affect cultural activities, and military and technological cooperation. State media quoted EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik as saying Turkey should reconsider part of its deal to keep migrants out of the EU, comments likely to further anger Brussels.Turkey also summoned the Dutch charge d'affaires on Monday to complain about the ban - imposed due to fears of unrest and distaste at what the Netherlands sees as an increasingly authoritarian tone from Erdogan - and the actions of police against Turkish protesters in Rotterdam over the weekend, foreign ministry sources said.DOGS, WATER CANNON

On Sunday, Dutch police used dogs and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags outside the consulate in Rotterdam. Some protesters threw bottles and stones and several demonstrators were beaten by police with batons, a Reuters witness said. Mounted police officers charged the crowd.

"The Turkish community and our citizens were subject to bad treatment, with inhumane and humiliating methods used in disproportionate intervention against people exercising their right to peaceful assembly," a statement attributed to ministry sources said.The Dutch government barred Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from flying to Rotterdam on Saturday and later stopped Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate there, before escorting her back to Germany.Protests then erupted in Turkey and the Netherlands. Several European countries, including Holland, have stopped Turkish politicians holding rallies, due to fears that tensions in Turkey might spill over into their expatriate communities.Some 400,000 Turkish citizens live in the Netherlands and an estimated 1.5 million Turkish voters live in Germany. The Dutch government said the visits were undesirable and it would not cooperate in their campaigning. According to polls, it is set to lose about half its seats in elections this week as the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders makes strong gains.Monday was the third time the Dutch envoy had been called in since Saturday over the row. The Dutch ambassador is on leave and the Turkish foreign ministry says it does not want him back "for some time".

The European Union's executive arm said on Monday that the bloc would assess Turkey's planned constitutional changes in light of the country's status as a candidate EU membership, and called on Ankara to refrain from statements and actions that could further fuel the diplomatic row.SANCTIONS

Dutch direct investment in Turkey amounts to $22 billion, making the Netherlands the biggest source of foreign investment with a share of 16 percent.Ozgur Altug, chief economist at BGC Partners in Istanbul, said at this stage he did not foresee the row having serious short-term economic consequences."However, if the tension escalates and if countries start imposing sanctions against each other, it might have serious implications for the Turkish economy," he said.

Turkish exports to the Netherlands totalled $3.6 billion in 2016, making it the tenth largest market for Turkish goods, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute. Turkey imported $3 billion worth of Dutch goods in 2016.Dutch visitors are important to Turkey's tourism industry, which was hit hard in 2016 by security fears due to attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish militants. Some 900,000 Dutch people visited Turkey last year, down from 1.2 million a year earlier.A source close to the government told Reuters that sanctions, if imposed, may go beyond the economy."When the sanctions are imposed, what we need to be careful about is being realistic. We are not completely closing the windows," the source said. "However, we want to show that what has been done to Turkey will have a response."He said certain cultural activities may be cancelled and the re-evaluation of military and technological cooperation was also on the table.Ankara is seeking an official written apology for the treatment of its family minister and diplomats in Rotterdam, the Turkish foreign ministry sources also said.Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said it is Erdogan who should apologise for comparing the Netherlands to fascists and Nazis, adding that Turkey was acting "in a totally unacceptable, irresponsible manner".NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on Turkey and the Netherlands to defuse the row.At the weekend, Erdogan dubbed the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" and said "Nazism is still widespread in the West", comments echoed in Turkish media on Monday."Nazi Dogs," said a front-page headline incorporating a swastika in the pro-government Aksam newspaper, above a photo of a police dog biting the thigh of a man during Saturday night's protest in Rotterdam. (Additional reporting by Ebru Tuncay in Istanbul, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Giles Elgood)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Tom Miles

| GENEVA

GENEVA Myanmar may be using bureaucratic means to get rid of its Rohingya Muslim minority after a security crackdown against them caused an international outcry, the U.N. human rights investigator on Myanmar said on Monday.The U.N. human rights office said last month that the campaign of killings and rapes probably amounted to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing.U.N. special rapporteur Yanghee Lee told the U.N. Human Rights Council that Myanmar was still making Rohingyas' lives difficult by dismantling homes and conducting a household survey."Conducting a household survey - where those absent may be struck off the list that could be the only legal proof of their status in Myanmar - indicates the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether. I sincerely hope that that is not the case," she said. Myanmar's military launched the crackdown in the north of Rakhine state after nine policemen were killed on Oct. 9. Some 75,000 Rohingya have since fled to Bangladesh, where Lee said she had heard "harrowing account after harrowing account".

"I heard allegation after allegation of horrific events like these  slitting of throats, indiscriminate shootings, setting alight houses with people tied up inside and throwing very young children into the fire, as well as gang rapes and other sexual violence," she told the Council.Lee visited Myanmar twice in the past year, including Rakhine state. But she was blocked at the last minute from Kachin state, another area of ethnic violence.

"I must confess that there were times that I had seriously questioned the nature of the cooperation," she said.Myanmar's ambassador Htin Lynn called the allegations of crimes against humanity unverified and one-sided. He said security operations in Rakhine had stopped and the curfew was eased earlier this month. "The situation in Rakhine state is very complicated in nature and thus requires complicated answers. It also requires greater understanding by the international community," he said.

Human rights challenges could not be solved within a year, he said, referring to the year-old government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But Lee said Myanmar's number of political prisoners had doubled to 170 in that time.U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein has said treatment of the Rohingya merits a U.N. commission of inquiry and review by the International Criminal Court.But Myanmar is unlikely to face international scrutiny because a Human Rights Council resolution drafted by the European Union would leave the country itself to investigate. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Manohar Parrikar's return to Goa has created yet another dual ministerial charge situation for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who now has additional charge of the Ministry of Defence.

A fractured mandate in Goa created a sudden situation where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to ask Parrikar to relinquish charge as defence minister and go back to the place where his heart in any case was, without having the time look for a replacement.

All the top five Cabinet Committee on Security affairs (CCS) ministries are located on Raisna hills in New Delhi, with defence ministry, external affairs ministry and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) located in the South Block, while the home and finance ministries are just across the road in North Block. In fact, Jaitley, if he so wishes, could see his office in the Ministry of Defence from the window of his finance ministry office and vice versa.

However, while the geographical distance between the two ministries may be negligible, in terms of work load both these ministries definitely require full time attention of the minister(s) concerned.

These are heavyweight portfolios, as Jaitley too would have realised during the brief period between 24 May 2014 and 9 November 2014, when he held the two ministries. While both the ministries require a lot of travel, the defence minister is also required to visit the border outposts, not just to boost morale of defence personnel but also to have first hand understanding of prevailing situation on the border.

Moreover, Jaitley gets additional charge of the Ministry of Defence at a time when his hands were only too full with the Budget Session of the Parliament still on. Jaitley has to get two key bills, Finance Bill and Appropriation Bill, passed in the Houses while he also has to make focused efforts to ensures that whatever negative impact demonetisation had on economy is negated fast. He has to build political consensus to get supporting legislation on GST passed in Parliament and have the new tax regime rolled out within the July 2017 deadline.

Besides this, Jaitley also has institutional work in the BJP as he remains one of the key political strategists in his party and his opinion, both political and legal, are crucial for the BJP in situations like the ones at hand in Goa and Manipur.

And as far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned, terror attacks such as the ones in Uri and Pathankot are a reminder that the ministry needs full time attention. of the defence minister. Moreover, Modi government has also laid special emphasis on better defence preparedness and as such the three forces have to make large scale acquisitions, which again require meticulous evaluation of global bids.

While for better part of around three years that Modi government has been in power, Jaitley had held the charge of two to three ministries, the arguments above only go to show that the prime minister must find someone full time for the key job.

Even though this is not the first time that an existing cabinet minister is asked to take additional charge of the crucial portfolio, in preceding cases too a full time minister was soon appointed.

Jaitley himself has held the ministry for a brief while before the appointment of Manohar Parrikar as defence minister in November 2014. He has also held other extra portfolios as and when the need has arised: Jaitley was given charges of Information and Broadcast ministry, along with the corporate affairs ministry but last year, I&B ministry got a full time minister with M Venkaiah Naidu at the helm.

Before this, during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's regime, Jaswant Singh was briefly given additional charge of defence ministry while he was the external affairs minister. In wake of Tehalka expose and subsequent political outrage, George Fernandes had to resign in March 2001 and Singh was given additional charge, but by November Fernandes was made to return to the defence ministry.

Defence ministry has to have a full time minister, which is why Modi must find a worthwhile replacement to Parrikar and relinquish Jaitley of additional charges as soon as possible. The problem, however, lies in finding a good candidate for filling the vacancy. It's clear that there is a talent crunch in existing bench strength of the BJP. That was precisely the reason why Parrikar was handpicked by Modi and was insisted to leave Goa and take charge as the Minister of Defence in November 2014.
Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from 7 to 10 April to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two neighbours, an official statement said today. Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said.

The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on 8 April, according to the statement issued in Dhaka. "The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders," said the statement jointly issued by the two foreign ministries in Dhaka and New Delhi.

Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modi's visit to Bangladesh in June 2015. She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said they were attaching "highest importance" to the visit, the Bdnews24 reported.

Hasina is the head of government of "a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time," Shringla was quoted as saying.

The envoy also said that President Pranab Mukherjee in an "exceptional" gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit. "Everything is work in progress. We'll have to see what is possible and what is not possible," he said when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal.
The real impact of the construction of a $54 billion economic corridor in Pakistan on Kashmir will be decided by the people of the state, than by any other country, experts say.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) aims to connect Gwadar Port in southwestern Pakistan with Xinjiang in far-western China.

"If there will be an impact of CPEC on Jammu and Kashmir, it wont be because of India and Pakistan, it has to be because of the people of Kashmir," Siddiq Wahid, noted historian and former vice-chancellor of Islamic University of Science and Technology, said on Saturday. He was speaking at a seminar organised by a newly launched think-tank, The Kashmir Institute, in Srinagar.

The three-hour long seminar, held in a jam-packed hall of a Srinagar hotel, saw a panel of experts debate whether Kashmir should be made part of CPEC and what could be its political implications on the state.

"It's going to be us, the people of Kashmir... we have to define what it (CPEC) is and how it's going to influence or impact us." Wahid, said.

"We need to put CPEC beyond India and Pakistan, as this would put Kashmir in the larger South Asia and Central Asia paradigm. Geographically, Kashmir's economy is closer to Kashgar than Jammu. In general, it is good for us as Kashmiris to be talking to China," Wahid said.

The CPEC project was launched in 2015 by China and Pakistan. The project involves the construction of a vast network of highways, railways, sea ports and energy projects.

CPEC has, of late, severed relations between China and India with the latter objecting to China's use of territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. India claims that PoK, under Pakistan's control since 1947, is an integral part of its landmass. India believes China's presence in "India's territory" could internationalise the Kashmir issue.

"It is a much deeper strategic partnership supported by military power. Developments in Pakistan-administered Kashmir will be impacted the most because China will be building several development projects leading to Chinese military colonisation," Zubair Dar, a researcher at University of Berkeley, said.

He said when CPEC becomes more powerful and economically beneficial, then India may be forced to change its mind. "Economy drives the politics of any place, including Kashmir, he said.

CPEC could help resolve the Kashmir dispute, former trade union head, Mubeen Shah, said. He also advocated that the two sides of divided Kashmir should be declared as a Free Economic Zone (FEZ).

"Both India and Pakistan need to be specific about political positions. Trade will decide the future of Kashmir. CPEC might not change everything but it is a first step towards final settlement of Kashmir. We can focus on horticulture, textiles and other industries. How distance will be reduced and the road between Kashmir and Central Asia will be much cheaper," a statement by Kashmir Institute quoted Mubeen as saying.

India is not interested in CPEC but it could help advance the peace process between India and Pakistan.

"India is not in favour of CPEC because they are more interested in the Chabahar port of Iran. Maybe CPEC could, in future, help in the peace process between both the countries and geo-economics can actually impact the geo-politics," Dr Mohammad Ibrahim, an economist, said.

Last week, India had said that it was opposed to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) because it passes through Indian Territory.

"We are all for promoting connectivity our position is that CPEC passes through Indian Territory, that is where our difficulty lies," external affairs ministry spokesman, Gopal Baglay, said.

CPEC expert and author of 'The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia New Geopolitics', Andrew Small, said that CPEC has directly involved China in the India-Pakistan cross-border relationship.

"China has in the recent past made statements on Pakistans policy on the region, including the Kashmiri militant groups, and Kashmir itself through which some of the corridor route passes, Small said.
New Delhi: Elections to the three municipal corporations in the national capital will be held on 22 April, the Delhi State Election Commission said on Tuesday.

The announcement was made by State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava at a press conference here putting to rest months of speculation on the schedule of the polls, in which the BJP, the Congress and the AAP, are betting big. "The polls to the three municipal corporations of Delhi will be held on April 22 and counting will take place on 25 April," he said.

Informing that the nomination process will begin from 27 March and 3 April would be the last date for filing nominations, Srivastava said, "Scrutiny of nominations will take place on 5 April and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is 8 April."

The commissioner also said the expenditure limit for a candidate has been hiked from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 5.75 lakh. Incidentally, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has expressed reservations about electronic voting machines (EVMs) and sought the use of ballot papers in the civic polls.

Asked to respond to Kejriwal seeking the use of traditional mode of exercising franchise, Srivastava said, "Voting through EVMs is very safe. And, if the polls are to be held through ballot then some of the rules have to be amended."

"We started the preparations for the polls keeping in mind use of EVMs only. The dates have been assigned accordingly," the the State Election Commissioner said. Kejriwal had earlier directed the chief secretary to ask the state election office for holding MCD elections through ballot papers.

"We have sent our comments to the government on this," Srivastava said. The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated in 2012 into North, South and East Municipal Corporation or NDMC, SDMC and EDMC respectively.

The BJP has been ruling the MCD since 2007. The last polls were held in 2012. The much-awaited polls will decide the fate of 272 councillors. While NDMC and SMDC have 104 seats each, EDMC has 64 seats.

The total number of electorate for the civic polls stands at 1,32,10,206, which include 73,15,915 men, 58,93,418 women and 793 voters in the other category, the state election commission said.
The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has issued a number of orders, recently, that expose the police claims that thousands of youth in Jammu and Kashmir, who are missing since the start of militancy in 90s, have crossed over to Pakistan to become militants. The verdicts have evoked hope among human rights activists and families of Kashmir that they may get justice after years of wait.

The Commission has held in its orders that police have failed to provide any evidence, in complaints filed before it by parents or relatives of disappeared persons, to substantiate its claims that the youth crossed the border to get weapons training in Pakistan and have not returned back. Chairperson of the Commission, Justice Bilal Nazki, has pronounced the judgments in the complaints that were pending before it since 2012.

In a complaint that was filed on 20 March 2012 over the disappearance of one youth, Abdul Rashid of Rahmoo, Pulwama, the SHRC has held that there is no proof  submitted by police that the concerned person is presently in Pakistan. As per the judgment which was announced on 9 December 2016, the SHRC has noted there is no evidence before the Commission confirming extraction of the youth to Pakistan, who had disappeared in 1991. Justice Nazki has ordered that appropriate compensation shall be granted to the family members by government.

In another case the Commission has directed the police to trace out a boy, Zahoor Ahmad Wani of Lolab, Kupwara, who the family informed the Commission, through a petition, is missing since 1991. He has not returned home since the time he went out in the market in 1991 to buy some essential commodities. The inquiry by the Commission in the case has revealed that the missing person was not involved in any subversive activity. The SHRC has noted in another missing case of one Abdul Hamid Dar of Handwara Kupwara that relief should be given to his father and the boy should only be presumed as dead as he has not contacted the family members after he went missing in 1998. Justice Nazki, in an order issued on 15 February this year noted that relief must be granted to the family members as the police couldnt prove that the youth moved to Pakistan and was living there.

These verdicts have given credence to the accusations of human rights activists that many of the youth were subjected to enforced disappearance by security forces. Ghula Rasool Parray, whose son-in-law was allegedly picked up by security forces one evening on 26 November in 1999, and is missing since then, said that these verdicts could help him provide justice. The armed forces picked up my son-in-law and told us that he was to be questioned, but later he was never released. We tried to ask police for help, but still his whereabouts remain unknown.

Parray said that his son-in-law, Mohammad Akbar Rather, was picked up from his house at Palhalan in Pattan. SHRC had earlier directed government that ex-gratia relief of Rs two lakh should be provided to his son and wife, besides a government job to family, but we have only faced government apathy. We have been only provided the ex-gratia relief of Rs one lakh and our SRO case for a job is pending with the office of Deputy Commissioner Baramulla for a long time. Now with the verdict that the police has no evidence about youth being in Pakistan, we may get justice, he said.

Coordinator of Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) , Khuram Parvaiz, said that there are over 8,000 youth, who have disappeared, while more than 70,000 people have died in last 27 years of militancy. The youth who have disappeared include those who were subjected to enforced disappearance by government forces while there are some others who left their homes and never returned back. In large number of cases, youth were picked up by the government forces from their houses in presence of family members and their whereabouts remain still unknown, he said. Khuram said that many of the youth have been killed , but their bodies were not returned to the family members. He said that there are many unmarked graves that dot Kashmir.

Earlier after the protests, by the parents of those whose sons have gone missing, police has been maintaining that these youth have crossed the border for weapons training. Human rights activists have however been claiming that the youth were picked up by security forces and killed in fake encounters or during torture in undisclosed locations in Kashmir. Last year in June, government disclosed in response to the question of BJP MLA, that over 4,500 youth have crossed the border for getting training in militant camps.
Delhi: A 28-year-old student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) allegedly committed suicide due to depression in South Delhi's Munirka area on Monday evening.

According to ANI, DCP (south) Ishwar Singh said that since no suicide note was found, reason of death was unknown.

No suicide note found, reason of suicide unknown. CFSL to conduct thorough search, probe on: DCP (south) Ishwar Singh on JNU student's death pic.twitter.com/Ny3au0NAdx  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

While police said he was depressed over personal issues, his friends shared his Facebook post in which he had alleged discrimination in MPhil and PhD admissions.

The deceased student Muthukrishanan Jeevanantham, a resident of JNU's Jhelum hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a friend's residence.

Muthukrishanan, who was from Tamil Nadu's Salem district, completed his MPhil from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 before joining JNU for his PhD.

The Dalit JNU scholar had been at the forefront of the movement against the varsity's administration following the suicide of Rohith Vemula while at Hyderabad University. The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) is alleging that Krishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Rohith Vemula and depression made him take the extreme step.

While Krishnan has not left any suicide note, a recent Facebook post by him criticising "discriminatory" admission policies in JNU is being widely circulated on social media.

"There is no equality in MPhil/PhD Admission, there is no equality in viva voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Professor Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in ad-block, denying the education of the marginals. When equality is denied, everything is denied," Muthukrishnan wrote in his Facebook post.

"This was Krish's last post before committing suicide. Yet another Dalit PhD scholar's life is lost," said JNU student Ashish Pandey.

Muthukrishanan, known as Rajini Krish on Facebook, uploaded the post on 10 March alleging the inequality faced by Dalits in the university.

Police, on the other hand, is maintaining that no prima facie evidence has been found indicating JNU administration's role into the issue.

"Till now no evidence has been found that the extreme step was taken by the student owing to any issues at the university," said a senior police officer, adding, "he is said to have been depressed for sometime over some personal issues".

A PCR call was received at 5.05 pm on Monday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar, said a senior police officer.

On reaching the spot, police forced open the door as a portion of the latch was uprooted from inside, he said. A young man was found hanging from the ceiling fan. The crime team was called at the spot and the scene was inspected and photographed.

The MPhil student is said to have gone out to have food at his friend's house and locked his room from inside after returning from there on the pretext of sleeping.

Police are trying to find the reason behind his taking the extreme step, a police officer said.

"We are deeply saddened as one of our fellow students has committed suicide at his friend's residence in Munirka Vihar just outside JNU campus. It's an irreparable loss. May the departed soul rest in peace," ABVP leader Saurabh Sharma said in a statement.

"Shame on Sangh-appointed VCs, Appa Rao an Jagadeesh Kumar, robbing universities of their bright students, robbing students of their dreams...JNU administration didn't inform Muthu Krishnan's family and JNU registrar refused to come to the hospital even after students asked him to come," Sheila Rashid, former vice-president of the JNU Student Union wrote on Twitter.

Shame on Sangh-appointed VCs, Appa Rao & Jagadeesh Kumar, robbing universities of their bright students, robbing students of their dreams  Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) March 13, 2017

In this letter to @mamidala90, Muthu Krishnan requested JNU VC to let "first generation marginals" to study & not create hurdles for them pic.twitter.com/lCJVN1BOqX  Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) March 13, 2017

JNU admin didn't inform Muthu Krishnan's family & @registrarjnu refused to come to the hospital even after students asked him to come.  Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) March 13, 2017

These lines from Muthu Krishnan's blog are unbearable. One can't read without breaking down. RIP Rohith RIP Muthu#BringBackNajeeb pic.twitter.com/kRizfc1HWn  Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) March 13, 2017

4) Why has the entire IT Cell jumped in to abuse Muthu Krishnan, his family, his sisters? Is that okay? But calling him a Dalit is not okay!  Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) March 14, 2017

Meanwhile, the JNU authorities are keeping mum over the incident, saying police is investigating the issue.

With inputs from agencies
J Muthukrishnan, 27, a Dalit MPhil student at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), allegedly committed suicide due to depression on Monday evening. The body of the deceased student, known also as Rajini Krish, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room in South Delhi's Munirka area.

A PCR call was received at 5.05 pm on Monday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar, said a senior police officer. On reaching the spot, the police forced open the door as a portion of the latch was uprooted from inside, he said. A young man was found hanging from the ceiling fan. An investigative team was called at the spot and the scene was inspected and photographed.

The MPhil student is said to have gone to have food at his friend's house and then he locked himself inside his room. The police said that they are trying to find a reason as to why Muthukrishnan took such an extreme step.

Umar Khalid, a PhD student at JNU who is part of the Bhagat Singh-Ambedkar Students Association, wrote on his Facebook wall, Our universities are being turned into graveyards for the oppressed. He alleged that Krish, Dalit research scholar and Ambedkarite activist, was forced to end his life.

Saket Bahuguna, the national media convener for Akhil Bhartiya Vidya Parishad, also paid regards to the JNU student on Monday.

JNU MPhil (CHS) student Muthu Krishnan of Jhelum Hostel has allegedly committed suicide at his friend's residence in Munirka today. RIP.  Saket Bahuguna (@BahugunaSaket) March 13, 2017

Krishnan, who was from Tamil Nadu's Salem district, had completed his MPhil from University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 and was currently an MPhil student at the Centre for Historical studies at JNU.

It was his big dream(to enroll) in JNU, said Krishnans friend, Munna Sunnaki told The Indian Express. when he got admission to do PhD at JNU, he was ecstatic. He was so thrilled that he ran around the New Research Scholar hostel. Sunnaki said that it is very shocking and unsettling that a person, who worked hard for five years to get into JNU, has committed suicide within a year of realising his dream.

Another friend told The Indian Express that Krishnan, who was who was nicknamed Rajini as after actor Rajinikanth, struggled a lot to get into JNU. He said, "His English was poor, which was one reason why he could not get into JNU earlier. He was so committed and hardworking that he worked on his English for nearly a year, spending hours together in the UoH library."

Krish's death comes 14 months after Rohith Vemula's suicide that had kicked up a huge uproar across the country, with many Dalit organisations and opposition parties holding protests seeking 'justice' for the deceased.

He was a part of the Dalit movement in the University of Hyderabad against the suspension of Rohith Vemula following a fight with activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. The ABVP had accused Rohith and other Dalit students of being anti-national for objecting to the imposition of the death penalty on Yakub Memon.

Krishnan who was heartbroken when Vemula committed suicide, had written several Facebook posts on Vemula and was present at all protest meetings held in Vemulas memory. JNU Students Union president Mohit Pandey said Krishnan was very active in the protests, The Indian Express reported. Krishnan participated in JNU administration block blockade that the Committee of Suspended Students for Social Justice had called.

He had been quite vocal about Vemula's death and had also written a moving blog post about his meeting with Rohith Vemulas mother, Radhikamma.

Krish wrote, Dear anti-nationals, let me tell you, one day this nations leader is going to sell all. Just for a selfie and for a standing ovation from the outsiders. Hundreds and hundreds of Appa Raos are going to kill thousands of Rohiths and they are going to say, 'He/She was a gifted student'. All the intellectuals from the marginalised communities will get arrested just for mocking fictional characters....At the same time, all the leading national institutes will be headed by people who cannot even clear the 10th standard exam. These people claim dissenters are anti-nationals and seditious...They are going to kill many Rohiths, like us, just for eating beef, for being rational, for being intellectually productive for the country. But we are the real sons of this land and after we are all killed, there will be no nation.

In the post, Krish encourages every student from all over the world to become Rohith by supporting this anti-caste movement.

"We are deeply saddened as one of our fellow students has committed suicide at his friend's residence in Munirka Vihar just outside JNU campus. It's an irreparable loss. May the departed soul rest in peace," ABVP leader Saurabh Sharma said in a statement.

"When equality is denied everything is denied. There is no Equality in MPhil or PhD admission, there is no equality in viva voce, there is only denial of equality. Denying Professor Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest in ad-block, denying the education of the marginals," said Rajini's last Facebook post.

"This was Krish last post before committing suicide. Yet another Dalit PhD scholar's life is lost," said JNU student Ashish Pandey.

Students expressed shock and grief over his suicide. "Heartbreaking news! RIP Muthukrishnan. I don't know why do you end your life journey in the middle. You have overcome several obstacles to acquire higher education. I never expect this from you," shared Vincent Benny, former UoH students' union president on Facebook.

Shame on Sangh-appointed VCs, Appa Rao an Jagadeesh Kumar, robbing universities of their bright students, robbing students of their dreams...JNU administration didn't inform Muthu Krishnan's family and JNU registrar refused to come to the hospital even after students asked him to come," Sheila Rashid, former vice-president of the JNU Student Union wrote on Twitter.

JNU has not issued any official statement yet.
On Sunday, right-wing activists allegedly smeared black oil over a 'progressive' Kannada writer's face and allegedly warned him against writing negatively about Hindu gods, said police official.

The incident happened in Davanagere, Karnataka, as Yogesh Master was having tea at a stall when eight or nine persons smeared his face with black oil and fled, Davanagere Superintendent of Police Bhimashankar Guled told PTI.

He said Yogesh, the author of controversial Kannada novel "Dundhi," was in Davanagere to attend a book release function organised by Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada tabloid run by journalist Gauri Lankesh. Master was warned of dire consequences for writing against Hindu gods, Guled said, adding that the suspects shouted "Jai Sri Ram" before fleeing. Two persons have been arrested, he said.

Yogesh told The Hindu that he was attacked while having tea with friends after the programme. The men who jumped him, were buying some books nearby. He said, "The gang raised pro-Hindu and right-wing slogans, and threatened to kill me for writing against Hindu Gods. They used foul language and pulled my hair. It was a physical attack that left a deep mental impact. Yogesh added that he could easily identify most of the men.

According to The Times of India, the accused were identified as Chethan, 21, an autorickshaw driver, and Shivarprasad, 26, who works in a local printing press. Guled said 4 police teams have been formed to nab the other absconding accused.

The participants and organisers, including Gauri Lankesh, held a protest rally to the police station and registered a complaint, Guled said. CPI state general secretary Siddanagouda Patil also participated in the march, he added.

According to The Hindu, Lankesh blamed right-wing forces, including the Sangh Parivar, for the attack. She demanded that a thorough inquiry should be conducted into the matter and stringent action should be initiated against the miscreants. Apart from arresting the perpetrators of the crime, the conspiracy behind the attack should also be uncovered, she said.

Meanwhile, according to The Asian Age, chief minister Siddaramaiah expressed shock over the incident and said that instructions had been given to the Davangere police to take stern action against the accused. The attack was against the freedom of expression and the government would not tolerate it, he said.

Master was also involved in a widespread controversy in August 2013 when he was arrested after local Hindu outfits lodged a complaint against him. The Hindu groups claimed that Master had allegedly hurt the Hindus' sentiments by depicting Lord Ganesha in poor light in his novel 'Dhundi'.

With inputs from agencies
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Noel Tellis in a post asks why is that state priorities take precedence over national one, especially when it concerns the armed forces.

The haste with which Manohar Parrikar has left the Ministry of Defence high and dry and made the departure of casual importance does demand an answer.

Parrikar wasted no occasion to indicate how he was going to recreate the armed forces, going as far as to say that defence expenditure should rise from 1.7 percent of the GDP to 3 percent and that while he would trim the flab he would also re-arm the nations forces.

In his first year he allocated Rs 90,000 crores to defence and underscored a sum of Rs 70,000 crores as being in the pipeline. We are going the running to buy guns, ships, planes, drones, improve living conditions, add incentives, add muscle. All on his watch.

Even as his supporters lauded his far thinking military vision and forgave him his sartorial trespasses they were vociferous in signposting his long-term plans and concern for the armed forces personnel.

In fact, The Lt Gen DB Shekatkar Committee was appointed by the government to enhance the combat potential of the armed forces and for re-balancing the defence expenditure.

It made several recommendations which were handed over to Parrikar in December 2016. These are supposed to be implemented to save the nation Rs 25000 crores and smarten up the forces.

While one concedes that Ministers are not really savvy about the portfolios they hold, in this case the former Defence Minister was the poster child for hands on leadership and any criticism of him was met with a howl of protest. The man, it was said, had the interests of the forces uppermost in his mind and this was vital at a time when India needed to be watchful not just of Pakistan but of Chinas military prowess.

Given this awesomely demanding fiat Parrikar dropped the ball pretty fast and galloped off midway to take on his fourth stint as Chief Minister of Goa. Now, while it is a beautiful place and has a delightful population it is not the core of India and not comparable to being the head of Indias military security plans.

So where was the need to leave a seriously vital job half done? Surely Goa, which has had six chief ministers in this decade with Parrikar and Pratap Singh Rane doing two separate tenures each, could have placed a seventh man without disrupting the armed forces infrastructure at this time. Doesnt the BJP machinery have anyone capable of doing the job for a while.

Its fine to give Arun Jaitley the added portfolio but it does beg the question of how seriously the nation is taking its national security.

The suspicion that Parrikar never really wanted this job and was happier back in the confines of Panaji makes it even more upsetting that a reluctant Minister would have been placed at the helm of defence. Is that not a rather cavalier attitude to the men and women in uniform?

There wasnt even a formal handing over with Parrikar rushing off to Goa for the swearing in ceremony this Tuesday evening. For a state that literally has revolved its Chief Ministers and reduced it to a game of musical chairs (Rane has been the boss six times) couldnt the deputy chief minister have held things together while Parrikar at least made the pretence of living up to his reputation of being a thorough professional and gone through a proper handing over process.

In capsule Tellis asks three valid questions:

What about the deals in the pipeline that we have globally and ignited by the former defence minister?

What about the needless fallout of changing the style of functioning in the hierarchy so suddenly for no grand reason midway in the river.

Were the three chiefs consulted on whether there would be a fallout from the overnight departure and how important was becoming Goas CM that there wasnt even an immediate replacement available. It is not as if the Portuguese were at the gate and Parrikar was compelled to go into battle.

The general feeling is that the Defence Minister becomes an add on, like the Ministry of Sport.
Rameswaram(TN): Seventy-seven Indian and 12 Sri Lankan fishermen were on Tuesday repatriated in line with the decision taken by two countries to set free fishermen in each other's custody to defuse tension following the killing of an Indian fisherman last week.

Sri Lankan Navy handed over the 77 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, arrested over the past two months, to Indian Coast Guard at the International Maritime Boundary Line in the Palk Bay.

Similarly, 12 Sri Lankan fishermen, released from the Puzhal Prison in Chennai on 10 March, were handed over to the Sri Lankan Navy.

The twelve were arrested off Nagapattinam coast separately on 8 and 9 March 8 for allegedly fishing in Indian waters.

The Tamil Nadu fishermen are expected to arrive at Karaikal coast in two ICG ships, "Rani Durgavati" and "Abith" by 6 pm, police said.

Later, they would be taken to their respective destinations.

The 77 fishermen from Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram districts were arrested by the Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters between February and March and lodged in Jaffna and Vavuniya prisons in the island nation.

Sri Lanka and India had on Wednesday agreed to release fishermen held in each other's custody after a high-level discussion between the two sides in Colombo in a bid to defuse the tension following the killing of the 22-year-old Indian fisherman, Bridgo.

Meanwhile, eight fishermen from Karaikal are still in Trincomalee prison there, police added.
After sweeping Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the recently-concluded Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) juggernaut is looking to take over the southern Congress citadel of Karnataka. Carrying forward its aim of creating a "Congress-mukt" India, the BJP will be looking to penetrate Karnataka, make a comeback in the state, where it was in power between 2008 and 2013.

Currently, the state has a Congress government, under chief minister Siddaramaiah, and is pegged for elections in the first half of 2018. The saffron party, however, will be looking to wrest power from its principal rival.

SM Krishna to join BJP

The BJP's first major coup ahead of next year's election was to rope in former external affairs minister SM Krishna. The former chief minister and Congress leader is expected to be formally inducted into the party on Wednesday.

Immediately after the Uttar Pradesh win, Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa tweeted that he is confident of such a performance in Karnataka next year.

I am confident that people of Karnataka will vote for BJP similar to UP & ensure BJP's magnificent victory in the up coming assmbly election  B.S. Yeddyurappa (@BSYBJP) March 11, 2017

"As the budget session of Parliament will resume from Tuesday, I will also be in Delhi to personally welcome Krishna into the party fold," the former BJP chief minister of the state said.

"Krishna will join our party in New Delhi on 15 or 16 March after meeting party's national President Amit Shah. He will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi later," another BJP official told IANS on the condition of anonymity.

Krishna, 84, resigned from the Congress on 29 January after 46 years of association with the grand old party for "being sidelined by its leadership". According to Economic Times, Yedyurappa has set a target of winning 175 seats after the party's emphatic victory in Uttar Pradesh. In this regard, the BJP is already on a campaign overdrive. According to another Economic Times report, the party's youth wing has begun a programme to boost its booth-wise presence to seek votes.

Krishna is a Vokkaliga leader and the saffron party hopes that his entry may help it to gain the support of the community which is one of the three largest caste groups in the state  the other two being the Lingayats and Dalits. According to a report in the Scroll, even if Krishna doesn't fetch Vokkaliga votes, the party may take advantage of his clean image in Karnataka politics.

Other senior Congress leaders who have already crossed over to the BJP are former chief minister S Bangarappa's son Kumar Bangarappa and Dalit leader V Srinivasa Prasad.

Pressure on Siddaramiah to deliver

With the Congress gradually disappearing from the political landscape of India, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh (and now Punjab) are the only three major states where the Congress is in power.

With Congress losing Uttarakhand and possibly Manipur, the pressure on Siddharamiah to retain Karnataka for the Congress is high. However, with the Congress winning Punjab, the party is confident of beating anti-incumbency and returning to power in the southern state, reports have said.

"Unlike Uttar Pradesh, we have a strong party cadre in Karnataka and a government that is relatively less corrupt than the previous BJP one. They also do not have credible leaders, only the same old faces, We will certainly face anti-incumbency. But we have to and will work doubly hard to retain Karnataka," a senior Congress leader was quoted by Economic Times as saying.

The next big test for Siddaramaiah is the 9 April by-elections for the Nanjangud and Gudlupet Assembly constituencies where the ruling Congress is in direct contest with the BJP.

UP election results unlikely to impact other southern states, except Karnataka

Political pundits, however, are doubtful if the Uttar Pradesh election results will have any impact on any of the southern states except Karnataka. Fellow scientist at Himachal Pradesh University Ramesh Chauhan told PTI that barring Karnataka the Uttar Pradesh results will not have any positive impact in the south for the party.

"The humongous victory of BJP in Uttar Pradesh will embolden the saffron party to spread its wing down south, but not before reclaiming power in Karnataka, which is a corridor of power for BJP," political scientist Sandeep Shastri told PTI.

On next year's assembly elections in Karnataka, Shastri said BJP might not project a chief ministerial candidate and instead adopt a strategy as it did in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and press the central leadership including Modi to lead poll campaigns. Asked how he sees the growth scalability of the BJP in southern states after reclaiming power in Karnataka, Shastri said the saffron party would try to dislodge the Congress in Kerala and piggy back with one of the AIADMK factions.

Except Karnataka, I dont think the UP results will have any bearing on Tamil Nadu and Kerala for another three to four years," Shastri added.

With inputs from agencies
Mahatma Gandhis suggestion to 'dissolve the Congress party post independence' has often been used as a highly demeaning weapon by its rivals. Gandhi believed that, Congress, in its present shape and form, i.e. as a propaganda vehicle and parliamentary machine, had outlived its use.

Many leaders  ranging from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa  have taken a dig at Congress and annoyed its leaders by quoting Gandhi's remark from 1948.

With its rout in the latest Assembly elections, the national leadership of the Congress party seems to have partly fulfilled this wish of the father of the nation. What remains of a national party, that once dominated India like a colossus for nearly half a century since the first Lok Sabha elections in 1951, is an inconsequential vestige.

The party has no chance in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections due late this year or the Karnataka elections next year, as it looks highly vulnerable.

One doesnt need a deep political insight to predict that BJP is going to rule India  both at the Centre and in the states  exactly the way Congress had done during the Nehru-Indira Gandhi era. And that the writing for Congress has been on the wall ever since Rajiv Gandhi squandered the bounty that his mother had posthumously gifted him.

However, not many could've predicted that what would ultimately decimate the party and write its epitaph would come from within the same Nehru-Gandhi family  namely Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.

The rise of BJP has been in the works ever since it made its deceptive entry into Parliament with two seats in 1984. It had reached some sort of a stasis and had showed a decade-long decline, since 1999, till Modi seized the opportunity.

Modi was not a casual self-discovery, but a strategic conqueror who predicated his rise on the imminent death of Congress as a national party. The reason behind the party's death was Sonia's obsession with family rule and the preservation of its sycophantic party organisation.

Not only did she prove to be harmful to Congress, she also ensured that its future was doomed by pushing a perpetual-novice like Rahul to its leadership. In fact, Congress decline had begun way back in 1996 itself, when it failed to reach the 150 mark in Parliament, and the comparative improvement in 2009, when the UPA retained power, was only a blip because Modi hadnt yet arrived at the national scene.

What has ended for Congress now is a two decade-long political flop-show by Sonia Gandhi and later by the mother-son duo. They managed to keep themselves afloat only because the BJP didnt have a national leader for a long time.

But the moment Modi began to rise, their lack of merit started to show up. Its not just divisive politics, religious polarisation and UPAs corruption that propelled the BJP into its present might, but also the failure of Sonia to strategically deploy the Congresss age-old socio-political capital and nationwide resources, and her obsession with family interest.

Princeton academic Atul Kohli raises an interesting point when he says that regional nationalism has a greater appeal than Hindu nationalism in many of Indias "peripheral" regions, which in other words means how local nationalist parties can counter the rise of BJP.

Tamil Nadu is a great example and will continue to be one till one of the Dravidian parties decline. Even Orissa has a somewhat similar story. With the concordant rise of Modi and Hindutva, Sonia should have sensed the futility of holding on to an undeserving legacy and allowed the Congress to regionalise and democratise.

Instead of a "high command", which essentially means her, her son and a coterie that can hardly win elections any more, calling all the shots in far away states (including appointment of district secretaries) from Delhi, she should have voluntarily encouraged the mutation of the Congress from a national monolith into diverse regional outfits with charismatic local leaders. Thats what happened in Punjab now. In fact, the only glimmer of hope in Karnataka will be how well Siddaramaiah sells the local idea.

Sonia and Rahul are no national leaders. In fact, they are no assets, but liabilities. Had Sonia been loyal to the Congress, she would have started dismantling the dynasty in 1998 itself, when distress calls by sycophants brought her in. In hindsight, her postured reluctance appears insincere.

Had she been uninterested in family rule, she could have used her tenure to continue the non-family process PV Narasimha Rao had set in motion and democratised the party, encouraged the next line of leadership and strengthened the autonomies of the state units.

Instead, she hated Rao and even banished his memory from Delhi for being a man who had a mind of his own, brought everything back to the family and ruled by proxy. What got lost in the process was a great line of leaders who had formidable influence both at the local and national levels.

Some of them left while others became insignificant, playing second fiddle to an amateur like Rahul. Today, the states ruled by the party are just tiny specks on the map of India and in Parliament. Its position is marginally better than a state party such as the AIADMK.

Redemption seems to be very difficult. Sonia and Rahul are irrelevant for India. While stating that the Congress had outlived its utility, Mahatma Gandhi wanted the AICC "to disband the existing Congress organisation and flower into a Lok Sevak Sangh"  a highly decentralised self-rule movement. Unfortunately, the Congress is too late for even this.
The biggest takeaway from the election results of the five states is that Narendra Modis BJP continues to be on a roll (it is a hands-on victory for Modi rather than the BJP as much as the Bihar results in 2015 constituted a greater personal setback for the leader than the party) and Rahul Gandhis Congress is on the verge of decimation, having been decisively routed in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The only consolation for Rahul is Punjab where the party has notched up a clear victory. In Goa and Manipur, it is a close race between the Congress and the BJP. Even for the sake of argument, if it is conceded that the Congress wins both these states, it will only give the party statistical satisfaction because these are micro-states and they do not alter the big picture for the final battle in 2019 (both Manipur and Goa send just two MPs each to the Lok Sabha whereas Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand send 80 and five seats respectively).

With the dismal Congress performance in the Assembly elections year after year, is the party facing a situation of irreversible decline? Is the Congress party in the 21st Century going to replicate the downhill journey of the Liberal Party of the United Kingdom in the 20th Century?

Both the Liberal Party in the UK and the Congress in India came into existence in the 19th Century, the Liberal Party in the early decades and the Congress in the closing decades of the century. However, there was one essential difference: Liberal Party  which came into existence after the amalgamation of the Whigs, Free Traders and Radicals  was one of the two major political parties vying for power in the UK (the other being the Conservative Party) whereas the Congress came into existence when the British were still ruling over India  it was a platform for articulating Indian interests and aspirations. The Congress party became the indisputable ruling party when India attained Independence in 1947.

By the time the Congress Party came to power in India, the Liberals had gone into the stage of irreversible decline. By the end of the 19th Century, the party had formed four governments in the United Kingdom. In the early 20th Century too, it was a potent political force and either ruled on its own or led the coalition government with the Conservative Party, during the First World War.

But in the 1922 election  the first after the First World War ended  the Conservatives came to power and Liberal Party was reduced to the third position with the newly formed Labour Party emerging as the official Opposition. Since then, the Liberal Party has remained in the margins of British politics, never a serious contender for power, despite several mergers\acquisitions (its new face, Liberal Democrats, shared power as a junior partner with the Conservatives in 2010, but in 2015, the Conservative Party comfortably won the elections on its own and the Liberals were handed down a humiliating defeat by the electorate). For almost a century now, the Liberals have not been in the drivers seat in the British politics.

Is the Congress hurtling down a similar journey?

After the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress managed to retain its position as the main Opposition party, though it could not be recognised as the official Opposition as it did not have the required number in the Lok Sabha (1\10th of the total members of the House). The series of state elections after the 2014 national election show that the Congress is losing ground rapidly and it is quite possible that its tally of Lok Sabha MPs would come down sharply in 2019  even from its currently dismal number, just 44 in a House of 543.

It is increasingly becoming evident that the Congress may have to play the second fiddle to some of the regional parties at the national stage, as it has already done in several states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. After losing Uttarakhand, the Congress remains in power in three tiny northeastern states (Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur), Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and the Union Territory of Puducherry. From the point of view of political clout, Karnataka is the only state of any consequence. All available indications tell us that the Congress is likely to lose the state to the resurgent BJP in the 2018 Assembly election.

Does that portend the terminal decline of a party which was once synonymous with the Indian democracy?

The enthusiasts for the Congress would argue that the Congress might be facing a temporary decline, but it would bounce back to power sooner than later. They would cite the example of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom which was virtually eclipsed by the Liberals for four decades between 1845 and 1874 but it bounced back in 1885 to send the Liberals out of power for over two decades and finally push the Liberal Party into its sunset years a few years later.

Will the Congress emerge from its current decadence as a born-again Conservative Party or will it go the self-destruct Liberal Party way?

The Conservative Party, then largely representing the interest of the rich agriculturists, split in 1846 over the issue of protection of home-grown wheat; the party seemed to be lost for ever as it seemed to suffer a disconnect with the poor which became a majority in the British democracy with the increasing enfranchisement of the property-less citizens as the years rolled by. But Benjamin Disraeli succeeded in turning around the fortunes of the party by making the privileged speak for the rights of the underprivileged. The Conservatives swept back to power in 1885.

The Liberal Party had every advantage to succeed in a democracy  it had wealthy patrons, it had a glorious history of political success, it had a string of able leaders and, most important, it had a large body of devoted followers.

But, unfortunately, the party did not evolve with time. It could not keep pace with the rapidly changing economic and social trends. It had emerged on the political scene as the champion of the laissez-faire economy and had received unstinted support from the capitalist class. But the party was philosophically clueless when the industrialists veered away from the affirmation of free trade and demanded protection against goods of other European countries, especially Germany.

The increasing enfranchisement of the masses also created the additional pressure on the party to come up with a programme of state intervention for the relatively poor; that again undermined the laissez-faire philosophy which was the Liberal partys guiding spirit.

Unfortunately for the party, at such a crucial juncture, there was no leader of stature and wisdom to steer the party through the economic and social convulsion. As a matter of fact, the party became a divided house, with discordant leaders squabbling among themselves. That was the time when the Labour party emerged with a social and economic doctrine that appealed to the aspiring masses, especially, the indigent workers. The Labour replacing the Liberals as the second pole of the two-party system had much to do with recognising the need of the hour.

Does the Congress understand the need of the hour? Modi appeals to the common people today because he gives the impression of being a relentless crusader against corruption whereas the Congress is held up in popular perception as the party that institutionalised corruption over the decades it was in power.

Can Rahul and his team come up with a concrete plan of action to convince the voters that a Congress government would take some tough policy measures to break the back of corruption  policies which even Modi is afraid to embrace?

Will the Congress, as a political party, take the lead in coming under the RTI Act, the very progressive legislation it enacted in 2005? Will it put pressure on the government to expedite the enactment of the undiluted Whistleblower Protection Act which was passed by Parliament under the Congress regime but was not enacted? Will the Congress go the whole distance to demand the expeditious enactment of the Timely Delivery of Goods and Services Bill, a Bill which was on the radar of the Congress government but which it dithered in taking to the logical conclusion and which even the BJP government is deliberately winking at?

Modi government has kept away from these substantive anti-corruption measures; it has largely relied on symbolism. If Rahul's Congress wants to resurrect itself, it has to wage a battle of substance, not mere posturing.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's days in Indian politics appear to be numbered unless the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) can perform well in the upcoming Delhi Municipal elections.

Consider the irony of the situation: A man who once aspired to become the prime minister and a party that had ambitions of spreading pan-India are now both at the mercy of voters in an ultra local poll.

AAP's loss in Punjab and rout in Goa  where it was relegated to the fourth position in many constituencies  has put the party back where it started in 2013. It has no option now but to forget Gujarat, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh  three states where it was planning to expand in anticipation of a victory in Punjab  and concentrate on holding its citadel in Delhi.

If Delhi falls, Kejriwal will likely become the Vinod Kambli of Indian politics  somebody who promised a lot, dreamt big but lacked the vision and ability to compete in the big league.

The setback in Punjab is a deadly blow for Kejriwal. Had he won the state, a proposition that looked likely during the campaign, he would have encroached most of the anti-BJP space in north India, edging the Congress out. The AAP would have been more comfortable if BJP or its ally had won in Punjab and Congress would have been reduced to a rump, like in Uttar Pradesh.

But, the Congress victory indicates that voters are willing to consider it as a better alternative to BJP. A similar narrative has unfolded in Goa, where voters backed the Congress as the party to boot out BJP. Since AAP had prospered so far at the cost of the Congress  in Delhi, the BJP had retained its vote while the Congress had wilted  this is a warning sign for Kejriwal.

The other problem with AAP is that Kejriwal is now on the verge of losing his voice in Indian politics. The Uttar Pradesh results suggest that Kejriwal's demonetisation narrative had no effect on the mood of the electorate. The Punjab results show his promises and threats against the Badals failed to impress voters. And in Goa, voters discarded his idea of a different brand of politics.

Rahul Gandhi's fate has shown us that once the Indian electorate stops taking a politician seriously, nothing can revive his brand value. Once a politician becomes a subject of ridicule and mirth, even if pearls of wisdom flow from him, the electorate tends to laugh it off. With his high-decibel campaign, lofty promises and vacuous threats, Kejriwal may have positioned himself at the cusp of becoming just another voice in the political melee.

Much of the blame for the downfall must go to Kejriwal. After his victory in Delhi, Kejriwal made the mistake of usurping a party born out of a popular movement, turning it into his fief. Because of his hubris, insecurity and predilection for sycophants, he discarded the idea of collective leadership, becoming the sole face and voice of the AAP.

Now that he has lost credibility and face, there is no one else to speak up for AAP. In the AAP of 2013, perhaps a Yogendra Yadav or a Prashant Bhushan would have still been able to communicate with voters. But, with Kejriwal's Humpty Dumpty-like fall, all his horses and men can just wail in silence.

The problem with Kejriwal now is that he will face a reinvigorated BJP and a hopeful Congress. His own cadre, on the other hand, would be dejected and disillusioned. With the dream of a pan-India presence disappearing, the idea of fighting just for a tiny city-state may not inspire them for too long.

Kejriwal himself is an ambitious man in tearing hurry. Finding himself boxed into the role of Delhi chief minister, and not a challenger to Narendra Modi, he might have to summon extra reserves of energy and resolve to carry on in politics.

The options for Kejriwal are few. He first needs to regroup, re-plan and re-assess his future. The image of an absentee chief minister, who is interested in everything except running Delhi, may no longer be feasible; it may turn out to be his own nemesis.

To survive the imminent onslaught from all directions, he needs to fortify his bastion and lead its defence from the front. He needs to go back to the drawing board, read up his own poll manifesto and get down to work as chief minister of Delhi, and not the putative prime minister of India. And then hope it saves him.

Even now, it may be a case of 'sab kuch luta ke hosh main aaye to kya kiya' for Kejriwal.
Bengaluru: India's former external affairs minister and former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna is set to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this week in New Delhi, a party official said on Monday.

"Krishna will join our party in New Delhi on 15 or 16 March after meeting party's national president Amit Shah. He will also call Prime Minister Narendra Modi later," a BJP official said on conditions of anonymity.

Krishna, 84, resigned from Congress on 29 January this year after 46 years of association with the Grand Old Party for "being sidelined by its leadership."

"Krishna will leave for Delhi on Tuesday and meet Shah on Wednesday," the official said.

BJP's Bengaluru unit president and Lok Sabha lawmaker BS Yeddyurappa also told reporters at Mysore earlier in the day that Krishna was set to join the party.

"As the budget session of Parliament will resume from Tuesday, I will also be in Delhi to personally welcome Krishna into the party fold," the former BJP chief minister of the state said.

Union Ministers from Karnataka, DV Sadananda Gowda and Anantha Kumar, will also be present on the occasion.

Ever since leaving Congress, Krishna has been biding his time to join the BJP, but was told to wait till this week, as Shah and Modi were busy with Assembly elections in five states.

Yeddyurappa officially invited Krishna to join the party at the latter's house on 6 March.

"With the BJP securing thumping majority in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and set to form governments in Goa and Manipur, Krishna thought it is the right time to join the BJP and strengthen the party in Karnataka, where Assembly election is due in next year," added the official.
New Delhi: Dismissing the accusation of Congress that BJP was 'stealing' mandate in Goa, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said it's "a bit too much" as the governor could not have invited minority of 17 MLAs to form the government.

"The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the supreme court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," he said in a Facebook post.

In view of the claim of 21 MLAs led by Manohar Parrikar, the Governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the government, he said, adding that "there are several precedents which support this decision of the Governor".

In the recently held assembly elections in Goa, BJP bagged 13 seats, while Congress got 17 seats in a house with a strength of 40. However, BJP staked claim to form the government on the basis of support from eight other MLAs.

Governor Mridula Sinha had invited Parrikar to form the government after he produced letter of support of 21 MLAs.

Earlier in the day, the supreme court refused to stay the swearing in of Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa and ordered a floor test on 16 March.

Accusing the Governor of acting in a partisan manner, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today told reporters: "In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP."

Jaitley responded by saying that the Goa Governor had only one claim of 21 MLAs out of 40 elected MLAs with Manohar Parrikar as their leader, while the 17 MLAs of Congress did not even make a claim nor elected their leader.

"How could the Congress ever be invited to form the government?" Jaitley questioned.

Jaitley said the debate between the largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by the former President KR Narayanan in his communique in March 1988 when he invited Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the government.

"The President had said when no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that won largest number of seats subject to the Prime Ministers so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the house within a stipulated time," Jaitley said.

"This procedure is not, however, all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The President's choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support," he pointed out.

Citing several precedents which support the Goa governor's decision, Jaitley noted that BJP won 30 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand in 2005 but the JMM leader Shibu Soren with a support of 17 MLAs of his Party plus others was invited to form the government.

Similarly, Jaitley said, in J&K in 2002, the National Conference won 28 MLAs but the Governor invited the PDP and Congress Combination of 15 + 21 MLAs to form the government. Also, In 2013 the BJP won 31 seats in Delhi, but the AAP with 28 MLAs with support of Congress was invited to form the Government, he said.

The minister pointed out that there are other precedents on the same lines available in 1952 (Madras), 1967 (Rajasthan) and 1982 (Haryana).
The ongoing drama in Goa catches in a nutshell the difference between the BJP and Congress and adequately explains why the former's star is rising while the latter is suffering from an existential crisis. For students of Indian politics, the entire episode is also an interesting case study in the nature of Congress' internal power dynamics. It elucidates why the Congress is compelled to have a Gandhi at the helm despite the scion proving himself to be an unmitigated liability.

But we shall come to that in a bit. The central question that I wish to tackle is the Congress charge  first tweeted out by former finance minister P Chidamabaram and then reiterated by vice-president Rahul Gandhi  that BJP is 'stealing democracy' because it had the audacity to stake the claim of forming a government in Goa and Manipur where voters have thrown up a hung Assembly.

A party that comes second has no right to form the Government. BJP stealing elections in Goa and Manipur.  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) March 13, 2017

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament on Tuesday, Rahul dismissed Congress' UP reversal as "little down" and seemed to suggest that his party has performed better than BJP by winning three states out of five, but "democracy is being undermined" in Goa and Manipur because BJP is using "financial power and money".

It can't be helped if the Congress vice-president chooses to remain in 'La La Land' but the party's charge against BJP and petition in Supreme Court that Governor Mridula Sinha 'acted in haste' should be explored from all angles. Did Sinha err in inviting BJP's chief ministerial candidate to form a government? And how accurate is the claim that a party which finishes second "has no right to form a government"? What are the political, legal and moral aspects of this charge?

Let us look at the numbers first. The Congress has 17 lawmakers. It is the single largest party. The magic number is 21 in a 40-member Assembly. The BJP finished second with 13. Among the rest, Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP) have three each. Three more Independents and a legislator from NCP have also won. A day after the results, the BJP approached the governor claiming that it has the support of 21 MLs.

On Sunday, Parrikar was appointed as the chief minister and asked to prove majority within 15 days. A press note issued by governor's office read: "Shri Manohar Parrikar has submitted evidence before Honourable Governor, the support of 13 MLAs of BJP, 3 MLAs of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, 3 MLAs of Goa Forward Party, and 2 Independent MLAs, thus having a total strength of 21 MLAs in the 40-member assembly."

Goa Governor appoints Manohar Parrikar as the CM, asks to prove majority within 15 days of administration of oath of office and secrecy pic.twitter.com/dZMCbkWwFD<http://pic.twitter.com/dZMCbkWwFD>  ANI (@ANI_news) March 12, 2017

At this point, Congress saw red. It accused the BJP of "stealing democracy" and filed a petition in the Supreme Court pleading the apex court to pass an order staying the swearing-in on Tuesday and striking down the governors decision to appoint Parrikar as the chief minister.

The question that arises from the timeline of events is this: What was stopping the Congress, which just needed four more MLAs to have the numbers on its side, from approaching the governor and staking a claim to form the government? Why did it wait for the BJP to make its first move before crying foul?

According to IANS, it wasn't any moral conundrum that was stopping it from approaching the governor. The party wasn't "caught napping" either. What happened was that it wasted precious time in quelling a bitter internal squabble over who would be the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader. Unable to come to a conclusion, the Congress, led by its general secretary Digvijaya Singh, left the goal empty for BJP to score

According to the article, Singh and other Congress leaders were cooped up in a hotel, locked in an internal battle for power and "waiting" for smaller allies to back them.

"State president Luizinho Faleiro, former chief ministers Digambar Kamat and Pratapsingh Rane were potential candidates for the post, but each camp and their proxies rejected each other, wasting precious time. There was even a secret ballot to select the CLP leader; an exercise whose results were incidentally also kept a secret from the media and the party's junior MLAs" says the report, adding: "By evening, frustrated Congress leaders stepped out of the hotel, with Taleigao MLA Jennifer Monserrate blaming the party's 'Delhi leaders' for losing the opportunity to select a CLP leader and forge a ruling coalition."

In contrast, the BJP moved swiftly led by Goa minder Nitin Gadkari and former chief minister Parrikar. At the end of hard-nosed negotiations with other MLAs, BJP went to Raj Bhavan in the evening.

Even as Singh claimed BJP had "bought MLAs", Congress leader Vishwajit P Rane, seen as the potential chief ministerial candidate, told NDTV: "I think there was total mismanagement by the leadership". He said Congress had the mandate to form the government but lost the opportunity "because of foolishness of our leaders".

Savio Rodrigues, vice-chairman of Goa Minority Congress, blamed Singh for the botch-up. He told Times Now channel: "I completely blame Congress leadership for the failure to form the government in Goa. In fact, I blame Digvijaya Singh. What Congress wasted the time on was trying to figure out who would be the chief minister of Goa."

From all accounts, it seems fairly clear that Congress' charge against BJP was a poor attempt at hiding its own inefficiency. It tried to claim the moral high ground when it had no other option left. It is a little foolish to blame the BJP for doing what parties in a democracy are supposed to do, form a government through coalition if lacking in simple majority. The Congress charge is poor politics.

Its petition against the governor also doesn't hold legal water because there is no constitutional compulsion on Sinha to call a party with 17 legislators in a House of 40 when a rival coalition has already enlisted the required numbers. In a couple of tweets, Arun Jaitley pointed out that the governor was not acting out of her powers.

In a hung assembly, if majority of the elected MLAs form a coalition, the Governor would be constitutionally right (1/2)  Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) March 13, 2017

in inviting the leader of the majority coalition to form the government and prove their majority within a short period. (2/2)  Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) March 13, 2017

This is in consonance with former President KR Narayanan's detailed communique in March 1998 on this subject. The governor is entitled to use her discretionary powers and is not constitutionally bound to call the 'single largest party'.

The text of the press communique reads: "When no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the head of State has, in India and elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that has won the largest number of seats, subject to the prime minister so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the House within a stipulated period of time. This procedure is not, however, an all-time formula because situations can arise when MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, outnumber the ''single largest'' claimant."

Little wonder that the Supreme Court, through a bench headed by CJI JS Khehar, refused to stay Parrikar's oath-taking ceremony with a caveat that the floor test must be conducted on 16 March. This throws the legal validity of Congress's charge of "stealing democracy" out of the window.

The apex court had some tough questions for Abhishek Manu Singhvi who appeared for Congress party during the hearing.

Tough questions from CJI Khehar to Dr.Singhvi. CJ asks 'did u file the names of MLAs who support u in ur representation to Guv'  Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) March 14, 2017

You are putting us the position of the Governor. These things you should have stated before the Governor: SC to Dr. Singhvi  Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) March 14, 2017

You had enough time.even full night .Night is the best time (sarcastically).There is not a single affidavit frm any member who support u:SC  Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) March 14, 2017

The final aspect of the charge is a moral one. Should the BJP have moved to stitch a coalition and staked claim when clearly it was the second-largest party? This charge rests upon a notion that parties which win most seats (though lacking in simple majority) retain the exclusive right of forming the government. Unfortunately, this, too sits heavy on Congress' shoulders.

It appears a little awkward when a party that famously grounded a chartered plane in 2005 to search for MLAs and scupper NDA's plans of forming a government in Jharkhand  NDA had 36 in the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly and UPA had 27  sermonises about such proprieties.

Few have forgotten that in Delhi, Congress, with eight seats, had sought to form a government with AAP (28 seats) to keep the BJP away which had won 31 seats. The Congress should go a little easy on these lectures. It is for the BJP to answer though why the party that claims to be "different" seems to be adopting Congress's dubious practices.

Last, the episode proves why Congress is doomed with the Gandhis and doomed without them. If it cannot solve the simple issue of who would be the chief ministerial candidate in a small state, then it doesn't require knowledge of rocket science to presume what would happen if the Gandhis were to relinquish their position.
New Delhi: The Congress moved the Supreme Court on Monday challenging Goa governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of the state. The hurriedly filed petition late in the evening was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice JS Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing on Tuesday.

A special bench would be constituted as the apex court is on break for a week. The petition filed by Goa Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Chandrakant Kavlekar has sought a stay on the swearing-in of Parrikar as the chief minister. The petition has also sought quashing of the decision of the governor to appoint Parrikar as the chief minister.

The petition, filed by advocate Devdutt Kamath, is likely to be argued by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and has made the Centre and Goa as the parties in the case. The Goa CLP leader has argued that Congress emerged as the single largest party in the polls and under the constitutional convention, the governor is bound to invite the single largest party to form the government and give it the opportunity to prove majority in a floor test.

The petition said that the governor's decision was blatantly unconstitutional and illegal, and that it violates the basic features of the Constitution.

Further, the advocate said that it was wrong on part of the governor to invite the BJP-led alliance for government formation as there was no pre-poll alliance.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, the MGP (3), the GFP (3), the NCP (1) and Independents (3).

Parrikar had submitted evidence of BJP's majority before the governor on Monday, stating the support of 13 MLAs of the BJP, three MLAs of the MGP, three of the Goa Forward Party and two Independent MLAs, thus having a total strength of 21 MLAs.
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The exit polls projected BJP winning an average of 15 to 20 seats. Though the BJP is likely to emerge as the single largest party, there is a possibility that the party may not reach the majority mark of 21 seats. A day before the counting day, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said that the BJP is confident of winning a majority and will not require any post-poll alliance.

Being Indias tiniest state, the average votes cast on 4 February comes to 24,627 votes cast in each of Goas 40 constituencies. If the past is any indicator, victory margins in many constituencies could yet again be very narrow in which roughly 440 postal ballots on an average in each constituency may make or mar the chances of political parties and chief minister aspirants.

Smaller states like Goa witness different brand of political permutations and combinations. After 81 percent out of the states eligible and registered 11.09 lakh voters opted to exercise their right to franchise on 4 February, Goa continues to witness a slugfest over postal ballots.

Three exit polls Axis My India, C-Voter and MRC have given the BJP an edge over its competitors. The party is likely to win 15 to 22 seats, followed by Congress. MRC predicts 15 seats for BJP, 10 for Congress and AAP seven. Meanwhile, C-voter predicts that BJP may retain Goa with 18 seats and Congress may gain six seats. AAP which is making its debut in Goa might just end up only two seats. C-Voter exit poll predicts that BJP would be the single largest party in Goa.

The exit polls released on Thursday projected a win for BJP in the 40-seat Goa Assembly. The exit polls put Congress in the second lead and predicted that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) might not repeat its Delhi success in Goa.

Circumstances will dictate if Parrikar would be back where Goans want him to. He may be asked to form the next government if BJP falls short of the majority since his magnetic personality will attract Independents and some smaller parties to support BJP. However, if BJP gets majority on its own, Parrikar may stay put as the defence minister and asked to nominate the new chief minister, as he was asked to in 2014 when he handpicked Laxmikant Parsekar as his successor.

Union defence minister is unarguably the most popular BJP leader in Goa and the majority of Goans would want to see Parrikar back as the next chief minister. So would Parrikar, who had moved to the Centre, rather reluctantly in November 2014.

It is D-Day for candidates belonging to the ruling BJP, opposition Congress and the debutant AAP. While BJP will look to retain the state, Congress would look to make a comeback. The Aam Aadmi Party will look to recreate its Delhi magic.

Uncertainty hovers over incumbent Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekars future even in the event of BJP forming the new Goa government.Parrikar had nominated Parsekar as his successor since he allegedly did not want a strong leader to emerge from the BJP ranks as his replacement.

DSouza entered Goa Assembly in 1999 and remains undefeated since then. He was appointed deputy chief minister when Parrikar formed the government in 2012. He was seen as a strong contender to replace Parrikar as chief minister in 2014 and made his displeasure public when his claim was overlooked, while asking him to continue as deputy chief minister.

Victory margins in many constituencies could yet again be very narrow in which roughly 440 postal ballots on an average in each constituency may make or mar the chances of political parties and chief minister aspirants.

In an earlier interview to Firstpost , Gomes said that Kejriwal has been the guiding force, whether it is policy formulation or implementation. Our door-to-door campaign has helped AAP a lot. We paid heed to the peoples voices and it finds representation in our manifesto, he said.

Postal counting starts at 8 AM. EVMs to be opened at 8.30 AM. Results for all the 40 seats are expected by 12 PM.

Talking to Firstpost, BJP may end up being the single largest party. AAP may not create much of a flutter in the state. However, it will probably not join hands with the Congress. The fact that Parrikar and Laxmikant Parsekar did not face any taint of corruption worked in their favour.

Counting of postal ballots have started in Goa. In all 17,590 postal ballots were issued to government servants who were deployed on election duty when Goa voted on 4 February.

Two counting centres are buzzing with activities -- counting for 19 seats of North Goa is taking place in the state capital Panaji while counting for the remaining 21 seats of South Goa is being done in Madgaon, considered as Goa's commercial capital.

The Congress, the prime opponent of the BJP, has fielded four former chief ministers - Digambar Kamat, Pratapsinh Rane, Ravi Naik and Luizinho Faleiro in their respective constituencies, while the NCP has given a ticket to Churchill Alemao.

In all 1,649 EVMs were used for Goa polls. They would be opened at 8.30 am after counting of postal ballots get over.

Goa has over a dozen chief ministerial aspirants, including some independents who are ready with their dreams and sustained dreams if Goa throws up yet another hung Assembly.

According to Times Now, Goa has its first two leads, with Congress leading in two seats while one seat has an 'Others" candidate leading.

Full country started counting at 8 am, but in Goa  where 1,649 EVMs were used, counting started at 8.30. Feni likes to be fashionably late. Builds up suspense and all, no?

According to initial trends, the Congress is leading in 3 seats in Goa while the Others is leading in one seat.

Parsekar was locked in a 7 cornered contest in his home constituency. It was widely speculated that BJP's decision not to announce him as its chief ministerial candidate had weakened his hold over the North Goa constituency.Opposition parties had targeted Mandrem and Panaji, which happened to be constituency of Manohar Parrikar, to defeat BJP and take wind out of its sails in Goa.

Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar lags behind his Congress rival Dayanand Sopte after the first round of counting in the Mandrem Assembly constituency in North Goa.

Kunal, Goa CEO said that the biggest challenge it faced during the election in Goa: "Money power plays an important role in Goa and we had our flying squads in place monitoring the situation, accompanied by the IT officials and local police. We seized cash in abundance from various places during the election and it was let off only after verification of the sources of the funds."

In the GPCC office. The vice president Sheikh along with other party members are closely monitoring the numbers. They're ecstatic that the CM is trailing in his constituency.

Goa Deputy Chief Minister Francis D'Souza leading in Mapusa constituency. He has remained undefeated here since he won this North Goa seat first in 1999.

D'Souza's victory may strengthen his claim to become first Christian chief minister from BJP's ranks. His claim was overlooked in favour of Laxmikant Parsekar when Manohar Parrikar stepped down as Goa chief minister in 2014.

Now say 'hung Assembly', b*gger. Now say it. Since when Feni was asking, "What hung Assembly?", but no one listens only.

Former Goa chief minister Pratapsingh Rane is leading in Poriem constituency. Rane has served as Goa chief minister for six terms and is among the strong contenders to become chief minister for the seventh time if his Congress party finds itself in a position to form the new government.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is headed for a disastrous debut in Goa. The party that claimed it will sweep Goa polls, is trailing in all seats it contested, including its chief ministerial candidate Elvis Gomes in Cuncolim seat.

Laxmikand Parsekar was defeated by Congress party's Dayanand Sopte, once a close confidant of Parsekar. Sopte had defected from the BJP and was rewarded with nomination by the Congress. Sopte has now won by a margin of 3,500 votes.

The Congress was leading in eight seats in Goa and the ruling BJP in five of the 40 constituencies in the state after the first three hours of counting of votes. While Goa Forward Party has gained lead in two seats, NCP leads in one. The MGP is ahead in Bicholim seat as well, with its candidate Naresh Sawal mantaining lead over BJP's Rajesh Patnekar.

Congress's Francis Silveira bagged the St Andre constituency. He got the better of BJP's Ramrao Wagh by a margin of 5,070 votes.

BJP candidates  Pravin Zantye and Michael Lobo  emerged victorious in Mayem and Calangute seats respectively. While Zantye defeated Congress rival Santosh Sawant by 4,974 votes, Lobo won by 4,460 votes against Congress candidate Joseph Sequeira.

National general secretary Digvijaya Singh is likely to hold a party meeting at 6 pm today. Congress in Goa is likely to form the new government and get into an alliance with the NCP, MGP and Goa Forward.

The ruling BJP suffered a major blow when Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar was defeated by Dayanand Sopte of the Congress at Mandrem by nearly 5,000 votes.

MGP leader and former minister Sudin Dhavlikar has won from the Marcaim seat by a margin of over 13,000 votes, defeating BJP's Pradeep Sheth.

Ironically, the thrust of Modis 28 January Goa rally was stability. He urged Goa voters to give BJP big majority to avoid fractured mandate and plunge Goa into political uncertainties of the past. Goa voters had none of it as they appear to have given a fractured majority.

The best scenario for BJP was to send back Parrikar to Goa and officially name him as the chief ministerial candidate. The party refused to read the writing on the wall, just hoping that by using Parrikars name and Modis image, the party to emerge victorious.

The 63-year-old leader was at helm of affairs in Goa from 2007-12. He was booked by Goa Crime Branch in the multi-crore Louis bribery case in 2015 along with his former cabinet colleague Churchill Alemao.

Kamat further added, "The BJP-led government tried to harass me. They filed fake cases against me. They tried to jail me. Only God protected me."

"I attribute my victory to all my party workers who stood by me and reposed their faith in me," Kamat told reporters outside the counting centre here in South Goa.

MGP won in three constituencies, but lost two sitting seats Ponda  represented by Lavoo Mamlatdar  and Priol from where party President Dipak Dhavalikar was elected last time. The party retained Madkai, where its leader Sudin Dhavalikar won with a margin of more than 10,000 votes. It also won Pernem where its candidate Manohar Asgaonkar defeated BJP Minister Rajendra Arlekar and Sanvordem where its nominee Dipak Pawaskar trounced BJP's sitting MLA Ganesh Gaonkar.

Laxmikant Parsekar, who addressed a press conference, along with Manohar Parrikar said that though the number of seats are a little less than Congress, the voting percentage of BJP is 33% and Congress is 28%. "We have provided a stable government in Goa. The coming term would again witness instability, the track record of development will receive a severe and serious setback and Goa will be pushed back at least by 10 years. But it is people's mandate and we have accepted it," he said.

While the Congress has won 17 seats and is just four short of a majority in the Goa Assembly, the BJP too has is set to stake claim to retain the state. BJP which has won 13 seats is reportedly wooing parties like Goa Forward, MGP and two independents to form the next government.

Media reports suggest that defence minster Manohar Parrikar may be elected as Goa chief minister in order to woo the smaller parties to join the alliance. With BJP stuck at 13 seats, it needs 8 more MLAs to form the government. It is to be noted that Parrikar had formed the government in 2000 with just 10 MLAs.

The biggest gainers from that general sense of ennui with the established parties were Independents and small parties  particularly candidates who have performed well.

The lesson from the Goa Assembly election results is that sound and fury are not enough to counter deep political roots. People would rather trust power to those with a record of governance, even when such parties have disappointed in the recent past. The Aam Aadmi Party was the most visible during the campaign, but the relatively new party fared quite miserably. The traditional parties of governance in Goa  the Congress and the BJP, fared relatively well even though people in general had been disappointed with their performances.

"The people want Parrikar to come back to Goa. Now it will depend on the Goa Forward Party and MGP. If they support us, we will form the government in the state," said BJP legislator Michael Lobo, who got elected from Calangute constituency. He said if the GFP and MGP pledge support, the BJP can submit a letter to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha staking claim to form the state government.

Three of the BJP's newly elected MLAs today rooted for Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to take the lead to form government in Goa, if the smaller parties back it.

Sudin Dhavalikar and his brother Deepak were ministers in the BJP-led coalition government for a good part of the last five years but were sacked by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar two months before the 4 February polls were announced after both brothers criticised his leadership.

"We will have to strategise. How can we jump into anything? Coalition talks will happen in their own time," Dhavalikar said, even as political sources told IANS that the MGP leadership, including Dhavalikar, was in touch with both Congress and BJP leaders.

With Goa throwing up a fractured mandate, leaders of smaller parties, who have turned kingmakers, have turned cautious even as both the Congress and the BJP desperately woo them.

BJPs strategy to field eight Catholic candidates in Goa seems to have worked well for it. Although it won only 13 seats in the new 40-member Assembly, most of its Catholic candidates won their seats and one, Arthur DSilva, came second in the Curtolim constituency. The party has earned a lot of flak for fielding no Muslims in Uttar Pradesh and in several other states in the recent past. However, it adopted a different strategy in Goa with regard to minorities.

According to CNN-News 18, Manohar Parrikar resigned as defence minister and he is on his way to meet the governor of Goa and form the next government.

"MGP unanimously passed a resolution that it will extend support to BJP if they recall Parrikar from the Centre to the state and appoint him chief minister," MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar told PTI. "The resolution is very clear. MGP will support BJP only if Parrikar is made chief minister. Our support is not to BJP but to Parrikar," he added.

Nitin Gadkari, during a press conference said that the BJP Parliamentary Board, party president Amit Shah are ready to make Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of Goa. He clarified that he has not resigned as the defence minister yet. Depending on the governor's decision, Parrikar will resign as the defence minister before taking oath as CM.

Capping the day of fast-paced developments, Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday night appointed defence minister Manohar Parrikar, the BJP Legislature, Party leader, as the chief minister and asked him to prove majority on floor of House within 15 days of taking oath.

Parrikar may contest the bypoll from Mapusa seat, which has to be vacated by former deputy chief minister Francis D'Souza. Parrikar is not yet a member of the legislative assembly and has to contest a poll in the next six months. According to India Today, D'Souza may be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha.

MGP leader Sudin Dhavlikar is all set to be the new deputy chief minister succeeding Francis D'souza. MGP, which bagged three seats, had extended its support on the condition that Parrikar be the chief minister.

While five members of the cainet will be be from the BJP, two each will be from MGP and Goa Forward party. Two Independents will also take oath along with them, reports India Today.

India Today reports that Valpoi MLA Vishwajit Rane along with many other MLAs are all set to quit the Congress over its inability to form the government despite emerging as the single largest party in the state. The son of former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane, Vishwajit has blamed the Delhi-based leaders for teh unexpected debacle.

The Congress, which won 17 seats in the 40-member Goa assembly, on Monday night moved the Supreme Court challenging Governor Sinha's decision to invite the 13-MLA BJP, led by Parrikar, to form government, claiming that it violated the "established constitutional practice" of inviting the single-largest party in a hung Assembly. Chief Justice J S Khehar agreed to set up a special bench on Tuesday for an urgent hearing as the court is closed for a week for Holi, The Times of India reported.

A day after the Congress alleged that the BJP 'stole' the elections in Goa and Manipur, Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear the party's plea challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's invitation to Manohar Parrikar to form the government in Goa.

The petition, filed by advocate Devdutt Kamath, is likely to be argued by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and has made the Centre and Goa as the parties.

A special bench would be constituted as the apex court is on Holi break for a week. The petition filed by Goa CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar has sought stay on the swearing-in of Parrikar as the chief minister. The petition has also sought quashing of the decision of the governor to appoint Parrikar as the chief minister.

The Congress moved the Supreme Court on Monday challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of the state. The hurriedly filed petition late on Monday evening was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice J S Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing today.

In a counter-move, Congress, late on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of the state. The hurriedly filed petition on Monday evening was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice J S Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing today.

On Monday, Parrikar quit as the defence minister and reports said that the swearing-in ceremony will be held at 5.30 pm in Panaji. Congress leaders lambasted the BJP leadership for a move which was "unconstitutional". Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram accused the BJP of "stealing" the elections in Goa and Manipur.

Enlisting the support of two independents, three members each of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and that of the lone NCP member, the BJP members led by the defence minister called upon Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday evening and formally staked the government formation claim.

BJP pulled off a midnight coup in Goa and staked claim to form the next government under Manohar Parrikar despite emerging as the second largest party behind Congress in a fractured mandate.

"Despite losing the mandate of the people, our political opponents (BJP) have tried to misrepresent to your good-self that they enjoy the majority support of legislators. This is not only opportunism at its lowest but is also not constitutionally permissible," Goa CLP Leader Chandrakant Kavlekar stated in the memorandum.

The Congress urged Governor Mridula Sinha to invite the party to form the next government by virtue of being the single largest party, a day ahead of swearing-in of BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as Chief Minister. In a memorandum submitted to the Governor tonight, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) claimed to have the requisite support and that they can prove the same on the floor of the House.

"We have adequate numbers. We are the single largest party and we should be invited to form the government," CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar told PTI.

The Congress Legislative Party will meet Governor Mridula Sinha on Tuesday to stake claim to form the next government in Goa, stating that they have adequate numbers on their side. "We are holding a Congress Legislative Party meeting in the morning and then will be meeting the Governor at 10.00 AM to stake claim to form the next government.

Depending upon which way the apex court views the Goa development, there is a strong possibility that Goa may be headed for a brief spell of Presidents Rule since the new Assembly must be constituted before 18 March.

The Congress party is seeking cancellation of the gubernatorial invite to Parrikar. Parrikar along with an assorted Cabinet is scheduled to be sworn-in Tuesday evening.

Eyes are fixed on how the apex court views this development and whether inviting Manohar Parrikar to form the new government can be held legitimate by it when it takes up for hearing a petition filed by the newly elected Congress legislative party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar. Chief Justice JS Khehar agreed to set up a special bench which will hear the petition at 10.30 am.

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who has been vocal about Congress' poor performance in the elections, on Tuesday said that Goa Governor Mridula Sinha must work according to the Constitution.

The petition, filed by advocate Devdutt Kamath, is likely to be argued by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and has made the Centre and Goa as the parties.

The hurriedly filed petition late on Monday was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice J S Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing. A special bench would be constituted as the apex court is on Holi break for a week. The petition filed by Goa CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar has sought stay on the swearing-in of Parrikar as the chief minister. The petition has also sought quashing of the decision of the governor to appoint Parrikar as the chief minister.

Hearing on Congress' petition challenging appointment of Manohar Parrikar as Goa chief minister begins in the Supreme Court. The Congress earlier moved the apex court challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of the state.

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, at a press conference, said that Governor Mridula Sinha will meet "us at 1.30pm, though we wished that she should've met us earlier."

TV channels report that Supreme Court had more than a few tough words for Congress who moved the apex court challenging Manohar Parrikar's appointment as the chief minister for Goa. Asking the Congress why did it not first approach the governor with the adequate numbers, the Supreme Court asked the party about the numbers required to form the government.

-"The entire object of this hasty late night political maneuvering by the powers that be is to defeat the mandate of the people and to somehow grab power by misusing the office of the Governor."

- Governor's move, a complete "departure from the Sarkaria Commission as well as MM Punchhi commission recommendations, requiring her to invite the single largest party (in this case the Indian National Congress) to form the government, has acted with utmost haste."

- The Governor has blatantly violated the Constitution by inviting the BJP to form the Government and has scheduled to administer the oath of office to the unelected Chief Minister

Congress leader Chandrakant Kavlekar's petition challenging Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint Manohar Parrikar as Goa Chief Minister, has plunged the state in a new political crisis. The Supreme Court hearing is underway, but here are the major points raised in the petition.

The Supreme Court bench also observed that numbers should determine the single largest party in Goa and the bench asked the Congress why they didn't approach the governor to stake claim to form the government. The SC also asked the Congress to show the numbers.

The tussle for government formation in Goa reached the Supreme Court, with the state Congress legislative party leader challenging the invitation extended by Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday to BJP leader Manohar Parrikar to form government. During the hearing on Tuesday, the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, ordered an immediate floor test in Goa.

The apex court on Tuesday ordered a floor test in Goa Assembly on 16 March at 11 am. The Supreme Court allowed the swearing-in ceremony for Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister on Tuesday at 5 pm.

Smarting under the Supreme Court snub, the Congress party tried to put up a brave face by terming the court advancing the floor test as its victory and that Parrikar will be Goa chief minister for just two days. The big question, however, remain whether and where the Congress party will get the requisite numbers to topple the Parrikar government.

"We wanted to stake claim since 12 March. We had even given her a letter by the night of 12 March. She still did not give us time, and went against 'established conventions' and invited the BJP to form government," Singh told a press conference in Panaji. - IANS

Congress' Digvijay Singh, who is under fire from the party's central leadership said that the Goa Governor Mridula Sinha unilaterally invited the BJP to form the next government in the state, despite a letter by the Congress party to her seeking an invitation to form the government.

"How we lost in Goa was stupid," Chowdhury said, adding that he should be removed as the party's general secretary. She also sought to defend Rahul Gandhi, stating that the Congress VP trusted state leaders and gave them a free hand, according to CNN-News18.

"We have the numbers to form the government. We have more than 21 MLAs with us with the support of alliance partners," Goa BJP unit General Secretary Sadanand Tanawade told reporters in Panaji. - PTI

The BJP welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to not stay the swearing-in of Manohar Parrikar as Goa Chief Minister, and claimed it will be able to prove majority on the floor of the House.

"I will comment after the swearing-in," Parrikar told reporters in Panaji, when asked to comment on the apex court's decision to organize a floor test of his government on Thursday.

Even as the Congress termed the Supreme Court verdict ordering a floor test in Goa a victory for the party, Manohar Parrikar has chosen to keep mum.

Members of Congress, NCP and RJD raised the issue during Question Hour. Congress leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that democracy is being murdered.

Congress and its UPA allies on Tuesday staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha to protest the alleged efforts to install BJP government in Goa and Manipur despite it having the numbers.

Slamming the Congress party for being a sour loser, Arun Jaitley of te BJP said that the grand old party has got too many complaints. On the ruckus in Lok Sabha today, Jaitley said that since Mallikarjun Kharge has used "strong words" in the House, they should either be expunged or the government be allowed to respond. The Speaker said nothing beyond the questions and answers will be allowed to go on record.

"They are saying that it is okay for them to misuse the office of the Governor...In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP," he told reporters outside Parliament.

In his Facebook post, finance minister Arun Jaitley slammed Congress for crying foul over government formation in Goa. Jaitley said, "Goa produced an inconclusive verdict. There was a hung assembly,obviously post-poll alliances will be formed".

The newly-elected Goa Assembly is likely to have its first meeting on Thursday. Floor test will be done after new legislators are administered oath by a pro-tem Speaker.

Speaking to CNN News18, former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar said that the Congress will fail to prove its majority on the floor of the House on Thursday. He also added that his party used no money power to lure smaller parties. Parsekar, who lost his Mandrem seat, also showed confidence that Independents will back the Parrikar government on Thursday's floor test.

It can't be helped if the Congress vice-president chooses to remain in 'La La Land' but the party's charge against BJP and petition in Supreme Court that Governor Mridula Sinha 'acted in haste' should be explored from all angles. Did Sinha err in inviting BJP's chief ministerial candidate to form a government? And how accurate is the claim that a party which finishes second "has no right to form a government"? What are the political, legal and moral aspects of this charge?

Reports suggest that Manohar Parrikar has also arrived at the Raj Bhavan. Eight other MLAs will also be sworn-in along with him.

MGP leader Sudin Dhavlikar follows Manohar Parrikar in the order of precedence. He is expected to be the PWD minister.

He is followed by Sudin Dhavalikar of the MGP and Vijai Sardesai of the Goa Forward party.

Former Congressman, who joined the BJP in December 2016, Madkaikar is now a minister in the Parrikar cabinet.

The Congress has been crying foul as despite being the single-largest party in the Assembly it failed to cobble up the support of non-BJP MLAs, following which Governor Mridula Sinha gave the BJP the first go at government formation.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has to prove majority in the Goa Assembly today. He stepped down as the Defence Minister to return as the chief minister on Tuesday. Parrikar enjoys the support of 22 MLAs, two more than the halfway mark of 20 in the 40-member Assembly.

Manohar Parrikar, whose party has 13 MLAs, had staked claim to form the government on Sunday mustering the support of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP) besides two Independents, which together took the tally of the combine to 21.

After being sworn-in as the Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar exuded confidence that his government would be stable and run the full five year term. "Let everyone be very clear that this government will last for its full tenure. I agree the mandate is fractured. But if every fraction of the fractured mandate comes together, we will become 22. This is bringing together post-election coalition and the lead has been taken by regional parties, not me," he said.

Meanwhile, speaking to the media Congress MLA Vishwajeet Rane said, "It seems those leaders sent from Delhi never wanted Congress to form government in Goa. Congress should know the kind of mismanagement done by the in-charge of the party who came here from Delhi, which will finish the party."

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha has summoned the first session of the new Assembly to meet at 11:30am. The MLAs will take oath first, following which the floor test would be conducted.

Ahead of the floor test, the Congress refused to comment on their strategy asking people to "wait and watch." "You wait and watch. I will not comment anything right now," Congress Legislature Party Leader Chandrakant Kavlekar told PTI. Led by Kavlekar, all the 17 party MLAs had called upon the Governor on Tuesday seeking an invitation to the Congress to form the government, but failed to get any assurance from her.

The anguish of the Congress party MLAs' seems to be directed at AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh who has been handling the party affairs in Goa ahead and after elections.

Acting swiftly, the BJP which ended up as the second largest party staked the claim to form government.

The Congress leaders are still smarting from the failure of the party managers to cobble up any post-poll alliance to attain power, despite emerging as the single largest party in Assembly elections.

The BJP had won 13 seats, four less than the Congress which bagged 17 seats in the 40-member House. The BJP will have to prove majority in the Legislative Assembly, as per the directions of the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

"In Goa and Manipur Congress could not stake the claim, the Honourable Governor found BJP have numbers to lead the state we were called to form the government. They went to court, even court asked them to prove the numbers, now they are writing blogs. If you have numbers prove it on floors. They are making absurd allegations of horse trading," says Venkaiah Naidu.

Trashing Parrikar's swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra told ANI that the event was a big scam. "This swearing-in ceremony of Manohar Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa is a big scam and BJP has resorted to unfair means. Throughout Goa people are protesting as to why the saffron party did such a low act to come to power, and why is the media not showing all this."

Under fire from his own party members for mismanagement, Singh told NDTV, "If you are seeing me smiling, that shows confidence. We will defeat the motion."

In an interview with NDTV, Congress leader and in-charge for Goa elections, Digvijaya Singh said that he was confident Parrikar would lose the trust vote. "There is no crisis as far as Goa and Manipur are concerned. The High Command had fully authorised the General Secretaries in charge to take decision and there was no interference."

"Ideally, the CLP leader should have been elected immediately (after the poll results). Party's Goa Incharge has done this mismanagement. I will meet Rahul Gandhi before taking any further step. I am hopeful that Rahul ji will give us justice. If he does not respond, then we will feel that we are not in right party and we will take decision after consulting our workers. We will have to quit the Congress if such kind of behaviour continues."

So while, there may be many legal disputes as to how best a governor should act, sometimes effective and quick rulings are better for a democracy than cold hard letters of the law. The law states that the chief minister is a member of the house, who is appointed by the governor and holds the confidence of the House. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

So this does not become a point of who is legally authorised to hold office or not, when adjudicating these matters there are many factors at play, the cold hard letter of the law, the changing tides of democracy and the practicality of having to form of a government. So when courts get involved, the results that come out often times don't always stick to precedent like clockwork.

The governor of a state has a unique constitutional role in our system of Westminster style democracy. The role is similar to the president at the Centre. The role of the governor at the end of the day is to ensure that there is a stable government that can pass a budget and ensure supply as without passing a budget the government will stop and only the legislature can raise money.

All eyes are on Panjim right now where the Goa Legislative Assembly is scheduled to have a floor test on Thursday to see if Manohar Parrikar, recently appointed as the state's chief minister, can survive a vote of confidence in the House.

Making absurd allegations against BJP and stalling Rajya Sabha for performing its duties, this is what Congress does. People rejected Congress in 2014. Congress should have understood its role as constructive opposition. Now after landslide victory in Assembly elections, Congress should understand its role, Venkaiah Naidu tells CNN-News18.

"Two days were taken to choose a Congress Legislature Party leader. Those in charge indulged in mismanagement. The Supreme Court also said so. They are experienced people, but they did not know what to do, what step to take to form the government. Parrikar came from Delhi and swiftly spoke to everyone concerned, got the numbers and formed the government," the Congress legislator from Valpoi was quoted as saying by IANS.

After failing to act quickly to form a government in Goa, the Congress now stares at a revolt as a senior legislator said he and other "like-minded lawmakers will be forced to re-think our remaining with the Congress in future". Senior Congress leader and legislator Vishwajit Rane sought party vice-president Rahul Gandhi's intervention and action against those he claimed "mishandled" the government-formation fiasco.

The Congress claimed that Rs 1,000 crore had been spent on horse-trading and luring non-Congress legislators by the BJP to form a coalition government in Goa earlier this week. "Nothing less than Rs 1,000 crore have been spent by the BJP to lure and buy MLAs over to their side," All India Congress Committee (AICC) Secretary Girish Chodankar told CNN-News18.

Leader of the Goa Forward Party, Vijay Sardesai, who is backing the Parrikar government in Goa told News18, "The BJP was quicker. They deemed Goa important enough to send their minister (Parrikar) back from Delhi to Goa. Now there will be more development here too. This is why we supported the BJP. The Congress has many grand old men all vying for power. They could not have decided a leader and provided stability, so there was no point in going with them. They have backstabbed me twice, tried to scuttle my political plans. Digvijaya Singh is not really responsible for this mess in Congress."

After Kejriwal and Mulayam allege elections were won by tampering EVMs, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP had "stolen" the election and the allies by buying them out. "BJP ne Manipur aur Goa mein paise ka prayog kiya, sarkaar chori ki hai (BJP has used money to steal the governments of Manipur and Goa).

"We have the people with us," he said. Earlier, Goa Congress chief Luizinho Faleiro had expressed his confidence saying, "Congress is united and strong and we will prove our majority in Assembly."

The actual floor test would start after all the newly-elected members of the 40-member assembly are sworn in as legislators.

The much awaited floor test of the newly installed Manohar Parrikar-led Goa government is underway. While the BJP which heads the coalition government is confident of surviving the crucial test, considering it continues to enjoy support of its new-found allies, the rival Congress party entered the House still claiming it has the majority by its side.

The Congress has 17 seats in the Goa Assembly, four short of majority mark. The party has been unable to enlist the support of non-BJP MLAs.

Here's how Manohar Parrikar may get to touch the magical figure of 22 in the 40-seat Goa Assembly:

The first MLA to be sworn-in in the Goa Assembly today was Dayanand Sopte, the Congress leader who registered a record win against former CM Laxmikant Parsekar in Mandrem constituency

The Congress needs only four more MLAs to reach the crucial mark. Sinha on Sunday had granted Parrikar 15 days to prove his majority in the assembly, but the Supreme Court, which was hearing a petition filed by Congress legislative party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, directed on Tuesday that the floor test should be held without delay on Thursday.

Sources in the Congress party told IANS on condition of anonymity, that the Congress leadership, which is being accused of acting sluggishly and thereby losing the opportunity to form the government, is now in contact with leaders from the MGP and GF, requesting them to switch over.

BJP claims, it enjoys support of 22 legislators, including its own 13 MLA. It had submitted letters supporting its claim of 21 legislators to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday. Since then another Independent legislator Prasad Gaonkar, MLA from Sanguem constituency, has joined the ruling coalition. There are indications that former chief minister and the lone Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator Churchill Alemao, who won South Goas Benaulim seat, may also vote in favour of Parrikar government, helping it sail through the floor test ordered by the Supreme Court on Tuesday easily.

It is highly unlikely that BJPs new-found partners will vote themselves out of power. All three legislators of the Goa Front are already ministers, two-each among three Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) and thee Independents gave been accommodated in the Manohar Parrikar government as cabinet ministers.

Kuncalienkar is expected to vacate the Panaji seat for Parrikar, enabling him contest the by-election and become member of the legislative assembly within six months of his appointment. Indian constitution allows a non-member to run the government for maximum six months.

Kuncalienkar, who worked as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Parrikar while he was Goa chief minister from 2012 to 2014 before he moved to the centre as Indian defence minister, was elected to the assembly from Parrikars Panaji seat in 2015 in by-election. He retained the seat defeating thus far unconquered Atanasio Monserrate of the UGP by little over 1000 votes.

Kuncalienkar was sworn in as the pro-tem speaker by Governor Mridula Sinha on Wednesday. He will continue in the post until the assembly elects its new Speaker, likely to take place couple of days before the Manohar Parrikar government presents its budget sometime next week.

While BJP has numbers by its side to sail through todays floor test without any hiccups, the rival Congress party is raising questions over selection of pro-tem speaker Sidharth Kuncalienkar, BJP legislator from Panaji seat.

BJP got the support of 22 MLAs, 16 were opposed and one was absent during the Goa floor test. Parrikar has the challenge of assigning the portfolios.

In a major embarrassment, newly-elected Congress party legislator Vishwajit Rane did not vote, giving signals that all is not well with the Congress party. He walked out of the House after taking oath as legislator.

Parrikar government got support of 22 legislators, excluding the pro-tem speaker who was not required to cast his vote, while the Congress could manage only 17 votes.

"We have won the floor test, debunking Digvijaya's claim that they have the numbers. This is what happens when you come to Goa to have fun."

BJP claims, it enjoys support of 22 legislators, including its own 13 MLA. It had submitted letters supporting its claim of 21 legislators to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday. Since then another Independent legislator Prasad Gaonkar, MLA from Sanguem constituency, has joined the ruling coalition. There are indications that former chief minister and the lone Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator Churchill Alemao, who won South Goas Benaulim seat, may also vote in favour of Parrikar government, helping it sail through the floor test ordered by the Supreme Court on Tuesday easily.

It is highly unlikely that BJPs new-found partners will vote themselves out of power. All three legislators of the Goa Front are already ministers, two-each among three Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) and thee Independents gave been accommodated in the Manohar Parrikar government as cabinet ministers.

#WATCH : BJP has used money to win power in Manipur and Goa, they stole Governments, says Congress VP Rahul Gandhi in Chandigarh pic.twitter.com/XIffdr0lEH

Kuncalienkar is expected to vacate the Panaji seat for Parrikar, enabling him contest the by-election and become member of the legislative assembly within six months of his appointment. Indian constitution allows a non-member to run the government for maximum six months.

Kuncalienkar, who worked as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Parrikar while he was Goa chief minister from 2012 to 2014 before he moved to the centre as Indian defence minister, was elected to the assembly from Parrikars Panaji seat in 2015 in by-election. He retained the seat defeating thus far unconquered Atanasio Monserrate of the UGP by little over 1000 votes.

Kuncalienkar was sworn in as the pro-tem speaker by Governor Mridula Sinha on Wednesday. He will continue in the post until the assembly elects its new Speaker, likely to take place couple of days before the Manohar Parrikar government presents its budget sometime next week.

While BJP has numbers by its side to sail through todays floor test without any hiccups, the rival Congress party is raising questions over selection of pro-tem speaker Sidharth Kuncalienkar, BJP legislator from Panaji seat.

BJP got the support of 22 MLAs, 16 were opposed and one was absent during the Goa floor test. Parrikar has the challenge of assigning the portfolios.

In a major embarrassment, newly-elected Congress party legislator Vishwajit Rane did not vote, giving signals that all is not well with the Congress party. He walked out of the House after taking oath as legislator.

Parrikar government got support of 22 legislators, excluding the pro-tem speaker who was not required to cast his vote, while the Congress could manage only 17 votes.

"We have won the floor test, debunking Digvijaya's claim that they have the numbers. This is what happens when you come to Goa to have fun."

We have proved before the people of India, we had support of 23 and we proved it on the floor of house: Manohar Parrikar,Goa CM pic.twitter.com/Qkr1JiaADd

It is a government of coalition & decision in this regard will be taken by the coalition: Goa CM Parrikar on question of need of deputy CM pic.twitter.com/HZ8v3bgHzX

Everyone voluntarily came and voted, none of them were kept in a hotel room or secluded common place as was the case of opposition: Parrikar

Votes for the general Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur will be counted on Saturday.

The exit polls released on Thursday projected a win for BJP in the 40-seat Goa Assembly. The exit polls put Congress in the second lead and predicted that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) might not repeat its Delhi success in Goa.

Three exit polls Axis My India, C-Voter and MRC have given the BJP an edge over its competitors. The party is likely to win 15 to 22 seats, followed by Congress. MRC predicts 15 seats for BJP, 10 for Congress and AAP seven. Meanwhile, C-voter predicts that BJP may retain Goa with 18 seats and Congress may gain six seats. AAP which is making its debut in Goa might just end up only two seats. C-Voter exit poll predicts that BJP would be the single largest party in Goa.

Based on the exit polls, BJP may form the new government but may not hit the majority mark of 21 seats. "Goa could be headed for a hung Assembly in which smaller parties could come into the picture. Congress winning the maximum 18 seats may open intense efforts and bargaining. As of now it is clear that AAPs attempts to extend its 2014 Delhi experiment may have failed in Goa," political commentator Ajay Jha says. The smaller parties and the Independents are likely to be the kingmakers.

In last-minute instructions on preparations for the counting day on Saturday, the Election Commission on Thursday instructed the electoral officers to set up additional close-circuit TV cameras to monitor carrying of EVMs from strongrooms to the counting hall.

"On the day of counting, additional CCTV camera may be installed at such locations from where the carrying of EVMs from strong rooms to the counting hall can be recorded for effective monitoring," the EC said in the letter.

The EC further said: "For counting day, CCTV cameras must be strategically placed so that all movements of personnel carrying control units is covered and displayed on TV, placed at the Returning Officer's table and at some place where candidates, counting agents can also view the movement of CUs from strong room to the counting hall."

It further said that in case the counting hall is located at a distance or in a separate building away from the strong room, barricading from the strong room door up to the counting hall door should be done in such a way that "EVMs of each constituency should not be criss-crossing each other".

According to Goa Chief Electoral Officer Kunal, the overall polling percentage on 4 February was 81. Out of the 11.10 lakh registered voters, 8,98,507 exercised their franchise. The constituencies in the mining and tourism belts saw more than the average polling, as per the EC estimates.

Though as many as 250 candidates, including many Independents, are in the fray for the 40 seats, the fight is mainly between ruling BJP, Congress, AAP and MGP-led alliance.

With inputs from agencies
Even as Nongthongbam Biren Singh heads to be the first BJP chief minister in Manipur, he has an uphill task of chalking out a mutually acceptable path of existence for all the ethnic identities in the conflict ridden state.

Nazma Heptullah, the Governor of Manipur, has invited the BJP to prove its strength on the floor after the saffron party handed her a list of 32 MLAs supporting N. Biren Singhs candidature as the chief minister.

The saffron party takes charge of Manipur at a time when the state is torn by a long dwelling ethnic tension that resulted in an economic blockade which is more than four months old now. Though N. Biren Singh who is known as a man who dons many hats seems to be the right choice for the post, but the historic nature of the issue is likely to take more than the personal effort of the chief minister.

Here are the prime issues those the N. Biren Singhs government is likely to face.

Issue of Seven New Districts

The state is in the grip of a four month long economic blockade, imposed by United Naga Council protesting a decision made by the Congress-led state government to create seven new districts, as the UNC saw it as an attempt to divide the Naga areas.

The new BJP-led dispensation would be under pressure to solve this issue as it's a polls promise by prime minister in his rally loud and clear.

Pressure is likely to mount on the government from the people living in the plains, who are also BJPs core support base in the state.

The obvious way to solve this issue is perhaps to roll back the decision to create new districts in the Naga areas. Such a decision is likely to please its alliance in government Naga Peoples Front as it has the UNC as its political mentor in Manipur.

But any attempt to roll back its decision to create new districts may be seen as bowing down to the pressures of NSCN(IM), by the plain dwellers.

Before the election, Elangbam Johnson, President of the United Council Of Manipur said to Firstpost that, We cannot succumb to the pressures of UNC.

He also said that the United Council of Manipur has warned the government to not retract from its decision to create new districts.

Whether the BJP-led dispensation will be able to fulfill its promise of solving the issue that too without losing its credibility among its core voters?

Protection of the ethnic identity of Meiteis

The BJP has long been playing with the demand of protection of Meitei identity, that the plain dwellers in the state see as caused by influx of population. In its election manifesto, the BJP addressed the need to extend the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation-1873 or any other Act to check the population invasion against Manipur and to regulate the entry of migrant workers from other states. The provision of Entry fees, Landing fees, Punishment Clauses should be inserted in the Act.

The Congress government in Manipur in the year 2016 brought three bills claiming that they will give an effect of Inner Line Permit System in the valleys, when enacted. But the bills were stiffly protested by the tribals in the hills, as they saw them as encroachment upon their rights

Nongthonbam Biren Singh was an MLA in the Congress regime at that time. Will he be able to convince the tribals this time?

Naga peace accord

The BJP burnt its fingers with the framework of agreement signed with NSCN(IM), as the secrecy maintained about it was made an issue by the Congress in Manipur and played as a conspiracy to compromise the territorial integrity of the state.

In fact this narrative is said to have deterred BJPs clean sweep in Manipur. The new dispensation is pitted against the challenge of creating a congenial environment in the state to amicably conclude the peace talk. It is seen as the biggest challenge for the party, as it is the most sensitive issue and what reaction the framework of agreement will face, when it is made public is still unpredictable.
The Supreme Court snub to the Congress party over formation of the new government in Goa has come as a boost to the beleaguered BJP accused of subverting Goas fractured mandate in its favour.

A special bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar, gave no relief to the Congress party on the grounds that it has failed to prove that it has the requisite support to form the government. The court dismissed the Congress petition with the instruction that the new BJP-led government must prove its majority on the floor of the new Assembly by Thursday.

It has cleared the decks for Manohar Parrikar to be sworn-in as Goa chief minister this evening along with an expected 12 ministers which will have fair representation from BJPs post-poll allies Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Goa Forward party and three Independents.

BJP, while welcoming the apex court ruling, has said it is ready to prove the majority on Thursday.

Th newly-elected Goa Assembly is likely to have its first meeting on Thursday. Floor test will be done after new legislators are administered oath by a pro-tem Speaker.

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, while inviting BJP legislative party leader Manohar Parrikar to form the new government, had asked him to prove his majority within a fortnight.

Smarting under the Supreme Court snub, the Congress party tried to put up a brave face by terming the court advancing the floor test as its victory and that Parrikar will be Goa chief minister for just two days. The big question, however, remain whether and where the Congress party will get the requisite numbers to topple the Parrikar government.

According to indications, the Congress party itself may witness a split as a section among its legislators are unhappy with the manner the party wasted time and remained indecisive, allowing the BJP to contact MGP, GF and three Independents and staking claim.

Vishwajit Rane, who along with his father and six-term Goa chief minister Pratapsingh Rane, are among the 17 Congress legislators, who have already protested and aired their views. There are indications that some others may also rebel. It is not yet clear whether they will form a new party or join hands with the BJP.

The dilemma that dogged the Congress party is reflected in the fact that they took two precious days to elect Chandrakant Kavlekar who won the Quepem seat. The party knocked at the Supreme Court on Monday evening even before seeking appointment with the state governor.

Kavlekar is set to meet the governor at 1.30 pm on Tuesday and is expected to stake claim less than four hours before the oath-taking ceremony takes place at 5 pm on the same day.

Ironically, Congress general secretary in-charge for Goa, Digvijaya Singh, has been camping in Goa since Saturday. His presence did not help the party taking swift decisions. The inordinate delay proved disastrous for the party and may dash its hopes of ruling Goa.
The tussle for government formation in Goa reached the Supreme Court, with the state Congress legislative party leader challenging the invitation extended by Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday to BJP leader Manohar Parrikar to form government. The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the swearing in of BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of Goa and ordered a floor test on 16 March (Thursday). A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar directed that the Assembly session be called at 11 am on 16 March and made it clear that the only business of the House would be the holding of floor test after swearing in of the members.

Goa govt formation tussle: Supreme Court orders floor test in Goa pic.twitter.com/vzUNyiPRgd  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

The bench also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R K Agrawal directed that all prerequisites for holding the floor test be completed by Wednesday including the Election Commission related formalities. The apex court disposed of the petition of Congress, challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint Parrikar as chief minister, and said all issues raised in it can be resolved by a simple direction of holding the floor test.

The Supreme Court bench also observed that numbers should determine the single largest party in Goa and the bench asked the Congress why they didn't approach the governor to stake claim to form the government. The SC also asked the Congress to show the numbers.

Goa govt formation tussle: SC asks Congress why they did not approach the Governor of Goa over govt formation  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

Goa govt formation tussle: While hearing Congress' petition Supreme Court asks Congress where are the numbers?  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

All India Congress Committee (AICC) Secretary Girish Chodankar claimed that governor should have rightfully invited the Congress to form a government in Goa, because it had emerged as the single-largest party, with 16 seats in the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly, following the election on 4 February.

"We were the single-largest party. The governor should have invited us to form government according to established constitutional practice," Chodankar said.

In his petition, Goa Congress leader Chandrakant Kavlekar cited the apex court's decision in the Rameshwar Pandit judgement, where the Supreme Court had said that the single-largest party should be allotted the first attempt to form government in case of a hung assembly.

"Governor overlooked Sarkaria Commission Report and MM Punchi Commission Report. These reports were also upheld and endorsed by the court in Nabam Rebia and Bamang Felix V. Deputy Speaker AP Assembly matters," Chodankar said in the petition.

The bench also requested the Governor to summon the House for conducting the floor test. It said Congress has failed to come out with affidavits of any elected MLAs of two regional parties, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP), or the independents indicating support to it.

It also took on record a letter showing support of three members of MGP, three of GFP and two independents to BJP taking the party's strength to 21 in the House of 40.

During the hearing, the bench said, "You (Congress) don't have the numbers and that is why you did not claim to form government. You have not demonstrated before the Governor that the number is in your favour." The court told the Congress that instead of putting forth their arguments before the court, the party should have done so before the governor.

The bench also said that the pleadings of the Congress leader were not proper as they have not impleaded Manohar Parrikar, who has been invited to form the government, as a necessary party.

"You (Congress) know his name (Parrikar). He has been the defence minister of the country", the bench said and added "you don't even implead the CM. You don't have the affidavit of the members who are supporting you. So sensitive the matter is and you don't do anything."

The bench refused the plea of Goa Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Chandrakant Kavlekar whose counsel and senior advocate Abhishek Mani Singhvi wanted a composite floor test before the oath taking of Parrikar as chief minister.

The petition was filed on Monday evening by the CLP leader and it was mentioned at the residence of the CJI who had agreed to give an urgent hearing. A special bench was constituted as the apex court is on Holi break for a week. Besides staying Parrikar's swearing-in, the petition has also sought quashing of the decision of the governor to appoint the BJP leader as the chief minister.

The petition, filed by advocate Devdutt Kamath, has made the Centre and Goa as the parties.

The Goa CLP leader has argued that the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the polls and under the constitutional convention, the Governor was bound to invite the single largest party to form the government and give it the opportunity to prove majority in the floor test.

It said the decision of the governor is a blatantly unconstitutional action and is illegal, arbitrary and violative of the basic features of the Constitution. He added that the decision was hastily taken by the governor on 12 March. Further, the advocate has said it was wrong on the part of the Governor to invite the BJP-led alliance for government formation as there was no pre-poll alliance.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, the MGP (3), the GFP (3), the NCP (1) and Independents (3). Parrikar had on March 12 submitted evidence before the Governor showing the support of 13 MLAs of the BJP, 3 MLAs of the MGP, 3 of the Goa Forward Party and two Independent MLAs thus having a total strength of 21 MLAs in the 40-member assembly.

Manohar Parrikar is slated to be sworn-in as the chief minister on Tuesday evening. Meanwhile, AICC General Secretary and in-charge of party affairs in Goa, Digvijaya Singh said that the party members are slated to meet the governor at 1.30 pm on Tuesday.

She said she will meet us at 1.30pm, though we wished that she should've met us earlier: Digvijay Singh on meeting with Governor #Goa pic.twitter.com/reC1ppouYr  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

Follow live updates on Goa here.

With inputs from agencies
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had elected Manohar Parrikar to infuse life into the lethargic and risk-averse civil and military bureaucracy in South Block to modernise the Indian military and get it battle-ready in the face of various political tensions. Parrikar, the chief minister of Goa till November 2014, was handpicked to ensure that the Ministry of Defence got the required political leadership that was lacking in the tenure of AK Antony. Here's how Parrikar spent his two years at the ministry amidst bouquets and brickbats.

According to DailyO, as a defence minister, Parikkar controlled the worlds third-largest military and the sixth largest military expenditure. The ministry he supervised is a key stakeholder in a South Asian tri-junction of India and nuclear-armed Pakistan and China. The unsettled borders with these countries mean there is a perpetual threat of a military clash.

Asked about his two-year stint at the Centre, Parrikar said, "Initially, I was finding the role as the defence minister difficult but during the last two-and-a-half years I have done my job well. I have done it with utter honesty." "The Defence Ministry is such a portfolio where allegations are always levelled against the minister but during last two-and-a-half years, despite so much of procurement, there is not a single allegation against the ministry or me," he said. "If I want to sum up my achievements as the Defence Minister, I can say, these are boosting the morale of the force and better procurements," he said.

Parrikar added that through various defence deals, the ministry has saved crores of rupees as many tenders had earlier been over-quoted. The former defence minister had the huge responsibility of cleaning up the mess left behind by A K Antony in the ministry of defence in half the time. It was not easy and Parrikar was a clear novice. However, unlike A K Antony who had to work under the UPA government's policy paralysis, Parrikar had Modi's fast-track implementation of policies.

Although it took him a year to figure things out, the result was remarkable as Parrikar came up with a defence procurement proposal. In 2015, Parrikar launched the first indigenously-built Scorpene submarine at the Mazagaon Dockyard Ltd in Mumbai. The Scorpene was part of the ambitious Project 75 of Indian Navy's submarine programme, undertaken with French collaboration, which will include six such vessels joining the fleet over the next few years.

Parrikar was initially reluctant to become the defence minister but he was a strong advocate of production in this country of military equipment and supplies. As told to DailyO, he commissioned a dozen committees to identify problems from streamlining defence procurements to resolving ex-servicemens issues. He was also close to the armed forces because of his accessibility technological acumen and grasp of complex procurement issues.

In 2015, he resolved the One Rank One Pension (OROP) logjam even as he faced criticisms for not being harsh on his MoD bureaucracy. He also had an impeccable personal integrity that would shock the bureaucrats and armed forces brass in his ministry. However, some of the biggest reforms he started like strategic tie-ups between the private sector and foreign defence players, the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a single-point military adviser to the government who would ensure tri-services integration - are yet to be implemented. It is questionable whether these reforms will see the light of the day in the absence of Parrikar.

However, as a Times of India report discusses, Parrikar's successor will have to deal with some gaping issues in the defence sector. From strengthening the nascent indigenous defence production sector and removing operational gaps in military capabilities to implementing the proposed reforms in higher defence management and fixing the public-military divide, there is a lot to be resolved.

Higher defence management reforms, ranging from a new defence chief post to ensuring the much-needed synergy among the armed forces to the creation of unified theatre military commands there is still enough on the cards as of now. The Budget of 2017-18 barely had enough funds allotted for the modernisation of defence projects. Considering the country still imports 65% of its military requirements, there is much to be desired where a strong indigenous defence base is concerned.

Manohar Parikkar has also been known for his political incorrectness which has also made him controversy's child often in the last two years. In the Firstpost article by Monobina Gupta, the author recalls the incident when while addressing a gathering at the launch of Brigadier (retd) Gurmeet Kanwals book The New Arthashastra, Parrikar said: "Why a lot of people say that India has No First Use policy. Why should I bind myself to a I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly. This is my thinking. Some of them may immediately tomorrow flash that Parrikar says that nuclear doctrine has changed. It has not changed in any government policy but my concept, I am also an individual. And as an individual, I get a feeling sometimes why do I say that I am not going to use it first. I am not saying that you have to use it first just because you dont decide that you dont use it first. The hoax can be called off."

As Gupta mentions, Parrikars words seemed to be inspired by the sort of rhetoric that came from Donald Trump during his election campaign....His disturbing statement has, however, fuelled controversy about Indias tradition NoFirstUse (NFU) Nuclear doctrine even as the Defence Ministry clarified that the Minister had made that comment in his personal capacity. In its 2014 election manifesto, the BJP had pledged to study in detail Indias nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times.

In May 2015, Parikkar had sparked another row by saying in New Delhi that "terrorists" in the state can be neutralised with the help of terrorists. "We have to neutralise terrorists through terrorists only. Why can't we do it? We should do it. Why does my soldier have to do it?" he said. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah had accused the coalition government of trying to revive the brutal years of 'Ikhwan Raj', when militancy was at its peak and state-sponsored militia ruled the streets of Kashmir.

"Looks like Mufti Syed (CM) is reviving & empowering the Ikhwanis. That's the only way to carry out "terrorists killing terrorists" policy of MOD," Omar tweeted.

In 2016, Parrikar had said India did not seek war, but would "gouge out eyes" of the enemy if provoked. As Firstpost author Sreemoy Talukdar had said in his article last October, "It is not often that the Congress makes a lot of sense these days, but it is difficult to find fault with its description of Manohar Parrikar as a "national embarrassment". The defence minister's recent spate of garrulousness sits at odds with the discretion and gravitas that his portfolio demands."

After Uri attack in Jammu and Kashmir, Speaking at an event in Ahmedabad, the defence minister said: "The prime minister hails from Mahatma Gandhi's home state and defence minister comes from Goa which never had a 'martial race'. And then take this surgical strike. This was a different kind of combination. Maybe the RSS teaching was at the core."

Even though the surgical strikes had brought in appreciation from different quarters, a few days after the strike Parrikar had wiped it all off by saying, "Pakistans condition after the surgical strikes is like that of an anaesthetised patient after a surgery who doesnt know that the surgery has already been performed on him. Even two days after the surgical strikes, Pakistan has no idea what has happened If Pakistan continues with such conspiracies, we will give them a befitting reply again."

Parrikar had courted controversy when he had had said that going to Pakistan is the same as going to hell. Hindustan Times reported that Parrikar's statement, made during a BJP meet in Rewari, came shortly after news broke that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would skip the Saarc meet of ministers in Islamabad next week. The defence minister had said this in regards to a failed infiltration attempt on Monday in which Indian troops had returned five terrorists.

Firstpost author Ajaz Ashraf had said, "He is increasingly coming across as a war-monger, intemperate and irresponsible, whose public pronouncements reveal the chauvinist lurking in him."

Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said the decision to send Parrikar, who was doing a "tremendous good job as defence minister," back to Goa has been endorsed by BJP Parliamentary Board.

With inputs from the agencies
The massive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh has led to many Left and secular critics pointing out the limitations of democracy in India. Their contention is that how come the ruling party of a state, nearly 19 percent of whose population comprises of Muslims, did not find a single Muslim good enough for being its MLA candidate. This is a valid point, no doubt. But can it be stretched too far? There can be a counter-argument to it on the ground that fielding Muslim candidates not for their worth as achievers but for their religion amounts to tokenism, a feature that has always marked the non-BJP parties, resulting in the continuing miseries of the countrys largest minorities.

A study in the Economic and Political Weekly had once shown that in its heydays (up to the 1980s) the Congress gave Muslims only token representations in the legislatures. Interestingly, Muslim candidates were fielded in areas where they did not have any chance of winning. Even those who managed to win  many of them were rewarded not for their self-endeavour but for having inherited the legacies of their parents  hardly represented Muslim interests in Parliament or in government.

In fact, the number of Muslim members in the Lok Sabha has always been disproportionate to their actual numbers in the country. In the present, that is the 16th, Lok Sabha, there are only 22 Muslim MPs (the lowest number ever); but then the fact remains that in 1957 (the 2nd Lok Sabha), the number was 23. In fact, the highest representation was in 1980 when 49 Muslims were elected to the Lok Sabha; otherwise the number has always varied between mid-20s and to mid-30s.

Similarly, Muslim representation in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly has been not commensurate with its population. In the newly constituted Assembly, it is 24; but then the fact remains that in both 1967 and 1969 elections, the number was 23. In 1957, it was 29 and in 1962, it was 30. In 1991, the number was lowest at 16. In 1993, it was 24. The highest ever of Muslim MLAs in UP Assembly was in 2012 when the number reached 67. The second highest has been at the number 46 in 1977, 1980 and 2002 Assembly elections.

The point thus is that the Muslim representation has always varied in the UP elections and the number this time is nothing surprising; there have been lower representations even under non-BJP governments in spite of their avowed concerns for "secularism" and welfare of the Muslims.

The question that arises is: Should the Muslims continue to repose their faith only in the non-BJP parties just because they are said to be "secular" and avoid the BJP just because it is perceived to be "communal"? Apart from the dubious "fear" of BJP's "communalism", there is nothing concrete that the Muslims can cite against the BJP. Communal riots did not happen for the first time in 2001 under Modi in Gujarat. In fact, in post-independent India, Gujarat has been one of the worst states for periodic Hindu-Muslim riots, and almost all these riots had taken place under the Congress regimes.

Any dispassionate study of communal conflicts in independent India will reveal that more anti-Muslim riots have been engineered in the Congress-ruled states than in states under the BJP. One often hears that this is a diabolical design on the part of the BJP to tell the Muslims, "Vote for us if you want safety to your life and property or else face the consequences". This is, again, a weak argument. One can counter-argue that communal riots are caused by the non-BJP parties just to perpetuate the myth of BJP's communalism and prevent it from coming to power.

Similarly, though Muslims account for 14.4 percent of the total Indian population, they are among the poorest in the country. The Sachar committee report (for year 2004-05) claimed that as much as 31 percent, precisely one-third of Indian Muslims, were dwelling below poverty line. But then there was no qualitative change of the Muslims condition under the 10-year-rule of the Congress-led UPA that had set up the Sachar Committee. As it is, Indias latest National Sample Survey (NSS), released in April 2013, showed how the states whose leaders talk the most about secularism are the worst in India as far the welfare the Indian Muslims is concerned.

However, and this important, it was in Narendra Modi-led Gujarat that Muslims did well in between 2004 and 2009. According to the NSS, Kerala and Gujarat emerged as the top two states in India where poverty among Muslims in both rural and urban areas declined drastically in the last ten years. In rural Gujarat for instance, the number of Muslims below poverty line (BPL) fell from 31 percent (about one-third of their population) in 2004-05 to a measly 7 percent in 2011-12. Comparison of the same period reveals that those in the BPL population in urban areas also declined from 42 percent to 14.6 percent. Meanwhile, the maximum per capita expenditure (MPCE  an indicator of economic well-being) of Muslims in rural Gujarat went up from Rs 209 to Rs 291. In urban areas of the state, it shot up from Rs 259 to Rs 328.

In contrast, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar still have a large percentage of the Muslim population below poverty line, the statistics reveal. In 2004-05, almost half of the Muslim population in Uttar Pradesh was below poverty line. It has come down to about one-third now, but the overall, and the change in the average MPCE of the community in Uttar Pradesh (for that matter in Bihar and West Bengal) in this period has been much lower compared to Gujarat.

It is equally noteworthy that Modi as the Chief Minister employed more Muslims in Police forces (about 11 percent of the total police strength when the Muslim population as a whole is 9 per cent of Gujarats population) than our secular chief ministers in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. And, there are lesser Muslims under-trials in Gujarat jails than in the jails of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

The point that one is making that neither tokenism in representation of Muslims nor hallowed slogans of secularism will not improve the conditions of Muslims in India as long as there is no sincere attempts towards better governance and greater developmental activities(including education and small-scale entrepreneurships) in which the Muslims participate enthusiastically.

Unfortunately, our secular politicians do not encourage our Muslim-brethren to go beyond their passive role as a vote-bank of some select parties. They advise them to consider the BJP, Modi in particular, untouchable. But then imagine a situation with the BJP coming to power in most parts of the country without much Muslim-support (which is the case now), but Muslims, who constitute the countrys second largest community after Hindus, refuse to be a part of the development process. It is nothing but suicidal. Mindless opposition to the BJP does not serve the interests of the Muslim community. They should participate in Modis empowering policies and programmes like other poor, not be trapped by entitlement tokenisms of the secular politics, a variety of which in West Bengal gives monthly allowance to the clerics and Imams, costing a near-bankrupt state government Rs 126 core per year (but here the Imams are still angry because the amount  Rs 2,500 to an Imam and Rs 1,000 to a moizzin  is too small for them.

In other words, it is not the number in legislatures but the change in their mindset by breaking free of the influence of the orthodox elements (who only exploit their vulnerabilities in the name of religious-cultural identity and are invariably supported by the political parties that pay only lip-service to the cause of secularism) and focusing instead on the real developmental issues that will remove the poverty and backwardness of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere.
During the various phases of polling in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leaders used to gauge Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance's prospects  success or failure  through "measure of happiness" which PK showed.

PK, in this case, has nothing to do with Aamir Khan's movie, but to do with Prashant Kishor, external poll strategist for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party. After extensively covering the election in Uttar Pradesh, on return to Delhi, this writer met some Congress leaders of varying hierarchical levels. They were curious to know how the elections were progressing, but they had the same thing to say: "That could be your assessment, but we are going to win these election, our coalition would be the single largest. PK is very happy, his team is very happy. We have done very well in four-five phases of polling. Look at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's level of desperation that he had to camp in his own parliamentary constituency in Varanasi for three days. PK is very clear that we are winning it."

It didn't matter to them that khat sabha for Rahul Gandhi's month-long campaign in UP had ended in a fiasco, his idea to project a tired outsider Sheila Dikshit as a Brahmanical mascot and chief ministerial candidate, the slogan '27 saal UP behal' and the subsequent electoral alliance with Samajwadi Party, has raised an umpteen number of questions on his and Congress strategist's wisdom.

The Congress workers, whose grassroots connections have been questionable, started celebrating a bit too early. Stitching an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party was a kind of victory for them and several reports in the media was leaked suggesting that the alliance was a result of Sonia Gandhi's intervention, Rahul Gandhi's prudence and Priyanka Gandhi's hard work, as also the perseverance and push of PK. Some Congress leaders told the correspondent, "See what PK has achieved for us. Earlier, nobody was considering us to be a player, now everyone is talking about Congress and Rahul Gandhi."

They conveniently forgot that it's a folly in marketing terms when a backroom strategist becomes bigger than the brand itself.

After all, after Bihar election, PK had acquired a larger than life persona. He was the chief strategist for Nitish Kumar. Lalu Yadav-Nitish Kumar-Congress combine had humbled Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. Prior to that, PK fans had credited him with Modi's victory in 2014 parliamentary elections. In 2015, he was even credited for selecting and rejecting names of probable ministers in Nitish Kumar-Tejashwi Yadav government.

He had suddenly become a cherished brand creator. He was required everywhere and became a Raj guru of sorts for Rahul. He acquired an unbeatable image. He had no other parallel in Indian political electoral strategy history.

He seemed to be the one, who would replace actual election strategy and groundwork by table top strategy and his band of black T-shirt boys and girls, who would call the shots over seasoned Congressmen. The aura around PK that he could make anyone win an election  state or parliamentary  and the kind of offers that he was getting across political spectrum, barring Left and BJP, it remind one of the famous dialogue from the Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan starrer Deewar: "Mere paas maa hai". In this case 'mere paas PK hai', came as the singular winning formula. Rahul and Congress thought their road to recovery passed through PK's room.

Then came the two ill-conceived #Kaam Bolta Hai and 'UP ko ye saath pasand hai' pre-poll catch phrase. Another catch phrase, 'UP ke ladke' though initially talked about to counter Modi-Shah as the two outsiders, like Nitish Kumar had done in Bihar, never made it to the posters and hoardings. Usage of the term 'lakde' (boys) to describe sitting chief minister (Akhilesh) and Rahul didn't augur well.

The outcome of these elections, Congress reduced to a single digit number and SP getting lowest-ever number, 47 down from existing record number of 224 against BJP's phenomenal numbers of 325 in the 403-member Assembly should come as a lesson to the poll strategists, slogan writers and the leaders who hire them. If they had taken a lesson from BJP's 'India Shining' experience of 2004 and Congress-led UPA's 'Bharat Nirman' ads of 2014, the level of ignominy perhaps would have been better than from what they have to face now.

It would be interesting to see whether Rahul hires PK for Gujarat election, scheduled towards end of the year. PK's success story had begun from there. Will Gujarat script a different story for him? Rahul may have an answer for him.
Prime Minister Narendra Modis victory speech at the party headquarters on Sunday, 10 March may have grabbed headlines for his ambition to usher in a "new India" by 2022 but it also holds the promise of the emergence of a new Modi.

In his career thus far, Modi has addressed several victory rallies and meetings as chief minister and prime minister. But this speech was remarkable for its sharp contrast with all previous addresses. To begin with, the first person singular was conspicuously missing. Gone was frequent use of I, me and mine and its place was taken by humbler self-descriptions  we, us and ours. On almost each occasion, it was not Modi Sarkar, but BJP Sarkar. If this was not a one-time act to share glory with party leaders and workers, it is indeed a welcome development.

Not just choice of words, but unlike previous victory speeches, including in 2014 at Vadodara, within a couple of hours after it became clear that the BJP had secured a majority, Modi did not rush this time to address his cadre with the excitement of triumph still pulsating within. Instead he allowed the sense of exhilaration to sink in. When he began his address, it was no victory chant but sombre words to remind people that it was Holi eve and religious festivals provide opportunity to introspect and overcome shortcomings. Indeed, the verdict, especially from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, calls for reflection even on part of those who did not either vote for the BJP or remained bitter critics till the last moment.

Be humble and look at electoral wins not just as chances to spread the ideology and programmes of the party but also see it as opportunity to provide service to people, Modi said. This message to party cadre, in an era when political power is often considered gateway to personal advancement, is a clear message  do not hanker after rewards. Modi used a compelling parallel between his party and trees, saying that when trees mature and bear fruit, they bend with the weight of fruits. The BJP, he told the cadre, had come of fruit-bearing age after decades of toil by preceding leaders and earlier avatars like the Jana Sangh. Political power now must bend the robust stance and responsibility of power must make the workers unassuming and modest. On this front, he will now have to lead by example.

Politically, the most significant observation was that governments are formed by majority secured through elections but once the objective is achieved, governments must be run on the basis of consensus. Modi was more explicit when he said that the BJP government belongs not just to those who voted for it. Instead, the ownership lies in equal measure with those who did not cast their lot with it. This government belongs to those who walk alongside and even to those who stand in opposition, said Modi, in a remarkable toning down of the leader who believed in the principle of I, me, myself. Again, the signal to adopt this stance will have to be reiterated by him.

In many ways, this alteration stems from confidence that there is no need to state the obvious. Opposition leaders, from P Chidambaram to Omar Abdullah, have conceded Modis dominance and agree that it is to remain unchallenged for a while. Among analysts and scholars too, the opinion is shared by many though several remain in disagreement. Many will justify their queasiness at the verdict mainly due to Modis past. Just as his words are treated as Gospel by the masses, those who are in the business of scrutiny would take it with a pinch of salt.

Yet, there is no escaping that Modi has perhaps concluded that his place in history will be judged on the basis of transformative actions and not for divisive actions. Modi reiterated his oft-stated claim, its frequency increased post-demonetisation, that his government is focussed in alleviating conditions of the poor but not by disbursing doles. Modi wishes to be an enabler who has the vision to open new avenues. You work hard, and I will give you opportunities, was his refrain. Similarly, he addressed middle-class concerns and his words would have sounded music as he affirmed that they carry undue burden and the tax system was ranged against them.

Modis majoritarian constituency has reasons to believe that the mandate entitles them to remain unbound in a boundless field. Already, several claims have been made by those on the fringe that the verdict in UP is a mandate for the Ram temple. Modi should be wiser with experience, and must ensure that there is no repeat of events in 2014-2015 when programmes like Ghar Wapasi and post-Dadri belligerence almost derailed government agenda. Old Modi has created the opportunities for New Modi to put him in position to realise his objective. It is up to him to ensure that his agenda is not derailed by overzealousness within his ranks.

The writer is a Delhi-based writer and journalist. He authored Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times and Sikhs: The Untold Agony of 1984. Twitter handle: @NilanjanUdwin
New Delhi: An AIADMK member in Lok Sabha on Tuesday demanded a CBI probe into the "mysterious" death of party supremo J Jayalalithaa, with a Union Minister saying it was a matter of "great concern".

After PR Sundaram, who is affiliated to the rebel party group headed by former chief minister O Panneerselvam, raised the demand, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the matter was of "great concern" but the state government has already ordered a probe and the Centre can act only after its report is submitted.

Sundaram claimed that nobody was allowed to meet Jayalalithaa during her 75 days of hospitalisation and noted that she was said to be suffering from dehydration and fever before it was "suddenly" announced that she had a heart attack following which she died.

"We want a CBI inquiry into the mysterious death," he said.

Kumar said the matter regarding the "sudden demise" of the then Tamil Nadu chief minister "is a mater of great concern to this House and the country" and there is a "feeling that the death had happened under mysterious circumstances".

He, however, said that the state government has already ordered an inquiry into the matter and it has to be submitted first so that the Centre can take any action.
The astounding victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh makes one thing amply clear: as far as the ruling party is concerned this is the age of tactical politics rather than mere ideology. And that BJP president Amit Shah is its Machiavellian master-tactician who snatched victory from the maw of defeat. It was a six-layered tactical plan he developed that swung the vote in favour of BJP in the recently-concluded assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, the party's most sizeable victory in 30 years.

Let us examine the micro-level designs Shah devised to steer BJP in the direction of the result it achieved, and whole at it, decimated the Samajwadi-Congress alliance as well as Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

His method comprised these broad aspects: gathering granular intelligence, crafting a manual of tactics, assembling an expansive, well-trained workforce of volunteers to educate (and seek feedback) from constituents, defining and apportioning community-specific power dynamics, and reviving traditional methods of interaction and communication.

Shah undertook the task of restructuring the BJPs innards after the Bihar debacle in 2015, in which state the party won just 53 of the 159 seats it contested.

Shah brought in young workers, much to the chagrin of the traditionalists and greybeards. Shahs instructions to the new force was clear: position recruits in each district in such numbers that the demographic composition of the state is adequately represented. Nearly 403 young men and women were tasked with monitoring each of as many assembly segments that went to polls. They were notified to provide real-time, unprejudiced feedback to leaders running the campaign.

To purge confirmation bias to the extent possible, this corps was drawn from a variety of organisations with ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a lesson Shah learned from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when the then chief minister of Gujarat began to devise the general course of his party's political strategy. The various outfits that contributed to the force included Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), among others.

This detachment received intensive political training for 15 days. Its recruits were also equipped with three tactical manuals, each containing data, intelligence and an action plan for all 403 constituencies, with the particularities of every assembly segment built in. All major party leaders campaigning in the state were told to adhere to talking points that were derived from these guidebooks.

Shah then turned to formulating a scheme to receive feedback from constituents. A parallel network of paid volunteers was equipped with nearly 16,000 motorcycles and told to fan out across the state, the head of BJPs IT cell in UP, Sanjay Rai, told Firstpost. These squads were instructed to gather suggestion boxes that had been placed in each constituency  they contained a list of voter expectations. The intelligence scraped from these boxes was integrated into the partys election manifesto  the resultant catalogue included such line items as the formation of "anti-Romeo squads", checking "indiscriminate" animal slaughter in the western quadrant of Uttar Pradesh, where Hindu-Muslim hostility ran high, and the importance of invoking procurement pricing, issues related to electricity and roads, and epidemics in the states eastern region. The party recalibrated its strategy for each of the seven phases of polling.

While these schemata had a quantitative measure to them, Shahs plan to establish a spread of emotional nervures proved critical in precipitating victory. The party president held hundreds of meetings with various caste groups, sharing meals and allowing them room to vent. He then assured them that each would receive a share of power proportional to the magnitude of the communitys strength in UP.

In essence, the BJP party president co-opted BSP founder Kanshi Rams political catch-phrase: Jinki jitni sankhya bhaari uski utni hissedari (each grouping shall receive a share of power equal to its numerical strength). Those factions marginalised by the Yadavs in SP and Jatavs in BSP found Shahs words comforting. Shah distilled his learning from these meetings in determining seat allocation: 140 or so candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) were handed tickets. Similarly, of 85 reserved seats, the BJP allocated 64 tickets to non-Jatav candidates to tempt Scheduled Caste voters into the Hindutva fold.

Closer to the action, the party cadre working polling booths fanned out to outlay the central governments developmental schemes  households were asked to place missed calls to a particular number, following which a BJP worker rang a member of the household to go over the BJPs various programmes and receive performance rating for each. Such an interactive session lasted 20 minutes, its purpose to establish an emotional cord as well as serve as an instructional session.

But Shah was cautious enough not to rely solely on technology. He organised nearly 43 melas in rural pockets, designed to revive traditional means of communication. These carnivals featured that tact institutionalised by the BJP  selfie with Modi; a big hit with women, who lined up to pose next to a cut out of the prime minister. We reached out to nearly 40 percent of the electorate across the state through these unconventional methods, one of the strategists, who played a key role in the election, told Firstpost.
After the saffron splash all over the Uttarakhand, BJP is riding a wave of enthusiasm with overflowing confidence. The party is all set to form the government in the state. Meanwhile, the victory of many heavyweights  in the 2017 Assembly election  who can be strong contenders of for ministers' posts can cause trouble during Cabinet formation. The newly formed government must be ready to meet the challenges on various fronts  politically, as well as working on its manifesto that made several promises to the people in the state.

There has been a tradition of creating a balance between Garhwal and Kumaon regions while allocating responsibilities in the government. Saffron is flying not just in the Garhwal region but also in Kumaon. The number of winners with political weight is expected to be almost double that of the number of ministers required for the Cabinet. Ministers from the former Khanduri government, Madan Kaushik, Bishan Singh Chufal, Trivendra singh singh, Harbans Kapoor and Khajan Das, have won the polls. Accommodating the Congress rebels in which a majority registered a victory could pose a big challenge. Harak Singh Rawat, Yash pal Arya, Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion and Subodh Uniyal are strong contenders for Cabinet positions.

Many black horses of the party who never faced defeat, such as Ganesh Joshi, Rajesh Shukla and Yateeshwaranand who defeated Harish Rawat can claim good positions in government. After losing the battle, Ajay Bhatt's future is hazy, but he is being considered as a strong chief ministerial candidate. BJP has also been picking holes in the Congress' rule in last five years in the state. The many pitfalls in planning and policy-making during the Congress rule have finally taken a toll on the party. BJP has targeted Congress regularly for its failure on many fronts during campaigning. And now that BJP has registered a landslide victory with a whopping majority, there is a long list of challenges that need to be addressed by the BJP government.

It is, indeed, the first time in the history of Uttarakhand that a party has emerged with two thirds of the majority, with having a Centre run by the same party. Narendra Modi used this rhetoric in his campaign frequently  talking about the need for "two engines" to take the state out of under-development.

The BJP must also works towards executing interest-free loans and scholarships for higher education, establishing health resorts and yoga based centres for medical tourism, payments to sugarcane farmers within 15 days, increments in allowances of Aanganwadi workers, establishing fast-track courts to curb crimes against women. Adding to this list are bringing improvement in the condition of women rehabilitation centres and linking the Madrasas to modern and computer-based education. To fulfill all these promises, the BJP has to travel an extra mile in terms of arranging funds and improving revenues. Central government schemes can pave the way for easy loans from the World Bank and ADB, but providing free laptops, smartphones to high achieving students, implementing welfare plans for government employees is likely to mount great pressure on the forthcoming governement.

Now, BJP has two engines but path is not that easy; Uttarakhand has a shortage of funds and it can pose to be a hurdle in terms of fulfilling log-jammed schemes meant for the people of the state. The availability of two engines is sure only up until 2019, which means that BJP has only two years to meet all the challenges, especially the promises made through its vision document, including its ambitious plans of 'All-weather char-dham route' and Rishikesh Karnprayag railway line that is set to be completed in coming two years.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has given the CIA the authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, a role previously assigned exclusively to the Pentagon, a media report said.

Trump's decision is a change from the policy implemented by former President Barack Obama, who limited the paramilitary role of the Central Intelligence Agency, Monday's Wall Street Journal report quoted an unidentified source as saying.

During the Obama administration, CIA drones were used to carry out reconnaissance and collect intelligence to locate suspected terrorists, but attacks were then carried out by the military, Efe news reported.

The drone strike that killed Taliban leader Ajtar Mansurin on May 2016 in Pakistan "was the best example of that hybrid approach" by the CIA and the Pentagon, the report said.

By the end of his tenure, Obama managed to implement a set of rules that allowed only the Pentagon to carry out strikes in order to ensure transparency.

The official said the CIA first used its new authority to carry out drone strikes in late February in an attack in northern Syria, which killed Al Qaeda leader Abu al-Jair al-Masri, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law.

Al Qaeda confirmed on March 2 that al-Masri was killed by a drone.

Officials said Trump's new order specifically applies to CIA operations in Syria, but it could eventually be extended to other operations against terrorists in other countries like Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the orders were given to the intelligence agency by Trump shortly after his meeting with intelligence officials at CIA headquarters on 21 January, the day after he was inaugurated as President.
By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Lin Noueihed

| WASHINGTON/CAIRO

WASHINGTON/CAIRO Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, U.S., Egyptian and diplomatic sources say, a move that would add to U.S. concerns about Moscow's deepening role in Libya.The U.S. and diplomatic officials said any such Russian deployment might be part of a bid to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who suffered a setback with an attack on March 3 by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) on oil ports controlled by his forces.The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States has observed what appeared to be Russian special operations forces and drones at Sidi Barrani, about 60 miles (100 km) from the Egypt-Libya border.Egyptian security sources offered more detail, describing a 22-member Russian special forces unit, but declined to discuss its mission. They added that Russia also used another Egyptian base farther east in Marsa Matrouh in early February.The apparent Russian deployments have not been previously reported.The Russian defence ministry did not immediately provide comment on Monday and Egypt denied the presence of any Russian contingent on its soil."There is no foreign soldier from any foreign country on Egyptian soil. This is a matter of sovereignty," Egyptian army spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said.The U.S. military declined comment. U.S. intelligence on Russian military activities is often complicated by its use of contractors or forces without uniforms, officials say.Russian military aircraft flew about six military units to Marsa Matrouh before the aircraft continued to Libya about 10 days later, the Egyptian sources said.Reuters could not independently verify any presence of Russian special forces and drones or military aircraft in Egypt.Mohamed Manfour, commander of Benina air base near Benghazi, denied that Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) had received military assistance from the Russian state or from Russian military contractors, and said there were no Russian forces or bases in eastern Libya.

Several Western countries, including the U.S., have sent special operations forces and military advisors into Libya over the past two years. The U.S. military also carried out air strikes to support a successful Libyan campaign last year to oust Islamic State from its stronghold in the city of Sirte. Questions about Russia's role in north Africa coincide with growing concerns in Washington about Moscow's intentions in oil-rich Libya, which has become a patchwork of rival fiefdoms in the aftermath of a 2011 NATO-backed uprising against the late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was a client of the former Soviet Union. The U.N.-backed government in Tripoli is in a deadlock with Haftar, and Russian officials have met with both sides in recent months. Moscow appears prepared to back up its public diplomatic support for Haftar even though Western governments were already irked at Russia's intervention in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad.A force of several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until February in a part of Libya that is under Haftar's control, the head of the firm that hired the contractors told Reuters. The top U.S. military commander overseeing troops in Africa, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, told the U.S. Senate last week that Russia was trying to exert influence in Libya to strengthen its leverage over whoever ultimately holds power."They're working to influence that," Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

Asked whether it was in the U.S. interest to let that happen, Waldhauser said: "It is not."REGAINING TOE-HOLD

One U.S. intelligence official said Russia's aim in Libya appeared to be an effort to "regain a toe-hold where the Soviet Union once had an ally in Gaddafi.""At the same time, as in Syria, they appear to be trying to limit their military involvement and apply enough to force some resolution but not enough to leave them owning the problem," the official added, speaking on the condition of anonymity.Russia's courting of Haftar, who tends to brand his armed rivals as Islamist extremists and who some Libyans see as the strongman their country needs after years of instability, has prompted others to draw parallels with Syria, another longtime Soviet client.Asked by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham whether Russia was trying to do in Libya what it did in Syria, Waldhauser said: "Yes, that's a good way to characterize it."

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was looking to back Haftar, although its initial focus would likely be on Libya's "oil crescent.""It is pretty clear the Egyptians are facilitating Russian engagement in Libya by allowing them to use these bases. There are supposedly training exercises taking place there at present," the diplomat said. Egypt has been trying to persuade the Russians to resume flights to Egypt, which have been suspended since a Russian plane carrying 224 people from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh to St Petersburg was brought down by a bomb in October 2015. The attack was claimed by an Islamic State branch that operates out of northern Sinai.Russia says that its primary objective in the Middle East is to contain the spread of violent Islamist groups.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged this month to help unify Libya and foster dialogue when he met the leader of the U.N.-backed government, Fayez Seraj. Russia, meanwhile, is also deepening its relations with Egypt, which had ties to the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1972.The two countries held joint military exercises - something the U.S. and Egypt did regularly until 2011 - for the first time in October.Russia's Izvestia newspaper said in October that Moscow was in talks to open or lease an airbase in Egypt. Egypt's state-owned Al Ahram newspaper, however, quoted the presidential spokesman as saying Egypt would not allow foreign bases.The Egyptian sources said there was no official agreement on the Russian use of Egyptian bases. There were, however, intensive consultations over the situation in Libya.Egypt is worried about chaos spreading from its western neighbour and it has hosted a flurry of diplomatic meetings between leaders of the east and west in recent months. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington and Lin Noueihed in Cairo; additional reporting by John Walcott in Washington, Ahmed Mohammed Hassan in Cairo, Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe in Moscow, Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi, Aidan Lewis in Tunis; editing by Grant McCool)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
BRUSSELS The European Union's highest court ruled on Tuesday that firms may ban staff from wearing Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions. Here are some reactions to the judgment:Francois Fillon, French conservative presidential candidate"The judgment ... defends the secular nature of society and puts a stop to the pushing of religious interests ... It is a huge relief, not only to thousands of companies but also their employees. This judgment will surely contribute to social cohesion and peace throughout Europe, and notably France."Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis:"With the rise of racially motivated incidents and todays decision, Europe is sending a clear message - its faith communities are no longer welcome. Political leaders need to act to ensure that Europe does not isolate religious minorities and remains a diverse and open continent."John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International:

"Today's disappointing rulings ... give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women -- and men -- on the grounds of religious belief. At a time when identity and appearance have become a political battleground, people need more protection against prejudice, not less." G4S, company whose ban in Belgium was upheld by the ECJ:"In many countries such as the UK where there is no strong tradition of religious and political neutrality, G4S permits the wearing of religious dress such as Islamic headscarves." Amel Yacef, chair of the European Network Against Racism:

"It effectively bars all Muslim women wearing the headscarf from the workplace. This is nothing short of a Muslim ban applied only to women in private employment."Muslim women already experience significant obstacles in finding and keeping a job and this decision will only make matters worse, giving employers a licence to discriminate."Jonathan Chamberlain, at British law firm Gowling WLG:

"The decision brings EU law into line with what has been the UK's approach for some years. For example, it's fine for employers to have a dress code but it needs to be applied with some sensitivity and flexibility to take account of religious beliefs. What is almost certainly never OK is for an employer to tell an employee to stop wearing a religious symbol because a particular customer has asked for it."Carla Amina Baghajati, Austrian Islamic body IGGO:"Participation in the workplace is a key to social cohesion, for womens right to work and their inclusion in society. If this ruling is taken by employers as an invitation to take restrictive action, that would be a serious consequence for Muslim women who want to wear a headscarf because they would be shut out."Maryam Hmadoun, Open Society Justice Initiative:"This disappointing ruling weakens the guarantee of equality that is at the heart of the EUs anti-discrimination directive. In many member states, national laws will still recognise that banning religious headscarves at work is discrimination. But in places where national law is weak, this ruling will exclude many Muslim women from the workplace. European Union lawmakers must now act quickly to make it clear that the scope of this directive includes direct discrimination on the basis of religious dress."Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations:"Muslim women already face significant obstacles in getting an education or finding and keeping a job and this decision will only make matters worse, giving employers a licence to discriminate. In Belgium, for instance, 44 percent of employers agree that wearing a headscarf can negatively influence the selection of candidates. In this case, this judgment forces Muslim women who wear a headscarf, Sikhs wearing a turban and Jews wearing a kippa to choose between their religious expression, which is a fundamental right, and their right to access the labour market." (Reporting by Waverly Colville; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Washington: A company owned by the family of President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is set to receive more than USD 400 million from a Chinese firm that is investing in its Manhattan office tower, Bloomberg has reported.

The Kushner Companies deal with Anbang Insurance Group for the property at 666 Fifth Avenue is worth $4 billion, with real estate experts calling it an unusually favourable deal for the Kushners, the report said.

It would value the 41-story tower at $2.85 billion, the most ever for a single building in wealthy Manhattan. The investment deal gives Kushner Companies a cash payout, an equity stake in a new partnership and refinancing of $1.14 billion in existing mortgage debt, said Bloomberg, which obtained details of the agreement which is being circulated to attract other investors.

A large chunk of a USD 250 million loan will be forgiven, allowing it to be cleared for USD 50 million, the report said. "This is a huge, huge exit strategy for an office building," lawyer Joshua Stein told Bloomberg. "It does sound like a home run of a transaction for Kushner and his group." Anbang has "murky links to the Chinese power structure" and its previous investments in the United States have raised concerns over national security, Bloomberg said.

But Kushner Companies spokesman James Yolles was reported as saying that Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka and a senior advisor to the president, had sold his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue so there was no conflict of interest.

But the deal raises the possibility of a "sweetheart deal" for the Kushners, said Larry Noble, general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. "A classic way you influence people is by financially helping their family," he told Bloomberg.

Trump's own business links with China  he holds at least 72 trademarks in the country and has as many as 45 such applications pending  have prompted warnings that he could potentially violate the US constitution and leave himself exposed to charges of conflicts of interest.

Anbang's ownership is unclear. It has no publicly listed units and does not name its shareholders on its website. Established just 13 years ago, Anbang has grown from a domestic seller of property insurance into a financial services powerhouse, making a name for itself abroad by buying New York's historic Waldorf Astoria hotel for a record $1.95 billion in 2014.
The top UN expert on privacy in his latest report has recommended the creation of a legal instrument that could grant the equivalent of an international surveillance warrant to tackle the problem of thousands of requests for access to data that tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter face from governments across the world.

The report, ironically, was presented by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy (SRP), Joseph A Cannataci, the day after WikiLeaks published the biggest leak from the CIA that detailed how American intelligence agency hacks Apple and Android smartphones, electronic devices including smart TVs and communication apps like the popular WhatsApp and Signal.

The report does not include this latest case of document dumping since it was published after the UN report had already been finalised and submitted to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights but, nonetheless, the UN expert has some strong words for countries like the US, the UK, France and Germany, pulling them up for unwarranted regimes of domestic and international spying.

That, tech giants who operate data centres internationally are constantly worried about states overstepping boundaries, is because there is no international law that regulates such surveillance. The UN expert recommends creating an international body with a pool of judges that will review and authorise states requests for data access to multinationals with granting an equivalent of an international surveillance warrant or international data access warrant (IDAW)  on grounds of reasonable suspicion under clear international law  that would be enforceable in cyberspace.

Countries signing up to such a new treaty or additional protocol could be contributing their own specialised independent judges to a pool who would, sitting as a panel, conceivably act as a one-stop shop for relevant judicial warrants enforceable worldwide  naturally in those countries which would become party to the treaty.

The evidence available to the SRP suggests that some leading democracies treat the Internet in an opportunistic manner operating relatively unfettered, intercepting data and hacking millions of devices, (smartphones, tablets and laptops as much as servers) worldwide.

In doing so, approximately 15-25 states treat the Internet as their own playground over which they can squabble for spoils, ever seeking to gain the upper hand whether in terms of cyber-war, or espionage or counter-espionage, or industrial espionage."

The list of motivations goes on while the other 175-odd states look on powerless, unable to do much about it except hope that somehow cyber-peace will prevail, the privacy expert states in his report.

He reveals that a tiny minority of states have actively tried to informally discourage the SRP from exploring options for solutions to have internationally enforceable safeguards and remedies on the internet.

The present Cybercrime Convention deals only with the criminal justice sector and, therefore, the types of activities revealed by Edward Snowden lies outside the scope of the Convention.

This legal instrument regulating surveillance in cyberspace would be another step, complementary to other pieces of existing cyberlaw such as the Cybercrime Convention.

Uncharacteristically, the US did not make an intervention during a debate on this report at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on 7 and 8 March.

The recent WikiLeaks expose of about 9,000 secret files called Vault 7 has left governments, citizens and rights activists worried over the possibilities of unfounded intrusion into millions of lives, especially given the current backlash against immigrants and foreigners in Europe and the US.

Surveillance activities, regardless of whether they are directed towards foreigners or citizens, must only be carried out in compliance with fundamental human rights such as privacy, Cannataci says in his report.

especially when it comes to surveillance carried out on the Internet, privacy should not be a right that depends on the passport in your pocket, the report says.

While traditional methods of data interception like phone calls require judicial authorisation in some countries but other techniques such as the collection and analysis of metadata referring to protocols of internet browsing history or data originating from the use of smartphones (location, phone calls, usage of applications, etc) are subject to much weaker safeguards. This is not justified since the latter categories of data are at least as revealing of a persons individual activity as the actual content of a conversation, Cannataci argues.

if the state is capable of potentially interfering with every flow of information, even retroactively through bulk data retention and technologies such as quick freeze, the right to privacy will simply not experience a full transition to the digital age, Cannataci told the HRC.

The Snowden revelations and their aftermath have clearly shown that there is a pressing need for government authorities to explain their work to the public which may partially be achieved through ex-post notification of those individuals who are subject to surveillance.

There is little or no evidence to persuade the SRP [special rapporteur for privacy] of either the efficacy or the proportionality of some of the extremely privacy-intrusive measures that have been introduced by new surveillance laws in France, Germany, the UK and the USA, says the UN expert.

Once data has been collected through bulk acquisition or mass surveillance these are increasingly vulnerable to be hacked by hostile governments or organised crime while there is no proof that such mass data acquisition has helped in lessening security risks.

The right to privacy infringed through domestic or international measures is a fiercely debated issue not only in the UN but within national discourses as well. In India, activists have raised privacy concerns of submitting biometric details to the government vis-a-vis the Aadhaar card system  particularly of vulnerable sections such as women rescued from trafficking, young children, the disabled  as well as the possibility of data leakages from the system.

Joseph Cannataci was appointed as the first special rapporteur on the right to privacy by the HRC in July 2015 after a resolution that highlighted the need for an expert who monitors this issue globally.
MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday ordered his officials to seal an agreement which will, in effect, incorporate the armed forces of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region into the Russian military's command structure.Georgia condemned the move, which is likely to spark accusations from its Western allies that the Kremlin is absorbing the breakaway region into Russia by stealth, even though under international law it is part of Georgia's sovereign territory.Moscow has de facto controlled South Ossetia, a sliver of mainly mountainous land in the northeast of Georgia, for years. But it has, on paper at least, treated South Ossetia as a separate state, not part of Russia. According to the text of the draft agreement that Putin ordered his officials to conclude, the separatists will adopt new operating procedures for their armed forces which will be subject to approval by Moscow, and the forces' structure and objectives will be determined in agreement with Russia.

The agreement also states that members of the South Ossetian armed forces can transfer to serve as Russian soldiers on a Russian military base in South Ossetia. The separatists will shrink their own armed forces by the number of servicemen employed at the Russian base.On Tuesday, the Kremlin issued an order signed by Putin instructing the Russian defence and foreign ministries to work with the separatists to conclude and sign the agreement.

Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze said in a statement: "Any agreement between the Russian Federation and de-facto leadership (of South Ossetia) is illegitimate." "Such steps are not aimed at protecting peace and are impeding peaceful process, which is necessary for the conflict resolution," he said.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in a war. In August 2008, Russia sent in troops, saying it was protecting civilians in South Ossetia from attack by Georgian forces.Georgia, backed by the United States and European Union, said the Russian operation was a naked land grab.After a brief war, Russia recognised South Ossetia as an independent state. Only a handful of other states recognise it as a state.Russia's critics say the war in South Ossetia was a dress rehearsal by Russia for its annexation in 2014 of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, and its support for separatist fighters in the eastern Ukrainian Donbass region. (Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe; Editing by Alison Williams)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Katharine Houreld

| NAIROBI

NAIROBI Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew onboard, a Somali official said on Tuesday, the first time they have successfully taken a commercial ship since 2012. Graphic - Track of suspected hijacked tanker: http:// fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/3/868/868/ARIS13.pngGraph showing Somali pirate attacks since 2008: hereExperts said the ship was an easy target and ship owners were becoming lax after a long period without many attacks. The Aris 13 sent a distress call on Monday, turned off its tracking system and altered course for the Somali port town of Alula, said John Steed of the aid group Oceans Beyond Piracy. "The ship reported it was being followed by two skiffs yesterday afternoon. Then it disappeared," said Steed, an expert on piracy who is in contact with naval forces tracking the ship. Aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship, he said. The force declined to comment on the incident. The pirates brought the ship to the port town of Alula, district commissioner Mohamud Ahmed Eynab told Reuters by phone.

A pirate called Abdullahi told Reuters by telephone: "We are now heading on boats towards our colleagues holding the ship at Alula. We are carrying water, food and weapons for reinforcement." The Sri Lankan government said eight Sri Lankan crew were onboard and the ship flew a flag from the Comoros islands. Data from Reuters systems showed it made a sharp turn just after it passed the Horn of Africa on its voyage from Djibouti to Mogadishu. The 1,800 deadweight tonne Aris 13 is owned by Panama company Armi Shipping and managed by Aurora Ship Management in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Equasis shipping data website, managed by the French transport ministry.MOTHERSHIP

Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, the head of private maritime security company Dryad Maritime Intelligence, said the vessel was an easy target because it was low, slow and close to the coast. Crews were beginning to relax their vigilance after a period of relative security for shipping, he said. Now that the ship was captured, Somali authorities must ensure it was contained and not used as a mothership, he said, referring to a hijacked vessel used to launch attacks. "The way that the authorities react now is crucial," he said.

In their heyday in 2011, Somali pirates launched 237 attacks off the coast of Somalia, data from the International Maritime Bureau showed, and held hundreds of hostages.That year, Ocean's Beyond Piracy estimated the global cost of piracy was about $7 billion. The shipping industry bore roughly 80 percent of those costs, the group's analysis showed. But attacks fell sharply after ship owners tightened security and vessels stayed further away from the Somali coast.There had only been four attempted attacks by Somali pirates in the past three years, the bureau said. Intervention by regional naval forces that flooded into the area helped disrupt several hijack bids and improved security for the strategic trade route that leads through the Suez Canal and links the oilfields of the Middle East with European ports.Before Tuesday's hijacking, only one crew remained captive in Somalia. The crew of 17 Iranians was taken two years ago, but four are believed to have died, four were rescued and one escaped, Steed said, so only eight remained. "They're from Baluchistan in Iran," he said, referring to a violent and restive eastern province. "No one really cares about them." (Additional reporting by Keith Wallis in Singapore, Abdiqani Hassan in Bosaso, Ranga Sirilal in Columbo and Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by Alison Williams)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Gabriela Baczynska

| BRUSSELS

BRUSSELS Syria needs a "proxy peace" supported by the international community instead of the proxy war that has raged for six years and killed some 320,000 people, top European Union diplomat Federica Mogherini said on Tuesday.The war has displaced millions and continues unabated, largely due to the international community's failure to agree on how to end it, with the United States and Russia and their respective regional allies backing rival sides.EU capital Brussels will host an international conference on Syria on April 5, hoping to create a new momentum. It has, however, long played only a marginal role in international efforts to resolve the conflict.Mogherini has for months been talking to eight regional players in the Middle East, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Lebanon, seeking to find any minimum common ground between them on what the future peace could look like.

"Our work with them will continue both in the present, in terms of supporting the Syrian refugees that they host... but also in terms of turning somehow a proxy war into a proxy peace," Mogherini told reporters."I believe there is some common ground that can be found within international players, with the regional actors that can facilitate this process."The 28-nation bloc, a leading aid donor, has threatened not to pay for reconstruction work should Russia and its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crush the Western-backed opposition entirely.

EU officials say the Middle East states agreed they did not want a frozen conflict in Syria or have it break apart, as it would continue to feed instability on their doorstep for years.The EU has fed that to the U.N. Syria negotiator who opened in late February another round of talks in Geneva between Damascus and rebel and opposition groups seeking to oust Assad.

"I believe there can be a space for all international players and especially all regional actors... (to) see that it's far more convenient at this moment to turn this into a proxy peace and allow Syria to restart somehow," Mogherini said. She will present her thoughts to a meeting of EU's foreign ministers on April 3.A separate, Russia-led Syria talks were derailed on Tuesday over a boycott by rebels backed by Turkey. (Editing by Hugh Lawson)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

| AMMAN

AMMAN The Syrian opposition will not attend peace talks due to start on Tuesday in the Kazakh capital Astana, blaming Russia's unwillingness to end air strikes against civilians in rebel-held areas and its failure to put pressure on the Syrian army to abide by a widely violated ceasefire.Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the rebels said they had taken a final decision not to go to the talks as a result of Russia's failure to end what the opposition says are widespread violations of a Turkish-Russian brokered ceasefire last December."Currently the decision is not to go as a result of Russia continuing its crimes in Syria against civilians and its support of the crimes of the Syrian regime," he said, adding that they had informed Turkey, a main backer of the rebels, of their decision.Colonel Ahmad Othman, who heads the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad rebel brigade, earlier said rebels were awaiting a Russian response to a letter that demands Moscow acts as a guarantor and ends violations of the ceasefire."Nothing has been implemented so far," said Othman, complaining of Russian strikes on civilians and assaults by the Syrian army in rebel-held areas.Syrian rebel groups on Saturday called for the postponement of the Russian-backed peace talks in Kazakhstan and said further meetings would depend on whether the Syrian government and its allies adhered to a newly declared March 7-20 ceasefire.Russia backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict, and has launched a diplomatic peace initiative after its air force helped the Syrian government defeat rebels in Aleppo in December - Assad's biggest victory of the war.

The rebels said the government and its Iranian-backed militia allies were continuing to bombard opposition-held areas near Damascus, Homs, Deraa and Idlib, and preparing to storm two districts on the outskirts of the Syrian capital."Moscow has not lived up to its commitments. The main demand is stopping the bombardment and displacement of people," Othman added.Rebels said an evacuation deal reached on Monday that forces rebel fighters to leave the opposition-held besieged Homs district of al-Waer dealt a blow to Russia's attempts to portray itself as a credible guarantor of the ceasefire deal.

The evacuation deal was seen as a surrender forced upon rebels after relentless bombing by Syrian jets of the teeming neighbourhood with Moscow's seal of approval."It seems Russia invites us to Astana and then imposes forcible displacement of the people of al-Waer ... Moscow has not kept its promises," said Mohammad Alloush, the head of the armed factions' delegations participating in the past two Astana rounds.Alloush later confirmed they were not attending saying Moscow had not kept its promises to stop the bombing of civilian areas or ending displacement of people in rebel pockets near Damascus."We want to show the world that the Russians want a political solution that is only in the media. They have to change their policies if they are seeking a solution," Alloush added.

Separately, Salem al Muslet, a spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, the mainstream opposition body, said Russia's unwillingness to put pressure on the Syrian government and its allies was behind the hesitation to come to Astana. He said the factions were so far resisting pressure to go. "There is intense pressure on the factions but they are holding on to their position which is not different from the situation inside where people are suffering and they cannot override their wishes," Muslet told Al Hadath TV channel."If they go to Astana and the shelling is continuing this would be problem, so if the Russians wanted the success of Astana, the guarantor has to take steps, he added."There are just hours left before the conference and something could happen," he added without elaborating. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Alison Williams and Mary Milliken)

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BEIRUT The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Monday there are so far about 465,000 people killed and missing in Syria's civil war.The war began six years ago on Wednesday with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government. It has since dragged in global and regional powers, allowed Islamic State to grab huge tracts of territory and caused the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war. The Observatory said it had documented the deaths of more than 321,000 people since the start of the war and more than 145,000 others had been reported as missing.

Among those killed are more than 96,000 civilians, said the Observatory, which has used a network of contacts across the country to maintain a count of casualties since near the start of the conflict.

It said government forces and their allies had killed more than 83,500 civilians, including more than 27,500 in air strikes and 14,600 under torture in prison. Rebel shelling had killed more than 7,000 civilians, the Observatory said.

The Islamic State jihadist group has killed more than 3,700 civilians, air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition have killed 920 civilians and Turkey, which is backing rebels in northern Syria, has killed more than 500 civilians, it added. Syria's government and Russia both deny targeting civilians or using torture or extrajudicial killings. Most rebel groups and Turkey also deny targeting civilians. The U.S.-led coalition says it tries hard to avoid civilian casualties and always investigates reports that it has done so. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Julia Glover)

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WASHINGTON President Donald Trump met with Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday for a discussion likely to touch on economic relations and efforts to stop the war in Syria.Trump, who took office in January, and Prince Mohammed, who is also the kingdom's defence minister, kicked off their talks in the Oval Office, where they posed for a picture in front of journalists and did not take questions.The meeting was the first since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration with the prince, who is leading the kingdom's efforts to revive state finances by diversifying the economy away from a reliance on falling crude oil revenues.Also expected to be on the agenda were the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led military campaign has failed to end a rebellion by Houthi militias, and cooperation against Islamic State.

Gulf Arab officials have appeared optimistic about the Trump presidency. They see in him a strong president who will shore up Washingtons role as their main strategic partner and help contain Riyadh's adversary Iran in a region central to U.S. security and energy interests, regional analysts said.The Saudis have appeared particularly relieved at the departure of Barack Obama, who they felt considered Riyadhs alliance with Washington less important than negotiating a deal in 2015 to neutralize Irans nuclear program.

Obama late last year also suspended the sale of U.S.-made precision-guidance munitions to the Saudis, a reaction to thousands of civilian casualties from Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen.U.S. officials said Trump was considering ending that ban and approving the sale of guidance systems made by Raytheon Co. (RTN.N)

The State Department has approved the move, which awaits a final White House decision, the officials said.A source close to the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a main topic of the meeting would be Saudi investment in the United States, which could help the U.S. president fulfil his promises of job creation."It's the creation of jobs through investments - President Trump wants results and statistics matter for him," said Ingrid Naranjo, an expert in U.S.-Saudi relations. "It makes a lot of sense for the diversification strategy of Saudi to invest abroad and especially in the U.S."U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon were also present at the Oval Office meeting with Prince Mohammed. (Reporting by Jeff Mason, Yara Bayoumy, Warren Strobel and Reem Shamseddine; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)

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ANKARA Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened diplomatic sanctions against the Netherlands on Monday, and said he would go to the European Court of Human Rights over a ban on Ankara's ministers speaking there.

In a speech broadcast live on television, Erdogan also accused Germany of "mercilessly" supporting terrorism. Erdogan has been infuriated by moves in Germany and the Netherlands to stop Turkish ministers from addressing rallies of expatriate Turks before an April 16 referendum that would give his office sweeping executive powers.

Erdogan has previously said that those who would vote against the referendum are aligning themselves with terrorists. He has also accused European countries, such as Germany, of harbouring terrorists, something European countries deny. (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Alison Williams)

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By Stefanie Eimermacher and Daniel Felleiter

| BERLIN

BERLIN Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's push to expand his powers in an April 16 referendum is causing deep divisions in Germany's already fractured three million-strong Turkish community, splitting families and turning friends into enemies.Emotions are running especially high after German authorities banned several planned rallies by Turkish ministers, citing public security concerns. Erdogan has branded such bans "fascist", infuriating the German government."My father is pro-Erdogan. When he turns on the television, I have to leave the room," one 22-year old German man of Turkish descent told Reuters in Berlin, where he is completing a year of voluntary work before starting his university studies.Many of his friends' families have also been split by the looming referendum, said the man, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from ardent pro-Erdogan supporters or a ban on visiting Turkey.Just down the street in Berlin's multicultural Kreuzberg district, bright red signs proclaiming "Hayir" - 'No' in Turkish - and "No to dictatorship in Turkey" have been ripped from a fence and now lie on the pavement.Others are shocked by the efforts of German, Dutch and other authorities to prevent Turkish politicians rallying support on European soil for the referendum."It's completely right-wing and radical how the Turks are being treated here," said Ergun Gumusalev, another Turkish man, told Reuters in Cologne. "I'm actually opposed to Erdogan, but how can this be? Where are we living? We've been here for 50, 60 years, exploited like pigs ... and here's the thanks we get."

THREATS

Many Turks came to Germany as "Gastarbeiter' (guest workers) in the 1960s and 1970s and contributed to the country's postwar "economic miracle". But the latest conflict has reignited debate about the integration of Turks in German society, and Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians are anxious not to import internal Turkish conflicts into Germany.Ismail Kupeli, a political science professor at Ruhr-Bochum University, said he expected about 60 percent of the 1.4 million Turks in Germany who are eligible to vote in the referendum to back Erdogan, roughly the same percentage that backed the Turkish leader in the last presidential vote.

"Erdogan is trying to shore up support for the referendum here because polls show a narrow majority is against the measure in Turkey," Kupeli told Reuters. "People are being told, 'Either you're for the president or you're terrorists ... Either you're for a strong Turkey under Erdogan or a weak Turkey that is under the thumb of the West.'"Ahmet Daskin, project manager with the Foundation for Dialogue and Education, said his members had recently seen a big increase in hate messages on social media. The foundation is close to Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric accused by Erdogan of orchestrating last summer's failed coup in Turkey.

"It's much worse than it was a few months ago," Daskin said.The group's leader, Ercan Karakoyun, is currently on a book tour across Germany, but his appearances must be coordinated with local police since he has received over two dozen death threats since the coup, Daskin said."Every time Erdogan ratchets up his rhetoric, the threats and harassment increase over here," he added.A ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Tuesday that said companies in the European Union may bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves or other visible religious symbols could further exacerbate tensions in the Turkish community."I think it's discriminatory and unnecessary because my headscarf doesn't limit my ability to work at all," Beyda Kokluce, a Turkish woman in Cologne, told Reuters."It will only make the situation worse," said a second woman, Gokalp Cerci. "Every person is free to decide what he wears at work, and setting up general bans for people won't accomplish anything." (Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Reuters TV; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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WASHINGTON Veteran U.S. diplomat Anne Patterson is out of the running to under secretary of defence for policy, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, depriving Defense Secretary Jim Mattis of his choice for his top policy adviser.Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said Patterson ran into resistance on Capitol Hill that might have made it hard for her to win confirmation by the U.S. Senate.The Washington Post first reported that Patterson, who had previously served as the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East and as ambassador to Egypt, Pakistan, Colombia and El Salvador, was no longer a candidate.

The newspaper reported that Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, both Republicans and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that would have reviewed her candidacy, opposed her selection.Aides to both did not respond to requests for comment.

It was not immediately clear whether Patterson also faced opposition from the White House, though one Trump administration official said there has been a tug-of-war between Mattis and the White House over who should fill the top slots at the Pentagon.

"The White House is being met with resistance from Secretary Mattis on almost every single one of our suggestions of who we would like in senior DoD jobs," said the official, saying "we are basically at a gridlock" but he hoped this would end soon.As under secretary of defence for policy, Patterson would have been the top policy adviser to the defence secretary as well as one of the primary links between the Pentagon and the rest of the U.S. national security apparatus.It was unclear how soon Mattis might offer an alternative for that or other key senior posts that, like many at the State Department, remain empty. (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed, Phil Stewart and David Brunnstrom; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Washington: A meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping was being planned, the White House has said, while emphasising that its purpose would be to defuse tensions over the Korean Peninsula.

"Planning is ongoing for a visit between President Trump and President Xi at a date to be determined. We're not ready to confirm that, and we will have more details," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference amid reports that Trump and Xi would be meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on 6 and 7 April.

"It's the purpose of this meeting, of that kind of a meeting, to help defuse tensions over North Korea and the recent deployment of a THAAD military battery to South Korea," he said.

Spicer stated that any meeting between the US President and China would necessarily cover a broad range of topics of mutual concern.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week is headed to a three-nation Asia tour that would take him to Japan, Korea and China, he said.

"As we go forward, we will have additional details on both the timing and the location of that when we go forward. The State Department Acting Spokesman Mark Toner said North Korea would be a major topic of discussion with China. The Secretary understands that China feels differently certainly with respect to THAAD," Spicer said.

"I think part of the discussions he's going to have when he's in Beijing are hopefully going to be geared towards easing some of those concerns, but also in making very clear that we're taking these actions in an effort to deal with an increasing threat and that we have to do more, we have to look at new ideas, new ways of dealing with North Korea," he said.

Tillerson will be travelling to Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing this week on his first trip to Asia as Secretary of State.

He will arrive in Tokyo on 15 March, and continue on to Seoul on 17 March, and then head to Beijing on 18 March, a senior State Department official said.

The trip will allow the Secretary to continue to engage allies and partners on not only a range of bilateral issues, but also importantly to discuss and coordinate strategy to address the advancing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea.

"The United States is committed to holding North Korea accountable for its flagrant and repeated disregard for multiple UN Security Council resolution violations which expressly prohibit its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes," the official said.

"And we will defend our friends and allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and we will seek to work collaboratively to the maximum extent possible with important partners such as China," the official said.
Google started rolling out Android 7.1.2 (Nougat) beta update for several Nexus devices and Pixel devices at the end of January. Now a latest report from Android Central says, Google might release Android 7.1.2 Nougat to Nexus and Pixel devices on April 3.



At the time of releasing the beta version, Google said it is an incremental update focusing mostly on bug fixes and performance improvements along with carrier-bound enhancements. VP of Android, Dave Burke had stated in a blog post in January that the public release of Android 7.1.2 would take a couple of months.

The latest report cites announcement from Canadian carrier Rogers, who is going to release an update to Pixel phones on April 3 that enables VoLTE. The company was testing that feature on the Android 7.1.2 beta for a couple of months.

It must be noted that Rogers announcement just adds a possibility for Google releasing the Android 7.1.2 Nougat update on the same date and nothing is official as of now.

Source
Hakan Uzan, a Turkish businessman has acquired British-based luxury smartphone maker Vertu for 50 million ($61 million), according to a latest report from The Telegraph.



Vertu has been bought by Cyprus-based Baferton Ltd that is owned by Uzan, who along with other members of his family, has been a part of large controversies. As per the report, the Uzan family borrowed money from Nokia and Motorola in 1990 and were accused of fraud and for not paying back the loan amount. It was then sold off in 2012 and since then has been subsequently bought and sold multiple times. Hakan Uzan was also sued by Donald Trump, after backing out of a property deal.

A spokesman for Uzan told the Telegraph,

Vertu is a powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche. I look forward to working with the team and providing the investment to enable Vertu to realise its full potential.

Vertu is popular for making phones with sapphire screens, titanium frames and leather cladding.

Source
Oil tumbled on Tuesday after OPEC reported a rise in global crude stocks and a surprise output jump from its biggest member, Saudi Arabia, further pressuring prices that have now erased nearly all gains since OPEC announced output cuts in November.

Even though OPEC made an upward revision to its global demand outlook, signs of even modestly higher Saudi output flustered investors.

U.S. crude fell to its lowest settlement since Nov. 29, the day before the Saudi kingdom led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut supplies. Brent settled at its lowest since Nov. 30.

Brent futures dropped below their 200-day moving average for the first time since late November during the session. Brent settled down 43 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $50.92 a barrel.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude lost 68 cents, or 1.4 percent, to settle at $47.72 per barrel for the seventh daily decline in a row, the longest losing streak since January 2016. It is down almost 11 percent since March 3.

On technical charts, Brent and WTI both remained in oversold territory for a fifth day in a row, their longest such streaks since November.

The Brent front-month premium over the corresponding U.S. contract <WTCLc1-LCOc1> rose to its highest since late January.

Secondary sources had said Saudi output fell in February to 9.797 million barrels per day (bpd), but Riyadh told OPEC it rose to 10.011 million bpd.

In an effort to dispel market concerns, the Saudi energy ministry said the "difference between what the market observes as production, and the actual supply levels in any given month, is due to operational factors that are influenced by storage adjustments and other month to month variables."

OPEC's monthly report said oil stocks in industrialized nations rose in January to 278 million barrels above the five-year average, with U.S. shale and other non-OPEC supply gaining.

"Oil prices have come under renewed pressure after the latest OPEC report showed a rise in global crude inventory despite the cartel deciding to curtail its output," said Abhishek Kumar, senior energy analyst at Interfax Energy's Global Gas Analytics in London.

This week's data is expected to show another rise in U.S. inventories after last week's bigger-than-expected increase.

It would be the 10th consecutive weekly increase in U.S. crude stocks, boosting total inventories, including strategic reserves, further past the 1.22 billion barrel record hit during the week ended March 3.

The American Petroleum Institute reports its stockpile data on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 p.m EDT ahead of official U.S. government data Wednesday morning.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, has yet to indicate clearly whether it is ready to extend supply curbs.

On Monday, Kuwait said it would support an extension of the global deal.
Due to a major winter storm that pounded Washington D.C. and the east coast, Trumps first face-to-face meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been postponed until Friday.

During an interview with Stuart Varney on the FOX Business Network, former UK Independence Party Leader and Fox News contributor Nigel Farage weighed in on Merkel and her role throughout Europe.

She did save Greece, and she saved Italy, and Spain and the others because theyre all still in the Euro nearly ten years on. But you know what? Real leadership would have been to recognize during that crisis, that actually the Mediterranean countries were not suited ever, to join the Eurozone -- it would only ever lead to massive unemployment and misery, said Farage. Real leadership is to recognize when youve got something wrong, rather than continuing to plow on with the same failing project.

He went on to add, that even though she was wildly successful in Germany, her open border immigration policy led to the truck rampage that killed dozens at a Berlin Christmas market, tarnishing Merkel's reputation.

Frankly, if you were to use her name right now in a coffee bar in the Mediterranean, they would probably spit on the floor, said Farage.

The former UK Independent Party Leader also addressed the populist movement thats encompassing the Netherlands election for a new prime minister, which is set to take place March 15.

Ill tell you what, if I had said to you four years ago that Geert Wilders would be, with a day to go, virtually neck and neck with the prime minister, you wouldve have said I must have been smoking something funny. You know the fact that hes there neck and neck shows you the amazing advances that have been made, said Farage. I think through the Netherlands, through the French elections, etcetera, you will see a continuance of this revolution against global governments.

In France, Farage said a win by nationalist Marine Le Pen "would be as big as Brexit or Trump.
John Oates, of Hall & Oates, recalled a time when he went from owning four homes and a private plane to having just $50 in his wallet.

Oates reveals in his new memoir, Change of Seasons, that his lavish lifestyle left him broke.

In the book, he hints his ex-manager Tommy Mottola and lawyer Allen Grubman are to blame for not warning him and his bandmate Daryl Hall that they were overspending.

I just wish theyd warned us that the high life we were living would have financial consequences, he writes, according to People magazine. We werent cheated; we were seduced.

The rocker eventually reclaimed a lot of his fortune through royalties he was owed.



Oates also reveals in the tell-all that he regrets his marriage to Nancy Hunter.

I should never have been married in the 80s, the rocker writes. She was a successful model and I was running around the world like I was single.

He said by the time the 90s rolled around he needed to make a change, so he shaved off his signature mustache.

No one will ever understand how much that mustache affected my life, he writes. It was so much a part of who I had become.

Change of Seaons: A Memoir will be available for purchase on March 28.


Anne Hathaway is not impressed with the United States' paid parental leave benefits.

I cant believe we dont already have itWhen [my son] Johnny was a week old and I was holding him and I was in the ninth level of ecstasy, I just all of a sudden thought, Mommy guilt is invented nonsense, she told Elle. Were encouraged to judge each other, but we should be turning our focus to the people and institutions who should be supporting us and currently arent.

ANNE HATHAWAY EXPLAINS WHY SHE LIED ABOUT BEING PREGNANT



In March 2016, Hathaway and her husband, actor-producer, Adam Shulman, welcomed their first child, a baby boy named Jonathan Rosebanks Shulman.

Of her husband, she told the mag, "He changed my ability to be in the world comfortably. I think the accepted narrative now is that we, as women, don't need anybody. But I need my husband. His unique and specific love has changed me."

Hathaway is set to star in Oceans Eight next year. Its noted for featuring a female-led cast, including Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett, among others.

Hollywood is not a place of equality. I dont say that with anger or judgement; its a statistical fact, Hathaway told Elle. And even though Ive been in some female-centric films, Ive never been in a film like this. It just kind of makes you away of the ways you sort of unconsciously change yourself to fit certain scenarios. Its not better or worseor right or wrong, but there are certain things you understand about one another because of experiences you have in commonits probably easy for men to take that for granted.

"Just being on a set where Im the one who possesses that ease is really something. Its a nice alternative narrative.

ELLEs April 2017 issue hits newsstands March 22.
Steve Harvey says he has needed round-the-clock armed security at his home since he flubbed the results of the Miss Universe pageant in 2015.

The TV host recalled his headline-making gaffe in a chat with Cigar Aficionado for its April issue, and he said the death threats he received caused him to up his security measures.

I live on a dead-end street  and it got real when things started coming over the gate. Empty boxes with bows and pictures of bombs, he told the magazine, according to Us Weekly. "And these with death threats on social media that would pop up from fake IP addresses. I wound up with 24-hour armed security at my house. I have two armed guards there full-time to this day."

Harvey said many people are still upset with him for mistakenly naming Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, as the pageant winner instead of the true winner -- Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach. He corrected the mistake on stage and eventually gave the crown to Wurtzbach.

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In the Philippines, they love me  but I cant go to Colombia, he said. "The next morning, there was this massive crowd, all around my car outside the hotelall these Colombians giving me hell. My Twitter and Instagram blew up and I got called every name in the book. I got cussed out in Spanish so bad that I know profanity in Spanish now.

The Family Feud host has also faced backlash for sitting down with President Donald Trump for a meeting in January.

Im glad I did [meet with Trump], he told the mag. You have to take a seat at the table when youre invited. If youre not at the table, you cant refuse the menu, or suggest what you should be eating. I walked away feeling like I had just talked with a man who genuinely wants to make a difference in this area.
Sorry green-market-loving hipsters, but it turns out eating organic isnt always that great for the planet, and may only have a marginal effect on your health.

A new study published in the journal Science Advances reports that even though organic farms have the eco-friendly benefit of using fewer pesticides, they also use more land, which is harmful to the planet.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia analyzed organic crop farming across 17 criteria  such as yield, impact on climate change, farmer livelihood and consumer health  by looking at the existing scientific literature on its results.

For one, they found the environmental benefits of organic farming can be offset by the lower yields of such crops (typically 19 to 25 percent lower than conventional farming).

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While an organic farm may be better for things like biodiversity, farmers will need more land to grow the same amount of food, wrote Verena Seufert, the studys co-author. And land conversion for agriculture is the leading contributor to habitat loss and climate change.

The study also pointed out that reviews disagree on whether organic food offers a significant difference in nutrient content compared to conventional crops.

While one benefit was found to be unequivocal  reduced contamination from pesticides  the authors point out that this might not matter for consumers in high-income countries, where pesticide contamination on conventionally grown food is far below acceptable daily intake thresholds.

This article originally appeared on The New York Post.
The maker behind two of America's bestselling beers has an idea that's truly out of this world.

Budweiser is looking for a way to develop a micro-gravity beer made to be brewed and drunk on Mars.

The plan was unveiled during South by Southwest's annual Interactive Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas this week. According to AdWeek, the brewer is exploring methods for how to deal with the micro-gravity environment on Mars in order to produce a brew that can be imbibed on the planet.

MAN WINS SUPER BOWL TICKETS FOR LIFE AFTER FINDING GOLDEN BUD LIGHT CAN

When youre in a zero-gravity environment, a beverage with carbonation is going to be an issue, retired astronaut Clayton Anderson explained to the SXSW panel which also featured Budweiser company executives. The conversation was hosted by The Martian actress Kate Mara.

Through our relentless focus on quality and innovation, Budweiser can today be enjoyed in every corner of the world, but we now believe it is time for the King of Beers to set its sights on its next destination, Budweiser vice president Ricardo Marques said in a press release announcing the plan.

When the dream of colonizing Mars becomes a reality, Budweiser will be there to toast the next great step for mankind.

Sipping beer in space isnt just resigned to Mars.

In January, a group of engineering students from the University of California revealed plans for a new machine that can brew beer among the stars. That tool combines the fermentation and carbonation phases of the beermaking process, rather than separating them, nixing the need to release accumulated CO2. And its done in a machine the size of a typical beer can.

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Whether its on the moon, on Mars-- or somewhere else in the galaxy-- beer lovers big and small seem determined to make an otherworldly impression.

Said Val Toothman, Anheuser-Buschs vice president of marketing innovation, We know that colonization of Mars could be a decade or two away, but we want to make sure that Budweiser is the beer that people are toasting with on Mars when we get there.
If we had a dollar for every time we relied on a rotisserie chicken for a quick and painless dinner, well, lets just say we wouldnt be making food magazines anymore.

These pre-cooked birds sometimes get a bad rap as the David Hasselhoffs of the prepared foods aislefrighteningly bronzed, wrinkly, and way past their primebut, if you pick up a good one, theyre downright delicious.

Slowly cooking it on a spit lacquers the birds with flavorful pan drippings and gets the skin crispy all over. For dishes such as Thai chicken salad and tamales, where chicken isn't the main event, senior food editor Rick Martinez says picking up a rotisserie chicken is a great shortcut. He buys one almost every week: I would rather save an hour of my time and do something complex in another part of the recipe.

Here are his tips for finding the freshest, juiciest rotisserie chicken at the grocery store:

Pick the Heaviest One

Under a heat lamp, a plastic container acts like an Easy Bake Oven, continuing to cook the chicken as it sits. A heavier bird means the juices havent evaporated out of the meat. The only definitive way to tellmore accurate than time stampsis to lift up every chicken and feel for yourself. Its going to annoy everyone around you, but it works, says Martinez.

Youll feel a noticeable difference between the birds that just came out of the oven and ones that have been sitting there all day."

Check Out the Skin

While its sort of a common-sense move, look for the plumpest, prettiest one you can find. (The others wont take it personally.) As the juices leave the meat, the chickens skin begins to shrivel and becomes discolored, says Martinez. A good one is evenly browned all over with taut skin. Leave anything that looks like a deflated balloon for some other poor soul.

Watch It Cook

Theres something, dare we say, foul, about a grocery store with a heat table of cooked birds and no rotisserie to be seen. If theyre on display, that usually means the store puts fresh ones out throughout the day, Martinez says. If your supermarket prepares its food behind closed doors, don't hesitate to ask how frequently their rotisserie chickens are restocked.

Go for Plain

Lemon-rosemary and barbecue seem innocent enough, but, if you have grand plans for that bird, like making a stew or turning the carcass into a stock, the strange melange of spices and artificial flavors become more present (and sometimes metallic) the second time around. And, Martinez adds, Id rather season the chicken myself than run the risk of it being over-salted.

Check Out International Stores

Whole Foods is fine and all, but Ricks find of the century was the roasted birds from a small Latin restaurant in Spanish Harlem. Unlike major grocery chains, your little, local ethnic food store is more likely to use better spices and herbs to flavor their chickens, he says. If it has a line out the door, thats a good sign.

More: The Best Chicken Recipes of All Time
They may be small but those space-saving NutriBullet blenders are being accused of packing a serious punch with several users claiming they were badly burned after the devices allegedly exploded in their faces..

One plaintiff, Pete Damiano, alleges he was injured while making a mango sauce for his family. Damianos attorney says he put hot liquid into the blender, and as he was using it the top blasted off the blending base causing first and second-degree burns to his hands, torso and face. Damiano also claims he was almost blinded.

My client did not have warnings on his device and the user manual had soup recipes on it, Lori Andrus, a lawyer representing Damiano told Fox News.

We [Andrus' San Francisco-based firm] sued the makers of Magic Bullet, a year ago, for the same suit. We settled the suit, and got them to add the warnings to their manuals.

8 MILLION CUISINART FOOD PROCESSORS RECALLED AMID REPORTS OF BROKEN BLADES

"I suspect that since they [NutriBullet] are a common defendant theyve starting adding the same warnings, Andrus said.

Andruss lawsuit names NutriBullet LLC, Homeland Housewares LLC, Captial Brands LLC, and Call To Action LLC as defendants  all four are connected with the design, sales and manufacturing of the product, according to the lawyer.

The most recent edition of the NutriBullet manual supplies clear warnings to users regarding heated contents.

Do not put hot liquids in any of the blending vessels before blending. Start with cool or room temperature ingredients. Heated ingredients can create internal pressure in a sealed blending vessel, which may erupt on opening and cause thermal injury.

But some allege that its not just hot liquids that can burn users.

A recent segment that aired on the Australian talk show Today Tonight Adelaide featured several people sharing their experiences with the small blender. Some guests alleged that they were using room temperature products when the contents of the blender became so hot that the container burst off, they were splashed and received what appeared to be terrible burns on their faces, neck and hands.

London-based film director Richard Moore claims he was blending a peanut butter smoothie when he noticed the blades started to spin faster than usual, followed by the explosion of the machine.

"It felt like my hands were on fire," Moore told Today Tonight Adelaid, adding that he spent multiple nights in the hospital and has faced sleepless nights due to pain.

The current manual does warn users about the possibility of cool or room temperature liquids heating up with too much friction from the spinning blades.

CAUTION! Friction from the rotating blade can cause ingredients to heat and generate internal pressure in the sealed vessel. Do not continuously operate for more than one minute. If the vessel is warm to touch, allow to cool before carefully opening pointed away from your body.

Im glad theyre warning people now. Im just worried that millions of people already have them, and theyre not doing a recall, Andrus says.

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Damiano's suit is not the first against the hand-operated blending device.

In 2014, a Florida woman sued NutriBullet's parent company, Capital Brands, claiming the device exploded and scalded her face, while also causing property damage to her kitchen and interior ceiling.

And in January a New York woman sued the brand, alleging that her high-efficiency blender exploded, and hot liquid burned her face and body.

NutriBullet has sold more than 40 million devices worldwide.

When reached via email, Mark Suzumoto, Capital Brands' chief legal officer, told Fox News that the company does not comment on pending litigation but noted they "will rely upon the orderly processes of the judicial system to marshal the evidence and to help to resolve what has been fairly disputed by the parties in your referenced lawsuit."
Italian restaurateur Mario Cattaneo stands accused of manslaughter after killing an intruder inside his eatery  but the incident certainly hasnt hurt his business.

Cattaneo, the chef and owner Osteria dei Amis in Gugnago, Italy, has reportedly been cooking for a packed house of locals, reporters and politicians who turned out to support his claim that he acted in self-defense.

On Friday, Cattaneo says that he and his family were sleeping in his apartment above the Osteria dei Amis when he heard a commotion from the restaurant. He grabbed his hunting rifle and went downstairs, where he came face-to-face with three intruders.

CHEAP CAFE IN FRANCE WINS, THEN LOSES A MICHELIN STAR

Cattaneo alleges that a brief scuffle ensued, during which time he was knocked to the floor. He also says that this is when his rifle discharged.

"It went off when I fell to the ground, said Cattaneo, reports the AFP. One of them was trying to grab the gun off me and he dragged me along for several meters.

Cattaneo also says he wasnt aware that he had killed anyone until later, when he was being treated for his bruises.

"It was dark and I didn't see what happened, Cattaneo alleged. I only found out someone had died when I was in hospital. I'm really sorry that someone has lost their life."

The man Cattaneo killed was a 33-year-old Romanian national who lived nearby. Investigators have also disclosed that the intruder was shot in the back, and his body found just over 100 yards from the restaurant.

Cattaneo is currently being investigated for suspicion of voluntary manslaughter. If convicted, he faces a minimum of 21 years in prison.

Meanwhile, Cattaneo and his supporters are arguing that the chef acted in self-defense. A friend of Silvio Berlusconi, Italys former prime minister, is even arranging to pay for Cattaneos legal bills.

Another group, led by Italian politician Matteo Salvini, is calling for lawmakers to amend self-defense laws in response to the incident.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

"A dead man is never good news, but the Italian citizens stand by Mario Cattaneo," Salvini wrote in a tweet on Sunday. "No judge can convict him."

#Salvini: Un morto non e mai buona notizia, ma cittadini italiani sono con Mario Cattaneo. NESSUN GIUDICE PUO CONDANNARLO! #domenicalive pic.twitter.com/jplu9SGZlB  Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) March 12, 2017

Cattaneo was reportedly re-opened on Sunday, but his son says the family is still reeling from the incident.

"We've re-opened, because one needs to start over, go forward, but our morale is very low, said Gianluca Cattaneo, reports the Associated Press.

"We wanted to re-open today thanks to the strength of our customers and to say thanks."
The 2017 GNCC season opened last weekend at Big Buck, in Union, South Carolina, with KYMCO sponsored racer Justin Wood taking the win and the points lead in the a.m. GNCC 4x4 Lites ATV class, in a field of riders that included Can Am and Polaris mounted riders finishing second and third.

The race was run in cool but sunny weather. Wood nailed the holeshot and didnt once after that see a class competitor on the ten-mile technical course through the dense woods of Upstate South Carolina.

Wood said, I got the holeshot and never looked back. The KYMCO felt great; this quad handles like its on rails and the power is smooth and manageable. As the race progresses the machine didnt wear me out. It feels great to get the win at GNCC Round 1. Im looking forward to putting the KYMCO on the box a lot this year.

WALKER FOWLER KICKS OFF 2017 SEASON WITH A WIN AT THE VP RACING FUELS BIG BUCK GNCC

Wood added, I need to thank KYMCO USA, CST Tires, DW Rims, Motorex, Fastt Flexx, Rox Speed FX, Golding Clutches, Fly Racing, MZM, Axis Shocks, Tireblocks, Spider Graphics, Vanilla Gorilla, McGill Mafia, Kenny Vincent, The Sleep Temple, and Vigilant Vet Racing.

Other KYMCO racers in the GNCC 4x4 Lites ATV class include Tyler McConnaughey and Dan McConnaughey, who finished fourth and fifth in class respectively, with Dan setting an amazing pace on totally stock suspension.

Round 2 of the 2017 GNCC series is the Moose Racing Wild Boar that takes place at Hogwaller in Palatka, Florida, March 11-12. The next event includes the first UTV class races of the 2017 series. Look for the KYMCO riders in the Saturday four-wheel classes.

Go to ATV Rider for more on KYMCO.
A New Jersey police officer who helped a dying 78-year-old woman get to the beach one last time said making her final wish come true was a life-changing experience. Pat Kelly, of Burlington City, New Jersey, was given three to six months to live after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December, ABC News reported.

Kelly has since entered hospice care and her family members asked if there was anything special she would like to do before she dies. She knew immediately that she wanted a weekend trip to the Jersey Shore.

Thats been my spot since I was a little girl, Kelly told ABC News. Every year we went to the ocean. And I just loved it.

Her daughter-in-law arranged for a group of 11 women, which included Kellys best friends, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, to spend a recent weekend at a beach house in Ship Bottom, ABC News reported. The weekends itinerary included games, messages in a bottle, sing-a-longs, and a plunge into the icy ocean, according to the report.

Because Kelly has difficulty walking long distances, Kellys daughter-in-law, Stephanie Corbin, placed a call to the Ship Bottom Police Department to see if they could help. Officer Ron Holloway responded and volunteered to drive an SUV onto the beach so Kelly could get down to the ocean.

He was a gentleman beyond anything, Corbin told ABC News. He was just so humble and kind. Anyone couldve given us a ride, but  he was just so compassionate. He just went above and beyond.

Kelly told a local news outlet that Holloway fit in with the group like family, and that she couldnt have asked for anything more out of the weekend.

Being able to take her out for this ride on the beach, it was definitely a life-moving experience, Holloway told 6ABC. It was a check mark in my career.

Kelly told 6ABC she plans to have her ashes scattered on the beach.

Thats my place, Kelly told 6ABC. Ill be there forever. Just watch out  some people might step on me.
A 9-year-old Virginia boy will soon take a brief break from battling stage 4 cancer to escort a neighborhood teen to her high school prom. Beckett Wyatt, who was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma in June, received his Hamilton-themed promposal from an older sister of one of his classmates, WRIC reported.

I wanted to take Beckett because what if he never gets to, Kaelyn Brakefeld, a junior at Midlothian High School, told WRIC. I want him to be able to do the things that I got to do.

While Beckett gears up for the special day next month, his mother, Kymmie Wyatt, is thankful for the memories theyre building courtesy of Brakefelds kind gesture.

Its special getting to see him getting to do those things, Wyatt told WRIC. But also no matter what comes, Ill have those memories with him.

Beckett told his mother that this will be the first of many proms he attends, and that she should take one million pictures of his special day, WRIC reported.

He truly believes that hes got this and if anyone can beat this its him, Wyatt told WRIC.
Editor's note: The following is adapted from the author's new book, "The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation" Sentinel (March 14, 2017).

The future of Christianity in the post-Christian West hangs in the balance. If the faith is going to survive within churches and communities, then Christians are going to have to become far more serious and intentional about education.

Education has to be at the core of Christian survivalas it always was, says Michael Hanby, a professor of religion and philosophy of science at Washingtons Pontifical John Paul II Institute.

The point of monasticism was not simply to retreat from a corrupt world to survive, though in various iterations that might have been a dimension of it, he continues. But at the heart of it was a quest for God. It was that quest that mandated the preservation of classical learning and the pagan tradition by the monks, because they loved what was true and what was beautiful wherever they found it.

One of the most important pieces of the Benedict Option movement is the spread of classical Christian schools. Rather than letting their children spend forty hours a week learning facts with a few hours of worldview education slapped on top, parents need to pull them from public schools and provide them with an education that is rightly orderedthat is, one based on the premise that there is a God-given, unified structure to reality and that it is discoverable. They need to teach them Scripture and history.

Building schools that can educate properly will require churches, parents, peer groups, and fellow traveler Christians to work together. It will be costly, but it will be worth it.

For serious Christian parents, education cannot be simply a matter of building their childs transcript to boost her chance of making it into the Ivy League. If this is the model your family follows (perhaps with a sprinkle of God on top for seasoning), you will be hard-pressed to form countercultural Christian adults capable of resisting the disorders of our time.

The kind of schooling that will build a more resilient, mature faith in young Christians is one that imbues them with a sense of order, meaning, and continuity. Its one that integrates knowledge into a harmonious vision of the whole, one that unites all things that are, were, and ever will be in God.

Every educational model presupposes an anthropology: an idea of what a human being is. In general, the mainstream model is geared toward equipping students to succeed in the workforce, to provide a pleasant, secure life for themselves and their future families, and ideally, to fulfill their personal goalswhatever those goals might be. The standard Christian educational model today takes this model and adds religion classes and prayer services.

But from a traditional Christian perspective, the model is based on a flawed anthropology. In traditional Christianity, the ultimate goal is to love and serve God with all ones heart, soul, and mind, to achieve unity with Him in eternity. To prepare for eternal life, we must join ourselves to Christ and strive to live in harmony with the divine will.

To be fully human is to be fully conformed to that realityas C. S. Lewis would say, to the things that are through cooperating with Gods freely given grace. To be humanized is to growby contemplation and action, and through faith and reasonin the love of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. These are all reflections of the Triune God, in Whom we live and move and have our being.

To compartmentalize education, separating it from the life of the church, is to create a false distinction. Saint Benedict, in his Rule, called the monastery a school for the service of the Lord. This was no mere figure of speech.

In the Benedictine tradition, learning is wholly integrated into the life of prayer and work. Today our education system fills students heads with facts, with no higher aspiration than success in worldly endeavor. Since the High Middle Ages, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake has been slowly separated from the pursuit of virtue. Today the break is clean.

Educator Martin Cothran, a national leader in the classical Christian school movement, says that many Christians today dont realize how the nature of education has changed over the past hundred years. The progressivism of the 1920s involved using schools to change the culture. The vocationalism of the 1940s and 1950s tried to use schools to conform children to the culture. But the traditional way of education, which reigned from the Greco-Roman period until the modern era, was about passing on a culture and one culture in particular: the culture of the West, and for most of that time, the Christian West.

The classical education of the pagans that was transformed by the church attempted to inculcate in each new generation an idea of what a human being should be, through constantly having examples of ideal humanity set in front of it, and by studying the great deeds of great men, Cothran told me. This was a culture with a definite and distinctive goal: to pass on the wisdom of the past and to produce another generation with the same ideals and valuesideals and values based on its vision of what a human being was.

Thats what education was for over two millennia, he continued. It is now something that retains the old label, but is not the same thing. It is not even the same kind of thing. It has been abandoned in the modern school including many Christian ones. Even many Christian parents who do not accept the political correctness of todays schools have completely bought into the utilitarian concept of education.

To be sure, there is nothing wrong in principle with learning something useful or achieving excellence in science, the arts, literature, or any other field of the intellect. But mastery of facts and their application is not the same thing as education, any more than an advanced degree in systematic theology makes one a saint.

The separation of learning from virtue creates a society that esteems people for their success in manipulating science, law, money, images, words, and so forth. Whether or not their accomplishments are morally worthy is a secondary question, one that will seem naive to many if it occurs to them at all.

If a Christian way of living isnt integrated in with students intellectual and spiritual lives, theyll be at risk of falling away through no fault of their own. As John Mark Reynolds, who recently founded Houstons Saint Constantine School, puts it, Christian young people who have had a personal, life-changing encounter with Christ, and who know Christian apologetics but have not integrated them into their lives, are more vulnerable than they think. They have to learn how to translate the conversion experience and intellectual knowledge of the faith into a Christian way of livingor their faith will remain fragile.

If its true that a simplistic, anti-intellectual Christian faith is a thin reed in the gale of academic life, it is also true that faith thats primarily intellectualthat is, a matter of mastering informationis deceptively fragile. Equipping Christian students to thrive in a highly secularized, even hostile environment is not a matter of giving them a protective shell. The shell may crack under pressure or be discarded. Rather, it must be about building internal strength of mind and heart.
It is a classic left-right brawl.

President Obama and the Democrats wanted to provide health care to Americans who could not or would not pay for it.

The Republican Party and President Trump dont want to do that.

So the battle lines are drawn.

Here are the facts:

Eighty-one-percent of all Americans who signed up for the ObamaCare health plan will receive government assistance this year.

Some will have their entire health care premium paid for by the government.

That cost American taxpayers more than $100 billion last year alone.

That's the essence of ObamaCare, that all Americans are forced to buy health insurance so that the have-nots can be subsidized and covered by the haves.

It is estimated that since ObamaCare passed, 13 million people have health insurance who did not have it before.

Enter President Trump, who says that ObamaCare costs are way too high and that the program is a disaster in every way.

So the Republicans will put forth a new national health care plan.

This one will not order you to buy health insurance.

If you don't buy it, your option will be to go to the emergency room and get treated.

If you can't pay, the taxpayer picks it up just like the old days.

If you cannot afford health insurance premiums, the Republicans want the states to handle it through Medicaid.

President Trump and his acolytes essentially want out of the health care business and will send federal money to the individual states so they can decide who gets what.

But the Medicaid tax dollars will be capped.

Liberals hate that! They hate it! They want the feds to dictate health insurance costs and who gets it free or subsidized.

So that's essentially where we are.

The key question for you, the American citizen, is, will your health care premiums go up or down once ObamaCare is history?

Monday the Congressional Budget Office said that under the Republican plan, the feds will spend about $337 billion dollars less subsidizing health care over the next ten years.

But about 21 million more Americans will not have health insurance by the year 2020.

Again, that would most likely be their own choice  not to have insurance.

The CBO does not know what might happen if the insurance companies are allowed to compete nationwide, which they cannot do now.

Will that drive premiums down?

That's the hope on the Trump side.

But not on the left: Here's Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on "Face the Nation":

"This really has nothing to do with health care. What this has everything to do with is a massive shift of wealth from working people and middle-income people to the very richest people in this country. It is a $275 billion tax break for the top two percent."

Senator Sanders is angry because the Republican health care plan knocks out an ObamaCare payroll tax and a tax on investment income.

Sanders saying that gives money to the rich people. That's always the argument from the left -- any tax breaks, especially on investment income sales of stocks, interest, that kind of thing, [it]helps the wealthy.

But the Trump administration has promised to lower taxes and their health care plan does that.

It is simply impossible for you, the American consumer, to know how this will all turn out.

As they say on the West Coast, it's complicated.

Summing up, liberals want a big entitlement culture. Some uber-conservatives want few, if any entitlements. More moderate Republicans want the states to handle health care entitlements with limits.

There you have it.

Adapted from Bill OReillys Talking Point Memo on March 13.
When Saudi Arabias young and dynamic Deputy Crown Prince, son of King Salman, arrives in Washington this week, hell seek to both reaffirm the strong security alliance with America and to impart a powerful message of how the Kingdom is changing.

In just over two years, the 31-year-old Mohammed bin Salman, has tackled the threat posed to the Kingdom by Yemens Iranian-allied Houthis as defense minister.

He has taken on serious economic reforms that have curbed government subsidies.

He launched an ambitious plan to wean the countrys economy off oil. And of high importance to the West, he has made clear that he intends to push for considerable social reform. At the top of his agenda: greater rights for women.

After eight years in which the Saudis watched as the Obama administration seemed to pivot towards Irana country where Death to America is still shouted daily in the streetsthis is the moment for a reset on national security issues, with an eye toward the exciting social changes happening in the kingdom.

Here are seven things Team Trump needs to know before they meet:

1. Saudi Arabias leaders have already seen that the Trump administration has a clear vision of the Iranian regimes trouble making. In Trumps generals, at the Pentagon, and among national security advisers, they see veteran Middle East hands, with boots on the ground experience, no illusions about Iranian meddling, and an understanding of the price paid by many U.S. servicemen and women, killed by Iranian made IEDs. Even with this increased comfort level in Riyadh, more reassurance from the Trump team would be even better, signaling that the U.S. will continue to support and contribute to the defensive war in Yemen, and hold the line against further Iranian expansionist efforts that undermine regional stability.

2. The Kingdom is on the front line of the War on Terror, crushing Al Qaeda and ISIS at home, and working very closely with the U.S. and their allies to hunt them down across the region. Saudi intelligence provided information to the U.S. that stopped attacks planned to take place on American soil. The Kingdom has been recognized by the U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in testimony to Congress last year, as a world leader in combatting terrorism financing.

3. Saudi Arabias next big project is the remaking of the countrys economy, transforming the oil-dependent state into a modern, technologically advanced and economically diversified nation. To do that, the Kingdom wants to work closely with American business and will be looking to the Trump administration to encourage U.S. businesses to seek opportunities there.

4. In Riyadh, there is frustration that too often, the U.S.-Saudi relationship is not fully appreciated in the United States. Recognition that the relationship is mutually beneficialthat Saudi purchases of U.S. military equipment have brought hundreds of billions of dollars back to the States and helped create tens of thousands of jobs, while enhancing the U.S. goal of greater regional stability, is important. As a businessman, Trump is likely to understand this.

5. Support and understanding of the pace of social reform would be helpful. An acknowledgement that Saudi leadership is carefully calibrating systemic change to avoid disastrous clerical pushback would be gratefully received. A celebration of accomplishments such as the recent appointment of a woman to head the Saudi stock exchange, and of another to head a major bank, would signal a recognition that the kingdom is on the path to profound change.

6. The government has worked to deal with intolerance at home by undertaking a systematic effort to rewrite textbooks and other literature to highlight the need for understanding of other religions and cultures. This is an important step in the movement forward of Saudi Arabia.

7. The Saudi national oil company, Aramco, is moving toward partial privatization. When that happens, this IPO will likely be the largest offering in history. The IPO is an enormous financial opportunity for US investment banks and advisers.

From the prince, the message is likely to be crystal clear to Team Trump: Saudi Arabia is and has always been on Americas side.

After eight years in which the Saudis watched as the Obama administration seemed to pivot towards Irana country where Death to America is still shouted daily in the streetsthis is the moment for a reset on national security issues, with an eye toward the exciting social changes happening in the kingdom.

A recognition of Saudi Arabias achievement as the only government in the Middle East with a record of continuous stability for the past 100 years, and of its clear-eyed and pragmatic path to the future, will go a long way toward solidifying this vital bilateral relationship.
Serious journalists have debunked the fake news narrative about a connection between President Trump and Russia, but the same media that refused to vet President Obama continues to run wild with it.

In what can be described as journalistic malpractice, and a gross dereliction of duty, the alt-left radical propaganda press continues to insist there is some nefarious connection between President Trump and Moscow. Evidence? They dont need any.

We are, number one, nailing down more direct connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government at the time the Russian government was influencing our election, MSNBCs Rachel Maddow said on March 9. And number two, at the same time, we are also starting to see what may be signs of continuing influence in our country, not just during the campaign but during the administration, basically signs of what could be a continuing operation.

And her colleague, Chris Matthews, said just three days earlier: Vladimir Putin over there in the Kremlin did everything he could to put guess who in the White House.

Over at CNN, Jake Tapper was all in on the alt-left radical medias favorite fake news story.

CNN has learned that the nation's top intelligence officials provided information to President-elect Donald Trump and to President Barack Obama last week about claims of Russian efforts to compromise President-elect Trump, Tapper said.

Never mind that there's not a shred of evidence to support any of this. Sources have told "Hannity," as well as Circa News that the FISA warrant supposedly granted back in October had nothing to do with Donald Trump. Every time this issue of so-called Russian collusion came up, it was debunked by law enforcement.

So when is the destroy Trump media going to apologize and admit they were completely wrong? Will they ever stop freaking out over people connected to the Trump campaign meeting with the Russian ambassador? Turns out, it's political standard practice. In fact, over the weekend a Kremlin spokesman actually said people tied to Hillary Clinton's campaign did the exact same thing during the campaign.

The double standard never ends, and no matter how obvious it is, the media never stops upholding it.

There was hysteria over President Trumps attorney general, Jeff Sessions, asking 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys to resign, even though several presidents, including former president Bill Clinton, have done the same thing. Instead of acknowledging this fact, the press is now saying that yours truly was responsible for the president's decision. I'd love to take credit, but it wouldn't be true.

CNNs Don Lemon traced the presidents move to my call for Trump to purge deep-state saboteurs from his administration. After all, they are leaking damaging information and working to undermine the president at every turn.

So coincidence, you think, or is this another example of the president reacting, having a knee-jerk reaction to a right-wing news story? Lemon mused.

On ABCs Good Morning America, a correspondent noted Sessions' decision to clean house comes one day after Trump loyalist Sean Hannity called for a purge.

I've got to laugh because when I was talking about deep state Obama holdovers, I don't think I mentioned U.S. attorneys once. But I am glad the liberal media are watching. Perhaps they will learn something

If the president really listened to me, he would have stopped tweeting months ago. Turns out, he makes up his own mind.

Adapted from Sean Hannity's monologue on "Hannity," March 13, 2017
The Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time Monday to gather evidence related to President Trump's claim that President Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower's phones during last year's presidential election campaign.

The House intelligence committee said it would give the Justice Department until March 20 to comply. The committee is scheduled to hold its first open hearing on Russia's interference in the 2016 race and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia on that date.



A spokesman for committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the panel might use its subpoena power to gather information if the Justice Department doesn't meet the new deadline.



"If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," Jack Langer told the Associated Press.



Trump's assertions have put his administration in a bind. Current and former administration officials have been unable to provide any evidence of the Obama administration wiretapping Trump Tower, yet the president's aides have been reluctant to publicly contradict their boss.



White House spokesman Sean Spicer tried to clarify Trump's comments Monday, saying the president wasn't using the word wiretapping literally, noting that Trump had put the term in quotation marks.



"The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities," Spicer said. He also suggested Trump wasn't accusing former President Barack Obama specifically, but instead referring to the actions of the Obama administration.



Trump himself has not commented on the matter since his March 4 tweets, in which he said he had "just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory." He also wrote: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be `wire tapping' a race for president?"



The president's accusations against Obama came amid numerous political questions surrounding his associates' possible ties to Russia. The FBI is investigating Trump associates' contacts with Russia during the election, as are House and Senate intelligence committees.



The White House has asked those committees to also investigate Trump's unverified wiretapping allegations against Obama. The House committee has turned the matter back on the Trump administration, setting the Monday deadline for the Justice Department to provide evidence.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier" that he had "seen no evidence that the tap occurred" before adding, "I don't want to get ahead of the intelligence committee."

Other congressional committees are also pushing the administration to clarify Trump's claims.



Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and FBI Director James Comey to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Department's criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps. The senators, who head the Senate Judiciary Committee's crime and terrorism subcommittee, are seeking warrant applications and court orders, which they said can be scrubbed to protect secret intelligence sources and methods.



Trump's critics have slammed the president for making the wiretapping claim on his Twitter account without evidence. Wiretapping a U.S. citizen would require special permission from a court, and Trump as president would have the ability to declassify that information.



Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday: "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve."



"If his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain said.



Comey has privately urged the Justice Department to dispute Trump's claim but has not come forward to do so himself. James Clapper, who was Obama's director of national intelligence, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place.



White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sidestepped questions about the lack of proof Monday, saying she was "not in the job of having evidence."



"That's what investigations are for," Conway told CNN's "New Day." "The president is pleased that the House and Senate intelligence committees have agreed that this should be part of the investigation that already exists about Russia and the campaign, an investigation that apparently has gone nowhere so far."



In a weekend interview with the Bergen Record, a newspaper in her home state of New Jersey, Conway appeared to point toward the recent WikiLeaks release of nearly 8,000 documents that purportedly reveal secrets about the CIA's tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and even smart TVs.



"What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately," including "microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera," Conway said. "So we know that that is just a fact of modern life."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn his nominee for the Pentagon's top civilian job after opposition from lawmakers concerned about her close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

A senior official confirmed to Fox News that Mattis pulled the nomination of former Ambassador Anne Patterson to be undersecretary of defense for policy. The move was first reported by the Washington Post.

Patterson was U.S. ambassador to Egypt between 2011 and 2013, when that country's president, Mohamed Morsi, was overthrown by the military. Critics opposed her selection by Mattis on the grounds that she was too accommodating to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood during her tenure in Cairo.

The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in the 1920s with the stated goal of establishing a worldwide Islamic caliphate, or empire, ruled under Sharia law. Egypt declared it a terror group in 2013 after the government blamed it for a bombing of a police headquarters that killed 16, even though the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood denied involvement and condemned the attack.

The Post reported that Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were particularly opposed to Patterson's nomination. Both men serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Cruz has recently reintroduced legislation calling on the State Department to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

A congressional source told Fox News that Cotton's opposition was largely due to Patterson's lack of experience at the Defense Department. The source said Cotton was given no assurance that Patterson knew how to strategic defense plans that commanders would have to implement.

Patterson previously served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Colombia, El Salvador and the United Nations. She recently retired after serving as the State Department's assistant secretary for near eastern affairs.

Nearly two months into the Trump administration, Mattis is the only political appointee at the Pentagon. The Post reported that the White House would announce a list of nominees for senior Defense Department positions sometime this week.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.

Click for more from the Washington Post.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) tweeted out a question late on Monday about people's experiences with Obamacare but did not get the response she was looking for.

Last week Republicans released their new health care plan intended to replaced the Affordable Care Act. Democrats have been gearing up to fight back against the new plan and plan to make health care a 2018 mid-term election issue.

Pelosi tweeted out a link to the White House website, asking her followers to share their experience with the Affordable Care Act.

.@POTUS wants to know about your experiences with #ACA. Share your stories about why we must #ProtectOurCare: https://t.co/X1qFIXT1RR  Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 14, 2017

Pelosi wanted feedback on why Democrats must protect Obamacare, but she did not get the answers she was looking for.

@NancyPelosi @POTUS #ProtectOurCare My costs have sky rocketed under Obamacare. Out of pocket almost twice what paid pre-Ocare. #FullRepeal  Robert Schnaible (@RobertSchnaible) March 14, 2017

Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon.
A criminal investigation into IT contractors employed by dozens of House Democrats is sparking broader concerns about continuing access to sensitive government emails, amid new allegations of illicit activity beyond Capitol Hill.

The investigation was announced last month by the U.S. Capitol Police and purportedly focuses on the contractors' access to House computers and whether they took hardware and made questionable IT-related purchases.

A police spokesman, while declining to go into detail, told Fox News this week that the case remains opens and focuses on the actions of House IT support staff.

But a high-level House staffer acknowledged Monday to Fox News that the probe has raised concerns about emails being hacked.

Official documents and multiple sources say at least five contractors -- including brothers Imran, Jamal and Abid Awan -- are the focus of the probe but that as many as six people could be involved.

The others purportedly involved are Imrans wife, Hina Alvi, and Rao Abbas, who is not part of the family.

They allegedly removed hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment from offices, including computers and servers, and ran a procurement scheme in which they bought equipment, then overcharged the House administrative office that assigns such contractors to members.

Sources also say the contractors, including one who worked for Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had unauthorized access to the House computer system.

The connection to the former Democratic National Committee boss has sparked questions about whether the contractors could have ties to the DNC hack last summer, which was seen to hurt Hillary Clintons ultimately failed White House bid -- or whether Russia or other outside operatives accessed emails that the contractors allegedly put on a cloud server.

There have been no reports or evidence so far showing the contractors were involved in a hacking incident.

House Democrats have stood by the contractors, privately and publicly suggesting their Muslim and Pakistani heritage prompted the probe and is contributing to fear-mongering.

Wasserman Schultz as of Friday was still employing Imran Awan, 36, as an adviser, despite his access to the chambers computer system having been revoked.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., kept Alvi, 33, employed until about two weeks ago.

I have seen no evidence that they were doing anything that was nefarious, he told Politico. I wanted to be sure individuals are not being singled out because of their nationalities or their religion.

But other troubling allegations have surfaced.

Police in January were called to the northern Virginia home of a woman identified in the incident report as the stepmother of the Awan brothers, as first reported by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The woman alleged the brothers were keeping her away from her dying husband.

Abid Awan told police her bedside visits were causing their father additional stress and that he had full power of attorney over him, then produced an unsigned, undated document as proof.

A family member told a foundation reporter that the stepsons had kept the women in a sort of illegal captivity from October 2016 apparently until their fathers death in early February in a plot to get his life-insurance money. And they threatened her in an effort to get money that their father had stashed in Pakistan, the family member said.

The Daily Caller story said the stepmother has filed a separate police complaint alleging insurance fraud.

According to LegiStorm.com, which tracks congressional pay, the contractors Capitol Hill work started in 2004 with at least two making six-figure salaries, including Abid Awan last year earning $166,944.

But Awan also had money troubles, contributing to concerns about the contractors' access to sensitive emails and how that could be used. Awan declared bankruptcy in 2012 with more than $1.1 million in debt.

Court documents show the debt included roughly $51,150 to the Congressional Credit Union, for two cars and a credit line. And Virginia court records show he has had 19 violations since 2009, mostly traffic-related offenses.

Database searches found no major criminal charges for any of the contractors allegedly under investigation.

The contractors could not be reached for comment.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.


President Trump is taking a beating in the press for plans to pursue significant cuts to the federal bureaucracy. But despite the outrage, he's actually taking a page from President Bill Clinton, whose brash efforts to streamline government in the 1990s were praised not so long ago.

The popular president famously declared at his 1996 State of the Union address: The Era of Big Government is over.

A report that same year from then-Vice President Al Gore touted the closing of 2,000 field offices, as well as 200 programs and agencies across government. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were eliminated.

Fast-forward two decades. Trump's looming budget plan being presented to Congress later this week is being portrayed as a sort of Beltway Armageddon.

The Washington Post predicted Trumps budget will shake the federal government to its core.

A Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial, while echoing conservative concerns that the budget would not cut entitlements (the biggest drivers of the debt), warned Trumps plan to zap foreign aid would rob the State Department of its best leverage and create greater instability in the world.

Government employee unions also have cried foul.

J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said: Many of the federal agencies that would be targeted by these budget cuts already have been cut to the bone this decade as a result of harmful austerity policies.

And CNN reported, in graphic terms, that Trump is planning to dismember government one dollar at a time.

Slicing up government power is part of a deeper antipathy towards institutions and the political establishment that runs deep in the Trump White House, the article says.

While administration officials say budget numbers are still in flux, the Post reported that advisers have considered cutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development by $6 billion, Environmental Protection Agency staff by 20 percent and the Commerce Departments budget by 18 percent.

Expectations of major cuts are well-founded. White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has described their goal as the deconstruction of the administrative state.

But the dire predictions pertain to goals strikingly similar to what the Clinton administration tried to accomplish, working with the other side of the aisle.

In the opening paragraph of his 1996 report on the progress of the National Government Review, future Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore hailed in the opening paragraph that the Clinton-Gore Administration [sic] has made the federal government smaller by nearly a quarter of a million jobs.

This is the largest, swiftest government-wide cut in the history of the United States. Its not just a post-Cold War defense reduction; every department except Justice has become smaller, he wrote.

The ensuing lines, at times, sound more like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., or a member of the House Freedom Caucus than a Democratic vice president.

President Clinton and I are just as proud of making government work better as we are of making it smaller. It isnt good enough yet, or small enough yet, but we sure have things headed in the right direction, he said.

If anything, the Clinton administration's budget ax had a broader sweep.

In terms of spending cuts, the Trump administration has indicated non-discretionary spending, including entitlements, will remain untouched. That was not the case under Clinton.

Under a deal hashed out with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, a budget agreement in 1997 cut (or rather, reduced the growth rate of) discretionary spending by $138 billion over a five-year period. It also cut Medicare spending by $115 billion, Medicaid by $14 billion and other mandatory spending by $40 billion.

The Clinton-era deal also cut military spending significantly, while Trump is pushing for a roughly $54 billion increase in military spending.
Raising a political problem as much as a financial one, newly released budget estimates show elderly Americans could be hit hard by premium hikes under Republicans' ObamaCare repeal bill -- affecting a key constituency for President Trump.

The Congressional Budget Office report released Monday shows 64-year olds making $26,500 would see premiums increase by an estimated 750 percent by 2026.

Under current law, they pay $1,700. But according to CBO projections, under the new bill, this group would have to pay almost $14,600more than half their income.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney pushed back Tuesday when asked about a Politico report suggesting the clear losers of the American Health Care Act would be Trump voters between the ages of 50 and 64, right below the Medicare eligibility age of 65.

We have said this in the very beginningwe think the CBO is measuring against the wrong thing, Mulvaney told "Fox & Friends." To that same group of voters, go ask them. Go find the 55-year old person who is on ObamaCare right now and ask them if they can afford to go to the doctorthey will tell you, without exception, that they cant and they know that our program will give that to them.

AARP wrote a letter to House Republican Leadership last week also expressing serious concerns regarding the AHCA.

Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions, AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond said in a statement. This plan goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs.

The CBO figures show that in the long-term, the GOP bill would eventually lead to lower premiums overall. But the same study notes the new rules would allow insurance companies to charge older people considerably more.

This could pose an added complication for the Trump administration as it works with congressional allies to advance, and perhaps refine, the bill.

Trump last November carried voters between 45 and 64 years old, as well as those 65 and over, exit polling shows.

Broken down by income, the results were less clear. Fox News Exit Poll data showed those making less than $50,000, in the 45-64 age group, went for Hillary Clinton by a 12-point margin. But data also showed white, working-class voters in that age group went for Trump by a huge 37-point margin.

The older a person is, the more costly their insurance is, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., acknowledged to reporters last week.

While Ryan touted CBO findings about overall premium decreases and taxpayer savings, some still have cast doubt on the CBO's accuracy in general.

Research Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability Josh Archambault told Fox News the CBO data may be flawed, as it is considers only one phase of Republicans' plan.

Its too early to tell if this will happenthere are too many moving parts, Archambault told Fox News. Of course, we should be able to assess how different policies will affect different age groups, but youve got to look at the entire puzzle here, not just one piece.

The CBO report also said that under the Republicans AHCA, 14 million Americans would drop or lose health insurance coverage by next year. Further, it estimated the plan would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion from 2017 to 2026.

While many in the administration, like Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, said they disagree with the results of the bipartisan study, Ryan called it an encouraging CBO score.

It will lower premiums 10 percent; it stabilizes the market; its a $1.2 trillion spending cut, and $883 billion tax cut and $337 billion deficit reduction, Ryan told Fox News. So, this compared to the status quo, is far better.
Dozens of 17-year-olds voted illegally across Wisconsin during last spring's intense presidential primary, apparently wrongly believing they could cast ballots if they turned 18 ahead of the November general election, according to a new state report.

Wisconsin Elections Commission staff examined voter fraud referrals municipal clerks said they made to prosecutors following the 2016 spring primary and general elections. The commission is set to approve the findings during a meeting Tuesday and forward a report to the Legislature.

President Donald Trump has called for a "major investigation" into voter fraud and alleged that 3 million to 5 million people may have voted illegally in the November general election, a widely debunked claim. The report lists no instances of underage voters casting ballots in the general election.

Republican Ted Cruz won the GOP primary in Wisconsin. Bernie Sanders won the Democratic contest. The state ultimately voted for Trump in the November general election, marking the first time a Republican presidential candidate had won Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The report found at least 60 cases of 17-year-olds voting in the April primary in 29 counties. Kewaunee County referred nine people to prosecutors for voting as 17-year-olds, Rock County referred seven and Racine County referred five. Brown County referred what the report called "multiple" 17-year-olds to prosecutors. The report did not track charging decisions or for whom the 17-year-olds voted.

Commission spokesman Reid Magney said Monday that he'd never seen this issue crop up before. The teenagers were likely encouraged to go to the polls by messages flying around social media during the spring primary season saying 17-year-olds can vote in some states as long as they turn 18 before the November election, the report said.

Some political campaigns were also spreading false information about eligibility, the report said. The Sanders campaign specifically was sending out national messages on social media about 17-year-olds being able to vote in presidential primaries, Magney said, although Wisconsin election officials didn't see any misinformation from that campaign about Wisconsin.

No one under 18 can vote in any Wisconsin election, but 17-year-olds may have seen Sanders' messages and thought they could vote. Poll workers may not have understood the law or may not have been paying enough attention, he added.

"It wasn't a case of anyone sneaking in," Magney said. "It was a misunderstanding of the law."

Sanders campaign officials didn't immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment.

Kewaunee County District Attorney Andrew Naze said he chose not to charge any of the 17-year-olds whom clerks referred to him. He said they honestly thought they were eligible to vote and didn't intend to break the law.

Brown County District Attorney David Lasee said nine 17-year-olds were referred to him but he decided not to file charges as well. Like Naze, Lasee said the teens genuinely believed they could vote and there was no intent to commit fraud. They told poll workers their ages and were still allowed to cast ballots, Lasee said.

Prosecutors in Rock and Racine counties didn't immediately respond to messages Monday.

The report noted that its findings aren't conclusive and it's possible other instances of suspected fraud may have been referred to prosecutors without the commission's knowledge or people may have filed complaints directly with district attorneys.
The damage caused by a British-owned cruise ship that accidentally ran aground on a pristine Indonesian coral reef could total more than $18 million, according to academics and environmental groups working in the region.

Researchers for Conservation International Indonesia (CII), Papua State University and the Regional Technical Implementing Unit (UPTD) found that the grounding of the 295-foot Caledonian Sky cruise ship  which weighs 4,200 tons and carried 102 passengers  caused massive damage to several endemic reefs that are unique to Raja Ampat, a remote and idyllic island chain west of Indonesia's Papua province.

The types of reefs that were damaged by the ship are Genus Porites, Acropora, Poicilopora, Tubastrea, Montipora, Stylopora, Favia and Pavites. It will take decades to restore the reefs, Ricardo Tapilatu, who headed the research, told the Jakarta Post.

Tapilatu added that the damage area stretched for more than 145,000-square-miles.

The Caledonian Sky, owned by British company Noble Caledonia, was finishing a bird-watching trip on Waigeo Island on March 4 when it veered slightly off course and slammed into the reef. An investigation into the incident found that the cruise ship allegedly entered the area without consulting local guides and that ships crew only relied on GPS navigation without considering the tide.

The skipper forced the ship to enter the area, which was not open to cruise ships, CII spokesman, Albert Nebore, said.

Noble Caledonia called the accident an "unfortunate" incident and added that the company is "firmly committed to protection of the environment" and fully backed an investigation, but made no mention of compensation.

The Caledonian Sky has since been refloated and an inspection revealed that "the hull was undamaged and remained intact, the company said.

The ship itself "did not take on water, nor was any pollution reported as a result of the grounding, Noble Caldeonia added.

Indonesias Environment and Forestry Ministry has deployed its staff to identify the damaged coral reefs and collect evidence that they will use to demand compensation from the British company.

Ministry spokesman Djati Witjaksono said, We will discuss with experts the amount of compensation the company must pay [to Indonesia].

Locals in Raja Ampat say that besides the damage to the reef, the accident has also put a major strain on the local economy, which relies heavily on snorkeling and scuba-diving tourism.

Coral reefs are the main attraction for many tourists in the area. It is counterproductive for our tourism prospects, Laura Resti, from Raja Ampat's homestay association, told the BBC. "We have tried to conserve those coral reefs for a long time, and just within few hours they were gone.

Resti added: "I am so sad and feel ashamed to take tourists there.
A blind woman from Maine says she wont be flying American Airlines anytime soon after the legacy carrier allegedly failed to accommodate her service dog.

Sue Martin, a 61-year-old legally blind woman from Franklin, Maine, claims that she and her German Shepherd were recently removed from an American flight after being told they posed a danger to the safety of the aircraft.

Martin, along with her guide dog Quan and husband Jim, were en route from Maine to Calif. on March 1. They were boarding a connecting flight from Washington, D.C., to Dallas when Martin noticed that her seat, located in the bulkhead aisle, would not be able to accommodate her dog.

There was not enough room for a 75-pound dog and three adult humans, Martin told WLBZ.

Martin claims a flight attendant then denied her request to switch seats, and that when she asked again, she was told to leave the plane and speak with a ticketing agent.

COMEDIAN GETS REVENGE ON 'HORRIBLE WOMAN' WHO LET HER DOG POOP AT LAX

Once she was back in the airport terminal, Martin said the American ticketing agent also denied her request to change seats, and even refused to allow her to upgrade, telling her that service animals were not allowed in first class, reports The Portland Press Herald.

Martin says she knew that there's no rule against service animals in first class  shes owned service animals since she was 28  but she re-boarded the aircraft anyway. Upon re-entering, she says a man in first class offered up his seat, which she gladly accepted.

But soon, an American Airlines employee informed Martin that she was being removed from the flight.

I asked him why, and he said the crew had decided I was a danger to the safety of the flight, she said.

I stood up, reached for Quans harness, and almost began to cry, Martin explained. This is just so far out of the realm of anything I have ever experienced in all of my years of travel.

I felt helpless, I felt afraid. Terrified.

On the way out, Martin claims her husband asked the pilot why they were being booted, to which the pilot replied, Because I can.

The couple eventually rebooked on a United Airlines flight leaving from a different airport.

A spokesperson for American Airlines tells Fox News that they're currently investigating the situation.

"We apologize to Ms. Martin for the recent experience she had on American Airlines," said the spokesperson. "We take these allegations very seriously, and are thoroughly investigating.

"We are also in contact with Ms. Martin to gather additional details of what transpired during her recent journey with us."

American Airlines has no posted guidelines against service animals in first class, although they stipulate that all animals must be well-behaved and able to fit on your lap, at your feet or under your seat.

AA's spokesperson also confirmed to Fox News that service animals are welcome on "all of our flights," and that the company encourages team members to train with service dogs.

"American is also a proud supporter of the Puppies in Flight (PIF) program. In conjunction with Assistance Dogs International (ADI), our team members volunteer to become trained to work with assistance dogs and take them on transports and test flights  short turnaround trips. This helps acclimate service animals to air travel."

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Martin, however, isnt likely to set foot on another American Airlines flight in the near future.

Certainly, I deserve an apology, she tells WLBZ. Some reassurance that American will better train its personnel is the only way I will feel comfortable getting on another American Airlines flight.

I mean, if they can kick a blind person off a flight, whose dog is being perfectly behaved, what can they do next? I dont know.

American Airlines' investigation into the matter in ongoing.
Just months after being granted approval to start flying to the Caribbean nation, Silver Airways and Frontier Airlines are getting out of the Cuba business.

According to Travel Pulse, Silver ended service to the country for two reasons: a lack of demand to travel to Cuba and overcapacity by the larger airlines. Both factors have made its own routes to the country financially unsuccessful.

As for the Denver-based Frontier, the airline will also stop flying to and from Cuba from Miami International Airport to Jose Marti International Aiport. The route, which is still currently operating, will cease after June 4.

NORWEGIAN, ROYAL CARIBBEAN APPROVED TO START CUBA CRUISES

Silvers service will be suspended effective April 22.

The For Lauderdale, Fla.-based budget carrier said that their projections for the amount of passengers flying from the U.S. to Cuba was accurate after travel restrictions to the island were eased by the Obama administration.

However, with steep competition from other carrier-- particularly those with larger aircraft-- has, according to Silver, caused a steep jump in capacity of around 300 percent between the two countries.

It is not in the best interest of Silver and its team members to behave in the same irrational manner as other airlines, the company said. However, Silver will continue to monitor Cuba routes and will consider resuming service in the future if the commercial environment changes.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

The decision from Silver and Frontier comes after American Airlines announced plans to reduce 25 percent of its flights to Cuba. At the time of the announcement in December, the airline cited weak demand as the principal reason behind the reduction.

And in February, JetBlue announced that they would reduce capacity for flights to Cuba. The airline downsized to smaller aircraft for some of its current flights in an effort to trim 300 seats from JetBlues Cuba routes.
The U.S. State Department is warning college students across the country not to spend spring break in certain parts of Mexico, where rampant crime has made travel dangerous for Americans.

The warning comes as students are finishing up midterm exams and heading out in search of warmer climes, salty margaritas and wild parties. But Mexico, once among the most popular spring break destinations, is plagued with endemic levels of violence, according to the government.

U.S. citizens have been the victims of violent crimes, including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking and robbery in various Mexican States," the State department travel warning stated.

The warning, which replaces one issued last April, specifically cautions travelers of the dangers in 14 of Mexicos 31 states, including the popular spring break destinations of Baja California Sur, Guerrero and Nayarit.

The state of Guerrero was the most violent state in Mexico in 2015 for the third year in a row, and self-defense groups operate independently of the government in many areas of Guerrero, the warning says of the state that is home to the popular beachside city of Acapulco. Armed members of these groups frequently maintain roadblocks and, although not considered hostile to foreigners or tourists, are suspicious of outsiders and should be considered volatile and unpredictable.

Acapulco has taken over from the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez to become one of the centers of Mexico's bloody drug war. The city suffers from being a strategically located drug trafficking hub on Guerrero's Pacific coastal highway, while mass tourism simultaneously provides gangs with a profitable local market for drugs.

It is also unfortunate to be the largest city in Guerrero state, Mexico's prime location for opium production and one of the most violent regions in the country, notorious for the disappearance of 43 students in 2014 and a seemingly incessant wave of violence and social unrest.

In 2009, the city still attracted as many as 30,000 American spring breakers, but only two years later that number had dropped to barely 500.

Despite the travel warnings in places like Acapulco and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico's tourism industry is booming.

Mexico ranked No. 9 among the world's top 10 most visited countries in 2016 with 11.44 million international tourists visiting the country, and increase 9.9 percent from last year

Millions of Americans visit Mexico each year  including more than 150,000 who cross the border every day, the State Department says. The Mexican government has dedicated substantial resources to protecting major tourist destinations, the State Department says, and generally these areas do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime that are seen along the border or major drug trafficking routes.
A 4-year-old girl was located early Monday in the middle of a vast desert in Southern California after being abandoned by a group of smugglers.

FLORIDA GIRL WRITES LETTER TO BURGLAR WHO TARGETED HER HOUSE

The girl was with a group near the U.S.-Mexico border, NBC San Diego reported. When border agents moved in on the group, the smugglers reportedly jumped into a car and sped off.

The child was left behind holding her birth certificate, which showed she was from Guatemala. She reportedly was in good condition and was provided food.

Who in their right mind abandons a four-year-old little girl in the middle of a vast desert, one U.S. Customers and Border Protection agent said in a statement. It sickens me to think that someone would leave a child that young to fend for herself.

The report said the child is with health and Human Services and will attend an immigration status disposition.
Officials with Naval Criminal Investigative Service have determined that about 500 members of the Marines United Facebook group followed a link to a drive containing nude and compromising photos of female Marines and other women, the commandant of the Marine Corps said Tuesday.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing that was partially closed to receive classified testimony, Gen. Robert Neller said that while the number of individuals apparently involved in this illicit photo-sharing is a subset of the 30,000-member group, the actions stem from a troubling mindset of some in the Corps.

"This issue of denigration of women, objectification of women, misogyny, just bad behavior is tied to the way some group of male Marines look at women in the Marine Corps," Neller said. "And I think we can fix that by holding those accountable."

The hearing, scheduled after news broke last week about photo-sharing, harassment of women and, in one case, the stalking of a female Marine by members of Marines United, was at times angry and emotional as lawmakers expressed their outrage. Several brought up similar reports from 2013 of Facebook pages populated with active-duty Marines and veterans who would harass and target female service members, and post their photos so others could make sexual comments.

"When you say to us, it's got to be different, that rings hollow," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York. "Have you actually investigated and found anybody guilty? If we can't crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression? It is a serious problem when we have members of our military denigrating female Marines who will give their life for this country."

Despite then-commandant Gen. Jim Amos' receipt of a 2013 letter from Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, complaining about the Facebook pages, Neller said he believed commanders then were ignorant of what was taking place online.

"Part of this is, I think victims were afraid to come forward, because if they came forward, they were going to be attacked tenfold on social media again," he said. "I think for those, that don't participate in this domain, I think we were ignorant. I'm trainable, and I accept responsibility for that."

Officials are still trying to determine how many women were victimized by the Marines United page and others like it. Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley told the committee that a dedicated tipline set up by NCIS had to date received 53 calls, from self-identified victims as well as those offering information to locate the pages and prosecute offenders.

The Marine Corps is now working with hosts such as Facebook and Google to shut down the pages in question and take damaging material offline, Neller said. How to prosecute offenders, both active-duty troops and veterans, may be a knottier problem.

Marine Corps officials have said active-duty perpetrators may be subject to Uniform Code of Military Justice articles 92, disobedience of an order, article 120c, broadcast or dissemination of photographs without consent, and 134, general violation. Under these orders, troops may be subject to non-judicial punishment or court-martial for Facebook activities. But it's possible these articles may not be enough, officials suggested.

Asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, if he wanted a new law on the books governing cyber-bullying, Neller said a Marine task force assembled this month would consider that.

"That's something we're going to get into with this task force, if there are provisions within UCMJ that may need to be more specific about this particular type of potential offense," he said.

For veterans, Neller and Stackley said, prosecution gets even more challenging, as laws governing online harassment and "revenge porn" vary from state to state.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, suggested creating a policy that could take away the benefits of veterans found to have engaged in internet harassment, nude photo-sharing and other activities.

"I want to look at other things we need to do to make this a very painful exercise for somebody found guilty of doing this as a member of the veterans community," he said.

As NCIS investigates and the task force determines a way forward, Neller said he is planning to focus on communicating with Marines that treating women in the service as unequal was unacceptable. He will travel to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Wednesday to meet with Marines and learn more about the mindset behind Marines United, he said.

"I think we addressed the action of individuals which is sexual assault or bullying," he said. "But I think the bigger issue within the culture is we haven't addressed the fact that all Marines are Marines."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
A 92-year old WWII veteran and cancer survivor is reportedly being evicted from his California apartment so the property owner can conduct renovations.

According to The Mercury News, Paul Mayer has lived in the same San Jose apartment for 44 years but was told he has until April 4 to vacate the place he called home for decades.

Id be willing to pay more rent if we could work something out with them, Mayer told the paper, But they didnt even bother. They just said Get Out. And I dont know where to go.

Property owner Peggy Ramirez DeMaio told Mercury News that the move is nothing personal and that everybody in the complex is being evicted for the renovation.

At first I felt really bad, and I tried to work around him, but I couldnt, said DeMaio.

According to the paper, Mayer pays a $525 monthly rate as a result of a deal he made when he managed the building for 25 years.

I dont want you to think Im cold-hearted, DeMaio told Mercury News. Theres nothing I can do. Does anyone feel bad for me that my mortgage is so high and Im only getting ($525) from him?

The average overall rent in San Jose, California is $2,936 as of 2017.

Mayers daughter, Anne Sherman, told the paper her dad wants to remain independent and she plans to take the case to city hall.

To put someone out on the street at his age  how could you do that to another human being? Sherman told Mercury News. He risked his life for this country and now hes being discarded. We never in a million years saw this coming. We thought our dad would die in this place.

READ MORE FROM THE MERCURY NEWS.
After a 30-year wait, investigators have pictured the face of an Army specialists killer.

Investigators used a process called phenotyping, relying on DNA samples obtained from the crime scene to reconstruct the likely face of the mysterious man who murdered Spc. Darlene Krashoc and dumped her body behind a Korean restaurant in Colorado Springs on St. Patricks Day in 1987.

COLORADO POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING PURPLE HEART RECIPIENT

These cases never die, Colorado Springs Police Lt. Howard Black told The Colorado Springs Gazette.

Krashoc was only 20 years old when someone beat her, bit her, sexually assaulted her and strangled her with a coat hanger and leather straps. She also may have been tossed from a moving vehicle, according to her autopsy.

COMBAT-HARDENED WWII PT BOAT MAKES TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO THE WATER

A week before her grisly murder, the Fort Carson soldier told her mom she was upset and wanted to leave the Army, though she didnt say who or what was troubling her, The Gazette reported.

The night of her murder, Krashoc went out dancing and drinking with fellow soldiers. She left the Shuffles nightclub at 1 a.m. on March 17, 1987. Just over four hours later, she was found dead.

The Armys Criminal Investigation Command, working with a DNA tech company, extracted DNA from crime scene evidence in 2003 and, in 2016, those samples were used to reveal the face of Krashocs killer, Stars and Stripes reported.

To be sure, the science is not perfect.

It is important to note that the composites are scientific approximations of appearance based on DNA, and are not likely to be exact replicas of appearance, the Army reported in a news release.

But even an imperfect picture could turn up the temperature on a decades-old cold case.

Any opportunity that can move a homicide case forward, well take that opportunity, Black told The Gazette.
The U.S. lawyers for Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman have filed a motion requesting their notorious client be moved to a general population prison, claiming his isolated life inside a lockup known as the Guantanamo of New York is taking a toll on his physical and mental health.

The documents filed Monday by court-appointed attorneys describe a life with no sunlight, no phone calls and no TV at Unit 10 South of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, CNN reported.

GIRL, 4, ABANDONED IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DESERT BY SMUGGLERS

Since he was moved there shortly after his deportation from Mexico on Jan. 19, his lawyers say, his human contact has been limited to a priest - twice - and his U.S. attorneys. He communicates with his guards mostly with hand gestures, according to the court documents.

The 59-year-old former head of the Sinaloa Cartel spends 23 hours a day in a windowless 20-by-12-foot cell and one hour in a nearby  also windowless  room equipped with a treadmill and a stationary bicycle.

'OUTMANNED & OUTGUNNED:' TRIBAL POLICE OFFICERS FACE DANGEROUS CHALLENGES

His lawyers say he gets a glimpse of sunlight only through a small window located in the hallway connecting both cells.

"On the weekends he is confined 24 hours a day and not permitted any exercise," the motion reads. "His meals are passed through a slot in the door; he eats alone. The light is always on. With erratic air-conditioning, he has often lacked enough warm clothing to avoid shivering."

No trial date has been set yet for Guzman, who faces life in prison in six separate indictments across the United States. He has pleaded not guilty to charges he ran one of the world's biggest drug-trafficking operations.

The defense documents allege his physical and mental health are quickly deteriorating as a direct result of the isolation.

"He has difficulty breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches, the lawyers wrote. He has recently been experiencing auditory hallucinations, complaining of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off."

The special unit inside the 12-story Metropolitan Correctional Center has housed other high-profile, high-risk inmates including Gambino crime family boss John Gotti and several former close associates of Usama bin Laden as they awaited trial.

The jail is sandwiched between federal prosecutors' offices and two federal courthouses and is protected by steel barricades that can stop a 7 1/2-ton truck. Cameras capable of reading a newspaper a block away are trained on the area -- a setting befitting a man who twice escaped from maximum-security Mexican prisons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Wildlife officials in Florida say an Ocala neighborhood should be on alert for a cobra that escaped from a home late last night.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, it was around 9 p.m. Monday when Brian Purdy contacted FWC to warn them that his suphan cobra had escaped from its enclosure. An immediate search by an FWC investigator and even local police and fire officials failed to find the snake, so neighbors were alerted.

The search continues this morning, focusing on the 900 block of NE Ninth Street in Ocala.

Residents in the area are urged to use caution until this snake has been captured, an FWC release warned. Although reclusive by nature, cobras are highly venomous and will strike out if they feel threatened.

TENNESSEE WOMAN WAKES UP TO FIND SNAKE IN HER BED

FWC says the cobra is about 2 feet in length, with distinctive multicolor markings.

If anyone sees the snake, they should remain at a safe distance and immediately call the FWCs Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922 or *FWC or #FWC on cell phones.

Click here for more from Fox 35 Orlando.
A U.S. visa program designed to temporarily admit religious workers from other countries may be letting jihadists into the country, security experts and religious leaders warn.

The R visa program is for non-immigrant clerics and religious workers and allows successful applicants to stay in the U.S. for up to five years. They are then allowed to apply for a permanent residency under their R-1 status.

But some critics say the visa raises red flags and has long been abused by leaders with extreme views.

"People have come in and tried to come in with this visa to preach their hardline and dangerous views, and then encourage [the] vulnerable to travel back with them where they are further brainwashed and can potentially be used to harm the USA," Adnan Khan, former president of the Council of Pakistan American Affairs, told Fox News. "The solution isn't banning innocent Muslims and migration, but looking at visas like this one which have raised red flags and caused trouble in the past."

Khan also said several letters have been written to federal agencies over the past four years concerning the R program, but they have failed to get a response.

"We want dialogue with Homeland Security and all the agencies on this," he continued. "We want to be sure no one can come here and spread hate."

The R visa program, which also extends temporary residency to spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21, worries military experts.

Col. James Williamson, who founded a group that advocates for U.S. special forces, said the program, which was created in 1990, must be tightened because of the extent to which it makes the U.S. vulnerable to jihadi attacks.

"The administration should at least temporarily suspend this dangerous loophole in our immigration process," he said. "But they should brace for backlash. In spite of applying equally to all religions, it'll be maligned and portrayed as another form of a Muslim ban."

While some have raised varying concerns over the R program, others assert that its pros outweigh its cons: Allowing foreigners to pursue their pious calling, gain extensive knowledge in the U.S., impart their existing knowledge to Americans and in turn give Americans the chance to pursue religious endeavors abroad.

"The R visa program facilitates the free exercise of religion by Americans. Most R-1 visa holders are coming to the U.S. to temporarily preach in an established U.S. church, synagogue, mosque, which is supported by American citizens," James Wolf of the California-based immigration law firm Visawolf said. "Usually their coming to the U.S. is part of an informal exchange of religious workers that occurs internationally.

Unlike other immigrant visas, which are doled out in limited numbers, there are no quotas for the R-1 visa. Statistics regarding countries or religions that have received the visa are not documented.

Between 2012 and 2016, the U.S. issued 23,029 R-1 visas  averaging 4,605 per year  as well as 7,637 R-2 visas for spouses and children, or about 1,528 annually.

Red flags about the program have been raised for years. In 2004, seven top officials of the Holy Land Foundation  then the largest Muslim charity in the country  were indicted for providing material and upward of $12 million in financial support to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The indictment stated that several of the religious leaders established the now-defunct charity by submitting false R visa applications on behalf of more than 200 immigrants from the Middle East.

Three years earlier, Muhammad Khalil, who ran a mosque in the basement of a Brooklyn store, was convicted in New York for filing over 200 falsified applications for fake jobs at his house of worship.

In 2007, after a lengthy investigation, Department of Homeland Security officials called the R visa program's fraud rate "excessively high." The DHS investigation concluded that more than 30 percent of applicants had submitted phony information or were unqualified for their positions. In some cases, their employers or places of worship did not exist, a problem that has since been somewhat rectified by official inspections and site visits.

The program has also been criticized for other reasons. DHS officials came under fire by some human rights groups and activists for allegedly targeting imams on the visa under the guise of combating terrorism.

One of those critics is William Stock, a partner at the Philadelphia-based Klasko Immigration law firm, who said that the fraud concerns that were raised resulted in heavy new regulations and procedures in 2011.

"Now, any religious worker petition requires extensive documentation of the sponsoring organization, its financial condition and membership. As well, every organization receives a 'site visit' from a USCIS [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] officer and ensures it really exists," he said. "I think USCIS went overboard with the 2011 regulations."

Stock said most R-1 cases he works on pertain to Christian denominations, such as Roman Catholic religious orders transferring priests and nuns to the U.S., Pentecostal church planters from Africa and Brazil, Mormon missionaries and workers, Korean Presbyterian ministers and Methodist ministers from India.

However, a wide variety of religions are eligible.

William Cocks, a spokesperson for the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said the vetting process for the program has become particularly thorough.

"National security is our top priority when adjudicating visa applications. Every prospective traveler to the U.S. undergoes extensive security screening. Applicants are continuously screened, both at the time of their visa application and afterwards, to ensure they remain eligible," he said. "We are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening processes."

Others well-versed in the R visa program say it is no longer necessary  not because of security concerns but for the sheer fact that resources ought to be focused on those already in the U.S, not in bringing outsiders in.

"We need to take care of our needs here. We don't see the benefit in bringing over foreigners," said reserve sheriff and former Los Angeles Police Department Islamic chaplain Sheik Qazi Asad. He also said that when R-1 holders do come to the U.S., their employers do their own second-tier of vetting to ensure applicants have not spewed any radical rhetoric and discourage permanent stays. "We make sure they have return tickets," he said.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, a staunch critic of the R-visa program, in 2015 introduced the Religious Worker Visa Reciprocity Act, which would narrowed the scope of the visa. But his proposal has failed to pass.

"The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world. However, the generosity is being repaid with fraud and abuse," he stated at the time. "This is a sensible opportunity to narrow the R visa and make a stand for religious freedom. All U.S. religious workers should have the same access to a foreign country as that country's religious workers have to the U.S. This is a sensible solution that both limits waste, fraud and abuse by lowering the number of considered petitions and promoting religious freedom."

DHS and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

But those in favor of the visa say it has cultivated and spread piety all across the country.

Rev. Ruben Duran, director for new congregations at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) called the R-1 a wonderful vehicle to help bring foreign leaders to needed churches, and said that they take extreme care in selecting the appropriate candidates, with the majority of their R-1 holders coming from Asia, South America and India.

Patricia Zapor, communications director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), said the program is very important in enabling those in religious vocations to serve their communities.

Without their efforts and presence many vulnerable adults, children, elderly would face additional daily struggles and societal problems  poverty, addiction, abuse, she added. It allows men and women in the U.S. to exercise their freedom of religion by having enough priests in the U.S. to meet the needs of the Catholic population.
A California woman who is believed to be the mother seen abandoning her 2-year-old daughter at a Riverside grocery store is now in custody, police said Tuesday.

Chiengkham Vilaysane was taken into police custody several hours after her photo and name were released to the public. It is still not clear whether the thirty-one year old was arrested.

Police released a surveillance video Monday showing a woman walking into a grocery store over the weekend with a child by her side. The toddler wandered off but the woman never sought the childs whereabouts and continued shopping. Eventually, a Good Samaritan brought the child back to the mother to which she responded, oh just leave her. The mother left the store after paying for the groceries.

Police arrived at the Food-4-Less Sunday night where they found the toddler unharmed and in good condition.

According to police, the child was able to identify the woman as her mommy when she was shown a surveillance footage photo.

In my whole career I have never seen anything where out-of the blue someone leaves their kid in a crowded grocery store like this, Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback told Fox 11 Los Angeles.

The toddler is currently in the custody of Child Protective Services.

Read more from Fox 11 Los Angeles.
When the U.S. steel industry fell apart, Pennsylvanias Braddock Council President Tina Doose says so did many other businesses.

DENVER FBI HONORS YOUTH PROGRAM PARTLY FUNDED BY POT TAXES

It justthere was a hole in our financial base, and weve been struggling to survive ever since.

Its been 29 years since Braddock was named a financially distressed community by the state, but now there is renewed hope as the council officially backs medical marijuana producer Laurel Green Medical. The company will get ready to submit a formal application March 20 as it competes for one of two permits that will be given to the region.

'FAKE WEED' LINKED TO MORE RISK-TAKING THAN REAL MARIJUANA

"Theres no certainty, Doose said. "This is far from certain. This is a highly competitive process. There are no givens."

Agrimed Industries is also joining in on the competition by applying for a permit in Greene County in Southwest Pennsylvania. Braddock Mayor John Fetterman says the time to invest in the medical marijuana industry has come.

"The small subset of people that are afraid of marijuana I think is continuing to dwindle, and I think we're moving as a nation to just taking the appropriate steps and just getting it over with and legalizing it," Fetterman said.

The Pennsylvania Health Department will announce a first round of permit approvals in late June.

Pennsylvania is the 24th state with a comprehensive medical marijuana program. Gov. Tom Wolf signed Pennsylvanias medical marijuana program into law in 2016, covering over the dozen terminal or chronic conditions.
The search is intensifying for a retired Dallas firefighter who went missing last week and may be in danger.

Michael Chambers, 70, disappeared Friday from his Hunt County home in Quinlan, about 40 miles east of Dallas.

Deputies said after an initial investigation, they believe he may have been taken against his will after they found blood in his shop outside his home. The Texas Rangers and the FBI are now involved in the search.

Chambers was last seen March 10 entering and then leaving the Quinlan Walmart alone. He was driving his pickup truck.

Investigators say he was known to carry money but do not believe he was followed. Chambers returned home before noon and was not seen again.

Deputies say whatever happened to him most likely happened between noon and 3 p.m. that Friday. His truck was at the house along with his keys and wallet. But police say Chambers and his cell phone simply disappeared.

READ MORE FROM FOX 4 DALLAS.
HEATED INTERVIEW

Fox News' Martha MacCallum and filmmaker Jason Pollock went toe-to-toe on "The First 100 Days" Monday over Pollock's new documentary about the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Pollock's claim that Brown was shot in the head and a bullet came out of his eye.

MISDIAGNOSED?

The Trump administration on Monday lashed out at the Congressional Budget Offices report that estimated that about 24 million more Americans in a few years would be uninsured under the new legislation. Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary, downplayed the report and said, we disagree strenuously with the report that was put out. Its just not believable is what we would suggest. COMING UP: PRESIDENT TRUMP SITS DOWN EXCLUSIVELY WITH TUCKER CARLSON WEDNESDAY AT 9 PM ET

HANNITY: TRUMP HAS NOT BEEN WELL SERVED BY REPUBLICANS

SCALISE: CBO GOT IT WRONG ON OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT

'TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT': PLANNED PARENTHOOD EVP: NO ONE WILL BULLY, BRIBE US

NOR'EASTER SLAMS REGION

Tens of millions of Americans braced for possibly the biggest storm to slam the Northeast this winter, threatening to snarl Spring Break travel plans as it is forecast to dump upwards of 2 feet of snow through the region. (Watch Fox News Channel for updates throughout the day.)

So it begins. Latest radar shows light snow progressing north into NEPA now. #pawx #nywx pic.twitter.com/OdswAn0Fp7  NWS Binghamton (@NWSBinghamton) March 14, 2017

PIRATES STRIKE AGAIN

Somali officials say pirates have hijacked a ship off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation. One official in the semiautonomous state of Puntland said the incident occurred on Monday. The official said over two dozen men boarded the merchant ship off Somalia's northern coast.

FOX NEWS OPINION

After eight years in which the Saudis watched as the Obama administration seemed to pivot towards Irana country where Death to America is still shouted daily in the streetsthis is the moment for a reset on national security issues, with an eye toward the exciting social changes happening in the kingdom, Ali Shihabi, the executive director of the Washington-based Arabia Foundation, writes.



COMING UP ON FNC

8 a.m. ET: Officials in Boston provide update on snowstorm. Watch live on FoxNews.com

10 a.m. ET: Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer participate in a rally to mark the finale of the 2-month long Save My Care bus tour. Watch live on FoxNews.com

12 p.m. ET: NYC Mayor de Blasio holds press conference to update the public on the winter storm and the City's response. Watch live on Fox News Channel and FoxNews.com
The Justice Department unsealed a new indictment Tuesday charging a Navy admiral and eight others with corruption and other crimes in the "Fat Leonard" bribery case.

The military personnel are accused of taking bribes from Singapore-based defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis of Glenn Defense Marine Asia, which came in the form of lavish gifts, prostitutes and luxury hotel stays, according to the indictment. Francis has already pleaded guilty to defrauding the Navy of tens of millions of dollars.

The full list of bribes listed in the indictment allegedly given to the defendants over an eight-year period included watches worth $25,000, $2,000 boxes of Cohiba cigars, $2,000 bottles of cognac and $600-per-night hotel rooms.

Among the Navy members charged are Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, a senior Navy intelligence officer based at the Pentagon. A U.S. defense official told Fox News that Loveless had his security clearance suspended over a year ago while awaiting formal charges.

In addition to Loveless, others charged in the indictment include three retired Navy captains: David Lausman, Donald Hornbeck and David Newland; an active-duty Navy captain, James Dolan; a retired Marine colonel, Enrico de Guzman; an active-duty Navy commander, Stephen Shedd; and Robert Gorsuch, a retired Navy chief warrant officer.

Francis frequently sponsored wild sex parties for officials on the flagship of the Navy's 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge, in addition to other warships, according to the charging documents.

While visiting port in Manila in February 2007, Francis allegedly hosted a sex party for officers at the MacArthur Suite of the Shangri-La Hotel, where historical memorabilia related to General Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts, according to the indictment.

The defendants in this indictment were entrusted with the honor and responsibility of administering the operations of the U.S. Navys Seventh Fleet, which is tasked with protecting our nation by guarding an area of responsibility that spanned from Russia to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, Acting Assistant Attorney General Blanco said in a statement. With this honor and awesome responsibility came a duty to make decisions based on the best interests of the Navy and the 40,000 Sailors and Marines under their care who put their lives at risk every day to keep us secure and free. Unfortunately, however, these defendants are alleged to have sold their honor and responsibility in exchange for personal enrichment.

READ THE FULL INDICTMENT BELOW

The latest indictment brings the total number of people charged with crimes related to the investigation to 27. Prosecutors told The Washington Post, which first reported the indictment, more than 200 people have come under scrutiny.

Of those previously charged, 20 are current or former U.S. Navy officials and five are GDMA executives, according to the DOJ. A total of 13 have so far pleaded guilty, while several other cases are pending.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and Matt Dean contributed to this report.
The shooting death of 27-year-old Navajo Nation Police Officer Houston James Largo, who was responding to a routine domestic violence call in the remote community of Prewitt, N.M. on Sunday, highlights the unique challenges his agency faces in fighting crime.

Tribal officers often patrol vast, desolate areas  sometimes 1,000 miles at a time  that are often more underdeveloped and dangerous than other parts of the country. And they do so without many of the resources and funding other law enforcement agencies receive.

So the officers often find themselves outmanned, outgunned and unprepared.

One of the most trying times I have in serving as president of the Navajo Nation is when I get word that one of our police officers has had their life taken needlessly, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said in a press release. It brings to mind the situations our officers face every day in responding to calls, getting in their unit and putting their lives on the line. It must be difficult for family members to know their loved ones might not return.

Begaye has called for continued support of police officers who are protecting the Navajo Nation.

It sometimes takes tribal officers more than an hour to respond to calls and many times they do so alone without any backup.

Our nation mourns for you as does the country, Begaye said. Our officers lives are precious. They are the ones who stand guard over our nation and protect us.

Navajo Nation Council Delegate Edmund Yazzie said a major problem the Nation faces is domestic violence, which has plagued the Navajo Nation for years.

Unfortunately, many of our officers face this devastating issue every day when they are on duty and sadly it resulted in the loss of one of our bravest today, Yazzie said in a statement on Sunday.

Prewitt, N.M., a tiny community not counted by the U.S. Census, rests along Interstate 40, which is 81 miles west of Albuquerque, the states capital and its largest city.

It is remote areas like this, defined by majestic red mesas, patches of sagebrush in rust-colored dirt, enclaves of mobile homes in various states of wear and disrepair, and dark, winding roads  many not even paved  that comprise the typical patrol areas for officers like Largo of the Navajo Nation .

The four-and-a-half-year veteran was one of 200 patrol officers, 70 short of what is mandated by the tribe. They patrol 27,425 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah that house the nations largest Indian reservation, which has a population of 180,000.

Navajo Nation Police Chief Phillip Francisco told Fox News that it is not unusual for one officer to be responsible for patrolling 1,000 miles.

The Crownpoint District, where officer Largo served, is our largest at over 4,000 square miles and we typically have five officers on per shift, Francisco said. It can take officers more than an hour to respond to a call, mostly by themselves.

Francisco said this daunting challenge places his officers in one of the most unique categories of any law enforcement agency in the nation despite assistance from New Mexico State Police and the sheriff departments of the counties where the reservations reside.

Prewitt is nestled in McKinley County in northwest New Mexico. The FBI investigates violent crimes in the region since Indian land is on federal property. But the tribal police officers are basically on their own for other crimes. A Safe Trails Task Force initiative was formed in 1994 to combat a growing crime wave in Indian Country.

Most departments in the country have more than 20 officers per 10,000 residents. We have 11, Francisco said. This is a staggering amount of area and people to cover.

Contrary to the 1970s hit, Ball of Confusion by the Temptations, which had a line that saidthe only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation, the reality is that per capita reservations are among the most dangerous.

Federal statistics in 2013 shocked the nation. The numbers showed the violent crime rate on Indian reservations was 20 times the national average. The homicide rate passed that of Seattle and Boston.

By 2015, the homicide rate had dropped to 17, the number of rapes decreased to 64 and there were 1,358 cases of aggravated assault.

Domestic violence rates have long been off the charts  many times fueled by alcohol abuse.

These toxic factors mixed together sometimes have dangerous consequences for police officers putting their life on the line. Other than Largo, Navajo Nation Police Officer Alex Yazzie, 42, also was killed in the line of duty in 2015.

"Our officers put themselves in highly volatile situations every day in addressing domestic violence situations," Begaye said in his statement. "Although they are highly trained, they can still be severely wounded, which unfortunately is what happened today."

McKinley County Sheriff Ron Silversmith had worked with Largo both when he served with the Gallup Police Department and the sheriffs department. He said he knows first-hand the dangers police officers face when they patrol the remote Navajo Reservation.

"It is probably one of the most dangerous jobs a police officer can have," Silversmith said. "There are a lot of times where there is no radio contact and you're on your own. You have to be strong willed to work out there."

Silversmith said officers are regularly out in the middle of nowhere on their own. It gets so dark in some areas you cannot see your hand in front of your face.

"They are short staffed and outnumbered and out gunned," he said.

Begaye said the tribe recently upgraded equipment and protective devices for its police department. But they still fall far behind other departments. Francisco said he needs to send recruits to Arizona Department of Public Safetys academy because their building was condemned.

The other challenge he faces is recruiting new officers. The officers are paid $5 per hour less than surrounding state and municipal law enforcement agencies. And, with the vast amount of land that needs to be patrolled, recruits are far and few between.

In the meantime, the police department is burying another police officer.

Officials said a suspect is in custody in the Largo case but has not released the persons name. The suspect will face federal charges, police said.
More than 150 people gathered at a park in Clearfield Sunday to raise awareness about animal abuse and support the family of a cat who was tortured to death earlier this week.

At the same time, The Humane Society of Northern Utah made two big announcements that will allow Sage's death to help other animal abuse victims and their families.

The reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case has grown to $49,285, the Humane Society of Northern Utah (HSNU) said Monday, thanks to donations from people from all over the world.

"People are outraged," said Celeste Bailey with the HSNU. "I think part of it is that he did survive for a while, and he was able to crawl home."

Experts have said this is one of the worst cases of animal abuse they have ever seen.

Sage went missing March 4 and reappeared at the family's Clearfield home March 8 with significant injuries that included multiple broken bones and damage to his genitals, body and face from hot glue and construction caulk, along with other signs of abuse. The cat was rushed to a veterinary hospital, where he died the next day.

China Cassel, whose family owned Sage, said they've spent the days since his death in grief, as they cope with losing their loving family member who enjoyed his people so much.

She said it's been hard, "for him to not be coming home, or coming outside and just jumping up on our laps."

Sunday's vigil at Kiwanis Park in Clearfield included a moment of silence for Sage at 4:45 p.m., the time he died. The dozens of people who came out to support the family also lined up to write their condolences in a book.

"I'm so amazed with just how many people showed up for Sage," Cassel said.

As Sage's story spread in the past several days, it grabbed the hearts of people around the globe. HSNU announced at the vigil that with the donations they've received, they've created The Sage Friend Fund, which will help other abused animals and their families.

Bailey wasn't sure how much money is already in the fund, but said it'll be used for reward money in other cases, to cover medical bills and long-term rehabilitation for animals who survive abuse, and toward memorial costs for those who don't make it.

HSNU also announced that a retired police officer will help them investigate animal cruelty cases going forward. They said he'll now be one of two animal cruelty investigators in the state.

Cassel said they're grateful Sage's case will now help other animals and their families who are in similar situations.

"We don`t want other families to have to go through this, to suffer the way we've had to suffer," she said.

Click for more from Fox13Now.com.


There goes the neighhhhhhborhood!

Two ponies made a run for it in snowy Staten Island on Tuesday morning before they were rounded up by cops and a good Samaritan.

SNOW, SLEET POUND EAST COAST; MORE THAN 5,900 FLIGHTS GROUNDED

Robert Stasio was floored when he peeked out his window and saw the adorable white and brown horses, which appear to be Shetland ponies, outside his home on Retford Avenue in the Eltingville section.

I just looked out the window to see how bad it was coming down still and I see two ponies. I thought I was imagining things! Stasio, 50, told The Post.

SLIDESHOW: POWERFUL NOREASTER POUNDS REGION WITH HEAVY SNOW, SLEET AND RAIN

He quickly took off in his truck to follow the ponies before they could become roadkill.

I jumped in my truck because I didnt want to see them get hit by a car or nothing. I wanted to save them, Stasio said. When I got in the car and looked both ways, I didnt see them. I said, Could I have imagined this? I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.

It didnt take long for Stasio  who grew up handling horses with his uncle at Nellie Bly Amusement Park in Brooklyn  to catch up with the ponies two blocks away on Richmond Avenue. He tailed the animals in his truck as they trotted off to Hylan Boulevard.

Thats when the cops intervened.

Click for more from the New York Post.
A Florida businessman is raising scholarship money for gay students to honor the 49 patrons killed last June in Orlando's gay nightclub shooting massacre.

Barry Miller said Monday that The 49 Fund is to award 10 scholarships annually, each worth $4,900. Students would have to self-identify as "out," have a GPA of 3.0 and attend an institution of higher learning fulltime.

Survivors of the Pulse nightclub attack or deceased victims' relatives would receive special consideration, said Miller, who is working on the project with the GLBT Community Center of Central Florida and the Central Florida Foundation.

Gunman Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in the attack last June 12. The deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history also left dozens wounded in addition to the 49 killed.
A late-season noreaster lashed the region Tuesday with sleet and more than two feet of snow in some places, paralyzing much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor and grounding more than 5,900 flights.

The sloppy storm with high winds knocked out power to more than 100,000 customers from Virginia to Pennsylvania, closed schools in cities big and small and prompted warnings from officials to stay off the roads.

Philadelphia and New York City escaped the brunt of the snow, getting just a few inches and not the foot or more forecasters had expected before the storm switched over mostly to sleet.

SLIDESHOW: POWERFUL NOREASTER POUNDS REGION WITH HEAVY SNOW, SLEET AND RAIN

But residents farther inland were getting clobbered with snow.

"The winters seem to be upside down now. January and February are nice and then March and April seem to be more wintry than they were in the past," he said Bob Clifford, who ventured out on an early morning grocery run for his family in Altamont, near Albany, New York.

While people mostly heeded dire warnings to stay home and off the roads, police said a 16-year-old girl was killed when she lost control of her car on a snowy road and hit a tree in Gilford, New Hampshire.

In Narragansett, Rhode Island, high winds knocked down a state-owned wind turbine. In New York City, two homes under construction collapsed near the waterfront in Far Rockaway. No injuries were reported.

And two ponies broke free from their stables and roamed the snow-covered streets of Staten Island until an off-duty police officer noticed them. Employing straps normally used to tow cars, he wrangled the animals and tied them to a lamppost. They were taken back to the stables.

"We want to thank our cowboy officer," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Inland areas got hit hard by the storm. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Worcester, Massachusetts, received a foot or more of snow. The Binghamton, New York, area was hit with over 2 feet, while Vernon, New Jersey, got at least 19 inches.

The flight cancellations included more than 3,300 in the New York City area alone, where hundreds passengers were stranded at Kennedy Airport. Amtrak canceled or modified service up and down the Northeast Corridor.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said aboveground subway service and some Metro-North commuter rail service shut down by the snowstorm hitting the East Coast will be restored by 6 p.m. ET. Full service will resume Wednesday for the morning commute.

Laura and Matthew Balderstone of West Yorkshire, England, intended to spend their honeymoon in Florida but found themselves stuck at the Newark, New Jersey, airport and couldn't find a hotel room.

"It's better safe than sorry, especially flying. I suppose it's a shame that we can't get another way around this. It's just the way it is, unfortunately," Matthew Balderstone told the Associated Press.

Broadway producers in New York City have decided to keep theaters open Tuesday night for the hardy folks willing to brave the snow and sleet.

More than two dozen shows will play as scheduled, including "Hamilton," ''Dear Evan Hansen" and "Waitress."

Charlotte St. Martin, president of The Broadway League, says that for visitors who can't get home, it's a great time to see a show.

In the nation's capital, the federal government announced a three-hour delayed arrival for non-emergency employees, with an option to take the day off or telecommute. Emergency employees were told to report on time unless otherwise directed.

"Good day to make brownies ... and or read a book," said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, which was expecting up to 2 feet of snow in some areas.

In Massachusetts, where the forecast called for 12 to 18 inches of snow, Gov. Charlie Baker encouraged motorists to stay off the roads and to take public transit only if absolutely necessary, saying the fast snowfall rates would make driving hazardous.

Schools in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and elsewhere closed.

Parts of Atlantic City and other towns in southern New Jersey dealt with tidal flooding from the nor'easter.

A homeowner posted video on Twitter of water streaming down the block, and one major roadway was closed because of the flooding.

In New Hampshire, the storm disrupted some local elections when voters in more than 100 communities elect boards of selectman, library trustees and other local positions.

A number of towns rescheduled their elections, but others have stayed open, on schedule.

In the nation's capital, non-essential federal employees were given the option of reporting three hours late, taking the day off or working from home. The city got less than 2 inches of snow.

A few days ago, workers on Washington's National Mall were making plans to turn on the fountains.

"Obviously all that has to come to an abrupt stop until we get all the snow cleared," Jeff Gowen, the acting facility manager for the National Mall and Memorial Parks told the Associated Press. "The cherry blossoms, they're right on the cusp of going into bloom here. I had a feeling this was going to happen."

In Illinois, state police said snowy weather caused two crashes on a Chicago expressway that involved a total of 34 cars. Seven people suffered minor injuries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Houston-area father was killed Saturday night while his wife and daughter watched -- after his killers got stumped by the car's stick shift.

DNA SAMPLES USED TO RECONSTRUCT FACE OF KILLER 30 YEARS LATER

Police were searching for three suspects in their late teens to early 20s who were spotted driving a silver or white four-door car, Fox 26 reported.

Two men tried to carjack Pedro Aguilar, 47, outside of his north Harris County apartment on Saturday night as Aguilar was trying to park his car. Aguilars wife and 10-year-old daughter were standing nearby helping him park.

TEEN GIRL'S BURNED BODY FOUND AT VEGAS APARTMENT COMPLEX

Police said one of the suspects ordered Aguilar out of the car and pistol-whipped him when they believed he was taking too much time. The two carjackers then got in the car but found they were unable to operate stick shift.

Before escaping, one of the men shot Aguilar in the chest, killing him.

A third person was driving the sedan the suspects used to escape.

Son Kevin Aguilar told Click2Houston his dad was The best person, my inspiration, my everything.

He added, He was always happy. Hed say, I want the best for you. Its difficult.
Victor Hubbard spent three years on the corner of El Camino and Nasa Roads in Clear Lake, Texas  waiting for his mother to return to collect him. But with some help from a local chef and some online generosity, the homeless and mentally-ill man now has a job, medical help and a roof over his head.

SHE GUARDED TRUMP'S STAR, BUT STILL HASN'T SAVED HERSELF FROM LA STREETS

In late December, owner of Clear Lakes Art of the Meal Ginger Sprouse created the Facebook page This is Victor and a GoFundMe page of the same name to share the story of Hubbard, documenting about how she wanted to learn his story and do something positive for someone who had become a close friend.

Hundreds of people drive past him every week and wonder what in the world his story might be. He is a sweet, gentle man that happens to be mentally ill, Sprouse wrote. If you have ever heard the expression falling through the cracks he is the definition.

BLIND DOG LOST FOR DAYS IN CALIFORNIA MOUNTAINS IS FOUND

She went on to encourage the community to come together to find Hubbard the help he needs.

That is priority one, once we get him stable in that regard it is my desire to see him in a peaceful home with friends to support him, Sprouse continued. Even a job.

And in just over two months, Sprouses ongoing GoFundMe page managed to exceed its $15,000 goal  raising almost $18,500  with 428 donors. Those funds this month gave Hubbard food, clothes, prescriptions and access to medical and mental facilities, and Sprouse has since personally hired him to ensure he wont return to the streets.

But perhaps the greatest development came three days ago, when he was reunited with his mother.

I got to talk to her, Hubbard told KHOU. And I really feel like I accomplished something.
Toni Anderson's boyfriend is speaking out after her car was discovered in the Missouri River in Parkville, Mo., on Friday. Police said they have no indication of foul play, but Pete Sanchez said he doesn't think her car ended up in the river on accident.

"It's just too easy for someone to get rid of a car, it's 24/7 all access and there's no gate covering it," Sanchez said, describing a boat landing dock not far from where Anderson's car was found.

ELABORATE HOUSTON DOUBLE-MURDER-FOR-HIRE PLOT HITS SNAG, PROSECUTORS SAY

Police have not released an official I.D. on the woman found inside Anderson's car, but her family said the woman was wearing the same clothes Toni was when she disappeared. They said police told them they could start planning funeral arrangements.

Sanchez said he doesn't feel closure even though Anderson's car was found.

"Every day I ask myself what would Toni want me to do? This is my will, I feel like her will is living through me and I am doing everything that she would want me to do," he said.

Sanchez said Anderson was a strong swimmer and a trained lifeguard. He said she was also on swim team and competed at the state level. He told FOX 4 he thinks she could have made it to safety.

Click here to read more from Fox 4.
14 Images

Powerful noreaster pounds region with heavy snow, sleet and rain

A powerful noreaster began its thrashing of the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast with heavy snow, sleet and rain.
Reports that SEAL Team Six is training in South Korea are false, a senior defense official told Fox News on Tuesday.

SEAL Team Six is a direct action and hostage rescue team, part of the national mission force, not the type of unit that would participate in a training exercise in South Korea, a separate U.S. defense official said.

NORTH KOREA'S KIM JONG UN: FROM PUNCHLINE TO WORLD MENACE

There are U.S. special operations teams -- including SEALs -- who always conduct training in the region with their South Korean counterparts, according to officials. They say the U.S. forces will continue to do so in the annual Foal Eagle exercise, currently running until the end of April. But SEAL Team Six is not part of this training.

Local U.S. special ops units will participate in the annual training with South Korea, amid recent North Korean provocations, including the communist regime launching four ballistic missiles earlier this month landing 190 miles from Japan.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Monday that various teams of U.S. forces would participate.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
An American United Nationals official was kidnapped along with other members of his team by an unidentified militia group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the entire team remained missing on Tuesday.

It was unclear when the group, which was traveling on motorcycles, was abducted on a bridge near the village of Ngombe. There was no information on who the kidnappers may have been, Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said.

Michael Sharp, 34, was working as a coordinator with the U.N. Group of Experts for the Democratic Republic of Congo. A Swedish official, three Congolese drivers and one translator also were kidnapped with Sharp on their way to an unidentified mission.

FLORIDA MOM REPORTEDLY ABDUCTED BY HUSBAND IS FOUND ALIVE

Sadly, it is true, Michaels dad, John Sharp, told NBC News. At one point, they were surprised, confronted and taken.

Judicial authorities in the region had opened an investigation and were working with the U.N. mission in Congo, MONUSCO, to free the group. The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa reported it was aware of the reports of Sharps abduction and the State Dept. said in a statement it was monitoring the situation.

"The U.S. Department of State has no higher priority than the protection of U.S. citizens overseas. When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities and cooperate fully in their search efforts," the statement said.

The DRC is home to multiple militias competing for stakes in this vast Central African nation's rich mineral resources.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Censorship of free speech and cultures that have become increasingly PC are not just phenomena on campuses across the U.S.  a new report shows that they are also having a chilling effect on more than half the campuses in the United Kingdom.

The British Internet magazine spiked, which focuses on politics and society, released its third-annual report on campus censorship in the United Kingdom, and the results paint a grim picture.

The Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR) looked at 115 universities throughout the U.K. using a traffic-light systemred light, being the worst, marks a prohibition on a certain type of speech; the yellow category prevents speech from being too provocative; and a green light rating marks a clean bill of health.

The 2017 analysis showed that 63.5 percent of universities in the United Kingdom actively censor speech, and 30.5 percent stifle speech through excessive regulation, creating what the magazine calls a steady rise in censorship during the past three years. Only 6 percent of universities in the U.K., the study says, are truly free.

They are regulating speech to a chilling degree across the board by restricting discussion of religion, transgenderism, offensive Halloween costumesyou name it and its cutting through most of the university sector, 25-year-old Tom Slater, coordinator of the Free Speech University Rankings at spiked, told Fox News. The underlying problem is political correctness. And, the problem is, if you allow that kind of censorship on campus, it tends to go unchecked and then its going to spread, with more and more people latching on.

Spiked said the reports results were produced through Freedom of Information requests and analysis of university student unions, published documents and policies, along with executive bans for universities over the past three years.

Examples of the regulations on free speech, according to Slater, including the ban of tabloid newspapers like The Sun as well as the censoring of Robin Thickes single Blurred Lines, which was banned at 25 universities in the U.K.

Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of U.S.-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, told Fox News that political correctness is an American thing that has spread to Britain in the last five years.

Britain is in a dead sprint trying to catch up to American universities, and the problem is that [the U.S.] is protected by the First Amendment and theyre not, Lukianoff told Fox News. Its hard to directly compare to the U.K., but is there a problem there? Yes. Absolutely.

Both Slater and Lukianoff said the type of censorship being seen on college campuses is chilling.

If you make people have to guess whether or not theyll be arrested for something they say, that is a chill on the First Amendment and on free speech, Lukianoff said.

Slater said the suppression of free speech at U.K. universities was further fueled by the election of President Trump, which poured gasoline over a problem that was already there. But it is social media, he said, that created and spread the PC-culture in the U.K.

The Trump phenomenon has just brought to the surface the quite hysterical approach people have to opposing views, Slater said. Social media has played a role, because it lets politicos on both sides of the pond share ideas, and that has been somewhat of a catalyst.

Slater said that students in the U.K. suppress speech in the name of liberalism and progressivism.

Things have gotten so bad and everyone has gotten caught up in this, Slater said. But I dont see anything liberalor progressivein offending free speech.
Employers across Europe can now ban workers from wearing visible religions symbols including the Islamic headscarf, the European Unions top court ruled on Tuesday, finding it would not constitute direct discrimination.

The ruling, seen as a victory for many in the political right wing, was the first of its kind amid a series of legal disputes surrounding womens rights to wear a hijab at work.

MUSLIM HEADSCARVES IN EUROPE: THE BATTLE HEATS UP

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that companies with legitimate reasons to project a neutral image could establish internal rules banning political, philosophical or religious symbols, saying the rule does not constitute direct discrimination, the Guardian reported.

However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employers services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination, the court said in a statement.

MINNESOTA MAN WAS NAZI COMMANDER, POLAND CLAIMS

The conclusion of the highest court of the 28-nation EU amounts to a victory for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a leading presidential contender, who wants to do away with all "ostentatious" religious symbols in the name of secularism.

The ruling applied only to private businesses, but clarified a long-standing question about whether partial bans by some countries on religious symbols can include the workplace.

In its ruling the ECJ considered the cases of two women, in France and Belgium, who were dismissed from their jobs for refusing to remove their headscarves.

In one of the cases, Samira Achbita had been a receptionist for the Belgian branch of G4S, the London-listed outsourcing and security company. After three years at the firm, Achbita started wearing a headscarf at work for religious reasons. The company said she had broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols and was fired in June 2006 after refusing to take off her scarf.

The company reportedly updated its workplace regulations after the woman started wearing a hijab.

In this case, the ECJ ruled that companies should be allowed to have policies banning the wearing of religious or political symbols.

The court of justice finds that G4Ss internal rule refers to the wearing of visible signs of political, philosophical or religious beliefs and therefore covers any manifestation of such beliefs without distinction. The rule thus treats all employees to the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally, the court said in a statement.

NETHERLANDS BAN TURKISH MINISTERS AS DISPUTE ESCALATES

In the case from France, design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was fired from her IT consultant job after a customer complained that his staff had been embarrassed by her headscarf while on their premises. She refused to remove her headscarf and was fired.

Before Bourgnaoui accepted that job, she was told that wearing a headscarf might pose problems for some of the companys customers, according to the Guardian.

The ECJ ruled that the French woman had suffered discrimination because she had been professionally competent and was fired only because she had refused to remove their headscarf.

Opinions were quickly divided. A European anti-racism network ENAR and Open Society Justice Initiative say all Muslim working women risk consequences. French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon, also promoting secularism, hailed the decision.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Events in the usually peaceful European country of the Netherlands are getting a lot of attention these days.

PUTIN HAILS RUSSIA-TURKEY TIES AS HE HOSTS SYRIA TALKS

Riots in Rotterdam recently were sparked by the Dutch governments blocking of Turkish officials entering Holland to rally expat voters for an upcoming Turkish referendum. Officials here say they did it in the name of security.

Turkish President Erdogan blasted the action. He branded the Dutch Nazi remnants. He slapped them with diplomatic sanctions and threatened more.

TURKEY'S 'NAZI' ACCUSATIONS DRAW GERMANY'S IRE

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, campaigning in The Hague before Wednesdays parliamentary vote, defended his actions to Fox News.

This depends on Turkey, he said. We didnt seek this fight.

Some say his bold actions are a response to the tougher talk from the far-right anti-Muslim populist politician Geert Wilders. Positions ranging from closing mosques to blocking Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands leaving the European Union have touched a chord with the Dutch public. Some polls had showed his Freedom party taking a lead in the upcoming vote, making officials here nervous.

I am absolutely convinced for the Netherlands and for the people, Rutte told Fox News, Geert Wilders doesnt solve the problems.

His standing has slipped recently. And with other parties refusing to go into coalition with him, he probably won't govern. But he is being felt.

He has an impact without being in government, Dutch political reporter Laurens Bowen said. Because he influences other parties on immigration, on border control, and on refugees.

The populist message of the man some call the Dutch Donald Trump can also be heard in the campaigns of upcoming elections across Europe. Some say it has already been heardacross the pond.
President Trumps special envoy for the Middle East peace process concluded his second day in the region Tuesday as he tries to revive discussions between the Israelis and Palestinians.

NETANYAHU: JOURNALIST'S CLAIM WIFE KICKED HIM OUT OF CAR 'A LIE'

Jason Greenblatt met first Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting lasted almost five hours, and the two discussed settlement construction in the West Bank as well as efforts to promote the peace process.

In meeting w/ @IsraeliPM @netanyahu, discussed regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements.  Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 13, 2017

He followed up Tuesday with a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

JORDAN RELEASES SOLDIER WHO KILLED 7 ISRAELI GIRLS IN 1997

In a tweet following the discussion, Greenblatt said, "President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement."

Mr. Greenblatt stressed how important enabling growth of Palestinian economy and improving quality of life for Palestinians are to @POTUS.  PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) March 14, 2017

He added that the two "had a positive, far-ranging exchange about the current situation."

Greenblatts visit marks the first major attempt by the new U.S. administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after two months that have seen officials hesitate on support for the two-state solution, the location of the U.S. embassy and settlements.

The office of Netanyahu, one of the first foreign dignitaries to visit Trump in office, said in an earlier statement that he believes that under President Trump's leadership, it is possible to advance peace between Israel and all its neighbors, including the Palestinians, and he looks forward to working closely with President Trump to achieve that goal."

Greenblatt also reaffirmed Trump's commitment to Israel's security and the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations.
Hyatt Announces Plans For First Hyatt Place Hotel In Japan

March 14, 2017 // Franchising.com // CHICAGO - Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) announced that a Hyatt affiliate has entered into a management agreement with Tokyo Bay Resort Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Sogo Development Co., Ltd. for a Hyatt Place hotel near Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan. Upon its expected opening in 2019, Hyatt Place Tokyo Bay will be the countrys first Hyatt Place hotel.

It is our great pleasure to introduce the Hyatt Place brand to Japan through our collaboration with Sogo Development Co., Ltd., said Hirohide Abe, senior vice president of Hyatt, Japan and Micronesia. This opening will mark a very important milestone for Hyatts brand growth strategy as the company expands its portfolio in key locations within the country to increase preference among guests.

Hyatt Place hotels offer casual hospitality and purposeful service in a smartly designed, high-tech and contemporary environment. Hyatt Place Tokyo Bay will be located at Urayasu City in Chiba Prefecture, less than three miles (4 kilometers) from Tokyo Disney Resort, one of Tokyos premier travel destinations. It is also conveniently located between both of Tokyos airports, 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Haneda Airport and 31 miles (50 kilometers) from Narita Airport. The 10-story hotel will offer 365 guestrooms including two suites, 1,900 square feet (180 square meters) of meeting space, an all-day dining facility, and a 24-hour gym.

We are excited to work with Hyatt to bring the first Hyatt Place hotel to Japan, said President and Chief Executive Officer Shinya Ozawa, Sogo Development Co., Ltd. The new Hyatt Place Tokyo Bay will have the feel of a resort with beautiful surroundings, including a park and views of Tokyo Bay, something that is sure to satisfy both business and leisure travelers. We will continue to work alongside Hyatt to create a hotel that is loved and valued by all guests while still meeting the high expectations of the people living in the area.

For more information, please visit www.hyattplace.com.

The term Hyatt is used in this release for convenience to refer to Hyatt Hotels Corporation and/or one or more of its affiliates.

About Sogo Development Co., Ltd.

Founded in November 1963, Sogo Development Co., Ltd. is a part of the Sogo Development Group, a holding company that develops, leases and manages real estate. Sogo Development Co., Ltd. develops, manages and leases commercial facilities and office buildings. With the Hyatt project as a cornerstone, the Company plans to actively develop and manage hotels.

About Hyatt Place

Hyatt Place, a brand of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, combines style, innovation and 24/7 convenience to create a seamless stay with modern comforts. There are more than 270 Hyatt Place locations in Armenia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Honduras, India, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Thailand, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. For more information, please visit hyattplace.com. Join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram, and tag photos with #HyattPlace and #WhySettle.

About Hyatt Hotels Corporation

Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 13 premier brands. As of December 31, 2016, the Company's portfolio included 698 properties in 56 countries. The Company's purpose to care for people so they can be their best informs its business decisions and growth strategy and is intended to create value for shareholders, build relationships with guests and attract the best colleagues in the industry. The Company's subsidiaries develop, own, operate, manage, franchise, license or provide services to hotels, resorts, branded residences and vacation ownership properties, including under the Park Hyatt, Miraval, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt, Andaz, Hyatt Centric, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Hyatt Ziva, Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Residence Club brand names and have locations on six continents. For more information, please visit hyatt.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-Looking Statements in this press release, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our actual results, performance or achievements may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of words such as may, could, expect, intend, plan, seek, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, continue, likely, will, would and variations of these terms and similar expressions, or the negative of these terms or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by us and our management, are inherently uncertain. Factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from current expectations include, among others, the rate and pace of economic recovery following economic downturns; levels of spending in business and leisure segments as well as consumer confidence; declines in occupancy and average daily rate; the financial condition of, and our relationships with, third-party property owners, franchisees and hospitality venture partners; the possible inability of third-party owners, franchisees or development partners to access the capital necessary to fund current operations or implement our plans for growth; risks associated with potential acquisitions and dispositions and the introduction of new brand concepts; changes in the competitive environment in our industry, including as a result of industry consolidation, and the markets where we operate; general volatility of the capital markets and our ability to access such markets; and other risks discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, which filings are available from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These factors are not necessarily all of the important factors that could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by any of our forward-looking statements. We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which are made only as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any of these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, new information or future events, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law. If we update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that we will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements.

Media Contacts:

Sian Martin

Hyatt

+1 312 780 5797

sian.martin@hyatt.com

Karen Chung

Hyatt  Asia Pacific

+858 2768 1271

karen.chung@hyatt.com

SOURCE Hyatt

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Tropical Smoothie Cafe Signs Franchise Agreement To Open 20 New Locations In Texas

March 14, 2017 // Franchising.com // 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 Glen Johnson to expand the brands presence throughout the state of Texas. Johnson will be opening 20 new cafes, the first of which opened earlier this month in Lubbock, Texas.

Glen Johnson has been an integral part Tropical Smoothies continued success and franchise development since signing his first agreement in 2011. Over the past several years, Glen has become one of our largest operators, fueling our growth and introducing the brand to new markets nationwide, said Mike Rotondo, CEO of Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Glens passion for and belief in Tropical Smoothie is what we look for in our franchise owners, and were eager to see what the future brings as he continues to propel his business and the company forward.

Glen Johnson, president of Little-Rock based company Rockland Ventures, joined the brand as a multi-unit developer in 2011 and currently has 22 open locations in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. With deep roots in the industry and a wealth of knowledge and experience, Johnson will continue his mission of providing customers with innovative healthy food and smoothie options as he opens new restaurants throughout Texas.

Im incredibly proud to be part of a brand that is not only committed to the customer experience, but also to the success of its franchisees, said Johnson. Tropical Smoothie experienced significant franchise growth last year and Im eager to continue that momentum with the opening of new restaurants across Texas.

This new agreement in Texas was fueled by Tropical Smoothie Cafes accelerated franchise development plans in 2017. On the heels of one of the strongest years in the companys 20-year history, the award-winning brand successfully propelled its expansion 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 open 100 restaurants nationwide and currently has franchise opportunities across the U.S. in markets such as Indianapolis, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, Cincinnati and Minneapolis, among others. By 2020, Tropical Smoothie Cafe plans to have 1,000 stores 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 companys 20-year history - with the top 50 percent reporting an AUV of more than $806,000.

Tropical Smoothie Cafes 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 teams deep franchise experience to help emerging brands accelerate their growth. In addition to Tropical Smoothie Cafe, the BIP Franchise Accelerators portfolio includes Tin Drum Asian Kitchen, which has grown to 11 locations in Georgia.

For more information about opening your own Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchise [http://tropicalsmoothiefranchise.com/], please fill out the Learn More form.

SOURCE Tropical Smoothie Cafe

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Uberrito's Second Phoenix-Area Location Coming Soon to Arcadia

Grand opening date set for March 23; Customers invited to register for free meal at March 21 sneak eat event.

PHOENIX, AZ - (Marketwired - March 09, 2017) - Uberrito announced today the opening date for its second Phoenix-area location. Uberrito's newest Arcadia restaurant will hold its grand opening Thursday, March 23, 2017 and is located at 4325 East Indian School Road, Suite 150 in the Arcadia Gateway shopping center.

The Arcadia restaurant will open as the second Arizona Uberrito location. The nearby Scottsdale location at 4912 E. Shea Blvd., Ste. 108, opened in March 2016. In addition to Uberrito's Phoenix-area restaurants, the company operates five Houston-area locations and has plans for substantial growth.

In celebration, Uberrito is offering an exclusive sneak peek invitation to try out the new Arcadia restaurant on Tuesday, March 21, two days before the grand opening. Uberrito will be serving complimentary food -- one free burrito, bowl, salad or nachos combo which includes a drink and a cookie per person -- all day long to registered guests. To receive an invitation, customers can visit https://uberrito-arcadia-sneakeat.eventbrite.com to select a 15-minute registration window.

"We look forward to opening our doors and sharing our trademark fresh-Mex food, flavor, variety and experience with the Arcadia community," said Marcus Jundt, CEO of Uberrito. "The Phoenix market has eagerly embraced our first location, and we look forward to continued growth and opportunities in Arizona and the Southwest."

Uberrito will soon announce March 23 grand opening specials, free food offers and festivities. All locations offer $5 chicken burritos and bowls every Monday and award double loyalty points to registered loyalty program members on Wednesdays.

Uberrito offers unlimited combinations with eight different proteins, 28 ingredients, eight house-made salsas and four flavors of fresh tortillas. Customers wishing to go tortilla free may opt for a bowl, salad or nachos layered in queso. The menu also includes "10 Tasty Tacos" and house-made tortilla soup.

About Uberrito

The Uberrito concept launched December 2014, building on the success of the former Mission Burrito founded in 1996 in Houston. The fast-casual concept goes above and beyond the basic burrito, offering customers flavor, variety and a unique dining experience. Menu items include unlimited combinations with eight different proteins, 28 ingredients, eight house-made salsas, and four flavors of fresh tortillas. Bowls, salads, house-made tortilla soup and "10 Tasty Tacos" are customer favorites. Visit Uberrito online at http://uberrito.com and on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Media Contact:

April Lynch

Principal - Lynchpin Strategic Communications

(713) 922-1895

april@lynchpincomms.com

SOURCE Uberrito

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John Conroy Jr. was told last year that he would have to leave the Spotsylvania County home hed been sharing with his live-in girlfriend and her then 15-year-old son.

But the 37-year-old Conroy never left the home alive. He was shot multiple times and killed inside one of the bedrooms.

Bailey Dean Doggett, who is now 16, is charged with second-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony in connection with the March 8, 2016, slaying. He is being tried as an adult in a jury trial that started Tuesday in Spotsylvania Circuit Court and is expected to last at least through Thursday.

No one disputes that Doggett fired the five shots that struck and killed Conroy that afternoon. But defense attorney Mark Gardner said in his opening argument that the evidence will show that Doggett was acting in defense of his mother and that the killing was legally justified.

Prosecutors Colleen Barlow and Crystal MontagueHolland are disputing the self-defense claim. Barlow said in her brief opening argument that Doggett was lying in wait when his mother, Mary Doggett, confronted Conroy that day about her decision to have him leave.

She said Mary Doggett gave her son a gun from her purse that day and told him to protect her and himself. Barlow said the amount of force used against Conroy that afternoon was unjustifiable.

According to the defense, Conroys death stemmed from his longstanding issues with a bipolar disorder that resulted in anger and mood swings. Gardner said Conroy was fine when he took his medication as prescribed, but often went long periods without doing so.

He said Conroy was seen as a bully figure by Bailey Doggett, who Gardner said was called bad names and picked on when Conroy was in one of his bad moods.

Gardner said things got worse starting in December 2015, when Conroy got hurt on the job and was unable to work. He said Mary Doggett had told her son multiple times that she was going to ask Conroy to leave the residence, but never did so until the fatal day.

Mary Doggett picked up her son that day prior to going home to break the news to Conroy. Gardner said both of them discussed his likely negative reaction.

Gardner said Mary Doggett gave her son the gun to hide to make sure Conroy didnt take it from her purse during the anticipated argument. Gardner said Bailey Doggett had no intentions of using the weapon.

Gardner said Bailey Doggett went to the bedroom after hearing what he believed was his mother being hit. He began firing after seeing his mother struck in the left side of her head and knocked to the floor.

This is a kid who had never been in any kind of trouble before, Gardner said. The suggestion that he was a calculating, cold-blooded murderer is ludicrous.

The prosecution is disputing the defense claim that Bailey Doggett saw his mother being hit. Barlow said the evidence would show that Mary Doggett screamed after the shooting, Oh, my God! He didnt hit me.
4:10 P.M. UPDATE:

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative has restored power to all but 158 customers. Most of those still out are in Caroline County. Dominion Virginia Power still has 1,216 customers without power in its Northern Virginia Region, with 1,165 of those in King George County.

Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative has restored power to all of its customers. Northern Neck Electric Cooperative has 90 customers without power, including 12 in King George, seven in Westmoreland and three in Stafford County.

The Virginia Department of Transportation urges motorists to use extreme caution if traveling tonight and tomorrow morning as low overnight temperatures may cause icy road conditions.

Wet pavement from melted snow and ice is likely to freeze overnight. Motorists may encounter black ice, which is a thin, nearly invisible layer of ice that forms on the road surface.

VDOT crews continue to work 24 hours a day in emergency operations, with about 400 trucks treating 2,250 lane miles of Fredericksburg-area roads with sand and salt. Even with treatment, road conditions may still be slippery. Drivers should use additional caution on bridges, ramps and overpasses, which freeze first due to lower surface temperatures.

Motorists should stay alert for debris caused by high winds. Tree crews were deployed across the Fredericksburg region today to re-open roads blocked by downed trees and tree limbs. Motorists can report road hazards and debris to VDOTs Customer Service Center 24 hours a day at 800/FOR-ROAD (367-7623).

What Residents Should Know

 If your sidewalk or driveway is slick, its a good indicator that the roads are too, and driving is not advised.

 If you must travel tonight or tomorrow morning, allow additional time to reach your destination.

 Clear your vehicle of snow and ice, especially on windows, mirrors and lights.

 Take it slow, and leave ample room between your vehicle and the one ahead of you.

 Avoid sudden stops and starts.

10:10 A.M. UPDATE: The combination of slushy wintry mix falling all night and gusty winds has knocked down trees and powers lines across the region.

Road closures are reported in Spotsylvania, Caroline and King George counties. Trees and power lines have been felled in Stafford, too, but there are no road closures reported in the county.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is tracking road conditions across the state.

Here is an update on Fredericksburg area roads, as of about 9:30 a.m.

In Caroline, roads there are reports of snow or icy patches, with some roads closed because of downed trees.

In King George, downed trees and power lines have led to road closures.

Icy patches are reported in the Fredericksburg area, with Interstate 95 in minor condition. In Stafford, some main roads are reported in moderate condition with snow or ice covering areas, including U.S. 1 and U.S. 17. There are reports of downed trees and power lines, but no road closures. Roads in Spotsylvania are reported as minor to moderate with icy or snow patches and a few roads closed because of fallen trees.

Roads to the north are mostly listed in minor condition with icy patches.

Dominion is reporting more than 39,000 customers without power in Virginia. Power outages are reported in Caroline (1,349); King George (2,267); Stafford (168); Spotsylvania (67); Orange (147); Louisa (178); and Culpeper (35).

Forecasts call for temperatures to rise above freezing during the day Tuesday. A mixture of snow and rain is expected to continue into Wednesday, with temperatures dropping back below freezing.

9:50 A.M. UPDATE: Power is gradually being restored to the Fredericksburg area.

Dominion Virginia Power is reporting 2,605 of its Northern Virginia customers are without power. This includes 2,195 in King George County, 132 in Stafford County and 71 in Spotsylvania County.

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative is reporting 2,746 customers without power including 1,243 in Caroline County and 150 in Spotsylvania.

Northern Neck Electric Cooperative is reporting 705 customers without power including 315 in King George and 19 in Westmoreland. Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative is reporting that no customers are without power.

UPDATE 7:45 a.m.: The Virginia Department of Transportation is warning Fredericksburg area motorists to stay off roads until conditions improve.

Power in the Four Mile Fork area it out, and the traffic light at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Courthouse Road is out.

VDOT says that while rare pavement may be visible, roads remain icy and hazardous in the region. A mixture of ice, sleet and snow that fell overnight has left slush covering many main and secondary roads in the region. Road conditions are worse to the north and west of the city of Fredericksburg, including U.S. 17 in Stafford County and State Route 208 in Spotsylvania County.

Caroline County officials say they have received numerous reports of trees down blocking roadways.

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative is reporting 5,245 customers are without power, 1,646 of those are in Caroline County. Dominion Virginia Power is reporting 6,779 of its Northern Virginia customers are without power, 4,879 of those are in King George County and 2,092 are in Spotsylvania County.

Northern Neck Electric Cooperative is reporting 856 customers are without power, 409 of those are in King George and 64 are in Westmoreland. Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative is reporting only 126 customers are without power.

VDOT crews continue to work to clear roads. The agency says it has about 400 trucks spreading salt and sand across the region.

Schools in the region are closed and many government offices have delayed opening this morning until conditions improve. A wintry mix is expected to continue to fall through the morning, but temperatures are expected to rise above the freezing mark around noon, helping to melt the ice.

ORIGINAL POST: After a winter of little action, and the second-warmest February in the United States on record, the next couple of days could prove very winter-like.

But it all could be just a bluff from Old Man Winter, who may send nothing more than cold rain to go with the cold temperatures that are pushing aside an early spring for at least a week.

Its all part of Winter Storm Stella, which is expected to slam the Northeast with blizzard-like conditions, possibly dumping a foot or more of snow in New Jersey and New York.

In the Fredericksburg region, an initial forecast of 6 to 8 inches of snow faded during the day Monday. Forecasters were saying Monday evening that the storm could deliver everything from several inches of snow to just a messy mix of snow, rain and sleet. Snow mixed with rain began to fall in Fredericksburg shortly before dusk Monday.

It will feel like winter, though. Wind gusts are expected to reach 25 mph and daytime temperatures are expected to hover in the 30s and low 40s the next couple of days, with a low of 24 degrees Tuesday and 20 on Wednesday.

Whatever the noreaster brings to the Fredericksburg area, the forecast raised the hackles of transportation agencies and police alike, who warned drivers to be prepared for wintry conditions.

Even if accumulation is light, the storm could impact Tuesday and Wednesday commutes.

Virginia Department of Transportation crews pretreated Interstate 95 with anti-icing agents on Monday in preparation for the winter storm. Crews will be ready to treat roads if needed.

VDOT hasnt been too busy this winter as snowfall has been minimal locally.

Last month, the average U.S. temperature was 41.2 degrees, according to scientists from NOAAs National Centers for Environmental Information. That average ranks as the second warmest February in the 123-year period of temperature records.

Much of Virginia also experienced record warm temperatures in February, and temperatures were above average this winter overall in the state, according to the NOAA report.
THIS TIME, President Trump seems to have launched a vetting program for refugees that has a chance of surviving.

His original plan to screen out terrorists was fairly good, and it had the support of a majority of Americans. Yet it also had serious flaws. Holders of green cards were not excepted, nor were those who had legitimate visas.

The first plan was launched in a way that attracted massive opposition, much of it well-organized by the presidents opponents, and only days after it had been announced, the vetting program was paralyzed by court action.

All that could have been avoided if Mr. Trump had acted more like a president and less like the owner of a small business. Our national government and Fortune 500 corporations do not move so precipitously.

Normally, all the potential ramifications of a presidential action are examined carefully by the experts before the White House takes action, but that did not happen in the case of his first executive order on vetting refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations. Mr. Trump has appointed one of the best Cabinets since Eisenhower and Kennedy, but he did not put that Cabinet to full use.

Mr. Trump did not have to begin the vetting so quickly. A delay of a few weeks would have enabled him to get his full contingent of Cabinet officers in place.

The only reason for such undue speed was to satisfy public opinion. As things have turned out, the public would have been better served if the president had been less hasty.

Usually, the heads of all the affected departmentsState, Defense, Homeland Security, and Justicewould have assembled and weighed in on both what actions they would take in carrying out the vetting and the problems they foresaw.

If Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been in office at the Department of Justice, he could have assessed the possible reaction of those who opposed Mr. Trump and even ensured that he had experts in place who were well-informed on the law and the issuesand were adequately prepared to defend the governments case.

If that had happened, the Justice Department probably would not have been caught unprepared when the state of Washington argued that its foreign student program was being impacted.

If given more warning, the Department of Homeland Security could have formed a policy on holders of green cards and visas that would have avoided turning away people who were eligible to enter the country.

Now that the White House has vetted its new order with all the involved agencies, those problems have been fixed. Moreover, on the urging of the State Department and others, restrictions on travelers from Iraq have been lifted.

Without a doubt, the presidents new order will be challenged by his opponents. [California on Monday joined Washington state, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Massachusetts and Minnesota in filing complaints against the new order.] But this measure has a far better chance of surviving, because it is far more workable and stands on a much more stable legal foundation.

The first order put a bad face on a program that existing law authorized the president to initiate.

It also left many of Mr. Trumps supporters wondering whether the man knew how to run an organization much larger than his relatively small collection of hotels, casinos, and office buildings.

His new and improved vetting program gives the impression Mr. Trump might have learned from his mistakes.

Rush Loving Jr. is a former business editor of the Times-Dispatch. He also has served as an associate editor of Fortune and chief spokesman of the Office of Management and Budget. He is the author of two books, The Men Who Loved Trains and The Well-Dressed Hobo.
Fracking for gas should be banned in Westmoreland

Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors should vote to ban fracking.

It would be a bold move that would serve as a startling, yet stern warning for oil and gas companies trying to do business in Virginia. They will have no future dictating what will benefit the publics health and safety.

Previous research conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency in Pennsylvania concluded that fracking can pollute surface and underground sources of drinking water. Which chemicals pollute the water? Well, we arent too sure since oil and gas companies do not disclose the chemicals they use during the hydraulic fracturing process there.

It is frightening that our neighbors may not know whether their well water is safe to drink or not. It is frightening that our delicate waterways may become polluted wastelands. It is frightening that the oil and gas companies make it nearly impossible to oppose their legislation. If enough people care about our drinking water and our pristine Northern Neck waterways, we can stand up to the oil and gas companies.

If youre outraged, write to the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors, attend the hearing on March 15, and spread the word! Clean water and public safety has no political affiliation and has no price tag!

Chase Mullins

Stafford
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Story Highlights Americans worrying a great deal up eight percentage points to 45%

New high of 62% says effects of global warming are happening now

Belief that global warming poses a serious threat stretches to 42%

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Record percentages of Americans are concerned about global warming, believe it is occurring, consider it a serious threat and say it is caused by human activity. All of these perceptions are up significantly from 2015.

Forty-five percent of Americans now say they worry "a great deal" about global warming, up from 37% a year ago and well above the recent low point of 25% in 2011. The previous high was 41%, recorded in 2007. Another 21% currently say they worry "a fair amount" about global warming, while 18% worry "only a little" and 16% worry "not at all."

Americans' level of worry about global warming has seesawed over the past two decades. Several plausible reasons for the fluctuations include the May 2006 release of "An Inconvenient Truth," highlighting U.S. Vice President Al Gore's aim to educate Americans about global warming, as well as controversy from 2009 to 2011 surrounding global warming research. The dip in concern between 2007 and 2011 also may reflect Americans' attention being diverted to the economy during the recession and post-recession years.

Unusual weather, particularly record-breaking warm temperatures in the U.S. in recent years, may explain increases in public concern.

Gallup's 2017 Environment survey was conducted March 1-5 on the heels of the country's second-warmest February on record. The pattern was similar in March 2016 when Gallup recorded a five-percentage-point spike in the percentage of Americans who worried a great deal about global warming following that year's unseasonably warm February.

In addition to warmer weather, anxiety about President Donald Trump's environmental stance could be a factor in Americans' heightened concern about global warming this year. The new poll found 57% of Americans saying Trump -- who has called global warming a "hoax" -- will do a poor job of protecting the environment. That far exceeds the percentages of Americans predicting the same for Barack Obama or George W. Bush at the start of each one's first term.

Record High Believe That Effects of Global Warming Are Evident

Sixty-two percent of Americans now believe the effects of global warming have already begun to happen. That eclipses the previous high of 61% recorded in 2008 and is up from 49% in 2011.

Americans' belief that global warming is already creating problems is about as high now as it was in 2007 and 2008. Although temperatures were not unusually high leading up to those surveys, the idea that climate change was causing extreme weather, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, had become a national discussion. Gallup polls at the time showed Democrats especially concerned about the effects of global warming. Concern dipped in 2009 as focus may have shifted to the recession and controversies such as Climategate in 2009 and 2011. The latter may have temporarily raised public doubts about the validity of climate research.

Beyond the 62% of Americans who believe the effects of global warming have already begun, another quarter thinks they will happen eventually -- either within a few years (4%), within their lifetime (7%) or further into the future (16%). Just 9% say they will never happen.

Americans' Increasingly Blame Human Activity

Sixty-eight percent of Americans -- the highest Gallup has recorded -- believe increases in Earth's temperatures over the last century are mainly due to the effects of pollution from human activities. Just 29% now attribute global warming to natural changes in the environment. These opinions were gathered prior to the Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, saying he is not persuaded that human activity is a primary factor in global warming.

Additionally, 71% of Americans -- also a record high -- agree that most scientists believe global warming is occurring. This is up from 65% a year ago and is easily the highest Gallup has recorded since 1997. The low point was 52% in 2010.

Although Americans widely acknowledge global warming and humans' role in it, a key reason climate change ranked last in importance as a voting issue in 2016 may be that the public discounts the severity of the problem -- at least in the short term. Less than half (42%) believe global warming will pose a serious threat to themselves or their way of life in their lifetime. This percentage is the highest Gallup has recorded in over two decades but is essentially unchanged from 2016.

Bottom Line

U.S. public concern about global warming has ebbed and flowed over the past decade and a half but has generally been on an upswing since hitting a recent low point in 2011. Concern has increased each of the past two years, coinciding with an improved economy and back-to-back unseasonably warm winters.

Whatever the reason, the percentage of Americans worrying a great deal about global warming is at a record high, as is Americans' belief that its effects have already begun and that human activity is the major cause. Still, less than half worry greatly about global warming or believe it poses a serious threat to their lives.

A subsequent Gallup report will explore the 2017 findings and trends by subgroup to show whether the increased concern this year is shared broadly or confined to certain groups.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Readers, we need your help to prove a merry Christmas for victims of domestic violence.
Want to buy a castle? This French chateau will only cost you $58. Here's what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and Out the Door. (You can also get "5 Things You Need to Know Today" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

1. SAUDI ARABIA

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo touched down in Turkey's capital this morning to talk with officials about the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. International pressure is growing on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who disappeared this month after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Saudis, sources told CNN, are prepared to say Khashoggi, a critic of the regime, died in an interrogation gone wrong. CNN has also learned the incident was organized by a high-ranking Saudi officer with ties to the kingdom's crown prince. President Trump has defended Saudi Arabia, prompting criticism that his brand of foreign policy is not rooted in traditional US values regarding human rights.

2. HURRICANE MICHAEL

It's been a week since Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle, and everyone's still trying to get a good handle on the misery. The death toll is still rising, up to at least 29 deaths in four states. Searchers are finding more bodies as the waters recede. And authorities fear some people who didn't evacuate might be buried under piles of wood, metal and concrete in the worst-hit areas in Florida, which now has an online form to report the missing. Residents of Mexico Beach, the coastal town pretty much wiped out by Michael, can now visit their properties to survey damage and salvage items.

3. BREXIT

Fears that the UK will leave the European Union early next year without some kind of transition deal have never been higher. Talks on the issue stalled over the weekend, so British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet with EU leaders today to get things back on track. The big sticking point is the Irish border. The EU wants the UK to agree to a "backstop" or fallback position that would ensure no checkpoints between Northern Ireland, which will be outside the EU, and the Republic of Ireland, which will remain an EU member state.

But getting rid of checkpoints was a key part of the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland after years of deadly violence. May argues the status quo would amount to splitting the UK into different customs zones, which is a political nonstarter. Thus, the impasse. Many in the UK are concerned that leaving the EU without a deal could lead to chaos, like food shortages, grounded planes, new tariffs, customs delays and price hikes.

4. CANADA AND MARIJUANA

It's now OK for our nice neighbors to the north to light one up. Recreational marijuana became legal in Canada today. Canadian adults can now carry and share as much as 30 grams of legal pot in public, thanks to a bill passed back in the summer. Canadians can also grow up to four marijuana plants at home and make products, such as edibles, for personal use. Legalizing weed is expected to create a $4 billion industry in Canada. Here in the US, nine states and Washington DC allow recreational marijuana use.

5. LOTTERIES

What a time to be alive! Both the Mega Millions and Powerball lotteries offer huge jackpots right now. Combined, they're worth more than a billion dollars. The Mega Millions jackpot is at least $868 million -- the largest prize in the game's history and the second largest in US lotto history. No one won in last night's drawing, so get ready for the frenzy before the next drawing on Friday. Meanwhile, Powerball's jackpot is $345 million. The next Powerball drawing is tonight, so if you want to play, you better get to the convenience store!

BREAKFAST BROWSE

Bingbing is back

Fan Bingbing, the Chinese film star who disappeared months ago after allegations of tax avoidance, popped back up in Beijing.

Going Gaga

Lady Gaga thanked her "fiance" during a speech earlier this week, and all the Little Monsters stopped and said, "Wait, what?"

Holy book

A Jewish prayer book, owned and annotated by film legend Marilyn Monroe, is going up for auction.

Standing strong

Much of Mexico Beach, Florida, was obliterated by Hurricane Michael. But not this house, and it's not a surprise why.

TODAY'S NUMBERS

3.3%

That's how much wages in the US grew in the third quarter, the Labor Department reported. That was enough to beat the rise in inflation and proof that the super-hot job market is finally growing Americans' paychecks.

0

The number of shootings reported to police over the weekend in New York City. It's the first time that's happened in at least 25 years.

TODAY'S QUOTE

"She was going to do what she was going to do. She never listened to a damn person in her life."

Actor John Goodman (as Dan Conner) talking about his TV wife Roseanne Conner (but he could have been talking about actress Roseanne Barr, too) in the first episode of "The Conners," which revealed Roseanne's fictional fate. Barr's racist Twitter tirade led to the cancellation of "Roseanne."

AND FINALLY

Don't believe me? Just watch

You won't believe the moves the four-legged robot Spot comes up with while dancing to "Uptown Funk." (Click to view.)
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Build your health & fitness knowledge Sign up here to get the latest health & fitness updates in your inbox every week! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy
The Fish and Wildlife Commission will meet Friday, March 17, at the Benton County Fairgrounds to reconsider its rules on Columbia River Fisheries Reform adopted Jan. 20.

Fridays meeting starts at 8 a.m. at Guerber Hall, 110 SE 53rd St. in Corvallis. Agenda information is posted at this website: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/agency/commission/minutes/17/03_march/index.asp

On Thursday, commissioners will tour several projects in the area including Bald Hill Farms, E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area, Smithfield Oaks and the Buena Vista Ramp Boat Project. Members of the public are welcome to join the tour but must provide their own transportation and lunch. Meet at the Holiday Inn Express, 781 NE Second Ave. in Corvallis by 8:30 a.m. on Thursday to join the tour.

On Friday, the commission will revisit the rules it adopted in January for the long-term management of lower Columbia River salmon fisheries. On Jan. 20, the commission adopted fisheries reform rules designed to improve the financial returns for commercial fisheries relative to both an economic baseline and to pre-policy allocation and gear shifts. Rules enacted eliminated gillnets from spring fisheries but not in other seasons, and differed substantively from the policy adopted by the state of Washington.

The commission will act on a request from Gov. Kate Brown to reconsider its January decision. Brown has stressed the importance of concurrence with Washington regulations.

Also at the meeting, the commission will:

 Receive a briefing on the upcoming ocean salmon seasons.

 Consider the acquisition of the property adjacent to the existing Buena Vista Boat Ramp on the Willamette River so the popular boat ramp can be improved to improve boater safety, increase accessibility at the site, and enhance recreational opportunities.

 Be asked to rename the River Ranch Parcel of the Lower Deschutes Wildlife Area the Woosley Tract to recognize the lifelong contributions that Chuck and Gail Woosley of Corvallis have made to the project.
A free program designed to help adult learners come back to school is being offered through Linn-Benton Community College.

The new program, called Empower, is a strength-based, supportive learning program to help adults transition into LBCC and be successful in college.

The program aims to help adult learners realize their potential, develop a network of college and community support, and become empowered in lifelong success in college, professional and personal development.

Program classes are free and focus on college and career readiness, self-development, self-assessment, goal-setting and planning, support network development, and overall well-being.

Classes meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and include computer skills, time management, communication skills, critical thinking skills, employment skills, learning styles, how to identify your strengths and more.

For more information, contact Malinda Shell at 541-917-4529 or email at shellm@linnbenton.edu.
Residents can learn more about investing in small Oregon businesses during a presentation from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Corvallis Odd Fellows Hall, 223 SW Second St.

The presentation is on the Oregon Intrastate Offering exemption, commonly referred to as a community public offering.

Oregon businesses that are currently raising funds through this innovative funding method will be represented at the event.

The presentation is free to attend, though cash donations will be accepted for the South Corvallis Food Bank. Refreshments and light appetizers will be served.

The event is sponsored by Carts and Tools Supply Inc., which is presently doing a community public offering, and the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition.
Nonpartisan analysts project that 14 million people would lose coverage next year under the House bill dismantling former President Barack Obama's health care law. The estimate is a blow to Republicans.

Monday's estimate by the Congressional Budget Office says the number of uninsured would grow to 24 million by 2026.

The projections give fuel to opponents who warn the measure would toss millions of voters off insurance plans. Criticism has come from Democrats, Republicans from states that benefit from Obama's law and many corners of the health-care industry.

President Donald Trump backs the GOP plan.

Republican leaders have said their aim is to lower health care costs. They say coverage statistics are misleading because many people covered under Obama's law have high out-of-pocket costs that make health care unaffordable.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Police search for owner of stolen goods : Who owns these watches?

Wem gehoren diese Uhren? Die Ermittler sind auf der Suche nach den Besitzern. Foto: Polizei Bonn

Bonn Watches, rings, earrings and cameras: Police are asking the public for help in locating the owner of these goods which are believed to be stolen.

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Investigators seized many stolen objects on Thursday from a 42-year-old man. They could trace the items back to a break-in which took place in Friesdorf on January 17. They also found many other items which they believe to be stolen. Despite intensive research, however, police were not able to link those objects to a specific burglary.

Police are looking for the owner of three watches, nine rings, earrings, three Canon reflex cameras and diverse objective lenses.

Photos of the watches have been published to help investigators locate the owners. Who do the watches belong to and from where were they stolen? Has anybody recently experienced the theft of rings, earrings, or Canon reflexive cameras and lenses?

Anyone who may have information is asked to please contact the police at: (0228) 1 50.
Infectious disease at a Bonn school : Young teaching assistant dies of tuberculosis

Bonn A young teaching assistant at a primary school became infected with tuberculosis and died. One child at the school was also found to be carrying the tuberculosis pathogens. Parents are now criticizing the information policy of the Bernhard School in Auerberg.

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A 19-year-old who worked as a teaching assistant at the Bernhard School in Auerberg, died on February 22 of tuberculosis. Apparently, the bacterial disease was not the sole reason for her death. Officials said the young woman primarily supervised a child with special integration needs.

Some parents raised complaints against the city and school authorities that they had not been properly informed. Parents association member, Ines Basten said, Many are criticizing that only a part of the parent body was informed. We also have kids at school whose parents dont speak German very well and they dont know where to get information. Some parents criticized the fact that not all children were examined. Deputy spokesperson for the city of Bonn, Marc Hoffman responded by saying, We informed immediately. The city learned of the disease on January 27 and on February 1, there was an information evening for affected parents. They did not want to unnecessarily alarm the other parents.

Two days following the information evening, the health department medically examined 60 children by means of a skin test. Those who were tested had been in contact for a longer period of time with the infected person. Because one cannot contract the disease after just a short period of exposure, it was deemed unnecessary to test all students.

As a result of the examinations that were carried out, one child was found to carry the tuberculosis pathogens but the health department ruled out that the young teaching assistant had passed it on to the child. It was a latent tuberculosis which should not be put at the same level or confused with an active case, according to the health department. The child was not in danger, it would receive preventative medical treatment and still be allowed to attend school.

Ernst Molitor from the Institute for Infectiology and Infection Protection of the University of Bonn explained that tuberculosis can be easily treated when recognized early. It was an absolute exception that someone in Germany died because of it. Bacteria that cause tuberculosis are spread through the air from an infected, untreated person to others by sneezing, coughing or speaking. The city health department sent out an information letter to parents, reacting to their concerns about the disease.
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.
Uber amid pressing problems: Company's President blogs to clarify issues News oi -Priyanka It all started in 2009 when the company launched its services, the company had to fight regulatory and legal battles all over the world.

Uber is apparently going through a bumpy ride as the company is in news for all wrong reasons like sexual harassment case and allegations of stealing self-driving car technology from Google, a viral video that showed Uber CEO Travis Kalanick arguing with a driver (when Uber drivers in India were on strikes) and the recent protest regarding low fares disrupted daily Uber commuters in Bengaluru and Delhi.

It all started in 2009 when the company launched its services, the company had to fight regulatory and legal battles all over the world. By 2015 they had been embroiled in at least 70 different legal challenges and recently Uber drivers were protesting agaist unfair pricing and "inhuman" working conditions.

Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea: Tariff war

Over 400 drivers gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to demand increase in the fare from the current Rs. 6 per km. They also demanded relaxation in work hours and accident insurance.

And to clear this issue President of Uber India, Amit Jain tried to address some of the driver concerns through a blog on Friday.

Jain tried to explain and answer a few questions regarding the protests in a blog post he also apologised for the disruption over the past few weeks. He mentions that only small number of individuals were involved in the strike, which prevented other drivers from working as well. He also referred to uberSAMAAJ, a driver-focused discussion group, and said that he and his team look to resolve driver queries and issues.

He discussed about the working hours and salaries of drivers, saying, "Currently, 80 percent of drivers across India who are online for more than six hours a day make between Rs. 1,500 and Rs. 2,500 net, after Uber's service fee."

"The future of our business depends on making driving with Uber the most attractive choice. And as our business has grown over three years in India, we are seeing sustainable earning opportunities for driver partners and sustained interest in driving with Uber, with a 60 percent year-on-year increase in driver sign ups in January 2017," he added.

Micromax plans to invest Rs. 600 crore in consumer durables

Jain also talks about incentives. He says that drivers earn money from fares paid by riders, but also from incentives (for instance a driver may earn a certain amount of money once they've hit a certain number of trips). These incentives vary widely by individual drivers. We are constantly seeking to understand, assess and improve both earnings from fares and our incentives structure.

The blog added that affordable prices for riders that allow the service to grow need to be considered at the same time drivers need to know that when they switch on the app, there will always be people looking for a ride. "Striking a balance isn't always easy, but without attractive earnings for drivers the service simply wouldn't work."

It added that Uber is watching carefully to ensure drivers do not get into difficulty with vehicle financing, especially after the recent violence and intimidation which prevented many from using the app.

Drivers' associations in Delhi and Bengaluru, were demanding to increase fares to Rs 12-15 per kilometre and provide benefits such as insurance for all drivers on the platform. In the past one month, Uber has increased prices 10 percent across cities, rolling back in the process some of the incentives it offered the drivers.

Click Here for New Smartphones Best Online Deals

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Android O: Name, expected features and much more Features oi -GizBot Bureau Here are some of the features that you can expect in the upcoming Android version.

While half of us are spending quality time with the Android Nougat, the brain behind this are reportedly working on its next iteration that is expected to start with the Alphabet 'O'. Having said that, there really aren't many sweet names that start with 'O', except few including Oreo.

Falling in line with this, Android's head Hiroshi Lockheimer has been teasing indirectly via his official Twitter account, hinting at 'Oreo' as a likely candidate for the upcoming Android version.

The search engine giant Google usually announces its new Android OS update on the Google I/O conference, which is scheduled for May 17-19 at the Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, California.

SEE ALSO: Google's myAndroid Taste Test helps users create perfect Home Screen

Recently, some reports surfaced online sharing the information regarding the features of Android's next update or the so-called Android 8.0. Today, we have compiled a list of feature that could be part of Android O update later this year.

[Note: The below list might or might not be true, so we advise you to take this with a pinch of salt]

Copy less feature With this feature, users can now copy and paste information from one app to another in an effortless manner. This feature basically allows the phone to detect the relevant information intuitively from the source that you could copy and will suggest you the related options without letting you copy or search for it again. This feature is expected to make use of Google's Machine Learning algorithms and predictive analysis as well. However, we are not clear if the feature will be added to the Android itself or just to the Gboard app. Address sharing The second rumored feature in the Android O will significantly reduce the complications when dealing with the addresses. If you click on an address in a text message, the address will open in Google Maps, which is similar to that of iOS. Here, Google's Artificial Intelligence will be used to find the address link in the message and search for it in Google Maps without copy-pasting the address. Smart gesture Just like Chinese smartphones including Huawei, Xiaomi and OnePlus, Google is planning to implement smart gesture feature, where the user can open the app just drawing the starting letter. For example, if you want to open the music player, you need to draw 'M' on the display. Advanced VR Undoubtedly, 2016 was the year of Virtual Reality (VR), where the tech market saw a slew of launches including HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR and much more. While Google offered Day Dream VR for Android 7.1 Nougat, it is expected to get better with Android 8.0. Monthly patches With Android O on board, one can expect monthly patches that address security exploits. Having said that, security has always been the major concern for the Android platform. These improved Monthly patches will be the important tool to make and keep Android users safe. Click Here for New Smartphones Best Online Deals

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Oppo F3 Plus the dual selfie camera smartphone to be launched on 23 March News oi -Samden Sherpa Oppo F3 Plus will feature the dual-lens selfie camera and will be launched on March 23.

Well, when we talk about dual lens camera smartphones the picture that comes to our mind is the cameras that are featured with common phones like Apple 7 Plus or the budget smartphone Honor 6X that has been launched recently.

However, one of the popular Chinese brands Oppo seems to be turning the dual-lens cam trend around. How? The company is now putting them on the front of its new phone the F3 Plus. As per the company, this move comes as a way to offer the smartphone exclusively for the "Selfie Expert". So this new setup will help selfie lovers to capture high-quality images in a 16MP main camera and 8MP sub-camera.

Oppo F3 Plus key specs leak; confirm dual selfie camera

While all this sounds interesting, Oppo has also just announced that it will be simultaneously launching its new dual selfie camera F3 Plus smartphone of F3 series across five markets on 23rd March 2017. The five key markets being India, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Besides, large advertisements have already been displayed on landmark buildings in Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam with the highlight being in Times Square, New York.

Oppo R9S to come in a new exciting color variant

Commenting on the company's move, Sky Li, OPPO Global Vice President and President of OPPO India, said, "At OPPO, product innovation drives everything that we do, and it is our key brand value. The F3 Series will take selfie technology to another level as well as it sets new trends. We are confident it will be a great success and will set a standard that others will follow."

Oppo, on the other hand, by introducing the new tech in its smartphone will look to capitalize on the success of its 'Selfie Expert' Series of smartphones - the F1, F1 Series and F1s.

Best Mobiles in India
Taipei, Beijing quarrel over arrest in 'spying' case

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 5:57AM

A senior Taiwanese official says China does not correctly understand self-ruled Taiwan's judicial system, days after Beijing accused Taiwan of seeking to stir up tensions by arresting a Chinese national over espionage charges.

Taiwanese authorities detained a Chinese student on suspicion of breaching national security laws on Friday, according to a court official. China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Ma Xiaoguang reacted to the detention by describing it as "deliberate fabrication."

On Monday, Taiwan's Deputy Justice Minister Chen Ming-tang hit back by saying that the Chinese official's remarks indicated Beijing's "misunderstanding of Taiwan's judicial system and Taiwan's democratic system."

"Basically, we will handle this according to law," Chen said. "We will not make up charges."

Chen also denied that Taipei was using the case to provoke tensions with Beijing. He said the arrest had been made in accordance with a mutual legal assistance pact between Taiwan and Beijing and China's public security bureau had been notified of the detention.

Taiwan has said an investigation into the case is ongoing and that information about the case is classified.

China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province. Relations between mainland China and Taiwan have been especially fraught since Tsai Ing-wen, of Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, rose to power in the island following a presidential election in 2016.

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Serbia Defense Chief Says Putin Soon To Approve Delivery Of Fighter Jets

March 12, 2017

The Serbian defense chief says he expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to soon approve delivery of six MiG-29 fighter jets to Serbia.

Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic told the Blic newspaper on March 12 that Putin's approval for the cost-free delivery of the jets is just a formality.

Officials said refurbishing of the MiGs, which will come out of Russia's air force reserves, will cost about 185 million euros.

"It's in our interest that the MiGs arrive as soon as possible so we start their repairs and modernization," Djordjevic told Blic.

The deal was negotiated last year by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic during a visit to Russia.

Serbia is being pulled in two directions: It has a stated goal of joining the European Union while many people want to maintain the country's traditional close ties to Russia.

The populist Vucic has said he wants to accomplish both goals -- lead Serbia into the EU but also improve ties with Moscow.

Vucic is running for the presidency, a mainly ceremonial role, in the country's April 2 election.

Based on reporting by AP and Blic online

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/serbia-mig- jets-russia-putin/28365187.html

Copyright (c) 2017. 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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Military Strikes Continue Against ISIS Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, March 13, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted five strikes consisting of eight engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike destroyed an oil refinement still and work rig.

-- Near Raqqa, four strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed two fighting positions and an ISIS headquarters.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted eight strikes consisting of 82 engagements against ISIS targets, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Mosul, six strikes engaged six ISIS tactical units, an ISIS staging area and an ISIS sniper team; destroyed 16 fighting positions, five vehicle bombs, four mortar systems, two rocket-propelled grenade systems, two supply caches, two vehicle bomb factories and a vehicle; damaged 22 supply routes; and suppressed 14 ISIS mortar teams, two ISIS tactical units and an ISIS sniper team.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed six ISIS-held buildings, two weapons caches and a bunker.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does 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.

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Iraqis Fight for Western Mosul in Tough Battle Against ISIS

By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2017  Iraqi security forces are battling Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters in western Mosul's government center complex in its operation to liberate their country's second-largest city from ISIS control, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters today.

"The fighting is getting tough there," he said, adding that the Iraqi forces have severed a section of Highway 1, which now "sub-isolates" Mosul.

Stiff Enemy Resistance

As the battle to liberate western Mosul entered its 23rd day of operations yesterday, Davis said, the Iraqi counterterrorism service continued clearance operations against stiff enemy resistance while federal police conducted defensive operations.

To the north and east of the Tigris River, the 16th Iraqi Army Division retained the water treatment plant and continued clearance operations along the Euphrates River, he noted.

In the eastern and western sectors of the city, the Iraqi forces have retaken 4,000 square kilometers of territory -- nearly 2,500 square miles -- since overall Mosul offensive began Oct. 17, Davis said. The coalition conducted six strikes in last 24 hours in support of western Mosul operations, totaling 78 engagements and 213 munitions, he added.

Raqqa Isolation Deepens

In Syria, the city of Raqqa is increasingly isolated, the captain said. "It's hard for ISIS fighters, equipment [and] leadership to be able to move freely in and out of Raqqa further down to the other parts of their 'caliphate,'" he said.

The Syrian Democratic Forces have cleared a large area north of the Euphrates River, and they are pressing up against Raqqa to the north of the city, Davis said.

"We have struck the Euphrates bridges across from Raqqa, and the SDF cut off the remaining road north of the Euphrates," he said, adding that one route remains for ISIS to be able to have free communication down river to areas such as Dayr Az Zawr.

Davis said the SDF fighters have retaken more than 7,000 square kilometers -- more than 4,300 square miles -- since the operation to isolate Raqqa began. Syrian-Arab Coalition forces also made territorial gains yesterday, he added, with another 112 square kilometers -- about 69 square miles -- along the two axes east of Raqqa as they continue isolation operations in the southeast.

In northern Syria, Turkish-supported Syrian opposition forces continue defensive operations to de-mine and disarm homemade bombs.

"Even as ISIS has moved further south, the clearance continues in Al-Bab with the Turkish-supported opposition forces," Davis said. "We now have regime forces that have moved all the way across to the Euphrates River at Lake Assad in control of a continuous strip that starts in Aleppo."

Army Rangers in Manbij

A small number of Army Rangers are in and around Manbij performing reassurance and deterrence missions," Davis said. The Rangers were put in place when the U.S. military saw a situation developing where "the different parties on the ground were at risk of skirmishing with each other and fighting each other," he explained

"We want to see all parties focused on the common enemy: ISIS," Davis said. "Thus far, our presence there has achieved that."

In the past 24 hours, the U.S.-led coalition has conducted four strikes consisting of six engagements and 40 munitions in support of operations in Syria against ISIS targets in support of SDF operations to isolate Raqqa, Davis said.

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NATO Secretary General's Annual Report shows how the Alliance is adapting to face a more dangerous world

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

13 Mar. 2017

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg published his annual report today (Monday 13 March), showing how in 2016 the Alliance, "took further steps to keep our almost one billion citizens safe."

The report highlights how NATO is adapting to the new security environment by strengthening its collective defence and projecting stability beyond its borders.

Four multinational battlegroups are being deployed to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. At least seventeen Allied countries will contribute troops.

While enchancing its deterrence measures in the eastern part of the Alliance, NATO has had political dialogue with Russia and held three meetings of the NATO-Russia Council last year.

The Secretary General underlined how the Alliance is doing more to project stability, such as by training local forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to fight terrorism. NATO has also sent training teams to countries including Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.

NATO AWACS planes are supporting the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL and a new Intelligence Division has been created by NATO to deepen its understanding of the threats it faces.

Mr Stoltenberg explained how the Alliance has turned a corner on defence spending. In 2016 twenty-three Allies increased their defence expenditure in real terms by 3.8 %, which added up to ten billion US dollars.

The Secretary General confirmed only five Allies spent 2% or more of GDP on defence in 2016. He said, "It is realistic that all Allies should reach this goal. All Allies have agreed to it at the highest level and it can be done."

Mr Stoltenberg pointed out European Allies together spent 2% of GDP on defence as recently as the year 2000. He was encouraged that Romania plans to reach 2% this year and both Latvia and Lithuania expect to do the same in 2018.

The Secretary General encouraged Allies to redouble their efforts on defence spending and said it would be a key focus at the upcoming meeting of NATO leaders.



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Afghan forces free 32 detainees from Taliban prison in Helmand

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 7:16PM

Afghan security forces have launched an attack on a prison controlled by Taliban militants in the country's restive south, freeing up to 32 detainees.

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said special forces stormed the Taliban-run prison in Nad Ali district in the southern troubled province of Helmand late on Sunday after gathering intelligence that the militants had been holding dozens of civilians and security personnel in captivity there.

Four of those freed were policemen and the rest were civilians, according to a statement by the ministry.

In a similar raid last May, Afghan special forces freed more than 60 prisoners held by Taliban in the same province, which has long been a stronghold of the militant group.

Over the past months, Afghan security forces have been busy foiling attacks by Taliban in Helmand and the northern city of Kunduz, the capital of a province with the same name.

Helmand has long been a stronghold of the group.

The militant group lost its grip over Afghanistan in the 2001 US-led military invasion, but security has not been delivered to the country despite the presence of foreign boots on Afghan soil.

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US deploying Gray Eagle drone system in South Korea

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 4:5PM

The US military is moving to permanently deploy an attack drone system at an air base in South Korea, which could target North Korean military installations.

The US Forces Korea announced Monday that a Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems will be stationed at Kunsan air base south of Seoul.

"The US Army, after coordination with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces and the US Air Force, has begun the process to permanently station a Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) company at Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea," it said in a statement.

The deployment is part of a broader plan to reinforce each Army division in South Korea with one Gray Eagle company.

"The [unmanned aerial system] adds significant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability to US Forces Korea and our [South Korean] partners," said Christopher Bush, a USFK spokesman.

An unnamed South Korean military official told the Yonhap news agency that the drone would bolster the South's capabilities to strike ground targets in neighboring North Korea.

"In case of a war on the Korean Peninsula, the unmanned aircraft could infiltrate into the skies of North Korea and make a precision strike on the war command and other major military facilities," the official was quoted as saying.

The Gray Eagle, which is an advanced version of the Predator, is capable of carrying four Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, which can be used for precision strikes.

Last Monday, the US also announced the deployment of an anti-missile system in South Korea.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is equipped with a powerful detection system known as an X band radar.

Regional powers Russia and China have both strongly criticized the deployment of the US missile system to South Korea.

Experts say the missile system would destabilize regional security and upset the region's current military balance.

Washington accelerated the deployment after North Korea said its latest missile tests were practice for attacking US military bases in Japan.

The US has about 28,500 troops in South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

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Egyptian prosecutor allows for ex-dictator Mubarak's release

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 3:37PM

An Egyptian prosecutor has allowed for former dictator Hosni Mubarak to be released from detention after an appeals court acquitted him of involvement in the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 revolution.

Mubarak's lawyer, Farid al-Deeb, confirmed on Monday that the ousted president, who has been in detention at a military hospital in Cairo, was now free to go home.

"He can go home now when the doctors decide he is able to," al-Deeb said.

The lawyer, however, noted that Mubarak is banned from leaving Egypt pending an ongoing graft investigation.

Egypt's top appeals court in early March acquitted Mubarak of involvement in the killing of protesters during an 18-day revolution which began in January 2011.

The former president was originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for conspiring to murder hundreds of demonstrators during the revolt that ended his nearly three-decade reign.

He was also found guilty of sowing chaos and creating a security vacuum.

However, an appeals court later overturned the verdict and ordered a retrial, citing technical flaws in the prosecution.

The retrial resulted in dropping the case two years later, but the public prosecution appealed the decision and ordered another retrial by Egypt's top appeals court.

The latest ruling, on March 2, by Egypt's top appeals court - the Court of Cassation - is final.

Hundreds of people died when security forces clashed with demonstrators in the weeks before Mubarak was ousted from power in 2011.

Lawyers representing the families of those killed in the 2011 revolution had called for the charges against Mubarak to be upgraded to murder. They had also demanded that the court summon current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was head of military intelligence at the time.

Mubarak-era figures are gradually being cleared of charges and a series of laws limiting freedoms have raised fears among activists that the old regime is back.

In an election after Mubarak's ouster, Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi was elected president. Morsi was later ousted in a military coup led by Sisi in July 2013.

Since Morsi was toppled, the Egyptian government has been cracking down on any opposition.

The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly expressed concern over Egyptian security forces' heavy-handed crackdown and the killing of anti-government protesters.

Rights groups say the army's crackdown has led to the deaths of over 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

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McCain to Trump: Retract wiretap claim or provide evidence

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:22AM

Influential US Republican Senator John McCain has denounced President Donald Trump's claim that former Democratic President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, saying either he has to retract it or provide evidence of the allegation.

"President Trump has to provide the American people, not just the intelligence community, but the American people, with evidence that his predecessor, former president of the Unites States was guilty of breaking the law," McCain told CNN on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Trump accused his predecessor of intercepting his communications at his offices in Trump Tower in New York City just before the November presidential election.

He also said that Obama abused his power and spied on his campaign fearing that his team was connected to Moscow. Trump, however, offered no evidence to support his accusations.

A spokesman of Obama denied that the former president or any White House official had ordered surveillance.

McCain said on Sunday that he had "no reason to believe" Trump's allegations, but if Obama "violated the law" by ordering surveillance, then "we've got a serious issue."

"I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the president of the Unites States could clear this up in a minute," McCain said.

The senator added that Trump could call the CIA chief and the director of national intelligence for proof. "All he has to do is pick up the phone, call the director of the CIA, director of national intelligence and say, 'OK, what happened?'"

Experts say electronic surveillance of a US citizen by American intelligence agencies would require a warrant approved by a FISA court judge. Presidents do not have the authority to order such wiretaps and would not even be aware of them as a routine matter.

If the president were involved in the process, it would be "scandalous and unheard of," said Ron Hosko, a former assistant FBI director. Hosko called the allegations "unprecedented" and "unlikely to have occurred in the very broad way" that Trump described.

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Pakistan deploys troops to Saudi border with Yemen: Report

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 6:24AM

Pakistan is deploying a brigade of combat troops to Saudi Arabia as the kingdom is struggling to keep its southern borders from retaliatory attacks conducted by Yemeni forces, security sources say.

The unnamed sources told the Middle East Eye online portal that the troops will only be deployed inside southern Saudi Arabia. "It will not be used beyond Saudi borders," a source stressed.

The dispatch of the brigade follows a three-day official visit by General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff (COAS), to Saudi Arabia in December 2016, the report said.

The Pakistani military said in a statement that Bajwa had met chief of general staff of Saudi Forces, General Abdul Rehman bin Saleh al-Bunyan, "to discuss military to military relations, defense cooperation and regional security situation."

"Both leaders agreed to boost military cooperation and collaboration," it added but there was no immediate reaction to the report by Pakistani authorities.

The area of deployment for the Pakistani troops is politically sensitive in Islamabad as about two years ago the Pakistani parliament dismissed Saudi Arabia's request to join its deadly air raids against Yemen.

The alleged plan is the latest twist in a brutal and devastating two-year war, which has killed more than 12,000 people in Yemen, injured over 40,000 and brought the impoverished nation to the verge of famine.

Saudi Arabia began its deadly campaign against Yemen in late March 2015 in a bid to restore power to Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's president who has resigned and is backed by Riyadh. The campaign also seeks to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The Houthis and their allies in the Yemeni army have increasingly been retaliating with cross-border missile strikes on targets deep inside the kingdom.

Last month, the reprisal attacks even hit the Saudi capital of Riyadh, with the Houthis claiming to have hit a military camp near al-Mazahimiyah with "a precision long-distance ballistic missile."

On January 31, a missile killed 80 soldiers in a base run jointly by the Saudis and Emiratis on Zugar island in the Red Sea. The Saudis neither confirmed nor denied the strike.

Two years ago, the Pakistani parliament decided against a possible deployment of troops after four days of debate which was dominated by fears of further stoking sectarian violence in the country.

Generals argued then that their troops were overstretched with campaigns against the Pakistani Taliban in the Northwest Tribal Areas.

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Three EU States Offer Bulgaria Fighter Jets to Replace Russian MiGs

Sputnik News

23:25 13.03.2017

Bulgaria is considering three warplanes for as a possible replacement of MiG aircraft in its aging fleet, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Sweden, Italy and Portugal have submitted to Bulgaria their commercial offers on deliveries of eight fighter jets to partially replace aging fleet of Russian-made MiG aircraft, ministry said.

"Today, on March 13, offers from Portugal with a logistical package from the United States, Sweden and Italy have been opened at the Defense Ministry. An interdepartmental working group, appointed at the order of the country's prime minister, opened the submitted proposals in the presence of the representatives of Italy, Portugal, and Sweden," the statement said.

According to the ministry, the working group chaired by Maj. Gen. Tsanko Stoykov, the Bulgarian Air Force commander, will start analyzing the offers on Tuesday.

In December 2016, the ministry filed requests to the United States, Sweden, Italy and Portugal to submit commercial offers over deliveries of a new type of fighter jets. In April 2016, the Bulgarian government approved the acquisition of a squadron of new multirole fighter aircraft and two naval patrol vessels. The combined procurement costs amount to 3 billion Bulgarian leva (over $1.7 billion).

According to reports, the working group will be choosing between new Gripen jets from Sweden's SAAB and US F-16, which were in service in Portugal. Eurofighter Typhoon fighters from Italy is another option for procurement. The fighter jets are expected to be procured between 2018 and 2020.

Soviet-made MiGs amount to a huge part of Bulgaria's combat aircraft fleet. Their replacement with newer NATO-compatible fighter jets has been on the agenda of the country's authorities over the past decade. In February, media reported that Sofia had signed a deal with Russian aircraft company MiG to repair its aircraft citing company's Director General Ilya Tarasenko. However, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry has denied this information.

 Sputnik

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Show of Force: Japan Sending Largest Warship to South China Sea

Sputnik News

22:30 13.03.2017(updated 00:15 14.03.2017)

In an attempt to flex some military muscle, Japan is reportedly planning to dispatch its largest warship, the Izumo helicopter carrier, on a three-month jaunt through the hotly-disputed South China Sea.

In July the 24,000-ton warship is set to hold joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean, with ships from the navies of the US and India. Prior to that it will have stopovers in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia, before returning to Japan in August.

One unidentified source, wishing to remain anonymous, remarked, "The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended missionIt will train with the US Navy in the South China Sea."

Roughly $5 trillion in sea trade passes through the resource-rich region, which features gas and oil deposits as well as fertile fishing grounds.

Current disputes in the South China Sea center around territorial claims by China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Vietnam, but Tokyo's dispute with Beijing lies in the East China Sea.

Last year, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei cautioned that "Japan should reflect upon rather than forget what it has done during the aggression, act and speak cautiously on issues concerning the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and make more efforts to increase mutual trust with its neighbors and promote regional peace and stability instead of sowing discord."

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has struck something of an uneasy friendship with China as he has tried to shift Manila's dependence away from Washington, has been invited aboard the Izumo when the helicopter carrier makes a port call about 100 km west of Manila, in Subic Bay.

The move is Tokyo's biggest show of naval force since World War II, and comes as US President Donald Trump attempts to take a hard line with Beijing, denouncing China's buildup of military installations on artificial islands the country has constructed in the South China Sea.

When evidence of the installations was displayed in satellite images, the Chinese defense ministry defended their actions, calling the buildup, "legitimate and lawful," and asking, "If someone makes a show of force at your front door, would you not ready your slingshot?"

In January, after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer spoke of defending "international territories" in the South China, Beijing asserted that it had "irrefutable" sovereignty over the islands.

In a news briefing following Spicer's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that "the United States is not a party to the South China Sea dispute," adding, "We urge the United States to respect the facts, speak and act cautiously to avoid harming the peace and stability of the South China Sea."

 Sputnik

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US Military Can Bring Additional Forces to Syria Without Exceeding Cap - DoD

Sputnik News

20:51 13.03.2017(updated 20:53 13.03.2017)

The US military can bring in additional troops to Syria for short periods of time without exceeding the existing formal cap of some 500 servicemen on the ground, US Department of Defense spokesperson Capt. Jeff Davis said in a briefing on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The spokesperson pointed out the deployment of US Army rangers in the city of Manbij and Marines artillery unit near the city of Raqqa are examples of such temporary deployments.

"The current number [of troops] there in Syria is 503, but there are additional forces that the commander has the ability to bring in for short periods of time," Davis told reporters.

On March 6, the Defense Department said the United States had deployed a small number of additional troops to Manbij in a mission of reassurance and deterrence.

Earlier in the day, a source told Sputnik that a US Marine Corps unit has arrived in northern Syria.

Davis also noted that the Defense Department does not provide the specific number of the additional troops.

The marines will be supporting US partner forces on the ground that lead the offensive to liberate Raqqa from Daesh codenamed Operation Euphrates Rage. The operation was launched by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on November 5, 2016. The SDF was formed in 2015 as the defense force of northern Syria's de facto autonomous Rojava federation and is supported by the US-led coalition. The group is among the forces fighting Daesh and brings together Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and Turkmen fighters, among others.

The news comes after the Pentagon was tasked to send US President Donald Trump options to accelerate the fight against Daesh.

 Sputnik

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US Marine Corps Unit Arrives in Northern Syria

Sputnik News

20:10 13.03.2017(updated 20:21 13.03.2017)

A unit of the US Marine Corps has arrived at an airfield in the al-Hasakah province in Syria's north, a Kurdish source told Sputnik.

According to the source, the unit was transported on helicopters from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Rumeilan airfield located near the Syrian city of Qamishli.

They started arriving five days ago, the source said. In addition to several hundred US marines, an artillery battery is expected to arrived from the Iraqi base.

According to the source, part of the military forces, which cannot arrive in Syria using helicopters, will be transported by land through the Semalika passage located between Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan.

"The number of the US forces which are currently in Syria has been boosted under the Barack Obama administration. Earlier, their presence was limited to military experts and advisors, while now we witness the arrival of the Marine Corps forces," the source told Sputnik.

Last week, a representative of the US-led coalition, John Dorrian, confirmed that the US is going to deploy Marine Corps units and rangers in Syria. 400 troops are expected to arrive. Hitherto, the US military contingent in Syria has been comprised of about 500 people.

The United States deployed US marines to the Syrian city of Raqqa without the permission of the Damascus government, Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel said earlier. He said that US Marines have been deployed to Syria to make sure coalition troops on the ground receive necessary support in the fight to retake Raqqa from the Daesh.

The marines will be supporting US partner forces on the ground that lead the offensive to liberate Raqqa from Daesh codenamed Operation Euphrates Rage. The operation was launched by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on November 5, 2016. The SDF was formed in 2015 as the defense force of northern Syria's de facto autonomous Rojava federation and is supported by the US-led coalition. The group is among the forces fighting Daesh and brings together Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and Turkmen fighters, among others.

The news comes after the Pentagon was tasked to send US President Donald Trump options to accelerate the fight against Daesh.

 Sputnik

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US to Deploy Gray Eagle Armed Drone Squadron to South Korea - Army

Sputnik News

19:16 13.03.2017(updated 20:25 13.03.2017)

The United States is deploying a permanent squadron of General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones to an air base in South Korea, US Forces Korea said in a press release on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The drones will be assigned to the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division. The US Army ultimately plans to add one Gray Eagle company to every division, the release said.

"The US Army, after coordination with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces and the US Air Force, has begun the process to permanently station a Gray Eagle unmanned aerial systems (UAS) company at Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea," the release stated.

According to US Department of Defense spokesperson Capt. Jeff Davis, the deployment the drones will likely begin in early 2018.

"US Army, after coordination with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces and the US Air Force, is beginning the process to permanently station a Gray Eagle unmanned aerial systems (UAS) company at Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea, to begin some time early next year," Davis told reporters.

Earlier in the day, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported a squadron of Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft would be deployed to a US unit in Gunsan, 274 kilometers (171 miles) south of Seoul.

However, the timeline of the deployment is unclear.

The deployment comes amid heightened tensions between South Korea over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile tests. North Korea has tested four ballistic missiles this year after conducting two nuclear tests and 24 missile launches in 2016.

 Sputnik

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UN envoy for Somalia condemns bomb blasts in Mogadishu

13 March 2017  The United Nations envoy for Somalia has strongly condemned this morning's bomb blasts at two locations in Mogadishu that reportedly killed a number of civilians.

"These latest attacks come at a time when solidarity, not violence, among Somalis is badly needed," said Michael Keating, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the African country, in a press statement.

"The country is grappling with a severe drought that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of people. The timing and suffering caused by today's blasts are outrageous; this violent extremism cannot possibly be justified," he added.

According to the statement, the first blast occurred near the General Dhagabadan training facility of the Somali National Army, and initial accounts indicate that only the suicide bomber who was driving an explosives-laden minibus died in the explosion.

The second attack was also carried out by a bomber driving a vehicle filled with explosives who attacked the gate of the Weheliye Hotel on the Somali capital's congested Makka al-Mukarama road in a deliberate attempt to inflict a high number of casualties on hotel staff and guests, motorists and pedestrians.

Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the explosion at the hotel.

"We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the deceased and wish a full and speedy recovery to those who sustained injuries in today's attacks," Mr. Keating said.

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Afghan, Pakistani Traders Demand Reopening of Joint Border

By Ayaz Gul March 13, 2017

Business representatives from Pakistan and Afghanistan have called on Islamabad to immediately reopen the border between the two countries, saying the closure is hurting economic and social ties and resulting in massive monetary losses and mutual trust deficit.

Pakistani authorities unilaterally closed the two main border crossings of Torkham and Chaman nearly a month ago, saying a wave of suicide bombings across the country was being plotted from Afghan territory, charges Kabul rejected.

Around 3,000 packed containers that were due to cross Torkham have been stranded in Peshawar, while 2,000 containers have been stuck near the southwestern Chaman border crossing, according to business sources.

A six-member delegation of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or ACCI, visiting Islamabad, met with Pakistani counterparts on Monday to discuss problems and damages the border closure has caused.

"On behalf of the Afghan business community, let me affirm that we are entirely in favor of doing business with Pakistan since we share the same religion, language and culture," Ahmad Shah Yarzada, a member of ACCI, told participants of a meeting of business leaders from the two countries in Islamabad.

Yarzada said the "abrupt" border closing is forcing his landlocked country "to look towards other countries, which are equally willing to engage in trade with Afghanistan."

Pakistani interlocutors said they shared Afghan concerns and called on their government to reopen the border without further delay.

The dialogue was organized by the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies in partnership with the Kabul-based Women, Peace and Security organization.

A joint statement issued after the meeting said the discussion was part of an effort to "foster better understanding and cooperation" and "soothe bitter context and address the mutual trust deficit."

It said the participants also took note "with grave concern" that since June 2016, the border had been closed five times, causing millions of dollars of financial losses to business people on both sides and problems for legitimate routine crossers.

Last week, Pakistan opened the two border crossings for 48 hours to allow around 50,000 stranded Afghans with valid visas to go back to their country.

War-torn Afghanistan depends on Pakistani ports for its transit trade, which provides an economic lifeline.

Pakistani authorities are also under pressure from critics at home, including media, for closing the border, for fear such punitive actions would only damage an already uneasy relationship. Critics cite a need for both sides to resolve differences by engaging in talks.

Militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have long used the nearly 2,600-kilometer, largely porous border for subversive acts on both sides.

Pakistani authorities, however, say they have lately taken steps to boost security on their side of the frontier but that the Afghan government has yet to come up with a similar response.

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White House Moderates Wiretapping Allegations, Urges Further Investigation

By Peter Heinlein March 13, 2017

White House spokesman Sean Spicer says President Donald Trump did not mean to imply that former President Barack Obama tapped his phone during the presidential campaign.

Speaking at Monday's White House briefing, Spicer attempted to moderate statements the president has made on Twitter suggesting Obama ordered surveillance of his New York City hotel.

"He doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally," Spicer said.

Trump created a sensation earlier this month when he tweeted: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!"

In a separate tweet later, Trump wrote: "I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"

"If you look at the president's tweet," Spicer explained, "he [Trump] said very clearly 'wiretapping' in quotes. That spans a whole host of surveillance options. I think there've been numerous reports from a variety of outlets over the last couple months that seem to indicate there's been different types of surveillance that occurred during the 2016 election."

Earlier, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said she had no evidence to support the president's wiretapping claim.

In an interview broadcast on CNN early Monday, Conway said, "I'm not in the job of having evidence. That's what investigations are for."

Neither the White House nor senior intelligence officials have offered any evidence that would indicate any wiretapping took place, and an Obama spokesman has called the allegation "simply false."

Spicer told reporters Monday that the White House expects the Department of Justice to reply to a request from congressional intelligence committees for information to support the wiretapping charges.

"My understanding is that they will," he said.

The House Intelligence Committee set a Monday deadline for evidence supporting the allegations.

Critics speak out

Trump's critics have roundly denounced the wiretap claims.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Representative Adam Schiff of California, told ABC News Sunday he does not see any evidence.

"Either the president made up this charge," he said, "or perhaps more disturbing, the president actually believes this."

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona told CNN, "The president has one of two choices: either retract or provide the information that the American people deserve. Because if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we've got a serious issue here, to say the least."

McCain said he has "no reason to believe the charges are true."

Wiretapping law

Under U.S. law, a president cannot order someone's phone to be wiretapped. He would need approval by a federal judge and would also have to show reasonable grounds to suspect that a citizen's telephone calls should be monitored, such as if he were suspected of criminal wrongdoing. The White House said last week that Trump is not under criminal investigation.

The wiretap charges are part of congressional investigations into the details behind the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the presidential election to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. The probes also are looking into Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials before and after the November vote.

U.S. intelligence concluded that Russia hacked into the computer of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, with the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks then releasing thousands of his emails in the weeks before the election. The emails showed embarrassing behind-the-scenes efforts by Democratic operatives to help Clinton win the party's presidential nomination.

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Netherlands - General Election - 2017

The Netherlands voted on 15 March 2017, and the resulting glass was half empty and half full. Geert Wilders' anti-Islam and anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV) made a poorer showing in the polls than anticipated, though his party gained five seats over the 15 he won in 2012. Given all the political elements in his favor, including the influx of migrants, fears about the loss of cultural identity, anxiety over recent and potential future terrorist attacks, as well as early polls predicting a significantly stronger showing, this outcome can hardly be seen as a victory.

Wilders managed to pull much of the political discourse further to the right, particularly among the right and centre-right parties such as current Prime Minister Mark Ruttes Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

The participation rate of about 80 percent was the highest seen in the country for 30 years. Exit polls on election day showed Prime Minister Mark Rutte's liberal VVD party leading the Dutch parliamentary elections, taking a projected 33 seatss, down from 41 at the last vote in 2012. It looked like a victory for the incumbent, but the party would have to reckon with 8 fewer seats in the 150-member lower house.

Wilders' PVV led the conservative Christian Democrats and the liberal Democrats 66 [D66] party, taking just over 12 percent of the vote and 20 seats. Lodewijk Asscher's socialist PvdA took a severe beating, winning only five seats, a staggering loss of 29 seats [this glass is more than half empty]. That defeat, however, paved the way for the Green Left party, a new voice on the left. Green Left party appeared to have made the biggest gains, winning a projected 16 seats, 12 more than in 2012. A four-party coalition made up of the VVD, D66, the Christian Democrats and the Green Left seemed the most likely outcome, but cohabitation of the center right VVD and the exuberantly leftist Greens seemed rather problematic.

The governing party never had a majority in the senate, and to get its program passed it allied with three other parties, each of which demanded concessions. It pushed through ambitious housing reforms and deficit-cutting measures, but those measures had not been popular, even among its own voters. Liberal voters had to swallow excise tax hikes. Labour voters felt their party was implementing the austerity policies of the right. A stagnant economy and high unemployment have not helped. Because the government is centrist, opposition to its policies has scattered voters in every direction.

Geert Wilders, the wild-haired head of the right-wing Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), launched a new manifesto 09 November 2016 that called for the de-Islamization" of the Netherlands as he leads in the polls to become the next prime minister. Wilders, who has twice appeared in court for inciting hatred in both 2011 and in March 2016, would emerge as the biggest party following the March 2017 elections, if the opinion polls are to be believed. There is a catch though, with most parties stating they wont go into coalition with Wilders. Wilders' plans have been described as "utterly bizarre and unbelievable" by the leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal, Sybrand van Haersma Buma. "The program will further polarize Dutch society," he said.

It also targets the European Union with the party promising to hold a referendum on the countrys membership in the EU. The PVV is also calling for spending to be increased in the areas of policing and armed forces while they want no more money for foreign aid, windmills, art, innovation, public broadcasters. The document, published ahead of a general election in March, calls for the closure of all mosques and Islamic schools, a ban on the Koran, and no more immigrants from Islamic countries. A ban on Islamic headscarves in public is also proposed, as well as the prohibition of all Islamic expressions which violate public order.

The Dutch have become more positive about the European Union, with 46% now thinking membership is a good thing, according to research by the governments social policy advisory unit SCP published in September 2016. At the same time, the percentage of people who support a Nexit  the Netherlands pulling out of the EU  has gone down from 24% to 20%, the SCP said.

The far-right Freedom Party topped the polls ahead of 2017 elections, despite the ongoing trial of its leader, Geert Wilders, on charges of inciting racial hatred. Wilders was cleared of similar charges in 2011. The 53-year-old, who had shunned the hearing until it reached its final few days, attended the high-security courthouse near Amsterdam's Schiphol, where he addressed the three-judge bench.

The prosecution charged Wilders with insulting a racial group and inciting racial hatred because of his comments, made at a 2014 rally, about Moroccans living in the Netherlands. At the rally in question, Wilders had asked supporters whether they wanted "fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands." After the crowd shouted back "Fewer! Fewer!" Wilders answered: "We're going to organize that."

Wilders said he will close mosques, ban Muslim immigrants and take the Netherlands out of the European Union, if voted into power at a general election in March 2017.







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Belarus Criticized For Largest Crackdown On Protesters In Years

RFE/RL March 13, 2017

The crackdown over the weekend came at demonstrations across the country against a government-backed tax on the unemployed.

Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Union's foreign policy chief, said on March 13 that "the detention and sentencing of peaceful protesters, including leaders of opposition movements, is in contradiction with Belarus' declared policy of democratization."

The EU called for the immediate release of all the detained protesters.

Meanwhile, the rights group Amnesty International lamented that civil society leaders and independent journalists were among at least 48 people detained and charged with attending "unauthorized" demonstrations across the country from March 10-12.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's director for Europe and Central Asia, said: "With basic freedoms strangled in Belarus, it has been years since we saw protests of this scale, which appear to have taken the Belarusian authorities by surprise."

Dalhuisen said: "After initially allowing protests against the deeply controversial unemployment tax to proceed, now the authorities have returned to their habitual knee-jerk reaction of arresting peaceful demonstrators."

He said the "escalation is disturbing" and that the "arbitrary detention of dissenting voices must end immediately."

Amnesty noted that authorities cracked down on rallies in the cities of Babruysk, Kobryn, Brest, Luninets, and Maladzyechna as well as the eastern city of Vorsha where dozens were detained on March 12.

It also criticized Belarusian court rulings that sentenced at least three activists to 15 days in jail and issued fines against others, including journalists who were arrested while reporting on the demonstrations.

In Vorsha, prominent opposition figure Pavel Sevyarynets was among those detained on March 12, along with RFE/RL Belarus Service reporter Halina Abakunchyk.

On March 13, a court in Vorsha fined Abakunchyk about $300.

Abakunchyk pleaded not guilty and insisted she was merely reporting on the protest march against taxing the unemployed.

Abakunchyk said police forcibly detained her without letting her show her press card, holding her several hours at a police station even after she told them she was working as a journalist.

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has said the unemployment tax is a necessary to fight what he called "social parasitism."

Protesters want the tax law scrapped and have continued demonstrations despite a March 9 order from Lukashenka that suspended implementation of the tax until 2018.

The roughly $200 tax is aimed at those who work less than six months a year and fail to register in the country's labor bureaus.

Belarus has seen opposition protests in the past, mainly after elections that the West has deemed neither fair nor free.

But those protests have been limited to the capital, Minsk, and larger cities.

Political observers say the fact that the antitax protests are occurring in more provincial towns and cities is indicative of larger social unrest and unhappiness with Lukashenka's government.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service and correspondent Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-amnesty-human- rights-protests-crackdown/28367341.html

Copyright (c) 2017. 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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Xi underlines innovation in military upgrading

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 08:04, March 13, 2017

BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday called for deepening military-civilian integration, while highlighting sci-tech innovation as the key to military upgrading.

Speaking to national lawmakers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at the ongoing annual parliamentary session, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said efforts should be made to provide greater science and technology support for the PLA.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in late 2012, historic breakthrough in national defense and military reform has been made, significant progress in combat readiness has been achieved, and crushing momentum in fighting corruption has been realized, he said.

Pointing to the profound changes brought by sci-tech advancement to people's lifestyles and the world's military development, Xi said, "We must have a greater sense of urgency to push for sci-tech innovation and advancement with greater determination and efforts."

He called for enhanced top-level design and strategic planning in promoting military-civilian integration in national defense technology and military equipment, and strengthening military and civilian cooperation in training high-quality military personnel.

He urged the PLA to speed up the transition featuring better quality and performance with the intensive application of advanced technologies in army building.

Civil technologies should better serve military purposes, and defense technologies should be adapted and applied well for civil use, the president said.

Efforts to improve the training system of military personnel should also be strengthened to foster a large number of high-quality military talent, Xi said, adding that enhancing scientific and technological attainment of officers and men should be a basic requirement for the PLA.

He noted that the CPC Central Committee's decision to establish a central commission for integrated military and civilian development aims to reinforce centralized and unified leadership. Efforts should be made to remove institutional barriers and work out perfect policies for military and civilian integration.

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China's Xinjiang resolutely fights terrorism as risks remain: officials

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 08:34, March 13, 2017

BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Senior officials from northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Sunday said the region has maintained a high-pressure crackdown to ensure stability as destabilizing factors remain.

Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the regional government, said Xinjiang has been "resolutely and forcefully" fighting terrorism to maintain stability in the past year.

People across Xinjiang have recently joined public gatherings to show resolve fighting terrorism.

The action gave the public a strong sense of security, further mobilizing them to join "the people's war" against terrorism, said Sharhat Ahan, deputy secretary of the commission for political and legal affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC)'s regional committee.

"Terrorists should be warned not to 'hit the rock with eggs' or they would face serious consequences," he said.

The Xinjiang officials made the remarks at a panel discussion of the Xinjiang delegation to the National People's Congress (NPC) at the annual parliamentary session in Beijing.

Joining the delegation's discussion two days ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping said a "great wall of iron" should be fortified in Xinjiang to safeguard national unity, ethnic solidarity and social stability.

Xinjiang is an important "security barrier" in northwest China which holds a special strategic position and faces special issues, Xi said.

"Xinjiang is moving onto a generally stable path," Sharhat Ahan said.

But due to uncertainties rising from global counter-terrorism movements and infiltration of religious extremism, he added, Xinjiang finds itself struggling with active violent and terrorist activities, a fierce anti-separatism fight, pains-taking intervention and treatment.

The high-pressure crackdown has ensured the safety of all ethnic groups and their property, the official said.

Shohrat Zakir said with stability, Xinjiang's economy grew fast last year, public services improved, and all ethnic groups felt increasingly safe and happy.

In 2016, Xinjiang's GDP grew by 7.6 percent while urban and rural residents' dispensable incomes rose 8.3 percent and 8 percent respectively. It received 80 million domestic and foreign tourists, more than three times the local population.

Shohrat Zakir said Xinjiang aims at more than 7 percent economic growth this year and to achieve "substantial" progress in turning itself into a core area in the Silk Road Economic Belt, part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

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Marine Corps to Protect China's Growing Interest in Asia-Pacific Region

Sputnik News

20:24 13.03.2017(updated 21:51 13.03.2017)

China plans to increase the number of its Marine Corps units from 20,000 to 100,000 in order to protect its vital marine communications and growing interests abroad, according to Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post citing military sources and experts.

The publication refers to the Chinese logistics base in Djibouti and port of Gwadar in the southwest of Pakistan. The areas of protection of interests also include the Korean Peninsula, the East China and South China Sea, and land and sea territories along the Silk Road, including Afghanistan.

The newspaper further noted that the Chinese marine contingent has been nearly doubled to the existing 20,000 by transferring two regular army brigades to their squad.

Simultaneously, with an increase to 100,000 servicemen the number of naval forces would also increase by 15 percent, as currently the number of personnel of the Chinese Navy is estimated at 235,000 men.

Sputnik spoke to Russian experts in an interview about this increase in the Marine Corps and they expressed no doubt about the validity of the assumptions made by these sources.

Russian military analyst Vladimir Evseev reminded that the US Marine Corps has 200,000 troops in its ranks.

"China is trying to create a marine infantry the number of which is only two times less than that of the United States. What does this mean? Of course, strengthening the presence in Djibouti is not the primary reason. The point is that China has growing interests in the Asia-Pacific Region," Evseev said.

In fact, this is part of the policy of restraining the US; otherwise a five-fold increase in the number of Marines is simply not necessary. China wants to be a state comparable in military potential to the US in the Asia-Pacific Region [APR]. That's why it needs 100,000 marines, according to the analyst.

On the other hand, independent military analyst Zhao Chu argues with the opinion of the South China Morning Post article and with the Russian expert on the possible involvement of Chinese Marines in safeguarding China's security interests on the Korean Peninsula.

"Everyone knows that China and the DPRK are bound by a land border as in 1950 the Chinese volunteer units also entered the Korean peninsula by land, so it is very difficult to imagine that China can carry out a large-scale military invasion of the Korean Peninsula up to the deployment of a large-scale combat ready assault force. These sorts of statements are somewhat unfounded," Zhao Chu said.

According to an expert on geopolitics and former analyst of the defense committee and the State Duma international affairs committee, Konstantin Sokolov, said that it is necessary to assess the number of marines primarily with respect to the territory that can be controlled.

"In East and South-East Asia, there are a lot of island territories that are part of the economic interests and security interests of China. I presume that if a likely enemy appears in these zones and there is a need of control, a large number of military police or the Marine Corps will be needed. Therefore, from my point of view, China, probably, can justifiably go on increasing the number of its marines," Sokolov said.

The expert further said that the hotbed right now is of course the Korean Peninsula. One must understand why, for many decades and for several generations, it has been a point of confrontation.

"The scenario of the US seizing control over North Korea has not been lifted. This is the only point where one can create a land military bridgehead that would seriously threaten China along its land border with the DPRK. In strategic terms, this is the main point of ensuring security interests of China," Sokolov said.

The expert further said that there are many scenarios but in principle, China faces the main task: in case of any destabilization of the situation, first of all in Asia, it will become necessary for China to use its Marine Corps.

"Not to mention other parts in the world, since China is a world power and it is natural that its interests exist everywhere," the expert concluded.

Earlier it was reported that the possible deployment of China's marines in Djibouti is likely to increase the alertness of the United States. Recently, the head of the African Command of the US Armed Forces, Thomas Waldhauser, stated in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the very proximity of the Chinese military base in Djibouti to the American Lemonnier camp, which is located near Djibouti's international airport, poses a threat to the Pentagon.

The General also reminded the senators that the Chinese base strengthens the naval presence of China in the region.

 Sputnik

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Malaysia wants North Korea to ensure safety of nationals

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 6:36AM

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has warned North Korea to ensure the safety of the Malaysian nationals stuck in Korea amid an evolving diplomatic row between the two states.

"Respect us and make sure our people are safe," Najib said solemnly, in reference to the Malaysian nationals barred from leaving North Korea.

Speaking on Sunday, Najib said Malaysia would reciprocate respect when it receives it.

Tensions abruptly emerged between Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang when a man identified as the North Korean leader's exiled half-brother was assassinated in the Malaysian capital on February 13.

Malaysia said the assassination, carried out at a public terminal of the international airport in Kuala Lumpur, was conducted using a highly toxic, internationally banned nerve agent. Malaysian authorities said some eight North Korean nationals, including a diplomat at the North Korean Embassy, were sought for questioning.

Kuala Lumpur also went ahead with an autopsy on the body of the victim, Kim Jong-nam, despite objections from Pyongyang.

As tensions grew, North Korea barred nine Malaysian nationals from leaving the country. Malaysia soon enforced a ban of its own on the North Korean nationals in the Southeast Asian country.

The diplomatic row has also seen both sides declaring each other's ambassadors "personae non gratae," ordering them to leave.

In a related development, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Sunday that his country would resolve its dispute with North Korea on its own and that there was no need for "third parties" to get involved.

"Of course, our priority is on the remaining nine Malaysians in Pyongyang and the foreign minister has made every effort to ensure their return to Malaysia. However at the same time we also want to make sure that the North Korean nationals who are in this country will be allowed to return home when the time comes should they make the same effort," he said.

Separately, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said on Saturday that Kuala Lumpur would begin formal negotiations with North Korea in the coming days to discuss the lifting of the mutual bans on nationals.

Malaysian police have been ordered to stop hundreds of North Korean citizens from leaving the country until the safety of the Malaysians in North Korea is assured.

Malaysia has not directly blamed North Korea for the assassination. That accusation has been leveled by South Korea, the North's long-time adversary.

Two women arrested by Malaysia for carrying out the assassination could be hanged if convicted.

Deadline to claim the body

Although the victim's identity was generally known, it was confirmed by Malaysian authorities only recently.

Malaysia's health minister on Monday asked Kim's relatives to come forward and claim his body.

"Now, with the positive identification of the body, we are told that he had a wife or wives and children. So we hope that those people will respond and come forward to claim the body," Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam told reporters.

"I think after identification, we'll give ourselves about two to three weeks to solve the problem," he said, warning that if no one claimed the body in the period of time, the government would take action on its own. "In the absence of that, then we will address it as a government."

So far, Pyongyang has refused to acknowledge that the victim was indeed the North Korean leader's half-brother, and no next-of-kin have claimed the body.

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N Korea to Continue Nuclear Tests if US Persists on Drills Near Border - Envoy

Sputnik News

20:10 13.03.2017

Pyongyang will not stop efforts to improve its preemptive nuclear strike capability if the United States and its allies continue conducting military exercises near the North Korean border, North Korea's Ambassador to the United Nations Kim In Ryong told reporters on Monday.

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik)  The ambassador explained North Korea's recent ballistic missile launches were a "routine" matter.

"As long United States and its followers persist their nuclear threat and the blackmails against the DPRK [North Korea] and as long as they do not give up the war exercises they stage right in front of DPRK, the DPRK will continue to bolster the self-reliance defense capability and capability for the preemptive strike with nuclear force," In Ryong said.

"[The launches are a] self-defensive right of a sovereign state" to keep on high alert whenever there are military exercises close to its borders, he added.

In Ryong also said the UN Security Council resolutions on sanctions against North Korea are "devoid of legal ground".

The ambassador noted that North Korea had sent a request to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to organize an international forum of legal experts on sanctions imposed on Pyongyang by the UN Security Council, but did not receive an adequate answer.

Earlier on Monday, US Forces Korea said the United States is deploying a permanent squadron of MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones to an air base in South Korea amid heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

 Sputnik

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Experts: N. Korea Must Be Held Accountable for Crimes Against Humanity

By Lisa Schlein March 13, 2017

A group of independent experts is calling for the government of North Korea to be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for gross violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity.

The experts, who submitted their report to the U.N. Human Rights Council Monday, said the government has done nothing to end the widespread and systematic violations committed against its population since a U.N. commission of inquiry issued a damning report documenting horrific cases of abuse in that country in February 2014.

The experts said they used "the commission of inquiry report as a basis" on issues of accountability for human rights violations in DPRK (Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea) especially "where such violations amount to crimes against humanity."

Sara Hossain, a legal expert from Bangladesh, told the council that it was the primary duty of the government itself "to bring perpetrators of violations in the country to account."

Since that had not been done and "given the lack of impartiality and independence of the judiciary," she said the only recourse was to seek justice in the international arena.

"In these circumstances, we call on the international community to continue to pursue a referral of the situation in the DPRK to the International Criminal Court."

In view of the large number of reported crimes and perpetrators, she said, "We also recommend that other criminal accountability processes be undertaken. The groundwork for future criminal trials should be laid now."

The U.N. experts also recommended the establishment of an ad hoc international tribunal, "which could act as a deterrent for future crimes."

No access

North Korea did not allow the investigators access to the country, so they were obliged to gather evidence of gross human rights violations from a variety of witnesses, victims and other sources in Geneva, The Hague, Seoul, Tokyo and New York.

"We analyzed the issue in line with international law and prevailing State practice on accountability, and within the current political context," said Sonja Biserko, a legal expert from Serbia.

The current report was based on information gathered since August 2016 by the experts and Tomas Ojea Quintana, who was appointed special investigator on the human rights situation in North Korea in June 2016.

In his presentation, Quintana told the council that he feared the human rights situation in North Korea risked being overshadowed by "the raging tension on the Korean Peninsula and the northeast Asia region."

"The focus on developments in the political and military arenas should not shield ongoing violations from the scrutiny of this council," he said. "There are no quick fixes or instant solutions to tackle human rights abuses of the scope and nature that has been reported for a very long time in the DPRK."

The 2014 Commission of Inquiry report found that "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."

Quintana said that through a variety of sources he had found confirmation of appalling abuse and had gathered testimony from men and women who had left the DPRK in 2016.

"For thousands of people the clandestine journey out of the country is fraught with danger, including the risk of forced repatriation and imprisonment," he said. "I was deeply touched by the courage and determination of those to whom I spoke."

Military tensions

Quintana said he was very concerned about the escalation in hostilities on the Korean peninsula since the resumption of nuclear tests and missile launches by North Korea.

Quintana said he expected a new anti-missile defense system to be set up in South Korea with the support of the United States to prompt "threats of retaliation by the DPRK and reactions from other States."

He said, "Military tensions have brought human rights dialogue with the DPRK to a standstill."

Among the many violations documented in his report, the U.N. investigator expressed grave concern about the situation in the four prison camps still known to be operating in the country.

He estimated that these camps held at least 80,000 and up to 120,000 inmates and that the authorities had not taken any concrete steps to protect political prisoners from "the risk of torture in detention, forced labor and summary execution."

North Korea boycotted the session and did not issue a "right of reply."

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Iran's fleet of warships berth in Oman

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, March 13, IRNA -- The Iranian Navy announced that its 45th flotilla has berthed in the port city of Salalah in Oman on Monday.

The mission of the Navy's 45th flotilla started right after its predecessor flotilla 44th concluded its mission in the high seas.

The Iranian Navy's flotilla comprising Naqdi destroyer and Tunb logistic vessel is slated to protect Iran's cargo vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The Iranian Navy's 44th flotilla of warships returned home on Saturday morning after a five-month mission in the high seas and foiling pirate attacks in Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The 44th fleet of Iran's Navy, comprising Alvand and Bushehr warships, ended its 150-day mission on Saturday morning by berthing at the coast of Iran's port city of Bandar Abbas.

In mid-February, Iranian Navy's 44th flotilla of warships repulsed pirates' massive attack on one of the country's cargo vessels in free waters after fierce clashes.

A sum of 11 pirate boats attacked an Iranian cargo ship in Bab al-Mandab Strait and tried to hijack it, but they received a harsh response from Iran's 44th fleet of warships that had rushed to the trade vessel's rescue.

Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced in November that his forces deployed in the high seas had escorted 3,844 cargo ships and oil tankers so far.

2050**2050

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UN Rights Monitor Highlights Political Repression, Abuse, Executions In Iran

RFE/RL March 13, 2017

Reformists in Iran are under pressure, detainees face torture and abuse, and people are being executed at an "alarming" rate, a UN monitor studying human rights in the tightly controlled country says.

The bleak picture presented to the UN Human Rights Council on March 13 comes ahead of a May 19 presidential election in Iran.

"All reports indicate a high level of control over citizens and that democratic space is severely limited," Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur for Iran, told the council in Geneva.

Jahangir did not refer directly to the election, but she noted that three opposition figures who publicly challenged the official results of Iran's 2009 presidential election -- former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Musavi; his wife, university professor Zahra Rahnavard; and reformist cleric Mehdi Karrubi -- have been kept under house arrest for nearly six years without being formally charged.

Jahangir also voiced concern about state pressure on media workers and censorship efforts by the Iranian establishment.

As of December 13, 2016, "at least 24 journalists, bloggers, and social media activists were reportedly either in detention or sentenced for their peaceful activities," she said in a written report on human rights violations in Iran, which was released on March 6.

Jahangir said she has received reports indicating that Iran continues to place restrictions on access to information by blocking websites, intimidating and prosecuting Internet users, bloggers and social media activists, and throttling Internet speeds.

In the March 6 report, Jahangir expressed deep concern over "the alarming level of executions" in Iran, where she said that at least 530 people were executed last year and 156 have been put to death this year.

At least five of those executed in 2016 were below the age of 18 at the time of their alleged offense, she said, noting that Iran has reportedly executed the highest number of juvenile offenders in the world during the past decade.

Jahangir urged the Iranian establishment to "immediately and unconditionally prohibit the sentencing of children to death and to engage in a comprehensive process of commutation of all death sentences handed down on persons currently on death row for crimes committed under the age of 18."

She also reiterated calls made by her predecessor to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

Iran has one of the highest execution rates in the world. Most people who are executed have been convicted of drug-related crimes.

Jahangir said that since her appointment last year, she has received "numerous reports about the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment," including the continued use of amputations, blinding, and flogging, as well as the use of prolonged period in solitary confinement for detainees.

She cited reports by Iranian media about a blinding sentence that was carried out in November in a prison near the capital, Tehran, and finger amputation sentences that were carried out in December for two men detained in Orumieh prison in northwest Iran.

Jahangir also highlighted child marriages in Iran where, according to the Tehran-based Association to Protect the Rights of Children, approximately 17 percent of all marriages involve girls married with old men.

She called on Iran to prohibit all forms of child marriage and raise awareness about the "harmful practice."

Jahangir also said that the situation of Iran's recognized and unrecognized minorities remain of "serious concern."

"Bahai's continue to be systematically discriminated, targeted, and deprived of the right to a livelihood," Jahangiri said in her March 6 report.

The Baha'i faith is not recognized in the constitution of Iran, which has been ruled by a conservative Muslim establishment since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Jahangir said that 90 Baha'i believers are currently detained in Iran's prison detained solely because of their religious beliefs and practices.

Jahangir also expressed concern over the state targeting of Iranian Christian converts and members of Sufi groups.

"These groups continue to face arbitrary arrest, harassment, and detention and are often accused of national security crimes such as 'acting against the national security' or 'propaganda against the state.'"

With reporting by dpa

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/iran-human-rights-un/28366885.html

Copyright (c) 2017. 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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Iraqi forces recapture two more neighborhoods in western Mosul

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 2:51PM

Iraqi army soldiers, backed by fighters from pro-government Popular Mobilization Units, have managed to liberate two more neighborhoods in the western flank of Mosul as the Daesh Takfiri terrorists are trapped inside the city.

The commander of Nineveh Liberation Operation, Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah, announced on Monday afternoon that Iraq's Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) had established control over Mosul al-Jadida district and hoisted the national flag over a cluster of buildings in the area, Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network reported.

Earlier, CTS troopers had managed to reclaim Naft neighborhood following bitter clashes with Daesh terrorists.

Yarallah added that Iraqi forces had inflicted heavy losses on Daesh ranks during the operation and destroyed a large amount of their military hardware.

The developments came only a day after the spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operations Command (JOC), Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, announced that Iraqi forces had recaptured some 65 percent of territories in western Mosul from the Daesh terrorist group.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi military officer, Jabbar Hassan, said Iraqi forces had evacuated around 5,200 civilians from western Mosul over the past 24 hours.

He added that civilians continued to leave the city's western side as Iraqi forces and fighters from Popular Mobilization Units  better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi  were struggling to dislodge Daesh terrorists from their last urban stronghold in the country.

Iraqi forces launched their offensive to retake Mosul last October and since then they have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements.

Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched the battle in the west on February 19.

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Japan to send its largest warship to disputed South China Sea

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:50AM

Japan plans to send its largest warship on an extended mission to the disputed South China Sea before it heads to the Indian Ocean for joint naval drills with the United States and India.

The Izumo helicopter carrier will begin a three-month journey in May, Reuters reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources who had knowledge of the plan.

The warship will join the Malabar joint naval exercises with Indian and US forces in the Indian Ocean in July.

During the journey, the vessel will make stops in Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. It was not clear if the Japanese vessel was planned to sail through the areas of the sea claimed by China as its territory.

"The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission," said one of the sources. "It will train with the US Navy in the South China Sea."

According to the sources, the warship will return to Japan in August.

Japan, a key US ally, is boosting defense ties with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries, some of which are engaged in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.

Japan has no claims in the South China Sea but has expressed worries about Beijing's influence in the region, where five trillion dollars in trade passes every year, much of it to and from Japanese ports.

Tokyo is, however, involved in a separate territorial dispute with Beijing on an uninhabited yet strategically-important island group in the East China Sea.

Back in September 2016, a close confidante of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Tokyo would increase its engagement in the South China Sea through joint training cruises with the US Navy, capacity-building assistance to coastal nations, and exercises with regional navies.

Japan and the US recently wrapped up a week-long joint naval drill in the East China Sea on Friday. The war games involved Japanese destroyers and a US Navy carrier strike group.

The two carried out their first joint drills in the South China Sea in October 2015.

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UN expert warns Myanmar may be trying to 'expel' all Rohingya Muslims

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 6:56PM

The UN special rapporteur on Myanmar has expressed concern that the Southeast Asian country may be seeking to "expel" all members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim community from its territory.

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday, Yanghee Lee warned that a full purge could be the ultimate goal of the institutional persecution and horrific violence being perpetrated against the Rohingya Muslims.

Lee, who visited Myanmar twice in the past year, said that the country was still making Rohingyas' lives difficult by conducting a household survey and dismantling homes in the troubled Rakhine State.

"Conducting a household survey - where those absent may be struck off the list that could be the only legal proof of their status in Myanmar - indicates the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether. I sincerely hope that that is not the case."

A four-month crackdown on the minority group has seen some 75,000 Rohingya Muslims flee to neighboring Bangladesh, where Lee said she had heard "harrowing account after harrowing account."

"I heard allegation after allegation of horrific events like these  slitting of throats, indiscriminate shootings, setting alight houses with people tied up inside and throwing very young children into the fire, as well as gang rapes and other sexual violence," she said.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Lee also pushed for a high-level inquiry into abuses against the Muslim minority community.

The UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, has said treatment of the Rohingya merits a UN commission of inquiry and review by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Rakhine has been under a military siege since October 2016 over a raid on a police post that was blamed on the Rohingya.

The violence against the Rohingya is a blow to efforts by Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the country's ethnic minorities.

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UN Report Warns Myanmar May Try to Expel Rohingya

By Lisa Schlein March 13, 2017

A new report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council accuses Myanmar of "institutionalized discrimination and long-standing persecution" of its mainly Muslim Rohingya population amid appeals by a government representative to the international community to support Myanmar "in its efforts to promote democracy and human rights."

While Yanghee Lee, special investigator on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, acknowledged the new government has been in power for barely one year, she noted that there were a great many human rights violations that could not wait to be addressed and needed immediate attention.

Lee cited reprisals against human rights defenders and the suppression of voices of dissent through arrest and imprisonment as main concerns. She said she had never "felt more anxiety over potential acts of retaliation and reprisal" than in Rakhine State during her visit to Myanmar in January.

Lee's assessment follows another report issued by the U.N. human rights office on February 3, which documented acts of cruelty, by Myanmar's security forces, triggered by the October 9 killing of nine police officers by armed men who attacked three border guard police facilities in Rakhine.

Rights officials say this unleashed weeks of retaliatory measures and gross violations by security forces, including mass gang-rapes, killings, and disappearances, prompting more than 66,000 Rohingya to flee northern Rakhine State to Bangladesh.

In her effort to investigate the issue of reprisals, U.N. investigator Lee said she went to Cox's Bazaar in neighboring Bangladesh where she interviewed around 140 Rohingya.

"I heard allegation after allegation of horrific events like these - slitting of throats, indiscriminate shootings, setting alight houses with people tied up inside and throwing very young children into the fire, as well as gang rapes and other sexual violence.

"Even men, young and old, broke down and cried in front of me telling me about what they went through and their losses," she said.

In response to the deadly attacks on October 9, Htin Lynn, Myanmar's ambassador in Geneva, said, "Security forces had to launch operations to restore peace and maintain law and order in northern Rakhine State. Such operations have now ceased."

Investigator Lee expressed her disquiet about clearance operations, including the dismantling of people's homes and a household survey in which, she said, those absent may be struck off the list facing what "could be the only legal proof of their status in Myanmar."

She said this indicated that "the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether. I sincerely hope that that is not the case."

She noted that there have been several commissions of inquiry and investigations set up to examine the situation of the Rohingya, but that none has proven to be "truly independent."

"There is a need for a new set of investigations, which are prompt, thorough, independent and impartial, and this needs to happen soon, before the evidence is compromised. Prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations are not only needed in Rakhine, but also in conflict-affected areas such as Kachin and Shan," she said.

Lee noted that similarly serious violations to those in Rakhine have been reported in those states for years, often been overlooked and "also gone uninvestigated, with the situation in these areas worsening and still receiving little attention."

Lee warned the conflict in Kachin and Shan states is escalating. She said more than 10,000 people were forced to flee to China.

Lee said she continued to receive reports of serious human rights violations committed by all parties to the conflict, including torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary killings and abductions, "all of which frequently go uninvestigated."

Lee called on the government in Myanmar to reform and modernize its judiciary, executive, and legislative branches. She said the country's 1982 Citizenship Law, which stripped the Rohingya of their birthright, was discriminatory and needed to be overhauled.

She assured the Myanmar representatives who attended the council session that she had "absolutely no reason whatsoever to present a biased, one-sided report."

She added, "I have every reason to present the situation to reflect the reality, even if some may not like what I have to say."

Ambassador Htin Lynn was not persuaded. He said his government could not subscribe to many of the recommendations in the report.

"Myanmar does not accept an idea of a Commission of Inquiry as we are seriously addressing the allegations nationally."

He also dismissed the term "crimes against humanity," saying it was based "on unverified and one-sided allegations."

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Syria militants reach Homs evacuation deal with government

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 5:47PM

Foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants have reached an agreement with the Syrian government for the imminent evacuation of civilians and extremists from the western Syrian city of Homs.

Provincial Governor Talal Barrazi said the militants would be allowed to leave al-Waer neighborhood in Homs, located 162 kilometers north of the capital, Damascus, under a Russia-backed deal signed on Monday.

Barrazi added that the deal would be carried out within six to eight weeks, with the first group leaving on Friday.

The militants who renounce violence can stay in Homs and benefit from an amnesty law issued by President Bashar al-Assad, he added.

Al-Waer is the last militant-held neighborhood in Homs. It is home to about 75,000 people and has been under a government siege since 2013.

The so-called Homs Media Center has said that between 10,000-15,000 people would leave in groups over the coming weeks. The initial batch would reportedly include about 1,500 people.

Opposition activist, Bebars al-Talawy, said a committee will be formed to prepare the lists of names of those who want to leave.

Opposition-affiliated and Dubai-based Orient News television network reported that militants and their families from al-Waer would go to the area around the border city of Jarablus, which is held by Turkey-backed Takfiri terrorist groups.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also stated there are more than 2,500 militants in the neighborhood.

According to Syria's state-run SANA news agency, the evacuation is the third phase of a deal struck last year that saw hundreds of militants and their families leave al-Waer for other opposition-controlled areas in Homs Province, the northwestern province of Idlib, and the town of Tal Abyad near the border with Turkey.

'Second Daesh terrorist group emerging in Syria'

Meanwhile, a US journalist and former captive of al-Nusra Front terrorist group, also known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, told Russia Today television network that militants from various parts of Syria were flocking to the country's northwestern part, merging with each other and shaping a "second Daesh."

Peter Theo Curtis, who is better known by the nom de plume, Theo Padnos, criticized Western media outlets for their "inadequate and biased" coverage of the Syrian crisis, saying they are blind to what is actually happening on the ground.

Padnos argued that most things reported about Aleppo were false or not provable, saying the emergence of a "second Daesh" was being totally disregarded.

He warned that the new terrorist grouping was in possession of "tons of weapons," noting that the Takfiris descend from areas in Aleppo, Homs, Dara'a and Damascus outskirts, where they have sustained heavy losses from the Syrian government troops.

Padnos also pointed out that the "second Daesh" was active in close proximity to Europe's borders, adding, "It's right on the Turkish border. To get to this second Daesh from any European country, it's a couple of days on the bus. Young kids are going every day; that's what the guys on the ground in Syria are telling me: 'Oh yes, we have new French people, new English people every day."

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UNICEF: 2016 Worst Year Yet For Children In Syria's Civil War

RFE/RL March 13, 2017

The United Nations says 2016 was the worst year yet for children affected by Syria's six-year-long civil war, with at least 652 being killed and many millions more suffering as refugees.

"Verified instances of killing, maiming, and recruitment of children increased sharply last year in a drastic escalation of violence across the country," the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said in a report published March 13.

UNICEF's report comes two days before the sixth anniversary of the civil war, which began in March 2011 when protests broke out against President Bashar al-Assad.

An estimated 300,000 people have been killed and millions more have been displaced by fighting that has created one the largest migrant crises in Europe since World War II.

Turkey and the United States support various rebel groups fighting against Assad, while Russia and Iran back Assad.

The conflict also involves fighters of the Islamic State (IS) militant group, which is opposed by all sides.

"The depth of suffering is unprecedented," said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF's Middle Eastern regional chief. "Millions of children in Syria come under attack on a daily basis, their lives turned upside down."

The report said the 652 killed from conflict-related causes last year represent a 20 percent increase over 2015. At least 255 of the children were killed in or near schools, it said.

Many of the children were killed directly from the conflict, but many others died because of a lack of access to doctors and basic services.

UNICEF verified 850 cases of children being recruited to fight in the conflict, about double the 2015 figure.

"Children are being used and recruited to fight directly on the frontlines and are increasingly taking part in combat roles, including in extreme cases as executioners, suicide bombers,or prison guards," it said.

UNICEF warned that social and medical services are continuing to deteriorate, forcing many children into "child labor, early marriage, and combat."

Dozens are dying from preventable diseases, it said.

At least 6 million children rely on humanitarian aid and 2.3 million are refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, it said. About 280,000 are living "under siege," cut off from any humanitarian aid.

"Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being and future," Cappelaere said.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/unicef-syria-children- assad-civil-war-refugees/28365718.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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US Dispatches New Batch of Armored Vehicles, Military Personnel to Syria

Sputnik News

21:25 13.03.2017(updated 22:28 13.03.2017)

The US has sent a new batch of armored vehicles and hardware to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), according to an SDF source who asked to remain anonymous. In an interview with Sputnik Turkey, the SDF representative shared the details of this new delivery.

"Cannon batteries, armored vehicles and hardware were delivered to the south of Kobani [north of Raqqa] in 43 wagons across the territory of northern Iraq, which will be used in the ongoing operation to free Raqqa," the source said.

According to him the weapons that were sent by the US earlier weren't enough for the Syrian Democratic Forces.

"We are about to encircle Raqqa and we must enter the city on armored vehicles in order to be able to defend ourselves against snipers and numerous mine traps left in the city by Daesh," the source explained.

Hence, the new batch of armored vehicles may reinforce the ongoing operation for the liberation of Raqqa.

The source further said that the United States intends to send another group of soldiers into the districts of Raqqa in the near future.

"America will send military reinforcements to operate the heavy artilleries during the operation. The units sent by the US are made up of military personnel who earlier took part in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and other 'hot spots'," the source said.

He added that currently there are more than a thousand US military personnel present in the region. Soon their number will increase.

Earlier, a Kurdish source told Sputnik that a unit of the US Marine Corps arrived at an airfield in the al-Hasakah province in Syria's north.

According to the source, the unit was transported on helicopters from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Rumeilan airfield located near the Syrian city of Qamishli.

Last week, a representative of the US-led coalition, John Dorrian, confirmed that the US is going to deploy Marine Corps units and rangers in Syria. 400 troops are expected to arrive. Hitherto, the US military contingent in Syria has been comprised of about 500 people.

The United States deployed US marines to the Syrian city of Raqqa without the permission of the Damascus government, Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel said earlier. He said that US Marines have been deployed to Syria to make sure coalition troops on the ground receive necessary support in the fight to retake Raqqa from Daesh.

The marines will be supporting US partner forces on the ground that lead the offensive to liberate Raqqa from Daesh codenamed Operation Euphrates Rage. The operation was launched by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on November 5, 2016. The SDF was formed in 2015 as the defense force of northern Syria's de facto autonomous Rojava federation and is supported by the US-led coalition. The group is among the forces fighting Daesh and brings together Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and Turkmen fighters, among others.

 Sputnik

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Syrian Kurds Plan to Declare Autonomy in Manbij at the Risk of Angering Turkey

Sputnik News

17:34 13.03.2017

The Democratic Union Party (PYD), one of the leading Kurdish political forces in Syria, has indicated that it plans to establish a "democratic autonomous administration" in Manbij, which made headlines last week when Russia and the United States tried to prevent Turkish-led forces and the Syrian Kurds from clashing over the city.

Ewwas Eli, a senior member of the PYD responsible for foreign relations of the party's branch in Kobani, told Sputnik Turkey that the administration has not been created so far, but it will be ready to operate in the near future.

"Thirteen people will be in charge of the administration," he said. "I am not aware when the Autonomous Administration of Manbij is created. I met with the chair of the administration and its members yesterday during my visit to the city. Preliminary activities with regard to declaring autonomy are drawing to a close."

The autonomous administration will be reportedly made up of 71 Arabs, 43 Kurds, ten Turkmen, eight Circassians, an Armenian and a Chechen. The new body will be run by a delegation comprising thirteen people, who will have four deputies.

Manbij, a strategically-located city in northern Syria, had been under Daesh's control from January 2014 until August 2016 when the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pushed the brutal group out of the city following a two-month-long offensive. The SDF then established the Manbij Military Council to provide security to, and administer, the embattled city, much to Turkey's discontent.

High-ranking Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have repeatedly said that Manbij will be the next target in the Ankara-led Operation Euphrates Shield, a military operation aimed at pushing Daesh out of northern Syrian and preventing the Kurds from establishing a contiguous autonomous region in the area.

In October 2015, the Syrian Kurds declared autonomous rule in Tell Abyad, a city located in the Raqqa province on the border with Turkey.

 Sputnik

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Taiwan urges resumption of cross-strait crime-fighting cooperation

ROC Central News Agency

2017/03/13 21:56:33

Taipei, March 13 (CNA) Deputy Justice Minister Chen Ming-tang () on Monday urged China to resume cooperation with Taiwan on combating crime, based on an agreement signed between the two sides in 2009.

Chen was responding to a media report which said that because cross-Taiwan Strait relations have cooled since President Tsai Ing-wen () took office on May 20 last year, Chinese authorities no longer hand over to Taiwan Taiwanese telecommunication fraud suspects arrested overseas.

Chen admitted that this has been the case since last year.

The Ministry of Justice will seek to negotiate with Beijing via various channels, in the hope of restoring the practice in which Taiwanese suspects are sent to Taiwan and Chinese suspects are sent to China, he said.

For its part, Taiwan's ministry continues to adhere to the 2009 agreement, as is demonstrated recently when it informed Beijing about the detention of a Chinese national last week for alleged espionage. But Chen said the ministry has not received any response from Chinese authorities.

(By Wen Kuei-hsiang and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/cs

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Turkey summons Dutch envoy over treatment of minister, protesters

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 11:59AM

Turkey has summoned the Netherlands' envoy to formally complain about the treatment of Turkish diplomats over the weekend as well as the excessive use of force against demonstrators in an ensuing protest.

The Foreign Ministry said the Dutch Embassy's Charge D'affaires, Daan Feddo Huisinga, was handed two formal protest notes on Monday by a senior official.

The first note protested against what it called practices that violate international conventions, diplomatic courtesy and immunities.

The ministry said it also sought a written apology from Dutch authorities for the treatment of its family minister and diplomats, noting the envoy was told that Turkey reserved the right to seek compensation.

The second note complained about the "inhumane and derogatory" treatment of supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had gathered outside Turkey's Consulate in Rotterdam.

Dutch authorities banned two ministers from campaigning for Turkey's April constitutional referendum which seeks to extend Erdogan's powers.

The note complained that "disproportionate force" had been used against "people using their right to peaceful gatherings."

Turkey has summoned the Dutch diplomat three times after the Netherlands barred Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's plane from landing in Rotterdam and expelled Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya on Saturday.

The Dutch ambassador to Ankara is on leave and Turkey has said it does not want him to return "for some time."

Netherlands issues Turkey travel warning

As the tensions escalated, the Netherlands issued a new travel warning for Turkey, urging Dutch citizens there to take care.

"Since March 11, 2017, there have been diplomatic tensions between Turkey and the Netherlands. Stay alert across the whole of Turkey and avoid gatherings and crowded places," the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

It warned that there was a safety risk in traveling to Turkey, advising citizens to register with the ministry ahead of travel.

"Across the whole country, there is a high risk of terrorist attacks," the ministry noted, particularly warning against travel to areas bordering Syria and Iraq.

Erdogan has warned that the Netherlands will "pay the price" for its "shameless" treatment of Turkey's ministers.

Germany: No future 'free pass' for Turkish politicians

Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff said on Monday that while his country has not issued a ban on campaign appearances by Turkish politicians, that isn't a "free pass" for the future.

"So far, in the last 60 years of our history, we repeatedly refrained from such entry bans for countries such as, for example, the Soviet Union, China and others with whom we were in the Cold War," Merkel's chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, said.

However, he noted that "This is not a free pass for the future."

Several German municipalities canceled rallies by Turkish ministers campaigning for a "yes" vote in the April referendum.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that the dispute with Turkey over the campaign for the referendum and the arrest of a German-Turkish journalist made working on economic aid difficult.

"In these circumstances, it is of course extremely difficult to continue working on that," Schaeuble told Germany's ZDF public broadcaster.

"We don't want to escalate it. We only want Turkey to return to reason," he added.

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Turkish Opposition Leader Predicts Referendum Will Fail

RFE/RL March 13, 2017

The leader of Turkey's main opposition party has predicted the country will vote against increasing the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an April referendum.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party (CHP), told the AFP news agency on March 13 that the "No" vote would win because there have been "questions raised" even within Erdogan's own party about the proposed system.

"One person having this much power and influence would impose risks in the future for Turkey," Kilicdaroglu told AFP.

In the referendum, Turks will vote on constitutional changes that would eliminate the role of prime minister and allow the president to directly appoint public officials, including government ministers.

Erdogan says the changes are necessary to protect the country's stability and would be similar to systems in the United States and France.

Critics, including many Western governments, say it would put too much power into one person's hands and eliminate government checks and balances.

"We want to leave to our children a Turkey with a developed democracy, independent judiciary, a media free to draw and write whatever," Kilicdaroglu said.

"That's why we are saying 'No'."

Kilicdaroglu said the president would gain effective control over the judiciary and executive and legislative powers should the constitutional changes pass.

That, in effect, would mean the country was "abolishing democracy," he said.

War Of Words

Pro-government newspapers have published polls showing the "Yes" vote ahead, while opposition papers show the "No" side winning.

The effects of the campaign have spilled over into Western Europe.

Turkey and the Netherlands are embroiled in a war of words over the Dutch authorities' refusal to allow two Turkish government ministers from speaking at referendum-related rallies in Rotterdam.

Dutch police used horses and water cannon to break up about 1,000 Turkish demonstrators outside their country's consulate in Rotterdam.

Erdogan alleged that "Nazism is alive in the West" after the incident and vowed the Dutch would "pay the price" for their action.

On March 12, he accused the Netherlands of being a "banana republic" and called for sanctions against its fellow NATO member.

Erdogan also used the "Nazi" charge after several German municipalities canceled similar rallies.

The Netherlands is home to some 400,000 people of Turkish origin, while Germany is home to 1.4 million people eligible to vote in Turkey.

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/turkey-referendum-will- fail-kilicdaroglu/28366044.html

Copyright (c) 2017. 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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Ankara Bans Dutch Ambassador, Halts Diplomatic Flights, High-Level Meetings

Sputnik News

23:39 13.03.2017(updated 00:11 14.03.2017)

Ankara has banned the Dutch ambassador from entering Turkey and suspended all high-level political discussions with the Netherlands, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus announced Monday.

According to Kurtulmus, Ankara had decided to halt all high-level political discussions with the Netherlands in an ongoing political spat.

"The Turkish Council of Ministers has decided to bar the Dutch ambassador from returning to Turkey," Daily Sabah quoted Kurtulmus as saying.

"We have decided not to allow Turkey-bound Dutch diplomatic flights," Kurtulmus added.

Turkish-EU relations are experiencing a noticeable slump amid several European countries' refusal to let Turkish officials organize demonstrations supporting the constitutional amendments that will be subject to the referendum scheduled for April 16 and, if adopted, will give more powers to country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On Saturday, the Dutch authorities refused landing for Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was expected to meet with the Turkish expats in the Netherlands in the run up to mid-April's Turkish constitutional referendum on bolstering the president's powers.

On the same day, Turkish Family and Social Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was denied entry into the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. She was declared an "undesirable alien" and then deported to Germany. Both Dutch and German authorities have called off the family minister's campaign meetings.

Ankara reacted furiously, promising reciprocal actions and sanctions against the Netherlands.

 Sputnik

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Turkish-Dutch Diplomatic Dispute Escalates

By Dorian Jones March 13, 2017

Dutch envoy Daan Feddo Huisinga was summoned Monday by the Turkish foreign minister for the third time in as many days to receive a diplomatic dressing down.

The verbal salvo reportedly was for the crackdown by Dutch police on ethnic Turks who demonstrated Saturday in Rotterdam over the removal of Turkish Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from the Netherlands.

Turkish pro-government newspapers Monday published photos of police dogs biting demonstrators, with one headline reading "Nazi Dogs."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called the Dutch government "Nazis" for preventing two of his ministers from speaking at a rally for ethnic Turks in support of an April referendum to extend presidential powers.

"I think its very serious because words and remarks have been exchanged, that have never been exchanged before and there was Turkish demonstrators that were attacked by police in the Netherlands," warns Political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor Website, "I think the government support base in Turkey will be clamoring for some kind of serious retaliation. So the prospectfor the situation escalating rather than deescalating are quite high at the moment."

Despite Erdogan dominating most of the media, substantial funds, and his formidable campaign skills, opinion polls suggest he is struggling to win referendum support for the controversial proposal to extend his powers.

"As it stands right now my gut feeling tells me, the No votes are ahead or at leastAKP doesn't have the kind confidence it has had in past polls that it will win," said political consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

Yesilada suggests there is political advantage to be had from the crisis for Erdogan, "So the AKP wants to fortify the nationalist vote. You know this kind of clashes which are exaggerated by Mr. Erdogan's rhetoric does reinforce the view that the European powers are our enemies and that Mr. Erdogan is steadfastly fighting for our rights."

The leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party Kemal Kilicdarolgu who is leading the No vote campaign has been in the forefront of condemning the Dutch government, calling for a suspension of diplomatic relations.

Observers say such a stance is probably aimed at mitigating any voting advantage Erdogan is seeking to achieve.

Despite Erdogan's tough rhetoric promising severe sanctions against the Netherlands, no concrete steps have been taken.

"All we know at momentis the Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci has come out and say they are not considering economic sanctions because obviously it will hurt Turkey too." notes Columnist Idiz. He argues Ankara may have few cards to play. "I think it will be more on diplomatic side, cancelation of visits not allowing transit flight for official Dutch planes, not commercial planes, and that of sort of thing. Canceling conferences and whatever."

With other European countries too, banning Turkish ministers from addressing referendum rallies, the prospect of the crisis deepening and spreading remains real.

"On the European side they want to downplay the situation. I noticed that Germany is trying to take that kind of approach," notes columnist Idiz, "but the European side might want to take a united front at the end of the day against Turkey."

Monday EU spokesman Margaritis Schinas said, "The EU calls on Turkey to refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk to further exacerbate the situation."

Some Turkish pro-government media have suggested the refugee deal between Ankara and the European Union that has stemmed the flood of people into Europe could be in jeopardy over the crisis.

Analysts suggest Ankara would be reluctant to take such a step, with the refugee deal being one of few remaining ties that underpins its relations with Europe, as well as being an important piece of leverage

Despite such leverage, the latest crisis could ultimately prove to be the tipping point in Turkish European relations, "For Austria Netherlands Germany, and all the other countries are getting sick and tired of Turkey. And I anticipate that at some point , there will be sanctions i have no doubt about that," said consultant Yesilada.

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Scottish leader to call a second independence referendum

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 13, 2017 2:14PM

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will ask permission for a second referendum to split from Britain as London has failed to compromise with Scotland on Brexit.

In a press conference on Monday, Sturgeon said the interest of Scotland could not be ignored at any time and that a referendum would be held late in 2018 or early in 2019.

"I am ensuring that Scotland's future ... will be decided by the people of Scotland," she said.

She went on to say that the Scottish nation has the right to decide its future in the European Union as Britain is heading for a "hard Brexit."

"It will be Scotland's choice and I trust the people of Scotland to make that choice," she added.

The first minister said she would ask the Scottish lawmakers next week to request a Section 30 order from Westminster so that Scotland could hold a legally-binding referendum.

Sturgeon pointed out that the Scottish people voted 62 percent to 38 percent in the June referendum to remain in the EU, and therefore it must be offered a choice.

"So next week I will seek the approval of the Scottish Parliament to open discussions with the UK government on the details of a Section 30 order - the procedure that will enable the Scottish Parliament to legislate for an independence referendum."

Meanwhile, the leader of Scotland's opposition party, Ruth Davidson, reaffirmed her intention to prevent the ruling Scottish National Party from holding a second independence referendum.

The British government was quick to react by calling Sturgeon's plan for an independence referendum divisive.

London said Edinburgh's move to seek independence at such a time would cause huge economic uncertainly.

Both houses of the UK Parliament will vote on the EU Withdrawal Bill later this week. If it is passed, the bill would allow Prime Minister Theresa May to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Article 50 would initiate two years of talks between London and the 28-nation bloc.

In a referendum held on June 23, nearly 52 percent of British voters, amounting to more than 17 million citizens, opted to leave the EU, a decision that sent shock waves throughout the world.

The majority of voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland, however, voted to stay in the bloc.

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UK Lower House Rejects Upper House's Brexit Bill Amendments

Sputnik News

21:58 13.03.2017(updated 23:09 13.03.2017)

The UK House of Commons rejected on Monday the amendments to the bill on launching the procedure to leave the European Union, proposed by the House of Lords, returning the document to the upper house for reconsideration.

LONDON (Sputnik)  One of the amendments would give UK lawmakers a "meaningful vote" on the final Brexit deal.

"The prime minister may not conclude an agreement with the European Union under article 50(2) of the treaty on European Union, on the terms of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, without the approval of both Houses of Parliament," the draft amendment rejected by 331 votes to 286 said.

The other amendment asked the government to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom after Brexit.

"Within three months of exercising the power under section 1(1), ministers of the crown must bring forward proposals to ensure that citizens of another European Union or European Economic Area country and their family members, who are legally resident in the United Kingdom on the day on which this act is passed, continue to be treated in the same way with regards to their EU derived-rights and, in the case of residency, their potential to acquire such rights in the future."

According to The Guardian, Angela Smith, Labour leader in the House of Lords, said that the party would not oppose the bill in the parliament's upper chamber as there was no glimmer of hope that the government would accept the amendments.

On Sunday, UK State Secretary for Exiting the European Union David Davis urged the Conservative parliament members not to vote in favor of the amendments to the Brexit bill.

The UK government plans to start the Brexit process before the end of March. According to the local media reports, it could be done the this week.

The United Kingdom held a referendum last June and decided to leave the European Union. UK Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to trigger the Article 50 of the EU Lisbon Treaty by the end of March, thus starting the Brexit process.

 Sputnik

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Scottish Nationalists Seek New Independence Referendum

By Jamie Dettmer March 13, 2017

Scotland's first minister took a step closer Monday to breaking up the United Kingdom by announcing she intends to begin the legal process of holding a new independence referendum for Scots.

At a news conference in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon said it is the "right thing" to give Scots an opportunity to express their opinion following Brexit, last year's vote by Britain to leave the European Union. In her speech, Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party is the largest party north of the English border, said she wasn't prepared to "do nothing" while Brexit threatened Scotland's economy and its links with Europe.

Coming in the wake of last week's electoral surge by Sinn Fein nationalists in Northern Ireland assembly elections, Sturgeon's announcement, although not a surprise, adds to the ramifications of the Brexit vote, which Britain's Conservative government is struggling to contain.

Moments after Sturgeon's speech, Faisal Islam, political editor of Britain's Sky News, spoke for many British political reporters when he said, "Who knows where all of this will end."

"Thus Brexit, which was meant to protect Britain, begins the destruction of Britain," tweeted political commentator Nick Cohen.

Vote within 2 years

Scotland's first minister, who heads a minority government, said she wants the vote to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019, arguing the British parliament in Westminster had become more assertive since the Brexit vote. She said Britain's Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, had failed to consult Scotland before deciding on a hard break with the EU, which will see Britain not only end its political membership in the European bloc but will also see it exit Europe's single market with major economic consequences.

In last year's Brexit vote, Scots voted by a 62-38 percent margin to remain in the EU. After the vote, Sturgeon said Brexit constituted a "significant and a material change of the circumstances," thereby justifying a second independence referendum. Scotland elected to remain a part of the United Kingdom in a September 2014 referendum, which was then billed by Sturgeon as a "once in a lifetime vote."

Sturgeon will seek the authority for the independence referendum next week from Scotland's parliament, but, the final say has to come from the Westminster parliament. It is unclear whether Prime Minister May will agree to another independence vote, or attempt to block it. That sets the stage for a confrontation between the two strong-willed leaders.

Responding to Sturgeon's announcement, May said a second independence referendum would set Scotland on course for "uncertainty and division."

She added: "Instead of playing politics with the future of our country, the Scottish government should focus on delivering good government and public services for the people of Scotland. Politics is not a game."

A former Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, said May would have to allow a referendum.

"The times of an imperial government in London dictating to the Scots is long gone," he said.

Nicky Morgan, a former British Conservative minister, said, "This is extremely concerning and people are worried about it." She said Brexit was a "seismic event" and clearly will change Britain for decades to come. "We don't quite know where we will end up," she said.

May has made it clear she will fight to preserve the United Kingdom. Politically, however, she could be placed in an untenable position if she tries to deny the Scots another referendum. A majority in Scotland's devolved parliament at Holyrood backs breaking up the United Kingdom.

A spokesman for May denounced Surgeon's announcement, arguing evidence "clearly showed a majority of people in Scotland do not want a second independence referendum."

Government: new vote 'divisive'

He added, "Only a little over two years ago, people in Scotland voted decisively to remain part of our United Kingdom in a referendum which the Scottish government defined as a 'once in a generation' vote. Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time."

An opinion poll released last week put support for Scottish independence at its highest level since the weeks immediately following the Brexit vote. An Ipsos MORI poll put the two sides of the Scottish independence debate level at 50/50, after a previous series of polls had the unionists marginally ahead.

Britain's main opposition parties also have responded critically to Sturgeon, but said they would not seek to stop a vote, if the Scottish parliament authorizes another referendum, which seems likely. "If the Scottish parliament votes for one, Labor will not block that democratic decision at Westminster," said Jeremy Corbyn, the Labor Party's leader.

According to a British official, May will likely allow a second referendum, but only if it takes place after Brexit negotiations have been concluded with the EU, likely by April 2019. Sturgeon is adamant the vote must be held before then, maximizing Scotland's chances of being able to rejoin the EU quickly  or even being allowed to retain membership.

"If Scotland is to have a real choice - when the terms of Brexit are known, but before it is too late to choose our own course - then that choice should be offered between the autumn of next year, 2018, and the spring of 2019," Sturgeon said.

The main battle, then, between May and Sturgeon is not likely to end with whether there is a referendum, but when it is held.

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Edge data centres will account for most of the telecom server market growth and is projected to reach US$14 billion by 2026 according to a new report from DellOro Group.
BOISE, Idaho, March 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. Geothermal Inc. (NYSE MKT:HTM), a leading and profitable renewable energy company focused on the development, production, and sale of electricity from geothermal energy, today announced that Douglas Glaspey, President and Chief Operating Officer, is scheduled to present at the 29th Annual ROTH Conference in Dana Point, CA. on Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 8:30 a.m. PT.



The 29th Annual ROTH Conference is scheduled to take place at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel from March 12-15, 2017. The ROTH conference is one of the largest of its kind in the U.S. Following the success of previous years events, the ROTH Conference, with close to 500 participating companies and over 4,000 attendees, will feature presentations from public and private companies in a variety of sectors.

About U.S. Geothermal Inc.:

U.S. Geothermal Inc. is a leading and profitable renewable energy company focused on the development, production and sale of electricity from geothermal energy. The Company is currently operating geothermal power projects at Neal Hot Springs, Oregon, San Emidio, Nevada and Raft River, Idaho for a total power generation of approximately 45 MWs. The Company is also developing an additional estimated 115 MWs of projects at: the Geysers, California; a second phase project at San Emidio, Nevada; at Crescent Valley, Nevada; and the El Ceibillo project located near Guatemala City, Guatemala. U.S. Geothermals growth goal is to reach over 200 MWs of generation by 2021 through a combination of internal development and strategic acquisitions.

Please visit our Website at: http://www.usgeothermal.com

About ROTH Capital Partners

ROTH Capital Partners, LLC (ROTH), is a relationship-driven investment bank focused on serving emerging growth companies and their investors. As a full-service investment bank, ROTH provides capital raising, M&A advisory, analytical research, trading, market-making services and corporate access. Headquartered in Newport Beach, CA, ROTH is privately-held and employee owned, and maintains offices throughout the U.S. For more information on ROTH, please visit www.roth.com.

The information provided in this news release may contain forward-looking statements within the definition of the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned to review the risk factors identified by the company in its filings with US and Canadian securities agencies. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating to the future operating or financial performance of U.S. Geothermal, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties; interpretation of the results of well tests; project development; resource megawatt capacity; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from U.S. Geothermal's expectations include the uncertainties involving the availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of results of well tests; the need for cooperation of government agencies in the development and operation of properties; the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; risks of construction; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in U.S. Geothermal's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities and in other U.S. Geothermal reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. Forward-looking statements are based on managements expectations, beliefs and opinions on the date the statements are made. U.S. Geothermal Inc. assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if managements expectations, beliefs, or opinions, or other factors, should change.

The NYSE MKT does not accept responsibility for the adequacy of this release.
SOFIA, Bulgaria, March 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sensata Technologies, (NYSE:ST) one of the worlds leading suppliers of sensing, electrical protection, control and power management solutions, today announced the opening of its largest global testing facility in Sofia, Bulgaria.



The Testing Laboratory and Mechanization Office is now operational and employs more than 100 highly-skilled engineers and technicians in the areas of durability testing, research and development, field failure analysis and equipment development for Sensatas automotive sensing technology. The company invested approximately $3 million in the Testing Laboratory and Mechanization Office.

Our customers rely on Sensata to deliver proven, mission-critical sensing capabilities that help solve some of their toughest problems while meeting stringent quality and performance standards, said Paul Chawla, Senior Vice President, Performance Sensing, Europe. The tests implemented in our new Testing Laboratory recreate some of the harshest conditions our products may encounter in a vehicle, including extreme temperatures and environmental conditions. We are excited about this expansion and very proud of our engineering teams who help to ensure that our products meet Sensata and customer specifications and strict industry standards.

A single automotive sensor designed by Sensata engineers undergoes over 200 functional tests in the Testing Laboratory before it moves to manufacturing to simulate the complete lifetime of a car in three months time.

The sensors are tested to endure temperatures from -40 to +1,200 degrees Celsius. The sensors also undergo tests for protection against moisture, dust and steam cleaning, where each sensor is exposed to high-pressure water steam reaching up to 100 degrees Celsius and pressure up to 100 bars. Other tests include chemical resistance, vibration and electromagnetic compatibility between the sensor and the vehicle.

Sensata Technologies Bulgaria currently employs more than 3,000 people. In the capital Sofia the company has its Business Center, where the new Testing Laboratory and Mechanization Office is located along with Design Engineering, Shared Services, and Customer Service departments. In Plovdiv, the company produces pressure sensors and in Botevgrad, they produce high temperature sensors, both for the automotive market.

About Sensata Technologies:

Sensata Technologies is one of the worlds leading suppliers of sensing, electrical protection, control and power management solutions with operations and business centers in thirteen countries. Sensatas products improve safety, efficiency and comfort for millions of people every day in automotive, appliance, aircraft, industrial, military, heavy vehicle, heating, air-conditioning, data, telecommunications, recreational vehicle and marine applications. For more information, please visit Sensatas web site at www.sensata.com.
To the editor:

Affordable health care could have worked if Republicans had worked with Democrats in 2009 to make it better instead of using it as a tool at election time to win the White House.

If Republican governors had set up exchanges and wanted Medicaid expansion for the poor, we would have a better health insurance system for all Americans now, instead of this fighting among the GOP to come up with something that will work. The only reason that the pre-existing condition clause, as well as keeping children up to 26 years of age on their parents insurance, exists is because of the ACA.

Trumpcare gives billions of tax breaks to the wealthiest who can easily pay for the best health care already and shafts the poorest Americans with higher deductibles and rates. Sound familiar?

There is a good reason that the AARP, the American Medical Association and many others are opposed to this replacement plan, to say nothing of what it will do to poor families and others who are the weakest among us and will lose their subsidies that the ACA provided.

Insurance companies will rake in the money. Making a profit from illness and suffering to me is immoral. Offering a poor person a health savings account is like offering a starving person a cookbook. What the GOP doesnt seem to realize is that if you dont make enough money to have any extra at the end of the month, you sure dont have enough money to save for medical expenses, especially when the GOP doesnt want to increase the minimum wage and decrease Medicaid for the poor, as well as taking services away from poor woman who use Planned Parenthood.

Im waiting to see if preventive health care will be taken away from Medicare that was put in place because of the ACA. If the congressional Republicans think Trumpcare is good enough for the American people, it should be required that all members of Congress to use the plan as well.

Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz said we should get rid of our iPhones to pay for this new plan. Really? Whats next? Food? Maybe we should take a lesson from the health insurance plan that Canada has. It works there. Anything is better than what we have now.

ROBERT HAYDEN

Blairs
Mayor Jose "Joey" Torres of Paterson turned himself in to the state police Monday on charges that he used municipal employees to do work on city time at a family-owned business location.Torres, who surrendered at 11:30 a.m. in Totowa, said nothing as he walked quickly past a group of reporters and photographers and entered the state police barracks. He remained inside for more than an hour and said nothing when he left.After Torres drove away, his attorney, John Azzarello, said Torres was not going to resign."He has no plans to step down," Azzarello said. "In fact, just today he met with emergency management to prepare for tomorrow's storm."Torres' attorney added that he planned to fight the charges.On the same day that Torres turned himself in, the three public works employees indicted last week as his co-conspirators were suspended without pay from their city jobs, according to Paterson Business Administrator Nellie Pou.
Three days before President Trump's new travel ban is due to take effect, California joined a legal challenge by Washington and four other states Monday arguing that the proposed halt on admission of immigrants and refugees is a thinly disguised anti-Muslim decree that would damage the states' universities, hospitals and economies.Like Trump's first order, which was blocked by the courts, the revised order is "an attack on people -- women and children, professors and business colleagues, seniors and civic leaders -- based on their religion and national origin," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement accompanying the filing in a federal court in Seattle.Washington state, the lead plaintiff, asked U.S. District Judge James Robart to hold a hearing Tuesday on its request to extend his previous injunction to Trump's new order temporarily blocking people from six mostly Muslim nations and all refugees. But Robart said he would hear arguments no earlier than Wednesday, when other federal judges have scheduled hearings on separate lawsuits in Maryland and Hawaii.Meanwhile, the Trump administration filed its first legal defense of the new executive order, telling a judge in Hawaii that it was issued under the president's "broad constitutional authority over foreign affairs and national security" and bars entry "on the basis of risk of terrorism, not religion."The states' filing Monday detailed the harm they said they would suffer from the travel ban.California's lawyers said the state, whose population is 27 percent foreign-born, is home to nearly 700 students from the six targeted countries at its state universities and would face the loss of prospective students, scholars and physicians from abroad, as well as millions in tax revenue from travelers.The proposed order "undermines California's commitment to diversity and nondiscrimination," the filing said.The order, which Trump issued March 6, would prohibit U.S. entry for 90 days by anyone from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In the meantime, the U.S. would determine whether heightened screening is needed for people from those nations trying to enter this country.Trump's short-lived Jan. 27 travel ban also applied to entrants from Iraq, which was dropped from the new order at the urging of military officials working with Iraqis to combat Islamic State militants. U.S. officials also said Iraq had agreed to implement new measures to keep people "with criminal or terroristic intent from reaching the United States."The new order, like the first one, would also halt for 120 days all U.S. admission of refugees, who have fled violence or persecution in their homelands. Unlike the earlier version, the March 6 order explicitly exempts from the ban natives of the targeted countries who have gained legal U.S. residency or hold valid U.S. visas.Rulings by Robart and a panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that the Jan. 27 order was likely to violate the constitutional rights of immigrants and refugees, by excluding them without notice or hearings, and that it raised serious questions of possible religious discrimination.Lawyers for the states suing in Seattle -- Washington, California, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland -- argued Monday that the new presidential order was no different.Despite Trump's claim that the revisions would satisfy the courts' previous objections, the states' lawyers noted that presidential adviser Stephen Miller said Feb. 21 that the new order would have "mostly minor technical differences" but "the same basic policy outcome" as the first order. Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, said Feb. 27 that the new order "attempts to address the courts' concerns" but to "maintain the way that we did it the first time."And that goal, the states contended, is to "disfavor Islam and favor Christianity."They cited Trump's campaign pledge to ban all Muslim immigration, his claim at a Feb. 16 news conference that he had acted to "keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the country," and the Jan. 28 statement by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump adviser, that the president had asked him to find a legal way to draft a "Muslim ban."In the Hawaii filing defending Trump's order, Justice Department lawyers described the ban as a brief time-out for review of U.S. terrorist screening measures. It said Trump's order was legal under a 1952 statute allowing the president to exclude any "class of aliens" who might harm the national interest.Any alleged violations of the rights of individuals were cured by the new order's exemptions for legal residents and visa-holders, the only noncitizens who have constitutional rights, government lawyers said. Claims of harm to universities, state hospitals or residents seeking entry of a relative abroad are merely "speculative," the lawyers said, because anyone banned by the order could ask a consular official for a waiver.They also said the executive order "does not convey any religious message" and would affect nations which collectively are home to less than 9 percent of the world's Muslim population."Informal statements by the president or his surrogates" -- before or after the election -- "that do not directly concern the order are irrelevant," the government lawyers said.In another action Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and 36 colleagues introduced a bill that would negate Trump's order, legislation that has little prospect of success in the Republican-controlled Congress, let alone of winning the president's signature."These divisive policies alienate our allies in the Muslim world and fuel anti-American sentiment by sending a message that the United States is out to punish one religion," Feinstein said in a statement.
On Friday, in the evening, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey departed Queensland for an official visit to the United Kingdom and Malaysia, and the Honourable Chief Justice Catherine Holmes assumed duty as Acting Governor of Queensland.
On Monday, in the morning, at Buckingham Palace, London, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey attended the launch of the Queens Baton Relay for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

In the afternoon, at Westminster Abbey, London, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended the Commonwealth Day Service.

In the evening, at Marlborough House, London, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended the Commonwealth Day Reception hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Following, at Stoke Lodge, London, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended dinner celebrating the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games hosted by the Honourable Alexander Downer AC, Australias High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Pros and cons

Cameras in Wasco

(TNS) -- The largest law enforcement agencies in Kern County, Calif., are in agreement that body-worn cameras would provide a valuable service for officers and the general public.But there are two obstacles: Money and storage.There are the initial camera costs, with each camera running about $1,000, but the storage costs are where the real expense comes in.According to a recent Time article online , nearly a third of the 18,000 state and local police departments in the U.S. are purchasing body-cameras for their officers. That number is only expected to grow, and even local agencies say its likely just a matter of time before theyre also using body-cameras.And departments in larger cities, the article says, can generate more than 10,000 hours of video a week, requiring some agencies to turn to cloud-based high-volume storage facilities. Storing that much data comes at a steep price.The New Orleans Police Department, according to the article, plans to pay $1.2 million for body-cameras, with much of the cost going toward storage.And those costs dont reflect the time and work necessary to review the footage to see what portions can be released to the public.Kern County sheriffs Sgt. Ian Chandler said the body-cameras used by deputies under his command in Wasco can shoot in either 720p or 1080p resolution. If shot in 1080p, about twice as much data is being stored in the system.Deputies download their cameras at the end of their shift, and that information is kept in the server for a minimum of 13 months. A portion of the video can be redacted from either the beginning or the end of the footage, but otherwise it cannot be edited, Chandler said.All the footage is downloaded and can be called up if needed. But whats usually reviewed is footage used in investigations and that can assist the District Attorneys office in a prosecution. Also reviewed is any footage involving a citizen complaint about deputy behavior.Bakersfield police Sgt. Gary Carruesco said body-cameras are discussed every budget cycle but none have been purchased yet. He said Chief Greg Williamson isnt opposed to them, but understands there is going to be a lot to look at before theyre implemented.It really comes down to the money aspect, Carruesco said.The cameras the department has looked into cost anywhere from $400 to $1,000. Carruesco said about 200 officers who interact with the public, including patrol, gang officers and police service technicians, would need the cameras.Using the $1,000 number, thats a total of $200,000 to purchase a camera for each officer interacting with the public.The storage of data for those cameras costs even more. Carruesco said it would cost about $100 a month in storage costs for each camera.With 200 cameras, that adds up to $20,000 a month  or $240,000 a year  in storage costs. Between the purchasing and storage costs, the BPD would be spending about $440,000 in its first year of using body-cameras, plus an additional $240,000 every year afterward.And that figure doesnt include maintenance or replacement costs.The cost outweighs the benefit in a monetary sense, but in the sense of transparency its a no-brainer, Carruesco said.Officer Robert Rodriguez, spokesman for the Bakersfield California Highway Patrol office, said theres no doubt the CHP will eventually have body-cameras, but he doesnt believe it will be anytime soon. He said securing funding and researching the best product will take time.Many outside law enforcement, in light of controversial cases from Ferguson to Freddie Gray, have also argued for body-cameras to help ensure police act appropriately. Some believe body-cameras are more likely to stop officers from using what they believe to be excessive force in making an arrest or dealing with a situation where a suspect is exhibiting unusual behavior.Six Baltimore police officers are charged with criminal offenses in the death of 25-year-old Gray, who suffered a fatal neck injury April 12 while inside a police van. He died a week later. The Baltimore Sun published a column by Dan Rodricks last year arguing that, in a post-Freddie Gray world, there is the potential of police body cameras to influence behavior and provide a video record that resolves complaints in light of the raw resentment some people feel toward law enforcement.Bakersfield defense attorney Michael C. Lukehart described the cameras as a mixed blessing.I think almost all police officers acting in good faith would welcome a record of what they do to save them from unwarranted criticism, Lukehart said.The general public would be surprised if all the interactions involved in normal police work were reported, he said. For example, upper middle class residents would be surprised at how rough police can act in some of their duties, while those living under different conditions more hostile to police would be shocked at how well officers perform their jobs.Each person has his or her own preconceived notions about police, and seeing the reality of their work would likely have a strong impact on those notions, the attorney said.Lukehart said one concern he has is that officers, realizing all their actions are being recorded, could be inhibited from doing some of the things they need to do. With all the recent criticism against police, officers may be tempted to avoid getting into a situation where they also might be criticized or become the subject of a lawsuit.Wasco deputies began wearing body-cameras in April of last year in a pilot project. The city paid $895 each for 18 cameras from WatchGuard.The results have been very positive, Chandler said Tuesday.While several weeks remain until the numbers are officially tallied, Chandler said citizen complaints have decreased. He said there have been several instances where people came to the substation to file a complaint, but upon watching footage taken from a body-camera admitted they were mistaken in how they remembered what occurred.The cameras also make Chandlers job easier in evaluating the work of deputies. He can see firsthand how they interact with the public.I cant be here all the time, but with the body-worn camera I can be, Chandler said.The cameras are to be turned on whenever a deputy is engaged in a call for service. When the call is over, its turned off until the next call.Unlike agencies that spend thousands of dollars a month in storage costs, Chandler is able to store all the substations data in-house. As a supervisor with just 16 sworn staff, the footage they accrue can be stored on a dedicated server with eight terabytes.While theyve proven economical with the relatively few deputies in Wasco, providing cameras to each of the estimated 500 patrol deputies or other Sheriffs Office personnel who contact the public would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchasing and storage.Its extremely expensive and still relatively new technology for law enforcement, Chandler said.Sheriff Donny Youngblood said he wishes the county had the money to put body-cameras on all deputies. He said the cameras bring out the best behavior in everyone, from the deputy to the person he or she is questioning.The video is beneficial to us more than it is to anybody else, Youngblood said. Even if its negative, its beneficial. Then we can address a training issue.
A new white paper co-sponsored by the United Parcel Service and the Consumer Technology Association holds a number of sobering but intriguing revelations for would-be smart cities  among them the finding that Asia, not the U.S., is likely to become a center of smart city innovation.But in a determination a UPS representative said he finds significant, the report finds would-be smart cities must stay committed, collaborative and consistent, and emphasize community in order to thrive.The number of smart city projects around the world is unquestionably on the rise, according toa white paper tipped in early January at CES 2017 and made available tothe following month.UPS has been a part of that intelligent evolution since 2008 when it began installing GPS tracking equipment and sensors on its package cars, the company name for the famous brown trucks.Globally, smart city projects rose more than 38 percent over three years, from 170 at the end of 2013 to more than 235 in 2016. The value of that market is growing too, naturally, from $14.85 billion in 2015 to an estimated $34.35 billion by 2020  a compound annual growth rate of more than 18 percent.With 70 percent of the worlds population forecast to live in cities by 2050, the need for sustainable, livable world cities is essential for a prosperous future, the reports authors wrote.The report emphasizes early on that a smart city needs to have a data-based infrastructure system  but that it must also integrate other city functions including energy, buildings, health care, services and citizen involvement.Smart cities ultimate promise, its writers conclude, is data being used as an improved input for better processes and decision making.But, they point out, most would-be smart cities have smart blocks or corridors  not a fully realized smart city implementation at this time.The smart city concept isnt well-known among laypeople, the authors noted, citing an April 2016 study from Frost & Sullivan, and adding, no individual with less education than a high school diploma said that he or she had ever heard of the term  .And while smart cities are developing from India to Europe and nationally from San Diego to New York City  with 77 cities competing in last years federal Smart City Challenge , the report found Asia is a likely center of smart city innovation, due to urban needs, tech readiness and government support.Citing a BMI Research report from 2016, the report noted urbanization in China and India rose to 65 percent and 37 percent respectively last year, up from 56 percent and 33 percent respectively in 2015. Singapore, meanwhile, aims to be the worlds first smart nation  leveraging one of the worlds highest mobile and broadband penetration rates.Asia is further ahead on smart cities, the authors noted, pointing out China has established 285 pilots and India is planning 100 new smart cities and overhauling 500 others to make them smart.David Roegge, UPS director of high-tech segment marketing, who mentioned the reports impending release at the recent consumer electronics show, toldthat finding wasn't a surprise to him.Id still say in terms of the U.S., were still at a test and learn and pilot stage. There was a lot of increased activity in 2016 on that front, Roegge said, citing a quote in the survey from an unnamed Kansas City innovation officer who also agreed.The innovation officer  identified byas Bob Bennett , chief innovation officer for Kansas City, Mo.  said in the report that no such thing as a smart city exists because you dont have sufficient dispersion into any city population to where the data can be fully extrapolated.He confirmed this in an interview  noting his own city has implanted smart sensors in just two of its 318 square miles.Cities must do two to three things to move from cool to smart , Bennett said: Use data to inform their decision-making; deploy enough sensors to accurately apply whats learned to the whole city; and get buy-in from the citys entire ecosystem, from community groups to private utility companies.Twenty-five years from now, these will just be called cities. The smart bit will be assumed. My goal as a CIO is to ensure as we are building out, doing maintenance on all these conditions, Bennett said. For us, the transportation system was an easy way to do this because we have more square miles of road network per capita than any other city in America.Another significant hurdle for U.S. cities, Roegge said, is their age and legacy infrastructure  a roadblock to getting smart.In some of the Asian areas, India for example, they dont necessarily need to overhaul their infrastructure, so that gives them an advantage on the speed side, Roegge said.George Karayannis, vice president of CityNow, the smart city arm of Panasonic  which has an operations hub for its Denver division as the anchor tenant at Denver smart city Pena Station Next  agreed after reviewing the report.The new Asian cities have the potential to be truly smart cities, Karayannis said via email.But, said Karayannis, that will depend on how they are planned, implemented and managed  too early to tell as business as usual is a very powerful draw, and the creation of a smart city or community requires a much different approach  .The drivers for smart cities include desires to reduce waste and re-allocate underused resources; reducing the frustrations associated with urban living (often, traffic congestion); creating early warning systems for disasters like earthquakes, floods, storms and infectious diseases; and raising revenues.The report notes that the smart city/community concept promotes a specific vision of modern urban development  one that acknowledges the importance of IT in economic competitiveness  but Roegge said that while he agrees, the underlying issue is unquestionably quality of life.It has to be whats most beneficial and useful for the citizens, and the citizens have to have a voice in it, he said, highlighting the reports recommendations cities commit at their most senior levels to becoming smart; collaborate with stakeholders, agree on a consistent vision and hear from community members.If its not something thats benefiting the citizens, its not something thats worthwhile, he added.Since 2009, UPS has invested more than $750 million in alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles and fueling stations around the world  including in the North Corridor, Atlantas so-called smart corridor project.The company has an annual technology budget of more than $1 billion and uses the data it collects through sensors and GPS to reduce fuel costs and emissions.In Portland, Ore., the eBike, an electrically assisted delivery bike based on a 2012 pilot in Hamburg, Germany, debuted in November, part of a fleet of more than 7,700 low-emission vehicles.Elsewhere, in the U.S., UPS fields electric and hybrid electric vehicles whose drivers run On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation (ORION), which uses fleet telematics and algorithms to help them optimize delivery routes to save time, fuel and distance. ORION saves the company more than 1.5 million gallons of fuel annually.UPS's work in Atlanta, home to its headquarters, is broadly analogous to the work Kansas Citys major smart partners like AT&T, Cisco and others have done to collaborate with the public sector.That contrasts, Bennett said, with India  where the federal government has a $20 billion budget it invests in smart cities.Our corporate partners are taking on some of that risk with us. Because of that, we are all rowing together to make this thing work, Bennett said.
(TNS)  BRANDONVILLE, Pa.  A Doylestown company has filed a preliminary permit application with the U.S. Department of Energy for the development of a pumped-storage hydroelectric project near Shenandoah in East Union Township.Merchant Hydro Developers LLC filed an application for the permit with DOEs Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Dec. 19, 2016, for what is identified as the Rattlin Run Pumped Storage Hydro Project in the application.FERC is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil. FERC also reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas terminals and interstate natural gas pipelines as well as licensing hydropower projects.Calls to reach Merchant Hydro agent Adam Rousselle for more information on the project were not returned.According to the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy website, pumped-storage hydropower is a type of hydropower that works like a battery, pumping water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir for storage and later generation. It is an important piece of DOEs renewable energy portfolio because it acts as a utility-scale grid storage technology. DOEs Water Power Program plays a supportive role in demonstrating the benefits of PSH and its role in our nations clean energy portfolio. As a renewable form of energy storage, PSH facilitates grid stabilization, allowing a high penetration of variable renewables such as wind and solar into existing electrical grids.At the current time, the project is in the study stage. The 16-page application for the preliminary permit from FERC explains that, based on current conceptual design, the Rattlin Run project involves the construction of a closed-loop, pumped-storage hydroelectric generating facility capable of producing approximately 297 megawatts of electricity.The basic configuration would include: As many as two pumping/generating units contained in a powerhouse. A newly constructed lower reservoir of approximately 131 acres. As many as two upper reservoirs  one approximately 112-acre upper reservoir created through construction of a semi-circular dam and/or dike retaining 550 million gallons of water, and potentially a second approximately 168-acre upper reservoir created through construction of a semi-circular dam and/or dike retaining 820 million gallons of water. Combined, these reservoirs will contain approximately 4,200 acre-feet of water. One 48-inch penstock (an enclosed pipe that delivers water to hydro turbines) approximately 3,387 feet long and a reservoir tie Penstock of approximately 900 feet. The project will have an approximate net head of approximately 621 feet.The application states that Merchant Hydro proposes to create as many as two upper reservoirs, as well as a lower reservoir that will be filled from local inflow including groundwater inputs and operated at a surface elevation of 1,060 and 1,099 feet above sea level. Preliminary estimates indicate the lower reservoir capacity could approach 5,040 acre-feet.The upper reservoir would potentially be constructed using dam roller compacted concrete or earth and rock excavated from mine site reclamation. Preliminary designs estimate the upper reservoir to have a total surface area of approximately 280 acres and hold approximately 1.4 billion gallons of water at a pool discharge elevation of 1,760 feet ASL.A new 150-foot-long, 50-foot-wide powerhouse containing two turbine-generator units with a total rated capacity of 300 megawatts, and a new transmission line connecting the powerhouse to a nearby electric grid interconnection point with options to evaluate multiple grid interconnection locations.Possible initial fill water and makeup water would come from Catawissa Creek.PPL Electric Utilities Inc. owns two transmission lines and two substations nearby the project boundary.The average annual generation from this project would be approximately 867,187 megawatt hours. The cost of the studies vary from $150,000 to $400,000.A preliminary permit does not authorize the permit holder to perform any land-disturbing activities or enter land or water owned by others without the owners expressed permission.The application also explains the benefits to the public interest. The proposed Rattlin Creek Pumped Storage Hydro Project will be achieved by installing a new hydroelectric generator that will utilize modern, state-of-the-art technology to optimize the clean, renewable electricity generating potential of site in a manner that best develops, conserves and utilizes this resource for beneficial public use. The proposed project will fulfill the public interest for a less expensive, more reliable and environmentally sound source of renewable energy while creating energy jobs in an economically-depressed area who has lost energy related jobs in the transition away from coal.Also, the hydraulic capacity of the Rattlin Run project will develop, conserve, protect and utilize in the public interest the public water resources of the region without damage to the environment, according to the application. Development of the proposed project will reduce the acid rain and greenhouse effects associated with coal- and oil-fueled power plants that currently supply a significant portion of the energy needs of Pennsylvania. The benefits of the proposed project are directly in keeping with Pennsylvanias 2014 Energy Plan to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, create jobs and maximize the states natural resources by creating renewable energy resources.
The pressure on Lance Stroll ahead of the 2017 season is "extremely high".

That is not the view of an outspoken pundit but of Rob Smedley, the engineering chief at Williams.

Last week, Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost told Speed Week: "I see Mercedes in front and then Ferrari and Red Bull with a gap to (Felipe) Massa in the Williams.

"We will have to see how the young Lance Stroll will go," he said.

He is referring to the fact that rookie Stroll, who is just 18, had a difficult start to his 2017 campaign with several mistakes in Barcelona testing.

The son of billionaire fashion mogul Lawrence Stroll seemed to struggle with the much faster 2017 car, and seemed about a second off Massa's test pace.

But Smedley thinks Stroll was actually quicker than his best time of 1m20.3 showed, even though that time compared poorly against Massa's 1m19.4 best.

"If Lance had driven in the same conditions as Felipe, he would have done a 1m19.6," Smedley told Auto Motor und Sport. "That would be more than respectable.

"What he needs now is confidence," the British engineer added. "Melbourne will be tough enough for him -- new track, limited practice and the walls are closer than in Barcelona.

"The pressure on Lance is extremely high," Smedley continued. "He is only 18, everything is new, the cars are so fast and everyone is looking at him.

"He goes to Melbourne with only 180 minutes of preparation before qualifying. Give him half a year to familiarise," he insisted. "Only then can we form a judgement about him."

(GMM)
Adrian Newey could be shaping up to launch a "brilliant update" for its 2017 car.

That is the claim of former F1 driver turned German-language pundit Marc Surer.

The Swiss commentator is referring to the fact that, despite designer Newey's usual brilliance in interpreting new rules, Ferrari and Mercedes were clearly quicker in Barcelona testing.

"The Red Bull is a surprisingly simple design," Surer told the German broadcaster Sky.

"It may indicate that Red Bull with its Renault engine are betting on a strategy knowing that they cannot match the power of the Mercedes.

"On the other hand, it could also be that Adrian Newey will present a brilliant update in Melbourne," he added.

Meanwhile, Surer is predicting a tough year for German youngster Pascal Wehrlein, as he moves from the failed backmarker Manor to the traditional midfield team Sauber.

However, it appears Sauber could be bringing up the rear in 2017.

"Pascal is back after his back injury," said Surer. "But Sauber cannot keep up. They are using the Ferrari engine from last year, but Ferrari and all of the other teams have taken steps forward with their new engines."

(GMM)
F1 looks set to ban the 'shark fin' appendages that will fill the Melbourne grid next weekend.

The fins, extending from the rear of the engine cover, "calm the air in front of the rear wing", explained former F1 driver turned pundit Marc Surer.

The so-called 'shark fins' first emerged several years ago but were banned apparently for aesthetic reasons, before being re-allowed for the brand new 2017 regulations.

"Mercedes and some others have even built a second wing in front of the rear wing, but it's terribly ugly and should be banned," Surer told German broadcaster Sky.

"Luckily (F1 sporting boss) Ross Brawn seems to agree," he added.

(GMM)
Aquion Energy, Inc., a developer and manufacturer of Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI) batteries and stationary energy storage systems, recently completed the closing of a $55-million Series D financing round. Due to strong investor interest, the total amount of funding for this round was increased from the $35-million level previously announced by the company in April of 2013. ( Earlier post .)

The Series D financing includes participation from new investors Bill Gates, Yungs Enterprise, Nick and Joby Pritzker through their familys firm Tao Invest, Bright Capital, and Gentry Venture Partners. Previous investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, and Advanced Technology Ventures also participated in the round.

Designed for the requirements of both small- and large-scale stationary energy storage applications, Aquions patented AHI battery systems offer high-performance, low-cost, operational safety, and sustainability.



Aqueous hybrid ion chemistry. Source: Aquion. Click to enlarge.

The hybrid energy storage device comprises a low-cost, activated carbon anode, a Manganese oxide cathode (MnO 2 ), and an electrolyte consisting of Na 2 SO 4 in water (~1 M). The batteries have shown high cycle life of more than 5,000 cycles at high rates, (100% DoD).

Aquion will begin shipping production units to customers in the first half of 2014 from its manufacturing facility in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

Aquions initial manufacturing line is capable of producing over 200 megawatt hours per year when operating at full capacity. The 350,000 square-foot facility is sized for five manufacturing lines, enabling Aquion to scale production.

Aquion spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2010.

Resources
Mr. Tran Thanh Man presented certificates of merit to organizations and individuals

in the Czech Republic (Photo: VNA)

The four organizations include Fellow Countrymen Associations of Nghe Tinh and Quang Binh, Group Toward Central Region and Overseas Vietnamese Branch in Sa Pa Trade Centre.

On the same day, Mr. Tran Thanh Man, Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Vice President and General Secretary of the VFF, and the delegates from the VFF Central Committee had a working session with the Vietnamese Embassy and leaders of the Union of Overseas Vietnamese Associations in Europe and the Overseas Vietnamese Association in the Czech Republic.

Ambassador Truong Manh Son reported the political-diplomatic-economic relationship between Vietnam and the Czech Republic, and stressed that in 2017 the embassy continues to set the goal of "diplomatic activity serving bilateral economic cooperation development" and is ready to serve as a bridge so that localities of Vietnam and the Czech Republic approach each other.

Mr. Tran Thanh Man appreciated the achievements that the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic has achieved over the past years in the direction of "deeply integrating into the local society and closely sticking to the homeland."

He affirmed that the model of operation of the Overseas Vietnamese Association in the Czech Republic is very effective, and worth studying and sharing./.
The California Energy Commission released a Notice of Proposed Awards for 16 additional hydrogen stations to continue expanding the hydrogen station network in California. Added to the retail hydrogen stations already open and under construction, California will have more than 60 stations statewide by 2020 (or sooner.)

The grant solicitation behind the awards (GFO-15-605) was released in April 2016, and offered to fund projects that would expand the network of publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations serving Californias light duty fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The solicitation offered funding for both capital expense grants and operation and maintenance (O&M) grants.

Air Liquide was selected to receive the sole award for an I-5 connector station ($1,712,461, with $733,912 in matching funds).

First Element Fuel was selected to receive $15.4 million for 8 main stations. Equilon Enterprises was selected to receive $16.4 million for 7 main stations.
Warren Buffett's company reported a $2.7 billion loss Saturday as the paper value of its investment portfolio fell during the third quarter, but most of its operating businesses performed well with the notable exception of Geico.
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei believes Formula 1's race calendar should include races which enhance the sport's business and brand.

As the new owners of F1 begin to frame the sport's future foundation, a rise of the number of races on the calendar is probable.

But Liberty will also be aiming for quality along with quantity, working alongside promoters to improve events on all fronts, both sporting and commercial.

"It's our job to do far more to help the promoters be successful," Greg Maffei said last week at the Deutsche Bank 2017 Media & Telecom Conference.

"Frankly, Bernie's attitude was 'how much can I extract from them, how much up front?' - I heard him call them 'the victims'.

"So we ended up with races like Baku in Azerbaijan where they paid us a big race free but it does nothing to build the long term brand and help the business."

No doubt Baku organisers will be delighted to hear the unsupportive opinion of the man whose company collects tens of millions of dollars from them each year.

But Maffei acknowledges the necessity to provide a cost effective product. Hefty fees are one thing, but it all must be made worth every party's while.

"Our job is to have partners who pay us well but who also help us build the product. But it's incumbent upon us to bring best practice.

"Some of the races which are considered the most exciting: Abu Dhabi, Singapore night race, Mexico City

"What's going on well in those races ? We need to share that with the promoters in each of the cities where things are less successful.

"It is both incumbent upon us to help but it is also recognising a new one, the first thing they are going to do is say 'I'm paying too much'.

"There is some expected noise and we are working on trying to quell that and help them."

GALLERY: F1 drivers' wives and girlfriends

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
HIGH POINT  A High Point man was arrested Monday morning on heroin trafficking charges.

Chad Wilson Keever, 38, of 1728 N. Hamilton St. is charged with three counts of trafficking heroin and one count of selling or delivering a Schedule I controlled substance, according to a police report.

Keever was arrested Monday on the charges after a court appearance, according to the police report.

The N.C. Court System website lists Keever as being scheduled for Superior Court Monday on charges of possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, misdemeanor possession of marijuana paraphernalia, felony possession of a firearm by a felon, felony larceny of a firearm, felony breaking or entering and felony larceny after breaking or entering.

Keever was jailed with bail set at $100,000.
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DANBURY  FuelCell Energy received a nice boost for a project it is doing in its hometown.

The company received a $5 million credit facility from the Connecticut Green Bank to support the 3.7-megawatt utility-scale project it is building on Triangle Street in downtown Danbury. FuelCell Energy CEO Chip Bottone said the project will be the most efficient power plant in the world, and be about 60 percent efficient. A typical power plant is 40 to 50 percent efficient.

FuelCell Energy designs, builds, installs and operates fuel cell systems. Fuel cell plants, using ambient air and a hydrogen-rich fuel such as natural gas, create electricity and heat through an electrochemical reaction without producing noxious emissions because no combustion occurs.

The Danbury project is of particular interest as it will showcase a way to provide power with near-zero emissions in a land-constrained area.

The Danbury fuel cell project is a great example of Connecticut innovation at work, Bryan Garcia, president and CEO of the Connecticut Green Bank, said Our ongoing collaboration with FuelCell Energy, and this project in particular, creates a triple-win for the state; increasing power reliability, grid resiliency and economic development in Connecticut.

The credit facility will be funded when commercial operations of the project begin and is secured by revenues from the sale of electricity, renewable energy credits and capacity. Construction is under way and it is expected to be completed and operational by this summer.

Fuel cell energy is considered renewable in Connecticut because of its high efficiency, low emissions and capability of being powered through renewable sources.

Our Connecticut-based team of scientists, engineers and manufacturing technicians are focused on addressing power generation challenges globally, and receiving the support of the Connecticut Green Bank for a project in our local market is very gratifying, Bottone said. Our distributed generation solutions, such as this high-efficiency power plant project, address energy, environmental and economic policy goals of utilities and governments.

The Connecticut Green Bank partners with private-sector investors to create low-cost and low-term financing to implement green energy.

Revenues down

FuelCell Energy last week announced a drop in revenue to $17 million in the first quarter of 2017, compared to $33.5 million in the first quarter last year. The drop, however, reflects a change in the companys business model of retaining projects rather than selling them.

The top-line revenue is not as strong but you can see the profit in the margin, Kurt Goddard, vice president of investor relations for FuelCell Energy, said. This is our first time reporting the numbers like this and breaking out the generation, which will make for more predictable revenue.

Generation revenue accounted for $2.1 million for the current period, compared to $100,000 in the first quarter of 2016. The company has 11.2 megawatts under long-term power purchase agreements with five customers.

The first quarter of 2017 continues our business transition, focusing on margin improvement and sustainable and diverse revenue, Bottone told investors and media when announcing the financial results. The stronger margins compared with 2016 reflect our cost-reduction efforts such as focusing on improving the service business as well as the favorable impact of our growing operating portfolio.

Revenue from product sales were $1.8 million for the current period, compared to $25.1 million in the first quarter of 2016. Product revenue was also impacted by the overseas market as there were no Asian sales in the current quarter unlike the prior year period. Korean partner POSCO Energy is now manufacturing locally under license and royalty agreements.

The larger operating portfolio also accounted for an increase in gross profit of $1.8 million, compared to a gross loss of $200,000 in the first quarter of 2016.
As in every election, the issue of taxes played a significant role in the 2016 presidential campaigns. President Donald Trump's tax plan has gone under the microscope since the polls closed, due to allegations that his strategy won't aid the middle class as much as was promised during his campaign.

How that plan evolves as we move further into Trump's presidency remains to be seen. With this in mind, the data experts at CareerTrends  an employment and career research site powered by Graphiq  used the most recent data from the Economic Policy Institute's Family Budget Calculator to find which states pay the least in taxes.
JCC Greenwich

GREENWICH  In efforts to open discussion on drug and alcohol addiction, JCC is hosting a book talk for author Lisa Smith to share her story.

Publishers Weekly reviewed Smiths book, Girl Walks Out of a Bar, stating it was a gripping memoir, and that her riveting story will inspire both those who have been there and those who have not.
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GREENWICH  When 15-year-old Walter B. Denny moved with his family from Iowa to Istanbul, he didnt realize how much his future would be changed.

He wanted to be a physicist like his father. But soon the porcelain artifacts in mosques and museums all over Turkey captured his imagination.

Of different origins, they were too uncannily similar to have unrelated histories. Denny decided to study ceramics, carpets and their designs, and he discovered that the art took a nonlinear trek across the Silk Road. The pieces led him like breadcrumbs on a trail from China to as far west as Portugal.

Denny spoke to the Connecticut Ceramics Study Circle at the Bruce Museum on Monday afternoon about his journey, drawing in aficionados from Greenwich to Peekskill, N.Y. and other parts of the tri-state area.

For centuries nobody knew about them, Denny said of the 160 hidden, dusty rugs he found in a Turkish mosque. Now theyre the stars of a great museum in Istanbul. The great part of this is the unexpected things. In my field, everythings been brand new from the get go. Thats why Im doing this still at 74 years old and dont plan on retiring for at least four more years.

A professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Denny has written chapters on Islamic art in educational texts and published several works of his own, for which he has won numerous awards and medals.

If anyone in the world is doing anything on Islamic art or textiles, youre going to call Walter B. Denny, said Patricia Hedlund, vice president of the CCSC. He wrote the entire chapter on Islamic art in Jansons History of Art  every course from Harvard to NCC has this book.

Carolyn Herrera, who came to the lecture from Peekskill, is currently working on the Marks Project, a ceramics database that focuses on ceramics from World War II onward.

It supplements my knowledge, Herrera said, because we focus on American ceramics. I grew up seeing colonial-style designs.

Denny in his presentation used slides to compare artifacts to each other, telling the story of trade between China and the Middle East.

Commerce in works of art is one of the things that kept the world close together for a long time, he said. The taste for Chinese goods began very early on. The art of Iran, Arab art of the Middle East  they all show the impact of China over the centuries.

By the end of the lecture, Denny revisited the same realization that sparked his interest in ceramics.

Everything came from everything else, he said. Thats why it looks like everything else.

Even his Italian blue silk tie subtly expressed his enthusiasm for his subject  the carnations resembling the countless carnations on the blue and white porcelain plates and vases in museums across the world.

Because ceramics are so strong and durable, they do not melt or break down like other materials. Being locked in time, Denny believes they are more important than one would think in telling the history of civilization.

Ceramics turned out to be the key for everything, he said.
GREENWICH  Greenwich police say the blizzard has caused no major problems as of mid-morning, but they are asking residents to move cars off the streets.

As of 11 a.m., said police spokesman Lt. Kraig Gray, there no big problems in town, besides cars blocking access on roadways.
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GREENWICH  The expected winter storm kept more than locals off the streets and highways.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill had been scheduled to come to Greenwich Tuesday to present the towns Registrar of Voters Department with one of the states four Democracy Cups.

Instead, she rescheduled the visit for March 30.

The cups, which are handed out every four years, are a state honor given to the municipalities in Connecticut with the highest voter turnout in a presidential year.

According to the final figures, Greenwich had an 82.93 percent turnout: 31,156 of 37,569 registered voters cast a ballot.

In the 2012 presidential race in Greenwich, there were a total of 29,970 votes cast out of a total of 36,353 voters.

Merrill is scheduled to be at town hall at 2:30 p.m. March 30 to present the honor to staff at the registrars office including Republican Registrar Fred DeCaro III, Democratic Registrar Michael Aurelia and former Democratic Registrar Sharon Vecchiolla. Vecchiolla stepped down from the position after the election.

Greenwich will be presented with a trophy for display until the 2020 presidential election.

We don't think about it as an award for the department, DeCaro said. Its the voters who came out and cast their ballots. Any elected official in town who accepts the award really accepts it in their honor.

DeCaro credited the poll workers and ongoing support the department gets from Town Hall and from taxpayers for the town honor.

The award is a testament to a continuum of quality elections staffed by our very dedicated poll workers, DeCaro said. Our job, including that of the town clerk, who processes thousands of absentee ballots, is to make the experience of casting a ballot as pleasant and efficient as possible. I think it's because we have done this on (a) consistent basis that we get those extra few points of voter participation.

The Town of Greenwich fit into the Secretary of the States Offices definition of a city, since it has more than 50,000 people. Cups are also presented in small town, mid-size town and large town categories.

Patrick Gallahue from the secretarys office, said the office was holding off naming the other three municipalities because of delays caused by the storm.

Greenwich turnout was unusually high in 2016 because of a surge attributed to the hotly contested presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the registrars said at the time.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
The typical patent applicant at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can expect to wait, on average, two years or more after filing, before that coveted U.S. patent comes through: USPTO statistics show that applications in the semiconductor field, for example, take an average 23.1 months from filing to issuance; and applications in the computer architecture field take an average 29.5 months.

Related: Before You Crowdfund an Invention, Consider Patent Protection

Such time frames are not ideal, considering that ideas get stolen or copied all the time.

However, there are three approaches that savvy applicants can take, to expedite their applications through the agency, and get a U.S. patent in their hands within 12 to 18 months after filing.

It goes without saying that a speed-up like that helps entrepreneurs turbo-charge their patent-portfolio development and score some quick wins -- to increase their companys valuation in preparation of a funding event, perhaps, or to more quickly obtain patent protection for a soon-to-be marketed product.

Here are those three approaches:

1. Pay a premium.

The easiest and most potent way to expedite examination is to use the USPTO's Prioritized Patent Examination Program (also known as "Track One"). Under the program, an applicant pays an extra fee (ranging from $1,000 to $4,000, depending on the applicant company's size). That lets the application jump the line and be examined by the USPTO ahead of earlier-filed applications.

The USPTOs stated goal is to see Track One examinations completed within 12 months, making this route highly appealing for applications in technologies that typically wait a long time to get through the USPTO.

But speed isnt Track Ones only advantage. In certain technologies, it provides the additional benefit of yielding a higher average allowance rate than does conventional processing. For example, in the computer gaming field, Track One reduces the average pendency (time from filing to issuance) by more than 10 months and increases the average allowance rate by about 18 percent.

Gamblit Gaming and Game Play Network, for instance, have used Track One with impressive results, outperforming the overall gaming sector averages at the USPTO with average pendency times of 14-to-17 months (compared to the gaming sectors average of 27 months) and allowance rates of more than 90 percent (compared to the gaming sectors average of 70 percent).

Related: The Craziest Patents by Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google and More

2: Get face time with the examiner.

Speaking with the USPTO examiner reviewing your patent application can be a simple but effective way to reach the issuance stage faster and more reliably.

While most communications between the USPTO examiner and the applicant occur in writing, the limitations of the written form can be both frustrating and inefficient for the applicant. For example, he or she might want to explain in person some nuanced distinction between the invention and what existed before; and there are times when fluid dialogue is far superior to time-consuming back-and-forth written communications.

Recognizing the inherent limitations of the written form, the USPTO allows applicants to speak directly with the USPTO examiner via telephone, web conference or in-person interviews.

The resulting interviews can prove tremendously helpful because they give the examiner a human face to associate with the application. Examiners are less inclined to make a flimsy or off-the-wall rejection of the application in a face-to-face meeting.

It can also be especially valuable to have the inventor participate in the interview, when, for example, the technology is complex, or theres a compelling story regarding how the invention was conceived or the problem was solved. Examiners, from their perspective, are usually glad to meet inventors in person, too, since inventor participation signifies the importance of the application as opposed to one that's run of the mill.
If a person looked only at Hollywood depictions of Silicon Valley, it would be easy to assume that all startups are backed (or want to be backed) by venture capitalists. But VC has actually become less attractive since investors began scrutinizing prospects more closely and offering tougher terms. As a result, many entrepreneurs are turning to bank loans, preferring to take on debt instead of trading away equity.

In fact, Bloomberg reports that loans to startups spiked by 19 percent in Silicon Valley last year.

Related: 5 Things Startup Investors Look for Before Investing

While investor cash enables startups to grow quickly, many entrepreneurs have come to value control over time. They've come to prefer using their personal homes, bank accounts and other tangible goods to secure business loans over sacrificing even a modicum of control to investors.

The problem is, however, that if they lose the business, they also lose the personal assets they put up for collateral. Of course, if their companies dont make money, they'll lose their possessions anyway -- or so the thinking goes.

But the calculation isnt that simple. Sure, retaining control is desirable. But banks are in the business of creating wealth for themselves. Collateral guarantees they wont lose money on business loans, and borrowers can be sure that if they dont pay, the banks will collect.

The good, the bad and the reality of bank loans

Business loans are a win for banks. If borrowers fail to make timely payments, lenders can seize their homes or other assets and sell the properties to recoup the principal and then some. Meanwhile, the entrepreneurs have lost their businesses, houses and who knows what else.

But business loans aren't always a bad idea. If borrowers make their scheduled payments, they cultivate trust with lenders, making it easier to secure credit in the future. Once a loan is repaid in full, the bank will likely lend to the borrower again, possibly without requiring personal assets as collateral.

Related: 5 Main Reasons Banks Turn Down Small-Business Owners for Loans

Another benefit is business credit. A loan repaid in good standing will boost the companys score and make it easier to access credit lines and spending accounts. Businesses also tend to receive loans with lower APRs or fixed payments. The fact that the money is being used to grow a company gives lenders an incentive to offer competitive borrowing terms.

Entrepreneurs considering taking out bank loans can use the following guidelines to avoid critical mistakes in managing their business and personal finances:

1. Conduct an honest financial assessment of the company.

Take a deep look at what the business needs. Tools such as the Working Capital Needs Calculator shed light on the true costs of expansion, as well as indicate which areas show promise and which are dragging the company down. Be realistic about how much is needed, and ask for that amount. Dont live outside the businesss means.

Getting clear on the businesss financial situation can prevent a business from ending up with payments it cant afford. The Pennsylvania-based Plaza groups financial troubles should serve as a cautionary tale. The company missed a $67 million balloon payment on a property loan, then had to scramble and renegotiate the terms to avoid default. This is a damning situation for any business, let alone a fledgling startup.

2. Dont overborrow.

Resist the temptation to take the extra $10,000 the bank offers to tack on to a loan. The few hundred dollars it adds to monthly installments may seem manageable now, but those payments could become unwieldy. With a carefully planned budget, there's no reason to take more than the initial ask.

Heres what happens to people who borrow more than they can afford. A 24-year-old woman was forced to the brink of bankruptcy after borrowing $6.5 million she couldnt repay. The bank approved the financing despite the fact that her income didnt match the loan and her investments carried considerable risk. The bottom line: Just because money is on the table doesnt mean it's a good idea to take it.

3. Separate personal and business finances.

Never co-mingle business and personal bank accounts. Separating finances helps you avoid headaches when categorizing expenses, so its smart practice from a bookkeeping perspective. But the separation also protects any personal assets during business loan disputes and shields personal finances from examination by banks, accountants and the IRS.

The IRS has significant power to examine personal accounts when auditing business and investment deals. The Bitcoin exchange Coinbase found this out when the IRS demanded data on millions of customers who it believed were noncompliant. Coinbase resisted the IRSs order, but the situation illustrates the importance of a clear separation of finances and stringent compliance practices.

4. Prioritize business loan payments.

The first bill to be paid each month should be the company loan installment, especially if there are any personal assets on the line. The company can do without some amenities for a month or two, but if a loan payment gets missed, the results could be disastrous. Going without a home is a lot more traumatic than having to go without cable.

Entrepreneur Jesse Genet knows this well: She repaid tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt while running a successful business. She prioritized her startups expenses over her own and admits to having struggled with mounting credit card during lean months. However, her aggressive saving and debt repayment strategy enabled her to bootstrap her company while paying off her debt -- a feat made possible by clear priorities and a disciplined approach to finance.

A business loan constitutes an enforceable contract, even when the collateral takes the form of a family home or vehicle. Losses may feel personal to the borrower taking the hit, but banks arent in the business of being personal. They give loans to make money.

Related: Why You Should Keep Your Personal and Professional Finances Separate

So, as long as entrepreneurs are clear on the stakes -- and prepared to make good on their loans -- they can earn from a bank relationship, as well.

Related:

4 Must-Read Strategies to Pay Off Your Bank Loan Without Losing Your House

The Ultimate Guide To Personal Loan

The Best and Worst Banks of 2016 -- What Entrepreneurs Should Know



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Easy access to commercial loans and other financial investments is spurring a construction boom in Fairfield County, despite long delays on several projects.

Community banks recently began investing more in small development projects across the county, particularly riverfront properties. The Boccuzzi Park waterfront in Stamford and Head of the Harbor South in Norwalk is getting a facelift, while Bridgeport Landing Development proposed to redevelop Steelpointe Harbor by spring 2018. In August, Mayor Joe Ganim approved a $675-million casino development on Bridgeport's waterfront and, a month later, his office revealed plans to convert Harbor Yard into an outdoor concert amphitheater.
Our national political system is a mess and, unfortunately, the same is true here in Connecticut. While storm clouds gather, our political leaders fight petty ideological battles and position themselves for re-election rather than solving problems for Connecticut residents.

For most of us not walking the halls of our state Capitol or covering it for the media, we may be blissfully unaware of the peril facing Connecticut. Most residents have no idea how bad the states fiscal situation is today, for example. The truth is Connecticuts finances are on the brink of insolvency. We have large budget deficits and one of the worst unfunded pension liabilities in the nation. Politicians from both parties have continually raised taxes on residents for the past 25 years, and yet they have still managed to spend too much. Residents and businesses are leaving the state at an alarming pace. Meanwhile, our career politicians from both parties spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars to ensure support for their endless re-election campaigns.

The sad part is that Connecticut residents are on the hook to pick up the tab as this death spiral worsens.

So how did we get here? In much the same way our country did: the rigid partisanship of our two political parties. Our politicians, the parties they represent, and the special interests who back them are in a continuous battle to drive ideological wedges to gain or retain political power. They speak for one side of the aisle or the other and it always seems to end in choosing a partisan agenda over whats best for us.

An example is the way state leaders have handled the public school teachers pension funds. These hard-working, underpaid champions for our kids have been told for decades that their pensions will be there to support their retirement  while politicians quietly admit the state cant afford them. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy now proposes shifting these costs to towns and cities, many of which have no way to pay for promises state officials made decades ago. This is not a real solution and it exemplifies Malloys willingness to put party loyalty above honesty with teachers and the rest of us. It is no wonder he has a worst-in-the-nation approval rating.

Connecticut Republicans, deserving equal credit for the pension deceit and profligate spending, now champion fringe immigration edicts coming from Washington. They have complained for six years about Malloys failures on the economy but now want to limit a key driver of economic growth in the state: our entrepreneurial immigrant population. As usual, catering to party leadership wins out over good decisions for Connecticut.

What becomes more evident by the day is that the two-party system is failing to produce solutions and serve people. The more I spoke to others after the recent election, the more I heard the same frustrations: the political class puts party allegiance before people whenever they have a choice. People are now coming to the conclusion that its time to turn the system on its head.

So we started SAM, the Serve America Movement, to put people before party. SAM is forging a new path thats inclusive, innovative, balanced, and principled. This new path will focus on solutions rather than wedge agendas, using integrity, fairness, and pragmatism as our guide. The army were building in Connecticut and across the nation will fight for democracy as our founding fathers envisioned  and put forth the bold solutions we desperately need today.

SAM is watching Connecticut closely. Its time for a new generation to forge a new path.

Greenwich resident James Waters is the chairman of the Serve America Movement, Inc. Born and raised in Connecticut, he is the Chief of Staff of Compass Partners Advisors, a former United States Navy SEAL, and a former White House staffer.
Indian Accent. Photo: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine

Conventional wisdom has generally held that anyone in New York seeking the most delicious and authentic versions of an imported culinary tradition should head to the outer boroughs  and for Indian, Jackson Heights has long been the destination. But, as it turns out, at some point the script flipped, and with a few exceptions, the citys top spots for Indian food are now in Manhattan  and top they are: excellent, elegant, and diversified enough to shed the cuisine of the patronizing, oversimplified designation of ethnic food and place it squarely on the level of French or Italian.

The Absolute Best 1. Indian Accent

123 W. 56th St., btw. Sixth and Seventh Ave.; 212-842-8070 It should come as no surprise that the best Indian restaurant in New York arrived directly from the source: Indian Accent is an outpost of a critically acclaimed Delhi restaurant. This lends it a certain authenticity and authority, but what sets it apart is the creativity of its chef, Manish Mehrotra. He has reimagined traditional recipes for a luxury setting (the cost of a meal here is not insubstantial)  but not by subjecting them to the techniques of the cuisines that are more typically associated with fine dining. Rather, he is extremely careful when it comes to ingredients and preparation, and playful and intuitive when it comes to presentation and unexpected combinations. The result: beautiful dishes like the ghee-roasted lamb  served with a bamboo steamer filled with roti pancakes, inspired by Peking duck  and the delicate stuffed Kashmiri morels, crowned with a play on the traditional cracker known as papadum, made here with Parmesan cheese.

2. Ganesh Temple Canteen

143-09 Holly Ave., Flushing; 718-460-8493

If its pure, simple, comforting authenticity you seek in your Indian food, you can probably do no better than the Temple Canteen, which is in the basement of a Hindu house of worship. Its often filled with people who have just come from prayer, sitting around folding tables and chairs to share expertly prepared, extremely inexpensive south Indian treats  from fiery mirchi bajji (similar to jalapeno poppers) to crisp masala dosas, which come with sides of coconut chutney and sambar.

3. Moti Mahal Delux

1149 First Ave., at 63rd St.; 212-371-3535

With over 100 locations across India, Nepal, and New Zealand, this place may be formulaic, but only in the positive sense of the word: The kitchens formulas ensure youll eat some of the citys best butter chicken and tandoori chicken in a dining room with a lovely, elegant but relaxed vibe.

4. Dhaba

108 Lexington Ave., nr. 27th St.; 212-679-1284

Curry Hills preeminent Indian restaurant is also one of the very best citywide, whether its for the greatest-hits lunch buffet or for dinner, as the menu includes nearly 100 dishes from across northern India, with a whole section devoted to London-style grub.

5. Junoon

27 W. 24th St., nr. Broadway; 212-490-2100

Like Indian Accent, Junoon, too, aims to normalize the idea of Indian fine-dining in New York  and succeeds heartily, to the point where its earned a Michelin star  but plays it a bit safer, with beautifully prepared and elegantly presented but familiar dishes, and the dining room has a slightly stuffier vibe.

Honorable Mentions

Awadh

2588 Broadway, nr. 98th St.; 646-861-3604

An Upper West Side destination from the same chef-owner behind Moti Mahal Delux (as well as Curry Hills kebab-focused Bhatti Indian Grill). Its devoted to the culinary tradition of its namesake, the Awadh region in northeast India, known for slow-cooking methods and elegant, elaborate presentation.

Haldi

102 Lexington Ave., nr. 27th St.; 212-213-9615

One of Dhabas many sister restaurants (all founded by chef and Kolkata native Shiva Natarajan, though some are no longer owned by him), this one, also in Curry Hill, specializes in representing the culinary diversity of Kolkata, which includes  most unusually  dishes inspired by the citys population of Baghdadi Jews.

Jackson Diner

37-47 74th St., nr. 37th Rd., Jackson Heights; 718-672-1232

Though the idea that the best Indian food in New York is to be found in Jackson Heights doesnt hold much weight anymore, its fun to revisit some of the old-timers. Perhaps chief among them is Jackson Diner, where the food is quite good  if not mind-expanding  and makes a good prelude to treats at nearby Rajbhog Sweets (which also has a great steam table of savory dishes, as it happens).

Paowalla

195 Spring St., at Sullivan St.; 212-235-1098

If you still long for Tabla, late of the Flatiron District, its worth it to pay a visit to Paowalla, Floyd Cardozs latest mostly Indian restaurant. Open less than a year ago, it feels like its still getting its footing  and sometimes veering off course. But some dishes  like the eggs Kejriwal, a sort of cheese toast with a hidden egg, from Mumbai  are true standouts.

Tamarind Tribeca

99 Hudson St., at Leonard St.; 212-775-9000

Rarely does a restaurant of this size (absolutely massive at 11,000 square feet) offer such delicious and refined food: artfully presented, expertly prepared dishes from all over India, featuring ingredients you might not expect, like crab and venison.

*A version of this article appears in the March 6, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.

*This post has been updated to reflect that Tabla was located in the Flatiron District, not the Upper West Side, and Ganesh Temple Canteen is located in a Hindu house of worship, not Hindi.
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Despite its recent financial troubles, it looks like LeEco is still working on a new top of the line smartphone. The Chinese company is said to outfit this upcoming device with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chipset, leaving absolutely no doubt about its high-end aspirations.

The two images you can see below have surfaced in China today and they are claimed to depict this new LeEco handset. If that's true (and that's a big "if"), then it's obvious that it will come with a dual-curved touchscreen.

It also seems to be very thin, and we can spot a USB Type-C port on the bottom next to a speaker grille, but there's no 3.5mm headset jack to be seen. Of course that could be placed on the top, but the rumor accompanying the pictures says LeEco won't be bringing the analog jack back in this phone.

The new LeEco flagship is reportedly going to arrive in April with 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Other specs haven't been leaked yet, but if we are indeed just a few weeks away from its launch we expect to hear much more about it soon.

Source (in Chinese) | Via (in Romanian)




Haiti - Social : Odette Roy Fombrun appeals against immorality





Author of numerous instructional books, of a collection of good citizenship and several novels, named the "National Living Treasure" in 2009, the former Haitian teacher and feminist activist widely known and respected, Odette Roy Fombrun, who will celebrate his 100th birthday on June 13, if God want, appeals to the population against immorality.



Appeal from Odette Roy Fombrun :

"After my cry of alarm at the invasion of our cities by all sorts of rubbish, I find myself obliged to utter a new cry faced the alarming rise of the mass of immorality, of the affront to decency and good morals, to good manners, to the respect for others and private property. We must absolutely restrain this new degradation and rise in force to defend our moral values.



The vulgar and degrading lyrics used to make youth sing and dance or to amuse each other on social networks must be hampered by a just anger and an uprising against immorality.



Where are our moral institutions? Our people of the Church, all religions confused? Media and communications leaders? The parents ? Professors ? The artists ?



Make your voices heard! Do not keep silent!

Society also has a duty to require its legislators to put in place relevant laws that protect against the pernicious and unreflective advances of hatred, defamation, division, disrespect of essential values, be the foundation of any self-respecting society.



How can we can hope to see a balanced and productive youth grow if it begins and evolves in a depraved environment without moral instruction, without the sense of beauty, truth and good ?



Citizens, let us wake up before it's too late. Let us fight against all these forms of confusion which destroy our physical and moral health. Let us all work together to safeguard our sick environment and support with all our strength all the men and women of good which arm themselves with courage to openly lead this just struggle and make us a life of dignified people.



Shout out loud :



Shout out loud:



Down with rubbish!

Down with immorality!

Long live the Republic of Haiti, clean, healthy and prosperous !"



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19363-haiti-politics-odette-fombrun-launches-an-appeal-to-presidential-candidates.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19434-haiti-politics-odette-r-fombrun-s-2nd-message-to-the-presidential-candidates.html



HL/ S/ HaitiLibre


















By William Schwartz | Published on 2017/03/13

King Yeonsangun, now firmly convinced as to the existence of anti-royalist conspiracy, is now summoning political enemies. Of course the joke's on him- King Yeonsangun's real political enemies are the ones using bizarre gossip to detract attention from their own power plays. If it's any comfort I'm skeptical any of these people are going to survive the drama's entire runtime. Given King Yeonsangun's reputation as a general crazy person it seems rather inevitable that his paranoia will spin completely out of control.

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Not that any of this matters right now. Here Won-goon (played by Kim Jung-tae) is made to play sucker to Gil-dong's elaborate revenge scheme, which finally climaxes with Gil-dong's naive idiot act being used in such a way to maximize plausible deniability while still getting what he wants. Gil-dong's plan is a more elegant version of Amogae's previous machinations, since chaotic political situation notwithstanding, immediate blowback is rather unlikely.

...Which does, as usual, present a bit of a problem in variety. At this point King Yeonsangun's royal conspiracy, and even Nok-soo's attempts to ingratiate herself to King Yeongsangun as a classical artist, are actually a lot more interesting than the main Gil-dong plot because, well, we've already seen all this other stuff before. And much like Amogae's gambit in the opening episodes, the prospects of long-term consequences directly stemming from this act of revenge are murky at best.

It doesn't help that Won-goon is a rather empty villain. The actions of his which led to Gil-dong seeking revenge in the first place were very indirect, and seeing him get his comeuppance in this way is not as satisfying as it should be. "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" and "Saimdang: Light's Diary" would both be greatly improved were their villains to swap tones. It would just plain make more logical sense if the guy who was super strong was getting into street fights and the epic poet was the one outsmarting people.

That's not a fair comparison in all honesty. "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" is consistently clever and well storyboarded, but it always suffers in comparison to the lofty aspirations so clearly held by the early episodes. Even the title character feels somewhat wasted. Gil-dong could just be any old everyman living in the age of Joseon and his actions would carry just as much dramatic urgency. Even now Amogae is the one with the most spiritual influence on the plot.

Review by William Schwartz

"Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" is directed by Jin Chang-gyoo, Kim Jin-man, written by Hwang Jin-yeong and features Kim Sang-joong, Yoon Kyun-sang, Kim Ji-suk, Lee Hanee and Chae Soo-bin.

Watch on Viki
by

Disclosure: In any review for a product or service, products or compensation may have been provided to me to help facilitate my review. All opinions are my own and honest. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Guidelines. Please see Disclose and "Terms of Use" tabs for more information.

It always takes a little extra thought to plan a holiday when you have kids. Long gone are the days when you could jet off at nary a days notice. As parents, we need to make sure any destination is child-friendly and suitable for the whole family. But taking some extra time doesnt mean you have to miss out on the best destinations that the world has to offer. In fact, why not make a point this year to take the family on an adventure somewhere new? To help offer some inspiration here are five super places you should consider for a holiday in 2017.

Cape Verde

If youve ever fanciest taking the family to see the natural beauty of the Canary Islands, but were put off by the high-rise hotels and throngs of tourists, then Cape Verde is for you. With all the beauty and more of the nearby Spanish archipelago, Cape Verde makes a fantastic alternative to Tenerife and Lanzarote. The laid-back African island nation offers some of the finest unspoilt beauty youll find anywhere. Across its ten islands youll discover stunning beaches like Mindelo beach on Sao Vicente, ordramatic mountains like as Pico do Fogo on Fogo island. The islands beguiling culture blends Portuguese and African influences and is worth visiting for in its own right.

Ibiza

Dont doubt this Balearic Islands family-friendly credentials. Ibiza may conjure up images of super-clubs and party beaches, but this multi-faceted Mediterranean gem has plenty to offer children. The islands beaches are worth the plane ticket on their own, and there are enough of them that it can feel like you have one each! Visit Cala Llentrisca to enjoy some seafront seclusion, or take the wee ones to Cala Tarida for a more activity filled day by the beach. If lounging in the sun gets to much, then why not take the kids zorbing, or on a trip to one of the islands waterparks? After that take a trip to the colorful Hippy Market in El Cana to pick up some mementos of the trip.

Sri Lanka

For the more adventurous families out there a holiday to Sri Lanka offers an unforgettable experience. Embodying the mysteries of the orient, the island still has the power to amaze and enchant. Few destination offer as much opportunity to discover amazing wildlife, and a trip to Minneriya National Park is a must. Here you can see herds of elephants roam in their natural environment, and even spot leopards, crocodiles, and the odd monkey! For some history take your children to Sigiriya and teach them about the countys ancient civilization and colorful past. For familys with older children, a hike up the famous and sacred mountain of Sri Pada will offer views and memories that will endure long after you get home.

St Lucia

If you have the picture of the perfect Caribbean island in your mind, then it probably looks like St Lucia. This stunningly verdant isle, offers the archetypal Caribbean experience thanks to the blue waters, golden beaches and lush greenery. The islands most famous sites are the two Pitons. These towering volcanic stacks are a must see, and a trek up the larger of the two  Gros Piton  should be doable for older children and teenagers. Families with younger kids can just enjoy the breath-taking views from the beaches below.

Mauritius

This Indian Ocean nation is more than worth the long-haul trip. With unbeatable natural beauty, this tropical paradise has a world of things to experience. Thanks to its well-developed tourist network it is easy to get around and its turquoise coastline is peppered with first-rate resorts. Make sure and visit the amazing Seven Colored Earths, and enjoy a visit to one of the islands many nature reserves. Keep a lookout for its colorful bird life, especially the famous pink pigeon! Thanks to the islands Chinese, Indian, and French influences, the food isnt bad either.
Guams Racially Segregated Voting Scheme Is Struck Down

A federal judge found that the islands efforts to restrict voting to native residents violated the Constitution.

by Hans A. Von Spakovsky, National Review, March 9, 2017

After a lonely six-year battle, retired Air Force officer Arnold Davis, a resident of Guam, has finally won his right to register to vote in the U.S. territory and participate in a plebiscite on its future.

On March 8, Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood ruled that Guams law limiting registration and voting to Native Inhabitants of the island is a violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. As the judge said, the Constitution does not allow the government to exclude otherwise qualified voters in participating in an election where public issues are decided simply because those otherwise qualified voters do not have the correct ancestry or bloodline.

This decision has been a long time coming. The suit, filed by J. Christian Adams and the Center for Individual Rights in 2011, arose when Davis tried to register to vote on the plebiscite. His application was rejected and marked as void by the Guam Election Commission because he is white.

Guam, you see, banned residents from registering or voting unless they were Chamorro natives, which to the territorial government means people whose ancestors were original inhabitants of Guam. Chamorros constitute only about 36 percent of the islands present population.

The race-based voting ban clearly violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, yet the Obama Justice Department refused to protect Davis or any of the other disenfranchised residents of the island. It neither filed suit against Guam nor intervened in support of the lawsuit filed by Adams and the Center for Individual Rights. Instead, it gave Guam $300,000 to help finance the plebiscite.

The case itself has a complicated procedural history that included a trip to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed Tydingco-Gatewoods original decision dismissing the case. The dismissal was based on erroneous arguments that Davis didnt have standing to sue and that his claim was not ripe. The Ninth Circuit sent the case back to Tydingco-Gatewood, holding that Davis not only had standing to challenge Guams race-based voting law, but that the claim was ripe because Davis was alleging that he was currently subjected to unlawful unequal treatment in the ongoing registration process.

In her March 8 decision, Tydingco-Gatewood did what she should have done in the first place: applied the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano (2000). In Rice, SCOTUS threw out a similar voting restriction enacted by Hawaii, holding that the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits all provisions denying or abridging the voting franchise of any citizen or class of citizens on the basis of race, and making clear that ancestry cannot be used as a proxy for race.

Judge Tydingco-Gatewood also noted the Supreme Courts decision in another infamous case, Hirabayashi v. U.S. (1943). In that case, which concerned the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Court noted: Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. Judge Tydingco-Gatewood went on to cite specific discussions by territorial legislators that make it very clear that the Guam legislature intended to manipulate the system to exclude anyone other than Chamorros from voting  an obvious violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.

The judge also found that Guam had violated the Fourteenth Amendment by denying equal protection to its residents. All Guam voters have a direct interest and will be substantially affected by any change to the islands political status. Guam had asserted that only the colonized people of the island should be allowed to vote on its future political status. But, the judge noted, the island failed to cite any legal authority that would allow it to disregard or circumvent the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States.

The defiant attitude displayed throughout this litigation by Guam officials and plebiscite activists reared its ugly head again after the ruling came out. Joe Garrido, chairman of the Free Association Task Force organized by Guams Commission on Decolonization, called Tydingco-Gatewood a colonized federal judge who is not working for the Chamorro people. . . . She is working for the government that is colonizing Guam.

In his State of the Island address, delivered just two days before the decision, Guam governor Eddie Calvo said that if the federal court ruled against Guam, he would petition the other branches of the federal government to secure the right of our people against this continuing subjugation. He promised that he would not turn his back on the Chamorro people, although he is apparently willing to turn his back on the other 64 percent of island residents who dont fit his definition of a Guam native.

After the ruling, Calvo issued a statement vowing to find a way to work around it, adding that when the judge says we cant  I say we can. He even proposed changing the plebiscite by having two separate boxes  one would be marked if youre a native inhabitant and the other would be marked if youre a non-native.

Calvos defiance makes it all the more essential for the Justice Department to bring its heft to bear against any efforts to subvert the judges ruling. If the governor actually tries to implement a racially segregated ballot as he has suggested he will, the Justice Department must act.

 Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department counsel. Along with John Fund, he is the co-author of Whos Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk and Obamas Enforcer: Eric Holders Justice Department.

* * * * *

Race-based voting overturned in Guam  after six years

From American Enterprise Institute, March 13, 2017

Can a U.S. state or territory exclude otherwise qualified voters in participating in an election where public issues are decided simply because those otherwise qualified voters do not have the correct ancestry or bloodline? You get a perfect score if you answer yes, and if you take six years of litigation in federal courts to arrive at that answer. Thats one way to describe the decision by Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood overturning the Guam governments requirement that only citizens of Chamorro descent to vote in a referendum on the political status of Guam.

The suit was filed in 2011 on behalf of a non-Chamorro-descended resident of Guam by J. Christian Adams and the Center for Individual Rights, as Hans von Spakovsky recounts in National Review Online.

Judge Tydingco-Gatewoods original decision denying relief was reversed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and her decision granting relief was issued on March 8. Thats a long time to reach a decision clearly compelled by the 15th Amendment of the Constitution and the Supreme Courts 2000 decision Rice v. Cayetano. That case, which I discussed in this blogpost, limited voting for the states Office of Hawaiian Affairs to people of Native Hawaiian descent. The most recent litigation in Hawaii was sparked by the states establishment of a Native Hawaiian Roll Commission to enroll voters of Native Hawaiian descent to propose amendments to the state constitution and to pass one affirming the sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people.

Im guessing these efforts in Hawaii and Guam are politicians attempts to appease the demands of activists seeking to establish some form of separatism, or even independence from the United States, of people of indigenous ancestry.

Of course, this is profoundly at odds with the words and spirit of the United States Constitution, which begins with the words We the people  with no adjective included. And the indigenous populations are a minority in both the state and territory. The most generous definition of Native Hawaiians  race alone or in combination with one or more other races  shows they make up only 23 percent of the population of Hawaii; estimates are that there are only about 1,000 people there completely of Native Hawaiian ancestry. And Chamorros account for 36 percent of the population of Guam.

Hawaii, when it was admitted to the Union in 1959, was considered a model of racial tolerance and harmony  one reason statehood was opposed for many years by segregationist Southern Democrats. Now Hawaii, or at least some nontrivial number of activists supported by appeasement-minded politicians, and Guam seem to be bent on racial separatism. Tragic!

By the way, support for these measures is bipartisan. Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo, a Republican, decried Judge Tydingco-Gatewoods decision and called on Congress to somehow reverse it. And while Republicans are scarce on the ground in Hawaii (they currently hold only 6 of 51 seats in the state House and none of 25 in the state Senate), former (2002-10) Republican Gov. Linda Lingle supported some but not all measures to establish a Native Hawaiian entity.

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) educational organization and does not take institutional positions on any issues. The views expressed here are those of the author.
The extended maternity leave period will not constitute a break in an employees employment, and will also see the employee being provided with medical and insurance coverage in accordance with her benefit grade, Manaf added.

Maybank has also rolled out a sabbatical leave policy. Eligible employees are allowed to take a career break for a minimum duration of 3 months to a maximum of 24 months, with the guarantee of returning to work.

During the period of no pay Sabbatical Leave, employees will continue to enjoy certain benefits such as medical and insurance coverage up to a certain period of time, said Manaf.

Striking a balance between work and family is the biggest challenge facing women in paid jobs, according to a large-scale survey of by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Gallup. Both men and women in the vast majority of countries and territories surveyed said so.

Despite progress, the large majority of working women in the world do not have adequate maternity protection, the UN agency said. It estimated that 41% of employed women have a statutory right to maternity leave, and 34% of the total are legally entitled to cash benefits during maternity leave.
From the study of mass media to a stint at IBM during the Sydney Olympics, and now head of people & culture at Konica Minolta, Cindy Reid shares her career path

1986  A desperate seeker



Cindy Reids university career had a suitably bold start: in the first year of her psychology degree at Sydneys Macquarie University she leaves a note on the door of the head of her desired program pleading for admission with the headline Desperately Seeking Mass Communication. The gambit is successful and she spends the next few years in the study of mass media



We produced shorts and studied advertising  it was fantastic; but [later] I felt it wasnt that meaningful for me.



1989  Joins IBM



In the final year of her degree, Reid has the opportunity to meet an executive from IBM; it is to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.



My father said walk in and be interesting  [being hired by IBM] had nothing to do with my knowledge; it had to do with being an interested person, being inquisitive, enthusiastic. Id encourage any person going to interview to be who you are, really try to engage. Youre looking for a mutual fit.



1994 - Rises high



Reids time at IBM brought numerous opportunities, including a communications role for a year, and a position shadowing a corporate services executive in which she learned about stakeholder management. Reid was then selected for a key role in acquisition work and recruitment that afforded her M&A experience and deeper commercial knowledge. At the same time, Reid began her MBA at the Australian Graduate School of Management



I was developing in HR as HR was developing as a respected business contributor.



1998  Goes for Gold



A highlight of Reids time at IBM comes with her selection as HR leader for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Office. The challenging role involves developing and staffing a workplace of 700 and sourcing staff with twin specialisations in tech and sport.



Our client was SOCOG; we were the coordinator for SOCOGs 11 tech providers, so we had to have the timing of a Swiss watch. IBM threw everything at it.



1999  Joins the dot com gold rush



With her Olympic role settling into maintenance mode and the dot com boom raging, Reid is headhunted by [email protected] to lead a greenfield start-up angled at engaging Gen Y talent in a competitive market. It is a more executive role that affords Reid some experience of the C-suite while she is simultaneously in the final year of her MBA.



It was exciting; all the best Silicon Valley had to offer was being bought down under.



2001  Enlists in PwCs war for talent



Reid works in the PwC Human Capital team as an HC director where she goes on to lead PwC's most successful campus and professional talent acquisition campaigns focussing on EVP and employment brand in a 'war for talent' environment. Later she moved to a consulting director role where she wins and successfully delivers a $4.4m change management contract for a large client.



2010  Partners with Korn Ferry

Reid joins Korn Ferry as a client partner to lead Human Resources Centre of Expertise Executive Search where she was charged with recruiting HR executives for her clients.



Korn Ferry was all about being your own contributor. That was a fantastic role for me. I was meeting the greatest business leaders.



2014  Joins Konica Minolta



When Reid joined Konica Minolta as head of people & culture she sought to further the companys CSR program, via partnering with charities in an arrangement which might involve mentoring roles in both directions. The company has also distinguished itself in the field of gender equity, being recognised by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality in 2016.



We call ourselves the company that cares: we care about community, about the company and about our employees.






Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer will step down from the company thats left over after Verizon Communications acquires its core internet assets.



The 41-year-old will receive a $30 million golden parachute and gain control of stock options valued at $75 million ($US56.8 million), according to a regulatory filing.



Yahoos email and other digital services will become part of Verizon, under a $6.38 billion ($US4.83 billion) deal struck last July.



Yahoo board member Thomas McInerney will run the new company called Altaba, including Yahoos most valuable parts including investments in Chinas e-commerce leader, Alibaba Group, and in Yahoo Japan.



McInerney, 52, is a former executive with Ticketmaster and internet firm InterActiveCorp. He is set to receive $US2 million in annual base salary - double Mayer's current base pay.



Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Ken Goldman will also be stepping down and is set to get $9.5 million in severance.



Since becoming CEO in July 2012, Mayers time at Yahoo has had some controversial moments.



Her reign involved acquiring multiple businesses as she attempted to turn the company into a media powerhouse.



Earlier in the month it was revealed that Mayer would lose her cash bonus (worth about $2m a year) over the mishandling of a 2014 data breach.



An internal review found Mayers management team reacted too slowly to the breach which involved 500 million accounts that had been potentially compromised.



Moreover, a lawsuit was filed late last year in the US alleging that Mayer actively purged the company of male employees.



Scott Ard, a former media executive at Yahoo, alleged that Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of [an employee performance-rating system] to accommodate management's subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo's male employees.




Swan moves! Who else likes dancing in the pool 

He is so sweet and (almost  always offers me some of his snacks. This is the cutest phase, I cant get over how sweet this chapter is!

He loves sunglasses!! Well really any glasses, and gets the cutest smirk when he puts them on like he knows we think its so cute and funny 

DETAILS: PALM PRINT ONE PIECE | SHORTS

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SNACKS: PURE GROWTH ORGANIC

Happy Monday guys! Hope you had a great weekend! We were supposed to go to Hawaii last week but a couple people got sick so we had to postpone the trip. We were still really craving some warm weather (and is there any worse feeling than being prepared for a vacation and then canceling last minute and waking up to a normal Monday morning? haha  Last minute we saw it was supposed to be 80 in California so we found a good deal on tickets and headed down to Newport Beach for a long weekend. We usually make it to California about once a month so it always feels like our second home and the amazing weather never gets old.

Bs been so funny lately! I signed him up for preschool for the fall and he thinks its starting like in a couple days so he always wants to wear his backpack now: to the pool, to bed, anywhere and everywhere! It seriously melts my heart how excited he is for school! He always asks me to pack a lunch like Mara so I put treats and snacks in his backpack wherever we go. Some of his favorite cartoons are Paw Patrol and Mickey Mouse Club House so I found these healthy snacks at Walmart that have all the characters and cartoons on them and they are healthy organic snacks which is a double plus. It was the best while we were traveling because he could just pack up his backpack with snacks and take them wherever.

He is turning three this week and its almost bittersweet! It really is one of my favorite phases but at the same time it makes you realize they are growing up so quickly and that youll never get a repeat of those moments but also gets me so excited for whats to come!

Xx, Christine

*In collaboration with Pure Growth Organic.
Itd be catastrophic for the credibility of both the party and Terho, if he was anointed as the chairperson unanimously or by a crushing margin, Halla-aho said in a video message published on Youtube on Monday .

Jussi Halla-aho (PS), a Member of the European Parliament, has announced his bid to become the next chairperson of the Finns Party, presumably setting the stage for a two-horse race for the leadership between himself and Sampo Terho, the chairperson of the Finns Party Parliamentary Group.

Halla-aho enjoys the widespread support of the rank and file of the Finns Party, according to polls. Terho, on the other hand, is reportedly the favourite of the party leadership to replace the outgoing chairperson, Timo Soini.

Soini announced that he will not seek re-election on 5 March, 2017.

Timo has led our party for 20 years. He has never had to face a serious challenger. A situation such as that isnt healthy, especially for such a large party, argued Halla-aho. If the leadership isnt challenged, [] its neither necessary nor possible to develop the leadership.

Timo has done an enormous amount of work, but this party doesnt need another leader as big as he was.

Halla-aho also promised, as expected, that he will seek to adopt a tougher stance on numerous key issues, such as immigration and the European Union.

The Finns Partys active members and supporters widely feel that the current leadership hasnt drawn enough attention to the issues that have contributed to the partys success in elections, he stated. Its difficult to accept and comprehend statements such as immigration isnt an important political issue or the refugee situation is now under control in Europe.

Members of the Finns Party, he estimated, share the view that Finland cannot become a global welfare office where anyone has the right to walk in and start claiming benefits and making outrageous demands.

Terho has similarly sought to profile himself as an immigration critic after announcing his candidacy on 6 March, 2017.

Halla-aho conceded that the ideological and political differences between himself and his main rival are relatively negligible. Halla-aho, however, is considered the more outspoken and less conciliatory one of the two candidates, with his public statements resulting in convictions for ethnic agitation and breach of the sanctity of religion in 2012.

The Finns Party will select its next chairperson in its party conference in June. In addition to Halla-aho and Terho, Leena Meri (PS), a first-term Member of the Parliament from Hyvinkaa, and Veera Ruoho (PS), a first-term Member of the Parliament from Espoo, have thrown their hats into the leadership ring.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Martti Kainulainen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
A NEW 32,000 library bus has been officially opened at Caversham Primary School.

The large, red single decker was unveiled in the playground on World Book Day on Thursday last week by award-winning childrens author Tracey Corderoy, who is best known for her Shifty McGifty series of books.

She cut a red ribbon across the doorway and was watched by staff, parents and pupils, who raised most of the money for the bus.

Ms Corderoy said: This is just amazing and, as I said to the parents, getting something from nothing is an amazing effort these days.

Ive opened libraries in schools before but never something like this. Hopefully, it will inspire more schools to try and do a similar thing.

She said she hoped the bus would encourage the pupils to read more, adding: Being able to read sets you up for life with the wonderful journeys that stories can take you on.

The bus will be a permanant fixture, replacijng the library in the school building that was lost in September 2014 to make way for a bigger dining area. It will hold about 2,500 books.

Headteacher Ruth Perry said: Over the past year the schools parent teacher association has worked tirelessly to fund-raise in order to make this dream a reality.

The library will provide a fabulous space to encourage the love of reading, which is such a vital skill.

Our librarian Emma Barraclough is planning some exciting projects, including reading clubs and parent and child sessions.

The bus is going to be so well used and will make such a difference. Our huge thanks go to the parents, the Caversham Primary School Association, Bridges estate agents and all the staff for making this happen. It will benefit pupils for many years to come.

The fund-raising drive was led by Helen Perry and Lucie Lawrence, who co-chair the association.

Parents raised about 27,000 with the remainder being donated by the school. Fund-raising events included a Christmas fair, summer barbecue , a sponsored fun run and quiz nights. Bridges and Caversham solicitors Parfitt Cresswell sponsored events.

Mrs Lawrence said: Im elated  theres a tear in my eye!

Mrs Perry added: We were so excited to take delivery of the bus. The pupils couldnt wait to board the bus and start choosing their books.

All the schools in the area are short of cash at the moment and this kind of project would be impossible without parents and the generosity of local businesses.

 Last month, the school asked parents to contribute almost 190 each, equivalent to 1 per school day, as it is short of money. The headteacher said the school was struggling financially because of cuts in the education budget and the money raised by the association was no longer enough to plug the gap.
RESIDENTS of Wargrave are being urged to help save the village fire station from closure.

The Royal Berkshire Fire Authority needs to save

2.4million by 2020 and has suggested seven cost-saving measures, three of which include shutting the station in Victoria Road.

A public consultation on the options ends on Monday.

The call to save the station is made in an open letter to residents bv John Halsall and Bob Pitts, the villages two representatives on Wokingham Borough Council.

They say: The fire station, which has been here since 1903, will be closed unless there is an overwhelming response from the residents that it should be retained.

One of the services that Wargrave fire service offers is the NHS responder unit, which responds to 20 to 30 calls per month and generates valuable income for the service.

It deals with the early recognition and call for help to prevent cardiac arrest, early CPR to buy time, early defibrillation to restart the heart and post-resuscitation care to restore the quality of life. This has not been considered in the consultation.

You may need either the fire and rescue service or the responder service. They may save your life or your neighbours or your childs.

Can you afford to wait for an engine from Maidenhead or Wokingham?

The letter also says that Wargrave fire station is cheaper to run than some of the other stations involved in the consultation as it has only nine retained firefighters.

The letter says: The analysis, though voluminous, is flawed as it assumes that a retained station costs 168,000 per annum on average. This assumes a full establishment which has not been Wargraves case. Wargraves costs are a fraction of this sum.

Last month, Councillor Halsall suggested that the fire authority should save money by abolishing special allowances to councillors.

Four members of the borough council receive a total of 15,300, on top of their councillor allowances, for being members of the authority.

The letter says: The consultation does not offer every saving. For example, some 80,000 to 100,000 is paid every year to the 16 councillors who are appointed by the six Berkshire unitaries, which have already paid them once.

The councillors also called on residents to volunteer as retained firefighters at the station, which has historically struggled with recruitment.

They said: It takes six months to a year for a recruit to be fully trained and then be a full member of the team.

The shortfall in staff has meant that the appliance could not be manned and has affected the historic statistics, suggesting that response rate is very low. This is being rectified.

Maybe you could apply to be a firefighter  it is a good additional income and great fun.

The feedback from the consultation will be considered at a meeting of the fire authority on April 18 and the final decision on the options will be made in May.

The consultation document can be viewed online at www.rbfrs.co.uk/consultation

To comment, call 0118 938 4331, email irmp@rbfrs.co.uk or write to: Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, IRMP Consultation, Newsham Court, Pincents Kiln, Calcot, Reading, Berkshire, RG31 7SD.
LEANDER CLUB athletes had a strong start to their spring season last weekend, with two first places at the Reading University Head.

Racing as Star and Arrow, the Leander Development Academy, Robbie Crowther, Tom Placidi, David Few and Tom Ballinger took a tight verdict ahead of Windsor Boys School to claim victory in J18 quads, with the field of nine including two more Leander crews.

Three of the athletes were able to claim a double victory when Cameron Forsyth climbed in to the two seat to replace David Few and the line-up took an even more convincing victory ahead of Marlow to win IM2 quads.

After their victory at the Henley Head the previous weekend the Leander Thames Cup group were expecting stronger opposition, and so it proved. Oxford Brookes, who boated 14 crews in various boat classes, took a 10-second verdict ahead of Star and Arrow.

Brookes also pushed Leander back into second place in the elite event, where a depleted Ladies Plate group were making their first appearance on the water this season, after spending the closed season in small boats. Sickness and injury also played their part, with two members of the Thames Cup crew having to step up to fill the vacancies.

Meanwhile, Henley Rowing Clubs women beat tough competition, including university crews to win the IM1 8+. The squad of Georgia Edwards, Isabel Jonsson, Lauren Kay, Ella Morgan, Charlotte Orr, Clare Pearson, Sophia Hahn, Mary Wright, and cox Freya Reid won by more than over 11 seconds, beating a crew from Oxford Brookes University, Oxford and Curlew rowing clubs.

Their performance was almost matched by the second WJ18 boat from Henley racing in the WJ18 8+ who came a strong second place behind Marlow. Henleys J15 girls also showed they could follow their example. They were forced to race up a division at J16, as there was no opposition for them in their age group. They finished only four seconds behind Marlow in second behind a strong winning crew from Latymer Upper School.

Henley boys J15 coxed eight of Euan Turnell, Grant Taylor, Sam Beattie, Ed Roy, Alex Carr, Charlie Garnham, James Wallace, James Penrose and Charles Washbourn came third behind Latymer Upper and St Pauls in a field of 19 crews.

It was tough going for the J18 quad, which comprised Balthazar Issa, Bruce Turnell, Euan Turnell and Ollie Taylor, as they were racing above their age group. They initially struggled to find the right rhythm in the gusting conditions but managed a very creditable sixth against some very good opposition.

Henleys Elite men were hampered by injuries but put in a good performance against tough competition from Thames, Leander and Oxford Brookes rowing clubs.
The Verkhovna Rada has ratified the free trade area agreement (FTA) between Ukraine and Canada (No. 0120).

Some 272 people's deputies voted for this decision on March 14.

Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andriy Parubiy after voting said he would urgently sign the document.

The agreement was signed in Kyiv on July 11, 2016.

According to an explanatory note to the document, the ratification of the agreement will promote the development of bilateral trade and economic relations between Ukraine and Canada, will allow Ukrainian producers to benefit from customs-free access to the Canadian market, will open new markets for Ukrainian enterprises.

First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv said in parliament that the results of the analysis conducted by research institutes show that the annulment of imports duties by Canada would help Ukrainian manufacturers of food, light, chemical, petrochemical and engineering industries to have the best advantages on the Canadian markets. On the other hand, the agreement would open opportunities for imports of raw materials and advanced technologies, which would prompt Ukraine's economic growth.

According to the projected calculations, the introduction of the agreement would result in minor losses of the national budget, including some $1.2 million from the annulment of imports duties in the first year when the document is in effect. It is expected that in medium term outlook the shortfall would be compensated thanks to VAT and growth of foreign direct investment.

Kubiv said that the FTA agreement with Canada implies the observation of transparency of procedures related to the origin of goods, drawing up of regulations and compliance assessment.

The ratification of the agreement would stimulate Ukrainian manufacturers to make competitive products. This would expand the range of exported goods and influence the economic development of the state.

The parliaments of the two countries are to ratify the agreement.

The document is pending the voting in the Senate of Canada (third reading), signing by the president of Ukraine and the governor general of Canada respectively and the exchange of the ratified documents.
An engineering student from a "respected family" was arrested after he kicked the wing mirrors off three cars following a night out.

Dean Moffett (22) was spotted by a passer-by, who reported the damage to a garda on patrol.

Judge Anthony Halpin struck the case out after Moffett paid compensation for the damage and 400 to charity.

Moffett, of Carnaveigh, Lat- ton, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, pleaded guilty to three counts of criminal damage.

Dublin District Court heard the incident happened at Parnell Square East last February 2.

A garda sergeant said the incident happened at 12.50am, when a member of the public saw the accused walking and kicking the mirrors off the cars.

The witness reported this to a garda on O'Connell Street and the defendant was kept in sight until he was met by the officer.

He was arrested and taken to Store Street Garda Station.

Force

The court heard the damage to one mirror had been valued at 321 and the second at 118. Judge Halpin estimated the third at the same value of 118.

Moffett had no previous convictions. He was studying mechanical engineering at DIT, his lawyer said.

"What's the force that would be required to break off a wing mirror?" asked Judge Halpin. "He's doing mechanical engineering."

The accused did not know.

Judge Halpin said his own car's wing mirror fell off after it hit another car.

He said he thought the accused should carry out a study on how to make wing mirrors "more robust".

"No matter how robust they were, they would probably still fall off with a kick," he added.

Moffett apologised for his actions and was "deeply embarrassed", his lawyer said. He had been "on a night out" and there was alcohol involved.

It was a one-off incident and Moffett was from a well-respected family in Co Monaghan, the lawyer added.

He was willing to make a 400 donation to charity. The judge struck the case out after this was done.
Bishop Eamonn Casey was remembered for his "boundless energy", compassion and humanitarian work yesterday.

The 89-year-old died peacefully at around 2pm in a nursing home in Co Clare.

Following the controversy over his affair with Annie Murphy and the discovery that he fathered a child, he left the country.

He spent 14 years in exile in South America, but returned to Ireland and has spent the last number of years in a nursing home.

He had been suffering from dementia and was unwell in recent years.

President Michael D Higgins led the tributes, saying news of Casey's death had been met with sadness.

Fianna Fail TD Pat Casey, a nephew of the late former Bishop, also paid tribute.

"Our family loved Eamonn. 'Uncle Eamonn', as he was known to many, was as jovial and as caring a man to his family as he was to the many people he served in his public ministry as a priest and bishop," he said.

"As a family we are also acutely aware of the controversies in Uncle Eamonn's life. He has passed from this life during the Christian season of Lent, which considers such themes as sacrifice, atonement and reconciliation."

Blessings

Canon Michael McLoughlin, of the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, remembered him as someone with "boundless energy" who had the ability to uplift people.

"Bishop Eamonn brought blessings to many people. But to be human is to be both blessed and to be flawed. Some of his actions caused great hurt and the circumstances giving rise to his resignation in 1992 have been the subject of ongoing analysis. Bishop Eamonn asked for forgiveness from all those that he hurt," he said.

Trocaire chairman Bishop William Crean said Casey's work with the organisation in the 1970s and 1980s had benefited millions of people.

"Bishop Casey spoke out courageously in defence of persecuted communities overseas and was willing to place himself in danger in order to do so," he said.

"His campaigning, both at home and overseas, raised awareness of grave injustices and helped to bring about positive change."
Individuals' loans, liquidity provision worth at least $11 million had been withdrawn from Imexbank (Odesa) a month before the bank was declared insolvent, according to the website of the Individuals' Deposit Guarantee Fund.

According to its data, the estimated value of the bank's assets is less than 15% of the amount recorded in financial statements. Thus, the value of assets included in the liquidation mass "on paper" is UAH 14.952 billion, while four independent appraisers estimated them at UAH 2.082 billion.

"The analysis of operations conducted by the bank shortly before the introduction of temporary administration shows: the schemes, manipulations and withdrawal of liquid assets were applied," the fund said.

According to the fund, a few weeks before the introduction of temporary administration pursuant to the decision of the Economic Court of Odesa region the bank transferred $10.925 million to a resident company in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This amount was transferred for the software allegedly installed by the company in the bank office in Crimea in January 2013. At the same time, these assets were not mentioned in the bank's balance sheet.
Ukraine increases electricity exports by 37.2% in two months of 2017

Ukraine in January-February 2017 increased electricity exports by 37.2% (by 263.9 million kWh) compared to the same period in 2016, to 972.5 million kWh, a source in the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry has told Interfax-Ukraine.

Electricity supplies from the Burshtyn TPP energy island towards Hungary, Slovakia and Romania increased by 48.4% (by 257.3 million kWh), to 788.5 million kWh.

Electricity deliveries to Poland rose by 5.3% (by 9.3 million kWh), to 184.1 million kWh.

Ukrainian electricity was not exported to Moldova, Belarus and Russia in January-February 2017, while in the same period of 2016 these countries were supplied 2.6 million kWh.

In February 2017 exports of Ukrainian electricity amounted to 413.3 million kWh, which is 13.9% (50.3 million kWh) more than in February 2016.

In addition, Ukraine in January-February 2017 imported 8.3 million kWh of electricity (8.1 million kWh from the Russian Federation, 200,000 kWh from Belarus) against 10.7 million kWh in the two months of 2016.
Independent member of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, former head of Donetsk Regional State Administration Serhiy Taruta says that if continued, the blockade of transport infrastructure in Donbas will have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine's economy and Ukrainians' wellbeing.

"The national budget will fall short of about UAH 35-40 billion [$1.29-1.48 billion] in taxes; receipts in foreign currency will shrink by $2.5 billion. All this will weaken the hryvnia, which will, unfortunately, make every Ukrainian poorer," he told on ICTV.

He claims that "militants and Russia benefit" from the blockade of transport communication with Ukraine. "Militants happened to have a unique opportunity to 'nationalize' these enterprises. Putting it simply: grab, stop their work and dismantle for scrap. Nobody in the 'DPR' [self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic] and the 'LPR' [self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic] thinks about any future. ['DPR' leader Oleksandr] Zakharchenko and ['LPR' leader Ihor] Plotnytsky are thinking only about one thing: how to capture booty by cutting enterprises for scrap - this is the militant leaders' own business," Taruta said.

He estimates that about 80% of small-, medium- and partly large-scale industrial enterprises that are located in militant-controlled territory could be turned into scrap.

"Russia now supplies metal to the markets where Ukrainian exports were earlier sent, thus depriving Ukraine of its traditional sales markets. The blockade is another form of the hybrid warfare," he added.
Election day forecast? Sunny skies and, perhaps, a good turnout

"I hope that means that more people will go out and vote," said Barry Jackson, deputy elections director in Washington County.
Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada has ratified the convention between the governments of Ukraine and Luxembourg on avoiding double taxation and preventing income and capital tax evasion (bill No. 0125).

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that a total of 236 lawmakers backed the document on Tuesday.

"After analyzing transactions of economic entities we have come to the conclusion that Luxembourg is one of the centers of investment. The ratification of the agreement and protocol to avoid double taxation between the states is an important event for us," Head of the profile parliamentary committee Nina Yuzhnina said.

She said that before the ratification she met official representatives of Luxembourg where Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn said that Luxembourg is not an offshore country and was not placed to any black lists.

"Both Ukraine and Luxembourg have joined the initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). We should play under equal rules," the minister said.

He said that Luxembourg is ready to automatically provide all the required information on transactions of Ukrainian entities to Ukraine.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that the ratification of the Free Trade Area Agreement (FTA) between Ukraine and Canada opens a symbolic transatlantic bridge of free trade.

"This is a historic moment for our bilateral trade with Canada, the country that systematically, on a permanent basis, supports Ukraine and helps in developing the economic potential of our state. This agreement opens a symbolic transatlantic bridge of free trade," the president said in a statement on ratification of the agreement, posted on the website of the president.

The president also noted that the entry into force of the Agreement will lead to the increase of foreign direct investment in Ukraine, creation of new jobs in construction, industry and trade, as well as duty-free access to 98% commodity positions on the Canadian market.

"Ratification and further entry into force of the FTA with Canada agreement will be an important signal for our international partners and potential investors around the world," he said.

The president said that the ratification of the Agreement provides for the "formation of the free-trade triangle Ukraine-Canada-EU, as the formation of the free trade area between Canada and the European Union is about to be completed, Poroshenko said.

Poroshenko also said that the agreement is a very important response to the Russian hybrid aggression, which threatens not only Ukraine, but also the EU countries, Canada and the whole Free World, which is the evidence of our unbroken transatlantic unity and solidarity. It is measured both by our sanctions front and by very important and necessary military assistance provided to Ukraine by partners, he said.

In this regard, he thanked Canada for the decision to extend the training mission for Ukrainian military personnel Unifier for another two years - until 2019.
The free road maintenance market in Ukraine today exists in word only, and it does not really exist, Head of the Ukrainian State Road Agency, also known as Ukravtodor, Slawomir Nowak has said.

"Instead of pretending to conduct reforms I have decided that we would return to the initial point and start the realistic reform of this structure. First we should provide for road maintaining in Ukraine. If there is no private firms that could do this the state-run company will do this," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that the cancelation of liquidation of state-run enterprise Automobile Roads of Ukraine was a reloading of plans about the free market. Today it looks like the situation in Poland 10 or 12 years ago.

"First we reform the state-run enterprise, upgrade machinery and are involved in restructuring. In five or seven years of this work when new competitive companies appear we will switch to the free market," Nowak said.

He expressed hope that when local authorities start managing local roads, local private companies that would maintain roads would appear.

"Then it is appropriate to make a decision what to do with the state-run enterprise: privatization, concession or decentralization. However, the state-run enterprise should operate for the next five or seven years," he said.
The government of Luxembourg would provide EUR 500,000 of assistance to Ukraine for the implementation of humanitarian projects, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has reported.

"Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn informed about the provision of EUR 500,000 for the implementation of humanitarian projects," the ministry said on Twitter on Monday.
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Grand Prize Winner: Donna Rickey Blog Winners: A Song for her Enemies by Sherri Stewart: Mary Ann Hake Spies & Sweethearts by Linda Shenton Matchett: Connie Ruggles Sword of Trust by DebbieLynn Costello: Brenda Walters Justice for Julia by Donna Schlachter: Natalya Lakhno Party Prize winners: Sherri Stewarts Winners A Song for her Enemies: Angie Pool Bottle of Dutch Syrup: Carol Koch Alscheff Corrie ten Boom book: Deb Gramie Burgess Linda Shenton Matchetts winners: $5.00 gift card to online retailer or choice (Kobo, B&N, AppleBooks, Amazon): Karen Hadley A Bride for Seamus: Carol Osterhouse Wotring DebbieLynn Costellos winners: Sword of the Matchmaker: Melissa Planas Sword of Forgiveness: Paty Hinojosa Gomez Shattered Memories: Charlene Zall Capodice Sword of the Perfect Bride: Licha Haney Donna Schlachters winner: Leather Journal: Lisa Turley

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The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Ukraine has not received requests to present contracts signed for procurement of medicines using budget funds, UNDP Country Director in Ukraine Janthomas Hiemstra has said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

"We are the international diplomatic organization. We directly cooperate with the Foreign Ministry. UNDP has not received any official request regarding the information the contracts contain," he said.

He said that UNDP procurement is linked to the commercial operations of manufacturers and other procurement organizations.

"Sometime we procure medicines for Ukraine at lower prices under special agreements compared to anyone else. We do not have the right to disclose low prices, as this information could create pressure on manufacturers by procuring organizations in other countries," he said.

Hiemstra said that UNDP is ready to present the information about the contracts signed if the organization receives official requests. The UNDP is not ready to publish the contracts in the pdf format.

"If the Health Ministry, Foreign Ministry and even a court sends us a request to show the contract, we are ready to discuss the issue. I am not ready to show the contract to the whole world in pdf format. We are ready to disclose any information if we receive the proper request. No one has yet applied us for the information," he said.
For those who may not be involved with government or watchdog journalism, understanding the significance of FOIA and state laws can seem confusing. As part of Sunshine Week, which is an effort to bring awareness to the importance of open government, the HDR will publish several stories to help readers understand the need for open government, and the rights they have.

The freedom of Information Act is a law that gives you the right to access information from the federal government. It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government, according to FOIA.gov.

The Freedom of Information Act allows any member of the public to request records from any federal agency; however, there are several exemptions to the law.

There are nine exemptions to FOIA, according to FOIA.gov. These include information that is classified to protect national security and information that, if disclosed, would invade another individuals personal privacy. The full list can be found at www.foia.gov/faq.html#exemptions.

Just as the Freedom of Information Act offers U.S. citizens a chance to hold their federal government accountable, there are state laws granting North Carolina residents similar rights.

The bulk of North Carolina open government laws are found in chapters 132 and 143 of the North Carolina General Statutes.

Former North Carolina Attorney General, Gov. Roy Cooper, along with the North Carolina Press Association released a Guide to Open Government and Public Records to, help make sure people are allowed to watch their government in Action, according to the document.

Open government laws in North Carolina allow the public to obtain records and documents considered public, as well as require government bodies to conduct public meetings.

Transparency is important because as elected officials, we work for our citizens. What we do is the peoples business, and they need to know whats going on, County Commissioner Chairman Randy Isenhower said.

The laws set requirements for government officials to follow such as giving a timely public notice announcing meetings dates, times and locations as well as defines what rights citizens have to access public records.

Recently the Hickory Daily Record made several public records requests to the City of Newton and Catawba County in an effort to learn more about the agreement with Corning Optical and the two government bodies.

At the time of the request, there was no mention of what was actually to be announced, and the HDR wanted more information to ensure readers had an opportunity to attend the meeting and voice their opinions before an agreement was reached.

State laws do allow government bodies to enter into closed sessions when dealing with specific items, one of such is economic development.

The HDR submitted requests to Newton officials and members of the Catawba County Economic Development Corporation and Catawba County officials.

Pursuant to NC General Statute 132-6 (a), Every custodian of public records shall permit any record in the custodian's custody to be inspected and examined at reasonable times and under reasonable supervision by any person, and shall, as promptly as possible, furnish copies thereof upon payment of any fees as may be prescribed by law.

Catawba County complies with the law, Communications Director for Catawba County Amy McCauley said.

The meeting and following announcement of Corning opening a new location in the City of Newton came on a Monday after the requests were submitted Friday, meaning the requested information was provided after the actual announcement.

If members of the public wish to make a public records request in Catawba County, they should submit the request to the department where the information is handled, McCauley said.

Visit http://www.ncdoj.gov/getdoc/ef04d580-eee7-4cfe-b2ec-06c26a6f95b9/AG-open-government-booklet-4-8-08.aspx to view the Guide to Open Government and Public Records.
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Manipur deserves better, but the best of a bad lot is all it could end up with after the elections to its assembly. There is also the Naga peace deal: The state has extensive Naga homelands that will have to be factored into any settlement.

Okram Ibobi Singhs desperate gambit to win Manipur for the fourth consecutive time for the Congress  and for himself as chief minister  hasnt paid off yet. In the absence of allies, the 28 seats the Congress won has fallen short of the 31 required for majority in the 60-member house. A spectacular late campaign surge by the BJP brought it a count of 21, from zero previously. The support of four allies and finessing of an independent MLA has taken the grouping to a majority  but only just.

As it stands, with the inevitable exercise of having to prove majority in the assembly the elections in Manipur are done, but hardly dusted. With a slim majority, the BJP combine will be vulnerable to jettisoning by fair-weather allies. Defection is high art in Manipur.

A peculiarity of this electoral outcome is that, for the first time in years, there will be a substantial Opposition irrespective of which combine governs. If the BJP is able to consolidate its hold ,it will have the Congress at its heels.

Ironically, this will be to find fault in the BJPs delivery of its election promises  what Manipur sorely needs and what Singh was unable to provide. Singh has for three terms over 15 years presided over a slide in ethnic relations, collapse of urban and rural infrastructure, runaway corruption, and horrific human rights violations. The BJP will need to quickly find a way to end a crippling economic blockade imposed by the United Naga Council (UNC), the apex body of Naga tribes in Manipur; provide massive development; a sense of security over land and lives; and an equitable settlement of the Naga peace deal, to which the blockade is linked. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his senior BJP colleagues have publicly placed their names to it all.

As to the Naga issue, in August 2015 the Government of India signed a so-called framework of agreement with the largest Naga rebel groups, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah). In Nagalands rigid tribal structure, it has become increasingly clear that, in post-conflict Nagaland theres no future for the NSCN (I-M)  especially for its key leaders and numerous cadre who are Tangkhul Naga from the northern Ukhrul district of Manipur. This possibility has refuelled long time fears among the non-Naga Meitei majority that a Naga peace deal will involve ceding of contiguous Naga homelands in Manipurs territory. This is a violently emotive issue.

This is reinforced by an open secret in these parts: The UNC is a strategic vehicle for the NSCN (I-M). The blockade that has choked Manipur since early November (and provided Singh a political lifeline to play to Meitei interests  the Congress would otherwise have been decimated) has been at the instance of the UNC. The BJP-led central government and now, the BJP in Manipur have much to lose in the non-Naga parts of Manipur  where the Meitei reside as also the ethnic majority, and the Kuki and Zomi tribes  if it is seen to pander to Naga interests.

The UNC began to push hard about three years ago to delink from the administrative control of Imphal, accusing Singhs government of pursuing policies of administration and development that favour the Meiteis. The NSCN (I-M) piggybacked on this demand.

The BJP will now have to step delicately, even though Singh may have made its job of untangling Manipurs ethnic mess a little easier. In his bid to regain support among non-Nagas, on December 9 Singh announced the formation of seven new districts adding to the existing nine. Of these, four were earlier part of the Naga-majority districts of Ukhrul, Senapati, Tamenglong and Chandel. In effect, it cauterised non-Naga areas.

Theoretically this may help the BJP balance the peace process with the NSCN (I-M) as well as live up to the electoral promise that Manipurs territorial integrity wont be disturbed. It can now offer administrative autonomy to Naga homelands in Manipur within the geographical construct of Manipur.

But it will require great finessing. If the BJP is seen to give in to Naga interests without offering a massive development and administrative boost to Manipur  perhaps even dilute the ambit of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act as a sweetener, or reach out to Meitei rebel groups with offers of peace and reconciliation  Manipur will explode. And, if the BJP does not settle Naga interests in Manipur, it will run the risk of jettisoning the Naga peace process. As the BJP will very quickly discover, in Manipur political ballast is a brutal business.

Sudeep Chakravarti is author of Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land, a book set in Manipur and Nagaland

The views expressed are personal
A while ago, a leading Kolkata newspaper reported a wave of hate crimes by Americans against Indian-origin nationals. The newspaper cited the Press Trust of India, New York as follows: Amid attacks on Indian-origin people in the US, an anti-immigration website has caused alarm among the community after featuring a video showing a man secretly filming Indian families at an Ohio park and commenting that the `Indian crowd has `ravished the mid-west. The creator of the video is a computer programmer who draws attentions to the number of jobs local Americans have lost to foreigners, particularly IT jobs, and especially to Indian immigrants. It follows on from the spate of hate crimes levelled at Indian-origin people in the US in recent times.

The Indian-origin community is seriously worried about its safety following the hate crime shooting of a 32-year old Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Kansas last month. More recently, Indian-origin Harnish Patel was shot dead while Deep Rai, a Sikh resident of Washington was shot at by a gunman yelling go back to your own country. And Ekta Desai was heckled by an African-American on a commuter train in New York.

All of which indicates that the news regarding the current status of Indians from India in the US is going from bad to worse. US President Donald Trump has condemned the incidents and stated that hate and evil are unAmerican ethics. A look back into the history of immigration norms and policy in the US might be interesting.

Hugh Tinker had written in 1977 that the change in the Asian situation in the US was the result through dramatic changes in the immigration policy. A century ago, the few hundred Asians who penetrated America were concentrated on the west coast, forming a continuation of the Canadian Sikh migration. California was known for its cults and sects as well a multiplicity of swamis or custodians of esoteric tidings. However, American immigration policy forbade the entry of all who were ineligible to become citizens, and Asians were in this category. When no less an Indian than Rabindranath Tagore entered the US from Canada in 1929, he was subjected to humiliation which made him cancel his tour and depart at once. After World War II, there was an easing of the ban, and India and Pakistan were allotted an entry quota. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson reorganised the whole system. Instead of the old norms and policies favouring entries from the UK and North-West Europe, new policies meant an annual entry of 120,000 Western immigrants and 170,000 from countries beyond the West. The new rules gained effect from 1968. While 5,205 Indian nationals entered the US in 1969, 15,589 arrived in 1972. Most of the Indians were skilled professionals.

In 2000, the US census listed the top ten countries indicating the birth of immigrants, the number of immigrants from each country living in the US and the projected growth in immigration by 2010. The greatest increase in immigrants or 23.7% was predicted to be from Mexico while India ranked fourth as far as country of origin was concerned with 1,000,000 immigrants living in the US in 2000 which was predicted to increase to 1,600,000 by 2010 or 4%, according to Rayna Bailey writing in 2010.

Bring me your huddled masses: what a shame if a great country born out of immigrant blood, sweat and toil should hate Indian ethnic groups due to their colour and other elements and resentment of the wealth they have lost being accrued by a wealthy immigrant brown community.

Aditi Chatterji is Honorary Associate, Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Calcutta

The views expressed are personal
Wealthier candidates were far more likely to win their constituency than their less wealthy competitors, according to an analysis of election data and candidate affidavits by the Hindustan Times.

Across 689 constituencies in the assembly elections in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, the wealthiest candidate won 33.5% of the time, compared to just 24.6% for the second wealthiest candidate and 17% for the third wealthiest.

The odds were heavily stacked against poorer candidates. Of the 639 fifth-wealthiest candidates, just 41  6.4%  won their constituencies. Only four of 394 tenth-wealthiest candidates won, or just a little more than 1%.

Education, too, contributed to candidates chances of winning. Candidates with a doctorate degree, for example, won nearly a fifth of their races, while the poorly educated fared much worse. Of the 102 candidates whose affidavits said they were illiterate, just two  Satya Prakash Agrawal from UP and Yamthong Haokip from Saikul in Manipur  came out on top.

Yet the road to electoral victory is paved with cash, not diplomas.

To run a decent campaign, you need a lot of money, said Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow with the Observer Research Foundations Governance and Politics Initiative. Most of the time, the main criterion for getting selected to be a candidate is your ability to raise money or whether you already have the money bags with you.

Voters may also be more attracted to wealthy candidates because they are seen as being better able to grease the wheels of local bureaucracies.

The job description of an elected representative is not to sit in the assembly, said Gilles Verniers, a political scientist at Ashoka University, but instead to act as a power broker between constituents and state agencies. Being wealthy enables to you to meet, to a certain extent, the expectations of voters.

To be sure, some poorer candidates were able to beat the odds. Of the 689 winning candidates HT analysed, four were in debt, according to their affidavits, while another winning candidate declared no assets at all.

Even for wealthy candidates, victory is not guaranteed. Of the 2,185 candidates who claimed to possess net assets of at least Rs 1 crore, 514 -- a little less than a quarter -- won their seats. Nazir Ahamad, a Congress candidate from Uttar Pradesh whose net assets amounted to more than Rs 200 crore, finished third in the Agra South constituency.

Still, a poorer candidate faces far longer odds. Of the 608 candidates who declared net assets of between Rs 0 and Rs 1 lakh, only one  Dr Harendra Prasad Singh, who declared net assets of Rs 0  emerged victorious.

The implication is very straightforward, Sahoo said of the difficulties relatively poor candidates face at the polls. A lot of competent people who are motivated to get into the democratic process and bring systemic change, people who want to work for their community, simply dont get a chance.

The gap between the electoral fortunes of rich and poor was starkest in Manipur, where nearly half of all seats were won by the wealthiest contesting candidate, and only about 5% of seats were won by candidates who ranked fifth-wealthiest or below.

UP was the only state in which the wealthiest candidate won less than a third of the time. Still, poorer candidates fared much worse than richer ones. Candidates facing four or more wealthier competitors were able to win just 15% of the time.

If Indian poor people have a hard time getting elected, the same is true of the poor everywhere, said Verniers.

Money plays a central role in electoral politics in practically every democracy. Even Luxembourg, Im sure, Verniers, who is from Belgium, said.

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Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim set a goal to increase goods turnover between the two countries to $20 billion.

The press service of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers reported on Tuesday that this was discussed during the negotiations of the prime ministers of the two countries in Ankara on Tuesday.

In 2016, trade between Ukraine and Turkey exceeded $3 billion.

"The work we are doing today to approve and sign the free trade agreement should result in the increase of trade and relax the movement of capital. It will also allow making all the required decisions to protect our investment, this, in turn, will help us to increase our potential from the point of view of industry and trade," Groysman said.

The Ukrainian prime minister proposed to Turkish business to stir up work on the Ukrainian market.

"The largest prospects for further economic cooperation between Ukraine and Turkey are opened in the investment sphere," he said.
DEHRADUN: Two BJP central observers --- party national general secretary Saroj Pandey and Union minister Ratan Singh Tomar --- will visit Dehradun by Thursday to hold a meeting with the newly-elected 56 MLAs and assess their choice for the chief ministers post.

After consulting the legislators the central observers will leave for Delhi where they will brief party national president Amit Shah about the legislators respective preferences for the chief ministerial candidate, said a senior BJP office bearer.

According to him, Shah would take a final call on who will helm the mountain state.

The party will then announce the name at a legislature party meeting, which will be convened in Dehradun, a senior BJP leader said. This entire process will only be a formality as the legislators will unanimously accept Shahs choice, which will be seconded by the state parliamentary board in toto.

Party state chief Ajay Bhatt, however, said when exactly the two central observers would visit the state was not clear. I am seeking an appointment with the central observers so that they can spare the dates of their visit (to Dehradun) for a meeting with our partys state legislature party, he told HT from Delhi on Tuesday.

BJP insiders said that as of now three names are doing the rounds for the top job. They are BJP national executive member Satpal Maharaj and former ministers Trivendra Singh Rawat and Prakash Pant. BJP state chief Bhatt is said to be out of race after he lost the Ranikhet assembly seat.

Parliamentarian B S Koshiyari is also said to be one of the claimants to the post of chief minister as he has got the support of the majority of the legislators. But the former CM now in his mid-70s is long past the age-limit Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fixed for his party men to hold offices.

Party insiders said Shahs choice would prevail after the central parliamentary board authorised him to nominate the new chief minister. His (Shah) decision would prevail because the BJP won the assembly election with full majority in the name of the Prime Minister, a source said. Because of that (Modi) factor no state leader of our party has a moral right to press for his/ her case for the post of chief minister, he clarified.

BJP state vice president Jyoti Prasad Gairola said the party high command would nominate the best candidate for the top job. Our central leadership would choose the best person for that (CM) job so that s/he could implement Modijis vision for the states development, he told HT.

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The BJPs bid to form governments in both Goa and Manipur despite being runner-up has drawn criticism from the Congress party, which has accused the saffron party of stealing elections. In both states, the BJP finished second in the assembly elections, but was in an advantageous position to form governments with the help of allies.

Watch this space for live updates from Goa, Manipur and new Delhi on an action-packed Tuesday

6.20 pm: Manipur governor Najma Heptulla invites the BJP-led alliance to form government. Swearing in ceremony to take place at 1 pm on Wednesday.

6.06pm: Union home minister Rajnath Singh takes to Twitter to extend his wishes to Parrikar.

I am confident that Goa will scale new heights in areas of development and good governance under the able leadership of Sh. Manohar Parrikar, he posted.

5.58pm: I agree the mandate is fractured, but with 22 MLAs together, the vote share is more than sufficient. Its a post poll alliance, CM Parrikar says.

5.57pm: A NCP MLA, Churchill Alemao, has joined the BJP, taking their numbers in the assembly up to 22.

5.55pm: Newly sworn in Goa CM, Manohar Parrikar, has questioned the Congress over its accusations of a stolen Goa mandate.

If you (Congress) had the support then why did you not go to the Governor? The support extended to BJP to form government in Goa is only for Goas development. No MLA wanted to support Congress, ANI quoted Parrikar as saying.

5.50 pm: Prime Minister congratulates his former cabinet colleague, Manohar Parrikar, on becoming Goas chief minister

Congratulations to @manoharparrikar and his team on being sworn in. My best wishes in taking Goa to new heights of progress.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 14, 2017

5.46 pm: Governor Mridula Sinha concludes the swearing in ceremony. National anthem is played

5.41 pm: The two MLAs from MGP have been sworn in

MGP's Manohar Ajgaonkar and Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte take oath as ministers in Goa Government pic.twitter.com/Gs7HD7XZuj  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

5:30pm: Nine MLAs are being sworn in in total, including three from Goa Forward Party (GFP), two from Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), 2 independents, and 2 from BJP apart from Manohar Parrikar

5.26pm: BJP MLAs also being sworn in

5.20 pm: Manohar Parrikar starts taking the oath of office and secrecy as Goas chief minister in the presence of governor Mridula Sinha

5.15pm: Swearing in ceremony begins

5pm: BJP national president Amit Shah also arrives at Raj Bhawan for the swearing in ceremony. Parrikar will be the next chief minister of Goa.

4.58 pm: Union minister Nitin Gadkari and other elected MLAs from regional parties arrive at Raj Bhawan for the swearing in ceremony of Manohar Parrikar.

4:50 pm: Jaitley tells reporters that the BJP is confident of getting majority in the SC-ordered floor test in Goa. With Parrikar taking on Goa chief ministership, his Cabinet post of defence minister has been given to Jaitley. It is a big responsibility, I will start from where Manohar Parrikar Ji left, Jaitley says on the additional charge.

4:45 pm: Jaitley tells reporters that Congress neither elected a leader nor made a claim in front of the Governor, so it cannot protest against the BJPs claim to form government.

4.35 pm: Protests erupt outside Goa governor Mridula Sinhas house.

People hold up posters protesting the BJP alliance that has claimed the right to form the government under Manohar Parrikar. (Nida Khan/HT Photo)

3.10 pm: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley hits back at Congress over their accusations that the BJP is stealing the Goa election mandate. In a Facebook post, he said the Congress complains too much.

Governor in Goa had only one claim of 21 MLAs out of 40 with Parrikar ji as leader. 17 MLAs of Congress did not even make a claim:A Jaitley  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

Backing the BJPs claim to form the government in Goa, Jaitley further wrote, Goa produced an inconclusive verdict. There was a hung assembly, (so) obviously post-poll alliances will be formed. Congress complains a bit too much. It accused BJP of stealing mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before SC.

2.30 pm: Congress reiterates its grouse about governor Mridula Sinha not meeting them.

We wrote to her(Goa Governor) on 12th, we came to the office, but was told as its a holiday its closed: L Falerio,Congress pic.twitter.com/87Ojx7eSFw  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

1.30 pm: This is a great victory for us, says Digvijaya Singh on the Supreme Courts floor test directive. The Congress delegation, including all 17 Congress MLAs who won the election, has reached the governors house in Goa.

1.15 pm: Digvijaya Singh claims that the Congress party has been seeking an appointment with Goas governor Mridula Sinha since March 12 but were not given any. Today we sought appointment for 10.30 but she has given us time for 1.30. He questions her decision not to meet the Congress delegation, tweeting: Is it Constitutional? Doesnt it violate the Sarkaria Commission guidelines? Is it Moral?

She didn't even meet the single largest party elected by people of Goa before calling Parrikar to take oath. Is it justice ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) March 14, 2017

1.00 pm: Majority was not achieved by any party in Goa and Manipur, other parties gave us support for the formation of government, says Union minister Venkaiah Naidu.

12.50 pm: Our fight is against BJPs ideology, what they did in Manipur and Goa is exactly the ideology we are fighting against, says Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, speaking to reporters outside Parliament. He also says, As far as the Congress is concerned, some structural and organisational changes are needed.

When asked about allegations that Congress central leadership did not act soon enough in Goa, he responds, Act soon enough? Its not a question of soon enough, its a question of how much money the BJP has thrown to win the mandate. Thats the question.

Out of 5 states, BJP won two, we won three. In two of the states we won democracy is being undermined by them, using financial power and money.

It is not about how soon they went, but with how much money the BJP went to steal the mandate of Goa & Manipur pic.twitter.com/yWMVpOQr6J  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 14, 2017

12.45 pm: Congress Abhishek Manu Singhvi tells reporters after the Supreme Court hearing: Manohar Parrikar is CM of Goa for two days, if BJP cant show majority they wont be allowed to form a government.

12.30 pm: BJPs Nitin Gadkari denies any horse-trading in Goa, says BJP discussed with non-BJP MLAs who had some conditions and that support was unanimous. Congress was not able to choose a leader due to their internal tussle and they are blaming us for it, he says.

12.10 pm: Supreme Court orders floor test on March 16 and refuses to stay todays swearing-in ceremony of Manohar Parrikar.

11.50 am: Finance minister Arun Jaitley takes additional charge as defence minister.

11.45 am: ANI reports that the Supreme Court has ordered a floor test in Goa assembly today.

11.35 am: The top court asks both parties to name the leader who can be an interim speaker.

11.30 am: Supreme Court indicates holding an immediate floor test and not within 15 days as ordered by the governor.

11.15 am: You had the entire night, the best time, to get affidavits ready or present your supporters before us: SC to Congress

11.13 am: The SC told the Congress counsel that you should have stood on dharna to point out the wrongdoing. A layman would have taken 21 persons with him.

Cong tells court governor can't nullify the people's mandate and not even give a call to the largest party #GoaElection2017 @htTweets  bhadra sinha (@BhadraSinha) March 14, 2017

11.05 am: The Supreme Court was hearing a Congress petition to stall Manohar Parrikars swearing-in as the Goa chief minister. The former defence minister is expected to be sworn in as the CM in a ceremony later in the day.

10.15 am: A Congress MP from Assam, Ripun Bora, tells ANI, BJP is doing horse-trading in Manipur, they are murdering democracy all over the country. We got information that BJP hijacked 5-6 Congress MLAs and took them to Guwahati.

10.10 am: Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh to appear in the case challenging appointment of Manohar Parrikar as Goa chief minister in the Supreme Court, reports ANI.

10.00 am: Congress MLA from Goa tells ANI that the partys decision-making was slow despite winning the most number of seats in the election. It was a failure on part of the Congress leadership that no individual was identified.

9.30 am: Congress submits an adjournment motion notice in Lok Sabha over the issue of government formation in Goa and Manipur.

Follow live updates from the Parliament as the budget session resumes today.

9.16 am: Nifty moves above 9,000 points in pre-open trade for the first time since March 4, 2015 after BJP wins election in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

9.00 am: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh says that the single-largest party must be called to form government and the governor has to act according to constitutional rules. In Delhi, when BJP was largest party they were called to form government but they refused, thats when AAP was invited so the AAP-Congress coalition formed the government, he says.

8.00 am: Congress Legislative Party to meet at the partys headquarters in Panaji. All Congress MLAs along with Digvijaya Singh will meet the Governor after the meeting. Later today, the Supreme Court will hear a Congress petition to stall Manohar Parrikars swearing-in as the Goa chief minister.
In contrast to the ex-Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badals grand oath-taking ceremony in 2012, Captain Amarinder Singh will take oath as the next CM at the Punjab Raj Bhawan on Thursday in a low-key affair.

Punjab governor VP Singh Badnore will administer the oath of office.

Amarinder led Congress to a resounding victory, with the party winning 77 seats in the state assembly elections, results of which were declared on March 11.

Sources told Hindustan Times that the event will be a low key affair, preparations for which have already begun at the Raj Bhawan.

Must read | Punjab election results: Hindus, urban populace propped up Congress show

This is bound to be quite the contrast to the grand swearing-in ceremony in 2012 when Prakash Singh Badal took oath as the CM, along with a few other ministers, at Chappar Chiri.

The then-government had come under criticism from the Opposition for splurging on the ceremony. The SAD -BJP alliance had then become the first party in four decades to return to power for a second consecutive time.

Sources said austerity, and not extravagance, will be the byword for the new government. Who all and how many ministers take oath with the CM will be known shortly, sources added.

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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday his party won assembly elections in Manipur and Goa but the BJP threw money to steal the mandate, as the saffron party appeared to inch ahead in the race to form governments in the two states.

His comments came roughly an hour after the Supreme Court ordered a floor test in Goa on Thursday but didnt stop BJPs Manohar Parrikar from taking oath as chief minister this evening.

Our fight is against BJPs ideology, what they did in Manipur and Goa is exactly the ideology we are fighting against, Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament.

Out of five states, BJP won two, we won three. In two of the states we won, democracy is being undermined by them, using financial power and money.

The Congress is the single-largest party in the 40-member assembly with 17 seats, but the BJP  which has 13 MLAs -- claims a majority with support from two smaller parties and independents.

In Manipur, the Congress is just three short of the halfway mark of 31 but the BJP has already named a chief ministerial pick and claims to have cobbled together a majority coalition.

Gandhi refuted criticism that his party was outpaced by the BJP after the results were declared on Saturday. The question is not how soon they went, it is with how much money they went.

Gandhi admitted the need for organisational changes but refused to give importance to the Congress miserable performance in UP, where it won just seven seats in a 403-member assembly.

The Congress allegations were flayed by Union minister Venkaiah Naidu, who said the BJP had complete right to create a coalition as no party achieved a majority.

Majority was not received by any parties in Goa and Manipur, other parties gave us support for formation of government, ANI quoted the BJP leader as saying.

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Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday said that formation of a Congress government in Punjab will not have any impact on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal issue.

The Supreme Court has already announced its verdict on SYL in Haryanas favour and it will definitely get its share of river waters, Khattar said while talking to mediapersons here.

He said the BJPs landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is the result of Prime Minister Narendra Modis development agenda.

The mandate proves that people have supported Prime Minister Narendra Modis development agenda under the Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas policy and rejected the allegations of the opposition parties, Khattar said.

Even the leaders of opposition parties are now saying that they should make preparations for the 2024 general elections instead of 2019. But I dont think that they could do anything in 2024 as well, he added while referring to former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullahs advice to the opposition parties after the election results on Saturday.

KHATTAR, HOODA SHARE DAIS

The Virat Sarvdharam Sangam organised at the a Jain Temple here Khattar and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on one stage. The organisers honoured both Khattar and Hooda during the programme. The CM said such programmes help to bring people closer.
Electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been in the news ever since BSP supremo Mayawati blamed rigging of the electoral machines for her partys poor showing in the Uttar Pradesh polls. One of the first people to take heed of her concerns was outgoing chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who said the government should probe the voting machines if a question has been raised.

Heres a look at the developments that took place since then:

AAP, Cong seek paper ballots for MCD polls

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday directed chief secretary MM Kutty to write to the state election commissioner, asking him to hold the upcoming municipal elections through ballot papers. Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken also made a similar demand. Serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of voters as to the free-and-fair nature of the electoral process. We demand that these elections be held using the traditional ballot system, he said. The civic polls will be held on April 22.

BJP retaliates, mocks Kejriwal over demand

BJP leaders, however, criticised the Delhi chief ministers allegations by asking how their party lost the Delhi and Bihar assembly elections if EVMs were tampered in the saffron partys favour. Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari told ANI that if Kejriwal harboured doubts about EVMs, he should also demand re-election in 67 of the 70 assembly seats in Delhi from where his party won in 2015.

EC defends EVMs, says charges baseless

Workers on election duty carry Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) to a counting centre in Ghaziabad on March 11, 2017, under a heavy security detail. (AFP)

The Election Commission of India  which conducts all parliamentary and state assembly elections  ruled out the possibility of EVM manipulation. The electoral body pointed out that even in the past, it had invited petitioners who approached court against the use of technology to prove their charges. The election panel said EVMs were tamper-proof, and their security was being increased further.

Voting machines come under house panel scanner

Despite the Election Commissions protests, EVMs have come under the scanner of a parliamentary panel  which has decided to invite Indian as well as international experts to examine whether they can be tampered with. It took the decision after noting that several people have expressed doubts over the reliability of the voting machines.

BSP continues to protest rigged EVMs

Meanwhile, BSP supporters remained adamant in their demand for re-polling through ballot papers in view of the alleged manipulation of the voting machines. Party supporters gathered at Hanuman Nagar on Tuesday, alleging that the votes went to the BJP no matter which button was pressed. The results were shocking because a BJP candidate won from this constituency, despite the BSP having a huge support base here, said a protester.
As the Amritsar district witnessed a one-sided affair in favour of the Congress party as it bagged 10 out of the 11 seats, a heavy margin between the first and the second place made it all the more interesting.

Leaving aside two seats in which the victory margin for Congress candidates was less than 10,000, in all other eight seats, the victory margin for the winning Congress candidates was of more than 10,000.

Must read | Punjab election results: Hindus, urban populace propped up Congress show

The biggest win in Amritsar was scored by new entrant to the party and former MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, who defeated his former BJP colleague Rajesh Honey by a margin of 42,809 votes.

The second largest drubbing came for BJP candidate Rakesh Gill who lost by a margin of 26,847 votes at the hands of Dr Raj Kumar Verka of the Congress.

BJP national secretary Tarun Chugh was also not far behind as he faced second successive defeat by 21,116 votes.

In Amritsar South constituency, Congress nominee Inderbir Bolaria defeated AAPs Inderbir Nijjer by a margin of 22,658 votes.

Former local bodies minister Anil Joshi, one of the prominent faces of Amritsar, also lost by 14,000 votes at the hands of Congress candidate Sunil Datti.

In the rural segment of the district, Harpartap Ajnala of Congress outclassed SADs Boni Ajnala by 18,713 votes. In Jandiala also, Congress candidate won by 18,422 votes. Former Akali minister Gulzar Singh Ranike also faced a defeat by 10,202 votes.

It was only in Baba Bakala and Rajasansi segments that the Congress nominees won by 6,587 and 5,727 votes respectively.

The lone winner for SAD in Amritsar district, Bikram Singh Majithia however, won by 22,000 votes.
A last minute decision to field a candidate against Vijay Sardesai of the Goa Forward seems to have cost the Congress dear in government formation in Goa despite emerging as the single largest party in the state assembly.

The Congress had initially decided to support Goa Forward candidates on two seats in the assembly elections held on February 4, party sources said.

As part of the secret pact, the Congress had decided to support Sardesai from Fatorda constituency but huge resentment within the party forced the leadership to field a candidate against him. This had angered Sardesai and is said to be the major reason for him to go with the BJP.

Prior to the elections, a senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader privy to the developments in Goa, said Sardesai wanted to meet the Congress leadership in Delhi but was kept waiting for the entire day. He later left for Panaji without meeting.

After the results were out, he said Sardesai again kept waiting for the Congress leadership to come forward with some proposals on government formation but no one approached them. As there were no signs of the Congress legislature party meeting, he promptly grabbed the offer from the BJP.

Also, the Congress did not respond positively to a pre-poll alliance offer from the NCP, forcing former union minister Sharad Pawars party to field candidates on 17 seats.

While Sardesai won the seat, Jose DSilva of the Congress was a distant fourth.

However, the Congress continued to support Vinod Datarama Paliencar from Siolim and he went on to win the elections. The third Goa Forward candidate who won the elections was Jayesh Vidyadhar Salgaonkar from Saligao.

The Congress finished with 17 seats, while the BJP has 13 in the 40-member assembly. The GFP has 3, the same number as the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party. One legislator from the Nationalist Congress Party won and three independents triumphed.

Independent candidate Rohan Khaunte from Porvorim had also managed to get the Congress on his side. He won from the seat.

While Khaunte announced his support to the Congress after the results, Sardesai and other Goa Forward candidates sealed the deal with the BJP. The move prompted Goa Forward president Prabhakar Timble to resign in protest.

Expelled Congress leader and United Goan Party chief Atanasio (Babush) Monserratte, who had secured his former partys support, lost from Panaji.

NCP candidate Churchill Alemao, who was a minister in the Congress government, had quit the party in 2014 after his daughter Valanka was denied a Lok Sabha ticket.

Alemao, who is facing bribery charges in the Louis Berger case, won from Benaulim and immediately pledged support to the BJP in what is seen as his revenge against the Congress. His daughter was also suspended as the Youth Congress chief in Goa on the grounds of indiscipline after the Lok Sabha elections in July 2014.

Goa Congress leaders also blamed the leadership for handing over the government to the BJP on a platter by delaying the naming of the legislature party leader.

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If the BJP credits PM Narendra Modi for the partys victory in Uttar Pradesh, it should also explain the debacles in Delhi and Bihar, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Tuesday, as he asked the opposition to begin preparing for tough polls in 2019.

Seeking to clarify his remarks made in the wake of the UP election results that with no leader to take on Modi, the opposition should forget 2019 and prepare for 2024, Abdullah said he was only stressing the need to learn lessons and prepare for the difficult test that the next general elections would be.

I said (on Twitter) that if the same situation prevails, I mean the defeat, which we faced in these elections (in UP), if we did not learn from it, then undoubtedly we should think about 2024 elections instead of 2019, he told reporters in Srinagar.

If the same situation prevails, then it is obvious, said Abdullah, who is the working president of the National Conference.

The way BJP swept the polls in UP, the way they formed governments in two states with the help of jodh-todh (horse-trading) despite coming second, keeping in view these things, we conclude that 2019 will be a tough contest, Abdullah said.

We should prepare ourselves for that difficult test from today only and that is why I said what I said on Twitter, he explained.

Referring to the criticism of his tweets by some Congress leaders, Abdullah said some people disliked it, but that would not stop him from saying such things.

I am hopeful that after the results of these elections, we will change the way of our working and we will increase the rapport with the people and hope that in 2019, we will present a tough contest before BJP, he said.

The former chief minister said if the BJP credits its win in UP to the wave around Modi, then it should also explain the debacle in the Delhi and Bihar polls.

If Modis wave succeeded in UP, then why not in Delhi or Bihar? We only count our successes and blame someone else for our defeats. If BJP credits Modi for UP win, which it should, then it should also give explanation about Bihar and Delhi, he said.
The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday a Congress petition to stall Manohar Parrikars swearing-in as the Goa chief minister. The former defence minister is expected to be sworn in as the CM in a ceremony later in the day. The BJP said it had the support of 21 MLAs, the exact number needed to prove majority in the 40-member House. The assembly polls had thrown up a hung verdict, with the BJP bagging 13 seats as against 17 won by the Congress.

Goa assembly In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, the MGP (3), the GFP (3), the NCP (1) and Independents (3).

In a last-minute attempt, the Congress urged Goa governor Mridula Sinha on Monday to invite the party to form the next government since it emerged as the single largest party after the assembly election results. The Congress Legislative Party will meet Sinha around 10am on Tuesday to stake claim to form the next government in Goa. The Congress, which until Sunday had failed to muster the numbers, said it had the requisite support of MLAs.

Here are the top 5 developments in the Goa power play

Parrikar returns

Over two years after he quit as the CM of Goa to become the defence minister, Manohar Parrikar was set to take over the coastal states mantle again as the head of a BJP-led government. The decks were cleared for Parrikar, with President Pranab Mukherjee accepting on Monday his resignation as defence minister and assigning additional charge of the ministry to finance minister Arun Jaitley. Earlier in the day, Parrikar resigned to head the Goa government.

Parrikar sent a faxed letter of resignation to the Prime Ministers Office ahead of the oath-taking ceremony, expected to be held at Goas Raj Bhavan at 5pm on Tuesday. Goa governor Mridula Sinha asked Parrikar to prove majority on the floor of the Goa Legislative Assembly 15 days after taking oath.

8-9 ministers to be sworn in

Around eight to nine ministers including two each from the Goa Forward Party and the Maharashta Gomantak Party and two independents will be sworn in. Two or three ministers from BJP (including Parrikar) too will take the oath, BJPs Goa unit president Vinay Tendulkar told PTI.

Union Minister for Roads Nitin Gadkari and Union Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar along with BJP MLAs and alliance partners (MGP/Goa Forward) and Independents during their joint meeting to announce forming of government in Goa. (HT Photo)

Among the BJP legislators, (current) deputy CM Francis DSouza and another legislator whose name would be announced tomorrow (Tuesday) morning will be sworn in, he said.

Tendulkar, however, added that from BJP only Parrikar and DSouza might be sworn in. That possibility cannot be ruled out, he said, Three or four ministerial berths would be filled in the cabinet expansion later.

Opposition cries foul

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a tweet: The Prime Minister says that they would become more humble after victory. Abduction of an MLA in Manipur and haggling for power in Goa! We bow to Modijis humbleness.

In another tweet, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said that a party that comes second has no right to form the government.

BJP is stealing elections in Goa and Manipur, Chidambaram said.

A party that comes second has no right to form the Government. BJP stealing elections in Goa and Manipur.  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) March 13, 2017

Congress challenge

The party moved the Supreme Court challenging Goa Governor Sinhas decision to appoint BJP leader Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister of the state. The hurriedly filed petition late in the evening was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice J S Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing. A special bench would be constituted as the apex court is on Holi break for a week.

Goa CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar argued that the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the polls and under the constitutional convention, the governor was bound to invite the single largest party to form the government and give it the opportunity to prove majority in the floor test.

It said the decision of the governor is a blatantly unconstitutional action and is illegal, arbitrary and violative of the basic features of the Constitution.

Jaitleys reply

Jaitley said the governor was constitutionally right in case of a hung verdict in inviting the leader of the majority coalition.

In a hung assembly, if majority of the elected MLAs form a coalition, the Governor would be constitutionally right in inviting the leader of the majority coalition to form the government and prove their majority within a short period, Jaitley tweeted.
Electricity consumption in Ukraine in January and February 2017, taking into account losses in electricity transmission, grew by 2.8% or 772.3 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) year-on-year, to 28.346 billion kWh, the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry has told Interfax-Ukraine.

Electricity consumption, not including losses, over the period rose by 3.4% or 732.2 million kWh, to 22.194 billion kWh.

Industry in Ukraine over the period under review increased electricity consumption by 6%, to 8.677 billion kWh, including a 9% rise in consumption by the metallurgical industry, to 4.999 billion kWh, a 2.2% rise by the fuel sector, to 649.6 million kWh, a 5.7% rise by engineering sector, to 753.1 million kWh, a 26.3% decline in consumption by the chemical and petroleum industry, to 417.5 million kWh, a 6.6% rise in consumption by food and processing industry, to 690.9 million kWh, a 32% rise in consumption by the construction materials sector, to 349.6 million kWh and a 5.9% rise for other industries, to 817.7 million.

Agricultural companies consumed 612.6 million kWh (a rise of 6.8% year-over-year), transport companies  1.33 billion kWh (a rise of 8.5%) and construction companies  179 million kWh (a rise of 10.1%).

There was a 0.5% decline in consumption by households, to 7.17 billion kWh.

The share of industry in total electricity consumption grew from 38.1% in January and February 2016 to 38.1%, and the share of households fell from 33.6% to 32.3%.

In February alone, electricity consumption in Ukraine, taking into account losses in electricity transmission, grew 3.9% or 501.2 million kWh, to 13.425 billion kWh, while without losses in electricity transmission it rose by 3.3% or 347.3 million kWh, to 10.754 billion kWh.
Allies outnumber the BJP in Manohar Parrikars council of ministers in Goa.

Former defence minister Parrikar took oath as the chief minister of Goa for the fourth time on Tuesday after the BJP cobbled up a coalition with two regional parties and some Independent MLAs.

Goa voted a hung House with the Congress getting the most, 17, seats. But it was the BJP, which finished second with 13 seats in the 40-member assembly, that beat the Congress in cobbling up a ruling alliance.

Along with Parrikar, governor Mridula Sinha administered oath of office to nine ministers at a simple ceremony attended by BJP president Amit Shah and union ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari and JP Nadda.

Other than Parrikar, the BJP will have only two members, Francis DSouza and Pandurang Madkaikar, in the council of minister.

Three ministers -- Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palienkar and Jayesh Salgaonkar  are from the Goa Forward Party. Two of the three Maharashtrawdi Gomantak Party MLAs, Sudin Dhavalikar and Manohar Azgaonkar, too, made the cut with Independent legislators Govind Gawde and Rohan Khaunte.

The allocation of portfolios would be done after the floor test on Thursday, Parrikar said.

The Supreme Court had earlier in the day turned down a Congress plea to stay the oath ceremony but ordered Parrikar to prove his majority in the House on Thursday.

Though the Congress failed to get court relief, its workers held a protest demonstration outside the Raj Bhawan. A party delegation met the governor to express anguish over not being invited to form the government despite being the single largest party.

If they (Congress) had the majority, they should have gone to the governor instead of approaching the court, Parrikar said.

Infighting within the Congress was the reason that regional parties and independents decided to join hands with BJP, Parrikar said.

The people of Goa have not forgotten that during 1992 and 2000 the Congress party had 12 chief ministers. Development of the state had stopped during that period. Even now after winning 17 seats, they are still fighting. No one wants to go with them, he said.

Prospects of a stable government, development of Goa and ideals of Goenkarpon (interest of Goa) made the allies team up with the BJP.

They (allies) had just one condition to form the government: Modi ji sends me back to Goa as the CM, he said. This government will last for 365 days into five years.

Another Independent MLA, Prasad Gaonkar had submitted letter of support, the chief minister said.

It takes the strength of the ruling coalition to 22, one above the majority mark.

Parrying criticism that he did not have the majority support, Parrikar said with alliance partners his governments vote share had touched 50.5%. The mandate was fractured but every fraction has been stitched together, he said.

The chief minister said a common minimum programme would be announced a month later after consultations with colleagues and alliance partners. The first common minimum programme was to come together, the 61-year-old said.

Click here for full coverage on Assembly elections 2017
Biren Singh was on Tuesday elected unanimously as the leader of the BJP legislature party in Manipur. He later met governor Najma Heptulla to stake claim to form the next government in the northeastern state. Incumbent chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh had already staked claim on Sunday night.

The BJP claimed it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur assembly. The Congress won 28 seats in Manipur, while the BJP bagged 21 in the results announced on Saturday. The NPP and the NPF won four seats each, with the LJP and the Trinamool Congress securing one seat each.

Here are the top 5 developments in Manipur power play

BJP gets a leader

Ending two days of speculations and closed-door meetings, Nongthombam Biren Singh was elected leader of Bharatiya Janata Partys legislature party on Monday evening. A former minister in the Congress government-led by Okram Ibobi Singh, the 56-year-old will be the first BJP chief minister in the northeastern state if the party forms the next government.

Nongthombam Biren Singh is greeted after he was elected as BJPs legislature party leader in Imphal on Monday. Union power minister and BJP observer Piyush Goyal and HRD minister Prakash Javadekar are also seen. (PTI)

Biren was elected after a four-hour-long meeting of BJPs 21 newly elected MLAs in the presence of senior leaders Piyush Goyal, Prakash Javadekar and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who reached Imphal on Monday. It is a great challenge (for me). I left Congress because of mis-governance. The BJP has to give (good) governance to the people of Manipur who have given a mandate for change, Biren said.

Read | Manipur BJP banking on this former footballer-editor for election win

Ibobi resigns

Three-time CM Singh resigned on Monday after being prodded by governor Najma Heptullah, who said she could not start the process of government formation till he stepped down. Singh submitted his resignation letter to Heptullah, deputy chief minister Gaikhangam told PTI. Ibobi, who had been serving as the CM for 15 years since 2002, was again elected the leader of the Congress Legislature Party. He argued that with the Congress emerging as the single largest party, he should be given the first opportunity to form the government.

Whos with whom

In his meeting with Heptullah on Sunday night, Singh claimed to have the support of four National Peoples Party MLAs. On seeing names of four NPP MLAs on an ordinary piece of paper, Heptullah asked Ibobi Singh to bring the NPP president and the MLAs, a Raj Bhavan source said. NPP general secretary Vivek Raj, however, said that the party and all its MLAs were with BJP.

Raj Bhavan in spotlight

All eyes are now on the Raj Bhawan to see which side -- the BJP-led coalition or the Congress --- would get the invitation to form the next government. It is expected the governor would invite one of the two parties, most probably on Tuesday, and ask it to form the next government.

Speculations rife

Ibobi stressed on Monday that none of their 28 MLAs have switched sides to the BJP camp after reports indicated cracks in the Congress camp. The BJP claimed to have support of Shyamkumar, one of the 28 Congress MLAs, the lone MLAs of both LJP and All India Trinamool Congress, besides four MLAs each of NPP and NPF. Outgoing deputy CM, Gaikhangam too, however, described as completely baseless reports that Congress MLAs were in touch with the BJP.

In a separate development, the NPF denied rumours that the partys state unit had put forth pre-conditions before joining the BJP-led coalition. The party with 4 MLAs had made it clear on Saturday it would support any non-Congress government in Manipur. There were speculations in Imphal on Monday that its legislators could move to Congress side.
Keeping tabs on power politics in Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh:

Capts team to have fresh look

Congress leader Capt Amarinder Singh will need to look for new faces for his cabinet. The reason: many seasoned leaders of the party, including a former chief minister and ministers, have lost. They include ex-CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, and former ministers Ashwini Sekhri, Jagmohan Singh Kang, Joginder Singh Mann and Mohinder Singh Kaypee. Had they won, they would have figured in his team. Two other senior leaders, Sunil Jakhar and Ajit Inder Mofar, also failed to retain their seats. Then, a number of other veteran leaders preferred to field their children. These include Lal Singh, Santokh Singh Chaudhary, Chaudhary Jagjit Singh and Gurchet Bhullar.

Must read | Captain Amarinder Singh to take oath as Punjab chief minister on March 16

Finding solace in the drubbing

If the outgoing Badal government is feeling battered by not returning to power, it is not betraying any such signs. Some of its leaders, including CM Parkash Singh Badal, his son and SAD president Sukhbir Badal and his brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia, are not able to hide their sense of relief that it is the Congress and not the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that has taken Punjab. The Akali ministers who have lost the elections to Congress are less hurt than the ones such as Daljit Singh Cheema who have lost to the AAP. Same goes for most of partys other MLAs. After all, there are matrimonial and even business ties between the old political foes. And they go a long way.

Capt gets cracking, picks OSD

Gurinder Singh Sodhi, a newly elevated Punjab Civil Service (PCS) officer, is the first to be appointed by CM-designate Capt Amarinder Singh. The officer, who recently finished his training, has been posted as officer on special duty in the chief ministers office. Known to be an efficient officer, Sodhi started his career as a stenographer in the public relations department and attached with then CM Beant Singh. He then got elevated and inducted into the personal staff cadre of IAS officers. Sodhi then appeared for PCS examination conducted by Punjab Public Service Commission last year and got into PCS. Sodhi, who has been handpicked by Amarinder, has already joined his assignment. The new CM will take oath on March 16.

Bhattals team falls flat

A team hired by former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal to give a boost to her poll prospects failed to deliver. Before the elections, Bhattal had given a display advertisement in this newspaper to hire a team, seeking applications for walk-in interviews for selection of support staff for a CM-level candidate. Now that the five-time MLA has lost the assembly, she would definitely like to assess what went wrong.

Height of positive thinking!

There are various ways to get out of depression. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has after the poll drubbing decided to look only at the brighter side of things. A day after the results, several party workers were busy pointing out that 37 lakh Punjabis had actually voted for AAP which was an achievement in itself! What they did not want to look at was the fact that a larger number--- almost 39 lakh --- of Punjabis had voted for the Akalis and another almost 60 lakh voted for the Congress. In the end, AAP was not chosen by almost 90 lakh voters!

Capt win: Haryana Cong gives cold reaction

They desperately needed some good news, but the Congress leaders in Haryana have responded to the partys thumping triumph in neighbouring Punjab with a stunning silence. While most of them are hoping that the partys win would help it rediscover its mojo, hardly anyone of them spoke on it. They neither issued any statements nor posted any congratulatory messages on social on the spectacular success. The reason: Capt Amarinder Singh, who had scrapped the water-sharing agreements with Haryana, has led the Congress back to power and will be at the helm in Punjab. The divide created by the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal had also kept the party leaders from Haryana away from electioneering in the state. Kaithal MLA Randeep Singh Surjewala is among the very few to have spoken on the victory, but then he is All India Congress Committee media in-charge.

Babu pays for bickering in party

Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, it seems, hasnt been able to settle on his core team of bureaucrats. He has made frequent changes in the chief ministers office in the past two years. The latest to join the long list of officials and non-officials to make an exit from the CMO is Mukul Kumar, a Haryana Civil Service officer. An officer of special duty (OSD) to chief minister, Kumar, who was handling transfers, has been shifted to the tourism department as director and additional secretary. Though no reason has been cited, the soft-spoken officers transfer is being linked to the ongoing internal bickering in the ruling BJP. The MLAs have been griping against the state bureaucracy for ignoring their requests. There was talk of Kumars exit from the CMO two months ago also. The transfer was put off, but not for long.

Scribes find it hard to cross Khattars security ring

When he took over, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had curtailed the number of security personnel deployed for VIP security, including some of his own. While he continues to prefer unobtrusive security cover, the security team deployed with him is a tad fussy, often becoming a big hurdle for scribes trying to speak to him. When the CM was in his Karnal assembly constituency recently, the journalists wanted replies to some questions. But the security personnel were not too keen. They kept pushing the reporters behind, creating chaos. Khattar did not like the actions of his security guards. Arre aane do inko, muje kha jayenge kya yeh log, he said. And it was only after his intervention that the journalists could go close and get their queries answered.

Project delay: Haryana forest dept head shifted

The Khattar government removed the head of the forest department Amrinder Kaur last week. Though several officials saw it as a routine transfer, the buzz was that it was in the wake of long delay in taking steps for herbal forest in Morni hills. The forest project for which yoga guru Ramdevs Patanjali Trust has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Haryana government is a top priority for health minister Anil Vij. He had also written to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar against forest department officials. PP Bhojvaid has been posted as the new principal chief conservator of forest.

Special guests at Haryana House

The Haryana assembly had some special guests in the visitors gallery on the last day of the budget session on March 10. They were the six girls from the Government Model Sanskriti Senior Secondary School in Rohtaks Sanghi village. The girls had hogged limelight for their Haryanvi folk song Sudama on a video-sharing website. Accompanied by their music teacher Sumesh Jagra, the girls  Vidhi, Ishi, Sheetal, Rinku, Manisha and Muskan, were honoured by speaker Kanwar Pal.

Hacked FB page: BJP leader takes jibe at Sudhir Sharma

Himachal Pradesh urban development minister Sudhir Sharmas account on Facebook was hacked recently. The minister, who represents Dharamshala in the state assembly, deleted his page, apologising to those who had received nasty messages from his account. But the opposition leaders are not convinced about the hacking theory. Former BJP minister Kishan Kapoor raked up the issue while interacting with reporters the other day. May be it was done deliberately, he alleged, taking a jibe at his arch rival Sharma.

Dharamshala as second capital: CM under fire

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was under fire in the state assembly for declaring Dharamshala as the second capital of the state. Dharampur legislator Mahender Singh Thakur said Mandi should be given the capital status, but the chief minister declined his demand, saying that it was about the state capital, not a circus. Later, Shimla MLA Suresh Bhardwaj also told the CM that the British could rule a large part of the world from Delhi then what was the need for giving the second capital status to Dharamshala.

(Contributed by Gurpreet Singh Nibber, Sukhdeep Kaur, Chitleen K Sethi, Navneet Sharma, Neeraj Mohan, Rajesh Moudgil, Naresh K Thakur and Gaurav Bisht)
The BJPs landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is, apart from PM Narendra Modis connect with the voters, a combined harvest of social engineering, creative spin to demonetisation as anti-rich with substantial benefits to come, and a polarisation strategy based on the tested Hindutva card, political analysts said.

Of the 403 seats, the BJP bagged 312 (+265), Samajwadi Party 47 (-177), BSP 19 (-61) and the Congress 7 (-21). This could not have happened without the Sangh Parivars sustained campaign on the ground since 2014, said professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of JNU. Under the social engineering strategy, the BJP won over non-Yadav OBCs and made inroads into non-Jatav dalits while consolidating upper castes, especially the Brahmins, he said. Yadavs are the core vote base of the SP and Jatavs of Mayawatis BSP.

The BJP had woken up to the electoral importance of backward castes and dalits after it lost both UP and Madhya Pradesh in 1993 polls despite its attempts to consolidate Hindu votes under the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The SP-BSP victory in UP proved the potency of caste over religion in elections. In 1990, then Prime Minister VP Singhs implementation of the Mandal commission report, which provided 27% reservation to OBCs, spurred consciousness among backward and lower castes, and they became assertive for political representation.

Faced with the challenge of mandalisation of politics, the BJP started promoting low-caste people in the party apparatus. Uma Bharti, a Lodh who became the chief of the BJPs youth wing in 1994, had said, We should change the image of the partyWe have to go to the grassroots, to the dalits. The party has become complacent after the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Kanshi Ram has woken us up.

KN Govindacharya was the main advocate of the inclusion of low-caste members at all levels of the party organization. He called this policy social engineering that reflected electoral pragmatism and led to dilution of the saffron partys core ideological doctrine  forging Hindu unity through sanskritisation (emulation of the high-caste culture). The BJP stopped questioning reservation, and became open to more quota for assertive castes.

Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls, the BJP reached out to the poor by projecting demonetisation  recall of high-value notes on November 8 last year  as an attack on the affluent and their big money hoards. Chenoy said, Note ban was portrayed as a temporary problem leading to more cash support later.

Prof Arun Patnaik of Hyderabad University said, The UP mandate is both a vote against incumbency and a vote with hope for demonetisation gains. People are hopeful of positive fallout of the note ban on their Jan Dhan accounts despite their sufferings. They expect positive outcome in the next six months. Thats a major reason behind this massive mandate.

The demonetistion move has not met its main objective  checking black money and counterfeit currency  as most of the notes banned have returned to the banking system.

The BJP and its allied outfits also harped on Hindutva  positing Hindus against the Other  to bolster their poll prospects. Bulding a Ram temple was included in the manifesto, and Modi spoke the language of smashan-kabarstan during the campaign.

The polarisation strategy that the RSS has honed over decades was successful, raising questions about the Election Commissions capacity to curb divisive propaganda, Chenoy said. This election shows simple caste arithmetic is insufficient. The SP-Congress alliance and the BSP failed to give enough attention to class, gender, regional and economic issues.

Road shows are not more than a show unless backed by consistent work on the ground. Here the Sangh Parivar was far ahead.

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Haldwani: Former state finance minister Indira Hridayesh Tuesday said that the flood of votes in favour of BJP in Uttarakhand has put a question mark on the way our democracy is going. Hridayesh, who was the senior most minister in the Harish Rawat cabinet, also expressed surprise at the way the electorate rejected the developmental works carried out by the Congress government.

We got water supply to three-storey buildings where water hadnt climbed up the pipes since decades. We brought thousands of crores of funds for the people. But do people care for development? Look at the way they voted against us. This flood of votes in favour of BJP has put a question mark on the way our democracy is going, Hridayesh said.

Her name is presently in reckoning for the post of the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly.

Questioning the massive mandate in favour of BJP, she said that either we are mad or they (voters) are mad. She also brushed aside the talk of there being a wave in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and added that the electorates voting pattern was beyond understanding.

Hridayesh, who had won the 2012 elections from the same seat by margin of 23,500 votes, also questioned her own low margin of win this time. She won against BJP candidate and sitting Haldwani mayor Jogendra Pal Singh Rautela by a margin of 6,557 votes.

Can anyone digest the fact that BJPs Kaladhungi MLA Banshidhar Bhagat, who was facing the worst anti-incumbency, won by margin of 20,000 votes and that Congress rebel Umesh Sharma Kau won the Raipur seat by a margin of 37,000 votes? she asked.

Taking a cue from BSP supremo Mayawati, Hridayesh too blamed the electronic voting machines (EVMs) for Congress debacle in state assembly elections and said that Congress leader Navprabhat is finding the technical details with the help of IT experts.

Immediately after the results were declared on Saturday, Mayawati had questioned the reliability of EVMs and alleged that they were tampered with in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, where her party suffered a debacle.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too has expressed reservations about EVMs and wants voting by ballot papers in the upcoming civic body polls in the national capital.
Shiromani Akali Dal president and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday attributed the partys loss in the assembly polls to its failure to make the electorate acquainted with large-scale development works undertaken in the past 10 years of its rule.

Sukhbir, who retained his assembly seat from Jalalabad, was addressing people at a community hall here.

Watch | Video: Harsimrat Kaur Badal blames BJP for Punjab poll loss

We are carrying out an analysis of our defeat, and will overcome all shortcomings and form the government after the next assembly polls, said the Akali leader in his first public address after the stunning defeat on Saturday.

Also read | Why the Modi magic failed in Punjab?

Despite all the malicious campaign against Akali Dal in the polls, 31% voters of the state reposed their faith in us. We are thankful to them, he said, accompanied by Akali MLA from Muktsar Kanwarjit Singh and other party leaders.

Targeting his rivals  AAPs Bhagwant Mann and Congress leader Ravneet Bittu, both Lok Sabha members  Sukhbir said they were mere fly-by-night candidates who had been fielded from Jalalabad to exploit your votes.

Now with the end of the poll season, the two have moved back to their constituencies, but I will always remain available to you, he said, adding that his offices at Jalalabad and Mukstar will remain open for everyone.
The grand old party of Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), has faced its worst-ever electoral defeat in the district. A close analysis reveals that the party plunged to the third spot behind debutant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in four of the eight constituencies in Patiala district. The party faced huge embarrassment in two seats of Patiala urban and Patiala rural despite having its leaders ruling the local municipal Corporation for last decade and claiming tall.

Incumbent mayor Amarinder Singh Bajaj will have to answer a lot if questions as the partys official Patiala nominee General (retd) JJ Singh barely managed 11,000 votes, much less than of the AAPs defeated candidate Dr Balbir Singh, who got 19,000 votes. It is despite the fact that the party had managed 30,000 votes during the last polls.

Dont miss | Regional buzz: From Capt Amarinders new team to the Badals finding solace in the poll drubbing

Insiders feel that the partys dismal performance despite fielding a decorated retired army general is definitely a poor reflection on the current mayors poor run in the past four years and the internal crisis within the party. Many heads are expected to roll soon, said insiders

Similarly, the SADs young face in Patiala Rural also was also pushed to the third spot with its vote share reduced from 26% (2012 polls) to 20% this time, even as the MC claimed to have spent crores on city roads ahead of the elections.

The SADs recently appointed district president Surjeet Singh Kohli told the HT that the mayor and other leaders, who were at the helm of affairs in recent years, cant escape their responsibility after the partys defeat.

Nabha is yet another constituency, where the party was expected to perform well, but was nowhere near the last poll performance. In comparison to 34% votes in 2012 polls, the partys debutant face Kabir Dass managed just 22% votes.

In Rajpura, where the SADs alliance partner BJP was in the fray, it faced complete route with just 19,000 votes against Congress winning candidate, who got more than 59,000 votes despite having Hindu-dominated constituency.

In areas where the SADs candidates were runners-up, its defeat margin was astonishing. For instance, its candidate from Ghanaur, Harpreet Kaur, was a distant second after losing to the Congress Madan Lal by over 36,000 votes. Partys Shutrana candidate Vaninder Kaur Loomba lost to Congress Nirmal Singh by nearly 19,000 votes.

Another major embarrassment for the party was the defeat of cabinet minister Surjit Singh Rakhra, who could not survive the Congress wave, even as he made every possible effort to clinch the victory including seeking the dera support ahead of polling.

A senior professor at Punjabi Universitys political science department Narinder Kumar Dogra said that the partys road to power will not be as easy since opposition space is now divided between them and the AAP.

"They really need to pull its socks to come in the revival mode and reconnect with the lost vote bank to both AAP and Congress," he said

Meanwhile, in Sangrur district too, three of its candidates in Sangrur, Dhuri and Dirba slided to thrid number in Sangrur districts while Fatehgarh Sahib's Bassi Pathana candidate Darbara Guru was also a distant third.

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Actor Divina Thakur feels lucky that she made her big screen debut opposite actor Kunal Kapoor, as she always wanted to work with the actor.

When I signed Veeram, and Jayaraj (director) mentioned that Kunal Kapoor is playing the lead, I couldnt control my happiness. I have always admired him as an actor and loved his work. I remember listening to Titli Daboch Li Maine (Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities, 2004) Maine ten times a day when it released. I also liked him in Rang De Basanti, says Divina.

The debutant adds that she had a wonderful time working with him. He is a grounded person. Every time I was nervous, he guided me. While working with him, I also came to know about his social work, which he is continuously doing without letting anyone know about it. I respect him for that, says the actor, who is also looking forward to act in Tamil films.

Meanwhile, Divina, who has finished shooting for a web series, shares that she is a huge fan of actor Kareena Kapoor Khan, for both her acting prowess and style sense. Be it Omkara, Chameli, Asoka, Ki and Ka or Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, I try and not miss a single film starring Kareena. I am also in awe of her style sense. She can carry off anything with elan, shares Divina.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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I dont give in and I dont believe in giving up. This comes naturally to me, I know no other way, says actor Dia Mirza. She credits her mother for this indomitable spirit, who inspired her with strength, fortitude and resilience to bring a change. She says: Im who Im, because of her. She brought me up to be very independent and wanted me to be able to do things on my own, right from my formative years. I have seen her pick herself up through challenges, fights and make things happen.

The 35-year-old actor, who is the artist ambassador for Save the Children, was in the Capital recently to see the kind of work the NGO is doing for the community here. She says her never-say-die spirit came with a fair share of struggles. She was 18-year-old, when she left home for Mumbai.Coming from a non-film background, I didnt know much about films, there were different people trying to push me in various directions. So being out in the world, navigating it, based on my values made me more formidable. I can say, life gave me an opportunity to define who Im today. To be able to hold my own and carve out my space based on my passion, and make choices then define me today, says the actor who embarked on her Bollywood journey at the age of 19.

Spent the evening with empowered ladies at #BarefootCollege in #TiloniaRajasthan. A place that trains women (granny's) from all over the world to become solar engineers! #SolarMamas #solarenergy #SustainableLiving #womensempowerment A post shared by Dia Mirza (@diamirzaofficial) on Mar 4, 2017 at 9:13am PST

A propagator of issues concerning the environment and women equality, Dia believes in working tirelessly for causes close to her heart. Children are my favourite people, because they inspire me with their optimism and spirit. They symbolise purity and hope. Every child must have a childhood they deserve. But unfortunately, millions of children are deprived childhood and their dreams crushed under the burden of poverty. I am doing my bit through my association with Save the Children and their campaign called Every Last Child, Dia says.

She adds, Every person has the ability to influence change. I am grateful that my voice counts, and I am able to influence change. But more than that, there is a certain amount of activism that is engrained in me. I cannot ignore the challenges that the country and world is facing. I believe in active citizenship.So, my message to all women out there, be your own person, make your own choices, never be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.

About her Delhi visit, she says, The visit to Delhi was truly special as I saw the work Save the Children does with community. I visited community managed toilets in the slums of Okhla where these amazing bunch of women have led the action on hygiene and sanitation. And it fills you with amazement that how a simple thing like toilet can impact such transformation for women and children. On the second day, I visited a government school in Lajpat Nagar  a school Save the Children has been working with.

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Salman Khans rousing introduction of Sridevi at an awards function in Mumbai is the stuff you dont see too often in Bollywood these days. The first poster of Sridevis forthcoming film Mom was unveiled at the function, and Salman couldnt stop raving about the star.

After being introduced on stage by host Manish Paul as the star of the millennium, the Dabbang actor shushed him and started speaking about Sridevis volume of work.

Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay (Kumar), we have all done many films. Aamir may have done about 50 films - he has a lot of time, as he does only one film per year; Shah Rukh may have done more than 100 films. Put together, we may have all done about 250-275 films. But there is one legend who is very talented, dedicated, hardworking and professional. She completed 300 films, after starting her career as a child artiste. Our work cannot even be compared to this legend - she is none other than Sridevi!, Salman was quoted as saying by The Asian Age.

Considered one of Indian cinemas greatest stars, Sridevi has experience in not just Hindi films but also Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada films.

Salman was referring to Sridevis vast body of work, not just in Hindi, but also in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada cinema.

Produced by Boney Kapoor, Mom is Sridevis first full-fledged role after five years of starring in the 2012 hit English Vinglish. The film, whose first look Sridevi tweeted on Tuesday, is said to be an emotional saga of a womans strained relationship with her stepdaughter, as she fights for an injustice done to her.

When a woman is challenged... Here's presenting the first look of MOM. #MOMFirstLook pic.twitter.com/taaJBeDH1d  SRIDEVI BONEY KAPOOR (@SrideviBKapoor) March 14, 2017

Directed by debutant Ravi Udywar, Moms poster, which Sridevi tweeted on Tuesday, is very intriguing. The word mother is written in many languages on it which appeals emotionally, but the colour used in the poster gives it a thriller-like feel.

The film will also feature Pakistani actors Sajal Ali and Adnan Siddiqui in important roles. Nawazuddin Siddiqui too will be seen in Mom.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Electricity generation in Ukraine's integrated power grids in January and February 2017 grew by 3.6%, or 1.019 billion kWh, year-over-year, to 29.616 billion kWh, the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry has told Interfax-Ukraine.

Nuclear power plants NPPs) reduced electricity output by 1.2%, to 15.759 billion kWh. In particular, power production at Zaporizhia NPP amounted to 7.368 billion kWh (a 17.1% rise year-over-year), Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP generated 3.008 billion kWh (a 6.1% decline), Rivne NPP 2.517 billion kWh (a 24.6% decline), Khmelnytsky NPP 2.866 billion kWh (a 4.4% rise).

Thermal power plants (TPP) and combined heat and power plants (CHPP) increased production by 0.8%, to 11.405 billion kWh. In particular, TPP generating companies increased production by 3.7%, to 8.527 billion kWh, CHPPs saw a 7.1% decrease in output, to 2.878 billion kWh.

Hydroelectric power plants in January and February 2017 increased production by 66.7%, to 1.964 billion kWh, municipal CHPPs decreased it by 11%, to 246.2 million kWh.

Electricity production by non-conventional sources (wind farms, solar stations, biomass) decreased by 1.6%, to 242.1 million kWh.

The share ofNPPs in electricity generation was 53.2% (54.5% in January and February 2016), TPPs and CHPPs 38.5% (39.6%), hydroelectric power plants 6.6% (4.1%), municipal CHPPs and block stations 0.8% (0.9%), and alternative sources 0.8% (1%).

In February, electricity generation grew by 4%, to 13.966 billion kWh.
Volkswagen said it was capable of shouldering the costs of its emissions crisis and was targeting an even better year than in 2016 but warned that its core autos division continued to struggle.

We see good chances of being able to ride the wave of the positive performance last year, when Volkswagen turned in record underlying profit, helped by sales of upmarket Audis and Porsches, chief executive Matthias Mueller said on Tuesday at the carmakers annual news conference.

Volkswagen expects group revenue to exceed last years record 217 billion euros ($231 billion) by as much as 4% this year and is forecasting an underlying operating margin of between 6 and 7%, compared with 6.7% in 2016, it said, affirming a forecast given on February 24.

The company also aims to moderately exceed last years record 10.3 million deliveries.

You can rest assured that we will do everything in our power to make 2017 an even better year than 2016, the CEO said.

But Volkswagen appears to be making slow progress in tackling the biggest trouble spot within the 12-brand group, the long-planned turnaround of its core autos division.

Operating profit of the namesake brand slipped further to 1.87 billion euros in 2016 from 2.10 billion a year earlier because of higher marketing costs related to dieselgate and plunging demand in Brazil and other key markets, finance chief Frank Witter said.
DEHRADUN: The BJP is looking for a chief ministerial candidate in Uttarakhand who can implement Prime Minister Narendra Modis agenda for development and is steeped in the saffron partys ethos.

With as many as four former CMs in the partys ranks apart from a crop of young leaders, picking a name for the top job in the state where it recorded a landslide victory winning 56 of the 70 assembly seats is a daunting task for the BJP.

If none of the three names in the race for the top job meets its norms, our central leadership can bring in a chief minister of its choice, a senior state BJP leader said.

The three names doing the rounds for the top job are BJP national executive member Satpal Maharaj and former ministers Trivendra Singh Rawat and Prakash Pant.

Incidentally, the trio forms a part of the state BJPs second rung of leaders. Barring Maharaj, the others are below 60. Among the three, Trivendra Singh, who was till recently lagging behind, is now the frontrunner for the top job, sources in BJP said.

Earlier, Maharaj was said to be far ahead of his competitors owing to his proximity to Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. Besides, he was also said to be close to the leaders of the Rashrtiya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

BJP insiders say Maharaj fell behind after the party cadre opposed his candidature as he is a new entrant in the party.

Mahraj had switched his allegiance from Congress to BJP just before the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Besides, he had never been a part of the RSS, which is essential for anybody in our party aspiring for the top job, a BJP leader said.

Former assembly Speaker Pant is also being counted among the strong contenders for the post of chief minister. BJP insiders said most things go in his favour. For one, he is a party veteran who rose through the ranks. A former cabinet minister, he also has plenty of administrative experience.

These aspects stand him in good stead but he doesnt fit the bill in one respect. He had never been associated with RSS, a BJP office bearer said.

Conversely, according to him, Trivendra Singh had left both his competitors far behind. He had been a RSS pracharak and a former minister, the party leader said, adding that he was close to Shah and also assisted him in Uttar Pradesh during last Lok Sabha polls.

A party insider said there was, however, no guarantee that any of the three claimants would get the top job. It is possible that the BJP brass may also bring in an outsider for the top job if the claimants do not fulfil Modis norms for the CMs post, he said. He (Modi) wants a person who can make the bureaucracy implement his vision of development for the state.

Addressing party members in Delhi Sunday, Modi said that even a lesser known elected representative who may not ever have made headlines could emerge as CM. Earlier, campaigning in Uttarakhand, Modi had promised that he will give the state a good team, which will perform under his direct supervision.

State BJP vice president J P Gairola said the high command would get the best possible person for the top job as the party enjoys absolute majority in the House.

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It was a bloody Monday in Delhi. Within 24 hours, four murders were reported from parts of north, northwest and outer districts during Holi celebrations.

One of the murders took place following an argument between two neighbours over playing loud music while celebrating Holi in outer Delhis Shahbad Dairy. The 40-year-old died after four men in his neighbourhood allegedly attacked him with batons on Monday night.

The deceased was identified as Girdhari Mandal, who worked as an auto-rickshaw driver and lived with his family in F-block. Police said Mandal had an argument with his neighbour Babloo Mandal, who is also his relative, as the DJ was playing loud music. Babloo along with Shiv and other two friends attacked Mandal with batons due to which he suffered serious injuries and died during treatment at a nearby hospital early Tuesday morning.

A police officer said that Mandal and other neighbours had organised a music program in the lane outside his house to celebrate Holi. The celebration was going on in the lane. Babloo and his neighbor Shiv were feeling irritated because of the music. When they asked Mandal to stop the music, an argument broke out, said the officer.

Minutes later, Babloo and Shiv along with their two friends arrived and attacked Mandal. He suffered serious injuries and was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died during treatment, said police. A case of murder was registered and two of the accused have been arrested. We are looking for the other two, the officer said.

In the second incident, a 22-year-old man was stabbed to death, allegedly by a group of four teenagers, following an argument over throwing mud-like substance on him in outer Delhis Aman Vihar on Monday afternoon. Police said all the four juveniles were apprehended and were booked for the murder. They were all neighbours of the deceased identified as Dheerendra Sharma.

A police officer said that the crime came to light around 3pm when they received a call regarding a murder in the area. The police reached the crime scene and learnt that Sharma had gone to celebrate Holi with his friends. While he was returning home, the four teenagers allegedly smeared the substance on his face. When Sharma protested, an argument broke out between them. One of the boys took out a knife and stabbed Sharma five times in his chest and abdomen and fled. The teenagers were allegedly under the influence of alcohol.

Sharma was taken to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead on admission, the officer added.

The third incident took place in northwest Delhis Bharat Nagar where a 24-year-old man was bludgeoned to death after he had an argument with a group of men around 5pm on Monday. The deceased, Jeetu, was released from jail six months ago. He was jailed after he murdered his friend in Alipur, said police. Two persons were taken into custody for questioning.

The fourth murder was reported from north Delhis Kashmere Gate, where the body of a 35-year-old man with throat slit was found near Hanuman Temple flyover on Monday night. Police were yet to identify the man till Tuesday night. An officer said the victim was a vagabond. Police suspect that he was murdered by some vagabonds after a fight.
A 6-year-old girl died after she allegedly fell into a water tank dug up inside an under-construction house in southeast Delhis Pul Prahladpur area on Tuesday afternoon.

Arpita was reportedly on her way home with her sister when she went towards the under-construction house. She was walking around when she reportedly slipped inside the tanker and drowned. According to the police, the construction site was not barricaded and the water tank was uncovered.

Following the incident, the police registered a case of negligence against the builder who was constructing the house and also summoned the contractor to join the probe.

Some passerby apparently heard the girls cries for help but could not figure out from where she was calling and went ahead. There was no one near the building when the girl fell inside. It is only later that a few other passersby spotted the girl floating inside the tank and made a PCR call, a local said.

We received a call from the locals and a team reached the spot. The girl had fallen inside the water tank. She was taken out by our policemen who then rushed her to the hospital. She was declared dead on arrival. We have sent her body for a postmortem examination. Initial findings suggest that she drowned. We are, however, waiting for the autopsy report, a police officer said.

Speaking to HT, Romil Baaniya, DCP southeast said, The water tank did not have a boundary wall, which is a mandatory requirement when such a construction is being done. We have registered a case of negligence in the matter. We have begun a probe and will soon be recording statements.
Two days after a Nepalese woman was gangraped by five BPO employees in Delhis Pandav Nagar, the police have recovered a CCTV camera footage that shows her jumping off the first floor and asking passers-by for help.

The police have arrested and sent the five men, all BPO employees, to jail. They are now looking for a man named Kundan (earlier identified as Vikas), who was a common link between the woman and the five men and who had allegedly taken her to the rented flat.

In the 17-second video clip, the woman is seen walking without clothes as some passers-by stand and watch. The footage shows two men standing outside a building and looking towards the first floor balcony. The woman is then seen jumping from the building and landing on the stairs. One of the men helps her stand on her feet while the other man walks across the road. The woman is then seen seeking help from a passer-by. The video clip shows two cars halting for a few seconds and leaving without offering any help. The woman then stops an auto rickshaw and leaves.

Meanwhile, one of the two men called the police control room and the polices quick reaction team caught up with the auto rickshaw soon after it had left. The police said that by then, a woman in the neighbourhood had given the victim some clothes.

The woman was taken to Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital as she had suffered injuries in her legs because of the fall. In her statement, she accused the five BPO employees of allegedly thrashing and confining her in their flat, forcing her to consume alcohol and then taking turns to rape her. Police said the woman had jumped off the building to escape the torture.

The five men, identified as Naveen Kumar, Prateek Kumar, Vikas Mehra, Sarvjeet and Lakshya, were arrested from the crime scene. They were booked under sections 376D (gang rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 377 (unnatural sex), 506 (criminal intimidation), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code. The FIR was registered at the Pandav Nagar police station, said Omvir Singh, DCP(east). He said two of the accused had known the woman for past few weeks.

A senior police officer said that the woman lived with her two children in south Delhis Munirka area. In her statement, she told police that she knew Kundan for past few months. On Saturday night, Kundan met her in Munirka and asked her to accompany him to his friends for a party.

The woman left with him and on the way met two of his friends. The three brought her to the flat where their three other friends were already present. Kundan stepped out after sometime, leaving the woman with the five men, said the officer quoting the womans complaint.

The woman reportedly told police that the five forced her to consume alcohol. When she got intoxicated, they allegedly locked her in the flat and took turns to rape her. The woman claimed that they threatened to harm her if she raised an alarm or attempted to escape from the flat.

Around 5.30 am, the woman managed to reach the balcony and jumped. The womans statement was later recorded before a local magistrate in which she reiterated her previous statement and maintained her allegations against the five. The men were produced before a city court that sent them to jail.
Amid a growing chorus questioning the reliability of electronic voting machines (EVMs), Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal directed chief secretary MM Kutty on Tuesday to write to the state election commission, asking it to hold the upcoming municipal elections through ballot papers.

The direction came hours before the poll panel announced municipal elections on April 2.

The direction from the AAP government invited criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party even as the election body informed the state government that the ball over the issue lies in their court as the Delhi government will have to amend relevant rules to hold election through ballot paper.

With the Congress making a similar demand, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari hit out at both parties stating it shows both parties are apprehensive of their loss.

This demonstrates their utter frustration and the apprehension that they will lose. It is surprising that the Congress has won and lost many elections in the country and Delhi, but today it doubts the credibility of EVMs. If Arvind Kejriwal and Ajay Maken do not trust the EVMs, then Kejriwal should go in for re-poll for Delhi Assembly and Maken should ask Congress leadership to call for re-election in Punjab through ballot papers, Tiwari said.

Earlier in the day, the Delhi Congress also wrote to the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal requesting use of ballot papers in the upcoming elections.

Without being prejudiced to the results of the recently concluded elections, I just wanted the state government to ensure fair electoral process. Considering some serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of the voters about the alleged misuse of EVMs, we demand the MCD elections to be held using traditional ballot paper system, he said.

An AAP functionary said: The state government recommendation to the SEC came following requests from several political parties to hold local body polls through ballot paper, as is done in many states.

Defending the move, AAP (Delhi) convener Dilip Pandey said the party was of the view that in wake of complaints from several quarters about manipulation of EVMs AAP has demanded that election should be held through ballot papers till the time all apprehensions on the issue are addressed.

Following the landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo had openly questioned the reliability of EVMs.

The BJP leaders have been criticising such demands arguing that if EVMs could be tampered in favour of the ruling party at the Centre, how did Mahagathbandhan (coalition of JD (U), RJD and Congress in Bihar) and AAP recorded clean sweep in Bihar and Delhi assembly elections in 2015.
No, not Nizamuddin dargah again! Whats new to be written about the capitals most famous Sufi shrine? It is unfailingly listed even in the briefest Delhi guidebooks. Many of us have attended its legendary Thursday evening qawwalis.

Those who havent been there yet must have sighted the shrine in a popular Bollywood chartbuster (Kun faya kun in Rockstar, if you please). And, there is always Google to find out all you want to know about Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, the citys 14th century saint.

But even the internet does not know one extraordinary secret about the shrine that we are now about to tell you.

One of the most important rituals in the shrine is Dua-e-Roshni, the evening service when the lamps are lit with a special prayer. The pilgrims gather in the shrines marble courtyard and stand around a khadim, one of the shrines traditional caretakers.

After the symbolic beating of a drum, the khadim, speaking in a booming melodious voice, implores Hazrat Nizamuddin and other Sufi saints to grant the wishes of all the devotees. (The prayer is a little over the top for our modern times  the khadim also prays for all the unmarried people of marriageable age to be hitched soon.)

Irrespective of your views on Sufism, it is an experience to watch this centuries-old tradition. We, however, did not mean Dua-e-Roshni as our great secret. We are talking of an elderly man who has been cleaning the lamps for this evening ritual every day for more than 40 years (the lighting of the lamps, on other hand, is the exclusive privilege of the dargah khadims).

This man, who has become an integral part of the Islamic shrine, is a Hindu.

Hari Babu comes daily to this central Delhi shrine from faraway Nangloi village in the west side of the capital. At 76, he has to change two buses to reach Nizamuddin Basti, the village that circles the dargah. We catch him one evening as he is cleaning the green and yellow metal lamps of yesterdays residual wax.

Always attired in a crushed kurta pyjama, Hari Babu looks too frail for this daily outing. How does he manage to commute day after day from so far?

I have to be here every evening, no matter if it is hot or cold or raining, he says. A retired machine operator in Delhi Development Authority, Hari Babu lives with his wife, Savitri Devi, and four children, and their families. Occasionally, I distribute free meals in the dargah for which my wife and daughters-in-law cook the food at home with love and shraddha (faith).

Hari Babu remembers that day in the sixties when he first stepped into the shrine as a young man at the insistence of a neighbour. His faith in Nizamuddin resonates the experience of millions of people across the world who found a similar calling in other saints of various other faiths.

My life changed after coming to Mehboob-e-Ilahi (an affectionate term used for Nizamuddin). I got a job. I got a wife. I got children. I got all the things in life that could have made me happy. So this is my way to offer gratitude to Hazrat Nizamuddin.

Finally, we asked him the delicate question. How does he reconcile his Hindu identity with the shrines Islamic character?

Nahin (no), nahin, nahin, says Hari Babu. Yes, the world has Hindus and Muslims and Christians, but first I am a human being and that is my connection to Mehboob-e-Ilahi.
JNU research scholar J Muthukrishnan, who allegedly committed suicide on Monday evening, was a close friend of Rohith Vemulas, another Dalit academic who killed himself in January last year, students at University of Hyderabad said.

Before JNU, Muthukrishnan studied at University of Hyderabad where Vemula committed suicide, an incident that sparked nationwide outrage over caste discrimination on campuses.

Muthukrishnan was suffering from depression and was not sleeping well for the past few days, Delhi Police said on Tuesday. The 29-year-old was found hanging at a friends house in Munirka Vihar, close to the JNU campus, on Monday evening.

While police began an investigation into the alleged suicide, Muthukrishnans father Jeevanantham alleged foul play and demanded a CBI probe. On Tuesday, he filed a police complaint alleging that he was facing harassment by the JNU administration because of his caste and a thorough investigation must be conducted into the suspicious death of his son. Jeevanantham said his son was not under any medication for depression.

Muthukrishnan Jeevanantham alias Krish, a 27-year old Dalit research scholar allegedly committed suicide in New Delhi on Monday evening.

His friends at the university said soon after Vemulas death, Muthukrishnan had written in his blog: Dear anti-nationals, let me tell you, one day this nations leader is going to sell all. Just for a selfie and for a standing ovation from the outsiders. Hundreds and hundreds of Dappa Raos are going to kill thousands of Rohiths and they are going to say, He/She was a gifted student.

Police said Muthukrishnan reportedly went to the house of his friend, Goman Kim, a Korean national, in Munirka Vihar for lunch around 1pm. He was reportedly soaked in colour. His friend Goman told us that he asked Krishnan to wash off the colour and relax for a while because he looked tired. Muthukrishnan told Goman that he was not in a good mood and that he had slept at 3am the previous night. Goman then asked him to freshen up and sleep for a while in his room till the lunch was ready, DCP, South, Ishwar Singh said.

Muthukrishnan then retired to the room and locked it from inside, while Goman and the others stayed outside.

Later in the afternoon,two other friends also reached here. After the lunch was ready, they knocked at the door, but Muthukrishnan did not respond. Thinking that he must be in deep sleep, the friends did not disturb. When he did not open the door till 5pm, they got worried and went to check on him. One of his friends then peeped inside through a crack and saw him hanging from the fan. He had used a thin blanket to prepare the noose, Singh said.

Investigators said in JNU, Muthukrishnan was not affiliated to any political party or union. He had joined the course in October and was staying in Jhelum hostel.

The house where Muthukrishnan allegedly committed suicide at Munirka Vihar in New Delhi. (Sushil Kumar/HT Photo)

Recently, Muthukrishnan had written five Facebook posts, the last on March 10, in which he narrated an episode from his childhood to explain how Dalits are treated.

In one post, he recounts a time when he was travelling with his father carrying dry fish and was shunned by people because of the stench from the fish. In the post, he compared the dry fish to Dalits.

He has written five Facebook posts and all five seem interlinked. One is based on his life in Salem and others in Delhi. In a post on Professor Sukhdeo Singh Thorat, Muthukrishnan writes that he wanted to address students at admin block but because of the decision to ban protest, he could not, a police officer said.

Responding to this, Thorat said, Two days back I had gone to JNU to deliver a lecture, so the boy in his Facebook post has mentioned. He is also talking about the committee which was formed under the ministry of health which I had chaired after a suicide of a student at AIIMS. He is talking about how that committee guidelines have not been implemented. 

The university expressed a deep sense of shock and anguish at the untimely and sad demise of Muthukrishnan J.
A research scholar of Delhis prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University allegedly committed suicide in the citys Munirka area on Monday evening.

Muthukrishnan Jeevanantham, 27, was an alumnus of the University of Hyderabad. The Dalit student was found hanging from the ceiling at his friends home . The reasons behind his death were not clear.

Police said he was depressed over personal issues, and added no suicide note had been found.

Jeevanantham, a native of Tamil Nadus Salem, wrote about discrimination against Dalits in one of his last Facebook posts.

There is no Equality in M.phil/PhD Admission, there is no equality in Viva - voce, there is only denial of equalityWhen equality is denied everything is denied.  the March 10 post said.

Sannaki Munna, a student leader of the University of Hyderabad, said Jeevanantham, also known as Krish, completed his masters degree in history in 2012, and later completed his MPhil at the institute.

He got admission to a PhD (course) in our university, but his dream was to study at the JNU. When he got admission there after several attempts, he shifted last year, Munna told HT.

He said Jeevanantham was very active in the Justice for Rohit Vemula movement and was part of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) at the University of Hyderabad.

Last January, PhD student Rohith Vemula killed himself at the University of Hyderabad after alleged caste-based discrimination, triggering protests across India. He was suspended by the university authorities for confronting right-wing students group ABVP.

He (Jeevanantham) was terribly upset after Rohiths death and keen that justice should be done to him (Rohith) and his mother, Radhika Vemula, Dontha Prashant, a research scholar at the University of Hyderabad, said.

Prashant, who was suspended from the university along with Vemula, said a team of students from his university would leave for the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

There was no evidence that Jeevanantham killed himself owing to any issues at the university, said a police officer.

A PCR call was received at 5.05pm on Monday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar, said another officer.

On reaching the spot, police forced open the door as a portion of the latch was uprooted from inside, he said. Jeevanantham was found hanging from the ceiling fan.

He had come to his friends house this afternoon to have food. He said he wanted to sleep and went to a room and locked himself inside.

Later his friends called him out and on getting no response, they called the police, he said.

(With agency inputs)

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Father of JNU research student J Muthukrishnan, who allegedly committed suicide on Monday evening, was looking forward to meet his son in April but a phone call about his sons death turned his life upside down.

Muthukrishnans father Jeevanandhaam M, a security guard at a private firm in Salem, Tamil Nadu, reached Delhi on Tuesday morning and headed to AIIMS. I spoke to him on Sunday and he said he will come home in April. He cannot commit suicide. I never heard him talk of anything but studies. There should be CBI investigation in this case, he said.

In a complaint to police, he said he was informed by sons friends that he was facing constant caste-based harassment and discrimination in his academic pursuits from his centre and the JNU administration.

Political leaders, including CPIs D Raja and leaders from AIDMK, DMK and Congress, visited Muthukrishnans family members at AIIMS. On Tuesday evening, JNU officials, including the Registrar went to AIIMS and met students and police personnel. Meanwhile, police said a medical board has been formed to conduct the post-mortem and the process will be videographed.

J Muthukrishnan

Studious person

Muthukrishnan wanted to do research on History of Medicines. Rahul Sonpimple, one of the last persons to meet Muthukrishnan before his death, said they bonded over the movie Kabali and sharing books. He was a Kabali fan and we would imitate dialogues from the movie. Other than that he was too much into studies. He once told me he will not come for a protest because he had to study. He was always studying in library and it was like he lived in the library, he said.

Sonpimple, a member of Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA), alleged that Muthukrishnan was feeling alienated and discriminated at the center for historical studies where he was pursuing MPhil. He used to mention about how he felt alienated at the Center because unlike others he could not speak fluent English, he said.

Police have no evidence to suggest his suicide was a result of discrimination at the campus.

Vikas Kumar Moola, a PhD student and Muthukrishnans friend, said he used to visit him regularly for the last one week.

He was feeling alienated in his department. He wanted to change his supervisor and had requested for another professor. He told his current supervisor about it. But later nothing was confirmed and he was feeling pressured as others had already started work, he said.

Speaking at the meeting Rajat Datta, a faculty member from CHS said Muthukrishnans request for change of supervisor was in pipeline. Change of supervisor is not an individual trade off. We do receive requests from students for it. Entire faculty takes stock and decides what to do. We do it in April as per protocol and his application was in pipeline, he said.

Vijaya Ramaswamy, chairperson of CHS said, At the initial stage we dont have supervisor but advisor. Students may choose to stay with their advisor for dissertation or may seek a change as then the advisor becomes supervisor. There is absolutely no discrimination at the center.

JNUTA member Pradeep Shinde said, If you notice any classmate excessively worried about his grades then bring it to the notice of your chairperson and build confidence that he or she is not alone.

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Ukraine and the United States have approved $54 million technical assistance for the introduction of reforms in Ukraine.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that on Tuesday the signing of agreements on the provision of technical assistance to Ukraine was on Tuesday in Kyiv. The assistance will be sent to promote reforms for stable economic development and more transparent management processes with broad participation of citizens.

First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv, who took part in the signing ceremony, said that the assistance will be provided in the energy sphere, rule of law and ensuring responsibility of power institutions to citizens.

He said that the today's agreement includes the provision of $54 million, but the entire sum of technical sum will be $123 million.

Kubiv said that cooperation between Ukraine and the United States in technical assistance and reform support started in 1992. Ukraine has received $4.3 billion of assistance, including some $2 billion provided by USAID.
Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday condoled the death of J Muthukrishnan, a Dalit PhD student of Jawaharlal Nehru University hailing from Tamil Nadu, and announced a solatium of Rs 3 lakh to his family.

I am deeply grieved by the death of J Muthukrishnan and I convey my condolences to his family, Palaniswami said.

Muthukrishnan hailed from Periyeri village in Salem district of Tamil Nadu.

Considering the family circumstances of the deceased student, I have ordered a solatium of Rs 3 lakh to his family.

The chief minister said he has directed officials to render all assistance immediately to bring the body of the student back to his native village.

Muthukrishnan completed his MPhil from University of Hyderabad in 2015 before joining JNU for his PhD. The student, a resident of JNUs Jhelum hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a friends residence in south Delhis Munirka area on Monday.
JNU research scholar Muthukrishnan who allegedly committed suicide on Monday evening, was a close friend of Rohith Vemula, another research scholar who had committed suicide in January 2016, students at University of Hyderabad said. Rohiths suicide had sparked nationwide outrage over caste discrimination in university campuses.

Muthukrishnan also studied at University of Hyderabad, where Vemula committed suicide. His friends at the university said that soon after Vemulas death, Muthukrishnan had written in his blog: Dear anti-nationals, let me tell you, one day this nations leader is going to sell all. Just for a selfie and for a standing ovation from the outsiders. Hundreds and hundreds of Dappa Raos are going to kill thousands of Rohiths and they are going to say, He/She was a gifted student.

He had added: All the intellectuals from the marginalised communities will get arrested just for mocking fictional characters. At the same time, all the leading national institutes will be headed by people who cannot even clear the 10th standard exam. These people claim dissenters as anti-nationals and seditious. They are going to kill many Rohiths, like us, just for eating beef, for being rational, for being intellectually productive for the country. But we are the real sons of this land and after we are all killed, there will be no nation.

Student leader Sannaki Munna said that in the last one year, Muthukrishnan, who also went by the name Krish, had participated in Justice for Rohith Vemula movement. Even though he left for JNU in July 2016, Krish was in touch with the students in UoH and used to express his solidarity, he said.

Muthukrishnan came to UoH to participate in the first death anniversary of Rohith Vemula on January 17, 2017. On this occasion, he wrote about Discrimination in HCU: Their mechanism, genesis and development. In this article, he expressed anguish over discrimination in the countrys top 10 universities. He recalled how Dalit research scholars were denied academic and hostel spaces. Hope the unnatural institution and persistent discrimination will vanish one day the students unity keep their solidarity with Rohith Vemula demise,and the disappearance of Najeeb, he wrote.

Rajinikath fan

The news of Muthukrishnans death left his fellow students in University of Hyderabad shocked. Muthukrishnan had pursued his masters and M Phil in UoH and his friends there remember him as an active student with interest in films, literature and social issues. He was a fan of Rajinikanth and used to imitate the superstar in his hostel room which was full of the Rajinis posters, said student leader Venkatesh Chowhan. Muthukrishnan even changed his Facebook profile name to Rajini Krish, Venkatesh told Hindustan Times.

Muthukrishnan belonged to a poor family in Salem, Tamil Nadu where his father works as a watchman at a private firm and his mother is a daily wage labourer. He also has three sisters. His friends say that after completing MA in History at UoH in 2012, he applied for Ph D in JNU, Delhi, but could not make it in the first three attempts. Meanwhile, he joined M Phil in UoH but discontinued it later when he got the admission in JNU in July 2016.

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Unlike the BJP which is bringing in new faces on all the seats in the municipal corporation elections, the Congress is focused on giving tickets to the most eligible and winnable candidates. The candidate could be sitting a MCD councillor or party worker, with huge supporters.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee told HT that the list of the candidates for MCD election has almost been finalised and will be out anytime soon. We have worked in systematic manner for finalising the list of candidates on all 272 wards.

The interested candidates have been asked to forward the names of at least five supporters from each booth, falling in the ward. Afterwards, our team contacts the party workers to find out the candidate they support.

According to her, the party believes in empowering grassroots workers and giving them an opportunity to forward their names.

Talking about the partys plan if it wins elections, Sharmistha said, Besides making the three MCDs financially viable within two years of winning elections we will focus on improvement of primary education, primary health and solid waste management programme.

The party has carried door-to-door campaign for the elections with each worker covering 16 houses under every polling booth. Under the programme, workers visited homes under Meri Dilli Mere Sapne campaign launched by the party in December 2016. The residents are asked for suggestions to solve problems, said Mukherjee.

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Two minor girls were raped in south Delhi in the past 24 hours, police said on Tuesday.

The first incident took place in south east Delhis Govindpuri area on Monday evening in which a six-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped by an unidentified man. The man later left her outside her home and fled.

Police said they were checking CCTV footage to identify the suspect. A case under section 376 (rape) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 6 of protection of children from sexual offences (POCSO) act was registered at the Govindpuri police station, said Romil Baaniya, deputy commissioner of police (southeast district).

A senior police officer said that the case came to light on early Tuesday morning when the girls parents approached the police. Police were told that the girl was playing with her friends when a man lured her to an unknown place on the pretext of giving her chocolates.

The girl has told us that the man took her a secluded place, touched her inappropriately, and then raped her. He threatened her not to tell anyone about the incident. Around 10 pm, the man dropped her near her home and disappeared, the officer said.

The girl told her mother about it, following which her parents reached the police station and filed a complaint. The girl was sent to AIIMS hospital for treatment. She was sexually assaulted, said Baaniya.

In another case, a four-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped allegedly by her neighbour in an under construction building in south Delhis Neb Sarai on Tuesday afternoon.

Police have detained the neighbour and said that he will be arrested after the registration of a FIR. Police said the girl lives with her parents, both labourers, and two siblings in a rented room in Neb Sarai. They have been staying there for the past one month and the parents work in nearby areas.

On Tuesday noon, the girl was playing outside her home while her parents were out for work. A man named Jagat, who lives in her neighbourhood and works as a labourer took her to an under construction building and raped her.

The girls mother returned home in evening and found her daughter missing. She started searching her in the locality and soon found the girl returning home crying. The woman informed her neighbours and they caught Jagat. Jagat was handed over to the police. Police said they were yet to get a medical examination done.
Not Punjab but Delhi is high on drugs. The year 2016 saw the national capital emerging as Udta Delhi with the highest drug haul for any state in the country, data tabled in Lok Sabha on Tuesday shows.

The information collated from investigating agencies  federal and states  on drugs banned under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act showed that Delhi had the highest seizure of chemical based intoxicants such as mandrax, syrup and tablets.

The anti-drug agencies caught 23,519 kg mandrax, 98,480 kg syrup and 1.77 lakh tablets in Delhi in 2016, the government informed the lower house. But, unlike Punjab and Haryana, Delhi was low on seizure of hashish, cannabis, poppy husk and heroin.

The drug haul in recent years show rising seizures in Delhi, which the investigating agencies said indicated at two trends  increase in demand and Delhi emerging as the main transit point for illegal drug trade. Experts estimate that seizures account for not more than 20% of the business.

Special commissioner Dependra Pathak said the high recovery was because of Delhi Polices zero-tolerance towards sale and supply of narcotics. Our anti-narcotics unit, crime branch, special cell and even local police make continuous and collective efforts to contain drugs supply menace, he said.

Overall, there has been a five-fold increase in confiscation of drug in India since 2012 with highest in the decade being in 2016  5 lakh kg of drugs and 7.93 lakh banned tablets  estimated to be over Rs 50,000 crore in the international market.

A World Drug Report 2016 identified India as prime market for illicit opiates originating from south-east and south-west Asia because of its young aspiring population. About 60% of Indias population is less than 35 years of age.

The report also identified India as one of the most frequently mentioned countries of departure and transit of drugs after Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines. India was one of the eight countries worldwide on high seizures of chemical based drugs like ketamine between 2009 and 2014, the report said.

A survey of United Nations with the ministry of social justice and empowerment estimated that 11.7 million people in India  more than the population of Portugal  were addicted to drugs. Punjab, north-eastern states like Mizoram and Nagaland had large number of drug users.

Many state governments have identified drug use as a rising problem among youth with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat banning sale of poppy husk to addicts from licensed shops in 2016. In addition, the ministry of youth affairs has created a special fund for north-east states and Punjab to deal with rising drug problem among youth. Delhi had so far not figured in the list.

Narcotic substance use among youth have been an electoral issue.

Both Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party accused the Akali Dal of spread drug use in the recently concluded polls in Punjab whereas Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar promise of prohibition helped him get women votes, clinching victory for the grand alliance in 2015 assembly polls.

In the recent past, states like Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have announced steps to control sale of liquor without going for prohibition.

In its reply, the Home Ministry said the Narcotics Control Bureau has taken various several steps to check illegal drug trade including cooperation with neighbouring countries and sharing of information with law enforcement agencies including para-military forces and state police.

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If the just-concluded polls were indicative of poor planning on the part of the Congress, the aftermath was worse. Even with the largest number of seats in Manipur and Goa, the party has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The delay in getting off the starting blocks in Goa is astounding given the circumstances. After squabbling among themselves, the Congress held a secret ballot to chose a leader and then sent the name onto the high command to decide on it. Meanwhile, the BJP, displaying some deft footwork, cobbled together the numbers and staked claim to form the government, a ready candidate for chief minister in the form of Manohar Parrikar in place.

Similarly, in Manipur, despite the largest number of seats, the party was not quick enough to bring smaller parties into its fold and make a legitimate claim to form the government. Now, it is correct that constitutionally the governor is bound to call the largest party to form the government. But given the delay, the BJP was able to show that it had numbers on its side. The Congress, which has gone to the courts, got the reply that if it had the numbers it should have shown this in time. It did not and so the Supreme Court does not seem too sympathetic. The SC has told the Congress in the Goa case that it should have brought affidavits of support, which it did not.

The Congress seems to have lost its political touch completely. Once masters at outwitting opponents in the numbers game, today it seems like a rabbit caught in the headlights as a nimble BJP runs rings around it. The tussle is now on in the apex court, but whatever the outcome of the floor test in Goa, it shows up the Congress as unable to compete effectively in either quick reaction or political strategising.

Yet, the BJP and all other political parties in India learnt the tricks of the trade from the grand old party. The party also did not seem to understand that power flows to the victor. It must examine why, despite its numbers, the smaller parties and independents did not gravitate towards it. When quick decisions are needed, the fallback on the high command simply doesnt work.

The Congress must see this defeat in Uttar Pradesh and its political failures in other states as a signal that it must rethink its brand of politics. It has so far been reactive when being proactive would have saved it some embarrassment. The writing on the wall is bold and clear: The Congress needs to reinvent itself drastically, now.
As BJP had a grand Holi after their thumping victory in UP polls, a Pakistani girl has penned a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealing to him to work as harbinger of peace if he wants to win more elections in future.

Aqeedat Naveed (11), in her letter to the PM, said that governments of Pakistan and India should buy more books, instead of bullets, to start a new chapter of peace between the two countries. Both countries should resolve that they will not buy guns, but will provide free medicines to hundreds of thousands of ailing people of both the nations, she says.

Aqeedats father Ahmed Naveed, an assistant professor in National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, informed HT through a mail about her letter to Modi. Aqeedat and her brother Moarikh Naveed (14) also spoke to HT over phone.

The two-page handwritten letter, dated March 13, by Aqeedat says both countries will benefit by maintaining good relations with each other.

Aqeedat has earned accolades in her country for writing letters in support of peace and tolerance to world leaders, including that of India and Pakistan.

In another letter, Aqeedat and her brother Moarikh Naveed (14) have written to Pakistans chief of army staff Qamar Javed Bajwa congratulating him for the success of the recently launched operation Radd-ul-Fasaad against terrorists. She praised him for his efforts to restore peace.

The duo also drew the attention of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the condition of Sikhs in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Sikhs continue to live without basic necessities.

Aqeedat studies in Class 5 at Cathedral School, Lahore while Moarrikh is in Class 8 in the same school.

Peace letter writing was Moarrikhs idea. He said, I took this idea from my syllabus and started writing letters for peace. Aqeedat just followed him.

The siblings want to see tourists in Pakistan like India. Aqeedat feels that just because they dont have any relatives here, they cannot travel to India. She wants to see Taj Mahal and Delhi. She also thinks many children from India may be wanting to visit Lahore.

Earlier, too, the kids have written letters to leaders in India. PM Modi sent a greeting card to us in return, claimed Moarrikhs father.



Indian ambassador in Islamabad Gautam Bambawale also answered Aqeedats letter. Aqeedat also received a greeting card from 2016 Nobel peace prize winner and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos.

When foreign minister Sushma Swaraj was unwell some time back, Aqeedat wished her a speedy recovery through a letter.

She has written to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, home minister Rajnath Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee among others.

The kids strongly believe that India and Pakistan can become good friends.

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Fashion week season is back, and autumn/winter 2017 looks all set for a designer makeover. Heres what to expect from the four day showcase in the Capital that kickstarts on Wednesday, March 15 at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

FOCUS ON HOMEGROWN, HANDCRAFTED

A creation by Madhu Jain, who celebrates 30 years in the business with her show. (Avantika Meattle)

Like the past few seasons, the made in India philosophy continues to underline the shows. Today, crafts of the country will be in focus, with a multidesigner show to start the party. While veteran designer Madhu Jain celebrates 30 years of being in business, a beyond the borders design twist comes with crafts and indigenous prints of Jakarta with weaves getting a global outlet on the Indian ramp.

(L-R) Designer duo Abraham-Thakore will showcase their collection called Back to Work; Urvashi Kaur will showcase as a part of the opening show on Wednesday.

UPCYCLING, SUSTAINABILITY

(L-R) The Guru-Shishya finale will have designer Amit Aggarwal and Tarun Tahiliani.

As a part of the Guru-Shishya finale (where the designer and his disciple showcase a collaborative collection) Amit Aggarwal (the Shishya) is going to re-store Brocades and Patola saris, as he puts up a show with Tarun Tahiliani (Guru).

H&M will showcase tits sustainable collection at a specially-curated show at the fashion week.

TRAVEL THROUGH DESIGNS

Autumnal florals make up Anupama Dayals collection.

For some, the destination is the inspiration, while for others, the journey. While Ashima-Leenas showcase will have a touch of Uzbekistan and Iznik colours, for Anupama Dayal, Mangars wilderness and wonders translate into her work.

Ashima-Leenas show will have a lot of indigo play.

MENSWEAR BACK IN FOCUS

Creations by Rohit Kamra (L) and Pawan Sachdeva.

A group show on the final day of the fashion week will have six designers putting the focus back on menswear, interpreting it in their own unique way.

OFFSITE, BUT NOT OFF THE POINT

p e r o  travel diaries Fall-Winter 2017 #journaloflove #ilovepero #AIFW #fallwinter2017 #fw17 #savethedate A post shared by p e r o  (@ilovepero) on Mar 14, 2017 at 2:51am PDT



Tomorrow, designer Samant Chauhan will celebrate his roots with a showcase at the National Railway Museum in the Capital, highlighting the journey of the textile and its evolution. And, the day will end with Pero by Aneeth Arora, who will put up a presentation at the Crafts Museum  again, stressing on the art of handmade craft.

Samant Chauhan will celebrate the Assamese golden thread  Muga Silk.

CELEB QUOTIENT, STALL AREA AND MORE SHOWS

A glimpse at Anju Modis creations. Actor Sakshi Tanwar will walk for the designer.

Like every year, a bit of Bollywood presence will be apparent at the fashion week in Delhi. While Vaani Kapoor will walk for Rina Dhaka, Namrata Joshipuras show will have Alia Bhatt as the showstopper. For Pawan Sachdeva, actors Angad Bedi and Nora Fatehi will be taking the bow on the runway. Actor Sakshi Tanwar will walk for designer Anju Modi. Apart from the starry sights, specially curated launches and presentations will make up a part of the event, while the stall area at the venue will be open for business.

Designer Nida Mahmood has collaborated with Satya Paul. The label will present the creations at an event at the fashion week.

(L-R) A creation by AM:PM at the specially curated Sari 24/7 show; a sketch by Hemant-Nandita and Shruti Sanchetis preview sketch for the Jharcraft showcase.

Swimwear mavens Shivan-Narresh will be showcasing on Friday.

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Over 100 domestic workers, activists and people from the northeast, particularly Assam, on Tuesday held a protest outside the Gurgaon police commissioners office for more than five hours demanding the arrest of a couple in connection with the alleged suicide of an 18-year-old Assamese girl in DLFs Carlton estate condominium complex.

The protesters also demanded a thorough probe into the death of Ranjita Brahma, who had allegedly jumped to her death on Friday night from the couples apartment on the 11th floor.

Brahma, a resident of Assam, had joined as a domestic help in the apartment of Rohit and Sonal Mehta on Wednesday but allegedly committed suicide on Friday night.

The police on Saturday registered a case against the couple at the Sushant Lok police station under Section 306 of the IPC for abetment of suicide.

A large number of domestic workers from all communities and regions as well as activists from Gharelu Kamgar Union (GKU), North-East Forum for International Solidarity (NEFIS) and All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) participated in the protest.

On Sunday, the protesters held a demonstration at the Sushant Lok police station and outside the Carlton Estate demanding the arrest of the couple.

Protesters from the Bodo community shouted slogans and demanded justice for the girl at Gurgaon police commissioners office on Tuesday. They said the girl wanted to return home but was not allowed to go by the Mehtas.

We want action against the couple and the police should probe if her death was a suicide or murder. There is need a to arrest the couple and seal the apartment so that no tampering of evidence takes place. The girl had a weak economic background and she had come here to support his brothers education, said Maya John, convener, Centre for Struggling Women (CSW).

Christina, a Bodo girl, a friend Ranjitas said she had gone to the apartment complex on Friday night after getting a frantic call from Ranjita, who wanted to leave the apartment.

She was not allowed to leave and guard did not allow us entry. The next day a call came to us that Ranjita was dead, she said. The protesters further alleged that the accused were influential and trying to mislead the police investigation.

Simarpreet Singh, joint commissioner of police, Gurgaon, who met the protesters, said Gurgaon police has formed a special investigation team, led by ACP Harender Kumar, to probe the matter.

A team of protesters are in talks with Kumar to press their demands regarding the investigation and arrest of accused.

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Supporters of the BJP and Trinamool Congress clashed in the heart of Agartala on Monday after a disagreement over the saffron partys flag snowballed into a fight leaving at least 20 people including 11 policemen injured.

The skirmish took place despite prohibitory orders that were in force for Holi.

The clashes first began around 4 pm when a local BJP leader Jayanta Dey attempted to hoist party flags at RMS Chowmuhani area in the city. A local businessman  Sandip Roy Barman, who is also the brother of Trinamool Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman objected to it and reportedly assaulted Dey. A few other BJP workers and the secretary of the partys Tripura unit Amit Rakshit were also beaten up when they went to Deys rescue.

BJP workers then headed for the West Agartala Police Station to lodge complaint against the accused. A group of TMC workers took to the streets and also reached the police station to protest the BJPs allegation against Barmans elder brother. Both sides lodged complaints against each other.

The face off led to another clash between the supporters of the two parties outside the police station in the evening that left six of them injured including BJP state unit vice president Subal Bhowmik and TMC leader Panna Deb even as policemen tried to break up the fight. Two television camerapersons were also injured.

Police and Tripura State Rifles resorted to lathi charge to disperse the mob, West Agartala superintendent of police Abhijit Saptarshi told HT.  We are investigating the matter. Till now, no arrest has been made.

The BJP alleged that the clashes were engineered by the ruling Marxist party and the opposition Trinamool Congress to suppress a saffron wave in the state after the partys landslide victory in the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

The Marxists became tense after seeing recent massive political rally in Agartala and BJPs victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and they masterminded the clash with the help of Trinamool Congress. It became clear as the Trinamool activists stormed into the police station to stall the police activity after the BJP men came out of the station lodging complaint against the TMC leaders elder brother. Police administration was mum then, said BJPs Tripura observer Sunil Deodhar.

BJP condemns the incident and will conduct protest movements in democratic way soon. The Barman family has secret understanding with the Marxist government and it is clear that the latter lent support to the TMC in the clash, BJP state president Biplab Kumar Deb said.

On the other hand, TMC MLA Sudip Roy Barman accused the BJP of triggering the clash. The BJP became overconfident after its victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. The party thought it could be done in Tripura too. The incident is really unfortunate, Barman said.

He also rubbished the BJPs claims that he has a secret understanding with the CPI (M).
Ukraine and Turkey have agreed on the possibility of mutual trips of citizens on the basis of internal passports in the form of ID cards, Spokesman for the PM Dmytro Stoliarchuk wrote on Twitter.

A corresponding agreement was signed between the governments of the two countries in Ankara on Tuesday during the official visit of Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.

"Ukraine and Turkey signed an agreement that simplified the mutual trips of citizens. Now it is possible to travel without visas using ID-cards," Stoliarchuk wrote.

Besides, Ministries of Education of Ukraine and Turkey signed a cooperation agreement.

"The Education Ministries of Ukraine and Turkey opened the way to the creation of joint master's programs in strategically important spheres," the press secretary of the Ukrainian prime minister wrote.

The press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine said that the agreement on the entry of citizens stipulates that citizens of Ukraine and citizens of Turkey, who use passports in the form of ID cards with a contactless electronic chip, will be able to enter, leave, follow transit and stay without visas on the territory of Turkey and Ukraine, respectively, for up to 90 days within 180 days.

The provisions of the memorandum on cooperation between the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the Council of Higher Education of Turkey provide for the creation of joint bachelor, master and postgraduate programs in the fields of nuclear energy, nuclear safety, aviation and space technologies, support for the study and teaching of Ukrainian and Turkish languages, the implementation of academic exchange programs.
Amnesty International on Tuesday sought an independent probe into the case of death of a Nepali national in alleged firing by Sashastra Seema Bal, a charge strongly denied by India.

Indian authorities should ensure a credible and independent civilian investigation into whether SSB personnel used unnecessary or excessive force.

Where there is sufficient admissible evidence, suspects should be prosecuted in a civilian court, executive director at Amnesty International India, Aakar Patel said in a statement.

The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu on March 9, however, had said that there was no incident of firing by the SSB, Indias border-guarding force.

Govinda Gautam, of Kanchanpur district, was killed in alleged firing from the Indian side at Nepal-India border following a dispute over building a culvert over the Sano Khola river in Kanchanpur district, Kantipur Television had reported.

Reacting to some media reports regarding disturbances near the border at Aananda Bazaar in Kanchanpur district, India on March 10 had categorically denied that its border-guarding force had killed a Nepali man at the Nepal-India border and said there is a need to maintain calm. PTI KND IKA
A student from Arunachal Pradesh has alleged a racial attack by his landlord, who he claimed beat him up and forced him to lick his boots.

Higio Gungtey,a fourth-semester student of Christ University in Bengaluru, said his landlord, Hemant Kumar, was upset over shortage of water in the house and blamed him for it.

The incident, which took place on March 6, occurred after another tenant complained about the lack of water. Trouble started soon after, Gungtey said, when Kumar allegedly attacked him, threw out his possessions, started kicking him and then forced him to lick his boots.

Kumar, who is out on bail, could not be reached.

Gungtey said he moved out and his friends took him to a hospital. On March 9, he filed a case with the help of a Northeast solidarity group. His parents, who arrived two days later, said Gungtey should also press charges of racial assault.

Higio Yame, Gungteys mother, who is a member secretary of the Womens Commission of Arunachal Pradesh said they would file an additional FIR if required to force the police to look into the racial angle.

Deputy commissioner of police, Southeast Division, B Boralingaiah, said an additional charge would be added to the FIR. We will also look into the charge of racial assault, he said.

Karnataka chief minister K. Siddaramaiah on Monday condemned the attack on the student from Arunachal and dubbed it as shocking.

Attack on student from Arunachal is shocking. Police has taken prompt action and the perpetrator has been arrested, Siddaramaiah tweeted.

Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju on Monday described the attack in Bengaluru as saddening and said the ministry is pursuing the matter besides the police investigation.

When we are talking of safety of Indians abroad such incidents in our country are very saddening, Rijiju told reporters here.

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China has expressed hope that India and Pakistan will overcome their differences through a renewed dialogue process that stalled last year following unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and the Uri terror attack.

Both India and Pakistan are Chinas important neighbours and important countries in South Asia. China hopes that India and Pakistan can enhance mutual trust and improve relations through more dialogues, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said during a press briefing on Monday in Beijing.

This is conducive to not only the two countries themselves but also to regional prosperity and development, Chunying added.

The spokesperson added that China also looks forward to the early accession of Pakistan and India to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as full members so they could work with other members for the security, stability, development and prosperity of the region.

The memorandum on the obligations for India and Pakistan to obtain membership in the SCO was signed at the SCO Tashkent Summit in 2016. Currently, all sides are going through relevant legal procedures in accordance with the memorandum, the spokesperson said while responding to a question.

Relations between Pakistan and India worsened in September 2016 when militants attacked an army base in Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers. India has blamed the attack on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohamed terror group. The Indian Army on September 29 carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control, which added to the tensions.
Madhya Pradesh unit of Congress on Tuesday demanded that next months by-elections in the state be held through paper ballot and not the electronic voting machines (EVMs).

Serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of voters. So the polling for by-elections to Ater and Bandhavgarh Assembly seats should be conducted through the paper ballot, state Congress president Arun Yadav told reporters here.

To a question about BSP supremo Mayawatis allegation that EVMs were tampered with during the Uttar Pradesh elections, he said he had similar apprehensions.

The ruling BJP in the state and at the Centre is likely to resort to the same way in the by-elections, Yadav alleged.

Congress would win both the by-elections due to our strong base in these areas, he asserted.

The party was not disappointed by the outcome of recent Assembly elections because it emerged as the single largest party in three out of the five states, Yadav said.

Congress was not invited to form the government in Goa and Manipur which is unconstitutional, he said.

Earlier in the day, a Congress delegation submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer of Madhya Pradesh demanding use of ballot paper in the by-elections scheduled for April 9.

Election became necessary in Ater after the death of the then Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Congress MLA Satyadev Katare. Bandhavgarh seat fell vacant after the sitting MLA and state minister Gyan Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from Shahdol in a by-election last November.
A CRPF jawan was on Tuesday killed by naxals at a local village fair in Chhattisgarhs insurgency-hit Bijapur district.

Assistant constable Phagu Ram Mandavi (42) was axed to death with sharp-edged weapons by rebels at Bodli village mela (fair) under Bangpal police station limits this evening, Bijapur superintendent of police KL Dhruv told PTI.

As per the preliminary information, a group of unidentified Maoists attacked Mandavi while he had gone to visit the fair along with his family, killing him on the spot, he said.

Soon after getting the news of the incident, a police team was rushed to the spot and the body was sent for post-mortem, he added.

A native of Mirtur police station area in Bijapur, Mandavi was posted with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp at Pinkonda village in Mirtur, he said.

A combing operation was launched in the region to nab the assailants, he added.
Noted US-based economist TN Srinivasan has cast serious doubts on the efficacy of the cash ban move, saying it will not help in fighting the menace of black money.

Srinivasan of Yale University, who at one point taught RBI governor Urjit Patel, emphasised that the government needs to come out with a well thought-out policy to combat corruption.

There was and is no well thought-out anti-corruption policy to combat corruption. Rooting out corruption and increasing transparency through a policy such as demonetisation as implemented in India are unlikely to come about, Srinivasan, the Samuel C Park Jr professor emeritus of economics at Yale University, told PTI.

He further said, Although understandably, the demonetisation was not pre-announced, the governments implementation showed extreme unpreparedness and lack of thought.

Srinivasan also pointed out that the government chose to cancel notes of denomination Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, but it did not clearly come out with the objectives.

With all the technical manpower it had in the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the Department of Economic Affairs in the ministry of finance, the government did not issue a white paper clearly laying out the objectives of demonetisation, he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 announced the scrapping of the notes, pulling out 86% of the total currency in circulation.
The election commission (EC) on Tuesday dismissed the concerns raised by some political parties over the efficacy and safety of the electronic voting machines (EVMs), asserting the machines used during elections in the country are tamper proof.

Soon after the results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections were declared, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) complained to the EC about the possible tampering of the EVMs. The Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress too follow the suit and demanded that the ensuing municipal polls in the national capital be conducted through paper ballots.

The Commission, which conducts all parliamentary and state assembly elections, ruled out the possibility of EVM manipulation, pointing out that in the past it invited petitioners who went to the court against the use of technology to prove their charges.

EVMs were first used nationwide during the 2004 general elections. Subsequently, the technology was used in all assembly polls and general elections in 2009.

A source told Hindustan Times that the EVMS were put on display in 2009-10 and those suspicious of the efficacy of the machine were asked to prove their point by hacking it.

There were petitions filed in the high courts of Madras, Bombay, and Madhya Pradesh. We invited these petitioners to come and demonstrate their points before the commission. No one could show how EVMs can be manipulated. The commission is convinced that the EVMs are fully tamper-proof, an EC official said.

Introduced after a prolonged political discussion, followed by administrative and technical consultations that began in 1979, EMVs have been credited by the commission for not only shortening the election process, but also helping in stemming malpractices such as booth capturing and bogus voting.

The commission has already begun the process of introducing VVPAT machines along with the EVMs that produce a print out of the choice that the voter has made, which gets erased after a few minutes to ensure secrecy of the ballot, the official said, explaining how the system is being further strengthened.

On the various videos that have surfaced on social media sites, alleging tampering of machines, The EC official said, EVMs in India are a standalone machine without being linked to any network and with no provision for any input.

The commission also stressed that there should not be any comparison with the technology used abroad, and the fact that several countries reversed to the paper ballot system should not be the basis to suggest that the technology used in Indian elections is faulty.

Another official said, the so-called hacked EVMs being showed in the videos did not use the same technology as is being used in India.

No country in the world has an access to the system used in India.

Some of the countries gave up EVMs, because their machines were based on operating systems. The software in the EVM chip is one-time programmable and is burnt into the chip at the time of manufacturing. Nothing can be written on the chip once it is manufactured, the official said.

Giving details of the procedure followed between voting and election results, the official said, machines are readied and sealed in the presence of the candidates and their agents.

Thread seal are fixed on the EVMs, where again the candidates or their representatives put their own signature and seals. Paper seals guard against any unauthorized access to the EVMs after it is sealed. EVMs are then kept in sealed strong rooms with provision for the candidates to put their individual seals on the strong rooms. The EVMs are randomized twice over, the official explained.

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The Hyderabad Police arrested on Tuesday a man who was allegedly trying to deposit Rs 9.90 lakh in fake currency notes bearing the name of the Childrens Bank of India.

Malkajgiri police arrested one Yousuf Shaik from Moula-Ali area of the city after he was caught by Allahabad Bank staff while allegedly trying to deposit fake currency in the denominations of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500.

This comes weeks after fake Rs 2000 banknotes bearing the imprint of the Children Bank of India were dispensed from ATMs in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

According to the police, Shaik allegedly came to the Allahabad Bank branch near Radhika Theatre at AS Rao Nagar soon after the bank opened at 10.30 am. He quietly handed over a few bundles of notes to the bank cashier to deposit the same in his savings bank account. There were in all 400 notes of Rs 2,000 denomination and 380 notes of Rs 500 denomination, amounting to a total of Rs 9.90 lakh, police said.

The cashier, initially, did not suspect anything as the notes were similar to the original ones. However, while counting he had a close look at the notes and was shocked to notice that they had the imprint of the Children Bank of India instead of the Reserve Bank of India, police said.

While holding the customer at the counter, he quietly informed the same to the branch manager, who in turn informed the authorities.

Within minutes, the police arrived on the scene and took Shaik into custody. During interrogation, Shaik, who runs a small stationery shop in Malkajgiri area, told police that he had got the money from some customers.

Malkajgiri inspector Janaki Reddy said after a lot of grilling, Shaik admitted that he had procured the notes from a wholesale dealer in Osmangunj area. This dealer has several such bundles of counterfeit notes. In fact, they are paper notes used by children for playing, Reddy said.

Rachakonda commissioner of police Mahesh Bhagawat told Hindustan Times the cops were on high alert since the fake notes used by Shaik were similar to those, which had surfaced in some ATMs in Delhi and UP. But this person is a small stationery shop owner who tried to cheat the bank authorities with fake notes and is not part of any racket, he said.

According to bank sources, Shaik opened his savings account only in June 2016 and had been making only smaller transactions. This was the first time that he tried to deposit such a huge amount. Recently, he had approached the bank authorities for some loan for his shop, but it was rejected as he did not meet the requirements, bank authorities said.

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Karnataka BJP President B S Yeddyurappa on Monday said former Congress leader S M Krishna will join the BJP on March 15.

Krishna will join BJP fold on March 15 in New Delhi, Yeddyurappa told reporters here after addressing a rally in the run up to the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls.

Yeddyurappa also mentioned about Krishnas induction in the BJP in his speech during the rally.

He said Krishna would be inducted into the party in the presence of BJP National President Amit Shah and other central leaders.

Krishna, on the other hand, has neither commented nor denied reports of Yeddyurappa claiming that he would be joining the saffron party.

The 84-year-old Krishna had announced his resignation from the Congress on January 29, saying the party was in a state of confusion on whether it needs mass leaders or not.

Krishna, who was Karnataka chief minister from 1999 to 2004, had returned to state politics after stepping down as the minister for external affairs in 2012. He had also served as Governor of Maharashtra.

The bypolls are scheduled to be be held on April 9. The Nanjangud seat fell vacant after the resignation of veteran Congress leader V Srinivas Prasad in December 2016 as he was disgruntled with the Congress after he was dropped from Siddaramaiahs cabinet. Prasad later joined the BJP.

The Gundlupet seat fell vacant after the death of MLA H C Mahadeva Prasad on January 3, who was Cooperation and Sugar Minister.

Yeddyurappa said he would be in New Delhi tomorrow to attend an internal party meeting.
Manohar Parrikar has returned to Goa after heading the defence ministry for two years and four months. An outsider in Delhi, Parrikar was quick to grasp the intricacies of the ministry, the working of the armed forces and the challenges of modernising the military in the face of shrinking budgets.

On a day finance minister Arun Jaitley took over additional charge of the defence portfolio, HT lists five high points of Parrikars tenure:

One rank-one pension: Parrikar deserves credit for implementation of the OROP scheme in 2015. A more than four-decade-old demand, the scheme grants equal pension to military personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of the date of retirement.

Nearly three million ex-servicemen and widows benefitted from the scheme. Implementing the scheme cost the government between Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000 crore, a figure that will increase in future.

Some issues are still unresolved but the government is examining a report prepared by a one-member committee that delved into various aspects of the pension scheme.

Military modernisation: His tenure as defence minister saw the inking of some major defence contracts. The main projects concluded include a $8.7 billion deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets, a $ 3.1-billion order for 22 Boeing AH-64E Apache Longbow attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers and a $750-million deal for 145 ultra-light howitzers (M777) from the US.

The defence ministrys acquisition council also gave the green light to several key projects including 420 air defence guns for Rs 16,900 crore, 814 artillery guns for Rs 15,750 crore and 118 Arjun Mk-II tanks for Rs 6,600 crore. However, critical gaps still need to be addressed, ranging from bullet-proof vests, assault rifles to minesweepers, choppers and submarines.

Surgical strikes: Parrikars term saw India not only carry out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Myanmar but also claim political ownership of the targeted operations. The daring move won accolades from political leaders and civil society alike.

The surgical strikes demonstrated Indias hardened military resolve to the world. Parrikar said last years surgical strikes against terror pads in PoK had injected uncertainty into the neighbours mind.

The armys cross-border operation came after 19 soldiers were killed in an attack on an army base in Kashmirs Uri that India blames on militants who crossed from the Pakistani territory.

Strategic partnership with the US: Parrikars term witnessed the signing of the long-pending logistics exchange memorandum of agreement (LEMOA) with the US. The LEMOA sets down the guidelines for the armed forces of India and the US to share each others assets and facilities for repairs, maintenance, supplies and training on an equal-value exchange basis.

The LEMOA is one of the three foundational agreements proposed by the US more than a decade ago for tailoring a more robust strategic partnership. Theres been no progress on the other two: the communications interoperability and security memorandum of agreement (CISMOA) that will allow India to access CISMOA-controlled secure equipment and the basic exchange and cooperation agreement (BECA) for exchange of geospatial information such as maps, charts, imagery and other data for digital mapping.

Parrikars personal rapport with his then US counterpart Ash Carter played a key role in broadening the scope of Indo-US defence cooperation.

Lean and mean military: Parrikar was focused on how the military could be made more effective and defence budget be better utilised.

He appointed a 11-member panel, headed by Lieutenant General DB Shekatkar (retd), that has given its recommendations on how more money can be funnelled into scaling up military capabilities and what steps should be taken to improve the militarys tooth-to-tail-ratio -- the number of personnel (tail) required to support a combat soldier (tooth).

The report is being studied by the government. The panel prepared the report by taking into account the existing models of workforces and budgets of leading militaries, including Chinas Peoples Liberation Army, for a comparative analysis.
Debates on the situation in Russia-occupied Crimea and Ukrainian prisoners of conscience kept in prisons in Russia will be held in the European parliament (EP) on Thursday, March 16.

MEPs will consider the issue titled "Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia and the situation in Crimea" in the first half of March 16, according to the agenda of the EP plenary week on March 13-16.

Following the debates, they will vote on a respective resolution.

KYIV. March 14 (Interfax-Ukraine)  Debates on the situation in Russia-occupied Crimea and Ukrainian prisoners of conscience kept in prisons in Russia will be held in the European parliament (EP) on Thursday, March 16.

MEPs will consider the issue titled "Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia and the situation in Crimea" in the first half of March 16, according to the agenda of the EP plenary week on March 13-16.

Following the debates, they will vote on a respective resolution.
Three more accomplices of absconding rape-accused Samajwadi Party leader Gayatri Prajapati were arrested on Tuesday by the Uttar Pradesh Police in connection with the case against him.

With this, six persons named in the FIR against the 49-year-old Samajwadi Party leader have been picked up.

Todays arrests were made from Hazratganj area in central Lucknow, IG (Lucknow) A Satish Ganesh told PTI.

Earlier Prajapatis two aides were arrested from Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway on March 7.

The ministers security guard Chandrapal was arrested on March 6 near Lucknow Police lines.

Prajapati was booked on a Supreme Court directive and an FIR was lodged on February 17 against the minister and six others for allegedly gang-raping a woman and alleged attempt to rape her minor daughter.

The apex court had asked the UP Police to submit an action taken report regarding the incidents in eight weeks.

UP Police plans to attach two properties of the minister in Lucknow and one in Amethi, his assembly constituency, to force him to surrender, SSP Lucknow Manzil Saini told PTI.

A Look Out notice has already been issued against him as also a Non-Bailable Warrant. His passport too has been impounded.

Earlier, airports across the country were alerted about the possibility of Prajapati trying to flee the country.

In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost from Amethi, the seat he held, to BJP.
Activist Irom Sharmila will spend a month in solitude in search of peace and tranquillity in Keralas tribal-dominated Attappady region after a humiliating poll defeat that saw her garner just 90 votes in the recently concluded Manipur elections.

Sharmila, who celebrates her 45th birthday on Tuesday, had made it clear that politics was not her cup of tea and she would leave to a southern state for a peaceful living. It is not immediately known whether she would be permanently settling in Santhi Ashram, run by well -known philanthropist Uma Preman.

Known as the Iron lady of Manipur, Sharmila won international acclaim for a 16-year-long hunger strike seeking the abolition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in the northeastern state. After ending her fast last year, she had floated a political party and fielded candidates in three seats. But all three, including her, forfeited their deposits.

Sources close to the ashram said there was a meditation and Ayurveda centre associated with the centre where many patients come for yoga and meditation. However they refused to divulge details of her stay and itinerary, saying she would there for a month. In her earlier interviews she had lauded Kerala and expressed gratitude for love and support extended by its people to her long struggle.

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A man who was arrested for assaulting a doctor at a government hospital in Dhule in North Maharashtra committed suicide in the lock-up on Tuesday, police said.

Pradeep Vetal and eight others were arrested for beating up a doctor, for alleged delay in the treatment of their relative, at the government hospital attached to Hire Medical College in Dhule on Sunday. The CCTV footage of the assualt had gone viral.

Vetal on Tuesday hanged himself in the toilet of police lock-up, Dhule superintendent of police S Chaitanya told PTI over phone.

Further probe was underway, he added.

Meanwhile, members of Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) on Tuesday wore black ribbons on their arms to protest the assault on Dr Rohan Mhamunkar at the Dhule hospital.

According to police, an accident victim had been admitted to the hospital, and his relatives had a spat with Dr Mhamunkar over the course of treatment and beat him up.

Dr Yashowardhan Kabra of MARD said the organisation will take up the issue with the senior government officials and demand adequate police protection for doctors.

Sagar Mundada, chairman of Maharashtra youth wing of IMA, said, Maharashtra Medicare Act 2010 is not implemented strictly. There should be adequate protection for doctors in the government hospitals. The Act restricts the number of relatives who can be with the patient inside the hospital, but this rule is always flouted.
Manohar Parrikars 27-month tenure as defence minister has been eventful with several achievements under his belt, including the new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP), hiking compensation for widows and families of soldiers who died while fighting for the country, and dealing sternly with Pakistans misadventures.

Parrikar was hand-picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2014 as defence minister for his clean image and proven administrative abilities to relieve Arun Jaitley -- who was then also holding the crucial charge of finance ministry -- at a time when the six-month-old NDA government was still trying to find its bearings.

Through his efforts, Parrikar tried to break the middlemen-arms agents-officials nexus in the defence sector and usher in transparency, ease of doing business and expedite the decision-making process.

As minister, Parrikar controlled the worlds third-largest military.

On the administrative front, Parrikars most conspicuous achievement could be the DPP 2016, in consonance with Modis Make in India vision, that lays the road map of how India, currently the worlds largest arms importer, will acquire equipment in future.

The new policy created a new procurement category, called the Indian Designed, Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) category, to be the most preferred category for buying equipment.

I dont want to buy from a company that pays bribes. If you want to pay a bribe, put it on the table for the government and reduce the price, Parrikar was quoted as saying at that time.

Notably, defence exports have risen from Rs 1,153 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 2,059 crore in 2015-16, despite two-thirds of the items being removed from the military goods list.

It was under Parrikars tenure that the government tried to address the long pending One Rank One Pension (OROP) policy.

In November last year, Parrikar also doubled the compensation for widows and families of soldiers dying while fighting for the country in five categories.

For soldiers dying in action during border skirmishes or fighting against militants, the compensation was revised to Rs 35 lakh from the existing Rs 15 lakh.

For deaths occurring during enemy action in war or war-like engagements, in a war-torn zone in foreign country, the compensation was increased from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 45 lakh.

Under Parrikar, the Indian forces dealt with Pakistan quite sternly whenever the neighbouring country showed any aggression, including the surgical strikes across the LoC in September last year.

He is also said to be quite popular among the Generals and forces with his unassuming manners and no-nonsense approach.

Despite being the Defence Minister, Parikkar was known to take a lot of interest in Goa politics and made frequent trips to the coastal state, so much so that an MLA accused him of selling fish in Goa when the Rafale deal was being signed with France in New Delhi.

Interestingly, the same detractors have now insisted on Parrikar being made the chief minister of the state, with some non-BJP groups extending support on this condition only.

In perhaps an indication of his impending return to Goa, Parrikar, when asked on polling day, February 4, whether he was set to return as chief minister, had told reporters: I have lost four kilograms in Delhi because of the food. I like Goan food. You can interpret this the way you want.
An RSS functionary, looking after the Sanghs overseas affairs, has blamed the media for creating hype over stray incidents of attacks against Indians abroad, and said they should not be generalised.

Coordinator of RSS Viswa Vibhag, Sadanand Sapre however, flayed the attacks against Indians on foreign soil and said such incidents should be stopped.

Media many a times exaggerate the scene. Yes, some instances are there. To create hype... that is the nature of media, he said on Monday.

To a query about recent attacks against Indians in the US, Sapre said, Dont generalise the scenario.

Referring to incidents of attacks on Indians in Uganda in the 1960s, he said each and every Indian was attacked and thrown out of that country particularly during the rule of Idi Amin.

Is that happening in the US? Is that happening in Australia? No, Sapre said.

Let us not put everything in a single bracket. There are many Americans who are there to protect Indians, he added.

Sapres comments came in response to a question about attacks on Indians abroad during an interactive session after a programme organised here as part of Navathi celebrations of Bharathiya Vichara Kendram Director P Parameswaran.

Referring to incidents of attacks against Indians at Melbourne in Australia some years back, Sapre said in some cases Indians were at fault.

Melbourne incidents reported by media gives an impression that all Indians are being targeted. So I spoke to local people. They said that is not (the case).. It is not at all that all the Indians are targeted. Media has a habit of creating hype, he said.

These are stray incidents and those sort of stray incidents are everywhere... even in India, Sapre said, referring to incidents of attacks against people from Bihar in Mumbai some years back.

Sapre further said activists of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh abroad were providing necessary assistance including legal aid for those Hindus targeted.

Some action is to be taken... some kind of legal action... That is happening over there, he said.
Pakistan continues to violate the ceasefire agreement and official sources in Pakistan continue to support cross-border firing, sabotage and infiltration into India, government said in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir said immediate and effective retaliation by the Indian Army and BSF personnel is carried out during instances of unprovoked firing and ceasefire violations.

In a written reply, he said that there were 228 incidents of ceasefire violation along LoC and 221 incidents of ceasefire violation along the International border in 2016.

In these incidents, 13 civilians were killed and 83 others were injured while eight army personnel were killed and 74 others were injured. Five BSF personnel were killed and 25 others also injured in these incidents.

In 2017 till February, there were 22 incidents of ceasefire violation along the LoC and six incidents on the International Border, he said.

Diplomatically, India has repeatedly emphasised, including at the highest level, the need for Pakistan to uphold the sanctity of the Line of Control and abide by the ceasefire commitments along the International Border and Line of Control, he said.

Asked whether Pakistan continues to violate the ceasefire agreement and official sources in Pakistan continue to support cross border firing, sabotage and infiltration, the minister replied in the affirmative.
The Parliament is expected to witness a stormy return on Tuesday with the Congress party moving an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha over the government formation in Manipur and Goa with both parties claiming majorities in the states.

Tuesdays Parliament session is the first since the election results were announced on Saturday that saw the BJP win both Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand by huge majorities, the Congress win Punjab and hung verdicts in both Manipur and Goa.

The budget session resumed on March 9, when the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which will raise the maternity leave for working women in public and private sector from 12 weeks to 26 weeks for the first two children, was passed.

Here are the updates from the March 14 Parliament session:

Thank you for following our live updates

8pm: Lok Sabha adjourned till 11 am on March 15.

4.27pm: Lok Sabha takes up demands for grants of Railways ministry for 2027-18 for discussion and voting.

4.02 pm: Lok Sabha resumes proceedings; Parliament passes Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, with Lok Sabha approving amendments made to Bill.

2.30 pm: Lok Sabha adjourned till 3.30 pm.

12 noon: Home minister Rajnath Singh said left-wing extremists were restless because of attacks carried out against them by security forces, and called the Sukma attack on the CRPF a result of that frustration.

Making a statement in the Lok Sabha, Rajnath Singh condoled the death of 12 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and said that the nation will always remember their sacrifice.

He said 135 alleged extremists were killed, 700 were arrested and 1,198 surrendered the last year, and there was a 15% drop in left wing extremist incidents in Chhattisgarh in 2016.

11.30 am: Congress and its UPA allies staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha to protest the BJPs efforts to form government in Goa and Manipur.

Members of Congress, NCP and RJD raised the issue during Question Hour. Congress leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that democracy is being murdered. When the Speaker said she would not allow the Question Hour to be disrupted and members should raise such matters in the Zero Hour, Kharge said if they are not allowed to raise the issue in the House, where else would they go.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley said since the Congress leader has used strong words, they should either be expunged or the government be allowed to respond.

10.45 am: A BJP worker was hacked to death in the outskirts of Bengaluru on Tuesday morning. Police said unknown assailants attacked him with sickles near Bommasandra area. Union minister Ananth Kumar responds to the incident outside Parliament: Condemn it. Siddaramaiah government should take immediate action on it.

9.35 am: Congress submits an adjournment motion notice in the Lok Sabha over the issue of government formation in Goa and Manipur.

Sources said that the leader of Congress in the lower house, Mallikarjun Kharge, along with some other party MPs, will move the motion while seeking to raise the issue and demand a discussion on it.

9.00 am: BJP issues whip to its Lok Sabha members; asking them to be present in the House today.
After several leaders cast doubts over the authenticity of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in elections, a parliamentary panel has decided to invite Indian and international experts to examine if they can be tampered with.

The latest to cast doubts was Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal who on Tuesday instructed his chief secretary to urge the state election office to hold municipal elections in Delhi through ballot papers. In a letter earlier in the day, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken demanded the same, saying serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of voters about the free and fair nature of the electoral process. Hours after results of UP elections last Saturday, BSP chief Mayawati attributed her partys debacle to the tampering of EVMs in favour of the BJP.

Although the poll panel has dismissed such concerns, the parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances and law and justice has decided to re-visit the issue.

Panel chairman and senior Congress leader Anand Sharma told HT that the committee got several petitions from Maharashtra, casting doubts about the reliability of EVMs used in the recent civic polls. One of them was from a candidate in Pune who claimed to have got 29 members of his family to cast votes but the results showed he did not get a single vote. We have got several such petitions and taken cognisance of them. We will call election commission officials and also invite experts from abroad as the chips used in the EVMs are not manufactured in India, Sharma told HT.

EVMs were first used nationwide for the general elections in 2004 and 2009 and over 30 elections to state assemblies during the last five years.

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The police have seized over Rs four crore in demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from a man in Kolkata.

Acting on a tip-off, a raid was conducted by a team of Kolkata police on Monday night at a house on Lee Road in the Bhowanipore police station limits and Rs 4,15,07,000 was seized from the possession of Ashok Surana, a senior officer of the force said.

The entire amount is in the denomination of demonetised currency of Rs 500 (50160 pieces) and Rs 1000 (16427 pieces), he said.

On inquiry, Surana said that the money was acquired from his business but failed to produce any supportive document, he said.

We are still looking into his claims and the enquiry is going on, the officer added.

Demonetised notes seized from Surat

Police also seized Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations worth Rs 28.68 lakh from Randher locality of Surat in Gujarat on Tuesday. Five people have been detained in this connection.

During a routine patrolling, police intercepted two cars near Randher causeway and found cash worth Rs 28.68 lakh on face value.
Jat protesters in Rohtak and adjoining districts on Sunday burnt effigies of BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, and observed Black Holi at the ongoing dharnas to press for their demands, including reservation and withdrawal of cases against the community youths in connection with last years stir.

Visibly upset with the BJPs spectacular victory in Uttar Pradesh (UP) assembly elections, All India Jat Aarakshan Samiti (AIJASS) president Yashpal Malik, who hails from UP and had been maintaining that BJP will not get Jats support in the state, said the saffron polarised the electorate on communal lines and secured the Jat votes as well.

However, we will not be disappointed. Its because of our movement that BJP president Amit Shah had to repeatedly say in his election rallies in UP that they are with the Jat community. Our protest made them nervous and they had to hold meetings with local Jat leaders to win their confidence, he said while addressing protesters at Jassia village in Rohtak.

PM Modi also had to invoke former Prime Minister and Jat leader Charan Singhs name in his speech during an election rally to woo farmers and the Jat community, he said.

Malik said that it was now the BJPs turn to support the Jat community and accept its demands after the partys landslide victory in UP.

Hitting back at finance minister Captain Abhimanyu for criticising him, Malik said, The BJP has won in UP and the Captain is being arrogant in Haryana. He should resign and contest the elections again to see where he stands.

He said Jat protesters would go ahead with their proposed Delhi March on March 20 and their plan to gherao Parliament. The government has a few days to agree to our demands if it wants us to end our agitation.
Eurovision contestant from Russia may be granted entry into Kyiv, but must be held liable for illegal visit to occupied Crimea

Anton Gerashchenko, Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada member from the People's Front faction and an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, says that the Russian participant in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 maybe granted entry into Ukraine, but she will be held liable under Ukrainian laws for her illegal visit to Russia-occupied Crimea.

Gerashchenko on Monday described two possible scenarios of developments. "[Ukraine may] refuse Yulia Samoilova entry [into Ukraine] for violating the rules of visiting the occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," he wrote on Facebook on Monday, March 13.

The Russian side will use this for its propaganda purposes, Gerashchenko said.

"This will be used by the Russian propaganda machine to stir up hatred towards our country both in its territory and among Ukrainian citizens in the occupied areas," he mentioned one of the scenarios.

"[Ukraine may] let Yulia Samoilova enter Ukraine, at the same time prosecuting her for breaching the state border. [...] I think it is right to choose the second option. Let her come but be held responsible for breaching the Ukrainian law," he said.

He said he believes that such a solution will be the best one from different points of view, because "we are not refusing the Russian contestant entry into Ukraine, but also will use her example to show the public that we aren't going to tolerate the violation of the Ukrainian border," he said.

According to him, Article 332-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine foresees up to three years in prison if the rules of entry into temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine are violated by an individual for the first time. A repeatedly committed crime entails imprisonment for a period from three to eight years.

Gerashchenko also posted the instruction on the order of the Ukrainian Security Service's (SBU) adoption of a decision to ban foreigners and stateless persons from entering Ukraine. The relevant decision is adopted if there is sufficient proof that they had committed "a socially dangerous act contrary to the interests of ensuring security of Ukraine, which the SBU is ordered to prevent, identify and cease." The period of such a ban from entering Ukraine is from six months to five years.

As reported, Yulia Samoilova with the song called 'Flame is Burning' will represent Russia at Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv. She uses a wheelchair since childhood due to her disability.
Expressing heartfelt condolences to the families of the 12 CRPF personnel killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh, Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said the unprecedented success of the security forces has led to evident uneasiness among left-wing extremist groups and, therefore, they will continue to attempt such incidents to restore the flagging morale of their cadres.

Addressing the Lok Sabha regarding the recent attack on security forces in Chhattisgarhs Sukma on March 11, Singh assured the House that their sacrifices will not go in vain.

I express my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of the personnel, who have lost their lives and I would like to say firmly that the entire nation is with them in their hour of grief. The nation will always remember their sacrifices. The injured personnel will be provided with the best possible treatment available. On behalf of the entire house, I pray for their health and well-being, he added.

Singh said the security forces achieved tremendous success in 2016 in all LWE-affected states and particularly in Chhattisgarh, where 135 LWE cadres were eliminated, 779 arrested and 1,198 surrendered.

The number of violent incidents in Chhattisgarh also dropped by 15% from 466 in 2015 to 395 in 2016, he added.

Singh further said LWE extremists suffered unprecedented losses in 2016 and admitted that in their documents and statements.

They will continue to attempt such incidents to restore the flagging morale of their cadres. I believe that our brave soldiers and officers will continue to respond with a firm resolve and contribute whole heartedly towards elimination of left-wing extremism, he added.

Directing the director general of the CRPF, to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident, Singh said there was a need for introspection so that the lapses which led to the incident can be identified and which will reduce the possibility of repetition of such incidents in the future.

I visited Chhattisgarh to pay my homage to the martyrs and met the two injured personnel on the day of the incident itself. Arrangements were made to ensure that mortal remains reach their respective families. Loss of life can in no way be compensated by money, said Singh.

However, the next of kin of the martyred CRPF personnel will be provided Rs 35 lakh as ex-gratia from the central government, Rs 20 lakh from the Risk Fund of CRPF and Rs 1 lakh from the CRPF Welfare Fund. They will also get Rs 25 lakh as insurance benefits and Rs 3 lakh as ex-gratia from the Chhattisgarh government. The next of kin will also be provided full salary till the age of superannuation of the personnel martyred under the Liberalized Pensionary Award (LPA), he said.

Assuring Parliament that the government was committed to provide all support to the CRPF in order to prepare them for their tasks, the home minister said the government was also committed to supporting the states for training, capacity building, provision of CRPF battalions as required and intelligence sharing.

I would like to assure the nation through this house that we will not let left wing extremists succeed in misleading the people and depriving parts of the country from the benefits of development. I once again pay my homage to the martyred personnel and express heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. I assure the house that their sacrifices will not go in vain, he added.

Twelve CRPF personnel belonging to 219th battalion were killed and three others injured when Maoists ambushed a patrol party in an area under Bhejji police station in Chhattisgarhs insurgency-hit Sukma district on March. 11.
People of the country should hang their heads in shame for not being able to stop the persecution of Dalits, former Union minister P Chidambaram said on Tuesday.

The Congress leader was referring to the suicide of Hyderabad University research scholar Rohith Vemula and the assault against Dalits in Gujarats Una in making his point.

All of us should hang our heads in shame that we have not been able to put an end to the persecution of Dalits. Exclusion and expulsion are used to exclude students from participating in legitimate university activities, Chidambaram said.

His comments assume significance against the backdrop of the alleged suicide of JNU Dalit scholar Muthukrishnan, who was associated with the students movement that followed Rohiths death in January last year.

Chidambaram was speaking at the launch of The Essential Ambedkar, an anthology of Babasaheb Ambedkars writings, edited by former Rajya Sabha member Bhalchandra Mungekar at the Constitution Club in New Delhi.

The event was attended by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury among others.

Yechury said Ambedkars most essential contribution was envisioning an inclusive nationhood and Indian nationalism, which include various shades of divergences, as opposed to Hindutva nationalism.

Chidambaram hailed Ambedkar, saying his IQ would have matched to that of Albert Einstein.

His (Ambedkars) works hold a mirror to India and should make us ponder whether we have made any progress or not. My sense is, not much. My sadness is, not much.
The Centre and the state have finalised 21 super specialty departments in three of the nine government-run medical colleges of Bihar that will become operational from 2019.

The Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH), Patna, Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College (ANMMCH), Gaya, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital (JLNMCH), Bhagalpur, have been shortlisted for the purpose. Each of these medical colleges will get Rs 200 crore, of which the Centre will fund 60% (Rs 120 crore) and the state government remaining 40% (Rs 80 crore).

The PMCH, ANMMCH and the JLNMCH will host seven departments each. Super specialisation departments in kidney and brain will be common to all the three medical colleges. Super specialisation in heart will be common to the ANMMCH and the JLNMCH, while neonatology (treatment of newborns) will be common to the PMCH and the ANMMCH. The departments were finalised during a gap analysis meeting, convened by the ministry of health and family welfare (MoH&FW), in New Delhi on March 10.

As part of the project, the Centre will construct building to house these departments and provide state-of-the-art equipment. The state government has to provide space and ensure paramedical and faculty manpower. Each of these departments will have 20 beds.

Officer-on-special duty in the department of health, Dr Ranjit Kumar, who represented the state government at the meeting, told HT, The central government has to do the physical work, while we have to provide manpower support and space.

The Centre has sought the state governments consent for partial funding of the project, besides allotting space and dedicating manpower, before it commences work, with floating of tender for construction, in April. The deadline for completing the project is December 2018.

Commencement of super specialty departments will allow the medical colleges to apply for two seats of DM (doctor of medicine) or M.Ch (Magister Chirurgiae, which is master of surgery degree), as the case may be depending on the discipline. Medical regulator, the Medical Council of India, prescribes a minimum of 20 in-patient beds, besides minimum faculty strength of a professor and an associate professor each, and two assistant professors in any department for super specialty courses, with an annual intake of two medicos.

The committee for gap analysis is chaired by MoH&FW joint secretary Sunil Sharma, while its director Sudeep Shrivastava and AIIMS-Patna director Dr PK Singh are co-chairmen.

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A three-member Indian delegation of MPs on Tuesday attended a regional conference hosted by Pakistan with a top lawmaker asking the two Asian countries to bury the hatchet and move forward for the collective good.

The Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) conference held in Murree was attended by Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta .

The Indian lawmakers visit comes at a time when bilateral contacts and exchange of visits have stalled after the Uri terror attack and India has boycotted the SAARC Summit hosted by Pakistan.

Their presence in Pakistan comes ahead of the meeting of Indus water commissioners who are expected to attend a meeting in Lahore on March 19-20.

The conference, attended by 23 Asian countries and scheduled to conclude on March 17, is being held to discuss closer cooperation and creation of Asian Parliament on the pattern of European Union.

We should learn to bury the hatchet and move forward for the collective good, chairman senate, upper house of Pakistans parliament, Raza Rabbani said while addressing the conference.

He urged Asian nations to work together to address and realise common challenges and aspirations.

Rabbani said the special committee on creation of Asian Parliament would make a positive beginning towards the cherished objective, Radio Pakistan reported.

He urged the Asian nations to work together to address and realise common challenges and aspirations.

Rabbani said Asian nations were suffering from issues like poverty, terrorism, under-nourishment and exploitation of their natural resources.

He said the countries parliaments would fail themselves if they fail to rise to the occasion.

Speaker National Assembly, lower house of parliament, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in his address emphasised the need for working together for achieving the desired goal of regional peace, development and prosperity.

He said APA member states should intervene for peaceful solution of all outstanding disputes in accordance with the UN resolution and as per aspirations of the people.

We must work together for confronting shared challenges of terrorism, extremism, poverty and climate change, he said.

Noting that Pakistan is a strong advocate of regional integration and connectivity, Sadiq said the country was committed to peace and prosperity in the region and the world.

He also said the CPEC will not only benefit China and Pakistan but will have positive impact on Iran, Afghanistan, India, Central Asia and the entire region.
Pakistans military has reared good terrorists for cross-border missions while battling bad militants that fail to toe its line, Vice-President Hamid Ansari said on Tuesday.

Attacking Pakistan for use of terrorism as state policy, he said the most virulent factor fuelling terrorism is state sponsorship of and collusion with terrorists.

A case in point is Pakistans use of extremist groups as an instrument of foreign policy is well documented..., he said while addressing the third Counter Terrorism Conference organised by India Foundation.

Ansari said the availability of financial resources is critical to the success of these extremist groups as misplaced sense of charity, or religious duty, on the part of citizens contributes to it.

Linked to it is the misuse of institutions intended to impart faith-based education. Instances of it abound in Pakistan and Bangladesh and also in other countries of the Indian Ocean littoral.

These misinterpret religious texts to induce intolerance which, in turn, promotes a narrow and bigoted approach that is conducive to use of violence, he said.

Ansari said essentially, the Pakistani military has reared good terrorists for cross-border missions while battling bad militants that fail to toe its line.

He also said that the powers which created conditions for the rise of ISIS are the same which are claiming to be its victim.

In recent times, the rise of ISIS or Daesh in Syria-Iraq has caught the attention of the world. Yet, even a cursory study of the factors that led to the rapid rise of such dangerous forces reveals that the very actors, who now claim to be threatened by it, have been responsible for creating the conditions--directly or indirectly--that led to its rise, he said.
The women and child development ministry has sought a CBI probe into complaints that over two lakh people in five states were allegedly duped in the name of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme, one of the PMs pet programme to address the dipping child sex ratio and empowering the girl child.

A senior ministry official said the matter came to light recently after the ministry received over 2 lakh fake forms, filled by people across five states  Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Bihar.

These applicants had sought cash benefit from the ministry under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme, the official said.

The ministry immediately raised an alarm as under the scheme there is no provision for cash benefit.

It is clear that certain individuals are distributing illegal forms in the name of cash incentive under the scheme. The applicants were made to pay for these forms, disclose personal details and were misled into believing they could claim a monetary benefit, an official statement released by the ministry said.

We have asked the CBI to probe the matter, said a ministry official.
The Pratapgarh police will replace complaint boxes with Mann Ki Baat (inner thoughts) boxes at 65 schools of the district. The idea behind the initiative is to increase the ambit of children-police communication.

UNICEF officials, who visited the district, suggested that the word complaint has negativity attached to it. So we decided to change the name of the box, said Pratapgarh SP Kalu Ram Rawat. The first box was replaced in a school in Dalot village last week.

Children are curious and ask all kinds of questions. They ask a lot of career-oriented questions during our awareness programmes and we address them to the best of our knowledge, said Rawat.

A beat constable collects the childrens letters from the box every Monday and gives them to the SHO. The SHO then individually addresses the complaints or queries. In case, an anonymous complaint is made, the SHO verifies it and a copy of the letter is send to the SP.

The district police have been holding awareness programmes at schools under the Surakshit Vidyalaya Aur Kishore Sashaktikaran initiative for last two years and conduct sessions in three schools every month.

The SP said that some 8-10 months ago a class 10 girl, motivated by one such session, had complained that a class 11 boy was teasing her. She had asked that both her parents and the boys parents be brought to school and the boy be beaten in front of her. The boy was brought with his parents and he apologised to the girl.

The police have a social responsibility to reach out to the people, especially children. We want children to know the police, stay connected with the police and to learn the difference between right and wrong at an early stage, says the SP. The students are also taken to visit police stations and even SPs office sometimes.

We want to increase the communication and camaraderie between children and the police. When these children grow up, theyll make responsible citizenry and also have a much better perception of the police, adds Rawat.
Spending two or more hours on social media can drastically hamper ones social skills. A survey conducted by an NGO shows that social networking sites affect ones interpersonal skills needed to live a happy life.

The survey on impact of social media and overindulgence in virtual internet world, conducted by Jaipur-based NGO, Ace Society, also says that social media and such apps often create a false sense of virtual connection that makes an individual lonely and restless.

More than 85% of the respondents, who were part of the survey, said they often and sometimes by force of habit checked their smartphones for Facebook notifications or WatsApp messages. In some cases, the respondents said that they checked their mails and message as it was related to their job, but later admitted that though they started using social media to stay updated but later it turned into a bad habit. The respondents accepted they often end up using a lot of their personal time on social media. Around 80% of the participants admitted that they spend two to three hours online.

The NGO had conducted this survey between November 2016 and January 2017. The survey was conducted on more than 580 respondents aged between 10 and 50 years. More than 75% of the candidates chosen were either students or those who had just finished their studies and got a job.

The survey also found that people using the internet for more than two hours lack assertive skills and either end up becoming dominating or try to escape difficult situations. Social media also adversely affects an individuals conversations skills and ability to express emotions and intense feelings. Listening skills, questioning ability, social manners and patience level were also badly affected due to excessive use of social media. While 57% people said that they dont meet their friends for a couple of weeks, more than 60% of the participants admitted that they feel lonely.

The survey shows that it also affects emotional stability. More than 90% respondents felt that meeting friends personally was most satisfying, but they met friends only once in a fortnight.

Dr Nitin Sarswat, psychotherapist and counsellor, said, The internet and social media are becoming one of the worst addictions and it needs to be addressed immediately. It is killing ones inner tranquillity and ability to interact and make friends.

The doctor advised that those addicted to the internet should stay away from it and try to meet friends physically rather than in the virtual world. He said that spoken words and body language play a major role in communication rather than typing speed and sending messages online.

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The Bombay high court on Tuesday ordered a temporary freeze on a large plot of land at Bandra Reclamation, part of which is being used for a casting yard and temporary labour accommodation for Metro-3 workers.

A division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Girish Kulkarni ordered all authorities to maintain the status quo on the 47-hectare plot after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) failed to inform it how much of the land would be reserved in its draft development plan for a Muslim cemetery.

The bench also directed the civic body to place on record its policy, if any, to provide reservation for cremation grounds and cemeteries in every civic ward in accordance with the population of that ward.

The bench noted angrily that the BMCs lawyer was unable to tell it clearly how much land had been reserved in H/West ward for a Muslim cemetery. The lawyer had said that an area of 5,000 square feet was shown as reserved but there was a proposal to increase this to 20,000 square feet.

The judges said that what was being told to the court was not even final, just proposals in the draft development plan that were subject to modifications. What is the purpose of making a draft development plan if you keep changing it as you wish and as you like, said the judges.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Mohammed Furqan Mohammed Ali Qureshi, a real estate developer from Bandra, complaining about the lack of a cemetery for Sunni Muslims in H/West ward despite a substantial population of 1.72 lakh.

In his PIL, filed through advocate Ashraf Sheikh, the 39-year-old cited statistics he obtained under the Right to Information Act. According to the information he received, there is a substantial population of Sunni Muslims in Bandra West and Khar West, which fall within the ward, and that the community has seen 4,794 deaths in the past eight years.

He approached high court after repeated representations to civic authorities fell on deaf ears. He has asked that the BMC be directed to reserve a plot measuring at least one hectare in the ward for Sunni cemetery.
The Bombay high court on Tuesday slammed the state for failing to effectively implement its directions on following the Noise Pollution Rules, 2000.

In August 2016, the high court had given directions for strictly implementing the noise pollution Rules.

The division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Anuja Prabhudessai was irked to note that though adequate decibel meters have been supplied to each police station across Maharashtra, the device has hardly been used in major cities to look into complaints against noise.

Even if decibel meters are available, you are not using them. It is so apparent. Nobody is interested in implementation, said the bench while examining compliances made by the state.

The bench took note of the data of January and February 2017 of major cities such as Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Solapur, Aurangabad and Kolhapur.

What irked the bench was the fact that out of 2,218 complaints received in these cities, only 1,321 complaints were addressed using decibel meters.

What was more annoying was that without using decibel meters in almost half the complaints, the police had found no substance in 2,035 complaints of violation of noise pollution norms.

Though offences were registered on the basis of 101 complaints, in none of the cases was the loudspeaker or other sound amplifiers seized to stop the noise.

Immediate relief (for citizens) is to stop it, said the bench while trying to impress upon the state authorities that they must act immediately to stop the noise, if they find the decibel level beyond permissible limits.

The high court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Thane-based activist, Dr Mahesh Bedekar, complaining about lack of compliance of rules and regulations during festivals such as Ganeshotsav, Navratri and Dahi Handi and a lack of action on part of the authorities even if complaints are made about the violations.

On Tuesday, the bench also discharged retired additional chief secretary (home) KP Bakshi from contempt of court for failing to comply with an earlier court order to procure 1,843 decibel meters for police stations across Maharashtra.

The court had issued contempt notice to Bakshi on May 3, 2016, but on Tuesday discharged him, noting that decibel meters have been procured by the state government.

But, the court reiterated that the government was not serious about implementing the directions except for procuring the decibel meters.

Senior advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, appearing for the state government, said a draft notification was waiting for the chief ministers approval for amendment of development plans under Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act to include the topic of noise mapping in town planning.
Poroshenko wants NSDC to decide on possible sanctions against Russian Sberbank's subsidiary in Ukraine - Avakov

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will chair a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) on Wednesday, March 15, to consider possible sanctions against Russian Sberbank's subsidiary in Ukraine, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

"As far as I know, the president is gathering an NSDC meeting, and I think this issue [sanctions against the Russian bank's Ukrainian subsidiary] is on the agenda and will be considered," Avakov told TV Channel ZIK on Monday evening.

Avakov says that under the current situation, especially when passports issued by the Donbas self-proclaimed republics, the Russian banks cannot continue working in Ukraine. "I think we'll resolve this issue legally," he said.
There is a common element between the civic polls in Maharashtra that took place in February and the recent assembly elections in the five states  the manner in which the Congress lost the plot. In a healthy democracy, existence of a strong Opposition is necessary. But the message from both the elections is identical: the revival of the Congress looks like an uphill task .

Lets talk about Maharashtra.

During 2014 assembly election, the Congress lost power in the state which was considered as its stronghold since Independence. Even after Sharad Pawar parted ways to form the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 1999, the Congress managed to put up a good show in three assembly elections in a row and retained power in alliance with the NCP. The Congress-NCP alliance lost badly in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections because of the Modi wave. Out of the 48 parliamentary seats, they won just 6 (NCP 4, Congress 2). By that standard, they should not have won more than 35-40 seats (a single parliamentary constituency consists of six assembly segments). To make matters worse, the two parties called off their alliance right before of the assembly polls. Still, the two parties collectively won 83 seats (Congress 42, NCP 41).

The BJP could not win majority on its own despite winning 42 parliamentary seats in the elections held six months ago and 166 out of 288 assembly seats were won by other parties, mostly Shiv Sena (62) as well as the Congress-NCP. This happened partly because the Sena split its votes and partly because Congress-NCP managed to retain their 83 seats despite a strong anti-incumbency and Modi effect.

In comparison, the municipal and district polls in February 2017 were easier for the Congress and the NCP to win. The local elections were a good opportunity for the Congress to launch its campaign against the BJP and the Shiv Sena, who are in power in the state government. However, the results show the main Opposition party failed in using this opportunity. It was the BJP which took advantage of the situation.

It doesnt need a divine intervention to pinpoint the reasons for this debacle.

First, the Maharashtra BJP under the leadership of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis planned election strategy well in advance. Second, it came up with an effective election campaign that reached the desired voter. Third, one person  Fadnavis  was in charge and all the BJP leaders followed his instructions. There were some other reasons as well. However, none of these were visible in the Congress. It didnt seem to have a strategy for Maharashtra where it has mass base and network of party workers. It ran a hotchpotch campaign, and the ego clashes between its leaders were such that nobody cared whether the party was winning or losing. In cities like Mumbai,Thane, Pune or in other districts, the Congress was not seen as a party strong enough to provide an alternative. This was the failure of its campaign strategy  if it had any.

It was clear that the Congress leaders failed to understand ground realities. In the last two years, the Congress has been struggling to perform its role of the main Opposition party effectively.

Typically, an opposition party uses controversies, decisions or lack of decisions by the government to target the ruling party and point out how it has failed the people who voted for it. The Congress front-line leaders have failed in doing so. They level allegations against the ruling party or raise issues and then fail to keep up the heat. In fact, it is the Shiv Sena which is in the government but still playing the role of the Opposition party. If this remains the situation, the Congress revival seems difficult, especially when it faces an adversary like the BJP which is way ahead of the former when it comes to planning strategies, handling election management and above all, communicating with the people.

Also read: Mumbai after BMC poll: An opportunity for Thackeray and Fadnavis

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Seven months after they were bought to the city, seven Humboldt penguins will finally go on display to the public on Saturday after their newly built enclosure in Byculla zoo is inaugurated on Friday evening.

With civic officials yet to send a formal proposal to group leaders on charging an entry fee of Rs100 for adults and Rs50 for children below 12 for the penguin exhibit, you can, for now, view the penguins for just Rs5  the entry fee of Byculla zoo. However, this will only further increase the expected rush. A zoo official said, As it is a weekend we are expecting a huge turnout but if that causes problem for the penguins, we may restrict the number visitors allowed inside based on the vets advice.

The inauguration date was finalised after the citys new mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar wrote to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) authorities proposing that the exhibit be inaugurated on Friday by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. The penguin exhibit was a pet project of Thackeray and cost the BMC Rs64 crore.

After a positive report from microbiologists who tested the condition of the enclosure, especially the water, the penguins were moved from their 250-square-foot quarantine area to their 1,550-square-foot permanent home on March 6. Extra care was taken keeping in mind the criticism that the BMC came in for when one of the eight penguins brought from Seoul, a female named Dory, died of an infection last October.

We shifted the penguins early as we wanted to give them at least a week to adapt to their new home. After consulting doctors and considering that the statutory committee chairmen also will be appointed by then, we decided to go ahead with the inauguration on Friday. We are also likely to have a group of municipal students visit the exhibit on Wednesday, said a zoo department official.

Yashwant Jadhav, Shiv Sena group leader in the BMC, said, As we had promised, our mayor and party chief will inaugurate the exhibit. The inauguration will take place around 6pm on Friday.

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The All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) faces a bleak future after its lack lustre performance in the recently concluded Mumbai and Thane civic polls. The party was expected to make a mark in its debut Mumbai and Thane civic elections, but collectively secured just two seats at both the places.

Its popular leader Waris Pathan  who represents Byculla  was unable to get a single corporator elected from his constituency.

The reasons include lack of credible candidates, infighting among party leaders, low morale among cadres, fewer rallies by the Owaisi brothers (party heads) and the lack of enthusiasm among its supporters.

In contrast, the Samajwadi Party (SP), whom the AIMIM aimed to displace by wooing the Muslim vote-bank, was able to save its face by getting six members in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Its state chief Abu Azmi was able to get five members elected from his Shivaji Nagar constituency.

According to political experts, AIMIM tends to thrive in a religious polarised environment, which was not the case this time. Here, the main fight was between the Shiv Sena and the BJP. Hence, the AIMIM did not stand a chance. The Muslims, in fact, voted for the Sena at several places, as the party got two Muslims elected on its ticket, said political analyst Prakash Bal.

Rehbar Khan, a prominent AIMIM leader from Bandra, who was able to get his wife Mumtaz elected as an Independent, said that local leaders wreaked havoc. Leaders who came in from other parties were favoured, while the loyal workers were sidelined, said Rehbar. Party workers too lacked enthusiasm they shoed during the 2014 assembly elections.

Also, the Supreme Court judgment in January, where it called seeking votes in the name of religion a corrupt practice, played a dampener for the AIMIM.

A Congress leader said that even Akbaruddin Owaisis speeches lacked punch. The speeches were toned down and lacked energy thats why it did not translate into votes. AIMIM took the Muslim votes for granted and this was their undoing. In addition, its leaders hardly attended to the voters needs and were busy seeking publicity, he said.

However, AIMIM legislator Waris Pathan dismissed the allegations saying that the party performed well. We secured two seats on our debut and even our voting percentage is intact. The Congress-NCP and SP joined hands and conspired against us, he said.

Also read: AIMIM fails to make a mark; Owaisi says UP verdict an indictment of secular parties

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Since the start of the year, 131 leopards have died across the country. Of these, 40% were killed by poachers. Wildlife activists said that while conservation efforts were largely focused on tigers, other big cats also needed protection.

The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said that 53 leopards were killed by poachers while 78 died of natural causes or in accidents. Uttarakhand had by far the highest number of deaths with 31, followed by Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh with 14 each. Himachal Pradesh had 13, Karnataka 10, and Rajasthan 8.

After tabulating the data, we found that approximately two leopards have died every day year this. It is alarming that leopards are still killed for the illegal wildlife trade and that poachers are still active, said Tito Joseph, programme manager, WPSI.

Leopards are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. According to a nationwide census conducted in 2015  the first ever leopard census in India  there are approximately 12,000 to 14,000 leopards in the country. In 2016, there were 436 leopard deaths recorded  282 died in accidents or of natural causes and 154 were killed by poachers. WPSI data also shows that poachers have killed 1,523 leopards since 2007.

WPSI compiled the data using information from police stations and wildlife sanctuaries within and outside protected forest areas. Our field officers take stock of all deaths and the information is sent to our head office in New Delhi daily, he said.

Vidya Athreya, a wildlife biologist, said, Large-scale poaching continues but is swept under the carpet. There is a need to formulate policies regarding animals such as leopards that live outside protected areas.

The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) said gangs of poachers target leopards for their skin and teeth. The figures are alarming. The problem of leopard poaching has resurfaced. We have found metal wires or trap snares, mostly outside protected forest areas and sanctuaries, said M Maranko, regional director, WCCB.

On February 1, the Karnataka forest department recovered and dismantled 121 snares from a 17-km stretch along the Nagarahole National Park boundary. In most cases, villagers and tribals who are supported by organised poaching gangs tie domestic animals near their villages in to lure leopards. Once they figure out the leopards trail, they place snares and kill the cat. Its skin and teeth are sold for $10,000-plus on the international market, said Maranko.

He added that there was an urgent need to make forest officers aware of poaching techniques and to increase patrolling. The reason Uttarakhand saw the most leopard deaths is that the terrain makes vigilance difficult. Poachers use this to their advantage. In Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, forest officers need to keep watch over areas that are not protected, said Maranko.

Experts said the issue of leopard conservation needed more attention. Leopards are easy targets for poachers. As efforts to save tigers have been ramped up, poachers have started targeting leopards instead. People are less tolerant towards leopards as they have heard of cases in which the big cats have attacked and killed livestock, said Krishna Tiwari, a wildlife researcher and conservationist.

Read

7-year-old male leopard killed on Mumbai-Pune expressway

Leopard killed in Vasai, 10th to be run over since 2004

Caught on CCTV camera: Leopard crossing street in Mumbai

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Though the Shiv Sena tried to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Goa assembly election by forging an alliance with party floated by the ousted Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Subhash Velingkar, it failed miserably. Besides losing all the three seats its contested, the party managed a paltry vote share of less than 2%.

The Sena contested three seats,Saligao, Cuncolim and Mormugao, in the 40-member state. The nomination of the partys fourth candidate, Sangam Bhosle, who was to contest from Thivim, was rejected because he submitted his affidavit late while filing his nomination.

Sena MP Sanjay Raut, who was helming the partys effort to boost its presence in Goa, said, It is true that in terms of numbers we did not get as much success as we had anticipated. But the most important thing that we gained from this election is establishing our base and cadre in the state. This was the first time we contested Goa elections with an organised effort, and we will fight the Lok Sabha poll and the next assembly election as well.

The debacle

The partys worst defeat was registered at Mormugao, a sub-district in south Goa and the states main port, where the party probably had its best shot at putting up a good show as it had held a few panchayat seats in the 90s.

Here, Senas Sanjay Naik stood fourth by bagging just 51 votes as compared to the BJPs winning candidate (8,466 votes). The Senas total vote share in this constituency was a dismal 0.28%.

In comparison, the partys performance in Cuncolim and Saligao was a tad better.

Senas Devendra Desai, who stood sixth with 313 votes, lost to Congress Clafasio Dias (6,415 votes) in south Goas Cuncolim. Desais vote share was 1.4%.

Similarly, in north Goas Saligao, Senas Rajesh Dabholkar came fifth (428 votes). The winning candidate, Jayesh Salgaonkar of the Goa Forward Party (GFP), bagged 9,735 votes  over 46% of the total votes cast. Here, the Senas vote share here was a trifling 2%.

During the 2012 assembly election, the Sena had lost all three seats it had contested. Unlike now, the party had invested negligible amount of time and effort in campaigning in Goa back then. But this time it collaborated with two political forums that had differences with the incumbent BJP and tried to corner it. The Sena forged an alliance with the Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM), floated by ousted RSS Goa chief Velingkar, and the Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which snapped ties with the BJP. While the MGP won 3 seats, the GSM emulated Sena.

What is likely to the hurt the party most is that poor show it put up despite Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and partys youth leader Aaditya Thackeray personally campaigned for its candidates, lashing out at the incumbent BJP and questioning its achievements in the last five years. Goa assembly election came soon after the Sena called of its alliance with the BJP for the civic polls across Maharashtra.

Parting ways

With the MGP now deciding agreeing to support the BJP in its bid to form the the government, Raut censured MGP leaders for disrespecting peoples sentiments. The BJP came second with 13 seats, while the Congress bagged 17 seats.

Parties like MGP and the GFP won seats because the mandate was against the BJP in those particular constituencies. They are cheating people by joining the BJP now, Raut said.

Also read: Parrikar returns, Cong in race, SC to hear petition challenging BJP: 5 updates on Goa politics

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Following the BJPs electoral triumph in four of the five states that went to polls, especially Uttar Pradesh, the Shiv Sena is now looking to consolidate its own presence in Maharashtra without immediately snapping ties with its ally in the state.

The party on Tuesday tied up with the Congress to form an administrative body in a few panchayat samitis in the Aurangabad and Ahmednagar districts, and is also in talks with both the Congress and NCP for similar arrangements in Zilla Parishads (ZP). A panchayat samiti governs a tehsil and works under the ZP which governs the district. Both these bodies are significant in rural politics.

The party has also been backing Opposition parties in the state legislature in stalling house proceedings for the entire first week of the session over the issue of a loan waiver for farmers in Maharashtra. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray told his legislators to continue to press for the demand, and not let the house function till such a time that the state government, of which it is a component, gives in to it and announces a loan waiver.

Surendra Jondhale, head of Mumbai Universitys department of civics and politics, said, The Senas strategy will now be different than what it was earlier this year. With the positive boost of the UP results for the BJP, the Sena is rethinking and its primary task will be to consolidate its organisational strength for the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls. The strategy will be to be more assertive than aggressive, and the party will want to focus on itself rather than engage in competition and one-upmanship with the BJP at this point.

Jondhale said if the Sena does not concentrate on cementing its own identity and position in the face of pro-BJP electoral trends, considering the partys recent victory strides, it may face the possibility of a gradual decline in Maharashtra.

Earlier this year, the Sena was more aggressive, splintering its alliance with the BJP for the local body polls and leading a shrill acrimonious campaign against its ally. Party chief Thackeray also said the party rotted in its alliance with the BJP and henceforth will never go begging for a tie-up, and that this was the beginning of the Senas new journey.

Sena ministers in the BJP-led state government also brandished resignation letters kept ready in their pockets, creating an atmosphere of uncertainty on for how long the party may continue its support to the BJP in the Maharashtra government. Without the Senas support, the BJP will have to struggle to bolster its numbers and keep the government stable or face an early election.

A senior Sena legislator, who did not wish to be named, said the party is not only trying to establish its own strength, but also consolidate an anti-BJP atmosphere. Until now, the Sena-BJP fight was all about ministerial changes, allotment of portfolios, some policies here and there, but now the strategy is to isolate the BJP. Today, the condition is such that the BJP can beef up its numbers if the Sena was to just walk out of the government. So the Sena really wants to checkmate the BJP, then like the BJP, even we wont be shy of having tie-ups of convenience, whether electoral or issue-based, he said.

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After the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) paper leaks, city school principals have demanded splitting the Mumbai divisional state board into two parts.

This move may help monitor exams better, they claimed. Teachers also want the board to hold re-exams since at least one of the leaked papers is known to have reached hundreds of students.

The divisional board  which covers Thane, Palghar, Raigad and Mumbai  is the biggest in the state. At more than 3.8 lakh and 3.4 lakh in SSC and HSC exams, it has the highest number of examinees compared to other boards.

The six consecutive leaks over the last two weeks, however, have raised doubts over the boards capacity to handle such a large region. It is facing a shortage of manpower to monitor it.

So, principals have asked the Maharashtra state board in Pune to remove Raigad and Palghar from the Mumbai division or separate rural and urban districts. If Mumbai division is restricted to the city and its suburbs, then conducting the exams will become easier for the board, said Prashant Redij, head of the Mumbai school principals association. Palghar and Raigad can be added to Konkan division, which covers only two districts, Redij added. Also, the board office is located far from the main city. It is difficult to travel that far to co-ordinate with them, he said.

If the division is split it will be become easier to take remedial steps such as re-exams in case of incidents such as the HSC paper leaks. The police say that the paper reached 700 students, so the board cannot claim that it was not circulated widely. But they hesitate because it will be a mammoth task for one division, said Redij.

The demand to split the board was first raised in 2016 by the Mumbai board authorities. But it was not accepted when the divisional chairperson, Duttatray Jagtap, had written to the Pune board stating that Mumbai has a large number of students and private candidates taking the exams.

Last minute registrations for private candidates add to the work for the staff. Instead of preparing for the exams, they are busy issuing hall tickets till the day before the exams, said Jagtap.

Read more: 6th HSC paper leak in nine days in Mumbai, three students booked

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A group of protesters on Tuesday, at the district headquarters of Ghaziabad, demanded an inquiry into the alleged irregularities in votes registered through the electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the recently concluded assembly elections.

The protesters alleged that there were several irregularities in EVMs that led to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gaining the majority of seats in the UP assembly elections. However, none of the protesters could explain the issue or support their allegations with facts.

We just read the news and also received messages on social media that EVMs led to the victory of the BJP. Even Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati had raised the issue with the Election Commission, Pranvir Singh, a protester, said.

We demand that an inquiry be initiated and the formation of the government be put on hold. Also, we want an assurance that only paper ballots will be used in future elections, Ajay Kumar, another protester from Vijay Nagar, said.

Some of the protesters claimed that a majority of BSP votes in some polling booths went to BJP, while others claimed that votes in Muslim settlements had also gone to BJP. However, none of the protesters could produce proof for their claims.

Some even claimed they had data of polling booths, even before the administration could come out with the official data. However, none of them could produce the data when sought.

Priti Jaiswal, the additional district magistrate (city), was handed over the memorandum by the protesters, who claimed that they did not belong to any political party.

In the recently concluded UP assembly elections, the BJP secured a majority of 312 seats while the Congress-SP alliance and BSP got a drubbing and secured 47 and 19 seats, respectively.

Immediately after the results on Saturday, BSP chief Mayawati had alleged that the EVMs were faulty and that the EVMs did not register the votes cast for parties other than the BJP. Some of the leaders of political parties, who had lost, also supported her claims. A letter was also sent to the chief Election Commissioner.

In its reply, the ECI reiterated that the EVMs were foolproof and also explained in detail the technical security, procedural security and judicial pronouncements made about the use of EVMs.

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Security agencies swung into action around the Indian Air Force base and the Mamoon cantonment area in Pathankot on Tuesday afternoon after an intelligence input about possible a terror attack was received by the local police.

With the input coming in the afternoon, heavy deployment was done around the airbase  which was attacked by terrorists in January last year  by the armys Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, paramilitary troops and the police. The IAF also conducted aerial surveillance through a helicopter that continuously hovered over key defence establishments.

Also read | Government failed to learn from Pathankot airbase attack: House panel

The urgency shown by the security forces left residents in panic. Shopkeepers near the base were asked to down shutters. The media that thronged the area in large numbers, however, was left guessing as no officer was ready to speak.

Later, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Nilambari Vijay Jagdalay told HT over phone that there was an alert by the Intelligence Bureau about a suspected act of some anti-national group on the airbase. Asked if an alert was sounded for the Mamoon cantonment too, she said the army was active on its after the alert.

Also read | NSG ignored plea to rescue 2 guards during Pathankot attack: Air force officer

A joint search operation of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh Police, the army and air force was launched too, the SSP told new agency PTI. She said the search operation is part of precautionary measures and more than 500 personnel are engaged in it. The operation was being carried out in villages and other areas located near the airbase.

Such alerts and sightings of suspected terrorists have put the security agencies on their toes several times since the January 2016 attack, in which a civilian and seven security personnel were killed. Dinanagar in Gurdaspur was targeted on July 27 in 2015, when three heavily-armed terrorists wearing army fatigues had stormed a police station, killing seven persons, including a superintendent of police, before they were gunned down during a day-long operation.

(WITH PTI INPUTS)
Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das on Friday attributed BJPs landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh to successful development schemes and policies of the Centre and the rejection of dynastic, communal politics by voters.

Das, who heads the BJPs first majority government in Jharkhand, said BJPs victory in Muslim-dominated areas of Uttar Pradesh prove that voters are unwilling to get divided by politics of polarisation.

The Muslim community also supported us on the triple talaq issue. This victory is evidence to the fact that the common man is satisfied with the Centres work and is willing to support the government, Das said.

BJP Jharkhand president Laxman Giluwa termed the victory in UP as historical.

The BJP has been working for uplifting and empowering the downtrodden, and this victory proves that we have their support in our crusade, Giluwa said.

It was an early Holi for BJP workers and leaders at the state headquarters in Ranchi. State urban development minister CP Singh, Ranchi MP Ramtahal Chaudhary and several other leaders celebrated the partys victory by playing Holi, bursting crackers and distributing sweets on Saturday in Ranchi.

The victory was also celebrated in Dhanbad with pomp and gaiety. Dhanbad MLA Raj Singh said the victory shows that there was no resentment towards the demonetisation move and that voters understood the long term benefits of demonetisation.

The Jharkhand State Congress Committee too celebrated their win in Punjab and lead in Goa and Manipur at their Jharkhand headquarters in Ranchi.

Congress state president Sukhdeo Bhagat expressed disappointment over the UP loss, but said the win in Punjab showed that the Congress wasnt out of the national political contest yet.

I congratulate the BJP for their UP win. They won the elections, but the Prime Minister lost his dignity by stooping down to dirty politics just to win the elections, Bhagat said.

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Forty-five participants in a trade blockade with occupied areas in Donbas who were detained near the Kryvy Torets railway station on Monday have been released, the National Police's main department in Donetsk region has said.

"On March 13, 2017, officers of the National Police's main department detained 45 people, including eight who, as they claim, participated in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), four who were registered owners of firearms and six who had previous criminal records As of today's morning, all of them had been released. None of them has any injury," chief of the National Police's main department in Donetsk region Viacheslav Abroskin wrote on Facebook on Tuesday morning.

He said that the detained men are residents of eight regions of Ukraine: 17 were from Dnipropetrovsk region, 10 from Kyiv region, eight from Chernihiv region, four from Vinnytsia region, two from Zhytomyr region, two from the city of Donetsk, one from Sumy region and from Mykolaiv region each.

Abroskin confirmed that one of the detainees was a resident of Zhytomyr region. He was earlier imprisoned for murder. He told police that he and some other individuals had been brought to Donetsk region in an organized way. He was provided with money and he was promised payment for three weeks of duty at the roadblock near the Kryvy Torets railway station at a rate of UAH 400 per day.
Arun Vijays Kuttram 23 is the talk of the town. The extremely well-made medical thriller has gone beyond impressing critics and audiences alike, and has earned the praise of superstar Rajinikanth and 2.o director Shankar. On Sunday, Shankar wrote on his Twitter page that the film is very engaging with all the right ingredients and that he really liked Arun Vijays performance. The team is buoyed by Shankars words because he usually doesnt heap praise on any film unless he really likes it.

Directed by Arivazhagan, the film throws the spotlight on a medical crime and Arun Vijay plays a cop who investigates the case. Arun Vijay, who has been desperate for a hit for a long time, finally tasted success with the film which has been adapted from a novel by popular Tamil pulp fiction writer Rajesh Kumar.

As the team continues to enjoy the films success, talks have already been initiated for Telugu remake. Apparently, actor Sudheer Babu has expressed interest to star in the remake and has already reached out to the producer. It also has to be seen whether the film will be made in Hindi or not.

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A couple of days back actor Mahesh Babu shared his favourite picture from his film with AR Murugadoss, currently being shot in Chennai. It was first shared by the films cinematographer Santosh Sivan.

The buzz around Mahesh Babus Tamil-Telugu bilingual is growing by the day. The films shooting is going on at a scheduled pace with the Chennai leg having commenced on March 11. The team will then leave for Vietnam on March 22 to shoot an important segment of the film, a source said.

The latest schedule begins in Chennai from tomorrow (Saturday). The team leaves to Vietnam on March 22 for a brief schedule. Nearly 70% of the film has already been completed. The entire shoot should be completed by April, a source from the films unit had said.

One of my personal favourites..!! :) https://t.co/xxmEBtwa3P  Mahesh Babu (@urstrulyMahesh) March 11, 2017

Being directed by AR Murugadoss, the film features Mahesh in the role of an intelligence officer. Rakul Preet Singh, who plays the leading lady, will be seen as a medical student. Filmmaker-turned-actor SJ Suryah plays the antagonist, and his role is said to be on par with Maheshs.

The film, which will simultaneously release in Tamil and Telugu on June 23, has music by Harris Jayaraj.

With IANS inputs

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Iceland was one of the top travel trends last year with the Icelandair airline carrying 3.7 million passengers, a 20% increase. Popular with adventurous travellers looking for rugged and spectacular natural landscapes, Iceland is a haven for those who travelling off the beaten path.

Here we list five must-see sights for visitors deciding to explore the breathtakingly exotic island country this year.

The Dettifoss waterfall

Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Europe. Located in the north-east of the country, it is 44 meters high and 100 meters wide. When nearing the site, visitors are often surprised by the deafening sound of the 500 cubic meters of water towering over the falls every second.

The waterfall is accessed via the Jokulsa a Fjollum canyon, which can be reached by road. A 4x4 vehicle is highly recommended to ensure visitors reach the waterfall without running into trouble.

The Blue Lagoon

Relaxing in the milky waters of the Blue Lagoon, near Reykjavik.

Travellers in search of relaxation and stunning scenery shouldnt miss the Blue Lagoon, a popular attraction where visitors can bathe in milky waters at temperatures of 36 to 39C. The lagoon is set among the breathtaking scenery of a lava field, making the turquoise blue of the lagoon even more striking. A 40-minute drive from Reykjavik, the lagoon is fed by the water output of a nearby geothermal power plant and has a rich mineral content.

The Northern Lights at Jokulsarlon

The Nothern Lights over Jokulsarlon.

The Jokulsarlon glacial lake, in the south of the country, is formed from melted glacier water and is the largest in the country. Its also 200 meters deep. The lake is home to various icebergs that have detached from the glacier, casting blue and black reflections and creating a breathtaking polar landscape.

Try to visit the site at the end of the day to enjoy the spectacular dusky light. You could even stay until nightfall in the hope of catching the Northern Lights, another great reason to visit Jokulsarlon.

The Strokkur geyser

The Strokkur geyser is an impressive sight.

No trip to Iceland would be complete without seeing a geyser. Around 100km from the capital, the Strokkur geyser promises an impressive natural sight, ejecting a 20-meter high column of water and steam every five minutes. Head to the islands Geysir geothermal area, which is the origin of the English word geyser.

Lucky visitors might even catch sight of The Great Geysir which, although generally dormant, can have a few episodes of activity during the year. The Great Geysir was regularly active in the early 1990s, with an impressive jet of superheated water and steam reaching up to 60 meters in height.

Step inside the Thrihnukagigur volcano

Visiting the inside of the Thrihnukagigur volcano.

Iceland is a highly volcanic country, which is why it has so many geysers. The countrys Eyjafjallajokull volcano also caused widespread disruption to air travel with its 2010 eruption. The country offers curious travelers the unusual experience of visiting the inside of a volcano (an extinct volcano, of course).

Organised tours take visitors inside the Thrihnukagigur volcano, which last erupted more than 4,000 years ago. Groups descend into the volcano via the crater and are taken to admire the magma chamber. Although tours can be expensive, Thrihnukagigur is an easy-to-access site thats around 20km from Reykjavik.

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Seventeen Chinese coal miners were killed when a lift used to move workers fell down a shaft, state media reported, the latest deadly mishap in the countrys accident-prone coal-mining industry.

The accident occurred Thursday when a cable supporting a mining cage caught fire, causing the rig to tumble down into a state-operated coal mine in northeast Chinas Heilongjiang province, Xinhua news agency said.

An operation to extract the trapped miners from the wreckage was launched at the time but rescue workers could not reach them until Monday, finding them all dead, Xinhua said.

The mine, the Dongrong Second Mine under the Longmay Mining Holding Group, is located near the city of Shuangyashan.

Two welders have been detained by police over allegedly serious violations of safety regulations, Xinhua said.

The mines manager also has been suspended from his post, it quoted the local government as saying.

China is the worlds largest coal producer, and deadly accidents in mines are common.

In December, explosions in two separate coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and in Heilongjiang killed at least 59 people, according to state media reports.

Thirty-three miners were killed in a colliery explosion in October in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday prompted a fresh outcry in the Netherlands with a jibe about the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, warning of new retaliation in a spiralling diplomatic crisis.

Keeping an uncompromising tone, Erdogan said a yes vote in an April 16 referendum on expanding his powers would be the best response to Turkeys enemies in a tumultuous dispute that risks wrecking the entire Ankara-Brussels relationship.

He said the Dutch character was broken after Netherlands peacekeepers failed to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, comments described as repugnant by The Hague.

Ankara had a day earlier announced it was suspending high-level relations with the Hague after the Netherlands prevented two Turkish ministers from holding rallies to woo expatriate support ahead of the referendum. The Dutch ambassador to Ankara  currently outside the country  has also been blocked from returning to his post.

On Monday, Erdogan had also sparked a new row with Berlin by lashing out at German Chancellor Angela Merkel for supporting terrorists.

We know them from Srebrenica

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn urged Erdogan to show moderation, calling on Turkey to refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk further exacerbating the situation.

But far from stepping back, Erdogan accused the Netherlands of state terror in preventing Turkish ministers from holding pro-yes rallies and said more sanctions were planned.

We are going to work more on measures against the Netherlands, said Erdogan. These wrongs wont be solved with a sorry, we have more things to do.

Erdogan had previously angered the Netherlands by saying the authorities had behaved like the Nazis, who had occupied and bombed the country in the World War II.

But on Tuesday he touched an arguably even rawer nerve, recalling the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, which Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to prevent in an episode that remains a national trauma to this day.

The Netherlands and the Dutch, we know them from the Srebrenica massacre, he said.

We know how much their morality, their character is broken from the 8,000 Bosnians that were massacred, Erdogan said. We know this well. No one should give us a lesson in civilisation. Their history is dark but ours is clean.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called his claim a repugnant historical falsehood and said Erdogans tone is getting more and more hysterical.

We wont sink to that level, he said.

Tayyip Erdogan (left) and health minister Recep Akdag during a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday. (Reuters)

The best answer

Erdogans latest broadside against Merkel also infuriated Germany, which had also last week prevented Turkish ministers from holding rallies in the country.

Merkels spokesman described the accusations as absurd, saying the chancellor had no intention of taking part in a competition of provocations.

Germanys Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Tuesday said Ankara was playing the role of the victim with its broadsides against Nato allies, as Erdogan seeks to build solidarity ahead of the referendum.

In response to the controversy, German state Saarland said Tuesday it would ban all foreign officials from holding election rallies on its soil.

Responding to the EUs criticism the Turkish foreign ministry spat back that: The EUs short-sighted statement has no value for our country.

The move by the Netherlands to block the rallies by Turkish ministers comes as Rutte prepares to face the far-right populist Geert Wilders in a general election on Wednesday.

Analysts say that with polls indicating a tight outcome in the April 16 referendum in Turkey, Erdogan is keen to exploit the crisis to win the support of nationalist voters in Turkey who are crucial in determining the outcome of polls.

Our nation on April 16 at the ballot box... will give the best answer to Turkeys enemies, Erdogan said.

In a bid to woo support from citizens living in Europe -- where a majority have traditionally supported the ruling party -- Turkish officials have sought to take the campaign to European cities.

In Germany, there are over 1.4 million Turkish citizens eligible to vote while there are nearly 250,000 in the Netherlands, according to official figures from November 2015.
European companies can ban employees from wearing religious or political symbols including the Islamic headscarf, the EUs top court ruled on Tuesday in a landmark case.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said it does not constitute direct discrimination if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign.

The Luxembourg-based court was considering the case of a Muslim woman fired by the security company G4S in Belgium after she insisted on wearing a headscarf.

Rights group Amnesty International said the ECJ action was disappointing and would only encourage discrimination.

By ruling that company policies can prohibit religious symbols on the grounds of neutrality, they have opened a back door to precisely such prejudice, Amnesty said in a statement.

The wearing of religious symbols, and especially Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, has become a hot button issue with the rise of nationalist and sometimes overtly anti-Muslim parties across Europe.

Some countries such as Austria are mulling a complete ban on the full-face veil in public while in France last year local authorities barred women wearing the burkini, the full-body swimsuit, fining those who did.

Manfred Weber, head of the centre-right European Peoples Party, the biggest in the European Parliament, welcomed the ECJ finding as a victory for European values.

Important ruling by the European Court of Justice: employers have the right to ban the Islamic veil at work. European values must apply in public life, Weber said in a tweet.

Treat all employees equally

The ECJ was ruling on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium.

At the time, the company had an unwritten rule that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

In 2006, Achbita told G4S she wanted to wear the Islamic headscarf at work but was told this would not be allowed.

Subsequently, the company introduced a formal ban. Achbita was dismissed and she went to court claiming discrimination.

The ECJ said European Union law does bar discrimination on religious grounds, but G4Ss actions were based on treating all employees the same, meaning no one person was singled out for application of the ban.

The rule thus treats all employees of the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally, the ECJ said.

Accordingly, such an internal rule does not introduce a difference of treatment that is directly based on religion or belief, it said.

Customers cannot demand ban

However in a related case in France, the ECJ ruled that a customer could not demand that a company employee not wear the Islamic headscarf when conducting business with them on its behalf.

Design engineer Asma Bougnaoui was employed full-time by Micropole, a private company, in 2008, having been told that wearing the headscarf might cause problems with clients.

Following a customer complaint, Micropole asked Bougnaoui not to wear the headscarf on the grounds employees should be dressed neutrally.

She was subsequently dismissed and went to court claiming discrimination.

The ECJ said the case turned on whether there was an internal company rule in place applicable to all, as in the G4S instance, or whether the clients demand meant Bougnaoui was treated differently.

The ECJ concluded that Bougnaoui had indeed been treated differently and so the clients demand that she not wear a headscarf cannot be considered a genuine and determining occupational requirement.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday warned against the forced conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions, describing them as crime in Islam as he greeted the Hindu community on Holi.

Addressing a function in Karachi to celebrate Holi, he insisted that it was not anyones job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth. In his inclusive message to minorities, Sharif said no one can force others to adopt a certain religion in Pakistan.

Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan, Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress.

There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and dont want to see this country develop or prosper, he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his or her religion.

Pakistan didnt come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone, the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief.

Sharif also announced 500 million Pakistan rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday warned against the forced conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions, describing them as crime in Islam as he greeted the Hindu community which celebrated the Holi festival with traditional enthusiasm across Pakistan.

Addressing a function in Karachi to celebrate the Holi festival with the Hindu community, he insisted that it was not anyones job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime ...

In his inclusive message to minorities, Sharif said no one can force others to adopt a certain religion in Pakistan and greeted the gathering with Happy Holi.

Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan, Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress.

There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and dont want to see this country develop or prosper, he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

Pakistan didnt come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone, the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.

The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief.

The Hindu community across Pakistan celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm.

In Karachi, the functions were held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hinderance.

In Punjabs capital Lahore, people from the Hindu community smeared each others faces with colour.

In Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Kurram and Aurakzai tribal agencies, the community celebrated Holi with great pomp and show. People threw colours on each other and later cut a cake and shared the joy.

Sharif also announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.
A newly formed public affairs committee in the US has launched a nationwide awareness campaign to highlight how Indian-Americans have been an intrinsic part of the American fabric as part of efforts to prevent hate crimes against the community.

There is a need to bring understanding about the people of Indian-origin and represent their interests, said Ashwani Dhall, one of the founding members of Indian-American Public Affairs Committee (IAPAC) which was recently formed in Chicago by four eminent Indian-Americans from across the country.

Through a series of grassroots events and town halls in cities across the country, IAPAC will ask different cities and state governments to announce Indian-American awareness month.

The purpose is to spread the word about how Indian-Americans have been an intrinsic part of the American fabric for more than 100 years, a statement said.

As part of the campaign, events are being organised in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas and Seattle.

By bringing together elected officials, local and business leaders and the media, the aim is to assure the Indian-American community that incidents like the hate-crime in Kansas City are not tolerated or repeated, the statement said.

Through these events IAPAC also wants to ensure that correct information about any existing policies is disseminated to people and there is no room left for rumours, it said.

It was heartening to hear (President Donald) Trump denounce the Kansas City incident right at the start of his address to the Congress, said Vinesh Virani, president of IAPAC.

We have hope that the current administration will work to bring everyone together, he said.

Virani said IAPAC is a grassroots organisation formed to keep the Indian-Americans engaged in the local, political and social issues.

We are a group of people of Indian-origin who are doctors, small business owners, hoteliers, IT professionals, executives, essentially people from all fields, who had been closely involved in the local politics during last years general elections, he said.

We were instrumental in encouraging Indian-Americans all over the country to participate in the political process. Instead of waiting for the next elections, we decided to come together and continue to engage the Indian American community, Virani said.

IAPAC said it is a bipartisan and grassroots organisation of Indian-Americans to advocate and safeguard the India-US relationship and the interests of Indian-Americans.
In the 2016 Chinese movie, I am Not Madame Bovary, glamorous actress Fan Bingbing shed makeup for the role of a rural petitioner whose quest for justice takes 11 relentless years.

Thats, however, rarely true for the thousands of petitioners with grievances against local governments, who land in Beijing during the annual two sessions of Chinas Parliament, only to be harassed, driven back or detained by the police.

The National Peoples Congress (NPC), Chinas rubber-stamp Parliament and the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)  the countrys top advisory body  convenes for two weeks every March.

This is the time when citizens with complaints  mostly relating to land, education and healthcare  land up in Beijing from across China to knock the doors of the highest authorities. It is technically legal here to petition the central government in Beijing against local governments.

But rights activists say that in its quest to put up a show of harmony and social and political stability, it is Beijings annual routine to further harass the complainants and dispatch them from the capital.

Local governments obstruct these petitioners because their performance rating drops if the higher authorities receive too many petitions from their residents, Guo Liang, a law professor from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told state media last year.

A human rights activist shared nearly 50 cases of petitioners being detained, sent back to their hometowns or even prevented from leaving their homes to come to Beijing this year; countless more are recorded annually. Sometimes, petitioners and activists are put in pre-emptive detentions before the two sessions. The activist told HT about Qiu Meili from Shanghai, whose house was demolished 10 years ago but is yet to receive compensation; Qiu was detained by local police before leaving for Beijing.

And there are many such examples.

Two female petitioners from central Chinas Henan province allegedly died after being intercepted by local police, state media reported recently.

On the morning of February 28, Cheng Yulan, Shanghai human rights activist and a Christian, was abducted by eight Shanghai police officers from his residence in Beijing, and was taken to Shanghai, was another example shared with HT.

Then theres the case of independent woman author and gender activist Ye Haiyan, who on March 1 was ordered to leave her Beijing home and return to hometown Hubei for the duration of the sessions.

Petitioning is technically a legal activity under Chinese law, but in practice, the central government leaders all but condone unlawful efforts by local governments to stop local citizens from visiting Beijing  using whatever means necessary, William Nee from rights group Amnesty International said.

The underlying issues at hand are often very severe human rights violations, and until these issues are peacefully resolved, petitioning will likely continue to be a main source of tension in Chinese society. What we have seen recently, however, are systematic efforts to muzzle the groups and individuals who have tried to publicise news about petitioners rights, Hong Kong-based Nee told HT.

There has also been a push for the process to go online, but the state bureau of letters and visits, which receives petitions in Beijing, said in 2014 it had received 250,000 personal visits from petitioners. Across the country, some six million petitions are submitted each year, the South China Morning Post recently reported, quoting official figures.

Chinas angry petitioners wish they met officials like Fan Bingbings character in the movie to get justice. Even if it takes 11 years.
About 7,000 men have signed a contract since the beginning of 2017 to service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak has said.

"Over the two months, we've enrolled 7,000 Ukrainians who have decided for themselves that this is where they belong," he said during an official event on Ukrainian Volunteer Day in Kyiv on Tuesday.

The minister praised the level of the preparedness of soldiers on contracts.

"It is very high and it is constantly growing," he said.
Parliament gave its approval on Monday to begin the process of Britain leaving the EU  better known as Brexit  but the ruling party in Scotland has sent Westminster to a tizzy with the demand for Scexit: another referendum on leaving the United Kingdom.

The two exits go to the heart of the Leave and Remain camps reflected in the June 2016 EU referendum, when 52% voted to remain and 28% leave. Scotland voted 62% to remain in the EU, which is driving the demand for another independence referendum. Both outcomes  Brexit and Scotland independence referendum  are riddled with a haze of complexities, but are closely linked that will test Prime Minister Theresa May to the hilt.

For now, Scotlands referendum demand on Monday delayed the Brexit firing shot.

May was supposed to send to Brussels on Tuesday the notification invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that sets out the process of an EU member state to leave the union. That will now happen by the end of this month, she confirmed.

The House of Lords on Monday night agreed not to insist on the two amendments to the Brexit bill it had passed last week. Earlier in the day, the House of Commons had overturned the amendments and sent the bill again to the upper house. Now armed with parliamentary approval, May is on course to deliver Brexit, but found herself mired in politics related to Scotlands referendum that has the potential of further complicating the Brexit process, if not undoing it.

Both houses of parliament need to approve holding another referendum in Scotland, but even though May has signalled her opposition to it, a clear message from the Scottish parliament on the referendum cannot be ignored by London.

Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants the referendum to be held between Autumn 2018 and spring 2019, which is close to the mid-2019 target when the two-year process of exiting the EU under Article 50 will end, bringing with it several complexities.

Sturgeon, who would like an independent Scotland to remain a member of the EU, was told by London on Tuesday it would have to reapply for membership, which could take years. But the message from Edinburgh to May is not to stand in the way of the second referendum.

Calling the situation Mays home made crisis, The Guardian commented: Theresa May ...may have precipitated Scotlands departure from the UK Nicola Sturgeons strongest argument may not be that material circumstances have changed since 2014 because an English majority voted to leave the EU, but the disregard that the prime minister has shown for all those who voted to remain.

Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party leader, expressed his frustration that Article 50 was not being triggered on Tuesday: Its been nine months since that joyous morning on June 24 when we realised that Brexit had won the referendum. Nine months - a full gestation - and still no delivery.

Of course Im disappointed. Im pleased that we are through all these hurdles, but Im just a bit surprised that Nicola Sturgeons announcement should have put the prime minister off. Now that we are delaying the triggering of Article 50, what it means is that we will miss the summit of European leaders on April 6 at which Brexit could practicably have been discussed. Therefore, weve kicked it into the long grass until May.

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A Muslim couple has sued US United Airlines for forcing them off a flight last year after they sought help with a child booster seat, alleging that they were discriminated against based on faith.

Mohamad and Eaman Shebley, of northern Chicago suburbs, alleged that they were preparing to take off on a flight from Chicagos OHare International Airport to Washington DC when they were kicked off the flight.

The Shebleys filed the lawsuit on Friday in a federal court through attorneys with the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in connection with the March 20, 2016 incident aboard the SkyWest flight, operating as United Express from Chicago to Washington, the Chicago Tribune reported.

An attorney for the couple said they think inherent bias prompted flight crew members to kick the Shebleys off the United Flight after Eaman asked for assistance with a child booster seat.

In a statement, a spokesperson with United declined to comment on the suit, but said, Both SkyWest and United hold our employees to the highest standards of professionalism and have zero tolerance for discrimination.

The suit comes at a time of growing anxiety among Muslims who worry they can be targeted and removed from flights just for making other passengers feel uncomfortable, CAIR officials said.

We believe the time is right now to bring this to the attention of the courts and the federal government and ask for some accountability on behalf of the airlines -- thats really what this suit is about, Phil Robertson, CAIR Chicagos lead attorney who is representing the Shebleys in the suit, told reporters.

This affects more than the Shebley family...It affects our entire community, said Ahmed Rehab, CAIR Chicagos executive director.

The familys removal from the flight came after the parents requested an additional shoulder harness that goes around the back of the seat and attaches to the lap belt for their youngest daughters booster seat.

The 15-page, three-count suit, states that they had sought a strap for their child sitting in the booster seat, but were told by a flight attendant that the airline did not provide over-the-shoulder harnesses for passengers.

Another crew member told the family that the child could not sit in a booster seat but ignored subsequent questions from Eaman, a Lebanese-American who wears a headscarf.

Despite removing the booster chair and storing it, the Shebleys claimed they were asked to leave the plane by the flight attendant and the pilot.
Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday ordered that blasphemous content on social media websites be removed or blocked and those posting such material strictly punished.

Blasphemy is a criminal offence in Pakistan and can carry the death penalty. Sharifs tough talk against blasphemy will appeal to his conservative voter base ahead of elections likely to take place next year.

Effective steps must be taken immediately to remove and block such content, the prime minister said in a statement.

He instructed Pakistans foreign ministry to contact international foreign social media firms and demand the blocking of blasphemous posts. He did not mention any company by name, but social networks such as Facebook Inc, its Instagram unit and rival Twitter Inc are popular in Pakistan.

All relevant institutions must unite to hunt those who spread such material and to award them strict punishment under the law, Sharif said.

Blasphemy is a highly charged issue in Pakistan where even being accused of insulting Islam or Prophet Mohammad can provoke targeted acts of violence by religious right-wing vigilantes. Dozens have been murdered over blasphemy allegations, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

In one high profile case in 2011, the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards after he called for reform of the countrys blasphemy laws. Taseers killer, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed last year, but not before becoming a hero in the eyes of the religious right.

Sharif also called for punishment for those who used the countrys blasphemy laws to settle private disputes, which critics of the religious law say happens frequently.

When a group of five liberal activists went missing earlier this year, they were accused by religious hardliners of blasphemy. Some among the group had previously criticised the political influence of the military and spoken up for the rights of religious minorities.

They later reappeared in public in Pakistan. The activists, one of whom claimed to have been tortured by a state institution linked to the military, denied the accusations of blasphemy. The military and the government denied any involvement in their brief disappearance.

Earlier on Tuesday, at a ceremony in the port city of Karachi to commemorate the Hindu religious festival of Holi, Sharif said he would fight for Pakistans minority communities who were unjustly treated.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that the Pakistani nation has always rejected politics of hate, he said.

In January, Sharif inaugurated the restoration of an ancient Hindu temple complex in Punjab, a gesture seen by many as an appeal to the Muslim nations minority communities and an attempt to soften the countrys image abroad.
The Pakistan Army will send a brigade of combat troops to Saudi Arabia to strengthen defences along the kingdoms vulnerable southern border in the face of threats from the Islamic State and Houthi rebels, according to media reports.

Following discussions with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan plans to send the brigade in response to a request from Riyadh, which wants the troops as an emergency response force, The National reported.

The brigade will be based in southern Saudi Arabia and will be deployed inside its borders to thwart possible attacks by Yemens Houthi rebels, Middle East Eye quoted its sources as saying. It will not be used beyond Saudi borders, one source said.

The National also quoted a senior Pakistani military source as confirming the Saudi request and saying that the troops would not go across the border into Yemen. The troops will be kept in standby for any major internal security threat or terrorist incident, the source added.

A brigade in the Pakistan Army comprises about 3,000 troops.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have very close defence and security relations and this will not be the first time that Pakistani troops will be deployed to the kingdom. Pakistani troops train and advise Saudi military personnel and sources told Hindustan Times that about 2,000 Pakistani officers and soldiers are currently in the kingdom.

Military ruler Zia ul-Haq sent an elite armoured brigade to Saudi Arabia at King Fahds request after terrorists besieged the Grand Mosque complex in Mecca and the Iranian revolution in 1979. The brigade was deployed for a decade and some 40,000 soldiers served in it.

The latest development has coincided with the former Pakistan Army chief, Raheel Sharif, being appointed head of the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance (IMA). The News daily reported on Monday that Sharif had been issued a three-year multiple entry visa  an indication that he had accepted the job.

Pakistan being sucked into conflict in Yemen?

Sources in Islamabad said Pakistan was apparently being sucked into the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The reports suggest the Pakistani troops will be positioned in areas that are being shelled by the rebels and any eventuality could lead to an escalation, said a source.

Adding to the complexity of the situation is Iranian backing for the Shia Houthi rebels, forcing Islamabad to strike a balance between Riyadh and Tehran. Pakistan is also worried about potential domestic fallout of the fighting in Yemen as the Shia minority makes up almost a fifth of its population.

After the IMA was formed in 2015, Pakistans Parliament turned down a request from Saudi Arabia for troops and combat aircraft. Instead, Pakistans defence minister Khawaja Asif only pledged to safeguard Saudi Arabias territorial integrity while working as a facilitator to end conflicts in between Muslim countries.

Current Pakistan Army chief, Gen Qamar Bajwa, reiterated this pledge during a visit to Saudi Arabia last December.

But given Pakistans economic dependence on Saudi Arabia, which is home to millions of expatriate workers who remit huge amounts home every year, it has become difficult for Islamabad to say no to Riyadh, sources said.

The two-year-old war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 people and injured another 40,000. Both sides have been accused of war crimes. Saudi Arabia and its allies in the IMA intervened after Houthis overran the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and ousted President Abd Rabbuh Hadi, who is backed by the Saudis.

In recent months, the Houthis have carried out several cross-border missile strikes. Reports in the Arabic media said a missile killed 80 soldiers on a base run jointly by the Saudis and UAE on Zuqar island in the Red Sea on January 31.

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Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, Somali officials and piracy experts said Tuesday, in the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel on the crucial global trade route since 2012.

The Aris 13 on Monday reported being approached by two skiffs, John Steed with the organization Oceans Beyond Piracy said. The ship had been carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalias capital, Mogadishu, he said. Eight Sri Lankan crew members were reported aboard.

An official in the semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off Somalias northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabab. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The ship was anchored off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship, he told The Associated Press by phone.

An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident told the AP that no ransom demand had been made.

The vessels captain reported to the company they were approached by two skiffs and that one of them they could see armed personnel on board, the official said. The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as no one was authorized to speak publicly about the incident.

It was not immediately clear who owned the ship or where it was flagged. Steed said it was United Arab Emirates-owned and Sri Lankan-flagged, but the Middle East-based official said it was Greek-owned and Comoros-flagged with plans to re-flag it to Sri Lanka. Such ships often are reflagged and sold many times.

A Britain-based spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force operation off Somalia, Flt. Lt. Louise Tagg, confirmed that an incident involving an oil tanker had occurred and an investigation was underway. The US Navys 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain and oversees anti-piracy efforts in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This would be the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Steed said.

Piracy off Somalias coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter-century of conflict.

But frustrations have been rising among local fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.

Nur, the local elder, told the AP that young fishermen including former pirates have hijacked the ship.

They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it, he said. Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing.

Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom. They dont normally kill hostages unless they come under attack, including during rescue attempts. A United Nations report seen by the AP in November said Somali pirates retain the capacity and intent to resume the attacks and lately have shifted to targeting smaller foreign fishing boats.

Australian government records from 2014 show the ship in Mondays incident was owned by Flair Shipping Trading FZE in the United Arab Emirates and linked to UAE-based ship management firm Aurora Ship Management FZE. It was flying under the flag of Liberia at the time. It was not immediately clear if the companies were still linked to the ship.

Argyrios Karagiannis, the managing director of Flair Shipping, declined to comment. Calls and emails to Aurora went unanswered.

Concerns about piracy off Africas coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.
A Punjab-origin woman, who lost her 12-year-old son in a car crash in Britain nearly two years ago, has launched a seat belt campaign in his memory to highlight the importance of wearing seat belts while driving.

Sukhi Atwal has released closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the crash in May 2015 to show the moment her son, Amar, was hit by a speeding taxi and flung because he was not wearing a seat belt. He died in a Birmingham hospital days later.

We will never get over the loss of Amar. He was such a bright, intelligent, fun-loving boy. He was an innocent victim of the crash and there is now a huge hole which can never be filled in our lives, his mother told the Birmingham Mail.

Wearing a seat belt could have saved his life, at the very least it would have given him a better chance of survival. We can never get Amar back, but I just hope by encouraging both young and old to try and be as safe as possible, they wont have to go through the heartbreak we have, she said.

Speeding taxi driver, 35-year-old Nadeem Hussain, was found guilty of ignoring give way instructions when he drove across a junction without stopping or braking in West Bromwich in the West Midlands region of England.

He was jailed for six years for causing death by dangerous driving and two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. West Midlands Police has now produced a video featuring images of Amar and Sukhi that will be used during school talks.

Special constable Clive Broadhurst said: I regularly go around schools to give road safety advice and urge pupils to be strapped in. It can prevent serious injuries or even save your life.

It has been the law for more than 30 years to wear a seat belt and only takes a few seconds to buckle up, but it is still surprising the amount of people who dont. It is very brave of Sukhi to share her experience and hopefully it will hit home how wearing a seat belt can make a difference, he said.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from April 7 to 10 to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two neighbours, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said.

The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, according to the statement issued in Dhaka.

The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders, said the statement jointly issued by the two foreign ministries in Dhaka and New Delhi.

Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modis visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.

She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.

Foreign secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indias high commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting foreign secretary Md Shahidul Haque on Monday said they were attaching highest importance to the visit, Bdnews24 reported.

Hasina is the head of government of a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time, Shringla was quoted as saying.

The envoy also said President Pranab Mukherjee in an exceptional gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit.

Everything is work in progress. Well have to see what is possible and what is not possible, he said when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal.
A four-year-old girl who walked miles through the freezing Siberian wilderness to get help for her sick grandmother has been hailed as a hero in Russias Tuva republic, while a criminal case has been opened against her mother.

Saglana Salchak had been living with her grandparents at their remote farm deep in the taiga forest near the Mongolian border, more than 12 miles from the nearest village and five miles from their closest neighbour.

Last month the child awoke to find that her 60-year-old grandmother was not moving. After talking with her blind grandfather, she decided to walk to the next homestead for help, according to local news.

Taking only a box of matches in case she had to light a fire, the four-year-old set out into the early-morning darkness, where temperatures hit -34C. It took her several hours to walk the five miles along a river bank through snowdrifts. Fortunately, she did not get stuck in the snow, often chest high, or encounter any of the wolves that had at times attacked her grandparents livestock.

Tuva has simply filled up with wolves, Semyon Rubtsov, head of the regional search and rescue group, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. They eat the livestock  the herders moan about them. She could have easily stumbled on a pack in the darkness.

After five gruelling miles Saglana nearly missed her neighbours house amid the undergrowth, and would have passed it if one of them had not spotted her. They called in medical personnel from the village, who, after checking on the girl, made the trek back to her grandparents place. There they discovered that the grandmother had died of a heart attack.

Saglana told Komsomolskaya Pravda she was not scared making the trip through the forest alone. I just walked, walked and got there, she said. She admitted, however, that she had been cold and had really wanted to eat.

Although she caught a cold, Saglana quickly recovered at the local hospital and is now living at a social centre, where she just celebrated her fifth birthday. Local media have declared her a hero. You cant [easily] impress residents of the remote Tere-Kholsky district with extreme stories about taiga life. Nonetheless, the incident several days ago amazed even the old-timers in Kungurtug, the district centre, Tuva Online also wrote about Saglanas feat.

Saglanas mother and stepfather look after their own herd of horses in another part of the region. The social policy ministry offered the youngster a free trip to a sanatorium with her mother, Eleonora, when she returns from herding in May.

But on Sunday, the Tuva investigative committee opened a criminal case against Eleonora Salchak for leaving a minor in danger. She knew that the elderly [grandparents] lacked the ability to take measures to guarantee the childs safety, it said in a press release. If charged, the mother could face up to a year in prison. The committee said it was also investigating the actions of social policy officials in the girls district.

Sayana Mongush, an activist and journalist in the regional capital of Kyzyl, told the Guardian that it was shocking Salchaks grandparents didnt have any phone or internet connection, especially since defence minister and Tuva native Sergei Shoigu previously promoted archaeological digs at an ancient fortress located in their district.

Even in Soviet times, herders in Tuva had [material] privileges and radio communications, she said. But now in the 21st century a four-year-old child has to go by foot only because theres no connectivity. This is nonsense, and the crime is not by the girls mother, but by the authorities.

A sparsely populated republic of rugged forests, mountains and plains, Tuva is renowned for its traditional throat-singing and for ancient shamanistic religious practices, which coexist alongside Buddhism.
When the army recaptured Aleppo in December, Mohammad Baqdul left Beirut and returned with his family to his native city, convinced the end of Syrias six-year war was near.

Baqdul fled Syrias second city when rebels overran its east in 2012, posing one of the most serious threats yet to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

But four years later, the tables have turned.

Assads forces have recaptured the whole city, shattering rebel dreams of toppling the regime and putting the brutal war on a new trajectory.

When I heard Aleppo had been secured, I thought the war was on the brink of ending, so I brought my family back, says Baqdul, speaking to AFP in the once rebel-held quarter of Shaar.

The devastation in Shaar is striking: its dusty streets are flanked by flattened buildings and piles of rubble.

Baqdul stands proudly with his young daughter in front of his new brick shop, welcoming residents who are buying materials to fix up their homes.

- People are tired -

Syrias war erupted on March 15, 2011 with peaceful demonstrations that, after a violent crackdown by government security forces, transformed into an armed uprising.

In six years, the multi-front war has become one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century.

Backed by Turkey, the Gulf and some Western nations, Syrian rebels were at their strongest in 2012 and many thought they would march to Damascus.

But Assads powerful allies came to the rescue: Iran sent military advisers and fighters, Lebanons Shiite militant group Hezbollah joined forces and Russia began a deadly bombing campaign in support of Damascus in 2015.

That support was key to retaking Aleppo, allowing the government to consolidate its upper hand by seizing other strategic territory, including from Islamic State group jihadists in northern Syria.

While swathes of the country remain embroiled in violence, Syrias government has decidedly won the crux of the conflict.

Aleppo, meanwhile, has become a symbol of the most destructive streak of the war -- but some have found a silver lining.

I think the war is heading toward an end, because people are tired and they prefer to stay where they are instead of being displaced again, said Ibrahim Amoura, a 35-year-old labourer.

He spoke to AFP while working on a ceiling in the formerly rebel-held district of Karm al-Jabal.

For years, residents of Karm al-Jabal had only heard the sounds of gunfire and bombardment. Now, the nearly-incessant whirring of generators, cement mixers and pounding hammers fill their days.

- Reconstruction will take time -

A larger-than-life portrait of Assad with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the background looks over what was once Aleppos front line, teeming with military vehicles and Russian soldiers.

The municipality is eager to erase all trace of the former fault line that split the city for years between the government-held west and rebel-controlled east.

But the divide is powerful: buildings in the west were indeed damaged by rebel rockets, but the east has been totally ravaged, reduced to rows of crumbling buildings nearly indistinguishable from each other.

Water remains a precious commodity in Aleppo, cut off for almost two months by IS jihadists who controlled the main pumping station further east.

Government forces recaptured the pump at Khafsah last week and have pledged to repair the lines. For now, residents still queue up at local distributors with tanks to fill up.

State electricity is equally rare, and generators are cropping up across the city.

For Aleppos deputy governor Abdulghani Kassab, reuniting Aleppo is a turning point in the Syrian crisis because its our second city, the economic and cultural capital.

Residents are full of energy and optimism... Reconstruction will take time, but we will work hard, he told AFP.

- Mother of all revolutionaries -

For rebels living just outside the city, Aleppos fall was indeed a turning point -- but instead of a harbinger of stability, it was a death knell for their dreams of Assads ouster.

Aleppo was the mother of all revolutionaries. Losing her really was like losing our mother, said Abu Maria, a 30-year-old Islamist rebel.

Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh, told AFP that Aleppo symbolised hope for the opposition that it could position itself as an alternative to the regime.

Its this same hope that was shattered in December, that reduced the uprising to a peripheral insurrection, Pierret said.

The opposition dreamt of building an administration that could compete with Damascus, said Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute.

But the defeat (in Aleppo) shattered their morale. Around Damascus, the surrenders are multiplying, he said.

According to Balanche, regime forces now control 36 percent of Syrias territory, with IS in second place at 29 percent, Kurdish forces at 23 percent and rebels with only 12 percent.

Back in the devastated northern city, Aleppos municipal council has planted rows of lemon and orange trees by a bridge.

Mohammad Jassem Mohammad, a 43-year-old municipal employee, is watering them patiently.

This is the sign that life is returning, he says.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled out Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeons plans for a new independence referendum before Britains exit from the European Union (EU), the media reported.

Earlier on Monday, Sturgeon announced she would set the wheels in motion for a second referendum next week, and insisted the ballot should take place between late 2018 and early 2019 - while the Brexit negotiations are still going on, The Telegraph reported.

However, later on Monday night, the Prime Minister issued a stern rebuke, telling her politics is not a game, and accusing her of tunnel vision.

The tunnel vision the SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) has shown today is deeply regrettable; it sets Scotland on a course for more uncertainty and division, creating huge uncertainty, May said.

And this is at a time when the evidence is that the majority of the Scottish people dont want a second independence referendum.

Sources close to May said she would not allow a referendum until several months after Britains EU exit, the Telegraph said.

Hours after Mays rebuke, the Downing Street made an unexpected announcement that the Prime Minister will not now invoke Article 50 -- formal procedure of leaving the EU -- before March 27.

The Article 50 Bill is expected to receive royal assent from the Queen on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Sturgeon said that she had been left with little choice than to offer the Scottish people, who voted to remain in the EU, a choice at the end of the negotiations of a hard Brexit or living in an independent Scotland, the Guardian reported.

The UK government has not moved even an inch in pursuit of compromise and agreement. Our efforts at compromise have instead been met with a brick wall of intransigence, the First Minister said, claiming that any pretence of a partnership of equal nations was all but dead.

The first referendum on Scottish independence took place on September 18, 2014.

The No side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3 per cent) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7 per cent) voting in favour.
Ukraine has reported 97 attacks on the positions of the Ukrainian armed forces in Donbas on Monday, March 13, as a result of which one Ukrainian soldier was killed, eight were wounded or injured, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) headquarters has said.

"In the past day, the situation in the ATO zone deteriorated - the Russian terrorist troops increased the number of barrages in the second half of the day, attacking the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the use of heavy weapons. A total of 97 attacks have been recorded. One Ukrainian defender died, four were wounded, another four were injured in the past day," the ATO HQ wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

Ukrainian troops stationed near the village of Pavlopil in the Mariupol sector were attacked with the use of 122mm artillery systems. Small arms, large-caliber machine guns and grenade launchers were used to fire on positions near the villages of Shyrokyne, Hnutove, Vodiane, and Chermalyk. Maryinka came under 82mm mortar fire.

Shelling continued in the Donetsk sector. In particular, positions near the towns of Avdiyivka and Svitlodarsk, and the villages of Opytne, Zaitseve and Novhorodske were attacked with the use of heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, and 82mm mortars. Avdiyivka and Butivka coal mine were attacked by a tank along with the use of banned 120mm mortars. The outskirts of the village of Verkhniotoretske and Butivka coal mine were under 120mm mortar fire. Grenade launchers and machine guns were used to fire on the village of Pisky, while fire from 82mm mortars hit the village of Kamianka. The situation was tense near the village of Luhanske, which was attacked with the use of grenade launchers, mortars, and 152mm artillery systems.

Grenade launchers of various systems, 82mm and 120mm mortars were used to attack the Ukrainian positions near the village of Krymske and the town of Popasna in the Luhansk sector. Further, the enemy opened fire from automatic grenade launchers in the vicinity of the village of Triokhizbenka, while small arms and man-portable antitank guns were used to shell Ukrainian positions near the village of Novo-Oleksandrivka, and small arms near were used to fire on the village of Stanytsia Luhanska.
US president Donald Trump has given new authority to the Central Intelligence Agency to use drone strikes against suspected terrorists that were fully vested in the military under the Obama administration in the interest of transparency and reducing the number of unintended casualties.

The administration was finishing a review that would allow the Pentagon to carry out drone strikes anywhere in the world by lowering the acceptable threshold for civilian casualties and rolling back constraints put in place by President Obama in 2013.

The first strike under the new authority took place in February, targeting senior al Qaeda leader in Syria, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the changed rules.

The Journal also reported that though US officials insisted the new authority applied specifically to operations in Syria, a drone strike was conducted in a Pakistani village close to the border with Afghanistan earlier his month, which was not acknowledged by the Pentagon.

The CIA works under secret authorities and doesnt have to announce the strikes, the targets and unintended casualties, which the Pentagon did.

Trump, who has indicated he wants to escalate the fight against Islamic State and other terrorists, changed the rules days after his visit to CIA on January 21, now famous for his boasting about his electoral victory and rant against the press.

The new authority is expected to reignite the human rights debate about these strikes that had pushed President Obama in 2013 to shift control to the Pentagon to make it a more transparent process with accountability, specially in view of unintended victims, bystanders mostly.

While not subject to public scrutiny, CIA adheres to a higher standard for vetting targets using the measure of near certainty against the militarys reasonable certainty for battlefield strikes and and near certainty for the ones outside, the Journal reported.

The review of the policy on drone strikes will also allow the Pentagon to order strikes without checking with the White House, as had been mandated by President Obama, who had tried to bring transparency and accountability to the process, as he leaned on it heavily as a substitute for military deployment.
In the backwash of the Trump Effect, universities in Canada are witnessing a surge in the number of applicants from India as well as students enrolled in US schools exploring a transfer.

For instance, the University of Toronto, a premier Canadian public university, has recorded a steep increase in applicants for the school year beginning in September  up from 793 at the end of February last year to 1,263 this year.

This is a record year in that sense for the varsity located in Canadas largest city, and its vice-president (international), Professor Ted Sargent, said, Thats up 60% year over year. Its increasing every year and this is a big jump for us.

Professor Ted Sargent, vice-president (international) at the University of Toronto. (Courtesy University of Toronto)

Obviously, other factors play into the choice. Principal among them are the excellence of the institution and employability offered by a degree there.

Asked if the anti-immigrant environment in the United States played into the decision as well, Sargent said, I think its probably part of the mix. Once they (the students) get past those two things, excellence of education and employability, they then say, Will I feel accepted, will I feel safe?

He said he noticed this trend among students from India and the US, and also from researchers and faculty members: Theres a real upswing in interest in University of Toronto. Theres definitely a spike going on right at the moment.

That increase may accentuate in the years ahead if American policy turns immigrant-unfriendly.

Mel Broitman, director of the Canadian University Application Centre (CUAC), said, I expect that interest to grow. I anticipate a growth of 20% this year and 50% next year.

Mel Broitman, director of the Canadian University Application Centre. (Courtesy Canadian University Application Centre)

Referring to recent attacks against Indians and American citizens of Indian-origin in Kansas and Seattle, Broitman said people are starting to get a little bit panic-stricken.

CUACs four offices in India have seen a sharp rise in the number of calls coming in, some from students who were originally planning to study in the US or are already enrolled in US schools and are exploring a transfer.

Canadas higher education system, Broitman felt, was getting its due: Its not a second-best choice for quality, its just that people have always been thinking about America.

Sargent believes Canadas openness is a draw for international students.

There are some other parts of the world that are looking inwards. And Canada is looking outwards and reaching out globally. I think its a competitive advantage for our nation, he said.

Recruiters are seeking to leverage this situation. Broitman will head to India after the board examinations are completed.

For University of Toronto, India has been a priority for years and Sargent will be in New Delhi and Mumbai later this month for a visit with an agenda that includes honing alumni networks, research partnerships, and attracting even more Indian students.

As he said, We want to double down in India.

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President Donald Trump met with Saudi Arabias deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday for a discussion that was likely to touch on investment opportunities in the kingdom and efforts to stop the war in Syria.

Trump, who took office in January, and Prince Mohammed who is also the kingdoms defence minister, kicked off their talks in the Oval Office, where they posed for a picture in front of journalists and did not take questions.

US vice president Mike Pence, Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon were also present.

The meeting was the first since Trumps inauguration with the powerful prince, who is leading the kingdoms efforts to revive state finances by diversifying the economy away from a reliance on falling crude oil revenues.

After visiting in the Oval Office, Trump and his advisers joined the prince and the Saudi delegation for lunch in the White House state dining room.
Britains regulator of charity organisations has opened an investigation into what it called serious issues in Bhaarat Welfare Trust (BWT), which seeks to promote Hindu religion and culture, and contributes to charity work in India.

The Charity Commission said on Tuesday it had concerns about the ability of the Leicester-based charitys trustees to account for funds transferred to India between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2015, and the basis on which donations for a specific project were held.

In 2016, the trusts income was declared to be 1,198,957, most of which came from voluntary donations. Its expenditure during the year was 1,280,534, mostly for charitable activities. Its founder-trustee is Kenya-born Kantilal Parmanand Unnadkat.

BWT, according to local reports, had offered to hold on behalf of a group 96,000 it had collected from the public for a Shantidham crematorium for Leicesters Hindu and Sikh population. But when a suitable location could not be found for 10 years, the Shantidham group that raised the money (but was not a registered charity) demanded the money back.

In a statement, BWT said last year that its trustees decided that the Shantidham crematorium project was no longer feasible and had no prospect of completion. As a result, the 96,000 raised for Shantidham was donated to charitable projects in India.

According to Vinod Popat from Shantidham, BWT refused to meet up with us or reply to our letters. The money belongs to the people of Leicester and Leicestershire. Yes it's a lot of money and a lot of people are aggrieved.

Charity Commission said its inquiry will examine whether the trustees acted prudently in relation to the financial administration and management of the charity; whether the trustees complied with and fulfilled their duties and responsibilities as trustees under charity law; whether the trustees have protected the charitys assets, including its reputation in relation to the ongoing dispute with another registered charity; and whether legal action taken against another charity is lawful and if so, whether use of charitable funds on this action is justifiable.

The commission said: The Commission conducted a books and records inspection at the charity in May 2015, and identified a number of serious regulatory concerns about the financial management of the charity.

In particular the Commission had concerns about the ability of the trustees to account for funds transferred to India between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2015, the basis on which donations for a specific project were held, unmanaged conflicts of interests and whether Gift Aid had been validly claimed by the charity.

In August 2015 the regulator issued an action plan for the trustees to address these concerns. However the charitys response provided in November 2015 was lacking. Further meetings were held in August and November 2016 but the trustees failed to address the Commissions concerns. The Commission has further serious concerns relating to legal action taken by the charity regarding a dispute between the charity and another UK registered charity.

The regulator, however, stressed that opening an inquiry is not in itself a finding of wrong doing. The inquiry report will be published at a later date, it added.

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Brexit-bound Britain will seek to upscale its links with the Commonwealth by hosting the next summit in April 2018 in London, when leaders of 52 countries  including India  will participate in events at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and elsewhere.

Britain hopes to compensate for the loss of access to the European Single Market to some extent after leaving the EU by revitalising its historic connections with the Commonwealth, many of whose countries were part of the British empire.

Official sources said on Monday  March 13 is celebrated as the Commonwealth Day  that it will be the first time that Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle will be among venues for a Commonwealth Summit.

A high-level ministerial group with a former diplomat as its CEO has been formed for the summit, when Britain will take over as the next chair of the group. The unit has been set up in the backdrop of reports that the current Commonwealth Secretariat need to be shored up.

Prime Minister Theresa May was due to meet Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the current Commonwealth Chair, to discuss preparations for next years summit. She will also join the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey attended by Queen Elizabeth.

May said: As we prepare to host the Commonwealth Summit in London next April, we are reminded today of the unique and proud global relationships that we have forged with the diverse and vibrant alliance of Commonwealth nations.

And in hosting the Commonwealth Summit next year, the UK is committed to working with all members not only to reaffirm these shared values, but also to re-energise and revitalise the Commonwealth to cement its relevance to this and future generations.

Officials said May and her cabinet will oversee preparations for the summit through a new Inter-Ministerial Group co-chaired by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd. May has appointed Tim Hitchens, former envoy and assistant private secretary to the Queen, as the units CEO.

The Commonwealth is made up of 52 members spanning six continents with a combined population of around 2.4 billion people, almost half of whom are under 25. The group includes established economies such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, as well as emerging markets like India, Malaysia, and South Africa, with trade between Commonwealth countries projected to be worth $1 trillion by 2020.

A meeting of Commonwealth trade ministers here last week discussed ways to enhance trade within the group as well as globally. Appointing a trade ambassador and India leading the groups focus on SMEs were some of the key decisions at the meeting.

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Ted Poe, a senior United States lawmaker, said Monday he was very hopeful of the enactment of a legislation he introduced last week calling for the administration to make a determination if Pakistan is a state-sponsor of terrorism, or not.

This is the second time Poe, a Texas Republican who heads the powerful House subcommittee on terrorism, has moved this bill; the last one in September 2016 did not go anywhere, coming as it had in the dying days of that congress. Lawmakers were focussed on their re-election and the country was in the middle of a bitterly contested race for the White House

He has time now. And, in a marked contrast to his previous attempt, Republicans are in control of both congress and the White House.

The bill already has the support of many lawmakers, Poe told reporters in a conference call from Texas, adding he expected to see some lawmakers sign on as co-sponsors. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican who had jointly moved the last bill, was on board already.

Poe also said he believed this White House would be sympathetic to the bill as it just requires a determination to be made either way; yes or no. And not, he stressed again and again, that Pakistan be named one. The very process of making that determination, if the bill was enacted, would be embarrassing enough for Pakistan. And if it was indeed designated a state-sponsor of terrorism, it would be subjected to limited financial aid, ban on defense exports and restricted access to dual use items.

Poes bill asks the president to issue a report within 90 days of signing the bill into law whether Pakistan has provided support for international terrorism. And the secretary of state should issue a follow-up report after 30 days either making a determination that Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism or a detailed justification as to why it does not meet the legal criteria for such a designation.

The congressman himself seemed to have no doubts. Pakistan is playing the United States, he said, adding, They take money from the United States but to support terrorism And went to refer to Osama bin Laden found hiding in Pakistan.

There was absolutely no way, he said, echoing a widely held view in America, that anyone can say that Pakistan, specifically the ISI (that countrys military intelligence service) did not know that Osama bin Laden was there.

Though his legislation did not bring up Pakistan-based terrorists hitting India, he cited it among his reasons on Monday: Pakistan fosters a relationship with terrorist groups as a way to leverage influence over its rivals India and Afghanistan.

His September 2016, which he had introduced with another Republican lawmaker Dana Rohrabacher, was moved just days after terrorists of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad killed 17 soldiers in an attack on an Indian military facility in Uri.

Congressman Poe is an outspoken critic of Pakistan and a leading member of a growing group of lawmakers who have been calling for the US to get tough with an ally who they routinely call duplicitous, untrustworthy and a frenemy.

Day before Poe moved the present Bill, he co-authored an oped with a James Clad, a former Pentagon official, urging the new Trump administration to consider a radical reset of ties with Pakistan. Something must change in our dealings with a terrorist-supporting, irresponsible nuclear-weapons state, and it must change soon.

Others have called for a similar rethink. A bipartisan group of leading experts on South Asia has said the administration should to be ready to adopt tougher measures toward Islamabad, even the threat of declaring it state sponsor of terrorism.
Donald Trump will donate his annual presidential salary of $400,000 to charity by years end, spokesman Sean Spicer said --and he even wants the media he often criticizes to help him choose a worthwhile cause.

The presidents intention is to donate his salary at the end of the year, Spicer told reporters on Monday at his daily briefing. He made a pledge to the American people.

He kindly asked that you all help determine where that goes, he continued -- a rather unusual statement from a White House that has made hostile confrontation with the media a near-daily occurrence.

The way that we can avoid scrutiny is to let the press corps determine where it should go, Spicer said with a hint of irony, perhaps in reference to past media scrutiny of Trumps donations and the management of his family foundation.

Several times during his presidential campaign, the billionaire businessman said he did not plan to take a salary, save one dollar, the legal minimum.

In the past, Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy also donated their presidential salaries to charity.
The firing of the India-born prosecutor Preet Bharara and demanding the resignation of 45 other attorneys by the Trump administration was a standard operating procedure, the White House said while defending its abrupt move.

This is a standard operating procedure for a new administration around this time to ask for the resignation of all the US attorneys, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.

He made the remarks while responding to questions on firing of Bharara after he refused to resign following the Department of Justices order asking him and 45 other attorneys, who were appointed by former President Barack Obama, to quit.

We had most of them -- or a good chunk of them had already submitted their resignation letters. This is just the final swath of individuals who had not at this time. But this is common practice of most administrations, Spicer argued.

He said President Trump had wanted to call Bharara to thank him for his service.

The President was calling to thank him for his service. This is, a standard action that takes place in most administrations, he said.

Then-attorney general Reno sent out an almost identical letter in 1993. The Bush administration sent out a similar one, as well. So this is a very common practice for all political appointees -- not just in the Department of Justice -- but throughout government when theres a turnover administration to ask for all individuals to do that, he said.

Bharara, 48, who was the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, left office on Monday. He received an emotional farewell from his colleagues.

I love New York. This is the best prosecutors office youve ever seen, he said.

Meanwhile, a media report said that Bharara was fired because he was conducting a probe of Fox News channel and whether the Rupert Murdoch-owned company hid from its investors payments it made to employees who alleged sexual assault. The allegation was denied by the White House.

The commonality and the uniformity of the resignations is the key here, White House counselor Kellylanne Conway said.

This is just not a news story, its a lot of noise, not much news because its very uniform and its very common for presidents to ask for the resignations of political appointees like ambassadors and like US attorneys, the past few presidents have done this, she told Fox News.

We made it uniform, the President made it uniform, so that there were no carve-outs, there was no special treatment. The only two people who are kind of exempted, if you will, are people who are having a different role in the administration, Mr Rosenstein and Dana, whos the acting deputy attorney general. But other than that, its uniform across the board, Conway argued.
Etana

After a moving and inspiring performance for International Women's Day in Jamaica, soulful songbird Etana is headed to Kenya to lend her voice for a concert and a cause.The multi-award winner and newly independent artist is slated to perform at "Dobba Fest" on March 18th, 2017 alongside reggae stars Luciano and Richie Spice. A humble and excited Etana stated " My fans in Kenya have steadily been asking for me, so Im looking forward to hearing my Kenyan people singing to me in perfect harmony."With her memorable honey coated voice, Etana will perform from her vast repertoire of hits and classics, as well as new material such as her recently released stirring single " Know Who I Am ", "..If you see me walking much lighter Oh thats because I know who I am and if you see my smile getting brighter It simply means I do understand.." With it's heartening lyrics, the latter has already garnered attention and momentum on the airwaves, "The songs speaks of where we were as a people and where we are now and where I wish for us all to be as people. United and strong." - Etana. "Know Who I Am" has also delivered beautiful visuals in the form of a lyrical video As philanthropy plays an integral part of Etana's life, during her Kenya journey, the songstress will take part in a youth initiative organized by Brand Afrika for the government Ministry in charge of the Studio Mashinani project. " I will be involved in a couple of youth empowerment music workshops prior to the show. I am always willing to give my time to share and encourage the youths. "Upon her return Etana will head back to the studio to put the finishing touches on her upcoming album, slated to be released later this year.
In 1938 a shadowy group of Frenchmen approached treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. about purchasing U.S. combat aircraft.

Following its enactment in March 1941 the Lend-Lease Program provided American war materiel to Allied nations before the United States officially entered World War II. While its importance in helping Great Britain, Free France, the Republic of China and the Soviet Union stave off Axis forces is widely acknowledged, less is known about earlier U.S. efforts to provide military aircraft to France at a time when many Americansincluding many members of Congress were firmly isolationist and against any attempt by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to skirt U.S. neutrality laws. In this excerpt from his forthcoming book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler (Prometheus Books, fall 2014) author Peter Moreira examines the role Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. played in providing American-built combat aircraft to France, a nation poorly prepared to defend itself against the coming Nazi onslaught.

On the evening of Saturday, Oct. 22, 1938, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. welcomed two visitors to his farm in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., both of whom wanted to work with him in his fervent goal of battling Nazi Germany. Morgenthau had been in office for almost five years, and he was known to stray outside his economic portfolio and into foreign and military policy. He was President Franklin D. Roosevelts most ferocious hawk in standing up to the totalitarian aggressors in Japan, Italy and especially Germany. Morgenthau usually grabbed any chance Roosevelt gave him to battle Hitlers regime, but he knew he needed to tread lightly when dealing with these two men. Rather than risk being seen with them in Washington, D.C., he arranged to host them for a weekend at his bucolic farm in the Hudson River valley.

The first was William Bullitt Jr., the American ambassador to France, an old family friend whom Morgenthau had visited in Paris that summer. The second, a French businessman, was more of a mystery. Jean Monnet was representing the government of Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, which had initiated a huge armament program spurred by Adolf Hitlers rampant militarism. The French were worried their arms factories would be vulnerable in the event of a German invasion, so Monnet was heading a mission to build aircraft plants in Montreal, Canada. He would need some help certainly technical, possibly financialfrom the U.S. government and had enlisted Bullitt to open doors in Washington. Bullitt loved the plan and had taken it to Roosevelt, who told him to work with Morgenthau.

Suspicious by nature, Morgenthau was skeptical about the proposal. He knew France was in desperate economic straits, having devalued its currency twice in two years. Bullitt and Monnet tried throughout dinner to detail the operational side of the plan, but Morgenthau kept returning to the finances.

Lets take it for granted that you could overcome all technical difficulties, said Morgenthau, who always recorded such meetings or had a stenographer present. How much do you think the plant would cost$25 million to build?

No, Monnet responded. Fifty million to $100 million.

How are you going to pay for that?

Frenchmen who have their money over here will subscribe to the stock.

Morgenthau was incredulous. The French had been moving money offshore for several years as the threat of war grew. So he wondered aloud why such panicky Frenchmen would assume France would still be around to buy the planes. Mr. Monnet, we figure that during the last four years, there must be at least $4 billion in gold that has left France, he said. Just as long as that is abroad, and what little money is left continues to leave France, there isnt any use talking about building aeroplanes or anything else. You people have to devise means and method whereby you get this money back.

Morgenthau said pointblank the government had to jail citizenseven cabinet ministerswith overseas money, even if that meant imprisoning 2,000 people and discharging two-thirds of the cabinet. Surprisingly, Bullitt and Monnet agreed, though the latter said only two or three people would need jail time.

Mr. Monnet, if you dont do something like this, your country is through, Morgenthau said as the meeting ended. Its impossible for you to continue with the bulk of your capital abroad.

The dinner at Morgenthaus farm set in motion a forgotten incident from the buildup to World War IIthe clandestine program to sell American-built aircraft to France. When it became public, it created a short-lived scandal that shook Morgenthaus Treasury Department to the core. It cost one U.S. serviceman his life and almost cost Morgenthau his job. It brought to the surface an issue that would plague the Roosevelt administration throughout the war the need to supply the frontline European allies while rearming America. And in the end it aided the greatest arms buildup and economic program in human history, and showed the determination and frustration of the architect of that economic program, Henry Morgenthau Jr.

In late 1938 the United States was lagging in the arms race, with a capacity to produce only 3,600 military aircraft annually. If the United States had had 5,000 planes that year and the ability to produce 10,000 more, Roosevelt told senior Treasury, State and military officials at a November 14 meeting, Hitler could not have taken the stand he did on Czechoslovakia. The group agreed Roosevelt would ask Congress to approve annual production of 12,000 military aircraft and the capacity to double that number.

Morgenthau had to work out the finances, but his most crucial task was working with the French. It was a task layered with complications, involving negotiations among the Treasury and State departments, the White House, the Army, commercial corporations and a France weakened by social unrest, financial problems and political turmoil. In addition to respecting Americas neutrality laws, Morgenthau had to adhere to the Johnson Act, which forbade credit to France because it had defaulted on World War I loans.

Throughout November 1938 the Treasury secretary waited for France to declare it would reverse the flow of capital, but no declaration came. If the French dont really do something to get control of their own situation, I think theyre through, and I think its only a matter of months, Morgenthau told his staff. When Monnet returned to the United States in mid-December, he brought only three aviation technicians and a letter from Daladier saying France would like to buy 1,000 American-built military aircraft. Monnet still demanded secrecy and wanted to make the purchases through a Canada-based corporation. He was hoping the United States would grant the company credit, but Morgenthau told him to see a commercial bank, as the Treasury couldnt lend him money because of the Johnson Act.

The internal differences within the U.S. government regarding the wisdom of selling military aircraft to France mushroomed when the armed forces were brought into the talks. Roosevelt and the State Department supported the proposal. But senior military leaders did not want the French orders interfering with their own services requirements. Nor did they want foreign countries like France or Britain armed with Americas best technology. U.S. law prohibited foreign representatives from even seeing secret devices or weapons, let alone inspecting them. Roosevelt had some sympathy for the military leaders stance. Morgenthau had none and was incensed the Army had not yet placed orders with private factories. Think about it again, Morgenthau told the president in support of the French. If you want them to be our first line [of defense], lets either give them good stuff or tell them to go home, but dont give them stuff that the minute it goes up in the air it will be shot down.

Morgenthau believed French orders for combat aircraft would increase American industrial capacity and drive manufacturers to develop badly needed machine tools. But he didnt want to jeopardize his relationship with the War Department, which was a tricky task, because the organization was divided into two warring camps. The first was led by archisolationist Secretary of War Harry Woodring. His nemesis was Assistant Secretary Louis Johnson, who was more amenable to arming the Allies, though he too drew the line at allowing France access to secret weapons.

By December 21 Morgenthau had produced a list of three aircraft the French might testthe P-40 Warhawk fighter, manufactured by Curtiss-Wright Corp.; the Douglas Model 7 (later A-20 Havoc) light bomber; and the Glenn L. Martin Co. Model 166, an export-only version of the firms B-10 twin-engine bomber. Roosevelt greenlighted the request.

But Woodring responded that aircraft orders for the U.S. Army would take at least nine months to fill, and only 40 machines could be produced in the first year. An order at this time for 1,000 planes for a foreign government would prevent fulfillment of our 10,000-plane program within the time limits now assigned, he wrote in a memo. The foreign orders could not be cleared through the American plants in under 18 months.

Morgenthau was uneasy battling the entire military establishment in partnership with Monnet, a man he didnt know and who provided so little detail. At a December 28 meeting Morgenthau lost patience when the shadowy Frenchman explained the Canadian companies buying the airplanes would be financed with $250,000 of capital put up by the directors. If the directors declined to do so, Monnet said he would put up the money himself. Morgenthau asked why, and Monnet responded, Frankly, I do a lot of things in this affair that I should not be doing. Pressed by Morgenthau and other Treasury officers, the Frenchman was unable to name the directors or say what they would receive in return for their investment.

Morgenthau bluntly said that he was worried about the arrangement violating U.S. law, and that he would prefer France to establish an office in Canada to buy the airplanes. I will do business with a certified, authentic agent of the French government, but I am not going to do business with a dummy corporation, the Treasury secretary said. There is so much secrecy over such a simple operation. Either the French have or have not the money. If they have, I would like to see some of it, on account of all this discussion. It seems to me you are making the thing as difficult for yourself as possible.

On December 30 Woodring wrote Morgenthau demanding the Treasury guarantee the French had sufficient money before any French officials were allowed to inspect the airplanes. Morgenthau immediately phoned Woodring to say he could not possibly issue such a guarantee and demanded the letter be withdrawn. As he frequently did when he fell out with other government officials, Morgenthau told the president of the spat.

I find myself now in the position that the whole United States Army is opposed to what I am doing, and I am doing it secretly, and I just cant continue, as secretary of the Treasury, forcing the United States Army to show you planes which they want for themselves, Morgenthau told Monnet on New Years Eve.

As Morgenthau prepared for a Florida vacation in early January, he pressured Monnet to state publicly Frances intention to buy American aircraft. The United States Treasury can offer no more cooperation until a public statement is made in regard to this mission, he said in a Jan. 2, 1939, phone call with Monnet, repeating the same message six times.

But when Morgenthau returned to Washington, the French government still had not announced anything, much less tackled its economic problems. Though Woodring and Johnson showed rare unanimity in opposing the sale, the president ordered them to cooperate. The Army successfully blocked the French purchase of Curtiss state-of-the-art P-40, so Monnet ordered 150 of the companys P-36s and was pondering whether to raise the order to 250. His team was also evaluating light bombers produced by the Douglas and Martin companies, though the Army did not want the French to have access to the Douglas models.

Harry Collins, a former naval officer who was taking over the Treasurys procurement division, told a Treasury meeting January 16 the Army just didnt understand that the French orders could boost Americas industrial capacity. Their order could allow Martin to order manufacturing tools and add 1 million feet of factory space. Another official added that the Allison Engine Co. could increase its capacity from 300 aircraft power plants per year to 500 with French and British orders.

At a White House meeting later that day Roosevelt told the Treasury and military officials he wanted every effort made to furnish the French with military airplanes. Bullitt, also attending the meeting, said the French were particularly interested in the Douglas 7B light bomber, even though Woodring said it had many secret elements and was built partly with government funds. What he didnt need to say was that neither Congress nor the public were aware of the negotiations with the French, and news of the talks would likely excite isolationist ire. Roosevelt made it clear he wanted the French to see the 7B.

Three days later Johnson informed the Treasury Department he would cooperate with the French requests, and General Henry H. Hap Arnold, head of the U.S. Army Air Corps, signed an order allowing French technical advisers to view the 7B at Douglas factory in Santa Monica, Calif. They were to have full access to the plane, including its classified components, and would be allowed to go on a test flight.

By January 23 the French were testing the Douglas bomber in California and were also meeting with representatives from Curtiss and Martin. Overall, Morgenthau was pleased; he felt certain the French would sign a contract within 24 hours.

Then, in the afternoon, disturbing calls began coming in from the West Coast. The French team had inspected the 7B, and French technician Paul Chemidlin went along on a test flight. In the course of the maneuvers, pilot Johnny Cable banked the airplane too steeply, and it went into a spin at 500 feet. Losing control of the bomber, Cable bailed out, but his parachute failed to open in time. The 7B crashed in a parking lot near Mines Field (Los Angeles municipal airport), demolishing nine automobiles and injuring 10 bystanders. Chemidlin escaped with a broken leg, severe back injuries and minor head injuries. Cable was killed instantly.

Later that day the Associated Press ran a story on the crash, including the fact that a member of the French air ministry had been aboard. Then, on January 28, the New York Herald Tribune ran a frontpage story headlined TREASURY LET FRENCH AGENT RIDE BOMBER. The article said the revelations came in closed sessions of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, and Morgenthau guessed immediately that USAAC chief Arnold was the source. Morgenthaus first call was to Woodring, who claimed he knew nothing about the matter. Im not going to forget it after Arnold has done this, Morgenthau told him. When committee chairman Morris Sheppard called for Morgenthau to testify, the secretary agreed and asked immediately who had blamed the Treasury. Confidentially, said the senator, it was Arnold.

If there was one bright spot, it was that the French had actually placed orders for U.S.-built aircraft: 115 Martin 166s, 100 Curtiss fighters and at least 100 bombers from Douglas on an expedited delivery. They planned to buy all the engines from Pratt & Whitney, enabling the company to rehire workers it had just laid off. The total order was expected to rise to 400 bombers and 100 pursuit planes. Roosevelt, a master at handling reporters, seized this good news and immediately announced the French were buying airplanes, creating employment for idle workers. He also said hed ask Congress for an appropriation of $50 million so the Army could buy 575 planes. The New York Times noted, however, there was a serious conflict between Roosevelt and senior military officials, and it quoted Sen. Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri as saying he would fight the French sale.

Morgenthaus testimony before the Senate committee was intentionally bland. After apologizing for speaking quietly because of a recent illness (a long-standing problem with migraine headaches had flared up after the 7B crash), the secretary explained that the French mission was an accredited group representing France, and that he was involved because the Procurement Division was in the Treasury. He then read aloud Arnolds note that gave the French team permission to view the Douglas bomber.

The atmosphere was grim when Morgenthau gathered his senior officials together in his office on the morning of Feb. 6, 1939. He said he had acted properly and would do it all over again if he had to. Repeating himself several times, he said anyone who disagreed with him should come out and say it. I dont want anyone connected with me who doesnt believe in Henry Morgenthau Jr., and who doesnt believe in what he is doing, he said. He closed by saying, I see extremely difficult times ahead of us, and I dont want anyone who isnt as closely associated as these people are here with me.

Im a thousand percent with you in it, said Under Secretary John Hanes II. I think youre absolutely right. Ill go down with you, if it means going down; well all go down.

Its going to get dirtier and dirtier, and I just want to know that Ive got a team with me through thick and thin; and its going to get pretty damn thick, Morgenthau said. I mean, Ive never seen the weather so thick.

In the end Assistant Secretary Wayne C. Taylor, a closet isolationist, did resign. And Morgenthau was outraged that the president, a close friend, did not back him publicly. But the French scandal blew over, and Americas production of military aircraft flourished. Morgenthau became Roosevelts airplane czar and eased production bottlenecks in 1939 and 1940, then became the point man for British and French ordnance orders. He always represented Americas interests but fought hard to supply the Allies and increase production. His efforts ultimately helped ensure U.S. aircraft companies were able to produce the tens of thousands of fighters, bombers, trainers and transports the nation needed following the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Americas subsequent entry into World War II.

Originally published in the July 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko notes the importance of compliance with the Minsk agreements providing for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops, heavy equipment and artillery, the return of Ukrainian control over the uncontrolled section of the Ukrainian-Russian border in the east of the country.

He said about this during a meeting with Luxembourg's Foreign and European Affairs Minister Jean Asselborn, the official website of the president says.

"Our joint position is to return the territories under Ukrainian sovereignty, which are now under occupation," the Ukrainian president said.

Poroshenko noted that "unfortunately there are other scenarios that are not developed in Ukraine or the European Union. They presuppose cutting off these territories, closing the borders along the collision line and granting these territories to the aggressor."

The president said that there is an aggravation of the situation in Donbas because of the provocative actions of the Russian side.

Poroshenko returned thanks for the support and solidarity to the world leaders, including Luxembourg, the EU, the U.S. and Canada in the issue of counteracting Russian aggression and condemning the trade blockade.
Was a British Royal Navy flotilla making an innocent passage or provoking a paranoid Albanian dictator in late October 1946.

The waters of the world are perhaps its greatest museum, their depths concealing drowned cities, submerged ancient harbors and fleets of lost ships. For more than half a century maritime archaeologists have explored the depths, making discoveries that add to and occasionally correctthe history books. While many of the headline-grabbing finds are ancient in origin, others are relatively recent. In 2009 one such discovery added fresh revelations to an October 1946 incident off the Albanian coast, when naval mines badly damaged two British Royal Navy warships and killed 44 sailors.

Coming scarcely a year after the end of World War II, it was one of the earliest maritime incidents of the Cold War.

Precipitating the long-ago fatal incident was Britains push for un- fettered naval access to the Royal Navy fleet anchorage on the Greek island of Corfu, wrested from Axis control in October 1944. To hold Corfu, specifically the Corfu Channel, is to control a strategic waterway that for millennia has served as a route for local shipping entering and leaving the Adriatic via the Ionian Sea. The narrow strait between the island and the Greek mainland widens at its northeastern mouth, which opens off the Albanian coast.

Despite British support for the Albanian partisans who resisted Axis occupation forces during the war, Enver Hoxhahead of the Communist Party of Albania (CPA)viewed the British and their Allies (except Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union) with suspicion. Following the liberation of Albania on Nov. 29, 1944, a rigged election in December 1945 gave Hoxha and the CPA a reported 92 percent mandate to form a government. Hoxha and the party deposed Albanias exiled prewar ruler King Zog, confiscated large estates, grasped to control every aspect of Albanian life and took an increasing number of anti-Western actions. In February 1946 the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPA deemed Britain and the United States the main dangers to Albanias independence. Accusations of espionage and economic sabotage, as well as a trial of pro-Western Albanian parliamentarians, led Britain to withdraw its military mission in April 1946, followed by the cancellation of an exchange of diplomats.

While Hoxha was paranoid about the West, he was even more anxious of his Greek neighbors. Years of conflict over the boundaries of northwestern Greece and southern Albania led to the Greek occupation of the southern end of Albania near Corfu during World War I and just before World War II. These tensions erupted into a Greek-Albanian conflict after 1940 that only ended with the Axis occupation. The end of World War II did not alleviate Hoxhas concerns either, especially since Greece remained allied with Britain. The Albanian dictator began a program of fortification that by the end of his four-decade reign had built some 700,000 bunkers and pillboxes, many along his nations shores. Hoxha, worried that Greek and British warships were sailing too close to Albanias shores, kept Albanian military forces on high alert and the coastal batteries overlooking the Corfu manned around the clock. Defenses were especially bristly around the port city of Sarande, several miles north of the Corfu.

Hoxhas paranoia notwithstanding, the narrowness of the Corfu Channel and rocky shallows north of the island effectively pushed ships to the edge of Albanias maritime border, occasionally over the line, sometimes to within a mile of shore. Given the Albanian defenses, the tensions prompted by their increasingly anti-Western ruler and a British government eager to reassert a strong naval role in the region, a clash was perhaps inevitable. The Corfu Channel Incidentactually a series of three incidentstouched off on May 15, 1946, just a month after Britain and Albania had severed relations.

The Royal Navy sent the cruisers Orion and Superb south from Trieste to transit the channel and anchor at Corfu. They were the first British warships to use the channel since the end of the war a year earlier. As the vessels passed Sarande and turned to starboard on a dogleg run toward Corfu, Albanian coastal guns unleashed a salvo of some dozen rounds astern of the ships. While there were no hits, the gunfire was an affront to British honor and to Londons firm belief the channel remained an international waterway. In reply to Britains diplomatic protest and demand for an official apology, Albania demurred, insisting the cruisers had entered its territorial waters without authorization.

While British diplomats pressed their point with Albanian officials, the Admiralty back in London ordered all Royal Navy vessels to refrain from using the channel. The British sought Hoxhas explicit acknowledgement of the right of innocent passagethat all ships, even Royal Navy warships, using the channel could skirt the Albanian coast without being seen as intruders. With no response forthcoming, in the fall of 1946 the Admiralty decided to again send warships through the Corfu. The commander in chief of British naval forces at Corfu received a cable that implicitly laid out the mission:

Establishment of diplomatic relations with Albania is again under consideration by His Majestys Government, who wish to know whether the Albanian Government have learnt to behave themselves. Information is requested whether any ships under your command have passed through the North Corfu Strait since August and, if not, whether you intend them to do so shortly.

The British cruisers Mauritius and Leander would make the next move, accompanied by the destroyers Saumarez and Volage. The Admiralty ordered the four vessels to leave the port of Corfu and steam north through the channel past the Albanian coast. It directed the warships to make the passage with crews at their action stations but all turrets trained fore and aft. Should trouble come, they would be ready to respond.

The British cruisers and their destroyer escorts steamed from Corfu at 1:30 in the afternoon on Oct. 22, 1946, on a course for Denta Point, at the southern edge of the Bay of Sarande. At 2:47 Mauritius, as the lead vessel, signaled a port turn and a new heading of 310 degrees. British records state the cruiser made its turn outside the bay, while Albanian accounts insist the turn came inside the bay, just off the city of Sarande. Six minutes later Saumarez hit a submerged mine. The blast ripped through the destroyers starboard hull, from keel to main deck, just forward of the bridge. Thirty-six men were killed, 25 never to be accounted for; they had simply vanished in the explosion.

The weapon that nearly broke Saumarezs back was a German EMC (known as a GY to the British) moored contact mine. The devices 661-pound explosive charge detonated when the British destroyer hit one or more of its seven Hertz horns. The explosion did not sink Saumarez outright, but the vessel was badly damaged, dead in the water and drifting toward shore as its burning fuel spilled into the sea. Commander Reginald Paul of Volage moved his ship in close to the burning hulk, and his sailors threw a line to Saumarez. As Volage began to tow the damaged destroyer, the line parted.

At 3:30, after rigging a second towline, Volage once again took up the slack and began towing Saumarez toward Corfu. Forty-six minutes later Volage too struck a mine head-on. Historian Eric Leggett, himself a veteran of the action and an eyewitness, later wrote that in a split second 40 feet of the destroyer, from the fore peak to just in front of A gun turret, had vanished. Mess decks, storerooms, the paint shop, the cable locker containing tons of anchor cable, the anchors themselves, literally dissolved in the air. Eight of its crew died in the blast, seven never to be accounted for.

With his ships mangled bow submerged and barely attached to the rest of the ship, Paul ordered his crew to toss shells, depth charges and deck equipment into the sea to lighten the strain on the vessel. When the bow tore free and sank, Volage settled back into a more or less even keel. Amazingly, the destroyer remained afloat and was even able to raise steam. Paul again ordered a towline passed to Saumarez. Knowing his ships blast-damaged bulkheads would likely buckle if he steamed forward, Paul backed Volage and Saumarez to Corfu. The battered, tethered destroyers finally reached safe harbor at 3 oclock the following morning, nearly 12 hours after departing on the ill-fated cruise.

Within weeks the Royal Navy, overriding Hoxhas objections, sent minesweepers into Albanian waters to clear them of any remaining warera German mines. The British found that the mines they recovered, though German in origin, had been recently laidthey were freshly painted and had no rust or fouling. Britain submitted the matter to the United Nations Security Council for adjudication as a clear violation of international law, arguing that the warships presence off the Albanian coast was an exercise of the right of innocent passage and that Albania was liable because it had either laid the mines or knew that another statepossibly communist Yugoslaviahad.

Albania pointed a finger back at Britain, arguing that the Royal Navys actions in October and November were clear violations of Albanian sovereignty. Albanias key reasoningwhich ultimately prompted legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice at The Haguewas that Albania, as a coastal State is entitled, in exceptional circumstances, to regulate the passage of foreign warships through its territorial waters. This rule is applicable to the North Corfu Channel. Albania also argued that the action of the four British warships had not been an innocent passage but an armed show of force to test Albanian resolve.

After three years of litigation the International Court decided for Britain, with the caveat that the minesweeping operation in November had violated Albanian sovereignty. The court awarded the British a judgment of 843,947 in restitution. When Hoxha refused to pay, Britain froze Albanian gold assets then held in London banks. Diplomatic relations between the two nations remained frosty and werent normalized until after the 1991 revolution that toppled Albanias communist government. The Corfu Channel ruling still informs modern maritime lawthere is, indeed, a legal right of passage, even of warships, through straits or channels arguably international in nature.

Nearly seven decades later the Corfu Channel Incident remains a subject of distress both for survivors and for the families of the lost and wounded. Unanswered questions linger. Albanian navy Captain Artur Mecollari, present-day commander of his nations naval flotilla in the channel region and a historian of the events of 1946, has carefully analyzed the case. He argued in a 2009 book that the British ships had come much closer to shore than London ever admitted in court, entering the Bay of Sarande before turning. If true, this would mean the Royal Navy vessels charted a deliberately provocative course, one that arguably took them out of the channel into Albanias territorial waters. The mines laid as a result of Hoxhas paranoid response to the earlier incursion were essentially a picket fence that had been crossed.

Published in Albanian and never translated, Mecollaris study might have gone unnoticed except for a recent discovery. In July 2007 the RPM Nautical Foundation, a U.S.- and Malta-based nonprofit, initiated a comprehensive archaeological survey of the coast of Albania in cooperation with the Albanian Institute of Archaeology and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. Using sonar to map the seafloor in depths from a few hundred to 1,000 feet and a sophisticated remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to then examine each target, the survey team mapped natural seafloor features and identified 15 shipwrecks, one a Roman wreck dating from the 3rd century BC. The team classified the 14 other wrecks as modern, briefly examining but not mapping them.

One of the finds drew our attention in 2009, when I joined the survey and asked if any of the targets might be the bow of Volage. With permission from the Albanian government, we returned to that site, close to Sarandes shore. The team included George Robb Jr., the founder and president of RPMNF, fellow archaeologist Jeffrey Royal and ROV operator Kim Wilson. We watched carefully as the robot descended into the darkness and moved across a muddy seabed to a mounded mass of twisted steel and scattered wreckage.

Shrouded in mud, the site covers a 50-by-30-foot area. We could discern the frames, or ribs and steel plate, of a ships hull, buckled and torn by explosive force, as well as electrical wiring, a small ready-ammunition locker, white ceramic dishes, clips of .303-caliber rounds, boots, a British military canteen and what appeared to be a human bone. It was a sad and poignant hour-long dive with the ROV. We disturbed nothing, taking only photographs to document the site for the British and Albanian governments. It was clear we had found the bow of Volage, the section torn from the British destroyer and sent to the bottom with destructive force. The ammunition, dishes and other finds spoke of a space where stores were kept and where men had lived and died.

The site is not only a tangible reminder of an early maritime incident of the Cold War but also a trove of forensic evidence: The bow rests where Mecollaris study said it might and not where the official accounts of 194649 suggested.

What happened that day in October 1946, and why, remains the subject of debate. Some argue that the British government or the officers in command of the four-ship Royal Navy flotilla took undue risks and assumed too much in provoking Enver Hoxha. Others insist that Hoxha or his military commanders went too far in protecting Albanian sovereignty, and that the principle of innocent passage contested that day was in the best interests of the freedom of the seas. What is undeniably true, however, is that the discovery made in 2009 gives a new generation the opportunity to learn the story of the men of Volage and Saumarez and to honor their memory as this special place on the oceans floor is marked and protected as a war grave.

For further reading James Delgado recommends Leslie Gardiners The Eagle Spreads His Claws: A History of the Corfu Channel Dispute and of Albanias Relations With the West, 1945-1965, and Eric Leggetts The Corfu Incident.

Originally published in the May 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
Staff Sgt. Forrest L. Vosler

U.S. Army Air Forces

Medal of Honor

Bremen, Germany

December 20, 1943

Cut off from its formation and badly damaged by flak and enemy fighter attacks, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Jersey Bounce Jr. was rapidly losing altitude. A 20mm cannon shell had severely wounded the tail gunner, and shrapnel had ripped through the radio compartment, wounding Staff Sgt. Forrest L. Woody Vosler in the legs and damaging the radio.

It was Voslers fourth combat mission. A native of western New York, he had joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in October 1942 and was ultimately assigned to the Eighth Air Forces 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group, based at RAF Molesworth, England. At dawn on Dec. 20, 1943, Vosler and fellow crewmen took off in Jersey Bounce Jr. destined for Bremen in northwest Germany.

Bombers on raids earlier that month had encountered only light resistance. This mission would be different. Nearly 500 B-17s and Consolidated B-24 Liberators took off from bases across England; 27 would not return.

Soon after the formation crossed into Holland, more than 100 German fighters engaged the American bombers in a running fight all the way to Bremen. Near the target the bombers also ran into heavy flak. Jersey Bounce Jr. was able to reach its target and drop its payload, but by the time pilot John Henderson turned the plane toward the North Sea and home, the B-17 had lost one engine, while another engine was smoking and losing power. Unable to keep up, Jersey Bounce Jr. dropped out of the formation.

As I glanced off to my right, ball turret gunner Ed Ruppel later said, I could see four or five B-17s being attacked by fighters. There was one B-17 that was pretty close to us. [The German fighters] cut one of his wings off, and he went into a tight roll. Then they went after the others. They just kept pecking away until they got them all. I knew that when the fighters were finished with them we were next.

Though bleeding profusely from his leg wounds, Vosler was able to shake off his fear, man the single .50-caliber machine gun at the radio hatch and keep up a steady volume of fire. Fully expecting to die, he thought to himself: If this is the way its going to be, at least Im going to die standing up. Ill do the job. Vosler continued firing until another 20mm shell exploded in his face, peppering him with shrapnel wounds from his forehead to his knees and sending shards of metal into both of his eyes.

The shell fragments had damaged the retina of my right eye, he recalled, and I was seeing blood streaming down the retina inside my eye, thinking it was on the outside. So my natural feeling was that I had lost the whole side of my face.

Barely able to see and slipping in and out of consciousness, Vosler returned to his damaged radio, which he soon repaired by touch with the help of fellow crewmen. By then Jersey Bounce Jr. was skimming the wave tops. Vosler first sent an SOS and then transmitted regular holding signals that led search and rescue planes to their position. Once the B-17 ditched, he crawled out on the fuselage unaided and then, in a moment of selfless courage, jumped to the starboard wing to keep the unconscious tail gunner from slipping into the freezing water. With one hand on his injured comrade and the other gripping the planes antenna wire, Vosler held on until crewmates helped them both into life rafts.

Vosler and the tail gunner survived, but his injuries left Vosler blind in both eyes. Doctors were able to restore sight to his left eye, and at a White House ceremony on Sept. 6, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded the courageous radioman the Medal of Honor. At wars end Vosler went to work for the Veterans Administration, a job he held until his death in 1992 at age 68.

Originally published in the September 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
Two Roads Taken: George Meade found fame as Both a Warrior and an Engineer

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat a waste of time and energy, George Meade wrote to his wife on December 18, 1845, as he approached his 30th birthday. Describing his feelings about his 10 years in the U.S. Army since graduating from West Point, Meade was convinced he was a failure and added, I tremble sometimes when I think of what I might have been, and remember what I am, when I reflect on what I might have accomplished.

A few days later, Meade received a letter from his mother that confirmed his feelings of remorse and failure. Although in my ignorance, I was cruel enough to send you to West Point, an act for which I shall never forgive myself, and never cease to regret, I did not dream that you would enter the army, my dear George.

But it was too late for regrets. As far as Meade was concerned, his life was already ruined.

[quote style=boxed float=left]George Gordon Meade never wanted to be a soldier.[/quote]

He had no childhood dreams of glory on the field of battle, no tradition of military service to carry on, no family heroes to emulate. For several generations up to that time, the Meades had been a wealthy, well-connected Philadelphia family. Georges father dishonored the family by being sent to prison for fraud, losing most of his fortune and dying young, leaving his wife and family with few resources. George had no interest in attending the U.S. Military Academy, but his mother insisted that he do so because there was no other future available to him. Ever the dutiful son, he had gone off to West Point.

George, the familys eighth child of 11, was born in Cadiz, Spain, where his father, Richard Worsam Meade, had been established as a trader, ship owner, and agent for the U.S. Navy. Richard Meade added immensely to the family fortune. In Cadiz, they lived lavishly in a house of great opulence that held one of the nations finest art collections. Original works by Titian, Correggio, Rubens, and Van Dyke decorated the walls, along with portraits of members of the Meade family by the famous American painters Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully. Also there was a large portrait by Stuart of George Washington (without his false teeth).

But then it all fell apart. Richard Meade was charged with financial improprieties and imprisoned in Spain for two years. After his release, he remained there to try to recoup his losses and settle his legal problems while his wife, Margaret, took the children back to Philadelphia. There, with little money to their name, their lifestyle was described as genteel poverty.

George was 12 in 1828 when his father died. Despite the familys financial problems, the boy was enrolled in a boarding school in Baltimore that was modeled after the U.S. Military Academy. He was considered an amiable boy, his son wrote years later, full of life, but rather disposed to avoid the rough-and-tumble frolics of youths of his age; quick at his lessons; and popular with both teachers and scholars.

Although Meade wanted to study law, his mother insisted he go to West Point, as tuition was free and not enough money was available for a private college. West Point was also considered suitable for a young gentleman at his level of society. George agreed to enroll, but insisted that he was not going to become a soldier. He vowed to leave the Army after completing his year of required active duty service following graduation. Young Meade believed he was too ambitious to settle for routine army life in a series of small isolated posts with low pay, slow promotions, and boring duties. Perhaps inspired by his fathers one-time success, he wanted more than what he thought the Army could offer.

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]eade entered West Point when he was 15, and it was a measure of the level of society of which the Meades were still a part that President Andrew Jackson appointed him. Fellow students remembered George as dignified and courteous, with the air of the highest breeding. He was an indifferent student from the beginning, however, and the longer he stayed at the Military Academy, the less motivated he was to do well.

Meade was also a careless, indifferent cadet, not bothering to maintain his uniform and equipment to the required standards. His shoes and belt buckles were never the brightest or shiniest of the bunch. He was not a model student on the drill field either, and by his third year had accumulated 168 demeritsperilously close to the 200 that would lead to immediate expulsion, no matter how well-connected ones family might be.

[quote style=boxed float=left]Meades baptism by fire came at Palo alto during the Mexican War. He later Conceded he had No Stomach for fighting.[/quote]

But Meade did graduate, 19th of 56 in the Class of 1835. Every new graduate was entitled to a three-month leave before beginning his active-duty service. Meade spent his sabbatical working as a surveyor for the Long Island Rail Road, hoping to gain practical experience and to make useful contacts in the booming railroad business.

In January 1836, Meade joined his regiment at Fort Brooke, near Tampa, Fla. The outfit was engaged in the Second Seminole War. He lasted only four months in that semitropical climate before becoming ill, perhaps with malaria, and being declared physically unfit for duty in the field. The frail soldiers next assignment was in Watertown, Mass., which, although cooler, did not please him either.

And so Meade resigned from the Army in October 1836, and began working as a surveyor on a series of private contracts that took him back to Florida, Texas, along the Mississippi River, and into the far Northwestern territories. Between each job he returned to Washington, where his mother then lived, to court Margaretta Sergeant, daughter of the wealthy congressman John Sergeant from Philadelphia. Meade married Margaretta on December 30, 1840.

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]eade continued with the same kind of short-term contract work, unable to secure a more permanent job. His prospects became even bleaker when the U.S. Army decided to end all private contracting with civilians for surveying and mapping. Instead, all such work would be performed by the Armys own Corps of Topographical Engineers, which had been established in 1838. To find work, Meade would have to go back into the Army. But it was not easy to get a commission, even for a West Point graduate, so he had to turn to Governor Henry Wise of Virginia, who had married Margarettas sister, to make it happen.

Meades first duty assignment was building lighthouses along the Delaware coast. For the first time in his married life, he lived in his own home with his wife and children. The family was happy until this stable existence was threatened when Meade was ordered to report to Texas, where the Army faced the threat of war with Mexico. Just as Meade had not wanted to be a soldier, so he did not want to go to war. But he had no choice. It was then, in December of 1845, that Meade wrote to his wife just before his 30th birthday, lamenting what he saw as his life of failure.

[quote style=boxed float=left]It is unlikely Meade ever realized his wife had used her government contacts to influence his swift promotion within the Union Army.[/quote]

Meade, a reluctant soldier at best, quickly learned that he did not like field duty with its privations, marches, poor food, heat, and other hardships. His baptism by fire came at Palo Alto, the first major battle of the Mexican War (near what is now Brownsville, Texas). Meades outfit came under artillery fire and he witnessed the bodies of dead and wounded soldiers up close. Meade seemed proud of how well he had done, describing in a letter to his wife the pleasant excitement of victory, and adding: It will make you happy I know to hear of so brilliant an affair, and of your good husband having had a share in it.

A few weeks later, however, after more combat, Meades enthusiasm dampened. He wrote: Such is war and its terrible consequences. For my part, I have no hesitation in saying I have no stomach for it. I trust I shall always do my dutybut I candidly acknowledge I have no penchant for it; nothing but a sense of duty would keep me at it.

Although Meade did remark on the grace and beauty of Mexican women, his litany of complaints continued, including his objection to the use of volunteer soldiers (instead of Regular Army troops) who were streaming into Mexico from the United States to join the fight. He called them an armed rabble, and said they were often drunk and disorderly, and more trouble than they were worth. Meade railed against the press for what he called newspaper notoriety, which gave more credit to some than to others. He was probably responding to his wifes comment that she never saw mention of his name in the lists of promotions in the Washington, D.C., newspapers. Why was George still a second lieutenant when so many of his classmates, and even younger officers, were promoted to higher ranks?

Meade said he felt no disappointment at not being promoted because he had not expected to be. I was fully prepared for my not being noticed. He added that he could claim no personal distinction in the two battles in which his unit had fought because he was a staff officer, which gave him few opportunities for heroic actions that could bring promotion and glory.

Meade also suggested to his wife that he did not have the political influence in Washington that led to publicity and promotions. That was a strange grievance to claim for a man whose in-laws were so well-connected. He decried the mighty engine of political influence, that curse of our country.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter the war, Meade returned to his duties of surveying coastlines and building lighthouses in Florida, Delaware Bay, New Jersey, and the Great Lakes area, spending little time with his family. Finally, when Meade was 35 years old, some 16 years after his graduation from West Point, he was promoted to first lieutenant; five years later, he was promoted to captain.

Yet Meades career looked less promising than ever, and his depression grew. The only future he saw was a repeat of his past. But then came war; it was 1861. George Meade was stationed in Detroit for the Great Lakes Survey and he resolved not to spend another war in the Topographical Corps but to have an active combat command, with a rank more fitting to his age. Meade wrote to the War Department asking for a new command, but received no reply. He tried several times more without success and so he went to Washington in person.

After all, Meade insisted, he was a West Point graduate and a veteran of the Mexican War. Surely the country needed trained and capable men to lead the new armies that would have to be formed to meet the Confederate threat. Meade knew most of the other officers who were obtaining promotions and important commands, but no one at the War Department paid any attention to his requests for an active leadership role. He returned to Detroit, fearing that he was going to miss his one last chance to find fulfillment and accomplishment after his years of dedicated service.

Then, on August 31, 1861, more than four months after the war began, Meade was advanced four ranks to brigadier general and given command of a volunteer brigade from his familys home state of Pennsylvania. He may not have ever known that his wife had arranged for his sudden promotion through her contacts with influential members of the government. There is no record of Meades asking her to intercede on his behalf.

[quote style=boxed float=left]Meade was flattered to Hear he was under consideration as the Army of the Potomacs New Commander. He also believed he had no chance of being chosen.[/quote]

This was his first time commanding troops, and Meade was determined to be successful. Over the next two years, he served under every commander of the Army of the Potomac and fought in significant battles at Mechanicsville, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, among others. Meade earned a reputation as a dependable and solid, if not particularly brilliant, leader of men. His troops, wary of his short temper, fought well for him, though they called him the old snapping turtle. By November 1862, he wore the two stars of a major general.

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]et through all the battles, praise in the newspapers, and the promotion, Meade griped in letters to his wife about how other officers had advantages because of their political connections. In our army, an officer has to run the chances of having his political friends in powerA poor devil like myself, with little merit and no friends, has to stand aside and see others go ahead.

The Army of the Potomac, commanded at the time by bombastic Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, suffered another major defeat at the Battle of Chancellorsville, which ended on May 6, 1863. Clearly the Unions principal army needed a new leader, and rumors began to circulate that Meade was being considered for the job, an idea supported by some of his fellow officers. When Meade heard the rumors he was flattered, but he believed he had no chance because of his professed lack of political influence. On May 10, he wrote to Margaretta: I do not believe there is the slightest probability of my being placed in command[H]aving no political influenceit is hardly probable that I shall be called on to accept or decline.

More than a month later, with the question of leadership still unresolved, Meade wrote that he did not stand any chance [of being chosen] because I have no friends, political or other, who press or advance my claims or pretensions, and there are so many others who are pressed by influential politicians that it is folly to think that I stand any chance upon mere merit alone. He then added a curious, self-effacing comment: It remains to be seen whether I have the capacity to handle successfully a large army.

On June 28, after Robert E. Lees Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac River and was driving north into Union territory, Meade was awakened in his tent at 3 a.m. by Colonel James Hardie, sent as a special courier from Washington. Hardie, an old friend, contrived to make a joke. He told Meade that he had bad newsMeade was being relieved of his duties as a corps commander.

Meade reportedly said he was not surprised; he had been expecting it. Then Hardie told him the good news, that Meade had been appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac.

At first Meade protested, claiming that he was not prepared or capable of leading the Unions largest army. He said he would telegraph the War Department immediately asking that his orders be rescinded and the position given to some other officer. Hardie reminded Meade that he had no choice. He could not turn down the offer: He was the best person available to deal with Lees invasion of Pennsylvania.

Meade reluctantly agreed. Ive been tried and condemned without a hearing, and I suppose I shall have to go to the execution. In a letter home to his wife, Meade wrote: You know how reluctant we both have been to see me placed in this position, and as it appears to be Gods will for some good purpose. At any rate as a soldier I had nothing to do but accept I am moving at once against Lee.

Five days later, on July 3, in a little-known town called Gettysburg, George Meade, who had never wanted to be a soldier, led his army to victory. On July 8, he wrote to his wife: I think I have lived as much in this time as in the last thirty years.

Duane Schultz is the author of numerous articles and books on military history, including The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War; The Most Glorious Fourth: Vicksburg and Gettysburg; and The Fate of War: Fredericksburg, 1862.
German history books style it the Damenweg, while the French call it the Chemin des Dames. Both translate into English as the Ladies Path and refer to a nearly 20-mile route along an exposed ridgeline northeast of Soissons. The ridge runs east-west between the Ailette river valley to the north and the Aisne river valley to the south. Farther south run several more parallel valleys and then the Marne.

The Chemin des Dames acquired its somewhat prosaic name in the 18th century, when daughters of King Louis XV traveled the route regularly on their way to and from Paris and Chateau de Boves near Vauclair. The road offers magnificent views of the pastoral French countryside. It is also one of the most blood-soaked swaths of land in Europe.

Though associated primarily with World War I, the Chemin des Dames was also the setting of one of Napoleon Bonapartes last victories. Toward the end of the War of the Sixth Coalition, during the Battle of Craonne on March 7, 1814, Napoleon and a force of mostly raw recruits successfully repelled a combined Russian-Prussian force seeking to halt the French retreat to Paris.

During World War I the Allies and Germans fought three major actions along the Chemin des Dames. The First Battle of the Aisne unfolded Sept. 1328, 1914, as French and British forces pursued the withdrawing Germans after the First Battle of the Marne. Digging in behind the Aisne, the Germans occupied the northern high ground and stopped the Allies cold.

The Germans still held that strategic ground in the spring of 1917, when General Robert Nivelle, the French commander in chief, launched a massive offensive, promising war-weary France he had the formula that would break the Western Front stalemate and win the war. The Chemin des Dames, commanding the surrounding plains from 600 feet, was the key to Nivelles plan and the prime target of his attack. But the Germans had their own formula, based on their brilliant defense-in-depth system. The Nivelle Offensive, also known as the Second Battle of the Aisne, launched on April 16. It turned into one of the greatest disasters in French military history. By the time Nivelle halted the offensive five days later, the French army had sustained more than 120,000 casualties. French morale snapped, and the resulting widespread mutinies tore the French army apart, almost knocking France out of the war.

Finally in late October the French took the Chemin des Dames. Following a massive artillery preparation supported by tanks, General Philippe Petains methodically executed Battle of la Malmaison pushed the Germans to the north. Although forced into positions along the Ailette at the base of the ridges north slope, the Germans still had the advantage of a reverse-slope defense.

On May 27, 1918, the Germans initiated Operation Blucher-Yorck, a 20-division attack with an initial objective of the Vesle, about 12 miles south of the Aisne. The German troops, supported by an immense artillery barrage, swept up the Chemin des Dames and back down the other side within a matter of hours. At the end of the day they were across the Vesle, and by the time the offensive ended on June 6, the Germans were on the Marne, having advanced almost 30 miles. But they didnt stay there long. The Allied counteroffensive, launched on July 18, pushed the Germans back to the Chemin des Dames by the first week of August. The opposing armies had suffered a combined quarter-million casualties in what the French called the Third Battle of the Aisne. A few weeks later the Germans abandoned the Chemin des Dames for the last time, as the Allies Hundred Days Offensive systematically pushed the Germans back east, one step at a time.

Today the Chemin des Dames overlooks French farm country, far off the tourist paths. A monument to Napoleon gazes out over the small 1814 battlefield in Craonne, at the eastern end of the ridge. At its western end are the heavily overgrown and inaccessible ruins of Fort de la Malmaison. Completed in 1882, Malmaison and its three dozen guns were already obsolete by the time the war started. The French abandoned it in 1914 prior to First Marne, but the Germans occupied it when they took over the Chemin des Dames.

Near the ridges eastern end is the Caverne du Dragon (Dragons Lair), among the more fascinating of Frances many World War I museums [www.caverne-du-dragon .com]. Comprising 250 acres of tunnels and galleries some 50 feet below ground, the lair originated as a limestone quarry in the 16th century. During the war the cavern housed field hospitals and command posts for both sides, as the ridge repeatedly changed hands. Without question, however, the more than 20 French and German military cemeteries along the Chemin des Dames serve as the starkest reminder of what happened there a century ago. Only about half of those buried in the cemeteries rest in identified graves; the others remains sift together in ossuaries or mass graves.

Originally published in the May 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
In 1890 naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote, When the opportunities for gain abroad are understood, the course of American enterprise will cleave a channel by which to reach them. In the late 19th century, explained Mahan, the United States faced inexorable economic pressures. Compounding these were powerful geopolitical factors, including the nations growing confidence in international matters. A contemporary editorial in The Washington Post summed it up: A new consciousness seems to have come upon us.We are face to face with a strange destiny. The taste of Empire is in the mouth of the people.

Tensions between America and Spain mounted as the United States expanded its influence in the Caribbean. Cuba, in the midst of a rebellion against Spains heavy-handed colonial rule, was the nexus of this stress. The sensationalist press played on the obvious strains, alarming Americans anxious to protect their Cuban commercial interests. Tipping the scales was the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898, which prompted the U.S. declaration of war against Spain on April 25.

In the western Pacific, the Philippinesembroiled in its own insurrection against Spainbecame a naval focus of the Spanish-American War. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, a proponent of Mahans sea power theories, played a key role leading up to the Battle of Manila Bay. In fact, it was a cable sent by Roosevelteven before the declaration of warthat started Commodore George Dewey on his course to Manila Bay. Roosevelts orders to Dewey, a protege of the aggressive Admiral David Farragut, were permissive: Your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast and then [to initiate] offensive operations in [the] Philippine Islands.

In late April, Dewey gathered his nine-ship Asiatic Squadron and headed to the Philippines, the reported location of Spains Pacific Squadron, led by Rear Adm. Patricio Montojo y Pasaron. He found it anchored at the south end of Manila Bay, backed by the province of Cavite and a cluster of small islands. All things considered it was a wellchosen defensive position, though with only limited protection from available shore batteries. Dewey pitted his four protected cruisers and two gunboats against Montojos two unprotected cruisers, five smaller ships and five engaged shore batteries. Montojo was outgunned by a wide margin, and Deweys crews were considerably better trained and more motivated than Montojos.

After the Spanish fleet and shore batteries opened fire, Dewey famously addressed Charles Gridley, flag captain aboard USS Olympia (see P. 22), saying, You may fire when you are ready, Gridley. The American gunners systematically decimated Montojos force and silenced the Spanish shore batteries. The cover line on a special edition of the New York Journal reporting the action shouted: SURRENDERS! DEWEYS FLEET TAKES MANILA.

Shortly after the Battle of Manila Bay, Washington annexed the Philippines, thus becoming a key player in the western Pacific, a position ultimately reinforced in World War II.

Lessons:

Mahan was correct about sea power and Americas global aspirations.

If you anticipate war, marshal your resources sooner rather than later.

When choosing a defensive anchorage, keep within range of protective shore batteries.

Steel warships with steam engines are preferable to wooden warships with sails.

Past glory, no matter the scope, counts for little when the shooting starts.

Superior firepower, training and audacity can trump the best defenses.

One significant victory can alter the military and political balance of power in a hemisphere.

Originally published in the July 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
Among the Confederacys most successful responses to the Anaconda Planthe Unions Civil War strategy to blockade Southern ports and simultaneously advance down the Mississippi River to cut the Confederacy in twowas guerre de course (war of the chase, or commerce raiding). The burgeoning global trade in the mid-19th century made busy Union merchant ships particularly tempting prizes. Thus the Confederacy granted interested privateersthe owners of private warships letters of marque, or government permission, to attack enemy vessels for a share in the profits. While most European nations had outlawed this practice with the 1856 Paris Declaration, a lack of broad international recognition of the Confederate States of America brought the legal status of its letters of marque into question.

Though the South commissioned little more than two dozen naval raiders, its privateers played a significant role in the naval conflict, initially sinking or capturing between 50 and 60 Union merchantmen and by wars end accounting for more than 230 Union merchant ships. The Souths depredations prompted many U.S. companies to transfer their ships to foreign registry.

CSS Sumter, a bark-rigged steamer commissioned in June 1861, was the first ship the Confederacy had converted into a raider. In its prewar career the steamer (Habana) had operated as a packet ship between New Orleans and Cuba. Its combined sail and steam propulsion was important, as sailing vesselslimited to routes determined by prevailing windscarried virtually all of the Unions maritime trade. Sumter and subsequent raiders typically hunted Union ships under sail and then attacked and escaped under steam power.

Sumters commander was Raphael Semmes, whose skill and audacity were as important as his ships dual-propulsion system. At one point the Union deployed a six-ship squadron to chase down the raider, illustrating the drain on naval strength exacted by the Souths privateers. By the end of Sumters first cruise, in early 1862, Semmes had taken 18 prizes. After Union ships penned in Sumter at Gibraltar, Semmes was transferred to the command of CSS Alabama, a sloop of war built in secrecy in England.

Launched in July 1862, Semmes second command was also the Confederacys most successful raider. The captain joined Alabama in the Azores, where crews had loaded the ship with coal and fitted it out. After 65 successful attacks over 21 months Alabama put in to Cherbourg, France, for repairs.

While the raider was in Cherbourg the U.S. minister in Paris telegraphed Alabamas location to the captain of the Union sloop of war USS Kearsarge, which lay in port in the Netherlands. When Alabama left Cherbourg on June 19, 1864, Kearsargeequipped with a protective belt of chain cladding, two 11-inch Dahlgren guns and four 32-pound cannonwas waiting. It was the kind of mismatch raiders had sought to avoid, and Alabama did not survive the encounter. The clash marked the beginning of the end of Rebel commerce raiding.

Lessons:

The economic benefits of maritime trade are offset by the strategic vulnerability of that trade in war.

The cost/benefit ratio of commerce raiding is deceptively tempting for countries facing a superior naval force.

Deterrence of commerce raiding requires a high level of naval command and control.

Commerce raiding absent the full range of naval power is not a winning strategy.

A single well-operated warship can often elude even the most determined pursuer.

In naval warfare the side with the larger industrial base has an overwhelming advantage.

Originally published in the September 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
Historys Worst Weapons

[Re. 10 of Historys Worst Weapons, by Stephan Wilkinson, May:] I was somewhat surprised to see that the Mark 14 torpedo made the list.

As a young man of 18 I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1976. After recruit training I was assigned to torpedoman A school for six weeks of basic training in Orlando, Fla., then given orders to report to the submarine tender USS Proteus, homeported in Guam. I would always volunteer to go out on our boats when we would recover test torpedoes. This was 1977, and the Mark 14 was still in use 32 years after World War II.

I left Proteus in 1978 and was sent to Mark 14 C school in Orlando for eight weeks. This was when I learned of its flaws in World War IIbad depth mechanisms that made the torpedo run deeper than the set depth; firing pins not hitting hard enough to explode the warhead; the Mark 6 exploders magnetic influence not functioning correctly.

It took months, many lives and much disappointment after the start of World War II to resolve the flaws of the Mark 14 torpedo.

Though the U.S. Navy has more advanced torpedoes now, they have yet to be proven during a time of war. We do not know how they will react to torpedo countermeasures. The Mark 14 would not recognize any countermeasures in use today.

Tim Reding

TMC(SW)

U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Flint, Mich.

As an infantry platoon leader and company commander in Vietnam, I read the silly cover story in Time slandering our M-16 rifle. Between firefights I questioned all of my NCOs and privates about their experiences with the rifles. I discovered that a few goldbricks, being unfamiliar with the three-pronged flash-suppressors at the muzzles, had jammed them into the ground to use the rifles as tent poles, or for support, only to be shocked their rifles didnt work well. Fortunately, no men were ever endangered in combat.

Egon Richard Tausch

Former Captain

U.S. Army

San Antonia, Texas

I very much enjoyed 10 of Historys Worst Weapons, a fun and informative read. However, I must disagree with the placement of Frances Maginot Line on such a list.

I find it inappropriate to place an entire defensive line on a list otherwise made up of individual weapon systems. It comes off as another potshot at the French for their June 1940 defeat. Furthermore, the authors comment It cost France an enormous amount of energy plus 3 billion francs that could have been better spent on armored divisions and a more effective air force places undue emphasis on the materiel aspects of Frances defeat. I direct readers to Eugenia Kieslings Arming Against Hitler: France and the Limits of Military Planning, which makes a convincing point that France was not defeated because of materiel shortcomings, but rather because of a fundamentally flawed defensive doctrine and prewar planning. More tanks will not make a difference if improperly used, and given inadequate preparations, it is unlikely heavier investment in armored divisions would have prevented Frances defeat. History is rich with examples of ineffective, wasteful and downright silly weapons that would fit much better in this list. There is no need for yet another attack on the Maginot Line, which has become the lowest common denominator for failed military endeavors.

Stephen Leccese

Floral Park, N.Y.

I really enjoyed that article. One of the Panzer VIII Maus tanks is in a museum in Russia. Did you know that Hitler approved two weapons that would have dwarfed the Maus? One was the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte, which would have been five times the weight of the Maus, or 1,100 tons. The gun on the Ratte was going to be a dual 280mm gun turret, as opposed to the 128mm on the Maus. The other was the Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster, which promised an 800mm cannon (a la the Gustav and Dora railway guns). Fortunately, Albert Speer cancelled both Wagnerian projects. If some generals had had their way, many more Tigers would have been built. I shudder to think what would have happened had the Allies faced the Maus, the Ratte or the Monster.

Sheldon Fosburg

Staten Island, N.Y.

Warsaw Ghetto

As a longtime and ardent reader of your magazine I feel compelled to comment about your recent article about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising [Hallowed Ground, by David T. Zabecki, July], which has always been for me an inspiring story of human courage and dignity. The Alamo in our history has the same symbolismcourage in the face of certain death.

There was much about the article to compliment, [but] I thought the point was missed when the author started commenting about the body count. To even mention the body count in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising misses the point entirely. The fact of the matter is that people who had no hope still chose to go down fighting rather than be slaves to an overwhelming and evil force. What they did had the multiplied effect of many thousand of times for the spirit and resolve of free peoples and those people at risk to lose their freedom.

Another example that comes to mind is Masada. Almost 1,000 Judeans chose to die by their own hands as free men and women rather than submit to the tyrannical rule of Rome. Surrender might have saved some lives, but not the spirit of the defenders.

Dr. Edward G. Halstead

Woodbridge, Conn.

Lewis Gun

I enjoy Military History very much and check out my local newsagent regularly to ensure I do not miss a copy. I was interested to see the spread on the Lewis machine gun [Hardware, by Jon Guttman] in the May issue. The Australians in France and Belgium in World War I were particularly fond of this weapon and had not suffered the inadequacies of the dreadful Chauchat. My grandfather served in the 19th Battalion, 5th Brigade, of the Australian Imperial Forces 2nd Division. In that battalion was another soldier whose expertise on the Lewis gun during the attack on Flers on the Somme in November 1916 was recorded by Australias official historian C.E.W. Bean. Was it coincidence or the armys sense of humor to allocate the weapon to the appropriately named Lance Cpl. Louis Lewis?

Graham Apthorpe

Cowra

New South Wales, Australia

Hunley With an H.L.

I noticed an incorrect nomenclature in the War Games, More Bad Weapons quiz [May]. For No. 10 you had the answer as CSS Hunley. The correct name of the vessel was H.L. Hunley. CSS applied to ships of the Confederate navy. H.L. Hunley [named for Confederate submarine designer and financier Horace Lawson Hunley] was not in the navy. It was a private venture and was technically a privateer (see P. 21). Though it could not take prizes on the high seas, it could receive a bounty for enemy ships sunk.

Minor thing guys. Great magazine!

Vince Decker

Elizabethtown, KY.

Michael Collins

In regard to the question posed in your magazine as to whether Michael Collins was a freedom fighter, a sellout or a terrorist [Rebel of the Cause, by Ron Soodalter, March]: He was all those things, depending on how you define them. By some definitions you could call the leaders of the American Revolution terrorists. Collins fought against a very powerful foe in the only way he had a chance to prevail. There is little doubt he was an extremely able leader of the IRAs fight for Irish independence.

My father fought in that war, in the 5th Cork Brigade. He was disgusted at the sellout on the [Anglo-Irish Treaty], and he fought against the Free Staters until it became clear that fight could not be won. He then returned to the United States and never considered living in Ireland again.

The delegation led by Collins settled for only a partial victory by entering into the 1921 treaty with the British. Ireland was still under the British Commonwealth, and the island was partitioned, with the wealthiest part of itBelfastremaining in British hands. It is my understanding that execution of those who had signed the treaty was considered on their return, but it was felt world opinion would be on the side of the revolutionaries if the treaty was subjected to a vote of the Irish [House of Commons], where it would surely lose. The treaty was approved, and civil war ensued.

I dont know what Collins was thinking. Presumably he felt this was the best deal he could achieve with the British. The IRA was underfunded and short of munitions. The Irish people, many of whom supported the rebellion only half-heartedly, were tired of the war. Perhaps Collins felt he could achieve the objectives of the IRA by other means once the treaty was in place and he was the countrys leader.

The Ireland that resulted remained an impoverished nation for decades, and only with the establishment of the European Union did Ireland flourish. It seems a shame Collins did not live, since he was indeed a capable leader.

Brian Boru Spillane

Denver, Colo.

Digging Bloodlands

I enjoy reading Bloodlands, by Richard A. Gabriel, but am mystified why the events are listed in reverse order? It makes more sense to me to read about them in chronological order.

John J. Umhoefer

Madison, Wis.

Editor responds: As conceived, the layout for Bloodlands was to resemble an archaeological dig, with layers of illustrated/ photographed artifacts in ascending chronological order, as at an actual dig site. The text mirrors that order. Weve long wondered whether readers would read from the bottom up or top down. And now, sadly, the point is moot, as weve discontinued the feature. You might say, Its history.

Originally published in the September 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
Sent to delay the North Korean communist wave at the outset of the Korean War, Task Force Smith became an object lesson in military hubris.

There should be, somewhere in the annals of American military history, a compendium of battlefield disasters. If so, among them would be a little-known engagement that marked Americas earliest involvement in the Korean conflict and presaged what was to follow. It was known as the Battle of Osan, fought bravely but futilely by a badly outnumbered battalion of U.S. Army infantry and artillery known as Task Force Smith.

At dawn on June 25, 1950, communist North Korea crossed the 38th parallel and surged into the democratic Republic of Korea the Peoples Army of in what the United Nations termed an unprovoked act of aggression. Ever since the United States and the Soviet Union split Korea in two after World War II, each side had postured, threatened reunification by force and engaged in border spats. This latest action seemed at first to be just one more incident in a five-year standoff marked by mutual threats and hostility.

By June 30, having realized the true scope of the invasion, President Harry S. Truman had ordered General of the Army Douglas MacArthursupreme commander for the Allied powers in occupied Japanto commit ground troops to Korea. MacArthur immediately sought authorization to move a U.S. regimental combat team to the reinforcement of the vital area discussed and to provide for a possible buildup to a two-division strength from the troops in Japan for an early counteroffensive. Truman approved, and MacArthur instructed Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, Eighth Army commander, to order the 24th Infantry Divisionthen stationed in Japanto Korea with all possible speed. Walker, in turn, conveyed preliminary verbal instructions to division commander Maj. Gen. William F. Dean.

The immediate problem was there was not an established regimental combat team (RCT) in Japan, nor were there enough C-54 cargo planes in the country to transport such a unit and its equipment. The respective commanders chose not to spend time improvising a regiment-sized combat outfit or waiting for more planes, fearing that such delays would compromise MacArthurs plan for rapid deployment.

Instead, they decided to send a small delaying force to contact the enemy. The rest of the 24th Inf. Div. would follow by sea, entering Korea through the port of Pusan. Instead of the called-for full-strength regimental combat team, the delaying force comprised a single understrength infantry battalion totaling barely 400 men. When this tiny force departed for Koreafor what would certainly be a hostile engagement with a numerically superior foeit would go without the tanks, forward air controllers, combat engineers, medical support, air defense, military police, or signal and reconnaissance platoons indigenous to a standard RCT.

The one thing the Army did right was to pick a good man to lead the unit.

Thirty-four-year-old Lt. Col. Charles B. Smith was a seasoned combat veteran. A 1939 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, hed been stationed at Oahu, Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and he fought in the Pacific throughout World War II. Now he was to command the first American combat unit to meet the enemy in the Korean War.

As Smith later recalled, on the night of June 30, 1950, he was awakened at his quarters at Camp Wood on the island of Kyu shu, Japan, by a phone call from Colonel Richard W. Stephens, commander of the 21st Inf. Regt., 24th Inf. Div. The lid has blown off, Stephens said. Get on your clothes and report to the command post. There Smith was ordered to take the makeshift infantry battalioncentered on the regiments 1st Battalion, minus companies A and Dto Itazuke Air Base.

General Dean was waiting at Itazuke. He ordered Smith to stop the North Koreans as far from Pusan as he could and to block the main road as far north as possible. Dean also directed Smith to seek out Brig. Gen. John H. Church, deputy commander of U.S. Army Forces in Korea (USAFIK), once he landed, then added, Sorry I cant give you more information. Thats all Ive got.

Smiths written instructions followed later in the day in a formal operations order: Advance at once upon landing with delaying force, in accordance with the situation, to the north by all possible means, contact enemy now advancing south from Seoul towards Suwo n and delay his advance. What Walker and Dean neglected to tell Smith was that the enemy he had been ordered to delay was, in fact, the flower of the invading North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA).

Smiths truncated battaliondubbed Task Force Smith after him comprised two undersized rifle companies, B and C, and half of the headquarters company. Supporting them were half a communications platoon; a 75mm recoilless rifle platoon with only two of the four requisite weapons; two 4.2- inch mortars; six 2.36- inch bazookas; and four 60mm mortars. Nearly all the weapons were of World War II vintage.

Each Task Force Smith soldier carried 120 rounds of .30-caliber rifle ammunition and enough Crations for two days. Most of Smiths 406 men were 20 years old or younger, and only a fraction of the officers and enlisted men had seen combat.

Upon landing in Korea, Smith and his men were driven the 17 miles to the rail station in Pusan, where cheering locals lined the streets, waving banners and streamers as the soldiers passed. From Pusan the train took the small force to Taejo n, arriving on the morning of July 2. There Smith met with Church and gathered U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) army officers. We have a little action up here, Church said, indicating a northerly point on a map. All we need is some men up there who wont run when they see tanks. Were going to move you up to support the ROKs and give them moral support. Church was fully aware the little action into which he was sending Smith and his makeshift battalion would pit them against at least two regiments of the NKPAs 4th Inf. Div., supported by a tank regimentsome 5,000 men and three dozen tanks. It is not known why he failed to inform Smith of this or the fact that the enemy advance had just taken the city of Suwo n and routed several South Korean divisions, leaving no intact ROK army units in the vicinity for Smith to support. Church apparently feltas had Dean and Walker before himthat a demonstration of resolve by two understrength American rifle companies would be sufficient to encourage ROK units and discourage the entire NKPA. Smith, however, was a professional soldier, and he was determined to find out just what lay in store for his men.

After meeting with Church on July 2, Smith set out north by jeep toward Suwon with his principal officers, looking for a likely place to establish a defensive position. As they drove north over miles of rough road, thousands of dispirited refugees and retreating ROK troops passed them in the opposite direction.

Three miles north of Osan the road dipped and bent slightly toward Suwo n. At right angles to the road ran an irregular ridge of hills. The highest hill peaked at around 300 feet, commanding the railroad line to the east and offering a line of sight nearly the entire eight miles north to Suwo n. It was there Smith established his position.

Smith set up his command post in Pyeongtaek, some 15 miles southeast of Osan. On July 4 elements of the 52nd Field Artillery Battalion134 men and a battery of six 105mm howitzers under the command of Lt. Col. Miller Perryarrived in Pyeongtaek to bolster the task force. The two officers made a final reconnaissance of the position north of Osan, noting viable positions for the howitzers. Smith submitted his choice of site to headquarters and received orders to take up those good positions near Osan you told General Church about.

In many ways the position was optimal, given the situation. It offered good cover and observation, and it controlled the approaches to Osan. However, the enemy had a clear path to flanking Smith, who with his limited force could do little more than deploy his men in a refused flank a line of troops bent back on itself to prevent such an attack.

Just after midnight on July 5 Task Force Smith moved out of Pyeongtaek in dozens of trucks and commandeered vehicles. In blackout conditions, with fleeing ROK troops and civilians clogging the road, it took more than two and a half hours to cover the 12 miles to Osan. They drove on in a pouring rain, reaching their position at 3 a.m. Worse still, the sky showed no sign of clearing, eliminating any possibility of air support.

Smiths infantrymen began to dig in and set up their weapons in the rain-soaked predawn hours, forming a mile-wide defensive line that flanked the road. Meanwhile, Perrys men used jeeps to tow all but one of their howitzers up a steep hillside some 2,000 yards to the rear of the infantry and then camouflaged them. The remaining gun Perry placed halfway between the battery and the infantry position to cover the road against enemy tanks. The men strung telephone wires between the artillery and infantry positions. Smith emplaced the four .50-caliber machine guns and four bazookas with his infantry and positioned the mortars 400 yards to the rear. The infantry parked its vehicles just south of their position, while the artillerymen chose to conceal their trucks farther back toward Osana decision that would prove fortuitous after the battle.

By first light the men were in position, their situation as good as Smith could make it. Gentlemen, we will hold for 24 hours, the commander told his men. After that we will have help. Smith was unaware that neither Church nor Dean had made any provisions to come to his aid. As far as the generals were concerned, the mission was simply a delaying action that required no further support. Smiths tiny force was soon to be as isolated as the men at the Alamo or Thermopylaeand just as outnumbered.

Smith and his men did not have to wait long for the enemy. At around 7:30 a.m. observers spotted eight Soviet-made T-34/85 tanks of the NKPAs 107th Tank Regiment rolling directly toward them. At 8:16 a.m., at a range of 4,000 yards, the American artillery fired on the forces of North Korea for the first timeto no effect whatsoever. The standard 105mm rounds merely bounced off the tanks. Perrys battery had only six high-explosive antitank (HEAT) rounds, all assigned to the forward howitzer.

When the T-34s came within 700 yards of the infantry Smith ordered the 75mm recoilless rifles to open fire. Despite scoring several direct hits, they had no better luck. Nor did the 2.36-inch bazookas, firing repeatedly at practically pointblank range. Second Lt. Ollie Connor alone fired 22 rockets from a distance of 15 yards, to no effect. Had the Americans been armed with the more powerful 3.5-inch bazookas then being fielded to U.S. units in Germany, the outcome would have been dramatically different.

The Army maxim of the day regarding tank warfare was, The best defense against the tank is another tank. Without tanks of its own, Task Force Smith could have at least used anti-tank mines, but again there were none in Korea. For reasons that remain unclear, they were left on the airstrip in Japan as the task force prepared to deploy.

The T-34s soon opened fire on the Americans with their turret-mounted 85mm guns and 7.62 machine guns. The heavy barrage initially sent some of Perrys gun crews scurrying for cover, but they soon returned to their howitzers. As the tanks began to roll through Smiths position, American firein all likelihood HEAT rounds from the lead howitzerfinally had an impact, damaging the lead two T-34s. One caught fire, and as its three-man crew emerged from the turret, one of them fired on a U.S. machine gun emplacement, killing an assistant gunner. He was the first American ground soldier killed in action in Korea. Return fire killed the three North Koreans.

The forward howitzer crew engaged the third tank through the pass, but the Americans had expended their six HEAT rounds, and the tank quickly knocked out the gun. Perrys remaining howitzers disabled two other tanks, but more were on the way. Twenty-five additional T-34s followed the initial eight-tank enemy column in intervals. Perhaps fearing that Smiths men represented only the forward position of a much larger force, the tanks did not stop to engage the infantry but simply fired on them in passing. Some did not bother to fire at all. Unfortunately for the Americans, the tanks treads had cut the telephone wires, severely hampering communication between Smith and the artillery. Two hours after the first tank approached, the last passed through Smiths position, leaving some 20 Americans dead or wounded, including Perry, who was hit in the leg by small-arms fire after trying in vain to get the crew of one disabled tank to surrender.

An hour later Smith saw what he estimated to be a six-mile column of trucks and infantry, led by three tanks, approaching along the road. These were the 16th and 18th Regiments of the NKPAs 4th Division, some 5,000 men in all. Inexplicably, the earlier tank column had neglected to alert the infantry to the waiting American ambushers. When the convoy closed to within 1,000 yards, Smith and his men threw the book at them, as he later put it. The North Koreans reacted by sending the three tanks to within 300 yards of the ridgeline to shell and machine-gun Task Force Smiths positions. A 1,000-man enemy skirmish line sought to advance but was driven back by American fire.

Though Perrys battery, cut off from communication with forward observers, was unable to provide supporting fire, Smiths infantry fought on for more than three hours. The American infantrymen inflicted punishing casualties on the advancing enemy but were eventually flanked and subjected to heavy fire. Nearly surrounded and almost out of ammunition, Smith realized withdrawal was the only option.

It was during the withdrawal the Americans suffered their greatest casualties. Those who attempted to carry wounded out of the firestorm were cut down. Completely exposed to enemy mortar and machine-gun fire, many of the men broke and ran, leaving their heavy weapons and at least two dozen wounded behind. As the advancing North Koreans came upon the injured Americans, they shot them where they lay or bound and executed them.

When the advance columns of T-34s had passed through, they had destroyed the infantrys vehicles, so Smiths surviving infantrymen ran through nearby rice paddies, desperate to find the rear. The withdrawal quickly turned into a rout. The artillerymen still had their trucks, and after disabling the remaining howitzers, they drove off toward Ansong, picking up dozens of scattered infantrymen as they went. Survivors would straggle into headquarters, singly and in small groups, for days afterward. Smith reported 150 of his infantrymen and 31 officers and men of Perrys artillery force dead or missing around 40 percent of the task force. The butchers bill could have been much higher; had the North Koreanswho had orders not to stop until they reached Pyeongtaekchosen to pursue Smiths little force, they could have wiped it out.

In time a new Army slogan was born: No more Task Force Smiths. Over the past six decades it has been the norm to lay blame on convenient targets for the defeat of Task Force Smithpoor training, faulty leadership, inadequate equipmentwhile ignoring the chief underlying causes of the fiasco.

A claim that the men of Task Force Smith were poorly trained is fiction. The soldiers in occupied Japan received the same extensive training given all American troops. Writes one Army historian of the period, The units that were deployed to Korea were as disciplined as any unit sent to combat in the Second World War. At the time of Task Force Smiths deployment the Armys evaluation program had rated the battalion tested and ready for combat. The proof was in its performance. Dramatically outgunned and outmanned more than 10-to-1, the U.S. troops had confronted two regiments of enemy infantry and three dozen tanks, had held their ground for more than six hours and had killed some 42 North Koreans and wounded 85. The fact the GIs took out four tanks with limited antitank weapons and retained discipline under heavy fire speaks volumes.

Some accused Smith and his officers of failing their men, but nothing could be further from the truth. The task forces officers, from Smith on down, made all the right decisions regarding terrain and tactics. And despite the mad scramble for survival at the close of battle, their men acquitted themselves well in an impossible situation, due in large measure to the example set by their officers.

A charge that the firepower employed by Task Force Smith was inadequate for the mission is true; the condition of much of the equipment was disgraceful. Even the howitzers had earlier been condemned and were no longer allowed to fire over friendly troops. Yet the men under Smith and Perry used the worn artillery pieces and other weapons to their fullest capacity.

U.S. Army Major John Garrett conducted extensive research into the battle and wrote Task Force Smith: The Lesson Never Learned, a monograph published in 2000 by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Colleges School of Advanced Military Studies. In it Garrett convincingly argues that the real responsibility for the missions failure lay not with the men who led or comprised Task Force Smith but with the senior leaders of the 24th Infantry Division, Eighth U.S. Army and higher headquarters who failed to provide the proper operational leadership.Task Force Smith was deployed to the Korean theater without any concept of how and why it was to be employed.

Facing a Senate committee MacArthur later said of the Battle of Osan: I threw in troops from the 24th Divisionin the hope of establishing a loci of resistance around which I could rally the fast-retreating South Korean forces. I also hoped by that arrogant display of strength to fool the enemy into a belief that I had a much greater resource at my disposal than I did. It was a naive and ultimately disastrous gambit, reflective of the hubris that convinced experienced general officers that a small force of American warriors could deter entire NKPA tank and infantry regiments. In all likelihood the North Koreans initially had no idea they were facing an American defensive force. And once they did, it clearly made no difference; their tanks simply rode over and through the Americans. As Garrett wrote, This brave tiny force was placed in front of the absolute strongest part of the North Korean Armynot out of ignorance of the situation, but out of the thoughtless pride of MacArthur and the failure of any other commander to correct or even see the blunder.

Nor did the Army learn from Osan. Task Force Smith would not be the last American force precipitately thrown into combat with tragic results in the early days of the Korean War. An oft-repeated quote describes insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Sadly, the results would be the same each time.

Ron Soodalter is the author of Hanging Captain Gordon and co-author of The Slave Next Door. For further reading he recommends South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, by Roy Edgar Appleman, and the monograph Task Force Smith: The Lesson Never Learned, by Major John Garrett.

Originally published in the July 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
Armies from antiquity to the present day have wrangled over this patch of ground in the Black Sea but why?

The three key principles of the real estate business, the saying goes, are location, location, location. The style of a home, its square footage, the backyard poolall factor in, but none is as important as the location. Some places are more desirable than others, and homes built in those coveted locales are often the subject of bidding wars.

The principle carries over into military history. Some locations attract more attention, draw more invaders and generate more wars. Take Crimea. A diamond-shaped peninsula dominating the Black Sea, it has long enticed would-be overlords of every stripe. While it is a natural naval base, its tenuous link with the mainland via the Isthmus of Perekop is also just wide enough to lure land armies. And lure them it has, one after the other: Tauri and Scythians; Greeks and Romans; Byzantines and Kievan Rus; Mongols, Ottoman Turks and Russians; Soviet commissars and German field marshals. All felt the pull of Crimeas beauty and its temperate climate, to be sure, but what really drew them was the location. The ruler of the peninsula has 360-degree power projection at his fingertips: north into Ukraine, east into the Caucasus, south into Asia Minor or west into the Balkans.

Take Crimea? Many have tried.

The 185356 Crimean War provided a case example of the peninsulas lure. In 1852 a diplomatic clash arose between Russia and France over the status of a handful of Christian shrines and churches in the Holy Land, then under Ottoman Turkish rule. Both powers claimed to be the protector of Christians living in the Ottoman empire, with Russia speaking on behalf of Orthodox believers and France for the Roman Catholic population. To show he meant business, French Emperor Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte) sent the 80-gun ship of the line Charlemagne into the Black Sea, and Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid I was sufficiently impressed to rule in Frances favor.

Russian protests against the sultans decision fell on deaf ears in Istanbul, and in July 1853 Czar Nicholas I ordered Russian troops over the border into the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (present-day Moldova and Romania), territories then under nominal Turkish control. And after Ottoman protests fell on equally deaf ears in St. Petersburg, the empire declared war on Russia in October.

It is perhaps easy to make light of the obscure monkish quarrel that sparked the conflict, but big issues were at stake. The long-term cause was the Eastern question, the upheaval in the Near East caused by the long-term decline of the Ottoman empire. As Turkish strength waned, the Great Powers sought to protect their strategic interests in the region. From the point of view of London or Paris, a bipartite war between Russia and the Ottomans would certainly result in a decisive Russian victory, and Russian dominance of the Near East was an unthinkable proposition. And so British and French naval units entered the Black Sea in a show of support for the Turks.

Tensions boiled over on November 30, when a Russian naval squadron operating out of Sevastopolthe great naval base in Crimeaused its newfangled explosive shells to destroy a Turkish squadron of a dozen ships off Sinop, inflicting more than 3,000 casualties. Now under heavy pressure from public opinion inflamed by this massacre of Sinop, Britain and France declared war on Russia in March 1854.

Their purpose was to prop up the teetering Ottoman empire, but it hardly seemed necessary. After declaring war, Turkish forces brought the fight to the Russians, invading Wallachia and fortifying a number of positions along the Danube River. The Russian drive south faltered, and in April 1854 they began a desultory siege of the fortress town of Silistra. The Ottomans were holding out, but unfortunately an allied expeditionary force was already en route. It landed at Varna on the Black Sea in May, where poor sanitation promptly sparked a cholera epidemic that killed thousands. At the same time, recognizing they would never take Silistra, the Russians abandoned their siege in June. The following month, after an ultimatum from neutral Austria, they evacuated Wallachia and Moldavia altogether.

The conflict might well have ended then, but the allies were in the theater, and simply turning around and going home would have been a public relations fiasco. They had to attack Russia somewhere. It had to be a valuable and high-prestige target, it had to be nearby, and it had to be a spot vulnerable to allied naval power. Based on geography and the strategic realities of the region, there could be only one location: Crimea. The allies would seize Sevastopol, punish the Russians for Sinop and reduce the threat level to both the Ottoman empire and the broader region.

A force of nine divisionsfour British, four French and one Turkishdutifully sailed for Crimea, landing at Eupatoria in September. None of the contending armies had fought a serious war since 1815, and it was evident. The allies came ashore without transport and little equipment beyond rifles, drove straight down the main road toward Sevastopol and met the Russians coming straight up to block them. There was no preliminary jousting, no attempt to find a flank, no real reconnaissance. On September 20 the adversaries met on the Alma River.

It was the greatest battle since Waterloo, with some 60,000 British, French and Turks facing off against 36,000 Russians, but no one covered himself with glory at the Alma. The British and French kicked things off with an unimaginative frontal assault. The Russians defended their redoubts south of the river bravely at first, but superior allied firepowercourtesy of the new Minie riflesoon forced them to retreat. The battle started out orderly enough, but as the Russians shaky command and control broke down, it degenerated into a confused rout. Fighting a long way from home with meager cavalry, the allies failed to launch a pursuit, and their victory ended on a disappointing note. Still, the casualty statistics told the tale: The British had done the heavy lifting in the assault, suffering 362 killed and 1,640 wounded. The French, delayed to the action by obstructing cliffs in their battle sector, suffered 60 killed and 500 wounded. The Russians, fighting in dense columns with smoothbore muskets, suffered more than 5,000 casualties of all types.

The Russian rout did not end until it reached Sevastopol. The arriving force was a beaten rabble more than a cohesive army, and the allies might well have taken the city by brisk direct assault. This was a cautious war, however, and the allied command decided instead to execute a long flank march around the city. This maneuver let them seize new supply portsKamiesh for the French and Balaklava for the Britishand abandon their original base at Eupatoria, which Cossack attacks had rendered untenable anyway. But it wasted precious time. The allies did not bombard Sevastopol until October 17, by which time any hope for a speedy victory was gone. Instead, there was a siegealways a slow, difficult and costly business. It began for the allies with another outbreak of disease, this time a combination of dysentery and cholera, and in late November a bitter winter storm wrecked their supply fleet. While such things happen in every war, the telegrapha new factor in the Crimeaallowed correspondents like W.H. Russell of the London Times to file daily accounts of every gory detail to shocked readers back home.

The Russians launched three inept relief attempts of Sevastopolat Balaklava (site of the ill-fated charge of Britains Light Brigade) in October, Inkerman in November and the Chernaya River in August 1855. The allies beat back each attack with heavy losses, and the issue was no longer in doubt. Successive allied bombardments of the fortress met increasingly feeble resistance, and a French assault in September smashed the linchpin defensive position, the Malakoff redoubt. Recognizing defeat, the Russians torched their arsenals and abandoned the city.

By now all sides were exhausted, and the subsequent 1856 Treaty of Paris reflected it. The accord not only returned Sevastopol to the Russians (as a long-term allied occupation was neither politically nor militarily feasible) but also demilitarized the Black Sea, barring the Russians from stationing fleets or forces in the theater. That was about it, however, and even those meager clauses would have a very short half-life. With Europe distracted by the Franco-Prussian War in 187071, the Russians would renounce the entire treaty.

Largely forgotten today, the Crimean War was a signal moment in history for many reasons. The art of war took a quantum leap forward, with railroads, rifles and the telegraph taking center stage. Russias complete ineptitude unable even to defend a fortress on its home soilcame as a shock to the country. It led to long overdue social reforms, such as the abolition of serfdom, and also fostered the rise of radical revolutionary groups that would eventually bring down the empire altogether. But more than anything, the war showed the importance of Crimea itself, then as always a key piece of strategic real estate. The lure of the peninsula had summoned forth the soldiers of four great empires and killed more than a half-million of them.

We saw the same dynamic at work in World War II. The clash between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was the greatest land conflict in history, involving tens of millions of men and ranging from the Arctic Circle to the Caucasus Mountains. Yet, at times it seemed as if Crimea was the focal point of the entire titanic struggle.

Again, it was a matter of location. The simple fact was neither side could advance beyond a certain point in the Ukraine were Crimea in hostile hands. The Germans first felt the pull. With Army Group South driving on Rostov at lightning speed in the summer of 1941, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt had to halt and divert the entire 11th Army to overrun Crimea. When its commander, General Eugen von Schobert, had the misfortune to land his Fieseler Fi 156 Storch aircraft in a freshly laid Russian minefield, General Erich von Manstein took command of the 11th. Blasting into Crimea through deeply echeloned Soviet defenses in the Perekop Isthmus, he kept his eyes on the great prize, Sevastopol.

Before he could get there, however, trouble intervened all over the map. Crimeas central location is a double-edged sword, as events transpiring in different sectors can dramatically affect any operation. A Soviet counteroffensive on the northern shores of the Sea of Azov forced Manstein to detach a corps to contain it; the fall of Odessa to the west brought another evacuated Soviet division into Sevastopol. Although German intelligence reported three Soviet divisions in the peninsula, by now there were at least seven.

As a result the Germans had a tough time clearing Crimea and were not ready to storm Sevastopol until mid-December. The attackers had to blast through three concentric rings of Soviet fortifications including strongpoints, machine-gun nests, medium and heavy batteries in armored cupolas, and positions built into the caves and rocky hillsides. The Germans came within a stones throw, but just as they were making their breakthrough, Soviet reinforcements arrived in the form of the 79th Naval Infantry Brigade. Transported into Severnaya Bay on a small flotilla, its men hustled ashore, rushed to the threatened sector and held back the onrushing Germans. The Soviet crisis at Sevastopol was past.

Then it was the Germans who were in trouble. As Manstein pondered his failure, the Soviets landed a blow on the eastern side of Crimea, a series of amphibious landings on the Kerch Peninsula. Three complete armiesthe 44th, 47th and 51stcame ashore, and Soviet Lt. Gen. Dmitri Kozlov hurled them at the German defenses in the Parpach bottleneck. Four times he sent the armies forward; four times they came reeling back with massive casualties. The final try, in April 1942, was especially horrible, with tanks, guns and trucks stuck in glutinous mud, and the men having to muscle shells forward by hand.

Kozlov had failed, and once again it was Mansteins advantage. His response was Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt, named for the flightless bird that inhabits Crimea). The Soviet offensives had petered out with slight gains on the northern sector, an outward bulge toward the German lines. Smelling blood, Manstein launched an assault on May 8. Deploying XXXXII Corps in the north to pin Soviet forces in place, he sent in a beefed-up XXX Corps to make the main effort in the south, breaking through the Soviet front and opening a path for the 22nd Panzer Division. Once through the tanks wheeled sharply left, heading north and driving to the coast across the rear of the Soviet 51st and 47th armies in the bulge, cutting them off and encircling them. Throughout the offensive the German Luftwaffe was supreme in the air, with virtually all of Luftflotte 4 deployed in Crimea. Usually tasked to support an entire army group, it flew thousands of sorties per day over this tightly constricted battlefield. Soon the encirclement became a seething cauldron of fire and destruction. Kerch itself fell on May 15, the operations eighth day. After a few more days of mop-up fighting Trappenjagd was over. Soviet losses were colossal, some 170,000 men in all, more than 1,100 guns and 250 tanks; the Germans, by contrast, suffered just 7,500 casualties.

Still Sevastopol held out. Russian skill at siege and field fortification was proverbial, and the defenders of the fortress (the First Independent Coastal Army) had been busy in the preceding few months. New strongpoints, bunkers and tank traps sprouted around the perimeter, and crucial sectors, like the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, presented some of the most heavily fortified concrete blockhouses on earth. Chief among the guardians were the monstrous twin batteries Maxim Gorky I and II, each comprising two heavily armored turrets housing twin 305mm guns. Superlatives are always difficult to prove, but Sevastopol may well have been the strongest fortress in the world in 1942.

Manstein had an answer, thougha blast of annihilation fire. By early June he had readied his entire complement of airpower, and guns of every type were unlimbering at the front. They included the monsters of the German arsenal, pieces so large they fascinate even today: two 600mm Karl mortars dubbed Thor and Odin, along with the 800mm Schwerer Gustav railway gun, the worlds largest artillery piece, firing a 7.7-ton projectile from a 106-foot-8-inch barrel. It was definitely a crew-served weapona crew of 250.

The bombardment opened on June 2, with 600 ground-support aircraft and 611 guns crammed into a 21-mile front. It turned Sevastopol into a sea of flames, as the German air commander described it, and it stayed that way for a month. A single shell from Schwerer Gustav, for example, destroyed a Soviet ammunition dump encased beneath 90 feet of rock on the north shore of Severnaya Bay. Under such firepower the subterranean tunnels that linked these positions together and housed the civilian population during the fighting offered scant protection.

Backed by this enormous weight of metal the Germans ground through the Soviet defenses, with LIV Corps pushing in the north and XXX Corps to the southeast. Between them the disciplined troops of the Romanian Mountain Corps carried out a holding operation. Soviet resistance was tenacious, and losses were heavy on all sides, but by June 13 the Germans had gained the north shore of Severnaya Bay. Again spotting an opportunityhis operational giftManstein now devised an elegant maneuver to unhinge Soviet defenses. On the night of June 2829 elements of his 50th Infantry Division carried out a daring amphibious crossing of Severnaya Bay on 100 assault boats, seizing the steep southern bank in their initial rush. Over the course of the day they overran Inkerman and the old Malakoff redoubt, positions so crucial to the citys defense in 1855.

Mansteins masterstroke fatally compromised Sevastopols innermost defensive ring and sealed the fate of the fortress. With the German 11th Army outside the gates, and air and artillery continuing to chew up the rubble, Soviet commanders in Sevastopol received evacuation orders late on June 30too late, as it turned out, and many Soviet soldiers fell needlessly into captivity. The Germans entered the city the following day, and the fighting ended on July 4.

The Crimean campaign was far from over, however. Soviet partisans continued to inhabit the Yaila Mountains, as they would for the rest of the war, and the Germans relied on their usual monstrous tacticsreprisals, hostages, mass shootingsin a futile attempt to crush the holdouts. After the German debacle at Kursk in the summer of 1943, massive Soviet counterstrokes carried the Red Army up to and over the Dnieper River. In the course of their great advance they sealed off Crimea once again, bottling up the German 17th Army in the peninsula. A great Soviet offensive into Crimea in April 1944 saw the former lineup reversed. This time it was the Germans defending Perekop and holed up inside Sevastopol, with the Soviets 4th Ukrainian Front, under the able command of General Fyodor Tolbukhin, trying to break them. The Soviets forced their way though Perekop in two weeks of fighting, overran the peninsula in a third week and by late April stood outside Sevastopol. The Germans hadnt rebuilt the fortress, however, and a final Soviet assault made short work of them. In a final ironic coda the German attempt to evacuate the doomed fortress was no more skillful than the Soviet one in 1942. Losses among the 17th Army and Romanians alike were steep, though the Soviets lost nearly as many men in retaking the peninsula.

What emerges from the military story of Crimea is more than a mere battle narrative. It is how cru- cial this little acre has been to so many contenders. It will never be easy to compute the number of soldiers on all sidesGerman, Romanian and Sovietwho perished there in the course of World War II, not to mention those who died in the Crimean War or the innumerable battles for dominance of the peninsula dating back to ancient times.

One thing is certain, however. While the number is out of all proportion to the size of the peninsula, it is not out of proportion to its location or its strategic significance. Every one of the generals who fought there would agree on that. And so, we may surmise, does Vladimir Putin.

For further reading on the Crimean War, Rob Citino recommends The Crimean War: A History, by Orlando Figes, and The War in Crimea, by Lt. Gen. Sir Edward Hamley. And for more on Crimea in World War II, Citino suggests Lost Victories, by Erich von Manstein, and Sevastopol 1942: Von Mansteins Triumph, by Robert Forczyk.

Originally published in the September 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
When Muslim Mamluk Egypt targeted this crusader state in 1289, the Christian were too busy infighting to heed.

It is 1289, in the waning years of the Christian Crusader states in the Middle East. The preeminent Muslim power of the daythe Egypt-based Mamluk sultanateis poised to overrun the last Crusader strongholds on the eastern Mediterranean coast.

The Mamluk sultan Qala u  n plans to march against the Crusader city of Tripoli (in present-day Lebanon), but William of Beaujeu, 21st grand master of the Knights Templar military order, has inside information about the sultans plan. William has a paid informant within Qala u  ns inner circle Badr al-Din Bektash al-Fakhri, who oversees the sultans armories and part of his guard force. Badr al-Din sends word to William the Mamluks are planning an assault on Tripoli; William in turn sends a representative to warn the people of Tripoli, but the citys residents refuse to accept his information and accuse him of concocting the report for some cynical scheme of his own.

Even the best intelligence is worthless if no one will believe it. And William of Beaujeu has no one but himself to blame for his lack of credibility.

The Crusader states were established around the turn of the 12th century after the success of the First Crusade (109699). Launching the Muslim counteroffensive against them later that century, Egyptian Sultan Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187 and stripped the Franksas the Muslims called the Western Europeansof much of their territory. But his desire to extirpate the Crusader states was frustrated by the Third Crusade (118992), which, though it failed to recover Jerusalem, recovered much territory and halted the sultans advance.

The Crusader states thus survived into the 13th century, though their territory had shrunk dramatically. The feudal aristocracy derived much of its revenues from lands worked by local peasantswith a high percentage of these lands lost, the strength of the aristocracy declined sharply. The burden of defense, therefore, fell increasingly on the monastic military orders, the chief of which were the Knights Templar and Hospitaller. The orders maintained an extensive infrastructure in Europe, which the Crusader states drew upon for recruits, supplies and revenues. The papacy aided them in this task by forbidding secular rulers to tax movable goods transported by the orders. With the military orders headquarters in the coastal city of Acre (in present-day Israel), ships from the Italian maritime republicsVenice, Genoa and Pisasailed there and to other cities along the coast, stimulating the local economy with Italian trade. The downside was politicalthe Italian cities were bitterly hostile to each other, and they brought their disputes with them to the Holy Land.

By mid-century the Franks greatest external threat was the Egypt-based Mamluk sultanate, a centralized Muslim autocracy dedicated to jihad, or war against the infidels, with the ability to field armies vastly outnumbering those of the Franks. In 1268 the Mamluks overran the Crusader principality of Antioch, leaving just two Crusader states on the mainland: the Kingdom of Acrethe remnants of the former Kingdom of Jerusalemand the County of Tripoli. Supporting the two Crusader states was the island Kingdom of Cyprus, in Frankish hands since the Third Crusade.

At its peak the County of Tripoli had occupied much of present-day northern Lebanon and parts of western Syria, but by the late 13th century the Mamluk offensive had reduced it to a fraction of its former size. In July 1281 Bohemond VII, prince of Antioch and count of Tripoli, made a treaty with the Mamluk sultan Qala u n that delimited the boundaries of the County of Tripoli to its eponymous capital, Tripoli, and a strip of territory running south along the coast to the city of Jubayl.

The fall of the Crusader states to the Mamluks is recorded by an anonymous medieval historian known as the Templar of Tyre, although he was not an actual Templar brother. The author, who wrote in Old French, was in fact an Arabicspeaking translator and close adviser to William of Beaujeu. Paul Crawford, English translator of the Templar of Tyre document, speculates the author may have functioned as an intelligence officer of sorts for the Templar grand master, as he was privy to sensitive information.

By the 1270s the Franks had their backs to the sea, their powerful enemy biding its time before launching an- other offensive. Meanwhile, mounting hostility among the Franks inflamed counterproductive internecine conflict.

The civil war began in 1277, setting Bohemond VII against his vassal Guy II Embriaco of Jubayl (present-day Byblos, Lebanon). As with many conflicts throughout history, this war started over a marriage. Guy wished his brother to marry a local heiress, but Bohemonda feudal lord, who had the authority to approve or block the marriageinitially gave his approval, but then reversed himself. Guy ignored Bohemonds disapproval and permitted his brothers marriage anyway. The woman herself had no say in the matter and may or may not have been worth fighting over, but the benefits she contributed certainly were: The Templar of Tyre recorded that Guy set about enjoying the fief and the rents which his brother had acquired by marriage.

Having defied Bohemond, Guy knew he needed allies. He turned to the Templars and William of Beaujeu, grand master of the order since 1273. Guy traveled to Templar headquarters in Acre and became a confrere of the orderan affiliated secular knight. William then promised to support Guy in his conflict with Bohemond. That was an unwise decision, particularly because it was based on Williams personal enmitiesfriends of his were bitter opponents of Bohemond and his party. The purpose of the Templar order was to defend Christian territories against the external Muslim foe; now William had committed the order to take sides in an internal dispute. This wasnt business; it was personal.

Bohemond was understandably displeased by the Templars decision to oppose him. He acted out his displeasure by demolishing the Templar house in Tripoli and deforesting adjacent Templar-owned lands. William responded in haste, loading a host of Templar brothers onto galleys and sailing to Jubayl, seat of his newly made ally Guy Embriaco. From Jubayl the Templar force marched north up the coast and besieged the city of Tripoli for several days. But William was stymied when defenders merely manned the walls and refused to sortie out against him. The Templars, accomplishing nothing at Tripoli, turned and marched back south.

Moving down the coast, the Templars besieged Nephin, one of Bohemonds seaside strongholds. That proved a greater fiasco than the attempt on Tripoli when a group of Templars on horseback dashed in through the open gate, only to find themselves outwitted, as enemy soldiers stationed above the portal managed to force the gate shut. Capturing 12 Templar brothers and a secular knight who had accompanied them, Bohemonds men sent them to Tripoli as prisoners. At that point William returned to his headquarters in Acre, leaving behind 30 Templar brothers to reinforce Guy.

Having thwarted the Templars, Bohemond decided to take the offensive and seize Jubayl, source of all the trouble. He led his army out of Tripoli but was advised to remain behind when it was learned Guy had emerged from Jubayl with his army, bolstered by the 30 Templars. The opposing armies were pathetically small, an indicator of the meager resources left to the Crusader states in the late 13th century. Bohemonds army of Tripoli comprised only 200 mounted men, supplemented by an unspecified number of escuers (senior squires) and footmen. Guys army of Jubayl was even smaller: 100 horsemen, backed by retainers.

While small, however, these armies fought with ferocity, and despite their lesser numbers the men of Jubayl prevailed. The Templar of Tyre listed several prominent men of Tripoli who died in the battle, including Balian II of Sidon, a cousin of Bohemond, who met a grisly end; unhorsed and bleeding heavily, he was unable to remove his cuirass and drowned in his own blood. Having inflicted mutual carnage on each otherpresumably to the delight of the Mamluk sultan Bohemond and Guy agreed to a one-year truce.

Upon expiration of the truce in 1279, the inconclusive fighting resumed. The Templars raided the country around Tripoli; in retaliation, Bohemond launched a naval counterraid on the Templar fortress near Sidon, returning to Tripoli with prisoners and much loot. Seeing nothing would come of such raiding, Guy decided to bring an end to the conflict by seizing Tripoli outright.

So preoccupied with his parochial hatreds, Guy was blind to the deadly external threat posed by the Mamluks. According to a Muslim source, Guy sent a message to Qala u n, asking for his help in taking Tripoli, which Guy promised to partition with the sultan. In assuming Qala u n would allow him to retain a part of Tripoli after the city fell, Guy displayed an odd streak of naivetea bizarre trait for one immersed in betrayal of his own lord. Not surprising, Qala u  n agreed to Guys proposal and authorized what would today be called a covert operation. The sultan had subordinates arrange to augment Guys force with a band of Muslim hill men living near Tripoli.

In January 1282 Guy loaded his small army on ships and landed in the harbor of Tripoli at night. A comedy of errors followed. The Templar house in Tripoli had reopened after the Hospitallers negotiated an agreement between Bohemond and William. Anticipating support from the Templars, Guy went to the their house and asked for the commander, Reddecouer. He was shocked to learn Reddecouer wasnt theresomehow the plan had fallen through. Soon the soldiers in Bohemonds palace realized the enemy was among them and raised the alarm. Improvisation was not Guys strong suitonce his prearranged plan fell apart, so did he. Panicked, he fled to the stronghold of the Hospitaller order. The building was adjacent to a gate in the city wall of Tripoli, offering a ready escape route. But a distraught Guy led his men up into the structures tower instead, thus trapping himself when Bohemonds men encircled it.

Guy and his men had no choice but to surrender. The commander of the local Hospitaller negotiated an accord, which Bohemond swore on the Gospels to uphold: Guy, his two brothers and their men were to be imprisoned for five years and then allowed to return to Jubayl. But immediately following their surrender, Bohemond broke his oath and chose revenge. Anticipating Edgar Allan Poe by several centuries, he ordered a ditch dug, placed Guy and his brothers in it and then had the ditch walled in, leaving the prisoners to starve to death in the dark.

Bohemond had only five years to savor his triumph. He died on Oct. 19, 1287. As he was childless, his sister Lucia (then living in southern Italy with her admiral husband) became heir. But the nobility and leading merchants of Tripoli blocked her accession, declaring the city a self-governing commune. When Lucia arrived, they sent her a letter claiming that the previous members of the dynastyher brother, father and grandfatherhad treated the city badly, and the leaders of the commune asserted they would only admit Lucia if she recognized their authority. She refused, and a second round of civil war was on.

The military orders sought to negotiate an agreement between Lucia and the Commune of Tripoli but to no avail. Then the Hospitallers, like the Templars before them, became embroiled in an internal dispute. They declared their support for Lucia, as the Templar of Tyre stated, on the grounds that she was the lady and heir of the prince. The Hospitallers took up arms on Lucias behalf and fought several skirmishes with the men of Tripoli, with casualties on both sides.

Knowing they would need aid, the leaders of the commune appealed to the maritime republic of Genoa, which had long-standing commercial interests in the Holy Land. Genoese Admiral Benedetto Zaccaria duly arrived in Tripoli with five galleys to consider the conditions under which Genoa would grant its support. For starters, Genoa was granted outright control of a section of Tripoli, but, of course, Zaccaria wanted more. He suggested making all of Tripoli a Genoese colony, governed by an administrator sent from the mother republic.

Zaccarias proposal horrified Tripolis commune leaders. They tried to backtrack and use Lady Lucia as a counterweight to Genoa. In a letter to her the commune leaders agreed to accept her as ruler if she would block any further concessions to the Genoese. But the fair lady had other ideas. After conferring with the Hospitallers, she opened negotiations with the Genoese and reached an accord the Templar of Tyre called pleasing to both parties.

It was certainly pleasing to the Genoese, who would attain a dominant position in Tripoli. But the agreement also triggered the most deceitful and ruinous act of betrayal in a story full of betrayals, when two unnamed individuals traveled from the Crusader states to Alexandria, Egypt, to meet with Sultan Qala u  n. They warned him that if the Genoese established themselves in Tripoli, their fleet would be able to intercept ships headed to or from Alexandria, thereby giving Genoa a stranglehold over trade. The Templar of Tyre knew the identity of the traitors but did not reveal them. Historian Joshua Prawer speculates they might have been Venetians or Pisanscommercial rivals of the Genoese.

It remains unclear what these two malcontents had hoped to accomplish by informing the sultan. Presumably they had not intended to trigger an allout Mamluk attack on Tripoli, but that is what exactly what happened. Qala u n ordered his army to prepare for a campaign and established supply dumps along their marching route. The emir Badr al-Din was part of the sultans coterie and soon learned of the plan. The emir regularly received fine presents from Templar Grand Master William of Beaujeu in exchange for intelligence. Badr al-Din fulfilled his part of the bargain by sending word to the Templars about the impending attack on Tripoli.

William in turn reported the information to the people of Tripoli but did not receive the reaction he desired. Williams past political activities particularly his intervention on behalf of Guy Embriacohad come back to haunt him. The Tripolitans considered him, as British historian Malcolm Barber put it, untrustworthy and partisan. They accused William of fabricating the story in order to boost his own prestige. In their suspicious minds he sought appointment to negotiate with the sultan over a nonexistent invasion, only to claim credit when no attack materialized. Only when William sent a senior Templar brother to reiterate the warning did the leaders of Tripoli belatedly start to prepare a defense.

The actual siege and fall of Tripoli were anticlimactic. Templar and Hospitaller brothers arrived in Tripoli along with forces from Acre and Cyprus. Even Genoas commercial rivals joined in the fighttwo Venetian galleys and an unspecified number of Pisan ships. But the defenders were vastly outnumbered by the Mamluk host, which opened the siege of the city on March 17, 1289.

Mamluk superiority in men and materiel ultimately carried the day. Qala u ns army boasted a vast array of both heavy and light artillery pieces. Missiles from the light artillery kept defenders atop the battlements under cover, while the heavy machines focused on weakening the city walls. Further weakening the defenders position was the ongoing internal discord, primarily between the Venetians and Genoese. This was to be expected, but even the usually dedicated Hospitallers had great ill will against the men of Tripolia holdover from the battles they had fought on behalf of Lucia.

After a month of battering, Tripolis walls began to buckle. Even the tower built and occupied by the Hospitallers, which the Templar of Tyre described as new and sturdy, had a gash in it large enough for a horse to pass through. Precipitating the final collapse of the defense were the Venetians, who abandoned the walls and headed for their galleys in the harbor. When the Genoese saw this, they feared the Venetians would steal their ships and leave them stranded, so they too headed for the harbor. On April 26, when the Mamluks launched a final mass assault on the walls, not enough defenders were there to hold them back.

Lady Lucia escaped by sea, but few of her subjects were as fortunatethe Mamluks massacred much of the populace. Approaching a small island in the harbor, Arab historian and eyewitness Abu  al-Fida  found it heaped with rotting corpses, noting, It was impossible to land there because of the stench. Many of the women and children were taken as slaves. Even if Tripolitans had heeded Williams warning, it would not have averted the fall of the citythe Mamluk preponderance of strength was too greatbut it may have been possible to evacuate the noncombatants, who instead ended their days in slavery and misery.

Two years later the city of Acre fell, ending Frankish presence in the Holy Land. William of Beaujeu died fighting on the ramparts. The outcome was inevitableby the late 13th century Mamluk might made the Crusader position untenable. It may have been just as well. Judging from their appalling conduct during their last years in power, the Franks didnt deserve to win.

Richard Tada has previously been published in Military History, MHQ and on the Armchair General website [www.armchair general.com]. For further reading he recommends The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple, by Malcolm Barber, and The Crusades, c. 1071c. 1291, by Jean Richard.

Originally published in the July 2014 issue of Military History. To subscribe, click here.
The draft law on the occupied territories initiated by the Samopomich faction (No. 3593-d) is unacceptable. The presidential administration and the Cabinet of Ministers are developing a draft law on the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, People's Deputy from the People's Front faction Anton Gerashchenko has said.

"I do not accept this bill." Frequently, certain parties, including opposition parties, are making a bill to create an informational excuse, not caring about the real benefits or reality of the implementation of this bill. Therefore, there will be a bill agreed upon by the Cabinet as the supreme executive body," he told journalists in Kyiv on Tuesday.

According to Gerashchenko, such a legislative initiative will be introduced to the parliament in the near future.

"The bill is currently being drafted in the Cabinet of Ministers and the presidential administration. This law should have been adopted long ago. I would not call it about the occupied territories, but a law on the restoration of territorial integrity, and it is necessary to write down [there] which stages we will continue performing so that we have economic, energy and information independence from the Russian Federation. And we are still dependent on it," Gerashchenko said.

Answering the question of journalists, whether the bill will solve the blockade issue, the MP noted, "If the state policy is understandable for the society and citizens, blockades will not be necessary."
Half Moon Bay, CA (94019)

Today

Mostly sunny in the morning. Increasing clouds with showers later in the day. Thunder possible. High 57F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Rain. Thunder possible. Low 48F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
EU leaders have criticised Turkey, amid a growing row related with the Turkish government's attempts to hold rallies in Europe. Germany and Netherlands stay firm against Turkey, thus, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused both countries of "Nazism" after officials blocked rallies in those countries. Dutch PM Mark Rutte said that his comments are "unacceptable", while Germany's foreign minister stated he hoped Turkey would return to its senses.

Denmark's leader postponed a planned meeting with Mr Erdogan. Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen stated he was concerned that democratic principles are under pressure in Turkey. The BBC reports that the rallies aim to encourage Turks living in Europe to vote yes in a referendum increasing the president's powers.

Ties between the Turkish and Dutch leaders became strained at the weekend after two Turkish ministers were barred from addressing rallies in Rotterdam. Mr Erdogan likened the Netherlands to a banana republic. He said that he had thought that Nazism was over, but he was wrong, he added that Nazism is alive in the West.

More details about the problem

Mr Rutte demanded Mr Erdogan apologise for likening the Dutch to Nazis. German ministers have also appeared to harden their rhetoric against Turkey. Despite Chancellor Angela Merkel saying her government was not opposed to Turkish ministers attending rallies in Germany, her interior minister stated he was opposed to Turkish political gatherings in Germany. Turkey is holding a referendum on 16 April on whether to turn from a parliamentary to a presidential republic, more similar to the United States.

If the referendum is successful, it would give more powers to the president, allowing him to appoint ministers, choose the majority of senior judges, prepare the budget and enact certain laws by decree. The president would be able to announce a state of emergency and dismiss parliament. There are 5.5 million Turks living outside the country, with 1.4 million Turkish voters in Germany.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Trump administration has been going thorough certain rough patches, and it turns out that former President Barrack Obama's top administration lawyers are approaching fast to fight against Trump. There are various reasons for the fight against the president but some believe that his aggressive use of authority from the very first day was guaranteed to attract court challenges.

Obama had also faced a few legal fights over executive power, with some of his major challengers being formerly lawyers for President George W. Bush. Though the issues came later in his presidency, they were also related to immigration and Obamacare as per Reuters.

The lawyers included to fight against Trump is Jonathan Smith, the legal director of legal right group Muslim advocates and former attorney general Eric Holder, who is currently advising California's legislature on challenging Trump over immigration.

It appears that almost 45 Obama era U.S. attorneys are out of jobs after Donald Trump's administration forced them to resign. This also included the influential Manhattan prosecutor Preet Bharara.

Most of Obama's lawyers reject the notion by some Republicans that Obama is behind resistance efforts. They find it a treat to democracy and constitution, Smith stated that they see the president is mounting on the Muslim community. Smith has worked on religious discrimination issues at the Justice Department.

On the other hand there are other appointees taking on Trump, this includes former White House lawyer Ian Bassin, who has founded United to Protect Democracy, a new group probing Trump over ethics.

Norman Eisen was one of Obama's top ethics lawyers and the ambassador of Czech Republic. He has been chairing Citizens of Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, earlier the group has already taken action and sued the president for alleged ethics violations. It appears that the battle over the immigration ban is not going to stop anytime soon.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has prepared an estimated 350,000 new troops to practice their readiness for combat activity. These soldiers were previously part of other internal security forces in 2016; the newly formed troops are all geared up to quell potential unrest ahead of the elections in 2017.

The downside is that critics of the president's government have claimed that these troops will be used to repress dissent. The new troops are directly subordinate to Putin's capacity as Supreme Commander - in - Chief of the Russian Armed Forces. Commonly it is known as the Russian Guards or Rosgvardiya as per the Independent.

In order to protect the safety of the troops and families, the press has been forbidden from reporting on the location of their soldiers. However, it turns out that in certain situations the troops have the authority to open fire into crowds of civilians.

This particular force is headed by Viktor Zolotov, who has been a former bodyguard and judo sparring partner of the president. There were also reports that the Russian interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev was going to resign over its creation.

Other countries like the United States have also had a National Guard since 1903. This special force has been used to put down internal unrest, from trade union protests to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. This was in order to recent the protest of the "Black Lives Matter" in Ferguson, Missouri.

The exercises will also prepare the Russian troops for reconnaissance groups, terrorist and extremist formations. The 350,000 strong National Guard soldiers is certainly a preparation for the country's defenses, Putin has often been described as the world's most powerful man for many reasons. He has created something what he calls "Vertical of Power," the entire structure of Russian political powers seems to be resting on one man. He has stabilized the country and increased the standards of living after all that Russia has been through over the century.

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The UK Parliament clears way for "Brexit" as the government secured authority to negotiate withdrawal from the European Union. This might also bring an independent Scotland and formation over Britain's future. The Prime Minister Theresa May had won her battle to start talks on Britain's exit from the European Union.

On the other hand the first Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, demanded a new referendum on Scottish independence. The Scottish rejected the independence only three years ago, and the country found itself at important crossroads due to the withdrawal known as Brexit as per the New York Times.

The Cabinet Minister David Davis, who is responsible for negotiating "Brexit," stated that the parliament gave support to the government with the determination on leaving the European Union. David said that the country is now on the threshold of the most important negotiation.

The Prime Minister and her government got the approval from the House of Commons last month. The High Court declared they needed to proceed with negotiations on "Brexit."But the government also argued that it will guarantee the rights of European Union's only when they received assurance of British citizens in continental Europe.

The Prime Minister will start withdrawal talks under Article 50 of the European Union's treaty by the end of this month. Ms. Sturgeon will seek permission from the Scottish parliament to hold a second referendum, this will be staged between the fall of 2018 and spring 2019 before Britain quits the European Union.

According to Ms. Sturgeon, it depends on Mrs. May for further concessions. Based on that the Scottish will be able to choose for their own if they need to follow other Britons into "Brexit" or become an independent country. Scotland will be able to secure an equal partnership with the rest of UK and their relationship with Europe.

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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that after so-called nationalization of Ukrainian enterprises in occupied Donbas by self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) no trade is being held with them. The president has asked the European Union to impose tougher sanctions against Russia.

"After the seizure of these enterprises we cannot have any trade relations with these 'seized' companies. We would not allow them to carry out any operations. We ask for support of these decisions, including thanks to imposing tougher sanctions by the EU against Russia that permitted this blatant violation of international law," the head of state said at a meeting with Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn, the president's press service reported.

Poroshenko recalled that Russia recognized fake ID documents of so-called DPR and LPR and later Ukrainian enterprises operating in line with Ukrainian legislation  they paid taxes and wages in hryvnias - were seized.

At the meeting the president thanked the European Union for the recent decision to extend sanctions for the annexation of Crimea.

"This is extremely important for us. This is the illustration of Ukraine's support," he said.
W hen Gary and Claire Tynan were ready to buy a flat, they looked for something lateral, with no space-gobbling staircases. Gary, an Irishman, and his Paris-born wife, 34, both architects, met in Australia but settled in London, working at different practices.

But it was hard to save while renting in north London, and although they looked for a plot to build on, it was beyond their budget. They decided to do up a flat instead.

The one they remodelled is 1,000sq ft, now modern in style with some historic detail, all done in black and off-white. Half of it is a huge living room that holds a sleek kitchen behind a deep central partition. Theres an equally striking black-and-white bathroom, both off a dramatic blue-black hall.

Open plan: the Tynans carved one large central living space out of the existing tired living room

The flat is stylish, smart and practical, with lots of considered ideas to share, and lots of storage  Gary, 35, who set up his own practice in 2014, is good at detail.

Renovating in a conservation area

The couple viewed the second-floor flat in October 2015. It was in a stately 1870s house that had been divided into bedsits near Canonbury  30ft wide, with four windows across its west-facing front. Soil pipes from upstairs ran across the ceiling of the flats huge living room. This fine room had a warehouse feel, with a kitchen on one side wall, but it was tired and old-fashioned. Off the small hall, the bathroom was revolting with mouldy grout and rotting joists. But it was light and had potential.

The Tynans bought in January 2016, by then expecting a baby. Though the flat is in a conservation area, you dont need planning permission for most internal works and as they needed to move in, the builders stripped out the flat first and sorted out the bedrooms  carving a small third bedroom off one for a nursery. Then Gary and Claire camped in the bedroom side of the flat while work continued on the living space and bathroom. Id never recommend it, sometimes we came home and there was no electricity, Gary says.

Getting rid of those pipes was a priority, but we had a lot of plumbing issues. Not only were there leaks from above, but while sanding and repairing the floorboards a nail went through a pipe, so water leaked downwards.

Period touches in a modern home

The couple focused hard on transforming the main living space, and Claire did much of the sourcing. Off-white MDF that resembles tongue-and-groove is used as a theme, for bespoke cupboard fronts and for the kitchen island that divides the room into zones.

Gary likes old radiators and put in black ones under the windows, deepening the window recesses and adding dramatic mouldings round them that run down to the black-stained floor.

Industrial chic: the black and white bathroom references the flat's Victorian heritage with metro tiles and encaustic

On top of these key designs strokes are laid zoned lighting, black steel knobs, well-placed switches, and black kitchen fittings under a white composite top. In the bathroom, the black-and-white geometric floor harks back to Victorian encaustic, and with black fittings, even down to the shower heads, it all holds together in a good, metropolitan look.

Gary varied the lighting effects in different areas. I dont like the hard light of spotlights. Such harsh light is best kept to targeted areas such as task lighting in kitchens.

Elsewhere, he has hung softly glowing globes over the bespoke, microcement-topped dining table, put a posh designer globe wall lamp in the living area and used another, smaller globe on a mirror in the bathroom to give excellent make-up and shaving light.

As I said , Gary is good at detail.

For project costs, see the gallery.

GET THE LOOK

Architect: Gary Tynan at studio-304.com

Engineered Caesarstone quartz worktop: primagranite.co.uk

Black Blue hall paint: farrow-ball.com

Kitchen parts: diy-kitchens.com

Black steel cupboard knobs: hskjalmp.dk

Wall hooks: chaseandsorensen.com

Built-in oven: zanussi.co.uk

Induction hob: bosch-home.co.uk

Microcement table top: venezianoplastering.co.uk

Pendant globe lamp over dining table: andtradition.com

IC globe wall lamp: michaelanastassiades.com

Black-and-white porcelain bathroom floor tiles: robel.co.uk
A fter years of annual rent rises, the London lettings market is finally offering some slight relief for tenants, with rents in the capital falling by an average of 4.7 per cent over the past year.

Rental costs have dropped by an average of 63 since February 2016, from 1,309 to 1,246, according to Countrywide's Letting Index, released today.

Record double-digit growth in the number of homes available to rent immediately followed the landlord rush to purchase buy-to-let properties ahead of stamp duty changes last April.

This, combined with a fall in the number of tenants searching for homes, gave renters more choice and more negotiation power - especially in Greater London and the South-East.

The 10-year picture

Despite the mst recent annual slowdown, rents are still more than 30 per cent higher in these regions than they were in 2007. In comparison, wages across Britain have only risen by 18 per cent during the same time period.

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Will rents continue to drop during the rest of 2017?

Research director at Countrywide, Johnny Morris, says: Early signs point towards 2017 being a rare year where rents rise faster in the north of the country than in the south.

"While rents are likely to track any increase in earnings, affordability in London and the South East remains stretched. That is likely to limit rental growth."

London and the South-East are the only two regions to record rental drop - leading to rents in Great Britain seeing the first overall annual fall since 2010. Across the rest of the UK, however, average rents rose by 2.7 per cent.

This was due to increased tenant demand, with the biggest increases seen in the East, East Midlands and North-West.
The African market has drastically revolutionized in the recent past, and 2017 is projected to experience colossal digital conversion. Organizations, corporations, and businesses both established and startups have grabbed the growth opportunities presented by online digital marketing; brought about by a change in basic assumptions of consumer habits.

The mobile ecosystem has been identified as a leading contributor to the growth of Africa's economy according to a data shot by Infinite Potentials, a professional services consulting firm. The report further states that mobile technologies and services generated approximately US$ 152 billion of economic value in Africa in 2015. This is expected to increase by about 41% by 2020 to US$ 215 billion.

More effective, and economical; are among the numerous advantages digital marketing has over offline marketing. Yet, it is crucial especially for small, medium, and micro-enterprises in Africa to identify some of the challenges they are likely to encounter while implementing their digital marketing strategies.

One, Africa is still considered an emerging market, with the rate of internet penetration still quite low as compared to her Western counterparts. Internet World Stats estimates a 26.9% internet penetration rate in Africa, contributing to only 9.1% of the world users. This means that most customers are still offline, and thus the percentage of online reach would still be less if a company is to entirely depend on online marketing. This can be a cause for instability when putting in place marketing approaches.

Secondly, misconceptions can arise driven by cultural backgrounds and consumer disposition. The World-Wide-Web consists a diverse reach, making it sometimes challenging to identify the exact target audience for a product or service being marketed online. Point to note is that the audience in a Western country is not at all like the one in Africa, and the variation is also evident from one African country to another.

While more brands continue to enhance their online engagement with customers, there appears the issue of reputation management. Current day, an angry customer is most likely to post his/her disgruntlement online, a fact that can highly damage a brand reputation. Moreover, online reviews have become the trend, with approximately 90% of people's purchase decisions being influenced by online reviews (source: Dimensional Research, 2013). Additionally, (BrightLocal, 2014) states that 92% of people are likely to not do business with companies whose stars are less than four out of five. In this case, online reputation management becomes key in ensuring positive interaction and brand repute.

Last but not the least, your social media presence is an important aspect in any digital marketing strategy. With a high rate of interaction and demanding audience, giving immediate and timely response to enquiries online maybe a challenge; especially for a startup that is yet to establish itself on the online ecosystem. This should not however cause a big scare, as a team of skilled social media managers should be able to control your brand's social media presence with acumen.
Apicius, Italy's first school of hospitality housed at Florence University of the Arts, is hosting its third annual

Understanding Tradition for implementing Innovation

Cultural Diversity

Community Engagement

conference in March 2017. As 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of Apicius, the conference focus is "20 Years of Apicius Innovation" and will explore the following cornerstore elements of the institution's educational mission:

The daylong conference will feature a full day of panels, discussions, and tastings with international educators

and top Italian hospitality professionals and producers.

For those who wish to submit a panel abstract, please visit the conference call for papers and

submit no later than January 27, 2017.

Contact: [email protected]

This event is organized by Florence University of the Arts

For more information please contact Livia Sturlese
The Guinness Storehouse has partnered with Airbnb to unveil Ireland's first "Night At" competition airbnb.com/night-at/guinnessstorehouse by listing the seven-story visitor attraction as a unique residence on its website. One lucky beer fan and a friend will get the first ever opportunity to spend a night at the Home of the Black Stuff - for free! The competition sees the iconic Gravity Bar converted into a loft and the Guinness Gates opened for a once in a lifetime experience. To be in with a chance to win, would-be residents are invited to answer the following question: 'What makes you the world's biggest Guinness fan?'

For 24 hours, the Gravity Bar will be completely transformed for the lucky duo to enjoy a VIP experience complete with a Guinness tasting bar with private butler, "perfect pint"-shaped bed, pool table, life-sized Jenga and giant telescope for a night under the stars.

A 'once in a lifetime' experience for Guinness fans and beer aficionados, the winner will be welcomed by Domhnall Marnell, Guinness Storehouse Beer Specialist, before being handed the keys to the Guinness Storehouse. They will experience life behind the gates with rare access into the heart of the legendary St. James's Gate Brewery, the production site that has been home to the Guinness Brewery since 1759, when its owner Arthur Guinness signed a lease for 9,000 years.

Starting at No.1 Thomas Street, family home to Arthur, Guinness Archivist Eibhlin Colgan will take the winner on a historical journey of the brewery along 19th Century railway tracks and through hidden tunnels, telling the rich story of the Guinness family heritage. The winners will enjoy a full Guinness Storehouse experience with private tour topped off with a six-course dining experience, designed with Irish ingredients and Guinness pairings by Guinness Storehouse Executive Chef Justin O'Connor and served in the surroundings of the Gravity Bar.

Following the 'Night at' the Guinness Storehouse, the winners will be treated to an Irish breakfast before meeting with Guinness Brewer, Peter Simpson, who will teach the winner how to create their very own Guinness brew.

"The lucky winner will be stepping into our founder's shoes and given the keys to a legacy experience that's filled with hundreds of years of history," said Paul Carty, Managing Director of the Guinness Storehouse. "We're proud of Guinness' heritage, and as the competition is a once in a lifetime event, it was important for this first Irish Airbnb 'Night at', to provide the winner with everything a Guinness enthusiast would appreciate."

Gravity Bar is the symbolic 'Head of the Pint', Dublin's highest bar and features unparalleled panoramic, 360 degree views of the city from the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The transformation of the space into a luxury penthouse was curated by renowned interior designer Graham O'Donnell and features a balance of contemporary Irish craft furniture alongside original Guinness artifacts from the Guinness Archives, including notable works such as the Guinness Toucan.

In 2016, the Guinness Storehouse welcomed 1.65 million visitors from around the world. The Storehouse building was once the brewery fermentation plant and is now a seven-story visitor experience, where visitors discover what goes into the making of each and every pint of Guinness, as well as learning about the notable brand history which stretches over 250 years.

"Guinness is one of the most iconic beers in the world, and we are excited to open up the opportunity to live in its home for the very first time," said Aisling Hassell, Global Head of

Customer Experience, Airbnb. "Dublin has such a deep cultural history and brewing is a big part of this. Through our partnership with Guinness Storehouse, we're excited to magnify this heritage and bring it all to life through this unique overnight experience."

To enter the competition, log on to airbnb.com/night-at/guinnessstorehouse and answer the question: 'What makes you the world's biggest Guinness fan?' The competition closes on 22nd March and the prize can be redeemed on 24th April only. See website for full terms and conditions.

About The Guinness Storehouse

The Guinness Storehouse tells the story of one of Ireland"s most iconic brands, Guinness. Visitors from Ireland and abroad, discover what goes into making each and every pint, learn about the incredible brand history stretching over 250 years, its iconic advertising, as well as a tasting like no other. The experience unfolds across seven floors, including the highlight for many visitors - the famous Gravity Bar, where visitors can enjoy unparalleled panoramic 360 views of Dublin city.

Paul Charles

+44 (0) 207 768 0001

GUINNESS STOREHOUSE
CHICAGO -- Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) announced today that a Hyatt affiliate has entered into a management agreement with Tokyo Bay Resort Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Sogo Development Co., Ltd. for a Hyatt Place hotel near Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan. Upon its expected opening in 2019, Hyatt Place Tokyo Bay will be the country's first Hyatt Place hotel.

"It is our great pleasure to introduce the Hyatt Place brand to Japan through our collaboration with Sogo Development Co., Ltd.," said Hirohide Abe, senior vice president of Hyatt, Japan and Micronesia. "This opening will mark a very important milestone for Hyatt's brand growth strategy as the company expands its portfolio in key locations within the country to increase preference among guests."

Hyatt Place hotels offer casual hospitality and purposeful service in a smartly designed, high-tech and contemporary environment. Hyatt Place Tokyo Bay will be located at Urayasu City in Chiba Prefecture, less than three miles (4 kilometers) from Tokyo Disney Resort, one of Tokyo's premier travel destinations. It is also conveniently located between both of Tokyo's airports, 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Haneda Airport and 31 miles (50 kilometers) from Narita Airport. The 10-story hotel will offer 365 guestrooms including two suites, 1,900 square feet (180 square meters) of meeting space, an all-day dining facility, and a 24-hour gym.

"We are excited to work with Hyatt to bring the first Hyatt Place hotel to Japan," said President and Chief Executive Officer Shinya Ozawa, Sogo Development Co., Ltd. "The new Hyatt Place Tokyo Bay will have the feel of a resort with beautiful surroundings, including a park and views of Tokyo Bay, something that is sure to satisfy both business and leisure travelers. We will continue to work alongside Hyatt to create a hotel that is loved and valued by all guests while still meeting the high expectations of the people living in the area."

For more information, please visit www.hyattplace.com.

The term "Hyatt" is used in this release for convenience to refer to Hyatt Hotels Corporation and/or one or more of its affiliates.

About Sogo Development Co., Ltd. Founded in November 1963, Sogo Development Co., Ltd. is a part of the Sogo Development Group, a holding company that develops, leases and manages real estate. Sogo Development Co., Ltd. develops, manages and leases commercial facilities and office buildings. With the Hyatt project as a cornerstone, the Company plans to actively develop and manage hotels.

About Hyatt Hotels Corporation

Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a leading global hospitality company guided by its purpose  to care for people so they can be their best. As of March 31, 2022, the Company's portfolio included more than 1,150 hotels and all-inclusive properties in 71 countries across six continents. The Company's offering includes the Park Hyatt, Miraval, Grand Hyatt, Alila, Andaz, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, Destination by Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt, Hyatt Ziva, Hyatt Zilara, Thompson Hotels, Hyatt Centric, Caption by Hyatt, JdV by Hyatt, Hyatt House, Hyatt Place, UrCove, and Hyatt Residence Club brands, as well as resort and hotel brands under the AMR Collection, including Secrets Resorts & Spas, Dreams Resorts & Spas, Breathless Resorts & Spas, Zoetry Wellness & Spa Resorts, Vivid Hotels & Resorts, Alua Hotels & Resorts, and Sunscape Resorts & Spas. Subsidiaries of the Company operate the World of Hyatt loyalty program, ALG Vacations, Unlimited Vacation Club, Amstar DMC destination management services, and Trisept Solutions technology services. For more information, please visit www.hyatt.com.

Sian Martin

Hyatt Hotels Corporation

+1 312 780 5797

Hyatt
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The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will pay an official visit to the Republic of Poland on March 15, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mariana Betsa has said.

"Klimkin will visit Poland on an official visit tomorrow," she said in a comment to Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.

According to her, the visit is aimed at improving the Ukrainian-Polish relations, in particular, the resumption of the Ukrainian-Polish partnership forum.

Betsa also said that Klimkin during his visit will discuss with the leadership of Poland the issues of bilateral cooperation and will also take part in the opening of the park named after Vasyl Stus in Warsaw.
Pyramid Global Hospitality was formed by the 2021 merger of three hotel and resort management companies, creating the most owner-focused, experiential company in the industry and its best workplace. The organizations global portfolio spans more than 240 properties in the U.S., Caribbean and Europe. It maintains offices in Boston; The Woodlands, Texas; Cincinnati; and London.
There had been fears the Russia might give the Eurovision Song Contest a miss this year because it takes place in Ukraine. Instead they have risked escalating tensions between the two countries...

Fears that Russia might boycott the Eurovision Song Contest, which takes place in Ukraine this year, have been torpedoed. The political tension between the two countries over Russias annexation of Crimea remains unabated however  and there had been speculation that it might lead to Russia refusing to send an entrant to its neighbouring country.

Those fears notwithstanding, they have now chosen their contestant, apparently signalling a decision to proceed as normal where Eurovision is concerned. Yulia Samoylova is a 27 year-old wheelchair user, and she will sing the song Flame Is Burning. She is not a major star in Russia, having finished third in Faktor A  the Russian version of The X-Factor.

The decision to proceed may not, however, be as simple as it looks. Samoylova has performed in Crimea since the territory was annexed  which is against the law in Ukraine. In the context, her selection may be seen as a deliberate provocation by Russia.

Her selection certainly means that the Ukranian authorities will face a dilemma: if she is allowed to compete, should she be arrested for breaking Ukranian law or let come and go in spite of her apparent support for Russian separatists in Ukraine? Or might it be better simply to bar her from entering Ukraine?

There is a further dilemma too. How will the optics seem, if the Ukranian authorities do decide to ban an artist who performs in a wheelchair? And what kind of criticism might that spur from equal rights for the disabled campaigners? There are certainly those who will see the wily hand of Vladimir Putin behind the move.

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There can be little doubt that there is a diplomatic battle being fought out between the two countries, within the Eurovision contest. Last years winning Ukranian song, 1944 was inspired by the deportation of Crimean Tatars by Stalin during World War II  and Russia was not best pleased by being beaten into third place by the song.

Russia has been dogged by controversy in a competition that they seem to take rather seriously. In 2014, the Russian contestants, Tomalchevy Sisters, singing 'Shine, were booed repeatedly by the audience in Copenhagen, in protest against the anti-gay stance of the Moscow authorities. Further back in 2008, the song selected by Georgia was entitled We Dont Wanna Put In. The obvious reference to the Russian Prime Minister in the title spooked the Eurovision organisers into seeking a change of entry. Georgia refused and withdrew from that years competition.

Ireland, meanwhile, will be watching the fate of the Russian entry with some interest. Yulia Samoylova will be competing at the semi-final stage, on May 11, with Ireland  who will be represented by Brendan Murray, a member of the boyband Hometown, singing Dying To Try. Irelands chances of reaching the final would certainly be improved by the absence of Russia, who have generally been heavily supported in the voting.

Perhaps Enda Kenny should give his meeting with Donald Trump a miss and fly straight to Kiev to intervene  to keep the Russians out.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman believes that Turkey's decision to ban Turkish ships from visiting Crimea is a signal of friendship between Ukraine and Turkey.

"Today, on the day of the visit, we have received a note on the prohibition of any Turkish courts from visiting the occupied Crimea," the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine quoted Groysman as saying during an official visit to Turkey on Tuesday.

The premier thanked Turkey for supporting Ukraine, its territorial integrity and independence.

He also stressed the special role of Turkey in supporting the Crimean Tatars.

"Your attitude towards the Crimean Tatars is very important for us and your desire to support us in such difficult conditions testifies to the high degree of friendly relations between our countries," Groysman said.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim assured that Turkey supports Ukraine by condemning the annexation of Crimea and supporting territorial integrity.

He noted the efforts of the Ukrainian government aimed at solving the problems of the Crimean Tatars.
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The Houston oil production company Noble Energy, following its recent purchase of Clayton Williams Energy, is preparing to close a Midland office and lay off almost 200 Clayton Williams employees.

Noble is shuttering the Clayton Williams' office at 6 Desta Drive by year-end, it said in a notice sent to the state. Layoffs will start in May. Some of the 197, especially field workers, may keep their jobs.

The company declined further comment.

Noble announced in January that it was buying the Midland-based Clayton Williams in a $2.7 billion cash-and-stock deal. It was the energy industry's first major corporate acquisition of the year and the most any company had spent to buy into the Permian Basin's western half, the Delaware, since a flurry of land deals there last year.

The Delaware Basin has emerged as the center of the industry's recovery following a devastating two-year oil price bust that cost Texas about 100,000 jobs, a third of its oil and gas workforce. The basin boasts some of the most fertile oil land in the country and has seduced U.S. companies to continue drilling even as oil prices stagnate around $50 a barrel.

Oil companies have spent almost $12 billion so far this year to get into the Delaware.

Noble paid an average of about $32,000 per acre in the Clayton Williams deal, a typical price now, but 10 times what companies paid just five years ago. The deal adds 71,000 acres to the company's portfolio, more than doubling its acreage in the Delaware, and includes an estimated 2 billion barrels of oil and gas underground.

The expansion will make Noble the second-largest operator in the southern Delaware, behind Midland-based Concho Resources, and ahead of Houston's Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Midland's Diamondback Energy.

Noble is also acquiring $500 million in net debt from Clayton Williams.

CEO David Stover said in January that it was too early to tell whether Noble will have to cut jobs as part of the merger. At some point, he said, the company will have to start hiring more workers as it expands operations.

Noble said then that it plans to put two more rigs in the Delaware Basin this year, bringing its fleet to six. The company estimates it may be able to boost oil and gas production in the fields it bought from the current 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to 60,000 barrels a day by 2020.

Noble expects to close the deal in the second quarter.

Its stock fell 2 cents, or less than one-tenth of a percent, to $34.05 on Monday.
The oil slump hit Houston even harder than first thought, costing the region thousands more energy jobs and snuffing out overall employment growth during the first full year of the bust, according to new government data.

The data, released Wednesday as part of the U.S. Labor Department's annual revisions of state and local employment statistics, showed that the Houston metropolitan area lost more than 81,000 oil and gas jobs in 2015 and 2016, nearly 14,000 more than initially reported. That's about one in four.

"It means that the recovery started less far in the past than we thought," said Parker Harvey, senior regional economist with the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, a state funded research and job training organization.

Every year, the Department of Labor goes back over its monthly employment estimates, which are based on surveys of businesses, and revises them based on more comprehensive data on payrolls and wages reported by employers during the year. The revisions can change recent economic history, sometimes substantially, though they're usually minor.

In Houston's case, the revisions don't change the story, but rather make a grim industry downturn  the worst in 30 years  even grimmer. Oil and gas and services companies still slashed jobs by thousands and tens of thousands.

As Houston seems to be emerging from its oil slump, new data shows that job losses in 2015 and 2016 were even deeper than it appeared in the middle of the bust. More than 100 of these companies went bankrupt in Texas, according to the law firm Haynes & Boone. Capital expenditures in the industry have shrunk by more than half, and the rig count plunged by more than 80 percent in Texas between the end of 2014 and May of 2016.

"It's particularly difficult to measure any industry accurately that's going through such growth and decline," says Karr Ingham, an economist with the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, an association of independent oil and gas companies. "Over time, generally, they get it right. But month to month, that can't be reported with any degree of confidence."

Although Houston had kept adding jobs in health care and petrochemical refining during that time, they just barely offset the losses in oil and gas and related industries in 2015, the first full year of the oil bust. The revised data shows that the region added just 200 jobs in 2015, far weaker than the 15,200 reported earlier.

The beginning of 2016 was also worse for employment than initial estimates suggested. Oil prices hitting a 13-year low of just over $26 a barrel in February, and recovered slowly.

Energy industry executives generally say the business activity hit bottom in the summer; Houston area experienced year-over-year job losses in June, July, and August.

But as oil prices recovered towards the end of the year  and the U.S. economy picked up steam  hiring began to bounce back. The metropolitan area gained 18,700 in 2016, 3,900 more that than first estimated. Overall, jobs grew just 0.6 percent last year.

Still, considering the severity of the fall in drilling activity, it's remarkable that Houston didn't go into a recession, as it did in 1980s, economists said. In a recession, the metropolitan area would have lost at least 30,000 jobs, about 1 percent of the region's employment base of about 3 million, said Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston.

Ultimately, a petrochemical construction boom and a robust national economy helped Greater Houston avoid such a contraction. And the revisions didn't change that.

"It's a little different, but we're talking about tenths of percentage points," said Gilme. "Which looks big, but only because growth is preceding in tenths of percentage points."
Sunnova, a Houston solar power company, received an $80 million investment from a subsidiary of U.S. Bank to help it fund more than $200 million worth of residential solar projects, Sunnova said Tuesday.

The investment is a tax equity deal, in which the subsidiary, U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., takes a stake in the company, which allows it to claim the federal tax credit for installed solar systems, said Jordan Kozar, the company's CFO. While this is Sunnova's first use of tax equity funds, it has received $1 billion in private funding from other entities, according to a company statement.

Houston is an expanding market for solar panel companies, which nevertheless have struggled to grow in a state that offers no local incentives for solar power and where renewable energy competes with cheap and plentiful natural gas.

Even with its sunny skies, Texas solar power lags behind wind power, which has become the state's third largest power source after coal and natural gas, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees 90 percent of the state's power grid.

Solar accounted for less than 1 percent of the state's power in 2016, according to ERCOT.

In addition to Sunnova, other companies offering residential solar systems in Houston include SolarCity, which is partnering with MP2 Energy, a retail electricity firm based in The Woodlands, and Green Mountain Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy.

Sunnova offers several plans for homeowners to buy or lease solar panels for their rooftops. But unlike other residential solar companies, it does not offer an option for its customers to sell excess power back to the grid.

Instead the company recommends that customers size their systems to meet just their electricity needs and avoid generating excess power.

The solar industry had a record-breaking year in 2016 - additions to solar power capacity outpaced additions to any other energy source, according to a 2016 market report by the Solar Energy Industries Association, an industry trade group.

In 2016, Texas ranked 6th in the nation in terms of the amount of solar energy capacity installed that year, and overall ranks 9th in the nation for its capacity to generation solar power.
The state of New York says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used an email alias to discuss climate change while he was chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp.: Wayne Tracker.

Tillerson sent messages from the account to discuss the risks posed by climate change, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a court filing about his office's fraud investigation of the company. Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, used the Wayne Tracker account on the Exxon Mobil system from at least 2008 through 2015, Schneiderman said.

Schneiderman made the claim in a letter Monday to Justice Barry Ostrager in New York state court in Manhattan, accusing Exxon Mobil of failing to turn over all relevant documents required by a court order. The filing comes in a protracted legal dispute in which Exxon Mobil seeks to derail probes by New York and Massachusetts into whether the company misled investors for years about the possible impact of climate change on its business.

The claim marks the latest email-handling matter to make headlines in Washington, from Hillary Clinton using a private email server as secretary of state to more-recent revelations that Vice President Mike Pence used a private email account to conduct some official business as governor of Indiana. Neither instance involved an alias.

"Despite the company's incidental production of approximately 60 documents bearing the 'Wayne Tracker' email address, neither Exxon nor its counsel have ever disclosed that this separate email account was a vehicle for Mr. Tillerson's relevant communications at Exxon, and no documents appear to have been collected from this email account," Schneiderman said.

The existence of the secondary email account was discovered by Schneiderman's team while reviewing other Exxon Mobil documents. New York says the Irving-based energy giant has failed to turn over thousands of relevant files. In addition to climate change, the alias account was also used to discuss other "important matters" that the letter didn't specify.

Julia Mason, a spokeswoman for the State Department, declined to comment and referred the matter to Exxon Mobil. A company spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

In December, Exxon Mobil hit a snag in its legal fight to derail the inquiries on the company's home turf, when U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade canceled the deposition of the Massachusetts attorney general, who'd been ordered to appear in Dallas to be questioned under oath by Exxon Mobil's lawyers.

The investigations are also the subject of a dispute in Washington, where House Republicans are seeking to derail the state probes on the grounds that they seek to silence scientists who disagree with the widely accepted theory that climate change is caused by humans. New York and Massachusetts earlier this month said they'd refuse to comply with subpoenas by the House Committee on Science Space and Technology, setting the stage for a possible legal showdown over state and federal investigatory powers.

Texas Representative Lamar Smith, chairman of the committee, argues the probes were started in "bad faith" because the attorneys general had reached their conclusions beforehand after extensive meetings with environmentalists.

Schneiderman and Healey reject the allegations and contend the federal government cannot interfere in their investigations.

"If they had nothing to hide, then why the secret email account?" said Jamie Henn, a spokesman for the environmental group 350.org, which has supported the state probes into Exxon Mobil.
Whenever a government entity gives a company a break on taxes, it wants to know that it's getting something out of the deal  usually, jobs or new investment that wouldn't have appeared otherwise. It can sometimes be difficult, however, to figure out whether that's happening.

Companies always know more about their own financial positions than public entities do, and may say they have other viable locations when in fact they do not.

That happens more often than not in Texas' biggest economic development incentive program, according to a new study from University of Texas political science professor Nathan Jensen, who found that 85 percent of tax breaks granted under the Chapter 313 process didn't make a difference.

The Chapter 313 program, you'll remember, is the means by which school districts can grant exemptions from property taxes for capital-intensive, industrial projects expected to expand the tax base and generate jobs over the long term. The program has steadily grown since it was created in 2001, and if current trends continue, will exempt $1.1 billion in taxes in 2022.

The way the program is structured, school districts themselves don't lose funding by granting tax abatements, since the state's school funding formula evens out their budget. In fact, they can gain more funding by negotiating supplemental payments by the applicant.

So school districts have every incentive to grant the tax abatements. Their ability to negotiate supplemental payments, however, depends on the applicants' bargaining power  whether they're willing to walk away and build somewhere else.

Jensen's conclusion is based on the theory that companies wouldn't agree to the make big payments  averaging about 30 percent of the value of the tax breaks  if they really had other places to go. A bunch of the payments were clustered around the 40 percent mark, and Jensen suspected those applicants probably could've done without any relief at all.

To validate his findings, Jensen asked five experts to review the 257 applications filed from 2002 to 2014 to see whether they thought the companies really needed the tax break to locate in or stay in Texas. They found that only 15 percent of them did  meaning that the state lost about $4.4 billion in tax revenue through the Chapter 313 program, without getting anything in return.

For context, the Upjohn Institute, a Michigan-based research organization focused on employment policy, found last month that states gave out at total of $45 billion in tax incentives in 2015.

Of course, economic development policy is contentious. The Texas Association of Manufacturers has been strident in its defense of the Chapter 313 program, and Jensen's study  published in the Journal of Public Policy  will receive pushback. Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, took issue with the analysis.

"I find the study incredibly subjective," he wrote in an email, pointing out that although companies might agree to accept something less than the full value of the tax break, they still needed some level of subsidy in order to locate in Texas.

Jensen responds that there's no proof the projects required benefits at all. "This can be an indicator that the company doesn't need any support to come to Texas," he says. "
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Bobbi Ingram welcomes each child into the corral with a high five while concerned mothers shout questions from behind the gate:

Does he need to take his jacket off?

Will she be OK with those shoes?

What if he changes his mind?

The moms aren't the only ones who are nervous.

Mutton Bustin'  the sport where 5- and 6-year-olds cling to the backs of bucking sheep  has become one of RodeoHouston's most popular events, and for many Texas children, a rite of passage. But for some, the excitement fades once they've been outfitted with a helmet and padded vest.

RODEO DISPATCH: For a break from Houston rodeo noise and crowd, hop onto the SkyRide. Just don't look down

As an announcer warms up the crowd Monday afternoon, Ingram scans the children's faces, watching for quivering lips or dampened cheeks.

The 33-year-old is an in-house attorney for a major oil and gas company in Houston, but for four days each year, she has a different assignment: Ingram is one of a handful of rodeo volunteers whose job is to encourage Mutton Bustin' kids before they get on the sheep  and to comfort the ones who return from the ride crying.

The first child is called into the pen, and as he mounts the sheep, Ingram notices tears welling in the eyes of the next boy in line. She kneels to be face-to-face with 6-year-old Benjamin Mancillas.

"Is this your first time?" she asks.

The boy nods and tells her he's a little scared. He points to his mouth and tells her he has a loose tooth, as if it might be a disqualifying injury.

She tells him not to worry: "The sheep is soft and fluffy," she says, holding the boy by the shoulders. "And once you get out there, if you're not liking it, all you have to do is let go, and then it's over."

RODEO DISPATCH: With brush and polish, an old shoe shiner keeps a dying art alive

A moment later, when the announcer calls his name, Benjamin is smiling.

It's a trick Ingram has learned since she started volunteering at the event six years ago: Children, she says, don't have control over a lot of things in their life. But when they climb onto a sheep, for at least a few seconds, they are in charge.

"When they realize that," Ingram says, "they're not scared anymore."

A volunteer lifts Benjamin onto his wool-covered steed. It bursts from the chute, and after only a few seconds, Benjamin lets go, sending his little body crashing to the dirt. An adult lifts him to his feet and guides him, limping, back to the corral. Ingram is waiting.

His face is soaked with tears now. Ingram unbuckles his helmet and lifts the boy into her arms, carrying him to the side, out of view of the other riders.

Are you OK? she asks.

Benjamin points at his mouth: "It fell out," he says, stammering. "I lost my tooth and I don't know where it went."

It didn't hurt, he says. But ... but what if the tooth fairy doesn't believe him?

"Oh, sweetie," Ingram says, bringing her hand to the boy's face. "I'll make sure your mom knows. It'll be OK."

She sets him down and gives him a high five.

"You did awesome," Ingram says before turning her attention to another child in need.

As she walks away, the boy is grinning again, a look of accomplishment on his face  and now, a new gap in his smile.
Lealo en ESPANOL aqui

Since President Donald Trump took office, fear of deportation has become epidemic among U.S. immigrant communities.

"Undocumented people and their families feel terror with the policies of this administration targeting immigrant communities with executive orders that drastically increase the level of enforcement," says Alvaro Huerta, a defense lawyer with the National Immigration Law Center. "Virtually anybody [undocumented] could be deported now, and families are afraid of being separated."

How can you prepare if you or someone you love might be deported?

Know your rights

Every person in the U.S., whether a citizen or not, has certain basic rights.

Those rights include the right to remain silent. If you are detained, don't answer any question, including where you were born or how you entered the U.S.

Say, "I want to remain silent. I want to speak with my lawyer."

Or if you're uncomfortable speaking English, print the card below, and give it to law-enforcement officers.

If authorities come to your home

If law-enforcement agents knock on your door, the American Civil Liberties Union recommends the following:

 Keep the door closed. With the door closed, ask the agents why they are there. And ask if they are immigration agents or from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

More for you Que hacer si usted o seres queridos estan en riesgo de deportacion?

 Opening the door does not give the agents permission to come inside. But it is safer to speak to ICE through a closed door.

 If the agents don't speak your language, ask for an interpreter.

A New America Aggressive federal enforcement, controversial laws and heated political rhetoric are pushing Houston's immigrants - documented and undocumented - deeper into the shadows. Click here to read more stories that show why immigration matters in Houston. See More Collapse

 If the agents want to enter, ask if they have a warrant signed by a judge. If they do not have one, you may refuse to open the door or let them in. An administrative warrant of removal from immigration authorities is not enough for them to enter without your permission.

 If they say they have a warrant, ask them to slip the warrant under the door.

 Look at the top and at the signature line of the warrant to see if it was issued by a court and signed by a judge. Only a court-issued warrant, signed by a judge, is enough to allow them entry into your premises.

 Do not open your door unless the judicial search or arrest warrant names a person in your residence and/or areas to be searched at your address.

 In all other cases, keep the door closed. State: "I do not consent to your entry."

 If agents force their way in anyway, do not resist. If you wish to exercise your rights, state: "I do not consent to your entry or to your search of these premises. I am exercising my right to remain silent. I wish to speak with a lawyer as soon as possible."

 Everyone in the residence may also exercise the right to remain silent.

Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle

If authorities detain you in a public place

Say, "I want to remain silent. I want to speak with my lawyer."

"The more information you provide, the easier you make the process for authorities to deport you," said Huerta, of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). "Technically, authorities are going after criminals, and if you are not a criminal, you don't have to make things easier by providing information. They can decide if you are worth the trouble" of investigating your immigration status.

 NILC recommends that undocumented people carry only official U.S. identification, and no other forms of I.D. Do not carry consular cards or "tarjetas."

If you are detained

 If you have minor children, let the officers know and ask to make arrangements for them, especially if those children would be unsupervised in your absence.

 You may only be allowed one call from detention.

 Before making your call, be sure to know where exactly you are detained; to have your case number, if possible; and the exact name under which you're detained. (For instance, does that include your middle name?) Give that information to the person you call, so that you can be located in the judicial system.

 If you have a lawyer, call your lawyer first and let him or her inform your family. If you don't have a lawyer, call your family or reliable friend.

 If you don't have a lawyer, call the family member or friend who'd be the best able to transmit all the information that a lawyer will need.

 Don't sign documents without consulting a lawyer, particularly if you don't fully understand the language.

Every individual in the U.S. has the right to "due process," meaning fair treatment in the court system. By signing a document that you don't understand, you may be giving up that right, and so subjected to immediate voluntary or expedited deportation.

Expedited deportation is usually applied to criminals or cases of recent entry or reentry to the country. If you have not committed a felony and you have been in the U.S. for a long time, or have direct family members who are American citizens, or if you think you have grounds for becoming a lawful refugee, make sure you don't sign a document that would give up your right to a day in court.

To report deportation activity

UnitedWeDream maintains a hotline for people to report deportation activity in their communities: (844) 363-1423.

To prepare ahead of time

 Assess your situation. "Many people don't even know if they have potential legal paths for their cases," said Imanol De la Flor Patino, Mexican consul for Protection in Houston.

 Consult a lawyer about your options. To find a lawyer, see the list below of organizations providing immigration legal assistance.

 Memorize your lawyer's phone number. Write down the name and phone number, and post it in a place where everybody in the family can find it.



 Have a list of the phone numbers of everyone who should be notified if you or a family member is arrested for deportation. (That list could include other family members, friends, neighbors and immigrant organizations.) Make sure the list is easily available to your lawyer, as well as to the next person you'd want to contact from detention  a family member or friend.

 If you have minor children, designate a guardian for them if deportation might leave them without an official adult caretaker.

 Make sure your children have the contact information for a list of people to call if they find themselves alone or don't know your whereabouts for 24 hours  for example, if they come home from school and you're not there. Make sure they know who to call first.

 Have a designated person who can pick up your children from school if both parents are absent. Make sure that person is on the school's list of individuals authorized to pick up your children.

 Make sure your family members and/or a designated friend know where you have put all of your family's important documents, such as passports, birth certificates and identification.

 Similarly, have all the documents related to your property  including the title to your car and the deed to your house  in a place known to your designated person. These documents may include bills that you are paying, such as mortgages, utilities, etc.

 Create a power of attorney that allows a designated person to act in your name, particularly if you are the breadwinner in your family or have properties in your name. For example, if you have bank accounts, you will want somebody to have access to them and to be able to represent you to the bank.

 Carry cash at all times. If you are detained, all the possessions you have with you will be temporarily confiscated until you are released or deported. If you are deported, you may need money when you arrive in your country of origin to do things such as make calls or take a bus.

If you're a friend of someone who might be deported

Friends and neighbors can offer support in many ways. For example:

 Fluent English speakers can assist families with limited English by making calls to authorities or institutions or helping with errands.

 Think about the needs of the family left behind. For example, you could offer to help them get food, to babysit, or to transport the children.

 Offer to help your friend or neighbor prepare in case of deportation. Help them learn about community resources, such as immigrant-rights organizations.

 Ask questions. "One thing we are seeing is that [you're less likely to be deported] if the community knows your story and demand local agencies like ICE and the government to explain why are they deporting you," Huerta said.

RESOURCES

MEXICAN CONSULATE



Mexican consulates cannot provide legal representation to people from other countries, said Oscar Solis, a consul at the diplomatic office in Houston. But immigrants from other countries who speak Spanish are welcome to use other resources provided for Mexicans, such the hotline and smartphone app.

 Hotline. To report, get information, locate missing or detained relatives, ask for legal assistance, or to find out about community forums: (855) 463-6395. Operators are available 24 hours a day. To call from Mexico: 001-5206-237-874.

 Smartphone app: Download the application MiConsulMex for Android or Apple phones to get information about services available and to get updates on immigration policies and issues.



 Legal representation: The Mexican Foreign Affairs office has opened Legal Defense Centers ("Centros de Defensoria") in all 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. The legal-defense centers work with local attorneys to provide legal advice and representation for immigrants of Mexican origin.

FREE OR LOW-COST LEGAL ASSISTANCE



 Catholic Charities: Immigration sessions, usually called "charlas," offer information about immigration laws. Afterward, attendees can consult for free with an immigration attorney or accredited representative.

Information hotline: (866) 649-5862.

In Houston: The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston: (713) 526-4611.

Languages: English, Spanish.

National: Catholic Charities USA: (703) 549-1390.

Kids in Need of Defense-Houston: Specializes in protecting "unaccompanied minors," children who enter the U.S. immigration system alone. Helps with asylum applications, removal hearings, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petitions and T and U visas.

In Houston: (832) 779-4030.

Languages: English, Spanish.

National: (202) 824-8680, info@supportkind.org.

Boat People SOS: Its Legal Services Center helps low-income individuals in the Vietnamese and other Asian communities of Houston.

In Houston: (281) 530-6888

Languages: English, Mandarin, Spanish, Vietnamese.

Neighborhood Centers Inc.: Walk-in immigration consultations are available at Baker Ripley on Fridays with no appointment. To get legal representation, you must attend a consultation first for a $30 fee.

In Houston: (713) 273-3701, immigration@neighborhood-centers.org.

Languages: English, Spanish.

Human Rights First: Free help is available for people in the Houston, Washington, D.C. and New York City metropolitan areas who would not otherwise be able to afford legal representation for asylum cases and other immigration matters. New York and Houston offices can also help people who are seeking asylum from within a nearby immigration detention center.

In Houston: (713) 955-1360. Houston@humanrightsfirst.org.

Languages: English, Spanish.

National: New York, (212) 845-5200, Washington D.C., (202) 547-5692.

Justice for our Neighbors: A network of legal clinics located within United Methodist Churches.

In Houston: (713) 454-6470.

Languages: English, French, Spanish, Swahili, Urdu.

YMCA International Services: Provides counseling or representation for individuals seeking immigration assistance deportation cases, for asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence, crime or human trafficking, family reunification, adjustment of status and naturalization applications. The "Walk-in-Wednesdays" program allow individuals to discuss their case.

In Houston: (713) 339-9015. immigrationlegalservices@ymcahouston.org.

Languages: Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, English, Farsi, French, Kirundi, Oromo, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Urdu, Vietnamese.

Memorial Assistance Ministries: MAM helps with matters including DACA and adjustment of status for refugees.

In Houston: (713) 468-4516 ext. 170.

Languages: English, Spanish.

Central American Resource Center's (CARECEN): Offers legal services for removal hearings, Temporary Protected Status, asylum applications, DACA and other areas.

In Houston: (713) 665-1284. carecenhouston@gmail.com.

Languages: English, Spanish.

National: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.

Somali Bantu Community of Greater Houston: Offers immigration assistance and translation and interpretation, and has after-school and childcare programs.

In Houston: (713) 995-1070.

Languages: Arabic, English, Somali, Swahili.

International Emergency and Development Aid (IEDA Relief): Provides immigration legal assistance providing services in-house and through external partnerships with attorneys from other organizations. Consultations are offered for a $30 fee during the Friday's walk-in sessions, from 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

In Houston: (713) 774-2522

Languages: English, French, Spanish, Swahili.

Find more organizations offering legal services by zip code or nearby detention centers:

APPS



Notifica: A smartphone app that acts as a panic button for immigrants. With one click, you can notify your family that you've been arrested. Click below to go to the tool in its latest development:

Immigo: This app offers news and information for potential clients and also for people helping immigrants:

To download from the Google Play store:

From the Apple iTunes store:

Olivia.Tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptallet
MONDAY

I go to the Alley Theater to hear George Saunders read. He is famousvery famous. But he does not act like he is famous or even important, so it is hard not to fall in love with that. I have just flown in from Chicago, which is where he grew up, although he was born in Amarillo.

I flew in so I could hear him live, like I did last time, even though it is sold out and being live-streamed and videotaped and all that. I love that Inprint does that, but I am happy I am seeing him in person. There is nothing like the real thing. He can be very, very funny, and he does not let us down. He tells us this story about being on a plane and facing death, and even though he is serious as a heart attack, he delivers it in such an engaging way we are all laughing. Tell the truth, but tell it slant, and with a high humor quotient. It is not a bad formula.

Saunders has written many fine short stories, won many fellowships, teaches at Syracuse. He probably didnt have to write a novel, but he did anyway. Its called Lincoln in the Bardo and honest to goodness I had no idea what the Bardo could be until I heard about this book. Saunders is a student of Buddhism, and I wonder if that religion makes you calmer and funnier and more talented on the page. I look up bardo on Wikipedia. They know a lot on that site. Before this novel came out, I didnt even know it was there to look up. According to them,

Used loosely, the term "bardo" refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions.

Also:

The term bardo can also be used metaphorically to describe times when our usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, during a period of illness or during a meditation retreat. Such times can prove fruitful for spiritual progress because external constraints diminish. However, they can also present challenges because our less skillful impulses may come to the foreground.

So basically, good news and bad news. Lincoln, in the novel, is having to suffer through the loss of his young son, Willie. Lots of parents lose their kids during this terrible war. I dont even have a son who is ill or at war, but I think about how I would feel if I had to lose my son, and I cant even bear thinking about it. I think that is why he chose this story, this history. It seems far away, yet feels close to the bone. How can you not care about Lincoln?

This reading is unusuala collaboration. George Saunders is Lincoln, and the other parts are read by professional actors from The Alley. I have never been to a reading like this. It is like something in between literature and theater. You really understand what he is doing: getting in the heads of different characters, juxtaposing fiction with historical accounts of lives from the Civil War. It is like something in between the imagined and the real.

At one point, Saunders talks about getting close to the truth. He imagines that the closest thing to the truth are all the internal monologues that are in the audience in each of our heads. That is a lot of truths, and we will never know all of them. I flip through the novel: He has lots of voices entwined with each other, just like the actors on the stage, from The Alley Theatre, in Houston, on a Monday.

TUESDAY

I go to my classes at Houston Baptist University. I teach there, but sometimes I would like to sit in the back of the room and be a student. You know, trade places for a day. We are reading Pride and Prejudice. I wonder if this novel is more of a museum piece, something that is long ago and far away and so over. We talk about how the father and the mother seems to have traded places in a way. We talk about decorum, Colin Firth, social class. One of my students tells me, I thought I would hate this novel. And I do. But I love it too. I am somewhere in-between.

WEDNESDAY

I go to my graduate class in the Masters of Liberal Arts program. We are studying the last 50 years in art and literature. We have been searching for the perfect novel. I announce: We will read George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo. If you are going to study the last 50 years, you might as well start with the last five minutes.

I was going back and forth forever over so many books. But I think this novel has about fifty books in one. We are all excited: we already have all seen his last reading in the Inprint archive from his last reading in Houston. That is the miracle of the videotape: It is a kind of reincarnation of an authors past life, even if they are still around.

THURSDAY

I go to a reading at the Brazos Bookstore on Bissonnet. I always like their readings: you can meet the author in person, hear something new. The author is Glenn Blake, the author of the short story collection The Old and The Lost. He is talking about the land between those rivers, the Old River and the Lost River that you pass when you are heading east, where you are halfway from somewhere, and halfway to somewhere. He teaches in a creative writing program at Johns Hopkins, all the way in Maryland. But his stories sound like Texas to me.

FRIDAY

At Stages Repertory Theatre, they put on a play called Five Course Love. It is a musical and very funny. I know love is a serious subject sometimes, but it can make you laugh. Maybe even more so when it is in your rearview mirror, and you can see things that are funny that didnt seem so at first. Three actors play multiple parts. One woman, two men, fifteen characters. They change accents, costumes, expressions--quickly, and with verve. There are lots of plates spinning in the air: what the director thinks, what the costume and lighting and set people think, what the actors think, what the audience is thinking. How do we collaborate about anything with our own prejudices and interior monologues taking up all that real estate in our heads? I know: It is a miracle. But if you want reassurance that it can be done, go to the theater. I am laughing almost the whole time through this entertaining performance. But dont get me wrong: a lot of hours went into those performers being able to get into the heads of all those characters, come alive, be chameleons.

SATURDAY

I go to a party that is a concert and a concert that is a party. Ars Lyrica is celebrating the Roaring Twentiesthe 1920s, and the 1720s. These musicians play 18th and 20th century music on period instruments. At the concert, one of the musicians, Elizabeth Blumenstock, tells us her violin is from 1660. I can hardly wrap my mind around it.

The vocalist is countertenor John Holiday, who is from Rosenberg, Texas, but is a national star. One minute he is singing the role of Xerxes from an opera by Handel; the next he is singing jazz, amazing renditions of Misty and Fly Me to the Moon.

We are in an Art Deco marvel of a building called the Esperson Building. You think you are back in time, but you are here, in Houston, in 2017, and you cannot believe the past can be so palpably present. Some of the ladies are dressed in feathers, sequins, hair jewelry worthy of the most decadent flapper. Matthew Dirst, the founding director of Ars Lyrica, plays the harpsichord. When someone is talking about his genius for making music and bringing musicians to the city, they comment: He has the ability to identify hidden gems and bring them to us.

You would never think you would hear Handel and Bach and Fly Me to the Moon in the same evening, but you have, and you will never forget it. The Preservation Houston group gives us tours of the building, explains the visual lingo of Art Deco. I want to ask them how to preserve this evening, and I decide I'd better take notes.

SUNDAY

My son, Christopher, and I go to Friendswood United Methodist Church. It seems like everyone is leaving for Spring Break, but we are staying here this year. The sermon is on The Lords Prayer. I have said this prayer many times, but I think about it differently after the sermon. When we ask for "our daily bread," Martin Luther thought that meant everything we need to survive. I cant survive without words, music, art. Maybe I could, but I dont want to.

David Bruce is the baritone and he sings Via Dolorosa. His voice is gorgeous. I dont understand any of the Italian words, but it does not matter, because they are all beautiful. They were written a long time ago, far away from Houston, but came to me, this week, in March.

I think of the words George Saunders said in an interview once: Dont be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.

Doni M. Wilson is an English professor and writer in Houston and has a high schooler named Christopher. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

After death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one can't bookmark Gray Matters. So do it now.




Current talk of espionage, wiretaps and computer hacking doesn't bother Shelby Green now that she's playing a spy in "The 39 Steps" at Pasadena Memorial High School.

"If today's spies are as incompetent as the ones in our play, we don't have anything to worry about," said Green, 18, a senior.

The daughter of Traycie Sublett of Dickinson and Patrick Green of Dobbin plays Annabella Schmidt, a German seductress, in Patrick Barlow's 2005 spoof of Alfred Hitchcock movies. The madcap farce is Pasadena Memorial's entry in 2017 state University Interscholastic League one-act play competition.

On Monday, March 20, free public performances of the show will be presented at 3 and 7 p.m. at the school, 4410 Crenshaw Road, director Kendra Curtis said.

The next day, UIL competition will begin with J. Frank Dobie High School, a Pasadena ISD school at 10220 Blackhawk Blvd. in Houston, hosting eight schools in the District 22-6A UIL one-act play contest.

The competition is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. with Deer Park High thespians presenting "Love of a Pig," followed by Beaumont West Brook's "The Ash Girl," Dobie's "Wit," South Houston's "Antigone," Sam Rayburn's "The Government Inspector," Pasadena Memorial's "The 39 Steps," Pasadena High's "Anna in the Tropics" and, at 5 p.m., La Porte High's "On the Razzle."

Admission to the District 22-6A contest is $5.

Three schools from District 22-6A will advance to bi-district, and winning productions will continue toward the annual state meet in Austin in late April.

Curtis, the theater arts director at Pasadena Memorial, said she chose "The 39 Steps" "mostly because it's so much fun."

"It is a funny, slapstick, whodunit spy story that is a mix of Alfred Hitchcock and Monty Python," she said. "We have 14 actors playing a variety of different roles, both male and female."

For example, 17-year-old junior Jake Miller portrays both a burly Scottish farmer and a hotel owner, Mrs. McGarrigle.

Can performers keep straight faces?

"It's definitely funny and hard to keep from laughing at first," said the son of Roger Miller of Deer Park and Dee Wahrenberger of Pasadena. "After you repeat it a couple of times, you can keep a straight face."

The brisk pace of the show requires such quick changes in settings that, Curtis said, "The students literally grab a prop, such as a picture frame, and it becomes a window. Sometimes, all of a sudden, an actor becomes part of the scenery."

Brett Owen, a 17-year-old junior, is the only student who plays just one role, but his character, Richard Hannay, is onstage the full 40 minutes of the one-act play.

"The role is very demanding," said the son of Steve and Deborah Owen of Pasadena.

Hannay's adventures include jumping from train car to train car, crawling across a bridge and making a daring escape through a London music hall.

The cast also includes: Helena Cosme, Faith Cruse, Devin Dellinger, Gabriel Diaz, AJ Dudley, Danny Garza, Javon Gould, Jacob Hinojosa, Lila Grace Martin, Kiley Phillip and Alex Trejo.

Crew members include Nahely Cardiel, Steffi Dardon, Jonah Maughan and Brianna Medina.

Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net
A Montgomery County commissioner charged with conspiring to circumvent the Texas Open Meetings Act has agreed to testify against two other Commissioners Court members and a political consultant in their upcoming trial, according to the official's attorney.

Commissioner Jim Clark will be granted a pretrial diversion in exchange for his testimony against County Judge Craig Doyal, Commissioner Charlie Riley and political consultant Marc Davenport, said Conroe-based attorney E. Tay Bond, who represents Clark.

All four face charges of allegedly talking in private about the potential structure of a $280 million road bond referendum before placing it on the November 2015 ballot, where it passed. The defendants have denied the charges.

The four were indicted last June on one count each of the offense, a misdemeanor that carries up to six months in jail and a maximum $500 fine. It is unclear whether a guilty verdict or plea would force the elected officials to vacate their positions.

The trial is set to begin March 27 in the 221st state District Court in Montgomery County.

Bond confirmed Monday that Clark had worked out the agreement with Chris Downey, the special prosecutor handling the case.

Clark's case will be dismissed if he "lives up to the terms" of the diversion, Bond said. Some pretrial diversions require an admission of guilt, but that is not the case with Clark's agreement, the attorney added.

Bond noted Clark would be required to voluntarily complete training offered by the Texas attorney general's office regarding the open-meetings law, as well as provide information to Downey that he had completed the training. The attorney said Clark also will have to "testify truthfully" about the violation and retain a consultant to advise him and his staff about compliance with the law.

"I gave a true and honest testimony to the grand jury, and I believe the special prosecutors knew the truth when they heard it and were inspired to approach me through my attorney," Clark said in a written statement. "The other conditions of the agreement are fair, and I look forward to fulfilling these terms so that we can move forward from this event."

Downey was appointed special prosecutor after Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon asked to recuse himself, citing conflicts of interest involving his office.

Information provided to the Conroe Courier showed dozens of emails among the county judge, certain members of Commissioners Court, Davenport and others, including members of The Woodlands-based Texas Patriots PAC, a tea party group that negotiated the framework of the bond package with the elected officials and political consultant.

The bond package did not include the controversial Woodlands Parkway extension, a proposal the tea party group opposes and that was credited with sinking a $350 million road bond measure in May 2015.

Houston defense attorney Rusty Hardin, who is representing Doyal, and Conroe defense attorney Steve Jackson, representing Davenport, said they don't blame Clark for taking the deal, but both look forward to questioning him on the stand. The two maintain their clients are not guilty.

"What is interesting is they are charged with conspiring to violate the act," Hardin said. "They aren't even charged with violating it. They are charged with reaching an agreement among themselves to violate the act, and Clark knows that is not true. Craig Doyal is not guilty. Charlie Riley is not guilty. Whatever Jim Clark says in order to help himself and save his own hide is not going to be anything that harms Craig Doyal."

Jackson said he has never seen such an agreement in his 24-year career.

"Usually, a pretrial diversion agreement typically comes with a confession," Jackson said. "However, there is no confession here. I do not believe, based on everything I have read, that anybody conspired to violate the Texas Open Meetings Act. In fact, it is quite the contrary. Everybody tried to be very careful to not do so and did nothing more than to try and benefit the county by eventually getting a road bond passed."
Participants of a trade blockade in Donbas have not been broken up, armed people were detained on Monday, but were released from custody later, Ukrainian Security Service chief Vasyl Hrytsak said.

"As to dispersion, I see that no one has broken up someone, people were detained, work has been conducted with them and they were released from custody," Hrytsak told reporters in Uzhhorod on Tuesday, adding that one cannot breach the rules and stay with weapons where it is forbidden.

"We cannot allow people with arms walking along the streets of our cities and villages [...] The ATO zone, which the Ukrainian state authorities are controlling, is also Ukrainian territory [...] I stand for people voicing their protests peacefully [...] Let's have some discussions, let's the Verkhovna Rada express its stance, local recommendations," the SBU head said. "And let it be the position [...] no one has not yet built democracy in Makhno's manner," he said.

Law enforcement employees have detained over 40 armed people in the Toretsk, Shcherbynivka and Kurdiumivka populated localities in the Donetsk region on March 13. All of them have been released from custody as of Tuesday morning.
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First, the historic bricks laid by formerly enslaved people were disturbed.

Then the state historical marker commemorating the Freedmen's Town community disappeared.

Now, after a plea to City Council and a theft report filed with the Houston Police Department, community activist Gladys House finally has solved the mystery of the missing marker, and she's still not happy.

The removal by a contractor - with the approval of the county historical commission - is yet another affront to the longtime Fourth Ward community by people with more money and more power, who are not African-American, she said.

"We shouldn't be mistreated and disrespected like this," said House, who also oversees the neighborhood's community development nonprofit organization. "Freedmen's Town is a historic community."

The precious clay pavers were key elements to the century-old area's mid-1980s designation by the National Register of Historic Places.

A dozen years ago, the community also was recognized with a Texas Historical Commission marker on West Gray near Taft.

On Feb. 24, however, House - a lifelong resident who has an eagle eye for anything out of place in her changing neighborhood - filmed a man in a fluorescent vest walking away with the marker, which had been uprooted with its post.

The placard vanished along with a local sign that also heralded the historic community.

A week later, House learned the marker was removed and stored with the consent of city, county and state authorities who did not inform area residents or community supporters.

Texas Historical Commission spokesman Chris Florance confirmed that the developer temporarily removed the marker during construction of an apartment complex.

"Currently, the marker is in storage," Florance wrote in an email. "It will be re-installed within a few feet of its original location."

According to city permitting records, the Alta West Gray development is planned for the southeast corner of West Gray and Taft. Neither the developer nor the construction contractor could be reached for comment.

Texas historical markers are state property, and the Texas Historical Commission is responsible for the marker. County historical commissions work on behalf of the state agency.

Paul R. Scott, the Harris County Historical Commission's state marker chair, said he was contacted by the developer in mid-December about moving the sign and authorized the action.

"We did due diligence to remove it for safekeeping to keep it from being damaged," he said.

Scott said he learned of the community's concern about the missing sign from another member of the county historical commission.

"I did not contact them because it did not occur to me to contact them, and I would not have known who to contact," he said.

House said she will continue trying to prevent another incident. She has signed up to speak before the Harris County Commissioners Court to tell those elected officials about being overlooked by the county historical commission.

"This is not the first time, even with the brick streets," she said. "My response is: legal action."
Viviana Linares applied to the University of Houston from Colombia several years ago with hopes of eventually finding a job in logistics. But the students she talks to back home have one concern that she never had to consider: President Donald Trump's administration.

They ask her about Trump, his policies and social dynamics on campus. "How are you being treated?" one said. She tries to ease their concerns by talking about Houston's diversity and UH's international students organization.

A new survey released Monday suggests that these fears aren't unique. About one-third of more than 2,100 high school juniors and seniors said the current political climate makes them less interested in enrolling in a U.S. college or university. Trump's administration was their top concern, according to the survey, which was conducted by Royall & Company, a higher education consulting division of advisory group EAB.

These trends will be important to Texas universities, which have spent the last decade filling their classes with larger numbers of foreign students. More than 42,400 international students enrolled at Texas public universities last fall, a huge increase from the roughly 22,000 international students who enrolled in 2000.

More Information International student enrollment, fall 2000 vs. fall 2016: University of Houston: 2000, 2,390. 2016: 3,995. Texas Southern University: 2000, 310. 2016: 778. University of Houston-Downtown: 2000, 290. 2016, 299. Data courtesy of the Higher Education Coordinating Board. See More Collapse

College leaders benefit from high international enrollment for two key reasons. First, they can collect out-of-state tuition from international students, creating a steady revenue source that can subsidize needy domestic students' costs. Second, they can tout their global enrollment as bringing students a more dynamic campus experience.

Monday's report indicates that may be in question. Students and administrators at local universities said they've heard questions from prospective students about visas and campus atmospheres after widespread immigration confusion and instances of campus racism this year. Nearly half of survey respondents who said they were less interested in attending U.S. universities because of political climate cited "prejudice and discrimination against people from my country" as a concern.

Prospective international students began asking about what a Trump presidency could mean for them last spring, UH director of student recruitment Jeff Fuller said. Families worried if their students would be able to stay in the country if Trump were president.

"It was not about UH, but more about the country - is the U.S. a place that welcomes international students?" he said.

Decline in applications

UH has assured families that international students will find peers on campus and a safe environment, Fuller said. He said the university often clarifies how student visas are issued and retained at the request of families.

The University of Houston enrolled 3,995 international students in the fall and has seen a 2.5 percent decline in foreign undergraduate applications for next academic year.

The decline is likely not largely due to political reasons, he said. The rocky global economy began to hinder foreign application numbers two years ago, and he said he believes that continued to play a role.

Both Texas Southern University and Rice University say they have seen slight increases in international applications.

Most of TSU's international students come from Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as the university has enrollment partnerships with embassies there to ease the admissions process, said Brian Armstrong, TSU's executive director of enrollment services. There is no sign that interest has declined from these students, he said.

It's difficult for administrators to answer some of students' and applicants' questions, Armstrong said, as policies and executive orders that could affect foreign students can pass without warning.

Right now, studying in the U.S. is still very appealing to international students, said Nazir Pandor, a University of Houston economics student from Zambia. But he recognizes that their minds may change if more stringent immigration polices are enacted.

Frightened by future

More than 61 percent of students surveyed by Royall & Company said that the current political climate had no influence on studying in the U.S., but those respondents said visa restrictions, a travel ban or a wall on the southern U.S. border would make them reconsider.

High-school juniors who responded to the survey were more likely than seniors to say that they were less interested in attending a U.S. college.

This means that administrators must connect with potential future applicants - in addition to students they hope to enroll in the upcoming semester - to ease their concerns, said Pamela Kiecker Royall, head of research at Royall & Company.

"Colleges and universities may beef up their orientation in this respect to demonstrate that they are a welcoming campus (and) that they are a community that prizes their international student enrollment," she said in an interview.

Rice administrators will be aware that foreign students admitted to Rice may ask about immigration policies before they decide to enroll, said admissions director Dan Warner.

But so far, he said, there has been no indication that foreign students are more concerned this year than they have been in the past. Next year's application cycle, he said, may be more instructive.

"Our lives and livelihoods are predicated on the whims of 17-year-olds," he said. "Who knows what criteria is going to be important or not?"
Paul Bettencourt loves property taxes.

Don't let today's hearing on Senate Bill 2 fool you. Texas men don't like to show emotion. But this longtime Houston politician loves property taxes the same way that Hank Hill loves his 20-year-old pickup truck. Hank is out in the driveway every weekend, fiddling with the distributor components or replacing the spark plugs. Even the carburetor can catch on fire, but Hank just can't bring himself to replace it.

He loves that truck.

And Bettencourt loves the property tax. That's why he's spent the last year on a whirlwind tour of Texas to talk about the nitty gritty of our state's property tax system. The state senator traveled to six different cities with the Senate Select Committee on Property Tax Reform and Relief. The end result is a 90-page report of testimony, explainers, appendices and recommendations. Yet the whole thing looks more like an exercise in wonkishness than a true exploration of the big questions: Why are property taxes so high in Texas? Do we need a total overhaul? Should Texas repeal and replace the property tax system?

Clearly something isn't working right. Texas self-proclaims as a low-services, low-tax state, but only four other states have a higher median property tax rate. It isn't as if school districts - which collect the bulk of property taxes - are teaching kids in gilded classrooms. In fact, last year Texas ranked 36th in school spending per student.

If Bettencourt wanted to get to the bottom of the property tax problem, he should have held more meetings at the root cause - the Texas Capitol.

Our state's school money pipeline has been switched into reverse. Instead of helping to shore up local funding, the Legislature now sucks up property taxes through the so-called "recapture" process to balance its own budget.

Austin used to foot more than half the school bill. Now the Legislature is on path to cover less than 40 percent by 2019. Local property tax dollars have to grow to pick up the slack.

And there's no reason to think that Bettencourt's SB 2 will do much to help. The bill only mandates that local governments (not including schools) get voter approval before raising property taxes by more than 4 percent. Nothing in the bill actually reverses the flow of school funds from local districts to Austin.

SB 2 will, however, make property tax issues more complex and give them more public attention. That's good news for a guy like Bettencourt, who is CEO of a property-tax consulting firm. Texas homeowners have less to celebrate.

All we'll see at today's hearing is a committee trying to repair a broken-down truck while taxpayers get taken for a ride.
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Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will pay an official visit to Tbilisi on March 17-18.

During his visit, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will meet with Georgian President Georgi Margvelashvili, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze and other representatives of the Georgian leadership, the Georgian Foreign Ministry told journalists on Tuesday.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry noted that Klimkin will also meet with the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II.

In addition, the department will hold an extended meeting with the participation of the Foreign Ministers of Georgia and Ukraine, after which the ministers will hold a joint press conference.
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BlackBerry Aurora Features and Specs, Everything We Know So Far

Who says that BlackBerry is out from the Smartphone market? The brand is back with the latest innovation in smartphone market. The latest BlackBerry device named as BlackBerry Aurora is all set to woo the consumers with its charismatic and sleek appearance, high-end security and multi-functional operating system. Following the hype that revolved around the launch of BlackBerry KEYOne at Mobile World Congress, the company has now launched another innovative piece of technology.

BlackBerry Aurora is the company's first release with the partnership of an Indonesian firm BB Merah Putih. It looks adorable, adorable and appealing. However, the company has launched BlackBerry Aurora in Indonesia, the rest of the world is yet to witness the launch of the most anticipated BlackBerry device.

At the first glance, the BlackBerry Aurora looks like a decent average gadget that is affordable and innovative. The Android device is equipped with a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 720 pixels. It is operated on Android Nougat 7.0 along with the BlackBerry's very own software offerings including DTEK security suite and BlackBerry Hub.

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Besides, the latest Blackberry Aurora runs on a Snapdragon 425 and has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage which can be extended up to 2TB. The device offers 3,000 mAH battery that the company claims to provide 20 hours of battery life. The phone is available in silver, gold and black and will be available for $260 which is approximately 3,499,000 Indonesian RP, as reported at Express.co.uk.

The reason to launch BlackBerry Aurora in Indonesia first is because Indonesia is actually having the world's largest BlackBerry users. Launching BlackBerry Aurora seems the best step for the company to enter the smartphone market with a big bang. Besides, BlackBerry Aurora, the company is also having a keen interest to launch its KEYOne device soon. BlackBerry hasn't confirmed an exact date in April for the launch of KEYOne, so you still have a few weeks to save up your pennies for the new device.

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So more and more, were seeing the big-name blue chip organisations that pride themselves on corporate strength, profit and stability, lose ground to younger companies that are embracing purpose and impact.

According to Ertas, organisations will soon reap the rewards if they are able to craft an employer brand which gives staff autonomy and empowers them to make a difference.

Employees are looking for self-expression and the desire to impact, theyre looking for a company that has an authentic purpose and is really relevant in our in our modern world, says Ertas.

For those that fail to offer such an environment, the repercussions go far beyond recruitment.

An employer brand that isn't really revered among internal and external stakeholders or the public at large is not only at risk of failing to attract top talent, it's also at risk of losing sales, warns Ertas.
Can China do it? This is the crucial question for the world's biggest and boldest economic, political and social experiment.

At the core of understanding the country's prospects is the governance philosophy of its leader, Xi Jinping.

Xi is leading more than 1.3 billion people on the march toward the Chinese Dream -- an end to the worst kinds of poverty, and the rejuvenation of a nation that has already made astonishing progress in creating prosperity.

The 63-year-old reformer has brought his own thinking to bear on problems that will be faced down the road, especially after a year of tumultuous world events.

With the concerns of the people his first and foremost concern, Xi's experience, commitment, determination and ability to govern and lead have become something of a rarity on the global political stage.

Later this year, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will elect new leadership for another five-year term, the crunch period for Xi's vision of a well-off nation by the Party's 100th anniversary.

By 2020, China's gross domestic product is expected to exceed 90 trillion yuan (13 trillion U.S. dollars). There should be a middle-class population of about 400 million in the country by then, a huge market for the world.

The goal is fast approaching, and will only be met if officials at all levels can align their thinking with that of the central leadership, and act according to the "four comprehensives" raised by Xi: the cornerstones of prosperity, reform, rule of law and strict Party governance. The strategy aims to lead the country to modernization and a standing at the center of the world stage.

This is China's own story, one neither copied from other countries nor imposed on any.

At the annual "Two Sessions" of the national legislature and political advisory body in Beijing this month, Xi expressed his confidence.

"As long as we gather the wisdom and strength of more than 1.3 billion Chinese people, there can be no limit to the success of our cause," he said.

NEW THOUGHTS, NEW ACTIONS

From being the youthful head of an impoverished village in northwest China via Party chief in the nation's advanced eastern regions to leader of the nation, Xi has shown deep understanding of state governance, evident in economic and social reform, foreign affairs and military transformation.

In the economic sphere, he has led China to achieve remarkable growth, even though other major economies are faltering. China now contributes to over 30 percent of world economic growth.

Xi calls the current phase the "new normal," from which an economy is emerging that is more sustainable and inclusive.

To ensure the success of this rebalancing, he has put forward supply-side structural reform as the cure.

Fundamentally different from the supply-side economics of the West, Xi's policy means taking a harsh stance against outdated and inefficient industries and putting in their places new, innovative systems of work and production which will neither destroy the environment nor succumb when the next global financial crisis hits.

China hopes to increase its GDP by about 6.5 percent this year. At this rate, the nation will generate more output than it did during the days of double-digit growth.

Xi is at the wheel of a reform juggernaut, revitalizing and renewing almost every aspect of the economy and society, from the financial sector to health care. Changing the lives of hundreds of millions of people means the abandonment of what is no longer relevant, including the one-child policy and "re-education through labor," a way of dealing with minor offenders that was introduced more than half a century ago.

Xi emphasizes the rule of law and checks on power, as seen in his decision to create a national supervision commission. Lawmakers are compiling a civil code to better protect people's rights.

His campaign against corruption, a threat he warned could destroy the Party and bring about the downfall of the state, has gained "crushing momentum." Since the 18th CPC National Congress, at least 240 senior officials and more than 1 million lower-level officials have been investigated.

As Chinese business people, tourists and students reach almost every corner of the globe, Xi sees China as not only a beneficiary of globalization, but a contributor to it. He has visited around 50 countries as head of state, pursuing his mission to build "a community of shared future."

His strong defense of free trade and warnings against protectionism -- "locking oneself in a dark room" -- have surprised and delighted observers.

The China-U.S. trade relationship now "supports roughly 2.6 million jobs in the United States across a range of industries," according to a January report released by the U.S.-China Business Council based in Washington,D.C.

The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Xi in 2013 is expected to connect Asia with Europe and Africa. In three years, Chinese businesses have helped build 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 countries along the Belt and Road, with total investment exceeding 18 billion U.S. dollars. They have helped generate more than 1 billion U.S. dollars in tax revenue and create more than 160,000 jobs for host countries.

China's commitment to the Paris agreement on climate change is comforting and unshakable.

CODE OF SUCCESS

Making a great country requires strong and competent leadership devoted to the fundamental interests of the people.

"China's most important successes rest on strategic planning and decision-making by the central leadership," said Zhang Weiwei, director of the Institute of China Studies at Fudan University.

Unlike Western democracies, which seem increasingly obsessed by showmanship and short-term elections, China's leadership has a long-term target and is more inclined to plan for the next generation and beyond. Once the Chinese leadership makes a blueprint, it sees it through to completion.

Poverty relief is one such example. It has been included in the work plans of the Chinese leadership of each generation for decades.

Fundamental to a well-off society, poverty alleviation gave better lives to 55 million Chinese people in 2013-2016, a number greater than the population of the Republic of Korea. The government of China has boldly pledged to eradicate poverty by 2020.

It is up to local authorities to make sure that every family has an achievable plan to cast off poverty. Xi picked up a farmer's budget on a visit to a village in Hebei Province in January and showed him how he could increase income to give his family a better life.

Poverty alleviation is not the only matter to hand. Time is short. Speed and efficiency are of the essence. When working in the eastern Chinese city of Fuzhou, Xi reminded officials of their duty to "ma shang jiu ban" -- take immediate action -- the working style that the president wants to see right across the country.

China's system of governance remains resilient and robust because of how it selects and mobilizes officials. A cadre can be promoted only after he or she has served at various grassroots posts and acquired enough experience. How many jobs has an official created? Where are the tangible results regarding economic and social development? Is the environment cleaner or more polluted? These key factors are considered for any promotion. Those found to be ineffective are demoted and, in some cases, punished.

The latest five-year plan has made local officials accountable for the environmental damage they cause, even if it is discovered after they have left office.

China stresses the unity of Party leadership, people being the masters of the country and the rule of law. The Chinese approach has shown its advantage over the so-called "Western model," Zhang said.

MAKING HISTORY

The "Two Sessions," among China's most important political events, are poised to support the next round of reform. Thousands of lawmakers and political advisors have raised suggestions on development. Crucially, the sessions have gathered a national consensus to unite more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Xi as the core.

"Xi's core status came through his leadership in advancing the Party's great cause," said professor Dai Yanjun with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

The largest modernization movement in human history has a political party with 88 million members united around a core leader, bringing better lives to more than 1.3 billion people.

This common dream not only benefits the Chinese, but also the whole world.

The real test, however, lies ahead.

Xi and his colleagues are facing a number of challenges. Few developing countries, for example, have avoided the "middle-income trap."

Daunting as the difficulties may be, in Xi's opinion, "History is created by the brave."
Black girls and women can sometimes have an uneasy relationship with their hair in part thanks to society's narrow standards of beauty, which prop up white women's straight, usually flaxen, hair as the ultimate ideal.

But Gabrielle Union isn't here for the media's unrealistic and harmful definitions of beauty.

In a new personal essay for Glamour magazine, the 44-year-old actress describes her relationship with her hair, and how she learned to accept and love her natural locks.

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Gabrielle Union attends the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on February 26, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Presley Ann Slack/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

"When I was little, it felt like my hair was magic. It was the 1970s, and I had braided cornrows  now Id call them Venus and Serena braids  with beads at the bottom. My hair made noise, and I thought I was really cool," she wrote.

But as she got older, Union realized that a blond girl with ponytails started receiving a lot of attention at her school.

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"I wanted that attention," Union wrote. "I wanted to be seen too. I associated it with the hair, and I definitely didnt have that hair."

Eventually, the young actress-to-be made her mom take her to the salon to get her first hair relaxer, and even though it was painful and brought her to tears, she thought it was worth it. "When I felt how soft and silky my hair was, I was like, 'It was worth it. It was all worth it. Yes.'"

And so Union went to the salon every few weeks to get her hair straightened, just like the "cool" girl in school.

"What I never factored in was that I was a black girl in a mostly white school. I wasnt the standard of beauty no matter how my hair looked; I would never be seen as the ideal. It was a never-ending cycle of feeling like if I could just get my hair 'right,' I could be as pretty as the other girls," she wrote.

A post shared by Gabrielle Union-Wade (@gabunion) on Feb 12, 2017 at 12:15pm PST

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And after spending years damaging her hair, Union felt even more pressure to conform to Hollywood's standards of beauty when she became an actress.

"I realized very quickly that there were many people in hair and makeup trailers who were totally unqualified to do my hair. Hairstylists used Aqua Netlike hairspray with crazy amounts of alcohol, which caused chunks of my hair to literally come off on a styling tool. I was like a guinea pig on set, and I didnt yet have enough power to request a stylist who I actually wanted to touch my hair."

Eventually the "Being Mary Jane" star figured out that the longer her hair was (by way of weaves and extensions), the more attention she got, and the more attractive she felt. But, she realized that "good hair" shouldn't be the only thing that defines her as a woman and measures her worth.

"I realized that I was never going to have a really great hair day if I didnt do the work on myself internally to figure out what makes me happy."

Find your joy! On occasion my joy goes missing, I'm human, it happens. But, I never stop looking for my joy and my peace. Sending &good people A post shared by Gabrielle Union-Wade (@gabunion) on Dec 6, 2016 at 10:28am PST

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Now, the "Bring it On" actress is finally happy with who she is  natural hair and all.

"Ive finally gotten to a place of self-acceptance and recognizing that my natural hair is beautiful  and so is whatever weave I may wear."

And to celebrate black women's natural hair, the actress is launching a natural hair care line, Flawless by Gabrielle Union. The line includes shampoos, conditioners, styling products and oil treatments specifically targeted for textured hair and will be sold at Ulta Beauty stores across the U.S. (which ships to Canada).

Speaking to WWD about her desire for black women to love their hair, she said, "I want women with textured hair to have great hair days. I went through a phase where I would leave my relaxer on so long, thinking the longer I leave this relaxer on, the straighter its going to be."

"We weren't anybody's standard of beauty," she said. "I didn't love my skin colour, I didn't love my lips. I didn't love my nose, I didn't love my hair. I didn't love anything. I didn't love my body. Because no one was choosing me  my self-esteem was determined by somebody choosing me."

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And Union is obviously not the only black woman to have had frustrating moments in her industry because of her textured hair.

Last year, supermodel Naomi Campbell spoke to Teen Vogue about how difficult it was to be a model in the '80s in an industry where hairstylists weren't prepared to work with black models' textured hair  a problem that black models are still dealing with today.

I would be backstage at shows and there would be stylists who didnt have any experience working with black models. Its disappointing to hear that models of colour are still encountering these same issues all these years later," she said.

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Daniel Kaluuya may have made it big thanks to his leading role in the new hit thriller "Get Out," but not everyone is so certain he deserved to be cast.

Last week legendary actor Samuel L. Jackson had some harsh criticisms for the British star, saying that director Jordan Peele should have signed an actor from the U.S. instead, since the movie was based around African American racial experiences.

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"I tend to wonder what that movie would have been with an American brother who really feels that," Jackson explained in an interview with New Yorks Hot 97. "Some things are universal, but [not everything]."

Speaking to GQ on Tuesday, Kaluuya addressed Jackson's misgivings.

"When Im around black people, Im made to feel other because Im dark-skinned, he declared. "Ive had to wrestle with that, with people going Youre too black. Then I come to America, and they say, Youre not black enough. I go to Uganda, I cant speak the language. In India, Im black. In the black community, Im dark-skinned. In America, Im British. Bro!"

"I see black people as one man I resent that I have to prove that Im black," he continued. "I dont know what that is. Im still processing it."

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But although some may feel an American actor was a better fit for the role, Kaluuya asserts that he's no stranger to racism.

"I did a shoot in Lithuania when I was 17. Everywhere I went people were pointing and staring," he told the BBC. "Or when I go to Lidl and I get followed by security guards. Is that because it's me, I'm black or what I'm wearing?"

"It's every day, navigating your life, getting stopped by police, I've had it all."

He later shared that he's even lost roles because he's black.

"All I know is this my first ever lead role in a film and I've lost out on a lot of roles because I'm black," he said. "It's my one shot. I'm going to come through it and do my thing and go home."

But despite the harsh words, the 27-year-old still paid his respects to Jackson for his work in film.

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"Big up Samuel L Jackson," he told GQ. "Because heres a guy who has broken down doors. He has done a lot so that we can do what we can do."

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Will and Kate are making their way back to Kensington Palace  but with a few changes.

The 400-year-old royal residence is set to undergo a major renovation to accommodate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

According to the Daily Mail, officials from Historic Royal Palaces have proposed a three-story extension next to the Orangery which will add an additional 5,000 square feet to the property. They also intend to build a massive hedge to block out neighbours.

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"The addition of a basement storey is required to allow for the accommodation of administration which must necessarily be moved out of rooms leased from the Royal Household in Kensington Palace," the application reads.

In 2011, the Duke and Duchess renovated Princess Margret's former residence, Apartment 1A, which they later moved into with Prince George. Following the birth of Princess Charlotte in 2015, the couple relocated to Amner Hall on Queen Elizabeth II's estate in Norfolk.

The family's move is perfectly timed with Prince George set to attend his new school Wetherby in the fall and the end of Prince William's two-year piloting contract with the East Anglian Air Ambulance. In addition to a personal move, the future king will also be shifting into a career focused full-time on royal duties.

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Once the renovations are complete Kensington Palace will be the ultimate royal household. Princess Eugenie and boyfriend Jack Brooksbank plan to move into a cottage on the grounds later this year and Prince Harry currently lives on the grounds at Nottingham Cottage, where girlfriend Meghan Markle has been known to stay overnight.

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A New Jersey school is in hot water after it assigned its Grade 5 students a project that involved creating slave auction posters.

At South Mountain Elementary School, students learning about the American Colonial period were instructed to create a poster advertising an event during that time. Listed as an example was a poster for a lecture, speech, protest or slave auction.

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As a result, students drew posters of "available slaves," including a fictional 12-year-old girl named Anne who is described as a fine house girl and men aged from 20-26, strong. Some kids even drew Wanted posters offering a reward for runaway slaves.

Dead or alive, the poster reads.

After seeing the posters hanging in the schools hallways, parents slammed the assignment for being offensive.

One father, Jamil Karriem, called out the school on Facebook, deeming the class project grossly insensitive and negligent.

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Educating young students on the harsh realities of slavery is of course not the issue here, but the medium for said education is grossly insensitive and negligent, he wrote. In a curriculum that lacks representation for students of colour, it breaks my heart that these will be the images that young black and brown kids see of people with their skin colour.

It is COMPLETELY lost on me how this project could be an effective way to teach any student in any age group about American history, he ended.

In the comments, many were appalled.

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Last week, South Orange-Maplewood Superintendent John Ramos responded to the backlash. In a letter to parents, Ramos defended the class assignment, stating that the project has been part of the school curriculum for the past 10 years.

Schools all over our country often skip over the more painful aspects of American History, he wrote in the letter. We need to do a better job of acknowledging the uglier parts of our past, so that children learn the full story.

However, after receiving a number of complaints from parents, the school has taken down the posters and issued an apology.

While it was not our intention, we recognize that the example of a slave auction poster, although historically relevant, was culturally insensitive, Ramos said in a statement to CNN on Monday. We certainly understand and respect the strong reaction which some parents had to seeing slave auction posters included with other artwork from the assignment. We are rethinking the Colonial America Project for next year, and will eliminate the example of a slave auction poster.

While this is good news, it's interesting to note that not all parents were offended by the posters. Mom Andrea Espinoza told ABC 7: It's part of history. It happened. I think it's good that they know.

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There were also mixed reactions on social media. While some thought the assignment was inexcusable

That teacher having kids make slave auction posters is a prime example of that bullshit "i didn't know" racism. She knew, she did it anyway  Manuel Noribaega (@okaysoboom) March 14, 2017

Others thought it was an educational project, but that the school was wrong for displaying the posters.

I think they should have done the assignment but not displayed the posters. The display was the error. https://t.co/CxykdKO2ep  ...clifton... (@seabethree) March 14, 2017

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Turkish national flag is seen at Dutch consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 12, 2017. Hundreds of protesters held demonstrations at the Dutch missions in Turkey on late Saturday and Sunday, and an unidentified person downed the Dutch flag in consulate in Istanbul and raised Turkish flag. Turkish leaders have threatened Dutch government to retaliate in the "harshest ways" after Turkish ministers were barred from holding rallies in Rotterdam for a referendum on constitutional amendments to expand the president's powers. (Xinhua/DHA/Depo Photos)

Fueled by the latest strong-worded controversial remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tensions are feared to escalate and spread from a rally row between Turkey and the Netherlands in the former's relations with European Union members.

The row has also led to Danish delay of a planned visit by Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim this month.

Erdogan on Sunday warned the Netherlands it would pay for barring Turkish ministers from campaigning on its land, saying it was acting like a "banana republic".

He also said "Nazism is still widespread in the West" and that Dutch treatment of Turkish ministers was "Nazism, fascism", after accusing the Netherlands of being "Nazi remnants" a day before.

In response, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called Erdogan's remarks totally unacceptable and irresponsible while demanding an apology.

A NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally "with whom we have historic ties, strong trade relations, is acting in a totally unacceptable, irresponsible manner," Rutte told reporters.

Meanwhile, he ruled out apologizing for rejecting the border entry of Turkish ministers.

On Sunday, Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen proposed a delay of a planned visit by his Turkish counterpart Yildirim this month.

"With the current Turkish attacks on Holland the meeting can not be seen separated from that," he said in a press release.

Citing security worries that Turkish political divisions might spill into its Turkish minority communities, the Dutch government blocked Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from landing in Rotterdam for a rally on Saturday.

It later prevented Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate there before escorting her out of the Netherlands to Germany.

The two Turkish ministers were both for planned campaign rallies for the April 16 constitutional referendum in Turkey that is expected to expand the presidency's powers.

The Netherlands, with some 400,000 people of Turkish origin, and Germany, with 1.4 million, rank among top electoral bases for Turkish politicians.

Later during a speech in France, Cavusoglu described the Netherlands as the "capital of fascism" in criticizing it for joining other European countries in banning Turkish ministers campaigning.

France, urging calm, said it saw no reason to ban his gathering.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to prevent Turkey's political tensions from spreading into Germany. Some local authorities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have earlier called off Turkish rallies.

On Turkish ministers campaigning abroad, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Sunday told Germany's public broadcaster ARD that "A Turkish campaign has no business being there in Germany."

European Parliament Vice President Alexander Graf lambsdorff called for an EU-wide ban.

"The European Union should agree on a line that Turkish ministers are not allowed to campaign in the EU," he told Germany's Die Welt newspaper.

The Turkish-Dutch row triggered protests outside the Dutch embassy in Turkey's capital Ankara and consulate in Istanbul, as well as clashes with police early Sunday in Rotterdam during demonstrations near the Turkish consulate, and the arrest of at least six protestors on Sunday night in Amsterdam.

In the Netherlands, where parliamentary elections are to be held on March 15, mainstream parties are under heavy pressure from the far-right Party for Freedom which polls showed is making strong gains.

"Hey Holland! If you are sacrificing Turkish-Dutch relations for the sake of the elections on Wednesday, you will pay a price," Erdogan said Sunday.
Falling asleep at the wheel is the last thing any trucker wants to do. But residents of a small Newfoundland town say their efforts to caffeinate are causing bigger safety issues.

The Tim Hortons in Port aux Basques, on the islands southwestern coast, is a popular pit stop with truck drivers who've just disembarked the Marine Atlantic ferry from Nova Scotia.

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Located right before the Trans-Canada Highway leaves town, its their last chance for coffee or a doughnut for 100 kilometres, according to The Gulf News.

Its difficult because were the entry port to the province, and every morning and every evening, assuming the boats are on schedule, we have a full boat load of traffic thats being unloaded and headed east on the highway," RCMP Port aux Basques detachment supervisor Const. Matthew Christie told the publication.

But the restaurant is on a nearby street, so drivers park their big rigs on the side of the highway and run across to Tims, Port aux Basques Mayor Todd Strickland told CBC News.

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Sometimes there are 12 to 14 vehicles parked on either side of the road, he said.

"Smaller vehicles have to go through a gauntlet of tractor trailers, not knowing if someone is going to dart out in between vehicles," he told CBC.

It's an ongoing problem he thinks has been getting worse lately. He doesnt know why  there are a number of no parking signs in the area.

Residents are also concerned about visibility. A photo posted to a local Facebook page of a parked truck on the Trans-Canada on-ramp sparked a number of complaints, the Gulf News reported.

One person said she cant properly check for oncoming traffic before merging onto the highway when drivers park at the bottom of the on-ramp.

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The debate is also raging on Twitter, with some arguing the town needs to create a spot to accommodate the truckers.

@CBCNL Its been like that for years If they don't want drivers parking there make a spot to accomadate them  Noah Burnett (@NoahFarmer14) March 14, 2017

One person suggested a solution with the installation of a traffic light and extending the shoulder where trucks park.

@VOCMNightline This area where Truckers are parking is Provincial Highway - not Federal. Shoulder extension and traffic light could fix it  Scott Azzurro (@scott_scotts36) March 14, 2017

Another said the area needs a truck stop, saying many of the big rig drivers don't come off the ferry at all, instead just pick up and drop off trailers at the Marine Atlantic terminal.

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@VOCMNightline Many truckers drop off and pick up trailers at MA Terminal without ever going near the Ferries.The area needs a Truck Stop.  MidnightRider19 (@UncleNehamen) March 14, 2017

Police are aware of the problem, Christie told The Gulf News.
While we've all been distracted by the fallout of Donald Trump's unexpected election as president, another important political story has been unfolding under the radar. At the same time that Hillary Clinton lost the presidency, despite getting three million more votes than Trump, voters in New England (the birthplace of the American Revolution) and Prince Edward Island (the birthplace of Canadian confederation) delivered an unprecedented one-two punch to the archaic and dysfunctional first-past-the-post voting system.

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Both of these systems offer distinct benefits to voters and offer a glimpse of hope that we can overcome the democratic deficit in both countries. First-past-the-post feeds cynicism and apathy because it distorts election results, pushes out new voices, forces people to vote 'strategically', encourages negative campaigns and produces predominantly white/male governments that do not reflect the diversity of the population. Both RCV and MMP, on the other hand, help to cure some of these problems.

This creates a more open and inclusive political atmosphere that can help break up the oligopoly of our major parties.

Let's look at Maine first. Using ranked choice voting, voters are asked to rank their top three choices on their ballot. Easy as 1,2,3. On election night, all the first-choice picks are counted and if any candidate has more than 50 per cent of the vote, he or she is declared the winner. But if no one has a clear majority then the candidate with the fewest votes in eliminated and his or her votes are transferred to the second choice marked on each ballot. This repeats until one candidate has won a majority. This means that no one can win a race against the will of the majority. It also means that candidates can't be accused of being a "spoiler" and that people can vote with their heart, knowing that a vote for an obscure candidate will not be "wasted."

This creates a more open and inclusive political atmosphere that can help break up the oligopoly of our major parties. Ranked ballots also encourage more positive and civil campaigns, as candidates try to secure second-preference votes from their opponents' supporters. The victory for Maine's proposition #5 means that all future state election will be held using a ranked ballot, including races for U.S. senator, U.S. representative to Congress, governor, state senator and state representative. While some municipalities such as Minneapolis and San Francisco have already switched to ranked ballots, the referendum in Maine marks the first time that an entire state will be switching away from first-past-the-post.

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In P.E.I., a completely different system was chosen by voters. MMP is a proportional system that goes even further than RCV. While the reform in Maine ensures that the majority is heard, proportional systems are designed to ensure that all votes count equally, and that the elected government reflects the same percentages of the popular vote. For example, if 10 per cent vote for the Green Party then 10 per cent of the seats are awarded to the Greens. Sounds like an obvious way to run an election, but first-past-the-post doesn't even come close to achieving this simple goal. In Canada, for example, the Liberal Party has 54 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons, despite having won only 39.5 per cent of the vote.

The same goes for provincial elections, such as Alberta's New Democratic Party that won 61 per cent of the seats with only 41 per cent of the vote. MMP ensures that these distortions are avoided, using a hybrid model that distributes some seats by local races in ridings/districts and some seats based on the proportion that each party won overall. MMP has a proven track-record and is currently being used in both Germany and New Zealand. Another proportional system, called Single Transferable Vote (STV) uses ranked ballots and multi-member districts to achieve proportionality. In the U.S., either MMP or STV would break the stale two-party system that has dominated for generations. Proportional systems offer more choice, fair results and have also proven to increase the diversity of government bodies.

There is one thing in common with all of these reforms: they give more power to voters. That's precisely why, in both Maine and P.E.I., politicians are trying to block the reforms from moving forward. P.E.I.'s Premier Wade MacLauchlan has ignored the results and is calling for another referendum in a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo. In Maine, state legislators are stalling implementation, using legal procedures in an unprecedented attempt to overturn the decision.

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In both cases, the political efforts to stall reform are only emboldening the activists who organised the referendum victories. With false majorities in Canadian legislatures, the Clinton campaign winning millions more votes than the Trump campaign, declining voter turnout and skyrocketing skepticism, there has never been a better time for these two countries to take a close look at reforming their broken voting systems. Voters in Maine and P.E.I. have opened the door for us.

"Hundreds of Islanders, of all political stripes, volunteered their time and talents and our hard work paid off on November 7 when a clear majority of voters supported PR. We'll continue to pressure our government to honour the results of the plebiscite and legislate MMP in time for the next provincial election" Mark Greenan, campaign manager for the PEI Coalition for Proportional Representation.

"Maine's motto is 'Dirigo', Latin for 'I lead'. We have once again led the nation in advancing meaningful reform to give more voice and more choice to voters. At a time when Americans and citizens in democracies all over the world are hungry for change and looking for reforms like Ranked Choice Voting to improve politics, Maine is proud to lead the way." Kyle Bailey, Campaign Manager for Maine's YES on Five campaign

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This past weekend the Globe and Mailreported that lobbyists in the province have been making political donations on behalf of their clients, effectively camouflaging the identity of the real donors and breaking B.C.'s Elections Act in the process.

On Sunday, Elections B.C. announced it was conducting an investigation into the Globe's findings. Five days later, the entire matter was referred to the RCMP.

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To think it was only in January that Advanced Education Minister Andrew Wilkinson was boasting to CKNW's Jon McComb that British Columbia has the "most transparent disclosure system in the world."

B.C. doesn't even have the most transparent system in Canada. Five Canadian provinces have lower reporting thresholds than the $250 set by B.C.

And even then it's predicated on the donor being up front with the party and the party with Elections B.C.

The B.C. Liberal party tried to wave-off the Globe's report by calling the whole thing a "misunderstanding of the rules around political contributions."

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Lobbyists aren't the first group that comes to mind when you're thinking of individuals that might grapple with the intricacies of election legislation.

It's tough to imagine this has been going on for so long and no one in officialdom noticed.

Some of those caught up in the Globe's investigation may include a former solicitor general, a former deputy minister, a former assistant deputy minister and immediate family members to two prominent political families in the province.

One of the lobbyists featured in the Globe's report is Woodfibre LNG's vice president of corporate affairs, Byng Giraud.

In 2015, Giraud is quoted as saying the company "supports both political parties (financially)." Mighty fine people.

Search Elections B.C.'s database of party donors and Woodfibre LNG has donated $30,500 to the Liberals and $15,500 to the NDP (2005 to 2015).

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Check the five other names Woodfibre uses -- including Giraud's -- and the spread between the two parties grows from $15,000 to $72,109. Nothing to sneeze at.

It's tough to imagine this has been going on for so long and no one in officialdom noticed.

No, not financial agents, 11 years of tax receipts, 11 years of audits, 11 years of training, 11 years of Elections B.C.'s all-party election advisory committee meetings, or a fine upstanding lobbyist calling in to explain that the donation wasn't from him, but his client. Nothing.

According to the minutes from Elections B.C.'s election advisory committee in November 2008 -- when online donations by credit card were first permitted under the Elections Act -- the Liberal party was represented at the meeting by Vancouver lawyer Hector MacKay-Dunn and then-party executive director Kelly Reichert.

Deputy chief electoral officer Nola Western -- then-electoral finance and corporate administration director -- updated the assembled on changes to the Elections Act in regards to political financing, noting that "Political contributions over $100 are allowed to be made via the Internet... as long as the political contribution is made with a credit card in the name of the contributor."

Not a word about their lobbyist's credit card being used as a substitute.

It's not like the Liberal party has thousands of donors to keep track of, either.

The change may not be of the chump variety, but it only took 285 donors for the party to raise $52.3 million between 2005 and 2015.

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Many of those who will have some 'splaining to do with Elections B.C. are among the 285.

So why do it at all?

It could be seen as unsavoury for a donor or a political party to be seen having a financial relationship with each other.

The Liberals swore off donations from casinos for years, but not from their executives, pulling in more than $400,000 in personal donations from 2005 to 2014.

Lost in the hullabaloo over lobbyists cleansing donations was something else in the Globe's report: the possibility that some party donors seem to believe they have incredible sway over B.C. government decisions.

The Globe quotes former solicitor general Kash Heed saying that representatives of the New Car Dealers Association met with him and "demanded he fire the chair of the Motor Vehicle Sales Authority," a consumer protection agency.

The association -- which has donated more than $1.3 million dollars to the Liberals -- confirms they had meetings with Heed, but draw issue with the topics.

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Now every significant firing in government risks being seen in that same light.

One other shock? The sense from some of the lobbyists that they didn't think they were doing anything wrong by allegedly making donations in their name instead of their clients.

With the RCMP now involved, they may be in for a rude awakening.

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It's been ten months since wildfires wiped out so much for so many in Fort McMurray and the surrounding region. When I talk with people in the area, I increasingly hear hope and optimism, but I also continue to hear of ongoing struggles.

Some families tell me they are still waiting restlessly, living in a limbo of boxes and suitcases in temporary accommodation while their rebuild plans are finalized, or insurance claims are settled. Seniors, who lost a lifetime of mementos, are now facing the additional emotional loss of long-time friends who aren't moving back to the community. And I've heard from frustrated trappers who want to return to their traditional way of life before the fires disrupted the forested area.

When people talk about disasters, many focus on the earliest terrifying moments -- images of families in Alberta fleeing the wildfires, and wading through chest-high water from flooded homes in High River, or the rubble and wreckage where homes once stood in the days following the earthquake in Nepal. The often misunderstood reality is that the initial days, weeks and even months after a destructive event are just the start of a long, painful recovery.

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This is a critical point of fact as we are increasingly being asked why the Canadian Red Cross doesn't spend donations faster and why funds are still in reserve years after a catastrophe has left the headlines.

The reason for this is simple, if not stark.

In 2016, the United Nations Development Programme found that failing to recover adequately from a disaster can result in secondary disasters. When recovery is poorly funded, a country or region can continue to suffer long after the catastrophic event is over, and people may find themselves more vulnerable than before. If relief organizations fail to reserve portions of donated dollars for the full lifecycle of a disaster, the challenges will only worsen for those who are affected over the long term.

As a disaster relief specialist who has been in the traumatic fray of catastrophes here and abroad, I know that we naturally want to do everything we can in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy, and I entirely sympathize with the urge to dispense precious dollars to affected individuals as soon as possible. We all want to help now and see the horrible images of suffering on the nightly news go away.

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And significant dollars do get dispersed to families, individuals and organizations in need in those intense first days and weeks. But I also know that picking up the pieces of a disrupted life, destroyed home or ruined community unfolds in irregular cycles and takes years.

With the 2016 Alberta wildfires specifically, researchers from MacEwan University in Edmonton observed: "The full impact of disasters isn't something you can see right away." Although they estimate the Fort McMurray area fires will cost $8.86 billion, including direct and indirect costs like mental health and environmental losses, they warn these costs will continue to change for a decade.

Certainly, this mirrors my experience after the 2011 fires in northern Alberta, the southern Alberta floods in 2013, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the Lac-Megantic train derailment tragedy both that same year, where I know many people and communities are still struggling to recover years later.

For instance, I met a gentleman with a disability in Slave Lake, who continued to need assistance years after losing his home in the northern Alberta wildfires of 2011, most recently to make his bathroom accessible.

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I've talked with an indigenous family who lived in temporary housing for three years after the southern Alberta floods, waiting until their community's new playground was constructed to choose a nearby building site that would be good for their children's wellbeing.

And I know of a woman who needed mental health support services almost three years after these same floods, while she was paying a mortgage to keep her connection to her deceased mother's uninhabitable home.

Given the unprecedented generosity of Canadians during the peak of the wildfires in the Fort McMurray area and the outpouring of support for other catastrophes here in Canada and abroad, it's more important than ever to understand that money is still being put to powerful use long after the event has left the headlines.

To this end, we can make some general assumptions about the lifecycle of a catastrophe based on the body of evidence and experience to date. We at the Canadian Red Cross plot the cycle as follows: immediate emergency assistance; re-entry, recovery and livelihood support; community health; longer-term disaster preparedness and resiliency initiatives. And critically important, we don't believe in telling people or communities how long their lifecycle or recovery should take, because circumstances are always unique. It must be a collaborative and deliberate process with the affected community.

Ultimately, there is not a time limit on rebuilding lives.
The BC Lottery Corporation's big schmooze-and-booze conference should have taxpayers, who pick up the tab, singing the blues.

Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation through a Freedom of Information request found that BCLC lost $208,642 on its 2016 New Horizons in Responsible Gaming conference. The conference attracted only 85 paid registrants, meaning each of those attendees was subsidized by nearly $2,500 apiece.

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Most taxpayers can't even imagine having $2,500 per head to party with. For BCLC, it was just another edition of their annual conference. They blew $55,282 on food and drinks, including a "sushi demo," "top sirloins carving station," "moja organic coffee," "porcini and chive quiche," copious amounts of craft beer and wine, and much more.

BCLC spent $40,922 to rent the Vancouver Convention Centre (despite there being conference facilities at several nearby casinos), and another $79,314 for tech equipment. They shelled out $63,750 for an event management firm.

More than $23,000 went out the door for speaker airfares, including pricey return trips from London ($2,687.24), New York ($2,242.55), Las Vegas ($923.12) and Manchester ($2,678.33). Another $662 was spent buying carbon credits to cover those flights' greenhouse gas emissions.

It has all the trappings of a money-spending binge by a bunch of high rollers.

And BCLC spent $6,500 to develop a conference-specific phone app -- again, for just 85 registrants. To try and get them to download it, BCLC handed out $275 in VISA gift cards as an incentive.

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It has all the trappings of a money-spending binge by a bunch of high rollers. The problem is, they were spending taxpayer money -- not their own. How can a conference about social responsibility be so, well, irresponsible?

"We're not selling products, it's a development and learning opportunity," a BCLC spokesperson told the Vancouver Sun in defence of the spending. As if that makes a lick of difference.

The conference has been a money loser since the start. The first edition, in 2014, lost $57,000. The 2015 conference lost $138,000. The 2016 gabfest, as detailed above, lost $208,642. And the BCLC spokesperson claims the 2017 version lost $140,000 -- a fact that still needs to be verified through Freedom of Information.

All told, that's $543,642 in losses on the conference in just four years. Why is the BCLC in this business?

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It's an obscene amount of money, especially when charities who work up close and personal with gambling addicts in B.C. are crying out for resources. Studies show an estimated 125,000 problem gamblers in the province, or 3.3 per cent of the population.

"Know your limit, play within it," has been BCLC's responsible gaming slogan for years. Time for its executives to take their own advice.

"For the person who needs to pay for private treatment -- because there is no treatment paid for gambling -- can you imagine how many people could get into treatment for that [$543,642]?" addictions expert Dr. Jennifer Melamed told Global BC.

The BCLC offered one other explanation for keeping the conference going, saying the conference is paid for out of the lottery corporation's generous $9.5-million annual budget to support responsible gaming.

But that's less than a third of what the corporation spends on advertising every year, showing where their priorities lie.

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"Know your limit, play within it," has been BCLC's responsible gaming slogan for years. Time for its executives to take their own advice and step away from the conference table. And if they won't, then it's up to Premier Christy Clark or Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Peter Fassbender to intervene and make BCLC walk away.

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An Icelandic Member of Parliament breastfed her baby while delivering a speech in Parliament recently. No one reacted to her breastfeeding, because in Iceland, breastfeeding is the cultural norm. The mother stated that this was the most natural thing in the world.

If only that were the case in Canada.

According to Statistics Canada, while Canada has made significant strides toward breastfeeding as a cultural norm -- for example 89 percent of women initiated breastfeeding in 2012, compared to 69 percent in 1982 -- we still have a long way to go.

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Why is breast feeding so important?

Overwhelming evidence shows breastfeeding is good for babies' brains and for social development. Breastfed babies are thought to thrive because of the health qualities of breastmilk in combination with the healthy serve and return relationships promoted by close contact between mom and baby.

Breastfeeding is also convenient -- just ask any breastfeeding mom. Breast milk is always available, the right temperature, clean and perfectly timed to infants' feeding needs, both as the baby grows and even over the course of a single feeding. It's also free.

What could be more natural?

There are also risks for not breastfeeding -- for both mothers and babies. Mothers who don't breastfeed have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, breast and ovarian cancers and delayed return to healthy weight. Infants who are not breastfed have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, common childhood illnesses, childhood obesity, cancer and diabetes.

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So what's the barrier?

In countries like Iceland, people grow up seeing breastfeeding in public. By contrast, in Canada baby formula as an alternative to breast milk is promoted widely to parents in many ways: through free samples and coupons, through disguised "educational" materials on baby feeding with an emphasis on formula, and showcased in parenting books and magazines.

The Canadian health care system contributes to a formula feeding culture when some individual hospitals and other health facilities contract with formula companies, whose product is then promoted in the institution, thus providing credibility. Evidence shows that mothers are more likely to initiate breastfeeding and breastfeed longer when their baby is not offered or supplemented with formula in the hospital unless medically indicated.

With such an emphasis on formula, it is difficult for breastfeeding to become the cultural norm in Canada -- or for families to make an informed decision about feeding babies, free from commercial influence.

Not surprisingly, even amongst those that decide to breastfeed, data from the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) study showed that only 54 percent of mothers are exclusively breastfeeding by the time their babies are three months of age and only 15 percent by six months of age.

What can be done?

There is a way that our Canadian situation can be turned around. Canadian hospitals should adopt the World Health's Organization's Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI). Hospitals must achieve 10 Steps to obtain BFI standing.

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One of the steps requires hospitals to reject contracts for free or reduced cost formula and they are not permitted to market formula to their patients. In BFI hospitals, formula is only used if medically indicated and, when given, the formula label is removed. To their credit, a few Canadian hospitals (only about five percent) have achieved BFI designation.

Of course, not all moms are able to breastfeed or choose not to. All the more reason to support all mothers on their journey of finding the best way to nourish their baby. We can do this by first providing support for women who want to breastfeed and are struggling, as well as promoting healthy alternatives.

Prenatal education should include information on how to access Lactation Consultants -- experts trained in the art of breastfeeding -- as well as breastfeeding support call centers and healthy alternatives to breast milk. In several locations across Canada, La Leche League provides a free mother-to-mother support call line.

Promoting a breastfeeding culture should not be seen as an affront to women who, for whatever reason, choose to formula feed their babies. We live in a society where multiple approaches are respected. BFI does not advocate one size fits all, rather it advocates promoting the best evidence so everyone can make the most informed decisions about baby feeding.

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As funders, provincial governments should direct hospitals and other health facilities to take concrete steps to create a baby-friendly environment, which includes promoting breastfeeding and ceasing contractual arrangements that may provide a modest advantage to the hospital budget, but disadvantage the baby.

Members of the public can help by supporting women's right to breastfeed in public and lead the way towards demanding baby-friendly standards in our health care settings.
My dad always wanted to move to Canada so he could provide a better education and a better life for his family. He wrote a letter to one of my uncles in Toronto who was more than willing to help.

My uncle got in touch with an immigration officer and secured a visitor's visa for my dad. I was only five years of age when the day came that Dad flew to Canada in pursuit of our better future. At that time, Pierre Trudeau was Canada's prime minister.

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Thinking back on our life in India, before we came to Canada, I recall a modest-sized house with four rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a little room my dad used as a post office. He was a postmaster.

I lived in that house with my parents, brother and four sisters.

We weren't rich or poor. Just a nice, happy, loving family. But Dad always believed a real future for his family could not be found in India, but in Canada.

It took 11 years until Dad was granted landed immigrant status. He wrote to us saying he was going to visit us and we were finally moving to Canada. But his visit back home never came.

By the time my father received approval for himself and his family to immigrate to Canada, the stress he experienced during that long wait, the constant worry about being sent home, his worrying about his family back home in India -- it all took a toll on him.

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He became quite ill. He suffered high blood pressure and developed a heart problem and diabetes. Sadly, he died of a heart attack before he could bring us to our new home in a new country.

I was five years old when he left us and 16 when he died. My memories of my dad are the vague, foggy memories of a small child.

My uncle who had helped Dad get to Canada once again came into our lives as an angel. He did his best to support us and played a major role bringing about my family's success here in our new country.

Today, I'm 47 years old and Canada has been my home for almost 28 years. To this day, whenever I experience difficulties in life or in my career, I feel sadness and regret at not having my father me to help me through the difficult times.

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These memories and emotions came back to me as I watched our current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, being reunited with a Syrian refugee family he had met when they first arrived in Canada a year earlier.

Trudeau had tears in his eyes. I'm sure his emotion at that moment was genuine. But if I'm being honest, it also upset me.

My immigration story has something in common with countless others: it is one of heartbreak and hardship. And this has been true throughout the many decades of immigration to this country, stretching back over a century. It is also true that with each new generation the process becomes more efficient, humane and effective.

Perhaps I'm being selfish, but after watching the PM's interaction with that family, I can't help but be in a way envious of those recent immigrants and refugees.

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My own experience began with the loss of my father, and was characterized by hard work, sacrifice and little government support. I don't begrudge new refugees or immigrants a better system, but I do feel anger watching a politician parading his emotions in front of the press.

We just want a fair opportunity to have a decent life in a great new country.

Canada is a wonderful country. I continue to learn new things, confront new challenges and enjoy new experiences.

But still so many times I can't help but think about how my dad was taken from us. I miss him and have always felt his loss.

I don't want or need political tears. None of us new Canadians do. We just want a fair opportunity to have a decent life in a great new country. And we are willing to work for it. My family did, and I am sure the majority of our Syrian refugees will.

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Feminism and humanitarianism are intrinsically linked, both working towards the welfare and fair treatment of all. Here are five women whose humanitarian work has paved the way toward an equal global society.

Septima Poinsette Clark

Referred to as "The Mother of the Movement" by Martin Luther King Jr. Clark's work and activism played a pivotal role in the civil rights of African-Americans prior to national attention the movement later received.

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Her work with the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in Charleston led to many key legal victories in South Carolina. Being a teacher Clark's first political action was attaining signatures for a petition allowing black principals at the school in which she taught. Clark started the petition in 1919 and by 1920 black teachers were given the right to become principals of public schools in Charleston. She went on to secure equal pay for black and white teachers in Colombia, SC in 1945 and later became the vice president of the NAACP Charleston Branch.

Clark believed that education was an essential part of achieving equality as it provided the knowledge to empower African-Americans to become informed voters; something that legislature and other aspects of the movement could not always provide.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

flickr | ITU Pictures

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the Executive Director of UN Women and her action works towards securing equality through humanitarian aid.

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"Getting humanitarian action right for women is central to increasing the effectiveness of humanitarian response, bridging the gap with development, and accelerating the path to recovery for the millions affected."

It's well known that violence against women and girls is exacerbated by conflict and natural disaster, for example a 2013 assessment estimated that the marriage of Syrian refugee girls in Jordan under the age of 18 rose from 17% before the conflict, to 50% afterwards. This happened because of a lack of services and resources to properly help these young girls.

UN Women have recognised that humanitarian response and policy either overlooks the needs of displaced women or underfunds it, by extension affecting families and communities (especially matriarchal communities). Mlambo-Ngcuka's vision is that by empowering women and girls to spearhead humanitarian action, the misconceptions of how to adequately respond to crises will be alleviated; involving women in the decision making of appropriateness of services and effectiveness of aid.

Emmeline Pankhurst & Millicent Fawcett

Seen as the face of the women's suffragette movement, Emmeline Pankhurst was responsible for the creation of the Women's Franchise League. However lack of government action leaving their voices unheard spurred Pankhurst to create the Women's Social and Political Union; a more militant group using drastic activism, social unrest and civil disobedience to get their message heard. However, this notorious action led to arrest and sometimes violence.

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Another suffragist of the time was Millicent Fawcett. Fawcett was inspired by a more Utilitarian approach and led the biggest suffrage organisation, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. The NUWSS was a non-violent organisation geared towards achieving the women's vote through constitutional means. She later became a writer and lecturer in politics and women's issues and helped found Cambridge's Newnham College. She was also an advocate for worker's rights.

flickr | LSE Library

Though there was contrast between the bold activism of the suffragettes and the due process of the suffragists, both Pankhurst and Fawcett played pivotal roles in securing women's enfranchisement.

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai is a human rights activist advocating female education. She began her activism as young as 11 by publishing a blog about her life in Taliban occupied Swat Valley. The local Taliban had banned girls from attending schools in the valley, and as Yousafzai's story grew attention, started to appear in more publications and on television, shedding light on Taliban oppression. In 2012 a Taliban gunman made an attempt on her life. This assassination attempt luckily failed and once she was strong enough, was moved out of danger to the UK.

The attempt on her life only drove her activism further, with the release of her book "I Am Malala" in the year following the attack, and in 2014 was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize making her the youngest Nobel laureate.

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Her current efforts include that of the Malala Fund, committed to providing free, quality primary and secondary education for every child by 2030. This is set to be 12 years of above-basic education in the hopes of empowering these children to become successful. Malala believes that every girl has a right to education, and that her vision can be achieved by world leaders divesting government funding from weapons, and conflicts and investing them in books, education and hope. The 12 Years For All project would require US $39billion a year; eight days worth of global military spending.

"With guns you can kill terrorists. With education you can kill terrorism."

By Thomas Phillips - Online Journalism Intern

Frontier runs conservation, development, teaching and adventure travel projects in over 50 countries worldwide - so join us and explore the world!
The five things you need to know on Tuesday, March 14

1) GAME THEORY

Nicola Sturgeon confirmed once again yesterday why she is such an impressive politician. Spotting a gap in the news cycle before the Lords and Commons finished the Brexit bill, she dominated the headlines on broadcast and in print. With the Brexit bill only clearing Parliament last night, after newspaper first edition deadlines, Scotlands First Minister has made a second independence referendum the main story in town.

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And so as the Cabinet meets this morning, its delight at the Brexit bill being passed will be tempered by the looming problem of Scotland. Theresa May shot back at Sturgeon yesterday that politics is not a game, but she has so far publicly not said if she would approve any request for a new referendum. Yesterday, we began to get some clues, with strong hints that the PM will force Holyrood to wait until after Brexit in 2019.

May doesnt want anything to ruin her Brexit talks. The Times has a Government source saying: This timing is completely unacceptableit would be irresponsible to agree to it and we wont. No10 on the record conceded that we would get more clarity on the PMs position once the Scottish Parliament had voted next week.

Sure, the referendum is still a huge gamble for Sturgeon. Like Cameron before her, she knows shed have to quit if she lost. The polls are not consistently in her favour. She also knows that yesterday both Brussels and Nato made plain independence would not be plain sailing. Brussels said an independent Scotland would have to reapply for EU membership, and Natos Jens Stoltenberg said its upto the 28 allies to decide whether we have a new member. In both cases, Spain (worried about Catalan independence) could prove a big problem.

But anyone gaming this referendum has to take into account the big differences since the 2014 referendum. Sturgeon herself is much more popular than Alex Salmond ever was, a reassuring figure who could tempt former No voters into an EU future. And just as importantly, the polls show Jeremy Corbyn as even less likely to become Prime Minister than Ed Miliband was. The prospect of many more years of Tory rule from London will be hammered home hard by the SNP.

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The stakes are certainly huge. On the eve of the EU referendum, Cameron gave an interview to the FT denying he was losing sleep over the outcome. At the end of the piece, one ally said: His legacy will be that he pulled the economy back from the brink, kept Scotland in the Union and kept Britain in the EU. Just you wait and see. Were waiting, Dave.

2) BREXIT MEANS BREAKFAST

As Queens Theresa and Nicola battle it out over the Union, theres a real Monarch who has a role today. Sometime over her breakfast (or possibly her elevenses), Her Majesty is expected to sign the 2017 EU Notification of Withdrawal Act, giving it her Royal Assent and turning it into statute. A ministerial red box will then return the act to Parliament, ready for the Speakers of both Commons and Lords to confirm the deed has been done.

At 12.30pm (barring urgent questions), the PM has her oral statement to the House on the EU summit and is expected to herald with great fanfare the Act that will finally allow her to trigger the UKs formal process of quitting the EU. But what May wont be doing is triggering the two-year Article 50 process today.

After allowing the speculation to run riot over the weekend (and after some civil servants and even EU officials were told today was a possibility for the trigger), No.10 finally stamped on it yesterday afternoon. As if to prove that emphasis on one word can make all the difference, the PMs spokesman said she had always said she would trigger Article 50 by the end of March. Ive said END many times but it would seem I didnt put it in capital letters quite strongly enough.

To be fair, other sources have also stressed other capital letters, saying the phrase BY the end of March left the PM room to trigger it slightly earlier. And theres more than a whiff of suspicion that May didnt want to gift Sturgeon another PR coup by instantly fuelling the independence campaign. The fact is that the week of March 27th is now when the historic event will happen. As for the choreography, Im told Parliament will be the forum, not the steps of No.10, but hey lets wait and see.

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What was notable was the way the handful of Tory rebel Remainer MPs folded yesterday (despite Dominic Grieve saying it was frankly deranged not to write in statute that Parliament would have a final say on the Brexit deal). The rebels held a meeting and agreed to jointly abstain rather than vote against the Government.

3) DICK PICKS A FIGHT

As most crossbench and Labour Lords put down their ping pong bats last night, the Lib Dems were having none of it. And in a mini-speech, peer Lord Taverne was outraged at the Parliamentary surrender, attacking the Governments argument that the referendum result should be respected.

It is a very dangerous step towards the doctrine that the peoples will must always prevail. This is the doctrine always favoured by Hitler, Mussolini and Stalinand by Erdogan at present. It is a denial of the essence of democracyWe are the guardians of parliamentary democracy, and we are right in this. We are the democrats.

New reader start here: Dick Taverne was a Labour MP in the 1970s but quit the party because it disagreed with his strong view that the UK should join the EEC. He won Lincoln as an Independent Democratic Labour candidate in a by-election and the February 1974 general election. You can see why hes so steamed up, but an unelected peer comparing Theresa May to Hitler, Mussolini, really?

And Labour peers were no less impressed by the hyperbole of Lib Dem Baroness Ludford after she accused them of a shabby attack on their principled stance on Brexit bill amendments. Labours shadow Brexit minister Baroness Hayter added to the spice by revealing some Lib Dem peers had confessed to me outside the chamber that this is appealing to their core vote and they are piling on members because of it.

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Labour thinks the Libs lost a lot of respect for what crossbencher Lord Pannick called their pointless gesture politics. But watch those Focus leaflets cry Labour Remainer betrayal.

BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR

Watch Trump press guy Sean Spicer deny that the President had accused Obama of wiretapping him. A joyful use of air quotes.

4) DEFICIT DENIAL

Away from the Brexit and Scotxit hoopla yesterday, Office for Budget Responsibility chief Robert Chote told the Treasury Select Committee something rather worrying. The Government will struggle to hit its target of clearing the deficit by 2025.

Philip Hammond has abandoned the Osborne pledge to balance the UKs books by 2020, preferring instead to hit the target at the earliest possible date" in the next parliament which is set to run from 2020 to 2025. In his inimitably former-IFS wonky way, Chote said the Treasurys current plans did not make you confident that they are on course to achieve that.

Chote warned that even further cuts to working age benefits of around 10% would not be enough to get to surplus because of pressure on costs from an ageing population on health and social care. Somethings gotta give.

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Another post-Budget headache looms too in the shape of Hammonds pubs pledge. Labours Jim McMahon has picked up on claims from the industry that plans to offer business rate relief will actually be scuppered by EU state aid rules. Was that another bit of Treasury sleight of hand?

5) HOGG ROAST

Unlike the US Congress, the UK Parliament does not have the power to block public appointments. But it does, in its very British way, have the power to embarrass prospective applicants into withdrawing their candidacy or stepping aide once appointed. In the coming hours, we will find out whether the Treasury Select Committee has managed just that in the case of Charlotte Hogg, the Bank of Englands newly appointed deputy governor.

Hogg is acknowledged as a sufficiently competent economist for the role, but whats causing trouble is her admission that she failed to declare a possible conflict of interest: her brother Quintin is director of group strategy at Barclays Bank. And MPs are already wary of her extensive family connections, as her dad is former MP Viscount Hailsham and her mum is Sarah Hogg, who headed John Majors policy unit.

The FT says that a unanimous report by the Treasury Select Committee will only just fall short of recommending Hogg should not get the role. Not in those words  but it reads the same way, said one member. Mark Carney has given her a verbal warning for her error, but it looks like MPs hope to shame her into withdrawing. Lets see if she toughs it out.

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On the 31st August 1997, our country lost a leader like no other. An enduring cultural icon that changed the lives of all that met her, she was a national treasure. I of course speak of the 'People's Princess', the late Diana. She stood up for the most destitute, no matter their status or position in the world, and her memory should serve as a reminder of the influence that the committed and passionate can have in bettering the world.

As a campaigner, I derive a tremendous amount of inspiration from Diana. When people were ostracised, she sought their company. When communities were voiceless, she rallied for their causes. Amid a life of service, one of her campaigns stood out for me. In the 1990s, widespread misinformation prevailed around HIV and AIDS. It was widely believed that those with HIV could transmit the condition via commonplace touch; she disproved this by hugging and shaking hands with those afflicted. Further to this, she supported the late President Nelson Mandela in the creation of a joint fund for HIV carriers, underlining her empathy absolutely.

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Source: Daily Telegraph

We should not judge those of yesteryear by the standards of today, but by how they swam against the tide in their own era. Diana fought for a world without walls or barriers, where we did not avoid people based on their physical appearances or misconceptions. In today's world fraught with chaos and division, such a perspective is a reminder that there is more that unites us than divides us.

In light of her efforts, I am proud and honoured to be a trustee of the Diana Award, a charity set up to continue her legacy. Her name has become a synonym for compassion, selflessness and kindness, and our organisation exists to ensure that those vital values do not perish with her but live on in the actions of those alive today.

The relevance of those values has never been more stark than this year, the twentieth anniversary of her death. Each year our organisation recognises young people between the ages of nine and eighteen that make a positive contribution to their communities, effecting Diana's legacy. This has the dual benefit of encouraging more young people to be active citizens and providing an award for those that go the extra mile. This year, we will be expanding our activities to shine a light on incredible young changemakers both in this country and worldwide.

I received a Diana Award in 2011 for my work as an advisor to the Children's Commissioner and my achievements as a member of the UK Youth Parliament. As a young black kid from inner-city Birmingham, I had severe self esteem issues and felt powerless to affect the world around me. I began to make attempts to fight for a better world, but I was always unsure about whether I made a practical difference. I would step into rooms full of people who didn't look like me, talking a strange business speak that I scarcely understood, and I often doubted that such people ever listened to my advocacy.

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That was to change upon receipt of a Diana Award, which encouraged me to persist in my campaign work past university and into adulthood, affirming social action as a viable career that engaged with my talents rather than a voluntary addendum to the "rat race". Further to that, it has enabled me to learn from more talented activists whose epic stories dwarf mine. Whilst acting as a trustee of the Diana Award, I have had the immense fortune of spending time with another award holder called Callum Fairhurst. Callum has travelled across the world raising money for a foundation created in honour of his brother to aid children suffering from cancer, disabilities and illness. He is a shining example of the sort of young person that we hope to reward this year.

With that in mind, I must ask for your help. We need the stories of young leaders within your communities to make this celebration of all that Diana represented as successful as it can be. You have until 17th March to nominate a young person that you believe represents Diana's values. Our panel of regional judges (spread across the country) will then review all nominations submitted on 31st March, and winners will be announced shortly after.

ONE MORE THING!

This May, we are introducing our 'Legacy Award' for the twenty most inspirational stories that we receive. Some of these stories will be from young people in other countries who have made a difference in their own contexts, which is crucially important in remembering Diana. She fought for a world without borders, and we hope to break the walls between nations by championing the achievements of international changemakers too.

The criteria for both awards are as follows:

Vision- do they have passion for their cause?

Social impact- have they created a positive change of benefit to the community?

Youth leadership- did they shape the campaign?

Service journey- has their activity transformed them?

Inspiration- have they been a role model to others?
In the last 30 years, America has become the prison capital of the world. What has propelled the land of the free to become the isle of the incarcerated is the rise of for-profit prisons. Today there are over 2.3million people behind bars, more than in China.

I am a frequent prison visitor. The majority of inmates are mostly non-violent offenders and about two thirds of whom are African American or Latino. People who have been incarcerated are overwhelmingly poor, substance abusing, mentally ill, and often illiterate. There are 200,000 women in prison, many who again are non-violent but are serving time because they wouldn't rat out their boyfriend or partner. For many of these non-violent offenders there are cheaper and better ways to rehabilitate. It shocks me that a series of three drug convictions can land someone in prison for life; two car robberies can earn 24 years.

Prison in America has shockingly come to echo the exploitation of minority populations during the days of slavery. Each prisoner is a long-term cash cow for the owners of private prisons.

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For-profit prisons are not motivated to incorporate real rehabilitation programs into their operations, because it may take away revenue garnered from a returning prisoner. As a result, inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few tools to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens. Furthermore, for-profit prisons are more violent and provide few opportunities or educational resources to inmates.

We know this doesn't work to keep former offenders. Getting an education while incarcerated has been proved to reduce reoffending-- the ACLU has been telling us this for years. But private prison owners aren't mandated to reduce recidivism. Their only responsibility is to their shareholders.

Private prisons are big business. The Bureau of Prisons paid $639 million to private prisons in fiscal year 2014, averaging $22,159 per prisoner. Some states spend more per prisoner than they do on Higher Education.

For profit companies represent approximately 7% of state prisons and 18% of federal prisons, according to the Bureau of Justice. The two largest organizations, CoreCivic and GEO Group, are also responsible for the majority of the three quarters of federal immigration detainees private prisons hold. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one.

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The lure of big money is corrupting the nation's criminal justice system, replacing notions of safety and public service with a drive for higher profits. The eagerness of elected officials to pass tough-on-crime legislation -- combined with their unwillingness to disclose the external and social costs of these laws -- has encouraged all sorts of financial improprieties. In Mississippi, which has America's second highest incarceration rate, the former Corrections Commissioner, Chris Epps in 2011 said he couldn't get rid of Mississippi's private companies running prisons "because of all the money they spread around Jackson." Then in a moment that you simply can't make up, it was found that Epps himself accepted up to $2 million in bribes and kickbacks from the private prison industry.

Only last summer the Obama administration started down the path to correct the ridiculousness of privatizing prisons by deciding to phase out the use of for profit institutions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. This had a direct impact on the bottom line of the organizations in this space. However, since the election of President Trump and the appointment of AG Jeff Sessions, CoreCivic's stock prince has climbed 80 percent and Geo's has gained 80 percent. This diminished the impact of the previous administration's work by simple announcement by the Attorney General that they will continue to rely on private prisons.

Today, private prisons are profitable; their systems, perverse and dehumanizing. If we want to do some good through privatization, why not privatize rehabilitation with bonuses for successful reintegration of inmates who don't re-offend? Then private sector's creativity would be channeled to help rather than devastate our society.
Seamless visions: Bethany Williams at SLOW

In late February, I was invited to show my work at SLOW, a showcase curated by Fashion Revolution's Orsola de Castro in partnership with The House of St Barnabas, a Soho based charity and not-for-profit members' club that supports people affected by homelessness. There could have barely been a more appropriate setting to draw a connection between place, practice and context!

On a dummy mannequin, I had placed an oversized coat on top of a boldly printed, organic cotton all-over suit. Both pieces were part of my MA graduation collection in Fashion Design Menswear at London College of Fashion, entitled 'breadline'. The name directly refers to the context of both inspiration and production. I regularly work with charities and rehabilitation communities; for 'breadline', I collaborated with the Vauxhall Foodbank as well as supermarket chain Tesco. Handing out fresh fruit and vegetables at the food bank, a voucher-based welfare supply system, I asked for unwanted denims or knits in exchange. Tesco, who delivers to Foodbank, also offered me free cardboard and the branding of its 'basic value' staple foods line. Some examples of my work below:

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I love the idea of creating alternative systems and exchange economies. I took the cardboard, knits and denim, and picked them all apart - layer by layer, thread by thread, reassembling the material into oversized shapes. Denim was hand-embroidered to connect smaller pieces, jumpers taken apart and re-knit, cardboard soaked, pressed and laser cut. The result was, in the case of the cardboard coat, a seamless technique that I really haven't come across anywhere else. From a distance, the coat's structure - a basket-weaving technique and its frayed edges - recalls faraway Polynesian communities, visions of chatter and connection over endless hours spent in crafting beauty.

Connection and handwork indeed are essential to my practice - but I didn't have to travel this far! My philosophy rests firmly on the basis of slow and sustainable production, if possible, at home in the UK. My research is informed by a cradle-to-cradle approach, where nothing is wasted and all is appreciated. First and foremost the people within those communities that I seek to support - through employment to begin with, and later in sharing profit margins.

This is probably to do with my upbringing. Since the age of 17, and influenced by my mum's hands-on approach and engagement in community work on the Isle of Man, I have worked in shelters and charities. I became aware of the impact disparities on society, and that was probably why I felt inspired by Nicolas Bourriaud's concept of relational aesthetics, where art fosters an exchange of lived experiences. I just love working with real people and working in real communities and making real facts rather than just talking about stuff.

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I don't mind that my pieces are one-offs and that their production is barely fit for scaling. I don't want to take over the world, I just want to do my thing: make beautiful things, be creative and help people at the same time. I think that my cradle-to-cradle process is directly applicable to society at large: appreciative of leftovers and their usage within a value-bifurcation of contentment. In my designs, I try to translate this philosophy into contemporary and easy pieces. I want it to be tongue-in-cheek; I'm talking about serious things, but I think I'm young and I think one should have fun as well.
Jeff Vinnick via Getty Images

Recently, we visited our Aunt Pat at her nursing home to celebrate her 80th birthday. Marc's five-year-old daughter Lily-Rose had seen the tiny rooms and lonely seniors there before, and this time insisted we bring a box of teddy bears as gifts.

Stuffed animals are a childish solution, but the mind of a five-year-old might be exactly what elder care needs. What about a facility designed by Disney? It's just one of the creative solutions popping up around the world, proving that engaging, personalised environments improve quality of life, health and longevity for seniors.

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Living conditions are especially important for more than 850,000 UK citizens living with dementia--a term for any chronic disorder, such as Alzheimer's, that impairs memory, reasoning and cognitive function. As dementia takes its toll, patients become far more sensitive to their environment. Unfamiliar settings increase anxiety and stress, leading to agitation and even violent outbursts which are treated with drugs and physical restraint.

Health problems related to dementia have actually replaced heart disease as the number one cause of death in England and Wales. Researchers in the U.S. have found that as many as half of seniors with Alzheimer's die within a year of being admitted to standard long-term care facilities. The sudden disruption in routine, a lack of activity and socialisation leads to depression, and lessens the will to live. Various health care models around the world are working to change this, building facilities that preserve daily activities and social integration.

Hogewey, on the outskirts of Amsterdam, is a village whose 152 residents are all dementia patients. Founded in 2009, the 'town' has a cinema, restaurant, hair salon and shops. Under the discretely watchful eye of staff, residents go about their business, dining, shopping and socialising. Hogewey staff report their residents require fewer medications and live longer than those in standard assisted living facilities.

Hogewey is one of the inspirations behind Aegis Living--a privately-owned assisted living company in Seattle, Washington. Founder Dwayne Clark spent 30 years working in the assisted living and studying seniors' care in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

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Clark hired designers from Disney Imagineering to create an indoor community with classical Queen Anne architecture. A road featuring stores, a juice bar and a theatre simulates the streets where his Seattle residents grew up.

Hogeway was partly funded by the Dutch government, while Aegis Living is privately-owned. The UK's senior care model is a mix of public and private. But already, facilities across the UK are learning from Hogeway's model.

A care home in Suffolk added a replica high street to its facility in 2014, complete with real shops and a post office. In December, the county council of Northamptonshire announced its intention to build a full dementia village, similar to Hogeway.

Teddy bears may not be practical, and the minds behind Mickey Mouse may not be affordable for the health care system. But the UK can definitely spring for more creativity when it comes to caring for our beloved aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents.
For a long time, the rap against renewable technologies was that they simply weren't reliable - that they destabilised existing electricity grids and that they didn't deliver "firm" (that is, uninterrupted) power. That's changing. Renewables technologies have made massive inroads over the last decade, driving down costs to the point where wind and solar sources are cheaper than fossil fuel generation in a growing number of markets. Now, where previously electricity systems struggled to manage relatively high penetration of renewable energy, they are adapting to these new sources of generation. At the same time renewable generators are using new technology to begin to offer "firm" power, removing the final obstacle to large-scale operation.

Global climate policy and new emissions standards are driving coal out of many markets as a source of power. In March 2017 it was reported that in the UK coal consumption has fallen from over 200mtonnes a year at its peak in the late 1950s to 18mtonnes last year. Coal may be disappearing as a source of electricity, but its legacy lives on in the electricity systems and grids that were built to take its power.

If renewable energy is to become the main source of power for the 21st century, allowing us to meet the decarbonization targets agreed in Paris, those remaining "system" obstacles must be removed. The good news is that new technology is enabling renewables generators to deliver "firm" power even within the constraints of existing power systems.

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The biggest obstacle to global power sector decarbonisation is inflexible electricity systems designed for the coal era. In some markets, system operators have to curtail wind and solar generation as the existing grid cannot ship the electricity to market, or store it for future use. In others - such as Germany - a decision by government to close existing nuclear plant has led to deeply polluting coal power plant remaining on line, despite rapid growth in renewables. Still in others, like the U.K., the government has created a "capacity market" to provide additional reserve generation should there be insufficient renewable power available. What they should be doing is interconnecting their markets to allow supply to flow in both directions, so that surplus British wind can replace German coal, and extra German solar can supplement gas on the UK system. Then both countries could mothball their most polluting coal and diesel plant for good.

But renewables generators are adapting too. The old "take and pay" model - where wind and solar power plant was paid for every unit generated no matter if it was needed -- can be replaced by one where renewables generators supply "firm" power on demand. Rapid advances in storage and demand-side management, as well as forecasting and generation technology, are enabling generators to shoulder the responsibility for providing "firm" power even in existing systems built for always-on coal power.

That renewable producers are able to do this may surprise some given the reputation that renewables cannot be a main source of power because of their problem with "intermittency." That, however, is no longer the case. Let me explain, using Chile as an example.

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Chile's regulator contracts for "firm" power; that is, its auction system awards long-term power contracts that require companies to meet the demand of customers 24 hours a day. Generators are therefore obliged to make up any shortfall in the amount of power that they are contracted to supply by buying power on the spot market, exposing them to considerable price risk.

By working this way, the Chilean system operator avoids having to deal with the peaks and troughs of supply as the amount of renewable energy in the system increases, moving responsibility to the suppliers instead. And yet this hasn't stopped wind and solar companies from winning the lion's share of contracts in competitive power auctions. Our company, Mainstream Renewable Power, was recently awarded seven power contracts in the last tender alone, requiring the construction of new wind power plants with a combined capacity of almost 1GW.

So how are we and others able to turn "intermittent" power into "firm" power and provide consumers with the energy they need full-time?

The first factor is innovation. By generating precise wind measurement data for each project, we were able to build an accurate model of how much of the required energy each project would be able to deliver and how much energy each project would have to buy in the spot market. This in turn allowed us to bid at competitive prices in the tender, with the confidence that revenues would cover the cost of building the projects and the trading risk inherent in the contracts. The development of large scale energy storage - whether using batteries, thermal energy, gravity or other technologies -- will make projects even more economically attractive in the future.

Also underpinning these competitive prices are technological improvements at the production level. Better sensors and data-driven analytics, cheaper and lighter materials and bigger blades allow cutting edge renewable companies to further reduce the price of constructing new plants.

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The second factor is scale. Renewable supply works best when it benefits from geographic diversity. In our case, each of the seven projects has a different wind profile and therefore produces power at different times of the day. This lets us combine output from the different projects to supply the energy required, reduce the time that no power is being generated by the projects, and thus reduce the need to trade in the spot market.

Chile provides just a taste of what could be done in bigger and more diverse markets such as North America or Europe.
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There were over two hundred attempted amendments, covering every aspect of our relationship with the EU, to the very short Bill on triggering Article 50, which cleared its final parliamentary stages yesterday. Of all the amendments, the one that was clearest and most needed at this early stage was the one on the rights of EU nationals living in the UK. Why? Because this issue is worrying our friends and neighbours right now.

The Government has said that it fully intends to grant EU nationals living here the permanent right to remain in UK but will only guarantee this when it has received a reciprocal offer from all 27 other EU member states on the rights of UK nationals living in the EU. Ministers have made concerted and commendable efforts to secure such a deal in advance of the formal negotiations, but have sadly been rebuffed by other EU governments.

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The Government's position is a sincere and reasonable one, but I believe it is the wrong approach. We can and we should act now, with or without the agreement of the other EU member states.

Much has been made of the need to avoid EU nationals living here being seen as "bargaining chips" in negotiations - I do not believe that this is the Government's intention, but it is an inevitable consequence of wanting to strike a reciprocal deal on this with the EU that those who are affected will feel like they are part of a trade-off, and that strikes the wrong tone.

EU nationals make a huge contribution to our economy and our public services, but let us not ignore the number of EU nationals that see the UK as more than that: this is their home. We have a duty to them to ensure that they continue to feel welcome here and failure to provide a unilateral guarantee of their continued right to live and work here undermines that.

We should also not ignore the self-inflicted damage we may be doing to the country by not guaranteeing EU nationals' rights now. The uncertainty that so many feel - and I for one have heard from several constituents in this position - has led many to wonder whether they will be allowed to stay and they have started looking to move overseas. What damage would it do to our NHS, our universities and our businesses if delaying this commitment to those people made them want to leave?

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If the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary stood up today and gave a guarantee to any EU nationals living here already that they will be able to stay, this would bring two significant advantages. Firstly, it would allow the Home Office to commence work immediately on what will be a major administrative task of granting permanent residence to so many people. But it would also be a major statement of the UK's intent in advance of the Brexit negotiations with the EU. We would be seen to be acting in good faith and not playing games.

I have no doubt that the Government will eventually secure the deal it wants, but that could still be months away. And even if some EU Member States continued to refuse to provide an equivalent guarantee to UK nationals in the EU, are we really going to punish EU nationals living here for the intransigence of other governments? We should be acting now. We do not need legislation to do this, and the passing of the EU Notification of Withdrawal Bill provides an opportunity to make a positive and worthwhile commitment that would mean so much to so many people and be of considerable benefit to the Government too.
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On Monday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon shocked the United Kingdom by announcing plans to go to the Scottish Parliament to seek permission to hold a second referendum for Scottish independence. Although Prime Minister Theresa May spoke out against the plans, describing Sturgeon's move as "playing politics", it would be difficult for May to block the idea completely. A second Scottish independence referendum is coming in the short-medium future. With this, it will be the end of Sturgeon's rule one way or the other.

As with all referendums, there are two scenarios - Yes or No. In 2014, 'No' beat 'Yes' to independence by 55.3% of the vote to 44.7%. If this result was to be repeated, then Sturgeon's position as First Minister would become untenable and she would be forced to resign. She would follow Alex Salmond's and David Cameron's lead, resigning in the wake of a loss of a referendum on a constitutional issue.

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This is also the most likely scenario. Although opinion polls are split on the referendum vote, it would be difficult for Sturgeon to create enough cross-section support from Leavers and Remainers crossed with Unionists and Separatists. In July 2016, 38% of Scotland voted to leave the European Union. It will be difficult for Sturgeon to win over this support if she pledges to re-join the EU if Scotland is to become independent.

Of the 62% that voted to remain, she would have to attract many of them with a plan to re-join the EU in a quick and orderly fashion. The EU itself has said that Scotland would have to apply to join the bloc and receive unanimous agreement from the heads of the other EU members to join the EU. However, Spain's Mariano Rajoy has dismissed Scotland's case for special entry to the bloc and is likely to block Scotland's accession talks for fear of legitimising a breakaway state whilst Catalonia seeks independence from Spain. Similarly, Spain does not recognise Kosovo because it broke away from Serbia, halting EU accession talks for the country. In this scenario, it would be difficult for Sturgeon to argue independence would be a vote to remain within the EU. Thus the argument in favour of having the referendum in the first place - because the political landscape had changed as much that Scotland is now in being dragged out of the EU - will not make sense, because Scotland is unlikely to join the EU with or without being part of the Union.

In addition, many issues that were left unresolved last time would re-emerge. What will the UK trading relationship be? What will the official Scottish currency be? How does Scotland propose to keep social spending so high when it is are a net beneficiary of money from the United Kingdom?

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The alternative is, of course, that Scotland actually votes for independence. Unlikely, but in a world of populism it is not impossible. Sturgeon would have to try and deliver on her promise to bring Scotland back into the EU, or at least the Single Market quickly. As outlined above, this would be near impossible for her without providing Spain a hefty reason as to why they should support her bid to re-join the EU. Other EU member states may be wary of a newly formed, independent country joining the EU without proving economic credibility, which would cause further delays to accession.

Furthermore, the backbone of Scotland's economic plan, North Sea Oil, has been slashed in value since the 2014 referendum. Currently standing at $50 a barrel, Sturgeon has not presented a coherent economic plan to present to the Scottish people. If Sturgeon wants to demonstrate independence as a vote for certainty during tough economic times for Scotland, she must come up with a stronger argument than she currently has.

If Sturgeon were to win an independent referendum and Scotland were to leave the EU, the promises of economic certainty and re-joining, at worst, the Single Market would be two too big promises. NATO, too, has said that Scotland would have to apply to join and be unanimously accepted by NATO members, which would be an interesting proposition for the UK's prime minister to ponder. She will inevitably fail in the medium-term scale and would be forced to resign, potentially at the expense of the SNP's minority government in the Scottish Parliament.
Politicians must ensure the media cover their news and views but it is a taxing task, as we saw last week with two flawed initiatives. Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn released his annual tax returns as part of a campaign to expose tax avoidance and evasion, which costs billions in lost revenues.

The Opposition Leader receives a state salary, given the role is a key means of holding government to account. But his tax return listed it ambiguously without explanation. Journalists looking for an easy story or excuses to slam him will go for the jugular if they can. And they did leaving many thinking he had not declared all his income and that something was awry. Unfair but why make it easier?

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Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, who refused to release his tax returns, presented a budget which was funny and confident given the feebleness of the official opposition. It soon unravelled over a proposal to increase taxes on self-employed people that the Tories had pledged not to do in their 2015 manifesto. Slapping sole traders outraged the effective opposition that is the Conservative backbench, where a handful of MPs can endanger the government's narrow majority.

This again drives suggestions, most recently from former Foreign Secretary and Tory leader William Hague of a snap election. Despite the media furore over the budget, the Conservatives are streets ahead of Labour and could boost their majority and room for manoeuvre in the Brexit negotiations.

A fair minded account by Tim Shipman of the UK's referendum campaign on EU membership highlights the centrality of managing the media and political messaging, which I have taught KRG officials at the European Technology and Training Centre in Hawler.

Any campaign starts with perspective - a rough map of the world - and then develops strategy - where to head given obstructions on the map they have charted. From these flow tactics -what alliances to build, tank-traps for enemies, and devising digestible messages.

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The disdain for Blairism sometimes extends to road-testing messages through focus groups and polling. We all have to win people to our view in, say, asking for a date or for a partner's hand in marriage or business. But there are different ways of making a pitch and most of us would sit down with a friend and test the best approaches.

The Leave campaign had a better and more ruthless understanding of the political map, knowing that fears over immigration trumped economic issues. The Conservatives, confident they would win, decided to avoid destroying their divided party so it could govern after the referendum, and therefore sometimes boxed with kid gloves rather than landing knock-out blows on Conservatives like leading Leaver Boris Johnson.

Remainers warned that house prices would fall but many thought this might make it easier to buy one. Their "Project Fear," which worked in the Scottish independence referendum, included alarms about how many thousands each household would lose but were "spuriously specific" while the Leavers' slogan, constantly repeated, was "take back control," which Channel Four political editor, Gary Gibbons, writes in a slim but incisive account of the campaign was "perfectly targetted at the teetering existence of many voters."

The Leavers had no compunctions about simplifying issues to the point, some say, of deceit. Their central claim was that the 350 million that the UK gives to the EU each week could be spent on the NHS. That was a gross figure and the net figure after rebates and redirected spending in the UK was lower. But even arguing about it kept it uppermost in the public mind.

Leave campaigners were also cunning. Remainers sent press releases with an embargo, which means they cannot be used before a certain time. Leavers signed up a fake news agency to receive releases and used advance notice to spike the Remainers' guns. A major initiative by the Chancellor was discredited minutes before a keynote radio interview.

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Conservative Remainers also experienced for the first time the force of a hostile tabloid juggernaut. I am not saying the tabloids ensured Brexit. True, they nurtured and reflected decades of deep euroscepticism but the result was close. If just 600,000 people had voted differently the UK would remain in the EU.

Individual leaders also made critical differences both ways. A tad more enthusiasm from Corbyn could have nudged the Labour vote for remaining by a significant fraction. Brexit probably would have failed without Johnson and Michael Gove. Brexit is about to begin and those seeking to advance, ameliorate or annul it must manage the media monster but charismatic and credible leaders can also take control over the narrative. No outcome to the Brexit process is inevitable.

Tim Shipman. All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class. William Collins.
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng met Monday with the heads and journalists representatives of major domestic media outlets covering the annual session of the national political advisory body.

Yu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), expressed appreciation of the efforts made by all journalists.

He thanked them for their comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the annual session that concluded Monday.

The media have spread positive energy while reporting advisors' suggestions, telling the stories of China and CPPCC in ways popular with with the people, Yu said.

Reports by the media also helped gather consensus and boost confidence, and contributed to the session's success, Yu said.

Media outlets at the meeting included the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television.
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Tomorrow, on March 15th, we will reach the 6th anniversary of the war in Syria. At that point this brutal conflict will have lasted for longer than WWII. At least 250,000 people have been killed and 5 million more have been made refugees, half of them children.

With no end to the conflict in sight, images of young Syrians being pulled from rubble, of crying mothers cradling their bloodied children and of kids "playing" in crowded refugee camps have become depressingly familiar. However, little has been said about the lasting effect all of this is having on an entire generation; with 2.9 million Syrian children aged between one and six, many have grown up knowing nothing but war. A new Save the Children report Invisible Wounds, the biggest study into children's mental health in Syria, has revealed that there is a devastating hidden toll - a generation of children has been psychologically traumatised and their chances of recovery are dwindling by the day.

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I have just returned from a trip to Lebanon where I went to meet some of these children who have escaped Syria and are now living in informal settlements along the border. It is Syria's neighbours that bear the heaviest burden of the refugee crisis and the figures are truly staggering: since the start of the war Lebanon has taken in an estimated 1.5 million refugees. This means that one in four people in Lebanon is a refugee - the highest proportion of any country in the region.

The flight time from London to Beirut is just four and a half hours. We had just passed over Cyprus, a childhood holiday destination of mine, when the pilot announced the start of our descent - a small reminder that this crisis is unfolding much closer to home than one might imagine. We set off early from the bustling city on the two hour drive, through snow covered mountains, to the Bekaa Valley. Here, just a few kilometres from the Syrian border, we arrived at a temporary settlement: a collection of tents that is home to around 50 families.

Local laws, intended to stop camps becoming permanent, mean that only the foundations of homes can be built with breezeblocks - the rest must be made of tarpaulin and wood alone, despite families living in them for years on end. During these winter months the temperature regularly drops below zero, although I'm told that in summer it can get as hot as 42C. The challenges of dealing with such extremes within these basic structures seemed immediately apparent. Leaking and flooding are also regular problems, I'm told.

Save the Children work in these settlements to provide children and their families with shelter, sanitation, education and food security. They also provide specialised care and psychosocial support to help them recover from the trauma of war. My first stop was at one of Save the Children's Child Friendly Spaces where they provide structured play and development activities for children in a safe environment. As I watched them sing songs, take part in a puppet show and chat enthusiastically about their hobbies, it struck me that these children could be anywhere in the world. Although we were in a tent, the walls were adorned with colourful pictures and the atmosphere was filled with infectious laughter and energy.

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One little boy I played with was Kinan. When Kinan first started attending these morning sessions he was unable to speak. His family fled their town in Western Syria when he was two, just as he had started to talk. He was so terrorised by the fear of airstrikes that he developed a stutter and eventually stopped speaking altogether. Kinan is now seven and whilst still shy, the help he received in the Save the Children space has helped him start to overcome his trauma and talk again.

I later met the rest of Kinan's family in their tented home. He lives with his mum, dad and two brothers - ten year old Diaa who is his best friend, and his baby brother Baraa who was born in the settlement. His home looked like a simple tent on the outside but was spotlessly clean and well kept inside. His mother talked of their life in Syria - of their house, of Kinan's screams every time he heard an aeroplane, and of her brother and sister who were killed in the war. She looked at her impeccably behaved boys with such love, but also with a pain no mother should have to endure as she talked about her fears for their future. Kinan's mother told me that their previous life in Syria now feels like a dream. She doesn't know if she'll ever see her own parents, who remained in Syria, again. As she began to get upset her sons comforted her, Diaa wiping away her tears and Kinan hugging her gently. I was so moved by the courage and quiet dignity of this family, living in limbo for years yet somehow managing to survive and look after each other.

I met more children and families who all welcomed me into their homes, offered me food and shared their harrowing tales. I met children who were injured by shelling and children who were having to work to support their entire family. One little girl, Daania, who is only 12, told me that she and her brother get up at 5am every weekend to go and pick potatoes, just to earn $4 a day. Her father goes out each day to find work but it's difficult for Syrian adults to work in Lebanon without the right paperwork, hence child labour is widespread. Daania told me she finds it painful - her legs and back hurt as she has to carry up to 20kg of potatoes at a time. However she brightened as she told me about the Save the Children homework support group she attends where children who also have to work get additional help so they don't fall behind. Her dream is to quit her job, finish school and one day return to Syria to be a teacher.

Whilst I initially felt terrible asking people to relive the most difficult moments in their lives, they told me they were grateful to be asked to share their stories and were so thankful for the help they've received from Save the Children. And whilst their stories were upsetting - and I felt sad and helpless and furious on their behalf - I also felt honoured to spend time with them and in awe of their unending hope in the bleakest of situations.

Nobody chooses to be a refugee. Nobody chooses to grab their children in the dead of night and leave everything behind. And nobody, especially a child, chooses to be bombed and traumatised. We must continue to urge those in power to do all they can to bring about an end to this horrific conflict and hold those responsible for war crimes accountable; and we must not turn away from those who have been left most vulnerable. The children I met were in the most desperate of situations but with the help of Save the Children were getting the support they need for a better future. Kinan showed me that children are often able to recover quickly if they are given the right support. Terrible damage has been done to Syrian children's bodies and minds - but it's not too late to change that and give them the future they deserve.
According to UNESCO, today just 2% of schools in Malawi have computers.

Imagine that in the UK.

The Turing Trust, the charity we founded in honour of my great uncle Alan Turing, the creator of modern computing, is trying to address that. Last year, we sent our first shipment of 600 computers to schools in Malawi that would otherwise have none.

In Ghana, we've installed PCs in over 30 classrooms across the country, and sponsored 17 students, so they can complete their education. In Malawi and Ghana we have appointed IT technicians to work with these schools.

But without good maintenance computers rarely survive in rural Africa. That's why we have been working local communities to deliver advanced training to 67 teachers; over 30 of those are now able to give practical lessons.

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All this with a team of just 100 volunteers.

We worked hard to get donated computers refurbished, ready for people in these communities to access the knowledge and opportunities of the digital world for the first time. And an incredible 1,702 PCs were donated in 2016 - an increase of 54% on the previous year! But as The Turing Trust's work grows, so do the challenges we now face.

Malawi is landlocked, which makes shipping computers in containers extremely expensive. Our cost of getting PCs to the classroom has risen from an average of 8.22 for Ghana to 13.87 per PC to Malawi. With expansion into new territories come new fundraising dilemmas.

I'm trying to make all of this happen from my base in Nairobi while still working on my PhD at The University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science, with additional support from the Business School. It's a daily balancing act - particularly with a patchy Wi-Fi connection - but it's been vital to equip me with insights to support the growth of The Turing Trust.

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It is the greatest feeling to see it all paying off.

Speak to any 13 year-old and all they want is a Facebook account; we've enabled that and much more. In these rural communities, subsistence-farming parents are realising the value of digital skills for their children, and allowing them to go to school. The numbers of children enrolling are steadily going up.

And we're now in a position to help local governments achieve their own goals in this area. In Ghana we've supported the Community Centre for Employable Skills (ICCES) by installing 20 computer labs across the country. These centres are key to mitigating youth unemployment, rural-urban drift; they support the development of micro and small enterprises too.

So what's next for the Trust? We need to grow our capabilities beyond an operation based on volunteers alone. Last year we took on our first two members of staff, to focus on programme management and fundraising.

We've also started 'Turing Talks' which kicks off with a one-day conference in June to explore innovations and advances being made in technology and how these creations can be applied in developing nations. Exploring various fields, from finance to health and education, the event features displays and speakers from the European Space Agency, Barclays Financial Crime Unit, and TESLA. I'm looking forward to exploring the purposes and implementation of their technology.

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This is only the beginning and yet in 2009 we couldn't have dreamed of what we've achieved already.
Street art, and those who create it - those who dare, dream, fight, question and challenge, whether it be for rebellion or for necessity, for the past and for the future, for no reason and for vital ones, for themselves and for a greater good... in my mind encapsulates all that is historically significant about this medium.

Street art began in a place of rebellion, and speaks of spiritual survival. It was often the only tool of the poverty stricken, the disenfranchised, to communicate their stories, their sense of place. When you have nothing, being able to "claim" a wall, marks your sense of ownership of your place, your town. It's a mark to claim humanness, and a marker for the future.

The street has long been a place to advocate and express personal, social and political opinions. From the historic role it has played as a meeting point for revolution, in the last few decades the street has become the place, the medium and the message.

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Street art's birth in a cultural art historical context developed from the rise of graffiti in Philadelphia in 1968 - then New York soon after.

This development represented a major shift in how art movements come into being, in as much as its motivating imperative was disaffection, poverty and urban blight, inner city youths going beyond the deprivation of their day-to-day lives, by reimagining themselves as larger-than-life and almost super heroic visual alter egos.

With pen names such as BLADE, DAZE and CRASH, these artists painted their names on the side of subway trains in 10ft high letters, spreading news of their nocturnal adventures and creations across the whole city.

Around the same time in New York, artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat pushed the boundaries of what graffiti was and took it into galleries.

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In Paris, even from the early 1960s, street art diverted from graffiti and addressed the use of techniques and more universal political issues.

Artists such as Gerard Zlotykamien spray painted silhouettes of human figures in the ruins of Les Halles, a green market area that was demolished to make room for a modern shopping centre. When Ernest Pignon-Ernest placed wheat pastes in the same neighborhood, he was creating a technique that still resonates in the methods used by street artists today.

Whereas graffiti in Philadelphia and New York tended to be a personal marking of space, a tag, a writing of a name or gang to claim a neighborhood, early French street art developed techniques and a more political message. It was the combination of both of these that grew together to form the modern global street art movement that we know today.

Graffiti was the template, the means, the method.

Street art adopted all of this and pushed the boundaries of what outside art can be, going beyond anything achieved during the Golden Age of graffiti's early evolution.

Few can ignore Rone's 20-storey murals splashed across cities globally, and JR's 3D photo-sculptures at this year's Olympic Games in Rio or Banksy's works selling for thousands of pounds.

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I believe that the Street Art Movement has gone beyond all art movements to date. Stylistically, politically and socially it has inspired, challenged and changed people's lives positively across the world.

In terms of style, street artists utilise their day to day environment as a canvas like no other movement before. Any surface becomes a canvas. Street artists go beyond the confines of the expected, or art school training, to create works on any background - from walls to railings, from wood to metal, from buildings to vehicles.

The mural is not a new invention, far from it, from Michaelango to the murals of Diego Rivera. But the nature and versatility with which street artists use any medium in, on and around the street to communicate and create is unprecedented.

Politically, with the street as their medium they can voice their thoughts instantly, changing rhetoric and opinion through their direct communication to the people. Street art work can become influential very quickly - Shepherd Fairey's iconic Hope image was created in one day and very soon after was adopted by pro Obama supporters and reproduced widely.

Socially, street artists work is now being used as a proactive tool for change, transforming areas across the globe.

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In Miami the Goldman family have almost singlehandedly gentrified one of the most dangerous areas of the city. With a specific and good hearted program of embracing and encouraging street art in Wynwood Walls, the area has been transformed, and is now both an international tourist attraction and affluent neighborhood in its own right.

Similar schemes, by developers, individuals and social initiatives, have sprung up in other parts of the world. In England, from London's Shoreditch to Swansea, street art and artistic communities are actively encouraged, creating a sense of dynamism and relevance.

A really positive example of art being used as a tool for change is when the artist JR undertook a series of installations in Rio, creating artworks on and in the favelas. These significantly changed the communities in which they happened, enhancing the mood of the neighborhood and encouraging a sense of pride in previously disenfranchised residents. JR calls the streets "the biggest art gallery in the world". I'd personally add that it's also one of the most exciting.

One of the reasons that this movement has had such a global impact is the internet.

The internet has both grown the street art market and in turn, the street art market, has, because of the internet, decentralized control of the global art market. It enables artists and individuals to directly promote and trade their own work.

Artists are taking control of their work and in the last decade have changed the art market fundamentally. Traditionally an artist would need to establish a reputation, present to a dealer and become attached exclusively to a gallery. Then, once the artist was fully established, their work would be sold through auction.

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This traditional route to market has been dramatically altered by the advent of street art and the champions in that field who use social online platforms and websites to share and promote their work directly to the public, making the traditional routes to market superfluous. The internet has become their tool to directly communicate with their buyers and the world at large.

Fundamentally, the internet's ability to provide instant live information from the artists to a diverse far reaching audience has ensured that street art has gone beyond the usual boundaries of the art market.

The street as a medium has also ensured that street art has a far reaching appeal, enabling a generation to appreciate and engage with art who normally wouldn't have been inspired to go to a gallery.

The work itself is approachable, appeals to all ages and through the very nature of the content of street art, you don't need a formal art education to understand it. Street artists have ensured that art is accessible to all, whether you choose to engage with it or not.

People see a work, research on internet, find where to buy and purchase painting and prints works by these artists. These portable works are now defined by the art market as urban contemporary. Whether that is directly from an artist, or a gallery, a dealer or an auction house, from an art market's perspective, street art has opened up a whole new community of buyers. This audience previously has not been part of the art market equation, and their inclusion, and buying power, have propelled the street art market into a multimillion pound industry.

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One of the main reasons why this art has been so accessible and popular is the artist's ability to relate to the here and now - to live in the moment and to express a personal, a social and a political rhetoric. A rhetoric that is immediately understood, a collective consciousness to which we can all relate.

The streets as a canvas gives the artist the ability to directly communicate and comment, expressing opinions, thoughts and aspirations. For instance, Banksy's Mobile lovers and all of his work in fact pass comment on our modern society and its ironies.

Mobile Lovers in particular had a double impact, one, the message of the work itself, and two, the location in which it was created.

In this work the artist is pointing out that modern technology (specifically smart phones, in this instance) and social media, hold us all in a state of constant detachment, of not being 'quite there', and not paying attention to the person/s in whose company we are physically present.

Banksy's Mobile Lovers, whilst seemingly in an intimate embrace, are more interested in their phones than one another. The original location of the painting (like all Banksy's street pieces) was crucial to its impact, situated as it was in a dark doorway at the end of a dead- end street, where no one goes after dark. The use of glow-in-the-dark spray paint to illuminate the subjects' faces (a first for the artist) added weight to the idea that this piece is intended to be only 'half seen', at night and in the shadows.

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It is quite clear that Banksy created this work with the clear intention of assisting the boys club as he would of be aware of their financial predicament through the appeal earlier in the year and it is even possible that he may of attended the club when he lived in Bristol.

I was approached by Broad Plain to handle the sale after Banksy acknowledged authenticity and the right of the boy's club to sell the work. I subsequently sold Mobile Lovers to a private collector for 403,000 with proceeds going to the Boy's Club, ensuring their future. Without Banksy's intervention, this club would have surely closed. This is a direct and powerful example of street art (and Banksy) changing lives.

Previously described as vandalism or criminal activity, street art has seen a noticeable softening in the attitude of the judicial system towards it with councils protecting works of art as a cultural attraction for tourists.

There is a paradox here. In the UK, some councils are punishing those who 'graffiti' areas whilst others are simultaneously promoting areas where they have been 'graffitied'.

For instance, the city of Bristol, which is considered the birthplace of modern British street art, has been at the forefront of the paradox.

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Bristol, for a number of possible reasons - it's size, geography, multicultural population was one of the first - if not the first - city in the UK to embrace the seminal hiphop culture from New York. With the burgeoning counterculture scene encompassing not just music, but art, fashion and creativity, Bristol quickly became hugely important in the street art scene.

John Nation has been a key figure in Bristol's underground art and music scene for over three decades and is one of the main instigators in the development of street art in the UK. Known as the "Graf father" his support in the 1980s of young people at the city's now legendary Barton Youth Club, paved the way for the early wave of influential street artists such as Inkie, FLX, 3D, Cheo, Nick Walker and later, Banksy.

The other day I was chatting to John about the difference between graffiti and street art and how they are being viewed by the artists, communities and the law. He mentioned that there has been a huge upsurge in tagging in Bristol in recent years, and to combat this apparently the Bristol police, in partnership with Bristol City Council, have set up Operation Block to put a stop to this problem which as they see it has got out of control.

On the other hand, the same council are now protecting works by Banksy, Inkie and other street artists as cultural heritage and are actively encouraging street art, as they can see both the intrinsic commercial value and the value that this work offers the city by attracting tourists. The irony is that artists such as Inkie, in the 1980's were prosecuted under 'operation anderson' are now encouraged in their work.

This highlights that graffiti art and street art are being viewed differently, the former unacceptable and later, acceptable.

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On discussing this matter the Bristol Police say;-

"the police do not want to determine exactly what is street art and where it is painted, they just want to eradicate illegal graffiti in Bristol".

To date, there is no legal distinction between the two, subsequently prosecutions vary massively or not at all, if deemed aesthetically pleasing. At the moment, the Bristol Council are apparently looking at transforming a working policy in defining exactly what is street art and where it is acceptable for street art to be.

Graffiti art and street art are forcing the law to re-evaluate what is right and wrong and thereby challenging the institutional confines of law.

However, it is rare these days that street art is created without permission. Certainly that it was produced previously without sanction gave the artists a rebellious 'edge' but those who are really achieving huge acclaim now are working largely within the confines of the law. Combine this with those actively encouraged to create art in specific neighborhoods, to aid development, and it's clear that what we are seeing now is really a mural movement, that carries on very much in the tradition of Mexican Muralism, in as much as they are being commissioned and utilized as a form of municipal improvement and large-scale public artworks, gentrifying areas.

This is a natural evolution of a separate movement on from street art, a sanctioned, paid-for, decriminalized version of its antecedents.

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To contextualize this within an art historical framework as 'post street art' as it is largely created within the confines of law - unlike its predecessor 'street art' which was born from graffiti culture and created works illegally on the street.

But ultimately, to expect that this art movement exists within the confines of labels is to misunderstand what sets it apart from all other art movements.

Street art was born from graffiti and the drive for freedom of expression. There is no singular prescribed aesthetic code, or language. It is one of the broadest, and most free of art forms.

In conclusion, street art is a movement that is going beyond, it is evolving continuously and few movements before this can boast so many living artists reaching such high acclaim. It has impacted artists, the art market, democratized the art buyer market, made art accessible and approachable to all.
You don't need to have read news reports about the benefits cap, the withdrawal of housing benefit for younger claimants or how jobcentre staff are being set targets for sanctioning claimants to understand that this government's policies are creating a rising tide of homelessness.

If you walk round the East Northamptonshire I grew up in the rise in the visible signs of homelessness are stark. Seeing a homeless man, like the Houses of Parliament, use to be reserved for school trips to London. Now the homeless can be seen sheltering in shop doorways in Kettering, Wellingborough and Corby. Depressingly, with the steady rise of homelessness also comes the rise of vicious, hate fuelled, assaults.

As part of my responsibilities as a Director of Northamptonshire Rights and Equalities Council (NREC) I have decided to base myself once a month in Johnny's Happy Place (JHP), Kettering to see if there are people who need to talk to someone about the discrimination they've experienced. JHP is a remarkable project, set up after Johnny McKay was let down by the very services established to look after him and took his own life. The 'pay what you can afford' cafe was set up to provide a safe space for anyone who needed a cup of coffee, a hot meal or just to sit in the company of others without being judged or made to feel uncomfortable.

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Saturday was my first stint, more a scoping exercise than a clinic this time, and it was great to meet the volunteers, enjoy the homemade beef stew and do some craft activities with other diners. Inevitably the number of homeless people who need places like this has risen and these now make up the majority of diners. Looking around you can't help but conclude that you are amongst some of the most vulnerable people in society. Talking to Denise, who founded JHP after her son's suicide, I am told of incident after incident of these men and women being subjected to the most vile treatment. Pissed on while they sleep, late night revellers setting fire to their bedding or being forced to perform sex acts. These people are being victimised because of who they are, yet because it's not about their religion, the colour of their skin or their sexuality these inhuman incidents are not counted as hate crimes. A hate crime is when the victim is targeted because of one of the nine characteristics protected by the Equality Act (2010).

I appreciate that there is a qualitative difference between homelessness and the characteristics protected under the Equality Act. Homelessness is both undesirable and temporal, whereas race, gender, religion, sexuality etc... are to be enjoyed, if not celebrated, and are permanent. However, the justification for treating some crimes as hate crimes is to identify that being motivated by hatred of another because they belong to a certain class of individuals different from oneself makes the assailant more culpable and deserving of greater punishment. Although the detection, and therefore prosecution, rate is low and the deterrence effect arguably nil the message that a society sends by uniting in the face of hatred and standing shoulder to shoulder with our brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings is powerful.

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It is true that there is a simple solution to homelessness - fund more homes. But while we wait for progressive solutions to be realised there are also simple things that we as individuals can do to demonstrate compassion, grabbing a coffee and a slice of cake at JHP and making others feel welcome is one thing, asking your MP to extend the definition of hate crime to include homelessness is another, or simplest of all you can click here and add your name to my petition to raise awareness around this important issue.
By Dr Jan Maskell, Scientists for Global Responsibility, and Rhianna Louise, ForcesWatch.

Children today inherit a world beset with insecurity. Huge losses of biodiversity and major erosion of soils are jeopardising food supplies. Severe weather events and sea level rise, due to global climate change, have already begun to devastate lives; and antimicrobial resistance is spreading. Meanwhile, the threat from nuclear weapons is ever-present, and economic inequality and violent conflict continue to be key contributors to global instability.

While we humans are responsible for many of the threats we face, we also hold the answers. The education system through which children begin to gain the skills, knowledge and willpower to deal with these threats is in many ways the custodian of the future.

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U.S. Navy photo by Chief Yeoman Alphonso Braggs





In British Science Week 2017, it is apt that we are alerted to the role of science and technology as among the most positive forces for change at humanity's disposal. The priorities and resources of these fields are a determining factor in the health and the survival of the world's species including our own.

Yet in British schools, Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) learning and STEM careers advice are influenced by and weighted towards industries with agendas and outputs that contribute to some of the very threats the STEM community must answer.

The military and arms industries are putting large sums of money into our education system and into STEM educational material for schools. STEM activities are delivered by various parts of the armed forces, and schools are encouraged to participate in military and arms focused STEM activities through schemes such as the Big Bang Fair and BAE Systems' 'Education Roadshow' (run in conjunction with the RAF and Royal Navy). The Ministry of Defence are also developing partnership memorandums of understanding with a range of other STEM providers.

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In Yemen, a young woman hopes to become an engineer in order to help rebuild her country. Meanwhile in Britain, BAE Systems, which manufactures weapons used to destroy her country, works with the military to advertise STEM careers to school children.

@UNHCRYemen, @Roadshow_Team





Given the recruitment and marketing agenda of military STEM programmes, this exposure to military images and references to military technologies is often given in a sanitised manner. This encourages unquestioning support of British military interventions and is part of a wider integration of military-led activities into national education policy that has gone virtually unquestioned.

STEM teaching includes developing skills of observation, evidence gathering, drawing conclusions from facts, critical analysis, verification and testing. These skills are recognised as useful in many other subjects; as higher level study skills and for contribution to wider society. Should we not therefore be concerned that a one-sided view of military and arms company activities, can undermine these skills?

If science and technology can play an essential role in protecting the global ecology on which we rely, in safeguarding public health, and holding major corporations and governments to account for destructive activities, should this not be reflected in STEM activities and external provision?

Raising young people's awareness about the innovative use of science and technology in such things as conservation and healthcare, and the generation of energy from renewable sources, can both engage and inspire.

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So why does the government not provide similar levels of funding to civilian services (such as the Fire and Health Services, conservation and care work), to produce STEM related materials whilst also teaching about team work, dedication and service?

CC by 2.0 image courtesy of Rob Deutscher on Flickr





The importance of STEM learning as a positive force for humanity is well recognized by Scientists for Global Responsibility. In parallel with British Science Week, they run 'Science4Society' Week, from 13-19th March. This promotes STEM resources with a focus on science, design and technology which contribute to peace, social justice and environmental sustainability.

This includes national competitions, free downloadable lesson plans, discussions, and practical and problem solving activities. Lessons include debates on current issues, giving students the opportunity to make up their own minds. Children are given the chance to apply their scientific knowledge and thinking skills to practical situations, for example choosing energy options.

The Science4Society project was set up to provide an alternative to STEM school activities funded (wholly or partly) by the arms, military and fossil fuel industries. This is a small-scale effort compared to the education initiatives funded by the government on behalf of the military. So, if we take seriously the powerful role of science and technology in shaping our future, it behoves educators, parents and guardians to champion Science4Society Week in schools themselves.

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Does your school take part in Science4Society Week? And does STEM learning there reflect the valuable thinking skills young people should develop, and the just and sustainable world we wish to see?
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and British Prime Minister Theresa May exchanged congratulatory messages Monday on the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level between China and Britain.

Over the past 45 years, mutual integration of interests between China and Britain has kept deepening, with plenty of achievements made in mutually beneficial cooperation, while people-to-people and cultural contacts between the two countries have become increasingly closer, practically in the interest of the two peoples, Li said in his congratulatory message.

Currently, China-Britain relations stand at a new starting point and have a solid foundation for cooperation and a broad space for growth, Li said.

China is willing to make joint efforts together with Britain to further consolidate mutual trust, pursue new achievements in bilateral pragmatic cooperation, and push bilateral ties to advance further and steadily on the track of mutual trust, mutual complementation and mutual benefit, in the greater interest of the two peoples, he said.

Theresa May expressed good wishes to the Chinese government and people in her congratulatory message.

The Britain-China partnership is in sustained development, with frequent high-level exchanges and contact, with fruitful high-level dialogue, with increasingly closer trade and investment links, and with people-to-people and cultural exchange keeping deepening, which has greatly promoted the well-being of the two countries, she said.

The British prime minister expressed the belief that Britain-China cooperation will surely score more achievements in future.
Volunteer in Reno County

The Volunteer Center of Reno County, a United Way Agency, is a central clearinghouse for volunteer opportunities in Reno County.
Session concludes, having produced many proposals on issues like alleviating poverty and reducing smog

China's top political advisory body concluded its annual session on Monday, with more than 2,000 members participating in the 11-day session having provided 5,210 proposals for policymakers.

Members have done a good job carrying out their responsibilities, making valuable suggestions to "promote China's social and economic development", according to Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Yu spoke at the closure of the 12th National Committee of the CPPCC at the Great Hall of the People.

Proposals made by the members covered a wide range of topics, including economics, politics, culture, social development, and ecological and environmental protection.

Economic issues were the focus of 34.7 percent, down from 42 percent in 2016.

Proposals on politics, culture, social development and the environment rose by different proportions compared with a year ago.

Last year, CPPCC National Committee members submitted 5,375 proposals. Although the number fell this year, "the quality of proposals has risen significantly", according to a CPPCC document.

Proposals addressed such important issues as energy consumption, poverty reduction and the production of safe, quality goods, according to the document.

"It does not mean that we do not care about the economy," said Zhang Lianqi, a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC. "But our proposals have become more diversified and more of our focus has been put on areas that can raise people's 'sense of gain', such as poverty alleviation and air pollution, which are closely related to people's lives." Zhang is a senior consultant with the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think tank.

It is natural for China to pay more attention to such topics as environmental protection and social development after becoming the world's second-largest economy, analysts said.

"China has obviously intensified efforts to promote environmental protection since 2016, which is a positive response to the appeals of the people after they have seen improvement in their living standards," said Xie Chao, macroeconomic analyst at Everbright Securities.

Poverty reduction was an important focal point of the CPPCC session this year. China brought 12.4 million people in rural areas out of poverty in 2016, although there were still 43.35 million people living below the poverty line at the end of 2016, officials said.

"The poverty alleviation efforts showed that China's development is people-centered, which is the essence of economic growth," Li Zhongjie, a member of CPPCC National Committee, told Xinhua.

Contact the writer at [email protected]
Adams Preliminary Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Released

ADAMS, Mass.  Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco has released a proposed $15,567,135 fiscal 2018 budget that reflects a nearly $1 million increase over this year but doesn't depend on reserves.

Mazzucco, in a letter included with the budget, wrote that the fiscal 2018 budget will not rely on reserve funds to balance it.

"This is the first budget in many years, well over a decade, that does not use reserves to balance. While we still had to deny many needed department requests and reduce many benefit areas, passing a budget without the use of reserves is a big positive step for the town's financial picture," Mazzucco said. "This will also help reduce the possibility of revenue shocks in the future which should contribute to a more stable annual budget process in future years."

He said the total noncapital municipal budget is $8,792,637 without using free cash for capital expenditures and $9,323,154 with free-cash capital. Municipal operating expenses are down 3.59 percent but personal services are up 3.45 percent.

Mazzucco wrote that not raising taxes would mean cutting four to five positions in the town budget and much more in the school district.

He said service-wise, the budget is flat with only the reduction of a full-time van driver to part time and one part-time administrative assistant.

Departmental turn backs and better fiscal management of the town's free cash will allow the town to make more than $500,000 in capital investments, make repairs to town facilities and maintain vehicles.

He said the town is also planning to spend nearly $400,000 on road work and that for the first time in many years, the town will spend a considerable amount of Chapter 90 funds on roads.

Included in the budget is a Capital Improvement Plan that outlines capital projects and purchases the town would like to make in the next few years.

"We used to have a Capital Improvement Plan but it has been at least five to seven or more years since we have updated it," Mazzucco said at last week's Selectmen's meeting. "One of the challenges that we have with them is that they often get put together and the money does not materialize."

The plan identifies four capital projects totaling $320,000 in the Department of Public Works' Highway Division.

The most immediate projects in fiscal 2018 is engineering for the reconstruction of Crotteau Street and the Jordan Street culvert. Later projects include the Murray Street pedestrian bridge and the DPW salt shed.

"The salt shed needs to be repaired but it is almost to the point where we are just patching it up until it is completely defunct," Mazzucco said.

He said the plan identifies five capital projects totaling $216,000 at the Wastewater Treatment Plant over the next few years.

In this budget, Mazzucco said he programmed in funds to refurbish motors at the Harmony Street pumping station and other smaller repairs.

He said many of these maintenance costs stem from people flushing wipes.

"They are getting eaten up early because of wipes that people are throwing in the pipes so we are replacing this equipment earlier than we should," he said. "They get caught in the motors and they fail and it is costing us thousands of dollars. It is absurd that these simple things cause so much damage."

He said if the problem continues he foresees having to replace the "Muffin Monster" macerator that's supposed to chew up anything that enters the sewage treatment plant. He said workers have to go in daily and clean out wipes. This could cost the town $60,000.

As for pavement management, the plan identifies 13 capital projects totaling $374,650.

Mazzucco said many of these paving projects are smaller but are all included in the fiscal 2018 budget.

The plan identifies four capital projects totaling $229,500 to $354,500 for the former town hall that contains the Registry of Deeds.

The most immediate project in this budget is making the front of the historic building compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act. This is believed to cost $50,000.

In the future, Mazzucco said he would like to replace the windows, the boiler and update the bathroom.

He said there are also immediate plans for the police station that includes the installation of safety glass in the rear of the station for $16,000 and carpet replacement in the upper levels for $20,000.

"The carpet has just reached its lifespan and it's stapled down, dirty and worn," he said last week. "Literally, earlier in the year, I was in the chiefs office and he tripped on his carpet. It was coming up and I don't need the chief getting injured."

In the next few years, Mazzucco said he wants to replace the windows, the heating and air conditioning system and finish the training room that was never completed during the renovation.

As for Town Hall, Mazzucco said the plan calls for capital projects totaling $370,000 to $390,000 over the next few years. This upcoming budget has $125,000 for a roof replacement.

"We aren't really seeing leaks in the building yet and that's a good thing so that is why we have to do it now," he said. "Once water gets in there we have a problem ... a couple small repairs and re-shingling could get us another 20 years."

Mazzucco also said he plans to use $50,000 to replace windows original to the building and $20,000 to replace some carpeting.

The plan identifies a total fleet replacement cost for the five-year period to be $849,000. The fiscal 2018 budget includes a police cruiser, a dump truck and backhoe jaw-bucket replacement.

He anticipates the town will have to buy two large plow trucks in fiscal 2019.

The budget will presented over four evenings, Monday, March 20, through Thursday, March 23, all beginning at 6 p.m. at the Visitors Center. Monday will be an overview, Capital Improvement Plan, administration and technology; Tuesday is public buildings, service and works; Wednesday is the school districts; Thursday is public safety and library.
The Finance Committee spent three and a half hours Monday night discussing the proposed budget.

Lanesborough Finance Panel Angry With School Officials

LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  The Finance Committee chairman is peeved with the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee for canceling a meeting to discuss the budget.

The committee met on Monday with an agenda that included speaking with the School Committee. However, after a testy meeting last week, and with another meeting administrators were attending Monday and a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Mount Greylock officials opted to cancel their appearance.

"That is very disturbing to me. I don't think it is right that they did not come," Finance Committee Chairman Ray Jones said.

Jones says he'll be sending an email to Mount Greylock officials to express his displeasure, and called the move disrespectful. Jones says he's been asking for a meeting with officials since February and last Monday, school officials said they would attend the next Finance Committee meeting.

As the chairman of the Finance Committee, Jones felt school officials should have specifically notified him that they would not attend  the School Committee had emailed Town Manager Paul Sieloff about it on Thursday. Jones says if he had known, he would have canceled Monday's meeting. The Finance Committee, however, still spent nearly 3 1/2 hours reviewing the town budget.

"I feel highly insulted and disrespected that the email from Mrs. [interim Superintendent Kimberly] Grady did not come to me, it went to [Sieloff]," Jones said of the cancellation notice.

Sieloff said he felt an abrasive meeting last week, when school officials were on hand to talk about the elementary school budget, triggered the change in plans.

"Last week the committee, after the meeting with Finance Committee, they met Wednesday and made a decision that they felt more comfortable meeting at the public hearing," Sieloff said. "My understanding was they were a little concerned about the interplay."

Jones had been aggressive last week when talking to school officials, pressing them on recent staffing changes on the administrative level. Both the superintendent and business manager have resigned in recent months from the central office of the tri-district  a shared administration of the Lanesborough, Mount Greylock and Williamstown school districts.

"We don't seem to know what is going on," Jones said last week.

The conversation peaked in contention when Jones especially looked at Grady and asked, "how did you get your job?" The question came with some level of insinuation.

School officials, however, said they couldn't speak about why the two administrators left and Grady said she was chosen to fill in for both jobs because of her longstanding history working for the district. Grady had the qualifications so the School Committee asked her to take over on an interim basis.

"That's really the whole scope of what happened with the superintendent," Sieloff said. "This seems to be a comprehensive agreement among everybody."

Jones is no stranger to providing criticism to school officials. Prior to being elected to the Finance Committee, he was a frequent and vocal attendee at town meeting, often criticizing the school's management and budgets.

Other recent comments Jones made irritated Town Hall employees when he remarked that they "are lucky to have a job," argued against giving them raises, and pushed for the employees to pay a higher percentage of health-care benefits.

The Mount Greylock budget hasn't been approved yet but the version the School Committee is expected to present Tuesday (though an arriving blizzard may cancel it) calls for a $3,167,278 appropriation from Lanesborough. That is $92,489 more than last year, but all of that is attributed to the bills for the construction of the new middle and high school. Lanesborough's capital assessment is going up by $161,092 so Lanesborough's portion for the operating budget is less than last year.

In other business, Finance Committee member Ron Tinkham wants to again try to take control of the elementary school's reserve fund.

The elementary school's budget includes a $55,000 contingency and Tinkham wants that to be cut and have the town increase its reserves. If the reserve is in the school budget, the School Committee can opt how to spend it. If it is in the town's budget, then the Finance Committee does.

"The elementary school has the ability to come back to the town and ask for more money," Tinkham said. "I don't feel it is right to have a contingency of $55,000."

The situation is familiar. In 2015, former School Committee member Robert Barton attempted to make a similar change. He had called for a $25,000 reduction to the school's contingency  leaving just $30,000  and put that into the town's budget. Town meeting voters overwhelmingly rejected that move and voted to fully fund the school's contingency.

The Finance Committee did not take a stance on the issue Monday night. The committee continued discussion of yet another issue Tinkham has with the elementary school  tuition and choice.

Tinkham and Jones are also looking to "do something" to force the School Committee to raise tuition rates. The Finance Committee is asking to meet with the Board of Selectmen to discussion options to force such a change.

"I really believe that the main rub, the condition I am concerned with, is the taxpayers supplementing the cost of kids who don't belong to us," Tinkham said. "We need to somehow get their attention and have them do the right thing."

The Finance Committee is torn on that one, with Jones and Tinkham believing the town should dramatically increase tuition rates and eliminate school choice. That, however, would have no impact on the school's budget since it neither affects operations; school officials see the funds from choice and tuition as revenue it wouldn't otherwise have.

"If your costs don't change and you lose revenue, then you have an increase," Finance Committee member Stephen Wentworth said.

It is estimated that about $90,000 is brought into the town's coffers  not the school's  through tuition. There are 17 school-choice students expected to be enrolled in the coming year and nine tuition. The school has a total of 206 students. The current tuition contract as not expired and the school's legal counsel has ruled that any changes need to be made by the School Committee.

But the Finance Committee continues to push for the changes and the Selectmen are even proposing a non-binding warrant article for voters to send a message to school officials to raise the rates. Tinkham threatened not to support the elementary school budget over the issue.

The discussion on the two programs have been ongoing for years. Some believe that the use of tuition and choice is a way to bring in revenue by filling classrooms the town is already paying to operate. Others say the programs allow other towns to get the same education at a much more inexpensive cost.

The issue was the main focus at the Finance Committee's meeting with the elementary school last week. The Elementary School is proposing a budget that calls for a zero increase in appropriations from the town.
Bob St. Pierre with the children who raised some $2,500 for PopCares at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art on Sunday. Cindy Noel presents certificates of appreciation to the children. One of the many Rainbow Rocks sold to benefit PopCares. PreviousNext

North Adams Children Sell 'Rainbow Rocks' for Charity



Mason Stred is interviewed by Channel 6 on about the art fundraiser.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  An effort to raise $500 for a local cancer support group has brought in five times that much, largely thanks to an outpouring of support and the sales pitch from some of the area's youngest residents.



Rainbow Rocks, a fundraiser organized by parent Jaycee Stred, brought children and parents together to paint colorful rainbows on rocks. On Sunday at Lickety Split, they presented PopCares with a check and cash for $2,500.



The best part of the activity was "to sell them to people with cancer," said Mason, Stred's 7-year-old son, between licks of a celebratory ice cream cone. "I told people it was only $1 and almost everybody I asked bought some."



Stred said she was inspired by Mason's previous participation in a fundraiser in his second-grade class at Clarksburg School that raised more than $400 for Berkshire Food Project.



"He had such a good feeling about raising money that I was like how can I capitalize on that? Just looking at how to get kids involved in the community and fundraising," she said. "I stumbled upon the Rainbow Rocks project and thought this looks fun and easy for the kids to get involved in."



The idea came from a girl in California who'd posted her Rainbow Rocks on Pinterest. Stred put out an all-call on Facebook to see who might be interested and was so overwhelmed by the response, she knew she had to do it.



A painting event was set up at Greylock Community Club in February with rocks donated by Paul Nichols of Nichols Sand & Gravel in Dalton and paint donated by Neathawk Designs. Papa John's provided pizza and more offered money or supplies to keep them going and Lickety Split the ice cream for Sunday's event.



"They painted rainbows on rocks and there's a little message on it that says "here's a rock from me to you that spreads happiness and kindness, too," said Stred.
Trump talks about general surveillance in his wiretapping tweets: White House

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump means general surveillance when tweeting his Obama wiretapping accusation, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday.

"I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election," Spicer said.

"The president used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities," said Spicer.

On March 4, Trump claimed in a tweet that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower before his election victory, but offered no evidence.
Energy revolution, reformed economic structures needed for 2030 goal

As most Chinese cities witnessed more days with clean air after a nationwide air pollution control plan was introduced in 2013, environmental experts noted air quality has seen improvement and whether all China's cities can reach the national standard for air quality by the stated goal of 2030 will depend on the progress of social, economic and technological development.

Seventy-three cities out of 338 monitored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) reached national air quality standards in 2015. The Chinese national standard for PM2.5 is 35 micrograms per cubic meter.

In the cities monitored, the proportion of days with good or relatively good air quality in a year rose to 78.8 percent, up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. Nationwide average PM2.5 density dropped 6 percent to 47 micrograms per cubic meter, and average PM10 density fell 5.7 percent to 82 micrograms.

Haikou, Zhoushan and Huizhou, all coastal cities, ranked the top three in terms of air quality in 2016, while Hengshui, Shijiazhuang and Baoding, all in North China's Hebei Province, ranked the bottom.

According to the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), China will take measures to tackle urban smog and deliver "good" air quality readings in cities at prefecture-level and above for 80 percent of the year.

He Kebin, dean of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University said this means at least another 50 cities' air quality should reach the national standard.

"However, even if the goal is accomplished, in 60 percent of Chinese cities, average annual air quality readings will still fail to reach the national standard."

He added that although some research institutions say that air quality in all Chinese cities will reach the standard by 2030, it actually depends on the progress of China's social and technological development.

Half of emissions of air pollutants must be cut if all Chinese cities are to reach the standard by 2030, He said, adding that in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, emissions from more than 70 different pollutants must be reduced.

The MEP said that only 56.8 percent of days in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region were clear in 2016, but 9.2 percent of the days were "heavily polluted," much higher than the national average of 2.6 percent.

He said that there are now scientific ways to measure how many and what kinds of pollutants need to be cut. For the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to reach standard air quality, the density of nitrogen dioxide should be reduced by 20 percent, and PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations need to be cut by 60 percent and 50 percent respectively.

Nothing short of an energy revolution, a reformed economic structure and improved pollution control technologies will be needed if the Chinese public is to reach the goal of breathing clean air all year round, He noted.
An ofo bike stand in Austin, Texas.

Tech leaders, musicians and wannabe entrepreneurs attending this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) festival may feel particularly blissful, as a trove of China-made bikes have parachuted their way into Austin, Texas, ready to transport festival-goers from one venue to the next.

Small, swift and stylish, hundreds of yellow bikes from ofo, one of Chinas largest bike-sharing brand, have been dropped around major SXSW venues, including the Austin Convention Center, the JW Marriott Hotel and various locations in downtown Austin. The bikes will be entirely free to use for the duration of the sizzling event , March 10-19.

Held for the first time in 1987 with just 700 attendees, SXSW has since grown into a massive annual conglomeration of music, film and interactive media events, with a reputation as a breeding ground for new ideas and creative technologies. On March 11, 2016, former U.S. President Barack Obama gave a speech at SXSW Interactive in which he called on the technology industry to help solve many of America's problems.

Ofo now offers unprecedented easy travel for trend-setting attendees of this year. Cyclists can obtain and discard ofo bikes wherever and whenever they please, as ofo offers the worlds first dockless bike-sharing service. To reserve a bike, riders can use the app to locate the nearest bicycle. Once they find it, they enter that bikes number into the app, and a four-digit code is sent to open the lock on the back wheel. To return the bike, users can simply scramble the lock.

Users unlock ofo bikes outside Austin Convention Center, a major SXSW venue.

After conquering China, sweeping Singapore and earning a spot in Cambridge, ofo and its 25 million registered users appear poised to take off in Austin, as locals gleefully share pictures on Facebook and Twitter of ofo bikes along the Colorado River. An ofo spokesperson said that the company is in talks with Austin officials to negotiate further cooperation. The company is also planning a trial run in California.

Ofo will make big moves globally this year, planning to expand to over 10 countries, the spokesperson revealed.

On March 1, ofo announced a massive funding round of $450 million to help fend off its arch rival, Mobike, as both companies push into cities around the globe. Though the company didnt officially reveal its worth, multiple mainstream media outlets including Bloomberg and TechCrunch stated this investment makes ofo the first bike-sharing unicorn to be worth more than $1 billion.

A Twitter post of ofo bike users.

A Twitter post of an ofo bike user.
Building Bridges Between the Black Church and Israel

The Fellowship | March 14, 2017 Building Bridges Between the Black Church and Israel

One of The Fellowships missions is to build bridges between people of faith. And a historic partnership which we continue to work to strengthen is that between African-American Christians and the Jewish people. Writing at Patheos, Eliana Rudee tells of the latest Fellowship-organized tour of the Holy Land that inspired a group of Baptist leaders from the U.S.:

On a chilly Friday morning in Jerusalem, 14 American Baptist leaders filed into Colel Chabads Pantry Packers packing plant, ready to prepare food for Israels underprivileged. Despite the cold, Michael Seiler, Manager of Liaison Services with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (The Fellowship), volunteered his Friday morning to brief the Baptist leaders, promising that this activity would warm everyones hearts.

Indeed, hearts were warmed and bridges were built during the groups weeklong tour around Israel, from February 13-20. For most, this tour represented their first time in Israel, and nearly everyone cited their great excitement about touring the land they invoke daily in Bible passages and having the opportunity to walk where Jesus walked.

The group, part of The Fellowship, learned about historic bonds between the Christian and Jewish people through visits to Christian and Jewish holy sites such as the Western Wall, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, Masada, Caesarea, Muhraka (Horn of Carmel), and Meggido. They also made a special visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.

Reverend Samuel C. Tolbert Jr., from Lake Charles Louisiana, led the group. His goal was to bring back to his community the value in doing what we have been called to do by God, namely, being a blessing to Israel through missions to Israel. He noted that African American churches are passing up a lot of opportunities to be blessed, citing Genesis 12:1-3: I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.

In addition to citing religious reasons to support Israel, many Baptist leaders appeal to historical ties between Jews and the African American community, citing that Jews were there for them when they needed it during the civil rights movement, and now Jews need their solidarity. They hope to extend solidarity between the two groups by renewing the historical relationship from the 1960s, when Jews marched (two of them killed) in the Selma Civil Rights March with Martin Luther King Jr.

Upon returning home, Reverent Tolbert said that he was especially grateful to strengthen our connection to the Israeli people and most importantly, to G-d.

I will not go home and preach the same, said Earlene Coleman, a Pastor at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, representing the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention
MSI has updated its gaming desktop computer line up at CES 2017, including Aegis, Nightblade and Trident, Implementing the latest Intel Kaby Lake processors, MSIs renowned GTX 10-Series GAMING Graphics Cards with Twin Frozr VI technology and a refreshed design with a touch of carbon, MSI puts a ready-to-game desktop family in the market. Over at MSIs booth, Tinhte.vn is reporting their find and pair of Plextor M.2 SSDs M8PeG in the display model of Aegis Ti3.

MSIs flagship Aegis Ti3 features two GTX 1080 GAMING 8G in SLI setup and an Intel Core i7-7700k CPU. It will support up to 3 x M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD with one slot supporting upcoming Intel Optane modules for SSD caching.

Plextor gaming-minded M.2 SSD M8PeG is powered by the latest NVMe protocol. It boasts of extreme performances up to 2500/1400 MB/s sequential read/write speeds, and up to 270000/150000 IOPS random read/write performance. Even with games that require heavy read/write operations and intense graphic processing, it delivers the smoothest gaming experience with its powerful infrastructure optimized for eSports.

The Plextor M8PeG comes with TrueSpeed, TrueProtect, and LDPC features. The TrueSpeed technology keeps long-term SSD performance at like-new speeds after periods of use and when the SSD is nearly full. The TrueProtect technology is a multi-layered error checking mechanism automatically executed by the firmware. By employing the error-correcting capability of ECC, it can correct up to 128 bits of random errors and in conjunction with the Plextor exclusive real-time debugging mechanism and the self-testing capability of Flash, TrueProtect keeps data access error-free. The LDPC technology guarantees data accuracy and SSD reliability.
Mauritius' National Day

Washington, DC - On behalf of President Trump and the people of the United States, I congratulate the people of Mauritius as you celebrate the 49th anniversary of independence on March 12.

The United States and Mauritius have enjoyed more than two centuries of diplomatic relations. Our national histories demonstrate that we share important values of assuring religious freedom, promoting freedom of speech and press, and living harmoniously in multicultural societies. Your countrys commitment to democracy has enabled Mauritius to advance economically, to become a regional leader building bridges to the world, and to improve the standard of living of your citizens.

The United States is committed to cooperation that contributes to regional security and advances trade and investment. I wish the people of Mauritius a joyous National Day celebration and a peaceful and prosperous future.
Assistant Secretary William R. Brownfield Travel to Vienna, Austria for the 60th UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs

Washington, DC - Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William R. Brownfield will lead the U.S. delegation to the 60th Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), March 13-17, in Vienna, Austria. At the CND, the United States will seek enhanced international cooperation to control the illicit synthetic drugs which are fueling the ongoing U.S. opioid crisis. One major focus area will be the control of precursor chemicals used in the production of illicit drugs, including those related to the opioid crisis.

The United States will also sponsor two side events to highlight the threats posed by synthetic drugs and to discuss strategies for dismantling drug markets, reducing violence, and promoting international collaboration.

The U.S. delegation will include representatives of the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has attempted to clarify comments she made about transgender women after a controversial interview with Channel 4 News.

The Nigerian author and feminist came under fire after critics felt she failed to call trans women "real women" in response to a question about gender identity.

In the interview, which was broadcast on 10 March, she said: "I think the whole problem of gender in the world is about our experiences.

Recommended Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sparks outrage for transgender comments

"It's not about how we wear our hair or whether we have a vagina or a penis. It's about the way the world treats us, and I think if you've lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men and then sort of change gender, it's difficult for me to accept that we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are."

In a post on Facebook made on 12 March, Adichie, who has supported LGBTQ rights in Nigeria, wrote that she was shocked by accusations of transphobia after the interview.

"I said, in an interview, that trans women are trans women, that they are people who, having been born male, benefited from the privileges that the world affords men, and that we should not say that the experience of women born female is the same as the experience of trans women," she said.

"I think the impulse to say that trans women are women just like women born female are women comes from a need to make trans issues mainstream. Because by making them mainstream, we might reduce the many oppressions that experience.

"But it feels disingenuous to me. The intent is a good one but the strategy feels untrue. Diversity does not have to mean division."

Adichie noted that in the Channel 4 interview, she had intended to highlight the treatment of women: "Girls are socialised in ways that are harmful to their sense of self - to reduce themselves, to cater to the egos of men, to think of their bodies as repositories of shame. As adult women, many struggle to overcome, to unlearn, much of that social conditioning."

Many comments welcomed the clarification. One woman who described herself as transgender wrote beneath Adichie's post: "It isn't transphobic to acknowledge the simple truth that there are differences between women and transomwen. It's just being sane and real, and I think it's [a] necessary voice within feminist discourse that shouldn't be dismissed out-of-hand'"

Others, whilst still critical of her views, suggested that Adichie may have been put in a difficult position by being "expected" - as a black woman in feminism - to speak about any experience where a person had been marginialised.

Raquel Willis, a prominent black transgender activist who spoke at the Women's March in Washington, told Teen Vogue: "The stakes are higher for a black woman in feminism. I know that as a marginalised woman that in many ways when I am pushed up against a wall, it is difficult to distinguish who is trolling me and being oppressive or who is expecting me to have politics on where I'm not quite there yet.

"Sometimes thought leaders are expected to have an opinion on everything. As a Nigerian, black woman, and intersectional feminist, she [Adichie] is expected to speak for or know about any experience where someone can be marginalised and it's impossible. It's a lofty expectation no one can live up to."

Willis suggested that this should serve as a lesson for the media to provide more space to trans women to share their own experiences, rather than to ask cis women what their opinions were of what the trans woman experience might be like.

"It wouldn't have been remiss for her [Adichie] to say, 'That's not my experience and so I don't feel comfortable positioning myself as an authority," Willis suggested.
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Ian McKellen has poked fun at the uproar over the inclusion of a gay character in the upcoming Beauty and the Beast remake.

The British actor, who plays Cogsworth in the live-action Disney film, mentioned the controversy at the New York City premiere.

He noted that the film reunited him with Bill Condon - who previously directed him in a drama about homosexual filmmaker James Whale [Gods & Monsters] and who directed Dreamgirls and two Twilight sequels.

As the cast took to the stage McKellen noted that Beauty and the Beast marked "another gay extravaganza" for Condon, seemingly referring to the furore over the sexual orientation of a supporting character - LeFou - in the film.

The controversy was sparked after Condon mentioned LeFou's sexuality in an interview with Attitude, where he revealed that the character had an "exclusively gay moment".

In response to the news, one Alabama theatre declined to show the film, Russian officials gave the family feature a more restrictive view because of its "gay content", while Malaysia appears to have pulled the film from local listings altogether.

McKellen's comment drew laughter and applause from the audience in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Variety reported.

Actor Josh Gad, who plays the character around which the controversy has centred, thanked McKellen for reminding him of what a "fun week" he has had promoting the film.

The Independent's culture writer Clarisse Loughrey noted that fans may come away from the film feeling disappointed considering the fanfare around Gad's character,

The actual moment is less explicit than has been suggested, and instead seems to place him alongside other, past Disney characters who have already been interpreted as gay-coded without Disney explicitly defining their sexuality.
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Last week, Samuel L. Jackson launched a surprising attack on black British actors, claiming they are taking roles away from African-Americans and dont have the same experience of blackness.

There are a lot of black British actors in these movies, he told a radio station when asked about buzzing new movie Get Out. I tend to wonder what would that movie would have been with an American brother who really feels that.

Daniel grew up in a country where theyve been interracial dating for a hundred years What would a brother from America have made of that role? Im sure the director helped, but some things are universal, but [not everything].

Now the man Jackson was referring to, Daniel Kaluuya, has responded in an interview with GQ, saying: Heres the thing about that critique, though. Im dark-skinned, bro.

Kaluuya in Get Out

He continued of his own experiences: When Im around black people, Im made to feel other because Im dark-skinned. Ive had to wrestle with that, with people going, Youre too black. Then I come to America, and they say, Youre not black enough. I go to Uganda, I cant speak the language. In India, Im black. In the black community, Im dark-skinned. In America, Im British. Bro!

He also noted that stories of what its like to be black in Britain are not often told, so people get an idea of what they might think the experience issome things are universal, but everything aint.

Kaluuya continued: Youre getting singled out for the color of your skin, but not the content of your spirit, and thats everywhere. Thats my whole life, being seen as other. Not fitting in in Uganda, not Britain, not America. They just highlight whatever feature they want.

 Get Out - Trailer

I really respect African-American people. I just want to tell black stories. This is the frustrating thing, bro  in order to prove that I can play this role, I have to open up about the trauma that Ive experienced as a black person. I have to show off my struggle so that people accept that Im black. No matter that every single room I go to Im usually the darkest person there. You know what Im saying? I kind of resent that mentality. Im just an individual. Just because youre black, you taken and used to represent something. It mirrors what happens in the film. I resent that I have to prove that Im black. I dont know what that is. Im still processing it.

Jackson clarified his comments over the weekend, telling AP: It was not a slam against them [black British actors], but it was just a comment about how Hollywood works in an interesting sort of way sometimes

After complimenting his British peers, he continued: Were not afforded that same luxury, but thats fine, we have plenty of opportunities to work. I enjoy their work. I enjoy working with them when I have the opportunity to do that.

The film veterans initial comments angered numerous British actors including Star Wars: The Force Awakens actor John Boyega, who responded on Twitter saying: Black brits vs African American. A stupid ass conflict we don't have time for.
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When it emerged that James Franco was making a film about best worst movie of all time The Room, most assumed this was going to be a pretty esoteric passion project - an oddity for cult fans that might find life on somewhere like Netflix.

Upon screening a work-in-progress cut at SXSW this week though, The Disaster Artists being labelled Oscar-worthy.

I dont think Ive ever heard such thunderous rolls of laughter at the Paramount Theatre, thanks to a tour-de-force (and career-best) performance by Franco, Ramin Setoodeh writes in Variety.

The Academy typically doesnt honor comedies, but there are elements in The Disaster Artist that may be hard to resistWarner Bros. doesnt have a release date set yet, but whenever The Disaster Artist hits theaters, its sure to be a formidable hit, especially once word-of-mouth gets out.

Franco plays confounding auteur Tommy Wiseau in the film, with Greg Sestero, who appeared in The Room, returning and Bryan Cranston even dropping in to play himself in his Malcolm in the Middle days.

In a glowing review, The Hollywood Reporter described The Disaster Artist as a "giddy, winning balance between hilarity and heart."

Wiseau was at the screening and reportedly wouldnt give the film a thumbs up or thumbs down once the credits rolled, saying: I have to think about it.
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Ivanka Trump has a polished image, which is linked to her fashion line.

However its just been announced that the jewellery section of her brand is about to become less high-end.

As part of our companys commitment to offering solution-oriented products at accessible price points, we have decided to discontinue the Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry collection, explained Abigail Klem, president of the Ivanka Trump brand.

Recommended We could soon see Ivanka Trump sanitary towels and alcohol

Instead, the company will be appealing to a more downmarket demographic by focusing our efforts on existing and new categories that are most relevant to our loyal customers - including fashion jewelry, which successfully launched last fall with price points that are aligned with the rest of our collection.

That price point may not be affordable for all though, with the line including items such as a 171.98 necklace as well as 24 earrings.

The First Daughters fashion line has seen a rise in sales since mid-February, when presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway urged the public to buy Ivankas products on live TV, USA Today reports.

According to Refinery 29, sales for the Ivanka Trump brand increased 346 per cent from January to February this year, and Klem confirms that the brand had some of its best sales ever last month.

In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London An image of President Donald Trump is seen on a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A view of the skywriting word reading 'Trump' as thousands rally in support of equal rights in Sydney, New South Wales EPA In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome People shout and hold signs during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A protester holds a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille A placard ready 'Pussy grabs back' is attached to the handle bar of a bike during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A young Thai girl holds a "women's rights are human rights" sign at Roadhouse BBQ restaurant where many of the Bangkok Womens March participants gathered in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A Thai woman takes a photo of a "hate is not great" sign at the women's solidarity gathering in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok American expats and travellers gather with the international community in Bangkok at the Roadhouse BBQ restaurant to stand in solidarity in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protetesters gather outside The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Women's March at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Protestors hold placards reading 'My body my choice, my vote my voice' during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome A person holds a sign during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activist Sarah Annay Williamson holds a placard and shouts slogan during the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activists participate in the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A Women's March placards are rested on a bench outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A women carries her placard ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila Women protesters shout slogans while displaying placards during a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Protesters take part in the Melbourne rally to protest against the Trump Inauguration in Melbourne, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters take part in the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Womens march on Melbourne protestors marching during a rally where rights groups marched in solidarity with Americans to speak out against misogyny, bigotry and hatred Rex In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau, Macau. The Women's March originated in Washington DC but soon spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila A mother carries her son as they join a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney An infant is held up at a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman attends a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman expresses her Anti-Trump views in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydeney Protesters demonstrate against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia. The marches in Australia were organised to show solidarity with those marching on Washington DC and around the world in defense of women's rights and human rights Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters march from The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square towards Trafalgar Square during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters carrying banners take part in the Women's March on London, as they stand in Trafalgar Square, in central London Reuters

However this came after US retailer Nordstrom announced they would no longer be stocking the line, Neiman Marcus stopped selling the jewellery collection and employees at TJ Maxx and Marshalls were ordered to throw away anything advertising her brand.

The President has, however, continued to help raise his daughters profile by consistently tweeting praise for her and her brand - he lept to her defence on Twitter after the Nordstrom announcement was made.
(Global Times) 13:22, March 14, 2017

A woman in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province has been put under police investigation after broadcasting live her damaging of products in a local Lotte Mart supermarket on Sunday.

A report Sunday on Beijing-based news site btime.com identified the suspected vandalizer in a 49-second viral video from Kuaishou Zhibo, a Chinese live streaming platform, as a platform user going by the name "sipingraoge."

The woman wearing black clothes enters a Lotte Mart supermarket and crushes instant noodle packs, steals snacks and drinks up beverages without paying, the video shows.

The suspect shows her insulting fingers to the camera as her curtain call with the song "zhonguoren," or "Chinese people," playing in the background, said the report.

The live streaming platform issued a statement later on Sunday on its official Sina Weibo account, saying that the company has already noticed the misconduct, and the evidence has been gathered and handed to the police for further investigation.

"The case is being probed," said a Shenyang police officer on his Weibo account "Shenyang Wangjing Xiaopang" on Sunday.

"You have to be rational first before being patriotic. It is either stupid or malicious if one disgraces the country in the name of patriotism," the officer noted.

Chinese companies and the general public have been taking action to boycott South Korea's Lotte Group amid mounting anger over the company's land-swap deal with the South Korean military for the deployment of the US anti-missile system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.

Some have rushed to social media platforms like Weibo to express their dissatisfaction.
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For a fashion designer, getting a politician or their family to wear your clothes is usually seen as a huge coup and a big deal.

Much like the Kate effect (thats Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge), whenever former First Lady Michelle Obama wore a particular item of clothing, it provided a huge boost to the designer or brand responsible - there was even a scientific study into how her wardrobe choices affected the fashion market.

But many designers, including Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Derek Lam, Joseph Altuzarra, Phillip Lim and Sophie Theallet, have refused to dress the new inhabitants of the White House in protest at Trump's policies.

And one has now spoken out, explaining why he wont dress any members of the First Family, despite the fact that it would provide a global platform for his designs.

Zac Posen, one of Americas best-known fashion designers, has in fact dressed both Melania and Ivanka Trump in the past, but he wont be doing it again.

The designer told the Daily Beast that he has no current plans to dress members of the first family.

The reason is that he - and many other designers - dont want to be affiliated with politics, especially in such divided times.

Right now, Im staying away from bringing my brand into politics, Posen explained.

In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London An image of President Donald Trump is seen on a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A view of the skywriting word reading 'Trump' as thousands rally in support of equal rights in Sydney, New South Wales EPA In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome People shout and hold signs during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A protester holds a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille A placard ready 'Pussy grabs back' is attached to the handle bar of a bike during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A young Thai girl holds a "women's rights are human rights" sign at Roadhouse BBQ restaurant where many of the Bangkok Womens March participants gathered in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A Thai woman takes a photo of a "hate is not great" sign at the women's solidarity gathering in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok American expats and travellers gather with the international community in Bangkok at the Roadhouse BBQ restaurant to stand in solidarity in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protetesters gather outside The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Women's March at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Protestors hold placards reading 'My body my choice, my vote my voice' during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome A person holds a sign during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activist Sarah Annay Williamson holds a placard and shouts slogan during the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activists participate in the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A Women's March placards are rested on a bench outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A women carries her placard ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila Women protesters shout slogans while displaying placards during a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Protesters take part in the Melbourne rally to protest against the Trump Inauguration in Melbourne, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters take part in the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Womens march on Melbourne protestors marching during a rally where rights groups marched in solidarity with Americans to speak out against misogyny, bigotry and hatred Rex In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau, Macau. The Women's March originated in Washington DC but soon spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila A mother carries her son as they join a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney An infant is held up at a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman attends a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman expresses her Anti-Trump views in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydeney Protesters demonstrate against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia. The marches in Australia were organised to show solidarity with those marching on Washington DC and around the world in defense of women's rights and human rights Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters march from The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square towards Trafalgar Square during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters carrying banners take part in the Women's March on London, as they stand in Trafalgar Square, in central London Reuters

But he also revealed that he takes umbrage with many of the issues being challenged by Trumps administration.

There are issues that are being questioned that are fundamentally upsetting to me - deeply: LGBT rights, immigration, funding for the arts, Planned Parenthood, and womens rights.

These are just issues that are very close to my heart, and I use my own private voice and funds to fight for them and in support of them. I think its important to use your voice. I think that every brand and person has a right to be vocal.

Im very upset with the state of affairs right now. I always try to be optimistic. I think that freedom will prevail.

However, Posen, who has dressed Michelle Obama in the past, added that he doesnt dictate who buys [his] clothing in a store.

The designer revealed that he thinks the fashion industry should be cautious in how it advocates for issues.

You cant market or commercialise feminism as an entity. One has to be careful. I aim to be about powerful women in my clothing. Its important that I support the amazing women that Im able to work with.

Its a message about creativity and process. And being able to self-create is the message I want to share to the generation of young people being born now.
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Worrying issues have been discovered in Googles messaging app, Allo.

It has been found to be capable of sharing users past Google searches with contacts, without being prompted to.

The discovery was made by Re/codes Tess Townsend, who was using Allo to chat to a friend.

Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Show all 13 1 /13 Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Ida Wells An African-American journalist and activist born in Mississippi in 1862, she wrote prolifically on the fight for womens suffrage as well as the struggle for civil rights. She documented the practice of lynching black people in the southern states showing how it was often used as means of controlling or punishing black people who competed with whites rather than as a means of justice for crimes. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Lotifa El Nadi Egypts first female pilot born in 1907 in Cairo. Although her father saw no need for her to pursue secondary education, expecting her to marry and have a family, she rebelled and worked as a secretary and telephone operator at a flying school in exchange for lessons as she had no other means to pay for the training. Her achievements made headlines around the world when she flew over the pyramids and competed in international flying races. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Frida Kahlo A Mexican painter and activist born in Mexico City in 1907, her work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for its honest depiction of female experience. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Lina Bo Bardi A Brazilian architect, born in Italy in 1914, she devoted her life to the promotion of the social and cultural potential of architecture and design. She is also celebrated for her furniture and jewellery designs. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Olga Skorokhodova A Soviet scientist born into a poor Ukranian peasant family in 1911, she lost her vision and hearing at the age of five. Overcoming these difficulties in a remarkable way, she became a researcher in the field of communication and created a number of scientific works concerning the development of education of deaf-blind children. She was also a teacher, therapist and writer. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Miriam Makeba A South African singer and civil rights activist born in Johannesburg in 1932, she was forced to work as a child following her fathers death. She became a teenage mother after a brief and allegedly abusive marriage at 17, before she was discovered as a singer of jazz and African melodies. After becoming hugely successful in the US and winning a Grammy, she became involved in the civil rights struggle stateside as well as in the campaign against apartheid in her home country, writing political songs. Upon her death, South African President Nelson Mandela said that her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Sally Ride An American astronaut and physicist, she was born in Los Angeles in 1951 and joined NASA in 1978 after gaining her PhD. She became the first American woman and the third woman ever to go into space in 1983 at the age of 32. Prior to her first space flight, she attracted attention because of her gender and at press conferences, was asked questions such as, Will the flight affect your reproductive organs? She later worked as an academic at the University of California, San Diego. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Halet Cambel A Turkish archaeologist born in 1916, she became the first Muslim women to compete in the Olympics in the 1936 Berlin games as a fencer. She declined an invitation to meet Adolf Hitler on political grounds, and after the conclusion of the Second World War, she trained as an architect and later worked as an academic in Turkey and Germany. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Ada Lovelace An English mathematician and writer born in 1815, she became the worlds first computer programmer. The daughter of poet George Byron, she is chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, and was the first to recognise the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, creating the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Rukmini Devi An Indian dancer and choreographer credited with reviving Indian classical dance, she was born in 1904 and presented her form of dance on stage even though it was considered low and vulgar in the 1920s. She features in India Todays list of 100 people who shaped India having also worked to re-establish traditional Indian arts and crafts and as an animal rights activist. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Cecilia Grierson An Argentine physician, reformer born in Buenes Aires in 1859, she became the first woman in Argentina to receive a medical degree having previously worked as a teacher. Women were barred from entering medical school at the time, so she first volunteered as an unpaid lab assistant before she was allowed to train as a doctor. She was acclaimed for her work during a cholera epidemic before going on to found the first nursing school in Argentina. The harassment she experienced at medical school helped make her a militant advocate for womens rights in Argentina. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Lee Tai-young Koreas first female lawyer and judge born in 1914 in what is now North Korea, she was also an activist who founded the countrys first legal aid centre and fought for womens rights throughout her career. Her often mentioned refrain was, No society can or will prosper without the cooperation of women. She worked as a teacher, married and had four children before she was able to begin her legal career after the Second World War, becoming the first woman to enter Seoul National University. She also fought for civil rights in the country and was arrested in 1977 for her beliefs, receiving a three-year suspended sentence and a ten year disbarment. Google marks International Women's Day with 13 amazing women Suzanne Lenglen A French tennis champion born in 1899, she popularised the sport winning 31 championships and dominating the womens sport for over a decade. She was the first female tennis celebrity and one of the first international women sports stars, overcoming a childhood plagued with ill health including chronic asthma  which continued to plague her in her adult life. At 15, she became the youngest ever winner of a major championship and lost only seven matches during her entire career. She received widespread criticism for her decision to turn professional, but defended her right to make a decent living in the days when the grand slam tournaments paid a relative pittance to the winners.

In the middle of our conversation, my friend directed Assistant to identify itself, wrote Ms Townsend. Instead of offering a name or a pithy retort, it responded with a link from Harry Potter fan website Pottermore.

Neither Ms Townsend or her friend had mentioned Harry Potter in their conversation before Allo brought it up.

But the response was not merely a non sequitur, continues Ms Townsend. It was a result related to previous searches my friend said he had done a few days earlier.

Google responded by saying, We were notified about the Assistant in group chats not working as intended. We've fixed the issue and appreciate the report.

However, Allo exhibited further strange behaviour when Ms Townsend proceeded to ask the Google Assistant What is my job?

It shared a Google Maps image with the address of a co-working space she used to work at, and not the publicly listed address of her previous employer.

Google had the address on file because I had included it in my personal Google Maps settings, wrote Ms Townsend. It did not ask my permission to share that.

Google Assistant is supposed to request permission from a user before sharing personal information in an Allo chat, but the privacy feature doesnt appear to always work.

Edward Snowden issued a warning about Allo after its launch last year.

What is #Allo? he tweeted. A Google app that records every message you ever send and makes it available to police upon request.

Google says collecting data makes Allo more useful  the better and more information it has, the better and more helpful the suggestions will be.

But many people have claimed that, by collecting that information, Google was putting people at risk of government spying.
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Paedophilia is a fate, not a choice, a leading sexual scientist has claimed.

Dr Klaus Beier, who runs a clinic in Germany that treats people who are sexually attracted to children, told The Times of India that healthy society must accept paedophilia is a reality amongst us.

Although difficult to measure, current estimates put the prevalence of paedophilia in the general population at about one per cent.

But research carried out by the National Crime Agency in 2015 suggested there could be as many as 750,000 men in Britain alone who may have a sexual interest in children.

Dr Beier suggested societies should work towards prevention, rather than focusing only on punishing offenders.

He said it was a myth that paedophiles could stop having sexual fantasies about children by simply choosing not to.

Most people believe What is the problem, the guy should concentrate on women. They think it is a choice. But it is a fate, not a choice, he said. Another myth is that every person paedophilically inclined will act out.

His conclusions back up a claim made by a criminal psychologist that paedophilia is a "sexual orientation" like being straight or gay.

 Castration will wipe out paedophilia says Indonesian president

As director of the Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine in Berlin, the physician has been voluntarily contacted by thousands of people wanting help with feelings of attraction to children.

He said that a sexual preference for children will arise during puberty and remain the same throughout an adults life.

With the incredibly high number of child abuse images on the internet, he said people use these pictures for masturbation and we have to reach out for them before they start.

How Jessica's Law turned Antioch into a paedophile ghetto Show all 2 1 /2 How Jessica's Law turned Antioch into a paedophile ghetto How Jessica's Law turned Antioch into a paedophile ghetto ALAMY How Jessica's Law turned Antioch into a paedophile ghetto UPPA

Despite the lack of choice in paedophilic feelings, Dr Beier claimed it is not a psychic disorder and therefore people who act on their feelings are fully culpable for their actions, morally and legally.

Those not treated have high probability to reoffend," he said. "But, the probability is very low if they are treated and that's why it is important to reach out.

Working with juveniles has been extraordinary successful as they accept guidance, they would like to be part of the society, be loved by parents and social surroundings so that they try to find a way to cope with this inclination.

You can train behaviour in a better way in a developing brain.
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US President Donald Trump has already proven that his tweets can move markets.

Since his election victory Mr Trump has sent shares in companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Toyota and Pfizer reeling into the red, shaving off billions of dollars from their market value in minutes with just 140 characters or fewer.

With investors struggling to predict Mr Trumps next move, two of his former staff members have spotted a business opportunity.

Recommended Lockheed Martin shares take another tumble after Donald Trump tweet

Corey Lewandowski, Mr Trumps former campaign manager, and Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser, opened a consulting firm designed to help and advice the companies mentioned on Mr Trump Twitter feed.

Speaking to the New York Times, Mr Bennett said that Avenues Strategies, the company he and Mr Lewandowski opened in offices just two blocks away of the White House, allows them to be a sherpa through turbulent times for US businesses seeking to get in the good graces of the US president.

If hes gonna come after you, theres nothing we can do to stop it, Mr Bennett said.

But if you want to figure out how to win in this environment, we can help you, he added.

The website advertises Avenue Strategies as a full service government affairs and political consulting firm which provides client-tailored strategy and guidance carefully designed to help our clients navigate our government.

Mr Lewandowski and Mr Bennett reportedly advised Lockheed Martin after Mr Trump criticised the company over the price of is fighter jets in a tweet, prompting shares in the aerospace company to fall sharply.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Avenue Strategies is not the only business trying to help clients with Mr Trumps twitter habits.
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New York says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used an email alias to discuss climate change while he was Exxon Mobils chief executive: Wayne Tracker.

Mr Tillerson sent messages from the account to discuss the risks posed by climate change, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a court filing about his offices fraud investigation of the company. Mr Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, used the Wayne Tracker account on the Exxon system from at least 2008 to 2015, Schneiderman said.

Schneiderman made the claim in a letter Monday to Justice Barry Ostrager in New York state court in Manhattan, accusing Exxon of failing to turn over all relevant documents required by a court order.

 Rex Tillerson refuses to rule out Muslim registry

The filing comes in a protracted legal dispute in which Exxon seeks to derail probes by New York and Massachusetts into whether the company misled investors for years about the possible impact of climate change on its business.

Mr Tillerson used the account for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics, after his primary account began receiving too many messages, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in an email.

New Yorks claim marks the latest email-handling matter to make headlines in Washington, from Hillary Clinton using a private email server as Secretary of State to more-recent revelations that Vice President Mike Pence used a private email account to conduct some official business as governor of Indiana. Neither of those instances involved an alias.

Despite the companys incidental production of approximately 60 documents bearing the Wayne Tracker email address, neither Exxon nor its counsel have ever disclosed that this separate email account was a vehicle for Mr Tillersons relevant communications at Exxon, and no documents appear to have been collected from this email account, Schneiderman said.

The existence of the secondary email account was discovered by Schneidermans team while reviewing other Exxon documents. New York claims the Irving, Texas-based energy giant has failed to turn over thousands of relevant files. In addition to climate change, the alias account was also used to discuss other important matters that werent specified in the letter.

Julia Mason, a spokeswoman for the State Department, declined to comment and referred the matter to Exxon.

The development raises a lot of questions about whether Exxon complied with the subpoena, said Carrie Cohen, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who is now a white-collar criminal-defense lawyer at Morrison & Foerster in New York.

It could be misleading to not tell the attorney general the actual owner of that email address, said Cohen, who isnt involved in the dispute.

In December, Exxon hit a snag in its legal fight to derail the investigations on the companys home turf, when US District Judge Ed Kinkeade canceled the deposition of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whod been ordered to appear in Dallas to be questioned under oath by Exxons lawyers.

 Trump comments on Paris Climate deal

The investigations are also the subject of a dispute in Washington, where House Republicans are seeking to derail the state probes on the grounds that they seek to silence scientists who disagree with the widely accepted theory that climate change is caused by humans. New York and Massachusetts earlier this month said theyd refuse to comply with subpoenas by the House Committee on Science Space and Technology, setting the stage for a possible legal showdown over state and federal investigatory powers.

Texas Representative Lamar Smith, chairman of the committee, argues the probes were started in bad faith because the attorneys general had reached their conclusions beforehand after extensive meetings with environmentalists.

Schneiderman and Healey reject the allegations and contend the federal government cannot interfere in their investigations.

If they had nothing to hide, then why the secret email account? said Jamie Henn, a spokesman for the environmental group 350.org, which has supported the state probes into Exxon.

Bloomberg
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During his four years in office, Pope Francis has declared evolution is real, assured atheists they don't have to believe in God to go to heaven, and spoken out against the rise of populism in the west.

Encouraging Catholics to practice what their religion teaches, in his often impromptu sermons, the 80-year-old pontiff has also likened the sexual abuse of children by priests with "satanic mass" and told his cardinals not to act as if they were "princes".

Here is a collection of his best quotes:

Evolution and Big Bang

God is not "a magician with a magic wand" and the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real, the Pope declared in 2014.

Explaining that they were not incompatible with the existence of a creator, he argued instead, that they require it.

When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so, the pontiff said.

The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.

Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.

Experts interpreted his comments as an attack on the "pseudo theories" of creationism and intelligent design which some argued his predecessor, Benedict XVI, had espoused.

But Pope Francis' comments followed those of Pope Pius XII who actively welcomed the Big Bang theory and Pope John Paul II who suggested evolution is "more than a hypothesis" and is an "effectively proven fact".

Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Live and let live.' GETTY IMAGES Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Proceed calmly" in life' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Be giving of yourself to others' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Even though many parents work long hours, they must set aside time to play with their children' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Sunday is for family' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Respect and take care of nature' OSSERVATORE ROMANO/AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Stop being negative' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: Respect others' beliefs' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Peace sometimes gives the impression of being quiet, but it is never quiet, peace is always proactive' FP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness AFP/Getty Images

Refugees

Pope Francis has called on the world to work to resolve the refugee crisis, saying the world needs bridges instead of walls.

Barriers create divisions instead of promoting the true progress of peoples, and divisions sooner or later lead to confrontations, he said.

The pontiff backed up his words with actions, when he took three families of Syrian refugees back to Rome after offering them a place on his plane.

Atheists go to heaven

Shortly after taking office in March 2013, the Pope said non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences.

"You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who dont believe and who dont seek the faith," he said. "I start by saying  and this is the fundamental thing  that Gods mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart.

"The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.

'It is a scandal to say one thing and do another. That is a double life' (Getty Images)

'Better to be an atheist than hypocritical Catholic'

Pope Francis has also claimed that it is better to be an atheist than one of "many" Catholics who lead a hypocritical double life.

Criticising some members of the Church, he said: "It is a scandal to say one thing and do another. That is a double life. "There are those who say 'I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association'."

Some of these people should also say: "'My life is not Christian, I don't pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, [I lead] a double life'," he added.

"There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal," he said. "How many times have we all heard people say 'if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist'."

Less than two months after his election, he said Christians should see atheists as good people if they do good.

Since his election in 2013, the pope has often told Catholics to practice what their religion preaches (EPA)

'Populism is evil'

Pope Francis has warned about the dangers of rising populism in western democracies.

Populism is evil and ends badly as the past century showed," he said.

When he was asked if he worries about the rise of populism in the United States and Europe, he said people should not repeat the same mistakes as in the 1930s, when they turned to saviours to resolve economic and political crises only to end up at war.

Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933, he said. A people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened.

In times of crisis, we lack judgement, and that is a constant reference for me... That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another."

Spreading fake news is 'probably the greatest damage that the media can do' pontiff says (Getty)

Fake news is like getting aroused by faeces

The pontiff said writing fake news and stories about scandals is like being sexually aroused by excrement.

He said spreading fake news is "probably the greatest damage that the media can do", calling it "a sin" to do so instead of educating the public.

"I think the media have to be very clear, very transparent, and not fall into  no offence intended - the sickness of coprophilia, that is, always wanting to cover scandals, covering nasty things, even if they are true," he said.

"And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, a lot of damage can be done."

He later apologised for his use of a precise psychological term, which describes when people are aroused by excrement.

 Pope Francis at 80

Severe punishment of paedophiles

Despite his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has been criticised for his handling of child rape scandals within the Catholic Church.

He has called for the "severe punishment" of paedophiles.

But it was revealed earlier this year that he had quietly recommended that the church sentence paedophile priests to a lifetime of prayer instead of serving time in jail.

In one case, Pope Francis reduced the penalty for Reverend Mauro Inzoli to a lifetime of prayer after he was convicted for sex crimes against five children as young as 12.

It was said to be one of several times that he had overruled recommendations from his own advisory council and reduced a priest's sentence.

He was also told about an alleged child rapist two years before he was arrested.

The priest in questions had been reassigned to a school in Argentina after being accused of sexually abusing children in Italy.

A senior Australian Catholic official has also warned the Pope may be "backsliding" in his crackdown on paedophile priests.
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A custody sergeant and two detention officers have been found not guilty of killing a man with mental health problems in police custody.

Thomas Orchard, 32, died in hospital seven days after being arrested and brought to Heavitree Road police station in Exeter, Devon, in October 2012.

Mr Orchard, who had paranoid schizophrenia, was held down, handcuffed and a large webbing belt designed to restrain arms and legs was placed across his face.

Custody sergeant Jan Kingshott, 45, and civilian detention officers Simon Tansley, 39, and Michael Marsden, 56, insisted their actions were proportionate and lawful.

A jury at Bristol Crown Court found them not guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence following a six-week re-trial.

The court heard that Mr Orchard was experiencing a mental health crisis when he was arrested for a public order offence in Exeter city centre on October 3 in 2012.

He had not taken his medication for seven days and told a mental health professional he believed he was a vampire and should stay inside during the day.

Mr Orchard was dealt with by seven police officers and fully mechanically restrained - with handcuffs and straps around his legs - before being placed in a small police van.

Bristol Crown Court heard that Mr Orchard should not have been placed in the van as it was too small for non-compliant detainees.

He was driven to the 20-cell Heavitree Road custody unit, where Sgt Kingshott, Mr Tansley and Mr Marsden were on duty.

None of the defendants recognised that Mr Orchard was mentally ill and did not check how long he had been physically restrained for - a total of 18 minutes by that point.

Mr Orchard appeared to attempt to bite an officer as he was taken through the door into the holding area of the custody suite.

Simon Tansley leaves Bristol Crown Court after the verdict (Andrew Matthews/PA)

He was held down while restrained at three points and controlled by three officers, with four others nearby.

Mr Tansley called for an emergency restraint belt (ERB) and wrapped it around Mr Orchard's face.

Devon and Cornwall Police had authorised the US-made restraint device for use across the face to prevent spitting or biting.

A risk assessment of the belt by the force did not identify or refer to any risks to detainees when it was used around the head.

The force is being investigated for suspected offences of corporate manslaughter and offences under the Health and Safety at Work legislation.

Mr Orchard, who was 5ft 7in, was then carried to cell M6 by four officers.

He was placed chest-down on a blue mattress in the cell and searched while handcuffed and in restraints, with the ERB around his face.

Michael Marsden leaves the hearing ( Andrew Matthews/PA) (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The court heard that he shouted Let go or Get off a total of seven times from 11.24am to 11.26am, struggling violently a minute later.

He was then freed from the restraints and left alone in the locked cell at 11.29am.

CCTV footage showed him lying motionless on the mattress for 12 minutes before officers re-entered the cell at 11.41am.

By that time, Mr Orchard was not breathing and had suffered a cardiac arrest. He died in hospital on October 10.

A pathologist found he died from severe hypoxic-ischemic brain damage, caused by a prolonged cardio-respiratory arrest following a violent struggle and period of physical restraint.

A number of jurors wept as the verdicts of not guilty were delivered.

The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said: The defendants can be discharged from the dock.

Members of the jury, thank you very much for your attention in this case.

Speaking outside court, Mr Orchard's parents, Ken and Alison Orchard, said: Today we join a growing group of people who have lost loved ones in police custody and have found no sense of justice.

Thomas cannot be brought back but we want his needless death to bring about change.

The change we want most is in the attitude of the police, particularly towards those with mental health vulnerabilities.

The pain for the past four-and-a-half years has diminished us and today is a setback but, on behalf of those vulnerable people and in memory of our Tom, our fight for truth and transparency continues.

The ERB was distributed in the UK by Pro-Tect Systems Limited, the company that had its Taser licence revoked in 2010 after it was found to have supplied non-approved X-12 Tasers. These were used during the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat in Northumberland in July 2010.

A training manual for the ERB advised that it could be used to prevent a detainee from spitting or biting, claiming that this was a common scenario inside police vehicles.

The manual instructs those using the device about the head to do so lightly, without pressure.

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This page was removed from the ERB manual in 2011 as it was uncommon for it to be used in this way, the court heard.

Devon and Cornwall Police did not receive the updated manual until they had a refresher ERB training session with the company after Mr Orchard's death.

Custody records show the force used the ERB around a detained person's face 55 times in the 12 months up to and including Mr Orchard's detention.

Giving evidence, all three defendants claimed Mr Orchard had posed a threat during his time in the custody unit and was saying I'll bite your f****** face off.

PA
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British girls from low-income families are missing school during their periods because they cannot afford sanitary protection - prompting charities working with women and girls abroad to move their projects closer to home.

A funding appeal has been launched for UK-wide research into the issue after a police officer working at a school in Leeds discovered a large number of female pupils were truanting because they were unable to buy products during their menstrual cycle  said to cost in the region of 20,000 over a womans lifetime.

Sara Barrie, safer schools officer for West Yorkshire Police, told The Independent she established that many girls were relying on teachers to provide them with sanitary products, with others opting not to attend school at all for several days a month.

A large number of students were asking us for sanitary products in school. A lot of teachers were buying them from their own pockets to give out, Ms Barrie said.

It was clear there was an issue. And when I then delved a bit deeper and opened up discussions, the girls said financing and funding was a real problem.

Many of these kids are from low income families. Theres often more than one child, and families really are struggling with finances, with these products often coming far down the priority line. The girls are so sensitive that they dont want to upset mum by saying they need them because they know moneys tight."

One pupil, who started her period aged 11, told BBC Radio Leeds that she had taped toilet roll to her underwear and missed school every month because she couldn't access sanitary protection.

I wrapped a sock around my underwear just to stop the bleeding, because I didn't want to get shouted at," she said. "I once Sellotaped tissue to my underwear. I didn't know what else to do.

"I didn't get any money because my mum was a single parent and she had five mouths to feed, so there wasn't much leftover money in the pot to be giving to us."

PC Barrie said that while the number of girls facing these issues were difficult to quantify, it was evident that there is a lack of support in place within schools.

When were doing truancy figures and working out the percentages, it just shows kids who arent in school. This problem would never be recorded anywhere, she added. "But you have to put two and two together. These girls need support to access and simple product and its not there.

The officer informed a campaigner from UK-based organisation Freedom4Girls, a group providing sanitary products to girls and women in Kenya, which has subsequently launched an initiative to fund research on the issue and provide support for young girls struggling to access the products in the UK.

Its founder Tina Leslie, told The Independent: I knew it was happening to homeless women and women accessing food banks, but not in schools. Its something you dont think about until somebody tells you.

It is linked to poverty. In developing and third world countries its well-known that 60 per cent of women and girls dont have access and they win five days of education, but its not widely known that its also an issue here in the UK. We knew it was happening, but not on what scale.

There were 25,000 visits to food banks in Leeds alone last year. So if youre at crisis point you go to a food bank and, like in Kenya, if you cant afford food you cant afford sanitary protection.

We know in other countries, but why dont we do it more here? Because nobody thinks its happening here, but it is happening here.

Ms Leslie has launched a crowdfunding page to raise money for research into the scale of the issue in the UK, and is encouraging researching bodies to come forward to carry out a comprehensive, nation-wide study on the issue.

This is what is happening in a small school. We need to work out the scale of it now. It needs a proper research project on it  some funding and a university to come forward and do it, as well as more people to come forward to me and say this is happening in my school," she said.

Its about getting the information out there and collecting the information, because this is the tip of the iceberg. We dont talk about it enough with young girls. Theres still a stigma attached to it which shouldnt be there.

Responding to the revelations, Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told The Independent the Government was "failing" young girls, and urged that schools should be offered funding to provide pupils with the "fundamental" product.

Period euphemisms around the World Show all 8 1 /8 Period euphemisms around the World Period euphemisms around the World Germany 'Erdbeerwoche': translates as 'strawberry week' iStock Period euphemisms around the World France 'Les Anglais out debarque' or 'The English have arrived' referring to past wars with England and possibly the British army's red coats Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World Brazil 'Eustou Com Chico' or "I'm with Chico' in reference to socialist Chico Mendes and possibly his gruesome assassination in the late 80's Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World Finland The Finnish affectionately refer to periods and pms as 'Hullum Lechman Tauti' or 'mad cow disease' Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World The United States Though there are many varied terms, a popular americans commonly refer to periods as 'Aunt Flo' iStock Period euphemisms around the World China In China you may hear 'its little sister to come in' iStock Period euphemisms around the World Denmark 'Der Er Kommunister i Lysthuset' or 'There are communists in the funhouse' Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World South Africa A famed colloquialism for a period in South Africa is 'Grannys stuck in traffic' iStock

Ms Phillips said: This is an awful story. If we live in a society where girls cannot access sanitary products we are failing. I remember only too well the shame and worry of visiblly bleeding when I was at school. It is no surprise that if you cannot afford tampons you might stay of school.

"The Government must offer schools the means to provide girls with products which are not a luxury but a fundamental need, and question why in 2017 UK citizens cannot afford them.

For the sake of girls the world over we must be less ashamed of talking about our periods.
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The first British citizen to be refused entry to Israel under a controversial law banning supporters of the boycott movement says the decision undermines their claim to be a democracy.

Hugh Lanning, chair of British activist organisation the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), was detained for questioning after landing at Ben Gurion airport on Sunday and returned to the UK.

He told The Independent there had been no problem at all on around a dozen previous visits to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories spanning several years.

Hugh Lanning, 64, was turned away at the Israeli border on 12 March (Supplied)

But Mr Lannings most recent trip came just days after the Israeli Knesset approved a new law banning anyone found to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement from entering the country.

When they scanned my passport, they instantly got someone to escort me off to the reception area, he said, recounting hours of repeated questioning in Tel Aviv.

At different stages it felt like they were testing me against what they already knewat one point they showed me my Wikipedia page, which is not written by me.

At another point they showed me a picture of myself in Gaza.

Mr Lanning was part of the Miles of Smiles international convoy that entered the coastal enclave in 2012, with photographs showing him alongside Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other fundamentalist figures.

The Israeli embassy in London described Mr Lanning as associated with the Islamist group Hamas and accused the PSC of leading the campaign in the UK to demonise and boycott Israel.

Lanning is associated with the leaders of Hamas, which is designated as a terror group across the EU; a group whose anti-Semitic charter calls for the killing of all Jews, a spokesperson said.

The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Show all 10 1 /10 The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Medics evacuate a wounded man from the scene of an attack in Jerusalem. A Palestinian rammed a vehicle into a bus stop then got out and started stabbing people before he was shot dead AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Israeli ZAKA emergency response members carry the body of an Israeli at the scene of a shooting attack in Jerusalem. A pair of Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers, while another assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders, in near-simultaneous attacks that escalated a month long wave of violence AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Getty Images The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians throw molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli troops near Ramallah, West Bank. Recent days have seen a series of stabbing attacks in Israel and the West Bank that have wounded several Israelis AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Women cry during the funeral of Palestinian teenager Ahmad Sharaka, 13, who was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes at a checkpoint near Ramallah, at the family house in the Palestinian West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun, Ramallah AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A wounded Palestinian boy and his father hold hands at a hospital after their house was brought down by an Israeli air strike in Gaza Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians look on after a protester is shot by Israelis soldiers during clashes at the Howara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus EPA The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A lawyer wearing his official robes kicks a tear gas canister back toward Israeli soldiers during a demonstration by scores of Palestinian lawyers called for by the Palestinian Bar Association in solidarity with protesters at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, near Ramallah, West Bank AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Undercover Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian in Ramallah Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinian youth burn tyres during clashes with Israeli soldiers close to the Jewish settlement of Bet El, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, after Israel barred Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City as tensions mounted following attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded a child

Israel is seeking a peaceful resolution to its conflict with the Palestinians. Those who promote extremism should not be allowed to forment their hatred in Israel.

Mr Lanning denied any involvement with Haniyeh  then the disputed Palestinian Prime Minister  or any other members of the extremist group.

I stood in the same room, I was introduced with him and moved along a platform as they took the photos, the 64-year-old added.

Ive also stood in the same room as Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and had the same amount of contact. If thats being associated with, I plead guilty.

Mr Lanning said he was introduced to Haniyeh at a public reception but had no further contact and stressed that the PSC does not ally itself with Hamas, Fatah or any other Palestinian political groups.

A former trade union official, he became chair of the PSC in 2009 and ran as the Labour candidate for Canterbury and Whitstable in the 2015 general election.

Mr Lanning said he was questioned for around eight hours on his political activities, previous visits and contacts in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and whether he supported the BDS movement.

Pro-Palestinian BDS movement supporters take part in a rally in central London (Isabel Infantes/PA)

The law approved last week bars activists from entering Israel who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel that, given the content of the call and the circumstances in which it was issued, has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott  if the issuer was aware of this possibility.

I said I was far too old to be an activistbut I do believe that Israel ought to comply with international law, Mr Lanning said.

Recommended Israel has refused entry to more than 100 British citizens this year

At 11pm the most senior person said weve decided were not going to allow you entry for activities hostile to Israel.

At no point did they ever accuse me of anything and when I asked what [I'd done] they refused to say.

He was put on a plane back to London on Monday morning and informed that he would need to apply for permission to visit Israel in future, rather than being interviewed for a visa on arrival like other British citizens.

Mr Lanning said he could not be considered a security threat and supported only non-violent legal action to oppose Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Stopping people going in wont stop criticism and I think it undermines their claim to be a democracy if they wont allow critics to be physically present, he added.

While theyre not complying with international law then its legitimate to criticise the Israeli state for the occupation, breaches of human rights, for the wall - theres a catalogue of things that most of the world thinks are wrong.

A man is screened at a security check at Ben Gurion Airport on December 13, 2010 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Getty Images)

Even the British Government thinks so  will they stop them coming in? Where do you draw the line?

The new law also bans entry visas and residency rights for those who call for boycotts of Israeli institutions in any area under its control, including Jewish settlements in the West Bank that are regarded as illegal under international law.

The bill allows for exceptions to be made by the interior ministry, but it was unclear whether foreign politicians, academics and journalists would be turned away at the border.

Ben Jamal, director of the PSC, said Mr Lanning was the first victim of the new law and argued it violates rights to the freedom of speech and movement.

If Israel believes that by introducing these draconian undemocratic laws it will intimidate its critics into silence it is mistaken, he added.

We call upon the British Government to make clear to Israel that it is not acceptable for it to ban entry to British citizens whose only crime is to advocate for human rights of the Palestinian people and to protest against policies that violate those rights .

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has updated its travel advice to reflect the law, which it said could affect any foreign nationals who have publicly called for a boycott of Israel or settlements, or belong to an organisation that supports the movement.

We are seeking clarification from the Israeli Government on the potential impact on British nationals and have updated our travel advice for Israel to reflect last weeks vote in the Israeli Parliament,  a spokesperson said.


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Prisoners were left exposed to the elements in "squalid" cells with windows missing glass, a highly critical report has revealed.

A programme of window repairs was reported at a previous inspection of HMP/YOI Swinfen Hall in 2014.

But HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) said the work had only started in October last year and was due to be completed this month.

As a result, most of the 180 cells on three wings had windows without glass, according to the watchdog.

The findings sparked claims of a "national emergency" across the jail estate.

HMP/YOI Swinfen Hall in Staffordshire is a young offender institution and category C training prison for males aged 18 to 25.

Inspectors who visited the facility in October and November found living conditions for most prisoners had deteriorated since the previous inspection.

The HMIP report says: "A, B and C wings were squalid; prisoners lived in cramped, dirty cells that were missing furniture and often contained graffiti and scaled toilets."

 BBC Panorama uncover 'chaos' in prison system

There were shortages of clothing needed for inmates in work, while a survey found that only 27% of prisoners said they could have a daily shower.

HMIP found the jail was "no longer safe enough" after a "significant deterioration" in almost all areas.

Levels of violence had increased and some prisoners who felt unsafe were "self-isolating".

Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke said the prison "needs to be safer".

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leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon 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news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. 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He added: "A new governor arrived during the week of our inspection, presenting the opportunity to set a new direction for the prison.

"The need for strong leadership is clear if decline is to be arrested and a new vision for the prison is to be successful."

The findings are the latest in a catalogue of critical reports and come as the Government attempts to drive down surging levels of violence and improve standards in prisons in England and Wales.

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "I have never seen a public service deteriorate so rapidly and so profoundly as the prison system in the last five years. It is now a national emergency.

"Each inspection report is worse than the last and this cannot be allowed to continue."

Michael Spurr, chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, said the deterioration in performance "reflects operational pressures impacting on Swinfen Hall and the wider estate".

He added: "The governor has a clear action plan in place to address the weaknesses identified, prioritising improvements in safety and regime provision.

"More prison officers will be recruited for Swinfen Hall this year as part of the Government's plans to boost staff by 2,500 across the Prison Service.

"These additional resources will help the governor to significantly improve the performance of the prison."

Additional reporting by PA
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A Russian whistleblower could have been poisoned with tainted sorrel soup, but key evidence about his last meal was flushed away hours after his death, a court heard.

A lawyer also said it was almost incredible police had not taken a statement from the widow of Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44. He died after collapsing near his luxury home in Surrey in November 2012, following a lunch with his wife that day.

The businessman's death was originally attributed to natural causes, but traces of a chemical that can be found in the poisonous plant Gelsemium elegans were later found in his stomach.

A pre-inquest review heard on Monday that, before his death, Mr Perepilichnyy was helping a specialist investment firm uncover a $230m (150m) Russian money-laundering operation.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. 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Hermitage Capital Management has previously claimed that Mr Perepilichnyy could have been deliberately killed for helping it uncover the scam involving Russian officials. He collapsed while running near his home in the exclusive St George's Hill estate in Weybridge.

At a pre-inquest hearing at the Old Bailey, a lawyer suggested the victim may have dined on a popular Russian dish based on the sorrel herb, which could have been switched.

Bob Moxon Browne, QC, for Legal and General Assurance Society, queried why no one appeared to have asked Mr Perepilichnyy's widow what he had for lunch that day.

He said: The contents of Mr Perepilichnyy's stomach were flushed away very shortly after his death. There is no bag of stomach contents. There is a quantity of material that was subsequently retrieved from the stomach cavity.

Tests had shown a suspect compound that matched the atomic weight of a vegetable poison, he said.

Mr Moxon Browne said: If he was murdered, it does seem likely he was poisoned rather any other method of bringing about his death.

He said the likely poison was vegetable rather than irradiation or a heavy metal.

He said: It is almost incredible a fact no statements have been taken by police from the widow, who was with him that day and had lunch with him.

He said there was a rumour he had soup containing sorrel, which is a component of a popular Russian dish, but tests did not identify the herb in his stomach contents.

He said the examination was either not fit for purpose or there was a possibility somebody had substituted another vegetable matter for sorrel.

The court heard of evidence Mr Perepilichnyy had received threats by phone from an organised crime group and had taken out multiple life insurance policies before his death.

Henrietta Hill QC, for Hermitage, called for a wider investigation and said on the day of his death, his daughter had spent a significant amount of time with her father.

Ms Hill said: There is an issue why Mr Perepilichnyy had so much life insurance. It has been suggested at one point he was advised to take out multiple policies by his bank manager.

Last November, Home Secretary Amber Rudd won a High Court order preventing the disclosure of sensitive material at the inquest.

After coroner Nicholas Hilliard QC had reviewed the secret material, a form of words was agreed by the coroner and Government.

It stated: Nothing in the material that was subject to the Public Interest Immunity (PII) application materially assists the coroner in answering the question of how Alexander Perepilichnyy died.

Nothing in the material alters the decision on scope.

The coroner said: The form of words represents my view at this stage about the significance of sensitive material which I have reviewed.

Ms Hill said it came as something of a surprise that none of the material had materially assisted the inquest.

But Peter Skelton QC, counsel for the inquest, said: Relevance is a matter for the coroner. A piece of evidence may be relevant, but it may not in the overall scheme of the inquest be significant.

The coroner set a three to four-week full inquest for June 5 at a London court, but said he was proposing to deliver his conclusions in Surrey.

The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? Show all 8 1 /8 The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26381.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26382.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26384.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26385.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26386.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26387.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26388.bin The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? 26389.bin

An earlier hearing in Surrey was told the case had parallels with the murder of ex-Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium in a cup of tea.

Ms Hill told Surrey Coroner's Court in January last year: In the same way that Mr Litvinenko was providing testimony to Spanish prosecutors and died before it could be concluded, Mr Perepilichnyy was providing testimony to Swiss prosecutors and died before that could be concluded.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Northern Ireland should hold a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom and joining the Republic of Ireland as as soon as possible, Sinn Feins new leader has said.

Michelle ONeill said Brexit would be a disaster for the province and that a referendum on Irish unity could be one way of bypassing its effects.

The intervention comes hours after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a referendum on Scottish independence  arguing that the Scottish people should be given a choice on Theresa Mays final Brexit deal.

Recommended Nicola Sturgeon announces second Scottish referendum

Like Scotland, Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union in the referendum last year. The result in Northern Ireland was 56 per cent for Remain compared to 44 per cent for Leave.

The province however faces being dragged out of the EU with the rest of the UK. The effects of Brexit could also be more dramatic on Northern Ireland: Theresa May has not explicitly ruled out a hard border with the Republic under the coming new arrangements, though she has said she does not want one.

Brexit will be a disaster for the economy, and a disaster for the people of Ireland, Ms ONeill told journalists in Belfast on Monday.

A referendum on Irish unity has to happen as soon a possible.

Ms O'Neill replaced Martin McGuinness as Sinn Fein's leader in the Northern Ireland Assembly in January of this year.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of people in Northern Ireland want to remain a part of the UK, though none has been conducted this year.

An Ipsos MORI poll from September showed that just 22 per cent of voters supported a united Ireland while 63 per cent wanted to stay in the UK.

 Northern Ireland election results: Who made gains and who lost out?

Sinn Fein, the largest Irish republican party, made major gains in last weeks Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

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 now has 27 seats in the Assembly, just one behind the largest party, the unionist DUP.

The possibility of a referendum on a united Ireland was included in the Good Friday agreement and the British government is committed to accepting the result of such a referendum.
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Theresa May was subjected to derisive laughter from opposition MPs after suggesting that she tried to give the EU advice on how best to move forward with the single market after Brexit.

The Prime Minister was updating the Commons on her return from a European Council meeting in Brussels, where the subject of the UK leaving the bloc was top of the agenda.

Since Britain voted for Brexit at last years referendum, Ms May has pursued an exit that will also see the UK leaving the blocs economic single market and customs union, mechanisms which allow for the freest trade with the other 27 members.

And it seems that Labour MPs detected a hint of irony in the Prime Minister saying she wanted to see these markets strengthened and extended, even as the UK crashes out of them.

I want us to build a new relationship with the EU, Ms May said, [but] a successful and competitive European market in the future will remain in our national interest.

At this council I called for further steps to complete the single market and the digital single market, she said  at which point opposition members burst out laughing.

The Prime Minister was forced to pause and said  wait for it  before continuing: I also welcomed the completion of the free trade agreement between the EU and China and pressed for an agreement with Japan in the coming months.

For these agreements will lay the foundation for our continued trading relationship with these countries as we leave the EU.

In other words, Britain is already framing its post-Brexit trading positions, not simply meddling where it is no longer welcome. Ms Mays ministers seemed convinced  Labour MPs less so.
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The former 1930s child refugee who convinced David Cameron to accept 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees has said he does not understand why Theresa May has scrapped the scheme.

Lord Dubs, who fled the Nazis as part of the Kindertransport scheme, dismissed the Governments stated reasons for scrapping the scheme and said he had honestly no idea why the scheme had really been closed.

I try and understand, when I disagree with the Government, and politically of course Im bound to be in this position on a whole range of issues, why theyre doing what theyre doing, he told the House of Commons International Development Select Committee.

In this case I honestly dont under why theyve done it. Were talking about very small numbers, we know that if we take children then fewer of them get trafficked  at the time when the Jungle was going the more they felt they could come legally the less they came on the back of a truck.

I honestly do not understand in my heart of hearts why the Government has chosen to close it down on this way. They could have easily kept it going for a bit longer and taken a few more.

The scheme was originally expected to take 3,000 unaccompanied child refuges from the continent but the Government announced at the start of the year that it would be closing after just 350.

Ministers have claimed that local councils do not have enough space to take child refugees, and that the so-called Dubs Scheme encourages people trafficking and acts a pull factor for refugees from conflicts in the Middle East to make the journey to Europe.

Lord Dubs however dismissed these arguments: They said they wanted to stop the scheme because the scheme encouraged trafficking. To which I would say, emphatically not  when there are legal paths to safety the traffickers dont get a way in. We know that traffickers do best when theres no legal way in.

He added that he had spoken to local councils about taking more refugees and that many had volunteered spaces.

I think theres a great misunderstanding on the part of the Home Office if they actually believe that, he said.

Ive spoken to local authority leaders who say theyre open to taking more, theyre happy to take more, and indeed up and down the country.

Im not saying all local authorities can and they do have financial difficulties. But on both counts I think the Government are wrong.

In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden

He added that it was unlikely that the scheme was causing people to make the journey to Europe as the legislation included a specific cut-off date and that new refugees would not be eligible for it.

Closing the scheme last month, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd said she was proud of the Governments policy on child refugees.

The Government has always been clear that we do not want to incentivise perilous journeys to Europe particularly by the most vulnerable children, Ms Rudd said at the time.

The section 67 obligation was accepted on the measure that it would not act as a pull factor to Europe. The Government has a clear strategy and we believe this is the right approach.
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David Davis has rejected calls for the Governments Brexit Bill to include a clause giving Parliament the power to reverse Brexit, claiming it is unnecessary - despite having previously said that countries which cannot change their minds cease to be democracies.

The Brexit Secretary told Parliament earlier this week that we cannot haveany suggestion that the votes in either House will overturn the result of the referendum and dismissed any prospect that we might actually decide to remain in the European Union.

He has also repeatedly dismissed calls for a public referendum on the final exit deal Britain negotiates with the EU, claiming it was merely an attempt to wreck Brexit.

However, it has emerged that in a 2012 speech on the European Union (EU), Mr Davis said: If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.

At the time he was criticising the EU for imposing irreversible laws on member states - something the current Brexit Secretary said was "not just undemocratic, it is anti-democratic.

In recent months, however, Mr Davis has suggested there should be no opportunity for Britain to change its mind on whether to leave the EU.

Late last year he insisted: There can be no going back, the point of no return was passed on June 23 last year."

Opponents have accused Mr Davis of hypocrisy over the apparent shift.

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

For years Brexiteers like David Davis have banged on about parliamentary sovereignty and handing back control to the people, Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, told The Independent. Now they are refusing to give Parliament or the British people the final say on what is set to be the biggest change in our lifetimes.

This is a staggering level of hypocrisy. The Government has opted for a destructive Brexit that will do huge damage to our economy and rob younger generations of opportunities they currently enjoy.

The Liberal Democrats will keep fighting to give the British people the final say on the deal, so that a hard Brexit isnt imposed on the country that nobody voted for.

A government spokesperson said: The British people voted to leave the EU and we are determined to respect their decision. As the Prime Minister has said, there must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum."

 Commons votes down two amendments from Lords over Brexit Bill

Ministers have insisted Parliament will be given a vote on whatever Brexit package Theresa May negotiates with the EU.

But MPs will only be able to choose between the options of accepting the deal or leaving the EU without an exit package.

Regardless of the nature of the agreement the Prime Minister strikes, there will be no option for either the House of Commons or the House of Lords to vote to keep Britain in the EU.

The Lords had previously voted in favour of an amendment that would have enshrined in law ministers promise of a second parliamentary vote on the Brexit package.

Mr Davis insisted that was unnecessary because he would not go back on his word.

Critics said the Conservatives had already broken several of their manifesto promises, including one to keep Britain in the single market, and suggested there was nothing to guarantee their latest pledge would be kept.

Theresa May has also repeatedly refused demands to call a general election to seek a fresh mandate on her plans for a hard Brexit.

It means there is now no real prospect of Parliament or the British people being able to change their mind on Brexit - despite Mr Davis earlier argument that the opportunity to reverse policy is fundamental to any democracy.
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MPs have rejected an amendment by the House of Lords to guarantee the rights of European Union (EU) nationals ahead of Brexit negotiations.

They were asked to overturn two amendments made by peers to the Governments EU Notification of Withdrawal Bill, which gives Theresa May the power to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

The Lords amendment was designed to force the Government to publish plans for guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals living in the UK within three months of triggering the mechanism.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

It was rejected by 335 to 287 votes  a majority of 48.

Here is the list of those who voted against the amendments:

Nigel Adams

Peter Aldous

Lucy Allan

Sir David Amess

Stuart Andrew

Caroline Ansell

Edward Argar

Victoria Atkins

Richard Bacon

Steve Baker

Harriett Baldwin

Stephen Barclay

John Baron

Gavin Barwell

Guto Bebb

Sir Henry Bellingham

Richard Benyon

Sir Paul Beresford

Jake Berry

James Berry

Andrew Bingham

Bob Blackman

Nicola Blackwood

Crispin Blunt

Nick Boles

Peter Bone

Victoria Borwick

Sir Peter Bottomley

Karen Bradley

Graham Brady

Sir Julian Brazier

Andrew Bridgen

Steve Brine

James Brokenshire

Fiona Bruce

Robert Buckland

Conor Burns

Sir Simon Burns

David Burrowes

Alistair Burt

Alun Cairns

Gregory Campbell

Neil Carmichael

Douglas Carswell

James Cartlidge

Sir William Cash

Maria Caulfield

Rehman Chishti

Christopher Chope

Jo Churchill

Greg Clark

James Cleverly

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Dr Therese Coffey

Damian Collins

Oliver Colvile

Alberto Costa

Robert Courts

Geoffrey Cox

Stephen Crabb

Tracey Crouch

Simon Danczuk

Byron Davies

Chris Davies

David T. C. Davies

Glyn Davies

Dr James Davies

Mims Davies

Philip Davies

David Davis

Caroline Dinenage

Jonathan Djanogly

Nigel Dodds

Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson

Michelle Donelan

Nadine Dorries

Steve Double

Oliver Dowden

Richard Drax

Mrs Flick Drummond

James Duddridge

Sir Alan Duncan

Iain Duncan Smith

Philip Dunne

Michael Ellis

Jane Ellison

Tobias Ellwood

Charlie Elphicke

George Eustice

Graham Evans

Nigel Evans

David Evennett

Michael Fabricant

Sir Michael Fallon

Suella Fernandes

Frank Field

Mark Field

Kevin Foster

Dr Liam Fox

Mark Francois

Lucy Frazer

George Freeman

Mike Freer

Richard Fuller

Marcus Fysh

Sir Edward Garnier

Mark Garnier

David Gauke

Nusrat Ghani

Nick Gibb

Cheryl Gillan

John Glen

Mr Robert Goodwill

Michael Gove

Richard Graham

Helen Grant

James Gray

Chris Grayling

Chris Green

Damian Green

Justine Greening

Dominic Grieve

Andrew Griffiths

Ben Gummer

Sam Gyimah

Robert Halfon

Luke Hall

Philip Hammond

Stephen Hammond

Matt Hancock

Greg Hands

Mark Harper

Richard Harrington

Rebecca Harris

Trudy Harrison

Simon Hart

Sir Alan Haselhurst

Mr John Hayes

Sir Oliver Heald

James Heappey

Chris Heaton-Harris

Peter Heaton-Jones

Gordon Henderson

Nick Herbert

Damian Hinds

Simon Hoare

Kate Hoey

George Hollingbery

Kevin Hollinrake

Mr Philip Hollobone

Mr Adam Holloway

Kelvin Hopkins

Kris Hopkins

Sir Gerald Howarth

John Howell

Ben Howlett

Nigel Huddleston

Jeremy Hunt

Nick Hurd

Stewart Jackson

Margot James

Sajid Javid

Ranil Jayawardena

Bernard Jenkin

Andrea Jenkyns

Robert Jenrick

Boris Johnson

Dr Caroline Johnson

Gareth Johnson

Joseph Johnson

Andrew Jones

David Jones

Marcus Jones

Daniel Kawczynski

Seema Kennedy

Simon Kirby

Sir Greg Knight

Julian Knight

Kwasi Kwarteng

Mark Lancaster

Pauline Latham

Andrea Leadsom

Dr Phillip Lee

Jeremy Lefroy

Sir Edward Leigh

Charlotte Leslie

Sir Oliver Letwin

Brandon Lewis

Dr Julian Lewis

Ian Liddell-Grainger

David Lidington

Peter Lilley

Jack Lopresti

Jonathan Lord

Karen Lumley

Craig Mackinlay

David Mackintosh

Anne Main

Alan Mak

Kit Malthouse

Scott Mann

Rob Marris

Mrs Theresa May

Paul Maynard

Jason McCartney

Karl McCartney

Sir Patrick McLoughlin

Stephen McPartland

Mark Menzies

Johnny Mercer

Huw Merriman

Stephen Metcalfe

Maria Miller

Amanda Milling

Nigel Mills

Anne Milton

Andrew Mitchell

Penny Mordaunt

Nicky Morgan

Anne Marie Morris

David Morris

James Morris

Wendy Morton

David Mowat

David Mundell

Sheryll Murray

Dr Andrew Murrison

Robert Neill

Sarah Newton

Caroline Nokes

Jesse Norman

David Nuttall

Dr Matthew Offord

Guy Opperman

Mr George Osborne

Ian Paisley

Neil Parish

Priti Patel

Owen Paterson

Mark Pawsey

Mike Penning

John Penrose

Andrew Percy

Claire Perry

Chris Philp

Sir Eric Pickles

Christopher Pincher

Dr Daniel Poulter

Rebecca Pow

Victoria Prentis

Mark Prisk

Mark Pritchard

Tom Pursglove

Jeremy Quin

Will Quince

Dominic Raab

John Redwood

Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg

Mr Laurence Robertson

Gavin Robinson

Mary Robinson

Andrew Rosindell

Amber Rudd

David Rutley

Antoinette Sandbach

Paul Scully

Andrew Selous

Jim Shannon

Grant Shapps

Alok Sharma

Alec Shelbrooke

David Simpson

Keith Simpson

Chris Skidmore

Chloe Smith

Henry Smith

Julian Smith

Royston Smith

Sir Nicholas Soames

Amanda Solloway

Anna Soubry

Dame Caroline Spelman

Mark Spencer

Andrew Stephenson

John Stevenson

Bob Stewart

Iain Stewart

Rory Stewart

Mr Gary Streeter

Mel Stride

Graham Stringer

Ms Gisela Stuart

Graham Stuart

Julian Sturdy

Rishi Sunak

Sir Desmond Swayne

Sir Hugo Swire

Mr Robert Syms

Derek Thomas

Maggie Throup

Edward Timpson

Kelly Tolhurst

Justin Tomlinson

Michael Tomlinson

Craig Tracey

David Tredinnick

Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Elizabeth Truss

Tom Tugendhat

Andrew Turner

Edward Vaizey

Shailesh Vara

Martin Vickers

Theresa Villiers

Charles Walker

Robin Walker

Ben Wallace

David Warburton

Matt Warman

Dame Angela Watkinson

James Wharton

Helen Whately

Chris White

Craig Whittaker

John Whittingdale

Bill Wiggin

Craig Williams

Gavin Williamson

Rob Wilson

Sammy Wilson

Dr Sarah Wollaston

Mike Wood

William Wragg

Jeremy Wright

Nadhim Zahawi
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A government minister in the House of Lords has told Nicola Sturgeon to give up on her divisive plans for second independence referendum in the middle of the UKs Brexit negotiations with the EU.

Answering an urgent question on the matter in the House of Lords Scotland Office minister Lord Dunlop said: "The UK Government remains of the view that there should not be a further referendum on independence.

"Even at this late hour we call on the Scottish Government to take it off the table. Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time," he warned.

Lord Dunlop said it was only two and a half years since the the people of Scotland had given a decisive answer on the independence question, which the then SNP leader Alex Salmond said at the time had settled the question for a generation.

Recommended A Scottish independence referendum could stop Brexit in its tracks

Labour former minister and ex-chief of naval staff, Lord West of Spithead said if a referendum were to be held, it must take place at the end of the negotiating period with the European Union.

Lord Dunlop said he could think of nothing more calculated to "undermine the achievement" of a good Brexit deal than holding a "divisive and disruptive" independence referendum during one of the most important peacetime negotiations ever faced by Britain.

"At this time we should be working together to get the best possible deal for the whole of the UK and each part of the UK, particularly Scotland, he said.

Lord Dunlop said the result of the referendum held in 2014 should be respected. "It was, as Nicola Sturgeon herself said, a once in a generation vote."

Both sides had signed the Edinburgh agreement which committed to respect that result but only two and a half years later she was calling for another referendum.

"All the evidence is that the people in Scotland overwhelmingly do not want another divisive, disruptive referendum," he said.

"They know the damage that would do to the Scottish economy, to Scottish jobs and would take the eye off the ball of the domestic agenda, which is what we should be focused on."

In the House of Commons, Theresa May told the SNPs leader at Westminster Angus Robertson: "He talks about a single market, he talks about the importance of access to the single market of the European Union.

"I would simply remind him and his colleagues once again, that the most important single market for Scotland is the single market of the United Kingdom."
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Nicola Sturgeon has issued a direct challenge to Theresa May, pointing out that she was voted in on a clear manifesto commitment to Scottish independence but that the Prime Minister is not yet elected by anyone.

In a taunting reminder that Ms Mays premiership is yet to be endorsed by the public at a general election  or even by all members of her own party  the Scottish First Minister said she had the mandate to call a second referendum on independence.

Ms Sturgeon pointed out that she had been elected as First Minister with a greater share of the vote than the Conservative Party secured at the 2015 general election. Trading mandates does not put the PM on strong ground, she added.

 Second Scottish Independence Referendum to be held, announces Sturgeon

A quick reminder: Tory vote in GE2015  36.9%, SNP constituency vote in SP2016  46.5%, she wrote on Twitter.

In addition, I was elected as FM on a clear manifesto commitment re #scotref. The PM is not yet elected by anyone, the First Minister said.

It comes after one Government source told The Times that Ms May would not allow a referendum during the perilous exit negotiations with the EU.

The Prime Minister has said this would mean a vote while she was negotiating Brexit and I think that can be taken pretty clearly as a message that this timing is completely unacceptable. It would be impossible to agree to it and we wont, the source added.

Announcing her intention to trigger the poll on Monday, Ms Sturgeon said the Westminster government had not moved even inch in pursuit of compromise and agreement with Holyrood over Brexit and even a good deal would be significantly inferior to the status quo.

Her statement came after Spain suggested Scotland would be at the back of the queue to join the EU if it achieves independence.

The First Minister said the vote had to be held between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019  before it was too late but after the terms of Brexit are known.

However, the Westminster parliament must authorise any such poll  meaning Ms Sturgeons call could be blocked by Ms May, who attacked the move, accusing her Scottish counterpart of playing games and the SNP of having tunnel vision.

It is thought to be extremely unlikely that Downing Street will block the referendum altogether, but reports on Tuesday morning suggested the referendum, which requires the approval of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster, would not come before the UK leaves the European Union.
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Negotiations to reach a power-sharing deal in Northern Ireland have not taken place after they were cancelled last minute, one of the parties has claimed.

The parties have less than a fortnight left to reach a deal by 27 March, in order to save Stormont and prevent direct rule being imposed from London.

Key players were due to engage in round-table talks, including the local parties as well as representatives of both the British and Irish governments. However, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Colum Eastwood MLA, says the talks were cancelled at the last minute.

He told the Belfast Telegraph that the collapse of talks was unfortunate and called for an independent chairperson to facilitate future talks, adding: There should have been somebody here to chair all of this.

Power-sharing collapsed in January after Sinn Fein walked away from the Stormont executive. The party criticised their coalition counterparts, the Democratic Unionist Party, whose leader Arlene Foster is accused of badly mishandling a public scheme which has cost taxpayers 480 million.

Fresh elections were called for 2 March in a bid to elect a new government willing to return to power-sharing. However, Sinn Fein saw a surge of support in the polls and were returned just one seat short of the DUPs majority. Now stronger than ever, concerns have been raised that Sinn Fein may continue to refuse to return to the executive, seeing the election as a vote of support in their decision to refuse to power-share previously.

Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Show all 14 1 /14 Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Enda Craig, a member of the Loughs Agency Advisory Forum, holds a map of Lough Foyle in Moville, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Oyster farmer William Lynch puts on his wellington boots on his oyster farm on Lough Foyle in Culmore, Northern Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Women walk along the shores of Carlingford Lough with Northern Ireland seen across the lough in Carlingford Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A poster hanging on a wall of a house reads: "No to the ferry", referring to a proposed new car ferry that would run from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland through Carlingford Lough in Greencastle Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Skipper Shay Fitzpatrick (L) and boat owner Brian Cunningham navigate out of Warrenpoint harbour into Carlingford Lough in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A woman with flowers walks past an old fuel station in Carlingford, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A boat is seen at sunset on Carlingford Lough in Greenore, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A mandries off after swimming in Carlingford Lough in Omeath, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A derelict house is seen on the shore of Carlingford Lough in Omeath, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Skipper Shay Fitzpatrick dredges mussels from Carlingford Lough in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Bagged-up farmed oysters at a cleaning facility to get them ready for overseas shipping in Moville, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A man walks his dog in matching hi-vis outfits on Carlingford Lough in Greenore, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland Carlingford Lough and in the distance Northern Ireland are seen at sunset from Omeath, Ireland Reuters Loughs, Brexit and fishermen in Northern Ireland A sign that reads: 'In 1721 nothing happened here' is seen on the shores of Carlingford Lough in Carlingford, Ireland Reuters

In addition, DUP leader and former First Minister Arlene Foster continues to refuse to step aside while an independent inquiry can be carried out into allegations surrounding her involvement in the scheme. Sinn Fein has demanded she step down, accusing her and the party of arrogance. However, the DUP has insisted Ms Foster has done nothing wrong and say Sinn Fein are merely trying to capitalise on unionist weakness in order to score points and undermine their cause.

The parties have less than two weeks to reach a decision and announce if they will be nominating a First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Under power-sharing rules, both nationalist and unionist politicians must share power at all times in order to Stormont to stand.

Failure to agree to a return of the institutions would see Northern Ireland ruled directly from London for the first time in a decade.

Ms Foster told the Belfast Telegraph she and her party colleagues are very mindful that the pending deadline for resolution is very tight.
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The Prime Minister has rejected Sinn Feins call for a referendum on joining Northern Ireland with the Republic as soon as possible.

Michelle ONeill, the republican partys leader, said on Monday that Brexit would be a disaster for the province and that a referendum on a united Ireland could be one way of bypassing its effects.

Responding to the call on Tuesday Theresa May told the House of Commons: The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has looked at this issue. It is not right to have a border poll at this stage.

Recommended Sinn Fein calls for referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the UK

What we should all be focusing on is bringing the parties together to ensure that we can continue to see the devolved administration in Northern Ireland working, as it has done, in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland.

We want to see that devolved administration being formed and that is what all the parties should be looking for at the moment.

Nigel Dodds of the DUP, who raised the issue in the House of Commons, said that such a vote would add to the uncertainty and division and claimed that such a call is outside the terms of the Belfast Agreement.

Ms O'Neill, who replaced Martin McGuinness as Sinn Fein's leader in the Northern Ireland Assembly in January of this year, said: Brexit will be a disaster for the economy, and a disaster for the people of Ireland.

A referendum on Irish unity has to happen as soon a possible.

Sinn Feins intervention came hours after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a referendum on Scottish independence  arguing that the Scottish people should be given a choice on Theresa Mays final Brexit deal.

Like Scotland, Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union in the referendum lst year. The result in Northern Ireland was 56 per cent for Remain compared to 44 per cent for Leave.

The province however faces being dragged out of the EU with the rest of the UK. The effects of Brexit could also be more dramatic on Northern Ireland: Ms May has not explicitly ruled out a hard border with the Republic under the coming new arrangements, though she has said she does not want one.

 Sinn Fein calls for referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the UK as soon as possible

Opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of people in Northern Ireland want to remain a part of the UK, though none has been conducted this year.

An Ipsos MORI poll from September showed that just 22 per cent of voters supported a united Ireland while 63 per cent wanted to stay in the UK.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

Sinn Fein, the largest Irish republican party, made major gains in last weeks Northern Ireland Assembly elections. It now has 27 seats in the Assembly, just one behind the largest party, the unionist DUP.

The possibility of a referendum on a united Ireland was included in the Good Friday Agreement and the British Government is committed to accepting the result of such a referendum.
KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Tuesday broke ground for the construction of a China-funded national road in southwestern Kampong Speu province.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Xiong Bo presided over the groundbreaking ceremony, which was attended by some 5,000 people.

According to a report by Cambodian Transport Minister Sun Chanthol, the construction of the National Road 51 in the length of 37.9 km was made under the concessional loan of 40.88 million U.S. dollars from the Chinese government.

The 12-meter-wide road connects the National Road 5 to the National Road 4, he said, adding that the China Road and Bridge Corporation undertakes the project which is expected to be completed in March 2020.

Sar Kheng expressed his profound thanks to the government and people of China for having provided grant aid, non-interest loan, and concessional loan to Cambodia for socio-economic development.

"Chinese assistance has greatly contributed to rehabilitating and developing transport infrastructure which is an essential element to boost economic growth and to reduce poverty in Cambodia," he said.

He added that since 2004, China has provided more than 2 billion U.S. dollars in grant aid and concessional loans to Cambodia for the rehabilitation and development of roads, bridges, and ports.

Ambassador Xiong was confident that the road would help facilitate travel and goods transport when it is constructed.

"China is very pleased to increase cooperation with Cambodia, especially under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative," he said.
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Boris Johnson has backed a campaign for a new 100 million royal yacht, saying the move would attract overwhelmingly support.

In a debate on the Budget last night the Foreign Secretary said the new yacht, to replace the Britannia which was decommissioned 20 years ago, would be considered by the government but it would have to be funded by private donations.

He said: It is my view that it would indeed add greatly to the soft power of this country, a soft power which is already very considerable.

The new Britannia should not be a call on the taxpayer, if it can be done privately I am sure it would attract overwhelming support.

This is the first time a government minister has expressed support for a boat following a campaign by the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Johnson had previously told a committee of MPs that regretfully a new royal yacht was not a government priority last October.

But Tory MP Jake Berry, who has been campaigning for a new yacht for months, said the new vessel would act as a floating trade mission to be used by industry around the globe in the interests of our nation.

He said: The Foreign Secretary has confirmed conversations I have been having with the Government.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

The Government is finally beginning to recognise the value a new royal yacht can make to Britain and to her trading around the world after Brexit.

But others are less impressed with the idea.

Republic, the campaign group calling for an end to the monarchy, tweeted that it was a collossal waste of money.

Republics CEO, Graham Smith, said the idea should have been sunk before it was ever floated.
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The SNP has warned Theresa May not to slam the brakes on a second independence referendum amid a growing belief the Prime Minister will try to delay it until after Brexit.

Ms May has been careful not to reject a fresh referendum, a move which would be likely to rouse support for independence. But ministers fear having the poll during EU exit negotiations would undermine the UK's position.

However, deputy leader Angus Robertson insisted the SNP was right to press for the vote as early as autumn next year  rather than see the prime minister drive us off a Brexit cliff".

I just cannot see how a democratically elected UK government will say to a democratically elected Scottish government, which was elected on a mandate to hold a referendum, 'one's not going to allow a democratic vote', Mr Robertson told BBC Newsnight.

We have two options. One is to sit in the back of the Tory Brexit bus, shut up, say nothing, and see the prime minister drive us off a Brexit cliff, or we have the opportunity of the people of Scotland having the power in their hands in a referendum about our country's future.

Ms May will be under pressure to reveal her stance on an early second referendum  which Westminster has the power to block  when she delivers a statement on last weeks EU summit later today.

However, Number 10 has signalled she will not state her position until after the Scottish Parliament has voted for the referendum, probably next Tuesday.

One Government source told The Times that the Prime Minister would not allow a referendum during the perilous exit negotiations with the EU.

The prime minister has said this would mean a vote while she was negotiating Brexit and I think that can be taken pretty clearly as a message that this timing is completely unacceptable. It would be irresponsible to agree to it and we won't, the source said.

Last night MPs and Lords passed the Article 50 bill, giving Ms May the power to trigger Brexit  but her victory was overshadowed by Ms Sturgeon's shock demand for a plebiscite hours before.

Although the SNP First Minister successfully ambushed Number 10 with the move, what happens next is out of her hands.

The Government will also undoubtedly come under huge pressure from its MPs and Brexit-backing papers not to allow preparations for a second referendum to undermine the negotiations.

Formal negotiations over the timing will not begin until after next weeks vote at Holyrood, when the Scottish Greens will give the SNP the majority it needs to approve another independence vote.

Meanwhile, Fiona Hyslop, the SNPs culture minister, denied that an independent Scotland would necessarily be forced to adopt the euro.

She insisted it would depend on whether independence came before or after Brexit, telling the BBC Radio Fours Today programme: You are pre-empting the position we may find ourselves in.

However, the EU has restated its position that Scotland would be treated as a new member, if it applied to join  and new members are required to use the single currency.

Scotland voted by 62 per cent to 38 per cent in favour of Remain, while the UK as a whole voted to leave by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
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Theresa May will not be joining EU leaders at their 60th birthday celebrations  but has insisted her absence is not a snub.

The Prime Minister has decided not to travel to Rome at the end of next week for the landmark event to mark 60 years since the birth of the European project.

The extraordinary European Council will take place just days before Ms May finally triggers Article 50, to kick-start the negotiations on Britains UK exit.

Recommended Everything you need to know once the Brexit process is triggered

But her official spokesman said he did not expect Britain to be represented at all when the other 27 EU leaders mark the anniversary of the signing of the founding Treaty of Rome.

He said: It was agreed between them that the Prime Minister wont be attending. She was clear that she wished the EU well. There were very cordial conversations

Asked why Ms May would not be attending, the spokesman added: The EU 27 are moving in one direction, the British public voted to go in another direction.

But asked if - given the event will be a celebration of 60 years of working together - her decision was a snub, the spokesman insisted there was a widespread understanding of why Britain should stay away.

Some figures in Brussels had feared the anniversary event could be marred by the invoking of the formal mechanism to withdraw Britain from the EU, now expected on March 27.

The occasion will also be marked by a March for Europe, a demonstration by EU citizens to show their support for the European project and to call for renewed unity across Europe.

The newly-established group British in Italy (BiI) will take part, underlining its campaign to retain the rights which Britons have as EU citizens once Britain leaves the EU.

BiI is mobilising with other groups of Britons living in Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg to lobby politicians to strengthen EU foreign, security, economic and social policies.
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Theresa May faces a fresh Budget storm after it emerged that 320m announced to create thousands of places at her flagship grammar schools will only cover a fraction of the cost of setting them up.

Treasury officials admitted to The Independent that money set out in the Budget will not be enough to pay for the 70,000 free school places promised by the Prime Minister.

Ms May was so proud of the pledge to create the places at 140 new schools, that she chose to announce it personally the day before Chancellor Philip Hammonds Budget statement.

But an analysis of existing government data shows the 320m will only deliver a meagre 13,000 places by 2020, with additional money earmarked for the next parliament still only creating just over half of the promised 70,000.

Labour frontbenchers who uncovered the anomaly claimed it pointed to broken promises in the Budget, but even some nervous Conservative MPs last night urged the Government to be clear how they will make up the funding gap.

It follows an earlier row over the Budget plan to hike National Insurance contributions, breaking a Tory manifesto pledge, which left Ms May facing a backbench rebellion and urgently signalling extra measures to mitigate the impact  some Tories expect the NICs rise to be quietly ditched later on.

On the Tuesday before Budget day the Prime Minister visited a classroom to proudly announce new cash for the 70,000 free schools places.

 Budget 2017: Seven key points

It is widely expected that many of new spots would deliver a selective education, the expansion of which the Prime Minister has made a cornerstone of her drive to boost social mobility.

But information previously given by the Department for Education to the National Audit Office indicates it costs 24,600 to create a new free school place, at which level the 320m promised would only pay for 13,008 places.

Treasury officials said money set aside in the next parliament for the year 2021/22 would go further to meet the pledge, but even with that years extra 655m, only 42,073 places could be delivered.

Recommended Grammar schools to offer lower pass marks to poorer pupils

They accepted that further funding would have to be set out in later spending rounds for the pledge to be fulfilled.

A Department for Education spokesman also added: The 320m announced at the Budget is the amount committed in this parliament, up to the 2020-21 financial year. The total budget required for opening these schools will be set out at a later date."

He added that the free schools programme is "demand-led" so it is not possible to accurately predict the location, size or type of schools for which the department would receive applications.

Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said: This is yet another pledge that simply wont be met. The money the Chancellor has allocated can only provide a small fraction of the places the Prime Minister promised.

The Government is sinking greater sums of taxpayers money into a free schools programme that is over budget, behind time, and cant provide the places that are needed.

She added: This Budget was a chance for the Government to meet their election pledge to protect the funding that follows every child but instead it is set to be a Budget of broken promises.

One Tory MP told The Independent it was his understanding that the rest of the money could be met from the existing schools capital budget, raising the prospect of money that might pay for improvements to state comprehensives being siphoned off to build grammars.

 Theresa May defends grammar school plans

Another senior Conservative figure said: We need to be clear where the money is coming. If you are going to launch a whole new policy area it diverts attention away from existing areas and it diverts money away from a system that is already under immense pressure.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said: We have a growing population and there is going to be an increasing need for new school places.

Whether they are found through free schools or existing schools expanding, the money will have to be found.

A Dept for Education spokesperson said: Free schools are playing a vital role in creating more good school places and are 29 per cent cheaper to build than schools built under the previous programme.

The 320m announced at the Budget is the amount committed in this Parliament, up to the 2020-21 financial year. The total budget required for opening these schools will be set out at a later date."

In the 24 hours following last Wednesdays Budget statement, Tory MPs took to the airwaves to raise concerns about Mr Hammonds plan to raise NICs paid by self-employed workers.

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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. 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Enough Tories fearing the measure targeted our people  entrepreneurs and small business owners  spoke out, that Ms May used a press conference in Brussels on Thursday to signal potential concessions.

She said the changes would not be brought in till the autumn and indicated negative impacts could be mitigated following two papers due out over the summer.

Business minister Margot James appeared to prepare the ground for a U-turn by claiming the tax hike had merely been mooted by the Chancellor in his Budget speech, and then said in the Commons on Tuesday that the policy is under review.

Downing Street later said there was no change in the position set out by Ms May in Brussels at the end of last week.

Meanwhile, the Governments Budget pledge to protect Englands pubs by giving them a 1,000 business rates discount has been described as a stay of execution after industry estimates suggested thousands of businesses would get no help at all.

EU rules restrict state aid to 174,000 per business over three years and the British Beer and Pub Association said it meant larger pub-owning companies with managed premises might not be able to receive the business rates discount, or would be eligible only for part of it.
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Theresa May is unlikely to allow Nicola Sturgeon to hold a second Scottish independence referendum until after Brexit takes place, it has been reported.

Yesterday's surprise announcement by the Scottish First Minister of her intention to hold another vote came hours before the House of Commons passed a bill allowing Theresa May to trigger Article 50, the mechanism by which the UK will leave the EU.

Announcing her intention to trigger the poll, Ms Sturgeon said the Westminster Government had "not moved even an inch in pursuit of compromise and agreement" with Holyrood over Brexit and that even a good deal would be "significantly inferior" to the status quo.

 Theresa May accuses SNP of playing a 'game' with second referendum

The First Minister said the vote had to be held between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019  before it was "too late" but after "the terms of Brexit are known".

However, the UK Parliament must authorise any such poll  meaning Ms Sturgeon's call could be blocked by Ms May, who attacked the move, accusing her Scottish counterpart of playing "games" and the SNP of having "tunnel vision".

It is thought to be extremely unlikely that Downing Street would block the referendum altogether, but reports on Tuesday morning suggested the referendum, which requires the approval of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster, would not come before the UK leaves the European Union.

The BBC's Today programme reported Ms May was "unlikely" to allow it before then, while the Daily Telegraph cited sources close to the Prime Minister as saying she would not grant authority to hold the vote until several months after Brexit.
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Police have interviewed a Tory MP under caution for six hours over election expenses amid a growing s***storm over wider allegations relating to the partys 2015 general election spending.

Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP for South Thanet, who defeated the then Ukip leader Nigel Farage and comedian Al Murray at the election in 2015, reportedly spent several hours speaking to police about their investigation into his seat.

According to the Telegraph, police would not comment on Mr Mackinlays interview but added: The Kent Police investigation into this complex matter is ongoing and officers continue to follow lines of inquiry.

Therefore it would not be appropriate to comment further. Officers from Kent Police continue to work with the Electoral Commission as the investigation continues.

It comes after the Electoral Commission opened a probe following an investigation by Channel 4 News that found the Conservatives transported busloads of volunteers to marginal seats to aide with the campaigning, but that the expenses, including travel and accommodation costs, were not registered on local spending reports.

The so-called Battlebus 2015 tour saw Tory activists driven to 29 marginal seats in the days before the general election. It has been reported that Downing Street officials have been deeply worried about the ongoing police investigation into the seats of more than a dozen MPs. If the election result in a seat is declared void, a by-election could be triggered.

A Conservative spokesman repeated the line that party HQ is cooperating with the ongoing investigations.

It also came as leaked emails, seen by Sky News, claimed MP Karl McCartney, whose seat is one of over a dozen being investigated by police, wrote to the party chairman Patrick McLoughlin expressing dissatisfaction over the handling of the s***storm.

He added: We didnt create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters) did and I dont see their professional reputations being trashed in the media.

He wrote that his colleagues feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend for themselves.

He added: At what stage do you think you [the party] might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didnt create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ did, and I dont see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.

The initial cock-ups, strategy and ineptitude with regard to this issue that has so negatively impacted our: lives, standing in our communities, standing amongst colleagues, families and our regard for particular parts of the party centrally, and were all of CCHQs making  need to stop.

We are the ones who are now (and since the beginning as individuals have been) in the media spotlight and it might have been a little more reassuring and collegiate if the powers that be in our party perhaps tried to be a little bit more supportive and less interested in covering their own backsides.
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Replacing laws and regulations currently provided by Brussels will require seven separate Brexit bills covering specific sectors of government and the wider economy.

A list of provisional legislation, leaked to The Times, shows separate bills having been prepared on immigration, tax, agriculture, trade and customs regimes, fisheries, data protection and sanctions.

Theresa Mays plans for a great repeal bill, transposing EU law into UK law are expected to appear in this years Queens speech, but separate acts of parliament will increase the potential for MPs and peers to shape the UKs post Brexit settlement.

A further six bills could also be required, on EU migrant benefits, reciprocal healthcare arrangements, road freight, nuclear safeguards, emissions trading and the redistributing of funds from UK-based EU-funded projects to specific departments.

In most cases, the legislation will need to be in place by the time the UK leaves the European Union, which is expected to have occurred by March 2019.
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Justice Department lawyers appointed by Barack Obama have left their jobs in unprecedented numbers to join the fight against Donald Trumps presidency.

And the total could increase after the Trump administration asked all remaining 46 attorneys selected by the former President to resign on Friday.

Many Obama-era lawyers are keeping in touch, but deny allegations from Republicans that the former President is behind resistance efforts.

When Johnathan Smith resigned from the US Justice Department on Inauguration Day, he looked forward to spending time with his infant son, but that plan unravelled a week later when Mr Trump unveiled his explosive foreign travel ban.

Within two weeks, Mr Smith had a new job as legal director of civil rights group Muslim Advocates and was drafting briefs for a successful court challenge to the ban, joining other former top Obama administration lawyers now fighting the billionaire.

It is not surprising that Mr Smith and some of his colleagues, political appointees of Mr Obama, would leave the Justice Department now led by Republicans. What is unusual is how fast they have signed up to be President Trump adversaries.

Some Republican lawyers say they were less hasty in moving into oppositional roles post-election. George Terwilliger, a senior Justice Department official under President George HW Bush, described the Obama lawyers actions as unprecedented to my memory  and really bad form.

One reason for the lawyers quick moves, some of them said, was Mr Trumps aggressive use of executive authority from day one, which was guaranteed to attract court challenges.

Mr Obama faced legal fights over executive power and some of his challengers were formerly lawyers for President George W Bush, over issues such as immigration and Obamacare. But those came later in his presidency.

Besides Mr Smith, other lawyers who have jumped into the fray include former Attorney General Eric Holder, who is advising Californias legislature on challenging Mr Trump over immigration, environmental regulations and healthcare; and former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, who is helping Hawaii contest Mr Trumps revised travel ban.

 Saturday Night Live Alec Baldwin returns as Donald Trump for Independence Day spoof

Some of the lawyers credit their rapid transition to the 70-year-olds hardline positions on key issues and to ethical concerns about his presidency and business interests.

Theres a unique threat to our democracy and Constitution that we see in the assault the president is mounting on the Muslim community, said Mr Smith, who worked on religious discrimination issues at the Justice Department.

Norman Eisen, who was Mr Obamas top ethics lawyer and later ambassador to the Czech Republic, had expected to focus on his work at a think tank after Mr Trumps election. But instead, he said, the ethics emergency of constitutional dimensions has galvanised me back into my initial Obama role.

Mr Eisen is now also chairing Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group he co-founded. The group has already sued Trump over alleged ethics violations.

New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Show all 27 1 /27 New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People gather for evening prayer at a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Yemeni business owner Musa closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty

Other appointees of Mr Obama taking on the current President include former White House lawyer Ian Bassin who has founded United to Protect Democracy, a new group probing Mr Trump over ethics; and James Cadogan, who worked with Mr Smith at the Justice Department, and is now at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, a civil rights group already clashing with the new administration.

Some career government lawyers, who are not political appointees and normally do not resign in power shifts, have also resigned to oppose Mr Trump. One is Sharon McGowan, who worked on LGBT issues at the Justice Department.

On Inauguration Day, she was offered a job as director of strategy at Lambda Legal, an LGBT advocacy group. Ms McGowan said she decided to leave Justice when Mr Trump named Jeff Sessions, a hardline conservative Alabama senator, to be attorney general.

That was a game-changer, she said. I knew there would be no chance for me to preserve what Ive been working on so hard.

Additional reporting by Reuters
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A watchdog to monitor Donald Trumps presidency has been set up by former members of Barack Obama's administration.

American Oversight will seek to fill the void and hold the new Republican government to account by monitoring their successors' work.

Stressing that it is a nonpartisan organisation, it has said it will hold officials to account regardless of party affiliation and force the administration to obey the law.

It was founded by Austin Evers, a State Department lawyer in Mr Obama's administration, and Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who previously worked for former Vice President Joe Biden.

We are conducting oversight because Congress wont. We are using tools available to American citizens to investigate instances of fraud, corruption, violation of ethics rules, you name it. If theres something that Congress should be investigating, we will be, executive director Mr Evers told Fox News.

The legal watchdog was created in response to what the group sees as a lack of action by Congress to oversee the administrations responsibilities.

There's a perfect storm for corruption and scandal brewing in the Trump administration. And Congress has completely abdicated its responsibility to provide oversightor even vet high-ranking nominees, the group said on its website.

Weve seen more ethics violations and conflicts of interest across the administration since Inauguration Day than in all eight years of the Obama administration. And this misconduct doesnt end with President Trump  it starts there.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The group is not the first to pledge to hold Mr Trump accountable.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Republican leader after he implemented a travel ban blocking citizens for seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.

As a result of the legal action, the ban was halted and eventually overturned by the courts.

Mr has since instated a revised order, which the ACLU has also vowed to fight.
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A group of Canadian volunteers was prevented from entering the US to clean up storm-damaged homes because border guards feared they would be taking American jobs.

The 12-strong team from the Rehoboth United Reformed Church in Hamilton, Ontario, had planned to help neighbourhoods in New Jersey which remain affected by 2012's Hurricane Sandy.

The group's leader, Erik Hoeksema, admitted he had failed to ensure documents explaining the visit were sent ahead of his arrival.

But he told CBC News he managed to have two letters faxed from the American church that was hosting them, making it clear that they were there for "neighbourhood cleanups".

The volunteers were nonetheless denied entry to the US.

A spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stressed that "visitors intending to perform work for humanitarian purposes must provide documentation in advance to the port where they are seeking admission to the US".

In a Facebook post, Mr Hoeksema said: "This is an unfortunate incident, and the sad part is we're not the ones who lose in this. The (American) people who we were going to help miss out. As is always the case, it's the poorest neighbourhoods that have to suffer."

Below his post he shared a message from Seth Kaper-Dale, the pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park in New Jersey, where Mr Hoeksema's group was heading.

Mr Kaper-Dale claimed the Canadians were told that "by coming here they were stealing American jobs".

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

In a later post Mr Hoeksema said the border guards had been "kind".

The CBP spokesman told The Independent: "[CBP's] primary mission is to prevent the entry of terrorists and their weapons into the US, while facilitating the legitimate flow of trade and travel over the border.

"CBP is also responsible for enforcing US laws and regulations that safeguard American industry, including laws that restrict employment of foreign visitors.

"International visitors intending to perform work for humanitarian purposes must provide documentation in advance to the port where they are seeking admission to the US.

"That should include a letter from the municipality stating what the arriving group will be doing.

"In this case, CBP attempted to assist the group, but ultimately the group was unable to obtain the proper documentation to support this visit."
SEOUL, March 14 (Xinhua) -- South Korean prosecutors plan to summon ousted President Park Geun-hye over the corruption scandal that led to her impeachment, according to local media reports on Tuesday.

Park will be notified on Wednesday of when she will be summoned, an unnamed official of a special investigation team was quoted as saying.

The team, which has reviewed the corruption scandal since last week, will summon Park as a criminal suspect.

The constitutional court unanimously upheld the motion to impeach Park on Friday. Park became the first South Korean leader to be ousted through impeachment.

Park left the presidential Blue House on Sunday night for her private home in southern district of Seoul.

Special prosecutors had independently investigated the scandal embroiling Park and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil by the end of February. Since then, state prosecutors had reviewed the case.

Prosecutors have identified Park as an accomplice to Choi for multiple charges including bribery.
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A powerful storm forecast to strike the north east of the US has delayed the first meeting between Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the meeting, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed until Friday due to the coming storm which is due to sweep down from the northern Atlantic.

Washington DC is bracing itself for up to eight inches of snow, which is due to start on Monday evening, while New York could see as much as 20 inches  breaking a record for this time of year.

The meeting was to be the first between the two leaders since Mr Trump was elected in November.

Their itinerary was set to include discussions on Nato, Isis and the Ukraine conflict and a joint press conference.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut with several other states told to be on their guard.

The weather services office near Philadelphia has called the storm life-threatening and warned people to shelter in place.

In total 50 million people along the Eastern Seaboard are set to be affected by the storm and temperatures will be 15 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker urged people to consider working from home if they could.

He said: "When this thing hits, it's going to hit hard and it's going to put a ton of snow on the ground in a hurry.

Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Storm Jonas from space This image taken by NOAA's GOES-East satellite on 22 January and released by NASA shows a winter snowstorm over the east coast of the United States. NOAA GOES Project/NASA via AP Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Washington Monument covered in snow A jogger runs past the Washington Monument as snow falls in Washington DC. The US capital is expected to be one of the worst affected areas during the blizzard conditions. Win McNamee/Getty Images Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Record snowfall disrupts traffic Snow slows down traffic on Interstate 40 in Nashville, Tennessee. At least seven people have been killed in traffic accidents due to the bad weather. Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean via AP Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Washington DC faces worst of the snowfall A member of the US Secret Service stands guard covered in newly fallen snow outside the White House. Win McNamee/Getty Images Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Supermarkets stripped of essentials Supermarket shelves were left bare as millions of Americans hunkered down for a winter storm expected to dump historic amounts of snow in the eastern United States. NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures New York braces for blizzards A New York City police officer of the 20th District use snow blowers to clean the pavements at West 81st street on January 23 2016 in New York City. Astrid Riecken/Getty Images Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Snow covers US capital A pedestrian crosses the street in the Chinatown area of Washington DC. Some areas of the Washington district are expected to see more than 100cm of snowfall. Getty Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Snow covers US capital Workers shovel snow on a sidewalk in Washington DC. The storm could potentially be the largest in the capitals history and will probably rank in the top five in terms of snow accumulation. Getty Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Blizzard hits North Carolina NCDOT snow plows clear the roadway along Interstate 85 in Greensborough, North Carolina. More than 130,000 people are without power across the South East, with 125,000 of these in the Carolinas. Lance King/Getty Images Blizzard hits US east coast - in pictures Snow covers the White House US Secret Service Agents stand guard outside the White House during a snowstorm in downtown Washington DC MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images

"It's going to snow hard and fast for a long period of time. It will create whiteout conditions".

Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny was also forced to cancel several speaking engagements in Washington DC which were the focal point of his week-long US tour.

He is now expected to wait out the storm in Boston.

Airlines have already cancelled more than 4,000 flights, according to tracking service FlightAware.com.

The airports with the most cancellations were Newark International Airport in New Jersey and Boston Logan International Airport.

 Monster blizzard kills 10 in New York state

American Airlines cancelled all flights into New York's three metropolitan area airports, Newark, LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport and JetBlue Airways reported extensive cancellations.

New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, cancelled public school sessions for Tuesday in anticipation of the storm.

The storm comes a week after the region saw temperatures climb past 15C in many places. Spring officially starts on 20 March.

It comes at the end of an unusually mild winter along the East Coast with below-normal snowfalls in cities such as New York and Washington DC.

Boston was braced for up to a foot (30 cm) of snow, which forecasters warned would fall quickly during the storm's expected peak on Tuesday, making travel dangerous.

"During its height we could see snowfall rates of 1 to 3 inches (2.5-7.6 cm), even up to 4 inches (10 cm) per hour," said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Winds were forecast to gust up to 60 mph (100 km per hour) in places, with the potential to cause power outages and coastal flooding.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey prepared hundreds of pieces of snow equipment at the three major New York area airports. Thousands of tonnes of salt and sand were prepared for airport roads, parking lots, bridges and tunnels.

Despite this Mr Trump has insisted his government is fully prepared for the blizzard.

Additional reporting by agencies
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The CIA can now kill potential terror suspects with drone strikes after being granted new powers by President Donald Trump, according to a new report.

The new authority  said to have been granted shortly after Mr Trumps inauguration  takes drone strikes out of the sole control of the military, sparking fears about accountability.

Under the drone policy of the Obama administration, the CIA could find a suspect, but the armed forces would carry out the actual strike.

Unlike the Pentagon, the CIA does not need to disclose drone strikes  or any resulting civilian casualties.

Under the intelligence agencys new powers, a high-level al-Qaeda leader in Syria, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri was killed in Syria in February, unnamed officials told the Wall Street Journal.

They said the CIAs new powers could likely be used outside of Syria as well.

The CIA, the White House, and the US Department of Defence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

There are a lot of problems with the drone program and the targeted killing program, but the CIA should be out of the business of ordering lethal strikes, said the deputy director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, Christopher Anders.

He said that while the CIA may have a role in determining the location of a strike, "that decision on whether to strike or not to strike and that order should be coming from through the military chain of command".

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The United States was the first to use unmanned aircraft fitted with missiles to kill militant suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Strikes by missile-armed Predator and Reaper drones against targets overseas began under former President George W Bush and proliferated under Mr Obama.

During the Obama administration 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, compared to 57 strikes under George W Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Critics of the targeted drone program question whether the strikes create more militants than they kill. They cite the spread of jihadist organisations and militant attacks throughout the world as evidence that targeted killings may be exacerbating the problem.

In July, the US government accepted responsibility for inadvertently killing up to 116 civilians in strikes in countries where America is not at war. That number is a fraction of those recorded by human rights organisations.
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The Girl Guides of Canada will stop organising trips to America, because it is concerned that some of their members will be refused entry at the border because of Donald Trump's travel restrictions.

Spokeswoman Sarah Kiriliuks said it spoke to the organisation's "commitment to inclusivity.

"We just want to make sure that no girl gets left behind, she said, adding that its membership was diverse and leaders were worried that some girls could be stopped from travelling into the US.

A nationally sponsored trip to a California camp that was scheduled for this summer will now take place elsewhere and the group is encouraging local leaders to consider domestic trips instead of heading south of the border.

New travel arrangements to the US were banned until further notice, the organisation said on its website.

"While the United States is a frequent destination for Guiding trips, the ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain," it said. "This was a very difficult decision to make. We hope that members will appreciate this reflects our commitment to inclusivity and equal opportunities for all girls and women."

Canadian schools have expressed similar concerns about how foreign-born students will be treated on trips to the US following the travel ban.

In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London An image of President Donald Trump is seen on a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A view of the skywriting word reading 'Trump' as thousands rally in support of equal rights in Sydney, New South Wales EPA In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome People shout and hold signs during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A protester holds a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille A placard ready 'Pussy grabs back' is attached to the handle bar of a bike during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A young Thai girl holds a "women's rights are human rights" sign at Roadhouse BBQ restaurant where many of the Bangkok Womens March participants gathered in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A Thai woman takes a photo of a "hate is not great" sign at the women's solidarity gathering in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok American expats and travellers gather with the international community in Bangkok at the Roadhouse BBQ restaurant to stand in solidarity in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protetesters gather outside The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Women's March at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Protestors hold placards reading 'My body my choice, my vote my voice' during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome A person holds a sign during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activist Sarah Annay Williamson holds a placard and shouts slogan during the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activists participate in the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A Women's March placards are rested on a bench outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A women carries her placard ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila Women protesters shout slogans while displaying placards during a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Protesters take part in the Melbourne rally to protest against the Trump Inauguration in Melbourne, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters take part in the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Womens march on Melbourne protestors marching during a rally where rights groups marched in solidarity with Americans to speak out against misogyny, bigotry and hatred Rex In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau, Macau. The Women's March originated in Washington DC but soon spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila A mother carries her son as they join a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney An infant is held up at a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman attends a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman expresses her Anti-Trump views in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydeney Protesters demonstrate against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia. The marches in Australia were organised to show solidarity with those marching on Washington DC and around the world in defense of women's rights and human rights Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters march from The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square towards Trafalgar Square during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters carrying banners take part in the Women's March on London, as they stand in Trafalgar Square, in central London Reuters

Jim Cambridge, superintendent of the Sooke School District in British Columbia, said a number of trips planned for sports, music and educational purposes in the coming months are being reconsidered.

The Greater Essex County school board in southwestern Ontario also decided to cancel a handful of trips.

Mr Trump is in the process of implementing a second version of his executive order banning travel from certain Muslim-majority countries.

Replacing an earlier version that was blocked by federal judges, it will exclude Iraq from the blacklisted countries, but continues to block entry to the US for citizens of Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya and Yemen, for 90 days.

It will also suspend the resettlement of refugees for 120 days

Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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A former high school teacher has avoided a prison sentence after she admitted having sex with two teenage pupils.

Haeli Wey had sex with one 17-year-old boy more than 10 times in two months, following a trip with his family to Africa in 2015.

The 28-year-old became involved with the second boy during a summer camping trip the same year, the New York Daily News reported, and suggested he bring a hammock on their hike.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

She has now been sentenced to 10 years' probation and 200 hours' community service. She will not have to register as a sex offender.

Wey's lawyer, Larry Sauer, told Fox 7 in Austin: "The judge found that he had enough evidence to find her guilty but did not and placed her on a 10-year deferred adjudication probation.

"Basically it means that as long as she completes everything without any problems then the case will be dismissed and she will never have been convicted of a felony.

"Since this has gotten so much attention it's ... wearing on her. But I think she's going to be fine."

If Wey, of Texas, breaches the terms of her probation she could face up to 20 years in prison, however.

She voluntarily surrendered her teaching certificate, it was reported.

Wey was arrested in December 2015 and pleaded guilty to improper relationships in February this year.
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The top US Marine on Tuesday addressed the investigation into Corps members sharing nude photos of female Marines without their consent.

Male service members have been accused of sharing the images along with death threats and racist memes in a so-called "private" Facebook group of more than 30,000 members. Last week, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that more than two dozen women on active duty have been identified by their full name and military duty station in photographs posted on the Facebook page.

The Marine Corps I have served for over 40 years has a problem, General Robert Neller told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

The general asked each of the 15,000 active-duty female Marines to trust him while he leads the investigation into the scandal. I know what you do for our Corps, for our team and to contribute, he said, he then addressed the Male service members. I need you to ask yourself how much more do the females of our Corps have to do to be accepted.

But some members of the Senate Armed Services Committee criticised the generals testimony, the Associated Press reports, saying more needs to be done enough to combat sexual assault and harassment amid years of complaints.

"This committee has heard these kinds of statements before," Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said at the hearing. "It's hard to believe something is really going to be done. Why should we believe it's going to be different this time than it has in the past?"

Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Show all 18 1 /18 Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters gather outside the White House at the finish of the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds attended the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters hold up signage near the Washington Monument during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Drew Angerer/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters gather during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. The march is expected to draw thousands from across the country to protest newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters arrive at the Capital South Metro station for the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights. Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters arrive on the platform at the Capital South Metro station for the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights. Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Demonstrators protest during the Women's March along Pennsylvania Avenue January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: Protesters attend the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights. Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A marcher holds a sign during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. The march is expected to draw thousands from across the country to protest newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A woman chants while attending the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Mario Tama/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters attend the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Mario Tama/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters march in Washington, DC, during the Women's March on January 21, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded US cities Saturday in a day of women's rights protests to mark President Donald Trump's first full day in office. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A protester gestures toward the White House on the Ellipse near the South Lawn of the White House during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Drew Angerer/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A protester, holding a Donald Trump doll wearing a pink cap, marches in Washington, DC, during the Womens March on January 21, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded US cities Saturday in a day of women's rights protests to mark President Donald Trump's first full day in office. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters take to the National Mall to demonstrate against the presidency of Donald Trump Washington, DC on January 21, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters march during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Mario Tama/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Demonstrators gather on The Ellipse during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protester's signs are left near the White House during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Mario Tama/Getty

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, echoed her colleague's concerns.

"When you say to us it's got to be different, that rings hollow," she said. "If we can't crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyber-hacking throughout our military? It is a serious problem when we have members of our military denigrating female Marines who will give their life for this country in the way they have with no response from leadership."

The acting Navy secretary, Sean Stackley, said the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the incident and that its tip line has received more than 50 complaints.

"This is a bell-ringer," he said, according to the AP. "We're not going to go backwards."

In the past, lawmakers have said that strengthening revenge pornography" laws would be illegal under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

CNN obtained one of the messages shared in the Marines United Facebook group, an anonymous member taunted the investigation:

It would be hilarious if one of these FBI or [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] f***s found their wife on here.
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A Texas politician introduced a bill that would see men who masturbated fined $100 (82) for committing an act against an unborn child.

Jessica Farrar created the Mens Right To Know Act to highlight how women are unfairly targeted by regulations in reproductive health care.

The legislation, which the Democrat introduced last week, would ensure men were penalised for ejaculating outside a vagina or a sanctioned medical clinic.

Ms Farrar said the bill, which imposes a 24-hour waiting period if a man wants a vasectomy or access to Viagra, mirrors real laws and restrictions faced by women in Texas.

Here is the bill in full:

SHORT TITLE. This chapter may be called the Mans Right to Know Act.

PURPOSE. The purpose of this chapter is to express the state s interest in promoting men s health; ensure Texas men experience safe and healthy elective vasectomies, Viagra utilizations, colonoscopies procedures, and men s health experiences; ensure a doctors right to invoke their personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs in refusing to perform an elective vasectomy or prescribe Viagra; and promote fully-abstinent sexual relations or occasional masturbatory emissions inside health care and medical facilities, as a means of the healthiest way to ensure mens health.

INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS. The Department of State Health Services shall create and distribute informational materials containing information reflecting the requirements and legislative intent in this Chapter. The Department shall entitle the information materials "A Mans Right to Know." The Department shall establish rules and procedures for the creation and distribution of the informational materials that exactly follow the rules and procedures of the informational booklet entitled "A Womans Right To Know." The booklet will contain scientific information that must be verified and supported by research that is recognized as medically accurate, objective, and complete by the National Institutes of Health and affiliated organizations. The booklet must contain medical information related to the benefits and concerns of a man seeking a vasectomy, Viagra prescription, or a colonoscopy. The booklet must contain artistic illustrations of each procedure.

PROHIBITED CAUSES OF ACTION. A cause of action may not arise, and damages may not be awarded, on behalf of any person based on the claim their doctor refused to perform a vasectomy procedure, prescribe Viagra, perform a colonoscopy, or withheld any other mens health procedure due to their personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs. This section may not be construed to eliminate any duty of a physician or other health care practitioner under any other applicable law.

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VIEWING PRINTED MATERIALS; HEARING VERBAL EXPLANATION. An attending physician must verbally review the informational booklet entitled "A Mans Right To Know" with every male patient seeking a vasectomy, Viagra prescription, or colonoscopy.

INFORMED CONSENT REQUIRED. A person may not perform an elective vasectomy, prescribe Viagra, or perform a colonoscopy procedure without the voluntary and informed consent of the man on whom the elective vasectomy or colonoscopy procedure is to be performed, or Viagra is to be prescribed.

VOLUNTARY AND INFORMED CONSENT. Consent to an elective vasectomy or colonoscopy procedure, or a prescription of Viagra is voluntary and informed only if at least 24 hours have passed since the initial health care consultation for the procedure or prescription.

HOSPITAL MASTURBATORY ASSISTANCE REGISTRY. The Department must establish and maintain a registry of private non-profit organizations and hospitals that register with the department to provide fully-abstinent encouragement counselling, supervising physicians for masturbatory emissions, and storage for the semen. Costs will be absorbed by the hospital or contributing private non-profits.

SONOGRAM ELECTION. An attending physician must administer a medically-unnecessary digital rectal exam and magnetic resonance imagining of the rectum before administering an elective vasectomy or colonoscopy procedure, or prescribing Viagra. This digital rectal exam and rectal sonogram must take place during the initial health care consultation before an elective vasectomy is performed, a prescription is given for Viagra, or a colonoscopy is performed.

Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Show all 18 1 /18 Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters gather outside the White House at the finish of the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds attended the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters hold up signage near the Washington Monument during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Drew Angerer/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters gather during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. The march is expected to draw thousands from across the country to protest newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters arrive at the Capital South Metro station for the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights. Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters arrive on the platform at the Capital South Metro station for the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights. Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Demonstrators protest during the Women's March along Pennsylvania Avenue January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: Protesters attend the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights. Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A marcher holds a sign during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. The march is expected to draw thousands from across the country to protest newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A woman chants while attending the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Mario Tama/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters attend the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Mario Tama/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters march in Washington, DC, during the Women's March on January 21, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded US cities Saturday in a day of women's rights protests to mark President Donald Trump's first full day in office. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A protester gestures toward the White House on the Ellipse near the South Lawn of the White House during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Drew Angerer/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington A protester, holding a Donald Trump doll wearing a pink cap, marches in Washington, DC, during the Womens March on January 21, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded US cities Saturday in a day of women's rights protests to mark President Donald Trump's first full day in office. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters take to the National Mall to demonstrate against the presidency of Donald Trump Washington, DC on January 21, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protesters march during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. Mario Tama/Getty Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Demonstrators gather on The Ellipse during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue during the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women's rights groups demonstrated across the US to send a defiant message to US President Donald Trump. Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images Thousands attend Women's March on Washington Protester's signs are left near the White House during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Mario Tama/Getty

FINES RELATED TO MASTURBATORY EMISSIONS. Masturbatory emissions created in health or medical facilities will be stored for the purposes of conception for a current or future wife.

(a) Emissions outside of a woman s vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility, will be charged a $100 civil penalty for each emission, and will be considered an act against an unborn child, and failing to preserve the sanctity of life.

(b) Penalties collected under this section will be deposited in a fund established by the Department of Family and Protective Services for the purpose of the care and services provided to children in the conservatorship of the Department of Family Protective Services in order to assist in the assertion of the importance of the sanctity of life.

SECTION 2. By not later than December 1, 2017, the Department of State Health Services shall make the materials required in this Chapter available for distribution.

SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.
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A New York police officer will spend three years in jail after being found guilty of raping and sexually abusing the 13-year-old daughter of a former girlfriend.

Vladimir Krull, 39, a former police sergeant of the NYPD, was convicted of eight offences against the teenage girl on three separate occasions, including two counts of rape, three counts of sexual abuse, two counts of committing a criminal sexual act and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, the New York Times reports.

The abuse started in September 2013 when Krull first kissed the victim on the mouth. He was found guilty of raping her in two separate attacks, once in her home and once in his car.

The teenager was the daughter of Krulls then girlfriend. The former police sergeant was also convicted of forcing the girl to perform a sex act on him in his car after a father-daughter breakfast at her school in June 2014, the New York Daily News reported.

Prosecutors pushed for Krull to serve a total of 15 years in prison. Acting Bronx Supreme Court justice Lester B. Adler sentenced him to four three-year sentences and four one-year sentences which are to be served concurrently. Krull will spend a total of three years in jail and will be required to serve five years of supervision after his release and register as a sex offender.

The victim, now 16, told the court during Krulls sentencing: I used to feel like I had endless options, the New York Times reported. Now I feel limited.

Krull had been with the police force for 12 years and was fired following his conviction.
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A 98-year-old Minnesota resident has been accused by Poland of being a Nazi war criminal.

Michael Karkoc, a naturalised US citizen, has been accused of being a Waffen SS soldier who commanded a unit of Ukrainian nationalists responsible for mass killings in villages along Polands eastern border during the war.

Poland has issued an arrest warrant for Mr Karkoc, who has denied the allegations through his son.

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Kevin Jon Heller, an international criminal law professor at the University of London and University of Amsterdam, told The Independent that Mr Karkoc is fine in Minnesota, for now.

In order for Mr Karkoc to be transferred, Poland would have to file a formal request for extradition and there is no question war crimes of this nature are extraditable offenses, Mr Heller said.

However, Mr Heller said his sons claim that Mr Karkoc suffers from Alzheimers make[s] a huge difference.

His age is not as much of a factor in extradition and prosecution, said Mr Heller.

Germany, which has prosecuted accused Nazi soldiers well into their 90s, previously made the allegation of Mr Karkoc, based on historical evidence.

But Berlin dropped the charges when it deemed him unfit to stand trial due to his health.

One other wrinkle in the case, as Mr Heller put it, is that Mr Karkoc allegedly lied on his immigration forms to enter and remain in the US since the late 1940s.

According to reporting done by the Associated Press in 2013, Mr Karkoc said he never served in the military during WWII.

Had he admitted to being an SS officer, he would not have been allowed into the US.

If he did in fact lie, the US could strip his naturalisation and extradite him, Mr Heller explained.

He noted that though the US is allowed to refuse extradition of Mr Karkoc to Poland, they have an obligation to prosecute him in the US. It doesnt mean they actually have to, though, Mr Heller said.

Given the timing of Nazi war criminal prosecutions and the age of many of the accused, Mr Heller said there is a much bigger historical context to the case.

The stain of these [Nazi] crimes never goes away, Mr Heller said.

Though the case against Mr Karkoc is a continuation of the trend set by other countries affected by the Nazis, it also sends a signal for future war crimes cases. If youre a state 25 years from now or more and looking to prosecute ISIS for atrocities, you will point to how the worlds legal treatment of Nazi war criminals, Mr Heller explained.
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Donald Trump is facing mounting pressure to completely scrap Americas consumer protection agency, the man lined up by the President to head the watchdog has revealed.

Loan sharks, payday lenders and rogue debt collectors could be given carte blanche to rip off American customers as part of a touted shake up of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Randy Neugebauer, considered the favourite to replace the current director of the CFPB, said Mr Trump was facing pressure from inside the Republican Party to dismantle the agency entirely.

Following Mr Trumps election last November, he emerged as the frontrunner to take charge of the watchdog. The former Texan Congressman, who retired in January, held talks with the then-President-Elect in Trump Tower shortly before his inauguration.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent in his first interview since the new administration was installed in the White House, Mr Neugebauer said his meeting with Mr Trump included discussions about deregulating financial markets and gutting the CFPB.

Some of my colleagues want to do away with the CFPB, he said. I dont think you want to do away with consumer protection but you want to change it.

The government ought not to be telling you what kind of financial products are appropriate for you.

The CFPB is tasked with protecting the public from unfair or abusive practices by mortgage servicers, payday lenders, and debt collectors.

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It has powers to take action against companies that break the law and in a recent case sued a law firm for allegedly scamming 9/11 heroes out of money intended to cover medical costs.

The watchdog also acts on cases of suspected age or race discrimination.

But Mr Neugebauer is leading calls for the agency in its current form to be dismantled and his appointment to lead it would likely see the watchdog lose much of its clout.

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He claimed American consumers were being suffocated with regulations and should be free to choose loans and mortgages, regardless of whether the deals on offer were good or bad.

Mr Neugebauer said he would accept an offer from the President to run the agency depending on what the long-range plan is.

We had a broad discussion. We did not discuss a specific job. It has been rumoured, but an offer has not been extended.

Mr Neugebauer, who represented west Texass 19th congressional district, also voiced his support for payday lenders, despite a lack of transparency and often crippling rates of interest that have led to calls for them to be banned.

Millions and millions of people use payday lending as a source of credit because they have poor credit scores, he said.

He also gave his backing to the Presidents executive order calling for a review of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulations.

Obama-era rules designed to curb the riskiest actions of banks before the financial crisis had been an overreaction, he said.

Blanket regulation over the entire financial market is impacting some of the entities that possibly were part of the cause, but in many cases entities that really didnt have anything to do with the crisis are affected.

Many folks, including myself, think we went too far.

Under the CPFBs current director, Richard Cordray, billions of dollars have been returned to consumers caught up in credit scams or malpractice in the banking sector.

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But Mr Neugebauer suggested that the problem was being overstated, and said individual states were often doing a better job than the federal agency.

Obviously there are people out there that abuse the system, but people have [already] taken action against those, he said on the sidelines of an event at London Metropolitan University.

There is some uniformity that can come from having consumer protection at a federal level [but] I think the states have done a pretty good job.

The CFPB has been under threat since a federal appeals court found in October the agencys structure was unconstitutional.

The court also ruled that the US president should be able to dismiss the director at will, putting at risk the job of Mr Cordray, whose five year term doesnt end until 2018.

The agency was born out of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and is considered one of Barack Obamas top domestic policy achievements.

President Obama signs the the financial reform bill into law in 2010 (Getty)

However, it is hated by libertarians who say it is guilty of mission creep and should be reformed or disbanded.

Fellow Texas Republicans senator Ted Cruz and representative John Ratcliffe introduced a one-page bill to kill the bureau entirely last month.

Winding up the agency would prove hugely controversial, and even some in the banking sector have warned against clipping the CFPBs wings.
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Donald Trump has asked Congress for more time to provide it with evidence to support his clam that Barack Obama wiretapped him during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Mr Trump startled millions of people when he claimed earlier this month - without providing details or evidence - that his predecessor had carried out electronic surveillance of Trump Tower. The White House then asked congress to investigate the claims.

Two congressional committees asked the government to provide it with any information to support the claim by Monday evening. But the Department of Justice has now revealed it has asked politicians at the two committees who will take up the claim, for more time.

A department spokeswoman said it needed more time to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist.

The House Intelligence Committee responded by saying it wanted a statement by the time of a planned hearing on March 20, suggesting it would use a subpoena if that did not happen.

If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered, said spokesman Jack Langer.

Mr Trumps claim that Mr Obama had wiretapped him during the campaign, set off a firestorm.

 Sean Spicer says Donald Trump did not mean Barack Obama personally wire-tapped him during campaign

Observers pointed out that any surveillance could only have been undertaken by the FBI after obtaining a warrant from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court - implying that a judge must have believed there was sufficient suspicion of wrongdoing to grant such approval.

Intelligence officials told US media they were not aware of any such operation being carried out.

Mr Obamas spokesman said neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

The White House then said Mr Trump had based his claim on reports in the media - apparently something he read on the right wing Breitbart News site.

This week, the White House started to walk away from Mr Trumps claim, saying that he had not necessarily been speaking literally when he said Mr Obama had wiretapped him.

Spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters: He does not think Obama went out there and wiretapped him personally. There are are a whole host of techniques to or surveil someone.

He added: The president was very clear in his tweet that it was wiretapping - that spans a whole host of surveillance types of options. The House and the Senate intelligence committees will now look into that and provide a report back.

Yet many pointed out that Mr Trump only referred to wiretapping in his tweet, which read: How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

Reuters said that under US. law, presidents cannot direct wiretapping. Instead, the federal government can ask a court to authorise the action, but it must provide justification.

Republicans have distanced themselves from the president over the issue. Republican Senator John McCain said over the weekend that the president should either prove the claim or retract it.

Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House committee, has said he plans to question FBI Director James Comey over Mr Trumps wiretapping charge.

Mr Comey has called on the Justice Department to deny the allegation, according to law enforcement sources.
China will help the Philippines build two drug rehabilitation centers in the southern provinces of Agusan del Sur and Sarangani, the two countries have announced. Each center will have 150 beds.

On Feb. 24, China sent a delegation to the Philippines to investigate the feasibility of the project. The two sides have since agreed on both the locations and funding method. On March 13, a meeting summary describing the project was signed by Jin Yuan, commercial counselor of the Chinese embassy in the Philippines, as well as the assistant to the Philippines health minister.

Philippines officials expressed appreciation for China's efforts to support and advance the project, and pledged to be fully cooperative with China throughout the process.

After Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's visit to China last year, China-Philippines trade ties have proven fruitful, and the consensus by leaders of both countries has gradually been implemented, Jin said.
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A British-owned cruise ship carrying hundreds of tourists has crashed into one of the worlds most spectacular coral reefs, sparking outrage from locals.

The 4,290-tonne Caledonian Sky caused "irreparable damage" in Raja Ampat, an idyllic island chain in the west of Indonesias Papua province.

The ship, owned by British company Noble Caledonia, was hosting a bird-watching trip on earlier this month when it veered off course, running aground during low tide and ploughing into the coral.

Roughly 1,600 square meters of the underwater Amazon is thought to have been damaged in the incident.

Ruben Sauyai, a local diving instructor, told the BBC he was in tears after seeing the ruined reefs.

The damage is huge and acute. It could take 10 to 100 years to repair it," he said. "Some people work as fishermen or farmers, but mostly we work in the tourism sector.

Noble Caledonia described the incident as unfortunate.

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A tugboat was deployed to refloat the ship, but that damaged the reef even more, according to Ricardo Tapilatu, the head of the official evaluation team.

He said he thought the company should pay up to $1.92 million (1.58 million) in compensation.

In a separate interview with the environmental science website, Mongabay, he said that the process to repair the coral could take up to 10 years.

A petition has been launched urging Noble Caledonia to fund and help repair the reef.

Stay Raja Ampat, a local tourism promoter, took to Facebook to express his outrage, alongside images of the stricken cruise liner.

Another Facebook user said: Unbelievable! I hope these people get fined billions for the irreparable damage they are causing.

Noble Caledonia said it was firmly committed to protection of the environment, which is why it is imperative that the reasons for it are fully investigated, understood and any lessons learned incorporated in operating procedures.
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The Burmese government may be attempting to "expel" its Rohingya Muslim minority, the UN human rights investigator to the country has said.

Last month, the UN's human rights office said the campaign of killings and rapes probably amounted to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleaning.

After security crackdown caused international outcry, Burma may be using bureaucratic means to get rid of its Rohingya population, UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee said.

She told the UN Human Rights Council the evidence "indicates the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether."

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Around 75,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh after the Burmese military launched a crackdown in the north of Rakhine state after nine policemen were killed last October.

After visiting Burma twice in the last year, Ms Lee said she had heard "harrowing account after harrowing account."

She told the Council: "I heard allegation after allegation of horrific events like these, slitting of throats, indiscriminate shootings, setting alight houses with people tied up inside and throwing very young children into the fire, as well as gang rapes and other sexual violence."

She had been denied access to parts of Burma she hoped to visit, include Kachin state, another area of ethnic violence.

"I must confess that there were times that I had seriously questioned the nature of the cooperation," she said.

Burma's ambassador Htin Lynn called the allegations of crimes against humanity unverified and one-sided. He said security operations in Rakhine had stopped and the curfew was eased earlier this month.

"The situation in Rakhine state is very complicated in nature and thus requires complicated answers. It also requires greater understanding by the international community," he said.

Ms Lee said she is "disappointed" by the lack of "appetite" at the Human Rights Council to back her call for the creation of a Commission for Inquiry.

In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims Show all 5 1 /5 In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims Burma Buddhist nationalists demonstrate against the UN and the return of Rohingya Muslims in Yangon In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims Burma Hard-line Buddhist monks lead a demonstration against Rohingya migrants who were resettled in Rakhine state after being found at sea while fleeing Burma following anti-Muslim violence EPA In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims Burma Buddhist monks demonstrate against the UN and the return of Rohingya Muslims in Yangon In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims Burma Buddhist nationalists demonstrate against the UN and the return of Rohingya Muslims In pictures: Burma protests against Rohingya Muslims Burma Radical Buddhist nationalists protest the international pressure on Myanmar to accept the repatriation of persecuted Rohingya boat refugees

Key players, including the European Union, are yet to back Ms Lee's call over concern it may threaten the country's fragile move towards democracy.

"If these allegations are indeed exaggerated allegations, everyone needs to know," Ms Lee told The Associated Press.

"If these allegations are true, I think Myanmar needs to know because this will be the obstacle to them fully reforming and transforming into a fully democratic society."

Charu Hogg, associate fellow with the Asia programme at Chatham House, said political will among the Human Rights Council to take action in Burma was weak.

"Countries in support of Burma's fledgling democracy feel that any action could weaken Aung San Suu Kyi's hands versus the military which continues to dominate the parliament," she told The Independent.

"It appears that the international community is willing to allow these acts of repression to continue in the hope of maintaining an illusion of democracy."
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Some women in India were forced into lockdown during Holi celebrations amid fears of sexual harassment.

Students at two womens dormitories at the University of Delhi were told they would not be allowed to leave their accommodation from 9pm on Sunday until 6pm on Monday.

The decision was apparently taken to protect the women from sexual harassment on the street.

Holi celebrations often include dancing, drinking, and covering one another with coloured dye.

Its a very sexualised thing. You get touched or hit on your buttocks or your breasts, Devangana Kalita, an activist and researcher at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told the Guardian.

For many, Holi is just harmless fun, but there is a common phrase that is often used during the festival which translates to dont be offended, its Holi.

The idea of consent does not exist during Holi, Sabika Abbas Naqvi, the president of Delhis student hostels union, said.

Women are deleted from public spaces during these festivals because of the fear of harassment.

The men can remain free and roam about, but the women who are the supposed victims need to stay  its atrocious, she added.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Holi dates back to the 4th century and celebrates the triumph of good over evil.

The festivities focus on fertility and love and mark the end of winter.

The day is best known for the sight of carnival revellers gathering to toss coloured powder into the air, coating one another in vibrant hues.
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Descendants of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim on any properties left behind in India, according to a new bill which has been passed by Parliament.

The Enemy Property Bill, 2016, amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, and refers to any property belonging to or being held or managed on behalf of an "enemy" or "enemy firm".

In this case the term enemy refers to nationals of Pakistan and China.

Inheritance law will not be applicable on Enemy Property... This will put an end to the long pending issue which should have ideally happened in 2010 when the Bill was introduced, Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, was quoted as saying in Hindustan Times.

The minister said there would be no human rights violations and at no point would rights of Indian citizens be taken away.

The law only applies on heirs of enemy property... The tenants of those property will be governed by the Tenancy Act, he said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Singh also rejected accusations that the move was unjust.

I wonder how it is against the principle of natural justice. Pakistan has seized the properties of Indian citizens... It will be natural justice if their property (of those who migrated to Pakistan) is not returned.
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A woman jumped from the first floor balcony of a building to escape after being gang raped by five men, it has been alleged.

The 30-year-old woman was locked in a flat in Delhi, and told police that the men took turns to rape her.

Police said she was taken to the flat by a friend, who has been named as Vikas, for a party, who then left her to go to work.

She was forced to drink alcohol and then locked in the flat, according to the Hindustan Times.

The perpetrators also allegedly threatened to harm her if she tried to escape or raise an alarm.

In the early hours of the next morning the woman decided to climb onto the balcony and jump off the first floor to escape.

The rape survivor was admitted to Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital for medical treatment and examination. She sustained minor injuries in her legs. We registered a case and arrested the five youths, Omvir Singh, deputy commissioner of the police, said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Five men, who have been identified as Lakshya, Vikas Kumar, Naveen, Swarit and Prateek, have been arrested in connection with the allegations.

They have claimed the woman was a prostitute whom they have paid for sex and that she jumped off the balcony after a dispute over money, according to India Today.
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With the USS Carl Vinson ploughing through seas off South Korea, rival North Korea has warned the United States of merciless attacks if the carrier infringes on its sovereignty or dignity during US-South Korean drills.

F-18 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered carrier in a dramatic display of US firepower amid rising tension with the North, which has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since last year.

While this is a routine deployment for the Carl Vinson strike group, really the centrepiece for us... is this exercise we're doing with the ROK navy called Foal Eagle, Rear Admiral James W. Kilby, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 1, said, referring to South Korea as the Republic of Korea.

North Korea said the arrival of the US strike group in the seas off the east of the Korean peninsula was part of a reckless scheme to attack it.

If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater, the North's state news agency KCNA said. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army, KCNA said.

Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual US-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war.

The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's estranged half-brother has added to a sense of urgency to efforts to handle North Korea.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to South Korea on Friday. Mr Tillerson will then visit China on Saturday and Sunday and meet President Xi Jinping and other leaders

Last week, the US ambassador to the United Nations said President Donald Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy and all options are on the table.

Compounding regional tension, China is vehemently opposed to the deployment in South Korea of an advanced US anti-missile system.

The United States and South Korea say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system is for defence against North Korea, but China fears its powerful radar can probe deep into its territory and compromise its security.

The United States began to deploy the system a week ago, a day after North Korea launched its latest four missile tests.

South Korean and US troops began the large-scale joint drills, which are billed as defensive in nature, on 1 March.

The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. South Korea has said this year's exercise would be of a similar scale.

The United States has also started to deploy Gray Eagle attack drones to South Korea, a US military spokesman said on Monday.

China says the exercises do nothing to ease tension. Last week, it called on North Korea to stop its weapons tests and for South Korea and the United States to stop their drills.

We hope the relevant side can respect the security concerns of countries in the region, can take a responsible attitude and do more to benefit the easing of tension, rather than irritating each other, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing, referring to the United States.

Reuters
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Pakistan has allegedly violated its truce with India for the third time in the last 24 hours.

Mortar shells have been fired into Indian territory by Pakistan and damaged the Trade Felicitation Centre in Poonch, Kashmir, it has been reported.

Indian authorities responded by suspending trade between Poonch and Rawalkote, a disputed region between India and Pakistan.

Schools near the area have been closed as a precautionary measure and examinations that were due to take place have been delayed.

"The Pakistani Army fired unprovoked in Poonch sector from 0640 hours on Monday," Jammu defence spokesperson Lt Col Manish Mehta told the Times of India.

"Pakistani troops using 82 mm mortars, automatic weapons targeted our forward defended locations along Line of Control (LoC) and the fire was responded by our troops in a befitting manner, ensuing a heavy exchange of fire."

"Intermediate firing is going on. No casualty has been reported so far," he added.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Union minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore condemned Pakistan for the violation of the ceasefire.

"It is an old habit of Pakistan. It always resorts to unprovoked firing along the LoC whenever there is a festival," he said.
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The Dutch elections on Wednesday are the first in a series in Europe, with more in France and Germany to follow, in which the political map of Europe is expected to change as the far-right makes significant gains.

In The Netherlands, Geert Wilders' campaign got an unexpected late boost with the countrys current confrontation with Turkey, and the violent clashes between Turkish demonstrators and the police in Rotterdam. The peroxide-blonde leader of the Party For Freedom was swift to capitalise on the situation, using it to carry out a broad attack on Muslims.

But Mr Wilders is unlikely to be the next leader of The Netherlands, even if his group dramatically improves on the number of its national assembly seats. The mainstream parties would almost certainly refuse to be part of the coalition he would need to form a government. But what has been of importance in the election is a phenomenon which will also affect other polls to come on the Continent  foreign influence in the elections campaign, namely the American connection.

Recommended Geert Wilders can win the popular vote in Dutch elections this week

Republican congressman Steve King has tweeted his support for Mr Wilders, in particular his campaign to save the white race.

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny, wrote Mr King, adding: We cant restore our civilisation with somebody elses babies.

Mr King is only one of a number of admirers of Mr Wilders in the Republican right with links that go back a long time. The Dutch politician has paid half a dozen visits to the US in the last four years alone. It is not surprising that the leader of the Dutch far-right has friends across the Atlantic. What is an unpleasant surprise for liberals in Europe is that some of these friends are now in the White House.

In November 2015, Mr Wilders spoke at a restoration weekend in Florida organised by the conservative activist David Horowitz. Also present were Jeff Sessions, then the Alabama senator, who is now Donald Trumps Attorney General, and his aide Stephen Miller, now a White House senior policy adviser and lieutenant to the Presidents chief strategist, whose influence has led to him being described as the shadow President.

The Conservative news site Mr Bannon used to run, Breitbart, has been lavish in its praise of Mr Wilders and has pressed for vocal support for him from Washington. Congressman King maintains: I certainly expect the Trump administration to engage more with people like Mr Wilders.

American conservatives have not been just all mouth in their support of Mr Wilders, there is money for him as well. Among those who have made contributions is Mr Horowitzs organisation, Freedom Centre, which has paid out $150,000 (125,000). Some $120,000 of that was given in 2015, making it the largest individual contribution to the political system in The Netherlands in a year.

The conservative think-tank Middle East Forum paid a substantial sum into a legal fund set up for Mr Wilders after he was accused of making racist statements. Two US right-wing foundations, the Gatestone Institute and the International Freedom Alliance Foundation, have sponsored his trips to America. A smaller contribution of around $8,000 was made by an American company, FOL, based in Buffalo, New York.

Mr Horowitz, a strong opponent of Muslim immigration, has described Mr Wilders as a hero of the most important battle of our times, the battle to defend free speech. As early as 2009 Mr Wilders, while on a visit to America, was proposing a version of what became Mr Trumps travel ban. He also suggested enhanced security checks on Muslims in the US with deportation for those who fail the scrutiny.

Mr Wilders is not the only one standing in the coming elections in whom the American hardline conservatives find a kindred spirit. There is widespread praise for Marine Le Pen in France and the anti-refugee Alternative For Germany party. One can expect a ratcheting up of this support as these polls come closer.

There have been warnings from Western security services that Vladimir Putins Russia may attempt to influence the European elections, as it allegedly tried to with the US presidential poll, through cyber attacks. There is also worry about the Kremlins support for extremist nationalist groups. But that is not the only source of concern for mainstream European parties. Those in the US who helped Donald Trump to the presidency are also keen to see the political status quo in Europe change to fit in with their vision of a new order.
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The European Court of Justice has ruled that companies can ban employees from wearing the Islamic headscarf, but only as part of prohibitions including other religious and political symbols.

It is the first case of its kind amid a series of legal disputes over the right for Muslim women to wear the hijab at work.

An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination, the court said in a statement.

However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer's services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.

The Luxembourg-based court found that a headscarf ban may also constitute indirect discrimination if people adhering to a particular religion or belief, such as Muslims, are put at a particular disadvantage.

But indirect discrimination is permissible if it is objectively justified by a legitimate aim, such as a company's policy of neutrality, provided that the means of achieving it are appropriate and necessary.

Francois Fillon, the conservative candidate in the French presidential election, hailed the ruling as an immense relief that would contribute to social peace.

But a campaign group backing the women said it could shut many Muslim women out of the workforce and European rabbis said the court had worsened rising hate crime by sending a message that faith communities are no longer welcome.

The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, said: This decision sends a signal to all religious groups in Europe.

The United Sikhs advocacy group said the disturbing ruling allowed employers to override fundamental human rights.

 Theresa May backs Muslim women's right to wear a headscarf

Mejindarpal Kaur, the group's international legal director, said that although the ECJ only allowed for rules with legitimate aims, we fear that employers will treat it as a licence to discriminate at the point of hire.

Amnesty International welcomed the ruling on the French case that employers are not at liberty to pander to the prejudices of their clients but said bans on religious symbols opened a backdoor to precisely such prejudice.

Two employees in Belgium and France had brought the case to the ECJ after being dismissed for refusing to remove their headscarves, which did not cover the face.

The Belgian woman had been working as a receptionist for G4S Secure Solutions, which has a general ban on wearing visible religious or political symbols, while the French claimant is an IT consultant who was told to remove her headscarf after a client complained.

The G4S dispute, which started in 2006, was originally based on an unwritten rule banning employees wearing signs of their political, philosophical or religious beliefs, and the companys workplace regulations were not updated until a day after the woman started wearing a hijab.

Although they apply to all beliefs, the ECJ said it was not inconceivable that such rules could be deemed indirect discrimination for targeting Islam over other religions and referred the issue back to the Belgian Court of Cassation.

The French claimant, a design engineer for Micropole, was asked to stop wearing her headscarf to maintain neutrality after a clients complaint but refused and was dismissed.

Hijabs are headscarves that cover the hair, leaving the face open (AFP/Getty)

The ECJ referred the case back to the French Court of Cassation to establish whether the move was a genuine and determining occupational requirement and whether there were any formal rules in place that meet non-discrimination requirements.

The court's advocate general recommended that companies should be allowed to prohibit headscarves as long as a general ban on other symbols was in place, theoretically applying to Sikh turbans, Jewish kippas and Christian crucifixes.

Their advice in the French case was that a rule banning employees from wearing religious symbols when in contact with customers was discrimination, particularly when it only applied to Islamic headscarves.

Jonathan Chamberlain, an employment lawyer at Gowling WLG, said the decision brings the EU into line with what has been the UK's approach for several years.

For example, it's fine for employers to have a dress code but it needs to be applied with some sensitivity and flexibility to take account of religious beliefs, he added.

What is almost certainly never OK is for an employer to tell an employee to stop wearing a religious symbol because a particular customer has asked for it."

The Open Society Justice Initiative, a group backed by the philanthropist George Soros which had supported the women, said it was disappointed by the ruling.

A spokesperson said it weakens the guarantee of equality that is at the heart of the EUs anti-discrimination directive.

In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans PA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Jenny Dawkins, a curate from All Saints Church in Peckham, at an anti-burkini ban protest at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans PA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Somayia Khan's six-year-old daughter at a protest against burkini bans at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Friends Rebecca (L) and Hannah (R) at a protest against burkini bans at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans Reuters In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans EPA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London People participate in a 'Wear what you want beach party' protest outside of the French Embassy in London EPA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London A protester holds a sign which reads "Are you Burkini Beach Body Ready?" as she lies on a beach towel outside the French Embassy in London on August 25, 2016, AFP/Getty Images

Maryam Hmadoun, the initiatives policy officer, said: In many member states, national laws will still recognise that banning religious headscarves at work is discrimination.

But in places where national law is weak, this ruling will exclude many Muslim women from the workplace.

The Open Society Justice Initiative said all future cases on religious discrimination in workplaces inside the EU will be government by the ruling, which it feared would strengthen wider attempts at headscarf bans.

When an employer singles out religious clothing this is direct discrimination, and such an aim is not neutral, a statement said.

The supposed neutrality is really discrimination, making the false claim that employers who allow staff to wear the headscarf are in some way not neutral.

The ruling, which sets an EU-wide precedent, came a day before the Netherlands parliamentary elections, which have been dominated by issues of integration and identity.

Dutch MPs voted in support of a partial ban on full-face Islamic veils last year, but no law has yet been implemented, while prohibitions have been implemented in countries including France, Belgium and Bulgaria, and are being considered in Germany.

Attempts by local authorities in the French Riviera to ban so-called burkinis worn by Muslim women and impose fines generated fresh debate last year and have since been repealed by courts.
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French presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been handed preliminary charges in an investigation into a fake jobs scandal involving his wife and children.

The charges further damage the former Prime Ministers dwindling chances of winning the two-round presidential election, taking place between 23 April and 7 May.

Mr Fillon was considered the favourite for the contest until the Penelope gate scandal over the payment of hundreds of thousands of euros to his wife broke in January.

 Fillon announces he will not be standing down from the French presidential race

The Les Republicains politician insists she was legitimately employed as his parliamentary assistant and carried out the work for which she was paid, but has been placed under formal investigation on suspicion of embezzling public funds, complicity in misappropriating funds, receiving the funds and not declaring assets fully.

The charges came as a surprise, coming a day earlier than Mr Fillon was due to answer a summons to explain his conduct before magistrates.

Under French law, being put under formal investigation means there is serious or consistent evidence that points to probable involvement of a suspect in a crime.

It is a step towards a trial, but a number of such investigations have been dropped without going to court in the past.

Mr Fillon originally said he would withdraw from the presidential race if formally charges were brought against him but has since gone back on his promise, refusing to step down while claiming the charges are politically motivated.

The 63-year-old decried a political assassination in a press conference last month, adding: I will continue to the end because it is democracy that is under attack.

During his campaign to be selected as the Les Republicains candidate, he had said: Those who don't respect the laws of the republic should not be allowed to run.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. 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Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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There's no point in talking about authority when one's not beyond reproach.

Mr Fillon denies wrongdoing and says he will cooperate fully with investigators as his campaign continues, while relatives insist they did the work for which they were generously paid.

While it is legal in France for politicians to hire family members for legitimate jobs, the case against Mr Fillon hinges on whether parliamentary positions he gave to his wife Penelope, from Abergavenny in Wales, and two of their five children were real.

Mr Fillons refusal to step down has caused a deep rift within his centre-right party, causing several members to boycott his candidacy and high profile resignations from the campaign.

The scandal has obliterated his standing in polls, which currently predict a close-fought first round between far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centre-left independent candidate Emmanuel Macron.

Many surveys have predicted Mr Fillon will be knocked out in the first round of voting, with Mr Macron winning in the second and decisive ballot in May.

Ms Le Pen and some members of her National Front party are also embroiled in ongoing investigations, with the Front National leader refusing to appear before judges in a case concerning the employment of aides in the European Parliament.

Additional reporting by agencies
The latest data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany shows that the trade volume between China and Germany in 2016 reached 170 billion euros, hitting a historical high in the record of bilateral trade between the two countries. China has for the first time surpassed the U.S. and France to become Germany's largest trading partner.

The growing trade volume between China and Germany is a sign of strong economic cooperation--especially notable given the current global economic slowdown, as well as the trends of anti-globalization and protectionism.

Germany has made great gains in its exports over the last year, with a favorable balance of trade settled at 252.9 billion euros. The country has maintained a healthy development of trade with other nations in the European Union, while its exports to countries outside the region have shrunk due to the sluggish global economy and regional political instability.

However, China has become a notable exception to that trend. Bilateral trade between China and Germany grew 4.1 percent to 169.87 billion euros in 2016. In addition, the percentage of bilateral trade between the two countries in Germany's total trade volume increased from 7.5 percent in 2015 to the current 7.9 percent. Germany's exports to China also increased by 6.8 percent to 76.1 billion euros.

Hao Jianfei, a representative of Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI) in Hong Kong, attributed the growing trade volume to two factors. First, German products have long enjoyed a good reputation in China due to their quality and innovation. Second, German customers are inclined to buy high-tech products from China as a result of the latter's economic globalization. Hao pointed out that bilateral trade between the nations will likely grow as China's economic transition and development progress.

China-Germany trade has experienced rapid development since China's entrance to the WTO. China's economic transition toward sustainability, as well as a consumption- and innovation-driven growth pattern, means huge opportunity for German enterprises, Germany's Federal Foreign Office previously said in a statement.

Hao believes that Germany and China are both beneficiaries of free trade. Enhancing trade and investment in an equal business environment will create more jobs for the two countries, bringing new opportunities to small and medium sized enterprises especially, he stressed.
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Social networks that fail to remove defamatory fake news, hate speech and illegal content could be fined up to 50m (44m) under new proposals by the German government.

Heiko Maas, the justice minister, said: There must be as little space for criminal incitement and slander on social networks as on the streets.

The Social Democrat politician said voluntary steps taken by social media companies including Facebook and Twitter had led to some improvement but were not enough.

Recommended Syrian refugee falsely labelled terrorist on Facebook loses case

Too few criminal comments are deleted and they are not erased quickly enough, Mr Maas added.

The biggest problem is that networks do not take the complaints of their own users seriously enoughit is now clear that we must increase the pressure on social networks.

We need legal regulations to make companies even more obligated to delete criminal content.

The justice ministry said Facebook takes down only 39 per cent of content reported by users, and only 33 per cent within 24 hours of the complaint, while on Twitter one in 100 reported messages are erased.

 Fake news conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton led a man to open fire in a pizza parlour

Mr Maas praised YouTube for much higher rates, standing at 90 per cent of reported content being deleted and 82 per cent within a day.

Manuela Schwesig, the federal youth minister, said hatred endangers cohesion and is a poison for society.

It cannot be that companies make huger profits from their social networks, and at the same time evade their responsibilities in the fight against hate messages, she added.

While fake news in itself is not illegal, supporters of restrictions say it often incorporates defamation and incitement that would be punished if carried by traditional media.

The proposal would require companies to provide a round-the-clock service for users to flag illegal content, which would have to be removed by the site within seven days.

All copies of the content would also have to be deleted and social media companies would need to publish a quarterly report detailing how they have dealt with such material.

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Sites would also have to nominate a person responsible for handling complaints, who could face fines of up to 50m (4.4m) personally if the company fails to abide by mandatory standards.

Mr Maas said the measures, which will be part of a bill to be put before the Bundestag, would not restrict freedom of speech and that there were no plans to create a truth commission against fake news.

The plan is part of continuing efforts in Germany to impose laws against libel and inciting hatred or violence on social media.

Online debate around a series of Isis-inspired terror attacks in Europe and mass sex attacks in Cologne on New Years Eve 2016 has drawn national attention to the issue, as Germany approaches its elections in September.

Among those targeted by abusive posts was Anas Modamani, a teenage Syrian refugee whose chance selfie with Angela Merkel went viral in 2015.

His photo was used in Facebook posts accusing him of links to terrorist attacks and the attempted murder of a homeless man in Berlin, with the images remaining online despite a series of attempts to have them removed.

Syrian refugee Anas Modamani and his lawyer Chan-jo Jun at the district court in Wurzburg, Germany, on 6 Februaru (AFP/Getty Images)

The lies were repeated on Twitter and on websites posing as anti-mainstream media news outlets, where the articles remain.

Mr Modamani, now 19, attempted to sue Facebook for damages and was seeking an injunction that would force the social media giant to actively search for and remove such posts, rather than wait for users to flag violations of the sites community standards.

Wurzburg district court threw out his case last week, finding that Facebook is neither a perpetrator or participant in the smears and criminal responsibility sat with users.

Facebook has already built in new tools allowing German users to combat the spread of fabricated news stories, which allow posts to be flagged and passed to third party fact-checkers.

A spokesperson said it had taken measures to train staff on how to deal with the legal situation in Germany and expects to have 700 people in Berlin examining flagged content by the end of the year.

It said its own tests showed a higher rate of content removal than the figures cited by the German justice ministry and that it would meet its obligations under German law.

Twitter declined to comment on the proposal but noted a number of measures taken in recent months that it said are designed to prevent abuse and allow users to filter unwanted content.

Additional reporting by Reuters
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Scotland would "have to queue" to rejoin Europe in the event it achieved independence, Spains foreign minister has warned.

Alfonso Dastis said Spain wants "things to stay as they are" in response to Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeons announcement that she plans to hold a second independence referendum.

He said: "Spain supports the integrity of the United Kingdom and does not encourage secessions or divisions in any of the member states. We prefer things to stay as they are."

He also warned of the obstacles to entry for an independent Scotland and made it clear the country would receive no special treatment.

He said Scotland "would have to queue, meet the requirements for entry, hold negotiations and the result would be that these negotiations would take place."

The issue of independence is one of particular contention for Spain as the country fights its own separatist movements in Catalonia and the Basque country.

Ms Sturgeon made the surprise announcement on Monday citing a Westminster that had "not moved even an inch in pursuit of compromise and agreement" with Holyrood over Brexit.

She also claimed even a good Brexit deal would be "significantly inferior" to the status quo.

Recommended May needs to stop acting like Nicola Sturgeon is a petulant child

She said: "If Scotland is to have a real choice  when the terms of Brexit are known but before it is too late to choose our own course  then that choice must be offered between the autumn of next year, 2018, and the spring of 2019."

However, the UK Parliament must authorise any such poll  meaning Ms Sturgeon's call could be blocked by Ms May who attacked the move, accusing her Scottish counterpart of playing "games" and the SNP of having "tunnel vision".

It is thought to be extremely unlikely that Downing Street would block the referendum altogether, but reports on Tuesday morning suggested the referendum, which requires the approval of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster, would not come before the UK leaves the European Union.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a fresh attack on the Netherlands, accusing the Dutch of facilitating the massacre of Muslim men at Srebrenica, as diplomatic relations between the countries continue to sour.

Mr Erdogan said a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers failed to protect some 8,000 men and boys from being slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there, he said.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Mr Erdogan's comments, calling them a disgusting distortion of history.

We will not lower ourselves to this level. It is totally unacceptable, he told broadcaster RTL Z.

The latest comments in the vicious war of words between the countries threaten to overshadow Wednesdays parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, in which the far-right is on course to make historic gains.

With the anti-Islam, far-right politician Geert Wilders running just behind two-term right-wing Prime Minister in polls, the Dutch vote could give an indication of whether the tide of populism that swept Britain toward the European Union exit door and Donald Trump into the White house has peaked.

However Mr Rutte says Mr Wilders' manifesto, that pledges to take the Netherlands out of the EU, shut its borders to all immigrants from Muslim countries, shutter mosques and ban the Quran, would lead to chaos.

Mr Wilders fired back in a debate on Monday that it would allow the Dutch to become the boss in our own country again.

Recommended Geert Wilders can win the popular vote in Dutch elections this week

However, the diplomatic crisis with Turkey and Mr Ruttes tough reaction to it appears to have cast the prime minister in a positive light on the eve of the election.

The fallout came after the Netherlands barred two Turkish ministers from addressing nationals living in the country ahead of a referendum on 16 April on expanding the Turkish Presidents powers.

The Dutch cited risks to public order and security behind the decision, however the ban sparked a furious backlash from Turkeys government with Mr Erdogan branding the countrys citizens Nazi remnants, and subsequently barring the Dutch ambassador from returning to Ankara.

Support for the Dutch from Germany and the EU in the escalating diplomatic crisis also provoked an outcry from Turkish officials.

Turkeys foreign ministry said the EUs stance was short-sighted and carried no value for Turkey, as well as lending credence to extremists.

Mr Erdogan also responded angrily to German Chancellor Angela Merkels support, saying Shame on you! during a television interview on Monday.

On Tuesday, he described both Germany and the Netherlands as bandit states that were harming the European Union.

The spat has raised concerns that co-operation between the EU and Turkey on a number of issues, such as dealing with the flow of migrants from war-torn Syria, may start to fray.

Turkey halted high-level talks with Dutch government officials on Monday and closed its airspace to the countrys diplomats, making good on a promise to impose sanctions against the country.

The Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps to redress the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

Mr Erdogan said there could be more sanctions to come but did not elaborate.

Germany amended its travel advice for Turkey on Monday, noting that elevated political tensions and protests that could also be directed against Germany should be expected during the referendum campaign.
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Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, US, Egyptian and diplomatic sources say, a move that would add to US concerns about Moscow's deepening role in Libya.

The US and diplomatic officials said any such Russian deployment might be part of a bid to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who suffered a setback with an attack on March 3 by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) on oil ports controlled by his forces.

The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States has observed what appeared to be Russian special operations forces and drones at Sidi Barrani, about 60 miles (100 km) from the Egypt-Libya border.

Egyptian security sources offered more detail, describing a 22-member Russian special forces unit, but declined to discuss its mission. They added that Russia also used another Egyptian base farther east in Marsa Matrouh in early February.

The apparent Russian deployments have not been previously reported.

The Russian defence ministry did not immediately provide comment on Monday and Egypt denied the presence of any Russian contingent on its soil.

There is no foreign soldier from any foreign country on Egyptian soil. This is a matter of sovereignty, Egyptian army spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said.

The US military declined comment. US intelligence on Russian military activities is often complicated by its use of contractors or forces without uniforms, officials say.

Russian military aircraft flew about six military units to Marsa Matrouh before the aircraft continued to Libya about 10 days later, the Egyptian sources said.

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The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. 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Reuters could not independently verify any presence of Russian special forces and drones or military aircraft in Egypt.

Mohamed Manfour, commander of Benina air base near Benghazi, denied that Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) had received military assistance from the Russian state or from Russian military contractors, and said there were no Russian forces or bases in eastern Libya.

Reuters
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Im not entirely sure I know the difference between quagmire and quicksand, but Im definitely up to my knees in one or the other. The clay (at least, I think its clay) of the riverbank looked firm enough to support my size 13 feet, but a few steps in and Im already sucked under.

As I try to pull against the vacuum to release my right foot, my left sinks deeper. When I tug my left foot free, I leave my shoe behind. Check mate. Theres no one to help for miles  which is kind of the point, out here in the Chihuahua Desert.

Here in Texass Big Bend National Park, one of the worlds most iconic rivers divides two countries. For more than 1,000 miles, the Rio Grande marks the only  and ever-shifting  boundary separating Mexico and the United States, as it snakes its course through the Chihuahua.

Despite its name and status though, the once mighty Rio Grande is now a mere trickle  diminished by industrial damming. The change isnt just aesthetic  it means that, in many places, one can easily wade across the border.

Indeed Ive met a number of people who, safely ensconced in Dallas and Houstons cafes, have told me they wouldnt visit Big Bend  despite its breath-taking looks  for fear of running into illegals entering the country. So as well as enjoying my own private national park, Ive come here to see if the border really is so porous.

A bit too porous, I swiftly realise, sinking into the riverbed. In the Chihuahua Desert, no one can hear you scream

Donald Trump's vow to build a wall along the Mexican border might be stymied by the Rio Grande (Getty)

You can cross between the US and Mexico here  legally, unlike me. And unlike the other horror stories coming in from the US border at the moment, its pretty fun, too. Just above the bank of the Rio Grande theres a little border control point, the Boquillas Border Crossing, named after the dusty settlement on the Mexican side (it was once less dusty, but more on that later). Its staffed by an uncharacteristically friendly American official. You show him your documents, make a call to an El Paso Border Patrol agent to answer the obligatory questions, then schlep down to the river where a man in a boat rows you across (its about 50 yards wide, here), while another, semi-recumbent Mexican serenades you from the shore.

Once in Mexico, you hop in the back of a pick-up truck and take a bumpy ride into tiny Boquillas, where guides will show you the small school and new power plant, before leaving you to enjoy tacos and a beer at the local restaurant. Theres little to do, but thats the point  visiting Boquillas is the chance to soak up a more rural Mexican way of life than the frenetic pace you normally find in border towns. And thats partly down to a shifting US border policy, which killed off Boquillas once thriving tourist trade.

Most who make the crossing these days are foreign visitors, the border guard tells me, not least because many Americans arrive thinking they wont need a passport for the trip. American citizens have needed them to cross the Mexican border since 2008; unfortunately, only around a third of US citizens own passports and many havent caught up with the nine-year-old policy.

The overlook across the Rio Grande, where passport-less Americans can buy Mexican trinkets (Jack Tyler)

It was a different story before 9/11, when Boquillas enjoyed an open door policy with its northern neighbours, and thrived as a day-trip destination. Texans loved popping across the border for a cerveza or two; Boquillas residents, meanwhile, went to Texas to do their weekly shopping.

But in 2002, the border was abruptly closed and all this changed. Having lost its precious tourist trade  and with residents now having to travel over a hundred miles to the nearest grocery store in Mexico, rather than visit the one a couple of miles across the border  Boquillas became a ghost town. Now there are only about 200 residents left.

The border reopened in 2013, but immigration is now controlled, and while US citizens and tourists with passports can visit for cheap tacos and killer margaritas, coming back the other way is a lot more tricky for Mexicans who often struggle to get the necessary paperwork.

The Rio Grande forms a 1000-mile border between the US and Mexico. But itll take some engineering to build a wall along it (Getty)

Having freed myself from the rivers muddy embrace (which involves impromptu chin-ups on a bankside branch), I clamber back up the hill to Boquillas Canyon lookout in America. This is where passport-less Americans can enjoy sweeping views of the Mexican side, and browse a stall, crammed with Mexican bracelets, day of the dead sugar skulls, walking sticks and trinkets, that stands unattended at the hilltop. Before too long, its owners arrive  Mexican cowboys, their horses carefully picking their way across the river to check the stalls honesty box and push a few five-dollar bills into their jeans pockets, before saddling up and heading home.

Assuming they know where theyre going, I follow safely in their wake, wading thigh high at the rivers deepest point. A moment later, Im standing on Mexican soil, looking back at the USA. Not that you could tell from here.

Where does one build a wall? In the middle of this river? Whose water is this? Whose fish? Donald Trump has a serious problem on his hands. Erecting a barricade here, in this immaculate wild west  unblighted by strip malls and fast food outlets  seems not just sacrilegious but physically impossible.

If his alt-right electorate dont allow him to back down, he may find himself up to his knees in political quagmire. Or is it quicksand?

Jack Tyler is a pseudonym
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Boots has announced it has joined WH Smith in refunding VAT to some eligible airline travellers at its airside stores at UK airports. The move follows controversy over some shops pocketing the tax element charged to travellers heading beyond the EU.

Whats the background?

Anyone flying to a destination beyond the European Union avoids duty on alcohol and tobacco purchases, and value added tax on everything else, at airside shops  ie those beyond the security check.

Recommended Boots airport stores to stop charging VAT on some items

At traditional duty-free shops that sell cheap booze and cigarettes to passengers heading for destinations such as Florida, Turkey or Switzerland, it has always been the case that passengers must present a boarding pass so staff can check that they qualify.

In 2015, The Independent started investigating why some familiar High Street shops at airports were also insisting on scanning airline passengers boarding passes. As we delved deeper, it became clear that some retailers were charging VAT on the purchases of travellers heading outside the EU  and pocketing the tax, rather than handing it back to the passenger or passing it on to the Chancellor.

On a 6 bottle of sunscreen, for example, Boots was keeping the 1 tax element. But for the store to do this, passengers had to agree to have their boarding passes checked  not for their benefit, but for retailers'.

Recommended How airport stores use your boarding card details to pocket millions

As the news got around, many travellers refused to hand over their boarding passes. Soon the Government got involved, and demanded action to make sure retailers werent making a mint at the passengers expense.

WH Smith and Boots have now responded with policies that go some way to putting the cash back in the pocket of the passenger.

Whats the new deal?

WH Smith returns VAT to eligible travellers who spend 6 or more on taxable goods gets the VAT back. (If 6 seems an odd figure, by the way, I take responsibility for it. The firm asked me what I thought would be a reasonable threshold, and I said most travellers probably wouldnt worry about losing less than a pound in tax.)

Boots has a similar proposition, but it applies to single items costing 5 or more. For example, a passenger buying a packet of three condoms costing 2.99 would not qualify, but someone buying a 9.99 packet of 12 would (though the saving would be only 48p, due to the lower VAT rate on contraceptives).

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The goods and boarding pass are scanned at the till, and any discount refunded before payment.

Note that many items sold by these stores, from paperbacks to nappies, are zero-rated, and therefore no tax will be handed back on such purchases.

What happens to the VAT on cheaper items?

The stores keep it. They say that retaining the VAT helps them to keep airport prices at High Street levels, despite the very high costs of running an airport operation  with the airports themselves extracting a handsome percentage of sales, and all goods (and staff) needing to be security-cleared.

What if I decline to show my boarding pass?

You will be assumed to be flying to an EU destination. Therefore VAT will be collected and passed on to the Chancellor. Anecdotally, though, it seems some airport store staff are misrepresenting the rules. One listener to Radio 4s You and Yours programme reported he was told at an airside store that it was a legal requirement to scan a boarding pass  but that the relevant documentation was in their landside shop so he was unable to see it.

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Is the EU defined simply as the 28 current members?

Not quite, for customs/duty/VAT purposes. The main exception is Spain's Canary Islands, which are deemed to be outside Europe. Gibraltar and the Channel Islands are also excluded, which means passengers to these countries can benefit.

What will happen after Brexit?

Depending on the terms of leaving the EU, the UK may revert to exactly where it was up to 1999, with every trip from these shores constituting a duty-free opportunity.
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For the biggest holiday bang for your puny pounds, head for Turkey, Portugal or Spain  that is the conclusion after a new holiday cost survey and additional research by The Independent.

As the Brexit debate rages, the pound remains stubbornly weak  pushing up holiday costs for anyone spending sterling. A report from TripAdvisor out today says this spring 1,000 will buy return flights plus 18 nights in Albufeira on Portugals Algarve, 17 nights in Benidorm or 13 nights in Prague, versus just three nights in New York.

The travel review site looked at 10 key destinations, and researched room rates and air fares between March and May.

Joint fourth place is occupied by Marrakech and Paris, where 1,000 buys nine nights. Bangkok (eight nights) and Reykjavik (six nights) are sixth and seventh respectively.

Sharing eighth place, with 1,000 buying four nights, are Dubai and Hong Kong.

New York is last and most expensive as a result of a very high nightly rate: 293 for a double room, says TripAdvisor, compared with 90 for Albufeira.

But some key high-value locations were missing from the TripAdvisor research. In addition, the report cannot compare like with like because of a difference of hotels used.

So The Independent introduced Cairo and Istanbul, in place of Marrakech and Reykjavik, and looked only at room rates on the same night  25 March  staying at Holiday Inns, which offer comparable standards worldwide. Alicante replaced Benidorm, which does not have a Holiday Inn.

New York is relatively expensive - but you already knew that (Getty)

Comparing like for like, some of the results were dramatically different. Istanbul, with a nightly rate of just 36 for a double room and return flights easily available for 100, will welcome the traveller for 25 nights for 1,000.

Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic took the next three places, but Cairo moved ahead of Paris. Dubai displaced Bangkok, while New York City nudged ahead of Hong Kong  where the Holiday Inn guest will be able to spend only two nights.

The Independent Holiday Inn-dex

Rates for night of 25 March

Istanbul 36

Albufeira 50

Alicante 52

Prague 59

Cairo 84

Dubai 88

Paris 107

Bangkok 109

New York City 169

Hong Kong - 179

Additional research by Becca Meier
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Almost all transatlantic flights from the UK to New York, Boston and Philadelphia have been cancelled today because of Winter Storm Stella, the severe snowstorm predicted in the north-east US.

British Airways has cancelled all its flights to the two main New York airports, JFK and Newark, as well as Boston and Philadelphia. BA hopes an early-morning Boston-Heathrow flight will operate, but all other eastbound services have been grounded.

The airline says: We are sorry for the disruption to your travel plans and are doing all we can to minimise the effect the weather forecast will have on our US operations.

There will still be some flights to/from Washington and Baltimore but there will be some revisions to our schedules.

BA intends to use larger aircraft where possible on Wednesday to carry passengers whose flights are cancelled today. Passengers booked on Wednesday who do not want to accept the risk of possible disruption can move their flight to Thursday or Friday, if space is available.

This policy also applies to American Airlines, Iberia and Finnair flights on these routes, says BA.

Virgin Atlantic has axed its round-trips from Heathrow to New York, Boston and Washington DC. But its US partner, Delta, hopes to dispatch two Heathrow-JFK flights.

Delta said in a statement that it expects to resume operations from New York with a reduced Tuesday night schedule: Flights should return to relative normalcy Wednesday, pending facility evaluations and resumption of mass transit services in New York.

Virgin is allowing anyone with booking to, from or through Boston, New York and Washington up to Friday to rebook without penalty for the following week.

United and American Airlines are offering date changes to passengers with imminent bookings to and from the north-east US.

The storm highlights the complicated issue of passenger rights. Travellers with BA, Virgin and other EU airlines who are stranded by the storm in the US are entitled to hotels and meals until the carrier can get them home. Those booked on US airlines must fend for themselves.
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Last night Parliament voted to wrench us out of Europe. As Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn decided to ignore what was raging in Parliament and attend a Momentum rally instead. I say decided, as actually he didnt quite make it there, either. It turned out he wasnt even welcome among those comrades, who disapproved of his whipping his MPs to support Brexit instead of telling them to join with Liberal Democrats and block Brexit.

Labour backing the Conservatives to force through Brexit was an historic chance missed. Parliament is sometimes dismissed as a talking shop, but this was one of those moments when the future of the country really did hang in the balance over a vote. With Labours support, Liberal Democrats could have defeated the Conservative Brexit Government in the Lords, demanding a right to remain for EU nationals and that Parliament be given a say on the final deal.

With Labour holding placards rather than holding ministers to account, Theresa May successfully ordered her MPs and peers to vote for Brexit  even though, by her own admission, she doesnt yet have a clear idea what our future relationship will be with Europe, including how we will trade with our most important partners.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

To be clear, the Liberal Democrats will not give up. We will continue to fight for our membership of the single market and to give the people the final say.

Theresa May is playing recklessly with the future of the United Kingdom, with the SNP using Mays position as an excuse to cleave Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. Labour has given up on these people, but the Liberal Democrats will continue to fight for them, by fighting for Britains membership of the single market, to protect our economy and to keep our country united.

As well as worrying about the very future of the country, people are worried in a very practical way: what happens to their jobs if we leave the single market, what happens to loved ones if the Government does not give guarantees for EU nationals to remain, and what happens to prices due to a falling pound?

Estimates suggest leaving the single market will cost the UK economy up to 200bn over 15 years, while it will leave anything up to a Brexit black hole in the public finances of 100bn.

Our health and social care system is in the grip of a major crisis, with operations being cancelled and people being left on trollies. We are seeing education budgets being slashed, teachers being laid off, schools going to a four day week and essential repairs not being made. If you think the cuts have already been bad, then in the words of Ronald Regan, you aint seen nothin yet. And this is all due to a decision Theresa May didnt need to take  to go for a hard Brexit.

 Theresa May audibly laughed at during Commons speech on Brexit by other MPs

And all the time the public are facing that Brexit squeeze, with a declining pound pushing up prices. It is a bitter, cold storm coming our way, and it was Theresa May who unleashed it upon us.

So thats the problem  what can we do about it? Well, by joining the Liberal Democrats as the last party standing against Brexit would help campaigning with us on action days to convince the public that our relationship with Europe is too important to give up. Thousands have joined us, and you should too.

But Parliament still has a role, too. Reports suggest that at least seven bills must still come before it, dealing with everything from immigration to reciprocal rights to healthcare. Little by little, Tory MPs will have to face just how incredibly complex  and difficult  Brexit is, requiring them to give up much that even they must consider beneficial to Britain.

And ultimately, it is the public that can stop this reckless, harsh Brexit. They need to tell their MPs that rather than leaping into the abyss, the Government should pause and think very carefully about whether it is really in the interests of the United Kingdom to leave the worlds largest single market  and risk our very future as an open, tolerant and above all united country.

Last night Labour sat on its hands and let the Conservatives risk the future of our children. For all those who oppose the destructive, hard Brexit this government and official opposition are pursuing, there is now only one party for you  the Liberal Democrats.

Tom Brake is the Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington
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Such is the fragmented state of the Dutch political system that a party can win a general election on little more than a quarter of the popular vote, and much less than that as a proportion of the total adult population.

Thus, even if Geert Wilders and his extremist Party for Freedom wins the general election by coming first in terms of the popular vote or in parliament seats, there is little chance of him either governing alone or in coalition. No other party will deal with him and, as if to pre-empt their post-poll rejection of collaboration with him, he has also ruled out governing with the Dutch equivalent to the Conservatives. Despite his best efforts and visible fractures in the Netherlands society, Mr Wilders has not managed to engineer some kind of Brexit/Trump breakthrough. He is not storming to power.

Then again, neither is anyone else. The most likely victor is Mark Rutte, the rightist prime minister who has managed to contain Mr Wilders populist and anti-Islam sentiments with some fairly uncompromising policies of his own. Recently Mr Rutte has enjoyed a good war of words with the Turkish government. The row over allowing Turkish ministers to attend pro-Erdogan rallies in Rotterdam burnished his patriotic credentials. His Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy is likely to continue to run the Netherlands in turbulent times.

Such is the new normal in Dutch politics, and on much of the continent; a sizeable neo-fascist grouping is enjoying anything from 15 per cent of the vote (as with Alternative fur Deutschland) to perhaps approaching 40 per cent (Marine le Pen in France) or even winning power in Hungary. Sometimes, as in Spain and Greece, it is leftist insurgency that makes the greater gains. In Catalonia and Northern Italy we see separatists seeking their opportunity. Slowly but very surely all these parties have distorted and disfigured the political debate in their countries, calling for radical change, often scapegoating immigrants or bankers, many resorting to street violence, though not yet terror. It seems a long time since the tension between social democrats and Christian democrats was the norm in Western Europe, an almost distant age in fact as de-alignment from traditional party allegiances has gathered pace.

The disappointment is that Europe, which is to say the EU and its member states, has failed so badly its peoples. They see livings standards stagnate, they see few job opportunities for their families, their currency, the euro, is in a semi-permanent state of crisis, their banks, and savings, teetering on the edge of collapse. The snake-oil salesmen such as Mr Wilders have enjoyed an easy market and ready audiences. Their political opponents have few answers and few policies to rejuvenate Europes economy, which remains in structural decline.

Just because Mr Wilders is likely to stay frozen out of power this time round, like Marine le Pen and the Afd, it is no reason for the leaders of Europe to simply have a sigh of relief and continue their not-so-merry way. Next time, or the time after, Wilders or Le Pen, or their successors could get lucky and achieve the breakthrough they have long yearned for. For as long as Europes economy lays unreformed the extremists are not going to go away.
On March 10, the 10th Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps began preparing arable land with large locomotives, Cri.cn reported. Every March, the corps uses large vehicles to help melt lingering snow. At present, 10 such locomotives are dispatched to do the job on a daily basis to ensure that seeds can be sowed on time to maximize farmers income.
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Islam and Muslims are no longer welcome in Europe. If that message wasnt already clear to most people it has been set in to law today by EU judges. The decision by the European Court of Justice to allow employers to ban staff from wearing the headscarf seems certain to only further marginalise and push Muslim women out of public life.

What with Frances ban on the niqab in 2010, and countries such as Germany wanting to follow suit, the trend of enshrining Islamophobia into law is becoming increasingly common. Proponents of such policies deceptively tell the public these decisions will emancipate Muslim women from the proposed shackles of Islam. Yet, what these laws represent is a discriminatory form of social engineering to try and enforce Muslim women to adopt a secular identity.

Such discriminatory and openly xenophobic policies contradict Europes inherent belief that it is a bastion of freedom in an otherwise barbaric and intolerant world. The hypocrisy is galling to say the least  the very European leaders that pit themselves against supposedly misogynistic and regressive societies in the Muslim world have no qualms in applying discriminatory and gendered Islamophobia towards Muslim women in their own countries.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

They conveniently ignore the impact that such legislation is having on the lives of ordinary Muslim women. An inquiry by the Women and Equalities Committee found that Muslim women were three times less likely to be employed. The report highlighted the role of unconscious bias in discrimination against women that wear the hijab or have Muslim sounding names.

A similar report by the European Network Against Racism, which covered eight countries ranging from France to The Netherlands, suggests that the such discrimination in the workplace and its negative impact on Muslim women is widespread across Europe.

Economic marginalisation is of course not the only obstacle that women must face due to decisions like the one made today. There are much more dire consequences for the average woman on the streets of London or Paris. With reports of a woman in hijab being dragged along the streets of London and another woman attacked and bitten for wearing hijab in Vienna, what kind of message does this sends out to those people that find a piece of cloth offensive enough to attack a woman for it?

 Top European court rules companies can ban Islamic headscarf

Alarmingly, the decision the EU judges made is strikingly like the anti-Jewish legislation that was passed in Germany prior to the Second World War. The Nuremberg laws specifically targeted a social group by restricting them on an economic level. Jews were banned from professions such as midwifery and law, and state contracts were cancelled with Jewish owned businesses. That is not dissimilar to telling a woman that she is not welcome at a workplace if she decides to identify as a member of a given faith.

There will be those that hail todays decision as a victory for Europes long held secular ideals. However, history tells us that such excuses are always used to justify much more sinister trajectories. This new ban is a worrying indication of Europes hostility towards its Muslims citizens.

Let us not forget that it was in times of similar social and economic upheaval that Europes Jews became the scapegoats for all of societys ills. Its increasingly becoming apparent that history might be repeating itself as Muslim women become the new victims of Europes identity crises ensuing from its social and economic woes.
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The Netherlands, which boasts the fifth largest economy in the Eurozone, goes to the polls on Wednesday in the next big test since Donald Trumps election and Brexit of whether anti-establishment, conservative forces will continue to make political headway.

With the far-right leading in polls for much of the campaign, the country will soon discover whether much of its longstanding, albeit now fraying liberal political traditions are, now underwater like much of its landmass.

Polls this month have tightened, with some showing Prime Minister Mark Ruttes centre-right Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) now having a narrow advantage. However, concern remains that the populist Freedom Party, led by the controversial so-called Dutch Trump Geert Wilders, could emerge  for the first time  as the largest single party.

Wilders, who was convicted last year of incitement to discrimination, advocates an array of contentious positions, including de-Islamicising Europe, that have ostracised him from mainstream politicians in the country. His nativist, nationalist platform is similar to that of other populist, far-right leaders across Europe, and his central pledge to make the Netherlands ours again has obvious echoes of Trumps Make America Great Again slogan.

Wilders  who has longstanding connections with right-wing US conservatives and attended the Republican convention in Cleveland last summer  is a fan of the new US President, having recently said he has done more to beat the mass immigration in two weeks time [in office] than the whole European governments in their whole existence.

 Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders reacts to hate speech trial

However, for all the similarities that Wilders has with other European far-right leaders in his enthusiasm for Trump, he is by no means an identikit politician to them, which partially reflects the fact that he split from the VVD just over a decade ago. For instance, unlike some on the far-right who oppose LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage, Wilders claims to support these which he believes are in line with traditional Dutch values.

Moreover, although Wilders has articulated pro-Russia positions, he has sought to keep more distance from President Vladimir Putin than some on the European ultra-conservative fringes. This is, partly, because anti-Moscow feelings are still strong amongst many in the Netherlands after the MH17 disaster in July 2014, which saw nearly 193 Dutch citizens killed.

Despite the fact that the Freedom Party could still emerge as the largest group in parliament, this outcome is generally not being treated with the same degree of alarm in Europe than the prospect of French National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen winning power in May. This is because it is unlikely that Wilders will become Dutch prime minister later this month. Polls indicate that the Freedom Party will win less than 30 of 150 seats in parliament and  in a context where the countrys elections generally lead to coalition governments  almost all other groups have ruled out working with him, for now at least, because of the perceived extremity of his views.

In a country with a long tradition of religious tolerance, Wilders has asserted Islam is potentially more dangerous than Nazism, that the Quran is more anti-Semitic than Mein Kampf and that it should be banned from book stores, and called mosques Nazi temples. This is not usually the Dutch way.

Wilders has warned of a popular revolt should the Freedom Party emerge as the largest single group, but not win power. In this scenario, it is likely that support for his cause could only grow in the short to medium term, with potentially multiple consequences.

Firstly, the sometimes outrageous rhetoric of Wilders may continue to push the political centre of gravity rightwards. Recently, for instance, Rutte  the VVD leader  has been criticised for his own sharpened attacks on immigration. Critics have argued that he is coming dangerously close to aping Wilders, who urged last month a crackdown on Morrocan scum.

Secondly, in a country which has voted No in two key, separate EU referendums in the last 12 years  in 2005 and 2016 respectively  Wilders is further polarising the electorate around EU membership. He has even accused war-mongering and shameless Europhiles with their dreams of empire for the problems in Ukraine by propping up what he describes as the National Socialists, Jew-haters and other anti-democrats in Kievs pro-Western government.

 Hundreds of pro-Turkey protesters clash with police in Rotterdam

While levels of support in the Netherlands for leaving the EU are lower than in the United Kingdom, some polls indicate around half the electorate would like a Nexit referendum. In this context, Wilders and other leavers are surfing a wave of Eurosceptism, especially in the conservative south of the country, which could grow in salience.

Thirdly, and cumulatively, the growing influence of Wilders could make governability in the country increasingly complex and difficult. This is especially so given the growing fragmentation of Dutch politics, which will see some 28 parties (around half of which did not exist in 2013) trying to win seats in next months election.

Taken overall, while Wilders is unlikely to emerge this month as prime minister, his impact on Dutch politics could be significant for years to come. His prominent far-right challenge means the election will be closely watched internationally, not least in France, given that his ally Le Pen is looking for inspiration to pull off an upset victory herself in that countrys presidential race.

Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS (the Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy) at the London School of Economics
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How will we remember March 2017? As the point that marked the 60 year anniversary since the Treaty of Rome was signed  which kick-started the project of European integration which has shaped our last half century  or as the beginning of the end of the British involvement in that very same project?

As we move ever closer to the triggering of Article 50 this month, the answer, it appears, will be a mix of both  and perhaps much, much more.

As Nicola Sturgeon made clear on Monday, a second referendum on Scottish independence now seems a distinct possibility. We should ask: how did we end up asking the Scottish people, for the second time in four years, a question the last prime minister told us was settled for a generation?

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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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The first answer to that question is the obvious one: 62 per cent of Scots voted to Remain in the EU, and as such, have a right to feel aggrieved by Brexit. But the second answer is more problematic, inasmuch as it is avoidable. As Sturgeon argued on Monday, she has met a brick wall of intransigence around Brexit from May's government on discussions on the issue. But as she has also said as recently as last month, there was still the option of compromise from the Government, the possibility to ceding some ground to Scotland and the other devolved assemblies, of involving them in the process of Brexit overall. However they have been summarily dismissed.

Add to this the fact that in Parliament there has been no meaningful challenge to this wall of intransigence  there is no official Opposition capable of opposing. Who can blame Sturgeon and the SNP, and the Scottish people as a whole, for their sense of grievance that they are being denied a meaningful voice on Brexit?

We should remember that if the 48 per cent across the UK as a whole feel left out of the rush towards Brexit at all costs, then that must be even more pronounced in Remain supporting Scotland. Add this to the long standing sense of neglect at the hands of Whitehall that has fed into the rise of the SNP in recent decades, and you have a potent mix of forces that mean the next Scottish referendum may produce a different vote from the first.

 Second Scottish Independence Referendum to be held, announces Sturgeon

And, as with Scotland, the ripples could soon be felt elsewhere. What exactly should the Northern Irish feel, as they see the media furore over the weekend of David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox all talking up the possibility of not just Brexit, but a Brexit at all costs?

Northern Ireland not only voted Remain in the referendum, but their remarkable recovery from the Troubles in recent years has been predicated in large measure on successive waves of devolution, in order that they could manage their own healing. It is dangerous in the extreme to now deny them that devolved responsibility and force them into a London-driven Brexit.

The irony in all of this is that the Brexit vote has been portrayed since June as the expression of the voice of the left behind, ignored for too long by successive governments. In her bid to show a unilateral strength and stability above all else in the project of Brexit, Theresa May and her team are in real danger of leaving many, many more people behind, including the entire nations of a once United Kingdom.

Dr Andy Price is the head of politics at Sheffield Hallam University
Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny is currently in the US

Enda Kenny has said his thoughts are with the families of the crew of the Coast Guard helicopter that vanished off the Irish coast.

Speaking from the US, where he is to meet President Donald Trump at the White House, the Taoiseach was being kept up to date with developments off Blacksod, which is in his Mayo constituency.

"I learned late last night of the lack of communication with Rescue 116 and to hear the tragic news this morning, on behalf of the government I want to issue our deepest sympathy in respect of the family of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, and the search continues arising from this particular tragedy."

Mr Kenny added: " Clearly, the analysis and investigation into this, we want to uncover what exactly happened in respect of the lack of communication and loss of contact with rescue helicopter 116."

Transport Minister Shane Ross said he was deeply concerned about the incident and offered his support and sympathy for all those involved, "particularly those family members who are awaiting news of their loved ones".

"This is an extremely difficult time for all concerned," he added.

Sinn Fein fisheries spokesman Martin Ferris paid tribute to the "selfless service" of the Coast Guard in saving lives.

"The rescue helicopters are a welcome sight, not just on the deck of a boat in trouble, but also to those injured and stranded on Ireland's mountains," he said.

"This has been a painful year for the Coast Guard, having lost their comrade Caitriona Lucas last September."

Ms Lucas, a Coast Guard volunteer, died during the search for a missing man off the coast of Co Clare.

"This is testament to their bravery and dedication," Mr Ferris said.

"My thoughts are with the families, comrades and friends of the man recovered and those still to be found."

Impact Trade Union, which represents helicopter flight crews, also offered its support.

"The thoughts of all Impact members are with the families and colleagues of the crew of Rescue 116 as we await news from the search efforts," a spokesman said.

Health Minister Simon Harris said the helicopter crew represented all that is good about Ireland.

"They epitomise courage, bravery, selflessness and dedication to the welfare of others," he said.

"These traits were all on display again overnight on our west coast."

He added: "Often at times of great difficulty and sadness, we see people pull together - this has been so evident today as the ongoing, collective effort of our emergency services and the local community work together on this search mission.

"Our hearts go out to the families of the crew, their colleagues, their communities and all in the emergency services community at this time of great sorrow."
Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, the first named victim of the Coast Guard crash, was a ground-breaking pilot well known for her starring role in a fly-on-the-wall television show about the life-saving service.

The 45-year-old Dubliner had been carrying out search and rescue missions for over two decades and was recognised with honours and a place in the aviation history books.

At the age of 18, she forsake a hoped-for career in business for daredevil missions in the skies after being "hooked" on her first helicopter trip.

"I heard an ad on the radio for half an hour in a helicopter," she said in 2007.

"I went up in the helicopter and that was it - I was hooked."

Two years later, while based at Waterford Coast Guard helicopter base, she told the Munster Express newspaper it was an unlikely trajectory.

"If someone had told me when I was quite young that I'd be doing this for a living, I'd have thought they were nuts," she said.

"I got my own licence and I was working for a businessman for a year, year-and-a-half when the Coast Guard advertised for co-pilots.

"That was at a time when Shannon was the only Coast Guard helicopter base in the country so I applied for it and got it. I stayed there until 2002 and came over to Waterford and I love it here."

After mastering a single engine aircraft, she got to grips with a twin engine and then flying the aircraft by instruments as she rose through the ranks to become one of the service's most experienced.

A year long stint in Aberdeen, flying onto oil rigs, gained her valuable experience in piloting crew.

After rejoining the Irish Coast Guard service, under the employment of CHC which is contracted to provide the service, Ms Fitzpatrick received an award in 2010 for her role in rescuing a stricken pilot when his light aircraft crashed into the Irish Sea.

The same year she co-starred in Rescue 117, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series on State broadcaster RTE, given behind the scenes access to the Irish Coast Guard's helicopter search and rescue service.

Just three years ago, she flew into the Irish aviation history books when, as one of two female Coast Guard pilots, she piloted the first all-woman mission for the service.

The pair flew a cardiac patient from west Co Cork to Cork University Hospital before transferring a critically-ill five-year-old child from the hospital to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin.

Ms Fitzpatrick later returned to her native Dublin to become captain of the Coast Guard helicopter base in the Irish capital.

She was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean at around 7am - six hours after the helicopter mysteriously vanished without alerting authorities to any danger - and deemed to be critically ill but was later pronounced dead.
The Public Accounts Committee said the 2014 transaction was not well-designed and adviser Frank Cushnahan should have been removed

The biggest property deal in Northern Ireland's history was "seriously deficient", an Irish watchdog said.

The cut-price sale of almost 1,000 properties by Ireland's state-owned bank for bad loans following the economic crash, the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), cost the Irish taxpayer 185 million euro.

The Irish Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the 2014 transaction was not well-designed and Nama's former adviser Frank Cushnahan should have been removed.

It also said key elements of the sale were influenced by one of the bidders, US firm Pimco, and the most active participants in the market for non-performing loans were not initially invited to compete.

The PAC report said: "The sales strategy pursued by Nama included restrictions of such significance that the strategy could be described as seriously deficient.

"Nama has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy that it got value for money for the Irish State in relation to the price achieved."

Nama was established in 2009 to take control of billions of euro of bad property loans at home and abroad which were undermining the finances of the Irish banks.

The entire Northern Ireland portfolio was sold to Cerberus, a US investment fund manager, for 1.1 billion (1.23 billion euro) in a sale known as Project Eagle.

The report said Nama incurred losses on its Northern Ireland debts of 800 million euro from 2010 to 2014 and the state ultimately recovered only 36% of the original value of the loans.

A Nama statement disputed the suggestion an extra 162 million (185 million euro) could have been raised through Project Eagle and said the overall losses would have arisen whether the portfolio was sold or retained in 2014.

A spokesman said: "It was the Board's commercial and considered judgment, in full knowledge of the financial implications, that the sale of the Project Eagle loan portfolio provided a better financial outcome than any alternative monetisation strategy.

"That was the Board's view in 2014 and it remains the Board's view today."

Businessman Mr Cushnahan was a member of the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee (NIAC) to Nama.

During 2011 and 2012 he admitted providing financial consultancy services, mainly on a non-fee basis, to six Nama Northern Ireland debtors.

PAC chairman Sean Fleming noted: "These debtors' connections accounted for approximately 50% by value of the Project Eagle loans.

"It is the opinion of the committee that Nama's failure to effect Mr Frank Cushnahan's removal from NIAC, following his disclosures in relation to consultancy services on behalf of a number of Nama's Northern Ireland debtors, was a failure of corporate governance by Nama."

Mr Cushnahan has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

According to the PAC chairman, when the Nama board was deciding to set its minimum price for the sale, it already had an indicative offer on the table from Pimco.

He said: "I believe that Nama was influenced by the Pimco offer when deciding on the minimum reserve price and key elements of the sales process."
A sea search is under way off the Co Mayo coast (Irish Coast Guard/PA)

An intense search for the remaining crew of a missing Irish Coast Guard helicopter off the west of Ireland has been wound down for the night after its rescued pilot died.

Hopes faded for the survival of anyone on the Sikorsky S92 which lost radio contact without any warning at around 12:45 am on Tuesday morning.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, 45, the first named victim of the suspected crash, was pulled from the Atlantic off the Co Mayo coast - around six miles (10km) west of Blacksod - deemed critically-ill, but later confirmed dead.

She was the mother of a three-year-old son.

The ground-breaking pilot from Dublin, well known for her starring role in a fly-on-the-wall television show about the life-saving service, had more than two decades experience in search and rescue missions.

Her sister Niamh Fitzpatrick said the family was devastated.

"My brave sister Capt Dara Fitzpatrick lost her life in #Rescue116 crash," she posted on Twitter.

"We are devastated. Please pray for recovery of three remaining crew."

In a statement to Today FM, her family added: "We are so proud of Dara's work and all she has done to save the lives of others over the years.

"We are completely heartbroken and we pray for the recovery of the other three crew."

The Dublin-based helicopter crew was providing cover for another Coast Guard helicopter involved in an early-morning evacuation of a crewman needing urgent medical attention on a UK-registered trawler, approximately 150 miles (240km) west of Eagle Island in Co Mayo.

It had flown directly to the scene from the Irish capital, travelled around 10 miles (16km) out to sea, then turned back towards land to refuel.

There was no indication of any danger moments before it vanished, with the crew's final transmission: "Shortly landing at Blacksod."

Visibility was described as not good at the time.

When the helicopter failed to arrive, a Mayday signal went out and Coast Guard helicopters from Sligo and Shannon along with the Air Corps maritime patrol aircraft Casa were tasked to the scene.

They were joined by lifeboats from Ballyglass and Achill, the Naval Service's LE Roisin ship and five local fishing vessels.

Officals from the Air Accident Investigation Unit are also at the scene carrying out a full investigation.

Jurgen Whyte, chief aeronautical officer with the unit, signalled the helicopter's black box could be crucial to learning what went wrong.

"These recorders are modern enough that we can actually - if we can recover the recorder and if it is functioning correctly - we can hopefully re-analyse the flight and actually get the aircraft to fly again digitally," he said.

"That will help investigators a lot to actually determine what was happening in the final moments of the flight."

Gerard O'Flynn, of the Irish Coast Guard, confirmed there was no indication the helicopter was in any trouble immediately before it vanished from the radar.

"This was a shock, the helicopter just simply disappeared," he said.

From early on, little hope was held out of any survivors.

Debris discovered on the surface of the water was brought ashore at a pier at Blacksod throughout the day, including what appeared to look like a door.

Eugene Clonan, acting director of the Irish Coast Guard, said the helicopter was one of best that can be used in search and rescue operations and had a "very good safety record".

President Michael D Higgins led tributes, saying it was a "dark day in the history of the Coast Guard".

"On behalf of the people of Ireland, may I pay tribute to Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who died today," he said.

"We are all grateful for the courage, resolution and exemplary commitment to the aims of the Coast Guard that Captain Fitzpatrick and her colleagues have consistently displayed.

"My thoughts are with her family at this difficult moment and also with the families of the missing crew."

Safety checks were carried out on the disappeared Sikorsky S92 helicopter and four others in January after its maker issued an alert.

No issues were found with any of the helicopters when precautionary inspections were ordered after an incident involving the same make and model on a North Sea platform late last year.

The aircraft are owned and operated by a private company called CHC, under contract with the Department of Transport for the Irish Coast Guard.

Mark Abbey, regional director for CHC, said: "We are devastated by this morning's tragic accident. Our thoughts are with Dara's family and friends, as well as those of the three crew who are still missing."

Ms Fitzpatrick was recognised with honours for her bravery and earned a place in the aviation history books.

Just three years ago, she was one of two female Coast Guard pilots who carried out the first all-woman mission for the service.

The pair flew a cardiac patient from west Co Cork to Cork University Hospital before transferring a critically-ill five-year-old child from the hospital to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin.

She was known for her starring role in Rescue 117, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series on State broadcaster RTE, given behind the scenes access to the helicopter search and rescue service.

She had also spent a year long stint in Aberdeen flying onto oil rigs.

As well as her son, she is survived by three sisters, a brother and her parents.
All signs are that the Brexit phoney war is at last over. Now we are going to find out how good our Irish negotiators really are.

As late as the start of the year, there were expressions of doubt among some Brussels diplomats about the level of engagement Dublin had with the EU. Some people feared Enda Kenny, his ministers and senior officials, were putting too much emphasis on the Dublin-London axis.

Even novice lobbyists in "EU land" know the original draft of the UK-EU separation agreement will be written by the chief EU negotiator, Michel Barnier. Once a first draft emerges, it can take some very serious work to change what "the moving hand has written" in the first instance. The early phases of these negotiations risk being noisy and negative. Assuming they go ahead this week, they will be in the teeth of an election in the Netherlands where the far-right anti-EU leader Geert Wilders and his so-called Party of Freedom have a huge media presence.

More significantly, they play out against the French presidential elections which go ahead later next month and in early May. Then there are the German federal elections in September. None of this bodes well for the EU kingpins finding it easy to accommodate British demands. Ireland's aims are certainly better identified than those of Britain.

We need to keep identity and customs checks off the Border. We need to ensure tariff-free trade with our biggest partner can continue. We need to maintain the common Ireland-UK travel area.

These look 'mission impossible' when you consider British insistence that they will leave not just the EU, but the border-free single market and the customs union. How we avoid a so-called "hard Border", when the British stance means a de facto land frontier between the EU and UK jurisdictions, is hard to fathom.

We must talk about commercial and trade woes and how these will disrupt the very foundations of the Irish economy. The statistics are well known by now and pretty stark, with 1.4bn worth of trade going between the two islands each week.

But other member states have huge issues in that department. Germany sells huge volumes of cars, France and Spain also have huge volumes of trade with Britain. Clearly, we can only make headway on the "trade story" by coat-tailing the bigger member states' interests. To do that we have to know specifically what the other key players' needs are and figure our how we can inveigle our way in there.

In fairness, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan has been on the circuit since shortly after the British voters delivered their verdict on June 23. He and his senior diplomats have plans to intensify their contacts.

The future of the fragile Northern Ireland peace process is potentially a unique trump card. The EU is heavily invested in under-pinning the peace with 25 years of special grants.

Things have been further complicated by the declaration of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to run a second Scottish independence referendum round about the conclusion of the Brexit talks.

This will not help stability in the North. The outcome of this second Scottish vote, recalling that the initial one was lost 55pc to 45pc in 2014, will be closely linked to the perceived outcome of the Brexit negotiations.

Scotland's UK exit would pose serious questions for the North, where 56pc of people voted 'Remain' last June.

We are very definitely headed into uncharted waters from this week on.
Li Yuzhen, 105, works in a vintage photo studio in the town of Lianhua, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. After 64 years behind the camera, Li refuses to put it down now.

In 1953, Li married Rong Songting, and learned photography from him. She later landed a job as a photographer in Lianhua. Li is one of only a handful of photographers who still knows how to use the twin-lens reflex Seagull-brand camera.

In 1984, Li's daughter borrowed 200 RMB ($30) to open the only photography studio in town; Li quickly came to work at the shop. Though time has passed and technology changed, Li has nevertheless managed to adapt. So far, five members of Lis family have chosen careers in photography. Even the elderly woman's great-granddaughter has developed an interest in taking photos.
Bank of America sees Dublin as its "default destination" for a new hub inside the European Union if Brexit costs the UK its easy access to the single market.

Dublin is an emergency, a default option that the bank has, one of its top executives in Germany said.

If Brexit cuts London off from the EU market, Bank of America will most likely move some jobs to a number of other cities including Frankfurt, Madrid, Luxembourg and Amsterdam, Nikolaus Naerger said at a press briefing reported by Bloomberg.

The German executive is Bank of Americas head of corporate banking in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

In addition, the bank will need a European hub, he said. That will potentially be in Dublin.

We will look very carefully who can be the EU passporting entity in future, he said.

The bank will make the final decision on a hub once there is more clarity on where Brexit negotiations are headed, he added.

Bank of America already has a fully licensed operation in Dublin, which is why it is the default option, Mr Naerger said.
After almost nine months of analysing what Brexit could mean, we're on the cusp of divorce proceedings being launched.

But don't expect that when Article 50 is triggered by Theresa May - be it today, tomorrow or at some point by the end of the month - that the two sides are going to suddenly knuckle down and start the complex task of unravelling the relationship.

It could be May at the earliest before talks officially begin. First we have to have the talks about the talks.

Mrs May, once she triggers Article 50, will likely lay out her proposals in a letter accompanying the request. These are expected to be along the lines of her Lancaster House speech in January, in which she made it clear that the UK would leave the single market.

European Council President Donald Tusk is likely to reply within a matter of days, but this is expected to be a short response.

Depending on the timing of Mrs May's letter to Brussels formally involving the exit clause, a special European Council meeting of heads of government will have to be called for the remaining 27 member states either early in April, or by the end of that month.

The period between invoking the exit clause and the leaders' gathering will give Brussels's impressive bureaucratic machine the chance to set out in some detail the potential negotiating guidelines for the talks process. This will then be presented by Mr Tusk at April's special Brexit summit.

More detailed negotiating objectives will also be drawn up for agreement by the General Affairs Council, attended by EU Ministers for Foreign Affairs. After all this, assuming we have agreement, negotiations proper can then begin.

Officials here believe the early stages of the talks process will be dominated by sparring over what issues should be dealt with first.

From the EU perspective, the question of whether Britain should agree to cough up billions of euro to secure its exit should take centre stage early on, along with the rights of expatriate EU citizens living in Britain, whereas London may prefer to focus on the terms of its future relationship. Even if both sides agree to focus on the money, there'll likely be no end of disputes over the final bill, as Britain has already rejected the 60bn tally that's been floated.

It's very likely, therefore, that very little will get done before the process breaks up for the summer recess.

While the Commission is chief negotiator on behalf of Ireland and the remaining EU countries, the Government is keen to point out that the talks process will be closely monitored by member states, with input at political and official level.

Mr Tusk is expected to have a representative in meetings. There'll also be a representative from the country holding the rotating EU Presidency, which until July is Malta.

The weekly meeting of ambassadors will also discuss proceedings, which in turn will report to Foreign Affairs Ministers at the General Affairs Council. That in turn feeds into European Council meetings.

"The idea that the Commission is sent off into the wilderness and then comes back in two years time, couldn't be further from the truth," one Irish Government source with knowledge of the process said.

Key for Ireland is ensuring that our concerns are taken account of in the talks process. Irish officials centrally involved in Brexit preparations have been speaking to their European counterparts, in person and via video conferencing.

In some cases these meetings last for several hours, much longer than at the political level. They focus on teasing out what other member states want from the negotiating process, the strategies to be employed, the potential outcomes.

The Government appears confident that the Irish questions - including Northern Ireland - are being put on the radar across Europe.

Time will tell.
Restrictions on the manner in which vulture funds deal with borrowers may be in the pipeline following a meeting between ICMSA and the Central Bank last week.

ICMSA pressed the Central Bank to issue a 'guidance document' for farmers whose loans have been acquired by so-called vulture funds.

While the Central Bank did not directly accede to the request, officials outlined the "various protections and Central Bank codes" that are in place to protect borrowers, including farmers, whose loans have been sold to third parties.

The bank said it had "committed to providing further information to the ICMSA" to help inform their members of the various protections available to borrowers.

Recent reports that AIB is considering selling off 1.8bn in non-performing loans, including farm loans, to vulture funds remains a major concern for farmers. Although the State-owned bank - bailed out with 21bn in taxpayer funding since 2008 - has not confirmed or denied this move, such an announcement is feared in advance of the bank's privatisation later this year.

It's understood a US vulture fund, Cerberus, is a potential buyer.

Ulster Bank sold 900 owner-occupier mortgages, on the brink of repossession, to the same investment firm last October.

ICMSA requested the meeting with the Central Bank to raise what it described as "deep concern" felt by farmers regarding vulture funds.

While accepting the limitations of a guidance document, ICMSA president John Comer said the adoption of such a position by the Central Bank would be significant.

"Farmers need to know their rights in this regard, and the ICMSA proposal for a specific guidance document for farmers in setting out their rights in relation to dealing with vulture funds is important, and we're confident the Central Bank will implement this proposal," said Mr Comer.

The ICMSA president said the transfer of loans had provoked "huge disquiet" among farmers as the specialist finance companies who took over farm borrowings were generally operated on a business model that was "radically different to that used by traditional banking".

"Farmers feel traditional banks want and understand farm business and have a vested interest in a farmer working through a distressed loan.

"That is not the situation with 'vulture funds' who seem to operate on the basis that the sooner they can finalise a loan the better," he added.

Meanwhile, the IFA says it will be ramping up its campaign on the vulture funds issue over the coming weeks. Martin Stapleton, IFA farm business committee chairman, said: "We have written to the Finance Minister looking for regulation on vulture funds and before the end of the month we will be publishing our principles on how we intend to deal with them."
Talks are under way that could allow online grocery shoppers to only buy British products, a minister has said.

Environment minister George Eustice said he was talking with the National Farmers' Union (NFU) about the labelling system for food online.

Tory MPs urged the Government to introduce a button to press while food shopping online "so that you can just choose from British products".

Irish food exports to the UK were 8% lower in 2016 at 4.1 billion, affected by a weaker sterling. The share of exports to the UK declined from 41% to 37%

The comments came during a Westminster Hall debate on the future of food labelling, where Mr Eustice also said ministers were looking at using trademark laws to improve the labelling of Angus beef.

Conservative MP Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) said: "I would like to raise the subject of labelling on online shopping, because often if one wants to shop online one doesn't know whether it's British food or not.

"Would there be a way that we could consider having a button to press when you do your online shop so that you can just choose from British produce?

"Surely that's really going to help us as we leave the EU?"

Fellow Tory Julian Sturdy (York Outer), who led the debate, said: "I applaud that and I think it's an excellent idea, and I hope the minister certainly takes that point on board."

At the end of the debate, Mr Eustice said: "She raised the issue of online shopping.

"Just briefly, I can say that we are discussing this with the NFU and it may be one of the ways that we can avoid voluntary principles."

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee chairman Neil Parish raised the issue of Angus beef.

He said: "There is a very big chain in this city and others which sell Angus beef.

"Now, I suspect that beef is not Aberdeen Angus from either Scotland or the rest of the United Kingdom, but I suspect most of it is South American Angus beef.

"But because they label it as Angus beef, a lot of people eating it I suspect think it's home-grown Angus beef."

MPs also raised concerns about supermarkets setting up "fictitious" brands that imply the products are produced by UK farms.

Mr Parish and Mr Sturdy were among those to call for clearer food labelling after Brexit to reflect Britain's higher animal welfare standards.

Mr Eustice said he wanted continuity after Brexit but would like to see improvements in the long term, such as mutual recognition for food names that are currently protected.

He said: "We're looking at whether we could use trademark regulations to look at whether we could develop brands in other areas.

"(Mr Parish) mentioned the issue of Angus beef.

"There's another issue with Angus beef, which is it's not always pedigree Angus, or indeed rarely pedigree Angus, it's usually crossed with a dairy animal, and we have the opportunity through trademark regulations and other intellectual property law to develop brands around pedigree beef breeds, native beef breeds, for instance, and we are looking at that."
The family of an 83-year-old farmer cleared of shooting a suspected thief on his land have welcomed a fund to pay his 30,000 legal costs.

Lawyer Nick Freeman set up the fundraising page for Kenneth Hugill after a jury at Hull Crown Court found the pensioner not guilty of grievous bodily harm in just 24 minutes last week.

Mr Hugill shot Richard Stables in the foot when he fired his shotgun in the dark towards a car he believed was going to run him over on his isolated farm in Wilberfoss, East Yorkshire.

He walked free from court on Friday but his son David revealed the family had been left with a legal bill of at least 30,000, which they would have to borrow and pay back over 20 to 30 years.

Mr Freeman, who is known as Mr Loophole, said he was "incensed" at the decision to prosecute Mr Hugill and started the JustGiving page to help pay the legal bill.

The page has raised more than 3,500 since it was set up on Sunday.

Megan Carr, 22, Mr Hugill's granddaughter, said any money raised would "make a huge amount of difference".

She said: "I think it's obviously a great thing, the page has been set up for a good cause.

"It will make a huge amount of difference. We're not on a farm that's got a lot of money, we can't afford to pay those legal fees."

She added: "It's a shock, to be fair, I don't think any of us were expecting it at all.

"All of a sudden, we've got all this support."

David Hugill, 50, said the response to his father's acquittal had been "truly amazing" and thanked all those who had supported the family.

Last week, he described how police took 15 hours to respond to a call he made and arrived at the farm with armed colleagues, forensic officers, a helicopter and an ambulance, saying they were looking for hostages.

Mr Hugill and David were arrested, photographed, fingerprinted, had DNA samples taken and were locked in police cells for three to four hours.

Mr Stables gave three different accounts about how he received his injuries and, when interviewed by police, said he had been out lamping with a friend and had stopped at Mr Hugill's farm to let the dog out.

Mr Freeman told The Press Association he felt that Mr Hugill had been "betrayed" by the criminal justice system and should never have been prosecuted.

He said he wanted to highlight the problem of innocent people being left with large debts as a result of being taken to court and for the Government to consider changing the law.

Mr Freeman said: "I thought he'd been badly let down by the legal system, an elderly man who clearly was doing the right thing from a legal perspective, who's left, not only having to endure a horrendous trial, but with a financial shortfall of about 30,000 that he says he's going to have to repay over the next 30 years.

"How can you have the presumption of innocence and be acquitted very quickly and then be left with 30,000 debt? You have been punished massively for something you're innocent of. How is that fair?"
Milk prices will hold in the medium term despite last week's 6.3pc fall in the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) index, according to Rabobank analyst Kevin Bellamy.

While Irish processors described markets as "nervous" in the wake of last week's GDT auction, Bellamy maintained that they would remain stable through the spring.

Bigger than expected milk volumes out of New Zealand through the back end of their production season had given added weight to the GDT results, Bellamy claimed.

"I would say the outlook is pretty stable, with not a lot of price pressure in either direction," he said.

Irish processors and dairy commodity traders have cautioned that increased milk volumes out of Europe this summer, on the back of higher prices, could impact on prices. However, Bellamy insisted that EU milk production this spring and summer would not grow sufficiently to destabilise markets.

He pointed out that milk output in the Netherlands would be back by 7-10pc because of the recently introduced phosphates controls, while the British dairy sector was in flux as a result of Brexit. France and Germany could ramp up output, however. Bellamy said both countries had traditionally reacted in a measured manner to price fluctuations.

He said two areas of worry were the increased volume of US product being pushed on to global markets, and continuing poor demand for dairy proteins such as skimmed milk powder (SMP).

February milk price

Meanwhile, Glanbia will pay its milk suppliers 31c/l including VAT for February milk. The processor has also approved the terms of a new three-year seasonality scheme, commencing in 2018. It will pay a fixed 'Early Lactation Bonus' of 4.25c/l (including VAT) for milk during the last two weeks of January and for the month of February. A 'Late Lactation Bonus' will be paid on all qualifying volumes supplied during November each year.

Lakeland Dairies has also held its milk price at 31.28c/l including VAT for February milk.
New Yorkers who can't get enough green stuff on St Patrick's Day will no doubt be delighted to be able to buy green milk this year.

An upstate New York dairy, Byrne Dairy, is producing mint milk that has a distinctive look at taste for this St Patrick's Day.
In 2001, the Jinlun Guild Assembly Hall in Guangzhou, Guangdong province was picked up whole and moved 80.4 meters from its original location, where it was built in the early 1700s.

In 2003, the Shanghai Concert Hall, built in 1930, was moved 68 meters to enable the construction of a new road.

In 2014, the Zhengguanghe Building in Wuzhou, Guangxi province was moved 38 meters from its original 1935 position to make room for new development.

These bold engineering undertakings have become increasingly common in China since the turn of the century, according to a recent CNN report, even spawning a specialized industry to carry out the moves. Whats more, the rest of the world is taking note, and everyone has an opinion.

Lan Wuji, the founder of Shanghai-based Evolution Shift, which specializes in building relocation, told CNN why he supports the relocation projects.

Relocation has several benefits compared to demolition and rebuilding, Lan explained. It costs less, it provides a better conservation of the building, its more environmentally friendly and it saves time. His firm was responsible for moving the former British embassy in Beijing and the old Agricultural and Industrial Bank of China building.

Others, however, are more ambivalent. In response to the 2002 relocation of Murray House, a historical Hong Kong structure originally built to house military officials in 1844, Professor Hoyin Lee of the University of Hong Kong pointed out that the context lost by moving the building was essential to the buildings true preservation. While it used to stand in Hong Kongs financial district, the Murray House now resides in the waterfront neighborhood of Stanley, where it serves as shopping mall.

Hundreds of years later, youre going to have people wondering, Why is this building here? Lee told CNN.

However, despite the various reservations and plaudits experts have offered, the Chinese public seems to be largely of one mind when it comes to building relocation. As a Global Times article points out, the majority of Chinese responses to the original CNN piece (titled Should China move its historic monuments) ask just one question: This is Chinas businesswhat does it have to do with you?

Several netizens also mocked the articles Western perspective in light of the current political situation in the United States. One commenter jokingly asked whether the U.S. might want to move the Great Wall to its own border with Mexico. Another wrote: Moving buildings is nothing. America is packing up all the people it dislikes and moving them away

One thing is certain, the Global Times article concludes: Chinas construction and engineering prowess will continue to captivate the world.
As part of a special report on rural crime, headed up by crime journalist Paul Williams, the Independent is looking to hear your story.

Recent figures show that two thirds of Irish farms have been hit by rural crime in the past few years. Research by the ICSA shows that farmers are most likely to be hit by vandalism, trespassing and theft.
Galway-based specialist engineering company Ward & Burke posted a pre-tax profit of 13.8m last year, up 11pc, as it continued to secure more business in Canada.

Its revenue rose 6pc to 156.9m. The company, which employs almost 400 people, saw its turnover generated in Ireland fall 42pc, or 17m, last year.

However, it said it's hoping to reverse that decline in 2017, having commenced work on projects in Dublin's Docklands and Cork Harbour this year.

The company specialises in drainage and sewage projects, but also undertakes other works such as bridge construction, urban regeneration and other major civil engineering and construction contracts.

Accounts for the company show that its revenue from its Canadian unit rose 24pc to 93.8m. Turnover in the UK climbed 17pc to 39.9m. Its revenue from business in Ireland was 23.2m last year.

The accounts show that the company continued to invest significantly in its business last year, adding 8.5m in fixed assets, with 7.4m of that financed directly from working capital. In the past three years, Ward & Burke has reinvested 28.7m in new plant and equipment.

The company also acquired Cork-based Response Engineering during 2016. It generated turnover of 18.6m in 2014, and a pre-tax profit of 345,000.

This strategic investment means the enlarged group can now provide complete turnkey solutions to clients within the municipal, food, dairy, beverage and pharmaceutical sectors. Both companies have collaborated on a number of projects in both Ireland and the UK in the past.

Ward & Burke director Padraig Burke said that the acquisition provided the enlarged group with "a lot of opportunity" in Ireland and abroad, with "significant" employment potential here.

In Canada, the company has worked on projects in cities including Toronto and Calgary.

It is also embarking on additional work in Ohio in the United States this year. Last year, the company bid $9.6m (9m) for a sewer project in Cleveland.

Last May, Ward & Burke was part of a group of four companies that were awarded a framework contract worth up to 100m (114m) by Yorkshire Water to undertake all the utility's marine civil and engineering works over the next five years. Works will include the installation of new sea outfall pipes.

Ward & Burke directors said they were satisfied with the group's performance in 2016.

They added that investment in infrastructure by Irish Water has improved the outlook for operations in Ireland.
The news comes just months after the worldwide cosmetics giant completed a 11.5 billion takeover of Procter & Gamble, including the Co Tipperary site Photo: Getty

Up to 250 people at cosmetics company Coty will lose their jobs after it was confirmed that they will be closing their Tipperary plant.

The Nenagh based plant which is on the former Procter & Gamble site shut down production for the day and arranged a meeting with staff at midday.

Staff were informed that the company will be completely shut down by the end of 2018.

Jobs will be lost over a phased period of 18 months.

Employees at the company said they weren't shocked at the announcement, but most first learned their fate through the media.

"Everyone is upset that the media knew about it before the workers did," one employee told Independent.ie.

"The news came as a shock but there had been a bit of a negative feeling in the factory lately.

"I don't know what the community is going to do with the loss of 250 jobs. There's not much employment around here.

"The company started operating on the Tipperary site last October following a 11.3 billion deal with Proctor and Gamble.

"Everybody was very quiet at the meeting but nobody seemed distraught

"It's back to production as normal tomorrow. I dont know how they expect everyone to go back to work as normal after this."

Coty is the company behind cosmetic brands such as Rimmel, Max Factor, fragrance brands such as Hugo Boss and Gucci and hair colour brands Well and Clairol.

"It doesn't sound great," Sinn Fein councillor Seamus Morris said, after members of Tipperary County Council from the Nenagh area heard of today's meeting.

"This factory has managed to pull surprises before: there was many a deadline looming on the future of this factory and it's stayed open, that was down to staff. We're all crossing our fingers and toes that the news will be good, but it doesn't look good."

Concerns emerged in 2015 during the takeover of pension rights for workers. Siptu lodged a bonus payment claim against P&G and the Labour Court recommended that workers receive a one-off loyalty payment.

Staff in the Nenagh plant will receive redundancy payments under the terms previously available from Procter & Gamble, amounting to six weeks pay per year of service, plus two weeks statutory redundancy.

Responding to the announcement by the company, SIPTU Sector Organiser, Alan OLeary said: "This is a devastating blow to the workers concerned. While our members were made aware of a review of operations by Coty management over the past year, the closure decision was unexpected. We will now meet with company management to discuss the outcome of the review and we expect to enter intensive talks to consider ways of minimising the proposed job cuts."

SIPTU Organiser, Allen Dillon added: "Proctor and Gamble have been in Nenagh since the 1970s before Coty took over the plant last year and the closure is a crippling blow to the workers and their families as well as the local community and economy."
Rich Europeans are having more babies than those in the poorest member states, with Sweden and the UK joining France and Ireland in having the highest fertility rates, while southern and eastern European countries are producing the fewest babies.

Across Europe, no country is producing enough children to replace their parents.

France, where pro-family tax policies have been in place for more than a decade, is the nearest thing to an anomaly. Figures compiled by Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, show the country recorded both the highest absolute number of births - 799,700 in 2015, and the highest fertility rate.

At 1.96 children on average per Frenchwoman, the country is just off the 2.1 child-per-woman rate needed for natural population increase.

While the standard ratio only counts children per mother, the magic 2.1 level is enough to reproduce two parents, and add to the overall population.

In Ireland, which was long Europe's baby capital, the numbers of children born has slipped behind France, and below the replacement rate.

In France, so called pro-fertility policies such as free post-natal care, subsidised daycare, allowances for each child and special discounts on many services for large families have helped the country escape the demographic declines of Italy and Germany.

But the trend is still challenged.

The Eurostat data shows the fertility rate here was 1.92 in 2015, just behind France. In 2001, the Irish rate was 1.94 and France's was 1.90.

Ireland's declining fertility is now a relative outlier in the EU. Nineteen of the 27 member states have higher birth rates now than at the turn of the century.

Even so, the average fertility rate across the EU was just 1.58 in 2015, well below replacement level.

Big countries, and economies, like German (1.50) and Italy (1.35) are well short of even that.

And in many cases, Europe's poorer east and south fare even worse.

Poland, Cyprus, and Portugal all have a fertility rate of 1.32 or less.

The Germany population is on course to shrink by between eight million and 13 million by 2060 as the numbers dying outpace those being born.

The resulting shift in demographics will see the German working population decline from 60pc to 50pc of the total population.

That has huge implications for the cost of pensions and healthcare, the consumer base, and economic participation rates.

The German birthrate for 2015 is actually the highest level in 33 years. The rate was 1.5 births per woman in 2015 was up from 1.47 births a year earlier, and the highest figure since 1982 when it was 1.51. It was also the highest rate recorded since the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany.

The German Federal Statistics Office said last year that the figures had been boosted mainly by babies born to migrant women.

The number of babies born in Italy hit a record low in 2016, the population shrank and the average age crept higher, national statistics office ISTAT said earlier this year.

Births are now at the lowest level since the unification of Italy in 1861.

The average age of Italians is now 44.9 years - and 22.3pc of the population is over 65.

That is the highest ratio in the EU, but, based on the trends across much of the Union, set eventually to become the norm. (Additional reporting Reuters)
China plans to expand the People's Liberation Army Marine Corps from 20,000 to 100,000 soldiers, reported South China Morning Post on March 13th. [Photo: mod.gov.cn]

China's military reform is progressing steadily and details of its plans will be released in due course, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The MND remarked after officials were questioned about a recent report that said the country has plans to expand the People's Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps (PLAMC) from 20,000 to 100,000 soldiers.

The Marine Corps of China's People's Liberation Army Navy. [File photo: news.qq.com]

South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Tuesday that two special warfare brigades had already been incorporated into the PLAMC, raising the forces' complement of soldiers to 20,000.

Meanwhile, an anonymous person from the navy was quoted by SCMP as saying that the PLAMC will increase the number of soldiers to fulfill new missions. This source also said the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will also increase its personnel numbers by 15%.

As per SCMP, China is establishing a naval base in Djibouti, but as of now the number of soldiers needed to staff the base remains unknown. More than 4,000 American soldiers are stationed in Djibouti.

Soldiers on the Jinggangshan dock landing ship wave goodbye to the 14th Escort Taskforce of the Chinese Navy at the Gulf of Aden, Aug. 26, 2013. [Photo: Xinhua]

The report has also said that Chinese forces are likely to be stationed at Gwadar, a port in Pakistan, as a Chinese company made a large investment in facilities there and the port may be able to accommodate Chinese warships in the near future.

Gwadar Port, situated on the Arabian Sea in Balochistan province, Pakistan.[File photo: Xinhua]

In response, the MND says that facilities in Djibouti will be used to provide rest and supply support for Chinese armies which carry out convoys and patrols in the Gulf of Aden and Somalia, as part of the UN's peacekeeping and humanitarian aid.

The Gwadar port program is part of the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plan, which helps promote local development.

A shipping container is being loaded onto a ship at Gwadar Port. [Photo: Xinhua]

Currently, the number of PLAMC soldiers and armament fall far short of those of the US, says Zhang Junshe, a researcher with the Military Academic Research Institute of the PLAN.

There are around 200,000 active soldiers in the US Marine Corps as well as another 40,000 on reserve duty, Zhang added. The US Marines, with their various amphibious assets, possess combat capabilities that are far beyond those of a medium aircraft carrier formation from any other country, said Zhang.

Ships of the 14th and the 15th Escort Taskforces of the Chinese Navy fire flares during the formation breaking ceremony in the Gulf of Aden, Aug. 26, 2013. [Photo: Xinhua]

Early in 2015, China announced that three hundred thousand troops would be cut by the end of 2017. Those cuts have mostly affected soldiers from the army, indicating a strategic change for the People's Liberation Army, reported SCMP.
A total of 25m is being invested by Diageo in its move i

Sparking conversation about the 'right' way to pour a pint of Guinness.

A Canadian cafe is using an image of a pint of Guinness to entice customers to their St Patrick's Day party.

Sounds straightforward enough. Until you see the pint in the promotion images.

What would lure the punters into your place? A picture of a pint of Guinness with a dense, white, creamy foam? Or, one with a thin and watery head, that's dribbling down the side of a glass?

Expand Close Railtown Cafe's St Patrick's Day Party. Pic: Railtown Cafe / Facebook / Facebook

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Whatsapp Railtown Cafe's St Patrick's Day Party. Pic: Railtown Cafe / Facebook

The Vancouver cafe went with the latter. Sacrilegious when you consider that this here pint was being pushed to entice people into bars on the most sacred of Guinness-consuming days.

After much feedback online the cafe responded with a post on their Facebook.

"Thanks for the friendly comments, everyone! Were not all a bunch of maple-syrup drinking snow farmers and to make up for the blasphemous pour depicted in the photo, weve poured another pint that we hope is worthy of Ireland.

"In true Canadian fashion, we'd like to apologize, so were inviting anyone of age with a valid Irish passport to join us this Friday, St. Patricks Day, for a perfectly poured Guinness and a shot of Jameson," the apology said.

The accompanying snap looked much more like Guinness as we know it.
Ryan Tubridy has slammed Twitter trolls for targeting one of his young The Late Late Show guests.

On Friday night, Hughie Malone (11) appeared on The Late Late Show as part of a discussion on autism.

He was one of the young stars of RTE's documentary, Autism and Me, which explored the spectrum of autism through the experiences of young people.

Hughie Malone shared his story and advised the audience on how people with autism should be treated.

When host Ryan Tubridy asked the youngster what he wanted to do when he grows up, he replied: "Driving planes into skyscrapers."

Twitter trolls took to the social media app to mock the child but their comments were met with anger from most.

Expand Close Hughie Malone appears on The Late Late Show with Adam Harris and Niamh Biddulph / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hughie Malone appears on The Late Late Show with Adam Harris and Niamh Biddulph

Ryan Tubridy addressed the comments on his Radio One show on Monday morning.

He explained that Hughie's remarks "very much illustrated by where he's at with autism".

He reminded listeners that Hughie has a huge interest in history and through his comments audiences got a "sense of what it meant when he was going off in a tangent."

He called out the Twitter trolls for being "foolish and cruel".

"When it comes to an 11-year-old child you can't leave it," he said. "It's disgusting. It's appalling. It's bullying.

He added: "If you're an adult and you're typing on your keyboard, being mean to a child, you need to have a look at yourself."

Video of the Day

Fine Gael councillor Brian Murphy was also slammed by social media users for his remarks.

On Friday he tweeted: Some kid on Late Late Show just said he wants to fly planes into buildings when he grows up #LateLateShow

He later explained his comments were a result of him feeling "depressed" because Ireland lost to Wales during the Six Nations game on Friday.
Viewers have been blown away by an insightful RTE documentary on autism which met a number of people on the spectrum who each weighed in on what it means to have autism.

The powerful documentary met a number of people, including 11-year-old Hughie Malone who has Aspergers Syndrome and has become something of a household name after a Late Late Show appearance.

Bringing the crew on a walkabout during his interview, Hughie joked with the crew: "I know how obsessed you are with your scenic shots".

He spoke passionately about society's need to label people, which he feels causes us to miss out.

"If you're neuro-typical, good for you. If you're not, good for you. It doesn't really matter," he said.

Autism advocate, Adam Harris (22), who has Aspergers Syndrome, also took part in the documentary. Adam has set up AsIAm, an organisation that supports people with autism and educates the public about the condition.

Adam spoke about the need for change in educational and employment settings for people with autism. The focus is, he said, too often on what people with autism can't.

"Instead of saying what does success look like for this person?'," he said.

#AutismAndMe on @RTEOne is fairly powerful stuff so far.  Tom Williams (@tumblesws) March 13, 2017

Almost being brought to tears here... We are all human #AutismAndMe  Ashling dunphy (@Is_mise_aisling) March 13, 2017

Everyone would learn something from listening to Hughie. Great documentary so far! #AutismAndMe  Katy (@kathrynann88) March 13, 2017

Tremendous young people sharing their experience of autism. Let's all listen and learn. #AutismAndMe  david whelan (@dulchiewhelan) March 13, 2017

Some 80pc of people with autism are long-term unemployed Adam explained in the program.

Twins Dylan and Lee Burke (11) and their family are also featured in the documentary.

Niamh Biddulph (20) spoke about the importance of her independent and her dreams of going to college and having a family.

Fiacre Ryan (16), who is non-verbal, also appeared on the show. His parents discovered an experimental method of communication called RPM in 2013, giving him a means to express his thoughts and feelings.

Video of the Day

Viewers have taken to social media to praise the documentary.

The families who took part in the documentary have criticised a shortage of services including in education and diagnosis services.
Bernadette Moore of Poppintree, Dublin, leaves the Four Courts yesterday after she was awarded 17,470 damages in a Circuit Civil Court action. Photo: Collins Courts

A woman who broke a tooth after biting into what she described as a rock-hard ciabatta roll has been awarded 17,470 damages in the Circuit Civil Court against a Dublin store.

Bernadette Moore (58) told the court she bought the roll at Centra in Fairview, Dublin, in August 2015.

She selected the roll from a basket above the delicatessen counter and asked a store assistant to put fillings in it.

She said that after leaving the store she went to her car and started driving while eating her sandwich. She felt a crack in her upper left pre-molar after the first bite on the 'rock-hard' roll.

She told her barrister, Conor Kearney, that she then went back to the shop to inform staff about what had happened.

She claimed a store manager had been very apologetic and offered her a bottle of water and painkillers.

Mr Kearney, who appeared with Tracey Solicitors, said Ms Moore, of Belclare Park, Poppintree, Dublin, had later attended her dentist. She discovered she had suffered a fracture in her tooth.

Counsel said the tooth could not be preserved and would need to be extracted and replaced by an implant. He said the estimated cost of the dental procedure was 2,470.

She sued Fairview Retail Investments Ltd, which trades as Centra Fairview, of Annesley Bridge Road, Fairview, for negligence.

The store denied all of Ms Moore's allegations.

Judge Groarke awarded her 15,000 damages for her pain and suffering and 2,470 for the future dental work.
After a succession of severe-looking cardinals and bishops, Eamonn Casey brought the swinging sixties with him to Ireland when he was appointed Bishop of Kerry in 1969.

He was pure showbusiness: fast cars, fine wines and that engaging smile that lit up Studio 1 when he became one of Uncle Gaybo's favourite talk show guests.

But, as it later emerged, he had also engaged in a dangerous liaison with a striking-looking American divorcee, an episode that would bring disgrace on him and would also mark one of the defining moments in the crumbling power of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

But, when we first got to know him, Eamonn Casey was ushering in a bright new era for the Church. It was one of confidence and good humour, where basic humanity would overcome the craw-thumping subservience of politicians and people to their priests and the ecclesiastical princes of the Roman Church.

Where his predecessors had been distant and austere, Eamonn Casey had a wide smile, a quick wit and all the Kerry cuteness carefully hidden behind the facade of the laughing boy of the modern Church. He moved easily and confidently among his people, but also among the media and social elites who had developed a taste for the new liberalism that was sweeping the free world.

He wasn't just a media-savvy trendy clergyman with a new message. In his pronouncements, 'Bishop Eamonn' was thoroughly in tune with the line from the Vatican on contraception, abortion and other social issues, he just put a gloss on it, delivering the traditional teachings of the Church in an easier and less dogmatic style. He used the microphone far more effectively than the pulpit and he became the first senior churchman to reach a mass new audience created by the onset of television.

In this bright new world, Fr Michael Cleary was the 'singing priest', smoking incessantly and belting out a ballad at the drop of a hat.

Fr Brian D'Arcy was the 'showbiz priest', hanging out with stars and celebrities and writing a weekly column in the racy new 'Sunday World'.

But Eamonn Casey was not any old bishop; he was a man who had 'paid his dues', to use the trendy new parlance. For 10 years before his ordination as bishop, he had been chaplain to the Irish emigrant community in London. Based in Slough, he was national director of the Catholic Housing Aid Society, and founder of Shelter, one of the first non-denominational agencies to help the homeless. He got things done and that was important in the era of new media and mass communications.

As Bishop of Kerry in the early 1970s, he was a man in a hurry, his flashy car zipping between St Brendan's Cathedral in Killarney and Dublin, where he was networking on the social scene with public relations and media types. He was as comfortable at glitzy occasions in city hotels as he was at the more mundane work of a busy diocese.

Expand Close People walk past a newspaper stand with the Evening Press headlines about Bishop Eamonn Casey and Annie Murphys affair, in June 1992. Photo: RollingNews.ie / Facebook

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Whatsapp People walk past a newspaper stand with the Evening Press headlines about Bishop Eamonn Casey and Annie Murphys affair, in June 1992. Photo: RollingNews.ie

He didn't hold back when it came to denouncing US political involvement in the developing world, particularly South America where the CIA had intervened to launch a series of revolutions and puppet states. But Eamonn Casey also had a dirty little secret.

During his time in Kerry, not only did he have a 'palace' in Killarney, he also had a secluded holiday home on the coast near the village of Annescaul on the Dingle peninsula. The hunting lodge once owned by the Earl of Listowel was where he brought Annie Murphy, the daughter of an American friend who came to Ireland for a little tender, loving care after a messy divorce.

Within a short time, she was accompanying 'Bishop Eamonn' on social occasions and the two of them had become lovers. In October 1973, she got pregnant and their son Peter was born on the July 31, 1974. Some months later, she left Ireland.

It would be almost two decades later before Eamonn Casey's carefully contrived world came crashing down.

In the meantime, he moved on to become Bishop of Galway (1976) and entertained 'the young people of Ireland' along with Pope John Paul II at Galway Racecourse in 1982. Although Annie Murphy left Ireland, she maintained contact with friends, and the Bishop's little secret sometimes became the subject of whispered conversations at the social occasions he adorned. At least one well-known public relations executive, a woman, was aware of his son but, like a lot of secrets of that era, it was well hidden, for the time being at least.

In his memoirs, RTE reporter Charlie Bird, who was sent to the Philippines where an Irish priest, Fr Niall O'Brien, was in prison charged with murder, gives a flavour of the omnipresence of the Bishop.

"Plenty of visitors came to see Niall O'Brien," wrote Bird. "In February 1984, Bishop Eamonn Casey arrived. The Bishop of Galway was also patron of Trocaire, the Irish Catholic Church's aid agency for the developing world. He stayed at the local Archbishop's palace. I went up to the house to meet Casey. I can still recall him in the main reception room with all its wooden furniture. He was sitting in a white vest with his braces on. The perspiration was pouring out of him but he was full of life and personality. He produced a bottle of whiskey and we shared a few glasses."

But in 1988 his past came back to haunt him. Annie Murphy's new partner Arthur Pennell arrived in Galway to negotiate a settlement with the Bishop for his son Peter's future education. Money was paid over and Casey even went to New York in 1990, where he spent a night in a hotel with Annie Murphy.

On March 5, 1993, rumours of the child finally surfaced and Eamonn Casey, who knew what was coming down the track, had already been to Rome and resigned his title of Bishop. He now left for the US and by way of parish work in Ecuador eventually arrived in a convent in Mexico, to which he was tracked by the best-selling author Gordon Thomas who was working on a commission for the 'Sunday Independent'.

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On April 11, 1993, the story was published on the front page, leading to consternation and claims that an interview had been fabricated with quotes from tape recordings made from conversations between Mr Casey and a friend of Annie Murphy, Dympna Kilbane.

The 'disgrace' of the Bishop fathering a child soon paled almost to insignificance as the sex abuse scandals engulfed and discredited the Irish Church, almost from top to bottom, in the years that followed.

He wasn't the first or last priest to break the vow of celibacy, but it was the celebrity factor of Eamonn Casey that made it all so much more dramatic and, in a way, damaging.

After serving out his time, Casey returned to live in England in retirement and he later moved back to Galway and then to Clare, where he lived in a retirement home for many years.

He gave a number of interviews, particularly to Veronica Guerin around the time of the Gordon Thomas affair. But he mostly kept his own counsel on the issues of Annie Murphy and his flight to South America.

He also avoided the medium of television, which he had used so effectively in those early years to deliver the message of a caring, compassionate but conservative Catholic Church.
Bishop Eamonn Casey at the launch of a new book on the history of Trocaire in 2010. Photo: Collins

Bishop Eamonn Casey's family described him as a "great source of love" after he passed away at a nursing home in Co Clare following an illness.

The 89-year-old died peacefully at around 2pm at the Carrigoran House Retirement and Convalescent centre in Newmarket-on-Fergus yesterday.

Bishop Casey was praised for his fearless humanitarian work but will forever be remembered for the scandal that rocked the nation when it emerged he had fathered a child with American divorcee Annie Murphy.

The controversial bishop left Ireland in 1992 after his secret was discovered, spending 14 years in exile in South America.

However, he subsequently returned to Ireland, and has spent the last number of years in a nursing home as he battled Alzheimer's disease.

It is understood that his funeral will take place on Thursday.

In a statement last night, the family of Bishop Casey recognised the work he had done throughout his life for the downtrodden.

The statement read: "On behalf of his son, Peter, his brother, Father Micheal, his sister, Ita Furlong, nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, great-grand nieces and great-grand nephews, we wish to acknowledge the priestly work of Bishop Eamonn, especially in the pursuit of social justice for the marginalised, as evidenced by his work with Shelter in London in the 1950s and 1960s and later with his involvement in the setting up and development of Trocaire.

"Notwithstanding the demands on his time, Bishop Eamonn was a great source of love and support, making himself available to celebrate and to empathise with us in all our important family occasions.

"We wish to thank all of those who supported him in the past, in particular, the clergy and the people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry, the Irish community in London, his many friends in Limerick and throughout the country and abroad."

Bishop Casey became a high-profile and popular media personality in the 1970s and 1980s.

He became a household name when he introduced Pope John Paul II at Ballybrit Racecourse in Galway in 1979.

His downfall, though, was one of the first major scandals to hit the Catholic Church in Ireland.

In 1992, it emerged that he had engaged in an affair with Ms Murphy, and had fathered a child with her.

The news scandalised Catholic Ireland and he was forced to leave the country in a storm of controversy.

Ms Murphy was a second cousin once removed from Bishop Casey and the pair had met once when Ms Murphy was young but began their affair in 1973, meeting up all over Dublin, after she moved here.

"When Eamon picked me up from the airport that day in 1973, a light went on, there was a spark, that was it. It was as if you believe in reincarnation and we had just picked up from a previous life, as if I had known him all my life," she said in 2012.

Charity

Bishop Casey was also involved in charity work throughout his career, helping to set up aid agency Trocaire.

His nephew TD Pat Casey said Bishop Casey's heart belonged to the west of Ireland.

He said: "Uncle Eamonn was devoted to his Catholic ministry and to the people of his parishes and subsequently his dioceses. As a family we are also acutely aware of the controversies in Uncle Eamonn's life.

"He has passed from this life during the Christian season of Lent which considers such themes as sacrifice, atonement and reconciliation."
Defence counsel Aisling Kelly said that a guilty plea was being entered in respect of five of charges (Stock image)

A Dublin bodybuilder is facing trial accused of illegally supplying 100,000 worth of anabolic steroids and a Viagra-like product by mail order.

Hans Vogel, with an address at an apartment in Cameron Court, Cork Street, Dublin 8, is facing 18 charges under the Irish Medicine Boards Act in connection with the alleged sale of prescription-only medications.

The case follows an investigation by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) which is responsible for regulating medicinal and health products in Ireland.

It was alleged that on May 26, 2015, at an apartment in Cameron Court he kept for supply a product called ENA, containing testosterone.

It was also alleged he had Enanthate and Sildamax - a Viagra like product - containing Sildenafil, along with a number of other substances.

Mr Vogel allegedly placed these products on the market without authorisation and permitted the use of his premises for the receipt, collection and transmission of orders or correspondence in connection with the supply of the products by mail order on May 26, 2015.

Defence counsel Aisling Kelly said that a guilty plea was being entered in respect of five of the charges.

A hearing date on the remaining charges, which are being contested, was sought.
An African student buys breakfast at a stall in the African Street" street named Baohan Zhijie in Guangzhou, which is the main area of an urban village in Yuexiu district. [Photo: People's Daily]

Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, has been dubbed "the heart of Little Africa" as it is considered to be the country's largest African community. But the city is now witnessing the departure of this population, official data shows.

According to Cai Wei, the deputy police chief of Guangzhou, the local African population slid to record low of 10,344 as of February 25, accounting for 13.3% of the city's 77,877 foreign residents. The largest number of African residents in Guangzhou hails from Nigeria, at 1,145 persons, followed by Egypt (852) and Mali (752).

Records made at city checkpoints also show that Guangzhou has reported more Africans' leaving than arriving since 2013, with an over balance of 18,000 persons.

The Chinese economy is maturing

Located on the Pearl River about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road and remains a major port and transportation hub to this day.

The history of Sino-African exchanges dates back to the Tang Dynasty. However, in the wake of the nation's 1978 reform and opening up to the outside, Guangzhou became a trading center for electronics, clothing and furniture manufacturers. In the 1990s, African traders flocked into the city seeking business opportunities. They played a role as middlemen, buying almost everything in Guangzhou from jeans and sneakers to mattresses and popcorn machines, and then selling the goods in their native countries.

Gradually, some of the traders settled down, setting up shipping firms or running small businesses, and thus forming China's largest African community.

Ted, an Angolan national, does some small business in Guangzhou. He has been in Guangzhou for almost four years and he has good relations with his neighbors. He borrowed the sewing machine from the shop owner for ten yuan each time. [Photo: People's Daily]

Today, the story seems to be changing since China is going further on its way to a mature economy.

With the nation's industrial transformation, China has experienced an obvious rise in its workers' hourly wages, and the strengthening yuan has made the prices of Chinese goods less competitive than before.

The convenience of E-commerce has also contributed to this reform. Instead of an African middleman, Chinese sellers now prefer to run their businesses in the African market themselves.

Furthermore, concerns with China's trade and immigration policies, culture, lifestyle and hygiene differences have also influenced decision making among Guangzhou's African residents.

The wholesale centre next to Guangzhou railway station. [Photo: People's Daily]

"Everyone wants to go back to their own African country and start something. We've learned here about small factories, trade. We should return home and apply that knowledge," said Felly Mwamba, head of the Congolese community in Guangzhou, who has been in China for 13 years and spoke to CNN journalists in an interview last year.
A jury was asked to leave court today after a man accused of murdering his former partner told a judge that he could not go ahead with his cross-examination of a witness and called the trial illegal.

Vesel Jahiri (35), originally from Kosovo but of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Anna Finnegan (25) at Allendale Glen, Clonsilla, Dublin 15 on September 21, 2012.

He has also pleaded not guilty to assaulting Karl Finnegan, causing him harm, at the same place on the same date.

Last Friday, Mr Jahiri dismissed his legal team and is now representing himself at the trial.

This morning, prosecution counsel Mr Patrick Marrinan SC called Paul Callan to give evidence at the Central Criminal Court. Mr Callan agreed with counsel that he had previously supplied Mr Jahiri with equipment for his garage. He said he had met Anna Finnegan as she often worked in the accuseds garage.

Mr Callan became aware that Anna Finnegan and the accused split up in August or September, 2012. The witness said he advised Mr Jahiri to get legal advice as to how to handle the situation. Mr Callan agreed with counsel that Mr Jahiri was concerned about access to his children and that he advised him to get a solicitor to deal with these matters.

Mr Jahiri and his two children stayed in Mr Callan's house for a night in early September, the court heard. Mr Callan agreed with counsel that he got a phone call from the accused on September 21 and Mr Jahiri told him that something had happened at the house at Allendale Glen. Mr Callan told Mr Jahiri that he should not have gone to the house and should have gone through the legal system instead.

Mr Jahiri told Mr Callan that there was a scuffle in the house, he got hit by a chair and a fight ensued with Karl Finnegan. The accused also told him that Anna was in the house and he brought her to hospital.

Mr Jahiri then told the court that he was not feeling well and the trial was adjourned until 2pm.

This afternoon, Mr Jahiri said he could not go ahead with the cross-examination of Mr Callan as he needed documents. Addressing Mr Justice Paul Coffey, Mr Jahiri said: I proved to you I needed documents to continue with the trial. In the last trial they put in a fake jury to find me guilty.

Mr Justice Coffey told the accused that he was abusing his position as his own advocate and he had access to all documentation the prosecution had. Mr Jahiri responded: I dont, the trial is illegal judge and I can prove that.

Mr Justice Coffey then asked the jury to leave the courtroom.

When the trial resumed the prosecution called a series of garda witnesses who were involved in preserving the scene at Allendale Glen where the alleged offence took place.

The trial continues.
Geraldine Eaton (Right) pictured leaving the Four Courts with her solicitor, David O Malley after a High Court action for damages (Image: Collins Courts)

Geraldine Eaton from Templeogue, Dublin pictured leaving the Four Courts holding a photograph of her late mum, Leticia Lawlor - after a High Court action for damages (Image: Collins Courts)

The daughter of an 82-year old woman who died days after she fell off a trolley at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin has settled her High Court action over the fall.

Grandmother of four Letitia Lawlor died seven days after she fell from the trolley three years ago striking her head.

Counsel Doireann O'Mahony BL told the court when Mrs Lawlor was transferred to the hospital A&E three years ago after she fell at her nursing home, she was known to be at risk of falls.

Counsel said this was a tragic fatal case and Mrs Lawlor was missed by her family, a son, a daughter and four grandchildren. Counsel said Mrs Lawlor after her admission to St Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, Merrion Road, Dublin in August 2013 had been on the trolley overnight and was reviewed by a consultant the next day.

Counsel said her side would contend the side bars on the trolley were lowered so Mrs Lawlor could have lunch and she later fell from the trolley and suffered lacerations to her head. Five days later on August 22, 2013 Mrs Lawlor died.

An autopsy revealed the cause of death was an acute or chronic subdural haematoma secondary to a fall. An inquest later returned a verdict of medical misadventure in the case.

Today, Mr Justice Kevin Cross in the High Court approved a settlement of 51,000.

Mrs Lawlor's daughter Geraldine Eaton, Fortrose Park, Tempelogue , Dubln had sued St Vincent's Healthcare Group Ltd as a result of the fall from a trolley at St Vincent's Hospital.

It was claimed that Mrs Lawlor had suffered a fall on August 14 2013, while a resident of a nursing home. She had lacerations to the elbow, lip and nose and was taken to the St Vincent's Hospital A&E and admitted for observation.

It was claimed that it was known Mrs Lawlor suffered from several other falls over a period of eight weeks prior to the fall of August 14 and was deemed to be at risk of falls.

It was claimed on August 15, 2013 while she remained remained unattended, she suffered an unwitnessed fall from the trolley where the trolley it was alleged had had been left with with side bars lowered to allow Mrs Lawlor to feed.

It was further claimed Mrs Lawlor's family had suffered significant distress upset and grief as a result of her untimely death and that the dead woman had played a central role in the lives of her daughter son and grandchildren and had been a devoted mother and grandmother.

Outside court Geraldine Eaton said they miss the devoted grandmother very much.

We miss her very much, and we hope that what happens to her does not happen in any other hospital. She was a very loving grandmother. She had four grandchildren and she doted on them and they all miss her, as we all do. Nothing can bring her back," she said.
The revelation in 1992 that the Bishop of Galway, Dr Eamonn Casey, had fathered a child while he was Bishop of Kerry caused him to flee the country and remain in exile for 14 years. In a statement after his resignation, Bishop Casey admitted he was Peter Murphy's father. "I have sinned grievously against God, his church and the clergy and people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry," he said.

According to Fr Dermod McCarthy, the former head of Religious Broadcasting at RTE and a friend of Bishop Casey's, the revelation was "a big shock to the whole country, it was a bit like when Kennedy was shot - people remember where they were when news came out."

In an interview with Tralee broadcaster Maurice O'Keefe, broadcast in 2007 on RTE's 'Morning Ireland' programme, Bishop Casey revealed that when he offered his resignation to Pope John Paul II in May 1992, the Polish pontiff did not want him to resign. But the charismatic prelate knew that the media was ready to descend on him over his relationship with Annie Murphy at the bishop's house in Inch, Co Kerry, which resulted in the birth of his son Peter in 1974. There were questions too over Casey's use of 70,000 of diocesan funds to support his son.

As the plain people of Ireland grappled with the revelation of the first major sexual scandal of contemporary Irish Catholicism, the disgraced bishop was hiding out in a monastery in the US, where he remained for six months.

He later moved to Mexico to learn Spanish before moving on to Ecuador where he worked as a missionary priest with the Society of Saint James in Quito for six years until 1998.

According to Fr McCarthy, Bishop Casey worked hard in Ecuador and "built at least one church and three schools" while he was there.

It was while he was living in Ecuador that journalist Veronica Guerin tracked him down and interviewed him. He admitted he had "let down Annie, Peter, the people, my priests and my colleagues, and I am very, very sorry about this. I left a shadow over them all. I let them down, very much so."

Asked what he would say to Catholics who felt ashamed by what he did, he replied, "I'm sorry, please forgive me."

In 1998, the Irish hierarchy was still not ready to allow Casey return home and so the disgraced bishop quietly undertook parish ministry and worked as a hospital chaplain in Staplefield, Sussex in the diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England.

Then after 14 years of exile, he returned in February 2006 to live in Shanaglish, near Gort in Co Galway. He was 78 years old and his health was declining. At the time, he made a brief statement, expressing regret for letting a number of people down. "It caused great hurt to some and, for that, I am deeply regretful and sad," he said.

He was unable to say Mass publicly due to an accusation to which the DPP later ordered that no charges should be brought, following a Garda investigation.

In 2011, Dr Casey went to live at the Carrigoran Nursing Home in Co Clare. His son Peter travelled to meet him there in 2013, the first encounter between the two in almost a decade.

According to Fr McCarthy, who drove Peter to the meeting with his father and witnessed the rapprochement between them, they "had a happy hour together" and that the meeting had "a big impact" on both.

Bishop Casey was by this stage suffering from Alzheimers. According to Fr McCarthy, the authorities at the nursing home told him that the failing Bishop Casey "became a much more pliable patient" after that meeting.
Drugs recovered by gardai in Co Meath raid

50,000 cash recovered by gardai in Co Meath raid

Sub machine gun recovered by gardai in Co Meath raid

Gardai have seized drugs, 50,000 in cash and a sub machine gun in a raid in Co Meath.

Heroin and crack cocaine worth an estimated 60,000 and a tupperware conatainer filled with budndles of cash were recovered alongside the sub machine gun at a location in Pelletstown, Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath.

Two males, 35 years and 23, have been arrested and are currently detained at Blanchardstown and Finglas Garda stations.

Gardai from the Special Crime Task Force, in collaboration with specialised units from the Dublin Region, Armed Support Unit and Gardai from the Meath Division carried out an intelligence led operation targeting Organised Crime.

Further searches will be carried out in the morning according to gardai.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has extended the "deepest sympathy" of the Government to the family of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick..

Speaking in Washington, Mr Kenny said he knows the area of the Mayo coast where Rescue 116 went down well.

"Obviously the search continues and on behalf of the Government again we pay our respects to the family of Dara Fitzpatrick. The search continues for other crew members.

"Clearly in the analysis and investigation into this we want to uncover what exactly happened in respect of the lack of communications and loss of contact with Rescue Helicopter 116," Mr Kenny said.

He told reporters that he learned about the lack of communications from the rescue team late last night.

The Taoiseach has been briefed on the unfolding situation by Transport Minister Shane Ross and the Chief of Staff for the Defence Forces Mark Mellet.

"The Irish Coast Guard have been exceptionally professional and competent in their work over many years.

"Last year alone over 2,500 incidents were directed by the Irish Coast Guard," he said.

"Obviously the rescue agencies are now coordinating their search in the locality, assisted by the Achill Lifeboat and local fishermen. Obviously Gardai and the Defence Forces are in the area."

President Michale D Higgins has also paid tribute to the late Coast Guard member.

"Today marks a dark day in the history of the Coast Guard / Garda Costa na hEireann, with a member of this important service losing her life while providing assistance to others," he said.

"On behalf of the people of Ireland, may I pay tribute to Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who died today.

"We are all grateful for the courage, resolution and exemplary commitment to the aims of the Coast Guard that Captain Fitzpatrick and her colleagues have consistently displayed.

"My thoughts are with her family at this difficult moment and also with the families of the missing crew.

"It is appropriate that we acknowledge and pay tribute to the efforts of her colleagues at the Coast Guard who have been working at a time, which must be for them, a time of great grief and uncertainty.

"May I also commend the other emergency services, as well as those from local communities in Mayo, who responded so valiantly, and in great solidarity, at this time of tragedy."
The mother of Bishop Eamonn Casey's son Peter has spoken for the first time since his death.

Annie Murphy, speaking from her home in Southern California, was shocked to hear the news that Bishop Casey had passed away.

She revealed her son Peter (42), now a sales manager and living in Boston, had a good relationship with his father in his final years.

"Peter is well. Peter has more Casey in him than me. He's very positive...He reminds me a little bit of Eamonn in many ways.

"He's Peter and he has some of me. He's positive."

"He's good with people.

"Peter called me last week and told me that Eamonn was very ill," she said.

She said that her son and Bishop Casey had a good relationship and that Peter had benefited greatly from the relationship.

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"I know that for many years that they were together that they enjoyed that they got along," she said.

Asked about Peter's enjoyment of the relationship, she said: "There was a hole in his life and it brought it forward and I think it made Peter a more well-rounded person."

She asked "if Ireland has birth control now?" and was happy to be reassured that birth control was freely available. She said: "That's the only thing I cared about."

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She asked what age Bishop Casey was when he died and was informed he was 89.

She replied: "Oh dear God in heaven. That's a good life."

Now aged 68, she recalled the huge upheaval in 1992 when she named the then Bishop of Galway as the father of her child.

"It was contentious. He had to acknowledge Peter and it ended up a dreadful fight," she said.

Later, she said: "It was unfortunate. But I did say to him you must acknowledge your son.

"When I left him it was many years ago and I was about 25.

"And I told him 'If you don't acknowledge him, I will fight. That is the only reason I will go at you. I won't stop.'

"I knew what I would do. I know myself I am not petty," she said.

She had told Bishop Casey then that "I'm not going to fight with you but if somebody...it's human nature...if you have a child and they're going to go at them and I said 'No, you can't do that.' I have to do it. I have to do this," she said.

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She said her partner, the artist Thaddeus H Heinchon, had been ill in recent years but was "one of those people who is stoic...He's doing well though."

Although hugely reluctant to speak publicly at this time, she concluded "It's an old story. And so many things have come out. It's 2017.

"It's the passing of an important individual in your country and my son's father."

A formal joint statement was issued last night by Bishop Casey's son Peter, his siblings and extended family.

It stated: "On behalf of his son, Peter, his brother Father Micheal, his sister Ita Furlong, nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, great-grand nieces and great-grand nephews, we wish to acknowledge the priestly work of Bishop Eamonn, especially in the pursuit of social justice for the marginalised, as evidenced by his work with Shelter in London in the 1950s and 1960s and later with his involvement in the setting up and development of Trocaire. Notwithstanding the demands on his time, Bishop Eamonn was a great source of love and support, making himself available to celebrate and to empathise with us in all our important family occasions.

"We wish to thank all of those who supported him in the past, in particular, the clergy and the people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry, the Irish community in London, his many friends in Limerick and throughout the country and abroad. We would like to extend a very special and sincere thank you to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, the management and staff of Carrigoran Nursing Home, Newmarket-On-Fergus, Co Clare, whose care for Bishop Eamonn was of the highest possible standard and ensured that his comfort, dignity and pastoral needs were provided for at all times.

"We respectfully ask that members of the media facilitate the privacy of the family during and after the funeral ceremonies."
14 March 2017; General view of family and mourners before the funeral of Karl Robertson. St. Luke the Evangelist Church, Kilmore West, Coolock, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn

14 March 2017; General view of coffin being carried into the church. Funeral of Karl Robertson. St. Luke the Evangelist Church, Kilmore West, Coolock, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn

14 March 2017; General view of coffin being carried from the church to the hearse after funeral mass. Funeral of Karl Robertson. St. Luke the Evangelist Church, Kilmore West, Coolock, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn

14 March 2017; General view of family and mourners after funeral mass. Funeral of Karl Robertson. St. Luke the Evangelist Church, Kilmore West, Coolock, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn

Mourners flooded St Lukes Church in North Dublin today to pay their respects for hit-and-run victim Karl Robertson  a man whose compassion for others met no bounds.

The 28-year-old from Castlekevin Road in Artane, was jogging when he was knocked down on Hazelwood Drive, not far from his home, last Wednesday evening.

A large crowd turned out to pay their respects, many of them being work colleagues of Karls from Dunnes Stores in Northside Shopping Centre. The retail staff donned their work uniforms and name badges, forming a guard of honour as the hearse arrived at the Kilmore based church.

His mother Kathy, father Tony and sister Niamh arrived in tears embracing each other as they entered the church.

Fr Gary Darby started the service by describing Karl as a man with so much goodness and care.

We gather here this morning to offer the soul of a well-respected and loved young man into the loving presence of God.

Before the unforeseen and tragic events of last Wednesday evening life for Karl, his parents, his sister, extended family and friends was very normal.

Yet, without any sense of warning or preparation Karl was suddenly taken from this world. We at St Lukes parish sympathise and walk-side-by-side in empathy with Karls family and friends.

We do so in acknowledging the enormous impact it has had on the family and indeed on our community at large here in Kilmore.

When a loved one is suddenly taken from this world it brings with it a sense of disbelief and numbness.

Karl was a fantastic young man with a generous heart. He was family orientated, kind to people in his place of work and an all round balanced person with good values and principals in life, he said.

The 28-year-olds friends and family then presented a number of items by his coffin in remembrance of Karls life. These included a work shirt, an mp3 player and a coffee cup.

Karls godfather Freddie also spoke of his quiet and generous nature.

I was always impressed by his calm and quiet manner. Karl was never any bother to his parents. He got on very well with his friends and neighbours alike. His compassion for other met no bounds.

Soon after leaving school Karl found work in Dunnes and quickly settled into his new routine. He loved his work and co-workers  they were like a second family to him.

Over time he developed an interest in computers, TVs and technology. He was simply brilliant in his understanding of new technology and assisted me and many others on many occasions on resolving both TV and computer issues, he said.

The funeral also featured some of Karls favourite songs with renditions of David Bowies Starman and Let it be by The Beatles.

Karl was then laid to rest in Balgriffin Cemetery.

The driver of the Renault van that hit the 28-year-old did not stop at the scene and torched the vehicle soon after at Beechlawn Grove in Coolock. The driver later presented himself to gardai and made a statement. No arrests have been made to date.

Gardai are also appealing for a couple, a taxi driver and a man who were all at the scene where the incident took place to contact them.
A number of houses were evacuated this evening as the Army Bomb Disposal team made safe two viable Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Carbury, Co Kildare.

The Defence Forces deployed the Army Bomb Disposal Team on request from An Garda Siochana.

A cordon was established in the surrounding area and a number of houses were evacuated to ensure public safety.

The Army Bomb Disposal Team arrived at 6.30pm, carried out an assessment and proceeded to make safe the two suspect devices.

The scene was declared safe at 7.50pm.

Material of an evidential nature has now been handed over to An Garda Siochana.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

A positive solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is already close, said Ukrainian scholar Artur Aghajanov.

He was addressing a conference titled The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Origins, Peacemaking and the Role of Civil Society in Baku March 14.

Aghajanov noted that the most important thing is to have faith in the settlement of the conflict.

I am an Armenian born in Baku, he said, adding a number of his Armenian acquaintances share his opinion on the conflicts settlement, but fear to state it openly.

They have positive approach to the conflict resolution, he explained.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
'Mr Thomas, who passed away from pneumonia on March 3, was living in Wicklow when he revealed that he had discovered where Mr Casey was living.'

One of the journalists who tracked down the runaway bishop Eamonn Casey in Mexico passed away earlier this month.

Gordon Thomas will be remembered - along with Veronica Guerin - as one of those who confronted Mr Casey in the Central American country.

The scandal emerged in 1992 when Annie Murphy revealed she had fathered a child with him. The bishop was pressed by the media about money that was "borrowed" from the diocese and he duly fled to London before moving to Rome, where he resigned his position. He travelled to a parish in Ecuador and later a convent in Mexico.

Mr Thomas, who passed away from pneumonia on March 3, was living in Wicklow when he revealed that he had discovered where Mr Casey was living.

He was commissioned by the 'Sunday Independent' in 1993 to confront him in Mexico.

Mr Thomas had been in touch with a friend of Ms Murphy's called Dympna Kilbane, who was also in contact with Mr Casey.

Ms Kilbane agreed to co-operate with Mr Thomas and got in touch with Mr Casey, arranging to meet him outside a local teaching institute in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he was learning Spanish.

Instead, Mr Thomas took her place and he confronted the former bishop, who was said to have been "gobsmacked" by the encounter.

Mr Thomas handed Mr Casey a tape of the 'The Late Late Show' which had featured an interview with Ms Murphy, who revealed she was 23 when she began a passionate affair with the bishop who was twice her age. She had been sent by her family in America to stay with Mr Casey, a distant relative, following her divorce.

Mr Casey fought back against the article in the 'Sunday Independent' on April 11, 1993 and tried to distance himself from the words attributed to him, which had all been recorded.

Mr Thomas passed away at his home in Bath, England.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny with Boston mayor Marty Walsh at city hall on the second day of his US visit Photo: Niall Carson

The Mayor of Boston has said he could not back a special deal for the undocumented Irish in America despite being "a proud son of Irish immigrants".

Marty Walsh, whose parents come from Galway, has been one of the most vocal critics of Donald Trump's immigration policy.

During a meeting with Enda Kenny yesterday he asked the Taoiseach to bring a strong message to Washington on Thursday that Americans want "a solution instead of accusing folk of people illegal and being criminals".

Mr Kenny has said he will prioritise the 50,000 illegal Irish during his White House visit and "a strong case on behalf of the hard-working, tax-paying Irish people in the US who for too long now have been living in the shadows".

However, Mr Walsh suggested the conversations should be much broader than just the Irish situation.

"I'm a proud son of Irish immigrants, but I would not be supportive of rules and regulations that just benefit people who are undocumented Irish.

"We need a comprehensive piece of legislation, we need some clarity for all immigrants, all undocumented immigrants," Mr Walsh said.

Mr Kenny said he accepted "it's not just about the Irish".

"Clearly, Ireland has a long history with the US over the last 200 years and the contribution made by Irish immigrants and their descendants speaks for itself," he said. "With 11 million undocumented people living in the US, what is needed is a pattern of reform and we've discussed how that might actually apply."

President Trump's new executive order restricting immigration rights to citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries takes effect on the same day that he meets Mr Kenny for the traditional St Patrick's Day shamrock ceremony.

The Taoiseach said: "It is not for me to comment on executive orders, but in working with this new administration clearly we have some concerns and anxieties with regard to undocumented people living here.

"Not just in the case of Ireland, but also containing many others. It's not a case of picking and choosing."

Mr Walsh said he was "not heartened at all" by the introduction of more immigration restrictions.

"Hopefully the Taoiseach will be able to help a little bit here, to have a conversation with the president and administration about how we come up with a solution instead of accusing folk of people illegal and being criminals.

"I can't stand here and say I feel comfortable where we are as a country, and yet I'm hoping that we move to that point, but not today," he said.
The mother of missing Mary Boyle (6), who has been missing for 40 years this week, has revealed that she is receiving hate mail and is afraid to be in her own home.

Mary vanished from her grandparents home in Cashelard, Co Donegal in March 1977.

Expand Close At the house in Cashelard - RTE Prime Time reporter Barry Cummins with Mary's niece Mary Duffy and Mary's mother Ann Boyle at Cashelard from where Mary vanished nearby in March 1977. / Facebook

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Whatsapp At the house in Cashelard - RTE Prime Time reporter Barry Cummins with Mary's niece Mary Duffy and Mary's mother Ann Boyle at Cashelard from where Mary vanished nearby in March 1977.

No trace of Mary has ever been found.

On RTE's Prime Time, Mary's mum Ann Boyle described her horror after receiving anonymous hate mail.

"One was a Christmas card and the other was a letter, and the stuff that was in it was shocking. That threatened my life, and frightened the life out of me. One of them started off like it was from Mary. I mean, my God. That made me ill."

Her granddaughter Mary Duffy, named after her missing aunt, said the hateful mail was very distressing for her grandmother.

Expand Close Wellies worn by Ann Boyle - Mary's sister - on 18 March 1977 - Mary would have worn exact same type of wellies on day she disappeared. Shown for first time on RTE Prime Time tonight. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Wellies worn by Ann Boyle - Mary's sister - on 18 March 1977 - Mary would have worn exact same type of wellies on day she disappeared. Shown for first time on RTE Prime Time tonight.

"It's horrible and Nannie's afraid to be in her own home and no one should be left like that, it's horrible," she told Prime Time.

Ann believes her daughter Mary did make it to a nearby road on the day she vanished.

Expand Close Cardigan worn by Ann Boyle - Mary's sister - on 18 March 1977 - Mary would have worn exact same type on day she disappeared. Shown for first time on RTE Prime Time tonight / Facebook

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Whatsapp Cardigan worn by Ann Boyle - Mary's sister - on 18 March 1977 - Mary would have worn exact same type on day she disappeared. Shown for first time on RTE Prime Time tonight

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Mary had followed her uncle Gerry Gallagher when he was delivering a ladder back to a neighbours house which was 400 yards away on a hillside.

The last reported sighting of Mary was by her uncle that afternoon as she turned back towards her grandparents home just over halfway on the journey to the neighbour's house.

Gerry continued on to the neighbour's home and returned the ladder.

"I've begged to know for 40 years what happened to Mary. I don't want an inquest that Mary is dead. I want to believe that Mary is still alive somewhere. I have to live that way," said Ann.

Marking the 40 year anniversary of her disappearance, gardai have released images of clothing similar to that worn by Mary Boyle on the day she went missing.

Mary was wearing a lilac coloured cardigan and black wellington boots.

Her twin sister Ann wore identical clothes that day, and those images were shown on RTE Prime Time.

Chief Superintendent Walter O'Sullivan of the Serious Crime Review Team said a full review of the case was currently being undertaken which sought to identify every person who was in Cashelard on the day that Mary disappeared.

"Although a rural area, there would have been a number of people in the area, living there, farming, visiting, driving through.

"When a child goes missing it goes right into the heart of a community, it struggles to understand why this has been visited on their community.

"The community has provided information confidentially, anonymously and through making statements. I believe there is further information to be obtained and I am appealing for people to come forward."

Gardai are asking anyone with information on Mary's disappearance to contact the Incident Room in Ballyshannon at 071 9858530 or the Garda Serious Crime Review Team on 01 6663444.
A fisherman looks on disbelief as wreckage from the Rescue 116 Helicopter is brought back to Blacksod Pier after the Coastguard Helicopter crash. Pic Steve Humphreys 14th March 2017

The Ballyglass lifeboat changing crew to continue the search for a Coast Guard Helicopter Missing at Blacksod Pier, Belmullet, Co. Mayo. Photo : Keith Heneghan / Phocus

Gardai approaching the Ballyglass lifeboat changing crew to continue the search for a Coast Guard Helicopter Missing at Blacksod Pier, Belmullet, Co. Mayo. Photo : Keith Heneghan / Phocus

The heartbroken family of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, who was named as the first casualty following a helicopter crash off the west coast of the country, have paid tribute to her.

She was one of four crew members on board Rescue 116 which crashed six miles west of Blacksod.

She is survived by her three year old son.

It's believed that Ms Fitzpatrick is from Kilternan, Co Dublin.

Her family have led tributes to her.

"We are so proud of Dara's work and all she has done to save the lives of others over the years," they said in a statement to Today FM.

"We are completely heartbroken and we pray for the recovery of the other three crew.

"She is survived by her three year old son, her three sisters, brother and her parents."

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Coastguard Personnel pictured loading helicopter debris into a jeep at Blacksod Lighthouse, Belmullet, today. PIC COLIN O'RIORDAN Boatmen pictured landing helicopter debris at Blacksod Lighthouse, Belmullet, today. PIC COLIN O'RIORDAN Boatmen pictured landing helicopter debris at Blacksod Lighthouse, Belmullet, today. PIC COLIN O'RIORDAN Boatmen pictured landing helicopter debris at Blacksod Lighthouse, Belmullet, today. PIC COLIN O'RIORDAN Boatmen pictured landing helicopter debris at Blacksod Lighthouse today. (Image: Colin O'Riordan) Coast Guard Members searching for a Coast Guard Helicopter Missing at Blacksod lighthouse, Belmullet, Co. Mayo. Photo : Keith Heneghan / Phocus Rescue workers in Blacksod. Picture: Fergus Sweeney / Facebook

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Whatsapp Coastguard Personnel pictured loading helicopter debris into a jeep at Blacksod Lighthouse, Belmullet, today. PIC COLIN O'RIORDAN

Her sister, leading psychologist Niamh Fitzpatrick, also paid tribute to her on Twitter this afternoon.

"My brave sister Capt Dara Fitzpatrick lost her life. We are devastated. Please pray for recovery of 3 remaining crew".

Muckross Park College, where Ms Fitzpatrick attended, also paid tribute to her.

"It is with heavy hearts that we post this message. Capt Dara Fitzpatrick, class of 1989, died this morning doing what she loved #rescue116. Our thoughts and prayers are with her son. Her parents Mary Mulholland, class of 1962 & father John, twin sisters Niamh & Orla, class of 1986 , brother Johnny & younger sister Eimear, extended family & friends.

My brave sister Capt Dara Fitzpatrick lost her life in #Rescue116 crash. We are devastated. Please pray for recovery of 3 remaining crew.  Niamh Fitzpatrick (@NFitzPsychology) March 14, 2017

Me & my gorgeous sister Dara...we'll miss you forever & love you always #RIPDara #Rescue116 pic.twitter.com/yIfFDlztU2  Orla Fitzpatrick (@ofitzp) March 15, 2017

"We are all very proud of Dara's work & all she has done to save the lives of so many others.

"May She Rest in Peace."

The other three crew members on board the Sikorsky S92 helicopter, Paul Ormsby, Ciaran Smith and Mark Duffy are still missing.

Capt Fitzpatrick was pronounced dead in hospital, Gerard O'Flynn, VS&T Operations Manager of the Irish Coast Guard confirmed.

Expand Close Blacksod (marked). Picture: Google maps / Facebook

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She was one of very few female civilian rescue pilots worldwide.

She featured in the RTE series Rescue 117 leading dramatic rescues by the crew at Waterford helicopter base.

Captain Fitzpatrick had over 20 years flying experience and was chief pilot in Waterford since 2002. She described her job as "challenging and exciting" during the filming of Rescue 117.

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Captn Fitzpatrick spoke often about her love for her job.

Speaking to the 'Munster Express' in 2009, Capt Fitzpatrick said she was a native Dubliner, but more than happy to be living in Waterford at the time.

Dara told the newspaper she first went up in a helicopter at the age of 18, and "thought it was the business".

"And that, pretty much, was it.

I got my own licence and I was working for a businessman for a year, year and a half when the Coast Guard advertised for co-pilots.

That was at a time when Shannon was the only Coast Guard helicopter base was in the country so I applied for it and got it. I stayed there until 2002 and came over to Waterford and I love it here.

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Wreckage from the Rescue 116 Helicopter is brought back to Blacksod Pier after the Coastguard Helicopter crash. Pic Steve Humphreys 14th March 2017 Wreckage from the Rescue 116 Helicopter is brought back to Blacksod Pier after the Coastguard Helicopter crash. Pic Steve Humphreys 14th March 2017 Wreckage from the Rescue 116 Helicopter is brought back to Blacksod Pier after the Coastguard Helicopter crash. Pic Steve Humphreys 14th March 2017 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Wreckage from the Rescue 116 Helicopter is brought back to Blacksod Pier after the Coastguard Helicopter crash. Pic Steve Humphreys 14th March 2017

I had another few layers to deal with after I was taken on by Search and Rescue, she added.

They had to teach me to fly a twin engine helicopter since I was used to flying single engined. They had to teach me how to fly by instruments  which is another separate, long course.

And before I could go anywhere near Search and Rescue, I had to get used to flying the helicopter with two crew because I was used to flying in my little helicopter all by myself, so I went to Aberdeen for a year to fly onto oil rigs.

So by the time I got taken on, it had taken a good year to get me ready to sit in the left-hand seat as a co-pilot.

But then even when I started, for the first while youre hanging out the back seat of it  youre just so far behind it because when the jobs come in, everything is happening so quickly.

In January 2008, Capt Fitzpatrick appeared on a video entitled 'Find A Balance Dare To Dream' DVD.

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It was produced by the Irish Bishops' Conference and it covers the issue of alcohol and the challenge of moderation.

The production, which was aimed at young people, saw Capt Fitzpatrick stress the importance of finding balance in her job and how she took her responsibilities.

"When I was about 18 or 19, all I wanted to do was economics or business or something. Didn't get the points I wanted to at school - just didn't work hard enough - and I heard an ad on the radio for a helicopter.

"I went up in a helicopter and that was it. I was hooked.

"Most people go 'oh there's so many buttons and dials and things', but it just takes a little bit of coordination.

"There are so many variables in this job. Like when we get a call here, you know the Coastguard will say there's a person injured here or fallen off a cliff in Dublin or something like that, you will have to in about two or three minutes, make a decision on whether we can go there and back and what fuel do I need.

"We can go up and save loads of people but there is no point in doing that if we can't get back. You just have to be able to think on your feet and also think about the consequences of making a decision. You have to be able to get back to land.

"I'm doing this about 15 years now which is a fair amount of time but it doesn't make any difference; it will still kick you in the ass. It really will. You will go along and you'll do loads of really, really good jobs and then one time, you will get a kick in the ass and it kind of wakes you up. You can't relax.

"The thing that I find the hardest is that everybody thinks it will never happen to them and again, you're picking somebody up out of the water. You probably don't think so much about the casualties, because you can't. You can't afford to. Because sometimes you might pick somebody up and you have another two to three hours transit with a badly injured casualty or a body in the back. When you drop them off to hospital or bring them to a quay or whatever, when that flight is over, you've got to turn the page and move on. And you can't really think about it too much."

She was also prominently featured in RTE's documentary Rescue 117 documentary.

"You never know what you are going to face, you could be called up to the mountains, you could be called because someone has fallen off a cliff. You could be called at 2 o'clock in the morning being called to an injured fisherman on a boat," she said on camera during the documentary.

"There is huge variety here, you really don't know what you're facing. I think most of us enjoy that. That's teh bit of the job that we actually like because you just don't know what's going to happen for the next few hours."

Speaking today Gerard O'Flynn said: "It is with our deepest regret we can confirm one of the pilots was Captain Dara Fitzpatrick.

"Dara has been pronounced dead.

"Dara was the most senior pilot and has been with the company for close on 20 years.

"Outside of her work as a pilot she did an enormous amount of work on water safety and was always available to do school visits and promote water safety.

"For all of us involved in the Coast Guard and for particularly her family it has come as a complete shock.

"And we want to extend our sincere sympathy to all her family and her flying colleagues in the CHC and simply to everybody who knew her.

"The operation is continuing, and we are continuing to recover wreckage out there.

"The whole operation is being done in conjunction with the Air Accident Investigation Unit who have been on scene all morning."

SEARCH OPERATION

Contact was lost with the rescue chopper at approximately 1am on Monday morning.

The Dublin-based crew had been providing top cover for another Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 118 that was performing a medical evacuation (medevac) off the coast of Mayo.

Rescue 116 was returning to base when it fell out of contact.

A search operation got underway and a large amount of debris was found.

Capt Fitzpatrick was recovered from the sea and airlifted to hospital.

A multi-resourced search operation is underway in the area and debris has been recovered and brought to storage.

The recovery of the flight recorders, or the black box, will be crucial to determine what happened.

The Irish Air Corp Casa aeroplane, fishermen from all over the area, naval personnel and garda divers have all been on the scene today.

The LE Roisin arrived at the scene shortly after 9am.

Speaking at the lighthouse in Blacksod this morning, Gerard O'Flynn said that a number of vessels are currently involved in the search operation.

"At the moment the search is ongoing and it's been coordinated by the rescue coordination centre in Mallon. We're rotating the two coast guard helicopters in Sligo and Shannon. Ballyglass and Achill RNLI are assisting the search. Six fishing vessels and the naval ship, the LE Roisin are also involved," he told Independent.ie

A small amount of debris has also been recovered from the shore near the Blacksod lighthouse, as Gardai, Coast Guard members and investigators remain at the scene.

Gary Bohan from Belmullet, who is involved in the operation and spent the morning recovering debris in a rib, said he had never come across an aviation accident of this scale.

"We got involved at about 9am this morning. The conditions are bad. The debris is scattered across about two miles. The biggest part that came out is about half the size of a (truck) dirt panel.

Asked if it's a hard operation to be involved in, Mr Bohan said: "We're just trying to do our bit for the community. Doing our best that's all we can do.

"On the aviation side of things I've never seen anything like this. I've seen boats sink and tragedies like that but nothing on this scale. We're heading out again later on. The size of the area is getting bigger. The site at the moment is two square miles, but as the day gets on it's only going to get bigger and larger and larger, because the debris is scattering. It will definitely be floating north. Hope to God something will come a shore."

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Coast Guard director Eugene Clonan described today as a "dark day for emergency services".

He said that hopes are fading for the three missing crew: At this particular point in time, our hopes are fading of finding the remainder of the crew."

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Coast Guard sources said there was no evidence that the crew of the stricken helicopter had attempted to send a mayday call.

This would suggest that whatever happened, the crash was unlikely to have been caused by a mechanical fault.

But the sources stressed that it was too early in the investigation to speculate on the cause.

TRIBUTES

Tributes have poured in with Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Michael D Higgins expressing their sympathies.

Speaking in Washington Taoiseach Enda Kenny extended the "deepest sympathy" of the Government to the family of Captain Fitzpatrick.

Mr Kenny said he knows the area of the Mayo coast where Rescue 116 went down well.

"Obviously the search continues and on behalf of the Government again we pay our respects to the family of Dara Fitzpatrick. The search continues for other crew members.

"Clearly in the analysis and investigation into this we want to uncover what exactly happened in respect of the lack of communications and loss of contact with Rescue Helicopter 116," Mr Kenny said.

He told reporters that he learned about the lack of communications from the rescue team late last night.

The Taoiseach has been briefed on the unfolding situation by Transport Minister Shane Ross and the Chief of Staff for the Defence Forces Mark Mellet.

"The Irish Coast Guard have been exceptionally professional and competent in their work over many years.

"Last year alone over 2,500 incidents were directed by the Irish Coast Guard," he said.

"Obviously the rescue agencies are now coordinating their search in the locality, assisted by the Achill Lifeboat and local fishermen. Obviously Gardai and the Defence Forces are in the area."

President Michael D Higgins has also paid tribute to the late Coast Guard member.

"Today marks a dark day in the history of the Coast Guard / Garda Costa na hEireann, with a member of this important service losing her life while providing assistance to others," he said.

"On behalf of the people of Ireland, may I pay tribute to Captain Dara Fitzpatrick who died today.

Health Minister Simon Harris has also paid tribute.

"It is striking that on a bright spring day such a dark cloud hangs over Ireland," he said.

"The crew of Rescue 116 represent all that is good about our country - they epitomise courage, bravery, selflessness and dedication to the welfare of others.

"These traits were all on display again overnight on our West Coast.

"This crew joined their colleagues in an effort to help a fishing vessel crewman access medical care. We now know that, tragically, Captain Dara Fitzpatrick has passed away.

"Often at times of great difficulty and sadness, we see people pull together - this has been so evident today as the ongoing, collective effort of our emergency services and the local community work together on this search mission."

Last September brave volunteer Caitriona Lucas (below) became the first coast guard member to die in the line of duty.

Expand Close Catriona Lucas / Facebook

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Ms Lucas, an active member of the Doolin coast guard in Co Clare, was part of a search and rescue operation in Kilkee when the tragedy struck.

More than 400 lives were saved last year by the service. The rescue missions were among 2,500 incidents co-ordinated from the agency's main bases at Dublin, Malin, Co Donegal, and Valentia, Co Kerry.
Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

Officers from the SFO unit storm a house in the Woodburn area following a shooting in the area on March 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph )

The son of shooting victim Geordie Gilmore has branded those behind his father's murder as "cowards".

Mr Gilmore was shot in the neck as he sat in a car in the Pinewood Avenue area of the Co Antrim town on Monday at around 2.15pm. The 44-year-old is believed to have been involved in a loyalist feud in the town.

He was rushed to hospital in a serious condition and put into intensive care, but he later passed away.

The gunman is thought to have made off on foot from the scene. On Tuesday police launched a murder investigation describing the killing as a ruthless attack in broad daylight.

On Sunday night, the former UDA 'commander' taunted paramilitaries. He posted on Facebook: "The day of the UDA putting people out of Carrick are over."

Following his death, son George Junior said in a Facebook post: "RIP dad you'll never be forgot love you always.... murdered by cowards."

Head of Serious Crime Branch Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray said: Our thoughts are with the Gilmore family at this time as they come to terms with their loss.

We are still at an early stage of the investigation, which is now a murder investigation, and while we have definite lines of enquiry I would appeal to local people to help us identify the person or persons who orchestrated and carried out this ruthless attack in broad daylight.

Those involved had no consideration for the local community when they carried out their attack in a residential street populated with families, young children and older people. Help us remove them from your community and place them before the courts.

I would urge anyone with information or who believes they can assist the investigation in any way to please come forward. You can call police on 101 or if you would prefer to provide you information anonymously you can by calling the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111.

A dispute between loyalist factions in the town has been ongoing for months. On Monday three men appeared in court charged over the attempted murder of a pub doorman in the town over the weekend.

UUP Roy Beggs MLA said: "The murder of George Gilmore and the attempted murder which preceded it must be condemned without reservation. These vicious attacks are shocking reminders that there are still people in our society who are prepared to use extreme violence to exert control in parts of the community.

The events in and around Carrickfergus over the past few days have been horrendous. Action needs to be taken to bring a degree of security to the entire community. I support a strong security response by the PSNI to ensure guns are found and removed, so that no one else is caught up in the cross fire of a bloody feud which has gone on for far too long.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

Deportations and ethnic cleansing carried out by Armenia should not be left without attention, said Maksim Shevchenko, former member of Russias Public Chamber and well-known journalist.

He made the remarks in Baku Mar. 14 at a conference titled The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, origins, peacemaking and the role of civil society.

Shevchenko reminded that hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were expelled from Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

He noted that the Caucasus is at the junction of struggle of former empires - the Ottoman, Persian and Russian, and each of these former empires, which once owned these lands, believes that they have the right to own it.

There are many such examples in the world, for example, the Balkans, he added.

Shevchenko said that for the Caucasus, joining one of these powers, or the European Union, which is actively participating in the region, is not a solution.

Such aspirations will only create conflicts, he noted. This no longer corresponds to the realities of the Caucasus.

Speaking particularly about Azerbaijan, Shevchenko said that this is a multinational state, which, despite all the experience, is not preparing for war.

Azerbaijan is growing, developing, holding large-scale global events, which cant be said about neighboring countries, he added.

He also noted that if the Dashnaktsutyun party wins in Armenia, then war will be laid in the basis of this countrys political course and that is unsafe for all.

Moreover, Shevchenko recalled that many Armenians left their country due to the countrys political course.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
The crew of the new Coast Guard Sikorsky S92 helicopter for the East Coast region at the launch of the new helicopter at Weston Airport this morning..The crew are from left, Winch Operator, Paul Ormsby, Capt. Ed Sullivan, Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick and Winchman Dermot Molloy....Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin.

Minister for Transport Tourism and Sport, Leo Varadkar pictured with the crew of the new Coast Guard Sikorsky S92 helicopter for the East Coast region at the launch of the new helicopter at Weston Airport this morning..The crew are from left, Winchman Dermot Molloy Capt. Ed Sullivan, and Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick ....Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin.

The sister of tragic Coast guard captain Dara Fitzpatrick has paid tribute and asked others to pray for the three missing crew.

Capt Fitzpatrick was one of very few female civilian pilots worldwide.

She featured in the RTE series Rescue 117 leading dramatic rescues by the crew at Waterford helicopter base.

A well-regarded pilot, Capt Fitzpatrick had over 20 years flying experience and was chief pilot in Waterford since 2002. She described her job as "challenging and exciting" during the filming of Rescue 117.

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Her sister, renowned psychologist Niamh Fitzpatrick, took to Twitter this afternoon to pay tribute.

She wrote: "My brave sister Capt Dara Fitzpatrick lost her life in #Rescue116 crash. We are devastated. Please pray for recovery of 3 remaining crew."

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Speaking today Gerard Flynn, VS&T Operations Manager of the Irish Coast Guard, said: "Dara was the most senior pilot and has been with the company for close on 20 years.

"Outside of her work as a pilot she did an enormous amount of work on water safety and was always available to do school visits and promote water safety."

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Captn Fitzpatrick spoke often about her love for her job.

Expand Close Minister for Transport Tourism and Sport, Leo Varadkar pictured with Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain of the new Coast Guard Sikorsky S92 helicopter for the East Coast region at the launch of the new helicopter at Weston Airport this morning......Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Minister for Transport Tourism and Sport, Leo Varadkar pictured with Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain of the new Coast Guard Sikorsky S92 helicopter for the East Coast region at the launch of the new helicopter at Weston Airport this morning......Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin.

Speaking to the 'Munster Express' in 2009, Capt Fitzpatrick said she was a native Dubliner, but more than happy to be living in Waterford at the time.

Dara told the newspaper she first went up in a helicopter at the age of 18, and "thought it was the business".

"And that, pretty much, was it.

I got my own licence and I was working for a businessman for a year, year and a half when the Coast Guard advertised for co-pilots.

That was at a time when Shannon was the only Coast Guard helicopter base was in the country so I applied for it and got it. I stayed there until 2002 and came over to Waterford and I love it here.

I had another few layers to deal with after I was taken on by Search and Rescue, she added.

They had to teach me to fly a twin engine helicopter since I was used to flying single engined. They had to teach me how to fly by instruments  which is another separate, long course.

And before I could go anywhere near Search and Rescue, I had to get used to flying the helicopter with two crew because I was used to flying in my little helicopter all by myself, so I went to Aberdeen for a year to fly onto oil rigs.

So by the time I got taken on, it had taken a good year to get me ready to sit in the left-hand seat as a co-pilot.

But then even when I started, for the first while youre hanging out the back seat of it  youre just so far behind it because when the jobs come in, everything is happening so quickly.

In January 2008, Capt Fitzpatrick appeared on a video entitled 'Find A Balance Dare To Dream' DVD.

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It was produced by the Irish Bishops' Conference and it covers the issue of alcohol and the challenge of moderation.

The production, which was aimed at young people, saw Capt Fitzpatrick stress the importance of finding balance in her job and how she took her responsibilities.

"When I was about 18 or 19, all I wanted to do was economics or business or something. Didn't get the points I wanted to at school - just didn't work hard enough - and I heard an ad on the radio for a helicopter.

"I went up in a helicopter and that was it. I was hooked.

"Most people go 'oh there's so many buttons and dials and things', but it just takes a little bit of coordination.

"There are so many variables in this job. Like when we get a call here, you know the Coastguard will say there's a person injured here or fallen off a cliff in Dublin or something like that, you will have to in about two or three minutes, make a decision on whether we can go there and back and what fuel do I need.

"We can go up and save loads of people but there is no point in doing that if we can't get back. You just have to be able to think on your feet and also think about the consequences of making a decision. You have to be able to get back to land.

"I'm doing this about 15 years now which is a fair amount of time but it doesn't make any difference; it will still kick you in the ass. It really will. You will go along and you'll do loads of really, really good jobs and then one time, you will get a kick in the ass and it kind of wakes you up. You can't relax.

"The thing that I find the hardest is that everybody thinks it will never happen to them and again, you're picking somebody up out of the water. You probably don't think so much about the casualties, because you can't. You can't afford to. Because sometimes you might pick somebody up and you have another two to three hours transit with a badly injured casualty or a body in the back. When you drop them off to hospital or bring them to a quay or whatever, when that flight is over, you've got to turn the page and move on. And you can't really think about it too much."

She was also prominently featured in RTE's documentary Rescue 117 documentary.

"You never know what you are going to face, you could be called up to the mountains, you could be called because someone has fallen off a cliff. You could be called at 2 o'clock in the morning being called to an injured fisherman on a boat," she said on camera during the documentary.

"There is huge variety here, you really don't know what you're facing. I think most of us enjoy that. That's the bit of the job that we actually like because you just don't know what's going to happen for the next few hours."
A number of off-licences in Belfast will close their doors on St Patrick's Day in a bid to stop drunk and disorderly behaviour.

Following years of trouble, off-licences in the Holylands area have agreed not to open on Friday.

Senior police officers have also warned that alcohol will be confiscated from anyone caught drinking in public.

Chief Executive of Hospitality Ulster, Colin Neill, welcomed the move.

Speaking to Belfast Live, Mr Neill called on supermarkets to follow suit.

"I can understand both sides of this debate. I have sympathy with residents of the Holylands, who have been subjected to unacceptable behaviour on St Patricks Day, year after year.

However, I also have sympathy for the local off-licences and commend them for voluntarily agreeing to close," he added.

He called on supermarkets to stop deliveries of alcohol into the Holylands area on St Patricks Day and the day before.
The Coast Guard director has said the hopes of finding the remaining crew who went missing off the west coast of the country "are now fading".

Speaking at a press conference this morning, Eugene Clonan described it as a "dark day for emergency services and the Coast Guard".

One casualty was recovered this morning and is in a critical condition.

"We don't hold a lot of hope for that person," Mr Clonan said.

Expand Close Coast guard Director Eugene Clonan / Facebook

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Three of the four crew who were on board the Coast Guard helicopter are still missing.

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Mr Clonan said that the first search and rescue team discovered debris on the surface off the coast of Mayo.

He said they lost contact at about 12.45am as the helicopter was approaching Blacksod to refuel.

"She said she was due to land shortly but she didn't arrive, we carried out a communications search and declared a mayday."

He explained: "The first search and rescue was Rescue 118 from Sligo and she discovered wreckage on the surface about one and a half miles south of Blackrock lighthouse, which is about six miles off Blacksod."

He added that winds at the moment are force six with good visibility.

"At this particular point in time, with the amount the vessels we have out there, our hopes are fading of finding the remainder of the crew.

"Weather conditions yesterday, the visibility wasnt too good but it was okay to carry out that particular operation."

Mr Clonan said they have a "wide field of debris" to search through.

"We are concentrating on the search at the moment...we still have no idea what happened."

He confirmed that the crew are all from the Dublin-based rescue team but he did not want to disclose their identities as family members are still being contacted.

It is still unclear what happened to the helicopter. The search operation is being coordinated by Malin Head control centre.

The crew were sent out to help a UK registered fishing vessel after reports came in that a crew member was injured.

"We routinely send the Dublin based helicopter to chase incidents on the west coast.

"The search teams have been working tirelessly to coordinate the response to this incident".
POSTMASTERS are to resist plans by An Post to shut hundreds of post offices around the country.

At a rally outside the GPO they called on all political parties to fulfil their election promises to keep the network open.

Postmasters from all over the State turned up at the protect outside the headquarters of An Post.

They said they will not support a solo run by An Post to shut post offices.

An Post is planning to close up to 200 post offices, mainly in rural areas.

This is in contrast to the report prepared by businessman Bobby Kerr which sees 80 post offices, an existing deal for retiring post masters and the expansion of financial services offered by An Post.

Irish Postmasters Union (IPU) general secretary Ned OHara said Government must immediately intervene and stop An Post from stalling the 56m Network development plan.

The Kerr report is understood to recommend the 56m cash injection into An Post to make it viable, but An Post management are not in favour of this bailout.

He called on Communications Minister Denis Naughton and the Government to intervene immediately.

Bobby Kerr has already drawn all of the information and views together and, while postmasters do not agree with all of the contents, we believe it offers a workable solution for the Network.

The plan includes many new products and services which post offices can provide to increase their offering to the public.

Mr OHara said the post office network, which comprises 1,130 units, is in crisis and delay will damage it further.

The An Post plan can be discussed when it is published later in the year on its own merits, but it must not delay the collective report that Government, postmasters and An Post have worked together on, he said.

He added that postmasters signed up to Kerr plan and worked on it for two years. It is now finalised and has a start date of January 2017. This must be honoured  and Government must take this responsibility and represent the needs of communities which are carefully considered in the report, Mr OHara said.

Postmasters presented half a million signatures to Government calling for action in 2015.

The IPU said research in 2016 showed that the vast majority of people place a social and community value on their Post Office and want services in their community.
A wise man once wrote that the good we do is written in sand, whereas the things that are, well, less good, are carved in stone. That's certainly true of Bishop Eamonn Casey and newspaper headlines frequently introduced him as "disgraced former bishop". And Bishop Casey certainly brought disgrace on himself, his vocational commitment and the Church he so publicly represented for decades.

Growing up in Co Kerry in the 1930s, he could've scarcely imagined the role he would one day play in the story of the decline of Catholicism in Ireland.

But what man wants - much less deserves - to be remembered at his lowest point? Eamonn Casey was a man of immense pastoral charity and outreach. When he was appointed a bishop in 1969 aged just 42, he seemed exactly what a conservative hierarchy needed to breathe life in to a Church that had, in reality, being merely coasting along for decades.

The revelation that Bishop Casey had secretly fathered a child - Peter - in 1974 with Annie Murphy stunned and saddened many people when it was first confirmed in 1992. It's impossible now to explain to younger generations the impact the news had.

I was 13 years old and vividly remember the sense of shock and disbelief among family and neighbours in our close-knit Catholic community in rural Co Tyrone. Inevitably, there were some who viewed it as a media fabrication - denial is a very human reaction to news one finds difficult to comprehend. But there was no fabrication.

Catholics had been brought up to look up to senior clerics as role models. The fact that a bishop could sin in such a fashion, and continue to seek promotion within the Church when he knew that same sin could be publicised at any moment, beggars belief looking back.

Along with that other larger-than-life clerical character Fr Michael Cleary, Eamon Casey formed the backdrop of the papal visit to Ireland in 1979. He famously appeared in television footage beamed around the world from Galway racecourse with nothing but sky in the background, so high was the platform that had been erected so the cheering teenagers and young adults could greet the Pope.

Casey's immediate resignation in 1992 and self-imposed exile to the missions of Latin America brought relief to a hierarchy reeling as it tried to come to terms with the scandal.

Looking back, one might say it was the beginning of the end for the Church's dominance of public life in Ireland. Looking back too, I suspect most people will think of Eamon Casey in a forgiving fashion. His misdemeanour pales into insignificance when one considers the now-exposed widespread culture of cover-up and down-playing of child abuse by senior clerics. His sin, what theologians might describe as a 'sin according to nature', seems so minor in comparison.

Nonetheless, when one comes to write the history of the declining influence of the Catholic Church in 20th century Ireland, Casey's departure will certainly mark a pivotal moment. For many Irish people, it was the beginning of a series of punishing revelations that the men of the Church - the Church they were brought up in to instinctively believe would always do the right thing - were capable of great hypocrisy. Much of the anger against the Church is not anger that people in high office fail - it's was more the fact that people in high office preached one thing, and did something quite different. I suppose the Church should take it as a positive thing that people expect higher standards from clerics.

Eamonn Casey was a complex man: proud, vain, ambitious, sensitive, caring and capable of great acts of human kindness. His early years in priesthood were marked by a lively pastoral concern for young Irish people who were forced to emigrate far from their native shores. He urged successive Irish governments to do more for these often-forgotten citizens.

Appointed a bishop in 1969 in the heady years after Vatican II, he was seen as a progressive within the Church. In keeping with the 1960s, he was a colourful man in a Church often dominated by grey characters.

Perhaps it was that zest for life that was to prove his undoing. He loved fast cars - which he often pushed to their limits - and a drink. He became known as a renowned host and friends delighted in his company.

He was a sharp critic of US foreign policy, particularly in Latin America and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Dunnes Stores workers who refused to stock goods from apartheid South Africa.

He was present at the funeral Mass for the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador in 1980 when gunmen opened fire on mourners, killing an estimated 50 people.

After his penitential years on the missions in Ecuador, he returned to relative obscurity in Ireland in 2006. He returned to a very different Ireland than the one he left almost 15 years earlier. Friends say he rarely spoke about the events that were to be his undoing. In recent years, that cruel stalker dementia was to take over and the silence was no longer something he had a choice about.

He continues to be greatly loved by both many people and priests in his native Kerry and his adopted Galway. Expect what we call in Ireland "a big funeral". Among those leading tributes to Casey last night was none other than his old friend President Michael D Higgins. The president highlighted his tireless work for human rights and to raise awareness about the developing world. Touchingly, a statement from his family last night opened with the words: "On behalf of his son, Peter . . ."

They sometimes say old men have a lot of time to pray. Scientists don't know what effect cognitive impairments have on the inner spiritual life.

I suspect that Eamonn Casey is a man who has long since found peace with his faith and with God. To err is human, to forgive divine.

Michael Kelly is Editor of The Irish Catholic newspaper.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

The OSCE is expected to monitor the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops on March 15, press service of Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported.

The monitoring will be held under the mandate of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative along the line of contact in the direction of the Tapgaragoyunlu village of Azerbaijans Goranboy district, said the ministry.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring will be held by Andrzej Kasprzyk, ambassador and the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative, and his field assistants Jiri Aberle and Simon Tiller.

On the Azerbaijani territories occupied and controlled by Armenian armed forces, the monitoring will be carried out by Ghenadie Petrica, Hristo Hristov and Peter Svedberg, field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
A mother captured the moment her nine-month-old son saw his father for the first time with his new glasses.

The greeting was made all the more special because US Air Force captain Brandon Caldwell was returning from a two-month deployment to Antarctica, and was worried young Reagan might not remember him.

Reagan's mother, Amanda, filmed as her husband sang "patty-cake" with their son, who she told ABC7 was "loving having daddy back home". The family lives in upstate New York.

She added: "This was the hardest deployment yet by far and you can see how hard it was for Brandon to be away from Reagan by the emotion he showed when he finally had him in his arms again."

Reagan has glasses because he contracted a condition called Group B Strep some time after he was born, and ended up in intensive care with meningitis and sepsis, ABC7 reported.

Ms Caldwell, a former teacher who left the profession to look after her son, said she had been tested for the condition but received no guidance about it.

She said: "I was never told this could make my baby sick after leaving the hospital. I was not told anything about warning signs or symptoms of meningitis and sepsis.

"I want moms to ask questions, do research on it, and if you think there's something going on with your baby take them in to the paediatrician or the emergency room."

But Reagan is making good progress thanks to physical, occupational and speech therapy.
The Cabinet is set to back a referendum to grant voting rights for the Irish abroad. But be under no illusions: the diaspora will not fall to their knees to give thanks. This is the least they could offer.

In November, Americans across the globe cast their ballot for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

As an Irish-Australian dual citizen, currently resident in London, I was legally compelled to vote in the 2016 Australian Federal elections. Irish citizens voting in presidential elections would be a welcome, but minimalist reform.

I was born in Cork in 1976. One of my earliest memories is my father lashing speakers to the roof of our Volvo 66 before driving around Ballincollig calling on our neighbours to "Rise and follow Charlie".

As a teenager I chose a different political path. In 1990, I posted leaflets through doors in Cork South Central for Mary Robinson. Dick Spring was my poster boy - his image adorned my bedroom wall.

And when I left home, for the Yorkshire dales in 2001, I naively assumed that my political ties to home would remain meaningful.

In the UK, I voted in local, national and Euro elections. I engaged with my country of residence but my Irishness meant more than just the team I cheered for during the Six Nations.

My first two children were born in Manchester. It was obvious to me that they should be Irish and their Scottish mother saw no reason to object.

And then we moved to Australia. My youngest was born in Sydney but was not entitled to Australian citizenship. Like her siblings, she is Irish. When we received permanent residency, our tax situation improved but we were still ineligible to vote in Australian elections at any level - when we became (dual) citizens we were suddenly legally obliged to vote.

While in Australia, I taught constitutional law and I wrote for the 'Irish Echo' - a newspaper for the Irish-Australian community. I followed Aussie politics but I devoured news from home. And I was proud of our President.

There was a picture doing the rounds on social media of President Michael D Higgins standing in line to use an ATM.

I would show this to my students and colleagues and say "this is my President". No absent monarch or governor general. A poet. A man of the people. His image is not on our coins but he represents me (and he has more than a passing resemblance to my Uncle John).

In 2013, the Constitutional Convention recommended votes in presidential elections for the diaspora. I supported the idea. I argued that while the Oireachtas set policy affecting residents, it made sense that the President - who represents the nation and upholds the Constitution - should be elected by the entire Irish nation, at home and abroad.

Many objected to my willingness to accept the "no taxation without representation" line. They wanted a debate on a Seanad panel for the diaspora. Some argued that citizens should have a say in referendums - the Bunreacht is for citizens, not just residents. So I believe that the Cabinet's proposal will be seen, from Bondi to Boston, not as radical, but as the bare minimum.

And there will be those who call for this tokenism to be rejected. Some smell something suspiciously cheesy in the Taoiseach's Philadelphia announcement.

Article 12.2.2 of Bunreacht na hEireann states: "Every citizen who has the right to vote at an election for members of Dail Eireann shall have the right to vote at an election for President".

The Cabinet's proposal would break the link between the franchise for Presidential and Dail elections. The referendum might be less about granting overseas citizens the right to vote in Presidential elections and more about ensuring their long-term exclusion from the Dail franchise.

Others will argue that more pressing reforms are needed. That this promised referendum is a sentimentalist bauble to distract from bigger issues. I have sympathy with that view. I campaigned to retain the Seanad in 2013 - but I did so because I feared unicameralism, not because I was in thrall to the strange quango that is the Irish upper house.

Now that Travellers are a recognised ethnic group, is it not time they had a panel?

And what possible justification is there for NUI and TCD panels while other third-level institutions are excluded? The panel system needs shaking up.

And the issue of votes for the diaspora pales when compared to the need for repeal or reform of the Eighth Amendment. The bodily integrity and autonomy of women in Ireland are undeniably issues requiring urgent attention. And there are other issues.

But, as a dual citizen of Ireland and Australia currently resident in London, I can vote in the country of my residence, I am obliged to vote in the country of my acquired citizenship, but I am excluded from voting in the country of my birth.

The Gathering was nice. The calls for investment are grand. But Irish citizens living abroad are entitled to more than a light in the window of the Aras and a mawkish ESB ad at Christmas.

Dr Fergal Davis is a reader in law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London
To save Tinkerbell in 'Peter Pan', all you had to do was clap your hands and really, really believe in fairies.

To send a conspiracy theory on its vicious way around the world, you need to do more than just believe. You need help.

Luckily for those who wanted to elect Donald Trump, that help was available during the US presidential campaign, and still is. It comes from a collection of new right-wing hyperpartisan media outlets that are having a huge effect on politics.

Consider, for example, one outlandish idea from just last week: that the CIA hacked the Democratic National Committee's emails, gave them to WikiLeaks and then framed Russia.

'Business Insider' traced it: from replies to the WikiLeaks Twitter account, through conservative radio and then Breitbart News, and out into the semi-mainstream - Sean Hannity on Fox News - all within 48 hours.

Similarly, the right-wing radio host Mark Levin may have started the evidence-free idea that former President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of now-President Trump. It made its way quickly through the media ecosystem, after Mr Trump saw it, apparently on Breitbart News.

Once the US president tweets it, it's undeniably news, picked up everywhere and re-amplified - especially by right-wing sites.

Derek Thompson of the 'Atlantic' magazine called this a "conspiracy-theory feedback loop". And a very effective one it is.

A major new study, published in 'Columbia Journalism Review' ('CJR'), detailed just how influential the new media ecosystem has become, calling it a determining factor in Mr Trump's election.

"A right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart developed as a distinct and insulated media system, using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyperpartisan perspective to the world," the report concluded, after studying 1.25 million stories.

(Breitbart, of course, was run by - and maintains close ties to - Stephen K Bannon, Mr Trump's chief strategist.)

As right-wing sites concentrated during the campaign on immigration stories - often with exaggerated or false claims about the dangers of refugees and immigrants - they also endlessly attacked Hillary Clinton over Benghazi and her use of a private email server. These sites often traffic in "decontextualised truths, repeated falsehoods, and leaps of logic to create a fundamentally misleading view of the world," the report said.

This brings to mind a Trump voter I met in northeast Pennsylvania who took right-wing talking points and put them in a blender. She told me she couldn't trust Mrs Clinton because "I didn't like how she stole those emails and it got people killed in Benghazi."

This tainted media sphere not only set the conservative media agenda, "but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton".

Kyle Pope, editor of 'CJR', explained: "On the right, there was an intense focus on Trump's policies," especially immigration.

But in covering Mrs Clinton, the right-wing sites often served as stenographers for conservative politicians.

And the mainstream media often went along for the ride, obsessing about the presidential horserace and failing to understand how all of this was resonating with voters. Plenty of excellent investigative reporting on Mr Trump was published, but to some extent, it was drowned out by the noise.

There's another way that the traditional press has allowed right-wing media to flourish - by moving too far to the left itself.

Mainstream newsrooms were once much more ideologically diverse, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of American Press Institute. "The best data out there shows that there are fewer Republicans working in traditional newsrooms and news generally than there used to be," he told me.

As right-wing media sprang up over the past few decades, reporters and editors with more conservative beliefs migrated there. That left mainstream newsrooms with a high percentage of people identifying themselves as independent, a fair number of Democrats - and relatively few Republicans.

"That affects the discussion in newsrooms even when people are trying mightily to be fair," Mr Rosenstiel said.

Mr Pope puts it more bluntly, referring to the "unarguable partisanship" he saw from some mainstream journalists as November 8 neared, evident especially on social media. Favouring Mrs Clinton, they not only mocked Mr Trump but also were unable to fathom that he might win.

Mr Pope now sees "a huge corrective" under way, as journalists dig in, providing meaty accountability coverage of Mr Trump and spending more time listening to Mr Trump's core of voters. But whom are they reaching? Many Americans, especially on the right, have lost trust in mainstream media, which may be deeply flawed but at least is committed to factuality and truth.

Meanwhile, disinformation gains more of a dangerous foothold.

You can't fight propaganda with standard journalism, Mr Pope told me. Watchdogging the fake news machinery and fact-checking relentlessly is part of his prescription.

Mr Rosenstiel has suggested other measures: being more transparent about how we gather and verify the news; covering what's important (not "barking at every car"); and using clearer labels to distinguish news from opinion.

I would add that news organisations have to acknowledge their own biases internally, and constantly report against them.

The 'CJR' study concludes on a hopeful note: that a renaissance of legitimate journalism may be the result of everything that's happened. I'd love to think that, but it's going to take hard work, the kind that doesn't come easy to journalists: more openness to criticism, continued self-examination and willingness to change. It won't happen by closing our eyes and believing in fairies.
People pay their respects at the site of the former Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Co Galway. Photo: Andy Newman

I agree with Fr Con McGillicuddy (Irish Independent, March 13) that the Ireland of 1925 was a very different place to today.

He mentions the slums, the poverty, the infant mortality and the lack of ,or under-funding of, social and medical services.

There is no doubt it was indeed a different place.

I have read that the infant mortality rate in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century was greater than it was in Calcutta, India.

Fr McGillicuddy writes that "entitlement for single mothers did not exist. Who helped? The nuns".

Many nuns, to their credit, helped those in need when the State offered them no succour.

However, we must also remember that the State and Irish society at the time of the mother and baby homes were fervently religious and it was a religious-driven agenda obsessed with sin, purity, guilt and shame that fomented the toxic culture of prejudice against single mothers and children born out of wedlock and resulted in them being treated as outcasts.

Rob Sadlier

Rathfarnham, Dublin 16

Cool heads needed on past horrors

As we learn the details of yet another of the horrific systems of past Irish governance, the angry response from people who are fortunate to live in a totally different age is to take a scattergun approach to each and every living member of religious orders, irrespective of their innocence or guilt.

The past is indeed a different country, and the people of Ireland did, indeed, do things differently there. No living person today can undo past deeds and actions - in mother and baby homes, orphanages or other institutions - no matter how much they wish to do so.

If you are angry about the past, is it not far better to participate in a cool-headed and thoughtful manner in society today?

Today, Ireland is at a political juncture, where all political parties are faced with the option of creating innovative policies that can deliver a just society in practice.

Today, the responsibility lies more than ever in the hands of the people of Ireland: since the 1960s there has been access to a more broad and diverse range of media than at any time in the past.

Each person is morally obliged to inform themselves. Your moral obligation to vote also means that after your ballot is cast, you are obliged to participate in ensuring your constituency representatives do not become mere rubber stamps. For this is what allowed the disgraceful, unchristian deeds to occur in the past.

The time for serious thinking on the future of Ireland is here.

Declan Foley

Berwick, Australia

The more I read about how we treated the females among us over the last 100 years, the sicker I feel. Although I'm only 60, and have never sent a female family member into an institution because she was pregnant, I do feel guilty.

Guilty for being part of a society where it was acceptable to the majority to allow our sisters to be treated as slaves and worse. I apologise to all our sisters who were abandoned and whose tears we ignored.

Damien Carroll

Kingswood, Dublin 24

Time for a U-turn - if EU reforms

The House of Lords last week voted in favour of all those from the EU who live in the UK retaining their rights to stay, be employed and claim benefits.

Almost straight away a Dutch minister spoke up and said Britons in Europe should be treated the same. It takes two to tango. I hope the European politicians now go further and start admitting the EU needed reform all along, just as the British said.

Who knows, if they do show a willingness to reform maybe at this 11th hour the British can call off Brexit altogether in the way UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson himself once predicted.

Nigel F H Boddy

Darlington, UK

Zoos can't meet animals' needs

Even in the best circumstances, it's impossible for zoos to meet all the unique environmental, nutritional, climatic, and social needs of the various species they hold captive.

Reports that 109 animals - including several from critically endangered species - have died in two short years at Dublin Zoo (Irish Independent, March 13) should be a wake-up call for anyone who still harbours the illusion that these institutions serve any purpose beyond condemning intelligent beings to a lifetime of frustration.

Captivity breaks animals' spirits and often their bodies, and our money would be far better spent on programmes that protect wildlife populations than on propping up these animal prisons.

The ultimate salvation for endangered animals lies in conserving their habitats, not in sentencing them to a life in captivity.

Jennifer White

Assistant press Officer, Peta UK

London, UK

Pensioners, raise your voices

I read that Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe proposes the Government should slash income tax (Irish Independent, March 13).

He should be ashamed of himself to make such a proposal while public service pensioners have to pay the pension levy and the USC on their pensions, which they paid into while they were working.

I am an 80-year-old retired second-level school teacher paying 80 a month in pension levy and USC.

We paid our way when we were working, and we paid again to get the country out of debt.

It's time now for all public-service pensioners to raise their voices and force this Government to give us back our pensions immediately by abolishing the pension levy and USC. We have waited long enough. "Nil neart go cuir le cheile."

Desmond Nolan

Annaghdown, Co Galway

Don't get cold feet, Enda

Looking at the weather forecast for this week on the east coast of the United States, I hope Taoiseach Enda Kenny brought suitable clothing - especially thermal socks - for the expected heavy snow and freezing conditions.

It wouldn't do for him to get cold feet when it comes to meeting US President Donald Trump and asking a big favour on behalf of the 50,000 illegal or, as they are termed, 'undocumented' Irish in the US.

David Bradley

Drogheda, Co Louth
Kim Kardashian West has revealed she pleaded with armed robbers to "let me live" as they held her at gunpoint in Paris last October.

The reality TV star said she feared she would be shot in the head when she was robbed of jewellery worth several million dollars by masked men in a private residence.

The aftermath of the robbery in October is to feature in the new series of 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians', which premiered in the US on Sunday.

In a preview of next Sunday's episode, a tearful Kardashian West said: "They had the gun up to me and I knew they were just going to shoot me in the head.

"Then he ducktapes my face.

"Please I have a family. Let me live."

In another preview, published by TV channel E!, Kardashian West said the robbers demanded money but she told them: "I don't have any money."

"They dragged me out on to the hallway on top of the stairs," she added.

"That's when I saw the gun, like clear as day. I was kind of looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs."

Kardashian West is also shown telling her sisters Khloe and Kourtney she had a "split second" to decide whether to try to escape.

Video of the Day

"Am I going to run down the stairs and either be shot in the back? It makes me so upset to think about it.

"Either they're going to shoot me in the back, or if I make it and they don't, if the elevator does not open in time, or the stairs are locked, then like I'm f*****.

"There's no way out."

The new series of 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' will also show Kardashian West learning that her rapper husband, Kanye West, has been admitted to hospital.

In November, West was taken to UCLA Medical Centre in Los Angeles for sleep deprivation and exhaustion after abruptly cancelling a tour.
Eve Hewson attends the 2016 the Glamour Women Of The Year Awards in Hollywood, California

Actor James Lafferty attends WGN America's "Underground" World Premiere on March 2, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for WGN America)

Actor James Lafferty attends the "Small Town Crime" premiere 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals on March 11, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SXSW)

Actor James Lafferty attends the "Small Town Crime" premiere 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals on March 11, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SXSW)

Actor James Lafferty attends the "Small Town Crime" premiere 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals on March 11, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SXSW)

James Lafferty as Nathan Scott in One Tree Hill

He was the bad boy turned good that stole our hearts on One Tree Hill during the noughties.

Actor James Lafferty played Nathan Scott on the US teen drama for nine years until it eventually wrapped in 2012 and it's clear the years have been kind to him.

Now 21, the former teen heartthrob made an appearance at SXSW in Austin, Texas on Monday to promote his latest film Small Town Crime and he is ageing like a fine wine.

Expand Close Actor James Lafferty attends the "Small Town Crime" premiere 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals on March 11, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SXSW) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Actor James Lafferty attends the "Small Town Crime" premiere 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals on March 11, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SXSW)

His post-OTH career hasn't exactly set the world alight, but his latest turn onscreen might turn that around as he features alongside Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer.

These days, he's single since splitting with Bono's actress daughter Eve Hewson in 2015 after five years together and regularly made trips to Ireland with his ex, including an appearance at Leopardstown Racecourse at Christmas in 2010.

Keep up the good word Nathan.

Expand Close Actor James Lafferty attends WGN America's "Underground" World Premiere on March 2, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for WGN America) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Actor James Lafferty attends WGN America's "Underground" World Premiere on March 2, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for WGN America)
Seized rhino horns are displayed during a press conference at the customs office in Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok (Sakchai Lalit/AP)

Thai authorities have seized 21 rhinoceros horns smuggled from Ethiopia worth almost five million dollars (4.1 million).

The bags carrying the horns were discovered in a random customs search at Bangkok's main airport.

The bags' owners fled as officers searched their bags and have not been apprehended.

Customs officials said the horns are unusually large and pristine.

It is the second time in two years that rhino horns have been seized at the airport.

Rhinoceros horns, blood, skin and urine are in high demand across Asia for their use in traditional Chinese medicine.

The World Wildlife Fund says very few rhinos survive outside national parks and reserves, and some species are endangered.

Experts who examined the smuggled horns concluded that the poachers who obtained them must have killed the rhinos.

AP
Is this the name of his new party or a dodgy movie?

Ukip donor Arron Banks has claimed the party has suspended his membership, so it looks like hes now going to focus on a new political movement.

Luckily, he already has an inkling of what he might call this new party.

Banks, who funded the Leave.EU campaign, has been involved in a public spat with Ukips only MP Douglas Carswell and has been critical of the partys leader Paul Nuttall.

Banks said his membership had lapsed and when he tried to reapply he was told he was suspended until an appearance before the partys ruling national executive committee.

But Ukip dismissed the idea he could have been suspended as he was no longer a member of the party.

On Twitter, Banks claimed the reason for the supposed suspension of his membership is because of controversial things hes been saying about the leadership.

Banks said: Apparently, my comments about the party being run like a squash club committee and Mr Carswell have not gone down well.

I now realise I was being unfair to squash clubs all over the UK and I apologise to them. We will now be concentrating on our new movement.

Ah yes  the new movement: Ukip 2.0. It sounds a bit like a movie, doesnt it?

And not a very good one at that.

Air guitars at the ready for Ukip 2.0.

Not everyones sure its going to be a smash hit.

Others are coming up with some helpful alternatives for the new partys name.

Popcorn at the ready, folks.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

OSCE Minsk Group cannot consider the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict without taking into account the South Caucasian countries interests, said Maksim Shevchenko, former member of Russias Public Chamber.

Shevchenko, an editor, journalist and presenter on television and radio in Russia, made the remarks in Baku Mar. 14 at a conference titled The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Origins, Peacemaking and the Role of Civil Society.

The proposals put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group dont work, Shevchenko said, adding South Caucasus is the shortest way to the Persian Gulf, for delivering energy resources to Europe, and a region where Europe meets the East.

It is clear that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will not be able to withdraw troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories. It is easier for him to shoot himself, because he has been deceiving his people for 25 years, Shevchenko said. In addition, the OSCE MG co-chairing countries are selling weapons to both sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, believing that this will stop its escalation. This is surely a unique approach.

As the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict escalates, it will draw Georgia, Russia, Turkey and Iran, and this may set fire to the entire Caucasus region, he said.

So, the OSCE Minsk Group is a tool to deter a catastrophe, but not a way to settle the conflict, Shevchenko said.

It is necessary to create new tools to resolve the conflict, he added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Sanctions have been ordered over the treatment of Turkish ministers.

The relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands has turned a little sour after Turkey announced a series of political sanctions against the country.

Heres everything you need to know about the situation.

What brought on the sanctions?

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to encourage the millions of Turks living in western Europe to vote in the upcoming referendum on April 16, and sent two ministers to the Netherlands to drum up support among expats.

However, the officials  foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and family affairs minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya  were prevented from entering a consulate and escorted out of the country after attempting to attend a political rally.

The ministry also objected to what it called a disproportionate use of force against demonstrators at a protest afterwards.

What did Erdogan have to say about it?

Erdogan vowed to retaliate against the Netherlands and claimed: Nazism is alive in the West.

In a later television interview, he said: Their Vienna Convention is their fascism. Their Nazism. We can say neo-Nazism. He was referring to a 1961 international treaty on diplomatic relations.

What do the sanctions include?

Turkey has closed its air space to Dutch diplomats and has also barred the Dutch ambassador entry back into the country.

Parliament has also been advised to step away from a Dutch-Turkish friendship, and high-level political discussions between the two countries have also been halted.

Deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps to redress the actions Ankara sees as a grave insult.

There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didnt create this crisis or bring it to this stage, he said. Those who did have to take steps to redress the situation.

Is the Netherlands the only country to block Erdogans attempted rallies?

No, its not. Austria, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany have done so too.

Turkey was actually caught up in a similar dispute with Germany last week, and German chancellor Angela Merkels support of the Netherlands has only seemed to rile Erdogan further.

Merkel pledged her full support and solidarity to the Dutch, saying the Nazi jibes were completely unacceptable. Erdogan accused Germany of supporting the terrorists fighting against Turkey and argued Berlin didnt want to see a stronger Turkey.

What does the European Union have to say?

The EU told Turkey to calm down and refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk further exacerbating the situation.

In response, a Turkish foreign ministry statement said the EUs stance on Turkey was short-sighted and carried no value for Turkey.

Meanwhile, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg urged all members of the alliance to show mutual respect, to be calm and have a measured approach.
It kinda looks like a scene from Disneys Frozen.

Its been very cold in New York, with storm winds blowing at 55mph and parts of the city seeing several inches of snow.

And the chilly weather appeared to have an effect on a house in Webster, New York, on the banks of Lake Ontario  which somehow got completely covered in ice.

Photographer John Kucko was at the scene to capture this bizarre-yet-majestic phenomenon.

After posting photos of the icy house on social media, Kucko got messages from people who refused to believe the images were genuine, so he shot video to prove them wrong.

We had violent winds here the last five days, Kucko told CNN. Power was knocked out to 150,000 people. Some are still without power.

It kinda looks like somewhere Elsa from Disneys Frozen would live.

However, you can see from the photos that the neighbouring house appears to be completely unscathed by ice.

Kucko believes this is because it has retaining walls protecting from winds and water from the lake.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has issued blizzard warnings for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine and schools remain closed in several parts of the country.
Right-wing nationalist Geert Wilders and the conservative Dutch prime minister were both climbing in the polls last night as voters appeared to embrace their hardline responses to the spiralling diplomatic row with Turkey.

With one day to go before the Netherlands heads to the polls tomorrow in an election seen as a test of populism in Europe, the crisis with Turkey dominated a televised debate between Dutch party leaders and dragged governments across Europe into the fray.

Turkey, meanwhile, threatened once again to start letting refugees and migrants into the EU and vowed to take the Netherlands to an international court as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at German chancellor Angela Merkel and accused her of "supporting terrorism".

A Dutch poll published last night put the centre-right VVD party, led by prime minister Mark Rutte, on course to win the election with 27 seats, a three-seat improvement since the row with Turkey erupted on Saturday.

The same poll showed Mr Wilders's nationalist Party for Freedom in line to win 24 seats, up two seats since the weekend.

The two men faced off in a one-on-one debate last night, when Mr Rutte struck a hard line on the confrontation with Turkey but also accused Mr Wilders of "the wrong kind of populism".

"If the Turks escalate then so will we," he said, demanding that Turkey apologise for calling the Dutch "Nazi remnants".

He also took aim at Mr Wilders's promise to ban the Koran and shut the Netherlands' borders, saying both were "fake policies" that could not be achieved.

Read more: How Wilders wields power without winning elections

Mr Wilders, whose campaign has centred around a promise to "de-Islamise the Netherlands", said the country should be worried about the citizens of Turkish origin who protested in support of Turkey and against the Dutch government. "Of course I'm angry about Erdogan, but I'm more angry about the people in the Netherlands who won't integrate," he said.

Mr Rutte and other mainstream party leaders have all vowed not to allow Mr Wilders into a coalition government, but the Dutch prime minister warned there was still "a real risk" that the nationalist could win most seats.

The row with Turkey began over the weekend, when Mr Rutte and his cabinet blocked two Turkish ministers from attending a rally in Rotterdam with Turkish citizens living in Holland in support of a 'Yes' vote in a referendum to give vast new powers to Mr Erdogan.

While leaders from the EU and Nato appealed for calm in the diplomatic spat, Mr Erdogan repeated his accusation that European governments were behaving like "Nazis". "Nazism, we can call this neo-nazism. A new Nazism tendency," he said. Mr Erdogan said Germany was "supporting terrorists" because it had not acted on 4,500 dossiers that Turkey sent it regarding terror suspects.

"Mrs Merkel, why are you hiding terrorists in your country?" he said. He also said he planned to take the Netherlands to the European Court of Human Rights and threatened to impose economic sanctions.

Omer Celik, the Turkish EU affairs minister, said Ankara should reconsider the deal struck with the EU last year, which dramatically reduced the flow of people from the Middle East entering Europe from Turkey. Mr Celik said his country would not allow for the resumption of deadly crossings in the Aegean Sea, but should consider opening its land borders to Greece and Bulgaria.

"In terms of land transits in Turkey, I think this situation should (be re-evaluated)," he told the Anadolu news agency.

Turkey has threatened to tear up the agreement with the EU several times before without following through, arguing that Europe has failed to meet its commitment to allow Turkish citizens to travel in the Schengen area without visas.

Mrs Merkel earlier offered her "complete support and solidarity" to the Dutch government and said Mr Erdogan's repeated Nazi comparisons were "completely unacceptable".

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Employers can bar staff from wearing the headscarf and other religious symbols in the workplace, Europe's top court has ruled.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) made the decision on the eve of a Dutch election in which Muslim immigration has been a key issue and a bellwether for attitudes to migration and refugee policies across Europe.

The ECJ gave a joined judgment in the cases of two women, in France and Belgium, who were dismissed for refusing to remove headscarves.

The Belgian court had referred the case to the EU's top court for clarification.

"An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination," the Court said in a statement to the Telegraph.

"However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer's services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination."
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders (right), of the PVV party, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, of the VVD Liberal party, take part in a TV debate in Rotterdam last night. Photo: Getty Images

It has become the 'clever' observation to make about this week's election in the Netherlands that while the populist demagogue Geert Wilders is attracting all the international headlines, he is in fact just a political sideshow. But this misses the point about Mr Wilders, whose success reflects a rightwards shift in Dutch politics seen in the decision to block the Turkish foreign minister from campaigning among the diaspora last weekend.

Those who would dismiss Mr Wilders as a eurosceptic fantasy take comfort from fact that the "Dutch Donald Trump" - same big hair, but even more stridently Islamophobic - is fading in the polls. He now looks unlikely to beat the VVD party of Mark Rutte, the sitting Dutch prime minister, as many had feared. Even in the unlikely event that Mr Wilders does come top and wins 20 or more seats in the 150-seat legislature, he can never get power because the other main parties have already vowed to club together to keep him out.

But that is to misunderstand how Mr Wilders wields power. The persistent attraction of divisive figures like Mr Wilders has weakened mainstream leaders like Mr Rutte. He felt he had little choice but to take a tough line with Turkey, in the process boosting the same anti-foreigner politics that Mr Wilders has made his trademark.

Not surprisingly, Mr Wilders is using the Turkish episode to fuel his campaign, taunting the Turkish minister for families on Twitter by telling her to "go home" and "take all your Turkish fans from the Netherlands with you". When Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fired back - observing that Dutch elections were imminent and that "last night we found out Geert Wilders was already in power" - he was uncomfortably close to the truth.

This isn't to say that all Dutch are racist, or that the Netherlands is about to vote to leave the EU or descend into fascism but it is clear that the Dutch are turning away from the progressive politics of the EU establishment, with all three main contenders at this election - Mr Rutte, Mr Wilders and the Christian Democrats (CDA) - all firmly on the right.

Mr Wilders doesn't need to enter government, therefore, to have power.

Indeed, viewed cynically, the absolute last thing that a demagogue like Mr Wilders wants is to enter into government and make compromises that would entail a disastrous dilution of his brand. This is a populist politician, after all, who has only allowed one person to join his Party for Freedom - himself.

In truth, Mr Wilders is much happier - and more influential - commanding the Twittersphere, taunting Muslims, promising to ban mosques and promising a referendum on EU membership that he knows is very unlikely to happen.

In short, Mr Wilders doesn't need to win formal office to be powerful on his own terms. The rise of identity politics and the corresponding splintering of the Dutch polity - no party from the 20 or so on the ballot paper is expected to win more than 30 seats - is allowing Mr Wilders to be heard as never before.

The Dutch vote is the first act in a trilogy of elections in northern Europe this year that are being watched as a barometer of the EU's political future. The sheer range of possible outcomes is a clear indicator of the volatility of the union.

It spans a Europe run by nativists like Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen, who are both deeply Eurosceptic or, on the other hand, a Europe powered by a revived Franco-German juggernaut helmed by Emmanuel Macron and Martin Schulz, who have promised to lead a 'rebirth' of the EU.

These extremes mask a much messier, populist politics in Europe that will persist even it is mainstream candidates who shoulder the complex burdens of office.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

Armenians must first be released from the concentration camps they have been living in for 25 years so that they can freely express their opinion, the Armenian human rights activist Vage Avetyan, who lives in Sweden, said.

He made the remarks in Baku Mar. 14 at a conference titled The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Origins, Peacemaking and the Role of Civil Society.

Avetyan said that when he was in Baku in 2016, he honored the memory of the victims of the genocide committed by the Armenian Armed Forces against the peaceful population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly on Feb. 25-26, 1992.

On February 25-26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces, together with the 366th infantry regiment of the former Soviet troops, stationed in Khankendi, committed an act of genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly.

As many as 613 people, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people were killed as a result of the massacre. A total of 1,000 civilians became disabled as a result of the onslaught. Some 1,275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people still remains unknown.

The human rights activist noted that many Armenian public figures and ordinary people support his visiting the monument erected in Baku in the memory of the Khojaly victims, though one can become disabled or even be killed in Armenia for having a different opinion regarding this tragedy.

Avetyan added that many people in Armenia understand that the power in the country is in the hands of a criminal group, and not everyone supports Yerevans policy regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He said that mass propaganda and all its technologies were used to manipulate the opinion of the Armenian people.

Everyone in Armenia wants peace, Avetyan said, adding that the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia must be restored step by step.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Spain's conservative government does not want to encourage a separatist movement in Catalonia

Scotland will be "at the back of the queue" if it wants to become a member of the European Union if it decides to leave the United Kingdom, Spain's foreign minister has said.

Alfonso Dastis was responding to the news that the Scottish government is planning to hold another referendum on its future in the UK.

His comments also signal that Madrid will be firm on the issue, as it was in 2014 when Scotland voted to remain in the UK.

Spain's conservative government does not want to encourage a separatist movement in Catalonia.

According to Europa Press, Mr Dastis told reporters in Peru that an independent Scotland "can't just stay in the EU".

Any prospective application to the EU can be vetoed by any member.

AP
Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia in the first attack on a large commercial vessel there since 2012.

The Aris 13 reported being approached by two skiffs on Monday, said John Steed, from the organisation Oceans Beyond Piracy.

The ship had been carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, he said.

An official from the semi-autonomous state of Puntland said more than two dozen men had boarded the ship off Somalia's northern coast.

Another Puntland official said the freighter was being moved towards the coast.

A Britain-based spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force operation off Somalia, Flight Lieutenant Louise Tagg, confirmed that an incident involving an oil tanker had occurred and an investigation was under way.

An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident told the Associated Press that eight Sri Lankan crew members were on board the vessel.

The official said it was unclear what the circumstances were surrounding the ship stopping off northern Somalia, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab.

The official said no ransom demand had been made.

"The vessel's captain reported to the company they were approached by two skiffs and that one of them they could see armed personnel on board," the official said.

"The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored."

It was not immediately clear who owned the ship or where it was flagged.

Mr Steed said it was UAE-owned and Sri Lankan-flagged, but the Middle East-based official said it was Greek-owned and Comoros-flagged with plans to re-flag it to Sri Lanka.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain and oversees anti-piracy efforts in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Piracy off Somalia's coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter of a century of conflict.

But frustrations have been rising among local fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.

Salad Nur, an elder in Alula, a coastal town in Puntland, told the AP by telephone that young fishermen including former pirates had hijacked the ship.

"They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it," he said. "Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing."

Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom. They do not normally kill hostages unless they come under attack, including during rescue attempts.

This would be the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Mr Steed said.

A United Nations report seen by the AP in November said it had been almost three years since Somali pirates successfully hijacked a large commercial vessel, but they retain the capacity and intent to resume the attacks and lately have shifted to targeting smaller foreign fishing boats.

The EU force website currently lists no vessels or hostages held by pirates.

Concerns about piracy off Africa's coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.

AP
Hosni Mubarak has spent virtually all of the past six years in hospital since his detention in 2011 (AP)

A Cairo prosecutor has ordered the release of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, ending nearly six years of legal proceedings against the long-ruling autocrat.

Egypt's official news agency said Ibrahim Saleh ordered the release on Monday after he accepted a petition by Mr Mubarak's lawyer for his freedom on the basis of time already served.

Mr Mubarak, 88, was acquitted by the country's top appeals court on March 2 of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 29-year rule.

The petition argued that Mr Mubarak's three-year sentence for embezzling state funds has been served while in detention in connection with the protesters' case.

He has spent virtually all of the past six years in hospital since his detention in 2011.

AP
The Syrian military is the only country known to operate the jets identified in the attack, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said

A UN investigative commission has said it believes government forces deliberately bombed a school complex in the country's northern countryside in October, killing 21 children, in a scathing report on crimes committed over the last seven months of the Syrian war.

The UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said government forces and their allies had shown a "complete disregard for civilian life and international law" through continued use of cluster munitions, incendiary weapons and chlorine gas as weapons of war.

It also accused an al Qaida-aligned insurgent group fighting on the side of Syria's rebels and a US-backed Kurdish group for conscripting adolescents for combat.

The commission said the October 26 attack on the Haas village school complex in the rebel-held province of Idlib constituted a war crime.

It said the Syrian air force is the only one known to operate the jets identified in the attack, which was widely reported at the time.

The UN commission's findings came the same day that a Physicians for Human Rights report accused the Syrian government of wilfully denying international shipments of food and medicine to millions of Syrians in besieged areas.

The UN Syria commission's report also concluded that government forces deliberately targeted the capital's water supply infrastructure last December, threatening water supplies to 5.5 million people.

It said the attack was unjustified, and constituted a war crime.

It did not find any evidence that rebels had poisoned the water supply, as state media alleged.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia maintain they are fighting terrorism.

A government delegation led by Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari, meanwhile, began meetings on Tuesday with Russian officials in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana.

It is the third summit in Astana running parallel to political talks in Geneva between the government and the opposition.

The Astana summits are centred around ceasefire and humanitarian relief co-ordination, but they have borne few results.

Syrian rebels have boycotted this third round, citing the government's continued bombardment of opposition-held areas in Homs and Damascus.

On Monday, activists and the government announced a deal had been reached to evacuate rebels and their families from the Homs neighbourhood of al-Waer, ending more than three years of government siege against the neighbourhood.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians were expected to evacuate al-Waer as well, rather than risk conscription or arrest by the Syrian army and security services.

They will be sent to rebel-held Idlib and other opposition pockets around the country.

The UN condemned a similar agreement that returned the city of Aleppo to government control as a war crime.

AP
Donald Trump used Twitter to accuse his predecessor Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

US President Donald Trump is "extremely confident" that the Justice Department will produce evidence backing up his claim that predecessor Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president believes that information yet to be released will "vindicate him".

The comments came a day after the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to produce that evidence.

The House intelligence committee gave the department until March 20, the first day of its hearings on Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump advisers and Russians.

Mr Trump made the wiretapping allegation earlier this month, strongly denied by Mr Obama.

A spokesman for the committee's Republican chairman said if the justice department does not meet the new deadline, the panel might use its subpoena power to gather information.

"If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Representative Devin Nunes.

In its response, the justice department said it needed extra time to "review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist".

Mr Trump's assertions have put his administration in a bind.

Current and former administration officials have been unable to provide any evidence of Mr Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, yet the president's aides have been reluctant to publicly contradict their boss.

Mr Trump himself has not commented on the matter since his March 4 tweets.

The president's accusations came amid numerous political questions surrounding his associates' possible ties to Russia.

The FBI is investigating Trump associates' contacts with Russia during the election, as are House and Senate intelligence committees.

The White House has asked those committees to also investigate Mr Trump's unverified wiretapping allegations against Mr Obama.

AP
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Azerbaijan and Armenia must find the strength to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on their own, Elkhan Alasgarov, PhD, head of the expert council of the Baku International Policy and Security Network (Baku Network), said.

He made the remarks in Baku Mar. 14 at a conference titled The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Origins, Peacemaking and the Role of Civil Society.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has remained unresolved for a long time, Alasgarov said. The activity of the OSCE MG co-chairs, big states to settle the conflict has given no results.

The expert added that the Azerbaijan-Armenia Platform for Peace, initiated by Azerbaijan, is of great importance.

Sometimes Azerbaijan is accused of being supporter of military solution to the conflict, Alasgarov said. However, it is not so, because Azerbaijan is taking concrete steps to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict peacefully, and the conference being held in Baku today is one of such steps.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
ROWAN COUNTY- It takes nearly 3,000 people each day to make sure each child in the Rowan-Salisbury School System receives an extraordinary education every day, and the district is looking for exceptional individuals to join our schools and district-wide staff.

The Rowan-Salisbury School Systems annual job fair will be Saturday, March 25, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Jesse Carson High School, 290 Kress Venture Rd in China Grove.

The district will be hiring teachers of all experience levels, including May graduates and lateral entry candidates with non-teaching degrees, as well as classified staff, such as teacher assistants, bus drivers and child nutrition workers.

Applicants will have the opportunity to meet principals, district administrators, teachers and students as they learn more about the district and its extraordinary career opportunities.

The Rowan-Salisbury School System serves more than 19,500 students in Rowan County, North Carolina, and is known for its innovative approach to literacy and technology in the classroom. For more information about the job fair, or to pre-register online, visit www.rss.k12.nc.us/human-resources.
CONCORD- If you enjoy running, or prefer a more casual jog or walk, come out and participate in the St. Patricks Day 5K Color Run at Harris Road Middle School this weekend.

The race is on Saturday, March 18 at 10 a.m. and the course will go through the Moss Creek subdivision. Refreshments will be provided along the way, and perhaps a splash of color.

All proceeds will go to help build a stronger educational future for South Sudanese children whole also helping provide meals to local families.

The special guest for the race is Bol Maywal, who arrived in the United States as a child refugee of Sudan and is now an officer in the United States Army.

Registration opens at 9:15 a.m. The cost is $20 for adults and $10 for children under 12. To bring your dog as a running companion is an extra $5.

The race is sponsored by the Harris Road Middle School Beta Club.

For more information visit http://www.hrmsbeta.org/5k-color-run.html.
New rules to reduce labor compliance burden for companies

On February 21, Indias labor ministry notified the Ease of Compliance to Maintain Registers under various Specified Labour Laws Rules 2017 (Ease of Compliance Rules). The new rules cuts down on the number of registers to be maintained under various labor laws. This will significantly reduce compliance burdens in the day-to-day operations of business establishments.

RELATED: Payroll & Human Resource Administration Services from Dezan Shira & Associates

Earlier, employers were supposed to maintain 56 registers, but in accordance with the Maintenance of Register Rules, this number is reduced to five under nine Specified Labor Laws. The five registers are employee register, wage register, register of loan/recoveries, attendance register, and register of rest days/leave account of employees/leave with wages. These may be maintained electronically or as hard copy.

The nine Specified Labor Laws affected by the reform are: the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act 1996; Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970; Equal Remuneration Act 1976; Inter-state Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act 1979; Mines Act 1952; Minimum Wages Act 1948; Payment of Wages Act 1936; Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act 1976; and Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1955.

RELATED: India Regulatory Brief: Maternity Leave to Increase to 26 Weeks and New FDI Rules for Non-Banking Finance Companies

Landmark Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Bill, 2016 approved

After parliament finally passed the Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Bill, 2016, India will be the country with the third most maternity leave in the world, following only Canada (50 weeks) and Norway (44 weeks). The bill, which will soon gain the Presidents assent to become an Act of law, provides women in the organized sector with paid maternity leave of 26 weeks, up from 12 weeks, for the first two children. For the third child, the maternity leave entitlement will be for 12 weeks.

The bill also secures 12 weeks of maternity leave for mothers adopting a child below the age of three months as well as to commissioning mothers (biological mothers) who opt for surrogacy. The 12-week period in these cases will be calculated from the date the child is handed over to the adoptive or commissioning mother.

In other provisions, the bill mandates every establishment with over 50 employees to provide for creche facilities within easy distance, which the mother can visit up to four times a day. The bill additionally permits women to negotiate work-from-home if they reach an understanding with their employers, after the maternity leave ends.

RELATED: Tax Compliance Services from Dezan Shira & Associates

UAE to share financial information with India from January 2018

In another blow to Indian tax evaders, Dubai will no longer be a safe haven for unaccounted wealth from January 2018, when new rules of financial reporting will get activated. UAE banks have already introduced more stringent norms for opening of new accounts.

Once the UAE begins sharing financial information, Indian tax defaulters will not be able to park their unaccounted assets in the country or camouflage ownership of shell companies under the identity of nominee directors.

Up until now, a popular strategy has been the RBI sanctioned liberalized remittance route that permits a resident Indian to invest up to US$250,000 a year in properties and securities abroad. This provision enabled individuals to buy companies in the UAE and use the Emirati company bank account to hold untaxed money.

About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email india@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight.

Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide. An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in India. As such, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Indian market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to stay up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.
New Delhi, Mar 14 (IBNS): Academic experts from India, Australia and the UK researching key global and regional security issues gathered in New Delhi to forge new research partnerships.

Following a one-week intensive module as part of relevant Masters courses at the Universities of Birmingham, Melbourne and Delhi, researchers from the three institutions took part in a one-day academic networking workshop.

Researchers from all three countries joined forces to discuss general funding opportunities and key questions around security  key themes included gender and conflict, knowledge production on security, and regional security.

Dr Jonathan Fisher, Senior Lecturer in African Politics, at the University of Birmingham said: We had lots of interesting discussion around the global and regional security issues at hand. The participants really got their teeth into the task and it was a great way to develop potential research project bids."

We are delighted to continue our long-standing relationship with our partners in Melbourne and Delhi. As a civic university in the 21st century, Birminghams responsibilities include contributing to enriching the life of our home city and the wider world. The Masters module and workshop present another exciting opportunity for our researchers to foster strong partnerships across the globe, Fisher said.

The research workshop stemmed from our existing collaboration across the three institutions in teaching the module and included module co-ordinators from Delhi, Birmingham and Melbourne.

The events brought together scholars and PhD students from all three countries and opened up opportunities for further partnerships with universities in Melbourne and New Delhi. Researchers and students are now looking for opportunities to bid for future Global Challenge Research Fund and Newton Fund monies, as inter-group networks and collaborations flourish.

Each year, a group of Masters students from across the School of Government and Society at Birmingham has the opportunity to travel to New Delhi, India, to take part in the week-long international module entitled Traditional and New Security Challenges: South Asia in Global Perspective.

The intensive module explores the evolving international security agenda and encourages students to consider if security and insecurity have fundamentally transformed in recent decades. Students explore how challenges such as weak and failed states, environmental degradation, terrorism, underdevelopment, migration, and ideas such as human security have changed the way we think about, and respond to, insecurity.

The module is convened and taught by staff from Birminghams International Development Department, and partners from the University of Melbourne and the University of Delhi and is supported by Birminghams International Office and School of Government and Society.
New York, Mar 14 (Just Earth News): At respective interactive dialogues on Monday on the Democratic Peopleas Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Burundi, Iran and Eretria, senior United Nations independent human rights experts called on the governments to take immediate steps to ensure human rights protection in their respective countries.



During the dialogues, member countries of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council  the highest intergovernmental forum on human rights within the UN system  discuss rights situation with delegations from a particular country on the Councils agenda, as well as other Council members, officials of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts.

The dialogue includes a presentation or a briefing on a report by the rights experts followed by discussions.

No quick fixes in Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea

On the situation in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana highlighted that there were no quick fixes or instant solutions to tackle human rights abuses of the scope and nature that have been reported in the country for a long time.

The focus on developments in the political and military arenas should not shield ongoing violations from the scrutiny of this Council, he said. Nor should it prevent it from taking a leading role on inspiring and coordinating international action on this situation of great concern.

The rights expert also expressed particular concern over continuing escalation in hostilities on the Korean peninsula, including nuclear tests and missile launches, and underlined that such tensions only further isolated the country.

Drawing attention to last months killing of DPRK leader Kim Jong Uns brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Kuala Lumpur, he urged all parties to cooperate in carrying out a transparent, independent and impartial investigation, as well as to observe guidelines regarding witness protection.

Should the investigation confirm the involvement of State actors, Kim Jong Nam would be a victim of an extrajudicial killing and measures would need to be taken to assign responsibilities and protect other persons from targeted killings, he said.

The rights expert also spoke of the humanitarian situation in the country including in response to the typhoon last year, the situation of migrant workers and labour issues, and on DPRKs engagement with UN human rights mechanis

The Special Rapporteurs briefing was followed by an update from the Group of Independent Experts on Accountability designated pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 31/18 on the country.

Victims and people of Myanmar deserve to know the truth

Also on Monday, Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar called for prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into killings and other serious human rights violations in the country.

In particular, she raised alarm over multiple cases in which civil society actors and human rights activists were killed for their work, including many who were killed in recent months, and that cases remained unresolved for years.

A number of such cases related to vested commercial interests or the military, she said, underlining: No stones must be left unturned. The alleged victims, as well as all the people of Myanmar, deserve to know the truth.

Further, recalling harrowing testimonies she heard from individuals who fled violence in Rakhine state, the UN rights expert called for a Commission of Inquiry into events that occurred there and continue to surface increasingly and persistently.

In a report last month, OHCHR documented the violence in Rakhine and said that the widespread human rights violations against the Rohingya population by the security forces in the indicated the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.

In her briefing, Lee also spoke of escalating conflict in Kachin (in Myanmars north-east) and Shan (in the east of the country) states and the resulting impact on civilians, and expressed concern that the UN and other international organizations have been systematically denied authorization to deliver vital since May 2016.

Concluding her statement, the expert also welcomed some positive developments in the country, including increasing representation of women in discussions making up the peace process and called for the minimum level of 30 per cent across all groups to be reached at the next conference.

Near-complete impunity enjoyed by those responsible for rights violations in Burundi

In a separate dialogue, Fatsah Ouguergouz (Chair), Reine Alapini Gansou and Francoise Hampson, members of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Burundi presented their first oral briefing to the Council on Monday, during which the experts expressed concern at the scale and gravity of the human rights violations and abuses that have been brought to our attention.

On the basis of a first series of interviews held with a range of sources, they said the trends observed in 2015 and 2016 appear to be continuing, including persistent allegations of violations of the right to life and physical integrity, notably an increase in enforced disappearances. Arrests, particularly of people suspected of participating in opposition groups, continue to be reported, as do allegations of torture.

The exercise of some civil liberties continues to be obstructed, especially following the adoption of restrictive new laws on non-governmental organizations. Most journalists, members of civil society and opposition parties who had fled in 2015 are still in exile, they added, also drawing attention to the practices of extortion and ransom, which appear to have increased following a weakening of the rule of law in the country.

We are particularly concerned by the near-complete impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these violations. Even when victims or witnesses are able to identify suspected perpetrators, cases of prosecution of State agents, or those who appear to have their support, are rare, they stated and reiterated their call to the Burundi Government to cooperate with the Commission.

Iranian judiciary neither independent nor free from influence

In her briefing on the rights situation in Iran, Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir underlined the importance of the independence of lawyers and legal professionals to protect human rights and ensure a fair administration of justice.

[However] the judiciary in Iran is neither independent nor free from influence from the executive, she said, noting concern that recent developments in this field, including a Bill, introduced last July, which, if adopted, could further undermine the independence of the lawyers.

Broad and vague definition of certain offences, disrespect for the right of any accused to be promptly informed about charges against them, preventing the accused from freely choosing their legal representation are all contributing factors to violations of the right to fair trial and due process of law, she added.

The Special Rapporteur also voiced concern over the use of torture and ill treatment, which remains legally condoned as well as a number of recent arrests of journalists, writers, social media activists and human rights defenders, in particular womens rights activists, and called on the authorities take corrective measures.

I am disturbed by the level of fear of those who try to communicate with me. Several interlocutors living outside and inside the country expressed fear of reprisals against them or their family members living inside the country, said Jahangir.

In her briefing, the rights expert further spoke of a high number of executions in the country, including of juveniles executed once they turned 18; violence and harassment on religious grounds; and restrictions to womens labour rights, sexual and reproductive health care services and their freedom of movement.

UN Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

UN Photo/Elma Okic

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

The partnership agreement, which will be signed with the European Union (EU), will cover many spheres, including the economic cooperation, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev.

He made the remarks at a meeting with members of MEDEF (Movement of the Enterprises of France) International in Paris.

Taking into account that last month we launched negotiations with European Commission on a partnership agreement, which is supposed to be a very comprehensive document, which will cover all the areas including economic cooperation, I think that one of the important elements of our cooperation could be increase of our bilateral trade. Today, it is, I think, less than one billion euros. But primarily if you look at the structure of our trade its mainly our oil export to France. Therefore, we need to diversify it, to buy more and sell more, noted President Aliyev.

And I think we have a very good tool of our economic cooperation, which is a joint economic commission, which met relatively recently and which addresses all the important areas of our cooperation, said the president. Reforms will allow us to have a long-term sustainable development, economic development and modernization of our country and our economy because, as I said, already several times in Azerbaijan, for us the post-oil period has already started. Not because we ran out of resources. No. We have huge oil and gas reserves, which will be available for the markets, for decades ahead. But because now we need to plan our future as if we dont have natural resources, base our economy on competitiveness, on proper management.

In our reforms, of course, we also use experience of developed countries. We also have good consultancy, which helped us to prepare the strategic road maps for every sector of our economy, added President Aliyev.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

The former vice-president of Afghanistan (2004-2014), the Chairman of Islamic Unity Party of the country and the Acting Chairman of the Afghanistan High Peace Council Mohammad Karim Khalili will visit Azerbaijan, the Afghan Embassy in Baku told Trend Mar. 14.

Khalili will attend the 5th Global Baku Forum, to be held in Baku on March 16-17, said the embassy.

The 5th Global Baku Forum, which is organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center with the support of Azerbaijans State Committee on Work with Diaspora, will be attended by presidents of several countries, former heads of states and governments, famous politicians and public figures.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Asebaa
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

An official welcome ceremony has today been held for President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Paris.

President Ilham Aliyev arrived at the Army Museum in the Veterans Square in the French capital.

The head of state was greeted by French Minister of Agriculture, Food Industry and Forestry and the French government spokesman Stefan Le Fol.

A ceremonial guard of honor was lined up for President Ilham Aliyev in the Veterans Square.

National anthems of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the French Republic were played.

President Ilham Aliyev reviewed the guard of honor.

The chief of the guard of honor reported to the President of Azerbaijan.

French Minister of Agriculture, Food Industry and Forestry and the French government spokesman Stefan Le Fol met with members of the Azerbaijani delegation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

It would be better if the Armenian president focused on his countrys terrible economic situation, instead of telling the French companies tales, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev.

He was addressing a meeting with members of the business council of Movement of the Enterprises of France (MEDEF) in Paris.

Talking about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, President Aliyev expressed concern over the activity of some companies from Europe, as well as from France, in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areas.

Not only Nagorno-Karabakh, but also the adjacent seven districts are under the Armenian occupation, the president reminded. Some companies operate illegally in those territories, and this is unacceptable.

This violates international law and Azerbaijans legislation, President Aliyev said, adding that Azerbaijan is taking serious steps to raise the issue on international arena.

Azerbaijan is also appealing to international judicial institutions on the matter, he said.

I would like to express my concern and urge the companies operating illegally in our territories to refrain from that activity, added the president.

That activity wont bring any big profit, but will bring many difficulties, he added.

This doesnt correspond to very good, friendly relations between our countries. I understand that these companies do it at their own risk, but my duty is to simply warn them to refrain from this, noted President Aliyev.

Ilham Aliyev also said he was surprised when a few days ago the Armenian president, speaking at the MEDEF, tried to discredit Azerbaijan and its economy with completely unfounded allegations, instead of convincing investors to put money in his country.

He was speaking about innovations and said Armenia is a country of innovations, noted President Aliyev. Frankly, we in Azerbaijan laughed so much, because as they say: if you are so smart, why are you so poor?

The fact that Armenia has no natural resources doesnt mean its people must suffer from that, said Azerbaijans president.

Most developed countries, including France, dont have natural resources, he noted. However, they develop through good governance, transparency, reliability, standards, education, knowledge and innovation.

Therefore, instead of telling the French companies tales, it would be better if the Armenian president focused on the terrible economic situation in his country, where more than half of the population has no prospects for the future, living below the poverty line, said President Aliyev.

According to their official statistics, 60,000 people leave Armenia every year, while our data shows that this figure nears 100,000. If that country was so good and attractive, people would have preferred to stay, but not to leave, added President Aliyev.
Quantico star Priyanka Chopra, who was in New York during Holi, was seen attending Jimmy Fallons The Tonight Show.

Instagram/Priyanka Chopra

The actress has been celebrating Holi with her team abroad but do you know who else she was seen playing Holi with.

It was none other than Jimmy Fallon on his show. Priyanka was enjoying bobbing face colors on him while wearing a really chic Fendi dress. Take a look

Priyanka and Jimmy Fallon celebrate Holi. HD videos are on my twitter page  #priyankachopra A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Network (@priyankanetwork) on Mar 13, 2017 at 10:02pm PDT

The host of the show, Jimmy Fallon, has a super time with Priyanka and posted this picture of his on social media, wishing everyone a Happy Holi.

Happy Holi!!!! A post shared by Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon) on Mar 13, 2017 at 3:25pm PDT

Priyanka, who's missed out on the festival of colours in India, ensured she is not feeling homesick. Peecee even drank thandai with Jimmy without the magical substance, of course.

Happy Holi with @jimmyfallon tonight!! U should see what he looks like! Lol Tune in tonight at 11:35 EST A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Mar 13, 2017 at 3:28pm PDT

Only if we also had friends like Jimmy Fallon to play Holi with (rolling eyes)
Just a few days after writing a fiery Facebook post on being 'denied equality' on campus, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student was found hanging from the ceiling. Muthukrishnan Jeevanantham, 27, also known as Krish Rajini to friends on Facebook, allegedly committed suicide at his friends place in Munirka Vihar, South Delhi.

Facebook/RajniKrish

"A PCR call was received at 5.05 pm yesterday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar," Police said.

According to police, no suicide note was found from the spot.

A South Korean IT professional and friend of Muthu Krishanan told DNA, "He had come to his friends house this afternoon to have food. He said he wanted to sleep and went to a room and locked himself in."

'When equality is denied everything is denied.'

Muthu Krishanan was from Tamil Nadu's Salem district. He completed MPhil from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 before joining JNU for PhD. On his last Facebook post, on March 10, he complained about inequality that 'marginals' faced in the institution.

"There is no Equality in M.phil/Phd Admission, there is no equalitiy (sic) in Vivavoce, there is only denial of equality, denying prof. Sukhadeo thorat recommendation, denying Students protest places in Ad  block, denying the education of the Marginal's. When Equality is denied everything is denied," he wrote.

Muthu Krishnan led the protests after Rohith Vemula's death

Krishnan was an active member of the protests post Rohith Vemula's death. Vemula had also committed suicide blaming discriminations in Hyderabad University.

In a 2016 blogpost, he wrote: "I did not want to hurt her by recalling Rohiths memories. I remembered myself with Rohith. I met Rohith six times. The first time, I met Rohith at the south-campus shop com during a protest rally from the north campus. He was wearing a light gray color shirt, while me and prashanth was in a black shirt. He was enthusiastically raising slogans. That time I wondered why I never raised slogans. May be the language barrier, I told myself. But I was amazed with his leadership skills."

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) is alleging that Krishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Rohith Vemula and depression made him take the extreme step.

He 'saved money and begged' to get through JNU

In an emotional Facebook post, Krishnan spoke about how he struggled to get through JNU. The 27-year-old wrote he "worked many menial jobs", "saved the money like ant and begged people to get money, I never eat in train" and finally he was the only one from Salem to crack the interview.

He was an ardent Rajinikanth fan

Here's a video of Krishnan imitating his idol, Rajni Kanth's famous dialogue from Kabali.

"We are deeply saddened as one of our fellow students has committed suicide at his friend's residence in Munirka Vihar just outside JNU campus. It's an irreparable loss. May the departed soul rest in peace," ABVP leader Saurabh Sharma said in a statement.

Umar Khalid, a PhD student at JNU wrote on his Facebook wall, Our universities are being turned into graveyards for the oppressed. He said that Krish was forced to end his life.

With Agency Inputs
The Pathankot Air Force Station was today put on high alert.

PTI

A search operation is currently underway in the area, sources said.

Pathankot had seen a major terror attack in January, 2016 when heavily-armed terrorists who had sneaked in from across the border attacked an air base.

Post the attack, India in February urged the UN requesting to list Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar under the al-Qaida Sanctions Committee.

PTI

The efforts faced stiff opposition by China, which twice put a technical hold before finally blocking the Indian proposal in December.

ALSO READ: NIA Names Pakistan-Based Masood Azhar And Three JeM Terrorists In Pathankot Attack Charge Sheet
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with President of the French Senate Gerard Larcher.

A guard of honor and cavalry was lined up for the head of state in front of the Senates building.

President of the French Senate Gerard Larcher welcomed President Ilham Aliyev.

President Ilham Aliyev and President of the French Senate Gerard Larcher posed for photographs.

Larcher said he was pleased to see President Ilham Aliyev in the French Senate. He said such visits are important in terms of developing bilateral relations between the two countries.

President Ilham Aliyev hailed Azerbaijan-France relations, particularly between parliaments as excellent. The head of state recalled that he received a group of members of the French Senate a couple of days ago and that on Mar. 13 he held a very productive meeting with members of MEDEF (Movement of the Enterprises of France).

Gerard Larcher recalled that he met with Mehriban Aliyeva as chairperson of Azerbaijan-France inter-parliamentary friendship group in 2014, and emphasized pivotal importance of the meeting. He said such meetings made a considerable contribution to the development of relations between the two countries.

Larcher said Azerbaijani-French relations are developing in strategic direction.

The president of the French Senate enquired about the work to find a solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

President Ilham Aliyev highlighted Azerbaijans resolute position on the settlement of the conflict.

The head of state said the conflict can be resolved only within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev said the French senators who traveled to Azerbaijan visited the liberated Jojug Marjanli village in Jabrayil district and witnessed how the village was destroyed by Armenians. President Ilham Aliyev said the existence of tension causes damage to the region.

They exchanged views on a range of issues of mutual interest.

Following the meeting, President Ilham Aliyev signed the Senates guest book.
The Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) to free Mosul, last IS bastion in Iraq found a mass grave at Badush prison near Mosul containing the remains of nearly 500 people executed by IS.

AFP

IS had reportedly killed nearly 600 inmates in Badush prison in its expedition in Mosul in 2014. The group was also said to have held hundreds of women of Yazidi minority at the facility.

As per the Human Right Watch (HRW), ISIS gunmen had executed up to 6000 inmates from the prison on June 10, 2014, forcing them to kneel along the nearby ravine and then shooting them. The account of this massacre was also mentioned in the UN report. Most of those executed were said to have been members of Iraqs Shiite Muslim majority, whom ISIS considers heretics.
Even as protests over the killing of Tamil Nadu fishermen by Sri Lankan navy getting intense, we keep forgetting the 30 odd fishermen, mostly from Tamil Nadu were detained by Iran in 2016. The fishermen who work in countries like Bahrain and UAE had been arrested by Iranian navy for straying into its territorial waters.

Fifteen fishermen who sailed in mechanised boats from Bahrain were arrested by Iran Coast Guard on October 22 last year while 15 fishermen from Dubai were detained on December 27.

Reuters

The distressed families of the fishermen arrested have been petitioning the state and the central government to intervene, but till now, no solution has come out. The family members of some of the fishermen have even approached Ministry of External Affairs and Embassy of Iran in New Delhi.

All the fishermen were detained in their boat without food and water. They were held under strict surveillance of the armed forces. Even to attend nature's call, they were taken to the toilet one by one," said Father Churchill, General Secretary of the South Asia Fishermen Fraternity was quoted by DNA.

"Our families have given representation to the district collectors in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Ramanathapuram. They also petitioned AIADMK and BJP leaders too. But nothing has happened. When we inquire with the embassy officials, they say we did not get any order from India. The Tamil Nadu government and the Indian government have to issue the order," the fisherman appealed.

Representational Image, Reuters

Father Churchill said Iran does not follow the custom of informing the Indian embassy if they arrest "our country's fishermen" for trespassing into their waters. "As soon as we got information of the detention. We informed the district collector through whom we inform our embassy in Teheran. In spite of this, our embassy officials are refusing to act, saying that they have not got any direction from the Centre," he said.
With Iraqi troops making steady progress in their assault to retake Mosul from the jihadists, Islamic State (IS) group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is reported to have abandoned Mosul, leaving local commanders behind to lead the battle against Iraqi forces advancing in the city.

Reuters

A defence official said Baghdadi had fled to avoid being trapped inside. It was the latest sign that IS is feeling the pressure from twin U.S.-backed offensives that have seen it lose much of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, the defence official said Baghdadi had left Mosul before Iraqi forces seized control of a key road at the beginning of this month, isolating the jihadists in the city.

Reuters

He was in Mosul at some point before the offensive... He left before we isolated Mosul and Tal Afar.

He probably gave broad strategic guidance and has left it to battlefield commanders.

Baghdadi, who declared ISs cross-border caliphate at a Mosul mosque in 2014, in an audio message in November urged supporters to make a stand in the city rather than retreating in shame.

Reuters

Meanwhile the US has confirmed that it is deploying an additional 400 troops to help defeat the IS in Raqqa.

IS is facing simultaneous offensives in northern Syria by government forces, Turkish-backed rebels, and a U.S.-supported alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.
This crisis has been going on for so long, that a lot of people around the world have stopped caring. Thousands of stories have been published and lakhs of videos have been released, but the extended torture is not fetching any empathy.

(Also read: ISIS Commander In-Charge of Executing Women Killed by Unknown Gunmen In Mosul)

PA Images

With the increased number of deaths in the ISIS controlled Mosul, bodies are now piling up in the streets and now the stronghold enters its endgame.

Shocking images of corpses of militants of Daesh lining Mosul streets are thronging people's timelines.

(Also read: In Mosul, Nearly 50 Percent Of The Casualties In Fight Against ISIS Are Civilians, Says UN)

All these bodies are left to rot for more than a fortnight. It is thought that the Iraqi army, which is leading the assault, has left the dead bodies out as a symbolic warning to both the local population and to the undercover ISIS elements that are thought to have remained hidden as the Iraqi forces advanced.

PA Images

Ever since the Iraqi Security Forces moved to the city, they are being repeatedly attacked by the ISSI sleeper cells. Soldiers from the forces were captured, tortured and subjected to executions.

Thus, they too are not showing any mercy this time.

"The message is clear to Iraqis, to keep them from joining or supporting Daesh (ISIS). This will be your fate. The Iraqi army will finish you off," said Ibrahim Mohamed, an Iraqi soldier.

(Also read: Tragic Images Show The Pathetic State Of Mosul Zoo Animals After ISIS Left Them To Starve)

In fact, there have also been accusations of excesses against the civilian population by the incoming Iraqi troops, the vast majority of whom are Shiites in a city that is almost completely Sunni.

Mosul fell to ISIS back in June 2014 and is by far their biggest stronghold in Iraq. Once a city of some 2.5 million inhabitants, almost a million civilians have fled or been killed since the Islamists took over.

After months of fighting, Mosul residents can finally practice again on a soccer field. https://t.co/d3qtQw55Qe @BramJanssen. pic.twitter.com/q9SmEPgjE5  The Associated Press (@AP) February 9, 2017

And even though, peace is returning in some parts of this area, it may take very long for the people to regain the kind of camaraderie they had before.
An estimated 750,000 civilians are trapped in the ISIS-held parts of Iraqs Mosul, where the fighting with Iraqi forces to reclaim the city continues. Thousands of letters with messages of hope and love have been dropped in the western part of the city to calm fears and show unity.

Representational image/Unsplash

One such letter was written by Omar, who is currently safe in a retaken part of the city. He wrote, I just want to let you know what we are safe here. I hope your areas will be liberated by government forces as soon as possible and be free from Isis fighters.

Reuters

He signed off with, We are all Iraq, I love you.

Iraqis from across the country wrote letters, which were collected and distributed by volunteers.

Another read, You will return to your most beautiful days with your family and you will hear the prayers of the mosques in Mosul sky, the culture and science will return because everything been robbed from you will come back to you.

Reuters

And yet another said, Our people in Mosul, we are with you in our hearts and souls, I cannot find the right words to express to you but do not forget you are part of Iraq, and we will not abandon you. Victory will come soon, God willing.
From Mozart to Sigmund Freud, all have had their addresses in this city. Their houses are highly visited museums in the city. Yes, Vienna, the city of museums and cafes has been ranked at the top city for the quality of life it offers to its residents. And this is for the eighth time in a row.

flickr

The result was announced after a survey of 231 cities that helps companies and organisations determine compensation and hardship allowances for international staff.

The survey is based on a dozen of criteria such as political stability, health care, education, crime, recreation and transport.

TOI

Global centres London, Paris, Tokyo and New York City did not even make the top 30, lagging behind most big German, Scandinavian, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian cities.

Singapore was the highest ranked Asian city, at 25 while 29th-placed San Francisco was the United States' highest entry. Top of the list in Africa was South Africa's Durban at 87.

Vienna's 1.8 million inhabitants benefit from the city's cafe culture and museums, theatres and operas. Rents and public transport costs in the city, whose architecture is marked by its past as the centre of the Habsburg empire, are cheap compared with other western capitals.

viennacitytours

Switzerland's Zurich, New Zealand's Auckland, Germany's Munich and Canada's Vancouver followed Vienna in the top five of most pleasant cities to live in.

Baghdad was again ranked lowest in the world. Waves of sectarian violence have swept through the Iraqi capital since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Six years into Syria's bloody war, Damascus was ranked seventh from the bottom, with Bangui in the Central African Republic, Yemeni capital Sanaa, Haiti's Port-au-Prince, Sudan's Khartoum and Chad's N'Djamena filling out the end of the list.
Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to Azerbaijan Dr. Husnan Bey Fananie visited Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) and made presentation for BHOS students, staff members and academic teaching staff. Having welcomed the distinguished guest, the Higher School Rector Elmar Gasimov emphasized that despite globalization process around the world, Indonesia is a country that carefully preserves its originality and traditions.

The Indonesian Ambassador expressed his gratitude to BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov for the opportunity to visit the Higher School once again. He said, I am happy to work in such a wonderful country as Azerbaijan where nice and beautiful people live, and I am also happy to meet teachers and students of the Baku Higher Oil School again. He briefed the meeting participants about geography and rich history of Indonesia as well as about cultural heritage of this multinational country.

The presentation covered topics such as development of the Republic of Indonesia as an independent state after it achieved nationhood in 1945, country economic dynamic growth, successes in industrial, social and financial spheres as well as in culture, education and development of international cooperation. These achievements, he said, are based on the optimal utilization of the natural resources including oil and gas reserves, and on the attraction of foreign direct investments. The Ambassador reported that Indonesia is part of the G20 Group, and occupies third place in the world in terms of the GDP growth after China and India.

Speaking about international relations of the Republic of Indonesia, Dr. Husnan Bey Fananie told about the country participation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which Secretariat is set up in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. He also emphasized that there are more than 7,000 higher educational institutions in the country, and the government pays special attention to the issues of education, providing support to young generation and youths involvement in the social and economic development of the country.

Then Dr. Husnan Bey Fananie answered questions and even played a few pieces of music on the keyboard. This performance at the end of the meeting became a pleasant surprise for the participants.

First Secretary of the Indonesian Embassy to Azerbaijan Anggraeni Vidiastuti and the Embassy representatives Astrid Septriana, Emil Gulaliyev and Alviano Julantara also attended the event.
A delegation headed by a mayor of the Prague Poludni (Southern Prague) of Warsaw, Polish Republic Burmistri Tomash Kukharski who is on business in Baku visited UNEC.

The guests got acquainted with the International School of Economics, SABAH Groups, UNEC Business School, Innovative Business Incubator, library Radio UNEC and a Memorial Monument erected to UNECs martyr alumnis and students memory. UNEC Rector, Professor Adalat Muradov provided the guests with the expanded information about the biggest economy- oriented university of the Southern Caucasus. Speaking about the international relations of the University of Economics, he drew to attention that UNEC is interested in establishing cooperation with the universities of Poland. Highly evaluating the projects implemented in the area of higher education in Azerbaijan, the guests expressed their satisfaction of visiting our country. They highlighted that they attach great importance to the development of cooperation with this country, in particular with UNEC in the field of education.

UNEC is the brand of Azerbaijan State University of Economics. The brand of UNEC has been registered and patented by the State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patent on January 21 2016.
Investors' interest in private Greek medical clinics suddenly emerged this week withthat the CVC Capital Partners fund will proceed with the purchase of 70 percent of Metropolitan Hospital in southern coastal Athens for 90 million euros
U.S. Citizens: Border Agents Can Search Your Cellphone By Cynthia McFadden, E.D. Cauchi, William M. Arkin, Kevin Monahan March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " NBC" - When Buffalo, New York couple Akram Shibly and Kelly McCormick returned to the U.S. from a trip to Toronto on Jan. 1, 2017, U.S. Customs & Border Protection officers held them for two hours, took their cellphones and demanded their passwords. "It just felt like a gross violation of our rights," said Shibly, a 23-year-old filmmaker born and raised in New York. But he and McCormick complied, and their phones were searched. Three days later, they returned from another trip to Canada and were stopped again by CBP . "One of the officers calls out to me and says, 'Hey, give me your phone,'" recalled Shibly. "And I said, 'No, because I already went through this.'" The officer asked a second time.. Within seconds, he was surrounded: one man held his legs, another squeezed his throat from behind. A third reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. McCormick watched her boyfriend's face turn red as the officer's chokehold tightened. Then they asked McCormick for her phone. "I was not about to get tackled," she said. She handed it over. Shibly and McCormick's experience is not unique. In 25 cases examined by NBC News, American citizens said that CBP officers at airports and border crossings demanded that they hand over their phones and their passwords, or unlock them. The travelers came from across the nation, and were both naturalized citizens and people born and raised on American soil. They traveled by plane and by car at different times through different states. Businessmen, couples, senior citizens, and families with young kids, questioned, searched, and detained for hours when they tried to enter or leave the U.S. None were on terror watchlists. One had a speeding ticket. Some were asked about their religion and their ethnic origins, and had the validity of their U.S. citizenship questioned. What most of them have in common  23 of the 25  is that they are Muslim, like Shibly, whose parents are from Syria. Data provided by the Department of Homeland Security shows that searches of cellphones by border agents has exploded, growing fivefold in just one year, from fewer than 5,000 in 2015 to nearly 25,000 in 2016. According to DHS officials, 2017 will be a blockbuster year. Five-thousand devices were searched in February alone, more than in all of 2015. "That's shocking," said Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security. She wrote the rules and restrictions on how CBP should conduct electronic searches back in 2009. "That [increase] was clearly a conscious strategy, that's not happenstance." "This really puts at risk both the security and liberty of the American people," said Senator Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. "Law abiding Americans are being caught up in this digital dragnet." "This is just going to grow and grow and grow," said Senator Wyden. "There's tremendous potential for abuse here." What Changed? What CBP agents call "detaining" cellphones didn't start after Donald Trump's election . The practice began a decade ago, late in the George W. Bush administration, but was highly focused on specific individuals. The more aggressive tactics of the past two years, two senior intelligence officials told NBC News, were sparked by a string of domestic incidents in 2015 and 2016 in which the watch list system and the FBI failed to stop American citizens from conducting attacks. The searches also reflect new abilities to extract contact lists, travel patterns and other data from phones very quickly. DHS has published more than two dozen reports detailing its extensive technological capability to forensically extract data from mobile devices, regardless of password protection on most Apple and Android phones. The reports document its proven ability to access deleted call logs, videos, photos, and emails to name a few, in addition to the Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram apps.. But the officials caution that rhetoric about a Muslim registry and ban during the presidential campaign also seems to have emboldened federal agents to act more forcefully. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter "The shackles are off," said Hugh Handeyside, a staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project. "We see individual officers and perhaps supervisors as well pushing those limits, exceeding their authority and violating people's rights." And multiple sources told NBC News that law enforcement and the Intelligence Community are exploiting a loophole to collect intelligence. Under the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement needs at least reasonable suspicion if they want to search people or their possessions within the United States. But not at border crossings, and not at airport terminals. "The Fourth Amendment, even for U.S. citizens, doesn't apply at the border," said Callahan. "That's under case law that goes back 150 years." The ACLU's Handeyside noted that while the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement doesn't apply at the border, its "general reasonableness" requirement still does, and is supposed to protect against unreasonable searches and seizures. "That may seem nuanced, but it's a critical distinction, said Handeyside. "We don't surrender our constitutional rights at the border." Customs and Border officers can search travelers without any level of suspicion. They have the legal authority to go through any object crossing the border within 100 miles, including smartphones and laptops. They have the right to take devices away from travelers for five days without providing justification. In the absence of probable cause, however, they have to give the devices back. CBP also searches people on behalf of other federal law enforcement agencies, sending its findings back to partners in the DEA, FBI, Treasury and the National Counterterrorism Center, among others. Callahan thinks that CBP's spike in searches means it is exploiting the loophole "in order to get information they otherwise might hot have been able to." On January 31, an engineer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was pulled into additional screening upon his return to the U.S. after a two-week vacation in Chile. Despite being cleared by the Global Entry program, Sidd Bikkannavar received an "X" on his customs form. He is not Muslim, and he is not from any of the seven countries named in President Trump's original "travel ban" executive order . Half his family comes from India but he was born and raised in California. Bikkannavar was brought into a closed room and told to hand over his phone and passcode. He paid particular notice to the form CBP handed him which explained it had the right to copy the contents of the phone, and that the penalty for refusal was "detention." "I didn't know if that meant detention of the phone or me and I didn't want to find out," said Bikkannavar. He tried to refuse but the officer repeatedly demanded the PIN. Eventually he acquiesced. "Once they had that, they had everything," Bikkannavar said. That access allowed CBP officers to review the backend of his social media accounts, work emails, call and text history, photos and other apps. He had expected security might physically search any travelers for potential weapons but accessing his digital data felt different. "Your whole digital life is on your phone." The officers disappeared with his phone and PIN. They returned 30 minutes later and let him go home. CBP also regularly searches people leaving the country. On February 9, Haisam Elsharkawi was stopped by security while trying to board his flight out of Los Angeles International Airport. He said that six Customs officers told him he was randomly selected. They demanded access to his phone and when he refused, Elsharkawi said they handcuffed him, locked him in the airport's lower level and asked questions including how he became a citizen. Elsharkawi thought he knew his rights and demanded access to legal counsel. "They said if I need a lawyer, then I must be guilty of something," said Elsharkawi, and Egyptian-born Muslim and naturalized U.S. citizen. After four hours of questioning in detention, he unlocked his smartphone and, after a search, was eventually released. Elsharkawi said he intends to sue the Department of Homeland Security. The current policy has not been updated since 2009 . Jayson Ahern, who served in CBP under both Bush and Obama, signed off on the current policy. He said the electronic searches are supposed to be based on specific, articulable facts that raise security concerns. They are not meant to be random or routine or applied liberally to border crossers. "That's reckless and that's how you would lose the authority, never mind the policy." The Customs & Border Patrol policy manual says that electronic devices fall under the same extended search doctrine that allows them to scan bags in the typical security line. "As the threat landscape changes, so does CBP," a spokesperson told NBC News. Since the policy was written in 2009, legal advocates argue, several court cases have set new precedents that could make some CBP electronic searches illegal. Several former DHS officials pointed to a 2014 Supreme Court ruling in Riley v California that determined law enforcement needed a warrant to search electronic devices when a person is being arrested. The court ruled unanimously, and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion. "Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans 'the privacies of life,'" wrote Roberts. "The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought." Because that case happened outside of the border context, however, CBP lawyers have repeatedly asserted in court that the ruling does not apply to border searches. For now a Department of Justice internal bulletin has instructed that, unless border officers have a search warrant, they need to take protective measures to limit intrusions, and make sure their searches do not access travelers' digital cloud data. The 'cloud' is all content not directly stored on a device, which includes anything requiring internet to access, like email and social media. Former DHS officials who helped design and implement the search policy said they agreed with that guidance. Wyden Pushes to Change the Policy On February 20, Sen. Wyden wrote t o DHS Secretary John Kelly demanding details on electronic search-practices used on U.S. citizens, and referred to the extent of electronic searches as government "overreach". As of publication, he had yet to receive an answer. Now Sen. Wyden says that as early as next week he plans to propose a bill that would require CBP to at least obtain a warrant to search electronics of U.S. citizens, and explicitly prevent officers from demanding passwords. "The old rules ... seem to be on the way to being tossed in the garbage can," said Senator Wyden. "I think it is time to update the law." Asked about the Shibly case, a CBP spokesperson declined to comment, but said the Homeland Security Inspector General is investigating. The spokesperson said the agency can't comment on open investigations or particular travelers, but that it "firmly denies any accusations of racially profiling travelers based on nationality, race, sex, religion, faith, or spiritual beliefs." Explaining the sharp increase in electronic searches, a department spokesperson told NBC News: "CBP has adapted and adjusted to align with current threat information, which is based on intelligence." A spokesman also noted that searches of citizens leaving the U.S. protect against the theft of American industrial and national security secrets. After repeated communications, the Department of Homeland Security never responded to NBC News' requests for comments. Nonetheless, the Homeland Security Inspector General is currently auditing CBP's electronic search practices. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also has filed two dozen complaints against CBP this year for issues profiling Muslim Americans. CAIR and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are considering legal action against the government for what they consider to be unconstitutional searches at the border. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
When 'Disinformation' Is Truth



Democrats and liberals have climbed into bed with the neocons to push the Russia-did-it conspiracy theory as a way to get Trump, but this New McCarthyism has grave dangers, writes Robert Parry.



By Robert Parry



March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - The anti-Russian McCarthyism that has spread out from the United States to encompass the European Union, Canada and Australia has at its core an implicit recognition that neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy have failed. When I recently asked a European journalist why this anti-Russian hysteria had taken root among mainstream European political parties, he answered with a question: Do you think they can run on their success in handling the recession and the refugees? In other words, European voters are angry about the painful economic conditions that followed the Wall Street crash of 2008 and the destabilizing surge of immigrants fleeing from Western regime change wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. So, like the Democratic Party that doesnt want to engage in a soul-searching self-examination about Donald Trumps victory, the European establishment parties need a handy excuse to divert criticism  and that excuse is Russia, a blame-shifting that has allowed nearly every recent criticism of an establishment government official to be sloughed off as Russian disinformation. It doesnt even matter anymore that the criticism may be based on solid fact. Even truthful information is now deemed Russian disinformation or Russian-inspired fake news. We saw that in the Canadian mainstream medias denunciations of Consortiumnews.com for running an article that pointed out that Canadas Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland had misrepresented her family history to white-out her maternal grandfathers role editing a Nazi newspaper in Poland that demonized Jews and justified the Holocaust. Virtually every mainstream outlet in Canada rallied to Freelands side when she dismissed our article as Russian disinformation. Only later did a few newspapers grudgingly acknowledge that our story was true and that Freeland knew it was true. Still, the attacks on us continued. We were labeled Russian disinformationists, with no evidence needed to support the slander and no defense allowed. Though arguably a small example, the Freeland story reflects what is happening across the Western mainstream news media. Almost every independent-minded news article that questions the establishment narratives on international affairs is dismissed as Russian propaganda. The few politicians, academics and journalists who dont march in the establishments parade are Moscow stooges or Putin apologists. The Russian Resistance This anti-Russian hysteria began some years ago when Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear that Russia would no longer bow to dictates from Washington and Brussels. Russia bristled at the encroachment of NATO on its borders, rejected the neoconservative agenda of regime change wars in Muslim countries, and resisted the U.S.-backed putsch ousting Ukraines elected president in 2014. But the anti-Russian frenzy gained unstoppable momentum with the U.S. election in 2016. The Democrats, liberals and neoconservatives were horrified at the shocking upset of their presidential choice, Hillary Clinton, by the boorish and buffoonish Donald Trump. After this bitter defeat, the losers looked for scapegoats rather than order up a serious autopsy on how they lost to the unelectable Trump, i.e, by choosing a corporate candidate who was associated with neoliberal economics and neoconservative war policies. Blaming Russia became the easy excuse that could unify the various pro-Clinton camps. So, the Obama administration  in an unprecedented step  sought to poison the well for its successor by having the U.S. intelligence community put out evidence-lacking allegations about Russian meddling in the U.S. election to elect Trump. The promoters of this Russia-did-it narrative merged with the #Resistance movement to do whatever was necessary to push Trump out of office. It didnt seem to matter that there was very little evidence that the Russians actually did meddle in the election. The chief claim was that the Russians gave WikiLeaks the Democratic emails revealing the Democratic National Committees sabotage of Sen. Bernie Sanderss campaign and the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta exposing the contents of Clintons hidden speeches to Wall Street and some pay-to-play features of the Clinton Foundation. WikiLeaks denied getting the material from the Russians, but  more to the point  there was no evidence of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign , as even Obamas Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman have acknowledged. (The WikiLeaks disclosures also were not a major factor in Clintons defeat, which she primarily blamed on FBI Director James Comey briefly reopening the investigation of her using a private email server while Secretary of State.) Still, the absence of evidence has not deterred Democrats, liberals and neocons from spinning a vast Russian conspiracy theory that ties together Trumps past business dealings in Russia with the notion that somehow Putin foresaw that Trump would become U.S. president, an eventuality that nearly every American pundit considered an impossibility as recently as last year. But skeptics of the Trump/Russia conspiracy  if they dare note that Putin would have needed the worlds best Ouija board to foresee Trumps victory  must then prove that they are not Russian propaganda/disinformation agents for having these doubts. New McCarthyism and Maddow Given the emergence of this New Cold War, I suppose it made sense that we would soon have a New McCarthyism, although it may have come as a surprise that this witch-hunting is being led by the liberals and the mainstream media, albeit with important assistance from the neoconservatives who have long engaged in smearing the patriotism of anyone who doubted their geopolitical genius. Remember back in 1984 when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick, an early neocon, denounced traitorous Americans who would blame America first. But it appears now that many liberals and even progressives are so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they havent thought through the wisdom of their new alliance with the neocons  or the fairness of smearing fellow Americans as Putin apologists. Meanwhile, mainstream news organizations have abandoned even the pretense of professional objectivity in their propagandistic approach toward anything related to Russia or Trump. For instance, I would defy anyone reading The New York Times coverage of Russia to assess it as fair and balanced when it is clearly snarky and sneering. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter It also turns out that this New McCarthyism has become profitable for its leading practitioners. The New York Times reported on Monday that the ratings for MSNBCs Rachel Maddow are soaring with her frequent anti-Russian rants. Now, rattled liberals are surging back [to network television], seeking catharsis, solidarity and relief, the Times wrote, citing a Kentucky woman explaining why she has become a devotee of Maddow: Shes always talking about the Russians! Frankly, for the past dozen years, Ive wondered about Maddow. I first heard her on the radio in August 2005 when she was a summer fill-in at Air America reporting on President George W. Bushs Katrina fiasco, which she partly blamed on the deployment of Louisiana National Guard units to Iraq, so they couldnt help evacuate flooded New Orleans. It was clear that Maddow was talented and her excoriation of the Iraq War was on point, although  by summer 2005  it didnt require a huge amount of journalistic courage to slam Bush over the Iraq War. As I watched her career rise through a regular Air America gig to her show on MSNBC and then to stardom as an anchor on the networks election coverage, I always wondered whether she would put her lucrative corporate acceptance at risk and go against the grain at a tough journalistic moment. Now, Maddows behavior in becoming a modern-day mainstream-media Joe McCarthy has put my doubts to rest. She is riding high in the ratings by keeping her whip hand coming down hard on the bash-Russia steed. She is putting her career or her politics ahead of journalism. Like so many other Democrat/liberal/neocon activists, Maddow not only ignores the evidentiary gaps in the Russia-did-it conspiracy theory but she seems oblivious to the dangers of her opportunism. By stirring up this McCarthyistic frenzy, she and her never-Trump allies make a rational policy toward nuclear-armed Russia nearly impossible. Thus, she is contributing to the real risk of a hot war with Russia that could lead to the annihilation of life on the planet. Thin-Skinned Trump One of the bitter ironies here is that Trumps critics correctly noted that his thin-skinned temperament made him unfit to possess the nuclear button, but they are now egging him into a mano-a-mano confrontation with Putin. If Trump doesnt get the better of Putin in every situation, Trump will face renewed pummeling for selling out to the Russians. Already, neocon Sen. Lindsey Graham has declared, 2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress. If Trump doesnt go along, he will face battering from the likes of Maddow, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and pretty much every mainstream news outlet. So, Trump may have no political choice but to get tough. But what happens when Putin pushes back? In the past when Ive made this point about the recklessness of Russia-bashing, Ive been told that Im being alarmist, that kicking Russia in the ass and baiting Trump to join in the kicking wont lead to a nuclear war, that the Russians arent that stupid. Yeah, lets hope not. While on the upside of this anti-Russia strategy, the anti-Trump activists insist it is the most promising route to get rid of Trump, which they view as justifying almost any action. Its not for them to prove that Trump did conspire with Putin to rig the U.S. presidential election; its enough to raise the suspicion and use it to push for Trumps impeachment. As someone who has covered national security scandals since the 1980s, I am familiar with the kind of evidence that should be required for making serious allegations. For instance, when Brian Barger and I wrote the first story about Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking in 1985 for The Associated Press, we had about two dozen sources, plus documents. Most of the sources were insiders  i.e., inside the Contra movement and inside the Reagan administration  who described how the operation was run. We had this evidence before we made any public accusation. In the case of the Russia-Trump conspiracy theory, the U.S. intelligence community has presented almost no evidence of Russian hacking and admits that it has no evidence of Trumps collusion with the Russians. As far as we know, there is no insider who has described how this alleged conspiracy occurred. That is not to say that some evidence might not eventually surface that confirms the Russia-Trump suspicions, but that is true of all conspiracy theories. Who knows, maybe Joe McCarthy was right about all those Communists inside the U.S. government secretly working for the Kremlin? Maybe he did have a real list of names. But that is what witch hunts are all about  investigations designed to prove a point whether true or not. In this current case, however, the downside is not just the destruction of peoples careers and a few imprisonments. The downside of playing chicken with nuclear-armed Russia is the end of life as we know it . At such a moment, journalists and politicians should demand the highest standards of proof, not no proof at all. Sometimes, I envision the argument that I would hear as the mushroom clouds begin rising over U.S. and Russian cities. If not incinerated in the first moments of the cataclysm, the smart people of the mainstream U.S. media (and their liberal and neocon allies) would be insisting that it wasnt their fault; it was someone elses fault; blame-shifting to the end. So, as the Democrats and liberals join with the neocons in launching this New McCarthyism over Russia  and with people like Rachel Maddow leading the charge  what is arguably the most depressing fact is that there appears to be no Edward R. Murrow, a mainstream journalist with a conscience, anywhere on the horizon. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, Americas Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ). The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Why Trumps Syria 'Surge' Will Fail By Ron Paul March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Last week President Trump significantly escalated the US military presence in Syria, sending some 400 Marines to the ISIS-controlled Raqqa, and several dozen Army Rangers to the contested area around Manbij. According to press reports he will also station some 2,500 more US troops in Kuwait to be used as he wishes in Iraq and Syria.



Not only is it illegal under international law to send troops into another country without permission, it is also against US law for President Trump to take the country to war without a declaration. But not only is Trumps first big war illegal: it is doomed to failure because it makes no sense.



President Trump says the purpose of the escalation is to defeat ISIS in Raqqa, its headquarters in Syria. However the Syrian Army with its allies Russia and Iran are already close to defeating ISIS in Syria. Why must the US military be sent in when the Syrian army is already winning? Does Trump wish to occupy eastern Syria and put a Washington-backed rebel government in charge? Has anyone told President Trump what that would to cost in dollars and lives  including American lives? How would this US-backed rebel government respond to the approach of a Syrian army backed up by the Russian military? Is Trump planning on handing eastern Syria over to the Kurds, who have been doing much of the fighting in the area? How does he think NATO-ally Turkey would take a de facto Kurdistan carved out of Syria with its eyes on Kurdish-inhabited southern Turkey?



And besides, by what rights would Washington carve up Syria or any other country?



Or is Trump going to give up on the US policy of regime change and hand conquered eastern Syria back to Assad? If that is the case, why waste American lives and money if the Syrians and their allies are already doing the job? Candidate Trump even said he was perfectly happy with Russia and Syria getting rid of ISIS. If US policy is shifting toward accepting an Assad victory, it could be achieved by ending arms supplies to the rebels and getting out of the way.



It does not appear that President Trump or his advisors have thought through what happens next if the US military takes possession of Raqqa, Syria. What is the endgame? Maybe the neocons told him it would be a cakewalk as they promised before the 2003 Iraq invasion. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter

Part of the problem is that President Trumps advisors believe the myth that the US surge in Iraq and Afghanistan was a great success and repeating it would being the victory that eluded Obama with his reliance of drones and proxy military forces. A big show of US military force on the ground  like the 100,000 sent to Afghanistan by Obama in 2009  is what is needed in Syria, these experts argue. Rarely is it asked that if the surge worked so well why are Afghanistan and Iraq still a disaster?



President Trumps escalation in Syria is doomed to failure. He is being drawn into a quagmire by the neocons that will destroy scores of lives, cost us a fortune, and may well ruin his presidency. He must de-escalate immediately before it is too late. Ron Paul is a former U.S. congressman from Texas. This article originally appeared at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Federal Courts Say Foreigners, Not US Citizens, Are Entitled To Due Process By Paul Craig Roberts March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - The US Constitution applies to US citizens, and the amendments known as the Bill of Rights guarantee due process as a protection of US citizens civil liberties. Thats the theory but not the practice. Trumps travel ban applies to non-US citizens, primarily to refugees from the Bush/Obama bombings of numerous Muslim countries. Some of these refugees, whose families and countries were destroyed by American troops, could harbor feelings of revenge against Americans. The Ninth Circuit Panels injunction against Trumps executive order gives the Constitutions protection of US citizens to non-citizens, apparently on the basis of due process and religious discrimination arguments. The panel of judges said that Trumps executive order runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy. So too does bombing numerous Muslim countries over the course of the past 16 years, about which nothing has been done. One would think that, with the Democratic Partys merger with Identity Politics and with the liberal/progressive/left leaning of the Ninth Circuit, more of a stink would have been raised about bombing Muslims gratuitously than by placing a mere ban on their entry into the US. But it all depends on who does the bombing and who does the ban. Identity Politics requires Americas First Black President to be supported at all costs, and Trump, a white heterosexual male billionaire, to be hated at all costs. Dear readers, note that the US federal courts roll out the Constitution in order to protect non-citizens from a presidents executive order preventing their entry into the US, but refused to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens from arbitrary indefinite detention and execution without due process. The fact that constitutional rights no longer apply to citizens, only to non-citizens has evoked no comment from the liberal/progressive/left, from the Democratic Party, from Harvard Law School, from the American Bar Association, or from the Federalist Society. Not from anyone, and for my reward for telling the truth Harvard University Library has published a large list of False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical News Sources on which paulcraigroberts.org is included. http://guides.library.harvard.edu/fake Harvards library does not say where the list came from or why the list is credible. I am on the list for bias and conspiracy. The bias means that I do not accept the Ruling Establishments self-serving explanations, and conspiracy means that I report on the findings of the 3,000 highrise architects and structural engineers who comprise A&E for 9/11 Truth, the Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, and the Scientists for 9/11 Truth, all of whom are far more knowledgeable about 9/11 than the Harvard librarian or the Harvard faculty. Americans, and apparently Harvards library, are unaware that hardly any of the experts who have chosen to speak out about the official 9/11 story, including those First Responders inside the two towers, believe a word of the official story. Harvards librarians are apparently so ill-read that they are unfamiliar with books by the 9/11 Commissions chairman, vice chairman and legal counsel, who wrote that information was witheld from the 9/11 Commission and that the Commission was set up to fail. Harvards librarian is apparantly unfamiliar with the testimony of demolition experts that the buildings came down as a result of controlled demolition. Harvards librarian is apparently ignorant of the panel of scientists headed by a University of Copahagen nano-chemist who reported finding both reacted and unreacted nano-thermite in the dust of the twin towers and who offered their samples for confirmation by other scientists. Harvard University has no interest in truth. Harvards sole interest is to remain a member of the Ruling Establishment. As that requires telling lies, Harvard will tell lies. Lies bring Harvard riches, making Harvard so rich that, as Ron Unz argues, Harvard does not need to charge tuition and does so only out of greed. Decades ago my University of California, Berkeley, economics professor became Dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. My term paper for the course had been published in the prestigeous journal, Classica et Medievalia. Years later when he learned that my book, The Supply-Side Revolution, had passed the peer-review process of Harvard University Press and was slated for publication, he sent for me. He said that he wanted to have me appointed to the Harvard economics faculty, because the universitys belief in econometrics had proven false and the economics faculty needed a broad-based person such as myself to bring the subject back to life in the real world. I wished him good luck and wondered how a dean this naive had survived at Harvard. For the dean at Harvard, my work was a strong point. I was the first to explain the Soviet economy both as an organizational system and in terms of the original Marxist asperations. I had reformulated the Pirenne Thesis, and my reformulation had been included into reading texts used in courses in medieval history and urban economics. I had produced new insights into economic policy and had identified regulation as a factor of production. My macroeconomic contributions had corrected the Keynesian deficiencies and extended the role of relative prices into macroeconomics. This seminal work had passed the peer-review process of Harvard University Press and resulted in the publication of my book, The Supply-Side Revolution, recently republished in the Chinese language in China, but still derided by American ignoramuses as trickle-down economics. Harvard University Press kept The Supply-Side Revolution in print for decades. Despite this fact, even people I highly respect, such as Michael Hudson and Lewis Lapham, have no idea what supply-side economics is about and misrepresent it as some kind of preferment for the rich, which shows the power of the Establishment to control the understanding of even highly intelligent people. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter To get back to the story. My appointment to Harvards economic faculty was blocked by the economic departments resistance on the basis that I was too disruptive of the orthodoxy. Me and Michael Hudson. The othodoxy has a large investment in human capital in protecting the rights of the one percent to plunder the rest of us. Those academics who support this plunder are the ones who prosper in the American acadamy, just as the presstitutes who lie for a living do in the American media. So here I am, a peer-reviewed and published Harvard University Press author and peer-reviewed Oxford University Press author, whose books are now available in Chinese (2), Russian, German (3), Czech, Turkish, French, Spanish (2) and Korean, a person who has held the highest security clearances and once had subpoena power over the CIA, who has the French Legion of Honor, who has the US Treasurys Silver Medal, who has letters of thanks from President Reagan for my contributions to US eonomic policy, who is asked to speak all over the world, who was Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University for decades, the William E. Simon Chair of Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University for 12 years, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripp Howard News Service, etc., and so on, and some dumbshit at the Harvard library posts a list that says I am a suspect source of information. This is the world we live in. Even the most prestigeous institutions are utterly corrupt. No one is there for the American people or for truth, or for anything or anyone except the One Percent. Americans are shot down in the streets, whites along with blacks, by militarized police trained to see the people who pay their salaries as enemies. Muslims are bombed into the stone age. Reformist Latin American governments are routinely overthrown. European countries are intimidated, bribed, and reduced to vassal status. Aggression is displayed toward Russia, China, and Iran. America has become a great collection of evil. The good in the country is voiceless and without power. Evil rules us. This is why this site is important. If you do not support it, you are bringing about your own demise. I dont have to write. My writing brings me insults from narcistic ignorant egomanics, puts me on black lists, makes overseas travel difficult, and possibly negatively impacts my relatives. The United States has devolved into a police state where truth is the enemy of the state, which makes me suspect. Why should I write without your support? If you arent willing to support the fight, for whom am I writing? Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Fake Professor Calls Free Beacon Fake News : Fake professor, feminist, and activist Melissa "Mish" Zimdars has deemed the Washington Free Beacon "fake news" on a list that is now being distributed as a media guide by Harvard University.
Trump Has Opened His Arms To Immigrants, But Only If Theyre White Canadians



Faced with an avalanche of tourist cancellations from Canada, congressmen are letting Canadians of 55 and over who own or rent property in the US stay there for an extra two months a year



By Robert Fisk March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Funny how another nations sectarian hatred comes seeping over the national frontier of its neighbours. Mexico is now fighting off the US Presidents wall mania. Justin Trudeaus Canada looks squeaky clean compared to America. You can forgive the Prime Ministers vanity  Trudeau is now posing Tom Cruise style, eyes narrowed in love towards his wife in her cringe-making Womens Day photo-op with her husband. Not long ago, the same couple blessed the cover of Vanity Fair. But hes the guy who walks tall on immigration, welcomes Syrian refugees with affection, tells them theyre home and generally makes Trump look like a scumbag. But the contagion has already arrived in Canada . Inspired by the racism of the Trump regime, we now find that a Canadian Conservative Party leadership contender wants to give newly arrived immigrants a values test. Are men and women equalunder the law? they would be asked. Is it ever OK to coerce or use violence against an individual  who disagrees with your views? Do you realise that to have a good life in Canada, you will need to work hard to provide for yourself and your family, that you cant expect to have things you want given to you? This tosh is, of course, doubly racist. Since only Muslims supposedly rate women as second-class citizens, this snide question is obviously directed at them. And since the question assumes a Muslim would actually announce that they do not regard men and women as equal, the question also treats them as simpletons. Tory leadership contender Kellie Leitchs set of Canadian Values were released on the very day that Oklahoma Republican John Bennett published his own American questionnaire for Muslim constituents who want to meet him. His question number one was: Do you beat your wife? He might as well have asked Muslims: Do you lie? Maybe this is all just a trifle childish, although we might remember that the former Canadian Tory Prime Minister, whose party leadership Leitch wants, came close to producing laws that would make criticism of Israel a hate crime. Leitch herself obviously regards Muslims as not only violent misogynists but also scroungers  hence the insulting question about whether they realise theyll have to work hard in Canada. But the contagion doesnt end with Leitch. For only a few days ago, the right-wing National Post in Toronto carried a stunning story whose sectarian thread obviously pushed it onto the front page  but without its racist content being explicitly pointed out by the writer. The first two sentences, however, will certainly alert The Independent readers as to what is to come. Trump, the paper announced, has been single-minded when it comes to immigration, pledging  to keep certain people out, especially if they happen to be from Mexico or some Muslim nations. But a bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives would actually open the door wider to one group: older Canadians who winter south of the border. Faced with an avalanche of tourist cancellations from Canada and Europe now that the Trump regime is settling into a racist border policy, congressmen are desperately hoping that the Promoting Tourism to Enhance our Economy Act will help to keep the cash flowing into America  because it aims to let Canadians of 55 and over who own or rent property in the US stay there for an extra two months a year. The 55-year old lower age limit for property owners or renters suggests to you that wealthy white Canadians might be the tourists which Republicans (and Democrats, one should add) have in mind. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter And youd be right. Because this is the villainous explanation for the bill  which would allow certain Canadians to spend more time per year in America than in their native land  provided by its cosponsor, Republican Ted Yoho of Florida: We want people with good standing to come here and stay as long as they care. We come from similar backgrounds, we believe in the same thing. Theres no assimilation [necessary]. The morals and mores we have are pretty much the same as they have, so its pretty much an easy transition. I have spared readers the endless sic markers which would otherwise be littered across this paragraph. But let us dwell briefly on the semantics. Similar backgrounds doesnt sound to me like an invitation to 55-year-old Muslim Canadian immigrants. As for no assimilation necessary Well no, there wouldnt be, would there, since those friendly, older, ever-so-similar Canadians would be from the same background as older Florida Americans. Which means that 55-year old Muslim Canadians and older are not quite the chaps whom Republican Yoho wants to welcome in Florida. Morals and mores, well, we know what that means  folk who dont, in the immortal words of Oklahoma Republican John Bennett, beat their wives. As for an easy transition, that pretty much says it all. White non-Muslim Canadians welcome, Muslim Canadians of any colour, dont waste your time in coming to the border. In fact over these past few days, Ive met quite a few Canadians  regular visitors south of the border  who have no intention of visiting the States for the present  either because they are Muslims or because they object most profoundly to the racist, sectarian ideology now being peddled by the Trump regime. These include a prominent doctor who has chosen not to attend a medical conference in the US, even though he is a 100 per cent Canadian citizen. One Quebec-born Canadian citizen was stopped by US immigration last month and ordered to hand over his mobile phone so that American officials could look through his Facebook page. He was a Muslim. And this works both ways. While Canadian immigration authorities have the resources to document hundreds of refugees crossing from the US over ice and snow and seeking asylum without passing through official crossing points  if they try to pass through Canadian border posts, they can be turned back on the grounds that the US is their country of first asylum  this could change in the spring. Warm weather will mean easier transit through forests and fields. Canadian civil rights groups now fear that their government will privately urge American Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to enforce restrictions on immigrants trying to reach the border from within the United States. And Kelly is expected in Ottawa within days to discuss this very policy. Thats exactly how a sectarian anti-Muslim President in one country can infect the lives of thousands outside as well as inside his borders. That an American representative can try to seduce one group of Canadians to holiday in the US while indicating there will be no welcome for another group because they are of the wrong colour, religion or ethnic origin shows not only contempt for Canada but a deliberate attempt to divide a multicultural nation into its constituent parts. Its a custom not far removed from the Middle East. When the Sunni Muslim Saudis needed to call upon the Pakistan army  longstanding mercenaries of the Saudi regime when their own Saudi soldiers cant handle a battle  to help in the Yemen war, Riyadh asked Pakistan to send only soldiers of the Sunni Muslim faith. Shiites would not be welcome. The Pakistani parliament rightly expressed its outrage that a Muslim nation (Saudi Arabia) should attempt to sectarianise its armed forces. So will the Canadian government now cooperate with any US attempts to prevent Muslims crossing the border to seek asylum in Canada? Will it seek just such cooperation? Its a very serious question. Canada has every right to protect its own sovereignty. But if by doing so, it assists a malicious and dishonest US president to pursue a policy of racism, it will be forced to decide whether security or morality governs Canadas national interest. Thus does a political contagion slip across a national border even more quietly than the refugees on the ice and snow. This article was first published at The Independent - The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Kazakhstans Eurasian Bank intends to enter the Azerbaijani market, said the banks CEO Pavel Loginov in an interview with Forbes.kz.

Loginov noted that currently, the international expansion is a part of the banks strategy.

We already are in markets of Kazakhstan and Russia and want to become a transaction hub in all the Eurasian area, as well as enter the markets of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, maybe Azerbaijan and Georgia, he said.

Moreover, he added that the banks shareholders are considering the issue on further recapitalization by six billion Kazakh tenges.

It is expected that the decision on this issue will be made soon, said the CEO.

The Eurasian Bank was created in 1994 in Kazakhstan.

Thirty-two banks operate in Azerbaijan, 15 of which have foreign capital.
Is the US Preparing for War Against North Korea? By Peter Symonds March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " WSWS " - A dangerous confrontation is rapidly emerging on the Korean Peninsula between the United States and North Korea, with the potential to plunge North East Asia and the rest of the world into a catastrophic conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Amid a barrage of commentary in the American and international media inflating the threat posed by the Pyongyang regime, the Trump administration is actively considering all options to disarm and subordinate North Korea. The immediate pretext is North Koreas test-firing of four medium-range ballistic missiles last week, following the launch in February of a new intermediate-range missile. However, the drumbeat of US military threats has been preceded by months of high-level discussions in American foreign policy and military circles over action to prevent North Korea building an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the continental United States. President Barack Obama, who, according to the New York Times, was considering the most extreme measures against Pyongyang, urged then-President-elect Donald Trump to make North Korea his highest security priority. Since taking office, the Trump administration has been conducting a top-level review of US strategy toward Pyongyang, considering every option, including, as a White House official told the Wall Street Journal, those well outside the mainstream such as regime-change and military strikes on North Korean nuclear facilities and military assets. A worried New York Times editorial last week, headlined Rising Tensions with North Korea, underscored the dangers of war breaking out in North East Asia. How Mr. Trump intends to handle this brewing crisis is unclear, but he has shown an inclination to respond aggressively, the newspaper wrote. On Monday, the White House denounced the missile tests and warned of very dire consequences. The editorial pointed out that the Obama administration had been engaged in cyber and electronic warfare against the North Korean missile systems, then continued: Other options include some kind of military action, presumably against missile launch sites, and continuing to press China to cut off support. The Trump administration has also discussed reintroducing nuclear weapons into South Korea, an extremely dangerous idea. The Chinese government is acutely concerned at the prospect of war on its doorstep involving its ally, North Korea. In unusually blunt language, Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned that the United States and North Korea were like accelerating trains coming toward each other with neither side willing to give way. The Trump administration flatly rejected Chinas proposal for a dual suspensionof North Koreas missile and nuclear programs and massive US war games underway in South Koreaas the basis for renewed negotiations. By ruling out talks, the White House is setting course for confrontation, not only with North Korea, but also with China. By preparing for military action against North Korea, the US is also menacing China, which it has identified as the most immediate challenge to American global hegemony. The Trump administration has already threatened trade war measures against China and military action against Chinese islets in the South China Sea. The US deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic-missile battery in South Korea, which began last week, is part of a network of integrated anti-missile systems designed to facilitate nuclear war with China or Russia. A pre-emptive US attack on North Korea would be an act of war with incalculable consequences. While no match for the military power of US imperialism and its allies, North Korea has a huge army, estimated at more than a million soldiers, and a large array of conventional missiles and artillery, much of it entrenched along the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone and able to strike the densely populated South Korean capital of Seoul. In the event of war, the scale of devastation would be immense just on the Korean Peninsula alone, even without the use of nuclear weapons. In 1994, the Clinton administration was on the brink of attacking North Koreas nuclear facilities but pulled back at the last minute after the Pentagon gave a sober assessment of the likely outcome300,000 to 500,000 South Korean and American military casualties. A war now is unlikely to be conventional or limited to the Korean Peninsula. The Pentagon has been actively planning for a far broader conflict. In December 2015, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said any conflict with North Korea would inevitably be trans-regional, multi-domain and multifunctionalin other words, a world war involving other powers and the use of all weapons, including nuclear bombs. The immediate danger of war is compounded by the acute political, economic and social crises of all the governments involved, as epitomised by last Fridays impeachment and removal of South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Faced with an early election and the prospect of defeat, the ruling right-wing Liberty Korea Party has a definite incentive to whip up war tensions with North Korea to divert attention from the political crisis at home. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter Moreover, the current US-South Korean military exercises, involving more than 320,000 military personnel backed by the most sophisticated US air and naval power, provide an ideal opportunity for striking North Korea. As of last year, the annual drills, which amount to a rehearsal for war with Pyongyang, have been conducted on the basis of aggressive new operational plans, which include pre-emptive strikes on North Korean military sites and decapitation raids to assassinate the countrys leadership. The response of both the Chinese and North Korean governments to US threats is utterly reactionary: on the one hand looking for a deal with Washington, on the other, engaging in an arms race that only heightens the danger of war. Neither regime has anything to do with socialism or represents the interests of the working class. Their whipping up of nationalism acts as a barrier to the development of unity among workers in Asia and the US in opposition to imperialist war. The most destabilising factor in this extremely tense situation is the United States, where the political establishment and state apparatus are embroiled in factional warfare over foreign policy and hacking allegations. There is a real danger that the Trump administration will turn to war with North Korea in an attempt to project internal social and political tensions outward against the common enemy. The prospect of a catastrophic war stems not from particular individuals or parties. It is being driven by the deepening crisis of international capitalism and the insoluble contradiction between world economy and the division of the globe into rival nation states. The same crisis of the profit system, however, creates the objective conditions and political necessity for the working class to fight for its own revolutionary solutiona unified anti-war movement of the international working class based on a socialist perspective to put an end to capitalism before it plunges humanity into barbarism. Copyright  1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Letter to My Friend in Damascus By Barbara Nimri Aziz March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - I am afraid to ask you youre feelings about the recently announced American invasion into your country. In our talks these past months, weve spoken only about hardships: the increasing scarcity of electricity, water and food shortages, an absence of home heating fuel. This in the capital, Damascus, where people can still go to school and to work, where some local buses can navigate through the mud and debris, where drivers can sometimes find petrol for their cars. When were able to connect by phone, you talk about people I know: parents unable to pay for their childs surgery, a family with no means of keeping warm in winter. You could easily leave to live abroad with your children. But youre in charge of a childrens home, and you simply cant abandon the staffthose few who remain. Before, donations were adequate and teachers sufficient. Now teachers are leaving to find work and safety abroad, following many hundreds of doctors whove emigrated. You spend more time searching for assistance from the few remaining families offering charity. Syrians have always been especially generous to the homeless (few though they were in the past), and to any charitable effort by any faith. How can able Syrians sustain this deeply embedded principle when they themselves are in need, dependent on their children abroad? Do you have someone outside who supports you while you provide succor to others inside? I dont know what sustains you, apart from your love of country, something few speak about these days, and hardly anyone outside Syria recognizes. On international womens day here, I broadcast some interviews from my audio archive , conversations with women in Damascus 6-7 years ago. Each spoke with such pleasure about her work, delighted too that their voices, Syrian voices, might be heard (and felt) in America. I dont know where those patriotic souls are today. None would have chosen to leave, I know that. In 2010 their lives had been full and promising. Yours, too. And those of your office staff and everyone at the childrens center, and your youngest son, just graduated. You and I witnessed many favorable changes under the new, young president. Tourists were arriving in large numbers. Shopping malls were lively and welcoming. Colleges were vibrant centers of learning and hope; new private universities were flourishing. Why should our bright young people go to Lebanon or Europe to study? you declared: We can educate them here, providing more work for our professors, for contractors who build these colleges, and for staff who drive buses and manage college dorms and cafeterias. Nowadays, students who cant find a way to leave, face military service. There are no figures about all the soldiers killed and wounded; its tens of thousands, for certain. Only a few families can manage to pay for their sons to avoid the draft. We are losing all of our young people, you sigh. That proclamation lies in the shadow of every one of our conversations. Five years ago, after I returned to New York from Syria, I followed news reports and forwarded you an occasional report from writers Joshua Landis, Robert Fisk or Patrick Cockburn which I thought might shed light on events; you asked me what I thought the U.S. administration was planning and what American commentators were saying about Syria. Then we ended these exchanges. They were useless; they simply offered false hope. In the months preceding the American election your interest and hope returned; a new U.S. administration might somehow bring the war to a close. Then however, you decided that whoever prevailed, Democrats or the Republicans, Syria could hardly expect relief, peace, a settlement:-- nothing but worsening conditions and the loss of youths, teachers and doctors. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter We havent spoken about the new U.S. leadership. Nor did I ask you for your reaction to Israels bombing of Syria last month, an aggression that garnered almost no attention here. Was that attack more unsettling and ominous that earlier Israeli assaults? I expect that Syrians can think about little except: Can it get worse? And, How can we find some heating fuel, more medicine, a pair of shoes? On top of all this comes this major political development:-- the unconcealed arrival of American military presence on your soil. Marines and heavy armaments are moving into Syria as I write. According to U.S. generals, their troops are deployed to help Washingtons Syrian alliesnot the Syrian army-- to dislodge and eradicate ISIS from Raqqa. This move comes in the wake of remarkable gains by the Syrian army backed by Russia, Iran and Lebanons Hezbollah forces. While the U.S. troop arrival is (to the American public) optimistically presented as ISIS-motivated, you and I know that its likely a pretext; its really another step in The U.S.s Syria mission creep. Has Washington ever limited military incursion to the announced goal? Has it left anything behind its wars on Arab soil except destruction and deprivation, chaos and animosity? Five years ago, following initial uprisings in Syria, many there might have welcomed an American military presence. But in time, you and your compatriots understood Americas support for the cruelest, most extreme opposition (rebel) fighters; Washingtons endorsement of Saudi and Qatari plans to sow chaos in Syria was clear within a few months. As Syrians comprehended the real US agenda--to destroy and disrupt at any cost--their view changed. So what now? This most nationalist of Arab states is still somehow intact, against all odds. All those Syrian boys martyred; those barefoot children, those empty colleges, those ghostly shopping malls wait. I could find no public response here to this weeks American surge in Syria, no indication that its a noteworthy U.S. policy change, no journalist asking for Syrians reactions. An unsettling silence engulfs the first hours of a new American invasion. Barbara Nimri Aziz, a New York-based anthropologist and writer, hosted RadioTahrir on Pacifica-WBAI in New York City for 24 years. Her 2007 book Swimming Up the Tigris: Real Life Encounters with Iraq is based on her 13 years covering Iraq. Aziz writings and radio productions can be accessed at www.RadioTahrir.org, Syrian stories at http://podcast.radiotahrir.org/?s=syria The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Fury in Cambodia as US asks to be paid back hundreds of millions in war debts



By Lindsay Murdoch



March 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " SMH " - Half a century after United States B-52 bombers dropped more than 500,000 tonnes of explosives on Cambodia's countryside Washington wants the country to repay a $US500 million ($662 million) war debt. The demand has prompted expressions of indignation and outrage from Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.



Over 200 nights in 1973 alone, 257,456 tons of explosives fell in secret carpet-bombing sweeps  half as many as were dropped on Japan during the Second World War.



The pilots flew at such great heights they were incapable of discriminating between a Cambodian village and their targets, North Vietnamese supply lines  nicknamed the "Ho Chi Minh Trail."



The bombs were of such massive tonnage they blew out eardrums of anyone standing within a 1-kilometre radius.



War correspondent James Pringle was two kilometres away from a B-52 strike near Cambodia's border.



"It felt like the world was coming to an end," he recalls.



According to one genocide researcher, up to 500,000 Cambodians were killed, many of them children.



The bombings drove hundreds of thousands of ordinary Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Marxist organisation which seized power in 1975 and over the next four years presided over the deaths of more than almost two million people through starvation disease and execution.



The debt started out as a US$274 million loan mostly for food supplies to the then US-backed Lon Nol government but has almost doubled over the years as Cambodia refused to enter into a re-payment program.



William Heidt, the US's ambassador in Phnom Penh, said Cambodia's failure to pay back the debt puts it in league with Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe.



"To me, Cambodia does not look like a country that should be in arrearsbuildings coming up all over the city, foreign investment coming in, government revenue is rapidly rising," Mr Heidt was quoted as saying by the Cambodia Daily.



"I'm saying it is in Cambodia's interest not to look to the past, but to look at how to solve this because it's important to Cambodia's future," he said, adding that the US has never seriously considered cancelling the debt. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter Cambodia's strongman prime minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who defected to Vietnam, hit back, saying "The US created problems in my country and is demanding money from me."



"They dropped bombs on our heads and then ask up to repay. When we do not repay, they tell the IMF (International Monetary Fund) not to lend us money," he told an international conference in early March.



"We should raise our voices to talk about the issue of the country that has invaded other (countries) and has killed children."



Mr Pringle, a former Reuters bureau chief in Ho Chi Minh City, said no-one could call him a supporter of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia with an iron-fist for three decades.



But he said on this matter he is "absolutely correct."



"Cambodia does not owe a brass farthing to the US for help in destroying its people, its wild animals, its rice fields and forest cover," he wrote in the Cambodia Daily.



American Elizabeth Becker, one of the few correspondents who witnessed the Khmer Rouge's genocide, has also written that the US "owes Cambodia more in war debts that can be repaid in cash."



Mr Hun Sen pointed out that craters still dot the Cambodian countryside and villagers are still unearthing bombs, forcing mass evacuations until they can be deactivated.



"There are a lot of grenades and bombs left. That's why so often Cambodian children are killed, because they don't know that they are unexploded ordnance," he said.



"And who did it? It's America's bombs and grenades."



A diplomat posted in Phnom Penh between 1971 and 1974 told Fairfax Media the food the US supplied Cambodia came from excess food stocks.



"I remember well that shipments of maize were made," he said.



"Cambodians do not eat maize so it was fed to the animals."



He pointed out that the US refused to normalise relations with Vietnam until it accepted to take on the US debt of the former southern regime. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
The Empire Should be Placed on Suicide Watch By The Saker In all the political drama taking place in the USA as a result of the attempted color revolution against Trump , the bigger picture sometimes gets forgotten. And yet, this bigger picture is quite amazing, because if we look at it we will see irrefutable signs that the Empire in engaged in some bizarre slow motion of seppuku and the only mystery left is who, or what, will serve as the Empires kaishakunin (assuming there will be one). I would even argue that the Empire is pursuing a full-spectrum policy of self-destruction on several distinct levels, with each level contributing the overall sum total suicide. And when I refer to self-destructive behavior I dont mean long-term issues such as the non-sustainability of the capitalist economic model or the social consequences of a society which not only is unable to differentiate right from wrong, but which now decrees that deviant behavior is healthy and normal. These are what I call long term walls into which we will, inevitably, crash, but which are comparatively further away than some immediate walls. Let me list a few of these: Political suicide : the Neocons refusal to accept the election of Donald Trump has resulted in a massive campaign to de-legitimize him. What the Neocons clearly fail to see, or dont care about, is that by de-legitimizing Trump they are also de-legitimizing the entire political process which brought Trump to power and upon which the United States are built as a society. As a direct result from this campaign, not only are millions of Americans becoming disgusted with the political system they were indoctrinated to believe in, but internationally the notion of American democracy is becoming a sad joke. And just to make things worse, the US corporate media is finally showing its true face and now unapologetically shows the entire world that not only is it not in any way fair or objective, but that it is a 100% prostituted propaganda machine which faithfully serves the interests of the US deep state. A key element of the quasi constant brainwashing of the average American has always been the regular holding of elections. Nevermind that, at least until now, the outcome of these elections made very little difference inside the USA and non at all outside, the goal was never to consult the people  the goal has always been to give the illusion of democracy and people power. Now that the Democrats say that the Russians rigged the elections and the Republicans say that it was the Democrats and their millions of dead voters who tried stealing it, it become rather obvious that these elections were always a joke, a pseudo-democratic liturgy, a brainwashing ritual  you name it  but never about anything real. The emergence of the concept of 1% can be credited to the Obama Administration, since it was during Obama that the entire Occupy Wall Street movement took off, but the ultimate unmasking of the viciously evil true face of that 1% must be credited to Hillary with her truly historical confession in which she openly declared that those who oppose her are a basket of deplorables. We already knew, thanks to Victoria Nuland, what the AngloZionist leaders thought of the people of Europe, now we know what they think of the people of the USA: exactly the same thing. The bottom line is this: I dont think that the moral authority and political credibility of the USA have ever been lower than today. Decades of propaganda by Hollywood and the official US propaganda machine have now collapsed and nobody buys that counter-factual nonsense anymore. Foreign policy suicide : lets see what options there are to choose from. The Neocons want a war with Russia which the Trump people dont. The Trump people, however, want, well maybe not a war, although that option is very much on the table, but at least a very serious confrontation with China, North Korea or Iran, and about half of them would also like some kind of confrontation with Russia. There is absolutely nobody, at least at the top, who would dare to suggest that a confrontation or, even worse, a war with China, Iran, North Korea or Russia would be a disaster, a calamity for the USA. In fact, serious people with impressive credentials and a lot of gravitas are discussing these possibilities as if they were real, as it the USA could in some sense prevail. This is laughable. Well, no, it it not. But it would be if it wasnt so frightening and depressing. The truth is very, very different. [Sidebar: While it is probably not impossible for the United States to prevail, in purely military terms, against the DPRK in a war, the potential risks are nothing short of immense. And I dont mean the risk posed by the North Korean nukes which, apparently, is also quite real. I mean the risk of starting a war against a country which has Seoul within conventional artillery range, an active duty army of well over one million people and 180000 special forces operators. Let us assume for a second that the DPRK has no air force and no navy and an army composed of only 1M+ soldiers, 21k+ artillery pieces and 180k special forces. How do you propose to deal with that threat? If you have an easy, obvious solution, you have watched too many Hollywood movies. You probably also dont understand the terrain.] But yes, the DPRK also has major wseaknesses and I cannot exclude that the North Korean armed forces would rapidly collapse under a sustained attack by the US and the ROK. I did not say that I believe that this would happen, only that I dont exclude it. Should that happen, the US might well prevail relatively rapidly, at least in purely military terms. However, please keep in mind that any military operation has to serve a political goal and, in that sense, I cannot imagine any scenario under which the USA would walk away from a war against the DPRK with anything remotely resembling a real victory. There is a paraphrase of something Ho Chi Minh allegedly told to the French in the 1940s which I really like. It goes like this: we kill some of you, you kill a lot of us, and then we win. That is how a war with the DPRK would probably play out. I call this the American curse: Americans are very good at killing people, but they are not good at winning wars. Still, in the case of the DPRK there is at least a possibility of a military victory, even if at a potentially huge cost. With Iran, Russia or China there is no such possibility at all: a war with any of them would be a guaranteed disaster (I wrote about a war in Iran here and about a war with Russia too many times to count). So why is it that even though out of the 4 possible wars, one is a potential disaster and the 3 others are a guaranteed disaster, why is it that these are discussed as if they were potential options?! The reason for that can be found in the unique mix of crass ignorance and political cowardice of the entire US political class. First, a lot (most?) of US politicians believe in their own silly propaganda about the US armed forces being the best in the world (no evidence needed!). But even those who are smart enough to realize that this is a load of baloney which nobody outside the USA still takes seriously, they know that saying that publicly is political suicide. So they pretend, go along, and keep on repetitively spewing the patriotic mantra about rah, rah, USA, USA, Merica number one, we are the best etc. Some figure that since the USA spends more on aggression that the rest of the planet combined, that must mean that the US armed forces must be better (whatever that means). To the birthplace of bigger is better the answer is self-evident. It is also completely wrong. Eventually, something crazy inevitably happens. Like in Syria were the State Department had one policy, the Pentagon another and the CIA yet another one. The resulting cognitive dissonance is removed by engaging in classical doublethink: yes, we screwed up over and over, but we are still the best. Ironically, that kind of mindset is at the core of the American inability to learn from past mistakes. If the choice is between an honest evaluation of past operations and political expediency, the latter always prevails (at least amongst civilians, US servicemen are often far more capable of self-critical evaluation, especially in ranks up to Colonel and below, the problem here is that civilians and generals rarely listen to them). The result is total chaos: the US foreign policy is wholly dependent on the US ability to threaten the use of military force, but the harsh reality is that every country out there which dared to defy Uncle Sam did that only after coming to the conclusion that the US did not have the means to crush it militarily. In other words, only the weak, which are already de-facto US colonies, fear the USA. Or, put differently, the only countries who dare to defy Uncle Sam are the strong ones (that was all quite predictable, but US politicians dont know about Hegel or dialectics). And just to make it worse, there is no real US foreign policy. What there is is only the sum vector of the different foreign policies desired by various more or less covert deep state actors, agencies and individuals. That resulting sum vector is inevitably short-term, focuses on a quickfix approach, and unable to take into account any complexity. As for the US diplomacy it simply doesnt exist. You dont need diplomats to deliver demands, bribes, ultimatums and threats. You dont need educated people. Nor do you need people with any understanding of the other. All you need is one arrogant self-enamored bully and one interpreter (since US diplomats dont speak the local languages either. And why would they?). We saw the most compelling evidence of the total rigor mortis of the US diplomatic corps when 51 US diplomats demanded that Obama bomb Syria . The rest of the world could just observe in amazement, sadness, bewilderment and total disgust. The bottom line is this: there is no US diplomacy. The USA have simply let that entire field atrophy to the point were it ceased to exist. When so many baffled observers try to understand what the US policy in the Ukraine or Syria is, they are making a mistaken assumption  that there is a US foreign policy to being with. I would argue that the US diplomacy slowly and quietly passed away, sometime after James Baker (the last real US diplomat, and a brilliant one at that). Military suicide : the US military was never a very impressive one, certainly not when compared to the British, Russian or German ones. But it did have a couple of very strong points including the ability to produce a lot of technical innovations which made it possible to produce new, sometimes quite revolutionary, weapons. And if the US track record on ground operations was rather modest, the US did prove to be a most capable adversary in naval and aerial warfare. I dont think that it can be denied that for most of the years following WWII the USA had the most powerful and sophisticated navy and airforce in the world. Then, gradually, things started getting worse and worse as the costs of the very expensive ships and aircraft shot through the roof while the quality of the produced systems appeared to be gradually degrading. Weapons systems which looked nothing short of awesome in the lab and test grounds proved to be almost useless once they to to their end user on the battlefield. What happened? How did a country which produced the UH-1 Huey or the F-16 suddenly start producing Apaches and F-35s?! The explanation is painfully simple: corruption. Not only did the US military industrial complex bloat beyond any reasonable size, it also cloaked itself in so many layers of secrecy that massive corruption became inevitable. And when I speak of massive corruption I am not talking about millions but billions or even trillions. How? Simple  the Pentagon claimed did not have the accounting tools needed to properly account for the missing money and that the money was therefore not really missing. Another trick  no bid contracts. Or contracts which cover all the private contractors costs, no matter how high or ridiculous. Desert Storm was a bonanza for the MIC, as was 9/11 and the GWOT. Billions of dollars got printed out of thin air, distributed (mostly under the cover of national security), hidden (secrecy) and stolen (by everybody in this entire food chain). The feeding frenzy was so extreme that one of my teachers as SAIS admitted, off the record of course, that he had never seen a weapons system he did not like or which he did not want to purchase. This man, whom I shall not name, was a former director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Yes, you read that right. He was in charge of DIS-armament. You can imagine what the folks in charge of armament (no dis) were thinking With the stratospheric rise of corruption, the kind of US general which had to be promoted went from fighting men who remembered Vietnam (where they often lost family members, relatives and friends) to ass-kissing little chickenshits  like David Petraeus. In less than half a century US generals went from combat men, to managers, to politicians. And it is against this lackluster background that a rather unimpressive personality like General James Mattis can appear, at least to some, like a good candidate for Secretary of Defense. Bottom line: the US armed forces are fantastically expensive and yet not particularly well-trained, well-equipped or well-commanded. And while they still are much more capable than the many European militaries (which are a joke), they are most definitely not the kind of armed forces needed to impose and maintain a world hegemony. The good news for the USA is that the US armed forces are more than adequate to defend the USA against any hypothetical attack. But as the backbone of the Empire  they are close to useless. Break Free From The Matrix Get Our Free Daily Newsletter I could list many more types of suicides including an economic suicide, a social suicide, an educational suicide, a cultural suicide and, of course, a moral suicide. But others have already done that elsewhere, and much better than I could ever do myself. So all I will add here is one form of suicide which I believe the AngloZionist Empire has in common with the EU: a  Suicide by reality denial : this is the mother and father of all the other forms of suicide  the stubborn refusal to look at reality and accept the fact that the party is over. When I see the grim determination of US politicians (very much including the people supporting Trump) to continue to pretend as if the US hegemony was here to stay forever, when I see how they see themselves as the leaders of the world and how they sincerely believe that they need to get involved in every conflict on the planet, I can only come to the conclusion that the inevitable collapse will be painful. To be fair, Trump himself clearly has moments of lucidity about this, for example when he recently declared to Congress Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people  and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America . But we know that America is better off, when there is less conflict  not more. These are remarkable words for which Trump truly deserves a standing ovation as they are the closest thing to a formal admission that the United States have given up on the dream of being the World Hegemon and that from now on the US President will no longer represent the interest of trans-national plutocracies but he will represent the interests of the American people. This sort of language is nothing short of revolutionary, whether Trump truly delivers on that or not. Unlike everybody else, Trump does not appear to suffer from suicide by reality denial syndrome, but when I look at the people around him (nevermind the prostitutes in Congress) I wonder if he will ever get to act on his personal instincts. Trump is clearly the best man in the Trump administration, he seems to have his heart in the right place and, unlike Hillary, he is clearly aware of the fact that the US armed forces are in a terrible shape. But a good heart and common sense are not enough to deal with the Neocons and the US deep state. You also need an iron will and a total determination to crush the opposition. Alas, so far Trump has failed to show either quality. Instead, Trump is trying to show how tough a guy he is by declaring that he will wipe out Daesh and by giving the Pentagon 30 days to come up with a plan to do this. Alas (for Trump), there is no way to crush Daesh without working with those who already have boots on the ground: the Iranians, the Russians and the Syrians. It is really that simple. And every American general knows that. Yet everybody is merrily plowing ahead is if there was some kind of possibility for the USA to crush Daesh without establishing a partnership with Russia, Iran and Syria first (Erdogan tried that. It did him no good. Now he is working with Russia and Iran). Will the good folks at the Pentagon find the courage to tell Trump that no, Mr President, we cannot do that alone, we need the Russians, the Iranians and the Syrians? I very much doubt it. So, yet again, we are probably going to see a case of reality denial, maybe not a suicidal one, but a significant one nonetheless. Not good. Who will be the Empires kaishakunin? Alexander Solzhenitsyn used to say that all states can be placed on a continuum which ranges from states whose authority is based on their power to states whose power is based on their authority. I think that we can agree that the authority of the USA is pretty close to zero. As for their power, it is still very substantial, but not sufficient to maintain the Empire. It is, however, more than adequate to protect the interests of the United States as a country provided the United States accept that they simply dont have the means to remain a world hegemon. If the Neocons succeed in their attempt to overthrow or, failing that, at paralyzing Trump, then the Empire will have the choice between an endless horror or a horrible end. Since the Neocons dont really need a war with the DPRK, which they dont like, but which does not elicit the kind of blind hatred Iran does, my guess is that Iran will be their number one target. Should the AngloZionists succeed in triggering a war between Iran and the Empire, then Iran will end up being the Empires kaishakunin. If the crazies fail in their manic attempts at triggering a major war, then the Empire will probably collapse under the pressure of the internal contradictions of the US society. Finally, if Trump and the American patriots who do not want to sacrifice their country for the sake of the Empire succeed in draining the DC swamp and finally crack-down hard on the Neocons then a gradual transition from Empire to major power is still possible. But the clock is running out fast. The Saker - The Essential Saker: Trom the trenches of the emerging multipolar world This article was first published at Unz Review The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
The Yoruba Industry in known for great actors and actresses, but we can not forget Nigerian dramatist, sculptor, film writer, playwright and director, Jimoh Aliu.

We have put together 5 things you didnt know about the great actor

1. A world-class theater practitioner, Aliu was born on November, 11, 1939 at Okemesi Ekiti, to a renowned Ifa priest.

2. He began his acting career in 1959, when Akin Ogungbe , a Nigerian veteran dramatist visited his hometown.

3. Aliu became famous for his hit TV productions, Arelu and Yanpon Yanrin, which bore famous characters like Fadeyi Oloro, Orisabunmi and Aworo.

4. He later joined the Nigerian Army in 1967, but retired in 1975 to focus on drama.

5. He was formerly married to his colleague and Orisabunmi star, Folake Aremu, before they parted ways after 20 years of marriage.

(pulseng.com)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Azerbaijan invites Ukrainian entrepreneurs to invest in its industrial and agricultural parks, said Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev.

The minister made the remarks at a meeting with the Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Kiev March 13.

Mustafayev said Azerbaijan and Ukraine can expand cooperation in trade, machine industry, chemical and food industry, metallurgy, pharmacy, production of building materials and processing of agricultural products, said a message from Azerbaijans Economy Ministry.

The minister also noted the possibility of expanding ties in transit.

Groysman, in turn, said Ukraine attaches great importance to cooperation with Azerbaijan and is interested in the development of ties.

Also, an Azerbaijan-Ukraine business forum was held on March 13 with the organizational support of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Ukraine, Azerbaijan Export and Investments Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) and the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

During the business forum, Shahin Mustafayev said 116 companies with Ukrainian share currently operate in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan and Ukraine signed nearly 130 documents, including a joint declaration on strategic partnership, according to the minister. Mustafayev added that the two countries have great potential for cooperation in agriculture, industry and trade.

At the end of the business forum, AZPROMO and the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan signed memorandums of cooperation with the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Ukraine amounted to $334.18 million in 2016, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.
One person is believed to have died following a clash between suspected Fulani herdsmen and the people of Umuobasikwu, Ozuitem community in Bende local government area of Abia state.

Crops and farmlands worth several millions of naira were destroyed during the incident.

The clash was said to have occurred on Sunday evening, March 12, The Nation reports.

Confirming the incident, the commissioner of police Leye Oyebade said mobile policemen were drafted to the community to secure life and property and prevent the situation from getting out of hands.

He said normalcy has been restored in the community.

Speaking with newsmen on Monday in Umuahia, Oyebade said a large peace committee comprising representatives of the herdsmen, Hausa/ Fulani community, the local community, the state government, security agencies and other stakeholders had been constituted to resolve the clash.

According to him, the committees responsibility is to find a lasting solution to the frequent clashes between herdsmen and their host communities in the area.

The Abia police boss stated that both parties were already negotiating on possible compensation on the damages incurred during the incident.

He appealed to the warring parties sheath their sword and give peace a chance.

Also speaking, the chairman of Methi- Allah in the state, Hassan Buba, appealed to herdsmen to live in harmony with their host communities.

In the same vein, the traditional ruler of the community, Eze Akarilo, said there was no need for bloodshed while urging the aggrieved youths of the community to give peace a chance.

For months, Fulani herdsmen and farmers have been clashing in various communities across Nigeria, leaving several dead and properties destroyed.

In December, Fulani herdsmen attacked Ozu Item in Bende council in Abia state forcing some people to flee. One of the victims, Sunday Oru, invaded their farmlands and destroyed their rice, cassava, okro and plantain which were later fed to the cattle.

About two weeks ago, no fewer than six people were killed in a clash that occurred between farmers and Fulani herdsmen in Gbemacha council ward of Gwer local government area of Benue state.

At the weekend, suspected Fulani herdsmen shot an aide to Senator Shehu Sanni along the Abuja-Kaduna road.

Source: Naij
The National Commandant of the Peace Corps, Dickson Akor and the Incorporated Trustees of Peace Corps of Nigeria (ITPCN), have been slammed with a 90 count criminal charge by the Federal Government.

The Buhari-led Federal Government, on Tuesday in Abuja, filed a 90 count criminal charge on the National Commandant of the Peace Corps, Dickson Akor and the Incorporated Trustees of Peace Corps of Nigeria (ITPCN).

The case against the defendants was signed by Aka Alilu, an Assistant Chief State Counsel in the Federal Ministry of Justice and borders on extortion, money laundering and obtaining money by false pretence.

The case was filed on Tuesday by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mr. Abubakar Malami SAN, through the office of the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation (DPPF).

The prosecution alleged that the defendants while operating as a nonprofit making organization unlawfully engaged in the business of prov
President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is currently having a meeting with the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

The lawmakers arrived at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, at about noon.

This is their first meeting with the President since he returned to the country, after a 49-day vacation in the United Kingdom.

The President on Monday resumed duties at his office and sent a letter of resumption to the National Assembly and House of Representatives.

In a press statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina,In compliance with Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the President has formally transmitted letters to the Senate and the House of Representatives, intimating the National Assembly of his resumption.

I have resumed my functions as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with effect from Monday, March 13, 2017, after my vacation.

( Channels Television )
The Court of Appeal in Niger Republic has sentenced former presidential candidate,Hama Amadou to one year in prison for child trafficking, the final ruling in a long-running case that his lawyers have dismissed as politically motivated.

Hama Amadou the presidential candidate in the 2016 presidential election, has been living in France since last year when he left Niger for health reasons just days before a run-off.

He has repeatedly denied charges that he and his wife were part of a plot, including several others, to falsely claim the parenthood of around 30 children from neighbouring Nigeria who were to be sold on to wealthy couples in Niger.

The verdict was read in the absence of Amadous lawyers, who had boycotted the trial in protest.

The case was initially dropped by a Niger court in 2015 but was reinstated by the appeals court later in the year.

Issoufou took power in April 2011 and has worked closely with Western nations to boost security in the vast, arid Sahel region where Islamist militants are intensifying their insurgency.
35-year-old driver, Mammuda Abubakar has been sentenced to four strokes of the cane for stealing a pair of sandals by a Gudu Upper Area Court, Abuja, on Tuesday on Tuesday

The convict, who pleaded guilty, begged the court to have mercy on him, saying he stole the sandals because of hunger.

Abubakar, a resident of Area 1, Garki, Abuja, was convicted on a two-count of criminal trespass and theft.

Earlier, the Prosecutor, Ogubwe Fidelis, told the court that Abubakar criminally trespassed into the house of one Mohammed Dauda on March 11 and stole a pair of sandals, valued at N2,500.

He said that the sandals were recovered from the convict during police investigations.

The offences contravened Sections 348 and 287 of the Penal Code.

The Judge, Alhaji Umar Kagarko, warned Abubakar to desist from committing crime

(NAN)
Vehicles dealers in the country have restated their support for the recent directive by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to collect duties for cars and other automobiles of Nigerians who may have defaulted in payment of duties.

National President of the Association of Motor Dealers of Nigeria (AMDON), Prince Ajibola Adedoyin, who spoke to journalists in an interview at the weekend, described the grace period for the payment as an opportunity for all vehicle dealers and owners to pay duties on their vehicles to avoid losing them.

He said members of the association would take advantage of the duty collection window provided by the Customs from March 13 to April 14, 2017 as demanded by AMDON.

According to him, AMDON had suggested the mode of duty collection on vehicles to the Controller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali as a way of resolving the challenges being encountered by its members.

Adedoyin pointed out that car dealers who were the most affected by seizures of cars and other vehicles had established a partnership with the Customs over the years.

He added that the dealers established a rapport with the Customs to save themselves from losses, arrests and embarrassment occasioned by default in payment of vehicles duties.

Some of our members were arrested and detained in the past by the police after they sold vehicles that were eventually seized by Customs for non payment of duties. Some of the vehicles, for which our members were arrested, belonged to Nigerians abroad and some importers who only use our sales outlets to market and sell them off.

Months after such sales were made the buyers will come with police officers to arrest car dealers for selling vehicles without genuine papers. The buyer, with the support of the police, will then be demanding for refunds of total amount spent in buying the vehicle whose money the car dealer had remitted to the actual owners after collecting a commission of less than 5% of the sum, he explained.

He urged those with vehicles without proof of duty payments to take advantage of the opportunity to pay up the duties. There has been mixed reactions from Nigerians over Customs directive that all vehicles without proofs of duty payment should do so between March 13 and April 14, 2017.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRS) has lauded the National Assembly over its invitation to the Comptroller-General of the Customs, Hameed Ali, to appear before it on Wednesday.

While condemning the new vehicle duties policy, the group said the invitation extended to the Customs boss would sanitise the system and ameliorate the sufferings of the people.

A statement by its Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman, commended members of the eight Senate, particularly Senator Dino Malaye and Deputy Majority Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Naallah for standing up against what it described as the illegal and anti-people policy of the service.

Source: Guardian
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Kaduna Zonal Office has intercepted an undeclared sum of N49 million at the Kaduna International Airport.

Ibrahim Bappa, the Kaduna zonal head of the EFCC, while addressing journalists on Tuesday in Kaduna, said the money was stashed in five large 150 kilogramme coloured sacks ,following an intelligence report received by the zone.

He said during a routine baggage screening of supposed check-in baggage, the five bags were sighted unattended to and without tags, containing fresh bulk items suspected to be money from the aroma perceived from the sack.

The owner of the money later showed up but couldnt state the exact money in the sack or present any document authenticating the genesis of the money.

However, his inability to give any concrete explanation made him become uncomfortable and he disappeared into thin air before the arrival of EFCC operatives, the zonal head said.

Mr. Bappa said the operatives later found out that the suspect had fled the airport vicinity leaving the sacks behind.

He said upon scrutiny of the contents of the sack, it was discovered that they contained fresh crispy naira notes of N200 denomination in 200 bundles totalling N40 million and N50 denomination in 180 bundles totalling N9 million.

The bundles had seals that showed they may have emanated from the Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company.

Investigation into the case is on top gear with a view to identifying owner and apprehending all those behind the crimes, he added.

The Kaduna airport has become busy since the federal government last week closed the Abuja airport. All air passengers travelling to and from Abuja have to use the Kaduna airport for the next six weeks.
Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, says it is God who made President Muhammadu Buhari to come back alive after a 49-day medical vacation in the UK.

Speaking with members of his cabinet shortly after he returned to the country on Friday, Buhari said he could not recall being so sick in his entire life.

I have received I think the best of treatment I could receive. I couldnt recall being so sick since I was a young man, including the military with its ups and downs. I couldnt recall when last I had blood transfusion, I couldnt recall honestly, I can say in my 70 years, he had said.

In a statement issued on his behalf by Idowu Adelusi, his chief press secretary, Fayose said Buhari received the mercy of God.

He advised the president to also show mercy to Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser, Nnamdi Kalu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and other Nigerians suffering illegal and unconstitutional incarceration under your directive.

You have received the mercy and favour of God. You have come back from medical vacation alive. By what people had said and by your own account, it is the mercy and favour of God that have seen you through as well as the prayers of everyone, he said. It is incumbent on you to now also show mercy. I advise you to show mercy to Nnamdi Kanu and Sambo Dasuki and such other Nigerians that are suffering unjust, punitive, illegal, and unconstitutional incarceration under your directive or administration. Allow all those who have been granted bail by the court to enjoy their bail while their trial continues. This is the right, just, and merciful thing to do. To continue to disdain the court is reckless and unconstitutional. Moreover, it is a sin and it is oppressive.

Taunting Buhari, Fayose added: While you were away, peace returned to the Niger Delta, impacting positively on crude oil production and sales. The economy also improved with the appreciation of the Naira. Now that you are back, it will not be right to put the country on the reverse gear again through some pig-headed policies and truculent, militarist posturing.

He went spiritual, saying God is not happy with the oppression of the poor by the rich.

God is not happy at the oppression of the poor by the rich and of the weak by the strong, he said. Those of us in authority must not use our God-given powers to oppress the citizens placed under our charge. Only righteousness exalts a nation, Sin is a reproach and God is continually angry with the wicked. It is wickedness to refuse to obey court orders and trample upon the constitutional and God-given, fundamental human rights of citizens.

Source: TheCable
during an interaction with newsmen in Owerri. Imo State might be ready to use her International Cargo Airport in May 2017. This was made known by the Governor of the State,during an interaction with newsmen in Owerri.

He said that the airport which costs over N7 billion to upgrade, would improve the economy of the state. The governor was happy with the newly-established Air Force base in the state.

Okorocha said that efforts were being made to ensure the welfare of officers were adequately taken care of. He, however, said that 100 Imo youths with a minimum of five credits in their Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations would be trained and absorbed by the Air Force.

The governor said that the 200-bed General Hospital in Owerri North Local Government Area had been handed over to the Air Force for official use. According to the governor, similar hospitals in Ngor-Okpala, Owerri West and Ideato South have also been handed over to the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Police Force in the state respectively.

Okorocha also said that 200 hectares of land had been allocated to the Air Force for the construction of its new base. He expressed joy over Federal Governments projects in the state and commended the Army for the three command schools it established in each of the three geo-political zones of the state.

The governor said that security in the state had greatly improved and applauded the security agencies for the development. Okorocha said that the efforts of the security agencies had reduced crime in the state. The governor said that a new security outfit named Imo Government House Security had been established to complement the efforts of the Rapid Response Squad of the Police and others. He said that efforts were being made to boost the security of the state prisons.

( Vanguard Newspaper)
Recently, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, announced dates for general elections for all time for the nation. The announcement showed that INEC has fixed the date for the National Elections for the third Saturday in February of the election year, followed by State elections two weeks later.

Although the new permanent election dates will begin with the next general election in 2019, INEC said it would apply to all future elections. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, the new election date is not election timetable. Election timetable has 14 components. These include the dates for notice of election, commencement of campaign by political parties, collection of forms for all elections by political parties, and conduct of party primaries.

Other components of election timetable include the dates for last day for submission of forms, publication of personal particulars of candidates, last day for withdrawal of candidates, last day for campaign, etc. Election date is just one, but last, of such components.

What INEC has done, in our opinion, is to set a date for all future elections. For example, we can tell that the 2019 presidential election would be on February 16. Similarly, subsequent presidential elections would hold on February 18, 2023; February 20, 2027; February 15, 2031; February 20, 2035; February 19, 2039, etc. We can now say with a measure of certainty that presidential elections will hold on or between 15 and 21 February of every general election year. That, in our view, is a very brilliant introduction to our democratic experience by the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC.

This shows that people who suggest that it is too early to set election timetable for 2019 are wrong. As we have shown, our understanding of INECs announcement is not about 2019 election timetable. Rather, it is permanent election dates for our general elections. We, therefore, disagree with those who have accused INEC of planning to rig the next election based on this premise. INEC, as we can see, has not released 2019 election timetable yet.

The idea for permanent election date is not unique to INEC, as it stated in its announcement. The innovation first started when the United States legislature made a law for American general election to hold on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November of every general election year. That was in 1845. The arrangement indicates that election can only hold from November 2 to November 8 every four years since then. That is over 170 years ago, and ever since, this date has not shifted!

Other countries have modelled their own arrangements based on what they learnt from the USA example. Countries like Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Kenya and even Ghana have all successfully followed the American example. Ghana, in particular, started hers in 1996. Since then, general polls in that country have always held on December 7 of election years. Twenty years running, and it has not shifted.

This is where we implore our politicians to show a measure of political maturity in their assessment of INECs plans and arrangements. This is not only in the interest of the country, but even in their own, often narrow, interest. As we have shown, America has adopted this arrangement since 1845. She was barely as young as we are now as a country. Yet, not even her civil war (1861-1865) interrupted the arrangement! Elections were, indeed, held during the war on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November 1864, as scheduled. Right in the middle of the civil war!

We noted with great displeasure how INEC was forced to shift the last general election during the tenure of Prof Attahiru Jega. The excuse by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan then was security concerns. What security concern could be greater than a civil war? Sadly, the present government has done nothing to show that it is different. Rather, it has confirmed our fears that it would follow a similar pattern, as was seen in the last gubernatorial election in Edo State. INEC was once again forced to shift election on security concern.

The new national election dates have further manifested the electoral umpires zeal to conduct hitch-free polls. It is the duty of all Nigerians to support the current handlers of election matters to guarantee credible polls in the future. While we commend INEC, we nonetheless urge it to remain resolute in defending and enforcing its new policy.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14



Trend:



Total volume of funds invested by French companies in the Azerbaijani economy exceeds $2 billion, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev.



He made the remarks at a meeting with members of MEDEF (Movement of the Enterprises of France) International in Paris.

Today I think we have a very high level of economic ties. Many projects have been implemented, many French companies successfully work in Azerbaijan. According to the information I received before my visit to France, more than 50 French companies successfully work in Azerbaijan, said President Aliyev. The total investments in our economy are more than two billion dollars, primarily in energy sector. But also there are some investments in non-oil sector, which for us, at this stage, is very important. And the volume of contracts signed by the government structures of Azerbaijan and French companies is close to two billion dollars.

So, this shows, first of all, the potential of our country. This shows the interest that the French business circles show in working in Azerbaijan, and also it shows that in Azerbaijan we have very good conditions for local and foreign business groups to work and to invest and to be good contractors. French companies working in Azerbaijan helped us to develop different sectors of our economy. We have very strong ties in oil and gas sector, which is a traditional sector for us. And the projects, which are being implemented, lead to mutual benefit, noted the president.

We have also developed strong cooperation in the areas of infrastructure, transportation, public transportation, metro and transportation related to the railroad infrastructure, water management, and investments in this area. Then I would name space industry, which is relatively new for our country. But several years ago Azerbaijan joined the international space club, with already two satellites in operation. And hopefully the third one will appear with active participation of French companies, he said.

We have good prospects in the area of agriculture. I am glad that during the last several years this sector of our economy also started to develop rapidly, and also with the participation of French companies, particularly in development of our vineyards, and using our climatic conditions to maximum degree in order to increase productivity of our agricultural products, he said.

In Azerbaijan, we have developed a very substantial reform package, primarily last year. Last year was a year of very deep economic reforms, which received very strong support from international financial institutions and which lead to diversification of our economy. In fact, we were working on that for many years in order to reduce dependence on oil and gas, and managed to do it. Today, oil and gas is something more than of thirty percent of our GDP. The rest is non-oil sector, said President Aliyev.

Now we actively work on diversifying our exports. That is needed especially now, when the oil prices collapsed three-four times. And we need to compensate the revenues, which we dont get now as before, with a non-energy export potential. Therefore, we invested largely in industrial, in agricultural sector and we are also looking for the markets. We have traditional markets, which are in the neighborhood. But the European market is also very attractive for us.

Economic development in Azerbaijan is stable. We had in previous years a very high rate of GDP mainly driven by oil and gas sector, but not only that. Today, stable economic and political situation in Azerbaijan is one of the main prerequisites for attractiveness of our economy. We achieved those results despite the very heavy burden, which is a humanitarian catastrophe. As a result of the Armenian occupation we have to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees and IDPs who lost their homes, their property because of the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan in violation of all the international law norms, noted the president. So, we have over a million IDPs and refugees as a result of this aggression. And taking care of them also requires a lot of money. We invest largely in social protection of these people. And 250,000 of them were provided with new apartments and houses during the last years. It is size of a big city with all modern infrastructure.

We are still in the process of implementation of reforms. But Id like to bring just several figures to your attention to show that Azerbaijan demonstrates, I think, one of the best performances among the oil producing countries, especially taking into account that our revenues from oil dropped three-four times. Davos World Economic Forum ranks Azerbaijans economy 37th with respect to competitiveness. This is a very good rating. So, we are among the 40 most competitive economies in the world. And this is a recent rating. This rating was not given to us when the oil price was high. In another rating of Davos with respect to the level of development of the developing countries, Azerbaijan shares the first and second places, said President Aliyev.

We have a very low foreign debt, which is 20 percent of our GDP. And our hard currency reserves are more than five times bigger than our foreign debt. In other words, if we prefer, we can repay our foreign debt within a couple of months to have zero foreign debt. We managed to reduce unemployment, which is now at the level of five percent and poverty, which is below six percent. Employment in Azerbaijan was mainly inspired by the very favorable business climate and also investment climate. For the last 20 years more than two hundred billion dollars were invested in Azerbaijans economy. And this process continues, noted the president.

Hopefully this year also a large number of companies will invest. It is very good that they invest now not only in oil and gas, but also in the service sector, in tourism, in hotel business, in agriculture. So all the investments of foreign companies and local companies are duly protected. Therefore, it creates additional incentives and interest in investing in Azerbaijan. At the same time, having a strong economic position in the region with good connection to the neighborhood and with substantial financial reserves, we can afford to attract contractors to the sectors, which we consider of strategic importance.

For the coming years our main area of concentration will be the non-energy sector of our economy, mainly agriculture. And I invite prominent French companies to come to Azerbaijan and to work with our government to implement projects related to modernization and increase of productivity, added President Aliyev.
The body of Late Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, has arrived Benin, Edo State today, the body which was flown in a Nigerian Air Force jet, marked NAF 029, was accompanied by Col. Idioniboye. The plane touched down at the Benin airport at about 1:20 p.m.

At the airport to receive the body were the governors of Edo and Delta states, Mr. Godwin Obaseki and Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, respectively, the first son of the former army general, Samuel Ogbemudia Jr and other family members and sympathisers.

The gold-plated wooden coffin bearing the remains of the retired Brigadier-General, was later put into a black Mercedes Benz ambulance and conveyed in a motorcade to his residence, situated at Iheya street, Benin.

Ogbemudia was military administrator of defunct Midwest Region between 1967 and 1975. He was later elected executive Governor of old Bendel state from October to December 1983 when the civilian administration was swept away in a military coup staged by the then Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

(PM News)
The leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) intensified yesterday as leaders of two camps within the party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Senator Ahmed Makarfi traded allegations over inducements from both within and outside the party.

It was Sheriff who cast the first stone when he alleged that the Makarfi-led national caretaker committee had rejected the much sought after political solution because of the N50 million subvention they enjoy from the governors of the party.

Speaking through his deputy national chairman, Dr Cairo Ojougboh, Sheriff also alleged that Makarfis presidential ambition was also a reason why members of the national caretaker committee have refused to align with the political solution initiated by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Addressing journalists at the partys national headquarters in Abuja yesterday, Ojougboh described the Prof Jerry Gana-led strategy and inter-party committee as illegal, even as he lambasted Makarfi over a recent statement on the affairs of the party.

The deputy national chairman said, The reason why the caretaker committee is protesting is that they have seen that the table is now crumbling fast under their feet. All the organs of the party are keying into the reconciliation and when the reconciliation pulls through, they are out and Senator Makarfi can only come as member of the BoT and so the N50 million monthly Subvention from governors will stop. They get subvention from the governors every month and when reconciliation happens, that subvention will stop.

Secondly, Makarfi wants a situation where he will tailor-make and tailor-made the convention to suit his interest because he has come out to say that he will be contesting the presidency of the country.

We are very mindful that we are not going to tie our party around any individual. That is why the national chairman, Sheriff said look, I am going to throw everything open. That is why we are studying the position of the reconciliation committee and that is good enough to advance our party.

But in a swift response to Sheriffs claims, the Makarfi-led PDP accused the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Sheriff of receiving jeeps from some governors, ministers and officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Alleging that Sheriff was evading Supreme Court service, the Makarfi-led caretaker committee further accused the national chairman of reneging on the conditions of political solution for both leaders to resign their positions.

Spokesman of the Makarfi camp, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, denied the alleged N50 million monthly subvention from governors, saying it was a lie from the pit of hell and a very cheap and unintelligent attempt at blackmail.

It is a known fact by all critical stakeholders of the party and even the staff that the national caretaker committee has from inception been hamstrung by inadequate finance, so much so that simple secretariat duties have been a struggle, while we have been unable to pay staff salaries of just N18 million a month. Members of the national caretaker committee do not enjoy any remuneration. It is a selfless service, he added.

Maintaining that it was a figment of Sheriffs imagination to say that the governors give the national caretaker committee N50 million monthly, Adeyeye argued that the governors were all alive and were free to come forward and declare publicly their level of contributions to the national caretaker committee since May 21, 2016.

He said, Nevertheless, no matter how little, it is better to be funded by our party members than by the All Progressives Congress (APC) as is the case with Senator Sheriff and his cohorts. Dr. Cairo should tell us which APC governor, minister or official bought Jeeps for them? Governor Fayose has also made a public allegation that Senator Sheriff has received the sum of $1 million from the APC to organize a new convention. Senator Sheriff is yet to publicly refute the allegation.

We accepted President Goodluck Jonathan and the governors comprehensive political solution. It calls for the resignation of Senator Sheriff and the so called NWC and also the National Caretaker Committee to create a level playing field for all, and to build trust among all members. The agreement is then to be submitted to the Supreme Court as the judgment of the Court. These would have provided both political and legal solution to the logjam. But Senator Sheriff rejected it, and continues to insist that he would conduct a National Convention when he does not enjoy the trust and confidence of the vast majority of party members. It is therefore very clear who has a personal or hidden agenda, and I dare say, it is Senator Sheriff and not the National Caretaker Committee. The blackmail of Dr. Cairo is too cheap and too simplistic.

We want to ask why Senator Sheriff is running away from justice by avoiding service from the Supreme Court. This is very unfair from a man who has been using the court to further his own selfish ends. He should accept service and face his case squarely, if he believes in the merit of his cause.

Source: Leadership
A 45-year-old man, John Ekundayo, has been remanded in Agodi Prison by an Ibadan magistrates court for refusing to bury his dead wife, Mrs. Bukola Alabede and keeping the corpse in his room.

Though there was no evidence that the accused mutilated the remains of his wife, Vanguard learned that the offensive odour of the corpse compelled the neighbour of the accused, who lives at NW2/403 to raise alarm that led to his arrest.

The accused was arraigned on a count charge of allegedly offering indignity to the dead human body by abandoning her in his room.

According to the charge sheet, signed by DSP Sunday Unwanbueze, the accused, on February 28, at about 6.30a.m, at NW2/403 Okebuyi compound, Idikan, Ibadan, did improperly or indecently interfere with or offer indignity to the dead human body of one Mrs. Bukola Alabede by abandoning her in your room apartment without lawful justification or excuse of deceased relatives and, thereby, committed an offence contrary to and punishable MI/323c/2017.

He pleaded not guilty. Chief Magistrate A. F. Ri-chard, granted him N100,000 bail with two sureties.

The court said one of the sureties must be a relative and must be in possession of a National Identity Card. The second surety should be a Level 9 civil servant.

At press time, the accused was unable to meet the terms given by the court for his bail and had to be taken into prison custody.

The case was then adjourned to April 19 for proper hearing.

Source: Vanguard
An audit report of debt by Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to power distribution companies (DISCos) has revealed an indebtedness of N59.3 billion by top 100 customers, like defence, military and security agencies owing N51 billion.

This was the communique at the 13th meeting of power sector stakeholders yesterday with the Minister of Power, Babatunde Fashola, hosted by the Transcorp Power Limited, Ughelli, Delta State.

The report stated that all verified bills would be recommended for payment on a first-come first-serve basis as a demonstration of governments determination to lead by example with regards to payment for electricity delivered.

Although the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) reported an improved compliance with submission of audited accounts by DISCos, the stakeholders said that NERC should more rigorously to perform regulatory duties.

In their comments, Fashola and Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa charged power generating companies (GENCos) and the DISCos to do more to ensure regular power supply to Nigerians.

They maintained that regular electricity is critical to the nations industrial, technological and infrastructural development.

Fashola also chided the DISCos for failing to strengthen their transformers, thereby leading to epileptic power supplies as a result of frequent breakdowns.

Okowa slammed the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) for the poor power supply in his state. He declared: No matter what you generate, if it does not get to the common man, then it becomes a problem.

Okowa charged all stakeholders to ensure peace in their communities to ensure peaceful operation of the power companies.

The Chairman of Transcorp Power, Mr. Tony Elumelu told the minister and governor: We have two issues: one is liquidity. We want the minister to fast-track access to the Liquidation Assurance Programme funds. The second is gas. We want to do, but there is no gas. We can generate 620WM but due to poor access to gas supply we are handicapped.

The power sector operators present included the NERC, managing directors and CEOs of GENCos, DISCos, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), as well as various government agencies such as the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET), Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO) and Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) and other operators in the electricity industry.

Source: Guardian
The Governor of Ogun State , Senator Ibikunle Amosun, on Monday, has signed a bill to upgrade the state-owned Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, to the Moshood Abiola University of Science and Technology, Abeokuta. .

Also signed into law is the bill to establish the Ogun State Polytechnic, Ipokia, in the Yewa area of the state.

Amosun signed the bills during the State Executive Council meeting at the governors office in Abeokuta.

He said the MKO University, which would operate a multi-campus system, was expected to boost science and technology in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that this is the highest honour bestowed on the late MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential poll, rated worldwide as one of the freest and best elections in the history of the country.

The administration of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, had arrested and detained Abiola for declaring himself president following the annulment of the election by military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.

Ogun had named the state polytechnic and the state stadium in Abeokuta after the late Abiola.

Amosun commended the state House of Assembly for the speedy passage of the bill.

In an interview with newsmen after the occasion, the Speaker, Mr. Suraj Adekunbi, said the House gave the bill accelerated passage because of the priority the government accorded education.

He noted that the establishment of the two institutions would create more jobs in the state.

NAN reports that the House had, on January 31, passed the MKO Abiola University Bill and the Ogun State Polytechnic, Ipokia, Bill.

( Punch Nigeria )
455 captives have been rescued by the troops of Operation in LAFIYA DOLE, Borno State, this was made known by the Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier-General Sani Usman, on Tuesday.

According to him, the troops of 112 Task Force Battalion, 22 Task Force Brigade, carried out the offensive against Boko Haram hideouts at Artano, Saduguma, Duve, Bordo, Kala, Bok, Magan, Misherde, Ahisari, Gilgil, Mika, Hiwa, Kutila and Shirawa settlements in Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno State.

The statement read in part, At the Kutila village, the troops came under heavy attack from the terrorists.

The troops responded and dealt with the Boko Haram terrorists by neutralising and routing them out of the area. Several others escaped into the thick forest with gunshot wounds.

The troops recovered one Gun truck, one Canter vehicle and one pick up from the terrorists.

Usman said the troops engaged members of the terrorist group in a gun battle at Shirawa, destroying their newly constructed Logistics Base.

He said two freshly prepared suicide bombing vests and maize grinding machine were recovered.

He said, The gallant soldiers proceeded further to clear Bok, Misherde, Mika and Kutila also in Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno State, where they liberated 455 persons held hostages by the terrorists.

The rescued persons after thorough screening have been moved to Rann Internally Displaced Persons camp.
1,432 airline passengers have been conveyed by road from Kaduna Airport to Abuja, in the first four days of Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport runway closure by the Ministry of Transportation while another 458 of the passengers were moved from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja to Kaduna Airport, making a total of 1890 passengers.

The Deputy Director, Press and Public Affairs, Ministry of Transportation,Mr James Odaudu, disclosed these figures on Monday.

He said that the statistics collated by the office of the Minister of State, Aviation, disclosed that 28 passengers, who arrived Kaduna aboard an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft on March 8 were the first to be transported by road to Abuja.

The rest, 1862 passengers were transported between March 9 and 11 when the domestic flight operations commenced.

Hadi Sirika, Minister of State for Aviation said the figures would rise this week, with increasing awareness of the free transport incentive.

The Minister implored air travellers to take advantage of the free transport and arrive early at the Abuja Airport end in order not to miss their flights in Kaduna.

He concluded, The passengers need to get to Abuja Airport four hours earlier than their scheduled flight, so the buses will bring them within two or two-and-a- half hours, to be able to process their boarding at the Kaduna Airport within an hour.
The Nigeria Police has promoted 28,627 rank and files to their next rank.

According to a statement by the Force public relations officer, CSP Jimoh Moshood, the promotion is in line with measures to boost the morale of the Police personnel towards an effective and efficient service delivery to the citizens

Moshood further explained that the promotion is based on merit, seniority, commitment and dedication to duty He added that the promotion is for those officers who are due for promotion in line with established traditions.

He narrated that 7,628 sergeants are elevated to the rank of Inspectors ,20,667 corporals to the rank of Sergeants, and 332 police constables to the rank of corporals.

The inspector general of police (IGP)Ibrahim Idris while congratulating the promoted personnel, urge them to see the elevation as a challenge to be more dedicated to their duties and carry out their statutory responsibilities in line with the rule of law and principles of democratic policing.

Source: Leadership
The House of Representatives committee on local content has harped on the need for International Oil Companies (IOCs) to abide by the provisions of the Nigerian oil and gas content development act 2010 which requires foreign firms operating in the country to sufficiently engage Nigerians in their workforce.

Chairman of the committee, Hon. Emmanuel Ekon who stated this at the weekend, lamented the worrisome rate at which IOCs in the country were shortchanging Nigerians in employment thereby violating the act.

Ekon stressed that continuation of this trend by these companies would

be an action in gross violation of the Nigerian Oil and gas content development act 2010.

National Assembly will not fold its arms and watch the youths being denied the opportunity to be involved in the process of managing the oil and gas industry in the country, he added.

The Akwa Ibom born lawmaker also informed that the committee discovered that some of the IOCs were brazenly bringing in foreigners to handle certain jobs particularly those which the act prescribed to be given to citizens.

He therefore, called on the companies to desist from this practice and carry out their businesses within the confines of the laws.

Source: Leadership
On March 10, EY Azerbaijan participated in a tax conference entitled Together Towards Transparency, jointly organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan (AmCham) and Azerbaijans Taxes Ministry.

The conference invited leading governmental organizations and NGOs from Azerbaijan. It featured speeches on the role of the tax service in reforms, as well as on improvements in tax administration.

Mrs. Natavan Mammadova, Executive Director of AmCham, opened the meeting by welcoming the guests and members of the committee.

In his conference speech Zaur Gurbanov, Senior Manager in the Tax & Legal Department at EY Azerbaijan, focused on events held and measures taken in global best practice to limit the use of cash and to promote cashless transactions. He said: Alongside the security and speed of payments, cashless settlements have been implemented as a way to counter the shadow economy and improve tax administration since the mid-twentieth century. However, for this purpose it is important to motivate passive participants of the shadow economy, i.e. persons without any specific intention to facilitate tax evasion, to make cashless payments. Therefore, it is essential to introduce various stimulating measures as well as tax concessions or tax credits.

At the end of the conference, EY Azerbaijan and the other Big Four audit companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding on establishing an efficient tax environment, together with the Tax Ministry and the Chamber of Auditors of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

About AmCham

The American Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan is composed of over 250 members and associates active in every sector of the Azerbaijani economy. The Chamber represents 80% of all foreign investment in Azerbaijan, as well as a significant portion of local investment. Through its industry sector committees Chamber members share information, raise issues of common concern, and propose possible solutions. As AmCham members, the companies and organizations have access to a vast network of business information and contacts, in both Azerbaijan and the US.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and economies around the world. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In doing so, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities. EY works together with companies across the CIS and assists them in realizing their business goals. 5,000 professionals work at 20 CIS offices (in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Togliatti, Vladivostok, Almaty, Astana, Bishkek, Baku, Kyiv, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Minsk, and other locations). EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

EY in Azerbaijan

EY made a major commitment to the development of Azerbaijan and the region by opening the office in Baku 22 years ago. Today, in addition to being the leading audit and consulting firm in Azerbaijan, we are the leading firm in the region. As a result of our experience and competence, we have been able to assist both domestic and international companies as well as state-owned entities to develop and manage the challenges of the international economy.

There are currently 170 people working in our Baku office that serve our clients in Azerbaijan. EY's strength in the Caspian Region and the firm's commitment of resources are important to the entities operating in the region. It means that as we grow, EY will continue to demonstrate a tradition of hiring and training local professionals to be leaders in our practice.
The Nigeria Senate is set to screen the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. , on Wednesday.

President Muhammadu Buhari had renominated Magu after the lawmakers rejected his nomination based on a damning security report by the Department of State Services.

President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, made the announcement of the screening at the plenary on Tuesday.
The National Agency For Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has been ordered by a Lagos High Court to immediately direct the manufacturers of soft drinks; Fanta and Sprite (Nigeria Bottling Company PLC) to include a written warning that the content of the bottles cannot be taken with Vitamin C.

This directive was the result from a suit filed against the NBC and NAFDAC by Lagos businessman, Dr Emmanuel Fijabi Adebo and his company, Fijabi Adebo Holdings Limited.

His lawyer alleged that sometime in March, 2007, his clients company purchased large quantities of Coca-Cola, Fanta Orange, Sprite, Fanta Lemon, Fanta Pineapple and Soda Water from NBC for export to the UK for retail purposes and supply to their customers. When the packages arrived there, fundamental health related matters were raised on the contents and composition of the Fanta and Sprite products by the UK Health Authorities, specifically the Stockport Metropolitan Borough Councils Trading Standard Department of Environment and Economy Directorate.

The findings from the United Kingdom were corroborated by the Coca-Cola European Union and products were found to have excessive levels of Sunset Yellow and Benzoic Acid which are unsafe for human consumption. Due to the irregularities and harmful content of the soft drinks which can cause cancer to the consumer, the claimants could not sell the Fanta and Sprite products resulting in appreciable losses, as they were certified unsuitable for consumption and were seized and destroyed by the United Kingdom health authorities

Adebos Lawyer urged the court to declare that the Nigeria Bottling Company was negligent and breached the duty of care owed to their valued customers and consumers in the production of contaminated Fanta and Sprite soft drinks with excessive benzoic acid and sunset addictive. They also urged the court to direct NAFDAC to conduct and carry out routine laboratory tests of all the soft drinks and allied products of the company to ensure and guarantee the safety of the consumable products, produced from the Nigeria Bottling Company factory.

Although the Nigeria Bottling Company contended that the claimants claims are speculative, frivolous and vexatious and should be dismissed with substantial costs, NAFDAC did not file any defence.

In a judgment delivered by Justice Adedayo Oyebanji declared that NAFDAC has failed Nigerians by its certification as satisfactory for human consumption, products which in the UK failed sample test for human consumption and which became poisonous in the presence of Vitamin C. He therefore ordered:

That NAFDAC shall forthwith mandate Nigeria Bottling Company to, within 90 days hereof, include on all the bottles of Fanta and Sprite soft drinks manufactured by the company, a written warning that the content of the said bottles of Fanta and Sprite soft drinks cannot be taken with Vitamin C as same becomes poisonous if taken with Vitamin C.

In consideration of the fact that this case was filed in 2008 and that it has been in court for 9 years, costs of N2 million is awarded against NAFDAC. Interest shall be paid on the costs awarded at the rate of 10% per annum until liquidation of the said sum.
An Abia State community which was rocked by a deadly clash between farmers and Fulani herdsmen, has been abandoned.

Economic and social activities have come to a halt in Umuobasiukwu Ozuitem community in Bende Local Government of Abia State as residents have abandoned their homes for fear of arrest by police who swooped on the community following a clash with Fulani herdsmen.

Indigenes of Umuobasiukwu who spoke with journalists in Umuahia said that the one-sided arrests by the Abia State Police Command would embolden the herdsmen to launch another attack on the community which is now more vulnerable.

We dont just understand why the police should be arresting our people leaving out the Fulani herdsmen who had provoked the clash with our youths, said Okoro Ndukwe, who fled his home and is taking refuge in the capital city of Umuahia.

He said that his community had in the past been attacked by herdsmen but there appeared to be a lull during the period President Muhammadu Buhari was on medical vacation but coincidentally they (herdsmen) have started attacking us again apparently because Mr. President has come back.

More to follow
IPOB has vowed to truncate Governor Willie Obianos chances of returning to government house after the November 2017 poll.

The pro-Biafra group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has vowed to ensure that Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra state does not return to government house after the November 2017 poll.

The group, reacting to statement credited to Obiano that IPOB is a toothless bulldog which is capable of words but incapable of action and being used by a few to enrich themselves under the guise of fighting for Igbo freedom, said the governor has crossed the red line and the consequences would be dire for his second term ambition.

IPOB in a statement issued by its spokespersons, Mr.Emma Nmezu and Dr. Clifford Iroanya, reminded Obiano that his success in the 2013 governorship election was made possible because of the position IPOB took in repudiating the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Dr. Chris Ngige, This Day reports.

The group said: For the records, IPOB though apolitical, was instrumental to Obiano being the governor of Anambra State because we repudiated the northern and Islamic-dominated APC party represented by Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige and we still do repudiate them till today, the IPOB said.

We promise Obiano that even though we abhor and repudiate Nigerian politics, we shall do to him what we did to Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige in 2013 Anambra gubernatorial election, it further warned.

It said the test of IPOBs popularity and efficacy is never in doubt as it brought the entire Biafraland to a standstill on September 23, 2016 with successful sit-at-home protest.

IPOB said that it was a costly venture for the Anambra governor to question the popularity and then refer to it as toothless bulldog and rear tyres that can never overtake the front tyres, knowing that IPOB has repeatedly demonstrated its popularity as was the case on September 23, 2016 when it carried out a successful sit-at-home protest.

Obiano called IPOB a toothless bulldog but after the November 2017 election, he will know if IPOB is a toothless bulldog or not. We assure Obiano that he shall surely fail in his re-election bid, just as he failed in his ill-conceived pro-Buhari rally, IPOB said.

Source: Naij
Law enforcement officials are interested in software tools that can scan social media feeds for information that could be used to track and monitor potential criminals. To deter developers from building such tools, Facebook and Instagram have updated their policies explicitly banning developers from using user data from their platforms.

Developers cannot use data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance. Our goal is to make our policy explicit, Facebooks deputy chief privacy officer Rob Sherman wrote in a post announcing the companys latest update to terms and conditions.

[ Discover the in InfoWorld's Deep Dive. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's App Dev Report newsletter. ]

Sherman said the updated policy was the result of months of work with advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union of California, Color of Change, and the Center for Media Justice. Last October, the ACLU of California warned that Geofeedia, a company which makes social media monitoring software, was using data from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to help track protesters in Baltimore and elsewhere. Geofeedia had access to the Instagram API, which included any location data associated with user posts; Facebooks Topic Feed API, which provides a ranked feed of public Facebook posts mentioning a specific topic, including hashtags, events, and places; and Twitters database of public tweets. Law enforcement authorities could use the software to see what people were posting regarding #BlackLivesMatter, where they were going, and who they were communicating with.

Shortly after the report, Facebook and Instagram terminated Geofeedias access to the APIs and Twitter severed the data relationship completely with the Chicago-based company.

Protect the information you receive from us against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, dont use data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance, Facebook wrote in the updated policy.

Facebooks decision appears timely, as it looks like the United States Department of Homeland Security is interested in software that could automatically scan social media platforms to identify suspicious individuals. An Office of the Inspector General report from February found the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had run a pilot program back in December 2015, and again in April and August 2016, to manually and automatically screen visa applicants social media profiles for any potential clues to problematic activity. The report found that automated social media screening was not a viable option and manual review was more effective at identifying accounts.

While its possible to assign agents to regularly monitor social media platforms, automation would help process large volumes of data and ensure key clues arent missed. In the report, DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis noted that neither the private sector nor the U.S. Government possessed the capabilities for large-scale social media screening. DHS has restarted the testing program in January and identified 275 software tools that can be used for scanning.

Its not a big jump to assume that DHS will soon start asking contractors to build such a platformif it hasnt already.

However, the well-intentioned policy changes wont have much of an impact. The policy changes apply only to software, and the government would still be able to demand user data via its National Security Letters or through any of its covert surveillance programs. While Facebook has automated and manual processes to ensure developers follow its rules, government contracts are lucrative, and developers may decide to find a way around the rules.

Facebooks policy change doesnt address the other ubiquitous tracking problemthe one by advertisers and third-party marketing platformsas commercial entities still have access to public feeds used to monitor trends and other public happenings.

Developers who may wind up working on tools that can monitor social media activity should be aware of the explicit language in the terms and conditions regarding what they are allowed to do with the data.
Soybean (ZS) Retests Weekly Chart Triangle Resistance Ahead of WASDE Tradable Patterns - Sun Nov 6, 10:53PM CST Soybean (ZSF23) is forming a daily and weekly Doji to start the week, hesitating after last weeks strong surge to triangle resistance (on the weekly chart). With ZS having reversed more than half... ZSF23 : 1459-4 (-0.19%) SOYB : 27.65 (+1.51%)

Cattle and Hog support and resistance for the week ONE44 Analytics - Sun Nov 6, 5:17PM CST You take care of the growing and we will take care of where it's going!

Lean Hogs Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Nov 6, 2:01PM CST The downtrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading below resistance level 84.675, which will be followed by reaching support level 80.675 and if it keeps on moving down below that level,...

Feeder Cattle Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Nov 6, 2:00PM CST The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 177.700, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 182.375 and 188.250

Live Cattle Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Nov 6, 1:59PM CST The downtrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading below resistance level 152.375, which will be followed by reaching support level 148.325

Soybean Oil Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Nov 6, 1:59PM CST The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 72.70, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 79.29

Soybean Meal Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Nov 6, 1:58PM CST The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 419.1, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 431 and 439
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 14

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Greece plans a new tender for sale of DESFA natural gas grid operator, which will take about 12 months to hold, including the approvals from the EU, Greek nergy and Environment Minister Giorgos Stathakis said in an interview with Alithines Edeseis newspaper.

Earlier, Greeces Government Council for Economic Policy (KYSOIP) approved the process of a new tender for DESFA.

The new tender to be conducted by Greece's privatization agency HRADF envisages sale of 66 percent of the gas grid operator.

Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR won a tender in 2013 on the purchase of a 66-percent stake in DESFA for 400 million euros.



The Azerbaijani company intended to obtain a 31-percent stake from the Greek government and to buy a 35-percent stake in Hellenic Petroleum.



It was expected that the deal will be closed only after the purchase of at least a 17-percent stake out of SOCARs 66-percent by Italys Snam.



SOCAR, Snam and Greek government have been holding intensive talks against the background of changes in legislation that affected DESFAs financial position and market value.



However, the parties were unable to reach an understanding and consequently, the deal was terminated Nov. 30.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
AIAs regional CEO, Ng Keng Hooi, will take the rains at the life insurance company that spun out of AIG and went public in 2010.

Mark Tucker, group chief executive and president of AIA Group Ltd., is leaving Asias leading life insurer to become the non-executive group chairman of HSBC Holdings, the worlds seventh-largest banking conglomerate.

The company made the announcement on Monday in a release that also named Tuckers long-time aide, Ng Keng Hooi, AIAs regional CEO, as his successor. So far, executives at HSBC have declined to comment on Tuckers announcement.

It has been a great privilege to lead AIA, said Tucker in the statement. He joined the firm in 2009 from UK-based insurer Prudential Plc., where he served as CEO for four years. While at AIA, Tucker grew the insurers value of new business from $667 million in the year ended Nov. 30, 2010, to $2.75 billion in the year ended Nov. 30, 2016. I am enormously proud of the Groups achievements since we became a public company and wish to thank the Board for its outstanding support, he added.

The former Asia subsidiary of New York-based American International Group, AIA spun off from the insurance giant in 2009 and succeeded under Tuckers leadership in a public listing on the Hong Kong Exchange in October 2010, raising $20 billion, the third-largest fund raising that year. The AIA spin-off occurred shortly after New York-based AIG suffered a near-death experience in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Tuckers successor, Ng, is a life insurance veteran of 37 years, including 20 years working under his helm at Prudential.

Charles Zhou, a Hong Kong-based analyst covering insurance at investment bank Credit Suisse, says he believes Ng is the best available option for sake of continuity as Tuckers successor. Zhou notes that Ng oversees group agency distribution, which is responsible for new insurance sales across Asia, and also oversees key markets, including China, which is a key driver of the insurers growth. Just prior to joining AIA in 2008, Ng was CEO of Great Eastern Holdings, the largest insurer in Singapore.

The business that is now AIA was first established in Shanghai almost a century ago. It serves 30 million individuals and 16 million group policy clients and is the leader in the Asia-Pacific region, ex-Japan, based on life insurance premiums. As of Nov. 30, AIA had total assets of $185 billion.
MiFID II is fast approaching, but the prospect of its January 2018 implementation is doing little to quell demand for access to executive teams at European corporations  as well as access for these teams to the buy side.

For the first time, Institutional Investors All-Europe Corporate Access ranking has collected responses from both sides of the corporate access equation: Those buy-side firms that rely on their sell-side partners to provide access to corporate executive teams, and the corporate investor relations executives who want access to the buy side.

In this inaugural iteration of the investor relations poll  which saw 318 participants ranking sell-side firms from the corporate vantage point  Bank of America Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan Cazenove tie for first place with four total positions each. Berenberg, Kepler Cheuvreux, and Morgan Stanley tie for third with three team positions.

Events, of course, are central to corporate access, and few do it better than Hamburg-based Berenberg. One standout event is its Pennyhill conference in December in the U.K., which brings together 150 corporations and more than 400 investors from the U.S. and Europe over four days. The conference has a warm and fuzzy feeling, says Olivia Lee, global head of corporate access at Berenberg. One of the strategies making Berenbergs conferences so successful has been to hold events just outside of the major cities rather than in a central location. This discourages attendees from drifting in and out, Lee explains.

But even more than physical events, the key to Berenbergs corporate access is its strong research, bolstered by the quick note system the firm uses, Lee said. After speaking with an investor about a certain stock, salespeople make note of the conversation in an internal system. Berenberg can then suggest to corporate executives where to travel to meet interested investors.

In a MiFID II environment, thats going to be crucial, Lee says of Berenbergs research data, adding that that level of detail is lacking at most other banks.

For the buy-side point of view, II surveyed more than 1,100 investors at 565 firms. These investors  who collectively oversee about $4.7 trillion in European equities  evaluated sell-side firms in 32 industry sectors on arranging meetings with executives, setting up site visits, hosting investor conferences, and organizing nondeal road shows.

In a shift from the 2016 edition of the All-Europe Corporate Access ranking, UBS takes the top spot this year, replacing Bank of America Merrill Lynch. UBS has 21 positions, five in first place. Though BofA Merrill slips to second place with 20 overall positions, the firm claims the highest number of first-place teams, with eight. J.P. Morgan Cazenove comes in at third place with 18 total positions.

Investors are increasingly interested in thematic topics such as politics, notes Pilar Rocafort, head of EMEA corporate access and global consumer specialist sales at UBS. The firm hosted panels on such populist trends as Brexit, the upcoming elections in France, and then-president-elect Trumps likely policies at its November European Conference in London, combining the exploration of these topics with networking between investors and executives.

Additional themes on investors minds include cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, says Patricia Lefranc, head of corporate and expert access at J.P. Morgan Cazenove, which has added those discussions to its recent events. In an increasingly volatile time, investors value macro input, she observes.

Ashley Pittard, head of global equities at Australian firm BT Investment Management, praises UBSs conferences for their broad lineup of top management and the firms willingness to conduct teleconferences when management are in Asia. Pittard adds that it would be good to have a cluster of conferences together, even if from different brokers, thus reducing travel time from Australia.

Ultimately, several of the top-ranked firms in IIs 2017 ranking believe that while the realities of MiFID II are months away, each will continue to see strong demand for access, even as the industry remains extremely competitive, according to Lefranc.

Berenbergs Lee holds the most optimistic view. MiFID II may be beneficial for us, she suggests. [Other] banks will have to drop coverage, but we have no intention of reducing our coverage.
Long-term investors are engaging more with activists to shake up poorly run companies and improve their performance for shareholders, according to a survey by corporate governance consulting firm Morrow Sodali.

Fifty-seven percent are willing to listen to activist investors who approach them, while 43 percent proactively reach out to activists who are campaigning for changes at a company in which theyre invested, Morrow Sodali said this month in its annual institutional investor survey of a global group that this year represented $24 trillion of assets under management.

Poor governance practices is the biggest reason for their support of activist proposals, followed by a companys previous disregard for shareholder opposition, and its unwillingness to engage investors, according to the survey. While theres still some criticism that activists add to destructive, short-term investing behavior, the performance of activist strategies in recent years, along with a big shift into passive products, has quieted many dissenters.

Weve seen increased interest in activism over the past five years, said Ken Bertsch, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Council of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit institutional investor-backed advocacy group focused on corporate governance. If you go back to say 2010, there was more skepticism around what activists do, but a lot of that has gone away.

The shift to passive investments in recent years serves as a counterweight to activist strategies, according to Bertsch.

We have several members that are heavily indexed long-term investors, he said. I think when you look broadly at the market, the presence of those long-term investors largely balances out much of the short-term moves you might see as a result of activists.

Having conversations is one thing, but when investors vote with activists how well does it really work? In 2015, Floridas State Board of Administration, which manages the states pension plan, took an audit of its proxy votes in order to understand whether aligning with activists was worth the effort. On a per vote basis, its research showed that between 2006 and 2014 its equity value linked to activist holdings increased by $572 million, or a gain of $5.3 million per vote in the five years after a campaign was announced.

The study found that Floridas State Board of Administration supported activists about 65 percent of the time. When the pension plan manager backed their efforts, and the activists won, companies they targeted saw an average positive cumulative performance of 12 percent over one year; 21 percent over three years; and 26 percent over five. In cases where it supported activists who lost their battle with company management, there were losses over the same periods ranging from 14 percent to 16 percent.

By and large the effect activists have on performance is very positive, Michael McCauley, a senior officer in investments programs and governance at Floridas State Board of Administration, said in an interview. He said the pension plan manager tries to be involved with as many proxy votes as the investment team can handle, which is about 100 per year right now.

In the future, were looking at ways to expand our value-to-vote template for proxies to include additional issues like say-on-pay or corporate directors, McCauley added.

Increased interest in activism by institutional investors is corroborated by activists themselves. Jonathan Litt, founder and chief investment officer at Stamford, Connecticut-based activist firm Land and Buildings Investment Management notes that investors, bankers, and analysts are all becoming more vocal when it comes to engaging with firms like his.

Institutions are talking more with compliance folks about what they can do, even if they are passively invested, said Litt. Activism is becoming more accepted as a strategy.
This content is from: Video

Inflation remains the primary concern for the worlds central banks, which have engaged in the broadest and fastest tightening regime in history, according to Alejandra Grindal, chief economist at Ned Davis Research.
International risk management firm Stroz Friedberg has revealed its predictions for the cyber risk market in 2017, which have revealed several target markets for insurance brokers selling cyber insurance.The firm, which was recently acquired by Aon , released its 2017 Cybersecurity Predictions report that notes the key trends to watch for in the emerging industry.For Australian brokers, the report outlined how the threat of criminals using Internet of Things (IoT) devices to attack infrastructure has also revealed key markets to target with cyber cover.Australias mining and utilities sectors have become hugely dependent on supply chain automation to improve profitability and increase efficiencies, Fergus Brooks, Aons cyber risk practice leader said in response to the report.This includes use of IoT technologies, such as driverless trucks. Bad actors will be testing these systems, probing for vulnerabilities.This extends to Industrial Control Systems like SCADA, where there have already been incidents in the Ukraine affecting power stations, and an attack on apartment block cooling systems in the UK.The report also notes that data integrity attacks are set to rise while industries are set to embrace pre-M&A cyber security due diligence as part of planning processes.Australian government tenders will also start to ask how much cyber insurance respondents have, Brooks continued.Social engineering and spear-phishing, which targets individuals with phishing attacks, are expected to continue their development and become more advanced and targeted.This needs to be monitored by the Australian industry as Brooks notes that over 80% of cyber insurance claims in Australia have involved spear-phishing and social engineering, with ransomware the predominant approach.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

Cross Caspian Oil and Gas Logistics LLC has become a sponsor of the 4th International Caspian Energy Forum-2017 (www.caspianenergyforum.com) which will be held in Baku on April 12.

As General Director of Cross Caspian Oil and Gas Logistics LLC Dmitry Solovyev said, one of the main lines of economic development is a transport sector and its major component  transit corridors which will be discussed at Caspian Energy Forum  2017.

Lines of development of transit corridors have been reflected in the road maps on development of the transport sector, approved by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Advantageous geographic location, favorable investment climate, as well as accumulated logistics experience make it possible to consider a transport corridor across the Caspian Sea towards the Black Sea as a strategically important transit route for attraction of additional financial resources into the country, Dmitry Solovyev emphasized.

Cross Caspian, which is an active partner of Caspian European Club (Caspian Business Club) and has a vision of the single corridor of transportation of hydrocarbons to the Black Sea via the Caspian Sea, supports Caspian Energy Forum  2017 as a ground for development of the transport and transit potential.

Cross Caspian Oil and Gas Logistics LLC is a venture established jointly with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), coordinating and providing overall services on transportation of hydrocarbons to the Black Sea via the Caspian Sea, as well as into the system of the main export pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan by sea, pipeline and railway.

European Commissioners, heads of government agencies, ministries, committees and departments of Azerbaijan, Caspian-Black Sea and Baltic region states, representatives of diplomatic and international missions accredited in the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as heads of large international companies will attend Caspian Energy Forum  2017, First Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Caspian European Club (Caspian Business Club) and Caspian American Club Telman Aliyev said. In General, 500 delegates from 50 countries of the world will take part in the forum.

The forum will consist of three sessions. The first session will be dedicated to preliminary results of the ongoing economic reforms. The second session will cover the issues concerning the development of the oil-gas and energy sectors of the Caspian region states. The third session will be dedicated to projects, which are implemented in the non-oil sector (finance, transport, ICT, agroindustry and tourism), and their promotion towards the world markets.

Cross Caspian Oil and Gas Logistics LLC, PolyMart and R.I.S.K. Company are the sponsors of the 4th International Caspian Energy Forum-2017. Asia Express & OCS, DSV, Azpetrol Ltd and SINAM are the partners of the Forum.
Australias peak automotive industry body has called on insurers to follow the initiative of a Sydney-based insurer in urging repairers to use manufacturer-specified, genuine parts.Genuine parts are parts approved and warranted by the vehicles maker, having been tested as an integral component of the vehicle to meet global standards.The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) commended IAG on its initiative, saying the move is a step closer to ensuring that cars and roads are safer for Australian consumers, CarAdvice.com reported.The FCAI has been battling against the proliferation of non-genuine components, citing tests that show the inferiority of some. It also opposes the decision of some insurers to provide or encourage the use of aftermarket components.This move by IAG sends a strong signal to consumers and to the insurance and motoring industries. Today, we are a step closer to safer roads, safer cars, better repairs and the best in quality parts for Australian drivers, said Tony Weber, FCAI chief executive.IAG is the first insurer to commit to encouraging smash repairers to use genuine parts, which is a massive step forward for the safety of Australian consumers.The writing is on the wall for Australian insurers. The evidence shows non-genuine is a risk, and as an industry we applaud IAG for pursuing this change in policy. Every Australian insurer should do the same.
Scam artists are posing as builders and insurance assessors in the wake of the massive storm that tore through Sydney last month, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has warned.Insurers have received calls from policyholders who have been door-knocked by scammers demanding cash for clean-up, inspection and repair services, the council said.Rob Whelan, ICA CEO, said that raising awareness throughout the insurance community can help save policyholders from becoming scam- as well as storm victims.This racket is generally carried out by travelling conmen and woman who typically target elderly residents. They often claim to represent the insurance company and pressure the householder for money to inspect the roof, Whelan said.Whelan explained that other scammers would offer special repair deals, demanding cash up front, and leaving the job unfinished or poorly completed.These unauthorised works could also impact policyholders insurance as they may not be covered for such work.Brokers should advise clients that have been impacted by the recent storms to remain vigilant.If a client is approached by someone claiming to represent an insurer, contact the insurance company to check their identity.Never agree to repairs that you may wish to lodge an insurance claim for without first checking with your insurer, Whelan continued.So far, insured losses from the hailstorms have risen to $328 million with 50,192 claims lodged.
In a letter sent to Australias peak insurance industry group, a regional council has criticised companies for making large political donations.Councillor Mark Nolan of the Cassowary Coast Regional Council, said the high political donations made by insurance companies struck a raw nerve with homeowners who struggle to pay rising insurance premiums, The Cairns Post reported.Insurers have got enough cash to splash it around on political parties who are already loading their coffers up with GST and stamp duty, Nolan said. We are actually paying the price because we were unfortunate enough to have two major storms in the space of five years.The letter was drafted and endorsed unanimously to the Insurance Council of Australia s (ICA) monthly committee meeting held last week.In response, the industry body argued that those donations made by insurers to political parties are part of its support for the democratic process.With many residents premiums skyrocketing to $6,000 from $2,000, Nolan urged insurers to stop throwing cash around to political parties.I have seen a lot of affected residents and ratepayers  the distress and pain they went through was agonising, he told The Cairns Post. God help us if we get another visit from a tropical storm. It beggars belief and is pretty disgraceful that insurers can help out the political parties. It is just rubbing our noses in it and adding insult to injury.ICA will hold a public information session in July to address concerns on affordability of premiums for homes, contents, and business risk cover.
An Australian travel insurance assistance provider is looking to enter the Canadian market by the end of this year.Cover-More Group recently revealed that it is opening its business in Canada. The news comes after Zurich Insurance announced that it is acquiring several assets of the insurance partner, expanding Cover-Mores ability to secure underwriting for insurance products on a global scale.Cover-More is focused on partnering with carefully selected and targeted distributors/ technology licensing partners focused on delivering customer value and service. We are currently speaking to potential partners with a like-to-like strategy of bringing to light the true value of travel insurance and emergency assistance to the Canadian marketplace, Cover-More CEO of US & Canada, Global Direct Carole Tokody told Travelweek.ca.The companys entry into Canada is a part of Cover-Mores plan to establish itself as a global brand. Founded in Australia more than 30 years ago, Cover-More currently operates in Australia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.In the US, Cover-More offers the Travel Protection Plan  a product created in partnership with insurer Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection.On top of assisting consumers with their travel insurance needs, the company also has counselors on hand to provide therapy to those customers who have experienced traumatic events during their travels. Cover-More has partnered with mental health services company Davidson Trahaire Corpysch to tap into the latters counseling services.
It's critical to help clients make the most of the plans they have
Several major US insurers have been recognized as ethical stalwarts in an international ethics honor list.Among the honorees in a Worlds Most Ethical Company list are 11 American insurance companies  including The Hartford , which received the accolade for the ninth time, and Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., which was recognized for the sixth-straight year.The accolade, which is run by the Ethisphere Institute, honors companies who recognize their role in society to influence and drive positive change within an ethical framework.This was the eleventh year the honors list has been produced.The Hartfords chairman and chief executive Christopher Swift said the company was honored to be recognized again.At The Hartford, we recognize that a companys reputation for doing business the right way is essential to its sustained success, Swift said.The Hartford attributes its success in the annual list to a culture of integrity and honesty.Ethispheres chief executive officer Timothy Erblich said Swift and his staff demonstrated a culture of the highest ethical standard, offering customers, employees and investors an exceptional brand that stands for honesty and integrity.The Institute has witnessed companies changing the way they meet ethical expectations in the 11 years the honors list has been running, Erblich said.We have seen the shift in societal expectations, constant redefinition of laws and regulations and the geo-political climate. We have also seen how companies honored as the Worlds Most Ethical respond to these challenges, he said.They invest in their local communities around the world, embrace strategies of diversity and inclusion, and focus on long term-ism as a sustainable business advantage.J. Patrick Gallagher, Jr., chairman, president and chief executive at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., said the company was deeply honored to have once again been recognized.Our company is highly focused on operating with integrity and adhering to the highest standards of moral and ethical behavior, he said.This designation is a true testimony to the integrity, professionalism and client-service focus of our global team, and to the strength of our companys culture and core values.Companies are marked in five categories towards their overall Worlds Most Ethical Company grade  in ethics and compliance; corporate citizenship and responsibility; culture of ethics; governance; and leadership, innovation and reputation.Other insurance companies honored were: Aflac, Allstate , Blue Shield of California, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Health Care Service Corporation, Knights of Columbus, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, USAA, and Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance.
MMG Insurance Company, a regional property and casualty insurance company headquartered in Presque Isle, Maine, has promoted Steve Morgan to casualty claims manager, effective March 8, 2017.

Morgan joined MMG in 2014 as the departments assistant manager. With a diverse and extensive claims background that spans more than 30 years, Morgan has held various claims positions over his career including bodily injury adjuster, total loss specialist, property adjuster, theft specialist, field claims examiner and auto physical damage supervisor.

Morgan holds a bachelors degree with a major in english and a minor in political science from the University of Southern Maine. He also holds an associates degree in communications from Graham Junior College.

MMG Insurance Company has operations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania and Virginia. With roots dating back to 1897, the company today writes in excess of $185 million in premiums in partnership with more than 190 independent agencies across 460 locations.

Source: MMG Insurance Company

Topics Carriers Claims Maine Casualty
A hotel manager stands accused of stealing more than $1 million from his boss, including draining a $600,000 insurance annuity belonging to the victim.

State authorities say Vikas Mehta was recently indicted on charges of identity theft, money laundering, theft by unlawful taking and forgery. The 43-year-old Cliffside Park man faces several decades in prison if hes convicted on all counts.

Mehta allegedly stole four checks from his employer and allegedly used some of the stolen proceeds to buy property in Englewood Cliffs that he later sold at a profit. He also allegedly transferred money to various accounts belonging primarily to him and his corporation.

A telephone number for Mehta could not be located Sunday and it wasnt known if hes retained an attorney.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics New Jersey
Ohio Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor has issued a reminder to Ohio farmers that the deadline to purchase or modify certain insurance coverage for spring-planted crops is March 15.

Farmers should contact an agent if they have not already addressed their crop insurance needs, said Taylor, also director of the Ohio Department of Insurance. Crop insurance can be an important piece of a risk management strategy.

Federally-subsidized, multiple-peril crop insurance covers certain weather, pest and revenue related losses. This coverage is dependent on crop establishment and reporting dates determined by the U.S. Department of Agricultures Risk Management Agency (RMA) that farmers must meet.

The dates vary by crop and county and are listed at www.rma.usda.gov.

State-regulated policies such as for damage caused by hail and fire are also available. Many of them have crop establishment and reporting requirements as well.

Source: Ohio Department of Insurance

Topics Agribusiness Ohio
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Mar. 14

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

Uzbek and Kyrgyz foreign ministries held political consultations in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on March 13-14, press service of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry reported.

Kyrgyzstans delegation was headed by the first deputy minister of foreign affairs, Dinara Kemelova.

Officials of the foreign ministries confirmed their interest in progressive development of cooperation in all spheres.

The sides exchanged views on political, economic, transport, cultural and other issues of the bilateral agenda, as well as international and regional issues.

They also confirmed their interest in further deepening and expanding cooperation between border regions of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
XL Catlin has promoted Angie Strack to senior vice president and underwriting manager for its Global Risk Management divisions North Central Region.

Strack will manage and develop XL Catlins U.S. risk management business, customizing casualty programs, including workers compensation, general liability, and commercial auto insurance coverages, for clients throughout the U.S. north central region, including the greater Chicago-area and upper Midwest.

Strack joined XL Catlin in 2011 bringing more than 17 years of underwriting and broker management experience, including a decade of casualty underwriting tenure with Zurich.

Source: XL Catlin

Topics AXA XL
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE announced a change in its global cyber leadership team. Emy R. Donavan is being promoted to global head of Cyber, reporting to Bernard Poncin, global head of Financial Lines at AGCS.

Donavan, who is currently regional head of Cyber for AGCS North America, will succeed Nigel Pearson, who the insurer said has left AGCS to pursue other opportunities. Donavan will oversee cyber insurance for both commercial companies and financial institutions as well as IT Tech Professional Indemnity insurance.

Donavan will be based in San Francisco.

With Donavan becoming global head of Cyber, her regional role will not be replaced. Jenny Soubra and Terri Mason who have country responsibility for cyber and IT Tech PI products for the United States and Canada respectively will maintain their current focus.

Donavans experience includes more than a decade of cyber, technology and specialty errors and omissions underwriting. Before joining AGCS as North American cyber practice leader in December 2015, she served as vice president of Underwriting at AXIS Pro focusing on cyber and technology placements. Donavan has also held prior roles in the specified professions and technology division at Zurich North America. She began her insurance career as an underwriter for ACE Group.

Topics Cyber Tech Allianz
Floods a year ago took everything from Vivian, La., resident Gwen Smith.

I lost my home completely, she said.

Before the flood hit on March 9, 2016, Smith had lived most of her adult life in the mobile home. For two weeks, she lived with a close friend. Then, for two months, she lived on a houseboat loaned to her by a neighbor.

Finally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, granted her a brand new home.

In early March, standing between her new white double-wide trailer and the houseboat where she watched the waters recede during months filled with anxiety and trepidation, Smith said shes blessed. She even chose to get baptized in the same water that sourced the floods.

Im glad everything is the way it is now. I hope I never have to see another flood, but Im in a lot better place now, Smith said. Its brought me closer to God.

Others havent been so lucky.

Times interviews, particularly with those from low-income areas or who didnt have flood insurance, showed many are still reeling from the March 2016 floods repercussions almost a year later.

Brittany Herring and her husband James Moore, who live with their four young children in Oil City, helped dozens of people when Ferry Lake School Road flooded.

Herring said many in her area have still not recovered from the floods or have not been reimbursed by FEMA.

Its made me think of how you can lose everything in the blink of an eye, Herring said. These people are older, people who have worked their whole lives, and they go from having everything to having nothing.

Herring said she is starting a GoFundMe account for former Shreveport city employee David Rogers and his wife because black mold has made their former home uninhabitable. The couple has been living in a camper since the floods, Herring said.

Rogers, a retired mechanic, said FEMA reimbursed $14,000  nowhere near enough.

He said he and his wife are living in the camper out of necessity.

We dont have near the amenities we had, and half the things dont work, Rogers said. But we live on fixed income, and we dont have the money to move.

Rogers said he also cant afford flood insurance because rates have risen since the March floods. He said the community came together to a point during the floods but that hes largely been left on his own.

Asked how he found the strength to face his current situation, Rogers shrugged.

You only have one of two choices, he said. You either lay down and die or keep kicking.

Family portraits of her two smiling children and quotes about family and faith line the walls in the mobile home where Lori Hightower Grogan and her young daughter live in Pecan Valley Estates, in Bossier City.

Im living with black mold and sinkholes. Im still fighting with FEMA, Grogan said. A year later, and Im still in the same place and looking for another place to live.

But the floods also swept away the sense of security Grogan had tried to build for herself and her daughter.

I had been in an abusive relationship. I had bought us a house no one could take away, and a year later, the flood took it from us, she said.

Grogan said shes tried to kill the black mold pockmarking the crevices and walls of the mobile home and coming into the trailer through her vents, to no avail.

This stuff doesnt want to die, she said, gesturing at a foot-long stain.

Grogan said FEMA did provide some funds for damage. But she estimated she lost at least $8,000 in damages that FEMA didnt cover and her health suffered from living with the black mold.

She didnt want to leave the mobile home during the floods  she said she was one of the last in the mobile home park to evacuate  but now she is desperate to find a safe place to live.

Demetrius Christaw, also a resident of Pecan Valley Estates, said he and his family are still repairing flood damage.

Christaw said the family spent hundreds of dollars and at least six months of work to replace their air conditioner, battle encroaching black mold and redo insulation and carpet.

Christaw said being together in the struggle against the floods repercussions has given him and his family the strength to get through the situation and a new appreciation for the present moment.

Its a strong family tie. In a time like this, everyone comes together, Christaw.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Louisiana Flood
The Texas tour bus hit by a freight train in a deadly crash in Mississippi wasnt supposed to have taken the road where it got stuck at a rail crossing earlier this week, a federal official said Thursday.

National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said the driver may have followed a GPS set for commercial vehicle use rather than directions from the tour company, WLOX-TV reported.

Speaking at a news conference, Sumwalt also said two other buses apparently followed the route provided by Florida-based Diamond Tours to the casino where they were headed in Biloxi, Miss.

Four Texas tourists on the bus outing were killed and dozens injured.

In Texas, survivors and family members of the dead began filing lawsuits as more details emerged of Tuesdays crash, in which the CSX freight train slammed into the bus at a humped rail crossing on Biloxis Main Street.

The NTSB official Sumwalt said a forward-facing camera on the train took clear color photos of the bus leading up to and immediately after the crash, The Sun Herald reported.

Sumwalt didnt give details of what the pictures showed and said investigators havent yet interviewed the driver. He said the investigation is continuing and a team will be traveling to Dallas to meet with bus owner Echo Transportation, and to Florida to meet with Diamond Tours.

A survivor said Thursday that after bus became lodged on the crossing, the bus driver yelled for all the passengers to get off shortly before the train hit. The female passenger was seated right behind the driver.

He told us to get off, and he was trying to see that everybody got off, said Justine Nygren, speaking by phone with The Associated Press after returning to her Texas home. He stuck with the bus, I know that. He didnt get off when we did.

Nygren said she left through the front door of the bus and walked a short distance alongside the tracks, not looking back. As she did, the train struck the bus and pushed it past her, she said.

Another bus returned her and seven other uninjured survivors Wednesday night to Bastrop, Texas, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The weeklong trip was organized by a senior citizens center in Bastrop, about 30 miles east of Austin.

Among the lawsuits, Mitch Toups of Beaumont, Texas, sued CSX and Echo on Thursday in a Dallas County court on behalf of survivors Darwyn and Marie Hanna. Both were injured, according to the lawsuit. It doesnt describe the injuries but said they probably will endure physical pain, suffering, and mental anguish for  the rest of their life.

Attorney Mikal Watts said he filed suit Wednesday against the railroad, the bus company and its unidentified driver in state court in Dallas for Peggy Hoffmans son. His lawsuit, like Toups, requests at least $1 million in damages.

The two others killed were identified as Clinton Havran, 79, of Sealy, Texas, and Deborah Orr, 62, of Bastrop, Texas.

Sumwalt had said earlier that the crossing on Biloxis Main Street has a hump that has caused tractor-trailers to bottom out, and the federal agency is looking into whether the steep grade played a role in Tuesdays crash.

A soft drink delivery truck and a tractor-trailer also were hit by trains after getting lodged at the same crossing in January of this year and August 2014, respectively.

Watts lawsuit said CSX Transportation allowed ultra hazardous conditions at the crossing, and that the Echo Transportation driver failed to follow traffic signs.

The crossing has a warning sign about low clearance, topped by a graphic of a tractor-trailer stuck on a railroad track.

CSX was responsible, Watts said. Instead of fixing it they put up a sign warning that vehicles could get caught. The bus driver either didnt see the sign or, if he did, went over anyway, resulting in the deaths of four good people and injuries to 25 or 30 others.

CSX spokeswoman Laura Phelps and Echo spokesman John Ferrari said in separate emails that their companies dont comment on pending litigation.

Phelps said Wednesday that the railroad can only work four to five feet out from its tracks on a public road, so creating a more gradual slope would be up to the city.

The crossing has had at least 17 accidents involving vehicles and trains since 1976, though 11 involved moving cars or trucks  including one in which an automobile hit the 38th car of a train that had stopped on the crossing.

Two other wrecks involved cars which were stalled or stuck on tracks; neither report had any clarifying details.

___

McConnaughey reported from New Orleans.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Texas Mississippi
A self-driving car company founded by Google is presenting new evidence to support allegations that a former manager stole technology sold to Uber to help the ridesharing service build its own robot-powered vehicles.

Waymo, a project hatched by Google eight years ago, wove its tale of deceit in sworn statements filed Friday in a San Francisco federal court.

The documents try to make a case that former Waymo manager Anthony Levandowski conceived a scheme to heist key trade secrets before leaving the company early last year to launch an autonomous vehicle startup that he had been discussing with Uber.

Its the latest salvo in a battle that started last month when Waymo sued Levandowski and Uber for alleged theft of the technology for LiDAR, an array of sensors that enable self-driving cars to see whats around them so they can safely navigate roads. Experts say an effective LiDAR system typically takes years to develop.

After leaving Waymo, Levandowski started a self-driving truck company called Otto that Uber bought for $680 million to accelerate an expansion into autonomous vehicles.

Uber brushed off Waymos claims as a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor.

Waymo is mounting its attack with the help of one of Levandowskis former colleagues, Pierre-Yves Droz, the leader of Waymos LiDAR project.

In a sworn statement, Droz said Levandowski confided in January 2016 that he planned to replicate Waymos technology at Otto. A Google forensics expert said he determined that Levandowski began downloading thousands of files containing Waymos trade secrets in December 2015, according to another sworn statement.

Levandowski had previously acknowledged to Droz that he began discussing self-driving cars with Uber in 2015, according to the documents. Levandowski, told me that it would be nice to create a new self-driving car startup and that Uber would be interested in buying the team responsible for the LiDAR we were developing at Google, Droz said in his declaration.

Then, again in January 2016, Levandowski said that he had been at Ubers San Francisco headquarters seeking an investment in his startup, Droz said.

Waymo also filed papers seeking a court order to block Uber from using any of the technology that it believes Levandowski stole.

If a judge grants that request, it could force Uber to halt its current tests of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and Phoenix. Its unclear how much of the technology targeted in Waymos lawsuit is being used in the Uber self-driving cars that are currently picking up passengers in those cities.

Levandowski wasnt alone in his alleged betrayal, according to Waymo.

Other sworn statements filed Friday identified two other former Waymo employees accused of stealing technology in July 2016 shortly before they joined Uber. They are: Sameer Kshirsagar, Waymos former global supply manager, and Radu Radutu, an engineer in Waymos LiDAR department.

The dispute between Waymo and Uber highlights the high stakes in the race to build self-driving cars that promise not only to revolutionize the way people get around but also the automobile industry. Waymo and Uber are two of the early leaders, while long-established car companies such as Ford, Toyota and General Motors are scrambling to catch up.

Waymo now operates as a subsidiary of Googles corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Auto Tech Google
Hub California has named John Martin Ryan employee benefits market leader for Northern California.

Ryan is responsible for managing and overseeing Northern California employee benefit producers, recruiting employee benefits producers and leading client servicing teams. He will be based in HUBs San Francisco office.

Ryan most recently was senior director of employee benefits consulting for NFP. He owned his own benefits consulting firm, Bay Benefits, prior to NFP.

Chicago, Ill.-based Hub International Ltd. provides property/casualty, life and health, employee benefits, investment and risk management products and services.

Topics California Leadership
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: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) AI Driven Financial Technology Patent Application Received a Notice of Publication

San Diego, CA - November 3, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) received a notice of publication for its financial software patent application.

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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.

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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.

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A Pakistani delegation is planning to visit Iran to discuss issues related to the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) for the much awaited Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project, Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

Pakistan delegation is planning to visit Iran for which approval of the competent authority has been sought, official sources told APP.

They said the project had come under discussion during the Iranian

Presidents visit to Pakistan last year and it was agreed by the both sides to discuss the Project in the wake of lifting of international sanctions on Iran.

It was decided to resolve all outstanding issues, including amendment in the GSPA to incorporate workable implementation schedule, they said.

The government, the sources said, was actively pursuing to start practical work on the IP gas pipeline project at the earliest.

The work on IP project could not be initiated due to international sanctions on Iran, however, Pakistan was ready to complete the gas pipeline within 30 months in its part once the sanctions on Iran were lifted.

The sources said the government had allocated Rs 25 billion in the current fiscal year for the development of gas infrastructure across the country including the IP project.

They said Pakistan was keen in early implementation of the project and it had requested Iran for amendment in the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) to complete the gas pipeline in an extended period.

Sharing details of the project, they said the Inter-Governmental Framework Declaration was signed between the two countries on May 24, 2009, while GSPA was reached on June 2009.

Subsequently, Pakistan issued sovereign guarantee on May 28, 2010. Project consultant was appointed on April 11, 2011, while the design, feasibility, route survey and other formalities of the project were completed on September 8, 2012.

The 56-inch diameter pipeline will initiate from South Pars gas field Iran and end at Nawabshah covering a distance of around 1,931 kilometer with 1,150 km portion in Iran and 781 km in Pakistan.

The implementation is to be done on the basis of a segmented approach whereby each country will be responsible for construction of pipeline in the respective territory.

Around 750 mmcfd gas flow in the pipeline is projected to help generate around 4,000 MW electricity also, along with creating job opportunities in backward areas of Balochistan and Sindh.
Almost two years after a surge in violence in Myanmars restive Kokang region prompted 50,000 locals to flee across the border into China, and led the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) to fire shells into Chinas Yunnan province, a fresh resurgence in violence has prompted over 20,000 locals from Laukkai, the capital of Kokang, to flee into China, with a separate group of over 2,000 internally displaced refugees arriving in Mandalay after fleeing to the neighboring town of Lashio. There have also been reports of Myanmar troops firing shells across the border into China, causing at least one Chinese fatality (Lim, 2015; Nan, 2017; Qiao, 2017; Kan and Wai, 2017).

The current violence was close enough to the border for Chinese residents across the border in Yunnan to hear heavy gunfire, feel tremors during the night and  see bright flames (Wang, 2017). These residents have also worked with their local government officials to deliver humanitarian aid to the Myanmar refugees:

Tens of thousands of Myanmar refugees have been placed in several open squares in the town of Nansan, and the local government has set up refugee camps to accommodate them ... Some local residents who had vacant houses provided them with temporary accommodation. In addition, several local volunteer organisations and a Chinese insurance company also provided free food to refugees for several days, including instant noodles, rice pudding and mineral water (Wang, 2017).

The concern from the Yunnan locals for the refugees from Kokang partly stems from their being co-ethnic peoples. Historically, the Kokang people are descendants of Han Chinese Ming dynasty loyalists who arrived from China in the 17th century to escape from Qing rule, and later, Kuomintang fighters and party members who settled in Burma after the 1949 Communist revolution in China. In addition, the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Kokang ethnic militia that is involved in the current violence as well as the violence in 2015, was itself once part of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), a communist insurgent group that had been sponsored by the Communist Party of China. As a result, many Myanmar locals  regard the ethnic Kokang as outlaws supported by China, and  support the Tatmadaws fight against the MNDAA (Lim, 2015).

Officially, the Chinese government sees the Kokang crisis as one meriting its humanitarian concern, and has recommended that the parties involved  resolve their differences in a peaceful manner through dialogue and deliberation (Wai and Ives, 2017). In terms of bilateral trade, trade passing through the Chin Shwe Haw border trade camp has suffered a decline due to military movements and tensions following the attack on Laukkai. In the past year, Myanmar earned US$454.8 million from its exports at Chin Shwe Haw and the import volume was US$48.5 million. For China, the violence at Laukkai underscores the political risks of its economic engagement with Myanmar. This is especially important since the Chin Shwe Haw border crossing is a key node in the Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor initiative which Beijing supports (China moving fast, 2016; Laukkai clashes, 2017).

As with the 2015 violence, the 2017 resurgence in violence was connected to infighting within the Kokang leadership. In 2009, the Tatmadaw sponsored a mutiny with the MNDAA, leading to the ouster of its leader Peng Jiasheng. The violence at the time led 37,000 refugees from Kokang to flee into Yunnan, a precursor to the events in 2015 and 2017. The violence in 2015 was prompted by Pengs attempt to retake Kokang with the help of loyalists within the MNDAA. In the 2017 violence, the MNDAA attacked police and army posts, as well as a hotel and casinos in Laukkai which observers note were controlled by rivals in the Kokang community who are loyal to the Myanmar government. At least 36 people were killed in the attacks (Lim 2015; Wang, 2017; Clashes empty, 2017).

As with the 2015 violence, the MNDAA was reportedly supported in the 2017 attack by its fellows in the Northern Alliance of ethnic rebel militias, which includes the MNDAA, the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Arakan Army (AA), and elements of the Kachin Independence Army. Notably, just a week before the attack on Laukkai, the Tatmadaw reasserted its refusal to hold peace talks with the MNDAA, TNLA, and AA, on the grounds that they came to existence only after emergence of a democratic government, in contrast to other long-established ethnic armed groups. A different explanation is that the MNDAA, TNLA, and AA had failed to sign bilateral ceasefires with the government between 2011-13, when the Thein Sein government had launched the national peace process (Htet, 2017; International Crisis Group, 2016). While the 2017 Laukkai attack was agreed upon by the Northern Alliance in retaliation for a recent government attack on the Moi Taik region, in broader context it shows the potential for these groups to sabotage the national peace process between the government and Myanmars ethnic rebel militias (Moe, 2017; Nan, 2017; Weng, 2017; Wai and Ives, 2017; International Crisis Group, 2015). The Tatmadaw has offered the Northern Alliance militias the opportunity to participate in the peace process on condition that they immediately disarm, however Solomon (2017) notes that their leadership is disinclined to do so, as they have experienced previous cease-fires with the Myanmar army that later disintegrated.

The resurgent conflict in Kokang is one of the issues in Sino-Myanmar relations that the current government led by Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy has inherited from the previous military-backed government of retired general Thein Sein. The NLD-led government, elected in the November 2015 general elections, is presently deciding on the Chinese request to lift the suspension  imposed by Thein Sein in 2011  of the construction of the controversial Myitsone Dam, as well as a proposal for a high-speed rail line connecting Thailand with Yunnan through Myanmar (Lim, 2015; Lim, 2016; Khin, 2016). The ongoing border crisis will further complicate these discussions.

References

China moving fast on economic corridor with Bangladesh and India. (2016, July 4). Eleven Media. Retrieved from http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/business/5323

Clashes empty Laukkai as death toll rises to 36. (2017, March 8). AFP. Retrieved from http://frontiermyanmar.net/en/clashes-empty-laukkai-as-death-toll-rises-to-36

Htet, N. Z. (2017, March 1). Military chief of staff: Army not open to talks with AA, MNDAA or TNLA. The Irrawaddy. Retrieved from https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/military-chief-staff-army-not-open-talks-aa-mndaa-tnla.html

International Crisis Group. (2015, September 16). Myanmars Peace Process: A Nationwide Ceasefire Remains Elusive. Retrieved from https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/myanmar-s-peace-process-nationwide-ceasefire-remains-elusive

International Crisis Group. (2016, October 19). Myanmars Peace Process: Getting to a Political Dialogue. Retrieved from https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/myanmar-s-peace-process-getting-political-dialogue

Kan, T., and Wai, M. T. (2017, March 8). 20,000 Refugees flee Myanmars Kokang conflict across the border into China. RFA. Retrieved from http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/20000-refugees-flee-myanmars-kokang-conflict-across-the-border-into-china-03082017142216.html

Khin, S. W. (2016, December 5). China eyes high speed railway as part of One Belt, One Road strategy. Myanmar Times. Retrieved from http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/24040-china-eyes-high-speed-railway-as-part-of-one-belt-one-road-strategy.html

Laukkai clashes hit border trade. (2017, March 12). Eleven Media. Retrieved from http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/business/8262

Lim, A. C. H. (2015, April 14). The March 2015 bombings of Yunnan and the decline in Sino-Myanmar relations. The Asia-Pacific Journal, 13(14). Retrieved from http://apjjf.org/2015/13/13/Alvin-Cheng-Hin-Lim/4305.html

Lim, A. C. H. (2016, March 23). Myanmars new leadership and prospects for Sino-Myanmar relations. Eurasia Review. Retrieved from http://www.eurasiareview.com/23032016-myanmars-new-leadership-and-prospects-for-sino-myanmar-relations-analysis/

Moe, Z. (2017, March 6). Deadly clashes hit Kokang region in Myanmars northern Shan State. VOA. Retrieved from http://www.voanews.com/a/deadly-clashes-hit-kokang-region-in-myanmars-northern-shan-state/3752613.html

Nan, L. H. P. (2017, March 10). Thousands flee Laukkai clashes. The Irrawaddy. Retrieved from https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/thousands-flee-laukkai-clashes.html

Qiao, L. (2017, March 10). Chinese man dies in cross-border shelling by Myanmar government troops. RFA. Retrieved from http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinese-man-dies-in-cross-border-shelling-by-myanmar-government-troops-03102017113201.html

Solomon, F. (2017, March 9). This will be the worst war: Fears of mass displacement as thousands flee conflict in Myanmars northeast. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4694841/myanmar-kokang-conflict-refugees-displaced/

Wai, M., and Ives, M. (2017, March 7). Attacks by rebels in Myanmar leave dozens dead. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/asia/myanmar-kokang-rebels-burma-china.html

Wang, Y. (2017, March 10). Deadly clashes in Kokang affects people from both Myanmar and China. Mizzima. Retrieved from http://www.mizzima.com/news-domestic/deadly-clashes-kokang-affects-people-both-myanmar-and-china

Weng, L. (2017, March 6). Kokang rebels reportedly attack Laukkai hotel. The Irrawaddy. Retrieved from https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/kokang-rebels-reportedly-attack-laukkai-hotel.html
Gardai have seized controlled drugs and a firearm, and arrested two men following a planned operation this morning in Pelletstown, Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath.

Gardai from the special crime task force, in collaboration with specialised units from the Dublin region, armed support unit and Gardai from the Meath division carried out an intelligence-led operation targeting organised crime.

During the course of a search, controlled drugs including heroin and crack cocaine with an estimated street value 60,000 were recovered along with approximately 50,000 in cash. A sub machine gun was also recovered.

Two men aged 35 and 23 have been arrested and are currently detained at Blanchardstown and Finglas Garda stations under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996.

The location of this find is currently preserved and further searches will be carried out in the morning.
Update 4.30pm: Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy has welcomed reports that Fianna Fail are set to publish their proposals for a united Ireland over the coming weeks.

Matt Carthy, who is the chair of Sinn Feins United Ireland project, said: I welcome reports attributed to Micheal Martin that his party is set to publish their proposals for delivering a united Ireland.
A US-based nun has revealed how she was sold by the Bessborough mother-and -baby home to an American family in an organised adoption in 1954 and how she was reunited with her birth mother over 50 years later.

In an exclusive interview with the Irish Post, Sr Brigid OMahony, who now lives with the Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus in New York, says she was "bought" from the Sisters at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in 1954 by a Texan family when an Irish priest arranged for them to adopt her from Ireland.

As soon as I could think, my American parents told me I was from Ireland, from a work home," she told the London-based Irish Post.

They explained to me that babies were sold to American parents and that I was lucky enough to be sold to them as many of the children in these homes never got out,

I was adopted first, I came over just before I was two years old, and then went back to Bessborough and got my brother Gerard who was five at the time.

In the interview with reporter, Erica Doyle Higgins, Sr Brigid speaks about how she never looked for her Irish mother because unmarried women "normally hid it from families" if they fell pregnant out of wedlock, and didnt want to "wreck her life" by finding her.

But this was soon to change.

In 2011, a letter came to my house from another child who had been in Bessborough, and she told me the law had changed, and she found her mother, and asked if I wanted to find mine.

She said the lady passed Sr Brigids information onto the HSE who sent a box containing items from Bessborough, but she said any significant details were scratched out but did indicate that her birth mother was from Tipperary.

Every single marker for how you would identify your family was redacted. The nuns had given the information, but all names, addresses, phone numbers, everything had been blacked out.

Except there was this one letter in the box from my mother that she had written with one of my biological sisters to the Sisters in 2002, looking for me.

When I saw the letter, I said oh my God, this woman is looking for me. I need to respond.

Sr Brigid said in the interview that she wrote a letter to the Tipperary Star newspaper and was contacted by a relative of her mother.

She learned that her mother, who has since moved to Limerick, was admitted to Bessborough at the age of 19, where she stayed for two years.

She was discharged from the home as soon as her child was sent to America.

Her memory of Bessborough is that it was an intense amount of work, she said.

They worked those girls to death including, when it was time to cut the grass outside, they would go outside in any weather on their hands and knees and pull the grass by hand for hours, do laundry and wash windows three or four stories high.

Anyone of those girls could have fallen out, and there was no protection or safety. They worked them constantly.

In the interview, Sr Brigid described the ordeal her mother went through when it came time for her to give birth. She said that her mother was laid down in a tub by the nuns and was left on her own.

She said she screamed and screamed for hours as she was in so much pain and no one helped her. Finally, I plopped out.

I just thought, dear God in Heaven, what are they thinking? I cant imagine what she went through  and she doesnt have one iota of resentment.

I was concerned that would be traumatising for her, to have been treated the way she has being treated, and to have had her child stolen by nuns and to find out her child was a nun.

I said Ill come incognito; I wont wear my habit, I will not put her through that.

In 2012 she arrived at Shannon Airport to be greeted by her mother and 13 brothers and sisters.

She described the meeting as a warm and loving one.

I looked at her and said, Im looking at myself," she said.

I was frightened but she said its like you went away for a little while and now youre back, she picked up our relationship from the moment I left all those years ago.

The family was so warm and accepting and loving, she said, in their minds, I was coming home, in my mind I was visiting.

When asked about what she thought of the home and the people who ran it at the time she said it was "horrifying."

If you come at this as just a human being, its horrifying. Its absolutely horrifying," she said.

What they did to the young girls, and what they did to the babies and children, its inhumane and there are no words for how human beings could treat each other this way.

That intensifies when you think these were nuns. It renders me speechless that anyone could treat people that way, and anyone who supposedly represents God. Its mystifying.

This story first appeared in the Irish Post who have kindly agreed to share the story with us
An events promoter, who is applying for insolvency, has been again warned he could face jail over a 250,000 debt to comedian Mario Rosenstock, writes Tom Tuite.

Dublin District Court has heard that concert and events promoter Darryl Downey owed the money to Blue Elf Inc Ltd, a company owned by mimic Rosenstock. He has been unable to keep up with a repayments schedule and now plans to make an insolvency application, the court was told today.

Rosenstocks firm is looking to have Downey jailed as a result of the arrears and a judge had warned the promoter earlier that he has a draft warrant for arrest and committal on file.

Today Judge Michael Coghlan told him that he has a duty to enforce the matter until an insolvency order is made and a full statement of his means had to be furnished to the court.

Downeys counsel Tessa White said he has been applying for full-time jobs and currently has a part-time position earning 250 a week.

Darryl Downey, concert promoter leaving court today after the hearing. Photo: COURTPIX

Counsel for Blue Elf Ltd, Jane Linnane, pointed out that Downey, who is now residing rent-free at an address in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, had just looked for work in the entertainment industry. Ms White said her client did not have significant experience in other sectors and she added that he is making efforts to address his debt.

Judge Coghlan agreed to vary the instalment order reducing it to 100 a week. He adjourned the case until a date in June and reminded Downey that this was the third time the order had been changed and the position in relation to incarceration stays the same.

He was concerned that money had been taken from a company controlled by Downey and used to pay other creditors. It would be treated as a contempt of court if it happened again, the judge also said.

Meanwhile separate proceedings at the district court arising from a debt of 52,000 to another claimant were also adjourned today.

Comedian Mr Rosenstock, who rose to fame with his Gift Grub sketches on TodayFM and now has a successful show on RTE, was not present when the case resumed on Tuesday.

At a previous hearing, Judge Coghlan said Downey was a failed promoter and ordered him to get a job, any job which pays a normal weekly wage. He had also warned that he would run out of patience if he hears Downey is continuing to hope for the next big deal.

The debt with Blue Elf Inc Ltd is the subject of a High Court judgement and in January last year the district court had granted a variation on an instalment order reducing the monthly repayment from 5,000 to 1,500.

Counsel for Blue Elf Inc Ltd had said that between January 2016 until the hearing in December there had just been a total of 5,400 paid by Downey to her client.

Since September just 900 was paid while during the same period Downey made payments to another creditor who was not the subject of a judgement.

Counsel has submitted this money should have gone to her client. She also said that he has increased his living expenses and that money should have also been used to pay the debt to Blue Elf Inc Ltd.

She said Blue Elf Inc Ltd and the court's orders have been continuously ignored and she said it was in those circumstances that a committal warrant was being sought.

She has also said that in September Downey went to America and spent about 11,000.

Downey said he cannot afford to pay any more. The court heard he had been a self-employed concert and events promoter since 2003.

He said the case related to a number of live shows going back to 2012 as a result of which about 750,000 was owed to Blue Elf Inc Ltd. Some 500,000 was paid over. He said he does not presently have the funds to pay the rest.

His company Jarash Ltd has about 28,000 but his counsel explained those funds were needed to get shows off the ground.

Mr Downey has also claimed that he was led to believe by his accountant that he was due to receive a 200,000 VAT refund but that did not materialise. He said that since the instalment order was made he has had to borrow 4,000 from his mother.

He said that the role he had has stopped because of the cancellation of the 2015 Killarney Festival of Music and Food.

His counsel had told the court that Downey brought great success for people who went on to become household names but he was perhaps unaware of the pecking order in relation to his debts.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has won Parliament's approval to begin talks on a divorce deal for the UK leaving the EU.

After weeks of bitter wrangling in both Houses, the British Government comfortably fought off two Liberal Democrat bids to again amend the Brexit Bill in the Lords.

In a day of drama, the Commons voted to reject two changes made by peers to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which gives the Prime Minister the power to trigger the two-year Brexit talks.

MPs voted against a proposal to unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in the UK within three months, by 335 votes to 287, majority 48.

They then voted against an amendment designed to give Parliament a "meaningful" vote on the final deal, by 331 votes to 286, majority 45.

Later in the Lords, with Brexit Secretary David Davis watching from the bar of the House, a Liberal Democrat move to reinsert the amendment on the rights of EU nationals living in the UK was rejected by 274 votes to 135, Government majority 139.

Peers then voted 274 to 118, Government majority 156, against a move to insist on a "meaningful" vote on the final deal.

It took peers just two hours to decide not to defy the will of the elected Commons and allow the Bill to pass unamended before becoming law.

The votes came after Brexit minister Lord Bridges of Headley warned that now was not the time to "return to the fray" by inserting "terms and conditions" in the legislation.

In angry scenes, Labour's spokeswoman Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town attacked the Lib Dems for not being responsible and "falsely raising" people's hopes on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK.

She said the Lords' view on the issue had been rejected by the elected Commons and it was clear the Government wasn't for turning.

But Liberal Democrat Lord Oates said the Government had failed to make concessions over the position of EU nationals living in the UK and called on peers to insist on changes.

Tory former Cabinet minister Viscount Hailsham, who had previously rebelled against the Government over holding a "meaningful" final vote, conceded: "We have asked the Commons to think again, they have thought again, they have not taken our advice, and our role now I believe is not to insist."

Independent crossbencher Lord Pannick, who represented lead claimant Gina Miller in the successful Article 50 legal challenge and moved the original amendment on holding a "meaningful" final vote, said he regretted the Commons had not taken the advice of the Lords.

But he said it was time for the Lords to "give way on this matter" and dismissed the Lib Dem move to force another vote as a "completely pointless gesture".
The EU's top court has ruled employers can stop workers from wearing religious symbols.

It is after security company G4S sacked a woman in Belgium who refused to take off an Islamic headscarf.

Judges ruled it did not constitute direct discrimination, but Mark Stone says it is not the end of the matter.

"What the European Court of Justice has done is battered it back to the national courts, they say it is up to the Belgian courts to decide whether it was proportionate to actually dismiss the woman on the grounds of indirect discrimination."
Several states seeking to block President Donald Trump's revised travel ban moved forward with court action on Monday just days before it is due to come into force.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, joined in his lawsuit by Democratic California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon, asked for a hearing with a federal judge in Seattle before Thursday when the administration plans to implement the ban on new visas for people from six predominantly Muslim nations.

A hearing in a separate lawsuit by Hawaii has been scheduled for Wednesday.

Mr Ferguson said the revised ban is still unconstitutional and harms residents, universities and businesses, especially tech companies such as Washington state-based Microsoft and Amazon who rely on foreign workers.

"No one is above the law, not even the president - and I will hold him accountable to the Constitution," Mr Ferguson said in a statement.

"Cutting some illegal aspects of President Trump's original travel ban does not cure his affront to our Constitution."

Mr Ferguson filed new court documents after the judge who put Mr Trump's original order on hold said last week he would not immediately rule on whether his decision applies to the new version.

Bob Ferguson.

US District Judge James Robart told the federal government to quickly respond to Mr Ferguson's claims but said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the most populous US state was joining Washington state's challenge, saying the order, despite its changes, is an attack on people based on their religion or national origin.

In Hawaii, which is alone in its lawsuit, the US government asked a federal court on Monday to deny the state's request to temporarily block the ban from going into effect.

A judge will hear arguments on Wednesday, with the heavily Democratic state claiming the new order will harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.

The government says Hawaii's allegations that the ban will negatively affect tourism and universities are pure speculation.

The revised ban applies to Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen and temporarily shuts down the US refugee program. Unlike the original order, it says people with visas will not be affected and removes language that would give priority to religious minorities.

Mr Ferguson acknowledged the changes but said it still "bars entry for virtually all other individuals from the listed countries," including relatives of US citizens and students who have been admitted to state universities and people who might seek work at schools and businesses.

"This court's original injunction protected these individuals and institutions," Washington state's new court filing said.

It said the federal government cannot enforce the new travel ban unless it asks Judge Robart to modify his original restraining order.

"Until they do so, they cannot escape the injunction and continue their illegal conduct," the filing said.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said last week that the administration believes the revised travel ban will stand up to legal scrutiny.

AP
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 14

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

The Iranian banking system paid 4,775.8 trillion rials ($147.32 billion based on official exchange rate of $1=32,417 rials) in loans in the 11-month period from March 20, 2016, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) said.

The figure indicates a rise by 37.1 percent compared to the first 11 months of the last Iranian fiscal year (March 20, 2015-Feb. 20, 2016).

Over $15.22 billion in loans were paid to the various sectors in eleventh Iranian calendar month of Bahman (Jan. 20-Feb. 20).

Iran has been struggling with bad loans over the past few years.
Michael Dowling, chair of the mortgage committee at the Irish Brokers Association, said 7bn in new mortgages will be sold this year and grow in the coming years as more houses are finally built.

A major part of the new lending will be driven by first time buyers and buyers trading up, while demand for buy-to-let or investment mortgages from landlords remains becalmed, he said.
Jean Marie Nawn could be heard sobbing down the phone as she tried to comfort her crying baby and explain to gardai how kidnappers had threatened to shoot her and her partner.

Jonathan Gill, aged 35, is accused of kidnapping a postal worker, his partner, and their daughter before robbing over 600,000 from the mans workplace.

It is the States case that Mr Gill was one of a group of five who were involved in holding the family hostage in their own home before moving them to a shed about a 90-minute drive away.

Mr Gill, of Malahide Rd, Swords, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning Warren Nawn, Jean Marie Nawn, and their baby in Drogheda between August 1 and August 2, 2011.

The trial has heard the Nawns were taken from their home and brought to a shed where they were held overnight. Mr Nawn was sent to An Post in the morning to retrieve the money.

Ms Nawn told the jury she was repeatedly threatened at gunpoint and that, at one stage, she was beaten over the head with a gun. Afterwards, the raiders left her tied to a bedpost in an abandoned house with her baby. She told the court she managed to free herself and run to the IBM factory in Swords.

G4S security company worker Gerard Whelan told the court yesterday he was working at the factory and driving to lunch when he saw a woman at the edge of the grounds.

He said he stopped to see if the woman was alright before noticing she was holding a baby and had cable ties on her hands.

Mr Whelan said the woman did not want him to ring 999 but he felt he had to.

She kept saying they were going to kill him if she told anyone. I told her I was sure he would be OK. My company has had previous experience of this activity.

In the 999 conversation played to the jury, Mr Whelan spoke to gardai before putting Ms Nawn on the phone. She wept as gardai told her her partner was safe and an ambulance was on the way for her and her baby.

Det Garda Donal Tully told the court he arrived at around 1pm and was told by Ms Nawn the baby had not been fed since 8pm the previous night. She was very, very distressed, he said.

The trial continues.
Immigrant support group Nasc said it was deeply concerned at the developments and warned that Ireland must not go low in following Americas lead in border control targeting mainly Muslim countries.

Figures provided by Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald to Fianna Fail TD Fiona OLoughlin show that almost 70 applications for family reunification visas from seven conflict countries have been denied from 2016 to mid-February 2017.

The join family visas are sought to allow people resident here to apply for visas to allow family members still in conflict zones to come to Ireland. Of the 68 such visas requests turned down by the State, 26 involved family members in Syria and 18 from Iraq.

Data on EU Treaty Rights show that 35 visa applications from the seven countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen) have been refused since 2016, with 18 from Iraq and six from Syria.

Almost 3,000 further applications under EU Treaty Rights are undecided for six months, 2,671 from Afghanistan and 893 from Iraq.

Nasc has provided support to several Syrian families currently residing or naturalised in Ireland in their applications for family reunification visas, including join family and EU Treaty Rights which have been subsequently refused or remain undecided, said Nasc legal services manager Fiona Hurley.

These include applications for elderly parents and women and children trying to join their families in Ireland. Given the horrific conditions in Syria, we are deeply concerned for the safety of our clients family members.

Ms Hurley said the Irish Refugee Protection Programme cannot be the only response by the Government.

Given current anti-Muslim trends globally and the attempted introduction of extreme border controls in the United States in recent weeks, we must be especially vigilant in ensuring that Ireland does not go low in following Americas lead in this regard, she said.

Other figures show 226 people from seven troubled countries were refused leave to enter the country in 2016: Syria (37), Sudan (47), Somalia (53), Iran (46), Iraq (26), Libya (10), and Yemen (7).

Nascs Jennifer DeWan said they were highly concerned at these numbers, saying the group had long pushed for transparency about this process.

We would be particularly concerned that there may be a significant number of those refusals who are not being given an opportunity to claim asylum, she said.

The Department of Justice said that for the seven countries concerned, the grant rate for join family and related visas categories was approximately 90%.

It said: Ireland has not imposed nor has any plans to impose a ban or restriction on people from Muslim majority countries to Ireland.

It said there were around 10,000 visa applications under EU Treaty [for] free movement, which were in the main UK citizens applying to bring relatives in.

The massive increase in applications has raised serious concerns regarding the abuse of free movement and of the Common Travel Area with the UK, it said.

It said refusals at port of entry only take place where the person has attempted to enter the State illegally.
Jamie McGinn was grieving for two, his beloved wife Biddy lying gravely ill in hospital, still unaware that their little boy and girl had died in the Clondalkin apartment fire that left her fighting for her life.

The ashen-faced young father struggled to breathe as he held on to the coffins of Jordan, 4, and Holly, 3, on their arrival at St Annes Church in Shankill, Co Dublin.

Biddy is with us in spirit, his parish priest, Fr John OConnor, told the hundreds of mourners. Biddy is a very strong and intelligent person but she now needs the love and support of all of us as never before and I know that you wont let her down.

The previous evening as he prepared to say his final farewells to his children, Jamie had told Fr OConnor, who had officiated at his wedding to Biddy were married, that he drew strength from the belief that his children were together in heaven.

He vowed to use that strength to pull their mother through. The priest relayed the pledge: He wants his children to know that he will look after their mammy and that they will be happy together.

Across the aisle, another father stood, head bent low, as more coffins arrived.

Sean Patel watched quietly as the remains of his partner, Annemarie OBrien, their girl, Paris, 2, and their unborn baby son, AJ, were carried in and arranged side by side.

Annemarie, 27, and Biddy, 30, were cousins but were so close growing up that they always felt like sisters. That trait passed on to their children who were cousins, playmates and pals.

All but Biddy died last Wednesday when fire broke out at the apartment used by the Sonas womens refuge in Clondalkin where Annemarie and Paris had been staying and where Biddy and her children had come for an overnight visit.

They were brought together in tragedy before, many being related by blood or marriage to the ten adults and children who died in the Carrickmines halting site fire in October 2015, a tragedy that also claimed the life of an unborn baby.

Yesterday, on a bright spring day, they assembled as they had in the darkness of 2015, at Springfield Cemetery in nearby Bray, to once more lay coffins big and small in the earth.

Investigations into the exact cause of last Wednesdays fire, which was accidental, are continuing.
Mr Harris appeared on RTEs The Week In Politics on Sunday and was pressed about the HSEs handling of the scandal.

During exchanges, Mr Harris said that no one who was in a position of responsibility in relation to Graces care is still employed in the health service or Tusla.

My understanding is that people who were in positions of responsibility and made direct decisions in relation to Grace, and significantly, adverse decisions, no longer work in the health service or Tusla. That is what I have been told, he said.

But the whistleblower pointed out on Twitter to Mr Harris that as many as 11 people in the HSE and Tusla are now under investigation over their role in the Grace case.

Its a matter of public record  11 people are under investigation (Tusla&HSE) following Devine Report publication [one of two internal HSE reports on Grace scandal], she tweeted to Mr Harris.

There were crucial decisions over many yrs. Some people involved in various decisions continue in HSE and Tusla.

The whistleblower then accused the minister of giving a flawed narrative into what happened to Grace, saying as minister he should know the truth.

The point is more that the minister continues a flawed narrative. He should know, and speak, the truth. Harris was told those who made crucial decisions in Grace case no longer in health service. Who is lying to Minister? she asked.

Mr Harris did not respond to the whistleblower on Twitter.

Contacted by the Irish Examiner, the ministers spokeswoman said the information relayed by him on RTE was information given to him by the HSE.

Mr Harris had said that if all the issues related to the case were confirmed, then there would be no need for a Commission of Inquiry, she added.

If all of the facts were extraordinarily clear, then we would not need a Commission of Investigation, he said.

The criticism of Mr Harris comes as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) waits to receive a response from Tony OBrien, director general of the HSE.

Mr OBrien was subjected to severe criticism from PAC members, including Mary Lou McDonald.

Considerable inconsistencies exist between the HSEs evidence to the PAC and one of the main reports into the Grace foster abuse scandal, it has been claimed.

The whistleblower also said she does not believe there is any evidence to suggest failures on behalf of Michael Noonan.

She said she had seen much of the documentation held by the Department of Health in relation to the case during the 1990s, when Mr Noonan was health minister.

She said that if she did believe Mr Noonan was culpable, she would call on him to resign.

I see no evidence that Michael Noonan interfered with, or indeed that he ever sought to interfere in this case, she said.
Anthony OSullivan, aged 30, of 17 Araglen Court, Deanrock, Togher, Cork, pleaded guilty to two counts of driving without insurance.

Not only is there this record of convictions but on this occasion he turned away from a checkpoint, said Judge Olann Kelleher. Then he was stopped again a week later. He has no regard for the law.

He imposed an overall jail term of six months and disqualified OSullivan from driving for 25 years.

Inspector Ronan Kennelly said that, on October 19, 2016, OSullivan drove a green Fiat Punto towards a Garda checkpoint before turning away. He was followed and caught. The car was seized and impounded.

A week later on October 25, the accused was stopped driving another car elsewhere in Cork City. Once again he had no tax, insurance, or licence.

Insp Kennelly said the accused had a total of 432 previous convictions, of which 373 were under the Road Traffic Act.

Defence solicitor Diarmuid Kelleher said the defendant developed an addiction to prescription tablets from the age of 12. He said the defendants parents were very unhappy about how this problem developed in the first place.

He said the accused went on to have a heroin addiction and got into a cycle of offending.

Mr Kelleher said OSullivan had detoxed with the assistance of his doctor and was now trying to turn his life around.
Maura McMahon, of An Cosan, which runs 10 creches in Dublin, said: There are fears amongst many in the sector nationally that we wont be able to afford to keep the doors open as an unintended consequence of the development of the childcare sector.

Between birth and three years of age is the absolute optimum time to intervene with children from disadvantaged areas.

"We have always battled funding shortages but now increased demands on limited funding and the inclusion of community employment scheme workers when calculating child/staff ratios have brought community creches to breaking point.

Ms McMahon said that these creches have higher numbers of children with additional needs, face higher repair bills at their premises due to anti-social behaviour, and that parents, some living in emergency accommodation, regularly can not afford to pay the weekly 25 top-up expected of them.

To counteract this, An Cosan undertakes large-scale fundraising but this can not continue to make up the gap between income and expenditure indefinitely, said Ms McMahon.

There hasnt been sufficient investment from Government so that we can pay staff a living wage and thereby retain them, she said.

Our children in particular need highly trained staff as many have additional needs. Furthermore, the Aistear curriculum was introduced but no extra funding was granted to implement it.

Minister Zappone has done amazing work but our concern is that when and if funding comes, it will be too late.

"Many of us are worried we wont be able to offer full-time services, yet we still have to pay for our buildings on a full-time basis.

Ms McMahons comments come after the Cork Early Years Alliance (CEYA) launched a campaign highlighting the closure of seven community creches in disadvantaged areas, unless new streams of funding are provided by the Department of Children before September.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fail councillor Tony Fitzgerald put a motion before Cork City Council last night, calling on it to support the CEYA campaign to double their childcare funding to 9.20 per hour, to acquire an additional staff grant for services affected by the changes, and to acknowledge that their work is early intervention

Last month, Ms Zappone said additional funding may be found for creches in disadvantaged areas if they can demonstrate that their children have higher levels of need.

Speaking in Cork after she met the CEYA, she said her officials will review needs of children at each creche on a case-by-case basis.
The McAleese report into Magdalene laundries was published in early 2013. A State apology by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the women who worked for no pay in these institutions quickly followed.

Within days of the publication of the report, behind the scenes, the government was writing to the four religious orders that ran the laundries requesting that they contribute money to a redress fund.

What it found was a religious community absolutely unwilling to make any form of financial contribution to the women who went through its laundry doors and who worked for no pay.

In the same month as the apology, the private secretary to the then justice minister Alan Shatter wrote to the orders  the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity  asking them to make an appropriate contribution to the redress scheme.

The tone of the letter was polite, thanking the orders for all their assistance to Martin McAleese for the duration of the inquiry.

However, it was to the point in terms of the governments view that they should contribute to the cost of paying redress to the women who worked in their laundries.

The government also considered how the religious congregations who ran these institutions could contribute to the process of healing and reconciliation that is now required, stated the letter.

With that in mind, I have been asked by Minister Shatter to invite your congregation to make an appropriate contribution to the ex gratia fund as a reflection of your desire to participate in this process. I am also writing in similar terms to the other congregations involved in the running of these institutions.

In the meantime, the government had arranged to meet the orders personally to broach the subject of a cash contribution.

On April 11, 2013, Mr Shatter, junior health minister Kathleen Lynch, McAleese committee member Nuala Ni Mhuircheartaigh, and Department of Justice assistant secretary Jimmy Martin met with representatives of the four orders.

The meeting took place at Beechlawn on Grace Park Rd, Drumcondra  the site of the High Park Magdalene laundry.

A note of the meeting records how the question of money was raised with the 11 senior nuns across the four orders who were present.

There was an informal and constructive discussion on the McAleese report, the follow up, Judge Quirkes role. It was pointed out to the congregations that the question of them making a contribution to any government fund would have to be addressed at some stage.

It didnt take long for the orders to address the issue. All four quickly made it abundantly clear that they would not be contributing any money for the redress fund.

At the end of June, the regional leader of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, Sr Sheila Murphy, wrote to Mr Shatter thanking him for his availability and courtesy in the previous months but making it clear that the possibility of a financial contribution by the order was a non-starter.

We will not be making a direct financial contribution to the ex gratia scheme. However, as outlined previously, we will be facilitating applicants and State agencies who request any required information from us, she says in the letter.

Again, I wish to assure you that our ongoing contribution to the care and wellbeing of the residents here at Beechlawn will continue to be our prime focus.

That same month, Sr Mary Christian, the congregation leader of the Sisters of Charity, also wrote to Mr Shatter thanking him for the courtesy and consideration shown us by you and your department regarding the Magdalene commission report, but also making it clear that there would be no question of it contributing to the fund.

I appreciate the trouble you took to keep us informed, coming to meet us on numerous occasions and providing us with a copy of the report at the first opportunity possible.

Having considered the report, I wish to confirm that the Sisters of Charity will co-operate with the release of relevant information to any woman who requests same, we are prepared to meet with any past resident of our Magdalene homes who so wishes and will continue to provide services to residents in our care. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to make a monetary contribution to the fund.

Sr Bernadette McNally, province leader of the Good Shepherd Provincialate, wrote to Mr Martin in June and said it could not afford to pay anything and that this was not likely to change in the future.

The Good Shepherd Sisters submitted a detailed account of their finances to the Department of Education in September 2009. We indicated that on the basis of the facts presented we were not in a position to make further contributions. Unfortunately, we are still not in a position to make contributions to any redress scheme and our financial circumstances are unlikely to improve in the future.

The Good Shepherd Sisters ran Magdalene laundries in Limerick, Cork, Waterford, and New Ross.

Sr Margaret Casey, congregational leader of the Sisters of Mercy, emailed Mr Martin on July 1, 2013, confirming the order would assist women seeking their records and care for women in their care but that it would not contribute financially.

We have continued to provide care towards women who spent time in our care in many different contexts. We will continue to do so in future in quiet ways and in accordance without our mission. We will not contribute financially to the State scheme but will lend our support in other ways outlined above, she said.

After this first set of refusals, the government felt compelled to write to the orders a second time in July 2013. The tone was much more forthright and the orders were told the government felt the congregations had a moral obligation to make a reasonable contribution.

Another letter was written in January 2014 by Mr Shatters then private secretary, Christopher Quattrociocchi. This time the government hoped that a recent intervention from the Vatican would sway the congregations from their refusal to contribute financially from the redress fund.

He wrote: In the Holy Sees written response to the UNCRC, December 2013, it was stated that the Holy See is encouraged by the statement of apology offered by religious orders that were investigated by the State of Ireland.

The Holy See is also heartened by the openness of the religious sisters to engage in discussions about issues of compensation and their willingness to pay a part of a compensation package developed by State authorities.

In light of this statement by the Vatican, the minister is inquiring if you have reconsidered your position with regard to making a financial contribution to the scheme and he would be grateful if you would revert back to him on this issue as soon as possible.

Both entreaties received equally terse responses from all four orders.

In February, Sr Christian of the Sisters of Charity, responded by simply enclosing the orders previous refusal to contribute any money, which it stated was for easy reference.

The position of the Sisters of Charity is as stated in that letter, she said.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity responded in August 2013 and April 2014 stating that its decision not to contribute was arrived at after consideration of the findings of the report of the inter-departmental committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalene laundries, known as the McAleese report, and careful reflection of our current and ongoing responsibilities to those residents who remain in our care.

Sr Casey of the Sisters of Mercy wrote to Mr Quattrociocchi stating that its position had not changed since the previous time it had written to the department.

As stated in that letter, the experience of our congregation in seeking to make fair and just contributions towards other State schemes has convinced us of the incompatibility of such schemes with our work as a congregation. I regret to inform you that because of this, and for other reasons, we maintain our stance of not contributing financially to this State redress scheme, she wrote.

Sr Casey also stated that both the minister and the government will have been well aware of our intent in advance of the announcement of the scheme.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Shatter said he was enormously disappointed on a personal level that the congregations were unwilling to provide any money to the redress scheme.

My view was, as minister, they should make a contribution towards the scheme. I met with them to discuss that. We had pleasant engagements, nothing harsh was said. They listened with courtesy and then said they wouldnt be contributing. I did all I could to bring about a voluntary contribution to the scheme but, in the end, they were resolute.

I was enormously disappointed on a personal level that they didnt positively respond. I had hoped that a contribution could be made and I said and did all I could to encourage a positive contribution. I believed there was a genuine possibility that they would.

However, Mr Shatter praised the orders for their assistance to the McAleese committee in terms of providing access to records.

The congregations were very helpful and co-operative in providing crucial and essential records with regards to survivors who had been in their residential ins. Its important to note that this was crucial to the compensation scheme in that it allowed for the validation of claims by survivors seeking redress for their time spent in an institution.

It was very important that they engaged with this aspect of the scheme and also that they engaged with Senator McAleese. So, its important to state that there was substantial co-operation on issues of enormous importance and that work laid the foundation for the scheme.

It would have been extremely difficult, if not next to impossible, to properly implement the scheme without that, he said.
JOHN Kearney is a social entrepreneur from Cork. In 2009 he saw first-hand that people in rural areas were suffering and lives were being put at risk in medical emergencies because the services didnt exist to reach people quickly enough.

He had an innovative idea to tackle this problem and created Irish Community Rapid Response (ICRR).

Working with communities all over Ireland, ICRR has recruited local GPs and medical professionals to volunteer their time to respond to emergencies, to ensure that people get the best care possible, as quickly as possible.

This idea has now scaled up across the country and recently took to the skies, with air ambulances added to the ground fleet.

The service improves outcomes and saves lives. There are people alive today because of Johns idea and, crucially, because he acted on that idea.

Johns work was important because in any medical emergency there is a limited window of time to take action in order to ensure the best possible recovery. This is known as the Golden Hour, and every second that ticks by is critical.

In Ireland today, we are facing our own Golden Hour as a country.

As global and domestic challenges collide, and the pace of change in society increases, we need to act now if we want to ensure Ireland is tackling its social problems quickly enough. The faster we can respond to the challenges we face as a country, the better the outcomes.

Unfortunately, at a time when we need a rapid response, the systems and approaches to solving social problems can be slow and bureaucratic, and too often vested interests take precedence over societys interests.

Thankfully, there are people all over Ireland who are stepping up to channel frustration with the system into positive social change.

Rather than focus on fighting the old, social entrepreneurs like John Kearney focus all their attention on building the new.

A social entrepreneur sees a problem in their community, and responds by coming up with an innovative idea to solve it. They are the perfect antidote to any stagnating system.

When faced with a social challenge, social entrepreneurs say enough!, roll up their sleeves, and focus on solving the problem. They are societys rapid responders.

After they solve a problem in their own community, like any good entrepreneur, they want to solve it across the country. All over Ireland today there are social entrepreneurs working tirelessly, behind the scenes, to improve our society.

Another example is John Evoy from Waterford who saw that men were being negatively affected by the rising rates of unemployment, and isolation from their community.

He saw the problem, and stepped up to deliver the lifeline. Mens Sheds  a place for men to come together and work on meaningful activities. John worked to support communities all over Ireland to set up Mens Sheds, and there are now 350 sheds around the country, with 10,000 men using them every week.

Huge turn out from our Dublin sheds cluster meeting in the F2 Centre with @GreenRibbonIRL @Irishheart_ie pic.twitter.com/tpRS8DjbmH  Irish Men's Sheds Association (@IrishSheds) March 3, 2017

The letters and emails continue to flood into Mens Sheds HQ with notes of thanks and stories of the lives saved and improved, because now there is a place for those men to go.

Two other social entrepreneurs teamed up in response to the growing impact that technology is having on our young people. Alex Cooney and Cliona Curley from Dublin founded CyberSafe Ireland to empower children, parents and teachers to navigate the online world so that children can be stronger, smarter, and safer online.

We cant afford to delay in providing children with this support, as every day that goes by, new technologies emerge that put children at risk. They are tackling this social problem which is a new frontier for our society, and like any entrepreneurs they are delivering fast, effective, innovative solutions.

These are just three stories, out of more than 200 social entrepreneurs we have supported over the last 12 years at Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, a list which also includes FoodCloud, Grow It Yourself, and CoderDojo.

Now we are looking for more rapid responders. We are currently searching the country for the people with the best ideas to tackle social problems in Ireland.

The national suggestion box is open; you dont have to wait for someone else to tackle a social problem, you can step up today, and apply for our support.

And for those who share our sense of urgency to tackle these problems but dont have an idea themselves, we are building a fund which will directly support social entrepreneurs who are implementing a new way of doing things in Ireland.

We can all play a part in this movement.

This is the kind of fresh thinking that Ireland needs today. These are the kind of people that we need to get behind, as a country, and we need to move quickly, to give these social entrepreneurs the best chance of success, for the best possible outcome for Ireland.

Darren Ryan is the CEO of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. The 2017 awards application process, supported by DCC plc, is now open for applications at www.socialentrepreneurs.ie. Closing date is March 29.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

Iran is ready to keep its oil output unchanged at 3.8 million barrels per day (mb/d) in the second half of 2017, if OPEC agrees to extend oil cut deal, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said.

He made this announcement during a ceremony to inaugurate early production at the Azer oil field, IRNA reported March 14.

The Azer field started pumping 15,000 b/d of oil and the volume is expected to double by summer.

According to OPECs latest monthly report, Iran increased oil output by 36,100 b/d to 3.814 mb/d in February, compared to January.

OPEC members reached a deal on November 30, 2016 to cut the output by 1.2 mb/d to 32.5 mb/d in 1H17.

Indonesia has left OPEC, but according to OPEC, the other members produced only 31.958 mb/d in February 2017, about 1.07 mb/d less than in December 2016.

According to OPECs deal, Iran was allowed to increase its oil output by 90,000 b/d to 3.797 mb/d in 1H17.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

Iran increased oil output in February by 36,100 barrels per day (b/d), month-to-month, bringing it to 3.814 mb/d, OPEC reported Mar. 14.

According to OPECs monthly report published on its official website, Irans oil output is 976,000 b/d more than the 2015 average.

In the meantime, Irans heavy oil price increased by 2.4 percent to $53.16 during last month, compared to January.

OPEC says its output decreased by 139,500 b/d to 31.958 mb/d in February, compared to January.

Crude oil output increased the most in Nigeria, while production in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Angola showed the largest declines.

Demand for OPEC crude in 2016 stood at 31.6 mb/d, some 1.9 mb/d higher than in the previous year.

For 2017, demand for OPEC crude is projected at 32.4 mb/d, the report said.
Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 (10:34 am) - Score 1,117

Cityfibre has announced that the construction of their pure fibre optic ultrafast broadband and Ethernet network in the city of Glasgow (Scotland) has now begun moving westwards into the Finnieston area, where a number of local businesses have expressed an interest in receiving their service.

The first civil engineering work finally began in November 2016, after it was delayed by quite a few months due to a decision that saw their nearby Edinburgh Gigabit City project taking priority (here). Since then their network in the centre of Glasgow, which connects into an existing 31km long fibre network, has been busy rolling out to new areas.

Some of the first streets and businesses to benefit were those positioned near Ingram Street, Renfrew Street and Douglas Street. The network now spans Glasgow city centre, including the Merchant City area, and various businesses have already connected (e.g. Holiday Inn Express, Robb Ferguson Chartered Accountants etc.).

However over the next few weeks Cityfibres demand-led roll-out will also be moving into the Finnieston area through Bath Street, Sauchiehall Street and Sky Park.

James McClafferty, Cityfibres Head of Regional Development, said: Glasgows telecommunications infrastructure has been a high profile concern for city businesses for many years as they strive to keep ahead of digital trends. We are very excited to be investing in Glasgow and its fantastic to see the new infrastructure is already transforming connected businesses digital experience. This will ultimately help them become more productive and competitive and enable them to invest in new opportunities and tools which depend on resilient, reliable fibre connectivity.

Various businesses in the forthcoming areas have already expressed an interest in being connected via the projects ISP partner HighNet. Construction of the new network is expected to complete before the end of 2017 when it should be able to reach about 7,000 businesses, although they hope to one day cover 15,000.

As usual Cityfibres PR claims that its network, which is currently being deployed around 42 UK cities, can address 28,000 public sites, 7,800 mobile masts, 280,000 businesses and 4.0 million homes. However as we keep saying, such claims are potentially very misleading because Cityfibres hypothetical addressable market measure of coverage is NOT the same as the more recognisable premises passed.

Wed measure the actual premises passed coverage of Cityfibres network for UK homes in the tens of thousands (e.g. Bournemouth and York) rather than the bonkers 4 million stated above. Under the premises passed coverage the fibre optic cable must be almost right outside your house (e.g. doorstep or pavement) for it to count, while under addressable market the fibre could be quite a long way away. The cost and time to install difference for these two measures can be huge.
There are various timing disconnects in telecommunications. The most obvious is that marketers usually are way ahead of engineers and developers. For instance, they describe a 5G future in which a smartphone is massively more powerful than it is today. That day will come, but first 5G will be put to work in the far less exciting world of fixed wireless.

Another timing mismatch, which is also related to wireless, is the inherent advantage of wireless over wired technology. That superiority of wireless appears to be leading carriers to run from one to the other, even before there truly is equality between the two.

Reluctance to build any more fiber networks because the technology is fading is not the stated reason that Verizon and New York City have been involved in a long-standing battle over the telcos obligation to wire the citys households for its FiOS service. CNET says that the nine-year battle centers over whether the wording of the contract gives Verizon the right to wiggle out of fulfillment. That battle has culminated in a lawsuit.

The bigger question is precisely why Verizon would want to get out of fulfilling the contract. It clearly could be that technology has advanced so far since the contract was signed that the carrier sees wireless as a cheaper and easier way to serve the Big Apple.

The notion that the heart of Verizons strategy may be the desire to emphasize wireless is validated, to some extent, by the fact that it is exactly what Google is doing. Last fall, Google drew back on its wired plans. The company has reset its agenda with wireless in mind. It remains to be seen what the fiber/wireless mix will be, though it is clear it will use the latter wherever possible.

Not every company is abandoning fiber. Angie Communications, a startup, plans deploy fiber in cities abandoned by Google Fiber and 87 other markets. The company, which bills itself as the worlds largest telecommunications startup, will use a mix of wired and wireless technology. The approach doesnt push back against the thesis that wired is going out of style, since the company will rely on dark fiber built by other providers now lying fallow.

There is no definitive thread connecting the lawsuit between New York City and Verizon, Google Fibers change in business plan and Angie Communications strategy. But, at a higher level, a pattern is clear: Companies are moving methodically away from wired communications to wireless.

The movement wont be uniform because 5G is not yet quite the equivalent of fiber optics. At the end of the day, though, the industry is clearly entering a transitional period.

Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at [email protected] and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
Harley-Davidson unveils the Street Rod 750, the third bike in its 2017 Street lineups, aimed at urban riders. The popular motorcycle company had built this bike as a sportier, cafe racer-slash-flat-track-style version of the Street 750 cruiser. The new bike shares a frame and fuel tank with the Street 750, but with new tires and wheels, brakes, fork, fender, headlight, and fairing.

The bike is the result of feedback from the reigning Streets and Sportsters of European markets. Even the fuel tank is significantly repositioned forward, as are the seating position and foot pegs to shift the center of gravity forward. This gives the bike a sportier feel and appearance.

According to Harley-Davidson, the new Street Rod's High Output Revolution X 750 engine produces 18 percent more horsepower and 8 percent more torque. The engine is built with a larger air box, modified four-valve cylinder heads, and high-lift camshafts. Other performance-oriented changes include a pair of 300mm front discs for increased braking power over the Street 750s single front disc, The Drive reports.

"It really delivers a punch between 3,000 and 5,000 rpm, power you can always feel and use in real-world riding situations," Mathew Weber, the Street Rods chief engineer, says. Liquid cooling helps maintain performance and rider comfort in urban traffic, he adds. Lead designer Chetan Shedjale explains that the new bike is bathed in a liberal dose of Dark Custom styling to make it look tough and aggressive, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Harley-Davidson's new Street Rod 750 bike has antilock brakes and a security system as standard equipment. The bike boasts a larger, drag racing-inspired airbox assembly. The street bike comes in three colors of Charcoal Denim, Olive Gold, and Vivid Black. Available in dealerships this month, pricing for the Street Rod is $8,699 for Vivid Black, and $8,994 for Olive Gold and Charcoal Denim.
Kellyanne Conway believes microwave ovens have spy cameras in them. The Senior White House advisor is in the hot seat once more for mouthing out accusations that the Obama administration spied on Donald Trump using, among other things, a microwave.

Trump previously accused former U.S. President Barack Obama, through a tweet, of spying on him by having the Trump Tower wiretapped. Conway then sparked, even more controversy on the unsubstantiated claim by telling Mike Kelly of Bergen County's "The Record" that people can now easily be put under surveillance through phones, TV sets and "microwaves that turn into cameras". She also stressed that this is "just a fact of modern life".

Broadly got in touch with a cyber security expert and computer science specialist to put some light on Conway's claims. Steven Belloving of Columbia University stressed that he is unaware of any process that can turn a microwave into a camera. He also stressed that Conway's microwave allegations were made by a "non-technical person garbling something she heard but didn't really understand".

Broadly also got hold of a representative of Whirlpool Corporation, one of the biggest manufacturers of home appliances including the now-infamous microwave, who stressed that the company has no comments at the time. Other microwave manufacturers that the publication reached out to for comment did not respond as of this writing.

Engadget delved a little more on the technical aspect of the allegation by explaining the components of a microwave oven. It has what is called a magnetron. This integral part of the kitchen appliance is responsible for converting electric energy to microwave radiation. The radiation is then directed to and through the food with the help of a waveguide. Other main parts include the control panel, turntable and a cooking chamber. Cameras, meanwhile, has an image sensor, lens, and processor among other parts all of which are not found in any standard microwave.

Surprisingly, this is not the first time that the microwave oven has been involved in such controversy. There is another conspiracy theory that the kitchen appliance can be used to control minds. While microwave ovens being used for espionage are highly improbable at this point, other devices such as smartphones are the more likely culprits. In fact, one case of a privacy breach and possible spying involved a number of budget Android smartphones that secretly sent information to a Chinese company.

Kellyanne is now saying that her comments were taken out of context. In an interview with CNN, Conway quipped that she is not Inspector Gadget and that she doesn't believe that a microwave oven turned into a camera was used to spy on Trump.
Siblings, Jinger Duggar Vuolo and Josh Duggar, are currently hitting the headlines as netizens are feasting on their individual issues. Jinger has been spotted by a fan wearing a pair of shorts. a photo of her was later posted online. The photo received contradicting reactions, but Jinger and her husband did not want to comment about the issue. Meanwhile, the whistleblower of Josh's molestation scandals has stepped forward, only to say that she does not feel sorry for the expose.

Jinger Duggar, Wild and Free?

Jinger Duggar has been a celebrity since her "19 Kids and Counting" days but her alleged Duggar courtship violations has negatively made her a stand out from the rest of her siblings. Yet again, Jinger is catching more attention when she recently went out in public in Texas wearing only a pair of shorts. A photo of her wearing an above-the-knee-high pants was then posted on a fans site, which had many fans of the Duggars commenting on her fashion choice.

Some fans were delighted that she can already wear the clothes that she want. Fans expressed their happiness for her that she is finally free. Yet, there are also some groups that accuse her as a rebel for violating another Duggar family rules.

Her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, who also happens to be a preacher, is being bashed for allowing her wife to walk on the Texas A&M International University campus with a pair of shorts. It can also be recalled that he once preached about dressing which seemingly opposes Michelle's belief on modest clothing. He said that women are free to wear modern modest skirts and dresses but he does not also see anything wrong about wearing a pair of pants.

Avid fans of "19 Kids and Counting" and "Counting On" know very well that the matriarch of the family, Michelle Duggar, is strict regarding the rules of the family, one, in particular, is dress code, which is being strictly monitored by her. Michelle has made her daughters spend their lifetime wearing modern modest skirts and dresses.

Whistleblower Of Josh Duggar's Scandals Steps Out To Say She's Not Sorry

Fans might still recall how Josh Duggar's molestation scandals gravely affected his whole family and their reality show. In 2015, Josh has been investigated for having molested five girls, four of which were reportedly his sisters. TLC immediately canceled the show as producers started to back out as soon as the revelation came out.

InTouch shared the story to the public, but a woman who claims to be the original source of the news suddenly came out to speak about the expose. Sherri Townsend revealed herself on social media as the informant of the site writing. "I told a reporter from In Touch magazine about Josh Duggar's molestation/pedophilia of his sisters and others, which broke the story and ultimately caused his resignation as the head of the Family Research Council and got his family's hypocrisy-filled show cancelled. Yep, that was me and I'm not at all sorry that I did it," Townsend said.

Townsend said that she hates the religious bigotry, which she says causes harm to many people. She added that she wants to put down such "evil" groups. Her post was shared on the Facebook page "Duggar Family News: Life is not all pickles and hairspray". It has been revealed that the molestation acts of Josh was a "common knowledge" in Springdale where Townsend lives. The whistleblower also confessed that she shared the information to the site not for money, but as a response to Michelle's work against the LGBT group. The site was responsible for digging into the court documents.
The LG G6 is one of the most anticipated Android phones of this year. This is primarily because it features an 18:9 display ratio, which is unheard of in most previous smartphones. With it, it also has a tall and skinny design, making it look different than other phones.

Unorthodox Display Ratio

The LG G6 features an 18:9 display ratio, instead of the regular 16:9 or 2:1 of most smartphones in the market. However, the drastic change in resolution doesn't have any functional changes, as it is more inclined into making the phone more marketable.

According to Slash Gear, because of the unique ratio of the LG G6's screen, the phone looks unusual as it gives the impression of it being stretched. Experts and phone enthusiasts also point out that the unusual screen also has its own benefits.

One of it is that it bridges the gap different between smartphones and tablets. It improves the visibility, as well as makes one-hand use much easier. The LG G6 also features a very slim bezel, making it very user-friendly when its user uses only one hand. It also allows for more hand gestures.

Improved User-friendliness

According to Phone Arena, using your thumb to reach the entirety of the screen has never been easier. This is thanks to the narrower screen and slim dimensions. This makes the LG G6's 18:9 screen displays as more usable.

Apart from the user-friendliness of the phone, its 18:9 ratio also has its own benefits with its camera. Reports say that the narrower screen makes it easier for the user to take a picture that is specifically targeted at something and someone. This is because it removes the unnecessary wide shot that most 16:9 displays take. The LG G6 will be released in US, UK, and Europe sometime on April 2017.
"The Vampire Diaries" has already ended, but it has seemingly opened a big opportunity for "The Originals", which is about to air its season 4 starting on Friday. Mystic Falls ended its vampire stories with Stefan sacrificing his life. This leaves Caroline free and the series finale has indeed hinted on the possible reunion of the Klaroline love team. A lot of fans are excited to see Caroline make a crossover to be with her former love, Klaus.

"The Originals" season 4 is set to premiere on March 17 and a lot has already been spoiled about the new installment. In fact, the original series, "The Vampire Diaries," has given fans an exciting puzzle piece which seemingly hints on the revival of the Klaroline love team. A speculation claims that "The Originals" might see Caroline making a comeback on Klaus' life.

However, the timing might be a bit of a problem since the Mikaelson vampire is currently imprisoned in "The Originals" while the character is tipped to be well and rich in "The Vampire Diaries" finale. It can be recalled that "TVD" finale featured Caroline and Alaric opening up a school for supernatural children like them. They surprisingly received a heft of donation from Klaus. Also the voice over saying "that's the start of another story" is keeping the fans thrilled to see Klaus fulfill his note and thank Caroline personally, someday. This has sparked predictions that Caroline Forbes will indeed make a crossover to "The Originals".

Fans already know that Alaric is set to make an appearance in "The Originals" season 4, but it has not been mentioned whether he will be in New Orleans for long or not. The fact that he partnered with Caroline in opening up a school even strengthened the hopes of fans that more "The Vampire Diaries" characters will hop on to its spinoff series.

Julie Plec, though, shed some light on the "TVD" finale and said that Caroline and Klaus might not actually meet in the upcoming season of "The Originals". "Obviously, our timelines did not match up, so Caroline and Klaus are not coming face-to-face in this season," Plec said in a post "TVD" finale interview. She also hinted on another spinoff that might possibly outroot from "The Originals".

The co-creator's statement created more thoughts among fans, as they are now imagining to see Caroline in "The Originals" season 5 or a spinoff for Klaus and the Caroline. While there are no definite plans yet for the Klaroline love team, fans might want to wait for more hints to come by as "The Originals" season 4 starts airing episodes.

Meanwhile, Klaus might face more challenges than claiming back his reign from Marcel. A new group of vampires is set to enter New Orleans and they want Klaus dead. Hayley's return, though, might be the Mikaelson's salvation as she returns with her powerful daughter, Hope. Michael Narducci recently teased the character Hope. He said that the young cross-breed takes a lot from her father including her temper and defensive skills. A lot of fans are then excited to witness the return of the Mikaelsons as "The Originals" comes back on CW starting on Friday.


Vertu, a British manufacturer, and luxury smartphone maker has been bought by a company named as Baferton. It was a firm registered in Cyprus owned by Hakan Uzan, a Turkish exile. Uzan has been involved in several legal controversies and disagreements related to other well-known names such as Nokia, Motorola, and Donald Trump as well.

Vertu: Background Of The Luxury Phone Maker

Vertu was created and established by Finnish mobile-phone manufacturer Nokia in 1998 which goal is to offer luxury devices. In October 2012, Vertu was sold to a private equity organization EQT VI for an undefined amount of money but retained a 10 percent share. By the end of 2013, Vertu had an approximately 350,000 customers and their luxury phones were on sale in more than 500 retail outlets. In 2015, Vertu was then sold to Godin Holdings, a Chinese investment company, before Uzan finally purchased the smartphone manufacturer.

Vertu Sells Its Business To Baferton

Today, according to Engadget, the luxury phone brand has been bought by the company owned by Uzan, the Baferton. Uzan paid around 50 million or $61 million to successfully acquire the business from its Chinese owners Godin Holdings. This move puts Vertu into the guidance of a family whose relationship with Nokia is disturbing.

The Uzan family took out loans from both Nokia and Motorola in order to form a Turkish carrier which named as Telsim. While Telsim would eventually become Vodafone's backbone business in Turkey, speculations and allegations flew that the family had used company funds for their personal luxuries. Lawsuits released by Nokia and Motorola put the Uzan family on the hook for billions of dollars and the Politics of Turkey move to seize assets prompted the members of the family to go into exile.

In particular, Hakan Uzan was found in disgrace on the court after not attending a hearing in relation to the accusation of fraud, but he successfully appealed the sentence. In regards to why is Uzan buying Vertu is not very clear. According to Telegraph, he's not saying much about the reason for buying Vertu but he believes that the firm represents a "powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche." He also claimed that he'll provide the cash money to help the company reach its "full potential."
Tehran, Iran, March 14

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Iran has always intended to help neighbors, contribute to regional peace and stability, and resolve disputes face-to-face rather than have the UK and others intervene, government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said.

A day earlier, Irans president Hassan Rouhani sent a letter to Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, a further sign that the two might be trying to defuse tensions between the Islamic Republic and the Persian Gulfs Arab states.

The Islamic Republic looks forward to better ties and President Hassan Rouhanis recent letter to the Kuwaiti emir served that purpose, Nobakht told Trend March 14.

As exchange of visits and letters suggest, Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council agree that they should mend their ties, the spokesman underlined.

Predominantly Shia Iran and the Sunni Arab-dominated Persian Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, support opposing sides in conflicts in Syria and Yemen but, in January, Kuwait's foreign minister paid a rare visit to Tehran and delivered a message from the emir to Rouhani, describing a "basis of dialogue" between the Arab states and Iran.

Rouhani visited Oman and Kuwait in February on his first visit to the Persian Gulf states since taking power in 2013. He said Kuwait was among at least 10 countries to have offered to mediate in Iran's escalating feud with Saudi Arabia.

Tensions escalated between Tehran and Riyadh, already in dispute over Syria, when Saudi Arabia executed a dissident Shia cleric. In response to that, the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was stormed and set on fire, which led to the two countries closing their respective diplomatic missions.
While Google Hangouts is making a shift to serve enterprise users, it wont be vanishing for consumers.

Last week, the company announced that it would be splitting the chat and videoconferencing service into Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat, which raised questions about what would happen for those people who still use it in their personal lives.

Consumers will still be able to access Hangouts using their personal Google accounts. Hangouts will still appear in the Gmail sidebar on the desktop, even after it splits into Chat and Meet, according to Scott Johnston, director of product management for Hangouts.

Right now, the chat service is in a closed beta program for Googles enterprise customers, but once it becomes generally available, consumers and enterprise users will be prompted to upgrade.

When Google releases it to general availability, the company will upgrade Hangouts, both in G Suite and in the current Hangouts apps, to Meet and Chat, he said during a press briefing at the companys Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco last week.

In other words, the company isnt going to cut consumers off from a product that theyre still using to communicate with one another. Consumers will be able to start video and audio meetings using Hangouts Meet, plus have group chat conversations using Chat.

Consumers who prefer the classic Hangouts will be able to hang onto it for awhile after the new Chat service becomes generally available. Google plans to operate Meet, Chat, and classic Hangouts all at the same time during a transition period, while allowing users to choose to upgrade at their leisure. At some point, consumers will be moved over to Chat and Meet.

That said, Google isnt exactly encouraging people to keep using Hangouts for consumer messaging. Last year, the company introduced Allo, a new mobile-first messaging app that includes access to the Google Assistant and other features that havent been added to Hangouts.

By contrast, Google will focus on giving Hangouts users features that are focused on serving the needs of businesses, like team chats and integrations with work software like Asana, Box, Smartsheet, and Zendesk. Both products will have enterprise-specific features.

Its unclear what exactly that means for Hangouts chances as a consumer product in the long run. Right now, theres not an easy migration path from Hangouts to Allo, since one requires users log in with mobile phone numbers, and the other requires Google account log-ins.

Allo also isnt available outside of Android and iOS yet, though Google is working on a desktop experience. Google also has a handful of other messaging apps, too. But at least for now, Allo and Hangouts will continue their coexistence.
Today

Abundant sunshine. High around 80F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 57F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.

Tomorrow

Sunny, along with a few afternoon clouds. High 78F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran has requested the United Nations to end the mission of its special human rights rapporteur in the Islamic Republic.

Given the noticeable human rights progress made in the Islamic Republic and its extensive and constructive interactions with the international human rights mechanisms, it is now time to end the special rapporteurs mission in an appropriate way, said Kazem Gharibabadi, Irans Human Rights Council director for international affairs, Fars news agency reported March 14.

Gharibabadi made the remarks addressing the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, underway in Geneva.

He further said that appointing a special human rights rapporteur for Iran is a politically-motivated and selective approach towards the Islamic Republic.

However, Gharibabadi added that the Islamic Republics officials have held four meetings with the special rapporteur so far.

Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, presented her 40-page report on details of human rights violations in Iran during the ongoing session.

In the report, Jahangir expressed concern about no improvement in the human rights situation in Iran.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi has condemned the report, calling it unfair and politicized.

On March 9, Qasemi said the Islamic Republic had repeatedly stated that it doesnt recognize a report which is prepared by a special rapporteur appointed on the basis of a resolution adopted on political motivations of certain countries.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

Trend:

The crimes committed in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly are being committed today in Syria and Iraq, political analyst Oleg Kuznetsov told reporters in Baku Mar. 14 on the sidelines of a conference, titled The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, origins, peacemaking and the role of civil society.

Until the world recognizes the Khojaly genocide, it will be impossible to prevent such crimes, said Kuznetsov.

The political analyst noted that on Mar. 6, he initiated a petition on recognition of the Khojaly genocide at the Russian parliament. The petition is addressed to members of the State Duma and Federation Council.

The initiation of this petition on the crime committed in late 20th century is important, said Kuznetsov, and called on the international community to support the petition.

The political analyst added that the Khojaly genocide committed by Armenians is a crime against humanity.

On February 25-26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces, together with the 366th infantry regiment of the former Soviet troops, stationed in Khankendi, committed an act of genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly.

As many as 613 people, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people were killed as a result of the massacre. A total of 1,000 civilians became disabled as a result of the onslaught. Some 1,275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people still remains unknown.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
VIDEO

RYDE Arena Community Action Group will look to social investors and funding bodies in a bid to takeover the ice rink.

The Action Group last night (Monday) voted in favour of registering an interest to purchase the lease for the rink, in the hope of seeing it back in the hands of the community.

The community group held a meeting at Ryde Castle Hotel that was attended by members, young skaters and representatives from across the political spectrum.

AEW, the leaseholders of the rink, recently put the lease up for sale for 3.5 million, more than three times the price they originally paid for it.

Campaigners say that is despite the rink now being in a far worse condition than it was when AEW acquired it.

Action group members voted in favour of registering an interest to purchase the lease under the Localism Act, meaning that because the rink has been nominated as an asset of community value, a six month moratorium on the property's sale will be enforced in order for the community to raise the funds necessary to purchase the lease.

The community group will now look at social investment companies and funding bodies to raise the money needed.

They will also request a valuation be carried out on the building, which they believe is worth a fraction of what AEW is asking for.

The group appealed for the support of local politicians and have received statements of support from the Conservatives, Independents, Greens, Labour and Liberal Democrats.

The Conservatives have put forward local member Wayne Whittle, Isle of Wight Council executive member for tourism, business and public realm, to assist the action group and have said they will work cross-party to get the rink back open to the community.

An Island Independents spokesperson said: "Cllr Ian Stephens, through his position of culture, tourism and sport board chairman at the Local Government Association, has arranged a visit for Sport England to visit the Island, and the arena is on the agenda for that visit, at which we will actively seek funding opportunities for the acquisition of the rink."

National Green Party co-leaders, Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, have visited Ryde arena and given their support to the community group, while Ryde Green Party members are working with them to raise the issue of AEW actions in Parliament.

A Labour spokesperson said: "Ryde Labour is putting forward a Regenerate Ryde platform in the May elections to the County Council, with a commitment to develop a regeneration plan which will aim to improve the quality of life for all Ryde residents.

"Top of the list of actions is the fight to re-open the much-loved ice-rink.

"Labour believe that it is simply not good enough for the council to shirk responsibility for where we are, and to claim to be powerless to act."

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: "As Liberal Democrats, we have always supported local groups' actions in fighting for the well-being of the local community.

"We want to work alongside groups such as Ryde Arena Community Action Group to make sure we can achieve the best outcomes for all Islanders.

"Investment is an important part of improving and progressing the Island, but this must be done in the interest of local communities first and as Lib Dems we will support that right."


Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

Turkey can terminate the deal on sale of OMV Petrol Ofisi to VIP Turkey Enerji AS, a subsidiary of the Dutch Vitol Investment Partnership Ltd, due to the diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Amsterdam, Turkish media outlets reported.

Earlier, OMV, the international integrated oil and gas company based in Vienna, has agreed to sell 100 percent of the shares in its wholly owned subsidiary OMV Petrol Ofisi to VIP Turkey Enerji AS.

A relevant confirmation must be obtained from Turkeys Energy Market Regulatory Authority and Competition Authority to carry out this operation.

It was earlier reported that Austrias OMV was selling its Turkish subsidiary, since, as a part of its strategy, it intends to focus on mining companies and integrated activities on oil refining. In this regard, OMV started selling 100 percent of shares in OMV Petrol Ofisi AS.

Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR, Saudi Aramco, Petromin-C Port and Vitol participated in the final stage of the tender to acquire OMV assets.

The diplomatic conflict between Turkey and the Netherlands broke out as the Dutch authorities decided to, for security reasons, prohibit Turkish politicians from delivering a speech in the Netherlands in support of constitutional reform in Turkey.

On March 11, the Dutch government first canceled the Turkish foreign minister's flight permit to the Netherlands and then blocked a convoy carrying Turkeys family minister from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam.

Protests erupted outside consulate in Rotterdam, where Dutch police used guard dogs and baton to disperse peaceful crowd gathering in support of Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya.

In response, Turkey sent two notes of protest to the Netherlands due to blocking of Turkish ministers visits to the country and ill-treatment of Turkish citizens by the Dutch police.
Older workers may find themselves having the advantage of experience when it comes to job hunting. However, age can pose a problem, especially when online job websites have built-in age discrimination.

According to a news report by the CNBC, older workers are having difficulty in looking for jobs online due to the fact that ageism is included in various online software tools. Instead of online job platforms making the search for jobs easier, it excludes older workers and makes it impossible for them to fill out a job application.

How? Lisa Madigan, an attorney general from Illinois, has opened an investigation into the said age discrimination. She says that drop-down menus in job websites do not go back far enough to include the graduation dates of older applicants, writes CNBC.

One website in particular only included the years that come after 1980, reports CNBC, which would mean that anyone older than 52 cannot fill out a job application. According to Madigan, this is a discriminatory act. She says that many people in their 70s and 80s are still working and barring them from job sites has a negative effect on the economy, writes CNBC.

According to the news website, six widely used job websites have been contacted by Madigan's office. One of the websites, CareerBuilder, claims that the age cut-off is a mistake and that it is working to fix the matter in order to prevent any future incidents.

Other sites work to prevent age discrimination. For instance, Ladders Inc. has stated that it does not even ask for a year of graduation from college, writes CNBC, and Indeed Inc. has dates that go as far as 1900.

Aside from ageism, older women also have to combat sexism. A study has revealed that there is a 47 percent less chance for such women to get callbacks, according to CNBC.

For more jobs and business-related news and updates, follow Jobs & Hire.
ABCs Shark Tank judges Robert Herjavec and Mark Cuban shared valuable career advice. Both judges may not seemingly see things eye to eye, but they were able to have a good conversation over lunch, wherein Cuban gave an interesting piece of advice to Herjavec.

According to CNBC, it is such a rare moment for the multi-millionaire owner of cyber security company Herjavec Group and the billionaire entrepreneur to get along. And it is good to know that one way or another, they were able to find a common ground.

"[Cuban] looks and me says 'You know? You're a good guy. And so I'm going to give you a piece of advice. You have to dream bigger, shared Herjavec.

Cuban pointed out to Herjavec that he is very protective of his downside, and that it is time for him to think of the upside. It is common to find entrepreneurs who are not risk takers. They have so much fear of the downside, to the extent that it is already holding them back.

Herjavec said that focusing on the upside does pay off. If you think that you have more potential to achieve success and excellence, then you go for it. That is why in his recent conversation with Cuban, he reminded him of taking chances, to try new opportunities rather than worry too much about the risk that goes with it.

Just think of the upside, said Cuban.

Per Business Insider, Herjavec and Cuban shared some pieces of advice for entrepreneurs. Cuban said that it is important to pay bigger focus on the profit that your venture can bring you. As he explained, You have to follow the green, not the dream." And as for Herjavec, a simple yet meaningful advice, A goal without a timeline is just a dream.

Meanwhile, Jobs & Hire reported that the founder and CEO of Herjavec Group shared some tips on how you can protect yourself from hackers.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was already on her way to the airport on Monday to fly to Washington for her first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump when he rang her to postpone the trip due to the approach of a winter storm, Reuters reported.

The storm, which is expected to hit the northeastern United States, has prompted airlines to cancel thousands of flights and some mayors to order schools to close on Tuesday.

After her 10-minute conversation with Trump, Merkel continued to Berlin's Tegel airport to personally inform reporters who were due to travel with her to Washington of the change of plan.

"The trip is canceled. That is not a joke," Merkel told the dozen or more surprised reporters already seated on board the government's Airbus A340 plane.

Merkel had been due to meet Trump for more than two hours on Tuesday, followed by a working lunch.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the meeting would be rescheduled for Friday, following the same schedule.

Top executives from three German companies, including engineering group Siemens (SIEGn.DE) and carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE), who had been due to travel with Merkel, would also participate in the postponed trip, officials said.

Merkel is no stranger to weather-related travel changes.

In 2010, she was stranded during a trip to the United States following the eruption of a volcano in Iceland and had to follow a circuitous route home via Portugal and Italy.

In 2012, France's newly elected Socialist President Francois Hollande was en route to meet Merkel, a conservative, but had to return to Paris after his plane was struck by lightning, an incident that helped break the ice in the relationship between the two leaders despite their political differences.

German government officials said the abrupt postponement of Merkel's trip to Washington could act in the same way for Merkel and Trump, providing an unexpected personal kickstart for discussions that will center on complex and difficult issues, including trade issues, Russia, NATO and the Middle East.
GREENSBORO  In a statement today , U.S. Rep. Mark Walker (R-6th) condemned a KKK rally that is being planned to be held in Randolph County in May.

I despise bringing any awareness to such despicable behavior; however, such hate needs to be rebuked," Walker stated. "The KKK rally planned for May in Randolph County is a reminder of the hateful ideologies that exists within a minuscule group."

The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which is based in Pelham, scheduled the event. The group's website said the event will feature speeches, dinner and a "crosslighting" at dark.

The group has not announced an exact location for the rally, but its flier touts free parking, as well as, no drinking, drugs or weapons. The rally will take place at 1 p.m. and is for "whites only", the website states.

The Scriptures state 'anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. This darkness is saturated in ignorance, denying that God has created every man, woman, boy and girl uniquely with exceptional skills and talent.

The rally may be constitutional, but this group's message and legacy are an affront to our core value that all people are created equal. I would hope the people of North Carolina reject this behavior not with violence, but with actions that represent genuine love for all in our community," stated Walker in the release.

The City of Asheboro denounced "the message of hate and division advocated by the Ku Klux Klan and its affiliates" in a news release Sunday.

The people of Asheboro have worked too hard to unify our community to let an outside group come in and spread racist views without raising our voices loudly in protest, stated Mayor David H. Smith in the release. They may have a right to peacefully assemble, but we also have a right to object at the top of our collective voice.

Asheboro City Manager John N. Ogburn reports that no applications have been received by the city related to the event.
UK lawmakers have signed off on legislation that will allow the UK to formally exit the European Union, Sputnik reported.

The House of Lords has passed legislation without amendments that it had previously added to the law. The lower house, the House of Commons, had erased the changes made by legislators in the House of Lords. The peers have caved in to House of Commons pressure, which on Monday voted against amendments to guarantee the rights of millions of EU citizens living in the country after Brexit as well as giving Parliament veto powers over a final Brexit deal.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said the PM would prefer the bill to be passed unamended. "We've also been clear throughout that we are determined parliament will be engaged all the way through the process and afterwards," a spokesman said on Monday.

It has been 262 days since Britain shocked the world by voting to exit the EU. On June 23, 2016 about 52 percent of UK voters cast ballots to for the island nation to leave the EU. The full terms of the UK's exit have yet to be negotiated, but much hinges at stake. Particularly, UK citizens and outside observers wonder whether Britain will keep some economic ties with the EU in the form of tariff-free trade, or whether the UK will trade with the EU like any non-EU country under rules stipulated by the World Trade Organization. Another issue is how migrants entering and leaving the UK will be treated.

The EU has said that it will respond to Britain's formal notice to leave within 48 hours, Sputnik reported.

The next step for the legislation is royal assent, which could happen as soon as Tuesday morning. From there, Prime Minister Theresa May is free to trigger the UK's divorce from one of the world's largest economic unions. The final break could happen in the final week of March, which her spokesman confirmed.

From there, May would begin a two-year negotiation period, as stipulated in Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty. One hurdle that has been placed in May's path comes from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is calling for another independence referendum in 2018 or early 2019 depending on how the terms of Brexit play out.
A man who caused a fatal wreck in Rockbridge County while trying to run from the police pleaded guilty Monday to felony murder, eluding and reckless driving.

Tyquanne Corelle McCargo, 24, of North Carolina, will face between six and 46 years in prison when sentenced June 13.

He expressed remorse during Mondays hearing and told the family of the man killed in the crash that he was honestly and truly sorry.

It was never my intent to take your loved one from you, he said. Its a situation Im going to regret for the rest of my life.

McCargo crashed into a pickup, killing the other driver, in December while trying to outrun a state trooper.

The trooper had pulled McCargo over for speeding on Interstate 81 but discovered he was wanted on a felony credit card fraud charge out of Caroline County.

McCargo took off, authorities said, weaving around cars and highway construction crews at speeds reaching 130 mph.

Exiting I-81s Exit 200 at Fairfield, he crossed the center line on a rural road and smashed into a truck driven by 55-year-old Ricky Stuart Deacon of Fairfield.

Deacon was pronounced dead at the scene. McCargo was seriously injured and was using a cane Monday.

Officials found bags of untaxed cigarettes, iPads and other contraband inside McCargos vehicle, which may have contributed to his decision to run, said Rockbridge Commonwealths Attorney Christopher Billias.

Defense attorney Neill Wente said McCargo just panicked after hearing about the warrant, which he hadnt been aware of, and made a split-second decision with tragic consequences.

Hes been remorseful and took responsibility for what happened, Wente added. In addition to the Deacon family, McCargo apologized to the state troopers and others affected that day.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, two charges  involuntary manslaughter and obstruction of justice  were dropped Monday.

The agreement didnt include any stipulations about McCargos sentence. A circuit court judge will weigh that question in June.

McCargo will remain in jail until then.

The credit card fraud charge against him in Caroline County is still pending, according to online records, and is set to be heard by a grand jury there in May.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that some EU countries could not tolerate Turkey's rise as an emerging power, and accused them of working against the "Yes" vote in Turkey's April 16 constitutional referendum, Anadolu reported.

"A part of the European Union countries, unfortunately, cannot tolerate the rise of Turkey, and Germany is right at the top [of the list]. Germany relentlessly supports terrorism," Erdogan said during an interview aired live on local A Haber and ATV networks.

The president lashed out at German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said earlier Monday that the Netherlands had her "full support and solidarity" in the Turkish-Dutch row.

"Merkel! Shame on you! Stand by the Netherlands as you like. You are supporting terrorists," Erdogan said, adding that Turkey had sent Germany 4,500 files on terrorists, but Germany did nothing about it.

His remarks came amid an ongoing standoff between Turkey and the Netherlands after the Dutch government banned planned rallies of Turkish ministers ahead of the referendum.

On Saturday, the Dutch government first cancelled the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's flight permit to the Netherlands and then blocked a convoy carrying Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya and forced her to leave the country under police escort.

When Turkish citizens in Rotterdam peacefully protested these developments, they were met by police using batons, dogs and water cannons, in what some analysts called a disproportionate use of force.

The events have drawn strong criticism from the Turkish government, which, earlier Monday, sent diplomatic notes to the Netherlands in protest.

Two weeks ago, Turkish government ministers were also barred from holding public rallies in two German cities.

Erdogan said he would not be content with only a simple apology from the Netherlands on this issue.

"They will pay the price for this sooner or later," he said, adding the Dutch government would be called to account for the recent events.

Erdogan accused Germany and the Netherlands of ignoring the Vienna Convention, and of being fascist and employing Nazi practices.

"We can call it Neo-Nazism. That's their understanding of the Vienna Convention," Erdogan said.

Signed in 1961, the Vienna Convention is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries.

It also specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country, according to the treaty.

Turkish president also voiced support for a proposed constitutional change that would lower the minimum age to become a lawmaker from 25 to 18.

"What could be more beautiful than this? This is paving the way for all young people in Turkey to take firm steps towards the future. Their energy will refresh the Turkish parliament," Erdogan said.

He slammed the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu for misinforming the nation on the proposed amendments.

Last week, Kilicdaroglu accused the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party for forming a political aristocracy by reducing the minimum age for parliamentary candidates.

"They have reduced the minimum parliamentary candidacy age to 18 for their own children and grandchildren. They will make them deputies at the age of 18 and will exempt them from military service with an amendment," Kilicdaroglu said on March 6.

The CHP is campaigning for a "No" vote in the referendum, but Kilicdaroglu said the party would embrace both "Yes" and "No" voters after the poll.

Erdogan reiterated his criticism of the "No" campaigners, saying, They are not against the system. They are actually against the Turkish people. They are siding with terrorists."

The constitutional changes have been discussed since Erdogan was voted president in August 2014. The 18-article bill was passed by parliament in January, with 339 votes in favor -- nine more than needed to put the proposal to a referendum.

The reforms would hand wide-ranging executive powers to the president and the post of prime minister would be abolished. The president would also be allowed to retain ties to a political party.

Other changes would see the minimum age for parliamentary candidates reduced to 18 and the number of deputies rise to 600. Simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections for a five-year term would be held in November 2019 under the new constitution.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi over the phone on Tuesday about the fight against the Daesh terror group, Anadolu reported citing the Prime Ministry's press office in Ankara.

Yildirim said Turkey's contribution to the international coalition in the fight against Daesh would continue.

He also expressed Turkey's position and expectations in the fight against terror, particularly against the PKK/PYD.

Abadi also said Iraq would not let any threat reach Turkey from Iraqi territory.

In mid-February, Iraqi forces -- backed by a U.S.-led air coalition -- began new operations aimed at dislodging Daesh terrorists from western Mosul.

The offensive came as part of a wider campaign launched last October to retake the entire city, which Daesh overran in mid-2014.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU.

Since the group resumed its armed campaign in July 2015, more than 1,200 people, including security force personnel and civilians, have lost their lives.

The PYD is a Syrian offshoot of the PKK. While Turkey considers PYD/YPG as Syrian affiliates of the PKK, neither the EU nor the U.S. regard the groups as its offshoots.
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
Chinese Tourists in Denmark (Photo : Getty Images)

Alibaba Group Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai and Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen recently attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou, which is aimed at increasing Danish exports to China and promoting Denmark as a tourist destination for Chinese travelers.



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According to Street Insider, the new Denmark Pavilion was also unveiled on Alibaba's TMall Global imported marketplace during the event.



The new pavilion will enable Danish products to reach more than 440 million users of Alibaba's e-commerce platforms, as well as introduce Chinese consumers to unique products from Denmark.



TMall's country pavilions were designed to help TMall Global customers to learn other culture and products from countries around the world.



The pavilion was launched together with 20 brands that sell Danish products in the home, food, fashion and lifestyle sectors. Major brands also held live-streaming sessions on the TMall mobile app to present their products to Chinese consumers. Some of the leading Danish brands that joined the event included Jacob Jensen Design, Bang & Olufsen, ONLY, ECCO and Vero Moda.



Alibaba and the Danish Government also pledged to increase cooperation against counterfeit goods and protect intellectual property.



Travel destination for Chinese tourists



Aside from providing access to Danish products, an official Danish Pavilion was established on Fliggy, Alibaba's travel booking platform, which promotes Denmark as a travel destination for Chinese tourists with travel information from the Danish Embassy, Danish Consulate and Visit Denmark as Fliggy's second Nordic European tourism board strategic partner.



Denmark will also create an official visa information platform on Fliggy, becoming the first country to participate in Fliggy's visa innovation program.



In addition, Fliggy and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) signed a strategic cooperation, with a new SAS flagship store in Fliggy, bringing the total number of airline flagstores on Fliggy to more than 20.



Both Tsai and Minister Samuelsen underscored the importance of collaboration between Alibaba and the Danish government, which is expected to expand China-Denmark trade.



"I am pleased to formalize our efforts with Denmark and open the Denmark Pavilions on Tmall Global and Fliggy, allowing Alibaba to serve Danish businesses of all sizes with direct access to the growing Chinese middle-class market," Joe Tsai, Alibaba Group executive vice-chairman, said.



"Danish design, art and lifestyle are admired all over the world for their sophistication and minimalism, and there is no doubt that Danish products will become even more popular amongst Chinese customers, enticing an ever-growing number of them to want to travel to the country themselves," Tsai added.



Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said: "China is a very promising, but also a challenging market for many Danish companies. Chinese consumers have often limited knowledge of Danish products and with the opening of an official Danish pavilion on China's leading e-commerce market place Tmall Global, we hope to draw attention to Danish products and brands."



"More and more retail is happening online and more in China than anywhere else--it is, therefore, important that the Danish Foreign Ministry can support Danish companies' success in this particular area. I believe the establishment of an Official Danish Pavilion on Tmall Global is an important step in that direction," the minister said.


Five states joined a Washington suit [complaint, PDF] on Monday challenging the revised Trump administration executive order [text] restricting immigration from six majority Muslim nations. The states are seeking an injunction to stop the ban before it goes into effect on Thursday. In the complaint the states argue that the order will cause severe and immediate harms to the States, including our residents, our colleges and universities, our healthcare providers, and our businesses. The new order shows differences from the original order, removing Iraq from the list of seven original countries and removing the indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria, yet continues to impose a ban on refugees for 120 days. The judge has said that the government has until Tuesday to respond, and that the case will not be heard until at least Wednesday.

As this travel ban seems destined to be tried in the courts the question of the constitutionality of the Presidents actions comes to the forefront of discussion. The states currently joining the Washington suit include Massachusetts, California [JURIST reports], Maryland, New York and Oregon. Hawaii also filed a separate suit [complaint, PDF] in February arguing that the revised order would cause serious business and constitutional concerns if implemented. Challenges to the order are not only being brought by states. Early in February the order faced opposition [JURIST report] from former government employees and private individuals. Earlier this month a federal court judge in Wisconsin issued a restraining order against the travel ban [JURIST report] for one Syrian asylum seeker and his family.
The UK Parliament [official website] passed the Brexit bill [text] on Monday after the House of Commons [official website] voted [BBC report] 273 to 135 to overturn suggested amendments to the bill and sent the bill back to the House of Lords [official website]. In response to the vote overturning the Lords suggested amendments, those opposed to the bill over EU residency rights backed down. The House of Lords then proceeded to vote [BBC report] not to challenge the House of Commons on a Brexit veto or fight EU residency status. The bill is expected to receive Royal Assent and become law Tuesday. Now that the bill has passed, Prime Minister Theresa May [official website] can initiate talks for the UK to withdraw from the EU These talks are expected to occur at the end of March and will start a two-year withdrawal process.

The past few weeks have seen debate and interest regarding the Brexit vote as uncertainty about when and how the UK should leave the EU has been widespread. The House of Commons approved [JURIST report] the bill without the amendment in early February. In response the House of Lords passed amendments [JURIST report] giving parliament the ability to approve negotiations of the UKs exit. Also last week, judges for the UK High Court dismissed a suit [JURIST report] that claimed members of parliament should be allowed to vote on whether Britain will leave the European Economic Area. A majority of UK voters expressed their desire to leave the EU [JURIST report] in June, leading to the resignation of former prime minster David Cameron.
The Colombian Senate [official website, in Spanish] Monday approved [press release, in Spanish] a transitional justice structure that will attempt to bring reparations to the more than 8 million victims of the decades-long conflict between the Colombia government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The new system will include a Transitional Justice Tribunal, a Truth Commission and a Missing Persons section, all aimed at punishing war crimes and gaining reparations for victims. The vote was 60-2 in the Senate, with all 40 members of the Democratic Center party boycotting the vote. The bill must now be approved by Colombias Constitutional Court [official website, in Spanish] before it can take effect.

The transitional justice system is part of a November 2016 deal between the FARC and the Colombia government to end a conflict [JURIST report] that raged for more than 50 years and claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people. In October Colombian voters rejected [JURIST report] an earlier peace deal attempt by a razor thin margin. Negotiations between the FARC and Colombia government lasted for more than four years, with the UN and US acting [JURIST report] as chief intermediaries.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Monday outlined [memorandum, PDF] its legal defense in support of President Donald Trumps revised executive order restricting travel and immigration. This came after Hawaii filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] in February arguing [WP report] that the revised order would cause serious business and constitutional concerns if implemented. The DOJ is arguing [ABA Journal report] that Hawaii is not entitled to a restraining order citing that Hawaiis claims are mere speculation. Furthermore, the revised orders text and purpose are religion-neutral thereby hindering arguments of religious animus against Muslims. The DOJ also argues that unlike the previous order, emergency relief is not required as waivers are available and nobody has been turned away due to the order yet. A hearing in the matter is scheduled for Wednesday.

Trumps revised travel ban has faced continued legal challenges even in the face of corrections to the order. Also on Monday the California Attorney General announced [JURIST report] that California would be joining Washington and Minnesota in their lawsuit against the revised travel ban. Last week a judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin granted a temporary restraining order [JURIST report] against Trumps revised immigration ban to a Syrian asylum seeker and his family. The order is limited to the one man and his family and will remain in effect only until the asylum request for his wife and child can be resolved. The revised immigration ban removed Iraq from its list of countries, implemented a waiver system, and used language that is religion neutral. The ban still temporarily blocks immigrants from six countries and decreases the amount of refugees being admitted into the country.
[JURIST] Seven convicted felons on Monday filed suit [complaint, PDF] alleging Floridas process of restoring voting rights to felons is unconstitutionally arbitrary. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida by the Fair Elections Legal Network [advocacy website] and the Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC [firmwebsite] on behalf of the seven plaintiffs, seeks to restore voting rights for ex-felons and eliminate the current process. Florida, Kentucky, Iowa and Virginia are the only states that require former felons to petition to public officials for the restoration of their voting rights. According the the complaint, there is no timetable required under the current law for a judgment on an ex-felons petition, and the 10,513 pending applications have created a significant backlog for the review board. On September 1, 2016, this figure was 10,588. The backlog has only decreased by 75 pending applications in six months, demonstrating that the current system has both caused Floridas disenfranchised population to grow to 1.68 million and is utterly unsuited to addressing the ever-worsening problem.

Voting rights continue to be a pressing issue. Earlier in March a three-judge panel of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled [JURIST report] that the boundaries of three voting districts violated the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution. Also in March the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that Virginias redistricting scheme must be examined for racial bias. In February the state of Georgia settled a lawsuit [JURIST report] against Secretary of State Brian Kemp over a voter registration law that would reject any application that did not exactly match personal identification information in state and federal databases.
[JURIST] Florida Governor Rick Scott [official website] signed a new bill [SB 280, materials] on Monday declaring that the death penalty may only be imposed by a judge upon unanimous recommendation from the jury. Floridas executions have been on hold [Reuters report] since January 2016, when the US Supreme Court [official website] held [opinion, PDF] that the states death penalty law violated the Sixth Amendment by allowing judges to override jury recommendations. In October the Florida Supreme Court [official website] also dismissed [opinion, PDF] a version of the law that allowed the death penalty upon the recommendation of 10 jurors. According to the court, the law [JURIST report] had failed to require the jury, rather than the judge, to find the facts necessary to impose the death sentence. Florida currently has 382 inmates on death row, and it is unclear when executions may resume. The Florida Supreme Court has already declared [JURIST report] that prosecutors may still seek the death penalty in ongoing cases.

The death penalty has been a pressing issue across the country. Last week the Arkansas Supreme Court [official website] issued an order [JURIST report] stating there is no stay in place preventing the execution of eight inmates schedule for next month. Last month the Mississippi house approved a bill [JURIST report] allowing firing squad executions. Also last month a judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio refused to lift [JURIST report] a preliminary injunction that delays executions in Ohio. In January Judge Michael Merz blocked [JURIST report] Ohios lethal injection protocol by deeming it unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Also in January the US Supreme Court refused [JURIST report] to consider a challenge to Alabamas death penalty system. In December a report by the Death Penalty Information Center found that the use of capital punishment in the US is at a 20-year low [JURIST report].
Rashomon (Photo : Getty Images)

Huayi Brothers Media and CKF Pictures would jointly produce The Mask of the Black Death from a script by famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Huayi, based in Beijing, and CKF, owned by Chen Kuo-fu, a Taiwanese filmmaker, announced the project last week.



The movie is expected to be ready for exhibition during the weeklong National Day holiday in 2020, Xinhua News Agency reported. The holiday is the second most profitable period to show movies in China, after Spring Festival.



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Hollywood Influencer



Kurosawa, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 1951 for Rashomon, influenced great Hollywood moviemakers such as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. He is the first Asian to be awarded the Golden Lion.



The Japanese director wrote The Mask of the Black Death originally as the second production for a former Soviet studio. It was after his first co-production, Dersu Uzala was awarded by the Oscar as Best Foreign Language movie in 1976. It was based on the memoir of a Russian explorer and the first non-Japanese movie of Kurosawa.



Deadly Disease



He wrote the script in the late 1970s of The Mask of the Black Death, but he died in 1998 without the script being made into a film. The script was based on The Masque of the Red Death, a gothic fiction by American author Edgar All Poe adapted for the movies in 1964 by Roger Corman. The film starred Vincent Price. The story revolves around a prince, along with nobles, who hid inside a castle as protection against a deadly ailment that was killing the masses.



Dread Central noted that several of the scripts of Akira Kurosawa, considered the godfather of Japanese cinema, have been adapted after his death. It includes the movies After the Rain, The Sea is Watching and Nioh. The translation of Masque of the Red Death script is available at The Film Stage.


[JURIST] Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [official website] stated [Twitter post] on Tuesday that blasphemy is an unpardonable offense and ordered the state to remove such content from social media. In a Twitter post through the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [official website; Twitter] account, Sharif directed Interior Minister Ch. Nisar Ali Khanthat [official website] to bring to justice all those who have posted blasphemous comments. Because the issue is before the Pakistan courts, he stated that all steps should be taken in conformance with guidance from the court.

Last year a sharia high court in Nigeria sentenced [JURIST report] cleric Abdulaziz Dauda and nine others to death by hanging for committing blasphemy against the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. In October the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye said that governments are wielding the tools of censorship and cautioned [JURIST report] that the freedom of expression is under the widespread assault. In 2015 a Pakistani man was executed for his part in murdering a politician [JURIST report] who supported a Christian who had been convicted of blasphemy. Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Indonesian Parliament in 2015 to reject proposed amendments to its law on the eradication of terrorism. HRW asserted that the proposed amendments are too vague [JURIST report] and would limit the exercise of free expression and directly conflict with Indonesias obligations to international human rights, leading to fundamental rights violations. And in 2010 HRW urged the repeal of all such laws [JURIST report].
[JURIST] Taiwanese prosecutors indicted former president Ma Ying-jeou on Tuesday on charges of leaking classified information and state secrets. The Taipei District Public Prosecutors Office [official website] indicted [BBC report] Ma after a six-month investigation and now alleges that Ma ordered the contents of wire-tapped phone calls between the parliamentary Speaker and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) [Facebook page] lawmaker Ker Chien-ming [official profile] be disclosed to other governmental officials. Ma claims that the contents of the phone call related to influence-peddling and that it was his responsibility as head of state to wiretap and disclose the contents. Ker filed a private lawsuit on the same matter, and the court is expected to announce a verdict this month.

Leaking of classified information has been a worldwide corruption problem. Last month a former US National Security Agency contractor was indicted [JURIST report] by a federal grand jury on charges that he willfully retained national defense information, allegedly the largest heist of classified government information in history. In November South Korean prosecutors said that President Park Geun-hye will be investigated [JURIST report] as a suspect in a political corruption scandal after a former aide was indicted for leaking classified documents to a friend of the president. In July a Chinese court near Beijing jailed Ling Jihua, a top aide to former China president Hu Jintao, and sentenced him to life imprisonment [JURIST report] after finding him guilty of taking bribes, illegally obtaining state secrets and abuse of power.
[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein [official profile] called Tuesday for measures to release detainees in Syria in his address [text] to the UN Human Rights Council [official website]. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic also released [press release] a report Tuesday finding that civilians are still suffering severe abuses from all parties to the Syrian conflict. The report is based on 326 interviews conducted from July 2016 to through February 2017. Both Zeid and the commission called for the injustices to end and for those guilty of the war crimes and torture to be brought to justice.

The Syria civil war [JURIST backgrounder] continues to have a devastating impact. In February UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura claimed [JURIST report] bombings and air strikes in Syria were committed deliberately to disrupt peace talks between both sides in Geneva. In January Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland condemned [JURIST report] the interruption of water that has left millions of Syrians without clean access to water. Earlier in January Syrian warplanes resumed bombardment [JURIST report] in spite of a ceasefire agreement reached just days before.
[JURIST] Yanghee Lee [official profile], the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, called [press release] Monday for an international investigation into the crimes against humanity allegedly committed by the Myanmar government towards the Rohingya Muslim population. Lee said, [t]he truth about whether all, or some, or any of these allegations are correct needs to be established. There is a need for a new set of investigations which are prompt, thorough, independent and impartial, and this needs to happen soon, before the evidence is compromised. Lee proposed the Human Rights Council have an urgent discussion about the situation in Myanmar. She said, [n]o stones must be left unturned. The alleged victims, as well as all the people of Myanmar deserve to know the truth.

The situation in Myanmar has continued to be one closely monitored by advocacy groups and world organizations. In February Lee called for [JURIST report] Myanmar to end persecution against the Rohingya population. Earlier that month Myanmar officials stated [JURIST report] that they would investigate alleged police crimes against Rohingya Muslims. Also in February Human Rights Watch endorsed [JURIST report] an investigation into the abuses against the Rohingya population, specifically sexual abuses against women. In January a prominent Muslim lawyer in the country was shot and killed [JURIST report] outside an airport in Myanmar, which brought condemnation from an UN expert about the human rights situation in the country. The continued abuses against this vulnerable population led the UN to send an envoy to the country last month to assess [JURIST report] the human rights situation.
In 2016, the Ministry of Public Security was able to arrest 4,261 suspects involved in 1,886 cases of infringement of personal information. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese lawmakers are calling for the creation of better, more effective response systems to protect personal information and, as a result, lessen the number of cases related to infringement, Xinhua News Agency reported.



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Last year, the Ministry of Public Security was able to arrest 4,261 suspects involved in 1,886 cases of infringement of personal information, the agency said last Friday, March 10.



Of the 4,000-plus suspects, 391 were heavily involved in the stock market, banking, telecommunications, education, e-commerce, and delivery services.



China lost about 91.5 billion yuan (approximately $13.2 billion) last year, all because of leaked personal information, fraud, and junk messages, the Internet Society of China said, according to Xinhua News Agency. In 2015, China lost roughly 80 billion yuan.



In addition to the figures, Tencent, one of the leading Internet companies in China, estimated that there are 1.5 million people in the country that engage in illegal business online. Effective response systems for web safety can lead to a significant decrease in infringement and fraud cases and put a stopper to the loss of funds.



The government shall create an industry for web data safety. It should coordinate telecommunications, finance and Internet companies to better handle information leaks, said Ma Huateng, CEO and chairman of Tencent and a national lawmaker.



A system needs to be built for people to make reports of information leaks so that relevant organizations can perform damage control as early as possible, Ma added.



Lawmaker Shao Zhiqing, who is also the deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, also said that cutting off the profit chain can also help decrease information leaks in China.



We must establish a rule governing the trade and communication of big data. Controllability and safety are the most important thing in data flow, Shao said.



As of date, Chinese companies are rarely given punitive measures in the event of information leaks.


UK-based snacks group Pladis has announced plans to double its chocolate sales and increase its biscuit sales by 50% as the company targets revenues of GBP3.2bn (US$3.9bn) over the next two years.

A spokesperson for Pladis, formed last year as a subsidiary of Turkey-based Yildiz Holding, told just-food the company aims to focus on ramping up sales in the Middle East, China and Nigeria.

CEO Cem Karakas gave an insight into Pladiss new global sales drive yesterday (13 March). He said: In 2017, we will continue our innovation and modernisation programmes, invest across the supply chain and bring new products to market faster than any of our competitors to outperform the category.

In our first transformational year, we have brought together and successfully grown three iconic brands, amidst the rising costs of raw materials and volatile global currencies, Karakas said. In 2016, Pladis produced one million tonnes of biscuits, 500,000 tonnes of chocolate and 40,000 tonnes of gums and candies. We distributed our products to four billion people in more than 130 countries. In 2017, we will do more.

Karakas told just-food last October the company was increasing its investment in order to grow sales in the global chocolate and biscuit categories.

According to Pladis, business opportunities extend beyond its two anchor markets of the UK and Turkey. The company described Africa as a strong growth market.

In the Ivory Coast, Pladis said its Yildiz parent company is acquiring a cocoa processing plant, which will allow greater efficiency and agility across the chocolate supply chain. This adds to the companys global capacity in chocolate production alongside facilities in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UK, the US and Belgium, Pladis said.

In China, Godiva chocolate, one of three so-called master brands operated by Pladis, is a focal point. Pladis claimed Godiva was Chinas best-selling premium chocolate, responsible for $60m of the wider groups $100m sales in 2016, Pladis said. Yildiz will continue to open more stores in a short timeframe to fuel consumer demand.

This month, Pladis will launch a new Godiva tablet range in supermarkets in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which it said will extend to other markets including the UK, the Netherlands and China this year.
New York City, NY, 03/14/2017 /SubmitPressRelease123/

Since 1939, LaGuardia Airportwhich was known as the New York Municipal Airport when it first openedhas served as one of the busiest airports in the world. Along with JFK International and Newark Liberty International, it is part of the biggest airport system in the U.S. and the second-largest in the world with respect to passenger traffic.

However, LaGuardia has seen its fair share of accidents and near-misses. Most recently, a plane skidded off the runway in late October 2016. The incident perhaps drew more attention than it might have ordinarily, as the flight happened to include Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Shortly after the incident, several news outlets referenced LaGuardias unfortunate history of ugly accidents.

LaGuardias History of Crashes and Near-Misses

Fortunately, no one was hurt in the October incident, however, the plane tore up the concrete runway as it skidded into a patch of grass. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) credited an Engineered Material Arresting System as helping the plane to stop, preventing serious injuries. The system in question allows the concrete to deliberately crush apart when a plane begins skidding.

A similar skidding accident occurred just last year, when a Delta flight slid off the runway on an icy day in March. In that case, about two dozen passengers were hurt.

In 2013, a planes landing gear collapsed during landing, causing the plane to veer onto the grass, injuring 16 people on board.

Perhaps most notably, the Miracle on the Hudson landing in 2009 occurred after the U.S. Airways flight took off from LaGuardia, striking geese that disabled both engines just minutes after lift-off.

Tragically, LaGuardia has also seen several fatal aviation accidents. In 1992, problems with de-icing caused a plane to crash into Flushing Bay just after take-off. The crash resulted in 27 fatalities.

In 1989, another accident during lift-off killed two passengers and caused 15 injuries after the plane ran off the end of the runway and crashed into Bowery Bay.

Short Runways at LaGuardia

Live in New York City long enoughor fly in and out of the city a few timesand you are likely to hear about LaGuardias infamously short runways. At 7,001 feet and 7,003 feet, LaGuardias runways are shorter than most runways at other major U.S. airports. According to a Wall Street Journal report, many aviation experts recommend runways be at least 6,000 feet long for small commercial aircraft and 10,000 feet for nearly any commercial aircraft.

Although LaGuardias runways are well within the suggested length for small commercial aircraft, they fall far short of the runways at JFK and Newark, which are 14,000 feet and 11,000 feet, respectively.

As explained by New York City aviation accident lawyer Jonathan C. Reiter, Its important for anyone hurt in an airline accident to contact an aviation accident lawyer right away. These are complicated cases that require in-depth analysis and a thorough investigation.

Media Contact:

Jonathan C. Reiter

New York airline accident lawyer Jonathan C. Reiter. T: 866-324-9211.

Jonathan C. Reiter Law Firm, PLLC

The Empire State Building

350 5th Avenue #6400

New York, NY 10118

T: (212) 736-0979

source: http://injuryaccidentnews.jcreiterlaw.com/2017/03/10/nyc-aviation-accident-lawyer-asks-laguardia-ugly-history/

Social Media Tags:LaGuardia Airport, LaGuardia Airport Crashes, LaGuardia Ugly History, New York airline accident lawyer Jonathan C. Reiter, NYC Aviation Accident Lawyer

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Political education is a key part of government policy, and it is quite rare for a government body to admit difficulties in enforcing such laws. (Photo : Getty Images)

On Sunday, March 12, Chinas education minister admitted that university students in the country receive poor political education, attributed to outdated classes, according to an article by Reuters.



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When we go and investigate at colleges and universities, attention levels at thought and political theory classes are not high. People are there in body but not in spirit, Education Minister Chen Baosheng said during the annual meeting of parliament.



Why is this? The contents do not suit their needs. Perhaps mainly the formula is rather outdated, the tools are rather crude and the packaging is not that fashionable, Chen said.



Chen added as he spoke on the sidelines that to ensure healthy moral growth, Chinese students need to incorporate core socialist values into their lives. Studies on traditional Chinese culture, advanced socialist culture, and revolutionary culture should also be done.

This will enable students to effectively bear their responsibilities to society.



Political education is a key part of government policy, and it is quite rare for a government body to admit difficulties in enforcing such laws.



Western values are made unwelcome at Chinese universities, to the point that the campaign has compelled the Communist Partys anti-corruption watchdog to send inspectors last year to observe teachers.



One of Chinas latest efforts to tighten its grip on education occurred in December when President Xi Jinping asked colleges and universities in the country to pledge allegiance to the Communist Party.



Chinas policies in education control curriculum and speech at universities. It reflects the countrys deep-seated fear of another wave of pro-democracy protests led by students. In 1989, such an event happened.



Professors and scholars get expelled from their universities when caught making criticisms of the party. In 2013, a Chinese economist known for his outspoken criticisms of the party was made to leave Peking University, once a stronghold of free speech.


Song Hye Kyo, Iris Law and Immy Waterhouse wearing Burberry attend the Burberry February 2017 Show during London Fashion Week February 2017 at Makers House on February 20, 2017 in London, England. (Photo : Getty Images/David M. Benett)

Song Hye Kyo, 35, who starred in "Descendants of the Sun" opposite Song Joong Ki, 31, and "Six Flying Dragons" alum Yoo Ah In, 30, are in a relationship, a platonic one. Hye Kyo and Yoo recently graced the cover of a South Korean magazine together.



Yoo is set to star in an upcoming tvN series titled "Chicago Typewriter" opposite Go Kyung Pro and Im Soo Jung. He and Hye Kyo are the cover models of the special March issue of W Korea, which is celebrating its 12th anniversary.



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In an interview with the magazine, Hye Kyo was asked about her optimism when it comes to love. She said she is quite optimistic about doing her best in love as she gives her all when she is in a relationship.



Currently, Hye Kyo is single, contrary to the rumors that she and Joong Ki are dating. The lead stars of "Descendants of the Sun" are not dating anyone at the moment.



The first actor to be romantically linked to Hye Kyo is her "All In" co-star Lee Byung Hun. The two dated from 2003 to 2004.



After playing Billy Rocks in "The Magnificent Seven," Lee will star with Jack Campbell, Benedict Hardie, Sohee and Kong Hyo Jin in "A Single Rider." Lee recently told Korea Herald that the "A Single Rider" screenplay was among the top five best scripts he had ever read.



After breaking up with Lee, Hye Kyo dated her "Worlds Within" co-star Hyun Bin, which they confirmed in 2009. In 2011, the respective agencies of Hye Kyo and Hyun confirmed that the two had broken up.



Hye Kyo will star in the romantic drama film "Ships Passing in the Night" opposite Esther Nam and Dae Na after "Descendants of the Sun." Here is a video of one of Hye Kyo's moments on TV:






Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Haley Bennett, Vincent D'Onofrio, Chris Pratt, Lee Byung-Hun, Martin Sensmeier and Antoine Fuqua attend 'The Magnificent Seven' press conference. (Photo : Getty Images/Kevin Winter)

Song Hye Kyo is turning 36 on Nov. 22. She is currently single but happy like her "Descendants of the Sun" co-star Song Joong Ki, who is turning 32 on Sept. 19.



Hye Kyo graces the cover of the special March issue of W Korea with her friend "Chicago Typewriter" star Yoo Ah In, who is turning 31 on Oct. 6. The South Korean magazine is celebrating its 12th anniversary.



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In an interview with the magazine, Hye Kyo said she is not the kind of person who looks back once a relationship is over because she does everything she can while dating the person. She added that she is able to accept that a relationship just was not for her if it did not work despite her efforts and breakups do not give her regrets or lingering feelings.



It is typical for articles about celebrity breakups to claim that the celebrities will maintain a good relationship as colleagues but they become strangers in reality, Hye Kyo pointed out. For the "Descendants of the Sun" star, it is not necessary for celebrities who used to date to keep a relationship as close colleagues.



A person typically avoids someone he or she used to be in a relationship with, according to Hye Kyo. This is the best for the next people the person will be dating, the actress explained.



Like her friends, Hye Kyo believes that an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend becomes even worse than a next-door neighbor after the breakup even if the couple used to be madly in love. A neighbor can at least come over and hammer a nail in her wall for her if she asks them to, she quipped.



From 2003 to 2004, Hye Kyo dated her "All In" co-star Lee Byung Hun, who will turn 47 on July 12. After starring in "The Magnificent Seven," the latter will star in "A Single Rider," whose screenplay was among the top five best scripts he had ever read, he told Korea Herald.



After breaking up with "The Magnificent Seven" actor, Hye Kyo and her "Worlds Within" co-star Hyun Bin, who will turn 35 on Sept. 25, but they broke up in 2011. The former is set to star in the upcoming romantic drama film "Ships Passing in the Night."



Here is a "Descendants of the Sun" clip:






China Couldn't Care Less About Latest WikiLeaks Document Dump by the US

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange participates via video link at a news conference marking the 10th anniversary of the secrecy-spilling group. (Photo : Getty Images)

China is less bothered to talk about the latest WikiLeaks document dump, which is purported to show how the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States breaks into smartphones, computers, television sets and other electronics for surveillance.



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Ace Xin, a Beijing resident with a U.S. green card, said: "If Americans want to peek, go ahead. What privacy do we have in China? Its like Im running naked every day.



"At any minute, all my personal information is being collected and leaked. All my online trails are saved and used without my permission. All of this is driven by strong business and political interests. Running naked is a condition in which its impossible to be protected."



Ace's sentiments capture how a lot of Chinese feel about China's online censors, making their privacy unprotected, with little to be done about it due to the "Big Brother" nature of China's authoritarian government.



A recent survey by Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website, shows that more than half of its 6,000 respondents said that Internet scams are so widespread because the entities that collect information fail to protect it properly.



Smartphones are not safe when it comes to online privacy in China. Smartphones are used in collecting various data of over 700 million Chinese people. Data ranges from chats, emails, photos/videos to location info, financial accounts and phone numbers.



The current regulations require both Internet companies and service providers to keep records of these data on a file for 60 days for it to be readily available when the government requested it. To support this, network operators are also required for providing technical assistance and support when it comes to national security and criminal investigations.



According to security experts and online users, a lot of Chinese consider the rampant abuse of their personal information by business more annoying than the "Great Firewall" government censoring and monitoring.



A joint research report done by Digital Center of China Internet and Internet security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co. shows that 92 percent of the 600 non-gaming applications on Android-based smartphones are asking for access to location information, 49 percent for phone contacts, and 46 percent for reading text messages.



This shows that the access to personal information by businesses is widespread, which can either be used for fraudulent activities or be sold to other companies.


A Techrules Ren concept car at the 87th International Motor Show in Geneva, Switzerland. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese car startup Techrules makes its foray into the competitive car market by unveiling a super racing car powered by a microturbine system as its first model.



Techrules is following the same steps of Tesla, an American automaker, by creating an expensive low volume car, use the sales of the low volume car to develop a medium volume car at a lower price, then use the sales of the medium volume car to create an affordable high-volume car.



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Jin Xinzhong, the president of Techrules, said: "The turbine, which is more often found in helicopters, charges a battery pack and the pack powers electric motors that drive wheels. It is able to get the pack 80 percent charged in 15 minutes and enables a car to run 2,000 kilometers on 80 liters of fuel, either aviation kerosene, diesel, gasoline, biogas or natural gas."



Last March at the 87th International Motor Show in Geneva, Techrules unveiled a "production-ready" version of their race car and showcased a variable platform that will be able to accommodate race cars, sedans, SUVs, and multipurpose vehicles.



According to Jin, the China Aerospace Science and Technology, a major contractor of the country's space program, played a part in the development of the car's powertrain system headed by his 100-member team.



Jin attributed the achievement to Jin Po, his 25-year-old son who is the current chief technology officer of the company. He then said: "Despite his youth, he has many talented ideas and plans, not even limited to cars."



Techrules finds encouragement from California-based carmaker Tesla. Jin Xinzhong said: "The company is optimistic about the market, though it has never been in the automotive sector before because Tesla's performance shows that society is more open than ever to new ideas."



"The company is ready to produce the car at its facility in Turin, Italy, and if there are any orders the first vehicle will roll out in 2018," said its engineering partner, L.M. Gianetti.


Emilia Clarke and George R.R. Martin arrive at at the 12th Annual AFI Awards held at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on January 13, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Frazer Harrison)

It appears to be inevitable for President Donald Trump, 70, to have his name tagged in anything. Recently, his name was linked to the "The Winds of Winter" release date.



"The Winds of Winter" is the sixth novel in the epic fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin, 68. In 2016, the author revealed in his LiveJournal account Not a Blog that he had dropped all his editing projects except for "Wild Cards" and he would not be writing any screenplays, teleplays, short stories, introductions or forewords before the "The Winds of Winter" release.



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In another post on Feb. 22 on his LiveJournal account, Martin announced the launching of a "Wild Cards" reread program on March 1. A fan commented that it is understandable if it takes four more years to write "The Winds of Winter" because it is hard to sleep at night with Trump, who he referred to as a racist and a clown, as the U.S. president.



"It is not going to take that long," Martin responded. This means "The Winds of Winter" will be released before Trump's term in office ends on Jan. 20, 2021.



Released in August 1996, the first "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel titled "A Game of Thrones" has 704 pages, 73 chapters and 292,727 words. It was followed by the second novel titled "A Clash of Kings" with 768 pages, 70 chapters and 318,903 words in February 1999.



The third novel titled "A Storm of Swords" with 992 pages, 82 chapters and 414,604 words was released in November 2000 while the fourth novel titled "A Feast for Crows" with 753 pages, 46 chapters and 295,032 words was released in November 2005.



In July 2011, the fifth and most recent "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel was released. Titled "A Dance with Dragons," the book has 1056 pages, 73 chapters and 414,788 words.



All in all, the first five novels of "A Song of Ice and Fire" have 4,273 pages, 344 chapters and 1,736,054 words. After "The Winds of Winter," the seventh book titled "A Dream of Spring" will be released.



Here is Conan O'Brien's interview with Martin in 2014:






ORLEANS  An old high school and gymnasium in Orleans is a total loss after an early Tuesday morning fire destroyed it.

It totally gutted the thing, Orleans Volunteer Fire Department Chief Matt Massey said.

Massey said his department was called to the fire at about 1:40 a.m. Tuesday. Alma and Stamford Volunteer Fire Departments were also called to the scene to extinguish the building, which was fully engulfed in flames. There were about 35 to 40 firefighters on scene, Massey said.

Massey said the fire got into the roof line of the building, and some of the roof collapsed into the old classrooms.

It was just kind of hard to get to because when the roof fell down, it was blocking windows, he said.

Since last spring, Massey said, the south end of the school had collapsed because of rain.

It was just an old building they (the owners) were trying to go in and repair, he said.

Some of the original contents of the building were destroyed in the fire, Massey said.

There were some old desks and things in there. There kind of was some old storage stuff in there, he said.

There were no occupants or injuries reported.

According to the Harlan County Assessors Office, Oriole Plaza LLC owns the property. According to Secretary of State documents, the company is registered to Lana Dake of Orleans.

The Nebraska State Fire Marshals Office is investigating the cause of the fire.

Adam Matzner, a member of the Critical Incident Stress Management Team at the fire marshals office, said if people have a tip on what may have happened, they can call the arson hotline at 1-888-992-7766. Though the hotline is titled arson hot-line, Matzner said there is no evidence at this time to point to arson.
KEARNEY  A rural Kearney man has been convicted of assaulting an officer and obstructing government operations in a September property dispute with the state Department of Roads.

James Bamford, 54, pleaded no contest earlier this month in Buffalo County District Court to attempted second-degree assault on an officer, a felony, and obstructing government operations, a misdemeanor, after a Sept. 7 incident. In exchange for his plea, the Buffalo County Attorneys Office dropped a charge of resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, and amended the assault on an officer charge to attempted assault on an officer.

A no-contest plea is neither an admittance nor denial of guilt, but the plea is treated the same as a guilty plea. Judge Bill Wright accepted Bamfords plea and ordered the state probation department to conduct a presentence investigation report, including a substance abuse evaluation. Those reports detail defendants background, including their family and criminal history, employment, and any psychological or chemical dependency.

The report will be provided to Wright to help him issue an appropriate sentence. Sentencing will be in May.

On the morning of Sept. 7, a state Department of Roads employee was placing concrete right of way markers along U.S. Highway 30 at 62nd Avenue on property that borders property owned by Bamford, who lives in the area. A Nebraska State Patrol trooper at the scene saw Bamford park a white car close to the temporary wooden right of way marker.

The car was close enough, records say, that state workers couldnt use their auger to dig the hole for the permanent concrete marker.

The trooper then saw Bamford drive a blue car onto another temporary right of way marker and break the wooden marker in the process. The trooper, along with a Buffalo County sheriffs deputy, contacted Bamford and his son, Hunter Bamford, 22, of Kearney and asked them if they would remove the vehicles so state workers could place the right of way markers.

The pair refused to cooperate, records say, and James Bamford said he and his son werent afraid to die over the matter. Records say the men were asked repeatedly to move the vehicles, but they refused, and James Bamford told officers he wasnt afraid to go to jail.

The trooper told the men he didnt want to have to take anyone to jail, but said he would have the vehicles towed if Bamford and his son didnt move them. James Bamford said he would destroy the tow trucks if they showed up.

James Bamford then drove a tractor with a hay bailer onto the right of way to prevent state workers from placing the markers, records say. Officers tried to place James Bamford into custody. As they did, he resisted by taking a swing at a second trooper and kicking him in the leg, records say.

The Bamfords both were then arrested.

Hunter Bamford is charged in Buffalo County Court with obstructing government operations, a misdemeanor, in the incident. He is scheduled to appear in court in April for a bench trial before Judge Gerry Jorgensen.

Hunter Bamford has denied the allegations.

If James Bamford isnt placed on probation, he faces up to three years in prison.

@HubChic
OMAHA -- Rescue crews freed a man trapped in a hole for 6 hours after a cave-in Tuesday near 132nd and Cuming Streets.

The cave-in occurred about 9:45 a.m. at 13019 Hawthorne Court. A caller reported that a man was buried up to his waist after a wall of the hole caved in.

The man, identified by KMTV as Drew Johnson, was freed about 4:15 p.m. He was taken via ambulance in critical condition to Nebraska Medical Center.

Johnson, 23, talked with firefighters throughout the rescue effort. Crews lowered small oxygen tanks into the hole to help him breathe.

Omaha Fire Battalion Chief Kathy Bossman said Johnson, who works for Utility Trenching, was the only person in the hole when one side collapsed.

A neighbor said work began this morning in the homes front yard. Bossman said the man was doing sewer repair work for the homeowner. She said the man was in a V-shaped hole 7 to 8 feet down when the wall collapsed and dirt trapped his legs.

Crews first set up a tripod pulley system with a rope to hoist the worker out of the hole. About a dozen firefighters encircled the hole, and an aluminum ladder was lowered in. Some firefighters wore mountain-climbing helmets and safety harnesses.

A few hours into the rescue attempt, a truck from the Metropolitan Utilities District arrived with an air compressor hose that workers snaked into the hole. The compressor was used to loosen dirt around the mans feet.

An Omaha police officer said firefighters kept asking the guy if he was warm, and he kept saying yes.

Bossman said it was warmer in the hole than it was at ground level. She said earlier that workers were concerned about hypothermia affecting the man.

About 1:45 p.m., four hours into the ordeal, another MUD truck arrived with a large vacuum hose to suck out dirt loosened by the compressor. That truck wasnt moved into place until a couple hours later.

Johnsons family was at the scene. A person who answered the phone at Utility Trenching after he was rescued declined to comment.

After a few hours, Bossman told reporters at the scene that the man was doing well. We finally see his boots, she said midafternoon.

In the morning, rescue crews worked to loosen the dirt and remove the man with a pulley system without worsening the cave-in.

The biggest challenge is the safety of the patient, Bossman said about 11:30 a.m. Its a slow process.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration notes that a cubic foot of soil can weigh more than 100 pounds, and a cubic yard can weigh more than 3,000 pounds. A person buried under only a few feet of soil can experience enough pressure in the chest to prevent the lungs from expanding, OSHA said. In this case, the mans chest wasnt compressed by the dirt.

Three dozen workers from the Omaha Fire Department, Omaha Police Department and MUD were at the scene, as was OSHA. Neighbors provided coffee and granola bars to crews and members of the news media who were there.

Martzie Lynch, who lives a few houses away, set out cookies, coffee and M&Ms on a long card table near the scene.

Everybody is working so hard, she said. Its for (reporters) and the firefighters, but the firefighters dont seem to be getting any time to come over.

Neighbor Holly Molan also brought over coffee and cookies. Its just the right thing to do, she said.

Another neighbor offered to let news media members use her bathroom or sit at her kitchen table, from which they could see the activity through her window.

One woman who lives nearby said, For this neighborhood, its a big deal. Hopefully, its a big deal with a good ending.
A Morrill County District Court judge has sentenced a Bridgeport man to life imprisonment in the shooting death of a Colorado man.

In January, a Morrill County District Court jury convicted Zachary Mueller in the November 2015 death of Pedro Dominguez, 33, of Greeley, Colorado. Judge Leo Dobrovolny sentenced Mueller Monday, March 13 on charges of first-degree murder, a Class IA felony; use of a weapon to commit a felony, a Class IC felony; and possession of weapon by a felon, a Class ID felony.

The sentence of life imprisonment on the murder charge was mandatory. Dobrovolny sentenced Mueller to 20 to 40 years imprisonment, to be served consecutively, on both weapons charges.

Mueller's attorney, Sarah Newell, asked the court to consider Mueller's drug history in deciding sentencing. She said a pre-sentence investigation showed the man had first used alcohol at the age of 9 years old and methamphetamine at the age of 11.

He realizes the real consequences of his drug addiction and struggles with it every day, she said.

"He will wrestle with it every day when he doesn't get to see his daughter," she said.

At trial, witnesses testified that Mueller had been using methamphetamine and acting paranoid in the hours before he allegedly shot Dominguez. Prosecutors accused Mueller of shooting Dominguez in the back of the head while he sat in the passenger seat of a car while his girlfriend drove during the weekend of Nov. 21, 2015. A farmer found Dominguezs body in a barrel floating in a creek near Bayard on Dec. 6, 2015.

Mueller was given credit for 371 days already served.
The Republicans American Health Care Act introduced in the House would be devastating to many older Nebraskans in their 50s and 60s buying health insurance on the individual market.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a 60-year-old resident of Buffalo County earning $20,000 would see their tax credit to offset the cost of health insurance decrease by 77 percent from $17,900 under the Affordable Care Act to $4000 under the proposed House bill. In most of the 3rd Congressional District, modest and middle-income Nebraskans in this age group stand to see their subsidies shrink by 75 percent or more.

The AARP warns that the AHCA will do the greatest harm to older and sicker Americans. It escapes me how this bill will deliver on the promise of cheaper, better health care for all.

Rep. Adrian Smith must explain to his 3rd District constituents how he can support a measure that will inflict so much suffering on residents in western Nebraska. I respectfully urge him to reconsider his position on this ill-conceived piece of legislation.

Alan Reigenborn, Kearney
3/14/2017 -

The upending of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) began on the first day of President Trumps administration with the signing of an executive order. While the timeline for repeal and replace remains unclear, one thing seems definite: uncertainty has the health marketplace on edge.

We are currently at a crossroads with the U.S. health system, says Craig Garthwaite, associate professor of strategy at the Kellogg School of Management. As with the start of any new market, its been a difficult and messy process implementing the ACA. But while it hasnt been pretty, the marketplace created under the ACA is actually functioning like you might expect a nascent marketplace to perform.

Co-director of Kelloggs Healthcare Enterprise Management Program (HEMA), Garthwaite conducts research on health reform. In fact, several studies initiated at Kellogg have recently shed light on the economic effects of the ACA. In one study published in Health Affairs (August 2016), Garthwaite along with HEMA co-director David Dranove and strategy research assistant professor Christopher Ody found that hospitals have experienced a decrease in the cost of uncompensated or charity care thanks to the increased funding of Medicaid under the ACA.

In early February 2017, Garthwaite and colleagues published evidence about insurance expansion and hospital emergency department access in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The investigators noted that expanded hospital options due to the ACA have given many more patients access to emergency care at hospitals closer to their homes. Overall research at Kellogg serves to demonstrate the good and the bad of health reform, says Garthwaite. Our research at Kellogg helps to inform current conversations about healthcare in America and what factors firms and policymakers might want to consider in their decision making. For example, while the ACA has decreased uncompensated care at hospitals, Garthwaite and Dranove have written about a number of problems the law creates with respect to the employer provided insurance market on their blog Code Red.

Kellogg faculty testify on antitrust and healthcare mergers

In the area of health antitrust matters, Kellogg faculty members are a leading voice in guiding effective policymaking. One year ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought to trial the largest merger case in its history involving insurer Anthems acquisition of Cigna. The governments argument? Patients and providers would be harmed by limited price competition, reduced benefits and lower quality of care. Dranove served as the DOJs lead analyst and testifying economics expert in the trial that just ended in January.

As healthcare policy shifts, Kellogg faculty continue to pay close attention. The impact of the Trump administrations promise to scrap the ACA, however, is anyones guess, according to Dranove. We just dont know yet what repealing the ACA will do to the marketplace, he says. Will it make it easier or harder to make a profit? Will insurers, providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device firms feel more pressure to merge? I dont see any major change in the rate of consolidation at the moment. On the other hand, the DOJs antitrust posture isnt likely to be any less aggressive. Only time will tell.





David Dranove, Walter J. McNerney Professor of Health Industry Management and Professor of Strategy, lectures an MBA class. Photo  Kellogg School

Kelloggs health enterprise management program prepares students to drive innovation

Designed to prepare students to take on leadership roles within the dynamic healthcare industry, Kellogg offers a Health Enterprise Management pathway in both the Full-Time Program and the Evening & Weekend Program. The goal of the pathway is to combine Kelloggs top-flight training of general managers with health-specific knowledge. The pathway merges health policy and management and are taught by faculty that cross disciplines, further bolstering the diversity of perspectives that fuel research and teaching. The pathway is comprised of foundational courses that center on strategy and economics, and advanced courses such as Biomedical Marketing, Pharmaceutical Strategy, Intellectual Capital Management, Service Operations and Health Analytics.

Additionally, HEMA students are privy to experiential or field courses that allow them to venture further into a particular field such as medical device innovation or an emerging market. Classes within this offering include Medical Product Early Stage Commercialization and Medical Technologies in Developing Countries. The agility and cross-industry focus of the HEMA program influences the careers Kellogg graduates enter within the healthcare space; alumni accept diverse roles in medical innovation startups, consulting, insurance providers or the pharmaceutical industry.

Kellogg alumni positively impact health industry around the globe

Another strength of Kelloggs HEMA Program is the robust community it nurtures, benefitting students and alumni alike. One example is the HEMA visiting executive program, in which alumni connect directly with students to share their experiences over a shared meal, as well as within one-on-one meetings.

Robert Hilliard 07, State President of Illinois for insurer Harmony Health Plan, Inc., a WellCare Health Plan, Inc. company, has also participated in Kelloggs visiting executive program. A former practicing physician, he transitioned from the clinical to the administrative world after earning his Kellogg MBA. Hilliard oversees the delivery of government-sponsored managed care services such as Medicaid and Medicare to some 210,000 members in Illinois. As a mentor, he gladly shares his experience on the payer side of the healthcare equation. As an alumnus, he draws upon his Kellogg network every day. If I have questions about a variety of issues from IT to human resources, I dont hesitate to call up alumni in different industries to get ideas or feedback.

Alumni impact in health enterprises goes beyond U.S. borders. CEO of Liberia-based Snapper Hill Clinic (SHC), Varsay Sirleaf 10 has built the outpatient facility into the largest of its kind in Monrovia. Founded by Sirleafs father in the 1980s, the clinic serves some 15,000 patients annually. In his leadership role, Sirfleaf remains deeply connected to the school, and the HEMA network. In fact, his collaboration last year with Class of 2016 graduates Rogerio Campos and Eric Leventhal provided the foundation for securing SHCs latest round of funding. The two Kellogg students, along with supervision from faculty member Kara Palamountain, created a pitch deck that Sirleaf used to engage with interested investors.

Varsay has a high-impact vision for SHC, but he also has the skills to implement this vision. Kellogg students and alumni are the perfect collaborators for a project of this scale and ambition, says Palamountain.

In late November, TLG Capital announced its intention to invest growth capital in SHC backed by a guarantee from the Medical Credit Fund. The investment will allow for SHC to expand its services and capabilities to reach more than 50,000 patients a year.



Related Reading:



Why Healthcare Spending Has Slowed: Is the Affordable Care Act Getting Too Much Credit

Read More on Kellogg Insight >

Improving the Health of Africa: Nigerian health minister offers his governments vision for delivering quality care

Read More >

Three key lessons to understanding the healthcare tech industry

Read More >

Kellogg Professors David Dranove and Craig Garthwaite cover healthcare management and policy on their blog Code Red

Learn More >
A statue of Confucius is seen with high-rise buildings in the background on Sept. 28, 2006 in Changchun, Jilin Province, China. (Photo : Getty Images)

A Chinese publisher is set to release the Analects of Confucius, a collection of ideas and sayings from the renowned Chinese philosopher, in five languages for countries under the Belt and Road initiative this year.



The Qingdao Publishing Group in eastern China's Shandong Province has partnered with the China Confucius Foundation to complete the translation and publication of the collection in Arabic, Mongolian, Czech, Portuguese and Spanish languages, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.



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Wang Daqian, president of the China Confucius Foundation, said the translation will be distributed to countries along the Belt and Road through the foundation and Confucian institutes abroad.



"The thoughts of Confucius constitute the root of Chinese traditional culture and have profoundly influenced Chinese society over the past 2,500 years," Wang told Xinhua.



"Confucianism has contributed much to mankind's culture," he added.



Born in 551 B.C. near the modern-day town of Qufu, Shandong Province, Confucius founded the school of thought that influenced later generations of scholars and became known in the West as Confucianism.



He is also recognized to be the first person to establish private schools in China that accepted students from various social classes and is credited for authoring and editing many classical Chinese texts.



The Analects are a compilation by Confucian scholars containing a collection of his famous sayings, including "Do not do to others what you don't want to be done to you" and "How happy we are to have friends from afar," as well as reflections on his political views, moral principles, and ideas on education.



The book has been translated into various languages including English, Japanese, Russian, Korean, French, and German.



China announced the Belt and Road framework in 2013, seeking to build a trade and infrastructure network linking Asia with Europe and Africa via the ancient Silk Road trade routes. Since then, the initiative has been credited with boosting trade and investment between China and economies along the routes.



According to a report from China's commerce ministry, the country's combined exports with economies along the Belt and Road reached 6.3 trillion yuan ($912 billion) in 2016, an increase of 0.6 percent from 2015.



Chinese businesses have also invested a total of $18.5 billion in 20 countries along the routes, generating nearly $1.1 billion in tax revenue and 180,000 jobs in those countries.


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The Chinese government denounces South Korea's THAAD deployment. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's rapid rise to the top of the world's economic and political stakes further highlights its increasing role in one of the world's most pressing security issues: North Korea's nuclear threat. Kim Jong-un's rogue regime has led China to take on North Korea cautiously as it also deals with the U.S. through South Korea.



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China-Korea relations currently lie on wobbly grounds, in that the Chinese government risks being perceived as a protector of North Korea amid its attempt to show a pacifist face in dealing with the issue, which the U.S.-South Korea-Japan diplomatic trifecta approaches with intense skepticism.



The question on whether China would prefer the collapse of the North Korean regime is undermined by the status quo, in which both countries share trade relations. But China's recent halting of North Korean coal imports serves as a telltale sign that the Chinese government is starting to change its course.



Nonetheless, such does not bode well with China's current stand on South Korea's THAAD deployment, which the Chinese government denounced as a trigger for greater violence in the Korean peninsula. China, however, has found itself in a diplomatically-precarious situation over such a reaction.



Although China can always use its economic advantage as its smoking gun against North Korea once its nuclear threat strengthens, it can always move against a regime collapse if it means creating a buffer in the Korean peninsula, what with the possible growth of U.S. influence there under a unified Korea.



China's policy toward Korea would thus become lenient on denuclearization alongside peace talks in the form of the currently postponed Six-Party Talks, as a way for the Chinese government to wriggle out of its awkward position as it argues that the U.S. is in pole position to deal with North Korea.



But South Korea would most likely insist on China's role, given the Chinese government's economic influence and ideological parallels with the rogue regime. Thus, South Korean diplomacy towards China should strategically press on the THAAD's necessity in the face of North Korea's increasing belligerence.


Supporters worldwide march to commemorate the Tibetan rebellion. (Photo : Getty Images)

Pro-Tibetan supporters marched in various cities around the world to commemorate the 58th anniversary of a Tibetan rebellion against China.



In more than 100 rallies across the globe, thousands marched to recall the Tibetan National Uprising Day. It was when Tibetans blockaded the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, to protect him against possible kidnapping by the Chinese troops.



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A week after the rebellion on March 10, 1959, the Dalai Lama fled from Lhasa and made a passage to India. He lived in India as an exile since.



"Generally speaking, March 10th is a day to really sort of rile people up every year," said Sonamtso, the U.S.A. grassroots coordinator for Students for a Free Tibet.



Sonamtso requested that her last name be concealed as some of her family members still reside in Tibet.



"But I think something that stood out this year was an emphasis of unity both within different types of Tibetan communities, but also with our allies," she added.



The allies Sonamtso referred to are the supporters of a free Tibet. These include some members of the Congress and people from Taiwan and Hong Kong.



China invaded Tibet in 1950 and the relationship between the two had since been strained. The Chinese called the invasion a peaceful liberation.



Tibetans accused the Chinese government of unrelenting political and religious oppression. These accusations have been denied by China.



In New York City, thousands of Tibetan supporters rallied at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge to the United Nations. Speakers delivered speeches to the crowd.



Demonstrators waved Tibetan flags and carried handmade signs calling for a free Tibet as they marched along the busy New York sidewalks to the Chinese consulate on Twelfth Avenue on the West Side of Manhattan.



According to Sonamtso, one of the themes for this years celebration was to call for free media in Tibet.



Tibet is an autonomous region of China. As of 2017, Tibet is labeled not free by Freedom House, a non-profit.



"The common sentiment was how important it is for Tibetans and our supporters to continue staying resilient and for us to continue resisting," Sonamtso said.



A candlelight vigil in Jackson Heights, Queens, was supposed to end the New York rally. However, due to severe weather, the vigil was canceled. Even though, the message of the supporters did not falter.



"We as people who live in the quote free world, it's our responsibility to stand up for our brothers and sisters and amplify their voices from inside of Tibet," Sonamtso added.



The message of freedom and hope echoes as the spirit of the Tibetan rebellion is stirred by supporters all over the world.


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Heres a quote that readers will not readily recognize: It is a pity that a doctor is precluded by his profession from being able sometimes to say what he really thinks.

Ill share the origin of the quote at the posts conclusion. Hows that for a teaser? Ill give you a hint below.

Physicians, by training and experience, are guarded with our words. To begin, we are never entirely sure of anything, and we should make sure that we do not convey certainty when none exists. This is why physicians rarely use phrases such as, Im positive that , Im 100% sure , There are no side-effects 

Because of the uncertainties of the medical universe, sometimes we sanitize our own concerns when we advise patients and their families. We may see an individual in the office with unexplained weight loss and a change in her bowel pattern. While we may fear that a malignancy is lurking, we would be wise to keep our own counsel on this impression pending further study. This patient, for example, may be suffering from a curable thyroid disorder.

Words matter. We all have heard how patients and families can dwell on one or two words uttered by a physician, who may have spoken at some length on a patients condition. In these cases, the families may have inferred more serious news than the physician intended. Doctors need to be mindful of this phenomenon when we are communicating.

Which of these messages would you prefer to receive on your voicemail?

Please make an appointment to review your biopsy results.

or

Your biopsy results are benign. Please make an appointment so we can discuss them further.

On other occasions, physicians may opt to leave out certain words or suspicions. Why unload anxiety on folks before the truth is known? Additionally, not every patient wants the whole truth administered in a single dose. These scenarios demonstrate the advantage that a physician has when he has an established rapport and relationship with his patient.

Conversely, I dont feel we are helping patients and their loved ones when we overly sanitize the medical situation to postpone an unpleasant physician task or to create hope that may not be realistic. Theres a balance to be attempted, and I still struggle to achieve it.

The quote that started this post was published 90 years ago, not by a doctor or a nurse. I stumbled upon it when reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, one of the greatest works by the master of mystery  Dame Agatha Christie.

Michael Kirsch is a gastroenterologist who blogs at MD Whistleblower.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Gwadar Port (Photo : Getty Images)

The government will increase the Chinese marine corps deployment in Gwadar and in Djibouti in the Indian Ocean. China has built an economic port in Gwadar, Pakistan, and has a military logistics base in Djibouti.



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The expansion is to defend Chinese maritime lifelines and the countrys growing interest overseas. The increase is set from 20,000 to one lakh.



According to Chinese military insiders and experts, some marine corps will be stationed at ports operated by China in Djibouti and Gwadar in southwest Pakistan.



Gwadar port is a deep-sea port alongside the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil route in and out of the Persian Gulf. The port was built using Chinese funds and is operated by Chinese firms.



Based on reports, navy ships will dock at the ports facility in the near future. The port does not shelter any Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) installation as of today.



The $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is also connected by Gwadar port through PoK with China's Xinjiang.



Pakistan is putting up Special Security Division with 15,000 troops, including 9,000 Pakistan Army soldiers and 6,000 para-military forces personnel to defend CPEC and Chinese personnel, according to Pakistani reports.



The expansion of Chinese marine corps is a part of the drive to refocus the PLA from winning a land war solely based on numbers. It also aims to meet a variety of security scenarios using highly specialized units.



Based on reports, Chinese President Xi Jinping is trimming down the size of the PLA by three lakh, with almost all of the reductions coming from the land forces.



Two brigades of special combat soldiers had already been transferred to the marines. This has caused the marines to nearly double its size to 20,000 and more brigades would be added.



"The PLA marines will be increased to 100,000, consisting of six brigades in the coming future to fulfill new missions of our country," quoted by the report.



A growth of 15 percent from the navys current estimated size of 2.35 lakh personnel is also expected.



Chinese defense spending is also planned to increase by around 7 percent to $152 billion. A large portion of the budget was allocated to the navy as the country plans to increase its presence far from its shores.



With their limited numbers and basic equipment, marines have traditionally had its operations only in Chinese coastal areas, said Li Jei, a Beijing-based naval expert.



Now, with the expansion of Chinese marine corps in Gwadar, the navy can stand up to challenges ahead.


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Sometimes it feels like the great unspoken secret between doctors and nurses. The words that we dare not utter to patients and families. Perhaps it is our hope that were wrong. Perhaps, we dread providing unwanted news. Perhaps, we dont want to face reality or extinguish our patients hope.

As a daughter, I felt that sense of sadness and dread, waiting to hear the news that would not be told. It was September of 1989, I was only 20 years old and just beginning my first year of medical school. It was less than a week from my first medical school examination, when my mother developed intractable nausea and vomiting. After several days of suffering at home, my mother finally decided it was time to go to the hospital that Wednesday evening.

I distinctly remember her sitting at the dining room table and saying goodbye to each of her seven children, starting with the youngest daughter, who had just started kindergarten, and finishing with me, the eldest, who had just started medical school.

I became angry with her that evening. I told her that it wasnt time for goodbyes; she would only spend a couple of days in the hospital, and shed be better, and shed come home, but she knew. She knew it would be her last true goodbye.

Initially, with intravenous fluids and anti-emetics, she improved. Then during one of my visits with her, she pulled out her IV and tried to rush into the hallway. I called out to the staff to assist me. When she got back into bed, she looked at me wide-eyed. At that moment, she did not know who I was. By that fifth day at the greatest Boston hospital, she had become acutely confused. I had yet to know her diagnosis, but at that moment, I knew that she was dying. I told my six younger siblings what was happening. They were tearful, each one of them, except my youngest brother. At nine years of age, he stood there stunned, showing no emotion.

A few days later, we were given the diagnosis, carcinomatous meningitis. That evening, I sat with my medical books and read. With or without intrathecal chemotherapy, the prognosis was no more than six months. I told my dad that things didnt look good. I didnt want to put my mother through more treatments. In the preceding two years, she had already undergone multiple rounds of chemotherapy, which left her tired, and radiation, that had burnt her skin. The Ommaya shunt was placed, and she began intrathecal methotrexate.

After a few weeks, there were social workers, and then she was discharged home, with hospice. She lay in a hospital bed in my sisters bedroom. Then, there was a seizure. The ambulance was called, and she was taken back to Boston.

There was no more chemotherapy and her oncologist no longer rounded on her at the hospital.

Each Sunday, after church, Id drive my siblings and sometimes a priest to the hospital to visit her. Wed make the treacherous drive from the Natick church to Boston. I was so emotional, unable to focus, and beyond that, nervous having a priest sitting next to me. Hed grip the handle above the passenger side door as I drove the city streets. Id slam on the brakes, and hed make the sign of the cross. Im sure he feared each ride would be his last.

I dreaded walking the long hallway to Baker 5. By this time, my mother had become increasingly lethargic. She was no longer arousable. She was no longer my mother; her failing body was still there, but she was already gone. My visits became less frequent. I could not bear to see her that way.

Then, one December Sunday morning, as my dad sat by her side, an unsuspecting phlebotomist came to draw her daily labs. My father yelled at him. Whats the point, cant you see shes dying? Soon thereafter, a doctor appeared; intravenous fluids were stopped, and lab draws discontinued.

Late the following night, we received the call at home. As I picked up the extension, I heard the news. Mr. Youssef, Im sorry to tell you that Angel passed away this evening. I accompanied my father on that very last drive to Boston.

I saw my mother for the very last time. Her face and eyelids were swollen, her skin was gray and her body emaciated.

It was nearly 12 weeks from her last goodbye to us at the dining room table.

I wondered, did it need to be this way? Was there a better way? I was a mere few weeks into medical school, and there was no Google, but it was clear to me that she was dying. Perhaps, those maintenance fluids could have been stopped sooner.

I wonder what was said during rounds each day: This is an unfortunate 47-year-old female with metastatic breast cancer, diagnosed with carcinomatous meningitis and seizures, shes been unresponsive x 6 weeks; she has 7 children, and cant be sent home since her husband works and the family is unable to care for her. Plan is to continue IV fluids.

Im 47 years old, with two teenagers of my own, living in that very same home. As both a hospitalist and as a mother, I reflect on her life, her illness, and her death. I hope that when I round on my patients that I have the courage, patience, and empathy to speak the words that need to be spoken.

Perhaps, the great unspoken secret is not really a secret.

Yvette Youssef is a hospitalist.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Anyone watching daytime or late-night cable TV has to notice that every third commercial is for a toxic tort. As my wife had breast cancer, one, in particular, caught my eye. In it, the claim was made that: If you suffered from permanent hair loss due to chemotherapy, you might have a claim because less toxic treatment was available. This struck a chord with me because my wife was in that transition period between traditional chemotherapy and newer biologic treatments. I remember my wifes oncologist saying that as of that moment, traditional chemo was still the standard of care, but the newer treatments were showing real promise as being just as good or better but with fewer side effects. After doing our own research we decided on the newer therapy which ultimately turned out to be correct. However, these transitions do take time.

Clearly, the legal system seems to think that health care, and everything else for that matter, can turn on a dime. I imagine something similar happening to other toxic torts like asbestos. Some very early, not-yet-proven and unclear evidence were indicating that asbestos was a problem, but certainly not enough to immediately stop using asbestos. As the evidence became clear, the transition away from asbestos began. However, for reasons I cannot fathom, our courts have allowed that very early, unclear evidence can be used to make the claim that defendants should have known there was a problem.

Think about how absurd this thinking is. We are all supposed to able to accurately predict what will happen going forward based on scant early evidence. Nobody makes decisions this way yet this is how our tort system is allowed to function. Lawyers know this, and they have been taking advantage for years.

There are two fundamental flaws in our tort system that have allowed this to happen. First, decisions are made by juries who lack the technical expertise to understand the system and often make decisions based on emotion and second, the lack of loser attorney pays rules.

The first may be handled by specialized courts or, as it is in countries socialized medicine, malpractice decisions are made by government panels. (Bear in mind anyone who thinks socialized medicine is the answer to health cares problems.) However, I would concentrate on the second. As anyone whos ever been sued knows, lawyers play the its cheaper-to-settle-than-to-defend game. Because there are little to no consequences for filing claims with wild accusations and no merit, there is little incentive to not sue. Every physician who has been sued knows the feeling when you get that initial summons where you get accused of everything from the Hindenburg disaster to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Why this is allowed is beyond me.

So the question remains: How do we allow plaintiffs unfettered access to the courts but at the same time stop the wild west mentality that has pervaded our tort system?

One answer is loser attorney pays.

Here is how it could work. Separate malpractice into an investigative, then a resolution phase. After an initial discussion between plaintiff and attorney, if a decision is made to proceed then a letter is sent informing the defendant physician they are to be investigated for possible malpractice. During this phase, the defendant physician is required to fully cooperate providing whatever is requested. If at any time there is a settlement offered or plaintiff attorney wishes to stop, then no harm, no foul. It is only after this phase is completed that a specific charge can be leveled at the defendant physician and the resolution phase starts. If the physician settles, it ends. However, if the physician decides to fight, it goes to trial and the plaintiff loses or the plaintiff attorney tries to back out, then they have to pay the defendant physicians legal costs.

I seriously doubt anything like this will happen unless physicians stand up and demand it. But a fundamental question remains: Why is it that with all the turmoil that practically everyone involved with health care has gone through, why has the legal system remained immune?

Thomas D. Guastavino is an orthopedic surgeon.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Recent crime figures indicate that burglaries in South Kilkenny have been reduced by over half during the first quarter of 2017.

Superintendent Derek Hughes of Thomastown District explained that while one burglary is one too many for An Garda Siochana, the figures are encouraging.

During the first three months of the year we have focused our activity on intercepting, apprehending and deterring travelling criminals who are using the roads network to access South Kilkenny with checkpoints in strategic locations in Thomastown, Graigenamanagh, Paulstown, Glenmore, Kilmacow, Piltown, Mooncoin and Mullinavat, he said.

Local detectives and uniformed gardai man these checkpoints with assistance from the Regional Armed Response Unit based at Waterford.

"In the Thomastown district we are fortunate not to have a significant problem with home grown criminals, our biggest challenge is to intercept criminals travelling from neighbouring counties and from Dublin and we had a number of successful detections on checkpoints since the start of the year," he added.

The reductions during 2017 follow sustained reductions in crime since 2013 which saw South Kilkenny hit with 172 burglaries that year compared to 70 burglaries in the district last year.

According to Supt Hughes these checkpoints are serving to deter travelling criminals but also to reassure non criminal members of the public that An Garda Siochana are out in force to protect them and their property.

Superintendent Hughes highlighted the importance of continued close co-operation between An Garda Siochana and the public to reduce crime further.

In the past two weeks we have conducted 137 checkpoints in the Thomastown District and this high level of garda activity combined with the assistance of the public through text alert and community alert schemes is driving the reductions in crime. It is very important that we continue this close co-operation as it will be a considerable challenge to sustain these reductions in crime and to continue to make South Kilkenny an inhospitable place for criminals.

Superintendent Hughes added that any person who is concerned about crime or feeling vulnerable should contact the Gardai, having far less crime to investigate than in previous years, we find ourselves in the happy place where we have more time to invest in communities listening to concerns and acting to make the vulnerable in our communities feel safer.

Superintendent Hughes urged anyone with concerns about crime to contact their local Garda Station.
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Donald Trump - 45th U.S. President (Photo : Getty Images)

According to media reports, a Xi-Trump meeting is planned for healthier China-U.S. relations. Trump plans to host the Chinese president at a two-day summit next month.



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Schedule of the meeting is still unconfirmed but according to Axios, a U.S. online media outlet, the meeting would be held on April 6-7 at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.



The planned summit was also reported by CNN, mentioning an unnamed administration official. The report also said that the plan is to be finalized by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a trip this week to Asia. His trip will include a stop in China on Saturday and Sunday.



The White House was setting up a meeting between Xi and Trump and was not yet prepared to give a date, said Press Secretary Sean Spicer. The meeting would include North Korea and other issues.



"Planning is ongoing for a visit between President Trump and President Xi at a date to be determined," Spicer said.



The Chinese foreign ministry did not give a comment.



The meeting would go along with the series of U.S.-China meetings which has been held recently, with the goal of repairing the ties between the countries.



Trump had injured the ties with his criticisms against China during his election campaigns. He accused China of unfair trade policies and doing too little to restrain North Korea. He also criticized China for building islands in the South China Sea, a territory claimed by several countries.



At the beginning of his term, Trump fuelled up the fire when he took a phone call from the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. He later said that the U.S. did not have to follow the "One China" policy which recognizes Taiwan as a part of China.



In a phone call with Xi last month, Trump has agreed to honor the policy. He has also written to the Chinese president to seek "constructive ties."



Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi discussed China-U.S. economic ties and security interests in meetings with Trump and Tillerson in his visit to Washington last month.



All eyes are on the Xi-Trump meeting, hoping for mended China-U.S. relations.


Story

The Metropolitan King County Council has given its unanimous approval to legislation authorizing a wide-ranging and fully independent investigation of what occurred in the lead up and aftermath of the catastrophic failure of the West Point system



The adopted ordinance now places the Council in charge of the investigation into the breakdown at the wastewater treatment plant on February 9, which has forced millions of gallons of untreated sewage and storm runoff into Puget Sound. The plant is still discharging mostly untreated water as of today.



Im very pleased that today the Council authorized a fully independent review of exactly what happened on February 9, when hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated storm water and raw sewage were dumped into the Sound, said the prime sponsor of the motion, Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles, whose district is where the West Point Treatment Plant is located. The public deserves to know exactly what happened and why and how it happened, as well as deserves assurance that this will never happen again.



This is the right and responsible thing to investigate so we all know what happened, said Regional Water Quality Committee Chair Kathy Lambert. The people of King County deserve a full and independent investigation, so we can protect ourselves in the future.



It is vital that King County gets to the bottom of what triggered the unprecedented failure of the West Point Treatment Plant, and learn what steps we can take to ensure this type of disaster does not ever happen again, said Council Vice Chair Rod Dembowski. I believe an independent review is essential, as the public needs to have the utmost confidence in the report regarding what went wrong at the plant.



West Point management falls under the Executive branch of King County government. Under the terms of the measure passed today, the investigative process will be led solely by the Council, which constitutes an entirely separate branch of government from those in charge of West Point. This legislation relieves the concerns of several Councilmembers who felt it was inappropriate for those in charge of the plant to be directing the investigative effort.

Last week, the Executive branch announced it had selected its own 3rd party investigator, but has withdrawn from that process, leaving the Council-led effort as the definitive review of what occurred at West Point. Teamwork has paid off, said Councilmember Kohl-Welles, as weve reached agreement on the Councils leading this effort in consultation with the Executive branch.



Members of the public who are interested in learning more can come to a community meeting this Saturday, March 18, being convened by Councilmember Kohl-Welles. The meeting will start at 10:00 a.m. and will be held at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Magnolia, at 2330 Viewmont Way West in Magnolia Village.
Kingstree, SC (29556)

Today

Sunny to partly cloudy. Near record high temperatures. High 83F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a shower throughout the evening. Low around 60F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
Source: Adrian Day for The Gold Report 03/13/2017

View Original Article: https://www.streetwisereports.com/pub/na/time-to-get-back-into-gold-stocks

Money manager Adrian Day updates developments and guidance from three major gold companies.

Gold stocks have been on their not-untypical first-quarter ride, rallying 33% from the mid-December lows before giving back most of that move. The decline in mining circles is known as the "PDAC curse," since it occurs right before the world's largest mining conference in Toronto. This year's show, which attracted over 24,000 attendees, up a little from last year though still down some 20% from 2012's record, had an air of growing optimism, among both companies and attendees, though far from mania. One good sign: many exploration companies noted that the senior companies seemed more interested in doing deals than they had been the last few years.

Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. (OR:TSX; OR:NYSE, 10.64) remains the most undervalued and prospective of the royalty companies on our list. Of course, the valuation gap to its large royalty peers is partly justified, since Osisko is the newest of the "Big Four," with fewer assets and less diversification. Its assets, however, particularly its cash-flowing assets, are high-quality in a safe jurisdiction (Canada), and it is working hard to add more royalties and close the gap.

New silver revenue

At the end of February, Osisko acquired a cash-flowing stream, on the long-life Gibraltar mine. A copper mine in British Columbia, Gibraltar has a 23-year plus life. With a US$33 million upfront payment, Osisko has the right to buy 75%-owner Taseko's share of silver production, for future payments of $2.75 per ounce. The contract is backdated to January 1.

This is Osisko's first silver stream. It maintains the company's precious metals profile (with approximately 94% of revenue from gold) and politically safe profile (100% of cash-flowing assets are in Canada). Mildly accretive on an asset basis, the stream will boost cash flow by almost 10% through 2019. We believe the stream was acquired at a very good price.

After this transaction, the company has about CA$450 million in cash, which with its undrawn line of credit, gives it about CA$650 million in funding capacity. (This also follows the sale of its nearly 10% interest in Labrador Iron Ore Royalty, for CA$113 million.) This gives it more cash than any other royalty company, though less available credit than Franco-Nevada Corp. (FNV:TSX; FNV:NYSE) and Silver Wheaton Corp. (SLW:TSX; SLW:NYSE).

What's next?

There is no secret that Osisko is looking for a large cash-flowing stream. Such streams, however, are subject to intense competition, and the returnsgiven the long livestend to be relatively modest, certainly at the prevailing commodity price. But such an acquisition, in my view, would give the company a greater profile, moving it clearer to the "big boys' league," and help close the valuation gap.

In the meantime, Osisko is building its strong pipeline with high optionality from its unique business model investing in smaller exploration companies, both directly and through Osisko Mines. Osisko is a buy, currently up to $10.75.

Goldcorp's ambitious plan

Goldcorp Inc. (G:TSX; GG:NYSE, 14.82) has laid out five-year guidance, with 20%/20%/20% forecasts: production to increase by 20% to 3 million ounces by 2020; resources to increase by 20% to 50 million ounces; and all-in sustaining costs (AISC) costs to drop by 20%, to $700 by 2021.

A grand plan, and the ramp-up of two newer minesEleonore and Cerro Negrolend some credibility to the targets. But the company lowered its 2017 production guidance, an inauspicious start. The company also said it expects ongoing capex to be higher than expected.

Goldcorp has a solid balance sheet, a good cost profile, a growth pipeline, including several quality exploration projects that, along with a couple of higher-cost developments projects, provide it with good optionality to higher gold prices. One analyst (Tony Lesiak at Canaccord) summed it up, "still rebuilding trust." Under $15, Goldcorp is a good buy, particularly if one expects a stronger gold market.

Yamana disappoints again

Yamana Gold Inc. (YRI:TSX; AUY:NYSE; YAU:LSE, 2.62) concluded the listing of its Brio Gold unit, and now has sold an additional 6 million shares, reducing its ownership to 79%. The near-term outlook is not looking particularly bright: guidance for this year indicates production will decline (even omitting the reduction in Brio and the sale of the Mercedes mine), as will reserves, while costs are expected to increase. The reserve reduction is particularly notable at its cornerstone El Penon mine in Chile, which also accounts for much of the production decline.

With the sale of part of the Brio unit and the Mercedes mine, Yamana's balance sheet is improving, but bigger problems are the lack of near-term growth and the continuing management credibility problem. Yamana, as shown in the rally earlier this year, has strong sensitivity to higher gold prices. For more aggressive investors, it is a buy at this level, but we regard it more as a trading stock than one to hold for any period of time.

Adrian Day, London-born and a graduate of the London School of Economics, heads the money management firm Adrian Day Asset Management, where he manages discretionary accounts in both global and resource areas. Day is also sub-adviser to the EuroPacific Gold Fund (EPGFX). His latest book is "Investing in Resources: How to Profit from the Outsized Potential and Avoid the Risks."

Want to read more Gold Report articles like this? Sign up for our free e-newsletter, and you'll learn when new articles have been published. To see a list of recent articles and interviews with industry analysts and commentators, visit our Streetwise Interviews page.
LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) - The British government won final approval from parliament on Monday for legislation giving Prime Minister Theresa May the power to trigger the country's exit from the European Union. After members of the lower house of parliament voted earlier on Monday to throw out changes to the bill made by the upper house in recent weeks, the upper house also agreed to pass the legislation unamended.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
(Rewrites, adds background on Valeant, Pershing)

BOSTON, March 13 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor William Ackman walked away from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc on Monday with a roughly $3 billion loss after he sold his entire stake in the ailing drug company after trying to rescue it for some 18 months.

Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management became one of the firm's biggest investors in 2015 when it sunk some $3.2 billion into the company.

Now he walks away with about $221 million, having sold his entire stake of 18.1 million shares after months of turmoil that have left his fund with two years of double-digit losses and a tarnished reputation.

"We elected to sell our investment and realize a large tax loss which will enable us to dedicate more time to our other portfolio companies and new investment opportunities," Ackman said in a statement.

Pershing Square was Valeant's second largest owner after hedge fund Paulson & Co, a regulatory filing shows. Hedge fund ValueAct Holdings is the third-biggest owner.

Ackman's fund bought into Valeant when the stock was trading near $190 a share and he watched it surge to $260 a share during the summer of 2015. But governmental scrutiny of the company's pricing policies coupled with scandals surrounding Valeant's specialty pharmacy unit, Philidor, caused the stock price to sharply tumble after August 2015.

On Monday, it closed at $12.11 on the New York Stock Exchange, having fallen 16 percent since January even as many other stocks were climbing again, buoyed by hopes of stronger economic growth and increased merger activity.

During his one year on the board, Ackman replaced Valeant's CEO, refreshed the board with 10 new directors and worked to pay down some $2.7 billion in debt through the sale of non-core assets. Still, the company's stock price kept sinking despite hopes that a merger deal might be around the corner.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Bernard Orr and Bill Rigby)
(Adds comments, Trump officials' complaints about China, Germany, context)

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will be "pushing hard" to advance U.S. interests in his debut meeting with Group of 20 counterparts this week, including reaffirming commitments to avoid competitive currency devaluations, a senior Treasury official said on Monday.

Mnuchin, who will attend a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 major economies on Friday and Saturday in Baden-Baden, Germany, also will press countries to help strengthen global growth, the official told reporters.

"The G20 can play a helpful role in advancing U.S. interests. The secretary will be pushing hard to make that come to pass, whether it's on macroeconomic policies, exchange rate policies etcetera," the official said.

The official said it was important to the Trump administration that previous G20 commitments to not target exchange rates to gain a competitive trade advantage be reaffirmed and fully implemented.

But that explicit pledge, which has long been a part of past G20 communiques, was not included in an early draft of the statement to be issued at the Baden-Baden meeting. The early draft, which is subject to more revisions, simply stated "we reaffirm our previous exchange-rate commitments." The early draft also dropped language to "resist all forms of protectionism" in favor of a pledge to "maintain an open and fair international trading system."

The U.S. Treasury official declined to discuss the language that would be in the final communique but said that the Trump administration was committed to "fair and open trade."

"I think that means a trading system that has a level playing field for our firms and our workers globally, and we'll be encouraging policies that lead to that level playing field so that our firms and workers are not disadvantaged," the official said.

Trump officials have criticized China on a host of trade-related fronts related to its $347 billion trade surplus with the United States last year.

These include President Donald Trump's own charges that Beijing manipulates its yuan currency and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' complaints about Chinese excess industrial capacity, unfair subsidies for state-owned enterprises and a lack of access for foreign firms to major sectors of China's economy.

The U.S. Treasury said in October that none of the U.S.' major trading partners was manipulating its currency to gain advantage for its exports. Mnuchin has said he would not pass judgment on China's currency practices until Treasury issues its semi-annual currency report in mid-April.

China has announced plans to reduce some capacity in its steel industry in recent months and has urged the United States to move cautiously in pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. The country's ministry of commerce has denied U.S. charges that China's aluminum industry is receiving unfair subsidies.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro last week also said Washington needed bilateral engagement with Germany to reduce its $65 billion trade surplus with the United States. The Treasury official said that countries with a trade surplus have a role to play in helping to achieve the G20's goals of maintaining "strong, sustainable and balanced growth."

(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Richard Chang and Phil Berlowitz)
March 14 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening up 4.7 points on Tuesday, according to financial bookmakers.

* BHP BILLITON: BHP Billiton on Monday invited striking workers at its Escondida copper mine in Chile, the world's largest, to return to the negotiating table, after they rejected a similar approach on Saturday. * AMEC FOSTER WHEELER-JOHN WOOD: Oil services company Wood Group has agreed to buy rival Amec Foster Wheeler for 2.2 billion pounds ($2.7 billion), seeking rewards from the fast-growing U.S. shale energy sector. * MISYS : U.S. investment firm Vista Equity Partners said on Monday it would buy Canada's DH Corp in a deal valued at C$4.8 billion ($3.6 billion), highlighting the growing interest in companies specializing in financial technology. Vista will combine DH with one of its portfolio companies, UK-based financial software firm Misys , which scrapped a planned London listing last year. * IPO: Iran's top cargo shipping company has held meetings in London to discuss a possible listing on the London Stock Exchange, but has so far been thwarted by U.S. sanctions that still scare banks off Iranian business, four Iranian and two Western sources said. * BANK OF ENGLAND: Bank of England's incoming deputy governor Charlotte Hoggs's future is in the balance with the treasury committee set to release a report about her suitability for the post, the Financial Times reported. * OIL: Crude oil prices hovered near three-month lows on Tuesday in Asian trading, with investors waiting for key reports and data that may shed light on a supply overhang in the global market. * BREXIT: Prime Minister Theresa May has won the right to launch divorce proceedings with the European Union and begin two years of talks that will shape the future of Britain and Europe. * The UK blue chip FTSE 100 index ended up 0.3 percent at 7,367.08 points on Monday, as mining stocks rallied, with deal-making helping the mid cap index to a record high. * For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets

* UK CORPORATE DIARY: Kalibrate Technologies KLBT.L Half Year 2017 Crossrider PLC CROSC.L Full Year 2016 Close Brothers Group CBRO.L Half Year 2017 SIG PLC SHI.L Full Year 2016 French Connection Group FCCN.L Full Year 2016 Gresham Technologies GHT.L Full Year 2016 TP ICAP PLC TCAPI.L Full Year 2016 Antofagasta PLC ANTO.L Full Year 2016 Prudential PLC PRU.L Full Year 2016

TODAY'S UK PAPERS

> Financial Times > Other business headlines Multimedia versions of Reuters Top News are now available for: * 3000 Xtra : visit * For Top News : (Reporting by Siju Varghese; Editing by Sunil Nair)
* Aims to nearly double Vifor sales to exceed 2 bln Sfr by 2020

* Santa pharmacy business aims for dividend of 65 pct of profit

* IPO proceeds to refinance $1.53 bln U.S. acquisition last year

(Adds details, CEO comment)

By John Miller

BERNE, March 14 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Galenica will complete the spin-off of its Sante pharmacy unit by July as it splits into two separate publicly listed units, it said on Tuesday.

Galenica said 2016 net profit fell 19.1 percent to 243.6 million Swiss francs ($241.5 million), hit by its acquisition of U.S.-based Relypsa last year. Galenica is splitting into a speciality drugs business called Vifor Pharma, which has focused on iron replacements popular in its home Swiss market, and its Sante unit that runs hundreds of Amavita and Sun Store pharmacy outlets across Switzerland.

Chairman Etienne Jornod, a major shareholder, long resisted calls to carve up the company but concluded the two independent units were better: a drugs business focused on growth, in particular in the United States, and a Swiss pharmacy chain that delivers a robust dividend.

"Galenica Sante will have shareholders who are specifically attracted to its risk/return profile", Jornod told a media conference. "The two companies will have very healthy balance sheets, allowing them to develop through internal growth and acquisitions."

Its shares fell about 3 percent, in part as analysts said Vifor's investments in new medicines -- over the next three years it plans to invest 850 million francs in new products -- would continue to dent profits.

Two Swiss billionaires, Martin Ebner and Remo Stoffel, separately own 25 percent of Galenica shares, according to Reuters data. Ebner has 17 percent and Stoffel 8 percent.

IPO proceeds from floating a majority of Sante -- the remaining stake will be sold eventually, Jornod said -- will go to refinance the $1.53 billion acquisition of Relypsa.

NO CRYSTAL BALL

"We're uncertain how much of our debt we will be able to reduce, that depends on the success of the IPO and we don't have a crystal ball," Chief Financial Officer Felix Burkhard told reporters, declining to give estimates for Sante's post-IPO market capitalisation.

Galenica Sante sales in 2016 rose 3.2 percent to just over 3 billion francs, with Jornod predicting a similar revenue increase this year.

By 2020, he aims to boost Vifor Pharma's stand-alone revenue to more than 2 billion francs, from 1.2 billion francs in 2016, with a goal of high three-digit-million earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.

The maker of over-the-counter Perskindol muscle cream proposed a dividend of 20 francs a share for 2016, with Vifor Pharma's payout set to remain stable in the next three years.

Galenica Sante, which its chairman Joerg Kneubuehler described as a "dividend play," plans to distribute at least 75 to 80 francs in 2018, after which it aims to pay out more than 65 percent of net profit.

Kneubuehler said restrictions on online distribution of over-the-counter drugs in Switzerland, in contrast to Germany, would shield his store-front business model from Internet competition.

"We want to continue to grow... adding between 5 and 15 drug stores annually," said Kneubuehler, whose existing network includes around 500 locations.

($1 = 1.0087 Swiss francs)

(Additional reporting by Anna Serafin; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath and Michael Shields)
(Adds details, background)

By Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI, March 14 (Reuters) - Kenya's telecoms regulator said on Tuesday it had no plans to break up any company in the sector, weeks after a leaked draft report on competition it commissioned recommended that Safaricom , the country's biggest operator, be split.

"It is not the authority's intention to punish success," Communications Authority of Kenya chairman Ben Gituku told a news conference.

Gituku said they were discussing the report with telecoms operators and asked the public to ignore the recent reports in local newspapers that the draft findings recommended that Safaricom's mobile money payment M-Pesa be separated from its Safaricom's telecoms business.

He said the report on competition was being finalised and it would be released in May.

The authority's comments cement the government's position, given earlier this month, when the information minister said he was opposed to a move by a legislator to amend the law to break up Safaricom. Safaricom is also Kenya's biggest firm by market capitalisation and dwarfs the two other operators in the mobile market: the local subsidiary of India's Bharti Airtel and Orange, which the French telecoms company agreed last year to sell to London-based Helios Partners.

The smaller operators have long argued that Safaricom enjoys a dominant position because it accounts for 90 percent of revenues in areas such as voice calls and text messages.

Safaricom rejects the accusations of dominance.

(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Louise Heavens)
U.S. President Donald Trump (Photo : Getty Images)

China is considering participation in the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks following the United States retraction from the agreement, according to Geng Shuang, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman. The TPP talks will be held in Chile.



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The representatives from 12 countries that form TPP and representatives from China and South Korea would meet today and tomorrow for the first time after the U.S.s withdrawal, according to a Chilean official quoted in a report by Reuters.



President Donald Trump successfully destroyed the current form of the TPP as he signed an executive order drawing the United States out of the group. The order was signed in the Oval office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, 2017.



The Chinese side supports economic integration in the Asia-Pacific, and stands ready to enhance communication and coordination with Chile and other relevant countries to build FTAAP (Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific), create an open Asia-Pacific economy and inject new impetus to economic growth in the region and beyond, Geng said at a regular press conference last Friday.



We hope that the meeting will help realize the goals. To my knowledge, the Chinese side is actively considering attendance at the meeting, he added.



Though Geng did not disclose any details, his statements were consistent with those given by Hua Chun-ying, another Chinese foreign ministry spokesman. Hua was asked whether China would participate in the TPP shortly after U.S.s withdrawal announcement in January.



The Asia-Pacific should persist in serving as an engine for global growth and in building an open economy, Hua responded.



The leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have given the vision and plan for the FTAAP. The plan can be carried out through vigorous efforts, she added.



With U.S.s withdrawal and with Chinas possible attendance, the global economic community looks forward to the outcome of the upcoming TPP talks.


Bryan Fuller, Scott Bakula, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, William Shatner and Jeri Ryan attend the 'Star Trek 50' press line during Comic-Con International on July 23, 2016 in San Diego, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Frazer Harrison)

"NCIS: New Orleans" Season 3 episode 17 titled "Swift Silent, Deadly" will air on CBS on March 14, Tuesday, at 9:00 p.m. Episode 18 titled "Slay the Dragon" will immediately follow at 10:00 p.m.







In "Swift Silent, Deadly," six men were assaulted by a special-ops Marine in a bar. The team will then embark on a city-wide manhunt.



Advertisement

In "Slay the Dragon," Tammy Gregorio's (Vanessa Ferlito) former husband is suspected of murdering the son of a crime boss. After embezzling $80 million in Hurricane Katrina relief funds, the former husband will resurface.



Meanwhile, here is a video of Scott Bakula, who stars in "NCIS: New Orleans" as Dwayne Pride:






The cast of 'American Housewife' attends the Disney ABC Television Group TCA Summer Press Tour on August 4, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Mike Windle)

In "American Housewife" Season 1 episode 17 titled "Other People's Marriages," Katie Otto (Katy Mixon) will give Viv (Leslie Bibb) some piece of advice. The former will encourage the latter to stand up to her boorish husband.



Things will backfire, however. Having successfully standing up to her husband, Viv will decide to leave him and move in with the Ottos.



Advertisement

In "American Housewife" Season 1 episode 16 titled "Bag Lady," Katie learned that her family gave her the unflattering nickname Colonel Beatrix Von Beige Underpants Control Freak. She tried to back off and let them run their own lives for a while.



However, it seemed like Katie was not needed at all. Greg Otto (Diedrich Bader) helped Taylor Otto (Meg Donnelly) find a sporting activity she could do while her ankle healed while Oliver Otto (Daniel DiMaggio) helped Anna-Kat Otto (Julia Butters) sell bunches of panda paintings for charity.



Still, it did not take long before all asked for Katie's help again. Also, Katie went to war with big box store manager Ian (Larry Joe Campbell) over defective garbage bags.



Viewers should see whether or not the Ottos will accommodate Viv in "American Housewife" Season 1 episode 17 titled "Other People's Marriages." The episode will air on March 14, Tuesday, at 8:30 p.m. on ABC.



Here is the "American Housewife" trailer:






30th anniversary of Dolly Parton statue celebrated with special exhibit





Dolly in Bronze display. Image courtesy of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce.





SEVIERVILLE, TN  The Sevierville Chamber of Commerce is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the unveiling of the Dolly Parton Statue. Created by artist Jim Gray, the statue is located on the Sevier County Courthouse lawn in historic downtown Sevierville. The exhibit, 30: Celebrating Dolly in Bronze, will be on display from March 15, 2017, until the end of December at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center.



The centerpiece is a bronze study for the statue measuring 23h x 18w x16d. The remainder of the collection includes a 10-inch tall wax-over-metal maquette of the statue made by Gray to use as a proposal, the autographed stool on which Parton posed for the statue, as well as several other items used by the artist to create the monument. There are also banners depicting the process used to create the statue and interactive, fun displays.



These priceless artifacts are on loan from the East Tennessee History Center with the permission of the Gray family.



The finished statue is six and a half feet tall, plus the base. After positing the rock, Gray did a plaster cast of the top, so the statue would fit properly. Once the skeleton was made of steel, he used 300 pounds of clay. The work was done in Grays south Knoxville studio, then moved to Wagner Foundry in Fredericksburg, Virginia where the bronze was actually poured.



On Sunday May 3, 1987, Dolly Parton came back to her hometown to participate in the event in which the impressive statue was unveiled. An estimated 500 people crowded closed-off Court Avenue in front of the courthouse for the ceremony.



Her remarks were brief, with her acknowledging the attendance of her farther, Lee Parton, and several other members of her family as well as legendary Knoxville grocer Cas Walker. Cas you told em Id be a star, Parton said. And I couldnt let you down.



Parton joked about the possibility of her statue falling prey to courthouse traditions. Now, I dont want any of you men down here on Saturday afternoon spitting tobacco juice on my legs, she said. But no matter what it looks like maybe it will keep the pigeons off the roof. The international star then turned sentimental saying, It makes me feel like you folks are proud of me, and Ive always wanted you to be.



Jim Gray also spoke saying he had received more offers for help on this project than any he had ever undertaken. Everyone wanted to helpcarry clay, or anything, Gray said with a chuckle. But I wanted to do this one by myself. He said more than 2,000 hours went into the project.



In the past 30 years, millions of visitors from all over the world have made the pilgrimage to the Sevier County Courthouse to see the famous statue. The statue was awarded a 2015 Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor, an award which is based on the quality of reviews and opinions earned on TripAdvisor in the past year.



The exhibit is open daily from 9-5 at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center located at 3099 Winfield Dunn Parkway, Kodak, Tennessee. For more information call 1-888-738-4378. Published March 14, 2017


















Government ministers have signed a protocol with national charity Misr El-Kheir which would make the organisation responsible for repatriating the bodies of Egyptians who died abroad, MENA agency reported.

In statements to the press following the joint signing between the immigration and health ministries, the charitys chairman of the board of trustees Ali Gomaa, Immigration Minister Nabila Makram said Misr El-Kheir Foundation would bear the costs of transferring the bodies back home.

Makram said that previously poor families would submit a form to the social solidarity ministry to the effect that they could not cover the costs of repatriation of a dead relative.

Details on the minimum and maximum payments provided by the foundation were not disclosed.

It was not immediately clear if the protocol would only cover poorer Egyptians.

"The cooperation between both ministries and the organisation came as a result of the political leadership's sense of the suffering of Egyptians abroad in transferring the bodies of the deceased and the difficulties they face," Makram said.

Gomaa, who was formerly the countrys grand mufti, praised the charity, describing the cooperation as one that comes in accordance with its duty towards Egyptians, particularly after ten years of work in the country.

Established in 2007, Misr El-Kheir focuses on human development via five key aspects -- health, education, scientific research, social solidarity and aspects of life.

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By Yun Suh-young





Yun I-sang

Many concerts will be held in the coming months celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of late composer Yun I-sang (1917-1995).

The 2017 Tongyeong International Music Festival will be held at the Tongyeong International Music Hall in the city of Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, under the theme "Remembering Isang Yun" from March 31 through April 9.

Tongyeong annually holds the Tongyeong International Music Festival in honor of the late composer Yun.

Yun is recognized in Europe for converging the West and the East's musical techniques and philosophy in his music. He was educated at the Paris Conservatoire and the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. However, his music was barely played in Korea due to ideological conflicts with the Korean government. Yun was accused of being involved with spying in East Berlin in 1967 due to his previous involvement in the democracy movement and his visit to North Korea. He served two years in prison and was released with the help of the German government which later granted Yun citizenship.

The Isang Yun Peace Foundation was one of the organizations listed on the "blacklist" by the Park Geun-hye administration and the Isang Yun Music Competition faced the likelihood of being suspended last year.

On the opening day of this year's festival, cellist Nicolas Altstaedt will perform Yun's cello concerto composed in 1976. On April 1, the Isang Yun Soloists Berlin will be performing five songs including three of Yun's _ Trio (1992), Loyang (1962), and Piece Concertante (1976).

The Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of conductor Adrien Perruchon will perform Teile dich Nacht (1980) on the following day. The work is known to be an acoustic expression of Yun's experience of shamanistic rituals.

On April 4, Cologne Chamber Orchestra with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on the piano will perform Yun's Octet (1978) under the helm of conductor Choi Soo-yeoul.

On April 8 and 9, the Arditti Quartet will play Yun's String Quartet No. 3 (1959/61) and String Quartet No. 4 (1988) among its eight repertoires.

The festival will close with a finale by the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Dennis Russell Davies playing two of Yun's works _ Fanfare and Memorial (1979) and Clarinet Concerto (1981). Other repertoire includes John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986) and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (1913).

Composer Yun's music will also be performed outside of Tongyeong in different concert halls. The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra will pay homage to two composers _ Yun and French composer Pierre Boulez who died last year _ in its contemporary music series "Ars Nova Chamber Music Concert" on March 24. The orchestra will also perform Yun's "Piece concertante (1976)."

Cellist Koh Bong-ihn who had shown particular affection for Yun's musical works will showcase a special concert dedicated to the composer this September at the Kumho Art Hall in Seoul.
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, right, shakes hands with General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt during a meeting at Hanwha headquarters in downtown Seoul, Monday. The two discussed a range of issues, such as internet of things and smart factories, and agreed to further strengthen their business partnership. / Courtesy of Hanwha Group



By Lee Hyo-sik

Hanwha Group and General Electric (GE) have agreed to cooperate on industrial internet, internet of things (IoT) and other newly emerging technologies to strengthen their business partnership, Korea's eighth-largest conglomerate said Tuesday.

Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn met with GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt at the group headquarters in Seoul Monday, discussing ways to advance bilateral business ties.

"GE has been a global leader in the ongoing industrial digitalization. I am impressed by what the U.S. firm has been doing to innovate itself," Kim was quoted as saying by Hanwha officials during a meeting with Immelt.

"We would like to enhance our corporate competitiveness by more closely cooperating on industrial internet and other emerging fields with GE. I also expect the two companies will work together to develop new growth models."

Hanwha Techwin, one of the group's defense goods manufacturers, has been cooperating with GE on airplane engines and gas turbines since the 1980s, according to Hanwha officials.

Last year, Techwin signed a memorandum of understanding to adopt GE's knowhow and expertise on industrial internet to transform its plants into smart factories.

"We have been maintaining a strong partnership with GE in areas of aircraft engines and other aviation components for years. With GE selected as an engine supplier last year for Korea's next-generation KF-X project, Hanwha will help its American partner to produce engines for 240 fighter jets."

The official also said Kim and Immelt agreed to work together to make the best use of the IoT and other next-generation technologies, as well as jointly exploring a possible collaboration on solar panels.

During his one-day visit to Korea, Immelt also met with Korea Electric Power Corp. CEO Cho Hwan-eik, POSCO CEO Kwon Oh-joon and other corporate leaders to enhance GE's business partnership with Korea Inc.
Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se arrives at Incheon International AIrport, Tuesday, to leave for Singapore and Sri Lanka. / Yonhap



Foreign Minister Yun leaves for Singapore, Sri Lanka on 3-day trip



By Yi Whan-woo

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se embarked on a three-day trip to Singapore and Sri Lanka, Tuesday, to discuss North Korea's threats to regional security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

It said Yun met Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan first, Tuesday, before flying to Colombo for talks with Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Wednesday.

Yun is expected to make his last-ditch effort as a top South Korean diplomat to urge the international community to step up pressure on Pyongyang, according to senior foreign ministry officials here.

They said rising concerns over Pyongyang's use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction will be high on the agenda following the assassination of the North Korean ruler's estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia, Feb. 13.

"By doing so, South Korea may underscore North Korea's repeated defiance of international norms, and the need to exclude Pyongyang from the United Nations," an official said.

The official speculated that Yun's three-day trip may help bolster South Korea's alliance in the region against North Korea.

Yun is also scheduled to travel to Vietnam from Sunday to Monday after returning to Seoul temporarily for talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Yun will meet several high-ranking Vietnamese officials, including Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Foreign Minister Phim Binh Minh.

Meanwhile, National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin is to leave for the United States, Wednesday, Cheong Wa Dae said, Tuesday.

Kim will meet U.S. National Security Adviser Herbert Raymond McMaster during his two-day stay there and discuss North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile threats.

They are likely to reaffirm the two allies' commitment to deploy a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery in South Korea as scheduled regardless of the removal of Park Geun-hye from the presidency, Friday.

Kim and McMaster discussed the THAAD deployment and North Korea-related issues over the telephone, March 1.
The top U.S. diplomat's visit to South Korea later this week is "important" and "timely" in that it will help the two allies draw up their detailed joint approach to North Korea and its growing nuclear and missile threats, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday.



U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will come to South Korea on Friday as part of his first Asia tour since inauguration that will also take him to Japan and China. He is to have meetings with senior government officials, including talks with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.



"At a time when the U.S. administration's policy review on North Korea is in its final stages ... and our joint approach to the North is materializing through meetings of (recent) foreign ministers and nuclear envoys, Tillerson's visit to Korea is very important and timely," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck told a regular press briefing.



Tillerson met with Yun for about 20 minutes on the sidelines of a global gathering held in Bonn, Germany, last month. Their Seoul meeting scheduled for Friday marks their second face-to-face talks.



High on the agenda will be how to coordinate their joint approach toward the North and its nuclear capabilities. The ongoing diplomatic spat between South Korea and China over the installment of a U.S. missile defense system will also likely be among the major topics to be discussed.



Earlier, a government official told reporters on condition of anonymity that Tillerson's upcoming visit is a "good" chance for South Korea to share its experiences on North Korea with the new U.S. government.



Tillerson's trip also coincides with the political turmoil caused by the presidential impeachment. An election to fill the void will likely be held in early May, and during the two-month period, the prime minister will serve as acting president.



The spokesman reiterated that the government will maintain its diplomatic policy direction regardless of the fluid political situation here while seeking close cooperation with the U.S. to better cope with the North's continued provocations, and its evolving missile and nuclear capabilities. (Yonhap)




China opposition to THAAD untenable, says William Perry

By Oh Young-jin





William Perry

Living in constant fear of invasion by the North after the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953, South Koreans ironically appear doubtful whether there will be a second conflict on the peninsula.

It is a coping system of sorts without which many of them could have gone mad, considering the crazy quilt of micro-attacks, some of them fatal, Pyongyang has inflicted on the South through its three generations of despots  the latest being the 33-year-old dictator Kim Jong-un, who doesn't pale in ruthlessness compared to his father and grandfather.

Will Kim's rule be business as usual with some minor conflicts that, as before, prevent steam from building to the point of explosion or a full-fledged war?

If any ordinary person with the label of expert cries war, they would likely be dismissed as another Cassandra or wolf-crying shepherd. But what if William Perry sounded the alarm?

That could be a different matter.

As U.S. President Bill Clinton's defense secretary he had considered bombing the North's nuclear facilities in the 1990s and then developed the Perry Process, a tit-for-tat manual for disarming the North.

Perry now talks about the possibility of war, a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, but thankfully he qualifies it, meaning there is a way of avoiding it.

"In the U.S., there is a new inexperienced government and in Korea there is no government," Perry said over the telephone from his office at Stanford University in California, Saturday. "They could blunder into war, not a deliberate war."

That war could turn into a nuclear slugfest between David (North Korea) and Goliath (U.S.) considering their respective nuclear stockpiles. But predicting the outcome would be irrelevant because the real losers have already been determined: people living on the Korean Peninsula.

"The outcome would be catastrophic, much more than the first war," he said.

He said the U.S. would translate its assurances of extended deterrence or its nuclear umbrella into action, if the North used nuclear devices, dismissing counterclaims that have led to calls for an independent nuclear arsenal.

Here are Perry's qualifiers to stop this doomsday scenario.

"Kim Jong-un is ruthless, not crazy, and has proved an effective ruler," is how Perry assessed the North Korean leader.












By John Redmond

KOTESOL will host a conference with the theme "Enhancing Classroom Interaction & Student-Teacher Dynamics" at Hanyang University in northeastern Seoul, March 25.

KOTESOL is the Korea branch of Teachers of English Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). It is a nonprofit organization that promotes professional development for English language instruction in Korea.

"We welcome educators from all nationalities and backgrounds and support those wishing to develop their teaching skills and education programs," the organizers said on the KOTESOL website.

"KOTESOL aims to provide professional development, networking, and overall support to English teachers in Korea."

The plenary speakers will be Graham Crookes from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and Gordon West from Sookmyung Women's University of Seoul.

The session will be from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The cost is 10,000 won for members and students and 20,000 won for non-members and free for new members joining on-site.

To get there, leave Hanyang University Station via exit 3. Walk straight until the intersection. Turn left to enter the university through the Hospital Entrance. Turn left and follow the path. Make the first right. There will be two buildings on your right. Walk past these and you will see the Humanities Building (Building 6) straight ahead.
By John Redmond



Those interested in traveling to India can visit the "Get, Set and Go- travel India" session at Itaewon Global Village Center on March 24.

The session with presenter Anjali offers useful information on traveling to India.

"Why travel the world for rivers, beaches, mountains, sand dunes, temples, history, culture and art when you can get all this in India?" the event organizer said in a press release.

"From the tallest icy peaks of the northern mountains to the party-lovers' beaches, every visible inch of this land is breathtaking."

The presentation will explore India's culture, wildlife, history, religion, geography and food.

This session is from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and is free. Attendees can sign up by email at itaewongvc@yongsan.go.kr or in person.

To get to the village center, leave exit 2 of Itaewon Station, walk straight for 200 meters and look for the Hannam Building which has a 7-Eleven store on the first floor. The center is on the fifth floor of that building.

Visit global.seoul.go.kr/itaewon for more information.
By Jun Ji-hye



The navies of South Korea, the United States and Japan began a joint missile detection exercise Tuesday in a bid to boost trilateral military cooperation in detecting and tracking North Korean missiles.



The ROK Navy said the two-day drill was being held in South Korean and Japanese waters.



The trilateral naval drill is separate from the ongoing joint annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises by Seoul and Washington, the Navy noted.



The exercise is designed to train sailors to share information on detecting and tracking enemy missiles, the Navy said, adding that the missile interception part was excluded from this drill.



During the simulation exercise, three Aegis-equipped destroyers  the Sejongdaewang from South Korea, Curtis Wilbur from the U.S. and Kirishima from Japan  were mobilized.



"The Aegis destroyer from each country detects and tracks a mock hostile missile as if fired by the North, and then exchanges relevant information among them," the Navy said.



"The drill is taking place in accordance with an agreement, made at the Seoul and Washington's Security Consultative Meeting in October 2016."



At last year's SCM, South Korea and the U.S. defense chiefs agreed to hold the trilateral missile warning exercise regularly.



The ongoing drill marks the fourth of its kind since last June, when the three countries held the exercise near Hawaii. Since then, they have held the drills last November and in January this year in the sea between South Korea and Japan.



The drill also marks the second of its kind after South Korea and Japan signed an information-sharing accord, known as the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), last November.



However, the Navy said that the Aegis destroyers of the two countries would not share information directly during the drill, but would do so indirectly through U.S. satellites.



"As the GSOMIA has been signed, South Korea and Japan are making efforts to interlock systems of their Aegis destroyers so that their information-sharing ability can be improved," a Navy official said.



The official added that the trilateral drill was unrelated to the U.S.-led missile defense system (MD), playing down speculation that Seoul could drift into Washington's global missile defense program.



Japan officially announced its participation in the U.S. MD in 2003.



U.S. aircraft carrier arrives Wednesday



Meanwhile, Washington's Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its strike group will arrive in Busan, Wednesday, to participate in the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises.



The carrier strike group with 7,500 crew includes the destroyer Wayne E. Meyer and Carrier Air Wing 2.



Officials said sending the Carl Vinson Strike Group demonstrated U.S. intent to deter North Korea amid tensions surrounding Pyongyang's evolving missile and nuclear weapons programs.



The reclusive state fired four ballistic missiles on Mar. 6, 22 days after it fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile.



There has also been speculation that Pyongyang will stage another major provocation such as a sixth nuclear test or launching an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at the U.S. mainland.




A political source close to the dialogue in Cairo said that Egypt still sees a chance to resume talks between the rival factions

A Libyan political source affiliated with country's western-based government stated that the Libyan army, led by General Khalifa Haftar, is on the verge of retaking Libya's oil crescent region.

Haftar's forces have been conducting intensive shelling since last week against the Benghazi Defence Brigades militant group, which has started to retreat in the face of the attacks, according to the source.

Al-Hussein Al-Messri, a Libyan political researcher is based in the countrys east, had expected a breakthrough in the deadlock in negotiations between the rival eastern and western authorities.

However, he believes the latest events have negatively affected the stance of Mustafa Al-Sarraj, the west-based chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya, who has been linked to the Benghazi Defence Brigades insurgency in the oil crescent region.

The battles have been the bloodiest fighting yet between the eastern and western camps.

Fawzy Al-Haddad, a political expert, said that the latest events in the oil crescent region had halted the Cairo-sponsored talks, taking negotiations back to step one.

He told Ahram Online however that he expects the deadlock in talks to be resolved soon, as tribes from the oil-rich region are close to reach a consensus on what forces will protect the oil fields.

A political source close to the dialogue in Cairo said that Egypt still sees a chance to resume talks between Libyan rival factions, reflecting that what happened lately in the eastern region highlights the risk of a potential civil war in the country.

On 12 and 13 January, Libyan political rivals reached an agreement in Cairo by underscoring four main principles to be respected in Libya's transition: the preservation of a united Libyan territory, support for national institutions, non-interference by foreign bodies, and the maintenance of a civil state.

According to statements of the Egyptian-Libyan committee, Cairo is keen to maintain and overcome obstacles to reaching a political resolution in the conflict-torn country.

Cairo has been accused recently of bias in favour of the eastern government in negotiations, but Egyptian sources have denounced these accusations, stressing that the time prior to the 2015 UN-brokered Skhirat agreement witnessed cooperation with the Libyan government in the east in light of the stable security situation and the joint borders between the two countries, while the post-Skhirat period has seen similar cooperation between Egypt and authorities in West Libya.

Earlier media reports talked about the failure of Cairo talks to achieve a tripartite agreement between Haftar, Al-Sarraj and the head of the Libyan House of Representatives Agilah Saleh, saying that Cairo rushed into the announcement that an agreement had been reached between the Libyan parties. However, sources in Cairo said that some important points must be put into consideration, as some Libyan parties are favouring personal and partisan interests.

Cairo has hosted several meetings in the past months with rival Libyan factions to push for discussions that could end the countrys ongoing crisis.

Some countries that are against the Egyptian role in Libya have raised the idea of Cairo's bias; in light of that, Egyptian officials have conducted several meetings in order to meditate between Libyan rival factions.

Despite Haftar deciding not to meet personally with Al-Sarraj on his latest visit to Cairo, Egypt did not apply pressure in order to guarantee that any agreement reached is purely Libyan.

Libyan political sources affirmed that Egypt could have possibly pressed Libyan representatives to reach an agreement, saying that Haftar's stance is currently more powerful than Al-Sarraj in light of his advancements on the ground and his retake over the oil-rich region.

Egyptian sources commented that both Haftar and Al-Sarraj have the same amount of wins and losses; Haftar seems to be advancing during the current period, while Al-Sarraj remains the actual head of the Libyan state recognised by the international community, which means he is an important player who cannot be dismissed or ignored.

Egypt has intensified communication with authorities in the west, and Al-Sarraj is ready to give compensation in coordination with international powers to reach a consensus, which is the very first goal to reach common ground to reach an agreement.

Sources also said that Cairo isnt sponsoring an initiative as much as a political dialogue to reach a consensus which maintains Libya's state structure and national institutions, apart from tribal and partisan affiliations.

According to sources, the reaching of a consensus on a mechanism to overcome political dispute in Libya can be seen as the highlight of Cairo talks since last December.

Cairo's delegation in January stated February 2018 as a due date for a comprehensive election inside Libya's political institutions, but a high official source told Ahram Online that this date is not compulsory but instead aims to motivate rival Libyan factions to reach an agreement, as Cairo sees that a transitional period, ranging between two to five years, will not help Libyans to face the current political and security challenges in their country.

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Prosecutor General Kim Soo-nam enters the Supreme Prosecutor's Office in southern Seoul, Monday. The prosecution will notify former President Park Geun-hye, Wednesday, of when she will have to appear for questioning. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho

The prosecution will notify former President Park Geun-hye, Wednesday, of the date she will be called in for questioning on allegations made against her.

Speaking to reporters, Tuesday, a prosecution official said it will ask her to come to the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office for questioning as a key suspect in the major influence-peddling and corruption scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil.

"The date will be determined and she will be notified tomorrow," the official said.

There have been no negotiations with Park for scheduling the questioning, according to the official. This may mean no more special treatment for the former head of state, whose impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court, Friday.

If she refuses to cooperate, prosecutors can  and will likely  request an arrest warrant. They said they have already collected "plenty of evidence" about her complicity in the scandal.

Park is expected to be questioned as early as this week.

The prosecution's decision comes as it is under great pressure to investigate Park. Many politicians and activists have expressed concern over possible attempts to destroy evidence at Cheong Wa Dae and her private home in southern Seoul, criticizing prosecutors for being "too slow and political."

The result of the investigation is expected to affect the fate of Prosecutor General Kim Soo-nam, who was appointed by Park in 2015, and the future of the prosecution profoundly, with all major presidential hopefuls promising to reform the powerful organization.












By Lee Kyung-min



Police said Tuesday they are investigating 16 individuals suspected of committing 21 violent crimes during rallies near Cheong Wa Dae after the Constitutional Court removed President Park Geun-hye from office.



National Police Agency Commissioner General Lee Chul-sung said Monday those engaged in crime in the protests will be subject to punishment.



The police said a considerable number of Park supporters became angry and violent after Friday's ruling.



A man surnamed Jung, 65, hijacked a police bus and drove it into another police bus being used as a barricade at the protest site. A loudspeaker on top of the parked bus fell off and hit a man, surnamed Kim, 72, who suffered from a fractured skull and ribs and later died.



Jung was put behind bars and faces charges of manslaughter, obstructing police and destroying public property.



Another pro-Park rally participant was detained for assaulting two journalists in a restaurant in Jongno near the protest site.



Four Park Geun-hye supporters were detained for attempting to set fire to a gas station in Jung-gu, central Seoul, Saturday. Police sought an arrest warrant for one of them.



One online post by the owner of a restaurant near the protest site accused supporters of engaging in vulgar behavior.



The owner said they stole tissue from the restroom, cut in line and sat anywhere they wanted falsely claiming they had made reservations.



Most of them used vulgar language in loud voices and tried to pick fights with restaurant employees and other customers. They smoked despite no smoking signs and employees' requests not to do so and drank bottles of alcohol they brought in from outside.



Numerous instances of violent clashes among Park supporters were reported near the private residence of the former president in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, where she returned after leaving Cheong Wa Dae late Sunday.



According to police, officers dispatched there stopped numerous incidents which could have escalated into physical fights among people in their 50s and 60s.



The fights usually began, it added, when one person expressed frustration against a certain behavior or remark they didn't approve of by labeling the other "communist."



The police agency is also investigating "fake news," which includes a story claiming more than 80 percent of Koreans support the overturning of Park's impeachment.



Park supporters said they would hold another massive rally Saturday.








The National Pension Service Counseling Center was opened on Mar. 10 at Buwondong Post Office, Gimhae city, South Gyeongsang Province. / Courtsy of National Pension Service



By Eom Da-sol

Gimhae/Miryang Office of the National Pension Service (NPS) has opened a pension counseling center for foreigners.

The center on the third floor of Buwondong Post Office in the city of Gimhae was opened on Mar. 10 to improve NPS accessibility for foreigners and to cooperate with the public service.

Foreign workers aged between 18 and 60 are obliged to register for the national pension. Once registered, a certain percentage of their monthly salaries is taken to cover pension insurance.

If foreign workers from certain countries quit their job within 10 years and go back to their home country, the total insurance payment is refunded.

NPS has been struggling to meet workers' demands for refunds because of a lack of personal information. The problem has been significant in Ansan and Gimhae, where the nation's first and second-biggest registered foreign population live respectively  77,000 in the former and 20,000 in the latter.

The pension authority introduced its first counseling center for foreigners in Ansan in 2014 to tackle the issue.

The NPS also hired consultants fluent in foreign languages.

Busan NPS Office chief Lee Soon-yong said, "I hope workers find the national pension counseling center helpful."
By Choi Ha-young





Former President Park Geun-hye plays with her pet Jindo dogs at the residence in Cheong Wa Dae in September last year. / Korea Times file

Former President Park Geun-hye may face a lawsuit for allegedly abandoning her dogs that she used to look after at the presidential residence.

An animal rights group filed a complaint with the prosecution, Monday, to investigate Park's alleged violation of the Animal Protection Law.

One day after the former head of state returned to her private home in southern Seoul following the Constitutional Court's ruling, a Cheong Wa Dae official told reporters she had not taken her nine dogs.

Another animal rights group Care said it is willing to look after the dogs until they find new families. "If her pets are sent to animal shelters, this will cause another problem," the group said in a release.












By Yi Whan-woo



A controversy is brewing over Cheong Wa Dae's move to transfer presidential documents to the National Archives for preservation following Park Geun-hye's removal from office.



Opposition lawmakers claim Park's former aides who are still working at the presidential office may attempt to prevent the prosecution from obtaining evidence of the scandal that led to her impeachment.



Officials have begun sorting out documents that are worthy of being preserved as historical records. The documents, once they are sorted, will be moved and stored in the Presidential Archives, which is run by the National Archives. By law, presidential records can be sealed for up to 30 years and access to them is restricted accordingly.



Although the presidential office explained that this work will be done in a fair manner, opposition parties and some analysts suspect that Cheong Wa Dae may be covering up or destroying evidence related to the scandal.



They also refuted the National Archive's view that acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn should be given the right to determine and designate documents subject to historical preservation on behalf of Park.



They claimed that Hwang may exploit this in favor of Park, adding that the National Assembly should instead be given the right.



Saying that the transfer process takes several months, some critics called on the prosecution to "preemptively" search and seize evidence at Cheong Wa Dae as well as Park's residence in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul.



They raised concerns that Park may have illegally taken some documents containing information about the allegations against her when she returned to her home in Samseong-dong, Sunday.



"Most of the presidential records are believed to be evidence that is essential to prove Park's crimes," said main opposition Democratic Party of Korea chief spokesman Rep. Youn Kwan-suk. "Acting President Hwang should not cooperate in designating such evidence as classified information to help Park cover up evidence concerning the scandal."



Citing the handing over of presidential documents to Park's confidant Choi Soon-sil, Lim Sang-kyung, a former head of the Presidential Archives, raised suspicion that certain evidence may have been destroyed already.



Lim speculated that a number of documents were produced without using authorized computers during Park's presidency.



"It's possible they were scrapped or taken outside the presidential office," Lim said. "The chances will be higher if those documents only existed in printed form."



The special investigation team looking into the scandal is considering searching Cheong Wa Dae before the transfer process is completed, according to legal sources.



The National Archives reiterated its view concerning Hwang's rights.



"A president has such rights, and the term president' can include an acting president and a president-elect," it said.



The Prime Minister's Office said Hwang will make a decision after consulting Cheong Wa Dae.



Presidential office officials said they were speeding up the transfer process because they did not predict Park's removal from office and were not ready to cope with it. They said previous governments usually began the process six months before the president's term ended.












Presidential contenders from the Democratic Party of Korea  from left, Goyang Mayor Choi Sung, Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, former party leader Moon Jae-in and South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung  hold hands before a televised debate at KBS on Yeouido, southern Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap



By Kim Hyo-jin



Four presidential hopefuls from the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) engaged in a heated TV debate that centered on how to overcome the legacy of the ill-fated former President Park Geun-hye, Tuesday.



Their debate drew much attention because it was held after the Constitutional Court upheld Park's impeachment, triggering an early presidential election. A liberal candidate is highly anticipated to win the presidential poll, which may take place in early May, based on negative public sentiment toward the former conservative leader.



One of the hot debate issues was South Chungcheong Governor An Hee-jung's pledge to cooperate with conservatives  even those who are tied to Park  in managing state affairs, if elected to the highest office.



Other contenders  former party leader Moon Jae-in, Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung and Goyang Mayor Choi Sung  criticized An for attempting to collaborate with "those who should be held responsible for ruining the country."

However, An maintained that the next government should not be just for liberals, but for all people from different ideological backgrounds.



The governor renewed his call to form a cabinet with figures varying from the conservative and liberal blocs and join hands with the conservative parties in the legislation process. He said it is the only way to truly reform society, which he says is an urgent task following impeachment.



"We need a powerful means for reform. We can't always ask the people to express their support with candlelit rallies when pushing for reformative bills," An said.



He added it was a "practical way" to make changes in state management, pointing out the number of opposition lawmakers falls short of the two-thirds of the 300-member National Assembly, a number required to pass a controversial bill in the legislature.



Lee, a noted anti-establishment figure, refuted An, saying, "It is a contradiction that you think of creating a new structure against social evils and establishments in a joint effort with those groups."



He claimed cooperative politics in the next government should be limited to liberal parties. "Unity can be realized only when we introduce a fair order and clear out criminals and corrupt forces. Putting liberal parties under one umbrella can only make such momentum," he said.



Meanwhile, Moon cautioned against focusing too much energy on the issue. He said political circles should strive to reflect the voice of the people, stressing he will prioritize communication with the public if elected.



"Reform doesn't have to be about having as many politicians as possible on our side. With public support, rivals cannot protest our moves," the leading contender said. "In that sense, joint efforts among the liberal parties should be enough."



They also exchanged barbs over the issue of deploying a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery here, with Moon and An stressing the need to seek diplomatic efforts in persuading China while Lee claimed the plan should be withdrawn.



"The government was complacent, not expecting China's economic retaliation. Now it is high time to get into talks with China," Moon said. Lee, a strong dissenter to the anti-missile system, said, "it is not beneficial at all to the country as we face China unleashing economic retaliation and the U.S. bringing us under its influence."



DPK will nominate its official candidate by April 8  in case it skips the second round of the two-stage voting with no candidate garnering over a majority vote in the first round, by April 3  after a series of primary elections in five separate regions.

With the court-ordered impeachment of President Park Geun-hye on March 10, the country has to elect a new President in 60 days. The most likely ballot day is May 9.
The Korean Bar Association (KBA) is collecting signatures to urge the impeached President Park Geun-hye to accept the Constitutional Court's ruling.



The lawyers' association has been collecting signatures among its members but said it will expand the movement to the public with the aim of collecting 1 million.



The move follows Park's response to the court ruling as she moved out of Cheong Wa Dae and into her private residence in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, Sunday.



Through her former spokesperson Min Kyung-wook, she said, "I believe the truth will reveal itself," implying she did not commit any wrongdoings deserving impeachment.



Park's supporters are also calling the impeachment invalid, and have vowed to continue their protests.



"The influence-peddling scandal involving Park and her confidant Choi Soon-sil has brought division and disorder," the KBA's new president Kim Hyun said in his inaugural speech, Monday.



"Only when law and order is equal for all and when people accept its consequences can there be hope."



The KBA started the signature-collection drive urging for the Constitutional Court's ruling on Park's impeachment to be accepted _ regardless of its outcome _ on March 6, before the ruling was made.



Following the ruling, Friday, the KBA said in a statement, "The Constitutional Court's ruling has reflected public sentiment, made clear its will to protect the Constitution and bears significance in that it was a unanimous ruling. We must all respect the court's ruling and submit to it."



The KBA will open the petition to the public soon.



"We will enable the public to provide their signatures on our website," a KBA official said Tuesday.



"We aim to deliver the message that people want Park to respect the Constitutional Court's ruling," she said.



Criticism of Park is mounting over her response.



A coalition of student bodies at 20 universities from across the country held a press conference at Gwanghwamun Square, Monday, supporting an investigation of Park.



"Park's impeachment is what the people wanted," they said.



"Park, who is showing no signs of remorse and instead attempting to solidify her conservative supporters, must be arrested."




South Korea's highest observation deck built by Lotte Group will open to the public next week and help generate fresh momentum for the retail giant that is facing a huge risk of losing Chinese customers in the wake of a trade row with Beijing.



The Seoul Sky, located from the 117th to the 123th floor of the country's tallest skyscraper Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, southeastern Seoul, will start to receive visitors from March 22, its operator Lotte World said Tuesday.



The deck is some 500 meters above the ground, and designed to accommodate 900 people at once who will take a double-deck elevator named the Sky Shuttle, the company said. The elevator will take visitors to the top in one minute.



The opening of the observation deck came amid mounting concerns over Lotte's businesses. Lotte is experiencing problems after China seemingly engaged in attacking the group for agreeing to a land swap with the military. The agreement has opened the way for an advanced U.S. missile defense system, known as THAAD, to be deployed in South Korea.



Early this month, Beijing told its travel agencies to stop selling tour packages to South Korea, while ordering a temporary shutdown of half of Lotte's hypermarkets operating in China.



Lotte said it has set the target for the number of expected visitors at 2.3 million for this year. It said the observation deck will be a place that "represents the pride and beauty of Korea."



The sky deck on the 118th floor and the super-fast elevator have both been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, it added. The deck is the highest placed glass-floor observation platform in the world with the elevator getting recognition for being the fastest.



The floor is made with tempered glass strong enough to withstand one ton per square meter, equivalent to about 222 people weighing 75 kilograms each, according to the company. (Yonhap)




The combined actions of North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China and Japan have probably made the Korean peninsula the most dangerous potential flashpoint in the whole world at the moment.



The Democratic People's Republic of Korea  North Korea  has fired off four more ballistic missiles, simultaneously, alarming neighboring South Korea, China and Japan, along with the United States, which has 28,500 troops based in South Korea. Pyongyang's obvious continuing pursuit of its effort to possess nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles is alarming not only to countries in its region, but also to the world, which continues to condemn it  ineffectually  in international circles.



It doesn't help that the DPRK also apparently just assassinated leader Kim Jong Un's half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Kuala Lumpur's international airport, with nerve gas  evidence that the country's leadership is at best homicidal, paranoiac and somewhat stupid, since Kim Jong Nam was more or less under the protection of China, virtually North Korea's only serious patron in the world.



South Korea, in collaboration with the United States, hasn't helped the situation much either in terms of a serious quest for tranquility in the region. Once again, with South Korea, America is carrying out its annual broad spring military exercise, called "Foal Eagle," in the area. It is scheduled to last eight weeks, to the end of April. Skipping the exercise would give the impression that we were bowing to DPRK sensibilities and complaints, but it is nonetheless the case that North Korea's missile tests and the U.S.-South Korean exercise are strongly linked.



South Korea has also ousted its president, Park Geun-hye, on charges of corruption and has just placed under arrest Lee Jae-yong, the head of Samsung, a company that is estimated to account for 20 percent of South Korea's gross domestic product.



China has made its usual ritual condemnation of North Korea's weapons-waving, but it is also cross at the United States for being in the process of deploying in South Korea an anti-missile defense system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense). It is, in principle, being put into place, by the end of April, as a measure against North Korea's growing potential. China, however, has also taken offense at its being installed, claiming to see it as deployed against Chinese weapons systems, an unwelcome intrusion in the region and an aggressive U.S. measure directed against it.



Russia, which also has a small border with the DPRK, has so far stayed out of the melee. Japan was very agitated at North Korea's firing of its ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan earlier this week.



All in all, what is happening in the Korean peninsula, or what could happen there, is shaping up as President Donald Trump's first foreign affairs drama. It would be nice to hope that matters will calm down once the U.S.-South Korean exercise is over, the South Korean president is replaced, and China is persuaded that the THAAD system is not directed against it. In the meantime, the rest of the world should hope that everyone remains cool and calm in Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo and Washington  a lot to wish for, given the volatility of the region.



No one must step on these various Easter eggs. War in East Asia could have unanticipated, highly undesirable consequences. Mr. Trump could throw cold water on the threatening dogfight by calling strongly as a new leader for a resumption of the six-party, DPRK-South Korea-Japan-China-Russia-U.S. talks, suspended in 2009. He could cut the length of "Foal Eagle" to put something on the table. A peace initiative as his first major foreign policy move could look very good.





This editorial appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.




By Shlomo Ben-Ami



MADRID  "We must educate our masters," Robert Lowe, a British statesman, told colleagues after the passage of the Second Reform Act of 1867, a law that added over a million voters to the Parliamentary Register. For Lowe, an educated populace was the best means to secure participatory governance in Britain.



But 150 years later, the educated "masters" of liberal democracy have apparently learned little. Lowe, one may assume, would not be impressed with the populist trends pulling the wool over their eyes.



As the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States demonstrated, voters are too easily fooled by prejudice and false promises. Critical thought is increasingly dismissed as an elitist endeavor, while unaccountable social media, "fake news," and "alternative facts" dominate public discussion. In an environment of ignorance, populist politicians make willing prey of those who feel ignored.



But because those politicians are so appealing to so many, they, no less than easily swayed voters, must be scrutinized. The question is whether a brand of politics that threatens liberal democracy can also be reformulated to save it.



There are two types of populists today: the exploitative and the enlightened. Trump represents the former. With an administration full of Goldman Sachs alumni, and an agenda that promises tax cuts for the super-rich while privatizing Medicare and education, Trump is bound to disappoint the white working class that won him the White House. Automation, not trade, is responsible for the decline of manufacturing jobs. Natural gas, not environmental regulation, has fueled the demise of the US coal industry.



But Trump's rise was not just about the economy. It was also about turning a nativist American identity against minorities and immigrants. For demagogues, playing on peoples' emotions is always more effective than appealing to their "common sense," as George Orwell explained in his review of Hitler's Mein Kampf. This is as true for Trump in the US as it is for right-wing populists like Marine Le Pen in France, Frauke Petry in Germany, and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.



Democracies, however, can also produce a more enlightened type of populism, such as that offered by US Senator Bernie Sanders. Had he become the Democratic Party's nominee for president (rather than Hilary Clinton), and had he assumed the US presidency, his promise to upend the American socioeconomic order and implant a Scandinavian-style social democracy might have enraged large swaths of the electorate. Congress probably would have derailed the entire list of noble goals that comprised his platform  single-payer health care, free college for all, campaign-finance reform, and breaking up big banks  as unbearably costly, if not "un-American."



Nonetheless, Sanders could have led America closer toward Lyndon B. Johnson's vision of a Great Society without poverty or racial discrimination. He surely would have respected the separation of powers, and would not have tainted the presidency with daily bacchanals of lies and narcissism. Sanders' moral compass and public spirit counsel humility, a trait vital to restraining the impulsive instincts of the world's most powerful officeholder.



Sanders' benign form of populism was not just a way to achieve power; it was an enlightened drive for moral and social improvement. His rejection by the Democratic Party establishment spared America a unique election contest between too diametrically opposed brands of populism. If Hannah Arendt was right about the "morbid force of attraction" that "contempt for moral standards" has for the mass mentality, the angry "masters" might have still voted Trump.



Nonetheless, winning popular contests  whether the Brexit referendum in the UK, elections in Western democracies, or even the plebiscite on the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)  requires a nod to populist politics. Lambasting the established system, even when the candidate is part of it, is now the norm. The choice for voters seems to be whether to side with purveyors of exploitative ideas or enlightened leadership.



Trump's perpetual anti-establishment campaign shows that, even as president, he intends to cultivate an outsider image. It is the classic form of exploitative leadership. In this respect, he and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have much in common. Throughout his 11-year tenure, Netanyahu has maintained his onslaught on the supposed hegemony of the Labor Party establishment and the mainstream media.



But not even enlightened populists are free from the risks of duplicity; they, too, are frequently forced to betray their voters. Prior to the election that brought him to power, another Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said that, "the leader who would give the order to withdraw from the Golan Heights, even in exchange for peace, must be out of his mind." Yet, once in office, Rabin initiated talks aimed at securing peace with Syria in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from the strategic heights.



Western democracy seems trapped in a conundrum. The system falters when voters cannot make informed decisions based on candidates' platforms. In the long run, the solution is to educate the "masters" and respond to their concerns with facts  as Lowe advocated a century and a half ago. In the meantime, enlightened populism may be the best option. Wherever democracy is practiced, voters' lack of information and expertise cannot be allowed to give rise to leaders and policies that weaken democracy itself.





Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, is Vice President of the Toledo International Center for Peace. He is the author of "Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy." Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate.




A committee of water ministers and officials from six Nile Basin countries concluded meetings in Khartoum on Monday, with Egyptian concerns around water share due to be discussed later this month in Uganda, Egyptian state news agency MENA said.

The meetings, which began earlier this week, included "long discussions wherein Egypt presented all its concerns regarding the Nile Basin Initiative and the Entebbe agreement," Egypt's water resources minister Mohamed Abdel Ati was quoted by MENA as saying.

The Entebbe agreement, more commonly known in English as the Cooperative Framework Agreement, has been signed by six Nile Basin countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Egypt and Sudan have declined to sign the treaty, which sets out principles and obligations of member states in regard to the use of Nile Basin water resources, citing concerns about its reallocation of Nile water quotas as well as other provisions.

Historic water-sharing pacts between Egypt and Sudan divide the Nile waters between the two countries.

The Egyptian minister said that a meeting scheduled to take place later in March in Uganda by the council of ministries of the Nile Basin countries is planned to discuss the results of the Khartoum meetings and Egypt's concerns as well as look at "solutions and alternatives that guarantee collective benefit and prevent harm," the minister added.

The meetings were attended by water ministers of Uganda, Sudan, Egypt, Rawanda as well as representatives from Kenya and Ethiopia.

The Nile Basin Initiative has ten permanent members -- Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Eritrea has observer status.

The under-construction Grand Ethiopian Dam, which when complete will be Africa's biggest hydroelectric dam, has been a source of concern for Egypt in recent years, with some experts arguing that filling and operating the dam will reduce the water that flows downstream to Egypt.

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This time, voters must pick a good communicator



The nation has been thrust into an early presidential election after the Constitutional Court's March 10 decision to dismiss Park Geun-hye from office.



Many people will agree that the ousted former president's biggest fault as a leader besides corruption was that she did not know how to communicate.



Park rarely met with secretaries and ministers in her Cabinet. Many people were shocked when former Culture Minister Cho Yoon-sun said during a National Assembly hearing last year that she never met President Park one on one. Park was also notorious for her disregard for the press. Former Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung held 150 press conferences while in office, but Park held only five.



When one reporter asked whether she should be briefed more in person, she said "Do you think I need to do that?" The question showed that Park had no awareness of how to interact properly with even those who worked closely with her.

Park's poor communication skills were also reflected in how she underutilized SNS. Her Facebook and Twitter accounts mostly featured her overseas trips and New Year greetings. This is in contrast to leaders like former U.S. President Barack Obama, who established a reputation as an accessible, caring leader with an active social media presence.



Park's failure underlines the paramount importance of online and offline communication skills in our next president. Several qualities can define an effective communicator. First, the next president should embrace every chance to communicate with the press. He or she should hold press conferences with Cheong Wa Dae correspondents regularly. We want a president who holds heated debates with reporters.



Second, the next president should exchange policy ideas and suggestions with people from all walks of life. This can be done through live TV discussions with people in various professions. The next leader should also spend more time talking to those who need special policy attention, such as working mothers or the elderly.



Third, the next leader should welcome criticism and see it as a way to improve his or her policies, rather than getting angry and trying to crush opponents. This is not something we wish to see in a mature leader. This is why we need someone who is willing to cooperate with the National Assembly and meet often even with opposition leaders. Finally, we need someone who speaks a language of hope and unity, not a language of division.



Voters must thoroughly verify and assess candidates' core competencies, such as communication skills, before they make their decision in May.




By Bernard Rowan





The Constitutional Court impeached Park Geun-hye last week. Questioning the decision will rage on awhile. However, what Koreans and friends of Korea must realize is the value of constitutional law and Korea's democratic culture. As difficult a decision as the Court faced, it did face the challenge and made a ruling. A momentous case, the prosecution and defense pressed claims and counterclaims. All people who love Korea must now honor the Court's decision. Uphold the rule of law, and the Korean polity will emerge stronger than ever.

Re-read Park Yoon-bae's discussion of Feb. 15 in The Korea Times ("No replay of 1987 mistake"). I thought about his words when I read of the Constitutional Court's decision. In the United States, the story plays in some odd ways. They highlight the few incidents of violence arising from protests. Some stories say the balance of U.S-Korea ties is at stake. The drama of the moment overplays the meaning for a constitutional democracy. South Korea isn't a PG-13 movie for American consumption at a distance.

When Nixon and Clinton faced impeachment charges, no one thought the world was going to end or America's ties with foreign governments. No one should think Korea would return to its authoritarian past. Park supporters, in particular her lawyers, may come to regret some of their statements and expressed plans to resist the results. That won't work, and it won't serve the national interest of South Korea. The days of Park Chung-hee and military rule have ended.

Equally important, the supporters of opposition parties to the Park government, and those who supported impeachment, must also respect the rule of law. Gloating, hating those who support Park, and scapegoating the Liberty Korea Party or Choi Soon-sil or Samsung and other conglomerates and their leaders won't help. Civil and criminal offenses can go forward. The decision's effects will unfold. But Korea's democratic and constitutional culture should stand first as the public interest.

The "Candlelight Revolution" should uphold calm. Support the interim leaders in carrying out the works of government. That doesn't mean agreeing or disagreeing with the actions but insisting the government continue. A vigorous campaign for electing the next president should capture the imaginations and concerns of all Koreans. Candidates for all party political offices have a heightened responsibility now to model toleration and common respect. Koreans don't agree on issues, but all share a duty to select the next president.

Allies of South Korea and their leaders, including President Trump and Prime Minister Abe, should make and state messages of concern prefaced by unwavering support. One of the world's strongest economies, and one of the region's keys for stability and progress, deserves support from her allies and all friendly nations. Tell Koreans and South Korea they'll pull through this time of challenge. Also, make plain that any meddling by North Korea will meet a direct response.

Korean democracy shows popular democracy in a classical sense. Critics speak of irrationality and the hoi polloi. Popular energy is flammable if not governed by a national superego. Koreans do hold power over their government, but today isn't 1979 or 1987. The principles of the rule of law and civilian control of government must continue. Respect them while protesting for particular purposes. Invigorate popular participation in elections. Hate or applaud the Court's action. Favor conservative or liberal political platforms. Agree or disagree with THAAD. But unite in upholding Korea's shared constitution. Move forward and don't obsess with the present crisis.

The world marveled at the peaceful protests and marches before the ruling. The ruling marks a critical moment, but it finally is just a moment. Keep resolved, dear friends of Korea! Protect your democracy, beginning with the rule of law! In it rests the investments of Korea's freedom fighters past and present, and in constitutional democracy lies security and the path forward to even better days.





Bernard Rowan is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at HanyangUniversity. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com
By Lee Min-hyung



Naver is considering establishing an artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory in Silicon Valley to speed up its participation in the ongoing AI-driven technological paradigm shift.



"We are in an early stage of the plan, with company officials recently visiting the tech hub of the United States," a Naver spokesman said. "Nothing has been confirmed over the move. We are leaving all the possibilities open over whether to establish a new AI lab there."



Due to its heavy reliance on the Korean market, the nation's top portal service operator has yet to set up any research-dedicated facilities abroad. Korea is one of the few countries where Google has so far failed to win out in the portal market, largely due to the dominance of Naver.



Underlining importance of generating revenue overseas, however, the firm has recently pushed for aggressive investments in emerging technologies, including AI, big data and deep learning.



At this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), Naver and its affiliate LINE Corp. unveiled their AI platform, dubbed Cloud Virtual Assistant (Clova). Under the code name of "Project J," both firms said the new platform will be operated through five human senses. LINE CEO Takeshi Idezawa said in a MWC keynote that the next AI era will be about using the five human senses, developing from existing voice recognition-focused platforms.



Naver is a leader among local AI players, as few firms engage in the tech ecosystem because of the country's weak perception of the software industry.



In 2013, the firm created its R&D unit, Naver Labs, here in a bid to take a leading position in emerging software-focused technologies such as AI, smart homes and the internet of things (IoT).



One notable AI achievement for Naver is its translation service, Papago, which comes with the much-hyped neural machine translation (NMT) technology, enabling the platform to generate a more human-like and natural output.



In a quarterly regulatory filing in January, Naver CFO Park Sang-jin said: "We are going to launch an AI-embedded smart speaker called Wave in the first half of the year."



He added, "On a long-term basis, Naver will combine our own AI technologies with a series of other platforms such as smart homes and vehicles, thus tapping deeper into people's everyday lives."



According to the company, Naver Labs CEO Song Chang-hyun has recently succeeded in test-driving an autonomous car, operated by the firm's AI capability.



Naver CEO-appointee Han Seong-sook said the firm will invest 500 billion won in November into such AI-related tech areas over the next five years. She will take office after the firm's board meeting slated for this Friday.




Sohn Ju-eun, MegaStudy chairman

By Lee Hyo-sik

MegaStudy will enter the highly-competitive coffee franchise business as early as the second half of this year, to find a new source of income, company officials said Tuesday.

One of Korea's largest operators of private learning institutes has been trying to diversify its portfolio as its education business has slowed over the past few years amid the intensifying competition and the declining youth population.

Founded in 2000 by Chairman Sohn Ju-eun, the company plans to ask shareholders, during a shareholders' meeting, March 24, to approve the revision to its articles of association, enabling it to enter food and beverage sectors.

"The change will make it possible for the company to enter new businesses," a MegaStudy official said. "We could open coffee shops in the latter half of this year. The board of directors has agreed to pass the revision and we believe that our shareholders will do the same."

In April 2015, the company was split into two: MegaStudy Education and MegaStudy.

MegaStudy Education operates private learning institutes offering elementary, secondary and higher education programs, generating about 174.5 billion won ($151.7 billion) in sales in 2015.

MegaStudy, which earned 150.2 billion won in 2015, is in charge of running educational programs for those studying civil service and other career-related exams. The firm also generates about 13 percent of its revenue from running cafeterias at the institutes.

Both firms are listed on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market.

Chairman Sohn holds a 26.5 percent stake in MegaStudy, followed by the National Pension Service with 11.7 percent and Shinyoung Asset Management with 10.8 percent.
The US-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system is being deployed in the Seongju region, southeast of Seoul.



The military will deploy its own system before Seoul sets up the American one, Wang Hongguang says



By Catherine Wong



China knew it might not be able to stop Seoul deploying a US anti-missile system and was prepared to counter with its own anti-radar equipment, a retired PLA general said on Monday. By Catherine WongChina knew it might not be able to stop Seoul deploying a US anti-missile system and was prepared to counter with its own anti-radar equipment, a retired PLA general said on Monday.

The comments by Wang Hongguang came as a South Korean court's decision to uphold the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, the country's former president, fanned hopes Seoul might put plans for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system on hold.

Park supported the installation of the system to help protect South Korea against threats from North Korea, which Beijing says can peer through China's defences.

Wang, former deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, said China could not take the chance the next South Korean president would change policy and roll back the deployment.

The first THAAD components arrived at the Osan Air Base in South Korea last week.

Wang said Beijing had measures in place to neutralise THAAD's radars. "We will complete our deployment before THAAD begins operations. There is no need to wait for two months [before the election of the next South Korean president]," he said on the sidelines of the political sessions in Beijing. "We already have such equipment in place. We just have to move it to the right spot."

Yue Gang, a military commentator and former People's Liberation Army colonel, said China could either destroy THAAD or neutralise it.

"Destroying [THAAD] should only be an option during wartime," Yue said.

But China could interfere with the system's functions through electromagnetic technology, he said.

Yue said an ideal place to install the Chinese equipment was on the Shandong peninsula on the country's east coast, opposite South Korea.

Fu Qianshao, an aviation equipment expert with the PLA Air Force, said China could also send planes  manned or unmanned  to fly close to THAAD to interfere with its radar signals. All the country's armed forces had the capacity to interfere with radar signals, Fu said.

Wang said China's chief concern was not just with South Korea's deployment of the American system but also the United States' broader potential to contain the region in a sophisticated web of missile defence systems in Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and even Taiwan.

The THAAD system consists of a sophisticated radar and interceptor missiles designed to spot and knock out incoming ballistic missiles.




Different training center for army will have different rule in South Korea. Recently, T.O.P's sister asked his fans to not send food again to army as the center forbids food delivery. There has been a fuss from T.O.P's fans since the beginning of his military service.

Previously, T.O.P had demanded fans to not send him to army enlistment. He also emphasized his wish to make as quiet as possible for his enlistment. Yet, fans still sent balloon with his name and some banners to the training center. Thus, netizens criticized T.O.P's fans to not listening to his wish, reported by AllKpop.

T.O.P has been doing fine with his training. Although there was a rumor that he didn't pass his training due to his missing at the ceremony, but it turned out that he didn't attend it due to health problem. After the completion of the previous training in Nonsan, he will be moved to training center in Byukjae.

The rule in Byukjae stated that the army cannot receive any food delivery and thus there will be penalties got if the rule is broken. Thus, T.O.P sent message to his sister to forbid his fans to send him food because he would get punishment for that. Fulfilling the little brother's request, T.O.P's sister had asked fans to not send him food in army in hope that he wouldn't get punishment, reported by SBS. T.O.P's sister sent the request on her post on instagram.

It seems that T.O.P has been missed by V.I.P as he is one of the members that can ring laughter to the group. Also, T.O.P is known to be so different among other members. He might look tough, but he is quite silly in front of others. Hearing the request, fans just want the best for T.O.P and hope he will complete his army duty soon.

Read Next: Kang Ye Won Finally Showed Progress In Singing On 'Sister's Slam Dunk' Season 2, Overcoming Her Singing Trauma
It seems that bullying still revolve around some idols in K-Pop. This time, it comes from one of contestants of "Produce 101" Season 2. It was reported that Han Jeong Yeon was a bully during an elementary and middle school.

According to AllKpop, the post online on Facebook to be said one of Han Jeong Yeon's friend stated that he and his friends often bullied him and others to masturbate in front of other classmates, make him skip lunch, force him to fight with his friend and stuffed him in supply closet. The person also said to message him if any wanted to ask. Also he added that any threat to him would be taken to legal measures.

The post has gone viral but there is no official statement yet from Han Jeong Yeon. Regarding this, Mnet said that they were still checking the truth. Bully is not a new thing in Korea. Bullying is not a new thing in South Korea. There have been many victims of bullying and even some were dead due to extreme bullying.

According to CNN, there were two teenage students suicide cases for couldn't take bullying any longer. Park Han Wool, one of the students, said that he was bullied for 6 years and his parents didn't take it seriously when he told the truth. He ended up trying to jump from a building in front o fhis teachers but luckily he was saved by a police.

According to a specialist in South Korea, the bullying happened due to the fierce competition in studying and that parents didn't really think of the moral of their children and only focused on academic result. Thus, the bullying happened over and over again.

It seems that South Korea needs to improve their education system, along with lay to protect the victims. It needs a way for the victim to be saved from bullying as they deserve better treatment. Regarding an idol doing bullying in "Produce 101" Season 2, Mnet is asked for their official answer soon.

Read Next: Jang Dong Gun And Kim Myung Min For The New Still Cut For 'V.I.P' Movie
Egyptian and Bahraini naval and air forces took part in a joint military exercise in the Gulf country on Tuesday.

A group of Egyptian warships and fighter jets arrived in Bahrain on the same day to participate in the Hamad 2 joint exercise.

"The exercise is aimed at consolidating and strengthening the fraternal historic relations and supporting the bilateral military cooperation between both countries," read a statement by the Egyptian military.

In April 2015, the Egyptian and Bahraini militaries conducted the first phase of air-maritime joint military exercises under the name "Hamad 1".

Egypt will also take part in two separate military drills with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the Egyptian military said on Saturday.

Egypt has carried out military exercises and exchanges of expertise with a range of counterparts in the Gulf region, and with other partners.

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Local authorities in Egypt's Menoufiya governorate demolished a building that was in violation of a municipal order after a woman living next to the structure died of a hunger strike in protest of the government's failure to address her grievance.

Nagwa Ahmed, the head of the local administrative unit in Tala, Menoufiya, said in TV statements on Monday that the demolition was initially set for next month, but was rushed after the local resident's death in order to calm public outrage.

Prior to her death on Sunday, 55-year-old Safaa El-Koumy had been holding a sit-in and a hunger strike at a local hospital for two weeks to protest authorities' failure to implement a government order that the building in her village of Tabluha be removed.

The medical examiner said that El-Koumy died of a sharp drop in blood pressure.

According to the family lawyer, the problem started in 2014 when residents of the village complied with a law ordering main streets be broadened, demolishing and rebuilding their houses.

"However, due to corruption in a local administrative unit, one family was allowed to violate the law, seizing almost 35 metres of the road. Despite removal orders being issued, the violations continued, narrowing the road and blocking sunlight from neighbours' buildings," lawyer Ragab El-Gohary told Ahram Online prior to El-Koumy's death.

However, a security source in Menoufiya told Ahram Arabic news website that the building's removal was delayed due to an ongoing appeal by its owner. The appeal was ultimately rejected and the removal process was pending, the source said.

Following El-Koumy's death on Sunday, dozens gathered near the hospital where she died, blocking a nearby road before leaving to attend her funeral, scheduled for later that day.

According to El-Gohary, most of the angry crowd came from El-Koumy's village, and suffered from "violations and corruption" amid legal disputes with the owners of the same building.

El-Koumy's sons and daughters have suspended their own hunger strikes following the removal of the building on Monday.

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Major General Mamdouh Shahin, the Egyptian defence minister's deputy for legislative and constitutional affairs, told MPs on Tuesday that the army is on the brink of eliminating terrorism in North Sinai.

In a meeting held by parliament's agriculture committee and attended by governor of Ismailia Yassin Taher, Shahin said that "the elimination of terrorism in North Sinai, which is very near, will pave the way for revoking the emergency measures that have been in effect there since 2013."

The army has been battling an intensified Islamist insurgency in North Sinai since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Shahin told MPs that the government and the army are keen on seeing Sinai become an attractive environment for investment.

"Sinai will see a lot of progress very soon in terms of economic development after all terrorist elements in this integral part of Egypt are obliterated," said Shahin.

Shahin said that "emergency measures, including long curfew hours, were imposed in Sinai in order to safeguard its citizens against terrorism and help prevent it from infiltrating all of Egypt."

However, Shahin said "the army has always been of the mind that emergency measures in Sinai are to be implemented on a very limited scale so that the citizens of Sinai can move easily and live a normal life."

MPs complained that most of the roads leading to North Sinai are in bad condition and that it is very difficult for farmers there to use fertilisers necessary to grow their crops.

Hesham El-Shini, head of parliament's agriculture committee, said that the poor road conditions have led to hundreds of citizens losing their lives in car accidents.

"It is hard for the citizens of North Sinai to suffer from both terrorism and bad roads," said El-Shini.

El-Shini said the committee will send Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi a memorandum requesting that the army's engineering authority take charge of renovating roads leading to Sinai.

MP Fathi Qandeel complained that farmers in both Sinai and Ismailia have suffered much in recent years because they have not been allowed to use "nitrate and urea fertilizers, which are necessary to grow their crops.

In response, Shahin said the army decided three years ago that "nitrate and urea fertilisers be banned from use in Sinai and Ismailia after it had found that they were used in manufacturing explosives."

Ismailia governor Yassin Taher said "it is highly dangerous that terrorists get the material they need to manufacture explosives and use them near the Suez Canal area  which is highly strategic to the Egyptian and the world economy."

Taher said that "farmers in Sinai and the Suez Canal area can use other kinds of fertilisers for the time being and terrorism is completely obliterated."

Taher proposed that the Ministry of Agriculture set up a fertiliser production factory in Ismailia to help provide farmers in Sinai with the quantities they need and after making sure that they will not be used in any terrorist activities.

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Egyptian parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal confirmed on Tuesday that the House will discuss a controversial deal involving the transfer of two Red Sea islands under Egyptian control to Saudi Arabia, despite the agreement being annulled by a final court ruling earlier this year, state news agency MENA reported.

Abdel-Aal said that parliament will discuss the deal "in accordance with its constitutional powers once some procedures and paperwork are completed in the next few days."

The government approved the deal to hand over the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to the Gulf kingdom in December and has sent it to parliament for ratification.

However, Egypts High Administrative Court rejected the deal in a final ruling in January, affirming that the islands belonged to Egypt alone and that the government has not provided sufficient evidence proving otherwise.

The agreement, which was announced during a visit to Egypt by the Saudi king last April, prompted protests by Egyptians who accused the government of selling Egyptian land.

The government, however, insists the islands have always belonged to Saudi Arabia, and were only placed under Egypt's control because Riyadh had asked Cairo to protect them in the 1950s.

Khaled Ali, a prominent Egyptian rights lawyers who challenged the deal in court, said that Egypt's ownership of the islands dates back to a treaty signed with the Ottoman Empire in 1906, before the founding of Saudi Arabia.

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Colombia's senate late Monday approved a constitutional reform to set up special war crimes courts, a key component of the historic peace agreement with FARC guerrillas that ended five decades of war.

The court system will be made up of three sections: a truth commission, a unit to search for missing people, and a temporary, autonomous body to try crimes committed during the armed conflict before December 1, 2016.

Establishing the courts was the backbone of the peace deal Bogota reached in November with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels.

President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his efforts to end his country's 53-year conflict, which has drawn in numerous leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitary units, drug cartels and the army.

The FARC launched its guerrilla war against the Colombian government in 1964, after a peasant uprising that was crushed by the army.

Under the peace deal negotiated by the Santos administration, the FARC will transform into a political party and its 5,700 fighters will demobilize over a period of six months.

The group began disarming in early March, a process overseen by United Nations monitors.

According to the peace agreement, clinched after four years of talks in Cuba, fighters who confess their involvement in atrocities can avoid prison and receive an alternative punishment.

If they don't confess and are found guilty, they face prison terms of eight to 20 years.

The conflict has killed some 260,000 people while 60,000 have vanished, and 6.9 million have been displaced within Colombia.





Colombia's senate has 102 members. Of those present late Monday, 60 voted for the measure and two voted against it.

Noticeably absent were the members of the Democratic Center, a right-wing party led by former president -- and current senator -- Alvaro Uribe, a fierce opponent of the peace plan.

Senator Ivan Duque, speaking on the party's behalf, said during the debate that "in the name of peace ... an irreparable blow is being delivered to constitutional order" and to the judicial branch.

Uribe and his supporters argued that the peace deal grants impunity to rebels guilty of war crimes, giving them seats in Congress rather than sending them to prison.

Santos was Uribe's defense minister and a key player in several military operations under the former president that shattered the FARC's strength.

But since Santos followed the still-popular Uribe as president in 2010, the two have clashed on issues ranging from the peace deal to relations with the leftist regime in Venezuela.

Pope Francis, scheduled to visit Colombia in September as "a messenger of peace and reconciliation," brought Santos and Uribe together at the Vatican in December in an unsuccessful bid to persuade them to overcome their differences.

The constitutional reform, which has already been approved by the lower chamber, still must survive a review by the constitutional court before Santos signs it into law.

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Syria's air force deliberately bombed water sources in December, a war crime that cut off water for 5.5 million people in and around the capital Damascus, the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said on Tuesday.

The commission said it had found no evidence of deliberate contamination of the water supply or demolition by armed groups, as the Syrian government maintained at the time.

Rebels had controlled the springs of the Wadi Barada valley, northwest of Damascus since 2012 and faced a major offensive by Syrian government forces and their allies, despite a ceasefire deal. The rebels withdrew at the end of January.

The commission, led by Brazilian investigator Paulo Pinheiro, said there were no reports of people suffering water contamination on or before Dec. 23, when the Syrian air force hit al-Fija spring with at least two air strikes.

"While the presence of armed group fighters at (the) spring constituted a military target, the extensive damage inflicted to the spring had a devastating impact on more than five million civilians in both government and opposition controlled areas who were deprived of regular access to potable water for over one month," the commission's report said.

"The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks."

The commission's conclusions were based on interviews with residents and satellite imagery, as well as publicly available information.

The report, which covered the period between July 21, 2016, and Feb. 28 this year, came less than two weeks after the commission said that Syrian government aircraft deliberately bombed and strafed a humanitarian convoy, killing 14 aid workers, in September last year.

In a separate incident, aircraft - most likely Syrian or Russian - bombed the longstanding headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the town of Idlib, Tuesday's report said.

The commission also documented the use of lethal chlorine gas on multiple occasions by government and pro-government forces, in the suburbs of Damascus and Idlib province.

There was no evidence of Russian involvement in chlorine attacks, the report said.

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USC

People have been saying this was coming  they were right. Willow Bay, director of the USC Annenberg School for Journalism since July 2014, is getting a promotion to be dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, effective July 1. In the new job she succeeds Ernest J. Wilson III, who said last May he would be stepping down, and Bay will be the first female dean of USC Annenberg.

Bay came to USC Annenberg from the Huffington Post, where she was senior strategic advisor. Her journalism experience includes stints as co-anchor of ABC News "Good Morning America/Sunday" and CNNs "Moneyline News Hour." She also was a special correspondent and host for Bloomberg TV.

From the release, quoting USC Provost Michael Quick:

Willow Bay is exactly the right person to lead USC Annenberg at this important time, given the dramatic changes in communications and journalism, Quick said. USC is proud to have the foremost school of communication and journalism in the country. Our students, faculty and staff will greatly benefit from Willows expertise as they grapple with the ever-evolving world of social media, print and broadcast journalism and converged communication...."

She launched operation of the Julie Chen/Leslie Moonves and CBS Media Center in Wallis Annenberg Hall, introduced the schools new Bachelor of Arts in Journalism degree program, welcomed the first cohort of the schools nine-month Master of Science in Journalism program, forged partnerships with key media industry partners and created new curriculum and fellowships for masters students. Last fall, Bays work to ensure that current and future communicators are fluent on many digital platforms was recognized with the Award of Honor from the PEN Center USA. She is an experienced journalist, author, producer, digital news editor and national broadcast and global cable television news anchor.



Not mentioned is the heft that Bay is expected to bring on the fundraising side. Her husband is Disney chief Bob Iger and she showed up last year as a co-host of a Hillary Clinton fundraiser alongside Haim Saban, Casey Wasserman and other LA high rollers.

The release carries the byline of Beth Shuster, the former education editor for the Los Angeles Times, who now works as director of public communications for USC's Office of the Provost.

Speaking of LA Times alumnni, the former reporter James Rainey posted on Facebook Monday that he is leaving Variety, where he has been a senior film reporter the past two years, to join NBC News as a digital general assignment reporter. He says in part:

"It's been a treat and a challenge to try to understand Hollywood and the film business. I'm mostly bamboozled by it all, but know a lot more than I did in 2015. (Truly damning myself with faint praise.) Thanks to a bright, energetic and extremely hard working Variety crew for making me feel welcome. The NBC job gives me a chance to rejoin a big, respected international news organization. After spending most of my career at the L.A. Times, I missed having that kind of expertise and heft, with many great journalists under one umbrella."

Also noted:
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March 14, 2017

Writers recommended books every woman should read in her twenties at NYLON.

Stereogum ranked the albums of Stephin Merritt's bands.

The Guardian is still counting down the top 100 nonfiction books.

The Quietus profiled the band the Moonlandingz.

The Los Angeles Times interviewed author Maggie Nelson.

Stream a new Tara Jane O'Neil song.

Literary Hub profiled someone trying to bring an independent bookstore to the Bronx.

Stream a new song by Annie Hardy of Giant Drag.

Publishers Weekly listed the best interlinked story collections.

VICE profiled a mental health center exclusively for musicians in Athens, Georgia.

The Nation explored the connection between the Trump presidency and dystopian fiction.

Diarrhea Planet covered Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run."

Signature recommended nonfiction books written in the form of letters.

Esquire interviewed singer-songwriter Ty Segall.

The Guardian Books podcast interviewed author Ayobami Adebayo.

Stream a new PINS song.

The New York Times examined the continuing relevance of S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders 50 years after its publication.

Stream a new Guided By Voices song.

R.I.P., author Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

St. Vincent's Annie Clark discussed her line of signature guitars with Vice News.

Flavorwire interviewed John Jennings about adapting Octavia Butler's Kindred into a graphic novel.

Paste listed the best cover songs performed by Bob Dylan.

The Wellcome Book Prize has announced its 2017 shortlist.

Morning Edition profiled the band Hurray for the Riff Raff.

Read a previously unpublished F. Scott Fitzgerald story in the New Yorker.

CLRVYNT interviewed two members of the band sleet.

eBooks on sale for $1.99 today:

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Ball Four by Jim Bouton

Claudius the God by Robert Graves

Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

L.A. Son by Roy Choi

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

Maurice by E.M. Forster

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella

eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:

The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam

Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin

Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson

White Line Fever by Lemmy

Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel



also at Largehearted Boy:

Support Largehearted Boy

previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)

List of Online "Best Books of 2016" Lists

Essential and Interesting Year-End 2016 Music Lists

Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)

Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)

Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)

musician/author interviews

Note Books (musicians discuss literature)

Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)

weekly music release lists

WORD Bookstores Books of the Week (recommended new books)

weekly music release lists

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PRESS RELEASE

FDIC Vice-Chairman Hoenig Proposes Bank Separation

March 13, 2017 (EIRNS)Called a "plan to modernize Glass-Steagall" by American Banker and a "throwback to the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act" by Washington Examiner, Federal Deposit Insurance Corpation Vice-Chair Thomas Hoenigs speech to the Institute of International Bankers in Washington, D.C., today, was really a much simpler proposal to adopt one element of Glass-Steagall, although a significant one.

Hoenig himself said, "The proposal would not reduce the ability of a universal bank to conduct any of its current [including speculative] portfolio of activities." But only the commercial bank units deposits could be insured by taxpayers through the FDIC. He proposed that U.S. financial firms should partition their investment banking activity, putting all those units into a separate, intermediate holding company with its own board and management and its own capital. That holding company would not have access to FDIC insurance.

The second part of Hoenigs proposal requires all bank holding companies to have a tangible capital equal to 10% of all (not risk-weighted) assets, including the total value-at-risk of their derivatives exposure. If they were unable to do this they would have to be broken up, and this level is roughly double the capital ratio (half the leverage) which the Wall Street megabanks have, at best.

Hoenig proposed to accompany this with the removal of a large number of Dodd-Frank regulations; and said he had briefed the leaders of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee on the proposal before making it public.

Bloomberg News noted that "President Trump has worried Wall Street by promising to bring back a version of the Glass-Steagall Act. Hoenig told reporters after the speech, that his plan, which would require new legislation, wouldnt bring Glass-Steagall back, but could meet the Trump Administrations goal of enacting a modern form.
PRESS RELEASE

Trump To Meet With Xi Jinping in April

March 13, 2017 (EIRNS)China is putting itself forward as a current world leader in political and economic initiatives on economic development today, and making this announcement directly to the American people, with a full-page advertisement on page A5 of todays New York Times, entitled, "Xi Jingping: Leader of Chinas Great Revival."

Another Chinese-U.S. initiative reported at the same time is an April 6-7 meeting between Presidents Xi and Trump at President Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The numerous reports of April 6-7 meeting between the two Presidents first appeared in Axios New Service, then Sputnik International, the Washington, D.C. Examiner, and the South China Morning Post.

On March 8, NewsMax reporter Robert Gizzi, referencing a report by a Japanese news agency, asked President Trumps press secretary, Sean Spicer, at his press conference, if the two Presidents would meet "next month" [April], and "Will they have a summit prior to the G20?" At that time, Spicer responded that he had "no comment on the Presidents schedule."

Xinhua News followed up by placing a full-page "advertising" explanation of China on page A5 of the March 13 New York Times titled, "Xi Jinping: Leader of Chinas great revival," which aims to provide American readers in the intellectual center of the United States, New York, with the full story on Xis

"leading more than 1.3 billion people on the march toward the Chinese Dream: an end to the worst kinds of poverty and the rejuvenation of a nation that has already made astonishing progress in creating prosperity."

It states that the 63-year-old reformer [Xi] has brought his own thinking to bear on the problems that will be faced down the road, especially after a year of "unexpected world events." It notes,
Israeli police closed on Tuesday a Palestinian research centre in Jerusalem and arrested its director, a prominent cartographer, accusing him of working for the Palestinian security services.

The office of cartography in occupied east Jerusalem was shut down for six months, a police statement said.

Israeli officials accused its head Khalil Tafakji of working with the Palestinian Authority to monitor the sale of land by Palestinians to Israeli Jews in east Jerusalem.

Israel seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in moves never recognised by the international community.

Israel sees the whole city as its united capital, while the Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Israeli internal security minister Gilad Erdan said Tafakji's work had been "part of the Palestinian Authority's plan to undermine our sovereignty in Jerusalem and terrorise Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city."

"I'll continue to act assertively to prevent Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem."

Selling land to Israeli settlers is punishable by death under Palestinian law.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat condemned in a statement the "illegitimate" closure and arrest, calling it part of Israel's attempts to "erase any Palestinian presence in the city."

Several organisations promoting Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem have used so-called straw men to carry out transactions.

Palestinians accuse the Israeli government of seeking to Judaise east Jerusalem.

Around 200,000 Israelis now live in settlements in east Jerusalem.

Tafakji has been mapping the Palestinian territories for decades and is regularly quoted by both international experts and the world press.

He works within Orient House, which was long a hub of Palestinian culture in Jerusalem under the Palestinian Liberation Organisation but was closed in 2000 by Israel.

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Amazon, the online mega-retailer, may have its sights set on Los Angeles as the location for another of its brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Local real estate brokers say the company has been scouting locations for a possible L.A. bookstore, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. Amazon had no comment.

Amazon has four brick-and-mortar retail stores across the country, in San Diego, Seattle, Tigard, Ore., and Dedham, Mass.

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We have been evaluating the Southern California market for a little over a year, said Steve McClurkin, a San Diego leasing broker who has worked with Amazon on its physical bookstores. The San Diego store was Amazons second location.

The company has announced plans to open stores in Chicago; New York; Walnut Creek, Calif.; Paramus, N.J.; Lynnfield, Mass., and Bellevue, Wash.

The stores are mostly focused on books, but also sell Amazons line of consumer electronics, including its Kindle e-readers and Fire TV streaming media players.

Sources told the Los Angeles Business Journal that Amazon was looking at several neighborhoods for a possible L.A. store, including Melrose Avenue, Pasadena, Century City and Westwood.

The possible Century City location would follow a pattern for Amazon. The companys San Diego store and its planned Paramus store are in shopping centers owned by the Westfield Corp., which owns a large mall in the neighborhood with tenants such as the Apple Store, H&M and Tiffany & Co.

Pasadena is also home to independent bookstore Vromans, which was founded in 1894. Few Los Angeles businesses have such a long history.

Amazon has a frosty relationship with indie booksellers, with some charging that the online retailers aggressive business practices have contributed to the decline of independent bookstores across the country.

The companys most recent brick-and-mortar store, in Dedham, opened in February.
A three-member arbitration panel on Monday awarded Southern California utilities just $125 million in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against a contractor for supplying faulty steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear plant.

Southern California Edison and its partners had sought $7.6 billion from Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for delivering equipment that ultimately led to the permanent closure of the nuclear facility in 2013. Half of the money Edison had hoped to collect would have benefited consumers under a settlement agreement approved by state regulators.

But an arbitration panel of the International Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco voted 2-1 to award just a fraction of the claim. In addition, the ICCs International Court of Arbitration ordered Edison to pay $58 million of Mitsubishis legal fees, lowering the payout even more.

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That leaves Edison and co-owners San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and the city of Riverside with a net of $63 million to split with their customers, who are slated to pay about $3.3 billion in costs related to shuttering San Onofre while the utilities shoulder $1.4 billion.

Just because Mitsubishi cannot be forced to pay doesnt mean that ratepayers should bear the brunt of the costs caused by Edisons mismanagement, said Matt Freedman, executive staff attorney for the Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer advocacy group.

Edison announced Monday that its share of the award from Mitsubishi would total $52 million.

We had hoped the award would more accurately reflect the true magnitude of damage caused by Mitsubishis defective steam generators, Edison President Ron Nichols said. Unfortunately, the arbitration panel concluded that the contracts prescribed liability limit should be respected and no additional award can be granted despite the harm caused.

The liability limit under the contract was $137 million.

Spokesmen for Edison and Mitsubishi said they were reviewing the details of the decision.

One member of the arbitration panel filed a dissent to the decision, stating that Edison should have been awarded more than $1 billion.

In the various arbitration and settlement cases, the utilities customers consistently find themselves paying more than any other party for the problems that prematurely closed the San Onofre nuclear plant after tubes inside the new replacement steam generators wore thin in 2012 and leaked a small amount of radiation.

The $680-million generator upgrade was supposed to keep the plant operating for another 40 years.

Edison and SDG&E negotiated a $400-million settlement from their insurance company, the Nuclear Energy Insurance Limited, bringing the total from lawsuits and insurance to less than $500 million.

Michael Aguirre, a San Diego lawyer and former city and assistant U.S. attorney, said regardless of the decision in Edisons lawsuit against Mitsubishi, consumers still should not be held responsible for the botched steam generator replacement.

The dispute between the utility customers and Southern California Edison was something separate from its dispute with its subcontractor, Aguirre said. This does not remove that Edison acted unreasonable.

Aguirre and other consumer advocates, including the Utility Reform Network, persuaded the California Public Utilities Commission to reopen the settlement agreement after revelations that Edison officials engaged in secret talks with commission representatives before the multibillion-dollar settlement was reached.

In particular, Michael Peevey, who was then commission president, and Stephen Pickett, who was Edisons vice president for external relations, met during an energy industry junket in Warsaw.

In December 2015, regulators fined Edison $16.7 million for failing to report the talks.

Attorneys for the utility customers filed a class-action lawsuit against Edison and SDG&E that is pending before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The attorneys and the utilities are in joint negotiations over the class-action case and the reconsideration of the CPUC settlement agreement.

ivan.penn@latimes.com

Follow me at @ivanlpenn
House Speaker Paul Ryan defended the Republican healthcare-reform plan by saying its not necessarily a bad thing that it will cover fewer people than Obamacare.

And by fewer, were talking about the Congressional Budget Offices estimate Monday that 24 million people would lose health insurance over the next decade if the Republican bill becomes law.

Fewer people may be covered, a stoic Ryan said over the weekend on CBS Face the Nation, because this isnt a government mandate.

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The Republicans arent running a government, he said, that makes you buy what we say you should buy.

That might be a persuasive argument if it was grounded in any kind of economic logic. But it isnt, so its not.

Conservatives have built much of their case for repealing and replacing Obamacare on the idea that a health-insurance mandate is unfair and downright un-American  Big Brother running amok, forcing decent, hardworking families to purchase something they dont want.

The intellectual bankruptcy of this position serves only to demonstrate that critics of the Affordable Care Act are either deliberately deceiving the American people or that they have no idea how insurance markets work.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt (because Im a good guy), lets assume its the latter.

So lets talk about health-insurance mandates.

I spoke to a number of healthcare economists, and every one of them  every one of them  said you cant guarantee affordable, comprehensive coverage to people regardless of preexisting medical conditions unless you have a way to get younger, healthier people into the risk pool.

Im a lifelong Republican, said Craig Garthwaite, co-director of the Health Enterprise Management Program at Northwestern University. If youre going to require that an insurer has to provide insurance to everyone, then you have to have a way to get people into the market when theyre healthy. Otherwise, insurers have to raise prices because everyone they cover will be sick.

Since many conservatives seem to have skipped Econ 101 the day risk management was taught, the economic principle at work here is known as adverse selection.

That means people who expect to have higher medical expenses are more likely to sign up for health insurance, and people who expect lower medical expenses are less likely to sign up, said Martin Gaynor, a professor of economics and health policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

The upshot of adverse selection is that the proportion of sick people in the risk pool ends up being higher than that of healthy people, which forces insurers to raises rates to accommodate the unexpectedly large number of claims.

As rates go up, more healthy people drop out, causing insurers to boost premiums again, which prompts more healthy people to walk, and so on.

When pundits talk about an insurance death spiral, thats what theyre referring to. Before long, insurance becomes so expensive, no one can afford it and the entire system collapses.

The CBO estimates that average premiums under the Republican plan would jump by as much as 20% in 2018 and 2019, but theyd be about 10% lower than under Obamacare after a decade.

Thats not a reflection of a system that works better. Its a reflection of insurers lowering costs by offering less coverage than people now receive, with higher out-of-pocket costs.

As a result, the individual insurance market will remain relatively stable, according to the CBO, so a death spiral is unlikely. But thats setting the bar pretty low for a bill that purports to improve the U.S. healthcare system.

The Republican plan wants it both ways. On the one hand, it maintains the most popular aspect of Obamacare, the requirement that insurers cover everyone regardless of medical condition.

Prior to Obamacare, someone with diabetes, say, would be turned away by insurers in the individual-insurance market because he or she would be deemed too great a risk. Chronic diseases cost money.

Obamacare fixed that by prohibiting insurers from rejecting people with chronic ailments or other health issues  whats known as guaranteed issue. To mitigate insurers increased risk, the law included a mandate that almost everyone had to buy insurance or face a financial penalty.

Theres no way you can have guaranteed issue without a mandate, said James Rebitzer, a healthcare economist at Boston University. Youre completely locked in, according to the laws of economics.

What he means is that efficient markets wont tolerate half measures. Once a society commits to a specific course  universal coverage, say  youre committed to guaranteed issue, which commits you to a mandate, which commits you to finding the most equitable way of getting everyone into the system.

On the other hand, Rebitzer said, if your primary goal is to limit the governments ability to coerce citizens into doing things they dont want, then youll eliminate insurance mandates, which means youll allow insurers to keep rate hikes in check by rejecting coverage for the sick.

You cant be a wuss about it, he said. Once you decide on your social values, you have to commit.

Ryan and other Republicans say theyre committed. Their plan includes a provision that if you let your coverage lapse for a couple of months, youll face a one-year 30% rate hike when you buy insurance again.

Jonathan Skinner, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, called this exactly the wrong way to structure something that you want people to buy. By effectively penalizing people for returning to the risk pool, he said, the Republican plan creates an incentive for healthy people not to buy insurance.

Its like a perfect storm of disincentives, Skinner said.

Ive tried to avoid wonkiness and political ideology. As Rebitzer said, this is a matter of the laws of economics, and those laws are clear: You cant have affordable and comprehensive coverage for everyone without getting everyone, young and old, sick and healthy, into the system.

People are going to do what they want to do with their lives because we believe in individual freedom in this country, Ryan said on Face the Nation.

So the question is: Are we providing a system where people have access to health insurance if they choose to do so? And the answer is yes. But are we going to have some nice-looking spreadsheet that says, We, the government of the American  the United States, are going to make people buy something and therefore theyre all going to buy it? No.

Either hes trying to deceive you or he doesnt know what hes talking about.

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.

MORE FROM DAVID LAZARUS

Mysterious company is unmasked  and its no friend of California consumers

Dubious student award is back  and its just as sneaky as before

Fixing healthcare: Which single-payer system would be best for California?
Hundreds of Bay Area tech workers converged on Palo Altos King Plaza on Tuesday afternoon in a show of solidarity against the Trump administrations policies and rhetoric, which the industry believes are a threat to the values that drive Silicon Valley.

The rally, organized by software engineer Brad Taylor to coincide with March 14s mathematically themed Pi Day, was used to urge company leaders to speak out for employees and customers negatively affected by administration policies (the tech industry got its first taste of this in January when President Trumps immigration travel ban left hundreds of tech workers stranded overseas).

Its other purpose was to connect tech workers and organizations outside the industry that may need their help, and bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and those whose jobs have been disrupted by new technologies.

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We believe that tech has a responsibility, Taylor wrote in a manifesto about the event. With its talents and resources, tech has the duty to stand up and be a leader for progress, especially when there is a lack of leadership in Washington.

The rally featured a lineup of about two dozen speakers, including executives from LinkedIn and Hipmunk, local community activists and janitors and food service staff from Facebook and Cisco.

At least 1,700 people had indicated on the Facebook event page that they would attend. Tech workers came and went over the course of the four-hour rally.

The rally follows a recent surge in political activism in the tech industry, which historically has been hesitant to weigh in on issues not pertaining to its business interests. Tech workers have loudly protested Trumps executive orders on travel and migrants, pledged to never help build a Muslim or immigrant database and developed apps to facilitate donations to nonprofits.

There have been protests outside the office of secretive technology firm Palantir and the home of its co-founder, Peter Thiel, over concerns the company might assist the government in building databases to be used in the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Some tech workers have organized hackathons to connect the industry with nonprofits in need.

tracey.lien@latimes.com

Twitter: @traceylien

ALSO

Happy Pi Day! Heres how you can celebrate the joys of 3.14159

Intel, betting big on driverless cars, is buying Mobileye for $15 billion

Yahoos Marissa Mayer is up for a $23-million golden parachute severance package

UPDATES:

3:55 p.m.: This article was updated with more recent information.

This article was originally published at 10:40 a.m.
The Perfect American is the operatic portrait of an idealist American artist as a less-than-perfect old man, which is to say a blend of sunshine, supremacy and insecurity. In Philip Glass most recent portrait opera (a great lives series that has included Einstein, Gandhi, Akhnaten, Columbus, Galileo and Kepler), Walt Disney takes stock as he confronts a virulent lung cancer.

At its premiere in Madrid four years ago, The Perfect American also came across as a revealing portrait of Los Angeles as a city Disney made into an imperfect factory town for creating the image of perfect life. So imperfect, indeed, that L.A. seemingly wouldnt touch what is one of Glass most penetrating late works. The influential Disney family voiced its objections to Walt being shown in all his troubling complexity.

But Sunday afternoon, less than 20 miles from Disneyland, Long Beach Opera treaded where others fear to go. The feisty company presented the U.S. premiere of The Perfect American at the Terrace Theater.

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Glass starting point is Walt as an artist, the one whose reach extended beyond that of any other in modern times. Walt, who boasted of being more famous than Santa Claus, created a Hollywood dream factory. His vision became the way children around the world have seen the world for generations.

As Perfect American opens, Walt, who forbade death to be mentioned in Disneyland, lies dying in the hospital. Rudy Wurlitzers concise libretto, based on German novelist Peter Stephan Jungks insightful The King of America, intercuts Walts last three months with scenes of his life. He finances a swimming pool for Marceline, Mo., where he grew up. Ten days before he dies, he celebrates his 65th birthday with loving family at his home in Bel-Air, where he also rides his miniature railroad.

In a wonderful scene, Walt goes to Disneyland in the middle of the night to fix a malfunctioning animatronic Abraham Lincoln, with which he gets into an argument about race. An animators strike at his studio in 1941 turns a once liberal Disney into a less tolerant and more corporate conservative.

But through it all, Walt remained the visionary. In the opera, a disgruntled animator fired by Disneys company attacks Walt for taking credit for the work of his army of artists. But while bonding with a dying boy in the next room, Walt explains that the important thing was to inspire others to create a vision that only an army of artists could realize.

The effectiveness of The Perfect American is the continual shifting between the grandiosity of all that Disney stands for and this one mortal man. Glass handles this with music of stirring intimacy, inexorable persistence and stunning grandeur. A chorus repeatedly espouses trademark Disney magical thinking. Disney gets from Glass a wonderfully over-the-top new operatic version of Happy Birthday.

Symphonic melancholy pervades the score, but even Disneys dark side has an opulent majesty, as in the mysterious music for a mysterious visitor in an owl costume at Walts birthday party. Haunted by having killed an owl when he was 7, Walt sings, to a quietly majestic melodic line that sounds as though it has no beginning and no end: I promised myself  never mind.

An opera about a visionary artist, The Perfect American is ultimately an opera about art, about the separation of art from the artifice of fame. At times, it even seems to hint at a Glass self-portrait, as the composer himself surveys his own vast output. When Walt rides his model train, Glass alludes to the train scene in his first opera, Einstein on the Beach.

Walt, of course, worked on the largest canvas an artist ever had. He made theme parks with people he called Imagineers. He didnt skimp, and a perfect production of Perfect American cant either.

Long Beach Opera, however, lacks such a canvas, to say nothing of an army of Imagineers. Kevin Newbury  who has become the go-to director for narratively conventional new opera, such as Kevin Puts The Manchurian Candidate and Jimmy Lopezs Bel Canto  seemed a curious choice to direct the production.

Newbury sets the opera entirely in the hospital. Flashbacks are in Walts mind. Want a train? Push a couple of beds together. Want an animatronic Lincoln? Put together a puppet in the next bed. Want a big orchestra? Forget it. The chorus of animators sits in the back of the stage, obscured visually and vocally.

The ironic result is an anti-irony artist with a global-sized dream being represented through sickbay claustrophobia.

Despite that and a banal theatrical reliance on bathos, more than a little of Glass larger-than-life Disney emerges. Thanks to conductor Andreas Mitsek, the companys artistic and general director, Glass score retained its commanding vitality even in an acoustically challenged theater. (Word to the wise: The orchestra has greater presence in the loge, where I moved after intermission.)

The Perfect American is pretty much all Walt all the time, and for that, Justin Ryans overbearing yet fragile portrayal has the vocal and physical charisma, as well as the dramatic range. He proved especially touching when facing what Walt feared the most. And if the baritone, in his pajamas and bathrobe throughout, carried on a bit too much, a two-hour hospital drama can do that to anyone.

Everyone else is a foil, loving or despising, to Walt, and LBO found a generally successful cast for that too. Zeffin Quinn Hollis Roy Disney was the firmly long-suffering, but devoted, brother. Suzan Hansons tender dignity as Walts wife, Lillian, admirably humanized her husband. Jamie Chamberlins Hazel George, Walts nurse, seductively coddled her vulnerable patient. Rana Ebrahimi, the child in the owl costume and the young neighboring patient, piped like she might have been Walts flute.

Kyle Erdos-Knapp was handed the impossible cost-cutting assignment of combining the character of Andy Warhol (who comes to pay his respect to a pop artists inspiration) with the doctor who gives Lillian the bad news about Walts incurable cancer. Scott Ramsays Dantine, the fired animator, berated and mourned Walt, ferociously and poignantly, as both monster and god of animation.

Early in the opera, Walt prophetically says to his nurse that he has come to feel that his name is no longer his own, that it now belongs to the company, which will, after hes gone, just become another brand. But Disney the artist wont yet die. The Perfect American tells us why.

         

The Perfect American

Where: Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

When: 8 p.m. March 18

Tickets: $49-$150 (subject to change)

Info: (562) 470-7464, Ext. 101, www.longbeachopera.org

Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes (with one intermission)

mark.swed@latimes.com

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At a place like the South by Southwest film festival, movies are one thing, movie stars are quite another. And so Austins Paramount Theater bubbled over with energy on Sunday night when Charlize Theron took to the stage to introduce her new Atomic Blonde alongside director David Leitch and costar James McAvoy.

In the film, adapted from a graphic novel  The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart  Theron plays a British secret agent being sent to Berlin just ahead of the fall of the Berlin Wall to retrieve a sensitive list of clandestine contacts. The story is told in flashback, as she is debriefed by superiors played by Toby Jones and John Goodman, which renders everything the work of an unreliable narrator and provides any number of surprises along the way. The cast also includes McAvoy, Eddie Marsan and Sofia Boutella.

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Leitch had previously co-directed John Wick and from that film he brought along cinematographer Jonathan Sela, composer Tyler Bates and editor Elisabet Ronaldsdottir, along with new collaborators in production designer David Scheunemann and costume designer Cindy Evans to create the specific look of the film, a mixture of old-world grime and new-world shine awash in garish colors and decadent anything-goes vibes. The films soundtrack buzzes with 80s synth-pop, including New Orders Blue Monday 88, David Bowies Cat People, George Michaels Father Figure and Falcos Der Kommissar, to further burnish the films sleazy, dimmed neon sheen.

Theron wholly owns every moment she is on-screen, strutting through the film in a series of finely cut costumes with a leonine presence. The film hits the bulls-eye of being a tough action thriller without taking itself too seriously, enjoying the playful twists and turns of its storytelling.

When the movie was over the trio of Leitch, McAvoy and Theron came back out for a Q&A. Asked about the oddly prescient timing between the movie being set against the fall of the Berlin Wall and the recent reemergence of Cold War-era tensions, Leitch said, Its pretty interesting with the Russians. The Russians are back in. Perfect timing.

Hes Trump, Theron said, pointing at McAvoy, who in the film plays a British agent of shifting allegiances and uncertain motives.

Leitch noted how Theron was already attached to the project before he became involved, but that he was drawn to it for the chance to work with her. Her subsequent dedication and commitment to training meant that he could include the dazzling fight sequence in which Theron fights in, up, down, around and out of a tenement apartment house in what seems to be a long unbroken take.

It is a breathtaking piece of choreography and camerawork, in which Theron seems to become more and more battered and exhausted as she takes on one opponent after another in hand-to-hand combat and with all manner of weapons. Even people who dont care for Atomic Blonde as a whole will be talking about this fight.

It was something I had been wanting to do for a long time, Leitch said. It had been in my brain, this extended piece of fight choreography, and its just a matter of finding someone who can do it, who puts in the time and the training and is willing to commit to the multiple takes it takes to get that done, and the months of training to get it done.

Theron brought out on stage producer Beth Kono, thanking her for the dedication to developing the project over a multi-year period.

This whole thing for me, I just want to say this, Theron added, seeming overcome by a sudden wave of emotion, her voice trembling, because Ive been doing this for almost 20 years and tonight was really special for me. Thank you so much.

In a question from the audience, it was noted that in one shot Therons face seemed to slam hard into a wall. Yes, that was my face, she responded. Youre welcome.

Asked about the intensity of her training, Theron responded, It was so hard, are you kidding me? When I started, I called Beth and I said this is never going to work, I look like Big Bird.

Theron said she was surprised by her own progress  working with some eight fight trainers  when she was shown videos of how she was improving,

In 2 1/2 months, it was pretty amazing, things I never thought Id be able to do, she said, like throwing these big dudes. Id say, Were gonna pretend that, right? And David would say, No, youre gonna actually throw big dudes. 

Theron then added that she trained for the movie in a gym where Keanu Reeves was prepping for the recent John Wick sequel. Theron said she and Reeves would sometimes spar, implying a visual that seemed to ignite a wave of enthusiastic crossover speculation in the audience.

Leitch set the room on fire by simply uttering the words, Atomic Wick?

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Mark.Olsen@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter: @IndieFocus

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Gemini opens with the instantly unforgettable image of an upside-down palm tree. Something like a distress signal for the laid-back cool of Los Angeles, the film is a glassy sleek, lightly sleazy murder mystery set in contemporary Los Angeles.

Written and directed by Aaron Katz, the movie had its world premiere on Sunday night as part of the South by Southwest Film Festival. If star-driven studio movies such as Baby Driver, Atomic Blonde and The Disaster Artist tended to pull the attention of media and audiences at SXSW, Gemini looks to be this years much-talked-about, indie-scaled breakout hit. It capably splits the difference between being an enigmatic art-house treatise on persona and a more straightforward mainstream-minded commercial thriller. This Gemini wants to have it both ways and succeeds.

In the film, Jill (Lola Kirke) is an implacable assistant to a movie star, Heather (Zoe Kravitz), capable of dealing with anything, including overzealous fans, intrusive paparazzi and neurotic directors. Heather is in the process of dumping her boyfriend to take up with a new girlfriend, Tracy (Greta Lee). After Jill becomes implicated in a crime, she has to evade a savvy detective (John Cho) and try to unpack a mystery on her own.

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Katz has been to South by Southwest multiple times, with his early features Dance Party, USA and Quiet City and his 2010 Portland-set mystery Cold Weather. His 2014 film, Land Ho! was co-directed with Martha Stephens, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to garner a Spirit Award. (Katzs actual Spirit Award statue pops up as a set decoration in Gemini.)

On Gemini, Katz worked with producers Mynette Louie and Sara Murphy, who he had previously collaborated with on Land-Ho! and for the first time with producer Adele Romanski, a recent Oscar-winner for Moonlight. Katz, who also edited the film, also worked with other longtime collaborators, cinematographer Andrew Reed and composer Keegan DeWitt.

Katz wrote the script in summer 2015, after he had already been living in Los Angeles for a number of years. Katz found himself fascinated by the way the city continues to reveal itself, as he came to realize that wherever you live and whatever places you usually go, there are just so many layers beyond that. I could live here for the rest of my life and still not know the whole city. Im really fascinated by that and I think thats a really wonderful thing about the city.

Drawing from the literary influence of the how Raymond Chandler gave a romantic cast to the city alongside such stylishly moody L.A.-set movie thrillers as American Gigolo and Bad Influence, Katz tried to capture the casual drift of contemporary Los Angeles.

The thing that Ive found myself increasingly interested in, Katz said, is I keep coming back to an idea about identity and how much of our identity is deliberate and really coming from us and how much we dont even realize weve given up by crafting ourselves. I feel like eventually its really easy to lose what is your honest self.

To me a celebrity is that times 100, because so much of your identity, and your whole public identity, is how much do people relate to you, he added. How do other people perceive you?

Even though he didnt know her, Katz began thinking of Kirke while he was writing, energized by her performances in Mistress America and Gone Girl.

I think it really helps. People are esoteric and weird and I think it helps to have one person in mind, Katz said.

Kirke did respond well to the script when it was finally sent to her and then collaborated with Katz in reshaping the character, forming a backstory to fill in her history and motivations. But it was the characters relationship to her job and her boss that would most inform their conception of who she is.

First of all that relationship is very odd, because the lines between friendship and employee are very blurry, Katz said of being a personal assistant. It seems more so than almost any other job. The personal assistant has this protector role in addition to just doing tasks. I just stared to think about what that relationship might look like in the context of a thriller and in the context of very out of the ordinary things. I think a personal assistant is sort of expected to deal with whatever comes their way.

Gemini to me is just the right amount of mysterious.  Aaron Katz, on the title of his new film

Gemini is a film of such an unusual and delicately calibrated emotional tug, a character portrait and an enigmatic mystery with a solution that presents a whole new set of questions, that simply talking about its title can verge into spoiler alert territory.

Theres all kinds of things I wonder about, Katz said of spoiler concerns. Like with our main still were using, people wonder why does she have blond hair and why is she in a motorcycle jacket? For me the best way for people think about the title is after they see the movie. Oh, now I see why its called Gemini. I was struggling to think of a title to be honest.

Its the kind of thing I hope people are thinking about going in but dont have the answer, Katz said. Gemini to me is just the right amount of mysterious.

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Mark.Olsen@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter: @IndieFocus

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James Francos The Disaster Artist promises to make up for years of devastating reviews and late-night jeers aimed at Tommy Wiseau and his cult flick, The Room. The infamous 2003 self-made, self-promoted indie flop turned midnight movie sensation is filled with bad acting, worse continuity and an incomprehensibly soapy plot about love and betrayal. A decade and a half after its disastrous Los Angeles premiere, The Disaster Artist is redemption for the best-worst movie of all time.

I am Tommy Wiseau, Franco, the films director and star, confessed Sunday night at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where standing ovations met his surreal and surprisingly affecting ode to The Room and the enigmatic filmmaker who wrote, directed, financed and starred in what bad-movie aficionados consider one of cinemas most historically inept creations.

I relate to him so much in ways that I dont want to admit, Franco added, grinning ear to ear onstage next to Seth Rogen, who produces and acts in the film, and his brother Dave Franco, who costars. In the audience, the real Wiseau arrived quietly and sat next to Greg Sestero, his friend and The Room costar whose behind-the-scenes memoir was the basis of the Franco film, watching The Disaster Artist for the first time.

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Fans of The Room will find plenty to cheer for in The Disaster Artist, which slides references to now-celebrated lines and scenes into a narrative about Wiseau and the film he thought would be his ticket to Hollywood.

James Franco eyes his brother Dave on the press line at the SXSW premiere of their film, The Disaster Artist. (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for SXSW)

So dedicated was Franco to getting it right, revealed Dave, who plays Sestero, that he stayed in character for the entire Disaster Artist shoot  even while directing.

I studied the role of Tommy in the way I played James Dean, Franco said, just obsessively driving around in my car, listening to [his] voice all the time.

The fact that he spends an extended amount of screen time depicting the origin of The Rooms Oh, hi Mark moment, water bottle and all, is one indicator of how far Francos attempting to plumb the Wiseau mythos.

But The Disaster Artist is really Francos Ed Wood, a persuasively human chronicle of how the DIY cinematic catastrophe was borne out of the friendship between Wiseau and fellow frustrated actor Sestero, who meet in a San Francisco acting class and move to Los Angeles together with the shared dream of getting discovered.

If anyone can feel the pain of a movie not turning out quite as one had hoped, its a bunch of Hollywood actors, Rogen explained in their approach to the film.

What we talked about more than anything else while we were putting the movie together was, Why do we love this movie? he said. Not, Why do we make fun of this movie? Or, Why do we laugh at this movie? But, What is great about that movie? And at the end of the day, it was the earnestness of a guy who put himself out there.

And as evidenced by an epilogue of eerily accurate shot-for-shot reenactments Franco and his cast staged for the film, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, theyve watched The Room a lot.

Ive seen it more times than Ive seen Network, laughed Rogen, who plays Sandy Schklair, the films script supervisor. Franco brought the project to him while the pair were filming their North Korea-skewering comedy The Interview. This is the good thing to come out of The Interview, Rogen quipped.

The Warner Bros. film, which screened as a work in progress premiere at the Austin film festival, is more than mere mimicry, although Franco turns in an arguably career-best performance as the mercurial Wiseau while sporting astoundingly convincing prosthetics, stringy black tresses and an uncannily spot-on accent.

The Rooms Tommy Wiseau at SXSW. His movie is the inspiration for The Disaster Artist, James Francos new movie, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival. (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for SXSW)

As agents, casting directors and producers in the city of stars keep telling these fools to stop dreaming (including Judd Apatow, who decimates Tommys hope in one memorable scene), they persevere. Wiseau decides to write his own movie with parts for himself and Sestero  and, of course, he intends to direct it himself.

A huge cast of comedy talent rounds out the ensemble, including Ari Graynor, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, June Diane Raphael, Nathan Fielder and Jacki Weaver as cast members of Wiseaus film; Alison Brie as Gregs girlfriend; plus Paul Scheer, Hannibal Buress, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, Sharon Stone and Bryan Cranston, playing Bryan Cranston.

As the hysterically unwieldy production swells and Wiseaus own crew turns on him, Franco as Wiseau delivers a fascinating study in tyrannical artistry while Franco the director builds genuine empathy for his subject.

The standing ovation in the sold-out Paramount Theatre began as soon as the credits started rolling, and then more surreal developments unfolded.

One man stood patiently in line to ask a question in the post-screening question-and-answer session, then offhandedly revealed that he was the original actor who played Chris-R in the film. He was promptly invited onstage, along with Wiseau and Sestero. Zac Efron played you! roared Rogen.

Another ovation came several minutes later for Wiseau himself, who stood up in the aisles to take selfies with eager fans on his way to the stage. Standing next to Sestero, the Room multi-hyphenate gave no indication of what he really thought of Francos film or his uncanny performance.

Watching it with Wiseau in the building also added a bizarre meta-commentary to Francos most powerful scenes, including one in which his Wiseau confronts his haters for mocking him. In another, he is devastated to discover that people are laughing at him on-screen at his own lavish, self-financed Hollywood premiere.

The film drew a steady stream of cackles from the riotous late-night SXSW audience, who burst out laughing sometimes just at the sight of Franco in character.

But knowing Wiseau was in the theater added one more unexpected layer: compassion for the guy, sitting in the middle of a sea of strangers, all laughing at his look, his accent, his work, his life  even if he learned over the years to roll the laughter into a different side of the Hollywood fame he craved.

The Disaster Artist presents Wiseau as the hero of his own stranger-than-fiction La La Land and poses a crucial question: Has cult success really been tearing Tommy Wiseau apart this whole time?

jen.yamato@latimes.com

@jenyamato
From a chocolate factory move to egg tarts in Glendale, heres whats happening in the Los Angeles food and drink world.

The chocolate factory: Rick and Michael Mast, the brothers behind the Mast Brothers chocolate company, closed their Arts District factory and retail store in early March. The facility was open for about a year. The brothers have also closed their London operation and are currently working on a new 65,000-square-foot New York City factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Its really just about keeping up with demand, said Rick. The brothers are focusing their L.A. efforts on getting enough chocolate into specialty stores in the area. We take a lot of pride in teaching a whole new generation about how chocolate is made, said Rick, who added that hes already started roasting beans in the Brooklyn factory and hopes to have it open to the public for tours as soon as possible. mastbrothers.com.

For the record: A previous version of this post said the Doheny Room is on Sunset Boulevard. The restaurant is on Santa Monica Boulevard. The post also said Truss & Twine in Palm Springs is open. The restaurant will open soon.

Bring on the egg tarts: 85C, the Taiwan-based bakery chain known for its brick toast, egg tarts and iced sea salt coffee, has opened a location in Glendale. Known as the Starbucks of Taiwan, the bakery has more than 800 locations in Taiwan, China and Australia, as well as more than a dozen in Texas, Washington and California. The company said it plans to expand even more in the U.S. over the next couple of years. 201 N. Brand Blvd., Suite 100, Glendale, (818) 550-0885, www.85cbakerycafe.com.

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Hollywood switch: Viva Hollywood, a Mexican restaurant that has taken over the former Beso space in Hollywood, opens Wednesday. Chef Raymond Alvarez (formerly of Toca Madera) will serve ceviche, mole, tacos and flatbreads. The restaurant also promises live cabaret, flamenco performances and musical acts. 6350 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 467-1350.

Time to nosh: Chef Eric Greenspan (Mare, Greenspans grilled cheese), Jim Hustead and James Moon of Midcourse Hospitality Group have partnered with Avi Heyman and Daniel Uretsky to open Fleishiks, a kosher sandwich shop. The name comes from the Yiddish word for meat. At the shop, Greenspan is serving his take on modern and classic Jewish food with the Bubbe (grandmother) sandwich, made with brisket, arugula, crispy chicken skin, beet horseradish and crispy onions; and the Seder Plate sandwich, made with smoked turkey, cranberry walnut charoset, fried egg, romaine and horseradish. There also will be salads, chicken soup and a limited selection of spirits, wine and beer. In the center of the space is a sink for netilat yadayim (the tradition of purifying your hands) for customers to use if they choose. 7563 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 746-5750, www.fleishiks.com.

Paella Week is coming: A Basq Kitchen, the Spanish restaurant on the Redondo Beach Boardwalk, will serve five kinds of paella over the course of five days, March 22-26, to celebrate National Paella Day on March 27. The celebration will include seafood paella; lamb and drunken grapes paella; squid ink and chorizo paella; pork belly paella; and a mixed paella with chicken, pork, chorizo, squid, mussels and clams. 136 N. International Boardwalk, Redondo Beach, (310) 376-9215, www.abasqkitchen.com.

Still hungry? Portos Bakery and Cafe has opened a location in Buena Park. The Doheny Room on Santa Monica Boulevard has started serving brunch. Tower 12, chef Brendan Collins Hermosa Beach restaurant and bar, is now open. Barbelle, a farm-to-table restaurant inside the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, is now open. Truss & Twine, from Workshop Kitchen + Bar chef/owner Michael Beckman, is will open soon in Palm Springs. The Rockefeller gastropubs in Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach have started Friday bottomless brunches. Primo Italia, an Italian restaurant in Torrances Hillside Village, is now open. Esters Wine Shop & Bar has launched a happy hour every Monday through Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.

Jenn.Harris@latimes.com

@Jenn_Harris_

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The Syrian regime and key powerbrokers on Tuesday tried to shrug off the absence of rebel groups as they gathered for talks on the six-year conflict, but the opposition's refusal to attend appeared a body blow for any hopes of progress.

The third round of negotiations sponsored by regime allies Russia and Iran and rebel-backer Turkey come as other diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed have proved fruitless.

Regime negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari slammed the rebels' decision to snub the talks in the Kazakh capital Astana after attending two earlier rounds but insisted that there was still a point in going ahead with the event.

"We are eager to ensure the success of the Astana path... whether or not the armed factions attend," Jaafari was quoted as saying by Syria's SANA news agency.

"The failure of the armed factions to attend Astana shows the indecency of their politics."

Jaafari said the regime delegation had come to the two-day talks primarily to meet with Russia and Iran, and not armed opposition groups.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow thought the rebels' refusal to show up stemmed from a "misunderstanding", local news agencies reported.

But the rebels said earlier that they were skipping the Astana talks in protest at regime violations of a shaky ceasefire in place since the end of last year.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said Tuesday that the Syrian conflict was the "worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II".

Two previous rounds of talks in Astana were focused on bolstering a frail nationwide truce brokered by Moscow and Ankara in December that has been jeopardised by fighting across swathes of Syria.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday that the talks were "from time to time truly complicated by the existing differences in the different sides' approaches".

A new round of negotiations in Geneva is set to begin on March 23 and will focus on governance, the constitution, elections, counter-terrorism and possibly reconstruction, according to the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.

Russian mediator Alexander Lavrentiev said the Astana talks were meant to "facilitate" de Mistura's task of finding a solution to the conflict.

"If this brings any good, we think this will benefit the Geneva process," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrentiev as saying.

As officials met in Kazakhstan, a UN probe accused the Syrian government of intentionally bombing the Ain al-Fijeh spring outside Damascus in December, leaving more than five million in the capital without access to water.

The UN branded the strike a "war crime" and dismissed regime allegations that the rebels had contaminated the water.

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The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department is getting down to brass tactics.

Sheriffs officials are spending $300,000 on items they say would make deputies look more professional in their jobs and could help make them safer.

But the taxpayer dollars wont go toward tools such as higher-quality ballistic vests, backup guns or body cameras, all of which are optional items that deputies have to pay for on their own.

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Instead, Sheriff Jim McDonnell is spending the money on a minor cosmetic makeover of deputies uniforms: changing the color of their belt buckles and other metal pieces of gear from silver to gold. That way, the metallic bits  all made of brass  will match the gold-hued tie clips, lapel pins and six-pointed star badges that deputies already wear, McDonnell said.

The sheriff says the change is important to maintaining a professional look for deputies on the job, but the move has generated criticism among some rank-and-file deputies and others who argue that its a misuse of money at a time when the department is struggling to deal with more fundamental problems than the appearance of its street cops.

Officials with the union that represents the bulk of the departments 9,100 deputies note that the agency is facing a chronic staff shortage and a recurring budget deficit. For the past several years, the department has been keeping about 1,000 professional staff and 300 deputy positions unfilled so that it can overcome a yearly $250-million shortfall. As a result, deputies are often required to work back-to-back shifts.

This [expenditure] is something that would be better suited to a department thats running like a well-oiled machine, but not a department thats in turmoil, said Det. Ron Hernandez, president of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs.

McDonnell defended the changes, saying the coordinated gold-colored buckles, belt snaps, baton rings and key holders would finish off the uniform and better convey to a suspect that a deputy is in control.

The first impression somebody gets of one of our deputies in the field is what they look like when they approach. Are they squared-away looking? Do they have their gear in place? Are they physically fit? McDonnell said in a recent interview. He said a suspect might be thinking: Am I gonna run? Am I gonna fight? What am I gonna do?

Often our deputies are in situations where theyre all by themselves, and they need to exude command presence, McDonnell explained.

The brass facelift probably ranks as one of the more obscure changes by McDonnell, whos worked to reform the department after a jail abuse scandal toppled his predecessor, Lee Baca, and resulted in criminal convictions for several other agency officials. McDonnell says hes proud of the dramatic decrease in serious staff-on-inmate force in the jails and the expansion of training and operations against human trafficking, cybercrime and terrorism during his tenure of a little over two years.

The department recently nodded to the grumbling over belt buckles in its inaugural issue of Inside the LASD, a newsletter designed to address rumors circulating among its 18,000 employees. The publication also provided information stemming from other frustrations commonly aired by deputies, including the disciplinary process, a Taser shortage, and the persistent vacancies and budget constraints in the department.

A consistent uniform appearance is part of the tactical package, the newsletter says, alongside photos of brass belt buckles. The first impression you give can add to your credibility and your safety.

The first impression you give can add to your credibility and your safety.  Inside the LASD newsletter

Sgt. Mike Ramirez, the departments uniform coordinator, said hes seen first-hand how a messy uniform can invite violence. He described a scenario in which one of his former partners, who looked disheveled and typically wore a more casual style of uniform than he did, was singled out by a suspect for a fight.

This guy could have fought me instead, but as I look back, it all makes sense. My partner wasnt as professional-looking as I was, Ramirez said.

The department has already spent $100,000 out of its general fund for the belt buckles and snaps, with an additional $200,000 in line to be spent next fiscal year on baton rings and key holders, said department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida.

Deputies are expected to obtain the new gear at either one of two department facilities, one in Whittier and the other in Castaic, during their work hours.

Not since former Sheriff Sherman Block changed deputies name plates from black to gold in the 1990s has there been a cosmetic modification to the rank-and-files everyday uniform (deputies helmets, updated last year, are worn only in heightened circumstances). Baca, who succeeded Block, made deputies temporarily wear a millennial badge in 2000, Nishida said.

Officers in the Los Angeles Police Department  where McDonnell served 29 years  are required to wear silver belt buckles that match their predominantly silver-toned badges, said Officer Norma Eisenman, a department spokeswoman.

Sheriffs Lt. Brian Moriguchi, who serves as president of the Professional Peace Officers Assn., which represents higher-level Sheriffs Department staff as well as custody assistants, said the buckle switch has been raising eyebrows.

The whole thing would be no big deal if the sheriff corrected all the other things wrong with our department, said Moriguchi, citing the need for more deputies in the field and a more efficient use of limited funds. But it becomes a big deal because people look at how you havent changed all the other things except the color of our belt buckle.

Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Scroggin responded that the change was important because uniform standards had become lax.

This was apparent during major events and it diminished our professionalism and became problematic from a tactical standpoint, he said.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors oversees the departments overall budget of $3 billion, but the sheriff has discretion to choose how to spend the departments general funds.

With a $3 billion budget, the sheriff is entrusted by the voters of Los Angeles County with the flexibility to allocate department resources where he feels necessary  and I trust his judgement as to administrative matters under his authority, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement.

The other four county supervisors declined to comment.

Maria Haberfeld, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies police administration, said that mismatched pieces on an officers uniform could have an effect on the officers respectability.

But, overall, it feels a bit like a stretch, Haberfeld said of McDonnells plans. Ultimately, it is always a matter of priorities and in my opinion, although I understand his concerns, I would probably opt for more manpower over a change of the hardware.

McDonnell said he understood how belt buckles could rank as a relatively minor concern. He also lamented the challenges facing his budget and his irritation over not being able to deploy enough deputies to serve the public.

But he maintained that an attractive uniform serves a deep purpose, representing the pride and imagery of an organization.

Its professionalism, at the end of the day, he said.

maya.lau@latimes.com

Twitter: @mayalau

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A fire roared through the second floor of an East Hollywood strip mall and threatened nearby apartments before it was brought under control early Tuesday morning, officials said.

Approximately 100 firefighters were able to gain control of the blaze near the intersection of Fountain and Vermont Avenues around 5 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Firefighters were able to prevent the flames, which began in a business on the second floor of a strip mall at 4569 Fountain Avenue sometime after 4 a.m., from spreading to an adjacent four-story apartment complex.

No injuries had been reported as of 6 a.m., according to the LAFD, and arson investigators were en route to the scene. The fire did spread through several businesses in the strip mall complex.

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The intersection of Vermont and Fountain was expected to be closed through the morning, according to an LAFD news release. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Video from the scene showed flames shooting through the front windows of a hookah lounge, according to KNBC-TV.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.
Los Angeles will soon stop hikers and tourists from using a Beachwood Drive gate to reach a popular trail near the Hollywood sign, city officials said Tuesday.

Parks department spokeswoman Rose Watson said the city will begin redirecting pedestrians to Canyon Drive and other access points to the Griffith Park trails, including the Hollyridge Trail, in the next few weeks. The decision follows a legal battle that a Griffith Park horseback riding facility waged against the city over hikers trekking near its Beachwood Drive ranch.



For the record: A previous photo caption with this article referred to Canyon Lake Drive as Lake Canyon Drive.

This was one of the easiest and shortest routes to good views of the Hollywood sign, which made it especially popular with tourists who dont want a lengthy hike during a brief trip to L.A., said Casey Schreiner, author of Day Hiking Los Angeles.

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The plan has divided Beachwood Canyon residents, who have been at odds over whether the residential street should be a gateway to Griffith Park.

The Beachwood Drive gate will soon be off-limits if youre trekking to the Hollywood sign. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Although some have argued that the path should be easily accessible to hikers and tourists wanting a closer look at the famous sign, others have pushed to shut down public access to the trails from Beachwood Drive, complaining of traffic and safety risks from a crush of tourists.

The Sunset Ranch Hollywood Stables had its own concerns.

The ranch has long had a legal agreement allowing people to come and go through a 20-foot-wide strip of land. In their lawsuit, the ranch owners complained that the city began funneling hikers onto its exclusive easement road two years ago by advertising that pedestrians could safely access the area using a new gate.

In February, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge found that that hikers could not be barred from using the easement. However, she also concluded that the city had channeled thousands of pedestrians toward the ranch every month, blocking access to the property and interfering with its use.

The judge said L.A. could allow hikers to access Hollyridge Trail as close as possible to either the beginning of the Sunset Ranch easement  near the gate at the end of Beachwood Drive  or another access point that was previously used but is currently blocked.

San Fernando Valley residents Kimani Larry, left, and John Flowers stop on Lake Canyon Drive for a selfie with the Hollywood sign in the background. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Watson, the parks department spokeswoman, said the city would begin directing pedestrians away from the Beachwood gate to comply with the court ruling. The change will occur sometime in the next few weeks as we put in place enforcement to redirect and to effectively serve tourists, hikers and residents, Watson said in a statement Tuesday.

The decision saddened some hikers, including neighbors who had prized having a short walk to the wilderness through the Beachwood Drive gate. Beachwood Canyon resident Ben Sheffner, who opposes closing the Beachwood Drive access point, argued that the move would merely push problems to other areas.

Kris Sullivan, another resident of the area, said the city should have explored other ways to satisfy the court order instead of redirecting people to Canyon Drive.

There are other solutions that are definitely possible, Sullivan said. But do they have the will?

Other residents who have agitated to stop tourists from heading up Beachwood Drive to the trails were pleased. Sarajane Schwartz was among a group of residents who sued the city in a separate case, contending that Los Angeles needed to halt access to the trails there while it properly analyzed fire risks and other hazards.

Canyon Drive is a much safer route for tourists, Schwartz said. Unlike on Beachwood Drive, she said, no one has to walk in the street. Its a dangerous situation up here.

Attorney Michael Angel, who represented Sunset Ranch in the lawsuit, said his client did not take sides in the broader battles over access to Griffith Park. However, he said it had been dangerous for hikers to mingle with hay delivery trucks and horse trailers on the steep and winding road to the ranch.

Turning hikers away from the Beachwood Drive gate was a very reasonable solution, Angel said.

City Councilman David Ryu, who represents the area, has faced pressure from the warring groups of Beachwood Canyon residents over how to handle the issue. Ryu said Tuesday that with the Sunset Ranch lawsuit over, we can focus on the work at hand, including long-term strategies to improve experiences for tourists and protect neighborhoods around the Hollywood sign.

Schreiner, editor in chief of the website Modern Hiker, said he sympathized with Beachwood Canyon residents concerned about the number of people walking up their street, but he had hoped the city would reach more of a compromise between the feuding groups.

This is such a complicated issue  and its been going on for years, he said.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

emily.alpert@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesEmily

UPDATES:

March 14, 5:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional context and reaction.

March 14, 2:15 p.m.: This article was updated with city officials confirming plans to block access from Beachwood Drive to the trail leading to the Hollywood sign.

This article was originally published at 9:40 p.m. on March 13.
Los Angeles County coroners investigators are examining a human skull that was found Saturday during a small brush fire, which officials say was sparked by juveniles playing with matches.

On Monday, investigators returned to the site of the blaze in the 3500 block of North Coy Drive near Sherman Oaks to search for additional body parts, said Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. They did not find any bones.

Forensic anthropologists will now examine the skull to determine its age and gender as well as the time of death, he said. They also will look at dental records to determine whether the time of death occurred before modern dentistry.

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Investigators will inspect the skull for any signs of injury, including blunt force trauma or gunshot wounds, Winter said.

The skull was discovered in a ravine by firefighters who were battling the blaze just after 3:40 p.m. near Fossil Ridge Park, Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said. The slow-moving blaze consumed three to four acres of brush.

No one was injured and no structures were damaged during the fire, she said.

Arson investigators later determined the blaze was started by the minors, Stewart said. The juveniles were placed in a educational program aimed at curbing adolescents involved in starting fires, she said.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
The Queen Mary is so corroded that its at risk of flooding or collapse, and the price tag for fixing up the 1930s ocean liner could near $300 million, according to a survey done by experts.

It would likely take five years to rehab the ship, a tourist destination docked permanently in Long Beach Harbor south of Los Angeles, according to documents obtained by the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

During its heyday, the Queen Mary carried Hollywood celebrities, such as Bob Hope and Elizabeth Taylor, royalty and dignitaries. It also spent several years ferrying 765,000 Allied troops during World War II, when it was nicknamed the Gray Ghost.

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But now, naval architects and marine engineers who compiled the survey warn that the vessel is probably approaching the point of no return.

The hull is severely rusted, and certain areas, including the engine room, could be prone to flooding, according to the newspaper report published Monday. And because the bilge system is inoperable, large amounts of water cant be pumped out and could cause the ship to sink to the lagoon floor.

In addition, the pillar supports for a raised floor in an exhibition space are corroded throughout and could face immediate collapse under the weight of just a few people, the survey said.

Roughly 75% of the repairs were deemed urgent.

The Queen Mary made Long Beach its permanent home in 1967. Now a floating hotel with shops, restaurants and event spaces, the ship attracts some 1.3 million visitors annually.

City officials said the findings are being discussed with the ships current leaseholder, Urban Commons, and both sides are committed to preserving the historic asset and making sure it can safely remain open to the public. In November, Long Beach approved $23 million to address the ships most urgent repairs, and Urban Commons is working to secure additional funding.

We have a timeline in which the engineers believe they can complete those immediate projects, said John Keisler, economic and property development director. These are major challenges we can only address over time; it cant all be done at once.

The condition has become so dire that politicians in Scotland, where the Queen Mary was built, have called for an international fundraising campaign to restore the former Cunard liner. Theyve urged Prime Minister Theresa May to put pressure on the U.S. government to step in and save their architectural treasure, according to a recent report in Scotlands national newspaper.
Joaquin Guzman, the drug kingpin known as El Chapo, is cold, bored and lonely in his New York prison cell and is rapidly losing his sense of time and perhaps his mind, according to a motion filed Monday by his court-appointed attorneys.

With erratic air-conditioning, he has often lacked enough warm clothing to avoid shivering His only opportunity to see daylight is when he passes a small window on his way to exercise or the exercise cell, according to the motion filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

Although he purchased a small clock from the commissary, it was later removed from his cell without explanation. Without a window or access to natural light, the clock was the only way for Mr. Guzman to distinguish between day and night, it says.

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Guzman was extradited from Mexico to the United States on Jan. 19. Since then, he has not been permitted a single telephone call under special administrative measures.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges including drug trafficking, conspiracy and murder.

Guzman is being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a facility sometimes called the Guantanamo of New York because of the extreme isolation imposed on its notorious inmates, among them drug lords, terrorists and Mafia captains.

Guzmans physical and mental health have deteriorated, the motion says. He has difficulty breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches. He has recently been experiencing auditory hallucinations, complaining of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off.

The U.S. government has asked Guzman to retain private counsel because he is a billionaire, according to the documents, but he has been prohibited from speaking to his wife or other family members.

Logistically it is impossible without communications, said his court-appointed attorney Michelle Gelernt. Right now, they are stymied.

Federal prosecutors have argued that the restrictions are necessary because of Guzmans history of daring escapes from prison. Prosecutors are also concerned that cartel members could infiltrate Guzmans legal team, possibly jeopardizing the families of witnesses in Mexico.

The limitations on communications are necessary to prevent Guzman from committing, soliciting or conspiring to commit additional criminal activity, according to papers filed with the court, and are the least restrictive that can be tolerated in light of the ... substantial risk that communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury to persons.

Among the deprivations, Guzman also apparently misses the media. The motion notes that many books and documentaries are being made about the case, but that he is prohibited from communicating with the news media and has no ability to contradict negative and false media reports.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Twitter: @BarbaraDemick
The nonprofit run by one of Americas most prominent white nationalists, Richard Spencer, has lost its tax-exempt status for failing to file tax returns with the federal government, according to Internal Revenue Service records.

An inquiry by The Times also raised questions about whether Spencer had properly filed paperwork allowing the National Policy Institute to raise funds in Virginia, its primary place of business, and whether Spencer, a Donald Trump supporter, had flouted federal rules that forbid nonprofits from supporting or opposing political candidates.

On Monday, Spencer said an IRS error led him to believe his group was not required to file federal tax returns, and said he would appeal the loss of his tax-exempt status.

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I dont know what to say. I dont want to make a comment because I dont understand this stuff, Spencer said in a telephone interview. Its a bit embarrassing, but its not good. Well figure it out.

I dont want to make a comment because I dont understand this stuff. Its a bit embarrassing, but its not good.  Richard Spencer

Spencer also said his group had filed the necessary paperwork to operate as a nonprofit in Virginia. But a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which regulates charities in the state, said Monday that the status of Spencers group was under review.

The paperwork trouble at the National Policy Institute, which was registered under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, seems to have started shortly after Spencer took over the organization in 2011 and used it as a vehicle for promoting his alternative right beliefs, which include the need for a separate nation for white people.

The National Policy Institutes website says it is dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.

As Spencers profile rose on the national stage in recent years, the National Policy Institutes nonprofit status allowed his supporters to make tax-deductible donations to support his publications and conferences for white nationalists. One of the National Policy Institutes events included a November conference in Washington, where Spencer told a crowd, Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory! and received Nazi salutes in return.

But as Spencers visibility rose on the national stage, there was little corresponding transparency into the National Policy Institutes finances because the group had stopped filing its required tax returns with the IRS after 2012.

Such tax records for nonprofits, which are available to the public, generally must be filed each year. The forms show how much money an organization makes, how much it spends, how much it pays its officers and who sits on its board, plus other information intended to provide transparency and accountability. Failing to file for three years in a row results in an automatic loss in tax-exempt status.

But for years, the IRS had apparently misclassified the National Policy Institute and publicly listed the group as not being required to file such forms. (An IRS spokeswoman declined to comment for this story, saying federal law prohibits the IRS from commenting on a particular taxpayer or case.)

The IRS fixed the error in February, and on Monday it updated its records to say that the National Policy Institutes tax-exempt status had been stripped retroactively as of May 15, 2016, when the groups 2015 tax return would have been due.

Spencer cited the IRS error as the reason his group did not file its tax returns. Tax experts said that was no excuse.

They should have known that they should have been filing, said Philip T. Hackney, a law professor at Louisiana State University who formerly worked for the IRS, specializing in nonprofits. Its very clear under the law that if you dont file for three years, you lose your status.

Chuck McLean, a senior research fellow at Guidestar, a site that monitors and publishes records of nonprofits, agreed. Ignorance is no excuse, McLean said.

Spencer recently opened an office above a chocolatiers shop in the suburb of Alexandria in Virginia, where the National Policy Institute is incorporated. He raised more than $50,000 in donations from an online fundraising drive held over several weeks at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. The National Policy Institutes website solicits donations by mail to be sent to a post office box in Arlington, Va.

But as of February, a database maintained by the Virginia Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs had listed the National Policy Institute as not authorized to solicit in Virginia.

They had sent in a registration form to us years ago, but it was incomplete and we requested additional information, Elaine Lidholm, a spokeswoman for the agency, wrote in an email to The Times last week. We never heard back from them.

When The Times requested information about Spencers group, Virginia charity regulators removed the entry for the National Policy Institute from their public database of nonprofits and began a review, which remained active as of Monday.

Spencer has repeatedly said that paperwork is not his strong suit. On Monday, Spencer said that he had spoken with his bookkeeper about the paperwork required at the state level, and that person has assured me that it is completed. He did not identify the bookkeeper.

Previous statements by Spencer also raised questions about whether the National Policy Institute had flouted IRS rules on election-year activities by nonprofits, which state that, during election years, leaders of 501(c)(3) organizations cannot make partisan comments in official organization publications or at official functions of the organization.

In a September 2016 fundraising pitch on the National Policy Institutes website, Spencer wrote, I invite you to join us in the fight against Hillary Clinton, and the liberal agenda thats haunted our country for generations, adding, I ask you to make a investment of $25, $75, $100, or however much you can spare.

Shortly after the election, Spencer told a crowd at a conference put on by the National Policy Institute, We willed Donald Trump into office, made this dream into reality.

Tax experts consulted by The Times said Spencer had probably crossed the line laid down by the IRS.

I would say that the fundraising pitch on the website and the conference that they held where he made those comments, I think that those both definitely are infractions, said McLean of Guidestar.

However, Hackney, the former IRS attorney, said Spencers political statements may not matter, given the retroactive stripping of his organizations tax-exempt status.

As a technical matter, Hackney said, they cant have violated the provision, because they werent a charity anyway.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

matt.pearce@latimes.com

@mattdpearce

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If history is any guide, turnout for the April 4 special election to replace Xavier Becerra in the central Los Angeles congressional seat is likely to be low  even lower than the dismal turnout in last weeks L.A. County election. And thats a shame because whats at stake in this race is more than just the rare chance to pick a new representative for an exceedingly safe Democratic seat who may be in the job for decades to come.

Attracting 23 candidates, all but four of them Democrats, the race also is a referendum on that partys ascendant progressive wing. On one side is the candidate backed by the party establishment, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Eagle Rock). On the other are 18 Democrats who say its time for a more progressive direction for the party. (They also say its time for the local Latino political establishment to stop trying to dictate who gets to run for which seat by anointing a candidate such as Gomez before the race has really begun.)

Its more than just campaign talk. This district, which stretches from the upscale single-family homes of Highland Park to the dense immigrant neighborhoods of MacArthur Park, voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary last June. Its a deeply blue district, and overwhelmingly Latino, and this race will be the first test since the presidential election of whether Sanders progressivism still resonates with California voters. In addition to a Green Party candidate whose positions mirror Sanders, two of the entrants are ardent Berniecrats: Arturo Carmona, who worked for Sanders presidential campaign, and Wendy Carrillo, a journalist and labor activist who supported the Sanders movement early on. Many of the others share similar political views about healthcare, education and campaign finance.

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What makes Cabildo rise above the others is that, at the relatively young age of 49, she already has had a distinguished career outside of politics.

In fact, theres little daylight between the 19 Democrats policy positions. Even the more centrist candidates, Gomez and Sara Hernandez, are strong defenders of the environment, immigrants and healthcare. The main differences are in their priorities, their backgrounds and their ability to get things done.

The winner of this race should be someone who can bridge the gap between the old guard and new idealists, who understands the complexity of this extraordinarily diverse district and whose commitment to its residents is irrefutable. He or she also will need the skills, temperament and experience to get things accomplished as the most junior member of the minority party in the most highly polarized environment in recent history.

Thats a lot to ask of one person. Fortunately for voters, among the plethora of quality candidates in this race (refreshingly, more than half of whom are women), there is one who meets all those requirements: Maria Cabildo.

If that name is familiar, it is because Cabildo spent more than two decades working to build affordable housing in East L.A. and push social justice measures, such as the campaign to legalize street vendors. She may not describe herself as a devotee of Sanders, but she shares those progressive values. Cabildo was born and raised in the district, and after an Ivy League education, she returned home as a twenty-something with big ideas. Unlike most people, she put them into action by co-founding the East Los Angeles Community Corp., which has become a significant force for good in the region.

What makes Cabildo rise above the others is that, at the relatively young age of 49, shes already had a distinguished career outside of politics  and because she was a low-income housing developer, shes had to build consensus on some divisive proposals. That means she knows how to work both inside and outside government. Furthermore, shes widely respected by civic leaders and community advocates because of her understated yet powerful leadership style.

Unfortunately, that low-key style, combined with a voice disability that leaves her soft-spoken, keeps her from standing out in a crowded race that includes more than one slogan-shouting showman. To advance to the general election in May, shell need to shuck off her naturally self-effacing manner and step up her campaign to show that shes the obvious choice.

Gomez, who was backed by the party and the labor unions early on, is a decent legislator, if not particularly distinguished. But he doesnt have a track record of strong leadership, building relationships or working across party lines to get things done.

Some or all of those same criticisms apply to the other candidates as well, as accomplished and impressive as many of them are. But Cabildo has proved she can deliver for her constituents even against long odds, which makes her the best choice for the 34th district.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

UPDATES:

9:46 a.m.: An earlier version of this editorial said voter turnout in the county election last week was 11.5%. That was the initial figure, which has since been updated.
Dont normalize Trump. Thats been a mantra for his critics since he won the Republican nomination. Everyone in Washington recognizes that President Trump is not normal. Some of the ways hes not normal are good: He has open contempt for the swamp of D.C., its corruption, its polite fictions, its arrogant denizens and their disdain for the choices of ordinary citizens. But he is also a walking rejection of older, more important virtues: separation of powers, the rule of law, the value of truth, the virtue of learned expertise and education, modesty, even simple decency towards ones fellow men and women. Hes a very big bull in a very big china shop, and some of the china is worth saving.

We shouldnt pretend that some of the stranger things Trump does are normal. But hes not going away anytime soon, and the more normal we can encourage him to be, the better off we all are. Republicans and Democrats alike should try to make this happen.

Trumps address to a joint session of Congress proved that he can be normal when he puts his mind to it. His tone was widely viewed as presidential, and much of the speech could easily have been delivered by Barack Obama or George W. Bush with only modest alterations. Yet Trump reverted to abnormal form on Twitter four days later. First, he tweeted about being wiretapped by President Obama, apparently with no basis other than things he read on the Internet. He followed that up by taking a swipe at Arnold Schwarzeneggers tenure as host of The Apprentice. That should not have surprised us. At age 70, after four decades in the public eye, Trump is unlikely to change who he is; theres no pivot on the horizon. But the more Trump is encouraged to be State of the Union Trump, and discouraged from kicking up unnecessary panics and controversies, the better.

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Trump thrives on attention, positive or negative; the more his craziest Tweets grab headlines and dominate the conversation, the more hell turn to his phone.

Trump inner-circle radicals like White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon may see a political advantage in provoking endless, draining controversy. Democrats may calculate that the same dynamic helps them. They might both be right; both Obama and Bill Clinton, after all, capitalized on conflicts that helped the other party capture Congress while painting themselves as their partys only hope. But Trump is still the commander in chief, and encouraging his worst instincts while paralyzing the government is bad for the country.

One way to encourage normalcy is to fully staff the administration. Trump is way behind on hiring staff (no sane White House goes a month without a communications director), and the Senate can prioritize confirming those people who get nominated, especially national security and foreign policy appointees. A full bureaucracy will give Trump more briefings, more orders to sign, more decisions to make, and leave him with less time and energy for kicking the beehive.

To clear the air, Senate Republicans and Democrats can also press forward with the Intelligence Committee investigation of Russian involvement in the 2016 election, and ensure a full public report. Public confidence in our democratic system demands a full accounting that defuses conspiracy theories. The endless back-and-forth of anonymous leaks and wild speculation only poisons the climate even further, emboldens the worst instincts and elements on all sides, and breeds mistrust between policymakers and the intelligence community they need to inform them.

Democrats, for their part, should try tamping down the resistance rhetoric and the lazy Hitler comparisons and try to avoid public panics over every Tweet. Trump thrives on attention, positive or negative; the more his craziest Tweets grab headlines and dominate the conversation, the more hell turn to his phone for the quick fix of instant public controversy.

The media has a role to play, too. By all means, call out the specific examples of insanity and dishonesty when Trump forces his spokespeople to defend the indefensible, but dont let it swallow coverage of the things the White House is actually doing, many of which are far more important. Get Sean Spicer, the press secretary, talking about things he can explain without alternative facts and that official Washington can debate in ordinary fashion. Remind people that government actually does things and isnt just a reality show.

In encouraging Trump to be normal, Washington need not abandon its usual fault lines. Republicans dont have to give up their big ambitions of using this moment to tame the administrative state. Democrats dont have to stop opposing ordinary Republican priorities they disagree with, like tax cuts. Trumps die-hard fans dont have to abandon hope of Trump breaking with bipartisan conventional wisdom on trade, immigration and foreign policy. Those policy debates can and will continue. Trumps voters wanted change, and some changes are in order, while others may be half-baked ideas worth stopping.

But the atmosphere of constant crisis and hyperbole is bad for the mental health of the nation and could lead us places we find it hard to return from. Lets make America normal again.

Dan McLaughlin is an attorney in New York and a contributing columnist to National Review Online.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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We need to get our birth rates up, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) warned Monday on CNN, or Europe will be entirely transformed within a half a century or a little more. Rarely has the first-person plural revealed so much confusion.

At the heart of Americas new nationalist politics  of which King, an eight-term congressman and Iowa Caucus influencer, has played John the Baptist to Donald Trumps Jesus  lies a contradiction that in less fraught times would be pretty funny: Our populist right cannot stop yammering about European immigration problems, even while advancing ideas that threaten to Europeanize our heretofore enviable assimilation machine.

Kings fecundity comments came in defense of his controversial declaration the previous day that We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies, a statement that contains almost as many questions as words. (When/how did our civilization recede? What, precisely, is conservative about drafting babies into grand political projects?)

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But tellingly, Kings tweet was a shout-out to shock-haired Dutch nationalist politician Geert Wilders, who wants to halt Muslim immigration and ban the Koran, and who faces a crucial election this week. The ascendant America First brigade just cant get enough of their nationalist brethren across the pond, from the U.K.s Nigel Farage to Frances Marine Le Pen to Hungarys Viktor Orban. Wilders, King enthused, understands that culture and demographics are our destiny.

King and other populists want to treat our newcomers more like Europeans treat theirs: as a threat to be contained.

Culture here means the European-derived, Judeo-Christian variety; demographics refers not only to baby-making rates but the percentage of people deriving from the aforementioned founts of culture. Kings apocalyptic interpretation, broadly shared by the president, his key advisor and his attorney general, is that too many culturally suspect transplants will transform the very nature of their host soil, like how eucalyptus trees came to dominate Californias ecosystem.

Such pessimistic cultural determinism is the polar opposite of the creed-based optimism made famous by Ronald Reagan. You can go to live in France, but you cant become a Frenchman, the Gipper said in a 1990 speech, paraphrasing a correspondent. But  anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.

Kings not having any of that. Individuals will contribute differently, not equally, to this civilization and society, he complained to CNN. Certain groups of people will do more from a productive side than other groups of people will. Thats just a statistical fact. Or as he said on MSNBC last year, Id ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of [nonwhite] people that you are talking about. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?

These views, harsh as they may sound to our 21st century ears, are hardly confined to the margins of modern conservatism. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a four-decade chokepoint on migration flows, has long been denounced on both right and occasionally the left for too drastically changing the ethnic composition of America. (Half a Century of Barely Controlled Immigration, went one such National Review headline a couple of years back.) Perennial best-selling author Ann Coulter scored both a commercial hit and tangible influence on a future president with her 2015 book Adios, America: The Lefts Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole.

As the hyperbole of that last title suggests, the nationalists doom-and-gloom is felt more than proven. Americans have been complaining about immigrant non-assimilation for as long as there have been immigrants, yet even supposedly indigestible Muslims are following the same pattern of adaptation. Third-generation immigrants are indistinguishable from the rest of us. New U.S. citizens from the culturally, religiously and politically dissimilar country of India, to pull one large country of origin out of a hat, are doing just fine as Americans, no matter how much Coulter tries to dismiss the Nikki Haleys of the world.

That rosy picture isnt inevitable, however. America assimilates in large part because the ultimate question here isnt Where are you from? Its What are you going to do? European nation-states, by contrast, with their largely homogenous populations, relentlessly emphasize the otherness of newcomers. Couple that with highly regulated business and labor markets at the lower margins, and social mobility can get stuck in the mud. France and Belgium may not be third-world hellholes, but they do have real problems with Muslim ghettos and home-grown terrorism.

And yet King and other populists want to treat our newcomers more like Europeans treat theirs: as a threat to be contained, a culture to be made self-conscious about its deservedly marginal status. Who knew that the only way to avoid being Europe was to adopt its worst habits?

Matt Welch is editor at large of Reason, a magazine published by the libertarian Reason Foundation, and a contributing writer to Opinion.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook.

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President Donald Trump's meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been postponed from Tuesday until Friday due to a major snow storm closing in on the US East Coast, the White House said.

"The president spoke to the Chancellor of Germany. They agreed due to the weather that the meeting should be postponed, rescheduled to March 17th," Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Monday.

"The president and the chancellor look forward to reaffirming their shared determination to stand together in confronting mutual challenges," the White House said in a later statement.

The Oval Office tete-a-tete, expected to be followed by a joint press conference, is highly anticipated, as the two leaders are far apart on a host of issues, from immigration to climate change.

In the run-up to the meeting, the White House has emphasized the strength of ties between the two nations, and said that Trump is hoping to learn from the chancellor's depth of experience.

The US president will also be "very interested in hearing her insights on what it's like to deal with the Russians" and Merkel's views on resolving the Ukraine conflict, said a senior administration official.

The reserved German leader has underlined that she is travelling to Washington not only as Germany's leader, but also as an envoy of the European Union.

"I will of course point out that for us, our country and our membership in the European Union are two sides of the same coin," Merkel said in Brussels ahead of the visit.

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One line in a White House news release Monday speaks volumes about either the Trump administrations understanding of healthcare policy or its tenuous grasp on the truth. Or both.

The release described 11 people who visited President Trump on Monday to talk about the significant hardship theyd experienced as a result of Obamacares poor coverage and rising prices. The hardship, as it turns out, was financial  these were people who were paying a lot more for health insurance than they had in years past.

For the record: An earlier version of this post described Joe Paduda as a former insurance actuary. He is a former health insurance executive.

Thats a real issue, to be sure. But among the complaints levied was this one that the White House made on behalf of a Colorado rancher named Carrie Couey: [T]he cost for workers compensation insurance for her business employees increased from approximately $17,000 per year to more than $70,000 per year.

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Ahem. Obamacare, formally known as the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was utterly silent on workers compensation insurance. None of its provisions applied to that specialized market. And to the extent it had an indirect effect on workers comp, it helped hold down claims and insurance premiums, according to Joe Paduda of Health Strategy Associates, a former insurance execuwho specializes in workers comp issues. Since the ACA was fully implemented in 2014, Paduda wrote, the medical trend rates (the annual increase in claims for medical care) in workers comp have been historically low, a strong indication that [the] ACA is a major factor in lower work comp costs.

Paduda explained in an interview that about 13 million people who gained coverage through the ACA are workers, many of them in low-wage jobs that had no health benefits. When injured in the past, these people may have been tempted to claim shift  to say they were injured while working so they would be covered by their employers workers comp plan. That need was eliminated when they gained coverage through Medicaid or subsidized private insurance.

Besides, workers comp premiums are governed by three factors that have nothing to do with the ACA: how much a company pays its employees, how risky their jobs are and the companys history of workers comp claims. A companys premiums go up if it gives its workers raises, if they have injuries that cause expensive claims or if other workers in the state who perform similar jobs have a surge in injuries.

You could conceivably make a macroeconomic argument that the ACA is either increasing the cost of medical treatment generally (by encouraging consolidation in the healthcare industry) or decreasing it (by promoting efficiencies and higher quality care). But either way, youd be stretching credulity to make the connection between the law and workers comp.

So, why did the Trump administration blame Obamacare for Coueys skyrocketing workers comp premiums? Perhaps because healthcare is complicated. Who knew?

jon.healey@latimes.com

Twitter: @jcahealey
Paybacks a bitch, Secretary Perry.

Thats what I imagine California Gov. Jerry Brown chortling to himself over the news that his Public Utilities Commission president is heading to D.C. to recruit climate scientists at the federal agency the former Texas governor now runs.

Rick Perry famously visited California to poach jobs in 2013, encouraging businesses to dump the Golden States red tape for Texas low taxes, sensible regulation and fair legal system.

Perry returned the following year and seemed to set his sights on Tesla, which was looking for a location to build a battery plant (Nevada won.) Its not clear whether Perry hooked any company that wasnt already thinking about leaving the state, but it did seem to irritate Brown, who once brushed off Perrys recruiting efforts as barely a fart.

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But maybe Brown was taking notes, because Michael Picker  his appointee to head the Public Utilities Commission  seems to have pulled a move right out of the Rick Perry poaching playbook.

On Wednesday, Picker will be passing out fliers in front of Perrys new place of employment, the U.S. Department of Energy, listing job openings in various state agencies that work on climate change. On Thursday, he will head to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, offering a ray of hope to beleaguered climate change scientists that theres a place that still cares about greenhouse gas emissions.

If climate scientists and experts want the opportunity to continuing doing important work for the good of our planet, my message is simple: Come West, California is hiring, Picker said in a statement posted on Twitter.

And no worries if this stunt registers more than a fart. Here in California, we still believe in clearing the air.

mariel.garza@latimes.com

Follow me @marielgarzaLAT
Oh, that Donald Trump; what a comedian! After spending a year on the campaign trail scoffing at the upbeat jobs numbers put out by the Obama administration, he is now boasting about the latest jobs numbers coming from the same sources.

When asked about this convenient contradiction during a news briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had told him to offer this explanation: They may have been phony in the past, but its very real now. That got a good laugh from the reporters in the room. Even Spicer grinned.

Now, in an even more hilarious turnabout, Trump is discounting the Congressional Budget Office analysis that has determined the House Republican healthcare plan will, over time, reduce the total of insured Americans by 24 million. Trump rejects the CBOs analysis because he has embraced the GOP healthcare bill as his own. That is very different from the way he, as a candidate, cited CBO numbers as if they were gospel when they made Obama look bad.

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1 / 51 la-1491523602-y7ephyarj1-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 51 la-1491368625-0bgh58ihw8-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los angeles Times) 6 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 51 Trump inspires millions to take to the streets -- to oppose him. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 51 Cartoon caption contest winner at the DENT conference in Sun Valley, Idaho: Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corporation. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 51 Old radicals and big media descend on Selma (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 51 Horsey imagined the creation of the Ann Coulter phenomenon in this cartoon from 2007. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 51 This David Horsey drawing is a reconfiguration of a cartoon he first published in 2006. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 51 Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can team up together and open an all-white rodeo. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 51 Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin has brought back the bear. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 51 The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 51 David Horsey / Los Angeles Times (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

Monday, during the daily White House media scrum, NBCs Peter Alexander got into a testy exchange with Spicer over the presidents very elastic and self-serving use of facts. First, they sparred about Trumps unsupported allegation that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. Spicer tried to pretend that Trumps allegation had not been a very specific and personal attack on the former president. Then they argued about the CBOs healthcare estimates.

After Spicer had finished his verbal pretzel making, Alexander asked, Can you say affirmatively that whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real?

If hes not joking, Spicer said.

Well, an agile comedian can always find a gullible chump to be the object of his humor and, in the case of healthcare, the butt of Trumps joke is the older, white working-class voter who cheered loudly when candidate Trump guaranteed insurance coverage for every American. Everybodys going to be taken care of much better than theyre taken care of now, Trump said in the early days of the campaign, a promise he continued to repeat. Under his magical, imaginary scheme, premiums would go down and Medicaid would not be cut.

Now that there is a real plan to be scrutinized, Trump claims it matches his campaign rhetoric, even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. Numbers from the CBO are seldom perfectly accurate, but they are generally a good predictor of the costs of legislation. And, in the case of the GOP healthcare legislation (dare we call it Trumpcare?), not only will millions of people lose insurance coverage, but premiums will shoot up for older citizens who will lose much of their federal subsidy and Medicare funds for the working poor will be slashed.

And heres the punchline: Many of those who get slammed by these changes will be people who believed Trumps promises and gave him their votes; folks of modest means and limited education who are getting up in years and need the help of government to pay their medical bills when they get sick.

They trusted Trump. Its too bad Sean Spicer was not around to explain Trumps sense of humor to them back on election day. Their future president, he could have said, can be trusted, if hes not joking.

David.Horsey@latimes.com

Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter

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TV ads target lawmakers on the fence over Gov. Jerry Browns plan to raise gas taxes to repair roads By Patrick McGreevy Gov. Jerry Brown talks to Steve Glazer in 2011, when Glazer was still an advisor to the governor and before he was elected to the Senate. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) With supporters of a road repair bill still counting votes, a coalition of business and labor leaders on Friday began running television and radio ads that target eight legislators who have not yet committed to vote for the measure. The Fix Our Roads Coalition is spending $1 million on a statewide, week-long ad blitz that urges legislators to vote next week for Senate Bill 1. The bill would raise gas taxes and vehicle fees to generate $52 billion the first 10 years to repair crumbling roads, highways and bridges, and expand mass transit. We are closer than ever to finally passing a transportation funding package to fix our long-neglected and crumbling roads, said Michael Quigley, executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, which is co-funding the commercials. These new ads are part of an all-out grassroots, earned media, advertising and social media campaign to support passage of this bill by next week. In addition to ads that call on legislators to support the bill, eight advertisements call on legislators by name to support the plan. Those targeted include Sens. Steve Glazer (D-Concord) and Anthony Cannella (R-Ceres), and moderate Democratic Assembly members Adam Gray of Merced, Rudy Salas of Bakersfield, Sabrina Cervantes of Corona, Sharon Quirk-Silva of Buena Park and Al Muratsuchi of Torrance, as well as Republican Catharine Baker of San Ramon. The bill needs a two-thirds vote in both houses, which would require all of the Democrats to support the measure. Cannella and Baker are being wooed by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders to step in if one of the Democrats gets cold feet. Representatives of Cannella and Glazer said earlier this week that they were still weighing the issue. Brown and legislative leaders have called for the Legislature to act by Thursday, after which time the lawmakers head out on spring break. Facebook

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Former Assembly Speaker John A. Perezs views on the L.A. congressional race he dropped out of By Christine Mai-Duc (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Before he suddenly dropped out of the running citing health reasons, former Assembly Speaker John A. Perez was widely considered the favorite to replace Xavier Becerra in the 34th Congressional District. With Perez out, the race is wide open and isnt likely to be decided Tuesday, when 24 candidates compete in the primary. Instead, the top two vote-getters regardless of party are expected to advance to a June 6 election. (If any one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote Tuesday, its all over). Perez offered his thoughts on the race in an interview published Friday by Politico. Some of his major points: Perez said he thinks state Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez is significantly ahead of the pack and will make the runoff.

A cluster of candidates, including Alejandra Campoverdi, Wendy Carrillo, Arturo Carmona, Maria Cabildo and Robert Lee Ahn, are in a close enough race that any one of them could advance.

If Carrillo were to move forward, Perez says, the narrative in the runoff would be about which candidate is more progressive and whos an insider versus an outsider.

Perez says if he were the front runner, Campoverdi is the one Id be most concerned about running against due to her connections in Washington and her national profile, which could create a new level of viability. Facebook

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To fight against human trafficking, this state senator wants to train motel employees to spot signs of abuse By Jazmine Ulloa Former Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times) State Sen. Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) wants to increase services for human trafficking survivors and make it easier in court to put away their abusers. Flanked by prosecutors and hotel industry officials at a news conference Friday in San Diego, the former Assembly speaker announced new housing and mental health assistance for victims and introduced legislation that would require hotels and motels to train their employees to spot signs of human trafficking. Another of her proposals would expand the character evidence that prosecutors can bring forth at trial against defendants charged with selling victims for sex or labor. The bills are meant to attack a multibillion-dollar trade that has a wide sweep in California, home to three cities on the FBIs list of 13 top human trafficking destinations: San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles. National human trafficking hotline calls across California generated 1,323 cases in 2016  nearly twice as many as any other state. Atkins is among lawmakers pushing the issue at the Capitol, where legislation has focused on targeting traffickers, protecting victims and addressing what advocates say is a law enforcement culture in which child survivors sometimes are treated like criminals. But funding for victims services and programs has been an obstacle. A bill by Atkins to develop pilot projects in three counties to address the commercial sexual exploitation of youth sailed through the Legislature without opposition last year only to be vetoed by the governor. Her second bill for a statewide task force died in the Senate appropriations committee. Atkins latest proposal to provide training for motel employees follows a similar bill by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens). It failed in the last legislative session amid opposition over costs to businesses. That hasnt stopped Atkins from trying again. Hotels are ground zero for sex trafficking in this state, she said in a statement. Sex traffickers are exploiting some of the most vulnerable people in our society, including children. These victims are often hiding in plain sight, and traffickers take advantage of the fact that many hotel employees dont recognize the signs. Facebook

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State Controller Betty Yee says Californias tax collection agency has been mismanaged and needs a complete overhaul By Patrick McGreevy Citing a review that found widespread mismanagement at the state Board of Equalization, State Controller Betty T. Yee on Friday called for stripping the panel of responsibilities for tax administration and audit and compliance functions so it can focus on handling taxpayer appeals. Yees proposal came in response to an evaluation by the state Department of Finance that found board officials were improperly redirecting resources and employees to pet projects in their districts. In order to rebuild taxpayer trust, meaningful reform is essential, said Yee, who serves as an ex-officio member of the board. I urge the Legislature and the governor to strip the board members of all statutory functions and permanently move these duties and assigned staff to a separate new department under the governor. The Department of Finance review found the board had difficulty providing complete and accurate documentation in response to inquiries, and various levels of management were not aware of and could not speak to certain actions, including the informal establishment of a call center, creating an unofficial office location and inconsistent use of community liaisons. The evaluation said personnel records showed workers assigned to administrative jobs that they were not doing, having been transferred to help board members in their districts. Even though each elected board member has a $1.5-million budget to cover office costs, some members borrowed workers from the head office, taking them from jobs that involved bringing in tax money and having them instead reach out to board members constituents, the review found. The redirection of workers violated state budget rules. In addition, the reviewers said the board provided 11 different versions of its proposed sales and use tax allocation adjustment and the Department of Finance found errors and omissions throughout. Facebook

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Sen. Kamala Harris has opened a gubernatorial fundraising account  but she has no plans to run for governor, aide says By Seema Mehta (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times) Sen. Kamala Harris opened a campaign fundraising account to run for governor in 2026, but that does not mean Californias newest U.S. senator has any plans to seek the office. Harris plans to use the account to store the $1 million in leftover funds from her successful 2014 reelection campaign for attorney general, said Sean Clegg, Harris political spokesman. Harris left her post as state attorney general mid-term when she was elected in November to the Senate seat opening created by the retirement of Barbara Boxer. She faced a March 31 deadline to shutter the attorney general account, and under election law cannot mingle money raised for state campaigns with funds raised to run for federal office. Its purely political bookkeeping, Clegg said. The 2026 date could raise eyebrows because after the 2018 gubernatorial election, that will likely be the next time the governors office is open because its occupant is termed out. But Clegg said Harris did not open an account for a lower office like lieutenant governor  as politicians in similar situations typically do  because, he said, we werent interested in being cute about it. So we designated the only potential future office one could conceivably contemplate, although were not contemplating it, he said. Were focused on the job were doing. Facebook

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This California lawmaker wants to crack down on toys and electronics that pick up conversations and personal information By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), left (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press ) A California state senator wants to prevent companies from selling products that can listen in on conversations and collect personal information from unknowing consumers. Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) has filed legislation that would require manufacturers to equip their Internet-connected devices, including toys, clocks, kitchenware and electronics, with certain security and privacy features. Dubbed the Teddy Bear and Toaster Act, Senate Bill 327 takes aim at the so-called Internet of Things, the inter-networking of everyday devices that some tech and privacy experts say amounts to a growing industry with little oversight. The more we know and the more we learn about the Internet connection of all sorts of devices, many are realizing that we dont know the extent to which these devices are invading our lives, Jackson said. Under her proposal, companies would have to design their products so that they alert consumers  through visual, auditory or other cues  when they are gathering data. They would have to obtain user consent when they intend to transfer the information. And they would have to disclose at point of sale whether the devices are capable of sweeping up sensitive data, so that customers can take that into account while shopping. Most states, including California, have privacy breach laws to protect personal information. The proposal, which would extend those provisions to consumer devices, could be the first of its kind nationwide. But it is expected to garner wide opposition from retailers and manufacturers. A My Friend Cayla doll (AFP/Getty Images) Still, supporters point to growing privacy concerns. Some toys, like the My Friend Cayla doll banned in Germany, prompt children to give personal information, such as their parents names and their addresses, and their manufacturers reserve the right to target young buyers in direct marketing campaigns. Other smart devices lack the most basic security features that make them vulnerable to a hack or coordinated cyberattack. In a statement, James P. Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Kids Action, which is sponsoring the bill, said such toys and electronics can put consumers at risk. These products get rushed out to the market without the privacy issues being addressed in advance, and then consumers end up paying the price, he said. Facebook

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President Jerry Brown? Dont rule it out, governor quips By Patrick McGreevy Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislative leaders appealed Thursday for support for a proposed gas tax and vehicle fee increase to fix the states roads and bridges. (Patrick McGreevy / Los Angeles Times) In arguing for approval of a new transportation package on Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown appeared to enjoy himself in refusing to shoot down a supporters suggestion that he run for president  even as he noted his 79th birthday is next week. Standing next to other elected officials and construction workers at the rally in in Concord, Brown argued that gas tax and vehicle fee increases are needed to address a backlog of much-needed repairs to Californias crumbling system of roads, highways and bridges. Im telling you the truth because why would I lie to you? Brown said. I dont think Im running for office. All Ive got left is lieutenant governor, treasurer and controller. Or president, someone in the crowd shouted. Brown responded that he would be 82 when the next presidential election comes around. But you know, dont rule it out, he quipped, drawing laughter and applause. Lest the comment turn into a national story, an aide later clarified the governors intentions: He was joking. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown is making appeals to legislators for votes on his new transportation plan  one district at a time By Patrick McGreevy Gov. Jerry Brown stumps for the new transportation funding plan on Thursday in the Bay Area city of Concord. (Patrick McGreevy / Los Angeles Times) Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders on Thursday took their campaign for higher transportation taxes and fees to the Bay Area district of state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Concord), one of the holdouts in the state Senate who has not yet committed to vote for the package. Surrounded by dozens of construction workers, Brown warned that if the transportation bill unveiled on Wednesday isnt approved this year, it may not happen in the foreseeable future. There is nothing more fundamental in the business of government than making sure the roads and bridges dont fall apart, and they are falling apart, Brown said. Glazer recently withheld his vote from a bill proposing a similar plan for repairing state bridges, roads and highways, and on Wednesday, a spokesman said he had still not committed to any plan but wanted to review the detailed proposal before taking a position. Construction workers at the rally held signs that pictured crumbling roads and said, Senator Glazer Fix This Now. Vote for SB 1. Brown said Glazer, his former senior advisor, does not disagree with the intent of the bill. He loves this plan, but he has another idea on his mind and he wants to marry the two and see if he can get some outcomes that I dont want to get into at this particular place, Brown told reporters. Sen. Jim Beall, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said Glazer wants the transportation funding bill to include a clause barring employees of Bay Area Rapid Transit from going on strike. Beall said that is a labor-relations issue that cannot be included in the bill raising taxes. You cant do that, Beall said. A spokesman for Glazer said the senator is still undecided on the bill. The senator is continuing to have conversations with the principals, said Steve Harmon, a spokesman for Glazer. He declined to comment on Bealls statement. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said there may be similar rallies in Los Angeles and Riverside in the coming days. Two other Democrats who have not yet committed to the plan are Riverside Sen. Richard Roth and Woodland Hills Sen. Henry Stern. Brown acknowledged that there is work to do to secure the two-thirds vote needed in both houses of the Legislature to raise the base excise tax on gasoline by 12 cents per gallon, to a total of 30 cents per gallon, and to create a new annual vehicle fee that would average $51 based on the value of the car or truck. Rendon said approval of the transportation bill would cost the average California motorist an extra $10 per month, which he said is a deal compared to the current cost of $720 in annual vehicle repair costs required because of running over potholes and other rough road conditions. Hoping to force a Senate vote on the package early next week, Brown was accompanied to the Concord news conference by Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles). They urged lawmakers to support the bill, which would generate $5.2 billion annually for the first 10 years for road and bridge repairs, mass transit improvements and other projects to reduce congestion. Glazer, known as a maverick in the Legislature, was Browns campaign manager during the 2010 gubernatorial election and remained a senior advisor to the governor before running for the state Senate in a special election in 2015. ---- 1:23 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from a representative for state Sen. Steve Glazer. This article was originally published at 12:42 p.m. Facebook

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Who will be Californias next governor? New poll shows Newsom leads with 1 in 3 voters undecided By Seema Mehta (Nick Ut / Associated Press) In the race to replace termed-out Gov. Jerry Brown, the largest number of voters in a new statewide poll does not favor a candidate in the race. About 1 in 3 voters said they were undecided, according to the survey by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. Among candidates who have entered the race, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom holds a strong lead with 28% of the vote, followed by Republican businessman John Cox with 18%, according to the poll, which was released Wednesday. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa clocks in at 11%, state Treasurer John Chiang at 8% and former state schools chief Delaine Eastin at 3%. Because the race is far away and public campaigning has not yet started in earnest, the poll could primarily be an indicator of name recognition. The field of candidates is also likely to grow. Newsom has several natural advantages: He was the first person to enter the race in 2015 and has a large fundraising edge. He has perhaps been the candidate most in the spotlight among the Democrats running, notably for his support of the marijuana legalization measure on the November ballot. Cox may have benefited from being the lone Republican in that version of the poll. Pollsters conducted a second version of the poll with five additional potential candidates, none of whom have announced a run for governor in 2018  San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon and former state Controller Steve Westly. Newsom still led the pack to come in at 24%. The two Republicans, Faulconer and Cox, tied at 11% each. Faulconer has said he does not plan to run for governor. Garcetti, Villaraigosa, Chiang, Steyer, De Leon, Westly and Eastin all placed in the single digits. Steyer and Westly have the personal wealth to self-fund a campaign, giving them time to decide whether to enter the race. Westly unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006, losing in the Democratic primary to state Treasurer Phil Angelides. In the 2018 contest, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary will move onto the November general election. The poll of 1,000 registered voters in California was conducted online in English and Spanish between March 13 and 20, and has a margin of error in either direction of 3.6%. Facebook

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California legislators team up to expand John Muir National Historic Site By Sarah D. Wire Californias senators and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) filed legislation Thursday to add 44 acres to the John Muir National Historic Site. The John Muir Heritage Land Trust has offered to donate the additional land to the National Park Service, which operates the site, and the bill would authorize the agency to accept the parcel. The time John Muir spent with his daughters at their scenic home and its neighboring property played a major role in launching the national parks movement. Expanding the existing park to preserve more of this history and beauty is a fitting tribute to Muirs legacy of protecting land for all to enjoy, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. Located about 30 miles east of San Francisco, the John Muir National Historic Site consists of Muirs Alhambra Valley home and 325 acres outside of Martinez. DeSaulnier said in a statement that expanding the property is a fitting celebration of his legacy, and will offer nature-goers greater access to enjoy the beauty of the East Bay. DeSaulnier sponsored the same bill last year, which passed the House unanimously but was not considered by the Senate. Feinstein and former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) carried the Senate version, which died after a committee hearing. Such bills often take a few attempts to pass, even without major opposition. Muirs writings helped inspire the creation of the National Park Service, starting with his lobbying of Congress to protect the Yosemite Valley from dams. He also was a founding member of the Sierra Club. Californians owe him a debt of gratitude, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said in a statement. Facebook

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Californias attorney general could investigate local police shootings under new legislation By Liam Dillon Attorney John Burris, center, comforts Robert and Deborah Mann, family members of Joseph Mann, who was killed by Sacramento Police in July, after a news conference on Oct. 3, 2016. (Rich Pedroncelli / AP) Californias attorney general could investigate local police shootings under a new bill authored by a Sacramento lawmaker. Democratic Assemblyman Kevin McCartys Assembly Bill 284 would allow local police departments or district attorneys to ask Atty. Gen. Xavier Becceras office to independently investigate police shootings of civilians. The legislation was prompted by high-profile police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in New York City and last summers police shooting of Joseph Mann, a mentally ill homeless man, in Sacramento, according to McCartys office. In all three cases, local prosecutors declined to charge the officers. There is a growing skepticism and a perceived conflict of interest, of the current process of local district attorneys investigating local police, said a fact sheet on the bill provided by McCartys office. Given that they work so closely, it is a valid question of whether this is the most transparent process for the public. There is a growing appetite, both at the national and local level, to create a better and more transparent system for [police shootings] that is fair to police, families, and the community in order to restore public trust. McCartys bill would make state investigations voluntary in these cases and would be implemented only if lawmakers also give Becceras office money to pay for the effort. In 2015, McCarty tried to pass legislation that would have made state investigations of local police shootings mandatory, but that bill failed to make it out of legislative committees. This year, lawmakers have generally scaled back prior efforts to change the states rules governing police discipline and transparency. Facebook

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Former offenders will help award millions in Proposition 47 grants to rehabilitate inmates By Jazmine Ulloa We have listened to law enforcement talk about how horrible Prop. 47 is, said Vonya Quarles, an advocate for the formerly incarcerated. Now we have a chance to help the people who are hurting. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)) California officials will begin the process this spring of awarding $103 million in grants to programs for inmates centered on rehabilitation, substance abuse and reentry into society. The efforts will be funded with dollars saved from prison spending under Proposition 47, the sweeping 2014 ballot measure that downgraded six drug and theft crimes to misdemeanors and allowed defendants to renegotiate their punishments. For the large coalition of criminal justice advocates that poured millions into getting the proposition passed and that has closely tracked its implementation, this is a long-awaited step. Other states have passed similar laws, but California is the only state to invest those savings into services meant to help people stay out of prison. On the executive committee helping award the grants are formerly incarcerated people who know the system from the inside. Read More Facebook

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What would single-payer healthcare look like in California? Lawmakers release new details By Melanie Mason Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A proposal in California for a single-payer healthcare system would dramatically expand the state governments presence in medical care and slash the role of insurance companies. New amendments released Thursday fill in some key details on the universal healthcare measure proposed by state Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), although the biggest political question  how it would be paid for  remains unanswered. Under the proposal, which was announced in February, the state would cover all medical expenses for every resident regardless of their income or immigration status, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency services, dental, vision, mental health and nursing home care. Insurers would be prohibited from offering benefits that cover the same services as the state. The program would eliminate co-pays and deductibles, and patients would not need to get referrals to see eligible providers. The system would be administered by an unpaid nine-person board appointed by the governor and the Legislature. A universal healthcare system run by the government has long been a dream of liberals, with many rallying behind insurgent Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposal for Medicare for all in the 2016 race. After a GOP effort to replace Obamacare stalled last week, Sanders said he intends to introduce a nationwide single-payer bill in the U.S. Senate. Proponents in California, who are no longer playing defense to preserve the Affordable Care Act, also touted a broader healthcare plan. With Republicans failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Californians really get what is at stake with their healthcare, Lara said in a statement. We have the chance to make universal healthcare a reality now. Its time to talk about how we get to healthcare for all that covers more and costs less. The cost  sure to be the biggest hurdle for the measure  so far remains unknown. The authors say they intend to pay for the program through broad-based revenue, but details of a funding proposal have not been hashed out. Gov. Jerry Brown sounded wary of a sprawling single-payer plan while speaking to reporters last week on his trip to Washington D.C. Where do you get the extra money? This is the whole question, Brown said. The bill is sponsored by the California Nurses Assn., which already has been rallying its members in support of the bill, SB 562. There has been a seismic shift in our political system through grassroots activism; we have an inspired, motivated base that will make its voice heard, RoseAnn DeMoro, the labor groups president, said in a statement. Facebook

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California backs San Francisco court challenge of Trump administration threat to withhold funds from sanctuary cities By Patrick McGreevy Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said Wednesday he has filed an amicus brief supporting San Franciscos court challenge to President Trumps order targeting so-called sanctuary cities and counties that refuse to enforce federal immigration laws. The move marks a half-dozen times the state has filed briefs supporting legal challenges to various Trump orders. Last week, Becerra filed papers supporting a lawsuit by Santa Clara County. That case and San Franciscos challenge the legality of the Trump administrations threats to withhold federal funds from states and local jurisdictions that the administration deems to be sanctuary jurisdictions. Becerras brief cites Californias interest in protecting state laws and policies that ensure public safety and protect the constitutional rights of its residents. Threatening to take away resources from sheriffs and police officers in order to promote misguided views on federal immigration policy is reckless and puts public safety at risk, Becerra said in a statement. It is the right and responsibility of California and each state under the Constitution to determine how it will provide for the safety and general welfare of its residents and to safeguard their constitutional rights. Facebook

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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti asks the federal government to define a sanctuary city By Sarah D. Wire View Instagram post Amid a new call from the Trump administration to cut off federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck had a question for the head of Homeland Security on Wednesday: What exactly is a sanctuary city? Garcetti and Beck joined a bipartisan handful of mayors and law enforcement leaders from across the country in Washington to air their concerns about President Trumps recent executive orders on immigration to Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. Los Angeles is among the jurisdictions  often called sanctuary cities  that dont assist with federal immigration enforcement. State and local leaders in California have said they will continue to protect people in the country illegally despite the Trump administrations threats. After the closed-door meeting, mayors and police chiefs said their main request for Kelly was for a firm definition of what the federal government considers a sanctuary city. We think that as long as were complying with federal law then we shouldnt be labeled with whatever label intimates that were not, Beck said. Were looking for clarification; we are looking to be involved in the conversation so that decisions arent made that affect us without our input. Homeland Security spokesman Dave Lapan said the department is working on a definition but does not have a timeline for when it would be finalized. Although there is no legal definition of the term, the administration has seemed to define sanctuary jurisdictions as ones that dont comply when Immigration and Customs Enforcement asks them to detain prisoners after they have served their sentences so they can be picked up for deportation. Multiple federal courts have said the detainer orders differ from an official warrant and are not legal justification for holding someone who has served his or her sentence or is no longer under arrest. Los Angeles is one of several cities in California that does not hold people for immigration officials without a warrant, and Garcetti said that is going to continue. We see it as abiding by the Constitution, because there is case law that says we cant hold people for longer than permitted, Garcetti said after the meeting. Lapan said the Department of Homeland Security is working on ways to address concerns about the legality of holding someone for immigration officials, as well as the concerns of mayors of cities that have laws instructing law enforcement officers not to comply with immigration officials. Part of having this discussion is to find out, How can we get around this? Lapan said. If we are dealing with a criminal alien, somebody who is both in the country unlawfully and has committed crimes, the best place for us to take them into custody is in a jail or prison. Thats the safest for everyone, both our officers and the communities. Garcetti also disputes the administrations assertion that it can withhold federal funds from cities that dont comply with ICE orders. Garcetti pointed to a 2012 Supreme Court decision that said the government couldnt withhold Medicaid funds if states chose not to expand access to the program under the Affordable Care Act. I think we all feel on very strong constitutional and legal footing that it was decided in the Obama administration you cant put a legal gun to the head, a financial gun to the head of jurisdictions, whether its states or localities, and take their money if you dont agree with what they are doing in a different area, he said. Garcetti invited Kelly to visit Los Angeles. We need to make sure that we also are showing the perspectives of everyday people in cities like Los Angeles, he said. Garcetti also attended California congressional Democrats weekly lunch and met privately with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) before appearing on an immigration panel hosted by House Democrats. Facebook

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Anti-discrimination measure or blow to religious freedom? California bill sparks debate on employer codes of conduct By Melanie Mason Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A measure that would bar employers from firing workers for having an abortion or giving birth to a child out of wedlock is getting pushback from religious groups who say such a bill would prevent them from requiring employees to act in accordance with their faith. Under the bill by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), employers would not be able to discipline or fire workers for any reproductive health decision, such as pregnancy, in-vitro fertilization or abortion. What this bill does is make sure that people can make the best healthcare decisions for themselves and for their families without the fear that theyll risk their livelihoods in doing so, Rebecca Griffin of NARAL Pro-Choice California, a sponsor of the measure, said at a Wednesday afternoon hearing at the Capitol. A teacher at a Christian college in San Diego was fired in 2012 for becoming pregnant while unmarried. The school said her pregnancy violated its employee code of conduct, which prohibited premarital sex. In 2015, San Francisco Archibishop Salvatore Cordileone sparked a backlash when he proposed a new morality clause in the faculty handbook and contract for local Catholic schools that opposed same-sex marriage and certain reproductive medical procedures. With employees being fired for code of conduct violations in other states, proponents said California should set an example for the country, Right now, while were facing a federal government that is attacking reproductive freedom at every turn and condoning the type of discrimination that this bill prohibits, we feel like this is the time for California to take a stand for our values and make sure that our workers have the best protections possible, Griffin said. But the proposal faces opposition from religious groups, who argue such codes of conduct are integral to the relationship with their workers. The bill would specifically deny religious employers our 1st Amendment protections to infuse our codes of conduct with the tenets of our faith, said Sandra Palacios of the California Catholic Conference. The reaction from religious groups was not uniformly negative. The Rev. Rick Schlosser, executive director of the California Council of Churches, which represents mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations, pointed to the diverse positions on reproductive issues among his groups members to explain his support for the bill. Any legislation that limits peoples ability to make their own moral decisions is harmful to religious freedom, said Schlosser. But other religious groups said the measure threatened to undermine the very purpose of requiring their employees to abide by a code of conduct. An organization specifically chartered to support or oppose a specific set of beliefs or actions cannot fulfill its mission without requiring adherence to a code of conduct, wrote Jonathan Keller, president of the conservative California Family Council, in an opposition letter. Assemblyman Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) asked why such codes of conduct should govern a personal decision an employee makes out of the workplace. Our community covenant does say that our employees are required to uphold our biblical values, and that certainly is a round-the-clock priority for us, responded Phillip Escamilla, the public policy chair of William Jessup University, a Sacramento-area evangelical Christian college Gonzalez Fletcher, herself a practicing Catholic, said she was not trying to unfairly target religious institutions. But, she said, she was trying to combat an inherent sexism that comes with enforcing such codes of conduct. A female employees reproductive decisions  such as entering an abortion clinic or being pregnant out of wedlock  can be seen by her employer, Gonzalez Fletcher said. A males decisions to whether or not theyre going to abide by a conduct never rise to that level, she said. So that inherent difference in how women and men are treated with these types of decisions just show how little privacy women are able to maintain. The bill, AB 569, cleared the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, its first legislative threshold, on a 4-2 vote. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown, legislative leaders propose raising $5.2 billion annually to repair Californias roads and bridges By Patrick McGreevy (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) Acknowledging that the states transportation system has been neglected, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders on Wednesday announced a proposal to raise gas taxes and vehicle fees to generate more than $5 billion annually for repairing Californias crumbling system of streets, highways and bridges, as well as to increase mass transit. It remains uncertain whether Brown will be able to muster the two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature needed to approve the new revenue sources, which include a 12-cent-per-gallon increase in the existing 18-cent base excise tax on gasoline. The package also includes a new, annual vehicle fee that would average about $48 based on the value of the car. The package was announced at a news conference on the Capitol steps attended by Brown, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles). California has not approved an increase in the base excise tax on gas for 23 years, according to Brian Kelly, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency. As a result, the state faces a $130-billion backlog of repairs to state highways and bridges and local streets. There is sizable money here to make things better, Kelly said. People are going to get improved neighborhood streets. They are going to get improved highways and bridges, more faith that they are traveling on safe structures. And we are going to invest to improve the congestion into our trade corridors and congestion on their commute. Assembly and Senate Republicans released a joint statement opposing the plan. Californians already pay some of the highest gas taxes in the nation, the statement said. The transportation proposal announced by the Capitol Democrats is a costly and burdensome plan that forces ordinary Californians to bail out Sacramento for years of neglecting our roads. Brown has set a deadline of April 6, the day before the Legislature leaves on its spring break, to have the new package voted on by lawmakers. Because Republicans have generally opposed the tax increases, the package may need the vote of every Democrat to get the two-thirds majority for passage. Three Democratic senators had been holding off their support before the new plan was released. Read More Facebook

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Election officials say mistake on Korean language ballots substantially smaller than previously thought By Christine Mai-Duc (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles County election officials say a mistake made on Korean-language sample ballots in the upcoming 34th Congressional District race likely affected fewer than 780 voters. The error, which listed the races 23 candidates in the wrong order on some Korean-language sample ballots, was discovered last week after Korean American voters pointed out their mail-in ballot materials looked different than English-language sample ballots sent to the same home or apartment building. Initially, election officials said they didnt know how widespread the problem was. As a precaution, they sent bilingual notices and corrected sample ballots to all 8,251 voters in the district who received Korean-language sample ballots. None of the sample ballots enclosed with actual mail-in ballots were affected, officials say. In a letter to election officials and L.A. County supervisors Tuesday, the Korean American Coalition called it a violation of federally protected voting rights. The letter asked officials to host a 24-hour hotline for Korean-speaking voters until election day, provide more information on the scope of the error and extend the mail-in voting deadline for those who had received the misprinted ballots. In a response sent Wednesday morning, County Registrar Dean Logan said the error was limited to a small number of sample ballots in a single print run of 777 sample ballots. Based on the agencys review, Logan wrote, it appears that substantially fewer than the 777 voters were affected. The registrars office says it is extending the hours of operation for its voter hotline and staffing it with Korean-speaking operators. Voters concerned that they may have been affected can call 1-800-815-2666 and select option 3 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. this weekend. Voters will also see additional signage at polls addressing the issue and Korean-speaking poll workers will be instructed to remind voters to check their ballots. Facebook

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Talks at Capitol focus on boosting California transportation funding by some $5.2 billion annually By Patrick McGreevy On Highway 1 in Big Sur, the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge has buckled, cutting off a community of hundreds from schools and isolating renowned businesses from customer traffic. (Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times) With a deadline looming, Gov. Jerry Brown is winding up negotiations with legislators in hopes of reaching an agreement on a plan that would provide at least $5.2 billion annually for a transportation backlog that includes repairing Californias aging and crumbling system of streets, highways and bridges, officials said Tuesday. Those close to the talks said an agreement on the package could be announced as early as Wednesday afternoon. The question remains whether Brown and leaders can muster the two-thirds vote needed to approve a phased-in gas tax increase of up to 12 cents by the April 6 deadline set by the governor. Key senators remained uncommitted to any plan as of Tuesday. And a new voter-approved rule requires a bill to be in print for 72 hours before it can be passed. The bill needs approval in both houses. Assembly Democrats were briefed on the evolving plan behind closed doors on Tuesday and some officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, said talks are progressing on a plan that would provide the bulk of money to a fix-it first program of road repairs divided evenly between state projects and those of cities and counties. Money would also be dedicated to mass transit, bicycle, pedestrian and trucking routs for ports. The proposal also would include reforms proposed by lawmakers, including Republicans, that would hold officials accountable for proper use of the money, including a requirement for regular audits, creation of an inspector general position and a ballot measure requiring new money to be spent on transportation projects. Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) authored a bill that would put a measure on the ballot, saying Tuesday such guarantees are required given the urgency of the deferred maintenance backlog, and the additional burden we are asking Californias taxpayers to carry. John Myers contributed to this report. Facebook

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Watch: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director attends community meeting in Sacramento Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown calls for countermovement against Trumps colossal mistake on climate change By Evan Halper California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a colossal mistake in gutting the federal governments effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle. It defies science itself, Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States leadership on global warming. Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trumps mind, but nowhere else. Yes, there is going to be a countermovement, Brown vowed, predicting Trumps actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trumps outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force. Things have been a bit tepid [in climate activism]. But this conflict, this sharpening of the contradiction, will energize those who believe climate change is an existential threat. Brown and other big-state governors and mayors are moving swiftly to fill the global leadership vacuum Trump created with Tuesdays directive, which stops short of officially pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord of 2015. I see Washington declining in influence, but the momentum being maintained by California and other states aligned with China and those who are willing to do something, said Brown, who will be traveling to China soon for meetings on climate. There is a growing activism on the part of millions of people who will not stand by and let Donald Trump effectively tear up the Paris agreement and destroy Americas climate leadership and jeopardize the health and well-being of so many people. In the face of Trumps retreat on climate change, Brown said California will step up its own efforts to push others toward clean energy. We are not fully meeting the challenge of climate change yet, he said. We are doubling down on our commitment. We are reaching out to other states in America and throughout the world and other countries.  We have plenty of fuel to build this movement. This is real, Brown said of the threat created by climate change. The nations of the world have recognized it in Paris.  I will continue doing my best to work with and rouse the world community, whatever the politicians in Washington do or dont do. Facebook

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California and its allies hint at new legal battles over Clean Power Plan By Chris Megerian California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) President Trumps effort to roll back the Clean Power Plan could quickly run into legal challenges from California and its allies across the country. State Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and his counterparts from states including New York, Massachusetts and Oregon said they wont hesitate to protect those we serve  including by aggressively opposing [Trumps actions] in court. The joint statement was also issued by Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and other cities. Californias stance isnt surprising because the state joined Obama administration efforts to defend the Clean Power Plan in 2015. Further legal action could underscore the determination of local and state governments to push forward with fighting climate change even as Trump withdraws federal regulations. Read More Facebook

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Meeting climate change goals will require billions for transportation and housing improvements, reports say By Liam Dillon A major push to get Californians out of their cars and onto their feet, bikes and public transit is essential if the state wants to meet its aggressive goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, according to new reports from the state and UC Berkeley researchers. Californians will have to drive an average of 1.6 miles less a day  and regional government agencies believe it will cost billions of dollars to make the mass transit and housing improvements needed for that to happen. UC Berkeley researchers argue in a new study that a boom in dense housing across the state will bring major greenhouse gas reductions and economic growth. Read More Facebook

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California expects to be unscathed as Trump targets Clean Power Plan By Chris Megerian A solar farm in Kern County (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) Although Californias leaders may protest President Trumps announcement Tuesday that hes scrapping the Clean Power Plan, his decision is expected to have little effect on a state already marching toward renewable energy. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in the Golden State are already below what the federal government would have required by 2030, and theyre expected to drop even further. Rollback of the Clean Power Plan is pretty much irrelevant to California, said Frank Wolak, a Stanford University economist who has advised state leaders on climate regulations. The federal rules, enacted by former President Obama as part of his campaign against climate change, were intended to push states away from coal and toward cleaner energy sources. But that was already underway in California. Los Angeles, one of the last places in the state to rely on coal, was already planning to stop importing electricity from out-of-state coal plants by 2025. In addition, state law requires California to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2030, and state Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) has suggested pushing even further. When it comes to fighting pollution and climate change, there are some areas where California relies on the federal government. For example, they share authority on regulating vehicle emissions, and Trumps preparation to roll back federal rules has caused alarm here. However, theres less of a concern when it comes to generating electricity. Trumps moves have caused some anxiety among California companies that are developing clean energy technologies and looking for new markets to sell them. Bob Keefe, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs, said the Clean Power Plan would have been a huge economic catalyst. President Trump is basically telling Californias more than 40,000 clean-energy businesses and the 500,000 workers they employ that they dont matter to him, he said. Rail cars filled with coal in Wyoming (Ryan Dorgan / Associated Press) Its an open question how Trump could affect various efforts for California to integrate its electricity grid with neighboring states, an idea that has failed to gain traction so far. Advocates of the concept say regional cooperation could expand the market for renewable energy, but the lack of federal pressure to cut emissions could dampen enthusiasm in places such as Utah and Wyoming, which rely on coal. They dont have the Clean Power Plan bearing down on them, said Don Furman, who directs the Fix the Grid campaign thats seeking closer relationships among West Coast states. Ralph Cavanagh, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he doesnt expect changes to the Clean Power Plan to harm efforts to create a regional electricity grid, because of the falling cost of renewable energy. The rationale is stronger today than it was yesterday, he said. Facebook

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California GOP lawmakers introduce bills to boost healthcare and jobs for veterans By Liam Dillon Sen. Janet Nguyen (R-Garden Grove) speaks at a press conference introducing a package of bills aimed at helping California veterans. (Liam Dillon / Los Angeles Times) Republican state lawmakers unveiled a package of six bills Tuesday aimed at improving job training and healthcare services for California veterans. Our veterans have served this country bravely and it is only right for us to recognize their contribution and see that when they do come home they receive the care and assistance they deserve, said state Sen. Janet Nguyen of Garden Grove, who authored three of the measures. The six bills are: Senate Bill 410 from Nguyen and Assembly Bill 353 from Assemblyman Randy Voepel of Santee, which would expand hiring preferences. for veterans.

SB 409 from Nguyen and SB 485 from state Sen. Jim Nielsen of Gerber, which would increase mental health services and oversight at state veterans homes.

SB 411 from Nguyen, which would pay some military reservists $100 a month once they turn 50 if theyve served for 10 years or more.

SB 197 from Sen. Pat Bates of Laguna Niguel, which would waive state and local sales taxes for nonprofits that donate facilities to the U.S. Department of Defense  a measure aimed at helping construction of a mental health care facility at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. Facebook

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These Los Angeles girls went to Capitol Hill to ask the Senate to fight new immigration enforcement efforts By Sarah D. Wire Fatima, left, and Yuleni Avelica, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) during a news conference on Capitol Hill. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images) Fatima Avelica, 13, was training for the Los Angeles Marathon with her father before he was arrested by immigration agents last month after dropping Fatimas sister off at her Lincoln Heights school. Fatima had to pause repeatedly, pressing her fingers to her eyes, as she told the story to reporters at a news conference in the Capitol on Tuesday. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) handed handkerchiefs to Fatima and her sister Yuleni Avelica, 12. The girls had medals from completing the marathon dangling around their necks. Democratic senators held the news conference to urge their Senate colleagues to reject President Trumps request for $3 billion to hire thousands of new immigration agents, expand detention facilities and build a wall among the southern border as part of his pledge to deport millions of people in the country illegally. The White House has characterized the moves as necessary for public safety. Californias Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris said Trumps immigration enforcement orders are too broad, sweeping up nonviolent offenders or people accused of the civil offense of being in the country illegally. She called the executive orders, which vastly broadened who can be targeted for deportation and leaves a lot of discretion to local immigration officials misguided and misinformed. Its irresponsible to paint a whole population of people as racists and murderers and bad hombres, she said, referencing one of Trumps own lines about immigrants. Its actually ignorant and we cant afford to run our country that way. The girls father, Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, a Mexican citizen, has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. ICE officials cited two misdemeanor convictions as the reason for his arrest. His four daughters were all born in the U.S. Fatima said the family is waiting for word every day on whether he will be deported. Fatima said she now wants to become an immigration lawyer. Its like a new marathon for me, and I know I can finish it, Fatima said, tears welling up again. But, I need my coach there. I need my dad. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blast President Trump on climate change By Chris Megerian California Gov. Jerry Brown (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gov. Jerry Brown joined with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday to criticize President Trumps pending announcement to roll back climate regulations and insist that their states will push forward anyway. Dismantling the Clean Power Plan and other critical climate programs is profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science, they said in a joint statement. With this move, the Administration will endanger public health, our environment and our economic prosperity. Brown and Cuomo represent the two largest states with the most ambitious goals for fighting global warming, and theyve already set equivalent targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Theyre also pushing to generate half of all their electricity from renewable sources by 2030. With or without Washington, we will work with our partners throughout the world to aggressively fight climate change and protect our future, Brown and Cuomo said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (Spencer Platt / Getty Images) Facebook

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To stem rising prices, a California lawmaker is taking on how hospital chains craft their contracts By Melanie Mason Amid concern that sprawling hospital chains are leading to higher prices, a California state senator is trying to clamp down on how hospital networks craft their contracts to win market dominance. Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel) is offering a measure that would prohibit hospitals from certain contracting practices he sees as anti-competitive, such as requiring health plans to contract with all affiliates of the hospital or mandating that health plans agree to binding arbitration for antitrust claims. Weve lost a level of transparency thats affected affordability and access and fairness, Monning said in an interview. Multi-hospital chains are becoming prominent throughout the country, with proponents saying such mergers make care more efficient and better coordinated. But a recent USC study found that while hospital prices in California have grown overall, the costs are higher in the states largest chains. Once you control a market, you can artificially increase costs, said Monning, adding those higher prices can spill over to neighboring hospitals, too. Competitors think if they can charge this much for a hip replacement, were going to as well, Monning said. Another study by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute found premiums in Northern California were 30% higher than those in Southern California, in part because of the dominance of a few healthcare systems in the north. Micah Weinberg, the institutes president, said hospital consolidation was a logical issue to look at, particularly because healthcare coverage expansion under the Affordable Care Act is now under less threat from Congress following the failure of the House Republicans replacement bill. We have to double down on the real work, which is getting people access to quality healthcare and affordable costs, said Weinberg. One of the biggest barriers to that is the lack of competition among healthcare providers. Weinberg said much of the question is a matter of federal antitrust enforcement. Its really difficult to do things at the state level that are effective here, he said. Still, consolidation has increasingly come under scrutiny in California. The state attorney generals office under Kamala Harris, now serving as U.S. senator, investigated consolidation of hospital and physician groups, and the effect on consumer prices. Last year, the healthcare trust for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, sued Sutter Health, alleging antitrust violations. The Pacific Business Group on Health, an organization that represents major companies such as Wells Fargo and Chevron, also raised alarms on Sutters requirement that firms use arbitration to resolve disputes--or face higher rates for Sutters healthcare services. The business group is a supporter of Monnings bill, as well as the California Labor Federation. The California Hospital Assn. has not taken a position on the bill. ------------ FOR THE RECORD March 29, 2017, 1:52 p.m.: A previous version of this article reported that the Pacific Group on Health sued Sutter Health. The United Food and Commercial Workers healthcare trust filed the suit. Facebook

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Los Angeles assemblyman returns to work in Sacramento after more than two-week absence By Melanie Mason Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) After more than two weeks away from the state Capitol, Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) was back at work Monday, with his staff blaming the absence on unspecified medical reasons. Im not going to comment on what the illness was, said his chief of staff, Darryl Lucien, who added that the legislator was feeling better Monday. Ridley-Thomas, 29, was not available for an interview to discuss his absence. He originally went on leave March 7. At the time, he did not specify an illness and so Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendons office considered him to be on personal leave. Under legislative rules, those absences did not allow him to receive per diem payments  a subsidy intended to offset the costs of traveling and living in Sacramento. On March 21, he informed Rendons office that he was on medical leave, thus becoming eligible for the $183 per diem. Lucien said the original personal leave request was an error and that all of Ridley-Thomas time away from work was for health reasons. Its medical leave, Lucien said. He has a doctors note that was submitted, excusing him for the time he was out. Ridley-Thomas was not entirely absent from legislative work during that time. While on leave, he yanked one high-profile piece of legislation  a measure that would exempt tampons and other feminine hygiene products from sales tax  from a hearing in the Assembly Revenue and Taxation committee, which he chairs. The bills author, Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), said she spoke directly to Ridley-Thomas about a request to amend her bill days before that committee hearing. Lucien said Ridley-Thomas was working on a very limited basis, fielding calls from members to the extent he was able to speak with them. A fellow Democrat, Assemblyman Bill Quirk of Hayward, stepped in to chair the Revenue and Taxation panel during a March 13 hearing. A subsequent hearing on March 20 was canceled. Facebook

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Adam Schiff calls on Devin Nunes to remove himself from Russia investigation By Sarah D. Wire Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) on Monday urged fellow Californian Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) to remove himself from their investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Before late last week, Schiff had gone out of his way not to be critical of Nunes throughout the fledgling investigation. They have held the top positions on the House Intelligence Committee for two years, and have served in Congress together for more than a decade. This is not a recommendation I make lightly, as the Chairman and I have worked together well for several years; and I take this step with the knowledge of the solemn responsibility we have on the Intelligence Committee to provide oversight on all intelligence matters, not just to conduct the investigation, Schiff said in a statement. After much consideration I believe Chairman should recuse himself from involvement in investigation/oversight of Trump campaign & transition pic.twitter.com/jpfA1x80Si  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 27, 2017 Nunes last week surprised many when he told reporters that conversations between Trump and his transition team may have been accidentally picked up during legal intelligence gathering. Nunes briefed the media and President Trump before informing his committee. A spokesman for Nunes, who was a member of Trumps transition team, said Monday he obtained the information from a source on White House grounds, which raised even more questions. Nearly a week after Nunes announcement, committee members still havent seen the evidence, Schiff said. There was no legitimate justification for bringing that information to the White House instead of the committee. That it was also obtained at the White House makes this departure all the more concerning, Schiff said. Nunes spokesman would not comment on calls for the chairman to recuse himself. House Democrats have called for an entirely independent investigation, but short of that were coalescing around the call for Nunes to step aside. Among others, Schiffs Intelligence Committee colleagues Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) and Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) have also called for Nunes to step aside from the investigation. The House and Senate intelligence committees are both investigating allegations that Russia tried to interfere with the presidential election and what, if anything, the Trump campaign knew about it. So far, too many people in the White House and administration, and now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have betrayed their duty to conduct an independent, bipartisan inquiry into the Trump teams ties with Russia, Swalwell said in a statement. Chairman Nunes should no longer be anywhere near this investigation, let alone leading it. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in a statement that Nunes had tarnished the chairmanship. She also said it was long overdue for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to ask him to recuse himself from the investigation. Facebook

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Blasting federal action on immigration, Californias chief justice warns the rule of law is under threat By Patrick McGreevy California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye warned Monday that the rule of law in state is under threat. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye did not mention President Trump by name in her annual State of the Judiciary speech Monday, but she blasted federal actions on immigration and warned that the rule of law in the state is under threat. In addressing the Legislature, she also called on members to end years of underfunding of the state court system. The chief justice said the rule of law has failed repeatedly in the state, including when her husbands parents were among 120,000 Japanese Americans put in internment camps during World War II. Simply put, the rule of law means that we as a people are governed by laws and rules, not by a monarch, she said. People take the rule of law for granted until it is under threat, she added. I submit to you today that the rule of law is being challenged, she said. We are living in a time of civil rights unrest, eroding trust in our institutions, economic anxiety and unprecedented polarization. Cantil-Sakauye cited a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center that California was home to 79 ethnic hate groups  more than any other state. Our values and our rules and laws are being called into question, and all three branches of government and the free press are in the crosshairs, she said. Without naming Trump, the chief justice criticized recent federal enforcement of immigration laws in which agents have gone into courthouses to take immigrants into custody. She said it was concern over the rule of law that caused her to write to the U.S. attorney general and the Homeland Security secretary recently, asking them to refrain from conducting immigration raids at or near courthouses. When we hear of immigration arrests and the fear of immigration arrests in our state courthouses, I am concerned that that kind of information trickles down into the community, the schools, the churches. The families and people will no longer come to court to protect themselves or cooperate or bear witness, she said. I am afraid that will be the end of justice and communities will be less safe and victimization will continue. The chief justice also repeated her concerns about the lack of sufficient funding for the judiciary even as legislators are adding laws by the thousands. Since 2011 when I became chief justice, 6,408 bills have become law in California, while the judicial branch budget has been shrinking, Cantil-Sakauye said. I have said before that we are on the wrong side of justice when it comes to funding our courts. Facebook

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Its not just Berniecrats: Korean voters could also swing L.A.'s congressional race in a big way By Christine Mai-Duc Robert Lee Ahn, center, is the only Korean American candidate running in a field dominated by Latinos in the 34th Congressional District race. (Christine Mai-Duc / Los Angeles Times) The crowded race to replace Xavier Becerra in the 34th Congressional District, which includes most of Los Angeles Koreatown, appears to be bringing Korean American voters out in large numbers. Thats in part because in a field dominated by Latinos, Robert Lee Ahn has a shot at becoming the only Korean American in Congress and the first Korean American Democrat to be elected to the body. Ahn, a businessman and former L.A. city planning commissioner, has raised a formidable amount of money in a short period of time, much of it from donors in the Korean American community. His campaign spent weeks helping register voters at Koreatown malls and restaurants, and says they registered more than 600 new voters so far. Part of our campaign is to build awareness and get the community more civically engaged, Ahn said on a recent Friday morning as his campaign embarked on a 34-hour voter registration drive outside the BCD Tofu House restaurant. As a Korean American, obviously thats a natural base of mine. Inside, Ahn shook hands with supporters and navigated the lunchtime rush to ask for voters support table side. Some of it may be paying off. More than a quarter of the 10,841 mail-in ballots turned in for the race so far were cast by Korean American voters, according to an analysis of surnames, birthplace and translated ballot materials by Political Data. Koreans make up just 6% of registered voters in the district. Nearly half of Korean American voters who have already cast a ballot in the race did not vote in the March 7 city elections. Ahn, who has said hell bring a business sensibility and common sense to the office, says he has been running a campaign that reaches out to all kinds of voters. But the fact that there hasnt been a Korean American in Congress for more than 20 years means his candidacy has gotten plenty of attention from the Korean American press. I think people recognize the importance and historic nature of this election, Ahn said. I think theres a hunger for a voice ... and theres a palpable frustration of not being heard, not being properly represented, and I think thats what were seeing in the early returns. But the result of those early votes so far is unclear, particularly after elections officials disclosed that a number of Korean-language sample ballots had been misprinted with the candidates listed in the wrong order. Those who used the faulty sample ballots to cast their vote could have inadvertently voted for a candidate they didnt intend to support, and officials still dont know how widespread the problem is. Ahn isnt the only Korean American candidate to energize the community in recent years. David Ryu, the first Korean American elected to the L.A. City Council, rode to victory in 2015 with the help of a wave of support from Koreatown leaders. I believe a political awakening is occurring in the Korean American community all over the nation, but especially here in L.A., said Joon Bang, executive director of the Korean American Coalition. Our community is evolving and its beginning with understanding the power of their vote. Facebook

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Nothing short of blackmail: California Senate leader denounces plan to cut funding from sanctuary cities By Jazmine Ulloa California Senate Leader Kevin de Leon. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Senate leader Kevin de Leon on Monday called U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions move to cut federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities nothing short of blackmail. In a statement, De Leon (D-Los Angeles) said Sessions and the Trump administration stuck to alternative facts when describing immigrants and sanctuary counties and cities, where local policies limit the cooperation of law enforcement agencies with federal authorities on immigration laws. Instead of making us safer, the Trump administration is spreading fear and promoting race-based scapegoating, he said. Their gun-to-the-head method to force resistant cities and counties to participate in Trumps inhumane and counterproductive mass-deportation is unconstitutional and will fail. De Leon was responding to an earlier announcement made by Sessions at a White House press briefing. Sessions urged all states and local jurisdictions to comply with federal immigration laws and said it would be a condition for receiving federal grants. Jeff Sessions: "countless Americans would be alive today. And countless loved ones would not be grieving" if sanctuary cities were ended. pic.twitter.com/sEgH3bvPwi  BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 27, 2017 State leaders are still calculating the fiscal impact of the move in California, where the Senate leader has filed a bill that would prevent state and local law enforcement agencies from using resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Data shows sanctuary counties have lower crime rates than comparable nonsanctuary counties #SB54 https://t.co/rKZDsB8x8E  Kevin de Len (@kdeleon) March 27, 2017 Facebook

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California National Guard official tells legislators forced bonus repayments will be resolved by mid-summer By Melanie Mason A top official for the California National Guard told state legislators Monday that he hopes lingering issues from the soldiers being forced to repay enlistment bonuses will be resolved by mid-summer. A Times investigation last year found that the Pentagon demanded thousands of soldiers repay enlistment bonuses up to a decade after going to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. The claw-back came after audits revealed vast overpayments of bonuses, due in part to mismanagement and pressure to hit enlistment targets. The Times story prompted outcry that soldiers, who were not at fault for accepting the bonuses, were now facing financial hardship. Matthew Beevers, the deputy adjutant for the California National Guard, told a joint hearing of the Senate and Assembly Veterans Affairs committees that just over 1,000 soldiers currently hold debt due to the bonus recoupment. Soldiers who are affected by the repayment demand must go through a federal waiver adjudication process, which Beevers described as unnecessarily long, complex and resource-intensive. He said the state-run Soldier Incentives Assistance Center was working with those who need to navigate the complex process to get those debts waived. "[If] you got a bonus and you completed your obligation and for some reason, you werent entitled to it, weve done everything we can do ensure that those soldiers get to keep those bonuses and we continue to do that today, Beevers said. Beevers said the state is trying to locate all soldiers who may be carrying debts due to the enlistment bonus. For those who complete the federal adjudication process, around 50% get their debts waived, he said. At the end of the day, there might be 600 or so soldiers out of 16,000 who might have to pay money, which is a very very small number, he said. Facebook

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Former California legislator Henry Perea will lobby for the oil industry in Sacramento By Chris Megerian (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) As lawmakers debate the future of Californias climate policies, the oil industry is boosting its lobbying firepower with a former Democratic assemblyman from Fresno who has bedeviled environmentalists in the past. Henry Perea resigned his Assembly seat to work for a pharmaceutical group. Now hes jumping to the Western States Petroleum Assn. as a senior vice president, a role hes scheduled to start on May 1. Henry brings us unique expertise, said a statement from Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the associations president. He understands our state, our industry and how smart public policy can ensure Californias continued leadership in environmental protections while maintaining a diverse, vibrant economy. While serving in the Assembly, Perea led the so-called moderate caucus of business-friendly Democrats. He played a key role in stalling 2015 legislation that would have created tough new targets for reducing oil consumption. Environmentalists have made progress since then, successfully pushing through legislation to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Now these issues are being debated again as lawmakers consider whether to extend the states cap-and-trade program, which is intended to provide a financial incentive to reduce emissions. The oil industry supports extending the program, but its working to ensure favorable terms and to loosen the states other regulatory plans. Facebook

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Democrats out with ads targeting Rep. Mimi Walters for supporting GOP healthcare bill By Sarah D. Wire Republicans didnt vote on their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act on Friday, but Democrats already have ads out criticizing vulnerable GOP House members like Rep. Mimi Walters of Irvine for backing the bill. The Internet ads, paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, will target 14 Republicans who voted for the bill in the House Budget, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce committees. The ads will run for at least a week on social media sites, including Facebook and Instagram. Walters knowingly voted for a bill to raise premiums and deductibles, slap an age tax on older folks, and rip insurance away from 24 million hardworking Americans. Its critical that voters in Californias 45th District know where Walters stood on this harmful legislation, DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Lujan said in a statement. Walters, who serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, was one of the earliest supporters of the bill among the California Republican delegation. Rep. Walters is committed to improving and expanding healthcare choices, lowering costs and protecting taxpayers. Her votes in the House reflect those principles and she will not be deterred by campaign ads created in Washington, D.C., by Nancy Pelosis political committees, said her campaign consultant, Dave Gilliard. The DCCC has already announced plans to target Republican representatives of the seven California congressional districts that backed Hillary Clinton for president. Clinton won Walters Orange County district by 5 percentage points. Walters was elected for a second term with 58.6% of the vote. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown says California wont be running to the courthouse every day to fight President Trump By John Myers With many of his fellow Democrats demanding multiple challenges to President Trumps proposals, Gov. Jerry Brown said this week he will continue to support a more measured approach. Were going to fight very hard. But were not going to bring stupid lawsuits or be running to the courthouse every day, Brown said during an appearance Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press. Were going to be careful. Well be strategic. The governors interview, taped on Thursday in Washington, came at the end of a four-day visit where he sought common ground on issues ranging from transportation to disaster relief. Brown also took aim in a visit to Capitol Hill at the now-failed Republican healthcare proposal. In the interview, Brown acknowledged that he is seeking a different path forward than Californias legislative leaders and other Democrats who are aggressively pushing back on a variety of Trump proposals. Well, if everythings a lawsuit, yeah, were in trouble here. I do curb the exuberance on either side, he said. People like to escalate. Republicans do that, and Democrats also do that. So Im there somewhat as the senior statesman now, and Im going to keep everything on an even keel. The governor used the national television interview to repeat recent suggestions that California has a number of projects that are ready to go should Trump make good on his promises to fund a major infrastructure effort. But Brown staunchly defended Californias acceptance of immigrants, including those who are in the U.S. illegally. He argued that immigration has been a major boon to the states economy and invoked the teachings of Christianity to criticize Trump and his fellow Republicans. Trumps supposed to be Mr. Religious Fellow, and I thought weve got to treat the least of these as we would treat the Lord, said Brown, who trained to become a Jesuit priest in his youth. So I hope he would reconnect with some of these conservative evangelicals, and theyll tell him that these are human beings, theyre children of God. They should be treated that way. The programs host, Chuck Todd, asked Brown whether he could offer national leadership for Democrats in the Trump era. The governor, who ran unsuccessfully for president three times, said he was willing to speak out in any way he could be helpful. Following last weeks historic defeat of a bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, Brown also offered Trump advice on how to help the economically struggling states whose voters put him in the White House. Its going to take some income support from the federal government, the governor said. Its going to take healthcare. Its going to take the kind of programs that the Republican Party traditionally doesnt like. So heres the dilemma. Yes, Obama was not able to help those people in the way they felt they had a right to. But Mr. Trump, now the burden is on you. And you better figure it out, or youre not going to be there again. Facebook

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Small donations play big role in the 34th Congressional District By Christine Mai-Duc Congressional candidate Kenneth Mejia raised 90% of his money from small donors in the most recent campaign finance filing. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) More than 17% of individual contributions to all candidates in the 34th Congressional District came in small donations of less than $200, according to the latest campaign finance reports. The reports, which cover fundraising and spending between Jan. 1 and March 15, show that more than $250,000 of the $1.4 million raised by the candidates in the race came from un-itemized small donors, or those who gave less than $200 and are not named in campaign finance reports. Three candidates who raised a significant chunk of money from small donations were Arturo Carmona, Wendy Carrillo and Kenneth Mejia, all of whom are vying for votes from supporters of former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has preached the need to rid politics of special interest money. Many of the candidates have sent email pitches to supporters asking for donations of $10, $20 or $27, the amount made famous by Sanders, who often cited the number as the average donation given to his presidential campaign. Carmona, a former Sanders campaign advisor, raised the most in small donations, with $57,125, or 52% of his total. Small donors gave Carrillo $25,948, about 32% of her fundraising total and Mejia, an accountant and Green Party candidate, received nearly 90% of his total funds, or $31,957, in amounts of $200 or less. Federal law does not require candidates to itemize, or report the names of, donors who give below that amount. Alejandra Campoverdi raised $44,210 from small donors, who made up 28% of her haul, while Raymond Meza raised 48%, or $14,764 of his money from small-dollar contributions. UPDATE: 7:45 p.m. This post was updated to clarify that the numbers reported are based on un-itemized donations of $200 or less to candidates. Facebook

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Robert Lee Ahn raised the most money by far in latest campaign finance reports for L.A.'s congressional race By Christine Mai-Duc Robert Lee Ahn, left, and Vanessa Aramayo, second from left, join the other candidates for the 34th Congressional District. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles TImes) Congressional candidate Robert Lee Ahn far outstripped some of the top fundraisers in the 34th Congressional District, taking a surprise lead in campaign finance reports filed Thursday. The reports cover fundraising and spending between Jan. 1 and March 15 and will be the last numbers well have before the April 4 primary election, in which 24 candidates are running. Ahn, a former L.A. city planning commissioner, raised a whopping $338,702 in contributions and loaned himself an additional $295,000, bringing his total to more than $630,000 raised since January. Ahn, an attorney and the only Korean American candidate in the race for a district that includes Koreatown, got more than $100,000 in contributions from donors with Korean surnames. The closest behind Ahn was Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, who raised $244,766 over the same period, the majority of it from political action committees, including many donations from fellow legislators in Sacramento. Sara Hernandez, a former teacher and L.A. City Hall aide, was close behind Gomez with $224,783 raised. Alejandra Campoverdi, a former White House staffer and former Los Angeles Times employee, raised $156,432. Ahn has also spent the most money so far this year, at $352,538, and has $271,271 in the bank, more than any other candidate. Gomez ended the period with $274,830 cash on hand, while Hernandez and Campoverdi have $149,990 and $122,961 left to spend, respectively. Facebook

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Dispute in California Senate leads to ethics complaint against leader Kevin de Leon By Patrick McGreevy Then-state Sen. Isadore Hall III, left, talks with Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon in Sacramento last year. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Republican state Sen. Andy Vidak on Friday filed an ethics complaint asking for an investigation into whether Democratic Senate leader Kevin de Leon engaged in an improper cover-up of threats allegedly made by former state Sen. Isadore Hall III against a group of farmers. Anthony Reyes, a spokesman for De Leon, defended the decision not to investigate allegations against Hall. With due respect, the state Senate doesnt waste taxpayer resources investigating dubious hearsay accounts of private conversations held in hotel lobbies  and thats what Senator De Leon clearly and politely communicated to Senator Vidak, Reyes said. Any suggestion otherwise is patently ridiculous. Hall, a Democrat from Compton, was appointed in January to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board by Gov. Jerry Brown. The appointment was opposed by farm industry groups, including the Western Growers Assn., which complained he received contributions from the United Farm Workers for his unsuccessful campaign for Congress last year. Vidak said that he had heard from multiple people that on Feb. 28, the evening before Halls confirmation hearing in the Rules Committee, Hall allegedly made threats in an obscenity-laced tirade in the lobby of the Sacramento Hyatt Hotel that he would get the farmers opposing his appointment, the senator wrote in a letter to the Senate Legislative Ethics Committee. The board is a quasi-judicial agency that rules on disputes between farm worker organizations and growers. The alleged threats were made to four farmers who are members of the California Fresh Fruit Assn., Vidak said. Vidak said he had formally asked De Leon, as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, to have the panel investigate the allegations and report the findings to the Senate. On Thursday, Vidak said, De Leon allegedly informed him that there would be no investigation. Senator De Leon told me yesterday that he and the leadership of the CFFA have worked things out so Hall wont be investigated,'" Vidak said in a statement Friday. Is this really how the Senate handles reports of threats and intimidation by someone pending a Senate confirmation vote? The association called the allegation that it worked out an agreement with De Leon baseless and false. The group said in a statement that Vidak did not talk to its members before he filed the complaint. If he did, he wouldve learned there is no agreement and that CFFA remains opposed to the confirmation of Senator Hall, the group said. Hall declined to comment on Vidaks complaint, said J. Antonio Barbosa, the boards executive secretary, responding on his behalf. Further, his testimony at his Senate Rules Committee confirmation hearing makes clear that he will be fair and impartial, make sound decisions, and speak to growers and farmworkers, Barbosa said. Reyes disputed Vidaks allegations. Chasing goofy conspiracy theories might fly on President Trumps Twitter feed, but it has no place in the California Legislature, Reyes said. In his letter to the ethics panel, Vidak says his complaint is that the Senates confirmation process of gubernatorial appointees may have been compromised in this situation. He asked for an investigation into whether credible information about potential criminal activity by an unconfirmed gubernatorial appointee has been intentionally ignored/withheld, and whether a member of the Senate Rules Committee is making arrangements with representatives of private organizations to bury investigations of gubernatorial appointees. Updated at 4:40 p.m. to include a comment from the California Fresh Fruit Assn. Facebook

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L.A.'s GOP congressman: It is hard to find a consensus on something that impacts more than 1/6th of our economy By Sarah D. Wire A handful of California Republicans had declined to take a position on the House GOPs healthcare bill, and now they wont have to. Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale), the only Republican who represents L.A. County, said he was conflicted up until the vote on the bill was canceled Friday afternoon. In the past two weeks my colleagues worked to build a consensus on how best to repair our flawed healthcare system and build a patient-centered system that works for the American people, Knight said in a statement after the vote. We learned that it is hard to find a consensus on something that impacts more than 1/6th of our economy and the lives of almost every American. Saying they didnt have enough votes to pass it, House Republican leaders canceled a vote on their healthcare bill minutes before vulnerable Republican members like Knight would have had to vote on the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Knights district is among seven Republican districts being targeted by Democrats in 2018, and several of the members who represent those districts never took a stance on the bill, saying they were worried about the effects on their districts and were still hearing from constituents. Experts estimated millions of Californians would have lost insurance under the bill. Just two of the targeted members, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) and Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine), said they would vote for the bill. Walters had no comment after the bill was pulled, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee came out swinging, with committee spokesperson Evan Lukaske saying, Walters now owns this until election day. Other targeted members seemed to brush off President Trumps plan to let Obamacare go its way for a little while. Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), who didnt take a stance on the bill, said afterward Congress needs to keep working on healthcare. Congress must come together to enact legislation to stabilize our healthcare market, reduce federal spending, and ensure we are able to maintain access to healthcare for Americas most vulnerable populations. Any potential solution must be thoughtfully considered, he said in a statement. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) flirted with voting against the bill, saying he was not yet prepared to support it, but never committed either way. The [GOP bill] was an imperfect approach and I believe that we can do better, he said in a statement. We will go back to the drawing board and get this right for each and every American concerned with high costs in their healthcare and ever-dwindling choices and access to care. Facebook

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Despite threat of legal battle with Trump, California stays the course on vehicle emission rules By Chris Megerian Electric cars charge at a San Diego utility. (Rob Nikolewski / San Diego Union-Tribune) California will keep pushing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, state regulators decided Friday, even though President Trump is preparing to roll back rules in Washington. The restrictions represent a key part of Californias battle against climate change, and theyre intended to force automakers to build cleaner cars and sell more electric vehicles. Environmentalists cheered Fridays decision from the Air Resources Board. Were very disappointed by what were seeing at the federal level, so today feels warm and welcoming, said the Sierra Clubs Kathryn Phillips. California has the unique ability to set tougher standards than the federal government, but Fridays decision could put the state on a collision course with Trump. Under the presidents direction, federal officials are examining whether to loosen vehicle rules that were finalized in the waning days of the Obama administration. The California Air Resources Board meeting in Riverside this week. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) At risk is the existence of a national standard on vehicle emissions, something the auto industry has prioritized to reduce the complexity of its manufacturing operations. We should all be getting back to work on this, said John Bozzella, who advocates for international car companies as head of the Assn. of Global Automakers. Mary Nichols, chair of the Air Resources Board, questioned the industrys commitment to higher standards given their request for Trump to review the rules. What were you thinking when you threw yourself upon the mercy of the Trump administration? she said. A dozen other states have adopted Californias standards as their own, and environmentalists hope Fridays decision will foster a broader market for electric cars. This agency has seen federal administrations come
Trump promotes sons Justice with Judge Jeanine interview President Trump promoted via Twitter an interview with his son Eric Trump just before it aired Saturday night on Fox News Justice with Judge Jeanine. Eric Trump on @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews now!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 Eric Trump called into the show to defend his father from criticism prompted by the first government shutdown in more than four years, as well as a series of Womens March events that saw protesters in dozens of cities take to the streets to oppose the presidents policies. .@EricTrump joined me over the phone from Mar-a-Lago ! pic.twitter.com/Hro3TzUW52  Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) January 21, 2018 Speaking to host Jeannine Piro  who is reportedly an old friend of the presidents  Eric Trump offered effusive praise for his father, ticking off glowing statistics to illustrate the strength of the U.S. economy and gains against Islamic State fighters overseas. My fathers working like no ones ever worked before to bring back this country and to fulfill his promise to make America great again, said the executive vice president of the Trump Organization. He also repeated a sentiment recently expressed on Twitter by his father: That Democratic lawmakers forced a government shutdown on the anniversary of the presidents inauguration in a bid to distract from his achievements. You look at this whole government shutdown, and the only reason they want to shut down government is to distract and to stop his momentum, Eric Trump said. I mean, my father has had incredible momentum. Hes gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history. Facebook

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Trump tweets: a perfect day for all Women to March President Trump hailed the nationwide Womens March gatherings Saturday. On Twitter, the president called it a perfect day for all Women to March, seeming to imply that those taking part were celebrating his administrations accomplishments: Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Participants in the marches across the United States were actually seeking to deliver a powerful rebuke to Trumps policies and mount a crucial mobilization for this years midterm elections. But Trump continued to tout his administrations unprecedented success in tweets sent later in the day: Unprecedented success for our Country, in so many ways, since the Election. Record Stock Market, Strong on Military, Crime, Borders, & ISIS, Judicial Strength & Numbers, Lowest Unemployment for Women & ALL, Massive Tax Cuts, end of Individual Mandate - and so much more. Big 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The Trump Administration has terminated more UNNECESSARY Regulation, in just twelve months, than any other Administration has terminated during their full term in office, no matter what the length. The good news is, THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 In addition to the roll call of major American cities where womens marches took place  including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta  protesters also raised their voices in suburbs and small towns, reflecting the aim of coalescing a broad-based movement on the anniversary of Trumps inauguration to oppose the presidents stance on immigration, healthcare, racial divides and an array of other issues. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Trump calls shutdown a present from Democrats By Associated Press President Trump is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown  tweeting that they wanted to give him a nice present to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration: This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 That comes after Senate Democrats late Friday killed a GOP-written House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks. Democrats were seeking a stopgap bill of just a few days in hopes that would build pressure on Republicans, and they were opposing a three-week alternative offered by GOP leaders. Democrats have insisted they would back legislation reopening the government once theres a bipartisan agreement to preserve protections against deporting about 700,000 immigrants  known as Dreamers  who arrived in the United States illegally as children. Trump on Saturday accused Democrats of holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration: Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Cant let that happen!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Democrats are laying fault for the shutdown on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have struggled with building internal consensus. In a series of tweets hours after the shutdown began, the president tried to make the case for Americans to elect more Republicans to Congress in November in order to power through this mess: Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 He noted that there are 51 Republicans in the 100-member Senate, and it often takes 60 votes to advance legislation: For those asking, the Republicans only have 51 votes in the Senate, and they need 60. That is why we need to win more Republicans in 2018 Election! We can then be even tougher on Crime (and Border), and even better to our Military & Veterans!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 #AMERICA FIRST!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The stopgap spending measure won 50 votes in the Senate, including five from Democrats. Although the House and Senate were in session Saturday, it was unclear whether lawmakers would take any votes of consequence. Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon for a fundraiser at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., where he intended to mark the inauguration anniversary. But he remained in Washington and ended up scrapping his plans to attend the Saturday fundraiser. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet casts doubt on likelihood of averting shutdown President Trump appeared to cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching a deal to avert a government shutdown Friday night in a tweet. Trump also sought to blame Democrats for what would be the first shutdown since 2013. His message came just hours before the midnight deadline by which lawmakers must pass a measure to fund government agencies, or some operations will cease. Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border. Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Despite last-minute negotiations Friday between Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Congress remained deadlocked over a spending bill and the federal government was headed toward a shutdown at midnight. Senate Democrats  joined by some GOP deficit hawks and immigration allies  were set to filibuster a stopgap funding bill approved by the House on Thursday. A Senate vote was planned for 10 p.m. Eastern, and even White House officials predicted it would fail. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro. Facebook

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Trump signs surveillance law after confusing tweets By Associated Press President Trump on Friday signed a bill into law to renew a foreign intelligence surveillance program, announcing his action in the latest in a series of confusing tweets about the spy program: Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection. This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2018 Trumps tweet on Jan. 11 created chaos in the House just before it voted to reauthorize what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He linked the intelligence program to a dossier that alleges his presidential campaign had ties to Russia. That caused people to wonder if he didnt support the program that allows U.S. spy agencies to collect intelligence on foreign targets abroad. Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Obama administration officials improperly shared the identities of Trump presidential transition team members mentioned in intelligence reports. Democrats say there is no evidence that happened. Shortly before the House vote, and after conferring with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump did an apparent about-face. This vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land, he tweeted. We need it! Get smart! In his tweet announcing that he had just signed the bill, Trump wrote: This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first! There are no obvious links between the dossier Trump spoke of, which includes salacious but unsubstantiated allegations against him, and the reauthorization of the spying program, or between the program and Trumps oft-repeated claims that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests that Pennsylvania trip is a political one The White House press office was once again forced to walk back a tweet from President Trump on Thursday morning after he described a trip to Pennsylvania later in the day as a political one  a statement that would force the Republican Party, not taxpayers, to pay for the journey. The White House had said Trump was going to an industrial equipment company outside of Pittsburgh to highlight the good economy and new tax cuts, making it an official, policy-oriented event. It was widely assumed that the trip had a political cast  the area is holding a special election to fill a congressional seat vacated by a Republican who resigned. Trump, by his tweet, seemed to confirm that politics was the whole purpose: Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election (March 13). Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 Trump later shared via Twitter a pair of video clips of his speech at H&K Equipment, in which he touted the tax cuts he signed into law just before Christmas and tried to turn the conversation back to his accomplishments after weeks dominated by distractions, including questions about his mental health and comments about immigration that some considered racist: Departing Pittsburgh now, where it was my great honor to stand with our incredible workers, and to show the world that AMERICA is back - and we are coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before! pic.twitter.com/kWPgylqFzj  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 AMERICA will once again be a NATION that thinks big, dreams bigger, and always reaches for the stars. YOU are the ones who will shape Americas destiny. YOU are the ones who will restore our prosperity. And YOU are the ones who are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/f2abNK47II  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 The Republican National Committee, rather than the White House, is supposed to pay for political travel so that taxpayers are not financing party activities; for trips that combine policy and politics, parties have split the cost under past presidents. Neither the RNC nor the White House responded to emails sent Thursday asking who would pay. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement later Thursday suggesting that taxpayers would foot the bill. She insisted that Trump would be conducting government business while in Pennsylvania. Read More This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump tweets praise of Bob Dole after awarding him Congressional Gold Medal By Associated Press Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole knew the art of the deal before President Trump published the 1987 book of the same name. The two shared a stage under the Capitol dome Wednesday as Dole, 94, accepted Congress highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, for his World War II service and decades of work in the House and Senate. Trump later praised Dole in a tweet, attaching to his message a video composed of clips from the ceremony: Today, we witnessed an incredible moment in history  the presentation of Congress highest civilian honor to our friend, and true AMERICAN HERO, Bob Dole. #CongressionalGoldMedal pic.twitter.com/qNQqDLRmCk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2018 At the ceremony, the president saluted Dole as a patriot and gave tribute to Doles struggle as a veteran who worked his way back from a grievous shoulder wound he suffered in Italy. He knows about grit, said Trump. But it was Doles penchant for working across the aisle that earned him his latest award, according to the legislation. Bob Dole was known for his ability to work across the aisle and embrace practical bipartisanship, reads the legislation Trump signed in September. Some of the awards 300 recipients include George Washington and Mother Teresa, according to the Congressional Research Service. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts report that seeks to link terrorism cases with immigration By Joseph Tanfani The Trump administration on Tuesday released a report attempting to link terrorism with migration, arguing that it was evidence of the need to dramatically reshape the nations immigration system. New report from DOJ & DHS shows that nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign-born. We have submitted to Congress a list of resources and reforms....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 ....we need to keep America safe, including moving away from a random chain migration and lottery system, to one that is merit-based. https://t.co/7PtoSFK1n2  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The report, ordered by President Trump in an executive order last year, said that 75% of the 549 people convicted of terrorism charges since 9/11 were born outside the U.S. Administration officials called that a sign that the U.S. needs to scrap its policy of family preferences for visas, which they call chain migration, and a diversity visa lottery program. But the report did not specify how many  if any  of the convicted terrorists entered the country through those means. It also did not detail how many of the convictions were related to attacks or plans in the U.S. versus overseas and how many involved people who went to fight overseas for the Islamic State or another terrorist group. Those details were not available, officials said. The report, due last year, is being released in a highly charged moment in the immigration debate, as Trump and some Republicans in Congress seek tough new border and immigration measures in return for a deal protecting the 690,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump also fired off a pair of tweets on the topic earlier Tuesday: We must have Security at our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER, and we must have a great WALL to help protect us, and to help stop the massive inflow of drugs pouring into our country!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The focus of our immigration system should be assimilation, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition that his name not be used. He said the nation should give priority to potential immigrants who speak English, who have an education and those who are committed to supporting our values  not family members of people already here. The official said the timing of the report was coincidental. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets welcome to president of Kazakhstan By Associated Press President Trump said Tuesday that he and the president of Kazakhstan are united in a shared determination to prevent North Korea from threatening the world with nuclear devastation. Trump and President Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed North Korea along with other issues during meetings at the White House. Today, it was my honor to welcome President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan to the @WhiteHouse! pic.twitter.com/TerYFZViax  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 Trump said Kazakhstan, once part of the Soviet Union, is a valued partner in our efforts to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. Together we are determined to prevent the North Korean regime from threatening the world with nuclear devastation, he said, as both presidents addressed journalists between meetings. Nazarbayev noted that his country once had one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals but voluntarily gave it up after the Soviet Union collapsed. He said his country is in talks with Iran, which was the focus of a global deal that lifted some economic sanctions in exchange for Irans curbing its nuclear program. Trump has sharply criticized the Iran nuclear deal and threatened last week to pull out soon unless other countries fix what he says are terrible flaws. Read More Facebook

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Trump falsely claims his approval rating among black Americans has doubled By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump lashed out at the news media Tuesday morning in a tweet denouncing the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion among members of his campaign team. Do you notice the Fake News Mainstream Media never likes covering the great and record setting economic news, but rather talks about anything negative or that can be turned into the negative. The Russian Collusion Hoax is dead, except as it pertains to the Dems. Public gets it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the presidents tweet, but it appeared as though he was watching Fox & Friends. A short time later, Trump tweeted a headline from a report that aired during that mornings episode: 90% of Trump 2017 news coverage was negative -and much of it contrived!@foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The segment focused on the latest survey results from conservative watchdog Media Research Center, which purportedly analyzed the evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31 and found that 90% of the statements made about Trump were negative. Study: 90% of Trump media coverage in 2017 was negative pic.twitter.com/vbrwup4Drg  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 16, 2018 But believe it or not, through all this negative coverage, they did a survey of 600,000 people about how black America views this president, co-host Brian Kilmeade said. His numbers have actually doubled in approval. Trump highlighted the statement in another tweet: Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. Trump approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better! @FoxNews  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 But its not true. The claim appears to have originated from a misreading of data from the online polling firm SurveyMonkey, according to factcheck.org. The firm polled 600,000 Americans in 2017 and found that Trumps approval rating among blacks actually dropped from 23% early in his presidency to about 17%, as of the week ending Jan. 3. Some conservative outlets, including Breitbart, produced an average from those and other SurveyMonkey figures and compared them to the scores Trump received from black voters in the 2016 exit polls. That methodology is not sound. And since the statistics measure different things, the comparison is misleading. Facebook

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Trump goes after senator who surfaced his immigration remark By Associated Press President Trump turned his Twitter torment Monday on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Sen. Richard J. Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting, Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 Trump was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the United States illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Trump would support to extend that protection. Trump also cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching an agreement in tweets sent earlier Monday: Statement by me last night in Florida: Honestly, I dont think the Democrats want to make a deal. They talk about DACA, but they dont want to help..We are ready, willing and able to make a deal but they dont want to. They dont want security at the border, they dont want.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 ...to stop drugs, they want to take money away from our military which we cannot do. My standard is very simple, AMERICA FIRST & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 On a day of remembrance for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump spent time at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessors staged in honor of the civil rights leader. Instead, Trump dedicated his weekly address to Kings memory, saying Kings dream and Americas are the same: A world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from. That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Trump by Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Trumps concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Trump challenged immigration from shithole countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well. Without explicitly denying using that word, Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Trump uttered it on several occasions. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks pundit for laudatory Fox & Friends spot By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump thanked Fox News personality Stuart Varney after Varney praised Trump during an appearance on Fox & Friends. In a pair of tweets early Sunday, Trump quoted from Varneys commentary, in which he argued that Trump deserves more credit for the booming economy. The pundit, who also hosts a show on Fox Business Network, cited moves by some corporations to raise workers minimum wage or pay out one-time bonuses in response to the GOP tax cuts. President Trump is not getting the credit he deserves for the economy. Tax Cut bonuses to more than 2,000,000 workers. Most explosive Stock Market rally that weve seen in modern times. 18,000 to 26,000 from Election, and grounded in profitability and growth. All Trump, not 0...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 ...big unnecessary regulation cuts made it all possible (among many other things). President Trump reversed the policies of President Obama, and reversed our economic decline. Thank you Stuart Varney. @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 Varney was reacting to a quote from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who on Thursday called the bonuses handed down to workers pathetic in comparison to the gains corporations are expected to see from the tax cuts. In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic, Pelosi told reporters. Its pathetic. Varney shot back Sunday that the bonuses, along with explosive stock market growth, are enriching all Americans. This is a huge shot in the arm, its the result of this tax cut deal and I think President Trump should get the credit for it, he said. .@Varneyco Sets the economic record straight after Nancy Pelosi calls U.S. mass bonuses crumbs pic.twitter.com/BvjIHGm3HE  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 14, 2018 The sweeping tax plan passed last month lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and cuts personal income taxes. Analysts say the benefits will largely flow to corporations and the wealthy, as theyre more likely to be in positions to share in corporate profits. For instance, Wells Fargo & Co., which responded to news of the tax overhaul by announcing it will raise workers pay to at least $15 an hour, also reported that it expects to pay an effective tax rate of 19% this year, down from about 31% in previous years. That should amount to tax savings of more than $3 billion annually. On average, middle-class Americans are expected to see a very small tax cut in the near term and a tax increase after 2025, when all of the tax cuts for individuals expire. The tax cuts for corporations, however, are permanent.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer James Rufus Koren. Facebook

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Trump touts MLK proclamation in tweet, but ceremony is overshadowed by reports of racist remarks By Associated Press President Trump signed a proclamation Friday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, noting the contributions of a great American hero. Today, it was my great honor to proclaim January 15, 2018, as Martin Luther King Jr., Federal Holiday. I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate civic, community, and service activities in honor of Dr. King's life and legacy. pic.twitter.com/samlJsz1Nt  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 Overshadowing the event was mounting backlash from Trumps comments during a private meeting with lawmakers the day before. A short time after the meeting, which was called to discuss a possible immigration deal, reports emerged that Trump had asked participants why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senates second-ranking Democrat, appeared to confirm those reports on Friday. Trump did not respond Friday to several questions about the incident, including whether he actually used vulgar language to describe African nations, or if he is racist. The president said at the White House that love was central to the slain civil rights leader. Trump said the nation celebrates King for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump criticizes Democrats in tweet calling for stricter immigration rules President Trump hit out at Democrats on Thursday night in a tweet calling for stricter immigration rules. Trump wrote that members of the party seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the border with Mexico: The Democrats seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the Southern Border, risking thousands of lives in the process. It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the tweet. Earlier Thursday, Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise to resolve the standoff over so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children but have temporary permits to work, attend school or serve in the military. The president drew widespread condemnation after reports emerged that he had asked participants in an Oval Office meeting about the proposal why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts bill aimed at improving border screening for fentanyl By Associated Press President Trump signed legislation Wednesday aimed at giving Customs and Border Protection agents additional screening devices and other tools to stop the flow of illicit drugs. Speaking at a surprise bill-signing ceremony while flanked by members of Congress from both parties in the Oval Office, Trump described the bill as a significant step forward in the fight against powerful opioids such as fentanyl, which he called our new big scourge. He echoed that language Thursday in a tweet: Yesterday, I signed the #INTERDICTAct (H.R. 2142) with bipartisan members of Congress to help end the flow of drugs into our country. Together, we are committed to doing everything we can to combat the deadly scourge of drug addiction and overdose in the United States! pic.twitter.com/ELZvFol5Lo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 The legislation will pay for new portable and fixed chemical screening devices to detect and intercept fentanyl at ports of entry and in the mail, along with other laboratory equipment and personnel, including scientists. Trump has made fighting the opioid epidemic a centerpiece of his administration, though critics say he hasnt dedicated nearly enough money or resources to make a difference. Trump suggested during his remarks on Wednesday that hed like to take a more aggressive approach to the drug crisis  but the countrys not ready for what he has in mind. So were going to sign this. And its a step. And it feels like a very giant step, but unfortunately, its not going to be a giant step, because no matter what you do, this is something that keeps pouring in, he said. And were going to find the answer. There is an answer. I think I actually know the answer, but Im not sure the countrys ready for it yet, he added. Does anybody know what I mean? I think so. Facebook

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Trump applauds news that Toyota-Mazda plant is slated for Alabama By Associated Press Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda on Wednesday announced plans to build a mammoth, $1.6-billion joint-venture plant in Alabama that will eventually employ about 4,000 people. President Trump lauded the news in a tweet: Cutting taxes and simplifying regulations makes America the place to invest! Great news as Toyota and Mazda announce they are bringing 4,000 JOBS and investing $1.6 BILLION in Alabama, helping to further grow our economy! pic.twitter.com/Kcg8IVH6iA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Good news: Toyota and Mazda announce giant new Huntsville, Alabama, plant which will produce over 300,000 cars and SUVs a year and employ 4000 people. Companies are coming back to the U.S. in a very big way. Congratulations Alabama!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 Several states had competed for the project, which will be able to turn out 300,000 vehicles per year and produce the Toyota Corolla compact car for North America and a new small SUV from Mazda. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and company executives held a news conference to announce that the facility is coming to the Huntsville area not far from the Tennessee line. Production is expected to begin by 2021. The decision to pick Alabama is another example of foreign-based automakers building U.S. factories in the South. To entice manufacturers, Southern states have used a combination of lucrative incentive packages, low-cost labor and a pro-business labor environment, because the United Auto Workers union is stronger in Northern states. Read More Facebook

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Trump highlights call for border wall in tweets on visit with Norways prime minister By Associated Press President Trump praised Norways prime minister in a tweet on Wednesday after Erna Solberg became the first foreign leader to visit with the president in 2018. Today, it was my great honor to welcome Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway to the @WhiteHouse - a great friend and ally of the United States! Joint press conference: https://t.co/qWR1BhfQZI pic.twitter.com/PJvwznjRCO  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Trump also shared via Twitter a video clip of a joint news conference he held with Solberg on Wednesday afternoon. In the clip, Trump responds to a question from a reporter by saying there can be no bipartisan immigration deal absent funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been seeking a solution for hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the United States as children and are living here illegally. The United States needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval. The safety and security of our country is #1! pic.twitter.com/4CFzQXb5aS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 We need the wall for security, we need the wall for safety, we need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in, Trump said Wednesday.  Any solution has to include the wall because without the wall, it all doesnt work. On Tuesday, Trump drew widespread attention when he said during a meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. That contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill in subsequent tweets and public comments. Read More This post contains reporting from Los Angeles Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump praises Cabinet in tweet touting meeting By Associated Press President Trump promoted a meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday, sharing via Twitter a link to a video of the session posted on the White House YouTube account. In his tweet, Trump thanked his Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country and wrote that the last year has been one of monumental achievement. I want to thank my @Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country. 2017 was a year of monumental achievement and we look forward to the year ahead. Together, we are delivering results and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! https://t.co/ptXa1hAPwW pic.twitter.com/yv6RALkQf3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The former reality television star continued to dispense accolades at the meeting Wednesday, greeting reporters in the Cabinet Room by saying: Welcome back to the studio. Then he proceeded to relive a Cabinet Room session from the prior day, when he had allowed reporters and TV cameras to stick around for much of his meeting with a bipartisan group of legislators on the thorny issue of immigration. It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance  you know, some of them called it a performance  I consider it work, Trump said. Trump went on to say he had received letters from news anchors calling it one of the greatest meetings theyve ever witnessed. He added that the media will ultimately support Trump in the end, because theyre going to say, if Trump doesnt win in three years, theyre all out of business. Asked for examples of letters received from news anchors, the White House said it had received private communications. It also offered a series of positive on-air comments and tweets from journalists about the unusual access to the meeting. During his remarks, Trump swung from praising his own meeting coverage to telling journalists that they were dependent on his presidency for ratings to threatening a strong look at libel laws. Still, Trump thanked the journalists in front of him, joking: Youve gotten very familiar with this room. I appreciate your nice comments yesterday. Facebook

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Trump blasts DACA ruling in tweet calling courts broken and unfair By Lisa Mascaro President Trump denounced the federal courts Wednesday as broken and unfair after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called Dreamers. Trump tweeted: It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administrations decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children. Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5. The administrations decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a flawed legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled. The action is the mirror image of a ruling in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of that state when it sought to block President Obama from expanding DACA to include the parents of Dreamers. Trump administration officials praised that judicial ruling. By contrast, they sharply criticized Alsups decision. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks lawmakers for productive immigration meeting, says deal must include border wall President Trump thanked a bipartisan group of lawmakers for participating in a meeting on immigration legislation on Tuesday. Much of the discussion involved so-called Dreamers, an estimated 700,000 young people who were brought to the country illegally as children and are now facing deportation. In a tweet, Trump wrote that there was strong agreement to negotiate a bill to protect Dreamers, as well as put into place some of the reforms favored by Republicans. Thanks to all of the Republican and Democratic lawmakers for todays very productive meeting on immigration reform. There was strong agreement to negotiate a bill that deals with border security, chain migration, lottery and DACA. https://t.co/SdqAQ3aL3z pic.twitter.com/8DYHZHspAy  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 The most notable exchange of the meeting came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the San Francisco Democrat, asked Trump whether he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. Yeah, I would like to do it, Trump responded. The statement drew widespread attention because it contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump later backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill, tweeting that a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of any deal: As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Pressure has been mounting for Congress to broker an immigration deal by Jan. 19 as part of a must-pass budget package to fund the government. This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump thanks officers and veterans in tweets President Trump doled out a slew of accolades Tuesday via Twitter. He thanked the nations law enforcement officers, including in his message a hashtag denoting a day of appreciation organized by a national support group for law enforcement families. On behalf of the American people, THANK YOU to our incredible law enforcement officers. As President of the United States - I will fight for you, and I will never, ever let you down. Now, more than ever, we must support the men and women in blue! #LawEnforcementAppreciationDay pic.twitter.com/Qb4uxB4JRm  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trump later expressed gratitude for federal immigration agents, in particular: .@ICEgov HSI agents and ERO officers, on behalf of an entire Nation, THANK YOU for what you are doing 24/7/365 to keep fellow Americans SAFE. Everyone is so grateful!#LawEnforcementAppreciationDay

President @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/HXCpTlruVo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The president thanked veterans as he cited his administrations efforts to curb the number of veteran suicides by improving mental health treatment for the high-risk group: Today, it was my great honor to sign a new Executive Order to ensure Veterans have the resources they need as they transition back to civilian life. We must ensure that our HEROES are given the care and support they so richly deserve! https://t.co/0MdP9DDIAS pic.twitter.com/LP2a8KCBAp  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trumps tweet included photos of the president signing an executive order Tuesday directing the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to develop a plan to provide seamless access to mental health and suicide prevention resources for 12 months for members leaving the armed forces. Also on Tuesday, Trump touted a law he signed the day before designating the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national historic park: It was my great honor to sign H.R. 267, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park Act, which redesignates the Martin Luther King, Junior, National Historic Site in the State of Georgia as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. https://t.co/Qe0b6HBFTY pic.twitter.com/QTgaqTawPT  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 And he thanked House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) for sharing a video compilation comprised of clips of politicians and commentators praising the GOPs tax cut bill: Thank you @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy! Couldnt agree w/you more. TOGETHER, we are #MAGA https://t.co/QaxtqpyXTR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018  This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump hails tax bill in tweets recapping speech to farmers By Associated Press Connecting with rural Americans, President Trump on Monday hailed his tax overhaul as a victory for family farmers. Farm country is Gods country, Trump told the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Trump became the first president in a quarter-century to address the federations convention. His Southern swing also included a stop in Atlanta for the national college football championship game. Cant wait to be back in the amazing state of Tennessee to address the 99th American @FarmBureau Federations Annual Convention in Nashville! #AFBF18



On my way now - join me LIVE at 4:00pmE: https://t.co/QaljAqekdD. pic.twitter.com/Wm7Io0hYT8  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and a group of Tennessee lawmakers, Trump said most of the benefits of the tax legislation are going to working families, small businesses, and who  the family farmer. The package Trump signed into law last month provides generous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest reductions for middle- and low-income individuals and families. In every decision we make, we are honoring Americas PROUD FARMING LEGACY. Years of crushing taxes, crippling regs, & corrupt politics left our communities hurting, our economy stagnant, & millions of hardworking Americans COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN. But they are not forgotten ANYMORE! pic.twitter.com/MdYS7xnukQ  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The president vastly inflated the value of the package in his speech, citing a total of $5.5 trillion in tax cuts, with most of those benefits going to working families, small businesses and who? The family farmer. The estimated value of the tax cuts is actually $1.5 trillion for families and businesses because of cuts in deductions and the use of other steps to generate offsetting tax revenue. We have been working every day to DELIVER for Americas Farmers just as they work every day to deliver FOR US. #AFBF18 pic.twitter.com/QDH7fvFkZ7  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 From Nashville, Trump traveled to Atlanta to watch Alabamas Crimson Tide and Georgias Bulldogs face off Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship. We are fighting for our farmers, for our country, and for our GREAT AMERICAN FLAG. We want our flag respected - and we want our NATIONAL ANTHEM respected also! pic.twitter.com/16eOLXg6Fi  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Before departing for the game, Trump referenced his ongoing defense of the American flag and the national anthem, saying there was enough space for people to express their views. We love our flag and we love our anthem, and we want to keep it that way, he said. Facebook

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Trump tweet hails drop in unemployment rate for African Americans By Associated Press President Trump touted a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans on Monday in a tweet. African American unemployment is the lowest ever recorded in our country. The Hispanic unemployment rate dropped a full point in the last year and is close to the lowest in recorded history. Dems did nothing for you but get your vote! #NeverForget @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The rate fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Trump also hailed the development via Twitter on Saturday. His latest tweet on the topic came about an hour after it was discussed during an episode of Fox & Friends, according to Mediaite. Facebook

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Trump talks up the economy and dresses down the media in Sunday tweets With President Trump cheering from the sidelines, the White House on Sunday pressed its defense of the presidents fitness to govern, as fired former aide Stephen K. Bannon reversed course and apologized for his role in a new books explosive portrait of Trump. The presidents critics, meanwhile, said Trumps stream of taunts and insults in response to the book  Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, released last week  served only to underscore the authors unsettling portrayal of Trumps year-old presidency, depicting a leader whose own aides consider him childish, ignorant and dangerously erratic. Trump provided more ammunition Sunday morning, as he continued to attack the book via Twitter while preparing to depart Camp David for the White House: Leaving Camp David for the White House. Great meetings with the Cabinet and Military on many very important subjects including Border Security & the desperately needed Wall, the ever increasing Drug and Opioid Problem, Infrastructure, Military, Budget, Trade and DACA.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Ive had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 The most vehement defense of Trump on Sunday came from senior advisor Stephen Miller, a onetime Bannon acolyte who distanced himself from his former mentor. In a combative appearance Sunday on CNNs State of the Union, Miller called the book grotesque and writer Michael Wolff the garbage author of a garbage book. Trump is known to closely monitor aides televised performances in putting forth his case, and he gleefully weighed in within moments of Millers televised clash with host Jake Tapper. CNN has long been a particular target of Trumps ire. Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trumps reaction, however, seemed to bolster Tappers on-air depiction of Miller as using his appearance on the show to play to the president rather than addressing questions put to him. I get it  theres one viewer that you care about, the host said exasperatedly after Miller turned the discussion repeatedly to negative news coverage of the president while deflecting specific queries. Later on Twitter, Trump took up two themes that have been prevalent on his social media feeds recently. The president again went after the news media, tweeting that the recipients of his self-proclaimed most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year, which he promised earlier in the week to announce on Monday, would actually be revealed the following Wednesday: The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trump later lauded a New York Post opinion piece that compared him favorably with his predecessor, President Obama, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In quoting the op-ed, Trump initally misspelled consequential as consensual, but he deleted those tweets and re-sent the messages. His is turning out to be an enormously consequential presidency. So much so that, despite my own frustration over his missteps, there has never been a day when I wished Hillary Clinton were president. Not one. Indeed, as Trumps accomplishments accumulate, the mere thought of...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 ...Clinton in the WH, doubling down on Barack Obamas failed policies, washes away any doubts that America made the right choice. This was truly a change election  and the changes Trump is bringing are far-reaching & necessary. Thank you Michael Goodwin! https://t.co/4fHNcx2Ydg  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Trump also continued talking up the economy, which has been enjoying a period of strong gains. The Stock Market has been creating tremendous benefits for our country in the form of not only Record Setting Stock Prices, but present and future Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Seven TRILLION dollars of value created since our big election win!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 In addition to Miller, other senior administration officials made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to decry the claims made in Wolffs book. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Wolffs characterization of Trump as averse to digesting classified briefing material was ludicrous, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, insisted that that those around Trump love their country and respect their president. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Responding to book that mocks his intelligence, Trump tweets hes like, really smart By Tracy Wilkinson President Trump declared himself a very stable genius on Twitter on Saturday and later in a televised news conference called the author of a book that questioned his mental fitness a fraud. His comments came on a bone-cold day at Camp David during a weekend retreat with top administration officials and Republican congressional leaders strategizing on the years legislative agenda, including matters such as infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and national security. Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Still, Trumps explosive rebuttal to author Michael Wolffs claims not only opened the day, but it also ensured the presidents capability to fill the highest office in the land was a topic that would not go away. In his early-morning tweets, Trump said two of his greatest assets have been mental stability, and being, like, really smart. He noted that his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, played these cards [about competence] very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). Read More Facebook

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In morning tweets, Trump touts job numbers and takes digs at news media By Associated Press President Trump used Twitter on Saturday morning to tout a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans. He also used the tweets as an opportunity to take digs at media outlets whose past coverage he has found to be critical. The African American unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, the lowest rate in 45 years. I am so happy about this News! And, in the Washington Post (of all places), headline states, Trumps first year jobs numbers were very, very good.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Still, the rate for black workers remains well above those for whites and some other groups, something experts attribute in large part to decades of discrimination and disadvantages. Robust job creation has lowered unemployment for all Americans. U.S. employers added nearly 2.1 million jobs in 2017  the seventh straight year that hiring has topped 2 million. In his tweet, Trump praised a report that noted the numbers, touting the fact that it appeared in the Washington Post (of all places). Minutes later, Trump renewed his attack on an ABC News reporter who was suspended last month after filing an erroneous report on Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security advisor. Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The reporter, Brian Ross, was reportedly reassigned within ABC News upon returning from his unpaid suspension. But on Saturday, Trump wrote that he should have been fired. Trumps tweets came hours before he was set to host congressional Republicans and administration officials at Camp David. The meeting scheduled to begin at midmorning Saturday was expected to touch on the budget, infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and the shape of the midterm election this fall. Facebook

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Trump commends Sen. Rand Paul after he proposes eliminating all U.S. aid to Pakistan President Trump commended Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican announced plans to introduce legislation that would eliminate all U.S. aid to Pakistan. Trump tweeted Friday night: Good idea Rand! https://t.co/55sqUDiC0s  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it was suspending security assistance to Islamabad until the country moves aggressively against local militants who have attacked U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration at the apparent inability of Pakistani authorities to rein in militants who cross out of the countrys rugged tribal areas to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson. Facebook

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Trump continues to lash out at Sloppy Steve Bannon in tweets on tell-all book By Associated Press President Trump is praising a major Republican donor family for distancing themselves from his former advisor Steve Bannon. Trump tweeted Friday: The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trump has continued to lash out at Bannon over an explosive new book that quoted his former aide as questioning Trumps competence and describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower among Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as treasonous and unpatriotic. On Thursday, billionaire GOP donor Rebekah Mercer issued a statement distancing her family from Bannon. Mercer is a co-owner of Breitbart, the populist website Bannon helps run. I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected, Mercer said. My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements. The book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, quickly shot atop Amazons best-seller list, and the publisher moved up its release date by four days, to Friday. Trump took up the topic again on Twitter on Friday night, denouncing both Bannon and the books author, Michael Wolff, in starkly personal terms: Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Trumps message linked to a meme depicting a parody book cover titled, Liar and Phony, that featured a photo of Wolff and disparaging quotes about the author. In a tweet sent earlier Friday morning, Trump suggested the book was intended to serve as a distraction from the FBIs investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Trump wrote is proving to be a total hoax. Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 That came amid reports that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from the Justice Departments Russia investigation. Trumps effort to keep Sessions, a vocal and loyal supporter of his election bid, in charge of an investigation into his campaign offers special counsel Robert Mueller yet another avenue to explore as his prosecutors work to untangle potential evidence of obstruction. Read More Facebook

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Trump praises the economy ahead of meetings at Camp David By Associated Press President Trump is praising the strength of the U.S. economy ahead of meetings at Camp David with congressional Republicans. Trump tweeted early Friday: Dow goes from 18,589 on November 9, 2016, to 25,075 today, for a new all-time Record. Jumped 1000 points in last 5 weeks, Record fastest 1000 point move in history. This is all about the Make America Great Again agenda! Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Six trillion dollars in value created!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The president also told reporters on the South Lawn that the tax cuts are really kicking in after Congress passed a package of tax cuts at the end of 2017. And the president praised the December jobs report, which found U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, the lowest level since 2000. The modest but steady pace of hiring is a reassuring sign for investors who have been buoyed by the just-passed Republican tax plan and have been sending stock market indexes roaring to uncharted heights. The president is meeting with Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet on Friday and Saturday to discuss the 2018 agenda. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets as Dow crashes through 25,000 By Associated Press President Trump dispatched a congratulatory tweet as the Dow Jones industrial average rose above the 25,000-point mark Thursday, just five weeks after its first close above 24,000. Dow just crashes through 25,000. Congrats! Big cuts in unnecessary regulations continuing.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 After the Dow closed above 25,000, Trump shared a graphic depicting the stock indexs record-setting rise. MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/iONbr1DkVk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Later in the day, the president was back on Twitter, complaining that news outlets had barely covered the stock market milestone. He suggested that the strength of the economy would be the biggest story on earth, had it unfolded during the presidency of his predecessor. The Fake News Media barely mentions the fact that the Stock Market just hit another New Record and that business in the U.S. is booming...but the people know! Can you imagine if O was president and had these numbers - would be biggest story on earth! Dow now over 25,000.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The Dow broke past 1,000-point barriers in 2017 on its way to a 25% gain for the year, as an eight-year rally since the Great Recession continued to confound skeptics. Strong global economic growth and good prospects for higher company earnings have analysts predicting more gains, although the market may not stay as calm as it has been recently. The Dow has made a rapid trip since it reached 24,000 points Nov. 30, partly on enthusiasm over passage of the Republican-backed tax package, which could boost company profits this year with across-the-board cuts to corporate taxes. Read More Facebook

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Trump reacts to Fire and Fury book in tweet lashing out at author and Sloppy Steve President Trump lashed out at the author of a soon-to-be-released book about the chaotic first year of his presidency Thursday night. In a tweet, Trump called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a phony book and claimed that hed never spoken to its author, Michael Wolff. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve! Trump wrote. He appeared to be referring to former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, whose stunning criticisms of Trump and his circle figure prominently in the title. I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that dont exist. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trumps tweet came hours after he had his lawyer demand that Henry Holt & Co. and Wolff stop publication the book. Instead, the publisher expedited the books release to Friday, four days before it was slated to hit bookstore shelves, in response to unprecedented demand. Published excerpts on Wednesday and Thursday whetted that appetite and roiled Washington. Bannons comments, including that it was treasonous and unpatriotic for Trumps son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort to have met in 2016 with Russians said to have dirt on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, prompted Trump on Wednesday to rebuke his former advisor, saying Bannon had lost his mind. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump thanks senators who attended meeting on immigration President Trump tweeted thanks to Republican senators who attended a meeting about possible immigration legislation on Thursday. In his message, Trump also listed his top priorities when it comes to any type of overhaul of the nations immigration system. Thank you to the great Republican Senators who showed up to our mtg on immigration reform. We must BUILD THE WALL, stop illegal immigration, end chain migration & cancel the visa lottery. The current system is unsafe & unfair to the great people of our country - time for change!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Trumps tweet echoed his remarks at the beginning of Thursdays meeting, when he insisted again that constructing a border wall and overhauling two legal immigration programs must be part of any deal with Democrats to protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation. Two-year deportation protections and work permits given under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program begin to expire March 6 under an executive order. Trump announced in September that he was ending the Obama-era program, but told Congress to draft a law to continue protections for people brought to the country illegally as children  a group that has widespread public support. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Brian Bennett. Facebook

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Trump resumes Twitter war against kneeling NFL players President Trump has resumed his Twitter war against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest social injustice and racial inequality. In a tweet early Thursday, Trump replied to a supporter who shared a meme that appears to depict family members lying on the grave of a fallen soldier with the caption: This is why we stand. Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! Trump wrote. So beautiful....Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! https://t.co/tJLM1tvbvb  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The president has denounced players who kneel during the anthem in previous tweets. Hes also called for the firing of players who do so. His latest message came amid news that the NFL finished the regular season with TV ratings that fell nearly 10% below the previous season. Analysts attribute the drop to controversies facing the league, as well as changing viewing habits and a possible saturation point in the number of games available. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump credits himself with facilitating talks between North and South Korea By Associated Press President Trump says his tough stance on nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula is helping push North Korea and South Korea to talk. Trump tweeted early Thursday: With all of the failed experts weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasnt firm, strong and willing to commit our total might against the North. Fools, but talks are a good thing!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 That assertion is in conflict with some of the presidents own statements. Last year, he ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for talking about negotiations with the North. This week, Trump seemed open to the possibility of an inter-Korean dialogue after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare overture toward South Korea in a New Years Day address. But Trumps ambassador to the United Nations insisted that talks wont be meaningful unless the North is getting rid of its nuclear weapons. The overture about talks came after Trump and Kim traded more bellicose claims about their nuclear weapons. In his New Years Day address, Kim repeated fiery nuclear threats against the United States. Kim said he has a nuclear button on his office desk and warned that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike. Trump mocked that assertion Tuesday evening in a tweet. Facebook

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After disbanding his vote fraud panel, Trump still says voting system is rigged By Brian Bennett One day after disbanding his troubled voter fraud commission without any findings of fraud, President Trump continued to call the U.S. voting system rigged and said states should require that Americans have voter-identification cards. In two tweets on Thursday morning, Trump blamed the commissions failure on the lack of cooperation from mostly Democrat States that refused to hand over voter rolls because they know that many people are voting illegally. However, voting supervisors in Republican-led states refused as well, objecting on privacy and other grounds. Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.....except when it comes to the most important thing, VOTING for the people that run your country. Push hard for Voter Identification!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Despite Trumps assertions, analysts have not found evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after alleging, without proof, that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump was elected after winning a majority in the electoral college, but the nationwide count showed Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes. The commission sought personal data on voters across the country and faced mounting lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts another good day for stocks, credits tax cut By Associated Press President Trump touted another good day for the stock market Wednesday in a tweet. Stock Market had another good day but, now that the Tax Cut Bill has passed, we have tremendous upward potential. Dow just short of 25,000, a number that few thought would be possible this soon into my administration. Also, unemployment went down to 4.1%. Only getting better!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Big gains for technology and healthcare stocks helped U.S. indexes set records again Wednesday. Some analysts attributed the surge to investor enthusiasm for Trumps $1.5-trillion tax cut. All told, Wall Street analysts estimate the tax package should boost earnings for companies in the Standard & Poors 500 index by roughly 8% this year. Thats much more generous than the average tax cut of 1.6% that middle-class families will receive, according to the Tax Policy Center. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The public has been less enthusiastic about the tax law. A Monmouth University poll last month found that nearly half of Americans disapproved of it, with only 26% in support. Still, as Trump also noted on Twitter, some workers have seen a benefit: So far, dozens of companies have announced bonuses and higher minimum wages as a result of the tax cut. AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America, and American Airlines have all pledged to pay $1,000 bonuses to their employees. Some 40 U.S. companies have responded to President Trumps tax cut and reform victory in Congress last year by handing out bonuses up to $2,000, increases in 401k matches and spending on charity, a much higher number than previously known. https://t.co/bmWrwWzxMR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Investors also appear less concerned than many politicians about how the additional profits will be used. The Trump administration says it expects companies will plow much of the extra profit back into their businesses, purchasing more software, machinery, and other equipment. Those investments will make workers more productive and provide a key boost to the economys long-run growth. They should also boost wages and salaries for employees. Opponents of the tax law respond that companies are more likely to pass the windfall on to shareholders in the form of higher dividend payments and share buybacks, which raise the price of those shares still in investors hands. Previous cuts in corporate tax rates, in the United States and overseas, havent always led to higher wages. For Wall Street, its all good, at least in the short run. Most analysts take the view that either way, companies and the economy will benefit. Facebook

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Trump reacts to death of Mormon Church president By Associated Press President Trump mourned the death of Mormon Church leader Thomas S. Monson on Wednesday evening. Trump tweeted a link to a statement in which he said that Monson demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership, and great compassion and delivered a message of optimism, forgiveness, and faith. Melania and I are deeply saddened by the death of Thomas S. Monson, a beloved President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...https://t.co/ETD3fWtfU3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 A church bishop at the age of 22, Monson became the youngest church apostle ever in 1963 at the age of 36. He served as a counselor for three church presidents before assuming the role of the top leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2008. After a life of church service, Monson died Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins. He was 90. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets that Iranian protesters will see great U.S. support at the appropriate time By Associated Press President Trump continued to express support for Irans anti-government protesters on Wednesday. In a tweet, Trump commended the protesters and pledged that the United States will support them at the appropriate time. Such respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Trumps tweet Wednesday morning came as Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo sent a letter to United Nations officials complaining that Washington was intervening in a grotesque way in Irans internal affairs. The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts, the ambassador wrote to the U.N. Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.S. didnt immediately respond to the letter, which maintains that Washington has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilized conduct of international relations. At least 21 people have been killed and hundreds arrested in Iran during a week of anti-government protests and unrest over economic woes and official corruption. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations Wednesday backing the clerically overseen government, which has said enemies of Iran are fomenting the protests. Trump has unleashed a series of tweets in recent days backing the protesters, saying Iran is failing at every level and declaring that it is time for change in the Islamic Republic. Facebook

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Trump congratulates Sen. Orrin Hatch upon news of his retirement By Associated Press President Trump congratulated Sen. Orrin Hatch for an absolutely incredible career upon news of Hatchs impending retirement. In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Trump called Hatch a tremendous supporter and wrote that he will be greatly missed in the Senate. Congratulations to Senator Orrin Hatch on an absolutely incredible career. He has been a tremendous supporter, and I will never forget the (beyond kind) statements he has made about me as President. He is my friend and he will be greatly missed in the U.S. Senate! pic.twitter.com/0VjzLEeHTl  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Hatchs decision to retire from the Senate after four decades lets the Utah Republican walk away at the height of his power after helping to push through an overhaul of the tax code and persuading Trump to downsize two national monuments. Retirement also preserves the 83-year-olds legacy by allowing him to avoid a bruising reelection battle that would have broken his promise not to seek an eighth term. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet exaggerates progress in improving veterans care By Associated Press President Trump played up tremendous progress in improving care for veterans in his first year on Tuesday in a tweet. His message linked to an Instagram video describing eight accomplishments that show Trump is fighting for our veterans. But it overstates the impact of these steps. We will not rest until all of Americas GREAT VETERANS can receive the care they so richly deserve. Tremendous progress has been made in a short period of time. Keep up the great work @SecShulkin @DeptVetAffairs! https://t.co/ir25vW15hx pic.twitter.com/OtuzIgxMn6  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Of the eight achievements cited, two are ceremonial proclamations recognizing National Veterans and Military Families Month and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Two are pieces of legislation that extended the troubled Veterans Choice program on a temporary basis. This became necessary because the Trump administration repeatedly miscalculated the amount of taxpayer dollars available to pay for care from private doctors outside the Veterans Affairs system when veterans had to endure long waits for treatment at VA medical centers. The departments poor budget planning caught lawmakers off guard. A fifth claim involves telehealth, a step letting doctors practice medicine across state lines using digital technology. Announced in August, it has yet to take full effect because a proposed VA regulation hasnt been completed. The VA wants authority to practice across state lines to come from legislation, not a regulation. On Wednesday, the Senate approved a telehealth measure that now goes to the House. A sixth claim refers to legislation that streamlines the appeals process for disability compensation claims within the VA. This step has had limited effect so far because it applies to new disability claims, not the 470,000 pending claims. The last two initiatives make it easier for the VA to discipline employees. The department has pointed to more than 1,300 employees who have been fired under Trumps watch. Because their infractions are not detailed in public documents, the effect on veterans care is not fully known. Facebook

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Trump unleashes his first tweetstorm of 2018 By Noah Bierman President Trump clearly didnt resolve to change his Twitter habits this year. With nine disparate tweets over three hours on Tuesday morning, the first working day of 2018, Trump continued to exploit social media to be the most aggressive commentator in chief in American history. For any other president, his posts would have made for a monumental day of (mis-)statements. Yet for Trump, the series  attacks on political foes and media, provocations of foreign leaders and self-praise for events he had nothing to do with  was all but unremarkable. His Twitter barrage  sent between 7:09 a.m. and 10:16 a.m.  reflected a familiar gamut after nearly a year in office: Attacks on political foes: Nearly 14 months after his election, Trump called for the jailing of Huma Abedin, Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid (his misspelling, another occasional feature of Trump tweets). Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 In the same tweet, he disparaged the Deep State Justice Dept, headed of course by his appointees, calling on it to act against James B. Comey, the FBI director he fired for investigating the Russia thing. Diplomatic provocations: Trump again called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Rocket man, ridiculed the volatile nuclear-armed foe for recent military defections and openly speculated about potential talks between North and South Korea. Sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea. Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not - we will see!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not  we will see! Trump wrote. Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Also later Tuesday, Trump tweeted an attack on Pakistan, his second in as many days, and added a new one against Palestinians: It's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They dont even want to negotiate a long overdue...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Undermining media: Trump offered Congratulations! to A.G. Sulzberger, who took over as publisher of the New York Times this week. The Failing New York Times has a new publisher, A.G. Sulzberger. Congratulations! Here is a last chance for the Times to fulfill the vision of its Founder, Adolph Ochs, to give the news impartially, without fear or FAVOR, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved. Get...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ....impartial journalists of a much higher standard, lose all of your phony and non-existent sources, and treat the President of the United States FAIRLY, so that the next time I (and the people) win, you wont have to write an apology to your readers for a job poorly done! GL  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the two-part post was really yet another slam against a perceived media foe: Trump said the paper had a last chance to fulfill its journalistic mission, and accused it of relying on phony sources and substandard reporters  just days after he granted another exclusive interview to the paper. As a bonus, the tweet contained a recycled falsehood, that the paper apologized after the election for reporting on him unfairly. It didnt. Trump later said on Twitter that he would soon announce the most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year. Stay tuned! I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 oclock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 The president also tweeted a quote from Fox Business Networks Lou Dobbs Tonight, which aired a segment praising Trumps first-year accomplishments. Dobbs reportedly joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for a gala to celebrate New Years Eve. President Trump has something now he didnt have a year ago, that is a set of accomplishments that nobody can deny. The accomplishments are there, look at his record, he has had a very significant first year. @LouDobbs Show,David Asman & Ed Rollins  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Taking credit: Trump congratulated himself for policing the border with Mexico, an area where his policies and anti-immigration rhetoric are believed to have had some effect on reducing illegal crossings. Thank you to Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council for your kind words on how well we are doing at the Border. We will be bringing in more & more of your great folks and will build the desperately needed WALL! @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 He took credit for employee bonuses by companies after he signed Republican tax cuts into law last month. Companies are giving big bonuses to their workers because of the Tax Cut Bill. Really great!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the jaw-dropper was Trump congratulating himself for planes not crashing. Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 It was the safest year on record worldwide, but the American streak without commercial jet passenger deaths goes back to 2009. Trump, who has promoted deregulation as one of his top accomplishments, has not signed off on any new airline safety regulations. The White House pointed to new security screening of passengers, to electronic devices to prevent terrorist attacks and to Trumps support for privatizing air traffic control  a proposal that has gotten nowhere in Congress. Falsehoods: Trump said President Obama, in brokering the 2015 nuclear arms limitation deal with Iran, foolishly gave money to the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. He didnt. The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 The nuclear deal, which included major U.S. allies as signators, released Irans own funds that had long been frozen. Trumps art of the deal: When Trump sees a big deal looming, he often blasts the other side  to gain leverage, as hes written. This week he resumes a showdown with Democratic lawmakers over funding the government and immigration protections for so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start falling in love with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Trump, who in September ordered a gradual end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sought to shift blame for the resulting controversy, saying Democrats are doing nothing for DACA and are just interested in politics. Trump has insisted that any help for Dreamers be paired with funding for a border wall and a crackdown on legal immigration. Democrats, and some Republicans, are opposed. Read More Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests U.S. will withdraw financial assistance to Pakistan By Shashank Bengali Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of lies & deceit and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism. It was the presidents latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018 U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the presidents statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest and asked for clarification about Trumps comments, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistans prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trumps New Years Day tweet. Read More Facebook

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Trump continues to tweet in support of Iranian protesters By Laura King President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday  and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size  were a signal that Iranians will not take it any longer. Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Trump has tweeted about the protests for three days straight as Iranians took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, tear gas and scores of arrests. The defiance gained urgency after two people were reported shot to death in the city of Dorud, about 200 miles southwest of Tehran. As the conflict escalated, Iranian authorities on Sunday slapped a temporary ban on Instagram and the messaging app Telegram, which were widely used to fan protest fervor. Iran, the Number One State of Sponsored Terror with numerous violations of Human Rights occurring on an hourly basis, has now closed down the Internet so that peaceful demonstrators cannot communicate. Not good!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Irans leaders already are casting Trumps increasingly effusive expressions of support for the demonstrators as opportunistic meddling and are painting the demonstrators as foreign pawns, adopting a strategy that some analysts say could jeopardize the legitimacy of the nascent antigovernment protests. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets condolences after Colorado deputies are shot in ambush, one fatally By Associated Press A man fired more than 100 rounds at sheriffs deputies in Colorado early Sunday, killing one and injuring four others, before being fatally shot himself in what authorities called an ambush. Two civilians were also injured. President Trump expressed sorrow, writing on Twitter: My deepest condolences to the victims of the terrible shooting in Douglas County @DCSheriff, and their families. We love our police and law enforcement - God Bless them all! #LESM  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said deputies came under fire almost
Former firefighter Mike DeBartoli is a man desperate to rescue himself. He suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative nerve disorder better known as Lou Gehrigs disease, which usually kills within five years. He has already spent one year in a clinical trial, taking four pills a day that may have been a placebo. It didnt help.

DeBartoli walks with difficulty and falls frequently. Hes losing his ability to breathe on his own. Now the 55-year-old from Tracy, Calif., has pinned his hopes on an experimental drug made by Genentech  and a new right-to-try law that allows desperate patients to take medications before theyve been fully vetted by the Food and Drug Administration.

At a time when agreement on any subject seems impossible, the movement to give sick people more access to potentially lifesaving drugs is a rarity. Right-to-try laws have been adopted in 33 states and are under consideration in the remaining 17, with support from across the political spectrum.

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The measures newest fan is President Trump, who said the FDAs caution in granting dying patients access to some medications has always disturbed him.

But for all its populist appeal, the push for right-to-try laws has raised the ire of ethicists, drug-safety experts and a former FDA commissioner. They say the laws do virtually nothing to expand patients access to effective drugs.

DeBartoli doesnt see it that way. Since Californias law went into effect on Jan. 1, all he needs to get his hands on Genentechs GDC-0134 is the companys cooperation and the backing of two physicians.

Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, who sponsored the measure, said it had bipartisan backing in Sacramento because the FDAs program was cumbersome, and you had a lot of paperwork to fill out. It really wasnt respectful of the time that a lot of patients had.

California Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

It really wasnt respectful of the time that a lot of patients had.  California Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, on the FDAs compassionate-use program

Critics counter that the state measures undermine an FDA program that balances patients need for options, drug companies desire to protect their investments, and the governments duty to evaluate drug safety and effectiveness.

The FDAs compassionate-use program could be improved, said Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, who led the agency from 2006 to 2009. But the right-to-try laws dont do that.

A federal version could also pave the way for controversial FDA reforms to speed drug approvals by relaxing some requirements. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Trumps nominee to lead the agency, has said he would favor a faster vetting process.

Were going to be changing a lot of the rules, Trump told drug makers who visited the White House.

Under the right-to-try measures, a dying patient can seek access to an experimental drug if it is an active candidate for FDA approval and has successfully passed a Phase 1 clinical trial to explore its safety, at various doses, in healthy human volunteers.

That standard falls well short of proof that a drug will work, or that it wont have side effects that could harm a patient or increase the discomfort of his or her final days.

Drug makers are under no obligation to provide experimental medication.

Mike DeBartoli has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrigs disease. (David Butow / For The Times)

You gotta try something.  Mike DeBartoli, who hopes Californias new right-to-try law will help him get access to life-saving medicine.

Right-to-try laws offer patients an alternative to the compassionate use, or expanded access, program the FDA has had in place for more than two decades. As many as 1,821 applications are filed each year, and about 99% of them are approved, according to the agency.

Emergency requests are usually granted immediately over the phone, and non-emergencies are processed in a median of four days, Dr. Peter Lurie, associate FDA commissioner, told a Senate committee in September. The application process was streamlined in June, reducing the required documentation from eight attachments to one, which can be completed in 45 minutes, he said.

But right-to-try supporters complain the process takes too long and is too restrictive. More broadly, they say, people should not need to petition a government agency in the first place.

When a patient is fighting for his or her life, you shouldnt have to fight your government too, said Starlee Coleman of the libertarian Goldwater Institute, who drafted the model right-to-try legislation for states.

This is the most fundamental liberty we have: the right to save your own life, she added.

Vice President Mike Pence, who signed a right-to-try bill as governor of Indiana, recently said he expected to have a federal measure on Trumps desk soon.

That bill, as currently written, differs from the FDA program in important ways.

Among them: It forbids the FDA from considering the experiences of right-to-try patients when deciding whether to approve experimental drugs. Currently, the agency can halt ongoing clinical trials or delay approval if a drug hastens a patients death or causes serious side effects.

That makes it all but impossible for drug makers to grant requests from patients such as DeBartoli, Coleman said. The predictable death of a compassionate-use patient would jeopardize a companys multimillion-dollar investment, she said.

Lurie disputed this. When deaths occur, the FDA takes a patients dire state into account, he said.

In more than 11,000 compassionate-use cases over the last decade, patient deaths have halted a drugs progress only twice, he said. Both times the medications got back on track after a brief delay.

New York University bioethicist Arthur Caplan. (Jeff Fusco / WireImage)

If you close the FDAs expanded access program, the idea that desperate people might be getting drugs the next morning  its just not true.  Bioethicist Arthur Caplan

The real reason companies arent eager to provide experimental drugs is that they dont want to get involved, said New York University bioethicist Arthur Caplan. That problem wont be fixed by right-to-try laws, he added.

Pharmaceutical companies are set up to get their products through the FDAs rigorous approval process, not to get drugs to patients ahead of FDA approval, Caplan said. Many wouldnt know what dose to recommend, let alone how theyd distribute them or how much they should charge. And for unscrupulous companies, the measures completely vague language on what drug makers can charge provides an opening to fleece desperate patients, he added.

Moreover, most companies have limited quantities of these drugs on hand and no policies to allocate them among all who want them, Caplan said.

Finally, when a patient dies or suffers adverse effects from an experimental medication, companies are much less afraid of the FDA finding out than they are of investors getting wind of the setback.

Caplan knows this because in 2015, he and his colleagues at NYUs Langone Medical Center were asked by Janssen Biotech Inc. to create a model of a compassionate use advisory committee for a multiple myeloma drug called daratumumab. It was the first-ever effort of its kind, which underscores how poorly prepared drug companies are to handle right-to-try requests. (Daratumumab was approved in November and is now marketed as Darzalex.)

Caplan calls the right-to-try measures feel-good laws that dont address the shortcomings of the FDAs program but undo its benefits.

If you close the FDAs expanded access program, the idea that desperate people might be getting drugs the next morning  its just not true, he said.

Nor is it true that greater access to experimental drugs will do much to help patients such as DeBartoli, said Dr. Adams Dudley, who directs UC San Franciscos Center for Healthcare Value. The numbers just dont add up.

Genentech headquarters in South San Francisco. Mike DeBartoli is hoping the company will let him try its ALS drug, which is still being tested for FDA approval. (Paul Sakuma / Associated Press)

There isnt some vast pool of drugs that, if only the FDA would get out of the way and let patients at them, would help them.  Dr. Adams Dudley, director of UC San Franciscos Center for Healthcare Value

Almost two-thirds of drugs that enter clinical trials make it out of the first stage of safety testing and are eligible for right-to-try requests. But few are ultimately helpful, Dudley said.

Among 108 drug candidates abandoned after a Phase 2 clinical trial  where safety and preliminary effectiveness are explored  20% failed because they were unsafe for sick patients and just over half were dropped because they seemed ineffective, according to a 2011 study.

More drugs failed in Phase 3 trials, where effectiveness is rigorously tested. At this stage, 21% missed the cut because of safety issues and two-thirds were abandoned because they didnt seem to work.

There isnt some vast pool of drugs that, if only the FDA would get out of the way and let patients at them, would help them, Dudley said.

There are patients who are passionate about it, and theres no way not to feel sympathetic toward them, he added. But doctors and nurses know that side effects can be horrible, making a peaceful death impossible. They think of it as pretty much a false hope.

DeBartoli said hed rather have false hope than no hope at all.

You gotta try something, he said.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATMelissaHealy and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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At a place like the South by Southwest film festival, movies are one thing, movie stars are quite another. And so Austins Paramount Theater bubbled over with energy on Sunday night when Charlize Theron took to the stage to introduce her new Atomic Blonde alongside director David Leitch and costar James McAvoy.

In the film, adapted from a graphic novel  The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart  Theron plays a British secret agent being sent to Berlin just ahead of the fall of the Berlin Wall to retrieve a sensitive list of clandestine contacts. The story is told in flashback, as she is debriefed by superiors played by Toby Jones and John Goodman, which renders everything the work of an unreliable narrator and provides any number of surprises along the way. The cast also includes McAvoy, Eddie Marsan and Sofia Boutella.

Leitch had previously co-directed John Wick and from that film he brought along cinematographer Jonathan Sela, composer Tyler Bates and editor Elisabet Ronaldsdottir, along with new collaborators in production designer David Scheunemann and costume designer Cindy Evans to create the specific look of the film, a mixture of old-world grime and new-world shine awash in garish colors and decadent anything-goes vibes. The films soundtrack buzzes with 80s synth-pop, including New Orders Blue Monday 88, David Bowies Cat People, George Michaels Father Figure and Falcos Der Kommissar, to further burnish the films sleazy, dimmed neon sheen.

Theron wholly owns every moment she is on-screen, strutting through the film in a series of finely cut costumes with a leonine presence. The film hits the bulls-eye of being a tough action thriller without taking itself too seriously, enjoying the playful twists and turns of its storytelling.

When the movie was over the trio of Leitch, McAvoy and Theron came back out for a Q&A. Asked about the oddly prescient timing between the movie being set against the fall of the Berlin Wall and the recent reemergence of Cold War-era tensions, Leitch said, Its pretty interesting with the Russians. The Russians are back in. Perfect Timing.

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Hes Trump, Theron said pointing at McAvoy, who in the film plays a British agent of shifting allegiances and uncertain motives.

Leitch noted how Theron was already attached to the project before he became involved, but that he was drawn to it for the chance to work with her. Her subsequent dedication and commitment to training meant that he could include the dazzling fight sequence in which Theron fights in, up, down, around and out of a tenement apartment house in what seems to be a long unbroken take.

It is a breathtaking piece of choreography and camerawork, in which Theron seems to become more and more battered and exhausted as she takes on one opponent after another in hand-to-hand combat and with all manner of weapons. Even people who dont care for Atomic Blonde as a whole will be talking about this fight.

It was something I had been wanting to do for a long time, Leitch said. It had been in my brain, this extended piece of fight choreography, and its just a matter of finding someone who can do it, who puts in the time and the training and is willing to commit to the multiple takes it takes to get that done, and the months of training to get it done.

Theron brought out on stage producer Beth Kono, thanking her for the dedication to developing the project over a multi-year period.

This whole thing for me, I just want to say this, Theron added, seeming overcome by a sudden wave of emotion, her voice trembling, because Ive been doing this for almost 20 years and tonight was really special for me. Thank you so much.

In a question from the audience, it was noted that in one shot Therons face seemed to slam hard into a wall. Yes, that was my face, she responded. Youre welcome.

Asked about the intensity of her training, Theron responded, It was so hard, are you kidding me? When I started, I called Beth and I said this is never going to work, I look like Big Bird.

Theron said she was surprised by her own progress  working with some eight fight trainers  when she was shown videos of how she was improving,

In 2 1/2 months it was pretty amazing, things I never thought Id be able to do, she said, like throwing these big dudes. Id say were gonna pretend that, right? And David would say, no youre gonna actually throw big dudes.

Theron then added that she trained for the movie in a gym where Keanu Reeves was prepping for the recent John Wick sequel. Theron said she and Reeves would sometimes spar, implying a visual that seemed to ignite a wave of enthusiastic crossover speculation in the audience.

Leitch set the room on fire by simply uttering the words, Atomic Wick?

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Mark.Olsen@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter: @IndieFocus

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The developer intending to build homes, businesses and parks on Banning Ranch  one of the last privately owned and undeveloped pieces of land along Orange Countys coast  is heading back to the drawing board to craft a scaled-down version of the project, but this time, other groups will be at the table.

Newport Banning Ranch LLC plans to meet with California Coastal Commission staff and members of the Banning Ranch Conservancy, a preservation group that opposes building on the land, over the next several months in preparation for its next hearing before the Coastal Commission in January, according to Chris Yelich, a principal with Brooks Street, a real estate development firm in Newport Beach that is associated with the project.

The commission voted Wednesday during a meeting in Long Beach to postpone making a decision on the plan. The panel has the final say over projects along the states coastline.

Were going to go back through our land plan and make adjustments where there have been issues raised by coastal staff, Yelich said. Were looking forward to working with coastal staff and the Banning Ranch Conservancy and talking with them about some of their ideas. I think itll be a work in progress over the next few months.

Newport Banning Ranch initially sought to build 1,375 homes, a 75-room boutique hotel, a hostel, 75,000 square feet of retail space and several parks on about 95 acres of the 401-acre expanse adjacent to the Santa Ana River overlooking West Coast Highway.

After seeing that commission staff was recommending that the panel deny the project, the developer reduced the number of proposed dwellings to 1,175, meaning that 80% of the land would remain open space.

However, the downsizing didnt satisfy the commissioners, who voted unanimously to delay their decision on the projects development permit for 90 days. The move will allow Newport Banning Ranch to come up with a more modest development that commissioners feel adheres to the California Coastal Act, which prioritizes access and preserving environmentally sensitive areas.

Though the area has been used for oil operations since the 1940s, many animal species, including burrowing owls, the California coastal gnatcatcher and endangered San Diego fairy shrimp, have remained on the land.

Commission staff recommended denial of the project because it would have significant adverse impacts upon terrestrial and vernal pool [environmentally sensitive habitat], including impacts to important/rare upland habitats and wildlife species that are an important part of the existing functioning ecosystem that includes both the uplands and lowlands habitat areas.

The staff report indicated, and commissioners agreed Wednesday, that the agency would consider a smaller version of the project.

The developer also would have to gain approval from the California Department of Conservations Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources, which would oversee oil cleanup and consolidation efforts, commissioners said.

There has to be a project that is less invasive, commission Vice Chairwoman Dayna Bochco said. You chose a place that is very, very sensitive.

It wasnt the first time Newport Banning Ranch has agreed to adjust the size of its project. During the nine years that the development plan has wound its way through Newport Beachs Planning Commission and City Council, eventually reaching the Coastal Commission, the proposal has diminished significantly, Yelich said.

Specifically, he pointed to the elimination of a contested 19th Street bridge, a reduction in the size and number of roads and most recently the slimming of the housing element.

Yelich said he didnt want to speculate on how the proposal may look when presented to the commission in January, but he said, Were really optimistic about coming up with a new plan.

Steve Ray, executive director of the Banning Ranch Conservancy, said that while it remains the groups intention to purchase the property and preserve it as open space, members are willing to sit down with the developer to discuss plans for the project, as long as they are given access to the site.

The question is going to be where the development is going to be proposed and of what size will it be proposed, Ray said. If they continue the way they have been  were going to have a problem.

For decades a chain-link fence has surrounded the scrub- and grass-covered bluffs, wetlands, dirt roads and active oil wells, shielding them from public access. Ray said some sort of barricade has surrounded the property since around the time oil drilling began. He said he remembers the chain-link fence going up in 1999.

Ray recalled the group having discussions in 2000 about purchasing the property, hoping to clean up the land, take down the fence and turn it into a place where people could experience nature.

Since the group has not been able to set foot on the land, it has had to get creative in its quest for information, Ray said.

We fly over the property all the time with drones, he said. They have cameras mounted on them, so we are able to take photos fairly close to the ground. Thats how we were able to document all the vernal pools.

Ray said the group also has used a members plane with a camera mounted on the front that is so powerful you can almost see the buds of a flower when we take a photo.

Though the developer and preservationists disagree on how the land should be maintained, they both hope the oil fields can be cleaned up and that the land can again be opened to the public.

Hopefully the community will be happy that the Coastal Commission wants the property open to the public, Yelich said. Were proposing to clean up an existing oil field and turn it into a community asset. Thats what were most excited about.
Gunmen have shot dead a controversial newspaper columnist in the Philippines, media groups said Tuesday, marking the latest journalist death in one of the world's most dangerous nations for reporters.

Joaquin Briones, who worked for tabloid Remate, was shot in the back on Monday by motorcycle-riding assailants on the central island province of Masbate, a hotbed of political conflict and crime.

Remate managing editor Lydia Buena said Tuesday she believed the killing of Briones was likely linked to his "hard-hitting" reports.

"He had received many death threats because he had written many articles about Masbate," she told AFP.

"He was pretty tough. He had a lot of enemies in the local community but he would continue."

Many of his thrice-weekly pieces dealt with illegal fishing, gambling or drugs, she said.

The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines said Briones was the second journalist to be murdered since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in June.

Duterte had sparked an international outcry shortly before taking his oath of office, when he said that journalists who took bribes or engaged in other corrupt activities were legitimate targets of assassination.

Paul Gutierrez, president of the National Press Club and a friend of the slain journalist, said Briones had suggested staying in Manila before Christmas as things were "getting too hot back home".

Briones had previously spent five years in jail for libel involving a local politician.

"He was proud," Gutierrez said. "He actually boasted that he was jailed."

The Philippines is known as being one of the world's deadliest nations for reporters.

A study by the International Federation of Journalists said last year that 146 journalists were killed between 1990 and 2015, making the Philippines the second most dangerous country for the media, surpassed only by Iraq.

One of the worst attacks took place in 2009 when 32 journalists were among 58 people killed by a warlord clan intent on stopping a rival's election challenge.

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A Long Beach man could face 128 years to life in state prison for sexually assaulting a relative, beginning when she was an infant, in Costa Mesa for more than a year, videotaping the acts and circulating them online, according to prosecutors.

An Orange County Superior Court jury on March 8 convicted Ryan Michael Booth, 32, of eight counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years or younger, five counts of using an underage person for obscene matter, a count of possessing child pornography, and a count of sexual exploitation of a child, according to Orange County Superior Court records.

Read the latest headlines from the Daily Pilot >>

Prosecutors said Booth molested the girl beginning when she was 9 months old in 2013 until she was 2 years old. Testimony outlined in court documents indicate Booth took photos and shot videos of himself sexually assaulting the girl in her crib.

Los Angeles Police Department Det. Eric Good testified during a preliminary hearing in 2015 that Booth told him he liked girls between ages 9 and 12 and had been downloading child pornography on and off since high school.

Detectives testified that Booth had 220,000 images of child pornography and 2,000 child porn videos on a hard drive that was found by authorities under his bed. He also had 150 photos and four videos of the young relative, detectives testified.

Booth is expected to be sentenced May 19.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
The fall 1929, discovery of oil in Venice unleashed a rush to drill. A story in the March 31, 1930, Los Angeles Times reported that, nearly sixty Venice property owners have been granted drilling permits by the Los Angeles City Council upon approval of the City Planning Commission. 

Many of the new oil derricks rose up next to Florence Nightingale School forcing closure of the school

A story in the Oct. 30, 1930 Los Angeles Times reported:

Almost surrounded by oil derricks, the Florence Nightingale School at Venice was ordered abandoned and its pupils transferred to other institutions. The action, taken at a joint conference of the Venice Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Education, was deemed necessary because of the noise and fire hazard.

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Two hundred pupils routed from their classrooms have been distributed to other schools and disposition of the abandoned schoolhouse will be made later. There is a possibility that it will be turned over to the oil interests in order to obtain revenue for a new building in a less turbulent neighborhood.

Several years later the school was reopened, but closed again in 1956. The school was located on Trolleyway at Island Street. The streets are now named Pacific Ave. and Anchorage St.
Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was charged Tuesday with aiding the release of private information in a wiretap case involving suspected influence peddling by legislators.

The case against Ma puts the former leader  controversial for his China-friendly policies but widely believed to be a strict follower of the law  under a new spotlight and raises questions about progress in the vibrant democracy of 30 years.

The Taipei District Public Prosecutors Office charged Ma with breaking laws on protection of personal information, release of secrets and communication security and surveillance, office spokesman Chang Chieh-chin said. A conviction could carry up to three years in prison.

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Ma, who served as president from 2008 to 2016, has said he is innocent.

The prosecutors spokesman said that once in August 2013 and again the following month, Ma gave information from a wiretap to his premier at the time, Jiang Yi-huah.

Former government prosecutor Huang Shyh-ming had authorized the wiretap to investigate attempts to influence justice officials by the former president of parliament, Wang Jin-pyng, on behalf of senior legislator Ker Chien-ming, government media in Taiwan reported at the time.

Ker, a senior Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker, was fighting a separate criminal case and eventually was found not guilty. Ker has sued Ma over alleged leaks of confidential information independent of the prosecutors inquiry, and his case is still in court.

Wang and Ma, though members of the same party, have jousted with each other for power.

Ma rejected the charges Tuesday. While questioning him during the six-month inquiry, the prosecutor did not want to hear the former presidents full explanation of his role in the case, Ma spokeswoman Hsu Chao-hsin said.

Theres no way he should have been charged, she said. Where is the justice?

Ma told reporters Tuesday that to pass on information about suspected influence peddling to his premier was a way to handle crisis management and violated no laws. He vowed to fight the case. Im confident in my innocence, he said.

The now-retired government prosecutor suspected of approving the wiretap was found guilty two years ago and paid a fine.

Ma campaigned for office in 2008 on rule of law as his predecessor, former President Chen Shui-bian, was suspected of graft during his own eight-year term. Chen received a 20-year sentence and received medical parole in 2015.

In 2011, Mas government established an anticorruption agency under the Justice Ministry.

He stepped down last year because of term limits, but his Nationalist Party lost the presidential election as well as its legislative majority to the Democratic Progressive Party, which takes a more guarded view of China, in line with the fears of many of Taiwans people.

The charges filed Tuesday shed new light on Ma, said Shane Lee, a political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan. Its just the opposite of what he was believed to be, at least by some people, Lee said.

Ma, 66, a U.S.-educated law scholar and former justice minister, also built a reputation for setting aside 60 years of political hostility between Taiwan and its more militarily powerful neighbor China to discuss trade and investment issues.

But in 2014, after China and Taiwan had signed more than 20 deals, a backlash to Mas deepening engagement with Beijing prompted nearly a month of street protests by Taiwanese fearful of getting too close to a historic rival. The protest movement contributed to the Nationalist Partys local election losses that year, as well as its defeat in the 2016 presidential race.

China considers self-ruled Taiwan a renegade province and insists on eventual unification of the island and mainland. Surveys in Taiwan show a majority prefer self-rule.

Mas legal case following the fate of his predecessor raises questions about the maturity of Taiwans democracy that started in 1987 with the end of martial law, some experts say.

Some of Mas supporters say the inquiry was politically motivated, conducted under the government of a party long hostile to the Nationalists. Chen alleged the same during his graft case proceedings. Chen was backed by the Democratic Progressive Party and charged after the Nationalists took office.

If we blur the lines between politics and law, we are traveling down a very slippery slope, said Joanna Lei, chief executive officer of the Chunghua 21st Century think tank in Taiwan. Taiwan has prided itself as a model democracy and that would soon be challenged.

Political figures in Taiwan can sometimes get the attention of prosecutors to hurt rivals even if no laws were obviously violated, Lee said. Its a very fine line between politics and law, he said.

Jennings is a special correspondent.
Across Europe, Muslim garb is a hot-button topic, and a court ruling on Tuesday  although nonbinding  is likely to turn up the heat.

The Court of Justice of the European Union, based in Luxembourg, said private employers can prohibit workplace displays of visible religious symbols such as the hijab, the head covering donned by some Muslim women. But the ruling left open the door for future complaints.

The court action comes at a time when the role of Islam in public life has been a driving force in public sentiment, and in electoral campaigns, across the continent. With anti-immigrant sentiment surging, the Netherlands holds parliamentary elections Wednesday, and key votes are set later this year in France and Germany.

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Even though it is nonbinding, the European court ruling can be cited as a precedent, which gives it weight in ongoing culture wars.

France, for example, spent much of the summer embroiled in legal disputes over municipal public bans on the burkini, a body-concealing swimsuit.

And in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been on the defensive over her decision to permit the entry of 1 million migrants and asylum-seekers over the last two years. Merkel has for the first time endorsed her partys call for a partial ban on the full-face veil known as the niqab.

Tuesdays court ruling combined two cases brought by Muslim women who alleged discrimination by employers who refused to allow them to wear the hijab in the office.

While courts in France and Belgium will act on those particular cases, the European judges declared that in general, a workplace ban on visible expressions of political, philosophical or religious beliefs did not necessarily constitute discrimination.

In the cases jointly addressed in Tuesdays ruling, the court suggested that without such a workplace policy already in place, Muslim women would have a stronger argument for demanding the right to wear headscarves if they wished.

In the French case, an employee named Asma Bougnaoui had worn the hijab from the outset when she was hired in 2008. But then a client complained, and she was told to take off her headscarf in the office of the IT firm where she worked, despite the fact that there was no existing internal rule governing it. She refused, and lost her job.

In its ruling, the court said customers expressed preference for dealing with an unveiled representative was not a genuine and determining reason for companies to go along with that wish and forbid the wearing of hijab.

The Belgian case centered on a female Muslim employee named Samira Achbita, who took a job with a multinational firm that already had an internal policy calling for neutrality in apparel. Achbita, a receptionist, did not begin wearing the hijab until three years after her hiring in 2003, according to court papers, and that led to her dismissal.

The court suggested that existing rules on workplace garb could protect a company from legal actions  something that could push some firms to preemptively set up such policies.

An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination, the judges wrote.

The subject is highly fraught in both France and Belgium, both of which have been hit by large-scale terror attacks by assailants claiming Islamic extremism as their cause.

France, which has what is believed to be Europes largest Muslim community, has long adhered to the concept of laicite, generally defined as an absence of religious involvement in government affairs and state policy, and vice versa. Among Western European countries, France has moved most aggressively to regulate religious garb in public, including municipal efforts to ban the burkini, and restrictions on the niqab.

In France, the far-right National Front party has been gaining popularity, and its presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, is expected to advance to a second and final round of voting in May. In Germany, Merkels Christian Democrats face challenges from both the left and the right in voting this fall.

The German party AFD, a populist group that takes a hard line on immigration, hailed the European court ruling, saying in a statement that it sends the right signal, especially for Germany.

Wednesdays Dutch vote pits the stridently anti-immigration party of populist Geert Wilders against an array of other parties, including the center-right party that heads the current governing coalition. Wilders party is considered unlikely to win, but likely to gain in strength, giving it greater influence.

laura.king@latimes.com

Twitter: @laurakinglat

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UPDATES:

1:35 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with Los Angeles Times reporting.

This article was originally published at 5:10 a.m.
They gathered in a snowy forest dressed in their menacing best: combat fatigues and military-style boots, their faces obscured by ski masks.

One group jogged off into a thicket of beech trees while another watched an instructor demonstrate, with a 6-inch hunting knife, the proper technique for stabbing an assailant in the chest and throat.

The training session in the rolling woods near the Turkish border was not a military exercise, and the participants were not soldiers or police. They were members of a far-right vigilante group with a simple goal: stopping Muslim migrants from entering Europe.

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The desperate flight north by Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis and others has sparked a backlash here along the European Unions southeastern border, where the Bulgarian vigilantes see themselves as a front-line force against the threat of Islamist radicals infiltrating the West.

There is scant evidence that extremists are posing as refugees or migrants to penetrate this border, which is guarded by a partial fence, Bulgarian police and a small European contingent. But that has not dampened the zeal of the volunteer brigade known as the Committee for National Rescue.

Alarmed by what they describe as overly permissive European policies on immigration, the vigilantes have tapped into a deep vein of xenophobia across the continent. Their English website calls on Europe-born citizens to help close and defend the southern border  from the hordes of radical fake Islam adherents, terrorists and [Islamic State] fighters pouring in and headed for Europe.

Were ready for a war, said Vladimir Rusev, a burly former military man who is one of the groups founders. Were guarding against criminals and terrorists who are working against the interests of Europe and the United States.

His organization  which on a recent weekend mustered about 40 camo-clad men and two women at a rustic guesthouse three miles from the border  claims to have 800 volunteers patrolling at any given time.

They have prevented hundreds from crossing the 140-mile border illegally, sending them back to Turkey or handing them over to Bulgarian authorities, Rusev said.

An instructor demonstrates use of a hunting knife to volunteers who aim to stop migrants from crossing into Bulgaria from Turkey. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

Bulgarian police and Frontex, the European border enforcement agency that has deployed 88 officers here, said they had no information about how many migrants had been stopped by civilians. The number of migrants reaching Europe plunged sharply in 2016, when authorities detected approximately 3,000 illegal crossings at the Bulgaria-Turkey border, half as many as in 2015.

Rusev said they arent a paramilitary force because they dont carry lethal firearms, and they dont stop Syrian refugees or genuine asylum seekers. But they chronicle their exploits vigorously on YouTube, where one undated video shows masked volunteers rounding up about 20 bewildered-looking young migrants.

In other clips, often set to driving Bulgarian rock music, group members practice at gun ranges, engage in light calisthenics or stride through the forest with pellet guns, crossbows and walkie-talkies  and wearing armbands emblazoned with their mascot, a wolf.

They praise President Trump, whose effort to ban citizens of seven (later amended to six) mainly Muslim countries from entering the United States was an important measure, Rusev said.

In a Europe on edge over the link between migration and terrorism, a nationalist fervor is spreading. The November 2015 Paris attacks were carried out by militants who traveled through Greece posing as refugees, while the man suspected of driving a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin last December was a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia.

Anti-immigration candidates are poised for strong election showings in the Netherlands and France. In Hungary, police want to arm 3,000 civilian border hunters with batons and pepper spray to repel migrants.

In Bulgaria, several vigilantes and groups have gained notoriety for arresting migrants and posting videos online. The former prime minister at one point said he welcomed the efforts.

Rusevs organization is believed to be the largest and most established. Far-right activists from Germany and the Netherlands have joined his men on patrols. A prominent white nationalist in Britain, Jim Dowson, made a video here last fall asking supporters to aid in the effort to stop migrants.

You either stop them in Bulgaria, or youll have to stop them in Birmingham, or Bonn or Brussels, Dowson said.

Rusev lamented that the appeal yielded only a few bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles and a drone. Despite soliciting donations online, he said they pay for transportation, equipment and the occasional weekend training meeting out of their own pockets.

Sadly we do not receive any help from any country in the world, nor from the Bulgarian government, Rusev said. We finance ourselves with our own salaries and pensions.

In his 50s, balding and with a neatly trimmed mustache, Rusev offered few details of his background except that he left the army after his wife was injured in a car accident and now runs a construction business.

His organization is made up of two branches that date to Bulgarias struggle to overthrow five centuries of rule by the Ottomans, an Islamic empire based in Turkey. The civilian wing, Shipka, is named for a 19th century battle in which Russian troops and Bulgarian volunteers defeated Ottoman forces; a unit made up of ex-military men is dubbed Vasil Levski, after an independence hero.

Mistrust of Turks runs deep among the members, who view the Ottoman period as a dark era of enslavement by Muslim outsiders.

Thats the world I want to keep from harming my family and my child, Radoslav Kamenov, a 34-year-old warehouse worker with an 8-year-old daughter, said over a dinner of grilled fish and potatoes during the training weekend.

I dont want to see my people falling again under foreign occupation. I dont want to see my culture eradicated.

Bulgaria granted refugee or protected status to 1,341 of the 19,418 people who applied for asylum in 2016, according to official statistics. Still, Kamenov and others worried their country was awash in foreigners.

Members of the Committee for National Rescue, a Bulgarian volunteer group, claim they have stopped hundreds of migrants from entering illegally from Turkey. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

The volunteers include Bulgarian-born Muslims, who make up 8% of the countrys roughly 7 million people, but are seen as practicing a more moderate form of Islam than migrants from the Middle East and South Asia. Most Bulgarians are Orthodox Christians.

At the meeting, a Muslim volunteer, an imposing 46-year-old baker named Kamel Ismail, noticed an American reporter and asked, Are you Taliban?

Informed that the reporter had Indian roots, Ismail wondered why he wasnt wearing a Hindu religious decoration on his forehead. Pointing two fingers as if aiming a pistol, he offered to leave one by firing a couple of bullets. (He later clarified that he was joking.)

In a corner of the woodsy dining room, Rusev switched on a television and played a documentary on Islamic State supporters in Britain. He worried aloud that such people, if allowed in their country, could radicalize Bulgarian Muslims.

We will not allow ourselves or our brothers to be harmed by this terror, Rusev said as a man onscreen brandished a black Islamic State flag. We will drive these bastards out.

The gathering had the flavor of a particularly zany John Birch Society meeting  at one point Rusev suggested that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had co-founded Islamic State  mixed with a Boy Scout camp out. One volunteer showed how to fashion a slingshot. In the morning, under a light snowfall, the group practiced lighting a fire and heating military rations to prepare themselves for overnight patrols.

They generally avoid Bulgarian border police officers, who sometimes stop the volunteers and note down their names but have not taken steps to rein in their activities.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a leading human rights advocacy group, says the vigilantes calls for armed action and anti-migrant propaganda violate the constitution. It filed petitions last year to have the Shipka and Vasil Levski groups nonprofit licenses canceled, but the Bulgarian prosecutors office so far has declined to bring a case.

Margarita Ilieva, a lawyer with the rights organization, said many Bulgarians share the vigilantes antipathy to migrants. Researchers have documented a rise in hate speech toward Muslims in particular.

There is no politician or public figure in power who has opposed hate speech because it would be so unpopular and so costly politically, Ilieva said. The police take their cues and are turning a blind eye to the militias. They allow them to play their games and only ask them not to overstep too much.

The Helsinki committee  whose chairman, Krassimir Kanev, has been assaulted and spat upon in public  is a favorite target of nationalists including Rusev, who said human rights groups prioritize the protection of migrants over native Bulgarians.

Rusev also criticized the border police, whose officers have been found taking bribes from human smugglers. Last summer two top officials resigned after it emerged that the police gave a contract for transporting detained migrants to a businessman who had been connected to a smuggling ring.

Theyre supposed to be stopping illegal immigration but theyre doing the exact opposite, Rusev said.

As the meeting drew to a close, the volunteers had an idea. Several men donned white plastic jumpsuits  snow camouflage  and ran to the hills near where a handful of border police were parked in a truck. The goal was to show the officers that migrants could be tricky.

They weaved between the bare trees, then lay waiting for several moments. Finally they jumped up and ran toward the police, waving their arms and shouting.

The officers looked on, but did nothing.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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The European Union anti-piracy operation off Somalia says armed men are demanding a ransom for the release of an oil tanker they have seized.

An EU Naval Force statement late Tuesday said the operation finally made contact with the ships master in late afternoon. He confirmed that armed men were aboard the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13.

Mondays hijacking was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel on the crucial global trade route since 2012.

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A Somali pirate who said he is in touch with the armed men says the amount of ransom has not been decided.

The reported seizure of the Aris 13 came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile and that Somali pirates possess the intent and capability to resume attacks. One expert said some in the region had let down their guard as the situation calmed. NATO ended its anti-piracy mission off Somalia in December.

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalias capital, Mogadishu, when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, the director of Oceans Beyond Piracy.

An official in the semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off Somalias northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the Al Qaeda-linked extremist group Shabab. The official was not authorized to speak to journalists about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The ship was anchored Tuesday off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship, he told the Associated Press by phone.

The vessels captain reported to the company they were approached by two skiffs and that one of them they could see armed personnel on board, an official based in the Middle East said. The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored. The official was also not authorized to comment publicly about the incident and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A Britain-based spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force operation off Somalia, Lt. Louise Tagg, said an investigation was underway. The U.S. Navys 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain and oversees anti-piracy efforts in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sri Lankas foreign ministry said in a statement it was in touch with shipping agents and officials abroad for more information to help ensure the crews safety and welfare.

A U.N. shipping database shows the Aris 13 is owned by a company called Armi Shipping SA, whose address is listed in care of Aurora Ship Management FZE, a company based in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. Calls and emails to Aurora went unanswered.

Australian government records from 2014 list the ships owner as Flair Shipping Trading FZE in the UAE. Argyrios Karagiannis, the managing director of Flair Shipping, declined to comment.

An address listed for Flair Shipping in Dubais high-rise neighborhood of Jumeirah Lake Towers was for a company called Flair Oil Trading DMCC. A woman who answered the door Tuesday told an AP reporter the firm wasnt connected to the ship and directed him to another office.

When no one answered the door at that office, the AP reporter returned to find Karagiannis entering the office of Flair Oil Trading DMCC.

We will not be releasing any information, Karagiannis said before shutting the door.

The incident involving the Aris 13 represents the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Steed said.

The pirates never went away, they were just doing other forms of crime and if any of the measures reduce (which they have, or ships take risks) the pirates are poised to exploit the weakness, he said in an email.

Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom. They dont normally kill hostages unless they come under attack.

Piracy off Somalias coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter-century of conflict. In that time, concerns about piracy off Africas coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.

But frustrations have been rising among local fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.

Nur, the local elder, told the AP that young fishermen including former pirates have hijacked the ship.

They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it, he said. Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing.

MORE WORLD NEWS

Vigilantes prowl Europes border with a target: Muslim migrants

Mexican official says 250 skulls found in what appears to be a cartel mass burial ground

Former Taiwan president charged with leaking secret information from corruption probe

UPDATES:

2:25 p.m.: This article was updated with news of the pirates demanding ransom.

This article was originally published at 1:40 p.m.
After a year of transition, the Inter-American Investment Corporation is primed to sharply extend its financing portfolio, its chief executive says
Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Kathleen Biden are reportedly putting an end to their tumultuous marriage. The separated duo filed a consent motion in Washington D.C on Wednesday, March 8, to divorce in an honorable, polite and family-focused manner."

According to US Weekly, the motion has established that the involved parties have prioritized benefits for their children and families. The couple has decided to call it quits amicably and privately, keeping it under the wraps for the sake of family discretion.

The decision was put forward by Kathleen, who accused her lawyer husband of infidelity and spending a ludicrous amount of money on drugs, alcohol and nefarious doings, which involved strip clubs and womanizing. Hunter was accused of lavish lifestyle as he spent the money on personal interests, crippling his family financially, leaving behind no money for wife and three daughters.

The divorce document stated that Hunter and Kathleen "separated on or about October 2015, due to irreconcilable differences concerning Mr. Biden's conduct, including drug use and infidelity." Hunter's attorney Sarah Mancinelli requested for the privacy of the family and established that he admires Kathleen as a mother and a wife.

Their marriage was subjected to instability after Hunter was caught romantically involved with his brother's widow Hallie Biden. Beau Biden, Hunters' brother, died in May 2015 at the age of 46 after a fatal battle with brain cancer.

While talking to New York Post's Page Six, he said that he feels lucky to have found immense love and support, along with his wife, at this hour of family crisis. "We've been so lucky to have family and friends who have supported us every step of the way."

Hunter and Kathleen currently have three daughters. Jim Biden said that the news of their family crisis hasn't disturbed their family dynamics.
The number of undocumented immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico has declined by 40 percent from January to February. The Department of Homeland Security State has reported this news on late Wednesday.

According to Mail Online the number of illegal border crossings at the southern border has dropped to 18,762 in February from 31,578 in January. The downturn came after President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 vowing to deport many of the estimated11 million illegal's in the United States.

US Customs and Border Protection Agency secretary, John Kelly said, the compiled data historically sees a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in apprehensions of immigrants from January to February. The result came after the U.S President Donald Trump decision against Mexico.

Reuters has reported that Trump has ordered the construction of a wall on Jan.25 along the roughly2, 000-mile U.S-Mexico border. He moved to strip federal funding from 'sanctuary' states and cities that harbor illegal immigrants and expanded the force of U.S immigrant's agents.

"This drop in apprehensions shows a marked change in trends, " said Kelly. Trump took office on January 20. He stressed that the sharp decline means fewer people are taking the huge risk of putting their fate in the hands of human traffickers.

The news report has stated that during his campaign, Trump appalled Mexicans and many Americans by referring to Mexicans who crossed the border illegally into the U.S as drug dealers and criminals. Latinos are the largest US minority; most U.S Hispanic is of Mexican decent or immigrants from Mexico.

However, this year U.S immigrant's officials have already shut down emergency processing centers in South Texas. That, they opened in December to handle in influx of families.

Meanwhile, in December so many families were crossing the border illegally. But the ICE was forced to release hundreds to create bed space for new detainees.


Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday she would be given the power to start Brexit talks within days but declined to name a date for a process already disrupted by Scotland's independence bid.

After speculation in Brussels and at home that she would start the withdrawal process this week, May told the House of Commons that she would fulfil her promise to do it by the end of March.

Parliament late Monday approved a bill empowering the government to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, starting a two-year countdown to Britain's departure.

May said the bill would receive formal assent from Queen Elizabeth II "in the coming days" -- leaving the prime minister free to start Brexit at any time.

"I will return to this House before the end of this month to notify when I have formally triggered Article 50 and begun the process through which the United Kingdom will leave the European Union," she said.

This would put Britain on course to become the first country to leave the 28-member bloc by March 2019.

"I don't know the date when the letter will arrive, but what I know is that we are ready," European Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein said.

May appeared to be caught off guard Monday when Scotland's nationalist government said it would next week seek authorisation for a second referendum on leaving the United Kingdom.

The prospect had been mooted since the June referendum vote for Brexit, in which a majority of Scots had wanted to stay in the bloc, but the announcement had not been expected so soon.

May immediately condemned the plan, less than three years after Scots voted by 55 percent to reject independence, saying it would be "divisive".

"This is not a moment to play politics or create uncertainty," she repeated on Tuesday, saying it was time to "bring our country together".

Facing nationalist movements across the continent, the EU is determined that no other countries follow Britain out the door, and big battles await over budget contributions, immigration and trade ties.

Manfred Weber, a German lawmaker who leads the European People's Party, the biggest grouping in the European Parliament, said Scotland's breakaway bid signalled "a deepening of the splits in British society".

"People all over Europe can see how risky it is to take the EU into question," he said.

There is speculation that May could wait to trigger Article 50 until after a March 25 summit in Rome to mark the EU's 60th birthday, a moment it hopes will emphasise the bloc's unity.

The prime minister will not be attending, her spokesman confirmed Tuesday, adding that it was a decision agreed with EU leaders and "she wishes them well".

The Scottish National Party (SNP) government in Edinburgh is hoping that with independence, Scotland could maintain its close ties with the EU.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said her concerns about May's plan to pull Britain out of Europe's single market, in order to cut immigration, had been met with a "brick wall of intransigence".

But the European Commission was quick to warn that Scotland would have to reapply as a new nation.

May has the power to block a second independence vote, but this would risk energising the Scottish nationalist cause at a time when polls indicate a narrow majority in favour of staying in Britain.

The approval of the Brexit bill was a victory for the prime minister, and she said Tuesday it gave "a very clear message to everybody in Europe that we mean business".

But further battles await in parliament, where a majority of lawmakers did not want to leave the EU -- and certainly not Europe's single market, which they fear could hit economic growth.

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The Chinese ships have entered waters recognized by the United Nations as the Philippine territory. The defense secretary Delfin N Lorenzana has reported the news and described it as "very concerning".

According to Business World Online, the ships were seen last year near Benham Rise. This is 250 kilometers off the east coast of the main islands of Luzon, as well as Reed Bank in the South China Sea, which is claimed by both Manila and Beijing.

Lorenzana has described China's latest move as "very concerning". He also said he had ordered the Navy to accost and drive away the service ship from Benham Rise if it is seen again.

Yahoo News has reported that Lorenzana statement comes as President Rodrigo Duterte seeks warmer relations with Beijing. The ties soured under the previous administration because of conflicting claims in the South China Sea.

Benham Rise is an underwater land mass believed to be potentially rich in mineral and natural gas deposits. The United Nation Commissions on the limits of the continental shelf approved the Philippines undisputed territorial claim to Ben ham rise. China, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam has conflicting claims over the South China Sea.

The local news report has stated that Mr. Duterte's predecessor, Benigno S.C Aquino 111, had pressed the Philippines claims leading to tensions with China. But the new president Mr.Duterte has focussed on boosting relations with Beijing, downplaying the territorial conflict while seeking financial and military aid.

China has long-standing demand over the South China Sea. China claims almost all of the vital sea-lane, including the Reed Bank which is about 148 kilometers of Palawan and which Manila considers as its territory.

Meanwhile, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia will launch joint patrols in piracy-plagued waters. After a wave of attacks that have seen Islamic militants kidnapping and murdering foreigners.


Last June, the federal health officials warned U.S. clinics to be aware of the emerging pathogens that have been spreading around the globe that caused almost three dozen of citizens that has been diagnosed. Since 2009, a deadly and highly drug-resistant fungal infection known as Candida auris, has been reported on five continents in a dozen countries.

According to The Washington Post, this fungal infection was first found in an ear infection of a patient in Japan. Since then, the fungus has been reported along with this country including, Colombia, India, Israel, Kenya, Pakistan, South Korea, Venezuela, and the United Kingdom.

Candia auris is a serious yeast infection that runs through the bloodstream and spreads easily from person to person, especially in health-care settings. Candida auris can survive on skin for months and weeks on bed rails, chairs, and other hospital equipment. It is difficult to identify with the standard laboratory methods and can be misidentified in labs without the specific technology.

CDC encourage all the U.S. laboratory staff to notify their state or the local public health authorities, whoever identify the Candida auris. CDC is now tracking the numbers of infections and updating the case count in every a couple of weeks. Based on the information from a limited number of patients, there is 60 percent of individuals who died with this infection and most of them are also had serious illnesses.

Though the officials are not sure whether the deaths were caused by the infection or by their serious medical conditions, yet the five patients with fungus are initially isolated from blood, one from urine, and one from the ear. So far, the fungus does not seem to be developing into a new strain in the United States, because the country does not have any domestic strains of the said deadly fungus.

Candida auris has been resistant to the three types of major antifungal drugs because it is an invasive bloodstream infection that can affect the blood, heart, and other parts of the body that are more dangerous. Since CDC issued an alert, the agency is now providing funds and additional experts to help the regional laboratories and hospitals to identify the organism.
A blizzard warning is now up at midnight and is expected to last till Tuesday, 4 p.m. over parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The warning was issued to prepare for severe winter storms that have sustained winds of 35 mph or higher with snow that can reduce visibility to around  of a mile or less. This warning is expected to prevail for 3 hours. Other areas covered by a winter storm warning are northern Delaware and southern New Jersey which will be in effect until Tuesday 4 p.m.

The blizzard warning includes areas in Pennsylvania including Western Montgomery, Western Chester County, Upper Bucks County, Berks County, Lehigh County and Northampton County, 6ABC Action News reported. In New Jersey areas included are Mercer County and Hunterdon County.

Meanwhile, Tuesday forecast is still bleak with a major Northeastern weather disturbance that will bring freezing temperatures, heavy snow and wind over the region. Residents are expected to watch out for the heaviest snowfall from dawn till the early afternoon and to get ready for power outages due to heavy snowfall. The heaviest snow fall could happen from 3 a.m. till 12 p.m. with light snow fall Tuesday afternoon.

In the D.C. and New England area, residents are told to expect heavy wet snow accompanied with strong winds which could lead to power outages, Washington Post reported. Snow forecasts remain undetermined as of this time but everyone is told to be prepared. A Winter Storm Warning has been released by the National Weather Service indicating that the warning remains in effect until Tuesday 2 p.m.

According to the warning, the Washington D.C. area should expect 4 to 6 inches of snow accumulation with higher amounts further west. Snow is expected to be overspread and will persist till Tuesday morning with the heaviest snowfall late Monday night. Residents are advised not to travel because of the heavy snow and are warned against potential power outages.
Every year several artifacts have been discovered all over the world. Each of the ancient discoveries has their stories and history to tell. Just like the recently discovered ancient tomb in China that is decorated with murals.

The ancient tomb in China which was found in Zhangzi county, Shanxi province is believed to be more than 900 years old. According to China Daily, the ancient tomb in China decorated with murals is from the Jin Dynasty dated 1115-1234.

Archaeologists who discovered the ancient tomb in China said that the entrance way of the tomb is sealed off with bricks. The team had to enter through a hole in the arch-shaped roof to explore what's inside the tomb.

Based on the description given, the ancient tomb in China is decorated with colorful murals painted on a white background. The upper parts of the tomb feature several acts of filial piety. A researcher from Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute said that the murals engraved in the tomb depict people ways of working and cooking.

Upon flanking the gate of the ancient tomb in China, archaeologists saw some images of herdsmen and cattle. The pictures are also adorned with floral, cloud motifs, and animals. According to Live Science, scientists found cremated human remains in an urn located in the middle of the tomb.

No texts were found inside the ancient tomb in China, but the team of archaeologists believes that it belongs to a husband and wife. The murals on the wall of the tomb show servants, cranes, as well as different articles of colorful clothing which is still vibrant despite the passage of time.

The clothes in the ancient tomb in China mural are painted with sky blue, beige, bluish-gray, pink, and yellowish-brown. The painting also shows four round plates on a long rectangular table in front of the clothes stand.




Egypts Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr met on Tuesday with a high-level mission from the World Bank Group (WB) to discuss improving the business environment in the country, the international cooperation ministry said.

The ministry said in a statement on its website on Tuesday that the mission, chaired by WB Vice-President Jan Walliser, is on a visit to Egypt to tackle advancing Egypt's ranking in the Doing Business Report, which annually examines regulations and regulatory processes involved in setting up and operating a business in different economies worldwide.

Egypt went up four places in the Doing Business index for 2017, released in October 2016, compared to last year's report; coming in 122nd out of 190 countries and taking fifth place among comparable economies in the MENA region in terms of ease of doing business.

Egypt was preceded by the UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Nasr said that the government has taken several measures to achieve economic growth and improve Egypt's ranking in the Doing Business report, while commending the bank's efforts in supporting the countrys development projects.

The government has worked on the implementation of an ambitious economic and social programme to meet citizens' needs and improve standards of living, the Egyptian minister said during the meeting.

Since 2014, Egypt has embarked on a plan to introduce a number of fiscal reforms, including floating the pound, fuel subsidy cuts, as well as imposing new taxes to ease a growing budget deficit, which amounted to 12.2 percent in last fiscal year.

The ministry says that the World Bank mission commended the measures taken to improve Egypt's ranking in the Doing Business report, while referring to its role in presenting the best international business practices to the Egyptian government so as to choose those that are in line with its programme.

The meeting saw discussion on the measures taken by the government in the fields on which Egypt will be ranked, such as the commencement of business activities, the ease of obtaining access to credits, and regulation of the labour market.

The Doing Business Report measures factors including the time it takes to start a business, the ease of registering property, and access to credit.

In late December, Egypt signed with the director of the World Bank in Cairo a loan agreement for the second $1 billion tranche from a $3 billion loan package to support Egypts economic reform programme.

Egypt received the first tranche of the loan in September.

The current portfolio of the World Bank in Egypt includes 25 projects with a total commitment of about $8.5 billion, according to WB data.

Following the flotation of the local currency in November, the IMF approved the loan and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) received an initial $2.75 billion tranche.

Egypts foreign reserves reached $26.54 billion by the end of February 2017, up from around $26.36 billion in January 2017, the central bank said.

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The Cairo Metro Company is failing to cover maintenance, electricity and water expenses due to a lack of resources, company spokesperson Ahmed Abdel-Hady told Ahram Online on Tuesday.

According to Abdel-Hady, the company still owes the subcontractor in charge of metro maintenance EGP 10 million. It has also failed to pay 18 months worth of electricity and water bills amounting to EGP 260 million and EGP 40 million respectively.

We have received letters from the electricity and water companies threatening to cut their services, said Abdel-Hady.

The Egyptian Company for Metro Management and Operation, which was established in 1984 to operate, maintain and manage the Cairo metro, generates its revenues from tickets and subscriptions.

The prices of metro tickets have not been increased since 2006, Abdel-Hady said.

There have been discussions to increase the fare, but no decision has yet been taken.

Abdel-Hady also says that 12-15 percent of commuters use the metro system without paying the fare, which the company is working on combating by installing new entry gates.

Last year, Egypts transportation ministry announced it will double the price of Cairo's metro tickets to EGP 2 before the end of the 2016 fiscal year, as annual losses are estimated at EGP 250 million.

The increase has not been implemented, however.

Cairos underground tube, launched in 1987, is one of the oldest metro systems in the Middle East and Africa and serves around 3.5 million passengers daily.

Construction on the fourth and final phase of Cairo's third metro line started in 2015, with the line expected to be operational starting this year.

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Mar 14, 2017, 3:34pm ET

Is there more to the Waymo vs. Uber suit than meets the eye?

Breadcrumbs lead to theory that Waymo will accuse Uber of conspiracy.

Leftlane reported last week that Alphabet, Inc. (the holding company which owns, among other subsidiaries, Google and Waymo) is suing Uber for alleged intellectual property theft of its LiDAR sensor design, but one Valley observer thinks there's something much bigger on the horizon.

Daniel Compton, a self-described "independent software consultant" based in Morrinsville, New Zealand, has followed the trail of breadcrumbs in Waymo's legal filings and suggests that, beneath the superficial accusations, Waymo is alleging something far more sinister--a deliberate conspiracy between a former Waymo employee and an executive at Uber to steal Waymo's I.P. and disguise that theft as the work of a startup that would then be acquired by Uber.

The trail of breadcrumbs is scattered throughout legal filings (among which are depositions describing meetings between former Waymo employees), but Compton believes his interpretation of the narrative is plausible.

The fundamentals:

- A Waymo employee accessed and saved files regarding the company's LiDAR technology after allegedly having meetings with an Uber executive who indicated interest in acquiring a company that had developed such technology.

- That employee then left Waymo and launched an autonomous vehicle startup (280systems.com--later Otto)--ostensibly with the goal of building self-driving trucks.

- Despite a lack of investment, this company was able to "develop" LiDAR sensor technology very similar to, and allegedly employing design elements otherwise unique to, Waymo's.

- After the employee's final ties to Waymo/Google were severed, Otto was almost immediately acquired by Uber--for $680 million.

Essentially, what Compton is theorizing is that the former Waymo employee essentially colluded with Uber to steal, re-brand and deliver Waymo's LiDAR sensor technology under the cover of a startup for a (possibly) pre-arranged dollar value.

This interpretation of events does not go far beyond the allegations already made in Waymo's court filings. The cornerstone of Waymo's case is the alleged I.P. theft itself. Compton's narrative only speculates that Uber's acquisition of Otto was pre-arranged, rather than a simple case of Uber acting opportunistically to acquire technology it needed to further its goal of developing self-driving vehicles.

Whether Uber executives were complicit in the alleged theft of Waymo's technology has no bearing on Uber's standing as the defendant in the current legal battle. As Uber acquired Otto, Waymo had no choice but to pursue its case against the new parent. If Waymo can demonstrate that Uber knew of or, worse, influenced/participated in, an act of intellectual property theft, it could ultimately influence the judgment against Uber.
Mar 14, 2017, 5:08am ET

Lexus confirms UX concept-inspired crossover

Lexus is looking to lure younger buyers into showrooms.

Lexus has confirmed it will expand its lineup with a small, entry-level crossover inspired by last year's UX concept (pictured).

"We are doing [the UX]. It's not so far away," said Yoshihiro Sawa, Lexus' executive vice president, in an interview with Australian website Motoring.

The UX is an important model because it will take Lexus into a popular segment that it has never competed in before. However, Sawa explained it's not just looking to satisfy its dealers by launching more crossovers. Cars like the UX are needed in order to lure younger buyers into the company's showrooms.

"Except IS and CT, Lexus owners are aged," he explained. "But from this year we tried to seek the buyer average that is younger," he added.

Sawa's comments suggest the UX will make its official debut before the end of the year. We could even see it next month during the New York Auto Show, though an official time frame hasn't been provided yet. Regardless, sales will kick off in time for the 2018 model year.

The arrival of the UX is bad news for the CT, Lexus' current entry-level model. Company executives have all but confirmed the Prius-derived CT will not be replaced because compact hatchback sales are dwindling in key markets like the United States and China.
Mar 14, 2017, 3:46pm ET

Tesla pushes to repeal dealer franchise laws in Texas

The company has doubled down on its lobbying strategy after unsuccessfully seeking exemptions to existing franchise regulations.

Tesla has reportedly doubled down on its lobbying efforts in Texas after unsuccessfully seeking exemptions to existing dealer franchise regulations.

The company previously pushed for legislation that would have permitted direct sales for automakers that have never established a network of franchised dealers in the state. The efforts proved futile, however, and the proposals never proceeded far enough to receive a vote in the state House or Senate.

Dealer lobbyists argued that Tesla was seeking preferential treatment, enabling the company to play by different rules. Tesla is now coming back to the table with an even bolder proposal that addresses such criticism.

The latest proposal would allow for direct sales by any automaker, including Tesla and established rivals alike.

"It's a simple, free-market bill to allow that to happen," said state Rep Jason Isaac, a Republican who submitted the bill in the House, as quoted by The Texas Tribune.

The move will undoubtedly face even more pushback from franchise dealers in the state, many of whom are significant political donors.

"Tesla's legislation seeks to unravel the entire franchised dealer system in Texas, in favor of direct sales of motor vehicles by a manufacturer," Texas Automobile Dealers Association president Bill Wolters said in a statement to the Tribune. "SB 2093 and the reduced competition it will bring about in the new vehicle sales and service market will come at the expense of Texans and Texas."

Wolters further argues that no other automaker had sought a change to the law, " and Tesla doesn't need to either," implying that Tesla should simply follow suit and establish a franchise network in the state.

Tesla last year started preparing for a federal showdown that could clear the way for direct sales across the country, including the handful of holdout states that includes Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Connecticut, Utah and West Virginia.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was combatting Tuesday's dangerous snowstorm with 37 plow trucks each in Lehigh and Northampton counties, engineering district spokesman Ron Young said.

The vehicles had yet to be converted for spring use -- that's still a couple of weeks away -- so, at worst, plow blades had to put back on, he said.

PennDOT had a simple hope for Tuesday, Young said.

"Our goal is to keep them passable," Young said of major routes. "They may be open with snow cover."

The major roads -- such as Route 22 and Interstate 78 -- are the priority, he said. As of 6:30 a.m., both were snow-covered.

It helps if people stay off the highways, he added.

"We're encouraging people not to travel at all," he said. "With major snow events, a lot of plowing is going on. It's hard to do that a with wrecked car or tractor-trailer blocking road. Traveling on snow or ice -- we want people to take it easy, stay where they are, wait it out if they can."

If snow falls at a rate of 1 to 2 inches or more per hour?

"That's a lot of snow very quickly," he said. "Visibility will be a problem too.

"That's an extreme amount of snow. There could be whiteout conditions. It's best in a storm like this is to stay wherever you are located."

It takes a plow truck about two hours to complete a route, usually 20 miles up a highway and then 20 miles back, he said. Sometimes staggered "trains" are formed so more than one lane of a highway is plowed at the same time.

Residents can keep an eye on where the plow trucks are on 511pa.com, he said.

A plow will hit other major routes about every there hours and less frequently on secondary roads, he said.

The governor can allow for the hiring of contractors and PennDOT is shifting resources from areas that aren't being as heavily hit, Young said.

Phillipsburg Mayor Stephen Ellis echoes Young's call for people to stay inside.

His town's streets are thin and can be tough to navigate in a plow. A snow emergency began there at 9 p.m. Monday.

"Absolutely, 100 percent, don't venture outside," Ellis said. "That's what makes it hazardous."

And residents should not shovel snow into the street, he said. In addition to it making the plow drivers' lives more difficult, it's against the law, he said.

Residents become "disgruntled" when the streets are not plowed to their expectations and making the town plow more than necessary is unnecessary, he said.

So far this winter, the town hasn't spent a great deal of money on snow removal, he said. There's plenty of salt on hand as well.

But the snow has a benefit to drought-burdened New Jersey, the mayor said.

"We need the snowpack for our streams, lakes and rivers," he said in a winter where less than 15 inches of snow had fallen. Without snow, "wells go dry. All sort of bad things happen. It's a double-edged sword, but were definitely need it."

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Two feet of snow appears out of the question.

Eighteen inches is still possible, but only north of Allentown. South of that and a foot of snow might be all we see, according to the National Weather Service.

Predictions of an 18- to 24-inch forecast for Tuesday could be a bust by the time all is said and done. And we can likely say goodbye to the notion of calling this a blizzard.

A mid-morning layer of warm air again moved into the Lehigh Valley, below where snow falls but above where it hits the street, a meteorologist at WeatherWorks explained about 10 a.m.

The warm air melts the snow, but it then refreezes at a lower layer and falls to the ground as sleet, Matt Potter said.

Up until noon, the area will bounce back between ice pellets and snow, before shifting to all snow and "blizzard-like" conditions return until about 2 p.m., he said. A similar thing happened just after 7 a.m., when warm air led to sleet but it was overwhelmed soon after by heavy snow and brutal wind.

The storm should wrap up by 4 p.m., he said.

Just before sleet brought a sting to the face along with increased visibility about 9:15 a.m., an extremely heavy band of snow passed through that included snow rates of up to 5 inches an hour, Potter said.

Warm air aloft also limited accumulation south and east of the Lehigh Valley.

The chances of this being called The Blizzard of 2017 were lessened when, after two hours of intense wind and heavy snow, the sleet fell vertically rather than horizontally and the wind died down.

As of 10:20 a.m., Lehigh Valley International Airport had not reached the standard of a blizzard -- three hours of visibility of a quarter mile or less and sustained winds or frequent gusts of 35 mph or more, according to the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J.

The airport reported 9.6 inches of snow at 8 a.m.

As for the forecast of 18 to 24 inches of snow, it likely won't hold, Potter said.

"Based on what we've seen so far, most areas (of the Lehigh Valley) are in the 10- to 16-inch range, especially south of Route 22," he said.

Weather service meteorologist Mitchell Gaines said the warm air sneaked in because the low pressure area came so close to the New Jersey coast. If it had tracked farther east, that air wouldn't have infiltrated as far to the west as it did, he said.

South of Allentown likely will get a foot of snow while north of the city could still get 18 inches, he said.

Potter figures "up in the hills" in the northern portion of the Valley, the changeover might not happen, allowing for the higher end of WeatherWorks' forecast.

The record single-day snowfall for March in the Lehigh Valley came on March 13, 1993, when 16.7 inches fell. The biggest multi-day storm for March was March 18-21 in 1958, with a total of 20.3 inches, according to the weather service.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Nearly 70 ill people who need hospital treatment cannot get a bed at hospitals in Laois and Offaly, according to the latest figures from nurses.

Daily figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation show that there were 31 people on trollies in the Emergency Department (A&E / EM) at the Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise.

A further 39 patients in the queue for a bed at Portlaoise's sister hospital - the Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore. Of those waiting in the Offaly hospital, 28 are on A&E trollies.

Tullamore is the nearest referral hospital for Laois patients who cannot be treated in Portlaoise. Cancer and orthopaedic services are provided in Tullamore. Portlaoise has paediatric and maternity units.

Both hospitals are in the Dublin Midland Hospital Group of hospitals. All of the acute hospitals in the group were under pressure on Tuesday, March 3 with a total of 137 people waiting for beds - most patients are on A&E trollies.

The total waiting in St James' has 22 people waiting while there were 26 people on trollies in Tallaght hospital's A&E. A total of 19 people were in the queue at Naas General.

Senior management in the DMHG visited Portlaoise last week to discuss the hospital's reconfiguration with the hospital's doctors. The DMHG want the doctors to accept the opening of a new Medical Assessment Unit but Portlaoise's consultants believe this will pave the way for downgrade and loss of services such as A&E.

DMHG management refuse to reveal any details of the plan for the reconfiguration of the hospital with the doctors. The plan is with the Department of Health.

A total of 506 people were waiting for beds in hospitals around the country on Tuesday according the the INMO figures.
Laois TD Sean Fleming has announced the findings of an inquiry into how NAMA sold a property crash loan book which culmimated in the 3.55 billion loss for taxpayers.

Through the so-called Project Eagle the State ultimately only recovered 36% of the original par value of these Northern Ireland loans taken over by NAMA following the property crash.

Sean Fleming is Chair of the Dail Public Accounts Committee which investigated the porcess.

"It is the view of the Committee that the sales strategy pursued by NAMA included restrictions of such significance that the strategy could be described as seriously deficient. It is, therefore, the opinion of the Committee that NAMA has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy that it got value for money for the Irish State in relation to the price achieved," said the Fianna Fail TD.

The Committee concluded that:

 the sale of Project Eagle was not a well-designed sales process.

 NAMAs failure to effect Mr Frank Cushnahans removal from NAMAs Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, following his disclosures in relation to provision of consultancy services on behalf of a number of NAMAs Northern Irish debtors, was a failure of corporate governance by NAMA.

 the NAMA Board was not explicitly informed of the extent of the financial loss which would be recorded in NAMAs accounts as a result of setting the minimum reserve price of STG 1.3 billion.

 key elements of the Sales strategy were influenced by the firm, PIMCO, which made the initial approach to NAMA in respect of buying the Northern Ireland portfolio.

 the sales strategy pursued by NAMA included restrictions of such significance that the strategy could be described as seriously deficient

 NAMA has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy that it got value for money for the Irish State in relation to the price achieved.

Statement made by Deputy Fleming at the launch of the Report into the Examination by the Committee of NAMAs sale of Project Eagle.

On behalf of the Public Accounts Committee, I want to thank you for attending today at the launch of the Committees report into NAMAs sale of Project Eagle.

In June 2014, NAMA sold its Northern Ireland remaining portfolio of loans in a single lot to Cerberus for a price of STG 1.137 billion. The sale of the portfolio was code named Project Eagle.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) carried out an examination because of the size of the sale and the recorded losses associated with the sale.

In his Special Report, Number 94 he criticised elements of NAMAs performance in relation to the sale.

While the conclusions of the C&AGs report would in any event merit considerable attention by the Committee, the fact that some of the contents were so vigorously disputed by NAMA made closer examination by the Committee essential.

The Committee is mindful that there are a number of ongoing investigations in relation to Project Eagle in Ireland and other jurisdictions and we sought not to prejudice any of these.

I wish to draw attention to some key aspects in our Report:

Financial Outcome

The focus of the Committee was to concentrate on the actual financial outcome and the actual losses incurred.

In evidence to the Committee the CEO of NAMA accepted that NAMA recorded a loss of STG 162m in its accounts on the sale of Project Eagle.

NAMA incurred losses in respect of its Northern Ireland debtors of 800m during the period of 2010 to 2014. This figure includes the loss of STG 162m on the sale of Project Eagle.

The Committee looked at the overall picture in relation to all the loans that were acquired by NAMA and the original par value of these loans.

When NAMA acquired its Northern Ireland debtors loans in 2010 and 2011 they had a par value of 5.38 billion. 46% of these were acquired from Anglo Irish Bank and the remainder from the other banks.

The 2.75 billion discount on the original par value of these loans was a cost borne by the State. This 2.75 billion loss was realised prior to the loans coming under the control of NAMA.

When this figure is added to the 800m losses incurred by NAMA, the total combined losses on these loans borne by the State was 3.55 billion. The State ultimately only recovered 36% of the original par value of these loans.

Cerberus, a private investment firm based in New York, was the successful bidder for Project Eagle.

Cerberus went on to make further purchases from NAMA. Up to the 22nd December 2016 Cerberus had purchased 14.4 billion of assets from NAMA: This is 20% of the total par debt of 74 billion acquired by NAMA.

Cerberus, is the biggest purchaser of NAMA assets having bought more than the next 4 largest purchasers combined.

Corporate Governance

Mr. Frank Cushnahan was a Member of the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee. During 2011 and 2012 Mr. Frank Cushnahan submitted 6 disclosures of interest stating that he was providing financial consultancy services, mainly on a non-fee basis to 6 NAMA NI debtors.

These debtors connections accounted for approximately 50% by value of the Project Eagle loans.

It is the opinion of the Committee that NAMAs failure to effect Mr. Frank Cushnahans removal from NIAC, following his disclosures in relation to consultancy services on behalf of a number of NAMAs NI debtors, was a failure of corporate governance by NAMA.

The NAMA Chairman and CEO met with the Cerberus Chairman on the day prior to the bid closing date for Project Eagle.

The Committee is of the opinion that the Board should have been informed of this meeting when the Board met on the 3rd April 2014 and agreed to sell Project Eagle to Cerberus.

The Committee considers that it was not appropriate for NAMA, as the contracting body, to meet with Cerberus representatives the day before the Project Eagle bid closing date. It could have given the perception that Cerberus was benefiting from preferential treatment.

The Committee considers that it was not procedurally appropriate for the Minister for Finance to meet with senior Cerberus representatives the day before the Project Eagle bid closing date. This could have given the perception that Cerberus was benefitting from preferential treatment.



Sales Process

NAMA first became aware of interest in its Northern Ireland loan portfolio when it received a letter on 4th July 2013. Subsequently NAMA received a letter from PIMCO expressing interest in purchasing the portfolio. On the 4th December 2013 PIMCO submitted an indicative bid to NAMA of STG 1.1 billion to STG 1.3 billion subject to due diligence.

The Comptroller and Auditor General stated that he arrived at the figure of a probable loss of STG 190 million arising from his analysis of the cash flow projections which had been created by NAMA. He indicated, however, that the figure could have varied, up or down.

In his report the C&AG raised concerns in relation to a number of assumptions used in arriving at estimates of the net present value of the loans as presented to the NAMA Board. These concerns are highlighted in Paragraphs 116 and 117. Table 7 on Page 48 gives a concise reconciliation of NAMAs and the C&AGs valuations.

However, it must be stated that the overall actual loss incurred on the sale of Project Eagle was STG 162 million.

The NAMA Board was not informed of the extent of the financial loss which would be recorded in NAMAs accounts as a result of setting the minimum reserve price of STG 1.3 billion.

When the Board was deciding to set its minimum price they already had an indicative offer on the table from PIMCO. When you compare the PIMCO offer to the actual sales process approved by NAMA, there are remarkable similarities in terms of: sales strategy, sales price, sales process and financial conditions.

I believe that NAMA was influenced by the PIMCO offer when deciding on the minimum reserve price and key elements of the sales process.

On the 13th February 2014 there were media reports on PIMCOs approach to NAMA. Following this loss of confidentiality, NAMA/Lazard refused entry to 8 of 10 firms expressing an interest in joining the sales process.

It should be noted that Fortress was one of the 2 firms admitted into the process at that time and ultimately only Fortress and Cerberus submitted bids for Project Eagle.

The NAMA Board on the 3rd April 2014 considered a paper comparing the 2 bids from Cerberus and Fortress. The Fortress bid was STG 155 million below the reserve price. The Cerberus bid was STG 11 million above the reserve price, The Board agreed to continue negotiations with Cerberus with a view to closing the Project Eagle sale.

Lazard, NAMAs loan sale advisor, provided a report to NAMA which referred to a number of restrictions on the sales process. This combined with Lazards limited role has to be taken into consideration when reading the letter of comfort that Lazard ultimately provided to NAMA in relation to the sales process.

In relation to market valuations NAMA provided a letter in May 2016 which included definitions of market value from 3 reputable bodies. All 3 definitions shared a common theme that the market value ultimately requires willing participants and a well-designed sales process.

The Committee is firmly of the view that the sale of Project Eagle was not a well designed sales process and accordingly these definitions of market value are not relevant to the sale of Project Eagle.

It is the view of the Committee that the sales strategy pursued by NAMA included restrictions of such significance that the strategy could be described as seriously deficient. It is, therefore, the opinion of the Committee that NAMA has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy that it got value for money for the Irish State in relation to the price achieved.



Public Accountability

NAMA is accountable to the Public Accounts Committee.

Accordingly the level and standard of public accountability is determined by the Public Accounts Committee and not by NAMA.

For there to be satisfactory public accountability it is essential that the Public Accounts Committee be provided with information on the reasoning and factors taken into consideration when decisions were arrived at regarding the sale of Project Eagle.

The decision to destroy and not retain contemporaneous notes of Board meetings has undermined NAMAs ability to explain and account satisfactorily to the Public Accounts Committee in relation to its decision making processes.

The full report can be accessed here
A Kildare TD is taking a potshot at airborne drones.

James Lawless, Fianna Fail spokesperson on technology, says he will bring forward new legislation aimed at providing a regulatory framework for the use of airborne drones.

Hes worried following recent incidents which have raised safety concerns surrounding the use of drones.

We are hearing an increased number of reports of drones causing problems for manned aircraft or infringing on peoples privacy. Some people have noticed drones seemingly surveying their farms and equipment. Given the prevalence of burglary in rural areas, its easy to see why this is threatening, said the Kildare North Deputy, while acknowledging they have positive personal and commercial uses.

He referred to drone crashes at heritage sites around the country, and warnings issued by the Irish Airline Pilots Association of near misses between aircraft and drones on a near-weekly basis.

To address these concerns, I will be bringing forward legislation that will provide a stronger, more comprehensive regulatory framework for drones and their usage. This will be of considerable benefit to not only the public, but also to drone operators who are seeking guidelines on how to use their drones in a safe and ethical manner, said Deputy Lawless.

Deputy James Lawless
Chants of Jerry, Jerry rang out as the burly stage hand, Steve Wilkos, sprang on set to wrestle a very agitated girl away from her good for nothing partner.

A few slaps were aimed in his direction, as he peeled her off the much maligned man. Jerry stood to the side, microphone in hand, smiling, lapping up the energy and applause. It was surreal. Sitting there, watching the participants giving out about their lazy partners sitting around all day doing nothing.

The audience had their say too interjecting, shouting and roaring with the customary Jerry Springer rants.

We thought, why not get involved, get in the spirit of things. One of my Irish companions shouted into the microphone, Get a job ya bum, just to play our part in the grim, but riveting TV panto. The flat Kildare accent sounded so out of place, not that any of the audience noticed.

They were too worked up into a frenzy. Sucked into the drama at the TV studio in Chicago in the Summer of 99, you couldnt be further away from the bog, the Curragh and the flat country Kildare landscape.

Its in moments like this where you get a sense of your identity, a flash of reality, am I really here?.

I first noticed I had a country accent when I returned home from the Gaeltacht in secondary school. After speaking Irish for three weeks, I was astonished to hear the raw, flat tones reverberating everywhere on my return.

Everyone knows some Kildare people have problems with the whole th pronunciation. The becomes de and words can be pronounced broadly. Its a subconscious thing. Other counties have quite neutral accents, but I think Kildare speak is quite distinct.

At least its easy for locals to pick out another Lily white by their accent. Well- known county people, who have a definitive Kildare accent include Charlie McCreevy, Christy Moore, Ray DArcy and Ruby Walsh. Often slagged in college over my accent, it didn't bother me. It was only a bit of messing and others were singled out too.

Several years after my visit to Chicago, Australia beckoned. We stayed with two Kildare girls who had left for Oz over a decade previously. Their accents were still as Irish as the day they left despite being surrounded by the Aussie twang. Others absorb accents as easy as a sponge soaks up water.

One acquaintance went to Galway for a weekend and came back saying ara this and ara that. She didnt even realise her whole pronunciation had changed. It was totally subconscious, but quite funny.

The Donegal accent is continuously voted the sexiest accent in the country. Kildare rarely features in the top ranks.

As accents become more neutralised, will local phrases die along with the distinctive tones? With so many cartoons and shows featuring American and UK accents, are kids mimicking what they hear? Will the familiar broad dialect be lost? Is the bogger accent in danger of being neutralised?
Two young farmers from Leitrim Davis Wilson and Ciaran Clancy joined a delegation of over 30 from agricultural courses in colleges across the Midlands and North West in Brussels this week hosted by Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy.

Ballyhaise, Mountbellew and DKIT were the participating colleges, but the delegation also included farmers who had finished their studies, as well as some of their lecturers.

Members of the young farmers organisation Macra na Feirme were also part of the group. The farmers from Leitrim, Louth, Galway, Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan, and Kilkenny were all in their 20s.

Speaking after the visit, Matt Carthy said, I was delighted to have an opportunity to host this delegation of young Irish farmers to the European Parliament in Brussels. It was an important chance for the farmers themselves to gain a better understanding of how the decisions that affect their lives are made and also for me to engage with them to ensure that I can better serve Irish farmers in my role as a member of the Agriculture & Rural Development committee.

During the visit the group met with a representative of the European Commission to discuss future policy developments in the area of Young Farmers. They obviously pressed the need to protect the Irish family farm model in all EU policies and their need for additional supports for new and young entrants coming into the sector.

Small, peripheral rural areas such the West Coast of Ireland are in severe difficulties as a result of very bad policies emanating from the EU and inequality that these policies have driven. It was therefore hugely important for the group to get an opportunity to meet EU policy makers and to outline the realities of farming in Ireland.

These delegations are all about bringing people closer to the site of decision making so that their voices can be heard.

I was pleased also that the delegation had an opportunity to interact with Liam McHale, the IFA representative in Brussels, to spell out their concerns as young farmers. There was also a specific discussion on Irish interpretation of EU schemes which, in many cases, are overly burdensome despite more flexibility provided than our own department would like to admit.

The delegates themselves made several important proposals for improvements in the way EU and Irish government affect young farmers. I will be bringing many of these proposals forward in upcoming CAP reform discussions.




Gardai in Carrick-on-Shannon say the search for missing man Declan Whyte will intensity this week as they enlist the Irish Army to help locate him.



Gardai and the Civil Defence have been conducting land searches over the past week in Leitrim.

Concern has been growing as to the welfare and whereabouts of Declan, who was last spotted in the Summerhill area of Carrick-on-Shannon on February 11.



Gardai said the searches are radiating from the Summerhill area as that is the last known area he was spotted.

They said the situation is high risk and they are treating it very seriously. Gardai have issued three public appeals for information on the 30 year old missing man in the past week.

The media reports have been published nationally as Gardai seek information on the possible whereabouts of Declan.

The searches are continuing in liaison with Mr Whytes family.



Declan, who is 30 years old, is described as being 510 in height, 13 stone approximately with green eyes.

Originally from Clondalkin in Dublin, Declan had been living locally in Leitrim for the past few years.



It is unknown what he was wearing when last seen. He has a number of tattoos and piercings on his face.

Gardai are concerned for Declan's welfare and anyone with information about Declan or possible places he could be are asked to contact them at Carrick-on-Shannon Garda Station on (071) 9650510, The Garda Confidential Line, 1800 666111 or any Garda station.
Every time I remember when Im in the supermarket, I try to buy a packet of sanitary towels to stick in the food bank donations trolley because I know how difficult it is for women facing poverty to deal with the additional cost that periods bring. The BBC reports this week that girls are missing school because they cant afford sanitary protection.

Girls in the UK are missing school because they cannot afford sanitary protection, a charity has said. Freedom4Girls was contacted by a school in Leeds after it became concerned about teenage girls attendance. The group provides sanitary products to women in Kenya  but is now doing the same in West Yorkshire. One teenager told the BBC she taped toilet roll to her underwear and missed school every month because of her period. Two teenage girls spoke to BBC Radio Leeds about how they tried to cope without tampons, sanitary towels or pain relief.

A discussion on Womens Hour this morning also highlighted the problem.

Its good to see that our Equalities spokesperson, Lorely Burt, is bringing this up in her speech in the Budget debate in the House of Lords.

I wonder if the minister saw the story about a charity which sends sanitary products to girls in Africa being asked if they could donate some to girls in Leeds, who are bunking off school each month because they cant afford sanitary products to wear to school. This is a shocking state of affairs, where low-income girls and women cannot afford hygiene products during their period My lords, we cant have this in THIS country. So can I make a suggestion for the government to consider? Could we not give sanitary towels to girls who qualify for free school meals? We already know who these girls are, and the cost of setting up the system would, Im sure, be very small. And it would mean that ALL girls in school could confidently attend school all month round without having to worry about the embarrassment of their period letting them down. The government is investing hundreds of millions of pounds for their pet project of free schools, many of which will end up as selective  helping mostly middle class children further up the ladder at the expense of the rest. Liberal Democrats want you to invest a very modest amount to protect the dignity and the education of some of the lowest income, most deprived children in our country. Thats not too much to ask is it, for a government that wants a country that works for everyone?

If you want to make a donation to Freedom4Girls, the charity mentioned in the news article. you can do so here. And remember, when youre in the supermarket, buy some towels or tampons for the food bank.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Nick Clegg, blistering in the Standard, warns that the government is condemned to break its Brexit promises.

Recalling promises of a stronger trading position, the continuation of the benefits of membership, no hard border with Ireland (never mind Scotland), less red tape, taking back control  never mind the 350 million; Nick warns of an impending reckoning.

It is one of the most intriguing paradoxes of this government: its dominance of British politics is secure yet it acts with nervous insecurity; it possesses unrivalled strength yet it feels much weaker than it seems.  of all the possible Brexit scenarios  bad deal, better deal, no deal at all  it is dawning on sensible folk in Whitehall that the one scenario that will most definitely not occur is the one they promised to the country. In the week when Theresa May is likely to pop that Article 50 letter in the post, it is worth recalling what we were promised. Boris Johnson has said we will trade as much as ever before, if not more; David Davis told Parliament that we will get the exact same benefits as we have now; Theresa May promised to settle the terms of the divorce and all the details of our new relationship with the EU, including full ratification, within two years; Michael Gove pledged there will be no change to the border in Ireland; and ministers announced that a raft of new trade deals around the world will be of greater value to us than our current trade with the EU.

One cause of this reckoning is that Brexiters, with the specious phrase access to the Single Market are still refusing to understand what the single market is  a body of rules to replace 28 bodies of rules.

But the single market  devised by Margaret Thatcher  has little to do with tariffs and all to do with removing the plethora of rules, standards, qualifications and norms that govern everything from phytosanitary standards for beef exports to mobile phone roaming charges. The genius of the single market is that it replaces 28 fiddly rules with one. In other words, it simplifies rather than duplicates red tape. But the system only works if everyone abides by the same rules and if there is a court  the European Court of Justice (ECJ)  to settle disputes. In declaring a fatwa against any British adherence to the ECJ, Theresa May has struck a death knell for continued British participation in the single market.

And never mind the people that voted leave, on the assurance that we would stay in the Single Market; I can hardly blame them for believing that we would do what is in our interests.

Read and share and enjoy.

* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.
The pitch which the Leave campaign successfully made to the poorest 10% of UK citizens in last Junes EU Referendum was that their problems of low pay, insecure jobs and waiting lists for affordable housing were all due to competition from immigrants, and would be eased by leaving the EU. The budget, with little on social housing and less on funds for schools or other public services in deprived areas, has made their situation worse, rather than better. Labour has been hesitating about how far to buy into their grievances about immigrants. How should Liberal Democrats respond to their resentments and needs?

The peers working group on The Left Behind is now drafting an initial report. We have worked through a mass of relevant material, from think tanks, foundations and parliamentary reports. Weve also discussed, among ourselves and with others, our direct experiences from campaigning in urban working class communities and rural and seaside towns  the places, BBC News detailed breakdowns suggested, that had the largest majorities for Leave in the UK. Studies like last years Suffolk Community Foundation on Hidden Suffolk, and the Open Society Foundations report on Higher Blackley, have been very useful: can any of you point us to other studies elsewhere?

At the Spring conference in York on Friday evening (2015-2130, Novotel Meeting Room 1&2), we look forward to hearing from others about what policies we should be pushing forward. Some of you represent such communities, many of them taken for granted by Labour and ignored by the Conservatives. How do we win more of them over, rather than leaving them to be picked over by UKIP or worse? Support for families and small children, education through from primary school, closer links between schools and local employers, support for local industrial regeneration, and investment in social housing, are the main elements in our emerging package.

Were also aware that theres a larger problem of political disengagement and community decline that needs to be addressed, on which we welcome comments. The shrinkage of local public services means that the state is in many ways abandoning these communities: local authorities are cutting childrens services, beat policing, bus routes and more as government grants disappear. Resentment is increased, many observers report, by the perception that metropolitan elites now demonise these communities  journalists as well as politicians. But theres also a poverty of aspiration in some of these communities, which holds the younger generation back: how do we tackle that?

These are our fellow-citizens: denigrated by the political right, neglected by Labour, with even those local authorities who want to help struggling in the face of budget cuts to make a difference. Liberal Democrats care about inequality, about opportunity, and about social mobility  all of which are at stake in the long-term neglect of these marginalised communities. We already represent some of the wards they live in, and are beginning to win by-elections in others. So what policy responses should we offer them  and how do we persuade richer groups within our national community to pay for them? Come and give us your views on Friday evening if you can.

* William Wallace has fought five parliamentary elections in Manchester and West Yorkshire. He is a former president of the Yorkshire regional Liberal Democrats.
This week it was reported in the Times that President Reuven Rivlin of Israel had invited the Royal Family to send a representative to the country this year to celebrate a hundred years since the Balfour Declaration. There is intense speculation in the Israeli press now that the Royal Family might break its longstanding reluctance to visit Israel officially. It would clearly invite controversy to visit a country in such flagrant breach of international law  defying the United Nations with its illegal settlements, child detention, blockade of Gaza and marginalisation of its ethnic minorities. The Balfour Declaration, as well as promising a home for the Jewish peoples, also promised that the rights of the Palestinians must be protected. This was a sacred trust of civilisation under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations which Britain took on when it accepted the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. We betrayed that sacred trust and, until that trust is redeemed, the Balfour Declaration should not be celebrated. A petition to the Queens Private Secretary to discourage such a visit is circulating.

The idea that the Royal Family would give any sort of endorsement or honour to the State of Israel this year sadly fits with a pattern of inadvisable steps that have been taken in the last couple of years. The weekend before her infamous visit to the White House, Theresa May told Andrew Marr that it was up to the Queen whether President Trump was invited to Buckingham Palace this year. Within days she had extended an invitation on the Queens behalf, which was of course accepted, to great public outcry in the UK. American presidents crave the publicity that goes with a State Visit to the UK  remember Ronald Reagan on horseback with HM at Windsor. Normally US Presidents must wait until their third year in office  if indeed they get one at all. That gives them a chance to show that they are a good friend to the UK and frankly deserve it. George H Bush never had one at all. Donald Trump hasnt done anything for the UK yet, and is a major potential threat to the world order. His visit, if it happens anytime soon, will be highly controversial and will embroil the Royal Family in politics. It was unwise of the Palace to go along with Theresa May in approving Trumps visit in his first year.

The Royal Familys associations with certain Gulf countries are also unwise. Because of his interest in horse racing our Royal Family is close to the King and Crown Prince of Bahrain whose human rights abuses directed at the Shia majority in this Sunni minority country are appalling. The UK government fawns over them because of military pacts. The Crown Prince was in fact invited to the wedding of Prince William in 2011. Within days of his name appearing on the guest list he withdrew because of the howls of protest in the UK. It was really sickening to see his hard-line father the King sitting in pride of place alongside the Queen at her 90th birthday celebration in Windsor Great Park in 2016. Ruling families of the UAE who also enjoy racing their horses in the UK while presiding over appalling human rights abuses receive the same royal approval. These abuses are well documented by ICFUAE.

Her Majesty would do well to review the adequacy of the political advice she does receive from those around her. It would be a shame if, at this stage, her reign were marred by political controversies that she has done so well to avoid in past decades.

* John Kelly is a member in Warwick District, Secretary of the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine, and a member of the Federal International Relations Committee.
Dear House of Commons,

This evening, I have heard that you voted in a majority to be a place where the unrepresented are being devalued and brushed aside like piece of dirt on your suit. You, the country of one of the first parliamentary democracies who gave a voice to the people you represent. You, who decided that the absolute monarchy and aristocracy were unfair and a voice should be given to everyone. You just tarnished the name of democracy and multiculturalism.

EU expatriates might be your friends, your neighbours, the ones who serve your coffee in the morning before your session, the ones who treat you when you are sick, the ones who teach your children to believe in the fairness of society. They are the ones who pay more taxes than they receive, the ones who fought next to you throughout history against the same values you are cherishing right now: division, populism, nationalism, xenophobia. Values that some of you might have now engraved profoundly in your party.

Despite the protestation of the British Nation about the politics of Mr Trump, you are following the same populist-right path that he is imposing to the US. And the vote of today is just one other proof of your acceptance of it.

This weekend at the Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference, Nick Clegg MP, Alistair Carmichael MP, Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP, Willie Rennie MSP and many more have made the case that this will not be in the Liberal Democrats name. They assure me as well as the 85 000 fellows party member that they will fight by my side as an EU expatriate to give a voice to the voiceless and to continue to fight for the diversity and the multiculturalism in a fairer society.

I know you havent all voted against this amendment. I would like to thank the Members of Parliament who voted in favour of the House of Lords amendment, whatever parties they are coming from. Thank you for voting and saying No to the politics of fear and division and Yes to look forward through mutual collaboration, internationalism and a fairer democratic system.

Mrs May, Mrs Sturgeon, the United Kingdom is my country and I will fight for it. I wont let you build walls between people, friends, colleagues and families. I wont let you rest until my rights and the ones of my fellow EU expatriates are valued and you stop your politic of division.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Parliament, I might never be able to join you to express my feelings and the voice of those most concerned by your decision. However, be assured that it wont be the last time you will hear from me as I will continue my fight beside the Liberal Democrats not only for the EU expatriates but also for a Liberal Society, fairer for everyone.

Yours faithfully

Aude Boubaker-Calder #RightToStay

* Aude Boubaker-Calder is the Liberal Democrat Scottish Parliamentary Candidate for Dunfermline
LIMERICK racehorse owner JP McManus says he will have his fingers crossed over the next four days as his horses and jockeys go in search of glory at the famous Cheltenham Festival.

All eyes will be on McManus duo Yanworth and Buveur DAir this Tuesday afternoon when they head a 12-strong field in the Stan James Champion Hurdle which will go to post at 3.30pm.

A lot of our horses have had a pretty good preparation this year which is important. We have a few decent chances there so I have my fingers crossed, Mr McManus told the Limerick Leader before heading to the Cotswolds.

Limerick people will also be taking a keen interest in the 4.50 race, the JT McNamara National Hunt Chase which will be run in honour of the late Croom jockey.

The four-mile contest for novice chasers is a prized race for amateur jockeys. JTs wife Caroline is expected to attend the race.

JT McNamara died at the age of 41 on July 26 last year. McNamara partnered more than 700 winners under Rules and in point-to-points during his long career and was especially at home at Cheltenham and The Festival.

He enjoyed many of his big-race successes in the colours of top owner JP McManus, including riding Rith Dubh to victory in the 2002 National Hunt Chase and partnering Spot Thedifference in the 2005 Cross Country Chase.

McNamara also wore the McManus silks on Drombeag when they were successful in the 2007 Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham. His fourth victory at The Festival came on Teaforthree in the 2012 National Hunt Chase.

His career as a leading amateur rider ended following a fall while riding Galaxy Rock in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup Handicap Chase for amateurs in 2013, which left him paralysed.

Caroline McNamara commented: We are humbled and overwhelmed by the continued support we receive from everyone.

The race being run in his name at The Festival is a huge honour.
THE former Esso garage on Mulgrave Street in Limerick city could be set for a new lease of life under plans to be submitted to Limerick City and County Council.

Nicola Knappe has announced her intention to apply for planning permission to develop the old petrol station into a bakery and manual car wash.

Up until recently, the garage was home to the Urban Co-op (formerly the Limerick Community Grocery) business, until this group moved out to Tait House in Southill.

Mayor of Limerick, Cllr Kieran OHanlon, who represents the area at City Hall, has welcomed the proposals.

I would absolutely welcome this. I think people would be delighted with a bakery there. It will create jobs. And a car wash would be popular, now people are going to be charged at home for their excess water, he said.

Mulgrave Street has always been known as a difficult street, as you had the jail, the graveyard and the psychiatric hospital. Now well have the courthouse. It wasnt a very interesting street  but now it will be, the mayor added, Businesses and jobs like these will bring are most certainly welcome.

The Urban Co-Op moved to Southill last year after growing too big for the former garage, which was closed as a petrol station some years previously.

The co-operative business had moved into Mulgrave Street back in 2012.

Ms Knappe now has a period of two weeks in which to submit documents relating to a planning application to the local authority.

Its expected local planners will then make a decision on the application within a period of three months.
A JUDGE has reserved her decision in the case of a Garryowen man who is accused of dangerous driving while he was disqualified.

Mark Moloney, aged 27, of South Claughaun Road, Garryowen has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges relating an incident on the outskirts of the city on April 7, 2015.

Garda Gary Farrell told Limerick District Court he was driving while off-duty on the M20 motorway when he noticed a van been driven by the accused man at around 3.20pm.

He said he was aware the defendant was disqualified at the time and that he alerted colleagues at Roxboro Road garda station.

Garda Farrell said he pursued the van which he said was travelling at around 140kph before it exited the motorway at Junction 2 (Dooradoyle).

Judge Marian OLeary was told the van continued at speed along Rosbrien Road and onto Greenfields Road before the driver performed u-turn near Young Munster RFC.

While the vehicle was not stopped on the day, Garda Farrell said he was certain Mr Moloney was the driver. I could clearly see the driver, I recognised him, he said.

Cross-examined by solicitor Tom Kiely, the witness disagreed he had only caught a glance of the driver.

When Mr Kiely put it to him that his mind had been influenced as he associated the van with his client Garda Farrell reiterated his belief that it was Mr Moloney who was driving.

Mr Kiely said his client denies this and will give evidence that he was not in Limerick city on the date of the incident.

It was not Mark Moloney driving the vehicle, you are wrong you are mistaken, he said adding that his client has several relations who look very similar in size and stature to him.

Mr Kiely questioned aspects of the garda investigation such as why CCTV footage was not obtained and why the person who bought the van from his client was not interviewed to establish when they took possession of the vehicle.

Submitting case law, Mr Kiely submitted the charges should be dismissed as his client has been severely prejudiced.

Judge OLeary will deliver his decision on Thursday.
TRIBUTES have been paid to former Bishop Eamonn Casey, who served as a priest in Limerick more than 50 years ago.

The 89-year-old former Bishop of Galway and Kerry died at a nursing home in County Clare this Monday afternoon.

He served as a curate at St Johns Cathedral between 1955 and 1960. Born in Kerry, Bishop Casey was brought up in Adare, where his father was a creamery manager.

He attended school at St Munchin's College in the city before later joining the priesthood.

The Bishop was at the centre of a major scandal and went into exile in 1992 after it was discovered he had fathered a son with Annie Murphy.

In a statement, the Bishops family said: On behalf of his son, Peter, his brother, Father Micheal, his sister, Ita Furlong, nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, great-grand nieces and great-grand nephews, we wish to acknowledge the priestly work of Bishop Eamonn, especially in the pursuit of social justice for the marginalised, as evidenced by his work with Shelter in London in the 1950s and 1960s and later with his involvement in the setting up and development of Trocaire.

Notwithstanding the demands on his time, Bishop Eamonn was a great source of love and support, making himself available to celebrate and to empathise with us in all our important family occasions.

We wish to thank all of those who supported him in the past, in particular, the clergy and the people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry, the Irish community in London, his many friends in Limerick and throughout the country and abroad.

We would like to extend a very special and sincere thank you to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, the management and staff of Carrigoran Nursing Home, Newmarket-On-Fergus, Co Clare, whose care for Bishop Eamon was of the highest possible standard and ensured that his comfort, dignity and pastoral needs were provided for at all times.

We respectfully ask that members of the media facilitate the privacy of the family during and after the funeral ceremonies.

Limerick TD Niall Collins praised Bishop Casey as a passionate and energetic church leader.

His work helping Irish immigrants in the UK buy homes was the foundation on which the housing charity Shelter was built, and he continued to press the case for housing with the UK Government and local authorities in the 1960s, said Deputy Collins.

His determination to fight poverty and injustice was not confined to Ireland and the UK, and he played an integral role in the establishment of Trocaire becoming the first Chairman of the aid agency.

I want to extend my sympathies to Bishop Caseys family and friends at this time, many of whom are Limerick based.

President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said he had heard with sadness of the passing of the former Bishop.

There will be many who will remember his work on homelessness and housing with the Irish emigrant community in Britain, he said.

As Chairman of Trocaire, he encouraged the organisation to become a leading NGO campaigning for justice as well as responding to humanitarian distress and poverty in the developing world.

After his attendance at the funeral of Bishop Romero who was assassinated in El Salvador, Irish awareness of the sources of conflict in Central and South America was significantly increased.

While serving as mayor of Galway I was asked by Bishop Casey to visit, with other parliamentarians, El Salvador and to speak to the religious and others who were reporting on human rights and the killings that were taking place.

Other aspects of his life were the source of pain to others, for which Bishop Casey has apologised and expressed his deep regret, and he himself had the experience of pain visited on him in later life, added President Higgins.
THERE are fresh fears of bus strikes and travel disruption in Limerick this Tuesday after talks between Bus Eireann and unions broke down.

For over a week, the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), Siptu and the state bus provider had been locked in talks at the Workplace Relations Commission.

But these collapsed late on Monday night, heightening the possibility of an all-out strike in Limerick and around the country.

Bus Eireann runs seven regular services covering the city and its surrounds, as well as other irregular routes covering rural Co Limerick. On top of this, there are twice hourly services to Shannon Airport. The company also provides a road link to Waterford, Dublin, Galway, Cork and other Irish towns and cities.

A statement from Bus Eireann said: "Bus Eireann are extremely disappointed that talks with unions have broken down at the WRC today, following seven days of engagement.

"Given the seriousness of our financial position, we always had a very tight timeframe to implement actions but we nevertheless engaged in good faith to facilitate intensive discussion, with the aim of reaching a negotiated settlement with trade unions.

"Despite their public pronouncements about engaging on addressing the high level of inefficiencies, there has been no flexibility shown during our engagement on efficiency measures.

While inefficiencies have been acknowledged and accepted by unions, there was a refusal to accept any reduction of earnings, including unnecessary overtime earnings.

The spokesperson said Bus Eireann  which bosses claim could be insolvent by May  will reassess further actions to save the firm.

Proposals deferred earlier this month included the Limerick to Dublin X12 Expressway service being reduced in frequency.

Dermot OLeary, general secretary of the NBRU said The trade unions engaged in good faith and came into the WRC process committed to engaging in an agenda around efficiencies.

Despite our commitment to do that, the company concentrated its focus on immediately cutting workers take home pay which we would not countenance.

Talks concluded without agreement and its now up to the company to revert in terms of their next course of action. If the company repeats its previous announcements around unilaterally cutting peoples pay, we will have no alternative but to re-activate our strike action.

Willie Noone, Siptu transport sector Organiser, said The company appears hell-bent in getting them in without giving us the time to go through the complexities of them.

The company appears to be referring to us as inflexible but thats totally untrue because any unnecessary overtime is there for the taking anyway. We would never safeguard that at all. But there is overtime which is part of core pay for years and to take that off people, which could run to 150 to 200 a week, is too much to bear for people who are reliant on it to pay their normal expenses.

We are not going to provoke any dispute at all. The ball is in the companys court and, on a number of occasions the company has said it is going to start implementing changes and we have said to them to pull back from the brink.

At this stage, it remains unclear if and when any strike action will commence.

Strike action was deferred earlier this month after the unions and Bus Eireann agreed to go to the Workplace Relations Commission. It was the second time in the space of six weeks this has happened.

The possibility of strike action comes against the backdrop of a public meeting this Wednesday night aimed at protecting local bus services.

Sinn Fein MEP Liadh Ni Riada is hosting the meeting from 7.30pm at Perys Hotel in Glentworth Street.

Ms Ni Riada has urged Irish people to stand up and fight for their bus services.She said: Across Europe attempts are being made to undermine public services, including publicly-owned and operated transport services. In Ireland a policy of creeping privatisation and underfunding have hampered Bus Eireann.

She said that if the semi-states reforms are allowed, it will also see cuts to Expressway services between Limerick, Tralee, Killarney, Listowel, Clonmel, Tipperary and Waterford, Cork and Galway.

These are crucial to the people of Limerick City and County, she said, People living outside of our cities and big towns cannot be left stranded due to these cuts. Hundreds of thousands of individuals across Ireland depend on these services to get to school, college or work, to access health services, or to stay connected.

The network of intercity and regional services is especially important to people living in rural Ireland and in our small towns and villages.

All are welcome at the public meeting which starts in the hotel at 7.30pm.

For more information, telephone 061-418322.
FORMER Fianna Fail general election candidate in Limerick and 'highly respected' doctor Richard OFlaherty has died.

Long serving Limerick TD Willie O'Dea ran with Dr OFlaherty and Michael Parkes in the 1987 General Election when Dessie OMalley and the Progressive Democrats were a strong force in Irish politics.

He was very upright, he was a very decent, straightforward individual who used to adopt causes occasionally and was very passionate about those causes, said Deputy ODea.

He was a solid supporter of Fianna Fail for many years and he was highly respected as a doctor, and had a huge medical card practice and was very highly regarded especially in areas like Southill and Janesboro.

I remember the general election in 1987, it was a time when the PDs were particularly strong and for a political novice he got quite a respectable vote...the timing was wrong, it was the worst time for a second or third string candidate to enter an election, he added.

The OFlaherty family are very well known in Limerick and his wife Maura has for many years organised Daffodil fundraiser for cancer research in Limerick.

His son Risteard is chairman of Na Piarsaigh GAA club in Caherdavin.

A native of Galway, he lived on the Ennis Road, just up from Ivans for most of his life. He is also survived by Maire, Niamh, Murcadha, Grainne and Cait.

Reposing at his home in Caherdavin on this Tuesday, March 14 from 4pm to 7pm. Removal will arrive at Christ the King Church, Caherdavin for 12 noon Mass on Wednesday, March 15. Burial afterwards in St Nicholas Cemetery, Adare.
THE University of Limerick has announced the purchase of a batch of a significant collection of letters written by famous author Kate OBrien.

The collection of 500 letters written by the Limerick author were discovered in the papers of Dr Lorna Reynolds (1911-2003) who was Professor Emeritus of Modern English at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

UL said it purchased the collection of Dr Reynolds papers at a public auction on International Womens Day.

The Limerick writer was in correspondence with Dr Reynolds from 1940 to 1969, with the largest portion of the letters written between 1946 and 1950.

Dr Reynolds wrote a biography of the author, best known for work The Ante-Room, in 1987 and the archive also contains some of her notes and papers related to this work.

Ken Bergin, Head of Special Collections, UL Glucksman Library, said OBrien was an important Irish and international writer and the Glucksman Library is proud to host significant collections of her work.

It was essential for University of Limerick to acquire the papers of Dr Lorna Reynolds with their invaluable archive of personal letters from Kate OBrien in order to secure their availability in an Irish research institution, he explained.

There was a strong possibility that the collection would leave the country had it not been for the intervention of UL. This is a very significant addition to ULs major literary archive.

The discovery of the letters from OBrien adds greatly to the significant archives of her life and work held at the UL Library. This represents the largest collection of personal correspondence from this iconic Irish writer.

Lifelong friends, the letters reflect the literary, cultural and academic world of post-war Ireland. Interestingly, the archive also contains Dr Reynolds own letters to Kate OBrien, written from 1946 to 1949. At some stage, Dr Reynold's letters must have been returned to her.

Dr Reynolds papers also contain more than 100 letters from Darina di Silone nee Laracy.

UL said the papers would require conservation and that it may be some time before the collection can be made available to researchers.
A COUNTY Limerick farmer could be accused of fowl play this week after leaving a list of strict instructions and possible punishments for his staff as he heads off to the Cheltenham Festival.

But, as it turns out, there will be no objection from the grassroots as the farmer has no beef with said workers.

In a bid to to spark up a bit of craic before he makes the trip to the Cotswolds, Roger Mulqueen has erected a sandwich board in his farmyard in Bruff outlining what is not to happen during the National Hunt showpiece.

No cow is to calf between 1.30pm on Tuesday and 5.40pm on Friday  Cheltenham Races, reads the instructions, which are outlined in white chalk on the blackboard.

There follows a list of punishment for any possible breaches of these rules ie in the event of a cow calving.

The birth of a single calf will result in a verbal warning; twins, a written warning; triplets will see Roger head off to Aintree in April, while quads will result in Roger bagging a load of free nuts and a possible appearance on The Late Late Show.

He signs off the diktat: Yours in calving, Roger Mulqueen.

When I was working in Fine Wines I had money so I used to go to the March meeting every year but now that Im farming I have no money  I can only go for one day, laughed Roger, who is making the journey to Prestbury Park on Thursday morning with his good friend Tiernan Ryan of The Corner House Bar in Athlacca.

I worked in Fine Wines for 10 years and I was at the March meeting for six years in-a-row, he explained.

A single bachelor farmer who lives at home with his parents Sean and Bridie, Roger has never missed the winter meetings which are held at the Cotswolds track in November.

"I was on a stag there last November and there were 37 of us  a fine mixed bag!

His big interest on Friday is in the Foxhunter Challenge Cup which will see Enda Bolgers On The Fringe bid for an elusive Festival treble.

"Enda comes into our place, thats why we are heading over. It would make my Cheltenham to see On the Fringe winning, he added.
Mar 13, 2017, 11 PM

By Michael Baadke

Astronaut Gene Cernan died Jan. 16, 2017, at age 82. As commander of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon.

Eugene Andrew Cernan was born March 14, 1934, in Chicago, Ill., and studied electrical engineering at Purdue University, earning a bachelors degree in 1956, and later earning a masters degree in aeronautical engineering from Naval Postgraduate School in California.

A member of the Navy ROTC at Purdue, Cernan became a naval aviator and was selected by NASA for astronaut training in October 1963.

His first mission in space came three years later as pilot of the three-day Gemini IX mission, during which Cernan became the second American to walk in space.

In May 1969, Cernan was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 10, which has been referred to as the dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 moon landing mission that took place just two months later.

Cernan made his second trip to the moon as commander of the Apollo 17 mission, the final U.S. manned lunar mission to date. Cernan and lunar module pilot Ronald Schmitt worked together on the moons surface while command module pilot Ronald Evans remained in orbit.

Cernan spent more than 73 hours on the surface of the moon. With coauthor Donald A. Davis he wrote his 1999 memoir The Last Man on the Moon, and was an active advocate of advancing U.S. space exploration efforts.

Gene Cernan has been honored on multiple stamps worldwide, including a 1966 50-franc stamp from Central African Republic issued shortly after the successful Gemini IX mission (Scott C39).
Mar 13, 2017, 1 PM

In 1896, Romania opened a post office in Constantinople. Overprinted and surcharged stamps were issued for use at the post office, including these two King Carol I stamps: a 10-para-on-5-ban blue stamp overprinted in black, top, and a 20pa-on-10b emerald

Both of these overprinted Romania stamps were issued in 1919 for use at the Romanian post office in Constantinople. At top is a 5-ban King Carol I stamp. The 5b postal tax stamp at bottom was produced by overprinting a 1918 postal tax stamp picturing Quee

This Romania 25-ban stamp, issued May 30, 1931, depicts an infantryman with rifle and bayonet.

Stamps of Eastern Europe  By Rick Miller

Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary defines extraterritoriality as exemption from the application or jurisdiction of local laws or tribunals.

Historically, most countries limited the operation of the posts to their own government or to designated postal systems.

When one country forces or coerces another country to cede the right to operate a postal system within the second countrys borders, it is an example of extraterritoriality.

This normally occurred because the host postal system was unreliable, slow, inefficient, or subject to pilferage. Also, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, having postal offices abroad came to be considered one of the hallmarks of a great power.

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Romania, hardly a great power, opened a post office in Constantinople in 1896, for which it issued overprinted and surcharged stamps. A Romanian Offices in the Ottoman Empire 10-para-on-5-ban blue stamp overprinted in black and a 20pa-on-10b emerald stamp overprinted in black (Romanian Post Offices in the Turkish Empire Scott 1 and 2) are shown in the first slide above.

They are from a set of six depicting King Carol I. Three are overprinted and surcharged in black, and three in violet (Scott 1-6). The stamps are perforated gauge 11, 13, and compound, and printed on paper watermarked PR.

Dacia, the predecessor to modern Romania, was conquered by the Romans in A.D. 106. Roman rule persisted until 271.

Romes influence continues to this day, because modern Romanians speak a Romance language descended from Latin and related to French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Unfortunately for Romania, it lay along a major invasion route for the tribes surging out of Asia. In the Middle Ages, it was overrun by Huns, Gepids, Avars, various Slavic tribes, Bulgars, and Pechenegs.

The Byzantines established control of the country for a while, but Kievan Rus, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Magyars (Hungarians) displaced them.

Then in 1241, worst of all, came the Mongol invasion. After the Mongols, the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia emerged in the 14th century and would eventually form the basis for modern Romania.

At first, they were vassals of the Kingdom of Hungary, but by the 18th century suzerainty had passed to the Ottoman Empire.

In 1862, the provinces were united as Romania. In 1866, King Carol I (a German prince of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen) came to the throne. The last vestiges of Ottoman control were shaken off in the successful War of Independence in 1877-78.

Up to about 1860, the countrys most important foreign trading partner was the Ottoman Empire. After that date, trade with Austro-Hungary, the German Empire, and Western Europe rapidly eclipsed that with the Ottomans.

However, the Ottoman Empire was still a relatively important market for Romanian agricultural products. It was this level of trade that, in 1896, led Romanian postal authorities to open a post office in Constantinople.

Opposition to the Romanian post office came not from the Ottomans but from the Austrians.

The Austrian postal service in the Ottoman Empire was the main servicer of international mail coming out of the Ottoman Empire.

The Austrians didnt want the Romanians cutting into their business and used their influence to persuade the Ottomans to revoke the mailing privileges of the Romania office.

Romania responded by transferring its post office to a Romanian Steamship Co. ship moored in the harbor at Constantinople.

Mail was collected ashore and then brought to the ship for servicing. This shipboard office opened March 16, 1896.

On May 25, Austrian officials arrived with Ottoman representatives in tow and closed the post office. Mail still in the office was seized and thrown overboard by the Austrians as the Ottoman authorities looked on.

Mailpieces serviced by this office during its brief period of operation are highly collectible. Many of the used stamps in the philatelic market likely bear favor cancels.

The Romanian Steamship Co. ship continued to receive mail and forward it surreptitiously, but no stamps were sold and no postal markings were applied.

World War I proved disastrous for Romania, as it did for much of Europe. The Romanians entered the war on the side of the Allies on Aug. 27, 1916.

The decision to enter the war was prompted by Allied guarantees of territorial gains, notably Transylvania. The Romanians fought doggedly against German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman armies, but were forced to sign a separate peace with the Central Powers May 7, 1918.

The below 25b stamp issued May 10, 1931, to commemorate the centenary of the Romanian Army shows a WWI infantryman with rifle and bayonet (Romania Scott 389).

The stamp, produced by photogravure on paper watermarked multiple crown over PTT, is perforated gauge 13.

Later in 1918, Allied victories in the Balkans knocked Bulgaria out of the war. Romania re-entered the war Nov. 10, 1918, one day before the Armistice ended the fighting.

Romania had lost 350,000 men killed in the war and about one-tenth of its total population. This amounted to 6 percent of all Allied casualties suffered in the war, a huge amount for such a small country.

The war also wrecked the countrys agriculture, industry, and general economy. Illustrated below is a 3.60-leu Heroes Cross on Caraiman Peak stamp (Scott 5571). The stamp, issued July 25, 1914, was produced by lithography and is perforated gauge 13.

The cross commemorates Romanias war dead in WWI. The monument was constructed high in the Southern Carpathians from 1926 to 1928. It was consecrated on Holy Cross Day, Sept. 14, 1928.

In the negotiations at Paris to end the war, Romania was treated very shabbily by the Western Allies.

Using the separate peace that Romania had been forced to sign as a pretext, France and Britain attempted to deny Romania the territorial gains it had been promised in return for joining the Allied cause.

But events on the ground, notably the rise and aggression of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, enabled Romania to acquire much of what it had been promised.

Romania also was excluded from important negotiations at Versailles and was usually presented with decisions regarding its future without being consulted for input.

In 1919, in this climate of fighting for international recognition and respect, Romania decided to reopen its post office in Constantinople. The office opened about August 1919 and remained in operation until 1922 or 1923.

A set of five Offices in the Ottoman Empire King Carol I stamps (Romanian Post Offices in the Turkish Empire Scott 7-11) was issued. The stamps, overprinted in black or red, are perforated gauge 11, 13, and compound on unwatermarked paper.

An overprinted 1918 5b postal tax stamp picturing Queen Marie weaving also was issued in 1919 (Romanian Post Offices in the Turkish Empire Scott RA1). The postal tax stamp is perforated gauge 11 and 11 by 13 on unwatermarked paper.

Funds from the postal tax stamp went to assist families of Romanian soldiers killed in the war. Periods of required use matched the dates that the postal tax stamps were required to be used in Romania. The 5b yellow-green stamp (Scott 7) and the postal tax stamp are pictured below.

The Ottoman Empire ended in 1923 when Turkish nationalist leader Kemal Ataturk deposed the sultan, ended the caliphate, and declared the Turkish Republic.

In July 1923, Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne with Great Britain, France, Greece, and Italy, establishing its national boundaries. One of the provisions of the treaty abolished all foreign post offices in Turkey.
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[mehr] Frische fur den Sommer mit UNIKA KalksandsteinFur die einen ist es eine Wohltat, fur die anderen eine Herausforderung: sommerliche Warme. Keine Frage, Menschen lieben die Sonne. Aber nicht jeder mag hohe Temperaturen, schon gar nicht in den eigenen vier Wanden. ... Fur die einen ist es eine Wohltat, fur die anderen eine Herausforderung: sommerliche Warme. Keine Frage, Menschen lieben die

Pressemitteilung:

[mehr] Humor und Lachen - ein ernstes Thema Humor und Corona Rechtzeitig zu einer Zeit, in der vielen das Lachen vergangen ist, mit oder ohne Corona, erscheint das 14. Buch von Jurgen W. Goldfu. Wahrend sich die bisherigen Werke des Autors mit Themen der Fuhrung (von sich und anderen) sowie Wirtschaftsthemen beschaftigten, geht es nun ums Lachen, die Welt und sich selbst mit lachenden Augen zu betrachten. Auf

Pressemitteilung: ...einfach, schnell und effizient ...einfach, schnell und effizientUberall da verkaufen, wo die Kunden sind, ist das Ziel aller Handler. plentymarkets bietet als Softwarehersteller eine E-Commerce-Losung, die genau diese Philosophie im Markenkern tragt. ... Uberall da verkaufen, wo die Kunden sind, ist das Ziel aller Handler. plentymarkets bietet als Softwarehersteller eine E-Commerce-Losung, die genau diese Philosophie im Markenkern tragt. Eine, die alle relevanten Marktplatze unterstutzt

[mehr] ...einfach, schnell und effizientUberall da verkaufen, wo die Kunden sind, ist das Ziel aller Handler. plentymarkets bietet als Softwarehersteller eine E-Commerce-Losung, die genau diese Philosophie im Markenkern tragt. ... Uberall da verkaufen, wo die Kunden sind, ist das Ziel aller Handler. plentymarkets bietet als Softwarehersteller eine E-Commerce-Losung, die genau diese Philosophie im Markenkern tragt. Eine, die alle relevanten Marktplatze unterstutzt

Pressemitteilung:

[mehr] Neuer Corona-Mitarbeiterschutz - digitaler Abstandshalter Auch nach den Lockerungen beeinflusst die Corona-Pandemie die Weltwirtschaft tiefgreifend. Die Betriebe sollen wieder sicher anlaufen. Die Schlusselrolle spielen dabei die Einhaltung der Hygieneregeln und des Mindestabstands fur Mitarbeitende. Auch nach den Lockerungen beeinflusst die Corona-Pandemie die Weltwirtschaft tiefgreifend. Die Betriebe sollen wieder sicher anlaufen. Die Schlusselrolle spielen dabei die Einhaltung der Hygieneregeln und des Mindestabstands fur Mitarbeitende. Dazu

Pressemitteilung: HUP aktiviert neuen Geschaftsbereich ready2boxx my-buddy-app  die HUP Reminder App. Schutzt vor Verlust des iPhones. Mit den ersehnten Lockerungsmanahmen rund um die Coronavirus-Pandemie steigt ein ganz anderes Risiko: der Verlust des iPhones auf Geschaftsreise, beim Einkauf oder etwa dem Besuch von Oma und Opa. Einfach, weil man das mittlerweile nahezu unverzichtbare Device schlicht und einfach liegen lasst. Das Braunschweiger Software-Entwicklungsunternehmen HUP hat fur Apple

[mehr] my-buddy-app  die HUP Reminder App. Schutzt vor Verlust des iPhones. Mit den ersehnten Lockerungsmanahmen rund um die Coronavirus-Pandemie steigt ein ganz anderes Risiko: der Verlust des iPhones auf Geschaftsreise, beim Einkauf oder etwa dem Besuch von Oma und Opa. Einfach, weil man das mittlerweile nahezu unverzichtbare Device schlicht und einfach liegen lasst. Das Braunschweiger Software-Entwicklungsunternehmen HUP hat fur Apple

Pressemitteilung: Das Lernen, wie wir es kennen, andert sich immer mehr. Online ist die neue Ara der Weiterbildung, die Freude macht und die viel leichter in den eigenen Lebens-Zyklus integrierbar ist! Ayurveda-Seminare und Ayurveda-Ausbildungen fordern ein gesundes Leben und geben viel Sinn-Erfullung. Viele Menschen sind wissbegieriger geworden und wollen ihr volles Potenzial durch Bewusstseinsveranderungen ausschopfen. Durch die digitale Welt ist es einfacher und schneller denn je geworden an Informationen zu kommen. Ich stelle

[mehr] Online ist die neue Ara der Weiterbildung, die Freude macht und die viel leichter in den eigenen Lebens-Zyklus integrierbar ist! Ayurveda-Seminare und Ayurveda-Ausbildungen fordern ein gesundes Leben und geben viel Sinn-Erfullung. Viele Menschen sind wissbegieriger geworden und wollen ihr volles Potenzial durch Bewusstseinsveranderungen ausschopfen. Durch die digitale Welt ist es einfacher und schneller denn je geworden an Informationen zu kommen. Ich stelle

Pressemitteilung:

[mehr] Gasnetz Hamburg pruft monatlich 1.200 Hausanschlusse  Arbeiten unter umfassenden Schutzmanahmen  Haushalte erhalten detaillierte Informationen zum Corona-Schutz  Sichere Gasanschlusse stehen im Mittelpunkt Hamburg. Ab sofort klingelt an vielen Hamburger Hausturen wieder der Gasanlagen-Prufer. Die turnusgemae Inspektion der Anschlusse in Kellern oder Wirtschaftsraumen von Ein- und Mehrfamilienhausern ist alle zwolf Jahre vorgeschrieben. Seit Marz hatte Gasnetz Hamburg die Hausbesuche unterbrochen. Nun schickt das Unternehmen wieder seine Fachleute zu den Anschlusskunden

Pressemitteilung: Wie COVID-19 unsere Kommunikation verandert Sprachexpertin Tatjana Lackner von Die Schule des Sprechens analysiert, wie sich das Kommunikationsverhalten in der COVID-19-Zeit verandert und welche Kommunikations-Trends daraus entstehen. Bilder zur Meldung in der Mediendatenbank https://leisure-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/office_leisure_at/EuP2VeRtjsdPpxlLUzBimIsB-GcG-m5aFr4de0hEQ_WCPw?e=s2GwN1 Wien (LCG)  Die Manahmen zur Eindammung der COVID-19-Verbreitung verandern durch Physical Distancing und zahlreiche neue Verhaltensregeln den personlichen Umgang miteinander. Korpersprache, Social Codes und Rituale bekommen eine wichtig Bedeutung in der neuen

[mehr] Sprachexpertin Tatjana Lackner von Die Schule des Sprechens analysiert, wie sich das Kommunikationsverhalten in der COVID-19-Zeit verandert und welche Kommunikations-Trends daraus entstehen. Bilder zur Meldung in der Mediendatenbank https://leisure-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/office_leisure_at/EuP2VeRtjsdPpxlLUzBimIsB-GcG-m5aFr4de0hEQ_WCPw?e=s2GwN1 Wien (LCG)  Die Manahmen zur Eindammung der COVID-19-Verbreitung verandern durch Physical Distancing und zahlreiche neue Verhaltensregeln den personlichen Umgang miteinander. Korpersprache, Social Codes und Rituale bekommen eine wichtig Bedeutung in der neuen

Pressemitteilung: Facebook diskutiert Strategie in der COVID-19-Pandemie Beim Moving Forward-Round-Table sprechen Facebook-Manager uber die Zusammenarbeit mit der WHO, die Intensivnutzung in Italien und andere Strategien gegen Falschmeldungen. Bilder zur Meldung in der Mediendatenbank:  JMC https://leisure-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/office_leisure_at/EsGAMdDUM2lNt4Jo2RfF_R4BhwzfZ8LXK305xeAAjGcAdw?e=EyC94A Video zur Meldung auf Facebook https://www.facebook.com/movingforwardconference/videos/973105823109354 Dublin/Wien (LCG)  Die Verbreitungsgeschwindigkeit der sozialen Medien war in den letzten Wochen essenziell, um Informationen zu COVID-19 zu streuen. Auch Fake News fanden in diesem Umfeld einen fruchtbaren

[mehr] Beim Moving Forward-Round-Table sprechen Facebook-Manager uber die Zusammenarbeit mit der WHO, die Intensivnutzung in Italien und andere Strategien gegen Falschmeldungen. Bilder zur Meldung in der Mediendatenbank:  JMC https://leisure-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/office_leisure_at/EsGAMdDUM2lNt4Jo2RfF_R4BhwzfZ8LXK305xeAAjGcAdw?e=EyC94A Video zur Meldung auf Facebook https://www.facebook.com/movingforwardconference/videos/973105823109354 Dublin/Wien (LCG)  Die Verbreitungsgeschwindigkeit der sozialen Medien war in den letzten Wochen essenziell, um Informationen zu COVID-19 zu streuen. Auch Fake News fanden in diesem Umfeld einen fruchtbaren

Pressemitteilung: Musikfestival Steyr: Kulturgenuss trotz Pandemie Als kultureller Impulsgeber fur die Region ermoglicht das Musikfestival Steyr auch heuer Kulturgenuss und wartet mit einem neuen Programm auf. Bilder zur Meldung in der Mediendatenbank https://leisure-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/office_leisure_at/EnbiYHVH3KNOg_ZakCqco3wBz529TPFExmEgRThtSEHHQA?e=fAzk1G Steyr (LCG)  In den vergangenen Wochen und Monaten haben die Manahmen der osterreichischen Bundesregierung zur Eindammung der COVID-19-Verbreitung die Kulturnation Osterreich in einen regelrechten Stillstand versetzt. Seit Anfang Mai 2020 setzt die neue Normalitat

[mehr] Als kultureller Impulsgeber fur die Region ermoglicht das Musikfestival Steyr auch heuer Kulturgenuss und wartet mit einem neuen Programm auf. Bilder zur Meldung in der Mediendatenbank https://leisure-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/office_leisure_at/EnbiYHVH3KNOg_ZakCqco3wBz529TPFExmEgRThtSEHHQA?e=fAzk1G Steyr (LCG)  In den vergangenen Wochen und Monaten haben die Manahmen der osterreichischen Bundesregierung zur Eindammung der COVID-19-Verbreitung die Kulturnation Osterreich in einen regelrechten Stillstand versetzt. Seit Anfang Mai 2020 setzt die neue Normalitat

Pressemitteilung: OstseeResort Olpenitz bei Kappeln/ Schlei Private Vermietung von ausgefallenen Ferienobjekten an der Ostsee - "Nie mitten drin, aber immer ganz nah dran!" ist hierbei die Devise. Auch wenn die Corona-Pandemie Urlaub und Ferienvermietung weltweit lahm gelegt hat  das Leben im OstseeResort Olpenitz ist trotzdem weitergegangen, und Ferienobjekte in diesem neuen Ferienresort bei Kappeln/ Schlei verkaufen sich weiterhin gut. Oder aber jetzt erst Recht? Das

[mehr] Private Vermietung von ausgefallenen Ferienobjekten an der Ostsee - "Nie mitten drin, aber immer ganz nah dran!" ist hierbei die Devise. Auch wenn die Corona-Pandemie Urlaub und Ferienvermietung weltweit lahm gelegt hat  das Leben im OstseeResort Olpenitz ist trotzdem weitergegangen, und Ferienobjekte in diesem neuen Ferienresort bei Kappeln/ Schlei verkaufen sich weiterhin gut. Oder aber jetzt erst Recht? Das

Pressemitteilung: Gut vernetzt: Ceresana-Report zum Markt fur Kunststoff-Rohre Die Nachfrage nach Kunststoffrohren steigt in vielen europaischen Landern. Besonders in Ballungsraumen werden derzeit neue Wohnungen gebaut. Allerdings boomt die Bauwirtschaft nicht uberall: Ausgelastete Kapazitaten, steigende Preise, Fachkraftemangel, fehlendes Bauland und zunehmende wirtschaftliche Unsicherheit bremsen die Dynamik. Dabei konnen sich Hochbau, Tiefbau und Infrastrukturbau sehr unterschiedlich entwickeln: Die verschiedenen Bausegmente sind in hohem Mae von den offentlichen Investitionen im jeweiligen

[mehr] Die Nachfrage nach Kunststoffrohren steigt in vielen europaischen Landern. Besonders in Ballungsraumen werden derzeit neue Wohnungen gebaut. Allerdings boomt die Bauwirtschaft nicht uberall: Ausgelastete Kapazitaten, steigende Preise, Fachkraftemangel, fehlendes Bauland und zunehmende wirtschaftliche Unsicherheit bremsen die Dynamik. Dabei konnen sich Hochbau, Tiefbau und Infrastrukturbau sehr unterschiedlich entwickeln: Die verschiedenen Bausegmente sind in hohem Mae von den offentlichen Investitionen im jeweiligen
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The video shows a 13-foot (4 meters) African rock python (Python sebae) being interrupted by a snake catcher as the snake attempts to down a young impala on a farm in South Africa. According to Maroela Media, the snake catcher, Arthur Roden, had been called to a farm in the province of Limpopo by a farmer who suspected that this impala wasn't the first the python had taken on his land. (Impala are farmed in South Africa as game animals for trophy hunters.)

The snake probably lost its lunch because it was disturbed, said Alan Resetar, the collection manager for amphibians and reptiles at The Field Museum in Chicago. Snakes are vulnerable when they're eating and often abandon their prey if bothered, he said. [In Images: Hungry Python Eats Porcupine Whole]

"Even in the field sometimes when I'm catching snakes, they'll upchuck what they're eating," Resetar told Live Science.

Big gulp

Rock pythons are Africa's largest snakes, according to the nonprofit Wildscreen Arkive. They can grow to be more than 26 feet (7.9 m) long, and they kill by constriction. They very rarely attack humans, though fatal attacks have occurred. In 2013, a pet rock python escaped from an enclosure in an apartment in New Brunswick, Canada, and killed two young boys who were sleeping there.

A python regurgitates its antelope meal. (Image credit: Caters Tv/YouTube)

Like most snakes that swallow prey whole, the rock python has an incredibly flexible jaw. The two halves of the lower jaw can move independently and are connected by a ligament that stretches. The jaw is also connected at the back of the snake's skull by three joints to allow for major movement. The bones of the skull are reduced and streamlined, Resetar said.

"You'd be surprised at how little there actually is to the snake skull itself, except for the braincase," Resetar said. The bones that protect the brain are quite strong, he said, which prevents the brain from being damaged by an errant hoof or antler passing by.

Snakes have other adaptations to allow for huge mouthfuls, including stretchy skin at the base of the mouth, Resetar said. They also have curved teeth that hook into the prey and help steady it as they "walk" their jaws up and over their meal.

Eyes bigger than stomach?

The rock python in the video from South Africa was ambitious to go after prey that large, but it probably would have been successful at scarfing the impala if it hadn't been disturbed, according to Resetar.

"Snakes are just fantastic as far as how much they can take down," he said.

A Burmese python found dead in Everglades National Park in 2005 with a nearly intact alligator carcass protruding from its ripped belly. (Image credit: National Park Service)

Occasionally, a snake's eyes will be larger than its stomach, though. Resetar once came across a garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) in the desert trying to swallow a huge American toad (Anaxyrus americanus).

"The snake was doing its best to swallow it, and the toad was doing its best to keep out of the snake's jaws," Resetar said. Eventually, the snake had to give up and let the too-big toad hop away.

On occasion, prey gets a posthumous victory. In 2015, a cyclist in South Africa came across a python with a large lump in its abdomen. A few days later, the same snake was found dead. A reptilian autopsy found a spiny porcupine inside the python's belly. The snake might have fallen, and the prey's quills might have pierced the snake's insides on impact.

In another famous case, a Burmese python was found in Everglades National Park split nearly in two, with a practically intact alligator corpse sticking out of its belly. It's not clear whether the python died in the process of swallowing its prey or shortly thereafter, but alligator-versus-python matchups have become common in the Everglades as the invasive pythons take hold in the region.

Original article on Live Science.
It's Albert Einstein's birthday today! The famed scientist, known for his many breakthroughs in physics, would have been 138 years old today.

Einstein was born in Germany in 1879, and would go on to become one of the world's most well-known scientists. The theoretical physicist's most famous achievements include his general theory of relativity, in which he described gravity as a fundamental property of space-time, and his work on special relativity, which included his theory on the relationship between space and time. More than 60 years after Einstein's death, his research is continues to inspire new discoveries and generations of scientists. [8 Ways You Can See Einstein's Theory of Relativity in Real Life]

Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2 describes the relationship between mass and energy, and helped the physicist come to the surprising conclusion that mass and energy are interchangeable. This simple equation, which showed that mass can be converted into energy, eventually led to the development of atomic bombs and nuclear power reactors.

To honor the scientist, National Geographic Channel is airing a new 10-part television series next month titled "Genius," which details the renowned physicist's personal life and storied career. The show, starring actor Geoffrey Rush, will debut on April 25.

Original article on Live Science.
A newfound, 400,000-year-old hominin skull has a few telltale features suggesting that it's more of a Neanderthal than a Homo sapiens relation, a new study finds.

The cranium, discovered in a Portuguese cave, is helping anthropologists understand how hominins, particularly Neanderthals, evolved during the middle Pleistocene epoch in Europe, the researchers said. The team isn't sure whether the skull belongs to a newfound species of hominin, but noted that the skull appeared "broadly ancestral" to the Neanderthals, said study co-researcher Rolf Quam, an associate professor of biological anthropology at Binghamton University in New York.

In addition, the scientists unearthed hand axes in the cave, a stone-crafted technology that was likely developed in the Middle East about 500,000 years ago. Thanks to the excavations, researchers now have proof that this technology spread as far west as Portugal within 100,000 years of being developed in the Middle East, Quam said. [In Photos: Hominin Skulls with Mixed Traits Discovered]

Prize find

Researchers found the skull on the last day of their field season in 2014. During previous fieldwork at the Gruta da Aroeira cave from 1998 to 2002, researchers found human teeth, animal remains and stone-made hand axes. But the latest discovery, the skull, was the excavation's prize find, Quam said.

Acheulean hand axes discovered at the Aroeira site in Portugal (Image credit: Rolf Quam)

The team discovered the cranium in the back of the cave, buried in petrified sediment.

"The archaeologists, when they found it, weren't sure how to get it out," Quam told Live Science. "They basically had to use a circular saw to cut out a huge block chunk that included the skull."

The researchers brought the block to a restoration laboratory in Madrid, and a fossil preparator spent 2.5 years extracting the skull.

"That is an incredible amount of labor to get this thing out," Quam said.

Once they freed the skull, the researchers put it in a computed tomography (CT) scanner, which allowed them to create a 3D virtual reconstruction of the bone.

"The skull is only half a skull," Quam said. "With the CT scans, we were able to mirror-image it and make the other half, so it's more complete now."

A virtual reconstruction of the 400,000-year-old hominin skull (Image credit: Rolf Quam)

Neanderthal-like features

The skull, nicknamed the "Aroeira cranium" after the Portuguese cave in which the item was found, is the oldest hominin fossil ever discovered in Portugal, Quam said. (A hominin is a group that includes modern humans and their recent ancestors, including Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo habilis and several species of Australopithecus.)

With a cranial capacity of more than 67 cubic inches (1,100 cubic centimeters), the Aroeira skull is about the same size as other hominin skulls found from that time period. Modern humans have larger cranial capacities, of about 79 cubic inches (1,300 cubic cm), according to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, which was not involved with the new study.

Interestingly, the Aroeira cranium has Neanderthal-like features, Quam said. Those include a Neanderthal-shaped brow and a bony projection behind the ear, known as a mastoid process, which is small like a Neanderthal's, Quam said.

However, the Aroeira individual lived long before the Neanderthals, which existed from about 200,000 years ago to 40,000 years ago, when they went extinct. Still, the skull "can help us understand the origin and evolution of Neanderthals better," Quam said. "The fact that it is so well-dated is critical, because that's going to help us think about the evolutionary process  what changed first" as Neanderthals emerged on Earth.

The study was published online Monday (March 13) in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Original article on Live Science.
Leopards may have roamed across Italy alongside Neanderthals, a new study finds.

Scientists analyzed an ancient, well-preserved bone discovered by amateur scientist Renato Bandera in the summer of 2014 and donated to the Paleoanthropological Museum of Po in San Daniele Po, Italy. The gray-brown fossil was the slender right shinbone of a leopard, and was found along the right bank of the Po River in northern Italy, near the harbor entrance of the city of Cremona. [In Photos: Rare and Beautiful Amur Leopards]

The region where this bone was discovered is well-known for its fossils. Other bones from this site have suggested that the area was once home to straight-tusked elephants, steppe bison, woolly mammoths, giant deer, rhinos and elk. However, fossils of carnivores such as bears, wolves, hyenas, foxes  and now, leopards  are very rare.

The size of the shinbone suggests that the leopard it belonged to weighed 88 to 99 lbs. (40 to 45 kilograms), with a body about 3.6 feet (110 centimeters) long and a tail about 2.8 feet (85 cm) in length. This suggests the leopard was either a large female or a young male, said study co-author Davide Persico, a paleontologist at the University of Parma in Italy.

Scientists analyzed a 180,000-year-old shinbone of a likely leopard. (Image credit: Sabol et al./ Quaternary International

The age of the leopard fossil remains uncertain. However, the ages of nearby fossils suggest that this newfound leopard bone is no more than 180,000 years old, Persico said.

Previous research found that leopards inhabited Europe during the Pleistocene epoch, often referred to as the ice age, which spanned from about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. The oldest European leopard fossils come from a site called the Vallonnet Cave in France that's about 900,000 to 1 million years old. As the climate grew colder, the felines retreated southward, the researchers said.

This new bone is the first leopard fossil from the plain of the Po River. "Probably, they lived on the Po plain with Neanderthal man," Persico told Live Science.

All of the leopard fossils that had been unearthed in Italy until now had come from mountainous regions, such as the Alps in northern Italy and the Apennines in central and southern Italy, Persico said. "From this fossil, we learn that the species was not endemic to the mountains," Persico said. "Presumably, this fossil species, exactly like the living leopard species, was adaptable to different climatic conditions."

Today, leopards are considered the largest spotted cats in modern Africa and Asia. They can live in a wide range of habitats, including grasslands, forests, mountains and semiarid deserts, and they currently have the largest distribution of any wild cat.

Persico and his colleagues Martin Sabol, a carnivorous-fossils specialist at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia; and Emiliano Troco, a paleoartist in Udine, Italy, detailed their findings online March 1 in the journal Quaternary International.

Original article on Live Science.
Houston has the highest office vacancy rate in the nation, pushing the metro area lower in a ranking of 46 major markets based on forward-looking economic factors, a new report showed.

Houston's office vacancy, projected to reach 21.5 percent in 2017, contributed to a drop of 8 spots to No. 31 in Marcus & Millichap's 2017 National Office Property Index. In 2014, local office vacancy stood at 16.3 percent.
Portico Property Management

Houston-based Portico Property Management has launched a joint venture with Crossbeam Capital, an apartment investment firm with offices in Houston, Denver and Dallas.

The venture, which combines the companies' back-end operations and support services, will house more than 6,200 apartment units in Texas, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
Federal prosecutors filed court papers Monday asking a judge to send a Harvard Law School grad to prison until he is physically enfeebled from old age for the 2015 kidnapping for ransom of a woman from her boyfriends home on Vallejos Mare Island.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Segal, in his sentencing recommendation filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, suggested that Matthew Muller is a serial criminal for whom psychological treatment could not ever make him less dangerous. The prosecutor asked that Muller, 39, be sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Public safety requires that he be imprisoned until he is old and weak, Segal wrote.

Muller is scheduled to be sentenced in Sacramento on Thursday for the March 2015 abduction of Denise Huskins, 30, from the Mare Island home of her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, 31. He pleaded guilty in September 2016, and prosecutors agreed not to seek a sentence of more than 40 years as a result.

After tying up the couple in Quinns home, Muller kidnapped Huskins and placed her blindfolded and bound in the trunk of his car and drove her to his familys cabin in South Lake Tahoe, where he sexually assaulted her twice before releasing her in Southern California days later.

Mullers attorney, Thomas Johnson of Sacramento, wrote in court papers he also filed on Monday that his client should be sentenced to 30 years in prison  10 years less than prosecutors asked for.

Johnson said Muller suffers from storm clouds of mental illness, including anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder that began to affect him at the age of 21. He said Muller would have never committed this crime had he been properly medicated.

Thirty years is exactly where Mr. Mullers sentence should end up, Johnson wrote. It means Mr. Muller is not released until he is over 60 years old.

Muller, a disbarred San Francisco immigration attorney who served in the Marines, admitted his guilt in the case early, his attorney said, adding that the admission should be grounds for leniency in his sentencing.

A day after Huskins disappearance, The Chronicle received a proof of life statement from her. The next day, when she turned up safe and told police she had been sexually assaulted, investigators called the episode bogus.

Vallejo police later apologized in a private letter to Huskins and Quinn after Muller was arrested in a subsequent home invasion in Dublin.

Muller could face additional state charges after he is sentenced Thursday.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
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SAN ANTONIO -- Make America shiny and chrome again?

Antarctic Press sure has that dystopian jingoism on the brain with "Trump vs. Time Lincoln," a new comic book that pits a time-traveling Abraham Lincoln against a twisted take on President Donald Trump straight out of "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Writer Alfred C. Perez describes "Trump vs. Time Lincoln" as an adventure set in a wasteland of time called "Alternate Reality," where "what was once fact is now a matter of alternate choice," according to the AP solicitation for the comic.

Our hero, a steampunk version of Lincoln originally created by AP writer/artist Fred Perry, must stop the opportunistic machinations of "Final Trump," a despotic take on Trump who rocks a skeletal respirator mask just like the villainous Immortan Joe from "Fury Road."

Final Trump is running rip-shod through time, Perez said, stealing patents to rebuild the world with himself as the perfect leader. It's up to Honest Abe and his team of time travelers to stop Final Trump before, as the solicit goes, he "blows... the cosmic budget on a wall to keep his Alt-Reality safe!"

The San Antonio publisher aims to have the one-shot comic in stores by mid-May. David Hutchison illustrates, with Perez writing and Brian Denham providing cover art.

"I know political satire is difficult, and I don't want to estrange anybody," Perez said. "I just want it to be fun, and for everybody to get a good laugh out of it."

AP has cranked out several "Time Lincoln" tales over the years, with the Great Emancipator zipping across the time-space continuum to thwart the evil Void Stalin and other historic villains with a twist, including Apocalypse Mao, Cuba Commander and Adolf Hitler himself in a story that could only be called "Fists of Fuhrer."

AP also has sent-up our nation's commanders-in-chief with the horror miniseries "President Evil, which features President "Ba-rot" Obama uniting forces across the aisle to take on an army of undead presidents.

AP followed up that zombie fun with the sequel "President Evil: Taste Great," a quasi-spoof of the 2016 election where "Killery Klinton" and "Don 'of the Dead' Drumpf" chomp to "rot the vote."

See you in Valhalla, indeed.
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The owner of a sushi restaurant is in hot water for a Facebook post in which he complains about Hispanics being bad tippers.

"My servers are thinking about building a wall around the restaurant," Steve Wayte reportedly wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post. "Why don't many Hispanics tip? Really? Zero, Ziltch, Nada."

Wayte is the owner of Roll One For Mi in Fresno, Calif. He said he took to social media to vent after his staff complained that Hispanic patrons didn't pay gratuity.

IN TEXAS: Amarillo cheerleader under fire after sharing racist Snapchat video

According to the Star-Telegram, the post gained notoriety when former Fresno County Supervisor and Fresno mayoral candidate Henry R. Perea called on his friends and followers to boycott the business. He shared a screenshot of the post and suggested that they build an "economic wall" around the restaurant.

"That's your right to have your feelings hurt," Wayte told the Star Telegram. "I'm getting a lot of email support. "I just want to get this behind me and get on with my life because this is really wasted energy."

Since the controversy, the business' Yelp profile has been restricted. Reviewers are taking to the site to voice personal opinions about the owner's comments instead of the quality of the establishment. Wayte has taken down his personal and business social media pages and has hired a security guard.

Update, March, 15: Wayte has offered an apology: "There was no malice in my heart, and I was just defending my staff that works hard to put a quality product and good service. This was nothing against the Hispanic community."
Schenectady

Schenectady County lawmakers will consider Thursday evening whether to pursue a lawsuit against opioid drugmakers, claiming that misleading statements from the drug companies contributed to the epidemic of abuse that has caused the county to incur rising law enforcement and medical costs.

A resolution to authorize the county to embark on such a lawsuit is on the agenda for a meeting of the legislators, originally slated to be held Tuesday but postponed due to the nor'easter that buried the region in snow.

If lawmakers move forward, Schenectady will join Erie, Suffolk and Broome counties in bringing such a suit. The lawsuits accuse drugmakers of deceptive practices, including the failure to disclose the addictive properties of the drugs and to claim that addiction risk and withdrawal can be easily managed.

They target the makers of well-known and widely abused prescription painkillers, like Oxycontin and Vicodin, as well as four doctors considered opinion leaders in advocating for the use of opioids for chronic conditions, rather than acute needs like post-surgical pain.

Schenectady County is no stranger to the epidemic that has ravaged the state and the nation. In 2014, there were 529 opioid-related hospital admissions in Schenectady County, a 21 percent increase over 2010, according to state Health Department data.

County Attorney Chris Gardner recommended that lawmakers pursue the lawsuit.

"I believe that credible evidence exists which suggest the named Defendants engaged in a course of conduct meant to mislead doctors, patients and the entire medical community in order to over-prescribe opioid medication, which over a period of time resulted in sky-rocketing sales and profits for these manufacturers," Gardner wrote in a memo to County Manager Kathleen Rooney.

Gardner is working with other county staff to determine the exact costs to the county of addressing the opioid epidemic, which include law enforcement, medical and other expenses  such as placing children in foster care after their parents have overdosed or been arrested on drug-related charges.

The lawsuit would be brought by New York City law firm Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC, which would charge no fees upfront, but take a 10-40 percent cut of a settlement obtained from the drugmakers.

"There is zero out-of-pocket cost to the county or taxpayers with respect to the case," said attorney Paul Hanly. "At the end of the case, if we lose, the financial loss will be our law firm's, it will not be the county's."

County employees would have to devote some time to providing Hanly with information to support the case.

Similar lawsuits have moved forward in Chicago and several California cities.
Tamaulipas state police officers recently arrested two men allegedly found in possession of two AR-15s in central Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, authorities said.

Mexicos attorney generals office said they took over the case for prosecution.
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A routine vehicle inspection yielded about $84,000 worth of cocaine in south Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, according to Mexicos attorney generals office.

State police officers conducting vehicle inspections in Fraccionamiento Santa Cecilia last week came across a sport utility vehicle bearing Tamaulipas license plates.

RELATED: 2 arrested after LPD finds narcotics, cash in central Laredo home

Authorities said they noticed the drivers demeanor as aggressive and evasive. When they checked the vehicle, state police officers said they three found three packages containing cocaine.

The SUV, the driver and the cocaine were turned over to federal authorities for prosecution. Authorities did not identify the driver.
Ho/HO

Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve (The Arrival), is slated to come out in October. Harrison Ford returns as Deckard, the cyborg-searching bounty hunter, two years after he reprised Han Solo in the latest Star Wars movie.

So, a question: While Han will always have moviegoers hearts, which character will mean more to the people of 2049? While Star Wars is escapist fantasy, Blade Runner seems to get more startlingly real as the years pass.
WASHINGTON  The Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would slash the number of people covered by health insurance by 24 million by 2026 while reducing the federal deficit by $337 billion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday.

The report strikes a potential blow to a plan that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., had hoped to pass through the House as early as next week. The bill already faced stiff opposition from conservative Republicans, and has come under scathing criticism from Democrats.

The bill, called the American Health Care Act, would offer tax credits that are skimpier than the current system of subsidies and eliminate the expansion of Medicaid that has brought health insurance coverage to millions of low-income workers, while the GOP plan would slash taxes on high-income Americans.

Following the reports release, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, called the bill indecent and wrong, and urged the GOP to pull the bill.

Its the only decent thing to do, she said.

Democrats are not expected to provide any votes for a plan they derisively call Trumpcare. Pelosi has said she would work with Republicans to improve the current health law, but has drawn the line at replacing it.

House Republicans mounted a defense of their plan Monday, hailing the market freedom the bill provides people who would no longer face a government mandate to buy insurance. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said in a statement that the legislation does not force people to buy insurance plans they may not want or even need.

The bills fundamental premise, he said, is that people should be free and able to buy quality health care that suits their needs.

The White House, meanwhile, attacked the CBO analysis. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price dismissed the report as not believable, saying White House officials disagree strenuously with its conclusions and insisting that the Republican proposal will cover more people at lower costs.

The report said the Republican plan slashes taxes on high-income earners by $600 billion by repealing a welter of taxes the Affordable Care Act implemented to help subsidize premiums for poorer workers.

Ryan hailed the huge tax cuts. He acknowledged the concerns about making sure people have access to coverage, but defended the stark drop in the number of people with insurance that CBO predicts by saying under the current law premiums have spiked. We have seen how government-mandated coverage does not equal access to care, he said.

Pelosi said while pushing 24 million people off their insurance, Republicans are implementing the biggest transfer of wealth in our history, $600 billion from working people to the richest people and corporations in our country.

President Trump had promised during the campaign that any replacement for Obamacare, as the current law is known, would provide coverage for everyone. Under the Affordable Care Act, 20 million to 22 million people gained coverage.

The CBO report did deliver some good news for Republicans. The $337 billion deficit reduction over the next decade meets a requirement of the budget process that Republicans are using to try to pass the legislation through the Senate with a bare majority to avoid a Democratic filibuster. The finding could mollify deficit hawks in the party.

The report also found that the plan is likely to lower the average cost of premiums enough to keep healthy people in the individual insurance market to prevent it from collapsing. But premium costs would first rise by as much as 20 percent over the next two years before falling again, the agency found. That poses a big political problem for Republicans because policyholders could see a sharp jump in premium costs as soon as the bill took effect.

Anticipating a negative report on the number of people losing insurance, White House officials have been engaged over the past few weeks in a campaign to undermine the credibility of the budget office, saying its projections are sometimes inaccurate. The agency is headed by Keith Hall, who was appointed in 2015 by congressional Republicans, and it is widely respected for its objective analysis.

Outside analysts widely note that low-income workers, even with a $4,000 refundable tax credit, are unlikely to be able to afford more than a bare-bones plan with an astronomical deductible.

It is hard to see how many low-income people will see value in a free plan that still has a $2,000, or $3,000, or $4,000 deductible before they can use any benefits, given that an individual at 100% of the federal poverty level makes $12,000 a year, Robert Laszewski, a conservative-leaning insurance industry analyst, wrote on his widely followed blog.

The Republican plan dramatically shifts government aid away from poor and older workers to younger and higher-income workers, raising subsidies in the form of tax credits to individuals earning up to $75,000 a year and families up to $150,000.

To do so without raising deficits, the plan slashes Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, by $880 billion, the agency found.

Even before the report, five Republican senators had expressed grave reservations about the Medicaid cuts. These include Dean Heller of Nevada, the lone Republican facing re-election in two years in a state Hillary Clinton won in November, and moderates Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as well as Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a poor state where Trump is popular.

Republican governors, including John Kasich of Ohio and Brian Sandoval of Nevada, have complained bitterly that House Republicans did not consult them before writing the legislation.

Trump indicated in anticipation of the report that the GOP plan could change significantly because the White House is engaged in a big, fat, beautiful negotiation with congressional Republicans. Hopefully well come up with something thats going to be really terrific, Trump said.

Ryans hasty rollout of the bill also showed scant evidence that he sought to woo the powerful health care industry. Dozens of industry and patient groups, from the American Medical Association to AARP, have denounced the bill. AARP has run television ads lambasting the reduction in benefits for older people, whom insurers could charge five times more than younger people for coverage, compared with three times more under current law.

House Republicans passed the legislation through two House committees before having the CBO analysis, considered vital to assessing the effect of bills on the budget and economy. The House Budget Committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation Thursday. The bill has already been passed on party lines by the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
Memorial Park was designated as a Lone Star Legacy Park by the Texas Recreation and Park Society (TRAPS) during a ceremony at the association's annual institute in Irving, Texas, on March 1.

A Lone Star Legacy Park is classified as a park that holds special prominence in the local community and in Texas. To qualify for consideration, the park must have endured the test of time and become iconic to those who have visited, played and rested on its grounds. Nominated parks must be a minimum of 50 years old and must meet at least one of the following criteria:

The property represents distinctive design and/or construction.

The park is associated with historic events or sites.

The park is associated with events specific to the local community/state.

The park is home to unique natural features.

"Memorial Park is a unique treasure that meets not one, but all of the nomination criteria," said Shellye Arnold, president/CEO of Memorial Park Conservancy. "Currently serving over 170 ZIP codes, Memorial Park is a park for all people. We look forward to preserving and enhancing it for the enjoyment of all Houstonians for generations to come."

Memorial Park was established in 1924. Its 1,503 acres were sold at cost to the City of Houston by William and Mike Hogg, sons of James Stephen Hogg, the former governor of Texas. The park's creation was in response to letters to the editor of the Houston Chronicle, first from Ilona Benda and later from Catherine Mary Emmott, beseeching the city to consider a park in tribute to the soldiers who trained at Houston's Camp Logan and the many who died in World War I.

At the behest of philanthropist Ima Hogg, sister to the Hogg brothers, several stalwart protectors of park lands -Terry Hershey, Frank C. Smith, Jr., Sadie Gwin Blackburn, Dr. John D. Staub, and Sarah Emmott - were charged with protecting Memorial Park from encroachments and development concepts ranging from a fish hatchery to the Astrodome to oil drilling.

This group of advocates, through efforts led by Claire Caudill, morphed over time to become the Memorial Park Conservancy, a 501c3 that works in conjunction with Houston to care for the park.

"Memorial Park becomes the fourth park in our system to receive the Lone Star Legacy designation. It joins Hermann Park, Emancipation Park, and Sam Houston Park in receiving this prestigious acknowledgement," said Joe Turner, director, Houston Parks and Recreation Department. "We are honored that Memorial Park's historic significance has been recognized by the Texas Recreation and Park Society."

The five parks receiving the honor in the sixth year of the Texas Recreation and Parks Society statewide program include Parque Zaragoza, Austin; Kiest Park, Dallas; Tandy Hills Natural Area, Fort Worth; Kempner Park, Galveston; Memorial Park, Houston; and Cypress Bend Park, New Braunfels.

Memorial Park Conservancy is a nonprofit created to restore, preserve, and enhance Memorial Park for the enjoyment of all Houstonians, today and tomorrow.

Incorporated in 2000, the conservancy's vision is to implement the principles of world-class park management and stewardship in partnership with the Houston community. A volunteer board of directors is led by Chairman Steve Jenkins, and a staff works under Arnold.

As of February 2016, the conservancy is operationally responsible for managing 1,100 of the park's 1,500 acres including the green spaces, open spaces and trails. Visit www.memorialparkconservancy.org for information.

On April 1, 2015, the Houston City Council unanimously approved the long range Master Plan for Memorial Park.

A collaborative partnership between the Memorial Park Conservancy, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department and the Uptown Houston Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone led the planning process with input from stakeholder groups and the general public.

Eastern Glades, the inaugural project, is underway and will take approximately three to five years to complete. Funding for Master Plan projects will come from both public and private sources.
Brian Gallaway, chief water production operator for the City of Plainview, was named Operator of the Year for systems of cities with a population of 10,000 to 30,000 at the Texas Water Utilities Association (TWUA) Annual Awards Program in Corpus Christi.

Brian is an outstanding staff member that takes on all the challenges that come his way, says Paul Kite, assistant director of utilities. Since being promoted to chief operator, Brian has put in place a great safety program that encourages and motivates staff  this award is well deserved.

Nominations were received in October 2016 and a panel of judges associated with the TWUA reviewed and chose the nominations. Those who nominated winners were notified via email and presentations were made at the awards program.

Gallaway has been with the City of Plainview for 18 years, one year at the Waste Water Plant and the other years in Water Production.

Brians tenure with the City not only speaks to his dedication but to his commitment to excellence as well, says Kite. Plainview is fortunate to have such a great leader in our Water Production Department.

As the chief operator, Gallaways duties include daily oversight of Water Treatment Operations which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to provide safe, economical and potable water to the citizens of Plainview. Community consumption ranges from approximately 2 million gallons a day in cold winter months to peaks of near 10 million gallons a day in hot, dry periods.

Other responsibilities of the department include providing distribution system sampling for regulatory authorities, laboratory testing for Water Production Plant effluent water, maintaining and operating 16 public water supply wells for the City of Plainview, maintaining and operating a 4.2-million-gallon water treatment plant to treat water from the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority as well as maintaining and operating four elevated storage water reservoirs and six ground storage water reservoirs.

I couldnt have done this without all the other guys in the department, says Gallaway. It is a team effort around here.

The Texas Water Utilities Association is a water utility, member-centered organization which provides training programs, technical publications and mutual problem solving opportunities for those employed in, or otherwise interested in, the water utility industry. TWUAs goal is to assist our members in providing improved services to mankind in their public health and environmental endeavours.

Gallaway is married to Twyla and they have a daughter, Brianna, a son Mason and granddaughter Addyson.
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Laredo police are hosting a training session focusing on advance vehicle contraband concealment.

The course is designed to have a deliberate and direct impact on trafficking organizations abilities to move large shipments of contraband concealed in vehicles in the Western Hemisphere as well as anywhere U.S. interests are assigned, states the website for the Midwest Counterdrug Training Center.

With the proper training of personnel this course will have a direct impact and reduce the quantity of illicit drugs entering the United States from Mexico, Central America and Canada.

LPD Assistant Chief Jesus R. Torres said the two-day training began Monday.

RELATED: Woman in late 60s dead after two-vehicle crash in east Laredo

Authorities said they are looking into smuggling trends used by criminal organizations.

Peace officers from LPD, Department of Public Safety, San Antonio Police Department and the Webb County Sheriffs Office are receiving training to detect modified or aftermarket compartments in commercial and private vehicles, Torres said.

LPD faces a unique situation. They aim to stop contraband crossing into the United States from Mexico and stopping the distribution of street-level narcotics locally, Torres said.

RELATED: Gang member, convicted sex offender apprehended by border patrol in South Texas

With the training, an officer becomes more effective out in the streets, he said.

The course teaches authorities to disrupt illicit activity.

By having a direct impact on the trafficking organizations ability to move contraband, the course will disrupt/disable trafficking organizations by a coordinated approach to limit their access to funding, reduce their assets and ultimately raise their costs of doing business, the centers website states.
The Seoul High Court on Sunday rejected an application from ex-President Park Geun-hye's confidante Choi Soon-sil to be allowed to meet people other than her lawyers in prison.

Choi is barred from contacting other witnesses in the corruption and influence-peddling case, and as she is accused of rampant nepotism, witnesses include practically everyone she knows.

Choi earlier this month argued her human rights are being violated because she has only had contact with her lawyers since she was arrested on Oct. 31, 2016. She said she is not accused of high treason or other capital offenses and there is no material evidence to destroy.

She also said she suffers from depression as a result of her effective isolation and cannot even get books delivered to her from outside.

But the court refused to lift the order, saying there remains a clear and present risk of Choi trying to destroy evidence or manipulate witnesses.


The FBI is making a push to capture an alleged Mexican gang member with ties to Texas who is on the 10 Most Wanted list.

This week, agents released a video and audio recording looking for help in finding Eduardo "Tablas" Ravelo, who is described as a captain in the Barrio Azteca gang operating in the Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas areas.
When Johnathan Smith resigned from the U.S. Justice Department on Inauguration Day, he looked forward to spending time with his infant son, but that plan unraveled a week later when President Donald Trump unveiled his explosive foreign travel ban.

Within two weeks, Smith had a new job as legal director of civil rights group Muslim Advocates and was drafting briefs for a successful court challenge to the ban, joining other former top Obama administration lawyers now fighting Trump.

It is not surprising that Smith and some of his colleagues, political appointees of Democratic President Barack Obama, would leave the Justice Department now led by Republicans. What is unusual is how fast they have signed up to be Trump adversaries.

Some Republican lawyers say they were less hasty in moving into oppositional roles post-election. George Terwilliger, a senior Justice Department official under President George H.W. Bush, described the Obama lawyers' actions as "unprecedented to my memory" and "really bad form."

One reason for the Obama lawyers' quick moves, some of them said, was Trump's aggressive use of executive authority from day one, which was guaranteed to attract court challenges.

Obama faced legal fights over executive power and some of his challengers were formerly lawyers for President George W. Bush, over issues such as immigration and Obamacare. But those came later in Obama's presidency.

Besides Smith, other lawyers who have jumped into the fray include former Attorney General Eric Holder, who is advising California's legislature on challenging Trump over immigration, environmental regulations and health care; and former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, who is helping Hawaii contest Trump's revised travel ban.
FBI 10 Most Wanted Fugitives from Texas or captured in the Lone Star State
AUSTIN -- A political showdown between the state and local governments over mushrooming property taxes opened Tuesday, as supporters called for new curbs on rising rates and taxing authorities warned that local services will be whacked as a result.

In a year when both the Senate and House have proposed giving voters more power to turn back property tax hikes, the Senate Finance Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 2 that impose new rules limit how much cities, counties, school districts and other local taxing jurisdictions could raise taxes without getting voter approval.

Bottom line: The escalating fight between state and local officials over property taxes is expected to complicate a final agreement on a new state budget, in a year when the process already is complicated because the state faces making significant cuts to some programs due to revenue shortfalls.

Most senators are under intense pressure from local officials to not approve the bill, while Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate's presiding officer who holds sway over which bills pass and which die, has publicly identified its passage as a top priority.

"Taxes are rising too fast, and the only question is what are we going to do about it," said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican and former tax appraiser in Harris County who is sponsor of the bill -- and is now at odds with many of his former colleagues.

"This bill does not cut tax rates. It is not a revenue cap," he told a hearing packed with angry taxpayers who want to curb tax hikes and local officials who view the bill as a dangerous precedent. "It's a way to slow the growth of government and slow the growth of tax bills."

Bettencourt said tax rates for residences in many areas of Texas have increased at 10 percent per year in a statewide crisis that is running some people out of their homes, and 20 percent hikes for some business that are being forced to relocate out of state.

"We can't have a property tax system that regularly raises property taxes . . . year after year after year," he said, noting that his bill would allow for automatic elections to allow voters to decide on large tax hikes.

Local tax appraisers and officials insisted that if Bettencourt's bill passes, public safety services in many areas will have to be cut. They called it a state mandate that will unfairly limit the ability of local officials to keep up with growth rates in services and population.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, questioned whether the bigger issue is the rising rates of school property taxes. He suggested that the legislature should the funding method for public schools as part of the discussion on curbing property taxes.

"We continually talk about Washington telling the states what to do," West said. "Why are we now at the state level trying to replace the judgment of local officials with our judgment? . . . We should make certain we allow them the discretion to make the decisions they need to make."

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said suggested the local tax rates are a state-created problem.

"The state has pushed the cost of a lot of services from itself to the counties and cities, and that's why they are raising taxes," he said.

Patrick has championed cutting property taxes for years, since long before he was elected. SB 2 in some form is expected to be approved by the committee and the full Senate, despite the opposition.

Related bills are pending in the House, where there is also a sentiment to reform property taxes in the state.
Though he struggled with alcoholism for many years, Douglas Harrington eventually found healing through Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sober for 36 years, Harrington, who was gay, also made peace with his sexuality and created a life of service.

Becoming very active in AA and also in the gay rights movement all through the 1980s, Harrington also became a registered nurse at almost 40.

Doug was unwavering in his commitment to have purpose in other peoples lives, close friend Tiffany Denson said.

More Information Douglas Harrington Born: March 7, 1945, Uvalde Died: March 6, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Parents Myrtle Lacey and Milton Douglas Harrington. Survived by: Sisters Barbara Carmon and Cherri Barker; close friend Tiffany Denson, and many other friends. Services: Memorial at 10 a.m. Saturday at Madison Square Presbyterian Church, 319 Camden St., followed by lunch and fellowship. See More Collapse

Harrington died of complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease March 6, just one day before his 72nd birthday.

Raised mostly in West Texas in the 1940s and 50s, Harrington knew he was gay early on, a fact that his mother and stepfather could not accept.

Committed to a state psychiatric hospital for being a sexual deviant by his parents at 10, Harrington received multiple rounds of shock therapy, to try to cure him, Denson said.

Released at 12  he had learned to say what the doctor wanted to hear  Harrington lived at home until he was 17, when he lied about his date of birth to join the Navy.

Still conflicted about his sexuality, Harrington went to the Navy chaplain for help and he was quickly discharged  after little more than a year, Denson said.

Left at loose ends, Harrington lived in the Washington, D.C. area and worked various jobs, and began self-medicating, started drinking, Denson said.

Later settling into a career with what is now Bankers Life insurance company, Harrington attended his first AA meeting in 1975, becoming completely sober two years later.

Returning to Texas to fulfill one of AAs basic tenets of taking an honest look at your life one way or another and  clean up your side of the street, Harrington was never able to completely reconcile with his mother, a situation that took him years to accept, Denson said.

Leaving the insurance industry in his 30s, Harrington attended San Antonio College and the University of Texas Health Science Center to become a registered nurse.

Though HIV negative, he had a soft spot in his heart for patients who were HIV positive, Denson said.

Working in various capacities as a nurse, including in the the state prison system, Harrington dedicated his life sponsoring people in AA after retiring a second time in the 1990s.

mheidbrink@express-news.net
KAMPALA, Uganda  The mysterious Facebook blogger kept dishing up alleged government secrets. One day it was a shadowy faction looting cash from Ugandas presidential palace with impunity. The next was a claim that the president was suffering from a debilitating illness.

For authorities in a country that has seen just one president since 1986, the critic who goes by Tom Voltaire Okwalinga is an example of the threat some African governments see in the exploding reach of the Internet  bringing growing attempts to throttle it.

Since 2015, about a dozen African countries have had wide-ranging Internet shutdowns, often during elections. Rights defenders say the blackouts are conducive to carrying out serious abuses.

The Internet outages also can inflict serious damage on the economies of African countries that desperately seek growth, according to research by the Brookings Institution think tank.

Uganda learned that lesson. In February 2016, amid a tight election, authorities shut down access to Facebook and Twitter as anger swelled over delayed delivery of ballots in opposition strongholds. During the blackout, the police arrested the presidents main challenger. More than $2 million was shed from the countrys gross domestic product in just five days of Internet restrictions, the Brookings Institution said.

The shutdowns also have potential devastating consequences for education and health, says the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organization founded by a mobile phone magnate that monitors trends in African governance.

As more countries gain the technology to impose restrictions, rights observers see an urgent threat to democracy.

The worrying trend of disrupting access to social media around polling time puts the possibility of a free and fair electoral process into serious jeopardy, said Maria Burnett, associate director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

In the past year, Internet shutdowns during elections have been reported in Gabon, Republic of Congo and Gambia, where a longtime dictator cut off the Internet on the eve of a vote he ultimately lost.

In some English-speaking territories of Cameroon where the locals have accused the central government of marginalizing their language in favor of French, the government has shut down the Internet for several weeks.

Internet advocacy group Access Now earlier estimated that the restrictions in Cameroon have cost local businesses more than $1.39 million.

Just 30 days of Internet restrictions between July 2015 and July 2016 cost Ethiopias economy over $8 million, according to figures by the Brookings Institution.

Rodney Muhumuza is an Associated Press writer.
MOSUL, Iraq  Iraqi troops have surrounded western Mosul, and military leaders vow its only a matter of time until they crush the last major stand of the Islamic State group in Iraq. But the militants are positioning themselves to defend the remains of their so-called caliphate in Syria and wage an insurgent campaign in Iraq.

The extremists are carrying out what looks like an organized, fighting withdrawal: A core of fighters is holding out in the city using hundreds of thousands of civilians as shields, tying down and bleeding the Iraqi military in urban combat.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon and Iraqi officials say the senior Islamic State leadership has escaped to regroup in Syria and the deserts along the border to prepare for the future.

They know they will lose Mosul, but they want this to be a hard fight, said Maj. Saif Ali, a commander in the Iraqi special forces on the front lines.

The civilian population is perhaps the main reason Islamic State fighters have been able to hold out so long and turn Mosul into such a grueling battle. It took months for Iraqi forces to drive them out of eastern Mosul while trying to avoid high casualties among residents amid house-to-house battles. Now roughly 2,000 militants, by a coalition estimate, are holed up in western Mosul with 700,000 civilians. Islamic State fighters are holding most of those civilians hostage as shields, while forcing some to flee as cover for their troops.

Mosuls fall will be the biggest blow yet to Islamic State, largely breaking its hold over territory in Iraq and ending its rule over half the caliphate, which at its height stretched from northern Syria through western Iraq. The largest city in Islamic State territory, Mosul provided the group significant financing from taxing the population, factories to make weapons and space to gather freely.

But the Islamic State groups durable organization ensures it can fall back to the next fight.

Last weekend, Iraqi forces completely encircled western Mosul by capturing the last road into the enclave of about 15 square miles, comprising some of the citys most densely built districts.

Any of the fighters who are left in Mosul, theyre going to die there because they are trapped, Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, said Sunday.

Residents trapped in western Mosul face dwindling supplies of food and fuel. Limited provisions enter through smuggling routes still in use despite the siege, according to a senior humanitarian official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Around 50,000 civilians have fled in the past four weeks, according to the United Nations. Escape is incredibly dangerous: Islamic State has threatened to kill anyone caught trying to get out, and residents have to cross dangerous front lines to reach safety.

But at times, the militants allow large groups to leave, giving cover for their own fighters to move as well.

Susannah George is an Associated Press writer.
The tour will include South Korea and Australia, the Nikkei Asian Review reported, with North Korea's missile and nuclear programs and South Korea's political crisis likely topics for discussion.

A Trump administration official told Reuters: "The vice president is going to Asia next month I believe."

U.S. President Donald Trump has already withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which was seen as an economic pillar of the strategy.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will visit Japan and Indonesia as part of an Asian tour next month, sources said on Monday, amid concerns the Trump administration is rolling back Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia."

China has been infuriated by South Korea's plan to deploy a U.S. missile defense system targeted at the North Korean threat.

South Korea is also going through political turmoil after a court removed President Park Geun-hye from office over a graft scandal.

Pence is also expected to visit Tokyo for a U.S.-Japan economic dialogue, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The visit will come as North Korea's latest missile launches and the assassination in Malaysia of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother add urgency to the region's security. It will also follow this month's trip by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Japan, South Korea, and China.

The TPP had been the main economic pillar of the Obama administration's pivot to the Asia-Pacific region in the face of a fast-rising China.

Proponents of the pact have expressed concerns that abandoning the project, which took years to negotiate, could strengthen China's economic hand in the region at the expense of the United States.

Indonesia's chief security minister said Pence would meet President Joko Widodo to discuss terrorism and other security issues.

Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population and has recently grappled with a series of low-level militant attacks inspired by Islamic State.

"We discussed the planned visit of U.S. vice president Mike Pence to Indonesia and the strategic problems that can be on the agenda to discuss with our president," chief security minister Wiranto told reporters after meeting the U.S. ambassador to Jakarta.

He added that no dates have been finalized.

In Indonesia, Pence is also expected to discuss a brewing contract dispute between the government and American mining group Freeport McMoRan Inc, said two Indonesian government sources.

Freeport has threatened to take the Indonesian government to court over newly revised mining regulations that have prompted a major scale-back in its operations in the eastern province of Papua.
Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea beginning in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War II.

China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fueled concern in Japan and the West, with the United States holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation.

The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July.

It will return to Japan in August, the sources said. "The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission," said one of the sources who have knowledge of the plan. "It will train with the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea," he added, asking not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

A spokesman for Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force declined to comment.


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Detailing all of the pop-up restaurants, pop-up bars, pop-up shops, pop-up galleries, and pop-up gigs in London, complete with maps. Please send any tips to dan.calladine@londonpopups.com or via twitter - I'm @LondonPopups
Plans are continuing at pace for this years St Patricks Day parade in Longford town. Organisers have already confirmed a significant increase on entries from last years event, which was affected by the 1916 centenary parade which ran later in the year.

With Abbott Laboratories on board as the main sponsors and several of the local schools back involved this year, Longford Chamber of Commerce are hoping for a good family focussed event.

Meanwhile local traders are being encouraged to take part in the shop window display initiative this year.

As St Patricks Day falls on a Friday this year, the Chamber feels there is a real commercial opportunity for the town this year.

Chamber CEO, Lisa Brady told the Leader: We're putting a big push on getting traders and businesses to go green for the weekend this year. It doesnt have to be overly elaborate but it would be great to see as many businesses as possible take part.

There is also a special prize for the best display and Chamber Council member, Niamh Donlon has been out with traders, encouraging them to get involved.

He told the Leader: The response has been very good and it will dovetail with the schools art competition as well.

Whilst commercial entries are strongly encouraged in the parade, the Chamber is calling on local schools, community groups and organisations to get involved in the parade this year.

With the bank holiday on the Friday, many retailers and traders believe that it could be the busiest weekend in the county and town since Christmas.

Niamh Donlon added: The parade and the shop window initiative are a great opportunity to put our best foot forward and show the town in a positive light.

Meanwhile the decision to name local man, Michael Tighe as the grand marshal for the parade has been warmly welcomed by the local organisation for ex servicemen, Peter Keenan ONE Longford.

The honour is thoroughly deserved for one of the branchs longest serving members, added a spokesperson.

This is a great honour not alone for Michael but also for the Peter Keenan branch of ONE, whose members will once again lead this years parade.

For more information on the parade and details on taking part, contact Lisa Brady, Chamber CEO on 087 778 6834.
Representatives of Longford County Council, who are in New York for the St Patricks Day celebrations, met with senior executives from Tourism Ireland in New York yesterday.

CEO Paddy Mahon and Cllrs Peggy Nolan (FG), Mick Cahill (FF) and John Duffy (FG) were briefed on Tourism Irelands extensive promotional programme for 2017, which is in full swing right now.

According to the brief, Tourism Ireland aims to build on the success of 2016, which was the fourth record-breaking year in a row for Irish tourism from the United States.

Tourism Ireland is prioritising North America this year, as a market which offers a strong return on investment, in terms of holiday visitors and expenditure.

Our important culturally curious and social energiser audiences are being targeted with distinctive vacation experiences, events and special offers tailored to their interests, Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Irelands Head of North America, said.

Tourism Ireland is creating stand out for the island of Ireland in the US, highlighting experiences like the Wild Atlantic Way, the Causeway Coastal Route and Irelands Ancient East.

Promotions aim to grow travel to the regions of Ireland, during the shoulder and off-peak seasons.

With the recent announcement by Norwegian of new flights to Ireland from New York (Stewart International Airport) and Providence (Rhode Island), the total number of transatlantic airline seats this summer will be 60,000, from 20 North American gateways to the island of Ireland  that is 10,000 additional seats (+20%) compared to summer 2016.

We were delighted to meet with the representatives of Longford County Council and to have the opportunity to brief them about the extensive promotional programme we are undertaking in the United States this year, Ms Metcalfe continued, before pointing out that the organisations ambition was to surpass the record-breaking performance of 2016 and to deliver a +9% increase in revenue and a +6% increase in visitor numbers from North America in 2017.

St Patricks Day traditionally marks the real start of the tourism season for us; our aim is to bring a smile to the faces of people everywhere and to convey the message that Ireland offers the warmest of welcomes and great fun, as well as wonderful scenery and heritage.

We are using every opportunity to capitalise on Irelands heightened profile this week; the saturation coverage about Ireland at this time of year  across the airwaves, in newspapers and digital media  is an invaluable boost for our overall tourism marketing drive in 2017.
Local News, National & World News, Travel & Local Attractions, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 14 2017

New York joins Western District Of Washington lawsuit alongside Washington State, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Oregon.

New York, NY - March 13, 2017 - Today, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman formally filed suit against President Trumps second immigration ban, joining Washington States lawsuit in the Western District of Washington. New York joined Washington, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Oregon in filing an amended complaint that details the harms the second executive order will cause the States and their residents, institutions, and economies.

Click here to read the amended complaint filed this morning.

Alongside the amended complaint, New York filed 20 declarations from New York institutions, localities, businesses, and organizations, including the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY); the cities of Rochester and Ithaca; the Greater New York Hospital Association; the International Institute of Buffalo; tech companies such as Kickstarter, Etsy, and Meetup; and individuals impacted by the second executive order, including scientists from Iran and Yemeni-Americans separated from their families. A list of declarations filed by all states can be viewed here. The New York declarations can be read here.

As our complaint details, President Trumps second executive order is just a Muslim Ban by another name, seeking to accomplish the same unlawful and unconstitutional goals of the first ban, said Attorney General Schneiderman. The Trump administrations continued intent to discriminate against Muslims is clear  and it undermines New Yorks families, institutions, and economy. Im proud to join my fellow Attorneys General as we marshal our resources to take on this latest unconstitutional executive order.

The amended complaint details President Trumps continued intention to discriminate against Muslims, quoting President Trump himself and a number of his administrations officials and surrogates. Specifically, it quotes senior policy advisor Stephen Millers February 21, 2017 comments that the second executive order would have mostly minor technical differences from the first; and press secretary Sean Spicers February 27, 2017 comments that the goal [of the second executive order] is obviously to maintain the way that we did it the first time.

The complaint makes clear that the second executive order violates the Equal Protection, Establishment, and Procedural Due Process clauses of the Constitution, as well as the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Tenth Amendment.

The amended complaint filed today also describes the harms to individual plaintiff states. As detailed, New York has over 4.4 million foreign-born residents, including more than 13,000 who were born in one of the six countries named in President Trumps second executive order; approximately two percent, or roughly 400,000, of New Yorkers identify as Muslim.

Specifically, the complaint details how the second executive order:
School & Education, Local News, Business & Finance, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 14 2017

Governor Cuomo announced statewide support for the Excelsior Scholarship Program from the college and university presidents throughout The State University of New York and City University of New York.

Albany, NY - March 13, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced statewide support for the Excelsior Scholarship Program from the college and university presidents throughout The State University of New York and City University of New York. The Excelsior Scholarship would make college possible for families making up to $125,000 per year, helping to alleviate the crushing burden of student debt while enabling thousands of bright young students to realize their dream of higher education at SUNY and CUNY. Under the Governors bold proposal, approximately 80 percent or more than 940,000 New York families with college-aged children would qualify to attend SUNY or CUNY two- and four-year colleges tuition-free.



"The Excelsior Scholarship will enable thousands of middle- and working-class students to attend New Yorks world-class SUNY and CUNY colleges and universities tuition-free, and I am proud to have the support and partnership of these great academic leaders," Governor Cuomo said. "This is a critical step forward in our efforts to build up our workforce, remain competitive in the global economy, support the middle class, and create a more prosperous New York for all."



SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher said, The State University of New York recognizes the immense opportunity before us, and we look forward to seeing Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship program become a reality for our students. The program takes college affordability to a dramatic new level in New York State while also incentivizing college completion, a proven game changer in reducing student debt and positioning students for success not only in college but also career.



CUNY Chancellor James B. Milliken said, "Governor Cuomos landmark Excelsior Scholarship Program is a bold initiative that will advance both individual opportunity and the states economic competiveness. Nothing is more important to success in the 21st century knowledge economy than quality higher education. The expanded access that the Excelsior program provides for lower income and middle class students positions New York as a national leader. CUNY students, their families and communities, and our state will benefit from this investment."



Below are statements fromt the SUNY Presidents:

SUNY Adirondack President Dr. Kristine Duffy said, We applaud the governor for taking a strong stand on affordability. We look forward to working together to ensure the state's investment reaches the broadest number of New York students."



University at Albany Interim President Dr. James R. Stellar said, The Governor's plan to provide free tuition to thousands of SUNY and CUNY students is a powerful endorsement of public higher education in New York State."



Alfred State College President Dr. Skip Sullivan said, With Governor Cuomos tuition-free plan, we offer opportunities abound for more than just the wealthy. If enacted, this proposal will create a more widely-educated workforce, which would help communities to thrive across New York State today and for generations to come.



Binghamton University President Dr. Harvey Stenger said, We commend the Governor's efforts, which could benefit hundreds of thousands of middle- and low-income New Yorkers. At Binghamton University we strive to challenge students academically, not financially, and ensure that our costs enable students to start a career or attend graduate school without the worries of high student debt.



SUNY College at Brockport President Dr. Heidi Macpherson said, Thank you, Governor Cuomo, for recognizing the importance of investing further in public higher education in New York and for setting our state on a progressive course forward."



SUNY Broome Community College President Dr. Kevin E. Drumm said, From a public policy level, the idea of free tuition is just fantastic. It would address so many cultural and economic challenges for both the state and individual families.



University at Buffalo President, Dr. Satish Tripathi said, At UB, our students receive a world-class education, graduate at a rate that far exceeds the national average, and they begin their professional lives with debt levels significantly below national averages. The Governors program will significantly expand access to SUNYs outstanding institutions while also enhancing higher education completion rates for New York students."



SUNY Buffalo State College President Dr. Katherine S. Conway-Turner: We at Buffalo State are keenly aware of the power of a college degree to advance social mobility and transform the lives of students and their families. Many students across the State struggle to complete degrees due to economic pressures, and Governor Cuomos free tuition plan will provide more New Yorkers with a path to a brighter future.



SUNY Canton President Dr. Zvi Szafran said, North Country residents will directly benefit from the Governors new plan because more families will be able to afford to send their children to college, which will increase opportunities for their futures, since the gap between salaries for those with a high school diploma and those with a college degree has never been higher.



Cayuga Community College President Dr. Brian M. Durant said, We commend Governor Cuomos proposed Excelsior Scholarship Program to help New York students access the financial resources needed to secure a college education.



Clinton Community College President Ray DiPasquale said, We thank Governor Cuomo for making New York State stronger by helping make education accessible to all. The Excelsior Scholarship Program would make a big difference in the ability of Clinton County residents to get an education.



SUNY Cobleskill President Dr. Marion Terenzio said, As a member of the SUNY System, we strongly support the Governors plan for college affordability. Improved access to higher education, full-time enrollment, and college completion are top priorities at SUNY Cobleskill. We applaud this forward-looking proposal.



Columbia-Greene Community College President James Campion said, "Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship brings higher education in New York within the reach of our citizens.



Corning Community College President Dr. Katherine P. Douglas said, "I applaud the Governor's Excelsior Scholarship proposal. It couples one of our students' primary issues -- college affordability -- with New York's renewed commitment to invest in public higher education.



SUNY Cortland President Dr. Erik J. Bitterbaum said, "SUNY Cortland welcomes the vision of Gov. Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship proposal as a way to further expand access to higher education for hard-working New York families and ease the growing debt burden shadowing many students. This ambitious plan fits well with our Colleges mission to help students from all economic backgrounds realize their educational goals. In our experience, higher education transforms lives, lifts families out of poverty and serves as one of New Yorks greatest economic assets."



SUNY Delhi President Dr. Michael R. Laliberte said, We know that the single greatest factor impacting student retention and completion at SUNY Delhi is financial need. Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship Program will help eliminate the pressure that student debt puts on our middle income students and families and allow them to focus on achieving their dreams and becoming immediate contributors to our global economy.



SUNY Downstate Medical Center Officer-in-Charge Dr. Michael Lucchesi said, We strongly support Governor Cuomo's Excelsior scholarship program. More than 80 percent of our students enter at the graduate level, and many carry high levels of debt from their undergraduate years. We also know that many potential students are dissuaded from following their dream of becoming a physician or healthcare professional because of concern about debt.



Dutchess Community College President Dr. Pamela Edington said, The Excelsior Scholarship is a testament to the importance of higher education in New York State and the Governors confidence in the SUNY system. Enhanced tuition support should ease work and financial burdens for students, and increase affordability, access, retention and completion.



SUNY Empire State College President Dr. Merodie A. Hancock said, "Governor Cuomos proposal for tuition-free attendance for CUNY and SUNY students, as a way to increase degree completion and reduce student debt, has dramatically changed the conversation about public higher education in New York and across the nation."



SUNY-ESF President Dr. Quentin Wheeler said, We welcome the Governors leadership in breaking down the barriers creating hardship for middle-class New York families. This proposal is about making higher education accessible and affordable, and providing assistance to students in completing their degrees so they can move on to careers or graduate schools.



Erie Community College President Jack Quinn said, Here at ECC, we're always looking for ways to extend an affordable education to as many students as possible. This is the focus of Governor Cuomo's plan, and we applaud him for his ongoing and ambitious efforts.



Farmingdale State College President Dr. John S. Nader said, We welcome the governors focus on college affordability. For working families, few issues are more important.



Fashion Institute of Technology President Dr. Joyce F. Brown said, Governor Cuomo's Excelsior Scholarship provides a transformative vision for students throughout New York by recognizing the critical value of higher education and delivering unprecedented access and career pathways to students. By enhancing the possibilities for degree completion, this program will be a major contributing force to greater economic success for generations to come.



Finger Lakes Community College President Dr. Robert K. Nye said, Education improves lives; its that simple. So we support the Governors intention in making public higher education more accessible for New York.



SUNY Fredonia President, Dr. Virginia Horvath said, The Governors proposal represents a major development in public education and sets a precedent that other states are bound to follow. I look forward to a day when universal higher education is as normal as public high school, and New Yorkers will be able to say, we were the first.



Fulton-Montgomery Community College President Dustin Swanger said, We are always interested in discussing how we can help those in need attain a degree in higher education. We appreciate the Governor looking to SUNY to help with his mission to educate New York.



Genesee Community College President Dr. James M. Sunser said, Education is the single biggest influencer on social and economic advancement and Governor Cuomo's interest in supporting New Yorkers to achieve a college education is to be commended.



SUNY Geneseo President Dr. Denise A. Battles said, SUNY Geneseo has a long tradition of offering an excellent and affordable liberal arts education and we are excited at the prospect of expanding access to our outstanding academic experience through Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship Program.



Herkimer Community College President Dr. Cathleen C. McColgin said, Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship Program supports the mission of Herkimer County Community College, which is in part, to provide our learners with high quality, accessible educational opportunities and services. We applaud the Governors commitment to expand access to higher education, reduce student loan debt, and enhance student success.



Hudson Valley Community College President Dr. Andrew Matonak said, In many ways, college is the gateway to a brighter future for our students, communities, and economies. Investing in our States human capital and providing this unprecedented opportunity for students to achieve a college degree or certificate  tuition free  will have myriad benefits.



Jamestown Community College President Dr. Cory Duckworth said, It is very encouraging to see the Governor advocating so powerfully for the importance of higher education. Jamestown Community College provides an exceptional opportunity for individuals to enhance their entire life experience by gaining knowledge and meaningful college credentials. The Excelsior Scholarship can be a strong incentive in achieving these ends.



Jefferson Community College President, Dr. Carole A. McCoy: Completing a college degree transforms lives and transforms communities. Increasing financial support for students through the Excelsior Scholarship is an important part of making this a reality.



SUNY Maritime College President Rear Adm. Michael Alfultis said, Too many New Yorkers, especially here in the Bronx, never earn a college degree, not because they lack talent, but because they lack financial support. Governor Cuomos Excelsior scholarship program will give these men and women a chance to change their lives and the lives of those around them. I applaud his vision.



Mohawk Valley Community College President Dr. Randall VanWagoner said, The Governors proposal highlights the critical importance of an educated citizenry to the future of New York State. While the details of this proposal will be shaped through the budget process, this initial signal of new investment in public higher education in New York is very encouraging.



Monroe Community College President Dr. Anne M. Kress said, "Governor Cuomos plan will ensure that New Yorkers no longer see affordability as a barrier to accessing high quality higher education. The truth of the matter is that only 1 percent of jobs created today go to high school graduates; a post-secondary credential is required to enter the workforce. With the Excelsior Scholarship Program, New Yorks next generation of scientists, educators, health care professionals, innovators and makers will all have the opportunity to obtain the education they need to leave their mark and make New York stronger than ever before.



SUNY Morrisville President Dr. David E. Rogers said, Governor Cuomos proposed Excelsior Scholarship Program will foster increased investment in the very knowledge and skills required to support New Yorks dynamic and evolving economy. This proposal will enhance access and reduce debt, and make a college education more attractive and achievable for potential students and their families.



Nassau Community College President Dr. W. Hubert Keen said, College affordability is a critical issue for our students, and we applaud Governor Cuomos emphasis on this important topic.



SUNY New Paltz President Dr. Donald P. Christian said, The Excelsior Scholarship Programs goals of increasing college affordability and completion for low- and middle-income students and families is laudable, and could help more students gain access to high-quality public higher education in New York.



Niagara County Community College President Dr. James P. Klyczek said, We support all the efforts of the Governor to increase funding for higher education. All students need support. Community colleges open the doors to a brighter future for families who will have the opportunity to earn degrees that lead to jobs with family-sustaining incomes. Education improves our families and our communities.



North Country Community College President Dr. Steve Tyrell said, We applaud the Governors desire to support public education and middle income families in the State of New York.



SUNY Old Westbury President Dr. Calvin O. Butts said, I applaud Governor Cuomo as his idea for free tuition is an excellent one. No educator wants to see his or her student saddled with debt. Offering Excelsior Scholarships, along with other much-needed supports to ensure the quality of our public colleges and universities, can contribute to an ever-stronger New York.



SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski said, The Governors proposal would broaden access to higher education and allow new graduates to focus first on building their careers instead of repaying loans. All New Yorkers deserve the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills to thrive in a 21st Century marketplace.



Onondaga Community College President Casey Crabill said, Since their inception more than a century ago, community colleges have always supported broad access for all to higher education. The Governors program would provide college students the financial access to higher education so they can improve their lives without being burdened by years of suffocating debt from college loans.



SUNY College of Optometry President Dr. David A. Heath said, By tackling skyrocketing undergraduate costs, New York State is, in essence, both protecting the next generation from crippling education-related debt and providing increased freedom of career choice. Students will be less likely to compromise their academic aspirations due to perceived or real economic concerns.



SUNY Orange President Dr. Kristine Young said, More than ever, our State and nation need an enlightened citizenry. While we usually, and not incorrectly, link a strong education to well-paying jobs, we should not overlook the importance of a broad, general education and honed critical thinking skills, both of which are necessary to live fulfilling lives and to participate fully in our democracy. At SUNY we have a commitment to educational opportunity and access, and Governor Cuomo is smartly challenging us to extend our mission to ensure a vibrant future.



SUNY Oswego President Deborah F. Stanley said, SUNY Oswego is very committed to increasing access to talented students and this scholarship program helps expand access to many more deserving students. With support from the legislature, we can provide a high quality, affordable threshold to a prosperous and satisfying future for many more New Yorkers. We are ready to move forward."



SUNY Plattsburgh President Dr. John Ettling said, Governor Cuomo's Excelsior Scholarship Program can greatly help low- and middle-income students and families in the North Country. Such steps to address college affordability, when joined with incentives for full-time enrollment and degree completion, make for a solid investment in the region and our collective future.



SUNY Polytechnic Institute Interim President Dr. Bahgat Sammakia said, SUNY Poly applauds Governor Cuomos proposal to make our State college system tuition-free for thousands of New York families, and to give the hope that comes with the education, skills, and experience a SUNY degree provides. We enthusiastically look forward to the many students who will be able to join the ranks of institutions like SUNY Poly thanks to this plan, and the difference they will make in the world because of it.



SUNY Potsdam President Dr. Kristin G. Esterberg said, I strongly support Governor Cuomos transformative vision for making public higher education tuition-free for thousands of middle class New York families. This groundbreaking proposal has the potential to make the goal of earning a degree in any one of SUNY Potsdams 40-plus majors not only affordable, but achievable, for students and families from across the state.



Purchase College President Thomas J. Schwarz said, Purchase College commends the Governor for strengthening his commitment to public higher education and supports all initiatives that increase access, affordability, and completion. It is vital that we provide students with all the educational opportunities they will need to succeed. We look forward to working with the Governor and remain dedicated to providing the highest quality education in the liberal arts, sciences, and performing and visual arts.



Rockland Community College President Dr. Cliff L. Wood said, Support for public education is more crucial now than ever. We appreciate the Governors efforts through the Excelsior plan to ensure accessibility to higher education to the widest possible segment of our population.



Schenectady County Community College President Dr. Steady Moono said, This program has a potential to become a critical game-changer for a good percentage of our students where college is out of reach.



Stony Brook University President Dr. Samuel L. Stanley said, We applaud Governor Cuomos proposal to make public higher education more affordable for families in need, his focus on the academic excellence of New Yorks public higher education sector, and his emphasis on the importance of completion. It is also important to maintain the quality of our public institutions as we increase access, so we are hopeful that any aid strategy be coupled with the predictable tuition methodology proposed by SUNY and/or a base increase for the campuses.



Suffolk County Community College President Dr. Shaun L. McKay said, Access to higher education for all New York families is a laudable goal. We look forward to learning more about the Excelsior Scholarship Program details and how it can help Suffolk County Community College students achieve their dreams.



Sullivan County Community College Interim President Jay Quaintance said, Linking college affordability to completion by having the state cover the cost of tuition for full-time students in public colleges and universities is a bold move by Governor Cuomo. SUNY Sullivan looks forward to working to ensure that our students are able to make the most of this game-changing initiative.



Tompkins Cortland Community College President Dr. Carl E. Haynes said, The concept of the Governors proposal has great potential. Hopefully the Governor will work with the legislature to make this a meaningful opportunity for our neediest students.



SUNY Ulster President Dr. Alan P. Roberts said, We are pleased that the Governor's proposal focuses on public higher education and accessibility. SUNY Ulster looks forward to the opportunity to support this initiative with the hope that it will assist as many students as possible as we work together to continue our responsibility of changing lives through education.



SUNY Upstate Medical University President Danielle Laraque-Arena said, Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship program will increase access for many to careers throughout the State, especially in the health professions, where the employment outlook is excellent. I applaud the governor for his vision and support of public higher education.



Westchester Community College President Dr. Belinda S. Miles said, As more students enter community colleges and complete their studies, they will be positioned to transition to four-year institutions and the workplace where there is a need to fill openings in growing fields such as healthcare, analytics, and information technology. Directing new financial resources to talent development in New York is a necessary investment that will reap benefits locally, regionally, and nationally.

Below are statements from the CUNY presidents:



Michelle J. Anderson, President of Brooklyn College, said, "Governor Cuomo's Excelsior Scholarship proposal has jump-started an important conversation across New York State about college affordability, student debt, and timely graduation. It represents a critical commitment to our future. A college education gives students better life outcomes, including enhanced opportunities for meaningful work and leadership in their communities. We welcome state support that opens our doors to more students, encourages them to stay in school, and helps them graduate in a timely fashion.



David Gomez, President of Hostos Community College, said, The Excelsior Scholarship expands the opportunities for New York City students to have access to higher education. A recent study confirms that higher education is attributed to the social mobility of students and such a proposal by Governor Cuomo offers that chance to our students.



Jennifer Raab, President of Hunter College, said, The Excelsior Scholarship is an incredible investment in the future of our State and our Country. There is nothing more important that ensuring that students and their families understand that college is possible. The Excelsior Scholarship will reward the strivers and help them achieve their dreams. The single thing wrong is that it should be named the Cuomo Vision scholarship, because it changes the trajectory of New York now and for future generations.



Rudy Crews, President of Medgar Evers College, said, Roughly 40 percent of Medgar Evers students needed $500 to $1,000 to finish their degrees and graduate. The Governors proposal for the Excelsior Scholarship means one less thing to worry about. This is a game of margin for them.



Scott Evenbeck, President of Guttman Community College, said, "It has never been more important to increase student access and success in college. There is growing attention to the importance of financial support for students in increasing their educational attainment. I believe the proposed Excelsior Scholarships will make an important difference for our students and their families and for our city and state."



Farley Herzek, President of Kingsborough Community College, said, We deeply appreciate every opportunity there is to mitigate the financial challenges of attending college and the Governors plan does just that. I believe that access to higher education should be looked at as a civil right. Without it, there is little chance of access to middle class and above. I spent many years in California connecting higher education to business and industry. It is imperative we provide opportunities to unemployed and underemployed New Yorkers and provide them with the skills and experiences needed to gain entry into local and regional jobs. Approximately 40% of Kingsborough Community College students come from households with incomes less than $20,000 a year.



William Fritz, President of College of Staten Island, said, "I join CUNY Chancellor James Milliken in his strong support of Governors proposed Excelsior Scholarship Program. Already 8 in 10 CUNY students graduate debt-free, with more than 66% of full-time undergraduates attending tuition-free. The Excelsior tuition-free program extends the reach of CUNYs value by making college a reality for New Yorks middle-class, guaranteeing the opportunity for excellence for many more New Yorkers. The program will be especially helpful to the Borough of Staten Island with a larger proportion of residents in the income range targeted by the scholarship than other areas of the City.



Jose Luis Cruz, President of Herbert H. Lehman College, said, "To preserve our democratic ideals, secure our nation, and compete in the global economy, we must significantly improve postsecondary educational attainment. And because of current demographic and economic shifts, the only way we can do this is by ensuring quality higher education options are accessible and affordable to all members of our increasingly diverse citizenry. Governor Cuomos proposed Excelsior Scholarship Program is a most welcomed step in the right direction. Excelsior Scholarships will not only impact the lives of thousands of New Yorkers, but also set the state on a path for national leadership in the implementation of financial aid policies designed to expand access, increase completion rates, reduce the time to graduation, and eradicate intergroup achievement gaps."



Russell Hotzler, President of NYC College of Technology, said, "Governor Cuomo's proposed Excelsior Scholarship represents a bold move at a time when such boldness is needed. The governor's Excelsior Scholarship Program will provide a tuition-free CUNY education for students in families with an income up to $125,000. Free public college tuition was once a reality in New York City, and the Governor's proposal shows how it can again be free and serve as a force to develop a stronger, more productive, and better prepared workforce. City Tech is an exemplar in providing the STEM-related workforce preparation required by New York's technically oriented businesses and industries and the Excelsior Scholarship program and its credit completion requirements will help keep STEM students on target for timely graduation with minimal student debt. New York's parents have been caught between slowly rising salaries and the rapidly rising cost of education, reducing their ability to provide their children with the resources necessary to fulfill the American dream  the Excelsior Scholarship Program will go a long way towards addressing this dilemma."



Dr. Diane B. Call, President of Queensborough Community College, said, I support Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship program because expanding access to higher education will open the doors of opportunity for New York's hardest working and most deserving students. New Yorks workforce  and economy  will be stronger because of improved access to community college education.



Felix Matos-Rodriguez, President of Queens College, said, The Excelsior Scholarship program will make a first-rate CUNY and Queens College education a real possibility for thousands of New Yorkers. New York State is again at the forefront of a movement that will make the things we know a college education provides  social mobility, increased earnings over time, analytical and communication skills, and increased civic engagementaccessible and free from the burden of student loan debt.



Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said, Governor Cuomos Excelsior Scholarship Program represents a nationally important statement about the importance of public higher education to the future of our communities. By making it possible for thousands of young people to attend high quality universities and graduate without crushing student debt, the Excelsior Scholarship program is an investment in their future. The return on the investment will be enormous, far outweighing the cost of the scholarship, as these college graduates add to the economic growth of our state.



Gail Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College, said, Some actions are so important that they bend the course of history. Governor Cuomos game-changing vision to ensure a college education is possible for all New Yorkers though the Excelsior Scholarship is one such action. It is a bold and important move. If the entire country follows his lead, the future of America is stronger."



Thomas A. Isekenegbe, President of Bronx Community College, said, I welcome the Governors commitment to making public higher education more affordable and accessible to all New Yorkers with his Excelsior Scholarship Program. Governor Cuomo continues to lead the nation with his unwavering dedication to equality, accessibility, inclusion and the right of all New Yorkers to a quality education.



Marcia Keizs, President of York College, said, "I applaud the governor for taking an ambitious step toward addressing the affordability of public higher education in the state. With some modifications, such as flexibility in how students distribute the acquisition of the required 30 credits per academic year, it could be beneficial. Most of our students are first generation college-goers and have many other responsibilities, even if tuition is no longer a deterrent. That said, this program is a step in the right direction."



Vincent Boudreau, Interim President of City College, said, "We are truly excited about the Excelsior Scholarship program. The effort to make higher education a possibility, without burdensome debt, for every New Yorker is a breathtakingly innovative move, and we are thrilled at the prospect of welcoming these students to our campus."
U.S. President Donald Trump this week will unveil a budget expected to massively increase military spending while slashing other federal programs.

The proposal, set to be released Thursday, will offer the most detailed look yet at how Trump intends to move ahead with his so-called "America First" policy.

The budget will likely face significant opposition in Congress, where lawmakers are already bickering over a plan to overhaul the nation's health care program.

Many of Trump's fellow Republicans support his plan for a larger military; but, unlike Trump, some want to pay for it by cutting Social Security and Medicare -- the two largest federal programs.

Democrats are alarmed about the entire proposal, particularly his plan to cut domestic government programs aimed at protecting the environment and helping the poor.

 State Dept., Foreign Aid Cuts

Lawmakers in both parties have also expressed concerns about Trump's steep proposed cuts to the State Department and foreign aid budgets - a move they say will reduce U.S. influence abroad.

White House officials point out the president's proposals are only a blueprint and that ultimately Congress must agree on a final budget, but they insist difficult decisions must be made.

"Unfortunately, we have no alternative but to reinvest in our military and make ourselves a military power once again," White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn told Fox News Sunday.

"It's no different than every other family in America that has to make the tough decisions when they need to spend money somewhere, they have to cut it from somewhere else," Cohn said.


Nature & Weather, Local News, Travel & Local Attractions, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 14 2017

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced temporary tractor trailer bans on interstates on I-81, I-84, I-86/Route 17, I-88 and all of the New York State Thruway.

Albany, NY - March 14, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced temporary tractor trailer bans on interstates on I-81, I-84, I-86/Route 17, I-88 and all of the New York State Thruway. The Governor also announced a full travel ban for all of Broome County beginning at 9 am.



Metro North service will also be suspended at 12 pm due to weather conditions. Currently, MTA New York City bus service remains active but as conditions worsen, bus service may be suspended. Travelers are encouraged to check www.mta.info for service updates and to see when their last inbound or outbound trains will depart.



Tractor Trailer Ban

New York State is implementing a travel ban at 9 a.m. for all tractor trailers, including tandem trailers on the full length of the following roadways:

I - 81

I - 84

I - 86/Route 17

I - 88

Thruway

A full travel ban will go into effect in Broome County.



During any emergency situation, protecting the safety of New Yorkers is our number one priority, Governor Cuomo said. By enacting this tractor trailer ban and banning travel in Broome County, we are putting the safety of travelers first and allowing emergency crews to clear roadways as soon as possible. We encourage all New Yorkers take appropriate precautions now so that they can stay home and stay safe as these dangerous conditions continue.



Weather Warnings



Blizzard and Winter Storm Warnings are in effect in throughout the State. Blizzard conditions are possible with 6-14 inches of snow expected in Lower Mid-Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island Regions. 14-24 inches of snow is expected in the Capital Region, Eastern Mohawk Valley & Upper Hudson Valley areas. 12-30 inches are expected in the Central New York, Western Mohawk Valley, and Southern Tier regions. 18-24 inches of total snowfall is expected in Western New York. Snowfall rates are between 2-4 inches per hour. Wind gusts may affect visibility throughout the State.



Blizzard Warning

A blizzard warning is currently in effect in the following counties:

Lower Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island: Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk and Westchester Counties

Capital Region, Eastern Mohawk Valley & Upper Hudson Valleyo Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Ulster, Warren and Washington Counties

Central New York, Western Mohawk Valley, & Southern Tiero Delaware and Sullivan Counties

North Country, Clinton, Essex, Franklin and St. Lawrence Counties

Winter Storm Warning

A winter storm warning is currently in effect in the following counties:

Long Island, Suffolk County

Capital Region, Eastern Mohawk Valley & Upper Hudson Valley, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Hamilton, Montgomery, Fulton, Herkimer, Warren, Washington, Schoharie, and Saratoga Counties

Central New York, Western Mohawk Valley, & Southern Tiero Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Madison, Northern Oneida, Onondaga, Otsego, Schuyler, Seneca, Southern Cayuga, Southern Oneida Counties

Western New York, Niagara, Orleans, Monroe, Northern Cayuga, Wayne, Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis, Genesee, Erie, Wyoming, Allegany, Livingston, Ontario, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua Counties

New York City Airport updates, as of 6 am:

LaGuardia Airport: 99 percent of flights at LaGuardia are cancelled.

John F. Kennedy Airport: Two-thirds of flights are cancelled and numbers continue to climb

Governor Directs All Non-Essential State Employees to Stay Home on Tuesday



Due to anticipated weather conditions associated with the extreme winter storm, all non-essential New York State employees in all counties except Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Lewis, Franklin, Clinton and Essex do not have to report to work on Tuesday, March 14 and do not need to charge accruals for such absence. If an agency has any questions, the agency's designated representative should contact the Governor's Office of Employee Relations at 518-474-6988.



State Agency Preparations for Nor'easter

Representatives from the following state agencies and emergency response partners have been directed to report to the State Emergency Operation Center for storm preparation and response starting Monday evening:

Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services

Office of Emergency Management

Office of Fire Prevention and Control

Department of Transportation

New York State Thruway

State Police

Department of Public Service

Division of Military and Naval Affairs

Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

Department of Environmental Conservation

American Red Cross

Office of Information Technology Services

Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services

In addition to activating the Emergency Operations Center, the Division of Homeland Securitys Office of Emergency Management is communicating with the National Weather Service and is coordinating with local emergency managers across the state. DHSES will pre-position two six-person tracked UTVs and one eight-person tracked vehicle with staff to Brentwood Stockpile on Long Island, with two high-axle vehicles. Also, one high-axle vehicle with two six-person tracked UTVs will be pre-positioned in Mid-Hudson Valley region with personnel and one High Axle with personnel is being deployed to Buffalo. Additional six-person tracked UTVs are on standby for movement to other portions of the state as necessary.



Department of Transportation

The New York State Department of Transportation has 3,847 operators and supervisors statewide and is ready to respond with 1,600 large plow/dump trucks, 200 medium plow/dump trucks, 324 loaders, 42 truck/loader mounted snow blowers, 61 tow plows, 20 graders and 15 pickup trucks with plows. The DOT also has more than 443,000 tons of road salt on hand. Upstate regions will be providing an additional 176 operators and supervisors, 12 Storm Managers, 30 trucks, and 12 loader/snowblowers to serve Long Island and the Mid-Hudson region for the duration of this storm. The Long Island Expressway will have 100 plows servicing the road  double the normal deployment for a snowstorm. DOT continues to monitor the forecast to ensure that out-of-region resources are being deployed to the areas that are expected to be hardest-hit by the storm.



Motorists are reminded to check 511NY by calling 511, or visiting www.511ny.org before traveling. The free service allows users to check road conditions and transit information. Mobile users can download the free 511NY mobile app from the iTunes or Google Play stores. The app features Drive mode, which provides audible alerts along a chosen route while a user is driving, warning them about incidents and construction. Users can set a destination prior to departing and receive information on up to three routes.



Thruway Authority

The New York State Thruway Authoritys winter weather preparations include a 24-hour staff rotation for maintenance personnel, snow removal equipment ready for deployment, and ample salt and fuel supplies to keep the roadways clear and safe.



The Thruway Authority has more than 592 supervisors and operators ready to deploy 201 large snow plows, 110 medium snow plows and 54 loaders across the state with more than 114,800 tons of road salt on hand. Variable Message Signs, Highway Advisory Radio and social media are utilized to alert motorists of winter weather conditions on the Thruway.



The Thruway Authority encourages motorists to sign up for TRANSalert e-mails which provide the latest traffic conditions along the Thruway. Motorists can sign up for TRANSalerts here. Thruway travelers can also get real-time updates by following @ThruwayTraffic on Twitter or by visiting www.thruway.ny.gov to see an interactive map showing traffic conditions for the Thruway and other New York State roadways.



State Police

The New York State Police will deploy additional patrols for the duration of the storm, and all resources will be available as needed, including 4X4 vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles. High-axle vehicles will also be ready for deployment to affected areas as needed.



New York National Guard

The New York National Guard Joint Operations Center is active and monitoring the situation with approximately 2,000 members deployed to specific regions of the state or on standby and available as needed. The New York National Guard has 350 members with 45 vehicles deployed in New York City; 255 members with 38 vehicles deployed in the Hudson Valley; 135 members with 57 vehicles deployed on Long Island; 100 members with 35 vehicles deployed in Capital Region; 50 members with 22 vehicles deployed in Central New York; and 255 members with 69 vehicles deployed in Western New York. Additional personnel will staff Joint Task Force Headquarters in New York City, Mid-Hudson and Buffalo Regions. The National Guard is also prepared to respond if needed with personnel and high-axle vehicles on Long Island, in New York City, the Mid-Hudson Valley and other regions of the state.



For up-to-the-minute updates on Port Authority crossings, airports and the PATH system, travelers are encouraged to sign up for Port Authority alerts at www.paalerts.com. Travelers may also call 511 or visit 511NY.org or 511NJ.org for further information on highway conditions.



Department of Public Service

The Department of Public Service is in contact with utility senior executives to ensure that the utilities are prepared for inclement weather, and it will be closely monitoring utility storm-preparation efforts to ensure that utilities stand ready to minimize outages and speed outage restorations. Electric and gas utilities, as well as telecommunication service providers, such as Verizon, are prepared to bring on additional manpower to minimize service disruptions, if they occur. Utilities are prepared to respond 24 hours a day to power disruptions and are mandated to implement their emergency response plans, when needed, which includes contacting customers on life-support equipment and other critical customers.



In light of the potential inclement weather expected, the Department will expand its Call Center Helpline hours, beginning Tuesday, March 14 from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., to assist consumers in storm response and restoration efforts, and Wednesday, March 15, if needed. The Departments Call Center Helpline can be reached by calling (800) 342-3377. Department staff will monitor and report on storm impacts and utility restoration activities throughout the event and will be present in the field, as needed.



How to Contact Your Utility:



Department of Environmental Conservation

The State Department of Environmental Conservation is mobilizing Environmental Conservation Officers, Forest Rangers and other staff assets in the Mid-Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island regions, including ATV's, UTV's, snowmobiles, and 4x4 trucks available to assist in any necessary response efforts. DEC coastal engineering experts are also ready to assist in monitoring for potential flooding and coastal erosion from the storm. Other public protection and spill response staff are coordinating with other state and local partners to provide additional assistance as needed.



Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Governor Cuomo also announced the closure of all state parks, historic sites, and DEC-managed facilities located within the impacted areas, including Suffolk, Nassau, New York City, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, Ulster, Greene, Columbia, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Montgomery, Saratoga and Washington counties. Park visitors should monitor www.nysparks.com or call their local park office for the latest updates.



Safety Precautions

All residents should have the following items available:

Flashlight and extra batteries.

Battery-powered portable radio or NOAA Weather Radio to receive emergency information.

Seven to ten days supply of food. High-energy food, such as dried fruit or candy, and food requiring no cooking or refrigeration is best. Also stock an emergency supply of bottled water. The recommended amount is one gallon per person per day for 7 to 10 days.

A one-week supply of essential medicines and baby items.

First aid kit and supplies.

Extra blankets and sleeping bags.

Fire extinguisher and smoke detector  test regularly to ensure they are working properly.

Safety on the Road

When winter storms strike, do not drive unless necessary.

If you must travel, make sure your car is stocked with survival gear like blankets, a shovel, flashlight and extra batteries, extra warm clothing, set of tire chains, battery booster cables, quick energy foods and brightly-colored cloth to use as a distress flag.

Keep your gas tank full to prevent gasoline freeze-up.

If you have a cell phone or two-way radio available for your use, keep the battery charged and keep it with you whenever traveling. If you should become stranded, you will be able to call for help, advising rescuers of your location.

Make sure someone knows your travel plans.

Drive Safely

The leading cause of death and injuries during winter storms is transportation accidents.

Before getting behind the wheel or your car, clear it of ice and snow. Good vision is a key to good driving.

Plan your stops and keep more distance between cars. Be extra alert. Remember, snowdrifts can hide smaller children.

Al ways match your speed to the road and weather conditions.

Trapped in a Car

With blizzard conditions expected, here are some tips to follow:
School & Education, Nature & Weather, Local News, Travel & Local Attractions, Seasonal & Current Events

By Chris Boyle Published: March 14 2017

Late-season winter storm is causing delays and service modifications with public bus and train lines.

A late-season storm is currently hitting the Long Island and greater New York area. Expected snowfall has been downgraded significantly as much of the Island has received totals closer to 3-6 of snow than the higher amounts originally forecast. Western and Northern parts of the Island will likely receive the most accumulation.

A warm front has moved north to Long Island much quicker than expected, turning what would have been snow into a combination of rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow, and that excessive precipitation is coming hand-in-hand with likely announcements of major public transportation delays and cancellations as roads and railways become unsafe. Though it may be coming down as liquid, the ground is still cold which allows for the potential that rain could freeze after falling, particularly in the evening as temperatures drop back below freezing.

The MTA reports that all Long Island Rail Road lines are currently running according to their regular weekday schedules, but warns cancellations are to be expected as weather conditions worsen. Commuters traveling on New York City Transit, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North are encouraged to stay home, if possible, MTA officials said. For those who do insist on traveling today, the MTA encourages commuters to sign up for free email and text alerts to keep them abreast of any service changes or cancellations.

NICE Bus reports that, as of 7:14 a.m., all bus routes are currently running and that while roads are slick, they are currently passable. However, NICE Bus noted that they will be monitoring the developing snow storm carefully and will be working with local and state authorities. Based upon road conditions, passengers should expect major delays, service modifications, detours and the potential of service suspension by early afternoon. North Shore routes will become particularly difficult as the storm progresses, NICE officials said.

Suffolk Transit reports that all fixed route service as well as SCAT (assisted transportation) service is suspended for the entire day today; they presently expect to resume normal service on Wednesday, 3/15. However, Suffolk Transit officials stated that riders should check the Suffolk County website in the afternoon to confirm that service will be restored starting Wednesday morning.

The blizzard has also caused schools across Long Island to close for the day.

The NWS is noting that current snowfall rates are falling within 2 to 4 inches per hour, with Northeast winds hitting at 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph, resulting in whiteout conditions and near-zero visibility at times; temperatures will remain in the upper 20s. All local authorities are encouraging residents to remain at home for the duration of the storm.

For the most up to date weather information, head over to the LongIsland.com Weather Center, where you can find the latest weather forecasts, advisories and more.



To get the latest traffic & road conditions before traveling, visit the LongIsland.com Traffic Center, and be sure to check out the live traffic feeds on our Traffic Cam Page.



Please visit our Long Island School Closures Page for regular updates of school closings in your district.
On Mar. 2, a merger of al Qaeda groups in the Sahel was announced. The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin) brings together four existing al Qaeda organizations under one banner. Ansar Dine, Al Murabitoon and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrebs (AQIM) Sahara branch are all part of the new entity. The Macina Liberation Front, an arm of Ansar Dine, is as well.

Iyad Ag Ghaly, the longtime leader of Ansar Dine, heads the new joint venture. Ghaly, a Malian Tuareg jihadist, explained why the merger was necessary in a video that is more than seven minutes long. And he emphasized that his group is part of al Qaedas international network.

On this blessed occasion, we renew our pledge of allegiance [bayat] to our honorable emirs and sheikhs: Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, our beloved and wise sheikh Ayman al Zawahiri andthe emir of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan Mullah Haibatullah, may Allah protect them and support them, Ghaly said.

Ghalys stated allegiance is entirely consistent with how al Qaedas global network is structured.

Al Qaedas bayat

Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud (also known as Abdelmalek Droukdel) is the emir of AQIM. As such, he is responsible for overseeing the jihadists efforts throughout North and West Africa on behalf of al Qaedas senior leadership. Like other regional emirs, he has sworn an oath of fealty (bayat) to Zawahiri, al Qaedas global chief. Zawahiri, in turn, has pledged his own loyalty to the Talibans leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.

The Taliban named Mullah Haibatullah as its emir in May 2016 after his predecessor, Mullah Mansour, was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan. Mansour had succeeded Taliban founder Mullah Omar in the post. Omar died in 2013, but the Taliban didnt admit his death until two years later, in mid-2015.

Al Qaedas senior leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, repeatedly pledged bayat to the Talibans emir, dating back to even before the 9/11 hijackings. Although they have been loyal to the Talibans chieftain, however, there is little to no evidence that the Taliban directs al Qaedas operations outside of Afghanistan. Still, al Qaeda technically receives authorization from the Talibans head man to carry out its jihad elsewhere around the world. And al Qaeda refers to Mullah Haibatullah, like Mansour and Omar before him, as Emir ul-Muminin, or the Emir of the Faithful, a title usually reserved for a Muslim caliph.

Ghaly portrays bin Ladens and Zawahiris efforts as a key part of Islamic history. He said that a group from the people of knowledge and jihad have resurrected the sunna of the Prophet within the Islamic ummah (worldwide community of Muslims). Members of this group have persevered through harm and never faltered, he said. At the head of this group are the two mujahid sheikhs, bin Laden and Zawahiri. Ghaly asked Allah to protect Zawahiri so he can raise the banner of jihad against the Crusaders and unite al Qaeda underneath it.

Although some commentators have written off Zawahiris influence, Ghalys words underscore the fact that the elderly Egyptian ideologue continues to command the loyalty of jihadists around the globe.

In fact, Zawahiris reach has long extended into Africa. He first recognized AQIM as an official branch of al Qaeda in Sept. 2006. A letter recovered during the May 2011 Abbottabad raid, and apparently authored by Osama bin Laden, made it clear that Zawahiri had a large say in managing AQIM. The author (presumably bin Laden) told Droukdel that there were some obstacles in the correspondence of letters between the brothers and me at the time. [S]o when any message is sent to me, please send a copy to Abu Muhammad Sheikh Ayman al Zawahiri; he is in constant contact with the brothers and is in charge of following up the affairs in the Islamic Maghreb, bin Laden wrote.

In his short video, Ghaly explained his new venture in the context of al Qaedas policies. He claimed that al Qaeda has sought unification according to sharia law, drawing lessons from the life of Mohammed, such as distinguishing between times of vulnerability and empowerment. Ghaly likely meant that al Qaeda has concluded that the full implementation of sharia law is not possible in areas where the jihadists do not have a firm grip on power. It was along these lines that al Qaeda leaders advised AQIM to abstain from strictly enforcing sharia in Mali during its short-lived reign there in 2012. (The jihadists did not fully comply with these instructions.)

Ghaly also praised al Qaeda for its restraint with respect to the issue of takfir, or declaring other Muslims to be infidels. The Islamic State, al Qaedas rival, is prolific in this regard.

Constituent groups all part of al Qaedas global network

In his Mar. 2 announcement, Ghaly (seen on the right) said that Ansar Dine, Al Murabitoon, and AQIMs branch in the Sahara had united into one group operating under one emir, so they could stand united against the occupier Crusader enemy.

He did not specifically mention the Macina Liberation Front (MLF), also known as Katibat Macina, but this is probably because the MLF is a part of Ansar Dine itself.

Ansar Dine

Ghalys organization was the local face of AQIM in Mali and part of its plan for implementing sharia law in the areas under its control in 2012. A French-led offensive in early 2013 interrupted AQIMs state-building project. But the experience before the Wests intervention tells us much about al Qaedas approach to establishing an Islamic emirate  not just in Mali, but also elsewhere.

The State Department designated Ansar Dine in Mar. 2013, noting that the group cooperates closely with AQIM and has received support from AQIM since its inception in late 2011. Ansar Dine continues to maintain close ties to AQIM and has received backing from AQIM in its fight against Malian and French forces, Foggy Bottom reported.

But States description did not elaborate on why AQIM stood up Ansar Dine in the first place.

The United Nations has detailed the strategy behind AQIMs establishment of Ansar Dine. In Oct. 2011, AQIM emir Droukdel wanted cover to expand the agenda of his terrorist organization into the Sahel and increase its territorial control over northern Mali. AQIM wanted to create an ostensibly independent movement that would hide its true roots by abandoning the name Al Qaeda. Therefore, AQIM suggested that the new group be led by Ghaly.

The UN went on to summarize some of the continual support Ansar Dine has received from AQIM, including military, financial and logistical assistance. AQIM backed Ansar Dine throughout 2012, as the jihadists battled Malian Armed Forces and captured territory.

By Nov. 2012, Ansar Dine, AQIM and another al Qaeda group, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), had formed a common strategy and the three coordinated operations against French and Malian forces. (MUJAO merged with yet another al Qaeda sub-group led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar to form Al Murabitoon in 2013, but a part of MUJAO subsequently defected to Abu Bakr al Baghdadis Islamic State.)

Captured AQIM documents further illuminate al Qaedas strategy and the role played by Ansar Dine.

In one such letter, first uncovered by Rukmini Callimachi, who was then reporting for the Associated Press, Droukdel addressed Ansar Dines shura council members. Droukdel explained that the West could easily topple a new Islamic emirate in Mali, and he didnt want the people to blame the jihadists if this happened. So Droukdel wanted to use AQIMs advances in the region to build broader popular support for the jihadists agenda and extend bridges to the various sectors and parts of society, including Arabs, the Tuareg people, and other Africans. He surmised that would make it easier for al Qaeda to re-establish a Islamist government in the future. To the extent possible, Droukdel also did not want the jihadists governance efforts to appear foreign to the local populace.

That is why Ansar Dine was a key part of AQIMs plans.

Droukdel concluded in his letter that AQIM had two missions and combining them created a true dilemma. AQIM wanted to both preserve the effort to build an Islamist state, and also continue its global jihadi project. The latter is a reference to AQIMs commitment to carrying out terrorist operations throughout the region, particularly against Western forces, and possibly elsewhere.

According to the letter, Droukdel and his advisers came up with two proposals. In the first scenario, AQIM would subordinate itself to the local ruler. AQIM would be under the emirate of Ansar Dine such that AQIMs emir would follow their emir and AQIMs opinion would follow their opinion. This would be the case for all internal activity, meaning all activity connected to participating in bearing the responsibilities of the liberated areas. But all external activity connected to the global jihadwould be independent of them (Ansar Dine) and AQIM would ensure that none of that activity or its repercussions are attributed to them [Ansar Dine], as care must be taken over negative impacts on the project of the state.

In Droukdels second proposal, some of al Qaedas mujahideen would be set aside and put under the complete control of the emir of Ansar Dine to participate in bearing the burden of running the affairs of the liberated cities. The remaining al Qaeda members would be completely independent of Ansar Dine and its activity would be limited to jihadi action outside the region.

AQIM never got the opportunity to fully pursue either of these proposals. Just as Droukdel warned, the West quickly overran the jihadists proto-emirate. Still, it is telling that Droukdel was willing to subordinate AQIM and its brand to Ansar Dine in the service of building a new Islamic emirate. And he was also keen to keep AQIMs external plotting separate from the mission of the nascent state  a telling indication that al Qaedas plots against Western forces can complicate its strategy for building emirates.

[For more on AQIMs state-building strategy in North and West Africa, see FDDs Long War Journal report, Libyas Terrorist Descent: Causes and Solutions.]

Al Murabitoon

Al Murabitoons deputy leader, Hassan Al Ansari (seen on the right), appeared alongside Ghaly in the Mar. 2 video. Ansaris appearance only adds to the mystery surrounding Mokhtar Belmokhtars status. Belmokhtar is Al Murabitoons leader, but he has been reported dead several times in the past. US officials are not certain whether he is dead or alive.

The jihadists are acting as if Belmokhtar is still in this world and have released a number of written statements in his name. For example, Belmokhtar supposedly authored a eulogy for a prominent Tuareg leader, Sheikh Ag Aoussa, in October of last year.

Al Murabitoon reunited with AQIM in late 2015. And Ibrahim al Qosi, a senior Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) official who was once held at Guantanamo, praised Belmokhtar for the merger. In a message released in Dec. 2015, Qosi credited Belmokhtar with putting the interests of the ummah ahead of his own private concerns, so that the Crusader-Shiite campaign could be confronted with one sword.

However, Belmokhtar has not released a proof of life audio or video in quite some time. And his absence from Ghalys video will only fuel speculation about the one-eyed jihadists fate.

AQIM in the Sahara

Sitting to Ghalys right in the video was Yahya Abu Hammam, a longtime AQIM commander who was designated as a terrorist by the US Treasury Department in Feb. 2013. (He can be seen in the screen shot on the right.) Hammam, also known as Jamel Akacha, has been AQIMs chief commander in the Sahel for several years. In that capacity, and beforehand, he has been involved in AQIMs kidnapping operations. The US has offered a $5 million reward for information on Hammams whereabouts.

A second AQIM official, Abu Abdul Rahman al Sanhaji, also appeared alongside Ghaly and the others. Sanhaji is a prominent AQIM sharia official and has appeared in hostage videos and other productions as a supposed religious authority.

The Macina Liberation Front (MLF)

The final jihadist attending Ghalys announcement was Amadou Kouffa (seen on the right), the leader of the MLF. Kouffa has been one of Ghalys staunchest allies in the region. According to a report prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Kouffa was a local Peul [Fula or Fulani] imam. CSIS referred to Kouffas group as Ansar Dine Macina, thereby highlighting the fact that the MLF was really just an extension of Ansar Dine. Kouffas forces, backed by Ghaly, helped lead the Islamist advance in late 2012 towards Mopti, triggering the French intervention and they have conducted attacks across central Mali since then.

Kouffas ranks have increased with the recruitment of Peul fighters, many of whom fought under the leadership of Belmokhtar and Ould Kheirou [a MUJAO leader] in the Gao region in 2012, CSIS noted. The MLF has worked to implement sharia law, portraying the jihadists belief system as the best way to check abuses by local authorities.

Ghaly praised formation of Hayat Tahrir al Sham for the sake of unity

Although he didnt specifically name the group, Ghaly praised the creation of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) in January. Addressing our mujahideen brothers in Syria, Ghaly said: You represent a good example of unity, merging, and relinquishing personal interests for the sake of the ummahs interests. Ghaly said that the ummahrejoices at your efforts toward merging and the Syrian mujahideens unity has gained the ummahs supplications on your behalf.

Al Qaeda stressed the theme of unity when HTS was announced and thereafter. HTS brought together Jabhat Fath al Sham (formerly known as Al Nusrah) and four other groups. Multiple factions have reportedly joined HTS in the weeks since.

For al Qaeda, unity serves multiple purposes, including: strengthening the jihadists cause, masking the extent of al Qaedas influence, making it more difficult for the West to isolate al Qaeda for counterterrorism purposes and thwarting the Islamic States attempts to earn the loyalty of more potential defectors. Therefore, it is especially interesting that Ghaly invited a comparison between his own organization and HTS.

However, there are some key differences between HTS and the newly formed Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims. For starters, the latter is openly loyal to Zawahiri, while HTS has attempted to mask any organizational affiliations. The constituent groups in Ghalys enterprise all had known, direct ties to al Qaedas network prior to their merger earlier this month. But HTS signatories included organizations that were not explicitly al Qaeda formations.

In some ways, HTS is following the model set forth in the letter written by Droukdel that is discussed above. HTS is focused on the jihad against Bashar al Assads regime and its ultimate goal is to build an Islamic emirate in Syria. HTS has tried to distance itself, at least rhetorically, from al Qaedas anti-Western brand. It is likely that other al Qaeda actors in Syria still have an eye on the West  that is, external operations. From al Qaedas perspective, it is crucial that these two missions, as Droukdel described it, be seen as distinct. Otherwise, the jihadists state building project will attract even more unwanted attention.

During his speech, Ghaly referred to a Koranic text which tells Muslims to hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah stretches out for you, and be not divided among yourselves. Al Qaeda uses this passage to stress its idea of unity in general, and also in the face of the challenge posed by Baghdadis men.

Careful observers will note that Ghalys Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims uses a flag that is very similar to the Islamic States. The flag stood behind Ghaly as he spoke. It is also used as part of the logo for Al Zaleqa Media, the propaganda arm that produced Ghalys video.

But the flag is not the Islamic States sole possession. Al Qaeda branches, such as AQAP, have regularly used a similar banner.

And as Ghaly made clear, he and his men remain in Ayman al Zawahiris camp.

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.
On Mar. 11, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sources revealed to Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida that the IRGC has built weapons factories for Hezbollah in Lebanon and handed them over to the Shiite organization. This comes one week after Iranian Defense Minister Hussein Dehqan declared that Hezbollah now possesses the capabilities to build and produce any projectile or missile capable of reaching any location in Israel.

However, it remains unclear how Hezbollah is acquiring the materials and domestically producing the sophisticated components necessary to manufacture advanced weapons such as ballistic and anti-ship missiles when the Iranians themselves experience difficulty in doing so at home.

According to Al-Jarida, the IRGC source said the Revolutionary Guard began building the factories in Lebanon after Israel destroyed an Iranian weapons factory in Sudan years ago which provided arms to Hezbollah  likely referring to an Oct. 2012 air strike attributed to the Israelis on the Yarmouk weapons factory in Khartoum  and targeted weapons shipments to Hezbollah from Syria. The IRGC gradually handed over the factories to their Lebanese proxy, with Hezbollah assuming full control and oversight over them three months ago. Meanwhile, the IRGC established a special department in its Imam Hussein University  its official military college which hosts weapons research and development facilities  to train hundreds of Lebanese specialists in producing arms.

The munitions factories are built at depths of at least 50 meters below ground, topped with multiple layers of reinforcement to prevent damage from Israeli air strikes. As an additional precaution, no single factory carries out the entire missile-producing process. Instead, they are produced as parts, independently, among the various factories and later assembled elsewhere.

Echoing Dehqan, the source told Al-Jarida that Hezbollah could now use these factories to produce missiles with a range of over 500 kilometers, including surface-to-surface, land-based anti-ship missiles  perhaps copies of the Chinese-designed C-802s  and torpedoes launched from light water craft.

In addition, and more realistically, the factories are said to produce aerial drones capable of carrying reconnaissance missions or carrying munitions, neither of which are unprecedented for Hezbollah and increasingly common among terror organizations. The Shiite group is also allegedly producing its own artillery, machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, missile launchers and various types of ammunition including armor-piercing rounds. The real concern, however, arises from the claim that these factories are producing anti-tank missiles, particularly since the Israelis have signaled their intent to launch a massive combined arms ground operation against Hezbollah at the outset of any future war.

Neither Dehqans nor Al-Jaridas claims are entirely new. In late 2014, Hezbollahs deputy chief Naim Qassim said that, under Iranian tutelage, Hezbollah already possessed the ability to produce some of the components of their rockets during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Months later, the IRGC Air Forces Commander General Ami Ali Hajizadeh confirmed that Iran was exporting its missile producing technology to Hezbollah and their proxies in Iraq, Syria and the Palestinian territories. In fact, Iran appears to be pushing a broader effort to provide its proxies with more autonomous and domestic fighting capabilities.

Outside of Lebanon, Hezbollah is using Syria as an alternate location to produce and test its weapons. The source indicated to Al Jarida that the Shiite group has already successfully combat tested these Lebanese-produced weapons in the Syrian battlefield, and according to the chief of Israeli military intelligence, weapons for Hezbollah are also being produced in Syria.

David Daoud is an Arabic-Language Analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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.
The US Treasury Department announced today that Muhammad Hadi al-`Anizi, who is based in Kuwait, has been designated as a terrorist. Al-`Anizi, a terrorist facilitator and financier, has provided extensive material and financial support for both al Qaeda and its arm in Syria.

Todays designation is the latest in a series targeting al Qaedas support network inside Kuwait.

Treasury traces Al-`Anizis career back at least a decade to 2007, as he allegedly supported al Qaeda at the time.

Much of his work since 2014 has been in service of al Qaedas Syrian branch, formerly known as Al Nusrah Front. He has obtained passports for an AQ associate in Syria, provided medical supplies to an injured Syria-based AQ associate, and worked with an [Al Nusrah] associate to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to [Al Nusrah] members in Syria. He has also solicited donations for Al Nusrah members, sending approximately $20,000 to one of them in late 2015.

At some point in 2014, al-`Anizi was appointed as AQs representative in Syria by AQ senior leadership.

Treasury previously identified another jihadist, Abu Khalid al Suri, as al Qaedas representative in Syria. Al Suri, a senior figure in Ahrar al Sham, was killed in Feb. 2014.

Treasury ties al-`Anizi to two other designated al Qaeda supporters, one of whom is his brother, Abdullah al-`Anizi. Prior to 2014, Treasury says, al-`Anizi provided his sibling with financial support that was used to fund terrorist operations.

In 2015, Al-`Anizi sought assistance from AQ financier Sad al-Kabi to facilitate the travel of AQ-associated individuals. Al-Kabi has organized fundraising efforts for Al Nusrah in Qatar.

From raising funds to facilitating the travel of terrorists, al-`Anizi is responsible for providing key financial and logistical support to Al Nusrah Front and Al Qaeda, John E. Smith, the director of Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), said in a statement. The Treasury Department will continue to aggressively target Al Nusrah Fronts and Al Qaedas financial structures to further disrupt their ability to conduct terrorist attacks.

Although Treasury refers to al Qaedas arm in Syria as Al Nusrah Front, the group has actually changed names twice since July 2016. Al Nusrah was first rebranded as Jabhat Fath al Sham (JFS). Then, in January of this year, JFS merged with four other organizations to form Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS). Other factions inside Syria have reportedly joined HTS since then.

Al Qaedas fundraising and facilitation network in Kuwait

The US Treasury Department has repeatedly targeted al Qaedas facilitators and fundraisers inside Kuwait. Al Qaedas operations in Kuwait are part of a network that stretches throughout the Gulf, Syria, Turkey, and into South Asia. The Kuwaiti al Qaeda supporters are tied to their counterparts inside Iran and other countries, according to Treasury.

A timeline of relevant designations is included below. The designations highlight the degree to which al Qaeda maintains a cohesive network, as the jihadists often work on behalf of al Qaedas senior leadership and the groups regional branches, which operate in several countries. Several jihadists in Kuwait identified by Treasury have assisted al Qaedas guerrilla army in Syria.

Jul. 28, 2011: Treasury exposed the Iranian governments formerly secret deal with al Qaeda. Their agreement allows al Qaeda to operate its core pipeline inside Iran. This facilitation hub is used for moving money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia. [See FDDs Long War Journal report, Treasury targets Irans secret deal with al Qaeda.]

Yasin al Suri headed al Qaedas network inside Iran at the time and he relied on facilitators living in other Gulf countries to support his operations. One of them, Ali Hasan Ali al-Ajmi, was Suris Kuwait-based associate.

Al-Ajmi provides financial and facilitation support to al Qaeda, [al Qaeda in Iraq] and the Taliban, Treasury said. Al-Ajmi has collected money from individuals in Gulf countries and provided these funds to AQI facilitators as well as to the Taliban and has also supported al Qaeda by facilitating travel for individuals associated with the group so that they could take part in fighting in Afghanistan.

Oct. 18, 2012: Yasin al Suri was temporarily sidelined as the head of al Qaedas Iran-based operation after the US government shed light on his activities. In Oct. 2012, Treasury identified his replacement as Muhsin al Fadhli, a Kuwaiti al Qaeda veteran. [See FDDs Long War Journal report, Treasury further exposes Iran-al Qaeda relationship.]

Fadhlis thick dossier included ties to several plots, including the Oct. 8, 2002 attack on US Marines on Kuwaits Faylaka Island. From Iran, Fadhli and his men were providing funding for al Qaeda activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Treasury. They were also moving fighters and money through Turkey to support al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Syria.

The US government put a spotlight on the role played by donors in Kuwait. Treasury said Fadhli was leveraging his extensive network of Kuwaiti jihadist donors to send money to Syria via Turkey.

Muhsin al Fadhli was killed in a US airstrike in Syria in July 2015.

Aug. 6, 2014: Treasury designated three jihadists, two of whom supported Al Nusrah Front and the third backed the Islamic State. Treasury also argued that the Kuwaiti government needed to do more to disrupt al Qaedas network. We and our international partners, including the Kuwaiti government, need to act more urgently and effectively to disrupt these terrorist financing efforts, David S. Cohen, then Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said.

Shafi Sultan Mohammed al-Ajmi operates regular social media campaigns seeking donations for Syrian fighters and is one of the most active Kuwaiti fundraisers for Al Nusrah. In July 2014, according to Treasury, al-Ajmi publicly admitted that he collected money under the auspices of charity and delivered the funds in person to Al Nusrah. He has also acknowledged purchasing and smuggling arms on behalf of al Qaedas arm in Syria.

Hajjaj Fahd Hajjaj Muhammad Shabib al-Ajmi, another Kuwaiti, serves as a funnel for financial donations to [Al Nusrah] facilitators in Syria, traveling regularly from Kuwait to Syria to engage in financial activity on behalf of [Al Nusrah] and deliver money to the group. He agreed to provide financial support to [Al Nusrah] in exchange for installing Kuwaitis in the groups leadership positions. Treasury noted that he also offered Al Nusrah money to lead a battlefield campaign in Homs, Syria in Jan. 2014.

The third jihadist designated on Aug. 6, 2014, Abd al-Rahman Khalaf Ubayd Juday al-Anizi, has supported both al Qaeda and the Islamic State. He has worked with Islamic State officials to transfer funds from Kuwait to Syria and also secured funds to pay for the travel of foreign fighters moving from Syria to Iraq. Al-Anizi worked to smuggle several foreign fighters from Kuwait to Afghanistan, likely to join al Qaeda and was involved in extremist facilitation activities with Iran-based al Qaeda facilitators, including the movement of extremists to Afghanistan via Iran.

Aug. 22, 2014: A Kuwaiti national named Hamid Hamad Hamid al-Ali was designated. Al-Ali has referred to himself as an al Qaeda commando and has raised funds for both Al Nusrah and its parent al Qaeda, Treasury reported.

Al-Ali has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help Al Nusrah Front purchase weapons and supplies as well as directed donors in Kuwait to send financial and material support to the terrorist organization. He has personally traveled to Syria to deliver funds to Al Nusrah and has also used students in Kuwait to courier funds to the group. In addition to his fundraising activities, al-Ali has facilitated the travel to Syria of individuals wishing to fight for Al Nusrah and provided these individuals with money to deliver to the terrorist organization.

In addition, Hamid Hamad Hamid al-Ali has reported ties to Jund al Aqsa, which operated as a front group for al Qaeda until its dissolution and after some factions within the organization gravitated to the Islamic State.

[See FDDs Long War Journal reports, Treasury designates 2 key al Qaeda financiers and Analysis: Jund al Aqsas deep Gulf roots.]

Sept. 24, 2014: Treasury identified six al Qaeda facilitators and financiers, two of whom were based in Kuwait at the time. Abd al Aziz Aday Zimin al-Fadhil was described as a Kuwait-based facilitator who provides financial services for Al Nusrah Front and also facilitates travel for individuals seeking to join the terrorist organization. Al Nusrah was not the only part of al Qaeda he supported, according to Treasury, as Fadhil has transferred funds to Yemen in support of AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula).

Hamad Awad Dahi Sarhan al-Shammari is a Kuwait-based facilitator who provides financial services to or in support of al Qaeda by transferring money to support extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Treasury said. Shammari has coordinated the transfer of funds for al Qaeda and Al Nusrah, and has also facilitated travel for both. [See FDDs Long War Journal report, Treasury designations target al Qaedas international fundraising and facilitation network.]

Aug. 5, 2015: Treasury designated Sad bin Sad Muhammad Shariyan al-Kabi, a Qatari financier of Al Nusrah Front. Al-Kabi set up donation campaigns in Qatar to aid with fundraising in response to a request from an [Al Nusrah] associate for money to purchase both weapons and food. He also acted as as an intermediary for collecting a ransom for a hostage being held by Al Nusrah and worked to facilitate a ransom payment in exchange for the release of a hostage.

Although al-Kabis operations were based in Qatar, Treasury noted that he worked closely with the aforementioned Hamid Hamad Hamid al-Ali, a Kuwaiti fundraiser for Al Nusrah. And as todays action makes clear, Al-Kabi works with Muhammad Hadi al-`Anizi as well.

May 19, 2016: Treasury designated six individuals, two of whom are Kuwait-based supporters of al Qaeda.

Treasury said that Abdullah Hadi Abd al-Rahman Fayhan Sharban al-Anizi and Abd al-Muhsin Zabin Mutib Naif al-Mutayri had both provided assistance to Al Nusrah Front, al Qaedas Syrian arm. [See FDDs Long War Journal report, Treasury sanctions al Qaeda, Islamic State financiers and facilitators.]

Al-Anizis role hasnt been limited to al Qaedas operations in Syria, as he has also allegedly served al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was even a communications conduit for al Qaeda senior leadership. In addition to sending money to al Qaeda in South Asia and the groups arm in Syria, Al-Anizi has also made plans to solicit funds from donors to help move al Qaeda extremists from Pakistan to Syria.

Al-Mutayri has likewise funneled funds to Al Nusrah, collecting money for the group from other Gulf-based facilitators and using charities to raise money for the terrorist organization. Al-Mutayri has assisted individuals seeking to travel from abroad to Syria, where they can join Al Nusrahs ranks.

*Note: The spellings of Al Qaeda and Al Nusrah Front were changed to make them consistent, including in quotes reproduced in this article

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.
Cars

Expert Paul Whelan discusses the future of Indonesias yacht industry, and how it has been evolving over the past few years

Mar 14, 2017 | By Teri Chong

Wonderful Indonesia, I AM in Bali, Land of Water, 15,000 Islands to Explore, The 3rd Great Cruising Ground.

These are just some of the catch phrases uses by the Indonesian Tourism Board and many others when describing Indonesia. It was only a matter of time before Indonesia moved on from a country that yachtsmen only dreamt of cruising to, but more often than not steered clear due to unclear regulations and some online horror story written by a hapless yachtsman many years ago.

Fortunately, the Indonesian government has recognised the benefits that yachting can bring to the country, and has made huge improvements to make it easier and faster for visiting yachts to clear into and cruise Indonesia. In fact, the new online clearance system is working remarkably well, and the old CAIT system is (almost) a thing of the past. This new system allows a visiting yacht to enter Indonesia and cruise for up to three years before needing to clear out of the country. This is fantastic news for visiting foreign yachts, and the number of cruising yachts visiting Indonesia has increased dramatically since the systems implementation last year.

Great environmental progress has also been made with the creation of more than 100 Marine Reserves, including the largest in South East Asia located in the Savu Sea. This has created world class diving and cruising grounds in areas such as Raja Ampat among others.

Visiting yachts (both large and small), are certainly a great help in raising yachting awareness, and bring the economy much-needed funds. However, these visiting yachts are not enough to drive the yachting industry to a level where it will make a large and meaningful impact on the lives of Indonesians throughout the Archipelago.

So, what is needed to allow Indonesia to move to the next stage of yachting maturity and really live up to its name of one of the worlds great cruising destinations?A big step in the right direction will be the development of reliable infrastructure in the form of professionally built and

A big step in the right direction will be the development of reliable infrastructure in the form of professionally built and managed marinas, boat yards with the expertise and safety standards to work on todays modern yachts, local technicians and crew with the required training and knowledge to operate and repair complicated onboard systems, along with service mentality, availability of spare parts and companies that are willing to stock them, and of course the co-operation of the government. There are no shortages of locals and foreigners willing to commit time and resources to make all of these things a reality, and that has certainly been happening in various parts of Indonesia. However, its a long and very winding road to achieve these lofty goals.

Most importantly, we need strong support from the government, and the various departments must work together to recognise the benefits of developing the yachting industry for both domestic and foreign-owned yachts.

Indonesia has a large and increasingly wealthy middle-class population that has the potential to drive large sales in the entry-level boating market, which will fuel generational growth into larger yachts and help develop a true boating culture.

Another proven way of introducing yachting to the local population and increasing marine tourism is through charter for both domestic and inbound guests. At present, the Indonesian charter fleet consists of locally built Phinisis ranging from luxurious to basic, and a mish-mash of older imported or locally built boats. The demand for high-quality charter boats is not being met, and Indonesia is losing customers to the more charter-friendly markets of Thailand, Malaysia and Australia. The local Indonesian boat building industry does not have the capacity to meet the demand for high-quality boats, and this leads to the prohibitive 75% luxury tax on importing boats for commercial use. Whilst this tax is in place, the gap between supply and demand will only grow, and a true yachting industry will struggle to emerge.

Fortunately, these issues are on the governments radar, and its an area where the large pool of foreign yachting experience that is present in Indonesia can contribute and add immense value to ensuring the industry is developed in a way that is sustainable, protects the environment, and creates employment and investment opportunities for all parties.

At a recent meeting with the Marine, Customs, and Tourism Departments, these issues were discussed, and the need to improve the current system or risk falling behind our more progressive neighbours in SEA was clearly understood. Thankfully, many of these high-ranking officials are open to assistance from the industry and are willing to learn. However, to make a real difference, we need that same willingness to penetrate all layers of government throughout the archipelago. That will take time and a steady hand.

However large the obstacles may be, the future looks extremely bright. Indonesia is blessed with natural beauty and a patriotic population who is keen to see its country prosper. Furthermore, working together with the many dedicated foreigners who now call Indonesia home, will surely result in great things for this Wonderful Indonesia.

Paul Whelan

Australian born, Paul brings nearly 30 years of marine industry experience to Simpson Marine. He has hands-on experience in virtually all aspects of the industry, including boat building working on superyachts, management of marine businesses and sales.

A qualified Master Class IV Captain, Paul has logged extensive sea miles with multiple Transatlantic and Indian Ocean crossings, Mediterranean and Caribbean cruising and lengthy periods in Asia on board 60m+ yachts. Paul currently resides in Indonesia.

This article was written by Paul Whelan, and was first published in Issue 36 of Yacht Style
The U.S. unit that assassinated Osama bin Laden is among a huge contingent of special forces taking part in this year's joint exercises with South Korea. They will join their South Korean counterparts in strike drills including "decapitation" operations aimed at removing the North Korean leadership in a war.



South Korean Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lee Sun-jin (4th from left) and Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, visit the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson on Sunday.

South Korea and the U.S. are putting on their biggest show of force so far against the North, with South Korean Air Force fighter jets staging precision strike drills since last Friday. "More U.S. special forces than ever before are participating," a government source here said on Monday. "They'll carry out a wide range of exercises in the wake of a series of North Korean provocations as well as recent developments on the Korean Peninsula." They include as the Army Rangers, the Delta Force, the DEVGRU, and the Green Berets. The DEVGRU was responsible for killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets taxi at an air base in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province on Monday.

In South Korea, a new brigade with about 1,000 troops under the Special Warfare Command will be officially launched around December. The special forces troops of the two countries are expected to practice infiltrating the residences of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and other command posts in Pyongyang and removing leaders under cover of night using special mission aircraft like MC-130 cargo planes and the MH-47 helicopters. They will also practice locating underground bunkers where North Korean military leaders are holed up and firing precision guided munitions like GBU-27 bunker busters at them. Meanwhile, the South Korean Air Force is staging its own separate massive air combat exercise until March 17, a spokesman said Monday.

Read this article in Korean
The Gray Eagles have started arriving at the U.S. airbase in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, where they will be attached to the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division, a spokesman said Monday.

The U.S. is deploying new missile attack and surveillance drones known as MQ-1C Gray Eagles at an airbase here.

The Gray Eagle is an 8 m-long medium-altitude drone with a 17-m wingspan, an improved version of the Predator drones that the U.S. used with mixed success to assassinate Taliban leaders in the Afghanistan wars.

Carrying all-weather night vision surveillance equipment, it can fly at a speed of 280 km/h for up to 30 hours.

The Gray Eagle can carry four Hellfire anti-tank missiles, which can strike tanks 8 km away, and four GBU-44/B Viper precision-guided munitions. Armed with Stinger air-to-air missiles, the drone can also attack enemy helicopters.


Ex-president Park Geun-hye's friend Choi Soon-sil has reacted with dismay to the ouster of her longtime protector, making a confused stab at an apology in her corruption and influence-peddling trial on Monday.

"I am so sorry to the public that we are sitting here as part of the corruption scandal," Choi told the Seoul Central District Court while questioning a witness. "I am very perplexed."

Choi is being tried on charges that she colluded with Park and two former Cheong Wa Dae aides to extort billions from major conglomerates. Choi made the remarks when given the opportunity to question a witness in the trial, former vice culture minister Kim Chong, whom she is accused of levering into office to smooth her path.

Korean courts allow defendants to question witnesses. But Choi continued to insist that neither she nor Park sought to profit privately from corporate donations to the dubious Mir and K-Sports foundations she established.

She asked Kim if she had ever made a request to him seeking personal gain and added she is "frustrated" by the accusation that she meddled in government business to enrich herself.

The former vice culture minister fought back tears as he said, "I feel used by the [former] president and Choi. I apologize to the public and am distraught."
If ever there was a day to WFCWP (work from couch without pants), its today. Storm Stella, which sounds super chic but is actually a total mess, has blown into New York and the Man Repeller offices have been closed for our safety and sanity. Schools have shut down. Above-ground trains arent running. The roads are empty. Its the kind of blizzard that delights Californians like me  I would have sacrificed my modest Beanie Baby collection for a snow day growing up  and annoys the shit out of actual New Yorkers.

Since all of us at Man Repeller are snowed into our respective corners of New York City, we thought wed give you a quick tour of our hoods as visited by the blizzard. Scroll down to see what were working with and read our very professional live-weather coverage!

Leandra, dispatch from the Bowery

Bowery Street spanning Houston to Great Jones is covered in ice, with fallen trash cans peppering the sidewalks. Hail is falling from the sky and, every few minutes, a handful of people can be found climbing through the slippery-ass snow to get, I dont know, to the subway? To work? Im currently wearing burgundy Uggs, the kind with side zippers. These are not the best choice given the sleet and hail. I slipped exactly six times on my way out here and fell three of those times.

Almost no shop is open. Not Think Coffee on Bleecker Street, Gasoline Alley on Mulberry Street or Siggys Good Food on Elizabeth. Pressed Juicery on Lafayette remains closed as well. The Bowery Hotels Gemma, however, is serving breakfast. Cherche Midi on Houston is not. But if youre hungry in downtown New York and have nothing but yogurt and wine in your fridge, Whole Foods is open. I repeat: Whole Foods is open. If youre craving $14 nuts, Dean & DeLuca on Prince Street remains open as well. (The wealth management branch at UBS, located in the Met Life building, is also open. I know this because Abie went to work at 8:15 a.m. this morning.)

Said a neighborhood doorman when I inquired about his commute, It was really easy getting here. Nothing like that last months storm. God speed.

Amelia and Yvonne, dispatch from the West Village

Talk about a sunny day for penguins and polar bears here in the West Village! Yvonne and I were really BLOWN AWAY by the gusty winds  said to hit up to 55 MPH later  not to mention stabbed about a million times over and over by the shards of glass falling from the sky. But never fear! Tobys Coffee on Charles is here and open and playing a soothing coffee-shop mix of your exs favorite indie bands, along with a shoe repair store on West 4th, Sant Ambroeus West Village and Lennys, which makes a mean bacon, egg and cheese. The streets are being plowed and a brave few are scraping sidewalks before the ice begins, but other than that it seems most WV residents are staying inside and learning how to use the stove for the first time. Over to you, Harling!

Harling, dispatch from Little Italy

Hello! Harling here, reporting live from the corner where Little Italy and Chinatown rub elbows. If you, too, are dead set on venturing out into the elements, I cant recommend dressing like a dementor-on-the-top/sleepwalker-on-the-bottom highly enough. Everything is closed on my block, which is composed of 99% laundromats and 1% nightclubs. Visibility is poor, unless you enjoy the feeling of being stung by 1,000 bees.

Streets and sidewalks are barely clear, I repeat: barely clear. Be careful when you step back inside your building lobby because the soles of your boots will be covered in salt and you might slip and fall (total conjecture  this did not happen to me). Also, it is absolutely okay to use an umbrella in the snow, but be sure to peek out from underneath it once in awhile or you will likely collide with a passerby. This did happen to me, but I was the passerby.

Erica, dispatch from East Harlem

Yes, good morning, this is Erica, your wayyyy uptown correspondent, reporting live from the 120s. The snow has devolved into freezing rain just in time for me to step outside. The wind, while pretty erratic, is generally blowing in a southward direction directly into my face. A quick scan of the area shows that historically popular hangouts like The Bodega Across the Street, The Bodega Underneath My Building, and That One Stoop on 123rd are completely vacated (though open for business nonetheless if anyone is interested). Im extremely happy to report that the church to my right looks particularly picturesque this morning. Down to you, Haley.

Haley, dispatch from Bushwick

Welcome to Bushwick, where our famously garbage-strewn streets are covered in a beautiful blanket of snow today. All rats and the feral cats hunting them have frozen mid-stride. My face, which wore a naive expression of joy when I initially stepped out of my building, was immediately pelted by hail, a stark contrast from the romantic flurry of snowflakes I expected. Pictured above, my inability to appear camera-ready like a real reporter.

The good news: The extremely overpriced Hana Natural Grocery remains open  just as the Yelp reviews I read last summer assured me  as does Wyckoff Starr, the Twin Peaks-themed coffee shop to its left. This particular corner of Bushwick is deserted save for the occasional caffeine addict or slow-ass driver, both of which can be spotted scaling the very middle of the street at a literally glacial pace.

Shari, reporting from Bed-Stuy

Bleak morning, people! This is Shari reporting live from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, home of the bravest. We are currently outside waiting for Stella to arrive. Perhaps shes awaiting her groove. (Stella Got Her Groove Back reference. Paying homage to my girl Angela Bassett!) Moving on to the hair salon on the corner, which is still open  so if you need anything cut, fried or laid to the side while you are off today, hit them up and tell them I sent you. Over to you, Kate!

Kate, dispatch from Cobble Hill

Ground status: packed snow with sleet sprinkles. Currently walkable, but no ones shoveling and the snow keeps switching between true snow and sleet, which means once the temp drops, it will be a hidden, icy slip-n-slide. Air status: Wet ice pellets and thundersnow that sounds like maybe its a subway until you realize its coming from the sky. I love thundersnow.

The coffee shop below me is open and so is the 24-hour fancy bodega, but everything else is closed and no ones out. Last year, when we had a big snowstorm, the streets were full of kids with sleds and I had to tell an older man throwing snowballs that I would not find it at all fun or endearing if he threw one at me, but that neighborhood snowstorm magic is not out and about today.

Otherwise, the cats are thrilled that Im working from home.

All photos provided by Team MR.
China has installed powerful radars with a detection range of 3,000 km so they can spy on South Korean and Japanese military maneuvers, Chinese media reported Monday.

The move comes amid a spat with Seoul over the stationing of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery from the U.S. here whose powerful radar Beijing fears could be used to spy on its own military activities.

The reports said China installed an Over The Horizon or OTH radar in Inner Mongolia in January. Unlike conventional radar signals that pass through the atmosphere, OTH signals bounce off of the earth's ionosphere 100 to 450 km above the surface to detect targets 3,000 km away.

The THAAD radar as currently configured will only have a range of 800 km, though that can be adapted with a software switch.
Kuwait, February 2017

Al Kazemi Travel Agencies Co. W.L.L. (part of Al Kazemi Group) proudly becomes the exclusive agent of Azerbaijan Airlines in the State of Kuwait, establishing the first direct flight from Kuwait to Baku  Azerbaijan. The flight duration is only 1 hour and 50 minutes, therefore saving all travelers from the difficulties faced in the past as a result of long transit flights to reach beautiful Azerbaijan.

The second flight took place in February and the next flights are scheduled for April, May, June, July, August, and September.

Azerbaijan is a country in the South Caucasus region, situated at the crossroads of Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe. It is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. A country rich in oil and natural gas, Azerbaijan has experienced since proclaiming its independence on August 30, 1991 significant growth. The latter could be witnessed especially in the countrys capital Baku which is also its commercial hub. With a population of over 2 million and a location of 28 meters below sea level, Baku prides itself by being the lowest lying national capital as well as the lowest lying largest city in the world.

According to Lonely Planet, Azerbaijans capital is the architectural love child of Paris and Dubai albeit with plenty of Soviet genes floating half-hidden in the background. Few cities in the world are changing as quickly and nowhere else in Eurasia do East and West blend as seamlessly or as chaotically. At its heart, the Unesco-listed Old City lies within an exotically crenelated arc of fortress wall. Around this are gracefully illuminated stone mansions and pedestrianized tree-lined streets filled with exclusive boutiques. In the last decade, countless towers have mushroomed, dwarfing or replacing tatty old Soviet apartment blocks.

Al Kazemi Travel Agencies Co. was established in the mid-1960s. It is worthwhile to highlight that it was one of the earliest market entrants to the Travel & Tourism Industry in Kuwait offering general travel & tourism services and acting as General Sales Agent of renowned airlines. Located in one of the most exclusive areas of Kuwait city, it is recognized as a leading travel agency in the market. Currently employing a staff of over 40 dedicated and experienced personnel, the office provide turnkey travel services including:

- Organization of trips to destinations all over the world

- Tour packages

- Ticketing services

- Visa issuance services

- Trip counseling and guidance

- Air Charter services (both private & commercial)

- Air Cargo services

- GSA services

The client base of Al Kazemi Travel Agencies is quite varied and spans across all sections of the Kuwaiti society (including families, young adults, students etc.), international companies undertaking projects in the State of Kuwait, local companies from both the private and public sectors, governmental entities and embassies among others.

More about Al Kazemi Group:

Interview with Jad H. Mekkaoui, Business Development & Contracts Manager of Al Kazemi Group  Leading Contracting Company in Kuwait to Pursue Major Oil & Gas Projects in Kuwait | Al-Kazemi Group

The Group has gradually expanded over the years and currently includes 22 different companies specialized in various business activities.

"These companies fall under four main divisions; the trading and contracting division, the shipping and logistics division, travel and tourism division and investments division covering real estate and hospitality businesses. With regards to the trading and contracting division, we are agents of international EPC contractors, manufacturers and service providers on exclusive basis in the Kuwaiti market. For example with the EPC contractors we undertake major scale projects in the oil and gas sector as well as in the infrastructure sector and the construction sector among other sectors. With the manufacturers, we introduce their product into the market to supply them to the end user whether it is to the Ministries, Government entities, local contractors or international contractors executing projects in the market. If you look at the scope of our projects, we currently have over 3 billion US dollars worth of ongoing projects mainly focused in the oil and gas sector including two projects with KNPC, the Clean Fuels Project, the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery package, which we are executing with our principal GS E&C, along with JGC and SK E&C as part of the consortium. Our scope from this project is amounting to 1.5 billion US dollars. There is the North LPG Tanks Farm with KNPC as well which is a half a billion dollar project. We have three other projects running with KOC as well totalling around 1 billion US dollars with the latest awarded in September 2015 pertaining to the building of a New Water Center in North Kuwait valued at 300 Million US Dollars. We are undertaking a road engineering project with the Ministry of Public Works, shutdown projects for EQUATE Petrochemical Company; maintenance contracts etc. so it is quite diversified. These projects are executed in collaboration with our international principals. To go into the shipping and logistics division, we offer a wide range of services such as but not limited to project logistics services, transportation, custom clearance; we are agents of international shipping lines, and are considered among the top shipping companies in Kuwait and have been for many years. We were recently awarded the project logistics for the CFP project which we are executing with our Saudi partners Al Majdouie Logistics Company with whom we formed a joint venture here in Kuwait which is Al-Kazemi and Al Majdouie Cargo transportation Company back in 2010. In terms of the travel and tourism division, we operate one of the most prominent travel agencies in the market offering turnkey travel services. We are also general sales agents of renowned airlines. We currently represent Azerbaijan Airlines, Pakistani International Airlines, and Saudi Airlines Cargo, among others. The investments division, is focused on hospitality and real estate businesses, we have our own properties and we deal in real estate buying and selling as well as offering consultancy services. When it comes to hospitality we have our own hotel, the New Park Hotel and several other hotel ventures, however not in a managerial capacity but in a shareholding capacity in Kuwait and abroad. That should give you a brief overview of the group in general."

FAIR USE POLICY

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Kuwait, March 2017

The Kuwaiti governments education budget had grown relentlessly in recent years, allocating almost 10% of its annual budget to Kuwaits education sector in 2016, as the leadership has continued to emphasise the importance of education in creating sustainable employment for their citizens and equipping them with the skills to compete in the global marketplace.

Indeed, government expenditure on education has been growing year-on-year by some 14.5% up to the most recent fiscal year. With the persistent oil price lows experienced in recent years bringing the need for economic diversification starkly back into relief, and reinvigorating efforts to develop knowledge-intensive sectors such as high-tech manufacturing and ICT.

Necessarily, the new long-term development plan, Kuwait Vision 2035, places a strong emphasis on education as a catalyst to economic diversification, sustainable growth, and social progress, and in a historic departure, this substantial investment from the government is now being coupled with sweeping reform tailored to meet Kuwaits long-term needs.

As Dr. Sullivan of AUK envisaged, We are aiming to produce those leaders, managers, directors, creators, and innovators, not just cogs in somebody elses wheel.

Kuwaits private education system is currently occupying a strong presence; educating more than 40% of students and expanding more rapidly than the public education systemwith Kuwait demographics and growth driving this demand.

As Dr. Earl (Tim) Sullivan, President of the American University of Kuwait (AUK), explained, For many years, higher education here was dominated by Kuwait University, which is a large public institution. Only a few years ago, it was decided to add options for private universities that would offer different kinds of programs. Thus, private universities have become an option.

"The public education system provides the basics, but the goal now is to make education world-class with international institutions supporting reform and the private sector with a central role to play in realising this."

With literacy rates of 96.2% according to UNICEF, comparable to most developed countries, most Kuwaiti students leave schools with solid skills, and there are a range of factors that should continue to drive robust growth in education spending in the coming years. Firstly, in terms of raw demographics that are growing rapidly from a present just shy of 4 million and projected to reach 5.1 million by 2030.

Secondly, with the governments commitment to education both as a social good and as a prerequisite for Kuwaits economic diversification strategy. Even with government revenues less flush with oil income, developing Kuwaitis knowledge and skills remains a top priority. Whilst on-going reform should also see a greater use of technology in education creating opportunities for IT suppliers.

Thirdly, because Kuwait is one of the worlds most affluent societies, with a GDP per capita income of over $70,000 a year.

Increasingly aware of the importance of education in an increasingly competitive international marketplace, Kuwaitis and expatriates alike appear more willing and able to invest in their childrens education at all levels.

With an education sector overseen by the Ministry of Education (MOE) which works in conjunction with the National Centre for Educational Development (NCED) Kuwaits tertiary education sector is expanding strongly due booth to the aforementioned population growth but also on-going government investments in its capacity, incentives for private universities to establish facilities and expand, and the policy encouraging more Kuwaitis to take higher education and training to develop their skills.

Whilst the private sector in the higher education segment has independence, the courses that tertiary institutions provide are still shaped by the governments labour market priorities, as Abdullah Al Sharhan, Chairman of Australian College of Kuwait (ACK), clarified, The first thing is to produce as many professional engineers and businessmen as we can. The market is hungry for them. Currently, Kuwait is dependent on non-Kuwaitis but we want Kuwaitis to slowly take over the professional work that sustains the country.

Kuwaits drive for economic diversification and the development of a knowledge-intensive service sector to provide jobs for its young population makes education a priority. The public education system provides the basics, but the goal now is to make education world-class with international institutions supporting reform and the private sector with a central role to play in realising this. Whilst the profusion of private universities and ever more vocational education institutions that have proliferated should also give Kuwaiti tertiary education the capacity to expand and meet the rising demand. As Dr. Tim Sullivan of AUK envisaged, We are aiming to produce those leaders, managers, directors, creators, and innovators, not just cogs in somebody elses wheel.

FAIR USE POLICY

This material (including media content) may not be published, broadcasted, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the page (including the source, i.e. Marcopolis.net) is permitted and encouraged.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak warned North Korea on Sunday "not to toy with" his country, calling on the North to ensure the safety of nine Malaysians stranded in the rogue state.

Razak made the comments at a hospital opening in Kelantan state, according to Malaysia's Sin Chew Daily. "Respect us and make sure our people are safe," Razak said, and vowed to ensure their safety.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein on Monday warned his country has many allies that would rally to its side in the event of war with North Korea, according to the Star daily.

North Korea has banned all Malaysian citizens from leaving amid a diplomatic spat over the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's estranged half-brother, Kim Jong-nam. Malaysia retaliated by banning some 1,000 North Korean, mostly illegal workers earning hard currency for their regime, from leaving until the safety of the Malaysians in the North is assured.

Two of the North Korean suspects in the assassination remain holed up in the North's embassy in Malaysia. Both countries have expelled their respective ambassadors.

The Malaysian government has now confirmed the man who was murdered by VX nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur International Airport was Kim Jong-nam. Japan's Kyodo News on Sunday said the Japanese government provided Malaysia with fingerprints of Kim Jong-nam that were obtained when he tried to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001.


COLLINSVILLE-World War II veteran Clifford Kesler still laughs about the time he spent the night with some German soldiers without realizing it.

Kesler, 96, told that story and others during an interview with Dr. Joe Keiper for an oral history project to preserve the memories of local World War II veterans.

Kesler is a Bassett native who lives in Collinsville. He doesnt have a clear memory of how he spent his one Christmas in the war, he said, but hell never forget the night before Christmas Eve. It was a Sunday night, and he slept pretty comfortably in an old wagon bed in a barn.

He and his group of fellow soldiers were so worn out we didnt really look through the house when they arrived seeking shelter; they just went to sleep, he said. In the morning, they discovered two German soldiers also had spent the night in the farms house.

Keslers group only had been eating C-rations and K-rations, but an artillery division close by had a mess hall. Those two Germans beat us down there to the mess hall. They came out with their hands up to eat a good meal before surrendering.

We didnt case the place good because we were so tired, Kesler repeated, laughing and slapping his knee, and the next morning, they came out and went down to our kitchen with their hands up.

Kesler is the second veteran interviewed for the oral history project; W.C. Fowlkes interviewed Talmadge Seay on Feb. 22.

The project to capture oral histories is being done in collaboration between the Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society and the City of Martinsville, with the Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH) providing in-kind technical support. Keiper is the executive director of VMNH and on the board of the historical society.

A gunner on the half-track

Kelser was in basic training in Massachusetts, near the ocean. For training, small planes would pull targets behind them, and he would shoot at them with anti-aircraft guns. They were like machine guns, he said. Each half-tracks antiaircraft battery consisted of two .50 caliber machine guns and a 37 millimeter canon.

It took seven men to operate a half-track, he said. A half-track is a vehicle with regular wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to move the vehicle and support most of the load. That combination gives the half-track the cross-country capabilities of a tank with the easier handling of a vehicle on wheels.

I was a gunner and fired the machine guns and 37-millimeters, he said. A gun pointer over there turned the gun, and I raised it up and down.

Kesler fired the guns with his feet. The left food fired two machine guns, and the right foot fired the canon.

We had to work together. We knew how to do it. It was exciting, he said.

It wasnt exciting all the time, though. We spent a lot of time waiting for airplanes, which could be boring, he said, but we kept our eyes open.

Right after basic training, he was sent to Bridgewater, England, for advanced training. They already had us a house to stay in, he said. Me and the Ross boy stayed with a family named Mullins, with two sons, 14 and 16. The teenagers seemed to look up to the soldiers, he said.

He would end up serving in Germany and France for about six months. He was in Bastogne, France, which the Germans held as part of the larger Battle of the Bulge.

Times of hunger

In Europe, we ran into a lot of French people and little kids wanting candy and stuff. They were happy to see us, he said.

Even the civilians on the enemy side could be kind, he said: German families would give us their food when we were stationed close.

However, he also saw a lot of hardship among civilians.

Wed go down to eat, and civilians would be down there with buckets to get our extra food out of the trash cans. It was a sad time. I didnt eat all my food a lot of times, to give it to the civilians.

On some missions, they didnt have cooked food, and instead had to eat from pre-packaged rations. C-rations werent very good, he said, and K-rations werent nothing hardly to eat.

Busting through a rock wall

Another time, he recalled, they managed to avoid a close call with German tanks.

We heard what we thought were our tanks. However, they were German tanks, and they cut loose on us.

The German tanks were in the way of where Kesler and his men had to go to return to their spot. Fortunately, he said, they saw the Germans without the Germans seeing them.

Instead of going where they could see us, he said, pointing to the right, we went this way, waving left, and knocked down a rock wall that was in the way.

In all his time overseas, only one soldier friend of his died. He had taken shrapnel from tank guns. He was bleeding through his mouth, and we knew he was gone then, Kesler said.

The young man was a newlywed from Tennessee.

D-Day

The soldiers were briefed for the D-Day invasion at a meeting. Kelser said he remembers the speaker being a Frenchman, telling us what to expect when we land. He said there would be so many of us  if they got in the way, just walk over them, but it wasnt that easy.

He landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, at 6 p.m.  not in the first wave, he said. I was fortunate enough I didnt land until late in the evening, he said. When his crew arrived, engineers already had cleared the area of landmines and marked it safe to park their equipment.

Everything went well on our landing, he said.

They did not see any enemy planes on D-Day, he said. I dont know what happened, but they werent active on D-Day. The day after, they were.

He recalled a mistake in the chaos that was a close call with tragedy. We shot down one of our planes the day after D-Day, he said. We heard a plane circling around. We turned our guns, waiting for it to come out of the clouds. We were firing at it, and saw one or two shells hitting the star on our plane.

We saw the pilots hands  Dont shoot! Dont shoot! He parachuted out, and the plane exploded.

He was scared to death, Kesler said. They said he was so scared to death he couldnt talk.

War souvenirs

The soldiers always were warned not to fall for any booby traps. The enemy would plant something enticing, they were told, and to reach for it would set off an explosion. However, he ignored that rule once  and ended up lucky, with a Luger pistol as a memento.

Going up an old road bed, I saw a holster sticking up out of roots, he said. I got the gun. Wed been warned never to move anything they came across, because it would be sabotaged. I got the gun out of the tree trunk. If it had been booby-trapped, I would have been blown up.

He also came across a German bayonet, which he brought home.

He also had a huge Nazi flag the size of this wall, his daughter Yvonne Price said, but my mom (Mary Aileen Ratliff Kesler) burned it.

After the war

He said he didnt remember hearing the news that the war was over, but he remembered thinking they would have to keep fighting. They were going to send us to the Pacific, but we didnt have to go. The war was over before we got there.

He remained in Europe for about two weeks after the war had ended, he said.

It was a joyous time when he returned to Bassett, where he was born and raised. I took a pretty good little vacation, then worked in a furniture factory. Everything worked out good once I got home.

While he was at war, he sent a letter home asking his sweetheart to wait for him to marry when he returned. She did.

They were married until she died in 2012. Their daughter Yvonne Price lives in the same neighborhood, and their other daughter, Dixie Riehm, lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has three grandchildren.

I had never been anywhere much when I had been in the service, but when I got home it was a joyous time. Leaving home for basic training and war service was a shock.

Holly Kozelsky writes for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at .
Korean builders are winning trillions of won worth of orders from Iran after sanctions against the Middle Eastern country were lifted last year.

Hyundai Engineering on Sunday said it signed a construction deal valued at W3.8 trillion with an affiliate of the National Iranian Oil Company (US$1=W1,148). Under the deal, Hyundai and affiliate Hyundai Engineering and Construction will build an ethylene and polyethylene plant in the natural gas field of South Pars in the Persian Gulf.

A Hyundai staffer said, "We set up a local office in August 2015 and our sales agents kept in contact with local officials to seal the deal."

Hyundai took part in other construction projects in the gas field back in 2005, before sanctions were imposed.

Daelim Industrial on Sunday also signed a W2.2-trillion order with Iran to upgrade a petrochemical plant in Isfahan, 400 km south of Tehran. "We kept our office open in Iran even after sanctions were imposed in 2010 and this seems to have earned us points," a Daelim staffer said.
All Americans, regardless of political party, are concerned about their own financial well-being and the health of the financial system they are leaving their children. In other words, their pocketbooks. As a ninth district resident, I am calling on Morgan Griffith to help protect the financial health of the country and to help ensure its continuing recovery from the financial turmoil that erupted in the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

Mr. Griffith, I want you to ask yourself before every vote: Will voting this way truly help the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans, now and in the long-run?

One key way to do this is to resist the retrograde goals of the Trump agenda, starting with those that would deregulate our financial system and put us perilously close to repeating the conditions that caused the Great Recession. In your response to the presidents address to the joint chambers of congress, Mr. Griffith, you said you agreed with the vision the president laid out, and with the presidents goals, to fulfill Americas potential and to help Americans in need. These are just superficial statements - sunny, rosy, nice to hear cliches - until you dig into what they might really mean for ordinary Americans.

One of the paths this president sees to fulfilling Americas potential is through deregulation of the financial sector. In February he signed the Executive Order on Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System. It called for huge reductions of regulations and asked for a special briefing on how to streamline financial regulations.

Presumably, a key target of the streamlining would be the relaxation or elimination of all or parts of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The provisions of this law were enacted after the financial crisis of 2008 to protect consumers from the predatory lending practices that had been one of the major causes of the crisis. The new Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, for 17 years was an investment banker and CIO at Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms that emerged unscathed from the crisis, even as thousands of ordinary borrowers defaulted on their mortgages and declared bankruptcy.

Mr. Griffith, before voting to relax Dodd-Frank, please ask yourself: Will voting this way truly help the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans, now and in the long-run?

Within Dodd-Frank, some lawmakers are already taking aim at the Consumer Protection Services Bureau (CPSB). Weakening or eliminating the CPSB would, indeed, provide banks and other financial institutions with the ability to market more aggressively, leading to increased moneymaking opportunities. On the other side, however, consumers would become vulnerable to the deceptive practices that helped to bring on the Great Recession, while at the same time having fewer protections at their disposal.

Chandlee Offerman is a resident of Salem
One hundred and twenty years ago - on March 14 1883 to be precise - Karl Marx, one of the greatest figures in human history, died. Despite over a century of attacks, distortions and attempts to belittle Marx's contribution, no-one can doubt that he dramatically altered the course of human history.

"Philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways. The point is, however, to change it." - Karl Marx

One hundred and twenty years ago - on March 14 1883 to be precise - Karl Marx, one of the greatest figures in human history, died. In an online poll conducted by the BBC a couple of years ago Marx was voted the greatest thinker of all time. Despite over a century of attacks, distortions and attempts to belittle Marx's contribution, no-one can doubt that he dramatically altered the course of human history. That would be reason enough to study Marx's ideas and his writings, whether one agrees or disagrees with them.

For those workers and youth who wish to struggle to change society however, there is an even more pressing reason to study Marxism. On reading Marx's writings on philosophy, history, economics, and sociology, one is struck not only by their remarkable breadth and depth, but above all by their relevance to the world today. These writings are an invaluable weapon in the hands of workers and youth everywhere fighting for the socialist transformation of society.

During the course of 2003 we intend to produce a series of articles on the writings of Marx. These are not meant to be a substitute for the real thing, but are intended to whet the readers' appetite to plunge more fully into a study of Marx's writings and ideas. A word of warning here. Libraries and bookshops the world over are littered with learned tomes 'about Marxism'. In reality these are usually 'against Marxism', but few are honest enough to admit it. These works fall into two main categories. First the method of knocking down a straw man, that is, spurious arguments that have nothing to do with Marxism are presented as the ideas of Marx only to be easily countered and defeated. Secondly there are the 'interpretations', that is works that go to great lengths to tell us 'what Marx really meant', when in fact they proceed to distort Marx's ideas out of all recognition. To discover what Marx meant is in reality quite easy. All one has to do is read the books he wrote.

Some people will tell you that those books are very difficult to read. This is not really true. Marx wrote in such a way that the average person could understand him. He wrote essentially for the workers. Having said that Marx did not believe in what the BBC call 'dumbing down', that is talking to the workers as if they were little children. As every worker knows nothing worth having in this life is achieved without a struggle. To study Marx's writings with the necessary attention undoubtedly requires a certain amount of work. The rewards however merit such effort.

Marx wrote not just about politics and economics for which he is perhaps most widely known, but also about philosophy, art, history, science, and all questions relating to human society. Marx declared once that his favourite maxim was that of the Roman general and poet Terence "Nihil humani a me alienum putu. " (Nothing human is alien to me).

The advanced worker must make it his or her duty to make a thorough study of Marx's writings, to master the method of Marx. This is not an academic exercise. Marx's ideas are above all a guide to action, they provide a method for understanding the world, the better to be able to change it.

Marx was born 185 years ago, on May 5, 1818, in the city of Trier in Rheinish Prussia. His father was a lawyer and his family was comfortably well-off. They were not particularly revolutionary in their outlook. After leaving school in Trier, Marx went on to university first in Bonn and then later in Berlin, where he read law, majoring in history and philosophy. As a student Marx was a follower of the great German philosopher Hegel's ideas. In Berlin, he belonged to a group of "Left Hegelians" who sought to draw atheistic and revolutionary conclusions from Hegel's philosophy.

After graduating from university, Marx moved to Bonn, hoping to become a professor. However, the reactionary policy of the government, which deprived Ludwig Feuerbach of his academic position in 1832, led Marx to abandon the idea of such a career. At this time Left Hegelian views were making rapid headway in Germany. Feuerbach, in particular, developed a criticism of theology and began to develop materialist ideas. The ideas of Feuerbach had a profound effect on Marx and the other Left Hegelians of the day. The year 1843 saw the appearance of his book Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. "We all became at once Feuerbachians", Engels wrote some years later. It was around this time that a radical group in the Rhineland, who were in touch with the Left Hegelians, founded an opposition newspaper called Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne. The first issue appeared on January 1, 1842, and in October 1842 Marx became its editor-in-chief and moved from Bonn to Cologne.

The paper had begun with a revolutionary-democratic outlook and this became more and more pronounced under Marx's direction. As a consequence the government imposed a series of censorship measures against the paper, and then on January 1 1843 decided to suppress it altogether. The Rheinische Zeitung suspended publication in March 1843.

This was the year in which Marx married. His wife came from a reactionary family of the Prussian nobility, her elder brother later became Prussia's Minister of the Interior during a most reactionary period between 1850 and 1858.

In the autumn of 1843, Marx moved to Paris in order to publish a radical journal abroad, together with Arnold Ruge. However only one issue of this journal, Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, appeared. Publication was discontinued owing mainly to the difficulty of secretly distributing it in Germany, and to disagreements with Ruge.

In September 1844, Frederick Engels came to Paris for a few days, and from that time on became Marx's closest friend and political collaborator. The names Marx and Engels have since become inseparable, almost one person. Immediately the two men proceeded to take a most active part in the hectic life of the revolutionary groups in Paris. Proudhon's anarchist ideas were quite popular amongst some of these groups. Marx answered them thoroughly an meticulously in his Poverty of Philosophy, in 1847, using the method which one finds time and again in the writings of Marx, withering criticism backed up by facts, and substantial quotations from the writings of those he criticises. Unfortunately this rigorous and honest approach has not been shared by that countless number who have written spurious works in an attempt to rubbish Marx's ideas ever since.

Marx and Engels together waged an energetic struggle against the various doctrines of petty-bourgeois socialism, anarchism and so on, in an effort to place the ideas of socialism on a scientific footing. This was perhaps Marx and Engels' greatest achievement, to pull the idea of socialism down from the stratosphere to earth and the real world of class society. Socialism was no longer to be just a lofty ideal, but the product of a material struggle between the classes, a product of historical development. The ideas of Marx and Engels are scientific socialism.

Marxism is a science. In order to understand the problems of the modern world, a scientific method is necessary. The bourgeoisie and its academic experts are at a loss to explain what is happening in the world. One would look in vain in the pages of the economic journals for a rational explanation of the world crisis of their system. As for sociology, philosophy, psychology etc.  they write a great deal and yet they say nothing. Whilst in its progressive phase the bourgeoisie produced great ideas, now in its senile decay, it produces only gibberish.

On the one hand it fell to Marx, and his great co-thinker and lifetime comrade, Frederick Engels, to place the ideas of socialism on a sound scientific basis linked to an understanding of the class nature of society. At the same time their task was to provide the working class with the ideological weapons it requires to change society. For without a scientific understanding of the world it is impossible to change it.

These revolutionary ideas inevitably drew the attention of the authorities, already shaken by the onward march of revolt across Europe. At the insistent request of the Prussian government, Marx was banished from Paris in 1845, as a dangerous revolutionary. He went to Brussels. In the spring of 1847 Marx and Engels joined a secret propaganda society called the Communist League. They took a prominent part in the League's Second Congress in London in November 1847. As a result they were charged with drawing up the document which became The Communist Manifesto.

The Communist Manifesto, written when Marx and Engels were still young men, is a truly remarkable document. Its publication represents a turning point in history. It is as fresh today as when it was first written in 1848, if anything it is probably more relevant now than when it was then. In the pages of the Manifesto it is possible to see the superiority of Marx's method very easily. Take a look at any book written by the bourgeois 150 years ago. Today it will be just a curiosity. But if you read the Manifesto, you will find an accurate description of the world, not as it was in 1848, but as it is now. Phenomena such as globalisation, the concentration of capital, the exploitation of labour under the guise of modern technology  all these things were not only predicted by Marx but explained scientifically.

This is not the place to look at the Manifesto in detail, that will be the subject of a later article. We cannot pass it by completely, however. Not even the bourgeois do that, indeed, some of them have even been forced to admit, grudgingly, that at least in places, Marx was right:

"As a prophet of socialism Marx may be kaput; but as a prophet of the 'universal interdependence of nations' as he called globalisation, he can still seem startlingly relevant... his description of globalisation remains as sharp today as it was 150 years ago" write John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge of The Economist, in their book A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalisation

Indeed on reading the Communist Manifesto today one is amazed at how contemporary Marx's words appear. Not just the growth and interdependence of the world market is predicted here,

"In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations." But also the domination of that market by a handful of monopolies and the centralisation and concentration of capital that this represents: "It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands."

The reduction of the workforce to the role of slaves to the machine, "in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by increased speed of machinery,"

More importantly we find the reason for these developments, the contradiction between the expansion of the forces of production and the narrow limits imposed by the twin straitjackets of capitalism - the private ownership of the means of production and the borders of nation states, "The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them."

Of course those bourgeois who concede that Marx was right here or there write to bury him not to praise him. Inevitably they conclude "obviously socialism failed." However such an off the cuff, unsubstantiated assertion will not fool the new generation of workers and youth who are discovering the ideas of Marxism in their search for a solution and a future. Whilst it remains true, and a crime of truly historic proportions, that Stalinism dragged the names of Marx and Lenin through the mud, the accomplishments of capital to date in Russia and Eastern Europe are hardly inspirational. The restoration of the free market has brought not prosperity but prostitution, profits for the few but misery for the many. This is not to defend or justify the crimes of Stalinism. On the contrary, the disaster in Russia today should clarify that it was not the absence of the market that was the problem but the lack of democracy. It was not the nationalised economy but the suffocating, dead weight of bureaucracy and corruption which strangled the Soviet Union. The one element of the October revolution remaining, that is the one connection with the ideas of Marx, albeit in a barely recognisable, perverted form, namely a state owned economy, enabled Russia to develop from a backward country to the second power on the planet. However the monstrous bureaucracy and its totalitarian dictatorship which leeched off the lifeblood of the planned economy doomed it. To excuse their bureaucratic excesses Stalin twisted Marx's aphorism "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" into "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work." Of course the "work" of the bureaucrats was so onerous that they required higher wages, perks etc. In the same way the pig Napoleon in Orwell's Animal Farm rewrote the teachings of Major.

Without democracy, control over all aspects of society by the working class, socialism was never created in Russia. It speaks volumes that in addition to their many crimes the Soviet bureaucracy with the immense resources of a sixth of the planet at their disposal came up with not one single original thought. Compare that to the accomplishments of the poverty stricken Karl Marx.

The Soviet bureaucracy however was concerned only with their own survival and the survival of their privileges. They developed not one new idea, instead they attempt now to turn the clock back by restoring capitalism. What we saw in Russia was not socialism. Socialism could never be built within the confines of a single country, even one the size of Russia.

Today's new generation discovering Marxism will see this easily enough. Even now in their newfound appreciation of some of Marx's conclusions these learned bourgeois academics are unable to take the next logical step and ask why Marx came to correct conclusions. This is not a question the bourgeois are keen to answer. If on not one, or two, but many occasions a method leads to correct conclusions it would seem reasonable to assume that the theory used was correct. A 'lucky guess' is not likely to be repeated often. Yet the prediction of the development of the world market does not drive them to read more of Marx or to accept that not only his conclusions but also his method was and remains correct. Such keen insights were not simply a work of intuitive genius - though there is no doubt that Marx and Engels stood head and shoulders above our modern day intellectual giants. Marx's ideas represented everything that was best in the achievements of the bourgeoisie, bringing together the best of English political economy, French sociology and German philosophy. From this new height they were able to see far indeed.

Their method was their great accomplishment. Using it we can understand the world around us and offer a way out of crisis ridden capitalism. That is why the dreaded question 'Why was Marx right?' is one the bourgeois refuse to address. Fortunately Marx's ideas are not meant simply to convince the bourgeoisie to change their tune. That would be utopian. Marxism instead has the goal of arming the working class and the youth for the revolutionary struggle needed to change society.

In 1848, as Marx explained, the spectre of revolution was haunting Europe. The power of Marx's ideas led the ruling class to expel him from one country after another. On the outbreak of the Revolution of February 1848, Marx was banished from Belgium. He returned to Paris and then, after the March Revolution, he went to Cologne, Germany, where Neue Rheinische Zeitung was published from June 1 1848 to May 19 1849, with Marx as editor-in-chief. His ideas were being daily confirmed by the course of the revolutionary events of 1848-49. The victorious counter-revolution instigated court proceedings against Marx. He was acquitted on February 9 1849 but then banished from Germany on May 16 1849. From Germany Marx travelled on to Paris, was again banished after the demonstration of June 13, 1849, and then went to London, where he lived until his death.

His life as a political exile was a very hard one, as the correspondence between Marx and Engels clearly reveals. Poverty weighed heavily on Marx and his family; had it not been for Engels' constant and selfless financial aid, Marx would not only have been unable to complete Capital but would have inevitably have been crushed by want.

Capital, completed after Marx's death in the main due to the tireless efforts of his comrade Engels, is probably the best known of Marx's writings. In these three volumes, which represent capitalism's genome, there is more than enough argument to convince a thinking bourgeois of the inability of the capitalist system to solve its inherent problems.

Yet today's thinking bourgeois are not studying how society or economy works. They are thinking about how to defend their system and their privileged position. They think not of how new technology can be used to shorten working hours to allow us time to participate in decision making and implementation. Instead they research how to use new technology to squeeze an ounce more out of our muscles and brains in the name of profit.

They don't investigate the worldwide eradication of disease through the knowledge contained in the Human Genome, they calculate how to patent chromosomes and medicines to profit from our ill health.

A small layer of scientists, and intellectuals in different fields can no doubt be won over to socialism, but society cannot be changed simply by changing the minds of the ruling class one by one. Marxism came into being as an attempt to place socialism on a scientific footing, to rescue it from the genius but idealistic utopians of earlier generations who believed that socialism could be achieved simply by demonstrating its intellectual superiority.

Nonetheless the intellectual struggle, the struggle over ideas, was for Marx of decisive importance. First and foremost he recognised the power of ideas "We are firmly convinced" he wrote "that the real danger lies not in practical attempts but in the theoretical elaboration of communist ideas, for practical attempts, even mass attempts, can be answered by cannon as soon as they become dangerous whereas ideas which have conquered our intellect and taken possession of our minds... are demons which human beings can only vanquish only by submitting to them."

The revival of the democratic movements in the late fifties and in the sixties recalled Marx to practical activity. There is a myth that Marx was a writer and thinker, but not a practical revolutionary. This is nonsense. For Marx theory was a guide to action, above all the revolutionary action of the proletariat. Marx had played an active and leading role in the movement in Germany and France. Now in London in 1864, on September 28, the International Working Men's Association - the celebrated First International - was founded. Marx was the heart and soul of this organisation, the author of its first Address and of a host of resolutions, declaration and manifestoes.

Marx's health was undermined by his strenuous work in the International and his still more strenuous theoretical studies and writing. He continued to work tirelessly on the question of political economy and on the completion of Capital, for which he collected a mass of new material and studied a number of languages including Russian.

On December 2 1881 Marx's wife died, and then on March 14 1883 Marx himself passed away peacefully in his armchair. He lies buried next to his wife at Highgate Cemetery in London.

Marx died 120 years ago. But his ideas live on to educate and inspire a new generation of class fighters all over the world. We dedicate our struggles to the memory of this great revolutionary figure. In recent years many a learned wiseacre has declared that struggle to be finished. Yet for all their scribblings the spectre of revolution is once again aboard. This time that spectre casts its shadow over not just Europe but the whole world. The struggle is far from finished, in fact it will continue until humanity finally triumphs over all obstacles and raises itself up to its true height. For thousands of years, knowledge and culture have been the monopoly of a tiny handful of wealthy exploiters, who have used and abused their monopoly to keep millions of their fellow men and women in chains. Socialism will put an end to this odious monopoly once and for all, giving free access to the wonders of culture to every man, woman and child on the planet. It was Marx who declared, "workers of all lands unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains."

There is a world to win. A world freed from poverty, disease, hunger, illiteracy and despair. A world where the true potential of humanity is released and can flourish. That is the greatest end to which anyone can aspire, the only cause worthy of giving one's life for. Karl Marx gave his whole life to this cause, sacrificing everything for the cause of the emancipation of the working class.

Whilst those who have written to bury Marxism over the last 150 years have vanished into obscurity the ideas of Marxism not only retain their relevance but are now gaining a new audience. In general in the hands of bourgeois academics the ideas of Marxism will be transformed and vulgarised into dead dogma. In the hands of the workers movement, inscribed on the banner of the youth, they will serve their true purpose. As Marx himself explained that purpose is to help not only to understand the world, but to change it.
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Hans Gerd Ofinger interviewed Zowi Milanovi, editor of www.marxisten.nl, about tomorrow's general elections in the Netherlands.

HG: There have been reports about an improvement in the Dutch economy. What is the economic background of the Dutch elections, the position of Dutch capitalism, and the situation of the working class?

ZM: After many years of crisis and worsening social indicators, there are some signs of relative improvement. Unemployment has gone down, for example. Consumption has gone up and the property prices are going up. However, this recovery is not felt equally by all layers of the population. The growth of job vacancies consists overwhelmingly of so-called 'flexible jobs' and people have seen their rents gone up.

There are never any serious analyses about the nature of this recovery by politicians or economics. We are expected not to talk about this, as that would be negative talk while we need positive thoughts to keep the recovery running. The recovery is presented as a fact and we should all turn the page now and forget about the effects of the austerity packages of the last years.

The truth is that this 'grand recovery' is based on a few factors and the Rutte government had nothing to do with it. The Netherlands increased its exports to 80% of GDP and has been running a trade surplus of about 10% in the last few years, something the IMF has been worried about. This was possible because of the relatively low value of the Euro in comparison to the productivity of Dutch capitalism. In case the Netherlands would still have its own currency, this currency's value would have risen in the last couple of years. One could say that the Netherlands has had its small recovery on the backs of the southern European countries.

As for the housing prices, there have been attempts to re-inflate the housing bubble. In the historical period before 2008, the rise of house ownership in combination with rising prices meant that people from the middle class and better paid layers of the working class could get ahead by getting a (subsidised) mortgage. The illusions were sown that everyone could get ahead 'through hard work'. Now they are trying to re-inflate the bubble through various measures. One of these has been tax-free money transfers from parents to children for housing purposes, in order to transfer the fat of the old generation to the much skinnier younger generation. However, the housing market has mostly been stimulated through vicious attacks on social housing and tenants in general. People who 'are living too cheap' have been attacked through measures to restrict social housing and raise price levels, while many social housing has been sold off. People are being forced into getting a mortgage. This is the reality of the so-called recovery, it has been achieved on the back of working people.

This model will not work in the long run. While there have been attempts to stimulate the housing market, on the other hand there has been a worrying trend of casualisation of labour, the so-called 'flex work' with short contracts on a low number of hours (even zero-hours). The Netherlands now is the country with the second highest percentage of flexible labour contracts in Europe, after Spain. Of all the newly created jobs in 2016, 41% were flexible agency jobs. This excludes the 'regular' flex contracts and the growing number of unwanted self-employed workers. Since 2003 the total number of flex workers and self-employed workers has gone up with 65%. A growing number of people are combining multiple jobs, something which in the past was seen as 'being a thing in the crazy USA, but not here in the Netherlands of course.'

Already many economists are worried that the casualisation will lead to future problems, as these workers will receive less training from the companies and will not be able to get mortgages in the future. Here we see the internal contradictions within Dutch capitalism which will limit the scope of the current recovery. Also the extremely high level of exports to GDP means that the country will be very vulnerable to shocks on the world market. The Brexit and the election of Donald Trump have already led to worries in ruling circles, as have the unsolved problems in Southern Europe.

HG: Netherlands was founding member of the EEC. How do the masses view the EU nowadays?

ZM: There has been a much more negative view about the EU in recent years, although this goes back to the introduction of the Euro currency, which meant a higher cost of living for many. The is EU seen as an arrogant institution which imposed unpopular policies on the Dutch people. On the other hand, there is a lot of knowledge that leaving the EU would not be a solution on its own, because of the interdependence of Dutch capitalism with the EU. The majority of its exports go to other EU countries. The Brexit-referendum and its aftermath have made it clear that a 'Nexit' is not an easy solution for problems that Dutch working people have.

The criticism of the EU is mostly coming from nationalist right wingers these days. They combine frustration with the EU-institutions with racism and xenophobia, whether it's the 'lazy' Southern Europeans getting a bailout (money which in fact goes to mostly northern European banks) or the 'job-stealing' Eastern Europeans. The refugee influx in 2015 was used for a hysterical scare campaign by the far-right PVV, calling for the return of border controls and blaming the EU for its 'open borders' (completely ignoring the walls of Fortress Europe).

There is a lot of confusion within the left about this theme. The liberal left praises the 'values of peace and democracy' of the EU, completely ignoring the fact that the EU is an extended common market, a capitalist project in the interest of the big companies and banks. Just ask the Greek people about the love and brotherhood of the European institutions.

From the Socialist Party however we see another face of the left, that of combining left-reformism with chauvinist elements. The SP wants to end free movement of labour, in order to protect 'our own workers', and wants a referendum on abolishing the European Commission. This is a confused demand, as one country cannot abolish the European Commission and the EU without the Commission would not have its character fundamentally changed. Instead of this confused pandering to chauvinism, we need a clear socialist-internationalist alternative.

HG: Opinion polls indicate a certain fragmentation in the political landscape and erosion of traditional parties. How did this come about? Who are the main candidates now?

ZM: There have always been many parties, made possible by the system of proportional representation without electoral threshold. However, this time there is no party in the polls which will obtains more than 20% of the vote, and that's a sign of fragmentation and erosion indeed. In the past the three biggest parties (CDA, PvdA, VVD) always had a big majority of the seats together. Two-thirds of the Dutch voters are so-called 'floating voters' who only decide last-minute for whom to vote.

The christian-democratic CDA has seen a long term decline over the last decades, with its traditional base declining through the disappearance of the peasantry and the urbanisation. This was the traditional centre party where the stability of Dutch capitalism was based on. This party would either be in a coalition with the right-wing VVD or with the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA). The latter is also in decline after many years of betrayals and the inability to even defend the gains of the past.

Still of course there are a few main parties. The two biggest in the polls are prime minister Rutte's right-wing liberal VVD and Geert Wilders' right-wing populist PVV, both hovering around 15%. These are followed by the christian-democratic CDA and the liberal D66, both around 12%. Then there are the leftwing parties GroenLinks (Green Left) and SP (both around 10%) and the PvdA at a miserable 8%.

HG: Dutch Social Democracy, PvdA, used to be very strong and seems to have lost a lot. Why is that?

ZM: In the campaign for the last general elections in 2012, the PvdA pursued a tactic of presenting itself as a 'reasonable' and 'experienced' alternative for the SP, which was then second in the polls. Supported by the media and due to some mistakes of the SP, the PvdA managed to take over the position of the SP. This was only possible on the most left-wing programme in many years.

However, the day after the elections the PvdA turned 180 degrees and declared that a broad coalition with its main opponent, the VVD, was necessary in the national interest. They formed the current austerity government, responsible for many cuts and a disastrous 'decentralisation' of the healthcare, where many tasks were taken over by local governments without the necessary funding.

This time PvdA presented another relatively left-wing programme and suddenly opposed the VVD policies. Their message was 'the cuts of the last years were necessary, now the crisis is over so this time we will really implement our programme'. For this, they held a sham leadership election, where power was transferred from Diederik Samsom to Lodewijk Asscher, two party leaders who agreed on everything. Other candidates were excluded through bureaucratic measures. Asscher, who was vice-prime minister, now was presented as a new fresh leader! Jeroen Dijsselbloem, internationally known as the president of the Eurogroup who had a collision with the first Syriza government in Greece, now speaks about the need to fight tax evasion by multinationals. As Minister of Finance, he himself was responsible for facilitating tax deals with foreign multinationals. These examples just show how extremely farcical this party is. Almost nobody trusts this party. The PvdA is at a historic low in the polls.

This is not restricted to the Netherlands. Everywhere in Europe we see this decline of the social democracy. Greece (PASOK), Spain (PSOE), France (PS). The main reason is that in the current conditions of capitalist crisis they cannot even defend the gains of the past, let alone fight for real reforms. Whether in coalition, as in the Netherlands, or in majority government (France), the social-democrats in power are in a big crisis.

HG: Activists in the left and labour movement all over Europe fear that an election victory of Wilders and his PVV will encourage the extreme right wing parties everywhere. What is the position of PVV? Is the PVV a fascist party? Is it comparable to the AfD, FN, Vlaams Belang, UKIP, FPO and others?

ZM: The PVV is an extremely reactionary right-wing populist party, with the particular feature that it is a one-man party where Geert Wilders decides everything. It wants to ban the Koran, islamic schools and mosques, while closing the border for all refugees. Fascist elements come to Wilders' rallies, and also have been strengthened after Wilders called for 'civilian resistance' against the construction of new asylum centres, when many fascist groups crawled out of their holes and organised themselves.

However, the PVV is not a fascist party in itself. It does not have an organised mass base intent on smashing the workers movement, like the fascist movements in the past. In that sense it is comparable to UKIP, Front National and AfD. Of course, that does not mean the PVV should not be underestimated. The other 'respectable' parties are taking over its rhetoric in a light version, by which they normalise the racism and muslim hatred of Geert Wilders. Most clearly this was expressed in a recent open letter by Mark Rutte to the Dutch people, where he called on those 'who don't like Dutch values' to 'act normal' or otherwise leave the country. Rutte later stated this was not aimed at immigrants, but we all know better.

The original is always better than the copy. That's why many years of other parties copying Wilders' rhetoric have not led to the disappearance of the PVV. It has only led to a further radicalisation of Wilders' right-wing nationalism. His infamous speech calling for less Moroccans, and his ties with Vlaams Belang, Front National and Lega Nord are the proof of that.

HG: Over the last few decades there has been an up and down of different extreme right wing parties in the Netherlands. Where is the PVV going?

ZM: There have indeed been ups and downs, which led the opponents of the far right to believe that they will disappear on their own if they are ignored, or if they are opposed in parliament. Since 2002 though there has been the presence of far right populism in parliament, mainly as a result of a discontent with the social democracy. When these parties rule or support the government (as Wilders did in 2010) their popularity tend to go down. When they are in opposition and there is a broad government coalition, they can blame 'the left' and also the center-right for not being hard enough, and in current conditions their popularity can grow. However, another factor is the presence or absence of a strong left-wing opposition party.

HG: Some years ago the Socialist Party had a spectacular growth. This seems to have come to an end. Why is that and why has GroenLinks eclipsed the SP?

ZM: The SP experienced a big growth from 2002 to 2007. At the 2006 general elections it won about 17% of the seats in parliament. It's membership grew from 27,000 to 50,000. The party expected to be part of a coalition government. This was refused by the christian-democrats. Since then there have been attempts to water down the programme and become more 'mature'. At the local level the party has collaborated with rightwing parties in the executive councils.

At the 2012 elections there was a comeback. There was a right-wing austerity government which leaned on support of the PVV. As this party was unmasked as a hypocritical partner of the austerity government, the SP could present itself as the left-wing alternative to austerity. However, the PvdA was trumped up as the 'reasonable alternative'.

The party has since then tried to improve their image to become a bit more 'rebellious' again. They have a new chairman, a former trade union organiser, and started a nationwide campaign for a national healthcare system (to replace the current public-private system). The youth organisation has a more socialist image than before.

Still the overall image (whether justified or not) by many working people and youth, is that it is a party for the poor, old and sick. The party has a chauvinist position on the EU and on Eastern European migrant workers, whom they want to keep out through regulations. Also its support for laws extending the powers of the intelligence services and its strong support for the police unions, mean that many immigrant youth will not likely vote for them.

GroenLinks (Green Left) is now led by a new young leader, Jesse Klaver, who has been completely hyped up. This man has copied a lot of rhetoric from North American liberal heroes Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau. At this stage he is supported by many intellectual middle class ex-PvdA voters, but also by many new young voters, mostly students. He might get more seats than the SP and become the biggest party on the 'left'.

Only then the challenge will start for Klaver. He clearly wants to rule in a broad coalition and hopes the new period of growth may give him some room for reforms. The presence of rightwing coalition partners and the uncertainty of the world economy may quickly end this honeymoon period.

HG: What are the most likely options after the elections?

ZM: There are basically two main options. If the VVD en PVV will be far bigger than the rest, then a right-wing coalition between them and some smaller right parties could be an option, even though Mark Rutte stated he doesn't want to rule with the PVV. We have seen before in 2012 how the VVD fought PvdA, in order to turn 180 degrees and govern with them in a broad coalition. They can always find a reason in the 'national interest', stating that "we have to have a government coalition in order not to disturb the economic recovery". However, this is not the preferred coalition for the ruling class. It would see a lot of protests from the beginning from anti-racist groups. Also the complete lack of any 'social partners' would force the unions into more mobilisations.

The preferred option for them would be a broad coalition of 4 or 5 parties. This would for example be VVD, CDA, D66 and GroenLinks. Such a broad coalition can appear to be 'inclusive'. However, the current government is also a broad coalition, which had to lean on the support on many other parties because of its minority in the Senate. For Wilders, such a government is the ideal gift to present himself again as the 'martyr' who is excluded by the others. Theoretically the SP could also gain, but they have to present themselves as a socialist alternative which is ready to fight, and stop trying to present itself as a 'worthy coalition partner'.

In any case, both scenarios mean instability. The elections here will be followed by elections in France and Germany. Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear. Europe has entered an era of instability and uncertainty, with these elections just being one small part of a bigger chain of events.
Where are the best french fries in Massachusetts? We asked you where you find your fries and you answered on MassLive and social media with over 60 suggestions. Now the time has come to narrow the list down to 10 spots.

In the poll below, tell us where you go for the best fries in the commonwealth. Each IP address can cast one vote for up to 10 restaurants per day. The poll will remain open until Tuesday, March 21 at noon.

As in previous Best Of Mass contests, the Top 10 will consist of the five most popular restaurants in Western Massachusetts and the five most popular restaurants in Eastern Massachusetts. For the sake of voting, Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties will count as Western Massachusetts, while Worcester, Middlesex, Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk, Bristol, Barnstable, Plymouth, Dukes and Nantucket counties will count as Eastern Massachusetts.

Once the top 10 is decided, our fry judges will visit the finalists and rank Massachusetts' best fries.

What are you waiting for? Vote below, and check back each day to vote your favorites into the finals.
Exports of Korean confectionery has surpassed imports for the first time thanks to growing popularity especially in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Confectionery exports reached US$251.63 million in 2015, compared to $243.29 in imports, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Monday. They grew an average of 15.6 percent a year from 2011 to 2015.

Confectionery exports to Singapore alone jumped 4.2 times from $1.39 million to $5.78 million, and to Malaysia four times from $1.72 million to $6.86 million. Those to Saudi Arabia and the UAE rose 2.4 times to $5.86 million and 1.6 times to $1.96 million.

"Growing interest in Korea and its popular culture helped raise awareness of Korean confectionery," a ministry spokesman said.
Chandler's Restaurant, the award-winning restaurant at Yankee Candle Village in South Deerfield, will soon serve its last meal.

The company told employees Monday that the restaurant will be closed and replaced with an Au Bon Pain in July.

Chandler's has offered traditional American dishes for both a lunch crowd and couples seeking romantic candlelight dinners since 1995. The restaurant's last day of operation will be May 14.

"While we did not make this decision lightly, we are confident that our guests will benefit from the addition of breakfast offerings and a more casual, quick-service lunch and dinner experience that Au Bon Pain will bring to the Yankee Candle Village," said Lindsay Kaplan, a spokesperson for Yankee Candle.

An estimated 500,000 people visit Yankee Candle Village in South Deerfield each year. The decision to close Chandler's was made following a review of guest experiences.

"This transition will allow us to focus on providing the ultimate guest experience for the visitors to the Village store, one of the largest tourist destinations in Western Massachusetts," said Kaplan.

Chandler's workers will be offered transition support, including new employment opportunities within the company where possible.

The restaurant was opened 22 years ago by Michael Kittredge, the founder of Yankee Candle.
Phub Plows Converse.jpg

A branded plow. Photo courtesy Pornhub.

Bostonians dealing with snow from Winter Storm Stella can find unlikely assistance from Pornhub. The adult video website is prepared to dispatch over two dozen branded snow plow trucks in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey for free.

When reached for comment, the company said Pornhub set up an email address, phubplows@gmail.com, "for those in and around MA, NJ and NY who want to get plowed courtesy of Pornhub."

According to the company, plows have been available since Monday evening. Availability will continue throughout Tuesday.

"The team will be monitoring the email vigilantly around the clock, ensuring as many requests are met as possible," the company continued.

"Of the two dozen we've contracted, each will be going out based on request," Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said, in regard to the snow plows. "Each truck has been prepared since last night and have been plowing through Stella since early this morning."

Related Photos:
badbadnotgood.png

A screen capture from the Snoop Dogg music video "BADBADNOTGOOD" for the song "Lavender."

(YouTube image)

Rapper Snoop Dogg has found himself under fire after releasing a music video where he draws a fake gun and shoots a clown caricature of President Donald Trump.

The actor-rapper told Billboard he made "BADBADNOTGOOD," a video for his song "Lavender," because "Nobody's dealing with the real issue with this [expletive] clown as a president."

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Florida, took Dogg to task for the release.

"Snoop shouldn't have done that," Rubio told TMZ. "You know, we've had presidents assassinated before in this country, so anything like that is really something that you should be very careful about."

On social media, others were far more harsh in their comments.

If this was @POTUS44 or either Clinton @SnoopDogg would be arrested  Jeff (@JNc1225) March 14, 2017

how nice ... will the secret service be visiting soon??  Stella! (@stella_covelli) March 13, 2017

 Disgusting: Snoop Dogg's new video shows him mimicking an assassination of @POTUS ! @FBI



Please share & raise hell! #PatriotsUnited pic.twitter.com/PE0uQMmR1Z  Oaktown  Unfiltered (@hrtablaze) March 14, 2017

maybe u should smoke another one ! I hope this finishes your career or what little one you have left.  Pam (@Pam1116Pam) March 14, 2017
Foreign-invested firms see profit boost

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-03-09 11:31

Foreign-invested companies in Shanghai boosted their profitability last year and the government will open the manufacturing and service sectors wider, especially in the free trade zone, to foreign investment, officials said yesterday.



Their profits jumped 12.3 percent year on year in 2016 while revenue rose 5.5 percent, said Shang Yuying, vice chairwoman of Shanghai Commission of Commerce, citing a survey of 15,200 foreign-invested companies in the city.

Shang quoted data from Shanghai Statistics Bureau showing that profits of sizable industrial companies with foreign, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan investment increased 16 percent last year, indicating overall improvement in the profitability of foreign-invested companies.

These companies contributed two thirds of Shanghais industrial production as well as two thirds of foreign trade and a third of tax revenue.

Shanghai highly recognized the important contribution of foreign-invested companies to the citys economic and urban development, Shang said.

We are fully confident for the new year, and will pay greater efforts in building a more legalized, international and convenient business environment.

Shanghai encourages foreign investment in advanced and green manufacturing, and will allow foreign-invested companies to participate in government-led technology projects to support the citys industrial upgrading.

Shanghais free trade zone officials said measures are being studied to open wider the sectors of accounting, construction and credit rating services to foreign capital.

Foreign investors in the city will also be allowed greater freedom in the banking, securities and insurance sectors.
Big 3 countries need to pursue win-win result

From:Xinhua | 2017-03-09 11:34

Foreign Minister Wang Yi fields a reporters question at a press conference held on the sidelines of the annual session of the National Peoples Congress in Beijing yesterday.  Xinhua



China, the United States and Russia need to work with one another, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said yesterday.

In the new era, the China-US-Russia relations should not be a see-saw game. The three countries should work with, rather than against, one another and pursue win-win, rather than zero-sum, outcomes, Wang said on the sidelines of the national legislative session.

While responding to a question on tripartite relations after US President Donald Trump took office, Wang said China-Russia relations would not be affected or weakened by any external factor, as their comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination was a strategic decision reached by both sides on the basis of their fundamental interests.

We believe the three countries can develop healthy and positive relations so that jointly we can fulfill our responsibilities for world peace and development, he said.

The China-Russia relationship is as strong as it has ever been, and our mutual trust has reached a historical high.

Wang said the presidents of China and Russia would have multiple meetings this year, which would take the relations to new heights.

China and Russia will improve strategic coordination on international and regional issues and together act as a stabilizer in an otherwise turbulent world, he said.

Wang said China welcomed improvement in Russia-US relations, which was of great importance for the world.

China and the US were communicating on future exchanges between their presidents and at other levels, he said.

Beijing and Washington were having fruitful communications on realizing exchanges between their presidents and at other levels, and expanding all areas of cooperation.

He said the China-US relationship was transitioning steadily and developing in a positive direction through intense communication and joint efforts of both sides.

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart, the newly elected Donald Trump, had a very important telephone conversation, Wang said, during which they reaffirmed the importance of following the one-China principle.

They also pledged to push China-US relationship to greater heights from a new starting point, the minister said, adding that the phone call had set the direction and paved the way for bilateral relations.

As long as we act on the consensus reached between our presidents, follow the principle of no conflicts and no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, there is no reason why China and the United States cannot become excellent partners, he said.

China would also continue to support European integration, hoping to see a more stable, united and prosperous European Union, Wang said.

We believe the challenges currently confronting Europe may turn out to be an opportunity for the EU to become mature, Wang said about the EUs future after Britains decision to withdraw from it.
"They get more done by 10 a.m. Thursday morning than the others do in a week, but they dont stop working," says Mankins. "This difference compounds every year; over a decade, they can produce 30 times more than the rest, with the same number of employees."

Its a mix of organization, priorities, trust, and leadership.

BY STEPHANIE VOZZA

Full Story: https://www.fastcompany.com/3068771/work-smart/how-employees-at-apple-and-google-are-more-productive?partner=rss
Michigan should make community college free for all and give merit-based scholarships to high school graduates who attend the states public universities, says a commission formed by Gov. Rick Snyder.

The 21st Century Education Commission released a report today that calls for getting rid of grade levels and instead advancing students only once they master content.

Full Story: http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/03/10/snyder-education-panel-free-preschool/99002926/
Working to create a clean and balanced energy portfolio that will provide for a safe and reliable energy future. Learn more at http://www.NorthWesternEnergy.com/BrightFuture
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) will partner with Invest Africa to generate sustainable finance solutions for the Continent during The Africa Debate 2021. The forum, which will take place from 14-16 September, will see African business, policy and other industry leaders meet to discuss how the region can assert its priorities for a sustainable and transformative recovery as regional entities look to drive a return to global growth.

Mohan Vivekanandan, Group Executive: Origination & Coverage, DBSA will lead a discussion with leading banks, regulators, capital markets investors and others to outline how sustainable finance can generate growth in emerging markets. Whilst green finance has made significant strides in Western markets, it has been under-funded and thus under-utilised in developing countries. Redressing this imbalance is essential both to global recovery efforts and to ensuring a just transition.

If the world is to meet its climate targets and keep global heating below 2 degrees Celsius, the next decade will be critical. The adaptation and mitigation measures needed demand large upfront capital investments, which invariably poses a challenge for developing countries. Without a concerted and collaborative global effort to build replicable and scalable sustainable finance there is a danger that that regions with the greatest potential, including Africa, to leapfrog more developed markets in the transition to the green economy could be starved of capital.

As an African development bank, the DBSA continues to pioneer a path to creating sustainable finance solutions adapted to African markets. The bank launched its first green bond with support from the French development finance institution, Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) this year and also has a climate finance lending facility in partnership with the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The DBSAs leading role in The Africa Debate will forge pathways for further strategic partnerships and collaborations between development finance institutions and global financial markets to scale the use of sustainable finance in African markets.

Karen Taylor, CEO of Invest Africa, said The DBSA has a critical role to play in de-risking investment in Africa and crowding in private sector financing for sustainable infrastructure projects. The aim of The Africa Debate is to foster productive partnerships between the private and public sector as well as across borders and we look forward to taking part in the discussions led by the DBSA.

Mohan Vivekanandan, Group Executive: Origination & Coverage, DBSA commented DBSA continues to chart a leading role on the Continent, cognisant of our unique and specific contextual challenges, in the momentum towards a low carbon economy actively participating in the implementation of a just transition as evidenced by our support of sustainable investment programmes including the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) and Embedded Generation Investment Programme (EGIP) among others. Moreover, our accreditation to global partners including the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the GCF has further propelled our role in promoting and leveraging sustainable development regionally in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement.

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As Premier Li Keqiang delivered the Government Work Report during the two sessions, a survey was underway gauging Chinese peoples sense of benefit from various government measures outlined in the report.

The survey of 570,000 people, conducted by Chinas Central Television, showed that 55.3 percent of respondents anticipated that their income would grow in 2017, and 13.5 percent expected household income to go up by more than 20 percent.

The proportion of respondents that believe China will maintain high-growth in household income reached at its highest in the past five years.

Meanwhile, a higher proportion of low-income people felt a sense of benefit in 2016 than in 2014, and over half of rural respondents believed that their income will increase in 2017.

The income confidence index was high in Qinghai, Tibet and other targeted areas for poverty alleviation, according to the survey.

The post-90s generation made up the largest proportion of those who expected their income to grow by more than 20 percent, as the mass entrepreneurship and innovation initiated by the Premier last year opened up new channels for young people to realize their dreams.

Those who are considering starting their own businesses also tended to expect higher income than those without entrepreneurial intentions.

In a separate analysis based on big data, the most applauded achievements listed in the Government Work Report were the daily growth of 45,000 various types of market players, 3.8 million renovated units replacing dilapidated rural houses, and Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect.

The analysis showed that 98.7 percent of netizens appreciated the part that reviewed government work in 2016, with all 32 goals laid out in last years Government Work Report achieved.

The big data report also showed that almost everyone gave a thumbs up to the news that 45,000 new market players emerged every day, and was satisfied with the performance on infrastructure and renovation of dilapidated houses.

What impressed netizens most was the governments efforts on infrastructure, entrepreneurship and innovation, reform of delegating power, enhancing supervision and public service, and improvements on peoples lives.

In relation to the work plan outlined for this year, 97.7 percent of netizens agreed. The issues they cared most about were employment, education, healthcare, housing and services for the elderly, and increasing internet speed while cutting related fees.

Premier Li responded to these concerns and expectations when he met with the Tibetan delegation of the 12th National Peoples Congress as part of the review of the Government Work Report.

He told delegates that the objective of economic growth is to improve peoples lives, and we should let them enjoy the fruits of development.
Appel d'offres precedent REPORT DE DATE : Selection dune (01) entite chargee de mener une etude approfondie sur les obstacles a la reparation en faveur des victimes des crimes contre la paix et la securite de lHumanite
by Fern Siegel , March 14, 2017

Next month, Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper publisher, will trim the print editions of three Southern newspapers to three days a week.

The three dailies are: The Town Talk of Alexandria, Louisiana, and Hattiesburg American in Mississippi, publishing seven days a week. The Daily World in Opelousas, Louisiana, publishes six days.

Beginning April 5, all will begin publishing print editions every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Advertisers are also adjusting; the majority of their ads already appear in the Wednesday, Friday and Sunday editions.

The newspapers, part of Gannetts USA Today Network, cited their digital readerships as one important reason for print declines. The Town Talk and Hattiesburg American claim to have eight times as many digital subscribers as print readers; The Daily World reports five times as many.

advertisement advertisement

Judi Terzotis, president of both The Daily World and The Town Talk papers, wrote in the latter: Our dedication to providing trusted, local news and information to our community every day is unwavering. We will continue to report the news as it happens through our many online platforms..."

Gannett has had a roller-coaster time of late, as net income fell in 2016. The company also failed to acquire Tronc, which publishes the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, among and other newspapers.

In February, four Gannett newspapers in the Southwest Las Cruces Sun-News, El Paso Times, Carlsbad Current-Argus and Alamogordo Daily News  decided to shrink their print editions and shift coverage to digital.

Gannett isn't the first publisher to cut print editions.

In 2012, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Mobile, Ala. Press-Register cut frequency to three days per week. Both papers are owned by New York-based Advance Publications.
Using state-of-the-art genomics tools, researchers have pinpointed genes that contribute to antibiotic resistance in two global superbugs. They show how such a discovery could lead to helper drugs with the potential to restore the susceptibility of resistant bacteria to antibiotics. Share on Pinterest The research offers a new route to developing drugs to overcome antibiotic-resistant superbugs, which are becoming an increasing threat to global public health. The researchers  including some from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine in St Kitts, West Indies  report their findings in two scientific papers: one published in the journal Scientific Reports, and the other in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to global public health, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). An ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi are becoming resistant to the antimicrobial drugs or antibiotics used to prevent and treat them. As antibiotics lose effectiveness against resistant superbugs, patients undergoing surgery and cancer chemotherapy face an added risk of developing potentially severe infections. The cost of caring for patients infected with superbugs is higher than the cost of caring for patients with nonresistant infections because they require more tests, need more expensive drugs, and have lengthier stays in hospital. An international review suggested that unless we find new ways to overcome resistant superbugs, the global death toll of antimicrobial resistance will overtake that of cancer and exceed 10 million people per year by 2050. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that in the United States, antibiotic resistance is responsible for at least 2,049,442 illnesses and 23,000 deaths every year.

Research focuses on two priority 1 pathogens For their investigation, the researchers focused on two superbugs: one paper describes how they investigated the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae, and the other paper describes their work on the bacterium Escherichia coli. The WHO class both bacteria as priority 1 pathogens in their recently published list of global pathogens for which we urgently need new drugs. K. pneumoniae is a common intestinal bacteria that can give rise to serious, life-threatening infections. It is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections, including pneumonia and bloodstream infections. It can also infect newborns and patients in intensive care units. Strains of K. pneumoniae that are resistant to last resort treatment with carbapenem antibiotics have now spread to all regions of the world. In some countries, because of resistance, treatment with carbapenem antibiotics is now ineffective in around 50 percent of patients infected with this pathogen. E. coli is also a common intestinal bacteria  it is often the cause of urinary tract infections (UTIs). There are now many countries where fluoroquinolone antibiotics  drugs that are widely used to treat UTIs  are now ineffective against resistant strains of this pathogen in more than half of patients.

Identifying genes that contribute to antibiotic resistance The lead investigator of the research on both pathogens was Luca Guardabassi, a professor in veterinary and animal sciences at Copenhagen University and also director of the One Health Center for Zoonoses and Troprical Veterinary Medicine at Ross. He and his colleagues took a new approach to try and identify genes that might be important to helping the superbugs survive treatment with antibiotics. Using the latest genomics technology, they assessed the extent to which every single gene in each of the bacteria might contribute to antibiotic resistance. They identified several genes in multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of K. pneumoniae that appear to be key to its ability to survive in the presence of colistin  a last-line of defense antibiotic used to treat drug-resistant infections of the pathogen. To show that their discovery could lead to new drugs (demonstrating proof of principle), the team showed that switching off one of the genes, called dedA, completely restored susceptibility of MDR K. pneumoniae to colistin. The team also conducted similar proof-of-principle tests that showed switching off some of the resistance genes they identified in MDR strains of E. coli restored their susceptibility to beta-lactams  a class of broad-spectrum antibiotics that includes penicillin and carbapenems.
Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) occurs globally and is not a disease of the poor, according to research published in the European Journal of Heart Failure. Cases were reported from many countries for the first time.

"People have always thought PPCM was much more common and severe in Africans and that it was a disease of poverty but our study clearly shows that it's not," said lead author Professor Karen Sliwa, director of the Hatter Institute for Cardiovascular Research in Africa, Cape Town, South Africa.

The study was conducted by the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Study Group on PPCM under the EURObservational Research Programme (EORP).

PPCM is a structural heart muscle disease that occurs in women either at the end of pregnancy or up to five months after giving birth. Patients were previously healthy and then present with shortness of breath and heart failure.

In about one-third of women with PPCM the heart muscle spontaneously recovers, but about 10% die from the disease and over half have a weakened heart muscle for the rest of their lives. The baby is sometimes born smaller and earlier, and in rare cases it dies.

Research has shown that women with PPCM produce an abnormal breastfeeding hormone that leads to programmed cell death (apoptosis) and damage to the heart muscle.

There is very little known about PPCM and until recently it was assumed that it occurred predominantly in African women. This registry study was conducted to find out whether PPCM occurs in other continents. Specifically, the researchers set out to discover how the disease presents, is diagnosed, and treated in different countries.

The paper published today reports the baseline results of 411 patients from 43 countries representing all continents. Data collected included demographic characteristics, co-morbidities, treatments, type of hospital, and specialisation of the treating physician.

The researchers found cases of PPCM in all 43 countries studied. All women with PPCM presented at the same age, and with the same symptoms and heart size, despite different ethnic backgrounds and huge disparities in socioeconomic factors and access to healthcare.

"Our data shows that PPCM is truly a global disease, and irrespective of where you live, what healthcare system you have, what nutrition you have, and what education you have, you can get this disease," said Professor Sliwa.

"The disease presented quite uniformly despite occurring globally in different ethnic groups and in very different healthcare systems," she continued. "This tells us that PPCM is to some extent a biological disease and women might have a genetic predisposition, which is probably a cellular and cardiac signalling abnormality. This is not a disease with marked differences between ethnic groups."

"We were surprised to see that there is a large percentage of women from the UK, for instance, and from Germany, countries which had not reported many cases so far," added Professor Sliwa.

One month after diagnosis, 80% of the women with PPCM still had heart failure. About 7% of the women had blood clots - either a stroke, clot to the lung, or clot to the legs. "Despite good access to healthcare and good medical therapy, PPCM remains a very serious disease because many women remain in heart failure or develop blood clots," said Professor Sliwa.

"PPCM occurs in all health systems and is probably underdiagnosed in many parts of the world," she continued. "More awareness needs to be created for this disease so that women can be given timely and appropriate treatment."

The registry aims to recruit 1,000 women with PPCM and will see if there are any differences in six month outcomes between ethnic groups.
CLEVELAND

March 14, 2017

Ohio

Ohio

the United States

Pamela Davis

Case Western Reserve University

the United States

$14 million

Pamela B. Davis

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has been named the No.1 medical school in, according to the annual ranking of graduate schools released today by. The school was also again ranked among the top 25 medical schools nationally."Our continuous ranking as number one inand among the top 25 medical schools inreflects our long-term commitment to excellence in medical education and research," said, MD, PhD, dean ofSchool of Medicine and the university's senior vice president for medical affairs.The publication's analysis for the School of Medicine's ranking includes both the university track and Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine track for medical students, as well as multiple graduate programs.The rankings are based on two broad factors: 1) statistical criteria such as amount of research funding obtained by faculty members, faculty-to-student ratios and measurable qualifications of admitted students, such as Medical College Admission Test scores; and 2) peer assessments from medical school deans nationally, as well as residency program directors. The statistical and peer assessments were conducted in the fall of 2016 and early this year."We are proud that the excellence of our academic program continues to attract students who are among the finest in the nation," Davis added."Our instructional programs have long been at the forefront of medical education," said Vice Dean for Medical Education Patricia Thomas, MD, FACP. "This includes the pioneering Western Reserve 2 curriculum, which unites the disciplines of public health and medicine into a single program of study. Another hallmark here at CWRU is our interprofessional educational programs, in which medical, dental, nursing and social work students learn together and from each other. And all of our medical students must produce their own original research."In 2016, the school's total amount received for research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the primary source of support for biomedical research in, topped 2015's figure by more than"We are also very proud of the many ways that we introduce our students to the importance of community involvement, ranging from helping reduce infant mortality to quitting smoking and improving nutrition," Davis said. "It also includes providing first-year students with clinical experiences that increase their understanding of the challenges involved in delivering care to the city's low-income populations in our city and our state."In addition, Davis said, "As we enter our 175anniversary year, we're excited about our future in research, education and community engagement."

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/case-western-reserve-university-school-of-medicine-is-named-1-medical-school-in-ohio-by-us-news--world-report-300423357.html



SOURCE Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine




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The performance of previously developed retinal prostheses to help the blind regain functional vision is still severely limited, well under the visual acuity threshold of 20/200 that defines legal blindness."We want to create a new class of devices with drastically improved capabilities to help people with impaired vision," said Gabriel A. Silva, one of the senior authors of the work and professor in bioengineering and ophthalmology at UC San Diego.The new prosthesis relies on two groundbreaking technologies.One consists of arrays of silicon nanowires that simultaneously sense light and electrically stimulate the retina accordingly. The nanowires give the prosthesis higher resolution.The other breakthrough is a wireless device that can transmit power and data to the nanowires over the same wireless link at record speed and energy efficiency.In the new retinal prosthesis, there is no external vision sensor, instead the silicon nanowires mimic the retina's light-sensing cones and rods to directly stimulate retinal cells. The nanowires are bundled into a grid of electrodes, directly activated by light and powered by a single wireless electrical signal."To restore functional vision, it is critical that the neural interface matches the resolution and sensitivity of the human retina," said Gert Cauwenberghs, a professor of bioengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the paper's senior author.Power is delivered wirelessly to the implant, through an inductive powering telemetry system developed by a team led by Cauwenberghs.The device is highly energy efficient because it minimizes energy losses in wireless power and data transmission and in the stimulation process.The researchers successfully tested the device in rats with retinal degeneration.Researchers plan to further develop and translate the technology into clinical use, with the goal of restoring functional vision in patients with severe retinal degeneration."We have made rapid progress with the development of the world's first nanoengineered retinal prosthesis as a result of the unique partnership we have developed with the team at UC San Diego," said Thorogood, who is the CEO of Nanovision Biosciences.The findings are published theSource: Medindia
Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidis met today, Monday, 13 March, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the UNICEF Coordinator for Greece, Laurent Chapuis, in the presence of the President of the Hellenic National Committee for UNICEF, Sofia Tzitzikou, and the Special Secretary for Religious and Cultural Diplomacy, Dr Efstathios Lianos-Liantis.

During the course of the meeting, which was conducted in a friendly and constructive atmosphere, Mr. Chapuis briefed the Deputy Foreign Minister on the actions carried out in Greece by UNICEF, with particular emphasis on programs for the protection of the Rights of children as regards their education and psychological support.

Additionally, the President of the Hellenic National Committee for UNICEF, Sofia Tzitzikou, referred extensively to the Organizations assistance in dealing with the refugee crisis, exhibiting special concern for unaccompanied child refugees.

Mr. Amanatidis thanked Mr. Chapuis and Ms. Tzitzikou for UNICEFs invaluable assistance in the Greek governments efforts to provide relief to the refugee populations, stating that methods are being explored to further strengthen the activities of UNICEF in our country.
JOURNALIST: What resulted from the visits to Georgia and Armenia?

N. KOTZIAS: It was an important visit to the Caucasus, to two friendly countries, Georgia and Armenia. We agreed with both countries to further develop our political dialogue and the cooperation between respective ministries. We also agreed to expand our cooperation, especially on EU issues, and we agreed to offer our expertise to these countries.

JOURNALIST: Both countries are located in a geostrategic region of particular importance and with a number of problems ...

N. KOTZIAS: Yes, we considered the region's problems, we assessed the geostrategic situation, and we saw that we have a strong convergence of views and interests. We explored the potential for developing our economic cooperation, in terms of business and more generally. In particular with Armenia, we agreed to hold a business mission, late in 2017, with the aim of developing trade/business relations, because they are at a very low level.

As my interlocutors and I observed, while the emotional ties -- of history and tradition -- are very strong with these two countries, they are not reflected in our inter-state relations of recent years. Likewise, while we have a good political dialogue and frequent political meetings, our economic cooperation is not correspondingly strong.

JOURNALIST: What moves are you planning for the immediate future? What did you agree concerning the upgrading of our bilateral relations?

N. KOTZIAS: Given that there are a number of older agreements that are inactive, we agreed to create special committees that will study the legal texts of the agreements and assess which have been implemented and which have not. At the same time, we need to adopt measures for their implementation and decide which of these agreements are no longer needed because they are out of date, and what new agreements need to be concluded.

I also extended invitations to my counterparts to visit Greece, and I conveyed invitations from the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic for an exchange of visits.

JOURNALIST: Both of your counterparts stressed the strategic importance of your visit to their countries ...

N. KOTZIAS: What we agreed is that our partnership is not a simple partnership, but a strategic partnership. We agreed with Georgia and Armenia to develop types of trilateral cooperation schemes similar to those we have developed in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. We specifically discussed what other European country, apart from Greece, will participate in these trilateral cooperation schemes, and we also explored the extent to which we might create a quadrilateral cooperation scheme among these two countries and two EU countries.

JOURNALIST: What are you personal impressions from this mission?

N. KOTZIAS: I am very moved that we visited historic places, historic monuments of the two peoples. I admit that the visit to the museum of the Armenian genocide, in Yerevan, was especially moving, the documents and archival materials on exhibit were also very compelling.

I must tell you that this trip was a particular honour for me, not just in my capacity as Foreign Minister, but also in the capacity of university professor. The University of Tbilisi and the Department of Greek and Byzantine Studies organized an event at which I was the keynote speaker, and I was presented with an award by the University. In Yerevan I also delivered a lecture, to a packed hall, on issues in international politics, at the Department of International Studies, and I had the honour of being awarded an honorary doctorate, with all the commitments that entails.

JOURNALIST: How were your meetings with the spiritual leaders of the two countries?

N. KOTZIAS: We met with the Patriarch of the Orthodox Christians of Georgia and with the Armenian Catholic Patriarch. We talked about the Church's role in the current era and the importance of spirituality, and I invited them to participate in the International Conference on the protection of religious and cultural communities, which is taking place on 1 and 2 November of this year.

JOURNALIST: You attach great importance to culture as a link for political and economic cooperation. What kind of response did you get from your interlocutors?

N. KOTZIAS: Beyond religion, one feels Hellenism everywhere  ancient Hellenistic culture, Byzantium  as well as the current Greek reality in these two countries. This is why we talked with the two Foreign Ministers about the ways in which we will develop the cultural relations between the two countries. Because, as you know, I personally, along with the Foreign Ministry as a whole, put great emphasis on cultural diplomacy. This is why, at the end of April -- a month and a half from now -- we are holding the International Conference of the great ancient civilisations that continue to be relevant and influence humanity. Specifically, I am referring to these ten countries: China, India, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Bolivia and Peru. As I have agreed with my Chinese counterpart  together with whom we are inviting the others to Athens, in a joint letter  this will be an initiative also open to third countries.

I want to underscore that culture is a strong power in today's world: what we call soft power, or smart power as other schools of thought call it. But it isn't just one power, because with culture you influence and develop relations. Today, culture is an important economic power: what we call the industry of culture. So we have taken special measures on this, too, for the promotion of collaboration in the sector of culture, as in the sectors of education and research.

JOURNALIST: You have a busy schedule of meetings in the American capitol. Would you like to talk about that?

N. KOTZIAS: In Washington we have meetings with the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and other high-ranking members of the new administration. We also have a number of meetings with think tanks, with members of Congress, and interviews have also been scheduled.

JOURNALIST: What are Greece's relations with the new Trump administration?

N. KOTZIAS: I think we have firm relations with the current President's administration, and we have had a lot of meetings. I hope our relations develop further. We will talk about the region's problems and we will look at the degree to which our views and planning coincide. I also hope to be able to further promote the development of U.S.-Greek relations with other Ministers -- a vital element for our country and in our international relations.

JOURNALIST: You had already met with National Security Advisor Michael Flynn ...

N. KOTZIAS: Yes, after the Trump administration was sworn in, I met with the former National Security Advisor, Mr. Flynn. And on Tuesday, in Washington, I will meet for the first time with the new National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General Herbert Raymond McMaster.
DWIGHT TOWNSHIP  A fire of unknown origin completely destroyed a detached two-car garage and its contents Tuesday afternoon.

According to Kinde Fire Chief Jim Koroleski, firefighters were called around 12:30 p.m., to 1633 Schott Road, where the 20-by-40-foot garage was fully engulfed upon arrival. Homeowner Tim Pawloski was not home at the time, and the fire was called in by a passerby.

Destroyed in the blaze were a pickup and some equipment inside the garage. Koroleski also said some melting damage occurred to the siding and a window of the home.

Firefighters used about 6,000 gallons of water to extinguish the fire. There were no injuries.

Kinde firefighters received a full assist from the Port Austin Fire Department.
BAD AXE  A former Caro resident, currently serving time in prison for nine unrelated felonies, stood mute to one count of larceny in a building during circuit court proceedings Monday.

Scott Alan Heckroth, 48, was originally charged with larceny in a building stemming from an incident that allegedly occurred nearly five years ago. However, Huron County Prosecutor Timothy Rutkowski told the judge he would be amending the charge to home invasion-second degree as well as adding a habitual offender status.
The development came after Thiruvananthapuram Mayor Arya Rajendran, in whose name the letter is purportedly sent, denied having any knowledge of it.
U.S. Army leaders today wrestled with the challenges of equipping and supplying soldiers in what the service sees as a multi-threat battlefield of the future.

To Gen. Gustave F. Perna, the Army has grown too dependent on contractor support to sustain its combat units, a practice that has led to bad habits over the last 15 years of war.

"I personally believe we are not ready to execute a decisive action fight against a near-peer competitor," said Perna, the commanding general of Army Materiel Command, before an audience at the Association of the United States Army's Global Force Symposium and Exposition in Huntsville, Alabama.

"It's not because we don't have the great leaders and soldiers who have been trained in the last 15 years  it's because the skills we need for sustainment have atrophied."

Army leaders are keenly focused on the service's vision of Multi-Domain Battle, a picture of warfare in the not-too distant future that will challenge brigade combat teams and higher command structures across land, sea, air, space, cyber and electromagnetic domains.

"Will we be able to overcome the capability that eliminates a whole brigade while it's enroute from a [United States] installation to the next fight?" Perna asked.

"Can we project ourselves, can we receive ourselves and can we execute onward movement to the battlefield while there will be an enemy  that will do everything in their power to stop us before we get there?"

Paul Rogers, director United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, or TARDEC, said he believes that all future conflicts end up in a complex urban environment.

The enemy "will always melt back into that environment that tends to equalize our advantage, and when they do that we need to be prepared to fight and win in that environment," he said.

Four years ago, Rogers' office began using Soldier Innovation Workshops as a way to gain insight on what soldiers need in the next generation of combat vehicles.

The workshops are made up of soldiers E5 to E7 from units such as the 82nd Airborne and 1st Cavalry Division as well as the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

"We give them a challenge ... how would you develop or design the future fighting vehicle? What are that attributes you would like to see?" Rogers said. "And we pair them up with creative designers from an industrial design college that we have in Detroit.

"So the soldiers are describing the attributes of the future systems they would like to see and those college students, who are really more artists than they are technical, but they can real-time draw exactly what you are describing and by the time you get done talking, they turn the picture around and say is this what you are describing?'"

The workshops last 2.5 days and yield about 300 advanced concepts, Rogers said.

"It's really a great way for us to grab innovation from the soldier and bring it into the technology developments," he said. "Those ideas -- we are not only leveraging them in our more near-term advancements and changes to current vehicles, but we are also looking for the future vehicle systems and they are coming out of it."

One of Rogers' biggest concerns about Multi-Domain Battle is "our ability to logistically support and sustain over vast distances and over long periods of time when our logistical support can be [disrupted] by kinetic ops or cyber."

"If we want to have decentralized independent action of our combat forces, we have to figure out how to protect and assure that logistical resupply in a near-peer fight," said Rogers.

This is also a concern Perna shares.

A ship sinking or a train blowing up could result in a "whole BCTs worth of equipment could be lost," Perna said.

At Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley's direction, AMC is focused right now on making sure that "Army preposition stocks are prepared and ready to go," Perna said.

"They will not be worth our time if we do not have the right equipment on our APS set. Not only the right equipment but equipment that will work when we pull it off of the ships; equipment that works and has the right radios the right weapons, the right command structure, the right weapons so that we are ready to fight at a moment's notice."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com
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...
Joseph V. Micallef is a best-selling military history and world affairs author, and keynote speaker. Follow him on Twitter@JosephVMicallef.

On February 28, 2017, President Donald J. Trump in his first address to a joint session of Congress uttered two words that no American president has ever spoken publicly: "radical Islam." Previous presidents had opted to use the expression "war on terror." The statement was a political victory for administration hardliners like Trump advisor Steve Bannon and his protege on the National Security Council Sebastian Gorka. Is there really a difference between the two terms? Does it matter? The fact is, neither term is particularly instructive or useful.

Officially, President George W. Bush first used the expression "war on terror" on September 20, 2001, in an address to a Joint Session of Congress, following the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11. Unofficially, he made a similar remark on September 16. Ronald Reagan had made a reference to a "war on terrorism" in 1984, referring to the bombing of the U.S. Marine Corp barracks in Beirut in 1983. In 2013, the Obama Administration announced that the U.S. was no longer conducting a "war on terror," but the expression has continued to be widely used.

Terror, as many critics have pointed out, is not an ideology or a set of beliefs. It is not an organization, an institution, a government or a state against which one can wage war. Terror is a tactic. It is a form of asymmetric warfare whereby a weak player attempts to force a strong player to change their behavior by subjecting their combatants, government institutions and civilian population to random acts of violence.

The advantage of terrorism as a strategy is that it requires only a small force to carry out and is relatively inexpensive to do so. On the other hand, defending against that strategy requires a much larger force and is far more expensive. The disadvantage is that notwithstanding its manpower and cost advantages, it is hard to find a lot of examples where the strategy has ultimately proven to be effective in causing a strong power to change its behavior over the long-term.

The term "radical Islam" also has a relatively recent origin. It was first coined in January 1979, by U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) in reference to the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Initially, the term was used to specifically refer to the policies being pursued by the Khomeini government in Tehran. During the 1984 Vice-Presidential Debate between George H.W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro, Bush identified "radical Islam" as a threat to the United States. The reference, however, continued to be applied only to Iran. By the late 80s however, the term was used in the media to describe the rise of politically active groups, often ones committed to violent action, that espoused fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran.

In recent years, foreign policy hardliners have criticized the U.S. government for its unwillingness to use the term "radical Islam" as indicative of a reluctance to acknowledge the true nature of the threat to U.S. strategic interests. The implication, sometimes specifically highlighted and sometimes left unspoken, is that jihadist violence is an inherent consequence of the radicalization of Muslims and that the two cannot be separated from one another. In other words, Islamic radicalism and jihadist violence are synonymous. Both the Bush and Obama administrations opted not to use the expression for fear that U.S. actions would be interpreted as a war against Islam and the worlds Muslim community, as opposed to being limited to those groups that were perpetrating acts of terror.

The fact is that neither definition is particularly useful or instructive. What the various jihadist organizations have in common, notwithstanding the fact that they criticize each other constantly for a lack of ideological purity and adherence to scripture, is three things. First, they believe in a literal interpretation of the Koran and the accompanying Sunnah and Hadith. The Sunnah refers to the religious practices established by Mohammed himself. The Hadith refers to comments made by Mohammed that were reported by his contemporaries and passed down orally. Secondly, they want to organize political, economic and social institutions in accordance with the practices that existed during the time of Mohammed and his immediate followers in the seventh and eighth centuries. Thirdly, they want to impose their particular view on how society should be organized, by force, on both Muslims and non-Muslims.

These jihadist groups are often described as Salafists. They are a small subset of a much larger Salafist community. Salafism is an Islamic religious movement advocating a return to the practices of the salaf or "devout ancestors." The Salafist doctrine takes a fundamentalist, strict, puritanical, literal approach to Islam, based on emulating the practices of Mohammed and his first three generations of followers. The latter are called the al-salaf al-salih, "the pious forefathers."

Salafism first emerged in the Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century, and spread from there to Egypt and throughout the Muslim world. In Arabia, it gave rise to Wahhabism, a fundamentalist, ultraconservative Islamic reform movement, to which it remains closely related. Mohammad bin Saud mobilized the Wahhabi sect to conquer most of Arabia and, in 1932, create the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The dynasty he founded, the House of Saud, has continued to govern Saudi Arabia to this day. Wahhabism is the official form of Sunni Islam practiced in the Kingdom. In Egypt, Salafism inspired several anti-Colonial movements including, most notably, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Historically, Salafism has been characterized as apolitical and nonviolent. Its emphasis was on proselytizing and education. These Salafists identified jihad with the personal purification of religious beliefs and practices rather than with violent actions against nonbelievers and the enemies of Islam. Increasingly, the Salafist movement has focused on political reform and the non-violent introduction of Sharia law.

The modern form of Salafist jihadism emerged in the mid-1980s in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the organization of various Muslim groups from outside Afghanistan to resist it. Drawing inspiration from the mythology of Islamic military history, and the divinely aided victories at Yarmouk and Qadisiya, these jihadists believed that a return to religious orthodoxy would again insure Gods aid and a military victory against seemingly insurmountable odds. Arab jihadist claims that they were responsible for the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, a widely-exaggerated claim that had little substance, gave additional credence to this view.

These groups fused the belief in a literal interpretation of Islamic scriptures and the rejection of any metaphorical or allegorical interpretations with the contention that insufficiently devout Muslims, including political leaders, could be proscribed and killed and the centrality of violent action in the defense and promotion of Islam. This definition of jihad focused on direct and violent action against not only the enemies of Islam but also those branches of the Muslim faith, including Shias and Sufis, considered heretical.

Such interpretations have existed before. The Kharijites in the eighth century, a derogatory term often used to described Salafist jihadists in Arab media, espoused many of the ideas of modern jihadists, including the practice of proscribing practicing Muslims, of revolting against leaders they deemed to have sinned and on the centrality of violent action. Such groups have been a recurring feature throughout Islamic history.

Today there are approximately 60 well organized Salafist jihadist groups, with a combined strength of between 200,000 and 300,000 militants, not all of which may be active at one time. Its estimated they are actively supported by less than one percent of the Muslim community, although that still amounts to a potential support base of around 10 million Muslims. Its possible that they have sympathizers well in excess of that number, even though those supporters would be unlikely to involve themselves in violent action.

Although the vast majority of Salafists reject violent jihad, there is no question that the spread of Salafism throughout the Muslim world has made it easier to radicalize some Salafists into joining Salafist jihadist groups. Since 1975, its estimated that the Saudi government has spent over $100 billion and built over 1,500 mosques and madrassas promoting Salafism. By comparison, in its heyday, the Soviet Union spent around one billion dollars a year on its international propaganda efforts.

Its unclear how much the U.S. government spends on winning hearts and minds. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the U.S. federal agency responsible for Voice of America, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, al Hurra, (Arab language broadcasting) and various other broadcasters, is around $750 million. Not all of these programs are oriented toward the Muslim community, however. There are also other programs administered by other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, that are also involved in such efforts.

We are engaged not in a war on terror or in a struggle against radical Islam. We are engaged in a struggle against the Salafist jihadists who wants to impose their views on how society should be organized on the rest of the world. It would be better if we dropped expressions like war on terror and radical Islam in favor of identifying the enemy for who it is - the 60 or so Salafist jihadist groups around the world. That is a term and a cause that the rest of the world, including its 1.5 billion Muslims, can rally around and support.

-- If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
National K9 Veterans Day, March 13, is a day set aside to honor commemorate the service and sacrifices of American military and working dogs throughout history.

It was on March 13, 1942, that the Army began training for its new War Dog Program, also known as the "K-9 Corps," according to American Humane, marking the first time that dogs were officially a part of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The rest, as they say, is history. Officially a part of the service or not, the dogs of war span centuries and include such heroes as Sgt. Stubby, the original war dog; Chips, the most decorated dog in World War II; Lex, who retired with his fallen owners family; and Cairo, the Navy SEAL working dog on the bin Laden raid.

Related:

Today's military dogs are valued as important members of their military units and even have their own retirement ceremonies, awards and medals and memorial services.

Want to Know More About the Military?

Be sure to get the latest news about the U.S. military, as well as critical info about how to join and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox.
YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, MI - The American Center for Mobility has submitted a preliminary site plan for its autonomous and connected vehicle testing facility at Willow Run in Ypsilanti Township, just days ahead of a visit by President Donald Trump.

Trump is scheduled to meet with automotive and business leaders at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 15, at the Willow Run site in Ypsilanti Township, according to the White House. The setting of his first visit to Michigan as president will look mostly unchanged in the years since the former factory site was announced as a future site for autonomous vehicle testing.

While the site was intended as a testing facility for autonomous and connected vehicles for years, it was not until Gov. Rick Snyder announced a plan during the 2016 State of the State address that development came to fruition.

Following Snyder's address, the American Center for Mobility (ACM) was created in January 2016 and property at Willow Run was purchased from Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response (RACER) Trust for $1.2 million in November 2016 by Willow Run Arsenal of Democracy Landholdings Limited Partnership.

The partnership will lease the property to ACM, which will not produce connected and autonomous vehicles but instead provide a testing facility to be used by automotive companies for their own manufactured vehicles.

ACM is a joint initiative of the State of Michigan, including the Michigan Department of Transportation, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor SPARK and the Michigan Economic Development Corp.



It is led by CEO John Maddox, the former assistant director of the University of Michigan Mobility Transformation Center, which operates U-M's connected vehicle research facility called MCity. He was selected in March 2016.

Since then, ACM officials have been finalizing a design and going over construction details to create a vision of the autonomous and connected vehicle testing facility. It has since been named a national proving ground by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The site plan documents for phase 1 of the development are included in the March 14 packet for the Ypsilanti Township's Planning Commission, with details on what construction is taking place in 2017 and what is in store for the property up to five years from now.

Phase 1 includes a 2.5-mile test track with tests speeds up to 65 to 70 miles per hour, a testing area and limited campus improvements at 2930 Ecorse Road on the former Willow Run site in Ypsilanti Township, according to the planning commission agenda.

The Willow Run site closed in December 2010, after decades of manufacturing modes of transportation like B-24 bomber planes during World War II and GM vehicles.

The concept plan for the facility shows sections offering different traffic scenarios, such as an rural section with trees lining the street and an urban section featuring buildings, variable lighting, traffic signals and a six-lane intersection with test speeds up to 50 miles per hour.

The property would also include a tech park with buildings designed for operational and testing support and a cyber security lab, with support from AT&T.

A preliminary site plan for The American Center for Mobility's autonomous and connected vehicle testing facility in Ypsilanti Township shows plans for different traffic scenarios and environments at the former Willow Run site.

Other plans for the facility include using triple overpasses in place that make up U.S. 12 and a 700-foot curved tunnel that can also be used to simulate driving conditions and weather patterns.

The first stages of construction would include the 2.5-mile testing track construction, portions of the AMC campus, interior roadways, vehicle garages, existing building renovations and infrastructure for the site. The estimated completion date is Dec. 1.

Plans for 2018 include work on ACM headquarters building and adding more user garage facilities, like 2019-2023 would see completion of the entire facility and a Future Master Planning concept expansion.

A conceptual design plan dated February 21 shows the proposed location of The American Center for Mobility's headquarters on the former Willow Run site in Ypsilanti Township.

Most the site is covered in concrete from its previous life as parking lots and a manufacturing facility. Nearby is the Yankee Air Museum, pays homage to Willow Run's past and will also offer conference space for ACM events.

Mark Chaput, ACM's vice president of construction, discussed the preliminary site plan with planning officials at a Feb. 28 work session and said a vote regarding the site plan could happen as early as Tuesday, March 14.
LANSING, MI - An advocacy group based in Ypsilanti wants to make sure schools pay more attention to student achievement gaps under the state's new plan to comply with federal regulations.

The Michigan Department of Education is currently accepting public feedback on its plan to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act, the new federal education guidelines that replaced No Child Left Behind. New accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act will go into effect in the 2017-18 school year.

On Friday, March 10, a group of Student Advocacy Center of Michigan staff and students involved in the Ypsilanti chapter of Youth Action Michigan participated in a focus group with MDE staff and discussed some of their concerns with the state's new education plan.

"Our hope is to see improved achievement and accountability for the students who need it the most, the students too often forgotten," reads the Student Advocacy Center's comment on Michigan's ESSA plan. "We believe ESSA creates opportunities to pay special attention to the way school climate, discipline and attendance directly impact academic achievement. And we believe it is critical that schools serving low-income, high-needs students receive the state, local, and federal Title I funds they need to provide them with the additional resources and supports they require and to which they are entitled."

The Student Advocacy Center, which has been advocating for vulnerable students since 1975, would like to see Michigan shrink the size of "student subgroups" so there's more accountability for schools to address achievement gaps.

Michigan's proposed plan defines a student subgroup as at least 30 students, with the exception of English language learners, where a subgroup starts with 10 students. Achievement data is typically tracked for subgroups like English language learners, students in special education, racial minorities and students from low-income families.

The Student Advocacy Center wants the threshold set at 10 students for all subgroups.

The center cited an example of the issue from the Alliance for Excellent Education: If the threshold for a subgroup is 30 students and a school has 29 African American students, that subgroup will not exist in the school's accountability system. If a school is not required to report a potential achievement gap with that student subgroup, it cannot apply for federal resources to help address the issue.

"For instance, using 2015-2016 data, 73 percent of Michigan schools would not be held accountable for subgroup data for African-American students; 87 percent for Hispanic or Latino; 22 percent for economically disadvantaged; and 63 percent for students with disabilities," reads the Student Advocacy Center's statement. "These are the very students who need more transparency and focus, not less."

The Student Advocacy Center is pleased to see that data on student suspensions and chronic absenteeism will be included in Michigan's new School Quality Indicator accountability system. The center's comment on the ESSA plan asks that expulsion data - which has long been publicly reported - also be included in the School Quality Indicator.

"Given the extensive research on the damage such harsh school discipline exacts, it is critical that this measure be included NOW in the accountability system," states the Student Advocacy Center's feedback on the ESSA plan. "In fact, we believe school discipline data is a better measure of school quality than chronic absenteeism."

The advocacy center also requested more transparency in the MDE's methods for identifying low-performing schools.

"Parents and students of historically underserved populations must play a meaningful and critical role," the Student Advocacy Center's comment states. "We see the devastating impacts of rapid school closures and openings, and believe the focus moving forward must be on engaging those most impacted by these policies and providing sustained support and resources to improve."

The MDE's ESSA plan was released to the public on Feb. 14, and public comment will end on March 16. The draft plan can be found online, and comments can be emailed to MDE-ESSA@michigan.gov or mailed to to ESSA State Plan Comments, Michigan Department of Education, Office of the State Superintendent, P.O. Box 30008, Lansing, MI 48909
Debbie Dingell

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, speaks at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Medicare on August 11, 2015, in Ann Arbor.

(File photo | The Ann Arbor News)

YPSILANTI, MI - A Republican proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is the focus of a town hall forum taking place at Eastern Michigan University this weekend.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, local state reps and health care experts are expected to discuss what it could mean for Michigan from 4:30-6 p.m. Sunday, March 19.

Dingell said the more she learns about the proposal, which she considers rushed, the clearer it becomes it would have devastating consequences for Michigan families and those most in need of care.

"This plan will gut Medicaid, which our seniors and children rely upon, end Healthy Michigan by 2020, and charge older Americans more for care," she said.

"It is critical that our communities know the consequences of this bill, and the purpose of this town hall is to provide facts and answer questions about what this proposal means for them."

The event is free and open to the public. It will take place inside the McKenny Hall Ballroom at EMU, 878 W. Cross St., Ypsilanti.



Those wishing to attend can RSVP here.

The town hall is expected to focus on the bill's impact on the Healthy Michigan program, seniors, children and working families.

Dingell, D-Dearborn, serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which last week began consideration of the Republican bill and continued in a session that lasted more than 27 hours.

This week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated 24 million Americans would lose insurance by 2026 and 14 million would lose their coverage next year alone, while reducing federal budget deficits by hundreds of billions of dollars, under the Republican plan.

The CBO's prediction is an example of how the office is "terrible" at making such calculations, Republican Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told CNN on Tuesday, March 14.

"This is exactly what we thought the CBO would come forth with. They're terrible at counting coverage," Mulvaney told CNN.

"The CBO is assuming if you get Medicaid, once the mandate is gone, you will give up your free Medicaid and replace it with nothing. The CBO is full of errors -- not errors, they're just bad assumptions like that."

In addition to Dingell, others expected to participate in Sunday's town hall include state Reps. Adam Zemke, Donna Lasinski, Yousef Rabhi and Ronnie Peterson, all of whom are Democrats representing different parts of Washtenaw County, and Marianne Udow-Phillips, executive director of the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation at the University of Michigan. Dingell's office is expecting more participants to be added as the week goes on.
Jennifer Baross, president of the Parducci Society

Corrado Parducci's details above the door at the Skillman Branch, Detroit's Downtown Library, showing a lamp of knowledge

The fourth annual Parducci Tribute is

Thursday, March 30th

from

6 to 9 p.m

. Register for the event here

This year would mark the 117th birthday of Corrado Parducci, an architectural sculpture whose work appears in practically every major building constructed in Detroit in the 1920s. Despite being so prolific and recognized by the artistic community as a sculptor of immense talent, his name does not resonate in the same way as Albert Kahn, George Mason, or any of the other famous architects he worked for. The Parducci Society was formed in 2012 to bring greater awareness to his work and support modern day craftsmanship. On March 30, they will host their fourth annual Parducci Tribute at the Masonic Temple where Parducci got his start in Detroit. This year's will be the society's biggest event yet.Model D spoke with Jennifer Baross, president of the Parducci Society, about Parducci's significance to Detroit, characteristics of his work, and what guests can expect at the tribute.Parducci was born in Italy in 1900. He came from small village outside Pisa and emigrated here with his father when he was four years old. His father, who was a grocer, quickly found out that he couldn't raise a four year old and secure enough work to his bring family overParducci was the middle child of thirteen children. So he put him in an orphanage. Parducci had a number of highs and lows throughout his life and career.Eventually he gets reunited with his family. A schoolteacher notices his artistic talent and gets put into art education program. Both him and his brother Rudolph become sculptors. He started working for an architectural firm in New York City in his early 20s, and quickly began rivaling his employers. Around this time, Albert Kahn went to New York quite a bit for lighting and fabrics and other necessary building details. Kahn worked with Parducci's employers, Zari & Ricci, quite a bit. He started working personally with Parducci, and asked him to come to Detroit to inspect two bank buildings in the financial district.Kahn and other architects, like George Mason who designed the Masonic Temple, kept giving him work. He eventually moved the family to Detroit and worked on every major building that went up in the 1920s in Detroit and Michigan. He has pieces in Chicago, Ohio, Indiana, Los Angeles, New York, all the way to Florida. Over the course of his career, he did about 600 commissions. Which is incredible, because the Guardian counts as one commission even though he created many pieces for it. There were churches, schools, bank buildings, utility buildings. But also the Masonic Temple and the Fisher Building.There was no job too big and no detail too small for him.One of my personal favorites is the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak. Parducci did these beautiful, almost three-dimensional, bronze stations there. The figures actually stand away from the wall; it's so beautiful. I also produced a documentary about Parducci's work, and when I interviewed his son, he said the stations were his favorites, too.Parducci didn't really have a signature style, which presents a dilemma in classifying him. Scale and proportion were incredibly important to Parducci.As part of working for a firm and the training he received, he'd work on huge buildings, thousands of feet of linear structure, and it simply wasn't possible for one person to do all that work. He might work on a morning shift and someone else would do the afternoon shift, so he would start the design and the other person would finish it. It made him an expert at emulating any style, be it Art Deco or Romanesque. But he never recreated the same piece exactlyhe would always change details.For his commissions, he would have function and style inform the designs. In schools or libraries, you might see a lamp of knowledgean old oil lamp with a flame. But you'd never see the same lamp. The downtown library, for example, has a beautiful Art Deco scrolling binder. Just above that is the lamp of knowledge and a book behind it. But go to another library, and it's completely different.From research and talking with his son, he seemed to be a very modest man. He preferred his work to complete the package of a building. His goal was to make the building better, not for his sculpture to stand out on its ownalmost that his sculpture be subservient to the building.He would start off with a small mock, a three to five inch sketch, sometimes on paper or in clay. Once the architect signed off on it or agreed the design was headed in the right direction, he'd make full-size model in clay. A copy of the panel would then go to the foundry to recreate it in bronze or aluminum, or he'd find stone carver. One thing to note with Parducci: he was more of a designer and an intermediary, realizing the architect's vision and utilizing the stone carver to create the final piece. He never really carved anything in stone or wood, but rather carried out his designs in those materials.A wonderful evening at the Masonic Temple! The building was a pivotal commission for Parducci's careerhis first solo commission. When he came to Detroit, he was still working under his former employer. George Mason had completed the exterior of the temple and was working on the interior. Kahn recommended Parducci to Mason, but at first said no because Parducci was only 24 at the time. But Parducci created models demonstrating his vision for the space and won over Mason. That commission enabled him to buy out his employers.So guests will be able to see Parducci's interior work in plaster on the ceilings, and his work around light fixtures. There will be two, 45 minute tours of the temple. A string quartet will perform as well. It's moreso about having fun and mingling and enjoying Parducci up close with a drink in hand. Tickets are $55, and that includes beer, wine, and hor d'oeuvres. The goal is to generate interest in Parducci's work and craftsmanship, and celebrate modern day craftsmen carrying that torch. Any funds raised will go towards providing that type of programming and future events.
Ganesha Ecosphere | The promoter shareholding for September quarter 2019: 39.91%; December quarter 2019: 40.13%; March quarter 2020: 40.36%; and June quarter 2020: 40.37%. It's debt-to-equity for FY20 was 0.19x. In the last one-year stock price has moved up 10 percent to Rs 269.85 as on September 08, 2020.

India Ratings (Ind-Ra) has maintained a stable outlook for cotton textiles for the next financial year following steady input prices, healthy capacity utilisation and healthy domestic demand.The agency has revised its cotton outlook to stable for FY18 from negative for FY17, in view of stable input prices, healthy capacity utilisation and steady domestic demand scenario.It will emanate through fiscal incentives and implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) that will improve the industry's export competitiveness, Ind-Ra said.Favourable trade agreements with the US and Europe will also lead to a significant increase in India's exports and a higher-than-expected domestic demand would be positive for the sector, it added.The agency revised its outlook for synthetic textiles to stable for FY18 from negative for FY17.Moreover, Ind-Ra said, the US' exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership is likely to realign textile trade and investments towards the Indian subcontinent that were diverted to Vietnam over FY16-FY17.The stable cotton outlook is in view of an increase in acreage, a rise in supply in the first quarter of FY18 (due to demonetisation) and a decline in global inventory assisting with a balanced supply, Ind-Ra said.Ind-Ra expects operating profitability levels of Indian cotton ginners and exporters to moderate in FY18. Liquidity position of small players was acutely affected due to a surge in cotton prices in first half of FY17, followed by a challenging operating environment in the second half due to demonetisation, it added.The cotton acreage is estimated to increase 10-15 per cent to nearly 120 million hectares in FY18, leading to increased production, the rating agency said.Ind-Ra opined that textile companies would be able to de-leverage their balance sheets in FY18, mainly in the absence of major investments due to adequate capacities and pending uncertainty over the GST tax rates.The next round of investment cycle is expected from FY19, it added.Ind-Ra expects an improvement in the credit profiles of textile companies, including raw cotton players, driven by lower cotton inventories, limited capital investments and reduced borrowing costs.
NBCC has won a Rs 250-crore order from the Mauritius government to build the new Supreme Court building. The company has been appointed as the project management consultant.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Anoop Kumar Mittal, Chairman of the company said the approximate value of the project is USD 33 million.

He said this is not the first project in Mauritius and before this the company had worked on the Indira Gandhi cultural centre.

Companys total order book is Rs 80,000 crore and margins from international orders is same as the domestic market.

There are few more projects in the pipeline for the company in Mauritius and one of the projects is housing for government employees.

We are also planning to launch a subsidiary which will be aggressive in the international market.

The company is targeting projects which are funded by the government.

NBCC has also won a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Air India and the project will start in the next financial year.

He also added that share buyback in not on cards for NBCC.
The country's largest lender, State Bank of India, has announced a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme worth Rs 6,000 crore for tractor loans.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, SBI Managing Director Rajnish Kumar said the lender was willing to take a haircut of 40 percent on outstanding tractor loans as of September 30, 2016.

He said accounts in the category of doubtful or loss as of September 30 for loans disbursed before September 2011 will be eligible. Proposals submitted till March 31 this year will be considered.

Kumar said a circular in this regard was issued to branches in early February and that the power of the loan waiver will lie in the hands of the branch manager.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise of a loan waiver to UP farmers, Kumar said there had been no talks with the central or state governments in this regard so far. He said SBI's agricultural lending book in UP is worth Rs 12,000 crore.

Kumar said SBI adopts the OTS route from time-to-time to maximise recovery as it often produces good and quick results, and efforts were underway to make agricultural lending a viable business model. He said SBI had announced OTS schemes for SME and education loans earlier in the year.

Below is the verbatim transcript of Rajnish Kumar's interview to Latha Venkatesh, Surabhi Upadhyay & Prashant Nair:

Latha: Is there anything new that has been announced in terms of one time settlement (OTS) for agricultural loans?

A: We have announced OTS for tractor loan and time to time we do go through this route whether it is agriculture or small and medium enterprises (SME) or education loan, where we want to maximise our recovery and we feel that if we offer an OTS, it may give good quick results and they are targeted about a certain category of accounts. So that\'s the only thing we have done and as I said we had an OTS even for SME and education loans.

However, when we announce such a scheme because it is schematic - that is why the delegation of power is such that it can be settled even at our branch manager level, it is non-discretionary in nature and it is board approved, so in terms of convenience, in terms of a sanction, in terms of clarity, it is all parameter driven and these schemes are non-discretionary.

Latha: Can you give us some more details of tractor loan. When it was announced and what are the details of this one time settlement for tractor loan?

A: The accounts which are in the category of doubtful or loss asset as on September 30, 2016 and these are the loans which were disbursed before September 30, 2011. We are saying that other agri loans like Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and other term loans of the same tractor and farm loan account borrowers may also be covered with the same concession. So we are ready to take a haircut of 40 percent on the outstanding balance as on September 30, 2016. We issued the circular on February 2, 2017 to our branches, internally.

Latha: The other two - SME and education were also around February 2017?

A: The SME was sometime in December and there was a cut-off date and then we said that people can apply up to March 20 through that. Education loan was earlier than that.

Latha: The tractor loan scheme runs out on March 31?

A: This scheme - all the proposals which are received for settlement as per the scheme up to March 31, 2017, they all will be considered. So it is a limited window we have opened.

Latha: Is there anything fresh that you are planning to consider especially with respect to farm loans?

A: Nothing is special but farm loans or agriculture lending - they are doing quite a couple of things to make it a viable business model and we have a programme which we initiated about a year ago, which is called farm to fore, it's basically from produce to dining table under a tie-up with corporate. So that programme is going on.

Latha: My question was more related to the events of the past few days. We have seen an overwhelming victory for the BJP and during campaigning, several parties including the BJP had promised loan waivers. Is anything in the works in terms of extremely distressed loans?

A: We haven\'t heard anything from the government of those states. So when they announce or formulate a scheme then we will react to that at that time but our position in regard to loan waivers in any case from time to time we have been making our stance clear to Reserve Bank of India and the government.

Latha: Which is?

A: Let it first be announced and then we will react.

Surabhi: Would you have the breakup of the advances that you have under farm loans in the state of Uttar Pradesh?

A: I do not have it right now but my total portfolio of agriculture lending in the country is Rs 125,000. I don\'t have the state wise breakup but it won\'t be less than Rs 10,000-12,000 crore for sure.

Prashant: What is the value of these loans we are talking about, which fall in the doubtful category and which may be eligible especially tractor?

A: It will be about Rs 6,000 crore for tractor.

Prashant: On which you are ready to take 40 percent haircut you said?

A: As I said these were the loans granted before 2011. They all are in doubtful and loss category.

Prashant: What about SME?

A: SME was a different scheme.

Prashant: What was the scheme and what is the value there?

A: The haircut was 20 percent there.

Prashant: What is the value of those doubtful loans for SME overall?

A: I do not remember the number for SME overall but that was the scheme applicable for loans up to Rs 25 crore. So when we come out with this type of OTS the thinking is that through legal means or through other means we are finding it difficult to recover these loans and OTS sometimes gives us a better recovery and the purpose of formulating the scheme as I said the key element is non-discretionary, it is parameter driven, it\'s a tick box approach. If our branch manager would tick all the tick boxes then at his level he can approve the scheme, so the delegation of power is right up to the BM level.

Surabhi: To understand - historically what the precedence has been, your exposure for instance the state of UP, Rs 10,000-12,000 crore. Is the haircut on some of these loans which have already gone bad, would it be as much as 40 percent? Is it really a haircut or what do you expect the state or the central government to make good. How does it work?

A: In all the past loan waivers which happened either under the central government scheme or we saw in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. So from the bank's perspective you get the money and yous quality of portfolio improves, but what it does is in our view it vitiates the repayment culture - that is the negative aspect or which from the bank's perspective, if the government pays you and your recovery improves temporarily for that particular loan, so you are not worse-off but what it does is it gives hope to people that every time when there will be election, there will be a loan waiver and that is something which needs to be consider by all while announcing loan waiver but per se we are not against helping the poor people or the poor farmers, but the loan waiver is the negative dimension which we raised at the time of Andhra and Telangana elections also. We presented to RBI but ultimately it's a government decision.

Latha: So no at the moment loan waiver discussions with any government or the central government?

A: Not at all.
Arunabh Kumar: YouTube content channel The Viral Fever (TVF) was in the news in 2017, not for its videos. Founder Arunabh Kumar was accused of sexual harassment and had to resign as CEO of the company. (Image: Twitter)

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Three years ago, a 36-year old woman accused her superior at a newspaper of sexual misconduct. He would not only allegedly make sexually coloured remarks, but also insist that she accompany him to his hotel room during field work. She was sacked and hasnt found a job since.

Women victims of sexual harassment often choose to remain anonymous because their job prospects take a hit once they formally lodge a complaint. While such cases are treated with utmost sensitivity in companies, biases do creep in at the time of changing jobs.

Saundarya Rajesh, Founder, President at AVTAR Group, which specialises in diversity at the workplace, said: There is a lot of headache around women filing a case, be it going to the internal complaints committee [ICC], having to appear before it and being the subject of further biases in the current organisation.

Often, the current employer does not wish to get involved especially if the complaint was not properly resolved or if there was excessive publicity about a particular case. Rajesh said that biases do enter the picture when a woman has filed a complaint in the previous company. She added, however, that the increase in sensitisation has resulted in some changes.

The top listed companies on the Indian stock exchanges are much more careful and have zero tolerance towards sexual harassment at the workplace. Smaller companies, during the background verification process, also look at whether the particular candidate had lodged any sexual harassment complaint in the previous company.

Though they would not explicitly state that they will not hire such candidates, the unsaid rule in several companies in India is to exclude such candidates for many senior posts, said the chief executive of a global background verification company.

According to Indian laws, sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour such as physical contact and advances, request for sexual favours, showing pornography or any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature.

As per the guidelines of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, any organisation/branch of a company having at least 10 employees at a particular location is required to have an Internal Complaints Committee in place to look into grievances related to sexual harassment. Companies are even required to report them in their annual report and details related to closure of the case.

Human resource experts feel that victims should steer clear of companies which are not sensitive enough. Rituparna Chakraborty, Executive Vice President of TeamLease Services, explained that it is the perpetrator of crime and not the victim who should be subject to discrimination for any future employment.

If a false case has been filed, then of course there will be anti-selection. However, if the incident was genuine, there is no reason why she should be subject to a bias, she said.

HR consultants also recall cases where the ICC has not given out a clear cut decision for or against the accused. Such victims will have to wait till a full closure is received before they apply for another job.

In one case, a woman at an Indian conglomerate had complained about her boss making sexually coloured remarks. However, the case has not yet achieved closure and the complainant has moved abroad to seek better job prospects.

If the company finds the woman to be co-perpetrator in a case, be it flirting with the male perpetrator or giving inappropriate signals to his advances, she may also be charged. Hiring experts said that this makes any chance of employment bleak for the woman though she may not have intentionally been involved.

Once a formal complaint is filed, it does not take time to spread to other companies," said a headhunter in Delhi. "It is indeed a challenge both for the concerned woman and hiring consultants to help them find a job. Companies are unwilling to get involved in controversies by hiring someone who has filed a case or has accused someone of improper behaviour.
OPEC

When OPEC reached a deal last year to cut oil output, the decision to exclude Nigeria and Libya from the restrictions was seen as a risk to the group's efforts to curb a global crude glut.An oil price rally has already stumbled since the deal, but Nigeria and Libya are not to blame. Output from both nations has slipped since December and violence in the two African states makes their ambitions to hike production look optimistic."The success of these cuts, debatable as they may be, will not hinge on Nigeria and Libya," said ING analyst Hamza Khan.OPEC members and non-OPEC producers agreed to cut output by 1.8 million bpd for six months from Jan. 1. OPEC has broadly cut the amount pledged, while others have not delivered in full.After rallying above USD 58 a barrel in January, Brent has now slipped to around USD 51, under pressure from bulging US inventories and rising US shale production.Since the OPEC deal, Libyan production has dipped to 615,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 630,000 bpd in December, as militias battle to control export sites in the east of the country. Libya was producing 1.6 million bpd in 2011.In Nigeria, militant attacks in the oil-producing Niger Delta have hobbled output, forcing the closure of the Trans Forcados Pipeline for all but a few weeks since February. Maintenance on the Shell-operated Bonga field has also weighed.Nigerian output in March is now expected to be about 1.43 million bpd, down from 1.54 million bpd in December, after February's brief rise to 1.65 million bpd. Nigeria is chasing a target of 2.2 million bpd, last achieved in 2012, according to Reuters calculations.Morgan Stanley forecasts Libyan production could rise to 900,000 bpd in the second half of 2017, while Nigeria could produce 1.6 million bpd in the same time frame. But the US bank says unrest could undermine both those targets."It is possible that unplanned disruptions increase further," Morgan Stanley said in a March 10 research note.Libya's prospects look particularly unpredictable. Since Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011, the North African nation has fractured as militias battle for power."With three rival governments, extremely weak state institutions, and an abundance of armed actors, Libya is anything but a stable and reliable producer," Royal Bank of Canada analysts wrote in a note.In Nigeria, industry sources have told Reuters that repairs are nearing completion on the Trans Forcados Pipeline, which could swiftly add 250,000 bpd to output.But attacks have repeatedly put the pipeline out of action and could do so again if peace talks with militants seeking a bigger share of oil revenues fail.Even if Nigeria and Libya deliver on production goals -adding a combined 550,000 bpd, based on the most optimistic forecasts - it will still pale compared to the challenge OPEC faces from US shale oil producers, who are adding capacity.Buoyed by the price revival since OPEC agreed cuts, US shale firms are expected to add 79,000 bpd of extra production in March alone, reaching total output of 4.87 million bpd.Meanwhile, rising US inventories are overshadowing OPEC's efforts, with the US Energy Information Administration reporting a rise in the week to March 3 of 8.2 million barrels to a record 528.4 million barrels."Storage numbers out of the United States, that's what would be keeping the bulls up at night," said ING analyst Khan.
usa-homes-houses-slide_300_15250850

Neeraj Gupta

Home is your haven and the most precious possession, full of memories and comfort. Everybody does their bit in order to secure their fortress. We may have installed sophisticated locks, electronic alarms, fire extinguishers, carried out a thorough police verification of the domestic help and done our best to protect your dwelling. However, we all know that despite the best security protection measures, the risk of thefts and damages due to natural disasters can never be completely eliminated. Natural calamities have the power to completely destroy our home and in some cases, you wont be able to rebuild the house due to limited financial resources.

According to UN report 2015, India faces a loss of 10 billion USD every year due to natural disasters. In 1999, a cyclone alone destroyed around 275,000 houses in Odisha. The 2004 Tsunami caused by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused the destruction of around 141,000 houses in our country. Apart from natural disasters, man-made disasters such as fall of the building due to architectural flaws or fire due to short circuit pose an equal threat to your house. If you are thinking about measures that you can take to protect your haven, a home insurance policy would be the best way to cover such risks. Following are a few reasons to buy a home insurance today, because disasters come without knocking.

PROTECTS YOUR INVESTMENT

Home is the most expensive, once in a lifetime investment you make for your familys comfort. Home Insurance comes in two different packages: Structure Insurance and Content Insurance. But you can also choose a comprehensive plan, which includes both types of insurance. In the case of any unfortunate event, a home insurance offers an assured lump sum amount with which you can rebuild (or renovate) your house as beautiful as it was before the disaster. Sum assured is a multiple of space and construction cost in the locality. For example, if you are living in a 1000 sq. ft home in Gurgaon where the cost of construction per sq. ft is 2000 rupees, then the amount of sum insured you will get is Rs.20,00,000 to rebuild your home.

STRESS-FREE HOLIDAYS

There is no denying that whenever we are traveling, a constant stress sustains in our head thinking about the safety of the house from burglary or fire. Especially when we are aware of the fact that there were more than 1 lakh burglary cases in India during the year 2015. A home insurance eliminates this stress by insuring your house even when no one is there at your house for a longer period of time. However, this period is limited and varies from 30 days to 60 days as per your insurance plan. So, now you can enjoy holidays with your family without stressing over the safety of your home.

INSURES YOUR BASIC ESSENTIALS

Content insurance, which is a part of your home insurance, will secure your beloved essentials like cutlery, cupboards, electrical appliances, electronic gadgets, furniture and even your clothes. However, the sum assured here represents the replacement value. For example, if a thief broke into your house and stole your TV, then the benefit given to you will be the value of the insured item of the same kind and same capacity.

TAKES CARE OF YOUR ART WORK

Having precious artwork at your home always creates a tension, you are always worried that someone may steal your precious paintings and to get rid of it you install a burglary alarm or hire a security guard. Instead, you can take a cover for your precious artwork; the sum-assured is agreed during the signing of the policy.

SECURES YOUR MORTGAGE

Collateral loans are very common in India and if you have taken loans from the bank keeping your house as security, a disaster will not only destroy your house but it will also put you at the doors of bankruptcy if you are not having enough savings. Your home insurance will work as watchmen to your financial stability and will help you rebuild your house and keep you away from a total financial breakdown.

A natural disaster can devastate your home and reconstruction of a house is not an easy task, not only because it will cost you a fortune but it takes a lot of time as well. No one can stop a disaster from happening but you can always protect your home from the consequences caused by disasters. Stay insured, stay protected!
Ajay Singh-led low-cost carrier SpiceJet will shortly foray into Indias highly competitive retail space with plans to set up a string of physical stores, online e-tail gateways, and in flight merchandise, selling a range of consumer goods from fashion products, gadgets and electronic items to, eventually, food.

The company will sell its own brand of products sourced from hundreds of vendors across the country and overseas, top sources, who did not wish to be identified, told Moneycontrol.

A special line of brands have been created for each product category under the umbrella Spice brand, which the company is currently finalising.

A separate subsidiary of airlines holding company is being created for the retail venture, which will be run by a completely different team maintaining arms length distance with the airlines operations, sources indicated.

A formal announcement on the retail venture is expected within a month.

A company spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

The physical stores, which will initially come up in airports, will be completely owned and run by the company, selling hundreds of products under the single umbrella brand.

The online stores will function on e-tail principles, where the company will hawk products directly to consumers through a dedicated portal.

The airlines retail venture will not be an aggregator like Flipkart, Amazon or Snapdeal, where third-party sellers sell directly to shoppers through online portals.

For instance, while customers can choose from different television brands through Flipkart, Amazon or Snapdeal, the airlines online retail store will offer its own brand of televisions across multiple price ranges. This model will apply for all its products.

This will bring it in direct competition, not only with the online retail aggregators, but also with all major retail brands and direct selling companies, the source said.

Under current norms, India doesnt allow FDI in retail e-commerce but allows it in market places. Several Indian companies such as Flipkart have moved to a marketplace model to avoid flouting norms.

Singh, who oversaw the BJPs high-octane 2014 Lok Sabha campaign and is credited with coining the now- famous slogan Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar, co-founded Spicejet in 2005, sold it and later bought it back from the Maran family two years ago and quickly turned it back to profits.

The airline was on the verge of shutting down in 2015, cancelling thousands of flights, defaulting on payments to oil firms, airports, vendors and lessors.

SpiceJets retail foray comes at a time when the government is examining plans to allow limited sale of beauty and personal care products in global giants food retail outlets as part of plans to ease rules for multinationals to open stores in the country.

Inter-ministerial consultations are currently on for writing the new rules to partially open up the non-food sector to transnational deep-discount retailers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a final view on the matter and a decision is expected after the second part of Parliaments Budget session ends in March.

Indias retail market is expected to nearly double to USD 1 trillion by 2020 from USD 600 billion in 2015, driven by income growth, urbanisation and attitudinal shifts. While the overall retail market is expected to grow at 12 percent per annum, modern trade would expand twice as fast at 20 percent per annum and traditional trade at 10 percent, according to a report Retail 2020: Retrospect, Reinvent, Rewrite by The Boston Consulting Group and Retailers Association of India.

According to India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), a government-backed research body and think-tank, India is expected to become the worlds fastest growing e-commerce market, with sales expected to reach USD 120 billion by 2020 from USD 30 billion in 2015-16.
After Bangalore-based MuSigma, its the turn of Gurgaon based Shopclues, another unicorn founded by a husband-wife cofounder duo which seems to be headed for a legal battle.

Shopclues co-founder and former CEO Sandeep Aggarwal has levied charges against his wife Radhika Ghai and current CEO Sanjay Sethi of illegally ousting him from the company and changing the voting rights while he was away in the US.

The husband-wife spat last week went public when Sandeep accused wife Radhika and current CEO Sanjay in a series of Facebook posts.

When people start calling themselves co-founders and start telling lies about the formation of a company, its history, its vision, and main brain behind it, those people prove themselves how non entrepreneurs they are in their demeanor. These people have no substance and in this lifetime they can never be entrepreneur. They are just glorified employees similar to many MNCs have, Sandeep mentioned in an outburst in a Facebook post.

He also accused both Sethi and Ghai of intentionally and deliberately kicking out other founding members.

Shopclues did not respond to an email by Moneycontrol on the matter. However a media statement issued by Radhika Ghai Aggarwal said, "I am shocked by unfounded and baseless allegations being made. In the interest of privacy of my family, I will not be commenting on any personal matters.

Shopclues has so far raised about USD 231 million from investors such as sovereign wealth fund GIC, Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners.

Sandeep Aggarwal co-founded Shopclues along with Radhika Aggarwal and former ebay senior director Sanjay Sethi in 2011.

Sandeep stepped down as Shopclues CEO in October 2013 after he was asked to cooperate with US authorities in an insider trading case of listed US corporations. He spent almost 13 months in the US.

In April 2014 he founded Droom which has raised close to USD 45.7 million from investors such as Digital Garage, Beenos, Lightbox and Beenext.

Last year data analytics company, Bangalore based MuSigma, was in the news when its founder couple filed for a divorce. Dhiraj Rajaram co-founder of Mu Sigma and his wife Ambiga, who was the companys CEO filed for divorce, the startup ecosystem was abuzz about couples starting companies together.
Sandeep Aggarwal, co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of online marketplace ShopClues, said on Tuesday that he regretted using social media to vent against wife Radhika Ghai and current CEO Sanjay Sethi over his ouster from the Gurgaon-headquartered firm.

In a series of Facebook posts, Aggarwal had accused the duo of illegally ousting him from the company and changing the voting rights while he was away in the US. He also accused them intentionally and deliberately kicking out other founding members.

In a statement to Moneycontrol, Aggarwal, currently CEO of online marketplace Droom, said that in ShopClues he had lost the love of his life.

While he [Aggarwal] stands by each and every word, he regrets having used the social media to express such an emotional outburst, a statement by his media team said.

Meanwhile, Aggarwal has also filed a defamation case against his wife and Sethi in a Delhi court.

Till date, Sandeep remains the largest individual shareholder of the company and the majority holder of the company's common shares, the statement added.

ShopClues declined to comment. However, an earlier media statement issued by Radhika said, "I am shocked by unfounded and baseless allegations being made. In the interest of privacy of my family, I will not be commenting on any personal matters.

According to Aggarwal, the problems arose when in October 2016 he came to know that ShopClues changed his right to nominate a board member way back in April 2014, during its Series C round. I was kept in the dark by Radhika, Sanjay Sethi, and the ShopClues board for nearly two and half years, Aggarwal claimed in the statement.

Legal experts claim that in case any one shareholder owns more than 26 percent, he or she has the potential to block board resolutions.

Investors are generally very wary to invest in teams where any kind of family relationship exists," said a private equity investor on condition of anonymity. "In cases where an aggrieved shareholder owns more than a majority, it will become the job of the existing investors to support the company as new investors may be wary to enter,

Aggarwal co-founded ShopClues along with his wife and Sethi, a former senior director at eBay, in 2011.

He stepped down as CEO in October 2013 after he was asked to cooperate with US authorities in an insider trading case of listed US corporations.

ShopClues has so far raised about USD 231 million from investors such as sovereign wealth fund GIC, Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners.
Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com told CNBC-TV18, "Todays day trade may or may not work out because we are at elevated levels. However, stocks, if you carry them for a few days, should be rewarding."

"I think the entire FMCG pack is now ripe and ready for a big move. Asian Paints after that big decline, has been consolidating, it is a buying opportunity, and so is LIC Housing Finance . All NBFCs will do well. They are an outperforming sector and that should continue."
A labourer, wearing an improvised protective mask, welds steel bars at a residential construction site in Quzhou, Zhejiang province April 3, 2014. Chinese steel and iron ore futures edged higher on Thursday, spurred by Beijing's move to hasten construction of railway lines to support a slowing economy, although gains were capped since the boost to steel demand is likely to be limited. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA - Tags: BUSINESS COMMODITIES SOCIETY CONSTRUCTION) CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA - RTR3JQYS

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Shares of NBCC advanced 4.6 percent intraday Tuesday as it has received Rs 250 crore order from Mauritius government.

The company has signed agreement with the State of Mauritius (Government of Mauritius) and Landscope for construction of new Supreme Court building on PMC basis in Mauritius.

The approximate value of the project is USD 35 million (Rs 250 crore) having completion period of 24 months.

The share has given return of 41 percent in last one year.

At 09:44 hrs NBCC (India) was quoting at Rs 174, up Rs 3.60, or 2.11 percent on the BSE.
Arunabh Kumar: YouTube content channel The Viral Fever (TVF) was in the news in 2017, not for its videos. Founder Arunabh Kumar was accused of sexual harassment and had to resign as CEO of the company. (Image: Twitter)

Moneycontrol News

The founder of Indias most successful online video content startup The Viral Fever has been accused of sexual harassment and making inappropriate remarks and advances by multiple women on social media this week.

The Mumbai-based startup, funded by Tiger Global Management with USD 10 million, has produced multiple hit shows such as TVF Pitchers, Permanent Roommates and TVF Tripling in the seven years of its existence. The company's mobile app TVFPlay boasts of over a million downloads.

The founder and IIT-Kharagpur alumnus Arunabh Kumar has been accused by multiple women, including past employees and a batchmate, of sexual harassment.

The incidents came to light last week when one of the victims published her experience working with Kumar in this blog.

Right from Pitchers to Tripling, I was molested. Be it in parties where Arunabh would try to lift me or would try and fall on me pretending he is drunk, the alleged victim, who wrote using the moniker Indian Fowler, said in a blog.

I just need my life back. I dont think these guys would let me have one. The constant reminders from their legal on my obligations tells me that I am being tracked, she added.

Another former TVF employee came out in the open against Kumar.

After every other shot, he would come over to the monitor to see how the shot looks, but at the same time graze his hand against my waist. All this in a 5-hour shoot. I can only imagine what other victims must have gone through for 2 years!, the former TVF employee wrote.

Even his IIT-batchmates came out in the open with Facebook posts on the matter.

An IIT-KGP batchmate of Kumar's and a former PwC employee said that on a casual meeting, her former batchmate asked her to accompany him to his place and do a dance for him.

He is a big man now. With lot of money and fame. I am not sharing this to put a blot on his fame but because I want women of India to be careful, she said in a post.

Another woman, who is a founder at Casting Mafiya also shared a similar experience on social media and posted this:

TVFs high pitched denial

When asked to respond on the matter, a TVF spokesperson did not reply to a Moneycontrol email query. Its officials and major actors and directors came out in support.

TVF put out a statement on Medium published last week, a note that was slammed by some users online for the way it shrugged off allegations -- without promising to look into them -- and its part threatening tone.

The article is completely ludicrous and defamatory against TVF and its team. All the allegations made against TVF and its team in the article are categorically false, baseless and unverified. We take a lot of pride in our team and in making TVF a safe workplace that is equally comfortable for women and men. We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice for making such false allegations."
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she will be seeking the Parliament's permission to hold a referendum on Scotland's independence from the UK, a move described as "divisive" by Downing Street.

Sturgeon wants this referendum to be held between the second half of 2018 and first half of 2019 for Scotland to be able to have a say over its relationship with the European Union (EU) post-Brexit.

If it gets parliamentary approval, this will be the second such Scottish independence referendum after 2014, when the region had voted to remain part of the UK.

"I will take the steps necessary now to make sure that Scotland will have a choice at the end of this process. A choice of whether to follow the UK to a hard Brexit, or to become an independent country able to secure a real partnership of equals with the rest of the UK and our own relationship with Europe," Sturgeon said from her official Bute House residence in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.

A UK government spokesperson said British Prime Minister Theresa May has already set out future plans that take into account the "interests of all of the nations of the UK".

"Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time," he said, adding that the government had been working closely with all the devolved administrations.

"Only a little over two years ago people in Scotland voted decisively to remain part of our UK in a referendum which the Scottish government defined as a 'once in a generation' vote. The evidence clearly shows that a majority of people in Scotland do not want a second independence referendum," he noted.

However, Sturgeon said the second referendum had become necessary because of the UK government's failure to fully take Scotland
Supporters of Indias Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrate after learning of the initial poll results outside the party headquarters in New Delhi, India, March 11, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi - RTX30K45

The BJPs resounding victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections is the result of a mix of carefully crafted campaign and electoral management strategy spread over a year, involving organisational restructuring, youth mobilisation, farmers outreach and effective use of state-of-the-art technology through traditional and new media.

Moneycontrol collated inputs from top BJP sources on details of what went behind the strategy and planning of one of independent Indias biggest electoral success stories.

Heres a sneak peek:

ORGANISATIONAL STRENGTHENING

Membership: Around 1.80 crore people were given primary BJP membership in Uttar Pradesh in the last one year. Of these, the partys database contains name, address and booths of 1.13 lakh members.

Active members: In the last one year, 67,605 active members have been registered in Uttar Pradesh, which is twice the number of the previous years.

Training: Two state-level and six sub-state level Training of the trainers workshops were organised. Subsequently, the trainers trained 75,428 workers at the mandal level and 13,676 workers at the district level.

Reconstituting Mandals: Mandals were set up for 100-125 booths

Booth planning: Booth committees were created in all 1,47,401 booths in the state. Each committee had 10-21 members. A total of 13.50 lakh booth-level workers were appointed. BJP President Amit Shah addressed six regional conventions of all the booth committees.

Lifetime support: This state collected Rs 16,91,72,315 as individual contribution to the party

CAMPAIGN COMMUNICATION

The election campaign in Uttar Pradesh was anchored around three main points: Uttar Pradeshs dismal administration, the Modi governments accomplishments and the BJPs People Welfare Pledge (Sankalp Patra).

Print and electronic media advertisements: Advertisements were issued in all newspapers, publications and television channels that publish or operate in the state. Party President Amit Shah himself sat down with the ad agencies on creatives to buttress the broader political message.

Video vans: A video van was operated in each of the 403 Assembly constituencies. As many as 58,809 small events were organised through these vans in which 46,08,674 people participated. In addition, 11 virtual reality vans were run in the cities.

Kamal Melas: Over a six-month period, 34 Kamal Melas were organised . Each of these melas established contact with an estimated 60,000 people, implying that BJPs message reached an estimated 20.4 lakh people through these melas.

Motorcycle rallies: As many as 1,649 motorcycle-mounted youth workers reached 76,000 villages, connecting 64,57,486 youth through 2,80,267 meetings.

Roadside (nukkad) meetings: Fifteen street play teams panned out to all the Assembly constituencies carrying the BJPs message through 8,574 plays.

Social media: The BJPs in-house social media team crafted a comprehensive social media strategy. IT centres were set up in all the district headquarters. Specially designed workshops trained 5,031 workers on various IT and social media tools.

WhatsApp: The party used WhatsApp effectively, reaching out to 15 lakh people through 10,344 Whatsapp groups.

#BJP4UP TWITTER HANDLE: BJP4UP had following of 40,000, which evolved into a major communication vehicle during the campaign. The party also had four Facebook pages through which it reached out to 40 lakh people.

OUTREACH

Parivartan yatras: Parivartan Yatras, which began from four different corners of the state, travelled through all the 75 districts of the state, 403 Assembly constituencies, covering a total distance of 8,138 km. As many 233 small and large public meetings and 2,537 welcome meetings took place during the course of these Yatras, in which more than 50 lakh people took part. The Yatras culminated in a big public meeting in Lucknow addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Youth conferences: As many as 88 youth conferences were organised in all the districts of the state, in which 4,65,493 youth participated.

Women's conferences: As many as 77 womens conferences were organised in all the districts of the state, in which 2,50,660 women took part.

Backward castes/class conferences: As many as 200 conferences for people of the backward communities were organised in all the districts of the state, in which 8,39,100 representatives from these communities participated.

Swabhiman conferences: Eighteen conferences were organised across the state for people belonging the scheduled castes in all the districts of the state, in which 54,300 representatives from these communities participated.

Traders' conferences: To reach out to the trading community, traders conferences were organised in 14 mandals, in which 11,850 representatives participated.

UP's Mann ki Baat: UPs version Mann ki Baat was carried out through 75 Video Raths, accumulating inputs directly from nearly 40 lakh people (39,03,057).

Youth town hall: BJP President Amit Shah established contact directly with 74,200 youth through 156 video conferences, understanding their problems, responding to their questions and communicating BJPs development-oriented agenda.

Maha farmers' outreach: Maha Kisan Abhiyans were organised in two stages in Uttar Pradesh. In the first stage, direct contact was established with 2,30,669 farmers through 3,564 meetings.

In the second stage, "Maati Tilak Pratigya Rallies were organised in all the 75 districts. As many as 1.34 lakh farmers brought symbolic land from their respective fields that BJP leaders smeared on their foreheads as Tilak pledging to fulfil their aspirations and demands.
A worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rides his bicycle past the party's campaign billboard featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi outside their party headquarters in New Delhi, India, February 10, 2015. The billboard reads: "One India, Best India". To match Insight INDIA-MODI/ REUTERS/Anindito Mukherjee/File Photo - RTX2E3HK

Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla on Tuesday justified her decision to invite the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government in the north-eastern state by stating that the party has the requisite numbers.

"BJP has the requisite numbers. They are more than 30. It will be helpful for Manipur," said Heptulla.

As per reports, BJP's Nongthombam Biren Singh will be sworn in as Chief Minister along with his cabinet at 1 pm on Wednesday.

On Congress's contention that she should have first invited the party to form the government since it emerged as the single largest party after the state Assembly election, Heptulla told reporters, "I do not know what allegations they are making. I am a straight-forward person. I go by the book. I know the rules and regulations."

On being asked about the objections raised by the Congress, she said, "Ruling of Supreme Court says it's the responsibility of Governor is to see who has majority and will work for state's stability."

Clarifying her position on the matter further, the Governor said, "My 37 years in Parliament and 17 years in the Chair (as Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman)... when I was a member of the Congress party, I had to work with non-Congress governments, including Janata government, BJP and many others."

On being quizzed regarding the number of ministers who will take oath on Wednesday, Heptulla said, "The list will come to me."

Earlier, Four Naga People's Front (NPF) MLAs met Heptulla and extended their support to the BJP for formation of the new government in the state.

Heptulla on Monday had asked incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to submit his resignation immediately, so that the process of formation of the next government can be started.

The Congress had won 28 seats in Manipur, followed by the BJP at 21. The NPP and the NPF won four seats each, while the LJP and the Trinamool Congress bagged one seat each.
Goa CM Manohar Parrikar

Bharatiya Janata Party's Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday took oath as Chief Minister of Goa for the fourth time ahead of a trust vote in the state Assembly on March 16 where he will have to prove his majority.

After resigning as Union Defence Minister, Parrikar had on Monday met Governor Mridula Sinha and claimed the the support of 21 MLAs in the 40-member House, including 13 of his own party, three of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, three of the Goa Forward Party and two Independent legislators.

The Governor subsequently invited Parrikar to form the government. However, the Congress had objected to this as it had emerged the single largest party with 17 MLAs but fell short of a majority.

The party moved the Supreme Court challenging Goa Governor Sinha's decision, with Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi accusing the BJP of "stealing the mandate".

On Tuesday, the top court refused to stay Parrikar's swearing-in ceremony and ordered a floor test on Thursday.

Parrikar, 61, an engineer from IIT-Bombay, led the BJP to victory in 2012. He was made the Defence Minister at the Centre in 2014 and was succeeded by Laxmikant Parsekar as Goa Chief Minister.

However, Parsekar was defeated in Mandrem constituency this time and several of his ministers also failed to win.

Parrikar, who graduated to the BJP from the RSS ranks, had also served as Chief Minister of the state from 2000 to 2002 and from 2002 to 2005.

Right from the start of the campaign this time, Parrikar was widely seen as a chief ministerial candidate and extensively campaigned for the party in his home state.

(With inputs from PTI)
Goa CM Manohar Parrikar

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was appointed the Goa Chief Minister late on Sunday and will take oath at 5 pm on Tuesday. He has to prove majority on floor of the House within 15 days of taking oath. Parrikar, who resigned from the Union Cabinet at noon on Monday, will be sworn-in with 10 ministers.

"Governor Mridula Sinha has appointed Manohar Parrikar, the Leader of the Goa BJP legislature party, as the chief minister of Goa," Rupesh Kumar Thakur, Secretary to Governor said in a press release.

The Governor has asked Parrikar to prove majority in the Legislative Assembly session within 15 days after administration of oath of office, the note said.

Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said: The BJP is stealing elections in Goa and Manipur. A party that comes second has no right to form the government.

Earlier on Sunday, enlisting the support of two Independents, three members each of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), and a lone NCP member to cobble up the rainbow coalition, the BJP members led by Parrikar called on the Governor to formally stake claim, a day after the fractured verdict in state elections.

The strength of the coalition stands exactly at 21, the majority mark.

Addressing the media on Sunday evening, Union minister and BJPs Goa election in-charge Nitin Gadkari said, "I explained to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah that deputing Parrikar back to Goa is in the interest of welfare of the state and stability of government that would be formed." He said the decision to move Parrikar to Goa has also been endorsed by the BJP Parliamentary Board.

BJP sources said Shah had requested Gadkari to travel to Goa to hold talks on government formation. Sources said Gadkari reached at midnight and held talks with Independent MLAs till 3am on Sunday. He spoke to Modi and Shah in the morning and they gave a go-ahead for Parrikar to return to Goa.

Speaking after Gadkari, Parrikar had said, "though the BJP fell short of the numbers required to form government, with the help of alliance partners, the magical figure of 21 seats is achieved. I promise that we will give stable government which will work towards the development of the state."

"I have already staked the claim to form government and I am expecting invitation from the Governor any time," he had said.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP (13), MGP (3), GFP (3), NCP (1) and Independents (3).

On Sunday morning, the newly elected BJP MLAs passed a resolution urging party chief Amit Shah to nominate Parrikar as the leader of the legislature party.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday hand-picked Scott Gottlieb to lead US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA)  the regulatory agency that approves every food and drug products marketed in America.

The appointment is still to be confirmed by the US Senate.

Gottlieb, 44, served in several senior positions at the US FDA during the George W Bush administration. He was trained as a physician and is known as a conservative health policy expert with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Gottlieb is also a partner at New Enterprise Associates, a large US-based venture capital firm. The firms investments include life-sciences companies. In addition to his service on several pharmaceutical companies boards, Gottlieb is a consultant for London-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Gottlieb's proposed appointment as US FDA commissioner assumes significance given the Trumps promise of reducing regulation at US FDA as one of his key priorities to make drugs affordable and accessible.

In a February 28 speech to Congress, Trumps promised to "slash the restraints" on drug approval, complaining about the slow and burdensome approval process at the FDA.

The US FDA appointment is closely watched by Indian pharmaceutical industry which supplies 40 percent of the generic medications consumed in the US. The generic or copycat drugs account for more than 8 in 10 prescriptions. India has 572 US FDA compliant plants -- the highest outside US.

India exported drugs worth USD 11.6 billion in 2014-15. Of this, exports to the US alone were USD 3.8 billion, or a third of total exports.

Gottlieb statements on speeding up approvals for older generics should sound as music for India drug makers.

In an opinion piece titled How Obamas FDA Keeps Generic Drugs Off the Market on the Wall Street Journal in August last year Gottlieb opined that the biggest factors fueling the angst over drug prices in the US is that some older medicines that should sell cheaply as generics are still priced very high, often owing to a dwindling number of generic competitors and the rising costs of producing these drugs.

He further went on to say that a flurry of new regulations is raising production costs and reducing competition for branded drugs.

Gottlieb also contends that the complexity and costs of completing a generic-drug application has also grown enormously resulting in higher entry barriers for generic companies.

Gottlieb scorned US FDA proposal to require companies to have production lines dedicated to one or two drugs, citing potential safety hazards.The safety concerns could be addressed through better quality controls and improving its inspection capabilities, he added.

Typically, generic-drug makers manufacture dozens of different drugs on each production line and hundreds of drugs in a single plant to save costs. While brand companies typically run only one or two products on each manufacturing line.

He was also critical on new FDA draft regulation that seeks generic makers to update their warning labels on safety of drugs.

In a March 6 speech at a conference in Orlando, Florida, Gottlieb talked about overhauling the rules for complex generic drugs with which brand-name companies have been able to create monopolies in perpetuity. He also discussed the need to inject competition in situations where decades-old drugs are provided by one generic supplier, allowing speculators to buy the drug and jack up the price.

In his past stint at FDA, Gottlieb served as Deputy Commissioner for medical and scientific affairs and helped coordinate with the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services. Part of his work included facilitating talks that led to a system in which generic drug manufacturers pay a fee to help accelerate the review of their products, similar to one in place for brand-name drugs.

The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) declined to comment on the new US FDA chief.

His statements seem encouraging for generic drug makers, said an executive of pharmaceutical on condition of anonymity.

We need to see how his policies will pan-out in the coming days, said the executive.
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,
Everyones experience of weddings and marriage is different, but for Kimberly, a name change compounded all the warning signals and red flags.

So when and where do you want to get married? he asks, over the phone from his Navy station in Washington to my home in California. I dont find this presumptuous and unromantic: Im simply glad to be able to marry him, because it means he cant break up with me yet again so easily, and I can finally be with my on-again-off-again One True Love.

I am 20 years old, and I am in love. I think I am wise beyond my years, but in reality am incredibly naive. I believe that people are basically good, and that I will be able to pursue and achieve anything my heart desires, as long as the person I long for is by my side. I dont see red flags, only purity and light and the goodness I know must be locked deep inside this troubled man.

I dont think I should have to give up my name, my identity, for anyone. I make this abundantly clear. I send him articles on the subject, about how archaic it is and how the tradition began, articles written by women who agree with me. Im looking for a way to get my fiance to understand how I feel about the subject. It doesnt seem like he particularly understands how anybody feels about anything, except for himself. Thats all that matters to him anyway.

He argues with me about changing my name, unwavering in his stance that it is nonnegotiable. One of his arguments is, My dad wont respect me if I cant even get my wife to change her name. I wonder why, as a grown and married man, he cares what his dad thinks about anything. I cant remember if I actually asked him that.

But I am 20 years old, and I am in love. I cannot even fathom that life will go on and I will find love again if I do not cling to this person as though my very life depends on it. I want to get married in Las Vegas, with an Elvis impersonator officiating, perhaps a drive-through wedding. He wants to get married in a church. We ultimately get married in a small chapel with our families present.

I am adamant that I do not want the officiant to pronounce us man and wife because this implies that I am less than him. He does not agree; why must I defy tradition? Why must I make such a big deal out of everything?

Shortly before the wedding, I slip on the stairs, toes crunching underneath my foot, and end up with a broken big toe. I must shop for a dress that I can procure in a week, and try to find flats that I can wear with a broken toe. I end up with white canvas sneakers and a poofy, sequined princess dress altered to be the exact right length when worn with them. I actually like the shoes, but I hate the dress. I tell him I want a sapphire ring, but he insists on a diamond because, again, it is tradition. I do not see the ring until my wedding day. Objectively speaking, it is a very nice ring.

When we arrive at our new home and begin to make everything official, my hand coils around the pen, an odd grip learned by a left-hander who was forced to switch to right-handedness in kindergarten. Penmanship has never been my strong suit, and when I sign my name, my capital cursive Y looks strange to me. The whole name looks odd, of course, because I am 20 years old and this is not the name I have been using for as long as I could write. I begin again, printing my uppercase Y, and think its an aesthetic improvement. I will stick with this convention for as long as I am forced to use this name.

This is the beginning of the legal name change process, and theres no turning back now. I think about how much I do not want this, and proceed anyway. Ive already agreed to do this. This is not my name. It is the name of my new husband, an awful name I had witnessed him receiving much grief and bullying over as far back as middle school, when Id first met him. This is not me.

I begin receiving mail addressed to Mrs. His Name. This upsets me, and he doesnt understand, because thats who I am now. Not me, not my own person, just an extension of himself. I am Wife and I am expected to fulfill the role to his expectations, beginning with accepting the total obliteration of my own identity. I am to do as he says, tend house, and not associate with the other Navy wives.

I stand in a long line at the Social Security office and fill out my paperwork. I go to the DMV and do the same. I go to the base with my husband and fill out many more forms after Ive completed this. I have to initial a lot of paperwork. I realize my initials are now KY, and realize I dont want to be known as KY. I want to be myself, but I cant, so I start using my middle initial on everything. I get a military ID with my new name on it, and the word Dependent, because that is what I am now. I give up any aspirations to work or do anything other than be a dependent, a stranger to myself using a strange name.

The marriage lasts three years. My identity is chipped away at, bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, until I am empty and hollow and there is nothing left of me. Not even my own name. I become afraid to have an opinion differing from that of my husband, afraid to even think it, as though he is some omniscient being who can read my thoughts. I fear the consequences for such an infraction.

When I tell him Im done for good this time, he cries. When I tell him Im not changing my mind this time, a switch flips and he flies into a rage. I leave afraid for my life after he graphically threatens me with murder. I have to break into the apartment through the window to get my belongings a few days later, after Im certain he has left town, having taken my key from me the night I fled. I go to the rental office and tell them I am on the lease and they give me a key to use on return trips to gather the remainder of my belongings.

He moves multiple times during the six months it takes to finalize the divorce, and I have some difficulty getting the papers served. Eventually, I am successful. I go to the Social Security office and wait in line to get my name back. I go to the DMV and change it there, too. I sign and initial and at last, I am me again.

I slowly rebuild my sense of self, my hopes and dreams and goals, and it all begins with a name. It takes time, as with all things worth doing, but I am successful.
March 14, 2017

The Democrats Anti-Russia Campaign Falls Apart (Updated)

UPDATED below

---

A while ago Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone warned: Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media:

If we engage in Times-style gilding of every lily the leakers throw our way, and in doing so build up a fever of expectations for a bombshell reveal, but there turns out to be no conspiracy  Trump will be pre-inoculated against all criticism for the foreseeable future.

Sanity is finally winning over. After raising all kinds of shambolic rumors about "Russian interference" the "western" intelligence agencies are walking back their previous outrageous claims:

Former DNI James Clapper admits (vid) that he has zero evidence for any Trump-Russia collusion;

The British Foreign Secretary now says there is "no evidence" of any Russian interference with British democracy;

The German secret services have no proof (in German) for any Russian disinformation campaign.

There is no evidence for any Russian interference in the U.S., or any other, election. No evidence has been show, despite many claims, that Russia or its proxies hacked John Podesta's emails or the DNC or collaborated with Wikileaks.

Even the Democrats now concede that the whole mountain of bullshit their anti-Trump and anti-Russian campaign created stinks to high heaven:

[S]ome Democrats on the Intelligence Committee now quietly admit, after several briefings and preliminary inquiries, they dont expect to find evidence of active, informed collusion between the Trump campaign and known Russian intelligence operatives, though investigators have only just begun reviewing raw intelligence. Among the Intelligence Committees rank and file, theres a tangible frustration over what one official called wildly inflated expectations surrounding the panels fledgling investigation.

Ardent Russia critics like Masha Geesen and former ambassador Michael McFaul now warn of irreparable damage the irrational anti-Russian campaign may cause. A New York Times opinion piece points out that the reignited anti-Russian attitude goes back to the 19th century and was as wrong then as it is now. Claims that meetings between the incoming Trump administration and the Russian ambassador were nefarious are hard to hold up when members of the Clinton campaign also met him. Trump's National Security Advisor Flynn was accused of colluding with Russia when in fact he was paid by Turkey to lobby for Erdogan.

The disinformation campaign against Russia is falling apart for lack of any evidence. The media who ardently supported it have lost trust. As they obviously lied about Russia how much truth are they telling on other issue?

Tabbi's warning was late. The damage is done. "Western" relations with Russia have been hurt. But also hurt are the reputations of the media and of the Democratic party. Trump though has been justified with his rejection of that campaign. He now is, as Tabbi predicted, "pre-inoculated" against other accusations - at least with his followers and those sitting on the fence. Trump has now the space to develop his original grand strategic idea of seeking amiable relations with Russia before getting embroiled in any other international dispute. Those relations are now developing on the ground in Syria where cooperation between Russian and U.S. troops intensifies:

Moscow, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis added, has "kept us abreast of their operations" in Manbij, ..

Signs are that there is way more of that then the Pentagon admits. There have been several meetings at the highest levels of Russian and U.S. military and whoever commands U.S. forces in Syria will surely have a direct line to the Russian ground commander to coordinate their moves.

The Democrats failed in their anti-Trump, anti-Russia campaign.

UPDATE:

The belligerent dude Hillary Clinton's wanted as CIA boss now admits that the British Steele dossier is total bullshit. (We said so months ago.)

Clinton Ally Says Smoke, But No Fire: No Russia-Trump Collusion

Morell, who was in line to become CIA director if Clinton won, said he had seen no evidence that Trump associates cooperated with Russians.

...

Morell said he had learned that the former officer, Christopher Steele, paid his key Russian sources, and interviewed them through intermediaries.



"On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all," Morell said at an event sponsored by the Cipher Brief, an intelligence web site.



"There's no little campfire, there's no little candle, there's no spark. And there's a lot of people looking for it."

The Daily Beast, one of the sites that intensively peddled the false anti-Trump/anti-Russia claims, is now warning (somewhat) against doing such:

Trumps critics last year were horrified at the rise of fake news and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.

Senator John McCain explained in Congress what he means when he accuses someone of "working for Putin":

Joe Gould @reporterjoe .@RandPauI just blocked @SenJohnMcCain's UC request to add Montenegro to NATO & exited. McCain: "The sen from Ky is now working for Putin."

You see, anyone disagreeing with the neoconservative John McCain is by definition now "working for Putin". It is no wonder then that Washington DC is full of Russian agents ...

A significant part of the electorate, the "millenials", are not as dump as the politicians believe. They wonder what all the fuzz is about:

Amid an avalanche of news raising alarm about Russian meddling in the U.S. election and ties between President Donald Trumps administration and Moscow, many younger voters are questioning how big a threat the former Cold War foe really is.

...

Interviews with more than 30 voters across the country show a major generational gap when it comes to views of Russia. According to younger voters, the view of Russia as an automatic threat that they hear from lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is an outdated relic of the Cold War.

...

In interviews with McClatchy, many young adults said news accounts of U.S.-Russian relations in 2017, full of spies and secretive meetings with ambassadors, seemed like a Cold War thriller with no connection to modern reality.

End-Update

Posted by b on March 14, 2017 at 16:02 UTC | Permalink

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The Exploring Joara Foundation is gearing up for a celebration of the 450th anniversary of the founding of Fort San Juan, the earliest European settlement in the interior of the United States.

The organization will host a cultural showcase and benefit auction on Friday, March 17, from 6-9 p.m. at the Hickory Metro Convention Center that will feature Native American dance by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Spanish re-enactors paying homage to the regions cultural roots, specifically the 1567 meeting between Spanish explorers and Native Americans at Joara. Joara is the Burke County site where the Spanish built Fort San Juan and the two cultures coexisted for 18 months. There will be both live and silent auctions, demonstrations of Native American crafts and refreshments.

The foundation will then debut its first-ever professional museum exhibit to tell the story of this amazing and little-known piece of American history on Saturday, March 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the History Museum of Burke County.

The exhibit is of significant scale and will be in place for at least two years. It features panels and artifacts representing the lives of the Native American people and Spanish explorers, and includes pieces of Spanish pottery, chain links from Spanish armor and nails that were used in the 1567 fort. It tells the story of houses constructed in the native style, but built by Spanish tools.

The exhibit will allow people to walk through and understand more clearly the 18 months that the Spanish and the Native Americans lived together and what that might have looked like, as well as see some of the artifacts they left behind, said Marie Palacios, executive director of EJF.

EJFs mission is to educate the public about the historic significance of Fort San Juan, which pre-dates the founding of Jamestown by 40 years and the Lost Colony of Roanoke by 18 years.

The events are considered a regional launch of the 450th commemoration activities, Palacios said. Fort San Juan is the first inland European settlement in the U.S. and its right here in Morganton in our backyard. We want the public to know there are many opportunities to get involved with public archaeology and programming.

Fort San Juan (as well as five other forts along the Spanish and Indian Colonial Trail) was destroyed by local residents. Of the 30 men left behind by Pardo at the fort, only one survived.

Youre talking about an encounter between two peoples and two cultures that forever changed them both, and, essentially, the entire country, Palacios said. Our lead researcher, Dr. David Moore, often says its possible that if the Native Americans had not destroyed the Spanish outposts in 1568, much of the American south today would be part of Spain.

Tickets for the cultural showcase and benefit auction are $40 each and can be purchased at www.exploringjoara.org or by contacting 828-439-2463. The debut of the exhibit at the History Museum of Burke County is free and open to the public.
Through a volunteer project at church, I got to examine the life of a man who left a legacy of inspiration by following his dreams.

First Baptist Church of Morganton will honor the memory of former minister of music, Jack Hicks Campbell, with an organ recital at 7 p.m. this Friday. Former FBC organist Bibba Whitener will play the organ, joined by Campbells daughter, Katherine Jenkins, and her daughter, Lauren Jenkins, playing the violin.

Looking back through decades-old articles about Campbell to help with publicity, I found a compelling story taking shape.

Campbell was born in Bullock, North Carolina, in 1921. His life followed a traditional path for the mid-20 th century. He graduated from high school, served in the Navy during World War II and earned a degree in business in 1946. He worked in various accounting positions at the local Robbins Mills, Inc. for eight years. He met his wife, Martha, through his church, and they married and started a family.

He must have had some instruction in music growing up, because his church pastor asked him to direct the adult choir after he settled back home. The experience would change the trajectory of his life.

 It was during these years he became aware of the need for a greater understanding of the significance of church music and for men to serve in this area  improving and elevating the level of worship through music and ministering to the needs of the people, a 1968 News Herald article said.

In 1954, Campbell quit his job and moved his family to Princeton, New Jersey, so he could attend Westminster Choir College to become a professional church musician. He accepted a position as minister of music at First Baptist Church of Morganton in 1958, and took his place as an influential figure in the history of the church and the community.

Campbell served the congregation at FBC for more than 20 years. He poured his passion for his craft into the church, creating eight different choirs spanning an age range from infancy to senior adults. He also acquired a handbell set for the church and started a handbell ensemble.

 It was such a joy to work with him and observe his dedication to the servant ministry through music, Whitener said. He inspired me and countless others to present our gifts in Gods service and work hard to make sure they were the best we could offer.

He focused on giving children a firm foundation in music, taking the youth choirs to choir festivals every year and having them sing at Broughton Hospital, area nursing homes and the local prison. He recruited instrumentalist R.P. Burnam of Hickory to come to the church to teach children lessons on the violin, viola and cello through his Instruction in Strings program. Those students were invited to perform in the Hickory Youth Orchestra.

He believed you could touch peoples spirits through music.

 The choir ministry does not exist as an end in itself, but rather as an excellent medium through which to religiously educate children and young people, as well as to minister to every age, Campbell wrote in a column for The News Herald in 1965.

He also composed music. He wrote the words and music for a hymn called, Come, Lord, and for an anthem, Rising From Foundation Strong, which were performed to celebrate the dedication of the new FBC facility at 502 W. Union St. in 1967, according to a News Herald article from 1970. He also wrote a Christmas carol called, Eternal God From Dawn of Day.

Campbell brought his love of music into the community as well, joining the Schubert Music Club and directing the Combined Choirs group for several years. The Rotary Club of Morganton recognized his achievements by nominating him Man of the Year in 1969.

He retired from music ministry in 1980 to write a history and genealogy of his family and volunteer with WUNC radio. He died in 2004.

Many of the articles written about Campbell say he influenced several young people who grew up in his music program to dedicate their lives to training and inspiring the next generation of musicians. One of those was his daughter, Katherine.

 My parents said I matched pitches as a toddler before speaking words, so they decided I should learn to play the violin, Jenkins said. My dad took me to lessons and to orchestra rehearsals in Hickory, and later Asheville, and frequently would have me play my violin with one of his choirs or as part of the church service.

Jenkins went on to earn a bachelors degree in music education and is a Suzuki violin teacher who performs with the Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra. Her daughter, Lauren, is currently pursuing a masters degree in violin performance at Carnegie Mellon University.

 Dad loved to hear Lauren play and would have been proud of her accomplishments today, Jenkins said.

The concert on Friday is free and open to the public. It will feature famous classical works such as the Bach Double, Charles-Marie Widors Toccata from Symphony No. 5 and works by Jules Massenet and Richard C. Baker. It will be the first recital played on the organ after its first refurbishment since its installation 50 years ago.

I encourage people to attend and experience firsthand how great an impact someone can have when they invest their passion and dedication into their lifes purpose.

 The fruits of his labor are evident today in the strong, vibrant ministry through music here and throughout surrounding communities, Whitener said.

Tammie Gercken is a member of the Morganton Writers Group.
The following charges were served on Wednesday, February 15:

 Malinda Hightower Hester, 58, of 114 Gant St., in Morganton, was charged with felony forced breaking and entering. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Dalton Randolph Rhom, 21, of 2189 Laura St., in Morganton, was charged with felony breaking and entering buildings generally. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Felipe Alonzo Lucas, 25, of 602 Salem Road, D, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and no operators license. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 3.

 Ashley Renee Day, 26, of 1940 Colridge Court, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering into an auto, trailer, boat, aircraft or watercraft, motor vehicle theft and possession of stolen goods and one count of misdemeanor larceny by trick. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $40,000 secured bond.

 Josten Key Mobley, 32, of 7117 Knobs Landing, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor damage to personal property. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 1.

 Brandon Jeffery Hyler, 25, of 5012 Miller Bridge Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony speeding to elude arrest and one misdemeanor count each of speeding through a work zone, failure to register a vehicle and speeding . He was issued a $15,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Andy James Smith, 31, of 218 37th St. SW, in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond.

 Stacie Lynn Godfrey, 33, of 5383 Stonewood Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for April 12.

 Anthony Joseph Trantham, 16, of 3059 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery. He was granted a custody release and his trial date was set for March 15.

 David Loransa Young II, 27, of 4295 South Fork Ave., in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Eric Curtis, 41, of 314 Fletcher St., Lot 1, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamine. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail.

 Ernesto Alvarado, 35, of 122 Oakridge Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $2,500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Elizabeth Maria Hanna, 29, of 3564 Berry Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 27.

 Walter Harold Brigman, 47, of 3343 Lytle Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, failure to appear or comply and driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 18.

The following charges were served on Thursday, February 16:

 Russell Alan Toney, 55, of 3067 E Burma Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 17.

 Reginald Allen Miller, 48, of 327 Lytle Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of crack cocaine and one misdemeanor count each of simple possession of a schedule IV controlled substance, driving during revocation and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,500 secured bond.

 Keetje Gale Woolridge, 42, of 4409 Garland Johnson Road, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering buildings generally, larceny after breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 20.

 Dustin Rick Durham, 31, of 5000 Silver Creek Church Road, B, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Martin Garcia, 27, of 120 Clark St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 1.

 Danielle Marie Clarke, 32, of 4606 Cub Creek Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance. She was released on a written promise to appear.

 Joseph Michael Hallyburton Jr., 32, of 475 Bryant Road, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance, habitual felon and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 David Allen Pearson, 47, of 2670 Mount Home Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a weapon by a felon and habitual felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Tyler Kelly Stamey, 16, of 4057 Poteat Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering buildings generally, larceny after breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods.

 David William Pope, 62, of 6570 Camp Meeting Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony trafficking methamphetamine. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $75,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Sharon Elizabeth Wright, 50, of 116 Murphy Court, in Morganton, was charged with felony probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 20.

 Cody Jordan Shambre, 16, of 2639 Ridgecreek Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery and disorderly conduct. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for March 28.

 Donna Thomas Freeman, 48, of Fletcher St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $9,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Alton Vono Nusz, 42, of Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $7,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Gage Allen Marcus, 23, of 5281 New Haven Circle in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 28.

 Luis Marcario Domingo, 21, of 103 Ross St., E, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, hit and run causing property damage, no operators license and failure to reduce speed. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for June 7.

 Christopher Dale Street, 26, of 3678 Sundown Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule III controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

The following charges were served on Friday, February 17:

 Sammy Lee Hensley Jr., 27, of 4388 Silver Creek Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation and failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $26,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Shea Farris Whittington, 45, of 312 N Green St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 15.

 Charles Edward Hallyburton Jr., 52, of 3791 Bennett Road, in Morganton, was charged with four counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $150,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Rachel Caroline Franklin, 21, of 4918 Miller Bridge Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one count each of felony breaking and entering into an auto, trailer, boat, aircraft or watercraft, motor vehicle theft and possession of stolen goods and one misdemeanor count of larceny by trick. She was issued a $15,000 secured bond and released.

 Gavin Xavier Jay, 19, of 3794 S Lail Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Melinda Diane Self, 39, of 2689 Timerill Drive, in Morganton, was charged with 216 of misdemeanor failure to appear and one count each of larceny by trick and damage or injury to real property. She was issued a $2,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for March 23.

 Lucy Raymundo Castro, 29, of 121 Ridge St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for June 21.

 Luis Miguel Mendez, 25, of 121 Ridge St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for June 21.

 Jeremy Wesley Ramsey, 36, of 618 Clarence Brittain Road, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of taking indecent liberties with children, solicitation of a child by computer or electronic device to commit a sex act and second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. He was issued a $20,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Tyler Jordan Mosteller, 28, of 6445 George Hildebran School Road, in Hickory, was charged with felony breaking and entering into a motor vehicle and two counts of misdemeanor possession of a schedule II, III, IV controlled substance. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $12,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 8.

 Ronnie Wilson Drum, 63, of 3947 Frank Whisnant Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 13.

 Jessie Lynette Huffman, 36, of 608 2nd St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 18.

 Heather Armecia Lashinski, 17, of 3177 Wiltshire Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for March 27.

 Jessica Renea Norman, 35, of 1512 Lydia Ave. NW, in Valdese, was charged with one felony count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and possession of a schedule IV controlled substance with intent to manufacture sell or deliver. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Kyle Lee Isaac, 28, of 314 Fletcher St., 1, in Morganton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Marsha Adams Whisnant, 44, of 8795 Spring Meadow Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Feb. 27.

 Shavon Antonio Cantrell, 24, of 403 W McDowell St. in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance, two counts of misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct and one misdemeanor count each of second-degree trespassing and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $12,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Jessie Lynette Huffman, 36, of 608 2nd St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was served at the Burke-Catawba jail where she was being held on previous charges. She was issued a $265 cash bond. Her trial date for this charge was set for April 18.

The following charges were served on Saturday, February 18:

 Pascual Mendez, 29, of 106 Evans St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a fraudulent form of identification and resist, delay or obstruct. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 27.

 James Qualane Burgess, 27, of 303 Roper St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to operate rear tail lights in proper working order. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for May 8.

 Jerome Allen M Mason Jr., 23, of 126 Air Park Drive, A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for March 1.

 Elmer Harrison Street, 69, of 4980 Old Hunt Trail, in Kernersville, NC, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and safe movement violation. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for May 17.

 Ryan Alan Colley, 28, of 1718 Old North Road, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 13.

 Kimbra Leigh Hicks, 25, of 112 10th St. SE, in Hildebran, was charged with misdemeanor domestic criminal trespassing. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. Her trial date was set for March 14.

 Thomas Alexander Seabrooks, 31, of 309 East Morehead St., 821, in Charlotte, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of first-degree trespassing, simple assault, communicating threats and larceny of property or receiving or possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 14.

 Paul Shannon Hildebran, 36, of 8132 Grover Evans SR Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor violation of a domestic violence protection order. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail.

 Shawn Kevin Fitzgerald, 26, of 2850 Fish Hatchery Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Devante Jamal Staples, 20, of 2606 Old NC 18, Lot 1, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 6.

 Ember Marie McGalliard, 24, of 2292 Watts St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 10.

The following charges were served on Sunday, February 19:

 Robert William Woodell, 48, of 404 Hauss Ridge Road SE, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule IV controlled substance. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 24.

 Johnny Lee Sparks, 29, of 105 B And D Ave., Lot 9, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor damage to personal property and one misdemeanor count of communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 4.

 Melissa Marie Yates, 32, of 309 Pineburr Ave. SW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 21.

 Johnathon Andrew Mayfield, 31, of 2009 Laurel St., Lot 3, in Valdese, was charged with four counts of felony forgery-uttering and one felony count each of obtaining property by false pretense and identity theft. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond.

 Brandy Nicole Davis, 37, of 114 Brookside Lane, in Morganton, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond.

 Dustin Shane Dillingham, 31, of 318 Walker Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $3,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 14.

 Phillip Nicholas Jones, 27, of 131 Stephens Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of communicating threats, damage to state or local government property and drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Carolyn Elizabeth Corpening, 27, of 103 Vine Arden Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor damage to personal property. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 6.

 Joshua Lee Hamlet, 25, of 6785 Cobbs Place, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 6.

 Alize Nicole Caldwell, 18, of 145 Stonebridge Drive, F, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Corey David Goode Jr., 21, of 6316 Benfield Landing Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Joseph Stephens Kaveh, 23, of 106 Burke Drive, in Morganton, was charged with five counts of felony trafficking LSD and three felony counts of sell or deliver a controlled substance. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $45,000 secured bond.

 Tracy Lee Cash, 36, of 301 Oak St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 5.

The following charges were served on Monday, February 20:

 Benjamin Glenn Caldwell, 68, of 305 S College St., in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of forced breaking and entering and larceny after breaking and entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Matthew Alan Wrede, 29, of 5356 Country Valley Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 6.

 Monica Renee Holman, 42, of 6254 E NC 150, 263, in Denver, NC, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Dec. 25.

 Stacy Anne Southard, 50, of 109 Us Highway 70 E, in Hildebran, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 13.

 Shelia Hollifield Kirby, 48, of 1832 Hilferty Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Caleb Eugene Creson, 27, of 2045 Adare Court, in Newton, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering buildings generally, larceny chose in action and possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $15,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Jose Alberto Flores, 33, of 304 Caldwell St., in Morganton, was charged with felony breaking and entering into autos, trailers, boats, aircrafts or watercrafts. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 6.

 Ronnie Darnell Smith, 57, of 370 11th Ave. NE, Unit A, in Hickory, was charged with felony habitual felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Jordan Alexzander Rivera, 25, of 232 10th Ave. SE, in Hickory, was charged with felony first or second-degree burglary. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond.

 Charlie Vance Rawlinson, 54, of 2260 Main St., in Winston Salem, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Kevion Rashad Corpening, 22, of 3898 NC Highway 126, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering into autos, trailers, boats, aircrafts or watercrafts and larceny of a firearm and one misdemeanor count of larceny of property; receiving or possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $35,000 secured bond.

 Larry Allen McGalliard, 42, of 2306 Hill Drive, in Valdese, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $2,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 13.

 Rory Marshall Clark, 34, of Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor defrauding an innkeeper or campground owner. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond.

 Darren Dwayne Hollar, 34, of 5072 Bert Drive, in Catawba, NC, was charged with felony possession of stolen goods. He was issued a $3,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Steven Dwight Beam, 56, of 24 Pinnacle Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 7.

 William Andrew Dykes III, 25, of 3678 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond.

 Tahara Lee Herman, 46, of 100 Whitley Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for April 3.

 John Bradley Williams, 42, of 7141 Knob Mountain Drive, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one felony count each of larceny by trick and possession of stolen goods. He was issued a $10,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Joshua David Lyons, 35, of 2891 Burkemont Road, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of misdemeanor communicating threats, first-degree trespassing and assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 6.

 Refugio Antonio Reyes, 51, of 119 Myrtle St., C, in Morganton, was charged with three felony counts of indecent liberties with children. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $75,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Jessica Lynn Exline, 24, of 4903 Heavenly Lane, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny by trick, simple assault or assault and battery, possession of stolen goods and possession of a schedule IV controlled substance. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond.

 Joseph Michael Emerson, 29, of 2345 Old NC 18, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny all other, possession of stolen goods and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond.

 Cory Allen Ammons, 24, of 7126 Nobby Lail Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to pay monies. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for April 17.

 Michael Allen Conley, 47, of 4305 Zero Mull Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for May 2.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, February 21:

 Justin Wayne Singleton, 28, of 3206 Windy Hill Drive, Lot 3, in Valdese, was charged with one felony count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance and probation violation and one misdemeanor count each of possession of drug paraphernalia and probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $49,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Zachary Osborne Lyle, 37, of 5173 Cedar Bark Lane, in Hickory, was charged with felony fugitive from justice. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail.

 Melissa May Harris, 32, of 2615 Hartland Trail, in Morganton, was charged with four counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 15.

 Philip Ligatti Jr., 32, of 3209 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a weapon by felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Grayson Alexander Edney, 28, of 3167 Clark Loop, 3, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of larceny by trick and possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond.

 John Leslie Hudson, 46, of 912 Powell Ave. SW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor cyber stalking. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Jake Michael Elliott, 18, of 402 Valdese Drive, in Drexel, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Marsha Autrey White, 44, of 7051 Garmon St., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released.

 Gerald Wayne Noblitt, 58, of 248 Dawns Drive, in Marion, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor larceny all other. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 21.

 Terrence Eric Andrade, 25, of 119 Powe St., in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver, misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Dalton Randolph Rhom, 21, of 2189 Laura St., in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Autumn Victoria Gurley, 18, of 1439 Ivy Lane, NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 Kirsten Mercedes Whisnant, 17, of 303 E Main St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 Alton Vono Nusz, 42, of Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under an $800 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, February 22:

 Lindsey Annette McCarter, 30, of 2971 Shuford Road, in Icard, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 5.

 Matthew Dean McCarter, 31, of 7661 Shuford Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 5.

 Carlos Eduardo Mejia Rodriguez, 30, of 226 Pete Brittain Road, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor stalking. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for March 21.

 Joy Amanda Moorefield, 35, of 3823 Banbridge Drive, in High Point, was charged with felony motor vehicle theft. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Aaron David Isley, 20, of 3823 Banbridge Drive, in High Point, was charged with felony motor vehicle theft and misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond.

 Shatemia Donyel Largent, 35, of 102 Foxfire Drive, H, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Ricky Lee Lackey Jr., 32, of 314 Fletcher St., Lot 6, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Kenneth Eugene Church Jr., 48, of Morganton was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 8.

 Joshua Paul McLamb, 32, of 3208 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 5.

The following charges were served on Thursday, February 23:

 Dillan Wes Frye, 22, of 4696 Homestead Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Jason Wayne Campbell, 41, of 4956 Miller Bridge Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Jessica Susanne Parks, 28, of Old School House Road, in Young Harris, GA, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering buildings generally, larceny- financial transaction card and fraud of a financial transaction card and misdemeanor failure to appear. She was issued a $21,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Robert Edward Moore III, 35, of 7526 South Mountain Institute Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick and assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for March 21.

 Bradley Neal Robinson, 34, of 139 Walker Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $25,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Darius Edward Connelly, 28, of 1603 Devinney St., in Morganton, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Alek Deleon Cox, 19, of 4986 Duckworth Circle, Lot 13, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 22.

 Kerri Elaine Giles, 46, of 4361 Dynasty Lane, in Hudson, was charged with one count each of felony obtaining property by false pretense, identity theft, misdemeanor possession of stolen goods and probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 6.

 Lane Taylor Griffin, 21, of 304 White St., Apt. B, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 20.

 Jeffrey Leonard Shuford, 45, of 2616 Carl Freeman Ave., Lot 15, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 20.

 Chante Nicola A Davis, 27, of 3539 NC 181, in Morganton, was charged with felony altering, destroying or stealing evidence of criminal conduct and one misdemeanor count each of possession of schedule II controlled substance, possession of a schedule IV controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $15,000 secured bond.

 Joshua Wayne Burgin, 28, of 1535 Lemon Tree Lane, in Morganton, was charged with nine counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 6.

 Brandon Jerel Ervin, 31, of 2657 NC 126, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 James Robert Howington, 38, of 2402 S Sterling St., 138, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Friday, February 24:

 Ranferin Ottoniel Moralez, 28, of 111 Brackett St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Kim Nicole Spencer, 39, of 316 Wade St., in Warsaw, NC, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance, two misdemeanor counts of failure to appear and one misdemeanor count each of possession of a schedule III controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under an $11,000 secured bond.

 Tevin Ashaun Ferguson, 20, of 233 Sharon Ave., in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 24.

 Joshua Wayne McGee, 30, of 5218 New Haven Circle, Lot 3, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor child abuse. He was issued a $500 unsecured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 7.

 Shirley Louann Abee, 52, of 2301 McArthur Lane, in Hudson, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 Sheila Lynn Eddins, 36, of 4305 Zero Mull Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 David Glen Roberts, 45, of 232 Power House Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 28.

 David Glen Roberts, 45, of 232 Power House Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Amy Lynn Penley, 44, of 7903 Old NC 10, Lot 5, in Hickory, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines and one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, possession of drug paraphernalia and probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $35,000 secured bond.

 Michael Terrell Perkins, 35, of 475 Bryant Road, Lot 5, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver, trafficking cocaine and one misdemeanor count each of possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond.

 Martin Garcia, 27, of 120 Clark St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, safe movement violation and hit and run causing property damage. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Kathy Lynn Strickland, 33, of 219 1/2 W Concord St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault or assault and battery. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for March 27.

 Brian Dean Farris, 38, of 625 Vine Arden Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor first-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 9.

 Justin Matthew Wilson, 29, of 3141 Cherry Wood Drive, 4, in Hudson, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for April 10.

 Bradley Monroe Melton, 32, of 5491 Manley Clark Road, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 8.

 Thomas Dean Winebarger, 39, of 5873 Jenkins Road, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, no liability insurance, driving with revoked registration plate, possession of marijuana and failure to maintain lane control . He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for June 21.

The following charges were served on Saturday, February 25:

 Colten Shane Baker, 21, of 5999 Will Baker Lane, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for June 7.

 Charles Joseph Herrmann, 21, of 2322 Ridgecreek Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 18.

 Lavonne Sue Miller, 36, of 123 Amherst Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of marijuana and possession of oxycodone. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for June 12.

 Bryan Keith Brown, 47, of 3983 Winston Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 12.

 Tammy Duckworth Boone, 44, of 5452 Jenkins Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for June 12.

 Robert Wesley Franklin, 29, of 2282 Propst Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 18.

 Paris English Turner II, 28, of 1775 Falls Road NW, in Valdese, was charged with one count each of felony possession of cocaine, misdemeanor possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond.

 Samuel Edward Bartley, 19, of 2518 Melvin Propst Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving after consuming less than 21 years of age. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for June 21.

 Garrett Marcus Wade, 25, of 5137 Willowpoint Drive, B, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and reckless driving to endanger. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 18.

 Chad Jamison Killian, 35, of 4029 Owens Mountain Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $280 secured bond.

 Joshua Allen Goodman, 33, of 4309 Baptist Camp Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,545.48 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 7.

 William David Benfield, 43, of 403 Center St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor child abuse and drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 7.

 Kaleb Brett Lowery, 20, of 4011 Silver Creek Terrace, in Morganton, was charged with resist, delay or obstruct and two misdemeanor counts each of damage or injury to real property and breaking and entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 9.

 Danny James Lowman, 47, of 306 Bay St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for March 27.

The following charges were served on Sunday, February 26:

 April Elizabeth Massagee, 17, of 2124 1st Ave NW Apt. 4, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and driving by person less than 21 years old after consuming alcohol or drugs. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for April 18.

 Geary Tracy McAliley, 25, of 1915 Hillsboro Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired, stop light violation and safe movement violation. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for June 21.

 Justin Bradley McGinnis, 26, of 554 Lytle Mountain Road, in Marion, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for June 21.

 Michael Lee Gouge, 29, of 601 Fifth St. Place SW, in Hildebran, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 1.

 Clifford Davis, 36, of 1667 Falls Road NW, in Valdese, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault on a female, resist, delay or obstruct, assault on a governmental officer and direct criminal contempt. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for April 18.

 Gary Wade Hensley, 17, of 713 E Parker Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of simple possession of marijuana, reckless driving wanton disregard and expired registration. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Joshua Lee Jordan, 16, of 2448 Waters Hall Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Clifford Davis, 36, of 1667 Falls Road NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a governmental officer. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 18.

 Jerel Otto Cox, 49, of 4703 Crystal Creek Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor damage to personal property and second-degree trespassing. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 13.

 Devon Wesley Downing, 24, of 2048 Corpening Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony breaking and entering into trailers, boats, aircrafts, or watercrafts, felony larceny of a firearm and misdemeanor larceny after breaking and entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Robert Worth Freeman Jr., 51, of 10 Conner Ridge Drive, in Old Fort, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a child under 12 years old. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 24.

 Jason Arthur Rose, 37, of 8855 Booger Holler, in Jonas Ridge, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 18.

The following charges were served on Monday, February 27:

 Cesar Anibel Nolasco, 29, of 206 Evans St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and driving during revocation. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for April 18.

 Harvey Lee Edwards, 38, of 3031 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired, failure to wear seat belt, driving during revocation and reckless driving to endanger. He was issued two $500 secured bonds. His trial date was set for May 24.

 Caleb Chase Gurley, 17, of 1439 Ivy Lane NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of marijuana. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 21.

 Eugene Warren Grethen II, 32, of 3360 Overlook Drive, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 5.

 Stephanie Lee Hooks, 42, of 2363 Clover Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was issued a $2,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for May 3.

 Kathy Wesse Strickland, 33, of 210 White St., C, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor child abuse. She was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for April 11.

 Glenda Nicole Berry, 35, of 300 17th Street Se, in Hickory, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Kasie Nicole Pugh, 23, of 208 White St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 20.

 Priscilla Vance Grissom, 47, of 118 Edgewood Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a governmental officer and resist, delay or obstruct. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 10.

 Brayan Jesus Gomez, 16, of 202 Cascade St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Raydene JR Little Jr., 31, of 105 Carolina St., F, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of assault with a deadly weapon on a governmental officer, possession of methamphetamines with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and possession of cocaine with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, resist, delay or obstruct and possession of marijuana. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $127,000 secured bond.

 Karen Lackey Ray, 45, of 911 Saint Marys Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct and permitting an unlicensed driver to drive. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for May 8.

 Jalen Martin Moore, 23, of 3444 Table Rock Mountain, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Thomas Dean Winebarger, 39, of 5527 Mill Race Road, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Shelia Hollifield Kirby, 48, of 1832 Hilferty Road, in Hickory, was charged with one count each of felony maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances and probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, February 28:

 Donald R Dulaney, 54, of 269 Cottontail Drive, in Marion, was charged with misdemeanor simple worthless checks. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Karen Lackey Ray, 45, of 911 Saint Marys Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of possession of methamphetamines and maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances. She was served at the Burke-Catawba jail where she was being held on previous charges. She was issued an additional $10,000 secured bond.

 Veronica Star Dion, 29, of 5527 Manley Clark Road, Lot 22, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond.

 Jimmy Ray Bollinger, 44, of 5557 Manley Clark Road, Lot 21, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Leon Robert Creasy, 29, of 3950 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 13.

 Thomas Dean Winebarger, 39, of 5873 Jenkins Road, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of failure to appear, larceny all other and possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 14.

 Bryan Kevin Lowery Jr., 20, of 2545 Pax Hill Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor fraudulent disposal of personal property. He was served by a criminal summons to appear.

 Alton Dwayne Burleson, 45, of 1120 Refour Ave. SE, in Valdese, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 22.

 Brooke Ashlie Cole, 25, of 208 White St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor threatening phone calls. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 22.

 Valerie Michelle Black, 23, of 3308 Muddy Creek Road, in Nebo, was charged with one count each of felony possession of a schedule I controlled substance, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, no liability insurance and no operators license. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 8.

 Timothy Sherrill Goode, 52, of 113 Morehead St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of communicating threats, damage or injury to real property and drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 8.

 Lamont Ambers Spurling, 54, of 1320 Jacobs Lane, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault and drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Reginald Allen Miller, 48, of 10615 Ned Court, in Charlotte, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $21,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 21.

 Samantha Romero Monzote, 24, of 208 Stephens Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony breaking and entering and misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 James Michael Cauthen, 26, of 208 Stephens Road, in Morganton, was charged felony breaking and entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, March 1:

 Robin Danner Waycaster, 36, of 104 Brittain Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for June 5.

 Richard Lee Short, 31, of 717 Amherst Road, Lot 1, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Mark Wesley Massagee, 49, of 8609 Cramer Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Darren Keith Carroll, 50, of 834 Norwood St. SW, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Kelly Ann Davis, 22, of 3880 Shad Lane, in Catawba, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 22.

 Brandon Shawn Pendley, 39, of 2786 Snipes St., in Morganton, was charged with two counts each of felony breaking and entering buildings generally, possession of stolen goods and one felony count each of larceny after breaking and entering and motor vehicle theft. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Willie Charles Davis, 42, of 4363 Homer Burns Ave., in Hickory, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering buildings generally and larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Tomas Juan Miguel, 23, of 201 Regan St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 20.

 Dean Edward Telly, 39, of 3013 Icard Rhodhiss Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female and simple assault. His trial date was set for March 30.

 William Clayton Depew, 42, of 3851 Youngs Creek Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $1,000 unsecured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 26.

 Emanuel Devon Rutherford, 35, of 2975 Jamestown Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $1,500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Connie Lee Shelton, 33, of 2426 Indian Hills Ave., in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 9.

 Fred Glen Swink, 53, of 3059 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 5.

 Donna Jean Hatley, 39, of 4602 Simpson Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond.

 Kelly Wayne Teague, 41, of 407 Burke St., in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $12,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Rodney Dwayne Brendle, 46, of 3413 Icard Dairy Barn Road, 56B, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Kolon Lewis Johnson, 43, of 401 Bouchelle St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $2,000 secured bond and released.

 Donna Jean Hatley, 39, of 4602 Simpson Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense. She was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released.

 Joseph Michael Emerson, 29, of 2345 Old NC 18, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 28.

 Jessica Lynn Exline, 24, of 4903 Heavenly Lane, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 David Clayton George, 26, of 3950 Old Brittain Road, in Hickory, was charged with two felony counts each of breaking and entering buildings generally, larceny after breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods. He was issued a $20,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Scotty Gene Walker, 45, of 5628 Farris Loop, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor communicating threats. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Joseph Paul W Mosteller, 34, of 4014 Sunrise Lane, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony sell or deliver a schedule II controlled substance, felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $27,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 28.

 Sarah Louise Williams, 57, of 111 Johnson St., Apt. C, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other and failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond.

 Ronnie Allen Icard, 49, of 3307 Eckard Creek Circle, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one count each of felony assault with a deadly weapon on a governmental officer, misdemeanor larceny by trick and driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $75,000 secured bond.

 Howard Wilbur Poteet, 29, of 6008 Courtstone Drive, in Mecklenburg County, NC, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 14.

 Andra Devon Smith, 40, of 125 View St., in Morganton, was charged with two counts of felony possession of a weapon by a felon, one felony count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance and possession of a stolen firearm, two counts of misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon and one count each of misdemeanor simple possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and child abuse. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $24,000 secured bond.

 Jeffery Taylor Mayfield, 25, of 3545 NC 18 S, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 22.

The following charges were served on Thursday, March 2:

 William Edward Wilkins, 66, of 203 S Matthews St., B, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and felony possession of crack cocaine. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,300 secured bond.

 Zachary Andrew Cole, 24, of 3752 Norman Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault with a deadly weapon, assault on a governmental officer and resist, delay or obstruct. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 9.

 David Loransa Young II, 27, of 4295 South Fork Ave., in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Lane Taylor Griffin, 21, of 304 White Street, Apt. B, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 20.

 William Pete Farris, 63, of 1629 Jamestown Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 13.

 Dena Murphy Johnson, 45, of 103 Pea Ridge St., in Glen Alpine, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Eric Nava Almanza, 16, of 8957 Bridges Ave., in Hildebran, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a weapon on educational property and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 5.

 Dawn Marie Woody, 34, of 409 Fletcher St., in Morganton, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of violation of a school attendance law. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 14.

 Sandra Churchill Blakeney, 67, of 118 Branstrom Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor violation of wastewater collection, treatment and disposal rules. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 15.

 John Henry Townsend Jr., 28, of 219 Shuffler Road, C, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,223 secured bond.

 Heather Shey Brown, 44, of 4420 Berry School Ave., in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor simple worthless check. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 14.

 Jonathan Dean Hartman, 39, of 94 South Fairway Drive, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and speeding in excess of 15 mph over posted limit. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 14.

 Preston Luke Collingwood, 18, of 1648 Terra Cotta Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $2,500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 10.

 John William Shanon Johnson, 42, of 4095 Whitener Drive, A, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Angela Lea Bollinger, 31, of 3446 Henderson Mill Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 25.

 Thomas Ray Whisnant, 31, of 2509 NC 18- Us 64, Lot 55, in Morganton, was charged with felony motor vehicle theft and two counts of misdemeanor non-support. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond.

 Ashlee Elizabeth Henderson, 33, of 1031 Flynn Branch Road, in Marshall, NC, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 25.

 Jessica Lea Metcalf, 35, of 291 Whittemore Branch Road, in Barnardsville, NC, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 25.

 Nathaniel Austin Gouge, 20, of 4991 Snowhill Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 13.

 Roy Edward Brittain Jr., 45, of 2580 Raintree St., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for March 28.

 Paul Michaux III, 34, of 3205 Bentley Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving during revocation, expired registration and resist, delay or obstruct. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Aaron Nicholas Kiser, 36, of 20007 Mulberry St., in Cornelius, NC, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property; receiving or possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond.

 Timothy Paul Bumgarner, 34, of 4376 NC Highway 18 S, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 15.

The following charges were served on Friday, March 3:

 Garrett Allen Via, 32, of 2959 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to appear and one misdemeanor count each of larceny all other, parole violation and resist, delay or obstruct. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 24.

 Nicholas Ryan Denius, 23, of 158 Saint Marys Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to use headlights when required and driving while impaired. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $300 secured bond. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Casey Shane Reed, 31, of 5873 Jenkins Road, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor communicating threats. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 13.

 Chasity Tarshell Lipscomb, 39, of 514 E Meeting St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for March 27.

 Tashalla Monay Oneil, 25, of 902 E Union St., in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and maintaining a vehicle, dwelling or place for drugs or controlled substances and one misdemeanor count each of simple assault and damage to personal property. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 10.

 Deonna Journee Sanford, 38, of 6621 Mountain Grove Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 4.

 Jonathan Lee Bryant, 29, of 114 Bethel St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor impeding railroad traffic. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for April 11.

 Dejiontee Lee Allen Johnson, 20, of 1004 Salem Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance. He was cited and released.

 Bradley Wayne Walters, 38, of 618 Vine Arden Road, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of methamphetamines, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Alberta Stamey Dyson, 47, of 618 Vine Arden Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple worthless check. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

The following charges were served on Saturday, March 04:

 Henry Pride Williams, 17, of 301 Ervin Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Savannah Ann Smith, 24, of 2055 Hartland Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and no operators license. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for April 10.

 Matthew Tyler Teague, 33, of 8231 Tom Smith Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with three felony counts of probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $9,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Carl Moore Smith, 74, of 4095 Whitener Drive, C, in Hickory, was charged with simple assault and two counts of misdemeanor communicating threats. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for March 27.

 Devian Kristopher Erwin, 27, of 209 S Anderson St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of an open container in the passenger area of a vehicle. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Jeffon Lunday Corpening, 28, of 101 Wrighton St., Apt. B, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of simple possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of an open container in the passenger are of a vehicle. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Devian Kristopher Erwin, 27, of 209 S Anderson St., in Morganton, was charged with felony trafficking heroin. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Valerie Latrice Moore, 33, of 1446 Avery Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Carolyn Rose Michaels, 32, of Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,200 secured bond. Her trial date was set for May 6.

 James Lee York Sr., 52, of 4946 Old NC 18 South, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 17.

 James Lee York Sr., 52, of 4946 Old NC 18 South, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 9.

 Juan Manuel Soto, 30, of 402 Center St., C, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon and resist, delay or obstruct. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for May 8.

The following charges were served on Sunday, March 5:

 Reginald Eugene Jones, 48, of 612 Meadow Ave., in Spencer, NC, was charged with misdemeanor open container after consuming. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 23.

 Heidi Paea Jantamart, 37, of 4097 Sundown Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 10.

 Reginald Allen Miller, 48, of 10615 Ned Court, in Charlotte, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Kristen Renee Fox, 20, of 2632 Buford Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony forgery of notes, checks and securities. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Ronald Ray Billings, 41, of 999 Oak Parks, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Ciano Damone Kimble, 23, of 2632 Buford Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony forgery of notes, checks and securities. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Nathaniel Allen Thomas, 30, of 3206 Antioch Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a His trial date was set for April 19.

 Eugene Warren Grethen II, 32, of 3360 Overlook Drive, in Valdese, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of failure to burn head or rear lamps, expired registration and driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Melissa Dawn Weaver, 37, of 210 Carbondale Lane, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of felony obtaining property by false pretense. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond.

 Devon Shea Moses, 25, of 303 Forest Hill St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for April 10.

 Neil Wesley Workman, 21, of 8641 Parker Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony accessory after the fact. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Truman Chance Livert, 21, of 4133 S Fork Ave., in Hickory, was charged with felony common law robbery. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Monday, March 6:

 Joshua Landon Walker, 35, of 2755 Sides Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault and second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Caitlyn Marie Simons, 23, of 2213 Chatham St., in Newton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 23.

 Marijo Rudisill, 48, of Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for May 1.

 Matthew Tyler Teague, 33, of 8231 Tom Smith Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with five counts of misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $250,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Charles Anthony Lane, 39, of 7904 Old NC 10, Lot 8, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor cyber stalking and communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 22.

 Kenneth Earl Buchanan, 27, of 4251 Pops Buchanan Road, in Morganton, was charged with five counts of felony probation violation, one felony count each of sell or deliver a controlled substance and maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $200,000 secured bond.

 Peggy Jane Caitlyn Buterbaugh, 24, of 100 Wrighton St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. Her trial date was set for April 10.

 Sarah Brooke Weedman, 21, of 604 Second St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 20.

 Sarah Brooke Weedman, 21, of 604 Second St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 25.

 Joshua Leon Barnes, 30, of 6775 Cobbs Place, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $750 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 16.

 Joshua Richard Little, 35, of 1730 9th St. NW, 27c, in Hickory, was charged with four counts of misdemeanor nonsupport and one count of misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, March 7:

 John Marshall Balentine IV, 21, of 213 N Anderson St., B, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of an open container of alcohol in the passenger area of a vehicle. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Amanda Grace Hudson, 19, of 213 N Anderson St., B, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of marijuana and possession of an open container of alcohol in the passenger area of a vehicle. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for June 21.

 Monique Leshe Berry, 36, of 2606 Tom Thomas Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply and driving during revocation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 13.

 Timothy Mark Presnell, 39, of 151 Stonebridge Drive, E, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and simple possession of marijuana. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for June 12.

 Jordan Deshawn Rutherford, 22, of 3202 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats and assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 22.

 Jordan Deshawn Rutherford, 22, of 3202 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor threatening phone calls. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 4.

 Larry Lynn Woodward, 60, of 5196 Jenkins Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor violating wastewater collection, treatment and disposal rules. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for March 15.

 Cory Allen Ammons, 24, of 7126 Nobby Lail Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor driving during revocation. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for May 2.

 Thomas Brandon Jones, 37, of 159 Moodytown Road, in Marion, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 5.

 Lillian Elizabeth Chisholm, 31, of 2915 Mill Race Road, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a total of $3,500 secured bonds and released. Her trial date was set for March 23.

 Timothy Lee McPeters, 35, of 5283 Burkemont Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats and domestic criminal trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for April 4.

 David Eric Ray, 40, of 3535 W Homestead Lane, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 28.

 Maricela Sanchezbalderas, 19, of 2486 Hartland Trail, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for June 28.

 Caleb Eugene Creson, 27, of 2045 Adare Court, in Newton, was charged with one felony count each of larceny of property; receiving or possessing stolen goods and one count of felony possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Jerry Dean Coffey, 42, of 4195 Peachtree Lane, in Granite Falls, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Wilbur James Frasher, 29, of 116 Polly St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of marijuana. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for June 21.

 Richard Todd Frady, 33, of 104 Roper Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and one misdemeanor count each of possession of a schedule II controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving during revocation . He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $26,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, March 8:

 Amber Leigh Ketterman, 22, of 4270 Lindsey Lane, in Winston Salem, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Shantia Star Ollis, 19, of 388 Harmony Grove Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 22.

 Charles Edward Hallyburton Jr., 52, of 3791 Bennett Road, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of failure to appear on a felony and habitual felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $75,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 Timothy Paul Bumgarner, 34, of 4376 NC 18 Highway South, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of methamphetamines, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond.

 Melissa May Harris, 32, of 2615 Hartland Trail, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Allison Nicole Lynn, 19, of 1312 9th Ave. SE, in Hickory, was charged with one felony count each of breaking and entering buildings generally, larceny by trick and possession of stolen goods. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Joshua Landon Walker, 35, of 2755 Sides Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury or with a deadly weapon and communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 27.

 Kandi Michelle Campbell, 30, of 1738 S Hills Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for April 3.

 Reece Coy Johnson, 26, of 2256 Highway 126, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $51,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Valerie Michelle Black, 23, of 3308 Muddy Creek Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury or with a deadly weapon. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 Lakeith Marshaun Lawrence, 21, of 1708 Prestige Drive, in Newton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury or with a deadly weapon and one count of misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Tyheem Jaone Walton, 22, of 1132 2nd St. Place SE, in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury or with a deadly weapon and one count of misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 10.

 Molly Ann Hare, 25, of 207 Enola Road, C3, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for May 5.

 Andrew Justin Millwood, 27, of 715 4th Ave. NE, in Hickory, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of possession of drug paraphernalia, domestic criminal trespassing, driving while license revoked, fictitious registration plate and no liability insurance. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for April 7.

The following charges were served on Thursday, March 9:

 Kiwanus Tereii Bonner, 27, of 228 Branch St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for June 5.

 Janet Sue Bryant, 39, of 7366 McDuffy Road, Lot 22, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor cyber stalking. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 28.

 Stephanie Michelle Holland, 32, of 1026 Dinah St. SW, in Valdese, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Alexander Jay Singleton, 32, of 2015 Baird St., in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor larceny all other. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $315 cash bond. His trial date was set for April 3.

 William Cody Barnes, 24, of 2114 Hunterwood Drive, in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 14.

 Jealene Nicole Kistler, 35, of 2114 Hunterwood Drive, in Hickory, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for April 3.

 Audrey Lean James, 33, of 2970 13th Ave. SE, 65-B, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for March 16.
Being underweight technology stocks is a problem, according to Neptunes Ali Unwin. In five to 10 years time investors will need to have tech exposure for growth  and income.

If you want to future proof your portfolio, you need tech stocks, says Unwin. The future is already here  innovation is not about science fiction flying boats, we are living in a new industrial revolution.

A century ago, a business needed its own power supply in order to compete in industry. Then, a central grid made it possible for all businesses to access power. Connectivity levelled the playing field and made anyone with an idea able to innovate. Unwin likens that revolution to the impact of Cloud computing on todays entrepreneurs and business owners. The Cloud is, in essence, giving each computer a significantly bigger and more powerful engine.

People can do more for a lot cheaper. One of the beneficiaries is artificial intelligence  you can teach a computer to self-learn much more quickly, he said. Artificial intelligence already drives Google search, which learns to tailor results to the user, and identifies credit card fraud through learning the spending habits of the cardholder.

Winners Keep on Winning

Many of todays tech stocks are immune to the boom and bust habits of high return stocks of old, according to Unwin. Typically, sectors protect themselves from becoming monopolies as success attracts competition. When competitors enter a market they chip away at the market leaders returns, levelling the playing field.

But the tech launches of the last 15 years have defied that pattern, building up protective moats around their businesses such as a strong and loyal client base, unique data sets or a pattern of acquisitions. Companies such as Facebook (FB) and Amazon (AMZN).

Returns for highest return companies are growing more quickly than any other group. Network effects, strong intellectual property and technological standards build strong moats around a business, says Unwin.

Because of these characteristics, high growth tech stocks in the past synonymous with risk, offer cash flow stability.

Mark Phelps, manager of the AllianceBernstein Concentrated Global Equity fund pick stocks with a growth bias through a value perspective. He looks for stocks whose earnings can grow 10% a year, for five years in a row. Three tech stocks pass this stringent test; Alibaba (BABA), Google (GOOG) and Tencent (00700).

I went to the Snapchat IPO meeting recently, and heard the founder talk. He said that of all the tech companies the one whose success he would most like to emulate was Tencent, said Phelps. It was great to hear. For me, Snap was not worth an investment, but Tencent has all the characteristics I look for: lack of competition, shareholder rights, growth, profitability, liquidity and at a fair valuation.

What is a Tech Stock?

Another reason why investors should consider upping their exposure to technology stocks is in time, they will come to represent all sectors.

Stocks that you may not necessarily think of as tech are disrupting all types of business; hey may sit inside the retail and commerce sector, they may sit inside consumer services; but actually are experiencing huge growth opportunities because of the way they are digitalising business.

Amazon, for example, is not considered a tech company, Polar Capitals Ben Rogoff told Morningstar last year. It's a retailer. So, that's why it's our largest active bet in both of our portfolios because it isn't in the benchmark.

And very recently, eBay (EBAY) went into the benchmark  an incredible 20 years since launch. It took that long for the index people to get around to reclassifying it. LinkedIn is not considered a tech company but has reinvented the recruitment market. TripAdvisor is not considered a tech company but it's reinventing the travel market.

Investors should add Uber, Deliveroo and Ocado to that list  to name a few. So with tech stocks taking over every corner of the stock market, do you have enough tech stocks in your portfolio?
One influential broker industry player is trying to make that happen. Gary Mauris , president of Dominion Lending Centres has been hard at work educating the government about just how disastrous last Octobers mortgage rule changes have been for potential home buyers.And he hopes his efforts will lead to a reversal or, at the very least, tweaks to some of those changes.The hope is that the government will realize the impact and realize they made a lot of these changes without full consultation, Mauris said. And that theyve made a mistake. Hopefully, around the low ratio bulk insurance restriction, hopefully they will loosen that up or reconsider that. Hopefully they will reconsider the qualifying rate and consider different standards. Something that is a little more palatable.The Government of Canada released a set of mortgage rule changes on October 3 of last year, including hiking the minimum qualification requirements for holders of insured mortgages as well as stipulations that make it more difficult for monoline lenders to compete with the big banks, especially when it comes to refinances.Meaning fewer mortgage options for Canadians.The fallout has been higher qualification standards for buyers across the country  not just in Toronto and Vancouver, which the government seemed to be targeting with the tweaks  while not cooling Canadas hottest markets.For his part, though Mauris is trying to make the government aware of just how wide-ranging the impact has been."I was asked to meet with the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada. Thats on the 22 of this month. In preparation for that, its important to keep the heat on the government and keep sharing the stories of Canadians because many Canadians just misunderstand the impact these rules are having on them, he said.What Ive done is Ive invited a couple different people to join me in that meeting in Vancouver on the 22. What were doing is were preparing stories from Canadians in every region; BC, Alberta, Manitoba Saskatchewan, all across the country, big cities, small cities. Communities, just sharing real life stories on how this is impacting people. Tax paying Canadians. Average Canadians.Mauris will be putting that feedback together in a book and providing it to all MPs, CMHC, the Bank of Canada, and the Department of Finance.The rules dont make any sense, Mauris said. The new rules really disadvantage average Canadians who are good payers, who have good credit."Its very bad policy is what it is.
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

Plentiful sunshine. Near record high temperatures. High near 80F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low around 65F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.
A rare death default clause in a mortgage has cost a Virginia family its home  and serves as a reminder to originators to make sure their customers understand all the terms of their loans.Peggy Stroud, of Powhatan County, Va., learned about her fathers promissory note the hard way, as her family home was sold last week in spite of her continued mortgage payments after his death, according to CBS News 6 in Virginia."The mortgage lady said there was a death default on the promissory note he signed, and that means when he died the entire balance was due upon his death, Stroud said. No one told me that for about 10 months after he passed away. They accepted every payment.Both her parents died in the home, and after Strouds father died, she carried on making his mortgage payments  a total of about $8,500."It's hard for me, she said. Legal and moral are two different things. I think ethically that at least I deserve my money back, she told News 6. If you are not going to work with me to save the house, the only thing I have left of my parents, then give me my money back.Local attorneys told CBS 6 that Strouds fathers decades-old promissory note was still legally binding  giving the bank the right to foreclose on the home.Shane Frick, a local real estate attorney not related to the case, told CBS 6 that the death default clause was rare but not unheard of."Depending on the circumstances, it certainly can mean they can foreclose on you, Frick said. You really want to do your due diligence so you fully understand what you're getting yourself into.
Through a partnership with Wells Fargo and the Military Warriors Support Foundation, wounded veteran Cahin Perez was given a mortgage-free home in Tennessee, according to a Stars and Stripes report.Angela Kruse and Dave Lieske, representatives from Wells Fargo and Military Warriors, respectively, awarded Perez with the keys to his new home."I want to, on behalf of Military Warriors, thank you for your service, Lieske said. Our mission really is to help combat-wounded heroes transition from the military back to civilian life. We're so honored to be able to present this house to you and we're so glad it worked out.""This is great, thank you so much," said Perez.Perez served in the military for eight years. In 2015, he was involved in an accident at Fort Campbell when the Humvee he was in crashed. It crushed his leg, which had to be amputated."Ever since then, I've been trying to push forward and continue on," Perez said.
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When the city of Sweetwater, Texas, hosted its inaugural rattlesnake round-up in 1958, law enforcement answered four to five calls per day about the slithery creatures, Rob McCann said.

The purpose of the event was to eradicate a portion of the rattlesnake population and lessen its threat to the town and surrounding communities.

Fast-forward 59 years, and the annual World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up  which took place over the weekend about 180 miles west of Fort Worth  pumps an estimated $8.4 million into the local economy and includes a pageant, cook-off and more, McCann said.

The killing of thousands of rattlesnakes has practically become an art.

RELATED: Texas woman battles 2 snakes with bare hands, poses for victorious photo

Between Thursday and Sunday, 8,500 pounds of rattlesnakes were killed at the event, said McCann, public relations director of the Sweetwater Jayceess, the group that organizes the round-up. Last year's event brought in a record-breaking 24,626 pounds of snakes, according to the San Angelo Standard Times.

First each snake is weighed and measured and its sex recorded and compiled into data given to Texas Parks and Wildlife, McCann said.

Then, snakes are skinned, beheaded and milked of their venom. The skin, heads, tails and rattles are preserved, while the venom is made into anti-venom and sold to pharmaceutical companies, McCann said.

RELATED: 3 snakes use 'synchronized slithering' to mate in state park footage

The meat is deep-fried and served at the festival, McCann said.

The allure of seeing thousands of rattlesnakes in one place is what makes this the town's largest annual event. This year's festival brought in about 40,000 visitors, McCann said.

"People keep coming back because it's the world's largest," McCann said. "It's a bucket list item."

Despite the fanfare, the Rattlesnake Round-Up still aims to control local rattlesnake population and educate the public about how to safely react to a rattlesnake encounter.

"If one person can be saved from getting bitten by a rattlesnake, then the event served its purpose," said McCann.

See photos from the 2017 World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up and past round-ups in the gallery above.

erobinson@mysa.com

Twitter: @eeelizzzabeth
Why would someone put acceptance to a prestigious law school on hold to spend a year in Germany? Thats just what Russell Lawson did, and he doesnt regret a minute of it.

Lawson, who earned his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with a minor in economics at Michigan Technological University in 2016, has been accepted into the University of Michigan Law School, but he chose to spend this year participating in the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange program. In Germany, hes going to school, working a job, immersing himself in the culture.

Lawson calls the competitive program, known as the Parlamentarisches Patenschafts-Programm in German, a cultural exchange program aimed at promoting understanding and cooperation between the two countries. It includes 75 participants chosen from all over the US, representing a majority of states and multiple fields of study. We have engineers, bio chem majors, those who study music, politics, international relations, two welders and four chefs/bakers, really a diverse group, Lawson explains.

Language Lessons

The program has three phases. The first two months are dedicated to language, preparing participants to live and work in the country. Phase two includes a full semester at a German university. During the university phase, Lawson was required to volunteer for a minimum of 40 hours, although, he says most of us did more than that. His volunteer work in the Universitat Erfurt, where he was studying, involved working in the writing center, where he helped with all manners of English writing, such as applications for university in the US, resumes, etc. Lawson says that his two years working with Michigan Techs Multiliteracy Center provided him the skills he needed for this volunteer position.

The last five months are spent in an internship relating to your field of study, providing Lawson the opportunity to not only practice his language skills, but to fully experience  the German business world and acquire a more international, particularly German, impression of our field.

Living with a host family in Cologne his first two months, during the language phase of his program, Lawson then moved on to Bundesland of Thurigen to he attend the Universitat Erfurt. Thats where he remains during his three-part internship. I honestly love it here,  he says.

Internship Experiences

During his first internship, Lawson is working with an organization that provides housing and assistance for refugees who have fled their unstable homelands for the safety of Germany. His second internship will be working in Thuringia parliament. He will finish his internships and his time in Germany working in the administration and organizational side of the German parliament system.

I've been fortunate enough to learn a lot here, Lawson says, and although it might not be the most related field to law and politics, it is most certainly a decision and time I don't regret and would willingly do again.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigans flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
Sacramento, CA  A California superior court judge has ruled that Monsanto must label its popular weed-killer Roundup with warnings that it could cause cancer.

The Associated Press reports that Monsanto sued the State of California claiming that officials had illegally based their decision about labels on the recommendation of an international health organization. California regulators countered that the International Agency for Research on Cancer is considered a gold standard for cancer research.

The superior court judge had earlier tentatively dismissed the challenge by Monsanto, and has now issued the final ruling, stating that the companys objections were not viable. Monsantos attorneys argued that the warnings will harm the company and drive some customers away.
Residents in Geneva are continuing to complain about problems with the mail service. For several weeks, people have reported missing mail and have even spotted mail laying near peoples homes.

Geneva residents report missing mail, problems with post office

Post office says they are investigating

Cherise Miller says mail service at her Geneva home has been anything but reliable.

Ive had to go to the post office on several occasions to find my mail, stuff that says its there but they cant find it, said Miller.

And residents say theyre finding mail out in the street, or worse, floating on water near their homes. Several people stopping by Genevas post office said theyve had problems too.

Brady Mann says he never got his new credit card.

Its a mystery because it wasnt in the P.O. Box, and it just wasnt in the P.O. Box when it shouldve been, said Mann. It was delivered on the weekend and never received, never got it.

The complaints are not just about mail delivery. Some residents also complain Genevas post office isnt open during hours its supposed to be.

We reached out to the U.S. Postal Service for answers.

The Postal Service's goal is to deliver excellent customer service, said Enola Rice, a spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service.

We take the customers' concerns very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience they may have experienced. We are currently researching the issue and will follow-up with the customers. Customers are reminded to contact the Post Office and speak with a manager or supervisor so that the information can be documented and we can follow up.

As of today we still havent received any phone calls or notifications as to what happened to our mail or where it was, or where it went, said Miller.

Miller says she has gotten her mail at home the last few days. But she says she has lost faith in her local mail service.

Our service has been shoddy, and so-so, and fits the mood of the delivery person, said Miller.

She says for anything important, shell use the nearby Oviedo post office or a commercial mail service. She still hopes someday shell find out what happened to the mail that never came.

My expectation is that I would know, but the reality is Ill probably never know, said Miller.
Looking for computers, kitchen equipment or a metal detector?

Orange County's surplus auction Tuesday

Computers, office supplies, kitchen equipment for auction

Orange County will host the second day of its Surplus Property Auction Tuesday morning.

The county is auctioning off hundreds of lots of items ranging from lawn mowers to pressure washers to stoves. They have pallets of computers, printers, scanners, televisions, office furniture, podiums, lab equipment, coffeemakers, ice makers, deep fryers, even treadmills.

The entire list of items is available on the Orange County Comptroller's website.

The equipment is auctioned off for a variety of reasons, according to the county comptroller's office. It might no longer be used by the county, or the maintenance has gotten too expensive, for instance. All of the auctioned items are approved by the county commission.

This is also separate from the auctions the sheriff's office conducts.

On Monday the county auctioned off vehicles and heavy equipment, with dozens come out to place bids.

If you are interested in taking part in the equipment auction on Tuesday at 9 a.m., it's located at 1800 Cypress Lake Drive, Orlando, FL 32837, which is in South Orange County, east of Orange Blossom Trail between Taft Vineland Road and Central Florida Parkway.
Gov. Scott has signed the bill that reforms the death penalty process.

Law requires unanimous jury recommendation to be sentenced to death

Reform came after courts overturned Florida's death penalty process

The new law requires a unanimous recommendation of the death penalty from a jury in order for a convict to be sentenced to death.

The law was required after multiple supreme court orders overturned Florida's death penalty process.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's process in 2016 because the law granted judges, not juries final authority to mete out the sentences.

The Florida Legislature came back with a law that required a majority of jurors -- 10 out of 12 -- to recommend the death penalty.

But the Florida Supreme Court ruled the new law unconstitutional last October, saying death recommendations must be unanimous.

Many Republicans in Tallahassee are against the law, but believe it better to go with the Supreme Court on this rather than risk abolishing the death penalty altogether at worst, or going through another round of court rulings and changes at best.

Because of the rulings and changes, post-2002 convictions are now eligible for new sentencing trials.
Authorities are searching for a 2-foot-long monocled cobra in Ocala after it escaped overnight.

24-inch cobra escaped its enclosure Monday night

Snake is in the area of 900 block of NE 9th Street

Call FWC's wildlife alert hotline at 888-404-3922

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is searching for the snake in the area of the 900 block of Northeast 9th Street near Ocala Tuscawilla Park.

FWC said Brian Purdy, the venomous reptile permit licensee, contacted the agency at about 11:15 p.m. Monday and said his 24-inch-long cobra had escaped its enclosure at about 9 p.m. An FWC wildlife investigator responded to the licensee's house where the snake was kept.

Authorities from the Ocala Police Department and Marion County Fire Rescue also responded to the area. After an initial search, nearby residents were notified of the escape.

"It's a deadly snake, and it's not safe to have in a neighborhood like this with a school down the block," said Britney Simpson, who lives next to Purdy's house.

There's also a park in the area and plenty of children in the neighborhood, Simpson said, adding: "It's not a safe situation for anybody."

People in the area are urged to use caution until the snake has been captured. Although reclusive by nature, cobras are highly venomous and will strike out if they feel threatened.

Steve McDaniel, an investigator with FWC, said they don't think the snake is in its room.

"Possibly in the house," he said. "I don't believe it's outside because of the weather. It's from southeast Asia; it doesn't like the cold.

The snake has distinctive multicolor markings. The monocled cobra's venom is one of the fastest-acting snake venoms in the world.

If anyone sees the snake, remain at a safe distance and immediately call the FWC's wildlife alert hotline at 888-404-3922.

A similar situation unfolded in 2015 in Orlando when a 10-foot-long king cobra escaped its enclosure at Dragon Ranch, located on the 4800 block of North Apopka Vineland Road, east of Ocoee.

The snake, named Elvis, was loose for about one month before being found underneath a dryer in the garage of a nearby home.

The snake's owner, Michael Kennedy, was cited for failing to immediately report the snake's escape. Kennedy is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.


Violent crime rates were a major talking point for President Trump during the 2016 election and continue to be a focus of the new administration. In a speech before a gathering of major city police chiefs, the president noted that violent crimes were rising in many cities, further stating that it is "a national tragedy and it requires national action."

It's true that the violent crime rate in the U.S. increased in 2015. According to the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report, the 2015 violent crime rate was 372.6 per 100,000 inhabitants -- a 3.1 percent increase over the 2014 rate. However, looking at two years' worth of data overlooks the larger trends. In the last 20 years, the rate of violent crime has fallen steadily from 636.6 per 100,000 in 1996 and is near an all-time low.

Nevertheless, some places have seen particularly large upticks in violent crime recently. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, violent crime rates in 2016 were projected to have increased by 17.7 percent and 13.4 percent in Chicago and Charlotte, respectively. With that in mind, FindTheHome, a real estate intelligence site by Graphiq, ranked the most dangerous place in every state. The data experts looked at the 2015 FBI Uniform Crime Report (the most recent year available) and identified the city in each state with the highest violent crime rate per 100,000 people in 2015. The violent crime rate is the total number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies within a city per 100,000 people. Violent crime is defined as offenses that involve force or threat of force.
March 12, 1937: About 1,000 attended the semi-annual meeting of the Hale County Singing Convention at Hale Center, reports C.M. Teague, organization president.

--Twelve women employed by the Plainview Home Economics Project held an open house to show the completion of their home furnishings project at the Speed Building, 819 Broadway. Total cost of furnishings and appointments for the four rooms is $14.14.

--Chloie Huffaker, Hale County Extension agent, taught a program on cake baking to the Stoneback Home Demonstration Club. Mrs. N.E. Favors cake was judged the best.

March 12, 1957: J.D. McBrien, Floydada grocer, has been named Floyd County judge.

--Don Robinson, Ronnie Boyd and Kenneth Vernon are Plainview student listed on the deans honor roll for the College of Engineering at the University of Texas.

--Scoring Plainviews points in the Big Spring track meet were Larry Gould, James Jacobs, Ray Garrison and Ray McCown.

March 12, 1977: Gerald Buchanan has achieved membership in the Millionaire Cub of State Farm Insurance.

--Mark Pair, assistant professor of music at Wayland, presented a program of Liszt Etudes for the Musical Arts Club.

--Following a reorganization of the police department, two command level positions have been filled with the appointments of Capts. Jessie Anderson and William Mull.

March 12, 1997: Lori McMillan, PHS senior, was selected Chamber of Commerce Student of the Month.

--The Chamber of Commerce Business of the Month is Douglass Oil Co. It is owned by G.E. Doug Douglass, president, and his son Ken, vice president.

--Lynda Jaynes, Hale County chief appraiser, has been reappointed to the Tax Professional Examiners Board by Gov. George Bush.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection/AP Photo/U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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Approximately $1.3 million in cocaine was seized in Fayette County, Texas Friday.

Sheriff's deputies and K-9, Lobos, discovered 13 kilograms of the substance hidden behind the license plate of a white sedan around 12:45 p.m. at mile marker 658 on Interstate 10 in central Texas.

ARRESTED: Houston man arrested after young daughters found holding cocaine

Police stopped Gricelda Garcia, 37, of Mexico for a traffic violation. They said she exhibited tell-tale "criminal indicators of narcotic trafficking." Garcia allowed the officers to search her vehicle, at which point officers David Smith and Deputy Pannell found the illegal substance.

Garcia was arrested on a felony possession charge but could face additional charges. She's being held on $50,000 bond.
HARTFORD  Seven years ago, lawmakers sought to address harsh punishments on sexting by making the offense a misdemeanor, a move that made teenagers eligible for diversionary programs and allowed them to escape possible prosecution as sex offenders.



Advocates said Monday there is one glaring problem with the bill: It only applies to teenagers, in a time when children are getting their own cellphones at younger ages.



The state law, which specifies that the standard applies only to those 13 to 17, results in law enforcement having to decide between felony charges for children 12 and younger or none at all.



And while lawmakers may have thought in 2010 that children in the lower age group would be too young for sexting  the act of sharing sexually explicit photos via text or other electronic communications  many said that is no longer the case.



Its prevalent across our urban, suburban and rural communities, and it has significant impacts on our young people, our teenagers and our tweens in this state, said Leon Smith, director of the Center for Childrens Advocacy Racial Justice Project.



Smith, citing studies, said the average age of consumers when they acquire their first cellphone is now 12. He also cited a recent study of Rhode Island middle schoolers that found 22 percent admitting to already engaging in sexting.



Possessing nude or sexually explicit images of minors is defined as child pornography under state law, and the offense is deemed a felony.



Law enforcement officials have sometimes been hesitant to pursue the charges when minors engage in sexting because of the ramifications.



Alexandra Nelson submitted written testimony detailing an experience she had in 2007, when, as a minor, she engaged in sexting with classmates. She said her mother went to police but the students never faced repercussions, and she faced bullying that drove her into depression and, ultimately, alcohol abuse.



The legislature reclassified the offense, when committed by anyone between 13 and 17, as a misdemeanor, a change that allows for referrals to diversionary programs like juvenile review boards operated by youth services bureaus.



The review boards can hear arguments and make their own rulings, including sanctions, without cases resulting in criminal records. Smith said the boards are able to better handle some cases than courts.



The law, as written, doesnt open up the same opportunity for those 12 and younger. Nelson said she was only 11 at the time, meaning the law as currently written still wouldnt apply.



Some questioned whether the law would handcuff police and other authorities when stronger punishments are warranted, such as when an image is widely shared with classmates.



The misdemeanor only applies to the original recipient, though, and Smith said other laws with stricter penalties can still apply to behavior officials deem harmful, reckless, or malicious.



Still, organizations like the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women warned that changing the law could have unintended consequences. The commission supports the change, but suggested the language be changed to clarify that it only applies to situations in which minors are engaged in sexting, and not when an adult is involved.



Others, like Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, said he understands the desire to avoid harsh punishments for juveniles, but expressed concern that communities will now apply their own standards.



Sometimes, in some communities, in some schools, a child might get suspended, slapped on the wrist, and it goes no further, he said. In other communities, the police might get involved.



He said the involvement of police could lead to criminal records that affect students for the rest of their lives, a problem often referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline.



Even those raising concerns expressed support for the intent, though, and the bill, co-sponsored by three Democrats, appears to have bipartisan support.



Sen. Len Suzio, R-Meriden, said the bill seems to strike a balance on how to handle a real issue today, adding advances in technology are making it harder to monitor childrens communications.



Its so easy to transmit these images now and receive these images, I think theres definitely a reason for growing concern about it, he said.



msavino@record-journal.com 203-317-2266 Twitter: @reporter_savino






HARTFORD  Public disclosure advocates are renewing their push for access to medical records archived at the Connecticut State Library, saying the information can provide valuable insight to the way conditions were handled in the past.



Proponents are hoping to gain more support this year  similar bills failed to get a chamber vote in 2014 and 2016  with a proposal that would shield such records from the public for 75 years, 25 years longer than federal protections.



Opponents maintain that the bill is unfair, saying it would result in an invasion of privacy for those treated at a publicly funded medical or psychiatric institution.



In general, wed like to respect the privacy of the individual wherever their treatment has been received, and leave that decision to the person if those records should be made public without redaction, Nancy Navarretta, deputy commissioner for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, told members of the legislatures Government Administration and Elections Committee during a public hearing Monday.



Under changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, medical records are only deemed private for 50 years after a patients death. Records maintained by a state institution or agency, though, are exempt from disclosure under the states Freedom of Information Act.



The proposal would make records at the state library available to the public 75 years after the record was created or after the persons death, whichever period is longer. Past proposals called for a 50-year protection, matching the timeframe under HIPAA.



It would apply only to records that get transferred to the state library, something regulated by other statutes, and not those stored by other state agencies.



State Librarian Kendall Wiggin said the legislation is needed to clear up a maze of rules and requirements. He also said records can play a key role in better understanding the past.



When these barriers are created, little consideration is given to these records future historical importance and to allowing access to the record after a reasonable amount of time, Wiggins said.



Matthew Warshauer, a history professor at Central Connecticut State University, said the exemptions for medical records came after he was trying to research treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder during the Civil War.



The changes barred him access to records from the facility that later became Connecticut Valley Hospital, but he was able to view those maintained by Hartford Hospital through probate court actions and negotiations.



The states Freedom of Information Commission and the Council on Freedom of Information, a group of advocates that includes the Record-Journal, also backed the bill.



Those in the mental health industry warned the bill could have unintended consequences, particularly when it comes to fairness.



Kathleen Flaherty, executive director of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project, said private facilities typically destroy records long before the 50-year HIPAA protection, meaning the records are no longer available.



Private institutions are also not subject to FOIA requirements, which only apply to public agencies, meaning disclosure is subject to the companys policies.



Basically what youre doing is youre discriminating against people who have obtained help from the public system, Flaherty said.



The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Connecticut shared Flahertys concerns.



msavino@record-journal.com 203-317-2266 Twitter: @reporter_savino






A former San Mateo County fire chief accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars through a credit card fraud scheme that prosecutors say he ran with his wife, who fled the country years ago, pleaded no contest on Monday to multiple felonies.

Mark Steven Ladas, 52, pleaded no contest to six counts of grand theft and two counts each of tax evasion and filing false tax returns, all felonies, according to San Mateo County District Attorneys Office.

Ladas had been chief of the Central County Fire Department  which serves Hillsborough, Burlingame and Millbrae  before he was charged in December 2014 with crimes stemming from the fraud scheme.

The crimes span over a two-year period beginning in January 2011, when Ladas wife, Peta Ladas, allegedly opened several credit cards under fake names, said Karen Guidotti, chief deputy district attorney for San Mateo County.

Peta Ladas is accused of using the credit cards to make purchases from a fake business that she and her husband set up using point-of-sale machines.

The proceeds from the bogus business ended up in the couples personal bank accounts. Three of the accounts in Mark Ladas name contained about $35,000, Guidotti said. The income was not listed for tax purposes for 2011 and 2012, officials said.

His wife, Peta, was arrested in December 2012, but fled the country after making bail. Prosecutors say she lives in Canada with her daughter, who was 8 or 9 years old at the time she jumped bail, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Canada wont extradite on a matter like this, said Wagstaffe, citing the nonviolent nature of the crime. They wont honor extradition, so she has successfully fled across the border with her daughter.

Before Mark Ladas was investigated as a suspect he would regularly visit his wife and daughter in Canada, Wagstaffe said.

He faces a sentence of up to 90 days in county jail when he is sentenced on May 5. Prosecutors had initially sought a sentence of 3 years and 8 months in state prison.

He is currently out of custody on $80,000 bail.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
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A Hidalgo County judge on Monday agreed to postpone a fraud lawsuit filed against state Sen. Carlos Uresti by a Harlingen woman.

The San Antonio Democrat had requested a legislative continuance in the case because hes now in the Legislature in Austin. Judge Rose Reyna Guerra approved the delay, essentially putting the case on hold until the end of June.

RELATED: Investor claims Uresti, others stole $900,000 settlement

Denise Cantu sued Uresti in January, alleging he and others tricked her into believing she was investing $900,000 in an oil field services company. Instead, she contends, most of her money was distributed by company officials amongst themselves.

Uresti previously had denied any wrongdoing in connection with his involvement in the company, FourWinds Logistics, which went bankrupt in 2015. Uresti received a $27,000 commission on Cantus investment. He also provided legal services to the company and held a 1 percent ownership interest.

Uresti was part of the legal team that represented Cantu in a wrongful-death case involving two of her children. She invested the bulk of the proceeds of a settlement in FourWinds.

RELATED: FBI, IRS raid state Sen. Carlos Uresti's San Antonio law office

FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents last month raided Urestis San Antonio law offices. He said the search was in regards to a broad investigation of FourWinds.

Three company officials already have pleaded guilty in the case and are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.

The defendants in Cantus lawsuit, which also include JP Morgan Chase & Co., want the case transferred to Bexar County district court. That request wont be addressed until August.

pdanner@express-news.net

Twitter: @AlamoPD
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Kong: Skull Island destroyed the box office competition with a $61 million opening weekend.

Thats no surprise: The big ape is always a big box-office draw. Peter Jacksons version opened No. 1 in December 2005, as did the 1976 version starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, which was director John Guillermins follow-up to The Towering Inferno.

In his review of the Skull: Kong Island, film critic Mick LaSalle said King Kong has never looked so good.

Do you agree? Click through the slideshow to see photos of King Kong through the years.
Police on Monday identified a man who was shot and killed over the weekend at a tattoo parlor in southwest Houston.

Darius Rashad Cooper, 19, was pronounced dead at the scene about 11:15 p.m. on Saturday at a strip shopping center in the 4300 block of West Fuqua.
Three days before President Trumps new travel ban is due to take effect, California joined a legal challenge by Washington and four other states Monday arguing that the proposed halt on admission of immigrants and refugees is a thinly disguised anti-Muslim decree that would damage the states universities, hospitals and economies.

Like Trumps first order, which was blocked by the courts, the revised order is an attack on people  women and children, professors and business colleagues, seniors and civic leaders  based on their religion and national origin, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement accompanying the filing in a federal court in Seattle.

Washington state, the lead plaintiff, asked U.S. District Judge James Robart to hold a hearing Tuesday on its request to extend his previous injunction to Trumps new order temporarily blocking people from six mostly Muslim nations and all refugees. But Robart said he would hear arguments no earlier than Wednesday, when other federal judges have scheduled hearings on separate lawsuits in Maryland and Hawaii.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration filed its first legal defense of the new executive order, telling a judge in Hawaii that it was issued under the presidents broad constitutional authority over foreign affairs and national security and bars entry on the basis of risk of terrorism, not religion.

The states filing Monday detailed the harm they said they would suffer from the travel ban.

Californias lawyers said the state, whose population is 27 percent foreign-born, is home to nearly 700 students from the six targeted countries at its state universities and would face the loss of prospective students, scholars and physicians from abroad, as well as millions in tax revenue from travelers.

The proposed order undermines Californias commitment to diversity and nondiscrimination, the filing said.

The order, which Trump issued March 6, would prohibit U.S. entry for 90 days by anyone from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In the meantime, the U.S. would determine whether heightened screening is needed for people from those nations trying to enter this country.

Trumps short-lived Jan. 27 travel ban also applied to entrants from Iraq, which was dropped from the new order at the urging of military officials working with Iraqis to combat Islamic State militants. U.S. officials also said Iraq had agreed to implement new measures to keep people with criminal or terroristic intent from reaching the United States.

The new order, like the first one, would also halt for 120 days all U.S. admission of refugees, who have fled violence or persecution in their homelands. Unlike the earlier version, the March 6 order explicitly exempts from the ban natives of the targeted countries who have gained legal U.S. residency or hold valid U.S. visas.

Rulings by Robart and a panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that the Jan. 27 order was likely to violate the constitutional rights of immigrants and refugees, by excluding them without notice or hearings, and that it raised serious questions of possible religious discrimination.

Lawyers for the states suing in Seattle  Washington, California, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland  argued Monday that the new presidential order was no different.

Despite Trumps claim that the revisions would satisfy the courts previous objections, the states lawyers noted that presidential adviser Stephen Miller said Feb. 21 that the new order would have mostly minor technical differences but the same basic policy outcome as the first order. Trumps press secretary, Sean Spicer, said Feb. 27 that the new order attempts to address the courts concerns but to maintain the way that we did it the first time.

And that goal, the states contended, is to disfavor Islam and favor Christianity.

They cited Trumps campaign pledge to ban all Muslim immigration, his claim at a Feb. 16 news conference that he had acted to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the country, and the Jan. 28 statement by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump adviser, that the president had asked him to find a legal way to draft a Muslim ban.

In the Hawaii filing defending Trumps order, Justice Department lawyers described the ban as a brief time-out for review of U.S. terrorist screening measures. It said Trumps order was legal under a 1952 statute allowing the president to exclude any class of aliens who might harm the national interest.

Any alleged violations of the rights of individuals were cured by the new orders exemptions for legal residents and visa-holders, the only noncitizens who have constitutional rights, government lawyers said. Claims of harm to universities, state hospitals or residents seeking entry of a relative abroad are merely speculative, the lawyers said, because anyone banned by the order could ask a consular official for a waiver.

They also said the executive order does not convey any religious message and would affect nations which collectively are home to less than 9 percent of the worlds Muslim population.

Informal statements by the president or his surrogates  before or after the election  that do not directly concern the order are irrelevant, the government lawyers said.

In another action Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and 36 colleagues introduced a bill that would negate Trumps order, legislation that has little prospect of success in the Republican-controlled Congress, let alone of winning the presidents signature.

These divisive policies alienate our allies in the Muslim world and fuel anti-American sentiment by sending a message that the United States is out to punish one religion, Feinstein said in a statement.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com TWitter: @egelko
Carjackers shot and killed a Houston-area father because his car had a manual transmission, which they didn't how to operate, police said.

Pedro Aguilar, a 47-year-old mechanic, was returning to his Harris County apartment about 11 p.m. after dining out with his wife and 10-year-old daughter. The wife and daughter had gotten out of the car and were guiding him to a parking space when a sedan pulled up, according to KHOU.

Two young men got out and pointed a gun at Aguilar while he was still in the driver's seat, police said. They pistol-whipped him and pulled him out because he was taking too much time, according to deputies.

The thieves then got into the car but could not get it to drive because they didn't know how to operate a standard shift. According to the ABC 13, police believe that Aguilar was shot in the chest by one of the men out of frustration over the manual transmission.

The stymied suspects then returned to their vehicle, described as a silver or white four-door sedan, and fled the scene. A third man reportedly was driving the car.

All three men were described as being in their late-teens or early 20s.

Aguilar died at the scene in front of his family.

Some tenants told KHOU they have to pay to park inside the apartment complex gates, which is why many residents opt for the free parking along the street.
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If Woodlands residents wake to the sound of a loud boom in the coming month, there's no need to be alarmed. Preparation for the demolition of 1200 Timberloch Place in The Woodlands will take place over the next six weeks, leading up to its tentatively scheduled implosion in mid-April, according to a news release by Montgomery County officials.

Demolition of the parking garage accompanying the 11-story building on The Woodlands Waterway began last week by "conventional means," and construction crews are clearing the site.

Timberloch Tower was built in 1998 and was purchased by purchased by oil and gas company Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in 2010, according to an article by the Houston Chronicle.

Anadarko Spokesperson John Christiansen said the demolition of Timberloch Tower has been in the works for a while, with the building having been vacant for roughly a year. Employees in the office building were consolidated into Anadarko's two other Woodlands locations, Allison Tower and Hackett Tower.

"Our plan short-term is to reforest that site, per The Woodlands Township Standards," Christiansen said. "Long term, removing them (Timberloch Tower and parking garage) gives us more flexibility in the future to build something more efficiently."

Christiansen said implosion of Timberloch Tower was chosen because Anadarko believes it is the quickest, safest and least disruptive demolition method for the community.

This project involves coordination from multiple departments, including demolition contractors D.H. Griffin of Texas, Inc., The Woodlands Township, Montgomery County Fire Marshal's Office, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and the Precinct 3 Constable's Office. Officials with Montgomery County Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack's office will work with the Montgomery County Engineer's Office to review traffic plans.

"We participated in the initial planning session, and county Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams and his office have taken the lead in coordinating with other agencies and departments," said Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal in a statement. "Our job, should Anadarko and The Woodlands Township believe this is the best means to demolish the building, is to ensure the implosion takes place safely and with minimal disruption to the public."

Montgomery County Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams said his office will approve the demolition plans once they are provided. This is the first implosion project in Montgomery County, to his knowledge.

"Over the next few weeks, there will be additional meetings to look at the (demolition) plans they've submitted, but the exact date and time is still to be determined," Williams said.

Williams said that while "nothing is set in stone yet," blast projects are usually done in the early morning on a weekend, as to not impact business travel.

Assistant General Manager for Community Services with The Woodlands Township John Powers said the Township will directly notify neighbors and property owners about timing and road closures surrounding the demolition. Since there is no concrete date set, Powers said The Township will also notify events - such as The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival and the Ironman triathalon - so the events can plan for traffic control.

Following Timberloch Tower's implosion, Powers said Anadarko will propose a plan to the Township's Development Standards Committee for approval of the site's restoration and reforestation.
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Grant, a 2-year-old, pit-bull mix, took off in a sprint, his ears jetting back as he ran in a wide circle around the fence perimeter. He pranced forward, tongue out, rubbing himself against the leg of Lisa Sebree, manager of The Woodlands Dog Suites in Magnolia.

"He wasn't like this at all when he got here," Sebree said, laughing. "This dog would not let you touch him when he first got here. He wouldn't let you anywhere near him."

Grant is a Diamond Dog, which is a dog who stayed at Montgomery County Animal Shelter for over 21 days (or was otherwise deemed unadoptable), who are often on their way to be euthanized.

Roughly six weeks ago, The Woodlands Dog Suites, a boarding facility for dogs, partnered with MCAS to assist in the adoption of these Diamond Dogs.

How it works is, volunteers can go to MCAS and agree to foster a Diamond Dog who is facing euthanasia. For a discounted rate of $10 per day, the foster can board the dog at The Woodlands Dog Suites until the dog is adopted at the facility or an off-site event or is transported to a no-kill shelter.

Shelters can seem like a "prison" to dogs, Sebree said, which can cause them to behave differently than they would in a less stressful setting. Taking the dogs out of a shelter environment and bringing them to a facility where they can run and play with others brings out a completely different dog, Sebree said.

"The dogs are relaxed, they can have a normal environment here and they can come into the house with us," Sebree said. "Every (Diamond) dog that has come in has changed dramatically."

Grant is not the only adoptable rescue dog who was given a second chance. Tank, a large pit bull who was deemed unadoptable because he jumped fences, and Brownie, who was found homeless at a taco stand, are also waiting to be adopted or transported. Additionally, multiple rescue schnauzer's are boarding at the facility through Schnauzer Rescue of Texas.

But working with MCAS is not the main focus of The Woodlands Dog Suites. The five-acre facility, which has been open since the middle of November, offers 160 boarding suites primarily for dogs whose families are going out of town, at work during the day, etc.

Co-owner of The Woodlands Dog Suites Malcolm Macaulay said the facility, which is modeled after Australian dog kennels, is not like other boarding businesses. Co-owners Robert and Dorota Sherlock - who owned two smaller dog suites before - invited Macaulay and his wife, Karen, to help make The Woodlands Dog Suites an "innovative" experience for dogs.

The Woodlands Dog Suites' kennels are offered in two sizes (standard and large) that are designed for indoor and outdoor accessibility, with a grassed outdoor portion for the dogs to relax or go to the restroom. Access to the outside through a dog door keeps the indoor section clean, so dogs may go inside the climate-controlled room without the smell sometimes associated with other concrete kennels.

An average day for dogs at the facility involve two meals a day, as well as two times when the dogs are rotated to a large grassy area to interact with other dogs in small play groups. Someone is on-site at all times, so the dogs are not left alone overnight.

The Woodlands Dog Suites has experienced such success that the business looks to expand to multiple locations, naming Houston, Katy, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin as future communities.

Macaulay said the next locations will be opening in Houston and Katy in roughly three months. Katy's location will be opening at 28785 Clay Road, and the Houston location will be inside the I-610 Loop.

The Woodlands Dog Suites, at 9015 Shady Lane, Magnolia is open Monday through Sunday from 8-5 p.m. Drop-offs are permitted before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. with proper vaccination records, whether for rescue dogs or clients, but additional fees may apply. For more information on boarding rates, suite sizes and necessary vaccination records, visit woodlandsdogsuites.com or call 832-610-9900.
Drivers will have to watch their speed on County Road 325, Cemetery Road, in Abernathy.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Kenny Kernell requested the speed signs at the regular Hale County Commissioners Court meeting Monday.

About half mile of the road is under development, according to Kernell.

People are living there with children, and it would be prudent to place signs, Kernell said. Traffic in the area has caused people with small children to be concerned.

Commissioners approved placing 35 mph signs along the road.

Precinct 3 Constable Terry Timms requested commissioners and County Judge Bill Coleman to sign a resolution approving a request for a grant to purchase a 2017 Chevrolet Tahoe 4X4, fully equipped. Timms made the same grant request for a 2016 Chevrolet Tahoe last year, but the request was turned down.

Timms previous grant request ranked No. 11 on the list, and only 10 requests were funded.

This year, Timms said, hell go in there fighting and screaming for the grant. Im sure I can get us moved up to No. 9 in good shape, Timms quipped.

The commissioners approved Timms request and signed the resolution. Timms will present the request in April and should know the result sometime near the end of April.

Two bids to replace the sewer line at the Ollie Liner Center RV Park and build a concrete valley gutter to provide better drainage for the Center were opened Feb. 24. Precinct 4 Commissioner Benny Cantwell has been working with Chester Carthel of Carthel Engineering Solutions in Lubbock to hire a contractor for the job. Carthel recommended Plainview Construction Services LP.

The cost estimate for the drainage is $24,795, and the sewer line for the RV Park is $133,706.80. Commissioners approved both projects for a total of $158,501.80. The concrete valley gutter will divert water from the front of the Center, while the RV Park project will upgrade the water, electrical and sewer to each of the RV spaces.

The Court agreed to contact Ollie Liner Center Manager Benito Garcia to reserve spots in the RV Park for Covenants Community Dental Health Van. They suggested that Covenant request the commission to waive parking fees. The low-cost dental health van, a project of Plainview/Hale County Health Department and Covenant Medical Group, plans to bring a four-day clinic in April 2017 and a four-day return visit every six weeks. The request was made by nurse practitioner Greg Curry at the commissioners work session Friday.

In other action:

--Assistant Treasurer Margie Chavez reported the accounts payable amount for year ending Dec. 31, 2016, was $362.23. The report was approved. Chavez said the accounts payable for Feb. 22-March 13, 2017, stood at $124,677.68. The report was approved.

--Marci Brown has requested use of the Courthouse Square for Walk-A-Mile in Her Shoes starting at 8:30 a.m. and concluding at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 22. The event benefits Hale County Crisis Center and victims of sexual abuse and family violence. The request was approved.

--A request has been made for use of the Broadway City Park for a Color Run benefiting the Alzheimers Association on April 22. The commissioners referred the matter to the City of Plainview.
In a ruling that could affect hundreds of cases, a state appeals court said Monday that a ballot proposition requiring juvenile court judges, rather than prosecutors, to decide whether a youth should be tried as an adult applies to charges filed before the measure passed in November.

The measure, Proposition 57, sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown, was approved by 64 percent of the states voters. Its best-known provision allowed early parole hearings for prisoners serving long terms for crimes that the law defined as nonviolent. Mondays ruling involved a separate section that reduced prosecutors authority to charge juveniles in adult court.

Juveniles as young as 14 who are convicted in adult court can be sentenced to the same terms as adults  up to life in prison for murder and some crimes involving guns. Those convicted in juvenile court must be released at age 23, except in rare cases when a judge finds that a youth poses a danger to society.

A 2000 ballot measure allowed prosecutors to charge juveniles aged 14 to 17 in adult court. Prop. 57 restored the pre-2000 law, requiring a prosecutor to seek approval from a juvenile court judge, who would assess the youths record, background and charges before deciding where the case belonged. The law presumes that youths should be tried as juveniles unless prosecutors can prove otherwise.

The court case arose in Riverside County, where prosecutors charged a juvenile, Pablo L., in adult court in June with several crimes including sexual assault. After Prop. 57 passed, his lawyers sought to transfer his case to juvenile court for a hearing to determine where he should be tried. Prosecutors opposed the request and said the ballot measure applied only to newly filed cases, not to those that had been charged before it passed.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside disagreed. In a 3-0 ruling, the first by an appellate court on the issue, Presiding Justice Manuel Ramirez said ballot materials accompanying Prop. 57 indicated that the voters intended the new rules on juveniles to take effect immediately. That would include cases that had been charged before Prop. 57 but had not yet gone to trial, he said.

Steven Mitchell, a lawyer for the youth, said the ruling honored the intent of the voters, who wanted juveniles to be tried as juveniles. He said most district attorneys offices in the state had adopted such a policy on their own.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascons office said it follows that policy. But the Riverside County district attorneys office said in a court filing that it had 57 other cases in the same posture as Mondays case. The office declined to comment on the ruling, which it could appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
NORWALK  Laura Veira will travel from Harvard University this week to Connecticut's state capitol to fight for the right for undocumented students to have access to financial aid.

Veira, who grew up in Norwalk after moving to the Connecticut from Colombia with her family at the age of 3, came out of the undocu-closet  as an undocumented immigrant  last year during her graduation speech as Brien McMahon High Schools valedictorian.

Though she says was lucky enough to make it through high school and on to Harvard where she where she studies with finances covered, Veria said others in her situation arent as well-fortuned.

Veira was part of the small percentage of undocumented students who graduate from high school and studies show only about 5 to 10 percent of those graduates go on to attend college.

Its directly related, Veira said. That's the cause of the low amounts of college graduation rates  the financial barrier.

Veira said her brother attends Norwalk Community College and is forced to spend a lot of time working to pay for school. All that work and high out-of-pocket costs also means, Veira said, it will most likely take him 3.5 years to complete his typically two-year associate's degree.

So, in order to try to make a change, Veira will join dozens of undocumented students, educators and allies as she travels to Hartford Wednesday and Friday with the immigrant-activist group Connecticut Students for a Dream to advocate for a pair of bills in the General Assembly that aim to allow undocumented students to have access to financial aid.

These students are paying into the pool of money. Its money they deserve so its only fair that they have access to to it, Veira said. We want a piece of the pie.

House Bill 7000, referred to the Higher Education Committee, would allow any person entitled to classification as an in-state student for tuition purposes eligible to apply for and receive institutional financial aid to attend a public institution of higher education in the state beginning the fall semester of 2018.

A nearly identical measure, Senate Bill 17, was proposed by the senate, taken up and redrafted by the Higher Education and Employment Advancement committees.

Currently, public colleges and universities across Connecticut set aside a proportion of tuition revenue to be used as institutional aid to assist students with financial need. However, immigrant students who have grown up in the state and have graduated from a state high school are not eligible for the aid even though they contribute to the funds through their tuition.

The bills put forth would equalize access to student-generated institutional aid.

Critics of the bills have argued that the state should not reward students who are in the country illegally, and that doing so would mean less money for those with lawful status.

As a part of the trip to Hartford, the group of undocumented students and others will occupy the lobby of the Legislative Office Building on Wednesday. Undocumented students will share their stories and conduct a sit in where they will do homework and work toward their dreams.

Earlier in the day, undocumented students will visit legislative offices and drop off graduation caps as a depiction of their dreams to legislators.

Thursday the students will conduct a teach in where they will educate those present on topics that affect their everyday lives as undocumented youth and families.

I love being an activist on this work, Veira said, but Im also doing it because I have to do it. Im trying to fight for my own rights, the rights of my family and my community.

Connecticut would be missing out on an amazing group of people if they continue to deny access to higher education, Veira said. You have to realize how much undocumented students have to offer to the whole community.

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz
Families gathered in front of The Woodlands Children's Museum on Tuesday morning for The Woodlands Township Neighborhood Watch's third annual Safety Day, at which local officials teamed up for a fun and educational day for both children and adults.

The Woodlands Children's Museum on West Panther Creek Drive sponsored the event, offering a portion of the parking lot and the front sidewalk to the cause.

Director of Law Enforcement Services at The Woodlands Township Marian Leck said the event's purpose is to educate the community with crime prevention information and safety tips. Also, Leck said she hopes it encourages children not to fear police officers, fire fighters or others who are there to keep the community safe.

"We want kids to realize they're not scary, they're just people too," Leck said.

This year's spring break event featured more interactive presentations, with the Montgomery County Hospital District, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, The Woodlands Fire Department, an Alpha and Omega Mounted trooper, Safe Kids Greater Houston and more captivating the attention of curious children.

In the parking lot, children wore plastic hats and emblem stickers, climbing inside the emergency and police vehicles, and frequently asking questions to the assisting vehicle operators. MSCO Crime Prevention Officer Kellie Christiansen said her division goes out to schools, apartment complexes, businesses and residents of The Woodlands to educate the community on what one can do to stay safe during day-to-day life.

"The kids love it, they love to climb into the vehicles, they love the gear we wear, they want to know what every piece is, what every piece does," Christiansen said. "Some of this stuff, I'll let them be hands-on with, like my handcuffs or something where they can't get hurt, and they are all excited about it."

At the museum's entrance, MCSO also set up a table for children to get fingerprinted, which was exciting for the children and beneficial for parents to have on-file.

In one area, children sat on colored mats and had books about cellphone safety and emergency usage read to them by employees of The Woodlands Children's Museum. McGruff the Crime Dog and Cell Phone Sally mascots, coinciding with the storybook reading, greeted children and parents.

The biggest crowd at the event, however, was at the car seat safety check. Safe Kids Greater Houston, a safety initiative through Texas Children's Hospital, encouraged parents to bring their vehicle and car seat to learn how to properly install a car seat. Health Education Specialist for Texas Children's Hospital Lisa Delgado said motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of child fatalities.

"Four out of five seats we see are not installed correctly," Delgado said. "It could be something from, the seat is moving too much  parents could be using a lower anchor and a seat belt to install their seat - and they do that because they think if it's extra tight, it's extra safe - but in most cases, you can't do that type of installation. It can also be something as easy as projectiles in the vehicle."

Projectiles can include tools, toys and more. There are 23 Safe Kids locations in the Greater Houston area, and Delgado said families can make appointments at safekidsgreaterhouston.org for a free car seat installation.

"The parents are thankful that we're here," Delgado said. "We had one couple come here who just came to the museum to have fun, but they saw that we were checking seats and so we showed them that it was installed incorrectly and how to fix it. The baby is going to leave here safer than he arrived, which is our goal."
LUBBOCK -- Two Destination Imagination teams from Carver Center won first place at the regional competition Feb. 25 at Monterey High School in Lubbock and will advance to the statewide contest in April. Three other teams won medals. The school sent eight teams to the contest, in which 106 teams competed.

In Destination Imagination, students compete in one of five areas; technical, scientific, fine arts, improvisational and structural. They are presented with challenges that have multiple learning outcomes, including budget management, presentation skills, creative and critical thinking, teamwork, risk-taking, self-directed learning, construction, engineering and project management.
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Advocates for marijuana reform waited up to 10 hours to testify Monday night at the Texas Capitol in support of a bill that would dramatically reduce criminal penalties for marijuana possession.

HB 81, the last of 11 bills heard by the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Monday, would eliminate any jail time or threat of arrest for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana and the offense would be punishable with a fine of $250. The offense would not generate a criminal record, but law enforcement may still seize any amount of marijuana. The drug would remain illegal.

Today, under the Texas Controlled Substances Act of the Health and Safety Code, a person possessing two ounces or less of marijuana commits a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 and up to six months in jail.

RELATED: 11 facts you didn't know about marijuana

You wouldnt get a criminal drug charge and that is what follows someone for life and why this legislation is so important, said Heather Fazio before the hearing. Fazio is political director for the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group supporting marijuana reform in Texas. Were seeing people having their lives altered through their access to education, employment, housing, and drivers license suspension when it comes to even a tiny amount of marijuana if theyre convicted.

The bill, which has bipartisan support, is authored by state Reps. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and Jason Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, and has 35 co-sponsors. SB 170, authored by Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, is the companion measure in the Senate.

Of the 28 people registered to testify, only Bobby Bland, Ector County District Attorney, testified against the bill, arguing that the bill might present a problem whenever officials attempt to search a car or a person after smelling marijuana.

RELATED: New policy decriminalizes marijuana in Texas county

It may be difficult for officers to enforce it, Bland said. If searches are done, a judge may say there is a lack of probable cause if they base it on odor of marijuana. Right now, if there is odor of marijuana and a search is done, its no problem. But if part of the law is civil, they may start suppressing evidence that we need in burglaries and robberies and murders that we get whenever an officer smells marijuana.

Moody, who is also the chairman of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, said that his bill was not about legalizing marijuana, but about smart government, a bipartisan issue. He said it would still be a crime to drive under the influence of marijuana, and an officer can still search someone if they smelled marijuana.

By making possession of less than an ounce a civil penalty instead of a criminal one, Moody said police officers can remain on patrol, jails can be less crowded and prosecutors can spend more time working on more pressing cases.

Keep in mind that selling marijuana would still be a crime, Moody said. Possession of more than an ounce would still be a crime. The message would still be Texas (does) not believe marijuana is OK.

According to the most recent data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, 61,748 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2015.

Daryoush Zamhariri, an Austin testifier who has a business degree from the University of Texas at Dallas, was arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana in 2010.

A marijuana-related arrest record made finding suitable housing difficult, has limited my employment opportunities, and has created a barrier to furthering my education because of restrictions on financial aid, Zamhariri said. It took six squad cars totaling eight officers, including a K-9 team, to arrest me. Why are we arresting and prosecuting non-violent productive citizens, instead of diverting those resources to catch violent criminals?

Texas would be the 22nd state to stop jailing people for small amounts of marijuana if the bill were signed into law. The bill was left pending in committee.

elutz@express-news.net
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A Hispanic pioneer in the world of state and national politics, former Congressman Eligio Kika de la Garza died Monday in a McAllen hospital.

He was 89.

Family told reporters that de la Garza was at Legends Transitional Healthcare. Cause of death has not been determined, but he had been in failing health in recent months.

The longtime Democratic representative for the 15th congressional district, de la Garza had an outsized impact in South Texas for more than 40 years, influencing generations of future elected officials from the region.

Kika was an inspiration to South Texans and led the charge of building a better agricultural industry for our nation during his time as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, who credited de la Garza for playing an important role in his decision to run for Congress. He will be missed.

Born in Mercedes and raised in Mission, Garza served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1952 to 1964, then held the 15th congressional district from 1965 to 1997 where he spearheaded far-reaching legislation on agriculture, including establishing a support program for sugar prices similar to the one for milk and creating a multi-billion dollar disaster relief fund to help farmers suffering from the drought of the 1980s.

As a young man, de la Garza served in the U.S. Navy before he went to U.S. Army Artillery School. He was a lieutenant in the Army and served in the 37th Field Artillery Regiment during the Korean War.

De la Garza would go on to earn his law degree at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio. For a time he was the only Hispanic member of the Texas House, where he made a name for himself crafting legislation to protect the environment and early childhood education.

He was only the second Hispanic elected to Congress from Texas (Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio was the first) and when he was named chairman of the U.S. House Agricultural Committee in 1981, he was the first Hispanic to lead a standing House Committee since 1945, according to Congress.gov.

There is a tremendous gap between the consumer and the fellow who rides on the tractor or who is picking the fruit, de la Garza was quoted as saying in a Washington Post article in 1983. I would like to be remembered as the chairman ... bringing together groups that represent agriculture, the farmers and ranchers and consumers  that somehow each one would admit that he couldnt exist without the other.

De la Garza also served as a founding member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He touted the diversity in the caucus; he himself was a conservative Democrat who introduced amendments calling for a balanced budget and allowing prayer in schools.

Former President Bill Clinton tweeted a brief eulogy Monday: Kika de la Garza was a good man, very effective congressman, valued friend, & a champion for opportunity and social justice. Ill miss him.

De la Garza advocated for improved U.S. and Mexico relations, including the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement, approved during Clintons tenure. De La Garza received the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honor Mexico gives to non-Mexicans, in 1978.

Coming from the border in South Texas, Kika brought a new worldview to Congress and was a pioneer that lead the way for more Hispanics to fully participate in our nations legislative process, said Congressman Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Rep. Kika de la Garza, as an example of someone who has given back so much to the agricultural communities across the nation.

De la Garza is survived by his wife, Lucille, their three children and numerous grandchildren.

anelsen@express-news.net

Twitter@amnelsen
AUSTIN - Proposed new restrictions on how much property tax revenue local governments can raise got a big thumbs down Tuesday from San Antonios police and fire chiefs.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told the Senate Finance Committee that Senate Bill 2 would stop police department in their tracks by limiting their ability to raise money for personnel and technology.
SAN ANTONIO  At least one man was hospitalized Monday night after police responded to several shooting calls in the city's South Side.

Officers first responded to a shooting call around 11:45 p.m. in the 300 block of Madero Street, where they found a suspect with a gunshot wound to his arm.

RELATED: BCSO: Deputy catches off-duty prison guard impersonating police officer

Police say the suspect, who was being uncooperative, told them he was walking down the street when a group of unknown individuals shot at him.

Later, a second shooting call came from the 300 block of Huerta Street, just a few blocks away. Police found a vehicle with blood inside and bullet holes in it, but no suspects or victims were present.

RELATED: S.A. rep calls on state to probe shocking shooting death of pregnant teen, unborn child

Then police received a third shooting call from the 100 block of Carmen Place. Upon arrival, police encountered a 31-year-old victim who told them he had given a ride to the suspect, a woman and a child to their home.

When they reached the 300 block of Huerta, the victim said, the suspect began hitting the victim in the back of the head, causing the gun to fire.

RELATED: Police: Elderly man admits to punching 68-year-old woman in mouth after argument the night before

The victim said he was able to get out of the car and take the gun away from the suspect and then flee to the location where he called police. He was not shot, but the victim did suffer a laceration to the back of his head.

The suspect was taken to University Hospital. It is unclear if he will face criminal charges.

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
Re: Property tax relief plan is flawed, editorial, March 2:

In just three years, local taxing jurisdictions have given themselves up to a 35 percent raise, thanks to high increases in property appraisals, and that is the editorial that should be printed in the San Antonio Express-News.

The average Bexar County and San Antonio home tax bill jumped 24 percent over the last three years, with the countys tax levy increasing by $110 million. The citys tax levy is up $140 million, too.

I side with the hard-pressed taxpayers, not the spenders. I filed Senate Bill 2 to lower tax rates as appraised property values skyrocket.

This editorial is relying on a print news story that uses faulty federal data from the American Community Survey that has Texas property tax bills only going up by 13.2 percent over five years, even less than median household income.

Taxpayers know that this is not true just by looking at their property tax bill!

In fact, reliable data from the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association shows the real tax bill increase to be 33.7 percent faster than median family income.

Texans deserve relief. They deserve reform. Under SB 2, if a taxing jurisdiction exceeds the proposed lower 4 percent rollback tax rate, half of the current 8 percent, then it can present the property tax rate increase to the voters for a tax-rate ratification election in November. It also will set up a Property Tax Administration Advisory Board in the comptrollers office to recommend best practices and review taxpayer complaints.

Under SB 2, spenders will have to set priorities as taxpayers do and recognize the obvious: It is time to stop taxing property owners out of their homes and businesses.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt represents District 7.
San Antonio, home to the Defense Departments largest installation  Joint Base San Antonio  and with some $9.8 billion in direct defense spending, has earned the moniker Military City, U.S.A. And Texas, the nations third-largest recipient among the states in total defense spending  at $37.9 billion  is no piker in this category, either.

It stands to reason that both stand to gain from President Donald Trumps proposal to boost military spending by nearly 10 percent, an increase of about $54 billion. But neither the city nor the state should view this proposal in such narrow terms. Domestic spending will certainly suffer, though the president says he will leave Social Security and Medicare untouched.

Leaving the two unscathed is, in a sense, laudable, though both could benefit from some reform. The administration has also said that cuts in foreign aid will help pay for this defense boost. But foreign aid is about 1 percent of the budget, or $36.5 billion. That means remaining domestic spending will have to be gouged to pay for this. The State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency are thought to be targeted for cuts  in itself counterproductive  but other agencies are also likely to suffer.

It is simply a budgetary fact of life for Texas. Federal funding  matched by the state  ensures that needy Texans have access to vital safety net programs. Texas ranks eighth (just behind California) among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the widest income inequality. San Antonio is, sadly, also a national leader among the nations largest cities. About 18 percent of Texans live in poverty.

In the 2014-15 biennium, federal funds accounted for 32.5 percent of Texas funds, according to a document prepared for the Legislature in January by the Legislative Budget Board. Of these federal funds, 63.5 percent were for programs in health and human services, 15.4 percent for education, and 16.4 percent for business and economic development. This, out of a total of $68 billion in federal funds.

There was $24.3 billion for Medicaid (now also a target in the GOPs health care plan); nearly $1.5 billion for the National School Lunch Program and another $603.5 million for school breakfasts; $1.37 billion for Title I grants to schools; $526.8 million for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; and $513.7 million for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

The president proposes budgets; Congress approves them; and rarely do the two versions resemble one another. We urge the Texas congressional delegation to think this one, in particular, through.
Re: Texans urged to act on plans for Alamo; Author speaks on proposed shrine overhaul, front page, March 7:

As an artist and fan of both the cenotaph and Coppini, the artist, I agree with Lee Spencer White. We need some answers. What is the cost of moving the Cenotaph? Do we really want to waste money on a fictitious problem?

The damage to this important sculpture is a real concern. There is no pressing reason to move it. That is where it was put, and that is where it is supposed to be. This relocation to put the space back to the way it was originally is a bogus aesthetic.

We need to see an itemized list of where these millions are going so we can decide which improvements really need to be done, and not this carte blanche attitude of George Skarmeas, the lead planner for the reimagining of the Alamo.

Gene Elder

Untruths on Obama

Re: Obamas legacy, Your Turn, Feb. 11:

For many years, some have asserted the voting public is ill-informed or misinformed, and I have yet to find anyone of any political stripe who disagrees. However, I could never have imagined how deep that misinformation was until I read this letter asserting President Barack Obama had done extensive damage to this country.

Obama will go down as one of our greatest presidents, much like his idol, Abraham Lincoln. He rescued this country from economic free fall at the end of the disastrous run by George W. Bush. He saved GM from bankruptcy and reined in the Wall Street bandits who created the economic tailspin.

That was just the beginning. He provided health care for more than 20 million who could not afford it. Health care costs came down significantly. Furthermore, he secured this country so there was not a single attack here by foreign terrorists. And he succeeded where the previous administration had failed in eliminating Osama bin Laden.

He was elected twice by a majority, his accomplishments achieved despite a Republican-controlled Congress bent on making him fail. He never misled the American people, and he and his family were regarded as role models by most Americans. Internationally, he was highly regarded and in some cases treated like a rock star.

Thomas Lee

Plan not health care

This American Health Care Act is not health care. It is health insurance.

Health care is concerned with the health of individuals. Its primary focus is preventative by encouraging individuals to get regular checkups with their doctor so that any health issues can be caught and dealt with before becoming serious.

Health insurance is concerned with returning a profit to its investors. Its primary focus is to discourage individuals from using their benefits through tactics such as high deductibles, as well as creative ways to deny coverage. Therefore, health issues are not dealt with until they become serious, with the burden usually placed on hospital emergency rooms. When bills remain unpaid because of high deductibles and/or denied coverage, hospitals are forced to raise their rates, which causes the insurance companies to raise their rates in a never-ending spiral.

The ethics of primum non nocere (first, do no harm) devolves into the acronym NCNB  not the failed Texas bank but rather nobody cares, nobody bothers if the resulting problems adversely affects the individuals.

Chuck Mire
KREERI, India  After former fighter Syed Bashir Bukhari gave up the rebellion against Indian rule in his home territory of Kashmir, he faced trouble.

His family was denied Indian citizenship after returning from the Pakistan-controlled side of the disputed Himalayan territory. His teenage son was refused school admission, and his Pakistan-Kashmiri wife and five daughters felt ostracized.

After two years of struggle, hed had enough. On a hot summer day in 2014, Bukhari set himself on fire in the main square of the western village of Kreeri and died the next day in a hospital, according to his wife, Safeena Bashir.

We were cheated, Safeena said about the familys decision to accept an Indian deal promising citizenship and reintegration in exchange for giving up the fight against Indian rule. Though her son, now 21, is supporting the family as a coppersmith and her daughters are now in school, Safeena wants to return to the Pakistani side where she felt welcome. This is no life here.

The family is part of the latest generation caught up in a violent conflict that has dominated Kashmiri life since 1947, when India and Pakistan gained independence from the British Empire and almost immediately began fighting over rival claims to this mountain territory. The two countries have fought two wars over their claims to Kashmir since, and each now administers a part of it.

Bukhari was among tens of thousands of young Kashmiris who in 1989 rose up against Indian rule and launched a bloody rebellion, demanding Kashmirs independence or its merger with Pakistan. Many crossed over to the Pakistan-controlled side, training in guerrilla tactics and launching cross-border attacks. Thousands of the militants were killed in clashes with Indian troops or in the Indian crackdown, or were arrested during raids.

In 2010, after the rebellion had largely been crushed, India rolled out a rehabilitation program inviting former fighters home, provided they renounce militancy. Some 377 men did, bringing another 864 family members with them, according to state records.

But the former fighters were never granted any promised benefits and their families were denied Indian citizenship. They cannot get travel documents or hold government jobs. Admission to school is not guaranteed, as it is for documented Kashmiris. They cant open a bank account or legally apply for a cooking-gas connection. Buying property is out of the question.

The Indian government says the former fighters forfeited their rights by re-entering the country through Nepal or Bangladesh. Officials would not explain why they needed the returnees to go through one of four border points.

Aijaz Hussain is an Associated Press writer.
Former Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko who returned to Zimbabwe from Botswana yesterday caused a dramatic 45-minute spectacle at the Plumtree Border Post as he tried to evade the media.

Mr Mphoko had been holed up in Botswana since the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) launched Operation Restore Legacy targeting criminal elements around former President Cde Robert Mugabe, who are largely accused of causing instability in both Government and ZANU-PF.

A key member of the G40 cabal, Mr Mphoko left Zimbabwe on an official visit to Japan on November 14, a day before the army launched the operation.

He did not return to Zimbabwe but instead flew to Botswana, where he has been a guest of the government.

Highly placed sources said the Botswana government had given him up to December 1 to leave their country and return to Zimbabwe, but the former VP had been reluctant to do so fearing arrest for corruption-related crimes.

The former VP had been living in a State residence in Gaborone and returned home after reaching out to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and getting the necessary assurances that he was free to come back to Zimbabwe.

Clad in a white shirt, Mr Mphoko and his family arrived at the Zimbabwean side of the border at 1:15pm aboard a Zimbabwe Department of Immigration minibus accompanied by Botswana immigration officials.

He was with his wife Laurinda, son, Siqokoqela, and seven other family members.

When they got on the Zimbabwean sides arrival section, Mr Mphoko, upon spotting a Chronicle photographer, refused to disembark from the minibus, saying to the Zimbabwean immigration officials: No cameras please, I dont want cameras here.

Only Siqokoqela disembarked from the minibus, making some phone calls to a team of drivers that were waiting for them.

The minibus, however, drove to the departure section, where they offloaded their luggage and groceries.

But Mr Mphoko, still trying to evade the news crew, remained in the minibus.

Siqokoqela filled in the immigration papers before handing them back to Zimbabwe immigration officials for processing.

It seems as if the Mphoko family did not have their passports at hand, nor were they stamped, fuelling speculation that they could have been deported.

However, sources at the border said the Botswana immigration officials told their Zimbabwean counterparts that they had been ordered to escort Mr Mphoko and his family.

What we heard is that the Botswana immigration officials said they got an order from above that they should escort a diplomat back to Zimbabwe and that the diplomat had chosen to leave Botswana on his own volition, said the source.

After completing the paperwork, the minibus with Mr Mphoko and other family members was driven towards the Botswana side, followed by a convoy of vehicles that had come to collect him.

Midway between the two borders, Mr Mphoko and the rest of the family members disembarked from the minibus and entered into the convoy of cars in an effort to evade the lenses of the pursuing news crew.

His convoy caused a momentary traffic jam as it blocked vehicles coming from the Botswana side.

The drama, however, generated a lot of interest such that by the time Mr Mphoko got into the convoy of cars, a small crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle.

The convoy then whisked Mr Mphoko and his family away at about 2pm, with Siqokoqela driving his vehicle next to the Mercedes-Benz carrying his father in a bid to block the photographers view.

Earlier, he had gestured at the photographer ordering him to stop taking pictures.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Mr George Charamba, on Tuesday said Mr Mphoko had spoken to President Mnangagwa by telephone and asked to return home.

Apart from his role in the previous Government, Mr Mphoko is also into business and is a director of Choppies Zimbabwe  a supermarket chain with branches in most cities and towns in the country.

The company also has vast interests in Botswana.

Mr Mphoko was among members of the G40 group who were expelled from the ruling ZANU-PF party for engaging in activities meant to destabilise the Government.

The party also recalled him from the position of Vice President and Second Secretary over allegations of being divisive, including protecting criminals, preaching hate speech and behaving in a manner inconsistent with the office and decorum of the VP.

He was recalled on the day the party also recalled former President Mugabe from the position of party First Secretary and replaced him with President Mnangagwa, who was also reinstated as a Central Committee member.

Cde Mnangagwa was sworn in as State President last Friday following the resignation of Cde Mugabe on Tuesday.

The party further recommended that Mr Mphoko, former First Lady Mrs Grace Mugabe, fellow members of the G40 cabal; namely Saviour Kasukuwere, Professor Jonathan Moyo, Ignatius Chombo, Patrick Zhuwao, Letina Undenge, Kudzanai Chipanga, Walter Mzembi, Paul Chimedza, Makhosini Hlongwane, Anastancia Ndlovu, Mandi Chimene, Dr Samuel Undenge, Sarah Mahoka, Mpehlabayo Malinga, Xavier Kazizi, Tongai Kasukuwere, Innocent Hamandishe, Nomthandazo Eunice Moyo and Shadreck Mashayamombe be expelled from the party.

Some members of the cabal are either on the run or in self-imposed exile.

Others such as Chombo, Chipanga and Hamandishe have been arraigned before the courts on a slew of charges ranging from fraud, corruption, abuse of public office, causing disaffection among the police force or defence forces as defined in Section 30 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, kidnapping and publishing falsehoods.

Breaking News via Email
TWO domestic workers were allegedly murdered in South Africa and their bodies were found in two separate rooms at a plot.

The two domestic workers  only identified as Alice Tapiwa Chikohora, 41, and another lady  went missing on July 16 this year and were found dead on Saturday morning last week in Randfontein, South Africa.

The murder case came to light after the wife of the alleged murderer made a report to the police.

Her husband was behaving strangely when asked the whereabouts of the two maids who used to provide household services to this white family.

H-Metro is in possession of the last audio Alice Tapiwa sent to one of her friends after becoming suspicious of the employers shenanigans on the day she was last seen.

The mother to Alice Tapiwa narrated events leading to the death of her daughter:

It is reported that on Monday last week the two were picked by a white man at a location where Zimbabweans mostly mill to market their services.

Whilst my daughter was at the white mans place she sent an audio to her other friend who had remained at the market telling her the white mans abnormal behaviour after they arrived at his place.

The audio was saying after they arrived at the white mans place in Randfontein, he removed his clothes which he was wearing and wore a pair of shorts and a gown.

Mai Mhuru said she was devastated and her daughter had left two children, a boy and a girl.

She added:

The white man sent my daughter away to clean cars outside the house while he was left in the company of the other girl.

After some minutes my daughter was then asked to go and buy milk at some shops which were far away and not the usual ones nearby according to the audio sent.

What surprised my daughter is the strange actions the white man was doing since she was the only one who was assigned to do chores outside the house whilst her friend remained inside the house, and this is what led her to send an audio to her friend who had remained at the market.

She said the twos corpses were found some days at the mans house after the wife of the alleged murderer reported to the police on suspicious actions of her husband.

Previously, the wife of the murderer was ordered not to open two rooms at their house and this made her suspect that something was wrong.

After reporting the matter, the police accompanied the woman to her house and forced open the two separate rooms and thats were the two bodies were discovered dead and were taken to mortuary, said Mai Mhuru.

Yesterday, relatives were waiting for postmortem in South Africa while the white mans whereabouts were still unknown with the police launching a manhunt for him.

 HMetro

Breaking News via Email
It looks like CalPERS general counsel Matt Jacobs is yet again giving the mushroom treatment to the board: keep them in the dark and feed them shit.

In this case, Jacobs has failed to brief the board on a serious potential conflict of interest of one of the two candidates for fiduciary counsel, the most important advisor to the board. The position that became vacant when the prior counsel, the tainted Robert Klausner, was pushed out for his many dubious practices.

As we will describe in greater detail below, the lawyer, Ashley Dunning of Nossaaman, LLP, is representing Marin County on what so far looks be a landmark case, in which a California appellate court has reversed over 60 years of precedent. This ruling threatens the pensions of all California public employees, including members of CalPERS and CalSTRS. The case is set to go to the Supreme Court and a number of groups have objected fiercely to the courts legal reasoning. CalSTRS general counsel Brian Bartow weighed in against the decision promptly after the ruling was issued, in October 2016.

At the end of this post, weve attached two of many amicus curiae letters, including the one from CalSTRS, to show that informed parties see the decision as a threat to the benefits even of major California pension funds.

As one retired state attorney wrote:

Jacobs is trying to make monkeys out of the employee-elected members of the CalPERS Board. That is a level of disloyalty to the Board that would get him fired  if the Board were actually his client. He reveals himself to be working against their interests.

Moreover, after being hand-picked by Jacobs, Dunning is currently advising the board as interim fiduciary counsel. Jacobs has not only failed to tell the board of the conflict of interest but as a result has also failed to get the board to provide a written waiver. Nor is it clear whether Jacobs waived the conflict of interest on behalf of CalPERS.

Mind you, this isnt just a political problem. This is a State Bar rule violation. This case is so important that the CalPERS agenda shows that Jacobs has briefed the board about it in closed session at least three times. CalPERS may want to file an amicus brief or even attempt to intervene in the case at some point. At a minimum, the board should expect that it may want to receive future briefings on the case. As a former state prosecutor said by e-mail:

The problem here is the lack of disclosure. If I were a Board member, a late and forced disclosure of the potential client conflict wouldnt cut it, because the circumstances are strongly suggestive that the conflict was hidden with the intent to deceive.

Jacobs, if hes asked to address the issue, will no doubt hand-wave and try to claim that he knew about the conflict. But Rule 3-310 requires that the client be advised in writing and provide written consent. Note that this section uses the word shall, which is mandatory. Its not clear that this took place with CalPERS and more importantly, it does not appear to have taken place with the board, which is supposed to be Dunnings main client.

Let us be clear about the underlying issue: Jacobs is routinely cutting corners and overstepping his authority in dealing with the board and the public. This is the exact opposite of the behavior that is sought after in a general counsel.

Jacobs bad habits interact destructively with the misguided decision by CalPERS board to stop having the general counsel report directly to the board. The board compound that error by delegating the hiring of fiduciary counsel to the legal office.

While Dunning has a potential conflict of interest which per State Bar rules must be disclosed and waived, her case is symptomatic of a bigger problem. The Board has an actual conflict with staff, since the board has a constitutional duty to oversee staff, who are currently critically under-performing. The Board should have independent legal counsel who isnt advising them that their duty is to cover for screw-ups by staff. You can see the degree to which the staff has succeeded in indoctrinating the board of the exact opposite, that they should avoid embarrassing the System when that is tantamount to hiding lapses or outright abuses.

To her credit, as far as I can tell, Dunning never endorsed this topsy-turvy view of board duties. But because Jacobs acts as the legal services gatekeeper when he implies that undermining public confidence in staff is somehow a violation of fiduciary duty, he cloaks his own advice in the false mantle of having consulted with fiduciary counsel.

In addition, the stark contrast with the quick and firm response of CalSTRS general counsel to the Marin case raises an even bigger question: Why is Jacobs missing in action in the face of a fundamental legal threat to all CalPERS beneficiaries? He has shown no willingness to take up his most important duty, that of defending beneficiary pensions. How can he be trusted to make any recommendations in the face of that?

As former general counsel and now law professor Bill Black said via e-mail:

We have a general counsel who has already racked up a deplorable record who has apparently decided that the key to having the board fulfill its fiduciary duties to its beneficiaries is to pick a fiduciary counsel with a glaring conflict of interest. As Benjamin Cardozo wrote in Meinhard v. Salmon, Many forms of conduct permissible in a workaday world for those acting at arms length are forbidden to those bound by fiduciary ties. A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the marketplace. Not honesty alone but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive is then the standard of behavior. As to this, there has developed a tradition that is unbending and inveterate. Uncompromising rigidity has been the attitude of courts of equity when petitioned to undermine the rule of undivided loyalty by the disintegrating erosion of particular exceptions (Wendt v. Fischer, 243 N.Y. 439, 444). Only thus has the level of conduct for fiduciaries been kept at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd. But here we have a fiduciary counsel engaged in anti-fiduciary duty, in direct conflict with the interest that the board is duty bound to uphold. George Orwell would stand in admiration of how an expression has come to mean the opposite of its original intent.

Jacobs now has an established pattern of gaming the selection process to assure that the board will opt for his pet pick.

Apparently Jacobs does not want to call the boards or publics attention to the fact that his preferred candidate, Dunning, has wound up on the side of undermining public pensions. Mind you, the letters criticizing the decision describe at some length its tortured logic; I have not been able to locate and review her brief to see whether the apparently-dodgy reasoning came from her or was the courts invention. Regardless, this means Dunning should be subject to a much more in-depth interview than the 20 minutes that Jacobs allowed for during the last fiduciary counsel interview, in 2014.

And on a more basic level, there is no justification for Jacobs withhholding such important information from the board. This is dealing in bad faith.

The board may well conclude that they prefer Dunning and that her role in the Marin case is not problematic. But this is a choice the board should make explicitly, after due deliberation, and not by being railroaded yet again by Jacobs.

How Jacobs Has Been Misleading CalPERS Board

We described how the last time CalPERS board selected its fiduciary counsel, in 2014, several board members, including its two lawyers, Richard Costigan and Dana Hollinger, objected to the fact that the board was denied information about the candidates that they had always been given in the past.

It turns out those board members had good reason to be concerned. Jacobs had failed to inform the board about the fact that the candidate the legal department scored the highest, Robert Klausner, had nearly two decades of bad press about questionable ethical conduct, including by the New York Times and Forbes, meaning a simple Google search would have unearthed it. Klausner was also embroiled in a dispute with the City of Jacksonville over allegations of his having set up an illegal, secret pension fund for the administrator of the Fire and Police pension fund and then superfunding it when the underlying city pension fund was the most underfunded in the state. So we are either to believe that Jacobs and his staff failed to do basic vetting or withheld important information to make sure his top choice was rubber stamped by the board.

Klausner resigned last year as a result of the exposure of his questionable history.

As we documented last week, Jacobs again withheld information by failing to provide the board with the fiduciary counsel RFP responses when background material is virtually without exception provided to the board at the time board meeting materials are made public, ten days prior to the actual session. There was no excuse for not giving the board documents that already existed and took no meaningful effort to pass along.again assuming Jacobs is dealing in good faith.

After we made a stink in our Friday morning post, the documents were sent to the board later in the day. That is hardly adequate time, given that most board members travel to Sacramento on Sunday and will have little time if any to read a last-minute disclosure. In other words, this is better than delivering the interviews in paper form at the board meeting, but not by much.

Jacobs has also lied to the board and flagrantly misrepresented statute to try to justify CalPERS failure to comply with the law. A board should be alarmed at the prospect of a general counsel that makes obvous misrepresentations that can and have been readily shown to be false. In addition, when as a general counsel of a state agency, he has a duty to uphold state law. We described one instance here; theres another, regarding state election law, that we have yet to write up.

After reviewing some of Jacobs recent actions, former general counsel, now law professor Bill Black concluded:

The general counsel is supposed to play a leadership role in rehabilitating a corporate culture like CalPERS that has lost its integrity. Jacobs has failed this test.

The Marin Cases Potential to Undermine California Pensions

The lawsuit at issue is Marin Association of Public Employees v. Marin County Employees Retirement Association. California has a long-standing body of case law, dating back to a 1955 Supreme Court decision, known informally as the California rule that guarantees that employee benefit commitments will be honored. Any changes must confer an equivalent monetary benefit. Until the Marin ruling, the 1955 decision was repeatedly reaffirmed in a variety of settings.

However, in 2012, the state legislate passed some new pension rules to curb certain types of gaming, and the Marin case comes out of that. Defenders of the case argue that it is about pension spiking which ironically is the sort of activity that CalPERS former fiduciary counsel Robert Klaunsner engaged in on behalf of fire and police pension funds.

And there is a problem with this abuse at smaller funds. Note that there is a difference between CalPERS employees and CalPERS-contracted jurisdictions versus 1937 Act county and city pension plans. 1937 Act jurisdictions have smaller investment pools and local boards which too often engaged in pension hanky-panky. These boards have tended to gift managers with special compensation that isnt available to non-managerial employees through collective bargaining. It appears that this was what was at issue in Marin.

And that raises an additional troubling issue with having Dunning act as fiduciary counsel to CalPERS. Shes served as counsel to some of the same 37 Act boards that engaged in special compensation featherbedding. That should be a red flag. Shes sat pat while her clients engaged in what amounts to self-dealing, when the fiduciary counsels job is to prevent that sort of thing from happening. And now she is profiting by helping to solve a problem that her undue passivity helped create.

Back to the implications for funds like CalPERS and CalSTRS that are run (at least pre-Jacobs) with more care. Im sure this list isnt complete, but the parties providing amicus curiae letters include CalSTRS, SEIU, AFSCME, California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment (CASE), California Community College Independents and the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, California Professional Firefighters, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. Law firms have also said they will file briefs on behalf of beneficiaries.

The issue is, as many of the petitions explain, that state employees took and remained in jobs with salaries well below what they could have earned in similar private-sector jobs. One of the biggest reasons for accepting lower current pay was the offset of eventual pension benefits. The letters are forceful on how radical a departure this ruling is from past decisions.

Most of the amicus letters request that the Supreme Court simply depublish the ruling. That means it would stand as far as the Marin case was concerned but could not be used as a precedent.

From the letter by Brian Bartow, CalSTRS general counsel:

To reach its conclusion, the Marin court converted a required consideration into a discretionary one, and in so doing, incorrectly interpreted and reversed over sixty years of California Supreme Court precedent. Furthermore, the decision will provide misguided precedent for a broad spectrum of future cases involving California pension and vested rights jurisprudence, and create an enormous amount of uncertainty for the courts, legislators, those charged with administering pension systems, and Californias public employees. The dispute in Mann stems from the Legislatures amendment to Government Code section 314611, which excluded specified items (such as payments for additional services, reimbursements, and executive bonuses) from the calculation of an employees compensation eamable. According to the Marin court, the purpose of the amendment was to curb pension spiking, the practice of increasing an employees defined benefit retirement allowance by increasing his or her final compensation, typically done by including various non-salary items. The Court of Appeal ultimately held that the Legislature did not act impermissibly by amending

Section 31461, and the Marin County Employees Retirement Associations (MCERA) implementation of the change did not amount to an impairment of the employees receipt of a reasonable pension upon retirement. (Mann, supra, 2 Cal.App.5th at pp. 679-680.) In reaching its holding, however, the Court of Appeal embarks on a myopic expedition through over sixty years of firmly entrenched Supreme Court law, ultimately concluding that There Is No Absolute Requirement That Elimination or Reduction of an Anticipated Retirement Benefit Must Be Counterbalanced by a Comparable New Benefit (Mann, supra, 2 Cal.App.5th at p. 697, italics in original), a result that directly contravenes the holdings of this Court and the Court

of Appeal.

From CASE, the organization for state attorneys and law judges whose pensions are managed by CalPERS (emphasis original):

These holdings not only conflict with prior decisions of this Court and other courts of appeal, but they also raise fundamental questions of law that need to be resolved by this Court. The conflict with prior cases is acknowledged in the decision itself. At pages 23-24 of the slip opinion, the decision candidly recognizes that this Court previously stated: With respect to active employees, we have held that any modification of vested pension rights must be reasonable, must bear a material relation to the theory and successful operation of a pension system, and, when resulting in disadvantage to employees, must be accompanied by comparable new advantages. In addition to the conflicts, the holding of the case raises more questions than it answers. By declaring that a public employees only vested right is to a reasonable pension (slip opn. at pp. 2, 22) the opinion simply begs the question: what is reasonable? Or, to put it another way, exactly how much can the benefits in a vested pension be reduced without violating the constitutional prohibition on the impairment of contracts? The opinion seems to suggest that a reduction of 25% (from two thirds of an employees salary to only one half of an employees salary) is acceptable. (See slip opn. at pp.22-23, fn. 18.) But it set no real limit on the permissible level of reduction, other than to blithely declare that they cannot be entirely destroyed. The State of California already is at or near the bottom in terms of salary and benefits offered to starting attorneys, and this is based on comparisons only to other public sector agencies in California, to say nothing of private sector legal salaries. The decision in this case threatens to further undermine Californias ability to compete for legal talent by giving the employer the ability to retroactively reduce compensation in the form of a promised pension after the compensation was already bargained for and earned.

Now legal sophisticates would argue that conflicts of interest occur all the time with big firm advisors. While narrowly true, this is one reason boutiques have become popular, to make sure that the professional isnt practically or intellectually tainted. And one might also argue that the tolerance of all sorts of white-collar abuses stems from tolerating too much grey area conduct, that this is the ultimate origin of the rigged game that swept Trump into office. If CalPERS does decide to join the Marin case on behalf of the employees, I hope the CalPERS beneficiaries will press the board to have any CalPERS advisors that are adverse suspended until the Supreme Court makes its decision.

Finally, alarge unanswered question is where is the CalPERS CEO, Marcie Frost, in this picture? Jacobs as her subordinate proceeds with her blessing. Not only is she allowing him to operate in a reckless manner, but she is also implicitly taking a position that is damaging to the elected members of the board and their constituents, meaning CalPERS beneficiaries. To get hired, Frost maintained that she was a staunch supporter of defined benefit programs. Jacobs conduct is making her pledge look like a bait and switch.

The fiduciary counsel interviews and vote are tomorrow, Wednesday March 15. Please circulate this post widely to anyone you know who has a California pension, most important CalPERS and CalSTRS beneficiaries. Urge them to call or e-mail the offices of State Treasurer John Chiang and State Controller Betty Yee, and demand that they put off the vote on fiduciary counsel for procedural lapses, namely the failure to adequately brief the board. Their details:

Mr. John Chiang

California State Treasurer

Post Office Box 942809

Sacramento, CA 94209-0001

(916) 653-2995

E-mail: john@sco.ca.gov Ms. Betty Yee

California State Controller

P.O. Box 942850

Sacramento, California 94250-5872

(916) 445-2636

E-mail: b.t.yee@sco.ca.gov

Thanks again for your help!
Yves here. This post illustrates how the slow-moving and ineffective effort to rein in health care costs is becoming politicized. It is ironic in the article where the head of a hospital system professes to offer ideas of how to contain cost, no where does he mention the large deadweight costs imposed by dealing with insurers, which some experts estimate contributes as much as 30% of total costs when you factor in how much MD time is diverted from patient care to fighting to get paid.

In addition, the CEO is less than straightforward about discussing the bad incentives in the system, that doctors are paid for what amounts to piece work and therefore have a monetary incentive to treat overly aggressively. His discussion of chronic and complex care suggests that a big culprit is end of life care, when this is one of the few areas where typical costs in America are in line with advanced economy norms. By contrast, American doctors love to prescribe surgeries. For instance, for many orthopedic problems, things like ruptured disks and labrum tears are often asymptomatic, so if a patient has pain and an MRI shows a tear, that does not necessarily mean that the apparent problem on the MRI is actually what is giving the patient trouble. As a result, for most back operations, the patient results six months out converge with having left the ailment alone.

By Roy Poses, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University, and the President of FIRM  the Foundation for Integrity and Responsibility in Medicine. Originally published at Health Care Renewal

The attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act has suddenly made health care dysfunction a hot topic in the US.

For example, today, in my local paper, the Providence Journal, Dr Timothy J Bainbeau, the CEO of the Lifespan Health System, the biggest regional health system weighed in on the problem of high and increasing health care costs. A close reading of his commentary suggests how the leadership of big US health care organizations needs to think about whether their actions have become more of the problem than a source of solutions.

The CEOs Diagnosis and Prescription

Dr Babineau began unremarkably with:

American health care is expensive. Too expensive. On this, there is little debate. In 2001 the median U.S. household spent 6.4 percent of its income on health care; by 2016, the same household spent 15.6 percent of its income on health care. That bigger share of the pie leaves less for other essential purchases, such as food, education and housing.

What was his diagnosis? He stated that most costs are incurred in the care of severe acute or chronic illnesses. So his prescription was:

A critical (but often overlooked) point is the fact that as much as 40 percent of spending during chronic and complex episodes is avoidable if providers and systems adhere to established standards of care. Reining in runaway health-care spending must involve better management of high cost episodes of chronic and complex care.

So,

Rather than debate the actual percentage that is wasteful spending (now commonly referenced at around 30 percent) we would be better served by continuing the hard work of identifying and eliminating areas within our own systems where needless variations in care add cost without improving outcomes.

To translate, most of health care spending is for severe acute or chronic illnesses. For patients with these problems, we do too much, that is, by failing to adhere to established standards of care. Therefore, we must learn to do less, by eliminating areas within our own systems where needless variations in care add cost without improving outcomes. His entire focus is on ending needless utilization, presumably of specific diagnostic tests, therapies and programs.

As an aside, his assertions ignore some real controversies. Dr Babineau implied that variation means needless or bad care. This echoes the old practice variation research school, which showed that the rate of certain services, that is tests or treatments, varies in different geographic areas. The problem is that this school has never clearly shown how much variation is due to variation in patients characteristics, including illness severity and preferences, and is therefore appropriate in some sense. It also fails to take into account how much variation is due to the inevitable uncertainty in diagnosis, and in predicting response to treatment. Few diagnostic tests are perfect, so test results can rarely prove a disease is present or absent, but just can suggest how probable it might be. Similarly, no treatment always cures, and most treatments have adverse effects. So at best physicians can only predict the probability that a patient will improve, remain the same, or be harmed by a treatment.

Whose Costs? Who Benefits?

It is odd, though, that while Dr Babineau wrote an essay on reducing costs, he did not even mention how much anyone pays for any particular test, treatment, program, service, etc. Nor did he mention whose costs most need reduction: patients, health care systems, insurance companies, governments, or societys costs? That was probably due to his point of view, from the bubble of the hospital system C-suite, from which the viewof the outside world may be distorted.

Dr Babineau introduced his prescription for cost reduction with a defense of American hospitals.

American hospitals and health care systems are among the best in the world. Rather than decrying American health care is broken and in need of rebuilding from scratch, a better strategy may be to look at what works well within our system and ask how we can build on those strengths while facing the escalating costs head on. Hospital systems are in the health-care business, and we should not be reluctant to say so. No matter what wellness and prevention programs we collectively offer, inevitably a small subset of the population will still get very sick, and it is a core mission of health systems  working in close partnership with our primary and specialty providers  to take the very best and most efficient care of them when that happens.

But should hospitals be in the health-care business? Most physicians of a certain age swore oaths on medical school graduation that we would put care of individual patients ahead of all other concerns, including making money. We surely have not fulfilled those oathes perfectly. Yet at one time health care and medicine could be seen as callings, just ways to make money.

In 2007, Dr Arnold Relman wrote(1) (and see this post):

The law also has played a major role in the decline of medical professionalism. The 1975 Supreme Court ruling that the professions were not protected from anti-trust law7 undermined the traditional restraint that medical professional societies had always placed on the commercial behavior of physicians, such as advertising and investing in the products they prescribe or facilities they recommend. Having lost some initial legal battles and fearing the financial costs of losing more, organized medicine now hesitates to require physicians to behave differently from business people. It asks only that physicians business activities should be legal, disclosed to patients, and not inconsistent with patients interests. Until forced by anti-trust concerns to change its ethical code in 1980, the American Medical Association had held that in the practice of medicine a physician should limit the source of his professional income to medical services actually rendered by him, or under his supervision, to his patients and that the practice of medicine should not be commercialized, nor treated as a commodity in trade. These sentiments reflecting the spirit of professionalism are now gone.

The Supreme Court challenge to attorneys and physicians professionalism was orchestrated by extreme market fundamentalists. Since 1978 when I obtained my MD from Brown, market fundamentalism (sometimes confusingly called neoliberalism) has become dominant in the US.

On the (now sadly dormant) Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, Dr Howard Brody discussed the application of this reigning orthodoxy in economic. Basically, supporters of market fundamentalism et al seem to assume that all markets are idealized free markets, and that free markets are like a super computer combining all human thought to provide wisdom in the form of price information. Furthermore, since the market is based on supposedly rational choices made by free individuals, one cannot go back to question such choices.

Hence Dr Babineau is hardly alone in regarding all of health care now as a business. But he and many others like to ignore the theoretic problems with market fundamentalism applied to health care, specifically the possibilities that 1) peoples choice may not be free, may not be rational, and may not be based on coldly rational cognition and the best possible knowledge; and 2) one persons economic choice may limit another persons choices, or directly harm another person. And never mind that Dr Babineau leads a non-profit organization, which states (per the most recent, 2015 Rhode Island Hospital IRS Form 990) that its mission is delivering health with care.

Market fundamentalism suggests that hospitals and other health care organizations should be run like businesses to improve efficiency. Thus Dr Babineau allowed it is a core mission of health systems  working in close partnership with our primary and specialty providers  to take the very best and most efficient care of them when that happens. Efficiency requires the reduction of costs, but whose?

The worry is that Dr Babineau is really out to improve his own institutions efficiency, very possibly because he has incentives to do so. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that hospital CEOs are rewarded for efficiency, but the effiicency of their own hospitals, not the health care system. CEOs may get incentives when they increase hospital efficiency by cutting the institutions costs and/or increasing its revenue (look here for some examples.) Sometimes these incentives are hugely disproportionate to any improvements in net financial position (look here for examples). Sometimes CEO compensation goes up even when CEOs have cut the pay of or laid off lesser employees to cut costs (look here for examples). Sometimes their pay goes up even when their actions correlate with worsening quality of care (look here for examples).

I cannot find any published rationale for Dr Babineaus compensation, but it is certainly substantial. According to the most recently available IRS Form 990 (2015) for Rhode Island Hospital, Dr Babineaus total compensation (in 2014) was $2,405,868.

So the concern is that the sort of efficiency Dr Babineau advocates may benefit his organizations and his own bottom line, but maybe not patients, or society. And the promise he made that his own hospital system will improve efficiency may actually conflict with his promise to improve patient care.

Summary

I submit that if we are really worried about why our health care system is sick, why we as individuals pay more and more for health care that is not improving, we should look beyond limiting practice variation or eliminating obviously useless, and hence perhaps uncommon services to improve efficiency. Instead, we should question whether health care can ever really function as a free market, and certainly whether hospitals, other health care providers, and health insurers should be businesses that put their revenues ahead of patients and the publics health.

I am not a Catholic, but found the clearest voices on this issue to be those of the current and former Popes. Pope Benedict XVI decried the transformation of medicine and health care into a business. As we noted here, he wrote

during the current economic crisis that is cutting resources for safeguarding health, Hospitals and other facilities must rethink their particular role in order to avoid having health become a simple commodity, subordinate to the laws of the market, and, therefore, a good reserved to a few, rather than a universal good to be guaranteed and defended,

Furthermore,

Only when the wellbeing of the person, in its most fragile and defenseless condition and in search of meaning in the unfathomable mystery of pain, is very clearly at the center of medical and assisted care can the hospital be seen as a place where healing isnt a job, but a mission,

More recently, Pope Francis said,

Doctors, nurses and those who work in the field of health care must be defined by their ability to help their patients and be on guard against falling down the slippery slope of corruption that begins with special favors, tips and bribes, the pope told staff and patients of Romes Bambino Gesu childrens hospital Dec. 15. The worst cancer in a hospital like this is corruption, he said. In this world where there is so much business involved in health care, so many people are tricked by the sickness industry, Bambino Gesu hospital must learn to say no. Yes, we all are sinners. Corrupt, never.

Thus, I challenge health care executives to state their willingness to put the care of patients ahead of their organizations revenue and own pay. Will anyone step up?

Reference

1. Relman AS. Medical professionalism in a commercialized health care market. JAMA 2007; 298: 2668-2670. [link here]
Simultaneous detection of multiple spin states in a single quantum dot (Nanowerk News) Quantum dots are very small particles that exhibit luminescence and electronic properties different from those of their bulk materials. As a result, they are attractive for use in solar cells, optoelectronics, and quantum computing. Quantum computing involves applying a small voltage to quantum dots to regulate their electron spin state, thus encoding information.

While traditional computing is based on a binary information system, electron spin states in quantum dots can display further degrees of freedom because of the possibility of superposition of both states at the same time. This feature could increase the density of encoded information.

A scanning electron microscope image of the quantum dot used in this research. We formed the quantum dot by applying voltage to surface gate electrodes. Electron spin states can be read out by measuring the electric current flowing nearby the dot (white arrow). (Image: Osaka University)

Readout of the electron spin of quantum dots is necessary to realize quantum computing. Single-shot spin readout has been used to detect spin-dependent single-electron tunneling events in real time. The performance of quantum computing could be improved considerably by single-shot readout of multiple spin states.

A Japanese research collaboration based at Osaka University has now achieved the first successful detection of multiple spin states through single-shot readout of three two-electron spin states of a single quantum dot. They reported their findings in Physical Review Letters ("Single-Shot Ternary Readout of Two-Electron Spin States in a Quantum Dot Using Spin Filtering by Quantum Hall Edge States").

This is a comparison between binary spin readout and ternary spin readout. (Image: Osaka University)

To read out multiple spin states simultaneously, the researchers used a quantum point contact charge sensor positioned near a gallium arsenide quantum dot. The change in current of the charge sensor depended on the spin state of the quantum dot and was used to distinguish between singlet and two types of triplet spin states.

"We obtained single-shot ternary readout of two-electron spin states using edge-state spin filtering and the orbital effect," study first author Haruki Kiyama says.

That is, the rate of tunneling between the quantum dot and electron reservoir depended on both the spin state of the electrons and the interaction between electron spin and the orbitals of the quantum dot. The team identified one ground state and two excited states in the quantum dot using their setup.

The researchers then used their ternary readout setup to investigate the spin relaxation behavior of the three detected spin states.

"To confirm the validity of our readout system, we measured the spin relaxation of two of the states," Kiyama explains. "Measurement of the dynamics between the spin states in a quantum dot is an important application of the ternary spin readout setup."

This is the results of binary spin readout using previous and new schemes, and that of ternary spin readout by combining these two binary-readout schemes. (Image: Osaka University)
Environmentally friendly, almost electricity-free solar cooling

(Nanowerk News) Demand and the need for cooling are growing as the effects of climate change intensify. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and German company ZAE Bayern have built an emission-free, solar-powered chiller; a pilot system has been tested in Finland and Germany. The potential market is world-wide, particularly in warm countries.

The production and consumption of solar cooling are simultaneous. A property's cooling needs are highest when the sun is shining.

VTT and German company ZAE Bayern have developed a solar-powered 10 kW chiller. This absorption chiller works in the same way as the gas refrigerators used in Finnish holiday cabins, for example. But in this case, a solar thermal collector is used instead of gas. The method requires electricity for the flow pumps only. If necessary, the chiller can also serve as a heat pump.

The results of the project showed that - to be used as a heating pump as well - an economically viable and competitive, solar-powered absorption chiller would need to be 50 kW or bigger.

Finnish company Savo-Solar Plc participated in both the planning phase and the practical tests. As a result, the company's head office was successfully cooled using the pilot system built for the project. Savo-Solar and ZAE Bayern aim to develop a commercial product which enables users to cut their electricity bills through cooling with absolutely no need for electricity. This would also reduce emissions.

The chiller was tested as an air-conditioner for Savo-Solar's office during the summer and for heating it during the winter. Solar collectors on the roof of the building were used to collect the required energy. If the collectors did not produce enough energy during, say, the winter, or on a cloudy day, a heat pump served as a substitute energy source. Other possible energy sources would be district heating, biofuel boilers or industrial process heat.

Examples of large, megawatt-class absorption chillers based on district heating can already be found in Helsinki and Turku in Finland.
Hydrogen on demand (w/video)

(Nanowerk News) Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers have developed a new approach to the production of hydrogen from water using solar energy. In findings published today in Nature Materials ("Photoelectrochemical water splitting in separate oxygen and hydrogen cells"), the researchers explain that this approach will make it possible to produce hydrogen in a centralized manner at the point of sale (for example, at a gas station for electric cars fueled by hydrogen) located far from the solar farm. The new technology is expected to significantly reduce the cost of producing the hydrogen and shipping it to the customer.

The study was led by Avigail Landman, a doctoral student in the Nancy & Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), and Dr. Hen Dotan from the Electrochemical Materials & Devices Lab. Ms. Landman is working on her doctorate under the guidance of Prof. Avner Rothschild from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, and Prof. Gideon Grader, Dean of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering.

This diagram shows a conventional PEC device, with a membrane separating the two products (oxygen on the right, hydrogen on the left).

Hydrogen is considered one of the most promising energy carriers for vehicles and various other uses because of its salient advantages:

1. Hydrogen can be produced from water, and therefore production does not depend on access to non-renewable natural resources.

2. Using hydrogen fuel would reduce the dependence on fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, whose availability depends on geographical, political and other factors, and would increase the energy available to the earths population.

3. Unlike diesel and gasoline engines that emit considerable pollution into the air, the only byproduct of hydrogen fuel utilization is water.

Because of the advantages of hydrogen fuel, many countries  led by Japan, Germany and the United States  are investing vast sums of money in programs for the development of environmentally friendly (green) technologies for the production of hydrogen. Most hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas in a process that emits carbon dioxide into the air, but it is also possible to produce hydrogen from water by splitting the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen in a process called electrolysis. However, since electricity production itself is an expensive and polluting process, researchers at the Technion and around the world are developing a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell that utilizes solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen directly, without the need for external power source.

The main challenges in the development of PEC solar farms for the production of hydrogen are 1.) keeping the hydrogen and the oxygen separate from each other, 2.) collecting the hydrogen from millions of PEC cells, and 3.) transporting the hydrogen to the point of sale. The Technion team solved these challenges by developing a new method for PEC water splitting. With this method, the hydrogen and oxygen are formed in two separate cells  one that produces hydrogen, and another that produces oxygen. This is in contrast to the conventional method, in which the hydrogen and oxygen are produced within the same cell, and separated by a thin membrane that prevents them from intermixing and forming a flammable and explosive mixture.

This diagram shows the technology developed at the Technion: the oxygen and hydrogen are produced and stored in completely separate cells. According to Ms. Landman, one of the electrodes (anode) can be replaced by a light sensitive electrode (photo-anode), so that the conversion of water and solar energy into hydrogen fuel and oxygen will be carried out directly in each compartment simultaneously.

The new process allows geographic separation between the solar farm consisting of millions of PEC cells that produce oxygen exclusively, and the site where the hydrogen is produced in a centralized, cost-effective and efficient manner. They accomplished this with a pair of auxiliary electrodes made of nickel hydroxide, an inexpensive material used in rechargeable batteries, and a metal wire connecting them.

In the present article, we describe a new method for producing hydrogen through the physical separation of hydrogen production and oxygen production, says Ms. Landman. According to our cost estimate, our method could successfully compete with existing water splitting methods and serve as a cheap and safe platform for the production of hydrogen.

But thats not all. As stated, the vision of the Technion researchers is geographic separation between the sites where the oxygen and hydrogen are produced: at one site, there will be a solar farm that will collect the suns energy and produce oxygen, while hydrogen is produced in a centralized manner at another site, miles away. Thus, instead of transporting compressed hydrogen from the production site to the sales point, it will only be necessary to swap the auxiliary electrodes between the two sites. Economic calculations performed in collaboration with research fellows from Evonik Creavis GmbH and the Institute of Solar Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), indicate the potential for significant savings in the setup and operating costs of hydrogen production.

Watch a video of the researchers explaining their new technology.

In October, Ms. Landman won first place in the energy category in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition held in Australia. At the competition, held on the initiative of the University of Queensland, participants are required to present groundbreaking research in just three minutes. To watch Ms. Landman's presentation, click here.
Star in closest orbit ever seen around black hole

(Nanowerk News) Astronomers have found evidence of a star that whips around a likely black hole twice an hour. This could be the tightest orbital dance ever seen by a black hole and a companion star in our own Milky Way galaxy ("The ultracompact nature of the black hole candidate X-ray binary 47 Tuc X9").

This discovery was made using two of NASA's space-based telescopes, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and NuSTAR, and the Australia Telescope Compact Array located in New South Wales, Australia.

An artist's impression of a white dwarf star (left) in orbit around a black hole and so close that much of its material is being pulled away. Inset is an observation of the host globular cluster, 47 Tucanae, captured by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The system (known as X9) is indicated by the arrow, and low, medium, and high-energy X-rays are coloured red, green, and blue respectively. (Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/University of Alberta/A.Bahramian et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss) (click on image to enlarge)

The stellar couple -- known as a binary -- is located in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, a dense cluster of stars in our galaxy about 14,800 light years away from Earth.

While astronomers have known about the binary for many years, it wasn't until 2015 that a team led by researchers from Curtin University and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) found that it was likely made up of a black hole pulling material from a companion star.

New observations from Chandra show the system -- known as X9 -- consistently changes in X-ray brightness every 28 minutes, which is likely the length of time it takes the companion star to make one complete orbit around the black hole.

Along with evidence of large amounts of oxygen in the system, this makes a strong case that X9 contains a white dwarf star orbiting a black hole at just 2.5 times the separation between the Earth and the Moon.

"This white dwarf is so close to the black hole that material is being pulled away from the star and dumped onto a disk of matter around the black hole before falling in," said first author Dr Arash Bahramian, from the University of Alberta in Canada and Michigan State University in the United States.

"Luckily for this star, we don't think it will follow this path into oblivion--it should stay in orbit."

Although the white dwarf does not appear to be in danger of falling in or being torn apart by the black hole, its fate is uncertain.

Associate Professor James Miller-Jones, from Curtin University and ICRAR, said, "We think the star may have been losing gas to the black hole for tens of millions of years and by now has now lost the majority of its mass."

"Over time, we think that the star's orbit will get wider and wider as even more mass is lost, eventually turning into an exotic object similar to the famous diamond planet discovered a few years ago," he said.

How did the black hole get such a close companion? One possibility is that the black hole smashed into a red giant star and as gas from the outer regions of the star were ejected a binary was formed containing a black hole and a white dwarf. The orbit of the binary would then have shrunk as gravitational waves were emitted until the black hole started pulling material from the white dwarf.

The gravitational waves being produced by the binary system have a frequency too low to be detected by the ground-based facilities that confirmed the existence of gravity waves last year but it is possible that space-based gravity wave observatories in the future could be sensitive enough to detect them.

Co-author Vlad Tudor, also from the Curtin University node of ICRAR, said an alternative theory would involve a neutron star that's being spun up as material is pulled away by the black hole.
Find the newest releases to watch from National Geographic on Disney+, including favourite documentary series and films Free Solo, The Rescue, Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth and The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
Tipperary school principals have said they are 'outraged' by a Department of Education snub to their appeal for extra resources to cater for deprived pupils.

They met officials for a three hour meeting in Dublin on Tuesday and one furious principal said after - We went in with nothing and we came out with nothing'.

The five Tipperary town primary schools located in an area with alarming levels of deprivation will not be included in a Department of Education programme designed to tackle social disadvantage.

A last ditch bid for inclusion failed on Tuesday afternoon when the principals from the five schools, which serves 713 pupils, were told by Department of Education officials that the Tipperary town schools would not be included in the DEIS 2017 programme.

Tipperary town has a minus twelve deprivation index measurement whereas one school in Galway city, granted DEIS status, had just a plus one deprivation level .

The principals travelled to Dublin with some hope of being included in the programme which gave DEIS status to 79 additional schools last month as concerns had been raised about the reliability of the Departments new system for measuring advantage.

Hopes were dashed however when their bid for inclusion was shot down by Department officials.

Said Louise Tobin, principal of St. Josephs primary school - We are outraged. We went in with nothing and came out with nothing.Tipp town has exactly the same deprivation level of minus twelve as Carrick-on-Suir which was granted DEIS status last month.

Schools in other parts of the country granted DEIS status had lower averages than that, our levels of deprivation were greater .

Principal of Monastery CBS Pat OHalloran said they were devastated to be shot down after making such a powerful case for inclusion.

It is a disgraceful decision. We have been given no hope, he said.

The principals of St.Michaels Junior Boys and Girls Schools, Monastery BNS, Gaelscoil Tiobraid Arann and St. Josephs met with officials with concerns mounting regarding the reliability of the Departments new system for measuring disadvantage.

We are talking about the lives of all of the little children in Tipperary town, coming from disadvantaged homes who deserve a better chance; who deserve DEIS, delivering equality in schools, said Louise Tobin, who has questioned the reliability of the Department of Education's new system for measuring disadvantaged schools.

Last week the Department of Education said it had revised the designation of a number of schools that were awarded DEIS last month.Two schools have now been recategorised from urban,which attracts extra funding, to rural.

The Department has changed the categorisation of a number of schools on its new DEIS list and has changed the methodology it is using and will write to schools requesting the eircodes of pupils so that it can further refine its assessment of their economic backgrounds.

The Department stated that while some schools had expressed disappointment at not being included in DEIS on this occasion, none of those schools had higher levels of disadvantage than the 79 that were recently added to the scheme.

It said classification of primary schools as either urban or rural related to resource allocation and not to eligibility for DEIS.

It said it hopes to "run the whole process again" in July when it has up-to-date data on pupils from schools, as well as new census data.

The Department of Education said it was using the electoral district the pupil came from to assess levels of disadvantage and urban or rural status.

It said it will now use settlement areas which is a smaller more precise measure.

Louise Tobin said her school serves a disadvantaged community and was confident it would feature on the urban DEIS list announced in February but it was not.

The decision beggars belief. We were devastated. It was a shock, horror and everybody felt so let down because our statistics speak for themselves, she said.

She said the Department told her geocodes were used, but when she questioned this, she was asked by the Department for the eircodes of her pupils.

"Surely, the department, no more than anybody else in the public sector, is working at planning properly, delivering properly and not making mistakes. I mean, we are talking about the lives of all of the little children who deserve a better chance; who deserve DEIS, delivering equality in schools," said Ms Tobin.

Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on the Minister for Education Richard Bruton to review the criteria under which the Tipperary schools were excluded from participation in the DEIS 2017 plan.

Deputy McGrath said the model was not fair or objective. In fact it is bordering on the shambolic given the importance of the outcomes concerned, concluded Deputy McGrath.
(Natural News) All science is not 100% accurate and reliable. Just like in any other profession or field of study, humans make mistakes, alter data, omit data, jump to conclusions, and worse, sometimes literally fake research to achieve end goals that suit a companys bottom line or a corporations profit scheme. The science of locating planets in our solar system may be concrete, provable science, but the science of both modern medicine and chemical agriculture has been manipulated by some of the most insidious characters on planet earth. From pharmaceutical CEOs and CFOs to presidents of vaccine manufacturing firms and biotech companies, the message from the top is one huge lie thats been perpetuated for decades  and that is that the science is settled and that all vaccines are 100% safe and 100% effective 100% of the time.

Yet the vaccine industry quietly settles cases where children are severely maimed or killed by the toxins in those vaccines, and those cases amount to over $3 billion, so, you were saying? Lets take an inside look at the shills, charlatans, hucksters and hacks that push this false vaccine (and GMO) narrative that comes down from the top, all in the name of cold hard cash, and all at the expense of Americas children, infants, and even unborn babies just trying to survive inside their mothers womb.

Meet the poisoners: Industry shills who sell out our health and safety for cash

#1. The insidious Dr. Paul Offit

The insidious Paul Offit: Offit loves looking straight into the camera and saying vaccines are totally safe and effective. He has made millions off creating and patenting toxic jabs like the rotavirus RotaTeq vaccine, which contains a deadly pig virus (circavirus). Offit was even somehow able to finagle this poisonous inoculation into the CDCs schedule of toxic immunizations for babies. Its a double-dipping catastrophe: Offit makes a fortune (about $50 million so far) off his patented toxic jab thats bought and paid for by taxpayers, and then he treats the maladies of his clients who get jabbed by his deadly pig virus and makes more money from that. Its sick and twisted, but its happening right now.

Offit is the most widely quoted poisoner and apologist for the vaccine industry today. You will find his quotes on nearly every shill website that pushes for mandatory forced vaccination and every blog that swears up and down vaccines are safe. The genocidal maniac Bill Gates himself gave Offit an award for helping inject millions of children with known neurotoxins. Gates of course spreads vaccine propaganda across African nations in an attempt to stop them from having babies altogether (part of his white supremacy campaign).

Paul Offit works his black magic out of the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (righteously nicknamed CHOP) where he pretends to be looking out for children with autism, all while he covers up the main cause of autism  mercury in vaccines. Offit was also slapped with the Corrupt Journalism Award just recently in 2015.

Plus, back in 2008, for his insidious program called Every Child by Two, Offit received hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines. Offit the freak of nature swears that any child in America (or himself) could get 10,000 vaccines at once and be just fine. Please try that out on yourself Dr. Offit, the world would love to see it! Surely we would have one less poisoner around to push toxins on our children.

#2. The Treacherous Joker Dr. Richard Pan

Democratic Senator Richard Pan received a large chunk of campaign contributions from Merck during the 2010 election cycle and then auspiciously supported the 2011 law that force-injects 12 year old girls with the poisonous Gardasil HPV vaccination without their parents consent. The Gardasil Human Papillomavirus jab contains known neurotoxins, including sodium chloride, polysorbate 80, aluminum, and a denatured, fragmented and experimental form of the cancer virus.

Pan was one of the two co-authors responsible for eliminating religious exemptions from vaccines for the whole state of California, so that the doctors controlled by the medical board can make sure all children get poisoned with the maximum amount of mercury, formaldehyde, MSG, aluminum, and African green monkey kidney cells possible  all of which can be found in todays CDC recommended vaccine schedule.

Pan annihilates medical freedom every day he lives and pushes the propaganda and corruption that says all vaccines are safe and effective 100% of the time. Listen to the Joker Pan lie through his teeth in this video below:

#3. Alleged wife beater and GMO-pushing hack, Jon Entine

The ultimate poser representing biotech companies and pushing their crop chemicals as healthy and sustainable is the most two-faced pseudo-journalist alive, one Jon Entine. An ex-TV news show producer turned GMO propagandist, Entine would write papers saying rattlesnake venom is good for babies if he was paid well for it. This clown could not care less about human beings and pushes Atrazine and Monsanto-created agricultural chemicals as the best things since sliced bread.

Entine is a corporate propagandist who poses as an independent journalist. He was fired by Forbes.com when they found out via published court documents that he allegedly beat his wife and choked her in front of their teenage daughter. This schmuck writes for the known huckster website American Council on Science and Health, as well as for the Genetic Literacy Project, both of which lie through their teeth to push GMOs on Americans. Entine says every single environmental hazard is great for America and cites fake studies that dont exist (or that he authored himself) to prove it. His media cohorts accept corporate funding from the worst of the worst, including Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills, Pepsico, and of course, the American Beverage Association. Who in their right minds would believe anything this poisoner ever writes or says?

Sources for this article include:

TruthWiki.org

NaturalNews.com

TruthWiki.org

CDC.gov

NaturalNews.com

TruthWiki.org
(Natural News) The new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Scott Pruitt, recently stated that he does not believe carbon dioxide plays a primary role in global warming. This belief, of course, lies in stark contrast with the EPAs public stance.

Pruitt, formally the Attorney General for the state of Oklahoma, has become known for his strident criticism of the EPA, which is what perhaps makes him the perfect leader for such an organization. During his tenure as Attorney General, Pruitt filed suit against the EPA several times, most notably for the agencys contentious climate control regulations on power plants and their water regulation efforts.

Fortunately, so far it seems that Pruitt will not be changing his tune just because hes in charge now.

In a recent interview with CNBCs Squawk Box, Pruitt stated, I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and theres tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that its a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.

But we dont know that yet. We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis, he continued.

Pruitts statements do not align with the EPAs current public stance. The agencys webpage on climate change declares, Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change.

Unsurprisingly, Pruitt has been heavily criticized for his beliefs. Hawaiis Democratic Senator Brian Schatz, co-chair of the Senate Climate Action Task Force, even went so far as to say that anyone who doesnt believe the so-called basic facts about climate change is unqualified to lead the EPA.

But yet, there are plenty of facts that show Pruitt is correct, and that carbon dioxide really isnt the driving force behind climate change at all.

Writing for The Federalist, Robert Tracinski explains that climate is a very complex system that has hundreds of variables at play, and that any assertion of cause and effect is nothing more than someones interpretation of data. And according to Tracinski, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of the belief that carbon dioxide is the one greenhouse gas that causes climate change above all others. He notes that carbon dioxide is not, in fact, the most powerful greenhouse gas. Water vapor, for example, is far more capable of retaining heat and releasing it back into the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. This, Tracinski explains, is because water vapor is better at absorbing radiation from the infrared spectrum  which is then released as heat.

Thats why all of the climate theories that project runaway global warming use water vapor to juice up the relatively small impact of carbon dioxide itself, Tracinski writes. This feedback loop is used to display how carbon dioxide increases temperature, which then increases the atmospheric water vapor content and leads to further increase in temperature. To put it simply, models of carbon dioxides effects rely on other greenhouse gases to amplify its effects.

Additionally, there are many variables within such models that are simply unknown. For example, increased water vapor means more clouds. Clouds offer a reflective, cooling effect that can counteract warming, but how much counteraction they are capable of is essentially unknown. This presents a huge conundrum within a commonly accepted, yet poorly understood, belief about climate change  and climate science as a whole. Basically, there are no facts, only hypotheses based on individual data interpretation.

There are in fact many theories surrounding climate change, though only those that have been adopted by the mainstream get the privilege of being regaled as facts instead of hypotheses.

Recently, it even came to light that The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had published fake data on global warming, in an attempt to claim that the slowdown of global warming indicated by a U.N. report never existed. And in 2013, NASAs Langley Research Center compiled data that indicated carbon dioxide was actually helping to cool the atmosphere, rather than warming it up. The results of their data contradicted the NASA climatology divisions previous claims on the subject.

The field of climate science is actually rife with contradiction, and to put it simply, there are no basic facts on climate change  there are commonly accepted theories, which are often misconstrued as facts.

Sources:

CNBC.com

NaturalNews.com
Two loose pit bulls had been gunned down by police after mauling a man inside his apartment.

According to Brooklyn News, a 911 call was made around 10:30 pm, Saturday. Upon arriving at Hancock Street near Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, they saw the animals chomping on the 50-year-old resident.



The man, identified as Paul "Nitty" Davis, was immediately taken to Kings County Hospital to treat multiple bite wounds to his arms and legs, police said.

In a more detailed report, New York Post said the dogs were owned by Devon Dixon, another resident of the home.

Dixon said Davis was renting the basement of the house. They were having a party upstairs when suddenly, the pit bulls went to the basement and started attacking Davis.

The pit bulls, as narrated by Davis, were rescued weeks earlier before the attack. According to Dixon, they saw them in chains in the yard of his neighbor. Feeling pity for their condition, he decided to give them food and adopt them.

Dixon added that during the attack, he tried to help Davis escape the pitbulls by attempting to hit them with two by four. But that only angered the hungry dogs.

Even the police tried to get the pit bulls off Nixon, but their attempts failed. Eventually, Davis heard at least 10 gun shots.

"I heard at least ten gunshots. It was at least a whole round. But they had to -- Nitty was losing a lot of blood," Dixon said. "They bit him all the way down to his bone where you could see the definition of his bone. You could see the veins in his legs and everything."

New York Daily News notes that the bloody incident took place just weeks a five-year-old boy, Jeremiah Rivera, was savagely mauled by another pit bull inside his Brooklyn home.



In the U.S., there is currently the Breed-specific legislation (BSL), laws that either regulate or ban certain dog breeds in an effort to decrease dog attacks. Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. have banned pit bulls.
An elderly couple who went for a jogging at a park in Bandar Puchong Jaya reportedly died after getting struck with lightning.

Malay Online reported that Yee Boon Koo, 59, and wife Ooi Lee Chen, 57, were found motionless by a passerby on March 12 at around 6 p.m.



Serdang deputy OCPC Supt. Lee Wai Leong said they suspected that they were killed by lighting because of the visible signs around the area such as scorch marks, dislodged and shattered bricks.

"There were visible signs of a lightning strike about half a meter from the footpath where their bodies were found," he said.

Yee Boon Koo had bleeding in the head, which as police suspected, he got when he fell down. A medical officer pronounced that they immediately died after they were hit.

News Straits Times said a witness who chose to be anonymous claimed he heard a scream coming from the location before their bodies were discovered.



Meanwhile, the bodies have been sent to the University Malaysia Medical Centre for a post-mortem examination.

National Geographic says death by lightning is particularly high in developing countries. In an article they published in 2013, they said "a largely agricultural and labor-intensive economy, poor infrastructure, and a tropical climate all play a role in higher rates of lightning-related deaths and injuries in countries such as South Africa, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh."



Lightning expert Mohd Zainal Abidin Ab Kadir, said Malaysia has the third highest lightning activity in the world. And the lack of awareness of Malaysians on this statistics makes it even more dangerous for them.



To reduce numbers of death by lightning in Malaysia, periodic training programs for engineers on lightning protection technologies are being conducted. It is estimated that the country is losing a hundred million dollars per year in terms of economic losses because of the lack of solid infrastructure and lightning rods.
A new study from University of Washington, together with University of Santa Barbara and federal scientists, revealed that natural variability is to blame for the substantial loss of Arctic sea ice in recent decades.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed that up to half of the Arctic sea ice loss since 1979 is due to shifting wind patterns caused by natural variations in atmospheric circulation.

"Anthropogenic forcing is still dominant -- it's still the key player," said Qinghua Ding, a climate scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara who holds an affiliate position at the UW and lead author of the study, in a press release. "But we found that natural variability has helped to accelerate this melting, especially over the past 20 years."

For the study, the researchers focused the effects of the so-called "hot spot" to the Arctic sea ice in September, when the ocean reaches its maximum area of open water. The hot spot is a large region higher pressure over Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. In this region, air is squeezed together so it becomes warmer and can hold more moisture, bringing more heat to the sea ice below.

Using a new sea ice model experiment they developed, the researchers determined how much of sea ice loss the past decades were caused by natural variation and how much were lost due to climate change. The researchers found that shifts in wind patterns over the Arctic are to blame for about 60 percent of sea ice lost in the region since 1979.

The researchers found that some of the shifts in wind pattern over the Arctic were influenced by climate change. However, a good fraction of the sea ice melt during September in the past decades is most likely caused by natural variations in the atmospheric circulation. The researchers estimated that 30 to 50 percent of the observed sea ice loss since 1979 was caused by natural variations in the large-scale atmospheric pattern.

Despite the large percentage of sea ice lost due to natural variation of wind patterns, the researchers cautioned that the internal natural variability is going to be overwhelmed by the increasing levels of greenhouse gases within 50 to 100 years.
Mankind's search for potentially habitable bodies outside Earth led to the discovery of some interesting moons, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa. NASA dedicated a whole mission to find out if the moon indeed has an ocean of liquid water and if it is habitable. The agency officially named the mission "Europa Clipper."

It was called Clipper after the name of the ships that sailed across the oceans here on the planet during the 19th century. The streamlined vessels are world renowned due to their swiftness at sea. Clipper transported tea and other cargo across the Atlantic Ocean with ease.

Europa Clipper would sail across space. According to NASA, the spacecraft would sail beyond Europa at a rapid pace as often as every two weeks. This will give researchers ample time to investigate the composition of the moon. The mission is composed of about 40 to 45 flybys where the spacecraft will take high-resolution images of the Europa's icy surface.

Earlier this year, NASA discovered water plumes emanating from the moon. This increased the possibility of having oceans in Europa. Other NASA research points out that Europa may have salty liquid water underneath its icy shell.

"During each orbit, the spacecraft spends only a short time within the challenging radiation environment near Europa. It speeds past, gathers a huge amount of science data, then sails on out of there," Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a press release.

The mission moved past the initial planning stage and is now in its design phase. Scientists had always called the mission Europa Clipper but it is only today that it was formally given its official name. The $2 billion mission is expected to launch in 2020 to journey towards Europa for a few years.
NASA is slated to receive $19.5 billion in federal funding this year as the new NASA Authorization Act of 2017 breezed through the House of Representatives earlier this week.

The NASA Authorization Act of 2017, sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz, encourages NASA to return to its former glory, just like what it was during the Apollo Program. Under the new bill, NASA will be given $19.5 billion for different missions and programs this 2017, including the Space Station, deep space exploration and asteroid redirect missions. More importantly, the bill mandates NASA to develop a step-by-step guide on how humans can travel to Mars by 2033.

"The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 reaffirms our support for the bold visions and commitments that will shape America's future in space," Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a statement as reported by Space News. "This bill reiterates the importance of maintaining NASA's continuity of purpose to ensure America remains a leader in space exploration."

NASA's step-by-step Mars plan, dubbed as "initial human exploration roadmap" by the Congress, is already underway. The roadmap consists of three thresholds, each with increasing challenges as humans inch closer to the red planet.

The first threshold is called Earth Reliant, now until mid-2020s. During this phase, NASA will focus on research conducted at the International Space Station. Using the orbiting laboratory as world-class test-bed of new technologies and communication systems needed in space, scientists at NASA could better understand the effects of space travel to human health.

The next threshold in the roadmap is called Proving Ground, from 2018 to 2030. In this stage, the scientists will conduct series of missions in the region near the moon called "cislunar space". As oppose to the ISS, which is only a few days away From the Earth's surface, the cislunar space is days away. This make the cislunar space an appropriate stepping stone for Mars mission that could last for months.

The final threshold is called Earth Independent, 2030s and beyond. During this phase, NASA plans to use what they learned during the two previous thresholds in order to send humans to low-Mars orbit.


A star located 14,800 light-years away was discovered orbiting a black hole closer that any other identified star. The star orbits the black hole once every 28 minutes at about 2.5 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

This suggests that the star moves rapidly. Its speed could be at 3.7 million miles in less than 30 minutes -- more than 100 times the Earth's speed as it orbits around the Sun.

Researchers from the Michigan State University and the University of Alberta conducted a study using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and NASA's NuStar space telescope to make the discovery. Using the data from various sources, X-ray fluctuations were identified. The black hole and white dwarf binary system is called X9.

The binary system called X9 is located on the edge of 47 Tucanae galaxy. More information about the rare binary system will be available on the Royal Astronomical Society as the study was accepted for publishing.

"For a long time astronomers thought that black holes were rare or totally absent in globular star clusters," Jay Strader, MSU astronomer and co-author of the paper, said in a press release. "The discovery is additional evidence that, rather than being one of the worst places to look for black homes, globular clusters might be one of the best."

The researchers thought the binary star system is composed of two stars. However, further investigations revealed that the other one is a black hole harvesting material from the white dwarf star.

"This white dwarf is so close to the black hole that materials is being pulled away from the star and dumped onto a disk of matter around the black hole before falling in," Arash Bahramian, lead author of the study said in a statement. "Luckily for this star, we don't think it will follow this path into oblivion, but instead will stay in orbit."

Black holes rip stars apart. But the case of X9 is different as researchers say that the star will remain safe for the mean time.
The Republican bill to replace major portions of Barack Obama's health care law and restructure Medicaid would leave 24 million people uninsured over the next decade, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office. A look at what the CBO said Monday in its estimates of the House GOP plan that's backed by President Donald Trump:

 The bill would reduce the deficit by $337 billion over a decade. The largest savings would come from reductions in money for Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income Americans, and elimination of the Affordable Care Act's subsidies for non-group health insurance.

 Fourteen million more people would be uninsured next year. That increase would include 6 million who don't get coverage on the individual market, some 5 million people under Medicaid and about 2 million with employment-based coverage.

 The CBO estimates that the number of uninsured would rise to 21 million in 2020 and 24 million in 2026. Much of the increase in uninsured would be due to changes in Medicaid enrollment as states end their expansion of eligibility.

 In 2026, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured compared with 28 million under Obama's law.

 Average premiums in the insurance market for individuals would rise in 2018 and 2019 by 15 percent to 20 percent, compared with current law, because Republicans would eliminate the penalties designed to induce people to buy insurance coverage, leading to higher costs for those who remain.

 Beginning in 2020, premiums would begin to fall in comparison with current law, and by 2026 average premiums for people buying individual coverage would be roughly 10 percent lower than current law. However, premiums would vary significantly for people of different ages because of a change Republicans would make allowing old people to be charged more for insurance coverage, compared with young people, than allowed under Obama's law.

 The GOP health care bill prohibits funds for Planned Parenthood for one year, and the CBO estimates the number of births in the Medicaid program would increase by several thousand.
More than 650 Bay Area teens are getting a head start on lining up career choices.

Students on Friday met with representatives from companies and college programs at a computer science fair in San Francisco to get an idea of their next steps after high school.

"I really enjoyed the tech companies that were able to come out and talk to us about their careers and opportunities they have," said Renee Labutay, a senior at Hillsdale High School.

Labutay is looking for a four-year college program in computer science. She's not alone.

Each of the students have been taking computer science classes through Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS), a Microsoft-funded partnership with Bay Area campuses.

Rebecca Greenway

The program also features coding sessions to build video games and lectures on both the traditional and nontraditional careers students can choose from in computer science.

"It kind of opened my eyes a bit to learn that computer science is not just about coding," Hillsdale High student Kathy Li said. "We learned a lot about other careers that we can choose from."

Rebecca Greenway

Electronic Arts, Twitter, Carnegie Mellon University, and Google were among the 14 companies and college programs in attendance at the Mission Bay Conference Center at the University of California, San Francisco.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco has rejected a lawsuit by members of a California Native American tribe who were temporarily banned from tribal land.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday the federal Indian Civil Rights Act does not give U.S. courts the authority to review such decisions.

The ruling came in a lawsuit by members of the United Auburn Indian Community who were excluded from tribal lands by the tribe's Council. The tribe owns the Thunder Valley Casino Resort outside Sacramento.

The members argued that their exclusion amounted to detention under the Indian Civil Rights Act and was therefore reviewable by a federal court.

The 9th Circuit in a 2-1 decision rejected that argument.

Andrew Stroud, an attorney for the tribal members, says he's heartbroken for his clients.
A naked man on Tuesday got stuck in a ventilation shaft behind the facade of a Napa building, forcing first-responders to smash pieces of the building's wall to get to him, according to fire officials.

The man, reportedly went in search of a "wishing well," but ended up getting trapped in the constricted space near a TOGO'S Sandwiches and Baskin Robbins on Soscol Avenue around 8:40 a.m., said Bruce Schmitz, a construction worker who called 911.

Naked Man Found Inside Ventilation Shaft

The man, who was found in the fetal position with his knees drawn up to his chest, is believed to have accessed the shaft through a door on the building's roof, according to Napa Fire Department Battalion Chief Charlie Rhodes.

Napa police identified the man as 48-year-old Robert Turbidy. They said on Facebook that he "lowered himself into a crawl space" with the help of a makeshift rope, which, unfortunately, broke. So Turbidy was trapped at the bottom of the shaft, unable to get into the businesses, which were closed that early in the morning.

"It is very unusual for us to have this sort of rescue," Rhodes said, noting that it was unclear whether the man "fell straight down or if he had braced himself" as he plummeted 30 feet down the vent.

Firefighters decided to break away the building's exterior rock to reach the man, who was then taken to a hospital, Rhodes said. The fall definitely had the potential for severe injuries, he said.

Schmitz said he and a colleague were beginning work for the day when they heard faint cries for help. As Schmitz searched in and behind dumpsters, he heard the sound again: "Help me, please. Help me."

At first, Schmitz approached a Togo's employee and asked if someone was playing a prank.

"Do you have someone in the bathroom, playing games, saying, 'Help me! Help me!'" he asked. "It's not very funny."

Turns out, the woman had also heard the man pleading for help. So Schmitz jumped into action.

"I start to ask, 'Hey, is there someone in there?'" Schmitz said.

"Yes, I'm in here," the man replied. "I was looking for a wishing well."

Schmitz replied: "What? How did you get in there?"

The man responded: "What's it matter? I didn't find it."

He then added, "I was drunk last night," to which Schmitz said, "OK, we got that figured out!"

After his rescue, Turbidy was treated for minor injuries at a hospital. He will now be booked into Napa County Jail, and await burglary and probation violation charges, according to police.
The Alameda County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help in locating a woman who was last seen in San Francisco.

Authorities said Shasta Jacobs was last seen on Ninth Street in San Francisco at about 9 a.m. Monday and said her family and friends are very worried about her.

Authorities described Jacobs as 5 feet 3 inches tall and 240 pounds with blue eyes and dark brown hair with faded blue tips.

They said she has tattoos of a bow on her collarbone, a tube of lipstick on her hand, the words "Like a Skyscraper" on her left arm and the initials "D.J.S." on her foot.

Sheriff's officials said if people see Jacobs, they should call their local law enforcement agency or the sheriff's office at (510) 667-7721.
It's been almost three weeks since historic floods in San Jose, and many people are still looking for answers, including Mayor Sam Liccardo, who wrote a formal letter to the water district seeking more information.

As city crews and residents continued cleaning up near Olinder Park on Monday, Liccardo responded to demands from residents on the cause of the floods last month after water from overflowing Coyote Creek gushed into an East San Jose neighborhood. In his letter to the Santa Clara County Water District, Liccardo requested more details so he can better prepare the city next time.

One major issue is a sufficient warning system, and while city leaders try to come up with an effective, long-term solution, they also are looking at purchasing LRADs, or long-range acoustic devices, to warn potential flood victims. San Jose's SWAT team uses an LRAD when confronted wth a barricade situation.

The LRAD makes a high-pitched sound akin to a car alarm, except much louder.

Thats little consolation to flood victim Sue Evanicky, whose home on 19th street remains yellow-tagged, meaning she can go into it to retrieve items and assess damage, but she can't live there.

"Were struggling," Evanicky said. "This is Phase 4. I can't imagine when we start looking for appliances and furniture that we lost because none of that is covered, which was a shock."

Evanicky also had the misfortune of falling victim to what she said were unscrupulous contractors who took off with her deposit money.

"After the floods, I was vulnerable and so shocked and overwhelmed," she said. "I was desperate, so I took what came."

Meanwhile, city and county crews have spent the past two weeks decontaminating parks and trails. They were at Rocksprings Park on Friday, and on Monday, crews installed tan bark in the play area at Olinder Park, covering an area where contaminated soil was removed.

Hellyer Park, a p[opular weekend retreat for many families in South San Jose, is still closed.

"It was pretty dangerous, so little kids couldnt be walking around," park visitor Francisco Martinez said. "Right now, its just adults, and its pretty dangerous."

Seven city parks remain closed indefinitely.

Full text of Mayor Liccardo's letter to the water district:

Dear Chair Varela,

I was disappointed that, despite repeated requests from our City Manager and myself more than a week prior to the hearing, the Santa Clara Valley Water District declined to send any engineers, hydrologists or managers with relevant expertise to our March 9 City Council hearing on the recent Coyote Creek flooding. As we've previously discussed, City staff has had difficulty eliciting information from the Water District in recent days that would enable us to better anticipate flooding, so I was equally disappointed to learn that your attorneys' concerns would compel your agency to decline to meaningfully participate in our public effort to identify and fix what went wrong to create the devastation of February's flood.

We need answers to many important questions to prevent this kind of damage from happening again. While your Government Affairs Director read a formal statement on behalf of the Water District, he could not offer substantive answers to any of the questions posed by the City Council regarding stream flow data, flood protection, stream channel maintenance, and other issues that fall under the subject matter expertise and jurisdiction of the Water District.

As I've said before, this event took place in my city, and I accept responsibility for fixing the shortcomings in our emergency preparation and warnings. To do so, we need the best information, and we need cooperation of the agency tasked with flood prevention and management. At our March 9 meeting, City staff, my colleagues and I publicly acknowledged the City's failure to provide adequate and timely notice to San Jose residents and businesses about the potential for flooding. We also approved a number of immediate actions that will help us avoid these issues going forward.

However, the absence of your staff prevented the Council from hearing their insights about how to rectify the communication breakdowns between the Water District and the City EOC regarding the timing and seriousness of flood threats. As you know, City staff have identified inaccurate Water District data regarding channel capacity and the repeatedly flawed estimates of flooding risk as key obstacles to providing timely notice to residents. Vastly improving interagency communication and flood monitoring protocols is an urgent priority. ...

I remain committed to working collaboratively with the Water District, the County, and our many other partners to fix these shortcomings as quickly as possible. To do this, we need all the facts about what happened before, during and after this event, as well as an open and honest discussion about the responsibilities of our respective public agencies when it comes to flood protection and mitigation.

Since the Water District did not send a representative equipped to answer our questions at the March 9 hearing, I have included a list of a few of the questions raised by our City Council and the public, and have attempted to list them more succinctly for your convenience (see attachment A). Given the urgency of our task, we would appreciate the Water District's response to these questions as soon as possible.

I hope that meetings between our respective staffs will enable forthright feedback about the findings and recommendations of the City's after-action report so we can immediately formulate a plan for addressing those items that will require action from both the City and Water District.

Given the urgency of these issues, I also propose that we move up the date of our joint City Council - Water District Board meeting to take place the week of March 27th or the week of April 3rd, at a mutually convenient time, and that we focus that meeting on eliciting factual information relevant to our actions in the weeks ahead.

Thank you for your prompt attention to both this request and to the continued invitations from our professional staff to engage in discussions on how we can better protect our residents from flooding in the future.

Sincerely,

Sam Liccardo

Mayor

ATTACHMENT A: Questions for the Santa Clara Valley Water District

City's Warning and Emergency Protocols

 Does the Water District have any insights or opinions about the City's proposed improvements to its own warning systems and resident notification protocols? What additional improvements would the Water District suggest?

Water District's Flow Rate and Channel Capacity Data:

 How does the Water District explain the large gaps between the quantitative descriptions of creek channel capacity that the Water District provided City staff the week before the flood, and the rates at which flooding occurred in Rock Springs, at William Street, Watson Park, and the mobile home parks near Oakland Road?

 What is the degree of accuracy of the hydrologic model used by the Water District to predict the overflows from Anderson spillway, and why were the overflow estimates and timing of peaks changed so frequently in advance of and during President's Day weekend?

 What is the Water District doing to improve stream gauge accuracy? Is the Water District considering additional stream gauges, for instance, at Rock Springs?

 Data regarding stream flow rates in Coyote Creek, both during and immediately prior to the flooding, on the Water District website have been removed and altered since the flood on Tuesday, February 21st. Why?

 Did the Water District's descriptions of Coyote Creek channel capacity account for sediment and vegetation growth in those channels? If not, why not and how much of the aforementioned gaps (in predicted and actual channel capacity) can be explained by sediment and vegetation? What are the other factors that could have contributed to the gaps in predicted and actual channel capacity?

 Does the Water District monitor sediment accumulation and vegetation growth in the creeks for flood protection purposes? If not, is it the view of the Water District that these are not substantial factors in flood prevention or stream channel capacity? If so, what communication has the Water District had with the City or other Coyote-adjacent property owners about flood risk resulting from sediment accumulation and vegetation growth?

 The Water District completed a study as recently as October 5, 2016 on flood protection needs in Rock Springs, and described in great detail (p. 21) the sources of information behind its channel capacity estimate (then 7,000 cfs) in that part of the creek. A few weeks later, the channel flooded at that location at a flow rate at least 2,500 cfs lower. Why?

 For other segments of Coyote Creek that flooded in the recent storms, how recently were hydrologic studies performed to determine the creek channel capacity data provided by the Water District to the City of San Jose?

 A Water District Emergency and Security Manager, Dale Jacques, was recently quoted in the Mercury News stating that the City of San Jose should not have relied on Water District data regarding channel capacity and flow rates, but should "augment our information with their own analysis." What analysis, exactly, should every city perform? Why can't cities rely upon the Water District's projections and data? Should every city and town in Santa Clara County should hire its own hydrologists? If so, will the Water District - as the sole agency collecting tax revenue to provide flood prevention and expertise countywide - provide funding for those additional staff?

 The Water District suggests that they had field personnel monitoring conditions along the Coyote corridor prior to and during the event. Where were those staff positioned and what were they communicating to either the Water District's or the City's EOC?

 Are there technological improvements that can be implemented with the Water District's sensors at key locations (e.g., Edenvale, William Street) that will provide a clearer indication of flood risk?

Stream Maintenance:

 In light of City Attorney Rick Doyle's March 10, 2017 memorandum, can the Water District cite any written authority -e.g., a statute, court opinion, or contractual agreement - for its contention that individual property owners bear responsibility for clearing vegetation and removing sediment for flood protection within the creek channels of our County?

 Given the fact that there are hundreds of property owners along Coyote and many other creeks in this County, does the Water District contend that each individual owner has responsibility for obtaining dredging and hauling equipment, and obtaining permits from the Water District and other agencies to perform the work? Beyond the post-flood statements of Water District spokesperson Rachael Gibson that "each property owner is responsible for clearing their own section" of the creek, what has the Water District done to proactively inform property owners Countywide of this purported responsibility? What has the Water District done to inform cities Countywide of this purported responsibility?

 The Water District has several pages on its website that describe its work on sediment and vegetation removal within creek channels for flood protection. Is there any public information on the Water District's website that informs property owners how they should obtain dredging equipment, permits, and other requirements to preform stream maintenance for flood prevention purposes?

 What does the Water District need from the City of San Jose and other property owners to perform flood-mitigating stream channel maintenance along the flood-prone portions of Coyote Creek?

 The Water District asked voters to approve Measure B in 2012, listing among the projects within Priority El: "Vegetation Control and Sediment Removal for Flood Protection." According to the Water District, this parcel tax measure allocated $59.2 million (in 2015 dollars) to "support the District's ongoing vegetation control and sediment removal activities that reduce flood risk by maintaining design conveyance capacity of flood protection projects. These activities also provide access for maintenance personnel and equipment. The project includes: controlling in-stream vegetation growth, removing sediment at appropriate intervals, removing hazardous trees, and performing weed abatement and pruning to provide access and establish firebreaks." If the Water District is unwilling to take responsibility for comprehensive vegetation control and sediment removal, will the Water District make those funds available to individual property owners and cities throughout the County to do so?

District's Flood Control Projects and 2012 Measure B:

 The voters approved the Coyote Creek Flood Protection Project as part of the 2000 Measure B, allocating $32 million to the project. Since then, the district continually delayed implementation of the project, spending over $10 million on planning and design until placing the project "on hold" last year until FY 2019, "due to need for development of other planning projects that impact the Coyote Creek Project." What other projects took priority over Coyote Flood protection? Under what criteria were those projects deemed to be of higher priority? How was the public, including property owners and residents in the Coyote Creek floodplain, notified about this change? and why?

 At the March 9th, 2017 hearing at City Hall, Mr. Callender communicated that the Safe, Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Plan funded by the 2012 Measure B parcel tax no longer exists. What was this plan replaced with?

 Priority C2 of the 2012 Measure B Safe, Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Plan indicates that 5 out of 7 automated flood forecast and warning systems have been implemented along various creeks. Coyote Creek is not one of those. What is the status of such a system along Coyote Creek? How can the City participate in expediting its implementation? How does the Water District determine priority of these systems? Do these systems notify residents in multiple languages?

 Priority E2 of the 2012 Measure B calls on increased coordination with local municipalities on flood communication. According to the Water District's published records, in May 2016, the Water District continued engagement with Sunnyvale OES, Cupertino OES, Cupertino Citizen Corps/CERT, and the San Francisquito Creek JPA. Why was San Jose not included within the District's coordination efforts under this priority?

 The Rock Springs report, published in October 2016, indicates that flood protections for the neighborhood would likely involve constructing a floodwall or setback. Is the District considering options for a temporary floodwall between Needles Drive and Bevin Brook?

 Did the Water District deliver sandbags to known flooding locations, such as Rock Springs and Williams Street, as it had in the flooding of 1997? If not, why not?

Anderson Dam and Upstream Flow Managemment:

 What is the maximum rate of outlet flow from Coyote Reservoir?

 During the relevant days prior to and during the February floods, did the incoming flow to Anderson Reservoir from Coyote Reservoir - which had also overtopped in February - exceed Anderson's outlet flow capacity? Why did the District not mention inflows from Coyote Reservoir in its press releases and reports about the outlet flow from Anderson Reservoir and efforts to lower the water levels in Anderson?

 What factors contributed to the Water District's decision to delay the release of water from Anderson Reservoir until January 9th? How did that decision affect the risk of flooding on February 21 st?

 Could SCVWD have managed the Coyote-Anderson dam system more proactively (i.e. earlier release from the outlet pipe, earlier supplemental pumping over the spillway) to attenuate a large peak flow such as was experienced?

Santa Clara Valley Water District's response to Liccardo's letter:

We read Mayor Liccardos letter today and share his interest in determining the factors that led to the devastating flooding that occurred during the Presidents' Day Weekend.

We would like to correct immediately some of the statements made in Mayor Liccardos letter:

1. The Mayor knew well in advance that we would send a representative, but not our entire board or engineers to the special council meeting. (See March 3 and March 8 letters)

2. We sent our Water Districts most senior government affairs and communications official, Rick Callender, to make a presentation at the government hearing--as well as to provide a series of answers to questions that the City desired information about.

3. The information that the Mayor and City requested was presented hours in advance of the hearing so that the City staff would have the opportunity to review our answers for its public hearing. (See March 9 letter)

4. We believe we used our time wisely by using our resources, board members and staff to work on answering the Citys questions in advance of the meeting as well as reviewing information to attempt to prevent future risk of flooding to San Jose residents. (See March 9 letter)

5. On March 2, in a telephone call with the Mayor, I offered to have a joint meeting between the City Council and the District Board, but this offer was declined. Instead the Mayor invited us to be present in the audience at the Citys March 9 hearing. I followed up with the attached March 3 letter confirming that a staff representative would be present.

The Water District is working closely with the City to improve the situation. We are interested in facts, not blame, which only serves to dishonor those who have been harmed and displaced by the flood waters.

We all listened in sympathy to the Special City of San Jose City Council hearing, to the expression of sorrow, disappointment and anguish expressed by the residents of San Jose who were devastated by the flood waters. Their stories of losing homes, belongings, and mementos of great personal meaning to them and their families touched everyone's hearts. The impact of this flood on their lives, livelihoods, and their neighborhoods is immense.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District has pledged to work with the City, County and other emergency service providers to do everything in our power to review, and improve, what can be done in the future to reduce the risk of the type of flooding that destroyed so many homes and deeply impacted so many of our residents. We have been carrying out this pledge and we will continue to do so.

Some of the statements made by City officials at the City hearing (as well as Mayor Liccardos letter today) about what led to the flooding were made in good-faith, but without full knowledge or facts of how procedures, protocols, and data about water flow, creek maintenance, Anderson Dam, and other factors that led to their delay in notifying residents that these flood waters were going to impact the residents and neighborhoods.

SCVWD followed the procedures and protocols necessary for a substantial weather event such as this one. We want to find factual, real, engineering and communication solutions to the issues faced by all. We believe that working together for the benefit of all residents is more important than short-term political theater.

Again, and most importantly, we will continue to work cooperatively with San Jose to determine how to improve and better coordinate and communicate in the future as well as reduce flood risk for our residents and neighborhoods, as well as address the Mayors and the communitys questions, during our April community meetings which are currently being planned.

John L. Varela, Chair

Santa Clara Valley Water District
Three days after an hours-long standoff with San Francisco police that paralyzed the Mission district, the suspect told her side of the story from her jail cell Monday night.

Samantha Helstrom, 57, who was being held in the special behavioral unit in the San Francisco jail, said the first thing she remembers is hearing her name on a loud speaker, then walking into the hallway outside her door and seeing officers lined up with weapons drawn.

SFPD

"I just saw them aim weapons at me," she said about the Friday standoff that lasted about seven hours. "It was like a firing squad."

Police repsonded to the scene after a call from Helstrom's buidling manager. The manager told police Helstrom pulled a gun on him and a pest control worker and then refused to come out when police arrived.

Helstrom said she was intoxicated and doesn't remember pulling a gun. She admitted that she owns a fake weapon. She said when officers fired nonlethal weapons at her, she got angry.

"I did say, 'Shoot me, shoot me.' It wasn't like kill me. I don't know if I said kill me because they were shooting at me," Helstrom said.

She believes police overreacted.

"They could have rushed me, taken me down," she said. "I think it was an outrageous waste of money."

When asked if she was relieved that police didn't shoot her, Helstrom said, "I have two kids; I don't want to go anywhere."

Helstrom said if she pulled a replica gun on her manager and a worker, she is sorry. But she repeated that she doesn't remember.

Helstrom is charged with criminal threats and brandishing a firearm.
An American was abducted while working as a United Nations official in central Africa, his father told NBC News on Tuesday.

Michael Sharp, 34, was among a team traveling by motorcycle through the Democratic Republic of Congo when they were kidnapped by "an unidentified militia group," according to his dad, John Sharp.

Officials confirmed Monday that the team had disappeared in the country's Kasai Central province  although it was unclear when exactly the incident took place.

Michael Sharp was abducted along with a Swedish U.N. worker named Zahida Katalan, three local drivers and a translator, Congo's government and a U.N. official told The Associated Press.

The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa said it was aware of the reports and added that the State Department said it was monitoring the situation, the AP reported.
California man charged with jumping the White House fence late Friday evening will be allowed to remain free while awaiting trial, though he'll have to wear a GPS monitor.

At a hearing in federal court in Washington on Monday, 26-year-old Jonathan Tuan Tran of Milpitas, California, was ordered to stay within 100 miles of his hometown except while traveling to court in Washington. He must stay away from the White House and undergo a mental health evaluation. He's also not allowed to possess a gun or other dangerous weapon.

Tran appeared in court Monday and answered a few questions in a quiet voice, saying he was not currently employed and has less than $50,000 in a bank account, before being assigned a public defender.

According to a Secret Service affidavit, security video shows Tran climbing a fence late Friday night and making his way to the White House's South Portico entrance. According to the affidavit, Tran told the Secret Service he's a friend of President Trump and had an appointment. Court records allege Tran was carrying two cans of Mace when arrested along with a book written by Trump and a letter he had written to the president.

Tran is charged with entering restricted grounds while carrying a dangerous weapon and faces up to 10 years in prison.

Trump praised the Secret Service response and referred to Tran as a "troubled person."

Tran is scheduled to return to court April 13.
Tuesday is Pi Day, a national celebration of the mathematical concept, which is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and equals 3.14... Two years ago, 3-14-15, was the only day this century that matched pi, commonly approximated as 3.14159.

Schools and museums often plan events to celebrate the concept, which has fascinated humans for centuries.

In the spirit of the holiday, here are 3.14 things you may not know about pi:

1. No one is certain who discovered pi as we know it today

But we do have some ideas. It seems that the Egyptians used pi in the construction of the Great Pyramid because when the perimeter is divided by its height, one gets a close approximation to 2. Its the same result if one divides the circumference of a circle by its radius.

But the most significant pi research might have come from the astronomer, Archimedes, around 250 B.C.

His mathematical calculation showed that pi was "between three and one seventh and three and 10 seventy firsts, Steven Strogatz, an applied mathematics professor at Cornell University, told NBC in a 2015 interview. He approached that putting a six sided figure into a circle, then made it 12 sided, and went all the way up to a 96-sided polygon.

He proved that pi was found somewhere between these two numbers, which applied to all circles.

2. You can find your identity in pi

One myth is that since pi is a continuation of numbers, peoples identities can be found in the pattern: like social security numbers or birthdays.

This theory, which had circulated around Reddit for years before getting a popularity jolt from a George Takei Facebook post (that post appears to have been taken down), posits that all number combinations can be found within the digits of pi.

A version of this theory posted on Reddit says of pi: "Converted into a bitmap, somewhere in that infinite string of digits is a pixel-perfect representation of the first thing you saw on this earth, the last thing you will see before your life leaves you, and all the moments, momentous and mundane, that will occur between those two points."

But Professor Strogatz stressed that the meme is misleading. Even if it is true (which is not yet known), the digits in pi would tell us nothing about a person's life or identity, because along with correct social security numbers and birthdays, there will also be wrong social security numbers and birthdays.

3. Proving pi with matches

You can prove pi exists with matches, toothpicks, a pen, or anything else that is the same length, explained Johnny Ball, the author of Why Pi? (Big Questions).

Theres a wonderful way to find pi for yourself. You find a floor with parallel lines; you find matches, pins, pens, exactly the same length. If you drop a hundred of them at random on the floor, the points touching a line will equal pi, Ball said.

The matches' length must be equal to the distance of the two parallel lines. After the matches are dropped, you multiply the number of matches thrown down by two and divide it by the total number of matches that touched a line, which will equal pi.

This problem was discovered in the 18th century by French mathematician Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon.

Check out this video on Dr. Tony Padilla's YouTube channel Numberphile where he demonstrates Buffon's Needle Problem:

3.14...Legislating against pi

In 1897, Indiana state legislators tried passing a Pi Bill that legally defined pi as 3.2. Edward J. Goodwin, a physician, convinced a well-known mathematical monthly newspaper that he had solved what mathematicians had tried to do for generations: squaring the circle. Simply put, squaring the circle is the impossible task of finding the area of a circle by finding the area of a square around it. Goodwin claimed that pi was 3.2 instead of a continuous number. The bill never became a law thanks to Professor C. A. Waldo who convinced the Indiana Senate that Goodwins discovery was not possible.
Gregg Allman has canceled all of his scheduled tour dates for the year.

The 69-year-old rocker posted Monday on his website that "it has been determined that Gregg will not be touring in 2017." In November, Allman said he was taking several months off from touring so he can "focus on his health," but still had plans to tour.

The new statement said that fans who bought tickets for concerts in June should "contact the ticket outlet from where you purchased the tickets for a refund."

More details about why Allman has canceled all of his 2017 shows were not available. He has faced multiple health issues, including contracting hepatitis C and having a 2010 liver transplant.

According to Rolling Stones health issues in recent years have prevented Allman from touring at full capacity.

In August 2016, Allman revealed that unspecified "serious health issues" would force him to cancel 28 appearances including some festival gigs.

He returned to the stage in late October for a pair of shows at his own Laid Back Festival in Atlanta, but his winter tour, which included New Year's gigs in Savannah, was postponed due to a vocal injury that required several months of recovery.

Born December 8th, 1947 in Nashville, TN, a little more than a year after his older brother Duane, Allman was raised by single mother as the family moved to Daytona Beach in 1959.

According to Greggallman.com Allman was a successful 2010 liver transplant recipient. He also accrued a remarkable list of honors over his five decade career, including the ABBs 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards as well as his own 2006 induction to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
Alfredo Rodriguez, an accountant from Berwyn, depends daily on his car to commute to and from work in Franklin Park.

So Rodriguez said he felt helpless when he suddenly got a notice from the Illinois Secretary of States Office that his drivers license would be canceled on March 4.

(The letter said) I was involved in some sort of accident due to a seizure or blackout, so therefore, my license was going to be canceled, Rodriguez explained.

But there was one problem: Rodriguez said he was not in a car accident, especially not one caused by a medical episode.

Im kind of freaking out, said Rodriguez. This has got to be some sort of mistake.

The letter, which Rodriguez received March 2, stated that this order is hereby based upon an official investigation that you were the driver of a motor vehicle involved in an accident or incident resulting from a seizure, an attack of unconsciousness or blackout, which is good cause to believe that you are not safe to operate a motor vehicle.

Rodriguez said he visited a local Secretary of State office to clear up the confusion but was told there was nothing (they) could do.

Rodriguez said he was ordered to surrender his license and was directed to get a medical exam, which would be forwarded to the Illinois Medical Advisory Board.

You will then be notified of the decision concerning your driving privileges, the letter states.

Rodriguez said he was told that process could take three to four weeks.

Its just not fair that Im being accused of something I did not do, Rodriguez said. Its nerve-wracking knowing that I cant drive. If I do get pulled over, theres a possibility I might get arrested because my license is cancelled.

After a week of contacting an attorney, sending a letter and completing necessary medical reports to no avail, Rodriguez reached out to NBC 5 Investigates.

A day after our inquiry, the state rescinded his drivers license cancellation.

Further investigation by the Secretary of States office revealed that an Authorized Source incorrectly identified Mr. Rodriguez, said a department spokesperson. The person who should have been cancelled had a different name and date of birth. The Secretary of States office then rescinded the cancellation of Mr. Rodriguezs drivers license and cancelled the other individual. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused Mr. Rodriguez.

Authorized sources who submit reports to the Secretary of State are confidential and are defined as a physician, judge, States Attorney, police officer, member of the Illinois Medical Review Board, an employee of Secretary of State or another state DMV, the Problem Driver Pointer System and U.S. DOT  Department of Motor Carriers.

A Secretary of State spokesperson said the agency does verify driver information and returns reports if they do not contain sufficient information for us to determine the driver or the action the authorized source is requesting. The office did not clarify why that didnt happen in Rodriguezs case.

It could happen to anyone, Rodriguez said. I think the Secretary of State should be more careful when they send out these notices because theyre really affecting someones life.

If a driver like Mr. Rodriguez has a cancellation due to a medical issue with the Secretary of States office, the office urges them to contact the Medical Review Unit at (217) 782-7246.
At least 35 cars were involved in a massive pileup on the Kennedy Expressway Monday night, police said.

The chain-reaction crash happened at about 10:15 p.m. night between Division Street and North Avenue on the inbound express lanes.

Chicago firefighters rushed seven people to area hospitals, including a 39-year-old man who was transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in serious condition. [[416100873, C]]

The six others had suffered minor injuries, according to Illinois State Police. Three men, ages 40 to 62, and a 28-year-old woman were treated at Rush Hospital. Two other men, ages 26 and 27, were taken to St. Marys of Nazareth.

At least 23 others refused treatment on the scene, police said.

It took more than three hours for officials to clear the damaged cars  including taxis, Uber vehicles, minivans, and even an Illinois State Police cruiser  from the inbound Kennedy Expressway lanes. The state trooper was not injured in the crash, police said. [[416090533, C]]

The accident scene was finally cleared at 2 a.m. Tuesday, officials said.

Prior to the accident, the National Weather Service issued a Lake Effect Snow Warning that began in the area at 7 p.m., warning of icy roads and areas of low visibility that will make travel very hazardous.

Illinois State Police confirmed the cause of the crash was weather-related, stemming from the slick conditions. [[416103173, C]]

One driver involved in the accident told NBC 5 his car slid for about 100 yards and just could not stop.

"We were all going too fast," he said. "I don't know if the express lanes should have been open."

The snow is expected to continue throughout the day Tuesday, with the Lake Effect Snow Warning remaining in effect for drivers until 4 p.m.
Three men were found shot to death Monday morning in a parked car in the South Side Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

The bodies were found at 7:35 a.m. in an illegally parked car in the 8600 block of South Throop, according to Chicago Police.

Vogels T. Anderson, Jr., 20, was shot in the head; Ryan Hamilton, 20, was shot in the neck; and Devontae Watson, 18, was shot multiple times, according to the Cook County medical examiners office.

Autopsies Tuesday ruled their deaths homicides.

Area South detectives are investigating.
In his first comments as a private citizen, ousted U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon lamented what he called an atmosphere of chaos prompted by skyrocketing violence in Chicagos neighborhoods.

I am not a political person, Fardon said in an open letter issued after he tendered his resignation Monday. I belong to no political partynever have. I am not a Democrat. I am not a Republican. I am not a liberal. I am not a conservative. I have no interest in political office.

Saying that in his three and a half years as U.S. Attorney I put my head down and I went to work and I studied, Fardon said he watched as a variety of factors led to the citys staggering increase in murders: the release of the LaQuan McDonald video; the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy; a Justice Department investigation of Chicago Police; and an ACLU agreement, which forced officers to fill out lengthy forms following every street stop.

By January of 2016, the city was on fire, Fardon said. We had no police superintendent. Cops were under scrutiny. Cops had to worry about the ACLU deal. And many of them just no longer wanted to wear the risk of stopping suspects. Many became scared and demoralized.

So cops stopped making stops, he said. And kids started shooting morebecause they could, and because the rule of law, law enforcement, had been delegitimized. And that created an atmosphere of chaos.

Fardon noted his own visits to the citys worst-hit neighborhoods had shown him first-hand how neglect had led to the empowerment of street gangs. He called for the City of Chicago and Justice Department to reach a consent decree on how to move forward on police reforms. And said federal agencies should unify in their efforts to combat violence.

The former U.S. Attorney said he understood those who might be attracted to bringing in the National Guard as a short-term fix, but warned that would send a terrible message.

What would a National Guard presence say to folks in those neighborhoods? he asked. This is war, and you are the enemy. The Chicago of bike paths and glistening lakefront, and economic opportunity, thats not your Chicago, its ours and we will protect it.

Law enforcement should attack the manner in which violent criminals now use social media to taunt their opponents and plan their attacks, he said, approaching gun violence the way doctors attack viruses.

I recognize that First Amendment issues come into play, Fardon said. But lets test those limits. Lives are at stake.

Fardon stepped down as U.S. Attorney Monday, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanded the resignations of all 46 remaining U.S. Attorneys nominated by former President Barack Obama.

I want to say to my colleagues at the U.S. Attorneys Office: You are everything that is right and good about public service, Fardon said. You are our hope. Carry on.
Chicago billionaire J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday that he filed to create an exploratory committee to run for Illinois governor in 2018.

"As Ive traveled across Illinois Ive listened to people express their deep concerns about the direction of our state. It is clear that having a Governor whos unwilling to address our states challenges is having a real impact on peoples lives," Pritzker said in a statement.

"Today, I will take the next step in this process by filing an exploratory committee," the statement continued. "I look forward to continuing my conversations with people across Illinois who are currently being forced to pay the price of failed leadership from Governor Rauner."

Pritzker filed with the State Board of Elections to establish the "JB for Governor Exploratory Committee," a spokeswoman said, and will contribute $200,000 to cover the committee's day-to-day operations.

Pritzker previously announced he was considering a run on Feb. 8, shortly after fellow Chicago Democrat Chris Kennedy declared his candidacy in the race. Kennedy was the second high-profile Democrat to throw his hat in the ring after Ald. Amaya Pawar declared his candidacy on Jan. 3.

Last year, Forbes listed Pritzker as the 190th richest person in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of $3.4 billion. His family is one of the wealthiest in the nation, perhaps most famous for owning the Hyatt hotel chain.

Pritzkers deep pockets will undoubtedly be a major asset if he decides to run against Kennedy, a businessman who has considerable personal wealth, and Gov. Bruce Rauner, who dumped $50 million into his own campaign fund in December.

In 1998, Pritzker unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Illinois 9th Congressional district, losing to Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the Democratic primary. As a key Democratic donor, Pritzker was one of Hillary Clintons biggest fundraisers in 2016, and his sister, Penny Pritzker, served as the U.S. Commerce Secretary during President Barack Obama's second term in the White House.

Lee Rosenberg, Pritzker's current chief of staff at The Pritzker Group, will serve as the committee's chair and treasurer. The primary election will be held March 20, 2018.
Loyola University officials on Monday handed down a three-year suspension to a fraternity accused of hazing, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter on the North Side campus had been under investigation by the university since last month for an alleged hazing incident and engaging in disruptive and disorderly conduct that caused a disturbance in the neighborhood, according to a statement from Dean of Students K.C. Mmeje.

The suspension prohibits the chapter  and its members or supporters  from conducting any activity on Loyolas campuses or off-campus, Mmeje said. This suspension is effective immediately, and lasts until August 1, 2020.

As we have stated previously, acts of hazing are strictly prohibited by University policy and Illinois law, Mmeje said in a statement. Hazing is directly in opposition to the mission and values of Loyola, and it will not be tolerated.

The university did not divulge details about the incident.

The fraternity, known by the initials SAE, has appealed the universitys decision through a school administrative process.

The national SAE organization issued a cease and desist order to the Loyola chapter, bringing to a halt all chapter operations, according to a statement from spokesman Johnny Sao

An SAE chapter on the Northwestern University campus was suspended earlier this year, after several women reported being assaulted at a fraternity party after being drugged. The national headquarters of SAE, which has the most chapters nationally of any social fraternity, are in Evanston.
Looking to kick off the start outdoor running season in Chicago in a festive way? Celebrate by running, or walking in Bank of Americas 38th annual Shamrock Shuffle on April 2.

New This Year

2 Mile Walk: This year, in addition to the 8K race, there will also be a 2-mile walk. The walk begins at 9 a.m. and will not be timed. It will take participants along Lake Shore Drive and end at the same location as the 8K race.

Bib Number Mailing: Those who chose to have their bib number mailed should receive an envelope from UPS during the second week of March. The envelope should contain a bib number, safety pins and a clear plastic bag for gear check on the day of the race.

If you have not received your bib number by March 20, you can contact the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8K office at (312) 904-9814 or email office@shamrockshuffle.com.

Watch Live

Download the NBC Chicago App to watch the race live and see runners as they cross the starting and finish lines.

Registration

There is a $50 entry fee if you register by March 17 and a $55 entry fee if you register from March 18 through the 29.

Register here.

Event Entry Requirements

Runners who register for the 8K run must be able to finish the race within one hour and 15 minutes. Those who register for the two-mile walk must finish within one hour.

What Shufflers Get

2017 Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8K Nike race shirt

A drink ticket for one Michelob ULTRA at the Post-Race Party

An official finishers medal

Festive winter hat

Event bib number and timing device

One Michelob ULTRA at The Scout Waterhouse & Kitchen after party

Participant Packet and Bag Pick-Up (location & hours)

Shufflers will receive a packet pick-up email the last week of March and can pick up their packets up at McCormick Place, North Building, Hall C from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on March 31, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on April 1.

If you cannot attend, a friend, family member or co-worker can pick up your packet for you by presenting a copy of your packet pick-up ticket.

If you dont have a ticket, you can print your packet pick-up tickets at the Participant Services Desk.

Schedule of Events

Friday, March 31

McCormick Place, North Building, Hall C

Health & Fitness Expo/Packet pick-up

10 a.m.  8 p.m.

Saturday, April 1

McCormick Place, North Building, Hall C

Health & Fitness Expo/Packet pick-up

9 a.m.  6 p.m.

Sunday, April 2

Grant Park, Chicago

6:30 a.m.  Gear check opens

6:30 a.m.  Start Corrals Elite, A, B, C and D open

6:30 a.m.  Mailed Bib Services Tent opens

7:30 a.m.  Start Corrals E, F, G and H open

8:20 a.m.  Wave 1 Start Corrals Elite, A, B, C and D close

8:30 a.m.  Wave 1 race start

8:45 a.m.  Wave 2 Start Corrals E, F, G and H close

8:45 a.m.  Walk Wave opens

9:00 a.m.  Post-Race Party begins

9:00 a.m.  Wave 2 race start

9:15 a.m.  Walk Wave closes

9:30 a.m.  Walk Wave race start

9:30 a.m.  Live music begins at the Post-Race Party

11:30 a.m.  Gear check closes

11:30 a.m.  Mailed Bib Services Tent closes

1:00 p.m.  Beer ticket sales end

1:30 p.m.  Post-Race Party ends

2:00 p.m.  Race after party at The Scout begins

Start Area

The starting line is located at Columbus Drive and Monroe Street, but runners must enter at their designated corrals in Grant Park.

Corrals are assigned on a first-come first served basis. Runners should show up to their corral no later than 15 minutes before the start of the race.

Wave 1 starts at 8:30 a.m. and Wave 2 starts at 9 a.m.

Finish Area

The finish area is located along South Columbus Drive. There will be food and beverages provided in the Marianos Runner Refreshment Area at the finish line for runners. Additional food can be purchased from the Post-Race Party.

A map of both the 8K run and 2-mile walk can be viewed here.

Aid Stations

The two on-course aid stations offer lemon-lime Gatorade, water, toilet facilities and medical support.

Aid Station 1: Located at mile 1.6 at State and Randolph

Aid Station 2: Located at mile 3.6 at Harrison and Wells

The 2-mile walk will have on-course aid station that will offer water and toilet facilities.

Clock and mile markers

Clocks and mile markers will be located at every mile for the 8K run. Timing mats are located at the start and finish lines of the 8K. The 2-mile walk is not timed, but will have mile markers at every mile.

Things You Cannot Bring

Not allowed on the course: Dogs, baby joggers, baby strollers, skateboards, rollerblades, unauthorized bicycles or any other wheeled devices.

The use of cell phones, cameras or similar devices is strongly discouraged and officials reserve the right to disqualify anyone who poses a safety hazard.

Post-Race Party

The Post-Race Party will follow immediately after the race and will feature live music. Runners will receive a drink ticket attached to their bib number that can be used for one Michelob ULTRA. Additional drink tickets are available for purchase at the Health & Fitness Expo or at the Post-Race Party.

Race After Party

The race after party will be hosted at The Scout Waterhouse & Kitchen, 1301 S. Wabash Ave., from 2 p.m. until 1 a.m. Race participants can use the drink ticket attached to their bib to redeem one Michelob ULTRA.
Chicago police have issued a warning after a woman was robbed and sexually assaulted in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the city's North Side.

Around midnight early Sunday, a woman was attempting to enter a home in the 1900 block of N Orchard St when an unknown offender approached her from behind, police said in a community alert.

The man was armed with a knife, authorities said, and sexually assaulted the victim before fleeing the scene with her property.

No one is in custody and authorities continue to investigate. Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact detectives at (312) 747-8380.

Sunday's attack was the third sexual assault reported on the city's North Side in less than two weeks.

Authorities are investigating a possible connection between the first two incidents, which they believe may have been committed by the same offender.

The most recent of those attacks occurred just steps from Wrigley Field in the citys Wrigleyville neighborhood Thursday night.

A 24-year-old woman told police she was in the back of her apartment building in the 3700 block of N. Fremont St. around 8:30 p.m. when a man approached her and pulled out a gun. [[415892923, C]]

He then demanded her belongings and forced her into the trunk of her blue 2012 Mazda, where he sexually assaulted her, officials said.

Police said the suspect then took off on an hour-and-a-half joyride that spanned more than 20 miles, all while the woman was locked inside the trunk of the vehicle. He made several stops attempting to withdraw money from ATMs, according to police, before crashing the vehicle into a tree in the 11500 block of S. Throop St. on the citys Far South Side.

Authorities said that is when the woman said she used the emergency trunk release to free herself, fleeing the scene. [[415893043, C]]

A similar incident occurred just 10 days before in the citys Lake View neighborhood.

Around 12 a.m. on Feb. 28, a 25-year-old woman was walking to her car in the 1200 block of W. Barry Ave. when a man approached her and displayed a handgun, according to a community alert from Chicago police. [[415932393, C]]

The man then demanded the victim give him all her money, authorities said. She complied, at which point he then forced her into her vehicle and sexually assaulted her before fleeing on foot.

We do know that this person left a gun in the car, and the detectives are looking at that evidence for any fingerprints to help catch this person, 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman said of Thursdays incident. [[415151943, C]]

Its horrific and the police commander himself said hes not seen this before, Cappleman added. But we take this very seriously and we want to catch this person.

Police have increased patrols in the area in the wake of the assaults and are warning area residents to be alert and aware of their surroundings.

No one is in custody in connection with the first two incidents, and anyone with information is asked to contact detectives at (312) 744-8261.
Notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who twice escaped from prison in his native Mexico, has lodged a complaint about his small, isolated, erratically heated jail cell in Manhattan.

Lawyers for the Sinaloa cartel boss filed a challenge Monday to the conditions under which he's being held. They say Guzman's isolation under solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center is far more extreme than what he experienced while in detention in Mexico, leaving him with auditory hallucinations and almost no one to interact with.

"His meals are passed through a slot in the door; he eats alone. The light is always on. With erratic air-conditioning, he has often lacked enough warm clothing to avoid shivering. ... He never goes outside," the complaint reads.

Guzman was extradited from Mexico on Jan. 19 and flown to New York to face drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges in United States federal court. He has pleaded not guilty.

He had already been held under intense surveillance after his second escape from a Mexican prison, which involved a long tunnel and a motorcycle on tracks that whisked him to freedom. He was on the run for about a year before being recaptured.

Today, Guzman is left in his windowless cell at least 23 hours a day, with one hour of exercise in another cell on weekdays, according to the complaint. A small clock he purchased from the commissary was removed without explanation, his defense team said, seeking the lifting of what are called Special Administrative Measures, which restrict the communication inmates can have with the outside world.

Guzman is also unable to speak with his family, can't call his lawyers and, because he speaks no English, must communicate with most guards through gestures, according to the motion.

The complaint cited an Amnesty International report that called for a review of those mesaures, and the six-cell unit where he is being housed, over concerns about the effect of "extreme isolation and solitary confinement" on prisoners.

Last month, his attorneys said Guzman was denied water and that his conditions were too restrictive, NBC News reported. The federal judge deferred to security arrangements set by the Justice Department and jail.
Spring is traditionally the busiest period for new home sales. Families hope that signing a contract to build a new house will have them inside a home in time for the new school year.

North Texans will build 30,000 new homes this year, but here's the challenge: There are not enough construction workers to get the job done.

"It's the workers who pour concrete, the framers, the roofers, the masons who put the brick on the house," said Ted Wilson with the Dallas-based consulting firm Residential Strategies. "We haven't had enough of those workers who are out there."

How bad is the labor shortage?

"We're probably about 50,000 jobs behind in our estimation in the Dallas area," said Phil Crone, the Executive Officer of the Dallas Builders Association.

Buyers in the market today are discovering the labor shortage means their home, sweet, home will take longer and cost more.

"Typically in the past, it would take about four months for the average house to get built, and today it's taking six to seven months," said Wilson, "Likewise, too, because of the shortage of workers, we're seeing price increases."

"At least $4,000 in extra cost just in terms of the labor shortage alone," added Crone.

Industry experts like Crone and Wilson point to two main reasons for the lack of labor: Construction workers left the home building industry after the last housing crisis, and workers south of the border are staying put due to an improving economy in Mexico and enhanced border security.

"There's a big help wanted sign right in front of this entire industry," said Crone.

Crone believe that help is in the area's high schools.

"Bring back shop class," said Crone. "That's really what we need. Our greatness as American has been defined by the ability to build things and manufacture things. And we're gonna beat this labor shortage that way, too."

Part of the next generation workforce may be at WW Samuell High School in the Dallas Independent School District, where is one of the school's specialty programs. When these kids graduate, the new home industry has a place for them.

"If you have a really good work ethic, and you really want to show up on time, interested in one of these jobs, there's one waiting for you without a doubt," said Crone.

"The salaries for what these workers are making has grown incredibly," added Wilson.

Yet even with the challenges tied to the labor shortage, Wilson says Dallas-Fort Worth remains the hottest home market in the country.

"We've had an amazing run," said Wilson. "We're leading the country with respect to new home starts. The job growth in North Texas is fueling the demand for this market, so it's very good."
Police in Rockwall are investigating after a pedestrian was killed and another severely injured after they were struck by a car while walking on an interstate service road, officials say.

Officers were called to the crash in the 900 block of the Interstate 30 service road at about 12:20 a.m., according to Sgt. Aaron McGrew, police spokesman.

McGrew said the two pedestrians were walking in the roadway when they were struck. A 48-year-old man from Knoxville, Tennessee, was pronounced deceased on the scene. The second person struck was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition, McGrew said.

The driver remained the scene and was cooperating with investigators, McGrew said.

No further information was released.
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency promises bus improvements as a pair of Dallas City Council members pursue DART sales tax money to solve a public safety pension crisis.

Councilmen Scott Griggs and Phillip Kingston want $36 million a year in DART revenue diverted to the troubled Police and Fire Pension fund. The plan would require changes in state law and voter approval in November.

DART is frequently a target of criticism from city leaders and riders over poor bus service.

Passenger Lillie Colbert said she uses two DART bus routes and a rail segment to make her daily commute. The distance is only about 6 miles, perhaps 15 minutes by car. But the transit rider, who does not have a car, spends up to an hour each way making the trip on DART.

If the buses would coordinate with other buses or with trains so you can just get off one, wait 5 or 10 minutes, and get to your next commute, it would be a lot easier, Colbert said. But thats not the case.

Passenger Susan Mahoney uses a wheelchair, which adds an extra challenge on public transportation. She moved downtown where DART trains are a better option for her wheelchair. Sometimes she needs to use a bus to reach medical appointments.

The buses are difficult, though, because not all of their stops are accessible. Getting onto them, sometimes the ramps dont work, Mahoney said. Its usually about 20 or 30 stops before I get to my destination, so I spend most of my time on the bus.

DART Spokesman Mark Ball said the agency is pushing hard to accomplish what was to be a 10-year bus improvement plan in just four years. He said it is already two years into the plan.

Smaller buses that can go more places have been added to the DART fleet, along with compressed natural gas powered vehicles that cost less to operate.

A schedule revision takes effect this week.

And then there will be another one in August, Ball said. So, what youre going to be seeing in the very near future is service changes predominately for the employment centers, as well as, the population centers.

Housing patterns are changing in Dallas and many other big cities, presenting a big challenge for public transit. New upscale homes are replacing older inner-city neighborhoods where transit users once lived closer to jobs clustered in the downtown area.

And those populations are being pushed out to the edges of our service area. So, it is true that there is an issue with transit at the edges of DART service areas, Ball said. And were seeing nationwide that commuters are having much longer commutes.

At the same time, a huge new wave of North Texas jobs is going to northwest Plano and the Legacy area around the North Dallas Tollway and Sam Rayburn Tollway where there is no rail transit.

Some revisions this week are intended to improve bus service to employment destinations in Plano and northwest Dallas.

Dallas newcomer Roy Rowden recently moved from upstate New York. He said DART bus service is very good. He likes the fact that he can call for information about route schedules.

You cant get a bus everywhere, he said. Sometimes buses just dont go to certain spots. You got to make do.

Passenger Susan Mahoney relies on DART, but still supports sharing some of the money for the police pension crisis.

The money needs to go back to the police department. Im for that, she said.

The council members are pushing to have that option included for a March 27 hearing in Austin on the latest pension bailout plan.

Taking DARTs money for a problem that is not DARTs is a mistake, said Ball. We had nothing to do with the pension problem in the city of Dallas.

The agency spokesman said cutting DART funding would only make it more difficult to improve bus service.
A group of Fort Worth firefighters has volunteered to help respond to emergencies in the city of Houston this week in order for Houston responders to attend the funeral of one of their own.

Funeral services are set for Tuesday for Houston Fire Capt. Bill Dowling. He died from medical complications four years after being critically injured while battling a fire.

Fort Worth firefighters will cover shifts for their counterparts in Houston, so they can attend Dowling's service.

The firefighters are volunteering their time and their absence will not impact emergency responses in Fort Worth, according to the Fort Worth Firefighters Association.

The group leaves Fort Worth Tuesday afternoon.
Police are investigating a shooting in southwest Dallas.[[416146363,C]]

DPD says one person was shot inside of a white car that was sitting in the parking lot of the 3900 block of South Cockrell Hill Road at about 11:45 Tuesday morning.

The car appears to have several shattered windows.

The victim, whose name has not been released, was transported to a nearby hospital and is in serious condition, police say.

Two patrol officers witnessed the shooting while driving by the scene.

They followed the suspected shooter and caught him a short time later after he crashed his vehicle.

Officers recovered a gun and the man is now in police custody. His identity has not been released.

Officers are investigating a shooting call in the 3900 block of S.Cockrell Hill Rd. This is NOT an officer involved shooting incident.  Dallas Police Dept (@DallasPD) March 14, 2017

Further information has not been released by DPD.

Check back and refresh this page for the latest update. As this story is developing, elements may change.
While officials across the tri-state area urged everyone to stay off the roads Tuesday as a powerful nor'easter pummeled the region with strong winds, whiteout conditions and flooding, some New York City residents simply said "neigh."



Two runaway ponies took to the streets of Staten Island, amusing people who snapped photos of the animals prancing in snow-covered intersections near Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue.

Photos: Nor'easter Cripples the Tri-State Tuesday

One photo posted on Community Education Council President's Mike Reilly's Facebook page showed the duo calmly crossing the street in front of an MTA bus. NYPD officers eventually corralled the ponies.

They were safely returned to their owners.

Snow-dorable! Kids and Pets Playing in the Snowstorm
The guy hired to run what's left of Yahoo after it imploded under Marissa Mayer will get twice her salary, according to a new filing.

The company named board member Thomas McInerney, 52, as the head of its new spinoff company, Altaba, NBC News reported.

McInerney, former CFO at IAC media company - which owns brands such as Tinder, OKCupid, and the Princeton Review - is to get $2 million base pay, the company announced in an SEC filing Monday.

Mayer will get a $23 million golden parachute, as well as around $57 million in stock options.
The winter storm plowing through the northeast this week is affecting about 200 high school students from North Texas who are set to attend the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Spring Convention in New York City.

Its kind of heartbreaking," said Brady Powers, a student at Prosper High School.

Powers is among 24 students there hoping to attend the journalism conference.

Their early morning flight Tuesday has been canceled because of the winter storm.

I was, of course, shocked," said Kaitlyn Wessels, another Prosper High School student planning to attend. I was, like, 'oh no, whats going to happen? Are we going to be there the full week? And of course, I was heartbroken."

The flight cancellation sent their teachers scrambling Monday morning.

What do we do? How do we change the flight, the hotels? Weve already paid for the trip, so now what to we do? said Brian Kennedy, the broadcast journalism teacher at Prosper High School.

This is the 25th time Ive taken kids on this trip, and Ive never been delayed because of weather," said another Prosper High School teacher Lori Oglesbee. "So I guess it has to happen sometime sooner or later."

They managed to re-book seats on Southwest Airlines for Wednesday morning. That's when the airlines expect to resume normal operations after the storm passes.

I have faith were going to get in. I know it, I know it, Oglesbee said.

Still, the students and teachers will miss the first day of the conference, after each spent about $1,300 for their flight, hotel rooms and conference fee.

Im excited," said another student Tich Cama. "So, if we are still are able to get there, then its going to be a really good trip and I know even if were there for a day or two, its still going to be a fun trip. But, I dont know. Its kind of disappointing."

In addition to the conference, the Prosper High School students have plans to attend Wednesdays taping of "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on NBC.

Im sure well have the same experience, even if its cut [by] a day, said Wessels.

More than a dozen schools in North Texas are sending students to the annual conference.

NBC 5's Courtney Gilmore contributed to this report.
A 4-year-old girl was found abandoned by a group of smugglers early Monday morning near the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

Agents from the El Centro Sector first spotted a group of people illegally crossing into the U.S. near Mt. Signal at approximately 6:20 a.m. Monday, a few miles east of Calexico.

When authorities got closer to the area, they saw one subject returning to Mexico and then enter a car, which quickly left the area.

On the U.S. side, agents saw a small child standing alone.

The child, in good health, was holding her birth certificate and information about the location of her parents, according to CBP agents. Agents said she was not in need of medical attention.

Who in their right mind abandons a four-year-old little girl in the middle of a vast desert, said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim in a statement. It sickens me to think that someone would leave a child that young to fend for herself.

The high for the area is expected to climb into the low 90s Monday.

The young girl was taken to the El Centro station and provided with food.

After interviewing the child, agents verified that she was a citizen of Guatemala.

The child is with Health and Human Services to await her immigration status disposition.
Bird watchers taking part in the U.S. Forest Service's final bald eagle count of the winter season weren't disappointed, spotting 12 bald eagles around the Inland Empire, rangers said Monday.

The 39th annual winter census to estimate the number of eagles that migrated to Riverside and San Bernardino counties since November ended Saturday with bird watching expeditions at Lake Hemet, Lake Perris, Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear Lake, Lake Gregory and Silverwood Lake.

According to USFS spokeswoman Gerrelaine Alcordo, a pair of adult eagles were seen at Lake Hemet, while two juvenile and three adult eagles were spied soaring around Big Bear Lake, with a pair of juveniles over Silverwood Lake, and two adults and one juvenile at Lake Arrowhead.

The eagles will begin journeying back north as winter fades, according to rangers.

Eagles generally nest in the lakeside areas from late November to early April. Radio tracking devices attached to some birds show that, in a given year, they can migrate to the region from as far north as Alberta, Canada.

Because of hunting and habitat destruction, the American bald eagle was nearly driven to extinction in the past century. The birds were declared endangered in the 1970s. However, with some 10,000 breeding pairs identified across the continental U.S., they were removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007.

The Forest Service depends on volunteers, or "citizen scientists," to assist with eagle counts. The next census will begin in December.
A Good Samaritan and a group of college students helped rescue a man who jumped off a bridge into Biscayne Bay Monday and was struggling to swim.

Witnesses reported seeing the man jump off the smaller bridge next to the Rickenbacker Causeway just before 5 p.m., Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Ignatius Carroll said.

A couple saw the man jump into the water and saw him struggling in the water, Carroll said. One of the witnesses, a 19-year-old man named Reydel Pereira, grabbed a mattress from a homeless person and jumped in the water to help the swimmer, Carroll said.

The swimmer was unresponsive and face-down in the water but Pereira tried to swim to shore with the swimmer on the mattress, Carroll said. Pereira also started struggling but a group of college students who were on a boat stopped and helped them to shore.

The swimmer, a man possibly in his 30s, was rushed to Mercy Hospital in extremely critical condition, Carroll said. Officials are still trying to determine his identity.

"We commend all of these individuals who obviously risked his life to jump in the water to help him, and the other four college students who saw something was wrong and jumped into action as well," Carroll said.

The incident remains under investigation.
Those who will be attending next weekends Ultra Music Festival in Downtown Miami are going to be able to take the citys Metrorail system after each day of the top electronic music in the country.

Miami-Dade Transit announced that they have expanded their hours of operation for the Metrorail and Metromover services on Sunday, meaning that festival goers will be able to use the rail system until 2 a.m.  the same time the systems runs until on Friday and Saturday.

Transit officials hope the extended hours  with both systems now running from 5 a.m. until 2 a.m.  will continue to keep more people from driving to the event. The eight stage event being held March 24th through the 26th is expected to bring over 100,000 to Bayfront Park.

Parking at all Dept. of Transportation and Public Works garages remain at $4.50 for an entire day during the event while transfers to the Metromover remain free.
An attorney says a woman was detained by authorities without probable cause while boating with friends in South Florida.

A Sunday plan for boating out of Key Biscayne took a turn for the worse for Luisa Velasquez and her friends. According to Velasquez' attorney, the group was boarding a boat for a day of fun back on March 5th at Crandon Park Marina, when authorities approached them.

"This individual was accosted by two Coast Guard officials and asked for proof of her legality within the United States," attorney Eduardo Soto said.

In an email Tuesday, officials denied that the Coast Guard was involved in the incident and referred NBC 6 to contact Customs and Border Protection for more information.

Velasquez' friend says the officials asked all of them for their ID's. She claims one asked her when she arrived in Miami and looked through her passport. Seconds later, she says they brought back fingerprinting equipment.

"With no reasonable suspicion possible, other than profiling, she was illegally here," Soto said.

Velasquez, from Colombia, overstayed her visa about five months. According to friends with her on the boat, she was detained at the marina, and her attorney believes this is not in line with President Trump's executive orders on immigration and law enforcement.

"Those orders specifically state that in order for an immigration official or someone acting as an immigration official to have the right to arrest and detain someone, they have to have probable cause to believe the individual is in violation of the immigration laws," Soto said. "It is not sufficient to look at one at the color of their eyes, at the color of their skin, at the language they speak."

The Coast Guard released a statement saying, in part, that "the Coast Guard does not patrol land for immigration enforcement purposes. The Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, does not apply at sea."

Soto says he's asking for stay of removal, pending the outcome of the case.
Cardboard boxes certainly aren't new technology. But when they're linked to a practice that started in Finland decades ago to help babies sleep safely, they're taking on a new purpose as so-called baby boxes make their way to the U.S.

Parents are beginning to take baby boxes home from hospitals along with their newborns. A Los Angeles-based company has partnered with health officials to give the boxes away for free and an online initiative offers advice aimed at reducing sudden unexpected infant deaths. New Jersey and Ohio were the first to participate statewide in the program.

"To new moms: (SUID) was one of my biggest fears and then it happened,'' said 35-year-old Chauntia Williams, of Maple Heights, Ohio.

Williams is an advocate for safe sleeping and the boxes after she unexpectedly lost her 33-day-old daughter Aaliyah nine years ago. Williams said her daughter went to sleep in a crib with cushiony bumpers, stuffed animals and an added blanket beneath the fitted sheet and never woke up. She said the coroner determined the bedding caused the death.

She now uses a box with her son, Bryce, though he's getting a little too big for it. Her message to new parents: Educate yourselves on safe sleep habits.

"Open your mouth and say I'm concerned about this so you can get the assistance,'' Williams said.

Sudden unexpected infant death is a broad category that includes sudden infant death syndrome and accidental suffocation and strangulation that could come from overcrowded bassinets or cribs. The boxes aren't the only option for safe sleeping, of course, but health officials say they're a useful part of a broader safe-sleep education program.

Ohio on Wednesday joined New Jersey in offering the cardboard boxes, which double as bassinets, for free. Each box comes filled with a mattress, fitted sheet, onesie and diapers.

The Baby Box Co. is also handing out the boxes in Minneapolis, Phoenix and San Francisco, with the goal of expanding to all 50 states. The for-profit company also operates in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Baby Box University, a nonprofit, maintains a website that coordinates the educational component of the program.

The idea for baby boxes started in Finland in the 1930s, and is tied to a sharp drop in sudden infant deaths, according to Dr. Kathryn McCans, a pediatrician who chairs New Jersey's Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review Board. The boxes provide a clutter-free sleep space that has been shown to reduce accidental and unexpected deaths, she said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. rate of sudden unexpected infant deaths has been declining since the 1990s when public health officials began recommending parents put infants to sleep on their backs. About 3,700 sudden unexpected infant deaths were reported in the country in 2015.

The boxes are a new idea for many Americans.

"The thought of putting the baby in a box, I was like 'wow that's weird,''' said Dolores Peterson, of Camden, New Jersey, who became a first-time mom recently and was among the first to bring home a box.

Peterson's daughter, Ariabella, just turned 3 months old. She said the program was eye-opening for how much information she learned about how to prevent sudden unexpected infant death.

McCans says the complimentary items like diapers and onesies are nice, but the more important objective behind the boxes is bringing down infant deaths and grounding parents on safe sleep practices: Place babies on their backs to sleep; don't use bumpers in cribs; keep stuffed animals and blankets out of infants' sleep spaces; avoid sleeping in the same bed as infants.

"No one brings their baby into bed with them because they want their baby to die,'' she said. "They do it because they want to be nurturing and they are, but it's not safe.''

To get the boxes, prospective moms can register through babyboxuniversity.com, watch a handful of videos on sleep safety and pass a quiz. Parents can then take their digital or printed-out certificates to a participating hospital for their boxes. The boxes can also be sent in the mail, if a nearby hospital is not designated as a distribution center.
The Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to make it easier for the CIA and the military to target terrorists with drone strikes, even if it means tolerating more civilian casualties, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The military already has declared that parts of Yemen and Somalia are war zones  "areas of active hostilities" in Pentagon parlance  which means the U.S. has greater latitude to launch strikes even if civilian deaths are possible.

That is part of a broad policy shift underway, U.S. officials say, to grant the CIA and the military more autonomy to target and kill al Qaeda and ISIS militants without presidential sign-off in countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.

"Some of the Obama administration rules were getting in the way of good strikes," said one U.S. official briefed on the matter.
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Federal standards for how much a Section 8 landlord in San Diego can charge for rent have increased but the amount of money provided to San Diego Section 8 tenants hasnt changed since 2009, according to documents and data reviewed by NBC 7 Investigates.

According to San Diego Housing Commission records, over 15,000 residents in the City of San Diego rely on government assistance to help pay their rent every month. The Housing Commission is the agency responsible for distributing federal housing assistance funds in the City of San Diego. This includes assistance to low-income residents, provided through Section 8 funding, also known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program.

Anthony Zinga moved to the Mount Hope neighborhood of San Diego four years ago and relies on Section 8 housing.

Its just all around better for me to live here in San Diego, he said.

Zinga is disabled and has relied on Section 8 housing assistance for over a decade.

I have never had an issue with the program, its always worked and everybody works with you until I moved to San Diego, he said. Now Im having issues.

Last year, Zinga said his landlord told him his rent would be increasing due to new federal rental rates determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The agency is responsible for setting the bar for how much a Section 8 landlord can charge when renting a property through the Section 8 program.

HUD releases these rate standards, called Fair Market Rents, each fiscal year. According to Eduardo Cabrera, a spokesperson for HUD, the rental rates are calculated using United States Census Bureau data and can change each year.

To see HUDs Fair Market Rents for the last five years, click here or look below.

When a Section 8 landlord wishes to increase monthly rents, a federal mandate requires the landlords increase be approved by the San Diego Housing Commission.

In an email, Azucena Valladolid, Senior Vice President of the Rental Assistance Division for the San Diego Housing Commission told NBC 7 Investigates, Property owners are required to notify the public housing agency of any changes in the amount of the rent at least 60 days before any such change can take effect. Changes in the rent shall be subject to rent reasonableness requirements and may only take place after the initial term of the lease.

According to the San Diego Housing Commission, since HUDs Fair Market Rent standards for FY2017 were published last October, it has approved 1,982 rent increases for Section 8 households as of February 24.

I was furious but I cant blame it on my landlord because hes within his right to raise the rent, Zinga said.

With his rent increase coming in April, the amount of money Zinga pays out of pocket for rent will nearly double, going from $335 a month to $645.

By the time I take out the rent and utilities, and my personal bills, Im left with maybe $40 a month for food, he said.

Zingas out of pocket rent expenses will nearly double because the amount of money he receives each month towards rent from the San Diego Housing Commission has not increased in correlation with the federal rental rate standards.

According to HUD, in the City of San Diego, federal dollars are distributed as a lump sum payment to the San Diego Housing Commission. The Housing Commission is responsible for determining how that money is spent, including how much money a Section 8 renter receives each month.

In 2009, HUD gave the San Diego Housing Commission a Moving to Work designation.

According to HUD, this means the local agency has more freedom to spend federal dollars the way local leaders see fit. San Diego is one of 39 public housing agencies nationwide to receive the designation.

MTW [Moving to Work designation] gives Public Housing Authorities exemptions from many existing public housing and voucher rules and more flexibility with how they use their Federal funds, Cabrera wrote in an email to NBC 7 Investigates. The designation, according to Cabrera, also means less reporting requirements for how the local agency spends federal dollars.

NBC 7 Investigates compared HUDs Fair Market Rents to the amount of money the San Diego Housing Commission provides Section 8 renters. According to the Housing Commission, the amount of money paid to Section 8 renters hasnt changed since 2009.

Meanwhile, HUDs federal rental rate for a one-bedroom apartment like Zingas has increased by more than 27% since 2013.

Each year, SDHCs payment standards have been within the range of 90 to 110 percent of Fair Market Rents since 2009, until 2016, when SDHC began its analysis of Fair Market Rents and payment standards, Valladolid wrote in an email to NBC 7 Investigates.

Valladolid said the San Diego Housing Commission is currently evaluating whether or not they should increase the amount paid to Section 8 renters, an evaluation that is expected to take three-to-four months to complete.

When asked why the Housing Commission has approved rent increases without providing more money to renters, NBC 7 Investigates was referred back to the evaluation taking place.

Its important to know that the increases in the rental payment amount mean less funding would be available to assist additional low-income families on our waiting list, Valladolid told NBC 7 Investigates in an interview by phone. So the question is do we assist more families with less payment standards or do we assist less families with a higher payment standard amount.

In San Diego, the Housing Commission said the wait list for the number of families hoping to receive federal rental assistance is approximately 78,000.

For residents like Zinga, dealing with the inevitability of rent increases, the options are slim: pay the higher cost or move.

How am I going to pay the rent? And am I going to have to move? How am I going to move? Zinga said.

The San Diego Housing Commission added that for some renters with disabilities, extra assistance may be available, as well as vouchers for veterans through the local VASH program. Renters facing a move can also apply for help through the San Diego Housing Commissions security deposit loan program.
A Calexico woman was sentenced Monday to eight years of prison for smuggling immigrants in a Border Patrol pursuit that ended in a crash, killing two of her customers.

Lydiana Castro, age 31, pleaded guilty to one count of transporting certain immigrants and aiding and abetting in July 2016, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California. She faced a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Castro picked up five illegal immigrants at a gas station, in an area known as "Pilot's Knob," a mountainous area near Andrade, said the U.S. Attorney's Office. It happened on Mar. 23, 2016.

About five minutes later, U.S. Border Patrol agents saw Castro picking up the undocumented immigrants and took off in pursuit with sirens blaring.

When she noticed the agents following her, Castro started to slow down but then seemed to change her mind -- suddenly speeding off. In her plea agreement, she admitted to seeing Border Patrol and continuing anyway, said the U.S. Attorney's office.

As she accelerated off Andrade Road freeway, Castro's vehicle fishtailed, skidding toward Interstate 8 and careening down an embankment.

Then Castro drove onto the westbound lane of I-8 and struck a passing semi-truck. Her vehicle was dragged along with the semi-truck, until it came to a stop on the side of the freeway.

Once first responders arrived at the scene, they found one man hanging through the rear window and four other men with varying levels of trauma. Two people were pronounced dead at the scene, said the U.S. Attorney's office.

The other remaining passengers were taken to a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

Of the three survivors, one was pronounced brain dead and taken back to Mexico on life support at the family's request. Another was paralyzed in his legs and the third will live with challenging injuries, said the U.S. Attorney's office.
Three homes in a Del Dios development near Lake Hodges were evacuated after the earth beneath them started moving.

Behind security gates is a newer development called Cielo, which in Spanish means sky, appropriately named for its magnificent views from million-dollar mansions built on steep hilltops.

But the earth beneath at least three of them is starting to shift.

In the 18000 block of Avenida Apice, cracked sidewalks and pavements forced evacuations.

"We are getting an arcuate failure or pull away service where this mass of earth is being pulled by gravity down slope, geologist Dr. Pat Abbott said.

Abbott told NBC 7 such slides are home destroyers. They are slow-moving, but still dangerous.

"If it cracks a natural gas line, you can asphyxiate and that has happened, Abbott said.

Rancho Santa Fe fire inspectors examined the damage and homeowners were told to move out.

By most accounts, the cracks showed up just in the last week-and-a-half. These are properties worth millions of dollars, built just in the last 18 months. They are situated on a steep slope high above Lake Hodges.

"Hills are equilibrium situations. Gravity is trying to pull them down all the time that equilibrium can be upset by that development of just by heavy rains like we've had, Abbott said.

The cause of the sinking has not been identified.

San Diego County Works Department spokesman Mike Workman said the developer is Taylor Morrison.

NBC 7 left message with the company Monday afternoon but did not immediately hear back.

So far, just the three properties are showing signs the earth is moving, but neighbors are also feeling a little on edge.

It was after NBC 7 reached out to officials, the fire department asked the county to inspect the property for the damage.

Workman said crews will be out there first thing Tuesday morning.
If you need glue, good luck finding it!

A school kid craft craze called Slime has caused a shortage of Elmers Glue at many stores nationwide, including some in San Diego.

Slime is a fun, droopy, pliable substance made from glue, water and a variety of household solutions, but the main ingredient is Elmers Liquid Glue.

Slime is so popular that kids are sharing their creations with thousands on social media, even selling their creations online or at school.

Parents across social media are posting about how hard it is to find slime.

NBC 7 went into various stores in San Diego County, many were completely out of Elmers Liquid Glue.

The Slime sensation is good for business.

"Elmer's has indeed seen a surge in sales. In the second half of 2016, Elmer's saw an increase in liquid glue sales due in large part to slime mania," Caitlin Watkins, a spokeswoman for Newell Brands, the parent company for Elmer's brands, told NBC News.

In February, Newell Brands reported a 9 percent increase in glue sales because of the slime craze. The companys Twitter and Facebook pages are loaded with comments from parents complaining about how difficult it is to find glue in stores.

The Slime sensation is becoming so popular that many craft stores have set up Slime Zones with all the needed supplies and extras that kids use to make Slime.
The U.S. Marine Corps Commandant addressed Tuesday the investigation into the "Marines United" Facebook page and the posting of photos of female Marines without their consent, telling Congress that behaviors are "going to be different."

The Marine Corps I have served for over 40 years has a problem, Gen. Robert Neller said to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He asked the 15,000 active-duty female Marines to trust him to investigate the scandal. Approximately 1,500 of those women are officers.

"I know what you do for our Corps, for our team and to contribute," Neller said.

"To the men in our Corps," he said, "I need you to ask yourself, how much more do the females of our Corps have to do to be accepted?"

Neller then listed the women who have died in combat.

"What is it going to take for you to accept these Marines as Marines?" he asked.

The secret Facebook group involved tens of thousands of members. Users shared nude images of female Marines, veterans and other women, some of which were taken without their knowledge. Fewer than 10 victims have come forward so far, and Neller has asked more to do so.

Theres no mystery that this has been going on for a very long time, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said, adding that Neller's promise to tackle the problem rings hollow.

"If we cant crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyber hacking throughout our military? she said.

In Gen. Robert Neller's appearance in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, the most heated moment was when U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) demanded to know which commander has been held accountable since the USMC began tackling sexual assault in 2013.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (DN.H.) questioned Neller about why the USMC has the highest rate of sexual assault among the service branches.

Its hard to believe something is really going to be done when we hear this repeated again and again, she asked. Why should we believe its going to be different this time than it has in the past?

Neller explained that since the USMC launched training to tackle sexual assault in 2013, they have not seen the number of allegations drop.

We havent addressed the fact that all Marines are Marines, he explained.

He added that its a very difficult problem and said its up to leaders within the USMC to establish expectations for behavior by setting an example.

Is it going to be different? Its got to be different, Neller said.

He added that the recently launched task force will look into whether the UCMJ Code of Conduct needs to be more specific to help commanders address cyberbullying and online harassment.

Article 92 could cover those using social media inappropriately, Article 120 could be used to cover taking someones photo without consent and Article 134 may address lack of good order and discipline.

We have not been able to find any incidents of government computers being used to access or post, but we are continuing with the investigation, Sean J. Stackley, Acting Secretary of the Navy, testified.

Neither Stackley or Neller could tell the committee how many users of the private Facebook group were active duty military members.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) suggested veterans caught in this kind of activity should lose benefits.

Service members and civilians can discreetly and anonymously report a crime or pass information on Marines United to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service at 1-877-579-3648 or on the website.

The photographs were shared on a secret Facebook page, "Marines United," that had a membership of active-duty and retired male Marines, Navy Corpsman and British Royal Marines. NBC 7s Bridget Naso reports.
The leader of a Mexican-based pharmaceutical drug distribution organization was sentenced to jail on Monday for distributing more than $700,000 worth of oxycodone in the United States.

Eduardo Pena, 43, was sentenced to 121 months behind bars.

In his plea agreement, he admitted to selling the drug to clients without a valid medical prescription. He sold oxycodone to at least 92 drug purchasers between July 2013 to Dec. 2015.

Pena admitted that he conspired with Ana Karen Guiterrez-Anaya and Mayra Elizabeth Rangel Morena to help him launder money from selling the drug.

Guiterrez and Rangel both had bank accounts in San Diego and would handle funds for client purchases.

According to Guiterrez's plea agreement, she laundered approximately $261,702 from Jan. 3, 2014 to June 11, 2014.

Rangel admitted to laundering around $463,251 to Pena.

Both women admitted that they intentionally withdrew less than $10,000 at one time to avoid bank reporting requirements.

Guiterrez was sentenced to a 21-month custodial term and Rangel to a 24-month custodial term.
A retired Navy admiral is among nine military officers indicted in the U.S. Navy bribery scandal.

Bruce F. Loveless was expected to appear in front of a federal judge Tuesday in downtown San Diego to face criminal charges in connection with a widespread bribery scheme that has resulted in more than a dozen convictions involving senior U.S. Navy officials.

Then-Rear Admiral Loveless was under investigation as early as November 2013 when he was Director of Intelligence Operations. Prior to that he served as the N2 for CTF70, aboard USS Kitty Hawk.

Loveless is accused of accepting extravagant gifts from "Fat" Leonard Francis, a Singapore-based businessman who bribed senior naval officials with travel, food, wine, cigars and prostitutes in exchange for specific Navy warship movements so his company could overbill the Pentagon by millions of dollars.

When interviewed as part of the federal investigation, Loveless used the word never when asked if he had received anything of value from Francis.

In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors state Loveless attended several "guys' trips" or "boys' nights out" with other naval officials paid for by Francis's company GDMA.

Court documents allege Loveless was a guest at a dinner paid for by GDMA in Hong Kong in January 2008. The bill for the dinner was allegedly $18,000. Four months later, prosecutors allege Loveless and other officers stayed at a Bangkok hotel, during which they were entertained by numerous prostitutes paid for by Francis.

Other defendants named in the indictment include Donald Bubbles Hornbeck, Enrico Rick DeGuzman, David Newly Newland, James JD Dolan, David Too Tall Lausman, Stephen Shedd, Mario Choke Herrera and Robert Gorsuch.

The naval officers referred to their group as "the Cool Kids," "the Band of Brothers," "the Brotherhood," "the Wolfpack," or the "familia," federal prosecutors state in court documents.

All defendants face conspiracy to commit honest service fraud. Newland, DeGuzman, Hornbeck, Dolan, Loveless, Lausman, Shedd, Herrera and Gorsuch face bribery charges.

Lausman faces additional charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice.

The indictment states Lausman and his wife received travel and other expensive gifts from Francis when Lausman was Commanding Officer of USS Blue Ridge and USS George Washington.

He's accused of writing to Francis and describing himself, the commanding officer of U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, as the businessman's "obedient and humble servant."

In a 2013 interview with NCIS, Lausman denied GDMA had ever paid for a hotel room for him. The following year, Lausman told federal prosecutors the same.

Court documents allege Lausman had been receiving hotel stays and other perks from Francis as early as 2006. In exchange, he allegedly wrote letters endorsing Francis' ship husbanding business to top Navy brass.

Hes also accused of destroying computer files linking him to GDMA.

Federal Magistrate Mitchell Dembin entered not guilty pleas for both Loveless and DeGuzman, who are scheduled to appear in court again later this month.

Prosecutor Patrick Hovakimian asked Dembin to require both defendants post a $50,000 personal appearance bond. Hovakimian argued that DeGuzman had committed extensive, serious and prolonged illegal acts. The prosecutor noted that Loveless was in a position of immense authority, acting as the 7th Fleets intelligence officer, when he allegedly took part in wild sex parties and accepted other illegal favors from Francis. He abrogated his official duties over and over again, Hovakimian said. He showed callous disregard for his duties. The prosecutor said Loveless, who was in custody and wore prison scrubs and shackles during his court appearance, currently lives in a rented luxury penthouse in Coronado, with panoramic ocean views.

Magistrate Dembin did not impose the requested $50,000 bond, and allowed both defendants to remain free on their own recognizance at this point in the case. But the magistrate did impose travel restrictions and other conditions of release on DeGuzman and Loveless.

The defendants all held "secret" or top secret clearances in order to perform their duties, according to the indictment.

They are accused of sharing confidential ship schedules for aircraft carriers, ships and submarines through personal email servers cooltoad, Hotmail and msn, among others.

After receiving one emailed schedule, Francis replied, Thanks for the updates. Outstanding. 'Choke' has secured 3 hrs 10 of Lap Dancing in [Tokyo]" according to court documents.

Lap dances were just a few of the perks Francis used to court the naval officers. From February 2006 to at least February 2014, the defendants received everything from cash and gifts to lavish meals and services of prostitutes, according to court documents.

Among the gifts to the naval officers and/or their wives were boxes of steak, cases of wine, Ulysse Nardin watches, a John Paul Jones fountain pen and a Versace handbag, federal prosecutors allege.

The indictment alleges the naval officers would then overlook inflated invoices or quashed bids from competitors.

The indictment alleges a party in the MacArthur Suite of the Manila Hotel took place in February 2007 during which Historical memorabilia related to the infamous General Douglas MacArthur was used in sex acts.

In April 2007, Francis paid at least $13,000 for one of Hornbecks relatives to receive a culinary internship at a restaurant within the Equatorial Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, according to court documents.

At a June 2007 dinner (with a tab of approximately $11,000), federal prosecutors allege Gorsuch handed Francis two disks containing classified port visit information on many U.S. ships.

It was in the summer of 2007 that GDMA employees and Francis began asking the defendants to find other naval officers willing to participate in the bribery scheme.

In April 2008, Francis asked two of the defendants  Hornbeck and Dolan  to pressure other U.S. navy officials to pay bills suspected of fraudulent charges.

Newland served as Chief of Staff to the Commander of the Seventh Fleet.

DeGuzman was a Fleet Marine Officer who served as the civilian Deputy Chief of Staff of Operations for U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific after he retired from active duty.

As Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Hornbeck was responsible for directing operations of all combatant chips in the Seventh Fleet AOR.

Dolan served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Logistics for the Seventh Fleet.

Stephen Shedd served as the Commanding Officer of USS Milius.

Herrera reported to Hornbeck and was responsible for scheduling port visits for ships and subs. Gorush served as administrative support for the commander of the Seventh Fleet.
A familiar local landmark that's been closed for six years is now heading toward a future as a restaurant site.

For more than four decades, it used to be the City's "visitors information center" on Mission Bay.

A lot of San Diegans have fond memories of the complex as a meeting place.

For out-of-towners, it was a helpful resource finding and booking hotel rooms and various tourist attractions.

The owners of the bayside restaurant project want Shoreline to become a convenient destination for dining and nightlife. Full disclosure: one of the restaurant owners is the husband of an NBC 7 Reporter.

"We think it's absolutely ideal, says Greg Van de Velde, one of three partners in the venture.

When do you get the opportunity to develop waterfront property in California?" Van de Valde asked, rhetorically, in an interview Monday. "And it really is the centerpoint of all of San Diego. So what a great place to get together and meet on the bay, and not have to drive too far off the freeway."

Plans call for $3 million worth of redevelopment on the nearly 3-acre site at the foot of Clairemont Drive.

The Cty had been inviting lease bids on the property since 2011.

Meantime, locals and visitors alike kept showing up at the building, only to find it closed -- and wonder what the story was.

NBC 7 reported on that at the time, explaining that online reservation services undercut the original lessees business model of reserving hotel rooms and promoting local tourist attractions that advertised through the lessees.

Shoreline's lease runs for 25 years, plus two 5-year options to extend.

It also provides for "grab and go" food and coffee, sale and rental of bikes and beach supplies, and Mission Bay park information services.

I think it's a perfect location and a great space, University City resident Lauren Martin told NBC 7 before she took off on a jog along De Anza cove. I think it'll get a lot of business, for sure."

Especially for weddings  nice view, added Clairemont resident Miyuki Pashthin. And for some of them, theyd have the fireworks from SeaWorld at nighttime.

Shoreline's lease proposal, which was selected over several other bids, is expected to clear the City Council's approval process this month.

The restaurant could be ready for opening late next year.
Sandwiched between days that felt like spring last week and the official start of spring next week, a "life-threatening" nor'easter is poised to bring a reminder that winter isn't over yet, with blizzard conditions and a blanket of heavy snow expected in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Meteorologists were calling for snowfall totals as high as 20 inches in New York City from the storm's start late Monday through Tuesday evening. The National Weather Service warned that blizzard conditions of wind gusts over 35 mph and low visibility would extend from the Philadelphia area to Maine.

The weather service's office near Philadelphia called the storm "life-threatening" and warned people to "shelter in place." Coastal flooding was also predicted.

Travel was sure to be dismal: More than 5,000 Tuesday flights were canceled as of late Monday, according to the flight-tracking website Flightaware.com. The storm could create a ripple effect through the rest of the country, potentially disrupting departures out of other airports in the middle and western half of the country.

Delta, American and United are all waving rebooking fees for O'Hare, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast airports during the storm days

Amtrak canceled and modified service up and down the Northeast Corridor and motorists were urged to stay off the roads.

In New York City, the above-ground portions of the subway system were being shut down at 4 a.m. Tuesday. Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy imposed a statewide travel ban beginning at 5 a.m.

The forecast prompted early decisions to close schools on Tuesday in New York City, Philadelphia, D.C., Boston and many places in between.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel and help keep the roads clear. "We're preparing for a significant storm on Tuesday, and New Yorkers should also prepare for snow and dangerous road conditions," de Blasio said.

The storm comes a week after the region saw temperatures climb into the 60s. Spring officially starts on March 20.

Bank teller Jana White said her plans for riding out the storm include "lots of hot chocolate and a couple of sappy movies." The 23-year-old Trenton, New Jersey, resident said she expects to get Tuesday off work.

"It's a reminder that winter is always ready to take shot at you, so you have to stay prepared," she said. "We've got food and snacks and drinks, so as long as the power stays on we should be in good shape."

The heaviest snowfall was expected Tuesday morning through the afternoon, with snowfall rates as high as 2 to 4 inches per hour. Coastal flood warnings were in effect in Massachusetts, Long Island, New Jersey and Delaware.

Boston could get 12 to 18 inches, with isolated amounts of up to 2 feet across northeastern Massachusetts.

In Philadelphia, where up to a foot of snow could fall, crews began treating some area roadways on Sunday.

Farther south in the nation's capital, where the National Cherry Blossom Festival is scheduled to start Wednesday, snow accumulations of 6 to 8 inches were expected.

That led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to postpone her trip to Washington for her first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump. Merkel had been scheduled to arrive late Monday night for meetings with Trump on Tuesday. The White House said the meeting was rescheduled for Friday.

Baltimore is expected to get 8 to 12 inches.

Maryland's only ski resort welcomes the late season snow and announced Saturday it will take advantage of the snow and reopen, NBC Washington reported. The Wisp resort closed its slopes two weeks ago because of the unusually warm weather.

The storm also changed plans for some teams competing in the NCAA tournament: Villanova, the top overall seed in the men's tournament, left Philadelphia early to get ahead of the storm.

As the East Coast prepared, the Midwest was hit with snow, forcing a number of flight cancellations. In Chicago, the forecast called for 3 to 6 inches of snow, the city's first significant snowfall since mid-December.

Southern portions of Minnesota got more than 9 inches of snow in some areas. In Michigan, utility crews worked in the snow to restore power to those still without electricity following high winds that hit the state on Wednesday.

___

Associated Press writer Bruce Shipkowski contributed to this report from Trenton, New Jersey.
Poland will seek the arrest and extradition of a Minnesota man after confirming he was a Nazi unit commander suspected of ordering the killing of 44 Poles during World War II, a prosecutor said Monday.

Robert Janicki said that various evidence gathered in years of investigation into U.S. citizen Michael K. confirmed "100 percent" that he was a commander of a unit in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, which is accused of burning villages and killing civilians in Poland.

The Associated Press has identified the man as 98-year-old Michael Karkoc, from Minneapolis.

Karkoc's family denies that he was involved in any war crimes.

Prosecutors of the state National Remembrance Institute have asked a regional court in Lublin, Poland, to issue an arrest warrant for Karkoc. If granted, Poland would seek his extradition, as Poland does not allow trial in absentia, Janicki said.

He said the man's age was no obstacle in seeking to bring him before justice.

"He is our suspect as of today," Janicki said.

If convicted of contributing to the killing of civilians in the villages of Chlaniow and Wladyslawin in July 1944, Karkoc could face a prison term for life.

Prosecutors in Germany previously launched their own investigation of Karkoc after stories in 2013 by The Associated Press revealing that he had been a former commander in the SS-led unit that had committed war crimes in Poland.

They never expressed doubts about Karkoc's identity, but shelved their investigation after saying they had received "comprehensive medical documentation" from doctors at the geriatric hospital in the U.S. where he was being treated that led them to conclude he was not fit for trial.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection trained 8,600 employees in the past year at its remote, highly secured facility in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, a sprawling campus gaining new attention with the debate over the construction of a new wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and an increase in the force of U.S. border agents.

The agencys Advanced Training Center, which was built almost a decade ago on federal land through legislative efforts of the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), provides a regimen including firearms, self-defense, tactical and rescue training. Operators built a pair of small-scale border fences next to which trainees practice how to stop assaults and rescue injured agents.

Training sessions include a virtual simulator program providing dozens of scenarios for which border agents must prepare, such as a potentially violent traffic stop and a mass shooting at a theater.

The training center may not be on the southern border, but we have students from all over the nation, said 29-year U.S. border agent Clark Messer, who was recently named director of the facility.

Self-defense training at the facility took on new importance amid a spike in assaults against border agents. Records and testimony provided to Congress in November showed a 230 percent increase in attacks against agents from 2015 to 2016.

Arthur Trebs, a border agent posted in Bellingham, Washington, said assaults are an increasing threat.

For agents, help may literally be hours away if you run into trouble, so you have to be able to handle situations like that, he told the News4 I-Team during a February training session at Harpers Ferry.

CBP uses its training centers border fences for regimens in which agents are physically attacked by people who stand on our near actual US border fencing.

The fences are an important tool, said Chris Lein, an assistant director who helps lead self-defense training at the facility.

(Agents) are on the border, by themselves many times, and there are offenders you cant reach, Lein said.

The scope of the fence and the composition of some of the training programs would change if the U.S. government follows through on proposals to erect a new wall along the southwest U.S. border, Messer said.

Reported by Scott MacFarlane, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.
A blustery, late-season storm clobbered the Northeast with sleet and heavy snow Tuesday, crippling much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor after a stretch of unusually mild winter weather that had people thinking spring was already here.

The powerful nor'easter unloaded 1 to 2 feet of snow in places, grounded more than 6,000 flights, knocked out power to nearly a quarter-million customers from Virginia northward and, by the time it reached Massachusetts, had turned into a blizzard, with the wind gusting at nearly hurricane force over 70 mph along the coast.

Residents were urged to stay off the roads. Police said a 16-year-old girl was killed when she lost control of her car on a snowy road and hit a tree in Gilford, New Hampshire. And in East Hartford, Connecticut, a man died after being hit by a plow during the storm.

Officials closed schools in cities big and small, Amtrak modified or suspended service up and down the Northeast Corridor and the post office halted mail delivery.

According to the airline-tracking website FlightAware, the flight cancellations included nearly 3,300 in the New York City area alone. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at airports. It is unclear how quickly airlines will resume operations to and from the affected airports, but 656 Wednesday flights are already canceled.

Laura and Matthew Balderstone of West Yorkshire, England, intended to spend their honeymoon in Florida but found themselves stuck at the Newark, New Jersey, airport and couldn't find a hotel room.

"It's better safe than sorry, especially flying. I suppose it's a shame that we can't get another way around this," Matthew Balderstone said. "It's just the way it is, unfortunately."

Philadelphia and New York escaped the brunt of the snow, getting just a few inches rather than the foot or more forecasters had expected before the storm switched over to sleet. But officials warned of dangerous ice.

Residents farther inland were clobbered with snow. Binghamton, New York, had 22 inches by mid-afternoon, while more than a foot fell in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Vernon, New Jersey, got at least 19 inches, and Monterey, Massachusetts, 15 inches, with snow still accumulating Tuesday afternoon. The Boston area is expected to get 8 to 14 inches of snow.

Coastal flood warnings were in effect from Massachusetts to Delaware, including Long Island. Flooding was also a problem in several New Jersey shore towns.

In Narragansett, Rhode Island, high winds knocked down a state-owned wind turbine. In New York City, two homes under construction collapsed near the waterfront in Far Rockaway. No injuries were reported.

And two ponies broke free from their stables and roamed the snow-covered streets of Staten Island until an off-duty police officer noticed them. Employing straps normally used to tow cars, he wrangled the animals and tied them to a lamppost. They were taken back to the stables.

"We want to thank our cowboy officer," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Farther south in the nation's capital, where the National Cherry Blossom Festival is scheduled to start Wednesday, one to three inches fell around the District. But with temperatures dropping overnight, icy roads and sidewalks could pose a threat.

The federal government announced a three-hour delayed arrival for non-emergency employees, with an option to take the day off or telecommute. Emergency employees were told to report on time unless otherwise directed.

"Good day to make brownies ... and or read a book," said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, which was expecting up to 2 feet of snow in some areas.

Connecticut had a statewide travel ban in effect early Tuesday morning and more than 1,300 business and schools closed.

In Chicago, the forecast called for several inches of snow, the city's first significant snowfall since mid-December.

Bank teller Jana White said her plans for riding out the storm included "lots of hot chocolate and a couple of sappy movies."

"It's a reminder that winter is always ready to take shot at you, so you have to stay prepared," the Trenton, New Jersey resident said. "We've got food and snacks and drinks, so as long as the power stays on we should be in good shape."

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said that approximately 700 National Guard members would be deployed, along with more than 2,000 snow plows to keep up with the storm.

The storm also changed plans for some teams competing in the NCAA tournament: Villanova, the top overall seed in the men's tournament, left Philadelphia early to get ahead of the storm.

The nor'easter comes a week after the region saw temperatures climb into the 60s. Spring officially starts on March 20.
Egypt's ousted president Hosni Mubarak was ordered to be freed from detention on Monday, according to the prosecutor who signed his release order  ending nearly six years of legal proceedings against the long-ruling autocrat.

The prosecutor, Ibrahim Saleh, told The Associated Press that he ordered Mubarak's release after he accepted a petition by the former president's lawyer for his freedom on the basis of time already served.

Mubarak, 88, was acquitted by the country's top appeals court on March 2 of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 29-year rule. That verdict, according to Saleh, cleared the way for the lawyer to request that his client be released since he has already served a three-year sentence for embezzling state funds while in detention in connection to the protesters' case.

"There is not a single reason to keep him in detention and the police must execute the order," Saleh said. "He is free to go."

A criminal court ruled in May 2015 to imprison Mubarak for three years following his conviction of embezzling funds set aside for the maintenance of presidential palaces.

Mubarak was first detained in April 2011, but has spent the nearly six years since in hospitals. He is currently staying at a Nile-side military hospital in the leafy suburb of Maadi, just south of Cairo.

It was not immediately clear when he would actually leave and go home in the eastern suburb of Heliopolis.
What to Know Temperatures fall below freezing and are not expected to rise above freezing again until Thursday afternoon.

Some melting took place as temperatures reached the upper 30s Tuesday, and runoff can refreeze on roads and sidewalks.

Many schools will be closed or delayed Wednesday.

One of the coldest March days on record is waiting for you on the other side of the front door.

Storm Team4 has declared Wednesday a Weather Alert Day. Single-digit wind chills and a possible high of only 30 degrees would set a record for the coldest high temperature for March 15. A slight chance of snow is in Wednesday's forecast as well.

OPM said federal agencies in the D.C. area are open Wednesday. Employees are expected at their worksites or to begin telework on time.

Tuesday night, officials warned drivers to stay off the roads if possible due to the potential for icy conditions. "As temperatures drop later tonight, even treated roads may be icy and slippery, so travelers should remain alert and reduce speeds," said Greg Slater of the Maryland State Highway Administration.

The Virginia Department of Transportation warned of black ice overnight. Crews worked overnight, treating icy areas with salt and sand. They are continuing to clear roads, shoulders, ramps and drainage areas.

All the melted snow and sleet has already turned to ice. Crews are out, treating the roads to make the Wednesday commute as safe as possible. News4s Shomari Stone reports.

Prince William County Public Schools announced they will be closed again Wednesday, while several other districts will open two hours late.

Areas south and east of the District -- including southern Maryland -- saw mostly sleet and rain through Tuesday morning. But areas north and west of the city, including parts of Montgomery and Frederick counties in Maryland, got mostly snow.

Temperatures climbed into the upper 30s Tuesday, allowing for some melting, but with temperatures falling below freezing, and not expected to rise above freezing again until Thursday afternoon, roads and sidewalks could again be treacherous.

In southern Maryland, ice coated trees, weighing them down and onto power lines, breaking them, Chris Gordon reported. Route 5 at Bryantown Road in Charles County was closed all day Tuesday so crews could make repairs. Three utility poles actually snapped.

The snow began falling Monday evening, with most of the area seeing snow by 10 p.m. The heaviest amounts accumulated between midnight and dawn Tuesday along the I-95 corridor and to the west of it.

The snow changed to a mix of snow, sleet and rain in the early hours of Tuesday along I-95 and east of it, before changing back to snow as the cold air wrapped around the storm system. For more weather details and hyperlocal radar, go here.

Most accumulation ended about noon Tuesday, but some snow showers and flurries lingered into the afternoon.

Metrorail Back to Normal Service Wednesday

Here's what's happening with transit a day after several inches of snow fell on the region:

Metrorail: Regular weekday service has resumed. However, remember that the current SafeTrack surge remains in effect on the Blue and Yellow lines. SafeTrack shuttle buses are running again between Franconia-Springfield and the Pentagon.

Metrobus: Metrobus was scheduled to begin the day on a moderate snow service plan, but WMATA said early Wednesday that Metrobus had actually resumed regular weekday service. However, adjustments and delays may be possible on isolated routes due to road conditions.

MetroAccess: Service for customers with disabilities has been restored. The MetroAccess reservations call center reopened at noon Tuesday so customers could schedule rides. However, Metro warned that some trips may still be delayed due to snow and ice.

Amtrak, meanwhile, is operating on a modified schedule Wednesday:
Police in Nashua, New Hampshire have arrested a man accused of strangling and sexually assaulting his-ex-fiancee.

Matthew Martin, 24, was arrested at his Kinsley Street residence Monday night.

Police said a woman entered the Nashua Police Department around 5:20 p.m. and said she was assaulted by Martin at his residence.

Investigation showed the victim was strangled several times, had her hair pulled, was sexually assaulted and was not allowed to leave the home. The assault lasted several minutes, until the victim was able to get out of the home.

Martin was arrested around 8:40 p.m. on charges of second degree assault, sexual assault and domestic violence, among other charges.

Martin is being held on $100,000 bail pending his arraignment Tuesday morning.
A Billerica, Massachusetts man has pleaded guilty to federal charges of exchanging child pornography by using an instant messaging app.

Federal prosecutors announced Monday that 38-year-old Brian Ashley pleaded guilty to distribution and possession of child pornography.

Federal agents in Montana last year searched the home of someone who was exchanging child porn.

Authorities say an individual with the username "orcusvox" inquired about whether he had "anything new?" An undercover agent responded that he'd lost everything and had to start over.

Prosecutors say "orcusvox," an account registered to Ashley, sent the agent several images of child erotica and child pornography.

Authorities later found nearly 250 images and more than 75 videos of child pornography on Ashely's cellphone.

Ashley faces up to two decades in prison.
A West Springfield, Massachusetts, man charged with shooting his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend in the groin and ripping a $500 gold chain from his neck has been held on $250,000 bail.

The Republican reports that Jose Marte Jr. pleaded not guilty Monday to seven charges including attempted murder in connection with the shooting last week near a city park.

Witnesses told police that the 21-year-old Marte and his girlfriend pulled into a parking lot where the victim and his friends were. Police say the shooting took place after an argument and struggle.

Marte and his girlfriend then fled the scene and were tracked down later.

The victim was taken to the hospital with a non-fatal wound.

Marte's lawyer retained the right to request lower bail at a later date.
As the Singapore CH-47 Chinooks twin rotors build speed and spin in unison, a loud but calming hum fills the interior of the helicopter. Seven Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) specialists sit with their gear in front of them, parachutes on their backs.

As the drop zone nears, they all stand, connect to a static line back-to-back, and countdown from 10 minutes, to six, to one.

One by one, the specialists jump out of the Chinook. As the static line pulls each parachute, they float to the Nevada Test and Training Range completing a combat insertion training mission during Red Flag 17-2, hosted at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

For 20 years in Grand Prairie, Texas, the Singapore air force has worked in unison with its pilots, air crews and the United States Army. The unit came to Red Flag 17-2 to train and lend its unique skill set in a multitude of different mission sets.

The primary mission while here at Red Flag is combat search and rescue, and personnel recovery, with a secondary mission of a few para-drops for the pararescuemen; and then also internal loading and regular troop insertions into the combat area, said U.S. Army Warrant Officer Jeffry Epperson, standardization pilot assigned to the U.S. Army flight training detachment, Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex Hensley Field, Grand Prairie, Texas.

While at Red Flag the Singapore air force is tasked with lending their talents to CSAR and personnel recovery, but theyre not executed without monotonous planning.

Mission planning begins the day prior in the Red Flag building, and when you take into account the maintenance and operations side it becomes a very lengthy and through process, said Epperson

In performing these missions, Red Flag allows the members of the Singapore air force to extend their skill set by working and learning how coalition partners operate.

Its good for Singapore to broaden their scope, rather than just seeing the Army that augments them, said Epperson. They now see the Navy, Spain, Dutch and France and run the gamut of countries that they can work with. Not only does it broaden the scope of their abilities, but also fosters relationships.

Along with exposing their crew to new allies, Red Flag has served to place the Singapore air force into new exercise conditions.

Red Flag has helped them a lot, said Epperson. Its a unique exercise where they can get the mission set that the Army doesnt provide in their exercises. Those exercises are more troop insertion, air assault type missions, but this is CSAR, personnel recovery and working with fighters that they dont get a lot of. The Singapore air forces bread and butter back home is CSAR around the ocean and their islands, so it helps them get better here and also when they go back to their home station.

Not only has Red Flag exposed the Singapore air force to new variables such as air assault and troop insertion, it also granted new pilots with leadership experience.

Red Flag has helped Singapore in progressing their younger fliers, helping them learn to not only mission plan, but be leads, said U.S. Army Capt Eric Maldando, USAFTD operations officer. They set out the mission set, spoke to what they expected and led the mission. It helps their junior pilots become more experienced and seasoned.

With these new missions and leadership experiences provided to the Singapore air force by Red Flag, they leave Nellis AFB with new experiences and a bolstered skill set added to their repertoire.
AT&T Wireless customers who tried to reach 911 in the evening hours of Wednesday, March 8, were left stranded in more than a dozen major cities. Based on unconfirmed, but widespread reports, the problem may have affected callers nationwide, with AT&T only sending out tweets again and again, stating:

[AT&T is aware] of issue affecting some calls to 911 for wireless customers. Working to resolve ASAP. We apologize to those affected.

With no root cause offered, several public safety agencies and citizens were left confused on what to do. In what has become a natural reaction to any traumatic event, both the general public and several agencies took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets on the web as the go-to place for help, as well as an outlet for frustrationwith many announcing their intentions to switch carriers.

Who regulates 911?

The National Emergency Number Association, a U.S.-based association that serves its members and the greater public safety community as the only professional organization solely focused on 911 policy, technology, operations and education issues. With more than 11,000 members in 48 chapters across the United States and around the globe, NENA promotes the implementation and awareness of 911, as well as international three-digit emergency communications systems.

NENA works with 911 professionals nationwide, public policy leaders, emergency services and telecommunications industry partners, like-minded public safety associations, and other stakeholder groups to develop and carry out critical programs and initiatives, facilitate the creation of an IP-based next-generation 911 system, and establish industry-leading standards, training, and certifications.

Based on the organization's estimates, 240 million calls are made to 911 in the U.S. each year. Of those calls, 70 percent (about 168 million) are from cellular devices, with that number increasing every day.

What do the 911 numbers say?

The supposed gold standard level of network service is measured in the percentage that system is working normallywhat is known as 5 Nines Reliability. In reality, this level is difficult to reach, as it means the system is up 99.999 percent of the time. Each year contains 525,600 minutes of "up-time" availability. To maintain 5 Nines Reliability, centers would be allotted only 315 seconds of downtime per year.

Working backwards, based on estimates from NENA, cellular calls to 911 arrive at an average of just over five per second nationwide. Based on that, it would mean nearly 1,700 calls a year could still fail, with an average of over four a dayagain nationwide.

Are rules enough to solve the 911 uptime issue?

Unfortunately, no. Rules and mathematical probability will not correct the core issue. Actual outages do occur, and people are affected, with some ending very badly. In most cases, these incidents remain rare and are often spread out over time and geography.

While that might minimize the emotional sting of tragedy, it does nothing to increase the level of reliability, the carrier network diversity that must be there, or the willingness to transparently report outages instead of locking away the information while claiming proprietary information and security risks.

Most people want to believe the 911 networks are built to the highest standard of resiliency and reliability possible. While standards from NENA and APCO exist prescribing these levels of service, they themselves go only so far. To be effective, standards need to be promulgated by industry experts and agreed upon by those providing services. They then need to be meticulously implemented by PSAPs and, most important, include a process that tracks compliance and accountability.

The FCC's role in 911 outages

Rules and regulations. Policy and penalties. It is only in the enforcement of these where the mighty FCC steps into the picture. The organization collects information on communications service disruptions that transpire in the nation's communications infrastructure. This information aides them in fines and penalties.

At the core of this collection activity of data is the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS). This provides an interface for carriers to report information regarding communications disruptions that have exceeded the thresholds that are outlined in the FCC's rules that are published and defined in the Code of Federal Rules: 47 C.F.R. Part 4.

NORS is managed by the Cyber Security and Communications Reliability Division of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. The bureau is run by Acting Bureau Chief Lisa M. Fowlkes, who was appointed by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai as part of his transition activities. The repository information is classified as confidential and therefore not available to the public.

This can make accountability and transparency difficult, however. The FCC closely monitors the data submitted to NORS, and the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau can then engage in additional studies as needed. Using this information from these studies, further actions and task forces, such as TFOPA and the EAAC, can be requested where applicable, and assessments can be made requiring additional action, such as recommendations for changes in policy and rules.

Personally, I had the honor of participating on both of those initiatives, as well as the DAC, dealing with access and accessibility issues for persons who are deaf, are blind or have a speech impairment.

Allowable 911 outage tolerances

The nations First Responders and Emergency Management officials all agree that our 911 communications networks are critical infrastructure. Based on this, the FCC has defined specific thresholds for 911 outage reporting.

In 47 C.F.R. Part 4.5, 911 centers are designated as special facilities and that a reportable outage has occurred if:

There is a loss of communications to PSAP(s) potentially affecting at least 900,000 user-minutes and: The failure is neither at the PSAP(s) nor on the premises of the PSAP(s); no reroute for all end users was available, and the outage lasts 30 minutes or more.

Clearly, this last outage was a failure in the AT&T network. The outage was experienced across the nation, specifically on the AT&T wireless network. In fact, Text to 911, where deployed, remained as an option to the 10-digit PSTN numbers being advertised on Twitter and Facebook.

Tick tockyour time starts NOW! And it may cost you

As soon as an outage is noticed, the proverbial clock starts. Carriers have only 72 hours to submit an Initial Communications Outage Report to the FCC via NORS. Final reports, with full root cause analysis and remediation plans to prevent further incidents, are due in 30 days.

While these reports and standards provide valuable insight, they are confidential and not available to others who could benefit by not making the same mistakes. For the carrier that is responsible for the outage, penalties for their actions incent them to remedy to the situation. In recent years, the FCC has imposed more than $42 million in penaltiesa significant amount, as noted here for the FCC Enforcement Bureau website:

July 2006  FCC Reaches $2.4M Settlement with GCI - Wireless 911 Outages in Alaska

September 2015  COs Fined $1.4M For Failing To Accept 911 Calls For Hearing Impaired

July 2015  T-Mobile to Pay $17.5 Million to Resolve 911 Outage Investigation

April 2016  FCC Fines CenturyLink/Intrado $17.4M for Multi-State 911 Outage

March 2015  Verizon to Pay $3.4 Million to Resolve 911 Outage Investigation

The question remains what penalty will be handed down to AT&T for this outage. Given the number of users impacted and the past financial penalties, it is very conceivable that fines for this incident could reach $50 million, considering AT&Ts estimated 30 percent market share of wireless subscribers.

The best advice: Be prepared for a 911 outage

At the end of the day, personal safety is the goal of 911. Always know where you are, be prepared to provide landmarks to help dispatchers locate you, and program the local 10-digit number of the police department where you live and work into your cell phone so that they are handy in an emergency.

In case voice calls are not going through, find out if and when Text to 911 will be rolled out in your area. With the AT&T Wireless outage, users quickly figured out it Text to 911 did work and used social media to get the word out.

Be cognizant of the fact that coverage across the U.S. is still sparse in many areas, though. According to the most recent FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau information, Text to 911 is still a future capability or not currently planned in most areas.

[Click to down load] Text to 911 Availability Map as per the FCC PSHSB

Created by Mark J. Fletcher, ENP with FCC PSHSB

In the end, I still believe our best defense is awareness. In todays world of autonomous computer assistance, with everything from Alexa turning on lights to Siri dialing our phones, nothing beats a good level head and a well-practiced plan in the event of an emergency. At least when I called my 18-year-old daughter at college to remind her to do this, I got a Thank you Daddy  I love you.

She knows just how to push my buttons in any directionno worries.

I love you, too, Haley.
The connection between the FBI and Best Buy's internal service and repair organization Geek Squad went a lot further than initially thought, according to newly unsealed records in a case involving a doctor charged with child pornography after bringing in a laptop for repair.

The Orange County (California) Weekly has been all over a case involving a well-respected physician Dr. Mark A. Rettenmaier. Rettenmaier took his laptop to the Mission Viejo Best Buy in November 2011 after he was unable to start it.

+ Also on Network World: Why you shouldn't trust Geek Squad ever again +

While performing a recovery scan of his data files, a Geek Squad technician found an image of "a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck." The technician notified his boss, who alerted the FBI.

The case exposed supposed collusion between Geek Squad and the FBI, including claims that the FBI would pay a $500 reward to the Geek Squad tech who turns in someone for criminal activity such as child pornography. This led to accusations that Geek Squad techs were scanning all of the PCs that came in for repair, which Best Buy denied.

Records reveal the FBI trained Geek Squad techs

In a new update to the case, the Orange County Weekly says recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer's request for repairs.

+ Also on Network World: Lessons for corporate IT from Geek Squad legal case +

To get around the claims of warrantless invasions of private property, Geek Squad technicians are basically told to say they found the incriminating evidence by accident. The government denied it, but more than a dozen summaries of FBI memoranda filed inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse this month in Rettenmaier's case are said to contradict the official line.

Best Buy denies claims

Best Buy continues to deny the claims made by the Orange County Register. In a statement to Network World, a spokesman said the following:

To be clear, Best Buy and Geek Squad have no relationship with the FBI and never have. We have not been trained by the FBI nor have we ever shared customer lists, conducted surveillance or searched customer computers for them. Our policies prohibit Geek Squad agents from accessing customer content other than what is absolutely necessary to solve the customers problem so we can maintain their privacy and keep up with our volume of repairs. "On occasion, our repair agents inadvertently discover material that may be child pornography. They are not looking for it. But when it is discovered, we have a legal and moral obligation to turn that material over to law enforcement. We are proud of our policy and share it with our customers before we begin any repair.

And according to the LA Times, the tech in question who found the photos has also denied any FBI connection.

During Meade's testimony Thursday, he rejected the idea that he communicated with the FBI and turned over customer data out of motivation to get paid. He said he doesn't recall ever being paid by the FBI for alerting the agency to suspicious data. He also said no one at the FBI ever directed him to look through customers' data and that that type of review wouldn't be performed unless it fell under the scope of work requested by a customer.

In the case of Rettenmaier, it was a data recovery case, and he had requested Best Buy attempt to recover data, including photos, according to Best Buy.

A judge is currently weighing a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds of a warrantless search. If he does not go along with it, a trial for Rettenmaier is scheduled for June 6. Geek Squad, though, will be crucified in the court of public opinion.

+ What do you think? Share your thoughts on the FBI's involvement with Geek Squad +
Google cloud is seen by analysts as an up and comer. Company executives will even admit that the past few years Google has not had everything it needs to compete for enterprise customers in the IaaS public cloud market against Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and even IBM.

But they will also tell you that Google is ready now.

+MORE FROM NETWORK WORLD: Google Cloud President of Customers talks courting enterprises, competing with Amazon and Microsoft +

Last week Google held NEXT, its user conference where the company introduces new cloud features and users get to learn about the cloud platform.

In the opening day keynote, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Googles cloud division, said that not many analysts have questioned Googles technical abilities in the cloud. But now, theyve rounded out the rest of their portfolio. We can do both great cloud  that is great tech in the cloud  but we can also now work with you as a customer and a partner, to build a business that actually scales globally and which should make a lot of money, he said. We have this incredible leadership platform for the things that matter for the future, he added. Namely, those are big data, analytics, application development platforms and machine learning.

Below are 10 ways Google made its cloud more competitive in the IaaS market at its NEXT conference.

Enterprise customers: Google trotted out name brand, Fortune 500 enterprises that use its cloud, including eBay, Home Depot and HSBC. Schmidt pointed out that not only are companies moving to Googles cloud, theyre doing it fast. He said Evernote, for example, migrated 3 petabytes of data in three months. Read more about Googles big-name cloud customers.

Machine Learning focus: One area where Google is attempting to distinguish itself is in cloud-based machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence. At NEXT, Googles Chief ML Scientist Fei Fei Li explained the companys vision for how this technology will impact many verticals, from retail to healthcare. Google also introduced a new Cloud Vision API, which is able to identify the contents of videos. This goes along with its image recognition platform that was previously available. Google also announced it is buying Kaggle, a community of machine learning sharing. Read more about how Google plans to bring ML and AI to the enterprise.

SaaS/IaaS integration: In taking a page from Microsofts playbook, Google is attempting to position itself not just as an IaaS public cloud vendor, but a cloud that includes SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. Theres now an integrated sales team that sells both G Suite and Google Cloud Platform, and enhanced product integrations between the two. Meanwhile, Google announced advancements for its G Suite, including an overhaul of Hangouts and a new Jamboard smart collaboration whiteboard. Google wants its cloud to be a one-stop-shop for all enterprise cloud computing needs.

New security features: In another move that seemed geared toward the enterprise market, Google announced a handful of new security tools available on its cloud platform. These include a new Identity Aware Proxy (which lets administrators set access control policies for specific applications); new Data Loss Prevention tools, including an API; a new Key Management System and Security Key Enforcements, which require users to have two-factor authentication enabled to access certain programs. A demonstration showed the DLP system automatically redacting sensitive credit card and Social Security information contained in data uploaded to the cloud in real-time. Read more about Google Clouds new security features.

New compute features: Google updated its core compute-as-service offerings in a variety of ways. A new Virtual Machine Migration service allows users to more easily transfer Windows or Linux-based virtual machines from their on premises environment or another cloud provider into Googles cloud; New Cloud Dataprep helps users manage data that is stored in Googles databases; Google demonstrated its new globally-scalable and consistent SQL database named Spanner; and it debuted new 64-core machines.

Committed Use Discounts: One new feature that seems aimed specifically at the enterprise market is the addition of Committed Use Discounts. The idea is that if customers commit to using Googles cloud for a one- or three-year period, they will get a discounted rate. Amazon and Microsoft have similar offers, but Google says it is different because users dont have to choose the exact virtual machine size and type theyre committing to, just how much compute and memory capacity they need. A study by cloud management vendor RightScale found that Googles CUDs offer the average customer a larger discount compared to AWSs Reserved Instances. Cloud price wars are certainly not over.

Free cloud!

In an effort to get people to just try Googles cloud, the company announced an expansion of its Free Tier of cloud services. Check out details of the free service.

Three new regions: Google has been on an aggressive push in recent years to expand the number of regions its cloud has. This gives customers more options in terms of where they can place their workloads and expands their reach into new geographic markets. At NEXT, Google announced three new regions in California, Canada and the Netherlands. Google has 14 other announced and live regions. By comparison, Microsoft Azure has 34 regions and AWS has 42 Availability Zones across 16 regions (each AWS region has at least two Availability Zones). Read more about Googles newly announced regions and check out an interactive map of all three cloud providers regions.

Bigwigs buy in: Google executives are attempting to make it clear the company is committed to the cloud. The opening day keynote of NEXT included speeches from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Schmidt and the head of Google Cloud Diane Greene. At one point, Schmidt told the crowd that he has personally approved up to $30 billion in capital expenditures for Googles IaaS cloud. He asked the crowd why they would want to replicate that type of spending when instead they could focus on higher-value services they can build on top of that infrastructure?

Partners: In an interview before NEXT Google President of Customers Tariq Shaukat told Network World that one priority in the short-term is expanding Googles partnerships with independent service vendors (ISV) and system integrators. To that end, Google announced expanded support for running SAP HANA workloads on its cloud, it announced that Rackspace is the companys first managed service vendor and Pivotal is the first Customer Reliability Engineering partner. It also announced plans to work more closely with the likes of Accenture and PWC.

And if you want to read about even more announcements Google made at NEXT, check out the companys list of 100 announcements from the conference.
Businesses recognised in prestigious Sunday Times list

TWO of Newburys largest employers have been named in The Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to work for in 2016.

Medical technology firm Stryker, based in Hambridge Road, was placed 19th.

It was the 11th consecutive year that the company has been listed in the prestigious annual table.

Stryker is one of the worlds leading medical technology companies and offers products and services in orthopaedics, medical and surgical, and neurotechnology and spine sectors.

The Sunday Times guide says: This outfit prides itself on hiring exceptional people and treating them with respect.

The feeling is clearly mutual as they, for their part, love working for Stryker.

Newbury-based Gamma, one of the UKs leading communications providers, was in 49th place in the table.

In a statement, Gamma said it was delighted to be recognised for the fifth consecutive year.

Based largely on employee feedback, The Sunday Times award lists the top 100 UK companies to work for.

Each entry is judged according to performance in eight key areas: Leadership, wellbeing, giving something back, personal growth, fair deal and how members of staff feel towards their manager, company and team.

The awards dinner was held at Battersea Evolutions on Thursday, February 23.

A total of 857 firms registered to take part in this years employee engagement survey, with 82 new entries making it into the top 100.

Pam Williams, HR director at Gamma, based in Kings Road West, said: To be recognised for the fifth year in a row is a fantastic achievement.

Being in the Top 100 Best Companies to Work For is a real accolade and provides an excellent way to measure employee engagement.

We wanted to share the celebration of our achievement at the awards evening by inviting along some of the Gamma staff who have really contributed to our success and are great ambassadors of Gamma.

We were also delighted to see a number of our channel partners being recognised in this years list  well done to everyone who made the list.

Gamma has also, once again, achieved 2 Star Accreditation as an outstanding company to work for.

Jonathan Austin, chief executive and founder of Best Companies, said: I would like to congratulate Gamma on their outstanding achievement.

This year it is encouraging to see that more and more organisations are recognising the value of employee engagement and are willing to benchmark themselves against the best to ensure they are offering their employees the best possible experience.

Organisations like Gamma have continued to focus on their employees and have been rewarded with an engaged workforce who tell us that this is a great place to work.
Saddleback Farm butchery 'top-notch' says Countryside Alliance

A WEST Berkshire business has walked away with a rural Oscar.

Saddleback Farm Shop, in Brightwalton, was named joint- champion in the South East Butcher category at the Countryside Alliance Awards, which celebrate and promote rural businesses.

Business owner Clare Pill said that it was fantastic to receive the recognition for being in touch with the community, despite the shop only opening in 2012.

I think the biggest thing for us is that we produce the beef and lamb ourselves, she said.

What they are interested in is how the business sits within the community and what the business means to people in the local area.

Its quite nice to have the recognition for that.

Judge Sarah Lee said: I would recommend anyone visit Saddleback for any number of reasons, but we are honouring them for the butchery side of the business which is top-notch.

The family has been farming at Brightwalton for a number of years so it has been a real leap of faith to get the farm shop and butchery off the ground and to really drive it forward, attracting devoted customers from miles around.

Clare, who runs the business, is the third generation of the Whidborne family to farm this stunning corner of West Berkshire. She is tenacious and has her eye firmly on top produce, animal welfare and giving customers what they want, either over the counter or via a meat box scheme.

Clare herself is not a butcher, but has fantastic butchers on staff, including a butcher apprentice, who are able to banter with the customers and cut to their specifications. We were also impressed to see a shoot lunch coming in while we were judging, proving what a hub Saddleback is and how immersed in its community and rural life more broadly.

There could be greater recognition for the Brightwalton farm, as Saddleback will find out whether it has won a national award later this month.

A Parliamentary reception will be held at the House of Lords in London on Wednesday, March 22.

Saddleback shared the South East Butcher award with Park Farm Butchers, Hawkhurst, Kent.

There was a further recognition for West Berkshire as Compton Village Shop was highly recommended in the South East Champion Village Shop/Post Office category.

The award for Saddleback Farm follows Ashampstead butcher Vicars Game scooping the regional butchers award in 2011; only to be pipped into second place at the national awards ceremony.
By Reuters

TOKYO: Japan's Toshiba Corp failed to submit audited third-quarter earnings for a second time on Tuesday, gaining a one month extension as its expands a probe into problems at its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse.

With its financial woes only deepening, Toshiba said it would speed up looking at whether to sell a majority of Westinghouse even as it sought to reassure investors it could have a future without the unit or its prized memory chip business which has been put up for sale.

It will "aggressively consider strategic options" for Westinghouse, it said in a statement, although it did not mention a potential Chapter 11 filing for the U.S. nuclear firm. Sources have said that bankruptcy lawyers have been hired as an exploratory step.

The conglomerate said its auditing committee had confirmed that certain Westinghouse senior managers had exerted 'inappropriate pressure' in the accounting for an acquisition of a U.S. nuclear power plant construction company in its third-quarter earnings.

It now needs to check if pressure was exerted in preceding quarters as it would also be filing nine-month results. Toshiba will also expand the probe's scope to see if there were 'other inappropriate pressures', it said in a statement without elaborating on what they could be.

Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa will hold a news conference at 4:00 p.m. Tokyo time (0700 GMT).

Westinghouse has become the epicentre of Toshiba's latest crisis, after buying a U.S. nuclear power plant construction company from Chicago Bridge & Iron in 2015.

Two U.S. projects in Georgia and South Carolina handled by the acquired firm have been plagued by cost overruns and Toshiba has already flagged a $6.3 billion writedown.

Liabilities attached to Westinghouse mean it is unlikely to be an easy asset to sell, despite attractive technology. South Korea's KEPCO is seen as the only potential buyer, as it expands in nuclear after a successful deal in the United Arab Emirates.

KEPCO said on Tuesday it would consider an approach by Toshiba.

"We will review the overall project and weigh how beneficial this project would be to us," a spokesman said.

Toshiba, for whom the latest scandal is its second in two years, said it would also introduce fresh measures to overhaul its governance, including improving board level oversight, internal controls, risk management and headquarters' grip on the activities of its affiliates.

It estimated that it could post an operating profit of 70 billion yen ($610 million) in the next financial year excluding Westinghouse and its chips business, and also forecast an operating profit of 210 billion yen two years later.

Those forecasts helped its stock recover from sharp losses to end 0.5 percent higher on the day.

The new extension to April 11 follows its first postponement of audited earnings a month ago. If it fails to meet that deadline and does not gain another extension it would have until April 21 to submit the earnings or be delisted.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter said a one-month extension should be enough to work out differences with auditors.

"I understand auditors' skittishness but at the same time I don't think they want to be the reason for Toshiba's failure by keeping refusing to sign off," said the person, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

Toshiba is also due to submit this week a report to the Tokyo Stock Exchange on its internal controls in the wake of its latest financial woes as well the 2015 accounting scandal. That could eventually also lead to a delisting if the bourse finds Toshiba's efforts unsatisfactory.

TOKYO: Japan's Toshiba Corp failed to submit audited third-quarter earnings for a second time on Tuesday, gaining a one month extension as its expands a probe into problems at its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse. With its financial woes only deepening, Toshiba said it would speed up looking at whether to sell a majority of Westinghouse even as it sought to reassure investors it could have a future without the unit or its prized memory chip business which has been put up for sale. It will "aggressively consider strategic options" for Westinghouse, it said in a statement, although it did not mention a potential Chapter 11 filing for the U.S. nuclear firm. Sources have said that bankruptcy lawyers have been hired as an exploratory step. The conglomerate said its auditing committee had confirmed that certain Westinghouse senior managers had exerted 'inappropriate pressure' in the accounting for an acquisition of a U.S. nuclear power plant construction company in its third-quarter earnings. It now needs to check if pressure was exerted in preceding quarters as it would also be filing nine-month results. Toshiba will also expand the probe's scope to see if there were 'other inappropriate pressures', it said in a statement without elaborating on what they could be. Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa will hold a news conference at 4:00 p.m. Tokyo time (0700 GMT). Westinghouse has become the epicentre of Toshiba's latest crisis, after buying a U.S. nuclear power plant construction company from Chicago Bridge & Iron in 2015. Two U.S. projects in Georgia and South Carolina handled by the acquired firm have been plagued by cost overruns and Toshiba has already flagged a $6.3 billion writedown. Liabilities attached to Westinghouse mean it is unlikely to be an easy asset to sell, despite attractive technology. South Korea's KEPCO is seen as the only potential buyer, as it expands in nuclear after a successful deal in the United Arab Emirates. KEPCO said on Tuesday it would consider an approach by Toshiba. "We will review the overall project and weigh how beneficial this project would be to us," a spokesman said. Toshiba, for whom the latest scandal is its second in two years, said it would also introduce fresh measures to overhaul its governance, including improving board level oversight, internal controls, risk management and headquarters' grip on the activities of its affiliates. It estimated that it could post an operating profit of 70 billion yen ($610 million) in the next financial year excluding Westinghouse and its chips business, and also forecast an operating profit of 210 billion yen two years later. Those forecasts helped its stock recover from sharp losses to end 0.5 percent higher on the day. The new extension to April 11 follows its first postponement of audited earnings a month ago. If it fails to meet that deadline and does not gain another extension it would have until April 21 to submit the earnings or be delisted. A source with direct knowledge of the matter said a one-month extension should be enough to work out differences with auditors. "I understand auditors' skittishness but at the same time I don't think they want to be the reason for Toshiba's failure by keeping refusing to sign off," said the person, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly. Toshiba is also due to submit this week a report to the Tokyo Stock Exchange on its internal controls in the wake of its latest financial woes as well the 2015 accounting scandal. That could eventually also lead to a delisting if the bourse finds Toshiba's efforts unsatisfactory.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Developing economies, led by China and India, will continue to contribute more than three-quarters of the total global GDP growth in 2017, according to Christine Lagarde, managing director, International Monetary Fund.

After years of being stuck in a weak recovery, the world economy needs to move on, shape up, and generate greater prosperity for all, Lagarde said in an IMF blog post on Tuesday, a few days before the G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors scheduled for March 17-18 in Germany.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das are scheduled to attend the G-20 meeting.

According to Lagarde, the projected normalisation of conditions in Brazil and Russia, which have been facing deep recessions, will help in this global economic growth in 2017.

Lagarde has urged policy makers globally to avoid self-inflicted injuries. This requires steering clear of policies that would undermine trade, migration, capital flows, and the sharing of technologies across borders, she said in a blog. While she cautions that a stronger US growth would be good for world economy, a changing US policy mix may also create spillovers.

Despite that, policymakers will likely share a sense of optimism, as the recent strengthening of activity suggests that the world economy may finally snap out of its multi-year convalescence, she wrote. That is why the IMF in January projected a pickup in global growth this year and nextto 3.4 and 3.6 per centcompared to 3.1 per cent in 2016, Lagarde said.

The improved outlook partly reflects a projected pickup in advanced economy activityhelped by expectations of more expansionary U.S. fiscal policy, especially encouraged by stronger-than-expected economic activity in the Euro area, the UK and Japan. She has also advocated all countries to promote life-long learning to prepare citizens for technological changes, retooling of income policies and tax systems.

NEW DELHI: Developing economies, led by China and India, will continue to contribute more than three-quarters of the total global GDP growth in 2017, according to Christine Lagarde, managing director, International Monetary Fund. After years of being stuck in a weak recovery, the world economy needs to move on, shape up, and generate greater prosperity for all, Lagarde said in an IMF blog post on Tuesday, a few days before the G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors scheduled for March 17-18 in Germany. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das are scheduled to attend the G-20 meeting. According to Lagarde, the projected normalisation of conditions in Brazil and Russia, which have been facing deep recessions, will help in this global economic growth in 2017. Lagarde has urged policy makers globally to avoid self-inflicted injuries. This requires steering clear of policies that would undermine trade, migration, capital flows, and the sharing of technologies across borders, she said in a blog. While she cautions that a stronger US growth would be good for world economy, a changing US policy mix may also create spillovers. Despite that, policymakers will likely share a sense of optimism, as the recent strengthening of activity suggests that the world economy may finally snap out of its multi-year convalescence, she wrote. That is why the IMF in January projected a pickup in global growth this year and nextto 3.4 and 3.6 per centcompared to 3.1 per cent in 2016, Lagarde said. The improved outlook partly reflects a projected pickup in advanced economy activityhelped by expectations of more expansionary U.S. fiscal policy, especially encouraged by stronger-than-expected economic activity in the Euro area, the UK and Japan. She has also advocated all countries to promote life-long learning to prepare citizens for technological changes, retooling of income policies and tax systems.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU:While the assault of a boy from Arunachal Pradesh by his landlord in the city is in the limelight, one of the main issues plaguing groups and individuals in the city who help individuals from North Eastern states is the serious shortage of funds.

While Higio Gungtey, the boy concerned, comes from a well-to-do family many others are not so fortunate. Rini Ralte, member, Northeast Solidarity, a consortium of groups and individuals for Northeast in the city, is usually one of the first persons to be at ground zero in case of any such incident. Giving an example from a recent case of an accident involving another boy from Arunachal, around 2 months back, she says: This boy worked in a bar and was going home late at night. He was found on the side of a road with severe injuries. He was from a very poor family and had suffered brain damage. We got him admitted In Nimhans for a while but there was no money for treatment, she says. A well-wisher volunteered to get tickets for him to go back, she adds.

Most of the time Rini has to spend money out of her own pocket for travel, treatment and rehabilitation of the person concerned, and what not. We have not received any help in terms of funds from anywhere or anyone. We requested Union Minister, Kiran Rijiju twice for funds but there has been no results. We also approached Karnataka government but they also said that they can offer help with services but not funds, she says.

Whats worse even the respective state governments from the Northeast have not come forward to help. We placed requests with governments of Mizoram, Manipur and even Nagaland but nothing worked. We have to borrow from people in case of extreme emergencies, she says.

Pranjal Medhi, has been in Bengaluru for 16 years and is one of the founders of Assam Society of Bangalore, an organization that helps people from the state in the city. He says that he faced fund crunches early on in dealing with crisis situations but now the society tries to raise their own funds through various cultural programmes within the community. Its only in critical situations that we approach the government. I think government of each state should have a setup in cities such as Bengaluru that caters to particular problems of its people, he says. The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNer) can also play a bigger role in such issues he adds.

BENGALURU:While the assault of a boy from Arunachal Pradesh by his landlord in the city is in the limelight, one of the main issues plaguing groups and individuals in the city who help individuals from North Eastern states is the serious shortage of funds. While Higio Gungtey, the boy concerned, comes from a well-to-do family many others are not so fortunate. Rini Ralte, member, Northeast Solidarity, a consortium of groups and individuals for Northeast in the city, is usually one of the first persons to be at ground zero in case of any such incident. Giving an example from a recent case of an accident involving another boy from Arunachal, around 2 months back, she says: This boy worked in a bar and was going home late at night. He was found on the side of a road with severe injuries. He was from a very poor family and had suffered brain damage. We got him admitted In Nimhans for a while but there was no money for treatment, she says. A well-wisher volunteered to get tickets for him to go back, she adds. Most of the time Rini has to spend money out of her own pocket for travel, treatment and rehabilitation of the person concerned, and what not. We have not received any help in terms of funds from anywhere or anyone. We requested Union Minister, Kiran Rijiju twice for funds but there has been no results. We also approached Karnataka government but they also said that they can offer help with services but not funds, she says. Whats worse even the respective state governments from the Northeast have not come forward to help. We placed requests with governments of Mizoram, Manipur and even Nagaland but nothing worked. We have to borrow from people in case of extreme emergencies, she says. Pranjal Medhi, has been in Bengaluru for 16 years and is one of the founders of Assam Society of Bangalore, an organization that helps people from the state in the city. He says that he faced fund crunches early on in dealing with crisis situations but now the society tries to raise their own funds through various cultural programmes within the community. Its only in critical situations that we approach the government. I think government of each state should have a setup in cities such as Bengaluru that caters to particular problems of its people, he says. The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNer) can also play a bigger role in such issues he adds.
S Lalitha By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: In the aftermath of the blast that took place on the Ujjain-Bhopal train last week and the first such involvement of terror outfit ISIS coming to light, the Union Home Ministry has issued a circular calling for strict vigilance at all railway stations in the country.



The blast triggered by a low intensity IED device that took place on the morning of March 8 near Jabdi station in Madhya Pradesh left 10 injured. The Railway Protection Force and the Government Railway Police in the State have been on their toes since then.



Speaking to Express, Senior Security Commissioner, RPF, M Suresh said cops in civilian clothes have been deployed across railway stations.We are being extra vigilant at certain points along railway tracks where there were attempts to derail trains in the recent past using stones or cement slabs. Additional RPF escorts have been posted in more number of trains in the Bengaluru Division.



There is no specific warning, but a general alert notice was issued last week. The focus is more on City, Yeswanthpur and Cantonment railway stations.



Superintendent, GRP Karnataka, Anoop A Shetty, said that the GRP began intensifying vigil as soon as the MP train blast case was reported.



Anti-sabotage squads were in operation at major stations across Karnataka. We are co-ordinating with RPF and local police to ensure there is tight security everywhere, he added. No specific incident has been reported so far and this state of high alert across stations will continue for some time, Shetty said.

BENGALURU: In the aftermath of the blast that took place on the Ujjain-Bhopal train last week and the first such involvement of terror outfit ISIS coming to light, the Union Home Ministry has issued a circular calling for strict vigilance at all railway stations in the country. The blast triggered by a low intensity IED device that took place on the morning of March 8 near Jabdi station in Madhya Pradesh left 10 injured. The Railway Protection Force and the Government Railway Police in the State have been on their toes since then. Speaking to Express, Senior Security Commissioner, RPF, M Suresh said cops in civilian clothes have been deployed across railway stations.We are being extra vigilant at certain points along railway tracks where there were attempts to derail trains in the recent past using stones or cement slabs. Additional RPF escorts have been posted in more number of trains in the Bengaluru Division. There is no specific warning, but a general alert notice was issued last week. The focus is more on City, Yeswanthpur and Cantonment railway stations. Superintendent, GRP Karnataka, Anoop A Shetty, said that the GRP began intensifying vigil as soon as the MP train blast case was reported. Anti-sabotage squads were in operation at major stations across Karnataka. We are co-ordinating with RPF and local police to ensure there is tight security everywhere, he added. No specific incident has been reported so far and this state of high alert across stations will continue for some time, Shetty said.
The now-suspended police chief in the district of Yongsan has been booked for an investigation, along with the head of the Yongsan Ward office and two others, on charges of profess...
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Delhi state election commission has turned down demands of use of ballot papers in MCD elections while announcing dates of MCD elections.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday had doubted reliability of electronic voting machines as he sought use of ballot papers in next month's municipal polls in the national capital.

Also, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken and Aam Aadmi Party Delhi chief Dilip Pandey had asked CM Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through ballot papers. Election commission said that election will be held on 22nd April through EVM machines.

Earlier, Maken had asked Kejriwal to shun EVMs in the corporation polls. "Many are doubting EVMs-Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results; I want @ArvindKejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot Papers," he had tweeted. AAP's Jarnail Singh, who lost to former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal from Lambi, also demanded use of ballots in the elections ahead.

"Although we accept defeat, we have serious doubts over the results in Punjab. There are several villages in the Lambi constituency where we have received less votes than the number of volunteers we have there. "For the first time, voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was used in Punjab. When we asked the Returning Officer to tally the number of votes to the VVPATs, he declined to do so," Singh said.

NEW DELHI: Delhi state election commission has turned down demands of use of ballot papers in MCD elections while announcing dates of MCD elections. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday had doubted reliability of electronic voting machines as he sought use of ballot papers in next month's municipal polls in the national capital. Also, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken and Aam Aadmi Party Delhi chief Dilip Pandey had asked CM Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through ballot papers. Election commission said that election will be held on 22nd April through EVM machines. Earlier, Maken had asked Kejriwal to shun EVMs in the corporation polls. "Many are doubting EVMs-Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results; I want @ArvindKejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot Papers," he had tweeted. AAP's Jarnail Singh, who lost to former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal from Lambi, also demanded use of ballots in the elections ahead. "Although we accept defeat, we have serious doubts over the results in Punjab. There are several villages in the Lambi constituency where we have received less votes than the number of volunteers we have there. "For the first time, voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was used in Punjab. When we asked the Returning Officer to tally the number of votes to the VVPATs, he declined to do so," Singh said.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Delhi has become a playground for mobile thieves, with as many as seven people losing their phones every hour while travelling, government data showed.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, about 175 mobile phones were stolen every day in the national capital in January and February this year.

While answering a question on the number of electronic devices stolen in 2016 and 2017, the Minister of State for Home, Hansraj Ahir, said the Delhi Police have registered 10,497 cases of mobile phone thefts till February 28 this year. Last year, 36,217 cases of mobile phone thefts were reported, he said. The police also registered 638 cases of laptop thefts till this February, while last year, the number stood at 3,060, the Minister added.

According to senior officers, iPhones are the main target of the crooks as they can easily sell it off. Miscreants are now-a-days using various websites to sell stolen phones. It has been found in various cases that the accused sold stolen phones through a website to unknown persons The buyer was also not aware that phone was stolen from Delhi, a senior police official said.

NEW DELHI: Delhi has become a playground for mobile thieves, with as many as seven people losing their phones every hour while travelling, government data showed. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, about 175 mobile phones were stolen every day in the national capital in January and February this year. While answering a question on the number of electronic devices stolen in 2016 and 2017, the Minister of State for Home, Hansraj Ahir, said the Delhi Police have registered 10,497 cases of mobile phone thefts till February 28 this year. Last year, 36,217 cases of mobile phone thefts were reported, he said. The police also registered 638 cases of laptop thefts till this February, while last year, the number stood at 3,060, the Minister added. According to senior officers, iPhones are the main target of the crooks as they can easily sell it off. Miscreants are now-a-days using various websites to sell stolen phones. It has been found in various cases that the accused sold stolen phones through a website to unknown persons The buyer was also not aware that phone was stolen from Delhi, a senior police official said.
Nilesh Vijaykumar By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Sewer lineman Devarajus day starts when he sets out with a list of complaints to attend to. These are blocked-sewer complaints from across Hyderabad. He starts from the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) office in Sitaphalmandi at 9 am. He climbs down manholes, clears the clogged filth with his bare hands and goes on to the next. He does six or seven a day.

It has been close to two decades since he started out in this vocation if it can be called that. He is today what is called an outsourced employee engaged by the Water Board, which effectively means he is not on its rolls but does its shitty business. He makes Rs 6,700 per month.

Devaraju is among more than 1000 sewer linemen who unclog Hyderabads sewer lines every day. Speaking to sewer linemen working on outsourced basis with HMWS and SB revealed some shocking facts, including that none of them get a single day holiday. They work all days of the year. If they take leave when sick, their salary is cut.

Getting into the manhole

The number of times Devaraju needs to get inside a manhole has decreased over the years, not because the HMWSSB has become sensitized to the issue but mainly due to the fear of the backlash it has to face when a worker dies in a manhole. But the practice persists, and the conditions of their work have not changed. The sewers contain high amounts of methane which can kill a human in minutes.

Devaraju says, When we open the manhole cover we see the gas bubbling up as a white floating mass. We wait for it to escape, sometimes even for an hour. We sometimes get water from the residences nearby and pour a few buckets into the manhole so that the gas escapes. Once we are sure that there is no more gas, we enter the manhole.

Another sewer line worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says, When I started off in this job, there were a few times when I opened a manhole and the gas just knocked me off my feet. I once felt so nauseated that I staggered and almost fell into the manhole. It was quite a scary experience.

Most sewer linemen use no safety gear, not even a mask or gloves. They just enter the manholes and clear the waste clogging the sewer lines, which can range from used sanitary pads, diapers, used condoms, plastic waste and human waste.

No sewer line worker has heard of any medical check-ups by the government. There have been no surveys to find out the health impacts on sewer line workers due to prolonged exposure to disease-causing environment.

Limited use of machines

The air-tech machines that help in clearing blocked sewer lines have helped in reducing the number of times a sewer lineman has to get down a manhole.

Devaraju says, Only when the manholes are very deep and the machine proves useless are we forced to enter the manhole.

However, there are only 58 machines for all of Hyderabads four lakh manholes. An HMWSSB official said they are expecting new machines to be inducted this month.

The machines are not of much use in small lanes or when the amount of waste to be cleared is huge. The sewer lineman is the only fallback then.

HYDERABAD: Sewer lineman Devarajus day starts when he sets out with a list of complaints to attend to. These are blocked-sewer complaints from across Hyderabad. He starts from the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) office in Sitaphalmandi at 9 am. He climbs down manholes, clears the clogged filth with his bare hands and goes on to the next. He does six or seven a day. It has been close to two decades since he started out in this vocation if it can be called that. He is today what is called an outsourced employee engaged by the Water Board, which effectively means he is not on its rolls but does its shitty business. He makes Rs 6,700 per month. Devaraju is among more than 1000 sewer linemen who unclog Hyderabads sewer lines every day. Speaking to sewer linemen working on outsourced basis with HMWS and SB revealed some shocking facts, including that none of them get a single day holiday. They work all days of the year. If they take leave when sick, their salary is cut. Getting into the manhole The number of times Devaraju needs to get inside a manhole has decreased over the years, not because the HMWSSB has become sensitized to the issue but mainly due to the fear of the backlash it has to face when a worker dies in a manhole. But the practice persists, and the conditions of their work have not changed. The sewers contain high amounts of methane which can kill a human in minutes. Devaraju says, When we open the manhole cover we see the gas bubbling up as a white floating mass. We wait for it to escape, sometimes even for an hour. We sometimes get water from the residences nearby and pour a few buckets into the manhole so that the gas escapes. Once we are sure that there is no more gas, we enter the manhole. Another sewer line worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says, When I started off in this job, there were a few times when I opened a manhole and the gas just knocked me off my feet. I once felt so nauseated that I staggered and almost fell into the manhole. It was quite a scary experience. Most sewer linemen use no safety gear, not even a mask or gloves. They just enter the manholes and clear the waste clogging the sewer lines, which can range from used sanitary pads, diapers, used condoms, plastic waste and human waste. No sewer line worker has heard of any medical check-ups by the government. There have been no surveys to find out the health impacts on sewer line workers due to prolonged exposure to disease-causing environment. Limited use of machines The air-tech machines that help in clearing blocked sewer lines have helped in reducing the number of times a sewer lineman has to get down a manhole. Devaraju says, Only when the manholes are very deep and the machine proves useless are we forced to enter the manhole. However, there are only 58 machines for all of Hyderabads four lakh manholes. An HMWSSB official said they are expecting new machines to be inducted this month. The machines are not of much use in small lanes or when the amount of waste to be cleared is huge. The sewer lineman is the only fallback then.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The International Conference on Tourism Technology (ICTT), being organised by the Association of Tourism Trade Organisation - India (ATTOI) in association with Kerala Tourism, will be held in the city from June 8 to 10. Experts from seven countries - Andre Chow from Singapore, Billy Taylor from New Zealand, Christopher Tock from Malaysia, Donna Moritz from Australia, Lauren Cleland from the US, Nicky Kriel from the UK and Pierre Marechal from Belgium - will be attending the conference.

Technology is all around us, and the travel and tourism sector is no exception. Using technology, such as social media platforms, tourism operators can engage with their customers and enable them to share their experiences. So, it is high time all stakeholders adapted to the changes in the sector, said ATTOI president Anish Kumar P K. ICTT-2017 aims to help tourism operators stay abreast with latest technology through the effective use of digital platforms. Technology will help them reach out to people across the world and make their presence noticed.

KOCHI: The International Conference on Tourism Technology (ICTT), being organised by the Association of Tourism Trade Organisation - India (ATTOI) in association with Kerala Tourism, will be held in the city from June 8 to 10. Experts from seven countries - Andre Chow from Singapore, Billy Taylor from New Zealand, Christopher Tock from Malaysia, Donna Moritz from Australia, Lauren Cleland from the US, Nicky Kriel from the UK and Pierre Marechal from Belgium - will be attending the conference. Technology is all around us, and the travel and tourism sector is no exception. Using technology, such as social media platforms, tourism operators can engage with their customers and enable them to share their experiences. So, it is high time all stakeholders adapted to the changes in the sector, said ATTOI president Anish Kumar P K. ICTT-2017 aims to help tourism operators stay abreast with latest technology through the effective use of digital platforms. Technology will help them reach out to people across the world and make their presence noticed.
By BNS

Rajkumar Hirani has wrapped up the Bhopal schedule of his upcoming film, Dutt, starring Ranbir Kapoor in lead.

The film maker shot for the jail sequences in an abandoned jail in Bhopal.

When asked about Sanjay Dutts reaction to the idea of making his biopic, Hirani said, After Sanjay Dutt told me his story we did a lot of research about him.

We even spoke to the police officers and his family members to know other side of the story. When the script got completed, we went to Sanju and narrated it to him. Trust me, I have worked with Sanjay Dutt thrice and never has he cried during a film narration. But after listening to this script, he broke down and told me Dhai ghante main tumne meri saari zindagi bata di.

Writer Abhijat Joshi believes that Ranbir Kapoors performance in the film will be remembered for 100 years.

Dutt Biopic is one of our greatest works till date. Each and every incident in Sanjay Dutts life deserves a different film. We have rolled everything into this one film and this is the greatest challenge of our lives rather this would be the greatest direction of Rajkumar Hiranis life.

But let me say this, despite our efforts, it makes no difference because after the film everybody is just going to talk about Ranbirs performance. He is performing in a way that wont be forgotten for 100 years, said Joshi.The film is eyeing the Christmas 2017 slot for its release.

Rajkumar Hirani has wrapped up the Bhopal schedule of his upcoming film, Dutt, starring Ranbir Kapoor in lead. The film maker shot for the jail sequences in an abandoned jail in Bhopal. When asked about Sanjay Dutts reaction to the idea of making his biopic, Hirani said, After Sanjay Dutt told me his story we did a lot of research about him. We even spoke to the police officers and his family members to know other side of the story. When the script got completed, we went to Sanju and narrated it to him. Trust me, I have worked with Sanjay Dutt thrice and never has he cried during a film narration. But after listening to this script, he broke down and told me Dhai ghante main tumne meri saari zindagi bata di. Writer Abhijat Joshi believes that Ranbir Kapoors performance in the film will be remembered for 100 years. Dutt Biopic is one of our greatest works till date. Each and every incident in Sanjay Dutts life deserves a different film. We have rolled everything into this one film and this is the greatest challenge of our lives rather this would be the greatest direction of Rajkumar Hiranis life. But let me say this, despite our efforts, it makes no difference because after the film everybody is just going to talk about Ranbirs performance. He is performing in a way that wont be forgotten for 100 years, said Joshi.The film is eyeing the Christmas 2017 slot for its release.
Meera Suresh By

Express News Service

In war-torn Tikrit, the survival of a few Malayali nurses is suddenly at stake. Editor-turned-director Mahesh Narayanans Take Off is as raw as it gets.

Based on an incident in 2014 when Malayali nurses were rescued from the Tikrit Teaching Hospital in Iraq, the movie is a fictionalised account of the struggle they faced to stay alive.

Despite the cinematic liberties he took in making Take Off, which hits the theatres next week, Mahesh talks about how he strived hard to bring their ordeal on screen, undiluted.

Intrigued by the trauma

I was intrigued by the subject ever since I read about it. The media had already given extensive coverage, but still I wanted to meet the nurses in person. At that time, I wasnt sure about making the movie. But, their struggle touched me.

The nurses hail from middle-class families and their aim was to survive. Luxury figured nowhere in their lives. Even while in Iraq, they didnt have any contact with the outside world. The saddest part is that even after reaching their homes safely, they havent managed to get employed. Then, I knew I needed to tell the world about their struggle.

Fictionalised account

Take off is based on real-life incidents, but I have taken some creative liberties. The story and the characters have been fictionalised. Fahad Faazils character was inspired by Ajay Kumar, who was Indias ambassador to Iraq at that time.

We have taken inputs from the decisions he made during that critical time. However, there were reports that not all the Indians who were stranded in Iraq could make it back safe. There were many speculations regarding this, but the Ministry of External Affairs was not transparent enough.

Cast

While Fahad Faazil plays the Indian Ambassador, Parvathy and Kunchacko Boban play nurses who are stranded in Iraq. They have given some intense performances and it is the audience who will rate it. I am sure that we have given our 100 per cent for the movie by retaining its realistic flavour and not adding the usual cinematic elements.

In war-torn Tikrit, the survival of a few Malayali nurses is suddenly at stake. Editor-turned-director Mahesh Narayanans Take Off is as raw as it gets. Based on an incident in 2014 when Malayali nurses were rescued from the Tikrit Teaching Hospital in Iraq, the movie is a fictionalised account of the struggle they faced to stay alive. Despite the cinematic liberties he took in making Take Off, which hits the theatres next week, Mahesh talks about how he strived hard to bring their ordeal on screen, undiluted. Intrigued by the trauma I was intrigued by the subject ever since I read about it. The media had already given extensive coverage, but still I wanted to meet the nurses in person. At that time, I wasnt sure about making the movie. But, their struggle touched me. The nurses hail from middle-class families and their aim was to survive. Luxury figured nowhere in their lives. Even while in Iraq, they didnt have any contact with the outside world. The saddest part is that even after reaching their homes safely, they havent managed to get employed. Then, I knew I needed to tell the world about their struggle. Fictionalised account Take off is based on real-life incidents, but I have taken some creative liberties. The story and the characters have been fictionalised. Fahad Faazils character was inspired by Ajay Kumar, who was Indias ambassador to Iraq at that time. We have taken inputs from the decisions he made during that critical time. However, there were reports that not all the Indians who were stranded in Iraq could make it back safe. There were many speculations regarding this, but the Ministry of External Affairs was not transparent enough. Cast While Fahad Faazil plays the Indian Ambassador, Parvathy and Kunchacko Boban play nurses who are stranded in Iraq. They have given some intense performances and it is the audience who will rate it. I am sure that we have given our 100 per cent for the movie by retaining its realistic flavour and not adding the usual cinematic elements.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Dismissing the accusation of Congress that BJP was 'stealing' mandate in Goa, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said it's "a bit too much" as the Governor could not have invited minority of 17 MLAs to form the government.

"The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," he said in a facebook post.

In view of the claim of 21 MLAs led by Manohar Parrikar, the Governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the government, he said, adding that "there are several precedents which support this decision of the Governor".

In the recently held assembly elections in Goa, BJP bagged 13 seats, while Congress got 17 seats in a house with a strength of 40. However, BJP staked claim to form the government on the basis of support from 8 other MLAs.

Governor Mridula Sinha had invited Parrikar to form the government after he produced letter of support of 21 MLAs.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court refused to stay the swearing in of Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa and ordered a floor test on March 16.

Accusing the Governor of acting in a partisan manner, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today told reporters: "In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP."

Jaitley responded by saying that the Goa Governor had only one claim of 21 MLAs out of 40 elected MLAs with Manohar Parrikar as their leader, while the 17 MLAs of Congress did not even make a claim nor elected their leader.

"How could the Congress ever be invited to form the Government?" Jaitley questioned. Jaitley said the debate between the largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by the former President KR Narayanan in his communique in March 1988 when he invited Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the government.

"The President had said when no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that won largest number of seats subject to the Prime Ministers so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the house within a stipulated time," Jaitley said.

"This procedure is not, however, all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The President's choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support," he pointed out.

Citing several precedents which support the Goa Governor's decision, Jaitley noted that BJP won 30 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand in 2005 but the JMM leader Shibu Soren with a support of 17 MLAs of his Party plus others was invited to form the government.

Similarly, Jaitley said, in J&K in 2002, the National Conference won 28 MLAs but the Governor invited the PDP and Congress Combination of 15 + 21 MLAs to form the government.

Also, In 2013 the BJP won 31 seats in Delhi, but the AAP with 28 MLAs with support of Congress was invited to form the Government, he said.

The minister pointed out that there are other precedents on the same lines available in 1952 (Madras), 1967 (Rajasthan) and 1982 (Haryana).

NEW DELHI: Dismissing the accusation of Congress that BJP was 'stealing' mandate in Goa, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said it's "a bit too much" as the Governor could not have invited minority of 17 MLAs to form the government. "The Congress Party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," he said in a facebook post. In view of the claim of 21 MLAs led by Manohar Parrikar, the Governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the government, he said, adding that "there are several precedents which support this decision of the Governor". In the recently held assembly elections in Goa, BJP bagged 13 seats, while Congress got 17 seats in a house with a strength of 40. However, BJP staked claim to form the government on the basis of support from 8 other MLAs. Governor Mridula Sinha had invited Parrikar to form the government after he produced letter of support of 21 MLAs. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court refused to stay the swearing in of Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa and ordered a floor test on March 16. Accusing the Governor of acting in a partisan manner, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today told reporters: "In the two states where we won, democracy has been undermined by them (BJP) using financial power, money. That is what is happening. The mandate of the people of Goa and Manipur has been stolen by the BJP." Jaitley responded by saying that the Goa Governor had only one claim of 21 MLAs out of 40 elected MLAs with Manohar Parrikar as their leader, while the 17 MLAs of Congress did not even make a claim nor elected their leader. "How could the Congress ever be invited to form the Government?" Jaitley questioned. Jaitley said the debate between the largest single party lacking majority versus a combination of parties constituting a majority was answered by the former President KR Narayanan in his communique in March 1988 when he invited Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the government. "The President had said when no party or pre-election alliance of parties is in a clear majority, the Head of State has in India or elsewhere, given the first opportunity to the leader of the party or combination of parties that won largest number of seats subject to the Prime Ministers so appointed obtaining majority support on the floor of the house within a stipulated time," Jaitley said. "This procedure is not, however, all time formula because situations can arise where MPs not belonging to the single largest party or combination can, as a collective entity, out-number the single largest claimant. The President's choice of Prime Minister is pivoted on the would be Prime Minister's claim of commanding majority support," he pointed out. Citing several precedents which support the Goa Governor's decision, Jaitley noted that BJP won 30 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand in 2005 but the JMM leader Shibu Soren with a support of 17 MLAs of his Party plus others was invited to form the government. Similarly, Jaitley said, in J&K in 2002, the National Conference won 28 MLAs but the Governor invited the PDP and Congress Combination of 15 + 21 MLAs to form the government. Also, In 2013 the BJP won 31 seats in Delhi, but the AAP with 28 MLAs with support of Congress was invited to form the Government, he said. The minister pointed out that there are other precedents on the same lines available in 1952 (Madras), 1967 (Rajasthan) and 1982 (Haryana).
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today promised continuity in policy as he assumed additional charge of the Defence Ministry after Manohar Parrikar's return to Goa as Chief Minister.

Jaitley, who held the additional charge of Defence Ministry from May to November 2014, was again entrusted with the responsibility as Parrikar stepped down on Sunday.

"Defence Ministry has a distinct responsibility regarding country's security and armed forces, procurement for security equipment for the country. Today, I have taken a reporting of the situation," he said.

He said he will take forward the work from where Parrikar had left.

"We have a continuous government and I will take it up from where Parrikar has left it," he told reporters here.

Parrikar's tenure as Defence Minister saw clearance of a raft of arms deals besides simplification of the acquisition process. He had also pushed for a number of stalled acquisition projects.

A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique had yesterday said that as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios.

It is not clear for how long Jaitley will keep the two key portfolios.

The deals finalised during Parrikar's tenure included purchase of 21 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers from American aviation giant Boeing and the US government.

Last year, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Parrikar had approved the much delayed purchase of 145 Ultra Light Howitzers worth about Rs 5,000 crore from the US and also bulk production of 18 Dhanush artillery guns, the first acquisition of such a weapon system by the army in three decades since the Bofors scandal.

In March last year, Parrikar had come out with a new defence procurement policy to ensure transparency in defence deals, fast-track the acquisition process and indigenisation of defence procurement.

In September last year, India had inked a Euro 7.87 billion (approx Rs 59,000 crore) deal with France for purchasing 36 Rafale fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons and equipped with latest missiles.

It was under Parrikar, known for taking a hard line on the issue of countering cross-border terrorism, that the army had launched the surgical strike in PoK in September last year.

On Sunday, the Goa BJP had passed a resolution requesting the central leadership to make Parrikar the Chief Minister. BJP's prospective allies had also made Parrikar's return a pre-condition for their support.

Parrikar, an IIT (Bombay) alumni, had said some time ago he had still not "settled" in the national capital as he can never be a "Delhi politician", indicating his fondness for Goa. Today, he was sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Goa for the fourth time.

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today promised continuity in policy as he assumed additional charge of the Defence Ministry after Manohar Parrikar's return to Goa as Chief Minister. Jaitley, who held the additional charge of Defence Ministry from May to November 2014, was again entrusted with the responsibility as Parrikar stepped down on Sunday. "Defence Ministry has a distinct responsibility regarding country's security and armed forces, procurement for security equipment for the country. Today, I have taken a reporting of the situation," he said. He said he will take forward the work from where Parrikar had left. "We have a continuous government and I will take it up from where Parrikar has left it," he told reporters here. Parrikar's tenure as Defence Minister saw clearance of a raft of arms deals besides simplification of the acquisition process. He had also pushed for a number of stalled acquisition projects. A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique had yesterday said that as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios. It is not clear for how long Jaitley will keep the two key portfolios. The deals finalised during Parrikar's tenure included purchase of 21 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers from American aviation giant Boeing and the US government. Last year, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Parrikar had approved the much delayed purchase of 145 Ultra Light Howitzers worth about Rs 5,000 crore from the US and also bulk production of 18 Dhanush artillery guns, the first acquisition of such a weapon system by the army in three decades since the Bofors scandal. In March last year, Parrikar had come out with a new defence procurement policy to ensure transparency in defence deals, fast-track the acquisition process and indigenisation of defence procurement. In September last year, India had inked a Euro 7.87 billion (approx Rs 59,000 crore) deal with France for purchasing 36 Rafale fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons and equipped with latest missiles. It was under Parrikar, known for taking a hard line on the issue of countering cross-border terrorism, that the army had launched the surgical strike in PoK in September last year. On Sunday, the Goa BJP had passed a resolution requesting the central leadership to make Parrikar the Chief Minister. BJP's prospective allies had also made Parrikar's return a pre-condition for their support. Parrikar, an IIT (Bombay) alumni, had said some time ago he had still not "settled" in the national capital as he can never be a "Delhi politician", indicating his fondness for Goa. Today, he was sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Goa for the fourth time.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: After a gap of 7 years, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina will be visiting India from April 7.

The much awaited visit has been announced officially after the visit had to be rescheduled many a times owing to the unavailability of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or failure of the government to reach any forward movement on Teesta Water Sharing agreement that the countries would have wished to seal during the high profile visit.

Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, will be visiting India on a State visit from April 07-10, 2017, on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement said.

Prime Minister Modi had extended the invite during his first visit to Bangladesh in June 2015. Bangladesh is important for the Neighbourhood First Policy of the Narendra Modi government. The proclivity of Sheikh Hasina dispensation towards India has been manifested in the cooperation on the counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing fronts. India would have want to mark the visit with the historic Teesta Water Sharing Treaty but it has not got nod of the West Bengal Chief Minister.

India is also expected to shore up its defence ties with the Eastern neighbour as China has earned the trust of Bangladesh by giving it its first submarine, apart from other defence deals worth $ 27 billion. To sum it up differently Chinese-built submarines will be operating in the Bay of Bengal, an area traditionally considered as area under Indian influence. India is going to woo Bangladesh, crucial for providing a gateway to its north-eastern states, by extending multi-million worth Line-of-Credit for purchase of military hardware.

NEW DELHI: After a gap of 7 years, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina will be visiting India from April 7. The much awaited visit has been announced officially after the visit had to be rescheduled many a times owing to the unavailability of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or failure of the government to reach any forward movement on Teesta Water Sharing agreement that the countries would have wished to seal during the high profile visit. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, will be visiting India on a State visit from April 07-10, 2017, on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement said. Prime Minister Modi had extended the invite during his first visit to Bangladesh in June 2015. Bangladesh is important for the Neighbourhood First Policy of the Narendra Modi government. The proclivity of Sheikh Hasina dispensation towards India has been manifested in the cooperation on the counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing fronts. India would have want to mark the visit with the historic Teesta Water Sharing Treaty but it has not got nod of the West Bengal Chief Minister. India is also expected to shore up its defence ties with the Eastern neighbour as China has earned the trust of Bangladesh by giving it its first submarine, apart from other defence deals worth $ 27 billion. To sum it up differently Chinese-built submarines will be operating in the Bay of Bengal, an area traditionally considered as area under Indian influence. India is going to woo Bangladesh, crucial for providing a gateway to its north-eastern states, by extending multi-million worth Line-of-Credit for purchase of military hardware.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: With several complaints of fraud like cash incentives on the name of central government popular Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) Scheme, the Ministry of Women & Child Development has referred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the matter.

According to the ministry, certain unauthorized elements are distributing illegal forms in the name of cash incentive under the scheme.

The scheme has no provision for any cash incentives for individuals. BBBP scheme focuses on challenging mindsets and deep rooted patriarchy in the societal system in order to value girl child, strict enforcement of PC & PNDT Act, advancing education of the girl child: focus is on issues of women empowerment on a life cycle continuum, said a ministry official.

The ministry has taken up the matter with the state authorities in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Bihar.

Keeping in view the public interest and gravity of the matter, it is informed to general public that the case has now been referred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for investigation into the matter, the officer added.

Repeated warnings have been publicized several times by this ministry and had advised that no personal details should be shared in this regard and no one should subscribe to such fraudulent schemes.

However, still some people are falling prey to such frauds and buying forms or disclosing personal details in name of such non-existent benefits being falsely offered in the name of BBBP scheme, the officer further said.

NEW DELHI: With several complaints of fraud like cash incentives on the name of central government popular Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) Scheme, the Ministry of Women & Child Development has referred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the matter. According to the ministry, certain unauthorized elements are distributing illegal forms in the name of cash incentive under the scheme. The scheme has no provision for any cash incentives for individuals. BBBP scheme focuses on challenging mindsets and deep rooted patriarchy in the societal system in order to value girl child, strict enforcement of PC & PNDT Act, advancing education of the girl child: focus is on issues of women empowerment on a life cycle continuum, said a ministry official. The ministry has taken up the matter with the state authorities in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Bihar. Keeping in view the public interest and gravity of the matter, it is informed to general public that the case has now been referred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for investigation into the matter, the officer added. Repeated warnings have been publicized several times by this ministry and had advised that no personal details should be shared in this regard and no one should subscribe to such fraudulent schemes. However, still some people are falling prey to such frauds and buying forms or disclosing personal details in name of such non-existent benefits being falsely offered in the name of BBBP scheme, the officer further said.
By Express News Service

New Delhi: The government on Tuesday introduced a Bill to amend inter-state water dispute law by proposing to constitute a permanent tribunal with power of the Supreme Court.

Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti introduced the Bill in the Lok Sabha. The Minister argued that in the light of disputes among states on sharing of water having become regular with stakeholders approaching the Supreme Court the Bill has been introduced, which will constitute a permanent body consisting of a chairman, who would be a retired Supreme Court Judge of age not exceeding 70 years, a vice-chairman and six members.

However, BJD leader Bhartuhari Mahtab opposed the introduction of the Bill, arguing that the Centre is attempting to intrude into the domain of the state. "The Bill being introduced was drafted in the times of the UPA government and it has been badly drafted. Water is a state subject and since the British times, the state governments have only legislated on water issues. There is no merit in the Bill and the government should withdraw it and first hold discussions with all the 29 states," stated Mahtab.

However, Bharti refuted the claims, saying that under Article 262 of Constitution, the Parliament has the power to legislate on water issues. She also referred to the inter-state water disputes between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to further argue for the necessity of the legislation. "In place of multiple tribunals, the Bill proposes a single permanent tribunal whose award will have the same power as of the Supreme Court. The Odisha government only recently called upon the Centre to constitute a tribunal, which negates the argument of Mahtab that the Centre should not legislate on inter-state water dispute. We have the will and the strength to execute what the UPA government failed to do," added Bharati.

The Lok Sabha later approved the introduction of the Bill.



New Delhi: The government on Tuesday introduced a Bill to amend inter-state water dispute law by proposing to constitute a permanent tribunal with power of the Supreme Court. Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti introduced the Bill in the Lok Sabha. The Minister argued that in the light of disputes among states on sharing of water having become regular with stakeholders approaching the Supreme Court the Bill has been introduced, which will constitute a permanent body consisting of a chairman, who would be a retired Supreme Court Judge of age not exceeding 70 years, a vice-chairman and six members. However, BJD leader Bhartuhari Mahtab opposed the introduction of the Bill, arguing that the Centre is attempting to intrude into the domain of the state. "The Bill being introduced was drafted in the times of the UPA government and it has been badly drafted. Water is a state subject and since the British times, the state governments have only legislated on water issues. There is no merit in the Bill and the government should withdraw it and first hold discussions with all the 29 states," stated Mahtab. However, Bharti refuted the claims, saying that under Article 262 of Constitution, the Parliament has the power to legislate on water issues. She also referred to the inter-state water disputes between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to further argue for the necessity of the legislation. "In place of multiple tribunals, the Bill proposes a single permanent tribunal whose award will have the same power as of the Supreme Court. The Odisha government only recently called upon the Centre to constitute a tribunal, which negates the argument of Mahtab that the Centre should not legislate on inter-state water dispute. We have the will and the strength to execute what the UPA government failed to do," added Bharati. The Lok Sabha later approved the introduction of the Bill.
Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

IMPHAL: The loud rhythmic beats of Manipurs traditional Thabal Chongba dance muffle a lot of miseries, among which is the harassment faced by the third gender. "Often drunk men ask us to serve them oral pleasure during Thabal Chongba," said Naina, one of the many transwomen attending the traditional five day dance held at night during Holi or Yaoshang festivities.



"They can't pass comments at women for fear of public backlash. So they choose us," she added.



Though the third gender is widely accepted and visible in public spaces of Manipur, their harassment goes untold during the dance programmes of the Yaoshang festivities.



"It is as if they question what we are doing in Thabal Chongba. We have rights to dance too at par with others," said Biju. Generally, members of the transgender community move together holding each other's hands during the dance performances. According to some estimates, there may be well over 40,000 transgenders in Imphal valley alone.



"Transgenders are an ugly reality of the Meitei society. Though they are accepted in public arenas and omnipresent in mass media, they often face rebuke because of what they are," said social activist Jackson Naorem.



Even harassers are very candid with their act. "An outsider can't differentiate between a woman and a transgender. We can make out easily. We just call them names and pass comments or mock them with peculiar tones for fun. It's really harmless you know. They don't retort back. I think they feel powerless..." says 24-year-old Daniel.



Police are also helpless until they receive any complaints. "Not many transgender members complain of harassment at Thabal Chongba. Nobody forces them to attend the dance festivities," a police official said.



Despite all odds, transgenders take part in Thabal Chongba dance programmes throughout the Imphal valley. "Why should someone's narrow mindedness stop me? I generally prefer to ignore the taunts and lewd offers," retorts Sunanda.

IMPHAL: The loud rhythmic beats of Manipurs traditional Thabal Chongba dance muffle a lot of miseries, among which is the harassment faced by the third gender. "Often drunk men ask us to serve them oral pleasure during Thabal Chongba," said Naina, one of the many transwomen attending the traditional five day dance held at night during Holi or Yaoshang festivities. "They can't pass comments at women for fear of public backlash. So they choose us," she added. Though the third gender is widely accepted and visible in public spaces of Manipur, their harassment goes untold during the dance programmes of the Yaoshang festivities. "It is as if they question what we are doing in Thabal Chongba. We have rights to dance too at par with others," said Biju. Generally, members of the transgender community move together holding each other's hands during the dance performances. According to some estimates, there may be well over 40,000 transgenders in Imphal valley alone. "Transgenders are an ugly reality of the Meitei society. Though they are accepted in public arenas and omnipresent in mass media, they often face rebuke because of what they are," said social activist Jackson Naorem. Even harassers are very candid with their act. "An outsider can't differentiate between a woman and a transgender. We can make out easily. We just call them names and pass comments or mock them with peculiar tones for fun. It's really harmless you know. They don't retort back. I think they feel powerless..." says 24-year-old Daniel. Police are also helpless until they receive any complaints. "Not many transgender members complain of harassment at Thabal Chongba. Nobody forces them to attend the dance festivities," a police official said. Despite all odds, transgenders take part in Thabal Chongba dance programmes throughout the Imphal valley. "Why should someone's narrow mindedness stop me? I generally prefer to ignore the taunts and lewd offers," retorts Sunanda.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of the historical Uttar Pradesh poll victory, the NDA government at the Centre on Tuesday sealed the fate of the heirs of the Raja of Mahmudabad who had owned several properties in Hazaratganj and various other parts of the state by finally getting the Parliamentary nod to The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016.

The retrospective effect clause of the bill had been contentious, besides the provision that no enemy properties could pass onto the heirs of those who had migrated to Pakistan or China.

The final Parliamentary nod came on a day when the fifth Ordinance was set to lapse on Tuesday. The Lok Sabha passed the Bill as amended by the Rajya Sabha after the report of the Select Committee of the House.

The bill seeks to replace the 49 years old law, which had vested the ownership over the enemy properties to the custodian appointed by the government. However, a lower court verdict in favour of the heirs of the Raja of Mahmudabad had opened demands to amend the law to ensure that the assets claimed to be over Rs 1 lakh crore across the country dont pass onto the sons and daughters of those who had migrated.

But now heirs of such people cannot claim ownership nor any lower court can intervene in such matters, as the whole right would be vested with the custodians.

But the Hazratganj area in Lucknow, which is dotted with the properties of the Raja who went to Pakistan, is now full of tenants who eke out their livelihoods. The Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh, while replying to the discussion on the Bill, stated that the tenants would not be affected by the changes. But, he added, the tenancy laws of the states would apply on tenants occupying the enemy properties.

Incidentally, the enemy property is defined as any property, which belongs to or is being held and managed on behalf of an enemy, an enemy subject or a firm. The custodian is an office created by the Central government to manage such properties.

However, a few of the MPs claimed that the Bill is against the natural justice, which was countered by the minister, who stated that Pakistan had already seized the properties of people who migrated to India after the partition and the 1965 Indo-Pak war.

While stating that the enemy properties are worth thousands of crores, Singh said that the process of identification of such assets would continue as part of the ongoing exercise.

NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of the historical Uttar Pradesh poll victory, the NDA government at the Centre on Tuesday sealed the fate of the heirs of the Raja of Mahmudabad who had owned several properties in Hazaratganj and various other parts of the state by finally getting the Parliamentary nod to The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016. The retrospective effect clause of the bill had been contentious, besides the provision that no enemy properties could pass onto the heirs of those who had migrated to Pakistan or China. The final Parliamentary nod came on a day when the fifth Ordinance was set to lapse on Tuesday. The Lok Sabha passed the Bill as amended by the Rajya Sabha after the report of the Select Committee of the House. The bill seeks to replace the 49 years old law, which had vested the ownership over the enemy properties to the custodian appointed by the government. However, a lower court verdict in favour of the heirs of the Raja of Mahmudabad had opened demands to amend the law to ensure that the assets claimed to be over Rs 1 lakh crore across the country dont pass onto the sons and daughters of those who had migrated. But now heirs of such people cannot claim ownership nor any lower court can intervene in such matters, as the whole right would be vested with the custodians. But the Hazratganj area in Lucknow, which is dotted with the properties of the Raja who went to Pakistan, is now full of tenants who eke out their livelihoods. The Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh, while replying to the discussion on the Bill, stated that the tenants would not be affected by the changes. But, he added, the tenancy laws of the states would apply on tenants occupying the enemy properties. Incidentally, the enemy property is defined as any property, which belongs to or is being held and managed on behalf of an enemy, an enemy subject or a firm. The custodian is an office created by the Central government to manage such properties. However, a few of the MPs claimed that the Bill is against the natural justice, which was countered by the minister, who stated that Pakistan had already seized the properties of people who migrated to India after the partition and the 1965 Indo-Pak war. While stating that the enemy properties are worth thousands of crores, Singh said that the process of identification of such assets would continue as part of the ongoing exercise.
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: Nikhil Priyadarshi, a high-profile automobile dealer accused of allegedly sexually abusing the minor daughter of a former Congress minister in Bihar, was on Tuesday arrested in Uttarakhand along with his father, Krishna Bihari, a retired IAS officer.

Priyadarshi, who had been evading arrest for the past two months, was nabbed in Lakshmanpur in Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Patna Police. The duo was arrested during a routine checkup of vehicles en route to a pilgrim town in the hill state and the Audi car they were travelling in was seized, said Uttarakhand ADGP (law and order) Ram Singh Meena.

A team of Patna police has been dispatched to bring the duo to Patna. They will be interrogated in connection with the FIR lodged against them by the victim, said Manu Maharaaj, the senior superintendent of police of Patna.

Sources said Priyadarshis arrest was possible with the information gleaned from his elder brother Manish Priyadarshi, who was arrested along with three of his friends on Saturday. Patna police officials working on the case had been tracking the mobile phone locations and social media activities of Nikhil Priyadarshi, who is the main accused in the case.

The victim had lodged an FIR against Nikhil, his father Krishna Bihari and his brother Manish Priyadarshi on December 22, 2016 at the SC-ST police station in Patna alleging that she was sexually exploited. She had also later named a senior State Congress leader, Brajesh Pandey, of molesting her at Nikhil Priyadarshis residence and running a sex racket with him. Pandey resigned as vice-president of State Congress after the allegations surfaced, but is still evading arrest.

Nikhil Priyadarsh had recently claimed in a post on social media that he was innocent, but went underground after a local court rejected his anticipatory bail application.

PATNA: Nikhil Priyadarshi, a high-profile automobile dealer accused of allegedly sexually abusing the minor daughter of a former Congress minister in Bihar, was on Tuesday arrested in Uttarakhand along with his father, Krishna Bihari, a retired IAS officer. Priyadarshi, who had been evading arrest for the past two months, was nabbed in Lakshmanpur in Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Patna Police. The duo was arrested during a routine checkup of vehicles en route to a pilgrim town in the hill state and the Audi car they were travelling in was seized, said Uttarakhand ADGP (law and order) Ram Singh Meena. A team of Patna police has been dispatched to bring the duo to Patna. They will be interrogated in connection with the FIR lodged against them by the victim, said Manu Maharaaj, the senior superintendent of police of Patna. Sources said Priyadarshis arrest was possible with the information gleaned from his elder brother Manish Priyadarshi, who was arrested along with three of his friends on Saturday. Patna police officials working on the case had been tracking the mobile phone locations and social media activities of Nikhil Priyadarshi, who is the main accused in the case. The victim had lodged an FIR against Nikhil, his father Krishna Bihari and his brother Manish Priyadarshi on December 22, 2016 at the SC-ST police station in Patna alleging that she was sexually exploited. She had also later named a senior State Congress leader, Brajesh Pandey, of molesting her at Nikhil Priyadarshis residence and running a sex racket with him. Pandey resigned as vice-president of State Congress after the allegations surfaced, but is still evading arrest. Nikhil Priyadarsh had recently claimed in a post on social media that he was innocent, but went underground after a local court rejected his anticipatory bail application.
By PTI

MYSURU: Karnataka BJP President B S Yeddyurappa today said former Congress leader S M Krishna will join the BJP on March 15.

"Krishna will join BJP fold on March 15 in New Delhi,"

Yeddyurappa told reporters here after addressing a rally in the run up to the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls.

Yeddyurappa also mentioned about Krishna's induction in the BJP in his speech during the rally.

He said Krishna would be inducted into the party in the presence of BJP National President Amit Shah and other central leaders.

Krishna, on the other hand, has neither commented nor denied reports of Yeddyurappa claiming that he would be joining the saffron party.

The 84-year-old Krishna had announced his resignation from the Congress on January 29, saying the party was in a "state of confusion" on whether it needs mass leaders or not.

Krishna, who was Karnataka chief minister from 1999 to 2004, had returned to state politics after stepping down as the minister for external affairs in 2012. He had also served as Governor of Maharashtra.

The bypolls are scheduled to be be held on April 9. The Nanjangud seat fell vacant after the resignation of veteran Congress leader V Srinivas Prasad in December 2016 as he was disgruntled with the Congress after he was dropped from Siddaramaiah's cabinet. Prasad later joined the BJP.

The Gundlupet seat fell vacant after the death of MLA H C Mahadeva Prasad on January 3, who was Cooperation and Sugar Minister.

Yeddyurappa said he would be in New Delhi tomorrow to attend an internal party meeting.

MYSURU: Karnataka BJP President B S Yeddyurappa today said former Congress leader S M Krishna will join the BJP on March 15. "Krishna will join BJP fold on March 15 in New Delhi," Yeddyurappa told reporters here after addressing a rally in the run up to the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls. Yeddyurappa also mentioned about Krishna's induction in the BJP in his speech during the rally. He said Krishna would be inducted into the party in the presence of BJP National President Amit Shah and other central leaders. Krishna, on the other hand, has neither commented nor denied reports of Yeddyurappa claiming that he would be joining the saffron party. The 84-year-old Krishna had announced his resignation from the Congress on January 29, saying the party was in a "state of confusion" on whether it needs mass leaders or not. Krishna, who was Karnataka chief minister from 1999 to 2004, had returned to state politics after stepping down as the minister for external affairs in 2012. He had also served as Governor of Maharashtra. The bypolls are scheduled to be be held on April 9. The Nanjangud seat fell vacant after the resignation of veteran Congress leader V Srinivas Prasad in December 2016 as he was disgruntled with the Congress after he was dropped from Siddaramaiah's cabinet. Prasad later joined the BJP. The Gundlupet seat fell vacant after the death of MLA H C Mahadeva Prasad on January 3, who was Cooperation and Sugar Minister. Yeddyurappa said he would be in New Delhi tomorrow to attend an internal party meeting.
By PTI

LUCKNOW: Three more accomplices of absconding rape-accused minister Gayatri Prajapati were today arrested by the UP Police in connection with the case against the SP leader.



With this, six persons named in the FIR against the 49-year-old SP leader have been picked up.



"Today's arrests were made from Hazratganj area in central Lucknow," IG (Lucknow) A Satish Ganesh told PTI.



Earlier Prajapati's two aides were arrested from Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway on March 7.



The minister's security guard Chandrapal was arrested on March 6 near Lucknow Police lines.



Prajapati was booked on a Supreme Court directive and an FIR was lodged on February 17 against the minister and six others for allegedly gang-raping a woman and alleged attempt to rape her minor daughter.



The apex court had asked the UP Police to submit an action taken report regarding the incidents in eight weeks.



UP Police plans to attached two properties of the minister in Lucknow and one in Amethi, his assembly constituency, to force him to surrender, SSP Lucknow Manzil Saini told PTI.



A Look Out notice has already been issued against him as also a Non-Bailable Warrant. His passport too has been impounded.



Earlier, airports across the country were alerted about the possibility of Prajapati trying to flee the country.



In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost from Amethi, the seat he held, to BJP.

LUCKNOW: Three more accomplices of absconding rape-accused minister Gayatri Prajapati were today arrested by the UP Police in connection with the case against the SP leader. With this, six persons named in the FIR against the 49-year-old SP leader have been picked up. "Today's arrests were made from Hazratganj area in central Lucknow," IG (Lucknow) A Satish Ganesh told PTI. Earlier Prajapati's two aides were arrested from Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway on March 7. The minister's security guard Chandrapal was arrested on March 6 near Lucknow Police lines. Prajapati was booked on a Supreme Court directive and an FIR was lodged on February 17 against the minister and six others for allegedly gang-raping a woman and alleged attempt to rape her minor daughter. The apex court had asked the UP Police to submit an action taken report regarding the incidents in eight weeks. UP Police plans to attached two properties of the minister in Lucknow and one in Amethi, his assembly constituency, to force him to surrender, SSP Lucknow Manzil Saini told PTI. A Look Out notice has already been issued against him as also a Non-Bailable Warrant. His passport too has been impounded. Earlier, airports across the country were alerted about the possibility of Prajapati trying to flee the country. In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost from Amethi, the seat he held, to BJP.
By PTI

SRINAGAR: The BJP  alliance partner in the PDP-led government in Jammu and Kashmir  today ruled out a pre-poll alliance with its coalition partner for elections to two Lok Sabha constituencies in the Valley, saying the party would contest the polls independently.

"Asking the workers to gear up for scheduled by-elections for two Lok Sabha seats of Anantnag and Srinagar, BJP State General Secretary (Organisation), Ashok Kaul, today made it clear to the workers that the party will field its candidates to fight on the two seats," a statement from the party said here.

Addressing a workers convention at Dooru in south Kashmir's Anantnag district, Kaul said "there will be no pre-poll alliance with PDP in these two seats". "The party has decided to contest the elections independently by fielding its party candidates. Keeping in view the upcoming by-election in these two important Lok Sabha seats, a high-level meeting was held and party leaders have geared up for discussing probable candidates to contest the by-elections on party ticket," he said.

The BJP leader said a high-level committee would very soon announce the candidates for the two seats. "There is no proposal to go for seat adjustment with the coalition party  PDP," he said. Kaul said the BJP has a "huge party cadre" in central Kashmir and in south Kashmir as well, "so we have decided to contest these elections independently as party, rather than entering into pre-poll alliance with PDP". He asked the party workers to have faith on party leadership in the state for the better functioning of the party.

While Srinagar constituency will go to polls on April 9, polling in Anantnag seat will be held on April 12. Anantnag Lok Sabha seat fell vacant in June last after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti won the Assembly bypolls, as required by law to continue as the Chief Minister. The Srinagar Lok Sabha seat was vacated by former PDP leader Tariq Hamid Karra who had resigned last year in September in protest against alleged "brutalities" on Kashmir protesters.

SRINAGAR: The BJP  alliance partner in the PDP-led government in Jammu and Kashmir  today ruled out a pre-poll alliance with its coalition partner for elections to two Lok Sabha constituencies in the Valley, saying the party would contest the polls independently. "Asking the workers to gear up for scheduled by-elections for two Lok Sabha seats of Anantnag and Srinagar, BJP State General Secretary (Organisation), Ashok Kaul, today made it clear to the workers that the party will field its candidates to fight on the two seats," a statement from the party said here. Addressing a workers convention at Dooru in south Kashmir's Anantnag district, Kaul said "there will be no pre-poll alliance with PDP in these two seats". "The party has decided to contest the elections independently by fielding its party candidates. Keeping in view the upcoming by-election in these two important Lok Sabha seats, a high-level meeting was held and party leaders have geared up for discussing probable candidates to contest the by-elections on party ticket," he said. The BJP leader said a high-level committee would very soon announce the candidates for the two seats. "There is no proposal to go for seat adjustment with the coalition party  PDP," he said. Kaul said the BJP has a "huge party cadre" in central Kashmir and in south Kashmir as well, "so we have decided to contest these elections independently as party, rather than entering into pre-poll alliance with PDP". He asked the party workers to have faith on party leadership in the state for the better functioning of the party. While Srinagar constituency will go to polls on April 9, polling in Anantnag seat will be held on April 12. Anantnag Lok Sabha seat fell vacant in June last after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti won the Assembly bypolls, as required by law to continue as the Chief Minister. The Srinagar Lok Sabha seat was vacated by former PDP leader Tariq Hamid Karra who had resigned last year in September in protest against alleged "brutalities" on Kashmir protesters.
Kiran Prakash By

Politicians behave like politicians. Thats a given. Most of them talk rubbish and act foolish most of the time, and come to their senses only when there is an opportunity to grab a few extra votes. But why would citizen groups, who position themselves as champions of public interests, behave like politicians?

Theres no surprise in the fact that those of the political breed didnt raise a finger when three migrant workers died while clearing a sewer in Bengaluru last week.The impoverished families of the workers from Andhra Pradesh wont vote in elections in Karnataka. Their grief has little value in a political context. Their miserable lives count for nothing. They can be ignored again and again.

But its baffling how the ever-active, and sometimes overactive, citizen groups in the city, which count prominent personalities among their members, remain unmoved by the loss of three lives in a manhole and the plight of their families, when its well known that engaging people to manually handle human waste is not only banned but also a crime. Forget candlelight vigil for those who died, there was not even a murmur of protest.

Citizen groups dont survive on votes won in elections. They thrive by taking up peoples causes. To give them credit, such groups in Bengaluru have run sustained and effective campaignsbe it protection of green cover or rejuvenation of lakes  and made a difference. In fact, its such a campaign that made it difficult for the state government to erect the ill-conceived steel flyover, which would have cost the city at least 800 trees, besides about `2,000 crore of public money.

However, continuing manhole deaths there were 10 in Karnataka last year and 11 the year beforehave not given birth to any public campaign to eradicate manual scavenging. Neither has there been a campaign to better the living and working conditions of poor labourers who, driven to desperation by poverty, arrive from across the country to earn a living. The bitter truth is that these influential groups have started mirroring politicians in the way they operate. They are selective about causes they take up, and conveniently ignore issues that hold no appeal, even if they matter to a large majority. The stamp of elitism is evident in their campaigns.

Why hasnt there been a citizen-driven movement to ensure fair distribution of available resources? There are pockets in Bengaluru that still dont get piped water. The collection of tin-roofed sheds where the three workers who died in the manhole accident lived does not have power, access to water and toilets. The workers, many of them live with their families, including small children, have little protection from the sun and the rain.

Or, for that matter, why isnt there a drive to end ill-treatment of sanitation workers? They clean the streets, clear garbage and work in hazardous conditions and in surroundings where others wont even dare to go. But are paid a pittance and treated like the dirt they handle every day. And its a shame.

Citizen groups can become more inclusive if they choose to and can make a difference to the lives of people from all sections. Continue to be choosy, they can very well rival politicians.

Six-year-old Manikantha and his two-year-old sister Divya accompanied their mother Yarramma when she arrived in Bengaluru on Wednesday, travelling all the way from her home in APs Srikakulam district, to collect the body of her husband Yarayya, one of the three sanitation workers who died in the manhole tragedy. Gannemma, wife of another victim, Thavitayya, brought along her two sons, aged six and four. Wife of Anjaneya Reddy, the supervisor who also died, did not come as she was not in a position to travel after giving birth to her second child about a month ago. The older child is just two.

Its their lives that were shattered in a Bengaluru sewer last week when the company tasked with cleaning sewerage line insisted on a hurried midnight job. They would have gladly traded the Rs 10 lakh each they received as compensation in return for the lives of the loved ones they lost. The three men didnt have to die in a pit of human waste. They deserved better.

Kiran Prakash, Deputy Resident Editor, Karnataka

kiranprakash@newindianexpress.com

Politicians behave like politicians. Thats a given. Most of them talk rubbish and act foolish most of the time, and come to their senses only when there is an opportunity to grab a few extra votes. But why would citizen groups, who position themselves as champions of public interests, behave like politicians? Theres no surprise in the fact that those of the political breed didnt raise a finger when three migrant workers died while clearing a sewer in Bengaluru last week.The impoverished families of the workers from Andhra Pradesh wont vote in elections in Karnataka. Their grief has little value in a political context. Their miserable lives count for nothing. They can be ignored again and again. But its baffling how the ever-active, and sometimes overactive, citizen groups in the city, which count prominent personalities among their members, remain unmoved by the loss of three lives in a manhole and the plight of their families, when its well known that engaging people to manually handle human waste is not only banned but also a crime. Forget candlelight vigil for those who died, there was not even a murmur of protest. Citizen groups dont survive on votes won in elections. They thrive by taking up peoples causes. To give them credit, such groups in Bengaluru have run sustained and effective campaignsbe it protection of green cover or rejuvenation of lakes  and made a difference. In fact, its such a campaign that made it difficult for the state government to erect the ill-conceived steel flyover, which would have cost the city at least 800 trees, besides about `2,000 crore of public money. However, continuing manhole deaths there were 10 in Karnataka last year and 11 the year beforehave not given birth to any public campaign to eradicate manual scavenging. Neither has there been a campaign to better the living and working conditions of poor labourers who, driven to desperation by poverty, arrive from across the country to earn a living. The bitter truth is that these influential groups have started mirroring politicians in the way they operate. They are selective about causes they take up, and conveniently ignore issues that hold no appeal, even if they matter to a large majority. The stamp of elitism is evident in their campaigns. Why hasnt there been a citizen-driven movement to ensure fair distribution of available resources? There are pockets in Bengaluru that still dont get piped water. The collection of tin-roofed sheds where the three workers who died in the manhole accident lived does not have power, access to water and toilets. The workers, many of them live with their families, including small children, have little protection from the sun and the rain. Or, for that matter, why isnt there a drive to end ill-treatment of sanitation workers? They clean the streets, clear garbage and work in hazardous conditions and in surroundings where others wont even dare to go. But are paid a pittance and treated like the dirt they handle every day. And its a shame. Citizen groups can become more inclusive if they choose to and can make a difference to the lives of people from all sections. Continue to be choosy, they can very well rival politicians. Six-year-old Manikantha and his two-year-old sister Divya accompanied their mother Yarramma when she arrived in Bengaluru on Wednesday, travelling all the way from her home in APs Srikakulam district, to collect the body of her husband Yarayya, one of the three sanitation workers who died in the manhole tragedy. Gannemma, wife of another victim, Thavitayya, brought along her two sons, aged six and four. Wife of Anjaneya Reddy, the supervisor who also died, did not come as she was not in a position to travel after giving birth to her second child about a month ago. The older child is just two. Its their lives that were shattered in a Bengaluru sewer last week when the company tasked with cleaning sewerage line insisted on a hurried midnight job. They would have gladly traded the Rs 10 lakh each they received as compensation in return for the lives of the loved ones they lost. The three men didnt have to die in a pit of human waste. They deserved better. Kiran Prakash, Deputy Resident Editor, Karnataka kiranprakash@newindianexpress.com
By Express News Service

VISAKHAPATNAM : Around 585 kg of ganja was seized by the Visakhapatnam Rural Police at Peddapeta Junction of Rolugunta mandal on Monday morning.



The cops arrested four of a seven-member gang, when they were shifting the contraband to other states from the Vizag Agency in a truck.



The accused have been identified as Radha Mohan Yadav (35) from Bihar, Avataar Singh (22), Jaspal Singh (42)- both from Punjab-and Pangi Balaram (26), a resident of GK Veedhi mandal.



Three more members of the gang are on the run, the police said.

According to police, the accused procured the ganja from the interior areas of agency and were trying to shift it to other states.



Acting on a tip-off, the police intercepted the truck laden with 270 packets of ganja stuffed in 18 bags.

The accused had hidden the ganja inside drums meant for carrying chemical loads to misguide police.

The cops also recovered cash of `35,500 and mobile phones among others.



The accused have been sent to remand and a case has been registered at the Rolugunta police station. Further investigation is on.

VISAKHAPATNAM : Around 585 kg of ganja was seized by the Visakhapatnam Rural Police at Peddapeta Junction of Rolugunta mandal on Monday morning. The cops arrested four of a seven-member gang, when they were shifting the contraband to other states from the Vizag Agency in a truck. The accused have been identified as Radha Mohan Yadav (35) from Bihar, Avataar Singh (22), Jaspal Singh (42)- both from Punjab-and Pangi Balaram (26), a resident of GK Veedhi mandal. Three more members of the gang are on the run, the police said. According to police, the accused procured the ganja from the interior areas of agency and were trying to shift it to other states. Acting on a tip-off, the police intercepted the truck laden with 270 packets of ganja stuffed in 18 bags. The accused had hidden the ganja inside drums meant for carrying chemical loads to misguide police. The cops also recovered cash of `35,500 and mobile phones among others. The accused have been sent to remand and a case has been registered at the Rolugunta police station. Further investigation is on.
By Express News Service

DAVANAGERE: A writer-activist, who authored a controversial Kannada novel, had his face smeared with black oil on Sunday and was threatened of dire consequences if he wrote against Hindu gods, allegedly by right wing activists, said police. District police arrested two people in this connection on Monday.



Yogesh Master, who authored controversial Kannada novel "Dundhi," was at a tea stall when eight to nine persons smeared his face with a kind of pungent smelling oil, and shouted Jai Shree Ram before fleeing. He was here to attend a book release organized by Gauri 'Lankesh Patrike,' a Kannada tabloid which is run by Journalist Gauri Lankesh, said Davanagere Superintendent of Police Bhimashankar Guled.



The participants and organisers, including Gauri Lankesh and CPI State general secretary Siddanagouda Patil, held a protest march to the police station and registered a complaint, said Guled.



The protesters alleged that the attackers were right wing activists and demanded a thorough investigation and stringent action against them, Guled said, adding that several police teams have been formed to probe the matter.



Yogesh Master was arrested in August 2013 after local Hindu outfits lodged a complaint against him for hurting Hindu sentiments by depicting Lord Ganesha in a poor light in 'Dhundi'.



The arrested were identified as Chetan and Shivaprasad, who are members of right-wing group Hindu Jagarana Vedike. Police are on the lookout for the other accused.

(with inputs from Agencies)

DAVANAGERE: A writer-activist, who authored a controversial Kannada novel, had his face smeared with black oil on Sunday and was threatened of dire consequences if he wrote against Hindu gods, allegedly by right wing activists, said police. District police arrested two people in this connection on Monday. Yogesh Master, who authored controversial Kannada novel "Dundhi," was at a tea stall when eight to nine persons smeared his face with a kind of pungent smelling oil, and shouted Jai Shree Ram before fleeing. He was here to attend a book release organized by Gauri 'Lankesh Patrike,' a Kannada tabloid which is run by Journalist Gauri Lankesh, said Davanagere Superintendent of Police Bhimashankar Guled. The participants and organisers, including Gauri Lankesh and CPI State general secretary Siddanagouda Patil, held a protest march to the police station and registered a complaint, said Guled. The protesters alleged that the attackers were right wing activists and demanded a thorough investigation and stringent action against them, Guled said, adding that several police teams have been formed to probe the matter. Yogesh Master was arrested in August 2013 after local Hindu outfits lodged a complaint against him for hurting Hindu sentiments by depicting Lord Ganesha in a poor light in 'Dhundi'. The arrested were identified as Chetan and Shivaprasad, who are members of right-wing group Hindu Jagarana Vedike. Police are on the lookout for the other accused. (with inputs from Agencies)
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: A week after three people suffocated to death inside a manhole here, the Byappanahalli police arrested three persons of Ramky Infrastructure Ltd, the contractor firm, on Monday.



The arrested are K Babu Reddy  AGM (Projects) and in charge of projects, Vemula Anjaneyulu- sub- contractor of Ramky Infrastructure Ltd and N T Reddy- Manager (Projects).



A senior police officer said the accused, absconding since the incident, were nabbed in Hyderabad. Preliminary investigation revealed that they were directly responsible for the deaths, police said.

On Friday, two people turned up before the Bengaluru police to surrender claiming to be Ramky supervisors. It is now learnt that Babu Reddy had offered them money to surrender.



However, after quizzing them, police found that they were not responsible for the deaths but gathered information from them. The accused will be taken into police custody for five days for further investigation and we are recording their statements. Some of the accused are still at large and efforts are on to nab them, the officer added.



Babu Reddy looked after the operations in Bengaluru while Anjaneyalu, the key accused, was carrying out the sub-contract on behalf of Ramky but was heading a different firm. N T Reddy was managing the project works that were being carried out by Ramky at ground level, police said.



The police officers said that the accused had pressurised the victims family members to take back the complaints on the promise of giving them attractive compensation. Anjaneya Reddy (34), Yarrayya(35) and Thatta Thavitayya Naidu(40) succumbed to death inside a manhole on Monday midnight in CV Raman Nagar. Anjaneya Reddy worked as supervisor in Ramky Infrastructure Ltd. Yarrayya and Thavitayya worked as labourers. All three of them hailed from Andhra Pradesh and were living in the city since many years.



The police have filed a case under 304 IPC and Sec8 of Prohibition of employment as manual scavengers and rehabilitation Act-2013. The police said that the accused in their statement blamed the deaths on the negligence of some officials of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board.

We are also probing this angle. Meanwhile, an internal inquiry has also been ordered on BWSSBs role, police said. Ajay Hillori, DCP (East), said, The accused have been handed over to judicial custody.

BENGALURU: A week after three people suffocated to death inside a manhole here, the Byappanahalli police arrested three persons of Ramky Infrastructure Ltd, the contractor firm, on Monday. The arrested are K Babu Reddy  AGM (Projects) and in charge of projects, Vemula Anjaneyulu- sub- contractor of Ramky Infrastructure Ltd and N T Reddy- Manager (Projects). A senior police officer said the accused, absconding since the incident, were nabbed in Hyderabad. Preliminary investigation revealed that they were directly responsible for the deaths, police said. On Friday, two people turned up before the Bengaluru police to surrender claiming to be Ramky supervisors. It is now learnt that Babu Reddy had offered them money to surrender. However, after quizzing them, police found that they were not responsible for the deaths but gathered information from them. The accused will be taken into police custody for five days for further investigation and we are recording their statements. Some of the accused are still at large and efforts are on to nab them, the officer added. Babu Reddy looked after the operations in Bengaluru while Anjaneyalu, the key accused, was carrying out the sub-contract on behalf of Ramky but was heading a different firm. N T Reddy was managing the project works that were being carried out by Ramky at ground level, police said. The police officers said that the accused had pressurised the victims family members to take back the complaints on the promise of giving them attractive compensation. Anjaneya Reddy (34), Yarrayya(35) and Thatta Thavitayya Naidu(40) succumbed to death inside a manhole on Monday midnight in CV Raman Nagar. Anjaneya Reddy worked as supervisor in Ramky Infrastructure Ltd. Yarrayya and Thavitayya worked as labourers. All three of them hailed from Andhra Pradesh and were living in the city since many years. The police have filed a case under 304 IPC and Sec8 of Prohibition of employment as manual scavengers and rehabilitation Act-2013. The police said that the accused in their statement blamed the deaths on the negligence of some officials of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. We are also probing this angle. Meanwhile, an internal inquiry has also been ordered on BWSSBs role, police said. Ajay Hillori, DCP (East), said, The accused have been handed over to judicial custody.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be a better option than welfare schemes rolled out by Union and state governments, said Arvind Subramanian, chief economic adviser to the Government of India. He was delivering the 15th Federal Bank KP Hormis Commemorative Lecture on the topic Surprises of the Indian Economy here on Monday.



UBI is a form of social security in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional allowance from the government.



The Union Government alone has 950 such programmes and the states also have launched their own welfare schemes. While evaluating these programmes we found UBI will be more effective. There are different schemes in the country with similar objectives.

These can be replaced. But the UBI will not replace the basic responsibilities of the government such as providing healthcare facilities and education. As the country moves towards digitisation it is easier to spot beneficiaries, he said.



The resources for Universal Basic Income (UBI) advocated by the Economic Survey can be mobilised from the buoyant tax collection under GST regime, said Subramanian. The proposal is to provide `5,000 to `6,000 per family per year which will be four to five per cent of GDP.



India can only afford this much. In principle it will be Universal Basic Income. But the target will be the poor and the deserving, excluding the obvious undeserving ones, he said.



While lauding Kerala for its unusual model based on international migration and remittance inflow, he said the states economy had been growing for the past two decades.



The social indicators here are good. The outflow from the state and inflow are almost similar. But in the changing scenario, the remittance flow may slow down. Hence it is pertinent that Kerala should find a slightly different model of development, he said.



Subramanian revealed that his department has recently collected satellite data of built-up area in Bengaluru and Jaipur. We have found the property tax collection was just five per cent of what it ought to be. Kerala has lot of buildings in the state. But I am sure the property tax collection in Kochi will be only one or two per cent of what the actual collection should be, he said.



According to Arvind Subramanian demographically there exist two India. States like Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are aging. But the hinterland India is really very young especially in states like UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand. So migration happens from this young India to the older India, he said.



Federal Bank Chairman K M Chandrasekharan, managing director and CEO Shyam Srinivasan spoke.

KOCHI: Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be a better option than welfare schemes rolled out by Union and state governments, said Arvind Subramanian, chief economic adviser to the Government of India. He was delivering the 15th Federal Bank KP Hormis Commemorative Lecture on the topic Surprises of the Indian Economy here on Monday. UBI is a form of social security in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional allowance from the government. The Union Government alone has 950 such programmes and the states also have launched their own welfare schemes. While evaluating these programmes we found UBI will be more effective. There are different schemes in the country with similar objectives. These can be replaced. But the UBI will not replace the basic responsibilities of the government such as providing healthcare facilities and education. As the country moves towards digitisation it is easier to spot beneficiaries, he said. The resources for Universal Basic Income (UBI) advocated by the Economic Survey can be mobilised from the buoyant tax collection under GST regime, said Subramanian. The proposal is to provide `5,000 to `6,000 per family per year which will be four to five per cent of GDP. India can only afford this much. In principle it will be Universal Basic Income. But the target will be the poor and the deserving, excluding the obvious undeserving ones, he said. While lauding Kerala for its unusual model based on international migration and remittance inflow, he said the states economy had been growing for the past two decades. The social indicators here are good. The outflow from the state and inflow are almost similar. But in the changing scenario, the remittance flow may slow down. Hence it is pertinent that Kerala should find a slightly different model of development, he said. Subramanian revealed that his department has recently collected satellite data of built-up area in Bengaluru and Jaipur. We have found the property tax collection was just five per cent of what it ought to be. Kerala has lot of buildings in the state. But I am sure the property tax collection in Kochi will be only one or two per cent of what the actual collection should be, he said. According to Arvind Subramanian demographically there exist two India. States like Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are aging. But the hinterland India is really very young especially in states like UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand. So migration happens from this young India to the older India, he said. Federal Bank Chairman K M Chandrasekharan, managing director and CEO Shyam Srinivasan spoke.
Express News Service

COLOMBO: Now that the week-long agitation over the death of young Rameswaram fisherman Britjo, allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan navy is over and the body has been buried, Tamil Nadus fishermen are wanting the Central Indian government to find a permanent solution to the problem of fishing in the Palk Strait and believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi can deliver the goods.

Talking to Express over the phone from Rameswaram on Monday, U.Arulanandam, President of the Association for the Release of Innocent Fishermen said that with Modi consolidating his power after the sweeping victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, he should be able to take bold decisions on the fishing issue both in terms of protecting the lives of fishermen from the Sri Lankan navy and in terms of finding an alternative to fishing in the Palk Strait.

Seeking redress from Sri Lanka for shooting to death 22 year old Britzo and injuring another, Arulanandam said that India should take action against Colombo under international law as ,according to him, it is clearly stated therein that erring fishermen can only be arrested and that killing is impermissible. He pointed out that even Pakistanis do not fire on Indian fishermen who stray into Pakistani waters .They are only imprisoned.

He further pointed out that in 2012 when Italian Marines killed two Kerala fisherman mistaking them for pirates, the government arrested the marines and filed a case against them. If a case can be filed in that case, what is preventing New Delhi from taking legal action against the concerned Sri Lankan naval personnel, he asked.

According to Arulanandam, 187 Indian fishermen have been killed and 82 are missing since 1985 when the Sri Lankan navy began the practice of opening fire on intruding Indian fishermen. But this ceased when New Delhi and Colombo entered into a pact by which violence was to be abjured. However, the practice of using firearms was resumed in November 2016, when two fishermen from Karaikal were injured. But New Delhi has neither verbally condemned these incidents nor taken any punitive action against Sri Lanka.

Arulanandam conceded that Indian fishermen do cross over the International Maritime Boundary Line to fish on the Sri Lankan side. But he justified it by saying that the Palk Strait is too narrow a stretch of water for boundary lines to be respected. The sea is narrow but the number of trawlers, estimated to be 2500, is high he said. But he believes that the resources of this small sea could be shared between the fishing communities of the two countries, that trawling could be regulated; and the use of certain types of nets could be banned.

However, sadly, none of this has been done despite several rounds of talks between the two governments and between the fishermens organizations. Arulanandam firmly believes that only the Indian and Sri Lankan governments can solve the problem. The fishermen and the Tamil Nadu government cannot.

He also said that the Indian government has not done enough to divert fishermen from the Palk Strait to the ocean beyond. The Tamil Nadu government had put forward to the Central government a INR 10,000 crore scheme to convert trawlers into multi-day deep sea vessels .But the Centre has been sitting over the proposal.

INR 10,000 crore is a flea bite for the Central government. But still, it has not been allocated. Even if they give each fishermans family, INR 1 crore, and ask them to abandon fishing and take to some other business, the fishermen will be happy to oblige, Arulanandam said.

He warned that if no action is taken to solve the problem and stem the practice of opening fire on erring fishermen, the younger generation of fishermen could take to violence themselves and the problem could snowball into something vastly more dangerous.

But I still have hopes that the matter will be solved with Modi at the helm. The discussions we had with Nirmala Seetharaman give us that confidence. We have to solve this problem while Modi is in power in Delhi, and good officers like Gagandeep Singh Bedi (Collector of Ramanathapuram) and Taranjit Singh Sandhu ( High Commissioner in Colombo) are in charge, Arulanandam said.

COLOMBO: Now that the week-long agitation over the death of young Rameswaram fisherman Britjo, allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan navy is over and the body has been buried, Tamil Nadus fishermen are wanting the Central Indian government to find a permanent solution to the problem of fishing in the Palk Strait and believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi can deliver the goods. Talking to Express over the phone from Rameswaram on Monday, U.Arulanandam, President of the Association for the Release of Innocent Fishermen said that with Modi consolidating his power after the sweeping victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, he should be able to take bold decisions on the fishing issue both in terms of protecting the lives of fishermen from the Sri Lankan navy and in terms of finding an alternative to fishing in the Palk Strait. Seeking redress from Sri Lanka for shooting to death 22 year old Britzo and injuring another, Arulanandam said that India should take action against Colombo under international law as ,according to him, it is clearly stated therein that erring fishermen can only be arrested and that killing is impermissible. He pointed out that even Pakistanis do not fire on Indian fishermen who stray into Pakistani waters .They are only imprisoned. He further pointed out that in 2012 when Italian Marines killed two Kerala fisherman mistaking them for pirates, the government arrested the marines and filed a case against them. If a case can be filed in that case, what is preventing New Delhi from taking legal action against the concerned Sri Lankan naval personnel, he asked. According to Arulanandam, 187 Indian fishermen have been killed and 82 are missing since 1985 when the Sri Lankan navy began the practice of opening fire on intruding Indian fishermen. But this ceased when New Delhi and Colombo entered into a pact by which violence was to be abjured. However, the practice of using firearms was resumed in November 2016, when two fishermen from Karaikal were injured. But New Delhi has neither verbally condemned these incidents nor taken any punitive action against Sri Lanka. Arulanandam conceded that Indian fishermen do cross over the International Maritime Boundary Line to fish on the Sri Lankan side. But he justified it by saying that the Palk Strait is too narrow a stretch of water for boundary lines to be respected. The sea is narrow but the number of trawlers, estimated to be 2500, is high he said. But he believes that the resources of this small sea could be shared between the fishing communities of the two countries, that trawling could be regulated; and the use of certain types of nets could be banned. However, sadly, none of this has been done despite several rounds of talks between the two governments and between the fishermens organizations. Arulanandam firmly believes that only the Indian and Sri Lankan governments can solve the problem. The fishermen and the Tamil Nadu government cannot. He also said that the Indian government has not done enough to divert fishermen from the Palk Strait to the ocean beyond. The Tamil Nadu government had put forward to the Central government a INR 10,000 crore scheme to convert trawlers into multi-day deep sea vessels .But the Centre has been sitting over the proposal. INR 10,000 crore is a flea bite for the Central government. But still, it has not been allocated. Even if they give each fishermans family, INR 1 crore, and ask them to abandon fishing and take to some other business, the fishermen will be happy to oblige, Arulanandam said. He warned that if no action is taken to solve the problem and stem the practice of opening fire on erring fishermen, the younger generation of fishermen could take to violence themselves and the problem could snowball into something vastly more dangerous. But I still have hopes that the matter will be solved with Modi at the helm. The discussions we had with Nirmala Seetharaman give us that confidence. We have to solve this problem while Modi is in power in Delhi, and good officers like Gagandeep Singh Bedi (Collector of Ramanathapuram) and Taranjit Singh Sandhu ( High Commissioner in Colombo) are in charge, Arulanandam said.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Nitin Kapoor, Bollywood producer and husband of Telugu actress Jayasudha, was found dead at his office on Tuesday. While there isn't any clarity yet on the reasons for his sudden death, there seems to be a shadow of doubt hanging over the incident, with reports suggesting that he may have committed suicide.

A cousin of veteran actor Jeetendra, Nitin Kapoor was married to Jayasudha for the past 30 years and has produced films featuring the actress. Nitin, who was aged 58, is survived by two sons -- Nihar and Shreyan.

The reasons for his alleged suicide are not yet known, with some sources suggesting that he had poisoned himself. Jayasudha has rushed to Mumbai, where police are investigating the death. More details are awaited.

Nitin Kapoor has produced two Telugu movies, Hands Up (2000) featuring Jayasudha and Kalikalam (2012), and a Hindi film Mera Pati Sirf Mera Hai (1990), starring Bollywood fame Rekha, Balaji Telefilms chairman Jeetendra and theatre artiste and Bollywood actor Anupam Kher.

HYDERABAD: Nitin Kapoor, Bollywood producer and husband of Telugu actress Jayasudha, was found dead at his office on Tuesday. While there isn't any clarity yet on the reasons for his sudden death, there seems to be a shadow of doubt hanging over the incident, with reports suggesting that he may have committed suicide. A cousin of veteran actor Jeetendra, Nitin Kapoor was married to Jayasudha for the past 30 years and has produced films featuring the actress. Nitin, who was aged 58, is survived by two sons -- Nihar and Shreyan. The reasons for his alleged suicide are not yet known, with some sources suggesting that he had poisoned himself. Jayasudha has rushed to Mumbai, where police are investigating the death. More details are awaited. Nitin Kapoor has produced two Telugu movies, Hands Up (2000) featuring Jayasudha and Kalikalam (2012), and a Hindi film Mera Pati Sirf Mera Hai (1990), starring Bollywood fame Rekha, Balaji Telefilms chairman Jeetendra and theatre artiste and Bollywood actor Anupam Kher.
By Associated Press

ADDIS ABABA: The death toll has risen to 72 after Saturday's collapse of a mountain of garbage in a landfill outside Ethiopia's capital, state broadcaster EBC reported on Tuesday. The government declared three days of national mourning, starting Wednesday.

Many victims were women and children as makeshift mud-and-stick homes inside the Koshe landfill were buried in debris. It was not clear how the collapse occurred. Residents have said the dumping of trash had resumed there in recent months after protests at a newer landfill site. Others have blamed the construction of a new waste-to-energy plant at Koshe.

Officials said they have already relocated about 300 people from the landfill on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, where hundreds of waste-pickers salvaged items to make a living and others found inexpensive housing.

The first funerals of victims began Monday. More than 50 people caught in the collapse have received medical treatment, said Solomon Bussa, the chief of clinical services at the Alert Hospital where the injured have been taken.

The landfill has been a dumping ground for the capital's garbage for more than 50 years. Smaller collapses have occurred at Koshe  or "dirty" in the local Amharic language  in the past two years but only two or three people were killed, residents said.

Officials said the landfill receives close to 300,000 tons of waste collected each year from the capital.

ADDIS ABABA: The death toll has risen to 72 after Saturday's collapse of a mountain of garbage in a landfill outside Ethiopia's capital, state broadcaster EBC reported on Tuesday. The government declared three days of national mourning, starting Wednesday. Many victims were women and children as makeshift mud-and-stick homes inside the Koshe landfill were buried in debris. It was not clear how the collapse occurred. Residents have said the dumping of trash had resumed there in recent months after protests at a newer landfill site. Others have blamed the construction of a new waste-to-energy plant at Koshe. Officials said they have already relocated about 300 people from the landfill on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, where hundreds of waste-pickers salvaged items to make a living and others found inexpensive housing. The first funerals of victims began Monday. More than 50 people caught in the collapse have received medical treatment, said Solomon Bussa, the chief of clinical services at the Alert Hospital where the injured have been taken. The landfill has been a dumping ground for the capital's garbage for more than 50 years. Smaller collapses have occurred at Koshe  or "dirty" in the local Amharic language  in the past two years but only two or three people were killed, residents said. Officials said the landfill receives close to 300,000 tons of waste collected each year from the capital.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Facing a Monday deadline, the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to provide evidence backing up President Donald Trump's unproven assertion that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election. The request came as the White House appeared to soften Trump's explosive allegation.

The House intelligence committee said it would give the Justice Department until March 20 to comply with the evidence request. That's the date of the committee's first open hearing on the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia.

A spokesman for the committee's Republican chairman said that if the Justice Department doesn't meet the new deadline, the panel might use its subpoena power to gather information.

"If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

Trump's assertions have put his administration in a bind. Current and former administration officials have been unable to provide any evidence of the Obama administration wiretapping Trump Tower, yet the president's aides have been reluctant to publicly contradict their boss.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer tried to clarify Trump's comments Monday, saying the president wasn't using the word wiretapping literally, noting that Trump had put the term in quotation marks.

"The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities," Spicer said. He also suggested Trump wasn't accusing former President Barack Obama specifically, but instead referring to the actions of the Obama administration.

Trump himself has not commented on the matter since his March 4 tweets, in which he said he had "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." He also wrote: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president?"

In two other tweets, Trump described Obama tapping his phones, but did not put the phrases in quotation marks.

The president's accusations against Obama came amid numerous political questions surrounding his associates' possible ties to Russia. The FBI is investigating Trump associates' contacts with Russia during the election, as are House and Senate intelligence committees.

The White House has asked those committees to also investigate Trump's unverified wiretapping allegations against Obama. The House committee has turned the matter back on the Trump administration, setting the Monday deadline for the Justice Department to provide evidence.

In a response Monday evening, the Justice Department said it needed extra time to "review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist."

Other congressional committees are also pushing the administration to clarify Trump's claims.

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and FBI Director James Comey to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Department's criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps. The senators, who head the Senate Judiciary Committee's crime and terrorism subcommittee, are seeking warrant applications and court orders, which they said can be scrubbed to protect secret intelligence sources and methods.

Trump's critics have slammed the president for making the wiretapping claim on his Twitter account without evidence. Wiretapping a U.S. citizen would require special permission from a court, and Trump as president would have the ability to declassify that information.

Sen. John McCain, an influential Republican, said Sunday: "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve."

"If his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain said.

Comey has privately urged the Justice Department to dispute Trump's claim but has not come forward to do so himself. James Clapper, who was Obama's director of national intelligence, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sidestepped questions about the lack of proof Monday, saying she was "not in the job of having evidence."

"That's what investigations are for," Conway told CNN's "New Day." "The president is pleased that the House and Senate intelligence committees have agreed that this should be part of the investigation that already exists about Russia and the campaign, an investigation that apparently has gone nowhere so far."

In a weekend interview with the Bergen Record, a newspaper in her home state of New Jersey, Conway appeared to point toward the recent WikiLeaks release of nearly 8,000 documents that purportedly reveal secrets about the CIA's tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and even smart TVs.

"What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately," including "microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera," Conway said. "So we know that that is just a fact of modern life."

WASHINGTON: Facing a Monday deadline, the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to provide evidence backing up President Donald Trump's unproven assertion that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election. The request came as the White House appeared to soften Trump's explosive allegation. The House intelligence committee said it would give the Justice Department until March 20 to comply with the evidence request. That's the date of the committee's first open hearing on the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia. A spokesman for the committee's Republican chairman said that if the Justice Department doesn't meet the new deadline, the panel might use its subpoena power to gather information. "If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered," said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Trump's assertions have put his administration in a bind. Current and former administration officials have been unable to provide any evidence of the Obama administration wiretapping Trump Tower, yet the president's aides have been reluctant to publicly contradict their boss. White House spokesman Sean Spicer tried to clarify Trump's comments Monday, saying the president wasn't using the word wiretapping literally, noting that Trump had put the term in quotation marks. "The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities," Spicer said. He also suggested Trump wasn't accusing former President Barack Obama specifically, but instead referring to the actions of the Obama administration. Trump himself has not commented on the matter since his March 4 tweets, in which he said he had "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." He also wrote: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president?" In two other tweets, Trump described Obama tapping his phones, but did not put the phrases in quotation marks. The president's accusations against Obama came amid numerous political questions surrounding his associates' possible ties to Russia. The FBI is investigating Trump associates' contacts with Russia during the election, as are House and Senate intelligence committees. The White House has asked those committees to also investigate Trump's unverified wiretapping allegations against Obama. The House committee has turned the matter back on the Trump administration, setting the Monday deadline for the Justice Department to provide evidence. In a response Monday evening, the Justice Department said it needed extra time to "review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist." Other congressional committees are also pushing the administration to clarify Trump's claims. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and FBI Director James Comey to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Department's criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps. The senators, who head the Senate Judiciary Committee's crime and terrorism subcommittee, are seeking warrant applications and court orders, which they said can be scrubbed to protect secret intelligence sources and methods. Trump's critics have slammed the president for making the wiretapping claim on his Twitter account without evidence. Wiretapping a U.S. citizen would require special permission from a court, and Trump as president would have the ability to declassify that information. Sen. John McCain, an influential Republican, said Sunday: "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve." "If his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain said. Comey has privately urged the Justice Department to dispute Trump's claim but has not come forward to do so himself. James Clapper, who was Obama's director of national intelligence, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sidestepped questions about the lack of proof Monday, saying she was "not in the job of having evidence." "That's what investigations are for," Conway told CNN's "New Day." "The president is pleased that the House and Senate intelligence committees have agreed that this should be part of the investigation that already exists about Russia and the campaign, an investigation that apparently has gone nowhere so far." In a weekend interview with the Bergen Record, a newspaper in her home state of New Jersey, Conway appeared to point toward the recent WikiLeaks release of nearly 8,000 documents that purportedly reveal secrets about the CIA's tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and even smart TVs. "What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately," including "microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera," Conway said. "So we know that that is just a fact of modern life."
By AFP

MABHOKO: Esther Mahlangu's colourful geometric artwork is exhibited in galleries around the world, but she remains in her South African village unfazed by fame and determined to preserve her ethnic Ndebele culture.

The 81-year-old painter and mural artist earned an international reputation with her Ndebele motifs at a time when the art scene in her home country was focused on contemporary styles.

Now Johannesburg is hosting a major exhibition for Mahlangu, an elderly black woman with no art training who rose to global acclaim using a skill passed down for generations.

With just a chicken feather, Mahlangu first painted mud huts and chipboards before moving on to luxury cars, vodka bottles, skateboards and footwear as her intricate patterns became huge commercial hits.

At home in a dusty village in South Africa's eastern province of Mpumalanga, the sprightly great-grandmother looks nothing like an artist who has exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the 5th Biennale in Lyon, France, and London's British Museum.

She goes about her daily chores, sweeping the courtyard in front of her hut and worrying about crying babies.

Unlike many locals, she still dresses in the distinctive Ndebele traditional attire, with heavy beaded necklaces and dozens of copper rings around her neck and legs.

"Working with famous people has not changed me," she told AFP.

"I am not intimidated by anything and not even once have I changed who I am to fit in with their culture."

The only change she has incorporated into her work is replacing natural pigments of cow dung and soil with acrylic paint.

Mahlangu's first big international break came in 1989 when she was 54.

Her ornately decorated house had caught the eye of French researchers who invited her to the Pompidou Centre.

In Paris, she painted a replica of her hut for an exhibition.

Mahlangu's heavily wrinkled face lights up in disbelief when showcasing what she had been doing since she was a child.

"I only used chicken feathers, no brushes," she told AFP taking a break from her chores.

"I am an ordinary Ndebele woman, doing what I was taught by my mother and grandmother," she chuckled.

She said she was amazed by the interest her work attracted, an experience that prompted her to teach the age-old Ndebele skill to youngsters in her village.

"My aim is to preserve the Ndebele culture. I don't want it to get lost with civilisation," she said.

German carmaker BMW has collaborated with Mahlangu on two occasions when she painted the body of their luxury sedans with her iconic Ndebele shapes.

Her first collaboration with the company in 1991 made her the first woman to be invited to take part in the Art Car project, following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

"Painting the car was exciting. I never felt under pressure," she said.

The car has been displayed in major exhibitions around the world, and in February ended a four-month show at the British Museum.

South Africa was not quick to recognise Mahlangu's talent, though she has had solo exhibitions in Cape Town.

In 2006 she was given a presidential award.

"I had to travel to Pretoria to accept it," she said. "It made me proud to be seen as doing something for the people."

In her cramped two-room thatched roof hut that doubles as a makeshift gallery stands a wooden cabinet displaying some of her many accolades.

"A lot of people have looked at Esther's work as being more on the craft side," said Craig Mark, director of The Melrose Gallery in Johannesburg.

"She hasn't been really recognised in the visual arts side in South Africa until very recently."

The gallery is showing a collection of Mahlangu's latest work, a series of paintings paying tribute to the late freedom icon Nelson Mandela.

The paintings were created by embellishing prints of drawings created by Mandela in 2001.

At the opening of the exhibition, the painter said she had no intention of slowing down despite her age.

"I may no longer have the same energy as I used to, but I can still do everything."

MABHOKO: Esther Mahlangu's colourful geometric artwork is exhibited in galleries around the world, but she remains in her South African village unfazed by fame and determined to preserve her ethnic Ndebele culture. The 81-year-old painter and mural artist earned an international reputation with her Ndebele motifs at a time when the art scene in her home country was focused on contemporary styles. Now Johannesburg is hosting a major exhibition for Mahlangu, an elderly black woman with no art training who rose to global acclaim using a skill passed down for generations. With just a chicken feather, Mahlangu first painted mud huts and chipboards before moving on to luxury cars, vodka bottles, skateboards and footwear as her intricate patterns became huge commercial hits. At home in a dusty village in South Africa's eastern province of Mpumalanga, the sprightly great-grandmother looks nothing like an artist who has exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the 5th Biennale in Lyon, France, and London's British Museum. She goes about her daily chores, sweeping the courtyard in front of her hut and worrying about crying babies. Unlike many locals, she still dresses in the distinctive Ndebele traditional attire, with heavy beaded necklaces and dozens of copper rings around her neck and legs. "Working with famous people has not changed me," she told AFP. "I am not intimidated by anything and not even once have I changed who I am to fit in with their culture." The only change she has incorporated into her work is replacing natural pigments of cow dung and soil with acrylic paint. Mahlangu's first big international break came in 1989 when she was 54. Her ornately decorated house had caught the eye of French researchers who invited her to the Pompidou Centre. In Paris, she painted a replica of her hut for an exhibition. Mahlangu's heavily wrinkled face lights up in disbelief when showcasing what she had been doing since she was a child. "I only used chicken feathers, no brushes," she told AFP taking a break from her chores. "I am an ordinary Ndebele woman, doing what I was taught by my mother and grandmother," she chuckled. She said she was amazed by the interest her work attracted, an experience that prompted her to teach the age-old Ndebele skill to youngsters in her village. "My aim is to preserve the Ndebele culture. I don't want it to get lost with civilisation," she said. German carmaker BMW has collaborated with Mahlangu on two occasions when she painted the body of their luxury sedans with her iconic Ndebele shapes. Her first collaboration with the company in 1991 made her the first woman to be invited to take part in the Art Car project, following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. "Painting the car was exciting. I never felt under pressure," she said. The car has been displayed in major exhibitions around the world, and in February ended a four-month show at the British Museum. South Africa was not quick to recognise Mahlangu's talent, though she has had solo exhibitions in Cape Town. In 2006 she was given a presidential award. "I had to travel to Pretoria to accept it," she said. "It made me proud to be seen as doing something for the people." In her cramped two-room thatched roof hut that doubles as a makeshift gallery stands a wooden cabinet displaying some of her many accolades. "A lot of people have looked at Esther's work as being more on the craft side," said Craig Mark, director of The Melrose Gallery in Johannesburg. "She hasn't been really recognised in the visual arts side in South Africa until very recently." The gallery is showing a collection of Mahlangu's latest work, a series of paintings paying tribute to the late freedom icon Nelson Mandela. The paintings were created by embellishing prints of drawings created by Mandela in 2001. At the opening of the exhibition, the painter said she had no intention of slowing down despite her age. "I may no longer have the same energy as I used to, but I can still do everything."
By AFP

GENEVA: The Syrian government intentionally bombed the Ain al-Fijeh spring in December, leaving more than five million people in Damascus without access to water, a UN probe said Tuesday.

"The information examined by the Commission confirms that the bombing of (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring was carried out by the Syrian Air Force," the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report, adding the attack constituted a "war crime".

The report meanwhile dismissed regime allegations that rebels had contaminated the water.

GENEVA: The Syrian government intentionally bombed the Ain al-Fijeh spring in December, leaving more than five million people in Damascus without access to water, a UN probe said Tuesday. "The information examined by the Commission confirms that the bombing of (the Ain al-Fijeh) spring was carried out by the Syrian Air Force," the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report, adding the attack constituted a "war crime". The report meanwhile dismissed regime allegations that rebels had contaminated the water.
By AFP

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May will make a major statement to parliament on Tuesday, just hours after MPs enabled her to start the withdrawal process from the European Union.

After weeks of wrangling, lawmakers on Monday finally granted May the right to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which would start the two-year divorce process with the bloc.

The bill still requires the formality of royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II to become law, which could come as early as Tuesday, allowing May to begin Brexit any time after.

The government is reportedly looking to do so after a March 25 summit in Rome to mark the EU's 60th birthday.

The victory of May's government in parliament on Monday, however, was marred by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon outlining plans to hold a second independence referendum -- an indication of the obstacles that lie ahead.

Warnings from Brussels that Britain will have to pay a hefty divorce bill and face tough conditions for leaving have added to the uncertainty, as have warning signs that Brexit is hitting the economy.

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, there are fears that leaving the EU could see a return to a hard customs border with Ireland, antagonising nationalists and threatening a hard-won peace in the region.

Uncertainty and division

May on Monday condemned the idea of another Scottish referendum, saying most Scots did not want it and warning it would create "uncertainty and division".

The British government has the power to block Sturgeon's request, but this would likely only energise the Scottish nationalists' cause.

In the first vote in 2014, Scots voted by 55 percent to reject separation. However, polls suggest any new referendum would be closer and Scotland's EU membership could be a key reason.

During the EU referendum, 62 percent of the Scottish electorate voted to remain, compared to only 48 percent for the whole of Britain.

A eurosceptic press in London has lashed out at Sturgeon's referendum plans, with the Daily Mail, Britain's second biggest-selling newspaper writing "Hands off our Brexit, Nicola!," while the Daily Telegraph described the SNP leader's move as "The new battle for Britain".

As negotiations loom, the prime minister could also face growing dissent within her own ranks.

"The unity of the Tory party is shakier than it seems," Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.

Decades-old splits in the Conservatives over Europe may resurface. While the eurosceptics are in charge now, most Conservatives wanted to stay in the EU.

May's majority in the Commons is only slim, which has led to calls from senior Tories for a snap election to bolster her support as Britain heads into the Brexit negotiations.

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May will make a major statement to parliament on Tuesday, just hours after MPs enabled her to start the withdrawal process from the European Union. After weeks of wrangling, lawmakers on Monday finally granted May the right to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which would start the two-year divorce process with the bloc. The bill still requires the formality of royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II to become law, which could come as early as Tuesday, allowing May to begin Brexit any time after. The government is reportedly looking to do so after a March 25 summit in Rome to mark the EU's 60th birthday. The victory of May's government in parliament on Monday, however, was marred by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon outlining plans to hold a second independence referendum -- an indication of the obstacles that lie ahead. Warnings from Brussels that Britain will have to pay a hefty divorce bill and face tough conditions for leaving have added to the uncertainty, as have warning signs that Brexit is hitting the economy. Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, there are fears that leaving the EU could see a return to a hard customs border with Ireland, antagonising nationalists and threatening a hard-won peace in the region. Uncertainty and division May on Monday condemned the idea of another Scottish referendum, saying most Scots did not want it and warning it would create "uncertainty and division". The British government has the power to block Sturgeon's request, but this would likely only energise the Scottish nationalists' cause. In the first vote in 2014, Scots voted by 55 percent to reject separation. However, polls suggest any new referendum would be closer and Scotland's EU membership could be a key reason. During the EU referendum, 62 percent of the Scottish electorate voted to remain, compared to only 48 percent for the whole of Britain. A eurosceptic press in London has lashed out at Sturgeon's referendum plans, with the Daily Mail, Britain's second biggest-selling newspaper writing "Hands off our Brexit, Nicola!," while the Daily Telegraph described the SNP leader's move as "The new battle for Britain". As negotiations loom, the prime minister could also face growing dissent within her own ranks. "The unity of the Tory party is shakier than it seems," Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP. Decades-old splits in the Conservatives over Europe may resurface. While the eurosceptics are in charge now, most Conservatives wanted to stay in the EU. May's majority in the Commons is only slim, which has led to calls from senior Tories for a snap election to bolster her support as Britain heads into the Brexit negotiations.
By PTI

JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt has met Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, as the White House put out feelers on reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The US State Department described the yesterday's visit by Trump's special representative for international negotiations as an orientation trip to enable him to get a sense of how "we can create a climate that leads to eventual peace negotiations". "I hope that we can do some good things together," Netanyahu told Greenblatt at the start of their meeting, according to a video posted by the premier's office.

Greenblatt replied: "I think we're gonna do great things together." He is due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday. In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Greenblatt would be doing "a lot of listening, discussing the views of the leadership in the region, getting their perspectives on the current situation and how progress towards eventual peace can be made". "I characterise it as the first of what will become many visits to the region," Toner added. He said that the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank was likely to be discussed, although he did not expect immediate movement on the issue. "We see them as a challenge that needs to be addressed at some point," Toner said.

Trump on Friday invited Abbas "to visit the White House soon to discuss ways to resume the (Palestinian-Israeli) political process," in their first telephone conversation since Trump's inauguration in January. Greenblatt advised Trump on the Arab-Israeli conflict during the presidential election campaign. Trump received Netanyahu at the White House in mid-February and broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli daily Haaretz yesterday quoted Palestinian Authority officials as saying "the Palestinians will make it clear they are interested in the Trump administration presenting its own peace plan". The peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 following the collapse of indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry. Since Trump came to power, having pledged to lead the most pro-Israel US administration in history, Palestinian officials have been quietly alarmed by their lack of access to senior White House figures.

JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt has met Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, as the White House put out feelers on reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The US State Department described the yesterday's visit by Trump's special representative for international negotiations as an orientation trip to enable him to get a sense of how "we can create a climate that leads to eventual peace negotiations". "I hope that we can do some good things together," Netanyahu told Greenblatt at the start of their meeting, according to a video posted by the premier's office. Greenblatt replied: "I think we're gonna do great things together." He is due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday. In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Greenblatt would be doing "a lot of listening, discussing the views of the leadership in the region, getting their perspectives on the current situation and how progress towards eventual peace can be made". "I characterise it as the first of what will become many visits to the region," Toner added. He said that the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank was likely to be discussed, although he did not expect immediate movement on the issue. "We see them as a challenge that needs to be addressed at some point," Toner said. Trump on Friday invited Abbas "to visit the White House soon to discuss ways to resume the (Palestinian-Israeli) political process," in their first telephone conversation since Trump's inauguration in January. Greenblatt advised Trump on the Arab-Israeli conflict during the presidential election campaign. Trump received Netanyahu at the White House in mid-February and broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli daily Haaretz yesterday quoted Palestinian Authority officials as saying "the Palestinians will make it clear they are interested in the Trump administration presenting its own peace plan". The peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 following the collapse of indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry. Since Trump came to power, having pledged to lead the most pro-Israel US administration in history, Palestinian officials have been quietly alarmed by their lack of access to senior White House figures.
By AFP

JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed ways to reach peace with the Palestinians as well as settlement construction, a statement said Tuesday.

The five-hour meeting, held in Netanyahu's Jerusalem office late Monday, came as Trump's administration begins to enter the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The two "reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region," a joint statement from the premier's office and US embassy said.

They also "continued discussions relating to settlement construction in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security."

The international community considers continuing settlement growth in the West Bank a major obstacle to peace.

According to the statement, Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations."

Greenblatt was due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

The statement cited Netanyahu as telling Greenblatt he believed "it is possible to advance peace" while Trump is in the White House.

Greenblatt himself wrote on Twitter that he had a "very positive and productive meeting" with Netanyahu during which they discussed the "regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements."

At a White House meeting in February, Trump asked Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit."

But Netanyahu has found himself caught between maintaining relations with Washington and holding together his right-wing governing coalition, with some pushing for immediate action.

On Tuesday, pro-settlement members of the coalition were seeking to advance a bill to annex a large Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem of some 37,000 people called Maale Adumim.

The bill was on the agenda for a ministerial committee meeting later Tuesday.

Abbas US visit 'soon'

Amid warnings that such unilateral moves could lead to a crisis with Trump's administration, Netanyahu has reportedly been seeking to delay the bill.

A source familiar with the discussions told AFP the coalition chairman wants to put off the vote by three months, but Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the hardline Jewish Home party is only willing to agree to a one-week delay.

On Friday, Trump invited Abbas to visit the White House "soon" to discuss ways to resume the peace process.

When Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House last month, the US president broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to the conflict.

The peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 following the collapse of indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry.

The US State Department had on Monday described Greenblatt's visit as an orientation trip to enable him to get a sense of how "we can create a climate that leads to eventual peace negotiations".

Spokesman Mark Toner said the trip was "the first of what will become many visits to the region."

JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed ways to reach peace with the Palestinians as well as settlement construction, a statement said Tuesday. The five-hour meeting, held in Netanyahu's Jerusalem office late Monday, came as Trump's administration begins to enter the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two "reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region," a joint statement from the premier's office and US embassy said. They also "continued discussions relating to settlement construction in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security." The international community considers continuing settlement growth in the West Bank a major obstacle to peace. According to the statement, Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations." Greenblatt was due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. The statement cited Netanyahu as telling Greenblatt he believed "it is possible to advance peace" while Trump is in the White House. Greenblatt himself wrote on Twitter that he had a "very positive and productive meeting" with Netanyahu during which they discussed the "regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements." At a White House meeting in February, Trump asked Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit." But Netanyahu has found himself caught between maintaining relations with Washington and holding together his right-wing governing coalition, with some pushing for immediate action. On Tuesday, pro-settlement members of the coalition were seeking to advance a bill to annex a large Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem of some 37,000 people called Maale Adumim. The bill was on the agenda for a ministerial committee meeting later Tuesday. Abbas US visit 'soon' Amid warnings that such unilateral moves could lead to a crisis with Trump's administration, Netanyahu has reportedly been seeking to delay the bill. A source familiar with the discussions told AFP the coalition chairman wants to put off the vote by three months, but Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the hardline Jewish Home party is only willing to agree to a one-week delay. On Friday, Trump invited Abbas to visit the White House "soon" to discuss ways to resume the peace process. When Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House last month, the US president broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to the conflict. The peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 following the collapse of indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry. The US State Department had on Monday described Greenblatt's visit as an orientation trip to enable him to get a sense of how "we can create a climate that leads to eventual peace negotiations". Spokesman Mark Toner said the trip was "the first of what will become many visits to the region."
By Associated Press

ANKARA: Turkey will not allow the Dutch ambassador to Ankara to return and will suspend high-level ties until The Netherlands meets Turkey's conditions over holding rallies abroad ahead of a referendum, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has said.

"It was decided that until the things we have said are fulfilled, the Dutch ambassador will not be allowed to return," Kurtulmus said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara yesterday. Ambassador Kees Cornelis van Rij is currently out of the country, with business being handled by the charge d'affaires.

The fierce row between the NATO members has escalated since The Hague barred Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from landing in the Netherlands for a rally in the city of Rotterdam and expelled Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from the country.

Ahead of an April 16 referendum, Turkish politicians have sought to whip up support for approving constitutional changes that would create an executive presidency. Kurtulmus added that Ankara decided to suspend high-level relations with the Netherlands as well as cancelling permission for all Dutch diplomatic flights to Turkey from yesterday. "Until the Netherlands compensates for what it has done, high-level relations and planned meetings at a ministerial and higher level have been suspended," he told reporters.

The deputy prime minister also said parliament would be advised to withdraw from the Dutch-Turkish friendship group. "This isn't a crisis of Turkey's making... Turkey will not be harmed by this," Kurtulmus said, just hours after the European Union and NATO urged tensions to be reduced. He said Turkey expected an administrative and legal inquiry into the events over the past few days, including the use of police officers on horseback and dogs to regain control after a protest outside the Rotterdam consulate.

ANKARA: Turkey will not allow the Dutch ambassador to Ankara to return and will suspend high-level ties until The Netherlands meets Turkey's conditions over holding rallies abroad ahead of a referendum, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has said. "It was decided that until the things we have said are fulfilled, the Dutch ambassador will not be allowed to return," Kurtulmus said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara yesterday. Ambassador Kees Cornelis van Rij is currently out of the country, with business being handled by the charge d'affaires. The fierce row between the NATO members has escalated since The Hague barred Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from landing in the Netherlands for a rally in the city of Rotterdam and expelled Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from the country. Ahead of an April 16 referendum, Turkish politicians have sought to whip up support for approving constitutional changes that would create an executive presidency. Kurtulmus added that Ankara decided to suspend high-level relations with the Netherlands as well as cancelling permission for all Dutch diplomatic flights to Turkey from yesterday. "Until the Netherlands compensates for what it has done, high-level relations and planned meetings at a ministerial and higher level have been suspended," he told reporters. The deputy prime minister also said parliament would be advised to withdraw from the Dutch-Turkish friendship group. "This isn't a crisis of Turkey's making... Turkey will not be harmed by this," Kurtulmus said, just hours after the European Union and NATO urged tensions to be reduced. He said Turkey expected an administrative and legal inquiry into the events over the past few days, including the use of police officers on horseback and dogs to regain control after a protest outside the Rotterdam consulate.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: The United States has called for the Netherlands and Turkey, both members of NATO, to resolve their diplomatic row and drop their "war of words." "They're both strong partners and NATO allies. We'd just ask that they not escalate the situation any further and work together to resolve it," said a senior State Department official yesterday, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US diplomat said that the new administration of President Donald Trump has not directly intervened in the row because the Netherlands and Turkey are "strong democracies." "I think they can work it out between them," the official said. Those comments came before Ankara severed high-level relations with The Hague and barred the Dutch ambassador from returning to Turkey over their row about whether Turkish officials can attend rallies in The Netherlands ahead of a referendum.

The diplomat did not indicate a position favoring either the Netherlands or Turkey in the crisis, which the European Union and NATO sought to defuse yesterday. But, in a broad statement, the official said, "What we would like to see is A) people allowed to protest peacefully and demonstrate peacefully but B) mindful of that, both countries need to refrain from the war of words we have seen over the weekend."

Turks are facing a vote on constitutional reform that would enlarge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers, and his ministers have launched a European tour to mobilize support among Turks abroad. The crisis between the Netherlands and Turkey comes in the run-up to Dutch general elections set for Wednesday, with Islam and immigration in the crosshairs of one of the leading candidates, far-right politician Geert Wilders.

WASHINGTON: The United States has called for the Netherlands and Turkey, both members of NATO, to resolve their diplomatic row and drop their "war of words." "They're both strong partners and NATO allies. We'd just ask that they not escalate the situation any further and work together to resolve it," said a senior State Department official yesterday, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The US diplomat said that the new administration of President Donald Trump has not directly intervened in the row because the Netherlands and Turkey are "strong democracies." "I think they can work it out between them," the official said. Those comments came before Ankara severed high-level relations with The Hague and barred the Dutch ambassador from returning to Turkey over their row about whether Turkish officials can attend rallies in The Netherlands ahead of a referendum. The diplomat did not indicate a position favoring either the Netherlands or Turkey in the crisis, which the European Union and NATO sought to defuse yesterday. But, in a broad statement, the official said, "What we would like to see is A) people allowed to protest peacefully and demonstrate peacefully but B) mindful of that, both countries need to refrain from the war of words we have seen over the weekend." Turks are facing a vote on constitutional reform that would enlarge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers, and his ministers have launched a European tour to mobilize support among Turks abroad. The crisis between the Netherlands and Turkey comes in the run-up to Dutch general elections set for Wednesday, with Islam and immigration in the crosshairs of one of the leading candidates, far-right politician Geert Wilders.
Manipur Results 2017: NPP announces support to BJP

Imphal (Manipur) , Mar. 12 : The National People's Party (NPP) on Sunday announced its support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), thus inching the saffron party closer to forming a government in Manipur.





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NPP president Conrad Sangma said that the party is in alliance with the BJP at the Centre, therefore, it was natural to work with the saffron party in Manipur as well."Basically we are partners of the NDA at the centre and we are the members of North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA). So, it was natural for us to form the government with the BJP," he said.He added that the NPP wants to see a change and work towards changing the condition of Manipur."We want to address the issues that are concerning Manipur. Therefore, we felt very strongly that this would be the best alliance that would be able to make a difference and make changes for the people of Manipur," Sangma asserted.He further said that there is no muscle power or money power."It is people's free will. In any circumstance, all stakeholders will be consulted before any major decision is taken. I think this is a very balanced approach," he noted.The BJP General Secretary said that they will approach Governor Najma Heptulla seeking her to invite the BJP, NPP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) to form a government in Manipur."We have the support required to form government in Manipur. We will prove it on the floor of the house," Madhav said.Meanwhile, Congress MLA Shyamkumar Singh from the Andro assembly constituency defected to the BJP.Manipur witnessed a nail-biting contest between the BJP and Congress.The Congress won 28 seats to the BJP's 21 in the 60-member Manipur Assembly.Out of the 60 assembly constituencies, a party has to win 31 seats to form the government in Manipur.
Goa Governor appoints Manohar Parrikar as CM, asks to prove majority

Panaji (Goa) , Mar. 13 : Governor of Goa Mridula Sinha on Sunday appointed Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar as the new Chief Minister of the state.





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Parrikar has been asked to prove majority on the floor of the Goa legislative assembly "within 15 days after administration of oath of office," said a letter issued by the Secretary of the Governor.The letter also added Parrikar had submitted evidence before the Governor - the support of 13 MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), three MLAs of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, three MLAs of Goa Forward Party, and two independent MLA, thus having a total of 21 MLAs in a 40-member Assembly.Earlier in the day, as the BJP staked claim to form a government in Goa with the support of the regional parties, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said Parrikar would resign as the defence minister in order to take oath as the next chief minister."Manohar Parrikar will have to give resignation as Defence Minister before becoming Goa's Chief Minister, but he has not given it yet. We will later decide as to when the oath taking ceremony will take place upon meeting the Governor and after that he may resign," he said.Gadkari further said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah have given permission on the same.The BJP had finished second in the state with 13 seats, with the Congress leading with 17 seats in the 40-member Assembly.
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South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference held in Kolkata

Kolkata, Mar 13 : The United States India Educational Foundation (USIEF) recently hosted the South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference in Kolkata.





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It was attended by 125 US Fulbright scholars from India, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.Fulbright Commission staff from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan were also present.According to the participants, the conference was an excellent opportunity for networking with fellow Fulbrighters from various countries. They also discussed educational exchange issues and suggested changes for the development and enhancement of the Fulbright program.Adam Grotsky, Executive Director, USIEF, said, We are thrilled to be hosting the annual South and Central Asia conference in Kolkata.He also highlighted that the annual conference is an opportunity to reflect on USIEF institutional mission, the promotion of mutual understanding and the role of Fulbrighters in reaching this goal.Jeffrey Sexton, Minister Counsellor for Public Affairs, US Embassy, New Delhi, stressed on the role which the Fulbright exchange programs play for preserving and improving the bilateral relationships between the US and the rest of the world and explained his point via an anecdote from his teaching days.Nabanita Chakrabarti, Under Secretary (Americas), Ministry of External Affairs was present at the inaugural session.A wide range of subjects was covered in the three-day long conference, including Agriculture Forestry, Public Health, History, Area Studies, Music Ethnomusicology, Business, Finance Development and Science Technology.(Reporting by Sagar Ghosh)Image: USIEF Twitter
India celebrates the festival of colours Holi with enthusiasm and religious fervour

New Delhi, Mar 13 : The festival of colours, Holi, is being celebrated across India, especially in the northern and western states, on Monday with religious fervour and enthusiasm.





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The President of India, the Vice President and the Prime Minister have separately greeted the people on the occasion.President Pranab Mukherjee in his message on the eve of Holi has said, Holi celebrates spring and is a harbinger of hope and fulfilment in our lives. May this festival of colours bring together the diverse hues of Indias culture in a rainbow of unity. Let us on this day spread happiness and share joy with the needy and downtrodden. May this unique festival strengthen brotherhood and harmony amongst all our people.Let this years Holi mark the beginning of a new phase of peace and prosperity in the country.Vice President of India, M. Hamid Ansari, said, Celebrated with traditional fervor and enthusiasm throughout the country, the colourful festival of Holi marks the onset of warmer season and celebrates the victory of good over evil.May this festival bring peace, harmony, prosperity and happiness in our lives.{image_1}Prime Minister Modi tweeted on Monday, Greetings on the festival of colours, Holi. May the festival spread joy warmth everywhere.Basking in the glory of their recent success in the Assembly elections, the BJP leaders too celebrated Holi at their homes. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tweeted pictures of the celebration at his home on Monday.Popular actor and MP Hema Malini tweeted, I am in Mathura for Holi, taking part in the celebrations in Vraj.Apart from Mathura and Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, Holi is celebrated with much fanfare in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Foreigners took part in Jaipur Holi in large numbers.However, according to media reports, Indias paramilitary forces refrained from taking part in the festival as tribute to the slain CRPF men in a recent encounter in Chhattisgarh.Image: Arun Jaitley/Hema Malini Twitter
Legislature party leader will be selected today: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Guwahati (Assam) , Mar. 13 : North-East Democratic Alliance convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said that observers Piyush Goyal and V. Sahasrabuddhe have arrived in Manipur, adding they will select the legislature party leader by this evening.





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Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla earlier in the day said that she has not received Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh's resignation yet and added that only then the process of government formation can begin."I have not received, till today, any resignation letter from the Chief Minister, though yesterday I told him that the process of formation of the government will begin once he resigns," Heptullah told reporters.The Governor informed that she was approached by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders along with its supporters to stake claim to form the government."Along with one LJP MLA, the four MLAs of NPP, one MLA from Trinamool Congress and one MLA from the Congress Party called on me. The president of NPP spoke to me on telephone and sent the letter of support to BJP-led government to the governor's house. I was satisfied that they have the support of 32 MLAs," she said.Heptullah further said that the Chief Minister came to meet her post the meeting with the BJP-led delegation to form the government in the state."I told the Chief Minister that first you resign then only I can start the process of formation of the government. He didn't say anything and just went away," Heptullah added.Heptullah further said that the Election Commission of India will give her a notification with a list of elected members and only then she will start the process.In Manipur, efforts continue for government formation in the state as both the BJP and Congress met the Governor in Imphal last night, with the ruling Congress staking claim to form the government and BJP showing its strength.The Congress had won 28 seats in Manipur, followed by the BJP 21. The NPP and the NPF have won four seats each, while the LJP and the Trinamool Congress have bagged one seat each.
Will submit my resignation either today or tomorrow: Okram Ibobi Singh

Imphal (Manipur) , Mar. 13 : With Governor Najma Heptulla asking incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to resign immediately so that the process of formation of the next government can be started, the Congress leader today stated that he would submit his resignation by this evening or tomorrow.





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"There is sufficient time. I will tender my resignation from the post of Chief Minister in a short period of time, either today or tomorrow," he told a press conference.He further said that the Governor has asked him to submit his resignation first only then the process of formation of a new government will start."Our party is all intact," he added.Heptulla earlier in the day said that she has not received Ibobi Singh's resignation yet and added that only then the process of government formation can begin."I have not received, till today, any resignation letter from the Chief Minister, though yesterday I told him that the process of formation of the government will begin once he resigns," Heptullah told reporters.The Governor informed that she was approached by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders along with its supporters to stake claim to form the government."Along with one LJP MLA, the four MLAs of NPP, one MLA from Trinamool Congress and one MLA from the Congress Party called on me. The president of NPP spoke to me on telephone and sent the letter of support to BJP-led government to the governor's house. I was satisfied that they have the support of 32 MLAs," she said.Heptullah further said that the Chief Minister came to meet her post the meeting with the BJP-led delegation to form the government in the state."I told the Chief Minister that first you resign then only I can start the process of formation of the government. He didn't say anything and just went away," Heptullah added.Heptullah further said that the Election Commission of India will give her a notification with a list of elected members and only then she will start the process.In Manipur, efforts continue for government formation in the state as both the BJP and Congress met the Governor in Imphal last night, with the ruling Congress staking claim to form the government and BJP showing its strength.The Congress had won 28 seats in Manipur, followed by the BJP 21. The NPP and the NPF have won four seats each, while the LJP and the Trinamool Congress have bagged one seat each. :
Queen Rania of Jordan visited the Design Institute Amman (DIA) in support of Jordans design industry, and met with some of the designers enrolled in its courses and workshops. Design Institute Amman, is a Jordanian institute serving the region, created to upgrade the design skills and capabilities of regional professionals to enhance the competitiveness of regional businesses through design.
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Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
Beneficial bacteria may be the key to helping to reverse a cycle of gut inflammation seen in certain inflammatory bowel diseases, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have found.

In a study published in journal Nature Immunology, researchers led by Jenny P.Y. Ting, PhD, Lineberger member and the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Genetics, describe how inflammation can go unchecked in the absence of a certain inflammation inhibitor called NLRP12. In a harmful feedback loop, this inflammation can upset the balance of bacteria living in the gut - part of the community of micro-organisms in the human body known as the microbiome. They found in preclinical models that certain types of "bad" bacteria were more abundant, while there were lower levels of beneficial bugs in the absence of NLRP12. That led to even more inflammation in their models.

But researchers found that adding back a type of beneficial bacteria that normally grows in the gut can help end this cycle, suggesting a new treatment for inflammatory bowel disease.

"At this point we have limited treatment options and no cure for people with inflammatory bowel disease," said Justin E. Wilson, PhD, research assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Genetics and co-first author of the study. "These diseases can be really difficult, impacting patients' quality of life and their finances. We suggest a possible simple fix for people who have a specific disease signature."

The two most common inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, affect an estimated 1.6 million people in the United States, according to the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. They can lead to diarrhea, fatigue and abdominal cramping. People with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease involving the colon have higher risk of colon or rectal cancer. Scientists know that these diseases involve an abnormal reaction of the immune system to food, bacteria or other materials in the intestines.

UNC Lineberger researchers found a key role for a certain protein called NLRP12 in regulating the inflammation seen in these diseases.

NLRP12 has been known to suppress inflammatory signals to prevent an overactive immune response. But an analysis uncovered low levels of NLRP12 in twins with ulcerative colitis, but not in paired twins without the disease. And in mouse models that lacked this protein, they found higher levels of inflammation in the colon.

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In the absence of this protein, they also saw changes in the types of bacteria living in the gut - suggesting a role for the protein in keeping the microbiome in balance to prevent inflammation.

"What we found was that these mice not only were missing NLRP12, but they had a completely different composition of bacteria in their gut, and that composition is more pro-inflammatory," Wilson said.

There were lower levels of "protective," or friendly strains of bacteria like Lachnospiraceae, and higher levels of bacteria that can help drive inflammation, like Erysipelotrichaceae.

Patients with inflammatory bowel disorder have a similar microbial profile.

"NLRP12 is a checkpoint for the immune system - it checks the level of inflammation," said Liang Chen, a doctoral student in the Ting lab and the other co-first author on the paper. "If you're missing that, then you have excessive colon inflammation, and it contributes to disease. But it's not just the absence of NLRP12, it's also the interaction of this protein with the gut bacteria."

To reverse this negative cycle, they found they could add back more of the so-called "friendly" bacteria or use treatments that target inflammatory signals. They believe their findings could potentially lead to treatments for people with inflammatory bowel diseases with reduced NLRP12 expression.

"You can target the inflammation that's downstream of NLRP12 with anti-inflammatory drugs, or you could just feed the animals specific bacteria that are benefit, and it causes a shift that made them less susceptible to disease," Wilson said. "We could potentially screen people for reduced expression of NLRP12, or who have this bacterial signature. Could this be a relatively simple fix for people who have this signature of the disease? At least, it appears to be the case in animals."

Source: http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2017/march/good-bacteria-is-possible-solution-for-unchecked-inflammation-in-bowel-diseases
Thanks to a national initiative, salad bars are showing up in public schools across the country. Now a Brigham Young University researcher is trying to nail down how to get kids to eat from them.

BYU health sciences professor Lori Spruance studies the impact of salad bars in public schools and has found one helpful tip: teens are more likely to use salad bars if they're exposed to good, old-fashioned marketing. Students at schools with higher salad bar marketing are nearly three times as likely to use them.

"Children and adolescents in the United States do not consume the nationally recommended levels of fruits and vegetables," Spruance said. "Evidence suggests that salad bars in schools can make a big difference. Our goal is to get kids to use them."

Some 4,800 salad bars have popped up in public schools around the country according to the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative. About 50 percent of high school students have access to salad bars at schools, 39 percent of middle school kids and 31 percent of elementary school children.

Spruance's study, published in Health Education and Behavior, followed the salad bar usage of students in 12 public schools in New Orleans. Spruance and coauthors from Tulane University administered surveys to the students and tracked the school environment through personal visits.

Not only did they find better marketing improved salad bar usage among secondary school students, but they also found female students use salad bars more often than male students, and children who prefer healthy foods use them more frequently.

"The value of a salad bar program depends on whether students actually use the salad bar," Spruance said. "But few studies have examined how to make that happen more effectively."

Some examples of successful salad bar marketing efforts included signage throughout the school promoting the salad bar, information in school publications and newsletters, and plugs for the salad bar on a school's digital presence.

Spruance suggests that schools engage parents in their efforts to improve the school food environment--such as reaching out to parents through newsletters or parent teacher conferences. Of course, she says, offering healthy options at home makes the biggest difference.

"It takes a lot of effort and time, but most children and adolescents require repeated exposures to food before they will eat them on their own," Spruance said. "If a child is being exposed to foods at home that are served at school, the child may be more likely to eat those fruits or vegetables at school."

Spruance's research builds off of previous studies that show students are more likely to use salad bars if they are included in the normal serving line.

There have now been 2,401,500 kids served from salad bars in public schools nationwide. However, only two Utah public schools currently have salad bars funded by the Let's Move initiative.
Findings published today provide evidence that exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) causes changes in thyroid hormone signalling, which disturbs brain development.

The results are published by Nature in a peer-reviewed paper in Scientific Reports entitled "Human amniotic fluid contaminants alter thyroid hormone signalling and early brain development in Xenopus embryos".

The tests involved exposing frog embryos to a mixture of chemicals commonly present in the fluid of a human mother's womb.

Epidemiological studies have already linked maternal exposure to certain chemicals with lower IQ and increased risk of ADHD in children.

The authors say that the new findings suggest that exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals can adversely affect brain development in unborn children and argue for an urgent revision of the regulatory frameworks.

Professor Barbara Demeneix, an author of the paper and part of a research team of CNRS, which is France's largest governmental research organisation, says:

"The study showed that the chemical mixture affected thyroid hormone signaling - and undisturbed thyroid signaling is essential for normal brain development in all vertebrates. Since thyroid hormone is exactly the same in frogs and humans, these findings should prompt rapid action to remove these harmful chemicals from the market."

The study investigated whether brain development in frog embryos could be affected by exposure to a combination of chemicals that are commonly found in human amniotic fluid. Using concentrations of these chemicals that are equivalent to those to which humans are exposed in utero, the researchers found that the mixture acted on thyroid hormone signalling. It also altered brain gene expression, reduced neuron volume and inhibited tadpole movement. The authors point out that since thyroid hormone signalling is very similar between different vertebrate species including humans, the results suggest that ubiquitous chemical mixtures could be exerting adverse effects on foetal human brain development.

The effects of the chemical mixture changed according to the dose level. In addition, some of the 15 common chemicals in the mixture were individually shown to disrupt thyroid hormone. They include: triclosan (an anti-microbial chemical), one phthalate - DEHP (a plastic softeners), two organochlorine pesticides - HCB and DDE, two surfactants - PFOS and PFOA, tPCB-153 and BDE-209, methyl mercury and lead chloride.

The paper says that epidemiological studies show that maternal exposure to many of the chemicals studied in this latest research can affect offspring IQ and/or neurodevelopmental disease risk. For example, PCBs, which are now banned, have been linked to IQ loss and increased ADHD risk.

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Separately, a report published today by CHEM Trust highlights how chemicals in food and consumer products used in homes, schools and offices could be harming brain development in children. It calls on the EU regulators to phase out groups of hazardous chemicals, rather than slowly restricting one chemical of concern at a time.

Genon K. Jensen, Executive Director, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), supports calls for urgent action. She says:

"Children's brains are under threat from toxic chemicals - exposure starts in the womb and can have effects throughout their lives. There's no room for complacency or lengthy deliberations that stretch over years or decades. The European Commission should use this latest research to speed up measures to reduce everyday exposure to neurotoxic chemicals and thereby help every child meet his or her full potential."

The warnings come at a time when more and more children are affected by autism and ADHD. According to a new book by Professor Demeneix, statistics released at the end of 2015 put the incidence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the US at 1 in 45 children.

Meanwhile, the number and quantity of chemicals released into the environment in the last 50 years has increased 300-fold.

The World Health Organization is also increasingly concerned about children's exposure to chemicals. A report released on 6 March 2017 says: "Children are exposed to harmful chemicals through food, water, air and products around them. Chemicals, such as fluoride, lead and mercury pesticides, persistent organic pollutants, and others in manufactured goods, eventually find their way into the food chain.

Source: http://www.env-health.org/resources/press-releases/article/exposing-frog-embryos-to-a
Higher health care utilization spending by physicians was not associated with better outcomes for hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries in a new article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

The article by Yusuke Tsugawa, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, and coauthors examined variation in spending across physicians' adjusted Medicare Part B spending levels and its association with patients' 30-day mortality and readmission rates.

The authors used a random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries who were hospitalized with a nonelective medical condition between 2011 and 2014. The primary analysis focused on hospitalist physicians and a secondary analysis focused on general internists. Physician spending levels were calculated in 2011 through 2012 and patient outcomes were examined in 2013 and 2014 so the severity of a patient's illness did not directly affect physician spending estimates.

The authors report health care spending varied more across individual physicians than across hospitals and, among hospitalized patients, higher spending by physicians was not associated with lower 30-day mortality or 30-day readmissions.

The study has limitations, including that its analysis was restricted to hospitalized Medicare patients so the results may not be generalizable to other patient groups.

"Given larger variation in spending across physicians than across hospitals, policies that target physicians within hospitals may be more effective in reducing wasteful spending than policies focusing solely on hospitals," the article concludes.
Disagreements between doctors and patients over the priorities of pain treatment are common during primary care office visits, new research from UC Davis Health shows. Patients hope to reduce pain intensity and identify the cause, while physicians aim to improve physical function and reduce medication side effects, including dependency.

Based on their findings, published online in "The Clinical Journal of Pain," the authors recommend pain-focused communication training for physicians.

"We wanted to understand why discussions about pain between patients and doctors are often contentious and unproductive," said lead author Stephen Henry, assistant professor of internal medicine at UC Davis. "Primary care physicians treat the majority of patients with chronic pain, but they aren't always equipped to establish clear, shared treatment goals with their patients."

The proposed training is especially important now, given recent state and federal guidelines recommending that doctors work collaboratively with patients on observable goals for pain treatment, Henry said. In light of the epidemic of opioid abuse and overdose, the guidelines also minimize reducing pain intensity as a primary treatment goal, creating new challenges for physicians when discussing pain treatment with patients.

"It is critical for doctors and patients to be on the same page and not working at cross purposes," Henry said.

The research included 87 patients receiving opioid prescriptions for chronic musculoskeletal pain and 49 internal or family medicine physicians from two UC Davis Medical Center clinics in Sacramento, Calif. In most cases, patients were seeing their regular physicians. Patients receiving pain treatment as part of cancer or palliative care were excluded from the study.

Immediately following clinic visits between November 2014 and January 2016, the patients completed questionnaires to rate their experiences and rank their goals for pain management. The physicians independently completed questionnaires about the level of visit difficulty, along with their own rankings of goals for the patient's pain management.

Nearly half (48 percent) of patients ranked reducing pain intensity as their top priority, followed by 22 percent who ranked diagnosing the reasons for their pain as most important. In contrast, physicians ranked improving function as the top priority for 41 percent of patients and reducing medication side effects as most important for 26 percent.

In addition, patients' and physicians' top priorities for pain management usually did not match. In 62 percent of visits, the physician's first- and second-ranked treatment priorities did not include the patient's top-ranked treatment priority.

Physicians also rated 41 percent of the patient visits as "difficult," meaning the interactions were challenging or emotionally taxing. Primary care physicians typically rate 15 to 18 percent of patient visits as difficult.

One surprising outcome was that patients rated their doctors' office experiences as fairly positive, even when clinicians did not. There also was no evidence that goal disagreements influenced patients' experience ratings. This may reflect the fact that patients tend to have positive relationships with their regular physicians, even though they don't always agree with them, according to Henry.

The researchers next want to identify best practices for patient-doctor communications that can be incorporated into training aimed at helping physicians better communicate with patients suffering from chronic pain.

"We need to make sure physicians have the medical skills it takes to effectively and safely treat pain, as well as the communications skills needed to discuss treatment goals and navigate instances when they don't see eye-to-eye with patients," Henry said.
There are already one billion tobacco smokers worldwide, and this number is likely to rise further with Asian tobacco companies poised to enter the global market, according to SFU health sciences professor Kelley Lee.

"While companies like British American Tobacco and Philip Morris, traditionally known as 'Big Tobacco', have been rightfully targeted by tobacco control efforts to date, on the horizon are several companies based in Asia 'going global' with their business strategies," says Lee, a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Global Health Governance.

"Their aim is to grow their share of the world market through increased marketing, new products and lower prices. This is likely to mean more smokers worldwide."

Lee and her team are the first to study the global business strategies of Asian tobacco companies, recently published in a special issue of Global Public Health entitled, "The Emergence of Asian Tobacco Companies: Implications for Global Health Governance."

Their aim in analysing companies in Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Thailand was to document how these companies are shifting from a domestic focus to become aspiring transnational companies.

"Several of these companies have already started to export their brands to rapidly growing markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa," says Lee. "Their success will mean a further increase to the already six million deaths caused by tobacco use each year."

These new research findings suggest that globalization of the tobacco industry may be entering a new phase.

Rather than supporting the expansion of these companies as sources of profit, Asian governments need to recognize that far greater economic, environmental and social costs are being caused by this deadly industry.

The authors conclude that collective action by all countries, focused on the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, is needed more than ever.

Lee sat down with SFU News to go over the five case studies that were examined in the special issue, and answered three questions about the findings:

What are the key factors behind the global business strategies of the five Asian tobacco companies?

Trade liberalization and tobacco industry lobbying pressured Asian countries to open their markets to transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) from the late 1980s. British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and other companies introduced new brands, marketing methods and undermined tobacco control measures to gain a major share of the market in Asia.

The loss of domestic market share also prompted Asian tobacco companies, in turn, to look abroad to grow their own foreign markets. Their global business strategies have borrowed many of the practices used by existing transnational tobacco companies.

Which global business strategies have Asian companies pursued?

Government-supported consolidation, restructuring and rationalizing of domestic operations. This included shutting down facilities deemed inefficient, merging smaller concerns into larger ones and upgrading production capacity. The companies also increased manufacturing, specifically for export to foreign markets, and engaged in new product development to create brands that have global appeal.

Moreover, there has been product innovation, including specially designed filters, flavourings, super slim cigarettes and electronic cigarettes, as well as foreign direct investment in the form of joint ventures, overseas manufacturing and leaf growing operations.

How globalized are Asian tobacco companies to date?

Japan Tobacco International was the first Asian tobacco company to successfully globalize, beginning in the late 1990s, supported by the Japanese government as part owners. Today, Japan Tobacco International is the third largest transnational tobacco company in the world.

Korea Tobacco & Ginseng is well-positioned to become the world's next transnational tobacco company given its active and successful pursuit of foreign markets since privatisation in 2001. The company is achieving rapid growth in eastern Europe, the Middle East and South Asia countries.

The China National Tobacco Company is by far the world's largest tobacco company but to date has been largely domestically focused. Consolidation has been followed by a strong commitment by the state-owned monopoly to "go global" over the next decade through exports, overseas manufacturing and leaf production.

Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation and Thailand Tobacco Monopoly have both expressed ambitions to globalize, but remain domestically focused and are more likely to become regional players in the foreseeable future.
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has awarded $1.5 million to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health for a project designed to increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine rates among minority youth in medically underserved areas across Houston.

Research shows that an estimated 79 million people in the United States are infected with HPV and 14 million people become infected yearly.

According to the 2015 National Immunization Survey, 62.8 percent of girls and 49.8 percent of boys ages 13-17 had at least one dose of the HPV vaccine, while 41.9 percent of girls and 28.1 percent of boys ages 13-17 completed the vaccination series.

In Texas, those numbers are slightly lower. The number of girls who completed the vaccine series in Texas is 40.9 percent and for boys, 24 percent.

Paula M. Cuccaro, Ph.D., is hoping to change those numbers.

"The HPV vaccine is not required for school the way other vaccines are, but it is still a recommended vaccine," said Cuccaro, principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at UTHealth School of Public Health. "We are trying to change the language health professionals use when discussing the vaccine with parents."

The three-year project, which began March 1, consists of three major components, beginning with a parent-focused social marketing campaign to increase knowledge, positive attitudes and intentions regarding the HPV vaccine.

"The plan is to take the information that we already know about the language that is effective and use that in our social marketing campaign to help parents understand that this vaccine is important just like all the other vaccines that the kids need," Cuccaro said. "Our approach is to use a health education and social media approach to educate parents about HPV vaccination."

The second component will focus on creating comprehensive school-based vaccination clinics for adolescents in public middle schools, where youth will be offered all recommended vaccinations. This phase of the project will be done in partnership with the Texas Children's Hospital Mobile Clinic Program, led by its director Sanghamitra Misra, M.D.

"We want to be able to get into the schools as soon as possible," Cuccaro said. "Our goal is really to help parents get the vaccinations for their kids without having to take time off from work, go into a clinic, sit for three hours and have to go back for a follow-up vaccine."

The final component focuses on creating continuing education opportunities for nurses, which could increase school nurses' knowledge about how to communicate effectively with parents about the HPV vaccine.
If surgery is in your future, it's never too early to prepare. Whether you're having an outpatient procedure or a major operation involving a hospital stay, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) encourages you to take simple steps to be ready for the big day, starting with talking with your physician anesthesiologist, a vital member of your care team.

No one understands this more than 18-year-old Hunter Jones, who was diagnosed with a rare case of colon cancer and is grateful her physician anesthesiologist, Mary Herman, M.D., Ph.D., called off her initial cancer surgery. During the preoperative evaluation with Dr. Herman, Hunter mentioned a tingly feeling and numbness in her legs after her previous anesthesia experiences including not being able to walk for a few days. Her symptoms sounded alarm bells for Dr. Herman who sent Hunter for additional tests which revealed a brain tumor. If Hunter had proceeded with the anesthesia and colon cancer surgery, she might have been permanently paralyzed.

"Hunter's experience illustrates just how important it is to talk to your physician anesthesiologist before a procedure to fully discuss your health, even something you might not think is relevant," said Jeffrey Plagenhoef, M.D., ASA president. "This discussion is critical to patient safety and determining when patients are ready for a procedure."

In addition to evaluating a patient before surgery, physician anesthesiologists also monitor the anesthesia and vital body functions during the operation and monitor the patient after the procedure to assure a smooth recovery and pain control.

"It's very rare that I postpone a surgery because our entire medical team works together with our patients to ensure we've carefully reviewed their history, physical exam and made sure they are optimized before surgery," said Dr. Herman. "Hunter's case was the best anesthetic I never gave."

During Patient Safety Awareness Week, ASA offers the following steps to take before surgery to ensure the safest outcome:

 Find out who will provide the anesthesia - Be sure your anesthesia care is led by a physician anesthesiologist. You may ask, "What does a physician anesthesiologist do?" A physician anesthesiologist is a medical doctor who specializes in anesthesia, pain and critical care medicine and works with your surgeon and other physicians to develop and administer your anesthesia care plan. Physician anesthesiologists have 12 to 14 years of medical education and 12,000 to 16,000 hours of clinical training to ensure safe, high-quality care.

 Talk with your physician anesthesiologist - As Hunter can attest, open communication is vital to ensuring the safest care. Your physician anesthesiologist will create a care plan for you, but you must provide detailed information. When you talk with your physician anesthesiologist before the procedure, be sure to discuss:

o Your health and medications - Provide your physician anesthesiologist details about your health, including how active you are, if you snore and have chronic health issues such as heart or lung problems, liver or kidney disease, allergies or any other medical conditions. Bring your full list of medications to the meeting, and don't forget to include your vitamins and supplements. You may need to stop taking some of them temporarily because they may react with the anesthesia.

o Your use of recreational or illicit drugs - The use of recreational or illicit drugs such as alcohol, marijuana, narcotics, and stimulants, among others, should be discussed with your physician anesthesiologist. These substances can have a significant impact on your reaction to medications used to provide anesthesia and can affect the amount of anesthetic and pain medications you may require, not to mention the negative effects of these substances on your body.

o Your experience with anesthesia - If you've had a bad reaction with anesthesia or pain medication or any anesthesia side effects in the past (or a family member has), it's important to tell your physician anesthesiologist.

o Your fears - Let your physician anesthesiologist know if you're afraid of surgery or anesthesia. He or she can give you information to help you feel better.

o Your questions - Write down your questions and bring them with you when you meet your physician anesthesiologist to be sure everything you'd like to know is discussed.

o Your recovery - The physician anesthesiologist continues to care for you after surgery, so ask how any pain will be managed. Ask about any concerns you have regarding recovery, returning home and getting back to your normal routine.

"Dr. Herman made a difference in my life. If I was paralyzed my life would have changed completely," said Hunter, whose brain tumor and colon cancer were removed and is cancer-free. "For that I am forever grateful."

Now attending college, Hunter runs Hope for Hunter, a fund she created that donates Chemo Cozy jackets to children and young adults undergoing cancer treatment. She is thankful she told her physician anesthesiologist about her previous anesthesia experiences.

"She played a huge role in discovering my brain cancer and made me realize how important physician anesthesiologists are in a patient's care," said Hunter. "She made a difference in my life."
Scientists Stephanie Lacour and Gregoire Courtine of Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland are paving the way for new, intelligent neuroprosthetics that may one day assist people with neurological dysfunction in everyday tasks. Neuroprosthetic devices are electronics that communicate with the nervous system, and the scientists are working together to translate their findings from the lab to the clinic.

Clinical trials currently underway

In the lab, Gregoire Courtine recently showed that paralyzed primates could walk again with the assistance of a smart neuroprosthetic system he calls the "brain-spine interface". This wireless -- fully wearable -- neuroprosthetic interface essentially decodes brain signals about walking and stimulates the spinal cord to contract the correct group of leg muscles to enact the intended walking movements -- without any therapeutic training. He also showed in 2012 that paralyzed rats could recover after spinal cord injury after a few weeks of rehabilitation, combining electro-chemical stimulation and physiotherapy that uses a robotic harness.

At this year's edition of South by South West (SXSW), Courtine describes this research in detail and his roadmap to transforming this technology into therapy for people suffering from paralysis. In particular, clinical trials are currently underway to test the feasibility of the spine-part of the brain-spine interface on patients with partial paralysis, in a collaboration with neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV).

"This is the culmination of years of work," says Courtine about the current clinical trials. "The results are so far promising, but the final outcomes must be carefully analyzed and no conclusions can be made yet."

His approach to paralysis research is highly unconventional. Instead of focusing his energy on generating neural regrowth across spinal cord lesions that lead to paralysis, his approach relies on the plasticity of the nervous system, this incredible ability of the nervous system to adapt to damage. Based on his research, he is driven by the conviction that his neurorehabilitation protocol (electro-chemical stimulation and physiotherapy) drives the nervous system to reestablish connections across the lesion.

Elastic electrodes interfacing the body

At the interface of these innovative neuroprosthetic protocols are implantable electrodes that can read neural activity, stimulate nerves, and bypass nerve injury to reactivate biological function. Electrodes are surgically implanted into or on top of target nerve fibres, ready to sense electrical signals from neural activity or to deliver electric current that mimics the language of the nervous system.

There is a caveat. Conventional electrodes are rigid. Implanted in the human body, they aggravate surrounding tissue, leading to inflammation and tissue build-up that precipitate electrode dysfunction and necessite surgical removal.

But Lacour may have a solution. At SXSW, she presents flexible and stretchable electrodes that conform to the dynamics of the body in the hopes that these new electrodes will provoke less inflammation in the body, leading to longer-lasting -- and more wearable -- interfaces.

Her e-Dura implant is designed specifically for implantation on the surface of the brain or spinal cord. The small device closely imitates the mechanical properties of living tissue, and can simultaneously deliver electric impulses and pharmacological substances. The risks of rejection and/or damage to the spinal cord have been drastically reduced. Results so far in rodents have been encouraging.

"These electrodes are not yet clinically available," warns Lacour. "Nevertheless, what we are learning can already be applied in a clinical context with my colleague Gregoire."

Source: http://actu.epfl.ch/news/joint-efforts-towards-treating-paralysis/
Millions of intensive care unit patients in the United States experience delirium, an acute brain failure resulting in confusion and long-term memory problems. Researchers from the Indiana University Center for Aging Research have developed and validated a novel easy-to-administer tool to score and track delirium severity in the ICU, enabling clinicians to make better decisions about the brain health of ICU patients.

Typically ICU patients are evaluated twice daily to determine whether they have delirium, however the universally used "yes" or "no" tests do not indicate severity of the delirium. Existing tests to determine delirium severity are cumbersome and are seldom administered because they are difficult to use in ICU patients on ventilators and require advanced staff training. IU Center for Aging Research investigators have developed and validated the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit 7--the CAM- ICU-7 for short -- an easy-to-use delirium severity instrument that scores delirium on a scale of 0 to 7--mild to severe delirium -- and is useable with all ICU patients, including those on mechanical ventilation.

Clarification of delirium severity can indicate whether the therapeutic regime that the ICU clinicians have implemented is effective or not and can have implications for a patient's prognosis. Scores of 1 to 2 indicate no delirium; 3 to 5 represent mild to moderate delirium and 6 to 7 signify severe delirium. Scores can be followed over the course of the patient's ICU stay. The tool was named CAM-ICU-7 in recognition of its derivation from the highly regarded original "yes" or "no" test -- the CAM-ICU -- and of the most severe score that can be assessed.

"Not enough emphasis has been placed on assessing delirium severity in the ICU because there is a lack of understanding of how significant outcomes of delirium are for patients," said IU School of Medicine, IU Center for Aging Research, and Regenstrief Institute faculty member Babar A. Khan, MD, who led the study. "The CAM-ICU-7 provides needed objectivity to brain failure assessment and information necessary for current and future brain health management.

In the absence of a scale to easily assess delirium, clinicians saw only black and white and there was no gray area. Having an instrument that can further define the "yes" of delirium into severe or mild to moderate delirium can provide an indication of whether the treatments are working for the patient and offer insight into prognosis.

"This new tool has the potential to essentially revolutionize the way delirium care is practiced in the ICU," said Dr. Khan, a critical care medicine physician and an implementation scientist with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute's IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science. "Nobody had previously cracked the code of how to assess delirium severity in the ICU efficiently and we have come up with an innovative instrument that is easily doable. Adding it to and augmenting what clinicians are already comfortable with makes the quick adoption of the CAM-ICU-7 seamless.

"When a patient experiences acute renal failure, clinicians can see if urine output is improving or if serum creatinine is decreasing. But until the CAM-ICU-7 there were no similar ways to monitor disease progression in acute brain failure."

Delirium is a rapid change in brain function that occurs in approximately three-quarters of ICU patients. Delirium is associated with longer ICU and hospital stays, increased costs of care and higher death rate. Known risk factors for developing delirium in the ICU include age, pre-existing cognitive impairment and sedation which is often used in conjunction with mechanical ventilation.

"In order to shorten the inefficient discovery to delivery translational cycle, our clinical scientists need to become disruptive innovators who think like implementation scientists enabling them to discover and design tools that can rapidly be implemented in a scalable way in the real world," said Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, senior author of the study. "The CAM-ICU-7 is one of these innovative, simple, scalable and clinically relevant decision support tools that are ready for implementation from Day One." Dr. Boustani is the founder of the IU Center for Innovation and Implementation Science, deputy director of the IU Center for Aging Research, an IU School of Medicine professor and a Regenstrief Institute investigator .

The study was conducted in medical, surgical and progressive ICUs at hospitals in the Eskenazi Health and Indiana University Health systems. Average age of the 518 study participants was 60; 55 percent were women and 45 percent were African-Americans; 58 percent required mechanical ventilation. The average length of ICU stay was 14 days.
Documents found by the taxmen revealed an organised racket that involved the supply of currency paper and security threads. They also discovered documents that showed that an Italian firm Fedrigoni SPA, a supplier of currency paper, had paid millions of Euros to an Indian national who allegedly swung a deal for them to supply the material necessary to make banknotes.

The Italian company has been supplying currency paper and the security threads to Bhartiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt. Ltd. (BRBNMPL) and Securities Printing Minting Corporation of India Ltd. (SPMCIL) since 2006. BRBNMPL has written to the Income Tax department that according to the tender conditions no commission is allowed. SPMCIL has to still respond to the IT Department's queries. BRBNMPL has made payments of at least Rs. 2,200 crore to the Italian Company, according to the tax department.

The IT department suspects that Gupta may be a front for someone really powerful. Sources, told CNN-News18 that Fedrigoni SPA has been supplying the currency paper without going through the mandatory tests. In case it is found to be true, this would be a case where the nation's financial security may have been compromised.

: On December 26 last year, at the height of the demonetisation chaos, the Income Tax department's investigative wing raided a house in a quiet suburb in North Delhi.As the search progressed, the I-T sleuths uncovered something far more sinister: a racket that spanned the globe  from Italy to Panama  from a house in Model Town.The name of the Indian national was Satya Prakash Gupta.His name first surfaced in the Panama Papers. After further investigation, the I-T department raided a dozen locations in and around Delhi. CNN-News18 is in possession of documentary evidence showing that Fedrigoni SPA appointed Gupta as its agent in India.Interestingly, the Italian company also gave an undertaking to the government press agreeing not to appoint any agent for the supply of currency Paper.Gupta has denied the allegations. Responding to a detailed questionnaire sent by CNN-News18, Gupta says he is not involved in the scam."At the outset I wish to place it on record that I am an Indian holding NRI status. Income Tax Department conducted searches at my residence. During the search, various queries were raised pertaining to my business, which were satisfactorily replied. For your specific queries regarding my relationship with Fedrigoni SPA, I wish to clarify that I was never an agent in the past or at present. As regards my income, during last several years, I have been filing my returns regularly as a responsible citizen and the same has been duly accepted by the department."During the raids the IT department found that a Dubai-based company allegedly controlled by Gupta recently received kickbacks of around Euro 4 million from the Italian company. Also on the radar of the tax department are transactions in the Dubai-based personal accounts of Gupta, who allegedly routed payments from tax havens like Samoa and Isle of Man. The money was received from a company named Ballenta and Anglo Manx Trust.Satya Prakash Gupta, who usually stays in Dubai, has told the authorities that he is an employee of a person named Tarun Maheshwari. CNN-News18 visited the house of Tarun Maheshwari in Sector 14, Rohini, and found that his family was staying in a modest apartment.The Income Tax Department has written to the Enforcement Directorate to pursue further investigation in the matter.
New Delhi: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from April 7 to 10 to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two neighbours, an official statement said Tuesday.



Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said.



The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, according to the statement issued here.



"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders," said the statement jointly issued by the two sides.



Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modi's visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.



She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.



Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April.



Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said they were attaching "highest importance" to the visit, the Bdnews24 reported.



Hasina is the head of government of "a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary.



And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time," Shringla was quoted as saying.



The envoy also said that President Pranab Mukherjee in an "exceptional" gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit.
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet is likely to consider on Wednesday a draft amendment bill which seeks to double the ceiling of tax-free gratuity to Rs 20 lakh under the Payment of Gratuity Act.



Besides, the bill seeks to enable the central government to change the ceiling for tax free gratuity after factoring in rise in income levels by an executive order bypassing Parliament route to amend the law.



"The bill to amend the Payment of Gratuity Act is likely to be considered and approved by the Union Cabinet in its meeting scheduled tomorrow," a source said.



After the amendment in the Act, formal sector workers would be eligible for up to Rs 20 lakh tax-free gratuity. Last month, the central trade unions had agreed on the proposal in a tripartite consultation with the Labour Ministry.



However, the unions had demanded the removal of conditions asking to have at least 10 employees in an establishment and minimum five years of service for payment of gratuity.



At present, as per the Payment of Gratuity Act, an employee is required to do minimum service of five years to become eligible for gratuity amount. Moreover, the Act applies to those establishments where the number of employees is not less than 10.



Trade unions had demanded that the amended provision regarding maximum amount should be made effective from January 1, 2016, as done in the case of central government employees.

Besides that rate of 15 days wages for each completed year of service be raised to 30 days wages, the unions had said during the tripartite meeting.



The proposed amendment to the Payment of Gratuity Act as circulated by the government only deals with enhancing the ceiling of maximum amount under Section 4(3) of the Act from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.



The proposed amendment is being brought to bring the maximum ceiling amount to Rs 20 lakh in line with the 7th Central Pay Commission's recommendations as accepted by the government.

The relevant amendment for central government employees was notified on July 25, 2016 and the enhanced amount ceiling was made effective from January 1, 2016.



The unions were of the view that the delay of eight months for employees covered under the Payment of Gratuity Act should not result in adversely affecting the interest of the concerned employees.



The employers as well as state representatives had also agreed to the proposal of raising the amount of gratuity to Rs 20 lakh in the tripartite meeting held last month.
New Delhi: After the death of a Dalit scholar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, other Dalit students of the varsity alleged institutional caste-based discrimination and activists demanded a high-level committee to be formed to probe the allegations.



J Muthukrishnan, also known as Rajini Krish was found hanging in his flat in New Delhis Munirka on Monday.



Ramesh Nathan, National Dalit Movement for Justice said that the students of JNU have alleged caste-based discrimination in the varsity.



But nobody came forward till this unfortunate incident. We demand a high level committee to inquire into the treatment given to the SC/ST students, their statements should be documented and action should be taken against the professors found guilty, he said.



Before joining JNU, Krish was a student of Hyderabad Central University, and was active in the Justice for Rohith Vemula movement. He was an Ambedkarite and vocal about the systematic alienation of students from marginalized sections in higher education. He was also active in opposing the latest UGC notification that would restrict the number of students coming from the SC/ST background.



Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA) leader Rahul Sonpimple said, Krish was hard -working. But was made to think he did not know good English.

Whenever he wanted to be excused from protests, he would say that I cant come for protest, I have to study a lot because these people didnt give me admission for five years and I have to prove it to them, he added.



We would let him go and never stopped him, Sonpimple said, He discussed about discrimination. In JNU there is subtle discrimination, upper castes make their peer group and you have to agree with either left or right. It is difficult to be anything except left and right or you would face stigmatization.



Vikas Kumar Moolas from Warangal who is studying in JNU, said, He was unfamiliar with formal procedures and professional interactions. He was unfamiliar with the traditional set-up. It exposed cultural differences that existed between the faculty and the students.



In any community we have to make a very viable environment to feel equal irrespective of what is their class and caste. Until and unless one such environment is created we are not going to have a free access to education, said N Paul Divakar, who is a Dalit activist and General Secretary of National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR).



Divakar said that to create an equal environment, scholarships, allotment of hostels, assignment of guides, equality cell and anti-discrimination units had to be strongly maintained.

Activists maintain that institutional discrimination can happen anywhere and is not the question of any particular university.



Krishs father Jeevandhaam has filed a complaint with the Delhi police alleging that his son cannot commit suicide. "He took up odd jobs in Salem to finance is education in HCU and his further studies. After getting admission in JNU he was very keen to pursue higher education and pursue career in civil services."



He further wrote in the complaint that his son was not depressed or suffered from any mental problem, My son was not a coward and I want police to thoroughly investigate in the suspicious death and not suicide of my son.
New Delhi: The election to various Delhi civic bodies will be held on April 22 and the counting of votes will be done after three days on April 25.



Meanwhile, the Delhi Election Commissioner has rejected the demand of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to conduct the polls through ballot paper.



"EVMs will be used in the upcoming municipal corporation elections in Delhi, said SK Srivastava, Delhi Election Commissioner.



Earlier, Delhi Congress leader Ajay Maken has also demanded municipal election be conducted through ballot paper.



"The municipal polls should be held through ballot paper so that there is no doubt . We demand the polls in Delhi on ballot paper . We are going to EC for the same," Maken had said.



Kejriwal on Tuesday directed Delhi Chief Secretary MM Kutty to write to the Election Commission, asking it to ensure that the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election is held via a paper ballot instead of EVMs.



The demand for elections through ballot papers came after BSP chief Mayawati alleged that EVMS used in UP Polls were tampered with.


New Delhi: A 27-year-old student of JNU allegedly committed suicide due to depression in south Delhi's Munirka area on Monday evening.



While police said he was depressed over personal issues, his friends shared his Facebook post in which he had alleged discrimination in MPhil and PhD admissions.



The deceased, Krish was a student of MPhil in JNU.







"There is no Equality in M.phil/PhD Admission, there is no equality in Viva - voce, there is an only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad - block, denying the education of the Marginal's.



"When Equality is denied everything is denied," he wrote in a Facebook post on March 10.



No suicide note has been found till now, police said.



Till now no evidence has been found that the extreme step was taken by the student owing to any issues at the university, said a senior police officer.



He is said to have been depressed for some time over some personal issues, he added.



A PCR call was received at 5.05 PM on Monday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar, said a senior police officer.



On reaching the spot, police forced open the door as a portion of the latch was uprooted from inside, he said. A young man was found hanging from the ceiling fan.



The crime team was called at the spot and the scene was inspected and photographed.



"He had come to his friends' house this afternoon to have food. He said he wanted to sleep and went to a room and locked himself inside.



"Later his friends called him out and on getting no response, they called the police," he said.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu's various political parties, including the AIADMK and the DMK, on Tuesday expressed concern over the death of a JNU student hailing from the state and sought a probe into the matter.



AIADMK deputy general secretary T T V Dinakaran said Muthu Krishnan's death at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and his references to "inequality" has sent "shock waves" across the state Referring to Krishnan's links to a movement in support of "justice" for deceased Dalit research scholar Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad last year, Dinakaran said, "There are strong doubts if he really committed suicide, considering he was strong."



"Therefore, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should take special interest and order for a proper probe and bring the facts to light. The culprits should not be spared at any cost," he said in a statement.



If the death was a suicide, there should be counselling classes for students in educational institutions to prevent the recurrence of such incidents, he said, expressing sympathies with Krishnan's family.



DMK working president and Leader of Opposition M K Stalin also expressed concern over Krishnan's death.



He questioned the suicide angle behind the student's death and cited the statement of the victim's father that his son could not have taken the extreme step.



"The Delhi police cannot brush aside the fact that Krishnan was one of those who had sought justice for Vemula, and his Facebook post on inequality also cannot be ignored," he said.



"The Centre should order a fair probe into the matter," he said, while demanding that it be handed over to the CBI.



Stalin also urged Chief Minister K Palaniswami to take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



Krishnan, hailing from Salem, was found hanging in his University's hostel room.



JNU Students Union (JNUSU) has alleged he was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Vemula and the resultant depression made him take the extreme step. While Krishnan has not left any suicide note, a recent Facebook post by him criticising "discriminatory" admission policies in JNU is being widely circulated on social media.



"There is no equality in M Phil/PhD admissions, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad - block, denying the education of the Marginal's.



"When equality is denied everything is denied," he wrote in his March 10 Facebook post.



The police, on the other hand, has been maintaining that no prima facie evidence has been found indicating the JNU administration's role into the issue.



The CPI, the CPI(M) and the BJP also expressed concern over the student's death and sought a probe into it.




Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a clear favourite for the 2019 general elections after the BJP's landslide victory in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, top US experts on India have said.



While one of the experts noted that the electoral results of the just concluded Assembly polls in five states show that the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were not an aberration, another noted that Modi would continue to lead India after 2019.



The Assembly elections do not signal much of a change. The Uttar Pradesh election results showed that the 2014 general elections were not an "aberration". Same is the case with Punjab, Adam Ziegfeld, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University said.



"It was a big win for the BJP. Its candidate won with a much larger margin of victory than compared to the two previous winners BSP and Samajwadi Party," he said.



Modi has been established by this election as the "clear and favourite winner" for the 2019 elections, Sadanand Dhume, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said.



"Modi is the front runner (for 2019)," he said.



Irfan Nooruddin, a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at the Georgetown University predicted that in 2019, the BJP is unlikely to get a simple majority and Modi would rather be heading a coalition government.



BJP is running a disciplines election campaign state-by-state, while the Opposition fails, he said.



The party does not do good in a state where it faces a direct opposition. BJP is beatable if the Opposition comes together, Nooruddin said, adding that the party gains where it faces a fragmented opposition and in 2019, anti-incumbency would kick in.



In this election, the BJP played the cast card while pretending to be above it, Dhume who was in Uttar Pradesh during the elections, said.



"Demonetisation is extremely popular. Indian people who have suffered themselves in the wake of the policy, it won their heart and mind. Here is this man of sincerity who struck a principled blow to corrupt and the rich," he said referring to his conversation with people in the state.



Dhume, however, noted that Modi after this historic victory in Uttar Pradesh is unlikely to go for the kind of economic reforms the private sector would like to have.



India is going to bump up its economic reforms that directly effects the people of the country, said Alyssa Ayres, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.



Picking up four governments in states all across India, and having future prospects, it is unlikely to have an impact on foreign policy. Like demonetisation #IamNewIndia is the pledge that the Prime Minister is asking citizens to be part of his new India campaign.



BJP will now pick up a lot of seats in Rajya Sabha which would help the ruling party to carry out its long pending reform like the land acquisition reform and labor reforms.



They would tart picking up seats is early as 2018. BJP is looking at 2019 and beyond.


New Delhi: Ajay Singh-led low-cost carrier SpiceJet will shortly foray into Indias highly competitive retail space with plans to set up a string of brick and mortar outlets, online e-tail gateways, and in flight merchandise which will sell consumer goods from fashion products, gadgets, electronic items and food.



Moneycontrol.coms Gaurav Choudhury reported that the company will sell its own brand of products sourced from hundreds of vendors across the country and overseas, according to sources who did not wish to be identified. A special line of brands has been created for each product category under the umbrella Spice brand, which the company is currently finalising.



A formal announcement on the retail venture is expected within a month.



The retail business will be run by a separate team which will maintain an arms length distance from the airline operations, sources indicated. However, both units will be controlled by the holding company. A company spokesperson declined to comment for this story.



The report said the physical stores, which will initially come up in airports, will be completely owned and run by the company. The online stores will function on e-tail principles, where the company will hawk products directly to consumers through a dedicated portal.The airlines retail venture will not be an aggregator like Flipkart, Amazon or Snapdeal, where third-party sellers sell directly to shoppers through online portals.



For instance, while customers can choose from different television brands through Flipkart, Amazon or Snapdeal, the airlines online retail store will offer its own brand of televisions across multiple price ranges. This model will apply for all its products.



This will bring it in direct competition, not only with the online retail aggregators, but also with all major retail brands and direct selling companies, the report quoted an unnamed source as saying.



Under current norms, India doesnt allow FDI in retail e-commerce but allows it in market places. Several Indian companies such as Flipkart have moved to a marketplace model to avoid flouting norms.



Singh, who oversaw the BJPs 2014 Lok Sabha campaign and is credited with coining the now-famous slogan Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar, co-founded Spicejet in 2005, sold it and later bought it back from the Maran family two years ago and quickly turned it back to profits. The airline was on the verge of shutting down in 2015, cancelling thousands of flights, defaulting on payments to oil firms, airports, vendors and lessors.



SpiceJets retail foray comes at a time when the government is examining plans to allow limited sale of beauty and personal care products in global giants food retail outlets as part of plans to ease rules for multinationals to open stores in the country.



Inter-ministerial consultations are currently on for writing the new rules to partially open up the non-food sector to transnational deep-discount retailers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a final view on the matter and a decision is expected after the second part of Parliaments Budget session ends in March.
Mumbai: Fatima Sana Shaikh, who was seen in Aamir Khan starrer Dangal, has dismissed reports of teaming up with the superstar again for his next film Thugs of Hindostan.



There were reports doing the rounds that Aamir had recommended Fatima for Thugs of Hindostan which also stars him and Amitabh Bachchan and that the actress also signed on for the film.



When asked about it, Fatima said, "What should I say? All I know is that a film named Thugs of Hindostan is being made." Fatima said although she is not doing the film but hopes she gets offer from the makers.



"I am not playing any role (in Thugs of Hindostan). If I get it then good. Someone please give me a role in that film I want to do Thugs of Hindostan." She was talking on the sidelines of Zee Cine awards 2017, where she was accompanied by her Dangal co-star Sanya Malhotra.



"I have not signed anything yet. Hopefully I will do something soon.. I miss acting," Sanya said.
Sharing this because I know another girl who went through the same ordeal recently. #TVF #ArunabhKumar https://t.co/iAw5WWLu3c  Apurva Asrani (@Apurvasrani) March 13, 2017

It makes for a great fictional story. I'm sure more anonymous 'ex-TVF' employee stories will drop in.  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

I know a lot of people love the sensationalist story behind it. But sadly, it isn't true. But still...  Biswapati Sarkar (@ChhotaThalaiva) March 13, 2017

Those wondering why the strong worded response. because there is no such person and this all seems very conveniently orchestrated  Amit Golani (@GolOpinions) March 13, 2017

Utter nonsense and false claims on an 'Anonymous' post. There has been no such person existing from muzaffarpur working at TVF.  Amit Golani (@GolOpinions) March 13, 2017

The sad part is facts are no longer relevant as long as people get their dose of schadenfreude. People will realise the truth but too late  Amit Golani (@GolOpinions) March 13, 2017

CEO and founder of a popular Youtube channel, The Viral Fever (TVF), Arunabh Kumar, has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment after an anonymous post on the Medium.com went viral on Monday in which a writer, calling herself Indian Fowler, levelled the allegations.The writer has accused Kumar of sexually harassing her during the time she was an employee of TVF.The post states that within a moth of her joining, Kumar had tried to engage with her in conversation which had sexual overtones .I am abruptly called by Arunabh at 6.45 PM. I am in the local back towards my home. He demands I come back to office. Apparently i have not finished some part of my work. I reluctantly come back. There are 3 people in office. 2 of them leave withing 5 minutes of me coming in. And Arunabh is sitting on a Chair in a casual manner. I walk up to him. He looks at me and asks me   Chaturbhuj Sthan ka naam suni ho? I am stunned. For Non Starters, Chaturbhuj Sthan is the Red Light District of Muzaffarpur. I didnt respond. His second question- Humko Chaturbhuj Sthan Bahut Pasand Hai. Udhar commercial deals hoti hain. Tum Bhi to commercial deal pe aayi ho. I was getting where he was leading the discussion to. I avoided an interaction. I said Arunabh, aap bade bhai hain. Meri tabiyat thodi theek nahi hai. Kya karna hai bataiye. Hum karke ghar jaayenge He suddenly holds my hand. Says Madam, thoda role play karein. I was stunned. None of this was something i had ever asked for. I ran away. Locked myself in the toilet. And cried. He went away. But i was thinking why the hell he is after me? What did i do to make this happen to me. That was the longest night of my life, reads the post.At another time he had demanded a quicky (sic) with her. The post then went on to explain how she tried to raise the issue to her bosses but no one paid attention to it and when she tried to quit her job, TVF stated she was breaching her contract with the company.Hours after the post went viral on social media, many other women spoke out, either on Twitter or on Facebook, claiming that they too have had similar encounters with Kumar.A post on Facebook by freelance director Rukmini Sengupta narrated a similar story.Aligarh writer Apurva Asrani tweeted the blog and stated he too knew someone who had faced a similar problem at TVF.Another former TVF employee claimed that she too 'had to face a similar experience working there. I felt exploited and cheated and I left my job under very bad circumstances... It is indeed no place for a woman. I would never recommend anybody to work there.'TVF released a statement countering Indian Fowlers post, claiming that the incident was fictitious and that no such person ever worked in their company. The statement read:This is an official response from TVF on the anonymous article published on Medium by the Indian Fowler. The article is completely ludicrous and defamatory against TVF and its team.All the allegations made against TVF and its team in the article are categorically false, baseless and unverified. We take a lot of pride in our team and in making TVF a safe workplace that is equally comfortable for women and men.We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice for making such false allegations.It is our humble request that you do not to share an unsubstantiated, unverified and anonymous article such as this. We would like to thank all our fans and friends for their continued support.Meanwhile, TVFs core team- that includes writer-director Biswapati Sarkar, casting director Nidhi Bisht and director Amit Golani refuted the blog and defended Arunabh.Nidhi Bisht, who has been part of TVF from the beginning, stated on Twitter, that TVF was one of the safest places for women to work. Bisht is the casting director of TVF and her show Bisht Please will be releasing soon online. She first tweeted that how she could not recall anyone with the description that is given in the blog to have ever worked at TVF. She later issued a statement stating that if any woman had faced any kind exploitation while working at the company should come forward and lodge a formal complaint. Bisht stated that TVF has zero tolerance for workplace harassment.While his team has been tweeting since Monday defending him and the company, Arunabh Kumar has maintained a stoic silence on the issue on social media. In his only interview to Mumbai Mirror , post the controversy broke out, Arunabh said, I unconditionally and unequivocally deny all these allegations. Social media has already declared me an offender, but I am ready to address all the allegations against me. I am open to receiving a police complaint so that I can respond legally as well. TVF is bigger than me and if there is a remote chance that I have done any wrong, let me be persecuted."The Viral Fever is known for its popular web series like Pitchers, Permanent Rommates and the recent Trippling have been pioneers of sorts in creating fiction exclusively for web in India.
New Delhi: Congress spokesperson Brijesh Kalappa on Tuesday said AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad has resigned from the post owning responsibility for the party's debacle in Odisha Zilla Parishad polls.



"Hariprasad has resigned from the party post and membership of the AICC Working Committee owning responsibility for the party's debacle in Odisha Zilla Parishad polls," he said.



Kalappa, however, denied rumours of Hariprasad quitting the Congress and forming a new party.



"There were rumours that Hariprasad has quit Congress and would be forming his own party. There is no truth in it," he said.



In the Odisha Zilla Parishad elections, that concluded last month, the Congress managed to grab 60 seats, compared to 128 which it won in 2012 elections. BJD secured 473 seats and BJP 297 seats.
After a poor showing in the recently-concluded Goa Assembly polls, the BJP seems to have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. The main architect of this coup, BJPs Manohar Parrikar, will take oath as Goa Chief Minister for the fourth time in his career. A floor test has been ordered for Thursday and for now, it seems Parrikar has pulled the rug from under the Congress feet.On Tuesday, a wounded Congress moved the Supreme Court, asking it to stay Parrikars swearing in as CM. The apex court rejected the Congress plea and refused to stay the swearing in. It also ordered that a floor test be conducted on March 16, Thursday.When election results started coming in on Saturday, it became clear that the BJP had lost its hard-won majority in the 40-member Goa state Assembly. The Congress, with 17 MLAs, was tantalisingly close to the magic number of 21. BJP with 13 elected members was in second position, losing six out of eight sitting ministers, including Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.That was when the BJP looked towards its tallest leader and troubleshooter in Goa. Parrikar swept in after the poll results, and soon, support started pouring in for the BJP. The Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) with three MLAs each threw their lot in behind the BJP.MGP leader Sudhin Dhavlikar went on to say the support to the BJP was for the development of Goa. Soon, the party top command gave the nod for Parrikar becoming CM again and he proceeded to meet the Governor in Panaji.The Congress, in addition to its 17 MLAs, has the support of one Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA and one independent. This puts the Congress at 19, two short of a majority in the Goa Assembly. The BJP, on the other hand, claims that it has crossed the halfway mark. BJP claimed the support of three MLAs of the MGP, three of the GFP and two independents. The MGP and the GFP have offered support to the BJP on the condition that Parrikar be made CM. If the BJPs claims prove true, it will put the BJP at 21 MLAs, just enough to form government. Parrikar just has to keep his flock together till Thursday.
New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the BJP of using the money to "steal the mandate" in Manipur and Goa following the party's bid to form governments in both the states despite being the runner-up.



Breaking his silence after the Congress' drubbing in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls, Gandhi also said his party needed structural and organisational changes.



"We have an ideological fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party and we will continue to do that. What BJP has done in Manipur and Goa, is basically what their ideology is and which is what we are fighting," Gandhi told the media.



Asked to comment on allegations that the Congress' central leadership did not act soon enough in Goa, Gandhi replied: "It's not a question of soon enough, it's a question of how much money the BJP has thrown to steal the mandate in Manipur and Goa. That's the question."



Gandhi said the Congress' performance in the assembly polls was not bad.



"We are in the opposition, you have ups and downs. We had a little down in Uttar Pradesh, that's fine we accept it.



"We had five elections, we formed the government in Punjab and won in Manipur and Goa. That is not a bad result. It is true that we lost in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.



"But as far Congress is concerned we do need to make structural, organisational changes," added Gandhi.
Panaji: Claiming adequate numbers, the Congress Legislative Party will meet Governor Mridula Sinha on Tuesday to stake claim to form the next government in Goa.



CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar said, "We emerged as a single largest party and we should invite to form the government. We have adequate numbers and we will meet the Governor at 10.00 AM to stake claim to form the next government."



The Goa Governor has already invited the BJP-led alliance to form the government and the swearing-in is scheduled in the evening.



The Congress has expressed dismay over Governor's move of not inviting them as they are single largest party that has emerged in the Goa Legislative Assembly polls.



The Congress has 17 legislators followed by BJP with 13, Goa Forward Party and MGP with three each, three independents and NCP (one).



The party has also filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Manohar Parrikar as chief minister. The apex court has fixed an urgent hearing at 11 am today.



Meanwhile, the Congress party also made a representation to Governor last night, asking her to invite them to form the government.



The CLP had said that they have support of the majority of the legislature and are in a position to prove the same on the floor of the House.



"Our political opponents (BJP), despite losing the mandate of the people, have tried to misrepresent to your good-self that they enjoy the majority support of legislators. This is not only opportunism at its lowest but is also not constitutionally permissible," Kavlekar had said.



"Any post-poll alliance of the kind being projected by the BJP to seek the first invitation to form the government would defeat the mandate of the people which has categorically rejected the incumbent government of the BJP," the representation read.



"Any invitation to the BJP to form the government at this stage without first giving an opportunity to the single largest party (Congress) would mitigate against the essential democratic rights of the people of the state who have chosen the INC as the single largest party in the state," it stated.



(PTI inputs)


New Delhi: Arun Jaitley has said that the Congress Party complains a bit too much in a facebook post intended to defend the formation of a government by the BJP despite the Congress being the single largest party.



It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of stealing the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha. What are the facts? Jaitley posted on his page on the social media platform.



Jaitleys rationale was that the Assembly Elections in Goa produced a hung Assembly and that obviously in a hung Assembly post-poll alliances will be formed.



The BJP managed to form an alliance and presented to the Governor 21 out of 40 MLAs. They appeared before the Governor in person and submitted a letter of support. The Congress did not even submit a claim to the Governor. It had only the support of 17 MLAs, the post said.



Jaitley claimed that in the face of these 21 MLAs led by Manohar Parrikar, the Governor could not have invited the minority of 17 MLAs to form the Government.



He cited several precedents to support the Governors decision including Jharkhand in 2005 (BJP won 30 out of 81 seats. The JMM leader Shibu Soren with a support of 17 MLAs of his party plus others formed the government), Jammu & Kashmir in 2002, (NC won 28 MLAs but the Governor invited the PDP and Congress with 15 + 21 MLAs) and Delhi in 2013 (BJP won 31 seats, but AAP with 28 MLAs + Congress support formed the Government).


Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh unit of Congress on Tuesday demanded that next months by-elections in the state be held through paper ballot and not the electronic voting machines (EVMs). "Serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of voters.



So the polling for by-elections to Ater and Bandhavgarh Assembly seats should be conducted through the paper ballot," state Congress president Arun Yadav told reporters here. To a question about BSP supremo Mayawatis allegation that EVMs were tampered with during the Uttar Pradesh elections, he said he had similar apprehensions.



"The ruling BJP in the state and at the Centre is likely to resort to the same way in the by-elections," Yadav alleged. "Congress would win both the by-elections due to our strong base in these areas," he asserted. The party was not disappointed by the outcome of recent Assembly elections because it emerged as the single largest party in three out of the five states, Yadav said.



"Congress was not invited to form the government in Goa and Manipur which is unconstitutional," he said. Earlier in the day, a Congress delegation submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer of Madhya Pradesh demanding use of ballot paper in the by-elections scheduled for April 9.



Election became necessary in Ater after the death of the then Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Congress MLA Satyadev Katare. Bandhavgarh seat fell vacant after the sitting MLA and state minister Gyan Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from Shahdol in a by-election last November.
New Delhi: With its eyes set on the upcoming civic polls in the capital, BJPs Delhi unit on Tuesday appointed Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga as its spokesperson.



Bagga is a fairly well-known figure in the capital with a Twitter following of close to 2 lakh people and is known for his proximity to BJP leaders.



He first came into the limelight by assaulting several public figures and founding an internet-savvy group called Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena which was defined as a task force against traitors, anti-nationals and corrupts (sic).



Most infamous of these episodes was the assault of Prashant Bhushan in his chamber in 2011. Bhushan had supported a referendum on whether the people in Kashmir wanted to stay with India or not.



Titled Operation Prashant Bhushan on his Twitter, Bagga with his colleagues had barged into Bhushans room when he was speaking to a television channel and started beating him.



Bhushan was pulled out of his chair, slapped, dragged and repeatedly punched. He was pinned down on the floor and kicked on his chest. Later pictures of the injured Bhushan with torn shirt were circulated on the internet.



Later claiming credit for the attack, Bagga had posted this on his Twitter handle, he try to break my Nation, i try to break his head. Hisab chukta. Congrats to all. operation Prashant Bhushan successful [sic].



His group also defaced walls around the Pakistan High Commission and pasted posters demanding freedom for Balochistan.



Bagga with his colleagues went on to barge into a seminar and attack Arundhati Roy and the people listening to her while the writer was discussing her book Broken Republic, again for voicing pro-separatist sentiments in context of Kashmir.



Again, in 2012, BSKS also threatened to force Swami Agnivesh to drink urine after he voiced concerns over news reports that a Visva-Bharati University girl was forced to drink urine by her hostel warden for bedwetting.



In the same year, Bagga and his colleagues claimed credit for attacking Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.



In 2015, BSKS also started an online news and opinion blog dedicated to Narendra Modi called the NaMo Patrika. On July 1, 2015 he was hosted by the Prime Minister at his official residence on Lok Kalyan Marg, along with 149 pro-right other media influencers in an event called #super150.



Off late Bagga seemed to have mellowed down a bit. In case of the online propaganda attack on Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur, Bagga told a news portal, People sharing fake video of Gurmehar is only hurting movement, its not going to prove anything. Also, if its not real we dont have right to attack anyones personal life.



With the elevation of Bagga, who has been close to BJP and RSS since his teens, to an official position in the party, BJP would be looking to attract youth and Sikhs to the party ahead of the crucial civic polls scheduled to be held on April 22.
Three days after Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati raised allegations of widespread fraud in electronic voting machines (EVMs), Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has jumped into the debate. Kejriwal on Tuesday directed Delhi Chief Secretary MM Kutty to write to the Election Commission, asking it to ensure that the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election is held via a paper ballot instead of EVMs.Kejriwals decision to direct the Chief Secretary comes a day after Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) chief Ajay Maken had urged him to go for paper ballots. "Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results, I want Arvind Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot papers," Maken said.The elections to the three municipal corporations of Delhi are scheduled to be held in April.After a severe drubbing at the polls, Mayawati had questioned the election verdict that gave a thumping majority to the BJP. Peoples trust in EVM voting is broken. The BJP has tampered with the EVMs in Uttar Pradesh. I have written to Election Commission in this regard, people no more have faith in EVM machines. Its is an attack on democracy. Whatever reports I am getting my sources, in many areas where people have not even voted to for BJP, the party is emerging as winner, she had said.
Lucknow: Victory and defeat may be part of politics, but at times a poll debacle can threaten the very career of a big leader at least in the short run.



Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati and Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav face a similar situation after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Their parties have been humiliated to the extent it threatens their immediate political relevance.



The defeat also dashed BSP chief Mayawati's hopes of another term in the Rajya Sabha when her present one gets over in April next year.



For Akhilesh on the other hand, going to Rajya Sabha is the best option as currently he is just a member of the Legislative Council. But for that he will have to wait till April next year.



Mayawati had shifted to Rajya sabha in 2012 after losing the state to Samajwadi party. As a chief minister she had been a member of the state legislative council, But following her party's defeat she had resigned from the council and entered Rajya sabha.



It was an easy task then since BSP had 87 MLAs, well above the electoral college provision for Rajya sabha polls. This time, with just 19 MLAs, the situation is different. Even getting into UP legislative council is near impossible, with her current strength in the Vidhan Sabha.



How Mayawati meets this challenge could be of interest. Will she get together with the rival SP, like the JD (U) and RJD did in Bihar? Together the two parties can send 2 MPs' to Rajya Sabha. Or, will she contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls?



SP national president Akhilesh Yadav would face a similar predicament. He is reduced to just 41 out of 403 seats in a state he ruled for five years. Yes, his party has a majority in the upper house with 67 out of 100, but that hardly makes any impact when BJP has a more than a two third majority in Vidhan Sabha.



Top SP sources say the best way out for Akhilesh is to resign from Legislative Council and move to Rajya Sabha, a move more suitable for a leader of national stature. For that, he will have to wait till April 2018 when 10 RS seats fall vacant.



Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's RS seat may fall vacant in the near future as he shifts to Goa as chief minister. But given BJP's brute majority in UP, it will clinch it.



Election to Rajya Sabha should not be a challenge for Akhilesh, sources say, despite the challenge posed to his leadership by Uncle Shivpal Yadav. The post of leader of opposition in Vidhan sabha is most likely to go to either Shivpal or Azam Khan, both having won despite the saffron wave.



While Akhilesh would be more keen on Azam getting the lead role, party patriarch Mulayam Singh is likely to put his weight behind Shivpal. The party can also decide against putting up Azam because it would only fuel the existing perception of minority appeasement.



Possibilities of Akhilesh replacing old guard Ahamad Hassan as leader of opposition in Legislative Council are remote. The post does not have the gravitas for accommodating a former chief minister and party national president.



It would be interesting to watch whether the post of national president comes back to Mulayam singh. As a close Mulayam loyalist remembers, Akhilesh himself had earlier said he wished to hold on to the post for just three months till the polls were over.



Now that the polls are over and the party has suffered its worst defeat, will Akhilesh resign and make way for his father? Mulayam loyalists have already started raising the demand.



Party MLC Madhukar Jaitley told News 18, "Chief Minister should take the responsibility for the defeat. It's high time Mulayam Singh took back the control of the party."



That, will depend a lot on Mulayam himself. Will he stand by his son in this hour of crisis, or will he side with his son's opponents? Despite being humiliated, Akhilesh is still the face and future of the party. Cornering him entirely is neither possible nor wise, and Mulayam is more likely to explore a middle ground.



This could be a likely family picture: Mulayam as national president, Akhilesh as its face and Shivpal as the key architect in the state. A serious attempt at mutual co existence is likely to be made and the party will explore the possibility of a larger unified opposition well ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Mysuru: Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President B S Yeddyurappa on Monday said former Congress leader S M Krishna will join the BJP on March 15.



"Krishna will join BJP fold on March 15 in New Delhi," Yeddyurappa told reporters in Mysuru after addressing a rally in the run up to the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls.



Yeddyurappa also mentioned about Krishna's induction in the BJP in his speech during the rally.



He said Krishna would be inducted into the party in the presence of BJP National President Amit Shah and other central leaders.



Krishna, on the other hand, has neither commented nor denied reports of Yeddyurappa claiming that he would be joining the saffron party.



The 84-year-old Krishna had announced his resignation from the Congress on January 29, saying the party was in a "state of confusion" on whether it needs mass leaders or not.



Krishna, who was Karnataka chief minister from 1999 to 2004, had returned to state politics after stepping down as the minister for external affairs in 2012. He had also served as Governor of Maharashtra.



The bypolls are scheduled to be be held on April 9. The Nanjangud seat fell vacant after the resignation of veteran Congress leader V Srinivas Prasad in December 2016 as he was disgruntled with the Congress after he was dropped from Siddaramaiah's cabinet. Prasad later joined the BJP.



The Gundlupet seat fell vacant after the death of MLA H C Mahadeva Prasad on January 3, who was Cooperation and Sugar Minister.



Yeddyurappa said he would be in New Delhi on Tuesday to attend an internal party meeting.
Panaji: The Congress on Tuesday alleged that Goa Governor Mridula Sinha did not invite it to form government in the state despite the party giving her a letter on Sunday seeking appointment to stake the claim.



"We wanted to stake the claim on March 12 itself. We had given her the letter on that day itself but still she (Governor) did not give us an appointment," AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh told reporters here, after chairing a meeting of the Goa Congress Legislature Party.



The party MLAs would be meeting the Governor this afternoon again with the claim that it has numbers to form the government.



"Despite established principle and constitution, the Governor did not call us to form government but gave a chance to the second largest party (BJP)," Singh alleged.



Sinha has already invited the BJP-led alliance led by Manohar Parrikar to form the government and the swearing-in is scheduled this evening.



In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 seats followed by BJP which has 13. The Goa Forward Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) have three seats each, the NCP has one seat and there are three independents.



"We will inform the Governor that we have the required number of legislators to form the government. If we are allowed, we can prove our majority on the floor of the House," CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar said after the meeting.



The Congress last night made a representation to the Governor asking her to invite the party to form the government in the coastal state.



The CLP claims that the party has the support of required number of legislators and is in a position to prove its majority on the floor of the House.



"Our political opponents (BJP) despite losing the mandate of the people have tried to misrepresent to your good-self that they enjoy the majority support of legislators. This is not only opportunism at its lowest but is also not constitutionally permissible," Kavlekar had said.



"Any post-poll alliance of the kind being projected by the BJP to seek the first invitation to form the government would defeat the people's mandate which has categorically rejected the incumbent government of the BJP," read the representation.
Overcoming the Congress challenge and a petition in the Supreme Court, Manohar Parrikar was on Tuesday evening sworn in as the Chief Minister of Goa.

The BJP though finished second in the elections with 13 seats, but claimed the support of 21 MLAs and was thus given the first go at government formation.

The Supreme Court has ordered that a floor test be taken on March 16.

As it happened.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
"BJP has the requisite numbers. They are more than 30. It will be helpful for Manipur," she said.

I had to work with at least five different prime ministers and nobody ever made an allegation that I did something wrong. "For Manipur we need lots of development, lots of jobs and I feel that it is very necessary that we should have stability in the state," she said.

BJP led group has been invited tomorrow to form the Government. Ceremony at 1 pm: Najma Heptulla,Manipur Governor pic.twitter.com/OAWSZwcbHT  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

As per reports, Nongthombam Biren Singh will be sworn in as Chief Minister along with his cabinet at 1 pm on Wednesday.

: Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla on Tuesday justified her decision to invite BJP to form the government in the north-eastern state by stating that the party has the requisite numbers.On Congress's contention that she should have first invited the party to form the government since it emerged as the single largest party after the state Assembly election, Heptulla told reporters, "I do not know what allegations they are making. I am a straight-forward person. I go by the book. I know the rules and regulations."On being asked about the objections raised by the Congress, she said, "Ruling of Supreme Court says it's the responsibility of Governor is to see who has majority and will work for state's stability."Clarifying her position on the matter further, the Governor said, "My 37 years in Parliament and 17 years in the Chair (as Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman)... when I was a member of the Congress party, I had to work with non-Congress governments, including Janata government, BJP and many others.On being quizzed regarding the number of ministers who will take oath tomorrow, Heptulla said, "The list will come to me."Heptullah was on Tuesday invited the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government in Manipur.Earlier, Four Naga People's Front (NPF) MLAs met Heptulla and extended their support to the BJP for formation of the new government in the state.Heptulla on Monday had asked incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to submit his resignation immediately, so that the process of formation of the next government can be started.The Congress had won 28 seats in Manipur, followed by the BJP at 21. The NPP and the NPF have won four seats each, while the LJP and the Trinamool Congress have bagged one seat each.
New Delhi: Two and a half years ago Manohar Parrikar needed a bit of convincing to shift to Delhi as minister for Defence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fresh off his thumping victory in the Lok Sabha elections, had to personally step in. This time around Parrikar may not have needed much encouragement to move back to Goa as chief minister.



When election results started coming in on Saturday, it became clear that the BJP had lost its hard-won majority in the 40-member Goa state assembly. The Congress, with 17 MLAs, was tantalisingly close to the magic number of 21. BJP with 13 elected members was in second position, losing six out of eight sitting ministers, including Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.



That was when the BJP looked towards its tallest leader and troubleshooter in Goa. Parrikar swept in after the poll results, and soon, support started pouring in for the BJP. The Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) with three MLAs each threw their lot in behind the BJP.



MGP leader Sudhin Dhavlikar went on to say the support to the BJP was for the development of Goa. Soon, the party top command gave the nod for Parrikar becoming CM again and he proceeded to meet the Governor in Panaji.



This is not the first time the BJP has looked towards Parrikar in times of trouble. The defence minister has risen through the Sangh ranks, becoming a sanghchalak (local director) in his hometown of Mapusa by the age of 26.



In the 1990s the IIT Bombay graduate became heavily involved in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and was one of its chief organizers in Goa. It is due to this background as a ground-level RSS worker that the Sangh places great trust in him.



Parrikar's entry into active politics happened when he was loaned by the RSS to the BJP. He was brought in to counter the growing clout of the MGP  ironically it is the same MGP supporting him this year. By 1999, he was leader of opposition, and in 2000 he was sworn in as chief minister of Goa for a tenure which lasted only till February 2002.



He was re-elected CM in June 2002 before his government was reduced to a minority in 2005. In 2007, BJP lost the election to a resurgent Congress. The loss did not deter Parrikar who scripted the BJPs comeback in 2012.



PM Modi is known to have great faith in Parrikar. After all, it was the Goa chief minister who had been the first to endorse him as the prime ministerial candidate in 2013 and since then that trust was always been reciprocated.



On Tuesday Parrikar will be sworn in as chief minister of the coastal state for the fourth time. Ahead of him lies the challenge of running a ragtag coalition with wafer-thin majority.
New Delhi: Overcoming the Congress challenge and a petition in the Supreme Court, Manohar Parrikar was on Tuesday evening sworn in as the Chief Minister of Goa.



The BJP, even though it finished second in the elections with 13 seats, claimed the support of 21 MLAs and was thus given the first go at government formation.



Nine ministers were also sworn in during the ceremony, namely Sudin Dhavalikar and Manohar Azgaonkar of the Maharashtrawdi Gomantak Party, Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palienkar and Jayesh Salgaonkar of the Goa Forward, Francis D'Souza, Pandurang Madkaikar of the BJP and Independent legislators Govind Gawde and Rohan Khaunte.



Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court cleared the decks for oath taking of Manohar Parrikar as the Chief Minister of Goa.



The apex court at the same time directed conducting of the floor test on Thursday.



The top court said it was "satisfied" that all the sensitive and contentious issues raised in the petition by Goa Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Chandrakant Kavlekar "can be resolved by a simple direction of holding a floor test".



During the hearing, the bench found fault with Congress for not raising the issue of number of MLAs supporting it before the Governor and also rushing to the apex court without the affidavits of the elected members of the regional parties and independents that they are supporting the Congress which emerged as the single largest party post the elections.
WayRay, a Swiss developer of a holographic augmented reality (AR) technology for internet-connected cars, today announced that it has entered into a partnership with Banma Technologies to develop a new AR car navigation and infotainment system.WayRay also announced that it has closed its Series B financing round which had come from existing investors as well Alibaba Group.Over the past 4 years, WayRay has used US$10 million of its own funds as well as Angel and Series A venture capital, to create a patented technology for transparent holographic displays. This technology is the basis for Navion - WayRays first AR navigation system.Banma Technologies is an independent startup invested in by Alibaba Group and Chinas automaker SAIC Motor, dedicated to making developments in internet-connected cars.WayRay will work closely with this consortium to create an advanced AR HMI that integrates augmented reality navigation, driving assistant notifications, a virtual dashboard, and more. The new system will be built into one of Banmas 2018 car models, turning it into the worlds first vehicle in production with a holographic AR head-up display (HUD)."At the moment, WayRay is the worlds only developer that integrates augmented reality systems into cars. It gives us an advantage over traditional HUDs and provides the opportunity to collaborate with the largest global car brands. said Vitaly Ponomarev, founder and CEO of WayRay.
Italian investigators used Facebook to hunt down a wanted fugitive in Mexico after he posted pictures under an alias.According to a report in Telegraph on Sunday, 65-year-old Giulio Perrone used Saverio Garcia Galiero as his alias on Facebook and posted photos on Saturday showing a happy man living large south of the border.Perrone, a convicted drug smuggler, had been running from the law for more than two decades."Italian forensic police monitoring mobster family Facebook posts discovered he was using the alias Saverio Garcia Galiero. Galiero was his mother's maiden name, which helped police trace him back to Italy," the report said.Perrone closely worked with Mazzarella, Formicola, Polverino and Tolomelli mafia clans and was officially declared a fugitive after a Naples court found him guilty of international drug trafficking, sentencing him to 22-years in jail."This arrest is part of a larger strategy being coordinated by the anti-crime division of the Italian police to capture mafia fugitives who have been taking refuge abroad for many years," the report quoted Italian authorities as saying.
Washington: The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was repeatedly questioned by an Indian-American woman who accused him of destroying the US while she a took a dig at President Donald Trump.



The incident took place at a local Apple store when the woman named Shree Chauhan saw Spicer and started questioning him as she filmed the whole sequence.



The video was posted by her on Twitter on Sunday and has gone viral.



Reacting to the incident, Spicer, at his daily news conference on Monday, said that the US is a free country and people have the right to act however they want.



As per Chauhan's various social media posts, she was in the store to get her iPhone fixed when she spotted Spicer.



"I realised what an enormous opportunity it was to get answers without the protections normally given to Mr Spicer. I was honestly quite nervous and wanted to come up with more cogent questions but did not have time to do so," she wrote in a post on Medium.com.



According to the video, she asked Spicer, "Have you helped with the Russia stuff? Have you committed treason too, just like the president? What can you tell me about Russia....and How do you feel about destroying our country, Sean?"



She said she has lived in Washington DC for about a decade and during this time she has met several VVIPs at public places including pharmacy and grocery stores but did not interact with them.



"However, given what Mr Spicer and his boss (Donald Trump) are doing to this country, I do not believe they are entitled to these norms and customs. Donald Trump and his Klan are openly trampling on the rule of law, our Constitution and our democracy," she said.



As she questioned Spicer multiple times, he replied saying "such a great country that allows you to be here", which the Indian-American described as racist remarks.



"That is racism and it is an implied threat. Think about the sheer audacity of Mr Spicer to say that to my face with a smile, knowing that he is being recorded on video and the position of power he holds in our government," Chauhan alleged.



At the news conference, Spicer said if people have questions, they should ask him.



"Ask it. I interact with individuals all day long.



Ninety-nine percent of them are pleasant, even with people who may not agree with our philosophy or programs or whatever," he said.



"But it's a free country and the beauty of it is that people can act how they want no matter how that's interpreted, and as long as they step on the right side of the First Amendment, we're good," he added.



The incident has drawn criticism from a top Indian-American donor of Trump's presidential campaign, who called the woman's behaviour as disgusting.



"I assume she loved Hillary who loved Pakistan. Send her to Pakistan and then she would realise how great is our country," Shalabh Kumar, founder and chairman of the Republican Hindu Coalition told PTI.



"I watched this (video) over and over too. She is behaving like a spoiled rotten kid with no respect for seniors. It is hard to make out what Sean is saying," he said.



In her blog post, Chauhan described Spicer's response to her question as a threat to her citizenship.



"I am still stunned by the boldness of having my citizenship threatened on camera. I was not polite. But when does being impolite mean that I should be thrown out of the United States of America? The country I was born in, the country I was raised in, the country I love despite its flaws," she said.



According to her, Chauhan is a native of Gujarat and the founder and CEO of Parents in Partnership, an education startup that empowers parents to lead positive changes in schools and communities.



Hailing from Florida, Chauhan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from the University of Miami and a Master of Public Administration degree from American University.
The prime minister could then trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty at any time, starting two years of talks that will end with Britain becoming the first country to leave the bloc.

Brexit minister David Davis successfully urged MPs to overturn the changes earlier Monday, saying: "We will not enter the negotiations with our hands tied."



Parliament gave its approval Monday for Prime Minister Theresa May to start Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, even as Scotland signalled its opposition by announcing plans for a fresh independence vote.The House of Lords rejected a last-ditch attempt to amend a bill empowering May to begin Brexit, paving the way for it to become law as early as Tuesday.May's spokesman sought to play down speculation that she would send her notification letter to the European Council on Tuesday, when the bill is expected to receive royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II."We have been clear that the prime minister will trigger Article 50 by the end of March," her spokesman said ahead of the vote, heavily emphasising the word "end".But the prospect of an imminent start to Brexit was enough to push the nationalist devolved government in Scotland into calling for a new independence referendum.May has said Britain will leave Europe's single market in order to cut immigration, a move that the Scottish National Party (SNP) in power in Edinburgh has warned would be highly damaging to jobs and growth.SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said since the June referendum vote for Brexit that Scotland, where a majority wanted to stay in the EU, sought a different future.On Monday she made good on her warning, promising to give Scotland "a choice at the end of this process" by early 2019 -- before Britain leaves the EU.The European Commission, however, quickly responded saying that Scotland would have to reapply to join the EU rather than inheriting Britain's membership.May has the power to block the vote and said that another referendum, after Scots voted by 55 percent to reject independence in 2014, would only cause "uncertainty and division".But Sturgeon's call pushes to centre stage one of the prime minister's biggest concerns about Brexit -- that it could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom -- as she prepares to fire the starting gun.The other 27 European leaders are prepared for Britain to trigger Article 50, which begins a two-year countdown to Brexit, this week.However, speculation is growing that it may now be delayed until after a March 25 summit in Rome to mark the EU's 60th birthday -- timing that would likely be welcomed in Brussels. Britain's Brexit Secretary David Davis speaks in the House of Commons, London, Monday, March 13, 2017 (AP)Once May has notified the EU of her decision by letter, the bloc will take just 48 hours to issue its first draft proposal for the negotiations, with a follow-up meeting planned on April 6.The actual talks are not expected to begin for months.The bill empowering May to begin Brexit was forced on the government by a Supreme Court ruling and was held up when the House of Lords voted for amendments demanding guarantees for EU nationals' rights and a parliamentary vote on the final withdrawal deal.The House of Lords then conceded, passing the bill unamended late on Monday.The Lords amendment demanding protections for more than three million Europeans living in Britain was defeated by 335 votes to 287 by MPs -- prompting shouts of "shame on you" from protesters outside.Around 150 people had gathered to urge MPs to back the change, including Karin Templin, a 39-year-old architect who was born in the US but is now British."I'm appalled at the UK government, at this stupid ridiculous game that means they won't guarantee the rights of everybody who wants to stay in their home and in their jobs. I'm disgusted," she said.May's government says it wants to guarantee Europeans' rights to stay in Britain, but cannot until EU leaders offer similar rights to British expatriates.The other amendment that was overturned would have given parliament the right to decide whether to accept the final Brexit deal.May has promised lawmakers a vote on the deal but only if she accepts it -- insisting her ability to walk away will strengthen her hand in negotiations.
Washington: US President Donald Trump's administration waded into the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Tuesday as one of his top advisers held his first meeting with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.



After five hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday night, Jason Greenblatt met Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.



Details of their talks were not yet clear.



US officials have described the visit by Greenblatt, Trump's special representative for international negotiations, as a fact-finding mission as the White House seeks a way forward in restarting long-deadlocked peace efforts.



But it comes after Trump cast uncertainty over years of international efforts to foster a two-state solution to the conflict when he met Netanyahu at the White House last month.



At that meeting, Trump broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to a two-state solution to the conflict and would be open to one state if it meant peace.



He has also sparked concern among Palestinians and others by pledging during his campaign to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the status of which is one of the thorniest issues of the conflict.



Trump has since backed away, with US officials saying the decision-making process was in the early stages on the issue.



There have been mixed signals over how Trump will approach his efforts to restart negotiations, with the conflict having confounded US leaders for decades.



Trump spoke with Abbas in their first phone call on Friday, inviting him to visit the White House soon.



The US president has also asked Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit" and there have been warnings that unilateral action by Israel such as moving to annex the West Bank would provoke a crisis with Trump's administration.



There has been growing concern that Israeli settlement building is eating away at prospects for a two-state solution, the basis of years of negotiations.



Settlements are seen as illegal under international law and a major stumbling block to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.



- 'Possible to advance peace' -

In a rare move, former US president Barack Obama, in the waning days of his administration, declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building, allowing it to pass.



Trump had called on Obama to veto the resolution.



After Monday night's meeting, Netanyahu's office and the US embassy issued a joint statement saying he and Greenblatt discussed settlement construction and ways to reach peace.



The two "reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region," the statement said.



They also "continued discussions relating to settlement construction in the hope of working out an approach that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security."



According to the statement, Greenblatt "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to Israel's security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations."



The statement cited Netanyahu as telling Greenblatt he believed "it is possible to advance peace" while Trump is in the White House.



Greenblatt himself wrote on Twitter that he had a "very positive and productive meeting" with Netanyahu during which they discussed the "regional situation, how progress towards peace with Palestinians can be made & settlements."



Netanyahu has found himself caught between maintaining relations with Washington and holding together his rightwing governing coalition, with some pushing for immediate action.



On Tuesday, pro-settlement members of the coalition sought to advance a bill to annex a large Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem of some 37,000 people called Maale Adumim.



The bill was on the agenda for a ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday, but was put off for another week.



Netanyahu has reportedly been seeking to delay the bill due to concerns over how it will affect US relations.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has given the CIA the authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, a role previously assigned exclusively to the Pentagon, a media report said.



Trump's decision is a change from the policy implemented by former President Barack Obama, who limited the paramilitary role of the Central Intelligence Agency, Monday's Wall Street Journal report quoted an unidentified source as saying.



During the Obama administration, CIA drones were used to carry out reconnaissance and collect intelligence to locate suspected terrorists, but attacks were then carried out by the military, Efe news reported.



The drone strike that killed Taliban leader Ajtar Mansurin on May 2016 in Pakistan "was the best example of that hybrid approach" by the CIA and the Pentagon, the report said.



By the end of his tenure, Obama managed to implement a set of rules that allowed only the Pentagon to carry out strikes in order to ensure transparency.



The official said the CIA first used its new authority to carry out drone strikes in late February in an attack in northern Syria, which killed Al Qaeda leader Abu al-Jair al-Masri, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law.



Al Qaeda confirmed on March 2 that al-Masri was killed by a drone.



Officials said Trump's new order specifically applies to CIA operations in Syria, but it could eventually be extended to other operations against terrorists in other countries like Yemen, Libya and Somalia.



Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the orders were given to the intelligence agency by Trump shortly after his meeting with intelligence officials at CIA headquarters on January 21, the day after he was inaugurated as President.


Washington: A meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping was being planned, the White House has said, while emphasising that its purpose would be to defuse tensions over the Korean Peninsula.



"Planning is ongoing for a visit between President Trump and President Xi at a date to be determined. We're not ready to confirm that, and we will have more details," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference amid reports that Trump and Xi would be meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on April 6 and 7.



"It's the purpose of this meeting, of that kind of a meeting, to help defuse tensions over North Korea and the recent deployment of a THAAD military battery to South Korea," he said.



Spicer stated that any meeting between the US President and China would necessarily cover a broad range of topics of mutual concern.



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week is headed to a three-nation Asia tour that would take him to Japan, Korea and China, he said.



"As we go forward, we will have additional details on both the timing and the location of that when we go forward. The State Department Acting Spokesman Mark Toner said North Korea would be a major topic of discussion with China. The Secretary understands that China feels differently certainly with respect to THAAD," Spicer said.



"I think part of the discussions he's going to have when he's in Beijing are hopefully going to be geared towards easing some of those concerns, but also in making very clear that we're taking these actions in an effort to deal with an increasing threat and that we have to do more, we have to look at new ideas, new ways of dealing with North Korea," he said.



Tillerson will be travelling to Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing this week on his first trip to Asia as Secretary of State.



He will arrive in Tokyo on March 15, and continue on to Seoul on March 17, and then head to Beijing on March 18, a senior State Department official said.



The trip will allow the Secretary to continue to engage allies and partners on not only a range of bilateral issues, but also importantly to discuss and coordinate strategy to address the advancing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea.



"The United States is committed to holding North Korea accountable for its flagrant and repeated disregard for multiple UN Security Council resolution violations which expressly prohibit its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes," the official said.



"And we will defend our friends and allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and we will seek to work collaboratively to the maximum extent possible with important partners such as China," the official said.



In Tokyo, Tillerson will meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Japanese counterpart.



"This trip builds on Prime Minister Abe's visit with President Trump in Washington and in Mar-a-Lago in Florida on February 10 through 12," the official said, adding that strong US-Japan relations serve as the cornerstone of peace and security in the Asia Pacific region.



"So in Tokyo, of course, the Secretary will discuss our shared regional and global objectives, including strengthening security cooperation within the US-Japan alliance, working together to enhance a rules-based approach to the maritime domain, and particularly exploring efforts to deepen US-Japan and ROK trilateral cooperation in the face of North Korea's dangerous pursuit of weapons programmes," the official said.



In Seoul, Tillerson will meet with acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn and the Foreign Minister.



In Beijing, his third and final stop, Tillerson would hold a wide range of talks with Chinese officials.



"We're pursuing a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China, one that benefits the American people, remains faithful to our allies, and presses China to abide by international rules and norms," the official said.



"We expect that each of these stops on Secretary Tillerson's first visit to Asia will be forward-looking and will involve discussions of ways to strengthen our cooperation in order to advance the security and economic well-being of the American people. The visit will be the first of many in what we envision will be close, ongoing working relationships," the senior administration official said.


BEDFORD  The Bedford County Board of Supervisors met Monday evening to discuss its capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2018, with proposed projects including repairs and improvements to the Bedford Museum, the health department and Social Services buildings as well as many improvements for the countys fire and rescue departments.

The total proposed amount for the upcoming fiscal years capital improvement plan is $8.3 million.

Last year, the board adopted a plan of $3.5 million.

Susan Crawford, the countys director of fiscal management, said the big change is due to projects in a separate fund, which comes to about $4.8 million. Much of that is due to a $3.5 million renovation at the Falling Creek Center, which soon will be home to Parks and Recreation and Cooperative Extension, and $430,000 for repairs to the administration building, including a new roof and structural repairs.

According to county documents, the capital improvement plan is a planning tool intended to provide officials with an overview of potential long-term funding needs for the acquisition, construction or total replacement of physical facilities and other types of infrastructure.

The county is working to reinstate a five-year capital improvement plan that will cover fiscal years 2018-22.

The capital improvement plan is designated to allocate funding to specific capital projects that require more than $10,000 to complete and are not routine, operational expenses.

The first draft of the plan was presented to the board in October, Assistant County Administrator Reid Wodicka said.

It gave us a basis for how we would like to move forward and plan for future projects, he said.

According to Wodicka, every year, the county provides the Bedford Regional Water Authority with $2 million to pay down its debt service on two water and sewer projects. In 2024, $1 million of that will dissolve.

The county also provides $500,000 for fire apparatus replacement.

Crawford said after the board voted to increase taxes in 2015, $500,000 would go toward the apparatus replacement.

Staff is recommending $25,000 for repairs for the Bedford Museum, $60,000 for the health department building repairs and $15,000 for security cameras for a storage unit owned by the county.

Wodicka said there are security concerns with the storage building as there is a lot of money in assets stored there. County Administrator Carl Boggess said the countys voting equipment is stored there, and if a vandal were to break in, it would cost the county a lot of money.

Supervisor Curry Martin questioned spending $15,000 on security cameras if the storage building never has been broken into.

Officials recommend $25,000 for repairs and added security to the Burks-Scott building, where the Department of Social Services is located; $40,000 for two fire hydrants at Virginia 43 and Virginia 122; a reserve fund of $75,000 for future fire and rescue station development; a reserve fund of $75,000 for Rapid Intervention Team and ladder truck units; $30,000 for a flooring replacement reserve; $50,000 over the next two years for an internet technology service management software; $339,000 for a voting equipment replacement reserve; and $45,000 for a paved walking trail in Moneta Park.

Wodicka also proposed $50,000 for repairs to the red barn located at Falling Creek Park. He said its currently used for storage, and the exterior is in need of extensive repairs. If it is left unattended, it will need to be torn down.

The capital improvement plan also includes $300,000 for courthouse repairs where there is water seeping into the parking deck, creating safety issues, and adding new LED lights to the parking lot.

All of this is needed, but theres nowhere to park to use the court services, Supervisor Andy Dooley said. Somewhere along the line, in the near future, we need to start addressing that.

Wodicka recommended the board meet again after the budget is adopted in mid-April to talk again about what should be on the long-term capital improvement plan list.

As we complete projects there, they come off the list, and we can generate new projects, he said.

He also recommended including school personnel with the county staffs capital improvement plan team to create a joint capital improvement plan.

Supervisor John Sharp said he thought the collaboration was a good idea but asked how the county would keep track of the money since there is one capital improvement plan for the schools and a separate one for the county.

Wodicka said he didnt know yet how it would work, but staff would figure it out as they go.
The Virginia Supreme Court wont hear a former Lynchburg sheriffs deputys appeal of a civil verdict reached after he was accused of converting gold taken from a local pawn shop into cash.

Buddy Gene Wade sought the state high courts review of a judges decision in Lynchburg Circuit Court upholding a jury verdict against Wade in the civil lawsuit, brought by a city pawn shop.

Last June, the jury awarded $100,000 in punitive damages plus more than $9,000 in compensatory damages to Lynchburg Pawn Shop, which sued Wade after the allegations surfaced. The jury also called for $22,000 in attorneys fees plus 6 percent interest on the total awarded.

A co-defendant in the case who had worked previously at Lynchburg Pawn also was ordered to pay more than $9,000, which was the value of the gold the jury found was taken.

State police investigated Wade, but he never was prosecuted; the commonwealths attorney said there wasnt enough credible evidence to bring a criminal case.

Wade resigned as a captain in the Lynchburg Sheriffs Office shortly after the June 2016 verdict, having served about 14 years.

Lynchburg Circuit Judge F. Patrick Yeatts upheld the jury verdict in August.

Wade appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, which issued a decision March 10 refusing to hear the case. A panel of three justices made the decision, saying the Court is of the opinion there is no reversible error in the judgment complained of.

Sidney Kirstein, a Lynchburg attorney for the pawn shop, said the courts refusal to hear the appeal in all likelihood ends the case, and now the issue is collecting the jury award from Wade.

It was a long, hard-fought contest for Lynchburg Pawn to get anyone to look at what has happened in this matter, he said. Once it was reviewed by a jury, they had no problem  [deciding] that punitive damages were in order.

Wades attorney, Joseph Sanzone, had argued in court no loss of inventory had been shown to demonstrate scraps of gold were taken from Lynchburg Pawn and sold to another other shop.

Sanzone did not return a call Monday afternoon, and a working telephone number for Wade could not be found.
Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday secured the endorsement of NARAL, a national abortion rights group, and its state affiliate in the tightly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary.

While the groups typically stay out of intraparty contests, its leaders say they want to reward Northam for his longstanding advocacy for abortion access. And they criticized Tom Perriello, Northam's rival for the Democratic nomination, over his abortion votes during his single term in Congress.

In the race for governor, both candidates are supporting abortion rights and have received 100 percent ratings from NARAL.

But the groups say they endorsed Northam because he has been one of their most reliable allies in the Virginia State House, including during a 2012 push to defeat a bill that would have required pregnant women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before an abortion.

While representing a conservative district in Congress, Perriello supported the controversial and ultimately unsuccessful Stupak amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would have barred health insurance plans that cover abortion from receiving federal subsidies. He has since disavowed that vote.

"Northam has been a consistent champion and built his career on it. When he was a congressman, Perriello's vote for the Stupak amendment was a vote to limit women's access to basic health care," said James Owen, a national NARAL spokesman. "That's a pretty stark contrast in records."

Perriello has told voters at town halls that he would veto the "same anti-choice legislation" that Northam would.

While in Congress, Perriello also voted against legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood and later ran the advocacy arm of the Center for American Progress, where he promoted abortion rights. One of his first gubernatorial campaign stops was a Falls Church abortion clinic - the same venue where NARAL announced its Northam endorsement on Monday.

In a statement, Perriello's campaign manager Julia Barnes questioned Northam's long-term support for abortion rights, noting that he had voted twice for President George W. Bush.

"Tom has always believed in a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, and NARAL confirmed today that Tom will stand with them 100 percent as governor to protect women's rights and keep Virginia a firewall against the endless Republican efforts to restrict them," said Barnes. "He is also the only Democratic candidate in this race who never voted to put an anti-choice candidate in the White House, who then put two anti-choice justices on the Supreme Court."

Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Virginia, said Northam is better suited to win the general election and to lead the commonwealth as someone who has been building relations in Richmond since he took office in 2008.

In the legislative session that ended last month, the Virginia General Assembly voted to defund Planned Parenthood - legislation that was vetoed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat. Lawmakers debated but did not pass another bill that would make abortion illegal after 20 weeks. Meawnhile, Congress and President Donald Trump are also weighing new abortion restrictions.

"Women's reproductive health and rights is on the cusp, and we want this to be a referendum on Trump and his agenda," said Keene.

Keene said NARAL would mobilize its volunteers and organizers on Northam's behalf. The primary is in June.
A pro-Confederate group has removed a 20-by-30-foot battle flag in Rockbridge County the locality insisted be taken down because it violated zoning regulations.

A week after the Virginia Flaggers refused to take down the Confederate flag, they removed the flag and the 82-foot flagpole at the landowners request. The group issued a statement saying the move was temporary, and it intends to fly the flag again once permits are obtained.

The flaggers do not own the property in front of a Rockbridge County pawn shop.

We were prepared to pay the fines that the county of Rockbridge had threatened to levy while we submitted the requested building permit application and request for a certificate of appropriateness, neither of which had been required on either of the other two flags raised previously in Rockbridge County, according to a statement from the flaggers. However, when the landowner contacted us and requested the pole be temporarily removed until the permits were in place, we agreed to his request, as he had been subject to harassment and even threatened with imprisonment.

County officials said they did not threaten to imprison the landowner, but said they would take the matter to court, where a judge could impose a jail sentence.

On Jan. 17, days after the flag went up, county officials informed the group if the flagpole wasnt removed within 45 days, the Virginia Flaggers and the property owners could face fines amounting to $200 per violation for the first 10 days and $500 a day after that for a maximum of $5,000 in fines.

The flagpole violates setback requirements that stipulate how close a structure can be placed to a public highway, county officials said. The pole also was located within a Tourism Corridor Overlay, which is subject to additional local scrutiny and review.

This was never a flag issue, said Christopher Slaydon, the countys assistant director of community development. We made it very clear from the very beginning that this was a setback violation.

The flaggers removed the pole Monday and promised to send the county a check for the fines owed. So long as the flaggers pay the $400 in fines, the county will not continue pursuing court action, Slaydon said.

Once the group obtains the correct permits from the county, it intends to reinstall the flag, according to the statement. The group maintains the flag and the pole do not violate any state or local ordinances.

The county has not received complete applications for either a building permit or Tourism Corridor Overlay permit from the flaggers or property owners, Slaydon said.

The publicity surrounding the flaggers fight with the county has other Rockbridge County citizens requesting flags of their own, according to the flaggers statement.

We expect that before we are finished there, Lexington will soon be giving Danville a run for their money as the Confederate Flag Capital of Virginia, the statement reads.
ABINGDON, Va.  The story of an FBI special agent who was shot and killed in an Abingdon cafe 75 years ago is now cemented in the towns history.

A crowd of about 100, including current and former FBI agents, joined the descendants of Special Agent Hubert J. Treacy Jr. at a dedication ceremony Monday morning outside the Historical Society of Washington County, where a memorial plaque telling Treacys story was unveiled.

The plaque tells a brief version of the events that unfolded that day: On March 13, 1942, Treacy and Special Agent Charlie Tignor were attempting to take into custody two Army deserters in Pats Cafe, which no longer stands. When the agents asked the men for identification, they opened fire, according to information compiled by retired Special Agent Robert Craig and the FBIs Richmond Division.

Treacy, who was 28, was killed almost instantly. He was the 13th agent killed in the line of duty at the time and the only one from the Richmond Division to be killed.

Tignor sustained five shots and survived, living to the age of 101.

Brian Treacy, Hubert Treacys grandson, said the memorial means a lot to the family.

Its very humbling that people still remember 75 years later, he said. It really does prove that the FBI is a family.

Brian Treacy joined that FBI family himself, following in his grandfathers footsteps. He graduated from the FBI Academy in May 2002, 60 years after his grandfathers death.

Two days prior to Treacys murder, then-Army Privates Charles Joseph Lovett and James Edward Testerman assaulted a sergeant at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia, stole a car and made their way to Abingdon, according to the compiled information. Following the fire fight, 100 law enforcement agents from the FBI and local agencies pursued the men.

Both were sentenced to life in federal prison.

At the ceremony Monday, Craig spoke of Treacys background. Known as Burt to his family and friends, Treacy was raised in Far Rockaway, New York. He graduated from Georgetown University and St. Johns University Law School, according to Craig.

Treacy was an FBI agent for a little less than a year: He joined the FBI in April 1941 and was initially assigned to the Pittsburgh field office. He was assigned to Richmond that November and would be killed the next March.

The dedication was in conjunction with the town of Abingdon, the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI-Blue Ridge Chapter and the FBI Agents Association.
Virginia stopped issuing tax refund debit cards almost two years ago. But the program is still causing problems.

Nearly 107,000 taxpayers who had refund cards preloaded with a total of $14 million in state income tax refunds havent collected their money. They never activated their cards.

The Way2Go cards, as they were called, were issued for tax years 2012 through 2014.

The cards have been stripped of the refunds  and most of the money is now parked at the Virginia Department of the Treasury as unclaimed property. The remaining refunds will be transferred later this month.

Taxpayers must file claims now to get their money.

When the Way2Go program was in effect, taxpayers were given two options for receiving state tax refunds  direct deposit into a bank account or a prepaid MasterCard that was supposed to work like a debit card. Paper refund checks were eliminated during those tax years in an attempt to save the state $200,000.

However, the debit cards carried a host of fees and caused so much aggravation and confusion that some taxpayers simply gave up trying to collect what was owed to them.

Many people got hit with fees they didnt expect and some were charged for services that were supposed to be free.

It was a colossal mess, said Richmond resident Donna Shell. After filing a joint tax return, she and her husband each got a debit card.

The Shells avoid using direct deposit as much as possible, because they could be more susceptible to fraud, she said, hence the reason for choosing the debit card option.

The cards came with one free transfer into a banking account.

Ron Shell deposited his half of the refund from his card into their joint bank account, but when Donna Shell tried to deposit her half from her card, it was denied for insufficient funds  not once, but over and over again.

It got embarrassing, Donna Shell said about her attempts to deposit the money.

What she didnt know was how much money was on the card. I now know I should have reduced my refund amount, since our one-time freebie was used on Rons transfer.

In trying to sort out the problem, she made calls to a toll-free number on the back of the debit card  and got nowhere with an automated system.

Eventually, she got a real live person on the phone who helped her retrieve the exact amount left in her account minus deductions for inquiries and transfer attempts. After that conversation, I was able to transfer the remaining funds to our joint account.

Donna has another debit card from another tax year that she figures is good for $15 or $20. Its not worth the hassle, she said about the effort to collect the money.

The balance on that card  whatever it may be  eventually will be transferred to the Virginia Department of the Treasurys unclaimed property division.

A total of $7,911,746 from 67,041 unactivated debit cards has been turned over to the unclaimed property division, said Bill Dadmun, records and receipts manager for the division.

The money will remain there in perpetuity until it is claimed. I hope everyone comes forward and gets their money. They earned it. Its theirs, Dadmun said.

That doesnt mean we have a pile of money sitting in a vault. Its being put to use for K through 12 educational purposes.

An additional $6.12 million from the last batch of unactivated cards  39,935 of them  will be turned over as unclaimed property later this month, said Paige Tucker, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Taxation.

All the unclaimed refund money is from debit cards that were never activated.

It does not include the remaining balances on cards that were activated, like the one issued to Donna Shell. It is unclear how much total money is available for use on those cards.

Activated cards must be dormant for five years before money can be transferred to the Treasurys unclaimed property division, Dadmun said.

Cardholders who never activated their cards were sent letters in early January from the Go Program, which was administered by Xerox Corp., with information about how to activate a card and what to do if a taxpayer lost the card. If a card wasnt activated or a replacement card wasnt requested by March 1, the funds would be transferred to the states unclaimed property division.

Taxpayers can go to vamoneysearch.org to claim their refunds from unactivated refund debit cards.

Dadmun said it typically takes six to eight weeks to get the money once a taxpayer files a claim. The refund is sent via paper checks through the mail.

We have to prove they are who they say they are, Dadmun said about the verification process. We want to make sure that if we send money to John Smith, its the right John Smith.

Virginia issued a total of 1.2 million refund debit cards between Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 30, 2015.

We dont have any research to explain why taxpayers didnt activate their cards, Tucker said. Taxpayers liked checks, or at least the option to get a check, better than the debit cards. When we offered debit cards, the number of taxpayers choosing direct deposit went up. That trend has continued when we started offering checks again.

In 2016, 70 percent of taxpayers received refunds by direct deposit and 30 percent by paper check, she said.

I am happy the debit card option was eliminated; it wasnt popular or well received by taxpayers, said Jennifer F. Flinchum, a partner at the Keiter accounting firm in Henrico County.

The state was trying to be efficient, she said. Direct deposit straight into a taxpayers bank account is the most efficient way to get a refund.

Cathy Mueller, a tax preparer with Peoples Income Tax in Henrico, said she encourages her clients to use direct deposit. The ones who dont use direct deposit didnt like the idea of a card at all.

Mueller said she hasnt encountered any problems with direct deposit but account and routing numbers must be accurate. Our experience is its worked very well. But if one digit is off, it can be quite a process to get it corrected, she said, adding that a correction can take weeks, even months.
Did the accused purposely commit a crime as the prosecutor alleges or was he simply reckless as the defense attorney suggests?

Juries are often asked to figure that out based on evidence and testimony. Since intent, in some cases, can mean the difference between probation and years in prison, the answer has huge implications.

Brain researchers are looking to see if there is a more scientific way to determine intent.

Scientists at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Yale University scanned the brains of 40 people and asked them to decide whether to carry a suitcase across the border. They varied the probability as to whether the suitcase contained drugs. Some knew, others could only guess as to the contents.

By looking at the images from functional MRI, the scientists could determine whether the participants knew drugs were in the case.

Though its possible to watch decision-making in real time, scientists cant strap accused into an fMRI and peer into their brains to determine what they knew at the time they committed a crime. The research is part of the emerging field of neuro law.

The study was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to Vanderbilt University, with a subcontract to Virginia Tech. The Wellcome Trust, the Kane Foundation, the Brown Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute also provided support.

The results were published the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists and lawyers speak different languages, Montague said in a news release. A translation goes on when you bring these groups together that gives new meaning to interdisciplinary. Lawyers think of people as being conscious and deliberative, and the law sees people that way  you are an independent agent and you make choices for yourself. That picture ignores the scientific fact that 99 percent of the decisions made in your nervous system never make their way to consciousness. You are being driven by things to which you dont even have conscious access  that difference was something we had to work through to design the experiment.
Revisit the founding of the JSA and foreshadow its future in The New Golden Age #1 preview

And see what lies ahead in the future of the DC Universe
Home News Sports Social Obituaries Events Letters Waiting for spring at Naples and Mt. Hall March 14, 2017 Students at Naples Elementary were recently entertained by a group of performers in "Living Through the Fire," and they learned a bit of Idaho history iin the process! By Principal Lisa Iverson

Mt. Hall and Naples Elementary Schools



As we say goodbye to winter and hopefully the snow, I need to reflect on the amazing events and incredible efforts put forth last month. To start, a huge thank you to everyone who donated, supported, and organized the Mt. Hall Auction. Annie Sundstrom and the PTO did an outstanding job!



The auction was a huge success, and the students and staff at Mt. Hall are so appreciative of everyone who participated. In case you are wondering what the money from Mt. Hall Auction goes towards, I thought I would mention a few things.



Teachers and programs at Mt. Hall are given money to spend in their classrooms, special field trips that go beyond what is allocated by the Districts budget, playground equipment, t-shirts for all Mt. Hall students and plays and assemblies.



Again, I can reiterate enough how important this auction is to Mt. Hall. Thanks again for the support!



Fun times are happening at Naples too!



Miss Chloe Cavender, the PE/Music teacher at Naples Elementary, invited a talented group of performers to Naples to perform a play called "Living Through the Fire." The play is set around the famous fire that swept through Idaho.



The students really enjoyed the production, and were impressed at how quickly the actors and actresses could change their costumes.



In other exciting Naples news, Mrs. Jennifer has been busy prepping for the upcoming Read-a-Thon. A Read-a-Thon is a fundraiser with all proceeds going towards our library. There might be some Wolverines asking you to sponsor them.



As we get ready to transition to spring, students and teachers are wrapping up third quarter. With spring comes state testing, and I know that the third, fourth, and fifth graders have been working hard in preparation for the upcoming assessments.



Not all the work is being done in the upper grades though. The kindergarteners, first and second graders are working just as hard.



This is the time of year where we really start preparing the students for next year.



Speaking of next year, if you have a future kindergartener, make sure and mark your calendars.



Mt. Hall Elementary is having their kindergarten registration on Thursday, April 20, from 8 a.m. to noon. If you plan on enrolling your kindergartener at Mt, Hall, please call Beth Butters at (208) 267-5276 for an appointment.



Naples Elementary is having their kindergarten registration on Friday, April 28. If you plan on enrolling your kindergartener at Naples, please call Linda Lee at (208) 267-2956 for an appointment. We look forward to meeting our future Wildcats and Wolverines.



Boundary County School District 101 understands the importance of involving parents in their childs education. Some parents arent aware that they have the opportunity to take a parent survey. The survey is intended to help the District provide an excellent education to all of our students.



If you are a parent, and if you would be so inclined, please visit our website and take the survey.



I want to personally thank all of you who support the students, staff, schools and programs of Boundary County School District. I feel blessed to work with these wonderful children and fine educators. Its a privilege to work in a community that places so much emphasis on quality public education. Thank you!



Until next month, Go Wildcats! And Go Wolverines! Questions or comments about this article? Click here to e-mail!
Cops seize ganja in Sea Lots mangrove

According to reports, officers led by ASP Henry and others, who were searching in the mangrove close to the jetty, stumbled upon the 21 packets of marijuana.

The drugs were seized and handed over to the Organised Crime Narcotics and Firearms Bureau (ONCFB). Yesterday, Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of crime Irwin Hackshaw commended the police and other agencies for the efforts made in yesterdays search operations in which the drug seizure was made.
Younger writers top Bocas longlist

Now in its seventh year, the prize recognises books in three genre categories  poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction  published by Caribbean authors in 2016.

In the poetry category, the judges have named books by three younger Jamaican writers: House of Lords and Commons, Kingston Buttercup and Cannibal.

Ishion Hutchinsons House of Lords and Commons is a meditation on home and abroad, personal and communal history, with a rich verbal register and intense engagement with the past literary canon. Ann-Margaret Lims lyrical Kingston Buttercup has a deep grounding in the landscape of Jamaica, whether the penetrating poems address the persistent legacy of slavery, Lims relationship with her mother, or the complications of contemporary Kingston.

And Safiya Sinclairs debut Cannibal is haunted by the character of Caliban from The Tempest, as it explores Jamaican childhood and womanhood, and otherness in a strange place that may be the United States where the poet now lives, or language itself.

We were delighted to read a set of poetry collections remarkable for their range of focus and poetic method, write the prize judges.

Each entry made its own claims on us in terms of originality, appeal, and ambition. Throughout our discussions, all the collections impressed upon us the vitality of todays voices in contemporary Caribbean poetry. The fiction category includes novels by two Jamaicans and one Trinidadian. In his debut novel The Repenters, Kevin Jared Hosein tells a transgressive, almost Gothic tale of violence and punishment, exploring the darkest side of Trinidadian society and family history.

Marcia Douglass magical realist novel The Marvellous Equations of the Dread is set at one of the bleakest moments of Jamaicas recent history, after the deaths of Bob Marley and Emperor Haile Selassie, and coveys a sense of both historys dread and the hope born of human creativity. And in Augustown, Kei Miller offers a historical epic ranging over 60 years of Jamaican history, with its complexities of class, ethnicity, religion and language.

Due to the excellence and range of so many of the works, selecting a shortlist was extremely difficult, remark the fiction judges in a media release.

We were impressed by the high quality of the entries drawn from a range of new and established writers across the region and beyond.

The immediacy of their respective concerns for their culture and their pride in the richness of its history are obvious. Theyre digging deep. The longlisted books in the non-fiction category, are all historical studies. Angelo Bissessarsinghs twin books Virtual Glimpses into the Past and A Walk Back in Time, considered by the judges as two volumes of a larger work, collect vignettes from the history of TT, offering an effortless read for those for whom the past is a forgotten country. Bissessarsingh, a selftaught historian who passed away in early 2017, during the judging period, won a devoted following among Trinidadian readers for his enthusiastic style and passion for research.

Barbadian Hilary McD Beckless The First Black Slave Society: Britains Barbarity Time in Barbados, 16361876 is a compelling history of the first 140 years of the colonisation of Barbados, with great resonances for contemporary debates about reparatory justice for the crimes of history, say the judges.

And, in Inward Yearnings: Jamaicas Journey to Nationhood, Colin Palmer tells the story of Jamaicas struggle to define an identity that embraces both its African heritage and its Anglophone western past. Palmers prose immediately immerses you in sympathy for the people, events, and organisations that make this history, the judges note.

The winners in each genre category will be announced on March 27, and the prize of US $10,000 will be presented to the overall winner on April 29, during the seventh annual NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port-of-Spain. Two category winners will receive US $3,000 each.

The judging panels for the OCM Bocas Prize bring together distinguished Caribbean and international writers, academics, and publishing professionals.

David Dabydeen, the celebrated Guyanese writer based in the UK, chairs the poetry panel, which also includes Cuban poet and translator Nancy Morejon and London-based agent Peter Straus. On the fiction panel, chair Susheila Nasta, founder and editor of the journal Wasafiri, is joined by New York based agent and editor Malaika Adero and St Vincent-born, Canada- based writer H Nigel Thomas.

Jamaican Kim Robinson-Walcott, editor of Caribbean Quarterly and Jamaica Journal, chairs the non-fiction panel, which includes scholars Aaron Kamugisha of Barbados and Patricia Mohammed of TT.

The overall chair of the 2017 cross-judging panel is the eminent Jamaican poet and scholar Edward Baugh. Judges will attend the festival, April 26 - 30 at Nalis and the Old Fire Station in Port-of-Spain.

The 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature longlist: Poetry House of Lords and Commons, by Ishion Hutchinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Kingston Buttercup, by Ann-Margaret Lim (Peepal Tree Press) Cannibal, by Safiya Sinclair (University of Nebraska Press) Fiction The Marvellous Equations of the Dread, by Marcia Douglas (Peepal Tree Press) Augustown, by Kei Miller (Weidenfeld and Nicolson) The Repenters, by Kevin Jared Hosein (Peepal Tree Press) Non-fiction The First Black Slave Society: Britains Barbarity Time in Barbados, 16361876, by Hilary McD Beckles (University of the West Indies Press); Virtual Glimpses into the Past: Snapshots of the History of Trinidad and Tobago/A Walk Back in Time: Snapshots of the History of Trinidad and Tobago, by Angelo Bissessarsingh (Queen Bishop Publishing); Inward Yearnings: Jamaicas Journey to Nationhood, by Colin A. Palmer (University of the West Indies Press) For more info: www.bocaslitfest.

com
CAL workers underpaid and unhappy

The data in this survey was disclosed by CAL Human Resources Vice President Hyacinth Guy in response to questions from members of the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on State Enterprises yesterday at Tower D of the Port-of-Spain International Waterfront Centre. JSC chairman, Independent Senator David Small, wondered whether salaries and compensation attributed to such a high level of dissatisfaction expressed by the majority of the airlines workers.

Without quoting figures, Small observed, The average salary for the pilots is well within the range of even some of the larger airlines. According to Small, The disparity is the front line staff. Focusing particularly on flight attendants, Small said the information suggested that CAL flight attendants are paid a fraction of what their counterparts in other airlines are paid. Guy admitted that, Salary levels in CAL are not at the market level. As she explained that the airline is, challenged as an organisation, Guy indicated, The ranges have been in place since 2010. She said the airlines pilots re-negotiated their contracts in 2014 and have a collective agreement which runs up 2018.

Guy reiterated that while CAL is challenges with respect to other categories of its workers, it has implemented a robust performance and evaluation system. She said this has allowed, employees since 2015 to get a merit increase based on performance. Guy explained that while the official retirement age at CAL is 60 years, pilots can work up to 65.

Opposition Senator Wade Mark suggested part of the reason why so many CAL workers are unhappy is because most of them are not unionised.

Mark added CALs pilots have a labour representative.
It May Not Be the Time

You Think It Is
Two decades after mysterious lights were seen in the sky above Phoenix, the so-called "Phoenix Lights" are still confoundingand controversial. On March 13, 1997, many people saw the lights; some theorized they were from military flares or hot air balloons, while others suspected extraterrestrial beings. The story has since become UFO lore. Former Phoenix City Councilwoman Frances Barwood talks to Fox 10 about her experience speaking out about the lights; she brought them up at a City Council meeting and asked for them to be investigated but "was met by a whole bunch of stares," she recalls. A city manager even told her she shouldn't have asked the question. But hundreds of people who'd seen the lights started calling her, and "they all described exactly the same thing," she says.

Per the Arizona Republic, the lights were described as being in a V-formation and they reportedly traveled over a 300-mile area. Barwood was convinced the witnesses must be telling the truth, but she was ridiculed in the media and in local government as a conspiracy theorist. Years later, Arizona's then-governor, Fife Symington, has admitted he saw the lights: "I saw a huge craft come right over Squaw Peak," he says. But there are still no answers, though physician Lynne Kitei, who also saw the lights, is still investigating the phenomenon, and has published a book and a documentary on the subject. "We need to address it," she says. "Accept it and study it, so we can find out who is driving these things as well as move forward in our own evolution." The official explanation? A military exercise involving planes flying in formation and dropping high-intensity flares. (Read more strange stuff stories.)
Britain lurched closer to leaving the European Union Monday when Parliament stopped resisting and gave Prime Minister Theresa May the power to file for divorce from the bloc, the AP reports. The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed its final hurdle in Parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords, Monday. The House of Commons approved the bill weeks ago, but the 800-strong Lords fought to amend it, inserting a promise that EU citizens living in the U.K. will be allowed to remain after Britain pulls out of the bloc. They also added a demand that Parliament get a "meaningful" vote on the final deal between Britain and the remaining 27 EU nations.

Both amendments were rejected Monday by the Commons, where May's Conservatives have a majority. A handful of pro-EU Conservatives expressed their unhappiness, then abstained from the vote. The bill returned to the Lords, in a process known as parliamentary ping pong. Faced with the decision of the elected Commons, the Lords backed down and approved it without amendments. Once the bill receives royal assenta formality that should be accomplished within hoursMay will be free to invoke Article 50 of the EU's key treaty, triggering two years of exit negotiations, by her self-imposed deadline of March 31. (But in a blow to May's government, the prospect of Scotland's exit from the United Kingdom suddenly appeared nearer, too.)
The Justice Department has asked for more time to grant the House Intelligence Committee's request for proof of President Trump's extraordinary claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor. A department spokeswoman says they need time "to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist," reports Reuters, which notes that the DOJ isn't officially required to respond to the House committee's request. A spokesman for the committee, which had set a Monday deadline, says they may "resort to a compulsory process" if they don't have anything by the time of a planned hearing on March 20.

The heads of a Senate subcommittee on crime have also requested copies of warrants or anything else that would support Trump's claim that Barack Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped during Trump's campaign, the Washington Post reports. On Monday, press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that the word "wiretapping" "spans a whole host of surveillance types of options" and that Trump "doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally." The remark came in response to questions from NBC's Peter Alexander, who asked if the wiretapping was "phony or real" and wondered whether Americans should trust their president, Politico reports. (Read more wiretapping stories.)
President Trump has apparently been accepting the $33,333 salary he vowed not to accept, but he's not planning to keep it. Press secretary Sean Spicer says the president, who's required under federal law to receive payment, plans to donate his annual $400,000 salary, which is paid in monthly installments, at the end of the year, NBC News reports. When asked about details of the donation, Spicer jokingly told reporters: "He has kindly asked that you all help determine where that goes," adding that "the way that we can avoid scrutiny is to let the press corps determine where it should go." ABC reports that one journalist at the briefing suggested Trump give the cash to the White House Correspondents' Association for "journalism scholarships." (Read more President Trump stories.)
It's one thing to talk about heading for another country's hills when a new president is elected. It's another thing to go ahead and do it. But that's exactly what seems to be happening, at least in one distant corner of the world. In New Zealand, the number of Americans who applied for a grant of citizenship rose by 70% in the 12 weeks following the election of President Trump when compared to the same period a year earlier, immigration records obtained by the AP show. In New Zealand, a grant of citizenship is the pathway for people without a family connection. Figures also show the number of Americans who obtained a New Zealand work visa in January was up 18% from a year earlier, as was the number of American tourists.

Among those Americans with a New Zealand parent, citizenship applications after the election were up 11% from a year earlier. New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs said that in the two days after the US election, the number of Americans who visited its website to find out about citizenship was up more than tenfold from the same two weekdays a month earlier. The total number of Americans applying for New Zealand citizenship remains relatively low at less than 400 from Nov. 8 to Jan. 31, but an immigration consultant says that's still "a huge avalanche of numbers." While one expat says she misses the great Mexican food available in the US, she adds "New Zealand is a place that cares about equality, I think more." (Peter Thiel may have bought his New Zealand citizenship.)
Meet music lover Bradley, outdoor enthusiast Preston, hip-hop dancer Layla, Pokemon card collector Landon, and Olive, who mainly likes to be snuggled. These are the five siblings the Kansas City Star featured in its "Family Wanted" section on Saturday, and they're looking to all be adopted by the same family. Response to the ad about the siblings has been "pretty insane," Corey Lada of the Kansas Children's Service League, affiliated with the state's Adopt Kansas Kids organization, tells the Star. The original ad has been clicked more than 4 million times. The kids, ages 2 to 11, are identified only by their first names, and Lada didn't reveal much else about them other than to say they're all in different foster homes and that their case has been removed from the state website because so many inquiries have poured in.

Some critics have suggested the response has been so great because the kids are white: One Overland Park resident, for instance, says the children look like they stepped out of a "Lands' End ad" and that kids of other racesthe Star notes Kansas has around 1,200 kids looking for familiesdon't get the same hype. Still, the director of an unrelated Kansas nonprofit says she hopes the kids end up under one roof. "That bond between siblings is the strongest thing they've got when parents are gone," she says. It's not impossible: A couple in Missouri is in the process of adopting five siblings, ages 6 to 15, from a Filipino orphanage, reports the Joplin Globe. Husband Aaron Jones recalls seeing his wife, Stephanie, crying while looking at their images online. "Oh cute, which one?" he asked. With his wife crying too hard to respond, he said, "All of them?" And then he agreed. (There's been a massive, troubling shift in US adoptions.)
During a meeting Monday, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez tried to convince Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to reverse a decision to deport a Mexican immigrant who is to be separated from her six children. Instead, he ended up in handcuffs. The congressman had been among a delegation of immigrant advocates that met with ICE officials in Chicago to discuss specific deportation cases, including that of Francisca Lino, whose is to be deported in July though her husband and four of her six children are US citizens. But Gutierrez and others weren't pleased with what officials had to say and ultimately refused to leave. "He's going to be staying inside until he gets answers, even if that means risking arrest," his spokesman told NBC Chicago at the time.

An ICE rep says Gutierrez, a Democrat, sought "actions and assurances that ICE officials couldnt provide" and was "briefly placed in flexible plastic restraints" by federal officers after repeated warnings to leave. However, ICE officials asked officers to remove the restraints after just two minutes, reports USA Today. In an interview with CNN, Gutierrez expressed no gratitude, accusing ICE of lying about targeting criminals. "The fact is, they're going after DREAMers," he said. "Somebody has to stand up for them." In a statement, he added Monday's incident was an example of "heavy-handed government [working] in secret all to make the new strongman President look tough and to satisfy the cravings of his coliseum audience for some immigrants to sacrifice." (An arrest is nothing new for Gutierrez.)
Ever wondered how Sheldon Cooper got to be so, um, quirky? You'll soon find out. CBS says a Big Bang Theory prequel will premiere during the 2017-18 TV season, centering on Jim Parsons' character as a 9-year-old going to high school in Texas. Iain Armitage of Big Little Lies will star as the future theoretical physicist in Young Sheldon, while Parsons will narrate, reports the Los Angeles Times. Zoe Perry and Lance Barber will reportedly play Sheldon's parents, reports the Hollywood Reporter. Production on the pilot, to be directed by Jon Favreau, will begin this month. (Read more TV shows stories.)
A substitute teacher was found throwing up at South Carolina's Brookland-Cayce High School, but a stomach bug wasn't to blame. Judith Richards-Gartee has been charged with disorderly conduct after allegedly drinking boxed wine in her classroom. Administrators say they found the 52-year-old vomiting and incapable of standing when they came to her classroom at 9:45am Friday, reports the State.

She was removed via wheelchair, and a Lexington County deputy who was on the clock as the school resource officer says he found the boxed wine in her purse. Students reported that she was consuming it in class. WIS reports that in a statement Lexington School District 2 made clear that Richards-Gartee was not its employee, but had been hired by the company the district contracts with. (These students in Arizona can probably relate.)
A malfunctioning robot fatally crushed a woman's head as she adjusted machinery at her job, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed in federal court by her husband. Wanda Holbrook, a maintenance technician for Michigan's Ventra Ionia, which does work related to trailer hitches, was inspecting machinery on July 7, 2015, when a robot from another section "took Wanda by surprise," per William Holbrook's suit. It entered Wanda's section, where hitch components were assembled, then "hit and crushed Wandas head between a hitch assembly it was attempting to place in the fixture of section 140, and a hitch assembly that was already in the fixture." Holbrook's co-workers found her, and she died of severe head trauma at the scene, Courthouse News reports.

The robot shouldn't have gone into that section in the first place, and, furthermore, shouldn't have tried to place a hitch assembly in a fixture that already had one loaded, per the lawsuit, which was filed against various companies involved in the production, installation, and servicing of the robot. "A failure of one or more of defendants safety systems or devices had taken place, causing Wandas death," the lawsuit states. It also says the automated safety system did not work as it should have; safety doors meant to stop robot movement, for example, failed, the lawsuit claims. Prior to dying, Wanda Holbrook "suffered tremendous fright, shock, and conscious pain and suffering," the lawsuits says, per Quartz. According to Holbrook's 2015 obituary, the 57-year-old left behind three children and two grandchildren. (A Bumble Bee Foods worker died a gruesome death.)
First, Russia barred kids from seeing Disney's new movie Beauty and the Beast. Now, all of Malaysia may miss out, too. Disney has shelved the release of the movie in the mainly Muslim country, even though film censors approved it with a minor cut involving a "gay moment," reports the AP. The country's two main cinema chains say the movie, due to begin screening Thursday, has been postponed indefinitely. Film Censorship Board Chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid says it's unclear why the film was postponed as it was approved by the board after a minor gay scene was axed. He says scenes promoting homosexuality were forbidden and that the film was given a P13 rating, which requires parental guidance for children under 13 years of age.

"We have approved it but there is a minor cut involving a gay moment. It is only one short scene but it is inappropriate because many children will be watching this movie," Abdul Halim says. He adds there was no appeal from Disney about the decision to cut the scene. Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the Star newspaper cited Disney officials as saying the movie was postponed for an "internal review." The film's characters include manservant LeFou, who "is confused about his sexuality," according to director Bill Condon. Condon has described a brief scene as a "gay moment." In Malaysia, where sodomy is a crime, censors allow the depiction of gay characters only if they show repentance or are portrayed in a negative light. (Read more Malaysia stories.)
A 34-year-old American UN worker was abducted Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is currently missing, Al Jazeera reports. According to NBC News, Michael Sharp was traveling through the African nation on motorcycle with a group that included another UN worker, three local drivers, and a translator. All six were taken by what the Congolese government is calling "negative forces not yet identified." Multiple militias operate in the area. "They were surprised, confronted, and taken," Sharp's father says. Sharp and Zaida Catalan were part of a group of UN experts studying conflicts between militias and armed groups. A spokesperson says the UN is "doing all that is possible" to find them.

Sharp has been working in the DRC for about six years. As a Mennonite mission worker, he negotiated the release of child soldiers. After joining the UN, he worked with the generals of local militiashis mother, Michelle Miller Sharp, tells The Kansan he "built a trust" with them. Miller Sharp says she doesn't know if her son is alive, but she wants to know that everything is being done to rescue him and the others if he is. "It would be very ironic for all the things that (Michael) has worked for in his young life if this were to end in violent means," she says. The State Department says it's keeping an eye on the situation. (Read more Democratic Republic of Congo stories.)
Country's top meteorology organization has disapproved the recent claims by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Scott Pruitt on climate change. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) sent a letter to Pruitt on Monday and said that he was wrong. It was last week, Pruitt questioned the claims on climate change in a CNBC interview.

"I can't agree that carbon dioxide is the primary contributor to the climate change and global warming," Pruitt said. In response to Pruitt, AMS executive director, Keith Seitter wrote that all the seven billion people on the planet were causing the climate change and the emission of carbon dioxide and other major greenhouse gasses by people were the main cause. "The conclusion arrived from various comprehensive scientific studies and years of research. Not only one particular group or agency but many research institutes and researchers across the world looked at various data and figures to arrive the conclusion on climate change," Seitter said.

"We haven't heard any other scientific institution around the world that has a different stand on the findings," Seitter further added. He pointed out that "mischaracterizing the research and science" is a bad start for formulating constructive policies on climate change. Seitter said that his agency could help Pruitt with data to understand the science behind climate change. The AMS also asked Pruitt to not to deviate from an established scientific fact.

Earlier the comments made by Pruitt has made a strong protest from Democrats, scientists, and liberal organizations. Some of them even challenged that he can't be part of EPA if he doesn't understand the science behind climate change. There are reports that Pruitt and President Donald Trump have plans to repeal the climate change policies of former President Barack Obama. Trump is also reportedly planning to reconsider the climate rule for power plants, coal leasing moratorium, and greenhouse gas standards for vehicles set by Barack Obama.
Scotland seeks permission for second referendum bid

London : Scotland's First Minister on Monday announced she would consult the Westminster government for permission to hold a second independence referendum within the next two years.

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, made the announcement at a press conference in the First Minister's official Bute House residence in Edinburgh, EFE news reported.

"I will take the steps necessary to make sure that Scotland will have a choice at the end of this process: the choice of whether to follow the United Kingdom to a hard Brexit, or become an independent country," she told the press.

Scotland voted overwhelmingly in favour of retaining membership of the European Union in the June 2016 referendum, but was set to withdraw along with the rest of the UK as voters in England and Wales tipped the overall balance by voting to leave.

She went on: "I will seek the approval of the Scottish Parliament to open discussions with the UK government on the details of a Section 30 order -- the procedure that will enable the Scottish Parliament to legislate for an independence referendum."

The SNP leader said the independence ballot would take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019 and would involve a simple 'yes' or 'no' option.

Some 55 per cent of Scottish voters chose 'no' in a binding 2014 referendum asking whether the nation should be independent, but a clause behind that vote stipulated that Edinburgh could call a second vote if Scotland's circumstances -- such as its EU status -- changed.

In London, the final details of a Brexit bill were being hammered out in a parliamentary debate with the UK Prime Minister Theresa May widely expected to trigger the official mechanism, Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, as early as Tuesday, EFE news added.

Responding to the announcement from Edinburgh, May's spokesman said: "Another referendum would be divisive and cause huge economic uncertainty at the worst possible time."

He said there was no desire for another independence referendum in Scotland.

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, reiterated that opinion.

He said Labour would oppose referendum but would not stand in the way of a democratic vote should it come to pass.

Sturgeon accused May of failing to compromise during her discussions with SNP officials ahead of the Brexit process.

Some 52 per cent of the UK electorate voted to leave European Union in the June 2016 vote, but only 38 per cent of voting Scots shared that perspective.
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Chandigarh:

Superstar Aamir Khan has turned 52 on Tuesday. The actor has invited the Haryana-based Phogat family, on whom his film Dangal is based, to attend the celebrations in Mumbai.

Yes, we have been invited and all of us are going, champion wrestler Babita Phogat told PTI over phone on Monday. Babita said she, along with her sister Geeta and their father Mahavir Phogat, is among those who have been invited and will be attending Aamirs birthday function. We are all excited to attend Aamir jis birthday event, she said.

Dangal, which released in December 2016, is based on the life of wrestlers Geeta, Babita and their father Mahavir. Aamir, who essayed the role of the wrestling family patriarch Mahavir Singh Phogat, had earlier said his main motive was to make the audience aware of the struggles and achievements of the Phogat sisters.

The Bollywood superstar had also attended Geeta Phogats wedding in her native Balali village in Bhiwani in year 2016.

Prominent wrestlers, politicians and a large number of local residents from Bhiwani had also attended the wedding.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Aamir Khan has turned 52 on Tuesday. He has always entertained us with his comedy movies. The actor has played different types of roles and has given us tremendous movies that we can watch anytime, no matter how many times we have watched it.

The actor was born on March 14, 1965 in Mumbai to Tahir Hussain and Zeenat Hussain. Tahir Hussain was producer and director.

Aamir Khan, as a child, appeared on screen at the age of eight in two minor roles. His first film was Yaadon Ki Baaraat and second was Madhosh.

Aamir Khan has been much appreciated for his comedy movies. Here are some of his most loved comedy movies:

Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar: The movie came in the year 1992 and was much liked by the youth.

Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke: In the movie, Aamir Khan has to take care of three children of his sister who died in accident. The movie released in the year 1993.

Andaz Apna Apna: The movie came in the year 1994. The movie was really liked by the audience.

Three Idiots: The film tops the list of Aamir khans best movies. The movie came in the year 2009 and was liked by the audience of every age.

PK: The movie came in the year 2014 and kids really loved the movie.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi :

In a gruesome incident, some unidentified assailants hacked a BJP member to death in Bengaluru's Surya City Police station limits on Tuesday morning. The deceased has been identified as Kithaganahalli Vasu. He was a BJP councillor.

"BJP councillor and Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad,popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu, was stabbed with sharpweapons around 5 AM," Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police Vinit Singh told.

Union Minister Ananth Kumar criticised Karnataka government for its inaction. He said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah government must take action on it.

It is being observed that of late BJP members or people linked with its mentor-organisation,RSS, have been targeted by some anonymous people in different states. On October 16, an RSS worker was hacked to death inBengaluru, which triggered massive protests by BJP and RSSworkers.

On March 5, Three RSS activists were injured in an attack allegedly by CPI(M) workers at a village near Koyilandy in the district, police had informed.

The victims, all in their early 20s, had suffered injuries in their hands and legs in the attack last night at Keezhaiyur village and have been admitted to the Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode. No one has been arrested in connection with the attack, they had said.

Also Read: CPI(M) workers attack RSS workers in Kozhikode, 3 injured

Unidentified assailants hacked a BJP member Kithaganahalli Vasu to death in Bengaluru's Surya City Police station limits, this morning. pic.twitter.com/vtEnoPH8ai





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New Delhi:

In the wake of recent announcement by State Bank of India (SBI) to increase the minimum balance in savings account from April, fuming customers have planned a No Transaction Day on April 06, 2017.

This protest would manifest public outrage over increasing minimum balance and decreasing rate of interest on deposits, affecting 31 crore depositors, including pensioners and students.

The monthly average balance (MAB) requirement has been increased to as high as Rs 5,000 for branches in six metros.

Savings bank account holders of SBI and its five associates (merging with it on April 1) will have to maintain the monthly balance or else they will invite a penalty ranging from Rs 20 (rural branches) to Rs 100 in (metro cities).

ALSO READ | Need money to bear Jan Dhan costs, says SBI on imposing penalty on minimum balance

To this end April 06, 2017 will be a no transaction day with banks. And if there is no roll back of this extended penalty, April 24,25,26, 2017 would also be observed as No Transaction Day.

A message has been doing the rounds on social media to galvanise support for coming out and raising voices of dissent against this penalty as announced by SBI.

Here is a look at the new rules to be implemented from April 1, 2017:

1. Minimum 3 times deposit free in your account, After more than 3 times deposit you will have to pay 50/- per deposit.

2. Minimum 5000/- balance maintain in metro city branch account holder.

3. Minimum 3000/- balance maintain in city/town branch account holder

4. Minimum 2000/- balance maintain in semi-urban area branch account holder.

5. Minimum 1000/- balance maintain in villages branch account holder

6. If you do not maintain minimum amount in your account you will pay up to 200/- + extra surcharge.(depending on how many days)

7. SBI ATM free for 5 times use, after 5 times you will pay 10/- per transactions.

8. Other bank ATM free for 3 times use, after 3 times you will pay 20/- per transactions.

9. Unlimited SBI ATM use without any charges, If you maintain 25000/- in your SBI savings account.

10. Unlimited SBI & OTHER BANK ATM use without any charges, If you maintain 100000/- in your SBI savings account

11. 15/- SMS charge you will pay after 3 months, (SMS charge free, If you maintain 25000/- in your SBI savings account)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Despite the claims are being made from both the major parties, Congress and BJP,that they are enjoying absolute majority in the Manipur assembly, BJP has named N Biren singh as its chief ministerial candidate after receiving the assurance from the governor Najma Heptullah that the latter is satisfied with the numbers.

Incumbent Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh had already staked claim on Sunday night while N Biren Singh met the Governor.

Now, it is being said that Governor Najma Heptullah does not want to take any decision in hurry as per sources Raj Bhavan sources, the governor asked chief minister Ibobi Singh to bring NPP MLAs to Raj bhawan so she can ensure a stable government in the state. Ibobi singh had produced a letter of NPP MLAs on an ordinary piece of paper stating that party wants to support congress-led government in the state.

Minister of state for environment Prakash Javdekar said that BJP would form teh government in state in teh leadership of N-Biren singh after meeting the Governor.

Humari govt banegi. Biren ji ne apna claim stake kia hai aur invitation ke liye patra liya hai: Prakash Javadekar after meeting #Manipur Guv pic.twitter.com/TwfVr23NxF  ANI (@ANI_news) March 13, 2017

The Governor had said it was her duty to cross check claims and counter-claims and that she would not accept an ordinary piece of paper as the letter of support unless she meets the NPP MLAs, the source said.

After getting fractured mandate in the state, BJP and Congress rushed to stake claims that they have the magic numbers and can give a stable government in the state.



Outgoing Manipur Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh resigned today after Governor Najma Heptullah said she could not start the process of government formation in the state that has got a hung Assembly, till he quits.

Also Read | Manipur hung assembly: CM Ibobi Singh resigns, BJP stakes claim to form government

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New Delhi :

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday demanded to hold MCD elections through ballot paper instead of EVMs. Kejriwal directed the Delhi chief secretary to make all necessary preparations regarding the polls.

It is said that the Election commission will address a press conference and it may announce the poll date of MCD elections.

Kejriwal wrote a letter to the Election Commission, stating that EVM machines should not be used in upcoming MCD elections. Several other political parties have been pressing for the usage of ballot paper instead of EVMs.

The Delhi CM said that they have prepared to convene MCD polls on ballot paper if EC nods for the same. The MCD poll can be held in the month of April or May.

Arvind Kejriwal writes to Election Commission, saying EVMs should not be used for upcoming Municipal Elections in Delhi (file pic) pic.twitter.com/UTzxHuCcuf  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

The Delhi CM had raised doubts over EVMs after receiving not an anticipated results in Punjab and Goa elections.On the other hand, AAP leader Sanjay Singh said that if polls could be conducted in UP through ballot paper, the same can be applied in Delhi.

BSP supremo Mayawati too had questioned the EVMs after witnessing embarrassing loss in UP elections and had dared Election Commission to conduct a fresh polls in the state in the name of transparency.

Also Read: Rishi Kapoor takes hillarious jibe at Akhilesh, RG and Arvind Kejriwal over Assembly poll results

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New Delhi:

Delhi State Election Commission on Tuesday has rejected Congress and Aam Adami Party's demand of using ballot paper instead of EVMs in MCD polls.

Delhi govt in a note sent to EC has asked opinions on EVMs on which the commission said, "Rules need to be changed for using ballots paper in MCD polls and there is not enough time left as elections have been declared."

"But if govt. wants, LG has the power to decide."

"We have informed the govt that voting is schedulled to be held on 22nd April, and productions of ballot boxes has stopped so the printing and we check EVMs twice. we have discussed this with all parties," state Election Commission said in its press conference in Delhi on Tuesday.

"But the final call will be taken by the govt."

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal demanded to hold MCD elections through ballot paper instead of EVMs. Kejriwal directed the Delhi chief secretary to make all necessary preparations regarding the polls.

Congress leader Ajay Maken has also demanded use of ballot paper instead of EVMs in MCD polls.

The all EVM dramma started after BSP supremo Mayawati's allegetions of EVM fraud in recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the path for former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to take oath as the next chief minister of Goa. Parrikar will have to face a floor test on March 16 to prove his majority.



The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed Congress Party over its lackadaisical approach over government formation in Goa. The court, hearing plea filed by Congress against the formation of the government by BJP, questioned its approach on the matter.



Here are the highlights of Supreme Courts observations on the Goa government formation dispute:



Governor first: During the hearing on Congress' petition SC bench headed by CJI Khehar asked them: "Why did not you approach Goa Governor? The apex court did that Governor has full right to call the shots over the formation of government in the state.



Numbers: Observing that Congress did not approach Governor with majority numbers and claim to the government, the bench said that the numbers determine single largest party. The court said that Congress did not mention any support of those members in its petition.

Read | SC lashes out at Congress for not approaching Guv, says numbers determine single largest party



No majority: While questioning the Congress party's counsel, the CJI asked that they must be produced any affidavit of MLAs whose support they are enjoying. The CJI said that the Congress party is creating controversy when a single party already has the numbers. The court said that they did not submit any list of members who are supporting Congress party.



No claim: The court observed that the Congress, before plea in Court, did not make any claim to form the government, neither did they officially object to BJP forming government: Why the Congress Party did not object to the Governor when Parrikar had staked the claim of government formation? Even, you did not produce any letter of support of those members."



Floor Test: The court suggested BJP to face floor test as soon as possible, against 15 days allowed by Governor earlier. To which BJP replied with a request for at least 1 day to finish formalities. The court then suugested them to face floor test and prove majority maximum by March 16.

The court has allowed BJP to hold oath taking ceremony of Manohar Parrikar as CM on Tuesday, however, they are allowed to undertake any other function until they face floor test.



BJP was represented by senior lawyer Harish N Salve while senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhavi on behalf of Congress party.

Live updates | Goa Assembly: Congress alleges horse-trading by BJP, Gadkari says support from non-BJP MLAs was unanimous

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New Delhi:

Political tussle over next government in Goa continues on Tuesday even after BJP senior leader Manohar Parrikar was invited by state Governor Mridula Sinha to be the chief minister of the state.



On Saturday, Goa electorate gave a hung assembly with 10 seats in BJP account, 17 in Congress and 10 to others. Even though Congress was the largest party, BJP leadership managed a coup detat and pulled off support from others to gain a majority in the state.

In retaliation, Congress has moves the Supreme Court against BJPs attempt to form the government.

Read | Goa polls: Congress moves SC challenging Governor's decision to appoint Manohar Parrikar as CM

Congress argument gains stand as doubts have emerged over Goa Forwards support to the BJP-led coalition. The local party had fought the elections on an anti-BJP plank and late agreed to join the coalition. The partys president Prabhakar Timble had also quit his position in protest against the decision to align with the BJP.

The Governor, under the Constitution, should have called the single largest party first and taken stock of the position. If the other side was claiming a majority, the Governors office still needed to call the Congress to discuss the situation. Elections are the peoples mandate and that needs to be respected first, said Timble, who was the former Goa state election commissioner, told Indian Express.



Supreme Court has agreed to hear the plea filed by Congress in a special hearing on Tuesday.

Read | Have legitimacy, numbers to form govts in Manipur, Goa, asserts BJP; Congress says 'murder' of democracy



Meanwhile, BJP remains confident of forming a government in Goa on Tuesday as Manohar Parrikar has already resigned from his coveted Defence Minister portfolio on Monday and is prepping to take the oath for his former office at 5pm.



According to partys state president Vinay Tendulkar, along with Parrikar, eight other candidates will take oath Tuesday, including two winning candidates each from Goa Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and two Independents.

Read | President accepts Manohar Parrikar's resignation, Arun Jaitley gets additional charge of Defence Ministry

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed Congress Party over its lackadaisical approach over government formation in Goa. The Apex court said that the numbers determine single largest party, and Governor has full right to call the shots over formation of government in state. The court also ordered floor test that would be held on March 16.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) JS Khehar questioned Congress Party and said: "Why did not you approach Goa Governer?" The CJI also asked the grand old party, saying where they have the numbers.

The apex court said," Why the Congress Party did not object to the Governor when Parrikar had staked claim of government formation? Even, you did not produce any letter of support of those members."

Goa govt formation tussle: SC asks Congress why they did not approach the Governor of Goa over govt formation  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

The court said that Congress did not mention of any support of those members in its petition. While questioning the Congress party's lawyer, the CJI asked that they must produced any affidavit of MLAs whose support they are enjoying. The CJI said that the Congress party is creating controversy when a single party is already have the numbers.

The court said that they did not submit any list of members who are supporting Congress party. He said the Congress should have staged protest against Governor at the latter's office.

During hearing on Cong's petition SC bench headed by CJI Khehar observed that numbers should determine single largest party #Goa (file pic) pic.twitter.com/JgtTSYvVmR  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

The Congress party lawyer replied that the governor should invite single largest party which did not happen.

Senior lawyer Harish N Salve appeared for Centre while senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhavi on behalf of Congress party. Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu singhvi said Manohar Parrikar is CM of Goa for two days and if BJP cannot show majority then it would not be allowed to form a government.

Manohar Parrikar is CM of Goa for two days, if BJP can't show majority they won't be allowed to form a government:Abhishek Manu Singhvi pic.twitter.com/YDhUbygZTA  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

On the other hand, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Congress party why the latter did not give any credible evidence of those MLAs who are supporting it."Have they told that they have anybody other than 17 MLas," Prasad questioned.

Also Read | Live | Goa Assembly: Congress alleges horse-trading by BJP, Gadkari says support from non-BJP MLAs was unanimous

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New Delhi:

Manohar Prabhu Parrikar has taken oath as 13th chief minister of Goa on Tuesday. He quit as the Defence minister of India, a post he had been holding since November 2014 after the first reshuffle of the Narendra Modi Cabinet.

He was first elected to the second legislative assembly of Goa in 1994. Later, he rose to become the Leader of Opposition from June to November 1999. Parrikar became the Chief Minister for the first time on October 24, 2000, but his tenure lasted only till February 27, 2002. On June 5, 2002, he was re-elected and became the Chief Minister again.

# Manohar Parrikar has served as the Chief Minister of Goa in three terms  2000-2002, and 2002-2005 and later from March 2012 till November 2014.

Also read | Goa polls: Manohar Parrikar sworn in as CM for fouth time; Floor test on Thursday

# Parrikar, who took the BJP to victory in the 2012 Goa assembly polls, had resigned as the Chief Minister and took over as the Defence Minister on November 9, 2014.

# Goa CM holds several achievements under his belt as the Defence Minister of the country, including the new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP), hiking compensation for widows and families of soldiers who died while fighting for the country, and dealing sternly with Pakistans misadventures.

# Former Defence Minister is also an IIT alumnus as he is an IIT-Mumbai graduate in metallurgical engineering. He was the first IITian to head a State Government and holds image of being an organised taskmaster.

# A RSS pracharak from Goa, Parrikars electoral debut was unsuccessful when he was defeated by Congress candidate Harish Zantye in the 1991 Lok Sabha polls.

# Manohar Parrikar is a widower after having lost his wife in 2001. He has two sons.

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Bengaluru:

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday expressed shock over the recent attack on a student from Arunachal Pradesh and said the perpetrator has been arrested.



Attack on student from Arunachal is shocking. Police has taken prompt action and the perpetrator has been arrested, Siddaramaiah tweeted.



Higio Guntey, who hails from Arunachal Pradesh and is a fourth-semester student of Christ University, was allegedly beaten and forced to lick his house owners shoes for using excessive water in Bengaluru on March 6.

Read | Northeast student forced to lick shoe over water dispute in Bengaluru; Rijuju orders inquiry



A case was registered against the house owner, Hemanth Kumar, following a complaint from Guntey.



A police official said Kumar has been arrested.



Earlier, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, who also hails from Arunachal Pradesh, had described the attack on the student in Bengaluru as saddening.



He had said the Home Ministry was also pursuing the matter besides the police investigation.



Kumar had earlier surrendered and police were investigating the case.

Used water for just 5 min,apologised to owner for same.He started beating me &humiliated by forcing me to lick his boots: Victim #Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/J0FA09EYgq  ANI (@ANI_news) March 13, 2017

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New Delhi :

Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday made it clear that it would not field any sitting councillor in the upcoming MCD polls regardless of his or her contribution in their particular area. The move would certainly draw forehead lines among the present councillors.

While addressing a press conference, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari justified the move, saying that the saffron party would encourage new faces in the MCD polls who have worked on the grass-root level.

He said the dynasty politics will not be entertained and people having political patronage will not be encouraged. The party has taken the decision unanimously.

When asked about Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's demand of ballot paper usage instead EVMs, Tiwari said if the Delhi chief minister does not have faith in EVMs, then a repolling should be convened at all 67 seats in the national capital.

If Kejriwal ji does not have faith in EVMs then let us have re polling on the 67 assembly seats he won-Manoj Tiwari,BJP pic.twitter.com/jWhrKSXQoE

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Colombo:

Sri Lanka has sought two more years from the UN Human Rights Council to probe the alleged war crimes committed during the conflict with the LTTE, the foreign ministry said on Monday.



Sri Lanka was granted 18 months by a UNHRC resolution in October 2015 to initiate a credible investigation into the nearly three-decades long civil war with the LTTE.



The foreign ministry said it has sought more time to deliver on accountability mechanism.



What Sri Lanka will undertake at the current 34th session (of the UNHRC), is a two-year extension of the timeline for fulfilment of commitments made in Resolution 30/1 (in October 2015), the ministry said.



According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during former president Mahinda Rajapaksas regime that brought an end to the conflict with the defeat of LTTE in 2009.



Earlier this month, the UNHRC had criticised Sri Lankas slow progress in addressing its wartime past and reiterated its earlier call for hybrid court of international and local judges to investigate allegations of rights violations.



However, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe rejected the demand, saying it was impractical.



The countrys main ethnic Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), has taken a stance that Sri Lanka be given more time by the UN to meet all obligations. However, TNAs rival groups are opposed to giving more time by the UNHRC to implement the 2015 resolutions accountability mechanism.



The TNA has excluded the opinion of the majority of Tamils. After one and a half years, the government has not done anything, disappeared people have not been found, Tamil National Peoples Front spokesman S Kajendran said.



TNA leader MA Sumanthiran is not speaking for the suffering Tamils, he told reporters in Jaffna.



The TNA and its moderate group headed by the main opposition leader R Sampanthan and Sumanthiran are accused of trying to appease the majority Sinhala government by giving more time to implement the accountability mechanism.



President Maithripala Sirisena government is opposed to the international hybrid court as the UNHRC has insisted on a credible war crimes probe with foreign judges.

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Dhaka:

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a state visit to India from April 7 to 10 to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between the two neighbours, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Hasina would travel to India after seven years on an invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said.

The two leaders will hold official talks in New Delhi on April 8, according to the statement issued here.

The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the two leaders, said the statement jointly issued by the two foreign ministries in Dhaka and New Delhi.

Hasina last visited India in January 2010. Her trip comes two years after Modis visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.

She was expected to travel to India in December 2016 but her visit was postponed amid speculation that it was not a suitable time to discuss Teesta water sharing issue given the preoccupation of the Indian government post-demonetisation and the unease in relations between the Centre and West Bengal, a key stakeholder in the issue.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in February met Hasina in Dhaka after which Bangladesh announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque yesterday said they were attaching highest importance to the visit, the Bdnews24 reported.

Hasina is the head of government of a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time, Shringla was quoted as saying.

The envoy also said that President Pranab Mukherjee in an exceptional gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during her visit.

Everything is work in progress. Well have to see what is possible and what is not possible, he said when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal.

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Luxembourg :

EU companies can ban employees from wearing religious or political symbols, such as the Islamic headscarf, the blocs top court ruled on Tuesday in a landmark case.

The European Court of Justice said it does not constitute direct discrimination if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign.

The wearing of religious symbols, and especially Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, has become a hot button issue with the rise of populist sentiment across Europe, with some countries such as Austria considering a complete ban on the full-face veil in public.

The ECJ was ruling on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium.

At the time, the company had an unwritten rule that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

In 2006, Achbita told G4S she wanted to wear the Islamic headscarf at work but was told this would not be allowed.

Subsequently, the company introduced a formal ban. Achbita was dismissed and she went to court claiming discrimination.

The ECJ said that European Union law does bar discrimination on religious grounds but that G4Ss actions were based on treating all employees the same, meaning no one person was singled out for application of the ban.

The rule thus treats all employees of the undertaking in the same way, notably by requiring them, generally and without any differentiation, to dress neutrally, the ECJ said.

Accordingly, such an internal rule does not introduce a difference of treatment that is directly based on religion or belief, it said.

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Karachi:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday warned against the forced conversion and destruction of worship places of other religions, describing them as "crime in Islam" as he greeted the Hindu community which celebrated the Holi festival with traditional enthusiasm across Pakistan.

Addressing a function in Karachi to celebrate the Holi festival with the Hindu community, he insisted that it was not anyone's job to decide who will go to hell or heaven, but to make Pakistan a heaven on earth.

In his inclusive message to minorities, Sharif said "no one can force others to adopt a certain religion" in Pakistan and greeted the gathering with 'Happy Holi'."Islam gives importance to every human being regardless of his caste, creed or religion and I say it clearly that forcing anyone to convert his religion is a crime and it is our duty to protect the worship places of the minorities in Pakistan," Sharif told the gathering.

Leading members of the Hindu community and minority lawmakers attended the function where the prime minister insisted that in Pakistan the fight was between terrorists and those who wanted to see the country progress.

"There is no fight in Pakistan over religion. If there is any fight it is with these terrorists and miscreants who use religion to mislead people and kill innocent people and don't want to see this country develop or prosper," he said.

Sharif admitted that in the past some miscreants had attempted to create divisions on the basis of religion but insisted that Pakistan was created where everyone was free to practice his religion and go to his worship place.

"Pakistan didn't come into existence to be against any religion. It is wrong to consider any religion inferior. I want to see a Pakistan where there are equal opportunities for every person of any religion to progress and make a good life for himself and his family. And there is peace and protection for everyone," the prime minister said.

The Hindu community has constantly complained about their people in the rural areas being forced to convert to Islam and their women being kidnapped and forcibly converted.The premier noted that since 2013 the law and order situation had improved in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and there had been a marked decrease in cases of Hindu traders and businessmen being kidnapped for ransom.

"Pakistan has the best future in Asia but for that we need to ensure every citizen is given equal opportunities and equal rights no matter what is his religion or belief."

The Hindu community across Pakistan celebrated the Holi festival with fervor and enthusiasm.In Karachi, the functions were held all over the city and Sharif said he was happy to see the celebrations in every nook and corner of Karachi without any hinderance.

In Punjab's capital Lahore, people from the Hindu community smear each others faces with colour. In Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Kurram and Aurakzai tribal agencies, the community celebrated Holi with great pomp and show. People threw colors on each other and later cut a cake and shared the joy.Sharif also announced 500 million rupees for the welfare of the Hindu community.

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Warsaw:

Poland will seek the arrest and extradition of a Minnesota man exposed by The Associated Press as a former commander in an SS-led unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians in World War II, prosecutors said.

Prosecutor Robert Janicki on Monday said evidence gathered over years of investigation into US citizen Michael K confirmed 100 per cent that he was a commander of a unit in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion.

He did not release the last name in line with privacy laws but the AP has identified the man as 98-year-old Michael Karkoc, from Minneapolis.

All the pieces of evidence interwoven together allow us to say the person who lives in the US is Michael K, who commanded the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion which carried out the pacification of Polish villages in the Lublin region, Janicki said.

The decision in Poland comes four years after the AP published a story establishing that Michael Karkoc commanded the unit, based on wartime documents, testimony from other members of the unit and Karkocs own Ukrainian-language memoir.

Karkocs family has repeatedly denied he was involved in any war crimes and his son questioned the validity of the evidence against him after Polands announcement, calling the accusations scandalous and baseless slanders.

Theres nothing in the historical record that indicates my father had any role whatsoever in any type of war crime activity, said Andriy Karkoc.

He questioned the Polish investigation, saying my fathers identity has never been in question nor has it ever been hidden.

Prosecutors with the state National Remembrance Institute, which investigates Nazi and Communist-era crimes against Poles, have asked a regional court in Lublin to issue an arrest warrant for Karkoc. If granted, Poland would seek his extradition, as Poland does not allow trial in absentia, Janicki said.

The prosecutor in Lublin intends to direct a motion to the US justice authorities asking that the suspect...be handed over to Poland, the institute said in a statement.

Janicki added the mans age was no obstacle in seeking to bring him before justice. He is our suspect as of today, Janicki said.

If convicted of contributing to the killing of civilians in 1944, Karkoc could face life in prison. The US attorneys office in Minnesota declined to comment on the case.

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New Delhi:

Indian Railways along with seven other countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will explore the possibility of a transcontinental rail freight service connecting India with Iran and Turkey on Wednesday.

Besides the three countries, high-level delegations comprising railway and the custom officials from Russian Federation, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar will attend the two-day meet beginning in New Delhi on Wednesday.

While China has already run a freight train connecting Europe and attempts are being made to run a demonstrative run from Dhaka to Istanbul connecting Howrah, Delhi, Lahore and Tehran.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will address the conference on Wednesday highlighting the need for such rail connectivity for the development of the region, according to railways.

Considered to be a major boost for trade and economic development of the Asia-Pacific region, a trans-container goods train from Dhaka to Istanbul covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey is being considered to establish rail connectivity.

Organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in coordination with the Railways Ministry, the meeting will take forward the proposed railway transport connectivity in South and South-West Asia.

The meeting will seek to review and identify innovative measures to strengthen cross-border railway transport within South and South-West Asia; which is one of the least connected and integrated sub-regions in the world despite its vast contiguous landmass.

Strengthening railway connectivity is central to boosting economic growth, enhancing trade and transport connectivity and improving lives in the sub-region.

The meeting will bring together government officials and policy makers from nine countries in South Asia and South-West Asia and Central Asia, along with representatives from various International and regional organizations, railway and connectivity experts and academia, as well as the private sector.

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Hawaii files suit against new Trump travel ban but legal experts say the state has no case

Federal law, legal precedent, and the Constitution divide U.S. foreign policy powers between the Executive and Legislative branches. It grants presidents certain powers  like the role of commander-in-chief of all armed forces  while granting Congress other specific powers, such as the regulation of foreign commerce.

As the Council on Foreign Relations notes:

The separation of powers has spawned a great deal of debate over the roles of the president and Congress in foreign affairs, as well as over the limits on their respective authorities. The Constitution, considered only for its affirmative grants of power capable of affecting the issue, is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy, wrote constitutional scholar Edward S. Corwin in 1958.

The same cannot be said of national security policy; it is generally understood and accepted that the Executive Branch is primarily responsible for defense and security policies, though presidents are provided insight and advice via the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his national security advisor, intelligence agency heads, and others.

The one branch of government missing in this equation  which was purposeful  is the Judiciary Branch, as it was designed by our founders to have the least impact on such decisions. The entire point of leaving federal courts out of policymaking is to prevent said policies from being challenged inappropriately. (RELATED: This is wartime: Trump should ignore federal courts blocking his travel ban.)

But already in President Donald J. Trumps young presidency, federal courts have intervened in Executive Branch foreign and national security policymaking, quite possibly to the detriment of the country. Driven by political ideology, a few state attorney generals were successful in stopping the presidents travel ban to the U.S. from seven terrorism-infested countries, in an unprecedented case that challenges the conventional acceptance of the Executive Branchs role in ensuring the safety of the country.

Rather than continue fighting the original order in court  which would actually give legitimacy to the courts actions  Trump instead issued a new order last week that the White House said should satisfy the so-called religious component which gave some precedence to Christians in Muslim-dominated countries who claimed persecution.

That hasnt mattered to the Alt-Left, which constantly puts political ideology over everything else, including national security: Hawaii has filed suit to stop Trumps new order, claiming that somehow it will harm the state and its residents. Only this time, legal scholars dont see where this lawsuit succeeds, even though it was filed in the same 9th Circuit where the successful challenge to Trumps first order came.

Writing for The Daily Signal, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundations Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, says regardless of any legal successes against Trumps first order, Hawaii and other states dont have any standing to challenge the second:

Hawaiis lawsuit consists almost entirely of policy arguments as opposed to legal claims, and the legal claims that are made are far-fetched.

There seems little doubt that the lawsuit was filed in Hawaii to take advantage of the generally liberal nature of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and its dominance by Democratic appointees. Seventy-two percent of the judges on that court were appointed by Democratic presidents, and at the district court level in Hawaii, the lawsuit has been assigned to Judge Derrick Watson, a President Barack Obama appointee.

Von Spakovsky says that Hawaii is claiming Trumps order harms the state by preventing immediate family members living in affected countries from being able to visit their relatives in the U.S. The state further claims that the order prevents universities, employers, and other institutions from recruiting or welcoming qualified individuals from the named countries.

He states further that the basic flaw in the argument is that foreign nationals have no constitutional right to enter the United States. Whats more, the Hawaiian suit does acknowledge that under U.S. code, the president has the authority to suspend entry into the country any class of aliens he feels are a threat. But the complaint claims that Trump is exceeding his authority in issuing the travel ban. (RELATED: Trump Vows To Fight Activist Judges Refusal To Honor Executive Order On Travel Ban From Terrorist-Harboring Countries.)

But given its broad grant of authority, it is hard to imagine how the president could possibly be exceeding his authority, von Spakovsky wrote. That is particularly true given the fact that the revised order explicitly states how the six designated countries are connected to the terrorism problem we face.

The biggest issue here is that another liberal ideologue pretending to be an attorney general doesnt like Trump and he doesnt like the fact that Trump is in the White House  because when former President Obama made similar determinations as president, neither Hawaii nor any other Left-wing state attorney general filed suit. (Related: Get another angle on your news at Conservative.news.)

Besides, the real issue isnt whether Trumps order was the same or similar to previous orders issued by previous presidents; its whether or not Trump has the authority to issue it, and he clearly does.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

FAS.org

DailySignal.com

CFR.org

CelebrityReputation.com

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Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio made $1.4 billion in 2016, according to new estimates by Forbes, a year in which he juggled lieutenants while nearly losing another to the Trump administration.

Bridgewater has its main offices in Westport, with Dalio a Greenwich resident who is Connecticuts wealthiest. Dalio ranked third on Forbes newest annual list Tuesday of the top 25 hedge fund earners, trailing only James Simons of Renaissance Technologies and Michael Platt of BlueCrest Capital Management, both making an estimated $1.5 billion in 2016.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Cindy Schultz / Albany Times Union Show More Show Less 2 of 3 H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Compass Diversified Holdings sold its remaining shares of Fox Factory, adding net proceeds of $136 million to $389 million it had already realized from the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based maker of shock-absorbing suspension systems for bikes, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles.

Compass Diversified has its headquarters in Westport as a publicly traded investment fund that buys, manages and sells other companies, having spent $80 million in 2008 to acquire Fox Factory and taking it public in 2013.
Everlasting Beauty of Dunhuang retraces Chang Shana's lifelong study in Mogao Grottoes. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

Chang Shana made her debut as a painter in 1945, at age 14, when she held a joint exhibition with her father, Chang Shuhong (1904-94), hailed as the "patron saint of Dunhuang", in Lanzhou, in northwestern Gansu province.

They were showcasing dozens of colorful ink-on-paper copies of the murals in the Mogao Grottoes. The exhibition caused a sensation leading to more attention being paid to the protection of the Dunhuang cave art.

Chang Shana was born in Lyon and lived in France till she was 6. Her parents were first-generation Chinese artists studying in France.

However, in 1943, the family moved to Dunhuang, a remote county in Gansu, because Chang Shuhongby then a promising artist who had won several medals at salons in Francewas inspired after reading about Dunhuang's Buddhist manuscripts and cave art in France.

In 1944, he became the founding director of the Dunhuang Art Institute (now the Dunhuang Academy). He gave up the prospect of furthering his art career and devoted himself to the protection and study of Dunhuang's treasures.
After six years of war, World Vison report reveals what children fear the most

MISSISSAUGA, ON, March 13, 2017 /CNW/ - New research by World Vision reveals the startling contrast between the fears and dreams of children engulfed in the Syrian crisis compared to those in safer countries like Canada.

Leading up to the sixth anniversary of the Syrian conflict, World Vision asked children around the world, including those in Syria, to share their biggest fears and dreams to better understand how violence might influence a child's view of the world.

The survey found 43 per cent of Syrian children feared airstrikes, shellings and explosions, while only three per cent of Canadian children had any concern for their immediate safety.

While 54 per cent of Canadian children dream of a career, more than half of Syrian children dream of peace and returning home to their country.

The results are presented in World Vison's 'Fears and Dreams' report, which highlights the indelible mark that violence has left on Syria's children.

As the Syrian conflict enters its seventh year, World Vision is continuing to advocate for donors to commit to longer term funding for the Syrian crisis, for wealthy countries to take their fair share of refugees and decision-makers to use all of the diplomatic tools at their disposal to stop the atrocities in Syria.

QUOTES:

"We're now entering the seventh year of the conflict and with that comes a generation of children who have only known bloodshed and misery. Unfortunately, a different type of violence often awaits them beyond Syria's borders, namely child labour, early marriage and other forms of exploitation and bullying."  Wynn Flaten, Director of World Vision's Syria Response

"For many of us working to support families in this intractable conflict, our biggest fear has always been that the hopes of Syria's children might fade. This report has thankfully done something to allay that concern for us. However, it is wrong to say these children are resilient. What they've seen and experienced will stay with them their whole lives and they will need ongoing support. The report's overwhelming conclusion is that all children have fears and dreams. Whether they become a reality is up to us."  Wynn Flaten, Director of World Vision's Syria Response

"I want to become an electrical engineer so I can help rebuild Syria."  Ghina (14) from Syria

SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS:

43% of Syrian children said they feared for their safety. Common answers included war, airstrikes and explosions.

15% of Syrian children said they feared losing a family member.

73% of Canadian children had 'typical' fears such as sharks, spiders and the dark.

3% of Canadians said they feared for their safety. Answers included robbers and falling through the ice.

50% of Syrian children said they dream of peace and returning to Syria .

. 65% of Canadian children said they dreamed of a particular career. Common answers included athlete, police officer and doctor.

7% of Canadian children dream of owning a pet. The most common answer was dog, followed by horse.

Resources:

How Canadians can help:

Canadians can donate to World Vision's Syria Response here.

World Vision is a relief, development, and advocacy organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families, and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Inspired by our Christian values, World Vision is dedicated to working with the world's most vulnerable people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. Visit our News Centre at worldvision.ca

SOURCE World Vision Canada

For further information: For interviews with spokespeople on the ground or in Canada: Chelsea MacLachlan: 647-447-4334 or [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.worldvision.ca


CALGARY, March 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Oryx Petroleum Corporation Limited ("Oryx Petroleum" or the "Corporation") will announce its financial and operating results for the year ended December 31, 2016 on Wednesday, March 15, 2017 after the close of trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. A conference call to discuss the Corporation's financial and operating results will be held on Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 17:00 CET (16:00 GMT, 12:00 EDT).

Conference Call details:

Date: Thursday March 16, 2017

Time: 17:00 CET (16:00 GMT, 12:00 EDT)

Participant Access:

Canada +1 438 968 3557 United States +1 719 325 2363 United Kingdom +44 (0) 330 336 9412 France +33 (0) 1 76 77 22 74 Switzerland / Other +41 (0) 44 580 7206



Access code to join conference: 7236844

Playback will be available up to 14 days after the live call on:

United States / Canada: +1 647 436 0148 United Kingdom: +44 (0) 207 984 7568 France: +33 (0) 1 70 48 00 94 Switzerland / Other: +41 (0) 43 547 8002



Access code: 7236844

Playback will also be available on the Oryx Petroleum Website.

This recording is the property of Oryx Petroleum. Any reproduction or distribution is strictly prohibited without prior written approval from Oryx Petroleum. Please contact our Investor Relations with any questions.

ABOUT ORYX PETROLEUM CORPORATION LIMITED

Oryx Petroleum is an international oil exploration company focused in Africa and the Middle East. The Corporation's shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "OXC". The Oryx Petroleum group of companies was founded in 2010 by The Addax and Oryx Group P.L.C. and key members of the former senior management team of Addax Petroleum Corporation. Oryx Petroleum has interests in seven license areas, two of which have yielded oil discoveries and five of which management of Oryx Petroleum believe are prospective for oil. The Corporation is the operator or technical partner in five of the seven license areas. Two license areas are located in the Kurdistan Region and the Wasit governorate (province) of Iraq and five license areas are located in West Africa in Nigeria, the AGC administrative area offshore Senegal and Guinea Bissau, and Congo (Brazzaville). Further information about Oryx Petroleum is available at www.oryxpetroleum.com or under Oryx Petroleum's profile at www.sedar.com.

SOURCE Oryx Petroleum Corporation Limited

For further information: Scott Lewis, Head of Corporate Finance, Tel.: +41 (0) 58 702 93 52, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.oryxpetroleum.com/


Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of AfriCom, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he expected the Chinese base on the Horn of Africa to be operational later this summer.

Without getting specific, Waldhauser said he recently met with Djiboutis President Ismail Omar Guelleh and expressed our concerns about some of the things that are important to us about what the Chinese should not do at that location.

The Chinese base would be about four miles from the U.S. base at Camp Lemonnier, one of the Pentagons largest and most important foreign military installations, where about 3,000 U.S. military personnel and contractors are assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

Camp Lemonnier is also home to Special Operations Command (Forward)  East Africa, which has carried out operations against Al Shabab militants in Somalia and the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group in Yemen.

Waldhauser said he expected the Chinese base in Djibouti to support Chinas naval presence in the region. He also noted that China has about 2,200 troops in international peacekeeping operations on the continent.

The Chinese military base will be part of a major Chinese port development project in Djibouti. The Chinese Merchants Group, a Hong Kong conglomerate, announced a $400 million investment in Djibouti last November to develop a free trade zone.

SOURCES- Military.com
Accident Investigation Bureau ( AIB) has released the final report of the June 3, 2012 DANA Air MD 83 crash at Iju Ishaga, Lagos, where 1...

 No Standard Operating Procedure/Training Policy in place.

 The crew low hours and experience, coupled with the rostering of two pilots with same capability on a training flight.

 Lack of Crew Resource Management (CRM) training.

Accident Investigation Bureau ( AIB) has released the final report of the June 3, 2012 DANA Air MD 83 crash at Iju Ishaga, Lagos, where 153 passengers including six crew members were killed.AIB Commissioner Akin Olateru, who spoke on the release of four accident reports, attributed the cause of the DANA plane crash to pilots failure to divert the aircraft to an alternate airport when the aircraft lost its first engine 17 minutes after take-off from Abuja.Olateru, who also spoke on OAS and Bristow helicopters crashes, said the DANA pilots also lacked situational awareness of their flight terrain during the flight, because they headed for a densely populated area after the second aircraft engine failed on approach to Lagos Airport.'On the AOS Helicopter crash of July 29, 2011, where three persons died, AIB indicted the pilot for not being instrument-rated, in addition to lack of familiarisation of the route by crew and non-adherence of the pilot to visual flight rules.Olateru said AIB engaged stakeholders, including the affected operators and the NCAA for their input 60 days before it was reviewed for final publication.He said the AIB, in accordance with prescribed regulations by the global civil aviation regulation, International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) annex 13, was not bound to accept the contributions of the affected operators.The report on DANA Air reads: Engine number 1 lost power 17 minutes into the flight, and thereafter on final approach, engine number 2 lost power and failed to respond to throttle movement on demand for increased power to sustain the aircraft in its flight configuration.The inappropriate omission of the use of the checklist and the crews inability to appreciate the severity of the power-related problem and their subsequent failure to land at the nearest suitable airfield.Lack of situation awareness, inappropriate decision-making and poor airman ship.He said some safety recommendations have been made for implementation by the operators and the NCAA.On the crash involving OAS Helicopters on July, 29, 2011, at Oke  Oba Hill , Ikonifin, Osun State, the AIB indicted the NCAA, saying one of the pilots was not rated on the instrument.The AIB report reads: The non-adherence of the pilot to Visual Flight Rules of clear-of cloud and obstacles while maintaining ground contact at all times led to Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT). The pilot was not instrument-rated. The pilot lacked route familiarisation.The AIB said three safety recommendations were made and implemented.It reads: The three recommendations were targeted at NCAA, one to NAMA and one to Nigeria Police.On the crash of Bristow Helicopters, the AIB report said the causes were identified as 115v cable loom chafed and arced with hydraulic pipeline, puncturing it and causing a high pressure leak which ignited on contact with hot surface of the Right Hand heat exchanger, resulting in fire on the Upper Deck.He said two safety recommendations were made to Bristow Helicopters.On the report of the Serious Incident involving Presidential Implementation Committee on Maritime Safety and Security (PICOMSS) aircraft with Registration 5N-BKS at Benin Airport on July 5, 2012,the AIB attributed human error as a contributory cause for the accident.The report reads : The decision of the crew to continue the glide approach despite repeated landinggear warnings with the power lever below 25 per cent rather than initiating a Go-around are contributory cause of the crash.Others include: The failure of the crew to recognise the landing gear warnings.Two safety recommendations were made  one to NCAA and the other to police.Olateru, however, advised operators in the industry .He said : I want to leave the following questions to my colleagues in the industry, the regulators, investors and Nigerians. What is the cost of an accident? How do we measure the value of peoples lives?Can we ever calculate/quantify the investment worth of damage? How do we calculate the cost and set it against the inevitable commercial cost of the investment necessary to avoid the tragedy in the first place?My advice is for the stakeholders to come up with a seminar that will involve the entire members to discuss these issues.In the last couple of weeks, AIB has been engaging with different agencies and stakeholders to see how we can collaborate and cooperate for the benefit of the flying public and we were assured that we can all together achieve the desired objectives when all hands are on deck.
Omega Fire Ministries has accused Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai of masterminding the recent series of spurious allegations ...

Omega Fire Ministries has accused Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai of masterminding the recent series of spurious allegations of infidelity against its General Overseer, Apostle Johnson Suleman.In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, the church, through its spokesman and Communications Manager, Phrank Shaibu, stated that facts and available intelligence incontrovertibly pointed to the Kaduna Governor as the mastermind of the allegations.According to him, El-Rufai decided to sponsor the allegations as a strategy to silence Apostle Suleiman and to take revenge for the latters famed audacity of standing against the persecution and killing of Christians in Southern Kaduna.It is clear that Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is the mastermind of these allegations. The masquerade has been unveiled and is now dancing naked in the market Square. We dont need to look any further for the source of the smoke, he stated.Shaibu contended that apart from the initial suspicion by the church that the Kaduna Governor may be behind the evil plot, the latest so-called revelation by one Queen Esther, a supposed usher of the Omega Fire Ministries finally uncovered the lid as to who was sponsoring the myriad of allegations against the General Overseer.When Festus Keyamo in his first letter to our pastor made allusion to fulani herdsmen, we dismissed it as a coincidence. Then intelligence revealed that some persons are lodged in a hotel being trained on how to clone Apostles voice and crop videos.The first question that crossed our mind was who was paying the bills, especially the huge media blitz that has trailed the spurious allegations. We did not have to wait for long before El-Rufai exposed himself. Indeed, he could not wait for long before coming out of the closet, he revealed.The spokesman wondered why the said Queen Esther, who allegedly pleaded for the media not to reveal her real identity should give as condition that the Kaduna State Government must guarantee her safety if the governor had no hand in the plot.Why is the said Queen Esther asking for protection from the Kaduna State government. Is the government now the police or the Department of State Services (DSS)? Why did she not mention any other state? Is it not obvious that she is telling us what her sponsors are willing for Nigerians to know? he asked.Shaibu argued that it was more than a coincidence that these allegations are coming up no soon after the Senior Pastor had an altercation with the same Kaduna State Government over the persecution and killing of Christians in Southern Kaduna.He therefore urged the security agencies, particularly the DSS to investigate El-Rufais involvement in the unfolding saga, particularly the possibility that he may be harbouring a private militia.Since the governor does not control the police or DSS, the likelihood is that the governor has a private militia. It is also possible that the so called fulani herdsmen on rampage in Southern Kaduna are part of his army. That is why El-Rufai was unsettled by the pastors stand against them, he declared.
As U.S. President Donald Trumps revised travel ban takes effect, an upcoming Fault Lines documentary on Al Jazeera highlights the consequ...

As U.S. President Donald Trumps revised travel ban takes effect, an upcoming Fault Lines documentary on Al Jazeera highlights the consequences of a blanket policy that closes Americas doors to those with the most to lose.Last week, Trump suspended Americas entire refugee program for 120 days and signed a revised 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.His initial travel ban was suspended on legal grounds within a week, but for some families, the damage was already done.The Ban tells the stories of a pair of siblings in Turkey, aged six and two, in need of life-saving medical treatment, and a two-year-old cut off from his parents.Abdul Ghani Abdul Jawads six-year-old son, Yahya, had a rare genetic disorder called Omenn Syndrome, a severe immunodeficiency, which can be cured with a bone marrow transplant. The Syrian family were due to travel from Turkey to the U.S. in December for treatment but at that point, Abdul Ghanis youngest son, two-year-old Abdul Jawad, was too sick to fly. Their trip was postponed to 1 February 2017, but then cancelled. Some sources suggest the familys security clearance may have lapsed, but Trumps executive order would have stopped their trip anyway.Days later, Yahyas health took a turn for the worse. He got sicker after he heard he wasnt traveling anymore, says his father. He was badly affected. Very badly affected.Yahya passed away during the making of the documentary, a child in an adult ICU at a hospital that lacked a pediatric ward.According to medical records, Yahyas brother Abdul Jawad probably has the same condition. His health is deteriorating as UNHCR looks to move the family to Germany instead.Wheres the terrorism in them? Look at them, an emotional Abdul Ghani says about his sons in the documentary.The Ban also tells the heart-rending story of Dilbireen, a two-year-old Iraqi burn victim in Michigan, separated from his parents by the ban. He needs surgery for up to a year, says Adlay Kejjan, the 29-year-old paramedic who took care of him during this time. So to separate the parents after he suffered so much, I think thats inhumane. Dilbireens parents finally got their visas and reunited with their son on 20 February 2017, after two members of Congress intervened. His parents hadnt held him in three months.When asked what he would say to the likes of Abdul Ghani and his family, Republican congressman Lou Barletta told Fault Lines Sharif Abdel Kouddous, I sympathize. Yeah, sure I do, but I sympathize with American victims. So we cant just give examples on one side and be ignorant to the Americans, innocent Americans who expect their government to protect them first My question would be, so who are you arguing on behalf of? Those outside of America or the American people? Arent you worried about the American child and the American family who has done nothing wrong in their own country - that we have allowed people to come into America to slip through this program or any other program and do harm?A Department of Homeland Security report obtained by Associated Press found insufficient evidence that citizens from the seven countries affected by the original immigration order posed a terror threat to the U.S. Similarly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the Trump administration had shown no evidence that anyone from the affected nations had committed terrorist acts in the US.
Mohammad Shaibu, the clerk house of representatives committee on agricultural production and services, has died.

Mohammad Shaibu, the clerk house of representatives committee on agricultural production and services, has died.He died within the premises of the national assembly on Monday, after complaining of not feeling well.Shaibu was said to have just returned from Zaria, Kaduna state, where his family is based.Im feeling sick and I could die, Shaibu reportedly told a colleague.However, he passed on while efforts were being made to take him to one of the clinics within the assembly.This is the third death that the house will record within one month.On February 15, Bello Sani, lawmaker representing Mashi/Dutsi federal constituency of Katsina state, died after a brief illness.Two weeks after his death, Benjamin Idoko, a police sergeant, who was an outrider in the convoy of Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house, died in a road crash.
Sunderland boss David Moyes says he expects injured Nigerian forward Victor Anichebe to be back in action in early April.A medial ligament injury has kept Anichebe out of the Sunderland side who are currently bottom in the Premier League table.He has featured just once since the turn of the year  in a 2-0 away loss to West Brom. And the Black Cats have struggled in his absence.Anichebe is expected to be available for Sunderland's last 10 games of the seasin and could feature against Watford on April 1, Moyes is however not too optimistic."Im hoping that getting Victor back at the beginning of April, were looking sort of another three weeks," he told The Chronicle."Could he be back [for Watford]? "I hope so but Im not quite convinced."Anichebe has scored three goals in 11 appearances since joining Sunderland on a free transfer from West Brom.
Six suspected Boko Haram leaders, who were allegedly involved in the kidnap and murder of 11 expatriates between 2011 and 2013 in the...

Six suspected Boko Haram leaders, who were allegedly involved in the kidnap and murder of 11 expatriates between 2011 and 2013 in the North, will be arraigned today.A nine-count charge has been filed against them by the Ministry of Justice. They will be arraigned before Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court, Abuja.The suspects are Mohammed Usman (aka Khalid Albarnawi), described as the leader of a Boko Haram splinter group, Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan (a.k.a ANSARU); Mohammed Bashir Saleh, Umar Bello (aka Abu Azzan); Mohammed Salisu (Datti); Yakubu Nuhu (aka Bello Maishayi) and Usman Abubakar (Mugiratu).The suspects, who are said to be leaders of Boko Haram before establishing their own faction, are charged with conspiracy, hostage taking, supporting a terrorist group, membership of a terrorist group, illegal possession of firearms and concealing information on terrorism.They are charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, contrary to Section 17 of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011, as amended in 2013, and punishable under same.The suspects are accused of murdering Internationally Protected Persons (IPPs), contrary to Section (3) (a) of Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 as amended in 2013 and punishable under same.They, on February 2013 at Ikirima Boko Haram Camp in Sambisa Forest, allegedly murdered seven internationally protected persons  Carlos Bou Azziz, Brendan Vaughan, Silvano Trevisan, Konstantinos Karras, Ghaida Yaser Saad (F), Julio Ibrahim El-Khouli and Imad El-Andari  and buried the bodies in a shallow grave.They are, in count four, charged with hostage-taking, contrary to Section 15(c) of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011, as amended in 2013, and punishable under same.They were alleged to have, on February 18, 2013, at Life Camp Yard of SETRACO Construction Company in Jamaare, Bauchi State, did knowingly seize and continue to detain the seven expatriates.The deceased were allegedly detained at Ikirima Boko Haram camp in Sambisa Forest for about 10 days before their eventual murder.They are, in count five, accused of knowingly giving an explicit condition for the release of the seven expatriates.The defendants are accused of being members of a Boko Haram splinter group known as Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan a.k.a ANSARU being a proscribed terrorist group in Nigeria, contrary to Section 16 (1) of Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 as amended in 2013 and punishable under the same section of the Act.They were also accused of being in possession of firearms without licence, punishable under Section 27 (1) (a) (1) of the firearms Act Cap F28 LFN 2004.The prosecution said firearms were recovered from Usmans house at Rafin Guza, NDC layout, Kaduna State, sometime last year.The arms included five AK-47 rifles (serial numbers 75582, 439106, 4483, 53964 and 3792); an unserviceable AK-47 rifle (serial number destroyed); nine detached bullets of assault rifles; one locally-made revolver; two locally-made single barrel pistols; two locally-made double barrel pistols; one locally-made incomplete short gun and three working parts of assault rifles.The state alleged Usman used the firearms, with other members of the proscribed ANSARU sect, to unleash terror against unsuspecting Nigerians, foreigners and the Nigerian state, and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 27 (1) (a) (i) of the firearms Act, Cap F 28 LFN 2004.
A Federal High Court in Lagos has fixed March 23 to rule on the admissibility of a list of beneficiaries of funds in the ongoing trial of ...





A Federal High Court in Lagos has fixed March 23 to rule on the admissibility of a list of beneficiaries of funds in the ongoing trial of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dele Belgore charged with money laundering.Belgore is charged alongside a former Minister of National Planning, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman and a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke, who is said to be at large.They were first arraigned in February but were subsequently re-arraigned on March 13, following the amendment of the charges to include the name of Allison-Madueke.They had pleaded not guilty to the charges and were allowed to continue on their earlier bail terms. At the last adjourned date, March 13, a first prosecution witness, Mr Timothy Olaobaju, was led in evidence by the prosecutor, Mr Rotimi Oyedepo.He had told the court that Belgore and Sulaiman were among the beneficiaries of the sum of 115 million dollars deposited in the account of Allison-Madueke. The witness told the court that Belgore and Sulaiman jointly received N450million on March 27, 2015.When trial resumed on Tuesday, the prosecution sought to tender in evidence, a document containing a comprehensive list of beneficiaries of Diezanis funds in the 36 states of the federation.This move by prosecution was however opposed by Sulaimans counsel, Mr Olatunji Ayanlaja (SAN), who argued that the document did not comply with the provisions of Section 84 of the Evidence Act. He urged the court to reject same.In response, the prosecution maintained that the document had substantially satisfied the conditions spelt out in Section 84 of the Evidence Act, and urged the court to admit it. After entertaining arguments from both parties, Justice Aikawa deferred his ruling till March 23.Meanwhile, the defence counsel commenced cross-examination of the first prosecution witness.Under cross-examination by Belgores lawyer, Chief Ebun Shofunde (SAN), the witness said that the N450million received by Belgore and Sulaiman was brought in a bullion van from the CBN. On the denomination of the currencies, the witness replied, I cant remember vividly but I remember there were N1, 000 and N500 bills.He said that the money was offloaded from the bullion van into the banks loading bay where it was manually counted. When Shofunde suggested to him that it took two days to count the money, the witness disagreed, saying as a professional banker I can count N1 billion in 20 minutes.The witness said that although the bank was ready to deliver the money to Belgore and Sulaiman on March 26, 2015 when it arrived from the CBN, the process was delayed by failure of Sulaiman to release his Identification Card.He added that the transaction was captured on the CCTV camera mounted in the bank.Shofunde said, I suggest to you that none of the defendants collected one kobo out of the N450 million, the witness answered, that is not true.Shofunde suggested to him that it was different individuals that came to the bank on March 27, 2015 to sign and collect portions of the N450million, the witness also retorted: That is not true.In the charge, Sulaiman, a professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Abuja, and Belgore, a former governorship aspirant in Kwara, were accused of conspiracy to commit the offence on March 27, 2015. They were accused of making cash transaction of N450 million on March 27, 2015 without going through any financial institution.The EFCC claimed that the accused paid N50million to one Sheriff Shagaya. The EFCC said the cash sum was above the lawful threshold permitted by the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act.The court will again resume proceedings on March 23.
The Osun state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has claimed that people of the state are fed up with governor Rauf Aregbesolas st...

The Osun state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has claimed that people of the state are fed up with governor Rauf Aregbesolas style of governance; and so, admonished him against spending the states meagre resources on his proposed solidarity rallies and marches.meagre statement signed and issued on Tuesday by the state PDP chairman, Soji Adagunodo, the party accused the governor of releasing a whooping sum of 250 million Naira to a phony organization called Oranmiyan Democrats (OD) so that it will organise a solidarity walk aimed at buoying up his sagging image in the state.The party also enjoined well-meaning leaders of thought in the state to prevail on Aregbesola so as to avoid any further depletion of the scarce resources of the state on political rallies it branded needless vainglorious and Ill-timed.The statement partly reads: An elected government does not require this kind of make belief rallies to prove its acceptability if it is indeed fulfilling the mandate of the electorate.What the planned rally shows clearly is that Ogbeni Aregbesola is conscious of the fact that the people of Osun state are fed up with his style of governance and are desirous of a new lease of lifeEven members of Aregbesolas own political party are speaking out loudly against his misrule. Public servants, traditional rulers, the judiciary and professional bodies are all in one accord on the fact that Osun has never had it this bad.No amount of propaganda through a rented crowd will change public opinion about this administration.
Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to unconditionally release former National Security Adviser (NS...

Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to unconditionally release former National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki and leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu from prison custody.In a statement yesterday by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, Fayose admonished Buhari to reciprocate the mercy of God upon his life by also showering mercy on his fellow citizens.Fayose said: You have received the mercy and favour of God. You have come back from medical vacation alive. By what people had said and by your own account, it is the mercy and favour of God that have seen you through as well as the prayers of everyone.It is incumbent on you to now also show mercy. I advise you to show mercy to Nnamdi Kanu and Sambo Dasuki and such other Nigerians that are suffering unjust, punitive, illegal, and unconstitutional incarceration under your directive or administration.Allow all those who have been granted bail by the court to enjoy their bail while their trial continues. This is the right, just, and merciful thing to do.
The Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday heard that former Petroleum Resources Minister Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke allegedly shared $1...

The Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday heard that former Petroleum Resources Minister Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke allegedly shared $115,010,000 (about N37 billion) among individuals in 36 states.Some who allegedly received the money were a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Mohammed Dele Belgore and a former Minister of National Planning Prof. Abubakar Suleiman, the court heard.They allegedly received N450million in cash.The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) re-arraigned Belgore and Suleiman yesterday on an amended charge in which Mrs. Alison-Madueke was included as a defendant.She was absent in court. EFCC said she was at large.The first prosecution witness, Mr. Timothy Olaobaju, a banker, said Mrs. Alison-Madueke lodged the sum in a bank and gave instructions that it should be converted to naira and shared.Suleiman had claimed in a statement after he was first arraigned on February 8 that the N450million was part of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign fund, which came from oil marketers.He claimed the cash was part of voluntary donations made to the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan by some undisclosed marketers.The ex-engineer also said neither him nor Belgore benefited from the money.Suleiman made the clarifications against the backdrop of his arraignment, adding that the EFCC had no business investigating private donations.But testifying before Justice Rilwan Aikawa, Olaobaju said the money came from Mrs. Alison-Madueke.He spoke while presenting evidence after Belgore and Sulaiman pleaded not guilty to the amended five-count charge.Led in evidence by the EFCC prosecutor, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, the witness said in April 2014, his banks managing director gave a directive that certain companies and individuals would pay into an account with the bank.The purpose of the payment was not disclosed. Over the period, thereafter, some amounts were paid money into the account. The funds were deposited in dollars. The total sum was $115,010,000.On March 27, 2015, there was an instruction from the former Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, through our MD, that the fund in the account should be converted to naira and paid to certain individuals.The funds were paid according to Mrs. Alison-Maduekes instructions. The names of the defendants (Belgore and Sulaiman) were on the list sent to our branch. The money was paid in about 36 states of the federation, the witness said.Olaobaju said although the defendants were not the banks customers, the instruction was that they should be paid.The instruction was that the sum of N450million should be paid to Mr. Dele Belgore (SAN) and Prof. Abubakar Suleiman.They both received the money and filled the Receipt of Payment as evidence of receipt of the money and acknowledgment of same, the witness said.Olaobaju said Belgore and Sulaiman signed separate receipts for the N450 million on March 27, 2015. The receipts were admitted in evidence as Exhibits 1 and 1A.The witness said no cheque was issued in favour of Belgore and Sulaiman, nor was the money paid into any account.To my knowledge, the N450million was not credited into any account, he said.Sulaiman, a professor of Political Science and International Relations, and Belgore, a former governorship aspirant in Kwara State, were accused of conspiring between themselves to commit the offence on March 27, 2015.EFCC accused them of conspiring to take possession of the N450million, which they reasonably ought to have known was part of proceeds of an unlawful act.The commission said they committed the alleged offence contrary to Section 18(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act, 2012.In the second count, EFCC said they directly took possession of the sum; in the third count, the defendants were accused of conspiring to make cash payment of N450 million, which exceeded the amount authorised by law without going through a financial institution.The alleged offence, EFCC said, was contrary to Section 18(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act, 2012 and punishable under Section 16(2) (b) of the same Act.In the fourth and fifth counts, they were accused of making cash payment of N450 million to Sheriff Shagaya without going through a financial institution.The sum, the prosecution said, exceeded the amount authorised by law and is contrary to Section 1(a), Section 16(d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act, 2012 and punishable under Section 16(2)(b) of the same Act.Belgore and Suleiman pleaded not guilty to all the counts.Their trial continues today.
Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has weighed in on Apostle Johnson Suleiman's sex scandals.

Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has weighed in on Apostle Johnson Suleiman's sex scandals.He said that the same people who were responsible for the collapse of Prophet T.B Joshua's synagogue Church, General Azazi and Gov. Yakowa's helicopter crash were behind the Apostle Suleiman sex scandal.In a Facebook Post, Fani-Kayode wrote, ''There are strong speculations that Prophet TB Joshua's Church was brought down by a remote control device and not a faulty foundation.''There are strong speculations that General Azazi and Gov. Yakowa's helicopter was brought down by a similar device and by the same people and not by pilot error. I intend to write more on both of these terrible events later and I have almost completed my research.''For now I will say this much: it appears that those behind both events were fifth columnists in President Goodluck Jonathan's intelligence agencies and they were inspired, sponsored and encouraged by certain forces from outside government.''The objective was to weaken Jonathan and ultimately to get him out of power.''It appears that the same group are now after Apostle Suleman for daring to challenge their friends in high places and for taking on those that they are using to commit mass murder, genocide and other hideous crimes.''Nigerians pray hard and beware!''
The remains of a former Governor of the defunct Mid-West region and old Bendel State, late Dr Samuel Ogbemudia, have arrived Benin, the Ed...

The remains of a former Governor of the defunct Mid-West region and old Bendel State, late Dr Samuel Ogbemudia, have arrived Benin, the Edo State capital.The deceased elder statesman died last Thursday at a Lagos hospital at the age of 84.His body arrived at the Benin Airport, from the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos, on a Nigerian Air Force plane marked NAF 029 and bearing the seal of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, at 1:22pm.There was a heavy security presence at the airport, comprising the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.The gold-plated coffin bearing his corpse was received by Governor Godwin Obaseki; his Delta State counterpart, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, and some senior military officers.The family of the former military administrator, led by his eldest son, Samuel Ogbemudia (Jnr), were also at the airport to receive the body.The remains of the late octogenarian was later conveyed in a black Mercedes-Benz ambulance to his Benin residence in company of a long convoy of military and government vehicles.According to a statement by the burial planning committee and signed by the Secretary to the Edo State Government, Osarodion Ogie, the funeral rites would continue with a cultural dance by troupes from Edo and Delta on Wednesday at his residence.A service of songs would be held at the main bowl of the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin, while an interdenominational funeral service would also hold at the stadium.
Former Presidential Aide, Reno Omokri has again thrown his weight behind embattled Apostle Johnson Suleiman of the Omega Fire Ministries.

Former Presidential Aide, Reno Omokri has again thrown his weight behind embattled Apostle Johnson Suleiman of the Omega Fire Ministries.He used Nollywood actor Leo Mezie's story to poke holes in Stephanie Otobo's statements about Apostle Suleiman.Omokri wrote, '' Was Apostle Johnson Suleman sleeping with Nollywood Actor, Leo Mezie, when he paid his entire medical bill of 60,000 for kidney transplant in UK? This is what they don't tell you! Was apostle Suleman sleeping with the nine poor Nigerians (male and female) he gave cars to on February 5th, 2016? Was he sleeping with the 30 widows and other indigent people that he gave out millions to to start their own businesses?''This is Leo Mezie's testimony 'I want to at this point thank Apostle Suleiman Johnson for all what he did for me. I have never met him before; I took ill but as soon he heard the news, he contacted me and asked that we stopped all further public appeal for fund.' This is a man with a Christlike mind who lives and loves to help people and you wicked souls who will not even spare a dime to help your own starving relations, how much more a stranger, come here to condemn him!
The 23 Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, officials alleged to have received the sum of N360m bribe from the Rivers State Go...

The 23 Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, officials alleged to have received the sum of N360m bribe from the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike during the December legislative rerun election have argued against their trial in Abuja.The accused INEC officials through their counsel, Ahmed Raji filed an objection to their trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja.The Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation had arraigned the accused persons before the Justice John Tsoho-led court on a seven-count charge.At todays resumed trial, the proceedings were stalled after lawyer of the accused persons told the court that there was a pending application challenging the jurisdiction of the court.Raji argued that having been accused of collecting the alleged bribe in Rivers State, the court in Abuja lacked territorial jurisdiction to entertain the case.According to Raji, We have a motion dated March 13, 2017, challenging the territorial jurisdiction of this court.All the acts being complained about took place in Rivers State.None of the defendants is resident here.This is a motion that should be resolved one way or the other.We urge your lordship to stay the issue of plea pending the resolution of this motion. Then if my lord affirms the territorial integrity of the court, we can go on with the trial.However, the prosecution led by A.K Alilu contended that he was going to oppose the application.After listening to the lawyers argument, Justice Tsoho ordered the prosecution to file its objection.Consequently, Justice Tsoho fixed April 7 for the hearing on the motions.
Northeast snow cancels more than 40 flights to, from New Orleans
Old New Orleans is new again at Rosedale, Susan Spicer's neighborhood place: restaurant review
The statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square as a protest rages below on Saturday, September 24, 2016. Some are trying to use the Jackson monument in an effort to preserve statues of Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard, and Jefferson Davis from removal. (Photo by Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com| The Times-Picayune)
In this file photo from April 2016, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite speaks to the media following the reduced sentence plea agreements with the five NOPD officers convicted in the Danziger Bridge shootings after Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Experience in public office or the need for change. Voters in District 9 are being asked at Tuesdays election to judge what they value more when it comes to who will represent them on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board.
Bourbon Street security cameras appear: Here's what you need to know about why and where
Joanna Sklenar-Smith, RN, BA, BSN, C-EFM is director of CHI Health Mercy CB Maternity Center, Environmental Services and Linen Services. She has been at Mercy since 1992 and will be celebrating her 25th year here.

Mercy is my home and my family. I grew up here. The culture is what keeps me here, she said.

She believes in the mission of Mercy and the excellent care and compassion the hospital shows its patients. Her department was recently recognized for excellence in patient experience.

I am thrilled and honored to be a part of Mercy miracles that form families and care for our tiniest patients, she said.

Through a professional development scholarship from the Heritage Awards dinner she was able to travel to Chicago for a conference working towards OB certification. She will be traveling to Chicago again this spring to be part of the Beckers Hospital Reviewer team for their eighth annual meeting. Mercys Maternity Department is also designated a Blue Distinction Plus Maternity Care Center, which recognizes facilities for their expertise and efficiency in delivery of maternity specialty care.

She has also created a quiet room in the hospital that centers on the families that have experienced a fetal loss. It is equipped with the resources that are needed during that difficult time. This idea came from a Magnet conference she attended with her peers.

She also has non-nursing departments and loves learning about other aspects of hospital operations.

All I have gained from the conferences comes right back to my hospital and the patients we serve. I am always looking for ways to improve our Maternity Center and Environmental/Linen Services, putting the patients needs first, she said.

Sklenar-Smith is the mother of six children and grandmother to seven. She also has three little dogs that are very spoiled. In her free time, she is an HGTV addict and loves to create spaces and do interior design work.

The Heritage Awards Dinner will be held on Saturday, March 25, at the Mid-America Center. For more information, contact Christine Gochenour at (712) 328-5141.
Raised medians will no longer be a part of the future look of West Broadway.

The Council Bluffs City Council on Monday evening voted in favor of a resolution that sought the elimination of these medians. The vote was 3-2, with council members Roger Sandau, Al Ringgenberg and Melissa Head voting in favor, with Sharon White and Nate Watson opposed.

Mondays action will remove medians in the West Broadway master plan that calls for new infrastructure, pavement and beautification treatments between 36th Street on the west and 15th Street on the east in five phases over five years. The vote did not eliminate other beautification aspects in the plan, and the aesthetic improvements planned in the first phase are to be applied to the four future phases.

The proposed building of medians in the middle of the busy street sparked concern among some business owners who feared they would create inconvenience for customers wanting to turn left into their businesses.

Among those speaking concerns Monday evening was Mark Mitchell, who operates a sandwich shop on West Broadway.

We cant afford anything to get in the way of the success of our businesses, Mitchell told the council.

Businessman Jeff Ballenger, who owns a car wash on Broadway, presented a petition with more than 2,000 signatures to the council.

They made their voice known, they dont want medians, Ballenger said.

It was Councilman Roger Sandau, a longtime median opponent, who brought forward the resolution on Monday evening to block the medians. In the end, the concerns raised were enough to convince a majority of the council to have them eliminated and go with the first phase.

Packed house tonight at the Council Bluffs City Council meeting. Budget and medians both on the agenda. #SWIowa @nonpareilonline pic.twitter.com/epFs44ja2v  Krystal Sidzyik (@ksidzyik) March 14, 2017

That didnt prevent, however, some testy exchanges between the two opposing sides.

White said the council gave a lot of leeway in allowing Sandau to bring forth his resolution.

Im upset and this probably isnt over, said White, referring to possible new council members in the future.

Council Bluffs Community School District Superintendent Martha Bruckner asks the council to vote to keep the medians. #SWIowa pic.twitter.com/iBGHuiGwUC  Krystal Sidzyik (@ksidzyik) March 14, 2017

White added that she attended many early meetings on the development of the West Broadway master plan that the other council members missed.

As a result of the council vote, the board governing the Iowa West Foundation  which had committed $9 million to the beautification aspect of the master plan that included the medians  will reconvene to vote again on whether to funding the aesthetics in the now-revised West Broadway plan, according to Pete Tulipana, the foundation president and CEO.

Watson expressed concern about this commitment prior to the council vote.

They would have every right to reconsider their contribution, he said.

Business owners and residents made their voices loud and clear against the medians, Sandau said after the meeting.

I think West Broadway will be as beautiful with its consistency with Phase 1, he said.

 News Editor Mike Brownlee contributed to this story.
Less than five years after leaving the Omni Centre Business Park, Centro Latino is set to return.

Centro Latino will hold an open house from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday in Suite 40 at the Omni Centre, with Latino food and beverages.

The center was looking for a space that would better accommodate its programming, said Roger Garcia, executive director.

Were also exploring adding some new programming this year, he said.

The center hopes to offer Hi-Set high school equivalency classes in Spanish, Garcia said. Currently, students must travel to Omaha to take the classes in Spanish.

The new space will have five offices, one of which will be used for childcare; a large meeting room for classes; a kitchen; and two private restrooms.

Were also going to be in the building that has a lot of our nonprofit and government partners, Garcia said.

Centro Latino was founded in 2002 as a mission project of the United Methodist Churchs Iowa Conference and Southwest Iowa District. It operated in a corner of the former Council Bluffs Community Health Center at the Omni Centre until 2012, when the clinic said that it would not have as much extra space when it moved into its new building as All Care Health Center.

Centro Latino closed on Feb. 15, 2012, and reopened in the Care and Share House at 600 Main St. on Nov. 1, 2012. In May 2014, with the help of a $35,000 grant from the Iowa West Foundation, it expanded into the former Over Over and Over law offices next door.

It will officially open in its new space in the Omni Centre on April 1.
The Council Bluffs City Council has approved Mayor Matt Walshs budget proposal for fiscal year 2018.

On Monday night, the council voted 4-1 on a budget that will  for the first time in more than a decade  increase the citys property tax levy.

The adopted budget includes a city property tax levy of $17.9072 per $1,000 of taxable valuations, up 16 cents from the current $17.75 levy.

Walsh said the increase in the citys property tax levy was needed to repay the first $7.5 million of the $20 million bond voters approved last year for a new Council Bluffs Police Department headquarters.

City Council chambers are packed, with some people listening to the audio in the hallway. @nonpareilonline #SWIowa #medians  Mike Brownlee (@mikebrownlee) March 14, 2017

During the meeting, Ringgenberg questioned if the police station was the reason for the levy increase, noting the need for potential revenue increases that the now-deceased Daniel Jordet, the former city finance director, warned about in a memo.

The councilman also said the city has gotten into the habit of paying for current projects with future bond revenue.

Additionally, Ringgenberg questioned the use of red light traffic camera proceeds as an expected revenue source in the budget, when the Iowa Legislature could vote to on a bill to ban red light cameras.

I find this to be very problematic, he said. Were compounding bad practices.

Walsh said its true that the city is using red light camera revenue in the budget, noting his understanding is the Legislature would not take up the matter this year.

Thats the end of whats true, he said of Ringgenbergs comments about the reason for the tax increase.

After discussion, including heated words b/w Mayor Matt Walsh and Councilmen Al Ringgenberg, @CityofCB council votes 4-1 to approve budget.  Mike Brownlee (@mikebrownlee) March 14, 2017

A back and forth ensued between the mayor and councilman in front of a large crowd that packed the council chambers, the majority there for the public hearing and vote on West Broadway medians.

I dont appreciate you impugning my integrity, Ringgenberg said.

Dont impugn yourself, Walsh said.

Ringgenberg encouraged the crowd to examine the budget when its posted to the citys website.

Council members Nate Watson and Sharon White noted that the city was up front that taxes would increase if the $20 million bond vote for the new station passed.

Thats the only increase in the budget, Watson said, noting that with that cost were trying to cut back where we can (elsewhere). Overall, its a good budget, a fair budget.

Ringgenberg said it was a bond vote, not a tax vote.

How do you issue bonds? With the levy, Walsh said.

The budget cites revenues of about $167 million and expenditures of about $175 million, leaving an apparent funding shortfall of just under $8 million, which council members were informed about during preliminary discussions.

Walsh had said the gap is primarily caused by the timing of the receipt of Broadway funding, which was reported in 2017, while construction expenses  currently estimated at about $5.1 million  will be incurred in 2018.

Ringgenberg examined the budget and found that the city had allocated more bond revenue than it had to spend and the budget was tweaked from its original form.

Watson proposed four amendments which were adopted to help rectify the situation.

The first reclassifies almost $3 million from the state sales tax. The second lowers bond revenue by almost $2 million. The third lowers capital project expenses by $1.75 million, including eliminating some funding for sidewalk and street repairs and eliminates the construction of a salt dome. The last eliminates special revenue of $355,552 for the purchase of heavy equipment.

In addition to the city levy, property tax rates were announced last week by the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors.

The county budget, which will be the subject of a public hearing Tuesday, calls for a countywide levy paid by all Pottawattamie County property owners of $8.15 per $1,000 of taxable valuation.

Neither the Council Bluffs nor the Lewis Central school districts have announced their levy proposals for the coming years. The countywide levy and property owners appropriate school district levy will be added to the proposed Council Bluffs levy to calculate city property owners overall tax bill.

Note: An earlier version of this story listed the incorrect amount of expenditures and revenues in the budget.

 Reporter Jon Leu contributed to this story.
The top prosecutor in Iowas Southern District will stay in his role, at least for now.

U.S. Attorney Kevin VanderSchel, who oversees the Southern District of Iowa, which is based in Des Moines, will stay on until the Trump administration makes an appointment, according to his office.

VanderSchel took over as acting U.S. attorney in November of 2015. He replaced Nicholas Klinefeldt, an appointee of President Barack Obama, when Klinefeldt left for the private sector.

VanderSchel has worked in the U.S. Attorneys Office since 1989.

In the Northern District, based in Cedar Rapids, U.S. Attorney Kevin Techau resigned on Friday.

Techau was appointed to the role in November of 2013 by Obama and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate unanimously in February of 2014.

The resignation is one of dozens as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the administration of President Donald Trump work to fill the posts with their own appointees.

Just two days before Sessions ordered dozens of the countrys top federal prosecutors to clean out their desks, he gave those political appointees a pep talk during a conference call.

The seemingly abrupt about-face on Friday left the affected U.S. attorneys scrambling to brief the people left behind and say goodbye to colleagues. It also could have an impact on morale for the career prosecutors who now must pick up the slack, according to some close to the process.

The quick exits arent expected to have a major impact on ongoing prosecutions, but they gave U.S. attorneys little time to prepare deputies who will take over until successors are named.

Its very, very gut-level reaction, said Steven Schleicher, a former prosecutor who left Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Lugers office in January and was still in contact with people there.

The request for resignations from the 46 prosecutors who were holdovers from the Obama administration wasnt shocking. Its fairly customary for the 93 U.S. attorneys to leave their posts once a new president is in office, and many had already left or were making plans for their departures.

Sessions himself was asked to resign as a U.S. attorney in a similar purge by Attorney General Janet Reno in 1993.

But the abrupt nature of the dismissals  done with little explanation and not always with a customary thanks for years of service  stunned and angered some of those left behind in offices around the country.

All of these U.S. attorneys know they serve at the pleasure of the president. No one complains about that, said John Walsh, an Obama-era appointee as U.S. attorney in Colorado who resigned in July. But it was handled in a way that was disrespectful to the U.S. attorneys because they were almost treated as though they had done something wrong, when in fact they had not.

Its not clear why the Justice Department asked the prosecutors to exit so quickly. Sessions gave no warning during the Wednesday conference call in which he articulated his agenda for fighting violent crime.

 Associated Press writers Sadie Gurman, Eric Tucker, Julie Pace, Amy Forliti and Larry Neumeister contributed to this story.
A federal safety official called on the rail industry to move faster in upgrading aging rail tankers; this came following a fiery train derailment in north central Iowa that spilled ethanol into a creek and was still burning days after it erupted.

A Union Pacific train hauling 99 tankers of ethanol from a producer in Omaha derailed around 1 a.m. Friday on a trestle bridge spanning Jack Creek near Graettinger, in a rural area about 160 miles northwest of Des Moines. The train was enroute to Texas City, Texas.

The accident derailed 20 tanker cars considered by federal investigators as older, less sturdy tanks set to be phased out over the next dozen years. Fifteen of them caught fire, National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said at a news conference Saturday evening.

Fortunately, the derailment and subsequent fire was miles from any communities, and no one was injured. The fire occasionally sent explosions and fireballs high into the sky as highly flammable ethanol fumes poured from the ruptured tanks.

NTSB officials said that some of the tankers, which carry about 25,000 gallons each, had spilled ethanol into the creek, but  as luck would have it  environmental officials dont believe its enough to be toxic to wildlife or fish. Iowa Natural Resources field office manager Kenneth Hessenius said that checks of water downstream found no obvious signs of a spill.

Sumwalt said the train consisted solely of an older type of car known as the DOT-111. The agency deemed that tanker a hazard as far back as 1991, noting its steel shell is too thin to resist puncture in accidents. The ends are especially vulnerable to tears from couplers that can fly up after ripping off between cars. He said few crude oil shippers now use the older tankers, after recent emphasis in the industry about the danger of it.

But meanwhile, people have forgotten about the potential hazard of transporting ethanol using these cars, Sumwalt said. We would like to see the shippers accelerate their schedule to get these legacy DOT-111 tank cars out of service when transporting flammable liquids  specifically crude oil and ethanol.

There have been at least seven significant accidents involving trains hauling ethanol since 2006 that released a combined 2 million gallons of the fuel.

God forbid this happens in a community or with people sitting in their cars waiting for the train to go by. Its not like we havent seen that kind of tragedy before, said Karen Darch, co-chairwoman of an Illinois-based coalition of local officials, called TRAC, that has pushed for rail safety enhancements. The group was formed after a 2009 derailment of ethanol tankers killed a woman at a crossing in Cherry Valley, Illinois.

Federal rules enacted in 2015, six years after the fatal Illinois derailment and 24 years after the DOT-111 was deemed a hazard, call for replacing or retrofitting the aging, soda can-shaped rail tankers by 2029, although most would have to come off the tracks sooner. Those that carry ethanol would have to be replaced by 2023.

The NTSB should push to heighten the pace of replacement.
Hakan Uzan told The Daily Telegraph that "Vertu is a powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche," also adding that he looks forward "to working with the team and providing the investment to enable Vertu to realize its full potential."

Nokia established Vertu in 1998, selling it for around 175 million to private equity group EQT VI in October 2012 while retaining a 10 percent stake in the company. Godin Holdings acquired EQT's share in Vertu in 2015. The most recent filing shows a loss of 53 million on sales of 110 million and Godin Holdings has never filed accounts while in control of the brand.

According to the UK press, Hakan Uzan paid around 50 million (over $60,500,000 USD) for Vertu. The Uzan family is a controversial one, and Hakan Uzan was accused by Nokia of a massive fraud back in the early 2000s. He was sentenced in absence to 15 months in jail in 2002 after failing to attend a court hearing, but the sentence was later set aside on appeal.

Vertu, the luxury handset brand that will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, has just changed hands once again. Previously owned by Godin Holdings, a Hong Kong-based holding, the British manufacturer and retailer has been purchased by Hakan Uzan via a Cyprus-registered company known as Baferton Ltd.

- 5684 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2013 Codrut Nistor - Senior Tech Writersince 2013

In my early school days, I hated writing and having to make up stories. A decade later, I started to enjoy it. Since then, I published a few offline articles and then I moved to the online space, where I contributed to major websites that are still present online as of 2021 such as Softpedia, Brothersoft, Download3000, but I also wrote for multiple blogs that have disappeared over the years. I've been riding with the Notebookcheck crew since 2013 and I am not planning to leave it anytime soon. In love with good mechanical keyboards, vinyl and tape sound, but also smartphones, streaming services, and digital art.
A man accused of beating his daughters boyfriend with brass knuckles appeared in Lincoln County District Court on Monday.

Shaun Naliielua, 31, pleaded not guilty to terroristic threats, strangulation and child abuse.

In late December, Naliielua reported a break-in at his home, but North Platte police felt something was off, as one officer noticed the reported broke-in door was fixed. Another officer found blood in the alley. It was later reported that Naliielua had beaten a 16-year-old boy in the alley.

The boy and Naliieluas 13-year-old daughter reported that Naliielua beat the boy after learning that he would be waiting for his girlfriend, the 13-year-old. Police found a stun gun and brass knuckles in a nearby trash can.

Naliielua will appear in court again April 24.

In other cases:

 Briano Parra-Munoz, 20, pleaded not guilty to possession of burglars tools, resisting arrest and second-offense stalking.

The family of a girl whom Parra-Munoz was convicted of stalking in September reported to police in January that the man was outside the 16-year-old girls bedroom. The parents said the man tried to pry a board off the girls window that was put up after he damaged it earlier. Parra-Munoz ran away but was caught, and a screwdriver matching dents in the boarded window was found. He will appear in court again April 24.

 Jason Sellers, 37, was sentenced to six years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm and two years for domestic assault  which was enhanced to a felony because of prior convictions  and strangulation. The two sentences are to run one after the other.

Sellers criminal record goes back to juvenile cases in the early 1990s. Calvin Hansen, Sellers attorney, said Sellers has taken positive steps, including therapy with his son. Sellers was given credit for 290 days served.

 Thomas Knapp, 27, pleaded no contest to attempted first-degree sexual assault of a child. Prosecutors said a 15-year-old girl reported having had sex with Knapp at least two times. Knapp will be sentenced April 24.

 Richard Valentine, 49, was sentenced to two to five years in prison for theft by taking, forgery and driving under the influence. He was given credit for 229 days served.

 After violating drug court and fleeing town, Cynthia Valentine, 26, was sentenced to 1 to three years in prison and given credit for 176 days served.

 Jenna Wilson, 30, pleaded no contest to flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving and attempted possession of methamphetamine. Prosecutors said a state trooper saw Wilsons car near Philip Avenue in North Platte and knew she had a suspended license. When the trooper attempted to pull Wilson over, she kept driving, exceeding 60 mph and nearly hitting two vehicles. She will be sentenced April 24.

 Joey Zeigler, 39, was sentenced to 364 days in jail for misdemeanor domestic assault. He was given credit for 86 days served, which court officials said could increase upon further investigation.

 Pamela Steeby, 52, pleaded no contest to possession of methamphetamine. She was sentenced to 120 days in jail and nine months post-release supervision and given credit for 33 days served.

 James Mitchell, 29, pleaded guilty to possession of hydrocodone. He will be sentenced April 10.

 Renee Deremer, 53, pleaded guilty to theft by deception, $500 or less. She will be sentenced April 24.

 Nina Green, 30, was terminated from drug court and sentenced to 260 days in jail and nine-months post-release supervision and given credit for 142 days served.

 Timothy Johnson, 25, pleaded no contest to possession of methamphetamine and Adderall. He will be sentenced April 24.
A Morrill County District Court judge has sentenced a Bridgeport man to life imprisonment in the shooting death of a Colorado man.

In January, a Morrill County District Court jury convicted Zachary Mueller guilty in the November 2015 death of Pedro Dominguez, 33, of Greeley, Colorado. Judge Leo Dobrovolny sentenced Mueller Monday on charges of first-degree murder, a Class IA felony; use of a weapon to commit a felony, a Class IC felony; and possession of weapon by a felon, a Class ID felony.

The sentence of life imprisonment on the murder charge was mandatory. Dobrovolny sentenced Mueller to 20 to 40 years imprisonment, to be served consecutively, on both weapons charges.

Mueller's attorney, Sarah Newell, asked the court to consider Mueller's drug history in deciding sentencing. She said a pre-sentence investigation showed the man had first used alcohol at the age of 9 years old and methamphetamine at the age of 11.

He realizes the real consequences of his drug addiction and struggles with it every day, she said.

"He will wrestle with it every day when he doesn't get to see his daughter," she said.

At trial, witnesses testified that Mueller had been using methamphetamine and acting paranoid in the hours before he allegedly shot Dominguez. Prosecutors accused Mueller of shooting Dominguez in the back of the head while he sat in the passenger seat of a car while his girlfriend drove during the weekend of Nov. 21, 2015. A farmer found Dominguezs body in a barrel floating in a creek near Bayard on Dec. 6, 2015.

Mueller was given credit for 371 days already served.
PORTAGE  The South Shore Line's major expansion projects are the subject of a Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission public comment period that will culminate with votes on adding the projects to the Region's official transportation planning documents.

The West Lake Corridor and Double Track NWI projects need to be included in the 2040 Comprehensive Regional Plan to be eligible for federal funding.

The public comment period includes six open houses throughout the three-county area, as well as the opportunity to comment via email, telephone and mail.

In addition to the South Shore projects, the amendment to NIRPC's 2040 Comprehensive Regional Plan would move the completion date of the dormant Illiana Expressway project from 2020 to 2040.

NIRPC Transportation Planning Manager Mitch Barloga said the Illiana change is a result of the Illinois Department of Transportation's suspension of major Illiana work in the midst of an ongoing state budget stalemate.

"This is in concert with IDOT," Barloga said at a Tuesday meeting of NIRPC's Technical Planning Committee. "We're just keeping coordinated on that project."

Other proposed modifications to the Comprehensive Regional Plan include the addition of infrastructure at the Interstate 80/94 westbound interchange with Interstate 65, and the elimination of plans to add third lanes to I-65 between Ind. 2 and Ind. 10.

The 2040 Comprehensive Regional Plan was adopted in 2011 and updated in 2015. The amendment available for public comment is scheduled to be considered for action at the May 9 meeting of NIRPC's Technical Planning Committee and at the May 18 meeting of the full commission.

The public comment period and votes scheduled for May also include NIRPC's 2018-2021 Transportation Improvement Program, or TIP, a catalog of regional transportation projects planned for the four-year period.

In addition to commenting at the open houses, public comments on the Comprehensive Regional Plan amendment and the Transportation Improvement Program may be submitted until April 13 by email to comments@nirpc.org; by telephone to 219-763-6060, Ext. 160; and by mail to NIRPC, 6100 Southport Road, Portage, IN 46368.

The new TIP will replace the 2016-2019 TIP, which included some work on the South Shore projects. But with the full inclusion of the South Shore projects, the 2018-2021 TIP will far exceed previous plans in financial terms.

"This is the biggest one I've seen in my 25 years here," Transportation Projects Manager Gary Evers said. He said it would total about $1.6 billion, with three quarters of that going to public transportation.
Christopher Wayne and Mike Tyler will bring their unique brand of magic to Chicago this week.

"The Naked Magicians" will perform March 14 through 19 at The Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place in Chicago.

"We wanted to do a magic show that hadn't been before," said Christopher Wayne, during a phone interview from a recent tour stop in Providence, Rhode Island.

Wayne said the show has grown in popularity during the last few years that they've been touring with it.

"Three years ago, we did our first show and we had no idea it would be this popular," he said. "No one had done this before and we didn't know how it would be accepted...we never expected it to be as big as it is."

Wayne and Tyler performed the show for the first time in the Windy City last year at Park West.

Wayne, along with Tyler, is the co-creator and co-star of "The Naked Magicians." Both entertainers hail from Australia.

"We were both full-time magicians in Brisbane," he said, adding they decided to turn their careers as "traditional" magic men into a show with a "naughty and cheeky" theme.

"We wanted it to be classy" but also on the bawdy side, Wayne explained. "We found a delicate balance that works."

Crowd reaction, he said, has been positive to the fun evening out. Wayne said the show is as wanton as it can get "before it goes too far."

According to the magician, "Everyone has that naughty side. And we want to celebrate that naughty side in a fun way."

Wayne said he became interested in magic as a child.

"Every single kid has a magic phase," he added. Wayne has starred as a magician on a children's show, and also had his own TV program called "More Than Magic," which aired in Australia, England, New Zealand and the United States.

FYI: "The Naked Magicians" will perform March 14 through 19 at The Broadway Playhouse, 175 E. Chestnut St., Chicago. Tickets are $25 to $50. Premium tickets are also available and include a post-show meet-and-greet. Show is for audience members 18 and older. Call (800) 775-2000 or visit BroadwayInChicago.com
Embrace your inner leprechaun this St. Patricks Day by cooking a tasty traditional Irish meal with recipes easy enough that the family can make them together.

Going beyond corned beef and cabbage, we talked to Patrick Taylor, who with his wife, Dorothy Tinman, wrote "An Irish Country Cookbook: More Than 140 Family Recipes from Soda Bread to Irish Stew, Paired with Ten New, Charming Short Stories from the Beloved Irish Country Series" (Forge Books 2017; $28.99).

For this book, Taylor, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, penned 10 new charming tales told from the view point of Kinky Kincaid, a commonsensical housekeeper of two overworked doctors who live in Ballybucklebo, a village in Northern Ireland. Besides cooking together, families can get a feel for the Emerald Isle by reading aloud Taylors stories.

Im a writer, Taylor says when asked which of the recipes hed recommend for children. Ill let you talk to my wife. Shes the culinary genius.

Shes also a noted sea and landscape artist specializing in paintings of the Irelands remote western side.

Many of Tinmans recipes are multigenerational and remind her of cooking with her mother when she was a child.

There are so many recipes in the book that kids and their parents can make, including some where there are no hot pans going on, says Tinman, naming a few such as Guinness Ginger Bread Cake, colcannon  a mashed potato dish with cabbage and bacon  and the intriguingly named soda farls, which is a Northern Ireland griddle bread.

Potato Bread would be a good one for kids to make, Tinman says. I remember when I was little and we had left over mashed potatoes wed make potato bread. Wed add flour, salt, pepper and a little cream or butter, shape them into patties and fry them in a pan with more butter. Then eat them hot with butter straight from the pan. Smoked salmon with cream cheese is a lovely simple starter for St Patricks Day.

Smoked Salmon with Cream Cheese

Serves 4 to 6

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill

12 ounces sliced smoked salmon

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

2 ounces creme fraiche (you can use plain sour cream instead)

2 ounces scallions, chopped

Juice of 1 lemon, plus lemon wedges for serving

1 tablespoon capers

Freshly ground black pepper

Cover a rectangular plate with plastic wrap, allowing a generous amount to extend over the edges. Spread most of the dill on the cling film and lay the smoked salmon on top so that there are no spaces between the slices. Combine the cream cheese, creme fraiche or sour cream, scallion, lemon juice, and remaining dill in a small bowl. Spread this mixture on the smoked salmon.

Using the plastic wrap to lift the salmon, bring up one side so that the cheese is now covered completely by the salmon, rather like a sandwich. Twist the two ends of the plastic wrap so that the shape looks like a giant sausage or a Christmas cracker. Now chill overnight in the fridge. When you want to serve it, carefully remove the plastic and, using a sharp knife, cut it into - inch slices. Place on an oblong serving dish with lemon wedges and capers and season with pepper. Serve with crisp crackers.

Guinness Gingerbread

Makes 1 cake

10 ounces all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or Chinese five-spice powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

 teaspoon baking soda

 teaspoon salt

8 ounces butter, softened

8 ounces rown sugar

2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

9 ounces molasses or treacle

6 ounces Guinness, flat

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf tin. Sift the flour, ginger, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt together into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy.

Add the eggs and yolk, and then the molasses and continue to beat until well mixed. Gradually add the flour mixture alternating with the Guinness; do not overbeat. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until well risen and firm to the touch.

Allow the cake to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely, covered with a damp tea towel. Now you can of course eat it right away, and it really does make a nice dessert served with cream or ice cream. However, if you wrap the gingerbread in parchment and leave it in an airtight tin for a day or two, it will become more moist and delicious. Some people enjoy this with butter.

Recipes from "An Irish Country Cookbook" by Patrick Taylor with Dorothy Tinman
CROWN POINT  The students at Avicenna Academy put their classroom lessons on display when they performed skits and songs completely in the Arabic language Friday.

Avicenna Academy, a private Islamic school in Crown Point, which has been open since 2005, has 49 students from preschool to seventh grade.

Teacher Sahar Hamad said the students have been practicing their songs and skits for the past month, and were ready to present them to parents, family and friends who attended the hour-long presentation.

Hamad said several of the presentations centered on Omar, an influential fifth-century Muslim caliph, or leader. In one scene, Omar was awaiting news about a battle.

In another scene, Hamad said Omar walked around the city to find out for himself how people lived and felt, and was always ready to help people. He reportedly carried supplies at all times and delivered food and supplies to the poor.

Hamad said the performances were taught in Arabic and performed in that language to encourage students to have Arabic as a second language.

The second-graders sang a song about the man who sold apples to the people, "Ya Baia At, Tu Faah," the third-graders performed a skit called, "The Arrogant Peacock," while the fifth-grade students performed a skit called, "Omar and the poor lady."

Third-grader Simra Khan portrayed the peacock, who had beautiful blue feathers, but was too lazy to do work and looked to others to do work for her and feed her.

Second-grader Amelie Hajjar, 7, liked the program, and said she has been studying Arabic for a long time. "I've been going to this school since preschool. Being in the program was a lot of fun," she said.

The school's administrative assistant, Muneeza Khan, said the school was established because there were no other Islamic schools in Northwest Indiana, and parents wanted their students to learn about Islamic studies and the Holy book, the Quran.

"In addition to Islamic studies, we offer Arabic language classes and Quran classes where students are taught how to read the Holy book which is totally in Arabic," she said.

Khan said families from across Northwest Indiana, including Valparaiso, Hammond, Crown Point, Merrillville, Schererville and Munster, have children enrolled at the Islamic school.

She said the class size is fewer than 10 students per grade level, so many classes are combined. For example, there are four students in the kindergarten/first-grade class. There are four sixth-graders and two seventh-graders in a combined class. The school goes up to eighth grade, but there are no eighth-graders this school year.

Students take the state-mandated ISTEP-Plus exam for students in grades three through eight. The school also is approved to accept the Indiana Choice Scholarship or vouchers. Those vouchers allow students in private school to use public tax dollars to pay for their education. About half the students receive the Indiana Choice Scholarship.
CROWN POINT  A 22-year-old Whiting man accused in a bar shooting last year had his bail revoked Tuesday on allegations he was found by police in possession of a stolen firearm.

Lucas E. Richards was charged in Lake Criminal Court with aggravated battery and battery with a deadly weapon on allegations he shot a BP contractor Aug. 26, 2016, outside Midtown Station, 1928 New York Ave., in Whiting, according to The Times archives.

The contractor was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, the archives state.

Richards posted a $2,500 cash bond Oct. 14, but he was arrested again Feb. 5 after a vehicle he was a passenger in was stopped by Hammond police.

A Hammond patrolman testified Tuesday at Richards' bond revocation hearing a search of the vehicle turned up a stolen firearm and a bag of marijuana.

A Hammond police detective testified the driver of the vehicle, Robert A. Jaronski II, told police both items belonged to Richards, though Richards disputed that.

The detective said Richards was also recorded in phone calls from the jail asking the driver of the vehicle to take the hit and tell police the items belonged to him.

Judge Salvador Vasquez said there was sufficient evidence to revoke Richards' bond and the defendant was taken into custody.

A new court date is set for March 20.
MERRILLVILLE  The Shared Ethics Advisory Commission will debate this spring what to do with absentee elected officials.

The commission will hold its annual ethics summit and breakfast 8 a.m. April 7 at the Croatian Center Banquet Hall, 8550 Taft St.

The Shared Ethics Commission, formed a decade ago, does ethics training for government employees in Lake, LaPorte and Porter County government, Chesterton, Hebron, Ogden Dunes, Crown Point, Dyer, East Chicago, Gary, Highland, Lowell, Munster, Schererville and Whiting.

Calvin Bellamy, president of the Shared Ethics Advisory Commission, said the keynote speaker will be W. Paul Helmke.

Helmke is a former three-term mayor of Fort Wayne and the founding director of the Civic Leaders Living-Learning Center at Indiana University where he teachers law and public policy.

Bellamy said the Chesterton High and Munster High school debating clubs will discuss the pros and cons of ethics policies surrounding elected officials who cannot attend to their official duties.

Bellamy said one such case would be that of former East Chicago city councilman Robert Battle who couldn't attend city council meetings for three months because he was behind bars.

Authorities arrested and detained 43-year-old Battle in October 2015 in connection with a drug-related homicide.

Battle has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial, now scheduled to begin May 21, on federal drug conspiracy and possession charges alleging he fatally shot Reimundo Camarillo Jr., 31, on Oct. 12, 2015, in East Chicago.

Voters re-elected Battle, who ran unopposed on the Nov. 3, 2015, ballot, to a new term on the East Chicago City Council, despite his legal problems.

Battle refused to resign. The City Council was forced in February 2016 to remove him from office.

Bellamy said, "We aren't trying to pass judgment on any of these folks, but we want to address the ethical obligation of the officeholder if he or she knows they are going to be absent and what is the obligation of their government colleagues, and do we need some kind of change in the law."

He said there is no charge to attend, but anyone coming must contact the commission by email at reservations@sharedethics.com or call 219-706-9018.
After a tumultuous Tuesday morning on the roadways, the National Weather Service is asking that drivers exercise caution during Wednesday's commute with blowing, drifting snow expected to create hazardous, slick travel conditions.

A lake-effect snow advisory for Lake, Porter, Newton and Jasper counties was expected to remain in effect until 4 a.m. Wednesday, according to the weather service. An advisory was expected to remain in effect until 9 a.m. for LaPorte County.

Moderate to heavy lake-effect snow showers were expected to continue through Wednesday morning in the Region, pushing storm totals to up to 16 inches in spots over northern Lake County and up to a foot of snow in northern and eastern Porter County, according to NWS.

Rapid changes in visibility will create dangerous travel, especially in heavier snow bands where whiteout conditions will be possible, according to the weather service.

The heaviest snow was expected to fall late Tuesday evening into early Wednesday before sunrise with snowfall rates of an inch or more per hour, according to the NWS. Parts of northern Lake County were expected to see 4 to 8 inches of new snow by Tuesday evening, with the possibility of higher isolated totals, the weather service said.

Conditions and accumulation totals can vary widely over short distances because of the nature of lake-effect snow, the weather service said.

Snow was not expected to arrive in LaPorte County until Tuesday night.

Some areas of LaPorte County could see an additional 4 to 7 inches through Wednesday morning. A single band of intense snow showers is expected, the NWS said. The location of this band could "migrate across the county overnight," with locally higher amounts possible if the band becomes stationary for several hours.

Just 1 to 4 inches were forecast for eastern and far southwest parts of LaPorte County, the weather service said.

Tuesday travel

Various bands of lake-effect snow developed Tuesday and continued into the late evening, affecting areas near the Porter County line.

Earlier in the day, traffic on the Borman Expressway slowed to a crawl as a band of lake-effect snow moved east over the area. Those in traffic were confronted with considerable delays, with backups stretching from the Interstate 65 interchange west to the state line.

Several local schools closed early Tuesday because of the weather.
Reports that the Trump administration's 2018 budget proposal will include a 97 percent cut to Great Lakes funding has a bipartisan group of senators worried.

The group, which includes Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Indiana, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt urging him to fully fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Since the initiative's inception in 2010, $1.6 billion has been used to fund 3,068 projects to address invasive species, harmful algal blooms and loss of fish and wildlife habitats, the letter said.

The Great Lakes provide drinking water for 40 million people, contribute $10 million to tourism each year and support hundreds of thousands of jobs, the letter said.

The initiative also targets several designated areas of concern, including the Grand Calumet River. The river  first named an area of concern under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1987  originates in east Gary and flows 13 miles through Gary, East Chicago and Hammond.

Decades of industrial activity have caused a buildup of contaminated sediment at the bottom of the Grand Calumet River and Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, according to the EPA website.

"Contaminants include PCBs, PAHs and heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium, chromium and lead," according to the EPA. "High fecal coliform bacteria levels, biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, and oil and grease create additional problems."

The canal and parts of the river have been dredged in recent years.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes last week expressed similar concerns about the potential cuts to Great Lakes funding.

"We have seen the tragedy and heartbreak that occurs when our nations clean water programs fail. Lead-tainted drinking water flowing from taps in Flint, Michigan. Toxic algal blooms shutting down Toledo, Ohios drinking water system. These are just two examples from a list longer than is acceptable in the United States of America," an alliance news release said. "If anything, evidence indicates that federal environmental protections should be more aggressive and accountable, not less."
VALPARAISO  The City Council approved an increase in stormwater management fees to fund some $15 million in projects.

The ordinance adoption will mean an increase of 50 cents per month for homeowners. The fee will increase another 50 cents per month in 2018 and 2019.

Commercial property owners will see larger increases based on the class of their building and associated runoff.

Several residents spoke to the proposal at both Monday's public hearing as well as at a previous Feb. 27 meeting.

Some, like resident Dan Sever, who has experienced flooding in the past, supported the efforts and encouraged council members to vote for the increase.

"Hopefully we can get this passed. Even if it's $1 it means peace of mind. Valparaiso is the gem of Indiana," Sever said.

Although a few residents complained about the cost, many spoke of offering their assistance.

Gary Brown, vice president of the Izaak Walton League of Porter County, said he is pleased the city is going forward with remedies to address flooding.

"The city is doing the right thing, but I wish you'd be open to more help," Brown said.

Deputy City Engineer Steve McAlpine previously gave a history of the city's stormwater management efforts, including in 2010, when a list of 17 projects were outlined. He said 12 of those projects, or 70 percent, have been completed.

The new proposal will finance a $10 million bond issue and nearly $880,000 annually for capital projects.

Top on the new list of 17 projects is the Village Station railroad culvert replacement project, which will replace a partially collapsed culvert with a 70-inch metal pipe. The cost is estimated at $2 million to $2.5 million.

Next on the list is the Beauty Creek stabilization project. The creek has eroded along the entire 2.4 miles of stream within the city's boundaries, threatening homes. A first phase would be tackled in 2017. The cost for the entire project is estimated at $3 million.

The third project the city hopes to begin in 2017 would be the Burlington Beach Road and Brentwood Drive stormwater project, estimated to cost $930,000.

Other projects are dotted throughout the city, primarily in the older parts where infrastructure is aging, officials said.

"This is a great investment that will benefit our children and grandchildren," Mayor Jon Costas said.
WASHINGTON  Wondering who is visiting the White House? The web-based search has gone dark. Curious about climate change? Some government sites have been softened or taken down. Worried about racial discrimination in housing? Laws have been introduced to bar federal mapping of such disparities. Federal rules protecting whistleblowers? At least one has been put on hold.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has made a series of moves that have alarmed groups with a stake in public access to information  historians, librarians, journalists, climate scientists, internet activists, to name a few. Some are so concerned they have thrown themselves into "data rescue" sessions nationwide, where they spend their weekends downloading and archiving federal databases they fear could soon be taken down or obscured.

Previous presidential transitions have triggered fears about access to government data, but not on this scope.

"What is unprecedented is the scale of networking and connectivity of groups working on this, and the degree it is being driven by librarians and scientists and professors," said Alex Howard, deputy director of the Sunlight Foundation, a group that tracks transparency in government.

The White House declined to comment, but Trump's supporters say the administration's detractors are overreacting. Trump is committed to open government, said Ben Marchi, a Trump supporter and Republican operative. In a recent interview with McClatchy, Marchi noted how, prior to announcing the selection of Neil Gorsuch to serve on the Supreme Court, the White House released a list of 21 candidates under consideration.

Yet moves by the Trump administration have helped stoke the fears. In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture removed animal cruelty data from its website, prompting protests from animal welfare advocates, including the Humane Society, which has filed a lawsuit against the USDA. Some Democrats in Congress also have protested.

Also in February, the Trump administration suspended an Obama regulation aimed at protecting whistleblowers who work for Department of Energy contractors. The regulation would have permitted civil penalties against contractors that retaliate against whistleblowers. Supporters of the rule say that its rescission will make it harder for contract workers, including those working at the federal government's nuclear facilities, to come forward with complaints of waste, abuse and safety concerns.

"Is this reaction overblown?" asked Howard, in response to a question about the pushback by open government groups.

Trump, he said, has made clear he will seek to prosecute leakers and labeled the media an "enemy of the people." He's dismissed climate change science and raised questions about the use of vaccines.

"The reaction we are seeing is driven by concerns unique to this administration," he said. "It's because of the antipathy this president has shown toward government statistics and scientific knowledge."

During his eight years in office, President Barack Obama was hardly a darling of open government advocates. His Justice Department prosecuted nine cases against whistleblowers and leakers, compared to three by all other previous administrations. In one of those investigations, the government secretly seized records for telephone lines and switchboards that more than 100 reporters for The Associated Press used in their Washington bureau and elsewhere.

But Obama also took some steps to increase transparency, including establishing a web-based log of visitors to the White House. That log allowed journalists and others to track lobbying at the White House, including links between the Obama administration and the pharmaceutical industry.

But easy access to the log disappeared after Trump was sworn in and the National Archives and Records Administration stopped paying a contractor to maintain an embedded web application for the Obama-era visitation records. They are still available at the Obama White House archive, but only on zip files that are difficult to download and analyze.

As of last week, the Trump administration had not built a web page with information about recent visitors to the White House, although it has said it will post such records "on an ongoing basis, once they become available."

Other information of interest has also disappeared. The phone book for employees at the U.S. Department of Energy has been removed from DOE's website. Several federal websites have been altered to eliminate or tone down evidence linking human activities to global climate change, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a group that has been tracking changes in federal and state websites.

One of these websites is "Energy Kids," which the Energy Information Administration launched nearly 20 years ago to help teach school children about the sources of energy. Since Trump took office, the educational website has been altered, including the removal of two pie charts reporting the link between coal and greenhouse gas emissions, according to ProPublica, which based its report on tracking by the data and governance initiative.

All incoming administrations put their ideological stamp on federal websites and accessibility of government data. When George W. Bush was president, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency attempted to close several of its public research libraries, triggering a blowback from environmental groups and Congress.

Yet Trump's election, like no other, has set off alarm bells for those who want to keep public information public. Fearing that federal data could soon be rendered inaccessible, librarians, scientists and other professionals started networking on how to salvage what they could.

"We started thinking, how could we organize a bucket brigade that could draw attention to the ways that data is vulnerable?" said Bethany Wiggin, founding director of the environmental humanities program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Wiggin and others started organizing dozens of "data rescue" sessions nationwide, in which net activists were invited to bring their laptops and ideas for federal data sets deemed vulnerable. Over the last two weeks of February, organizers held data rescues in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Minnesota, Connecticut, Texas and Wisconsin. Two more were scheduled this weekend in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Even before these coalitions started organizing, scientists threw themselves into the task of archiving data of professional interest.

For several decades, Dr. Garen Wintemute has been preparing reports on gun violence and the workings of the gun industry. An emergency room doctor, he grew interested in gun violence prevention in the early 1980s, when he treated gunshot victims at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.

On the day Trump was inaugurated, Wintemute got a call from a colleague, who reported that the White House had removed a climate change page from its website. Fearing that federal data on gun violence might soon similarly vanish under a president with close ties to the National Rifle Association, Wintemute called together his partners at the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. He then ticked off the records he wanted to archive.

Within minutes, the team was downloading a crime victimization survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. They scoured the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, gathering data on retail gun sales. They preserved mortality records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes a field for deaths caused by firearms.

Wintemute said he could imagine a scenario in which either Congress or the White House ordered that data stricken.

"I don't think the CDC would do that of their own volition, but they might be directed to," said Wintemute, whose team in a single day archived all the key federal records they deemed vulnerable. They are now stored on a secure server at UC Davis.

Access to existing federal records is one concern of data rescuers. The other is whether a Trump-led federal government will continue to collect information as the government has in the past.

Earlier this year, a group of Republicans that included U.S. Sen Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona introduced legislation to undo a 2015 Obama regulation aimed at reducing past patterns of housing segregation. The "Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017" includes a provision that bars federal funding to "design, build, maintain, utilize, or provide access to a federal database of geospatial information on community racial disparities or disparities in access to affordable housing."

Open government groups see this bill as a blatant effort to limit federal research and a precursor of things to come. Rubio, however, said the legislation is squarely aimed at stopping the federal government from dictating zoning decisions to local governments.

"Top-down, one-size-fits-all regulations by Washington bureaucrats won't help make affordable housing more accessible to those who need it," Rubio said in a statement to McClatchy.

How Trump may approach access to federal data is not entirely known, but one upcoming appointment will provide a signal. In coming weeks, the administration will appoint a director to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The office is a powerful but little-known agency. Part of the Office of Management and Budget, it is charged with guiding federal policy on information technology, information policy, privacy and statistics.

At a recent data rescue event in Washington, D.C., a Georgetown University professor urged those in attendance to pay attention to Trump's appointment.

"That is going to be a key position in the federal collection of data going forward," said Raphael Calel, an assistant professor in Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy. "If you have congressmen to call, senators to call, that is one to keep an eye on."

EDITOR'S NOTE _ One of a package of stories marking Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of access to public information.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California in a letter to Orange County officials Monday accused county supervisors of violating free speech laws based on recent changes to the way their public meetings are conducted and threatened legal action if the board doesnt change its rules.

ACLU attorney Brendan Hamme, who in his letter criticized the boards recent decision to limit each speaker to a single three-minute comment at the beginning of each meeting, said the new rules had the effect of strictly limiting the opportunity for the public to be heard.

We sent a letter to the supervisors, stating deep concern that their limits to public participation not only run counter to sound public policy, they also violate the states Brown Act and the First Amendment, Hamme wrote in statement.

Its clear to us that the O.C. Board of Supervisors must immediately begin the process of rescinding and replacing these illegal policies and practices, and fundamentally change its approach to the community it purports to serve, Hamme wrote. Otherwise, the ACLU SoCal will be forced to consider legal steps.

Previously, the public was allowed to speak three times per meeting and could address the board immediately before it considered each agenda item, rather than everyone talking at the meetings start.

Supervisors, who voted 4-1 for the change in November, defended the new setup at the time by saying it would allow meetings to run more efficiently and would prevent gadflies from hijacking public comments.

Under the new rules, the boards chairperson has the right to further restrict comments if more than seven people sign up to speak. On Jan. 24, Chairwoman Michelle Steel limited each of the 58 speakers to only one minute  although the ACLU complaint and, previously, a Voice of OC article have pointed out that the president of a corporate airline was allowed to speak for more than two minutes, while Steel imposed stricter constraints on people there to discuss homelessness.

Supervisor Lisa Bartlett, who proposed the recent rule change, refused to comment about the ACLU letter on Monday. But in November, she said she proposed the change so that some members of the public wouldnt have to wait around through a lengthy meeting to address the board.

Supervisor Shawn Nelson attributed the need for the change to three county residents who speak on multiple items at nearly every meeting, saying the men always talked about the same subjects regardless of the agenda item.

Its making a mockery, Nelson said. If we get to a point where there are average folks who come down here and have more items than that they want to discuss, the chair always has the privilege to make an exception, and certainly we can always move the rule back.

But Supervisor Todd Spitzer, the boards lone vote against the change, worried in November that the change would reduce the impact of public comments by removing their proximity to the boards votes.

When you have hours of meetings and theres a down time between the public comment and the time we deliberate and decide  I dont think that (helps) me as an individual in my decision making, Spitzer said.

County spokeswoman Carrie Braun said county lawyers had received the letter and were reviewing its contents.

Contact the writer: jgraham@scng.com or 714-796-7960
Once upon a time, evaluating a California public school was as simple as looking at a single number.

The Academic Performance Index was a score between 200 and 1,000, with schools aiming to get an 800 or better. It was simple, it was clear.

And it was incomplete.

Although it combined the results of several school test scores, the API score really just measured one thing: How well students did on standardized tests, which experts increasingly believe just reflects students socio-economic status for the most part.

The API score didnt give any information about other measures of student success, or about the climate at the school, all of which matter to parents and the real estate agents using the information to market houses to them.

OUT WITH THE OLD

Even if California education officials loved the API score, they were forced to make a change when the old California Standards Tests were mothballed in favor of the new Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced tests. The state school board put an end to API scores in 2014, after 14 years of them being calculated.

In January, Californias State Board of Education finalized the key elements of a new school accountability system, although some details will still be worked out over the coming year. Its called the California School Dashboard, a website where the public will be able to get a number of metrics on a schools or a districts performance.

The dashboard will be available online at CASchoolDashboard.org, although until Wednesday, when its scheduled to go live, its just a blank page.

The API was an overly narrow and simplistic way of measuring school success, said Joshua Daniels, spokesman for the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, which advises and assists school districts, county superintendents of schools and charter schools. Part of its role is to train educators on how to use and interpret the dashboard.

IN WITH THE NEW

Beyond looking at students performance in English language arts and mathematics, the new dashboard includes measures of chronic absenteeism at a school, suspension rate, the progress students who dont speak English at home made in learning English, graduation rate, what the school does to prepare students for colleges and careers, and more.

 Interactive graphic: How to read the new California School Dashboard

You have multiple indicators on a dashboard, and some of them you look at more than others, Daniels said. The great thing about the system is it doesnt force parents to look at one indicator. It allows parents to look at whats important to them.

Elliott Duchon, Jurupa Unified School District superintendent, said its important to include measures such as graduation and suspension rates and English learners progress.

Sometimes we find students who achieve well arent always successful. We need to look at other things, (like) how are they doing emotionally, Duchon said.

For example, chronic absenteeism is a problem in schools across California. An estimated 210,000 kindergarten through fifth-grade students in the state missed 10 percent of the 2015-16 school year. Seven percent of elementary students are chronically absent, according to a 2016 report issued by the California Department of Justice.

That costs schools funding, because schools are paid in large part based on their average daily attendance. Those students also tend to fall behind, do poorly on tests and are at a higher risk of dropping out and getting involved in the criminal justice system.

Suspended students are twice as likely to drop out and three times as likely to enter the criminal justice system, according to experts.

Students whose speak Spanish or another language continue to struggle academically, state data show. English learners scored lower than other students on the 2016 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress. They also trail in graduation rates, college admission and other categories. More than one in five California students  almost 1.4 million pupils  is an English learner. Their performance is tracked as part of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the No Child Left Behind law.

COLOR-CODED

And in perhaps the biggest break from the single-number API score era, the scores in each category on the dashboard arent static numbers but color codes, reflecting how the score has changed over time. Scores are also given as pie charts, for color-blind users, with five pieces of pie being the best.

A score thats shown significant improvements gets a better color code than one thats been stagnant or one thats in decline. The five-point scale goes from red, the worst, through orange, yellow, green and blue, the best.

You may be getting a yellow, but upon further investigation, you might be comfortable with that, Daniels said. Even if you get a blue or a green, you may not be happy with that: Youve got to understand why that is.

Overall, he said, the new system might be confusing to Californians at first, but says its a definite improvement over what came before.

Just because its comprehensive doesnt mean its overly complex, Daniels said. It certainly is more nuanced and detailed than the API.

Staff Writer Stephen Wall contributed to this report.
Can the center hold in American public life or are we doomed, in the Trump era, to even greater divisiveness and alienation? The poet W.B. Yeats asked a similar question in his 1919 poem The Second Coming. With a pessimism borne out by subsequent events in Europe, Yeats feared that the second coming might not be of Christ but of a rough beast that would plunge the world into darkness.

Our current situation might not be that dire and apocalyptic, but the nation is even more divided than during the Vietnam anti-war protests of the late 1960s. The political center is shrinking and moderates are an endangered species. Yet, without politicians and ordinary citizens willing to seek common ground  to compromise  we will lose both our ability to pass effective legislation and our moral compass.

This was true at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when Benjamin Franklin urged passage of the document despite his misgivings, for example on slavery. And politics as the art of the possible is what has kept our experiment in democracy healthy for the past 230 years.

Protests have always been a positive part of our democracy, but they are becoming angrier, with members of Congress like Jason Chaffetz of Utah shouted off the stage at a town hall forum on Feb. 10 and Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabachers home surrounded recently by vociferous protesters. On the other hand, the unwillingness of Rohrabacher, Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton and Rep. Mimi Walters of Irvine to hold town halls  with strict ground rules about audience decorum  is disappointing.

The president is in a fierce debate with the press, calling it the enemy of the American people that culminated in the removal of several media outlets (BBC, CNN, New York Times, etc.) from a press briefing on Feb. 24. And Congress is gearing up for a fierce slugfest over health care, immigration, taxes and the confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice.

Twenty years ago during the Clinton administration there were legislative battles but also willingness to compromise. Bipartisan welfare reform legislation and a balanced federal budget were two of the outcomes. Todays Congress members vote in lockstep with their respective party 90 percent of the time, whereas a generation ago the figure was 55. This legislative purity keeps the peoples business from getting done. That was the case with compromise immigration legislation passed by the Senate in 2013 but never voted on by the House because its ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus objected.

The status of inter-personal relations is just as troubling. Liberals dont marry conservatives, people tend to sort themselves into left- or right-leaning neighborhoods, and political discussions between those on opposite sides are avoided for the sake of family and workplace peace. Correspondingly, social media rudeness on political and cultural topics is at an epidemic level.

What can be done to rescue the nation from its political and social malaise? At the national level, members of Congress need to find ways to interact more often socially with those in the opposing party. All real living involves meeting said philosopher Martin Buber. Of course, this is also true at other levels of government, and even in cities and towns where cross-party dialogues at community centers would be informative and build trust. Of course, such dialogues demand mutual respect, careful listening, honesty and courage.

Although there are massive difference in how people feel about abortion, gay rights, climate change, gun rights, and much else, we do share a lot: Patriotism, reverence for the Constitution and its precious First Amendment freedoms, belief in the American dream that anyone can succeed if given a chance, a powerful spirit of philanthropy that cares for the sick, the hungry, the drug addicts, and young women caught in the web of human trafficking. And we can still take ourselves out to the ball game where there are no liberals or conservatives  just fans rooting for the home team!

We need, in the words of former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a radical center, where labels are put aside for the sake of the common good, where fiscal responsibility, environmental stewardship, social tolerance and careful reform of Social Security can co-exist. There are signs of hope that such centrism might emerge: A recently formed Problem Solvers Caucus in the House has 40 members from both parties that will work for common-sense solutions to help heal the nation.

Benjamin J. Hubbard is CSUF professor emeritus of religious studies. His most recent book, co-authored with Stephen Burgard, is A Battlefield of Values  Americas Left, Right, and Endangered Center.
COSTA MESA  In the early 1960s, he wrote advertising copy about missiles, and his work caught the eye of a bean farmer who had lost part of his hand in World War II.

The ad man, looking to leave his marketing job in the Missile Systems Division of Atlantic Research Corporation, interviewed three times with the Purple Heart winner before he got the job that would change both their lives.

Together, Werner Escher and Henry Segerstrom helped turn dirty lima bean fields in central Orange County into a shopping and cultural destination that attracts the wealthy. In 1966, Segerstrom hired Escher to be his director of marketing and public relations at a new place called South Coast Plaza, which at the time featured a carousel and air conditioning as its major attractions.

Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of South Coast Plaza, the Segerstrom familys once regional shopping center. On March 15, 1967, it was anchored by Sears and May Co.

Today, its a luxury landmark with 250 stores, 30 restaurants, office towers, world class music and theater, 22 million visitors each year and almost $2 billion in annual revenue. In those 50 years, South Coast Plaza and its surrounding artistic environs became the countys cultural heart.

It also helped make Orange County a place that could exist independently from its giant neighbor to the north.

South Coast Plaza became a powerful economic engine that created great wealth for CJ Segerstrom and Sons, provided a large sales tax revenue stream to local governments, and enabled philanthropy that created the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, said Art Goddard of the Costa Mesa Historical Society. The Theater and Arts district is significant in establishing Orange Countys cultural independence from Los Angeles.

Related: South Coast Plaza is at a crossroads at 50

Neither Escher or Segerstrom lived to see the golden anniversary. Segerstrom died in 2015. Escher died in January. For almost five decades, their lives were connected by the Segerstrom familys dream.

Henry had the plan, and my father helped him take steps to achieve it, said Sally Niebuhr, the daughter of Werner Escher. Henry had the anchors. He had the land. He had the vision. My father helped him make it international. Or, as Segerstroms son Anton called Escher in a recent interview, Our beloved Executive Director of Tourism.

If you were around in 1967, you may remember how unlikely it was that the shopping center on Bristol Street would become iconic. About 1 million people were living in Orange County (a number thats more than tripled in 50 years) back then. The 405 Freeway, which had cut through Los Angeles County since 1957, was being extended to meet up with the 5 Freeway in south Orange County, but the extension wouldnt be complete for two years. And the center, with its Sears and its carousel, was surrounded by miles and miles of bean fields and orange groves and the like. Henry Segerstrom famously said he was advised that a shopping center would never survive in a place with such a small population.

At the time, Orange County was a beautiful agricultural area, Anton Segerstrom said. Our family was a farming family and we were very much tied to the land  In the early years, I have many memories of our farm and ranch house, especially during the harvest period. One fond memory I have was around 1970 when my father came home and shared with us a bag of baked lima bean chips. He thought it would be a wonderful product for us to produce. We all liked them, but nothing really came of the idea.

Niebuhr was one of the children featured in the first advertising for the centers May Co., as she was photographed in 1967 wearing an Easter dress and bonnet and, later, back-to-school clothes on the South Coast Plaza escalator. She remembers running around the shopping center on Thanksgiving night as her father oversaw the installation of Christmas decorations.

Escher initially focused on attracting local customers. He organized art shows, athletes of the month presentations, tea dances on summer evenings and even a dog sled race on Bristol.

From its earliest days, no one was allowed to call the South Coast Plaza a mall. It evolved into an international shopping and tourism destination.

If you called it a mall, my dad would lose it, Niebuhr said.

Graphic: South Coast Plaza and the 7 shopping wonders of the world

But with so few local people to draw from  and with the growth of Fashion Island, which also opened in 1967  luring shoppers from beyond the county became ultra-important.

Toward that end, Escher found himself inspired by two places  Disneyland and Japan.

My dad said, We dont offer rides, we offer retail, Niebuhr said. So Escher put together a bus system from John Wayne Airport and local hotels to get visitors to shop at South Coast Plaza. The all-time, single-day record for South Coast Plaza is 64 buses filled with 3,000 shoppers.

And, critically, Escher started marketing South Coast Plaza in Japan.

He recognized the Japanese had a culture of gift giving, Niebuhr said. They give gifts as a way of life.

Thats the kind of atmosphere Escher wanted to promote at South Coast Plaza  the love of giving.

In the 1970s, Segerstrom took a leap. He went after retail tenants from across the world.

We opened our first international boutiques  Courreges and Yves Saint Laurent  which was the beginning of our ascent to become a global destination, Anton Segerstrom said. Based on the successful performance of these stores, we were able to attract other luxury and designer brands, many of which opened boutiques that were the first in Southern California or the West Coast.

As the number of stores grew, so did South Coast Plazas reputation worldwide.

In 1986, almost 20 years after the shopping center opened, the Orange County Performing Arts Center (now called Segerstrom Center for the Arts) opened across the street. Now, the Town Center, as it is called, has two concert halls, Broadway-style theater, and a repertory theater.

The original master plan from the 60s included an arts center, hotel, office buildings as well as the shopping center, Anton Segerstrom said. As the South Coast Plaza town center continues to evolve, we look forward to the relocation of the new Orange County Museum of Art to Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Today, South Coast Plaza remains populated with tour groups from all over the world. Some shoppers carry luggage because they have come straight from the airport.

South Coast Plaza is also, among other things, a sanctuary for the highest of high-end shoppers. Women shop in full makeup and heels; retailers suggest you can tell the reputation of a shopping center by the height of womens heels.

Graphic: Six secrets about South Coast Plaza

And then theres what some of those shoppers go after. You can buy six-figure watches, $5,000 shoes and $1,000 sunglasses without walking more than a few hundred feet.

The ultra rich get an invitation-only pass to ACCESS, a double-doored section of the mall that looks like a hotel lobby. It features private rooms, meeting areas, desks with computers and a Muslim prayer room. Inside South Coast Plaza, the Chinese Lunar New Year is celebrated. Translation services are offered in dozens of languages. Stores accept Union Pay international credit cards.

Louis Vuitton has an invitation-only boutique on the third floor that only a few people know about.

And across Bristol Street, the Town Center continues to grow. The plan is to add a new building to house the Orange County Museum of Art. Sandy Segerstrom Daniels, the co-managing partner of South Coast Plaza, dreamed about the next 50 years.

I hope the arts will continue to be vibrant, she said. It is so important now to involve the next generation in shaping what will come to Orange County. With the Orange County Museum of Art coming to Segerstrom Center for the Arts, I think there can be an incredible synergy between the visual arts and all of the performance arts. What is most important is that we listen to what the community is asking for.

In his later years, Werner Escher traveled extensively in Asia, representing South Coast Plaza. Last March, he took a trip to China. For his reputation in building South Coast into an international retail hub, Escher was given the Peace Through Commerce medal by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He developed a sharp insight of the robust Asian market, Niebuhr said. He supported not only South Coast Plazas vision for the future, but the U.S. governments national tourism strategy.

Escher died Jan. 6 after a short illness.

He never retired, Niebuhr said.
It has been 35 years since British rocker Billy Idols self-titled debut album helped catapult him to stardom in the U.S. And with the music of the 1980s seemingly as popular as ever, its no wonder the Stanmore, England, natives concert at the new House of Blues Anaheim on Monday night played out before an enthusiastic sold-out crowd.

Defying time with his bleached-blond hair and still wearing his signature black leather jacket, the 61-year-old brought his collection of 80s radio and MTV staples to Anaheim for a 13-song set that spanned 80 minutes.

Guitarist Steve Stevens has long been a critical part of Idols biggest successes, helping craft a muscular sound blending both post-punk rhythms and hard rock lead guitar styles. The palpable dynamic between Stevens distinctive guitar work and Idols forceful vocals was a formula that worked well, with a strong four-man band providing additional firepower during the set.

From the time Idol took the stage, it was clear he has lost little of the personae that made him a star. Frequently clinching his right fist, Idol led the band through a set of songs that were at times faithful to the studio recordings but were usually extended to allow for audience participation or to highlight Stevens guitar prowess.

Dancing With Myself captured the spirit of the original version, but Flesh For Fantasy benefited from an extended Stevens solo and a dramatic close featuring the full ensemble (drummer Erik Eldenius, bassist Stephen McGrath, keyboardist Paul Trudeau and guitarist Billy Morrison).

Cant Break Me Down, a track off Idols stellar 2014 comeback Kings & Queens of the Underground, and the Americana-tinged John Wayne were among early standouts of the set. Idol scaled back the rock attack for a nuanced approach on Eyes Without a Face, on which a sea of synthesizer sounds and Stevens acoustic-flavored guitar set the tone for the songs opening half before the full-scale rock sound marked the songs final chapter.

Dont Need a Gun also was helped by a more scaled back approach, with Stevens playing a flamenco style.

A true highlight of the night was a take on Blue Highway. From the time the song was launched, Stevens firing away while bathed in a shower of blue light, through Idols emotional delivery of the lyrics, it captured the more progressive side of Idols musical approach. Fantastic, Steve, Idol remarked to Stevens after the song. That was beautiful.

After ending the set with a spirited audience shout-along of Rebel Yell, Idol returned for White Wedding. The song was launched with only Idol and Stevens on stage, performing a dramatically acoustic version before the band joined them to rock the night to a close.
Democratic lawmakers Monday announced legislation that would enable millions of California students to graduate from public universities without crushing levels of student debt.

It may be difficult, however, to get all of their plans implemented absent a favorable change in the states fortunes.

Assembly Democrats, including Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, held a media conference in Sacramento to announce their plan, which calls for the creation of a new scholarship program that, according to proponents, may cost the state $1.6 billion during its first year, if completely implemented in time to benefit students during the 2018-19 school year.

TUITION INCREASES

The legislation comes at a time when California students attending the states public universities are facing greater tuition costs. University of California leaders have already approved tuition hikes, and their counterparts in charge of the Cal State University system may adopt a similar plan when they meet next week in Long Beach.

In fact, student government representatives from CSU campuses spent Monday in Sacramento lobbying legislators in hopes of blocking potential tuition increases.

I had so many students who were concerned about a potential tuition increase, said Gabriel Smith, a Cal Poly Pomona senior majoring in political science and economics who works two part-time jobs. Our students would have to work an additional 10 hours atop their current part-time work just to afford Gov. Browns proposed CSU budget cuts.

Legislators said the state government needs to reduce California students debt burdens or risk greater income inequality and a shortage of future degree holders.

I always tell the story about how I somehow managed to end up getting three degrees, and still owning only about $5,000 in total college debt, Rendon said during Mondays event.

As of 2015, 54 percent of California college graduates accumulated debt, according to The Institute for College Success and Access. The average debt burden was about $22,000.

It remains to be seen, however, whether Gov. Jerry Brown  who has sought to avoid big spending increases amid a projected state deficit  will support the plan.

PRESERVING, EXPANDING STUDENT AID

Assemblyman Jay Obernolte, R-Hesperia, said he is interested working with majority Democrats to reduce student debt burdens. California must do a better job prioritizing higher education funding, he said Monday. Obernolte is an alternate member of the subcommittee concerned with education budgets.

Democrats proposal consists of four key elements that are intended to benefit future students attending the UC, CSU and California Community Colleges:

 California residents enrolling as full-time students would be able attend a community college tuition-free for one year.

 Increasing the amount of money available to community college students who use Success Grant benefits to pay for living expenses.

 Creating a new Degrees Not Debt scholarship to help UC and CSU students cover living costs

 Leave Gov. Jerry Browns proposal to save money by eliminating the states Middle Class Scholarship program out of the final budget thats in development for the next fiscal year.

Any financial help for students would be helpful, said Yijia Liu, 22, a senior at UC Riverside. What student would say no?

THE COSTS OF COLLEGE

The plans supporters estimate some 390,000 California students could benefit from the new Degrees Not Debt scholarships. They project differing amounts as to how much a student may receive, depending on family incomes and whether a UC or CSU student is eligible for other benefits, such as Cal Grants or theMiddle Class Scholarship.

Cal State Fullerton student Vanessa Moreno, 22, who uses scholarships, grants and money from a part-time job to pay for school, had mixed feelings on the plan because of the assumption that parents will help students.

They dont help me financially, she said of her parents. I have to make sure I cover all my other expenses.

The legislators say students who receive scholarships will have to do their part.

Were going to ask them to do their fair share by working 15 hours a week, Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, said Monday.

The Institute for College Access & Success, an Oakland advocacy group sending a representative to testify at Tuesdays committee hearing, has already critiqued Democrats plan.

According to that groups estimates, a UC student whose family has an income of $100,000 or greater could receive about $15,000 in aid through the proposed scholarship program. The institutes findings show community college students can actually pay greater out-of-pocket costs than those attending UC or CSU schools.

California has major problems with college affordability and completion, but neither will be solved by the Degrees Not Debt Scholarship proposal, Institute vice president Debbie Cochrane wrote in a statement Monday. We hope that legislators will commit to retooling the proposal so that it addresses the realities facing Californias low- and truly middle-income college students.

LOBBYING, COMPROMISES AND BUDGET POLITICS

Two points from Democrats new proposal are aimed at community college students. Besides offering new incoming students a tuition-free year, lawmakers want to increase Student Success Grant awards available to community college enrollees from $600 per year to about $1,380, according to the agenda for Tuesdays subcommittee hearing.

California Community College Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley said he learned of Democrats plan late Friday and looks forward to working with legislators on the issue. He also shared the Cochranes views on the state needing to do more to help financially-burdened community college students.

We feel the California Community College students have unmet needs, he said.

A point of tension between lawmakers and the governors office is whether the state is headed into recession. The first version of the governors budget proposal forecasts a $1.6 million deficit, although the nonpartisan Legislative Analysts Office has reported that the administrations math may be too pessimistic in predicting future tax revenues.

If the LAO is correct, the state could have $2.8 billion in discretionary reserves at the end of fiscal 2017-18.

Proponents of the new scholarship plan tend toward a rosier view of Sacramentos finances and say the Degrees Not Debt scholarship could be phased in over a half decade without messing up state governments budget.

California Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer, in reaction to the new proposal, advised lawmakers to consider not only the prospect of next years revenues being greater than expectations, but the possibility that revenues may fall below administration forecasts.

Its certainly a laudable goal, but the question is how do you afford it? How do you pay for it? Palmer said of the program.

Replying to a question on Monday, McCarty acknowledged the new scholarship program could be delayed if necessary.

The governors office is scheduled to release its revised budget proposal in May.

Assemblyman Patrick ODonnell, D-Long Beach, anticipates some give and take after legislators get their turn finish the budget. A former teacher, ODonnell said he agrees with the objective of improving college affordability but also sees funding needs for younger students.

We need to ensure that the state of California lives within in its means and continues a focus on the heavily unfunded K-12 system, he said.

Staff writers Beau Yarbrough, Imran Ghouri and Shane Newell contributed to this report.
The idiosyncrasies of Orange County are marked enough for those from other parts of the U.S., so imagine how bizarre they might seem to a mildly autistic 17-year-old from Calcutta, India.

That would be Leela, and her story is engagingly told by Aditi Brennan Kapil in South Coast Repertorys West Coast premiere of Orange.

As directed by Jessica Kubzansky, the seriocomic play essentially invites us to interpret the various quirks of our native county through the eyes and sensibilities of Leela (Pia Shah), whose autism already creates huge hurdles in her day-to-day life.

In Orange, playwright Kapil exploits the naturally comedic wrinkles inherent in the scenario commissioned by SCR in 2013  that is, a play resulting from something inspired by the experience of coming to Orange County and exploring its diversity.

Kapil, though, is also sensitive to the intensely personal turbulence that might build up inside anyone enduring such culture shock, and the story told by Kubzanskys swiftly moving staging must be familiar to anyone who has ever seen the U.S. only through the lenses of American movies, magazines and fashions before coming here.

Leelas story syncs up with two distinct approaches by newcomers: Those who resist and cling to their traditions and those who willingly welcome the new, along with all its uncertainties and surprises.

Orange belongs alongside Vietgone, another SCR commission which covers much of the same thematic turf. By comparison, though, Kapils outlook is less raw and wrenching, more surreal.

Its Leelas inquisitive, unsullied persona that gives Orange its specific coloring, and the story starts with Leela and her mother (Anjali Bhimani) jetting here from India for a family wedding, meeting up with Leelas dad (Karthik Srinivasan).

As her parents bicker, Leela meets cousin Priti (the multi-cast Bhimani), whose desire to flee Orange County for good with boyfriend Gar (the similarly multi-cast Srinivasan) syncs up perfectly with Leelas hunger to get out from under her parents watchful eyes and go on an adventure.

The rest of Orange becomes a sort of road story where breaking free opens up a path of self-discovery. Kapil keeps the tone lightly humorous, bordering on whimsical, yet provides satisfying levels of drama.

While it may seem Leela is led around the nose by her more vibrant, confident cousin, Shah and Kubzansky magnify the teens determination to prove her self-sufficiency not just to her parents, but to herself.

Kapil trades crowds of Orange Countians for an episodic series of encounters with various, semi-generic character types  all deftly portrayed by Bhimani and Srinivasan, and all in the service of revealing Leelas efforts to come into her own.

In the process, we see an Orange County essentially comprised of nothing as far as the eye can see, a place bemoaned by one character from its status having been reduced from paradise on earth to one perfectly manicured tree and a town named Orange.

Shahs calm face and wan smile relate Leelas way of concentrating on whatever is directly in her line of sight, images she transmits via drawings in the sketchbook she calls her journal, seen, via Mike Tutaks projections, on a large upstage screen designed to look like a notebook page.

Shah does more than sketch hand-to-paper: She also deftly sketches personality traits that include social ineptitude and a high-frequency nervous system that makes Leela prone to panic attacks when shes confronted with a person or situation she cant comprehend. Just the same, Leela is clearly more astute than anyone gives her credit for.

Bhimani and Srinivasan display incredible versatility, melting and disappearing into a wide range of dissimilar characters who they make wholly credible.

Bhimanis Priti does all she can to appear American, from her Valley Girl-like diction and casual use of profanity to her ridicule of anything and everything from India. Leelas mom has her patience with her daughter tempered with exasperation, plus displaced anger toward her autocratic husband.

Srinivasans Gar is a decent guy attracted to Pritis fiery nature but turned off by her offhanded, almost careless treatment of her naive cousin, and we can only marvel at the actors portraits of, among others, Leelas hidebound, button-downed dad, quietly ranting homeless man and a boisterously drunk biker dude.

In the end, Orange isnt so much a portrait of our county as it is an up-close look at how perceived outsiders are affected by its various vagaries  foibles we either embrace or resist, depending on who we are on the inside.

Contact the writer: emarchesewriter@gmail.com
ORANGE  Drug addiction and a restraining order that prevented Michael Anthony Perez from seeing his four children made him a ticking time bomb, and may have sparked the deadly confrontation with police Sunday night, a family member said Monday.

He was pretty disturbed, his stepfather-in-law Mike Medina. I tried to help him be a better person.

Around 11:15 p.m. Sunday, Orange police officers attempted to pull over the white GMC van Perez was driving for a broken tail light. The van pulled into a parking lot in the 100 block of West Katella Avenue, where police also determined there was a criminal warrant associated with the vehicles license plate.

Perez, 33, refused police orders to get out of the van and, instead, lit a cigarette and placed a can of gasoline next to himself, police said.

Officers eventually flushed him from the van with a burst of water from a fire hose. However, during a struggle with police, Perez was shot once and killed. The deadly encounter was captured on video.

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Medina said he envisioned that Perez, who had been living in the van for four months, could have died of a methamphetamine overdose, but never expected him to be killed by police.

I didnt want it to happen, he said. It looks like the police tried the best they could (to safely take Perez in custody).

The officer is on leave as is standard protocol following all officer-involved shootings, Sgt. Phil McMullin said.

Perez became increasingly volatile after his wife filed a restraining order against him in February that prevented him from seeing his two sons, ages 13 and 8, and two daughters, ages 9 and 4, according to Medina.

He loved them but he didnt know how to control his anger, Medina said.

Despite his demons, Perez was generous to those who knew him. He often gave free rides to transients, said 55-year-old John Mehr, who is homeless and was camped out next to a 7-Eleven in the strip mall where Sunday nights shooting occurred.

He was a nice guy, Mehr said. He was never disrespectful.

Veronica Aguilar, who has known Perez for about a decade, said shes saddened by his death.

He went through a lot of hard times and struggled to take care of his kids, Aguilar said.

Perez had an extensive criminal history, which included violations not only for narcotics but also weapons, said Sgt. Jennifer Amat of the Orange Police Department.

Orange County court records show a lengthy criminal history dating to 2001, as well as convictions in 2003, 2005, 2006 and as recent as December, when there was a warrant out for Perez on a misdemeanor charge of driving without a valid license. Many of the charges were for controlled substance possession.

In July 2001, Perez pleaded guilty to a felony charge of unlawful taking of a vehicle and was sentenced to one year and four months in jail, plus three years formal probation.

Medina last saw Perez on Wednesday, when he delivered a McDonalds hamburger to his van, which belonged to a relative and was parked near the apartment complex where his wife lives.

He was in a suicidal state of mind, Medina said, adding that Perez had a burn on his neck after he tried to set himself on fire.

Despite his difficulties, Medina remembered Perez as a skilled handyman.

I tried to help him get back to work, Medina said. He had a lot of talent.

Staff Writer Joshua Sudock contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scn.com
IRVINE  A motorcyclist was uninjured after losing control and crashing into a light pole on the transition ramp from the southbound I-405 to the southbound 133 Tuesday morning, prompting congestion for a while.

The rider, a man in his 20s, lost control of the performance bike at 8:30 a.m. and collided with the pole, said Capt. Larry Kurtz of the Orange County Fire Authority.

The pole fell across lanes and blocked traffic, said Officer Monica Posada of the California Highway Patrol.

Paramedics checked out the rider and determined he did not need to be taken to a hospital, Kurtz said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7802, jsudock@scng.com or via Twitter @jsudock
The Rams added to their cornerback depth Monday night when they agreed to terms with free agent Kayvon Webster on a contract.

Webster is reunited with Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who was Websters coordinator for the previous two seasons in Denver. Webster didnt take long to make a decision. He flew to Los Angeles on Sunday night and met with team officials Monday, then agreed to join the Rams.

Also, the Rams signed restricted free agent center Ryan Groy to a two-year offer-sheet contract, according to a report from ESPN. Groys former team, Buffalo, has five days to match the Rams offer. Groy started seven games for the Bills last season and could replace the Rams former center Tim Barnes, whom they released this month.

Webster, 26, played mostly a reserve role on a talented Denver defense in each of the past four seasons, but also was a significant contributor on special teams. Webster has one interception in 54 regular-season games, but his role likely will expand with the Rams.

The Rams applied their franchise tag to top cornerback Trumaine Johnson and signed him to a one-year contract worth $16.7 million, but the Rams have considered trading Johnson this month.

Either way, Webster provides some needed depth. The Rams other cornerbacks include E.J. Gaines, who has a significant history of injuries, nickelback Lamarcus Joyner and largely untested players such as Troy Hill and Mike Jordan.

Webster, listed at 5-foot-11 and 198 pounds, is a Florida native who was drafted in the third round by Denver in 2013.

The Rams continue to evaluate free agents, and this week they will meet with linebacker Jarvis Jones. That would make for an interesting full-circle story for Jones, who left USC for Georgia in 2010 after USC officials discovered that Jones had a neck condition and wouldnt clear him to play.

Contact the writer: rhammond@scng.com
Four years ago as an early childhood development student at Cal State Fullerton, Abigail Segura had not only never traveled overseas, she hadnt really thought about doing so.

After learning about an intersession trip to Thailand that the universitys Department of Child and Adolescent Studies was putting together, Segura decided to apply for the two-week trip.

I was so amazed by everything, she said. For me it was just really about being aware that there is so much more out there. I was born and raised in Fullerton so I had been in this bubble; to be exposed to this new culture was eye-opening.

The CSUF alums international experiences have led her to become a study abroad advocate and lead the very programs in which she once served as a participant.

I always tell students who have an interest in traveling with these short-term study abroad programs that they are doing two things at once  experiencing a new culture and also completing a requirement for graduation, she said.

Because short-term study abroad trips are significantly shorter than semester-long study abroad programs, the cost is also significantly less; this oftentimes attracts more students, Segura said.

A semester abroad costs about $8,000, plus the cost of airfare and meals. The Thailand short-term trip costs about $3,500 and includes airfare and most meals.

Her study abroad experiences were so impactful that Segura changed her career aspirations and she is now serving as the universitys International Programs and Global Engagement program coordinator.

Last month, Segura completed her fourth CSUF January intercession trip to Thailand. This time, she served as a site supervisor and led a group of about 25 students from the Department of Child and Adolescent Studies.

The group visited private and public schools in Chiang Mai.

Throughout the fall semester students prepared lesson plans for the January 2017 trip. While in the country, they visited classrooms and led activities and lessons with children.

CSUF students put into action the theories they had learned in class, as well as learned techniques and theories used in Thailand.

We go to different schools and each school is a different environment so students are challenged to modify and be flexible, said Segura, who graduated from CSUF in 2014 with a bachelors degree in childhood development with an emphasis in early childhood education.

In some classrooms children had a high English proficiency, while in others there was an English barrier.

As a teacher they are challenged to find a way to conduct their lesson and to engage the students, Segura said. They have to be able to observe the students to see where they are at.

The ability to be able to adapt while working with children is crucial, especially if students work in a diverse area like Orange County, Segura said.

The CSUF Department of Child and Adolescent Studies has been organizing short-term study abroad programs for about 15 years.

Participation allows the departments students to experience new cultures and history, said Katherine Bono, CSUF associate professor of child and adolescent studies and chairwoman of the department.

A lot of students say this is a life-changing experience for them. Their eyes are opened to differences in cultures, Bono said. It sparks a travel bug in a lot of students.

(CSUF students) have the opportunity to interact with children from different cultures and the children that are there have the opportunity to interact with Americans, she said.

During the universitys upcoming spring break, 22 students from the department will travel to Costa Rica.

In June, Segura will lead a new trip to Baja California.

The short-term study abroad programs were developed as an alternative to the departments practicum courses.
ANKARA, Turkey  The unusually bitter dispute between European countries and Turkey over President Recep Tayyip Erdogans attempts to hold political rallies in their cities is sharply escalating as Ankara releases its long-simmering frustration at its perceived mistreatment by its allies.

After its ministers were barred from giving campaign speeches in Cologne, Rotterdam and other cities last week, the Turkish government stoked the crisis by accusing the German government of Nazi practices, calling the Dutch Nazi remnants, warning that they will pay the price and telling the Dutch ambassador not to return to Ankara.

But even before the blowup over the rallies, Turkish officials were slamming the double standard they say Europe and the United States use to discriminate against their country.

The anger over European limits on Turkish campaigning ahead of an April 16 referendum intended to expand the powers of Erdogan is another indication of the growing estrangement between Europe, the United States and Turkey, the only Muslim-majority country in the NATO alliance. As Erdogan has moved to expand his authority in recent years and strengthen the role of Islam in his countrys governance, European officials have become increasingly critical of his government.

Turkish officials say the limitations on holding political rallies in countries with 3 million Turkish emigres will backfire and increase support for the referendum.

They chose to take sides on the matter of the Turkish referendum, which is a grave mistake, and the Turkish people are making a mental note of this, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters in Ankara, speaking through a translator. The restrictions will have the opposite effect, and the people will be even more motivated.

On Sunday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Turkeys behavior as bizarre, irresponsible and unacceptable, echoing German Chancellor Angela Merkels response last week.

Yildirim was not alone in his anger. His position was echoed in a series of interviews with Turkish officials in the past week.

There is a systematic, anti-Turkey, anti-Erdogan campaign coming out of certain countries in Europe, said Ibrahim Kalin, a powerful aide to Erdogan. He attributed the deterioration of relations with countries like Germany and the Netherlands to the growth of right extremist, almost racist groups.

We are very concerned about this road that Europe is taking, Kalin said. Instead of condemning, containing this racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigration, anti-minority voices, they are becoming a part of the mainstream . and they launch attacks from that (against) Turkey, and President Erdogan.

Turkish officials cite two reasons for the deterioration of relations: the Wests failure to give Turkey credit for its contributions to the battle against the Islamic State and its willingness to take in 3 million Syrian refugees, and the Wests inability to grasp how traumatic last years coup attempt was for Turkey, instead blindly criticizing the resulting crackdown.

In the interviews, officials described last Julys failed coup, which left 250 people dead and 1,400 injured, as traumatic, vicious, a huge tragedy, an awful episode and a nightmare. Several called it an existential threat to democracy that was not given serious enough attention by European leaders, who instead have watched his purge of the countrys bureaucracy and civil institutions with alarm.

Since the coup, Turkeys government has arrested 41,000 people and purged more than 100,000 from its civil service who it says are linked to cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom they accuse of plotting the coup. Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999 in self-imposed exile, denies any involvement.

Nejat Basar, the managing editor of the pro-Erdogan newspaper Daily Sabah, said Westerners who did not live through the coup simply could not see it from the proper perspective.

The West mistakes Erdogans being a good politician with authoritarianism, he said.

The Turkish government has shut down 160 news organizations by decree since the coup, according to the Human Rights Joint Platform, a Turkish monitoring group. These include 45 newspapers, 32 radio stations, 30 television channels and 19 magazines.

Turkish top officials charge that Europe and the U.S. keep shouting numbers at them without trying to understand the reality on the ground.

Would you in the U.S. allow al-Qaida to run newspapers? Would you allow ISIS to run television networks? said Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey jailed more journalists than any other country in 2016.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag condemned such reports as part of a perception campaign that is carried out against us.

He said no journalists were being jailed for their work. Instead, those being arrested are guilty of trespassing, drug trafficking, homicide and propagandizing for terrorist organizations.

Our main problem is when people are making decisions about Turkey, they do not make correct observations and do not resort to true and reliable sources, Bozdag said.

He claimed that journalists in the U.S. and Europe had being influenced by Gulen-linked groups and that U.S. lawmakers are unaware of Gulens ties to businessmen and nonprofits they meet. Europe and the U.S. have viewed Turkeys campaign against Gulen and his supporters with skepticism, and the U.S. has said it does not have sufficient evidence to extradite him.

Turkeys government has been on a mission to emphasize the brutality of the coup. The Ministry of Justice hands out large coffee-table books to visitors filled with images of clashes during the failed coup attempt. The book is titled 15 July  Treason of the Century, Victory of the Century.

Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek screened graphic footage of the confrontations during an interview with U.S.-based journalists.

You see that? The head is gone, he said, closely watching journalists reactions as he narrated videos of dismembered victims lying in pools of blood, set to a dramatic movie soundtrack.

The Western world stood by soldiers, not democracy, he declared, showing slides that inaccurately quoted the U.S. Central Commands Army Gen. Joseph Votel saying, The plotters are our allies.



2017 McClatchy Washington Bureau

Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau at www.mcclatchydc.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.



PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194): TURKEY-EUROPE



Topics: t000002537,t000040350,t000002669,t000033770,t000046807,t000047103,t000002676,g000362669,g000362661,g000066164
DNA led Irvine police to a 25-year-old man they believe committed a violent armed burglary at a drive-up ATM in 2014, authorities said Monday.

Charles Thomas Kelley IV was arrested Friday on suspicion of armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and making terrorist threats.

On Dec. 3, 2014, a man was at a Wells Fargo drive-up ATM in the Woodbridge area of Irvine, when a man approached him with a knife. The man held the knife against the victims throat and demanded $1,000, Irvine police spokeswoman Kim Mohr said.

The victim said he did not have that much money in his account and offered the $300 cash he was about to deposit in the ATM, Mohr said.

When the victim saw that the robber wouldnt settle for the lesser amount, he tried to grab the knife. The two struggled and the victim was cut several times on his wrist and arm, which later needed more than 20 stitches.

The robber managed to flee with cash and the victims ATM card, but not before bleeding on the victims shirt. In August, Kelley was arrested after a fight in San Diego and gave a sample of his DNA, which was matched last week to blood taken from the 2014 robbery.

On Friday, detectives went to Kelleys place of business in Rancho Santa Margarita and arrested him. Jail records show he was released the next day after he posted bond.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact Detective Jason Renshaw at 949-724-7244 or jrenshaw@cityofirvine.org.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
Are you ever too old to become a parent? Well, the Italian justice system seems to think so, and the tragic story of Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis, an elderly couple who had their natural daughter taken away and put up for adoption because they were deemed too old to take care of her is proof enough.

In 2009, 57-year-old Gabriella and 69-year-old Luigi, of Casale Monferrato, Italy, decided to have a baby, and traveled abroad to undergo an advanced in-vitro procedure. In May 2010, Gabriella gave birth to a healthy baby daughter, and the couple made national headlines. They became known as the grandparent parents, and faced discrimination from people deeming them too old to take care of a baby. The two recall that, while they were still in the hospital after their daughters birth, someone alerted child services about their age and their ability to properly tend to the infant.

Luckily for them, there was no Italian law that prevented people over a certain age from having and raising children, so they were able to take the baby home and live a normal life. However, the joy of parenthood was short-lived, as in 2011, just 15 months after their daughter was born, the De Ambrosis were accused of abandonment for leaving the baby unsupervised for only a few minutes. What followed was a nightmare that continues to this day.

Photo via Il Secolo XIX

It all started one day, when Gabriella and Luigi left their daughter in the car seat of their car while they went inside the house to prepare her milk bottle. The car was parked right outside their home, so they kept an eye on her through the window the whole seven minutes it took to prepare the formula. That was apparently too long for an overzealous neighbor who must have called the police the moment he saw the couple go inside without the baby. Based on the neighbors testimony, the grandparent parents were charged with abandonment and soon appeared before a judge who declared the De Ambrosis unfit to take care of the baby, due to their age.

The elderly parents will never forget that moment in 2013, when the judge told them that their pregnancy was the result of the distorted application of the enormous possibilities offered by progress in genetics and that if the child remained in their care she would either wind up a young orphan, or be forced to take care of them due to their advanced age. But the humiliation was nothing compared to the pain of having their daughter removed from their custody and put up for adoption with a new family.

Photo: Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis

Gabriella and Luigi didnt give up, but it would be another three years before their lawyer, Adriana Boscagli, managed to get the original court decision repealed and the charges of abandonment dropped. The favorable decision to Boscaglis extraordinary appeal was read in June 2016, but it only gave the De Ambrosis the illusion that they would finally get their child back. It was a cruel hope that would once again be shattered by the justice system.

Put in the care of a foster family after the abandonment incident in 2011, Gabriella and Luigis daughter was declared adoptable in 2013, following the original court decision, and was officially adopted by her foster family. She had been living with her new parents for nearly five years when the sentence against the De Ambrosis was overturned, in June 2016, and judges ruled that removing the girl from the only family she had really ever known would be detrimental to her.

Photo: Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis

Gabriella and Luigi once again went to court to get back the child that had unjustly been taken away from them, but a few days ago, they received yet another blow. The Court of Appeals confirmed the adoptability of the girl, claiming that the umbilical cord to her natural parents was severed too long ago and that to take her away from her adoptive family would only hurt and confuse the child. So despite being declared innocent of previous charges and perfectly fit to raise a child, they cannot get their daughter back.

This is not the end, as Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis now plan to challenge the recent court decision at the Supreme Court. They are hopeful that in the end they will get the chance to hold their daughter again and live as a normal family, but time is working against them. Luigi is now 75 years old and Gabriella is 63. Their daughter will be turning 7 in two months, and every day that passes is another one of her childhood that they have missed. They hope that its not too late to make up for all this lost time.

Oliverio Ferraris, a psychologist at the University of Rome, has described the case of Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis as the defeat of justice at the hand of those who should be delivering it. Because courts took so long to decide on the case without taking into consideration the unique situation and the emotional stability of the child, they screwed everything up. Children become attached to their care-givers, and turning their whole world upside down opens up serious problems, but at the same time, one cannot help be sympathetic to the natural parents and the ordeal they are still going through.

Sources: La Republica, Quotidiano, RAI News
Agricultural News

Next Breeding Season Just Weeks Away, Time to Begin Scheduling Pre-Breeding Soundness Tests

Dr. Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist, offers herd health advice as part of the weekly series known as the "Cow Calf Corner" published electronically by Dr. Peel and Dr. Glenn Selk. Today, Dr. Selk reminds producers to begin scheduling pre-breeding soundness examines for their bulls, with the next breeding season only weeks away.





"Although the spring calving season may still be ongoing, the next breeding season is only a few weeks away. Now is the time to schedule the old and new bulls for their pre-breeding soundness examination.





"For the breeding soundness evaluation to be successful, bulls should be evaluated 30 to 60 days before the start of breeding. It is important to allow sufficient time to replace questionable bulls. Bulls could also be evaluated at the end of breeding to determine if their fertility decreased. A breeding soundness exam is administered by a veterinarian and includes a physical examination (feet, legs, eyes, teeth, flesh cover, scrotal size and shape), an internal and external examination of the reproductive tract, and semen evaluation for sperm cell motility and normality.







"The physical examination studies overall appearance. Flesh cover is one factor to evaluate. Body condition can be affected by length of the breeding season, grazing and supplemental feeding conditions, number of cows the bull is expected to service and distance required to travel during breeding. Ideally, bulls should have enough fat cover at the start of breeding so their ribs appear smooth across their sides. A body condition score 6 (where 1 = emaciated and 9 = very obese) is the target body condition prior to the breeding season.







"Sound feet and legs are very important because if they are unsound, this can result in the inability to travel and mount for mating. The general health of the bull is critical since sick, aged and injured bulls are less likely to mate and usually have lower semen quality. The external examination of the reproductive tract includes evaluation of the testes, spermatic cords and epididymis. Scrotal circumference is an important measure since it is directly related to the total mass of sperm producing tissue, sperm cell normality and the onset of puberty in the bull. Bulls with large circumference will produce more sperm with higher normality and also reach sexual maturity sooner.







"Examination of the external underline before and during semen collection will detect any inflammation, foreskin adhesions, warts, abscesses and penile deviations. The internal examination is conducted to detect any abnormalities in the internal reproductive organs. Also, be certain to ask your veterinarian about the need to test the bulls for the reproductive disease, trichomoniasis. Learn more about this disease by downloading and reading OSU Fact Sheet VTMD-9134 "Bovine Trichomoniasis."







"The semen evaluation is done by examining a sample of the semen under a microscope. The veterinarian will estimate the percentage of sperm cells that are moving in a forward direction. This estimate is called "motility". In addition, the sperm cells will be individually examined for proper shape or "morphology". Less than 30 percent of the cells should be found to have an abnormal shape.







"Any bull meeting all minimum standards for the physical exam, scrotal size and semen quality will be classed as a "satisfactory" potential breeder. Many bulls that fail any minimum standard will be given a rating of "classification deferred." This rating indicates that the bull will need another test to confirm status. Mature bulls (that were listed as classification deferred) should be retested after four to six weeks. Mature bulls will be classified as unsatisfactory potential breeders if they fail subsequent tests. Young bulls that are just reaching puberty may be rated as "classification deferred", and then later meet all of the minimum standards. Therefore caution should be exercised when making culling decisions based on just one breeding soundness exam.







"Many producers work hard to manage their cows for high fertility. They may assume that the bulls will do their expected duties. However, it's important to pay close attention to bulls to establish successful breeding."







Click or tap the PLAYBOX for a video clip of this topic as presented on "SUNUP."

















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Agricultural News

Top End Farms of Colorado Uses "Naturally Raised" Program to Market Their Angus Cattle

For a program growing natural beef, few sick animals equals success. Often, weaning is the biggest challenge. But not for Top End Farms.







"These calves have stayed on these cows until November, then we will move them to wheat pasture. We will take these cows and calves and they will be on there for about two weeks," said Jerry Hasart, manager of Top End Farms from Bethune, Colo. "We bring the cows in and the calves in and separate them, give them their first shot in the fall and then we will lock the cows up in the pens next to the wheat fields and then we will let the calves run, like open range back on the wheat pasture. They know where the water is, they know where the feed is and they love it."







The low-stress weaning program means less than 3 percent of calves ever need doctoring.







"From there in the springtime we take them off and put them in pens," he said, "keep growing them until we feel the date we want to put them on feed and then we put them on the feed for a harvest date that we choose on the natural program.







Top End Farms went "natural" a decade ago, allowing years to perfect their processes, now part of the Certified Angus Beef  brand Natural supply chain.







"We got into the natural program because resources said we can with a couple of as working as young kids at that time, we thought this opportunity would work well for our program," Hasart concluded. "So we step into it. It takes a little more paperwork, which we can take care of, and the humane handling of the animals, which is what consumer wants us to do, and we strive to do that every day."







Click or tap on the PLAYBOX below to watch a clip featuring Jerry Hasart, manager of Top End Farms from Bethune, Colo., talk about how they have adjusted their weaning program to fit with the natural beef that they grow.









Source - Certified Angus Beef

































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Michael Phelan sat on the living room floor with his 2-year-old daughter, Aurora, as she sliced toy fruit with a wooden knife.

Is that a pear? he asked her.

Its an apple, blond-haired Aurora said as she smiled and sliced away.

It was just the start of their day together, one that later would include snacking on grapes and then hitting a playground.

Phelan, a 40-year-old stay-at-home dad in Council Bluffs, reflects what some researchers say is a growing part of the trend of at-home fathers.

For years the trend has been driven largely by health problems or finances, with dads staying home because they were laid off at work, for example, or had disabilities. But increasingly, choice is playing a role. Moms and dads are having discussions about which of them is more interested in spending eight hours every day with a tiny newborn or high-energy toddler.

That is a shift, said Aaron Rochlen, a professor at the University of Texas who studies the trend. More families are making the decision not solely based on economic factors but who is best suited, skilled and available.

In the past it was more likely that mom would stay home just because shes a woman, he said. But the roles of mothers and fathers have been converging over the past 40 years, leaving the door open for more men to become the stay-at-home parent.

Dads on average spend more time on housework, for example, than they did a couple of generations ago, though moms still put in more hours at it.

Phelan has found friendship and support through Omaha Dads, a group for stay-at-home fathers that was formed about three years ago. The group evolved from an earlier group of Lincoln and Omaha at-home dads. Pat Hoarty, a stay-at-home dad with five kids, said he helped organize the group partly so other at-home fathers would know they werent alone.

Stay-at-home mothers still far outnumber stay-at-home fathers, but dads have been gaining ground. Between 1989 and 2012 the number of fathers who are home with their children for any reason nearly doubled, hitting 2 million, according to the Pew Research Center.

Phelan and his wife, Katrina, knew they didnt want to put their child in day care, so they talked about which of them would stay home with her.

The decision for him to stay home with their daughter was based on a combination of his interest and each partners career plans.

His wife was just getting started in her career as a high school math teacher when they moved in 2014 from Red Oak, Iowa, to Council Bluffs. So she was interested in getting into a classroom when a full-time teaching job opened up at Abraham Lincoln High in Council Bluffs.

He had a job selling health insurance but didnt like it. He wanted to pursue an online degree in computer science, so staying home was a good fit with his goal.

He also enjoyed cooking and cleaning, while Katrina said she considered those to be chores.

She said that her husband is doing a great job with their daughter and that the role is right for him.

After Aurora finished slicing the toy fruit, her dad pulled out a new Mickey Mouse puzzle.

What color is the border? he asked her.

Pink, she said.

Wearing pink leggings and a shirt that said Daddy is my superhero, she stacked the cube-shape puzzle pieces into a tower. She giggled as she added one more piece and the tower toppled over.

Phelan said he had a great role model for becoming a stay-at-home parent. After his parents divorced when he was about 7, he and his three younger brothers lived full time with their father, who farmed in southwest Minnesota. He said his father became their caregiver, fixing meals, doing laundry and helping with homework.

As he grew older he began helping his father care for his little brothers.

There are some people who balk at the idea of a man staying home with the children, Phelan said. My mindset is that its so natural. It was easy for me to step into that role.

Dan Hawkins, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said dads these days have a strong desire to be home with their kids. Roughly equal shares of working fathers and mothers would prefer to be at home raising their children but work because they need the income, according to research by the Pew Center.

The Omaha group for at-home dads has about 70 members. About a half-dozen dads typically show up for the groups weekly outings to places like parks and libraries.

While the kids play, the dads trade advice on potty-training, effective bedtime routines and other family topics. One guy in the group is good with home fix-up projects and answers questions about plumbing and electrical problems.

The guys also have monthly dads-only gatherings to grab beers or meet for breakfast.

Its a nice sense of solidarity, Hoarty said.

Hoarty taught theology at Skutt Catholic High for about a decade before choosing to stay home. His wife, Carrie, is a physician, and even though she makes a good income that supports the family, that didnt drive the decision for him to become an at-home father.

Pat Hoarty said the role is a good fit for his nurturing and patient personality.

He grew up in Omaha the second of eight children, so he spent plenty time baby-sitting his younger siblings and organizing whiffle ball games in the backyard and pingpong matches in the basement to keep them busy.

Even before he started taking teacher education classes in college, he tutored and mentored middle school students.

As he considered becoming an at-home dad, he and his wife had many long discussions about it. She supported the change and encouraged him to make the move, he said.

Hoarty and other at-home dads say the job isnt perfect.

Sometimes people assume that at-home fathers are out of work, and there can still be a stigma about a man leaving a career to stay home.

Hoarty remembers during his early months as an at-home dad in 2010, when he and his wife had a 5-year-old, 3-year-old and infant, feeling awkward at the grocery store on a weekday as he looked around and saw mostly retirees and moms.

Plus, any at-home parent faces frustrations with fussy babies, screaming toddlers and crabby preschoolers. Just two weeks ago, Phelan, the Council Bluffs dad, faced a good meltdown at Target when his daughter wanted to stand, not sit, in the shopping cart.

But Phelan said the joy and satisfaction of caring for his daughter and spending his days with her far outweigh the headaches.

After Phelans daughter finished playing with the Mickey Mouse puzzle on a recent morning, he helped her slip on her pink coat and Wonder Woman hat and they headed to a playground next door to their town house.

Were going to turn you into an outside bunny for a little bit, he told her.

He lifted his daughter into a baby swing, pulled her toward him and let her fly.

I hear birds, she called out to her dad. Tweet, tweet, tweet.

He smiled and gave her another big push.
Wheres Waldo today?

Reader Kathy Kunkle emails: Our first grandson was born in January, and his parents joyfully named him Waldo. They thought it was both fun-sounding and unique. Can you tell us more about Waldo?

In Continental Europe, Waldo is a Latinized form of wald, Germanic rule or power. Originally part of names like Walter and Oswald, it was a nickname that became a surname.

The first famous Waldo was preacher Peter Waldo (Pierre Vaudes), (1140-1205). A cloth merchant in Lyon, France, Waldo told Christians to renounce wealth and reject the doctrine of purgatory.

After Waldos death, his followers fled to Alpine valleys in Italy, maintaining their distinctive beliefs. When the Reformation began in 1517, the Waldensians were hailed as the first Protestants. Sons were named Waldo in his honor.

In England, the last name Waldo is from Wleof. Brought to England by Danish invaders, it meant battle thief: one who snatches victory out of defeat. Walthew, Waltho, Wadie and Wildy are other surnames based on it.

Englishman Cornelius Waldo moved to Massachusetts around 1650. His grandson Samuel Waldo (1696-1759) was a brigadier general in the French and Indian War. Waldo County, Maine, is named for him.

Samuels aunt Rebecca married Edward Emerson. In 1803 her great-grandson, the Rev. William Emerson, proud of the connection, named his third son Ralph Waldo.

Ralph Waldo Emerson became an influential American writer in the 19th century, famous for essays including quotes like All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Though famous by his full name, Emerson had six first cousins named Ralph and, as an adult, he insisted family and friends call him Waldo.

In 1850 the U.S. census found 589 men named Waldo. Emersons fame helped that grow to 4,570 in 1900.

In Social Securitys yearly baby name lists, Waldo peaked at 396th in 1908. Though among the top 500 until 1925, it left the top 1,000 in 1944.

Eminent American Waldos include Waldo Hanchett (1822-1904), inventor of the dental chair, and Waldo Semon (1898-1999), inventor of vinyl.

A genus of clams is named Waldo after biologist Waldo L. Schmitt (1887-1977).

Painter Waldo Pierce (1884-1970), called The American Renoir, was a close friend of author Ernest Hemingway. After being called the Hemingway of American painters, Pierce quipped, Theyll never call Hemingway the Waldo Pierce of American writers.

Screenwriter Waldo Salt (1914-1987) won Oscars for the scripts of Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978).

In 1942 science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein wrote a short story, Waldo, in which handicapped genius Waldo invents a device allowing him to remotely control a mechanical hand with small finger movements. Today robotics experts call such remote manipulators, used for handling radioactive materials or operating Muppets, waldoes.

In 1975 Robert Redford was Waldo in The Great Waldo Pepper, a film about a barnstorming stunt pilot that is considered an accurate portrayal of aviation history.

The guy in the red-striped shirt and glasses who hides in crowds was created by British illustrator Martin Handford in 1987. Hes called Waldo only in the United States and Canada. In Britain and Australia, the books are Wheres Wally? In France, hes Charlie; Germany, Walter; Croatia, Jura; and Denmark, Holger.

Handfords seven picture books have spawned posters, a cartoon television series and video games. Waldo and girlfriend Wenda are among the most popular Halloween costumes.

Actor Shawn Harrison played outlandishly dimwitted but lovable Waldo Faldo on the sitcom Family Matters from 1990 to 1996.

The name Waldo is now extremely rare. Only eight Waldos were born in the United States in 2015. I recently asked regulars on babynames.com and behindthename.com discussion boards about it. Most thought it was still too identified with Wheres Waldo? and Waldo Faldo to appeal to new parents.

A few, though, thought Waldo was ripe for revival. Other names ending in -o  like Leo, Milo, Hugo and Arlo  have boomed recently, and Walter is just starting to revive. Waldo may well start to sound cool again in a decade or so.

Kathy Kunkle says, Waldo appears to have been a phenomenon whose name never caught on with all the people who were looking for him  except our son and daughter-in-law, who are grateful to have found their little Waldo. They may just be way ahead of the curve.

Cleveland Evans is a Bellevue University psychology professor and author of The Great Big Book of Baby Names.
Nebraskas parks, museums, art galleries and other attractions drew more than 20 million visitors last year.

Once again, state parks and the Omahas Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium proved to be the most popular places to visit in 2016, according to the Nebraska Tourism Commission. The agency collects annual attendance data from tourism destinations across the state.

John Ricks, executive director of the commission, said Nebraska is an amazing state to explore and the attendance figures show that others think so, too.

More and more people are spending their time and tourism dollars here and ... it will only grow, Ricks said. This all translates into more jobs and tax revenue for the states third-largest industry.

Statewide celebrations for the 150th anniversary of statehood and another tourism season featuring the Passport program (which encourages people to explore more of the state) position Nebraska for another big year hosting visitors, he said.

Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium attendance topped 2 million visitors for the first time, an increase of 22 percent from 2015. The zoo opened its African Grasslands exhibit last spring.

Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area near Ogallala had more than 1.3 million visitors. Branched Oak State Recreation Area near Raymond had nearly 1.3 million. Five total destinations recorded attendance of more than 1 million people.

The top 10 Nebraska attractions in 2016

1. Omahas Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium

2. Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area

3. Branched Oak State Recreation Area

4. Eugene T. Mahoney State Park

5. CenturyLink Center Omaha

6. Wagon Train State Recreation Area

7. Ponca State Park

8. Fremont State Recreation Area

9. Platte River State Park

10. Pawnee State Recreation Area

See the full list of attendance at Nebraska attractions.

Only attractions that reported their attendance to the Nebraska Tourism Commission are listed.
Jay Noddle of Noddle Cos. said Monday that he doesnt think it would take long for Aksarben Village to rebound if one of its major tenants, Gordmans, were to vacate or shrink its Omaha corporate offices.

An entity of the Noddle Cos. owns the $28 million structure built just a few years ago largely to house Gordmans new headquarters.

As landlord, Noddle said his company is concerned and monitoring the bankruptcy court process. He talked to Gordmans leadership Monday and said it appeared to be business as usual for now at 1926 S. 67th St.

However, Noddle said, it appeared likely he would have at least some available office space returned to the market. Gordmans signed a 15-year lease for its offices: the top two floors of the three-story building.

With what Noddle said was high demand for space in general at Aksarben Village, he doesnt anticipate a lingering hole or negative impact. He said the Gordmans area could be divided and remodeled, if need be, for other tenants.

It would be very unfortunate, he said, but were confident that it would be pretty simple to replace the Gordmans tenancy.

Noddle said Gordmans is among the 10 biggest tenants at the retail and office campus called Aksarben Village.

The homegrown apparel and home decor retailer leases about 70,000 square feet of the nearly 110,000-square-foot building that opened in 2014. The ground floor of the structure is occupied by unrelated stores and shops.

When Gordmans moved into Aksarben Village, it located 240 of its 5,000 companywide employees there. By the end of last year it employed about 350 people there  before a January round of an undisclosed number of layoffs.

Its previous headquarters was a former Gordmans store near 120th Street and West Center Road that had been converted into corporate offices.
LINCOLN  A former top aide to Gov. Dave Heineman has settled her discrimination lawsuit against the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources.

The lawsuit was dismissed Monday. Terms of a settlement were not disclosed. On Tuesday, Jen Rae Wang referred questions to her attorney, Jim Zalewski of Lincoln, who said he could not comment under terms of the settlement.

Wang filed a federal lawsuit in July, alleging that she was illegally laid off as a communications director with the Natural Resources Department during her pregnancy.

Wang, who served as spokesman for Heineman until he left office in January 2015, was told on Sept. 11, 2015, that her subsequent job with the department had been eliminated. She was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, and the $90,000-a-year job sustained her family, she said

Wang, in her lawsuit, said she had worked out an arrangement with her supervisors to take leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act and then work 10 to 15 hours a week from home after her pregnancy.

But later, the newly hired director of the agency, Jeff Fassett, told her that he was eliminating her position, the lawsuit stated. Wang said that she asked about shifting to a then-vacant, lower-paying job in the agency, but Fassett told her it would be best if she looked elsewhere.

Wang, in court records, maintained that the stress of losing her job and income resulted in a difficult delivery of her child. She asked for back pay, front pay for three years and other damages.

The settlement stated that the parties would pay their own attorney fees.

Gail Perry, a private Lincoln attorney hired to defend the Natural Resources Department, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

A spokeswoman for the department said the agency would not be commenting.

Wang recently worked for U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb. In January, she was hired as a strategic communications adviser for NASA. When asked on Tuesday, Wang said she could not say where she is employed now.
You wouldnt normally expect that robbing a Dunkin Donuts would put you in federal prison.

But thats where an Omaha man is headed after pleading guilty to a January 2016 heist at a west Omaha location of the ubiquitous coffee-and-doughnuts purveyor.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp sentenced 27-year-old Robert M. Brannon to six years in federal prison for interference with commerce by means of robbery and to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The prosecution of Brannon in federal instead of state court is part of a federal effort to help local authorities deal with a spike in commercial robberies, said Jan Sharp, chief of the general crimes unit of the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Because Dunkin Donuts operates in more than one state, the robbery of a location can be prosecuted federally, Sharp said.

Weve been trying to help out with state authorities who are also prosecuting some of these cases, he said.

Brannon, an Omaha resident, also must serve three years of supervised release and pay $3,140 in restitution.

According to federal authorities:

On Jan. 10, 2016, Brannon entered the Dunkin Donuts at 10611 Fort St. carrying what appeared to be a gun. He demanded that the two employees open the safe. When they couldnt, he took about $150 from the cash registers and directed them into the freezer and shut the door.

They were able to call 911, and Omaha police officers soon arrived. Neither employee was harmed.

Two days later, authorities arrested Brannon, who was in possession of a gun, albeit not the one used in the robbery. Because he had previously been convicted of a felony  delivery of a controlled substance  it was illegal for him to possess a firearm.

Authorities say they believe Brannon was involved in robberies at two other Dunkin Donuts, where hed previously worked  one in Omaha, the other in Lincoln. There was insufficient evidence to charge him in those robberies, a federal press release said, but as part of his guilty plea, he agreed to pay restitution for all three.
BRIDGEPORT  A Nebraska man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a Colorado man and hiding his body in a barrel.

A Morrill County judge on Monday sentenced Zachary Mueller to life in prison after a jury convicted him in January of first-degree murder in the death of Pedro Adrian Dominguez, 33, of Greeley, Colorado. Mueller also was sentenced to 20 to 40 years for using a firearm to commit a murder and 20 to 40 years for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
LINCOLN  State law already prevents Nebraskas public employers from including a question about criminal history on job applications.

A group of former felons and their advocates testified at a public hearing Monday in support of a bill that would remove criminal history check boxes from private employment applications.

But an organization that represents independent business owners urged members of the Legislatures Business and Labor Committee not to advance the ban-the-box proposal, saying it could lead to potentially costly hiring delays.

State Sen. John McCollister of Omaha explained that Legislative Bill 420 would prevent employers from requiring disclosure of criminal history on the application only. During the interview process, employers would be allowed to ask about an applicants criminal background.

The bill seeks to give those convicted of felonies a chance to be judged on their qualifications and work history, not a past criminal violation. Many employers screen out applicants who check the box that asks whether they have been convicted of a felony, McCollister said.

The majority of those in prison serve an average of about two years before being released, said Amy Miller, legal director for the ACLU of Nebraska. Its in societys best interests to remove impediments to their employment so they dont return to prison, she said.

Two former inmates convicted of sex crimes told committee members how they have filled out dozens of job applications, only to get one or two callbacks.

Willie Hamilton, director of Black Men United of Omaha, asked how former inmates are supposed to support themselves and their families if they cant land job interviews, let alone get good jobs.

We ... give someone who has committed a felony a life sentence, he said.

Robert Hallstrom, a lobbyist with the National Federation of Independent Business, said private employers are often pressed to fill vacancies. Having to wait until the interview stage to find out whether an applicant has a criminal history could cost time and money, he said.

Employers may want to automatically rule out an applicant convicted of stealing money from having access to a cash register and would not want to hire a sex offender to work in a day care center, Hallstrom said.

He also said the bill could lead to additional litigation against business owners.

The committee took no action on the bill Monday.
LINCOLN  Patti Sherwin understands the kind of desperation that led a stream of parents and guardians nine years ago to leave troubled children at hospitals under Nebraskas former safe haven law.

Some 36 children were dropped off before an age limit was added to the law. Most were teenagers or preteens with mental, emotional and behavioral problems.

And most were living with adoptive parents or guardians after spending time in the foster care system.

Sherwin seemed headed toward a similar breaking point last fall, when her 9-year-old adopted son was struggling with the aftereffects of childhood abuse.

But she got help from Right Turn, a program born out of the safe haven experience. The program supports families created through adoption and guardianship.

Right Turn has made a huge difference in this little boys life, Sherwin said. Mark (the case manager) basically walked in and saved a whole bunch of us.

Now, the Union, Nebraska, woman hopes to save the program from the chopping block.

Gov. Pete Ricketts has proposed cutting the $2 million annual contract for Right Turn services from the Department of Health and Human Services budget.

The proposal was part of his plan for closing a nearly $900 million budget shortfall for the period ending June 30, 2019.

In his budget recommendations, Ricketts said the services are not federally mandated and could be picked up by existing HHS staff.

But child welfare advocates and people affected by Right Turn say the proposal would mean abandoning struggling families and children.

They also argued that it is fiscally short-sighted.

Without support for adoptive and guardianship families, troubled youngsters are more likely to wind up back in foster care, they said, which would cost more than the $2,945 paid for six months of Right Turn services.

I think it would be a major loss, said Dave Newell, president and CEO of the Nebraska Families Collaborative, which manages child welfare cases in Omaha.

State Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha said HHS staff would have difficulty taking over the services. They already have overly heavy caseloads and lack specialized training in post-adoption services.

However, Kathie Osterman, an HHS spokeswoman, said the department is committed to providing the services currently covered by the Right Turn contract. She said resources for the services would come from efficiency improvements in other areas.

She said the governors budget recommendation protects key DHHS priorities, especially in the area of service delivery, and makes new investments in technology to improve operations.

The Appropriations Committee will have a chance to hear about the proposal at a budget hearing today. The committees preliminary budget did not cut funding for the program.

Right Turn began in 2010 as a joint effort of Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska and the Nebraska Childrens Home Society.

It offers six core services  case management, peer mentors, respite, training and education, support groups, and short-term mental health services and referrals. Under the state contract, services are limited to six months.

The services were initially provided to families that had adopted or become guardians for children in the foster care system.

In December 2014, the services were expanded to cover all adoptive families, including international, infant and step-parent adoptions.

Kim Anderson, the Childrens Home pregnancy, parenting and adoption program director, said Right Turn brought together two agencies with a long history in adoption and in providing post-adoption services for the families whose adoptions they arrange.

Once of the things thats been so exciting is this is the first time the state has allocated and made funds available to families after adoption, she said.

Since its beginning, Right Turn has served 1,418 children in 974 families.

Anderson said 14 families served by the program  or 1 percent of the total  have given up their children.

In contrast, for all Nebraska children adopted from foster care between 2005 and 2016, that figure is 3 percent, according to a recent report from the Nebraska Foster Care Review Office.

Sherwin did not consider giving up her adopted son, who is also her grandson. But she did think about taking the boy, leaving her husband and moving closer to her family to get him help.

She reached that point last September, when memories of his abuse triggered episodes of anger and zoning out in her son. Although he never acted out violently, she said, the episodes were terrifying.

We were afraid for him, afraid for us, Sherwin said.

The couple tried several avenues to find help, including psychiatric hospitals, before being directed to Right Turn.

Help arrived quickly when they connected with the support program, Sherwin said.

Right Turn provided a case manager who helped the family understand that the boy was showing symptoms of severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

The case manager helped them set up an evaluation of the boy and connected them with a therapist who specialized in treating abused children.

He has taught the boy ways to cope with his memories and anger and has provided the Sherwins with tools to help them manage. He also mediated a meeting of the extended family to help bridge the divisions created by the boys behavior.

I cant tell you how great it is to have somebody focused on my little guy, Sherwin said. They just provided all this information that we never knew was out there.

Adam Pertman, president of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency, said Nebraska ranks among the better states for supporting adoptive and guardianship families because of Right Turn.

He said every state struggles with the problem of adoption disruptions, particularly for children from foster care.

Those children often are traumatized, first by abuse and neglect in their parents homes, then by their experiences in foster care.

In the world of adoption, we are talking about kids who did not ask to be removed from their homes, he said. The implicit promise is were going to do better for you.

In that light, Pertman argued that cutting Right Turn would be a mistake.

The cost is children who dont turn out well and fewer families wanting to adopt, he said.

martha.stoddard@owh.com, 402-473-9583
Cold conditions were expected to continue today over eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa, and a light mist-sleet combo began falling in the Omaha area this morning.

Snow could follow, with total accumulations today ranging from a trace along the Missouri River to around 1 inch west of the Omaha area into central Nebraska, forecasters said.

Today in the Omaha area, there is a chance of snow, mainly before 1 p.m. A high temperature around 30 was forecast. Tonight, look for a low temperature around 20.

Wednesday, a high in the upper 30s is likely, the National Weather Service office in Valley said. Wednesday nights low will be around 30.

Thursday, the Omaha area will heat up several degrees, with a high around 60 under partly sunny skies. Thursday nights low will be around 40.

Well deal with three, separate, minor weather systems over the next couple of days, said a KMTV meteorologist, Ryan McPike.

Then the pattern (of cold) will take a track to the east, he said, allowing much milder temperatures from the south to move in.

And eventually it warms up, McPike said.

The weather service said highs Friday through Sunday will range from around 60 to the upper 60s under mostly sunny skies. Overnight lows will be in the lower 30s to mid-40s.

The average high temperature for mid-March in the Omaha area is around 50 degrees and the average low is around 30.

Elsewhere, a major winter snowstorm barreling down on the northeast was having a ripple effect on Omahas Eppley Airfield. The airports wesbite, flyoma.com, reported that four departures and five arrivals had been canceled at Eppley early today.
U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, needs to rethink the divisive views he endorses online and in the real world. Many of his statements serve personal vanity, not the national interest.

He should be serving his northwest Iowa constituents, not embarrassing them. On Twitter last weekend, the congressman shared an article about Geert Wilders, a Dutch nationalist who has called Moroccans scum, pushed to end western immigration by Muslims and pressed to ban the Quran.

On Sunday, King tweeted, Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. As with many of his previous tone-deaf statements, King is also wrong on the facts.

The American experiment derives its power from its adaptability  the American dream can mold itself in each successive generation to somebody elses babies and remain American.

King risks alienating the United States roughly 3.3 million Muslim-Americans, a group demographers expect to double in the coming years, along with the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims, including some who are fighting alongside our troops against terrorists.

Our American Muslim neighbors, co-workers and friends join 56.6 million American Latinos and 38 million African-Americans as targets of Kings barbed tweets, statements and actions.

Kings latest post drew the attention of white supremacist David Duke, who tweeted, GOD BLESS STEVE KING!!! #TruthRISING.

King went on CNN Monday and said, I meant exactly what I said. But later he clarified that hed like to see an America homogeneous in culture, not race. He stressed the need to keep American immigrants from creating enclaves immune to U.S. influence. He pointed to Europes struggles with Muslim migrants and spoke about a struggle between western civilizations that embrace Christianity and other civilizations that dont.

The United States has always been a multicultural society, and demographics show that minorities will make up a majority of the U.S. population by 2060. And America draws strength from its diversity.

President Ronald Reagan said in 1988: America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you wont become a German or a Turk. Then he added, Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American. 
People seeking emergency help in Sarpy County can now text 911. The county joins Douglas, Washington, Antelope and Buffalo Counties in offering the service. Being able to text 911 means victims of domestic violence can seek police help without alerting abusers. Accident victims can ask Siri or Google Now to text 911 and give paramedics their location, even if the phone is out of reach. Passengers can quietly summon help if they realize their driver is impaired. Such progress is a welcome boost to emergency communications.
Let Nebraskas voices be heard

State Sen. John Murante of Gretna has introduced a bill in the Legislature that would end the practice of Nebraska splitting its electoral votes in presidential elections. His argument for introducing the bill is that Nebraska should speak with one voice.

The word one reminds me of the Greek word mono. When you combine mono with another Greek word arch, meaning chief, leader or ruler, you get the word monarch.

On the other hand, when you combine the Greek words demos (the people) and kratia (power, rule), you get the word democracy.

Nebraska doesnt have one voice; it has many.

Eli Hoke, Omaha

A snow-induced panic

For nearly a week, the weather forecasters told us that Omaha would get snow this past weekend, some predicting as much as 6 inches.

But, alas, Saturday morning arrived and no snow.

The streets had been brined. People wondered whether or not to hold classes, meetings or a parade. Consumers rushed to the stores to purchase food and snow-removal material. Tens of thousands of lives were affected, if not more.

Something is out of line here. Maybe we ought to limit the weather people to only forecast just the next 24 hours and let it go at that.

Jerry Freeman, Omaha

When politics and weather collide

Our weather forecasters lately have been giving a whole new meaning to fake news, and it is not of little consequence.

All it takes is for the forecasters to think about snow, and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert, whos in a battle for re-election, pretreats the streets and mobilizes the citys snow resources, all because people make a big deal out of a little bit of snow.

Without even being in office, Heath Mello is costing the taxpayers money.

Frank Blank, Omaha

Mission accomplished

The March 11 World-Herald reported: Omaha city crews were pretreating streets in Omaha early Friday with a brine mix to keep snow off roadways.

It worked!

Gean Clapper, Tabor, Iowa

Why are we revisiting the streetcar idea?

I agree with March 5 Public Pulse writer Tom Winkler (A waste of taxpayer money) regarding the streetcar issue. This is a waste of money when there are alternate choices to provide transportation.

If it is necessary to have transportation along the downtown-midtown corridor, then set up a Ollie the Trolley type service that runs every 15 or 20 minutes or as needed. That would provide the service and avoid the need to tear up the street to install rails and overhead electrical service.

As one who has lived in a city that had streetcars (Dallas, years ago), it is hard to reroute a streetcar around an accident, whereas a bus could easily avoid that problem. Streetcar tracks can also have an effect on cars moving back and forth across the tracks.

That may not be as much of an issue now as it was years ago, but it should still be a consideration. And streetcars do little to solve emission issues as they also might require the electricity to be produced in a fossil fuel-fired plant.

Were talking about this every few years. So lets move on to something that needs to be solved.

Gene Pope, Omaha

Bacon should work for his constituents

Rep. Don Bacon has indicated he will attempt to keep his campaign promise to hold town hall meetings when he and his staff can settle on a format that encourages communication and doesnt let protesters dominate (Bacon takes callers questions, agrees to hold in-person events, March 9 World-Herald).

I have a crazy and radical suggestion for Bacon that can help him achieve this. He could actually represent his constituents rather than work for his party and big donors in Congress.

If Bacon actually did the job that he was elected to do, he might find far fewer angry protests and instead find a room full of people who are willing to have a dialogue because they will know he is actually listening to them.

Michelle Heisler, Gretna

Kudos from western Douglas County

Having been a resident of western Douglas County for 30 years, I would like to express my appreciation for the jobs done by the men and women of the Douglas County Department of Roads and the Douglas County Sheriffs Office.

My experience working with these agencies has been great. With a call and a civil conversation, my needs or concerns have been well met.

All too often, these workers are criticized for unjust reasons. I ask this, how would you feel to have hundreds of sidewalk superintendents scrutinizing your work?

Next time you cross paths with a road crew or sheriff, give them a friendly wave  with all your fingers  and Ill bet youll receive one back with a big smile!

Mike Merryweather, Waterloo
Bihar assembly elections 2020: Heres how you can cast your vote using the EVM and VVPAT

After Mayawati, Arvind Kejriwal casts doubts over EVMs

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, March 14: After the results of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections were announced on Saturday, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati alleged that the electronic voting machines were being tampered to help the Bharatiya Janata Party win the polls in a massive manner.

Days later, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to the Election Commission, asking EVMs should not be used for the upcoming municipal elections in Delhi. The election to the three municipal corporations of Delhi will be held in April.

Arvind Kejriwal writes to Election Commission, saying EVMs should not be used for upcoming Municipal Elections in Delhi (file pic) pic.twitter.com/UTzxHuCcuf  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

"The results in UP and Uttarakhand are surprising and not palatable to anyone...it seems EVMs did not accept votes polled for any party other than the BJP," said Mayawati, after her election defeat.

"People's trust in EVM voting is broken. The BJP has tampered with the EVMs in Uttar Pradesh. I have written to the EC in this regard, people no more have faith in EVMs. It's is an attack on democracy. Whatever reports I am getting from my sources, in many areas people have not even voted for the BJP, but the party is emerging as winner," she added.

While the EC has rubbished the allegations as false, leaders like Kejriwal, Samajwadi Party president and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal founder Lalu Prasad Yadav had asked the authorities to look into Mayawati's charges against EVMs.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 14:00 [IST]
Amidst Goa crisis, this Mahajan speech on 'single largest party' will crack you up

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In the midst of all the political drama in Goa and Manipur with the Congress alleging that the despite being the single largest party in the state it was not invited to form the government here is a video of the late Pramod Mahajan that has gone viral.

Mahajan was at his witty best while speaking in Parliament and kept everyone in splits when he narrated what he had told a Chinese delegation about how he was in the opposition despite being the single largest party.

Manipur and Goa reminds of this funny speech by slain BJP leader Pramod Mahajan in parliament. Wonders of democracy  pic.twitter.com/qESZIR1xDz  Pyaar Se Mario (@SquareGas) March 12, 2017

Mahajan says that recently he visited China. Out there the delegates were interested in knowing about the state of democracy in India. I told them I am Pramod Mahajan and I am a member of the Parliament and I belong to the single largest party. I belong to the single largest party and I am in the opposition, he said.

Then I pointed towards Panigrahi and I said he belongs to the second largest party, but he outside the government and supporting it. Then I pointed to another person and said he is the member of the third largest party, but he is inside the front but outside the government. After that I said, look at him. He is Mr Ramakant Khalap. He is the only member of his party and he is in the government.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 16:14 [IST]
BJP mocks Congress for missing the Goa bus

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Panaji, March 14: At a time when a group of Congress legislators in Goa are 'upset' and blamed the party's top leadership for the failure to form the government in the coastal state despite emerging as the single largest party in the assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party has literally mocked its rival party.

In an interview to NDTV, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, the man who brought smaller parties into the BJP's fold to have the support of maximum MLAs in Goa, told the Congress wasted too much time in deciding on a leader. "They had too many MLAs who wanted to lead. The BJP on the other hand wasted no time in negotiations which led them to stake claim to form government in Goa," he said. He added, "Manohar Parrikar's performance as Defence Minister was very good but the party had no choice but to bring him back as Goa Chief Minister."

Meanwhile, after much delay, the Congress Legislative Party is all set to meet at Congress House in Panaji, Goa, on Tuesday. All Congress MLAs along with senior leader Digvijaya Singh will meet Governor Mridula Sinha after the CLP meeting to stake the party's claim to form the government, reports ANI.

On Monday, Parrikar resigned as country's defence minister to head the BJP's government in the coastal state. Parrikar is set to take oath as the CM of Goa on Tuesday after the BJP cobbled a coalition to form a government in the state. Goa governor invited Parrikar to form the next government after he submitted a letter of support from 21 legislators on Sunday.

The BJP, which came second by winning 13 seats in the 40-member assembly managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority and derail the Congress, which had emerged as the largest party with 17 seats.

Three MLAs from the Goa Forward Party, three from the MGP and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar. The lone NCP MLA was also claimed to have extended support.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to urgently hear the Congress' petition challenging appointment of Parrikar as Goa CM. In a dramatic development on Monday, the Congress has moved the apex court against Goa governor's decision to invite Parrikar to form government in the state, despite the BJP emerging as the second largest party.The Congress claimed that the Governor should have invited them to form government, as they are the single largest party with 17 seats.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 8:24 [IST]
Congress alleges Goa governor didnt invite it on Sunday

India

oi-PTI

Panaji, March 14: The Congress on Tuesday alleged that Goa Governor Mridula Sinha did not invite it to form government in the state despite the party giving her a letter on Sunday seeking appointment to stake the claim.

"We wanted to stake the claim on March 12 itself. We had given her the letter on that day itself but still she (Governor) did not give us an appointment," AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh told reporters here, after chairing a meeting of the Goa Congress Legislature Party.

The party MLAs would be meeting the governor Tuesday afternoon again with the claim that it has numbers to form the government.

"Despite established principle and constitution, the Governor did not call us to form government but gave a chance to the second largest party (BJP)," Singh alleged.

Sinha has already invited the BJP-led alliance led by Manohar Parrikar to form the government and the swearing-in is scheduled this evening.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 seats followed by BJP which has 13. The Goa Forward Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party have three seats each, the NCP has one seat and there are three independents.

"We will inform the Governor that we have the required number of legislators to form the government. If we are allowed, we can prove our majority on the floor of the House," CLP leader Chandrakant Kavlekar said after the meeting.

The Congress last night made a representation to the Governor asking her to invite the party to form the government in the coastal state.

The CLP claims that the party has the support of required number of legislators and is in a position to prove its majority on the floor of the House.

"Our political opponents (BJP) despite losing the mandate of the people have tried to misrepresent to your good-self that they enjoy the majority support of legislators.

This is not only opportunism at its lowest but is also not constitutionally permissible," Kavlekar had said.

"Any post-poll alliance of the kind being projected by the BJP to seek the first invitation to form the government would defeat the people's mandate which has categorically rejected the incumbent government of the BJP," read the representation.

PTI
Congress rebellion: Goa loss stupid, sack Digvijaya demands Renuka Chowdhary

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The worries for the Congress seem to be never ending. Renuka Chowdhary has gone on to slam Digvijaya Singh by calling the Goa loss, 'stupid.' The former Union Minister has also sought for the removal of Singh from the post of Congress General Secretary.

She went on to attack the leadership saying Singh must take responsibility for the Goa loss. Regional leaders must be given a free hand if the party has to improve its position in the given situation, she also said.

The outburst from Renuka comes in the wake of several others leaders in the Congress slamming senior leaders for moving slowly in Goa. MLA Vishwajit Rane had said that the party had made a very slow decision in Goa which went on to give the BJP an advantage.

He said that the it was a failure on part of the Congress as they failed to form the government despite winning 17 seats and being the single largest party in Goa. I wont take individual names, but there was a failure, he also said.

Earlier during the day, senior Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi said that the party's leadership was responsible for the loss. He felt that some leaders should introspect and move out in the interest of the Congress party.

The Congress has been accused of being slow movers in Goa. Despite having the numbers, the Goa was unable to capitalise on its lead. The BJP on the other hand moved swiftly and rope in both the MGP and the Goa Forward Party to claim the numbers to form the next government in Goa.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 14:36 [IST]
Crisis in Karnataka Congress: Ambareesh, wife to join BJP

India

oi-Anusha

Ahead of the 2018 assembly polls in Karnataka, many disgruntled Congress leaders are deserting the party to join hands with the BJP. Sources now suggest that another Vokkaliga heavyweight and mass leader from the Mandya region, Ambareesh is all set to join the BJP. While news of him, quitting the Congress has been doing the rounds, Oneindia has learnt from sources that he will bring his wife Sumalatha on board when he joins the BJP. The actor-turned-politician hopes to launch his wife into electoral politics on a BJP ticket.

Sources suggest that Sumalatha, the 53-year-old actress is in the race to contest assembly polls from the star-studded Rajarajeswari Nagar constituency in Bengaluru. Sumalatha is a well-known name in the film circles and the star couple hopes that the locality that houses dozens of celebrities helps Sumalatha get a foothold. Sources from the BJP however, suggest that Sumalatha's entry into electoral politics may be a precondition for Ambareesh to join the party.

While the BJP maintains that it was too premature to confirm if Sumalatha would be their candidate since Ambareesh has not made his stand official, Sumalatha's social media activity may provide some proof. An active user of social media, Sumalatha Ambareesh has been vocal about her Anti-BJP and anti-Modi stand for years. She had criticised demonetisation drive heavily and her timeline was filled with debates on issues with BJP leaders. In the last few days, however, most anti-BJP and anti-Modi posts have been deleted from Sumalatha's timeline. Leaders from either party believe that it is an

attempt aimed at cosying up to the BJP.

Sources suggest that A Ravi, Tulsi Muniraju, Ramachandra, Cheluvarayaswami are also in the race to contest from the constituency apart from Sumalatha if Ambareesh joins the BJP. Sources from the BJP suggest that no clear picture will emerge till November. A central leadership team of the BJP is expected to visit the state after the Gujarat polls and decide on the candidates.

OneIndia News
From abduction to horse-trading, Manipur political drama is a perfect crime thriller

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Imphal, March 14: Suddenly, the hill state of Manipur in northeast region, often ignored by mainstream India, has become the 'darling' of major political parties. Both the biggest national parties--the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress--are fighting a prestige battle in the state to form the next government.

Even after three days since the assembly election results of the state were declared on Saturday, there is no clarity on which political party is forming the government in Manipur. Both the BJP and the Congress are claiming that they have the numbers (31 seats in the 60-member Manipur Assembly) to form the next government in the state.

It is not just the confusion that surrounds the government formation in the state; the hung assembly verdict has led to some strange incidents like allegations of abduction and defection that are contrary to the country's democratic values.

First, let us cite the case of abduction. On Sunday, reports indicated that Independent MLA from Jiribam, Ashab Uddin, was abducted at Imphal airport. In fact, Congress spokesperson Randeep S Surjewala tweeted about the incident. "BJP now misusing CISF & Airport authorities to detain & abduct Independent MLA, Asabuddin at Imphal, Airport and take him to Calcutta," tweeted Surjewala.

There are several conflicting versions of the same story. According to one version, Ashab Uddin had landed at Imphal's Tulihal airport from Guwahati on Sunday. Soon after landing, he was allegedly detained by the CISF personnel on duty. Since then he is untraceable.

The Congress party leaders said Ashab Uddin had come from Guwahati along with another Congress leader Md Abdul Nashir in the same flight. The Congress alleges that the entire 'abduction' of the Independent MLA was carried out by the BJP. "The BJP is playing such dirty games to wrest power. They are using the CISF to meet their political ends," a senior Congress leader from Manipur told reporters.

As far as defection is concerned, the saffron party claims that around 13 newly-elected Congress MLAs are likely to join the BJP soon. Congress MLA Shyamkumar Singh from Andro constituency left his former party on Sunday. Convener of North-East Democratic Alliance, Himanta Biswa Sarma, told the media that more Congress MLAs are likely to join the BJP in coming days.

He claimed that another 13 Congress MLAs will join the BJP soon. In fact, Singh and Sarma, who has been closely monitoring the BJP's affairs in Manipur, were seen together travelling in the same vehicle on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Ripun Bora of Congress from Assam alleged that the BJP is resorting to horse-trading to come to power in Manipur. "We got information that the BJP hijacked five-six Congress MLAs and took them to Guwahati, this is horse-trading," Bora told reporters.

In the 60-member Manipur Assembly, a party (with or without allies) needs the support of 31 MLAs to stake its claim to form the government. Although the Congress has secured 28 seats, getting the maximum seats in the 60-member Manipur Assembly in the recently concluded elections, the BJP with 21 seats has staked its claim to form the next government in the state.

On Sunday, the BJP submitted a list of 32 legislators to Manipur Governor Najma Heptullah, claiming the support of 11 other MLAs -- four of Naga People's Front, four National People's Party, one Lok Janshakti Party, one Independent and one Trinamool Congress Party. Meanwhile, the BJP unanimously elected N Biren Singh as the leader of the legislature party on Monday. If the party comes to power in the state, Singh will be the next chief minister of Manipur.

On the Congress' front, after much-delay, incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh tendered his resignation on Monday. However, the former CM said he was ready for a floor test and expressed confidence that he has the numbers with him.

OneIndia News
Give UP lawful ministers: Former bureaucrat urges PM

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Visakhapatnam, March 14: A former bureaucrat has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to induct legislators facing criminal charges into the Uttar Pradesh cabinet or in official positions.

E.A.S. Sarma, who retired as secretary to the Union government, wrote a letter to Modi on Tuesday, making an appeal to ensure that Bharatiya Janata Party legislators against whom criminal cases were registered are not given ministerial berths or other official positions.

He cited the report of the Association for Democratic Reforms, an election watch NGO, which revealed that of the 312 BJP candidates who won the assembly polls, 114 (37 per cent) have criminal cases pending against them.

Of these, 83 have been arraigned for serious criminal charges like murder, attempt to murder and crime against women.

"Some of us feel surprised and deeply concerned as to how the BJP party leadership had allowed such candidates to contest the elections in the first instance, knowing well that the party had openly declared its determination to campaign against crime and corruption in politics," Sarma wrote.

"Even at this belated stage, the BJP should set an example by asking all the winning candidates against whom such cases are pending to voluntarily give up their seats to pave the way for candidates with a clean background to contest for those seats," added the retired Indian Administrative Service officer, who is working for electoral and democratic reforms.

IANS
Goa: Cong to meet Governor, stake claim at government formation

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Congress in Goa will meet with the Governor at Raj Bhavan to stake a claim to form the next government in the state. The Congress which ended up being the single largest party in the state has been complaining since it did not get the first invite to form the government.

All the legislators would arrive at the Congress House in Goa where a Congress Legislature Party meeting is scheduled. All the MLAs would meet under the leadership of Digvijaya Singh and plan the next course of action.

Following the legislature party meeting, all the MLAs would visit Raj Bhavan where they would call on the Governor and stake a claim to form the government in the state.

The Congress is in talks with Churchill Alemao of the NCP in a bid to get to the magic number. If the Congress manages to rope in the NCP leader, then its tally would go up to 22 in the 40 member house. The BJP too is using its resources in Delhi to get to the top NCP leadership so that it can rope Alemao on its side.

The Supreme Court would hold the key in this situation. After the Congress approached the SC, doubts cropped up over the Goa Forward's support for the BJP.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 7:58 [IST]
Goa Forward Party faces voters backlash for supporting BJP

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Panaji, March 14: The coastal state of Goa is witnessing a high-voltage political drama. The drama is not restricted within the closed-door political meetings. In fact, voters have strongly protested over the Goa Forward Party's decision to support the Bharatiya Janata Party to rule the state once again. On social media, people of Goa have criticised the GFP after the local party decided to support the BJP in government formation in the state.

The voters of Goa say that the GFP has betrayed the residents of the state by aligning with the BJP. In fact, the party won three seats in the recently concluded Assembly elections on an anti-BJP plank. The GFP chief Prabhakar Timble has resigned as the party president.

"We had our whole campaign against the BJP, but our three legislators have decided to extend the support to the BJP. Now, I don't want to be the face of the party, thus I have resigned from post of party president." said Timble. "The Governor, under the Constitution, should have called the single largest party first and taken stock of the position. If the other side was claiming majority, the Governor's office still needed to call the Congress to discuss the situation. Elections are the people's mandate and that needs to be respected first," said Timble, who was the former Goa state election commissioner.

On Monday, Manohar Parrikar resigned as the country's defence minister to head the BJP's government in the coastal state. Parrikar is set to take oath as the CM of Goa on Tuesday after the BJP cobbled a coalition to form a government in the state. Goa Governor Mridula Sinha invited Parrikar to form the next government after he submitted a letter of support from 21 legislators on Sunday.

The BJP, which came second by winning 13 seats in the 40-member assembly managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority and derail the Congress, which had emerged as the largest party with 17 seats.

Three MLAs from the GFP, three from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar. The lone Nationalist Congress Party MLA was also claimed to have extended support.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to urgently hear the Congress' petition challenging appointment of Parrikar as Goa CM. In a dramatic development on Monday, the Congress has moved the apex court against Goa governor's decision to invite Parrikar to form government in the state, despite the BJP emerging as the second largest party. The Congress claimed that the Governor should have invited them to form government, as they are the single largest party with 17 seats.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 9:27 [IST]
Goa govt formation: Why Congress has not given up hope as yet

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

It is going to be a fight to the finish and despite Manohar Parrikar getting set to take oath as the new Chief Minister of Goa, the Congress is no mood to relent. The Congress has not only moved the Supreme Court seeking to stop Parrikar from taking oath, but is even speaking with several MLAs in Goa to get the numbers.

The Congress is in talks with Churchill Alemao of the NCP in a bid to get to the magic number. If the Congress manages to rope in the NCP leader, then its tally would go up to 22 in the 40 member house. The BJP too is using its resources in Delhi to get to the top NCP leadership so that it can rope Alemao on its side.

The Supreme Court would hold the key in this situation. After the Congress approached the SC, doubts cropped up over the Goa Forward's support for the BJP. The BJP however sounded confident and party sources say that they would sail through the trust vote. The Goa Forward saw some shake ups after its president Prabhakar Timble quit his position in protest against the decision to ally with the BJP. Timble felt that the single largest party, the Congress with 17 seats should have been called to form the government in the state.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 7:41 [IST]
What is Anti-doping bill? Does India really have a doping crisis?

Goa, Manipur to dominate Lok Sabha today

India

oi-Lisa

New Delhi, March 14: The Lok Sabha is likely headed for a stormy session as the Congress has moved an adjournment motion over the formation of government in Manipur and Goa. In the recently-concluded assembly polls in these to states, the Congress has emerged as the single-largest party. However, the BJP has staked claims to form government in both the states.

Tuesday's Budget session is the first since the election results were announced for the recent assembly polls in five states.

Stay tuned in here for the latest updates from the Lok Sabha:

2.33 pm: Lok Sabha adjourned till 3.30 pm.

11.33 am: Congress stages walk out from Lok Sabha ahead of question hour.

11.24 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting with topministers in Parliament.

OneIndia News
Goa wapsi for Manohar Parrikar

India

oi-Lisa

Panaji, March 14: With the Supreme Court on Thursday refusing to stay the oath-taking of BJP's chief ministerial candidate Manohar Parrikar, road has been cleared for the IIT alumni to take oath as CM of Goa for the third time. Parrikar has been credited with consolidating BJP's position in Goa.

Born in Mapusa, Goa Parrikar completed his graduation in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1978. He has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from a very young age and he is the first IITan to be a CM of an Indian state. IIT Bombay had given him the Distinguished Alumnus award in 2001.

He was elected CM of Goa for the first time in 2000 and for the second time in 2012. In 2001 his government was highly criticised for converting 51 government primary schools in rural Goa to Vidya Bharati, which is the educational wing of the RSS. In 2013 he was criticised for sending a 37-person delegation to travel to European countries to observe their waste management plants and practices. The delegation he sent included deputy CM, MLAs, members of municipal councils and panchayats.

While serving as Goa CM he was handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be the defence minister when Modi cabinet was reshuffled for the first time in November 2014. He was picked because of his administrative and organisational skills. He was elected BJP's MP in Rajya Sabha from UP.

Parrikar's term as the defence minister was a period of continuous tension on the India and Pakistan border. The high point of his term as defence minister was the surgical strike carried by the Indian Army in response to the Uri attack.

He negotiated various high-profile acquisitions of weaponry especially some of them had been in limbo for years. The much publicised was the purchase agreement of 36 Dassault Rafale fighter jets. Parrikar during his stint at the centre also brought in warmth in the military relationship between India and the US. US and India signed a pact that allowed both the countries access to military facilities for logistical use.

He had opened up various investigations into alleged scams like AugustaWestland Chopper scam and brought in efficiency and transparency in decision making in the defence ministry.

Parrikar is being sent back to Goa to strengthen BJP in the coastal state. He will be taking oath as the 13th CM of Goa.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 16:42 [IST]
Goans to welcome their 'super-CM' Manohar Parrikar with fish curry

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Panaji, March 14: Just before the assembly elections, when Manohar Parrikar was constantly shuttling between Delhi and Goa, the former defence minister told reporters that how much he missed fish curry (the famous Goan cuisine) because of his stint in Delhi. The BJP leader has always maintained he prefer 'fish curry' to 'butter chicken' to express his deep love and connection to the coastal state.

Now, as Parrikar is all set to be sworn-in as the new chief minister of Goa for the fourth time on Tuesday, his supporters are happy to have their super-CM back. Parrikar, who was a popular CM during his previous three stints as the head of Goa, was addressed by the people of the tiny state as the super-CM. Speaking to NDTV, a group of Parrikar supporters told that they would welcome their new CM with fish curry.

On Monday, Manohar Parrikar resigned as the country's defence minister to head the BJP government in the coastal state. Parrikar is set to take oath as the CM of Goa on Tuesday after the Supreme Court refused to stay the swearing-in of former defence minister as the Goa CM. The apex court also ordered a floor test in the state assembly on March 16 at 11 am.

Parrikar's swearing-in ceremony will go as per schedule on Tuesday, stated the SC. Goa Governor Mridula Sinha invited Parrikar to form the next government after he submitted a letter of support from 21 legislators on Sunday. The BJP, which came second by winning 13 seats in the 40-member state assembly managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority and derail the Congress, which had emerged as the largest party with 17 seats.

Three MLAs from the GFP, three from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar. The lone Nationalist Congress Party MLA was also claimed to have extended support.

In a dramatic development on Monday, the Congress has moved the apex court against Goa governor's decision to invite Parrikar to form government in the state, despite the BJP emerging as the second largest party. The Congress claimed that the Governor should have invited them to form government, as they are the single largest party with 17 seats.

However, on Tuesday the SC refused the Congress' petition, clearing the way for the swearing-in ceremony of Parrikar as the new Goa CM.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 13:04 [IST]
Hyderabad man held for depositing fake Children Bank of India notes

India

oi-Madhuri

Hyderabad Police on Tuesday arrested a man named Yousuf Shaikh for allegedly trying to cheat in Allahabad Bank located in Malkajgiri city in Hyderabad by depositing fake currency to the tune of Rs.9.19 lakh with 'Children Bank of India' written on them.

According to bank officials, Shaikh came to the bank at around 10:40am to deposit cash. The cashier in the bank noticed 'Children Bank of India' written on the notes and immediately alerted the bank manager. The bank then informed the police.

According to the police, the suspect tried to deposit the notes that were imprinted with 'Children's Bank of India' on them. The notes included 400 notes of new Rs 2,000 and 380 notes of new Rs 500. 

Yousuf, who runs a stationery shop in nearby area, had opened the account in June, 2016. The Police are investigating the case.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 15:09 [IST]
If its Modi wave in UP, what about Bihar, Delhi?: Omar

India

pti-PTI

Srinagar, Mar 14: If BJP credits PM Narendra Modi for its UP victory, it should also explain Delhi and Bihar debacles, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said as he asked the opposition to begin preparing for 'tough' 2019 polls.

Seeking to clarify his remarks made in the wake of UP election results that with no leader to take on Modi, the opposition should forget 2019 and prepare for 2024, Abdullah said he was only stressing on the need to learn lessons and prepare for the difficult test that the next general elections would be.

"I said on Twitter that if the same situation prevails, I mean the defeat, which we faced in these elections in UP, if we did not learn from it, then undoubtedly we should think about 2024 elections instead of 2019," he told reporters in Srinagar.

If the same situation prevails, then it is obvious, Abdullah, working president of the National Conference said.

"The way BJP swept polls in UP, the way they formed governments in two states with the help of 'jodh-todh' despite coming second, keeping in view these things, we conclude that 2019 will be a tough contest," Abdullah said.

We should prepare ourselves for that difficult test from today only and that is why I said what I said on twitter, he explained.

Referring to the criticism of his tweets by some Congress leaders, Abdullah said some people disliked it, but that would not stop him from saying such things.

"I am hopeful that after the results of these elections, we will change the way of working and we will increase the rapport with the people and hope that in 2019, we will present a tough contest before BJP," he said.

The former chief minister said if the BJP credits its win in UP to the wave around Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then it should also explain the debacle in Delhi and Bihar polls.

"If Modi's wave succeeded in UP, then why not in Delhi or Bihar? We only count our successes and blame someone else for our defeats. If BJP credits Modi for UP win, which it should, then it should also give explanation about Bihar and Delhi," he said.

PTI
Irked by Goa, Manipur snub, Congress stages walkout in LS

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Mar 14: Congress and its UPA allies in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday strongly protested the alleged efforts to install BJP governments in Goa and Manipur, with the main opposition party walking out of the house twice.

A belligerent Congress repeatedly sought to raise the issue, including during question hour, but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not give them permission.

BJP's efforts to form governments in Goa and Manipur despite not being the single largest party in the recent assembly polls in both states is being opposed by the Congress. Members of Congress, NCP and RJD raised the issue during question hour. Congress leader in the house Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that democracy was being murdered.

When the Speaker said she would not allow the question hour to be disrupted and members should raise such matters in the zero hour, Kharge said if they are not allowed to raise the issue in the house, where else would they go.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said since the Congress leader has used 'strong words', they should either be expunged or the government be allowed to respond. The Speaker said 'nothing beyond the questions and answers will be allowed to go on record'. The Congress, NCP and RJD members then staged a walkout.

After coming back to the House, the Congress members again sought to raise the issue when zero hour was not taken up and legislative business started. When Kharge sought to raise the issue of the Goa Governor inviting the BJP for government formation, Mahajan said, "you cannot discuss about the Governor... It is a constitutional authority".

Congress members then staged their second walk out of the day at around 1240 hours. The Congress, which is the single largest party in both the states, has alleged that the BJP is moving against the law and precedent in forming their governments in Goa and Manipur.

PTI
Islamic State in India: Is it a false alarm

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Was it the Islamic State or not? This is a question for which the National Investigation Agency is trying to find answers while probing into the bombing that took place last week on the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train blast. Going by the investigations, it appeared to be a false alarm. It does not appear that the IS had coordinated this attack on the train.

There were a lot of leads that Intelligence Bureau officials got in the past year suggesting that the IS may launch an attack out on India. Intelligence reports also suggested that the IS may launch its attack through its module in Afghanistan which is known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province.

Today as investigations progress, it is becoming clear that the attack was not carried out by the module in Afghanistan. It was a local job and the attack was given the IS name as material relating to the outfit was found in the house of Saifullah who was gunned down in an encounter at Thakurganj near Lucknow last week.

The growth of the IS in Afghanistan is indeed worrying says an Intelligence Bureau official. It is growing at a very rapid pace, but it would be wrong to suggest that they are ready to launch big attacks. The IS module in Afghanistan is moreover not meant to strike at India directly. It is to help the IS build base in Afghanistan and then gradually move into areas close to the country.

Reading through the various dossiers and material that has been painstakingly prepared by the Intelligence agencies, it becomes clear that the IS style of attack would only be from the Lone Wolf. It would be more of "in the name of the IS' kind of attacks rather than coordinated ones as adopted by the rest of the terrorist groups.

A top Home Ministry official informed that it is too early to say that if the IS has managed to penetrate into India. There are cases here and there, but the ideology of the dreaded group has not captured the imagination of a majority of Muslims in the country, the officer also said.

Whether or not the the IS had a hand in the train blast or not is something that the NIA will have find answers to. The probe is still underway and very soon, it would be known whether it was the IS or an IS inspired lone wolf who carried out the attack, an officer part of the probe said.

OneIndia News
Kerala: Four accused in Catholic priest rape case to surrender

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Kochi, March 14: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed a Catholic priest, two nuns and another woman, to surrender within five days to the police in connection with the rape of a minor, allegedly by a Catholic parish vicar.

All the four accused are on the run after the police investigating team found they were involved in helping prime accused Robin Vadakkanchery, a 49-year-old Catholic parish vicar near Kannur, who has been arrested for allegedly raping a 17-year-old school girl, who gave birth to a baby boy last month.

The court gave this direction to the four after hearing their anticipatory bail and also directed the police to ensure that they are given bail the same day by the trial court after the police questions them. Vadakkanchery was picked up last month when he was on his way to Cochin International Airport to catch a flight to Canada.

After Vadakkanchery's arrest, it was revealed that the incident was kept secret by another Catholic priest Thomas Therakom who headed the state-run welfare committee of Wayanad district, a medical professional Betty Jose, Sister Ophelia and another woman Thankamma.

IANS
Leadership in Congress is hereditary: S M Krishna

India

oi-Anusha

A day before he formally joins the BJP, veteran politician, S M Krishna took a dig at the Congress stating that the leadership in the party was hereditary. S M Krishna was speaking on the crisis that the party is currently facing over its choice of leadership.

"There is hereditary leadership there (In the Congress). We cannot interfere with that, no one can," S M Krishna when asked about the senior leadership in the Congress. It may be recalled that S M Krishna had resigned from the Congress in January earlier this year.

The veteran politician who has been a Congressman for decades decided to quit the party stating that senior leaders like him had been sidelined. S M Krishna will be in New Delhi tomorrow where he will join the BJP in the presence of Amit Shah. S M Krishna's induction into the party is a shot in the arm for the BJP ahead of 2018 assembly elections in Karnataka.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 17:29 [IST]
Manipur political tussle: BJP claims clear majority supported by '33 MLAs'

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Imphal, March 14: The political crisis in Manipur continues as both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress claim to have the numbers to form the next government in the state. Now, the BJP claims to have the support of 33 MLAs. Convener of North-East Democratic Alliance, Himanta Biswa Sarma, says the BJP has the support of 33 MLAs. Thus the saffron party has a clear majority to form the next government in the trouble-torn northeastern state.

"In the house of 60 in Manipur,@BJP4India has d support of 33 MLAs now. Congress is now only 27. No confusion.It's a clear majority," Sarma tweeted on Monday. However, the senior minister of Assam, who has been closely monitoring the BJP's affairs in the neighbouring Manipur, did not provide a break-up of the numbers.

In the 60-member Manipur Assembly, a party (with or without allies) needs the support of 31 MLAs to stake its claim to form the government. Although the Congress has secured 28 seats, getting the maximum seats in the 60-member Manipur Assembly in the recently concluded elections, the BJP with 21 seats has staked its claim to form the next government in the state.

On Sunday, the BJP submitted a list of 32 legislators to Manipur Governor Najma Heptullah, claiming the support of 11 other MLAs -- four of Naga People's Front, four National People's Party, one Lok Janshakti Party, one Independent and one Trinamool Congress Party.

Meanwhile, the BJP unanimously elected N Biren Singh as the leader of the legislature party on Monday. If the party comes to power in the state, Singh will be the next chief minister of Manipur.

On the Congress' front, after much-delay, incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh tendered his resignation on Monday. However, the former CM said he was ready for a floor test and expressed confidence that he has the numbers with him.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 7:12 [IST]
Celebrated holi:

Four Australian bikers, who have embarked on a 7,000-km long journey across India under the project 'Ride for Rights' reached Mumbai on March 13 and celebrate Holi with children in Sion-Koliwada here.

About the bikers:

Four Australian bikers, who have embarked on a 7,000-km long journey across India under the project 'Ride for Rights', would reach Mumbai on Monday and celebrate Holi with children in Sion-Koliwada here.

About the 45-day tour:

The bikers started the journey from Delhi and reached Maharashtra on March 13 after visiting Rajasthan and Gujarat. After Maharashtra, they headed to Goa and Karnataka. Later, they would go to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha, before visiting Uttarakhand and ending their ride in Delhi.

Bikers played holi

Four Australian bikers, who have embarked on a 7,000-km long journey across India under the project Ride for Rights, after they reached Mumbai on Monday.
Never have such allegations been made against me: Najma Heptullah

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

With the Congress crying foul over not being invited first to form government in Manipur, the state Governor Najma Heptullah on Tuesday said she took the decision to invite the largest coalition first to ensure that a stable government is formed in the state.

She said the Constitution has entrusted the Governor the responsibility to 'weigh and measure' stability in the state.

In my 37 years in Parliament & when I was in Congress &worked with non-Cong govts, never have such allegations been put on me:Najma Heptulla  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

Ruling of SC says responsibility of Governor is to see who has majority & will work for state's stability: Najma Heptulla, Governor Manipur pic.twitter.com/AR8cu38mWT  ANI (@ANI_news) March 14, 2017

The BJP has claimed that it enjoyed the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. The Congress has been complaining that the Governor should have invited them first to form the government as they were the single largest party.

The Congress has won 28 seats in Manipur while the BJP has secured 21. A BJP delegation had met the Governor on Sunday with 21 party MLAs besides 4 NPP MLAs, one LJP and TMC MLA and a Congress MLA.

Heptulla on Monday asked incumbent Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to submit his resignation immediately, so that the process of formation of the next government can be started.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 19:14 [IST]
O Panneerselvam to meet CEC, likely to claim AIADMK symbol

India

oi-Anusha

Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu O Panneerselvam will visit New Delhi on Wednesday to meet the Chief Election Commissioner. In his first visit to the national capital after he rebelled against Sasikala Natarajan's camp, Panneerselvam is likely to stake claim to the party's symbol. O Panneerselvam will lead a delegation of his supporters to meet Dr Naseem Zaidi at noon on Wednesday.

As the R K Nagar by poll draws closer, hectic political activity is underway in Tamil Nadu. O Panneerselvam who is in the race to claim Jayalalithaa's legacy hopes to appraise the Election Commission of India about why he and his camp should be accorded the AIADMK's name and symbol. O Panneerselvam is expected to leave from Chennai early Wednesday morning accompanied by three MPs Dr V Maitreyan, P R Sundaram and Ashok Kumar. AIADMK MLAs and leader K P Munuswamy, Natham Viswanathan, Ma Foi Pandiarajan, Manoj Pandian and Semmalai are also expected to accompany O Panneerselvam in a representation of show of strength.

Meanwhile, sources suggested that TTV Dinakaran's aides are already camping in Delhi meeting leaders of the Congress. The R K Nagar by-poll is a people's verdict on the AIADMK government led by Edappadi Palanisami and the party is willing to go the extra mile to ensure a win.

OneIndia News
Old notes worth Rs 1.2 crore seized, 16 arrested in Hyderabad

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police on Tuesday arrested sixteen persons in currency fraud case.The police arrested a 16-member currency exchange gang while trying to exchange of Rs 1.2 crore in denominations of old notes Rs 500 and 1,000.

Several such cases have been reported in the recent past where gangs have been indulging in currency exchange rackets. Cases such as these have been reported in Karnataka, Maharashtra among other states.

[Also read: Hyderabad man held for depositing fake 'Children Bank of India' notes]

The Hyderabad police which is probing into the case is yet to get more leads on the same. It is being ascertained if the gang had connections in other states as well.

Several currency exchange gangs have been busted after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement on demonetisation on November 8. Several persons have failed to exchange their notes as the RBI closed its counter earlier than expected. This has promoted a petition in the Supreme Court, the decision of which is expected later this week.
Pathankot air base on high alert, search operations on

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Pathankot air base has been placed under high alert. Search operations are underway following an alert. Search operations around the 4 kilometre radius was launched following an alert of a possible strike.This is the second time that such an alert has been issued in case of the air base.

In September 2016, a high alert was issued after suspicious looking men were spotted around the air base. However it turned out to be a false alarm. The Pathankot airbase had been in the news after terrorists of the Jaish-e-Mohammad had carried out an attack in 2015.

Following the attack security had been stepped up. Intelligence reports have often suggested that the airbase is always under the radar of Pakistan based terrorists.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 17:05 [IST]
Rape accused SP leader Gayatri Prajapati's son detained

India

oi-Anusha

The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday detained three more people in connection with a gangrape case against Samajwadi party leader Gayatri Prajapati. Those arrested also include son and nephew of Gayatri Prajapati. The police detained Gayatri Prajapati's son and relative on the charge of providing shelter to the accused former minister. The total number of arrests, in this case, now stands at six but the accused former minister is still at large.

The police have so far managed to arrest his gunman, his son and accomplices. Gayatri Prajapati's gunman surrendered before the police in Lucknow while two others were arrested by a special team in Noida. Gayatri Prajapati who is one of the accused in a gangrape case has been on the run ever since the police moved to act against him following a supreme court directive. Prajapati also lost the assembly seat from Amethi in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh polls even as he was absconding. Searches for him continue and the police hope to gather more information on his whereabouts from his son.

Gayatri Prajapati's son and nephew who were detained in Lucknow were taken to Amethi for further investigations in the case.

OneIndia News
Thief calls cops for help after being caught by mob

Sheikh Hasina to visit India in April

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 14: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a three-day state visit to India from April 7, her first visit to the country in seven years.

During the visit, Hasina will hold official talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 8.

Hasina's last visit to India was in January 2010, which was followed by a visit to Dhaka by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June 2015.

"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the leaders," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

Hasina was earlier scheduled to visit India during last December but the visit was postponed as both sides could not agree on dates.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar was in Dhaka in February and met the Bangladesh Prime Minister after which it was announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla in Dhaka on Monday after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said they were attaching 'highest importance' to the visit.

Hasina is the head of government of 'a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time', he said, explaining the importance of the visit, according to bdnews24.

Shringla also said that Indian President Pranab Mukherjee in an 'exceptional' gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during the visit.

He said that "everything is work in progress. We'll have to see what is possible and what is not possible," when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal, the site reported.

IANS
Vande Bharat Express first trial run between Chennai-Mysuru begins: 5 facts to know

Chennai and around to receive light to moderate rainfall on Monday

Sri Lanka frees 77 Indian fishermen

India

oi-PTI

Rameswaram, March 14: Seventy-seven Indian and 12 Sri Lankan fishermen were on Tuesday repatriated in line with the decision taken by two countries to set free fishermen in each other's custody to defuse tension following the killing of an Indian fisherman last week.

Sri Lankan Navy handed over the 77 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, arrested over the past two months, to Indian Coast Guard at the International Maritime Boundary Line in the Palk Bay.

Similarly, 12 Sri Lankan fishermen, released from the Puzhal Prison in Chennai on March 10, were handed over to the Sri Lankan Navy.

The twelve were arrested off Nagapattinam coast separately on March 8 and 9 for allegedly fishing in Indian waters.

The Tamil Nadu fishermen are expected to arrive at Karaikal coast in two ICG ships, Rani Durgavati and Abith by 6 PM, police said.

Later, they would be taken to their respective destinations.

The 77 fishermen from Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram districts were arrested by the Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters between February and March and lodged in Jaffna and Vavuniya prisons in the island nation.

Sri Lanka and India had on Wednesday agreed to release fishermen held in each other's custody after a high-level discussion between the two sides in Colombo in a bid to defuse the tension following the killing of the 22-year-old Indian fisherman, Bridgo.

Meanwhile, eight fishermen from Karaikal are still in Trincomalee prison there, police added.

PTI

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 13:33 [IST]
Tharoor as next PM: Here is what a petition from Kerala says

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

With one drubbing after another, an online petition is being circulated to make Shashi Tharoor the Congress' Prime Ministerial candidate in the 2019 general elections. There has been a lot of animosity within the Congress after Rahul Gandhi, the vice president of the party has failed repeatedly to make a mark for the Congress and putting up the worst performances since the party's inception.

A Thiruvananthapuram based persons has launched an online petition seeking to make Tharoor who hails from Kerala as the PM candidate for the Congress. He says in the petition that Tharoor is a well qualified man with knowledge of national and international issues.

Tharoor can breathe life into the opposition and would be the ideal candidate to lead the Congress in the next elections, the petition also states. The petition has got the support of 6,725 users.

OneIndia News
Use EVMs, not ballot papers for Delhi municipal polls: EC

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Tuesday clarified that it will use EVMs for the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls that are going to be held on April 22 and counting for the same is going to be held on April 25.

Earlier in the day, the Congress had asked the EC to use the paper ballot for the polls. Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Admi Party Arvind Kejriwal had said that he has a doubt on the EVMs which may manipulate his votes to the BJP who are also in the fray.

[Also read: Frustrated AAP says EC should auction seats instead of holding polls]

Reacting to Kejriwal's comments on EVMs, BJP leader Manoj Tiwary had said that if Kejriwal does not believe in EVMs, then he should step down from the post and have a re-polling on the 67 assembly seats he had won.

It is to be mention that Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on March 10 had accused the BJP of stealing the votes by using EVMs during the counting.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 18:53 [IST]
When this doctor paid Rs 4 lakh at a toll booth

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

He stopped at a toll booth and decided to swipe his card for Rs 40. However a sleepy toll attendant decided to add a couple of zeroes more and the amount that was finally swiped was a whopping Rs 4 lakh. The doctor whose card was swiped was in for a rude shock when his message read, " Rs 4 lakh had been debited from his account." He ended up paying Rs 3,99,960 more.

The incident occurred at the Kochi-Mumbai National Highway near Udupi in Karnataka on Saturday. A doctor from Karnataka raised the issue with the toll attendant immediately, but the latter refused to accept his mistake. An argument broke out for two hours and when the doctor realised that this was going nowhere, he decided to rope in the cops.

He went up to a police station in Kota, around 5 kilometres from the toll plaza. He was accompanied back to the toll gate with a police constable. The toll gate personnel then admitted that the attendant had wrongly entered the amount and promised to reimburse the entire amount. When the doctor was offered the reimbursement by cheque, he refused to accept the same. Finally, the doctor was reimbursed the amount of Rs 3,99,960 in cash.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 6:36 [IST]
Will SC stop Parrikar from becoming Goa CM? You will know in a few hours

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In a few hours from now a special bench of the Supreme Court will hear a petition challenging the formation of the Goa government by the Bharatiya Janata Party. A special bench was constituted by Chief Justice of India, J S Khehar upon urgent mentioning. The bench will hear the matter on an urgent basis despite it being a holiday for the Supreme Court on account of Holi.

Manohar Parrikar is set to take oath at 5 pm on Tuesday. The ceremony would however now be subject to the outcome of the petition in the Supreme Court which is likely to hear the matter at around 10.30 am.

The petitioner had given various citations to support his petition in which it has been stated that the single largest party should be given the first chance to form the government. The Congress is the single largest party in Goa, but the BJP which came second managed to dish out the numbers with support of other parties to stake a claim at the government formation in Goa. One of the cases cited relates to the one in Bihar. A Constitutional Bench had pulled up then Bihar Governor, Bhuta Singh for recommending that the assembly which was in suspended animation be dissolved without giving the Nitish Kumar-BJP alliance a chance to prove its majority. This despite the party being in a majority.

The petition filed by Goa Congress legislator Chandrakant Kavlekar challenged the Governor's decision to invite Parrikar to form the government. He said that in a hung assembly it should be the largest party which should be invited first to form the government. The Congress is the single largest party in Goa and should have been invited to form the government he also said. The petitioner also said that the Governor should have invited the Congress to form the government first according to the guidelines laid down in the Rameshwar Prasad judgment.

The judgment makes it clear that the single largest party be given the first chance to the form the government in case of a hung assembly. He further cited the Sakaria Commission recommendations which are identical to the Rameshwar Prasad judgment. The invite to Parrikar is against Constitutional practise, the petitioner also said.

OneIndia News
Are the Western Balkan countries headed for EU membership?

An Islamic extremist group banned in Germany

International

pti-PTI

Berlin, Mar 14: Authorities in northern Germany have banned an organiSation that they say was a 'hot spot' for Islamic extremists and searched a mosque that the group runs.

The state interior ministry in Lower Saxony on Tuesday announced a ban on the 'German-speaking Islam Group Hildesheim', known by its German acronym DIK.

The group, based in the city of Hildesheim, was long known as a center for ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafists, and the mosque had been raided last year.

Apartments also were searched on Tuesday.

News agency dpa quoted Interior Minister Boris Pistorius as saying: "With the ban on the group, a hot spot of the radical Salafist scene in Germany has been dismantled."

Authorities suspect that Muslims were radicalized in the organization and motivated to take part in jihad.

PTI
'Deeply regret': Theresa May fails to apologise again for Jallianwala Bagh

Amid Brexit backlash, Theresa May steps down, to resign on June 7

Want closer ties with India says UKs frontrunner for PM

In final interview as PM, May speaks of Brexit formation

British PM says no to new Scottish independence referendum

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

London, March 14: UK Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled out Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon plans for a new independence referendum before Britain's exit from the European Union, the media reported.

Earlier on Monday, Sturgeon announced she would set the wheels in motion for a second referendum next week, and insisted the ballot should take place between late 2018 and early 2019 - while the Brexit negotiations are still going on, The Telegraph reported.

However, later on Monday night, the Prime Minister issued a stern rebuke, telling her politics is not a game, and accusing her of tunnel vision.

"The tunnel vision the Scottish Nationalist Party has shown today is deeply regrettable; it sets Scotland on a course for more uncertainty and division, creating huge uncertainty," May said.

"And this is at a time when the evidence is that the majority of the Scottish people don't want a second independence referendum."

Sources close to May said she would not allow a referendum until several months after Britain's EU exit, the Telegraph said.

Hours after May's rebuke, the Downing Street made an unexpected announcement that the Prime Minister will not now invoke Article 50 -- formal procedure of leaving the EU -- before March 27.

The Article 50 Bill is expected to receive royal assent from the Queen on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Sturgeon said that she had been left with little choice than to offer the Scottish people, who voted to remain in the EU, a choice at the end of the negotiations of a hard Brexit or living in an independent Scotland, the Guardian reported.

"The UK government has not moved even an inch in pursuit of compromise and agreement. Our efforts at compromise have instead been met with a brick wall of intransigence," the First Minister said, claiming that any pretence of a partnership of equal nations was all but dead.

The first referendum on Scottish independence took place on September 18, 2014.

The "No" side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3 per cent) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7 per cent) voting in favour.

IANS
Donald Trump says new healthcare will bring insurance cost down

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Washington, March 14: President Donald Trump said that the new healthcare plan proposed by Republican lawmakers will ensure that medical insurance costs begin to come down in "a little while".

Trump said that the GOP proposal will push health insurance costs "down, down, down," adding that "more competition and less regulation will finally bring down the cost of care" within one or two years.

Trump met at the White House with several "victims" of the Affordable Care Act -- known as 'Obamacare' -- signed in 2010 by Barack Obama and he expressed frustration because, in his judgment, the press is making it look "wonderful", Efe news reported.

"So the press is making it (Obamacare) look so wonderful that if we end it, everyone's going to say, 'Oh, remember how great Obamacare used to be? Remember how wonderful it used to be? It used to be so great?'" the President told reporters.

"It's a little bit like President Obama. When he left, people liked him. When he was here, people didn't like him so much," Trump said, adding his prediction that in any event the ACA will collapse.

The President promised that under the plan proposed to replace Obamacare, Americans will be able to select the healthcare plans they want and the doctors they want to treat them.

Obama had promised that if Americans liked their then-current healthcare plans they would be able to retain them under his reform, but Trump said that that never proved to be the case.

The president also said that the current healthcare system only helps a "small" number of people, a reference to the approximately 20 million Americans who have acquired healthcare coverage under Obamacare.

Two House committees last week approved the Republican proposals to eliminate Obamacare, a move that he has called the first of three phases whereby the current system will be replaced.

IANS

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 10:02 [IST]
In Mosul, a heavy but not crushing blow to Islamic State

International

pti-PTI

Mosul (Iraq), Mar 14: Iraqi troops have surrounded western Mosul and military leaders vow it's only a matter of time until they crush the last major stand of the Islamic State group in Iraq. But the militants are positioning themselves to defend the remains of its so-called "caliphate" in Syria and wage an insurgent campaign in Iraq.

The extremists are carrying out what looks like an organised, fighting withdrawal: a core of fighters is holding out in the city using hundreds of thousands of civilians as shields, tying down and bleeding the Iraqi military in urban combat. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and Iraqi officials say the senior IS leadership has escaped to regroup in Syria and the deserts along the border to prepare for the future. "They know they will lose Mosul, but they want this to be a hard fight," said Maj Saif Ali, a commander in the Iraqi special forces on the front lines.

The civilian population is perhaps the main reason IS fighters have been able to hold out so long and turn Mosul into such a grueling battle. It took months for Iraqi forces to drive them out of eastern Mosul while trying to avoid high casualties among residents amid house-to-house battles. Now some 2,000 militants, by a coalition estimate, are holed up in western Mosul with 700,000 civilians.

IS fighters are holding most of those civilians hostage as shields, while forcing some to flee as cover for their troops. Mosul's fall will be the biggest blow yet to IS, largely breaking its hold over territory in Iraq and ending its rule over half the "caliphate," which at its height stretched from northern Syria through western Iraq.

The largest city in IS territory, Mosul provided the group significant financing from taxing the population, factories to make weapons and space to gather freely. But the Islamic State group's durable organization ensures it can fall back to the next fight. Last weekend, Iraqi forces completely encircled western Mosul by capturing the last road into the enclave of about 40 square kilometers (15 square miles), comprising some of the city's most densely built districts.

"Any of the fighters who are left in Mosul, they're going to die there because they are trapped," Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for US-led coalition against IS, said Sunday. In the month since the assault on the west began, troops have retaken the city's airport, a sprawling military complex, the main government compound and a ribbon of neighborhoods on the southwest side of Mosul. The offensive is being waged from three directions with two divisions of special forces and a force of federal police advancing along the Tigris River, which divides the city into its western and eastern half.

PTI
No surprises here: Mallikarjun Kharge is the new Cong chief

Privilege to receive support of over thousand colleagues: Shashi Tharoor

Not a personal battle, Kharge's win is victory of Congress, says Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor: Lost Congress presidential poll but not before making himself heard

Mistry slams Tharoor over allegations of 'irregularities' in Cong prez poll

Britain has outgrown their racism, says Shashi Tharoor over Sunak rise

Indian MPs participate in parliamentary conference in Pakistan

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Islamabad, March 14: Representatives of 23 countries, including three MPs from India, are participating in a key cabinet committee session of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly that began in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday.

Indian parliamentarians Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta are attending the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, that is scheduled to last till March 17, according to reports.

The session was formally inaugurated by Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani and Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Tuesday.

More than 70 delegates from 23 countries, including members of parliament and speakers, are expected to participate in the meeting being hosted by the Senate.

The session has various agendas listed, including establishment of an Asian Parliament, Geo News reported.

IANS

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 14:53 [IST]
What is the risk of Putin using a nuclear weapon?

'If NATO clashes with Russian army, it will lead to global catastrophe,' says Putin

Italy's Meloni tries to distance herself from fascism

NATO chief says it's 'time to welcome' Finland, Sweden

Turkey holds off on Finland and Sweden in NATO

NATO wants Netherlands and Turkey to reduce tension

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Brussels, March 14: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg asked NATO partners Holland and Turkey to show mutual respect and reduce tensions amid their diplomatic tussle.

Stoltenberg on Monday said at a press conference that he had contacted the Dutch and Turkish governments after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the Netherlands is acting like "Nazis and Fascists", Efe news reported.

"Robust debate is at the heart of our democracies but so is mutual respect," Stoltenberg told reporters. "I would encourage all allies to show mutual respect, to be calm and have a measured approach and to contribute to de-escalate the tensions."

"It's important that we now focus on everything that unites us," the Secretary General said.

He said Turkey's presence in NATO was "good for Turkey but also for Europe and for the rest of the alliance" in face of the instability in neighbouring countries such as Irak or Syria.

A diplomatic spat between the Netherlands and Turkey gained momentum over the weekend after Dutch authorities denied landing permission for a plane carrying Turkey's foreign minister who was planning to attend a referendum campaign in Rotterdam.

The Turkish government recently launched a verbal attack on the German government after similar events were cancelled in Germany.

"They are Nazi remnants, they are fascists," Erdogan said and went on to describe the Netherlands as a "banana republic" and warned of sanctions in retaliation.

Turkey is preparing for a referendum that could pave the way for Erdogan to assume more powers as president.

IANS

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 10:06 [IST]
N-Korea warns of merciless attacks against US, South Korea

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Seoul, March 14: North Korea on Tuesday has threatened to launch ultra-precision strikes in response to the military exercises being jointly carried out by South Korea and the US.

If the allies seek to infringe on its sovereignty, Pyongyang's 'army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater', North Korean state news agency KCNA warned in a statement.

Pyongyang also warned Seoul and Washington, who are currently carrying out annual military maneuvers, that the 'nuclear-powered carriers and all other strategic assets of the US imperialists are in sight of the Korean People's Army's powerful ultra-precision strike means'.

The regime's statement comes after the allies began the Key Resolve simulated military exercise on Monday, which will last until March 24, as well as the Foal Eagle drills, which started on March 1 and will conclude by the end of April.

The deployment of military assets for this year's maneuvers is the largest to date as Washington is deploying its F-35B fighter aircraft as well as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson - scheduled to arrive in the Korean peninsula on Wednesday, Efe news reported.

Pyongyang, which regularly condemns the non-defensive nature of these maneuvers, on March 6 launched four medium-range ballistic missiles that fell in Japanese waters as its first response after the start of Foal Eagle drills.

The start of the installation of the anti-ballistic missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system on South Korean soil last week has also increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The US system, designed to shoot down North Korean missiles, has angered the Kim Jong-un regime and also sparked strong criticism from China, which believes Thaad can interfere with its defence systems.

IANS
Three Indian MPs attend conference in Pakistan

International

pti-PTI

Islamabad, Mar 14: A three-member Indian delegation of MPs on Tuesday attended a regional conference hosted by Pakistan with a top lawmaker asking the Asian countries to 'bury the hatchet' and move forward for the collective good.

The Asian Parliamentary Assembly conference held in Murree is being attended by Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Lekhi and Swapan Dasgupta. The Indian lawmakers' visit comes at a time when bilateral contacts and exchange of visits have stalled after the Uri terror attack and India boycotting the SAARC summit hosted by Pakistan.

Their presence in Pakistan comes ahead of the meeting of Indus water commissioners who are expected to attend a meeting in Lahore on March 19-20. The conference, attended by 23 Asian countries and scheduled to conclude on March 17, is being held to discuss closer cooperation and creation of Asian Parliament on the pattern of European Union.

"We should learn to bury the hatchet and move forward for the collective good," chairman senate, upper house of Pakistan's parliament, Raza Rabbani said while addressing the conference.

He urged Asian nations to work together to address and realise common challenges and aspirations. Rabbani said the special committee on creation of Asian Parliament would make a positive beginning towards the cherished objective, Radio Pakistan reported.

He urged the Asian nations to work together to address and realise common challenges and aspirations. Rabbani said Asian nations were suffering from issues like poverty, terrorism, under-nourishment and exploitation of their natural resources. He said the countries' parliaments would fail themselves if they fail to rise to the occasion.

Speaker National Assembly, lower house of parliament, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in his address emphasised the need for working together for achieving the desired goal of regional peace, development and prosperity. He said APA member states should intervene for peaceful solution of all outstanding disputes in accordance with the UN resolution and as per aspirations of the people.

"We must work together for confronting shared challenges of terrorism, extremism, poverty and climate change," he said.

Noting that Pakistan is a strong advocate of regional integration and connectivity, Sadiq said the country was committed to peace and prosperity in the region and the world. He also said the CPEC will not only benefit China and Pakistan but will have positive impact on Iran, Afghanistan, India, Central Asia and the entire region.

PTI
US experts on India say Narendra Modi will lead India beyond 2019

International

oi-PTI

Washington, March 14: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a clear favourite for the 2019 general elections after the BJP's landslide victory in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, top US experts on India have said.

While one of the expert noted that the electoral results of the just concluded Assembly polls in five states show that the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were not an aberration, another noted that Modi would continue to lead India after 2019. The Assembly elections do not signal much of a change. The Uttar Pradesh election results showed that the 2014 general elections were not an "aberration".

Adam Ziegfeld, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University said. "It was a big win for the BJP. Its candidate won with much larger margin of victory than compared to the two previous winners BSP and Samajwadi Party," he said.

Modi has been established by this election as the clear and favourite winner for the 2019 elections, Sadanand Dhume, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said. "Modi is the front runner (for 2019)," he said.

Irfan Nooruddin, a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at the Georgetown University predicted that in 2019, the BJP is unlikely to be get a simple majority and Modi would rather be heading a coalition government. BJP is running a disciplines election campaign state-by-state, while the Opposition fails, he said. The party does not do good in a state where it faces a direct opposition. BJP is beatable if the Opposition comes together, Nooruddin said, adding that the party gains where it faces a fragmented opposition and in 2019, anti-incumbency would kick in.

In this election, the BJP played the cast card while pretending to be above it, Dhume who was in Uttar Pradesh during the elections, said. "Demonetisation is extremely popular. Indian people who have suffered themselves in the wake of the policy, it won their heart and mind. Here is this man of sincerity who struck a principled blow to corrupt and the rich," he said referring to his conversation with people in the state. Dhume, however, noted that Modi after this historic victory in Uttar Pradesh is unlikely to go for the kind of economic reforms the private sector would like to have.

India is going to bump up its economic reforms that directly affects the people of the country, said Alyssa Ayres, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations Picking up four governments in states all across India, and having future prospects, it is unlikely to have an impact on foreign policy.

Like demonetisation #IamNewIndia is the pledge that the Prime Minister is asking citizens to be part of his new India campaign. BJP will now pick up a lot of seats in Rajya Sabha which would help the ruling party to carry out its long pending reform like the land acquisition reform and labor reforms. They would start picking up seats is early as 2018. BJP is looking at 2019 and beyond.

PTI
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Port Moresby, Monday 13 March 2017  PacificAdsGroup, operating classifieds websites in the Pacificarea, just released the first mobile app in PNG for local buyers and sellers to easily trade together, after launching the same service online called PNGautos.com .Currently, more than 700,000 people from Papua New Guinea are monthly active on Facebook. With more than 4 million mobile subscribers in the country, mobile apps and websites like PNGautos.com has a huge growth potential in front of them.With an estimated 150,000+ cars in the country , local buyers and sellers are looking for a faster way to trade their cars, motorbikes and trucks in the country. With an extensive experience in emergingmarkets, the teams behind PNGautos.com are bringing the first part of the solution to the country.The newly released mobile app called  PNGAUTOS - Buy&Sell Cars PNG  is now available for free onthe Google Play Store for all Android devices (95%+ of devices in Papua New Guinea) . On the mobileapp, local people can easily add their cars for free to access thousands of potential buyers across theircities, region or the whole country.PNGautos.com is also the biggest community on Facebook related to cars in Papua New Guinea, withmore than 10,000 people and a weekly reach to more than 50,000 people in PNG.Pacific Ads Group is also active in other markets in the area such as Timor-Leste, Fiji, Solomon Islands,Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa, and plans to launch new online services both in the region and in Papua New Guinea for other verticals.
Michigan and Pennsylvania Move Forward with Online Gambling Bills, But Struggles Still Ahead

Published March 13, 2017 by Elana K

Good news for online poker advocates. Both Michigan and Pennsylvania committees have approved bills that would legalize online gambling in those states. However, both bills still face obstacles before being approved by their respective Senates.

Good news for online poker advocates. Both Michigan and Pennsylvania committees have approved bills that would legalize online gambling in those states. However, both bills still face obstacles before being approved by their respective Senates.

Michigan's Triumphs and Struggles

In Michigan, the Senate Regulatory Reform Committee reviewed Senator Mike Kowalls SB 203 and voted in favor by a landslide 7-1. While this is a step in the right direction, its not time to celebrate just yet. Last year, a similar bill also made it past committee approval before disappearing from the map. Additionally, its no surprise that the committee approved Kowalls bill - six out of nine members are co-sponsors.

One noticeable absence at the hearing was that of the tribes, some of whom have not yet commented on the bill and others that have come out against it. The reason for this is that the bill only allows commercial casino operators and federally recognized tribes already conducting gaming operations to apply for licenses, which means that in order to participate in an online gambling market, the tribes would have to give up their sovereign tax immunity and become commercial gaming enterprises. Understandably, that does not sit well with them.

Battle Lines Drawn in Pennsylvania

Two days earlier in Pennsylvania, there was a joint hearing of the Senate Community, Economic & Recreational Development Committee and the House Gaming Oversight Committee. Both opponents and supporters there had the chance to voice their opinions.

Opponents worry that an online gambling industry would detract from the current land-based casino industry, and that the proposed tax rate for online gambling is not enough to meet the high expectations, some of which project over $400 million in revenue for the state in 2019.

Supporters of online gambling say that in New Jersey, that has not been the case, and it wont be the case in Pennsylvania as well. They also point out that Pennsylvania, deep in debt, needs the revenue from online gambling taxes in order to pull itself out of its deficit.
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In the arts, technology, or any other realm, Japanese culture encourages taking ones chosen pursuits to the limits, even when their material comes from other cultures. We have here a particularly notable example in the form of Mandarin Electron, a musical ensemble founded and led since 1999 by pioneer Japanese theremin player Masami Takeuchi. But its members (273 of whom set the theremin-ensemble Guinness World Record with the performance of Amazing Grace above) dont play quite the same touchless, spooky-sounding instrument vintage electronic music fans would recognize; instead, they master the Matryomin, a theremin in the compact form of a traditional Russian Matryoshka doll, conveniently designed so as to disseminate theremin performance.









The combination isnt quite as random as it sounds. Back in 2015 we posted about the history of the theremin, which goes back to the work of a Russian inventor named Leon Theremin. When he first developed the instrument in 1919, he called it the Aetherphone, and in the 1920s demonstrated it in Europe and the United States.

In the decades thereafter, Theremins strange new musical invention captured imaginations all over the world, and last year Japan celebrated the inventors 120th Birthday with a series of events called Theremin 120  most of them somehow involving Takeuchi. You can learn more about his history with the theremin and its homeland from the video just above.

In a sense, Takeuchi, who moved to Russia to study under Theremins relative and pupil Lydia Kavia, has realized the inventors original vision for his instrument of a singing-voice kind. Freeing its sounds from their mid-2oth-century Western associations  drive-in horror movies, novelty surf-rock  he has overseen their transformation into the elements of an electronic chorus. You can purchase your very own Mandarin Electron-made Matryomin (now on its third-generation model) and start learning to play it with the video just above, but if its potential still escapes you, have a look at Takeuchi and his ensembles extensive collection of tour and media appearances. If the sound and sight of hundreds of people all tuning their Matryoshka-doll theremins at once doesnt intrigue you, nothing could.

Related Content:

Beethovens Ode to Joy Played With 167 Theremins Placed Inside Matryoshka Dolls in Japan

Soviet Inventor Leon Theremin Shows Off the Theremin, the Early Electronic Instrument That Could Be Played Without Being Touched (1954)

Watch Jimmy Page Rock the Theremin, the Early Soviet Electronic Instrument, in Some Hypnotic Live Performances

Somewhere Over the Rainbow Played on a 1929 Theremin

Japanese Priest Tries to Revive Buddhism by Bringing Techno Music into the Temple: Attend a Psychedelic 23-Minute Service

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. Hes at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Market Poised for Steady Growth in the Future

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Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic condition that causes severe pain in legs, arms, feet, and hands or may involve the entire body. CRPS is commonly of two types, with similar symptoms and treatment. If Complex Regional Pain syndrome occurs after an injury without any nerve damage, it is known as Type I CRPS (also known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy). Type II CRPS occurs after a specific nerve injury or trauma. The prognosis of complex regional pain syndrome differs from person to person. In most cases, CRPS is mild and patient recovers gradually with time, and in some cases, the symptoms are severe, with long-term disability. CRPS occurs in both men and women, but women are more likely to be affected.The cause of the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is not well understood. In about 90% of cases, CRPS occurs due to injury or trauma. The common factor of injury includes limb immobilization, soft tissue injury, fracture, sprain or due to needlestick injuries caused during surgical procedures. Peripheral nerve abnormalities in patients with CRPS includes unmyelinated and lightly myelinated nerve fibers at the axon region that causes abnormal neurological conditions. CRPS is common in patients with inflammatory and autoimmune conditions as an elevated level of inflammatory chemicals such as cytokines are found in tissue with CRPS. Currently, genetic predisposition of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is not examined broadly. A study related to the familial occurrence of CRPS among Dutch patients resulted that CRPS may occur in a familial form, but inheritance pattern was unclear.Request Report Sample@Diagnosis of CRPS depends upon the individuals medical history and the extent of symptoms. There are limited diagnostic methods available for CRPS. The incidence rates reveal that female are three times more affected than male. According to a study conducted in U.K, 1 in 3,800 people develops CRPS each year. CRPS can be treated by therapy (Rehabilitation Therapy, Psychotherapy) or medications such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids, and others.Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market: Drivers and RestrainsCurrently, there are no drugs approved by US FDA - for the treatment of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. However, physicians prescribed therapies and medicines to alleviate chronic pain. Recently U.S. Food and Drug administration, designated Neridronic acid breakthrough therapy, undergoing clinical trials for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. The drug has also received Fast-track and orphan drug designations from the FDA. Intense research and development, the rise in the incidence of CRPS cases, successful completion of clinical trials are anticipated to fuel the growth of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. The strict regulatory approval and the high cost of medication in the near future could restrain the growth of Complex Regional Pain syndrome market.Visit For TOC@Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market: SegmentationThe global complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) market has been classified on the basis of therapy type, route of administration, distribution channel, and geography.Based on Therapy Type, the Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market is segmented into following:Physical TherapyDrugsAnalgesicsAntidepressantsCorticosteroidsOthersSurgical sympathectomyIntrathecal drug pumpsSpinal cord stimulationBased on the Route of Administration, the global Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) market is divided into following:OralIntravenousBased on the distribution channel, the Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market is segmented into the following:Hospital PharmacyDrug StoresRetail PharmacyE-commerceComplex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market: OverviewNational Institutes of Health (NIH) is supporting research for CRPS on the brain and CNS by focusing on studying new approaches in treating CRPS. Based on the therapy type the global Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) market into physical therapy, drugs such as analgesics, antidepressants, corticosteroids, surgical sympathectomy, intrathecal drug pumps and spinal cord stimulation. On the basis of route of administration, the global Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) market in segmented into oral and intravenous administration. Based on the distribution channel, the market is segmented into hospital pharmacy, drug stores, retain pharmacy and e-commerce.Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market: Regional OverviewRegion wise, the global Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. Along with expansion in the emerging markets, and greater focus on early diagnosis, screening, monitoring and clinical development of drugs have been the major strategies adopted by major players in the global complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) market.Complex Regional Pain syndrome (CRPS) Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) market are Mallinckrodt Pharmaceutical, GlaxoSmithKline plc., Mylan N.V., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., AbbVie, ACTAVIS, Zydus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sandoz, and Janssen Global Services, LLC.and others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Market Research on Wheatgrass Products Market 2016 and Analysis to 2026

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Wheatgrass refers to the food made up of wheat plant called Triticum aestivum in a dried powder or juicy form. Wheatgrass products contains wide variety of nutrients, chlorophyll, amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and enzymes essential for human health. The presence of anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory chemicals in the wheatgrass products make them beneficial for treating various health disorders such as respiratory tract problems, cancer, arthritis, diabetes etc. Further, the consumption of wheatgrass products help in colon cleansing, blood purification, and liver detoxification. Wheatgrass products have emerged as a health ingredient in the food and beverage industry. With the improved economic conditions as well as increase in household wealth, consumers have become wilful to spend on nutritional food like wheatgrass products in order to maintain their health. This is propelling the growth of wheatgrass products market globally. Wheatgrass products are also available in supplement forms such as tablet and capsule forms. Product manufactures are focusing the new product developments to ease availability and consumption.Wheatgrass in liquid form usually present as wheatgrass juices that are highly rich in vitamins A, B, C, E, and K, calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, sodium, sulphur and amino acids. The high chlorophyll content of wheatgrass juice helps in cleansing and building blood. It is highly effective in neutralizing infections, healing wounds, removing parasitic infections, and overcoming the inflammations. Wheatgrass in powdered form is usually obtained by freeze drying, oven-drying, or air-drying the fresh wheatgrass. Consumption of wheatgrass powder help in improving the digestive system function, and preventing the constipation.Request Report Sample@Market Dynamics of Wheatgrass Products:Wheatgrass products market is expected to witness a sustained growth in the coming years. The demand of wheatgrass product is supported by population growth, recovered GDP, increased disposable income, and growing emphasis of preventive health care practices among consumers to lead healthy life. Some of the factors such as rise in ageing population, increasing health consciousness among consumers, new product developments, and the improved supply chain for strengthen the distribution network, are driving the growth of global wheatgrass products market. Middle aged and elderly consumers readily invest in wheatgrass products to support their immunity system. On the other hand, younger consumers have started taking interest in wheatgrass products owing to the presence of natural ingredients in it and various health benefits. This has led the manufactures to extend their research activities for bringing new formulations or for expanding the range of wheatgrass products to cater various consumers needs and preferences.Market Segmentation of Wheatgrass Products:Wheatgrass products market is segmented on the basis of nature, form, application, and distribution channel. On the basis of nature, wheatgrass products are segmented as natural/original and organic. Increasing demand for organic food worldwide is expected to increase the organic wheatgrass products segment over the forecast period. On the basis of form, wheatgrass product market is segmented into liquid form, and powdered form. With growing preference of convenience food, it is expected that the demand of wheatgrass products in liquid form will grow at highest rate during the reviewed period.Visit For TOC@Wheatgrass products market, on the basis of application, is segmented into food & beverages, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics/personal care. Owing to the high health benefits and medicinal value of wheatgrass products, it has found major application in the pharmaceutical industry. On the basis of distribution channel, wheatgrass products market is segmented into supermarket/hyper market, convenience stores, drug stores, and others such as direct selling, mass merchandisers etc.Regional Outlook of Wheatgrass Products:On the basis of geography, wheatgrass products market is segmented into seven different regions namely North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan and Middle East and Africa. Asia-Pacific region is expected to have a growth potential for wheatgrass products, propelled by growing ageing population, rising disposable income, increased health consciousness. Majority of leading manufacturers in the wheatgrass products market target the opportunities posed by emerging economies like China and India to expand their revenue base. However, North America and Europe witnessed the highest number of new product launches that contained wheatgrass products.Key Market Players in Wheatgrass Products:Wheatgrass Products market is fragmented with the presence of large number of players. The focus of market players have shifted towards bringing a differentiation factor in the beverages portfolio by innovating in terms of variety of flavors and taste. Some of the key players in the wheatgrass products market include Innocent Alps GmbH, Bondi Wheatgrass Juice Company, Campbell Soup Company, General Mills, Inc., The Synergy Company, and Terrasoul Superfoods among others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Worldwide Analysis on Safety Needle Market Strategies and Forecasts, 2016 to 2026

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Safety needle is an infusion device composed with special features. Safety needles are used along with infusion system like safety syringe, IV catheter or safety pens. These safety syringes are designed to work automatically which permit the needle to withdraw back into the system automatically. And another design is based on manual work where we have to insert cap in needle after its use. The safety mechanism is intended to enhance safety of the drug administration process and to provide protection to the patients and healthcare workers from incidental needlestick injury. As per WHO report 2002, around 37.6% of Hepatitis B, 39% of that Hepatitis C and 4.4% of HIV/AIDS cases are observed in healthcare workers due to needlestick injuries. That is why, several countries have presented enactment, as per that use of safety needle is mandatory. With increasing awareness about medication safety and increasing concern on the prevention of needlestick injury, safety needles along with safety injection devices have gained attention from healthcare professionals and medical device manufacturers. Global safety needle market is expected to show considerable growth in the forecasted period.Global Safety Needle Market: Drivers and RestraintsBased on data of World Health Organization, more than 3.1 million individuals die every year due to unsafe infusion practice. The expanding number of syringe needlestick injuries, transfer of non-sterile needle and sharing, and risky infusion practices are the central point impacting the development of this business sector. A few nations have presented enactment, which ensures mandatory use of safety needle and devices to diminishing needle stick injuries and counteract needle re-use. Presentation of this enactment has prompted safety needles being more usually utilized than traditional syringes, which prompted considerable growth in the safety needle market. The lack of awareness regarding use of safety needles and healthcare issues in some of the developing economies and most of the undeveloped economies has restricted growth of safety needle market in respective region.Request Report Sample@Global Safety Needle Market: SegmentationThe global safety needle market is classified on the basis of product type, application and end user.Based on product type, the global safety needle market is segmented into the following:Huber needlesPen needlesRetractable needlesBiopsy needlesIV Catheter needlesDental needlesFine aspirating needlesAV Fistula needlesImplantation needlesOphthalmic needlesBased on application type, the global safety needle market is segmented into the following:Sample CollectionDrug deliveryBased on end user, the global safety needle market is segmented into the following:HospitalsDiagnostic centersClinicsAmbulatory Surgical CentersDentistVisit For TOC@Global Safety Needle Market: OverviewHypodermic needles are the most commonly used needles. These are usually used for injection of various substances into the body and for extracting fluids. Hypodermic needles are available in the market with different safety caps and locks to avoid needlestick incidences and possibility of infections. As hypodermic needle are used for both sample collection and drug delivery purpose, market growth is high in forecast period. Safety needles are gaining popularity over other ordinary needles due to raising awareness about diseases spread due to needles stick and sharp injuries. Pen needle market is expected to grow during the forecast period due to increasing diabetic population, advantages of insulin pen over conventional syringe and vitals. Also, technological advancements in insulin needle will attribute to growth of safety needle market.Global Safety Needle Market: Regional OverviewRegion wise, the global safety needle market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America dominates the global safety needles market due to increased awareness regarding the importance of safety needles use in this region. In North America region, The U.S. represents the largest market for safety needles, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany and the U.K. hold major shares in the safety needles market. Most countries in Europe have favorable reimbursement mechanism for special purpose needles. Hence, combined with higher affordability and awareness, the market in this region is one of the largest after North America. Increasing awareness regarding various chronic diseases and high availability of skilled workers are boosting the growth of safety needle market in Asia region. China, India and Japan are expected to be the fastest-growing safety needles markets in Asia.Global Safety Needle Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global safety needle market are Medtronic, Boston Scientific Corporation, Cook Medical, Smiths medical, Becton Dickinson, Merit Medical Systems, EndoChoice, Inc., Medi-Globe Corporation, sfm Medical devices, Terumo Corporation, Stryker Corporation, Argon Medical Devices, Novo Nordisk, Sol-Millennium, Endo-Flex and B.Braun, NIPRO Medical Corporation.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Patient Temperature Management Market 2017 : Healthcare 3M, CR Bard, Cincinnati SubZero, GE

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Patient Temperature ManagementA market study based on the " Patient Temperature Management Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Patient Temperature Management Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Patient Temperature Management industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Patient Temperature Management market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research ReportHealthcare 3MCR BardCincinnati SubZeroAugustineCharter KontronEcolabEnthermicsGEGeratherm MedicalHealthcareIndithermThe report studies the industry for Patient Temperature Management across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Patient Temperature Management market & dynamics of demand and supply of Patient Temperature Management into consideration. The ' Patient Temperature Management ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Patient Temperature Management market globally, which starts from the definition of the Patient Temperature Management industry and develops towards Patient Temperature Management market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Patient Temperature Management market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Patient Temperature Management market. The geographical segmentation of the Patient Temperature Management industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Patient Temperature Management is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Patient Temperature Management market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Patient Temperature Management market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Patient Temperature Management market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Patient Temperature Management production volume, data regarding demand and Patient Temperature Management supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Patient Temperature Management across the globe.About Us :Market and Research are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy. At Market and Research, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries including Energy, Chemicals and Materials, Automotive and Aerospace.Contact Us :Market and ResearchUnited States
Global Public Cloud Service Market is Projected to Reach USD 249 Billion by 2022

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Market HighlightsIn this rapidly changing environment, many businesses have adopted cloud technologies. The cloud service that is offered over a public network is defined as the public cloud service. Public cloud service has many benefits as flexibility, cost effectiveness, reliability and many more. Rapid IT modernization, investment in technological developments and other are the key factors driving public cloud service market.Recently it has been studied that cyber security threat is increasing and this is considered as the major restraint in public cloud service market. Apart from cyber security internet downtime and limited control of infrastructure are also some of the restraining factor in public cloud service market. Government organizations from many countries are recently taking interest in complete integration with cloud technologies.Public Cloud Service Market is growing rapidly over 4% of CAGR and is expected to reach at USD 249 billion by the end of forecast period.Request a Sample Copy of Report @Competitive Analysis-Major Key Players in Cloud Service Market are:The prominent players in the Cloud Service Market are Google (U.S.), Amazon.com, Inc. (U.S.), Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), International Business Machines Corporation (U.S.), Hewlett-Packard (U.S.), Salesforce.com (U.S.), Oracle Corporation (U.S.), VMware, Inc.(U.S.) , Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.), Verizon Wireless (U.S.), and Rackspace Inc. (U.S.) among others.Public Cloud Service Market SegmentationPublic Cloud Service Market has been segmented on the basis of delivery model, vertical and end user. Looking through the delivery model it has been observed that software as a service (SaaS) has shown a substantial increase in Public Cloud Service sector. Considering the vertical of public cloud service the IT sector is the leading in Public Cloud Service market. Industries such as telecommunication, banking and insurance are showing a positive growth towards Public Cloud Service. The study reveals that Public Cloud Service Market is more at an enterprise level but the market trend shows that there would be an increase in small and medium businesses by the forecast period.Access Report Details @Market Research Analysis:Market Research Future Analysis shows that there are many small organizations which are lagging as they are still figuring out ways to adopt the public cloud services into their IT strategy. But there is an expectation of sudden hike in public cloud service market in small and medium business over the forecast period. It has been observed that many companies are investing in innovation so as to adopt the trending cloud service. The major benefits of public cloud service are pay-as-per usage, flexibility, location independence and others. These factors would definitely increase the public cloud service market very soon.On geographic basis, Public cloud service market is studied in different regions as Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of world. It has been observed that North America region is leading in the public cloud service market. Many companies like IBM, Microsoft, Google and others headquartered in United States are the major contributors to the public cloud service. United States is the leading country in the public cloud service market. Study shows that Asia-pacific countries like Japan, South Korea, China and other would show a positive growth in the public cloud service market.Access the market data and market information presented through more than 25 market data tables and 25 figures spread over 110 numbers of pages of the project report Public Cloud Service Market - Forecast 2022LIST OF TABLESTABLE 1 PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICE MARKET, BY DELIVERY MODELTABLE 2 PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICE MARKET, BY VERTICALTABLE 3 PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICE MARKET, BY END-USERTABLE 4 PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICE MARKET, BY REGIONSTABLE 5 NORTH AMERICA PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICE MARKET, BY DELIVERY MODELContinued....Browse Related Report:Global Access Control as a Service (ACaaS) Market Analysis- by Application (Network Access Control, Data Access Control), by Components (Biometric, Smart Card Access, Identity Management Solution), by Types (Discretionary, Non-discretionary) - Forecast 2022About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.ContactAkash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Western Europe Fuel Cards Market Size & Forecasts to 2021

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Key Findings- In the majority of fuel card markets in Western Europe over 50% of fleet vehicles do not have a fuel card in 2016, accounting for over 2.9 million vehicles. On average every CRT vehicle in Western Europe uses more than one fuel card. The total number of service stations in Austria increased by 0.7% in 2015. Over 23,000 new fuel cards will be issued between 2016 and 2021, totaling to 1,240,248 cards in the market.- Fleet card volumes in Ireland will decline by 0.1% between 2016 and 2021 to total 423m litres by the end of 2021. Esso is the largest fleet card operator in Luxembourg selling 24.6% of fleet volumes and Shell is the largest CRT card operator accounting for 22.3% of CRT volumes sold in 2015. The total number of service stations in the Netherlands rose by 3.2% in 2015.- The total number of service stations in Slovenia will grow by 6.1% between 2016 and 2021 totaling 583 service stations. Fleet card volumes in Switzerland will continue to grow rising 2.6% between 2016 and 2021 to total 794m litres by the end of 2021.Browse the report @Fuel Cards in Western European Markets 2016 is invaluable for issuers of fleet cards, fuel retailers, fleet leasing companies and other suppliers to the sector. Based on research with issuers and fuel retailers it provides commercial (B2B) fuel card volume (split by fleet and CRT), value and market share forecasts to 2021, key data on independent and oil company card issuers and an analysis of fuel card competition in Western Europe.SynopsisIn the majority of fuel card markets in Western Europe over 50% of fleet vehicles do not have a fuel card in 2016, accounting for over 2.9 million vehiclesRequest a sample @Reasons To Buy- Plan effective market entry strategies by uncovering current and future volumes and values of Western European fuel card markets.- Assess whether you should increase network acceptance of your card and identify potential new merchants by uncovering the position of competitors. Whether you are an issuer, a processor, a leasing company or a fuel retailer, make informed pitches to partners by understanding their business.- Enhance fuel sales at your service stations by identifying which fuel cards you should accept based on their market shares and network acceptance.Table of Contents:Market OverviewMarket SizeMarket ForecastChannel SharesMajor Competitors Market SharesPurchase the report @About Us: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.4144N Central Expressway, Suite 600
Animal Feed Micronutrients Market to increase steadily by 2016-2024

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Global Animal Feed Micronutrients Market: OverviewAnimal feed micronutrients are vital animal feed supplements used extensively for enhancing the quality of feed to boost the yield and overall animal health. Animal feed micronutrients demand is increasing as it propels the performance and has wide applications such as cure and prevention of diseases, growth promoter, for enhancing feed digestibility in animals, and for boosting reproduction rate. Owing to the rising urbanization and globalization, there has been a huge change in lifestyles of the consumers. To fulfill the daily requirement of nutrients in order to maintain their brisk lifestyle, the consumers have significantly increased the nutrient consumption. This has generated a huge demand for dairy and meat products globally, leading to a rise in the requirement for micronutrients in the animal feed.Request Free Sample Report @Global Animal Feed Micronutrients Market: Growth FactorsThe major factors propelling the growth of the global animal feed micronutrients market include the expanding middle-class population and increasing per capita income. Other factors propelling the global market growth include high spending on animal health and wellness and increasing awareness regarding protein-rich food benefits.Global Animal Feed Micronutrients Market: SegmentationThe global animal feed micronutrients market can be segmented based on type, livestock, and geography. The type segment of the global market is sub-segmented into iron, zinc, copper, and manganese. The livestock segment of the animal feed micronutrients market is divided into poultry, ruminant, swine, equine, and aqua. Regionally, the global animal feed micronutrients market is diversified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.Request Report TOC (Table of Contents) @Global Animal Feed Micronutrients Market: Regional AnalysisAsia Pacific is expected to grow at a fast pace in the animal feed micronutrients market in the near future. The growth of the market can be attributed to factors such as huge population base, increased economic growth, and increasing demand for meat protein. North America is anticipated to witness above average growth in the coming period owing to the increasing demand for meat. Latin America is assumed to grow remarkably in the animal feed micronutrients market due to rising demand for protein-rich food along with the rise in population. The European industry is expected to grow positively owing to the improving meat costs and increasing concerns related to food safety. North America is also assumed to grow at a substantial rate in the animal feed micronutrients market in the coming period.Global Animal Feed Micronutrients Market: Competitive PlayersThe prominent players in the global animal feed micronutrients market include Cargill Inc., Lallemand Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Company, Alltech Inc., and Balchem Corp. The other key players in the global market are Novus International Inc., Kemin Industries Inc., Nutreco N.V., Zinpro Corporation, and Qualitech Inc.Browse detail report @Global Animal Feed Micronutrients Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaWhat Report ProvidesFull in-depth analysis of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsSegmentation details of the marketFormer, on-going, and projected market analysis in terms of volume and valueAssessment of niche industry developmentsMarket share analysisKey strategies of major playersEmerging segments and regional marketsTestimonials to companies in order to fortify their foothold in the market.Ask for a customized report @About Us:Zion 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:
Global Trospium Chloride Market Forecasts (2017-2022) with Industry Chain Structure, Competitive Landscape, New Projects and Investment Analysis

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Worldwide Trospium Chloride Market report of 2017 provides a detailed market overview as well as industry analysis for / of companies, manufacturers and distributors covering data on gross margin, cost structure, consumption value, sale price and more.The 'Global and Chinese Trospium Chloride Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Trospium Chloride market with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Trospium Chloride manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry. Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2012-2017 market shares for each company.Request a sample copy @Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of Trospium Chloride Market including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export. The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis. The report then estimates 2017-2022 market development trends of Trospium Chloride Market. Analysis of upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics is also carried out. In the end, the report makes some important proposals for a new project of Trospium Chloride Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2012-2022 global and Chinese Trospium Chloride Market covering all important parameters.Browse full table of contents and data tables @Major Points Covers in Table of ContentsChapter One Introduction of Trospium Chloride Industry1.1 Brief Introduction of Trospium Chloride Market1.2 Development of Trospium Chloride Market1.3 Status of Trospium Chloride MarketChapter Two Manufacturing Technology of Trospium Chloride Market2.1 Development of Trospium Chloride Manufacturing Technology2.2 Analysis of Trospium Chloride Manufacturing Technology2.3 Trends of Trospium Chloride Manufacturing TechnologyChapter Three Analysis of Global Trospium Chloride Market Key Manufacturers3.13.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Product Information3.1.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.1.4 Contact InformationChapter Four 2012-2017 Global and Chinese Market of Trospium Chloride4.1 2012-2017 Global Capacity, Production and Production Value of Trospium Chloride Industry4.2 2012-2017 Global Cost and Profit of Trospium Chloride Market4.3 Market Comparison of Global and Chinese Trospium Chloride Industry4.4 2012-2017 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Trospium Chloride4.5 2012-2017 Chinese Import and Export of Trospium Chloride MarketChapter Five Market Status of Trospium Chloride Market5.1 Market Competition of Trospium Chloride Market by Company5.2 Market Competition of Trospium Chloride Industry by Country (USA, EU, Japan, Chinese etc.)5.3 Market Analysis of Trospium Chloride Consumption by Application/TypeChapter Six 2017-2022 Market Forecast of Global and Chinese Trospium Chloride MarketChapter Seven Analysis of Trospium Chloride Industry ChainChapter Eight Global and Chinese Economic Impact on Trospium Chloride MarketChapter Nine Market Dynamics of Trospium Chloride IndustryChapter Ten Proposals for New Project of Trospium Chloride MarketChapter Eleven Research Conclusions of Global and Chinese Trospium Chloride MarketEnquiry before buying Global and Chinese Trospium Chloride Industry, 2017 Market Research Report @Related Reports: -2017-2022 Global Top Countries Plethysmograph Market Report:This report studies Plethysmograph in Global market, especially in United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, China, Japan, India, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, Brazil, Middle East and Africa,focuses on the top Manufacturers in each country, covering - BD (CareFusion), GANSHORN, Cosmed, MECFor Read more to @Centralize Market Research Purchases Across Your Entire Organization In One Place Marketsizeforecasters.Com Allows You To Manage And Control All Corporate Research Purchases To Consolidate Billing And Vendor Management. You Can Eliminate Duplicate Purchases And Customize Your Content And License Management.Market Size ForecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: Sales@Marketsizeforecasters.ComWebsite:Connect With Us: Linkedin | Twitter
Global Antiemetics Market 2017 - Amgen, AstraZeneca, Baxter, Britannia, Capricor

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The report begins with a broad introduction of the Antiemetics market and then drills deeper into specific segments such as application, regional markets, end-users, policy analysis, value chain structure, and emerging trends. The Antiemetics market report makes a case for investments in particular regions based on a realistic view of their regulatory environment, manufacturing dynamics and availability of skills and resources. Also, recommendations are made based on regions and market segments that are not poised for appreciable growth in the near future.Download sample report @The Antiemetics market and its dynamics are evaluated using industry leading tools and techniques. A qualitative analysis forms a sizeable portion of the research efforts as well. With emerging changes on the horizon, the Antiemetics market is poised for certain important change. It is imperative that market players gear up for these changes. The report helps companiesboth new and establishedto identify white spaces and opportunities for growth in the Antiemetics market.The leading companies in the Antiemetics market are profiled to offer a complete overview of their growth strategies, financial standing, product and services pipeline, as well as recent collaborations and developments.The reports analysis is based on technical data and industry figures sourced from the most reputable databases. Other aspects that will prove especially beneficial to readers of the report are: investment feasibility analysis, recommendations for growth, investment return analysis, trends analysis, opportunity analysis, and SWOT analyses of competing companies. With the help of inputs and insights from technical and marketing experts, the report presents an objective assessment of the Antiemetics market.Access full report with TOC @A detailed segmentation evaluation of the Antiemetics market has been provided in the report. Detailed information about the key segments of the market and their growth prospects are available in the report. The detailed analysis of their sub-segments is also available in the report. The revenue forecasts and volume shares along with market estimates are available in the report. The competitive landscape of the market presented in the study profiles the most prominent players in the market.Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Graphene Battery Market share forecast to grow at 20% CAGR from 2016 to 2024

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The technology report Graphene Battery Market Size By Technology (Lithium Ion, Lithium Sulfur, Supercapacitors, Lead Acid), By Application (Automotive, Electronics, Aerospace & Defense, Industrial Robotics, Healthcare), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Norway, France, Spain, UK, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil Argentina), Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2024, by Global Market Insights, Inc. says Graphene Battery Market size will exceed USD 97 million by 2023; driven by increasing demand of electric vehicles.Increasing electric vehicle demand and portable electronic device penetration trends will drive the global graphene battery market size. Graphene has higher heat resistance with improved recharging efficiency when compared with conventional material including lithium ion making them a safer option for electric vehicles.Request for a sample of this research report @Strict regulatory trends over carbon footprint and emission norms have had a positive impact. In 2008, the U.S. EPA introduced the National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants to regulate the battery manufacturing process. NESHAP section 112(c)(3) lists battery manufacturing area to be regulation pursuant as it involves use of lead and cadmium.Lithium ion graphene battery market size was valued over USD 9 million for 2015. Mobile phones, laptops and tablet phones are notable adoption areas contributing to segment growth. In 2015, over 60% of adult population in the U.S. had at least one portable electronic device compared to over 30% in 2011.Graphene battery market share from supercapacitors is set to witness growth over 25% between 2016 to 2024. Superior charging abilities and greater shelf life are some of the features which may positively impact the industry landscape. Growing supercapacitor demand from mobile phone applications owing to its high operating life may favor the business growth.Europe witnessed substantial increase in the sales of electric vehicles over the past four years. In 2015, more than 150,000 electric vehicles were sold in Europe, up from 70,000 electric vehicles in 2014. Norway registered a record sale of more than 34,000 electric cars in 2016, and is predicted to witness sales of more than 60,000 electric cars in 2017, favorably impacting the graphene battery market.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Graphene battery market share from healthcare applications is anticipated to surpass USD 25 million by 2024 subject to growing portable medical devices demand. Increasing emphasis on portable medical devices in developed economies will favorably impact the business growth.U.S. graphene battery market size was valued at over USD 3 million in 2015 and is likely to register a strong growth subject to availability of high quality product at affordable prices. Adoption of electric vehicles in the U.S. increased from over 5000 in 2011 to over 70,000 in 2015 owing to increasing government subsidies and growing customer awareness.For Europe, UK is predicted to witness a robust growth of over 20% by 2024. The Government enacted the EU Battery Directive in 2008, introducing strict regulations on the use of batteries with bio-hazardous content, propelling the industry landscape.China graphene battery market size is predicted to surpass USD 10 million by 2024. The region is likely to experience significant increase in manufacturing capacity upwards of 2,000 tons of graphene annually from 2016.Browse key industry insights spread across 145 pages with 123 market data tables & 11 figures & charts from this 2017 report Graphene Battery Market in detail along with the table of contents, please click on the link below:About Global Market InsightsGlobal 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 HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.com
Global Hospital Capacity Management Solutions Market is expected to grow at CAGR of 5.12% by 2023- Research Nester

http://www.researchnester.com/reports/hospital-capacity-management-market-global-demand-analysis-opportunity-outlook-2023/168

Technological advancements in healthcare IT across the globe are changing the working environment of hospitals and medical facilities in order to provide effective and time savings cure to the patients. Rise in numbers of patients and diseases across the globe are a major burden on the healthcare sectors. In order to overcome and minimize the burden, hospitals are adopting hospital capacity management solutions. Hospital capacity management solutions enable effective and time saving care of patients and minimize the length of patients stay in hospital. Hospital capacity management solutions are beneficial for the better monitoring of patients as well as for the hospitals to generate more revenue and to enhance the services. Several hospital capacity management solutions are installed with tracking and monitoring technologies which benefit the caregivers and nurses by tracking the location of patient and medical equipment such as stretchers, wheelchairs, etc.Market size and forecastThe global hospital capacity management solutions market is expected to expand significantly at a CAGR of 5.12 % over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023; market of hospital capacity management solutions has accounted USD 804 Million in 2015.Apart from this, the workflow management solution market is expected to register a CAGR of 5.12% over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023 owing to rising concern towards time management to provide time saving services and management of caregivers.North-America accounted for the largest market share in 2015 of hospital capacity management solutions market globally. The market of North America region is expected to continue its dominance by witnessing the highest growth over the forecast period i.e. on account of rising hospitals and in-patients in the region. Following the same trend, Asia-Pacific is expected to be the second largest revenue contributor across the globe in the market of hospital capacity management solutions. Rising healthcare sectors owing to increase in health expenditure and positive GDP growth in emerging nations present in the regions are expected to spur the demand for hospital capacity management solutions. Moreover, rising number of multi-specialty hospitals and Healthcare IT across the globe in order to provide better cure and numerous services are likely to equip the latest technology management solutions. Growing trends in market comprises adoption of integrated solutions and services in hospitals, management of patient flow in hospitals are some of the major key factors which pave the market of hospital capacity management solutions in near future.Growth Drivers and challengesRise in number of in-patients for long term cure in hospitals and necessity to provide better and time savings healthcare services to the patients so that patients can be discharges earlier, hospital capacity management solutions are growing in prominence to ensure timely care. Technological advancements in healthcare IT across the globe reached utmost heights of technology in order to provide time savings effective cure to the patients. Growing needs of integrated healthcare services and solutions are likely to foster the demand for hospital capacity management solutions over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023. Further, availability of miscellaneous user friendly solutions for the management of hospital and patient cure is expected to drive the growth of hospital capacity management solutions market across the globe. Apart from this, optimizations of resources in hospitals with the aim to provide cost effective services and generate more revenue and rising research and development activities in healthcare IT are some of the major factors which are expected to bolster the demand for hospital capacity management solutions in near future.However, the strict guidelines for installation and operation of hospital capacity management solutions are likely to curb the demand for capacity management solutions in hospital.Moreover, high cost of installation and equipment, dearth of skilled healthcare professionals in developing and under developed countries are some of the factors which are expected to restrain the market growth for hospital capacity management solutions globally.To know more about this research, kindly visit: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.For Table of Content & Free Sample Report Contact:Ajay DanielEmail: ajay.daniel@researchnester.comU.S. +1 646 586 9123U.K. +44 203 608 59191820 Avenue M, Suite# 1113,Brooklyn, New York 11230
Pneumatic Nailer Global Market 2017 by Manufacturers - Actuant Corporation, AIMCO Corporation, Atlas Copco AB, Bosch GmbH

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Global Pneumatic Nailer Market 2017, presents a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Pneumatic Nailer market globally, providing basic overview of Pneumatic Nailer market including Definitions, Classifications, Applications and Industry chain structure, Pneumatic Nailer Market report provides development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. Pneumatic Nailer market size, share and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Download Free Sample Report @Global market research report of Pneumatic Nailer 2017 mainly focuses on Production, means the output of Pneumatic Nailer and Revenue, means the sales value of Pneumatic Nailer in market. Pneumatic Nailer market research report studies Pneumatic Nailer in Global market, Pneumatic Nailer market report gives detail analysis of regions especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Global Pneumatic Nailer market report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with their Business perspective which consist of Pneumatic Nailer Capacity, Production, Price, Revenue and Pneumatic Nailer market share for each manufacturer.Pneumatic Nailer Market Research Report 2017 Covers the following Manufacturers.Actuant CorporationAIMCO CorporationAlltrade Tools LLCApex Tool Group LLCAtlas Copco ABBosch GmbHChervon Holdings LimitedAtlasDanaher CorporationDaniels Manufacturing CorporationDEPRAG-Schulz GmbH and CompanyGlobal Pneumatic Nailer Market segment by Regions, Pneumatic Nailer market report splits Global into several key Regions, with Pneumatic Nailer production, Pneumatic Nailer consumption, Pneumatic Nailer revenue, Pneumatic Nailer market share and growth rate of Pneumatic Nailer in these regions, from 2011 to 2021. Pneumatic Nailer Market report split by Product type and Application, with Pneumatic Nailer Production, Revenue, Price, market Share and Growth rate of each type, according to Application Pneumatic Nailer Market report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Pneumatic Nailer in each application.Access Full Report @Pneumatic Nailer Market Research Report Split by Type,Type IType IIPneumatic Nailer Market Research Report Split by ApplicationApplication 1Application 2Table of ContentsGlobal Pneumatic Nailer Market Research Report 20171 Pneumatic Nailer Market Overview2 Global Pneumatic Nailer Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Pneumatic Nailer Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)4 Global Pneumatic Nailer Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2012-2017)5 Global Pneumatic Nailer Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6 Global Pneumatic Nailer Market Analysis by Application7 Global Pneumatic Nailer Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis8 Pneumatic Nailer Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Pneumatic Nailer Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and Conclusion14 Appendix14.1 Methodology14.2 Analyst Introduction14.3 Data SourceFior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Mark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:
United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Finance Cloud Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021

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This report studies the global Finance Cloud market, analyzes and researches the Finance Cloud development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeOracle Corporation (California, U.S.)Google, Inc. (California, U.S.)International Business Machines (California, U.S.)Amazon Web Services Inc. (Washington, U.S.)SAP SE Inc. (Walldorf, Germany)Computer Sciences Corporation (Virginia, U.S)Microsoft Corporation (Washington, U.S.)Salesforce.com (California, U.S.)Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd (Guangdong, China)Capgemini (Paris, France).ZDNetTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Finance Cloud can be split intoFinancial ForecastingFinancial Reporting and AnasysisFinancial SecurityOthersMarket segment by Application, Finance Cloud can be split intoRevenue ManagementWealth Management SystemAccount ManagementCustomer ManagementOthersBrowse full table of contents and data tables of Report @Table of ContentsUnited States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Finance Cloud Market Size, Status and Forecast 20211 Industry Overview of Finance Cloud1.1 Finance Cloud Market Overview1.1.1 Finance Cloud Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Finance Cloud Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Finance Cloud Market by Type1.3.1 Financial Forecasting1.3.2 Financial Reporting and Anasysis1.3.3 Financial Security1.3.4 Others1.4 Finance Cloud Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Revenue Management1.4.2 Wealth Management System1.4.3 Account Management1.4.4 Customer Management1.4.5 Others2 Global Finance Cloud Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Finance Cloud Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Oracle Corporation (California, U.S.)3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Finance Cloud Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.1.5 Recent Developments4 Global Finance Cloud Market Size by Type and Application (2011-2016)4.1 Global Finance Cloud Market Size by Type (2011-2016)4.2 Global Finance Cloud Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.3 Potential Application of Finance Cloud in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Finance Cloud5 United States Finance Cloud Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Finance Cloud Market Size (2011-2016)5.2 United States Finance Cloud Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)6 EU Finance Cloud Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Finance Cloud Market Size (2011-2016)6.2 EU Finance Cloud Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)QYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchReportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.comFollow us on Linkedin @
Global Walnuts Market  Share, Size, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017-2025

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IndexBox has just published a new report "World: Walnuts - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2025" (This report provides an in-depth analysis of the global walnut market. Within it, you will find the latest data on market trends and opportunities by country, consumption and production, food balance and price developments, as well as global trade (imports and exports). The forecast reveals market prospects to 2025.Countries coverage: WorldwideProduct coverage:Brazil Nuts, with shellCashew Nuts, with shellChestnutAlmonds, with shellwalnut, with shellPistachiosHazelnuts, with shellNutsData coverage: Walnut market size and value; Per Capita consumption; Forecast of the market dynamics in the medium term; Global walnut production, split by region and country; Global walnut trade (exports and imports); Producer, export and import prices for walnut; Walnut market trends, drivers and restraints; Key market players and their profiles.Reasons to buy this report: Take advantage of the latest data; Find deeper insights into current market developments; Discover vital success factors affecting the market.TABLE OF CONTENTS1. INTRODUCTION1.1 REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 KEY FINDINGS2.2 MARKET TRENDS3. MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 MARKET VOLUME AND VALUE3.2 CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY3.3 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES BY COUNTRY3.4 MARKET FORECAST TO 20254. PRODUCTION4.1 PRODUCTION, HARVESTED AREA AND YIELD IN 2007-20154.2 PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY4.3 HARVESTED AREA AND YIELD BY COUNTRY5. IMPORTS5.1 IMPORTS IN 2007-20155.2 IMPORTS BY COUNTRY5.3 IMPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY6. EXPORTS6.1 EXPORTS IN 2007-20156.2 EXPORTS BY COUNTRY6.3 EXPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY7. PRICES AND PRICE DEVELOPMENT7.1 PRODUCER PRICES7.2 PRODUCER PRICES INDEX8. PROFILES OF MAJOR PRODUCERSDownload a free sample of the report now!You can also find a template on SlideShareYou can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.We collect this data from hundreds of highly reliable sources, verify it and carry out market analysis, uncovering new business opportunities and empowering you with actionable insights.The structure of our reports is intuitive and clear. We do our best to allow you to make strategic decisions and take immediate action. If you want to go further and be a step ahead of the market, just tell us your goals and we will tailor a report to your needs.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, 44 Main Street, Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, ML11 0QWWebsite:
United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021

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United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System Industry 2016 Market Overview, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Technology, Applications, Growth, Market Status, Demands, Insights, Development, Research and Forecast 2016-2020.A new research report on the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System market offers a 360-degree overview of it. The report discusses the market in significant details and elucidates all aspects of the gloal Anti-collision Sensor System market likely to impact its growth trajectory in the upcoming years. Major market stimulants and deterrents have also been examined in great detail, with quantitative and qualitative description of their expected impact on the market in the forecast period. This would enable big and small players operating in the market to understand the dynamics and maneuver their moves accordingly.To Get Free Sample Copy of Report visit @The different segments of the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System market have been carefully discussed at length. The product segments, application segments, and end user segments have been detailed in the report, leveraging historical and current figures. The report gauges the growth figures for each of the segments to understand the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System markets growth prospects. This helps to offer a granular overview of the Anti-collision Sensor System market and areas in which it stands to gain and lose.A detailed analysis of the competitive landscape of the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System market has also been furnished in the report. Chief competitors in the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System market have been profiled and data about their business and financial activities has been presented. The report also throws light on their strengths and weaknesses. This report has been carefully crafted with data arrived at from primary and secondary research methodologies.The reports primary objective is to help the players operating in the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System market to gain an insight into the current market dynamics, including opportunities and threats so as to be able to strategize sagaciously. To do, it implements market-leading analytical tools to gauge the current competitive landscape.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsUnited States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Anti-collision Sensor System Market Size, Status and Forecast 20211 Industry Overview of Anti-collision Sensor System1.1 Anti-collision Sensor System Market Overview1.1.1 Anti-collision Sensor System Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Anti-collision Sensor System Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Anti-collision Sensor System Market by Type1.3.1 Radar1.3.2 Cameras1.3.3 Ultrasound1.3.4 LiDAR1.4 Anti-collision Sensor System Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Application 11.4.2 Application 21.4.3 Application 32 Global Anti-collision Sensor System Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Anti-collision Sensor System Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in FutureFor Market Research Latest Reports Visit @About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021

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This report studies the global Mobile Augmented Reality Apps market, analyzes and researches the Mobile Augmented Reality Apps development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeAugmented PixelsAurasmaBlipparCatchoomDAQRIWikitudeTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Application, Mobile Augmented Reality Apps can be split intoApplication 1Application 2Application 3Browse full table of contents and data tables of Report @Table of ContentsUnited States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size, Status and Forecast 20211 Industry Overview of Mobile Augmented Reality Apps1.1 Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Overview1.1.1 Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 21.3.3 Application 32 Global Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Augmented Pixels3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Aurasma3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.2.5 Recent Developments4 Global Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.1 Global Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.2 Potential Application of Mobile Augmented Reality Apps in Future4.3 Top Consumer/End Users of Mobile Augmented Reality Apps5 United States Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size (2011-2016)5.2 United States Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)6 EU Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size (2011-2016)6.2 EU Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)7 Japan Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size (2011-2016)7.2 Japan Mobile Augmented Reality Apps Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)QYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchReportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.comFollow us on Linkedin @
Global Condensed Milk Market Research Report 2017

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http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-condensed-milk-market-research-report-2017.htm

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In this report, the global Condensed Milk market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Condensed Milk in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Condensed Milk market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingNestleMagnoliaGoyaBordenOatkaBelgorod Dairy ProductsPromkonservyEagle BrandGalloway CompanyMilk FactoryAR Dairy FoodKool FoodsZhejiang Panda DairyRuian Baihao DairyZhejiang Jinhua DairyWuxi BenniuWenzhou DairyGuangzhou Fengxing MilkOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoEvaporated MilkSweetened Condensed MilkOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Condensed Milk for each application, includingSupermarkets and HypermarketsOnline RetailersOthersBrowse full table of contents and data tables of Report @Table of ContentsGlobal Condensed Milk Market Research Report 20171 Condensed Milk Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Condensed Milk1.2 Condensed Milk Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Condensed Milk Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Condensed Milk Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Evaporated Milk1.2.4 Sweetened Condensed Milk1.3 Global Condensed Milk Segment by Application1.3.1 Condensed Milk Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Supermarkets and Hypermarkets1.3.3 Online Retailers1.3.4 Others1.4 Global Condensed Milk Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Condensed Milk Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Condensed Milk (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Condensed Milk Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Condensed Milk Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Condensed Milk Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Condensed Milk Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Condensed Milk Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Condensed Milk Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Condensed Milk Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Condensed Milk Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Condensed Milk Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Condensed Milk Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Condensed Milk Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Condensed Milk Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Condensed Milk Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Condensed Milk Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Condensed Milk Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India Condensed Milk Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)4 Global Condensed Milk Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Condensed Milk Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Condensed Milk Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Condensed Milk Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Condensed Milk Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Condensed Milk Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Condensed Milk Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Condensed Milk Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global Condensed Milk Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Condensed Milk Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global Condensed Milk Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global Condensed Milk Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global Condensed Milk Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)6 Global Condensed Milk Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Condensed Milk Consumption and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)6.2 Global Condensed Milk Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchReportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.comFollow us on Linkedin @
Explore Global Structural Biology Research at Spectacular Zurich

Structural Biology 2017

http://structuralbiology.conferenceseries.com

The global structural biology and molecular modeling research thrives due to the high prevalence of chronic diseases. The market is also gaining a strong foot all over the world, as the treatment of these diseases is becoming increasingly difficult due to the acquired drug resistance. With respect to this, research and development activities of structural biology and molecular modeling techniques are in full swing. Also the increasing focus on improving the quality of medicines and ensuring patient recovery and safety has expanded the demand for various structural biology and molecular modeling techniques. Demand for these techniques is expected to rise in the coming days.9th International Conference on Structural Biology, scheduled between September 18-20, 2017 at Zurich, Switzerland focuses on quite a few latest discoveries in the field. The conference has already gathered researchers, academicians and business professionals from every corner of the globe. This platform would show case 6 plenary sessions, special sessions on biomembranes and single molecule biophysics, 50+ talks, poster sessions and exhibitions/workshops by a few reputed companies.Featured speakers at the event includes: Henry M. Sobell, University of Rochester, USA; Tilman Schirmer, University of Basel, Switzerland; Shigeyuki Yokoyama, RIKEN, Japan; Dino Moras, IGBMC, France; Irena Roterman, Jagiellonian University, Poland; Igor L. Barsukov, University of Liverpool, UK; Tzu-Ching Meng, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Vesa P. Hytonen, University of Tampere, Finland; and many moreEveryone interested in structural biology, biophysics and biochemistry research is encouraged to attend the event at the beautiful city of snow-covered Alps; Zurich. For more details, please visit:ConferenceSeries and its subsidiaries including iMedPub LLC and Conference Series Ltd Organise 3000+ Conferences across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more scientific societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.Conference Series Ltd57 Ullswater Avenue, West End,Southampton, Hampshire,United Kingdom, SO18 3QS
The M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystem:2015 - 2020 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies, Industry Verticals and Forecasts

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " The M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystem:2015 - 2020 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies, Industry Verticals and Forecasts " to it's Large Report database.As consumer voice and data services revenues reach their saturation point, wireless carriers are keen to capitalize on other avenues to drive revenue growth. One such opportunity is providing network connectivity for M2M (Machine to Machine) devices like smart meters, connected cars, healthcare monitors and digital signage. Despite its low ARPU, M2M technology has helped carriers establish steady revenue streams across several verticals including utilities, healthcare, automotive, transportation, logistics, public safety, retail, and even consumer electronics.Another key opportunity is the monetization of Wearable Technology. Mobile device OEMs are aggressively investing in wearable devices, in order to offset declining margins in their traditional smartphone and tablet markets. As a result, the market has been flooded with a variety of smart bands, smart watches and other wearable devices capable of collecting, sending and processing data over mobile applications.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Eyeing opportunities to route huge volumes of traffic from these wearable devices, many wireless carriers are now seeking to fit wearable technology with their M2M offerings, targeting both consumer and vertical markets. SNS Research expects that M2M and wearable devices can help carriers pocket as much as $116 Billion in network connectivity revenue by the end of 2020, following a CAGR of over 40% between 2015 and 2020.This report package provides an in-depth assessment of M2M and wearable technology, including key market drivers, challenges, investment potential, consumer & vertical market opportunities, use cases, future roadmap, value chain, deployment case studies, ecosystem player profiles and strategic recommendations. The report also presents forecasts for wearable device shipments, M2M module shipments, M2M connections, and associated submarkets from 2014 through to 2020. The forecasts are further segmented into vertical, regional, technology and country submarkets.The report package comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the two reports.Read All ICT Market Research Reports @Topics Covered:The report package covers the following topics:M2M and wearable technology ecosystemMarket drivers and challengesFuture industry roadmap and value chain assessmentEnabling technologies and architectureStandardization and regulatory initiativesKey trends in the M2M and wearable technology ecosystemIndustry, wireless carrier and vendor commitments to M2M and wearable technologyAssessment of vertical market opportunities and use cases for consumer, healthcare, automotive, utilities, transportation, retail, hospitality, military, public safety and other verticalsM2M and wearable technology deployment case studiesProfiles and strategic assessment of over 450 ecosystem playersStrategic recommendations for enabling technology providers, wearable/M2M device OEMs, vertical market players, platform providers, application developers and wireless carriersGlobal and regional market analysis and forecastsKey Questions Answered:The report package provides answers to the following key questions:How big is the M2M and wearable technology ecosystem?How is the ecosystem evolving by segment and region?What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?What are the key applications of M2M and wearable technology across industry verticals?Which geographical regions, countries and industry verticals offer the greatest growth potential for M2M and wearable technology?How is the M2M and wearable technology value chain structured, how will it evolve overtime, and what will be its impact on key vertical segments of the market?About 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. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany 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:
tts to announce enhanced performance support functionality at the Learning Solutions 2017 Conference & Expo in Orlando March 22  24

www.tt-s.com/en/

www.tt-s.com

Winner of Brandon Halls Gold & Silver awards for EPSS, extends its leadership position with new enhancements allowing companies to extend performance support to any existing digital asset.tt performance suite - Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS), currently drives workplace performance for over 4.5 million corporate learners around the world.During Learning Solutions 2017, tts will demonstrate the power and potential of its award-winning solution in Booth 507. tts will introduce the latest enhancements to the tt performance suite highlighted by the new ability to include any digital asset as part of an EPSS solutions. With this advanced functionality we can extend learning assets beyond our industry-leading e-learning or step guides and extend this to any digital asset, including wikis, SharePoint or other external sources. This game-changing technology will revolutionize the way companies can turn knowledge into workplace performance.In addition to in-booth demonstrations, tts will also present a live session as part of the Tools and Technology Stream on March 23 from 12:00-12:45. Titled How to support formal learning and performance at the workplace with a single solution, tts will specifically address the challenges faced by learning professionals when forced to deploy multiple tools to meet the formal and informal learning requirements of their organizations. tts will also discuss the trend toward consolidation of content development, management and delivery systems into a single, easy-to-use global solution in order to address a wide range of learning and performance support needs.Companies coping with large IT implementations, shortening release cycles, high compliance environments or distributed workforces look to tt performance suite. It`s market-leading capabilities, including authoring of web-based training and documentation combined with highly contextual performance support is now extended with the ability to easily deliver legacy content in a single solution. With these new enhancements, any content, delivered to any user, with any context is no longer just an idea.Though manifold, the benefits of tt performance suite can be simply described: Improved efficiency and user adoption at a lower cost!tts is a leading provider of innovative learning technologies and digital learning content. Its core product, tt performance suite, allows organizations to transform knowledge into workplace performance, and is used by well over 4.5 million users worldwide. The tts portfolio is complemented by consulting and content production services. The company operates successfully throughout Europe and North America. Find out more atPatrick DunlapSVP, Business DevelopmentM +1 202 255 4885Patrick.Dunlap@tt-s.comtts North America405 Lexington Avenue,New York, NY 10174
Automotive Gas Cylinder Materials Market to Register a Stout Growth by 2026

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The deployment of cylinders made from composite materials is expected to increase over the forecast period as it reduces weight of the vehicle, leading to increased fuel efficiency. Type IV composite cylinders are expected to emerge as most attractive cylinder type owing to properties such as light weight, corrosion resistance, easy portability and high durability.Request for Sample Copy@The alloying elements such as manganese, silicon, chromium, nickel, molybdenum and vanadium are also added in steel based cylinders in minute amount for integrating various physical characteristics in the material. Growing demand for CNG and alternatively fueled vehicles is expected to create significant demand for automotive gas cylinder materials over the forecast period.Governments across the world are highly focused to reduce emission of greenhouse gases. CNG vehicles emit less greenhouse gases as compared to vehicles that are fueled with other fossil fuels. With increasing demand for CNG vehicles, demand for CNG cylinders is also expected to increase, creating proportionate demand for materials used in cylinder manufacturing.Factors such as higher initial cost of vehicles that run of CNG is expected to restrain the global automotive gas cylinder materials market over the forecast period. Additionally, hydrogen run vehicles are still in development phase. Growth in R&D activities is expected to develop hydrogen as a viable fuel over the coming years, further creating significant growth opportunities for automotive gas cylinder materials market.Global automotive gas cylinder materials market is segmented on the basis of product type and region. On the basis of product type, the global automotive gas cylinder materials market is segmented into steel, aluminum, HDPE, carbon fibre, glass fibre, aramid fibre and others. Owing to their light weight and enhanced physical and chemical characteristics, composite materials are expected to gain traction by the end of 2026.Request for Table of Content@The global automotive gas cylinder materials market is segmented into seven key regions, including North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) and Japan. With large fleet size of vehicles running on CNG, Asia Pacific and North America are expected to represent significant shares in the global automotive gas cylinder materials market by end of 2016.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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Pharmaceutical Solvents Market to Witness Comprehensive Growth by 2024

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The pharmaceutical companies use several chemicals in different combinations and proportions. All the desired chemical compositions may not always form sought after chemical bonds with each other. Therefore, in order to extract perfectly blended mixtures, solvents are used. Solvents are chemical substances which can dissolve, segregate, suspend or extract other chemicals. Depending upon the particular reaction requirement, a solvent can be used in either of the solid, liquid or gas form. Pharmaceutical solvent may act as a catalyst or as a reaction medium for obtaining the desired composition drugs. Apart from being used as a chemical reactant, solvents are also used as disinfectants and rinsing fluids in the pharmaceutical industry. Many pharmaceutical solvents cannot be removed completely from the final drugs. It is, however, desired that a pharmaceutical solvent should not change properties of either of the chemicals involved in the reaction. High growth in the global pharmaceutical industry, driven by innovation in drug manufacturing process, is expected to create significant demand growth opportunity for pharmaceutical solvents over the forecast period of 2016-2024.A sample of this report is available upon request @The pharmaceutical solvents market, in general, rely on demands from pharmaceutical industry and the quantity of drugs to be produced. Research and development activities and government drug regulatory authorities also affect the overall demand of particular solvents in a particular region. It is observed that organic solvents are gaining traction globally due to non-toxic nature as compared to their inorganic counterpart.Adoption of new methods and manufacturing technologies in pharmaceutical industries is considered as one of the main driving factors of global pharmaceutical solvents market. Also, on political scale, increasing budgets and expenditure for medical and health sectors by various governments is also expected to contribute high demand for solvents in across various pharmaceutical manufacturing firms globally.Whereas, environmental concerns related to toxicity and volatility of some hazardous solvents put the global pharmaceutical solvents market under scrutiny. Some solvents are found hard to condense or precipitate, moreover, they might also form flammable environment in the laboratory or blending area. Various governments or drugs directorates have either banned or limited the use of such solvents which are found either toxic or carcinogenic. For example, carbon tetrachloride is advised to be banned as it is toxic and hazardous for the environment. Whereas, solvents such as chloroform and cumene are advised for their limited use, i.e. 60 and 70 concentrations (ppm) respectively.Developments such as research activities to manufacture new solvents which are easy to prepare and have very rare negative effects on drug conditioning and workers health are expected to create significant growth opportunity over the coming years.Global pharmaceutical solvents market is segmented on the basis of chemical group to which they belong and region. On the basis of chemical group, the market is segmented into esters, ethers, amines, alcohols, aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, ketones and others. Each of the mentioned category contains several solvents widely used in pharmaceutical manufacturing industries.Depending on geographic regions, the global pharmaceutical solvents market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Due to developed pharmaceutical industries in the region, North America and Western Europe are expected to hold significant market shares by 2016 end, while APEJ is expected to emerge as one of fastest growing region in the global pharmaceutical solvents market.Request to view Table of content @Some of the key players reported in this study of global pharmaceutical solvents market include BASF SE, Bayer Group, Akzonobel N.V., The Dow Chemical Company, LyondellBasell Industries Holdings B.V., E.I. duPont de Nemours and Company, Mitsui Chemicals, Braskem SA, PPG Industries, Eastman Chemical Company, etc.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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Organic Fertilizer Market to Witness Growth Acceleration During, 2016-2026

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With increase in demand for green products and pollution free agricultural products, the term 'organic' has become an irresistible trend of modern agriculture and is creating a buzz in the global fertilizers market. Rapid development of organic agriculture coupled with augmenting demand for organic food is expected to increase the demand for organic fertilizers.A sample of this report is available upon request @Organic fertilizers are derived or made from human waste, animal waste or vegetable matter (usually rotten or non-consumable by humans). Naturally-occurring organic fertilizers consist of animal matter from meat processing industries, peat, slurries, manures and guano. As organic fertilizers are extracted from naturally-occurring substances, the risk of environmental damage is low. Use of organic fertilizers also reduces the risk of diseases in humans, as many fertilizers find their way to human food. Prominent organic fertilizers available in the market include blood meal, bone meal, composites, earthworm castings, bat guano, fish emulsion, alfalfa meal, feather meal and rock phosphate. Selection of organic fertilizers is usually done after determining the nutrients required from the crop.The global market for organic fertilizer has witnessed steady growth in the recent past owing to government support and favorable perception among farmers and end-users. The efficiency of organic fertilizers is slow and long time. As compared to chemical fertilizers, the production of organic fertilizers has less investment and high benefits. This factor is expected to augment the global organic fertilizers market over the forecast period. Owing to the eco-friendly nature of organic fertilizers, governments in many countries have subsidised the prices, making it easier for farmers to use it.Government and environmental policies minimizing wastage and reduction in the consumption of non-biodegradable raw materials has led to an increased production of organic fertilizers. Regulations are also emphasizing more on human safety, so are supporting markets like organic fertilizers to reduce risk to human life and the environment.The organic fertilizers market is dependent upon the weather (rains/water supply) of that region or area; hence, weather conditions can hamper the growth of organic fertilizer market. Another concern with organic fertilizers is that a majority of them have lesser nutrient ratio than chemical fertilizers, which can massively impact farm produce.Request to view Table of content @The global organic fertilizer market can be segmented into seven geographical locations  North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan and Middle East and Africa. North America and Europe are expected to dominate the global organic fertilizers market throughout the forecast period. The market in North America and Europe is anticipated to grow robustly owing to conducive climatic conditions and the ample availability of land for farming. In the APAC region, strong government policies and rules are expected to contribute to the growth of organic fertilizer market. Owing to large agricultural land in India, the organic fertilizers market is anticipated to increase at a significant rate over the forecast period.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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global Herbal Medicine Market Professional Survey Report 2017

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This report studies Herbal Medicine in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2011 to 2015, and forecast to 2021.Request For Report Sample @This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringTsumuraSchwabeMadausWeledaBlackmoresArkopharmaSIDO MUNCULArizona NaturalDaburHerbal AfricaNatures AnswerBio-BotanicaPottersZandNature HerbsImperial GinsengYunnan BaiyaoTongrentangTASLYZhongxinKunming PharmaSanjiuJZJTGuangzhou PharmaTaijiHaiyaoBy types, the market can be split intoMedicine FunctionMedicinal partActive IngredientBy Application, the market can be split intoWestern HerbalismTraditional Chinese MedicineOthersBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaVisit For full Report & TOC @Table of ContentsGlobal Herbal Medicine Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Herbal Medicine1.1 Definition and Specifications of Herbal Medicine1.1.1 Definition of Herbal Medicine1.1.2 Specifications of Herbal Medicine1.2 Classification of Herbal Medicine1.2.1 Medicine Function1.2.2 Medicinal part1.2.3 Active Ingredient1.3 Applications of Herbal Medicine1.3.1 Western Herbalism1.3.2 Traditional Chinese Medicine1.3.3 Others1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Herbal Medicine2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Herbal Medicine2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Herbal Medicine2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Herbal Medicine3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Herbal Medicine3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Herbal Medicine Major Manufacturers in 20153.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Herbal Medicine Major Manufacturers in 20153.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Herbal Medicine Major Manufacturers in 20153.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Herbal Medicine Major Manufacturers in 20154 Global Herbal Medicine Overall Market Overview4.1 2011-2016 Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2011-2016 Global Herbal Medicine Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2015 Herbal Medicine Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2011-2016 Global Herbal Medicine Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2015 Herbal Medicine Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2011-2016 Global Herbal Medicine Sales Price4.4.2 2015 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Herbal Medicine Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Herbal Medicine Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Herbal Medicine Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2015 Herbal Medicine Market Share Analysis5.2 China Herbal Medicine Market Analysis5.2.1 China Herbal Medicine Market Overview5.2.2 China 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2015 Herbal Medicine Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Herbal Medicine Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Herbal Medicine Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2015 Herbal Medicine Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia Herbal Medicine Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia Herbal Medicine Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2015 Herbal Medicine Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan Herbal Medicine Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan Herbal Medicine Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2015 Herbal Medicine Market Share Analysis5.6 India Herbal Medicine Market Analysis5.6.1 India Herbal Medicine Market Overview5.6.2 India 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2011-2016 Herbal Medicine Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2015 Herbal Medicine Market Share AnalysisQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchReportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Interconnect Device Market 2017 - Amphenol, Foxconn, Molex, Yazaki, 3M, Alstom SA, Delphi, JST, Phoenix Contact, Rosenberger, Sumitomo Wiring Systems

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A market study based on the "Interconnect Device Market" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Interconnect Device Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Interconnect Device industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Interconnect Device market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This ReportAmphenolFoxconnMolexTE ConnectivityYazaki3MAlstom SABelden IncorporatedDelphiJSTPhoenix ContactRosenbergerSumitomo Wiring SystemsThe report studies the industry for Interconnect Device across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Interconnect Device market & dynamics of demand and supply of Interconnect Device into consideration. The 'Interconnect Device' research study covers each and every aspect of the Interconnect Device market globally, which starts from the definition of the Interconnect Device industry and develops towards Interconnect Device market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Interconnect Device market is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Interconnect Device market. The geographical segmentation of the Interconnect Device industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Interconnect Device is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Interconnect Device market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Interconnect Device market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Interconnect Device market 2017 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Interconnect Device production volume, data regarding demand and Interconnect Device supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Interconnect Device across the globe.About UsApexResearch offer reports from top publishers and update to serve you with immediate on-line access to professional insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact UsFrank ValadezBusiness Development Executive| sales@apexresearch.biz
Global Diesel Engines Consumption Market Including Definitions, Classifications, Applications And Industry Chain Structure 2017

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ResearchMoz presents this most up-to-date research on "Global Diesel Engines Consumption Market Including Definitions, Classifications, Applications And Industry Chain Structure 2017".The Global Diesel Engines Consumption 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Diesel Engines market.First, the report provides a basic overview of the Diesel Engines industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.Secondly, the report states the global Diesel Engines market size (volume and value), and the segment markets by regions, types, applications and companies are also discussed.Third, the Diesel Engines 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 Diesel Engines 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.Make an Enquiry of this report @Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Diesel Engines1.1 Definition and Specifications of Diesel Engines1.1.1 Definition of Diesel Engines1.1.2 Specifications of Diesel Engines1.2 Classification of Diesel Engines1.3 Applications of Diesel Engines1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Diesel Engines1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status of Diesel Engines1.5.1 Industry Overview of Diesel Engines1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status of Diesel Engines1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Diesel Engines1.7 Industry News Analysis of Diesel Engines2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Diesel Engines2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Diesel Engines2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Diesel Engines2.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Diesel Engines2.4 Other Costs Analysis of Diesel Engines2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Diesel Engines2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Diesel Engines3 3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value), Sales and Sale Price Analysis of Diesel Engines3.1 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) and Growth Rate of Diesel Engines 2011-20163.2 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Diesel Engines by Regions 2011-20163.3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Diesel Engines by Types 2011-20163.4 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Diesel Engines by Applications 2011-20163.5 Global Sales Volume and Sales Revenue of Diesel Engines by Companies 2011-20163.6 Global Sale Price of Diesel Engines by Regions 2011-20163.7 Global Sale Price of Diesel Engines by Types 2011-20163.8 Global Sale Price of Diesel Engines by Applications 2011-20163.9 Global Sale Price of Diesel Engines by Companies 2011-2016To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Cloud Computing Opens New Doors in Global Internet of Things Market

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Leaders of the global internet of things market in 2015 included the likes of Google, Inc., Apple, Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon, Intel Corp, and Cisco Systems. As seen, a lot of the key players in the global internet of things market are predominantly from consumer electronics or ICT fields, and a majority of the market leaders are headquartered in the U.S.As one of the highly trending markets in the world today, the global internet of things market is expected to be crowded by a large number of players of all sizes, according to a research report released by Transparency Market Research. Key players in the market are already ahead in terms of development rates and the acquisition of proprietary technologies. Wi-Fi is expected to continue being the leading technology in the global internet of things market, despite the grand entrance of alternative device communication methods such as ZigBee and NFC, which are also gaining an intense amount of demand and popularity. The global internet of things market is expected to reach US$334.22 bn at the end of 2016. Gaining strength at a whopping projected CAGR of 20.55%, this markets revenue is expected to reach US$1,492.31 bn by the end of 2024.It is only natural for two of the leading concepts in device communication, software, and interfacing to find a way to merge with each other to create a whole new world of developments. The global internet of things market is currently finding a massive scope of growth through the growing demand for cloud computing across the world, because IoT communication can help resolve the constraints faced by cloud computing. IoT technologies can help supplement cloud platforms with additional storage options, processing power, and even help out with the energy constraints of hosting large-scale cloud computing solutions, states a TMR analyst.The global internet of things market is also being augmented by the increasing rates of globalization and urbanization in all regions. A staggering number of users across the world today have access to multiple branches of information technology, data sharing and storage methods, cloud computing solutions, and communication portals. The global internet of things market adds a beneficial layer to all this unlike any other concept and is therefore in extremely high demand.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Real-time Analytics for IoT Lagging BehindThe phenomenal rate at which the global internet of things market currently can unfortunately not yet be matched by data safety and integrity analytics solutions. As the scope and usage of IoT concepts increases by the day, there is a very high need for real-time assessment of failures and data integrity across all networks. The real-time vehicle diagnostics, for instance, are critical in allowing a vehicles sensors of dangerous road conditions, collision threats, and internal system failures. This is difficult to achieve as in reality, these scenarios require a very fast rate of analysis backed by a constant monitoring status.The sectors of healthcare, hospitality, and retail are expected to be golden grounds for the global internet of things market to expand on over the coming years. Players in the market are likely to find massive growth opportunities in these sectors through concepts such as next-gen door locks and security systems, connected televisions, improved food delivery, and room settings controlled remotely. Retails stores are also showing a high demand for security sensors connected to smartphones or portable devices to monitor their stores efficiently, adds the analyst.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Spain Pharmaceutical Bottles Market: Shipment Volume to Rise to 1,619 mn Units Mark by 2024

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The Spain market for pharmaceutical bottles is highly fragmented with a large portion of this market being operated by a number of international players, small domestic participants, and unorganized companies. Most of the international players focus aggressively on selling their products through distributorship in order to cater to the requirements of the pharmaceutical companies and are expected to continue this practice over the forthcoming years. Gerresheimer, Amcor, and Alcion Plasticos are some of the key players functioning in this market.Obtain Report Details @As per the estimations, the market for pharmaceutical bottles in Spain, which was worth US$241.4 mn in 2016, is likely to progress at a CAGR of 3.80% over the period from 2016 to 2024 and reach a value of US$235 mn by the end of the forecast period. In terms of shipment volume, the market is likely to touch 1,619 mn units mark by 2024. Thanks to the rising utilization of PET in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical bottles, fueled by its atmosphere barrier properties, the PET segment is likely to remain witnessing a higher growth than other material type segments over the next few years, reports the research study.Oral Care Products to Report Strong Demand for Pharmaceutical BottlesThe report further provides a comprehensive evaluation of the application areas of pharmaceutical bottles in Spain. According to the study, pharmaceutical bottles are predominantly utilized in liquids, E-liquid, droppers, oral care products, and topical medication in this country. Oral care products, among all, have been exhibiting a greater demand for pharmaceutical bottles. It held a share of nearly 36% in the total demand for pharmaceutical bottles in Spain in 2016. Analysts predict the segment will demonstrate a significant incremental performance in terms of the growth rate as well as the market share throughout the forecast period.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @Topical medication, amongst others, is expected to witness a considerable rise in the years to come due to the design competence of pharmaceutical bottles that offer a convenient and less messy dispensing of lotions and semi-solid contents.Plastic-based Pharmaceutical Bottles to Trend in Spain Pharmaceutical Bottles MarketThe advancements in the drug delivery formats applicable in the medical and healthcare industry are having the most prominent influence on the market for pharmaceutical bottles in Spain, states the author of the study. Plastic-based pharmaceutical bottles are the latest trend in the Spain pharmaceutical market. The availability of relatively cheaper polymers in abundance has brought the focus of manufacturers towards producing pharmaceutical bottles from plastic. According to researchers, this trend will shape the future of this market over the forthcoming years.On the other hand, the rising preference for flexible packaging formats, especially blisters, and the advent of eco-friendly biomaterials-based bottles as an alternative to the pharmaceutical bottles are likely to reflect negatively to the demand for pharmaceutical bottles in Spain to some extent in the years to come, notes the study.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Wood Adhesives and Binders Market  Industry Demand, Growth, Prize and Business Forecast by 2025

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Global Wood Adhesives and Binders Market: OverviewWood adhesives and binders are used to bind two or more wooden surfaces together to create panels. They are known for their high bond strength, thermal and chemical resistance, and durability, which provides customers with cost-effective end results. These adhesives and binders are used for various industrial and consumer applications such as in flooring, plywood, windows and doors, furniture and subcomponents, and cabinets. Melamine-urea-formaldehyde, urea-formaldehyde, isocyanates, phenol-formaldehyde, soy-based, epoxy, silicone, and ethyl vinyl acetate are some of the commonly available product types.Global Wood Adhesives and Binders Market: Key TrendsThe robust growth of the construction industry is providing a significant boost to the growth of the global wood adhesives and binders market. The rising disposable income of people around the world is leading to an increasing spending on the interior designing of homes and offices, which in turn is translating into the greater uptake of wood adhesives and binders. However, the turbulent prices of petrochemical feedstock, which acts as raw materials, is creating a bottleneck in the development of the global market.Request a Brochure of the Report @Moreover, stringent government regulations against volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions are hampering the growth of the market. VOC emissions during commercial and industrial applications of these adhesives have serious environmental and health implications. On the other hand, the birthing of bio-based products is unfolding tremendous growth opportunities for the market.Global Wood Adhesives and Binders Market: Market PotentialTo enable the transition from polymer-derived adhesives and binders to bio-based products, it is imperative that the adhesive properties in terms of bond strength and heat and water resistance are similar and that the alternatives can compete in terms of pricing. As a result, manufacturers and researchers are strongly focusing towards research and development activities to introduce reliable solutions. In June 2015, Swedish researchers suggested the use of xylan dispersions, with the addition of dispersing agents such as polyvinyl alcohol and crosslinkers, as a wood adhesive.Request for TOC of the Report @In January 2017, researchers from the Kansas State University patented the first plant-based resin, which is made up of corn, soybean, and other plant oils. According to researchers, this resin can be used for labels, tapes, and other adhesive uses and can also provide shiny coatings. Such innovations are likely to revolutionize the global wood adhesives and binders market in the near future.Global Wood Adhesives and Binders Market: Geographical SegmentationNorth America will represent a substantial share in the market throughout the forecast period. The growing emphasis on interior remodeling due to upgrading consumer lifestyles is facilitating the growth of the market in the region. The rebound of the construction industry after the economic downturn in 2008 is further supplementing the growth of the market. The U.S. will be a major revenue contributor to the growth of North America.Read Complete Report @Asia Pacific is expected to progress at a remarkable CAGR during the same period. The booming construction industry and the rising disposable income of the populace are bolstering the growth of the region. The growth of the Latin America wood adhesives and binders market can be attributed to the increasing construction activities in the residential sector.Global Wood Adhesives and Binders Market: Competitive LandscapeSeveral players in the global wood adhesives and binders market exhibit a high degree of integration throughout the value chain. Prominent participants are focusing towards business expansion through mergers and acquisitions. Some of the key players in the market are 3M Company, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, H.B Fuller Company, BASF SE, Avery Dennison Corporation, Huntsman Corporation, and Dow Chemical Company.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Diabetes Injection Pens Market: Growing Awareness Levels are Likely to Drive the Market in Asia

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The global diabetes injection pens market has expanding at a remarkable pace over the years owing to the soaring number of diabetics around the world and a consequent rise in awareness about this disease and its management. The development of smart insulin pen technology products such as pen caps connected with mobile apps has also significantly propelled this market. In addition to this, the preference for insulin pens over syringes has greatly increased owing to the rising incidence of needlestick injuries.The opportunity in the global diabetes injection pens market was pegged at US$4.9 bn in 2015 and is expected to be worth US$9.7 bn by 2024. If these values hold true, the market is poised to expand at a healthy CAGR of 7.9% during the forecast period.Fill the Form for an Exclusive Sample of this Report @Insulin Pens Gain Preference over Pen NeedlesInsulin pens and pen needles are the two major product types in the diabetes injection pens market. Among these, insulin pens garnered the larger share, accounting for just over 65.0% in 2015. Europe and Asia are among the leading consumers of insulin pens, where 90.0% of the diabetic population prefer these devices to pen needles. Although the U.S. lagged behind in the usage of insulin pens in the past, the country is likely to gain prominence in the coming years owing to the many benefits these devices offer. Pen needles also generate significant revenue; although these products are lower in cost, they are sold in large numbers among the diabetic population.Based on distribution channel, diabetes injection pens are sold via retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, online methods, and diabetes clinics and centers. Hospitals form the distribution channel of choice for patients and this segment accounted for a share of over 33.0% in 2015. The online channel is gaining much prominence in recent years owing to a thriving e-commerce sector across the globe. This segment is slated to witness immense growth through the forecast period as its adoption rises in developed markets such as the U.K., the U.S., and Germany.On the basis of usage, diabetes injection pens are of two types: reusable and disposable. Both the segments account for an almost equal share in the global market, with reusable pens enjoying a slightly larger share. It has been noted that disposable pens are preferred in developing economies such as China and India, while patients in developed countries such as the U.K., Japan, and Germany prefer reusable injection pens.Despite Major Share in Diabetes Injection Pens Market, Europe to Witness Slow GrowthFrom a geographical point of view, the global market for diabetes injection pens comprises Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, and the Rest of the World. In 2015, North America and Europe accounted for the dominant share in the overall diabetes injection pens market, followed by Asia and Latin America.Obtain Report Details @The U.S. takes the lead in the diabetes injection pens market in North America, accounting for a massive 94.0% share in 2015. This can be attributed to an extensive diabetic population in the country, various technological advancements, surging research and development practices and growing healthcare awareness about the treatment and management of glucose levels.Although Europe accounts for a significant share in the diabetes injection pens market, it is a saturated industry and is likely to expand at a slow rate. On the other hand, Asia is projected to exhibit strong growth during the forecast period, with major contribution from countries such as India, Japan, and China. New product launches, favorable regulations, the ability of patients to pay for advanced medical products and devices, and growing awareness levels are likely to drive the market for diabetes injection pens in Asia.Sanofi S.A., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Owen Mumford Ltd., Novo Nordisk A/S, Biocon Ltd., Wockhardt Ltd., Eli Lilly and Company, AstraZeneca plc, and Jiangsu Delfu Co. are the leading players in the global diabetes injection pens market. The market is known to be highly consolidated, with just a handful of companies dominating the vendor landscape.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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aromatic Solvents Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2017 - 2025

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Global Aromatic Solvents Market: OverviewAn aromatic solvent is one that contains an aromatic hydrocarbon such as xylene, naptha, ethane, propane, or toluene. It is an organic chemical meant to dissolve solid materials to form a homogenous solution. It is produced mainly via distillation of crude petroleum stock in the oil refining industry and primarily finds application as thinners and diluents in coatings, paints, adhesives, and cleaners to speed up the drying process. An aromatic solvent is also used to thwart corrosion in the oil and gas industry. Further, these aromatic solvents are used in the production of other intermediate chemicals such as cumene, ethyl benzene, phthalic anhydride, naphthalene, and maleic anhydride.Global Aromatic Solvents Market: Key TrendsAt the forefront of driving growth in the aromatic solvents market is the booming paints and coatings industry. Aromatic solvents dissolve or disperse various components such as binders, additives, pigments, and extenders that find application in manufacture of paints and coatings. In addition, high solvency rates aid in forming an enhanced homogenous solution in comparison to other solvents.Request a Brochure of the Report @Another factor driving growth in the market is the continued growth in the automotive industry which has pushed up demand for adhesives and sealants, manufactured from aromatic solvents. These solvents help maintain the right evaporation rate of adhesives, which in turn brings about perfect setting of adhesive polymer on the base surface. Countering the growth in the global aromatic solvents market is the strict environmental regulations imposed on VOC emissions and the preference for non-aromatic and biobased solvents.Global Aromatic Solvents Market: Market PotentialDepending upon the types of products, toluene presents maximum opportunity to the manufacturers because of its spike in applications in adhesives, paints and coatings, inks, pharmaceuticals, and other chemical formulations. Xylene is another product that spells profits for savvy companies as those solvents are used in the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients and to clean pharmaceutical equipment. They are mostly used in the rubber, artificial leather, glue, and rotogravure printing industry.Request for TOC of the Report @Some of the important end-user industry for aromatic solvents are automotive, pharmaceuticals, paints and coatings, and oilfield chemicals. Crude oil and natural gas, for example, carry a lot of impurities and corrosive products such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and free water that deteriorates the inner walls of wells and pipelines. Continued oil and gas extraction can result in the internal surface of pipelines to corrode. Aromatic solvents can thwart it while performing fractional distillation in the oil and gas industry.Global Aromatic Solvents Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the key segments of the global aromatic solvents market are Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and the Rest of the World. Among them, Asia Pacific dominates the market in terms of volume on account of the high growth in the chemical industry. Latin America too is expected to witness some degree of growth in the aromatic solvents powered by the demand from Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina.Read Complete Report @The markets in North America and Europe are slated to see lackluster growth in the years to come owing to stringent environmental regulations. Middle East and Africa (MEA) is another region that will see slow growth due to the economic transition in the region at present.Global Aromatic Solvents Market: Competitive AnalysisThe global market for aromatic solvents is fragmented in nature. To assess the competition in the market, the report profiles important market participants such as Exxon Mobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, LyondellBasell Industries N.V., Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, BASF SE, Celanese Corporation, and Eastman Chemical Company.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Hydraulic Power Unit Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2021

Global Hydraulic Power Unit Market

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Hydraulic Power Unit Market Report offered by DecisionDatabases.com gives a market overview of the Hydraulic Power Unit industry which covers product scope, market revenue, opportunities, growth rate, sales volumes and figures. The report also explores the worldwide players of the market and is segmented by region, type and application with forecast to 2021.Hydraulic Power Unit is the main driving components of hydraulic system. It is mainly used as the fuel supply part. It is through an external piping system connected with several hydraulic cylinders. Aim to control the operation of multiple sets of valves. The hydraulic power unit is a very important part of industrial hydraulic system.This report focuses on the Hydraulic Power Unit in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Browse the complete report and table of contents @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Bosch Rexroth Parker Eaton HYDAC Nachi-Fujikoshi Brevini Fluid Power Weber Hydraulik MTS Systems Hydro-tek Bucher Hydraulics Dynex Poclain Hydraulics Shanghai Mocen Qindao Wantong Vibo-hydraulicsDownload Free Sample Report of Global Hydraulic Power Unit Market @Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) South America, Middle East and AfricaMarket Segment by Type, covers Less than 0.75 GPM 0.75  4 GPM 10  21 GPM Above 21GPMThere are 13 Chapters to deeply display the global Hydraulic Power Unit market.Chapter 1, to describe Hydraulic Power Unit Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Hydraulic Power Unit, with sales, revenue, and price of Hydraulic Power Unit, in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Hydraulic Power Unit, for each region, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 5, 6, 7 and 8, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 9 and 10, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 11, Hydraulic Power Unit market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2016 to 2021;Chapter 12 and 13, to describe Hydraulic Power Unit sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, appendix and data source.Purchase the complete Global Hydraulic Power Unit Market Research Report @About-Us: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.For more details:3rd Floor,Fountain Chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 40001E Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web:
Lipase Market - Whats In Store For 2015-2023?

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Lipase is an enzyme, which helps in the hydrolysis of fats and reduces the formation of glycerol and fatty acids in all living beings. It plays a vital role in the process of digestion by transporting and processing the ester bonds in triglycerides. In addition, it helps in the keeping of pancreatic enzymes to an optimum level. Health disorders such as bloating, indigestion and abdominal discomfort are caused by the consumption of high carbohydrate and fatty food items. Lipases help in the prevention of diabetes, cholesterol, obesity and high triglycerides. Lipases are generally produced with the help of microbial sources such as fungi, yeast and bacteria. Bacteria and fungi lipases are preferred the most in the enzymes industry. Microbial lipases can be more effective than lipases that are obtained from animals and plants because of its variety in high yield, ease of genetic modification and catalytic activities.Browse Full Report with TOC:Lipase is one of the largest growing markets in the enzymes market due to its health and industrial advantages. In food and non food industries, lipases are used as shelf life enhancers, flavorants, texturants and cleaning agents. Lipases also find huge application in animal feeds, where it is used in improving the health of livestock. In addition, lipases are used for medical and diagnostic use. Blood test with the help of lipase can help detect acute pancreatitis and other disorders in the pancreas of human body. Lipases also assist patients undergoing pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT), where it helps in the breakdown of fats into lipids.Rise in the consumption of processed dairy products and meat and increasing awareness of animal health are the major driving factors of the global lipase market. In addition, multiple health benefits associated with the use of lipase in human bodies is also set to bolster the global lipase market. The restraint inhibiting the global lipase market is the lack of transparency in the law of patent protection across the globe.Enquiry before Buying @The global lipase market has been segmented by source, which includes animal lipases and microbial lipases. In addition, the market has been categorized by application, which includes animal feed, dairy, bakery, confectionary and others. By geography, it has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Rest of the World (RoW).In the global lipase market, Asia Pacific witnessed the largest revenue in 2014, and by the end of the forecast period from 2015 to 2023, Asia Pacific is expected to show significant growth. Countries in the Asia Pacific such as India, China and Japan are the considered to be the largest growing markets in the region. The Asia Pacific lipase market is followed by North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World (RoW).Some of the key players in the global lipase market include Amano Enzymes Inc., Novozymes A/S, Chr. Hansen Holdings A/S, E. I. du Pont Nemours and Company, Koninklijke DSM N.V., Renco New Zealand, Clerici-Sacco Group, Associated British Foods Plc and Advanced Enzymes among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Alpha Mannosidosis Market: Exclusivity of Orphan Drug Ensures Improved Profit Margins, says TMR

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Alpha mannosidosis is an inherited medical condition tissues and organs of the human body to function in abnormal ways. The commonly seen dysfunctions in patients suffering from this disease are distinctive facial features, intellectual disability, and skeletal abnormalities. Some of the other facial features seen amongst patients are a protruding forehead, large head, rounded eyebrows, low hairline, outsized ears, expanded jaw, flattened bridge of the nose, overgrown gums, widely spaced teeth, and outsized tongue. Though this is a rare disease, a definite rise in the population has increased the number of patients thereby augmented the demand for drugs required for treating alpha mannosidosis.Obtain Report Details @Owing to this reason, the opportunity in the global market is expected to be worth US$21.8 mn by the end of 2024 as against US$2.6 mn in 2015, as the market progresses at a CAGR of 11.9% between 2017 and 2024. The global market for alpha mannosidosis is being driven factors such as market exclusivity being enjoyed by orphan drugs, fee reductions, tax credits, increasing investment in the rare disease treatment, and premium pricing.BMT Emerges as Leading Therapy for Treating Alpha MannosidosisStatistics show that alpha mannosidosis affects one in every 10, 00,000 people across the globe. The two types of treatment available for treating this disease are bone marrow transplant (BMT) and enzyme replacement therapy (ERT). Currently, bone marrow transplant (BMT) is the most popularly used treatment for patients. However, ERT is also picking up pace as the manufacturers operating in the segment are vying for commercial roll out of therapies. A promising therapy for lysosomal storage diseases (which are similar to alpha mannosidosis) is an enzyme replacement therapy (ERT). The therapy introduces the missing enzyme in the patients blood stream, which is absorbed by the cells then delivered to the lysosomes.Fill the Form for an Exclusive Sample of this Report @Asia Pacific and North America Show Promise of Steady Growth during Forecast PeriodGeographically, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa. Asia Pacific is projected to hold a dominant share in the market in 2017. This dominance will be attributable to the growing awareness about the disease in developing countries. Presently, the Government of Australia has implemented a national plan for helping patients with rare diseases to reduce the mortality rate due to these diseases. The plan aims to raise awareness about the burden of rare diseases among patients, its impact on social life, and healthcare professionals.North America alpha mannosidosis market is also expected to witness a remarkable growth rate in the coming years. The orphan drug law will boost the new drug discovery efforts as it aims to offer monetary as well as non-financial benefits to manufacturers. The biggest incentive offered North America is a 50% cut the cost incurred for conducting clinical trials, seven years of market exclusivity for orphan drugs, eligibility for federal research grants, and waiver of user fees.The leading players operating in the global alpha mannosidosis market is Zymenex. The company currently focusses on research and development of biologics that are designed to fight rare and life-threatening genetic diseases. The company has developed recombinant enzyme indicated for patients with alpha mannosidosis, which is known as Lamazym (velmanase alfa) in the market.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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Dental Consumables Market Research Report by Technological Development, Applications and Forecast 2024

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Global Dental Consumables Market: SnapshotThe growing number of dental issues across the world are fuelling the demand for dental consumables. These consumables are predominantly used for tooth restoration, treating dental impairments, and related gingival tissues. The global dental consumables market has been thriving in recent years due to the increasing dental tourism in developing countries. Citing these reasons, analysts predict that global dental consumables market will be worth US$33.4 bn by the end of 2024 from US$19.6 bn in 2015. The overall market between 2016 and 2024 is expected to rise at a CAGR of 6.1%.Several emerging economies such as Turkey, Hungary, and India are expected to offer lucrative opportunities to the global market in the coming years. The low cost of labor, less government intervention, effective dental treatments, and improving services are expected to draw in a large number of patients for dental treatments. The market is also thriving due to the remarkable improvements in the quality of dental implants, which has assured several patients to opt for dental treatments. Rising disposable incomes, improving lifestyles, and growing awareness about oral healthcare are also expected to drive the global dental consumables market in the next few years.Browse full report on Dental Consumables Market -Improvements in Oral Healthcare across Europe keeps Region in the LeadIn terms of geography, the global dental consumables market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Europe is the frontrunner in the global market due to the ever-increasing pool of geriatrics. The growing concerns for oral health care are expected to keep Europe growing at a steady CAGR in the global dental consumables market during the forecast period. The growing funding for improving and expanding oral health care facilities across Europe is also expected to benefit this regional market.On the other hand, Asia Pacific is also expected to show a steady growth rate in the coming years. The emergence of the middle class is the primary growth driver for this regional market. The booming dental tourism in Asia Pacific is estimated to keep up the demand for dental consumables in the coming years. Furthermore, improving disposable incomes, access of oral health care, and growing awareness will also boost the growth of the regional market.The key players operating in the global dental consumables market are 3M Health Care, Danaher Corporation, DENTSPLY International, Inc., Henry Schein, Inc., Institut Straumann AG, Ivoclar Vivadent AG, Patterson Companies, and Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc.Global Dental Consumables Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, Europe accounted for largest share of the market followed by North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. Financial considerations is among the most important factors influencing patients decision to undergo dental treatments in both North America and Europe. Aging of baby boomers segment is a prime attributor for large number of dental laboratories and dental procedures in Europe. Dental tourism is also flourishing in countries in Asia, particularly in India and China, due to the cost effective treatment being offered. These countries not only promote dental tourism, but also outsource doctors and other treatment facilities to keep up with the demand for dental tourism.Request for sample of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Technetium-99m Market Research Report by Current & Upcoming Trends Analysis 2024

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Technetium-99m Market: SnapshotThe technetium-99m market in the Middle East and Africa is expected to witness moderate growth during the forecast period from 2016 to 2026. The high installed base of gamma cameras in various countries in the Middle East, better product availability in hospitals, and a gradual rise in awareness about cancer in the region are the key factors contributing toward the growth of the technetium-99m market in the MEA. Multinational companies such as General Electric Company, Siemens Healthineers, and Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. operate in several countries in the region, focusing on addressing unmet medical needs through novel techniques.Global companies are increasingly focusing on growing market economies (GME) and Latin America and the Middle East and Africa appear to be bright spots in the overall technetium-99m market. Key features in these regions include a largely underserved population, especially in central Africa and the Middle East, and the advent of favorable policies toward the growth of radio-diagnosis and radiotherapy. Moreover, the changing disease profile in the Middle East has led to an increased focus on cancer studies.The opportunity in the Middle East and Africa technetium-99m market was pegged at US$273.3 mn in 2015 and is projected to be worth US$636.1 mn by 2026, expanding at a CAGR of 8.1% therein.Browse full report on Technetium-99m Market -Turkey to Retain Lead in MEA Technetium-99m Market Through 2024On the basis of geography, Turkey accounted for a 20.5% share in the MEA technetium-99m market in 2015. Turkey is expected to retain its dominance throughout the course of the forecast period owing to the presence of a large population pool affected by cancer. These patients have been availing several diagnostic solutions and this is expected to drive the technetium-99m market in the country.Egypt is also a key market for technetium-99m in the Middle East and Africa. The growth of the market in the country can be attributed to the presence of world-class healthcare facilities, research organizations, and government institutes focused on making quality diagnosis available for every individual suffering from cancer and tumors. Egypt also has a large population base, which serves as a key factor driving the technetium-99m market.Developing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Iran represent a significant underserved market.General Electric Company, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., Siemens Healthineers, Advanced Cyclotron Systems, Inc., and IBA are some of the key players operating in the MEA technetium-99m market.Hospitals Most Preferred Settings for Medical Imaging in MEAIn terms of isotopic application, the technetium-99m market has been divided into SPECT and gamma camera. Gamma camera is expected to be the most attractive isotopic application segment in terms of incremental opportunity. However, the segment is projected to lose market share by 2024, to account for 54.5% by the end of the forecast period.The hospitals end-user segment accounted for the major share in the MEA technetium-99m market in 2015. Hospitals are the most preferred settings for medical imaging in countries in the Middle East due to the availability of a large number of facilities as compared to other segments such as diagnostic centers. However, the hospitals end-user segment is expected to lose a significant market share to the diagnostic centers segment during the forecast period.Request for sample of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Neurosurgery Surgical Drills Sales Market Strategies Report 2017

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This report studies sales (consumption) of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills in Global market, especially in United States, China, Europe and Japan, focuses on top players in these regions/countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these regions, coveringZimmer DentalKohler MedizintechnikSurgical InnovationsArthrexCondor MedicaltechnikAygun Surgical InstrumentsNiproPurple SurgicalCryolifeMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product Types, with sales, revenue, price and gross margin, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoType IType IISplit by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills in each application, can be divided intoApplication 1Application 2Request sample copy at:Table of ContentsGlobal Neurosurgery Surgical Drills Sales Market Report 20171 Neurosurgery Surgical Drills Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills1.2 Classification of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills1.2.1 Type I1.2.2 Type II1.3 Application of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 21.4 Neurosurgery Surgical Drills Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Neurosurgery Surgical Drills (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Neurosurgery Surgical Drills Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Neurosurgery Surgical Drills Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)About UsWe are a leading repository of market research reports and solutions from the top publishers and market research companies across globe, catering to various industries. This large collection of reports assists organizations in decision-making on aspects such as market entry strategies, market sizing, market share analysis, competitive analysis, product portfolio analysis and opportunity analysis among others. We also assist in determining the best suited and targeted report from our large repository of global reports, company-specific reports and country-level reports.Our custom research services help clients to meet specific market research requirements by coordinating with our esteemed research partners. Our experienced analysts are always available to cater to your queries pre- and post-purchase. We believe in providing best-in-class after-sales service to our clients and wish to build a long-term and a mutually fruitful relationship.Contact UsPune, Maharashtra - 411 014IndiaCall-:+1-312-604-7084Email-:sales@reporthive.com
Global Corrugated Packaging Market Research Report - Forecast to 2027

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Global: Corrugated Packaging Market Information by applications (food & beverages, personal care, Pharmaceuticals & healthcare, paper industry, electronic goods and others), by types (Slotted boxes, Telescope boxes, Self-Erecting Boxes / Auto-Bottom Boxes, Bliss / Rigid Boxes & others) and by wall construction (Single-wall corrugated sheet, Double-wall corrugated packaging and Triple-wall corrugated packaging) - Forecast To 2027Study Objectives of Corrugated Packaging Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Corrugated Packaging Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To Analyse the Global Corrugated Packaging Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW) To provide country-level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country-level analysis of the market for segment by applications types and wall construction To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Corrugated Packaging Market.Request a Sample Report @Market Synopsis of Corrugated Packaging MarketThe global corrugated packaging market has experienced a humongous growth over the past years and as per the estimation the global corrugated packaging market will grow more on a rapid pace during the forecast period. The rising population and growing per capita income are the major growth driver for this market. Along with this the growing applications segment such as food & beverages, personal care, Pharmaceuticals & healthcare, paper industry, electronic goods have contributed a major role in the overall market growth. Corrugated Packaging is one of the most preferred packaging for small, medium and large sized products which in turn has increased the demand across the globe. Growing ecommerce industry has become on the major trend in the global corrugated packaging market. Banning of plastic packaging has also become the major reason for the rising demand of corrugated packaging market.Geographically, North America has accounted the major market share in 2015 followed by Asia-Pacific and Europe.SegmentationAs per MRFR analysis, the global corrugated packaging market has been segmented into:By Applications: Food & Beverages, Personal Care, Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare, Paper Industry, Electronic Goods and OthersBy Types: Slotted boxes, Telescope boxes, Self-Erecting Boxes / Auto-Bottom Boxes, Bliss / Rigid Boxes & othersBy Wall Construction: Single-Wall Corrugated Sheet, Double-Wall Corrugated Packaging and Triple-Wall Corrugated Packaging.Regional Analysis of Corrugated Packaging MarketThe global corrugated packaging market is poised to reach $XX billion in 2015 from $XX billion in 2027, with a CAGR of XX% during the forecasted period.Key PlayersThe leading market players in the global corrugated packaging market primarily include Mondi, Smurfit Kappa, Roch-Tenn, Archis Packaging, Carter Holt Harvey, Dunapack Packaging, Induspac, Europac Groups Packaging Division, U.S. Corrugated, RockWest Company and others.The market report for Corrugated Packaging of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.Access Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.comAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Pharmaceutical Hot Melt Extrusion Market: Emerging Market Trends, Size, Share & Growth Analysis Market Research Report Forecast to 2016- 2024

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Global Pharmaceutical Hot Melt Extrusion Market: OverviewThis report provides forecast and analysis of the pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion market on the global and regional levels. It provides historical data of 2015 along with forecast from 2016 to 2024 in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) and volume (units). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators along with an outlook on hot melt extrusion equipment consumption globally. It includes drivers and restraints of the pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion market and their impact on each region during the forecast period.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :The report also comprises the study of current issues with end users and opportunities for extruder manufacturers. It also includes detailed pricing analysis by product type and value chain analysis with a list of vendors and industry stakeholders at each node in the value chain. In order to provide users of this report with comprehensive view of the market, we have included detailed competitiveness analysis and company players with unique selling propositions. The dashboard provides detailed comparison of hot melt extruder manufacturers on parameters such as collective market share and geographic concentration. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, by product, by end users and region.Global Pharmaceutical Hot Melt Extrusion Market: Scope of the StudyThe report includes revenue generated from sales of hot melt extruders in all regions and important countries in these regions. By product, the global pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion market has been segmented into twin screw extruder, single screw extruder, laboratory extruders and RAM extruders. On the basis of end users, the global pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion market is segmented into research laboratories, contract manufacturing organizations and pharma companies. On the basis of region, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa.Market numbers have been estimated based on average procurement of new units and average pricing of hot melt extruders by product type and the revenue is derived through regional pricing trends. Market size and forecast for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion market has been analyzed based on expected demand. Prices considered for the calculation of revenue are average regional prices obtained through primary quotes from numerous regional hot melt extruder manufacturers and distributors. Most of the key end users have been considered and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents.Regional demand patterns have been considered while estimating the market for various end users of hot melt extrusion in different regions. Top-down approach has been used to estimate the hot melt extrusion market by regions. Market numbers for global products have been derived using the bottom-up approach, which is cumulative of each regions demand. Company-level market share has been derived on the basis of revenues reported by key manufacturers. The market has been forecast based on constant currency rates. A number of primary and secondary sources were consulted during the course of the study. Secondary sources include Factiva, NCBI, Google books, company annual reports, websites, and publications.Companies Mentioned in the ReportThe report provides detailed competitive dashboard and company profiles of key participants operating in the global market. Some of the players in the global pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion market includes Baker Perkins Limited, Coperion GmbH, Gabler GmbH & Co. KG, Leistritz AG, Milacron Holdings Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., and Xtrutech Ltd.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:The market has been segmented as below:Global Pharmaceutical Hot Melt Extrusion Market  By Product TypeTwin Screw ExtruderSingle Screw ExtruderLaboratory ExtruderRAM ExtruderGlobal Pharmaceutical Hot Melt Extrusion Market  By End UsersResearch LaboratoryContract Manufacturing OrganizationPharma CompaniesGlobal Pharmaceutical Hot Melt Extrusion Market  By RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyFranceItalyU.K.SpainRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaJapanIndiaAustraliaNew ZealandRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & Africa (MEA)Saudi ArabiaUAESouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Crystalline Fructose Market 2017 - GALAM, DANISCO, Gadot, Xiwang Group, Hebei Huaxu, Spring Young

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Crystalline Fructose Market - Global Industry Analysis by type, regions, applications and manufacturers, Industry Forecast, Supply and Demand upto 2022Products Coverage in this report,By SourceStarch HydrolysisSucrose HydrolysisBy GradeFood GradePharmaceutical GradeApplications Coverage in this report,Food & BeveragesPharmaceuticalCosmeticsOthersDo Inquiry Before Buying Report Here:Scope of the ReportThis report "Worldwide Crystalline Fructose Market 2017" also states import/export, supply and consumption figures and Crystalline Fructose market cost, price, revenue and Crystalline Fructose market's gross margin by regions (North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa), as well as other regions can be added in Crystalline Fructose Market area.Key Companies covered in this report are,Tate & LyleADMGALAMDANISCOGadotXiwang GroupHebei HuaxuSpring YoungRequest For Report Sample Here:Finally, "worldwide Crystalline Fructose market" report is a valuable source of guidance for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, customers, investors and individuals who have interest in this market. It also includes Crystalline Fructose market price ,capacity, production, revenue and contact information.About UsWe provide global enterprises and businesses across different industry verticals comprehensive market research services from off-the-shelf research reports to customized research conducted by our highly experienced industry analysts.Contact UsFrank ValadezBusiness Development HeadEmail id - sales@apexresearch.bizWebsite -
Collagen Market 2017 - Neocell, YSK, DCP, Lapi Gelatine, Italgelatine, Cosen, Taiaitai

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Collagen Market - Global Industry Analysis by type, regions, applications and manufacturers, Industry Forecast, Supply and Demand upto 2022Products Coverage in this report,By MaterialsFish CollagenBovine CollagenPig CollagenOthersApplications Coverage in this report,FoodHealth Care ProductsCosmeticOthersDo Inquiry Before Buying Report Here:Scope of the ReportThis report "Worldwide Collagen Market 2017" also states import/export, supply and consumption figures and Collagen market cost, price, revenue and Collagen market's gross margin by regions (China, North America, Europe, Japan, RoW), as well as other regions can be added in Collagen Market area.Key Companies covered in this report are,RousselotGelitaPB GelatinsNittaNIPPIBHNWeishardt InternationalNeocellYSKDCPLapi GelatineItalgelatineCosenTaiaitaiRequest For Report Sample Here:Finally, "worldwide Collagen market" report is a valuable source of guidance for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, customers, investors and individuals who have interest in this market. It also includes Collagen market price ,capacity, production, revenue and contact information.About UsWe provide global enterprises and businesses across different industry verticals comprehensive market research services from off-the-shelf research reports to customized research conducted by our highly experienced industry analysts.Contact UsFrank ValadezBusiness Development HeadEmail id - sales@apexresearch.bizWebsite -
Peptone Market 2017 - Ketai, Tatua, Biotecnica, Qidi, Guizhou Xinhua, BD Biosciences, Neogen

Peptone

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Peptone Market - Global Industry Analysis by type, regions, applications and manufacturers, Industry Forecast, Supply and Demand upto 2022Products Coverage in this report,By SourceAnimalVegetalMicrobialApplications Coverage in this report,PharmaceuticalResearchFoodIndustrialOthersDo Inquiry Before Buying Report Here:Scope of the ReportThis report "Worldwide Peptone Market 2017" also states import/export, supply and consumption figures and Peptone market cost, price, revenue and Peptone market's gross margin by regions (North America, China, Europe, India, RoW), as well as other regions can be added in Peptone Market area.Key Companies covered in this report are,SolabiaKerryFrieslandCampina DomoBiospringerTianjiuTitan BiotechZhongshi DuqingOrganotechnieFenglinThermo Fisher ScientificKetaiTatuaBiotecnicaQidiGuizhou XinhuaBD BiosciencesNeogenRequest For Report Sample Here:Finally, "worldwide Peptone market" report is a valuable source of guidance for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, customers, investors and individuals who have interest in this market. It also includes Peptone market price ,capacity, production, revenue and contact information.About UsWe provide global enterprises and businesses across different industry verticals comprehensive market research services from off-the-shelf research reports to customized research conducted by our highly experienced industry analysts.Contact UsFrank ValadezBusiness Development HeadEmail id - sales@apexresearch.bizWebsite -
Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) Market 2017 - Unilever, Kaneka, Global Fresh Biotech

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Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) Market - Global Industry Analysis by type, regions, applications and manufacturers, Industry Forecast, Supply and Demand upto 2022Products Coverage in this report,By SourceFish AfpsPlant AfpsInsect AfpsSea Ice Organisms AfpsApplications Coverage in this report,FoodHealth CareOthersDo Inquiry Before Buying Report Here:Scope of the ReportThis report "Worldwide Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) Market 2017" also states import/export, supply and consumption figures and Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) market cost, price, revenue and Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) market's gross margin by regions (USA, Japan, China, RoW), as well as other regions can be added in Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) Market area.Key Companies covered in this report are,UnileverKanekaGlobal Fresh BiotechRequest For Report Sample Here:Finally, "worldwide Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) market" report is a valuable source of guidance for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, customers, investors and individuals who have interest in this market. It also includes Antifreeze Proteins (AFP) market price ,capacity, production, revenue and contact information.About UsWe provide global enterprises and businesses across different industry verticals comprehensive market research services from off-the-shelf research reports to customized research conducted by our highly experienced industry analysts.Contact UsFrank ValadezBusiness Development HeadEmail id - sales@apexresearch.bizWebsite -
Frontier Pharma: Asthma Therapeutics - Cytokine and Kinase Targeted Small Molecules and mAbs Increase Pipeline Diversity and Dominate First-in-Class Innovation

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https://www.reportsworldwide.com/report/frontier-pharma-asthma-therapeutics-cytokine-and-kinase-targeted-small-molecules-and-mabs-increase-pipeline-diversity-and-dominate-first-in-class-innovation

ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report titleFrontier Pharma: Asthma Therapeutics - Cytokine and Kinase Targeted Small Molecules and mAbs Increase Pipeline Diversity and Dominate First-in-Class Innovation to its growing collection of premium market research reports.Asthma is a chronic condition affecting the respiratory system, with disease occurrence linked to both genetic and environmental factors. It has significant global incidence and there is currently no cure. Pharmacotherapeutic intervention aims to provide patients with an increased level of disease control and reduce the severity of symptoms, and a number of inhalational therapeutic options are available. Current asthma treatment options are able to provide the majority of patients with a sufficient level of disease control.Scope of the Report:- Analysis of innovation in the asthma market in the context of the overall pipeline and current market landscape  also includes analysis of the deals landscape surrounding first-in-class products in asthma, and highlights opportunities for in-licensing- A brief introduction to asthma, including symptoms, pathophysiology, and an overview of pharmacotherapy- The changing molecular target landscape between the market and the pipeline, and particular focal points of innovation in the pipeline- Comprehensive review of the pipeline for first-in-class therapies, analyzed on the basis of stage of development, molecule type and molecular target- Identification and assessment of first-in-class molecular targets, with a particular focus on early-stage programs for which clinical utility has yet to be evaluated, as well as literature reviews on novel molecular targets- Assessment of the licensing and co-development deal landscape for asthma therapies, and benchmarking of deals involving first-in-class versus non-first-in-class-productsTo Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @Reasons to buy- Understand the current clinical and commercial landscape by considering disease pathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis, and the treatment strategies currently available.- Visualize the composition of the asthma market in terms of the dominant classes of therapies. Unmet needs are highlighted to allow a competitive understanding of current gaps in the market.- Analyze the asthma pipeline and stratify pipeline therapies by stage of development, molecule type and molecular target. There are signs in the pipeline that the industry is seeking novel approaches to meet unmet needs within asthma.- Assess the therapeutic potential of first-in-class targets. Using a proprietary matrix, first-in-class products have been assessed and ranked according to clinical potential. Promising early-stage targets have been further reviewed in greater detail.- Identify commercial opportunities in the asthma deals landscape by analyzing trends in licensing and co-development deals and assessing asthma therapies that are not yet involved in deals, and may be potential investment opportunities.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents 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
Anti-hypertensive Therapeutics in Asia-Pacific Markets to 2022 - Increasing Prevalence of Hypertension Drives Market Growth despite Weak Pipeline

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report titleAnti-hypertensive Therapeutics in Asia-Pacific Markets to 2022 - Increasing Prevalence of Hypertension Drives Market Growth despite Weak Pipeline to its growing collection of premium market research reports.Hypertension is a serious and common medical condition characterized by elevated blood pressure. It is commonly seen in the aging population, and in people with sedentary lifestyles and obesity. As one of the most significant preventable causes of death worldwide, early diagnosis of the condition is crucial to improve health outcomes. Hypertension is the key risk factor for stroke; according to the National Stroke Association (NSA), two-thirds of patients who suffer a stroke have hypertension.Scope of the Report:The Asia-Pacific antihypertensive market will be valued at $27 billion in 2022, growing from $19.1 billion in 2015 at a CAGR of 5.1%. Hypertension prevalence is a prominent contributor to market size in the assessed countries.The market is mostly dominated by generics, and there are only a few patented products.- Will generics continue to dominate treatment?- How do the elderly populations and their associated risk factors affect prevalence?- What effect will the patent expirations of currently branded therapies have on market value?The current anti-hypertensive therapeutics pipeline is weak, comprising 112 molecules in various stages of development, dominated by small molecules.- Which molecular targets appear most frequently in the pipeline?- Is there potential for the pipeline to address unmet needs within the anti-hypertensive market?Analysis of clinical trials since 2006 identified that anti-hypertensive products have a high rate of attrition.- How do failure rates vary by product stage of development, molecule type, and mechanism of action?- How do other factors such as average trial duration and trial size influence the costs and risks associated with product development?The market forecasts indicate that Japan will contribute the most to the Asia-Pacific market value, due to the high annual cost of therapy. Growth in market size is projected to vary considerably across the five assessed markets.- How will the annual cost of therapy and market size vary between the five Asia-Pacific markets?- How could changes in risk factors such as aging population, metabolic disorders and high salt intake influence the market?- Various drivers and barriers will influence the market over the forecast period.- What are the barriers that limit the uptake of premium-priced therapeutics in the assessed countries?- Which factors are most likely to drive the market in these countries?To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @Reasons to buyThis report will allow you to -- Understand the current clinical and commercial landscape by considering disease pathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis, and the treatment options available at each stage of diagnosis, including a clinical comparison of marketed therapies.- Visualize the composition of the anti-hypertensive market in terms of the dominant therapies, and their clinical and commercial standing. Unmet needs are highlighted to allow a competitive understanding of gaps in the market.- Analyze the anti-hypertensive pipeline and stratify pipeline therapies by stage of development, molecule type and molecular target.- Consider market opportunities and potential risks by examining trends in hypertension clinical trial size, duration, and failure rate by stage of development, molecule type, and mechanism of action.- Predict anti-hypertensive market growth in the five Asia-Pacific markets with epidemiological and annual cost of therapy forecasts across India, China, Australia, South Korea and Japan. The forecasts will provide an understanding of how epidemiology trends, new drug entries, and patent expirations will influence market value.- Identify commercial opportunities in the anti-hypertensive deals landscape by analyzing trends in licensing and co-development deals.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents 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
Sand Control Systems Market Driven By Growing Need of Enhancing Oil Production Efficiency

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The global sand control systems market is extremely consolidated in nature, with a presence of a few companies holding a massive share of the overall market, states a research study by Transparency Market Research (TMR). In 2015, the leading players in the global sand control systems market, namely Halliburton Company, Schlumberger Limited, Weatherford International, and Baker Hughes, Inc. held a share of around 92% of the overall market. These players are projected to remain in the leading position throughout the forecast period and make notable efforts to sustain in the competitive environment in the near future. The rising focus of leading players on new product development and innovations is predicted to supplement the growth of the global sand control systems market in the coming years.Browse Market Research Report @According to the research study by Transparency Market Research, in 2015, the global market for sand control systems was worth US$3,222.5 mn and is likely to reach a value of US$5,372.8 mn by the end of 2024. The market is likely to register a healthy 5.80% CAGR between 2016 and 2024.Increasing Oil and Gas Drilling Activities to Bolster Asia Pacific Sand Control Systems MarketAmong the key regional segments, Asia Pacific is anticipated to lead the global sand control systems market and register a healthy growth rate in the forecast period. The high growth of this region can be attributed to the ongoing gas and oil completing and drilling activities in several nations, such as Myanmar, Indonesia, Australia, and Malaysia. In addition, the robust rate of industrialization and the tremendously rising population are some of the other key factors that are estimated to encourage the growth of the sand control systems market in Asia Pacific. Furthermore, the Middle East and Africa is predicted to witness a strong growth in the global sand control systems market in the next few years.On the basis of technique, the gravel packing segment is estimated to grow substantially in the next few years and retain the leading position throughout the forecast period. As per the research study, this segment is expected to register a progressive growth rate in the next few years, Furthermore, the standalone screens segment is anticipated to remain in the second position in the global market. The key factors encouraging the growth of these segments have been listed in the scope of the research report.Emergence of Innovative Sand Control Techniques to Encourage GrowthThe rising demand for the enhancement of oil production and boost its efficiency are some of the key factors that are estimated to fuel the growth of the global sand control systems market in the next few years. In addition, the rising focus on technological developments and innovations in sand control techniques are expected to accelerate the growth of the overall market in the near future. Furthermore, the emergence of advanced techniques is projected to allow operators to offset deep-water challenges, which is likely to supplement the markets growth in the coming years.Increasing Number of Oil and Gas Reserves to Accelerate Market GrowthThe global sand control systems market, on the other hand, is predicted to face several challenges throughout the forecast period. The rising difficulty in balancing cost of sand control with the economic viability of deep-water wells is estimated to restrict the growth of the overall market in the next few years. Nonetheless, the availability of a large number of proven oil reserves and the recently discovered oil and gas reserves are expected to offer several growth opportunities for the key players operating in the global market for sand control systems in the next few years.This information is based on the findings of a research report published by Transparency Market Research (TMR), titled Sand Control Systems Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @The global sand control systems market has been segmented as below:Global Sand Control Systems Market, by Technique Analysis-Rate Exclusion-Resins Coated Gravel-Plastic Consolidation-Stand-Alone Screens-Gravel Packing-Frac Pack-OthersGlobal Sand Control System Market, by Geography-North America-U.S.-Canada-Mexico-Europe-Russia-U.K.-Norway-Rest of Europe-Asia Pacific-China-Japan-Australia-Rest of Asia Pacific-South and Central America-Brazil-Argentina-Rest of South and Central America-Middle East & Africa (MEA)-UAE-Saudi Arabia-Nigeria-Angola-South Africa-Rest of MEARequest For Discount On This Report @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.TMRs 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.90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Merrilee Cooley.jpg

Merrilee Cooley, 68, of Johnson City was reported missing after her family last saw her on Dec. 26, her daughter-in-law said. Police found her missing car Jan. 5, 2016 with a dead body inside the trunk. Clackamas County Sheriff's Office investigators said they believe the body is Cooley, but detectives are awaiting confirmation from the medical examiner, a spokesman said.

(Courtesy of Wendy Eilers Facebook page)

A Milwaukie-area woman reported missing shortly after Christmas and later found dead in the trunk of her car was discovered with handcuffs attached to one wrist, a bottle of water, a plastic bag of cookies and used duct tape, court documents show.

Police found Merrilee Cooley's black Kia Optima parked in the lot of an apartment complex near Southeast Lark Street and Whitcomb Drive in Milwaukie on Jan. 5 with the doors unlocked and the key in the ignition, a search warrant affidavit said.

Cooley, 68, was killed, but authorities won't say how. Police have released no information about a possible suspect and have made no arrests.

Crime Stoppers of Oregon is offering a reward of up to $2,500 for any information leading to an arrest in Cooley's death.

A lifelong friend of Cooley reported her missing on Dec. 28 after trying to contact her the day before and getting no response, the affidavit said. The friend told a Clackamas County deputy that she went to Cooley's Johnson City home, discovered her and her Kia gone, one of her slippers near the driveway and her front door unlocked.

A living room chair was overturned, her purse looked to have been emptied onto her couch and her car keys were missing, the affidavit said. Cooley's walker was still in the home, which the friend thought was odd because Cooley had difficulty walking without it.

Cooley's son told investigators that his family last saw his mother on Dec. 26 when they went to her home to spend time with her, the affidavit said. He also spoke to his mother later on Dec. 26.

Police ask anyone with information on Cooley's death to submit tips to Crime Stoppers of Oregon by calling 503-823-HELP (4357), texting CRIMES (274637) with 823HELP in the subject line and the tip in the message body or posting the information at crimestoppersoforegon.com. You can remain anonymous.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
When a limb came down on Chief Kno-Tah's forehead, it did more than deface the 30-year-old wooden statue in Hillsboro's Shute Park - it endangered its whole existence.

The damage revealed significant rot inside the statue, leading park officials initially to consider removing it entirely. But that led to public outcry - and condemnation from the artist himself - which has now left the statue's fate in limbo.

"Despite the best efforts of the department to ensure the carving's continued structural integrity, time is taking a toll," the parks department said in a public statement last month. Working together with the Hillsboro Arts & Culture Council, and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, "the City is evaluating the best path forward for the entire community."

Parks spokeswoman Mary Loftin declined to comment further, instead referring to the public statement, which says the city will decide Chief Kno-Tah's fate by the end of March or beginning of April. The city has known about the rot since 2011, after a structural integrity test revealed decay.

The Chief Kno-Tah statue was installed in the park in July 1987, carved by artist Peter Wolf Toth as part of his international "Trail of Whispering Giants" series. The 25-foot-tall, 250,000-pound statue was carved from a Douglas fir, and was the first of two he made in Oregon (the other is in Astoria).

When he heard that his statue in Hillsboro was in danger of being scrapped, he was understanding, albeit upset.

"It's not in my hands, because it's in the hands of the people who are there," he said from his studio in central Florida. "[But] my purpose of my work has always been to honor the aborigines, the indigenous people. So I do not think it would serve my purpose to cut it down and throw it away."

He said he would be happy to rehabilitate Chief Kno-Tah, if the city is interested in hiring him to do the work. He's done it to other "Whispering Giants" that face similar issues, carving out the rotted wood and reinforcing the statues with spines made of steel and wooden beams. The other option - and he recognizes that this is a stretch - is to make a bronze cast of the statue.

The problem is that hiring Toth would be costly to the city, and could be unnecessary if the parks department finds something else to do with it. Parks officials haven't announced the options they're weighing, but it's not hard to guess: Chief Kno-Tah could be scrapped, it could be restored to better withstand the elements, it could be preserved and brought indoors, or it could be sold or gifted to a private party.

Whatever happens, many admirers of the statue believe it should be done with respect. Dirk Knudsen, a local real estate agent, started a Save Chief Kno-Tah campaign on Facebook and GoFundMe after a "virtual storm of opposition" arose from the city's initial plans to get rid of it.

"If nothing else," Knudsen said, "let's raise enough money to lay him down on a logging truck" and take him out to rot in a better place, like a tribal burial ground.

So far his campaign has only raised $930 of its $5,000 goal, but the effort was hampered by the city itself, which discouraged the public from donating money until a decision is reached.

Toth said while he recognizes that nothing lasts forever, its still sad to see one of his "Whispering Giants" in peril. When he carves, he's just a tool, he said, as he attempts to "intertwine the spirit of the Indian with the spirit of the living tree." So what happens when that tree starts to rot, and the statue's fate is in somebody else's hands?

"The whole purpose of my work has always been and will always be to honor people facing injustice," he said. "It's a matter of how important - how much importance people give to one of my 'Whispering Giants.'"

--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB
Rare tour of Bull Run watershed inspires people who want to know more about Portland's drinking water

Portland's drinking water comes mostly from two reservoirs in the Bull Run watershed near Mount Hood, tapping streams that run through more than 100-square-miles of thick forest. The city also ships Bull Run water to suburbs from Gresham to Beaverton. The gauge measures water levels. Jamie Francis | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Portland water customers will once again drink and bathe in the city's famed Bull Run water starting Wednesday after detections of parasites have gone down.

The Portland Water Bureau said Tuesday it will switch back to delivering customers water from the near-pristine Bull Run Watershed on Wednesday after serving only groundwater for about a month.

The office switched to serving 100 percent groundwater from the Columbia South Shore Well Field following about nine tests from early January to early March that found cryptosporidium in Bull Run water.

The rarity of cryptosporidium findings in the last month offers the city reprieve from the specter that it would have to build an $89 million treatment plant.

Bureau officials wrote in a statement that they expect to continue to find isolated instances of cryptosporidium, but that the public health risk remains low.

"While it is likely that low-level detections of cryptosporidium from the Bull Run will continue, current evidence from public health data, monitoring results, and watershed investigations, as well as extensive consultation with public health officials, have provided confidence in the Portland Water Bureau's decision to resume delivering Bull Run water," the statement said.

The bureau last detected cryptosporidium March 8, after finding the parasite in nine samples this year. The utility office increased its weekly testing of drinking water on Jan 8. after it detected the parasite for the first time in five years. It found the microorganism five times within five weeks.

Unlike most cities, Portland doesn't treat its water for cryptosporidium. Instead, the water flows 26 miles from a 102-square-mile watershed that is off limits to humans and is subject to no filtration and little chemical treatment. The water bureau received an exemption to chemical treatment against cryptosporidium in 2012 from the Oregon Health Authority after it found zero particles of the parasite between 2002 and 2012. The exemption required the city to instead monitor for the parasite regularly.

Finding more than one cryptosporidium oocyst--a microscopic structure found in feces--per 13,300 liters of water in one year would cause the state to revoke Portland's exemption.

The water bureau will continue increased testing until next January.

Water and health officials said the public health risk remains low. Multnomah County Health officials told local clinicians on Feb. 1 to test for expected cases of cryptosporidium infection. Public health officials have reported fewer than expected cases of illness from the parasite in 2017, according to a report from the water bureau.

"Our top priority is to protect public health," Water Bureau Administrator Mike Stuhr said in a statement. "The evidence and data collected, along with input from our partners with the Multnomah County Health Department and regulators at the Oregon Health Authority, indicates the risk remains low."

Still, county health officials urged people with compromised immune systems to consult their physicians.

--Jessica Floum

503-221-8306
While the homeless village for women in Kenton sounds like a potential early step in dealing with our homeless emergency ("Tiny house village for homeless women approved by Kenton neighborhood," March 8), I wonder how it can be legal. In 2014 we passed measure 89 which added an equal rights amendment to the Oregon Constitution. Our state Constitution now includes "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the state of Oregon or by any political subdivision in this state on account of sex." Presumably the amendment applies equally to both sexes. Because the land being used for the women-only homeless village is owned by the Portland Development Commission, a political subdivision, then the state Constitution should dictate that any use should have equality of access. There may be many reasons to only help homeless women while leaving the men to sleep in the street or in tent villages, but our Constitution appears to prohibit a political organization from providing unequal services. Catholic Charities should build their women-only homeless village on private land.

Louie Sloan, North Portland
1steveking.JPG

In this Jan. 23, 2014, file photo, Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa speaks in Des Moines.

(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON -- White supremacism was never banished from American political thought, just shoved to the fringe and hushed to a whisper. Now, in the Age of Trump, it's back in the mainstream and ready to roar.

Witness the words of Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, on the subject of immigration: "Culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." King offered these sentiments Sunday in a tweet expressing solidarity with Geert Wilders, an openly racist and Islamophobic Dutch politician who has a chance of becoming prime minister in elections this week. Wilders is someone who "understands," King wrote.

And we understand just what King meant. Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke certainly got the message, using his vile Twitter account to proclaim, "GOD BLESS STEVE KING!!!"

Just so there's no confusion, King went on CNN Monday to say that "I meant exactly what I said." He added: "I've been to Europe and I've spoken on this issue and I've said the same thing as far as 10 years ago to the German people and to any population of people that is a declining population that ... isn't willing to have enough babies to reproduce themselves. I've said to them, 'You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else's babies. You've got to keep your birth rate up and that you need to teach your children your values.'"

Why am I hearing faint strains of "Deutschland uber alles"? And why am I not hearing a loud chorus of condemnation from King's Republican colleagues?

King told CNN he is merely "a champion for Western civilization," which he called "a superior civilization." Which means, of course, that he considers other civilizations inferior. But we knew that.

After all, King has a history of inflammatory immigrant-bashing. In 2013, he said that for every undocumented immigrant who becomes a valedictorian, "there's another hundred out there that -- they weigh 130 pounds, and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

And as for race, a guy from Iowa who keeps a Confederate flag on his desk is definitely sending some kind of message. He tried unsuccessfully to block the federal government's plans to remove Andrew Jackson's image from the $20 bill and replace it with that of Harriet Tubman. King says he is proud that some of his ancestors were abolitionists. One wonders if he knows what the word means.

We should pay attention to his lexicon, however, because today's white supremacism tends to shy away from overtly racial terminology. Listen instead for words such as "culture" and "civilization."

The idea is that the United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave because its "civilization" is "European" or "Western" -- euphemisms, basically, for "white." According to this view, immigrants have been assets to the country only to the extent that they have fully assimilated into the dominant culture. And while previous waves of immigrants may have become part of the fabric of our society, recent Latino immigrants are not blending in. And as for Muslims, well, forget about it; the Constitution may forbid the establishment of any official religion, but our civilization is resolutely Christian. African-Americans are OK so long as they accept the foregoing as true -- and do not assert any sort of distinct African-American identity.

I think that's a fair reading of modern white-supremacist doctrine. Of course, it's a bunch of racist, ahistorical claptrap.

Immigrants -- both voluntary and involuntary -- have shaped this nation since long before its founding. The first Africans were brought here in bondage in 1619, one year before the Mayflower. Americans have never been a single ethnicity, speaking a single language, bound by the centuries to a single patch of land. We have always been diverse, polyglot and restless, and our greatness has come from our openness to new people and new ideas.

King's distress about birth rates can only be read as modern-day eugenics. If he is worried about the coming day when there is no white majority in the United States, he has remarkably little faith in our remarkable society -- or in the Constitution that he, as a member of Congress, is sworn to support and defend.

President Trump played footsie with the white supremacist movement during his campaign. His chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, waged civilizational war when he ran the Breitbart News site. Trump could definitively denounce King's racism with a statement or a tweet, but so far his silence is deafening.

Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group
DISENROLLMENT Behind Sovereign Immunity Deserves YOUR Condemnation.

The Right to Abuse Doesn't Make Abuse Right
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Rachael Acker loves to encourage young people to study in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

I think it is a very rewarding path, she said. It is amazing when you see something you worked on put to use.

Acker graduated from Michigan State University in December. She earned a bachelor of science degree with a major in mechanical engineering and a minor in computer science.

But her interest in STEM fields started back at home, at Midland High School.

I really enjoyed the computer science class at MHS, she said. I eventually switched to mechanical because although I liked learning about computer science I loved the physical side of machines. To me the most interesting is the intersection where the mechanics must be controlled or work with sensorial inputs.

While her classes introduced her to these fields, being part of the robotics team also proved to be inspiring.

I knew I wanted to do something with engineering because the aspect of real-world problem solving fascinated me, Acker said. I especially knew engineering was for me after participating on the FIRST robotics team my last year in high school.

The team included students from both Midland and Dow High Schools.

I was greatly influenced by that experience. It was the first time I made a physical thing and had to troubleshoot/come up with different solutions, she said. I fell in love with the design process. Ultimately I think it is why I went into engineering and landed on mechanical engineering.

Acker shared more encouragement for students interested in STEM: It can be challenging, but remember if you think something is difficult others are probably struggling too. Never be afraid to ask questions, because although it may be intimidating, it shows initiative and it pays back to have a full understanding.

After graduating from Midland High in 2012, Acker attended MSU. During her time there, she shared her interest in STEM fields with students in local schools, as part of Googles igniteCS program and the Women in Computing group at MSU.

It was awesome seeing how excited they got with their projects and how they wanted to share them with everyone, she said. The idea was to show kids a different side of engineering and computer science. A side that isnt just hard math and that you dont have to be a math and/or science whiz to succeed (at). The program was especially for underrepresented minorities in engineering.

Her time at MSU also led to a couple of trips to Google and to an internship at Whirlpool.

I went once to Google to represent MSU and to share about our after school program. Google funded 10 projects across the U.S. and we all came together to present and learn from each others experiences, Acker said.

The second trip to Google was for a small seminar about how to promote computer science for those that are currently not represented in the community 

That trip included brainstorming sessions on why some women studying computer science drop out so early, and what initiatives could help universities to offer a more welcoming and appealing environment for women.

Her internship at Whirlpool provided a great opportunity as well.

At Whirlpool I was in the built-in oven group and was tasked to start developing a wireless meat probe to cook with your food inside of an oven, she said. The main issue was to figure out how to power and communicate without batteries in the probe (because batteries cant withstand high temperatures).

There were several steps in the process.

I researched different technologies, worked with outside companies to get a prototype, developed testing and analysis, investigated antenna design, went through (the patent) process for the antenna ideas, and then wrote a summary of the project and passed it on, Acker said.

While at MSU, she earned recognition including the MITECH Plus, Inc. Instrumentation Robotics Scholarship, Delphi Diversity Programs Scholar, the Whirlpool Gold Award and the MSU Board of Trustees Scholarship Award.

In January she left to travel abroad. After stopping in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Tasmania and parts of Europe, she will return to start with Whirlpool in July.

The program is called WERLD  which stands for Whirlpool Engineering Rotational Leadership Development. You do four, six-month rotations and one can be international to a tech center, she said. Then you go to Purdue to get a technical masters.  The idea is for engineers to see different areas of the company and learn different stages of designing a product (concept through manufacturing).

Acker, who speaks German and Spanish, shared some future goals.

I would like to have at least one utility patent with me as an inventor and have that concept be in use in something on the market, she said. I also would like to continue improving my language skills and possibly learn another language.

Meanwhile, after wrapping up her schooling at MSU and seeing some of the world, she will bring her interest in STEM fields with her to Whirlpool and whatever lies beyond.
Ingersoll Township describes itself as a well-established, peaceful township with wooded areas in the northern part of the township and extensive farmland in the south, providing an open, rural environment. That southern portion is being eyed for wind turbines.

The sad result of an undertaking like this is that it often produces opposing sides that are not easily reconciled, Ingersoll Township Supervisor Chuck Tabb said. The biggest concern I have is that it will take a township, a community, that has been fairly stable, prosperous (and) the people have gotten along together well, and it is going to divide them. My concern as supervisor is to do everything I can to keep that from happening.

DTE Energy plans to place wind turbines not only in Ingersoll Township, but also possibly in Mount Haley Township, Tabb said.

We found out that they have had a contractor out surveying the area to see if there was interest and willingness, Tabb added. Theyve already approached large property owners in the area with leases to sign.

Mount Haley Township residents have also been approached about interest.

I had a call a couple of months ago from somebody asking if they could talk to residents. But, I havent heard anything (back), Mount Haley Supervisor Rich Keenan said.

Wind turbine projects have been a hot topic across the state  and the division in Ingersoll has already begun.

There are some residents of the county who have been approached and are in favor. Theyve given me some input, Tabb said. But, we do have some strong anti-wind turbine (stances) from farmers who own lots of lands.

Residents will be able to get some answers in a special town hall meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, at the Ingersoll Township Hall, 3026 S. Sasse Road. Scotty Kehoe, DTE Energy regional manager for corporate and government affairs, will be in attendance to answer questions from concerned residents. Attempts by the Daily News to contact Kehoe for comment were unsuccessful.

Im thinking we will have a clarification of their objectives along with explaining the impact of what they want to do as they see it, Tabb said.

Tabb said that Kehoe told him the reason behind the wind project is that the state of Michigan is requiring DTE to generate 15 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, up from 10 percent now.

The current township ordinance would allow a special use permit after meeting certain requirements. If they meet the qualifications, DTE could apply for and receive a special use permit, Tabb said.

We have established an ordinance for wind energy that we did about 10 years ago, Tabb said. But, we need to immediately update our ordinance and are working with a planner to do that. Were going to have to do something because DTE is going to get some people that are willing to have them on their land.

DTE built a 212.8-megawatt project featuring 133 1.6-MW GE wind turbines in Wheeler, Bethany, Emerson and Lafayette townships of Gratiot County, which generates enough renewable energy to power more than 50,000 Michigan homes. The project went online in June 2012 and was expected to provide an estimated $50 million in total taxes over the next 20 years as well as $2 million in annual lease payments to property owners.

They say that it increases the tax base. But, with a township like Ingersoll, we arent going hand-to-mouth, Tabb said. Weve maintained a good fund balance for the purpose of a rainy day. If you look at that on an individual basis it might impact their taxes $50 per year, maybe. Probably not even that.

Opponents of wind turbines cite noise, flickering lights on each turbine and wildlife concerns, including the possibility of birds getting hit by the spinning turbine blades and dying.
They didnt set out to be heroes, nor did they expect their recent temporary assignment to Talafofo, Guam, would place them in that situation.





On Feb. 25, Staff Sgts. Rochelle Waters and Dante Thomas, 349th Security Forces Squadron members here, were enjoying a day off from their training at Cope North at the beach, when something odd in the water caught their eye.

We swam all morning, Waters said. We were just hanging out after our barbeque. I was sitting under a canopy relaxing. Dante was chatting on the phone.



A young boy and his sisters were playing in the water, Dante said. As they swam further in the water, the boy started to lag behind.



I dont know why I looked up, Waters said. I saw the boy, about my sons age, dipping under water, starting to flail and shouting, I cant swim, I cant swim, I cant swim.





At that point, Waters started for the water just as Thomas threw down his phone. They both rushed toward the boy.

As soon as I saw him bob, I knew he was in trouble, Thomas added. As I was jumping in, she dove in right beside me.



I Baywatched it, Waters said. I stripped down to my suit and dove in. We swam out around 50 yards. I dont remember who got to him first.



Fortunately, both Citizen Airmen serve as life saving professions outside of their Reserve careers; Thomas is a police officer, Waters is a nurse.





Once they got the boy to shore, Waters noticed the childs lips were blue she knew it wasnt because he was cold.

The water wasnt cold, she explained. So I put him over so he could expel whatever was in his throat. Then, he coughed up a bunch of water. My nursing training kicked in.



She took his pulse and checked his ABCs  airway, breathing and circulation.



I made sure he was ok, Water said. He kept saying he was dizzy, his arms were dizzy and he was extremely tired.



It was quite a distance to his family over rough terrain, so they couldnt carry him, Thomas said. Since he was unable to walk, they waited with him.



We waited until he could breathe a bit better and his pulse was in a normal range, Waters said. When he said he was ok, Dante and I swam back with him on our shoulders to his family.



The family had no clue what had almost happened, Thomas said. They were incredibly grateful.



For the two Citizen Airmen, personal and professional instincts kicked in fast.



The first thing that went through my mind was my son; I have a son the same age, Waters explained. It was almost immediate, like a mothers intuition.



Thomas said that as a police officer, he is always aware of his surroundings.



I was just enjoying the scenery and saw something that didnt add up, he said. I went from enjoying the scenery to seeing his head bob.



The two Citizen Airmen dont see what they did as anything out of the ordinary.



I just did what I was supposed to do, Thomas said. Its like putting on the uniform. We didnt do this to be recognized. It was just  somethings wrong here, lets do what we can to make it right.



Waters reiterated his thoughts.



I think as a security forces member, its not that huge of a deal, she said. We know that any one of us, had we been in that situation, would have done that exact same thing.




Members from The Society of Water Rescue and Survival Research held training on Uitemate at Misawa Air Base, Japan, March 12.



Uitemate is a water survival technique used to float in the water long enough to be rescued. This training was one way to say thank you for all U.S. forces' efforts and aid in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded in this country.



March 11 marked six years since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of Japan, initiating Operation Tomodachi, the assistance relief effort conducted by the Government of Japan and the U.S.



If you break down the word Uite meaning float and Mate meaning wait for rescue, [this is the appropriate Japanese word to use], explained Mr. Hidetoshi Saitoh, President of The Society of Water Rescue and Survival Research. We are here to teach this as a way of saying thank you for Operation Tomodachiwe appreciate you for your cooperation.



Mr. Jun Abe, a professional diver and Uitemate instructor from Miyagi Prefecture, talked about his experience on 3/11.



I thought we would never recover, he said with a crack in his voice, many peoples houses were destroyed because of it, but with the help from U.S. Army, Marines, Navy and Air Forcethe Misawa Air Base community and their kind hands, we did.



Abe explained how Higashimatsushima City in the Miyagi Prefecture, near the sea, was destroyed. He and his wife were swallowed up by the tsunami and were carried several hundred meters down river. They survived using Uitemate until help from the U.S. military arrived.



You Americans helped us Japanese peoplewe will never forget your help, said Abe I am very happy to hold a special training program on water safety and survival called Uitemate, especially here at Misawa Air Base.



After the lecture, Misawa Air Base members were given hands on training in the pool.

They learned how to float in the water for an extended period, how to breathe, and how to use their shoes and empty water bottles to float, all while being reminded to keep their chins up and remain calm.



Its such a great honor that they [The Society of Water Rescue and Survival Research] came out here to teach us these skills so we can pass this along to others, said Airman 1st Class Sarah Rose, 35th Maintenance Squadron aircraft electrical and environmental systems technician. Knowing these skills they taught todayit makes me feel more confident and that is amazing.



Members from Misawa walked away with a better understanding of what happened six years ago along with new water survival skills.



I felt it was really important to understand how they felt six years ago when the tsunami happened and seeing the emotion on their face, said Rose Now I have a better understanding, and I can help and teach others to use Uitemate if this happens again.



Although a devastating natural disaster, the response and continuing teamwork six years later is a perfect demonstration of the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the close friendship between the military forces. Operation Tomodachi demonstrated the speed, agility and responsiveness of the Jieitai and U.S. forces to come together as one to overcome even the greatest of adversities.
I remember studying the film version of "West Side Story" in high school. At that time, about 15 years had passed since the film adaptation of the Tony-winning play had swept the Academy Awards, winning 10 of 11 nominations.

It was powerful and relevant then, sadly, and it is even more so today. A quick Google search will reveal an interesting evolution that began in 1947, and finally emerged on Broadway a decade later. It's worth the read.

Influenced by Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," "West Side Story," now on stage at Bloomington's Community Players Theatre, follows the tragic romance of Anton (Tony) a white boy of Polish descent, and Maria, a beautiful girl from Puerto Rico.

The action is set in New York's upper west side, where the two lovers are surrounded by warring factions: The Jets, led by Tony's best friend Riff, and the Sharks, let by Maria's older brother Bernardo.

As power struggles over the neighborhood ensue, the two star-crossed lovers race to prevent inevitable tragedy, and show their people that it is possible to get along with one another in America, the land they all call home.

Director Alan Wilson, a self-confessed devotee of the poignant, timeless play, has given this production his heart and soul, and from the opening number, his efforts pay off, nicely.

Ashleigh Feger's set design, enhanced by Chris Terven's lighting design, beautifully frame the efforts of a sizable, hard-working ensemble featuring impressive choreography by Billy Blue.

Outstanding performances abound, led by Brady Hughes as Tony and Teresa Williams, as Maria.

Wendy Baugh is delightful as the sassy Anita, and Spencer Powell delivers as the love of her life, Maria's brother, Bernardo. Scott Myers, as Officer Krupke, and Carys Fritz, as Anybodys, skillfully provide the evening's much-needed comic relief.

The performance I attended was near capacity. So if you plan to see this production (and you should) you would be wise to get your tickets in advance.
BLOOMINGTON  Fire Chief Brian Mohr said Bloomington's 2016 fire statistics reflect the city's need for a new station on the northeast side and a second ambulance crew at its headquarters station near downtown.

"Our biggest problem in the northeast is travel distance so we need to build a station and put a resource in that location in order to reduce (response) times," said Mohr after presenting the department's statistical annual report to the City Council Monday.

Currently, it can take up to 12 minutes for a fire engine to show up in that quadrant because of the distance from the nearest current stations, he said.

He also noted the over-utilization of the headquarters station on Lee Street just west of downtown as a factor for the department last year meeting the response time national benchmark of six minutes 66.5 percent of the time for EMS calls.

In 2016, 46 percent of the department's calls for the entire community happened in the headquarters' response district, which encompasses downtown and neighborhoods on the city's northwest side, he said.

When the resources at the headquarters fire station are busy, resources from other outlying fire districts are brought in to handle other calls, which, on average, adds one minute and 57 seconds for them to respond, said Mohr.

"Until we address that immediate problem we're not going to be able to see that big of an impact on those response times," Mohr said.

To improve emergency medical response times, the council in December approved a tax levy with a $545,000 increase earmarked to fund a second ambulance crew at the headquarters station.

At the meeting, the citys independent auditors offered a "clean" opinion on the citys financial books, except for U.S. Cellular Coliseum's finances.

The fiscal year 2016 audit by Baker Tilly Virchow Krause was delayed because of the transition of management of the city-owned Coliseum from Central Illinois Arena Management to VenuWorks in April 2016.

The auditors cited the Coliseum as an internal control issue they needed to report.

"It wasn't a matter of control, but a matter of being in the middle of an ongoing investigation and some of the information is not available right now," said Bloomington Finance Director Patti-Lynn Silva after the auditors' presentation.

An Illinois State Police investigation into past operations of the Coliseum under CIAM's management has not concluded, she said.

"For that reason alone it doesn't make sense for them to try to audit and then perhaps give an incomplete opinion," she said.
BLOOMINGTON  Five women who were sexually abused as children have filed a lawsuit against the 79-year-old man convicted of molesting them.

Harlan Mohr is serving 3 years for criminal sexual abuse of four Central Illinois women starting in 2001 and continuing until 2009. A fifth woman, not named in criminal charges but who testified about abuse, is included in the lawsuit.

The victims, all now in their 20s, were acquainted with Mohr, of Keokuk, Iowa. The Pantagraph does not name the victims of sex crimes.

Bloomington lawyer Jeff Brown said the lawsuit seeking more than $50,000 from Mohr in damages is a rarity in civil court.

"There's a certain level of criminal out there for whom prison is not enough. They need to also lose their assets," said Brown.

Mohr's victims received counseling services related to their abuse and the cost of that assistance could be covered by an award from the lawsuit along with money they are asking in punitive damages, said Brown.

"There are emotional issues they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives that can't be repaired by the restitution in a criminal case," said Brown.

Juliet Boyd, the Chicago lawyer who represented Mohr in the criminal case, did not respond to a call for comment on the civil action.

In addition to damages for expenses, the lawsuit also seeks more than $50,000 in punitive damages.

At Mohr's sentencing hearing in August 2016, the victims told Judge Casey Costigan that the trauma of a decade of abuse as children has been difficult to put behind them. Recurring nightmares, alcohol abuse and thoughts of suicide are among the lingering impacts, said the women.

In the normal course of a criminal case, victims are reimbursed for losses through restitution ordered as part of a sentence. A state fund also is available for victims in some cases.

According to Brown, a lack of financial resources also limits what most victims attempt to collect from their abusers. In Mohr's case, evidence during his criminal prosecution indicated that he has substantial assets, said Brown.

The victims reported the sexual abuse in 2013. The McLean County charges involved incidents in Bloomington, but other abuse took place in Iowa and Missouri, according to trial testimony.

The women testified that they were molested during certain holidays or events when they saw Mohr.

When Mohr is released, he must register as a sex offender.
America's sweetheart, the elusive comic Dave Chappelle, said that Donald Trump is "kind of bad for comedy" in an interview with CBC on Sunday.

The comedian argued that Trump's omnipresence means that "most comics in the states are starting to do the same jokes, just because Trump is so on everybody's mind." He looks forward to the day when "we don't have to talk about him that much." That makes two of us, Dave.

Chappelle's comments land just a month after South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said they would back off from parodying the Trump administration. "They're already going out and doing the comedy," Parker explained in an interview in February. "It's not something you can make fun of. It's tricky and it's really tricky now as satire has become reality."

Still, Chappelle thinks there's still "a role for comedy to play under Trump."

"I think that most of these guys you see working," he explained, "are wildly courageous. It's such a strange time, being bombarded with so much information, and I think comedy is an important valve for syphoning through all that."

Watch the clip below:

[h/t The Fader]

Splash image via Facebook
The Girl Scouts of America may have defended their right to march in Donald Trump's Inauguration Parade but the Girl Guides of Canada are renouncing their right to even visit America because of the president's political policies.

In a statement made on their website, they explained their position. "At Girl Guides of Canada, we know our members value the safe, inclusive and accepting space that Guiding provides. These values are reflected in all we do, including the Girl Guide travel experiences we offer girls and women." They then made it clear that they were deciding to take action specifically in response to Trump's #MuslimBan. "While the United States is a frequent destination for Guiding trips, the ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain."

In bold lettering, the letter outlined the fact that the "Girl Guides of Canada will not be approving any new travel to the United States until further notice." And, unlike the uncertainty of who and what is limited under Trump's #MuslimBan, the Girl Guides of Canada's letter was clear in its restrictions, noting that their decision included "both trips that are over or under 72-hours" and even "any travel that includes a connecting flight through an American airport."

And if, for some reason, you didn't think they were taking this new decision seriously, the Girl Guides of Canada have already relocated their "nationally-sponsored trip this summer to a camp in California" to "an alternate destination." I wonder where it'll be.

[h/t Teen Vogue]

Splash photo via Instagram


Parents all over the United States have started to consider legal remedies to keep their children secure in case the parents are detained or deported. Immigration lawyer Helen Ramirez has introduced immigrant mothers to a document known as the power of attorney to address their concerns.

The power of attorney allows immigrant parents to assign another person to act as the child's caregiver in case of detention or deportation. The parents, however, do not lose custody of the child under such circumstances.

Immigrant parents got worried about the fate of their children after United States President Donald Trump vowed to deport immigrants who are unauthorized, according to USA Today. The power of attorney served as the child's legal protection and ensure they are not taken in by the authorities. Ramirez said, "They're scared of their children winding up adopted by a stranger and then having no control over it."

There are around 11.1 million illegal immigrants in the United States and four million of these have children. A Migration Policy Institute study shows that in New Jersey alone, over 168,000 children have parents who are illegal immigrants.

Trump already made his immigration policy clear even during the campaign season. The Department of Homeland Security under Trump widened the number of criminal offenses that can lead to the deportation of illegal immigrants, as per National Review. The policy changes made sure it deterred those with plans to enter the United States illegally.

Trump's policy, however, excluded children brought to the United States illegally and are called "DREAMers." With this policy exclusion, Trump continued the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals implemented during the time of former President Barack Obama.

Despite this, immigration officers who forcibly ejected immigrants from their homes caused undue emotional and psychological strain on the families, according to The Conversation. Trump vowed to initially deport up to three million illegal immigrants
Teachers who want to raise social awareness among students face a new dilemma. Educators have been deliberating over what's allowed or not allowed when it comes to teaching Trump's politics to students especially when there are no clear guidelines.

Some believe teachers should toe the line lest their intentions are misinterpreted as influencing students' opinions. Others say, however, that dialing down on political discussions involving the president and his government's policies won't give the kids a clearer picture of what's going on when this helps hone critical thinking skills.

In an Alabama school district, school administrators suspended a teacher for supposedly expressing partisan politics in class. In Staten Island, a teacher received a warning letter for an assignment she gave students about Trump's language and manner of speaking, according to News Day.

In Baltimore, school administrators ordered teachers to take down the students' diversity posters as these were seen as anti-Trump, according to CBS Baltimore. In a Georgia school district, on the other hand, teachers were ordered not to express their pro-Trump stance or they will risk losing their jobs, according to WND.

Politics is increasingly becoming a volatile topic and no one can tell what passes as acceptable discussion or not. It is assumed social studies teachers face the most problems in teaching Trump's politics to students. The cases enumerated above, however, also involved art teachers and English teachers, which means that the problem affects all teaching staff.

Some teachers also get flak not just from the school but also from parents of the students. There are moms and dads who believe that political awareness should be handled like religion in that it is mainly a parents' duty to inculcate this on their kids. It's not for educators to teach.

Where do you stand on this issue, parents? Do you support schools that raise political issues in students or would you rather teachers limit the discussions? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Some of the most popular nursery items parents acquire from their list of must-haves are likely the main causes of child-related injuries. Experts say these products have been linked to several emergency cases, sending an average of one child to the hospital every eight minutes.

Experts conducted a Nationwide Children's Hospital study and looked into ER visits from 1991 to 2011. They learned that 80 percent of the cases arose from accidents involving nursery items like bouncers, carriers, cribs or strollers. The cases of nursery item injuries rose to 25 percent in the last eight years of the study's scope. The findings were published in the Pediatrics journal.

The majority of the accidents were head injuries or concussions, which can put young babies in serious risks as their brains are still developing. Some of the accidents resulted in babies falling from the nursery equipment causing strains or broken limbs. Some injuries also affected the face and neck areas, according to Fox.

"It is unacceptable that we are still seeing so many injuries to young children from these products," senior study author Dr. Gary Smith of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital said, according to Science Daily. Researchers suggested due diligence on the part of parents.

Parents should be aware of the 4R process in purchasing nursery items: research, recall, register and read. First, they should research about the product then check for product recalls. All of the information can be found online.

Once parents have the nursery item, they should register the product as most companies have these for warranties and after-sales service. Parents should also read the manual carefully and thoroughly before using the item.

Parents should also make sure the children are properly strapped in the carriers or strollers. "Do not to put anything heavy like a purse or bags on the back of the stroller so that it can tip over," co-study author Tracy Mehan said, per CBS Philadelphia.
Michael Brown died in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri after a police shot him to death when they received a tip about him stealing from a convenience store. A new documentary, which centered on the teenager and what happened hours before the supposed stealing and shooting, sparked new questions as to what really took place.

In the new flick titled, "Stranger Fruit" that was released at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, the producers implied Brown did not steal anything from the convenience store. The documentary showed unreleased footage from the surveillance video at the store showing the teenager seemingly trading marijuana for the bag of cigarillos.

In the surveillance video, the 18-year-old visited the convenience store hours before he died. His death prompted waves of protests after the court determined there was no wrongdoing on the part of the police involved in the shooting, Reuters revealed.

In the past, police released a video showing Brown pushing a worker before walking out of the store with the bag of cigarillos. However, the producers believed the teen went back to the store a few hours before he was first seen to retrieve the bag of cigarillos he traded for a small amount of marijuana, USA Today reported.

It seemed the staff at the convenience store agreed with the trade because in one part of the video, the staff passed around the bag given by Brown and they sniffed it. Subsequently, one employee handed Brown two boxes of cigarillos but the teen left the merchandise at the counter. Hours later, the teen returned to get the cigarillos, thus the second video released by police.

The maker of the documentary, Jason Pollock, said, "He left his items at the store and he went back the next day to pick them up." St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Robert McCulloch, argued there was no transaction between Brown and the staff of the store because they only changed the items returned by the teen and there was no trade at all.

After the documentary's release, 100 protesters gathered outside the store on Sunday evening. The store owners did not release anything yet regarding the protests outside their store.
Experts claim a new synthetic drug called "fake weed" is even riskier than the real and organic marijuana. Authorities confirm unlike the mellow high that comes from using marijuana, the synthetic pot or the fake weed causes users to react violently, have risky intercourse and abuse of the substance.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in their study the synthetic weed, most often called Spice and K2, has the same chemicals as marijuana. Thus, those who sell these drugs claimed the fake weed to be natural and safe just like marijuana in order to sell more.

However, that is not the case according to the United States National Institute Drug Abuse as fake weed have unpredictable and life-threatening effects. The synthetic marijuana is quite popular due to its low price and availability.

Lead researcher, Heather Clayton, said one in 10 high school students reported using fake weed in their study, which involved 16,000 high school students surveyed in 2015. Clayton shared, "The findings indicate that students who report using synthetic marijuana are possibly on a very concerning health trajectory, which is particularly serious given that synthetic marijuana use is relatively common among adolescents."

Researchers found out teens who used fake weed became more prone to injuries or be violent while on school property. They also found out teens who used fake weed started using marijuana as young as 13-years-old and the frequency is much higher than those using real and organic marijuana, CBS News reported.

Clayton cleared the study does now show synthetic marijuana causing risk behaviors in teens but it is important for health professionals to use the information from their study to reduce synthetic marijuana use. Researchers also discovered that depression is also one of the adverse effects of using fake marijuana and the study will help school officials to come up with programs to help teenagers under their care, CNN shared.

Dr. Scott Krakower, the assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York, advised parents to closely monitor their children and be wary when it comes to the changes in the mood and attitude of their children. Krakower added parents should immediately contact a physician if they notice behavioral changes including aggression, agitation or paranoia in their children.

Fake weed is illegal in the United States. The drugs remain present in the country because of the changes made in the packaging of the synthetic marijuana.
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Apple has been found guilty of price-fixing in Russia, after the country's anti-monopoly agency said the US company had arranged for retailers to co-ordinate the prices of its iPhone models.

According to the Financial Times, "Russia's Federal Anti-monopoly Service on Tuesday said Apple's Russian subsidiary had illegally ordered retailers to fix prices of its iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 products, a charge that could lead to the California-based company being fined.

Apple had instructed 16 Russian retailers to hold the prices of its iPhone models and contacted them in the event that any products were being sold at "inappropriate" prices, the FAS said in a statement after a seven-month investigation, adding that it suspected Apple was able to terminate sale agreements with retailers if pricing guidelines were not met.

When the investigation was announced in August, Apple denied the charge and said that resellers set their own prices for products in Russia and other markets.

The Russian agency's deputy head, Andrey Tsarikovsky stated that "The company has adopted the necessary measures to eliminate violations of the law and is pursuing a policy to prevent similar violations in the future."

The Financial Times lastly noted that "Apple will have three months to challenge the decision in court after the full decision is published later this month, Mr Tsarikovsky added. Any fine under the anti-monopoly regulations could be as much as 15 per cent of Apple's Russian unit's sales, but would be decided in a few months."

While an Apple spokesperson stated that they worked closely with FAS during their investigation and are glad to put this matter behind them, the fact is that it's not over until the matter goes to court and the fine has been established.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.


I look at myself and at others and I see some common realities. I believe we have divided hearts. That is we are pulled in multiple directions at the same time. And the consequences of this pulling and our many forced choices, most of which made from this sense of division leads to hurt for ourselves and for those whom we love.

I believe the call of the spiritual life is a call to something hard, and to something necessary. It is about the healing of these wounds, it is about the reconciliation of our lives and the life of this planet, it is in fact about the reconciliation of heaven and earth. It is, at least for me, the most important thing.

And so, when I think of the spiritual life, I think about that word hero in ways it hasnt been used much of late. According to the online version of Merriam-Webster, a hero is, in its first definition, a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities. The dictionary throws in as secondary definitions someone who is greatly admired and the chief male character in a play or story. The historic part references the older use of divine or semi divine figures in Greek and Roman mythology.

Running through all the usages over time is a focus on personal traits, those fine or noble qualities. And it is that which captures my imagination. Particularly, as I consider how the word athlete was used by early Christian ascetics to describe practitioners of their spiritual discipline. Ive always liked that usage, coming as it does somehow slightly from left field.

And then theres the way of the spiritual life. It turns on various disciplines of presence, both to our environment and within our beings. I have come to summarize these practices as sitting down, shutting up, and paying attention. This is not an easy thing to do. I believe anyone who tries this turning the light inward as one sage put it, for any sustained time knows that sustaining it can be extremely difficult.

Also, we find many obstacles along the way, we encounter such things as the noontime devil, and we may tumble into a dark night of the soul. There are traps and snares for the unwary every step of the way, and even keeping on our toes, the path can be hard, and it lasts a lifetime.

Heres where heroic comes in. An authentic spiritual life takes discipline and perseverance. It is definitely counter-cultural. In fact the spiritual life is about as counter-cultural as can be. It demands a constant presence, to finding the deepest currents of our lives within a culture that is pretty much all about distraction.

A genuine spiritual life is heroic in the sense of those qualities of nobility and perseverance that move us out of the ordinary. And yet, at the very same time, the spiritual life is something accessible to all of us. Sort of an ordinary heroism. Finding the extraordinary within the ordinary. This is our call as people on the way of heart and authenticity.

The spiritual life, as I understand it, is concerned with the salvation of the ordinary, of the saving grace of presence, of the transformative power of the here and now. Nothing less.
Iranian-American Robin Shahini Serving 18-Year Prison Sentence in Iran Proclaims Innocence in Letter

03/14/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

Robin (Reza) Shahini, an Iranian-American dual national sentenced to 18 years in prison in October 2016 during a visit to Iran, has proclaimed his innocence in a letter urging human rights groups and international organizations to work for his release.



Robin (Reza) Shahini: "Don't let me remain in this prison as an innocent man."



"I came to Iran to visit my family (on May 25, 2016) because I thought the government's attitude towards citizens had changed (after Hassan Rouhani became president in 2013) and (the government) wanted to open a new chapter in its interactions with the people on the basis of human rights," he wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained on March 7, 2017 by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

"But unfortunately on (July 11) I was arrested for false reasons and sentenced to a total of 18 years in prison in an unfair trial at Branch 1 of the Gorgan Revolutionary Court," he said.

Currently being held in Amirabad Prison in the city of Gorgan (approximately 190 miles northeast of Tehran), Shahini has been on hunger strike since February 15, 2017 to protest his unjust sentence and harsh prison conditions.

"My only sin was that as a responsible human being, I expressed my views about my homeland, which is the right of every citizen," he added. "Don't let me remain in this prison as an innocent man."

Sources close to Shahini believe he was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization because of his social media and blog postings on Iranian politics, and because of comments he had previously made about Iran to Western media, including during interviews with Voice of America, which is banned in the Islamic Republic.

"I am now in Amirabad Prison in Gorgan," wrote Shahini in his letter. "This place is dangerous for my asthma and could kill me. I am under all sorts of restrictions here that obviously have an adverse effect on morale."

"On February 14, the prison staff came inside the ward to carry out an inspection," an informed source previously told the Campaign. "When they saw Reza's diary, they beat him up and insulted him. They told him, 'Do you think this is America? You think you can do whatever you like?' and took his diary away."

"But the diary is just one incident," added the source. "Reza also gets insulted by Gorgan Prison staff because he lived in America. They call him names like 'foreigner' and 'spy.' He's completely isolated and has become psychologically weak."

In his letter, Shahini said he has "not been a member of any political group... But like any person, I do have political views."

"I reject all forms of violence and oppose political schemes," he said. "I believe that every citizen, regardless of position, status, ethnicity, religion or gender, has the right to express views on domestic or world affairs."

Recalling the widespread protests against Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election, Shahini wrote: "At the time (in the US), I too participated in peaceful demonstrations (for democratic reforms in Iran), which is the right of every citizen as recognized in the Constitution ... I have not engaged in any violent activities against any country or individual, but at the same time, I have tried to express my views as a student or a responsible individual."

Regarding photos of him standing next to Iranian opposition figures living in exile posted on Facebook, Shahini said: "I have met many people at various gatherings in my life and posted some of the pictures, including with those who oppose the Islamic Republic. But I have not interacted with anyone who supports violent political action."

Born in Iran, Shahini, 48, has been living in the US since 2000 and had settled in California, where he received a bachelor's degree in international security and conflict resolution from San Diego State University.

On July 11, 2016 he was arrested while visiting relatives in Iran. Three months later, the dual national was sentenced to a total of 18 years in prison for "acting against national security," "participating in protest gatherings in 2009," "collaborating with Voice of America (VOA) television" and "insulting the sacred on Facebook" by the Revolutionary Court in Gorgan.

In cases involving convictions on multiple charges, Article 134 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code allows for only the longest sentence to be served, making Shahini eligible for parole after serving nine years for the charge that received the harshest sentence: "collaborating with enemy states through Voice of America."

The judiciary's ongoing imprisonment of dual nationals, usually arrested by the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization or the Intelligence Ministry, contradicts Rouhani's repeated calls for expatriates to return to Iran.

The growing number of arrests also reflects hardliners' efforts to prevent the engagement with the West that the Rouhani administration has sought to encourage.

Iranian-British dual citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, sentenced to five years in prison in September 2016, has been held since April 2016; Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi, held since October 15, 2015 and his Iranian-American father, 80-year-old Bagher Namazi, held since February 2016, have both been sentenced to ten years in prison; British-Iranian dual national Roya Saberi Nobakht, held since October 2013, has been sentenced to seven years in prison; and Iranian-Austrian dual citizen Kamran Ghaderi, held since January 2016, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Iranian-American Karan Vafadari, held since July 2016, and Iranian-born Swedish resident Ahmadreza Jalili, held since April 2016, have not been sentenced yet.
mSecure password manager review TechRadar Pro

Updated In our mSecure password manager review, we take an in-depth look at this password manager to help you decide if its the most secure way to handle your sensitive data.
Microsoft Teams may be the new chat application that you dont even know youre going to use. Beginning Tuesday, businesses who subscribe to Office 365 have access to Teams, Microsofts free app addressing the rise of real-time chat for interoffice communication. At any minute, you could get an email saying your office is moving to this app. We spent some time using it so youll know what to expect.

Just what we needed, another chat app

You could say weve seen it all. In the last decade or so, PCWorld has moved from Yammer to GChat to HipChat to Slack, with occasional use of Skype, Google Hangouts and more.

Teams isnt entirely unfamiliar, as it incorporates a little bit of Yammer and a dash of Skype, plus Outlook and more. With any chat app, however, problems can crop up when no employee is quite sure which application to use for attaching or sharing files, creating meetings, or conducting ad-hoc video calls or collaborations.

Microsoft Teams clearly feels that all of these are its responsibility. But some of its extra capabilities can sometimes feel unnecessary, while other important features, such as private channels, arent yet built in. The challenge for Microsoftand for our team, which had to be pried off of Slack to try Teamsis inertia: If you have a solution that works, you stick with it.

Who gets it? Office 365 commercial customers with a Business Essentials, Business Premium, or Enterprise E1, E3 and E5 plan. If youre a home user, you may end up using Teams as an included component of your companys paid Office subscription, and youll need to log into Teams. Free mobile clients for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone are also available.

Within Windows 10, you can either use Teams as a desktop app or as a browser-based app at teams.microsoft.com. As we discovered, some browsers, like Apples Safari for the Mac, arent supported.

IDG / Mark Hachman Though you certainly dont have to maximize the Teams window, theres a ton of wasted space if you do. Instead, try snapping it to one half of the screen.

What am I looking at? After you launch the app, you navigate Teams using the left-hand bar. The default view appears to be the Teams view (natch), which leads into the general chat window. Above Teams are the other, most commonly used tabs: the Chats section, as well as Activity.

Think of Activity as your Teams notifications center, where you can see whos responded to your messagesa tab that fills up fast. The Meetings tabs lets you view your own calendar and initiate meetings, while Files houses your own recently-used files and any others your group has shared.

For some reason, Microsoft chose to hide Teams Settings behind your own personal icon to the bottom left. You may not care what your icon looks like, but the Notifications portion of Settings hides a great deal of customizable choices. Settings also allows you to control color schemes called Themes, such as high-contrast and dark options. Personally, Id like to see a Compact theme, too, as Teams, like Skype, wastes a lot of white space.

IDG / Mark Hachman Like Outlook, Teams is well thought out on mobile devices.

How do I know whats going on? Because Teams is a Windows app, youll also see slide-in notifications in the lower-right-hand corner of your main desktop window. One of the key differences between Slack and Teams, though, is that Slack shows open channels and conversations in the left nav bar, by default. Teams forces you to hover over or click the appropriate Chat icon to display open conversations. The upshot is that Slack will show you if you have five messages from your boss, while Teamss default view says you have five messageswithout indicating who sent them, making it harder to prioritize.

IDG / Mark Hachman One of the more useful features of Microsoft Delve is its repository of common files. Teams includes that, too.

The Notifications settings lets you configure how you want to handle replies, likes, team mentions, personal mentions and other elements, whether as a banner notification, a mention in the alerts list under Activity, or nothing at all. (An emailed notification option is also available for personal mentions.) Being able to configure alerts for things like team role changes may be comforting to some hyper-aware workers; others will merely shrug at the array of options.

IDG / Mark Hachman Microsoft Teams includes Microsofts handy calendar scheduling assistant so you can figure out when people are available.

Teams also includes your own personal calendar and a handy assistant to help you schedule a more formal meeting, rather than just an ad-hoc chat.

How do I chat? Your administrator will likely have configured some sort of general chat window, so getting started shouldnt be difficult.

IDG / Mark Hachman One of my favorite features within Microsoft Teams is the wide range of editable stickers.

Microsoft clearly designed Teams with younger workers in mind, as there are more configurable chat options than in other clients Ive seen. Unlike Slack, you dont have to type in arcane commands to format text; CTRL + I will italicize text, just like Word. You can attach files and use emoji. Teams also includes the almost mandatory Giphy GIF integration. One of my favorite features is Microsofts custom stickers, which can also be captioned. Finally, if you so choose, a video icon allows you to transition from chat to a one-on-one or group call. Theres even Microsofts own chatbot, T-Bot, which offers help in a Google Assistant-like manner.

Unlike Slack, however, you cant yet edit or delete a message in Teams, or mark it with anything beyond a simple thumbs-up. (Correction: Teams prevents you from editing or deleting messages after 24 hours has expired. Before then, you can click the ellipsis menu next to a message and choose to either edit or delete it.)

Whom can I talk to? Unlike Hangouts or other services, Teams forces you to hunt down your coworkers. Channels youre subscribed to are easy to find, but finding out whos in them requires right-clicking on the channel name to unearth the members list. Slack uses the left rail to list coworkers and channels, but Teams merely leaves it blank. It would also be handy if Teams auto-suggested coworkers via the search box, though at least it will autocomplete a name if you begin typing.

Oh, and for right now, you can only chat to coworkers. Adding partners, freelancers, and other people outside the company will come later, Microsoft says.

IDG / mark Hachman Microsoft even has its own chatbot to facilitate things, though our copy wasnt enabled.

If you right-click a members name, Teams surfaces a contact card, along with an option to email the contact or chat with them, as well as initiate either a video or VoIP call. (If you try to right-click a coworkers name in the flyout window, the card appears directly behind the flyout window, and is mostly obscured. Also, right-clicking on a persons name wont trigger the additional optionsjust the portrait. ) Like Microsoft Delve, Teams also offers you the theoretical possibility to discover where they fit into an organization. In reality, youll need an administrator to set that up.

Private chats track the chat history and keep a record of files youve shared. To its credit, Teams puts this information front and center, while Slack buries shared files within the small conversation icon at the very top of a chat screen. Admins may like to know that all data is stored in regional clouds set in Azure Active Directory, and that chats are managed by the Microsoft Teams Chat Service. All users will care about, however, is that Teams retains all messages and deleted messages from between 7 and 30 days.

IDG / Mark Hachman Opening up a contact card allows several new channels of communication, including email, voice, and video chat.

Teams has one major omission, though: At present, there are no private channels. If youre in HR and want to discuss a performance review, youll need to open a private chat.

Whats the difference between a channel and a chat? In Slack, a chat with five people and a channel with five people share many traits. While Teams chats and channels can be favorited to store them in your sidebarjust like Slackeverything else about them differs significantly.

Within Teams, a channel is more of a shared workspace. You have shared files and conversations, and a shared OneNote notebook. You can add shared Office apps, a list of websites, and more. Teams doesnt force the additional complexity on you, though it certainly encourages this additional stickiness via shared apps. Though Slack encourages the use of plugins, it lacks this depth of integration with Office.

How good is the video conferencing? With the possible exception of Hangouts or Skype, most PC chat apps encourage their users to interact via text. Teams falls into that category as well. If you choose to, however, you can launch either a voice or video chat using the power of (what else did you expect?) Skype. Note that video calling is also available on Android, but isnt yet available on iOS or Windows phones.

IDG / Mark Hachman Slack prioritizes the speaker

Since Teams chat is based upon Skype, youre probably already familiar with how it works. The key difference between Slack and Teams, that I can see, appears to be that Teams favors subdividing your screen equally among the participants; Slack prefers giving the entire screen over to whomever is speaking (or fidgeting, as the case may be). Over a shaky Wi-Fi connection, neither Slack nor Teams was especially smooth. Both seemed to prioritize audio over video, however, which is probably the correct way to handle it. Up to 80 people can join a video or VoIP call using Teams, Microsoft says.

IDG / Mark Hachman why Microsoft Teams gives particpants equal billing.

How Teams measures up: Teams still feels unfinished because of the features it lacks (private channels, mainly). Coworkers complained of the wasted space and slow performance. My own boss appeared as two entities: one tied to her Skype for Business account, and the other linked to Office 365.

Features like editable stickers are fun, but Teams needed to hit the ground running. Being the free app is a good start, but with so much established competition you cant really expect business customers to take a step back and wait for a vendor to catch up.

Updated at 9:44 AM with additional details, and at 11:01 AM to correct a statement about Teams ability to edit or delete messages.
Californias spectacular state parks system  which ranges from statuesque redwoods to vast deserts and sweeping beaches  has hit some rough patches over the past five years with threatened parks closures, budget problems and even a famous drive-through giant sequoia tree falling down this winter in heavy storms.

But parks lovers are trying to inject some new visibility and money into the venerable system of 280 parks with a proposed commemorative license plate.

For the state Department of Motor Vehicles to begin producing the plate, which features an image of a redwood forest, it needs 7,500 prepaid orders by May 18.

As of Sunday afternoon, it had only 647, and environmental groups are ramping up efforts to sell as many as they can in the next two months.

Our fingers are crossed, said Sam Hodder, president of the Save the Redwoods League.

It is a steep hill to climb, he said, but I believe the people of California love their state parks. If they are made aware of this opportunity to put their love on their license plates, I think theyll welcome it.

The league, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco, has preserved 200,000 acres of redwood forests since 1918, many of which were ancient trees more than 1,000 years old that would have been cut down. The group has added them to state parks such as Big Basin, Butano, Portola Redwoods, Humboldt Redwoods, Jedediah Smith and Prairie Creek.

The state parks plates cost $50 for first issue and $40 each year after, and for personalized plates, $98 for first issue and $78 each year after. To order, go to https://parksplate.parks.ca.gov.

Any money raised if the plates qualify will fund specific state parks projects that the public can enjoy and appreciate, said Lisa Mangat, Californias state parks director.

It will be used for new interpretive programs, new trails, and really defined purposes, and not just lumped into a big bucket of funding, she said. We want to track it and measure it and show the public what these parks plates have been able to support.

California has 12 specialty license plates, ranging from a Yosemite plate that has raised $19.6 million for projects in Yosemite National Park to a recently approved Snoopy plate that raises money for California museums, to a whale-tail plate that has generated $26.5 million for coastal programs and a veterans plate that has raised $12.7 million for military veterans programs.

Together, they have raised a combined $217 million over the years, with the KIDS plate, featuring a small hand, having raised the most, $61.9 million, for child abuse prevention and childrens health issues.

The redwoods plate was designed by Wyn Ericson, an artist and middle school teacher in Napa County. Ericsons work won first prize in a contest in November 2015 to select the best plate, chosen by a panel that featured representatives from state parks, Save the Redwoods League, Sempervirens Fund and the California Natural Resources Agency.

The plate was authorized under a law that passed in 2012, and pushed by former state Assemblyman Jared Huffman of Marin County, who now is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

State law requires 7,500 plates to be ordered within a year for any specialized license plate to be printed. Backers of plates can get a one-year extension if needed, but the parks plate, which so far has not enjoyed the same level of attention as other plates, is in its extension period now.

If 7,500 plates are not pre-ordered by May 18, the money of people who ordered will be refunded.

Californias state park system began in 1864 when President Abraham Lincoln set aside part of Yosemite, including Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley, as a park under state protection (it later became a national park). The system began in earnest in 1902, when state lawmakers purchased redwoods in the Big Basin area after Andrew P. Hill, a San Jose photographer, launched a campaign to keep them from being cut down.

Today, California has arguably the finest state park system in the United States, with 340 miles of coastline, 970 miles of lake and river frontage, 15,000 campsites and 4,500 miles of trails. More than 67 million visitors a year visit places as varied as Hearst Castle, Anza Borrego Desert, Sutters Mill, Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais and the elephant seals of Ano Nuevo on the San Mateo County coast.

But the system has struggled with funding shortfalls, a maintenance backlog estimated at $1.3 billion, and storms this winter, which have closed four parks in Big Sur and toppled the famous Pioneer Cabin Tree, a giant sequoia that generations of motorists drove through, at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in the Sierra foothills. State parks leaders are looking for a reboot in the years ahead to generate new excitement and support.

The California state parks system only exists because members of the public came together and said these are special places that should be set aside and preserved for their children and their childrens children, said Mangat. We really think about that. Making the connections with the public is really key. Because without their support, we wont exist in the future.
Following a successful inaugural year with more than 22,000 attendees at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point last August, the Ohana festival will return to is beachfront locale in 2017 for a three days, Sept. 8-10.

The line-up for the expanded festival includes performances by Eddie Vedder, Fiona Apple, Glen Hansard, Haim, Jack Johnson, Social Distortion, Pixies, Ray Lamontangne, the Naked and Famous, TV on the Radio and many more.

Single day general admission start at $99.50 and weekend passes are $275. VIP passes are $499 for single day passes and a weekend VIP pass is $1,200. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at theohanafest.com.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the San Onofre Parks Foundation, a non-profit that works with California State Parks to develop, conserve the recreation experience of Californias costal parks.

Contact the writer: 714-796-3570 or kfadroski@scng.com
When Disney California Adventure brought back the Food & Wine Festival last year, park officials trotted out an abbreviated version of the culinary event. Chef demonstrations and premium dining experiences were limited to the weekend. New meal creations were found at eight marketplace food booths.

Gary Maggetti, a general manager at Disney California Adventure, admits the park dipped their toes in the water last year. Now acclimated, Maggetti said the park has tripled down for the 2017 festival, which kicked off Friday, March 10, and runs through Sunday, April 16.

Fifteen food, beer and wine booths, daily culinary demonstrations, premium dining with celebrity chefs and beer and wine seminars are spread throughout the park. Theres even a merchandise shop where guests can sample small pours from exclusive California wines, as well as buy bottles to take home.

This is the whole enchilada, Maggetti said opening day.

For the serious foodie and cook, there are expanded culinary demonstrations. Depending on the day, the demos cost $10 or $15 but include food tastings. Disney has tapped a wide range of personalities  from Top Chef runner-up Amar Santana to Wing Lam of Wahoos Fish Taco. The live cooking segments are held indoors at Stage 17 in Hollywood Land.

Passholder Roberta Baumgardner said shes impressed with the expanded culinary events.

This is much better, but its costly, Baumgardner said after attending cooking demo by Los Angeles chef David Kuo.

The Walnut Creek resident paid $45 for a Sip and Savor pass  good for eight Marketplace food tastings. She also paid $15 for the demo by Kuo, who fed the audience a traditional Taiwanese chicken and rice dish.

During last weeks media tour, I sampled many of the new Marketplace foods offered this year. I was joined by Kendall Lowery, a student at Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana. Lowery is interested in food writing and wanted to shadow me during one of my many eating escapades.

For a rookie binge eater, she ate like a champ.

Heres our guide to the event:

Best Bites in the Marketplace

The Marketplace booths, which serve small plate foods and alcoholic beverages, have nearly doubled this year to 15. Kendall and I sampled nearly every dish at the 11 food booths, each sporting a theme tied to a popular California ingredient or dish. (Note: The four other kiosks sell beer and wine by the glass or in flights.)

Our favorite bites:

Smoked Bacon Mac & Cheese: This delicious meal was a favorite among everyone I talked to during our tour. It is topped with barbecue seasoned crispy onions. To underscore how craveable this dish was, we had already gorged ourselves on several dishes but we wanted more bites. Whenever food makes you stop and sigh thats good thing, Kendall said. Cost: $7.50 at the Bacon Twist booth.

Maple-Bacon Whoopie Pie: Back by popular demand, this hit from last year returns for good reason: after one bite, your eyes will roll back into your head. Sweet and fun  a great dessert for mom, dad and the kids. Cost: $4.25 at the Bacon Twist booth.

Duck Confit on Potato Smash: This is one of the most complex and filling meals found at the Marketplace. The casserole style dish is garnished with Meyer lemon preserves. Buy it, and share it with two or three people. Cost: $7 at the Lemon Grove booth.

Bay Shrimp Louis Salad and White Cheddar Lager Soup: The Louis salad gets bonus points for its gorgeous presentation. Warning: It is served in a mini-Boudin sourdough bowl, so theres not much salad. Its mostly bread, but the shrimp, lettuce and diced hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes make for a refreshing meal on a warm day. If youre looking for something more savory, get the white cheddar lager soup, also served in a petite Boudin bowl. The Shrimp Louis is $6.75, and the soup is $6, both found at the Sweet & Sourdough booth.

Croque Monsieur Roll and Brie Toast: French cuisine traditionalists will most certainly balk at Disneys interpretation of its signature ham and cheese sandwich because it resembles a deli roll up found on a Costco party tray. But we liked the inventiveness of the twisted toast stuffed with baked ham and cheese. Topped with smoked pistachios, the sandwich has great umami flavors. Its an elevated picnic snack, Kendall said. Cost: $7 at the Nuts About Cheese booth.

Another winner at this booth is the Brie Toast with Fig & Mint. A crostini is layered with whipped brie. Kendall and I thought the sweetness of the fig and the crunchy almond crumble offered a wonderful contrast to the rich brie. Cost: $5.

Pork Belly Bao: This must be a fan favorite because it is making a third appearance after previously showing up at last years Food & Wine festival and the newly launched Festival of Holidays celebration. This time around, Disney has made one major modification to the bao by adding black garlic from Gilroy. The sweetness of the caramelized garlic combined with the pickled slaw toppings gives great balance to the fatty pork belly. If youve never had a classic bao (a soft white taco-like bun), this is a good introduction. Cost: $7 at the Garlic Kissed booth.

Verlasso Sustainable Salmon Tatami: Where else can you get a generous portion of seared farmed salmon for $7.50? Seafood fans will love this dish, topped with a generous drizzle of avocado wasabi, furikake dust and sesame seeds. Dont fear the wasabi because its not a lethal dose. In fact, our only complaint is that it lacked the advertised kick. Find this dish at the Seafood Sustained booth.

Chicken Teriyaki Slider, Korean BBQ Short Rib Taco and Dole Pineapple-Strawberry Float: Were calling it now: The L.A. Style booth is the hidden gem of the festival. While 10 of the 11 Marketplace food booths are located along the pathway from Carthay Circle to Paradise Garden, this kiosk is tucked off the beaten path in Hollywood Land. Most everything on the menu is excellent. (Skip the shortcake parfait. Its not as good as it sounds.) The short rib taco is perfectly marinated and full of flavor. If youre craving a beef dish, this one is much preferred over the dry and tough grilled beef tenderloin at Garlic Kissed. The slider is served on a sweet Hawaiian roll with spicy Dole pineapple jam. We didnt taste any spice, but the omission was forgivable because the jam topping complemented the chicken.

If you want to drink your calories, the Dole float is for you. Ice cold Dole pineapple-strawberry juice is poured over a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, then topped with more ice cream. Need I say more?

Cooking demonstrations

In years past, the cooking demonstrations were held outdoors and did not include food tastings. Responding to demand, Disney is now serving the dish prepared by the chef but for a price. The fee-based program, held inside Stage 17 in Hollywood Land, cost $10 per person Monday through Thursday, and $15 per person Friday through Sunday.

Demonstrations feature up to four different chefs a day. Many are food personalities from local chef-driven restaurants and chains including Wing Lam of Wahoos Fish Taco, Niki Starr Weyler of Mesa Lounge in Costa Mesa, Linda Johnsen of Filomenas Italian Kitchen in Costa Mesa, Michael Rossi of The Ranch Restaurant in Anaheim, Andrew Gruel of Slapfish, Victor Soto of Grits Fullerton, Steve Samson of Sotto in Los Angeles and Tim Maher of SeaSalt Woodfire Grill in Huntington Beach.

Baumgardner, the passholder who attended a demo on Friday, said she didnt mind paying the upcharge to get up close and personal with the chef.

Still, the demo she attended wasnt packed. I have to wonder if festival-goers will be willing to pay the extra money for these events.

For a complete schedule of events, go to: Disneyland.com/foodandwine

Celebrity Chefs

Disney has scheduled a boat load of celebrity chefs for premium ticketed events. Thats the good news. The bad news: the Guy Fieri, Robert Irvine and Duff Goldman demonstrations are sold out. As of press time, tickets were still available for demonstrations featuring Emily Ellyn, Keegan Gerhard, Cat Cora, Jet Tila, G. Garvin and Graham Elliot. Cost: $79 and $99.

Beer and Wine

Top California vinters and brewmasters are giving wine and craft beer seminars daily for a fee that includes flights of exclusive wines, beers and spirits.

Wine: For $10 or $15, park visitors can sample flights from top wineries and breweries such as Firestone Winery, Martinelli Winery, Eden Canyon Vineyards, Robert Mondavi Winery. Where: Sonoma Terrace at the Golden Vine Winery.

Craft beer & spirits: For $15 or $20, this program includes seminars on craft vodka, cocktail making and in-depth conversations on craft beer. Notable programs: A mixology lesson from Gaby Mlynarczyk of Birch in Los Angeles, a spirits tasting from The Mixing Glass of Costa Mesa and a whiskey tasting from Henebery Whiskey. The lineup of award-winning California breweries includes Bear Republic Brewing Co., Bottle Logic Brewing, Noble Ale Works and Ballast Point. Where: Stage 17 in Hollywood Land.

Beer Garden: In a nod to the local craft beer movement, Disney is serving craft beer by the glass and flights from local Anaheim breweries in a beer garden at Paradise Gardens. Breweries featured: Anaheim Brewery, Noble Ale Works, Bottle Logic Brewing and Unsung Brewing Company.

Free Lifestyle Seminars

If youre upset by the paid culinary demos, dont fret. Disney is still offering free cooking and lifestyle demonstrations at the outdoor Backlot Stage in Hollywood Land.

Topics include growing your own vegetables, art demonstrations and learning how to cook various Festival Marketplace dishes. Ive got to hand it to Disney on the latter. They are sneaky clever with the Marketplace demos. It is essentially product placement to get you to spend more money at the food booths.

Contact the writer: nluna@scng.com
Riverside County supervisors are being asked to boost the pay scale for health care executives in an effort to lure top talent to guide the county health systems transformation.

Higher pay scales for Riverside University Health System executives are being proposed even while the county asks unions to forego big raises and ponders cuts to public services such as fire protection.

The enhanced pay ranges and new classifications for managerial and other jobs in the countys health care network, which includes a Moreno Valley hospital and a series of outpatient clinics, are on the Board of Supervisors agenda for Tuesday, March 14.

There are no plans to give raises to hospital executives at this time, said health system spokeswoman Kim Trone, who said the network cant offer the same retirement and bonuses as the private sector.

Our goal, and the purpose of these modifications, is to recruit and retain skilled and experienced healthcare leaders in a marketplace where top-notch executives are routinely lured away by seven-digit compensation packages, she said.

The proposal before supervisors would add new job classifications to comply with federal requirements and also to deliver comprehensive quality care to County of Riverside residents, according to a county staff report.

Included are higher salary ladders for top-level management developed after a study of salaries of comparable positions in other health care markets.

The hospital CEOs annual pay could go up by a third, with the top rung of the salary ladder going from just under $362,000 to roughly $555,000.

The salary for the hospitals chief financial officer would top out at just under $395,000, up from the current cap of roughly $238,000, and the chief operating officer could earn as much as $424,000 a year under the new plan, up from just under $277,000.

Recruitment for a new CFO is under way, Trone said.

We have gone through three CFOs in little more than two years as they are lured away by organizations offering much larger compensation packages, she said.

A seasoned CFO in todays healthcare environment is absolutely crucial to sustaining a viable organization and helping it navigate a rapidly changing landscape.

While the county considers whether to pay executives more, supervisors want unionized employees to go without substantial raises. Its been a sticking point in ongoing collective bargaining talks with several unions.

At least one supervisor isnt embracing the new pay scales.

The proposed increases in salary ranges for hospital executives may be justified when comparing to other hospital salaries, said Supervisor Kevin Jeffries. However, when we are facing large deficits and asking our employees to forgo pay increases for the next two or three years, the timing couldnt be worse.

Several years ago, the hospital was losing $1 million a week and threatening to drain money from county coffers, prompting supervisors to spent $26 million on an outside consultant to revamp the health care system and put it on a sustainable path.

Since then, the county has made plans and investments to make Riverside University Health System  Medical Center an attractive health care destination after years as a health care safety net for the poor. Supervisors in 2015 approved spending up to $53 million on a new electronic medical records system and there are plans to turn vacant land next to the hospital into a medical campus offering a variety of health care services.

But the countys budget woes arent confined to the hospital. Higher labor costs, a lawsuit settlement requiring more to be spent on jail health care and budget hits from Sacramento, among other new, ongoing expenses, threaten to cause a shortfall of $100 million or more even as the county adheres to strict spending limits and builds up reserves.

Just last week, supervisors review potential Fire Department cuts, including closing the Poppet Flats fire station, eliminating 42 positions and converting some three-person fire engines to medic patrol units staffed by two firefighters, something that union leaders warn would compromise public safety.

Tuesdays board meeting starts at 9 a.m. in the County Administrative Center, 4080 Lemon St. in Riverside.
Two men were arrested in Banning on Saturday, March 11, after authorities say they broke into the same business twice in under four hours.

Police dispatchers received an alarm activation at 12:36 a.m. at a business in a strip mall at 3146 W. Ramsey St., according to a news release from the Banning Police Department.

Officers sent to the business noted the interior appeared ransacked and several items appeared to be missing, the release said. They began searching the area for the thieves.

About 3:45 a.m., dispatch received a second alarm activation at that address. Officers returned and noticed a suspicious vehicle leaving with its lights off.

Police stopped the vehicle, which been reported stolen, and found items from the business that had been robbed.

Dontae Lamont Keller, 24, and Barron Jerome Skinner, 31, were arrested and booked into the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility  Keller on suspicion of taking a vehicle without the owners consent, receiving known stolen property and parole violation; and Skinner on suspicion of second-degree burglary, conspiracy to commit a felony and receiving stolen property, jail records show.

Skinners bail is set at $10,000 and Keller was not given the option of bail, according to jail records.
Sensational vistas of meadows and hillsides carpeted with California poppies and other wildflowers in northern Lake Elsinore attracted droves of visitors and stopped bypassers in their tracks over the weekend.

Unfortunately, some of those bypassers were motorists were slowing down  or stopping  on Interstate 15 to glimpse and take photos of the phenomenon.

The activity created a traffic jam near the Lake Street interchange Sunday afternoon as people halted to catch stunning views of Walker Canyon on the freeways north side.

I was stuck in it, said CHP Officer Mike Lassig, who was off duty and returning through Lake Elsinore around 2 p.m. from the Los Angeles area. I was stuck in stop and go traffic due to these people taking pictures of these poppies.

PHOTOS: California poppies blanket the hillside in Lake Elsinore

Throughout the region, the wildflower bloom is one of the best in years. Waves of flowers in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains can be seen miles away in San Jacinto and Hemet. Social media is alive with photos of flowers from Sycamore Canyon Park in Riverside. And, of course, Walker Canyon in Lake Elsinore.

Lassig said the last time he witnessed people stopping on the freeway was a couple of years ago when it snowed in Lake Elsinore, Murrieta and Temecula. People were parked along the 15 freeway to play in the snow.

Then as now, the CHP has a message: Dont do that.

The highway patrol would like to remind people that they cant stop on the freeway or on the shoulders or median, Lassig said. We ask people not to stop by the side of the freeway to take photos or get out of their vehicles to look at anything out there like these people were doing to look at the flowers.

RELATED: If you havent gone to see Southern Californias wildflowers yet, heres what youve been missing

Not only is it unsafe to stop in a non-emergency situation, it is illegal.

We want to encourage people to legally exit the freeway and park in a legal space, Lassig added. Then they can walk around and enjoy the poppies.

Though the flower bloom may create a traffic burden, it has been a bounty to the city.

It was spectacular to see, said City Manager Grant Yates, who also got caught up in the southbound traffic Sunday afternoon. With the drought, we havent seen that (wildflower bloom) for many years.

Folks are coming from miles around to visit Walker Canyon, said Paulie Tehrani, who lives in nearby Alberhill Ranch.

Everyones stunned, she said of the reactions around town. You wouldnt believe all the people that are out here. Its awesome.

Lake Elsinore has long been an attraction for outdoor recreation as well as sightseeing. Now it can add wildflowers to the list.

Theyre calling it the wildflower tourist season, Tehrani said of local merchants. This is a really big deal for us. My view faces those hills, and its beautiful. Its so pretty.

She, however, had her own warning for canyon visitors: watch out for rattlesnakes and avoid stepping on Munzs onions, which are on the state and federal endangered species lists.

RELATED: These are the best wildflower spots in Southern California
An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced the General Manager of Golden Tulip Hotel to a fine of GHS600 for his failure to register the company with the Data Protection Commission.



Paul Kavanagh reappeared in court on Thursday March 9 after being granted bail at the last sitting of the court on March 1 to file all the processes towards registration of the hotel with the Commission.



According to Accra News Ama Brako Ampofo, in court on Thursday, the expatriate told the court that he had finally managed to register Commission, which had dragged to him to court.



However, Justice Aboagye Tandoh, presiding, found Mr Kavanagh guilty of the offence and ordered him to pay GHS600, being the total of cost of 50 penalty units taking into consideration his cooperation with the police and to serve as a deterrent to others.



Mr Kavanagh, as General Manager of Golden Tulip, was sued after a report was made to the police that some institutions and organisations identified as data controllers had failed to register with the Data Protection Commission as required of them as they were still processing personal data of individuals.



ASP Stephen Agyei, prosecuting, had said the defaulting companies were served with a final notice to register or report to the police, which they failed to comply with.



The Data Protection Commission was established in 2012 by an Act of Parliament under Act 843 as a regulatory body for all data controllers, stakeholders and other processes which deal with data.



All institutions and individuals who collect data, use and process personal information must register with the Data Protection Commission. Act 56/95 of the Commission states that any data controller who fails to register with Data Protection Commission would be liable to sanction which would be 200 penalty units or imprisoned for not more than two years.

Source: Classfmonline









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Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.
As Ghana marks sixty (60) years of independence, it is important to look back and take stock of the immense contribution of GLICO to the development of our motherland.



GLICO, thirty years and counting



For three (3) decades and counting, GLICO GROUP has proven to be a top industry player in the insurance and financial services sector of Ghana. As an indigenous Ghanaian brand with modest beginnings, GLICO GROUP started operations in 1987 as Gemini Life Insurance Company (GLICO), a specialist insurance company offering innovative life insurance products to Ghanaians. Today, GLICO has grown from a single business unit into a group status comprising the following subsidiary companies: GLICO Life Insurance Co. Ltd.; GLICO Healthcare Ltd.; GLICO Capital Ltd.; GLICO Properties Ltd.; GLICO General Insurance Co. Ltd. and GLICO Pensions Trustee Ltd.



GLICO, contributing to the development of Mother Ghana



- Employment: For three (3) decades, GLICO has provided employment and a means of sustenance to over one thousand (1,000) Ghanaians of various ethnic and educational backgrounds. By providing Ghanaians with stable and meaningful employment, our employees also pay their taxes that have contributed to building a strong nation.



- Adding value through claim payments: The desired result of an insurance policy is payment of claims promptly to deserving beneficiaries. GLICOs innovative insurance products which are delivered in a customer centric environment provide peace of mind, comfort and stability in moments of need or tragedy. As we live up to our slogan we cushion you for life, we cushion Ghanaians by reinstating them back to their former state by offering valued benefits through our convenient claim payment system.



- Saving lives through quality healthcare: GLICOs health insurance schemes provide quality healthcare to over fourteen thousand (14,000) policyholders. With our bespoke products, strong relationships with service providers and unparalleled customer service, lives of Ghanaians have been saved and continue to be saved. Our aim is to ensure that every Ghanaian enjoys quality healthcare no matter ones income.



Peace of mind for vehicle users: GLICOs motor insurance policies provide security and compensation to a wide range of Ghanaian motor owners and vehicle users. In the event of theft, own damage, third party accident, fire, flood of a motor vehicle, GLICO offers relief. Additionally, in the event of loss of life as a result of any of the aforementioned incidents, GLICOs range of motor insurance policies has and continues to provide respite to victims.



- Value addition through micro insurance: GLICOs micro life insurance packages namely Edwa nkosuo and Anidaso continue to provide special value added benefits to operators in the informal sector of Ghana. These benefits include loan facilities for business expansion, hospitalization cash for quick recuperation and monies paid out in the event of accidents/death to relieve the financial burdens on affected family members.



- Comfortable pensions: GLICO PENSIONS through its efficient management of 2nd and 3rd tier pensions is providing an opportunity for the Ghanaian worker to receive retirement income that guarantees comfortable retirement. Life after 60 years must be buoyant and enjoyable, so you can find in GLICO PENSIONS a partner that secures your retirement income in retirement.



- Giving back to improve society: As an indigenous Ghanaian brand, GLICO strongly believes in giving back to Ghanaians and the communities in which we operate. Our corporate citizenship values have supported in building capacity in financial and insurance literacy, refurbishment of dilapidated hospital and school blocks, supporting medical students for exchange programmes to become medical professionals, providing assurance for national teams to win laurels for Ghana as well as various contributions to individuals and institutions.



Ghana @ 60 years and beyond commitment



As Ghana celebrates its 60th anniversary on the auspicious day of 6th March 2017, GLICO GROUP wishes to assure all Ghanaians of our promise to cushion you for life; and to pursing our mission of bringing insurance and financial services to the doorstep of every Ghanaian household.



Happy anniversary Long live GLICO, long Live Ghana!













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The Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference has suggested an increment in road tolls as an effective measure of raising revenue for various road projects. The Conference in a communique signed by its General Secretary, Rev. Kwesi Deh, said road tolls should be raised to at least the level of USD1 per car across the country. Raise the tolls, at least to the level of USD1 per car.

Even Zimbabwe, in its financial difficulty, charges $1 per car as toll rate. g. Create an office and let the local dwellers cast the concrete: Use the people that live in the towns and villages, along that stretch of road, to cast concrete along that stretch, he said. The Conference also called for the construction of what it called international standard toll booths whose revenue will also be used to directly finance road projects. Build the road network by using concrete roads. 10 inches of concrete can be cast, with the width of 3 lanes (12 meters wide), for several miles.

The Tema motorway is an example of a concrete road that has served Ghana for decadesLet Ghanaian roads be covered with multiple international-standard tollbooths that do not cause traffic. These tollbooths will be used to directly finance roads. Perhaps, every 40 to 50km should have a tollbooth, it said. The construction of these toll booths, according to the Conference, can effectively be done by naming a tollbooth by the stretch of road that it is to finance.

For instance, several toll booths can be created on the Accra  Kumasi Highway as follows: Achimota  Nsawam toll booth (approx. 28.2km); Nsawam  Suhum toll booth (approx. 30km); Suhum  Nkawkaw toll booth (approx. 77km); Nkawkaw Konongo toll booth (81.4km); Konongo to Tech Junction toll booth (77km). The Conference believes the efficient management of these tollbooths will encourage Ghanaians to pay more for road tolls. Demonstrate a competent management of the tolls received from the different tollbooths. We have had toll booths like the Tema, Beposo and Weija toll booths. When people see the tolls well-managed, they will be prepared to pay even more. The Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference which was founded by the Founder of Lighthouse Chapel International, Bishop Dag Heward Mills, and is chaired by Bishop Kwame Yirenkyi Ampofo, is made up of senior clergy who have been consecrated as Bishops.

The Conference has Bishops with their seats, comprising of a cathedral, and an office block in every region of Ghana.

Source: citifmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Between January to December 2016 a total of 1,373 cases were mediated through the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process, out of which 605 cases were settled, representing 44 percent.



Currently the ADR programme has been extended to 67 district and circuit courts across the country with at least three mediators assigned to each of these courts.



Mrs Irene Charity Larbie, the Judge in charge of the ADR Programme, speaking at a press conference to launch this years ADR Week celebration, said the ADR concept had served as a complement to the traditional court system in making access to justice cheaper, easier, expeditious, non-adversarial and faster.



The week was set aside is to use the ADR to resolve cases pending in courts that were connected to the programme and also to create mass public awareness in order to educate the citizenry on the use of the programme.



She said this had also helped in reducing the backlog of cases in the courts substantially due to the mass mediation exercise.



She said with the realisation that land related cases had become dominant in the courts, the Judicial Service, in collaboration with the Land Administration Project, had trained 30 surveyors to be used as mediators on pilot bases to reduce the backlog of the cases in the land courts in the Greater Accra Region.



A total of 295 mediators have been trained and assigned to these 67 courts connect to the ADR programme, she said.

The Appeals Court said it clearly indicated that the ADR mechanism was a reliable partner to the traditional justice delivery system and must, therefore, be embraced and nurtured for an efficient delivery system.



Giving the background to the programme, the Judge in Charge said the ADR was piloted in some selected Districts courts in Accra and Tema between 2005 and 2007 with encouraging results.



She said the vision of the Chief Justice was to expand the court connected ADR programme to all courts nationwide.

In pursuit of that vision, a policy directive dated June 26, 2009 established a separate National ADR Directorate to coordinate all ADR activities within the Judicial Service.



Mrs Larbie said to ensure uniformity in the practice of the ADR programme, an ADR uniform practice manual was launched in 2007 to guide practitioners which was subsequently reviewed to be in tune with the new ADR Act, 2010 (Act 798).



She said the court connected ADR was very effective and guaranteed the interest of both parties adding that the court, at any stage of proceedings, could refer a matter to ADR and any of the parties could also request for ADR during the trial.



The process being optional, the consent of the parties is sought before the matter is referred, she said.

Mr Alex Nartey, the National ADR Coordinator, called on lawyers to encourage their clients to embrace the concept of ADR in settling their disputes.

Source: GNA









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Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Koku Anyidoho has rubbished claims by Madam Joyce Bawa Mogtari that sought to suggest that the NDC wouldnt be bothered should the New Patriotic Party continue to rule Ghana for the next eight years.



The spokesperson for former President Mahama had earlier revealed on Starr fm that the beauty of Ghanas democracy could make it possible for the current administration to rule the nation from 2016 to 2024.



In an interview on the radio station, she stated that well I dont really mind if NPP rules for eight (8) years, it is democracy and really not an issue. When they lost, you can imagine how they felt when we moved into Flagstaff House and I know the feeling Weve all been there and that is the beauty of our democracy.



But Mr. Koku Anyidoho has vehemently refused to buy into any of her suggestions.



Reacting to the news on Peace fms Evening News, the NDC deputy scribe noted that the party is prepping to return to power in the shortest possible time.



Contrary to the views shared by Madam Joyce Bawa Mogtari, Mr. Koku Anyidoho posits that she isnt the official mouthpiece of the NDC and entreated the general public to take her comment with a pinch of salt.



"Our own investigations show that we are ready to come back to power in 2020she has just shared her thoughts which doesnt reflect the views of the NDC.



She has no authority to speak for the NDCOur National Chairman is our leader and the secretariat is still working, he said to discredit the suggestions of Bawa Mogtari.



He advised her to stick to her job of speaking for ex-president Mahama and not to assume her new role permits her to speak for the party.



She can speak for the former president but shouldnt speak for the NDC. The former president only announced she speaks for him but the party hasn't said so. She only expressed her views and not that of the party, he said.



Mr. Koku Anyidoho revealed that though the NDC was in opposition, they are working very hard from the national to regional level in order to bounce back to early.

Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email: [email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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There appears to be a powerful clique operating inside the three months old government of Nana Akufo-Addo, which is announcing appointments, forging appointment letters and dispatching people to state institutions on behalf of the President without his knowledge and authority.



The clique appears to be forging the not-too-difficult signature of President Akufo-Addo on his green official letterhead and offering appointments to people.



Indeed, there is unease in some state institutions with respect to some appointment letters, as there are three appointing authorities in the government, including President Akufo-Addo himself, and it is not clear which of the signatures is more powerful to be respected.



While some of the appointment letters had come bearing the signatures of Nana Asante Bediatuo; the Executive Secretary to the President, others had come from the sector ministers, some of whom signed these letters as minister-designates. The third category, had come with President Akufo-Addo himself signing.



What is interesting is that, most of the letters, had no reference numbers.



Government insiders, told The Herald that, the situation has created some embarrassing scenes at some state establishments with the latest being the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) where two appointment letters had been given to two individuals to head the institution as Director General, leading to the handing over ceremony being called off at the last minute.



About two weeks ago, retired Brigadier General K Oppong-Kyekyeku, showed up at the offices of NADMO with the green letter signed by President Akufo-Addo, appointing him as the Director-General of NADMO.



A handing over ceremony was quickly scheduled for last Friday, March 10, 2017 for Brigadier General Kwame Oppong-Kyekyeku to take over from Brigadier General Francis Vib Sanziri, who was appointed by President John Dramani Mahama in 2015.



With everything set for the ceremony and a heavy presence of all the NADMO regional coordinators at the NADMO headquarters in Accra, strict orders came from the Flagstaff House for the ceremony to be stopped immediately.



Canopies, chairs, among other things that were arranged for the ceremony, were taken back. Other invited guests, including foreign partners, were all asked to go back for a later date.



The NADMO officers, were later to hear that a fresh appointment has been made, and that the same President Akufo-Addo, has appointed one Eric Nana Agyeman-Prempeh as the new Director General to take over from Brigadier General Francis Vib Sanziri, who has been recalled to the Burma Camp for another appointment.



Eric Nana Agyeman-Prempehs appointment letter is said to be dated March 9, 2017.



President Akufo-Addo, is said to have stated that the appointment is in pursuant to Section 17(1) of the NADMO Act, 2016, Act 926. I take this opportunity to congratulate you formally on your appointment, the letter said.



It is not clear whether Brigadier General Oppong-Kyekyekus appointment letter, was one of the forged letters.



In another development, Abu Ramadan, brother in-law of the Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, has also been appointed as NADMO deputy boss.



Abu Ramadan, is a former Youth Organizer of the Peoples National Convention (PNC). He is a brother to Samira Bawumia; wife of the Vice-President.



He defected to the NPP late last year, although he has over the years been more NPP than PNC, including dragging the Electoral Commission (EC) and its boss to the Supreme Court over the Voters Register. He was instrumental in Let My Vote-Count Alliance (LMVCA). The appointment is seen as a reward.



Another controvery is presently at the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), where a certain Dr. Fred Kyei Asamoah.



He is carrying a letter dated February 6, 2017 as Executive Director of COTVET based on Act 718 of 2006.



Dr. Asamoahs appointment took effect February 6, the same day the letter was signed and delivered by him to the offices of COTVET.



Many of the officers at the COTVET are not sure whether the letter came from the President, and they have been grumbling since his arrival.



Recently, former deputy attorney general, Osei Kwame Prempeh, was appointed head of Ghana Oil (GOIL) by President Akufo-Addo, leading to some controversies with the chairman of the GOIL Board of Directors, William Asumaning accusing President Akufo-Addo of breaching procedures in his appointment of a new Chief Executive officer of the company.



According to Prof. Asumaning, GOIL is a public listed company on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) with its own regulations, which makes it impossible for the president to appoint or disappoint a CEO without observing the necessary procedures.



Ex-NPP General Secretary, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, was reported to be going to assume a vacant post of the Director General of the Ghana Ports and Habour (GPHA).



The Office of the President, subsequently denied the report. Till date no one knows who planted the information in the public domain and picked up by the media.





Source: The Herald









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A leading member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Bab Constituency in the Western Region, Ben Ali Seaman, has stated that the government must do everything possible to leave a legacy of solid education for posterity.



He said the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia administration should use the Heritage Fund to sponsor the free SHS programme to help the poor in particular, because it would be a veritable initiative for the country.



The debate over how to secure funding to ensure smooth implementation of the project has intensified since the NPP administration announced that the free SHS would commence in earnest in the 2017/2018 academic year.



President Akufo-Addo has explained that by free SHS, we mean that in addition to tuition which is already free, there will be no admission fee, no library fee, no science centre fee, no computer lab fee, no examination fee, and no utility fee; there will be free text books, free boarding and free meals, and day students will get a meal at school for free.



Some senior government officials said that the government was considering financing the free education policy with a portion of Ghanas oil revenue being kept for future generation, and that sparked heated debate, compelling the new finance minister to clear the air.



Ali Seaman told DAILY GUIDE that it would not be fair for politicians to continue to enjoy the national cake when there is a future to be secured for the next generation.



He disagreed with the opposition NDC that withdrawals from the Heritage Fund was likely to have a negative impact on the countrys reserves, value of the currency and destabilisation of the macro-economic and fiscal situation of the country.



Ben Ali Seaman added that many parents cannot give their children quality education due to the lack of money and that the government should be proactive in lessoning their burden.



Once we are able to provide quality education for our children, the countrys future will be secured. We will not need to worry about what will happen, because they would have been equipped with the necessary skills to continue from the current generation, he underscored.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Outspoken and controversial Ghanaian musician, Wanlov the Kubolor never hesitates to speak his mind on issues going on in the country.



This time it was about the Confession hitmaker Kofi Kinaata.



Wanlov, in a series of tweets registered his displeasure at the fact that Kinaata wasnt nominated for artiste of the year. In a series of tweets, he said Kofi Kinaata deserved a nod ahead of Mz Vee.



He also commended Medikal on a great year and added that he deserved to be in the category.



Here are the tweets Wanlov posted on the issue.



1. Kinaata should have been nominated for Artiste Of The Year



2. But not at the expense of the super talented and hardworking Medikal who has the streets & the youth in his corner



3. It is rather the undeserving Ms Vee who is taking up Artiste Of The Year space Kinaata should be occupying









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*inhales deeply*

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP.

Tasmania is a beautiful, glorious place, that is inarguably the Best State in Australia, despite what the heathens in PEDESTRIAN.TVs Sydney office continue to foolishly insist.

The only teeny tiny wee little issue is that the state is quite isolated. And isolation breeds some really bloody weird units.

Take, for example, the case of Rembertus and Fanny Beerepoot of Chudleigh, whose names and location I assure you I have not conjured up from thin air.

The Beerepoots  who, again, consist of Rembertus and his beloved wife Fanny  have land holdings in the aforementioned Chudleigh and at the nearby Mole Creek (another real place name) which lie in the heart of the Meander Valley in the states north.

The Beerepoots (he repeats) have not paid rates on either of the properties since July 2010, leaving them with a bill of some $9,000 which the Meander Valley Council would very much like back.

But heres where it gets kooky: The Beerepoots  Rembertus Beerepoot and Fanny Beerepoot  have steadfastly denied that the debt is theirs, owing to the fact that the true owner of the land is, in fact, God.

As in, that religious bloke. God. He/she owns the land. That is who owes the money.

The council is considering recouping the debt through the forced sale of the land, in a matter thats set to be discussed by the council members in a meeting held later tonight.

A report prepared by a council officer that recommended the forced sale of the land contained this absolute rip-snorter of a passage:

They steadfastly reaffirmed their belief that the land was not theirs but that of the Heavenly Father, that council would be taking the land from him, and that was a matter between council and God.

I see.

It remains to be seen how the council actually plans on contacting God to discuss recouping the debt, and whether you can, like, actually ever really own land, man.

But with the council decision looming tonight, it is D-Day as far as the Big Mahn in the skys tiny land holdings in rural Tasmania are concerned.

And Rembertus Beerepoot, best of luck to you and your beloved wife, Fanny.

Tassie. I know they call it Gods Country, but

Source: 9News.com.au.
Well wouldnt you know it, it turns out the City of Melbournes treatment of the homeless population  that caused qualms for city officials by camping and sleeping at key public locations during peak summer tourist times  is not only kinda shitty, but it might actually violate basic human rights, according to no less an authority than the United Nations.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to housing, Leilani Farha, blasted Melbournes proposed homeless ban  city bylaws that could potentially render sleeping rough in the CBD illegal and include the potential to fine people for leaving personal affects unattended on city streets  in a press release issued from Geneva earlier today.

The proposed bylaws, which came to the attention of Farha due to the global media coverage of the confronting homeless camp eviction from Flinders Street Station in early February, were described by Farha as potentially being in violation of international human rights law.

While homeless people are not specifically referenced, it is clear they are the target; the amendment was put forward following the forcible removal of a homeless camp in the city centre last month. The criminalisation of homelessness is deeply concerning and violates international human rights law. Its bad enough that homeless people are being swept off the streets by city officials. The proposed law goes further and is discriminatory  stopping people from engaging in life sustaining activities, and penalising them because they are poor and have no place to live.

Farhas statement did acknowledge the fact that local Melbourne government officials are working with community groups and the public as they work towards tackling a population of homeless people that has spiked by 74% over the past two years. But she firmly asserted that any campaign that discourages donating to homeless people is flat-out unacceptable.

While it is commendable that the local government is consulting the public on the proposed changes to the law, the discriminatory nature of the amendments and the accompanying public campaign discouraging donations to homeless people is unacceptable. The local council now has an opportunity to reverse its course at the next vote and reconsider the proposed changes. I encourage the city to focus on its human rights obligations, which leave no room for discrimination.

Officials for the City of Melbourne confirmed they did receive the letter from the UN and Farha, and have issued an official response. But they denied that the proposed new bylaws constituted any sort of ban on homelessness in the Melbourne CBD, insisting that they were working hard to reduce the spiralling number of displaced people sleeping rough on Melbournes streets.

Ms. Farha has also contacted the office of the Federal Attorney-General in regards to the issue. The UN asserts that under human rights law, Governments are required to take immediate steps to ensure the right to housing for homeless people is available on a short and long-term basis.

Source: OHCHR.

Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty.
After Coopers decided to run the hell away from the heavily-derided Keep It Light video  in which two serving Liberal MPs debated their opposing stances on marriage equality, over a coupla frosty Bible Society-endorsed Coopers brews  a fair few people have had their say on the brewerys complicity.

Drinkers publicly stated their opposition to the vid, and more recently, some pubs have announced a boycott of Coopers products. Now, one of the pollies featured in the vid has had his say on Coopers response  but hes kinda miffed the company has dropped its support for the video.

MP Tim Wilson has told news.com.au that hes disappointed Coopers appears to have distanced themselves from a sensible conversation that they should be proud to align themselves with.

For what its worth, Wilson is openly gay, and has advocated for laws regarding same-sex marriage in Australia to be amended. He also carried that viewpoint in the video, opposite MP Andrew Hastie, who is fully behind the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

However, despite the sentiment that the push for marriage equality is an all-or-nothing affair with no room for meaningful compromise, Wilson said response to the video was over-the-top and had only proven the need for more civil disagreement.

Wilson emphasised the video was created to show how a constructive discussion can be had, and that the anger it has stoked within the broader community has only demonstrated how much people in positions of influence need to set an example of civility and respect.

Of course, civility and respect are apparently objective measures, seeing as Wilsons own political party has dragged its heels on giving queer Australians the same legal rights as their straight counterparts.

The whole ordeal makes you wonder: if people get this angry at a beer company for hosting a debate on the issue, just imagine how pissed they are at the government which has the power to enact change, but refuses to do so.

Source: news.com.au.

Photo: Bible Society Australia / Vimeo.
Theres been a whole lot of fuss about South Australias beleaguered power system, stemming from a series of huge blackouts which plunged the state into darkness over the past few months. Were sure locals would comment that yes, it is a bit of an issue  if their computers could stay on long enough to type out a response.

Somehow, Premier Jay Weatherill has managed to keep his on for long enough to publish the states brand new strategy for amending their electricity woes, and it certainly hints at taking Tesla boss Elon Musks bet that his company could install a massive battery farm within one hundred days of a contract being signed.

According to Our Energy Plan, the state will invest $150 million of an assigned $550 million into a fund which will support projects that make renewable energy available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to power the state when it is needed.

The very first endeavour to receive some of that cash will be a huge battery project, billed as the biggest in the nation, which should grant SA 100 megawatts of storage. Thats an identical figure to the one Musk signed up for.

Theres no confirmation as to which private sector firm or public entity will be responsible for the project, but look, all of the relevant parties  including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull  have discussed the issue of battery storage within the past few days. Plus, Musk had a word about the prospect just the other day.

Just wanted to write a note of appreciation to the many Australians who came out in support of the battery plan, especially @mcannonbrookes  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2017

Also included in the states energy plan: the green light for a new gas power plant for use in emergencies, and initiatives which will encourage gas exploration in the state. Thats certainly at odds with the clean, green system many had hoped for, but the government states itll be quite handy during emergencies.

As always (well, as for the past week), this is moving very quickly, so watch this space to see if the states plan really does involve big, fancy Tesla boxes in the middle of nowhere.

Source: The Advertiser / ourenergyplan.sa.gov.au.

Photo: @dot_03 / Instagram.
The Coopers Brewery has had a hell of a few days, to put it in the lightest possible way.

On Friday, a video featuring a Liberal politician and a slightly different Liberal politician engaging in a civil debate about the issue of same-sex marriage surfaced on the internet. The video, shot by the Bible Society of Australia, just so happened to feature the kind of front-and-centre Coopers product placement and logo assets that can only ever come from a paid advertisement.

In response, angry beer drinkers nationwide have commenced a boycott of the brewerys products, and countless bars have opted to cease stocking the beer altogether in a show of solidarity with both the LGBTQI community, and the practically overwhelming number of Australians who have statistically shown to be in favour of marriage equality.

And while all thats going on, the pisstakes have commenced. The glorious, eases-the-rage-headache-momentarily pisstakes.

First cab off the rank is the real good SBS VICELAND magazine show The Feed  a program which is worthy of installation as a national icon solely because it provides continued employment to the human sunbeam known as Jeannette Francis.

The program, which aired overnight, took aim at the beer, with host Mark Humphries starring in a mock ad for the brewerys pale ale, interspersing punters explaining why I drink Coopers with tidbits from the companys now-very-public thoughts on the issue of equal rights.

Obviously this isnt going to solve any of the issues that have arisen ever since Coopers decided to stick its product firmly in the corner of agreeing to disagree on the issue (which is some politically weak bullshit).

But hey, a good laugh about a bad thing every now and then is good for the blood pressure.

As that wonderful adage I just made up goes, theres plenty of other beers in the fridge.

Source: The Feed/YouTube.
John Cena slimed.

Here is what you need to know.

Theresa May is getting ready to trigger Article 50. UK Prime Minister Theresa May will likely receive the authority to trigger Article 50 in a vote on Monday evening. If it passes, as expected, May could begin the UK's process of leaving the European Union as early as Tuesday.

Japan's core machinery orders miss big. Data released by the Cabinet Office on Monday showed orders fell 3.2% month-over-month in January, missing the 0.1% dip that economists were anticipating. The Japanese yen is down 0.2% at 114.60 per dollar.

Oil's slide continues. West Texas Intermediate crude oil trades down 0.8% at $48.11 per barrel on Monday, its lowest since November 30, the day OPEC announced it was cutting production.

The SEC rejected the Winklevoss twins' Bitcoin ETF. Shortly after markets closed on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission handed down its ruling, saying it would disapprove the ETF as it believes "significant markets for bitcoin are unregulated" and therefore "the exchange has not entered into, and would currently be unable to enter into, the type of surveillance-sharing agreement that has been in place with respect to all previously approved commodity-trust ETPs..." Bitcoin tumbled more than 16% in the wake of the decision but has retraced the lion's share of those losses.

Mario Draghi speaks. ECB head Mario Draghi will speak in Frankfurt, Germany at 9:30 a.m. ET on "Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the euro area.

Intel is reportedly buying Mobileye. Shares of Mobileye are up 30% ahead of the opening bell following a report from Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing sources, that suggests Intel has agreed to buy it for $15 billion.

Vista Equity Partners is nearing a deal to buy DH Corp. The firms are in advanced talks and an agreement could be announced as soon as this week, but could still fall apart, Bloomberg says, citing people familiar with the matter. Terms of the potential deal are unknown.

Story continues

HSBC names a new chairman. The bank has named Mark Tucker, current CEO and president of the insurer AIA, as its new chairman. Tucker is scheduled to begin on September 1.

A blizzard is bearing down on New York. The National Weather Service has issued a Blizzard Warning for New York City and Southern New York State that will be in effect from midnight tonight until midnight Tuesday night. The storm is expected to produce as much as 20 inches of snow accumulation and wind gusts up to 55 miles per hour.

Stock markets around the world are mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+1.1%) led the gains in Asia and Germany's DAX (+0.1%) clings to small gains in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.1% near 2,370.





More From Business Insider


Dear Tuesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

In case you haven't noticed, it's snowing outside -- pretty darn hard. So while we have your attention, we figured we'd point out something that's also screamingly obvious: State

Sen. Scott Wagner

really, really, really doesn't like public employee unions.

Depending upon your perspective, the unions (particularly the Pennsylvania State Education Association) are the Joker to the York County Republican's Batman -- or it's the other way around.

And those fights come replete with cartoon-sized "Biff!" "Bangs!" and "Pows!"

Thus it's no surprise that we fired up the old Capitol Notebook email account to find Wagner taking aim at public employee unions generally and PSEA in particular.

In a recent email blast to his supporters, Wagner calls PSEA "the number one public sector union that opposes any type of reform in Harrisburg, particularly pension reform and school tax elimination."

In case you'd missed it, a group of conservative Republicans are once again pushing the Sisyphean property tax reform boulder up the rather steep hill that leads to the Capitol.

Backers saw their hopes of property tax reform evaporate back in 2015 when Lt. Gov. Mike Stack cast a rare tie-breaking vote to defeat a troubled proposal that eliminated property taxes in favor of higher state income and sales taxes.

One of the big reasons was that, much like past reform efforts, backers weren't able to show their work and prove that the proposal would fully replace the roughly $12 billion that's raised by property taxes.

It's the same bugbear that's scuttled every past attempt to eliminate or reduce property taxes for at least 20 years.

This time out, reformers double-dog swear that they can raise the money to finally repeal the property tax.

And, while it's generally regressive, opponents, including PSEA, say it's a predictable source of revenue at a time when the state could use a predictable source of revenue.

Opponents also point out that it's not really much of a reform, but really a massive tax shift that could end up handing massive breaks to businesses that own huge chunks of property and don't pay income taxes or sales taxes.

So, as you might imagine, the debate is vigorous.

So along comes Wagner casting PSEA as the villain in the latest iteration of the decades-old debate (admittedly easy to do, since PSEA can often be its own worst enemy in these matters).

And, because it's Wagner, and because he was recently on the business end of a PSEA email campaign, he wasn't subtle.

We're preserving the eccentric capitalization and the fonts so you get the full flavor of it:

"The PSEA Union Bosses are against any effort to eliminate school taxes on real estate," Wagner wrote. "The PSEA Union Bosses are opposed to any pension reform. The PSEA Union Bosses are against paycheck protection, which is the deduction of union dues from teacher paychecks. The PSEA Union Bosses are against the taxpayers of Pennsylvania."

Got all that. Wagner didn't say they're wild beasts come to take your children away in the night. But maybe if you read between the lines ...

The email also draws a bright line connecting PSEA to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, whom Wagner will face in 2018 if he wins the GOP gubernatorial nod, pointing out that "Wolf and the PSEA union bosses have a very strong relationship with each other."

Wagner's email goes on to ask supporters to chip in to help him defeat both PSEA and [Wolf's] "radical liberal agenda."

We bring all this up, not to simply zing Wagner (though that's fun and he's a good sport about it), but because this is pretty much what the entire 2018 gubernatorial campaign is going to look like.

Wagner's made a name for himself in Harrisburg by being both plain-spoken and a sworn enemy of public employee unions. You can expect a lot of this in the weeks and months to come.

Enjoy the snow day. We'll see you all back here in a bit.
It could be weeks before authorities in western Pennsylvania have a positive identification on a woman's badly burned body found in a wooded area late last week. This, as TribLive.com reports the body had been burned beyond recognition, complicating the identification process.

Westmoreland County Coroner Ken Bacha told TribLive.com a positive identification could take weeks because of the poor condition of the woman's body. Still, the victim is believed to be a missing mother of two last seen in the company of two men.

"It will take a considerable amount of time. We will do the ID scientifically," Bacha told TribLive.com.

Authorities are operating on the strong indication that the badly burned remains are that of Ronny Marie Cable, 34, a mother of two from Vandergrift, Pa., who was last seen Feb. 16 in the company of two men who police have not publicly identified.

Detectives are investigating the woman's death as a homicide but haven't disclosed how she might have been killed, TribLive.com wrote, adding that items found along with the body strongly indicate the victim is Cable.

On Feb. 16, Cable was spotted with two men on surveillance cameras at a local Wal-Mart, and she was seen with the same men at her home later that night before all three left in a red Chevrolet. Cable's bank cards and cellular phone haven't been used since.

TribLive.com quotes Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck as saying police have identified suspects in the case, but he hasn't elaborated. And he declined to say if the two men seen with Cable are those suspects.

Police have not publicly identified the two men, nor have they said what led them to search the remote area where the body was found late last week.

The investigation continues.

Meanwhile, Cable's two young children are in the custody of relatives.
Kay Oyegun

For Milton Hershey School grad Kay Oyegun, the NBC show 'This Is Us' provides a 'beautiful mix of driven, interesting, thoughtful and funny writers.'

(Evita Castine / philly.com)

Not many people embrace uncertainty. This is understandable because an absence of knowing what's coming is usually a stressful place. The last few minutes of a big game, right in the middle of a big test or the moments before a big award is announced are pretty scary places to be. For some, uncertainty means fear, confusion or anger. But for Kay Oyegun, it means potential.

Oyegun is a native Pennsylvanian and alumnus of the Milton Hershey School who currently writes for NBC's hit show, "This is Us," which will air its season finale on Tuesday night. "This is Us" is a family dramedy with a time-trippy twist starring Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Sterling K. Brown and more. It has enjoyed love from both critics and audience members, gaining a positive reputation for its emotional scenes. As a writer for "This is Us," Oyegun's success in Hollywood stems from many different places.

Two of her most notable inspirations come from her time at the Milton Hershey School and her penchant for self-discovery in times of uncertainty. With that foundation, Oyegun has managed to build a platform on which she's able tells dynamic stories about everyday life.

Oyegun declined to be interviewed for this story. In a "Success Stories" interview with Milton Hershey School, Oyegun attributes much of her success to qualities she fostered while attending. Founded by famous chocolatier Milton Hershey, the school aims to provide top-notch education to students from eligible families. After learning this for herself, Oyegun applied for admission. Oyegun remembers herself at Milton Hershey School as being "comfortable with newness and open to new things." The experience allowed her to embrace her independence and cultivate a passion for the arts that would push her in years to come.

After high school, Oyegun continued her education at the University of Pittsburgh, where she once again welcomed the journey outside of her comfort zone. She majored in journalism and business, minored in film studies and obtained a certificate in digital media. This was in conjunction with writing for the university's student newspaper, where she covered topics such as student life, politics and cultural issues.

Following her college graduation, Oyegun got a job with NBC Nightly News. Eventually, she made the transition from nonfiction writing to fiction writing. Oyegun moved from New York to Los Angeles and enrolled in the University of Southern California to study the ins and outs of film production.

In between attending the Peter Stark Producing Program and "This is Us" fall 2016 premiere, Oyegun worked with Yvonne Orji, star of HBO's "Insecure," to produce a pilot about the trials, tribulations and comedic timing of a child of immigrants. Simply titled "First Gen," the show aimed to illustrate both the unique experience of being a second-generation American as well as highlight similarities between most American families.

Oyegun also spent time writing for "Queen Sugar," another popular show about family ties created by director Ava DuVernay for Oprah Winfrey's television network, OWN. These days, Oyegun is focused on telling the best story that she can on "This is Us."

For her, the NBC show provides a " beautiful mix of driven, interesting, thoughtful and funny writers." The efforts of the show's writing room has not gone unnoticed as they've accumulated many nominations at the NAACP Image Awards, the Writers Guild of America Awards and the Golden Globes. "This is Us" also enjoys good reviews across the board by critics who connect with its realistic portrayals of everyday life.

In the prime of her career, Oyegun makes a good argument for embracing the unknown. At one point, television writing was something like that big test. However, her time at Milton Hershey School prepped her to thrive. "A lot of what I learned at MHS, both actively and organically, was a sense of independence," Oyegun said in her Success Stories interview. "I had to learn to find answers, and as I got older, that became a quickly realized skill set."
George Weigel | Special to PennLive

No snow here... highlights from the 2017 Philadelphia Flower Show

Winter might be back in a big way outside, but blooming spring is still chugging along inside the 2017 Philadelphia Flower Show.

Crowds will be a shell of the norm today as the dumping from noreaster Stella continues. Once the roads are open, the biggest, longest-running indoor flower show in the world will bloom on through Sunday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Designers apparently had no trouble drawing inspiration for the Dutch-themed 2017 show. From bulbs to bikes, this years show is filled with sights you dont see every day in a Pennsylvania March (and especially not a blizzardy one).

If youd rather look at pink and purple and gold instead of white, heres a look at some of the highlights:

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

An Ecodome

Whats an Ecodome? Its a house-sized, canvas-covered metal dome that sustains itself with an air-purifying moss roof, solar energy, recycled water, and LED lighting that grows food plants inside.

The Dutch built it, and floated it across the ocean to serve as a centerpiece of the Flower Show.

The Philly show is the first stop of whats a worldwide journey for this high-efficiency home of the future.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

The blue tulip fakeout

The flowers drawing the shows most attention are the beds of dark blue tulips inside the Ecodome.

No wonder the blue tulips are turning heads they dont exist.

Theyre really white tulips that were cut and placed in a container of blue-dyed water. The stems suck up the coloring and turn the white flower petals blue.

You can do the same thing with a stalk of celery in a food-dyed glass of water.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Brainy planters

Also turning heads were a few dozen concrete sculpted heads on poles with openings at the top of their skulls for plants.

These unusual planters  put together by the American Institute of Floral Designers  give new meaning to the term pot-head.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

White bikes, orange flowers

The Netherlands is a country with more bikes than people. So bikes understandably are a big part of many show displays.

This one by Schaffer Designs pays homage to the 1967 Dutch White Bike Plan that sought to liberate the Dutch from the auto monster by setting out white bikes for anyone to use anytime for free.

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George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Flower baskets

The Dutch embrace flowers as much as bikes, so its not unusual to see people toting bouquets home in their bike baskets.

This one is filled with pink gerbera daisies  a popular Dutch cut-flower export.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

A bike fountain

One of the more impressive displays is an orange-bike-parts fountain that drops water onto cups mounted on bike wheels, making them spin. Its by Hunter Hayes Landscape Design.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Bike-wheel sculpture

And one of the most artistic uses of bikes is this J. Downend Landscaping sculpture of red-painted bike wheels undulating in a bed of red and white tulips.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

6,000 hanging flowers

Heres something that took a little time  hanging 6,000 cut and fresh flowers from string over the shows main entry garden.

The idea is to harken the flowing fields of Dutch bulbs in bloom, which the Dutch grow in wide ribbons as our farmers grow corn and soybeans.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Hanging bikes and orchid pails

Cut flowers arent the only thing hanging around the show.

Flower-adorned bikes are suspended in a few displays, while Waldor Orchids hung 165 individual metal pails  each with a blooming orchid  from a metal arch. Wide borders of hundreds more blooming orchids run down each side of the arch below.

Don't Edit

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George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Hanging orchids

Waldor Orchids' hanging orchid pails.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Borders of orchids

Waldor Orchids' borders of blooming orchids.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

A wall you can eat

Youve heard of green roofs planted with short, tough plants?

Show sponsor Subaru of America (yes, the car company) built a walk-through display that shows walls planted with hanging trays of different lettuces.

In this place, you could have a salad without leaving the easy chair.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

A human nest

If green walls catch on, why not a nest for people? It works for birds.

Studio Nico Wissing, a Dutch design firm, included one  with pillows  as a feature of its wooded landscape.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Bloom times gone crazy

In nature, each flower blooms at its genetic time  some early, like daffodils, and some late, like mums.

Thanks to the magic of flower-show growers who force plants into premature bloom in climate-controlled greenhouses, all kinds of things that normally dont bloom together bloom in concert.

In this display, spring-blooming daffodils are flowering along with summer-blooming purple coneflowers and pink astilbes.

Don't Edit

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George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Traffic-stopping flowers

While the subtle bloom-time trickery may elude non-gardeners, its hard to miss this big, screaming flower that won a blue ribbon in the shows amateur growing competition.

Its a cattlianthe orchid called Trick or Treat. This one looks like it could melt some snow.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

Shrewd marketing

If youre an allergy-medication company, what better place to market than 10 acres filled with pollen-producing plants?

The makers of Flonase nasal mist built this cute little blooming garden as a reminder to keep them in mind this summer.

Don't Edit

George Weigel | Special to PennLive

More on the flower show

The Philadelphia Flower Show runs through Sun., March 19, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, located on Arch Street between Broad and 11th streets. Tickets are $28 for adults, $20 for students and $15 for children online. Get more information and purchase tickets at theflowershow.com.

See 43 pictures of the 2017 Philadelphia Flower Show just before it opened.

See 34 more pictures from opening day of the show.

See 29 more show pictures, including the new Philly Belle tulip.

See a video of some of the show highlights.

Get show-seeing tips in our Insiders Guide to the 2017 Philadelphia Flower Show.

Find out the theme and dates for next years Philadelphia Flower Show.
Facebook-Surveillance

In this May 16, 2012, file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed on an iPad in Philadelphia. In a post on Monday, March 13, 2017, Facebook says it is prohibiting developers from using the massive amount of data it collects on users for surveillance. This includes using such data to monitor activists and protesters. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Facebook is cutting police departments off from a vast trove of data that has been increasingly used to monitor protesters and activists.



The move, which the social network announced Monday, comes in the wake of concerns over law enforcement's tracking of protesters' social media accounts in places such as Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore. It also comes at a time when chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says he is expanding the company's mission from merely "connecting the world" into friend networks to promoting safety and community.



Although the social network's core business is advertising, Facebook, along with Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram, also provides developers access to users' public feeds. The developers use the data to monitor trends and public events. For example, advertisers have tracked how and which consumers are discussing their products, while the Red Cross has used social data to get real-time information during disasters such as Hurricane Sandy.



But the social networks have come under fire for working with third parties who market the data to law enforcement. Last year, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter cut off access to Geofeedia, a start-up that shared data with law enforcement, in response to an investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU published documents that made references to tracking activists at protests in Baltimore in 2015 after the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, while in police custody and also to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 after the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old.



On Monday, Facebook updated its instructions for developers to say that they cannot "use data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance."



The company also said, in an accompanying blog post, that it had kicked other developers off the platform since it had cut ties with Geofeedia.



Until now, Facebook hasn't been explicit about who can use information that users post publicly. This can include a person's friend list, location, birthday, profile picture, education history, relationship status and political affiliation - if they make their profile or certain posts public.



Some departments have praised the tools, which they say helps them fight crime - for example, if gang leaders publicly post references to their crimes.



In a statement about the changes, which were the results of several months of conversations with activists, the ACLU and other groups lauded Facebook's move as a "first step."



"We depend on social networks to connect and communicate about the most important issues in our lives and the core political and social issues in our country," Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director at the ACLU of California, said in the statement. "Now more than ever, we expect companies to slam shut any surveillance side doors and make sure nobody can use their platforms to target people of color and activists."



Some said Facebook hadn't gone far enough. "When technology companies allow their platforms and devices to be used to conduct mass surveillance of activists and other targeted communities, it chills democratic dissent and gives authoritarianism a license to thrive," Malkia Cyril, executive director and founder of the Center for Media Justice, said in the statement. "It's clear there is more work to be done to protect communities of color from social media spying, censorship and harassment."



The new policy language does not kick law enforcement off the platform. For one, the company cooperates with law enforcement on a case-by-case basis for help in solving crimes.



Police and federal agencies may still siphon people's feeds in cases of national disasters and emergencies, Facebook officials said. It was unclear how Facebook would decide which emergencies and public events would warrant monitoring citizens' data and which would constitute unreasonable "surveillance." "Surveillance" was also not defined in the blog post, a potential gray area that outsiders can exploit. Facebook said it would continue to audit third parties for policy violations and require that developers disclose what they plan to do with data they are requesting access to.



Local police departments across the United States have spent roughly $5 million on social media monitoring over the past several years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The relatively small amount shows how it is inexpensive to track and monitor the behavior of large numbers of people.

(c) 2017, The Washington Post. Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote this story.
A multi-vehicle crash reported on Interstate 81 has been cleared.

PennDOT said the crash on I-81 north at Exit 65 to U.S. Route 11/15 and Enola and Marysville was cleared at around 1 p.m.

A reduced speed limit of 45 mph is still in effect, as well as a travel ban on tandem truck trailers, empty trailers, towed trailers, buses, recreational vehicles and motorcycles remains in effect on Interstates 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 95, 283, 176, 180, 476, 380 and all limited access highways east of Interstate 99.

PennDOT says the restrictions have been lifted on Interstates 70 and 99, on I-80 between I-99 and I-81, and on the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Bedford and Carlisle.

All commercial vehicles are banned on I-84 in PA. Speed limit reductions and vehicle restrictions have also been placed on the PA Turnpike from the Bedford Interchange east to New Jersey and on the entire Northeastern extension. PennDOT has canceled all super load permits for movement on Tuesday.

For more traffic information, follow live traffic updates, accident reports and road closures below from PennDOT, Total Traffic Network and other Twitter sources.

Get a look at conditions on local roads -- via PennDOT traffic cameras -- anytime here on PennLive. For Pennsylvania Turnpike updates and possible travel delays visit the Turnpike website here.

Tweet us at @pennlive with any incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
Police lights PennLive.jpeg

PennLive file photo.

Update: The crash has been cleared

The northbound lanes of Interstate 283 are closed between the start of 283 and Exit 2 (Route 441) because of a crash that occurred about 10:15 p.m.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

For more traffic information, follow live traffic updates, accident reports and road closures below from PennDOT, Total Traffic Network and other Twitter sources.

Get a look at conditions on local roads -- via PennDOT traffic cameras -- anytime here on PennLive. For Pennsylvania Turnpike updates and possible travel delays visit the Turnpike website here.

Tweet us at @pennlive with any incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
Since Election Day, the stock market has jumped 11 percent, growing the net worth of Americans with 401(k)s and other investments. Some of the worlds richest people have not fared quite as well.

Four of the 20 richest billionaires have seen their net worth decline since Donald Trumps unexpected presidential win, led by Mexican mogul Carlos Slim, according to an analysis of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Slims fortune has dwindled by more than $3 billion, or 6 percent of the $54.9 billion net worth he had on Election Day. Slim has also slipped one notch on the list of the worlds richest people, dropping from fifth to sixth.

The other billionaire losers, according to the Bloomberg index, include Charles and David Koch, Republican mega-donors who refused to endorse Trump during the campaign. The elder of the two, Charles, famously said that choosing between Hillary Clinton and Trump was like choosing between cancer and a heart attack. The brothers also publicly condemned Trumps first travel ban in January.

Each of the brothers had $48 billion to their name as of March 14, down 5 percent since Nov. 8, when their fortunes measured $50.5 billion apiece.

Amancio Ortega  the Spanish owner of Zara stores  has seen his fortune shrink by 5.5 percent to $68.7 billion from $72.7 billion, enough to knock him from the No. 2 spot down to No. 4.

Related: The Billionaire's Daughter Quietly Shaping the Trump Campaign

The biggest gainer since the election is Warren Buffett, who was an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter and fundraiser. His fortune grew by 18.3 percent, from $66.5 billion to $78.7 billion. He moved up two spots in Bloombergs ranking to No. 2 on the list. Last summer, Buffett famously challenged Trump to release his tax returns and denounced Trumps criticisms of Khizr Khan, the Muslim father of an Army captain killed in Iraq. But after the election, Buffett tempered his stance on Trump and said in an interview that the newly elected president wont wreck the economy or stock market.

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Rank Election day rank Billionaire Election Day net worth (in billions) Net worth as of 3/8/17 (in billions) % change 1 1 Bill Gates $78.9 $85.7 8.6% 2 4 Warren Buffett $66.5 $78.7 18.3% 3 3 Jeff Bezos $68.6 $73.9 7.7% 4 2 Amancio Ortega $72.7 $70.6 -2.9% 5 6 Mark Zuckerberg $54.3 $60.1 10.7% 6 5 Carlos Slim $54.9 $51.6 -6.0% 7 7 Charles Koch $50.5 $48.0 -5.0% 7 7 David Koch $50.5 $48.0 -5.0% 9 9 Larry Ellison $42.0 $45.2 7.6% 10 10 Larry Page $41.0 $43.4 5.9% 11 11 Ingvar Kamprad $41.0 $43.1 5.1% 12 12 Sergey Brin $40.2 $42.4 5.5% 13 13 Bernard Arnault $36.9 $41.6 12.7% 14 14 Liliane Bettencourt $36.5 $37.2 1.9% 15 15 Jack Ma $35.1 $36.1 2.8% 16 16 Rob Walton $34.5 $35.0 1.4% 17 17 Jim Walton $34.3 $34.7 1.2% 18 18 Alice Walton $33.5 $33.6 0.3% 19 19 John Mars $31.9 $32.7 2.5% 20 20 Jacqueline Mars $31.9 $32.7 2.5%

Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index

The other biggest winners include Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, who in January met Trump and told him he was considering expanding two U.S. factories. Arnaults net worth has increased 12.7 percent to more than $41 billion.

Related: The Phantom Billionaire Whos Richer Than Warren Buffett

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos round out the top five net worth increases since the presidential election. Bezos and Trump have had a contentious relationship, especially during the campaign. Trump at one point said that Amazon would have problems if he became president. And Bezos came out publicly in opposition to the presidents travel ban. Yet Amazon shares have gained more than 8 percent since the election, helping Bezos gain more than $5 billion in wealth.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is updated each business day after trading closes in New York.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Many more Americans would be uninsured, and insurance premiums would temporarily spike under the leading Republican proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to a new estimate that also projects the plan would cut the federal deficit.

Fourteen million more people would become uninsured next year if the American Health Care Act is signed into law, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.

By the year 2026, a total of 24 million more Americans would be uninsured than they would be under Obamacare, the CBO said.

The estimates starkly contrast with the Trump administration's claims that more people would be insured under the Republican bill than would be if Obamacare was kept in place. And they portend possibly even steeper obstacles to getting the bill passed and signed into law.

The projected loss in coverage next year alone equals about 70 percent of the 20 million or so people who have gained insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is formally known.

The total loss in coverage over the next decade would wipe out Obamacare's gains in coverage, and then some.

"In 2026, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law," according to the CBO's report.

Much of the reduction in the number of people who have health coverage next year would result from the bill's proposed repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate, which requires most Americans to have insurance of some form or face a tax penalty.

But reductions in insurance coverage between 2018 and 2026 "would stem in large part from changes in Medicaid enrollment  because some states would discontinue their expansion of eligibility, some states that would have expanded eligibility in the future would choose not to do so, and per-enrollee spending in the program would be capped," the CBO report said.

The Republican bill also would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion over the next decade, the CBO estimated in an analysis of the embattled proposal, which is currently working its way through the House of Representatives.

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That reduction represents the difference between a $1.2 trillion decrease in direct spending and a reduction of $883 billion in revenues.

The CBO also estimates that premiums for individual health plans in next year and in 2019 would on average by 15 to 20 percent higher than what they would be under Obamacare.

But by 2026, average premiums would be about 10 percent lower than they would be if Obamacare remained intact, the office said.

However, that would just an average, and there would be wide variation in premiums across different age groups, because the bill would allow insurers to charge older customers up to five times the premiums charged to younger customers. A 21-year-old customer in 2026, for example, would see premiums that would be 20 to 25 percent lower than under Obamacare, but a 64-year-old would be looking at premiums that would be 20 to 25 percent higher, the CBO said.

And because the bill would eliminated subsidies for lower-income customers' out-of-pocket health costs, their share of those costs would increase.

The CBO said the lower average premiums over time are expected to "attract a sufficient number of relatively healthy people to stabilize" the individual plan insurance market, even though the tax credits offered to customers by the GOP plan are "less generous" and structured differently than under Obamacare.

The forecasts by the non-partisan CBO are certain to be used by a number of GOP lawmakers as ammunition to defeat the controversial bill, which they have strongly criticized despite it being touted by leaders of their own party.

The estimates also will be heavily cited by Democrats who oppose not just this particular GOP replacement plan, but any legislation that would gut and replace Obamacare.

"We disagree strenuously with the report," Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said. "The CBO report's coverage numbers defy logic."

But House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., greeted the CBO estimates, saying, "This report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care."

"CBO also finds that this legislation will provide massive tax relief, dramatically reduce the deficit, and make the most fundamental entitlement reform in more than a generation," Ryan said.

"These are things we are achieving in just the first of a three-pronged approach. It's important to note that this report does not take into consideration additional steps Congress and the Trump administration are taking that will further lower costs and increase choices."

However, Leslie Dach, director of the Protect Our Care Coalition, said the loss of insurance by up to 24 million would be "a tragedy for our nation.

"But even more traumatic are the millions of individual nightmares that will play out if this bill becomes law  parents with sick children who won't be able to afford care, older Americans who will see their premiums skyrocket, and every person worried about paying for their prescription drugs," Dach said.

"This isn't giving people more freedom," Dach said. "This is President Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress taking away people's health care. This is a decision the Republican leadership is making -- no person would make this decision for their family."

The CBO report contradicts claims by the Trump administration that Obama is so-called death spiral, with skyrocketing premiums and falling enrollment. The report says the individual health plan market likely would remain stable in most areas of the United States under either Obamacare or the Republican plan.

The CBO's analysis is an uncomfortable, but long-expected, reminder to Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump , about the potential political perils of getting rid of Obamacare. The ACA has been credited with driving down the nation's uninsured rate to record low levels, from 18 percent of Americans in 2013 to 10.6 percent in the last quarter of 2016.

The CBO's estimates about the number of people who would lose coverage reflect the effect of the Republican bill's revocation of the Obamacare requirement that most Americans have some form of health coverage or pay a fine, as well the bill's rollback of funding for the expansion of Medicaid starting in 2020.

The estimates on the impact on the federal budget deficit reflects the savings that would accrue from a reduction in federal spending on Obamacare subsidies to millions of customers, which would be offset on the revenue side somewhat by elimination of ACA-related taxes.

The CBO's projections come days after the Brookings Institution estimated that the the bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by more than 15 million, and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated it would cost the federal government an additional $600 billion over a decade.

In anticipation of the estimates about the loss of insurance by millions, backers of the bill sought to delegitimize the CBO's analysis.

That critique of the CBO conflicts with the fact that members of Congress of both parties for the past four decades have depended on the office to provide analyses of budgetary and economic issues.

"If you're looking to the CBO for accuracy, you're looking in the wrong place," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said, "If the CBO was right about Obamacare to begin with, there'd be 8 million more people on Obamacare today than there actually are."

"Sometimes we ask them to do stuff they're not capable of doing, and estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably isn't the best use of their time," Mulvaney said.

The CBO's analysis comes a week after the bill was introduced by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, and passed by two committees. The bill is headed to review by the House Budget Committee this week.

The American Health Care Act is being supported by Ryan and other key members of the House, in addition to Trump.

Trump, Ryan the other leaders in the past week have repeatedly described Obamacare as a failing program that has led to skyrocketing insurance premiums, and millions of people being unable to use their coverage because of unaffordable deductibles.

Before the CBO released its score for the replacement plan, Trump tweeted new criticism of Obamacare.

Andy Slavitt, who oversaw Obamacare as head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration, said the CBO report "seems like one of the first major domestic leadership tests for President Trump."

"Does he give in to traditional D.C. political pressures and push a bill that there is now strong evidence would harm millions of Americans in small towns and big cities around the country, or does he show the leadership to step back and figure out what's best for the American public?" Slavitt asked.



While many Republicans agreed with Trump's broad critique of the Affordable Care Act, the Republican bill has been greeted by criticism from many GOP conservatives, in addition to liberal supporters of Obamacare.

The conservative case against the bill is that it does not go far enough in repeal in the ACA because it would continue to issue subsidies, albeit in reduced amounts, to people to help them buy individual health insurance plans. Conservatives also do not want to delay the rollback of Medicaid funding until 2020.

But in the Senate, several GOP senators have said they will not support a replacement bill that does not protect coverage gains made by Medicaid under Obamacare. Other Republican senators object to defunding of Planned Parenthood, as the GOP bill would do.

Tom Price, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that, "There are a lot of people that are worse off right now when they're paying for health care and they aren't getting the care that they need," Price said.

"Again, the premiums are up and deductibles are up. If you're an individual out there making fifty, sixty thousand dollars and your deductible is eight, ten, twelve thousand bucks you may have that insurance card, but you don't have coverage," Price said.

"And I hear from my former colleagues all the time about patients who come into their office and they recommend something for them, and they're not able to get it because the deductible is so high."

Price also said he did not expect that the Republican plan would result in higher costs of insurance, and that he does expect an increase in the number of people with health insurance.

"I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially," Price said. "There's coverage that's going to go up."

When asked about the Brookings Institution estimate that more than 15 million people would become uninsured as a result of the GOP plan, Price said, "I'll tell you that the plan that we've laid out here will not leave that number of individuals uncovered."

"In fact I believe, again, that we'll have more individuals covered," Price said.

Obamacare led to unprecedented drops in the nation's uninsured rates through a combination of measures.

The first measure to take effect was the provision that allows people under the age of 26 to be covered by their parents' health plans.

The ACA's so-called individual mandate requires most people to have health coverage of some kind  such as through a job, an individual insurance plans, Medicare, Medicaid, or military insurance  or pay a tax penalty. For the 2016 tax year, that penalty is the higher of $695 or 2.5 percent of household income.

Obamacare also authorized the creation of government-run insurance marketplaces, which sell individual plans offered by private insurance companies. Customers of those marketplaces, also known as exchanges, can get federal subsidies that lower the cost of their monthly premiums if they have low and moderate incomes. Lower-income customers can get additional subsidies for their out-of-pocket health expenses.

Medicaid expansion has been credited with having the largest impact on reducing the number of uninsured people.

More than 10 million Americans are estimated to have gained coverage through the ACA provision that allows states to loosen eligibility requirements for their Medicaid programs so that nearly all poor adults can sign up for them. Thirty-one states, along with the District of Columbia, have expanded their Medicaid programs.

Watch: Uncertainty in CBO scores









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JoBurg girls' cross country captures school's first state championship

After falling just short of a regional title last Saturday, the JoBurg girls responded by claiming the ultimate prize at MIS this past weekend.
- By Ben Reynolds





(Published March 13 by Nicholas McCullum)

Shareholders are the ultimate owners of any publicly traded business.

By putting capital on the line to gain fractional ownership of a company, shareholders will participate in the successes (and failures) of the underlying business.

Company management teams have some very obvious goals that are dictated by shareholders, including:

Maximize profits

Minimize expenses

Reduce reputational risk

Make ethical and socially responsible decisions











There are also certain behaviors that are considered to be shareholder-friendly, which typically include dividend payments and share repurchases.

This article will discuss six signs of a shareholder-friendly stock in detail.

Reasonable levels of executive compensation

Executive compensation is a hot topic on both Main Street and Wall Street.

The CEOs of large corporations are almost always the highest-paid employees, and total compensation can reach the $20 million-plus range.

Further, CEO compensation has been growing more quickly than the rest of the 0.1% and the stock market (as measured by the S&P 500).

CEO Compensation Has Grown Faster than the Wages of the Top 0.1 Percent and the Stock Market

Source: Economic Policy Institute

There are two measures by which the shareholder-friendliness of a company's executive compensation program can be checked.

First, the total compensation package of a business' upper-level management should be in the same range as its peers.

Information about executive compensation is disclosed in a filing called the Definitive 14A proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

You can find company filings with the SEC by searching this database. For information on executive compensation, search for "DEF 14A" filings, which will return the company's "Other definitive proxy statements."

For an example, you can see Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) CEO compensation package below.

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JNJ CEO Compensation

Source: Johnson & Johnson Proxy Circular

Another important consideration is whether executive compensation is dependent on the performance of the business they lead.

In most cases, this is certainly the case. CEO compensation is usually dependent on the company meeting certain financial performance targets.

These targets are outlined in the same DEF 14A filings with the SEC. Johnson & Johnson's criteria for its executive compensation package can be seen below.

JNJ Key Features

Source: Johnson & Johnson Proxy Circular

For investors looking to own shareholder-friendly companies, finding businesses whose executive compensation practices are reasonable and dependent on company performance is a great place to start.

High levels of insider ownership

Insider ownership is when company insiders (executives, board members, etc.) own company stock.

When insider ownership levels are high, it means the company's management has a lot of faith in the business' investment prospects.

Since management knows more about the business than any investor, shareholders can rest assured the most informed individuals are confident in the company's future.

The requirement of insider ownership is also seen as shareholder-friendly corporate governance.

Details about executive stock ownership requirements can also be found in the company's 14A proxy statements.

For instance, Johnson & Johnson's executive stock ownership requirements can be seen below.

JNJ Stock Ownership

Source: Johnson & Johnson Proxy Statement, page 44

Notice the stock ownership guidelines are expressed as a multiple of base salary. This is typical among companies that require executives to be shareholders.

A textbook example of high insider ownership is Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B).

Berkshire is a large conglomerate with holdings in many industries (including insurance, manufacturing and railways) that also has a large portfolio of common stock investments.

You can see an analysis of Berkshire Hathaway's top 20 high-yield dividend stocks here.

In Berkshire Hathaway's 2016 definitive proxy statement, the company reported Buffett owned 38.2% of Berkshire Hathaway's Class A stock. This high level of insider ownership is almost unheard of in a company as large as Berkshire.

Insider ownership (and the requirement of insider ownership) is a sign of a shareholder-friendly stock.

Clear communication with shareholders

Through shareholder presentations and press releases, a company's management team has plenty of opportunities to communicate with shareholders.

Companies who make the most of these communication opportunities should be appreciated by their investors. There are two benefits to investing in companies that readily communicate with shareholders:

Gain a greater understanding of the underlying business.

Gain a greater understanding of the business' prospects.







For the first point, there is no better example than Buffett (again).

His shareholder letters often elaborate on Berkshire's businesses in much more detail than is required by regulators.

This helps investors understand the intricacies of the $433 billion conglomerate.

A great example of a company whose management is clear about the business' prospects is 3M (MMM). The company is very clear about its long-term goals for business growth:

MMM Long-Term Financial Objectives

Source: 3M Investor Presentation, slide 14

The Coca-Cola Co. (KO) is another business that is similarly candid about business prospects.

In the company's presentation at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference, it provided the following slide on its 2016 outlook.

KO 2016 Outlook

Source: Coca-Cola 2016 CAGNY Presentation, slide 47

As with most things, financial forecasting is best digested in moderation. Even the wisest management teams cannot fully predict the future.

Business forecasts that go beyond the realm of reasonable prediction should be considered a red flag by investors.

Buffett has warned against excessive forecasting in the past, writing the following in a letter to shareholders:





"Finally, be suspicious of companies that trumpet earnings projections and growth expectations. Businesses seldom operate in a tranquil, no-surprise environment, and earnings simply don't advance smoothly (except, of course, in the offering books of investment bankers)."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2002 Annual Report, page 2

With that in mind, management teams that work to help investors understand their business and its growth prospects (within reason) are a sign of a shareholder-friendly company.

Acceptable use of adjusted financial metrics

When companies report earnings, they have the option to report adjusted earnings per share, which generally backs out one-time expenses such as:

Restructuring charges

Severance packages

One-time tax liabilities







And other metrics that are perceived to impede comparability to previous fiscal years.

Including adjusted earnings in shareholder reports is completely optional. The proportion of companies that include adjusted financial metrics has been rising over time however.

Percentage of Companies Reporting Adjusted Earnings Has Risen Sharply

Source: Business Insider

Buffett commented on this trend in Berkshire Hathaway's 2016 Annual Report:





"Too many managements - and the number seems to grow every year - are looking for any means to report, and indeed feature, 'adjusted earnings' that are higher than their company's GAAP earnings. There are many ways for practitioners to perform this legerdemain. Two of their favorites are the omission of 'restructuring costs' and 'stock-based compensation' as expenses."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2016 Annual Report, page 16

Buffett later elaborates on each of these, saying about restructuring costs:





"Berkshire, I would say, has been restructuring from the first day we took over in 1965. [...] We have never, however, singled out restructuring charges and told you to ignore them in estimating our normal earning power. If there were to be some truly major expenses in a single year, I would, of course, mention it in my commentary."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2016 Annual Report, page 16

And later, on the exclusion of stock-based compensation in the calculation of adjusted earnings:





"If CEOs want to leave out stock-based compensation in reporting earnings, they should be required to affirm to their owners one of two propositions: why items of value used to pay employees are not a cost or why a payroll cost should be excluded when calculating earnings."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2016 Annual Report, page 16

It is perfectly acceptable for a company to report adjusted earnings under one condition - shareholders read and understand the reconciliation between adjusted earnings and GAAP earnings.

These reconciliations can be found in quarterly earnings presentations. For example, the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) included the following reconciliation in its first-quarter earnings release:

DIS Adjusted Earnings Reconciliation

Source: The Walt Disney Company Investor Document

Disney's reconciliation is simple and easy to understand - which makes its use of adjusted earnings helpful and acceptable.

Another alternative method of presenting a company's perceived earnings power is through EBITDA, which stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.

Buffett, among others, has been vocally critical of this metric in the past since the implication is that the four excluded costs (interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) are not true expenses.





"Every dime of depreciation expense we report is a real cost. That's true, moreover, at most other companies. When CEOs tout EBITDA as a valuation guide, wire them up for a polygraph test."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2014 Annual Report, page 15

Buffett's criticism of EBITDA has been long-standing. He also commented on the use of EBITDA in his 2002 shareholder letter, and probably earlier.





"Trumpeting EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) is a particularly pernicious practice. Doing so implies that depreciation is not truly an expense, given that it is a 'non-cash' charge. That's nonsense. In truth, depreciation is a particularly unattractive expense because the cash outlay it represents is paid up front, before the asset acquired has delivered any benefits to the business."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2002 Annual Report, page 21

Overall, investors should only accept the use of adjusted financial metrics if they can understand the reconciliation between the GAAP and non-GAAP metrics.

Share repurchases

Share repurchases involve a company buying its own stock on the open market with the intent of reducing the number of shares outstanding.

This is beneficial because the company's financial results are divided among less shares.

Share repurchases can have a pretty remarkable effect on bottom line growth and shareholder returns. The table below shows the amazing compounding power of a business that:

Grows earnings at 8% a year

Trades at a constant price-earnings ratio of 15

Uses 75% of earnings on share repurchases







Share Repurchase Example

Note this is a very simplified example because earnings growth, valuation multiples and share repurchases will all tend to fluctuate over time.

More importantly, note most of the total return was due to the share repurchases. The company's stock price grew by more than a factor of 10, while earnings grew by a factor of approximately 4.6.

Without the buybacks, the company's return over the 20-year period would be less than half as large.

The Effect of a 75% Share Repurchase Program on Per-Share Earnings Growth

Share repurchases create value only when the stock is trading at less than its perceived intrinsic value.

If company management repurchases shares at a high valuation, they are effectively "buying three quarters for the price of a dollar."

This has the same value-destroying capabilities as when investors buy overpriced stocks on the open market.

Buffett commented on this in his 2016 Annual Report:





"For continuing shareholders, however, repurchases only make sense if the shares are bought at a price below intrinsic value. When that rule is followed, the remaining shares experience an immediate gain in intrinsic value.

Consider a simple analogy: If there are three equal partners in a business worth $3,000 and one is bought out by the partnership for $900, each of the remaining partners realizes an immediate gain of $50. If the exiting partner is paid $1,100, however, the continuing partners each suffer a loss of $50.

The same math applies with corporations and their shareholders. Ergo, the question of whether a repurchase action is value-enhancing or value-destroying for continuing shareholders is entirely purchase-price dependent."







Source: Berkshire Hathaway 2016 Annual Report, page 7

A good example of a company repurchasing undervalued shares recently is Apple (AAPL).

Because of its incredibly popular products like the iPhone, Mac and iPad, Apple has a massive cash hoard that has been effectively deployed to repurchase shares.

In the company's first-quarter earnings release, Apple reported $10.9 billion spent on repurchases of common stock, which is more than three times the $3.1 billion spent on dividend payments.

AAPL Financing Activities

Source: Apple First Quarter 8-K , page 6

These buybacks have followed Buffett's rule of only repurchasing undervalued shares.

Apple has traded at a notably lower price-earnings ratio than its peers (large-cap technology companies) over the past few years, and this trend continues today:

Apple: 16.7

Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL): 30.2

Microsoft (MSFT): 30.6

Facebook (FB): 39.6







The valuation multiples listed above are based on trailing 12-month GAAP EPS.

When assessing a company's investment prospects, the two main buyback-related considerations are whether it is engaged in a buyback program currently and whether the management states a particular price or valuation at which they would be happy to repurchase stock.

Dividend payments

Dividend payments are an important part of shareholder returns.

Dividends are the only way for an investor to profit from investing in a company without reducing or eliminating their ownership stake.

Dividends also have a high degree of correlation with shareholder returns. In a previous analysis, I examined the long-term (2000 to 2015) correlations of a variety of financial metrics and total returns.

You can see the results of that analysis below.

Dividend Correlation Analysis

Source: Publicly Available Financial Statements

Dividend payments demonstrated higher correlation with total returns than any other financial metric - even earnings per share.

The outperformance of companies that consistently raise their dividends can be seen when looking at the Dividend Aristocrats Index, which is comprised of companies with at least 25 years of consecutive dividend payments.

You can see the list of all 51 Dividend Aristocrats here.

The performance of the Dividend Aristocrats is compared to the S&P 500 Index below.

Dividend Aristocrats Historical Performance

Dividend Aristocrats Performance Table

Source: Dividend Aristocrats Fact Sheet

Over the past 10 years, the Dividend Aristocrats have returned 10.14% per year while the S&P 500 has returned 7.62% per year - an outperformance of 2.52%.

When searching for shareholder-friendly stocks, dividend payments are one of the most important (and most straightforward) signs to look for.

Final thoughts

Shareholder-friendly companies will make better investments than those that are not, all else being equal.

Fortunately, there are many telltale signs of a shareholder-friendly stock:

Reasonable levels of executive compensation High levels of insider ownership Clear communication with shareholders Acceptable use of adjusted financial metrics Share repurchases Dividend dayments







Incorporating these signs into your investment process can help identify companies with management teams that have shareholders' best interests in mind.

Disclosure: I am not long any of the stocks mentioned in this article.

Start a free 7-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Russian Litasco oil trader hires ex-Glencore trader to head China operation

BEIJING

Petroleumworld.com 03 14 2017

Russian oil trader Litasco has hired an ex-Glencore trader to head its Beijing-based China operations, hoping to expand sales of Russian Urals crude to the independent Chinese oil refineries known as "teapots", traders said.

Li Buhua, formerly head of Glencore's oil trading operation in Beijing, joined the Russian trader in January, replacing Zhu Tong who retired in late 2016, traders said.

Li was previously with state-owned Chinese oil and chemicals trader Sinochem before joining Glencore.

Litasco is one of the world's largest traders and a unit of Russia's No. 2 oil producer Lukoil.

Li confirmed his new posting and said his small team of three - including himself - in Beijing was looking to target Chinese teapot plants to boost sales of Urals crude, a grade similar to Oman that is becoming more price competitive.

"We are starting from a small base, but hopefully we can seize the arbitrage opportunity this year as the Middle Eastern crudes become relatively more pricey due to the (OPEC) supply cuts," said Li.

Set up in 2000 as the trading arm of Lukoil, Swiss-based Litasco focuses on selling its parent's crude and products worldwide, serving its refineries in Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and Bulgaria and adding value through trading.

Lukoil said early this month it produced 92 million tonnes of oil (1.84 million barrels per day) last year, including 83.2 million tonnes from Russia. It also operates fields in Iraq and the former Soviet Union.

More than 20 independent refineries have since late 2015 emerged as a catalyst in the global crude oil market, making up the bulk of the 910,000 barrels per day of additional crude oil China bought in 2016 compared with its average daily purchases in the previous year.

The teapots' buying frenzy elevated Russia to become China's largest crude supplier last year for the first time on record. The independents have since early this year started taking in Urals crude.


Japan's PM Abe seeks Saudi support for Aramco listing in Tokyo

TOKYO

Petroleumworld.com 03 14 2017

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asked Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Monday to support a listing of oil giant Aramco's shares in Tokyo, as financial centres in Asia and elsewhere step up efforts to win the coveted $100 billion listing.

Abe made the request for support on the Aramco listing to the Saudi monarch, who responded by saying the kingdom would look into the request because he wants Japanese investors to buy Aramco shares, Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kotaro Nogami told reporters.

The two leaders met on Monday, the second day of the king's visit to Japan, part of a month-long Asian tour.

Separately, the governments of Japan and Saudi Arabia said in a joint statement that Aramco and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) are considering setting up a joint group to study a Japan listing for the Saudi oil giant.

Saudi authorities plan to list up to 5 percent of the world's largest oil producer on the Saudi stock exchange in Riyadh, the Tadawul, and also one or more international markets. Besides Tokyo, markets in New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Toronto, are vying for what could be the world's largest IPO, potentially raising as much as $100 billion.

While the Japanese government is keen to have Aramco shares trade in Tokyo, bankers and lawyers say the Tokyo market is unlikely to get the nod because of strong competition and due to Japanese investors being less receptive to energy companies than some other sectors such as technology. Yen volatility is another factor.

The Saudi monarch arrived in Japan on Sunday after a visit to Malaysia and Indonesia that included a holiday stay in Bali. Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih and Aramco executives were scheduled to travel with him to Japan, sources told Reuters earlier.

Saudi officials are keen to court Asian investors for the sale of the Aramco stake in 2018, and have solicited financial advice from banks with links to China.

The IPO is the centrepiece of the Saudi government's ambitious plan, known as Vision 2030, to diversify the economy away from oil.

Japanese and Asian banks and companies are expected to play major roles in the kingdom's plans to develop non-oil industries and expand its international investments.

Saudi Arabia is Japan's biggest oil supplier and Japanese refineries and other oil importers bought about $2.2 billion worth of Saudi oil in January.

The two countries on Monday also signed economic cooperation agreements in industry, energy and finance and on setting up a possible special economic zone in Saudi Arabia.

They also agreed to start a feasibility study on vehicle production in the Middle Eastern country. The Nikkei on Saturday reported that Toyota Motor Corp is looking into building a plant in Saudi Arabia.


Odebrecht turmoil rips through the Andes and Caribbean



In Peru, Colombia, Dominican Republic politicians in trouble

NEW YORK / LIMA

Petroleumworld 03 14 2017

Trucks ascended to Braulio Pucllo's pasture high in the Andes mountains five months ago and piled dozens of 5-ton steel pipes along a dirt track. Workers from a consortium led by builder Odebrecht told him they would lay them down and weld them together. He hasn't seen the laborers since.

We want them to come back and finish the job,'' said Pucllo, 30, as the falling rain turned to hail and his herd of alpacas wandered among the pipes. They'd still be here working if it weren't for Odebrecht's corruption. Anyone who took money from them belongs in jail.

This was not the intended fate for Peru's grandest infrastructure project. The 1,025-kilometer (637-mile) Gasoducto Sur Peruano was meant to climb from Cuzco's jungle gas fields to nearly 5,000 meters (16,405 feet) above sea level and then back down. Only 33 kilometers of pipe were in the ground before bribery allegations ended Odebrecht's access to funds, prompting the government to terminate the contract last month.

Worse, the $7.3-billion pipeline is only one among numerous victims of the region-wide scandal emanating from Latin America's biggest builder. Prosecutors from 11 countries have signed an agreement to deepen investigation into Odebrecht's web of bribes paid to politicians, some in the form of campaign donations, first revealed in Brazil. The full scope of the fallout is far from clear, but it's rattling governments -- and even economies -- from the Andes to the Caribbean.

Affected Every Country'

It's affected every country and gone to the highest level, said Walter Molano, the chief economist at BCP Securities LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut.

or more than a decade, Odebrecht led Brazil's builders on a seemingly unimpeded sprawl across the region. Officials offered up billions of dollars for roads, trains, airports and power plants, and Odebrecht obliged. Its empire has been crumbling for more than two years with its chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht, serving a 19-year term in a Brazilian prison. The decline has accelerated since December, when the company pleaded guilty in the U.S. and agreed to the biggest-ever bribery settlement: a $4.5 billion penalty for crimes in 12 countries, mostly Latin America and the Caribbean. (The company could end up paying only $2.6 billion.)

Asked for comment, Odebrecht said it is cooperating with Brazilian and foreign authorities to support the ongoing investigations. It said it believes that it must change the posture of its relations with public and private organizations and is adopting measures to strengthen its commitment to ethical business practices and to foster transparency in all of its actions with a view to turning the page and supporting its continuous development.

Nowhere is the scandal more damaging than in Peru where President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is struggling to make good on his promise to boost growth by investing in infrastructure. Cancellation of Odebrecht's pipeline contract set back a $70-billion infrastructure plan. Other projects have slowed under added scrutiny. Finance Minister Alfredo Thorne was forced to shave a percentage point off his growth forecast for 2017.

Peru's Government Worried

Kuczynski is also scrambling to prevent his eight-month-old government from succumbing to swirling scandal. A local court ordered former President Alejandro Toledo detained as part of a wide-ranging probe into Odebrecht's admission it bribed officials during the three prior governments. Toledo, a former Stanford University professor, is accused of getting $20 million in exchange for a highway contract, and has since gone missing. He took to Twitter to deny wrongdoing and claim he's the victim of a politically-motivated witch hunt.

Prosecutors are looking into Kuczynski's role in the highway contract when he served as Toledo's finance minister, and have called for a separate probe into reports a private equity fund he once ran received payments from Odebrecht. He denies receiving any bribes, but Peruvians are increasingly suspicious. His approval rating was 29 percent last month, just less than half the level it was when he took office, according to GfK Peru, a research company.

The mistrust is evident in even in the Andes, far from Peru's capital. The pipeline buoyed the town of Calca's economy over the last two years, creating jobs and filling hotels and restaurants. With the pipeline lying abandoned and hopes of a cheap gas supply fading, local residents are frustrated. Sonia Quispe, a shop assistant, said: If it's true that presidents were involved in corruption, they should pay for what they did. I don't trust any of them.

Likewise the Dominican Republic's President Danilo Medina, re-elected last year with the highest approval ratings in the region, has seen an Odebrecht-driven reversal of fortune. His pet project, a $2 billion coal-fired power plant Odebrecht was building, stalled after financing dried up due to the revelations. That's forced the government to turn to the market to raise hundreds of millions of dollars it's lacking at a time that when its budget is already being squeezed.

Fighting against falling approval ratings, Medina has appointed a commission to investigate and has made a show of coming out against Odebrecht, which admitted in its U.S. settlement to bribing local officials from 2001-2014.

Endemic Evil'

It's time to call this by its name: corruption is an endemic evil in our society, Medina said to Congress late last month. We're facing a regional and international epidemic.

Again and again across Latin America the pattern replicates, like a virus. In Panama, it has been alleged that Odebrecht contributed to the 2014 campaign of President Juan Carlos Varela. Opposition lawmakers have called for Varela's removal. He made public a list of his campaign's contributors, on which Odebrecht's name doesn't appear, and said donations weren't bribes.

In Colombia, the government is terminating two of Odebrecht's endeavors: a highway and dredging of the Magdalena River. Local authorities are investigating both. The attorney general also said Odebrecht paid $1 million for an opinion poll to curry favor with President Juan Manuel Santos during his re-election campaign. Odebrecht declined to comment other than to reaffirm its commitment to cooperate with officials investigations. Santos said in a March 7 speech his administration built a wall so Odebrecht couldn't get to his officials, and that all infrastructure projects have been contracted with total transparency.

Carwash

The trouble is far from over. More than 75 Odebrecht executives signed plea bargains in Brazil as part of the so-called Carwash probe dating back to 2014, and the possible publication of their testimonies could wreak havoc at home and abroad. Likewise, the agreement Latin American authorities signed on Feb. 16 for cooperation on investigations related to companies involved in Carwash signals that resolution is a ways off.

The scandal is galvanizing politicians to take action against corruption. Ecuador and Panama have barred the company from bidding for government contracts while Peru and Colombia have told Odebrecht to sell its businesses and leave . Peruvian lawmakers last month rushed through a much-delayed constitutional reform that means acts of corruption won't be subject to the statute of limitations.

Corruption conspires against growth, said Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs. What do you prefer? To build a bridge that costs three times what it should or not build a bridge? Not build a bridge.








FILE PHOTO: Visitors walk towards the Sleeping Beauty Castle during a visit to the Disneyland Paris, France, January 21, 2015. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo - RTX30GBA

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - An activist hedge fund has criticized plans by Walt Disney (DIS.N) to take full control of debt-laden Paris theme park operator Euro Disney (EDLP.PA), according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Paris-based CIAM, which owns 1.4 percent of Euro Disney shares, has written to the board of the French company to object to what it believes are plans by Walt Disney to force out minority shareholders. It said it has the support of more than 5 percent of Euro Disney shareholders, including its holding.

"The Walt Disney Company seeks to force out the remaining minority shareholders by offering them a new public offer, under penalty of having to undergo a strong dilution later," said the letter, dated March 6.

CIAM has not declined Walt Disney's offer but is monitoring the situation, a source familiar with the matter said.

Euro Disney defended the terms of the Walt Disney takeover.

"Given the financial challenges faced by Euro Disney, The Walt Disney Company has developed a long-term solution that takes into account all stakeholders," it said in a statement.

"We believe such an operation will provide Euro Disney with a strong financial footing to continue its strategy, while providing minority shareholders the opportunity to exit at a significant premium," it added.

Walt Disney last month announced plans to take full control of Euro Disney, after raising its stake to 85.7 percent through a deal with Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Walt Disney has said it would also support a recapitalisation of up to 1.5 billion euros, helping cut debt and improve Euro Disney's financial position.

Minority shareholders will be offered 2 euros ($2.13) a share to sell their stake to Walt Disney - a 67 percent premium to Euro Disney's share price on Feb 9, which was the day before the offer was announced.

Walt Disney will buy out and delist the remaining shares from the Euronext Paris stock exchange if it gets to a stake of at least 95 percent. The shares stood at 1.99 euros on Tuesday.

Story continues

Disneyland Paris opened in 1992 and has struggled financially for much of that time, after making overly optimistic visitor projections and taking on too much debt.

Deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 by Islamist militants also hit the broader French tourism sector, and Euro Disney racked up a net loss of 858 million euros in 2016.

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Keith Weir and Jane Merriman)
Winter Storm Stella isnt the massive bombogenesis blizzard meteorologists originally predicted, but her wrath is being felt in much of the Northeast.

Between Monday and Tuesday, the weather pros forecasted that cities in Pennsylvania, New York, Washington, DC, and New England would get anywhere from 12 to 24 inches of snow. In preparation, airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights on Monday and preemptively canceled around 6,000 on Tuesday. Massive flight cancellations typically trigger a ripple effect of delays, and that appears to be the case with Stella. According to the flight tracking site, FlightAware, airlines have already canceled 750 flights scheduled for Wednesday.

With widespread travel cancellations and delays, most airlines are waiving fees they would typically charge for changing flight reservations. The following list provides specific waiver details for the major airlines to assist travelers in altering their plans.

American Airlines

American Airlines (AAL) has canceled 1,675 flights on Tuesday and 400 on Wednesday.

If youre traveling to or from these 39 airports, the airline may waive your change fee if you bought your ticket before March 10, 2017, and are scheduled to fly on March 14 or 15. The $200 fee will be waived if you dont change your origin or destination city, and if you rebook in the same cabin or pay the price difference.

To stay on top of flight changes, get notifications sent to your phone.

Delta

In preparation for Stella, Delta (DAL) canceled 130 flights on Monday and 800 flights on Tuesday. That said, the airline is hoping to resume flights on Tuesday night, and return to regular service on Wednesday.

If youre flying through one of these 30 airports  including Newark, NJ (EWR), Bostons Logan (BOS) or Baltimore (BWI)  on March 14 or 15, Delta will waive the $200 fee to change your flight. Your ticket must be issued on or before March 17 and rebooked travel must begin no later than March 17.

Story continues

If you wish to cancel your trip altogether as a result of a flight cancellation or significant delay (90 minutes or more), you are entitled to a refund for the unused portion of your ticket. Even if your flight is not canceled, you may make a one-time change to your ticket for free if youre scheduled to travel on March 14 or 15.

JetBlue

If you planned to travel through one of these 21 airports  including LaGuardia, JFK or Washingtons Reagan National Airport  on March 14, JetBlue (JBLU) will waive the change/cancel fees (between $100 and $150) and fare differences if the original ticket was booked before March 11. If your flight was canceled, you can opt for a full refund. Customers may rebook their flights for travel from March 13 through March 19. Heres where you can check your flight status.

Snowplows work to keep the grounds clear at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (AP)

United

Due to widespread flight cancellations, United Airlines (UAL) is waiving the $200 change fee for travelers looking for alternative flights. If youre traveling to/from/through these 34 airports on March 14 or 15, United will let you book a new flight at no cost, as long as travel is rescheduled in the same cabin (any fare class) and between the originally ticketed cities. New itineraries must begin on or before March 17.

Southwest

Southwest (LUV) will cancel 1,300 flights between Monday and Wednesday because of Stella. In response, the airline is reminding customers flying through these 22 airports that they can alter their travel plans and rebook tickets in the original class of service at no cost. Travelers can also choose to fly standby within 14 days of their original date of travel.

Spirit Airlines

Modification charge ($100) and fare difference fees will be waived for Spirit (SAVE) customers traveling through these 10 airports on March 14 and 15. If travel is rebooked after March 18, the modification charge is waived, but a fare difference may apply.

Virgin America

Travelers flying to/from/through JFK International Airport (JFK), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) on March 14-15 may change their travel plans without paying the $150 change fee or the difference in fares for travel through March 19.

Travelers may also cancel their itineraries without incurring cancellation fees.

Additional travel disruptions:

Amtrak

Amtrak will be running a modified schedule to and from Washington, DC on March 14.

Because of the storm, service between New York City and Boston and Empire Service between New York City and Albany, NY, are suspended until further notice. Additionally, the Acela Express and Northeast Regional service that operate between New York City and Washington, DC, will run on a modified schedule, with some trains truncated or cancelled, including some trains that operate in Virginia.

Passengers with travel plans can confirm their trains status, change their plans or review refund information using a range of tools  including Amtrak.com, smartphone apps or by calling 800-USA-RAIL.
Photo: Facebook

Officer Peter Palka was fired from the Chicago Police Department while undergoing training in 2007 after academy staff said he'd been unprepared, dishonest, and a poor marksman who repeatedly failed the shooting test, city records show.

However, after nearly a decade of persistence and legal action, he returned to the academy in 2016 after a favorable ruling by a Cook County judge, according to court and city records. He's now assigned to a Near North Side police district, reports the Chicago Tribune.

His long legal battle shows the difficulties sometimes faced by the Chicago Police Department in the relatively rare instances in which it fires a recruit from the academy.

Palka first joined the Chicago police academy in 2006 after working as an auxiliary officer in Rosemont. But early on, he ran into a problem after divulging information about a "sensitive class" session to other recruits who had yet to undergo the training, according to city records. Palka promised in a letter to superiors he wouldn't do it again, records show.

Then Palka twice failed to pass the firearms test. A memo says he admitted to not reading the firearms manual, but later said he had. He was fired and was disqualified from hiring when he reapplied in 2014.

Palka petitioned for review by the Cook County courts, arguing, among other things, that the city didn't prove he had disobeyed any direct orders to read the manual because none had ever been given. Judge Kathleen Kennedy agreed, finding he couldn't be ruled ineligible to join the department.

Palka was rehired in June 2016, records show. He passed the academy and is now a police officer.
Damion McRae is charged with attempted murder and gun charges.

Officer Kenneth Grubbs was discharged from University of Cincinnati Medical Center Tuesday, two days after he was shot in the line of duty. The suspect is charged with attempted murder, reports WCPO.

Police said Damion McRae, 37, shot Grubbs in the abdomen outside a Gilbert Avenue apartment complex in Walnut Hills. Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley called the shooting an attempted "assassination" and "ambush."

Emergency crews took Grubbs and McRae to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for surgery. Neither suffered life-threatening injuries. Still, Grubbs has a long recovery ahead of him, police union president Sgt. Dan Hils said.

McRae is charged with attempted murder and gun charges.
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HHS Secretary Tom Price responded to the CBO report on Trumpcare by the disputing the numbers and then asking Democrats to help the struggling White House kill health care for 24 million people.

Video of the White House response:

https://youtu.be/NoxpurWvyXE

The White House responded by lying about Obamacare, disputing the CBOs numbers, and most interestingly asking for Democrats to help them take health care away from 24 million people.

HHS Secretary Tom Price told reporters, The bill that the CBO looked at was simply the bill that pending before Congress. It didnt look at the regulatory reforms were going to put into place. It didnt look at the state innovation grants. It didnt look at the flexibility that were going to allow the states because thats what the states are demanding and asking for so that they can take care of their most vulnerable populations and didnt look at all of the pieces of legislation that are also pending out there that we call on friends on other side of the aisle to help us reform the insurance markets so that we can provide greater choices and greater competition.

Notice what Sec. Price was asking Democrats to do. Price doesnt want to hear Democratic ideas. The White House is begging Democrats to vote for Republican legislation that will take health care away from 24 million people.

Prices remarks were a pathetic attempt to get Democrats to take the blame for more than 20 million people losing their health care.

The odds of this happening are exactly zero. Republicans opened up this can of worms with years of promises to repeal Obamacare.

They own this, and Democrats will not be riding to the rescue to bail them out.
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A freshman Democratic congressman is looking for Republican colleagues who will step up and help the thousands of veterans that President Donald Trump has deported.

U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) is looking for Republicans in the House who will help him co-author legislation to help the thousands of American veterans that Donald Trump has deported.

Rep. Gonzalez told the Rio Grande Guardian:/



I am looking for a Republican colleague to join me in this effort. It is the most American thing to do. To take of our veterans who fought for us. Many were highly decorated veterans that were in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of them came hope with high levels of PTSD. We didnt offer them the mental healthcare they needed to transition them back into society, Gonzalez said.

These are folks who have never had any legal trouble in their life. They were discharged honorably. They get into a little trouble and they are deported.

Gonzalez said that 1,400 honorably discharged vets had been deported to Mexico and Central America.

Prior to Trump, the Deported Veterans Support House had documented 301 veteran deportations for criminal offenses. Since coming into office less than two months ago, Trump has added thousands of vets to that total. The Trump administration has apparently expanded the criteria for deporting a veteran.

Veterans who were discharged honorably, and have not committed a crime, should not be deported. If a person risks their life to defend this country, they should be allowed to stay providing that they dont break the law.

What Trump is doing is wrong. Whats even worse is that House Republicans are too afraid to stand up to their president.
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Former Independent presidential candidate and former CIA operations officer Evan McMullin rolled out an ad today to pressure Congressional Republicans to name a bipartisan select committee to investigate Donald Trumps Russia crisis.

The ad that went live Tuesday with a six-figure TV buy ends, Generations fought for freedom, and presidents of both parties stood against foreign tyrants like Vladimir Putin. Why wont Donald Trump tell Congress to name a bipartisan select committee to get the truth?

Watch the ad by Stand Up Republic, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Never Trump Republicans Evan McMullin and his 2016 running mate Mindy Finn:

It's time for Republican leadership in Congress to establish a bipartisan select committee to investigate Russia and Trump. @StandUpRepublic pic.twitter.com/s0tLI9TGU2  Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) March 14, 2017

Trumps Russia crisis. Secret contacts. Conflicting stories. Mounting signs of hidden ties and shady deals. Fear our president is compromised, the narrator says in an ominous tone.

The values of liberty, justice and honor shaped America. Generations fought for freedom, and presidents of both parties stood against foreign tyrants like Vladimir Putin. Why wont Donald Trump tell Congress to name a bipartisan select committee to get the truth?

So basically the guy who spent much of his service overseas as a clandestine operations officer running counter-terrorism and traditional intelligence operations is putting the power of his non-profit to try to force Congressional Republicans to name a select committee to investigate Donald Trumps Russia problem.

Right now, Trump has people with conflicts in charge of each investigation into his Russia scandal.

House Intelligence Chair Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) was on the Trump transition team that is being investigated, and he has said he is more focused on how reports of those conversations got leaked than he is on the conversations themselves.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is headed by Richard Burr (R-NC) who was a national security adviser to Trumps campaign. Burr was also a vocal Trump campaign backer, once boasting he sicced the FBI on Hillary Clinton.

This means both Nunes and Burr are heading investigations that could implicate themselves. Its also obvious, aside from the direct conflict, that they are not objective. Can you imagine Republicans allowing Clinton campaign advisers to be in charge of investigating her? I think not.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was advising Trumps campaign when he was caught talking to a Russian ambassador twice  a matter he lied about under oath during his confirmation hearings  has agreed to step aside for the DOJ oversight of the Trump Russia scandal, but that means he will be the boss of the person investigating it because Republicans dont think a special prosecutor is called for. So Jeff Sessions will be overseeing the person investigating a matter that could implicate Jeff Sessions.

This is why Never Trump Republicans like McMullin and his running mate Mindy Finn are putting their muscle behind demands for a real investigation.

The division is between those who most value their country and those who most value Trumps ability to defy the odds to get into the White House and sweep Congressional Republicans into office who were in jeopardy. Its country V Republican Party right now, and thats a sad commentary on the current GOP. There are many Republicans who dont agree with that stance, the problem is that they tend not to be in Congress.

Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn founded Stand Up Republic to build and organize a grassroots movement in defense of liberty, equality, and truth in America.

Truth. Theres a value at odds with the Trump administration.
Emanuel AMEs former secretary is suing the church and the Rev. Norvel Goff for ending her employment after she questioned the handling of donations that poured into the church after a gunman killed nine worshippers. Read moreFormer secretary at Emanuel AME sues for unpaid wages
The Nexx Level Sports Center, planned to be built in Irmo, would host major sports tournaments weekly, and is projected to bring $51 million in spending to the area in the first five years, if developers can line up the financial support needed to build it. Read moreProposed Columbia area sports complex seeking financial commitments from county, state
(Adds snowfall totals, wind gusts, falling temperatures and power outages)

By Jonathan Allen and Scott Malone

NEW YORK/BOSTON, March 14 (Reuters) - A late-season snowstorm swept the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States on Tuesday, closing public school systems from Washington, D.C., to Boston, grounding thousands of airline flights and knocking out electricity to 200,000 customers.

Tens of millions of residents from Maryland to Maine faced a "rapidly intensifying Nor'easter" that was rare for its arrival in mid-March, just a week before the official end of winter, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The storm also capped an unusually mild winter that saw otherwise below-normal snowfalls for much of the Atlantic Coast.

Many residents heeded official advice to stay home, as temperatures plunged 10 to 25 degrees below average across most of the eastern third of the country. Snow fell from the lower Great Lakes and central Appalachians to the eastern seaboard as far south as North Carolina.

The heaviest snow, with accumulations of a foot (30 cm) or more, was reported across New England, upstate New York and parts of Pennsylvania. Gale-force wind gusts also buffeted much of the region, creating blizzard conditions.

By comparison, the nation's capital received just a few inches of snow by late afternoon, enough to delay opening of federal government offices for three hours. The storm's greater impact for Washington was perhaps that the city's celebrated cherry blossoms, a tourist attraction and an early harbinger of spring, were encased in ice.

Another rite of March, the national college basketball championship tournament, was disrupted as Tuesday's scheduled game between Syracuse University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro was postponed for one night.

Hundreds of thousands of public school students got a day off, as classes were canceled for the day in New York City, Philadelphia, northern New Jersey and Boston. Schools were to be closed again in Boston on Wednesday.

Story continues

Still, the weather service dialed back forecasts for some urban areas, notably New York City, where residents had been warned to steel themselves for potentially record-breaking snow.

Only 4 inches (10 cm) fell in Manhattan's Central Park - less than forecast. By afternoon, as snow turned to sleet, city officials were anticipating Wednesday's morning rush hour would be largely back to normal and that schools would reopen.

After being canceled earlier in the day, above-ground parts of New York City's subway service and some Metro-North commuter trains to the suburbs resumed in the evening.

Train service to Boston and Albany, New York, was halted. Connecticut officials said roads there would reopen to general traffic on Tuesday evening.

Governors in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia declared states of emergency at the outset of the storm.

"Mother Nature is an unpredictable lady sometimes," the state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said at a news conference. "She was unpredictable today."

'GHOST TOWN'

While children and dogs took to the streets to play in the snow, many New Yorkers welcomed the storm as a respite from the usual bustle of daily life.

"It's a ghost town," Ali Naji, 33, said as he sat listening to Mexican pop music amid the emptiness of his usually busy convenience store in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood.

More than 6,000 commercial airline flights across the United States were canceled for the day, according to tracking service FlightAware.com, including all of American Airlines flights into New York's three major airports - Newark, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International Airport.

JetBlue Airways reported extensive cancellations and Delta Air Lines canceled 800 flights for New York, Boston and other northeastern airports. United Airlines said it was halting all operations at Newark or LaGuardia.

Utility companies likewise reported widespread power outages, affecting more than 220,000 homes and businesses at the peak of the storm.

The young at heart seemed to take the weather in stride. At the open-sided Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, the ice-slick marble floor served as a skating rink for some of the 71 eighth graders visiting from St. Mary's Academy in Englewood, Colorado.

Math teacher Michael Pattison, 65, rattled off a list of all the monuments and museums the students would see that day.

"This weather is not going to stop us," he said, clapping his gloved hands.

"No, it's not," a couple of students shouted back.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney and Gina Cherulus in New York, Ian Simpson in Washington and Valerie Vande Panne in Boston; Writing by Steve Gorman and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott and Cynthia Osterman)
The oft-told story of a frog perishing in a pot as the water slowly warms and then cooks him is not actually based in fact; the metaphor persists because it describes something that is true: We are less aware of change that occurs gradually than when it happens all at once. Read moreEditorial: Referendums based on slow evolution: Berkeley, Dorchester aren't so rural anymore
Columbia Bureau Chief

Shain is Columbia Bureau Chief for The Post and Courier. He was editor of Free Times and was a reporter and editor at The State, The Charlotte Observer and The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News.
Everyone with even just a drop of Irish blood is gearing up for Saint Patrick's Day. The parades, wearing green, drinking green, feasting on Irish stew, corned beef and cabbage, soda bread  it's all part of the day.

Don't overlook another of Ireland's great culinary contributions: Irish coffee, a specialty hot beverage.

It's always available, but since St. Patrick's Day is usually warm, Irish coffee isn't ordered in the quantities of other drinks, including Irish whiskies and beers. But those who have it tend to agree that Irish coffee is one of the best in the genre of coffee drinks. It has a great history.

The story goes that it was first mixed as an elixir to warm up cold and tired passengers on a flight from Limerick to New York that was forced to return because of bad weather. The year was 1942.

A restaurant had recently opened up with a young Irish chef, Joe Sheridan, in charge. As the passengers came in that night, he brewed dark, strong coffee, added a healthy pour of Jameson, a little brown sugar, mixed that up, and floated whipped cream on top. They all loved it. One asked if this was Brazilian coffee, to which Sheridan replied no, this was Irish coffee. And so it began.

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That's where the story might have ended, except that Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, liked it so much he took the recipe to his friend Jack Koeppler, a bartender at the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco. The two spent months trying to perfect it, even going back to Ireland for research.

Finally, they had it right and served it for the first time on Nov. 10, 1952. It's been the cafe's top seller ever since, regardless of the weather or the holiday. People come from all over the world to order one. In fact, the cafe serves between 1,500 and 2,000 a day.

How do I know? Because I was there last fall, where in the course of the time I had dinner they made and sold 400. Plus, the manager told me and gave me one. It was amazing to watch the bartenders work lightning fast and the waiters rushing the drinks to customers, never spilling a drop.

So, dear revelers, go ahead and enjoy your green beer. As for me, come Friday I'll be in a corner quietly sipping my Irish coffee.

----

Raising the bar

St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday this year  what could be better? Bars with an Irish bent to them have been planning this for weeks.

One is Dooley's Pub(255 First Ave. SW), which describes itself as the only true Irish pub in town. One of the big draws for Dooley's customers is that the pub will have a wide selection of Irish beers as well as specialty house drinks. And a lot of green beer.

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Dooley's also has been putting together an Irish-themed menu, which includes corned beef and cabbage (of course), cabbage with carrots, and potatoes. Add to that a green carnation for everyone as well as bagpipers, and it adds up to a great time.

Whistle Binkieshas two Rochester locations (247 Woodlake Drive SE and 3120 Wellner Drive NE), and they always do it up big on this day.

In addition to a full complement of Irish beers, Whistle Binkies will go through eight barrels of Guinness as well as a good amount of Irish whiskey. Of course, the menu for the day includes corned beef and cabbage as well as Reuben sandwiches. You can also get an Irish egg roll, consisting of of corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese (I call that fusion Irish). They go through an astounding 300 pounds of corned beef when it's all over.

Bagpipers will also make an appearance. Any day of the week, but especially Saint Patrick's Day, this is a happening place. It all starts at 11 a.m.

Head up Broadway to Glynner's Pub(1643 N. Broadway), and you'll come across more Irish celebrations. Jameson and Guinness will be poured, as will green beer, and of course there will be an Irish menu. Try Glynner's beef stew, corned beef and cabbage and buttered baby red potatoes. They will also be running different specials all night. A band will add to the fun.

-----

Irish coffee recipe

This is the original Irish Coffee recipe from Joe Sheridan:

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Heat a stemmed whiskey goblet with very hot water. Pour it out.

Pour in one jigger of Irish whiskey, preferably Jameson.

Add one spoon of brown sugar.

Fill the hot glass with strong, black coffee within an inch of the top.

Stir to dissolve sugar

Top off with whipped cream (not too whipped, not too liquid), aerated by pouring it over the back of the spoon so cream floats.

DON'T STIR. The true flavor comes from drinking the hot coffee and whiskey through the cream.
A man convicted of indecent exposure/lewdness was sentenced Monday to 15 days in jail and ordered to attend a sex offender program.

Dean Roger Tollefsrud, 61, of Chatfield, was also ordered to undergo a polygraph exam in order to determine his residency, and is prohibited from unsupervised contact with females under the age of 18. He was given credit for four days already spent in jail and placed on probation for two years.

Olmsted County District Court Judge Joseph Chase in November found Tollefsrud guilty of the gross misdemeanor, but acquitted him of one count of felony second-degree criminal sexual conduct. The bench trial lasted five days.

An investigation began in April 2015, when the child told her mother that Tollefsrud had touched her. The alleged incident had occurred two days earlier, after Tollefsrud had asked her to go into his camper while she was outside playing.

The girl's mother said Tollefsrud has a history of exposing himself, citing an occasion a year earlier when Tollefsrud exposed himself out of the bottom of his shorts while helping her fix a lawn mower.

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The child also told authorities that Tollefsrud often wears short shorts that reveal his genitals, and said he'd once taken all of his clothes off in her presence, the complaint says.

Tollefsrud admitted the girl had unintentionally seen him naked in his home about a year earlier and that she'd been in his camper in April, but he denied any sexual contact. According to court documents, Tollefsrud said the child is "always trying to look up his shorts," so he recently bought longer shorts.

During testimony, among the exhibits entered into evidence was a photo Tollefsrud had sent to a female friend. In it, he's crouching beside a car he bought, allowing his genitals to be exposed. When the friend pointed it out via text message, Tollefsrud responded with a one-word response: "Oops."
AUSTIN  A 36-year-old Austin man accused of sexually assaulting a girl has entered a plea in the case.

Jesus Detomas Perales pleaded guilty Monday in Mower County District Court to one count of felony second-degree criminal sexual conduct-victim under 13. In exchange for the plea, two identical counts are expected to be dismissed at sentencing, which is set for June 1.

The investigation began early Aug. 15, when Austin police officers responded to a report of a man "groping" a girl. She was waiting for officers near Neveln Elementary School after running from his house.

The victim said she was on a bed at Perales' house, chatting with friends and playing games on his cellphone, when he began to touch and rub her under her clothing, the complaint says. The girl said she was afraid as Perales continued to touch her, court documents say, so she sent Facebook messages asking friends to help her, then took photos of Perales assaulting her. After sending the messages, she ran out of the home.

A woman who received a message for help was also at the school when officers arrived. She allegedly identified a photo of Perales as the man who was chasing the victim down the street when she arrived to meet the girl.

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The victim was wearing a pair of men's pants, the report says, and told officers that Perales had removed her shorts. She grabbed a pair of his pants as she ran from the home. Her shorts and shoes were later found in Perales's bedroom, the complaint says.

He initially denied the assault, documents say, then admitted "it just happened," acknowledging he'd touched her everywhere except her genital area.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, a $35,000 fine, or both.
AUSTIN  An Austin man charged for his role in the overdose death of another man has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge.

Jordan David Flugum, 21, was originally charged with third-degree murder-drugs for allegedly arranging the sale of heroin to the victim. He entered a not guilty plea to that count in May.

The charge was amended to second-degree manslaughter - culpable negligence Monday in Mower County District Court, and Flugum pleaded guilty.

Sentencing has been set for June 1.

The investigation began about 12:45 p.m. March 27, when a woman reported she'd found her son unresponsive in his bed. Responding officers found Jordon Jensen, 20, dead.

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The mother told authorities Jensen was a heroin user. Police found two syringes in Jensen's coat pocket; the medical examiner noted needle-track marks inside Jensen's elbow, the complaint says.

Jensen's father told police his son had arrived at his house about 9 p.m. March 26, slurring his words and unable to ride his bicycle home. Jensen's father walked him back to the mother's house; on the way, Jensen reportedly acknowledged that he needed treatment.

An autopsy conducted at Mayo Clinic listed the cause of death as "acute heroin and methamphetamine toxicity."

Flugum told authorities Jensen asked him for heroin through a Facebook message on March 26, offering a 55-inch TV in exchange for the drug. Jensen was going to pawn the TV for cash, but the pawn shops were closed, so Flugum asked his heroin dealer if he'd accept the TV, court documents say.

The dealer agreed to the exchange, providing about a gram of heroin  worth about $200  for the TV.

About 5:30 p.m. that day, Flugum went to a drug house in northeast Austin. Jensen was there, too, and reportedly overdosed after Flugum arrived, prompting Flugum and another man to slap him, then put him in the shower when he didn't respond.

Jensen eventually came around, reports say, and wanted to do more heroin; Flugum and the other man told him not to do more. Flugum took Jensen's remaining heroin and needles so Jensen wouldn't use more  and used it himself, the complaint says.

Jensen left the drug house soon after.

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Flugum told investigators he thought Jensen had used about a quarter-gram of heroin that day, but said Jensen had told him he'd done some meth before the TV-heroin exchange.

The other man in the drug house that day confirmed Flugum's account of the events.
Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson said he's open to suggestions about how to recruit a more diverse force.

As Rochester's Police Policy Oversight Commission discussed the department's diversity for the second month on Monday, Chairman W.C. Jordan said he's looking to ongoing conversations at a state level to provide suggestions. At the same time, he noted the state hasn't discovered the answer yet.

"If you look at the diversity of the state troopers, it would come below the hiring in the Rochester Police Department," Jordan said.

According to figures from June 2016, the Minnesota State Patrol had 611 troopers, 33 of them minorities and 54 women.

Rochester's police department has 140 sworn police officers and 16 community service officers. At least 16 of the force identify as minorities. Two police officers and one police sergeant are black, while six members of the force identify as Hispanic or Latino, five are Asian, and two are Native American. Two other officers declined to list their racial classifications, Peterson said.

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Ten percent of the sworn officers are women.

The police chief notes work needs to be done, but the department has seen a slow shift toward diversity.

In September 2014, the department had 13 minority officers. While the number of black and Native American officers has remained the same and officers identifying as Hispanic has dropped by one, the police force added four Asian officers.

Peterson said he'd like to see numbers rise, but noted several factors work against big number shifts.

The lack of turnover in the department limits opportunities to hire new officers, he said, noting the retention rate for officers is about 96 percent, and higher if retirements aren't considered.

"Every once in awhile you have someone leave for a different agency, but not very often," he said.

Added to that are civil service hiring policies that rate candidates on a point system, giving more points to four-year college graduates, experienced officers and veterans. While local policy changes in recent years have allowed opportunities to pull some minority candidates up in the rankings, Peterson said some scores can cause divides that are too great.

As a result, efforts to recruit minority students from Rochester Community and Technical College have been stymied. Peterson said local students with two-year degrees simply aren't as competitive in the point system as four-year graduates.

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"We are literally hiring people from all over the country and very few from our community," he said, noting that makes it difficult to target minority applicants.

The exception is the Community Service Officer program, which hires part-time officers who are often studying at RCTC. The program has helped increase the department's diversity.

Of the department's 16 CSOs, two are Hispanic and two are Asian, making up a quarter of the force.

"We're using that as a feeder system for police officers," Peterson told the policy oversight commission, noting the experience helps new officers get a foot in the door. "So, that's a good indicator that we're heading in the right direction."

He said he hopes it also helps overcome another challenge he sees when trying to recruit minority officers.

Peterson said the lack of diversity makes some candidates reluctant to join the force since it can be seen as difficult to break new ground.

"The reality is people are not looking for more-difficult employment circumstances," he said.

Jordan acknowledged it can be a difficult choice, but encouraged Peterson to keep looking for opportunities and solutions to create diversity on the force.

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Peterson said he plans to.

"The numbers show we have a lot of catching up to do here," he said.
ST. PAUL  Republicans and Democrats remain sharply divided at the Capitol over how best to limit price hikes and boost choices in the state's individual insurance market.

On Monday, the Republican-led House approved a nearly $400 million proposal to help insurance companies with the cost of some expensive health claims. The reinsurance bill is being sponsored by Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston. He said the legislation is needed to keep the state's individual insurance market from collapsing next year.

"Reinsurance markets work. That's why they have them and this is a reasonable plan we're putting forward to shore up the market for 2018," Davids said.

But critics say the bill amounts to a giveaway for insurance companies. Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, said nothing in the legislation requires insurers to reduce health care premiums or out-of-pocket costs for Minnesotans.

"It's not a solution. All it does is give a great big gift to insurance companies," she said.

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Democrats instead want Minnesotans to have the option of buying into the state-run MinnesotaCare program, which offers coverage to low-income residents. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton has proposed giving all consumers in the individual market the chance to purchase MinnesotaCare coverage via the state's health-insurance exchange, MNsure.

But so far, the Democrats' MinnesotaCare proposal has gone nowhere. The measure failed to get a committee hearing in the Minnesota House. On Monday, lawmakers rejected an amendment to establish the MinnesotaCare buy-in option by a vote of 77-54. In the Senate, the MinnesotaCare proposal has also stalled as Republicans move ahead with their own reinsurance proposal.

Only about 5 percent of Minnesotans purchase health-insurance via the state's individual insurance market. In recent years, health insurance premiums in the individual market have risen dramatically. No area of Minnesota has been hit harder than southeast Minnesota, which has the highest insurance rates in the state. Roughly half of those buying health insurance in the individual market do not qualify for tax subsidies to help with the cost.

Lawmakers are under pressure to act quickly. They have until April 1 to pass legislation to try to stabilize the individual insurance market.

Kathy Rehfeldt traveled to St. Paul on Monday to urge lawmakers to approve a MinnesotaCare buy-in option. The Millville retiree said she and her husband have been faced with soaring health insurance premiums. While they are eligible for federal tax subsidies to help with the cost, she said it has still been difficult for them financially.

"For the past couple of years, I've avoided doctor visits. I've chosen not to fill prescriptions because of the extremely high cost and on one occasion, I actually chose not to seek out emergency hospital care," Rehfeldt told reporters at a Capitol news conference.

Rep. Clark Johnson, DFL-North Mankato, is sponsoring the MinnesotaCare buy-in bill. He said Minnesotans deserve to have the option of signing up for the program, which has reasonable premiums and is accepted by most providers.

"The MinnesotaCare buy-in is an option that Minnesotans deserve. They want it," Johnson said.

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But Davids said if such a plan were to move ahead, it would hurt the state's health care providers. The reason? MinnesotaCare's low reimbursement rates.

"It's the provider that is going to be left holding the bag here. So you are going to see massive closures of small-town clinics, doctors offices, hospitals if we go to this buy-in," Davids said.

Rep. Nels Pierson, R-Rochester, said the best way to stabilize the individual health insurance market is to pass Davids' reinsurance bill.

"The goal with this bill is to create a system that will work in Minnesota, and without this bill passing, we could see the continued collapse and withdraw of providers in the state of Minnesota," Pierson said.

Under Davids' bill, the state would help offset the cost of insurance claims between $50,000 to $250,000. The state funding could be between 50 percent to 70 percent of the cost. A state board would determine the final amounts. The majority of funding for the program would come from the Health Care Access Fund, which primarily pays for MinnesotaCare. The state's budget office estimates the reinsurance bill could reduce premiums up to 18 percent.

The big unknown is how the governor will respond to the Republican reinsurance proposals. He has said he is open to the idea but wants to make sure it has a reliable source of funding and will not drain the state's general fund. During a recent news conference, Dayton said, "We need to know what we're getting for this very significant investment of public funds."
I am pleased to note the announcement yesterday that Professor Philip Hamburger is one of four recipients of the 2017 Bradley Prize. The Bradley Prize will be awarded to Professor Hamburger at a ceremony to be held on April 6, 2017 at the Shakespeare Theatre Companys Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, D.C. The award carries a stipend of $250,000.

I wrote Professor Hamburger to congratulate him. I thought readers might be interested in his response:

Dear Scott, I am most grateful for the award and, indeed, for your support. I dont mind that academia can be a lonely existence for someone of dissenting views, but still, it is nice to find one has friends out there! You have been most generous, and although the most important result has been to advance the fight against the administrative state, I am grateful for the sense of having allies . . . and for the ability (a result of the prize) to pay for our sons day care! I hope one day we have a chance to meet. Best wishes, Philip Philip Hamburger

Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law

Columbia Law School

Here I want to reiterate a personal note. Three years ago, as I looked around online for scholarship that would help me understand the dubious constitutionality of the administrative state, I discovered that Professor Hamburgers book Is Administrative Law Unlawful? was forthcoming in 2014 from the University of Chicago Press. Professor Hamburgers book addressed the question I to which I sought the answer. Spoiler alert: His answer regarding the purported constitutionality and lawfulness of the regime of administrative law was No! in thunder (as Melville said of the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne).

Urging the editors of National Review to review the book when it came out, I was instead sent a review copy by Rich Lowry and Michael Potemra. They invited me to put up. For me the book represented an awakening. Thats what I tried to convey in my review of the book.

In addition, we posted an interview with Professor Hamburger on Power Line. In 2015 we posted his column Chevrons last days?

The Library of Law & Liberty posted an outstanding podcast with Professor Hamburger that remains accessible online. Hillsdale Colleges Kirby Center hosted Professor Hamburger for a fantastic lecture about the book upon its publication (video below).

Last year the Manhattan Institute awarded Is Administrative Law Unlawful its Hayek Book Prize. The institute has posted Professor Hamburgers Hayek Lecture here with a preface by Amity Shlaes and an introduction by former New York Times columnist John Tierney (video below).

Myron Magnet reviewed Professor Hamburgers book for the Manhattan Institutes City Journal in 2015 in The dead Constitution. The new issue of City Journal publishes Professor Hamburgers essay How government agencies usurp our rights.
Or, some would say, Trump is hurting himself. Either way, there are troubling indications that President Trump is losing his battle with the Democratic Party press. See, specifically, Rasmussen Reports polling.

I dont know whether Rasmussen is any more right than other pollsters, but it follows a consistent protocol and publishes a three-day rolling average of likely voters, which I think makes it a valuable barometer of trends. And the trend, for President Trump, is bad. His approval rating has been dropping steadily, and is now down to 46%, with 53% disapproving:

The strength of Trumps support is also wavering. Rasmussens approval index is the difference between those who strongly support, and those who strongly oppose, a politician. Currently those numbers are 30% and 43% for an approval index of -13:

Again, one can debate where those numbers really are, and every poll is different. But the trend is negative.

Trumps current numbers are not necessarily a cause for panic. In Rasmussens polling, he sits right about where Barack Obama was through the large majority of his administration. In fact, Obamas approval index was often lower than -13. It was only at the end of each term in office that Obama would briefly bounce back up again. So perhaps the current polarization of our electorate merely caused Trumps numbers to be beaten down more rapidly than Obamas were.

More likely, though, the incessant pounding on Trump and his administration in the press is taking a toll. Trumps downward trend is particularly disturbing, given the run of good news he has enjoyed since his inauguration. On all frontsthe economy, ISISthings are getting better, and Trump is making great appointments and keeping one campaign promise after another. But it appears that the press has managed to drown out the good news with its incessant and often hysterical attacks on the president.
Britain has spent 78 million protecting the Falkland Islands with a missile defence shield used by Israel.The Sky Sabre system, which uses the technology behind Israels Iron Dome mobile air defence system, can intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells. It was part of a 280 million renewal package for the islands announced by Michael Fallon as defence secretary in 2015.The shield, which will come into service by 2020, connects radar stations, missile launchers and aircraft. It can be used to manage defences and launch attacks on an enemy. It was used in the Iron Dome, which shot down hundreds of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip in 2012.Details of the deal came after Argentina signed a contract to buy five Super Etendard warplanes from France.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has urged the National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law.

A statement released Monday by NNPC spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, said that the passage of the bill will create an enabling environment for the industry to flourish and dissuade the International Oil Companies (IOCs) from exiting the country.

According to the statement, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, who made this plea, noted that the long delay in the passage of the PIB had led to uncertainty in the industry.

Mr. Baru disclosed that the recent move by the National Assembly to amend the NLNG Act had also dampened the optimism of investors in the industry.

The Review of the NLNG Act by the National Assembly is causing a challenge for the Federal Government and the IOCs and it is sending wrong signals to the international community about how business is done in the country, Mr. Baru stated.

Commenting further, the NNPC helms man said the NLNG market was growing at a tremendous rate, disclosing that between now and 2030, it is projected that the market would grow by 65 per cent.

The GMD explained that the Federal Government would do everything to ensure the take-off of Bonny NLNG Train 7 and the Brass LNG in the months ahead after which the Olokola LNG would come on board if the fundamentals were strong.

He stated that the NNPC was refocusing on the Brass LNG and rebuilding the confidence of investors on the project after the exit of Conocophillips a few years ago, adding that Nigerians and the Federal Government would gain a lot from the project in terms of taxes, royalties and profits.

Mr. Baru noted that when the project comes on stream, it would create massive employment opportunities for Nigerians.

We are refocusing on Brass LNG and rebuilding the confidence of the IOCs in the project. It has a lot to do for Nigerians as it will create employment opportunities and create more revenue opportunities for the Federal Government.

We will continue to put the right enablers in place for the project to go on, Mr. Baru said.

The NNPC GMD, according to the statement, described the Bonny NLNG as

one of the biggest success stories of the Nigerian oil and gas industry since it came on stream in 1995, affirming that the project has generated $90 billion revenue, $30 billion dividends and contributed 4 per cent to the countrys Gross Domestic Product since inception.

(Mr.) Baru noted that the focus of the industry was to ensure stable security of investment, personnel and investors and to ensure that all community issues were addressed in order to boost revenue for the government and investors from the industry, the statement noted.

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The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN on Tuesday, released about $195 million in its continued effort to sustain the supply of foreign exchange to the market.

The latest release comprised of $150 million for the wholesale auction and $45 million in the invisible segment for such items as medical fees, tuition fees, Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) and Business Travel Allowance (BTA).

The CBN spokesperson, Isaac Okorafor, said that the bank acted promptly and proactively in line with its promise to keep the market liquid enough to meet the needs of genuine requests.

Mr. Okorafor also alluded to the fact that deposit money banks were becoming saturated with foreign exchange as most of them are now able to meet demands for foreign exchange within the stipulated time frame.

As you can see, all the pent-up demand for invisibles have been met to the extent that banks are urging customers to come and obtain forex, he said.

He reiterated the banks determination to continue to fund the importation of raw materials and plant and machinery for manufacturing, agriculture, and other eligible items.

He also assured that the bank remained resolute in ensuring stability in the forex market by keeping an eagle eye on the activities of authorised dealers in order to ensure sharp practices are reduced barest minimum.

The total intervention by the Central Bank in the market so far is above $1.3 billion.

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Taliban militants punished a man accused of stealing by hacking off one foot and one hand, an official in the western Afghan province of Herat said Tuesday.

Locals were invited to watch, said Ghulam Farhad, a spokesman for the provincial government.

The man is in stable condition at hospital in Herat city, he said, adding that the sentence was carried out Monday in a remote area of Obe district.

The Taliban had held the man for one month on a robbery charge before carrying out the public punishment.

A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Last week, the Taliban stoned a women to death and whipped a man on adultery charges in Afghanistans north-eastern Badakhshan province.

In January, Taliban militants publicly flogged six people in central Afghanistan on allegations of robbery and adultery.

The UN said in a report that they registered 41 such cases in 2016. Of those, 38 people died.

The actual number of cases is likely to be higher, the UN said, due to limited access to areas under Taliban control.

(dpa/NAN)

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The Norwegian Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a hairdresser to pay 7,000-kroner ($812) fine for discriminating against a Muslim woman for wearing a headscarf.

The court rejected an appeal by Merete Hodne, a hairdresser who was convicted of discriminating against a Muslim woman.

The case dates back to October 2015, when Malika Bayan, who wore a hijab at the time, filed a complaint that she had been subjected to discrimination at Ms. Hodnes salon.

When she asked what a hair colouring would cost, Ms. Hodne ordered her to leave and said she wouldnt touch anyone like her, according to Bayans account.

The case went to trial after Ms. Hodne refused to pay an initial fine.

Ms. Hodne said Tuesday she would not appeal to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights as she wanted to spare her family the unwanted attention.

Ms. Hodnes attorney, Linda Eide, said the Supreme Court decision was motivated by political correctness.

She had earlier argued that the fact that Ms. Hodne was previously active in an anti-Islam group had influenced the case.

Ms. Bayan was relieved that the courts had believed her, attorney Sulman Hussain told news agency NTB.

Ms. Bayan, who converted in 2011, made headlines after appearing in social media without the hijab.

She then told NRK: I will continue to fight for everyones right to wear the hijab, regardless if I do or dont.

(dpa/NAN)

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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday warned a former Attorney-General of the Federation, Bello Adoke, to cease further mention of his name in the controversial $1.1 billion Malabu Oil deal.

In an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES from Addis Ababa, the former president said he considered the controversial award of OPL 245 oil field licence as the height of corruption, and, as such, could not have participated in negotiations that led to it.

I dont support that kind of conduct, Mr. Obasanjo said in his first reaction to the intercontinental oil scandal that has haunted three administrations for nearly a decade.

The rebuttal came a day after Mr. Adoke distributed excerpts of a petition he sent to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, alleging victimisation and persecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Mr. Adoke told his successor to call the anti-graft agency to order because he was not the only official who acted on behalf of Nigeria in brokering the Malabu Oil deal with international oil majors that included Shell and Eni.

He specifically mentioned Mr. Obasanjos name, alongside his two successors and their appointees.

I believe it is your responsibility to explain to the public who are being sold a fiction that the transaction started from President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR under whose administration the Terms of Settlement were brokered with Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN, as the then Attorney General who executed the Terms of Settlement before the tenure of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR who approved the final implementation of the Terms of Settlement and my humble self who executed the resolution agreements, Mr. Adoke said in the petition dated March 6.

This is more so as the settlement and its implementation were situated in the Federal Ministry of Justice, he added.

The petition was sent three days after Mr. Adoke accused the EFCC of lending itself to manipulation by powerful political interests, after the anti-graft agency slammed fresh charges of money laundering against him and one of his associates, Aliyu Abubakar, accusing them of sharing millions of dollars in fraudulent proceeds.

In the charges, filed at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, the EFCC said Mr. Adoke exchanged more than $2.2 million at a bureau de change in Abuja as part of his share of the controversial $1.1 billion Malabu Oil deal.

Prosecutors believe Mr. Abubakar, the controversial owner of A.A. Oil Ltd., acted as middleman in the questionable deal.

The EFCC said in the court filings that Mr. Adoke took delivery of $2,267,400 on September 16, 2013, and immediately got money changers to convert it to naira.

Based on the prevailing exchange rate at the time, Mr. Adoke made N345.2 million after successfully converting the funds. He subsequently deposited the money into a Unity Bank account to offset an outstanding overdraft of N300 million, court documents showed.

But Mr. Adoke denied the allegations, saying the EFCC knew the facts of the case but was deliberately muddling them up to confuse gullible Nigerians and malign him.

In his petition to Mr. Malami, the former AGF asked his successor to save him from unwarranted attacks and dehumanising treatment just because he chose to serve his fatherland.

He told the attorney-general that some other former government officials took part in the controversial deal and gave approvals.

It will be recalled that the Terms of Settlement encapsulating details of the Settlement between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and Malabu Oil & Gas Limited (Malabu) was executed on 30th November 2006.

The Terms of Settlement, which was later, reduced into a Consent Judgment of the Federal High Court; Abuja was brokered by our predecessor in office, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN and signed on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria by the then Honourable Minister of State, for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR.

He wondered why the EFCC had not invited those officials, especially since they did not deny their alleged roles.

The spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, could not be reached for comments Monday afternoon. His known telephone lines were switched off.

FIERCE DENIAL

But Mr. Obasanjo, who clocked 80 earlier this month, admonished Mr. Adoke to concentrate on rendering accounts of his actions while in public service and stop dropping his name in the matter.

Adoke and others should not drag me into a matter I know nothing about, Mr. Obasanjo said. If they have been asked to answer questions over decisions they took while in office, they should do that honourably.

They should not bring Obasanjo into an Etete deal. I was not part of any such deal.

Mr. Obasanjo said it was inappropriate for any government functionary to appropriate to himself or herself what he or she is in charge of.

If I hold that view, I could not have approved a deal with Dan Etete. What Etete did is the height of corruption. He appropriated the asset to himself illegally, illegitimately and immorally, Mr. Obasanjo said.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Mr. Etete as petroleum minister in 1998 awarded the oil block to Malabu, a company which he partly owned.

The administration of Mr. Obasanjo granted approval for the re-award of OPL 245 block to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., but when he was reminded of this fact on Monday, the former president stood his ground, saying he could not recall assenting to such a deal.

I cant remember giving approval that the block be given back to Etete, Mr. Obasanjo said.

Mr. Obasanjo challenged anyone to produce proof that he took part in returning the oil field to Malabu, saying Mr. Ojo and Mr. Daukoru might be in better position to explain what actually transpired.

We gave it back to Malabu? On what ground? Do you have any such evidence?

Ask Bayo Ojo and Edmund Daukoru what really happened because the stand I took at the time was unassailable.

If Daukoru has evidence that I approved that the block be given back to Malabu or Etete, let him produce it.

If it is proven that I indeed approved the deal, I will be willing to apologise to Nigerians. But we have to get to the bottom of it all, the former president said.

PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL

PREMIUM TIMES reporting had shown how Edmund Daukoru, the minister of state for Petroleum during the Obasanjo administration, wrote to Shell retrieving the block, and then re-awarding same to Malabu in what he described as a product of out-of-court settlement with Malabu.

That action triggered a massive lawsuit by Shell and Eni.

Available documents, including an award letter, signed by Mr. Daukoru, claimed that the former president authorised the return of OPL 245 to Malabu. Mr. Obasanjo says he doubts the integrity of the letters that emanated from Mr. Daukoru, now a traditional ruler in Bayelsa.

We refer to the above subject matter and are delighted to convey to you that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces having concluded a review of your legal claims for the return of oil block 245 (OPL 245) has graciously approved and directed as follows:

That the federal government of Nigeria is amendable to an out of course settlement of the claims comprised in the legal proceedings commenced by Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd. and consequently has agreed to settle your legal claims for the return of the oil block constituted as OPL 245.

The said oil block 245 (OPL) shall from the date hereof and with immediate effect, be returned to MALABU OIL AND GAS LTD with full and total reinstatement of all its rights thereto.

Any and all previous decision inconsistent with or purporting to deprive MALABU OIL AND GAS LTD of its rights over the totality of the concessions in the said OPL 245 shall stand absolutely and totally rescinded as if they had never been made, Mr. Daukoru said in the December 2, 2006 letter, with reference number: HMSPR/TA/008.

As part of the settlement, Mr. Daukoru said Malabu would withdraw its pending case against the Nigerian government from the courts and pay a total sum of $210 million for signature bonus including the $2 million previously paid by the firm.

Malabu never paid that signature bonus.

Mr. Dakouru also said Malabu shall be free to assign, pledge or deal in any way with its restored rights over OPL 245, in whole or in part to any 3rd party in accordance with Nigerian law.

To appease Shell, Mr. Daukoru said the Obasanjo administration had decided to award Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Ltd. a present concessionaire an alternative oil block with comparable potential and hydrocarbon prospectivity (sic).

Indeed, in a letter dated December 1, 2006, which was also personally signed by him, Mr. Daukoru told Shell that it should back down on all claims to OPL 245, promising to grant the Dutch oil giant another field with similar crude potentials.

Shell is to forego block 245 to Malabu while government provides a mutually acceptable substitute of comparable potential against the $210 million, which Shell has already paid or will be expected to pay as signature bonus, Mr. Daukoru said in the letter he addressed to Basil Omiyi, the Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company at the time. The letter had reference number: HMSPR/TA/007.

PREMIUM TIMES could not reach Mr. Daukoru on Monday to clarify if he indeed got Mr. Obasanjos approval to take the decisions and to weigh in on the integrity of that award letter.

However, knowledgable oil and gas sources who worked with the former minister wondered if he could have taken such actions without presidential approval.

The then attorney general, Bayo Ojo, could also not be reached on what legal opinion was available for the transaction. Aides familiar with his schedules said he was traveling and will be expected back in town next week.

Shell and Eni paid the total of $1.1 billion in 2011 in a deal brokered by Mr. Adoke.

Mr. Adoke authorised the transfer of the $1.1 billion paid by the oil firms into private accounts of Mr. Etete, who further transferred a large part to Mr. Abubakar.

Investigators suggested Mr. Abubakar might have acted as a front for some officials of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, including Mr. Adoke. 

Shell, Eni, Mr. Adoke and Mr. Etete, who initially approved the lease award of the OPL 245 while he was petroleum minister in 1998, have all denied wrongdoings.

But Italian prosecutors said late last year they had enough grounds to charge Shell, Eni, and their executives alongside Nigerians involved in the controversial deal for fraud in Milan.

In separate charges filed late 2016, the EFCC accused Mr. Adoke and Mr. Etete of defrauding Nigeria in the OPL 245 deal.

The Department of Petroleum Resources said last December that Mr. Adoke and other officials of the Jonathan administration who participated in the concession of the lucrative oil field to Shell and Eni did not follow due process.

Mr. Adoke, who is currently in the Netherlands for study, had maintained his innocence and pledged to make himself available for trial. He is however yet to make himself available for interrogation or attend trial since the matter began.

The Nigerian government in January repossessed the lucrative oil block, which is believed to hold about nine billion barrels of crude oil and even larger quantity of natural gas.

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Gov. Samuel Ortom of Benue has given Fulani herdsmen in Tombo-Mbalagh, Buruku Local Government Area of the state, a two-day ultimatum to leave the area.

Mr. Ortom gave the order on Monday in Tombo-Mbalagh during a visit to ascertain the damage inflicted on the community by herdsmen.

The visit followed attacks carried out by the herdsmen over the weekend, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Eight bodies were recovered, while three persons were missing, according to the sole administrator for the council area, Justina Sorkaa,

The state police commissioner, Bashir Makama, however said six persons died in the attack.

Mr. Ortom said he had directed security agencies as a matter of urgency to lead herdsmen out of the area for peace to reign.

He said the herdsmen must leave since they were not welcomed by the unarmed inhabitants of the area.

Most people in Benue state were disarmed through the amnesty programme executed by the Ortom administration in 2015.

Mr. Ortom encouraged the people to remain law abiding by reporting for appropriate action, any breach of peace by the herdsmen.

Some of the displaced persons have moved in with their relations in Buruku town and those who do not have anywhere to go are with us in an improvised IDP camp here at St Peters Anglican Primary School, Imenger, the Sole Administrator, Mrs. Sorkaa said.

(NAN)

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The federal government on Tuesday presented 23 staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for arraignment for alleged misconduct during the December 10, 2016 parliamentary rerun election in Rivers State.

The election for state and federal lawmakers was marred by violence and resulted in the death of at least two police officers.

The INEC officials are accused of receiving bribes and taking part in efforts to manipulate the outcome of the polls.

An INEC National Commissioner, Solomon Soyebi, had told journalists in Abuja that the commission had resolved to cooperate with police.

In addition and without prejudice to their prosecution, the indicted INEC staff will also face the commissions internal disciplinary process, he said.

The commission wishes to reiterate clearly that it will not shield staff that engages in any conduct that will undermine the integrity of the electoral process, Mr. Soyebi stated.

The defendants, who were all present at the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Tuesday, were however not arraigned because one of their lawyers, Ahmed Raji, asked the court to consider an application challenging the jurisdiction of the court.

According to Mr. Raji, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the defendants all reside outside Abuja while the alleged offence was committed in Port Harcourt.

The judge, John Tsoho, adjourned the matter to April 7 for hearing Of Mr. Rajis application.

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The Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Hameed Ali, Tuesday evening held a closed-door meeting with Senate President Bukola Saraki, hours after it appeared a showdown was imminent between the Senate and the retired army colonel.

He (Mr. Ali) has come and gone, a Senate Presidents office insider told PREMIUM TIMES at 6:40 p.m.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Ali had written the Senate, notifying the lawmakers of his intention not to appear before them as scheduled because he had to attend a customs management meeting slated for Wednesday, same day he was expected at the Senate.

But the lawmakers passed a resolution, reaffirming last Thursdays decision that Mr. Ali must appear in uniform by 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

But afterwards, he wrote a second letter, this one directly to Mr. Saraki, spokespersons for the Senate President confirmed.

The Cable exclusively reported the content of the second letter which informed the Senate President of the decision to review the policy on vehicles without duty payment, but recommended legal opinion on the compulsion to wear uniform to appear before the Senate.

The Cable reported, quoting Mr. Alis letter: May (I) respectfully refer to your letter dated 9 March and inform Your Excellency that the decision on payment of customs duties by vehicle owners who do not have them as prescribed by law is currently being reviewed. The goal of the review is to take a broad additional input from the stakeholders and the public. I will welcome the opportunity to avail the senate of our findings.

Regarding to wearing of uniform, I wish to advice that the senate avails itself of the legal basis of its decision to compel me to wear uniform. I am similarly taking legal advice on this issue so that both the senate and I will operate within the proper legal framework.

The new development is strongly suggestive of Mr. Alis readiness to appear before the Senate tomorrow, but he is very unlikely to appear in uniform.

According to our source, the meeting with Mr. Saraki was to water the ground ahead of his appearance tomorrow.

He will appear but he may not wear uniform, said the source. Then, as you can see he has said the service is reviewing the policy on duty payment.

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that President Muhammadu Buhari prevailed on Mr. Ali to appear before the Senate as scheduled, stressing that he does not want further executive-legislature friction.

Presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, declined comment on the presidents intervention.

But Customs spokesperson, Joseph Attah, informed PREMIUM TIMES that his principal was involved in further communication with senators about the stand-off.

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The Federal Government has instituted a panel of inquiry to investigate Nigerias failure to clinch the post of Commissioner for Peace and Security at the African Union (AU), the News Agency of Nigeria has reported.

Nigeria contested for the position of the post at the AU meeting in Addis Ababa on January 30 and lost the election to the incumbent, Algeria.

Citing presidential sources, NAN said the constitution of the panel was informed by the reported acts of sabotage leveled against some staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The source said already a senior staff of the ministry had been identified as the brain behind the plot against Nigeria before and during the election.

A serving Director and two retired Permanent Secretaries with reported ties to one of the candidates from a friendly country that vied for the same position of Commissioner, Peace and Security, were said to be behind the illegal, fraudulent and highly unpatriotic issuance of these infamous Notes.

The serving director had since been issued with a query.

This, certainly, is another case of suspected fraud and corruption which, by the way, is also endemic in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in its more than 100 missions abroad.

According to the source, the official single-handedly wrote a letter to express Nigerias support for the Algerian candidate despite a Nigerian, Fatima Kyari, running for the same position.

Clearly, therefore, Nigerias failure to clinch the post can only be attributed to other factors and not the quality of the its candidate.

In this kind of elections, countries base their voting pattern more on political and other considerations than on the substantive quality (competence, skills, experience) of candidates.

This pattern is clearly reflected in the elections of all the other categories, including that of the Chairperson and the Deputy Chairperson of the AU Commission.

Most worrisome and unfortunate is the issue of the so-called Note Verbal issued by our embassies in Addis Ababa and Algiers, conveying a decision by the Federal Government of Nigeria to withdraw from the race in favour of Algeria. The truth is that there was no such decision by the government, he said.

The source said Nigeria deserved to be commended for the way it reacted to the outcome of the election.

If anything, the Government deserves commendation for keeping calm and abstaining to raise dust, despite initial indication of an external influence in the issuance of these highly embarrassing Notes, the source said.

The presidential source also disclosed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, chaired the selection process where prospective candidates were shortlisted.

Mr. Onyeama, he said, also chaired the interview panel which graded and recommended names of candidates for the consideration of Mr. President.

He said Fatima Kyari was graded as second best candidate along with another female candidate even though all the other candidates were also found to be competent.

However, only one candidate was to be selected. While only Mr. President and possibly those who were privy to the final selection process could say why Fatima and not any of the other three highest rated candidates was approved, the AU rule regarding gender parity, might have been a determining factor in favour of a female candidate.

The rule requires that the two Commissioners from each of the five regions must be a male and a female.

While Nigeria was still on the selection process  as always we were running late  , Senegal and Ghana had already put forward candidates for the two top most posts of Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson respectively.

He maintained that Ms. Kyaris proficiency in French language, among other set of skills, also stood in her favour.

The source also dismissed the insinuation that Ms. Kyari was inexperience and incompetent for the seat.

He noted that the AU contracted an independent consulting firm that evaluated, assessed and cleared those who were adjudged to have the requisite skills, experience and competence to hold the positions they wanted to compete for.

He said that Ms. Kyari went through this process as all other candidates did, and was duly cleared otherwise she would not have been allowed to run.

It, therefore, amounts to ignorance, malice and/or mischief to label the candidate as inexperienced and incompetent to serve as Commissioner at the AUC.

The candidate is indeed highly qualified not only by the assessment of the AU consultants, but also by the testimonies of many other African and non-African personalities, bodies and organisations.

She is skilful, competent and experienced to do the job very well and indeed add value into the job with new and pragmatic ideas.

The source recalled that Fatimah was selected, along with 12 other African mid-career leaders, for the 2016 Africa Program of the Eisenhower Fellowship in the United States, but could not participate because it coincided with the preparations for the AUC election.

He also dismissed the report claiming that Fatima Kyari is the daughter of Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari.

The assertion, including in some major media, that Fatima is the daughter of the Chief of Staff to the President is utterly callous and malicious, clearly made with the intention to generate bad feelings against not only the Chief of Staff but the President, and to also denigrate the candidate by associating her to nepotism.

This is much so because it does not take anything to crosscheck her lineage, if no malice was intended and if professionalism was a motivating, and guiding factor.

According to him, the Chief of Staff met her for the first time ever after she became Nigerias candidate.(NAN)

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The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema, said on Monday that Nigeria and South Africa have agreed to set up an early warning unit to check future xenophobic attacks.

Mr. Onyema, who is leading a Federal Government delegation to that country, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria on telephone from Pretoria, South Africa.

The minister said the early warning unit would comprise representatives of the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, police, immigration, representatives of Nigerian High Commission, consulate and the Nigeria union in South Africa.

They will meet every three months and that will be a framework within which the Nigeria Union in South Africa will be able to engage on a permanent basis with the main high level government officials of this country.

We believe that it will enable them in sharing intelligence, information and being proactive to prevent this kind of thing ever happening again, he said.

Mr. Onyema said the delegation had positive discussions with the South African Foreign Affairs Ministry and Home Affairs Ministry on how to protect Nigerians and their property.

He said the meeting agreed to set up the early warning unit to dialogue quarterly to prevent such incident.

The President of Nigeria Union, Ikechukwu Anyene, said Nigerians in South Africa appreciated the delegations visit.

The spirit of our people here has been lifted. The mood has changed and our people are happy, he said.

Mr. Anyene said the early warning unit set up by the two governments was a positive development because the union would be in a position to interact with top government officials regularly.

On our part, we will advance social cohesion between Nigerians and South Africans, he said.

The delegation visited business premises and homes of Nigerians attacked during the xenophobic incidents in February.

(NAN)

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The police in Lagos on Monday arraigned an 18-year-old man before an Ebutte Meta Chief Magistrate Court for allegedly stabbing his co-worker to death.

According to the prosecutor, Adeola Lawal, Sulaiman Hassan allegedly murdered his work mate, Haruna Areban, 23, on February 27 at about 12 noon at Rimax Estate, Meiran, Lagos.

Mr. Lawal, a police sergeant, said the defendant stabbed the deceased on the stomach which led to his death.

The accused and the defendant are both cobblers who came to Lagos from the northern part of the Nigeria, according to the police.

On that fateful day, the defendant called the deceased, informing him that there was a job somewhere, said the police prosecutor.

The deceased however told one of his boys to accompany him to the location, when the deceased met the defendant at the spot, a fracas broke out between them, but the cause of the fight wasnt ascertained.

And in the process, the defendant brought out a knife and stabbed the deceased in his stomach leading to his death.

After stabbing Mr. Areban, according to the police, Mr. Hassan took to his heels.

It was the third party that informed the police of the incident, the police now sprang into action by following the tip off, thereby arresting the accused.

The accused pleaded not guilty to the offence, but his plea wasnt taken.

The police said the offence contravened Section 222 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2015.

The Magistrate, H.O. Omisore, said the accused would be remanded in Ikoyi Prison for the next 30 days pending legal advice from the Director of Public Prosecution.

The case was adjourned to April 19.

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the number of political associations seeking registration as political parties ahead of the 2019 general elections is currently 86.

The chairman of the commission, Mahmood Yakubu, made this known during the commissions quarterly meeting with leaders of political parties at INEC headquarters, Abuja, on Tuesday.

Mr. Yakubu described political parties as important vehicles in the management of the countrys democracy.

The number of applications for registration of new associations as political parties now stands at 86, he said.

He congratulated the 10 political parties recently re-registered after being deregistered following their performances during the 2015 general elections.

The political parties, according to him, are Better Nigeria Peoples Parties (BNPP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Peoples Progressives Party (PPP), Democratic Alternative (DA), National Action Council (NAC) and National Democratic Liberty Party (NDLP).

Others are Masses Movement of Nigeria (MMN), National Conscience Party (NCP), Nigeria Element Progressives Party (NEPP) and the National Unity Party (NUP).

The names of these political parties have already been uploaded on our website.

But, I will like to appeal to those of them, out of the ten that are yet to open their offices, to do so and immediately notify the commission, Mr. Yakubu said.

He also congratulated the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) on the successful conduct of its election, which he said was useful for the development of the countrys electoral system.

I wish to assure you that INEC will continue to partner IPAC.

The chairman said that agenda of the quarterly meeting included INECs proposed strategic plan for 2017-2021, court judgement on the roles of political parties, violence in the conduct of parties primaries and elections generally.

He also said that internal democracy of political parties, parties campaign finances, nationwide continuous voter registration, outstanding Anambra Central senatorial re-run election and presentation on INEC innovations.

In his remarks, IPAC Chairman, Mohammed Nalado, urged INEC to seek alternatives to deregistration of political parties.

He also expressed displeasure with INEC for not properly consulting political parties before fixing dates for 2019 general elections.

Mr. Nalado admitted that INEC chairman notified IPAC of the decision, but said that the council did not know whether the information was official or not until it was in the newspapers.

We had meeting with INEC chairman, unfortunately we did not understand him whether he was telling us officially or he was just giving us information on how our elections should be done.

I hope this issue will be discussed thoroughly here, Mr. Nalado said.

He affirmed IPACs commitment to work with INEC in deepening the countrys democracy.

Mr. Nalado also urged the commissions new National Commissioners to make their inputs to the development of the electoral system.

The National Chairman of United Democratic Party (UDP), Mr Godson Okoye, in an interview with newsmen, said it was disrespect for INEC to fixed date for elections without consulting political parties.

We are surprised that dates were fixed for elections that will take place in two years time.

I think if that is the official position of INEC, the position of UDP is that it marks some disrespect for political parties from INEC, he said.(NAN)

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A Carnival cruise ship came dangerously close to two people on a jet ski on Saturday in Port Canaveral, Florida.

Carnival Cruise Lines Magic Captain, Doug Brown, contacted the Brevard County Sheriffs Deputy Taner Primmer when he noticed a jet ski with two women on it in the ships path, Florida Post reports. As Primmer arrived, the watercraft flipped over and both boaters fell into the water.

The entire fracas was captured in a video by a cruise passenger. It shows Primmer pulling the women on board his Sheriff's Office boat just as the 130,000-ton cruise-liner whips by.

See original article on Fortune.com

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The trial of a former aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, for alleged diversion of N26 million from the office of the National security Adviser, was stalled on Tuesday due to the absence of the prosecution witness in court.

Mr. Fani-Kayode is facing a five-count charge for the alleged diversion of the said sum at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court.

He had earlier been arraigned on a 17-count charge for alleged fraud at the Lagos Division of the same court.

His recent trial was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but was stalled following the inability of the prosecution witness to attend trial.

The prosecution counsel, Johnson Ojogbane, informed the court at the opening of session that he was unable to reach the witness before the trial and could not explain why his witness was not in court.

Mr. Ojogbane prayed the court for an adjournment, saying he did not want to speculate on the reasons for his witness absence in court.

The defence counsel, Ahmed Raji, did not object to the application and so the matter was adjourned till April 25, for the commencement of trial.

Mr. Fani-Kayode was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

He was granted bail, with a bond of N50 million and one surety in like sum.

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The woman who said she had an amorous relationship with the overseer of the Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide, Johnson Suleman, has formally filed a petition asking police to investigate multiple allegations against the preacher.

In a letter to the Lagos State police commissioner, Stephanie Otobo, 23, accused Mr. Suleman (popularly known as Apostle Suleman) of illegal procurement of abortion, threat to life, and attempted murder.

That sometime in June 2015, Apostle Suleman Johnson and I started an amorous relationship in far away Canada. The relationship was nurtured by Apostle Suleman who inundated me with cash gifts and pleasure trips all over Europe, Ms. Otobo stated in the petition dated March 13.

In particular, I was invited by Apostle Suleman to join him for his crusade that was held in 2015 at Napoli, Italy, the full expenses for the trip was paid for by the gentleman. While in Napoli, Apostle Suleman would preach and do miracle in the day time and take the much needed rest in my bosom at night.

Napoli was our love nest for three good days and after the crusade Apostle Suleman left Napoli and I also returned to Canada.

Ms. Otobos petition came days after he told journalists at a press conference that her relationship with Mr. Suleman ended after the preacher began to insist he wanted a sexual activity that involves a threesome.

It also came a week after she was arraigned by the police before a Chief Magistrate Court in Lagos on a four-count charge of terrorism, fraud, and blackmail.

She denied the charges.

Shortly after the Napoli experience, she continued in her petition, she said she discovered she was pregnant for Apostle Suleman.

I called my lover to inform him of the pregnancy but Apostle Suleman was not particularly excited about the news rather he requested that I should come to Nigeria, Ms. Otobo said.

Based on Apostle Sulemans instruction I left Canada for Nigeria to meet Apostle Suleman. It is important to note that despite the amorous relationship, I saw Apostle Suleman like a father figure who takes care of me and to whom I was extremely obedient to.

I arrived Nigeria on the 25th of August, 2015 and clandestine arrangement was made for the two of us to meet and consequently, I met Apostle Suleman at Definite Destiny Hotel, beside Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos State. It was at the hotel that I was given a concoction to drink by Apostle Suleman who told me that the concoction was for my spiritual fortification.

But in less than ten minutes after drinking the concoction, I started vomiting blood and passing out blood. Apostle Suleman then gave me pills to stop the blood though the blood did not stop immediately but the pain subsided and the pregnancy was gone.

I was devastated by the development and Apostle Suleman gave me cash gifts in three different currencies, to wit; Euro, Dollars and Naira to console and compensate me for the loss of the pregnancy. I could not come to terms with the facts that the man that claimed to love me and promised to marry me, could procure abortion for me without my consent which could have led to my death.

Unfortunately Apostle Suleman did not stop at procuring abortion for me without my consent but also in a desperate bid to keep the amorous relationship between him and I a secret not known to his teeming followers, Apostle Suleman invented various devices to bully and threaten my life.

Ms. Otobo called on the police to investigate her claims.

I plead with you, in the course of your investigation, to confirm the exchange of all our text messages from the networks, forensic analysis of all the nude pictures we both sent to ourselves (and whether they are, indeed, photo-shopped or authentic), our international passports to confirm the dates and times of our travels, investigation concerning the hotels we slept together both in and out of Nigeria and bank accounts to confirms the transfers of funds.

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The Director-General, National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, Modibbo Kawu, says the social media remains the biggest source of incitement and distribution of unsubstantiated crudely insensitive reports in the country.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mr. Kawu spoke in Sokoto on Tuesday at the opening of a two-day National Conference of Catholic Social and Communication Directors.

NAN also reports that the conference has as its theme: The Nigerian Media: The Ethics of Reporting Violence in Nigeria.

Represented by Armstrong Idachaba, a director in his office, Mr. Kawu said: I must now draw our attention to the now evident  not emerging anymore  danger of the insensitivity of the social media.

It does not even pretend to any ethical foundations and it does not give a damn about it. I will indulge us to investigate this disturbing trend.

The role of the social media is adding salt to the injuries created by the lack of ethics by the media.

Mr. Kawu reiterated that the media has a patriotic and professional role to play in reporting violence.

In all, it must remember that beyond reporting, it must protect the sanctity and humanity of the Nigerian society at all time.

It must be sensitive to the national ethos and the sanctity of humanity.

Also speaking, the Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Kukah, admonished journalists to always make honesty, patriotism and the love for peace and unity as their watchwords.

Often, there is much anxiety as to how the media get their information for their reportage.

The decisions journalists make can make countries to decide to go to war or not.

Journalists must yet be respected, but they should work according to the ethics of their noble profession, Mr. Kukah added.

A former Director-General of NBC, Danladi Bako, said conflict can be induced or inflamed by the mischievous use and dissemination of false information, such that it can ignite or accelerate the spread of conflict.

Mr. Bako, a former Information Commissioner in Sokoto State, delivered a paper entitled: Managing Information in Conflict Situations.

Rumours come in here as information packaged by mischief makers. The information flow between the pre-conflict, conflict and post conflict periods are very crucial, Mr. Bako said.

The Social Director, Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Sixtus Onuh, explained that the conference would brainstorm on extant ethics of journalism and strict adherence to it by practitioner.

Participants at the conference were drawn from Catholic Provinces and Dioceses and media organisations from across Nigeria.

(NAN)

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The Senate on Tuesday gave all standing committees one week to present and defend reports of the 2017 Budget of Ministries, Agencies and Departments, MDAs, under them before the Committee on Appropriation.

The Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, announced the deadline to the committees at plenary and urged them to abide by the ultimatum to enable the appropriation committee put finishing touches to the reports.

According to him, the senate is committed to passing the 2017 budget before the end of March.

President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2017 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly on December 14, 2016.

Meanwhile, the Senate has sent a seven-member delegation to pay a condolence visit on the family of late former governor of old Bendel, Samuel Ogbemudia.

Members of the delegation, which would be led by the Chief Whip, Olusola Adeyeye, are Stella Oduah (Anambra-PDP), Umaru Kurfi (Katsina-APC) and Gbolahan Dada (Ogun-APC).

Others are Barnabas Gemade (Benue-APC), Abdulaziz Nyako (Adamawa-APC) and Ben Bruce (Bayelsa-PDP).

Mr. Ekweremadu announced that senators from Edo, who wish to join the delegation, could do so.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that Mr. Ogbemudia was former military governor of defunct Midwest region, defunct Bendel State and civilian governor also of Bendel.

He died on Thursday at a private hospital in Lagos at 84.

(NAN)

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The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has approved the promotion of 28, 627 junior officers to their next rank.

According to a statement issued by the forces spokesperson, Jimoh Moshood, the mass promotion was part of ongoing efforts by the police chief to boost the morale of the personnel towards effective and efficient service delivery.

Mr. Moshood said the promotion was based on merit, seniority, commitment and dedication to duty.

The promotion saw 7,628 Sergeants becoming Inspectors while 20,667 Corporals were promoted to the rank of Sergeant.

Three hundred and thirty two Constables were also promoted to the post of Corporal.

Mr. Idris congratulated the newly promoted personnel and urged them to see their elevation as an incentive to be more dedicated to duty.

(NAN)

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The Senate appears set for a showdown with the Comptroller of Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, after lawmakers rejected Mr. Alis plan not to appear before them on Wednesday.

Mr. Ali had earlier on Tuesday informed the Senate that he would not appear as scheduled as he had the Customs management meeting already slated for the same Wednesday.

The Senate wants him to explain the Customs planned clampdown on vehicles that have no duty clearance.

But senators rejected his excuse, with Senate Leader Ahmed Lawan saying it was not acceptable.

The integrity of the Senate is being tested, said James Manager, PDP-Delta, who also picked hole in the way the letter was addressed.

Members approved a vote called by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to reject Mr. Alis letter, and therefore mandated him to appear in uniform tomorrow (Wednesday as scheduled) by 10:30 AM.

The Senate summoned Mr. Ali over Customs plan to impound vehicles that have no import duty clearance. It specifically asked him to appear in uniform.

But on Friday, Mr. Ali defended the plan, and said he was only going to honour the Senates summon if the invitation.

I was not appointed Comptroller General to wear uniform, he said.

Mr. Ali, a retired colonel, was appointed Customs chief in 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari, becoming the second to be so appointed from outside the service.

Under former military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, Bello Haliru was also appointed head of Customs from outside the service.

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The president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said they visited President Muhammadu Buhari to discuss matters of national interest.

The leaders of the National Assembly met with the president behind close doors for 40 minutes.

Mr. Saraki told State House correspondents that the president engaged them very well.

He said they specifically came to discuss issues and activities of the National Assembly during the absence of the president.

Mr. Saraki said the meeting centred on the budget, the economy, CBN, Euro bond, the issue of the ambassadorial list, the stability in the Niger Delta, and a whole range of issues.

Mr. Saraki said the Senate has a target to pass the 2017 budget this month.

On his perception of the presidents state of health, the senate president said Mr. Buhari met with them for 40 minutes, adding I was not talking to myself.? He is doing very well, we discussed issues of national interest.

On his part, Mr. Dogara said they were not at the villa to assess the presidents health.

He said the journalists who are always there surely knew the president was doing well.

On the relationship between the executive and legislature, Mr. Dogara said it was not in the place of the legislature to fight the executive.

We fight on issues but mostly issues of national interest. We fight on behalf of the people for the purpose of progress.

There is one government and no division. If he fails, we all fail, so it is in realisation of this that we always extend the needed support to ensure that he succeeds, so that the government will be rated as a success, he said.

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The Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB, on Monday said mechanical failure and pilot error caused a 2012 air crash in Nigeria that killed 159 people.

The AIB, in its final report, said two engines on the Dana Air flight failed mid-air before it crashed on approaching the Lagos airport.

Engine number one lost power 17 minutes into the flight, and thereafter on final approach, engine number two lost power and failed to respond to throttle movement on demand for increased power to sustain the aircraft in its flight configuration, the report stated.

According to the AIB commissioner, Akin Olateru, the inappropriate omission of the use of the checklist, the crews inability to appreciate the severity of the power-related problem, and their subsequent failure to land at the nearest suitable airfield contributed to the crash.

Lack of situation awareness, inappropriate decision-making and poor airmanship, the investigators said, were also to blame for the crash on June 3, 2012.

The Dana aircraft was carrying 153 passengers and crew when it crashed into a densely-populated area in the north of Lagos and burst into flames. Six people were killed on the ground.

The investigation involved officials from the airline, engine manufacturers Pratt & Whitney and international aviation experts.

Everybody is satisfied with the final report and those found wanting have made necessary adjustments, the report stated.

Nigerian aviation authorities suspended Danas operating licence on June 5, 2012, two days after the crash. But it was briefly allowed to resume operation in January 2013 after meeting some safety standards but did not start full operations until January 2014.

According to the AFP, Mr. Olateru said the AIB, which released a preliminary report on the crash in September 2012, spent so long on the investigation because of cash shortages.

Mr. Olateru said the agency needed more funding, as the N16 million allocated in 2017 was not enough.

In its reaction, Dana Airlines Media and Communications Manager, Kingsley Ezenwa, said, We wish to also state that Dana Air swung into action immediately the interim safety recommendations were released in 2013.

Mr. Ezenwa noted that as an airline, Dana is strictly committed to the safety and comfort of its guests, adding that the airline also implemented the recommendations by the agency.

We implemented all the recommendations same year as released by the AIB, he said.

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The House of Representatives on Tuesday Called on the Federal Government to urgently constitute a presidential task force to disarm all herdsmen in Buruku Federal Constituency, other parts of Benue State and throughout the Federal republic of Nigeria.

This was contained in a motion jointly sponsored by the Benue State caucus in the House of Representatives.

Speaking on behalf of the lawmakers, the Chairman, Rules and Business, Orker Jev (APC), lamented that communities in Buruku local government area of Benue State, especially Binev Council ward, was invaded by armed and strange herdsmen.

The herdsmen destroyed farms, plundered yam barns and looted houses deserted by innocent and armless villagers, Mr. Orker said.

Mr. Orker said the marauding herdsmen started indiscriminate attacks and killings on Saturday around the communities of BerAwuna, Dogo, Ortese  Mbashian, Tse Igyu, Tse Gebe, Anbighir, Tse Iwa, Gbaikyo, Agudu, Nyorum,Shonto and Abuku in three major kindred of Mbade, Mbagoho, Mbashian, Mbaboor and Wuav of Benue State.

He further stated that the violent attacks continued unabated without any intervention from any security agency throughout that Saturday, and said 20 people were killed by the armed herdsmen, out of which 10 bodies have so far been recovered and deposited at the local government.

We are worried that these strange herdsmen are heavily armed with sophisticated weapons, seem to be operating or supported by a killer squad of mercenaries that arrived the communities on Friday night on motorcycles and unleashed the mayhem the following day, Mr Orker added.

The Binev Council ward lies on the Bank of River Katsina  Ala in Buruku local government area with mass water bodies and large portions of fadama lands suitable for rice farming and aquatic life.

Most residents of Buruku are farmers and fishermen.

The lawmakers urged the National Emergency management Agency (NEMA) to send food and relief materials to the affected communities.

The lawmakers also resolved to summon all heads of security agencies to brief the house on their efforts so far to curb the excesses of the herdsmen.

The deputy speaker, Yusuf Lasun, who presided, mandated the Committees on Special Duties and Police Affairs to ensure the implementation of the resolution.

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The Federal Government has indicated its readiness to commence payment of all verified bills owed electricity distribution companies in the country for electricity supplied to federal ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, based on the on-going audit of the bills submitted by the electricity firms.

The governments decision is a fresh boost in liquidity in Nigerias power sector and is coming on the heels of the N701 billion guarantee for the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, NBET.

A report presented at the 13th Monthly Meeting of Power Sector Operators chaired by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, in Ughelli, Delta State, on the on-going audit of debts owed the distribution companies, DisCos, by MDAs, stated that all such verified bills would be recommended for payment as further demonstration of governments determination to lead by example with regards to payment for electricity delivered; adding that such payments would be on first-come-first-served basis.

The report contained in a communique after the meeting further stated that the verification team working on the audit received claims currently estimated at N59.3 billion, subject to further review, noting that 86 per cent of the debts, amounting to N51 billion, were owed by the top 100 customers, mainly composed of military and defence installations around the country.

Also, the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) presented ongoing projects to connect communities that host National Integrated Power Projects, NIPP, just as it announced progress on projects in Ikot Nyong, Egbema, Ihovbor, Gbarain, Olorunsogo, and Omotosho saying the expected completion date for Magboro community would be April while the Olorunsogo connection would be completed in June this year.

Other progress reports include the resolution of way leave issues in Uzalla in Edo State, and ongoing work in Ondo, Rivers State and other locations around the country as reported by the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN; the improved compliance with submission of audit accounts as reported by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC; and the completion of maintenance works in Awka and Maiduguri to improve service delivery as reported by the Enugu and Yola DisCos.

Acknowledging that the economic progress of the country largely depends on the success of the power sector, the meeting commended the federal government for the recent approval by the Federal Executive Council of financing to assure payment to electricity generating companies, GenCos, for electricity generated and supplied on the grid noting that it would enhance investor confidence in the industry.

It noted with delight that the newly reconstituted NERC would more rigorously perform regulatory duties; tasking the regulatory body to standardise reporting on financial performance, safety and customer service as a fair basis for ranking distribution companies and other industry operators.

Receiving with delight the reports by the Enugu and the Yola DisCos on the completion of maintenance works in Awka and Maiduguri to improve service delivery to targeted customers, the meeting commended them for the completion of the projects and, however, reemphasised the need to react to customer complaints more speedily.

Acknowledging the Federal Governments decision to support NBET with N701 billion over two years for NBET to pay generation companies for electricity produced under the power purchase agreements, the meeting, however, said the initiative did not discharge the obligation of the DisCos to pay their invoices to the market operator for services provided by Transmission Service Provider (TSP), ISO (Independent System Operator), and to NBET for the electricity generated, transmitted and delivered to customers.

The meeting, hosted by Transcorp Power Limited, and chaired by the minister, focused on identifying, discussing, and finding practical solutions to critical issues facing the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry even as the operators were fully represented at the highest executive management levels.

Those in attendance included a NERC Commissioner, Managing Directors and CEOs of GenCos, DisCos, TCN as well as various government agencies such as the NDPHC, NBET, Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO) and Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) responsible for the regulation and development of the electricity industry.

Prior to the commencement of the meeting, Mr. Fashola and the Governor of Delta State commissioned a 115MW turbine installed by Transcorp Ughelli Limited, bringing installed capacity to 620MW from the 160MW they inherited on privatisation in 2013.

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Fashola, who described the decision of Transcorp to invest in the nations power sector as a demonstration of its confidence in the economy of the country, said the Buhari administration reposed more confidence on local investors as they would not run away even if the ship hit stormy waters.

Assuring that the administration would continue to create enabling environment for more local investors to come into the sector, the minister appealed to youth of the Niger Delta to see the investment as belonging to one of their own saying any time they disrupted operations at the plant they would be hurting their own person.

He declared, The Governors of the Niger Delta have been and must continue to be the champions of peace. The youth of the Niger Delta must recognise that nobody can be more Niger Delta than Tony Elumelu. He chooses to invest here. So every time you take away gas from this plant you are hurting one of us, you are hurting one of your own and we are losing opportunities.

In his remarks, Transcorp Power Limited Chairman, Tony Elumelu, stated that the plant currently generates only 300MW due to shortage of gas supply, and assured the preparedness of the company to invest facilities to increase gas supply to the power station if government created an enabling regulatory framework.

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Donald Trump

Despite the American Health Care Act drawing support from House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump, the leadership's biggest problem still remains  senators in their own party.

Republican senators have cast doubt on the AHCA  which would repeal and replace Obamacare  after the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report Monday that the law would cause as many as 24 million more Americans to lack health insurance by 2026.

"It's awful. It has to be a concern," said Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has introduced his own alternative to the AHCA. "President Trump said he wanted as many people covered as under Obamacare."

Republicans from stronghold states such as South Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas have expressed misgivings about the legislation after the CBO report, putting the future of the healthcare law in doubt.

'We need to do better'

"We need to do better," Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said in a statement following the CBO report.

Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said the CBO score should cause Republicans to delay their bill until they can make changes.

"At the end of the day we should pause and try to improve the product in the light of the CBO analysis rather than just rejecting it," said Graham, who has previously said the GOP should "slow down" on the healthcare overhaul.

And Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas launched into a lengthy rebuke of the AHCA on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt's show. He said that while the CBO director "isn't Moses" when it comes to estimating the number of people losing coverage, he believed the CBO was "directionally correct" about the coverage losses.

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine, meanwhile, also expressed concerns over the potential effects described in the report.

Little margin for error

The biggest problem for Republican leaders is that only a few defections from the party are enough to derail the AHCA's path to Trump's desk.

Story continues

The party holds a 52-seat majority in the Senate, so losing only three votes would prevent the law from passing. Given the number of senators that have previously said they have objections with the bill and the lawmakers that expressed doubts after the CBO score, there is a real chance that the GOP could have many more defectors.

Plus, Senate procedural rules could stop the bill in its tracks. The Byrd Rule does not allow a bill going through budget reconciliations  as in the case of the AHCA  to include anything that does not impact the budget's bottom line. Analysts and lawmakers have said that various aspects of the AHCA could violate the provision and stop the bill in its tracks.

The bill passed two House committees last week and will be considered by the House Budget Committee on Thursday.

NOW WATCH: People on Twitter are mocking Trump's claim that his administration is a 'fined-tuned machine'





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The 23rd Amoured Brigade of the Nigerian Army based in Yola, Adamawa State, has commenced investigation into the disruption last Sunday of a church service in Yola by some men in military uniform.

The men, suspected to be soldiers, were reportedly invited to the state headquarters of the Assemblies of Gods Church in Luggere Ward by a Reverend, Thomas Taro, during the Sunday service in an attempt to take over the church and remove the presiding pastor, Patrick Waziri.

But the brigade spokesman, Adamu Ngulde, a Major, said the army did not send any of its personnel to the church and has commenced moves to track those involved if at all they were genuine military men.

The church told us that the men were not wearing their name tags. We contacted our officer in charge of counter insurgency as well as security in the town and he said he did not deploy soldiers to participate in any operation in the church.

Besides, no civilian has the right to invite soldiers into a civil matter like this, Mr. Ngulde said.

Mr. Ngulde said the military had already met with the authorities of the church and was looking for Mr. Taro who was said to have invited the said military men.

Speaking to journalists on his churchs experience, Mr. Waziri said the development had to do with the crisis rocking the national leadership of the church at its headquarters in Enugu.

Two men, Paul Emeka, a professor, and Chidi Okorofor, a Reverend, are contesting the leadership of the church.

Mr. Waziri said the Supreme Court had recently addressed the matter by asking the parties to embrace dialogue.

According to Mr. Waziri, the Supreme Court judgement did not give any party victory but said the parties should go and settle the dispute amicable.

Mr. Waziri said Mr. Taro, who belongs to Mr. Okoroafors group, misinterpreted the judgement to mean the court gave his side victory and that was why he stormed the church with the soldiers to remove him.

He said Mr. Taro needed to know that since Mr. Emekas group, to which he (Waziri) belongs, is still in charge at the headquarters, nothing has changed.

He (Taro) needs to know that he is not the one to enforce court judgement whenever the need arises; the presence of military was totally uncalled for.

Mr. Waziri called for the review of the churchs constitution to check lapses that created room for the crisis.

Most people have identified the need for the review of our constitution, which is obvious to safeguard such happenings in the future.

When contacted on his involvement, Mr. Taro simply told journalists that he would not speak to the press until he had contacted the churchs national headquarters.

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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has written to the Senate requesting amendment to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 2016 Statutory Appropriation Act to extend its operational period to April 30, 2017.

The President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, read the letter at plenary on Tuesday.

He quoted Mr. Osinbajo as saying: I have the honour to seek Senates approval to extend the application of the Federal Capital Territory Administration 2016 Statutory Appropriation Act until April 30, 2017.

It would be recalled that the 2016 FCT Appropriation was assented to on August 29, 2016, a fact that affected its implementation in respect of capital projects and other expenditure.

In this connection, numerous payments for critical and essential projects are now outstanding.

He acknowledged that though the Bill was assented to on August 29, 2016, with its termination date as December 31, 2016, but said that it needed beyond December, 2016 for full implementation.

To meet its obligation and as permissible by the Constitution, the FCT 2016 Appropriation needs to be extended to April 30 to enable the FCT make payments for various critical and essential ongoing projects.

This will ensure better performance in the implementation of projects for the 2016 statutory appropriation, the vice president said.

(NAN)

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A boarding school, Government Girls College, Wamba, in Nasarawa State, has been without electricity for four years, according to its Principal, Rabi Yusuf.

Mrs. Yusuf, in a speech at the national convention of the schools old students, held on Tuesday in Lafia, said that the students had remained in the dark since electricity was cut off four years ago, over unpaid bills.

She described the situation as very bad, and appealed to the old students to assist the students by paying the outstanding electricity bill so that the school could be reconnected.

It is difficult to explain how we have tried to cope without light; you will help a great deal by intervening in this area, she said.

She also appealed to the state government to renovate the hostels, classrooms and laboratories to improve the learning environment.

Mrs. Yusuf also urged government to post more teachers to teach chemistry and English, and regretted that the school had no teachers to handle the two subjects.

She also called for more matrons and security men to attend to the girls and secure the school in view of current security challenges.

In his speech, Titus Alams, the National President of the Wamba Old Students Association, WOSA, promised to settle the outstanding electricity bill.

I was shocked when the principal said that electricity supply to the school has been yanked off; I find this development particularly strange because this is a boarding school.

We shall look at all challenges confronting the school as listed by the principal, but the most urgent need now is the restoration of electricity.

We do not know the amount or for how long the school has been indebted, but we shall get those details and move on to rectify the problem, he said.

In his remarks, Danlami Ali, the chairman, Nasarawa State chapter of the association, urged the old students to make more sacrifices toward returning the school to its old glory.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the school, which began as a boys teachers school in 1975, became a co-educational institution in 1988, before being turned into a girls school in 2004.

(NAN)

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The Kaduna State University, KASU, on Tuesday matriculated 6,073 students admitted in the 2016/2017 exercise, with the Vice Chancellor, Muhammad Tanko, warning them against destructive tendencies.

More than 18,000 candidates applied for admission into this institution. Most of them were qualified, but were not lucky to be taken, Mr. Tanko said in his speech at the ceremony.

He advised the matriculating students to aspire for academic excellence and exhibit high moral discipline.

He advised them to be of good behaviour, and stressed the need for them to be obedient to constituted authority.

I will particularly advise against cultism, examination malpractice, drug abuse and other self-destructive habits, he said.

The don promised that the university would do everything possible to provide needed facilities so as to make learning easy and interesting.

(NAN)

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The Police Command in Abia State on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of six persons in connection with the alleged killing of a suspected herdsman in a community on Sunday.

The Abia police spokesperson, Geoffrey Ogbonna, disclosed this in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Umuahia.

Mr. Ogbonna said that the deceased was killed during a clash between some herdsmen and Umuobasi-ukwu autonomous community in Bende Local Government Area of the state.

He said that a peace committee comprising representatives of the community, herdsmen, Hausa/Fulani community, the state government and security agencies, had been constituted to broker a truce between the two parties.

However, in a swift reaction, the Secretary-General of the community, Uwakwe Mbonu, disputed the police claim, saying that his people had no hand in the death of the herdsman.

Mr. Mbonu told NAN in a telephone interview that no death was recorded during the clash.

Narrating the incident, he said that the herdsmen allegedly invaded the communitys farmlands in the early hours of Sunday with their cattle.

He said that they took to their heels, along with their cattle, when the youth accosted them.

Mr. Mbonu said that the community was utterly shocked when the police that came to the community after the alleged invasion, brought a corpse from the bush and accused the community of being responsible for the death.

According to him, the place where the police claimed to have recovered the corpse was situated about 10kms. to 20 kms. away from the community, which he said absolved residents of responsibility.

Mr. Mbonu further said that the police had embarked on mass arrest of the natives in the aftermath of the incident, with no fewer than six people so far arrested by detectives from the state Criminal Investigation Department, CID.

My people have fled their homes and the community has been turned into a ghost town.

Some are taking refuge in neighbouring villages and bush without food, in order to avoid random arrest by the police.

He appealed to the police authorities and the state government to take urgent steps to halt the mass arrest.

The community suffered a similar attack in November last year, leaving some casualties on both sides.

Mr. Mbonu said that one the casualties from the community, whose right fingers were allegedly chopped off by the assailants, was still receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia.

(NAN)

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The Police in Enugu said they have arrested two notorious kidnappers that had been terrorising motorists on three different roads in Enugu State.

A statement signed by the police spokesperson, Ebere Amaraizu, in Enugu on Tuesday said that the suspects were arrested on February 24, after they were trailed to Asaba, Delta State

The statement said that the suspects were arrested over their alleged involvement in kidnapping of some people in the state.

It said that the suspects alongside their fleeing members, were said to have operated along Obioma-Udi axis of the 9th Mile-Oji-River old road, Ugwuogo-Nike/Opi Nsukka Road and Awkunanaw axis of the Enugu/Port Harcourt Express road.

The suspects were involved in the alleged kidnap/murder of one Ifeanyi Alakwe on February 2, along Awgu area of Enugu Port Harcourt Express Road.

They were also involved in a kidnapping of one Chimezie Eze, a musician kidnapped at a wake in Nsude, Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State and the recent kidnapping of two staff of Enugu State Water Corporation at Ajali-Owa Water Scheme on Jan. 10, the spokesperson said.

(NAN)

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Members of the Ondo State Timber Traders Organisation have cried out as their businesses face hard times as a result of the state governments ban on all lumbering activities in the state.

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu ordered the ban as soon as he assumed office after observing irregularities and illegal felling of trees in the states forest reserves.

However, the operators complain that the the ban, which has lasted for two weeks, is adding to their already bad financial situation.

They appealed to the state government to lift the ban on the closure of the states forest in order not to worsen their economic woes.

The timber traders who made this appeal after their meeting in Akure, the Ondo State capital, said the call became imperative to save their business and to save its members from hunger.

The traders who met on Monday to review the situation, said lifting the ban was necessary to save their business as well avert severe hunger now threatening members of the timber organisation.

Speaking at the meeting, the chairman of the organisation, Ade Olukayode, condemned the action of the government, arguing that 90 per cent of the revenue accruing internally to the government came from the lumbering business.

Noting that the timber traders organisation had contributed tremendously to the economic development of the state, Mr. Olukayode said the state government caught them unawares when it delcared the forest reserves closed.

Most of the timber traders obtained loans from banks to carry out their lawful businesses, he said.

The closure has affected their business negatively in the last two weeks.

He wondered why the government decided to close both the free zone and the reserved area asserting that members of the association obtained permit from the government and are operating legally.

Mr. Olukayode said efforts were underway to resolve the problem, and called on members of the organisation to maintain the peace.

Also speaking, the chairman of the union in Akure South Local Government Area, Kunle Omotosho, appealed to the governor to consider the plight of the timber operators.

The forest was closed across the state because of the atrocity of encroachers, but we operate legally and remit to the coffers of the state government as and when due, he said.

We want to appeal to the government to listen to our appeal and save us from the present situation, we are losing money day in day out while the present economy is bitting harder.

Some encroachers have ruined the business. Our forest had been taken over by these people from other states. They are in the forest now working without any hindrance while some government officials are working hand in hand with them.

Efforts to get an official response from the state government was unsuccessful as the governors newly appointed spokesperson, Segun Ajiboye, said he would not answer questions yet.

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A former governor of Kano State and senator representing Kano Central district, Rabiu Kwankwaso; and the Seriki Hausa Community in Ife on Tuesday said reports of evacuation of Hausa men from Ile-Ife after last weeks clash are targeted at further escalating a breach that has already been quenched.

Mr. Kwankwaso and the Governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, cautioned the media against reports that could jeopardise the peace of the country.

He described as mere rumours reports that Hausa people in Ife have been migrating from the state up North

He said commentators should be careful with reports on both the conventional and social media so as not spark another trend of crisis in other parts of the country.

The senator stated this during a condolence visit he paid to Governor of Osun at the government house Osogbo.

Mr. Kwankwaso who stressed that the kind of reports being disseminated by the media may aggravate the crisis commended the efforts of the Osun Governor in arresting the ugly incident.

I want to appeal to our media men and women to be mindful of how they report the crisis so that it wont lead to a reprisal attack in other parts of the country.

We should be mindful of what we write and use on our conventional media and the social media as well, we need some sense of responsibility from our media houses.

We are not saying you should not do your job, but you should know that you also have a responsibility of maintaining peace in our society, he said.

He pointed out that as soon as he got wind of the crisis he put a call through to Mr. Aregbesola and the peace moves taken by the governor has been corroborated by the Arewa community in Ife.

While urging members of the Hausa community in Ife and other parts of Osun to allow peace to reign, Mr. Kwankwaso said they should be reminded that wherever they live is their home and everything possible must be done to embrace peace.

The senator, who thanked the Osun government and the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, for trying to make life bearable for those affected through the provision of relief materials, promised that his foundation will follow suit as soon as possible.

According to him, As soon as I got to know about the crisis, I put a call through to my brother, Ogbeni Aregbesola who promised me on phone that he was already on top of the situation.

I am happy that when I got here, members of the Arewa community corroborated what he told me on efforts at ensuring the safety of my people.

I am using this opportunity to appeal to the Hausa community in Ife and around Osun to embrace peace and continue to live together in unity with their Yoruba hosts.

Wherever you find yourself is your home and you should ensure it is peaceful.

I thank the governor and NEMA for providing relief materials to those affected and I also promise to bring more through my foundation the senator said.

On the entourage of the Senator were members of National Assembly and leaders of the Arewa community in Osun.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kwankwaso was accompanied by Governor Aregbesola to the scene of the crisis in Ile-Ife for an on-the spot assessment of the situation.

Mr. Aregbesola also disclosed that more than twenty people who were said to have participated in the crisis have been arrested and will be made to face the law.

He said that what happened was just accidental as people of Osun are peace loving and accommodating.

He noted that Yoruba people may fight one another but they are always protective of and friendly with their visitors.

He buttressed his point with the Ife/Modakeke crisis which he said never touched the Hausa community.

According to him, Yoruba and Hausa did not engage in any fight but the crisis was caused by miscreants from both sides of the divide.

What caused the crisis was a minor disagreement. We are afraid that those who want to cause chaos in the country might be behind this crisis

Yoruba may fight one another but they will not fight with their visitors. We are very peaceful and if you look around you will find out that enemies of peace are at work and they are few.

And we dont know what their aim or interest was in causing this crisis. Perhaps they were sponsored because I have never heard that Yoruba and Hausa fought each other in Ife before but there might be misunderstanding and it would not be more than that.

God has created and put us together in Nigeria. We must therefore live together in harmony. We should not allow agent of division to cause disaffection among us, Mr. Aregbesola said

The governor also commended all security agencies for their swift response to distress call.

He averred that but for the quick response of security agencies the crisis would have snowballed into terrible level better imagined.

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President Andrzej Duda

President Andrzej Duda on Monday congratulated Janos Ader on being elected Hungarian president for a second term.

"I believe that the traditional Polish-Hungarian friendship will continue to find its creative development on various fora", President Duda stressed.

"I am convinced that our close cooperation will be successfully continued to the benefit of both our Nations and countries", Andrzej Duda added.

The Polish president also stressed Hungary's role as Poland's important partner in conducting joint undertakings.

"Mr President, please accept words of my deepest respect and friendship and my assurance that you are appreciated and trusted not only by Hungarians, but also by myself and my Countrymen", Andrzej Duda wrote.

The Hungarian parliament on Monday elected Janos Ader president for a second five-year term of office. (PAP)
Tanner Bonner is a dedicated student at Annapolis High School in Dearborn Heights, but the 16-year-old junior recently achieved something that took even him by surprise.

Bonner earned a perfect score of 36 on the ACT test  an admissions test highly valued by colleges and universities across the country.

I felt like I was prepared, but it never even crossed my mind that Id do that well, he said.

On average, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of students who take the ACT earn the highest possible composite score.

About 2,200 of the more than 2 million students in the class of 2016 who took the test across the country earned a perfect score.

The ACT, described by the company as the leading U.S. admissions test, measures what students learn in high school to determine their academic readiness for college. It also provides personalized information about their strengths for education and career planning.

ACT test scores are accepted and valued by all universities and colleges in the United States.

The exam includes tests in English, mathematics, reading and science, each scored on a scale of 1 to 36. A students composite score is the average of the four test scores.

Bonner took the test Feb. 11 and learned his score about 1 1/2 weeks later.

To prepare, he took a few ACT practice tests, which he thinks helped him the most.

I had a set standard that I wanted to get to, but it wasnt anywhere near 36, he said. It was a huge surprise to me.

He said his parents, Larry and Nancy Bonner, were pretty surprised at his accomplishment as well.

They are really proud of me, but they couldnt believe it just like i couldnt, he said. At first my dad didnt really know what it meant.

A student in Dearborn Heights School District No. 7 since kindergarten, Bonner said he feels well-prepared for the challenges ahead after high school.

Math and science are his best subjects, and the advanced placement classes he takes at Crestwood High School have been a boon to his studies.

I usually get As  and the AP classes have helped me for sure and pushed me to do better, he said.

Bonner said he enjoys being a leader and helping the community. His extracurricular events are well-rounded, ranging from student council and Key Club to theater and serving as captain of the schools quiz bowl team. Hes also a member of the National Honor Society.

Bonner received a letter from ACT Chief Executive Officer Marten Roorda congratulating him on the significant and rare achievement.

While test scores are just one of multiple criteria that most colleges consider when making admission decisions, your exceptional ACT composite score should prove helpful as you pursue your education and career goals, Roorda said in the letter.

For other students taking the test soon, Bonner recommends taking the official ACT practice tests.

It gives you a really good feel of what the actual ACT is going to be like, he said. After taking the practice tests, analyzing what you got wrong allows you to improve on things you might not be very familiar with. As for the test itself, staying as focused as possible and pushing yourself to keep moving forward through the questions and reading passages is crucial because of the heavy time constraint that is imposed for each section.

After high school, Bonner plans to enter an engineering program in college  with his first choice being The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor  and eventually become an electrical engineer.

Its always been a dream of mine to be a leader in the field of cutting-edge technology, he said.

I am still looking into different possibilities so Im not yet completely certain, but Im very excited to explore all of the opportunities that lie ahead!
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 14, 2017) -

Highlights: NB-17-332: 42.7m @ 0.78 g/t Gold & 15.2m @ 0.82 g/t Gold NB-17-333: 19.8m @ 1.05 g/t Gold NB-17-338: 15.2m @ 0.98 g/t Gold NB-17-340: 12.2m @ 0.88 g/t Gold & 11.2 g/t Silver

Corvus Gold Inc. ("Corvus" or the "Company") (KOR.TO)(CORVF) announces results from an additional nine holes in the Western Zone (Table 1). These latest results continue to outline a broad zone of near surface, shallow mineralization over a strike length of at least 700 metres and over a width of at least 200 metres, which lies immediately west of the current designed pit perimeter (Figure 1). The Western Zone has two, broad, higher grade, and structurally controlled, stockwork quartz zones internally, with grades above the 0.52 g /t mill cutoff grade and is believed to have higher grade potential at depth. It appears the Western Zone remains open to the south, west and at depth and is an immediate follow-up drill target for further potential resource expansion.

Figure 1 Map showing new Western Zone drill hole locations: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1088669m.jpg

Jeff Pontius, President and CEO of Corvus said, "The follow-up results from our drilling on the Western Zone have been encouraging and are outlining what appears to be a potential expansion of the main deposit to the west under shallow gravel cover. As this zone is still open in many directions, its impact on any potential resource expansion is unconstrained at this point. For the past 4 weeks Corvus has been testing our first group of "New Discovery" targets away from the main deposit area and we are encouraged by the strength and size of the alteration systems we have been intersecting, with initial results expected in the next few weeks. We are of the view that the more we work and drill on the North Bullfrog project, the more potential emerges for a major discovery."

Table 1

Phase II Drill Results - Western Zones

(Reported drill intercepts are not true widths. At this time, there is insufficient data with respect to the shape of the mineralization to calculate its true orientation in space.)

Story continues

From

(m) To

(m) Length

(m)* Gold

(g/t) Silver

(g/t) NB-17-332 47.24 184.4 137.16 0.45 1.15 AZ 085 dip-70 inc 51.82 67.06 15.24 0.82 1.59 inc 80.77 123.44 42.67 0.78 1.38 188.98 213.36 24.38 0.13 0.30 Hole ended in gold mineralization NB-17-333 88.39 190.5 102.11 0.38 0.93 AZ 090 dip-65 inc 91.44 111.25 19.81 1.05 1.85 NB-17-334 76.20 155.45 79.25 0.31 0.76 AZ 090 dip-55 inc 76.20 80.77 4.57 0.56 0.85 inc 124.97 138.68 13.71 0.60 1.35 167.64 172.21 4.57 0.12 0.36 176.78 214.88 38.10 0.25 1.14 inc 192.02 196.60 4.57 0.97 4.01 Hole ended in gold mineralization NB-17-335 64.01 92.96 28.95 0.49 1.97 AZ 090 dip-55 inc 67.06 79.25 12.19 0.78 2.34 99.06 160.02 60.96 0.31 6.28 inc 132.59 135.64 3.05 1.04 7.00 inc 140.21 141.73 1.52 1.01 18.00 inc 147.83 149.35 1.52 0.76 59.00 NB-17-336 42.67 48.77 6.10 0.26 0.37 AZ 085 dip-45 57.91 65.53 7.62 1.04 0.69 inc 59.44 62.48 3.05 2.18 0.94 109.73 114.30 4.57 0.38 0.74 137.16 140.21 3.05 0.31 0.80 146.30 179.83 33.53 0.34 0.41 inc 150.88 152.40 1.52 0.95 0.41 inc 160.02 164.59 4.57 0.61 0.66 NB-17-337 30.48 41.15 10.67 0.36 0.46 AZ 090 dip-50 inc 38.10 39.62 1.52 1.21 1.34 NB-17-338 45.72 70.10 24.38 0.71 1.33 AZ 090 dip-50 inc 47.24 62.48 15.24 0.98 1.65 76.20 91.44 15.24 0.26 0.53 NB-17-339 132.59 134.11 1.52 0.34 0.49 AZ 090 dip -55 NB-17-340 65.53 68.58 3.05 0.58 0.45 AZ 085 dip-60 inc 67.06 68.58 1.52 1.03 0.60 73.15 150.88 77.73 0.43 2.67 inc 76.20 79.25 3.05 0.93 2.38 inc 105.16 117.35 12.19 0.88 11.22 inc 129.54 137.16 7.62 0.94 0.65

* Mineralized thickness calculated @ 0.10 g/t Au cutoff with internal intervals calculated @ 1.0 g/t Au cutoff

Western Zone

The mineralization intersected in the Western Zone is controlled by a large northeast trending structural zone which can be tracked for a strike length of nearly 1.5 kilometres. Drilling to date has tested about 1/2 the length of the Western Zone structural extent. The zone contains two discreet fault zones that host higher grade mineralization and display good continuity along strike. These zones have been intersected from near surface down to a vertical depth of about 150 metres which is the depth of the currently designed pit to the east.

Additional potential exists for one or more zones to develop to the west of the current drill area as illustrated in prior hole NB-17-329 (NR17-2, February 23, 2017) with 38.1m @ 0.97 g/t gold from a new zone. In addition, exploration in 2014 tested a structural target some 300 metres west of the Western Zone and outlined a small higher grade resource whose expansion potential has yet to be followed up. The Western Zone and the large area of shallow gravel cover which could host a number of new zone of shallow, higher grade mineralization.

About the North Bullfrog Project, Nevada

Corvus controls 100% of its North Bullfrog Project, which covers approximately 72 km in southern Nevada. The property package is made up of a number of private mineral leases of patented federal mining claims and 865 federal unpatented mining claims. The project has excellent infrastructure, being adjacent to a major highway and power corridor as well as a large water right.

The North Bullfrog project includes numerous prospective gold targets at various stages of exploration with four having NI 43-101 mineral resources (Sierra Blanca, Jolly Jane, Mayflower and YellowJacket). The project contains a measured mineral resource of 3.86 Mt at an average grade of 2.55 g/t gold and 19.70 g/t silver, containing 316.5k ounces of gold and 2,445k ounces of silver, an indicated mineral resource of 1.81 Mt at an average grade of 1.53 g/t gold, and 10.20 g/t silver, containing 89.1k ounces of gold and 593.6k ounces of silver and an inferred resource of 1.48 Mt at an average grade of 0.83 g/t gold and 4.26 g/t silver, containing 39.5k ounces of gold and 202.7k ounces of silver for oxide mill processing. The mineral resource for the mill process was defined by Whittle optimization using all cost and recovery data and a breakeven cut-off grade of 0.52 g/t gold. In addition, the project contains a measured mineral resource of 0.3 Mt at an average grade of 0.25 g/t gold and 2.76 g/t silver, containing 2.4k ounces of gold and 26.6k ounces of silver, an indicated mineral resource of 22.86 Mt at an average grade of 0.30 g/t gold and 0.43 g/t silver, containing 220.5k ounces of gold and 316.1k ounces of silver and an inferred mineral resource of 176.3 Mt at an average grade of 0.19 g/t gold and 0.67 g/t silver, containing 1,077.4k ounces of gold and 3,799.2k ounces of silver for oxide, heap leach processing. The mineral resource for heap leach processing was defined by Whittle optimization using all cost and recovery data and a breakeven cut-off grade of 0.15 g/t.

Qualified Person and Quality Control/Quality Assurance

Jeffrey A. Pontius (CPG 11044), a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), has supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Pontius is not independent of Corvus, as he is the CEO & President and holds common shares and incentive stock options.

Carl E. Brechtel, (Nevada PE 008744 and Registered Member 353000 of SME), a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has coordinated execution of the work outlined in this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Brechtel is not independent of Corvus, as he is the COO and holds common shares and incentive stock options.

The work program at North Bullfrog was designed and supervised by Mark Reischman, Corvus Gold's Nevada Exploration Manager, who is responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control/quality assurance program. On-site personnel at the project log and track all samples prior to sealing and shipping. Quality control is monitored by the insertion of blind certified standard reference materials and blanks into each sample shipment. All resource sample shipments are sealed and shipped to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, for preparation and then on to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, or Vancouver, B.C., for assaying. ALS Chemex's quality system complies with the requirements for the International Standards ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 17025:1999. Analytical accuracy and precision are monitored by the analysis of reagent blanks, reference material and replicate samples. Finally, representative blind duplicate samples are forwarded to ALS Chemex and an ISO compliant third party laboratory for additional quality control.

For additional information on the North Bullfrog project, including information relating to exploration, data verification and the mineral resource estimates, see "Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for Combined Mill and Heap Leach Processing at the North Bullfrog Project, Bullfrog Mining District, NYE County, Nevada" dated June 16, 2015 as amended and restated May 18, 2016 which is available under Corvus' SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

About Corvus Gold Inc.

Corvus Gold Inc. is a North American gold exploration and development company, focused on its near-term gold-silver mining project at North Bullfrog, Nevada. In addition, the Company controls a number of royalties on other North American exploration properties representing a spectrum of gold, silver and copper projects. Corvus is committed to building shareholder value through new discoveries and the expansion of those discoveries to maximize share price leverage in a recovering gold and silver market.

On behalf of

Corvus Gold Inc.

Jeffrey A. Pontius,

President & Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the potential for new deposits and expected increases in a system's potential; anticipated content, commencement and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the potential to develop multiple YellowJacket style high-grade zones, the Company's belief that the parameters used in the Whittle pit optimization process are realistic and reasonable, the potential to discover additional high grade veins or additional deposits, the potential to expand the existing estimated resource at the North Bullfrog project, the potential for any mining or production at North Bullfrog, are forward-looking statements. Information concerning mineral resource estimates may be deemed to be forward-looking statements in that it reflects a prediction of the mineralization that would be encountered if a mineral deposit were developed and mined. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, variations in the market price of any mineral products the Company may produce or plan to produce, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's 2014 Annual Information Form and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada and the Company's most recent filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings in Canada may be accessed via www.sedar.com and filings with the SEC may be accessed via www.sec.gov and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

Cautionary Note Regarding References to Resources and Reserves

NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource estimates contained in or incorporated by reference in this press release have been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and the guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (the "CIM") Standards on Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council on May 10, 2014 (the "CIM Standards") as they may be amended from time to time by the CIM.

United States investors are cautioned that the requirements and terminology of NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards differ significantly from the requirements and terminology of the SEC set forth in the SEC's Industry Guide 7 ("SEC Industry Guide 7"). Accordingly, the Company's disclosures regarding mineralization may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Without limiting the foregoing, while the terms "mineral resources", "inferred mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" and "measured mineral resources" are recognized and required by NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards, they are not recognized by the SEC and are not permitted to be used in documents filed with the SEC by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability, and US investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a mineral resource will ever be converted into reserves. Further, inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and as to whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher resource category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of a feasibility study or prefeasibility study, except in rare cases. The SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves" as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit amounts. The term "contained ounces" is not permitted under the rules of SEC Industry Guide 7. In addition, the NI 43-101 and CIM Standards definition of a "reserve" differs from the definition in SEC Industry Guide 7. In SEC Industry Guide 7, a mineral reserve is defined as a part of a mineral deposit which could be economically and legally extracted or produced at the time the mineral reserve determination is made, and a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves, the three-year historical price is used in any reserve or cash flow analysis of designated reserves and the primary environmental analysis or report must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority. U.S. investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our latest reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. You can review and obtain copies of these filings at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. U.S. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any defined resource will ever be converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant reserves.

This press release is not, and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States.
School districts that participate in the states free public school choice program also would like to accept students who pay tuition as long as a state cap on choice enrollment remains in effect.

Robert Garguilo, chairman of the board of the New Jersey Interdistrict Public School Choice Association, said the group is asking the Department of Education to change state regulations.

The group also is talking to state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, about sponsoring legislation to modify the current law, which prohibits choice districts from also accepting tuition students.

Started as a pilot program in 2000 with just one choice district per county, the Legislature expanded the program in 2010 to allow more students to attend approved public schools outside their hometowns. The state provides extra state aid for each choice student, currently about $55 million per year for about 5,500 students.

West Cape May loses school choice complaint Two small school districts have lost their fight to lift the cap on the states popular Publ

The program grew so fast that in 2013 the state limited enrollment and capped increases at 5 percent per year over concerns about the growing cost. Districts can also replace students who graduate or leave. This year there are 129 districts in the program.

Garguilo, who is interim superintendent in Estell Manor, a choice district, said the district has more applicants than he is allowed to take under the choice program.

Students are chosen through a lottery process, but some parents whose children did not get accepted have said they would be willing to pay tuition.

Nonchoice districts are allowed to charge tuition and accept students from other towns. Tuition districts can set their own tuition and enrollment limits.

Both the Avalon and Stone Harbor school districts have accepted tuition students since 2006, said Superintendent Stacey Tracy, who supervises both districts. The tiny shore districts started with grades K-4, then expanded to K-8 a few years later.

School funding likely flat next year, but could change in 100 days Despite meetings, hearings and legislative angst, it appears New Jerseys school districts w

Tracy said tuition enrollment makes up almost half of the total population, which was about 120 students in both districts in 2015-16. They charge $2,800 per year, with discounts for additional children in the same family.

Northfield also takes tuition students and has two this year, Superintendent Pete Bretones said. This year, the tuition is $6,000 for the first child and $4,000 for a second child.

Garguilo, who testified at a hearing on school funding in Hammonton, said they believe not allowing choice districts to also accept tuition students discriminates against the districts and parents who want their child to attend a choice school.

Im not saying we would get a lot of students, but we could get a few, he said. We do have parents who want it.

School officials in choice districts said they would support the change but have concerns.

West Cape May Superintendent Fred Savio said allowing tuition students would be a way for choice districts to generate extra revenue and help control property taxes. The district can charge for preschool, which is not included in the choice program.

Middle Township Superintendent David Salvo said he would support allowing districts to accept tuition students up to the number of seats they were originally approved for in the choice program. Middle Township was approved for 29 seats, then got reduced to 17.

I dont think its fair for a choice district that was awarded the maximum amount of seats to be permitted to charge tuition for additional enrollment, he wrote in an email.

Hammonton Superintendent C. Dan Blachford said currently the law allows tuition students to convert to choice students the following year. His concern is whether parents would pay tuition one year as a way to get a guaranteed free choice placement the next year.

School choice interest strong, but state program still capped Mainland Regional High School will accept 31 students from other municipalities in 2017-18. 

This would be unfair to parents that cannot afford to pay tuition, he said.

One option would be to allow tuition students to apply for the choice program the next year but not guarantee enrollment. By law, if more students apply than there are available seats, choice districts must hold lotteries to determine who is admitted.

Lower Cape May Regional Superintendent Chris Kobik supports the concept but worries combining choice and tuition could encourage the state to phase out choice seats.

We have 64 choice students, and the program has helped balance our budget, he said.

Van Drew said he supports the choice program and knows school districts are struggling to balance their budgets. He said he is willing to look at modifying the law and will work with the Choice Association on the wording of a bill to make sure all concerns are addressed.

DOE spokesman David Saenz said the department cannot modify the regulations until the law is changed.
It was more than a half-century ago that Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere Bono  better known as Cher  became a pop star in the mid-1960s duo Sonny & Cher.

She would also become an Emmy-winning co-host on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour; a solo recording star; a Grammy-winning dance icon (for her song Believe); and an Oscar-winning actress (for Moonstruck).

At 70, Cher is touring, with a dozen shows at the new MGM National Harbor in Maryland starting March 17.

We spoke with her recently from Los Angeles about the show, her mortality, political activism, and new ventures on stage and screen.

Q: Are there advantages to playing new stages such as the Park Theater Monte Carlo in Vegas and the MGM National Harbor?

A: I havent seen the other one, but the one in Vegas is just amazing. Its a joy to go out on it every day because its so not like a lot of the theaters that you play in. Its a small arena, and it has the same feeling as an arena  everybody can stand up, you know, and dance around. Theres not the same kind of restrictions as, like, Caesars Palace.

Q: The Vegas production seems quite big. Is it the same production that will be out here as well?

A: No, because your place is too small. Were going to do whatever we can fit in. We cant fly things and stuff like that because its just too small.

Q: Having 11 costume changes must be difficult to do every night.

A: You know what, Im just so used to it, it doesnt bother me at all. I mean, its fast, and theres a million people doing everything. Everybody just does the thing that they do, and I just stand really quietly and meditate while theyre doing it.

Q: Is it as important to fans to see the clothes as it is to hear their favorite songs?

A: Well, you know, it started out that way. I did it to make me happy because I just didnt want to go out and stand in one outfit and sing. I thought it would be so much more fun and more festive and, you know, more show business. So thats the way we started. And also, it started that way on Sonny & Cher because I used to have 13 or 14 costume changes a week on that.

Q: And youre still using the same designer after all these years, Bob Mackie.

A: Absolutely. Weve been working together for 40 years. We try to pick out the costumes that go with the songs, and pretty much theres a new costume that goes with each one. The most I do in one outfit is two songs.

Q: How do you keep your voice sounding the same? Is it because it was so low to begin with?

A: Well, you know what? At one point, I started taking lessons, and my voice just got so much better. It was always strong, but it didnt have the same kind of control. I didnt have the same range. So its actually gotten better, and Im surprised.

Q: Do you still like to sing the old songs?

A: I really do. I like to sing the new songs, too. But I know this is what people want. Thats why they call it Classic Cher.

Q: Like Classic Coke?

A: Yes! Or like Classic Dr Pepper.

Q: Youre performing Ive Got You Babe alongside Sonny in film clips. Is that difficult to do for any reason, technically or emotionally?

A: Not technical, but emotionally I didnt know it was going to work for me. But I tried it, and it was really fun. I thought it was going to be hard, but actually it was fun.

Q: I saw your Farewell Tour 14 years ago. I guess people forgive you for it not actually having been your farewell.

A: Well, who knows that its not going to be your farewell? I mean, who thinks that youre going to keep doing it, or that anyone is going to want to come? You never know. Its always like, Oh, well, its probably finished now. You could put on a show, and you could go to sell tickets and nobody buys them. Also, when you get older, you dont know whats going to happen. People are really more interested in young people.

Q: Your Twitter feed is very political. Will there be political content in your show, and will you be doing any political activity while in Washington?

A: I just dont think its right to do it from the stage. I can tell you, when youre entertaining people, you have them in a confined area, and thats just not the place to do it. Now, I marched in all the marches, and Ill march in every march that Im near. And I wont give up. I wont give up.

Q: I understand you were in the District (of Columbia) for the Womens March, but you didnt get onstage to speak?

A: No. It was really a drag, because they had wanted me to go on, and as I was starting to go on, some blond lady pushed me back. I was standing there with Alicia (Keys), and this woman just, like, really pushed me with all of her might, and then I was so taken aback, I was taken by surprise, and then she pushed Alicia on. I had talked in New York (at a Jan. 19 rally), and I was disappointed. But my talking wasnt the most important thing.

Q: And who was that blonde woman? Was it Madonna?

A: No. (Laughter.) It was just some chick on the stage. I guess she was the director.

Q: What were you going to say at the march that you were prevented from saying?

A: I was going to say the same thing I said in New York, and that is: This is a time unlike any Ive seen in my life. Its frightening, and its with someone who doesnt know and doesnt care how the system works, and its a travesty. So the only thing we can do is show our anger and our disappointment and our discontent by first of all organizing. And thats not enough. You have to take advantage of the organizing, and you have to do something with it. It cant just be energy that doesnt get captured and used.

Q: Whats the next step after organizing, then?

A: You have to vote, and you have to start voting at the bottom levels, and you have to get involved, and there are many organizations to get involved with. And you have to do the grunt work.

Q: Your image popped up at the Oscars this year, and it made me wonder why you havent been in any movies lately.

A: Well, Im about to do a movie about Flint, Michigan, and Im very excited about that. Ive been involved with Flint since pretty much the beginning, so I think this is going to have merit.

Q: It sounds like a Silkwood-type project.

A: Its the same kind of idea. Its like the movie with Julia Roberts I was watching the other night, Erin Brockovich. Its all very much the same kind of idea. Those kinds of things are tied together  when people who have no voice and have no one thats interested in who they are or what they think or what their lives mean. They dont care. Its like the bottom line: How much will it cost to keep doing this thing that is poisoning people? Is it worth it, and will we get away with it? All the things that you dont expect of people that are supposed to take care of you and watch over you. You dont expect them to have no compassion and no empathy or humanity.

Q: Is it because there was no material like this available that you havent done movies in a while?

A: This was just a script that I read, and because one of my close friends is Karen Weaver, who is the mayor of Flint. We got to be good friends, and I wanted to be a part of it. I just got another script, too. So things come to you. And when youre supposed to do them, you do them.

Q: You have something coming to Broadway as well?

A: Right. Jeff Sellers, the producer that did Hamilton, hes producing it. The writer (Rick Elice) is the man who wrote Jersey Boys. So Im very excited about it. I know its going to be different. I think its gong to be unusual, and I think its going to be good.

Q: So how are you going to win a Tony? Is it important to you to get the EGOT  Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony?

A: No, but I really loved being on Broadway (in 1982s Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean). I had a great time on it. The one thing I loved, too, is that you dont have to carry the whole show by yourself, and you dont have to perform for the audience. So I enjoyed that.

I dont know how Im going to win a Tony. I might have to do something else, you know. Ive got some time left. Ive got a little bit of time.
ATLANTIC CITY  A Superior Court judge said he will decide soon whether to block the states overseers from cutting the citys Fire Department to save the city money.

The citys firefighters are suing the state and met for the first time Tuesday in court before Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez. Attorneys for both the citys firefighters and state overseers predicted dire outcomes if the judge doesnt rule in their respective favor, with the union raising public-safety concerns and the state invoking bankruptcy.

Mendez said hed let the arguments cook on my brain and decide in a few days on whether he will block the state from imposing 100 layoffs and other unilateral changes to the unions contract. The union is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state as the first legal challenge to the state takeover of Atlantic City proceeds.

In oral arguments before Mendez, the unions lawyers painted as risky a state proposal to cut the departments staff nearly in half, citing the lack of a public study on how 100 fewer firefighters would affect public safety.

If you dont have enough firemen, people are going to die, said Michael Bukosky, attorney for the union, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 198. You cant do (staffing levels) on a guess.

Ronald Israel, whose law firm is overseeing the city, argued the cuts are necessary to stabilize the citys finances. He said every month that goes by without the cuts will cost the city $375,000.

If we dont have everyone sacrificing, were going to be Detroit, he said, referring to that citys high-profile bankruptcy.

And he warned the state could even dismantle the entire Fire Department and create a regional force under the provisions of the state takeover law.

If we dont get what has been proposed, there will be much direr consequence not only for the city, but the plaintiffs themselves, he said.

State officials took over the citys finances in November through the Municipal Stabilization & Recovery Act, which ultimately gave former U.S. Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa, the states point man in the city, authority to amend or break union contracts, among other powers.

State officials in charge of the citys finances want to cut the Fire Departments staff nearly in half this fall, from 225 to 125, and create a new work schedule and platoon structure to make remaining firefighters work more hours.

In addition, the state wants to cut salaries, eliminate benefits such as terminal leave, switch firefighters to a cheaper health care plan and adjust rules regarding overtime. Those changes were scheduled to take place this month and would save the city $14 million this year and $5 million per year thereafter, according to the state.

Both sides tried to undercut the others argument Tuesday, with the state saying its proposal would have safe staffing levels and the union questioning the severity of the citys fiscal problems.

The state wants to move the department to a three-platoon system where firefighters will work 24-hour shifts followed by two days off. Each platoon would have 39 firefighters, a figure the union said is too low.

But Israel cited records indicating the Fire De-partment had less than 39 firefighters on some shifts, in one instance as low as 29. He said there were just 31 firefighters on Super Bowl Sunday.

I guess they wanted to watch the (New England) Patriots come back, he said.

He also argued layoffs shouldnt even have been before the court Tuesday, saying firefighters wont lose jobs until September when a federal grant paying for 85 of them expires. With the possibility of attrition, he said the question of layoffs is speculative at this time.

Bukosky cited a recent $72 million tax settlement with Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa and conversations with city officials that indicate the city is within $5 million of closing its budget hole with cuts already made and state aid. The citys structural deficit last year was $100 million.

We have not seen the documents from the designee as to the financial reality of Atlantic Citys budget, he said.

In previewing the unions larger case against the takeover, attorney Megan Mechak said the broad powers given to the state may violate the state constitution

That authority has to be tempered by the constitution, she said. They still have to follow the limitations of the constitution.

The city spent $29 million on firefighter personnel costs in 2016, about 12 percent of the citys $240 million budget.

The city has almost $500 million in total debt, and its tax base has dropped from $20 billion to $6.5 billion amid a downturn in the resorts casino market.

The judge crystallized the argument at hand.

Theres no money to go around anymore, Mendez said. So you have to figure out how you maintain public safety and deal with the financial necessities of the city.
NORTHFIELD  Atlantic County is taking steps to overturn the state takeover of Atlantic City and the PILOT bill.

On Tuesday, the county freeholders voted to give County Executive Dennis Levinson authority to find a legal team to sue the state over the constitutionality of the takeover and PILOT, which allows Atlantic City casinos to make fixed payments to the city instead of property taxes for 10 years.

My oath of office is to follow the constitution of New Jersey and of the United States, Levinson said. I think this is very questionable constitutionally.

State moves to change Atlantic City police contracts ATLANTIC CITY  The state moved to unilaterally change union contracts for the citys police

The move does not come as a surprise, as county officials and mayors across the 23 municipalities have been livid over the lack of clarity from the state about the 13.5 percent of the PILOT money the county was promised.

There have also been questions about whether the casinos will stay in the countys tax base under the law.

Atlantic City officials have said they only want to give the county 10.3 percent of the PILOT money, which would result in a $40 million difference in what the county would get over 10 years.

The county also would lose over $3 billion in ratables if the casinos were taken out of the tax base.

Both scenarios would mean dramatic tax increases for county residents, Levinson said.

During a press conference in Atlantic City last year, Gov. Chris Christie promised Levinson the county would get 13.5 percent of the PILOT money.

Its in the legislation. Its part of the bill, Christie said during the press conference. Unlike dealing with (Mayor Guardian), Denny knows that if I say its going to happen, then its going to happen.

But the 13.5 percent promise did not end up being in the final bill  only in the summary.

From the beginning, County Executive Levinson, the freeholder board, and I fought for a fair plan that includes $40 million in property tax relief for all Atlantic County families which Governor Christie promised to honor, only for the governor to now renege and let down our working families who deserve better than broken promises followed by costly lawsuits, Assemblyman Chris Brown, R-Atlantic, said in a statement.

Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, said the PILOT percentages should have been an intergovernmental agreement between Atlantic City and Atlantic County.

"Its a shame that all sides couldnt negotiate in good faith for the benefit of Atlantic Countys hard-working families, seniors and businesses," he said. "What I fear is everyone being locked into a 10-year agreement without taking into account the fluctuating economy of Atlantic City, so that all future percentages are fair to both taxpayers in the city and the county.

Officials disdain over the PILOT Bill was compounded after Boyd Entertainment sold its 50 percent stake in Borgata for $900 million despite the property being valued at $880 million. That deal was made just four days after the PILOT Bill was signed by Christie.

The vote Tuesday was 7-1, with the lone dissenter Ernest Coursey, the only Democrat on the board and the representative of Atlantic City and Pleasantville.

Coursey voted no because he said he did not want to pit the city against the county.

Freeholder James Bertino was out of town and not present for the vote.
AVALON  Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno earned the endorsement of Cape May Countys Repub-licans ahead of multiple challengers, while Under-sheriff Rob Nolan earned the nod to run for sheriff on the party line in the June primaries.

Republican candidates for state and county of-fices gathered Monday night in an attempt to win the support of the county GOP at the partys annual convention.

County party conventions are held in the months prior to the primaries, and committee members conduct a formal vote to decide which candidates the party should endorse.

Cumberland County Republicans will hold their convention Thursday, and the Atlantic County GOP convention will take place March 25. On the Democratic side, Atlantic Countys convention is scheduled for March 19.

Each candidate had the opportunity to address the committee members before the vote, and Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, R-Somerset, whos running for governor, sparred with Guadagno.

I also think what we need is a new message, a new messenger, he told the crowd at Avalon Community Hall. The state of New Jersey does not want a third term. It does not want a third term of the Christie-Guadagno administration.

Im never going to criticize another Republican, Guadagno said. The only thing Jack and I disagree on is raising taxes. He will do that. Read his plan.

Guadagno also attempted to distance herself somewhat from current Gov. Chris Christie.

My job for the last seven years has been to support a governor, she said. I was loyal to him. He did a good job to a point.

And then he lost his way, Guadagno added, saying Christie shouldnt have approved a 23-cent gas-tax increase last year.

When the votes were tallied Monday, Guadagno came out ahead by with 127 to Ciattarellis 23. Joseph Rudy Rullo, a small-business owner from Little Egg Harbor Township, received five votes and Nutley Commissioner Steve Rodgers garnered four.

County Clerk Rita Fulginiti said 213 members of the partys committee were eligible to vote.

The county leans heavily toward the GOP. All five freeholders are Republicans, and in the 2016 presidential election, Donald J. Trump received about 58 percent of the vote compared to about 38 percent for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In the county sheriffs contest, Richard Harron, a former warden at the correctional center, touted his experience and leadership but was unable to win over enough support from the party committee members. They sided with Nolan, who said it would be a smooth transition if he were elected.

The vote was 121 to 44 in favor of Nolan.

Harron will reach out to supporters to determine our next step, according to a Facebook page for his campaign.

Nolans boss, Sheriff Gary Schaffer, announced in December his intention not to run for another term. The department was recently sued by a former employee alleging nepotism and negligence and has come under fire for its interest in entering a controversial agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

All of the other candidates on the ballot were unopposed.

The county party endorsed Mary Gruccio, superintendent of Vineland Public Schools, for state Senate. She hopes to replace incumbent Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic.

Gruccio could not attend the convention because she was recovering from knee surgery.

For state Assembly, the Republicans backed Brian McDowell, who volunteered for Donald Trumps presidential campaign and was a contestant on the third season of the Apprentice, and Cumberland County Freeholder James Sauro.

They will try to unseat Assemblymen Bruce Land and Bob Andrzejczak, both D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, in November.

The county GOP also supported Freeholder Will Morey and Surrogate M. Susan Sheppard in their respective bids for re-election and Freeholder Jeffrey Pierson in his first election after being appointed to serve the remainder of Kristine Gabors term.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP)  A man accused of killing three women was tracked via his cellphone to locations near where at least two of the women's bodies were discovered, according to a court document filed by prosecutors.

The assertions were contained in an affidavit filed in January by an Essex County prosecutor's office detective, seeking a court order to force Khalil Wheeler-Weaver to provide a DNA sample.

The 20-year-old Orange resident was indicted last month for the three murders and the attempted murder, kidnapping and sexual assault of a fourth woman last fall. Through his attorney, he pleaded not guilty in a brief court appearance Monday.

The document contended one of his alleged victims, 33-year-old Joanne Brown, of Newark, called a friend using Wheeler-Weaver's phone after she was seen getting into a car. Her body was found six weeks later in an abandoned house, allegedly where Wheeler-Weaver's cellphone had placed him on the night of her disappearance.

The document also alleged that cellphone data placed Wheeler-Weaver at locations and at times consistent with the death of Sarah Butler, a 20-year-old New Jersey City University student from Montclair.

Butler was reported missing on Nov. 23. Her body was found buried under leaves and debris in a park in nearby West Orange on Dec. 1.

Both women were strangled, according to the affidavit. Brown was found with a jacket tied around her neck and with her mouth and nose covered with duct tape.

Wheeler-Weaver also is charged with killing 19-year-old Philadelphia resident Robin West on Sept. 1 in Orange, an economically struggling city of 33,000 outside New York City. He allegedly started a fire at the vacant house where he dumped her body in an attempt to hide his crime.

Wheeler-Weaver, wearing glasses and a light blue shirt with his hands cuffed behind his back, didn't speak during Monday's proceeding.

When asked whether his office would offer a deal to Wheeler-Weaver, Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Adam Wells said he would be "surprised if he would take a plea that would satisfy us."

Wells stopped short of designating Wheeler-Weaver a serial killer, though he said others might use the term based on their own definition.

Shevelle McPherson, an attorney representing Wheeler-Weaver, said after Monday's hearing that her client "has a lot of family support" from his mother, stepmother and siblings.

"He's remained strong, faithful and confident that we're going to be able to do a good job for him," she said. "He's in a pretty good state of mind considering what the allegations are."
New Jersey hospitals have saved millions of dollars in providing charity care to uninsured patients with help from state and federal funding, but another year of cuts has providers worried about future burdening costs.

The state fiscal 2018 budget will provide $252 million in charity care to be distributed among all acute-care hospitals, a cut of $50 million from last year. More money is being given to hospitals with teaching programs, but providers say its not enough to offset the charity-care deficit.

Betsy Ryan, president and CEO of the New Jersey Hospital Association, said hospitals lean on charity-care funding to provide services for uninsured and underinsured patients.

About 800,000 state residents are at risk of losing all or some health care coverage if there is a repeal of President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act.

We need to keep this vital safety-net program, and those federal dollars, intact as we wait to see what Congress and President (Donald) Trump have planned for the future of health insurance coverage, Ryan said in a statement about Gov. Chris Christies budget proposal.

The nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office rated the proposed Republican American Health Care Act Monday and determined it would result in 14 million people losing Medicaid coverage by 2024.

That is a tremendous human cost, Ryan said Monday. We can expect to see a dramatic spike in charity-care services and a flood of uninsured patients in our emergency rooms.

Charity-care funding has been on the decline since 2014, when it was $675 million. Hospital providers said they took a cut to funding as they anticipated higher insured rates after New Jerseys ACA Medicaid expansion in 2014.

More than 550,000 people became insured through the expansion. There were more than 1.7 million people total on Medicaid in New Jersey as of December, according to the state Department of Medical Assistance and Health Services.

State reports show significant declines in documented charity-care costs at the majority of hospitals since 2013.

David Hughes, chief financial officer at Shore Medical Center in Somers Point, said hospitals saw a decrease in emergency room visits by people who needed treatment with charity care since the ACA and Medicaid expansion.

Still, state hospitals absorb thousands of dollars they dont get repaid for based on charity-care reimbursement rates.

Shore Medical Center is one of few hospitals in South Jersey that will see an increase in its funding. Hughes said the more than $65,000 increase is better than a cut, but the funding is still not enough to cover costs.

Its still terrible, were still paying over a million into funding, Hughes said. More people got coverage, but still, the need doesnt go away.

Like Shore, Southern Ocean Medical Center in Stafford Township will see an increase of nearly $48,000 in charity-care funding, but Cape Regional Medical Center will lose more than $167,000.

Mark Gill, chief financial officer of Cape Regional Health System, said although the reduction is a concern, the hospital will continue to provide the same care for charity-care patients, even as the hospital faces a financial loss of its own in the process.

Hospitals such as AtlantiCare Regional Medical Centers Mainland and City campuses and Inspira Medical Center in Vineland receive funding for Graduate Medical Education programs. Christie has increased funding in this area every year since 2010.

The budget includes $218 million to go to 43 hospitals in the state with teaching programs for interns and residents. New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner Cathleen Bennett said the increased funding aims to grow the states medical schools and expand hospital-based teaching programs.

However, the increased GME funding will not make up for the nearly $1.2 million AtlantiCare will lose in charity-care funding. Inspiras Vineland hospital will see a $1.5 million reduction in charity-care funding but will get more back through GME money.

Christies budget also allocates another $235 million to support the states health care systems.
A powerful and quick-hitting noreaster spared South Jersey from snow but packed a punch in the short time it lasted with heavy rain, strong wind gusts and significant tidal flooding Tuesday morning that closed roads and stranded motorists.

State offices were closed and New Jersey bus transit was suspended as Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency Monday ahead of the storm.

The late-season coastal storm brought as much as 20 inches of snow to northern parts of the state.

But in South Jersey, it was all wet and no white as more than three 3 inches of rain and 60 mph wind gusts made for a miserable day and challenging travel.

Atlantic City Fire Chief Scott Evans reported multiple high-water rescues throughout the city during the high tide late Tuesday morning. One person was rescued from a vehicle on West End Avenue, and another was rescued on Delaware Avenue.

Some streets had about 17 inches of water, Evans estimated.

Many roads were flooded across the area and were forced to close during the morning high tide, including the Black Horse Pike in West Atlantic City, the George Redding Bridge into Wildwood and the Dorset Avenue bridge in Ventnor.

The storm also closed more than a dozen schools throughout South Jersey, most of them in Atlantic County, both along the shore and on the mainland.

Egg Harbor Township was one of few school districts in the area to remain open.

Dave Gehrum, of Mays Landing, decided to stop into the supermarket for a few items after dropping his wife off at work in Atlantic City.

It was just crazy visibility, he said of the drive.

Gehrum said he wasnt surprised but was happy the noreaster only brought rain and wind to the area.

If you dont play in it, theres no use for it, he said.

In Cape May County, the noreaster disrupted life in the Wildwoods, where large waves crashed along the North Wildwood sea wall, spraying water and sand onto John F. Kennedy Boulevard. There was moderate beach erosion, as breakers ate into the dunes.

Most shore towns saw pockets of beach erosion as a result of the coastal storm, including Stone Harbor, whose beaches just finished a replenishment project last week.

In Cumberland County, the main concern was the communities along Delaware Bay.

County officials expected moderate flooding of access roads to places like Money Island, Gandys Beach, Fortescue and East Point, mostly seasonal communities with few year-round residents.

According to the National Weather Service, winds gusted as high as 61 mph in Fortescue Tuesday morning.

On Long Beach Island in Ocean County, winds gusted to 50 mph in Harvey Cedars.

Minor to moderate flooding occurred during the late-morning high tide, but as winds shifted from the northwest as the storm departed, the island experienced no additional flooding.

Likie Nika, owner of Ozzies Luncheonette in Longport, had just two customers after two hours of being open Tuesday, but she was planning to stay open until normal closing time, 3 p.m., in spite of a new leak in her roof.

I figure well get more customers later. And if we make 10 percent of our usual sales today, its better than nothing, Nika said.

Despite the downpours, it could have been worse.

Id rather have this than the snow. Can you imagine? Wed be digging out until May, Nika said.

Staff Writers Claire Lowe, Martin DeAngelis, Lauren Carroll, Christian Hetrick, Tom Barlas and Jack Tomczuk contributed to this report.
The Press of Atlantic City is providing a list of schools, local, county and state office closings for Atlantic, Cape, Cumberland and southern Ocean counties as a result of a noreaster Tuesday that is expected to bring rain, snow, high winds and tidal flooding to South Jersey.

Heres what we have so far:

ATLANTIC COUNTY

 Atlantic City schools are closed.

 Absecon schools closed.

 Atlantic Cape Community College is closed.

 Brigantine public schools will be closed on Tuesday.

 Coastal Living in Northfield is closed.

 Egg Harbor City schools are closed.

 Galloway schools are closed.

 The Hammonton Municipal Courts will be closed Tuesday. All hearings will be rescheduled.

 The WAVE Garage at Mississippi and Fairmount avenues in Atlantic City will provide free overnight parking for city residents and visitors until 8 p.m. Tuesday.

 The four Atlantic County branches of Absecon Bank will open two hours later than usual at 10 a.m. instead of 8 a.m.

 Stockton University is closed.

 Assumption Regional Catholic School is closed.

 Margate Schools are closed.

 Hamilton Township schools are closed.

 Hammonton schools are closed.

 Mullica Township schools closed; Board of Education meeting moved to March 20.

 Pleasantville schools closed.

 Port Republic schools closed.

 Atlantic County Institute of Technology closed.

 Atlantic County Alternative School closed.

 Ventnor schools are closed.

"March Dadness" event canceled: The Coalition for a Safe Community will reschedule its March Dadness event to a later date because of the coastal storm Tuesday. For more information, call 609-965-1034, ext. 123.

CAPE MAY COUNTY

 Ocean City Schools are closed.

 Charter Tech High School is closed.

 Margaret Mace School in North Wildwood is closed.

 Wildwood Schools closed.

CAPE MAY COUNTY

 Bridgeton Municipal Court is closed today.

OCEAN COUNTY

 Thomas Donovan High School, Toms River. Closed.

 Lacey Township Municipal Court. Closed.

 Toms River Regional Schools. Closed.

 Ocean County Vocational School District is closed.

 Little Egg Harbor schools will have an early dismissal Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Facing mounting rank-and-file defiance, Republican leaders and the White House redoubled their efforts Tuesday to muscle legislation overhauling America's health care system through Congress following a sobering report about millions being shoved off insurance coverage.

President Donald Trump, whose strong Election Day showing in GOP regions makes him the party's ultimate Capitol Hill vote wrangler, discussed the legislation by phone with the House's two top Republicans. He also dispatched Vice President Mike Pence and health secretary Tom Price to hear GOP senators' concerns.

With leaders hoping to move the measure through the House next week so the Senate can debate it, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged they were open to changes. Trump's spokesman affirmed a willingness to accept revisions to win support.

"This has never been a take it or leave it," said Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

The GOP bill is the party's response to seven years of promising to repeal President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul. It would undo that law's individual mandate, which requires most people to have coverage, by ending the tax penalty on those who don't.

It would also provide age-based tax credits instead of the subsidies geared to income in Obama's statute, end that law's expansion of Medicaid and curb its future spending, and let insurers boost rates for seniors.

On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office said the Republican legislation would reduce the ranks of the insured by 24 million in a decade, largely by cutting Medicaid recipients and people buying individual policies. That would be more than the 20 million who've gained coverage under Obama's overhaul  and attach a big number to a problem haunting GOP governors and members of Congress whose states have benefited from "Obamacare."

"I plan to vote NO" on the GOP bill, tweeted Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., among a mounting number of Republicans who expressed opposition following the report's release. "As written the plan leaves too many from my #SoFla district uninsured."

Story continues

The budget office report also said the measure would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the next decade, largely by cutting Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, and eliminating Obama's subsidies for low- and middle-income people. The report said that the bill's changes would result in federal subsidies that would fall to half their current size in a decade and that older, lower-earning people would be hit especially hard.

Those findings further energized Democrats, who already were unanimously opposing the GOP repeal effort.

"Of course you can have savings if you cut off millions of people from access to health care," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

Pence and Price discussed the legislation over lunch with GOP senators at the Capitol. Participants said senators suggested targeting the bill's new tax credits more at lower-earning people, improving benefits for seniors and protecting the expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program that helps lower-income people afford care.

McConnell, R-Ky., acknowledged the bill could be reshaped, saying, "It will be open to amendment in the Senate."

Ryan, R-Wis., added on the Fox News Channel, "Of course we want to listen to our members and make improvements to the bill, so long as those improvements don't make the bill harder to pass."

Criticism cascaded from both ends of the GOP political continuum, suggesting leaders face a festering problem.

Freshman Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y., from a closely divided Catskill Mountains district, said he was concerned the bill would hurt hospitals and was undecided about supporting it. He's a member of the House Budget Committee, which is expected to sign off on the bill Thursday in what Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said could be "a bumpier ride" than last week's approval by two other panels.

Citing the bill's projected increase in uninsured people, Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., from another close district, said he opposed the bill. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., said he was leaning no because of people losing coverage, saying of CBO's projections, "If the numbers are in the ballpark, it sounds like we've gone back to where we started after seven years."

Conservatives continued complaining the Republican measure doesn't fully repeal Obama's law, as they and Trump promised in last fall's election campaigns. Their demands include voiding the law's requirement that policies cover 10 specified benefits like mental health services, which they say drives up consumers' costs.

"Ultimately it will be President Trump that saves this deal," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., head of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus.

No. 3 Senate leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he will propose devoting more of the GOP tax credit to lower-earning people. It would currently begin phasing out for people earning $75,000 annually.

"It'd be nice to add it to the House bill, but if necessary it'd be in the Senate," Thune said.

___

AP reporters Alison Noon in Reno, Nevada, Steve Peoples in New York, and Ken Thomas and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.

__

This story has been corrected to show Trump called top Republicans in the House, not Congress.
Its going to be interesting to see how this plays out. ... The Hard Rocks in Florida are non-union and on reservation land.

Rick Ponath

via Facebook

Can Hard Rock culture work

in Atlantic City?

The tides were higher in 62. The ocean actually met the bay!

Bobbie Lackman Keselicka

I cant figure out why people keep rebuilding in the same places that storms will continue to destroy.

Dawn Diamond

via Facebook

Gallery: Look Back

at March Storm of 1962

Are they concerned with the taxation in N.J.? Are they concerned with businesses closing in N.J.?

Joanne Pagano

via Facebook

Hundreds pack GOP congressmans Waretown Town Hall

And still all these crimes are unsolved. What is going on already? These families all deserve closure.

Mona Love

6 Atlantic County homicides

reported in first 9 weeks of 2017

I left my family for eight months at a time in the Navy. Go get it done.

Jason Holmes

via Facebook

Cape fishermen chase scallops

despite risks, trade-offs

People still bet on four legged creatures running around in circles ... unbelievable!

Terrence J. Linder

via Facebook

Residents unsure of off-track betting parlor proposed for EHT restaurant

Great job! Keep up the hard work. It sure has paid off for you.

Jane Laielli

via Facebook

300-pound loss for Buena man encourages him to push on

Time to enact eminent domain laws in that neighborhood and demolish those few rotten residences of ill repute once and for all.

Matthew Talty

via Facebook

Prosecutors Office identifies man killed in Atlantic City shooting Sunday

We will be sure to visit the ice cream parlor when it reopens. Hopefully we will be in town for one of the shows.

Patricia Bocklage

via Facebook

Surflight Theatre, under new ownership, announces summer shows

I dont know how this place lasted this long.

Santos Santos III

via Facebook

Mays Landing hhgregg closing this spring
You can also find all storm related closings and delays here as well.

12:45 p.m. Press Meteorologist Dan Skeldon reports a quick departure of the storm and shifting of winds from northeast to northwest helps drain back bays. No additional flooding expected.

No additional high tides should present flooding.

All Sun National Bank locations were closed Tuesday.

Sleet transitions to light snow as temperatures drop #acpress pic.twitter.com/ZWKXihuDNF  Michael Ein (@ACPressEin) March 14, 2017

12:15 p.m. Vineland Schools cancel all after-school activities and sporting events.

12:05 p.m. The Dorset Avenue bridge in Ventnor been lowered and is reopen to traffic.

Dorset Ave bridge in Ventnor just reopened. Cop car pulled away, first car crossed to Heights.#acpress

,  Martin DeAngelis (@PressBeach) March 14, 2017

11:32 a.m.

Atlantic City is still experiencing flooding, with officials blocking back streets and intersections.

Atlantic City Fire Chief Scott Evans said the city has experienced more flooding than predicted. "Some streets have about 17 to 20 inches of water," Evans said.

Evans reported multiple high water rescues. One person was rescued from their vehicle on West End Avenue and another person was rescued at Delaware Avenue.

Crews have put of traffic barricades at Fairmont Avenue between Texas and Mississipii Avenues, and at West End Avenue.

11:13 a.m.

Rt 30 closed at Delilah westbound.  Atlantic City OEM (@AtlanticCityOEM) March 14, 2017

11:10 a.m. Longport Borough Hall will close at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

We have multiple high water rescues currently on going. Tide is still rising. DO NOT drive thru standing water!! Stay Alert!  Atlantic City FD (@AtlanticCityFD) March 14, 2017

10:50 a.m. The Dorset Avenue bridge and the George Redding Bridge in Wildwood are closed Tuesday morning due to high flood waters. Dorset Avenue is closed from the bridge to the 300 north block.

10:45 a.m. There is a traffic light out in Little Egg Harbor. Little Egg School District announced an early dismissal Tuesday.

Traffic light is broken on corner of Radio Road and Harbourtown Blvd. in Little Egg Harbor. #acpress #stella pic.twitter.com/4mE1wbhdC9  Christian Hetrick (@_Hetrick) March 14, 2017

10 a.m. Flooding in North Wildwood.

9:55 a.m. Egg Harbor Township Police said drivers should avoid Tilton Road near the Garden State Parkway exit and Mill Road near Oakland Avenue due to flooding.

Traffic lights out at the intersection of Fire rd and Black Horse pk in Egg Harbor Township. #acpress @ThePressofAC pic.twitter.com/kEFG8KBCTa  Craig Matthews (@acpressmatthews) March 14, 2017

9:45 a.m. At Hot Bagels in Northfield, Melissa Collins, a cashier, said they like to stay open for customers.

I wasnt surprised at the rain, she said. I feel like it shifted. It was pretty cold. We were keeping an eye on the weather all night. Regardless, we try to stay open for our customers.

Steve McLaughlin was buying breakfast inside for himself and his son, a student at Cedar Creek High School. The school was closed on Tuesday and McLaughlin, of Galloway, said he got the call when they were on their way to the gym.

Egg Harbor Township School District was one of few school districts in the area to remain open Tuesday.

Dave Gehrum of Mays Landing also decided to stop in the supermarket for a few items after dropping his wife off at work in Atlantic City.

It was just crazy visibility, he said of the drive to Atlantic City.

Gehrum said he wasnt surprised, but was happy that the noreaster only brought rain and wind to the area.

If you dont play in it, theres no use for it, Gehrum said.

9:32 a.m. Egg Harbor Township Police are closing the Black Horse Pike in West Atlantic City and diverting traffic on to the Atlantic City Expressway. The road will be closed until at least noon.

Both westbound lanes of the Black Horse Pike in the area of Chapman Ford just east of the Parkway are flooded. Drivers should find alternate routes.

9:30 a.m. The National Weather Service has issued a high wind warning for the area until 4 p.m. Winds from 20 to 30 mph are expected through this afternoon. Gusts up to 60 mph are possible.

9:20 a.m. Long Beach Township Police Captain Chuck Schnell said flooding was minimal as of this morning ahead of high tide.

One area with drainage issues was the corner of 44th street and Long Beach Boulevard, where county workers were getting soaked. Traffic cones closed off a lane there. Water was almost up to the doorstep in front of Davies and DeGennaro Real Estate office.

Bill Davies, a real estate broker there, said county workers are replacing the storm sewer near his office. Theyve already got most of the project done, but havent yet finished the job.

What youve got now is all this storm water coming into the storm drains, but because there isnt pipe for the last third, theres no place for the water to go," Davies said Tuesday morning. So its backing right up into the street.

Most of Long Beach Township has had minimal flooding so far, but this area has drainage issues, police said. https://t.co/EDtWFyQAri  Christian Hetrick (@_Hetrick) March 14, 2017

9:15 a.m.

Traffic signals are out on Fire Road at Black Horse Pike and Washington in EHT @ACPressSkeldon @ACPress_LC

9 a.m. New Jersey State Police reported Tuesday morning that they responded to 80 motor vehicle crashes and 138 aids  flat tires, spins or breakdowns  since midnight across the state.

8:30 a.m.

Surge in Atlantic City rising more sharply last hour. Now up to 2.5 feet with just over an hour until high tide. Already in flood. pic.twitter.com/Emve1clkJz  Dan Skeldon (@ACPressSkeldon) March 14, 2017

Flooding has begun in #StoneHarborNJ #stella This is a combo of heavy rain and tide. pic.twitter.com/8GqnMdaqS1  Zeke Orzech (@Zeke_O) March 14, 2017

8:25 a.m. South Jersey is seeing minimal power outages so far Tuesday morning. There are minor power outages, affecting less than five customers each, in Lower Township, Middle Township, Wildwood and Stafford. There are 105 customers without power in Brigantine.

Roads are starting to flood. According to 511NJ, Route 47 is closed north of West Rio Grande Avenue. Water is starting to collect in most shore towns.

Wrangleboro Road in Galloway is flooded and Central Avenue north and south of JFK Boulevard in Sea Isle City is closed due to flooding.

8:05 a.m.

Woman in Atlantic City uses a trash bag as an umbrella on Ventnor Avenue at 7:45AM @ThePressofAC @ACPressSkeldon #weathercenter #acpress pic.twitter.com/RXyqKATy5e  Viviana Pernot (@ACPressPernot) March 14, 2017

7:45 a.m.

Trish McCabe having a slow morning at Hannah-G's. 'That is horrible out there, that wind.' #acpress pic.twitter.com/BwIwX7Vkdz  Martin DeAngelis (@PressBeach) March 14, 2017

"We've only had one table so far. I guess people just panic" says Trish McCabe Hannah-G's employee of 14 years @ThePressofAC @ACPressSkeldon pic.twitter.com/BHbvVM7Nnb  Viviana Pernot (@ACPressPernot) March 14, 2017

7:30 a.m. More than 3,000 in New Jersey have a power outage. Atlantic City Electric is reporting outages mostly in western areas in Gloucester County.

7:15 a.m. A look at what's going on in Wildwood right now

7:00 a.m

"It's going to be a long day" overheard from a Wildwood public works employee at Wawa @ThePressofAC #stella  Jack Tomczuk (@ACPressTomczuk) March 14, 2017

6:55 a.m. The National Weather Service says the dividing line between snow and a wintry mix from a nor'easter pushing through the southern New Jersey-Pennsylvania region has moved farther inland, cutting down the anticipated snow accumulation, but increasing the chance of icing.

NWS Meteorologist Sarah Johnson, in Mount Holly, New Jersey, says the dividing line between snow and a mix of snow, sleet and rain has pushed west, from the Jersey coast into Philadelphia. She says that lowers anticipated snow totals, but increases the threat of icing from sleet and freezing rain along the Interstate 95 corridor.

While the snow totals might be lower, Johnson warns that New Jersey shore areas can still expect strong winds, with gusts between 50 and 55 mph. The I-95 corridor could get wind gusts of up to 40 mph.

6:45 a.m.

Atlantic City International Airport is reporting no delays or flight cancellations yet.

Atlantic City Electric is reporting a small power outage in north Ocean City at New Castle Road. Crews are on site and power is expected to be restored by 8 a.m.

6:35 a.m.

The rain is coming down sideways eight now and heavy, Wawa not so busy yet #acpress pic.twitter.com/kJBWlqgxOZ  Claire Lowe (@clairelowe) March 14, 2017

North Wildwood Sea wall is holding up so far, at least in this section of it @ThePressofAC pic.twitter.com/82weeKAwu6  Jack Tomczuk (@ACPressTomczuk) March 14, 2017

No flooding (yet) on LBI. Just a lot of wind and rain. #acpress #stella pic.twitter.com/8odYVAgW1i  Christian Hetrick (@_Hetrick) March 14, 2017

6:15 a.m. Expect mostly rain Tuesday, temperatures are in the 40s for much of the area. Philadelphia Airport is seeing heavy cancellations and delays.

6 a.m. NJ Transit's bus service is suspended. The Atlantic City train is running as normal. There is a speed restriction on the Atlantic City Expressway of 35 mph. All local colleges are closed Tuesday due to weather.

The National Weather Service issued high wind warnings for the South Jersey shore for Tuesday for possible gusts as high as 55 to 60 miles-per-hour. Coastal flood warnings were also issued to alert residents to the likelihood of moderate tidal flooding.

The heaviest rain and snow are expected to fall during the morning hours before ending by afternoon, but the strongest winds will continue throughout the day.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dorset Ave bridge in Ventnor just reopened. Cop car pulled away, first car crossed to Heights.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/acpress?src=hash">#acpress</a><br>,</p> Martin DeAngelis (@PressBeach) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressBeach/status/841681186703454208">March 14, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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.




DUBLIN, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Alchemy Utilities Limited, a revolutionary new utility company head quartered in Dublin, Ireland is launching its unique range of complementary technologies at the SEAI Energy Show on April 5th at the RDS Arena. Believed to be the world's first completely sustainable multi-utility company, Alchemy Utilities are specialists in the complex field of waste to synthetic gas production, renewable energy and the conversion of contaminated water into drinking water.

The Global Intellectual Property rights behind the waste to energy, water and gas technologies are to be further enhanced at research facilities based in Dublin and in addition most probably Cork or Limerick where the growing research and development teams will be recruited. The investment in R&D facilities is to support the manufacturing of two new technologies to be produced in Dublin for worldwide distribution. In addition to the suite of technologies at their disposal, Alchemy Utilities are keen to deliver carbon reduction to those service-based companies who have high CSR objectives and are actively in pursuit of projects which can provide such a platform for investment.

Export markets in Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India, South America and Australasia are already showing strong interest and are expected to be the early adopters driven by their need to combat severe shortages of clean water for both drinking and irrigation as well as unstable electricity and energy supplies for manufacturing and food processing. In remote third world countries, Alchemy's products are able to supply off-grid renewable electricity and pure drinking water derived from organic waste and contaminated water supplies. The bi-product of highly nutritious 'bagged organic fertilizer' in pellet form further enhances the value of the technologies' output in world markets.

Alchemy Utilities chose Ireland as its base due to the wealth of agricultural knowledge, expertise and scientific research facilities founded on a strong culture and commitment to best sustainable farming practices. "The commitment in Ireland to sustainable farming is universal within the whole food production chain from start to finish and it is on this solid foundation that we believe we can best sell our leading 'waste' technologies to create a true circular economy throughout the world," said CEO Richard Griffin on his return from Indonesia this week. "The whole of Asia and Australasia offer huge potential and we believe this will be mirrored in the Americas where similar conditions exist. To produce organic fertilizer, clean water and energy all from discarded waste is a compelling solution for every country and Ireland should benefit significantly from the export of these technologies."

Actively working alongside the IDA, Sustainable Nation and KPMG to develop domestic and global markets, the 19th SEAI Energy Show provides a perfect platform for Alchemy Utilities LTD's technology launch. The SEAI Energy Show showcases world leading suppliers of energy efficient and renewable energy products and services from Ireland and Europe.

Notes to Editor:

Photos are available on request

Feature technologies key benefits available on request

SEAI Energy Show Press & Media Schedule available on request

Links:

http://www.alchemyutilities.ie

http://www.lombokpost.net/2017/02/21/awas-investor-php/

https://mataramnews.co.id/mataram-metro/item/7398-ditawaran-investasi-pengolahan-sampah-lagi-kadis-lh-kita-dalami-dulu

http://www.seai.ie/EnergyShow/

SOURCE Alchemy Utilities Ltd
- Banks need to incorporate a five-step approach to improving profitability

- Partnerships with technology disruptors crucial to success

LONDON, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- While only 11% of banking executives expect their financial performance to improve significantly over the next 12 months, the majority of banks (60%) are investing in new customer facing technologies according to the EY Global Banking Outlook 2017.

Managing reputational risk and meeting regulatory compliance and reporting standards were the two priorities for banks overall, showing the continuing need to balance risk management and building tomorrow's growth engine.

The survey of senior executives at almost 300 banks across Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia-Pacific identified two priorities for growth in the sector: recruiting and retaining talent and investing in new customer-facing technology.

Dai Bedford, EY Global Banking & Capital Markets Advisory Leader, says:

"Banks realize that they cannot wait for a return to normalcy to achieve meaningful profitability. The industry must innovate to grow or optimize their business so they can be more efficient while also meeting the needs of regulators."

The report encourages banks to do less, streamlining operating models and partnering with Fintech, blockchain firms and other industry disruptors to deliver better services, and to be relentless in driving out costs and managing risks that help protect the organization.

Karl Meekings, Lead Analyst, Ernst & Young LLP, EY Global Banking & Capital Markets, says:

"The key to success will be building a better ecosystem, not a bigger bank. Institutions must look for alternative ways to be organized and to operate; to have a much thinner spine than they have today."

Banks need to focus on improving five specific areas inside their organizations according to the survey:

Reshape  The banking industry will coalesce around four primary business models: local boutiques, global boutiques, regional champions and universal super banks. Banks must pick one and then restructure operations accordingly. Control  Banks need to strengthen their three lines of defense risk management approach by improving efficiency, strengthening focus on vendor management and creating simpler supply chains. Protect  Banks need to minimize internal and external threats by putting legacy issues in the past and demonstrating they have systems in place to prevent money laundering and financial crime. They also need to prepare for cyber attacks and future outages. Optimize  The operating cost-to-asset ratio for banks has barely moved in the past five years. Banks need to shift to a forward-looking effort to embrace technology and drive "next-generation efficiency" in expense management to make progress. Grow  Banks need to invest in staff and technology to support innovation to defend market share and work to ensure that they remain competitive as customers become more willing to use financial products offered by non-traditional partners.

Bill Schlich, EY Global Banking and Capital Markets Leader, says:

"This report sets an ambitious agenda for global banks in the year ahead. Banks will need to move beyond incremental adjustments, effectively implementing and executing company-wide innovation, even in an uncertain global environment."

To read the full report, visit ey.com/bankingstrategy.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.



EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.



This news release has been issued by EYGM Limited, a member of the global EY organization that also does not provide any services to clients.

About the EY Global Banking Outlook 2017

For this report, 286 banking professionals across the globe were surveyed in November 2016 to provide a review of banks' reported strategic priorities over the next 12 months. The respondents came from 29 different markets. Of the banking professionals surveyed globally, 59% were from EMEIA, 17% from the Americas and 24% from Asia-Pacific.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/128250/ernst___young_better_working_world_logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.ey.com



SOURCE EY
TORONTO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The G10-Rosseau Special Situations Fund (US) LP, managed by Rosseau Asset Management Ltd. of Toronto, earned the top position in 2016 among the 4,099 hedge funds tracked by BarclayHedge with a 156.32% annual return. Rosseau funds also took the second and sixth spots with returns of 155.94% and 128.89%, respectively.

Warren Irwin, President and Chief Investment Officer, is pleased to have Rosseau's achievements recognized by an established industry leader like BarclayHedge. "The strong rebound in the resource sector was very refreshing after years of challenging markets. We spent the downturn focused on finding the best special situations available and were rewarded handsomely for our efforts in 2016." Rosseau's flagship fund, Rosseau LP, was established over 18 years ago and has an average annual compound rate of return since inception of 16.61% to February 28, 2017.

About Rosseau:

Rosseau Asset Management Ltd. (http://www.rosseau.com) is a Toronto-based money management firm that caters to high net worth and institutional investors globally. Rosseau's objective is to maximize long-term capital appreciation through North American special situation and event driven investing, with an emphasis on Canada. A core competency in fundamental research allows Rosseau to identify opportunities in corporate restructurings, turnarounds, bankruptcies, unique growth opportunities and special situations.

Jow Lee, Chief Financial Officer, Tel: +1-(416)-777-0712, jwlee@rosseau.com, http://www.rosseau.com

SOURCE Rosseau Asset Management Ltd.
Dinant sells its products all over the world, generating many millions of dollars in exports for the Honduran economy.Click here for high-resolution version

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS--(Marketwired - March 14, 2017) - Corporacion Dinant has received two prestigious Exporter's Awards in recognition of the company's international success and its contribution to the Honduran economy.

Presented with the awards by the President of Honduras at a ceremony last week in Tegucigalpa, Dinant's Executive President, Miguel Mauricio Facusse, said, "It gives me great pleasure to accept these Exporter's Awards on behalf of the hard-working and talented staff of Corporacion Dinant and Exportadora, our African Palm oil division. I thank President Juan Orlando Hernandez for the awards and for promoting the economic conditions that have enabled Dinant to enjoy considerable success at home and abroad."

Corporacion Dinant won the award for "Best Final Production Diversification" while Exportadora del Atlantico was honored with "Best Exporter to the Rest of the World - Large Companies."

Founded in Tegucigalpa in 1960, Dinant's economic success in Honduras and beyond is enhancing the lives of thousands of families in communities up and down the country who have well-paid sustainable jobs, company pensions and better skills, education and health. Dinant directly employs 7,200 people, supports over 22,000 livelihoods and contributes significantly to local economies throughout Honduras.

Mr. Facusse continued, "Dinant's high quality snacks, cooking oils, processed foods, fruits and vegetables, and home care products are sold not only throughout Central America and the Dominican Republic, but exported in great volume to markets all over the world, including Europe and the United States, thereby generating many millions of dollars in exports for the Honduran economy. These awards are testament to President Juan Orlando Hernandez's vision and policies for propelling the Honduran economy forward, and we are proud to be playing an important role in that."

Thanks to the strength of its brands and the talents of its staff, Dinant is consolidating its share of existing markets, launching exciting products in new markets, and demonstrating its ongoing commitment to the hard working people of Honduras.

Story continues

Mr. Facusse added, "Importantly, our international success is enabling us to pass on more benefits to Honduran society at large through greater investment in environmental protection and community projects."

About Corporacion Dinant

Dinant rigorously benchmarks its operations against stringent international standards regarding the economic, environmental and social impact of its African Palm oil business.

More information is available at www.dinant.com.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/3/14/11G133054/Images/Pepper_farmer-15fc3c0f8d14a2f09a04850de685c347.jpg


Middle East Expert Hadi Allawi Leads Team of Immigration Professionals

SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Berry Appleman & Leiden (BAL) announced today it has officially opened its new regional head office in Dubai. BAL previously announced that Hadi Allawi had been hired as Managing Director, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from the firm's London office. Allawi now manages a UAE-based team of experienced professionals dedicated to immigration matters in the MENA region, and is responsible for the strategic positioning and growth of the firm in the region.

Allawi is a recognized MENA expert specializing in business strategy, intelligence and geopolitical risk analysis across multiple industries. Prior to joining BAL, Allawi led the MENA desk of a London-based specialist advisory firm assisting major multinational companies with operations in the region.

"BAL recognizes the importance of the Middle East to our clients, and it is an exciting time to be able to partner with them in a more direct manner," said BAL managing partner Jeremy Fudge. "Dubai is the starting point for BAL's presence in the region and we expect to expand our footprint in line with demand."

"Clients always expect the highest level of service when working with BAL," said Allawi. "I am delighted to open BAL's first office in the Middle East. As immigration challenges increase in the region, BAL will be optimally positioned to advise on mobility strategies and immigration issues."

"We recognize that the Middle East poses unique challenges best addressed by on-site experts. Hadi and his team understand the nuances of the region's immigration processes and will hone efficiencies and compliance," said Emily King, Managing Director, Europe.

About Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP

Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP was established in 1980 as a corporate immigration law firm. The firm provides comprehensive immigration services from offices in Austin, Boston, Dallas, Dubai, Geneva, Houston, London, Maputo, McLean, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Washington, DC. The firm and its leaders are highly ranked in every major legal publication, including Best Lawyers, Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Martindale Hubbell, The Legal 500, and Who's Who Legal. Non-U.S. offices are operated by affiliated entities in those countries. See website for details. www.balglobal.com

SOURCE Berry Appleman & Leiden
LUND, Sweden, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

BONESUPPORT AB, an emerging leader in innovative injectable bioceramic bone scaffolds to treat bone voids caused by trauma, infection, disease or related surgery, announces that it has extended the term of its U.S. distribution agreement with Zimmer Biomet. Under the agreement, Zimmer Biomet will continue to have exclusive rights for BONESUPPORT's proprietary CERAMENT BONE VOID FILLER product line for Orthopedics, Trauma and Foot and Ankle indications in the United States.

"We are extremely pleased to extend our distribution agreement with Zimmer Biomet," said Richard Davies, CEO of BONESUPPORT. "The partnership has been very successful and has resulted in the current rapid growth of our flagship product, CERAMENT in the world's largest bone graft substitute market. This rapid growth is building an important platform from which we can launch product extensions into the US."

In addition to commercialization of CERAMENT BONE VOID FILLER in the U.S. market, BONESUPPORT is currently enrolling patients into the FORTIFY Clinical Study, an FDA approved IDE randomized control pivotal study for the Company's anti-biotic eluting product CERAMENT G. CERAMENT G is currently approved and commercialized in the EU and other markets outside the United States.

About BONESUPPORT

BONESUPPORT has developed CERAMENT as an innovative range of radiopaque injectable osteoconductive bioceramic products that have a proven ability to heal defects by remodeling to host bone in six to 12 months. Our products are effective in treating patients with fractures and bone voids caused by trauma, infection, disease or related surgery. Our lead product, CERAMENT BONE VOID FILLER (BVF) addresses important issues facing health care providers, such as avoiding hospital readmissions and revision surgery that result from failed bone healing and infection caused by residual bone voids. CERAMENT BVF is commercially available in the U.S., EU, SE Asia and the Middle East.

CERAMENT's distinctive properties as a drug eluting material have been validated in clinical practice by CERAMENT G and CERAMENT V, the first CE-marked injectable antibiotic eluting bone graft substitutes. These products provide local sustained delivery of gentamicin and vancomycin, respectively. The local delivery feature enables an initial high concentration of antibiotics to the bone defect and then a longer sustainable dose above the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) to protect bone healing and promote bone remodeling.

CERAMENT G and CERAMENT V have demonstrated good results in patients with problematic bone infections including osteomyelitis. They are also used prophylactically in patients who are at risk for developing infection. CERAMENT G and CERAMENT V are available in the EU.

BONESUPPORT was founded in 1999 by Prof. Lars Lidgren, an internationally respected scientist who has been the President of various musculoskeletal societies. BONESUPPORT's mission is to improve the lives of patients suffering from bone disorders that cause bone voids, lead to injury, breakage, pain, and reduced quality of life. The Company is based in Lund, Sweden. www.bonesupport.com

BONESUPPORT and CERAMENT are registered trademarks.

Contact Information:



Citigate Dewe Rogerson

David Dible, Andrea Bici, Mark Swallow

+44-(0)-20-7282-2949/1050/2948

bonesupport@citigatedr.co.uk



SOURCE BONESUPPORT
OULU, Finland, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Arctic Europe - Northern Finland, Sweden and Norway - is the 10th largest economical region in the world. The Arctic region can develop into Europe's largest area of investment: from 2016 to 2025 investments in the region can exceed 100 billion euros.

City of Oulu is participating in MIPIM expo together with the two other arctic cities, Lulea and Troms.

- This Arctic Europe collaboration has already bred a new intercity flight route 'Arctic Airlink', increased cooperation between the universities, and created export opportunities to Northern companies. Logistics, research, and business is a cooperation whole, which will showcase the immense potential of the Arctic areas internationally, BusinessOulu's Head of Marketing and Communications, Pauliina Pikkujamsa, believes.

Arctic Europe is the shortest airway to Northern America and Northern Asia from Europe. Arctic Europe gathers together an area under the same brand, where the understanding of the Arctic, world-class know-how, and immense natural resources. Logistics - expanding a Europe-wide transport network, and building an international digital communication cable connection - is also part of the Arctic area's growth potential that is being boosted by nearly 200 billion in investments in the following 10 years.

Oulu, in Northern Finland, is a world-class high-tech city: 2.6 billion people around the world use ICT technology developed in Oulu. The city is not only the fastest growing region in the Nordics, but also has the youngest population in Europe.

Lulea, in Northern Sweden, is the Growth Municipality of the year 2015 as well as the home city of Facebook in Europe. Lulea University of Technology is the international competence center for research in the field of minerology and metallurgy.

Troms, in Northern Norway, is the home of major institutions of Arctic international and national policies. The city is known for its highly skilled workforce in research and development. Troms boasts fast growing industries in space technology, marine resources, tourism and energy/environmental technology.

The stand P-1.K1 in MIPIM features the City of Oulu, Invest in Lapland, Health City, the City of Pudasjarvi, Lukkaroinen, Maikkula Estate, Lehto Group, CubiCasa, GBuilder, Pave Architects, the City of Lulea, Arctic Airlink, Lulea Airport, Treeohotel, Port of Lulea, the City of Troms, and Arctic Center.

SOURCE BusinessOulu
Integrated solution personalizes live engagement across digital touchpoints to help businesses enhance customer experiences and agent productivity

NEW YORK, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CafeX Communications, a leading supplier of mobile and web engagement solutions, announced the availability of CafeX Live Assist for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for public preview. The omni-channel solution is now open for free 30-day trials globally. Watch this video to see how to get started. It is orderable in North America and Europe with expansion slated for Asia and other regions starting later this month. As part of the global launch campaign, CafeX is showcasing Live Assist for Dynamics 365 this week at the eXtreme365 conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

As this video shows, the integrated service offers customers one-click personalized assistance from an agent while browsing a company's website or mobile app. From within Dynamics 365, the agent can provide helpful tips over web chat, see exactly what the customer sees, spotlight important information, as well as share images, links and other relevant content within the customer's application to resolve issues faster with higher online conversion rates.

Along with increased customer satisfaction, this integrated service also helps agents become more productive. An agent can access co-browse, chat and other customer engagement options directly within Unified Service Desk or web clients for Dynamics 365 without switching to a different screen or application. From an administrative viewpoint, deployment and management are streamlined through single sign-on and a unified provisioning flow through Microsoft Office 365.

This integrated solution also creates new business opportunities for Microsoft Partner Network members looking to expand their omni-channel capabilities. CafeX is eager to work with these partners to bring the solution's full power to bear in customer implementations through value-added services.

"Since the initial announcement last October, companies around the world, ranging from top retailers, banks and manufacturers in the Fortune 50 to small businesses next door, have been actively investigating and previewing this immersive solution for digital customer engagement," said Sajeel Hussain, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of strategic partnerships for CafeX. "We continue to explore further areas of synergy between our respective platforms to help enterprises transform in-app customer experiences towards more personalized and intelligent service."

Jujhar Singh, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics 365, said, "Enterprises continue to tell us how critical omni-channel engagement is to the success of their customer experience strategies. Enhancing the customer benefits for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CafeX Live Assist helps businesses engage customers proactively with rich content, while preserving context at each step of the journey."

"Our goal is to help our customers deliver world-class omni-channel experiences. This new integrated offer from CafeX for Microsoft Dynamics 365, combined with our industry and implementation expertise, helps our customers deliver the types of experiences that increase satisfaction, loyalty, and value for their customers," said Michael Strand, senior vice president, Hitachi Solutions.

Businesses can sign up for a free 30-day trial of this omni-channel service via this link. Watch this short video to see how to step through the trial process and order the solution. To request a demonstration of CafeX Live Assist for Dynamics 365 or for more information, please contact CafeX at MSLiveAssistsales@cafex.com.

Supporting Resources

Website: https://liveassistfor365.com/

Get Started Video: https://youtu.be/q49K04Lw_38

Live Assist Brochure

Bringing Omnichannel to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Whitepaper

About CafeX

CafeX makes it easier for companies to enhance live engagement within web and mobile applications. Trusted by many Global 2000 companies, CafeX's award-winning collaboration software operates within the context of business workflows to increase customer satisfaction and workforce productivity. For more information about CafeX, please visit www.cafex.com or follow @CafeXComms.

CafeX Communications and CafeX Live Assist are trademarks of CafeX Communications, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact

Sajeel Hussain

CafeX Communications

+1 (646) 351-0054

shussain@cafex.com

John Stafford

Parallel Communications

+1 (515) 708-1296

jstafford@parallelpr.com

SOURCE CafeX Communications
PEORIA, Illinois, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT; Euronext: CATR) informs its stockholders that on March 9, 2017, in accordance with Section 16(a) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, 19 Forms 4 (the report on Form 4 being a statement of beneficial ownership of its officers, directors and 10% owners) were filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC").

Caterpillar files electronically with the SEC required reports on Form 8-K, Form 10-Q, Form 10-K and Form 11-K; proxy materials; ownership reports for insiders as required by Section 16(a) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended; and registration statements on Forms S-3 and S-8, as necessary; and other forms or reports, as required. All of the forms and reports filed electronically with the SEC are available on the SEC Internet site (www.sec.gov).

Caterpillar also maintains an Internet site (www.Caterpillar.com) and copies of its annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to these reports filed or furnished with the SEC are available free of charge through Caterpillar's Internet site (www.Caterpillar.com/secfilings) as soon as reasonably practicable after the relevant document has been filed with the SEC.

CONTACT: Rachel Potts, Corporate Public Affairs, +1-309-675-6892

This is a disclosure announcement from PR Newswire.

SOURCE Caterpillar Inc.
LONDON, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Circum Minerals Ltd. ("Circum" or the "Company") is pleased to announce they have been advised that their application for a mining license for the World Class, Danakil Potash Project (the "Project") located in the Danakil region of northeastern Ethiopia has been approved by the Council of Ministers of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

The mining agreement (the "License") provides exclusive access over the 4.9 billion tonnes NI 43-101 compliant potassium resource contained within the 365 square kilometers license area for an initial period of 20 years and is renewable indefinitely for further 10 year periods, provided that financial viability continues to be demonstrated.

The License allows the exploitation of potassium-bearing minerals which exist at relatively shallow depths within the vast license area. The minerals will be exploited by solution mining, the lowest risk mining method suitable to this region, and will be processed by crystallization in solar ponds prior to final refining in a process plant. The combination of these techniques, which have already been proven by field trials in the license area, will return operating costs projected to be among the lowest in the global potash industry for both potassium chloride (MOP) and potassium sulphate (SOP).

The award of the License follows the submission of a comprehensive set of pre-requisite data which included a definitive feasibility study, a social and environmental impact assessment (ESIA) and associated management plans and detailed production and financial models.

The Chairman and Co-founder of Circum, Stephen Dattels, commented: "We are delighted that the Ethiopian Government has approved the Mining License for this world class project. This represents a significant milestone for both the Company and the Country. We now have a compelling investment case that supports the development of this project given our discovery and proving of its vast resource, our demonstration of its outstanding financial viability, the successful operation of our solution mine and subsequent production of potash products and most importantly, the strong level of Government support we have been afforded which is demonstrated by the award of the Mining License."

Circum worked very closely with a number of Ethiopian Government Ministries throughout the approval process and is sincerely appreciative of both the engagement and support that has been given to the Project as it has advanced.

About Circum Minerals Ltd.

Circum Minerals Ltd. is a private company focused on the development of a significant potash deposit in the Danakil Basin of Ethiopia. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Circum Minerals Potash Ltd., the Company holds a 100% interest in a mining license covering 365 square kilometers. For more information visit its website at www.circumminerals.com.

For additional information please contact:

Chris Gilchrist

Chief Operating Officer

Circum Minerals Ltd.

Chris.gilchrist@circumminerals.com

+353419883409

Certain statements in this press release are forward looking statements. These forward looking statements are not based on historical facts but rather on management's expectations regarding the Company's future growth, results of operations, future capital and other expenditures, competitive advantages, exploration and development activity and the results of such activity, business prospects and opportunities. Such forward looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and assumptions and are based on information currently available to management. Forward looking statements involve significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward looking statements, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligations to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking information.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/349526/circum_minerals_logo_logo_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://circumminerals.com



SOURCE Circum Minerals Ltd.
embedded world 2017, NUREMBERG, Germany, Mar 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

IAR Systems, a future-proof supplier of software tools and services for embedded development, presents a new version of the state machine design tool IAR Visual State. The new version will be demonstrated in IAR Systems' booth 4-216 at embedded world 2017.

IAR Visual State is a set of tools for designing, testing and implementing embedded applications based on state machines. Developers use IAR Visual State to build their design from a high level, structure complex applications, step by step add functions in detail, and automatically generate code that is 100 percent consistent with the design. This methodology can be extremely helpful when realizing large design projects for embedded applications, for example in the automotive industry. The tools also provide advanced formal verification, analysis and validation to ensure that the applications behave as intended. The updated IAR Visual State, version 8.1, adds several features including variant handling that simplifies large design projects and brings order to the sometimes very large number of design variations that can come from different requirements, for example within different geographic markets or different feature levels.

"The new version of IAR Visual State and the added variant handling feature is a perfect match for customers looking for simplicity and order in their large design projects, especially companies in the automotive industry focused on user interface designs such as car navigation systems and display audio solutions," says Kiyofumi Uemura, Global Automotive Director, IAR Systems.

IAR Visual State can be fully integrated with IAR Embedded Workbench. Using both tools together brings out several unique features such as true state machine debugging directly in the C-SPY debugger in IAR Embedded Workbench. More information about IAR Visual State is available at www.iar.com/vs and in IAR Systems' booth 4-216 at embedded world 2017, March 14-16, in Nuremberg, Germany.

Editor's Note: IAR Systems, IAR Embedded Workbench, IAR Connect, C-SPY, C-RUN, C-STAT, visualSTATE, IAR Visual State, IAR KickStart Kit, I-jet, I-jet Trace, I-scope, IAR Academy, IAR, and the logotype of IAR Systems are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by IAR Systems AB. All other products names are trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact:

IAR Systems contacts

AnnaMaria Tahlen,

Media Relations, IAR Systems

Tel: +46-18-16-78-00

E-mail: annamaria.tahlen@iar.com

Stefan Skarin,

CEO, IAR Systems

Tel: +46-18-16-78-00

E-mail: stefan.skarin@iar.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/iar-systems/r/iar-systems-updates-powerful-state-machine-design-tool-for-simplified-development-of-complex-designs,c2209902

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/386/2209902/640964.pdf PDF http://news.cision.com/iar-systems/i/iar-visual-state,c2095683 IAR Visual State

SOURCE IAR Systems
Combination Will Accelerate the Expansion of Digital Technologies in Landside Container Logistics and Ocean Shipping

PARSIPPANY, New Jersey and ANTWERP, Belgium, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- INTTRA, the world's ocean shipping electronic marketplace, today announced that it has acquired Avantida, the European market leader in empty container management for ocean carriers. Avantida is headquartered in Belgium and currently conducts business in seven European countries.

Enhanced coordination of land and ocean container movements generates efficiencies and reduces costs, and INTTRA's entry into landside container logistics will provide additional value for existing and new customers. Avantida's core business  digitized, automated container reuse and repositioning  addresses a major challenge for ocean carriers, transport companies, terminals, depots, and other stakeholders. Industry experts estimate that empty container positioning costs the ocean shipping industry up to $20 billion a year, approximately 40 percent of handling costs.

"Avantida, an industry leader in digitized container logistics, has products and customer bases that are highly complementary to those of INTTRA. Acquiring Avantida advances our strategy of extending our reach into the intermodal value chain, enabling INTTRA to better serve our customers. With cutting-edge, cloud-based technology and a unique business model, Avantida enhances efficiency and delivers substantial value to carriers, shippers, and other landside transport companies," said INTTRA's CEO, John Fay. "I am very pleased to welcome Avantida's team to the INTTRA family and I am confident that they will continue to execute on their mission supplemented by INTTRA's resources."

"We are excited to join forces with INTTRA," said Luc De Clerck, Avantida's CEO. "Together we can leverage technology innovation to digitize and transform a multi-billion dollar market that is central to global trade. INTTRA's global network will enable us to accelerate product adoption in Europe and around the world. Our combined offering will further benefit numerous stakeholders within and beyond ocean shipping and container logistics, including reducing CO2 emissions and congestion at ports and surrounding communities."

Avantida will operate as an INTTRA-owned company and customers should continue to use the same sales and service contacts.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About INTTRA

INTTRA is the largest neutral electronic transaction software platform and information provider at the center of the ocean shipping industry. INTTRA's innovative products, combined with the scale of our network, empower our customers to trade with multiple parties and leverage ocean industry information to improve their business. Connecting over 225,000 shipping professionals with more than 50 leading carriers and 110 software alliance partners, INTTRA streamlines the ocean trade process. Over 700,000 container orders are initiated on the INTTRA platform each week, representing approximately 25 percent of global ocean container trade.

About Avantida

Avantida is a European technology provider that assists in optimizing the handling of empty containers. The company's reuse and repositioning applications provide actionable information that can minimize miles driven, increase container velocity, lower costs for carriers and transport companies, enable exporters to ship more efficiently, and reduce CO2 emissions as well as congestion at depots, ports and surrounding communities. Avantida's platform currently serves Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

SOURCE INTTRA
GOYANG-SI, South Korea, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- South Korea is one of the world's most exciting and fastest-changing beauty market. Despite the global economic recession, the Korean Beauty industry has been steadily growing at a rate of 9.2%. According to statistics from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), Korea's beauty exports reached from USD 800 million in 2011 to USD 3.9 billion in 2016. K-Beauty's strategies for success and its strengthened competitiveness will be revealed in one place, K-BEAUTY EXPO 2017, which will also provide benchmarking and collaboration opportunities for all participants.

While K-Beauty fever shows no signs of cooling down anytime soon, both big and small companies are eager to increase their footprint in the global market with their quality products. In order to help them grow and accelerate the sound development of Cosmetic Trade relationship, K-BEAUTY EXPO, the biggest beauty trade fair in Korea, has successfully taken place at the largest convention venue, KINTEX, for 8 years, and it has proven itself to be a powerful springboard for efficient marketing of the Asian beauty market, thus attracting exhibitors and visitors from all around the world.

This year, K-BEAUTY EXPO, that is hosted by Gyeonggi-do and organized by KINTEX, will take place from October 12-15, 2017. Improving its strategic business matching program and consulting for both domestic and overseas companies, it will give all participants the chance to explore new business opportunities and learn about the latest beauty trends. They will be able to conduct market research on so-called Hallyu (Korean Wave) consumers, who have taken a leading role in contributing to the market growth.

In order to participate at the expo either as an exhibitor or a buyer, please visit www.k-beautyexpo.co.kr/en or contact K-BEAUTY EXPO 2017 Secretariat (KINTEX) directly at kbeautyexpo@kintex.com.

Yezina Hong (Global Marketing Manager/+82-31-995-8044)

SOURCE KINTEX
SAN DANIELE DEL FRIULI, Italy, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Lima Corporate is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Trabecular Titanium (TT), Lima's proprietary 3D printing technology. This anniversary positions Lima as the pioneer and leading company for 3D printing technologies applied to orthopaedics.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150417/739765 )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478310/LimaCorporate.jpg )

The decision made by Lima Corporate to develop EBM (Electron Beam Melting) technology, or additive manufacturing, was made to help address the functional limits of the coatings applied to traditional prosthetic implants. Lima decided to strengthen a partnership with Arcam to further develop the potential of the TT technology by using Arcam's knowledge and experience with 3D printing in other industries.

"We are very proud to support Lima on their impressive additive manufacturing journey. As a pioneer of additive manufacturing, Lima has taken the lead in transforming the orthopaedic industry and thereby transforming Arcam," said Magnus Rene, CEO of Arcam.

"Lima is instrumental in Arcam's development as a major supplier of EBM-based manufacturing equipment and metal powders for additive manufacturing in orthopaedics."

As a result of this partnership, Lima began with the acquisition of the first machines and the production of prototypes to study the effects of a material that could potentially mimic trabecular bone.

This experience with Trabecular Titanium highlighted the impressive versatility of the technology. The geometries that can be produced with EBM technology immediately revealed that the new material exceeded the limits of traditional machining production processes.

In 2007, the first acetabular cup, the Lima Delta TT Cup, was born with the objective to satisfy the demands of surgeons for better implant performance and outcomes; after obtaining the CE mark, the Delta TT Cup was implanted for the first time in Italy and since then it has been available in the global market. Following this experience over the past 10 years, Lima has developed a product portfolio covering different anatomical areas from hip to extremities as well as tailored solutions for patient-specific needs utilizing TT.

"Lima is known for innovation and our focus on pre-clinical and clinical research to support innovation. This milestone is a great recognition for Lima and our supporting surgeons that believed in this technology 10 years ago and have continued this exciting path with us. From this innovation to many others, Lima will continue to grow and develop solutions to assist orthopaedic surgeons in restarting the emotion of motion" said Mr. Luigi Ferrari, Lima Corporate CEO.



About Lima Corporate

Lima Corporate is a global medical device company providing reconstructive orthopaedic solutions to surgeons who face the challenges of improving the quality of life of their patients. Based in Italy, Lima Corporate is committed to the development of innovative products and procedures to enable surgeons to select ideal solution for every individual patient. Lima Corporate's product range includes large joint revision and primary implants and complete extremities solutions including fixation.

For additional information on the Company, please visit http://www.limacorporate.com.

https://www.limacorporate.com/repo/transfers/13/Lima_Corporate_Press_Release_TT_FINAL_EN_ITA.pdf

Limacorporate spa

Via Nazionale, 52

33038 Villanova di San Daniele

Udine - Italy

t: +39-0432-945511

e.: info@limacorporate.com

http://www.limacorporate.com



SOURCE Limacorporate SpA
FLORENCE, Italy, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Menarini Group has consolidated its presence in Latin America with new affiliates in Colombia and Peru. Both countries have emerging economies which offer the company opportunities for market expansion with its high-quality, made-in-Italy pharmaceuticals.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478482/Alberto_Giovanni_Aleotti.jpg )



(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478483/The_Menarini_Group_Logo.jpg )



"We are enthusiastic about increasing our presence in Latin America with the opening of our branches in Peru and Colombia, strategic countries where Menarini has decided to strengthen its commitment to guarantee that patients have access to extremely high-quality medicinal products manufactured at our 15 Menarini sites," explained Alberto Giovanni Aleotti, Vice Chairman of the Menarini Group. "This," he added, "represents a stepping stone for international growth of the Group, which is currently present in over 130 countries, with its presence in the USA being a particularly notable success."

The Menarini Group has a global annual turnover of  3.46 billion.

2017 opens with a new challenge for the Italian company which is specialised in medicinal products for pain relief and cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive tract and urological treatment and research and development into new cancer treatments.

Colombia, a country with a population of over 47 million, is among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of the amount of direct foreign investment it receives, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). On 9 March, Menarini inaugurated its new office in Bogota, where 40 people are now employed. The inauguration event was held at the Italian Embassy with Italian Ambassador Caterina Bertolini.

On 7 March, with an event held at the Lima Art Museum, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Menarini in Peru with Italian Ambassador Mauro Marsili was celebrated, which currently has 30 employees.

The first Menarini branch in Latin America was opened 38 years ago in Guatemala, and in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize. In these Central American countries and in the Caribbean, Menarini recorded an increase of 11% in the turnover for 2015, equal to  93 million for the year. The Italian company has also had a direct presence in Mexico since 2009, and through its distributors in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, offering work to almost 600 employees and in constant growth.

More information at http://www.menarini.com

SOURCE Menarini
PORTLAND, Oregon and PUNE, India, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, "Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) Market : Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2014 - 2022," the global MEMS market was valued at $13.0 billion in 2015, and is expected to reach $26.8 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 11.1% from 2016 to 2022. In 2015, Asia-Pacific contributed major share in the market, and is projected to continue its dominance throughout the forecast period.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 )



Summary of the Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) Market Report can be accessed on the website at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/micro-electromechanical-systems-MEMS-market

MEMS are micrometer-scale devices that integrate electrical and mechanical elements. The global MEMS market is expected to witness high growth rate during the forecast period, owing to high usage in smartphones, major growth in portable electronic market and increase in popularity of Internet of Things (IoT), and robust demand in automation industry. Further, emerging trend of wearable devices, connected cars, smart watches, connected homes, and others are expected to offer new opportunities for market growth.

Consumer electronics was the foremost industry in 2015, and is expected to continue its lead, in terms of market size, in the future as well. Further, automotive and industrial are other lucrative sectors in the MEMS market. Increase in safety concerns and regulatory requirements have driven the growth of this market.

The market is classified based on type into sensors and actuators. Sensors held the largest market share in 2015 owing to the extensive use of gyroscope, accelerometer, and pressure sensor in smartphones, wearable devices, cars, and various medical devices.

Asia-Pacific generated the highest revenue in this market, followed by North America and Europe. China held over 45% revenue share of the overall Asia-Pacific market, due to growth of automobile and consumer electronics segment. Further, LAMEA is expected to witness considerable growth rate during the forecast period, owing to localization of manufacturing facilities within emerging consumer electronics market.

"The MEMS industry is undergoing rapid change as the electronics industry is shifting its focus from traditional sensors to MEMS technology. Furthermore, the thriving portable electronic market and increasing popularity of Internet of Things (IoT) are expected to drive the demand for MEMS devices in various applications such as smartphones, wearable devices, connected cares, and medical devices." states Bhawna Kohli, Sr. Manager, Semiconductor and Electronics at Allied Market Research.

Connect to Research Analyst: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/connect-to-analyst/1936

The MEMS industry displays fair degree of consolidation, with top five industry participants occupying a significant market share. Robert Bosch, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments are few of the leading companies in this industry. Other key players in the industry include Denso Corporation, Avago Technologies, Freescale Semiconductor, and Analog devices, Inc. These players have adopted product launches, expansions, acquisitions, partnerships, and agreements as their key strategies to strengthen their market position and expand their geographical presence.

Check offers and discount on Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) Market Report:

https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/get-discount/1936

Key findings of the study

In 2015, sensors segment accounted for maximum revenue, with over 50% share, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.7% during the forecast period

Inertial combos is projected to grow at a CAGR of 13.3%, owing to increase in application of these sensors in smartphones, tablets, and cars.

Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit the highest CAGR of over 12.2%.

is anticipated to exhibit the highest CAGR of over 12.2%. China is projected to maintain its lead in the MEMS market, in terms of revenue generation, until 2022.

is projected to maintain its lead in the MEMS market, in terms of revenue generation, until 2022. Consumer electronics aand automotive contributed a significant revenue share in the overall market in 2015.

Summary of similar reports can be viewed at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/semiconductor-and-electronics/electronic-systems-and-devices-market-report

About Us:

Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

Contact:

Rahul Thakur

5933 NE Win Sivers Drive

#205, Portland, OR 97220

United States

Toll Free : +1-800-792-5285

UK : + 44-845-528-1300

Hong Kong : + 852-301-84916

India (Pune) : +91-20-66346060

Fax : +1-855-550-5975

help@alliedmarketresearch.com



Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com

SOURCE Allied Market Research
Sapho brings actionable data, insights and tasks to employees using Microsoft Teams to improve productivity and decision-making

SAN BRUNO, California, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Sapho announced its integration with Microsoft Teams to provide employees access to personalized and relevant information and workflows that will help them work smarter, make better decisions and increase effectiveness. Sapho allows organizations to build secure, single purpose 'micro apps' on top of enterprise systems  both legacy and modern  that deliver actionable data, insights and tasks to employees. This integration enables Teams customers to deliver employees these one-click tasks and important updates, ranging from an expense approval or sales PO to a personalized dashboard, in the Teams view.

Based on a recent study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sapho, 75 percent of employees said they have a hard time accessing information in their enterprise systems, while 74 percent crave access to personalized and relevant data.1 Sapho is addressing employees' needs by proactively delivering relevant data and task before they have to search for it. With the general availability of Teams, Sapho adds a new channel that acts as a single system of engagement for employees that brings systems data, tasks, and colleagues together to triple productivity and collaborate in new ways.

"No company understands the enterprise better than Microsoft, and Microsoft Teams can benefit companies that want to deliver a chat-based workspace across their entire organization, not just in smaller groups," said Fouad ElNaggar, CEO and co-founder of Sapho. "With Microsoft building Teams on the Office 365 global, secure cloud, Teams becomes a key channel for Sapho to deliver micro apps that are built on on-premises systems such as SAP ERP and data warehouses such as Teradata. Employees typically have to log into dozens of systems of record per year on average, and this integration brings together those systems directly in the Teams view, creating a powerful system of engagement that truly makes organizations more effective."

"By integrating with Microsoft Teams, the new chat-based workspace in Office 365, Sapho is contributing to our vision for changing the way employees get work done," said Brian MacDonald, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Teams at Microsoft Corp. "Sapho will allow our customers to harness the full value of Teams by surfacing updates and actionable activities from all of their systems of record into a single Teams view. We're excited to have Sapho help our customers improve their collaboration and productivity."

This integration with Teams reinforces Sapho's omnichannel approach, which allows customers to deliver important information and tasks to users wherever they are, whether in a messaging client like Teams, an intranet portal like Microsoft SharePoint, an email client or browser, or a mobile or desktop device.

______________________________

1 Accelerate Digital Transformation With Simplified Business Apps, an August 2016 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sapho.

About Sapho

Sapho triples employee productivity with a system of engagement that modernizes enterprise applications to accelerate the speed of business. As the industry's first micro app platform, Sapho enables organizations to build secure, single purpose apps that provide employees actionable data, insights, and tasks from all of their systems. Employees benefit from proactive notifications, updates, and one-click task completion from any device, browser, intranet, email, or messaging client. Sapho is used by customers in all industries to improve their internal workflows and increase employee effectiveness and productivity. Sapho was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in San Bruno, CA. For more information, visit www.sapho.com.

For Media Inquiries Please Contact:

InkHouse Media & Marketing

Sapho@inkhouse.com

Related Links

http://www.sapho.com



SOURCE Sapho
SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The global sterilization equipment market is expected to reach USD 9.8 billion by 2025, according to a new study by Grand View Research Inc. Increasing number of hospital stays and growing awareness amongst the patient population regarding hospital-acquired infections (HAI) are propelling the market growth at a global level. Sterilization of medical devices is significant in order to prevent the spread of diseases such as AIDS.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 )



Furthermore, proper sterilization of medical devices also prevents additional surgeries required to treat infections caused by the use of unsterilized devices, thus reducing cost and life-threatening complications. According to various research studies and statistics, sterilization shows almost 100% effective results with the least rate of contamination in hospitals and other medical institutions.



Browse full research report with TOC on"Sterilization Equipment Market Analysis By Technique (Heat, Low Temperature, Filtration, Radiation, Liquid), By End Use (Hospitals, Pharmaceutical, Medical Devices, Clinical Laboratories), And Segment Forecasts, 2014 - 2025" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/sterilization-equipment-market



Further key findings from the report suggest:

Heat sterilization technique dominated the overall market in 2015, as it is the most widely used method for the sterilization of maximum medical equipment

In addition, glassware such as flasks, petri dishes, pipette, burette, and glass syringes are the most compatible with heat sterilization

Low-temperature sterilization is anticipated to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period since the technique is used to sterilize heat-sensitive and moisture-sensitive loads with high efficiency as it destroys even the microorganisms

Hospitals segment occupied the largest share in 2014. The segment is also expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period as most of the medical equipment find its application in hospitals.

North America dominated the segment with the largest revenue share in 2015 due to greater technological advancement, growing awareness, and highly developed healthcare infrastructure.

dominated the segment with the largest revenue share in 2015 due to greater technological advancement, growing awareness, and highly developed healthcare infrastructure. Increasing number of surgical procedures in hospitals is aggressively propelling the demand for sterilization equipment in North America , which is expected to boost the growth in North America

, which is expected to boost the growth in Asia Pacific is anticipated to show a significant growth during the forecast period, mainly due to increasing government initiatives, large pool of patient population, and increasing incidence of hospital-acquired infections

is anticipated to show a significant growth during the forecast period, mainly due to increasing government initiatives, large pool of patient population, and increasing incidence of hospital-acquired infections Some of the major companies operating in this market are STERIS plc; Getinge AB, Advanced Sterilization Products Services, Inc.; 3M; Belimed; Cantel Medical; MATACHANA GROUP; Sterigenics International LLC; and TSO 3 .

Browse related reports by Grand View Research:

Intravenous Iron Drugs Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/intravenous-iron-drugs-market

Foot And Ankle Devices Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/foot-and-ankle-devices-market

Orthopaedic Bracing Devices Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/orthopaedic-bracing-devices-market

Trauma Devices Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/trauma-devices-market

Grand View Research has segmented the sterilization equipment market on the basis of technique, end use, and region:

Sterilization equipment Technique Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Heat sterilization Low-temperature sterilization Filtration sterilization Radiation sterilization Liquid sterilization

Sterilization equipment End-user Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Hospitals Pharmaceutical companies Medical devices companies Clinical laboratories/research centers Others

Sterilization equipment Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany UK Asia Pacific China Japan Latin America Brazil Mexico MEA South Africa



Read Our Blog: Sterilization Equipment Market: Countering Spread of Infections Amongst Patients

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

Contact:

Sherry James

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc

Phone: 1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com



Web: http://www.grandviewresearch.com

SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc.
LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Telehouse, a leading global provider of data centre services, today announced the launch of Telehouse Cloud Link, a connectivity exchange that provides its customers with private, secure and low latency connections to multiple cloud service providers. The new Cloud Link service is officially available from April 2017 with one of the leading cloud connectivity services, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, through a direct connection in the Telehouse London Docklands campus. Telehouse customers benefit from the ability to procure and manage connections in real time through the dedicated Cloud Link online portal.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478270/Telehouse_Logo.jpg )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478269/Telehouse_Cloud_Link.jpg )

Telehouse's collaboration with Microsoft allows enterprises, and their IT infrastructure partners to seamlessly provision and manage private connections to Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365 using a dedicated and predictable connection. The availability of Microsoft ExpressRoute further enhances the connectivity available at Telehouse London Docklands, already the most connected campus in Europe, making it the ideal environment for enterprises and service providers to build their hybrid IT solutions, and for cloud providers to host part of their infrastructure.

Telehouse customers can provision connections instantly through the online portal, and can scale bandwidth as their business demands. The dedicated IT Operations Centre provides a single point of contact to support our customers' needs 24/7. Additional cloud service providers are expected to be added to Cloud Link in the near future and this ability to connect to multiple clouds through a single source removes the complexity of traditional network procurement.

Businesses are demanding private and secure connections to the cloud to ensure optimal performance and scalability. According to publisher Data Economy, the rapid adoption of cloud services worldwide has driven the market to grow 25 percent year-on-year and to reach $148 billion in operator and vendor revenues[1] .

Michelle Reid, Sales and Marketing Director of Telehouse Europe said: "We are delighted to support the rapid growth in enterprise cloud adoption with our new Cloud Link service and to collaborate with Microsoft to deliver its cloud connectivity service to our customers via a secure, private connection. Cloud Link demonstrates Telehouse's ability to offer a highly interconnected infrastructure within its data centres, from which businesses can access new services and grow."

"The cloud is driving transformation through new business models, global expansion and accelerated innovation," said Ross Ortega, Partner PM, Microsoft Azure at Microsoft Corp. "We are pleased to team with Telehouse to enhance the experience of our mutual customers."

To learn more about Telehouse, visit http://www.telehouse.net. For all of our latest news follow us on Twitter via @TelehouseEurope or find our Telehouse Europe LinkedIn company page.

References:

Data Economy https://data-economy.com/cloud-nets-148bn-2016/

About Telehouse

Telehouse is the pioneering data centre colocation provider established in 1989. It is an owner operator of global data centres, connectivity and managed ICT solutions to over 3000 corporations around the world. Telehouse is the data centre subsidiary of Japanese corporation KDDI, a leading Japanese mobile and fixed-line telecommunications and ICT solution provider with 106 offices in 28 countries around the world and a Global Fortune company.

Further Telehouse press information: marketing@uk.telehouse.net

Contact: James Davies, james.davies@uk.telehouse.net

SOURCE Telehouse Europe
MANAMA, Bahrain, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Supreme Council for Women , Bahrain:

The Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa's Global Award for Women Empowerment was launched at the United National headquarters following ten years of its hugely successful application at the national level.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478421/Princess_Sabeeka.jpg )



The Kingdom of Bahrain offers its higly commendable expertise through this award after a decade of successful application at the national level yielded positive results in harmony with the goals and objectives of the national award.

The award today is qualified to be endorsed at the global level to encourage national efforts in the UN members countries aimed to empower women and to activate their role as equal partners in pushing the wheel of comprehensive sustainable development and to provide opportunity for international public recognition of the accomplishments of establishments and individuals in women empowerment arena, optimizing the positive effect of policies on the inclusion of women's needs in development and achievement of equal opportunities to advance women status, spread the message to the world, launched from Bahrain, which was selected as the Capital of Arab Women for this year, symbolizing the significant role of women in development and its effect in achievement of community-wide stability.

The award aims to stimulate and encourage official and private establishments and the civil society as well as individuals to achieve the components of excellence, leadership through effective efforts and sustainability to achieve stability, socio-economic, political empowerment for women and their participation in decision-making process for advancement of the society.

The award aims will be allocated in three categories to distribute prizes to the winners, $100,000 to each category. The award also aims to pinpoint the importance and the effect of states, authorities, institutions through their legislative and private and public executive bodies commitment to the policy of non-discrimination against women, achieveme4nt of equal opportunities for both women and men at all levels, showcasing the significance of collective and individual private and public efforts, initiatives, projects geared towards the inclusion of women's needs in creating positive transformation in their status to attain more stable and productive living. The award also encourages the adoption of policies to achieve the effect of sustainable development to become of an added-value within the frame of the family and the society, stimulate the communities to think and work creatively for women empowerment to achieve more socio-economic, political and familial stability and security for women and their families.

This originally local award since it was launched has achieved a high percentage of women's presence in the public establishments from 38% in 20016 and reached 49% of the total workforce in the public sector in 2016 that constitutes an increase by 29%.

Bahraini women's presence in private sector establishments has risen from 24% to 33% of the total workforce in the private sector that constitutes an increase by 37.5%.

National efforts resulted in the Kingdom of Bahrain's ranking as the second top nation in the MENA-OECD economic development index2013. Bahrain has the second most ratio of women ministers among the MENA-OECD countries. Bahraini women achieved the highest percentage of women participation in the public sector's top administrative echelons attaining 54% and 59% in the middle levels. The increased participation in the award has achieved clearly good impact in the culture of the institutions and their disposition to adopt favorable policies for the inclusion of women in sustainable development and equal opportunities for them. The number of participating entities increased from 30 participating entities in 2006 to 67 participating entities in 2016 which constitutes an increase by 123%.

SOURCE Supreme Council for Women
TREW, Elektor Launch Survey to Help Tech Companies Market to Engineers

NURNBERG, Germany, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at Embedded World 2017, TREW Marketing announced the company's CEO and Co-Founder, Rebecca Geier, will present key insights from new research the company is launching to help organizations better market to engineers. The talks are on Tuesday and Wednesday at 16.00 and Thursday at 15.00 in conjunction with Elektor International Media at the Elektor stand, 646 Hall 4A. To sign up to attend one of the daily presentations and free happy hour, register here.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/477407/Rebecca_Geier_TREW_Marketing.jpg

At Embedded World 2017, Rebecca Geier, TREW Marketing CEO and Co-Founder, will present key insights from new research the company is launching to help organizations better market to engineers. The talks are Tuesday and Wednesday at 16.00 and Thursday at 15.00 (14-16 March) in the Elektor stand, 646 Hall 4A. Register to attend at www.messe-ticket.de/Nuernberg/EmbeddedWorld2017/Register (PRNewsFoto/TREW Marketing)

Experts in Marketing to Engineers and Scientists with Successful Inbound Approach

Rebecca and TREW co-founder Wendy Covey lead TREW Marketing, a successful marketing firm based in Austin, Texas focused specifically on marketing to engineers and scientists. The founders were named by The Wall Street Journal among the Ten Most Innovative Entrepreneurs in America, and Rebecca's recent book, Smart Marketing for Engineers helps companies around the world effectively market to technical audiences using a modern, inbound marketing approach. TREW Marketing brings this experience, along with new data specifically from engineers and scientists in the UK and Europe, to attendees of Embedded World.

"Increasingly in the UK and Europe, the engineering buyer is searching online for content and building brand consideration for future purchases. This means businesses need to get found, grow, and connect their companies online," said Geier. "To drive marketing ROI, companies need to know where and how to shift resources by understanding the changing behaviors of prospects, such as the types and sources of content they most value, their online and search preferences, and when sales should engage."

New Data and Marketing Best Practices at Embedded World

In early 2017, TREW Marketing and Elektor sought to learn from engineers and scientists in the UK and Europe about their content, online search, and buying preferences in industries such as manufacturing, consumer electronics, aerospace/defense, and automotive. Preliminary findings from the survey include:

Engineers in Europe  similar to their peers in the U.S.  view search engines and vendor websites as the most valued content sources to use when seeking information for their job

 similar to their peers in the U.S.  view search engines and vendor websites as the most valued content sources to use when seeking information for their job 87% of engineers in Europe indicate they are more likely to do business with a company that regularly produces new and current content

indicate they are more likely to do business with a company that regularly produces new and current content 88% of engineers in Europe prefer to search online on multiple vendors' websites and read available information before talking to sales

Other findings include data that will help companies understand:

How many pages deep engineers will go in their search queries to find the right information

What personal information engineers are willing to give on lead forms

How and when engineers expect companies to respond after they complete a lead form

Rebecca will present this information and more at Embedded World. To attend, sign up at www.messe-ticket.de/Nuernberg/EmbeddedWorld2017/Register and visit the Elektor stand, 646 Hall 4A, at:

16.00 Tuesday 14 March

16.00 Wednesday 15 March

15.00 Thursday 16 March

Engineer or Scientist in Europe? Give Your Opinion, Get Better Information, Win 50,00

The research goes two ways. While the data helps companies learn how to better reach engineers, it also gives engineers the opportunity to voice how they want to be reached with marketing. Engineers make critical purchase decisions that involve interacting with vendors and salespeople, and by completing the survey, they can influence the content companies create for them and the way companies interact with them. Ultimately, the data helps companies get the right information to engineers through the most meaningful engagements.

Engineers can complete the survey here: http://bit.ly/elektor2017.

A full report with final survey data will be published in late Spring 2017.

About TREW Marketing

TREW Marketing headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a full-service marketing firm uniquely serving B2B companies in North American and Europe that target technical markets. With extensive research and deep experience in the embedded, control and automation, test and measurement, and technology industries, TREW Marketing provides full-service marketing services from strategic marketing planning and brand positioning & messaging to content marketing, web redesign, and ongoing execution services that help customers efficiently and effectively achieve their business goals. For teams looking to do marketing in-house, TREW senior staff lead onsite marketing workshops customized to each company's specific needs.

About EIM

Elektor International Media (EIM) publishes Elektor Business, a new European platform for homelabs, startups, and small electronics companies to help them grow and expand their business activities. Elektor Business Magazine (EBM) is published simultaneously in English and German, the two main languages in the world when professionals start talking electronics. Each edition aims to offer electronics engineers information and insights into the latest products from the industry and research institutions. With their contributed content added to editorial contributions like Talking Heads and Infographics, EBM covers this three-station route towards professional electronics: Homelab --> Startup --> Trade.

Contact: morgan@trewmarketing.com

Website: trewmarketing.com

Related Links

https://www.trewmarketing.com



SOURCE TREW Marketing
MANCHESTER, England and DORTMUND, Germany, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Customers are crying out for vendor relationships they trust to support their complex airport operations

In a market that is now evolving more rapidly than at any time in the last 20 years, Ultra Electronics Airport Systems und Materna continue to strengthen their partnership in the field of Airport Operations and Passenger Processing Systems.

As the airport IT market diverges, requiring a broad range of technologies in the passenger processing space concurrently with operations systems capable of delivering efficiency in complex terminal environments, the vendor challenge is to deliver excellence in both fields. Ultra and Materna's solution to the market challenge is collaboration, not competition.

Ultra Electronics - already recognized as the leader in Airport Operational Systems - will invest further in this product suite, and the business process expertise within the organization. Simultaneously, their highly successful cloud-based, Baggage Management System will be offered as the industry solution to IATA's Resolution 753.

Materna, pioneers in self-service kiosks and automated bag drop solutions, have integrated the UltraCUSE (CUPPS) platform to expand their Passenger Processing capability. This enables a single, harmonized environment for Materna's entire set of Passenger Processing technologies: from agent-facing (CUPPS); to passenger self-service (CUSS and SBD). Moreover, Materna will lead further developments and application certifications for all Passenger Processing solutions.

Sebastien Jodeau, Managing Director for Ultra, confirms that "Airports and airlines are increasingly frustrated with the implementation of airport technologies. You have to draw the conclusion that the current vendor approaches are not delivering the solutions that airports need. We believe that our collaboration offers a better way to implement business solutions that actually improve airport processes and efficiency".

Individually, Ultra and Materna are already recognized as offering business solutions to the industry, not simply products alone. Together, they will now offer their customer community the full breadth of Airport Operations and Passenger Processing expertise - whilst retaining a single contractual relationship and a common service approach - giving customers quality and choice.

Gary McDonald, President, North America at Materna Inc., said "Materna shares with Ultra a common culture of engineering excellence, a commitment to service quality, and to forging deep and strategic relationships with selected customers. We have invested in the partnership with Ultra and the market response has been amazing. Customers are crying out for a vendor relationship they trust to support their complex airport operations".

Both Materna and Ultra will be at the Passenger Terminal EXPO in Amsterdam, 14-16 March 2017 and welcome customers to their respective stands who want to know more about the opportunities that collaboration presents.

About Ultra Electronics Airport Systems

Ultra Electronics Airport Systems is a global provider of transportation infrastructure operational performance systems. Its wide ranging portfolio of operational, passenger, baggage and business intelligence solutions is underpinned with a comprehensive suite of services for systems integration and managed service provision.

About Materna

Under the brand Materna ips (Integrated Passenger Services) and as one of the most well-known suppliers for airports and airlines worldwide, Materna delivers solutions for automated passenger handling at airports. In addition to the European market, Materna's Integrated Passenger Services portfolio also focuses on the North-American market, with its own subsidiary in Orlando, Florida, and on the Asian market.

Enquiries:



Paul Drury, VP, Americas

Ultra Electronics

+1-941-928-0046

paul.drury@ultra-as.com

www.ultra-as.com



Christine Siepe

Materna

+49-231-5599-168

Christine.Siepe@Materna.de

www.materna-ips.com



SOURCE Materna GmbH
IRVINE, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Netwrix Corporation, the first vendor to introduce a visibility and governance platform for hybrid cloud security, is pleased to announce the six winners of the 2017 SysAdmin Blog Awards. The awards, which are run by SysAdmin Magazine, recognize the brightest and most tech-savvy blogs for their expertise in the IT field and their commitment to raising awareness about IT trends among industry professionals.

The winners were determined by SysAdmin Magazine's editorial team based on feedback from readers, the regularity of blog posts and the variety of topics covered. They will receive prizes from SysAdmin Magazine  Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headsets.

Here are the winners of the 2017 SysAdmin Blog Awards:

Best Cloud Computing Blog

CloudTweaks, https://cloudtweaks.com/ Best IT Security Blog

Graham Cluley , https://www.grahamcluley.com Best Tech Tips for System Administrators Blog

Adam Fowler  I.T. from Australia , https://www.adamfowlerit.com/ Most Humorous Blog

FailDesk, http://faildesk.net/ 24/7 Tech Support Blog

Not Always Right, https://notalwaysright.com/ IT Career Blog

Robert Half Technology Blog, https://www.roberthalf.com/technology/blog

"We are proud to finally announce the winners of SysAdmin Magazine's first Blog Awards," said Michael Fimin, CEO and co-founder of Netwrix. "The main objectives of the awards are to recognize outstanding thought leaders in cloud computing, cybersecurity and other areas, and to provide IT professionals with additional sources of valuable information to help them do their job better. By providing a cross-section of the most influential tech blogs and encouraging the professional community to share their expertise, SysAdmin Magazine meets the growing demand for high-quality content and enables IT pros to stay on top of the latest technology trends."

To learn more about the SysAdmin Blog Awards and see the full list of winners and finalists, please visit www.netwrix.com/go/BlogAwards2017_winners

About Sysadmin Magazine

SysAdmin Magazine is a free source of knowledge for IT professionals who are eager to keep a tight grip on IT security and do their regular jobs faster. Each month, SysAdmin Magazine offers a wide range of publications about practices and strategies that system administrators can use to improve the security of their IT environments. SysAdmin Magazine is published under the auspices of Netwrix Corporation to provide independent, high-level industry expertise for IT professionals. For more information, visit www.netwrix.com/sysadmin_magazine.html

About Netwrix Corporation

Netwrix Corporation was the first vendor to introduce a visibility and governance platform for hybrid cloud security. More than 160,000 IT departments worldwide rely on Netwrix to detect insider threats on premises and in the cloud, pass compliance audits with less effort and expense, and increase productivity of IT security and operations teams. Founded in 2006, Netwrix has earned more than 100 industry awards and been named to both the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 lists of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. For more information, visit www.netwrix.com

CONTACT:

Erin Jones

Avista PR for Netwrix

P: 704.664.2170

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Netwrix Corporation

Related Links

http://www.netwrix.com


BOCA RATON, Fla., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities, sponsored by the American Disabilities Foundation, Inc. (ADF), is the largest, free, fun day in America for children and adults with special needs. The 9th annual Bash will be held Saturday, March 18, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Spanish River Park, 3001 North Ocean Blvd. in Boca Raton, Florida. Upwards of 5,000 guests are expected to attend, supported by 400 volunteers.

The Buzz Agency

The Boca Raton YMCA Drowning Prevention team will take those who need assistance into the ocean by transferring them into specially adapted floating lounge chairs. For many this will be their first ever dip in the sea. Mobility Mats will cover the sand making the beach accessible to all. Fred Astaire Studios of Downtown Boca Raton will teach line dancing to everyone, even those in wheelchairs, while yoga and meditation professionals will teach their respective arts at the Mind, Body & Spirit Pavilion in a quiet corner of the park.

Broadway luminary Andrea McArdle, the original star of Annie and the youngest performer ever to be nominated for a Tony Award as Best Lead Actress in a Musical, will perform her signature song from Annie, "Tomorrow". Andrea has also starred in many Broadway musicals including Beauty and the Beast, Starlight Express, Les Miserables and Irving Berlin's classic, Annie Get Your Gun. McArdle's appearance is being sponsored by community philanthropist Marleen Forkas.

More than 20 yachts including President George H.W. Bush's personal speedboat, will provide rides on the Intracoastal to guests, their families and caregivers. Twenty costumed action heroes will entertain the crowd, courtesy of Marilynn Wick and Costume World. Additional offerings include: a complimentary BBQ lunch; a Resource Zone with 40+ exhibitors and dozens of games and attractions designed to engage people with physical and/or intellectual challenges. There will even be a wheelchair accessible mini-train that carries 26 passengers tooting its way through the park. Everyone is invited to take a ride.

Popular South Florida recording artist Chloe Dolandis will perform the National Anthem during opening ceremonies. Rising local rock stars Mason Pace, 15, and Thalia Plasencio, 16, from Orlando will lead children from the Miracle League of Palm Beach County in singing "We Are the World." Many other performers are scheduled to entertain.

Throughout the day, deaf magicians and professional balloon artists will work their magic while the Boca Raton Children's Museum will be in charge of the always popular Kid's Fun Zone. They will be assisted by professional clowns and mimes. Ronald McDonald will appear at noon with giveaways for the children.

Office Depot Foundation has donated 2,000 backpacks filled with goodies for participants at the event. McDonald's, Starbucks and Einstein Bagels will provide breakfast for early morning volunteers and kite flyers will do aerial demonstrations from the beach. Pepsico is donating soft drinks and chips. Junior Navy ROTC Cadets from Boca Raton Community High School will volunteer at the event, along with many other groups and individuals from throughout the community. In addition, disability leaders from LA, New York, Chicago, New Jersey, Washington, DC and Atlanta are flying in to lend their support for the day.

"The Boating and Beach Bash has evolved immensely over the years," said Jay Van Vechten, Executive Director. "The event has helped thousands with special needs. Guests not only engage in fun activities, they also learn about health and wellness initiatives that can dramatically improve the quality of their lives throughout the year."

The health and wellness component of the Boating and Beach Bash will be led by the organization's medical director and supported on site by South Florida doctors, nurses, nutritionists, physical therapists and pharmacists from area hospitals, medical schools and the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing.

Personally, knowing what it's like to live with a disability is what prompted Boca Raton resident Jay Van Vechten and his wife Lowell to launch the event nine years ago. In 2001, Van Vechten was critically injured in a fall. He has been living with challenging disabilities ever since. After a 40-year career in marketing communications in New York City, he is now the volunteer director of the Bash and chairman of the American Disabilities Foundation, Inc., the nonprofit that raises funds throughout the year to support the event. "Our goal," he says, "is to have a lasting, positive impact on special needs guests, caregivers and their families."

For more information on the Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities, contact Jay H. Van Vechten, Executive Director at 561-715-2622 or [email protected].

For press information, contact Debbie Abrams, The Buzz Agency, [email protected], 561.706.0202.

About The Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities

The Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities is America's largest, free, fun day for people with special needs, their families and caregivers. It is sponsored by the Harcourt M. & Virginia W. Sylvester Foundation, TD Bank, the Rotary Club Downtown Boca Raton, Caldwell Banker, Schmidt Family Foundation, the E. M. Lynn Foundation/Christine E. Lynn trustee, the Renee and Carl Landegger Family Charitable Trust, Marleen Forkas, the Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County and countless others. The Bash reaches out to embrace the estimated 20% of Florida residents who live with physical and/or intellectual challenges, seen or unseen, to honor them and their caregivers with a joy-filled day. For more information, please call 561-715-2622 or visit www.boatingbeachbash.com. Donations can either be made on line via a link to PayPal on the Bash website, or by sending a check to the American Disabilities Foundation, PO Box 99, Boca Raton, FL 33429

Related Links

Boating and Beach Bash, Boca Raton

Debbie Abrams, The Buzz Agency

SOURCE Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities

Related Links

http://boatingbeachbash.com


WEST CHESTER, Pa., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AccessLex Institute encourages enactment of S. 405, the Stop Taxing Death and Disability Act, which would exempt federal and private education loans that are discharged due to the death or total and permanent disability of a student from federal income tax liability. It also would allow the parent of a student who becomes totally and permanently disabled to have their federal loan discharged.

"The Stop Taxing Death and Disability Act is a common sense piece of legislation that would bring the tax code in line with the public policy of easing the financial hardship of borrowers and their families at a time of terrible grief and great stress," said Christopher P. Chapman, president and chief executive officer of AccessLex Institute. "AccessLex Institute wholly supports this bipartisan bill for its humanity and for the significant positive effect it will have on those impacted by it."

The federal government forgives certain federal student loans in the case of the death or disability of the borrower. However, the Internal Revenue Service currently treats the cancelled debt as income, which can result in tens of thousands of dollars in tax liability that generally accrues in a lump sum in the quarter in which the debt is cancelled. Introduced on February 16, 2017, by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Angus King (I-ME) and Rob Portman (R-OH), the Stop Taxing Death and Disability Act would eliminate this tax burden. Such a change in the law would, for tax purposes, treat these discharges on par with closed school discharges and forgiveness for public service employment, which are not taxed.

AccessLex Institute will continue to support this bill and other student-borrower friendly legislation, including those maintaining the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and allowing for student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy.

About AccessLex Institute:

AccessLex Institute is a nonprofit organization committed to helping talented, purpose-driven students find their path from aspiring lawyer to fulfilled professional. In partnership with its nearly 200 Member law schools, improving access and positively influencing legal education have been at the heart of the Company's mission since 1983. AccessLex Institute has offices in West Chester, Pa., and Washington, D.C., with a team of accredited financial education counselors based throughout the United States. Learn more at AccessLex.org

SOURCE AccessLex Institute

Related Links

http://accesslex.org


DURHAM, N.C., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Adwerx, the leading provider of localized digital advertising for over 40,000 U.S. real estate agents and brokers, today announced a partnership with @properties, the largest independent real estate brokerage firm in Illinois. Adwerx will provide automated digital advertising for each of @properties' forward thinking tech-focused broker's listings. This represents a commitment to cutting-edge sales and marketing programs via the very latest automation technologies and instills a unique competitive edge.

"We're always focused on giving our listings the highest level of exposure in order to achieve higher sales prices and shorter market times. Adwerx adds another layer to the exposure by allowing us to advertise directly to prospective buyers in certain locations based on their specific interests," said @properties co-founder Thad Wong.

Automated digital listing ads for each property listed with @properties brokers affords an unprecedented ability to scale marketing across the entire organization with consistency and ease. This provides a unique differentiator and assists in delivery of the broker's promise to efficiently market listings. Adwerx ads offer targeted precision to find the right buyer based on their online behavior and location, with ads that follow the potential buyer around Facebook, around the web, and in mobile apps.

"Bringing advertising automation to the Real Estate industry is central to our mission at Adwerx," said Jed Carlson, CEO of Adwerx. "@properties co-founders Thad Wong and Mike Golden are widely regarded as thought leaders when it comes to Real Estate tech, so signing up @properties as the first customer for our Automated Listing Ads product made perfect sense."

About @properties

Established in 2000, @properties is the largest independent real estate brokerage firm in Illinois and one of the top 11 residential brokers in the U.S. @properties has 23 office locations in the city, surrounding suburbs, southwest Michigan and Lake Geneva, Wisc. For more information, visit http://www.atproperties.com.

About Adwerx

One of the fastest growing companies in real estate technology, Adwerx provides brilliantly simple digital advertising to over 40,000 real estate customers across all 50 states and Canada. Adwerx is comprised of a team of savvy marketers, experienced software developers, and advertising veterans who are bound together by the simple belief that online marketing should work for everyone. For more information, visit www.adwerx.com.

SOURCE Adwerx

Related Links

http://www.adwerx.com


SAN JOSE, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Alaska Airlines inaugurates non-stop service in three new markets this weekSan Jose, Calif. to Newark, New Jersey, which began on March 12; San Jose, Calif. to Burbank, Calif. beginning on March 16; and Portland, Ore. to Orlando, Florida also beginning on March 16.

Flights between San Jose and Newark and Portland and Orlando operate once a day. Flights between San Jose and Burbank are three-times daily.

"Alaska Airlines continues to meet the needs of Silicon Valley travelers with new daily nonstop flights to Newark and Burbank from our San Jose focus city," said John Kirby, vice president of capacity planning at Alaska Airlines. "We're also pleased to add Orlando to our list of nonstop destinations served from our Portland hub, now at 55 destinations and counting."

Kirby said that the airline's flight between Portland and Orlando will be the only nonstop service on the route. Orlando is a popular destination for business and convention travel, as well as a family favorite for its theme parks and tourist attractions.

Summary of new service:

Start Date City pair Departs Arrives Frequency Aircraft Mar 12 San Jose-Newark 6:30 a.m. 2:55 p.m. Daily B737 Mar 12 Newark-San Jose 4:05 p.m. 7:40 p.m. Daily B737 Mar 16 Portland-Orlando 6:40 a.m. 3:07 p.m. Daily B737 Mar 16 Orlando-Portland 4:07 p.m. 7:33 p.m. Daily B737 Mar 16 San Jose-Burbank 6:50 a.m. 7:55 a.m. Daily E175 Mar 16 San Jose-Burbank 12:30 p.m. 1:35 p.m. Daily E175 Mar 16 San Jose-Burbank 5:25 p.m. 6:30 p.m. Daily E175 Mar 16 Burbank-San Jose 9:25 a.m. 10:33 a.m. Daily E175 Mar 16 Burbank-San Jose 2:15 p.m. 3:23 p.m. Daily E175 Mar 16 Burbank-San Jose 7:10 p.m. 8:18 p.m. Daily E175

Flight times based on local time zones.

To purchase tickets, visit www.alaskaair.com to find great savings, or call 1-800-ALASKAAIR (800-252-7522 for Hearing & Speech Impaired (TTY): Dial 711 for Relay Services).

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America along with their regional partners, fly 40 million customers a year to 118 destinations with an average of 1,200 daily flights across the United States and to Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica and Cuba. With Alaska and Alaska Global Partners, customers can earn and redeem miles on flights to nearly 1,000 destinations worldwide. Learn more about Alaska's award-winning service and unmatched reliability at newsroom.alaskaair.com and blog.alaskaair.com. Alaska Airlines, Virgin America and Horizon Air are subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK).

SOURCE Alaska Airlines

Related Links

http://www.alaskaair.com


WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Crowell & Moring LLP has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a U.S. citizen and his British brother whose multi-billion dollar business empire was seized by Kazakhstan. The brothers filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Washington-based consultant Alexander Mirtchev and his corporate affiliates, Krull Corporation, GlobalOptions, Inc., and GlobalOptions Management, Inc. The complaint alleges that Mirtchev and his affiliates supported and orchestrated Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in a politically-motivated campaign to expropriate the Hourani brothers' investments in Kazakhstan and destroy their reputations internationally.

Devincci Hourani, who lives in Virginia, and his London-based brother, Issam Hourani (also spelled Khorani), allege that Mirtchev and his corporate affiliates devised a plan, code-named "Superkhan," in 2007 to consolidate economic and political power in President Nazarbayev  at the expense of the Houranis and others  and ensure his long term political security in the expansive former Soviet republic located in Central Asia that has one of the world's richest proven deposits of oil and natural gas. The Houranis allege they became targets of Mirtchev's Superkhan plan after a political falling-out between President Nazarbayev and his former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, whose sister is Issam Hourani's wife. The lawsuit claims that as a result of that dispute, President Nazarbayev relied on a plan prepared by Mirtchev and his firm to take over the assets of several successful businessmen who were perceived as supporting Aliyev.

Crowell & Moring LLP partner Stuart H. Newberger, counsel for the Houranis, said, "Washington-based consultants violated U.S. and international law to get paid tens of millions of dollars to orchestrate a dictator's seizure of assets owned by American and British businessmen and investors, and they will now face justice. The Hourani brothers had extensive investments in energy, food services, real estate, media and pharmaceuticals, and are upstanding business professionals who have a right to their investments and have earned their good name despite the best efforts of the Kazakh consultants to steal both."

The lawsuit seeks several billion dollars in damages based on the actual value of the Houranis' businesses and assets seized beginning in 2007 and now personally owned and controlled by President Nazarbayev as part of the Superkhan project orchestrated by the Washington-based defendants. It also seeks damages for the false and defamatory information drafted and maintained by the defendants on the Kazakh Embassy website in Washington. The federal lawsuit follows several arbitration claims made or about to be made under international law by the Houranis or companies owned by them, against the Republic of Kazakhstan. The largest of those claims, brought by Caratube International Oil Company, will be heard in February 2011 by an international tribunal at ICSID, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (under the auspices of the World Bank) sitting in Paris, France.

Crowell & Moring LLP is an international law firm with nearly 500 lawyers representing clients in litigation and arbitration, regulatory, and transactional matters. The firm is internationally recognized for its representation of Fortune 500 companies in high-stakes litigation, as well as its ongoing commitment to pro bono service and diversity. The firm has offices in Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County, Anchorage, London, and Brussels. Visit Crowell & Moring online at http://www.crowell.com.

SOURCE Crowell & Moring LLP
"At Applebee's, we are always creating in the kitchen, looking for new ways to give guests the flavorful dishes they crave at a value they can get excited about," says Cammie Spillyards-Schaefer, vice president and executive chef of Applebee's. "One of our most popular offerings, the 2 for $20 menu, was the perfect way for our culinary team to think outside the box and develop fresh, innovative offerings that our guests would love."

The new 2 for $20 entree lineup includes:

NEW Caprese Mozzarella Burger: Sauteed garlic and onions seared into an all-beef patty and topped with balsamic aioli, grilled tomatoes, grilled red onions, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. Served with classic fries.

Sauteed garlic and onions seared into an all-beef patty and topped with balsamic aioli, grilled tomatoes, grilled red onions, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. Served with classic fries. NEW Caprese Mozzarella Chicken: Grilled chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, tomato, red onion, basil, and balsamic glaze. Served with garlic mashed potatoes.

Grilled chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, tomato, red onion, basil, and balsamic glaze. Served with garlic mashed potatoes. NEW Spinach & Artichoke Chicken Cavatappi: Grilled chicken breast, cavatappi pasta, artichoke, grape tomatoes, Parmesan and crispy spinach leaves.

Now available on the 2 for $25 menu:

Firecracker Shrimp Cavatappi: Crispy sriracha shrimp, cavatappi pasta, sauteed zucchini, red bell pepper, red onion and Parmesan sriracha cream sauce.

As an innovator of 2 for $20, Applebee's provides variety and value every day, frequently refreshing the menu to give guests more opportunity to experiment and discover new favorites while enjoying a shared meal with a friend, family member, or anyone who enjoys a good deal.

For more information on the limited time offerings and deals from Applebee's, check out the online menu and stop by your neighborhood Applebee's.

About Applebee's

Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar offers a lively casual dining experience combining simple, craveable American fare with flair, classic drinks and local drafts. All Applebee's restaurants are owned and operated by entrepreneurs dedicated to serving their communities and offering quality food and drinks with genuine, neighborly service. Applebee's is one of the world's largest casual dining brands; as of December 31, 2016, there were approximately 2,000 Applebee's franchise restaurants in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and 15 other countries. Applebee's is franchised by subsidiaries of DineEquity, Inc. [NYSE: DIN], which is among the world's largest full-service restaurant companies.

Follow us:

Instagram: @applebees

Twitter: @applebees

Facebook: www.facebook.com/applebees

SOURCE Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar

Related Links

http://www.applebees.com


Competition Kicks off Tuesday, March 28th with an Official Guinness World Record Attempt for "Largest Gathering of Albert Einstein Lookalikes" at MaRS Discovery District

TORONTO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - "The Next Einstein", an online competition that invites individuals to submit their big idea on how to make the world a better place, is launching March 28th, with a Guinness World Record Attempt for "Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Albert Einstein" at MaRS Discovery District (101 College St) located in downtown Toronto. "The Next Einstein" online competition launches March 28 and closes April 25, 2017.

Everyone has a good idea - maybe one for a new technology or business? A way of helping the economically challenged? Or an idea to solve world hunger? There are no bad ideas. One winner will be awarded $10,000 in cash as seed money to help further their idea. The online competition is part of The Albert Einstein Legacy Project, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of his General Theory of Relativity with a mission to honor his life and legacy and to identify and inspire the next generation of brilliant minds on the planet.

To kick off the "The Next Einstein" online competition, organizers are attempting to break an official Guinness World Record for "Largest Gathering of Albert Einstein Lookalikes" at MaRS Discovery District on March 28. The world's largest urban innovation hub, MaRS is home to hundreds of visionary researchers and entrepreneurs, making it an ideal venue for this meeting of the minds. Members of the public are invited to join TDSB Forest Hill Junior and Senior Public School in the attempt. Albert Einstein wigs and moustaches will be given out on site, but the public must show up wearing a blazer, tie and dress pants.

Guinness World Record Attempt Details: Tuesday, March 28th at 11:00am ET

The public is encouraged to register for the event via www.thenexteinstein.com.

Please arrive no later than 10:30am .

. Enter through the MaRS Discovery District, University Avenue / West Atrium entrance.

Strict dresscode in effect  please wear a blazer, necktie and dress pants. The first 600 people to arrive will be given a wig and moustache. It is encouraged that participants wear their own white or grey wig and moustache.

About "The Next Einstein" (FB @thenexteinstein Twitter @TheNxt_Einstein)

Inspired by Albert Einstein's incomparable legacy of discovery, invention and humanitarian ideals, "The Next Einstein" initiative was introduced in 2013 with a single-minded goal: to recognize new ideas with the potential to change the world for the better. The award was created by the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University in conjunction with Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the custodian of the Einstein estate. Albert Einstein was one of the founding fathers of The Hebrew University. Einstein's passion, curiosity and rebellious nature enabled countless innovative accomplishments recognized the world over.

About MaRS Discovery District

MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) in Toronto is one of the world's largest urban innovation hubs. Our purpose is to help innovators change the world. MaRS supports promising ventures tackling key challenges in the health, cleantech, finance & commerce, as well as work & learning sectors as they start, grow and scale. In addition, the MaRS community fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration to drive breakthrough discoveries and new solutions to be adopted in Canada and beyond, growing our economy and delivering societal impact at scale.

SOURCE Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University
ARLINGTON, Va., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, American Trucking Associations announced it will be hosting the first annual ATA Economic Summit July 20 in Arlington, Va., for its motor carrier and private fleet members.

"We know trucking is the backbone of the supply chain," said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello, "and with this summit, we want to bring together experts from other adjacent industries to explore the state of the economy and trends that impact trucking and the U.S. economy at large."

The Summit will bring together chief economists from several trade associations for an outlook on their respective industries, spanning from manufacturing to construction to retail. Attendees will gain a broad perspective on the state of the economy and forecasts in the supply chain ecosystem that they can use to strategize their budgets and future plans.

"Knowledge is power," said ATA President and CEO Chris Spear, "and this Summit will offer the opportunity for fleet executives to gain the insights and knowledge necessary to make informed decisions."

Among the organizations expected to be represented at the Summit are ACT Research, the American Chemistry Council, the Associated General Contractors, the Beer Institute, the National Automobile Dealers Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Restaurant Association and more to be announced later. Bob Costello will also give an outlook for the motor carrier industry.

The first annual ATA Economic Summit will be held July 20 at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Va. For more information about the Summit and limited sponsorship opportunities, click here.

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

SOURCE American Trucking Associations

Related Links

http://www.trucking.org


The industry trends report " Automotive Afte r ma r ket Size By Vehicle Part (Replacement Parts [Belt, Brake, Clutch, Lighting, Electrical, Engine & AC, Exhaust, Filters, Suspension, Transmission, Wiper], Accessories), By Sales Outlet (Professional [Garages & Service Stations, Automobile Dealerships, Government], DIY, OEM), By Region (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, GCC), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Growth Potential, Price Trends & Forecast, 2016 - 2024 " by Global Market Insights, Inc. says Automotive Aftermarket Industry size is slated to cross USD 680 billion by 2024.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/799556-a )



Shifting consumer preference towards vehicle comfort, enhancing efficiency and customization for aesthetically pleasant vehicles are the key factors driving the automotive aftermarket demand.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1166

Increasing vehicle wear and tear due to poor road infrastructure particularly in developing countries have led to more replacement parts consumption which will support the product penetration. Rise in average distance driven per vehicle has resulted in increasing requirement for maintenance encouraging vehicle parts replacements.

Professional sales outlet is the major revenue generating segment for automotive aftermarket and was valued over USD 300 billion in 2015. Moreover, additional services provided by the outlets for customer delight including free periodic servicing, insurance to damaged parts and delivery facilities will fuel the automotive aftermarket industry growth.

Asia pacific, led by China, India and Thailand is estimated to witness CAGR over 6% up to 2024. Growing consumer spending on automobiles coupled with rapid urbanization and increasing population are the key factors fueling regional demand. High economic resource availability, workforce and land availability in this region will propel the market growth.

Stringent regulations regarding emission control and safe transport has resulted in increased maintenance of the vehicle. Shifting trend for vehicle customization which includes lighting system, vehicle graphics, spoilers to achieve optimum performance is the key factor driving global automotive aftermarket demand.

Rising demand for the vehicle durability has increased the scheduled maintenance frequency to achieve better performance. This has resulted in increasing replacement of original parts driving the automobile aftermarket industry size.

DIY automotive aftermarket industry generated revenue over 100 billion in 2015. Low operation cost is the substantial factor driving the product development in this segment. Rising consumer awareness pertaining to online maintenance tutorials is the key factor positively influencing the market growth.

Browse key industry insights spread across 200 pages with 81 market data tables & 13 figures & charts from this 2017 report Automotive Aftermarket in detail along with the table of contents at:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automotive-aftermarket

Favorable FDI policies in developing countries has led to increasing number of manufacturing plants. Additionally, rising customer base of international market players across the globe along with increasing number of service centers are the driving factors for the automobile aftermarket industry growth.

Legal issues regarding patent and copyright infringement are restraining factors to automotive aftermarket industry. Increasing on-road vehicle usage coupled with rising vehicle average age are the key factors driving the global automotive aftermarket demand. Tires, electrical parts and brakes are among the highest revenue generating parts accounting for over 50% of total revenue generated from replacement part segment.

Easy replacement parts availability accompanied by ease in operations like changing oil, tires, mirrors with minimum requirement of tools are driving the DIY sales outlet market size. Mexico is one of the major exporters of the vehicle replacement components particularly for the U.S. with favourable import policies will positively influence the automotive aftermarket demand.

Growing demand from replacement components, owing to more usage of older vehicles in Latin America will drive the product penetration. This is due to more than 50% of the vehicles in Mexico are older than 10 years.

Europe led by Germany, UK and France will witness more than 4.5% growth. Large presence of original equipment manufacturers along with regional players will drive the regional demand. Stringent government regulations for improving fuel efficiency will result in frequent maintenance of older vehicles should fuel the market demand.

Global automotive aftermarket industry share is highly fragmented. The key market players include Denso Corporation, Magneti Marelli, Continental AG, Akebone Brake Corporation, 3M Company, Cooper Tire and Rubber Company.

Other participants in the industry include Yazaki, ALCO Filters, Lear Corp, Johnson Controls, Magna International and BASF SE.

Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1166

Automotive aftermarket industry research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms revenue in USD billion from 2013 to 2024 , for the following segments:

Automotive Aftermarket Industry By Product

Replacement parts

Accessories

Automotive Aftermarket Industry By Sales Outlet

Professional Garages & Service Stations Automobile Dealerships Government Others

DIY Discount Department Stores Auto Parts Stores

OEM

The above information is provided on a regional and country basis for the following :

North America U.S. Canada

EU Germany UK Russia

Asia Pacific China India South Korea Japan Indonesia Thailand

Latin America (LATAM) Brazil Mexico Argentina

(LATAM) Middle East and Africa South Africa GCC

and

Browse Related Reports:

Automotive Collision Repair Market Size By Vehicle Type (Heavy-duty, Light-duty), By Product (Consumables, Paints & Coatings), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada , Mexico , Germany , UK, France , Italy , China , India , Japan , Brazil ), Application Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2015 - 2022

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automotive-collision-repair-market-report

Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Market Size By Vehicle Type (Commercial Vehicles, Passenger Vehicles), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada , Germany , UK, France , Italy , Russia , China , Japan , South Korea , Brazil , Mexico ), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2024



https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/bitumen-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: [email protected]



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Connect with us: Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter

SOURCE Global Market Insights, Inc.
WEST MIDDLESEX, Pa., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Autosoft, Inc. has received three distinct honors in the 11th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The Autosoft Customer Success F&I Support Team received a bronze Stevie Award in the Contact Center of the Year category; Drew Chamberlain, Senior Director of Customer Support and Training, took home a bronze Stevie Award in the Contact Center Leader of the Year category; and, Josh Falvo, Parts and Service Team Lead, won bronze in the Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year category.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world's top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals.

These awards were presented during a gala banquet on Friday, February 24, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. More than 650 executives from around the world attended.

More than 75 members of several specialized judging committees determined the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists during final judging in early February. Finalists were determined by another 77 judges.

"Excellent customer support is one of Autosoft's most powerful distinctions in the dealer management system landscape," said Autosoft President and CEO, Bryce Veon. "Our support teams are focused on providing a positive experience for our customersseeing to all the little detailsand they do it consistently and passionately. So, it's both an affirmation and an honor be recognized by the Stevie Awards for our high-quality customer service."

Veon continued, "We also offer our own congratulations to our whole Customer Success F&I Support Team and two of our hard-working leaders, Drew Chamberlain and Josh Falvo, for the awards they've received. These achievements show just how fully our teams have embraced Autosoft's commitment to not only provide the best DMS solution, but also back it up with the best people and support."

"The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service continues to be among the most competitive and fastest-growing of our awards programs," said Michael Gallagher, founder and president of the Stevie Awards. "The growth of the program illustrates the importance of the functions highlightedsales, business development, and customer serviceto successful enterprises of all types, and how integral recognition in these domains is to building and maintaining corporate reputations."

Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Stevie winners in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/sales.

About Autosoft

Autosoft develops and supports a complete dealer management system (DMS) that has been named the Highest Rated DMS from DrivingSales for three years in a row. With affordable month-to-month contracts, Autosoft's DMS improves processes and reduces operating costs in over 2,000 franchised automotive dealerships. Easy to use, affordable, and innovative software helps dealers focus on their customers' needs. For more information about Autosoft, visit www.autosoftdms.com, call 1.844.888.8200, or email [email protected].

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.

Sponsors and supporters of the 11th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

Contact: Michael Cross, [email protected], 724-906-6249



SOURCE Autosoft

Related Links

http://www.autosoftdms.com


SAN DIEGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Avelas Biosciences, Inc., a clinical stage oncology-focused company dedicated to improving cancer patient care from diagnosis through treatment, today announced the appointment of Alexey Vinogradov, Ph.D., to its board of directors. Dr. Vinogradov currently serves as Head of Pharmstandard Ventures, a corporate venture fund of Pharmstandard Group, until recently known as Inbio Ventures, where he served as a Managing Partner and CEO. Dr. Vinogradov replaces Dr. Andrei Petrov as a director of the company.

"We are excited to have Alexey join our board during this exciting time of Avelas' corporate development," said Carmine Stengone, president and CEO of Avelas Biosciences. "Alexey has considerable experience in research and development, operations and business development, and I'm confident he will contribute meaningfully to our future success."

Dr. Vinogradov has over 15 years of experience at different positions in the biotech industry. He has served as a board member at Argos Therapeutics, as a board observer at Protagonist Therapeutics and Aquinox, and currently serves as a board observer at Allena Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Inbio Ventures in 2012, as co-founding partner and CBO, Dr. Vinogradov was involved in portfolio building at Bioprocess Capital Partners. He also led the fundraising and served in the executive management of Promogene, Tartis-Oncology and Everon. In addition, Dr. Vinogradov was involved in a range of business development activities at Bioprocess Group.

Dr. Vinogradov held a postdoctoral position at the Laboratory of Biomolecular Sciences, Wageningen University, Netherlands. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and MS degree in Chemistry from Moscow State University.

About Avelas Biosciences

Avelas Biosciences is a San Diego-based biotechnology company focused on developing technologies that advance a new standard-of-care for cancer surgery and therapeutic intervention. The company's lead candidate, AVB-620, has completed a Phase 1b clinical trial assessing safety, pharmacokinetics and fluorescence properties using tissue image analysis. The initiation of a Phase 2 clinical trial for AVB-620 in breast cancer is expected in the first half of 2017. In addition, the company is advancing a therapeutic program, which utilizes the same technology platform. Avelas was founded by Avalon Ventures on technology from Roger Y. Tsien, Ph.D., co-winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry. For additional information, please visit www.avelasbio.com.

SOURCE Avelas Biosciences, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.avelasbio.com/


TrueVeue, a glass cleaner, PureStiel, a stainless-steel cleaner and DailyStohn, a granite cleaner are for sale worldwide at www.BandBCleaners.com . All the products are safe for the environment, and made in the U.S.A. TrueVeue Glass Cleaner has a lavender scent, DailyStohn Granite Cleaner comes in Meyer Lemon or Sweet Mint, and PureStiel Stainless Steel Cleaner is unscented. All are priced at $7.49/each online and available in 22oz recyclable bottles. B+B Household Cleaning Products were designed for anyone who is looking to clean their home well and who also wants to be eco-friendly at the same time.

Like so many households, keeping stone counters, stainless appliances, and glass cleaned was a challenge for creator Claudia Crea. From fingerprints to splashes from the frying pan she knew she didn't have the right products on hand to get the jobs done well. Created right in her own home Crea and her husband tapped into her background as a chemist, and his knowledge from his family's stone business to come up with products that could clean, restore and leave a pristine finish. They also had to be safe for their family, especially their dogs, Balthazar and Brisco. Necessity was truly the mother of invention for TrueVeue, DailyStohn, and PureStiel.

B+B loves to connect on social media and hear what their customers have to say. They especially want to get their eco-friendly cleaners in the hands of Mommy, and Dad bloggers alike. You can follow B+B on Twitter @BalthazarBrisco

New this month, B+B Household Cleaning Products launched its CleanFreaks subscription service so you're never without your favorite B+B product. CleanFreaks subscription service allows you to regularly schedule deliveries of your favorite B+B Household Cleaning Products at a discounted price. There is no commitment once you subscribe. You will receive a reminder before your order ships and you can change/cancel orders at any time. As with all B+B purchases, a portion from the sale of every bottle is donated to local humane societies in honor of Zar and Brisco.

Industry buyers and press can visit their booth at the International Home and Housewares Show and meet the company's CEO at Booth #N7065 in the Clean and Contain pavilion at McCormick Place in Chicago March 18-21st.



Customers can visit www.BandBCleaners.com to place their orders. Wholesale requests and Retailers can email [email protected] or call 844.43.BandB

SOURCE B+B Household Cleaning Products

Related Links

http://www.BandBCleaners.com


LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Global resourcing specialist BPS World has published research on the likely impact of the UK vote to leave the European Union (commonly referred to as Brexit). BPS spoke to business leaders, representative bodies and professionals in the recruitment and retention sectors in the USA, Europe, India and Australia. The research found that, as a result of Brexit, people with high-end digital and engineering skills are likely to be put off going to Britain and are more likely, instead, to work in other English speaking countries, particularly the US. Their skills are in very short supply in the US so this is likely to have a positive impact on the US economy.

Although the UK will not be leaving the EU until 2019 an announcement on the shape of Brexit is expected soon. Under so-called 'hard-Brexit' freedom of movement would be restricted and it would be as difficult for talent to be recruited from France as it is from the US, and it is this that is likely to benefit English-speaking countries such as the US.

Both Britain and the US are leading players in the global talent market and the recruitment sectors in both countries need to retain that influential position. However, uncertainty reigns as the new presidency in the US takes a strong stance on immigration and the British government negotiates the terms of Brexit.

Mariano Zadeh, Managing Director of 4finance in Miami, is one of those quoted in the report who believes that as a result of Brexit more talent could be lured to the US. He said; "I think the US needs to focus on the service economy, on tech jobs - renewable energy, new economy etc.".

Simon Conington, Founder of BPS World argued; "2017 is going to be a pivotal year for the global economy. The US could well take advantage of Brexit, but only if the President welcomes skilled overseas nationals to the US. If not, it is clear from our research, that other English-speaking economies will boom as they are at last able to meet their skill needs."



Brexit: What the World is Saying is available free to download from http://www.bps-world.com

For further information:

Anne Cantelo

Onyx

E: [email protected]

P: +44(0)20-7048-2700



SOURCE BPS World
CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Brilliant, an award-winning search, staffing and management resources firm specializing in accounting, finance and information technology, released its Q2 2017 Hiring Forecast today. The data indicates businesses are reporting the highest number of open positions within accounting, finance and information technology in almost a year.

Brilliant's Q2 2017 Accounting, Finance and Information Technology Hiring Forecast, produced in partnership with Dr. Richard Curtin, Director, Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, studies the hiring trends and business factors affecting proprietary entities in the greater Chicago and south Florida labor markets.

The study finds almost half of businesses indicated openings in full-time, permanent accounting and finance positions, and 20 percent reported vacant full-time, permanent positions in information technology. Further, one-in-five companies reported plans to increase their hiring of accounting and finance professionals and one-in-six for information technology during the year ahead.

"For accounting and finance positions, 46 percent of human resources professionals and hiring managers reported one or more openings, up from 29 percent in the Q1 2017 hiring forecast, and just above the 45 percent recorded in the Q2 2016 hiring forecast last year," explains Dr. Richard Curtin, Director, Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He continues, "Unfilled information technology positions were reported by 20 percent, up from 15 percent last quarter."

Brilliant CEO Jim Wong, CPA (Inactive) adds, "Our study brings important insight into the future of accounting, finance and information technology professions, and the overall climate of the labor market. We remain optimistic that the increase in open positions and the strength in hiring plans indicates continued growth given the recent unpredictable performance of the economy."

The survey was conducted between Jan. 30, 2017, and Feb. 7, 2017. Nearly 650 human resources professionals and hiring managers participated in the study.

To download the Brilliant Q2 2017 Accounting, Finance and Information Technology Hiring Forecast, click here.

About Brilliant

Connecting People and Opportunities

Brilliant is an award-winning search, staffing and management resources firm specializing in accounting, finance and information technology. Brilliant's team of business development and recruiting experts include former Big 4 CPAs and hiring managers, and other leading industry professionals in the greater Chicago and south Florida labor markets. Since its inception in 2009, the firm has received various awards including Inavero's Best of Staffing Talent, Best Places to Work South Florida, Crain's Chicago Business Fast 50, Staffing Industry Analysts Fastest-Growing Staffing Firms, Chicago's and Nation's 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For, Inc. 5000, Staffing 100 List for North America and more. To learn more about Brilliant, visit http://www.brilliantfs.com.

Contact: Laurie Canning, Brilliant, [email protected] or 312.582.1812

SOURCE Brilliant

Related Links

http://www.brilliantfs.com


TEL AVIV, Israel and CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Bringg, the leading customer-centric logistics platform for enterprises, has raised a $10 million funding round led by Aleph VC and joined by Coca-Cola and previous investor Pereg Ventures. This follows earlier investments from Ituran and Cambridge Capital. Bringg's products are used by retail, ecommerce, CPG, food and 3PL/4PL (third/fourth-party logistics providers) customers in more than 50 countries, including some of the world's leading brands. With offices in Tel Aviv, New York and Chicago, the company plans to leverage the new funding round to grow its marketing and sales presence in existing and new markets across the globe, while expanding its R&D, success and support teams.

Every company that delivers goods and services is facing a set of serious logistical challenges these days. On the one hand, customer expectations are higher than ever in terms of speed and convenience, which means they must restructure their last-mile models in order to create the seamless experience their customers expect. On the other hand, to preserve their cost structure they must establish a leaner supply chain that is elastic enough to accommodate a variety of delivery models and providers, in order to cost-effectively and rapidly scale their fleet across in-house resources, outsourced drivers and third-party providers.

The Bringg platform offers companies a powerful yet flexible solution that enables them to streamline their entire delivery ecosystem - from the headquarters to the field and all the way to the customer. Bringg's solution solves their dual challenge - how to create the optimal customer experience on the front end while ramping up operational efficiencies on the backend through real-time visibility, elastic logistics and integrated processes.

Raanan Cohen, Co-Founder & CEO of Bringg said: "Amazon raised the standards when it comes to delivery, we provide the tools that enable any company to match their logistics excellence. This milestone will help us fuel Bringg's meteoric growth, and I look forward to working with the Aleph team to continue establishing Bringg as the de facto customer-centric logistics solution for enterprises."

Aaron Rosenson, Partner at Aleph VC added: "We are excited to partner with Bringg. We are strong believers in the ability of technology to disrupt the logistics world and already made two investments in that space. Bringg's team is led by very strong and experienced entrepreneurs who see the growing trend of e-commerce and understand the desperate need for innovative logistical solutions. That is why we decided to write our largest check to date".

About Bringg

Bringg is the leading customer-centric logistics platform for enterprises. With offices in NYC, Chicago and Tel Aviv, the company has customers in more than 50 countries including some of the world's best-known brands. Bringg's solution enables companies to quickly streamline the way they deliver goods and services, creating both operational efficiencies and optimal experiences for their entire ecosystem - from the headquarters to the field and all the way to the customer. The open Bringg platform is highly scalable and provides a robust set of APIs and SDKs that can be used to easily customize the solution to fit our customers' needs and to integrate it across their existing systems. For more information and to request a demo, please visit our website at http://www.bringg.com.

Media contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Bringg
SHELBYVILLE, Ky., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In 1987, the Bulleit Distilling Co. was founded by a young entrepreneur who quit his job as a lawyer to pursue his true passion  creating quality bourbon. Today, millions of cases of whiskey later, the Bulleit brand is proud to celebrate its 30th anniversary with the official ribbon cutting event for the opening of its new distillery in Shelbyville, Ky. Governor Matt Bevin and a number of other elected officials and dignitaries joined Bulleit Distilling Co. Founder Tom Bulleit for the festivities and tours of the new distillery.

The Bulleit Distilling Co. ribbon-cutting ceremony held in Shelbyville, Ky. included Pietro Di Pilato, SVP, Technical, DIAGEO North America, Ky. State Sen. Paul Hornback, Deidre Mahlan, President, DIAGEO North America, Gov. Matt Bevin (Ky.), Tom Bulleit, Founder, Bulleit Distilling Co., Shelby County Judge-Executive Dan Ison, Ky. Ag. Commissioner Ryan Quarles and Eric Gregory, President, Kentucky Distillers' Association. (Brian Bohannon/AP Images for Bulleit Distilling Co.) The Bulleit Distilling Co. ribbon-cutting ceremony held in Shelbyville, Ky. on Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (Brian Bohannon/AP Images for Bulleit Distilling Co.)

"We're so proud to open the Bulleit Distilling Co. here in Shelbyville," said Tom Bulleit. "Seeing this distillery come to life has been a truly surreal experience that couldn't have been achieved without the tireless work of so many men and women. We can't wait to share the delicious whiskey that will be produced here for centuries to come."

Under the supervision of Vice President of Distilling, Pauline Rooney, the distillery employs approximately 30 people for the whiskey distillation and maturation processes. While the distillery is opening at the previously announced capacity of 1.8 million proof gallons annually it was built as a modular distillery and expansion opportunities are being explored.

"Today marks a huge achievement for Tom Bulleit and everyone at Diageo, as we open an amazing facility that will further establish the legacy of Bulleit here in Kentucky," said Deirdre Mahlan, President of Diageo North America. "We look forward to continuing to watch the brand grow as we become part of the Shelbyville community."

The distillery, which has already begun producing Bulleit Bourbon represents the latest technology in warehousing and distillation, including enhancements that help conserve and reuse resources, resulting in improved efficiency and less impact on the environment. The 300-acre campus includes four barrel houses (each capable of holding 55,000 barrels), a 52-foot still that was crafted by Vendome Copper and Brass Works in Louisville and the first industrial solar array in Shelby County, which will collect enough energy to run all on-site mobile equipment.

Diageo's initial investment in building the distillery is $115 million for the Shelbyville site. Combined with the $18 million investment that was made to open the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience at Stitzel-Weller, Bulleit has contributed more than $130 million to Kentucky's economy since 2014.

"It is an honor to join Bulleit Distilling Co. today to celebrate the opening of its new distillery in Shelbyville," Gov. Bevin said. "Bourbon, in addition to its status as a signature Kentucky product, is an important driver of state's economy and workforce. Bulleit, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in conjunction with today's ribbon cutting, continues to add international acclaim to Kentucky's proud spirit-making tradition. I congratulate the company on these achievements and expect they'll see continued strong growth in the coming years."

Shelby County Judge-Executive Dan Ison says Bulleit is a valued partner. "From providing quality jobs, working with local farmers to buy corn and using byproduct for animal feed, to participating in our community, we are look forward to a bright future working together."

"We are proud to have the Bulleit Distilling Co. call Shelby County home," said Sen. Paul Hornback (R), Shelbyville. "The completion of the distillery shows, once again, that Shelby County is open for business. We congratulate Bulleit on this milestone and are excited to play a role in the new era of growth of the Kentucky bourbon industry."

While the Bulleit Distilling Co. will not initially be open to the public, guests are invited to learn more about Bulleit and its family of whiskeys by visiting the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience at Stitzel-Weller (3860 Fitzgerald Road, Louisville, KY 40216) on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail or going to www.bulleit.com.

As we celebrate the opening of the Bulleit Distilling Co., we hope fans of the brand will join us in raising a glass  responsibly, of course.

About the Bulleit Distilling Co.

The Bulleit Distilling Co. was founded in 1987 by Tom Bulleit, whose Bulleit Bourbon is inspired by a family tradition. Bulleit Rye, a straight rye whiskey, was added to the portfolio in 2011 to critical acclaim, and the brand's third variant, Bulleit Bourbon 10-Year-Old, was introduced in 2013. Bulleit whiskeys use a higher proportion of rye grain, which gives them their distinctive bold, spicy taste. Bulleit ranks as one of the fastest-growing whiskeys in America, which Tom largely credits to word of mouth recommendations. In 2014, Bulleit broke ground on a new $115 million distillery located in Shelbyville, Ky. The Bulleit Distilling Co. opened in March 2017. Guests are invited to learn more about the past, present and future of Bulleit by visiting the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience at Stitzel-Weller in Louisville, Ky., a member of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail tour. For more information, visit www.bulleit.com.

About Diageo

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan's whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Follow us on Twitter for news and information about Diageo North America: @Diageo_NA.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.

CONTACT: Kelly Greenawalt Jamie Hakim

Taylor PR Diageo North America

[email protected] [email protected]

704-644-6915 646-223-2314

SOURCE Bulleit Distilling Co.

Related Links

https://www.bulleit.com


SANTA ANA, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Holiday Inn has asked a California court to dismiss the case of a rape victim where the hotel receptionist gave a key to a sexual predator and where hotel cameras recorded that action as well as the perpetrator fleeing the victim's room partially unclothed, according to Callahan & Blaine.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of the rape victim by the Santa Ana-based personal injury law firm claims that the perpetrator, who was noticeably intoxicated from drugs and alcohol, propositioned the receptionist for sex in exchange for $100 before asking for a replacement key for "his" room. The receptionist did not obtain identification from the man, and provided him a key to the plaintiff's room, not once, but twice. The perpetrator entered the victim's room and raped her. He was caught on surveillance tape leaving the room with his pants down. He was convicted of the rape and sentenced to 3 years in prison.

The receptionist testified at deposition that she was not trained to obtain identification from guests before giving replacement keys. The Holiday Inn states it is not at fault because the rape was "unforeseeable." However, the receptionist and manager of the Holiday Inn Express admitted in deposition that they knew violations such as rape could happen if the wrong person is provided a key.

"The facts of the case filed by Callahan & Blaine against Holiday Inn Express are even more outrageous than the Andrews matter," said Fred Del Marva, Plaintiff's Hospitality Industry Standard of Care Expert. In the recent case involving another major hotel chain, the Associated Press reported that Fox News sportscaster Erin Andrews obtained a $55 million jury verdict for being surreptitiously filmed in the nude at a hotel by another guest.

The Plaintiff, who filed her complaint through her counsel, Sarah Serpa, Brian McCormack and Dan Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, will go to trial April 18, 2017 at Kern County Superior Court in Bakersfield, California.

The case is Davick v. Holiday Inn Express, et al. (BCV-16-101353) in the Superior Court of California, County of Kern, Bakersfield.

SOURCE Callahan & Blaine

Related Links

http://www.callahan-law.com


SEATTLE, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- New GPS-Powered Political Action App Provides Users with Federal, State, and Local Representative Contact Information Along with Call Scripts, Contact Lists, and Direct Action Guidance for Current Political Issues.

Capitol Call, a political activism mobile app, has been released to the public. The purpose of this app is to take the guesswork out of direct political action for the everyday citizens and to provide a tool for grassroots organizers to direct their followers in coordinated actions.

Capitol Call

By enabling their GPS (or manually entering their home address), the app automatically determines a user's federal, state, and local government representatives, and in turn, provides the user with 1-tap access to call their representation to voice their opinions. And for users that want a little guidance with what to say or to understand who to contact for a specific issue, an Action Center provides a library of current political issues aggregated from sources across the internet; providing call scripts, contact lists, and other ways to get involved (town halls, marches, petitions, donations, social sharing and more).

For organizers and community activists, Capitol Call is a platform for managing direct action campaigns. Using the Action Dashboard, these organizers can create and share their own Action Campaigns  comprised of specific steps to aid the fight for their cause - that appear in the app's Action Center. This allows volunteers or followers who use the app, to stay informed of current issues relevant to the movement, stay on message, stay coordinated and timely in their actions and also stay engaged.

Founder, Brandon Peterson, started the Capitol Call project the weekend after the inauguration of President Trump, and has worked quickly to develop its technology  launching the beta after one week  and expanding the size of its team to ride the rising wave of activism.

"The mission of Capitol Call is to provide a party agnostic tool to inform, engage, and motivate everyday Americans to direct political action through simple tangible steps," he said. "Additionally, it aims to provide a solution for organizers to reach and activate people in actions aligned with their causes."

"Capitol Call is a product of its time, equally inspired from uncertainty and concerns over the election of President Trump along with the mass outpouring of activism that I witnessed following (particularly) the Women's March. Bearing witness to that uprising of hope, the sense of powerlessness that I held through the inauguration transformed and I was reminded that not only could I, but it was my forgotten duty, to contribute politically. We each contribute in our own unique way and I knew my path was through technology," said Peterson.

"But I also knew my path wouldn't be one of just resistance, but also of bridge building. Before I am a member of my political party, I am an American, and it is my belief that there exists enough opportunity in this country for us to all win. For that reason, I wanted much of the platform to be community driven, providing equal empowerment to all non-violent ideas, viewpoints, and activism. And ultimately, I think this openness will give longevity to the idea  longevity that other similar tools will fail to achieve because of their tight political affiliations," said Peterson.

The app is available for free to users in the USA and is compatible with iOS and Android platforms. It can be downloaded at http://www.capitolcall.org. New features launch every two-to-three weeks and political issue information is updated daily.

The Capitol Call team is continuing to develop its solution to provide creative ways to encourage citizen activism. They are also seeking collaboration with like-minded organizations and contacts who are involved with community activists to empower their movements.

Media Contact:

Brandon Peterson

Founder

Capitol Call

[email protected]

http://www.capitolcall.org

107 Spring St.

Seattle, WA 98104

Related Links

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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 Capitol Call

Related Links

http://www.capitolcall.org


SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cardiva Medical, an innovator in the field of vascular closure, today announced that the company has completed closing of a $30 million equity financing. The equity round included new investor, affiliates of Luther King Capital Management, and drew continued participation from all of Cardiva Medical's existing major investors, including PTV Healthcare Capital and the Canepa Advanced Healthcare Fund.

The financing will be used to continue the rapid commercial expansion of the VASCADE Vascular Closure System  and to fund Cardiva's proprietary, next generation closure technologies that are in development.

"We are pleased to welcome the affiliates of Luther King Capital Management as a new investor, and grateful for the continued support of our existing investors," said John Russell, President and CEO of Cardiva Medical. "Our mission is focused on reducing access site complications for the millions of patients who undergo vascular procedures each year. VASCADE has made a difference for over 100,000 patients in the United States since commercial launch just three years ago and adoption continues to grow rapidly. This financing will enable us to fully execute our commercial growth and development programs."

"VASCADE has demonstrated an unprecedented safety profile for patients  which is fueling Cardiva's rapid growth rate" said Michael Bornitz of Luther King Capital Management. "We are excited to be part of that growth story and the expansion of Cardiva's technology into new areas."

About the VASCADE Vascular Closure System and RESPECT Study

There are over 6 million interventional procedures a year in the United States alone, and bleeding at the access site remains the number one source of complications for these patients. The VASCADE Vascular Closure System is the only closure system to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in access site complications in a prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial  called RESPECT. The RESPECT study included 420 patients at 20 U.S. centers, comparing VASCADE to manual compression for femoral arterial closure.

About Cardiva Medical, Inc.

Cardiva Medical, Inc is a privately held medical device company with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. For further information, visit our website at www.cardivamedical.com.

Media Contact:

Lisa Garrett

Chief Financial Officer

Cardiva Medical, Inc.

Phone: 408-470-7170

[email protected]

SOURCE Cardiva Medical

Related Links

http://www.cardivamedical.com


WICHITA, Kan., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to last week's fast-moving wildfires that consumed more than 1,000 square miles (650,000 acres) of rural Kansas, Cargill's Wichita-based North America protein business is donating $50,000 in new fencing materials to ranchers in the Ashland area of Western Kansas.

Much of the impact was to grazing land on ranches in the western part of the state, with thousands of cattle perishing as wind-swept flames raced across pastures throughout the region. Estimates indicate that up to 100,000 miles of ranch fencing was destroyed in Kansas, with additional fencing destroyed in Texas, Colorado and Oklahoma wildfires.

"We know there are a lot of cattle producers that lost herds, buildings, fences and grazing land, and it's their hard work that helps us produce beef enjoyed by Americans and people around the world," stated Casey Mabry, strategic supply manager in Cargill's cattle procurement team. "When we contacted the Kansas Livestock Association, they told us what was needed more than anything is fencing materials to rebuild what was lost to fire. We knew time was of the essence and that we needed to help as much as we could, as quickly as possible."

Christina Taylor, associate brand manager in Cargill's beef marketing team, first proposed helping ranchers late last week after seeing heartbreaking news coverage of the losses. Cargill's protein leadership team quickly approved the donation. The Cargill Wichita team then purchased two semi-tractor-trailer loads of fencing materials from a supplier in Chanute, Kan., for delivery Tuesday, March 14, to relief efforts in the Ashland area. From Ashland, fencing materials will be distributed to local ranchers.

"In Dodge City, Kan., we have a large beef processing facility that employs 2,400 Kansans and harvests cattle from some of the ranchers impacted by last week's fires," stated Taylor. "Helping those who are part of our beef supply chain is the right thing to do  it's part of our DNA at Cargill and it's gratifying to know we could help those who lost so much rebuild their lives."

Additionally, Cargill's team in Dodge City is providing support to two beef processing plant employees who lost their homes and all of their belongings to nearby wildfires.

"Our mission to nourish people, animals and the planet in a safe, responsible and sustainable way sometimes means lending a hand to people in need, and that's exactly what we're doing in western Kansas," explained Taylor.

About Cargill

Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and 150 years of experience. We have 150,000 employees in 70 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.

SOURCE Cargill

Related Links

http://www.cargill.com


SUNRISE, Fla., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ProcessMAP Corporation, a leading provider of enterprise cloud software platform for Risk, Health, and Safety management, announced that Case Farms, a vertically integrated poultry farming and processing group and one of the nation's leading poultry producers, is adopting its software to protect workers on the job.

The meat and poultry industry is responsible for approximately six percent of our GDP, directly employs nearly two million people, and is indirectly responsible for about five million jobs. Workers in this industry face numerous inherent health and safety risks that if not controlled, can result in injuries and illnesses.

Like other progressive companies in the pursuit of safety excellence, Case Farms is adopting ProcessMAP's integrated health and safety software to:

Provide employees with the safest workplace possible

Centralize and automate safety management processes across the organization

Mitigate recordable incidents and control risk by harnessing the power of big data to track, trend, and correlate workplace safety data  enabling smarter decisions

Ensure compliance with OSHA's workplace safety standards

Decrease lag time and manage safety on-the-go with an online/offline mobile platform

Get actionable insights to reduce workers' compensation costs through seamless data exchange with Third Party Administrators

"With facilities nationwide, operationalizing our commitment to worker health and safety across the company using manual, paper-based processes was virtually impossible. Adopting ProcessMAP equips Case Farms to proactively improve safety management procedures, ensure compliance, and elevate our safety program to excellence. The leadership team and I are excited about the insights we'll garner from ProcessMAP's analytics, empowering us to make informed decisions to mitigate safety risk," said Rick Barton, Director of Safety at Case Farms.

"We applaud Case Farm's commitment to employee health and safety," said Jagan Garimella, Chief Technology Officer at ProcessMAP. "With ProcessMAP's EDGE Solution, designed specifically for growing businesses, Case farms is positioning itself to yield quick health and safety wins by rapidly deploying an out-of-the-box solution with embedded best practices."

About ProcessMAP Corporation

ProcessMAP Corporation is the leading provider of cloud-based enterprise software solutions that empower organizations to manage risk related to Employee Health & Safety and Enterprise Compliance. The company is headquartered in Sunrise, Fla., with locations across the globe, serving customers in over 125 countries. For more information, visit ProcessMAP.com.

About Case Farms

Founded in 1986, Case Farms is a fully integrated poultry farming and processing group of dedicated individuals that work together to produce consistent, quality poultry products. Its driving purpose is to deliver superior products and service to every customer, every time. Case Farms processes 2.9 million birds per week, has over 3,200 dedicated team members, and produces in excess of 900 million pounds of fresh, partially cooked, and frozen-for-export poultry products per year. The company has operations or offices Ohio and North Carolina. For more information on Case Farms, visit www.casefarms.com.

CONTACT: Maria Colespring, 1-954-634-4469, [email protected]

SOURCE ProcessMAP Corporation

Related Links

http://www.processmap.com


"Ryan brings a wealth of business and leadership experience in the rapidly changing application delivery market that we are helping to shape," commented Mr. Grout. "His knowledge and strong passion will be instrumental in taking Cedexis forward, and I am sincerely thrilled to pass the baton to a uniquely talented leader."

Mr. Windham originally joined Cedexis in mid-2016 as Vice President of Product and Strategy, with a mandate to chart a strategic course for the company's future. Prior to joining Cedexis, he was a key executive at F5 Networks, most recently as Vice President of Product Management. Prior to F5 Mr. Windham spent a decade at Websense, focused on developing disruptive product and market strategies. A graduate of the University of London, Mr. Windham holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

"I want to thank Scott for his unwavering dedication to Cedexis and for setting us up for success," said Mr. Windham. "A window of opportunity has opened for Cedexis, and I, along with the company, plan to move quickly and assertively to meet the challenge. Today's DevOps teams are looking for truly cloud-native solutions to ensure reliable, efficient, and massively scalable application delivery for modern application architectures; Openmix provides exactly the platform to meet that need. We truly are in the right place at the right time and I look forward to leading the charge for the great change ahead at Cedexis."

As the traffic traversing the Internet continues growing dramatically at a rate that will result in more than 2.3 zettabytes of information flowing back and forth by 2020, the need for real-time intelligent routing of application data, content, and video has become critical. Cedexis is engaged with leading global firms including Microsoft, Slack, and LinkedIn to smooth the delivery of applications and content from provider to consumer, and to deliver cost efficiencies by enabling flexible network strategies.

"The company's direction in the next few years maps exactly to our founding vision," added Julien Coulon, Co-Founder and GM, Europe. "Ryan's deep domain knowledge, strong drive, and strategic vision puts us on the fast track to deliver an application delivery platform that is desperately needed in the marketplace."

"Cedexis offers a must-have application delivery solution for all major application and content publishers," concluded Len Jordan, Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group and Cedexis director. "The board could not be more thrilled to have Ryan in place to guide the company to its rightful place at the head of the pack."

Cedexis has increasingly become a key solution for organizations delivering applications, content, and video at scale across the Internet. Its global server load balancer, Openmix, uses data from billions of real user measurements, as well as synthetic monitoring and other integrated analytics, to route web traffic through the most advantageous pathways. By using Openmix to select the right data center, cloud, or CDN, Cedexis customers deliver robust, consistent, and reliable user experiences, at the lowest delivery cost. For more information on Cedexis, please visit the company's website and follow Cedexis on Twitter @cedexis.

About Cedexis

Cedexis facilitates the world's largest user experience community and real-time traffic routing across multiple clouds and networks. Cedexis Radar crowd sources billions of real user measurements (RUM) a day from a community of 1,000s of popular websites and mobile apps, with traffic routing services based on the insights this data provides, for the best performance, availability, or cost. Trusted by over 1,000 global brands including Microsoft, Slack, LinkedIn, A&E, Nissan, Comcast, Mozilla, Accor Hotels, Airbus, Cartier, and Shutterstock. Cedexis is headquartered in Portland, Oregon with offices in Paris, France, San Francisco, CA, Brooklyn, NY and London.

Cedexis Press contact (USA-Canada):

Jacqueline Velasco

Lumina Communications on behalf of Cedexis

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: (408) 680-0564

SOURCE Cedexis

Related Links

http://cedexis.com


CONCORD, N.H., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nine Celebrity chefs were selected from around the state to represent New Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Association's statewide 6th Annual New Hampshire Restaurant Week running March 24-31, 2017.

Restaurant Week NH displays the talent and creative genius of nine Granite State Celebrity Chefs, chosen for their vision and passion in culinary arts and contributions to New Hampshire's culinary community. Celebrity Chefs representing the 6th Annual Restaurant Week New Hampshire are listed below. Meet the chefs at restaurantweeknh.com.

Chef Nimesh Maharjan of Tuscan Kitchen was not born into a family of foodies, nor did he know as a young child that he wanted to become a world-class chef. In fact, his native country of Nepal is far better known as the ultimate mountaineering destination rather than any sort of culinary magnet.

Chef Jonathan Cox of Three Chimneys Inn & ffrost Sawyer Tavern brings creative, traditional and eclectic menus and is diverse in all forms of scratch cookery and charcuterie. Jonathan's passion for culinary gives his food an extra ounce of deliciousness by simply allowing food to be food.

Chef Nicole Barreira of Great NH Restaurants is a fun and feisty part of the Great NH Restaurant team, better known as T-BONES, Cactus Jack's and Copper Door. She is the Corporate Chef for T-BONES & Cactus Jack's and is an intricate part of the marketing team for the company as a whole.

Chef Dan St. Jean of The Common Man is the executive chef, overseeing all kitchen operations, chefs, menu creation and food events for the six Common Man-named locations. Dan began with The Common Man as the Kitchen Manager for the newly opened Lakehouse Grille in Meredith in 2004.

Chef Edward Ceccherini of The Bistro at LaBelle Winery is an executive chef who has been involved with restaurants for over three decades. His seasonally inspired menu at LaBelle features a selection of upscale classic French bistro and American dishes created in large part using locally grown and sourced products.

Chef Matt Provencher of The Foundry is a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute who entered his profession at the age of 16 in a local neighborhood fish market, this small peer into the world of restaurants was enough to captivate and develop his craft. In 2003, Chef Provencher contributed in assisting, developing and serving dinner at the prestigious James Beard House in Manhattan, N.Y.

Chef Adam Parker of Fratello's is an award-winning chef who fosters a simple approach when it comes to food: Passion. He studied at the Culinary Institute of America earning his Bachelor's degree in Culinary Management as well as a Baking and Pastry certification.

Chef Scott Ouellette of O Steaks & Seafood and Canoe is the owner of Magic Foods Restaurant Group: O Steaks & Seafood in Concord and Laconia, Canoe Restaurant & Tavern in Center Harbor and Bedford, The Inn on Main & O Bistro in Wolfeboro and a catering and banquet facility in Moultonborough.

Chef Peter Agostinelli of Bedford Village Inn is an executive chef with over twenty years of culinary experience in more than eight different restaurants. His love of food was founded early on in his grandfather's kitchen here in New England. He claims that his style is grounded in the Italian style with a global infusion of technique and flavor.

For eight days, participating restaurants offer special Restaurant Week New Hampshire menu items with various pricing options, some including a prix fixe, three-course lunch and/or dinner menu.

Any restaurant or lodging facility can participate in Restaurant Week New Hampshire by visiting restaurantweeknh.com or by calling NHLRA at (603) 228-9585. For updates on Restaurant Week via social media, follow on Twitter at twitter.com/restaurantsnh or like the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/restaurantweeknh.

Diners are encouraged to post photos of their culinary experience to the Restaurant Week New Hampshire Facebook page www.facebook.com/restaurantweeknh or use the #RestaurantWeekNH tag on Instagram at www.instagram.com/restaurantweeknh.

Restaurant Week New Hampshire is presented by New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets. Supporting Sponsor is Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England and Contributing Sponsors include: Basil Hayden's Bourbon Whiskey, Earl Studios, Hangar 1 Vodka, Heartland, Open Table, Performance Foodservice  North Center, Sysco, and Woodstock Station Inn & Brewery.

New Hampshire Restaurant Week is sponsored in part by a Joint Promotional Program grant through the New Hampshire Division of Travel & Tourism Development. For further information about New Hampshire, visit the New Hampshire Division of Travel & Tourism website at visitnh.gov.

Media Contact: Lindsay Elitharp

603-228-9585

SOURCE New Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Association
TORONTO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - CellAegis Devices Inc, a Toronto-based medical device company, today announced closing a US$ 9.5 million Series C financing to support a U.S. clinical trial and de novo 510(k) regulatory filing for marketing of its autoRIC Device as an adjunct therapy to stenting. This device automatically delivers Remote Ischemic Conditioning (RIC) to provide a non-invasive, cardio-protective therapy shown to reduce heart damage during heart attacks and other cardiovascular procedures. The autoRIC Device is approved by Health Canada and in Europe where it is being used in multiple large investigator-sponsored trials to assess its efficacy in reducing clinical events after a heart attack.

The financing was led by CTI Life Sciences Fund, a leading Canadian venture capital investor, and co-led by a U.S. based strategic investor. Other investors included MaRS Catalyst Fund, Broadview Ventures and strategic family offices.

Dr. Shermaine Tilley, Managing Partner in CTI Life Sciences Fund, and an appointee from the US Strategic will join CellAegis' board of Directors. Christopher Colecchi, from Broadview Ventures', will also serve as a Director.

"We are ready to advance clinical commercialization of autoRIC Device in the EU and Canada, complete the FDA trial and gain approval to open the US market," said Rocky Ganske, Chief Executive Officer of CellAegis Devices. "This financing adds the experience of seasoned Canadian and U.S. medical technology investors, and demonstrates the support of our existing investors."

Dr. Tilley stated, "CTI Life Sciences Fund is enthusiastic to provide capital to CellAegis at this important juncture in the company's development. The autoRIC Device shows promise in significantly improving outcomes in cardiovascular and other organ systems following ischemic events such as heart attacks, and we look forward to facilitating its clinical testing and regulatory submission for the U.S. market."

*CellAegis autoRIC Device is not cleared or approved for clinical use in the United States.

About CellAegis Devices.

CellAegis Devices (Toronto, Canada) has patented and developed the non-invasive autoRIC Device, which delivers Remote Ischemic Conditioning (RIC) therapy to patients with acute and chronic cardiovascular conditions. This medical procedure protects the heart as well as other organs from ischemia and reperfusion injury. The autoRIC Device has CE Mark and Health Canada approvals for treatment during heart attacks, cardiothoracic or surgical procedures. Investigator sponsored clinical research studies for chronic conditions such as heart failure and stroke are also underway. The autoRIC Device was developed from the clinical work of Dr. Andrew Redington and colleagues at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and funded in part by the Fondation Leducq's Transatlantic Networks of Excellence.

About CTI Life Sciences Fund.

CTI Life Sciences Fund L.P. was created in 2006 and is based in Montreal. The firm makes venture capital investments mostly in high quality biotech and medtech companies at the pre-clinical and clinical development stages, in North America, and primarily in Canada. Since its second mandate in 2014, CTI Life Sciences Fund manages $245 million of assets. For more information, please visit www.ctisciences.com.

About Broadview Ventures.

Broadview's mission is to accelerate the development of promising technology for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular and neurovascular disease through targeted investments. For more information visit http://broadviewventures.org

About MaRS Catalyst Fund.

MaRS Catalyst Fund launched in 2016 provides funding and support to Canadian companies pursuing social and environmental outcomes with business models that scale. MaRS Catalyst focuses on businesses that can deliver better Health outcomes, provide a more sustainable Planet and support happier People through innovative education products and work sustainability services. For more information please visit www.marscatalystfund.ca

**CellAegis and autoRIC are registered Trademarks of CellAegis Devices Inc.

SOURCE CellAegis Devices Inc.

Related Links

http://cellaegisdevices.com


MELVILLE, N.Y., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Canon Solutions America, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc., today announced that Century Direct, LLC., a distinguished direct mail and marketing services provider in Islandia, NY, installed its second Canon imagePRESS C10000VP color digital press. Driven by the success of the first, the addition further solidifies Canon Solutions America's relationship with Century Direct as the Canon imagePRESS C10000VP advances business opportunities for the company.

Founded nearly 85 years ago, Century Direct has a longstanding commitment to serving the direct mail marketing business throughout the northeast region. With unwavering attention to customer service, Century Direct has built a reputation that extends to companies both large and small. Today, the direct marketing services provider puts special emphasis on data management, data processing, and personalized printing, while maintaining a consultative approach that ensures its clients the highest quality and most cost-effective handling of all projects. The all-encompassing, one stop shop also helps customers design and execute campaigns in a coordinated, professional fashion, and its state-of-the-art equipment delivers textual and graphical messages through a range of channels, both digital and traditional.

Determined to acquire the most advanced and game-changing technology in the industry, Century Direct continues to improve its services and deliver outstanding results by adapting to changes in technology and merging trends throughout the years. With a long history of quality and a reputation to uphold, Century Direct relies on Canon Solutions America to provide the ground-breaking technology needed to keep them ahead of the curve in the highly personalized, short to medium length digital printing arena. Century's high expectations were met by its first installation of a Canon imagePRESS C10000VP last year, a product that was engineered with the user's business advantage fully in mind.

"At Century Direct we have a deep appreciation for our customers and we believe they deserve investment in quality equipment," said Michael Kellogg, CEO of Century Direct. "After installing the imagePRESS C10000VP, we experienced a high level of quality output with very little down time. We are looking forward to even more growth this year with double the machine power."

Combining proven imagePRESS features and new print technologies, the Canon imagePRESS C10000VP was designed to help commercial printers, in-plants, production hubs, direct mail, and transaction print service providers to produce a broader range of applications in shorter turnaround times. Built to run up to 100 letter-size images per minute on uncoated stocks ranging from 60-350 gsm and coated stocks ranging from 70-350 gsm, the digital press helps users increase productivity. Additionally, it features new inline spectrophotometric sensors and unique Gloss optimization technology to match gloss levels of the printed image to the substrate it is printed on delivering offset-like, vivid, and reliable output quality at a high resolution of 2400 x 2400. The entire press integrates multiple technologies that are designed to deliver reliable performance. This versatility differentiates the imagePRESS C10000VP series in the market and makes it a high-productivity performer for production print providers.

"We anticipated the imagePRESS would provide exactly what we needed and we were right in doing so," added Kellogg. "Our main requirement was being able to offer high performance on short to medium length runs, mixed-media, and smaller jobs to our customers. We are excited to see how far the second installation will take our level of productivity and performance."

Canon Solutions America's specialized printing solutions and technology creates vast business opportunities for customers through cost-effective print production and quality assurance. The Canon imagePRESS C10000VP and Century Direct are proving to be a perfect match and the second installation is expected to unlock new business prospects for the company. Furthermore, Century Direct expanding its relationship with Canon Solutions America is testament to the success of the Canon imagePRESS C10000VP.

"Yet again, I am proud of our enduring relationship with Century Direct and pleased to hear our solutions are exceeding expectations," said Peter Kowalczuk, executive vice president, Zone Operations & Marketing, Enterprise Services & Solutions, Canon Solutions America. "This is a great accomplishment for Canon Solutions America and we promise to always find ways to expose Century Direct to the latest technology to meet their business needs."

To learn more about Century Direct's offerings and how the organization sets itself apart, be sure to visit their newly redesigned website at http://www.centurydirect.net/.

About Century Direct, LLC.

Century Direct started as a letter company in 1932, providing personalized letter services to marketing executives in Manhattan and the New York Metro area. Letterpresses were used to print the bodies of letters and a staff of typists completed the letters by filling in the name, address and salutation of the recipients; hence "Century Full Fill-in Letter Services." Envelopes were addressed by typing the information directly on the piece. Today, technology enables Century Direct to understand its audience better, to find prospects that match its customer profiles, to deliver textual and graphical messages that mean something to its customers' targeted prospects. Century Direct delivers those messages through a range of channels, both digital and traditional. The way Century Direct puts all of this together is truly what sets it apart.

About Canon Solutions America, Inc.

Canon Solutions America provides industry leading enterprise, production, and large format printing solutions, supported by exceptional professional service offerings. With the technology offerings of the Canon and Oce brands, Canon Solutions America helps companies of all sizes improve sustainability, increase efficiency, and control costs through high volume, continuous feed, digital and traditional printing, and document management solutions. A wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc., Canon Solutions America is headquartered in Melville, N.Y. and has sales and service locations across the U.S. For more information on Canon Solutions America, please visit csa.canon.com.

Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States and elsewhere. Oce is a registered trademark of Oce-Technologies B.V. in the United States and elsewhere. All other referenced product names and marks are trademarks of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged.



 2017 Canon Solutions America, Inc. All rights reserved.

Canon Solutions America, Inc. Website:





Editorial Contact: http://csa.canon.com





Stephanie Caro For sales info/customer support:





631-330-4432 1-844-443-INFO (4636)





[email protected]

SOURCE Canon Solutions America, Inc.

Related Links

https://csa.canon.com


Mr. Moriarty, who also serves as Chesapeake Utilities' General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, joined the Company in 2015. Mr. Moriarty is responsible for overseeing the Company's legal affairs. In addition, Mr. Moriarty leads Chesapeake Utilities' Security Council and Risk Management committees.

"Mr. Moriarty is a trusted leader who has earned the respect and confidence of our team, our business partners and stakeholders throughout our service territories," said Mr. McMasters. "His energy experience, legal expertise and professional relationships, coupled with his business judgement and strategic thinking, will continue to contribute to the work underway to position our Company for future opportunities and growth."

Mr. Moriarty has over 25 years of experience representing leading companies on diverse energy projects. Previously, Mr. Moriarty was a Partner at Locke Lord LLP and Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP, both international law firms with offices in Washington, D.C.

About Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Chesapeake Utilities Corporation is a diversified energy company engaged in natural gas distribution, transmission, gathering and processing, and marketing; electricity generation and distribution; propane gas distribution and wholesale marketing; and other businesses. Information about Chesapeake Utilities Corporation's businesses is available at www.chpk.com or through our IR App.

Please note that Chesapeake Utilities Corporation is not affiliated with Chesapeake Energy, an oil and natural gas exploration company headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Statements in this release that are not historical are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "expect," "likely," "outlook," "forecast," "would," "could," "should," "can," "will," "project," "intend," "plan," "goal," "target," "continue," "sustain," "believe," "seek," "estimate," "anticipate," "may," "possible," "assume," variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to vary materially from those indicated, including the factors described in Item 1A (Risk Factors) of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, each of which is incorporated herein by reference, and in other documents that we file or furnish with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those indicated or anticipated by such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Except to the extent required by law, the Company does not undertake, and expressly disclaims, any duty or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement after the date of this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise.

For more information, contact:

Mike Stock

Sr. Director, Corporate Communications

Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

302-736-7808

[email protected]

SOURCE Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Related Links

http://www.chpk.com


CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterprise Realty Brokers believes that people pay too much to list and sell their homes. With the housing market in full recovery, this agency is setting new trends and helping homeowners put more money back in their pockets.

With the real estate market continuing to improve, real estate agents are finding it more and more profitable to get back into this sector working full time. Though people do choose to sell by owner, the majority go through a well-established agency so they can take advantage of the MLS listings.

One of the big reasons people cite for not wanting to list with an agency is the commission that can be as high as 6% of the sale price. On homes worth a lot of money, this amount can be significant. For instance, a homeowner selling at $500k will pay about $30,000 simply for the listing and buyer's agent's fees.

Dan Cuckovic, the managing broker and owner of Enterprise Realty Brokers, a Chicago-based real estate company, recently stated that, "Considering the real estate market today, sellers should never agree to pay more than 4% commission."

Cuckovic goes over the top three reasons for this statement:

The Chicagoland market in 2017 is going to be a seller's market. According to Midwest Real Estate Data service, the supply of real estate is at its 10-year low with only 4.2 months of supply available. Month's supply chart indicates the number of months it would take to sell off the entire real estate inventory currently on the market without any new properties being added. Knowing this empowers sellers and gives them confidence that there will be a good to excellent demand for their property.

Smaller agencies can provide excellent services without large corporate fees. Large corporate and office fees that big brand real estate firms charge their agents drive the commission percentages upwards. Smaller, more specialized firms do not have these fees and their agents are at liberty to reduce their commission in order to obtain the listing, without sacrificing the quality of the services offered.

Everyone is online. This goes for sellers, buyers and real estate agents. The most important search tool for the homebuyer is the internet (according to the National Association of Realtors). 100% of buyers have at some point used the internet and it's free to use.

Cuckovic also points out that websites like Zillow.com and Realtor.com offer free access and reliable information on all homes for sale in the Chicagoland area. Any buyer searching for a new home will use these or similar sites. Listing with any licensed real estate agent does put a home on the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) network and it should show up on these and other websites. This service is expected to be offered by all agents, regardless of whether they are charging 6% or 3.5% commission. While there are other means to reach buyers (open houses, social media and email campaigns), online presence is crucial.

For homeowners, these reduced real estate fees are very good news; it's money they can put back in their pockets. The question that remains is how to find those agents that are willing to offer full services at a discounted rate.

Cuckovic offers this advice: "Do your research online and use services like Upnest.com or Hungryagent.com. These websites have agents bid for your business, allowing you to interview and select the best agent at the most affordable price. In addition, approach your local family owned real estate firm and talk to them about discounting their fees. If you are also buying your next property after the sale and you are open to using the same agent to find your next home, it is highly unlikely that any agent will say no."

For more information, please visit: http://enterpriserb.com/ or view our video

About: Enterprise Realty Brokers was founded in 2005 by Dan Cuckovic. The company's goal is to offer the best services possible to clients at the best possible prices. They strive to go the extra mile to help clients achieve their real estate objectives. They focus on helping clients sell and buy residential real estate in the areas of Cook, Lake and DuPage County. Enterprise has changed the playing field in real estate by focusing on technology and data to deliver the best services and results to clients.

Media Contact:

Enterprise Realty Brokers

2900 W. Irving Park Suite C2

Chicago, IL 60618 United States

[email protected]

773-999-9679

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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 Enterprise Realty Brokers

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DURHAM, N.C., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading Christian higher education resource, Christian Universities Online (http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org/), has published a ranking of the Top 10 Communication and Journalism Degree Programs 2017.

For this ranking, members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) or schools that could be considered member eligible were evaluated for degree programs in the fields of communications and journalism. Christian Colleges Online then collected publicly available data in the following six categories: 1) number of undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the field of communications or journalism; 2) faculty-to-student ratio; 3) percent of full-time beginning undergraduates receiving grant or scholarship aid; 4) selectivity; 5) overall retention rate; and 6) overall graduation rate. Equal weight was assigned to each of these categories with the exception of the number of degree programs, which was given a slightly higher weight than the others.

Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, claimed the top spot on the list. Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, and Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, placed in second and third place, respectively. The ranking can be viewed at http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org/top-10-communication-and-journalism-degree-programs-2017/.

Other schools making the list include (in alphabetical order):

Abilene Christian University - Abilene, Texas

Azusa Pacific University - Azusa, California

Calvin College - Grand Rapids, Michigan

Cedarville University - Cedarville, Ohio

Eastern University - Saint Davids, Pennsylvania

George Fox University - Newberg, Oregon

Liberty University - Lynchburg, Virginia

Gary Orr, editor for the ranking, states that its goal is to highlight schools that excel in their educational offerings in communications and journalism. The wide range of media outlets available has opened wide the field of communications, providing the public with a vast assortment of sources for news and information-- a situation that creates both opportunities and pitfalls. "In this media climate, journalism and communications programs at Christian colleges have a responsibility to hold the bar high," says Orr. He adds, "Journalism and communications have been a hotly debated topic now for well over a year, particularly in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. The proliferation of misleading--or outright false--information, is calling into question the integrity of media sources, both traditional and non-traditional. Mistrust of the mainstream media, along with the explosion of alternative sources for news, creates a climate in which journalists with a high level of professionalism, proper training, and integrity will be more important than ever. Christian colleges and universities have a wonderful opportunity to train and shape the kind of media professionals who are committed to disseminating good information to the public. While industry shakeout may be inevitable, there is nevertheless a golden opportunity for students with a strong character, a sense of morality and ethics, and a passion for equitable reporting to excel in this new atmosphere."

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, editor

Christian Universities Online

(919) 858-6153

[email protected]

SOURCE Christian Universities Online

Related Links

http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org


SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Citcon, an integrated mobile payment and marketing platform to connect global merchants with Chinese travelers, is partnering with China Unicom Global to enable omni-channel payment for its newly launched "CUniq" mobile virtual network operation (MVNO) business in Americas. With this partnership, China Unicom will be able to accept payments from Chinese travelers through Alipay, WeChat Pay and Union Pay, in addition to other major credit cards.

China Unicom, the second largest telecommunications company in China, launched "CUniq" MVNO business recently, an overseas mobile communication service created for international business travelers and Chinese students studying the US. "CUniq US" features one-card-multiple-number card service which is available in 47 countries and regions among the main countries and regions of China, America, Asia and Europe. Citcon's omni-channel payment solution makes it easy for customers to purchase and pay for the products with their preferred choice of payment when they are traveling abroad, and allows China Unicom to harness the growth of e-commerce and China's outbound tourism market on a single gateway.

"The partnership with China Unicom signifies the value of our integrated mobile payment for companies targeting Chinese travelers in North America," said Chuck Huang, Founder and CEO of Citcon, "It sets an excellent example for e-commerce businesses and telecommunications companies that look to meet customers' demands and drive business growth in various payment scenarios. It is also a strong evidence to demonstrate our capabilities of delivering stable, secure and customized solutions for large corporate clients."

As the first payment partner of Alipay and WeChat Pay, in addition to other payment methods such as UnionPay, Apple Pay, Android Pay, MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express, Citcon is the one-stop shop for merchants to connect with Chinese consumers and accept payments anywhere. Our smart mobile point-of-sale (mPOS), easy-to-integrate API and software products provide merchants a seamless experience to accept payments both offline and online, manage business performance and customer insights, promote product and services, drive sales via our global partner network, as well as build lifetime brand loyalty with Chinese consumers.

China has been the world number one outbound tourism country for four consecutive years, and the United States has been one of the most popular tourism destinations for Chinese travelers, with $80 billion spending by Chinese travelers in the U.S. expected in 2020. China's business travel market growth outpaces the rest of the world, accounting for nearly 25% of global business travel spending. In 2017, an 8.4% increase is expected to bring the total Chinese business travel spend to $344.6 billion USD.

For business inquiries, please contact 1-888-254-4887 or [email protected]

About Citcon

With headquarters in Silicon Valley, Citcon is an integrated mobile payment and marketing platform that connects global merchants with Chinese consumers. As the first authorized payment partner of WeChat Pay, Alipay and UnionPay in North America, in addition to other key payment platforms including Visa, MasterCard and American Express, Citcon brings mobile payment to the next level, enabling businesses to connect with customers beyond the payment experience. With our extensive experience and deep expertise in Chinese outbound travel market, mobile payment, cross-border ecommerce and cross-border marketing, Citcon is the one-stop solution for global businesses to reach millions of Chinese travelers and domestic consumers. Citcon's founding team comes from Visa, PayPal, eBay, Uber, Groupon and Yelp. Citcon is backed by leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms and received strategic investments from leading technology and financial service companies in China. For more information, please go to www.citcon-inc.com

Media contact

Evelyn Yang

Citcon

408-6562536

[email protected]

SOURCE Citcon
SYDNEY and NEW YORK, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Clive Dickens, Chief Digital Officer at Seven West Media, was today recognized as Australia & NZ Chief Digital Officer of the Year 2017 by the CDO Club, the world's largest community of C-suite digital and data leaders.

Mr. Dickens was announced as the recipient of the award after participating on a panel on Digital Leadership at today's second annual Sydney CDO Summit.

Clive Dickens

Mr. Dickens was presented with the award by CDO Club founder David Mathison and Paul Rush, Partner at executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, at Pier One in Sydney, Australia.

"Today we recognize Clive as a visionary digital executive and inspirational leader whose passion, creativity, and drive has led to a successful track record in transforming analogue businesses to digital across the globe, from the UK to Australia," remarked David Mathison, CEO of the CDO Club.

"Clive has consistently proven himself to be a humble mentor to his team, collegial and helpful with his peers, and a well-respected colleague across the C-suite. I am delighted to name Clive as Australia's Chief Digital Officer of the Year for 2017," said Mathison.

Mr. Dickens joined Seven West Media in February 2015. He is also a non-Executive Director of Yahoo7. As Chief Digital Officer, Mr. Dickens oversees strategic, operational, and investment aspects of the company's wide-ranging digital content & digital revenue activities.

"It's an honour to be recognized by my peers for this award, but like all success in business I would really like to acknowledge the extraordinary talents of my colleagues and teams across the country, as they are the ones who co-create and execute our SWM company strategy in an increasingly digital world," said Mr. Dickens.

Mr. Dickens has over 30 years' experience in digital and broadcast media. His first digital role in 1995 was with Capital Interactive in the United Kingdom. In 2000, Clive became an advisor to the founders of Shazam. In 2008 Clive co-founded Absolute Radio. In 2010, Clive was a Founder of UK Radio Player, a joint digital venture between UK Broadcasters and the BBC. In April 2013, he relocated from the UK to Australia as Director of Digital and Innovation at Southern Cross Austereo during which time he and his team created the Industry leading Radio App.

Clive is also one of the Founding Directors of Code Club - a not for profit registered charity for primary school children funded in part by a grant from the Telstra Foundation.

Seven West Media Limited (www.sevenwestmedia.com.au) is Australia's leading multiple platform media company with a market-leading presence in broadcast television, magazine, and newspaper publishing, and online. The company is the home of many of Australia's best performing media businesses  Seven Network, Pacific Magazines, The West Australian, and Yahoo!7, and world-renowned content brands Home & Away, Border Security, and MKR, amongst many others.

In 2016, the inaugural ANZ CDO of the Year award winner was Rebekah Horne, then Chief Digital Officer at Network Ten, and now CDO at the National Rugby League.

Previous global CDO of the Year award winners include Adam Brotman, Chief Digital Officer at Starbucks Coffee Company; Rachael S. Haot, former Chief Digital Officer of New York City and New York State; Teddy Goff, former Digital Director at Obama for America in 2008 and 2012; Patrick Hoffstetter, Chief Digital Officer at Renault; Tanya Cordrey, former Chief Digital Officer at Guardian News and Media; and Mike Bracken, former Chief Digital Officer at U.K.'s Government Digital Service.

About the CDO Club

The CDO Club is the world's largest community of C-suite digital and data leaders. Its 3,000+ registered members receive access to breaking news, original research, career development support, and networking opportunities. Visit: http://CDOClub.com.

About the CDO Summit

The CDO Summit addresses the challenges and opportunities arising from big data, the cloud, digital disruption, and social and mobile media. CDO Summit gatherings include the very best digital and data strategists and practitioners on Earth, speaking in intimate, collegial, and supportive environments designed to encourage networking, learning, and knowledge-sharing. Visit CDOSummit.com .

Media Contacts:

Michelle Oster

Communications Manager

CDO Club

Email: [email protected]

Tel +1 516 488-1143

SOURCE CDO Club

Related Links

http://cdoclub.com


Europe is in the spotlight this year thanks to a series of elections and referendums. In particular, the Netherlands is the first country to hold general election on March 15. The race for the position of the Dutch Prime Minister between Geert Wilders, a leader of the populist Party of Freedom (PVV), and the incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who leads Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) is on a knife-edge.



This is especially true given that Wilders, whose popularity surged in recent months, appears to have lost momentum in the final week, falling behind Ruttes party with 22 seats compared with 25 in early March, as per the latest poll from Peil.nl. VVD is on course to win 25 seats out of the 76 needed to form a coalition government. Another poll  the Dutch Polling Indicator  also shows VVD is in the lead with 16% compared to PVV at 13% (read: Are European ETFs a Good Buy Amid Political Uncertainty?).



The current Dutch government comprises VVD holding 40 seats and the center-Left Labour Party (PvdA) with 36 seats. Though VVD is leading currently, the possibility of Geert Wilders becoming the largest party is still real as he effectively led the polls since September 15.



Consequences of Wilders Win



A PVV win could shake the future of the Netherlands and send shockwaves across Europe. This is especially true as Wilders called for a Dutch referendum on European Union (EU) membership last year immediately after the United Kingdom voted to leave the union. On his campaign trails, Geert Wilders proposed to close mosques and ban the Koran to prevent Muslin immigration in the Netherlands.



Investors should note that immigrants make up 25% of the countrys population. According to the Netherlands central bureau of statistics, immigrants increased from 56,000 in 2015 to 88,000 in 2016 with 29,000 coming from Syria.



Further, the victory of the PVV leader would lead to a populist uprising in the country. It would also spread the populist wave across the EU with the upcoming French and German elections, leading to heightened political uncertainty (read: 3 Reasons Why These European ETFs Compelling Bets Now).



However, even if Wilders wins the maximum number of seats, he is unlikely to form the government as all his main rivals have ruled out forming a coalition with him.



Netherlands ETF in Focus



Given the political tussle, the only ETF  iShares MSCI Netherlands ETF EWN  tracking the country will be in focus in the coming weeks. Year to date, the ETF is one of the best performers in the European space having gained over 10%, suggesting a strong outlook in the Netherlands momentum outlook despite the vote.



The fund tracks the MSCI Netherlands Investable Market Index and is home to a small basket of 58 companies. It is heavily concentrated on the top three firms that make up for a combined 37.4% of assets. Consumer staples takes the top spot at 28.6% in terms of sector holdings, followed by financials (19.2%), industrials (18.8%) and information technology (18.1%). The product has AUM of $187.5 million and trades in solid volume of more than 215,000 shares per day. It charges 49 bps in fees per year from investors (see: all the European ETFs here).



Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox?



Zacks free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week. Get it free >>





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Using Storyboard Suite, graphic designers and engineers are equally supported with innovative features and an intuitive workflow that allow them to work in parallel to deliver UIs that are modern, scalable, and optimized for embedded products. Storyboard, while being powerful enough to create high-end, sophisticated UIs, is also easy to learn and use without requiring hardware decisions to be made up front. Teams can be productive from the start of a project through to final delivery, save valuable resources and costs, and deliver thoughtful user experiences in less time.

"The key to building a great embedded user interface is keeping a tight focus on design and user experience, in addition to application performance," said Brian Edmond, President, Crank Software. "Traditional development methodologies leave designers on the sideline after the artwork has been handed off to the software developers. This linear process can negatively impact schedules while leading to a UI that isn't a true reflection of the design vision and is difficult to update. Storyboard Suite 5.0 continues to give designers and developers the tools they need to work collaboratively and iterate the UI until it's just right."

Storyboard Suite 5.0 delivers enhancements that empower designers to retain control over the look and feel of the UI throughout the development lifecycle, enhance team collaboration and design iteration, and help customers create optimized high-performance applications.

New in Storyboard 5.0

Animation Enhancements: Finer animation execution control and custom easing rates to allow designers to easily refine animations and movement

Finer animation execution control and custom easing rates to allow designers to easily refine animations and movement Reusable Components: Ready-to-use, sharable components allow designers to use their own artwork to quickly prototype and test UI interactions

Ready-to-use, sharable components allow designers to use their own artwork to quickly prototype and test UI interactions Design Canvas: New render extension to programmatically facilitate drawing and graphing

New render extension to programmatically facilitate drawing and graphing Exports Options: New application executable options make it easier to share Storyboard applications for quick testing to improve the feedback loop for design iteration

We will be demoing Storyboard Suite 5.0 at Embedded World 2017, Hall 4 / Booth 4-270, March 14-16, 2017.

About Crank Software

Crank Software is an innovator in embedded user interface (UI) solutions, reducing the time, costs, and headaches that notoriously come hand-in-hand with UI development by letting designers and engineers work side-by-side. Crank products manage the UI lifecycle from design to deployment. Teams can use the software to develop, prototype, and refine the UI until it's perfect  both in function and in design  and then deploy the UI for the final product. With a shorter development time and a more collaborative process, products get to market first with a higher ROI and a remarkable UI that builds brand loyalty.

Follow Crank Software Inc. on Twitter and YouTube.

SOURCE Crank Software Inc
BURLINGTON, Mass., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources Group (DRG) is pleased to announce that Stephanie Stadlin has been selected as one of Consulting Magazine's 35 Rising Stars of the profession. Stephanie is a Principal within DRG's Global Consulting Services (DRGC), and partners directly with leading life sciences companies to develop and apply commercial strategy within the US market. Stephanie's expertise lies in the assessment of the clinical value of oncology therapies and how this value is translated and leveraged within the US healthcare system.

Stephanie has been consulting in the healthcare industry for the last seven years, helping clients capture and quantify the value of their products. Stephanie is thrilled to accept the award at the Rising Stars of the Profession Gala Awards Dinner in Chicago on April 27th. "Being nominated and winning this award is truly an honor and a testament to the amazing team of people I have been lucky enough to work with over the course of my career. I view this as more of a team recognition than an individual achievement, and I am proud to be representing our team."

DRGC Partner John Jaeger commented, "This award certainly does not come as a surprise to Stephanie's clients and colleagues. Her strong commitment to client service, delivery excellence, and team collaboration has consistently contributed to the success of our clients and our team."

To follow DRG experts, and stay up to date on their analysis of the latest industry news, connect with DRG on Twitter @DRGInsights and on LinkedIn and the DRG Blog.

About Decision Resources Group

DRG, a subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises Ltd., is the premier source for global healthcare data and market intelligence. A trusted partner for over 20 years, DRG helps companies competing in the global healthcare industry make informed business decisions. Organizations committed to developing and delivering life-changing therapies to patients rely on DRG's in-house team of expert healthcare analysts, data scientists, and consultants to deliver critical guidance. Through products and services leveraging extensive data assets and delivered by experts, DRG clients are well-equipped to succeed in complex healthcare markets.

To learn more, visit www.decisionresourcesgroup.com.

For more information, contact:

Maria Cipicchio

Decision Resources Group

617-747-9073

[email protected]

SOURCE Decision Resources Group

Related Links

http://www.decisionresourcesgroup.com


CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- DialogTech today announced that G2 Crowd, the leading business software review platform, has once again positioned DialogTech as a Leader, the highest ranking, in their latest call tracking software report. This is the fourth time G2 Crowd has released the report ranking the top call tracking providers and the fourth time DialogTech has been placed in the top tier.

Nearly 250 marketing professionals from companies of all sizes and industries submitted reviews for DialogTech on G2 Crowd, with 92% of reviewers providing 4-star or 5-star ratings for the call attribution provider's technology, value and customer service. "Success in business is built upon partnerships between vendors and customers. Our customer-provided rankings reinforce our belief in voice as a marketing channel and our commitment to this critical component of the customer journey," said Irv Shapiro, CEO of DialogTech. "As consumers continue to engage with businesses over the phone, it is important that marketers can not only attribute advertising spend to these conversations and analyze customer experiences, but also provide each caller with a personalized, seamless customer journey. At DialogTech we are committed to providing our customers with the data and insights to do both, resulting in reduced marketing costs and improved sales."

When consumers today connect with brands, they choose what is most convenient in the momentwhether that means filling out a web form, visiting a store or calling a brand to have a human-to-human conversation. To measure and optimize ROI, marketers must take the same data-driven approach to driving those phone conversations as they do to driving online conversions, and the DialogTech platform enables them to do it. DialogTech's inclusion in the select Leader ranking in every G2 Crowd call tracking report to date proves their platform is an industry favorite chosen by marketers to drive more of the conversations that impact business results.

Recent G2 Crowd Customer Reviews for DialogTech:

"Give it a try! For easy call tracking, and dynamic number insertion - DialogTech is worth its weight in gold. This isn't even taking all of the new features into consideration." - Heather Argenti , Digital Consultant at The InterCon Group, a digital marketing agency.

, Digital Consultant at The InterCon Group, a digital marketing agency. "This has already given us tremendous insights into the performance of our call center and has spotlighted areas where we need to improve the experience for our customers...I highly recommend them." - Bruce Kalter , Director of IT Operations & Telecommunications at Myron, a leading supplier of promotional business gifts.

, Director of IT Operations & Telecommunications at Myron, a leading supplier of promotional business gifts. "DialogTech has made client marketing easy to track. I can send my clients call detail reports with attached recordings and that helps a lot with transparency. The reporting is great and customer service is superb." - Brittany May , Marketing Coordinator at New Patient Results, a leading dental marketing service.

, Marketing Coordinator at New Patient Results, a leading dental marketing service. "The DialogTech staff is always willing to work with us to find a solution for our customers. The product is also very easy to install. They have a suite of API's to get information from their system. It's secure and they are always willing to improve or add functionality based on the requirements of their customer's market...Try it! Use it!" - David Vieregge , Director at ZMOT Auto, a leading provider of digital marketing solutions in retail automotive.

To learn more about the DialogTech platform, please visit: https://www.dialogtech.com/optimize-for-calls

About DialogTech

DialogTech provides the only platform for end-to-end call attribution and conversion essential for data-driven marketers. DialogTech's platform solves one of the most pressing challenges in today's mobile-first world by eliminating the black hole inbound calls create in understanding true marketing performance. And as marketers face mounting pressure to drive not only leads but revenue, DialogTech's platform empowers marketers with the call attribution data needed to confidently invest in campaigns that drive calls, as well as the conversion technology necessary to convert callers into customers. DialogTech serves as a strategic partner to over 5,000 enterprises, agencies, and fast-growing companies across a wide variety of industries. For more information visit www.dialogtech.com.

Media Contact

Brittany Kelly

DialogTech

[email protected]

312-971-7662

SOURCE DialogTech

Related Links

http://www.dialogtech.com


PORTLAND, Ore., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) ("Eastside" or the "Company"), a producer of award-winning hand-crafted spirits, today announced the acquisition of MotherLode Craft Distillery, a Portland, Oregon based provider of bottling services and production support to craft distilleries. Since its founding in 2014 by Allen Barteld, the mission of MotherLode has been to enable craft distillers to increase their production and extend their product lines, reducing cost and increasing efficiency, thereby freeing them to focus on their craft. The typical MotherLode customer is a distillery of small batch, hand-crafted spirits, or a premium craft spirit sold as a private label.

Eastside plans to relocate much of its own operations to MotherLode's facility and jointly expand both companies manufacturing resources. Plans are in place for a pneumatic bottling line, allowing for a 5 times increase in bottling rate, and large volume spirit handling capability. The Company believes the MotherLode operations will be immediately accretive to earnings. The Company further believes that cost reductions associated with the acquisition and relocation will exceed $200,000 per annum.

In addition to bottling services for distillers and other producers of spirits, MotherLode bottles "private label" craft spirits for customers who have on-premise or off-premise licenses including retail and liquor stores, bars, restaurants, events, and businesses who want to take advantage of the benefits that come from having their brand clearly printed on a label. MotherLode's premium craft spirits can also be private labeled for corporate gifts, wedding, birthdays and other personal events.

As previously announced, Eastside has retained Portland-based spirits branding firm, Sandstrom Partners, whose previous work includes Aviation Gin, Bulleit Bourbon, Stillhouse and St. Germain. Management believes that MotherLode can help with new product development and the implementation of Eastside's spirits branding initiatives.

Grover Wickersham, Executive Chairman of Eastside Distilling, commented, "The MotherLode acquisition is expected to be accretive on many levels, with a payback targeted to occur within one year to 18 months. A high point of this merger is the recruitment on a long-term contract of Allen Barteld, a foresighted entrepreneur who adds to our team. We hope to accelerate Allen's efforts in the growing third-party craft bottling market."

Wickersham added, "As other opportunities to grow by acquisition arise, we will continue to take advantage of being a public company. We can bring entrepreneurial businesses like MotherLode into our organization while offering their investors the liquidity of publicly traded stock."

Allen Barteld, Founder of MotherLode Craft Distillery, commented, "We are extremely excited to be joining forces with Eastside Distilling, a fellow Portland-area craft distiller. Portland is known for its excellent craft spirits. I look forward to leveraging the capabilities of MotherLode's bottling equipment and customer relationships for the overall benefit of Eastside. This is an exciting time to be involved in the craft spirits space."

Mel Heim, Executive VP of Operations and Master Distiller of Eastside Distilling, exclaimed, "Working with Allen to grow the business is going to be great. What an exciting opportunity this gives us to help others in the craft spirit community bring their ideas to market!"

Eastside Distilling issued 260,000 Common Shares for the acquisition of the MotherLode, LLC. Based on the closing share price of Eastside's stock of $1.45 on March 8, 2017, the value of the transaction was $377,000 which is approximately equal to the revenues of MotherLode in 2016. Additionally, Eastside entered into an employment agreement with Allen Barteld and issued its standard employee stock options, with vesting over five years. Additional terms of the transaction can be found in the Form 8-K filed by the company today.

About Eastside Distilling

Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) is located in Southeast Portland's Distillery Row, and has been producing high-quality, master crafted spirits since 2008. Makers of award winning spirits, the company is unique in the marketplace and distinguished by its highly decorated product lineup that includes Barrel Hitch American Whiskies, Burnside Bourbon, Below Deck Rums, Portland Potato Vodka, and a distinctive line of infused whiskeys. All Eastside spirits are master crafted from natural ingredients for unparalleled quality and taste. The company is publicly traded under the symbolOTCQB: ESDI. For more information visit: www.eastsidedistilling.com or follow the company on Twitter and Facebook.

Important Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: changes in economic conditions; general competitive factors; acceptance of the Company's products in the market; the Company's success in obtaining new customers; the Company's success in product development; the Company's ability to execute its business model and strategic plans; the Company's success in integrating acquired entities and assets, and all the risks and related information described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including the financial statements and related information contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and interim Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Examples of forward-looking statements in this release may include statements related to our strategic focus, product verticals, anticipated revenue, and profitability. The Company assumes no obligation to update the cautionary information in this release.

Investors:

Robert Blum, Joe Diaz or Joe Dorame

Lytham Partners, LLC

(602) 889-9700

[email protected]







SOURCE Eastside Distilling, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.eastsidedistilling.com


AUSTIN, Texas, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Epiphany Dermatology (www.epiphanydermatology.com) announced today it has expanded its presence in the Albuquerque market through its acquisition of Dermatology Consultants of Albuquerque, PC ("DCA"). Epiphany Dermatology is comprised of leading dermatologists committed to improving access to great dermatologic care.

Originally founded in 1974, DCA has a long history of providing quality dermatology services to patients in the greater Albuquerque market through its single location. Through this acquisition, DCA's dedicated providers and support staff have joined Epiphany in a partnership grounded in exceptional patient care.

Dr. James Icken, a board-certified general dermatologist with special focus on skin cancer prevention and detection, commented, "I decided to join Epiphany due to their caring team who share my values. Over the years, as a solo practitioner, the day-to-day administrative burdens have become more difficult to manage, while maintaining the high-quality dedication to patient care that we strive for daily. The partnership with Epiphany offers many advantages that mine can never achieve on its own. I also believe that Epiphany's culture is one of collaboration and thoughtfulness at every level. We have formed a true partnership, and I am excited about the support they will bring, and thus allow me to focus on patient care."

Gheorghe Pusta, Chief Executive Officer of Epiphany, said, "We are pleased to form this partnership with Dr. Icken and the staff at DCA, who have provided clinical excellence in Albuquerque for many years. This is an exciting opportunity to expand our provider network and improve access to great dermatologic care in the Albuquerque marketplace."

Through this partnership, DCA's providers and staff gain additional resources to help with operations, managed care, marketing, compliance, recruiting, and many other areas.

About Epiphany Dermatology

Epiphany Dermatology is a rapidly expanding dermatology company, driven by a passion to improve access to high-quality dermatologic care in a values-based manner. Through its partnership with leading dermatologists at eighteen locations in Texas and New Mexico, Epiphany provides general dermatology, skin cancer care, Mohs surgery, cosmetic services, and additional dermatologic services. Epiphany raises the standard of dermatology care by making clinical excellence accessible to all patients, promptly and in a warm and inviting environment. Epiphany Dermatology is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more details, please visit www.epiphanydermatology.com or call (512) 628-0465.

Ted Emmert

Chief Development Officer

Epiphany Dermatology

(512) 628-0465

[email protected]

Gheorghe Pusta

Chief Executive Officer

Epiphany Dermatology

(512) 628-0465

[email protected]

SOURCE Epiphany Dermatology

Related Links

http://www.epiphanydermatology.com


CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago (FHLBC) has announced the introduction of Community First Capacity-Building Grants, a new program to support the growth of nonprofit lending institutions promoting economic development and affordable housing in Illinois and Wisconsin. Through its member financial institutions, the FHLBC will provide grants of $10,000 to $100,000 to help qualifying nonprofit community development loans funds and community development financial institutions (CDFIs) build their financial, operational, and human capital.

"Our new Community First Capacity-Building Grants are designed to fill a gap in funding for nonprofit lenders," said Suzi Thackston, FHLBC Community Investment Officer. "Investing in the development and expansion of loan programs is critical to these organizations; however, we recognize that support for general operations goes hand-in-hand in supporting long-term organizational sustainability. We want to be a source of funding to help nonprofit lenders grow, become more self-sufficient, and better respond to industry changes."

Eligible uses of Community First Capacity-Building Grants might include:

Market research to expand existing programs

Professional development of staff

Creation or expansion of a strategic plan for the organization

Improvement of lending policies and procedures

Enhancements to management and information systems

Improvements to lending portfolio and financial reporting

Development of mission-related outcomes reporting

Applications will be accepted April 3 through May 5. To apply, nonprofit lenders should contact one of the FHLBC's member financial institutions in their area; the application and a list of members can be found at www.fhlbc.com.

Only nonprofit lenders with a footprint in the Bank's district of Illinois and Wisconsin will be considered. Evaluation will be based on each organization's mission, strength, strategy to increase community development lending within Illinois and Wisconsin, and proposed uses for the grant funds. After initial review, the FHLBC will request additional information from eligible applicants, and award recipients will be announced in August.

For More Information

To learn more about the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago's Community First Capacity-Building Grant Program or to download an application, please visit the Community Investment section of www.fhlbc.com.

For more information about the FHLBC and its full range of Community Investment programs, please visit www.fhlbc.com or @FHLBC.

SOURCE Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago

Related Links

http://www.fhlbc.com


MOUNT OLIVE, N.J., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Flowonix Medical Inc. of New Jersey, and Colorado-based Cerebral Therapeutics, announced today the first patients implanted with the Prometra



II Programmable Infusion System in the Australian Direct Drug Administration for Refractory Epilepsy (ADDRESS) clinical trial at St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia . The jointly developed therapy features a micro-infusion device that tightly controls drug delivery to a region of the brain for patients with medically refractory epilepsy.

ADDRESS is the first multi-center dose ranging clinical study assessing intracerebroventricular (ICV) delivery of the drug valproate (valproate sodium) in patients with focal seizures, with temporal lobe onset with or without secondary generalization. Nine patients will take part in this experimental treatment, wherein patients will receive ICV administration of valproate via the Flowonix Prometra II Programmable Pump. Clinicians associated with the trial are encouraged with the preliminary results in reducing the number of epileptic seizures.

"We are really excited to be able to study this new treatment option for patients in the ADDRESS trial  it may offer new hope to those with uncontrolled epilepsy," stated Professor Mark Cook, Chair of Medicine and Director of Neurosciences at St. Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Refractory epilepsy, referred to as uncontrolled, intractable, or drug-resistant epilepsy, occurs when medications do not bring seizures under control. Epilepsy patients that are refractory to oral anti-epileptic drug treatment have significantly higher mortality, higher morbidity, higher economic costs and diminished quality of life compared to those who suffer from epilepsy that can be adequately controlled with medical management. About one in three people with epilepsy progress to refractory epilepsy.

"The ability to target-deliver anti-epilepsy medication through an established infusion pump delivery could be a treatment with profoundly positive ramifications," stated Dr, Ashwini Sharan, Neurosurgical and Neurological Professor at Jefferson University, and President of the North American Neuromodulation Society. "This is the first time in the world this approach is being taken."

Dan Abrams, Chief Executive Officer of Denver-based Cerebal Therapeutics, noted that this is the first time implantable programmable pumps have been used to deliver medication directly to the brain, in the same way they are used to manage spinal pain by delivering medications to the intrathecal space.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly one person in six suffers from some type of neurological condition, amounting to over one billion individuals worldwide. Many neurological conditions can be addressed with medications, but there is still significant unmet medical need.

"Neurological disorders can be devastating to patients and their families, who are often left with few options," stated Larry Heaton, Chief Executive Officer of Flowonix Medical, Inc. "Flowonix is emerging as a world leader in implantable drug infusion systems used to treat pain, and we have particular expertise in the accurate and reliable delivery of microdoses of medication."

He continued, "As the first trial of its kind, the ADDRESS study is a signficant milestone for Flowonix Medical, Inc., Cerebral Therapeutics, the healthcare community, and patients worldwide. If the clinical study results in demonstrated positive outcomes, it would benefit patients who have refractory epilepsy and establish targeted drug delivery directly to the brain. It is gratifying when technological advancements offer such exciting possibilities for a new group of patients in need."

About the Prometra II Programmable Infusion System

The Prometra Programmable Infusion System is FDA approved for intrathecal infusion of Infumorph (perservative-free morphine sulfate sterile solution) or preservative-free sterile 0.9% saline solution (Sodium Chloride Injection, USP). The Prometra II Pump is not approved for the ICV administration of valproate in the USA or Australia, and is being studied as an investigational use only device in Australia.

About Flowonix

Flowonix Medical Inc. (www.flowonix.com), headquartered in Mt. Olive, New Jersey, is working with healthcare professionals to help ease suffering associated with chronic pain, enabling patients to improve their lives through innovation and therapy advancements. Our goal is to become the leading implantable drug delivery company in the world. Founded in 2005, Flowonix is working closely with physicians to enhance the capabilities of implantable drug delivery systems. For more information, please visit http://www.flowonix.com

About Cerebral Therapeutics

Cerebral Therapeutics, LLC (www.cerebraltherapeutics.com) is a privately-held company founded with the goal of addressing the well-recognized limitations of existing treatments for uncontrolled neurological diseases. Cerebral Therapeutics is combining advanced micro-dosing technology with proprietary medications to precisely deliver treatments to the other side of the blood-brain barrier to improve the lives of patients with uncontrolled neurological disease. With a promising route of administration, Cerebral Therapeutics offers a new approach to managing neurological diseases by means of delivering ideal dosing to targeted sites within the brain. Initially, Cerebral Therapeutics is focused on improving outcomes and propagation in the brain. Future cerebral therapeutic areas include obesity, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, anxiety spectrum disorder, and brain cancer.

Flowonix and Prometra are registered trademarks of Flowonix Medical, Inc.

Important Safety Information

Please visit http://www.flowonix.com/sites/default/files/prometra_ii_pump_mri_conditions.pdf for important MRI conditions and safe scanning. To learn more on full Prescribing Information, including Warnings, and Instructions for Use, please visit http://www.flowonix.com/healthcare-provider/resources/instructions-for-use and click on available resources.

SOURCE Flowonix Medical Inc.
MCLEAN, Va., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aireon announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Direction des Services de la Navigation Aerienne (DSNA), France's Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP). DSNA will now begin evaluating the technical and operational concepts of deploying space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) in its airspace. This will include assessing the increased safety, efficiency and reduced environmental impact benefits.

As a core member of the Central European Functional Airspace Block (FABEC), DSNA manages one of the busiest airspaces in Europe, controlling more than 3 million flights throughout its airspace in 2016, including five continental Air Traffic Control Centers. DSNA is also in charge of managing airspaces which include French Polynesia Oceanic airspace, New Caledonia airspace, Antilles-French Guiana, a portion of the Indian Ocean and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, some of them including vast amounts of oceanic airspaces that currently have limited surveillance. The MOU will allow DSNA to evaluate the impact of Aireon's real-time, accurate aircraft surveillance on the safety and efficiency in this airspace.

"Aireon's real-time surveillance capability could offer intriguing possibilities in-terms of overall cost-benefits, predominantly in areas of safety and efficiency; there is also the potential for terrestrial infrastructure redundancy and new surveillance provided throughout less than hospitable terrain," said Philippe Barnola, director of strategy and investments, DSNA. "We are excited to bring our experience in managing a wide range of challenging airspace, as a contribution to the AireonSM system's performances assessment."

"DSNA's assessment of Aireon's capabilities is confirmation of their commitment to always offer best-in-class service and technology to their customers and their employees," said Cyriel Kronenburg, vice president of aviation services, Aireon. "France has unique airspace responsibilities that span every hemisphere, through their regional centers. Aireon is exclusively able to provide one system that can support all their global-operational airspace, either as a primary solution for oceanic and remote airspace surveillance, or as a secondary-contingency solution to existing terrestrial-based surveillance systems. We look forward to the results of their assessment."

Aireon's space-based ADS-B system will be operational in 2018, upon completion of the Iridium NEXT satellite constellation. This past January, the first 10 Iridium NEXT satellites and their Aireon hosted-payloads were launched into low-Earth-orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Seven additional SpaceX launches are scheduled to take place over the next 12 to 15 months, six carrying 10 Iridium NEXT satellites and one carrying five. In total, the operational constellation will consist of 66 satellites, while the remaining nine launched will serve as on-orbit spares. The service will provide ANSPs with global aircraft surveillance capability, and is expected to help reduce fuel costs, increase safety, and enable more efficient flight paths.

For additional information about Aireon, please visit www.aireon.com.

For more information about DSNA, please visit www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr.

About Aireon LLC

Aireon is deploying a global, space-based air traffic surveillance system for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) equipped aircraft over the entire globe. For the first time, Aireon will provide real-time ADS-B surveillance to oceanic, polar and remote regions, as well as augment existing ground-based systems that are limited to terrestrial airspace. Aireon will harness next-generation aviation surveillance technologies and extend them globally to significantly improve efficiency, enhance safety, reduce emissions and provide cost savings benefits to all stakeholders. In partnership with leading ANSPs from around the world, NAV CANADA, Enav, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) and Naviair, as well as Iridium Communications, Aireon will have an operational, global, space-based air traffic surveillance system by 2018. For more information about Aireon, visit: www.aireon.com.

About DSNA

DSNA (Direction des Services de la Navigation Aerienne), the French Air Navigation Service Provider, handled 3 million flights in 2016 and recorded the traffic peak day record in Europe: 10,820 flights on July 8th, 2016.

Key Data: 5 ACCs & 75 Control Towers & 3 overseas regional structures / Staff: 7,500

PRESS CONTACT:

Jessie Hillenbrand

Aireon

+1 (703) 287-7452

[email protected]

SOURCE Aireon

Related Links

http://www.aireon.com


WASHINGTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies (SCS) has created an alliance with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to provide scholarships to eligible Federal employees across the country.

This partnership is the latest example of SCS's legacy of collaboration with the Federal Government and its workforce. In 2013, during the 16-day Federal Government furlough, the School of Continuing Studies opened its doors to more than 500 federal employees and contractors. Nineteen courses were offered over the course of the government shutdown in subjects such as project management, leadership development, health care, and social media. During the recent presidential transition, the School facilitated a custom program for President Obama's executive-branch staffers to help them reflect, evaluate, and prepare for career changes in 2017.

Through the School's collaboration with OPM, SCS recognizes a federal workforce not only in the D.C. area, but around the country. In addition to the range of on-ground certificate, Master of Professional Studies (MPS), and Executive Master of Professional Studies (EMPS) programs, the OPM scholarship is also available to eligible federal employees who enroll online.

Additionally, in response to the new Program Management and Improvement Accountability Act, which will enhance accountability and best practices in project and program management throughout the Federal Government, Georgetown SCS is building a center of excellence in project management, offering three distinct programs for differing levels of experience: a professional certificate program, a master's in project management, and an executive master's in program & portfolio management.

"We are proud to expand and enhance the ability for qualified federal employees to access a world-class Georgetown education," said Kelly Otter, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Continuing Studies. "Federal employees bring a broad and rich perspective to the classroom which compliments the skills and knowledge of students working in other sectors. It is my hope that this agreement will expand educational opportunity for talented civil servants."

Alliance with OPM

Program participants will be eligible for a 10% scholarship applied to the current tuition rate for all SCS degree programs and professional certificate programs each academic semester. The discount applies for all Master of Professional Studies and Executive Master of Professional Studies programs; the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies program, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, and Doctor of Liberal Studies program; and non-credit professional certificates.

The School of Continuing Studies currently offers 14 Master of Professional Studies programs in diverse focus areas, such as Project Management, Technology Management, and Urban & Regional Planning. Students may enroll on either a full-time or part-time basis and many of these programs are available online. Additionally, the School offers three Executive Master of Professional Studies degrees in Emergency & Disaster Management, Global Strategic Communications, and Program & Portfolio Management.

For more information about programs and admissions, visit: http://scs.georgetown.edu/opm-federal-scholarship-alliance/.

About the Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies

Georgetown SCS programs combine theory with practice through rigorous curricula led by expert faculty, providing opportunities for students to excel academically and professionally. The School's flexible program formats give students the opportunity to make learning work with their busy lives.

The mission of the School of Continuing Studies is to deliver a world-class education to a diverse array of communities and individuals throughout their academic and professional careers; to improve employability and develop workforces; and to contribute to building a civic-minded, well-informed, and globally aware society.

About OPM

OPM's mission is to Recruit, Retain and Honor a World-Class Workforce to Serve the American People. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve workforce performance.

Contact:

Andrew Glass

Manager of Communications

School of Continuing Studies

Georgetown University

202-687-8715

[email protected]

SOURCE Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies

Related Links

http://scs.georgetown.edu


LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Artificial Intelligence



AI technologies are being developed to assist human beings in deliberating, deducing, analyzing, and inventing new technologies that can guarantee the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The availability and widespread adoption of graphical processing units due to innovation in technology, increased power capacity, and reduced costs have been an impetus for the adoption of AI technologies in sensor systems.



Technavio's analysts forecast the global artificial intelligence market in the industrial sector to grow at a CAGR of 52.65% during the period 2017-2021.



Covered in this report

The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global artificial intelligence market in the industrial sector for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the top four vendors operating in the market.



The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:

- Americas

- APAC

- EMEA



Technavio's report, Global Artificial Intelligence Market in the Industrial Sector 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.



Key vendors

- Amazon Web Services

- IBM

- Siemens

- Omron Adept Technologies



Other prominent vendors

- Affectiva

- AIBrain

- Anki

- AOL

- Ayasdi

- CloudMinds

- DataRobot

- Digital Reasoning

- eBay

- Enefy

- iCarbonX

- MindMeld

- NICE

- Nokia

- Oracle

- Salesforce

- Sentinent Technologies

- Twitter

- Vicarious

- Viv

- Bellabeat

- CrowdFlower

- Didi Chuxing

- Enlitic

- Facebook

- GE

- Google

- Gradberry

- Gridspace

- Humanoid

- Intel

- Jibo

- KwikDesk

- Leap Motion

- Microsoft

- Nuance Communications

- Nvidia

- Quantum Simulations

- Scaled Inference

- Wit.ai

- ALEKS

- Appier

- Blackboard

- Cognii

- Converge Venture Partners

- eDreams Edusoft

- Incredible Labs

- Jenzabar

- MIND Research Institute

- PandaWhale

- Pearson

- Pixatel

- Quid

- RadiumOne

- Rigetti Computing

- Topicmarks



Market driver

- Development of deep-learning technology.

- For a full, detailed list, view our report



Market challenge

- Technical difficulties in developing AI technologies.

- For a full, detailed list, view our report



Market trend

- AI technology for advanced robot programming.

- For a full, detailed list, view our report



Key questions answered in this report

- What will the market size be in 2021 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?



You can request one free hour of our analyst's time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4647367/



Methodology

Research methodology is based on extensive primary and secondary research. Primary research includes in-depth interviews with industry experts, vendors, resellers and customers. Secondary research includes Technavio Platform, industry publications, company reports, news articles, analyst reports, trade associations and the data published by Government agencies.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4647367/



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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FILE- In this Sept. 23, 2015, file photo, the Mackinac Bridge is visible from a marker near Enbridge Line 5 on the northern shore of the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan. Operators of twin oil pipelines beneath the swirling waterway where Lakes Huron and Michigan converge insisted Monday, March 13, 2017, that they remain structurally sound even though an outer layer of protective covering has worn away in some places, while skeptics said the deterioration is further evidence the lines should be shut down. (Neil Blake/The Grand Rapids Press via AP, File)

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP)  Operators of twin oil pipelines beneath the swirling waterway where Lakes Huron and Michigan converge insisted Monday they remain structurally sound even though an outer layer of protective covering has worn away in some places, while skeptics said the deterioration is further evidence the lines should be shut down.

Officials with Enbridge Inc. said the exterior material is not essential to the pipes' integrity and there is no reason for concern about its absence in spots along the lines extending nearly 5 miles along the bottomlands of the Straits of Mackinac.

"If there was ever a time when we weren't 100 percent confident in its fitness, we wouldn't be operating the pipeline," Brad Shamla, the Canadian company's vice president of U.S. operations for liquid pipelines, told reporters before a meeting of the Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board.

But many of the roughly 250 spectators, some of whom arrived in buses from northern Michigan, were not convinced. The standing-room-only gathering in a state office building west of Lansing was often testy, with pipeline opponents jeering representatives of Enbridge and supportive businesses.

Skeptics said questions about the pipeline covering, and a report submitted by an independent engineer warning of long-term wear from whipsaw currents, should heighten concerns about a potential rupture that could devastate the area's environment and tourism-dependent economy.

"We just want Enbridge to move their oil at a different route and not under the Straits of Mackinac," said Vince Lumetta, of Cheboygan.

About 23 million gallons of crude oil and liquid natural gas are pumped daily through Line 5, which runs from Superior, Wisconsin, across Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Sarnia, Ontario. It's divided into two 20-inch lines beneath the straits, a crucial link in the Great Lakes chain that comprises the world's largest surface freshwater source.

Story continues

Line 5 has been a rallying cry for pipeline foes since a 2010 oil spill from another Enbridge pipe fouled the Kalamazoo River in southwestern Michigan.

Opponents last month disclosed that a work plan on Enbridge's website identifies 18 "holidays" on the underwater pipes, an industry term that generally means places where protective coating is not present.

Kurt Baraniecki, the company's integrity programs director, told the board the "holiday" references were not to Line 5's enamel coating designed to prevent leaks, but to an outer wrapping made with a glass-fiber mesh. That material has worn away in 18 spots that together make up less than 1 percent of the pipelines' surface area, he said.

The mesh helped seal the enamel when the pipes were installed in 1953 but its absence in a relatively few places poses no threat, he said.

Enbridge has no plans to replace the wrapping where it has come loose, Shamla said. Instead, those locations will be the focus of a study of whether invasive quagga mussels attached to the pipelines are causing problems.

An electrical current that runs through Line 5 would provide additional anti-corrosion protection if coating broke off and exposed bare metal, he said. A 2016 inspection with an interior tool found no evidence of enamel coating failure, he said.

Michael Shriberg, a board member and regional leader of the National Wildlife Federation, said company officials "were slicing and dicing words. What you heard them say is there is some coating missing, they don't exactly where and they don't know how much."

Edward Timm, a retired Dow Chemical engineer from Harbor Springs, presented his study expressing concern that stress from the currents is nearly double what was anticipated when the pipelines were built.

"This thing's a triple winner  it's got fatigued metal, compromised coating and thick mussel growth," he said of Line 5.

Shamla said Enbridge "didn't see a lot of new information" in Timm's report.

"We're very comfortable with the integrity and reliability of the pipeline  how it was designed, how it was built and how we continue to operate it," Shamla said.

___

Flesher reported from Traverse City, Mich.
MILWAUKEE, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- (NYSE: MAN)  Opportunities for job seekers around the world are expected to improve in the second quarter of 2017 with employers in 39 of 43 countries anticipating increases to their headcounts, according to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey released today. Hiring confidence is strongest in Taiwan, Japan, Slovenia, India, Hungary and the United States. In Western Europe employers are less confident about hiring intentions than the rest of the region; Italy, Belgium and Switzerland report some of the weakest Outlooks worldwide.

Opportunities for job seekers around the world are expected to improve in the second quarter of 2017 with employers in 39 of 43 countries anticipating increases to their headcounts, according to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey released today.

View complete Q2 2017 survey results: www.manpowergroup.com/meos

Of the 58,000 employers surveyed across 43 countries and territories:

Employers in 39 countries and territories expect to increase staffing levels in Q2 2017.

When compared to Q1 2017, hiring prospects strengthen in 17 countries and territories, are unchanged in 11 and decline in 15.

Confidence levels are strengthening year-on-year in 25 countries and territories and remaining stable in three.

"Across the world we are seeing positive hiring intentions despite a slow growth business environment. Employers are more subdued in Western Europe where there is more uncertainty as elections are set to happen through the year. Having seen the surprising election results in the UK and U.S. in 2016, European businesses know to expect the unexpected," said Jonas Prising, Chairman & CEO, ManpowerGroup. "Even in countries where hiring intentions are positive some employers are experiencing challenges finding individuals with the most in-demand skills. We are seeing the emergence of a Skills Revolution, where helping people upskill and adapt to a fast-changing world of work will be the defining challenge of our time."

Global Hiring Plans by Region



EMEA: Staffing levels are expected to grow in 22 of 25 countries surveyed. Employers in Slovenia , Hungary and Romania report the strongest hiring plans in the EMEA region and employers in Italy , Belgium and Switzerland report the weakest. Dutch employers continue to report cautiously optimistic hiring plans, fueled by an upbeat forecast in the Finance & Business Services sector. In France , employers expect modest hiring activity in the coming quarter, except for the Construction sector where employers report the strongest Outlook in more than 10 years. As plans for Brexit continue in the UK, hiring confidence has fallen in the "remain" heartlands of London and Scotland where business hiring has dropped to its lowest level since Q1 2014. The overall Net Employment Outlook in the UK has dropped two points to +5%.

Staffing levels are expected to grow in 22 of 25 countries surveyed. Employers in , and report the strongest hiring plans in the EMEA region and employers in , and report the weakest. Asia Pacific : Payrolls are expected to increase in all eight Asia Pacific countries and territories during Q2 2017. For the second consecutive quarter, employers in Taiwan report the most optimistic forecast in the regionas well as across the globe. For the fourth consecutive quarter employers in China report the region's weakest forecast. Employers in Japan continue to anticipate a solid hiring environment, with bright job prospects expected in Transportation & Utilities where the forecast is the strongest reported since Q2 2008. Similarly, Japanese employers in Wholesale & Retail Trade report their most optimistic hiring plans in 10 years. The strength of India's forecast is exceeded only by three other countries and territories that participate in the survey. However, employer confidence in India has dipped steadily for five consecutive quarters and the second-quarter forecast is the weakest reported since the country joined the survey in 2005.

Payrolls are expected to increase in all eight countries and territories during Q2 2017. For the second consecutive quarter, employers in report the most optimistic forecast in the regionas well as across the globe. For the fourth consecutive quarter employers in report the region's weakest forecast. Americas: Positive Outlooks are reported in nine of the 10 countries surveyed. For the third consecutive quarter employers in the United States report the strongest hiring plans in the Americas, and for the ninth consecutive quarter employers in Brazil report the weakest. U.S. employers' hiring intentions remain upbeat despite recent political uncertainty. Nearly one quarter (22%) of employers expect to add staff in Q2  up three percentage points from Q1  and another 73% anticipate their headcount will remain consistent.

Positive Outlooks are reported in nine of the 10 countries surveyed. For the third consecutive quarter employers in report the strongest hiring plans in the Americas, and for the ninth consecutive quarter employers in report the weakest.

To view complete results for the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, visit www.manpowergroup.com/meos. The next survey will be released 13 June 2017 and will report hiring expectations for Q3 2017. To receive the latest survey results each quarter, sign up here.

To learn more about the impact of automation on hiring prospects, download The Skills Revolution report at www.manpowergroup.com/theskillsrevolution.

About ManpowerGroup

ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) is the world's workforce expert, creating innovative workforce solutions for nearly 70 years. We connect more than 600,000 people to meaningful work across a wide range of skills and industries every day. Through our ManpowerGroup family of brands  Manpower, Experis, Right Management and ManpowerGroup Solutions  we help more than 400,000 clients in 80 countries and territories address their critical talent needs, providing comprehensive solutions to resource, manage and develop talent. In 2017, ManpowerGroup was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for the seventh consecutive year and one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies, confirming our position as the most trusted and admired brand in the industry. See how ManpowerGroup makes powering the world of work humanly possible: www.manpowergroup.com.

SOURCE ManpowerGroup

Related Links

http://www.manpowergroup.com


PITTSBURGH, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A deal is now officially in the books, AGRiMED Industries LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, is proud to announce that it will be filing an application to the Pennsylvania Department of Health for the purpose of obtaining a license to grow and cultivate medical cannabis. The project site is south of the town of Carmichael, Greene County Pa.

It's an exciting new opportunity to join a budding industry with room for career growth  as we expect to create at least 62 new jobs in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

AGRiMED, a highly specialized medical cannabis cultivation company, will grow its inaugural crop in a new state-of-the-art facility that will help serve patients with medicines derived from cannabinoid compounds.

"The core of our model is the cultivation and processing of medical grade cannabis plants into pharmaceutical medicines that can improve health and wellness to patients in need," said Bruce Goldman, CEO of AGRiMED. "Through employing world-class professionals in agriculture and technology, we are able to carry out our mission to be a market leader that is rooted in science and centered on superior patient care."

With a plan to spur economic growth from the time we plant our first seeds, AGRiMED will invest $25 million to cultivate and develop 61 acres in Greene County.

"Spending time meeting with patients, government officials, business leaders, community leaders and law enforcement - one thing can be said: the support has been phenomenal and they understand what this medicine can do for the community," said Sterling Crockett, Chairman & Chief Diversity Officer of AGRiMED Industries.

"We intend to leverage local sources of energy to create a healthier economic environment for Greene County and leave a smaller carbon footprint on our surrounding community."

Pennsylvania law states grower-processor facilities must only distribute products to other dispensaries and facilities, and not sell to patients. To comply, AGRiMED will open regional medical cannabis dispensaries to connect patients to the medicine they need.

This gives AGRiMED an added opportunity to bring even more jobs to the Greene County area, with plans to open medical cannabis dispensaries to further stimulate the economy by producing jobs in a community facing news of layoffs.

For additional information or to coordinate an interview with a representative at AGRiMED Industries, please call (413) 247-4633 or email [email protected]

SOURCE AGRiMED Industries LLC
BOSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Gordon Brothers, the 114-year-old global advisory, restructuring, and investment firm, announced today that the company has expanded its footprint to Australia. Based in Sydney, the new office will be led by seasoned restructuring and turnaround management professional Tim Stewart, who will serve as Managing Director, Australia.

"We at Gordon Brothers see tremendous opportunity in the Australian market," said Frank Morton, CEO, International. "Tim's restructuring expertise and ties to the local turnaround community are extensive. Under his leadership, and in partnership with Gordon Brothers Finance Company, we will deliver capabilities and capital long overdue in the Australian market."

"I am thrilled to lead Gordon Brothers' expansion into Australia," said Stewart. "The economy presents outstanding asset-based finance opportunities. We look forward to partnering with retail, commercial and industrial firms as well as the professionals who advise them  to move forward through change."

Prior to joining Gordon Brothers, Stewart was managing director and head of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Plc's restructuring team in the Asia Pacific region. He was responsible for managing distressed and underperforming assets across India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Malaysia and Australia and led financial and operational restructures, debt for equity swaps and turnarounds. Stewart held a number of other roles and responsibilities during his time at RBS, including managing director of the strategic disposals group, Chief Risk Officer of the RBS Australia Branch and head of structured asset finance, Australia. Stewart is the current chairman of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) in Australia and the immediate past president.

Joining Stewart in the Sydney office will be Christopher Shaw, an eight-year veteran of the firm. Shaw's expertise includes inventory and brand valuations, restructuring and corporate finance. Shaw will relocate from Gordon Brothers' London office.

Gordon Brothers operates out of 26 offices spread across five continents. International markets include: Europe, with a major presence in London; Asia, with Tokyo-based operations; and South America, where the company recently opened offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Gordon Brothers is headquartered in Boston.

To learn more visit gordonbrothers.com/australia

About Gordon Brothers

Since 1903, Gordon Brothers (www.gordonbrothers.com) has helped lenders, operating executives, advisors, and investors move forward through change. The firm brings a powerful combination of expertise and capital to clients, developing customized solutions on an integrated or standalone basis across four service areas: valuations, dispositions, operations, and investments. Whether to fuel growth or facilitate strategic consolidation, Gordon Brothers partners with companies in the retail, commercial, and industrial sectors to put assets to their highest and best use. Gordon Brothers conducts more than $70 billion worth of dispositions and appraisals annually. Gordon Brothers is headquartered in Boston, with 26 offices across five continents.

Contact:

Colleen Arons

Gordon Brothers

[email protected]

617.422.7855

SOURCE Gordon Brothers
SAN ANTONIO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Executive Director of the Green Beret Foundation, Jennifer Paquette, was recently honored by the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for her outstanding leadership in support of Special Operations Forces and more specifically the U.S. Army Special Forces "Green Berets."

Paquette was presented the "Patriot Award" on March 2nd at the USSOCOM Care Coalition Conference in Tampa, FL. The prestigious award, established in 2007, recognizes individuals who go above and beyond to support Special Operators and their families.

Green Beret Foundation Chairman of the Board, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Simeon Trombitas, commented on the esteem in which Jennifer is held in the Special Operations community.

"Jen is an incredible asset to the Special Forces community. Her commitment has been incredible in times of great stress. Our Green Berets are much better off for having her support. Her efforts come at a critical time of need for Green Berets because Special Forces global deployment rates are not expected to slow down anytime soon."



As Executive Director of the foundation, Paquette has the responsibility of overseeing and generating the foundation's mission, which impacts on hundreds of Green Berets and their families, combined with raising millions of dollars to support the foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3).

Among Paquette's many achievements in leading the foundation is the founding of the Steel Mags sorority. Realizing that Special Forces have been in the longest war in American history, Jen knew that Green Beret marriages were maturing and children were growing up dealing with the effects of war. As a response to this, she decided to replicate the Green Beret brotherhood by standing up a sisterhood in 2010, named the "Steel Mags."

This program started with a small group of women out of Ft. Bragg, NC and has since grown to be a national group comprised of eight chapters in which the ladies support each other, their local communities, and teach civilian young girls and ladies the philosophies of the Spartan female force.

Uniquely positioned to understand and provide essential support to the SOF community, Paquette has a long history of service to include serving on the Board of Advisors for the National Special Forces Green Beret Memorial Project near Ft. Bragg, NC and is an Honorary Member of the Special Forces Association.

About Green Beret Foundation

The mission of the Green Beret Foundation is to answer the call of Green Berets and their families so that they can succeed in their next mission. GBF has assisted 1,118 families since inception in October 2009 and continues to provide programs and services in support of the community on a daily basis. GBF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. For more information visit www.greenberetfoundation.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Contact:

GBF Media

844-287-7133

[email protected]

SOURCE Green Beret Foundation

Related Links

http://greenberetfoundation.org


Scalys, based in the Netherlands, offers cost effective standard and semi-custom embedded system solutions for market segments including industrial, medical, telecommunications and aerospace, which require safety-critical operation. Scalys SoMs are small form factor computer boards that can easily be integrated into embedded applications. The SoM approach is an alternative to full custom engineering and is becoming increasingly appealing to developers who are keen to accelerate their projects.

The Scalys range features modules based around NXP (formerly Freescale) processors including i.MX 53, i.MX 6, and QorIQ T1, T2 and LS2 communication processors. Scalys will offer a board support package (BSP) with each SoM that includes support for the Green Hills INTEGRITY RTOS and MULTI IDE. This will enable developers to further reduce the time to market for their products whilst delivering a robust and proven hardware/software combination.

Hans Klos, managing director, Scalys commented: "Companies are increasingly choosing the Green Hills INTEGRITY RTOS to provide a safe and secure high performance software platform for their applications. The combination of INTEGRITY and Scalys' support and engineering services means that it is possible to eliminate up to 6-12 months from a development timeline."

Green Hills Software's INTEGRITY RTOS BSPs for Scalys SoMs are available on request.

About Scalys

Scalys, based in Hengelo (the Netherlands), was founded in 2016 by Sintecs to provide advanced high-performance embedded system solutions. Scalys is an innovative Dutch company in the field of high performance, small form-factor, safety-critical and cost effective embedded systems and modules for the automotive, avionics, defense, industrial, medical and telecommunication industries. Learn more about Scalys at www.scalys.com .

About Green Hills Software

Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software is the largest independent software vendor for the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178 RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA & NIST) to EAL 6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Green Hills Software's open architecture integrated development solutions address absolute security and high-reliability applications for the enterprise, networking, military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software at www.ghs.com.

Green Hills, the Green Hills logo, MULTI and INTEGRITY are trademarks or registered trademarks of Green Hills Software in the U.S. and/or internationally. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Green Hills Software

Related Links

http://www.ghs.com


BATTLE CREEK, Mich., March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- American Healthcare Investors and Griffin Capital Company, LLC, the co-sponsors of Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV, Inc., announced today that the REIT has acquired Battle Creek Medical Office Building, an approximately 46,000-square-foot property located on 7.34 acres of land in Battle Creek, Michigan.

This multi-tenant medical office building is currently approximately 97 percent leased and anchored by Ambulatory Surgery Associates, LLC (doing business as Brookside Surgery Center), which recently signed a new lease and occupies approximately 14,000 square feet, or 31 percent of gross leasable area, through 2027. Brookside Surgery Center has invested approximately $1.2 million in tenant improvements at the property and has made other significant non-real estate-related investments to their business. The remaining leaseholders include a variety of complementary medical tenants, most of whom are on lengthy triple-net leases.

Battle Creek Medical Office Building is strategically located in the midst of a medical office park adjacent to the newly completed 65,000-square-foot Borgess Health Park. Located on the edge of a burgeoning commercial and residential area, it houses a range of medical practices, sharing common spaces to offer a variety of different health services for an expanding community. Medical services and uses include: outpatient surgical procedures in general surgery, gynecology, hand surgery, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, orthopedics, pain management, plastic surgery, podiatry and urology.

"This is an attractive acquisition that expands the Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV portfolio and extends our reach in the state of Michigan," said Stefan Oh, executive vice president of acquisitions for American Healthcare Investors and Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV. "The property holds a Certificate of Need for Brookside Surgery Center and is in close proximity to Bronson Hospital  Battle Creek and Borgess Health Park, which both may help to ensure the long term stability of the investment."

Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV financed the acquisition using cash on hand.

Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV purchased its first property in June 2016 and has since acquired a portfolio of 13 medical office buildings and senior housing facilities for an aggregate contract purchase price of approximately $146 million.

About American Healthcare Investors, LLC

American Healthcare Investors is an investment management firm that specializes in the acquisition and management of healthcare-related real estate. One of the world's largest managers of healthcare real estate, the company oversees an approximately 29 million-square-foot portfolio valued at more than $8.1 billion, based on aggregate purchase price, on behalf of multiple investment programs that include thousands of individual and institutional investors. As of December 31, 2016, this international portfolio includes more than 600 buildings comprised of medical office buildings, hospitals, senior housing, skilled nursing facilities and integrated senior health campuses located throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. The company and its principals have completed approximately $25 billion in aggregate acquisition and disposition transactions, approximately $15 billion of which have been healthcare-related. American Healthcare Investors is committed to providing investors with access to the potential benefits that healthcare-related real estate ownership can provide. For more information regarding American Healthcare Investors, please visit www.AmericanHealthcareInvestors.com.

About Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV, Inc.

Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV intends to build a balanced and diversified portfolio of healthcare real estate assets, focusing primarily on medical office buildings, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, senior housing and other healthcare-related facilities. Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV also seeks to provide: portfolio diversification, preservation of capital, monthly distributions and capital appreciation by increasing the value of its properties for its stockholders. Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV intends to elect to be taxed as a REIT for federal income tax purposes beginning with its taxable year ended December 31, 2016, and it intends to continue to qualify to be taxed as a REIT. The REIT is co-sponsored by American Healthcare Investors and Griffin Capital Company, LLC. For more information regarding Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV, please visit www.healthcarereitiv.com.

About Griffin Capital Company, LLC

Griffin Capital Company, LLC ("Griffin Capital") is a privately-held, Los Angeles headquartered investment and asset management company with a 21-year track record sponsoring real estate investment vehicles and managing institutional capital. Led by senior executives with more than two decades of real estate experience who have collectively closed transactions representing over $22 billion in value, Griffin Capital and its affiliates have acquired or constructed approximately 58.4 million square feet of space since 1995. Griffin Capital and its affiliates own, manage, sponsor and/or co-sponsor a portfolio consisting of approximately 42 million square feet of space, located in 30 states and the United Kingdom, representing approximately $7.3* billion in asset value, based on purchase price, as of December 31, 2016. Additional information about Griffin Capital is available at www.griffincapital.com.

*Includes the property information related to interests held in certain joint ventures.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements with respect to the market conditions in Battle Creek, Michigan, the tenants at Battle Creek Medical Office Building, the attractiveness of Battle Creek Medical Office Building and expansion of the company's portfolio. Because such statements include risks, uncertainties and contingencies, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and contingencies include, but are not limited to, the following: the uncertainties relating to the medical needs and local economy of Battle Creek, Michigan; the strength and financial condition of Battle Creek Medical Office Building and its tenants; the ability of Battle Creek Medical Office Building to maintain its Certificate of Need; the uncertainties relating to changes in general economic and real estate conditions; the uncertainties regarding changes in the healthcare industry; the uncertainties relating to the implementation of Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV's real estate investment strategy; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV's periodic reports, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements in this document speak only as of the date on which such statements were made, and we undertake no obligation to update any such statements that may become untrue because of subsequent events.

SOURCE American Healthcare Investors, LLC

Related Links

http://www.AmericanHealthcareInvestors.com


SAN DIEGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AAOS Annual Meeting, Booth #833 -- Halyard Health (NYSE: HYH), a medical technology company focused on eliminating pain, speeding recovery and preventing infection, today introduced ON-Q* TRAC, an online patient engagement platform developed to help physicians and hospitals provide better post-operative patient care by delivering real-time patient feedback. By implementing ON-Q TRAC, physicians can monitor, measure and track patients' post-operative satisfaction to improve the overall patient experience.1

ON-Q TRAC helps engage patients, enhance connectivity and improve collaboration between patients and physicians. Patients are enrolled in the platform before surgery and are invited to provide information at various time intervals  from pre-operative through 90-days post-surgery  via a user-friendly survey that can be completed on either a desktop or mobile device. Based on this patient input, physicians are able to track patients' pain levels and satisfaction with their treatment and care.

Using insights provided by ON-Q TRAC, physicians can proactively intervene and adjust patient care for improved outcomes. This can include reducing opioid consumption, ER visits and hospital readmissions. Studies show that increased physician to patient connectivity enhances patient satisfaction scores, helps improve outcomes and can boost reputation and referrals.1,2,3,4,5,6,7

ON-Q TRAC's aggregate dashboards allow hospital administrators to detect and analyze data, identify trends and adjust protocols quickly to ensure consistent standards of care are met across procedures. This information can be used to manage costs for hospitals that are participating in the Comprehensive Total Joint Replacement (CJR) program.

"Patients expect their physicians to be engaged from diagnosis through recovery, and with new requirements of the CJR program, hospitals are even more focused on increasing the quality of patient care and satisfaction. ON-Q TRAC makes it easier for busy physicians and hospital staff to keep the lines of communication open with patients, enabling treatment decisions that are based on real-time information for better clinical success and improved patient outcomes," said Roger Massengale, general manager, acute pain, Halyard Health. "Halyard is focused on speeding recovery for healthcare providers and patients by reducing the need for opioids, and ON-Q TRAC is another important tool in our suite of products focused on improving post-operative recovery."

To learn more about ON-Q TRAC, click here.

About Halyard Health

Halyard Health (NYSE: HYH) is a medical technology company focused on eliminating pain, speeding recovery and preventing infection for healthcare providers and their patients. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, Halyard is committed to addressing some of today's most important healthcare needs, such as reducing the use of opioids while helping patients move from surgery to recovery and preventing healthcare-associated infections. Halyard's business segments - Medical Devices and Surgical and Infection Prevention (S&IP) - develop, manufacture and market clinically superior solutions that improve medical outcomes and business performance in more than 100 countries. For more information, visit www.halyardhealth.com.

*Registered Trademarks or Trademarks of Halyard Health, Inc. or its affiliates.

1 Hachem F, Canar J, Fullam F, Gallan A, Hohmann S, Johnson C. The relationships between HCAHPS communication and discharge satisfaction items and hospital readmissions. Patient Experience Journal. 2014; Vol. 1: Iss. 2, Article 12.

2 Heller L, Kowalski AM, Wei C, Butler CE. Prospective, randomized, double-blind trial of local anesthetic infusion and intravenous narcotic patient-controlled anesthesia pump for pain management after free TRAM flap breast reconstruction. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2008;122(4):1010-1018.

3 Liu SS, Richman JM, Thirlby RC, Wu CL. Efficacy of continuous wound catheters delivering local anesthetic for postoperative analgesia: a quantitative and qualitative systematic review of randomized controlled trials. J Am Coll Surg. 2006;203(6):914-932.

4 Beaussier M, El'Ayoubi H, Schiffer E, et al. Continuous preperitoneal infusion of ropivacaine provides effective analgesia and accelerates recovery after colorectal surgery. Anesthesiology. 2007;107(3):461-468.

5 Bingham AE, Fu R, Horn JL, Abrahams MS. Continuous peripheral nerve block compared with single-injection peripheral nerve block: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2012;37(6):583-594.

6 Kean J, Wigderowitz CA, Coventry DM. Continuous interscalene infusion and single injection using levobupivacaine for analgesia after surgery of the shoulder: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial. J Bone Joint Surg [Br]. 2006;88-B:1173-1177.

7 Husain A, Lee GC. Establishing realistic patient expectations following total knee arthroplasty. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2015;23(12):707-713.

SOURCE Halyard Health

Related Links

http://www.halyardhealth.com


BOSTON, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Her Campus, the number one new media brand for the empowered college woman, will visit nine college campuses this spring as part of the company's third annual Her Campus Tour. Each year, the Tour visits top schools around the country to connect brand partners directly with college students through interactive activities and giveaways.

The Tour kicks off the week of March 13 with stops at UC Santa Barbara, UCLA Bruin Plaza, and Cal State LA before heading south to Texas A&M, Florida State, University of Florida, University of Central Florida, College of Charleston and University of South Carolina.

The Tour will feature photo opps, games, goody bags and contests from sponsors including essence cosmetics, L'Oreal Paris Sublime Bronze, European Wax Center, Juicy Couture, Aeropostale, Student City and MTVU.

For more information, visit www.hercampustour.com.

ABOUT HER CAMPUS

Her Campus Media is the #1 new media brand for the empowered college woman and 360-degree college marketing agency, reaching over 20 million users monthly. Major platforms include flagship site HerCampus.com, on-campus network of 330+ campus chapters, InfluenceHer Collective of 2,000+ millennial & Gen Z female influencers, annual proprietary tentpole programs College Fashion Week and Her Conference bestselling book The Her Campus Guide to College Life, and more.



Leveraging its digital, social, experiential, influencer and on-campus reach, Her Campus Media provides award-winning integrated marketing programs for leading brands. Her Campus has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, PR Week, CNN Money, & more, and has been named to Entrepreneur magazine's Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America, Forbes 100 Best Websites for Women and 10 Best Websites for Millennial Women among other accolades.

SOURCE Her Campus Media

Related Links

http://www.hercampustour.com.


TORONTO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- High-rise pet owners face extra challenges when dealing with their four-footed family members: escaping into the hallways; dealing with messy, smelly litter boxes in their small unit; and limited space to exercise and play. These are but a few of the issues. Announcing the launch of You Animal! A new brand of pet products, made in Canada and sourced with U.S. and Canadian components and ingredients. You Animal! is addressing the needs of sky-high pets and their busy owners with their initial launch, the You Animal! 30 Day All-in-One cat litter system.

Just scoop the poop! Each You Animal! 30 Day cat litter system includes a recyclable case, biodegradable liner and our natural, multi-layer litter. It is guaranteed to absorb and neutralizes odors for 30 Days. It reduces scooping by 80% as there is no need to scoop the pee. You Animal! 30Day All-in-One cat litter system + Kitten

A litter box requires a lot of attention to make sure it meets the needs of your finicky pets. No one wants smelly odors, constantly scooping clumps is tedious, and how do you clean that big plastic tub in a tiny apartment or condo unit? What makes the You Animal! cat litter system purr-fect for high-rise pet owners is multi-faceted:

It reduces scooping by 80%. The innovative multi-layer litter does not clump but can absorb and hold up to 100% of its weight in water. No need to constantly scoop the pee. Just scoop the poop!

It is guaranteed to neutralize and contain smelly urine odors for 30 days.

The system is completely recyclable, compostable and North American sourced for your pet's safety.

A fresh clean box can be delivered to you every month so no big box to clean

It costs less than a cup of coffee per day

You Animal! is committed to "paw-sitive products" designed to benefit and ease the lives of pets and pet owners. The founders, Mark Fagel and Glenn Davidson, have years of experience with pet ownership, entrepreneurial ventures and innovation. They are committed to bringing more products to market following this initial launch. The litter system will be available on Indiegogo as of March 10, 2017, and subsequently will be sold on our website www.youanimalproducts.com.

You Animal Products Incorporated is a new start up with a mission to develop new products that benefit the lives of pets and pet owners across North America. Our focus is on the challenges of living in the increasingly small spaces of our densely populated and increasingly vertical cities.

To speak with Mark or Glenn please contact us at the numbers below and visit our website, www.youanimalproducts.com, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest pages.

Contact

John Filipetto

(416) 576-2578

[email protected]

www.youanimalproducts.com

SOURCE You Animal Products Inc.

Related Links

http://www.youanimalproducts.com


SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CrowdFlower, the essential human-in-the-loop AI platform, today announced the company will host Train AI on May 17, 2017 at The Village in San Francisco. With a theme of applying Machine Learning in a Human World, Train AI will provide attendees with insight into real-world AI use-cases, actionable strategies, and tangible takeaways for successful implementation of AI.

Sponsored by IBM Watson, Microsoft and Salesforce Einstein, the one-day summit will feature presentations from industry leaders and technology visionaries focused on making AI work in the real world. Speakers include executives from Adobe, Amazon, Bloomberg, Google, IBM, Kaggle, Moon Express, Reddit, and Salesforce with a special keynote by Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google. The agenda will be broad; covering AI applications within the automotive, consumer goods, financial services, media, retail and technology industries. The agenda will also cover topics such as image annotation techniques, autonomous vehicles, the important attributes of high quality training data, and making imperfect algorithms work in the real world through human-in-the-loop approaches.

"In the past few years the technology industry has made tremendous progress in the availability of machine learning and deep learning algorithms," said Lukas Biewald, founder and Chief Data Scientist of CrowdFlower. "The challenge for the next 5 years is how do we make imperfect algorithms work for tens of thousands of companies. With a speaker lineup containing a who's who of AI pioneers, Train AI attendees will be able - in a single day - to absorb the learning from decades' worth of real world AI applications and take it home to apply to their companies."

With additional guest speakers to be announced, the current lineup includes:

Peter Norvig , Director of Research, Google

, Director of Research, Google Richard Socher , Chief Scientist, Salesforce

, Chief Scientist, Salesforce Anthony Goldbloom , Co-Founder & CEO, Kaggle

, Co-Founder & CEO, Kaggle Barney Pell , CoFounder & Chief Strategy Officer, Moon Express

, CoFounder & Chief Strategy Officer, Pete Warden , Staff Research Engineer, Google

, Staff Research Engineer, Google James Cham , Partner, Bloomberg

, Partner, Bloomberg Shivon Zilis , Partner, Bloomberg

, Partner, Bloomberg Robert Munro , Principal Product Manager, Amazon AI

, Principal Product Manager, Amazon AI Tony Segaran, Sr. Engineer Manager, Reddit

Engineer Manager, Reddit Jack Clark , Strategy and Communications Director, Open AI

, Strategy and Communications Director, Open AI Scott Prevost , VP Engineering, Search at Adobe

, VP Engineering, Search at Adobe Lukas Biewald , Founder & Executive Chairman, CrowdFlower

"As a thirty year veteran in the field of artificial intelligence I'm thrilled we've arrived at this point in time where AI is within the grasp of mainstream organizations to solve big and small problems," said Dr. Barney Pell, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Moon Express. "I'm delighted to be joining other AI visionaries at Train AI to talk about how we accelerate the adoption of AI and reap the societal benefits."

To learn more about Train AI, register, and view the agenda, please visit www.crowdflower.com/train-ai and [email protected] as we make more announcements.

About CrowdFlower

CrowdFlower is the essential human-in-the-loop AI platform for data science teams. CrowdFlower helps customers generate high quality customized training data for their machine learning initiatives, or automate a business process with easy-to-deploy models and integrated human-in-the-loop workflows. The CrowdFlower software platform supports a wide range of use cases including self-driving cars, intelligent personal assistants, medical image labeling, content categorization, customer support ticket classification, social data insight, CRM data enrichment, product categorization, and search relevance.



Headquartered in San Francisco and backed by Canvas Venture Fund, Trinity Ventures, and Microsoft Ventures, CrowdFlower serves data science teams at Fortune 500 and fast-growing data-driven organizations across a wide variety of industries. For more information, visit www.crowdflower.com.

SOURCE CrowdFlower
In a show of massive military might in and around the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration is sending a powerful warning to the erratic  and some would say lunatic  regime of Kim Jong-un in North Korea: Back off.

Even as the Republic of South Korea leadership remains roiled after the ouster of President Park Geun-hye in a corruption scandal that has rocked the country, the U.S. military and ROK army and navy are not just continuing with war games begun on March 1, but they are openly confrontational.

Related: North Koreas Missile Test Leaves Trump with Three Options

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson began plying the waters off South Korea Tuesday, according to a report by two Reuters reporters on board. To sharpen the point, F-35 Joint Strike Fighters  the $100 million jets that are the new centerpiece of American air power  are taking off from the flight deck.

Among the joint forces taking part in the exercise involving 300,000 ROK and almost 20,000 U.S. troops are Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and members of Delta Force. Fox News is saying Tuesday that the Pentagon is denying multiple reports on Monday  based on a story from Yonhap News Agency -- that members of SEAL Team 6, which killed Osama Bin Laden, would also be involved and would be engaged in training aimed at decapitating North Koreas leadership.

Last week, in an apparent response to the war games, North Korea fired four antiballistic missiles that landed in the Sea of Japan, some as close as 190 miles from the coast. The BBC says thats the third time it has tested missiles since last August.

But the answer back to Pyongyang goes beyond continuing with the joint exercises.

The U.S. is positioning at least two THAAD anti-missile systems in South Korea, a move that led Beijing, which worries about the ability of the systems radar to penetrate past North Korea and deep into China, to propose a moratorium on North Koreas missile program in exchange for a termination of the war games. That proposal was rejected by Washington.

Story continues

Related: What Is THAAD? A $1.6 Billion US Weapon Thats Going to Korea  and Worrying China

In addition, the U.S. is permanently placing a Gray Eagle attack-drone unit at Kunsan Air Base on the west coast of South Korea, Stars and Stripes reports. The Gray Eagle is an upgrade of the Predator and is used for surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting. It can stay airborne for up to 25 hours, the website of its maker, General Atomics, says and can carry as many as four Hellfire air-to-surface missiles.

Stars and Stripes quoted an unnamed South Korean military official as saying, In case of a war on the Korean Peninsula, the unmanned aircraft could infiltrate the skies of North Korea and make a precision strike on the war command and other major military facilities.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is set to visit Seoul and meet with the acting president, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn. And in early April, China President Xi Jinping is scheduled to confer with Donald Trump at a two-day summit at the presidents Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. North Korea is certain to be on the agenda of both meetings, but since China is Pyongyangs main sponsor, the Xi visit is likely to be the most unnerving to the unpredictable Kim Jong-un.

Meantime, in what the South China Morning Post calls Japans biggest show of naval force since World War II, its helicopter carrier Izumo will cruise through the disputed waters of the South China Sea starting in May and will conduct joint maneuvers with U.S. and Indian naval forces in the Indian Ocean in July.

Japan is also buying F-35s, which can fly off the two-year-old Izumo.

South Korean elections to replace disgraced President Park will also be held in May, and the favorite candidate is a liberal, Moon Jae-in, who was defeated by Park in 2012. Moon is said to be more open to reducing tensions with North Korea. But on Tuesday he cautioned China about the economic pressure it is imposing on South Korea, which some see as retaliation for deploying the THAAD anti-missile systems.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
HIAWATHA, KS, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - AgJunction, Inc. (TSX:AJX), a leading provider of innovative hardware and software solutions for precision agriculture, had several products from their suite of solutions showcased by several strategic partners at the 2017 SIMA show in Paris, which ran from February 26th to March 2nd.

CLAAS, one of the world's leading suppliers of agricultural engineering equipment, demonstrated their new TURN IN feature, an extension to their current steering system that automatically guides the driver into the optimum track on turning while allowing for extremely fast maneuvering at the headland, thus reducing driver workload. This innovation by CLAAS software garnered them a special mention award at the SIMA show. Learn more here.

Kverneland Group, a subsidiary of Kubota Tractor, showcased their new IsoMatch AutoDrive E, an automatic steering solution for the aftermarket. While the steering is handled automatically, the farmer is able to control and monitor their work in a more relaxed way and can focus 100% of their attention to the result in the field. More information can be found here .

Dave Vaughn, CEO of AgJunction said: "AgJunction is pleased to see our customer's release innovative new solutions that provide differentiation in a crowded field of competitors. Our expansive suite of products and services allows our customers to select the combination of technologies that best suits their needs."

About AgJunction

AgJunction (www.agjunction.com) provides innovative hardware and software applications for precision agriculture worldwide. The Company holds more than 140 patents and markets its products and services under leading brand names including Novariant, Outback Guidance and Satloc. AgJunction is headquartered in Hiawatha, Kansas, with executive offices in Fremont, California, and facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona; Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. AgJunction is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol "AJX." For more information, please visit www.agjunction.com.

About SIMA

SIMA, Paris International Agribusiness Show, was held in Paris Nord Villepinte (France) from 26 February to 2 March 2017. Taking place every two years, SIMA is one of the biggest international events for the agricultural sector. It is the exhibition of all technologies and solutions for high-performance and sustainable agriculture. For more information, please visit https://en.simaonline.com/

Reader Advisory and Note Regarding Forward Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and is based on the expectations, estimates and projections of management of AgJunction as of the date of this news release, unless otherwise stated. The use of any of the words "expect," "anticipate," "may," "will," "should," "believe," "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information. In respect of the forward-looking information, AgJunction has provided such information in reliance on certain assumptions that it believes are reasonable at this time. Readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information contained in this press release since forward-looking information addresses future events and conditions, such information by its very nature involves inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security which may be referenced herein.

SOURCE Agjunction Inc.
PARSIPPANY, N.J. and ANTWERP, Belgium, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- INTTRA, the world's ocean shipping electronic marketplace, today announced that it has acquired Avantida, the European market leader in empty container management for ocean carriers. Avantida is headquartered in Belgium and currently conducts business in seven European countries.

Enhanced coordination of land and ocean container movements generates efficiencies and reduces costs, and INTTRA's entry into landside container logistics will provide additional value for existing and new customers. Avantida's core business  digitized, automated container reuse and repositioning  addresses a major challenge for ocean carriers, transport companies, terminals, depots, and other stakeholders. Industry experts estimate that empty container positioning costs the ocean shipping industry up to $20 billion a year, approximately 40 percent of handling costs.

"Avantida, an industry leader in digitized container logistics, has products and customer bases that are highly complementary to those of INTTRA. Acquiring Avantida advances our strategy of extending our reach into the intermodal value chain, enabling INTTRA to better serve our customers. With cutting-edge, cloud-based technology and a unique business model, Avantida enhances efficiency and delivers substantial value to carriers, shippers, and other landside transport companies," said INTTRA's CEO, John Fay. "I am very pleased to welcome Avantida's team to the INTTRA family and I am confident that they will continue to execute on their mission supplemented by INTTRA's resources."

"We are excited to join forces with INTTRA," said Luc De Clerck, Avantida's CEO. "Together we can leverage technology innovation to digitize and transform a multi-billion dollar market that is central to global trade. INTTRA's global network will enable us to accelerate product adoption in Europe and around the world. Our combined offering will further benefit numerous stakeholders within and beyond ocean shipping and container logistics, including reducing CO2 emissions and congestion at ports and surrounding communities."

Avantida will operate as an INTTRA-owned company and customers should continue to use the same sales and service contacts.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About INTTRA

INTTRA is the largest neutral electronic transaction software platform and information provider at the center of the ocean shipping industry. INTTRA's innovative products, combined with the scale of our network, empower our customers to trade with multiple parties and leverage ocean industry information to improve their business. Connecting over 225,000 shipping professionals with more than 50 leading carriers and 110 software alliance partners, INTTRA streamlines the ocean trade process. Over 700,000 container orders are initiated on the INTTRA platform each week, representing approximately 25 percent of global ocean container trade.

About Avantida

Avantida is a European technology provider that assists in optimizing the handling of empty containers. The company's reuse and repositioning applications provide actionable information that can minimize miles driven, increase container velocity, lower costs for carriers and transport companies, enable exporters to ship more efficiently, and reduce CO2 emissions as well as congestion at depots, ports and surrounding communities. Avantida's platform currently serves Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

SOURCE INTTRA
BRANFORD, Conn., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- IsoPlexis Corporation (IsoPlexis), a venture capital-funded life sciences company dedicated to accelerating the fight against cancer, autoimmune disease, infectious disease and more through a precision single-cell detection platform, today announced the appointment of Dr. David Ho to its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Ho is a recognized pioneer in the infectious disease area. He has authored more than 400 publications, was named Time magazine's 1996 Man of the Year for his pioneering work in AIDS research and is the recipient of 12 honorary doctorates for his scientific contributions.

IsoPlexis Chief Executive Officer Sean Mackay said, "Dr. David Ho is a critical addition to our Scientific Advisory Board. As we venture into broader applications in infectious disease and beyond, his position as a thought leading scientist will help us to accelerate efforts to combat these diseases."

IsoPlexis Scientific Advisory Board Chair Dr. Rong Fan, an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering at Yale, added, "With Dr. Ho, our scientific board has added a truly eminent scientist with proven success in harnessing the power of immunology to address life-threatening diseases and ailments."

Dr. David Ho is the founding Scientific Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. His lab helped pioneer the field of quantitation of HIV among infected individuals. In the last decade, his research team extended this work and revolutionized the paradigm for AIDS pathogenesis by demonstrating the highly dynamic nature of HIV replication in vivo. Their groundbreaking studies on HIV dynamics formed the foundation for combination antiretroviral therapy, which Dr. Ho also helped to champion. Such a treatment approach has transformed HIV from a death sentence to a manageable disease, and is now being applied widely throughout the developing world.

Dr. David Ho said, "I am excited to join IsoPlexis as a Scientific Advisory Board member. By merging the top minds in engineering with leading researchers and clinicians, IsoPlexis is able to offer breakthrough clinical insights. As the company's applications expand, it has the potential to make significant progress on critical detection issues, enabling the advancement of various immune therapies."

ABOUT ISOPLEXIS:

IsoPlexis is a life sciences company committed to advancing groundbreaking research and therapeutic development in immunology, oncology and other emerging disease areas. The IsoPlexis cellular response analysis platform was developed by scientific leaders at Yale and Cal Tech. By isolating single immune cells and analyzing their functional omic response, the platform can assess safety and efficacy of therapeutics and monitor disease progression, enabling improved therapeutic development and patient outcomes. Through collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies and academic labs, the IsoPlexis technology is improving the targeting of breakthrough treatments. The venture capital-funded Yale spinout is headquartered in Branford, Connecticut. For additional information on IsoPlexis, visit http://www.isoplexis.com or email [email protected].

SOURCE IsoPlexis Corporation

Related Links

http://www.isoplexis.com


Following the substantial harvest growth of Jaffa Orri, Israel's Plant Production and Marketing Board identified the China market as the next target to grow its export in 2017.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/478253/Easy_to_peel_Jaffa_Orri_Liat_Simha.jpg )



China is number one grower of citrus worldwide with 20 million tons in 2016, while it also import 21,000 tons of mandarin, in 2015/16 season, an increase of 10% over the previous year.

"We expect to dramatically increase sales volumes of delicious Jaffa Orri in China market in 2017," says Tal Amit, head of the citrus sector at Israel's Plant Production and Marketing Board. Chinese are fond of fresh produce and seeking for premium mandarins and are willing to pay for its delicious taste."

According to PMA, China is the world's largest e-commerce market and is rapidly growing. One of the main drivers of this exponential growth was sales of online fresh fruit; online purchase of fresh produce is quickly becoming a preferred purchase channel for Chinese consumers, especially among young professionals in Tier I cities. Sales of online fresh produce were nearly $4 billion in 2014, with industry forecasts predicting a market size of $16 billion and, total fresh produce market segment of 15% by 2018.

"Jaffa Orri mandarin is well established in Western Europe, especially in France and Germany," explains Amit. "The growing demand for mandarin in China encourage us to conduct a market research in China and Japan to learn about Jaffa Orri potential in these markets, including e-commerce outlets . We hope to receive the consumer research results in April 2017."

The Jaffa Orri is a mandarin developed by scientists of the Israeli Volcani Research Center. This easy to peel mandarin boosts an excellent, fresh, sweet flavor while has minimal seed content and a particularly long shelf life shelf life. "As a result, Jaffa Orri aims to minimize fresh produce waste and can yield better profit," explains Amit.

This variety also has an extremely long harvest season of four months, which far exceeds the typical harvest season of around two months for most mandarins.

A growing segment of the Chinese population has become more concerned with food safety standards and regulations, reports PMA. "Our Jaffa Orri brand is well known as a safe, delicious fruit and it is payoff in comparison to other mandarins in the market," explains Amit.

USDA estimated China's production forecast of mandarin and tangerine to drop 900,000 tons due to citrus greening and unfavorable weather; consequently, consumption and exports are down. China represents over two-thirds of global production and consumption and one-fourth of global exports. "This can be a great opportunity for Jaffa Orri, especially, since we successfully increased production in 2017, along with extending the shelf life," notes Amit.

The Plant Production & Marketing Board was established in 2004 to assist farmers in advancing their agricultural missions. The board promotes the Jaffa brand and other registered citrus industry brands. It helps kick-start pioneering R&D projects, executes centralized crop protection initiatives, assists organizations in meeting phytosanitary standards and insures growers against weather-related losses.







Company contact:



The Plant Production and Marketing Board

Mr. Tal Amit

Head of the citrus sector

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.orrijaffa.com



Press Contact:



NutriPR

Ms. Liat Simha

Tel: +972-9-9742893

E-mail: [email protected]

Twitter: @LiatSimha

www.nutripr.com



SOURCE Jaffa Orri
DENVER, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jagged Peak Energy Inc. (NYSE: JAG) ("Jagged Peak" or the "Company") announced today that Mr. Gregory S. Hinds, Jagged Peak's Executive Vice President, Development Planning & Acquisition, has voluntarily resigned from the Company, as of March 13, 2017, in order to pursue other opportunities.

Joseph N. Jaggers, Chairman of the Board of Directors (the "Board"), President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company commented, "On behalf of the Board, I would like to express our sincere appreciation for the leadership and dedication provided by Greg in co-founding the Company with me. Greg has been instrumental in identifying, acquiring and developing the strong asset base that allowed us to successfully complete our initial public offering earlier this year. We are very appreciative of his efforts and commitment to the Company during his tenure. We wish him success in future years."

Mr. Hinds commented, "It has been an honor and a privilege to help found Jagged Peak. I am committed to assist the management team in making this a smooth transition. I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to the Board, management, employees and investors for their support over the years and I wish them and the Company all the best."

Mr. Jaggers continued, "We are in a fortunate position to have an experienced group of professionals within the organization that have already begun to assume greater roles and are committed to the continued development of our top-tier assets in the heart of the Delaware Basin."

Mr. Hinds' business development responsibilities will be transitioned to Mark R. Petry, Executive Vice President, Land & Acquisitions, while his development planning responsibilities will be assumed by John G. Roesink, Vice President, Development Planning & Geoscience. Mr. Jaggers, along with Chris R. Bairrington, Vice President, Operations, and other members of our operations team, will also assist in the transition.

Mark R. Petry was appointed as the Company's Executive Vice President, Land in November 2016, and served as the Company's predecessor's Vice President, Land since inception. Prior to that, he served as Vice President, Business Development and Land Administration for Laramie Energy II, LLC since September 2007. His prior experience includes Rocky Mountain Land Manager at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, various positions, including Vice President, Land, at Western Gas Resources, Inc. and various land and accounting positions at Ladd Petroleum Corporation. Mr. Petry graduated with honors from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance and is a Certified Professional Landman.

John G. Roesink was recently named the Company's Vice President, Development Planning & Geoscience. He joined Jagged Peak's predecessor in 2014 as our Senior Exploration Geologist. Prior to that, he was a Geologic Advisor at Bill Barrett Corporation where he developed the East Bluebell assets in the Uinta Basin and helped formulate and execute that company's Niobrara development plan in the DJ Basin. From 2005 until 2011, he was a geologist and team lead at Noble Energy Inc. where he explored and developed Noble's Green River, Piceance, western Williston, Wind River and DJ Basin assets. Prior to that, he was a research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder studying the sequence stratigraphy of deepwater deposits. Mr. Roesink holds a B.A. and a M.S. in Geology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Chris R. Bairrington was named Jagged Peak's Vice President, Operations in November 2016. He previously served as Engineering Manager of the Company's predecessor. Prior to that, he was the Senior Operations Engineer of Ute Energy. He also has experience as a Senior Operations Engineer of Bill Barrett Corporation and Production Engineer of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. Mr. Bairrington holds a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University.

About Jagged Peak Energy Inc.

Jagged Peak Energy Inc. is an independent oil and natural gas company focused on the acquisition and development of unconventional oil and associated liquids-rich natural gas reserves in the Southern Delaware Basin, a sub-basin of the Permian Basin of West Texas.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent Jagged Peak's expectations or beliefs concerning future events, and it is possible that the results described in this press release will not be achieved. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Jagged Peak's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, Jagged Peak does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Jagged Peak to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in the prospectus filed with the SEC in connection with Jagged Peak's initial public offering. The risk factors and other factors noted in Jagged Peak's prospectus could cause its actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.

SOURCE Jagged Peak Energy Inc.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/477635/Chivas_Regal_Scotch_whisky_Speyside.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/477636/Chivas_Regal_whisky__Scotland.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/477637/Chivas_Regal_luxury_Scotch_whisky.jpg )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/477739/Bardem_4.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/477740/Bardem_5.jpg )





Javier was pictured exploring Strathisla Distillery - the oldest working distillery in the Scottish Highlands, and source of the single malt that can be found at the heart of each and every Chivas Regal blend. There, Chivas Regal Custodian Master Blender, Colin Scott, the guardian of the famously generous Chivas Regal signature style, shared his secrets of the art of blending; while Director of Blending Sandy Hyslop presented the actor with his own exclusive blend of latest release, Chivas Regal Ultis.

As one of the global faces of Chivas Regal, Javier's experience in Scotland was captured on film, and will be shared on the Chivas Regal social media channels later this year.

Javier features in the latest instalment of the global Chivas Regal Win the Right Way advertising campaign, which is a demonstration of the power and impact of working together to achieve success. Through his work with Chivas Regal, Javier aims to reinforce this belief, and inspire a new generation to succeed while making a positive impact on the lives of others.

For more information about Chivas Regal, please contact:

Catherine Humphrey | Hill & Knowlton Strategies

Tel: +44(0)-20-7413-3490 |[email protected]

SOURCE CHIVAS REGAL GLOBAL PRESS OFFICE  HILL & KNOWLTON STRATEGIES
TORONTO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jibestream, the premier Indoor Intelligence platform provider, announced today that Kaleida Health, the largest healthcare provider in Western New York, has added experiential wayfinding with blue-dot capabilities to its Oishei Children's Outpatient Center using Jibestream's Indoor Intelligence map development platform.

Easily navigate the Oishei Children's Outpatient Center with wayfinding powered by Jibestream's mapping engine- available via the MyKaleida app

The addition of wayfinding to the Kaleida Health app was coordinated to launch simultaneously with the grand opening of the new Oishei Children's Outpatient Center. The center opened its doors in January 2017 and currently houses the first outpatient clinics to relocate from Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo.

"With less than one month's work, we were able to add high-fidelity maps to our MyKaleida app facilitating turn-by-turn navigation within the Oishei Children's Outpatient Center," said Brian DeCicco, Web Media Developer at Kaleida Health. "Hospitals are notorious for being complex to navigate. Providing patients and their families with a stress-free way to get around was a top priority for us. Jibestream's mapping platform allowed us to successfully deliver on this alleviating concerns about navigating our new facility."

This is the first of Kaleida Health's five facilities to rollout experiential wayfinding. The next two locations are slated to add indoor navigation powered by Jibestream later this year.

According to Cletis Earle, Vice President and CIO at Kaleida Health, "A key advantage to working with Jibestream's Indoor Intelligence platform is its scalability and flexibility to extend beyond basic wayfinding. We are focused on providing the best possible experience for our visitors, and wayfinding is a key foundational layer in establishing a situationally aware and patient-centered environment."

"Hospitals are under intense pressure to create a healthcare experience that is dynamic, accessible and engaging. To achieve this, providers need accurate maps to not only guide people, but locate resources and deliver critical care," says Chris Wiegand, CEO and co-founder of Jibestream. "With our Indoor Intelligence platform, developers can leverage the same SDKs and maps used to execute wayfinding across a hospital system to offer clinical and internal teams real-time intelligence including asset tracking, facilities and space management, maintenance management and enhanced security."

About Jibestream

Jibestream is the premier Indoor Intelligence platform provider. The company's map rendering engine merges the location dimension into enterprise solutions for real-time visual intelligence. Deployed through one of three native SDKs (Web, iOS, Android), developers can create tailored solutions using our SDKs and APIs while having centralized management of all associated data. The Indoor Intelligence platform is available as a SaaS solution in addition to a standalone product. For more information, please visit www.jibestream.com.

About Kaleida Health

Kaleida Health is the largest healthcare provider and largest private employer in Western New York. More than one million patient visits are recorded annually at the Buffalo General Medical Center, DeGraff Memorial Hospital, Gates Vascular Institute, Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo, plus the health system's 83 clinics and health care centers. Kaleida Health operates HighPointe on Michigan and the DeGraff Memorial Hospital skilled nursing facility, plus the nation's oldest  and original  Visiting Nursing Association. Kaleida Health also operates a major laboratory division as well as the Millard Fillmore Ambulatory Surgery Center and the Southtowns Ambulatory Surgery Center. The organization is also affiliated with Great Lakes Health, the entity integrating Kaleida Health, Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) Corporation and the University at Buffalo. Kaleida Health's economic impact on Western New York exceeds $2.7 billion annually.

Contact: Jody Shaffer, 416-502-9455, [email protected]

SOURCE Jibestream

Related Links

http://www.jibestream.com


WASHINGTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- From August 1215, ASAE is expecting close to 5,000 association professionals and industry partners to come together in Toronto for the 2017 ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition . The ASAE Annual Meeting website includes information on: featured speakers; more than 120 education sessions; preconference workshops and masterclasses; registration; hotels; events; and more, has been launched. Registration is now open.

"We are excited for this year's meeting in Toronto. Chef Jeff Henderson, the five game changers, and education session leaders will provide attendees with inspiration, new ideas and different perspectives on a variety of association management topics and challenges they are facing," said ASAE President & CEO John H. Graham IV, FASAE, CAE. "Participants will bring back innovative solutions to their organization. It will be fantastic."

Jeff Henderson, an executive chef for brands like Caesars and Bellagio and the Food Network star and The New York Times bestselling author of Cooked, will be the closing keynote. He will discuss his own reinvention with take-away lessons on facing adversity and identifying one's personal gifts. Henderson will share inspirational stories that illustrate how diversity drives organizational benefits from increased staff retention, consistency in product delivery, and teams that are more confident and productive. Henderson is presented by Keppler Speakers.

Sunday afternoon through Tuesday morning, ASAE will present five game changers selected for their ability to provide diverse perspectives and revolutionary ideas from outside the association community.

Be the Change with Major Mary Jennings "MJ" Hegar, Executive Coach and Consultant, former pilot, Air National Guard. Major Hegar is presented by Lavin Agency.

with Major Mary Jennings "MJ" Hegar, Executive Coach and Consultant, former pilot, Air National Guard. is presented by Lavin Agency. Balanced Obsession: The Science of Happiness and Success by Daniel Lerner , Psychology Professor at New York University , author of U Thrive . Lemer is presented by Lavin Agency.

by , Psychology Professor at , author of . Lemer is presented by Lavin Agency. I'm Judging You: Do Better with Luvvie Ajayi, Executive Director, The Red Pump Project

with Luvvie Ajayi, Executive Director, The Red Pump Project Living out Loud with Nyle Dimarco , Deaf Activist and winner of America's Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars . Dimarco is presented by Keppler Speakers.

with , Deaf Activist and winner of and . Dimarco is presented by Keppler Speakers. Be More Awesome: A Fresh Approach to Productivity with Chris Bailey , author of The Productivity Project. Bailey is presented by Speaker's Spotlight.

Learn more about the career and knowledge pathways and all education sessions. The early bird registration deadline is July 12.

NOTE: Members of the press receive complimentary registration to attend the event. Please contact ASAE Public Relations department to request your complimentary pass.

ASAE thanks the following Alliance Partners for their continued support of the association community:

Strategic Partners

Atlanta CVB

Business Events Canada

Choose Chicago

Experience Columbus

Reno Tahoe USA

Visit San Jose

YourMembership

Corporate Partners

Visit Baltimore

DelCor Technology Solutions

Visit Dallas

Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB

Fort Worth CVB

GEICO

Louisville CVB

Mexico Tourism Board

Naylor Association Solutions

Visit Omaha

Visit Orlando

Visit Salt Lake

Event Partners

BrightKey

The Broadmoor

CliftonLarsonAllen

Dubai Association Centre

Hong Kong Tourism Board

Johnson Lambert LLP and Vault Consulting

Korea Tourism Organization

Manifest

MemberClicks

Meet In Minnesota

New Orleans CVB and New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

About ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership

ASAE is a membership organization of more than 30,000 association executives and industry partners representing more than 7,400 organizations. Its members manage leading trade associations, individual membership societies and voluntary organizations across the United States and in nearly 50 countries around the world. With support of the ASAE Foundation, a separate nonprofit entity, ASAE is the premier source of learning, knowledge and future-oriented research for the association and nonprofit profession, and provides resources, education, ideas and advocacy to enhance the power and performance of the association and nonprofit community. For more information about ASAE, visit www.asaecenter.org

SOURCE ASAE

Related Links

http://www.asaecenter.org


NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A year after the U.S. Congress and State Department declared that ISIS was committing genocide against Christians and other religious minorities, the Knights of Columbus is continuing its humanitarian support for persecuted Christian communities in the region by contributing nearly $2 million in new assistance.

Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson announced the organization's $1.9 million in new assistance, noting: "A year ago, our country declared with one voice that genocide was occurring to Christians and other religious minority communities, but words are not enough." He added: "Those targeted for genocide continue to need our assistance, especially since many have received no funding from the U.S. government or from the United Nations. The new administration should rectify the policies it found in place, and stop the de facto discrimination that is continuing to endanger these communities targeted by ISIS for genocide."

The Knights of Columbus donation includes support for:

Medical clinics in Iraq

Easter food baskets for displaced Christians under the care of the Archdiocese of Erbil

General relief for the Christians of Aleppo, Syria , via the city's Melkite Archdiocese

, via the city's Melkite Archdiocese Support for the Christian refugee relief programs of the Syriac Catholic patriarch

The K of C has raised more than $12 million for Christian refugee relief since 2014.

The Knights also spearheaded the campaign that led to last year's March 17 genocide declaration by the State Department. As part of the effort, the organization and its partners prepared a nearly 300-page report on the genocide being carried out against Christians by ISIS and other extremist groups. The State Department's declaration was only the second instance in which the U.S. government declared an ongoing situation to be genocide.

Anderson has said 2017 may be "the decisive year in determining whether many Christian communities throughout the Middle East will continue to exist," and has called for aid from the U.S. government and the international community. He has also urged prayer for "those who are being persecuted and killed for their faith," and announced that the K of C will lead a Novena of Grace and Solidarity that will be prayed by the Knights and others for nine straight days from March 12 to 20.

Donations to support Christian refugees can be made at www.christiansatrisk.org and donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Knights of Columbus Charities, Inc. is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a charitable organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, and 100 percent of all donations will be used to assist Christians and other religious minorities, primarily from Iraq and Syria.

SOURCE Knights of Columbus
BELFAST, Ireland, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- LearningMole is a new service which offers advice and practical, interactive ideas to help parents challenge, teach and develop their children's skills at home.

Help your child to explore the key concepts of number, counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in Maths. Spelling, reading, writing and grammar in English. Help them to develop their imagination and creativity with crafts and to explore a range of skills to cook, bake and create tasty treats and snacks. Easy to follow activities will support you and your child to learn and practice new concepts as well as enjoy spending time together. Learn the shapes for Children - 2d and 3d Shape Properties. An educational math video that will help your child to learn all the 2d and 3d shapes and their properties. Learn the mathematical vocabulary and understand the different properties. Visit www.learningmole.com for more educational lessons and videos in Maths, English, Crafts and Cooking.Easy to follow activities will support you and your child to learn and practice new concepts as well as enjoy spending time together. Learn 2d and 3 d shapes for children - Learning Mole. An educational math video that will help your child to learn all the 2d and 3d shapes and their properties. Learn the mathematical vocabulary and understand the different properties. LearningMole focuses on educating children of all ages. We offer advice and practical, interactive ideas to help parents challenge, homeschool, teach and develop their children's skills at home.

LearningMole aims to support parents who are homeschooling, providing homework support or simply wanting to help their child progress and develop skills that they are working on in school. Through simple videos and activities, the team want to show parents how they can interact with their child while learning at the same time. The activities that have been designed are meant to be simple, easy to follow and involve resources that would be available around the house - like toys that your children enjoy playing with.

The lessons available cover a range of ages and the core concepts of Number, Shape and Space, Calculations and Problem Solving within Maths and Spelling, Reading, Phonics, Writing and Grammar with English. The team are also exploring Crafts, Cooking and Baking.

The Youtube channel set up for this project includes videos on Phonics  including phonics play, the phonetic alphabet, jolly phonics  for kids and adults who want to learn to read. The website also has lessons on maths  with maths games or puzzles all focused on showing math is fun!

Michelle Connolly, the service founder was quoted saying "Education today can be mine field for parents, I know as a parent and primary teacher myself that methods of learning are constantly changing and it can be difficult to keep up! The strategies we were taught as children are almost non-existent and it can be difficult to support your child at home as you learn the new methods they are exploring in school.

The words that's not how I did in school' are what inspired me to set up Learning Mole, until I became a parent myself I didn't quite realise how challenging homework, homeschooling and generally supporting your children could actually be."

Michelle has been teaching children from 4 -11 years old for the past 14 years in the UK, Dubai and Egypt. When asked why start something like LearningMole  Michelle replied "I love teaching and I learn something new every day from my classes as well as from my own children. The way children think and approach learning situations is amazing and I hope that you will get to experience similar amazement while working with your own children. Always have high expectations and always be ready for your children to challenge your thinking."

Home-schooling in the UK is a growing trend for many reasons. In England primary school home schooling grew by 60% between 2011 and 2014. There are many reasons listed for this. Also due to globalisation and the trend of using the internet for education, the demand for high quality lessons is clear to see. Reviewing Google Trends for "Homeschool" shows that the United States leads the global searches, followed by Canada  then South Africa, Philippines, New Zealand, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom and finally Thailand in the top 10 locations.

Media contact:

Michelle Connolly

[email protected]

00442895810610

SOURCE LearningMole
HOUSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With the release of Perspective VMS version 3.0, LENSEC is showcasing their enterprise-level video management software at ISC West 2017. Every year the Security Industry Association hosts the New Product Showcase during ISC West in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event started in 1979 to recognize innovative products, services, and solutions in electronic physical security. As a member of SIA, LENSEC is proud to take part in the SIA New Product Showcase this year.

Perspective VMS(TM) is a scalable and flexible enterprise software delivering IP surveillance video via an HTML5 rich application.

LENSEC has redesigned their flagship product Perspective VMS, building it exclusively on an HTML5 rich application. While HTML5 is the current standard for web development, it is uncommon to see security applications that achieve true enterprise status by leveraging the HTML5 development platform. This breaks ground in the physical security industry. PVMS allows security integrators and end-users to easily deploy and manage their security video via a thin-client application.

LENSEC's Chief Product Officer Jeff Kellick says, "LENSEC is thrilled to continue our tradition of providing a full-featured software platform for managing video surveillance and data via modern web browser technologies. Flexibility is key as users and administrators can navigate all of their day-to-day operations and advanced security management from any PC on their network using their personalized secure login credentials."

With Version 3.0, Perspective VMS leverages HTML5 to display IP security video using modern web browsers, such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Perspective VMS continues to allow full functionality of live video streaming, archived video playback, map-based integration, dynamic reporting, logical workflows, and comprehensive systems administration. All these features are accessible from a web browser without relying on thick client software or browser plug-ins.

LENSEC physical security experts will demonstrate Perspective VMS in Booth #24099 during the exhibit at ISC West. We encourage security integrators, technology partners, security consultants, engineers, and other exhibit attendees to come by our booth to experience the power of perspective. Our team is available to answer questions and demonstrate PVMS's capabilities.

About LENSEC

Founded in 1998, LENSEC is an industry pioneer of IP-based video surveillance solutions for many vertical markets including local governments, school and university campuses, healthcare facilities, commercial properties, critical infrastructure, and more. LENSEC's Perspective VMS enables secure remote access and real-time collaboration with first responders during security events.

If you would like to learn more about Perspective VMS Version 3.0, you will be able to find detailed information on our website: www.LENSEC.com/PVMS.

Contact: ISC West 2017

Keith Harris, Booth #24099 LENSEC LENSEC Marketing Manager Sands Expo Center 1800 Bering Drive, Suite 751 Email: [email protected] Las Vegas, NV Houston, TX, USA 77057 Phone: (512) 913-3907

Phone: +1 (713) 395-0800

SOURCE LENSEC

Related Links

http://www.lensec.com/PVMS


BOSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MedAptus, a Boston-based healthcare technology company, has signed a partnership agreement with MD Interconnect, a mobile health technology company, to provide the next generation of total team care coordination. The partnership will combine the best of MedAptus' intelligent patient assignment technology with MD Interconnect's secure messaging solution, RapidConnect.

The best-in-class integration of MedAptus' protocol-based Assign, available today for both rounding providers and nurses, with RapidConnect creates the most powerful tool in the industry to seamlessly connect all patient care providers. This integration creates a next generation patient-centric care coordination platform, ensuring the right communication with the right caregiver at the right time.

"We are very excited about this partnership," said Karen Hohenstein, CEO and Co-Founder of MD Interconnect. "By combining these two technologies in one platform, we are able to address the real need of enabling care team members to connect and work seamlessly together. No other player has anything comparable to the Assign solution, which is why we wanted to partner with MedAptus. It's a perfect complement to RapidConnect's next generation communications platform."

Assign is a customizable, protocol-based patient assignment platform that matches the right patient with the right care team members to accurately and expertly balance patient workload among physicians, nurses and other team members. By intelligently and automatically assigning patients using customizable protocols that include continuity, geography patient acuity and preferences, along with scheduling data, Assign reduces staff burnout, improves workflow efficiency ultimately reduces overall length of stay, contributing to patient satisfaction.

MD Interconnect's RapidConnect is a cloud-based mobile and web platform designed to enhance communication among healthcare team members quickly, easily and securely. With RapidConnect, every call schedule is integrated directly into the system, allowing easy access to the proper clinician every time. With the care of patients as first priority, the ability to communicate efficiently and securely with the right person at the right time becomes imperative to delivering quality healthcare. RapidConnect provides this secure platform that has been designed by clinicians with clinical workflow top of mind. It also integrates personal preferences and rules-based workflows so access to physicians and other care team members is streamlined for everyone.

The integrated product suite enables quick visibility into the team taking care of a particular patient at any given moment and facilitates secure communication across those care team members.

"We see this integrated platform as truly the next generation of care coordination," said Gene Schneider, CEO of MedAptus. "What this means is that care team members, both inside and outside the hospital, can not only communicate seamlessly and securely with each other, but they can also assign the optimal care team members to patients based on unique situational factors. Nobody else in healthcare can deliver that patient-centric combination."

Media Contact:

Gene Pinder

[email protected]

(919) 578-5712

www.medaptus.com

www.mdinterconnect.com

MD Interconnect

Shawn Ramsey

919.621.0737

[email protected]

SOURCE MedAptus, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.medaptus.com


DURHAM, N.C., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MGT Capital Investments, Inc. (OTC: MGTI) announced today that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent with Nordic IT Sourcing Association to develop a truly secure mobile phone. The letter of intent is expected to lead to a definitive contract whereby MGT would be responsible for designing, testing and assembling a state of the art cell phone with privacy features that stay one step ahead of hackers and eavesdroppers. The base phone will be procured as an OEM model using the Android operating system, and then modified using the skills of MGT's cybersecurity team. The definitive agreement will be predicated on minimum initial and recurring quantities, currently anticipated at 160,000 units to begin, and 50,000 units monthly thereafter. Subject to final specifications, revenues to MGT are contemplated at $350 USD per unit.

With today's announcement, MGT has joined forces with a leading influential think tank focused on mobile, security, and digital services. Nordic IT is involved in the research and development of disruptive technologies on behalf of its members and partners, which include senior executives from many of the world's largest corporations. The partners expect a definitive agreement within 60 days, with initial product shipments approximately a year later.

John McAfee, Executive Chairman and CEO of MGT observed, "Smartphones have become the Achilles heel of cybersecurity. No matter how secure our applications become, they must still execute in an environment designed from ground up to be a spy device. It is like building a race car and having it powered by a rubber band."

Alexander Reay, President of Nordic IT, stated, "We are honored to be working with cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee and his team. MGT's innovative ideas should result in a unique offering in mobile communications. We have been heavily involved in the research of security and privacy issues, both in the Nordics and with our partners worldwide. With the new GDPR regulations here in Europe set to take effect in 2018 and recent leaks, there is no end to the privacy issues facing enterprises and society as a whole. We strongly believe that such a device will be the center of attention for both privacy concerned consumers, and corporate leaders looking to develop a winning strategic cybersecurity and privacy program on behalf of their company."

About MGT Capital Investments, Inc.

MGT Capital Investments, Inc. (OTC: MGTI) is in the process of acquiring and developing a diverse portfolio of cyber security technologies. With industry pioneer John McAfee at its helm, MGT is positioned to address various cyber threats through advanced protection technologies for mobile and personal tech devices, as well as corporate networks.

Also as part of its corporate efforts in secure technologies, MGT is growing its capacity in mining Bitcoin. Currently at 5.0 PH/s, the Company's facility in WA state produces about 100 Bitcoins per month, ranking it as one of the largest U.S. based Bitcoin miners. Further, MGT is in active discussions with financial partners to grow Bitcoin output materially.

Lastly, MGT stockholders have voted to change the corporate name of MGT to "John McAfee Global Technologies, Inc." Following a dispute over ownership and permitted usage of the name McAfee, The Company and Intel have agreed to a mediation process to avoid unnecessary legal costs.

For more information on the Company, please visit: http://ir.stockpr.com/mgtci.

About the Nordic IT Association

Nordic IT is a Member Organization and Disruption Think-tank in the Nordic region. As the only dedicated IT sourcing association covering the Nordic IT sourcing industry, its focus is on various aspects of IT sourcing and creating solutions for IT professionals throughout the Nordic region. Combining thought leadership forums and learning programs with a centric on-line knowledge pool, it covers all areas of IT and technology sourcing. The Association's core mission is to foster innovation, continuous improvement and better business outcomes on behalf of its members.

Forwardlooking Statements

This press release contains forwardlooking 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 "forwardlooking statements." All information set forth in this news release, except historical and factual information, represents forwardlooking statements. This includes all statements about the Company's plans, beliefs, estimates and expectations. These statements are based on current estimates and projections, which involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include issues related to: rapidly changing technology and evolving standards in the industries in which the Company and its subsidiaries operate; the ability to obtain sufficient funding to continue operations, maintain adequate cash flow, profitably exploit new business, license and sign new agreements; the unpredictable nature of consumer preferences; and other factors set forth in the Company's most recently filed annual report and registration statement. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forwardlooking statements, which reflect management's analysis only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forwardlooking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof. Readers should carefully review the risks and uncertainties described in other documents that the Company files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investor and Media Contact

Tiffany Madison

Director of Corporate Communications

MGT Capital Investments, Inc.

[email protected]

469.730.6703

SOURCE MGT Capital Investments, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.mgtci.com


MIAMI, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ML Capital Group (USOTC: MLCG) today announces that its flagship brand, Platinum Tours of Maui, has in the first quarter of 2017, realized a 25% increase in first-quarter revenue over 2016, following on an equally impressive 29% increase from 2015 to 2016.

The real story, however, is that in this period, PT Maui realized a 47% increase compared to 2016, with 18 days left in the quarter. This follows a 23% increase from 2015 to 2016. The company accredits this growth to partnerships with the MasterCard Priceless Cities affinity program, a thriving social media program, and new, formal "preferred luxury provider" partnerships with major concierge desks and hoteliers on the island that have the significant potential to enhance these already impressive results.

MLCG $1 Million 2017 Sales Forecast

These results quantify and validate MLCG's preliminary $1 million 2017 sales forecast, and increase the likelihood of upward revisions, given that Maui's peak tourism season on the horizon. This, combined with the Company's recent introduction of a luxury entry into Colorado's $19 billion tourism sector, with a luxury cannabis tourism brand, make 2017 a potential banner year.

Safe Harbor: This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 27E of the Securities Act of 1934. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from that projected or suggested herein due to certain risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, ability to obtain financing and regulatory and shareholder approval for anticipated actions.



Explore Inc. Investor Relations

[email protected]

+44-786-313-3206



SOURCE ML Capital Group, Inc
HOUSTON, March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MRC Global Inc. (NYSE: MRC) will release first quarter 2017 results on Thursday, May 4, 2017 after the market closes. In conjunction with the release, the Company will host a conference call, which will be webcast, on Friday, May 5, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern / 9:00 a.m. Central.

What: MRC Global First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call When: Friday, May 5, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern / 9:00 a.m. Central How: Via phone -- Dial 412-902-0003 and ask for the MRC Global call at least 10 minutes prior to the start time, or webcast -- at http://www.mrcglobal.com

A replay will be available through May 19, 2017 by dialing 201-612-7415 using pass code 13656624#. An archive of the webcast will be available shortly after the call at www.mrcglobal.com for 90 days.

About MRC Global Inc.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, MRC Global is the largest global distributor, based on sales, of pipe, valves, and fittings (PVF) and related products and services to the energy industry and supplies these products and services across each of the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. More information about MRC Global can be found at www.mrcglobal.com.

Contact:

Monica Broughton

Investor Relations

MRC Global Inc.

[email protected]

832-308-2847

SOURCE MRC Global Inc.

Related Links

http://www.mrcglobal.com


NEW YORK, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The vast majority of women make healthcare decisions for themselves and others. Yet, 63 percent of women in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, and Brazil lack confidence in their healthcare decisions and many do not trust the healthcare industry. These Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) findings underpin the premise of new CTI book, Reimagining Healthcare: Through a Gender Lens. In this book, Carolyn Buck Luce, executive in residence at CTI, explores how healthcare companies can harness the insights of female employees to make their companies "gender smart" and build trust with female health consumers.

Drawing upon previous studies and stories, including her personal experience as EY's global healthcare sector leader and primary healthcare decision maker for her family, Carolyn Buck Luce lays out a plan for industry leaders to forge a connection with female consumers. She makes the business case for "gender smarts"how empowering women on the inside of the industry can help the industry better connect with women on the outside. Promoting women into industry leadership roles, she argues, will accelerate the industry's transition from a product-centered model to a patient-centered modela model that is responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values.

"The healthcare industry employs many women who have real-world insights as primary caregivers or 'Chief Medical Officers' of their households," says Carolyn Buck Luce. "Tapping women for their insights demands that companies have inclusive leadersleaders who listen to the quietest voice in the room and give traction to ideas they may not personally relate to."

In addition to an in-depth exploration of best practice examples that can be used as guides for organizations to better leverage their top female talent, chapters in the book explore:

How women define health

The life stages of a Chief Medical Officer

Three famines (trust, time, knowledge) that prevent women from feeling confident in their healthcare decisions

"The 'SHEconomy' is thriving. Women control $29 trillion in worldwide spending and account for 80 percent of healthcare purchases," says Carolyn Buck Luce. "The healthcare industry has the opportunity to connect with this huge consumer segment and create better healthcare outcomes for women and their families at an economic benefit for both their bottom line and the health of our society."

For more information, please visit www.talentinnovation.org.

About the Center for Talent Innovation

The Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) is an NYC-based think tank that focuses on global talent strategies and the retention and acceleration of well-qualified labor across the divides of demographic difference including gender, generation, geography, sexual orientation, and culture. CTI's research partners now number more than 90 multinational corporations and organizations.

About the Author

Carolyn Buck Luce is senior managing director at Hewlett Consulting Partners and executive in residence at the Center for Talent Innovation, which she helped cofound with economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett. Buck Luce for many years was the Global Life Sciences Sector Leader for Ernst & Young, LLP and is the coauthor of several Harvard Business Review articles. She is a recognized leader and dynamic speaker on the future of healthcare and women's leadership. In 2012, Buck Luce was named Woman of the Year by the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association.

About the Book

Reimagining Healthcare: Through a Gender Lens

By Carolyn Buck Luce

Rare Bird Books

ISBN: 978-1-945572-25-8| 5.5 x 8.5 | Pages: 194 | $14.95

For more information, please visit Amazon page.

Contact:

Silvia Marte

1-212-315-2333

[email protected]

SOURCE Center for Talent Innovation

Related Links

http://www.talentinnovation.org


SAN JOSE, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Strata + Hadoop World  ODPi, a nonprofit organization accelerating the open ecosystem of big data solutions, today announced China Mobile, High Octane, Innovyt and LizardFS have joined as members to help companies unlock value from disparate data and continue advancing the standardization of Apache Hadoop and related big data solutions.

According to Brian Hopkins, VP & principal analyst at Forrester Research, a revenue model built by the firm  which included speaking to hundreds of firms and pouring over three years of survey data with nearly 10,000 responses  conservatively forecasted that insights-driven businesses would earn about $400 billion in 2016; however, by 2020 they will be making over $1.2 trillion a year due to an astonishing compound annual growth rate between 27 percent and 40 percent.

"ODPi is committed to serving the big data ecosystem by facilitating standardization and ensuring Hadoop reaches its full potential as an enterprise-wide production big data platform," said John Mertic, Director, ODPi. "We're thrilled to have a breadth of companies from China, Belgium, Poland and the U.S. join our efforts in validating big data as a sustainable, long-term area of investment for organizations worldwide."

These new members bring the ODPi network of collaborative big data startups, enterprise service providers and software-driven end users to more than 35 companies  signifying the ecosystem's growing desire to make Hadoop accessible and ready for every organization around the world.

About the newest members:

China Mobile is the biggest telecom operator in the world. The open source offerings extended by China Mobile Software Technology, including Hadoop product and professional services, serve more than 826 million customers.

"Becoming a member of ODPi will not only make customers' choices among various Hadoop distributions far easier, but it will also help to build their confidence in China Mobile's Hadoop product," said Shaoling Sun, executive vice president of China Mobile Software Technology. "As industry compliance is the top priority of our big data products, we hope to soon have a unified, standard Hadoop version of the interface built on the ODPi reference specification."

High Octane is a Belgium-based consulting firm, focused on companies' enterprise architecture to help strategize, materialize and execute on their big data visions.

"High Octane is proud to join ODPi, as the organization is close to the upstream projects and focuses on a long-term operational view," said Philippe Back, founder of High Octane. "As long-time believers in open source software, ODPi is a great vendor-neutral venue for us to share our Hadoop insights and learn from the ecosystem feedback provided by end users and SIGs from the field."

Innovyt is a big data consulting company  specializing in advanced analytics, cloud and data science  focused on ensuring its customers can implement modern data-driven applications using big data technologies. Its team is committed to building a set of solution-centric frameworks that will expedite the implementation of leading platforms, like Hadoop.

"ODPi's initiative to create interoperability and compliance for production Hadoop are incredibly meaningful  as these will provide our customers with standards, best practices and a common language," said Vineet Kumar, founder of Innovyt. "We look forward to learning and contributing to open standards through our partnership with ODPi."

LizardFS  an open-source Distributed File System licensed under GPLv3  was developed and distributed by Skytechnology in Warszawa, Poland. The scalable, fault-tolerant and highly-available file system ensures security by storing all data in many replicas spread across all available nodes and can be used to build affordable storage cluster.

"Our membership to ODPi will enable LizardFS to take part in creating an industry standard for big data solutions and resolving challenges the industry faces, especially as it relates to the storage of data," said Simon Haly, CSO of LizardFS. "We're eager to join the initiative's efforts and look forward to the direction ODPi gives companies just starting their journey in this thriving ecosystem."

Additional Resources

About ODPi

ODPi is a nonprofit organization committed to simplification and standardization of the big data ecosystem with a common reference specification. As a shared industry effort, ODPi members represent big data technology, solution provider and end user organizations focused on promoting and advancing the state of Apache Hadoop and big data technologies for the enterprise. For more information about ODPi, please visit: http://www.ODPi.org

Media Contact:

Natasha Woods

ODPi

[email protected]

SOURCE ODPi

Related Links

http://www.ODPi.org


Tremendously retro yet far from nostalgic, Olympia Le-Tan's fashion celebrates a free, sexy and original femininity. This technicolour, surreal, poetic and iconoclast universe is symbolised in her hand-embroidered minaudieres, the definite must-haves for Parisian women and those seeking inspiration from them.

"Olympia Le-Tan designs combine poetry and joie de vivre. A bridge between different eras, they reflect the spirit of our time, celebrating the free and personal beauty of each womana take on happiness shared by Lancome," says Francoise Lehmann, General Manager of Lancome International.

This exclusive collection will be available at points of sale from August 2017. More details will be released soon.

#OlympiasWonderland

@lancomeofficial @olympialetan

For more information, please contact:

Stacy Mackler, VP of PR and Communications, Lancome USA

Email: [email protected] Phone: 212-984-4973

About Lancome

Since visionary pioneer Armand Petitjean founded the brand in 1935, Lancome has epitomized timeless glamour with a quintessential French touch. Today the world's leading luxury beauty brand continues to inspire with its elusive je ne sais quoi that exudes happiness, confidence and French chic appeal, as well as the very best in quality, style, and transformative results. With a presence in 130 countries, over 20,000 beauty advisers in as many points of sale relay Lancome's message of French excellence, with incredible service and iconic products such as: L'Absolu Rouge, Hypnose Mascara, Dual Finish, Teint Idole, Advanced Genifique, Visionnaire, Absolu L'Extrait, Tresor and La Vie Est Belle.

Lancome affirms that happiness is the most attractive quality and offers every woman the opportunity to enhance her beauty and femininity, whatever her age and whatever her skin color, by giving her the best of science and innovation. The brand continues to offer every woman the best in beauty through its Elite Membership Rewards Program, which allows customers access to exclusive offers, products and uniquely indulgent experiences through brand partners. Lancome's ambassadresses include Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong'o, Lily Collins, Taylor Hill and muse, Isabella Rossellini. Lancome's ambition is that every woman who comes to the brand to look more beautiful leaves feeling happier.

SOURCE Lancome

Related Links

http://www.lancome-usa.com


WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Olympusat Inc., one of the largest independent media companies specializing in the ownership, distribution, production and technical services of Spanish- and English-language networks, was in attendance at the 34th edition of the Miami Film Festival, where Olympusat's CEO, Tom Mohler, was chosen to participate on a panel discussion on Producing in Florida and Beyond.

On Saturday, March 11, 2017, Mr. Mohler joined a panel session among industry insiders to offer insight into the television ecosystem transition to Over-the-top (OTT) platforms, as well as the growing Hispanic audience preferences and demographics.

"The industry is transitioning from linear channels to digital platforms. I believe this is a great opportunity for everyone within the TV and media industry, from filmmakers and storytellers to producers and distributors," said Mr. Mohler. "Although these new opportunities don't necessarily guarantee success, they give much more fluidity in getting the product to market."

During the discussion, Mr. Mohler also delved into the importance of producing and distributing more multicultural content that appeals to the Latin American community in the United States, and highlighted the work that Olympusat's networks, including Cine Mexicano, are doing to promote and support Spanish-language cinema.

"It's important to evaluate the market, understand the target audience and plan accordingly. One of the reasons why Cine Mexicano has been so successful, is because we were able to identify what type of content the Mexican community in the United States is looking for," added the executive.

Moderated by Kevin Sharpley  President and CEO of Kijik Multimedia Inc., The 5th edition of the Producing in Florida and Beyond panel discussion in conjunction with CineVisun and BFMG took place at The Screening Room in Miami, Florida. The event also featured industry experts' Andy Schefter, Carlos Andres Cuervo, Dean Lyon and Shona Tuckman who discussed the current opportunities and challenges facing production, distribution, computer graphics and visual effects.

To learn more about Olympusat's industry-leading efforts, please visit olympusat.com.

Olympusat - Editorial Contact:

Jesus Pinango

561-249-5228

[email protected]

SOURCE Olympusat
EL PASO, Texas, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PatientCraft today announced the results from a survey of stakeholders in the 340B Drug Pricing Program conducted at the 13th Annual 340B Coalition Winter Conference in San Francisco from February 1  3.

The 340B program provides discounts on pharmaceuticals to hospitals and health centers with underserved and underinsured patient populations. Participating hospitals and health centers, known as covered entities, are required to put in place certain measures to ensure that the patient, prescriber and drug comply with program requirements and to avoid duplicate discounts, where both a 340B discount and Medicaid rebate are applied to the same drug.

The 92 survey respondents were various stakeholders in the 340B program, including chief executive officers, chief financial officers, pharmacy directors, 340B program managers and compliance managers from participating covered entities. The five-question survey focused on high-level elements of 340B program management, including policies and procedures, employee training programs, 340B software configurations and monthly self-audits.

"Overall, the survey results were positive regarding 340B program management," said Holly Russo, RN, MSN, MS, ECS, president and chief executive officer at PatientCraft. "The biggest red flag for me was the 23 percent of respondents who reported that they only log into their 340B software 'once in a blue moon.' 340B software is the backbone of any 340B program, but many entities struggle to understand the configurations in their software. That leaves them open to inadvertent compliance violations. There is an important education opportunity here for both 340B software vendors and entities to work together on ensuring the software is set up to effectively and accurately manage 340B claims."

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which administers the 340B program, recommends that participating entities conduct monthly self-audits in order to maintain program integrity and compliance. The survey showed that the biggest challenge regarding completing these monthly self-audits was time constraints, followed by lack of personnel to complete the audits.

"The question about barriers to monthly self-audits brought to light the resource constraints that many of these covered entities face," said Russo. "In my experience, there tends to be a gap between perception of 340B program compliance and actual compliance, which comes from some common misunderstandings around what 340B software does and does not do. Self-audits are a critical tool for uncovering these potential gaps, but they require a resource level that is not always practical for entities  especially smaller hospitals and clinics."

For full survey results, please visit www.patientcraft.com/survey.

About PatientCraft

PatientCraft is a healthcare consulting firm focused on the 340B drug pricing program. We understand how critical 340B is to hospitals and health centers who need eligible drug cost savings to expand care to their patients. We're here to help covered entities evaluate and optimize 340B program participation through our unique approach that blends statistical, data-driven insights with deep 340B program expertise. For more information, visit www.patientcraft.com. You can also follow @PatientCraft on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Contact: Ann Baty

Director of Marketing

[email protected]

210-290-5036

SOURCE PatientCraft

Related Links

http://www.patientcraft.com


NEW YORK, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Z Capital Group, L.L.C. ("Z Capital"), a leading alternative asset manager focused on opportunistic, value-oriented private equity and credit funds, today announced the appointment of Peter Coroneos as Managing Director and Global Head of Corporate Development. Mr. Coroneos will join Z Capital's New York office and will lead the firm's corporate development and investor relations efforts.

Mr. Coroneos has more than a decade of domestic and international capital raising experience across numerous alternative strategies and vehicles. Most recently, he served as Managing Director of the Private Capital Group at Jefferies LLC, where he played a senior role raising capital for private equity and credit funds. While at Jefferies, Mr. Coroneos was instrumental in raising billions of dollars for its clients and establishing deep relationships with hundreds of institutional investors. Prior to joining Jefferies, Mr. Coroneos held prominent capital raising roles at Avenue Capital Group in New York, Himelsein Mandel Fund Management in Los Angeles, and Cullen Investments in London and Auckland, New Zealand.

James Zenni, President, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Z Capital Group said, "We are pleased to welcome Peter to Z Capital to support our private equity and credit strategies. We are confident that his proven leadership and capital raising experience will be a great addition to our firm as we continue to expand our investor relations and corporate development capabilities. With his deep relationships in the industry, we look forward to broadening our global footprint of investors."

Mr. Coroneos said, "I am thrilled to join the impressive Z Capital team and look forward to leveraging my experience marketing private equity and credit strategies to support the firm's continued growth and development."

About Z Capital Group

Z Capital Group, L.L.C. is a leading alternative asset management firm with $2.3 billion in regulatory assets under management across complementary private equity and credit businesses. Z Capital manages both opportunistic, value-oriented private equity and credit funds with offices in New York, NY; Lake Forest, IL; and Zurich, Switzerland.

Z Capital's investors are some of the largest and most sophisticated global institutional investors including public and corporate pension funds, university endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, and insurance companies. For more information, please visit www.zcapgroup.net.

Contact

Jonathan Keehner / Julie Oakes / Tim Ragones

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher

212-355-4449

SOURCE Z Capital Group, L.L.C.

Related Links

http://www.zcapgroup.net


NEW DELHI, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

- Global Visionaries, Thinkers and Business Leaders From 20 Countries Will Congregate in New Delhi on March 27-28

- Andhra Pradesh as the Official State Partner Bets Big on Investments at Global Business Summit 2017

With historic addresses made at the last two years' Global Business Summit on India's strategic roadmap, Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will once again be the star attraction at this year's Global Business Summit (GBS) presented by YES Bank and The Economic Times on March 27-28 in Delhi with Andhra Pradesh as the official state partner. It was at the first GBS, where he had dared Indian business leaders to dream of a $20 trillion economy. And, at last year's edition of the event, he spelt out his elaborate vision for rebooting India. The Prime Minister is yet again expected to deliver a thought-provoking and inspirational address reinstating his vision of a 'new age India' amidst a dynamic global environment.

Built around the theme 'Conquering Uncertainty, Discovering Opportunities', the two-day summit will host thoughtful discussions on issues relevant to India and the world as a whole - India's digital reforms, Post Trump America, Brexit fallout, fate of Eurozone, China slowdown and the steps needed to deal with surprises and shocks of 2017.

This year's summit has already garnered an enviable roster of global thought leaders and delegates including Dick Cheney, Former Vice President of the United States; Shane Smith, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Vice Media; Lei Jun, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Xiaomi; Peter G Hall, Vice-President and Chief Economist - Export Development Canada; Vimal Shah, Chief Executive Officer - BIDCO (Africa); Marco Gloria, Chairman and CEO - GFB (Mexico); Benny Landa, an industry pioneer from Israel with over 800 patents to his credit and Avi Luvton - Director of Innovation Authority in Israel amongst many other leaders.

One of the key sessions will bring together Andy Xie, Renowned Chinese Economist and Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser who will discuss the future of Asian economies in the wake of global changes.

Another anticipated session will be CEO's talk with Vanitha Narayanan, Chairman, IBM India; Amit Midha, President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Dell; Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman, BCG (Asia-Pacific); Guenter Butschek, CEO, Tata Motors and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, Paytm, who will expedite on one of the most discussed topics in the recent times - 'Navigating Digital Disruptions'.

Andhra Pradesh, being the official state partner, will have a large delegation to be led by Hon'ble Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who is expected to make strong pitches to global leaders and investors for bringing in investments in the state on the back of conducive business environment.

As with the last two years, this year's summit will also bring together a large contingent of delegates from across the globe, the who's who of the Indian political elite and industry thought leaders making it an even grander platform for rendezvous and thoughtful interactions.



Media contact:

Japneet Kathuria

[email protected]

+91-9899594910



SOURCE The Economic Times
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Thomas Balshi, MD, announces the availability of Silhouette InstaLift, a minimally invasive skin lifting procedure, at his private practice in Delray Beach, Florida. Silhouette InstaLift is a procedure that re-contours the mid-face by lifting the deeper layers of skin for a more youthful look.

For the first time in the U.S., Silhouette InstaLift gives both men and women a safe and effective solution to restore the facial sagging without surgery. While wrinkles, brown spots and lost volume can be treated with current antiaging methods, there hasn't been a minimally invasive method for lifting sagging skin and the underlying tissue available until now.

"Silhouette InstaLift is the hottest ticket to anti-aging for men and women who want a quick solution with maximum, safe, long-lasting results," says Dr. Balshi. "My patients are seeing fantastic results and leave my office after a quick treatment looking natural," he says.

The procedure helps increase volume while restoring the contours of the mid-face and cheek areas gradually and naturally. During this simple in-office procedure, the physician lifts the deeper layers of the skin. The treatment is done with local anesthesia only and typically takes 45 minutes. Results will be visible immediately and improve over a three-month time span, with lasting lifting effects.

"The results are undeniable and offer an alternative to more traditional cosmetic options like Botox and fillers. As far as non-invasive procedures go, Silhouette InstaLift is the most impressive treatment we have to offer," Dr. Balshi adds.

Silhouette InstaLift technology is made from glycolide/L-lactide (PLGA), a biomedical copolymer that is well tolerated by the body. Over time the sutures will naturally be absorbed by your body while stimulating production of collagen to aid in healthy skin renewal for natural-looking, long lasting results.

To find out if Silhouette InstaLift is right for you, schedule a free consultation by calling 561-272-6000 or contact the office at [email protected].

Thomas Balshi, MD

4665 W. Atlantic Ave, Suite B

Delray Beach, Florida 33445

southflderm.com

About Thermi

Thermi, an Almirall Company, is a leading global manufacturer of temperature controlled radiofrequency technology. The company's flagship product is ThermiRF, a platform technology that uses temperature as an endpoint for various minimally and non-invasive applications (ThermiTight, ThermiRase, ThermiSmooth Face, ThermiVa). Thermi also offers the Thermi250TM device as the newest innovative RF for body and is the distributor for Silhouette InstaLift (lifting to redefine mid-facial contours). www.Thermi.com

About Sinclair Pharma

SINCLAIR is an aesthetic dermatology company renowned for its skin-care expertise: Providing best in class products that enable physicians all around the world to meet their patients need for safe and effective rejuvenation solutions. SINCLAIR is committed to support medical professionals with excellent customer service and high quality training programs.

For more information: http://www.instalift.com

https://www.facebook.com/silhouetteinstalift/?fref=ts

SOURCE Thermi

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MARSHFIELD, Wis., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PreventionGenetics is pleased to announce the launch of customizable genetic testing panels. Using whole exome sequencing technology, healthcare providers can order any subset from the list of ~4,000 clinically relevant, or disease-causing, genes. The innovative approach of PGxome Custom Panels provides a new level of flexibility in genetic testing.

Due to Next-Generation (NGS) sequencing technology, many whole exome based tests have gaps in coverage. PGxome Custom Panels can be enhanced to achieve complete coverage. In addition, many clinically relevant genes are present in two or more copies in the human genome with a high degree of sequence similarity. These paralogous genes often cannot be accurately sequenced using standard NGS technologies. "At PreventionGenetics, we have carefully constructed a list of paralogous genes using multiple informatics approaches," said James Weber, PhD, Founder and President of PreventionGenetics. "In many cases we have validated an accurate sequencing test for a paralogous gene using a different method or combination of methods."

An online web-based tool (PGxome Custom Panel Tool) displays pricing, CPT, OMIM Identification number, coverage and notes about paralogy information.

According to the National Institutes of Health, Precision Medicine "is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in environment, lifestyle and genes for each person." (https://www.nih.gov/research-training/allofus-research-program) PGxome Custom Panels, genetic testing panels can be tailored to fit the patients' specific needs. However, in cases where the custom panel does not yield a diagnosis, clients have the option to reflex to whole exome sequencing.

About Prevention Genetics:

Founded in 2004 and located in Marshfield, Wisconsin, PreventionGenetics is a CLIA and ISO 15189:2012 accredited clinical DNA testing laboratory. PreventionGenetics provides patients with sequencing and deletion/duplication tests for nearly all clinically relevant genes. These tests include our powerful and comprehensive whole exome sequencing test, PGxome.

PreventionGenetics also offers DNA Banking (PGDNABank), a long-term storage of a person's DNA. DNA Banking is available direct-to-consumer. We invite you to visit our DNA Banking website PGDNABank.com.

Contact: Marsha Bushman, MBA

Business Development Officer

PreventionGenetics, LLC

P: 715.387.0484 Ext. 282

[email protected]

www.preventiongenetics.com

SOURCE PreventionGenetics

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LARGO, Fla., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Prime Medical, producer of SAF-T textiles for healthcare, has donated 117 sets of chlorine-shielded scrubs for the surgical team at Tebow CURE Hospital in Davao City, Philippines. The hospital specializes in pediatric orthopedic care and is part of the CURE International network of hospitals and specialty programs that operate around the world. In recognition of Tim Tebow's longstanding ties to the Philippines and his commitment to helping the less fortunate through his foundation, CURE has partnered with the Tim Tebow Foundation for this project.

Pediatric patient Ride being prepped for surgery by the Tebow CURE Hospital surgical team in Davao City, Philippines, as staff wears SAF-T(TM) scrubs to protect against risk of infection. The operating room staff at Tebow CURE Hospital in Davao City, Philippines, with Prime Medical's recent donation of 117 sets of SAF-T(TM) scrubs. The innovative scrubs feature a new fabric technology that harnesses the power of EPA-registered bleach to continuously kill many common bacteria and viruses, after the garments are laundered as directed.

"TEBOW CURE Hospital is proud to provide the highest quality care to children with serious but treatable conditions," said Leron Lehman, CURE Philippines Executive Director. "We are fortunate to have the support of Prime Medical to outfit our operating room staff in these specialized scrubs that provide an extra measure of protection against pathogens."

Prime Medical's SAF-T scrubs are made with a patented technology for textiles that binds chlorine to the surface of fabric. Utilizing this next-gen fabric technology is an important innovation to help protect patients and staff, as studies show that nearly 60% of clinician uniforms are regularly contaminated with harmful bacteria and viruses that can lead to healthcare acquired infections. When laundered per directions using EPA-registered bleach, the retained chlorine molecules can continuously kill bacteria and viruses on the fabric while the garments are in use, with no irritation or sensitivity to skin, and without fading the fabric.

As part of its Made to be More initiative, Prime Medical has donated more than 600 sets of bactericidal scrubs since 2014 to CURE International hospitals in Zambia and Zimbabwe. "We founded our business three years ago on the concept of 'Made to be More,' a philosophy that represents our products' intrinsic capabilities and our guiding principle that every individual has the ability to contribute to a better world," said Jim Sampey, CEO of Prime Medical. "By sharing our innovative medical apparel with organizations like CURE International, we proudly honor that commitment," said Sampey.

Utilizing textiles that can continuously kill germs is not only ground-breaking, but a much-needed method to fight infections in healthcare. Around the globe, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs) is on the rise. In February, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the first ever list of antibiotic-resistant "priority pathogens" that pose the greatest threat to human health. Along with the need to develop new antibiotics to combat superbugs, the WHO has called for better infection prevention methods. The WHO website states: "Without urgent action, we are headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill."

About Prime Medical

Prime Medical is the parent company and producer of SAF-T brand products including privacy curtains, bed linens, patient gowns, scrubs, lab coats and towels. Proudly made in the USA, Prime Medical products can contribute to a safer healthcare environment by harnessing the safe, trusted power of EPA-registered bleach. For more information, visit www.primemedical.com or www.saf-t-scrubs.com.

About CURE International

CURE International is a Christian health care network that operates charitable hospitals and programs in 30 countries worldwide where patients experience the life-changing message of God's love for them, receiving surgical treatment regardless of gender, religion, or ethnicity. Since 1998, CURE has had over 2.5 million patient visits, provided over 180,000 life-changing surgeries, and trained over 7,200 medical professionals.

Media Contacts:

Wendy Brady: (727) 999-2070

Marsha Strickhouser (727) 242-0770

[email protected]

SOURCE Prime Medical

Related Links

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ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ProQuest is working with Jisc to enable UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to build strong, user-centered research collections that better support their research focus areas and budgets.

ProQuest is taking part in an innovative group purchasing pilot program aimed at supporting HEIs with a more efficient, coordinated and transparent approach to the acquisition of digital archival primary source collections that Jisc set up in response to requirements from its members. This group purchasing program leverages institutions' collective purchasing power to enable the widest adoption of digital primary source archives.

Institutions will be able to select from a broad range of resources and pledge their interest until mid-July. The final price of each resource database will be based on the number of pledges received from institutions across any of the ProQuest products offered in the Pilot Program.

This program will also allow HEIs to trial the resources databases for up to 90 days at no cost.

ProQuest's detailed trial-usage statistics let HEIs make data-driven purchase decisions, expanding their collections with materials that have demonstrated value to each of their communities.

The pilot includes databases that address the interests and needs of the UK HEI community  including librarians, faculty and end users. Anchored by seven essential databases that support core curriculum needs and research interests, the ProQuest offering also includes a rich variety of new and noteworthy products, enabling institutions to customize to the needs of their users. While each HEI chooses their own custom menu of products, they're able to take advantage of preferential group pricing.

"There is plenty of evidence that the use of digital archives of primary source material has a positive impact on teaching, learning and research at the undergraduate and postgraduate level," said Paola Marchionni, Head of Digital Resources for Teaching, Learning and Research at Jisc. "These resources have become part of the scholarly communication lifecycle, and through this new approach to purchasing we're hoping to lower the barriers to adopt and support the widest access to these important collections."

"ProQuest and Jisc share a common goal of supporting the important work of librarians, students and faculty," said Susan Bokern, ProQuest Vice President, Product Management. "We are delighted to partner with Jisc in developing creative solutions for the UK higher education community to enable them to acquire key resources that will help achieve their goals of delivering better research, better learning and better insights."

About Jisc (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/)

Jisc is the UK higher, further education and skills sectors' not-for-profit organisation for digital services and solutions. We operate shared digital infrastructure and services, negotiate sector-wide deals with IT vendors and commercial publishers and provide trusted advice and practical assistance for universities, colleges and learning providers.

Find out more about the pilot at https://digitisation.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2017/03/07/new-group-purchasing-pilot-to-lower-cost-of-digital-archival-collections/ and about Jisc at www.jisc.ac.uk or contact the press team on [email protected]

About ProQuest (http://www.proquest.com)

ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company's products are a gateway to the world's knowledge including dissertations, governmental and cultural archives, news, historical collections and ebooks. ProQuest technologies serve users across the critical points in research, helping them discover, access, share, create and manage information.

The company's cloud-based technologies offer flexible solutions for librarians, students and researchers through the ProQuest, Alexander Street, Bowker, Dialog, Ex Libris and SIPX businesses  and notable research tools such as the RefWorks citation and reference management platform, the Pivot research development tool and the Ebook Central, ebrary, EBL and MyiLibrary ebook platforms. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.

SOURCE ProQuest

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ASHEBORO, N.C. and WINCHESTER, Ky., March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Two longtime leaders in lubricant distribution, Apollo Oil and Pugh Lubricants have announced a merger creating an organization uniquely positioned to serve the growing automotive, trucking and industrial lubrication markets with an unparalleled ability to support clients on a broad regional basis with a local touch.

The companies have very little overlap in geography, enabling Apollo and Pugh to continue operating as separate divisions while maintaining their historic company names in the near term, an affirmation of the commitment to customer relationships cultivated over more than one hundred years. The combination joins Pugh's service regions in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee with Apollo's service regions in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia under one company.

Pugh President Mike Pugh said, "Apollo has long been recognized for their commitment to excellent service which is the foundation of our industry. We share the same philosophy and the combination of our two companies reflects a proud history of nearly 140 years in business. We look forward to building upon that heritage together."

"The Pugh brand has long been admired and shares Apollo's values of service, quality, and integrity," said Ed Dotson the CFO and GM of Apollo. "This combination is a fitting legacy to the original founders of both companies, and we are very excited to join these two companies and deliver increased value to our customers by leveraging the experience, products and services of both organizations."

Key strategic benefits of the combination include:

Augmented product offerings and deeper market footprint. The larger distribution reach offers suppliers to the combined company unmatched access to customers in the combined operating region.

The larger distribution reach offers suppliers to the combined company unmatched access to customers in the combined operating region. Enhanced service for our customers. The combination of the companies' resources allows for accelerated investment in technology and personnel, reinforcing the combined company's leading position in service to its most valued constituents  the customers who have supported Pugh and Apollo over many decades of operation.

The combination of the companies' resources allows for accelerated investment in technology and personnel, reinforcing the combined company's leading position in service to its most valued constituents  the customers who have supported Pugh and Apollo over many decades of operation. Investment in our employees. This larger organization allows us to provide enhanced training, technology and career advancement opportunities to our employees, especially as we continue to grow our product offering and footprint, making our firm a preferred employer in the markets we serve.

This larger organization allows us to provide enhanced training, technology and career advancement opportunities to our employees, especially as we continue to grow our product offering and footprint, making our firm a preferred employer in the markets we serve. Plans to pursue further expansion. The combination allows the combined company to pursue organic and inorganic growth opportunities while continually investing in its value proposition to its customers and suppliers.

Mike Pugh and Ed Dotson will continue in their current leadership roles.

About Pugh Lubricants

Pugh Lubricants is a distributor of nationally branded and private label finished lubricants, antifreeze, and other ancillary product lines throughout the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. For additional information, please visit www.PughLubricants.com.

About Apollo Oil

Apollo Oil is a distributor of nationally branded and private label finished lubricants, antifreeze, and other ancillary product lines throughout Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, and portions of Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee. For additional information, please visit www.ApolloOil.com.

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Pugh Lubricants

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LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Leading software quality company QA Systems today announced the upcoming release of the Cantata unit and integration testing tool for C and C++. The new version, which will be available in May 2017, features a new test case editor, interactive tutorials and major enhancements for the Cantata Team Reporting add-on.

The upcoming release of Cantata 7.2 was announced by QA Systems today. This release focuses on making Cantata even easier to use and introduces a new Test Case Editor. This works in sync with the existing Test Case Manager to provide an intuitive and graphical way to edit test cases. Other enhancements have been made to the Cantata Eclipse user interface including a dedicated Cantata menu and toolbar action buttons. Interactive tutorials have also been added to guide users in use of the tool.

The Cantata Team Reporting add-on accompanying this release, also makes it easier for managers to gain actionable insights on testing status and configure reports. A web-based management dashboard has been added and displays customizable information about current testing status, historical data and trends over multiple codebases.

As with previous versions, Cantata 7.2 will be awarded compliance certification to the highest safety integrity levels for ISO 26262 (automotive), IEC 61508 (industrial safety), IEC 62304 (medical devices), EN 50128 (railways), IEC 60880 (nuclear) from SGS TuV Saar soon after release.

"We know that customers love the powerful features and flexibility that Cantata offers, with 7.2 we wanted to make it easier for less experienced users to get full use out of the tool." stated Andreas Sczepansky, QA Systems CEO.

Cantata 7.2 is generally available from May 2017.

About Cantata

Cantata is a unit and integration software testing tool, enabling developers to verify standard compliant or business critical C/C++ code on embedded target and host native platforms. Cantata is integrated with an extensive set of embedded development toolchains, from cross-compilers to requirements management and continuous integration tools. The Eclipse GUI, tight tool integrations, highly automated C/C++ test cases generation, all make Cantata easy to use.

For further information, please visit www.qa-systems.com/tools/cantata, or contact [email protected]

SOURCE QA Systems
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- QuickBase Inc., a leading low-code application development platform provider, today launched its new centralized Customer Success Program to help customers drive even more value from the QuickBase platform. Led by the company's new Vice President of Customer Success Mark Daoust, the program will expand upon the existing success experience to deliver personalized and self-service offerings throughout customers' QuickBase journey.

"As organizations rely more heavily on apps to drive better insights, productivity and business agility, empowering employees closest to the work to build apps has become critical to success," said Rick Willett, CEO, QuickBase. "Our new customer success program, led by Mark Daoust, will arm customers with the resources and skills they need to rapidly build app ecosystems that deliver the most value for their businesses."

Over the last year, no-code development has gone from a grassroots movement to an integral part of organizations' strategies. According to QuickBase's 2016 State of Citizen Development Report, no- and low-code tools are becoming more strategic and increasingly customer facing: in 2016 more than one-third (35 percent) of QuickBase app builders reported creating customer-facing apps, up from 27 percent in 2015.

The new program will include a team of customer success managers focused on helping customers speed desired outcomes and gain greater value from QuickBase, as well as a new integrated portfolio of paid and free customer success offerings, encompassing:

Enhanced Onboarding Support , with individualized success plans to get customers up and running on QuickBase even faster;

, with individualized success plans to get customers up and running on QuickBase even faster; Expanded Customer Training Offerings , including live in-person and online classes as well as on-demand self-guided courses to help educate customers throughout their QuickBase journey;

, including live in-person and online classes as well as on-demand self-guided courses to help educate customers throughout their QuickBase journey; Partner Services , for customers who require more hands-on support and want a third-party resource to help build, integrate and extend apps on their behalf;

, for customers who require more hands-on support and want a third-party resource to help build, integrate and extend apps on their behalf; Customer Support , live support to help customers whenever technical issues arrive; and,

, live support to help customers whenever technical issues arrive; and, QuickBase Community, an active, user-driven community forum where customers can ask and answer questions, share best practices, and more.

"With an unparalleled focus on customers, QuickBase is uniquely positioned to help organizations of all sizes build valuable apps faster and easier than ever before," said Mark Daoust, new VP of Customer Success. "In this new role, I'm thrilled to help the team scale its success offerings as QuickBase further empowers customers to improve the way they work."

Daoust has more than 20 years of enterprise technology experience with a track record of leading high-performing, customer-focused organizations. Prior to joining QuickBase, he spent 14 years at HPE, most recently as a Vice President of Operations and Services. In this role he led a 350-person team focused on enablement, implementation, delivery and support for seven software-as-a-service products. Before HP, Daoust served as a General Manager of Sapient Corporation in Cambridge.

About QuickBase

Launched in 1999 and headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., QuickBase Inc., formerly a division of Intuit, is a newly independent company focused on helping businesses of all sizes drive productivity and digitally transform their organizations. The platform's unique low-code interface enables users to create custom applications faster and easier without learning code. Today, QuickBase is used by more than 6,000 customers, including half of the Fortune 100, across a variety industries and use cases. The company was divested from Intuit in March 2016 and is backed by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. For more information, please visit: www.quickbase.com.

Media Contacts: Angela Maglione Will Gluckin

QuickBase Bateman Group for QuickBase

(617) 250-2241 (347) 382-9734

[email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE QuickBase Inc.

Related Links

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TEWKSBURY, Mass., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Office of Naval Research recently awarded Raytheon Company [NYSE: RTN] an $11.8 million contract to develop networking technologies enabling greater sensor interconnectivity and enhancing integrated fires capabilities for Naval operations.

Communications and Interoperability for Integrated Fires, or CIIF, will advance situational awareness for force-wide integrated air and missile defense. New and existing ships, planes, UAVs and expeditionary forces will communicate and share critical information across data links. These links connect one platform to another via radio frequency to transmit and receive digital information.

CIIF will leverage existing and planned sensor networking systems deployed onboard naval ships and aircraft, and in U.S. Marine Corps expeditionary systems and land-based test sites. CIIF provides a greater information flow of integrated fires data supporting higher fidelity situational awareness and data dissemination capability across the battle force.

"CIIF brings the Navy closer to full spectrum awareness and supports distributed lethality," said Colin Whelan, vice president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "Battlefield commanders need instant access to as much information as possible to protect critical assets and save lives. CIIF ties together that information  from land, sea and air-based sensors, across the services  in ways never before possible."

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2016 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 95 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 Company

Integrated Defense Systems

Tewksbury, Mass.

Media Contact

Ian Davis

+1.978.858.4135

[email protected]

SOURCE Raytheon Company

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NEW YORK, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- RapidSOS today announced that Rear Admiral (ret.) David G. Simpson, former Chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, is joining the RapidSOS Advisory Board. RapidSOS' advisors bring extensive expertise across the telecommunications, technology and public safety sectors. Admiral Simpson, a leading expert on cybersecurity, joins the Advisory Board with 20-plus-years of experience at the Department of Defense, as well as expertise in public safety communications from his career at the FCC.

"Admiral Simpson contributes his vast knowledge and expertise to RapidSOS in deploying the NG9-1-1 Clearinghouse which provides enhanced data to Public Safety Answering Points across the country," said Michael Martin, RapidSOS CEO. "We are excited to work with Admiral Simpson to achieve our mission of building transformative technology to save lives."

Admiral Simpson was recently awarded the Government Leader award from the NG9-1-1 Institute, a not-for-profit organization that works to promote deployment of advanced 9-1-1 services across the United States, for his work in advancing the deployment of Next Generation 9-1-1 systems during his tenure at the FCC.

"Through my work at the FCC, it has always been of the utmost importance that 9-1-1 calls across the nation are secure and reliable," said Admiral Simpson. "I am excited that RapidSOS not only brings new transformative technology to 9-1-1, but also built its platform with cyber security as a critical design element from the very beginning."

About RapidSOS

RapidSOS is an advanced emergency technology company. RapidSOS is developing technology to predict and preempt emergencies before they occur, dynamically warn people in harm's way, and link data from any connected device directly to first responders in an emergency. The result is faster, more effective emergency response leading to a projected 2-10% reduction in mortality, 6.9% reduction in healthcare treatment costs, and 20% reduction in property damage1. Formed in 2012 and backed by some of the world's top technologists, RapidSOS was named "2016 Start-Up of the Year" by the Consumer Technology Association, a Top Innovation of 2015 by MIT News, and Top 3 Innovative World Technologies by SXSW. Learn more at www.RapidSOS.com.

Contact:

RapidSOS

Regina Jaslow

[email protected]

(347) 879-0024

1Based on actuarial analysis for life threatening emergencies.

SOURCE RapidSOS

Related Links

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TRENTON, N.J., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Debi Madaio never thought she would become a public advocate for medical marijuana. As the co-owner of NJWeedman's Joint, a popular marijuana-themed eatery, located in Trenton, NJ, and the partner of Ed Forchion aka NJ Weedman, one of the cannabis industry's most controversial figureheads, she has found herself pushed to the forefront of a movement where the voices of women are becoming increasingly vocal. A registered nurse, the mother of a special needs child, and a card carrying medical marijuana patient (even though she does not partake of the plant), Debi Madaio has come to terms with her position in the movement. In the midst of Women's History Month, a time dedicated to women's achievements, Madaio has announced her plans to reopen Trenton's only cannabis-themed eatery under new management. NJWeedman's Joint will reopen on April 20, "National Weed Day," as Weedbukx, the Urban Chic Cafe.

While NJWeedman's Joint was a local eatery, Madaio envisions Weedbukx as a more trendy, upscale location that will attract clientele from other neighborhoods and even tourists. The restaurant's ambiance will mirror an actual medical marijuana grow room with curtains, table clothes and chairs designed and fashioned after marijuana leaves. The menu will feature weekly 'weed' specials alongside Chef John Upshaw's prized weed-inspired dishes like "Snoop's Dream," a fish and grits dish; the "Pothead Sandwich," fried fish with a shrimp crab relish and sriracha sauce; and the "East Coast Cannabis Coalition," a turkey meatball dinner with marinara sauce and spaghetti. No cannabis is used in any of the entrees!

While marijuana continues to blossom as one the nation's fastest growing industries, Madaio emerges as a compelling female force in the expanding battle to legalize it. As the woman behind NJWeedman, she has remained relatively quiet until now. Forchion has garnered international headlines for his aggressive activism in the fight for legalization. His legal battles have become legendary, and as the co-owner of NJWeedman's Joint, the former restaurant attracted national notoriety as well as discord for its 'green-themed' entrees.

Madaio, on the other hand, is a mother who is more concerned about the well-being of her 11-year old special needs child, Aiden. Ms. Madaio has an undergraduate degree in criminal justice as well as in nursing, and is currently enrolled in a Family Nurse Practitioner program. While currently working long hours, she envisions the eatery as an outlet which will provide work and income closer to home and nearer her child.

As a medical professional and dedicated parent, Madaio has begun the lengthy process of enrolling her son so he can become a medical marijuana patient within the state of New Jersey. She believes that cannabis oil, a product obtained by separating the resins from the plant, is the best antidote for her son's long list of debilitating conditions.

Madaio met Forchion several years ago at Trenton's "First Annual Cannabis Conference." Jennie Stormes, a medical marijuana mom advocate had invited her. It was Stormes who first educated Madaio about the benefits of cannabis oil for children suffering from seizures. Stormes had been at the forefront of efforts to expand New Jersey's medical marijuana program to minors before eventually leaving New Jersey for Colorado to secure better care for her severely epileptic son.

"I thought Stormes was crazy until I started doing the research about cannabis oil. She had tried everything on her son, and nothing proved beneficial like the oil. It gravely concerns me that my own son has been prescribed all kinds of pharmaceuticals considered legal even to the point of addiction, while the side effects are sometimes worse than the actual illness. Yet the doctors laugh at me when I suggest a plant that has been proven to work wonders," cites Madaio.

Madaio and Forchion established a friendship after the conference and eventually became a couple. When Forchion later decided to open a business, Madaio, feeling more educated about cannabis from her association with Storme, partnered with him. "I wanted to keep Jennie's dream alive and let Governor Christie know that New Jersians want legalization."

"It's easy to demonize adults in this war against marijuana. But there are so many ailing minors who can benefit from this plant," expresses Madaio. "My ultimate dream is to provide for my son and to secure him the proper cannabis care that he needs. With Weedbukx Cafe, we are hoping to provide an upscale environment where people can celebrate the wonders of marijuana in a fun environment without partaking in the actual use of it. With card carrying medical marijuana patients, we follow NJ CUMMA guidelines. If we can educate more people via Weedbukx Cafe about our overall mission, then that is all the better."

Weedbukx Cafe will open on 4/20 at 322 E. State St. in Trenton, NJ. Debi Madaio can be reached at [email protected], @flamingo2b on Instagram and on Facebook at "Nurses Who Have Disabled Children."

Watch Debi Madaio at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdKwBD2BqxY .

Image for Debi Madaio: http://imageshack.com/a/img921/7213/Ijpmz7.jpg

Image for Debi Madaio and NJWeedman: http://imageshack.com/a/img922/752/pPSHJF.jpg

jazzmyne Public Relations

323-380-8819

e-mail: [email protected]

web: www.jazzmynepr.com

SOURCE NJWeedmans Joint
SALT LAKE CITY, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Since its inception in 2012, Restore Utah and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group have revitalized low- and moderate-income neighborhoods by transforming vacant or neglected properties hard hit by the financial crisis into quality affordable rental homes for low-income families. On February 17, 2017, Goldman Sachs increased its equity commitment to Restore Utah, LLC's Multifamily Acquisition Fund to $24 million, enabling Restore Utah to significantly increase its acquisitions and improve affordable housing throughout the Wasatch Front. Restore Utah has also recently acquired The 500, a 109-unit apartment community in South Salt Lake.

Over the past five years, Restore Utah and Goldman Sachs have invested over $140 million to acquire and renovate over 500 single-family homes and six multifamily properties totaling over 370 units while also creating jobs in a sector that has suffered significant job loss. Over 84% of the homes are focused on serving low- and moderate-income communities and residents.

The 500 is a 109-unit community that offers large two bedroom apartment and townhome units conveniently proximate to downtown in South Salt Lake. Amenities at The 500 include a swimming pool, playground, large private patios and covered parking. Restore Utah plans to enhance the community through interior renovations and a common area overhaul that will include a dog park and gathering pavilion.

"We are pleased with this further investment from Goldman Sachs and the acquisition of The 500. We are optimistic regarding the Salt Lake market with the fastest growing state population in the nation, strong job growth and low unemployment. Salt Lake City is ranked 7th nationally for the best place for Business and Careers," said Jim Schulte, President at Restore Utah. "Goldman Sachs's investments over the past two years have enabled us to acquire six multifamily communities in the past 18 months consisting of over 370 units focused along the Wasatch Front. Restore Utah seeks to acquire 200 to 300 more units in 2017 to help revitalize existing apartment buildings and neighborhoods."

"Deepening this partnership with Restore Utah is part of Goldman Sachs's commitment to making meaningful investments in the cities where we live and work," says Margaret Anadu, Goldman Sachs Managing Director and head of the Urban Investment Group. "This partnership exemplifies an innovative solution to addressing the affordable housing need in the local market."

About Restore Utah

Restore Utah is an opportunistic real estate investment company and operator with a unique capability to match the needs of capital partners with attractive targeted opportunities. The firm was founded in 2012 by principals of McKinley Realty Partners and since that time has invested in $140 million of residential rental properties. Leveraging the insight of its partners gained over multiple real estate cycles, the firm is now utilizing the platform to grow into new areas. Restore Utah's partners have experience in repositioning residential rental properties and complex land entitlement. Its affiliates Restore Utah Construction and Restore Solar and Electric are licensed general and electric contractors.

About the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group

Established in 2001, the Urban Investment Group deploys the firm's capital by making investments and loans that benefit urban communities. Through its comprehensive community development platform, UIG is a catalyst in the revitalization of underserved neighborhoods. UIG has committed over $5.3 billion, facilitating the creation and preservation of over 20,700 housing units - the majority of which are affordable to low, moderate and middle-income families - as well as over 2,000,000 square feet of community facility space and over 6,100,000 square feet of commercial, retail, and industrial space. UIG has committed over $775 million in Utah.

Contact: Jim Schulte/Restore Utah (801) 210-7006/ [email protected]

SOURCE Restore Utah

Related Links

http://restore-utah.com


DAYTON, Ohio, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Reynolds and Reynolds Company today announced the release of the Reynolds LAW Maine F&I Library, a comprehensive catalog of standardized, legally reviewed finance and insurance (F&I) documents for franchised new car and truck dealers in the state of Maine.

"The pressure of regulatory scrutiny is a constant for automotive dealers," said Jerry Kirwan, senior vice president and general manager of Reynolds Document Services. "The documents in the LAW Maine F&I Library are regularly reviewed for legal sufficiency by Reynolds' industry-leading forms specialists alongside our outside legal partners. As a result, the library is a tool designed to help dealers better meet compliance obligations and manage risk."

Kirwan also noted that because the documents in the library are written in consumer-friendly language, they can help dealers to establish a clearer, more efficient F&I process. A more efficient F&I process can help lead to a better overall customer experience with the dealership.

In addition, the printed documents in the LAW Maine F&I Library are available in digital format, which can help facilitate the conversion to laser-printed forms and e-contracting transactions. Reynolds Document Services maintains licensing agreements with all major providers of electronic F&I (e-F&I) solutions.

About Reynolds LAW Brand Documents

Reynolds' LAW brand is well established as one of the most trusted brands in the automotive industry. LAW documents are available in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and have been endorsed by a number of state automobile dealers associations and leading automotive finance institutions.

The flagship product of the LAW brand is the Reynolds LAW 553 Universal Retail Installment Sale Contract, the most widely accepted document in auto finance. The Reynolds LAW 553 is regularly reviewed by industry experts to help keep pace with new legislative and regulatory developments.

Reynolds and Reynolds was founded in 1866 as a business forms printer. Since the 1920s, Reynolds has been known as the leader in serving automobile dealerships nationwide with standard and custom business and vehicle sales and service documents to help dealers manage their operations more efficiently and serve their customers more effectively.

About Reynolds

Reynolds and Reynolds is a leading provider of automobile dealership software, services, and forms to help dealerships deliver better business results and transform the customer experience. The company is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, with major operations in Houston and College Station, Texas, and Celina, Ohio. (www.reyrey.com)

SOURCE The Reynolds and Reynolds Company

Related Links

http://www.reyrey.com


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Rinchem Company, Inc., announced today that it has expanded its resources in the specialty gas logistics market. Rinchem has acquired operational control of three new gas pad locations in the domestic United States. As part of the expansion, Rinchem will operate additional gas pads in Phoenix, AZ; Manor, TX; and Tualatin, OR.

Versum Materials Logo

The new gas pad locations complement Rinchem's existing logistics infrastructure and provide new and existing customers an expanded specialty gas storage network. The gas pad locations will be completely operated and maintained by Rinchem and will follow the stringent safety and customer service standards for which Rinchem has become known.

Chris Wright, Rinchem's Vice President of Sales and Marketing said this about the new gas pad locations: "Rinchem is excited about this new opportunity to expand our service offering in the spec gas industry. It means a great deal to our team to have the trust and confidence of world-class chemical and gas manufacturing companies in the semiconductor industry. In keeping with our strategic objectives, this business complements the emphasis on expansion within in the spec gas cylinder market."

As part of this expansion, Rinchem has signed an agreement to provide services to Versum Materials, a major gas supplier to the semiconductor, display and LED markets.

"Versum Materials is pleased to strengthen our affiliation with Rinchem by expanding the scope of products stored and delivered for Versum to include gases and chemicals. Rinchem's knowledge and experience to safely and properly handle chemicals and gases is a key competency for products we supply," stated Christine Kurek, Global Supply Chain Director at Versum.

Rinchem looks forward to expanding its reach into the specialty gas market with these newly acquired resources. For any inquiries about gas pad storage options please contact Rinchem directly.

About Rinchem Company, Inc.

Rinchem provides a wide range of logistics services to support the semiconductor, chemical, gas, life sciences and paint and coatings industries, including dedicated and multi-client warehousing, on-site services, over-the-road and local transportation, freight forwarding, empty container return management and supply chain consulting. With locations in North America and in parts of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, Rinchem utilizes its network of customized, temperature-controlled warehouses and transportation assets to provide safe and efficient chemical management solutions. One partner managing a global supply chain, affords the ability to reduce cost and risk.

About Versum Materials, Inc.

Versum Materials (NYSE: VSM) (versummaterials.com) is a best-in-class electronic materials company providing high-purity chemicals and gases, delivery systems, services and materials expertise to meet the evolving needs of the global semiconductor, display and LED markets. Derived from the Latin word for "toward," the name "Versum" (pronounced ver-SOOM) communicates the company's deep commitment to helping customers move toward the future by collaborating, innovating and creating cutting-edge solutions.

A global leader in technology, quality, safety and reliability, Versum is one of the world's largest suppliers of next generation CMP slurries, ultra-thin dielectric and metal film precursors, formulated cleans and etching products, and delivery equipment that has revolutionized the semiconductor industry. Versum Materials operated for more than three decades as a division of Air Products. An independent company since October 2016, Versum has annual sales of about US$1 billion, 1,900 employees and 10 major facilities in Asia and the North America. It is headquartered in Tempe, Ariz.

Media Contact

Kristen Loftis

Marketing and Sales Coordinator

[email protected]

505-342-4395

SOURCE Rinchem Company, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.rinchem.com


MENLO PARK, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First the good news: Sixty percent of CFOs interviewed for a Robert Half survey think their workers are more engaged on the job compared to three years ago. The not-so-good news? The majority (52 percent) are concerned this may still be insufficient.

Source: Robert Half

Recent findings from a separate study help to underscore the point that executives should not take employee engagement  or loyalty  for granted. About one-third of professionals surveyed for a study on worker satisfaction and engagement from Robert Half and Happiness Works indicated that they are considering leaving their jobs in the next six months.

View an infographic of the CFO survey findings.

CFOs were asked, "Compared to three years ago, do you think employees are more or less engaged at work?" Their responses:

Significantly more engaged 12% Somewhat more engaged 48% Somewhat less engaged 25% Significantly less engaged 4% No change 11%

100%

CFOs were also asked, "How concerned are you about your employees' level of engagement at work?" Their responses*:

Significantly concerned 10% Somewhat concerned 42% Not too concerned 31% Not at all concerned 16%

99%

*Responses do not total 100 percent due to rounding.

"Engaged employees are more productive employees," said Paul McDonald, senior executive director at Robert Half. "They typically are also more dedicated team members and less likely to jump ship. This is an especially important consideration for businesses in the current environment of low unemployment and a shortage of skilled workers."

Added McDonald, "Employees are more likely to be engaged when they are given new challenges and regular performance feedback. They will also find more meaning and motivation in their work when they understand how their contributions fit with the overall goals of the business."

Where Engagement Is Highest

The CFO survey from Robert Half also offers insight on which U.S. cities have the most engaged workers. According to the research, the top five cities are: 1) Los Angeles, 2) San Francisco, 3) Chicago, Phoenix and St. Louis (tied).

Robert Half offers these five suggestions to help improve employee engagement:

Give individuals a glimpse of their future. Check in with team members about possible career paths at your company, including potential advancement opportunities and milestones needed to achieve them. Individuals want to know where they're headed and how you will help them get there. Promote creativity and innovation. The Robert Half and Happiness Works research found the ability to do interesting and meaningful work is a key factor in employee happiness. Encourage your staff to pursue new projects  and explore new pathways  at your company they are likely to find fulfilling. Keep lines of communication open. Employees are inclined to feel more connected to their jobs when they have productive work relationships with their managers. Remain accessible to your team and let them know they can come to you with questions and concerns. Take an interest in your employees' work  and their lives. Every worker is an individual. Make a point to learn about and support staff members' professional goals and aspirations, as well as their passions outside the office. Ensure your firm is always staffed appropriately. When employees are overworked, they are less likely to feel motivated and engaged. Make sure your company has access to skilled temporary professionals who can support your team when business demands escalate and during prolonged hiring processes.

About the Research

The survey was developed by Robert Half and conducted by an independent research firm. It is based on telephone interviews with more than 2,200 CFOs from a stratified random sample of companies in more than 20 of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas.

About Robert Half

Founded in 1948, Robert Half is the world's first and largest specialized staffing firm. The company has 325 staffing locations worldwide and offers job search services on its divisional websites, all of which can be accessed at roberthalf.com. For career and hiring advice, visit the Robert Half Blog at roberthalf.com/blog.

SOURCE Robert Half
BOSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Actifio, the Enterprise Data as-a-Service company, today announced a partnership with Sify Technologies, a leading ICT service provider based in India, to implement Actifio's platform to provide backup and disaster recovery to its customers.

Sify Technologies enables digital transformation for companies going through the information and communications technology (ICT) refresh cycle. Sify Technologies already provides a vast array of solutions in managed network, hosting and voice services, and applications and system integration to help enterprises bypass bottlenecks to grow rapidly.

Sify Technologies' customers previously used multiple point products to deliver backup and disaster recovery solutions. With Actifio, Sify will be able to offer an all-in-one backup and disaster recovery solution to more than 8,000 customers currently buying internet services, in order to better streamline their services and reduce their IT spend.

"Our vision is to offer a comprehensive ICT eco-system from the best of breed services to our customers," said Kirtikar Ojha, Head, DC and Cloud & Managed Services, Sify Technologies. "With Actifio, we will offer modern, streamlined backup and disaster recovery offerings for capabilities to our customers that will enhance the value and resiliency of their data, and allow them to spin up virtual copies of their data in near real time."

"In India, and worldwide, enterprises are recognizing how strategic their data is as they pursue digital transformation initiatives," said Ash Ashutosh, CEO, Actifio. "Data-as-a-Service is fundamentally changing the way major enterprises leverage, manage, and protect their data. Sify will now provide cloud-based data virtualization solutions to help customers leverage business resiliency use cases within hybrid cloud architectures."

Ravi Kollipara, Vice President of Actifio India added, "The cost and complexity associated with managing data across traditional siloed IT infrastructures hinders enterprises from realizing the agility they need to innovate, and the efficiency they need in delivering internal IT services. Through our partnership with Sify, these enterprises can leverage new Actifio-powered platforms to fully activate data-as-a-service and embark on their digital transformation."

About Sify Technologies

Sify is one of the the largest integrated ICT Solutions and Services companies in India, offering end-to-end solutions with a comprehensive range of products delivered over a common telecom data network infrastructure reaching more than 1400 cities and towns in India. This telecom network today connects 43 Data Centers across India including Sify's 6 Tier 3 Data Centers across the cities of Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

A significant part of the company's revenue is derived from Enterprise Services, comprising of Telecom services, Data Center services, Cloud and Managed services, Applications Integration services and Technology Integration services. Sify also provides services that cater to the burgeoning demands of the SMB community, much of it on its Cloud services platform.

Sify has a unified licence to operate NLD (National Long Distance), ILD (International Long Distance) services and ISP services and offers VoIP backhaul for international carriers. With the Sify Cable landing station and partnerships with submarine cable companies globally, Sify is present in almost all the spheres of the ICT ecosystem.

Sify has an expanding base of Managed Services customers, both in India and overseas, and is India's first enterprise managed services provider to launch a Security Operations Center (SOC) to deliver managed security services. The software team develops applications and offers services to improve business efficiencies of its current and prospective client bases. Sify also offers services in the specialized domains of eLearning, both in India and globally. For more information about Sify, visit www.sifycorp.com

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking statements contained herein are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Sify undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements.

For a discussion of the risks associated with Sify's business, please see the discussion under the caption "Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31, 2016, which has been filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and is available by accessing the database maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov, and Sify's other reports filed with the SEC.

For further information on this press release, please contact:

Sify Technologies Limited Mr. Praveen Krishna Investor Relations & Public Relations +91 44 22540777 (ext.2055) [email protected] Grayling Investor Relations Shiwei Yin +1-646-284-9474 [email protected] 20:20 Media Nikhila Kesavan +91 9840124036 [email protected]

About Actifio

Actifio is the world's leading Enterprise Data-as-a-Service (EDaaS) platform. It enables thousands of companies around the world deliver their data just as they deliver their applications and infrastructure as a service available instantly, anywhere. An enterprise-class software platform powered by patented Virtual Data Pipeline technology, Actifio frees data from traditional infrastructure to accelerate adoption of hybrid cloud, build higher quality applications faster, and improve business resiliency and availability. For more, visit Actifio.com or follow us on Twitter @Actifio.

Media Contact:

Meredith Kelly

Bite for Actifio

[email protected]

Actifio India Contact:

Ravi Kollipara

Vice President, Actifio India

[email protected]





SOURCE Actifio

Related Links

https://www.actifio.com


"On my first patrol in the Coast Guard, I had to shadow a few different people to learn what roles and responsibilities I would need to cover," Casey said. "This meant I had to cover multiple watches. I realized I had been awake for well over 30 hours. I was growing increasingly tired by the minute, and no amount of caffeine was helping at this point. We were underway on patrol off the coast of the Mexico-California border on a nice clear night. The ship was gently rocking back and forth, and my lack of sea legs made me walk around like a newborn calf. I was banging into things left and right and fighting to stay awake.

"I didn't want to appear weak, and I knew I would be made fun of if they found me sleeping, so I decided to take a quick power nap in the back of the engine room. It was warm and toasty in there, and I figured all I needed was 10 minutes to feel fresh and new again. With my head gently resting on a valve in the engine room, I figured I was out of the way of anyone just walking around. Sadly, I was sorely mistaken. The engine room is not a place to sleep. Apparently, it is a fire hazard and 'unsafe.' To say I was reprimanded would be an understatement. The worst part was the crew waking me up by yelling at me."

To read napping stories from other veterans, visit http://newsroom.woundedwarriorproject.org/Sleepless-in-the-Service-6-Tired-Tales-for-National-Napping-Day.

About Wounded Warrior Project

Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) connects, serves, and empowers wounded warriors. Read more at http://newsroom.woundedwarriorproject.org/about-us.

SOURCE Wounded Warrior Project

Related Links

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org


AKRON, Ohio, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Smithers Quality Assessments (SQA), announced today the hiring of Aaron Troschinetz as General Manager for North America and Brian Keckler as Quality Manager.

Troschinetz will work directly with clients, focusing on how to provide them with the highest level of service. Keckler will oversee the quality management system, focusing on each sector of Smithers' third party services, as well as the company's internal processes.

SQA General Manager Aaron Troschinetz SQA Quality Manager Brian Keckler

"We conducted a rigorous search to fill our general manager position, and Aaron brings a wealth of industry, commercial, process and leadership experience to our organization," said Jeannette Preston, president, SQA North America. "Brian's history of working with oversight offices, along with his attention to detail, made him an ideal fit as a quality manager."

Troschinetz has over 16 years of experience in the automotive, aerospace and information technology industries, previously working with Bendix Spicer Foundation Brake, SAI Global and NSF International. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Michigan Technological University.

Keckler joins SQA after 25 years with SAI Global. As Automotive Sector Technical Manager, Keckler oversaw the global scheme for the company in the TS 16949 standard and ensured compliance with the International Automotive Task Force (IATF). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ohio Northern University.

This announcement is part of Smithers' larger global expansion. Learn more about the organization and its services at www.smithersregistrar.com.

About The Smithers Group:

Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, The Smithers Group includes Smithers Apex, Smithers Avanza, Smithers Pira, Smithers Quality Assessments, Smithers Rapra, and Smithers Viscient. Each Smithers Group company provides technology-based services focused on a defined market. As a group, the diversity of market sectors and technologies provides stability and a platform for long-term growth. By integrating science, technology and business expertise, Smithers' goal is to add value throughout the lifecycle of our clients' products, by utilizing testing, consulting, information, and compliance services. All Smithers companies are known by their clients as Trusted Providers of Innovative Solutions. For more information, visit www.smithers.com.

You can reach the Smithers Quality Assessments North America office at:

121 South Main Street

Akron, Ohio 44308

Telephone: 866-688-0134

www.smithersregistrar.com

Media Contact:

Drew Markley

[email protected]

+1 (330) 762-4231

SOURCE Smithers Quality Assessments

Related Links

http://www.smithers.com


SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 16, 2017, Sovereign Health, a national behavioral health system, filed a formal complaint with the director of the California Department of Social Services, outlining a pattern of harassment by officials from the CDSS's Community Care Licensing Division. The complaint details the outrageous conduct of CCLD staff, who were accompanied by an armed, unidentified investigator on an unannounced site visit to a Sovereign children's facility, an adolescent mental health treatment center.

Specifically at issue, aside from the armed and unidentified individual, are the intentionally falsified documents logged by CCLD Licensing Program Manager Shelly Grace, and Licensing Program Analyst Marisol Lopez. The documents in question deliberately omitted any mention of CCLD's illegal actions in reference to the unnamed and gun-wielding individual at the children's recovery center. This facility recently received the Gold Seal accreditation from the Joint Commission, the nation's oldest and most respected healthcare accrediting body.

Sovereign's complaint highlights the fact that the gun-wielding individual wore no badge or other form of identification, and refused to give his name while terrifying child residents by brandishing his weapon as he stalked the grounds of the facility. CCLD staff Grace and Lopez, who were conducting the visit, refused to name the armed intruder and stood by as he bullied the staff and belligerently ordered the Facility's Medical Director into a room and refusing to allow the Facility Administrator to enter the same room.

In the complaint, Sovereign's general counsel and board member Seth Zajac protested that, "The children's recovery home is a sanctuary for children with mental illness and for children recovering from trauma." Mr. Zajac added, "These actions by CCLD's staff are despicable. It was dangerous. Sending a gun-wielding individual to the children's recovery home in civilian clothing, who refused to identify himself, interferes with our staff's ability to identify a potential active shooter. And it was illegal: Health and Safety Code Section 1533 requires staff to properly identify themselves before entering the licensed children's recovery home." Mr. Zajac also states that CCLD urgently needs to clean up its act; "This disgusting conduct was entirely unnecessary, unprecedented and unlawful. This disgusting conduct must never happen again."

Sovereign Health and its legal team have met with CDSS Investigator Peter Zertuche, and complied with all requests in communications about the incident.

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.

SOURCE Sovereign Health

Related Links

https://www.sovhealth.com


Helicopter tour and picnic at the Grand Canyon plus an exotic driving experience at Lake Mead National Recreation Area

LAS VEGAS, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sundance Helicopters, Inc., the most experienced and highest-rated experiential tourism company in Las Vegas, has partnered with Exotic Driving Experiences for the "Sundance Heli & Horsepower Experiences" tours geared towards those looking for a thrilling adventure during their Las Vegas vacation.

"Visitors from all over the world can now experience something unique," said Jim Greiner, President of Sundance Helicopters. "We've partnered with Exotic Driving Experiences to enable anyone to not only see one of the seven natural wonders of the world, but the thrill of driving a Ferrari, Lamborghini or American muscle car with Lake Mead as the backdrop."

"As the only on-road automotive experience company in Las Vegas, we had the opportunity to offer something uniquely experiential alongside Sundance Helicopters," said Stephen Price, director of unique global events for Exotic Driving Experiences. "We are at the forefront of the exotic cars tour business and see this as an enhancement of an already amazing thrill experience."

The tour begins with a stretch limousine pickup from various Las Vegas Strip and Downtown properties where they'll be taken to the Sundance Helicopters terminal for a pre-flight check-in. Guests will then be escorted to a state-of-the-art helicopter where they'll experience views of the historic Hoover Dam, Lake Mead National Recreation Area and Mojave Desert before landing on a private bluff inside the Grand Canyon for breakfast. After taking in the views of the Grand Canyon, guests will once again board a Sundance helicopter and fly over the Las Vegas Strip to the terminal where a stretch limo awaits to take customers to Exotic Driving Experiences. There, they will be safety briefed and driven to the staging area to choose various exotic and/or muscle cars for a self-driven guided tour around Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Once the driving tours are complete, a transporter will drop-off guests back at their hotel. The 6  hour "Sundance Heli & Horsepower Experiences" tour starts at $749 per person.

For more information or to book this tour, please go to: www.sundancehelicopters.com/heli-n-horsepower-experiences/

SOURCE Sundance Helicopters, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.sundancehelicopters.com


LOUISVILLE, Colo., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Swimlane, a leader in automated incident response and security orchestration, announced today an integration with Trend Micro Deep Discovery. Together, Swimlane and Trend Micro will help customers quickly identify and respond to targeted attacks and ransomware faster, without increasing the workload on security operations staff. It also helps streamline security operations through a more centralized approach to automated incident response and security orchestration.

"Swimlane is committed to improving cybersecurity threat response capabilities and lowering incident response times by integrating with world-class solutions like Trend Micro Deep Discovery," said Cody Cornell, CEO and founder of Swimlane. "Trend Micro and Swimlane will provide highly automated responses and facilitate interoperability with other platforms. By automating the workflow and response, Swimlane will help Trend Micro customers respond faster and more consistently to a greater number of targeted attacks and ransomware."

As the volume of cyberattacks continues to rise, security administrators struggle to keep pace while manually performing repetitive and time-consuming tasks to track, mitigate and resolve security events across multiple platforms. Recent research by the Ponemon Institute found that the average security operations team receives 17,000 alerts every week, but is only able to investigate 29 percent of them. According to a 2015 analysis of Bureau of Labor statistics reported by the Peninsula Press, there are currently more than 209,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions in the U.S. alone.

Swimlane helps organizations get the most out of existing resources by automating time-intensive, manual processes and operational workflows in real time. An API-first architecture, extensive out-of-the-box integrations and pre-packaged templates allow organizations to quickly enable orchestration across their entire security infrastructure. Swimlane delivers powerful analytics, real-time dashboards and key performance reporting to maximize the incident response capabilities of over-burdened and understaffed security operations.

The integration with Swimlane will allow Trend Micro customers to automatically initiate incident response workflows in response to any alarm. Customers will also have the option of either manually or automatically launching a toolkit to inspect and clean the targeted device. Importing attack data into Swimlane will deliver consolidated event details from multiple platforms for rapid investigation and alarm triage. This will ensure faster incident response and a greater return on investment from the entire security infrastructure.

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. All our products work together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat defense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, faster protection. With more than 5,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world's most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to secure their journey to the cloud. For more information, visit www.trendmicro.com.

About Swimlane

Swimlane was founded to deliver innovative and practical security solutions to organizations struggling with alert fatigue, vendor proliferation and chronic staffing shortages. Swimlane is at the forefront of the growing market for security orchestration, automation and reporting solutions that automate and organize security processes in repeatable ways to get the most out of available resources and accelerate incident response.

Swimlane is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado with operations throughout North America and Europe.

Charles Trowbridge

Catapult PR

[email protected]

(303) 581-7760

SOURCE Swimlane
GREENVILLE, S.C., March 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), a leading Technology Solutions distributor, today announced that it has been honored as the Distributor of the Year at the 2017 Aruba Americas Partner Summit, held in Nashville, Tennessee, February 27-March 1. The annual Top Channel Partner awards recognize the achievements of the leading Americas channel partners for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, in the areas of sales, expertise in delivering Aruba solutions, and commitment to customer service.

In presenting SYNNEX with the award, Aruba noted SYNNEX's outstanding performance in 2016, with revenue increases in both wired and wireless business, and an impressive small-to-medium business contribution with triple-digit growth year over year. SYNNEX was the top distributor in WLAN market share all four quarters, and led the way in wired business for two of those quarters.

"SYNNEX is honored to receive this recognition from Aruba, which marks our ongoing shared commitment to deliver both best-of-breed and emerging technologies that enable our resellers to offer comprehensive solutions," said David Dennis, Senior Vice President, Product Management, SYNNEX Corporation. "Together, SYNNEX and Aruba continue to meet demand and hold a leading position in wireless technologies that are the backbone of the convergence of cloud, mobility and IoT in enterprise environments."

"Aruba's long-standing philosophy of 'Customer First-Customer Last' would not be possible without our partners, who are quite simply the best in the business," said Jim Harold, Vice President of North America channels for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. "As organizations grapple with the convergence of mobile, cloud and the IoT, they need not just access to industry-leading intelligent edge solutions, but also expertise in how to deploy these products to solve real-world challenges. We congratulate SYNNEX Corporation for being named a 2017 Top Channel Partner, and thank them for the world-class service they provide to customers."

For more information on SYNNEX HPE business, visit www.synnex.com/hpe.

About SYNNEX

SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), a Fortune 500 corporation and a leading business process services company, provides a comprehensive range of distribution, logistics and integration services for the technology industry, as well as outsourced services focused on customer engagement strategy to a broad range of enterprises. SYNNEX distributes a broad range of information technology systems and products and provides systems design and integration solutions. Concentrix, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation, offers a portfolio of strategic solutions and end-to-end business services around customer engagement strategy, process optimization, technology innovation, front and back-office automation and business transformation to clients in ten identified industry verticals. Founded in 1980, SYNNEX Corporation operates in numerous countries throughout North and South America, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Additional information about SYNNEX may be found online at www.synnex.com .

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements in this release that are forward-looking, such as general success of the collaboration, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause the Company's actual results in future periods to be materially different from any future performance that may be suggested in this release. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release.

Copyright 2017 SYNNEX Corporation. All rights reserved. SYNNEX, the SYNNEX Logo, CONCENTRIX, and all other SYNNEX company, product and services names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of SYNNEX Corporation. SYNNEX, the SYNNEX Logo, and CONCENTRIX Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. Other names and marks are the property of their respective owners.

SNX-G

SOURCE SYNNEX Corporation

Related Links

http://www.synnex.com


SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), the next-generation security company, today announced that Fisher-Titus Medical Center, a non-profit community hospital serving North Central Ohio, has selected the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform to assist in preventing malicious applications from gaining unauthorized control of critical medical devices, and to block cyberthreats from disrupting network services impacting vital patient care.

As a technology-savvy medical center, committed to offering its patients the most advanced technology and medical treatment possible, Fisher-Titus is keenly aware of the need for rock-solid network security. Aging medical devices built on legacy technology are not designed to protect against modern cyberthreats, leaving them vulnerable to cybercriminals.

Fisher-Titus replaced its traditional security products with the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform - comprised of the Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall, threat intelligence cloud, and Traps advanced endpoint protection - to help prevent cyberthreats from breaching its network and potentially compromising medical systems or patient care.

With the WildFire cloud-based threat analysis, a component of the platform, Fisher-Titus now has assurance that zero-day attacks, which can easily slip through traditional signature-based security methods, are automatically prevented from infiltrating the medical center's network.

QUOTE

"We receive hundreds of malicious documents and zero-day threats every day. WildFire inspects each of them, determines what they're trying to execute, and protects our network from every threat within moments. It's truly one of the most valuable benefits of the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform."

 Dylan Border, project engineer, Fisher-Titus Medical Center

App-ID and User-ID capabilities provide the team with the ability to manage what applications and systems individual users are permitted to access based on their role, and gives the medical center's security team a granular view of both known and unknown traffic. Network performance has improved with the Palo Alto Networks platform, eliminating slow-downs that previously disrupted productivity.

Moreover, by consolidating point products into a single, natively integrated and automated platform, Fisher-Titus has avoided thousands of dollars in capital expenditures.

To learn more about how Fisher Titus is using the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform, visit: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/customers/fisher-titus-medical-center

To learn more about the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform, visit: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/designing-for-prevention/security-platform

About Fisher-Titus Medical Center

Fisher-Titus Medical Center provides comprehensive state-of-the-art healthcare services for 70,000-plus residents throughout North Central Ohio. Its full continuum of care includes a 99-bed acute care hospital, a 69-bed skilled nursing facility, a 48-unit assisted living facility, a Home Health Center, and outpatient services. The Medical Center is known for its high-quality patient care, having received numerous recognitions including the HealthGrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award and Leapfrog's "A" Hospital Safety Score for three consecutive years. For more information please visit www.fisher-titus.org.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks is the next-generation security company, leading a new era in cybersecurity by safely enabling applications and preventing cyber breaches for tens of thousands of organizations worldwide. Built with an innovative approach and highly differentiated cyberthreat prevention capabilities, our game-changing security platform delivers security far superior to legacy or point products, safely enables daily business operations, and protects an organization's most valuable assets. Find out more at www.paloaltonetworks.com.

Palo Alto Networks and the Palo Alto Networks logo are trademarks of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.

SOURCE Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.paloaltonetworks.com


CHICAGO, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Has your flight been delayed or do you have a long layover at an airport? Don't dismay! The travel experts at The GO Group asked frequent flyers about the coolest new things to do at the airport.

Travelers with 30 minutes to spare at Cancun International Airport can treat themselves to a fish pedicure. Soak weary feet in warm water while tiny fish swarm and nibble away calluses and dead skin. According to traveler Lauren Milligan, CEO of ResuMAYDAY, the session doesn't hurt and feels like "tiny fish kisses."

Elaine Fitzgerald, president/CEO of Beach Vacation Rentals meets up with others who share her passion for the Argentine Tango via a Facebook group called 'Stranded At An Airport, Tango Meetup. Devotees travel with their dance shoes and music and post to the group when they know they will be at a particular gate at an airport in hopes of finding another tangoing traveler nearby. With more than 11,000 members, Fitzgerald says "it's not unlikely you won't be able to find a tango dancer during an airport layover."

Family travel expert Grainne Kelly, founder of BubbleBum likes Boston's Logan International Airport's self-serve sundaes with MooBella Ice Creamery Machine using an interactive touch screen for ordering from 96 combinations of ice cream and mix-ins. Austin Bergstrom International Airport features four venues in the east and west concourses with live concerts offering everything from western swing to vintage jazz. She also likes General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee and its ping pong tables to keep people active and entertained.

Put your down time to good use at any airport using language learning app Babbel, for web, iOS and Android. Bite-sized lessons fit into everyday life and are split into real-world topics, from introductions, to ordering food and making travel arrangements. The app's game mechanics ensure that learners stay motivated and progress is saved in "the cloud" allowing users to resume their lesson once off the plane.

The GO Group, LLC provides both shared-ride shuttles and private cars at more than 90 airports in the United States, Canada, Central America, The Caribbean and Europe, including those in the airports mentioned above. For a complete list, visit the website at www.GoAirportShuttle.com. The company serves some 13 million passengers per year.

SOURCE The GO Group, LLC
NEEDHAM, Mass., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TripAdvisor, the travel planning and booking site, today unveiled its inaugural TripMaximizer Report, revealing how far a traveler's dollar can stretch in 10 of the most popular destinations on TripAdvisor this spring. The report, designed to help U.S. travelers plan a trip that best suits their budget, outlines the number of nights they can afford at 10 vacation hot spots worldwide.

TripAdvisor booking data revealed that the average U.S. traveler's budget of $2,500, inclusive of accommodation and flight pricing, could yield a 12-night stay in Myrtle Beach versus five nights in Miami Beach or Cancun this spring. It also showed that some international destinations such as Barcelona allow for a longer stay than domestic options such as Honolulu.

At the midway point are San Juan and Barcelona offering a seven-night stay, proving that it is possible to travel internationally for the same price and duration as within the U.S. While the average per person flight price to Barcelona is 89% more expensive than San Juan at $857 versus $453, the average nightly hotel rate on TripAdvisor for Barcelona compared to San Juan closes the gap at $229 and $282 respectively.

"For travelers who want to maximize the trips they plan and the travel dollars they are spending, TripAdvisor has identified 10 of the most popular spots for spring and how long U.S. travelers can stay on the average vacation budget," said Brooke Ferencsik, senior director of communications for TripAdvisor. "The TripMaximizer Report found that Myrtle Beach is an outstanding option for travelers to really stretch their travel dollar because of the many low priced, top-rated hotel options and reasonable airfares."

Trip Length for $2,500 or Less at 10 of the Most Popular Spring Travel Destinations

(Ranked according to trip length from most to least number of nights)

Destination Avg. Airfare

(Per Person) Avg. Hotel Rate

on TripAdvisor Trip

Length 1. Myrtle Beach, SC $397 $174 12 nights 2. Anaheim, CA $426 $213 10 nights 3. Orlando, FL $305 $241 9 nights 4. San Diego, CA $376 $257 8 nights 5. New Orleans, LA $390 $273 8 nights 6. San Juan, Puerto Rico $453 $282 7 nights 7. Barcelona, Spain $857 $229 7 nights 8. Honolulu, HI $746 $317 6 nights 9. Miami Beach, FL $396 $403 5 nights 10. Cancun, Mexico $463 $422 5 nights

Travelers planning a trip to any of these destinations this spring can read reviews, compare the lowest prices and book their hotel on TripAdvisor.

Highly Rated Value Hotels in 10 of the Most Popular Spring Travel Destinations, Bookable on TripAdvisor

Methodology

The average U.S. traveler vacation spend on accommodation and flights is based on the results of a TripAdvisor survey of 1,597 U.S. travelers, which found that on their last main vacation, 50% of Americans spent $2,500 or more on the accommodation and flights portion of the trip.

The 10 of the most popular spring travel destinations for Americans are based on instant booking and meta click data for hotel check-ins from March 1  May 31, 2016.

Average flight cost per person represents the average roundtrip price for flights to each destination between March 1 - May 31, 2017, aggregated over main U.S. main hub airports (DFW, MSY, MIA, MSP, ATL, IAH, LAS, PHL, DCA, MCO, SEA, HNL, BOS, SFO, JFK, LAX, PDX, ORD, SAN, DIA).

Average nightly hotel rate is based on the average nightly rate for 4-star hotels and above in each destination between March 1 - May 31, 2017.

High rated value hotels were selected according to the Popularity Index on February 7, 2017. Hotels were filtered by 'value', with a minimum bubble rating of four out of five. Prices represent the average nightly rate for March 1 - May 31, 2017.

About TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel site*, enabling travelers to unleash the potential of every trip. TripAdvisor offers advice from millions of travelers, with 465 million reviews and opinions covering 7 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions, and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features  checking more than 200 websites to help travelers find and book today's lowest hotel prices. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 390 million average unique monthly visitors** in 49 markets worldwide. TripAdvisor: Know better. Book better. Go better.

TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP), through its subsidiaries, manages and operates websites under 23 other travel media brands:

www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.citymaps.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.familyvacationcritic.com, www.flipkey.com, www.thefork.com (including www.lafourchette.com, www.eltenedor.com, www.iens.nl and www.dimmi.com.au), www.gateguru.com, www.holidaylettings.co.uk, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.housetrip.com, www.independenttraveler.com, www.jetsetter.com, www.niumba.com, www.onetime.com, www.oyster.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.tingo.com, www.travelpod.com, www.tripbod.com, www.vacationhomerentals.com and www.viator.com.

*Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, November 2016

**Source: TripAdvisor log files, Q3 2016

TRIP-G

SOURCE TripAdvisor

Related Links

http://www.tripadvisor.com


HOUSTON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Professor Renee Knake, the Joanne and Larry Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics at the University of Houston Law Center, will discuss gender equality in the legal profession as the featured speaker of the annual Yale L. Rosenberg Memorial Lecture at the Law Center on March 23.

Knake's lecture is titled, "What Does it Mean to Be the First? Lessons from Women Shortlisted for the U.S. Supreme Court."

A discussion panel moderated by Dean Leonard M. Baynes will follow Knake's lecture. Panelists include: Judge Vanessa Gilmore, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Kay McCall, President, CEO and GC at Noble Environmental Power, Dianne Ralston, Chief Legal Officer of TechnipFMC plc, and Doris Rodriguez, a partner at Andrews Kurth Kenyon.

Knake joined the Law Center faculty in 2016 after serving as the Foster Swift Professor of Legal Ethics and co-director of the Kelley Institute of Ethics and the Legal Profession at Michigan State University College of Law. In 2015, she served as scholar-in-residence at Stanford Law School's Center on the Legal Profession and as a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation. Her expertise and research interests include the First Amendment and the regulation of attorney speech; legal ethics, especially conflicts of interest; access to justice; innovation in the delivery of legal services; and gender and the legal profession.

Knake is an author of the casebook "Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach," and numerous scholarly articles. Her work has been cited in briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as a range of media including the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Bloomberg Law, and the ABA Journal. From 2014-2016, she served as the Reporter for the American Bar Association Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services. Her work on entrepreneurship and innovation in legal services has been recognized by numerous national awards and private grant funding.

Before her academic career, Knake practiced law at Mayer, Brown in Chicago and Hunton & Williams in Richmond, Va., where she specialized in commercial litigation, telecommunications, and labor/employment law. She earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999.

The lecture is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., March 23, at the University of Houston Law Center with a reception to follow. Please visit www.law.uh.edu/rosenberg for more information or to register for the event.

The Yale L. Rosenberg Memorial Fund was established to recognize and foster excellence at the Law Center. The endowment is used to fund a student writing prize and bring distinguished speakers to the Law Center.

Rosenberg was a Law Center professor who taught administrative law, civil procedure, federal jurisdiction, professional responsibility, and Jewish Law. He was the first Law Center professor to receive the Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Houston. He passed away in 2002.

Media contacts: Elena Hawthorne, UH Law Center Interim Director of Communications and Marketing, 713-743-1125, [email protected]; John T. Kling, UH Law Center Communications Manager, 713-743-8298, [email protected]; and John Brannen, Senior Writer, 713-743-3055, [email protected]

About the University of Houston

The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized by The Princeton Review as one of the nation's best colleges for undergraduate education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation's fourth-largest city, UH serves more than 42,700 students in the most ethnically and culturally diverse region in the country.

About the University of Houston Law Center

The University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) is a dynamic, top tier law school located in the nation's 4th largest city. UHLC's Health Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Part-time programs rank in the U.S. News Top 10. It awards Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees, through its academic branch, the College of Law. The Law Center is more than just a law school. It is a powerful hub of intellectual activity with more than 11 centers and institutes which fuel its educational mission and national reputation. UHLC is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools.

SOURCE University of Houston Law Center

Related Links

http://www.law.uh.edu


LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Underfill Material Market: Snapshot





Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4463759/





The "Underfill Material Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 20162024," report provides forecast and analysis of the underfill material market on the global and regional level. The primary objective of the report is to identify opportunities in the market and present updates as well as insights pertaining to various segments of the global underfill material market. The study provides historic data of 2015 along with forecast from 2016 to 2024 based on volume (kg) and revenue (US$ Mn). It includes drivers, restraints and the ongoing trend of the underfill material market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period. The underfill material report also comprises the study of opportunities available in the market for underfill material on the global and regional level. It includes value chain analysis with list of underfill material suppliers and end users.



In order to provide the users of this report with comprehensive view of underfill materail market, we have included detailed competitiveness analysis and company players of the industry. The competitive dashboard provides detailed comparison of underfill material producer on parameters such as company's revenue, employee strength, unique selling propositions and key strategic developments. The study of underfill material market encompasses market attractiveness analysis, by product type, application type and by geographic region.



Global Underfill Material Market: Scope



Market statistics have been estimated based on average consumption and weighted average pricing of product type in underfill material market and the revenue is derived through regional pricing trends. Market size and forecast for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The underfill material market has been analyzed based on expected demand. Prices considered for the calculation of revenue are average regional prices obtained through primary quotes from numerous underfill material producers, suppliers, and distributors.



Global Underfill Material Market: Segmentation



All key end users have been considered and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents. Regional demand patterns have been considered while estimating the market for various end users of underfill material in different regions. Top-down approach has been used to estimate the underfill material market by regions. Market numbers for global product type and application segments have been derived using the bottom-up approach, which is cumulative of each regions demand. The market of underfill material has been forecast based on constant currency rates.



A number of primary and secondary sources were consulted during the course of the study of underfill material market. Secondary sources include Factiva, World Bank, SEMI, The Semiconductor Industry Association, World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, Hoover's, and company's annual report and publications.



The report begins with an overview of the global underfill material market, evaluating market performance in terms of revenue, key trends, drivers, and restraints witnessed in the global market. Impact analysis of the key growth drivers and restraints based on the weighted average model is also included in the report.



Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:



The report provides detailed competitive outlook including company profiles of key participants operating in the global market. Some of the key players in the global underfill material market are Henkel AG & Co. KgaA, H.B. Fuller, NAMICS Corporation, Epoxy Technology Inc, Yincae Advanced Material, LLC, Master Bond Inc, Zymet Inc, AIM Metals & Alloys LP, Won Chemicals Co. Ltd.



The global Underfill material market is segmented below:



By Product Type



Capillary Underfill Material (CUF)

No Flow Underfill Material (NUF)

Molded Underfill Material (MUF)



By Application



Flip Chips

Ball Grid Array (BGA)

Chip Scale Packaging (CSP)



By Region



North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East and Africa (MEA)

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4463759/



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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SEATTLE, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The University of Washington School of Medicine, a component of UW Medicine, continues to rank as the nation's top medical school for primary care education and No. 2 in research funding in the latest U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools (2018 edition). This is the 23rd time in the 24 years of this U.S. News ranking category that it has held the No. 1 primary care position.

U.S. News ranks the nation's graduate and professional schools through a weighted average of several indicators, including admissions selectivity, faculty/student ratios and peer assessments.

In a reputational survey of medical school deans and senior faculty across the country, the UW School of Medicine's medical student teaching programs were rated No. 1 in family medicine and No. 1 in rural medicine. It has maintained these two rankings for the past 26 years.

"Our students train throughout the Pacific Northwest and have direct experience providing care in rural and underserved communities," said Dr. Paul G. Ramsey, CEO, UW Medicine and dean, UW School of Medicine. "This top ranking reflects the dedication of our faculty, including our volunteer clinical faculty, who provide our students with exceptional training. We are also fortunate to have outstanding research programs that have resulted in our No. 2 ranking in the nation for research funding among all medical schools."

Medical schools were compared on the number of graduates entering primary-care residencies, residency director assessments, and other factors to determine the leading primary-care program. Primary care is a patient's first-line contact for general health maintenance, prevention, treatment of common conditions and specialty-care coordination. Primary care practitioners are critical to ensuring the health of individuals living in rural settings. As the only medical school in a five-state region, with a significant rural landmass, the UW School of Medicine is responsible for training physicians to meet the critical need in these communities. The ongoing success in primary-care training in such areas as family medicine and rural medicine is largely due to the School's program of regionalized medical education called WWAMI, an acronym for the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

"Our students train throughout a five-state region and have hands-on experience providing care in urban, rural and underserved communities," said Dr. Suzanne Allen, vice dean for academic, rural and regional affairs, UW School of Medicine. "Our unique partnerships with Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, established decades ago, provide varied and well-rounded clinical experiences for our students and are a big part of our ongoing success. By educating students in their home states, our goal is to help provide our partner states with the physician workforce they need to meet the needs of their communities."

The School of Medicine's medical student program also ranked No. 5 in pediatrics (children's healthcare), tied at No. 6 in internal medicine (adolescent through adult healthcare), ranked No. 7 in geriatrics (elder healthcare), and No. 8 in teaching about alcohol and drug abuse.

UW School of Medicine continues to be the leading public institution in the amount of federal research funding received. Based on the U.S. News accounting of National Institutes of Health funding, the School received $638.8 million in NIH grants in 2016 and is second to Harvard University, a private institution, in the amount of this federal funding. In addition to NIH funding, UW Medicine faculty also attract grants from foundations and other sources for a total of more than $1 billion per year of research funding.

About UW Medicine

UW Medicine is one of the top-rated academic medical systems in the world. With a mission to improve the health of the public, UW Medicine educates the next generation of physicians and scientists, leads one of the world's largest and most comprehensive medical research programs, and provides outstanding care to patients from across the globe. UW Medicine's four hospitalsHarborview Medical Center, Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, University of Washington Medical Center and Valley Medical Centeradmit about 63,000 patients each year. A network of hospital-based and outpatient clinics, including 12 UW Neighborhood Clinics, sees more than 1.5 million patients each year.

The UW School of Medicine, part of the UW Medicine system, leads the internationally recognized, community-based WWAMI Program, serving the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. The UW School of Medicine has been ranked No. 1 in the nation in primary-care training for more than 20 years by U.S. News & World Report.

UW Medicine has more than 27,000 employees and an annual budget of nearly $5 billion. Also part of the UW Medicine system are Airlift Northwest and the UW Physicians practice group, the largest physician practice plan in the region. UW Medicine shares in the ownership and governance of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children's, and also shares in ownership of Children's University Medical Group with Seattle Children's.

For more information, visit uwmedicine.org.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Follow the ranking discussion: #BestGradSchools

Contact:

Kim Blakeley, UW School of Medicine

206-685-1323

[email protected]

SOURCE UW Medicine

Related Links

http://uwmedicine.org


CINCINNATI, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today announced the cancellation of a previously-scheduled address to investors at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Consumer & Retail Tech Conference on Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 1:50 p.m. (ET) due to inclement weather in New York City.

Every day, the Kroger Family of Companies makes a difference in the lives of eight and a half million customers and 443,000 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 our 2,255 pharmacies, 784 convenience stores, 319 fine jewelry stores, 1,445 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.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com


CLEVELAND, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- US demand for steel mill products is forecast to total 102 million metric tons in 2021, according to Steel Mill Products: United States, a report recently released by Freedonia Focus Reports. The large construction market is expected to underpin growth, while other significant but more slowly expanding markets motor vehicles, other durable goods, and metal packaging  will support demand.

US demand for steel mill products is primarily determined by the domestic production of durable goods and components with steel content. Discrete markets include motor vehicles, construction, appliances, machinery, and packaging. Service centers and distributors serve in turn a portion of the aforementioned customer base as intermediaries, but they also export some 6% of their shipments in value terms, particularly to Canada and Mexico. As such, foreign steel-consuming industries exert some influence on US steel mill product demand.

Increased investment in bridge repair and replacement will stimulate growth in demand for steel, although competition from reinforced concrete will limit gains. In the nonbuilding sector, construction of utilities is forecast to increase 1.2% yearly to 2021, aiding demand for steel in applications such as utility distribution poles. Declines in industrial building activity will restrain further advances.

This report forecasts US steel mill product demand and shipments in metric tons to 2021. Total demand is segmented by product in terms of:

hot-rolled sheet

bars

hot-dip galvanized sheet and strip

plates

cold-rolled sheet

pipe and tubing

heavy structural shapes

other products such as rails, tin mill products, and wire rods

More information about the report is available at https://www.freedoniafocusreports.com/Steel-Mill-Products-United-States-10693829/

About Freedonia Focus Reports

Each month, The Freedonia Group  a division of MarketResearch.com  publishes over 20 new or updated Freedonia Focus Reports, providing fresh, unbiased analysis on a wide variety of markets and industries. Published in 20-30 pages, Focus Report coverage ranges from raw materials to finished manufactured goods and related services such as freight and construction. Additional Materials & Chemicals reports can be purchased at www.freedoniafocusreports.com or marketresearch.com.

Analysis is intended to guide the busy reader through pertinent topics in rapid succession, including:

total historical market size and industry output

segmentation by products and markets

identification of market drivers, constraints, and key indicators

segment-by-segment outlook in five-year forecasts

a survey of the supply base

suggested resources for further study

Press Contact:

Corinne Gangloff

+1 440.684.9600

[email protected]

SOURCE The Freedonia Group

Related Links

http://www.marketresearch.com


MILWAUKEE, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- (NYSE: MAN)  U.S. employers expect the hiring pace to remain positive in Q2 2017 with 22 percent of employers planning to add staff between April and June. According to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, employers in all U.S. regions and industry sectors expect headcount to grow in Q2, with the upbeat forecast indicating that political uncertainty has not yet dented employer confidence.

View complete Q2 2017 survey results for the U.S.: www.manpowergroup.us/meos

According to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, U.S. employers expect the hiring pace to remain positive in Q2 2017 with 22 percent of employers planning to add staff between April and June.

Of the 11,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 73 percent expect no change in hiring plans and only three percent of employers expect workforce reductions. The Net Employment Outlook* for Quarter 2 2017 is +17%, relatively stable compared to the previous quarter and one year ago, taking into account seasonal variations.

Nationwide, employers in all 13 industry sectors expect to add staff in Q2 2017. Industries reporting the strongest second quarter hiring intentions are: Leisure & Hospitality (+28%), Wholesale & Retail Trade (+21%), Transportation & Utilities (+20%) and Professional & Business Services (+19%).

"U.S. employers have a positive Outlook for the coming quarter as the country waits to understand how the new administration's policies will come into effect. We are also seeing an emerging positive Outlook from manufacturing employers who are reporting some of their strongest hiring plans since the end of the recession," said Michael Stull, Senior Vice President, Manpower North America. "The sector is showing signs of entering a renaissance period, transforming itself to be higher tech and data driven, stepping up to the increased global competitiveness. We're seeing traditional manufacturing hubs go from rust-belt to brain-belt through targeted investments in tailored training programs, like our MyPath initiative, that help re-skill the workforce for the jobs of tomorrow. To keep up, the pace needs to be faster and will require more employers to go all in to build the skills. But we're encouraged to see the green shoots emerge in manufacturing and overall hiring."

Quarter Increase Staff Levels Decrease Staff Levels Maintain Staff Levels Don't Know Net Employment Outlook (deseasonalized) Q2 2017 (current) 22% 3% 73% 2% 17% Q1 2017 (previous quarter) 19% 6% 73% 2% 16% Q2 2016 (one year ago) 22% 4% 72% 2% 16%

U.S. Hiring Plans by Regions, Industry Sectors and Metro Areas/States

All regions in the U.S. are optimistic about their hiring plans in Q2 2017.

Quarter over quarter, U.S. employers in the Midwest, South and West expect hiring to remain relatively stable, while employers in the Northeast expect a slight decrease in hiring.

Compared to Q2 2016, employers in the West report a slightly stronger Outlook, while employers in the Northeast, Midwest and South anticipate a relatively stable hiring pace.

For the coming quarter, employers in Montana , Colorado , Maine , Alaska , Hawaii and Michigan report the strongest Net Employment Outlooks. Of the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas, the strongest job prospects are expected in Nashville, Tenn. ; Provo, Utah ; Colorado Springs, Colo. ; Fresno, Calif. ; and Raleigh, N.C.

Complete results for the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey are available for download at www.manpowergroup.us/meos. The Q3 2017 survey will be released June 13, 2017. To receive email notifications when the survey is available each quarter, visit http://meos-press.manpowergroup.us

*The Net Employment Outlook is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating an increase in hiring activity and subtracting from this the percentage of employers expecting a decrease in hiring activity.

About ManpowerGroup

ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) is the world's workforce expert, creating innovative workforce solutions for nearly 70 years. We connect more than 600,000 people to meaningful work across a wide range of skills and industries every day. Through our ManpowerGroup family of brands  Manpower, Experis, Right Management and ManpowerGroup Solutions  we help more than 400,000 clients in 80 countries and territories address their critical talent needs, providing comprehensive solutions to resource, manage and develop talent. In 2017, ManpowerGroup was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for the seventh consecutive year and one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies, confirming our position as the most trusted and admired brand in the industry. See how ManpowerGroup makes powering the world of work humanly possible: www.manpowergroup.com.

SOURCE ManpowerGroup

Related Links

http://www.manpowergroup.com


PHILADELPHIA, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- U.S. News & World Report has recognized the Department of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania as the leading department of pediatrics in the United States. This marks the 5th consecutive year that the department has achieved the top ranking.

"I am delighted that our department of pediatrics remains the nation's best and I congratulate the faculty and staff, for their sustained record of excellence," said Madeline Bell, president and chief executive officer, of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"This ranking is a reflection of the impressive talent among our faculty, trainees, and staff and the tremendous support from the Hospital in creating a remarkable environment for clinical and academic work" said Joseph St. Geme, M.D., physician-in-chief and Pediatrics Department chair.

Announced today by the magazine in its annual listing of the best medical schools and other graduate programs, this recognition marks the 14th consecutive year that the department has been ranked first or second in the nation.

This year's rankings of the top three departments of pediatrics replicated last year's results, with Harvard University in 2nd place and the University of Cincinnati in the 3rd spot. The 2018 rankings were based on ratings by medical school deans and senior faculty at peer Schools, who identified up to 10 schools offering the best programs in each specialty.

About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 535-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu.

Contact: George Bochanski

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Phone: (267) 426-6080

[email protected] email.chop.edu

SOURCE Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Related Links

http://www.chop.edu


ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Verisys Corporation ("Verisys" or the "Company"), a leading provider of technology solutions and primary-source data on healthcare professionals and businesses, announced today that Spectrum Equity, along with Cressey & Company and Verisys CEO John P. Benson, have made a significant growth equity investment in the Company. The investment positions Verisys, which has long been considered the 'gold standard' in healthcare provider compliance and risk management data, to accelerate platform and product investment initiatives, and to continue to execute on a highly successful growth strategy.

Verisys addresses the complex requirements facing today's healthcare industry and enables its clients to maintain regulatory compliance and mitigate legal, financial and reputational risks. Self-funded and profitable since inception, Verisys has established itself as the clear market leader for in-depth, accurate data on adverse actions, exclusions and debarments, as well as licensure status on healthcare providers and entities.

Verisys' core data offering, Fraud and Abuse Control Information System ("FACIS"), provides comprehensive data used universally by the largest healthcare providers, payers, pharmacies and background employment screening companies to screen, verify and monitor providers and entities employed throughout a healthcare organization.

With data from more than 3,500 primary sources dating back to 1992, FACIS offers unparalleled value in protecting clients from fines, legal entanglement, financial losses and reputational damage. In recent years, Verisys has further productized its data to deliver market-leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) credentialing solutions CheckMedic and real-time transactional screening platform ProviderCheck.

"We are extremely pleased to have Spectrum Equity and Cressey & Company make this strategic investment in the Company," said Verisys co-founder John P. Benson, who will continue to operate the Company, now as CEO. "We believe we are still in the early stages of the Company's growth opportunity and with their domain expertise and financial resources, Spectrum Equity and Cressey & Company represent a unique set of partners to build on Verisys' success. We thank co-founder John O'Shaughnessy for his dedication and service to the Company."

"Verisys is a perfect fit for Spectrum Equity, given our experience backing vertical market leaders in both regulatory compliance information services and healthcare technology sectors," said Adam Margolin, Spectrum Equity. "Verisys is the clear market leader in a mission-critical area of health care regulatory compliance, and plays a critical role as gatekeeper in an environment where healthcare fraud is estimated to represent 10 percent of our $3.35 trillion annual healthcare spend. We look forward to working with John Benson and the rest of Verisys' management team to capitalize on this opportunity."

Dave Rogero, Cressey & Company added, "The Verisys brand is synonymous with quality, and the Company's solutions are deeply embedded in many of its customers' core workflows. Given the company's meticulous research and depth of coverage, Verisys' provider data has become an indispensable tool for uncovering and preventing healthcare fraud."

"Verisys' data is a 'must have' for any company employing healthcare professionals," added Chris Mitchell, Spectrum Equity. "As the Company continues to roll-out innovative SaaS solutions like CheckMedic and ProviderCheck, we see a massive opportunity to address a broader set of compliance and risk management pain points across an even wider customer footprint."

In conjunction with the investment, Jeff Haywood, Adam Margolin and Chris Mitchell from Spectrum Equity, and Dave Rogero from Cressey & Company will join Verisys' Board of Directors.

Berkery Noyes acted as financial advisor to Verisys, and Triple Tree acted as financial advisor to Spectrum Equity and Cressey & Company on the transaction. Additional terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Verisys

Verisys' mission is to serve the healthcare sector with accurate and timely data on persons, professionals and businesses (for contracting, privileging, employment, reimbursement and referral validation). Verisys solutions ensure regulatory compliance and prevent healthcare waste, abuse and fraud. Verisys' products and services include provider data and content, credentialing, primary-source verification services, screening - monitoring and notification services, identity/authentication tied to credentials management and regulatory compliance products and services. Verisys' flagship product, FACIS, is the gold standard for exclusion screening in the healthcare field and its SaaS credentialing platform, exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association, CheckMedic, represents a breakthrough in credentialing. Verisys is a NCQA certified and URAC accredited Credentials Verification Organization.

About Spectrum Equity

Spectrum Equity is a leading growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support to innovative companies in the information economy. For more than 20 years, the firm has partnered with exceptional entrepreneurs and management teams to build long-term value in market-leading software, information services and Internet companies. Representative investments include Ancestry.com, Bats Global Markets, GoodRx, Passport Health, Verafin and World-Check. For more information, visit www.spectrumequity.com.

About Cressey & Company

Based in Chicago, IL and Nashville, TN, Cressey & Company LP is a private investment firm focused on building leading healthcare provider, service and information technology businesses. With a history spanning nearly 35 years, the Cressey & Company team is one of the most experienced and successful in the healthcare private equity field. For more information, visit www.cresseyco.com.

Press Contact

Spectrum Equity

[email protected]

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Spectrum Equity
CRANBURY, N.J., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Visionet Systems, a national leader in mortgage technologies, will be exhibiting its innovative solutions at the National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference & Expo 2017, an event held by the Mortgage Bankers Association at the Hyatt Regency, Chicago from March 26 to 29.

Visionet's presentation, on March 28 at 2:15PM on the Side Stage in the Hub, will include a live demonstration of CD2UCD, the industry's first solution to generate GSE-compliant Uniform Closing Dataset (UCD) XML from paper or image-based Closing Disclosures (CD).

"Join Visionet at MBA Tech 17, the industry's premiere event to learn about the latest in technology to streamline processes and serve customers better," said Norman Gottschalk, CTO at Visionet. "CD2UCD is the culmination of two years of investment, collaboration and learning, and we look forward to sharing our expertise and experience with our present and future clients and our industry colleagues."

Visionet's solutions help lenders, servicers and investors stay compliant with the ever-changing regulatory environment, while staying as efficient and cost-effective as possible. CD2UCD represents a prime example of how mortgage technology can boost office productivity by an order of magnitude. Instead of spending countless hours compiling and entering the information required to produce each UCD, our solution makes the entire process very simple, and drastically reduces the time and resources mortgage firms spend on investor delivery. Visionet is proud to be the first to bring such a game-changing product to market.

Businesses can sign up at www.cd2ucd.com for access to the Closing Disclosure to Uniform Closing Dataset tool.

About Visionet Systems

Headquartered in Cranbury, NJ, Visionet Systems, Inc. (visionetsystems.com) is a full-service technology consulting and business process outsourcing company that delivers software solutions, services, and technology-led BPO products built on a best-of-breed philosophy to help its customers increase business agility, drive down costs and reduce risk. Visionet has a decades-long track record of successful projects involving Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), omni-channel enablement, and e-commerce, and has engineered many high-performance, cost-effective solutions across a wide range of sectors including, banking, retail, insurance, distribution, and manufacturing, with a focus on delivering value and exceeding customer expectations.

Media Contact:

Marlo Bodinizzo

609.452.0700 X 1150

[email protected]

SOURCE Visionet Systems, Inc.

Related Links

http://visionetsystems.com


ROSEMONT, Ill., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- World Kitchen, the company behind well-known housewares brands such as Pyrex, REVERE, Chicago Cutlery, Corelle, CorningWare, Snapware and Baker's Secret, is previewing its newest product launches at the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago. The collections not only pay homage to the company's history as a leading manufacturer of cookware, bakeware, storage, cutlery and dinnerware brands, but also deliver on-trend solutions for the ever-changing consumer demands in the home and kitchen space.

"We know today's cook wants functional, highly-designed cookware that is affordable and beautiful  in short, they want it all," said Kris Malkoski, President Global Business and Chief Commercial Officer at World Kitchen, LLC. "With these attributes in mind, we're proud to launch new offerings for our iconic and well-loved brands such as Pyrex and REVERE that deliver the innovation, quality and affordability that many have come to know and trust from World Kitchen."

New for 2017:

Chicago Cutlery Series Line Sandwich Hero Knife

The future of housewares is clever products: multi-functional, all-in-one gadgets that save space in kitchen drawers and make lives easier. The new Chicago Cutlery Series Line Collection will feature a Sandwich Hero Knife that does it all. This knife has a jar-friendly profile to scrape up the bottom and spread your favorite condiments  from sticky peanut butter, to mayo and mustard  along with an open blade for seamless cheese cutting and a serrated edge for easy bread and tomato slicing  all in one. Available now, the Sandwich Hero Knife has a patented pinch grip that gives sandwich lovers more control and precision to whip up their favorite recipes like a pro. The full Series Line Collection  which will roll out in the fall  comes equipped with both classic and artisan blade offerings, along with different handle material options like soft grip, dual material and beechwood to complement any kitchen design.

PyrexWatercolor Collection

Essential pieces like mixing bowls and pie plates are now playing multiple roles: prep, cook, serve, and also functioning as display pieces as people opt for renewed ways to style and organize their cookware and dishwarei. The Pyrex Watercolor Collection blends together artistry and craftsmanship with vivid, blue swirls to turn everyday essentials into works of art. Each piece is one-of-a-kind, helping to perfect that Instagram 'shelfie'.

REVERE Makes Its Return

The craze of copper continues to rise since its reintroduction into kitchens along with a host of other subtle metallic finishes: according to Pinterest's 100 Official 2017 Trend Reportii, the metallic trend has seen a 90 percent increase this past year. Fans of copper can now find it in an affordable and high-quality form. REVERE Cookware has relaunched with the new Copper Confidence Core  an "even heating" spin on its famous copper bottom surface along with innovative features like Nest&Protect featuring patent-pending interlocking handles that nest together and allow the pans to virtually "float" so that they don't touch, creating less chances for scratching during storage. Additional features include induction technology compatibility, updates to its original Bakelite handles that stay cool, and laser-engraved easy-reference measurement marks.

These products along with others from World Kitchen will be showcased this weekend at the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago.

To learn more about World Kitchen, visit WorldKitchen.com.

About World Kitchen, LLC

Headquartered in Rosemont, Ill., World Kitchen and its affiliates manufacture and market products worldwide through a portfolio of well-recognized and respected brands, including under the Pyrex, Corelle, Corningware, Snapware, Baker's Secret, Chicago Cutlery and Vintage Charm trademarks. World Kitchen's brands and products have a strong reputation for quality, innovation, performance and durability. World Kitchen and its affiliates employ approximately 3,000 people, and have major manufacturing and distribution operations in North America and Asia-Pacific regions. Pyrex and CorningWare are registered trademarks of Corning Incorporated, used under license by World Kitchen, LLC. For more information, visit WorldKitchen.com.

i Better Homes & Gardens, 16 Kitchen Trends That Are Here to Stay: http://www.bhg.com/kitchen/remodeling/planning/timeless-kitchen-trends/?slideId=c62ca632-fa46-4a31-8d0b-ce7d645af065

ii Lonny Magazine, Pinterest Predicts the Top Home Trends of 2017: http://www.lonny.com/Pinterest+Predicts+The+Top+Home+Trends+Of+2017/articles/aiqFWymkIad/Copper

Media Contact:

Anna Zalas

Zeno Group

312-321-4860

[email protected]

SOURCE World Kitchen
LONDON, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

To coincide with International Women's Day, Forbes magazine published the list of the World's 56 Self-made Women Billionaires, and it brings good news: more women entrepreneurs than ever have reached the $1bln mark in their fortunes. The self-made women billionaires have a combined fortune of $129 billion and a record of setting up such global brands as Gap, Spanx, Alibaba and Little Caesars.

In the global list, Eastern Europe and Russia are represented by only one businesswoman - Yelena Baturina. She is also the only self-made female billionaire in the construction section of the Forbes list, a sector traditionally dominated by men. She has remained the richest Russian woman for 12 consecutive years and has been the only Russian woman in the Forbes world's rating on the whole.

According to Forbes, self-made women billionaires currently make up a record 25% of all women billionaires, up from 21% last year and 11% a decade ago. Overall, the number of self-made women ranking among all women billionaires has more than doubled since 2009. Total wealth among self-made women has increased by 50% in the past five years and it now makes up about 16% of all women billionaires' wealth.

Yelena Baturina moved her business headquarters to Europe in 2011, after selling her main Russian asset, the construction company, Inteco. Since that time, she has been engaged in a number of successful commercial endeavours. At present her assets include a network of hotels (Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Russia), renewable energy interests (Italy and Greece), a membrane construction enterprise (Germany), and development projects in Europe and the US. In addition, she has invested in a number of real estate investment funds focused on residential and commercial construction and development in the UK and US.

Yelena Baturina is also active in philanthropy. She founded cultural and social initiative BE OPEN 2011, which supports the promising minds of the next generation through a system of conferences, competitions, exhibitions, master classes and art events. Among other projects, BE OPEN is currently working in close partnership with the Mayor's Fund for London on a number of educational initiatives.

SOURCE Press office for Yelena Baturina
Named #1 Airport in North America at Skytrax World Airport Awards

RICHMOND, BC, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Today, Vancouver International Airport (YVR) was voted Best Airport in North America for the eighth consecutive year at the Skytrax World Airport Awards. Recognized as the global benchmark of airport excellence, the awards were voted on by 13.8 million passengers worldwide. YVR is the first and only airport to receive this top accolade for eight consecutive years.

"This impressive accomplishment is shared with the 23,000 people who work and volunteer at YVR as well as our amazing community, passengers and partners. On behalf of YVR, I thank you and offer you a big congratulations!" said Craig Richmond, President and CEO, Vancouver Airport Authority. "I am so proud of the YVR team for breaking our own record of most consecutive wins. This is particularly meaningful this year as we saw 22.3 million passengers come through our terminaltwo million additional passengers from the year before."

The Best Airport in North America award showcases the strength of the Canadian airport system, which enables innovation and the pursuit of excellence in overall airport operations and the passenger experience. All revenues generated at YVR are reinvested back into operations, maintenance and future projects. Vancouver Airport Authority, YVR's managing organization, is committed to creating an airport that British Columbia can be proud of: a premier global gateway, local economic generator and community contributor.

More than 13.8 million passenger surveys were conducted in 550 airports around the world. The survey measures 39 elements in the airport travel experience ranging from check-in to security and border clearance processes, comfort, efficiency, signage, transportation availability, passenger amenities and friendliness. This is the world's largest independent airport customer satisfaction survey.

YVR was voted in the top three for Best Airport Staff Service in North America. In addition, our partner Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel was also voted Best Airport Hotel in North America.

To celebrate winning for eight consecutive years, YVR is giving away eight free flights to any North American destination of your choice over the next eight days. For details and a chance to enter, follow YVR on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The contest will launch later today. More information on the Skytrax World Airport Awards is available at worldairportawards.com.

About Vancouver Airport Authority

Vancouver Airport Authority is a community-based, not-for-profit organization that manages Vancouver International Airport (YVR). Canada's second busiest airport, YVR served 22.3 million passengers in 2016. Fifty-five airlines serve YVR, connecting people and businesses to more than 125 non-stop destinations worldwide. In 2016, YVR received CAPA Centre for Aviation's prestigious Airport of the Year Award and was voted Best Airport in North America for the eighth consecutive year in the Skytrax World Airport Awards in 2017. Vancouver Airport Authority is a dedicated community partner and in 2016 donated more than $1,000,000 to local organizations. We are committed to creating an airport that British Columbia can be proud of: a premier global gateway, local economic generator and community contributor. For more information, please visit www.yvr.ca.

SOURCE Vancouver Airport Authority
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Zentera Systems, Inc., the leader in infrastructure security for the multicloud, announced today that its Founder and CEO Jaushin Lee was named Entrepreneur of the Year Award by the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Chinese Institute of Engineers (CIE/USA).

Lee was recognized for his achievements and innovation in technology, and his award was based on the recommendation of a thorough search committee. He received his award at the CIE/USA Silicon Valley 2017 Annual Conference held March 11 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. 2017 marks the 100-year anniversary for CIE/USA and its local chapters.

"It is truly an honor to receive this award from CIE/USAespecially on the occasion of their centenaryand to be recognized for my company and its creation of an ambitious, disruptive technology in the cloud computing industry," said Lee. "I encourage aspiring company founders to do as I didpursue your vision!"

Lee's company Zentera delivers the CoIP (Cloud over IP) platform, an on-demand virtual network overlay providing multicloud security and networking together with network encryption, microsegmentation and application whitelisting. It is cloud and transport agnostic, and it can be deployed rapidly without interfering with existing infrastructure or security measures.

Overall, Lee has over 20 years of R&D executive experience in networking and computing engineering. Before Zentera, he founded and was CEO of Imera Systems, which provided secure enterprise collaboration solutions to Global 2000 customers. Earlier, he managed Cisco's network search engine program. Lee has held management positions with Terawave Communications and Silicon Graphics as well as holding an assistant professorship with the EE Department at University of Virginia.

About the Chinese Institute of Engineers/USA

CIE/USA is a non-profit, non-political organization with the goal of serving the local engineering community. Founded in 1917, CIE/USA is one of the oldest and the most prestigious Chinese-American engineering associations in the U.S. It has seven chapters in the U.S., including the San Francisco Silicon Valley Chapter. CIE/USA also co-hosts two biannual engineering seminars in Taipei and Beijing with governments at each event.

About Zentera

Zentera's CoIP solution addresses multicloud infrastructure security and networking needs. CoIP's security capabilities are deeply integrated with its virtual overlay network, accelerating productivity and business agility. CoIP works with any transport in any environment, does not interfere with existing infrastructure, and can be up and running in less than a day. The company, winner of Red Herring Top 100 and 2017 Info Security Startup of the Year Silver awards, is based in Silicon Valley and offers CoIP through select partners. For more information, see www.zentera.net.

Media Inquiries

Dan Spalding, Public Relations

Zentera Systems, Inc.

+1 408 960-9297

[email protected]

Zentera, Cloud over IP and CoIP are trademarks of Zentera Systems, Inc., in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks cited here are the properties of their respective owners.

SOURCE Zentera Systems, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.zentera.net


DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES--(Marketwired - Mar 14, 2017) - Global Equity International, Inc. (OTCQB: GEQU) and its fully-owned subsidiaries GEP Equity Holdings Limited and Global Equity Partners Plc. ("GEP" - www.gepartnersplc.com), a specialist consultancy firm with offices located in Dubai and London, are extremely excited to announce that during the week of March 6, 2017, GEP and their newly signed client Blackstone Natural Resources B.V. ("BNR") presented to various potential investors at the MEPEX Forum and also the MEOS 2017 Oil & Gas Conference in the Kingdom of Bahrain and further presentations to GEP investment partners from the MENA region in GEP's Dubai offices.

The results of the presentations by both BNR and GEP have been exceptionally promising with three potential investors wanting to immediately follow up with BNR and progress, and one particular investment partner wanting to engage further with BNRs CEO, Mr. Demetrius Maxey - Retired US Marine, to discuss three different potential investment options ranging from $40 million to $120 million of Pre-IPO funding in the form of Debt and Equity.

The presentations included but were not limited to The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation; NOGA, the investment arm of the Bahrain National Oil Company; Crescent Petroleum; EIG, a European/Arabian investment Group; Sharjah National Oil Corporation; Thani Investment Group Dubai; Sovereign Gulf and Baker Tilly.

Additionally, GEP met with the board of its client Hoqool Petroleum to further discuss their oil exploration and production opportunities in Oman and Egypt and a possible Bond Issue and subsequent IPO on a recognized global exchange in 2017.

Further oil producing and exploration companies from the Middle East, United Kingdom and Mongolia approached GEPs management with a view to potentially engage GEP's services for Pre-IPO funding and a dual listing on the North American stock markets.

GEP was also represented by Patrick Dolan -- Managing Director of GEQU -- on the main delegate Q&A session Chaired by Mr. Abdullah Al Qadi -- Executive Director Crescent Petroleum and supported by Mr. Mohammed Al Dandani -- CEO Hoqool Petroleum and Mr. Masoud Ahmed Al Hamadi from the Sharjah National Oil Corporation. The sessions included discussion and questions on financing Oil & Gas projects, an introduction to Islamic Finance, Private Equity Fund structures for M&A deals and the global outlook for Oil & Gas investment in 2017.

Story continues

Peter Smith, CEO of Global Equity International Inc., said, "The MEPEX conference was a resounding success in all quarters; it continues to highlight the long term operational strength of GEP and its solid direction under the stewardship of Patrick Dolan. Initiatives like MEPEX and MEOS hold huge 'kudos' in the Middle East, on the basis of the report back from Patrick they will also hold huge success and revenue for our Company. With Patrick at the helm of the core operational business it has left me free to work on our fund management program. We are currently in talks with several groups in the UK and Asia who collectively have $400 million of funds under management. We plan to acquire these groups, amongst others, and over time integrate our special opportunities fund into their network. In addition, we will expand the fund range to other interesting sectors allowing us a wider scope to funding deals that come forwards. Both my CFO and I are visiting New York (late March) to discuss the terms of the acquisitions with potential debt funders of our expansion plans, thereafter I will return to Asia to prepare heads of terms on a number of exciting propositions. The development of this business is starting to move on at a faster pace with real clarity on the future values and direction of the group."

About Global Equity International Inc. and Subsidiaries

Global Equity International Inc., through its wholly-owned subsidiaries GEP Equity Holdings Limited and Global Equity Partners Plc., advises worldwide business leaders with their most critical decisions and opportunities pertaining to growth, capital needs, structure and the development of a global presence. With offices in Dubai and London, Global Equity has developed significant relationships in the US, UK, Central Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia to assist clients in realising their full value and potential by bringing them to external capital and resources that place an emphasis on collaborative thinking. Furthermore, because Global Equity has offices in key financial centres of the world, they are able to introduce their clients to a unique opportunity of listing their shares on any one of the many stock exchanges worldwide.

Safe Harbour Statement

This press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements related to anticipated revenues, expenses, earnings, operating cash flows, the outlook for markets and the demand for products. Forward-looking statements are no guarantees of future performance and are inherently subject to uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon, among other things, assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management, including management's own knowledge and assessment of the Company's industry and competition. The Company refers interested persons to its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and its other SEC filings for a description of additional uncertainties and factors, which may affect forward-looking statements. The company assumes no duty to update its forward-looking statements.
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
Suva, March 7 : Fiji Airways and Jet Airways have formed a codeshare partnership which offers convenience and seamless connectivity to guests travelling on both carriers, it was reported on Tuesday.

The agreement, a first-of-its-kind between the two airlines, will address the growing demand for travel between Fiji and India, Xinhua news agency reported.

Jet Airways will place its "9W" code on Fiji Airways flights from Singapore and Hong Kong to Nadi and Fiji.

Fiji Airways will place its "FJ" code on Jet Airways' services between Singapore and Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai as well as between Hong Kong and Mumbai and Delhi.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji's Attorney-General and Civil Aviation Minister, said the development opened up possibilities for tourism and trade.
New Delhi, March 7 : A Communist Party of China official said here on Tuesday that terror bases in Pakistan should be eradicated and that Beijing was "considering and investigating" India's proposal to get Pakistan-based terrorist leader Masood Azhar listed on the UN terror catalogue.

Ma Xiangwu, however, said China had to look into all aspects of backing the Indian move at the UN Security Council, "considering whether if we were to support this decision will it grow into a bigger problem for China".

He didn't elaborate while speaking to IANS on the margins of the 19th Asian Security Conference at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

India has been seeking to blacklist Azhar, the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, after Pakistani terrorists attacked the airbase at Pathankot in Punjab on January 2 last year, killing seven Indian security personnel.

China has blocked India's move at the UN, apparently so as not to harm its strong ties with Pakistan.

The Chinese official, however, acknowledged that terror camps in Pakistan were a matter of concern for China because Taliban was training members of the Uighur militant group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

"The terrorism in Pakistan should be eradicated. So there is no exception. There is no good and bad terrorism," he said, calling China "a victim of terror".

"Chinese position on terrorism has been consistent. The Chinese government believes that we need to work under UN framework for countering terrorism. All of us need to come together to counter terror."

He said the Taliban terror sanctuaries in Pakistan hosted "China camp which has around 320 Uighur terrorists".

He acknowledged that Islamabad had been cooperating with Beijing in its fight against the separatist group that China blames for violent unrest in its far western region of Xinjiang. The group fights for an independent state and has bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Ma said Pakistan had been sending these Uighur militants back and "will repatriate all these terrorists".

"Last year, 20 of these terrorists came back to China. They will be tried based on the crimes they have committed. They will be given appropriate punishment."
Washington, March 9 : Opposition to the Republican health care bill strengthened, as key industry groups that had supported Affordable Care Act (ACA) or the 'Obamacare', said its replacement could harm vulnerable Americans, the media reported.

The American Medical Association, which bills itself as the largest organisation of doctors in the nation, in a letter on Wednesday, detailed its critique of the bill, known as the American Health Care Act that which would repeal Obamacare signed in 2010, CNN reported.

The American Health Care Act (AHCA) would limit future federal funding for Medicaid, which covers low-income people; abolish the requirement that everyone should be insured; and replace subsidies with tax credits.

"While we agree that there are problems with the ACA that must be addressed, we cannot support the AHCA as drafted because of the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations," the letter stated.

Major hospital organisations, including the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American hospitals have also come out against the bill.

The Association of Retired Persons, a lobbying group for older Americans, has opposed the plan too, saying funding for the Medicare insurance programme for the elderly could be cut.

However, White House spokesman Sean Spicer shrugged off the building opposition from the medical establishment, reports CNN.

"We would love to have every group on board," Spicer said, adding, "This isn't about figuring out how many special interests in Washington we can get paid off. It's about making sure that patients get the best deal, that lowers prices and brings back cost."

The AHCA bill is now being considered by two congressional committees ahead of its passage through the House and Senate.
Mumbai, March 9 : Actress Vidya Balan says "Begum Jaan" has been a great experience, and she is looking forward to its release.

"I am coming back from Kolkata after promoting the film. It was a great experience. Right now, I am feeling very excited about 'Begum Jaan' and loving the reactions of people. I am looking forward to the release now," Vidya said here at the airport.

The first poster of the Srijit Mukherji directorial has a tagline that reads: "My Body, My House, My Country, My Rules". The poster has Vidya sitting with dishevelled hair, holding a hookah pipe in her hand, and she is dressed in a maroon lehenga and an embroidered blouse.

Asked if "Begum Jaan" can be tagged as the boldest film of this year, Vidya said: "That I won't be able to tell."

The film, which is the Hindi adaptation of Bengali movie "Rajkahini", will see "The Dirty Picture" actress portraying the role of brothel's madam during the partition of India.

The film also features Naseeruddin Shah and Gauahar Khan in key roles and is slated to release on April 14.

-*-Akshay Kumar's ruminations on speed Actor Akshay Kumar, known for his mastery of action scenes, pondered upon how the definition of speed has changed through the year.

Akshay, a trained martial arts expert, posted an old video of one of his performances at an award function in the 1990s.

"Throwback to when speed was about how fast you could punch, not how fast you could type. Thursday motivation," Akshay captioned the post on his Twitter account.

The one-minute-long video has Akshay showing off his martial art moves with the help of other professional martial artists.

On the work front, Akshay is currently filming "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha" and "2.0".

-*-Ajay Devgn wraps up Rajasthan shooting schedule Actor Ajay Devgan has wrapped up his shooting schedule in Rajasthan for "Baadshaho".

Ajay posted an image on his Twitter account on Thursday, captioning it: "Rajasthan schedule wraps. Goodbye blue skies".

The image captures a parapet of an old fort of Rajasthan with a clear blue sky in the backdrop.

"Baadhsaho" will also feature actress Emraan Hashmi, Esha Gupta, Ileana D'Cruz and Vidyut Jammwal in lead roles.

Directed by Milan Luthria, the film is slated to release on September 1.
Chennai, March 9 : The Indian Commodity Exchange Ltd (ICEX) on Thursday said it has achieved the prescribed capital adequacy norms following a successful rights issue.

In a statement, the company said ICEX now meets all the norms prescribed by the markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), including the Rs 100 crore net worth criteria, to start trading.

ICEX, a screen-based online derivatives exchange for commodities, has already received in-principle approval from SEBI for commencement of business and trade operations for diamond, crude and Brent oil contracts.

ICEX will be the first exchange in the world to launch diamond futures contracts, and plans to initially launch three diamond contracts -- 30 cents, 50 cents, and 1 carat.

The exchange has in place all necessary infrastructure to handle deliveries of diamonds and facilitate settlement of trades.

"With the successful completion of Rights, the exchange is now all geared for launch. The response for the on-going Mock trading has been very encouraging, particularly from the Diamond physical market participants," Sanjit Prasad, MD and CEO was quoted as saying in the statement.

ICEX expects to go live and commence trading operations by the end of March 2017, subject to final approval from SEBI.

Reliance Capital Ltd, a part of Anil Ambani led Reliance Group, is the largest investor in ICEX, along with a wider and diverse set of institutional, corporate and high net worth shareholders.
New Delhi, March 9 : A parliamentary panel on Thursday rapped the Defence Ministry for not taking any "concrete measures" following terror attacks like Uri and Pathankot.

The parliamentary standing committee on Defence headed by Maj Gen B.C. Khanduri (retired) in an earlier report had said that heightened security measures needed to be taken post the terror attack on an airbase in Pathankot in January last year.

The government in an Action Taken Report sent to the panel said the report by a committee under former Vice Chief of Army Lt. Gen. Philip Campose (retired), which was submitted on May 20, 2016, is being examined "in consultation with all stakeholders".

In a report tabled in Lok Sabha on Thursday, the committee pointed out that the report by the panel under former Vice Chief of Army was submitted in May 2016 and the ministry has furnished its Action Taken Report in December.

"Yet, there is no information with regard to the inputs considered in the report," the panel pointed out.

"The security scenario is vulnerable as has been exposed during the Pathankot and Uri attacks. Yet, no concrete measures appear to have been taken even after a lapse of 6-7 months of the submission of the report," it said.

The panel said it is "disturbed" to note the "apparent lack of sincerity" on the part of the Defence Ministry and desires that the situation should improve.

"Necessary measures must be taken so as to ensure that any unpleasant incidence does not recur," the panel said.

Terrorists attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force, on January 2, 2016, killing seven security personnel.

On September 18 last year, four heavily armed terrorists attacked an Army camp near the town of Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 19 Army personnel were killed.

In both attacks, the terrorists came from across the border, India has said.
New Delhi, March 12 : The Congress on Sunday accused BJP of "playing a dangerous game of subverting democracy" and abducting an independent MLA from Manipur by misusing the CISF at Imphal airport.

"BJP is now misusing CISF and airport authorities to detain and abduct independent MLA Asabuddin at Imphal airport and take him to Calcutta (Kolkata)," Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted.

"Modi government is playing a dangerous game of subverting democracy and abducting MLAs by misusing CISF at Imphal airport despite electoral loss," he added.

Surjewala also said: "Independent MLA Asabuddin is travelling with minister Sh. Nasir (A. Nasir). Federalism and rule of law being murdered in broad daylight by Modi government."

The ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have secured 28 and 21 seats, respectively, in the hung assembly that emerged after the recent elections in Manipur.
New Delhi, March 12 : As BJP staked claim to forming a new government in Manipur, the Congress on Sunday accused it of "playing a dangerous game of subverting democracy" and abducting an Independent MLA from Manipur by misusing the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at Imphal airport.

"(The) BJP is now misusing (the) CISF and airport authorities to detain and abduct independent MLA Asab Uddin at Imphal airport and take him to Calcutta (Kolkata)," Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted.

"(The) Modi government is playing a dangerous game of subverting democracy and abducting MLAs by misusing (the) CISF at Imphal airport despite electoral loss," he added.

Surjewala said: "Independent MLA Asab Uddin is travelling with Minister Sh. Nasir (A. Nasir). Federalism and rule of law being murdered in broad daylight by (the) Modi government."

Surjewala said that according to the Constitution and norms, the single-largest party is always invited to form the government. "The BJP government is subverting law and democracy through their Governors, who are acting as stooges," he said.

The ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have secured 28 and 21 seats, respectively, in Manipur after the assembly elections held earlier this month.

BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav on Sunday said the party will meet Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla to stake claim to forming the new government in the state with the support of the National People's Party (NPP) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

"We will approach Governor Najma Heptulla seeking her to invite the BJP, supported by the NPP and the LJP, to form the government in Manipur," said Madhav.

The BJP, which won 21 seats in the assembly elections held earlier this month, achieved the vaunted 31-seat mark earlier in the day with the support of its ally Naga People's Front (NPF) (4 seats), and the NPP (4 seats), LJP (1) and one Independent.

The Congress emerged as the single-largest party post-poll with 28 seats in the 60-member house but failed to garner support to form a new government.
New Delhi, March 13 : Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Monday said that the party that came on second has no right to form government, and slammed the BJP for "stealing elections" in Goa and Manipur.

"A party that comes second has no right to form the Government. BJP stealing elections in Goa and Manipur," said Chidambaram on his official Twitter account.

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday appointed Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar as the new Chief Minister of Goa. He has been asked to prove majority on the floor of the Goa Legislative Assembly.

Parrikar had submitted support of 21 MLAs before the Governor in the 40-member house.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has 13 MLAs, is supported by three legislators each of the Goa Forward Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and two Independent legislators.

In Manipur, the state's Governor Najma Hepetullah is likely to invite the BJP leaders on Monday to form the government.

The BJP legislators and their supporters numbering 32 in the 60 member house called on the governor on Sunday to formally stake claim.

BJP secured 21 seats, Naga People's Front, the National People's Front have 4 MLAs each and AITC, LJP and a Independent having one seat each extended support to the BJP.
Panaji, March 14 : The spirit of Monday's Holi celebrations are expected to spill over onto Tuesday, with a series of colourful political developments poised to play out over the issue of government formation in the coastal state, which has thrown up a fractured mandate.

While former senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Parrikar is scheduled to be sworn in as Chief Minister by Governor Mridula Sinha, the Congress is also expected to meet Sinha on Tuesday morning, demanding that the Congress be granted an opportunity to form a government, because it has emerged as the single largest party in the February 4 elections with 17 MLAs.

In the national capital, the Supreme Court is also scheduled to hear a petition by Congress legislative party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, who has challenged Sinha's decision to unilaterally invite Parrikar to form a government.

The Congress, which was late off the blocks in staking claim to form government, also faces an internal threat with at least five of its MLAs, openly expressing frustration and disenchantment with the delay by the party's senior leadership and central overseers in making the formal pitch for formation of government on Monday.

Meanwhile, Parrikar, who resigned as Defence Minister on Monday, cautioned the 13 BJP MLAs against demanding ministerial portfolios because of the concessions which need to be made to accommodate allies.

"Supporters of two of our MLAs were expected to demonstrate near out state party office demanding ministerial berths for them on Tuesday. But Parrikar has warned us that ministries for all senior MLAs are just not possible," a BJP MLA who attended the meeting in Panaji told IANS.

When Parrikar arrives for the swearing-in at Raj Bhavan at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, he is reportedly expected to swear-in eight other ministers, two each from the alliance partners Goa Forward and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, two Independent legislators and four from the BJP.

But Parrikar's tryst with his fourth stint as Chief Minister could hang in balance, with the Congress' petition challenging the invitation to the BJP, likely to be heard by the apex court at 10.30 a.m.

"We were the single largest party. The Governor should have invited us to form government according to established constitutional practice... Governor overlooked Sarkaria commission report and M.M. Punchi Commission Report," All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Girish Chodankar told IANS.

While the Congress is scheduled to hold a CLP meeting, before visiting the Governor's palace to demand an invitation to form government, seething internal differences would end up giving a tough time to the party's minders.

At least two legislators from Valpoi and Taleigao Vishwajit Rane and Jennifer Monserrate respectively, have openly dissented against the slow-paced decision-making.

"I am pained at the manner in which our party leaders acted on Monday. We had the chance to form government on Monday because we had the biggest numbers. But our senior leaders squandered their chances because they could not even elect a legislative party leader in time," Monserrate told IANS.

Rane also said that he felt that he "was in the wrong party".

"People in my constituency are extremely disappointed. They have threatened not to vote for the Congress anymore, because we have squandered our best chance to form government," he added.

AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh has already accepted the blame for the party's inability to stake claim to form a government on Monday.
New Delhi, March 14 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday assumed charge as Defence Minister, a day after he was given additional responsibility of the ministry.

This comes after Manohar Parrikar resigned on Monday as Defence Minister to head a new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa.

On the advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee directed Jaitley to be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios.

Jaitley was earlier handling Defence from May 26, 2014 - when the Modi government was sworn in - till November 9, 2014, when the portfolio was handed over to Parrikar.
Kolkata, March 14 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee remembered those who died in the Nandigram land movement on its 10th anniversary on Tuesday and said the state government was committed to protect the farmers.

"To mark the occasion we will honour farmers with Krishak Ratna Samman at a function at Nazrul Mancha", she said.

A total of 14 people were killed in Nandigram in East Midnapore district on March 14, 2007, in police firing following a farmers protest triggered by the acquisition of land for a chemical hub by the then Left Front (LF) government.

The incident, coupled with the farmers' movement in Hooghly district's Singur over the LF regime's land acquisition for a Tata Motors Nano plant, played a major role in bringing about the downfall of the 34-year-old communist government and catapulting Banerjee's Trinamool Congress to power in 2011.
Jammu, March 14 : Authorities on Tuesday airlifted at least 830 stranded passengers from Jammu region to the Kashmir Valley.

The passengers stranded due to closure of the National Highway No. 1A connecting Jammu to Srinagar, were airlifted from Udhampur airbase to Srinagar International Airport. Earlier, they were ferried in state road transport corporation buses from Ramban to Udhampur.

Sorties of the Indian Air Force's aircraft were also carried out on Tuesday to airlift stranded passengers from Srinagar to Udhampur in the Jammu province, authorities said.

The 300-km Jammu-Srinagar National Highway continued to remain closed for the 7th consecutive day although it was opened for some hours on Sunday for one-way traffic. The highway was also partially restored and some 100 stranded vehicles were allowed to move from Jammu to the valley.

The highway has been damaged by landslides and at places the road has sunk in Panthal area in Ramban district. making travel along it impossible and dangerous, prompting the authorities to close the highway.

The authorities said efforts were on to restore the highway fully.
Lucknow, March 14 : With Holi, the Festival of Colours, concluding, it seems to be time for some fireworks in the Samajwadi Party (SP), which was humbled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the just-concluded Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Reduced to an all-time low of 47 in its 25th year, rumblings have begun in the erstwhile ruling party, which now has a hugely diminished aura and numbers in the 17th Vidhan Sabha. The first murmurs were heard even as results poured in on Saturday and it became evident that the SP would touch a new low and the BJP a new high -- a landslide of 325 seats along with its allies.

It was only after the results were announced that SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was edged out by his Chief Minister son, Akhilesh Yadav, as the national president of the party on January 1, went, for the first time, to the Janeshwar Mishra Trust -- which housed the war room of the Congress and SP alliance.

A stone's throw from his sprawling 5, Vikramaditya Marg, bungalow on Panch Bangalia, the tense-looking Yadav chieftain reportedly had gone to meet with and console party workers. He, however, was there for just five-odd minutes and left when he saw his son. Akhilesh, though, is said to have hurriedly pulled himself together and touched his father's feet.

Mulayam said nothing and just drove away. He later left for the airport and flew to Saifai, their native village, for the annual Holi celebrations, almost a ritual for the family.

Akhilesh Yadav left a little later and took the Agra-Lucknow Expressway to drive with his family to Saifai. Enroute, he met some supporters who had gathered along the route. "We will see what went wrong, do not lose heart," he told the young men in a bid to lift their spirits.

Akhilesh, after the rout at the hustings, rued that he never knew people would vote him out so badly despite the work done by his government in the past five years. "Main samajh gaya hoon ki vote samjhane se nahin, bahkane se milta hai," (I've understood that votes are gained by pulling wool over people's eyes) he said.

He also taunted the voters by saying: "I guess people did not like the Expressway and were rather looking for a bullet train to come to Uttar Pradesh." A reference to one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet schemes.

Insiders say the swords are out and soon a "pitched battle would be fought in the open" in the SP. Shivpal Singh Yadav, who was locked in a bitter feud for power within the party since October last year and was completely sidelined in the assembly elections, is now waiting for his turn to strike.

Shivpal, who won from Jaswantnagar yet again with a huge margin, now stands vindicated. During the infighting, he had openly told Akhilesh that he was on a suicidal mission with the likes of Ram Gopal Yadav and the young brigade that included Udayveer Singh, Sanjay Lathar, Sunil Singh Sajan and other close aides. Both Mulayam and Shivpal had forewarned Akhilesh about having any truck with the Congress.

Akhilesh, however, rode roughshod over this advice and not only promoted his close aides, did whatever uncle Ram Gopal said and joined hands with Congress, even going to the extent of giving the alliance partner 105 of the 403 seats. The Congress had 28 legislators in the outgoing house and is now down to a mere seven, its worst-ever performance in Uttar Pradesh.

An angry Mulayam never campaigned for SP candidates and stuck to canvassing for Shivpal and daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav. Shivpal was not asked to campaign either, and Akhilesh and Dimple were the only star campaigners in the staggered polls.

The extent of anger in the now-divided family can be gauged by the fact that it was for the first time that Shivpal did not turn up for the Holi do at Saifai, where every year the clan meets and celebrates the festival in style.

After the party's rout, Shivpal has said openly that this was not the defeat of the Samajwadi Party, but a defeat of "ghamand" (arrogance). He chose to stay put in Etawah and play Holi with his fans and supporters.

Mulayam, it is said, drove off to Lucknow as son Akhilesh arrived in Saifai. The whereabouts of Ram Gopal Yadav are not known.

Just before the last phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam's second wife Sadhna Gupta, in an interview to a television agency, had slammed Akhilesh for "showing disrespect to neta ji". The interview, many political observers here had inferred, was a "signal of things to come post polls".

While Mulayam, in an informal chat on Holi eve, told some close aides that Akhilesh alone could not be held responsible for the rout, and added that "anger of Shivpal and Amar Singh was understandable", he is also learnt to be very cut-up with Akhilesh.

He privately holds him and him alone responsible for the party's disastrous show at the hustings, a close aide informed.

Mohd Azam Khan, a party stalwart and one of the founding members of the SP, was spotted weeping openly at a public meeting in Rampur on Sunday. Unable to take the loss, he was addressing a gathering of supporters when he broke down.

Akhilesh has called a meeting of the newly-elected party legislators on Wednesday and it is likely that any future strategy will then be spelt out. For now there is an ominous silence in the Yadav clan and in the SP, which, many feel, could be the proverbial calm before the storm.

(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
Shimla, March 14 : Himachal Pradesh has 63 officials with doubtful integrity and 27 of them are posted in sensitive posts, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said on Tuesday.

Criminal or departmental proceedings are pending in courts or at departmental level against these officials, who include Director General (Prisons) Somesh Goyal, the Chief Minister told the state assembly in a written reply.

Some of these officials have been acquitted by the courts on technical grounds, he said.

Replying to a question by Bharatiya Janata Party member Narinder Thakur, the Chief Minister said the government has not made any survey to identify officials having doubtful integrity.

He cited the reason for posting of 27 officials with doubtful integrity in sensitive posts owing to non-availability of non-sensitive posts in that particular cadre.

The post of Director General (Prisons) is non-sensitive, the Chief Minister said.

The maximum number of officials with doubtful integrity is in the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, followed by the Public Works Department, the Irrigation and Public Health departments and the police.
Panaji, March 14 : Appointed Chief Minister for the fourth time since 2000, BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, who resigned as Defence Minister on Monday, is the proverbial prodigal son, who has returned home to the land of fish curry and rice.

Parrikar, 61, who was administered the oath of office by Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, is the coastal state's 28th Chief Minister.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay alumnus during his 29-month outing as a central minister in New Delhi had often wistfully recounted his fondness for fish curry and rice over butter chicken, betraying his geographical preference and dropping repeated hints at a possible return to state politics.

"I have lost weight in Delhi because I like fish curry more. I miss the food from Goa... I only said that I like Goan food better. I leave it to you to make sense out of it," Parrikar said in February this year.

Parrikar, who has been accused of spending large amounts of time in Goa even when he was Defence Minister, had led a sustained pre-poll campaign in the run up to the February 4 assembly poll, and was parachuted back to Goa as Chief Minister by the BJP high command, when the post-poll goings-on got rough.

While partly, it may have been Parrikar's fondness for being in Goa which jettisoned him back to state politics, the BJP camp believes that he is the leader to look forward to, when it comes to managing the cut-throat world of coalition politics, especially when the margin of majority, as well as error, is slim.

"He can take quick decisions and his powers of persuasion are tremendous. Without his efforts, the BJP would have taken much, much longer to come to power in a state like Goa, where Catholics are nearly one fourth of the state's population," a senior BJP leader told IANS.

Parrikar as a first-time legislator in 1994 was tipped for greater things, especially after the manner in which he had his electorate, as well as the media, eat out of his hands, thanks to his repartee, wit and the resolute manner in which he attacked malgovernance and corruption.

One of the biggest corruption scandals of the 1990s, the power scam involving then Congress Power Minister Mauvin Godinho, was exposed thanks to Parrikar's diligent pursuit of the case, filing cases before the police as well as in court.

But the manner in which the Godinho episode eventually wound up in 2016, is also enough to highlight the progress Parrikar has made as a politician over the decades.

Congress MLA Godinho was inducted in the BJP in 2016 and is currently a BJP MLA. Parrikar now claims that the power scam of the 1990s was actually only an "attempt to scam".

Almost synonymous with the BJP in Goa, Parrikar has always been viewed as a leader with promise within the party, although ironically it was his ambition streak as well as his ability to put his foot-in-the-mouth on the most sensitive occasions, which have proved to be his Achilles heel.

In 2009, Parrikar was one of the top seeds in the running for the party's national president position, when the furore triggered by his comparison of BJP stalwart L.K. Advani to "rancid pickle" during an interview to a local cable news channel turned the tide against him.

In the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Parrikar appeared to be gently manoeuvring himself into a position of a consensus candidate for prime ministership. Tell-tale signs of this emerged on the social media, where his fans started a group 'Manohar Parrikar for Prime Minister' and Parrikar himself told The New York Times that as an administrator, he would have handled the post Godhra riots scenario better.

But the Modi juggernaut swept over the BJP as well as the country in 2014.

Now, heading a coalition government with a slender majority and facing accusations of hijacking an electoral mandate from the Congress, it remains to be seen whether the governance served up by Parrikar is as good as Goan fish curry-rice, or just another khichdi.

(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be reached at mayabhushan@gmail.com)
New Delhi, March 14 : The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) castigated the varsity Vice Chancellor (VC) on Tuesday for not meeting the parents of a student who committed suicide, but rather conveying his condolences on social media.

"It's been hours a Dalit student of our university found dead and we are shocked and appalled by the insensitivity shown by the university authorities ever since," JNUSU Vice President Amal Pullarkat said through a Facebook post.

"Leave alone consoling the family and helping them to go through the procedure, the university authorities haven't even bothered to pay a visit to the hospital where the body of the deceased is lying since last night (Monday)," he added.

Earlier in the day, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) VC M. Jagadesh Kumar had taken to micro-blogging site Twitter to express his grief at the death of Krish Rajini whose real name was Muthukrishnan J, an M.Phil History student of the varsity, who had apparently committed suicide on March 13 and who was found hanging from the ceiling fan in his friend's house.

"JNU community is grief stricken at untimely and sad demise of Shri Muthukrishnan J. We pray that God be with his family at this critical time," Kumar had tweeted.

The Union continued its attack saying that the VC did not "even care to send at least a security person with the body (of the deceased)" initially, and a security person could be arranged for only after the former's intervention.

It urged the students to boycott their classes and join in a collective condolence meet and also demanded that the VC go to the hospital and meet Rajini's parents.

"It (is) also quite shocking that university did not even bother to suspend the classes despite such an incident... We appeal to all students to come out of their classes in protest and pay tribute to our friend. Mr. VC, stop tweeting and come to the hospital immediately and listen to the parents' demand," Pullarkat added.
New Delhi, March 14 : Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the party needs structural and organisational changes following its debacle in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls even as party leaders said there was need for tough decisions in the party.

Congress leaders spoke in varied voices following the election verdict in five states, with some hinting at deep introspection and "decision" by Rahul Gandhi about his role, and others talking of fixing responsibility at the level of senior leaders.

In his interaction with reporters, Gandhi sought to put up a brave front over the election results that saw the Congress losing badly in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Congress won Punjab decisively, largely due to senior party leader Amarinder Singh's popularity and leadership, and emerged as the single largest party in Goa and Manipur but the BJP moved fast to rally support of smaller parties in the two states.

Gandhi said the results were not bad for the party.

"We are in the opposition, you have ups and downs. We had a little down in Uttar Pradesh, that's fine we accept it. We had five elections, we formed the government in Punjab and won in Manipur and Goa. That is not a bad result. It is true that we lost in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand," Gandhi said.

"But as far Congress is concerned we do need to make structural, organisational changes," he said, adding that Congress had an ideological fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As Gandhi spoke, there were voices within the Congress over the party failing to make any drastic changes to its organisational set up despite a series of electoral reverses since its poor showing in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Congress MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi told CNN News 18 news channel that had the party gone for "cardiac surgery" after the 2014 election, the situation would have been different and the BJP would have been on the back foot.

Chaturvedi gave meaningful responses to questions concerning Gandhi and said he had to take the decision about his role in the party.

Asked about suggestions that Gandhi was not the leader the Congress was looking for, Chaturvedi said: "I have to observe some constraints and restraints."

Asked if Congress should move beyond Gandhi, Chaturvedi said: "I think in larger interest of the party, Rahul himself has to take a decision."

Former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit did not pull his punches and told the news channel that the party cannot run on patronage and feudal leadership and one had to bring in people who deliver.

"Everybody must introspect or share with the party what went wrong."

He also said senior leaders should not display love for "positions of power, Rajya Sabha membership or (post of) general secretary".

Asked if Gandhi needs time to mature, Dikshit said "there is no time left for us".

"I don't think there is time for anybody to mature. They all know that you have to work hard. I hope they know how to work hard," he said.

Former Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj said that Rahul Gandhi was being made a scapegoat and suggested that members of Congress Working Committee and general secretaries should take responsibility for the debacles and resign.

Congress leader Kamal Nath, who is into his ninth term in Lok Sabha, told Times Now news channel that politics had changed over the past five years and Congress had to adapt to the changes. He said Gandhi should be elevated as party chief.

Party leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said Gandhi had never shirked his responsibility when the party suffered a loss.

He said Gandhi had a simple personality and speaks what is in his heart.

Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi had offered to quit the leadership of Congress after the party's massive defeat in the last Lok Sabha polls but it was was rejected by the party.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh had said last year that the party needs "major surgery" following its reverses in the assembly polls.
New Delhi, March 14 : A five-year-old was allegedly raped here by a neighbour on Tuesday after he lured her with toffees and took her to an isolated place, police said. The accused, Jagat, 32, has been arrested.

A police officer told IANS that they were informed by some residents of Neb Sarai area of south Delhi that a minor was bleeding and that she may have been sexually assaulted.

The victim is a daughter of labourers who live in a slum area of Neb Sarai.

The police officer said her parents had gone for work and she was alone in her residence when the accused offered her toffees and took her to a secluded place where he committed the crime.

The accused left her near her home, the officer said.

Some neighbours informed police and the victim was sent for medical examination that "confirmed" she was raped.

The girl identified the accused who was apprehended and taken into custody.
New Delhi, March 14 : Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will pay a three-day state visit to India from April 7, her first visit to the country in seven years.

During the visit, Hasina will hold official talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 8.

Hasina's last visit to India was in January 2010, which was followed by a visit to Dhaka by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June 2015.

"The upcoming visit is expected to further expand the cordial and cooperative relationship between India and Bangladesh and build on the strong ties of friendship and trust between the leaders," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

Hasina was earlier scheduled to visit India during last December but the visit was postponed as both sides could not agree on dates.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar was in Dhaka in February and met the Bangladesh Prime Minisster after which it was announced that the visit would take place in April.

Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla in Dhaka on Monday after meeting Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said they were attaching "highest importance" to the visit.

Hasina is the head of government of "a neighbouring friendly country with whom we share the longest land boundary. And both land and maritime boundary issues between the two countries have been resolved within a very short time", he said, explaining the importance of the visit, according to bdnews24.

Shringla also said that Indian President Pranab Mukherjee in an "exceptional" gesture invited Hasina to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan during the visit.

He said that "everything is work in progress. We'll have to see what is possible and what is not possible," when asked whether there would be any breakthrough on Teesta water sharing deal, the site reported.
New Delhi, March 14 : The Ministry of Women and Child Development on Tuesday referred a fraud being perpetrated in the name of 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for probe.

The ministry took up the matter with authorities concerned in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Bihar.

The ministry said certain unauthorised individuals were found "distributing illegal forms in the name of cash incentive" under the scheme.

The scheme has no provision for cash incentives for individuals, said an official release.

"Keeping in view the public interest and gravity of the matter, the case has now been referred to the CBI for investigation," the release said.

"Repeated warnings have been publicised several times by the ministry in print and electronic media. The ministry has advised that no personal details should be shared in this regard and no one should subscribe to such fraudulent schemes. However, still some people are falling prey to such frauds and buying forms or disclosing personal details in the name of such non-existent benefits falsely offered in the name of the scheme," the release added.
Mumbai, March 14 : Nitin Dwarkadas Kapur, a brother of Bollywood actor Jeetendra and husband of Telugu actress Jayasudha, committed suicide by jumping off his flat at Andheri, police said here late Tuesday.

Police filed an accidental death report soon after the incident around 2 p.m.

Visiting Mumbai for treatment for depression for over a year, Nitin, 58, was staying at Sea Glimpse Apartment's 6th floor flat in the upmarket Four Bungalows area with his sister.

For the past few weeks, he was under treatment at the Kokilaben D. Ambani Hospital, Versova.

On Tuesday afternoon, he went to the building terrace and jumped down to his death.

His family living in Hyderabad has been informed.

Police said nothing suspicious has been found so far in the case.
New Delhi, March 15 : While the Congress is accusing the BJP of "subverting democracy" and "nullifying people's mandate" by staking claim to form new governments in Manipur and Goa before it could do so as the single-largest party, many, within and outside the Congress, are questioning its own failure to seize the opportunity.

Despite winning the most number of seats in both the states -- 28 in 60-member Manipur Assembly and 17 in 40-member Goa Assembly -- the Congress failed to form government in any of the states.

In Goa, the Congress was outsmarted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won only 13 seats but managed to cobble a majority by garnering the support of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) with three lawmakers each and two of the three elected Independent MLAs.

In the meanwhile, the leaders of the Congress were busy squabbling over the choice of it's legislative party leader.

The Congress leaders, including party General Secretary Digvijaya Singh and top state politicians, camped at the iconic Mandovi hotel in Panaji, where for five hours they wrangled over the choice of the CLP leader, apart from waiting for Vijai Sardesai of the GFP and other Independents.

The Congress' state unit President Luizinho Faleiro, former Chief Ministers Digambar Kamat and Pratapsingh Rane, were potential candidates for the post, but each camp and their proxies rejected each other, wasting precious time.

There was even a secret ballot to select the CLP leader -- an exercise results of which were incidentally kept a secret from the media and the party's junior MLAs.

By the evening, frustrated Congress leaders stepped out of the hotel, with Taleigao MLA Jennifer Monserrate even blaming the party's "Delhi leaders" for losing the opportunity to select a CLP leader and forge a ruling coalition.

Vishwajit P. Rane, the Congress MLA from Valpoi and son of Pratapsingh Rane, had also announced that he was quitting the party. He blamed the party leaders for not moving fast and scuttling the Congress' chances of forming the government in Goa.

He asked: "Nitin Gadkari could take the decision, why not our seniors?"

Congress General Secretary in-charge of Goa Digvijaya Singh had in the morning tweeted: We have been requesting Governor of Goa (Mridula Sinha) for appointment since March 12 night but were not given. Today (Tuesday) we sought appointment for 10:30 a.m., but she has given us time for 1.30 p.m."

"She didn't even meet the single-largest party elected by the people of Goa before calling Parrikar to take oath. Is it justice? Is it Constitutional? Doesn't it violate the Sarkaria Commission guidelines? Is it Moral," asked Singh.

Refusing to interfere with the Goa Governor's decision to appoint Manohar Parrikar as the new Chief Minister, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that a floor test be held in the assembly on Thursday to determine if Parrikar enjoyed the majority support.

Parrikar was sworn in as the Goa Chief Minister for the fourth time on Tuesday by the Governor Mridula Sinha in state capital Panji. Nine ministers were also sworn in.

The Congress had accused Mridula of acting unilaterally and inviting the BJP to form a government in Goa, without even meeting the 17 elected leaders of the Congress.

Meanwhile, in Manipur, where the Congress ruled for three consecutive terms, despite winning 28 seats, just three seats short of the majority mark in the 60-member assembly, the party failed to form a government.

"Governor's new role, first certify the majority of party who appoints them, later invite their leader to form government. Democracy Subverted," Congress General Secretary in-charge of Manipur C.P. Joshi had tweeted.

"An MLA was abducted from the airport. The government is using all the machinery. We will fight the anti-democratic action of the government," Joshi told IANS on Monday.

The BJP, which won 21 seats, staked claim for form government with the support of four MLAs each of the Naga People's Front (NPF) and the National People's Party (NPP), one MLA each of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and one Independent.

Nongthombam Biren will be sworn in as the first BJP Chief Minister of Manipur on Wednesday morning, according to Raj Bhavan sources.

He will be sworn-in at Raj Bhavan at 10.30 a.m., the sources said. Biren and one or two elected members may take oath.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders are keeping their fingers crossed. Former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, who tendered his resignation on Monday night, said: "We had staked our claim to form the next ministry."

However, that hope is fading away as all other members of the non-Congress parties and the lone Independent MLA have extended support to the BJP.

Ibobi Singh had pinned his hope on the NPP, which has four MLAs. However, the NPP General Secretary Vivekraj Wangkhem said, "We have extended support to the BJP and it is final."

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singvi said: "Unfortunately the BJP is now becoming an expert in creating governments through Governors whereas government creation is the work of the people who vote.

"Government creation is neither for the Governor, nor for the Party to whom the Governor earlier belongs and still appears to be acting for. Therefore, this is a clear attempt to nullify peoples' mandate," he added.
Mumbai, March 15 : Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha, who will be donning the judge's hat once again for the eight season of dance reality show "Nach Baliye", says this time she is going to have a different experience.

"I have judged children for a singing reality show. I really get along with children so it was easy. Here it will be a different experience for me and for the contestants as well. I am going to judge a dance reality show for the first time," Sonakshi told reporters here on Tuesday.

About judging the performances, the "Akira" star said, "I will look how well they do as a pair and the coordination between them. To see the equations between the couples would be beautiful."

On the work front, the actress said she is excited for her forthcoming movie "Noor". "I am very excited and looking forward to promoting the movie. 'Noor' is a very special film for me."

Directed by Sunhil Sippy, "Noor" features Sonakshi Sinha in the titular role. The film is based on Pakistani author Saba Imtiaz's novel "Karachi, You're Killing Me!" and follows a journalist-writer Noor's mis-adventures and love life in Mumbai.

The film is scheduled for a worldwide release on 21 April.
Astana, March 15 : A third round of Syrian peace talks got under way here without the participation of the armed opposition, who refused to travel after accusing Moscow and Damascus of breaking a ceasefire in force since December.

"I would not put too much emphasis on the participation of the Syrian armed opposition. The most important are the consultations between the guarantor countries of the ceasefire (Russia, Iran and Turkey)," Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said on Tuesday.

However, a participant in the negotiations told Russian media that the meeting, scheduled for March 14-15, could be extended beyond Wednesday should the main opposition groups decide to join the Astana talks, Efe news reported.

According to several sources cited by Russian media, the heads of the Syrian armed groups are planning to meet in Ankara later on Tuesday to decide if they will go to the Kazakh capital to participate in the plenary meeting scheduled for the following day.

The spokesman for the rebel faction Suqour al-Sham Maamoun Haj Mousa told Efe on Monday that his group would not engage in any kind of dialogue, including the UN-backed Geneva talks, unless the Syria and Russia changed their tactics.

The decision not to attend "was taken by all the factions", Mousa said.

Meanwhile, Astana-3 has started with bilateral consultations between the delegations of Russia and Turkey on the one hand, and Russia and Iran on the other.
3Pillar's newly appointed CRO, Heather Combs, and industry leaders, Jennifer Ives, Elisabeth Beller, and Paul Doman We are excited to have such a dynamic team of leaders in place to serve our clients and further accelerate the growth weve seen over the years.

3Pillar Global, a leading developer of innovative, revenue-generating software products, announced today that it has appointed Heather Combs as its new Chief Revenue Officer. In addition to Combs hiring, three industry leaders have been named to manage dedicated 3Pillar business units in industries where the companys expertise is expanding most quickly: Health & Wellness, Information Services, Media, and Technology.

Since being founded in 2006, 3Pillar has seen double digit percentage revenue growth nine times in ten years, with market-leading 25% growth in revenue from 2015 to 2016. 3Pillar has helped companies in a variety of industries embrace the realities of the digital economy through the deployment of software products that drive revenue and user engagement. The focus on industry-based service will enable 3Pillar to answer market demand and help further fuel the digital transformation that information-intensive industries are undertaking.

To ensure that the rapid growth seen in recent years can be maintained and that future growth opportunities can be met, Elisabeth Beller has joined to lead 3Pillar's Health & Wellness industry practice, Paul Doman has been named VP of 3Pillar's Media and Information Services industries, and Jennifer Ives will join as SVP of 3Pillar's Technology industry in April.

Each industry leader oversees an integrated team of Client Partners and product specialists from Architecture, UX, and Engineering designed to conceive of, build and launch the most innovative digital products in the market.

Since our founding in 2006, 3Pillars teams have amassed a wealth of knowledge about the most pressing issues companies in a bevy of industries face when it comes to digital product development, said David DeWolf, CEO of 3Pillar Global. In supporting our clients with industry-specific teams, we believe we will be able to provide clients with a unique combination of product strategy, business consulting, and technology services and expertise. We are excited to have such a dynamic team of leaders in place to serve our clients and further accelerate the growth weve seen over the years.

As 3Pillars Chief Revenue Officer, Heather Combs oversees 3Pillars Marketing & Client Services teams and is responsible for driving the companys continued double digit revenue growth year-over-year. Heather will place an acute focus on ensuring 3Pillars clients have the best experience possible by matching 3Pillars services with market demand. To that end, she will work closely with 3Pillars delivery organization to ensure 3Pillar clients have access to the services and global skills necessary to build industry-leading software products. Before joining 3Pillar, Heather was the Chief Business Development Officer at HRCI, where she was responsible for overall revenue strategy and led the product management, strategic partnerships, and sales organizations. She also spent 13 years at the Corporate Executive Board, where she led product management, sales, and strategic partnerships initiatives.

Elisabeth Beller is the VP of 3Pillars Health & Wellness industry. She is responsible for overseeing a team that serves clients ranging from population health management companies to high-end fitness clubs. Elisabeth excels at understanding customer, business, and technology needs and identifying technology solutions to solve large problems. Prior to 3Pillar she served as VP of Product Management at Employee Navigator and VP of Digital Experience at Celerity.

As Vice President of both the Media and Information Services industries, Paul Doman manages a team that is focused on helping data and information-rich companies derive value out of new or existing revenue-impacting software products. Paul is one of the most tenured employees at 3Pillar, having joined in 2009 as one of 20 team members.

Jennifer Ives will join 3Pillar as SVP of the Technology industry to lead the team that serves clients in the software and security space, including SaaS and cybersecurity companies. Jennifer was most recently SVP, North America at the Top Employers Institute. Prior to that she was Director of Strategic Growth at LiveSafe and Director of Innovation & Strategic Partnerships at Tandem National Security Innovations. With a background in geospatial engineering and strategic growth, Jennifer is a respected business leader and sought after advisor and speaker. In her spare time, she enjoys mentoring technology entrepreneurs and making connections between high growth startups and founders.

About 3Pillar Global

3Pillar Global builds innovative, revenue-generating software products, enabling businesses to quickly turn ideas into value. 3Pillar balances business-minded thinking with engineering expertise in disruptive technologies, such as mobile, cloud, and big data, to develop products that meet real business needs. To date, 3Pillars products have driven over $1 billion in revenue for industry leaders like CARFAX, PBS, and numerous others. Over the course of a decade spent helping clients build industry-leading software products, 3Pillar clients have been acquired for more than $7 billion combined. For more information on the company, please visit http://www.3PillarGlobal.com.
AmSpa ByrdAdatto In all my years as an attorney, Ive never seen someone successfully defend themselves to a regulator by saying they didnt know what the law was, said AmSpa founder/director Alex R. Thiersch, JD.

Confused about the medical spa regulatory landscape in your state? Now, medical spa regulations will be clearer than ever with revamped legal summaries from the American Med Spa Association (AmSpa.) AmSpas current state-by-state legal summaries are the industrys best resource for understanding the regulatory landscape of medical spas. During the course of 2017, AmSpa will roll out updated and expanded state legal pages with answers to more than 50 legal questions sortable by Frequently Asked Questions, Practitioner Questions, Treatment Questions, and General Categories. AmSpa members will find answers to questions regarding:



Legal medical spa ownership;

Scope of practice for nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and more;

Informed consent;

Patient privacy requirements;

And much more.

The newly expanded and updated summaries for the states of California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania are already available, and all 50 states are scheduled to be completed by May 2017.

This expansion of services comes at a time when regulators across the country are paying more and more attention to the medical spa industry. Hot-button issues include aestheticians performing medical treatments, the importation of fake Botox, and the medical spas engaging in the corporate practice of medicine.

In all my years as an attorney, Ive never seen someone successfully defend themselves to a regulator by saying they didnt know what the law was, says AmSpa founder/director Alex R. Thiersch, JD.

AmSpa members have access to one states legal summary, as well as many other benefits, for only $295 annually, which is less than the price of a one-hour consultation with an attorney. Any medical spa professional can becoming a member by visiting http://www.americanmedspa.org.

The updated legal summaries are powered by the law firm of ByrdAdatto, a business and healthcare law firm with an aesthetics practice that spans the entire United States.

Stay tuned to http://www.americanmedspa.org/page/state_regulations to stay informed as new state summaries are updated.

The American Med Spa Association provides business and legal resources to medical spas and aesthetic practices across the country. AmSpas training seminars including Medical Spa Boot Camps and The Next Level workshopsprovide business and legal best-practices to anyone entering the medical spa space or looking to improve their existing business. AmSpa members receive access to legal summaries of the laws governing medical spas in their state, access to an exclusive medical spa insurance program, and many other benefits. To learn more about membership benefits, educational programs and more, contact AmSpa at 312-981-0993 or info(at)americanmedspa(dot)org, or log on to its website at http://www.americanmedspa.org.
Mestel & Company, a leading national attorney placement firm established in 1987, has announced the appointment of Executive Director, Stacey Rosenfeld, Esq. who will specialize in the placement of partners, development of attorney groups, and facilitation of law firm mergers for the New York region.

Stacey has more than 20 years of experience in legal search, specializing in working with partners, groups, and mergers. Most recently, she was a successful attorney search and placement professional. Throughout her career, she has built an extensive network of legal professionals and a proven track record of placing partners and practice groups at some of the nations most elite law firms. Stacey earned her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and her B.A. in English from the State University of New York at Albany.

Stacey not only brings a wealth of knowledge and a deep understanding of the legal profession, but also passion and enthusiasm, said Joan Davison, CEO and President. We are excited to have Stacey join our exceptional team of industry-recognized placement consultants, who are dedicated to candor, integrity, and the highest quality of service. For nearly 30 years, our company has developed the careers of attorneys, built best in class legal teams, and effectuated law firm mergers. At Mestel, its who you know.

About Mestel & Company

Mestel & Company, a leading national attorney placement company established in 1987, specializes in assisting the careers of individual associates, partners and in-house counsel as well as effectuating the movement of legal teams and law firm mergers. Our experienced recruiters have first-hand knowledge of the practices and cultures of law firms and in-house legal departments, making us the acknowledged leader in our field. Mestel & Company is only 100% employee owned company in the attorney placement industry, ensuring that each of our recruiters, as an owner, provides best in class service and is committed to the needs and sensitivity of our attorneys. For more information, visit http://www.mestel.com or follow us on Twitter @Mestel.
Aviation Performance Solutions (APS) announced today the official release of its Airbus Type-Specific Upset Prevention and Recovery Training (UPRT) Program. The APS Airbus A320 / A330 / A340 type-specific UPRT program is in compliance with ICAO Document 10011 Manual on Aeroplane UPRT as well as Airbus Operational Training Transmissions (OTTs) and published guidance on conducting UPRT in Airbus Fly-by-Wire airplanes. The program has been tested and refined over three years on more than 900 Airbus pilots. This particular program is unique for APS in that APS deploys its Airbus type-specific experts to the customers preferred training location globally.

Loss of Control In-flight (LOC-I) is defined as flight that occurs outside of the normal flight envelope with an inability of the pilot to control the aircraft. In a July 2016 report issued by Boeing for the years 2006 through 2015, LOC-I is identified as the leading cause of fatalities in commercial aviation worldwide. LOC-I represents more than 40% of all fatalities. The APS Airbus Type-Specific UPRT program, for both airlines and training centers, mitigates the LOC-I threat to air safety through pilot education and practical skill development.

Brad Bennetts, the South African Airways (SAA) UPRT program manager and lead instructor, is both an APS-Certified Airbus Simulator UPRT Instructor and APS-Certified Airbus Simulator Train-the-Trainer Instructor. Bennetts, the APS Airbus UPRT Chief Instructor, brings more than 20 years of all-attitude experience and years of training hundreds of Airbus airline pilots in full compliance with Airbus UPRT delivery guidance adhering to unfailing, precise compliance with APS UPRT technologies, advancements and proprietary training methods. South African Airways is an APS-Licensed UPRT Airline.

This new Airbus Type-specific upset training program has been in development for over three years and has now been fully vetted and is completely ready for mainstream airline training delivery, says Paul BJ Ransbury, president of Aviation Performance Solutions. Under the leadership of the APS Airbus UPRT Chief Instructor, Brad Bennetts, this program is fully comprehensive, in direct compliance with ICAO and Airbus UPRT guidance, and a truly incredible learning experience for all type-rated fourth generation Airbus pilots. APS is committed to developing industry leading information, training resources and programs necessary to ultimately overcome aviations leading fatal threat to air safety, Loss of Control In-flight. For more information http://uprt.apstraining.com/airline/

About Aviaiton Performance Solutions

Aviation Performance Solutions LLC (APS), headquartered at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Arizona, trains thousands of professional pilots and instructors in comprehensive upset prevention and recovery training skill development. APS provides integrated LOC-I solutions via industry-leading computer-based, on-aircraft (jet and piston), and full-flight simulator upset prevention & recovery training (UPRT). All training is in full compliance with the Airplane Upset Recovery Training Aid, FAA Advisory Circular 120-109A on Stall and Stick Pusher Training, ICAO Manual on Aeroplane Upset Prevention and Recovery Training, IATA Guidance Material and Best Practices for the Implementation of Upset Prevention and Recovery Training, and the FAA Advisory Circular 120-111 on Upset Prevention and Recovery Training. APS is the only Part 141 Flight School certified in the delivery of complete upset prevention & recovery, stall/spin and instrument upset recovery training courses worldwide. With additional training locations in Dallas (USA), The Netherlands (Europe), Saudi Arabia (Middle East) and military division in Dothan (USA), APS provides global access to the highest quality upset prevention and recovery training available. http://www.apstraining.com.
Inlanta welcomes the following new employees: Aleksandra Hebron, Business Development Specialist; Amanda Buehler, Graphic Designer; Bradley Riedl, Underwriter; Melissa Neils, Underwriting Resource Specialist; Daniel Romero-Araujo, Operations Specialist; Montease Teat, Closing Coordinator; Heidi Pettit, Underwriter; Sonya Hodgson, Operations Analyst; and Shauny Fuller, Underwriter.

In addition to new hires, Inlanta is also celebrating the promotions of two veteran employees. On February 13, Cassandra Laster was promoted from Disclosure Desk Analyst to Lead Disclosure Analyst. In addition to providing exceptional service, Cassandras new responsibilities include working with the Disclosure Desk team to prioritize and optimize workload to maintain service levels; act as the primary point person for her team when they have questions on a per file basis; and update the work queues as needed based on file completeness and priority status.

On February 14, Caitlin Clark was promoted from Marketing Coordinator to Senior Marketing Coordinator. Caitlin is Inlantas CRM expert and has played an instrumental role in their communications efforts. Caitlin started with Inlanta in 2013 as a Junior Processor and transferred into Marketing 3 years ago. This promotion is a natural progression for her career and is a testament to her growth over the years.

Inlanta continues to grow. If you are looking to make a career change, visit http://www.inlanta.com/join-our-team/employment-opportunities/ to see our current job openings.

About Inlanta Mortgage

Headquartered in Pewaukee, WI, Inlanta Mortgage was established in 1993. The company has grown to 39 branches in 16 states and over 250 employees. Inlanta Mortgage offers Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac agency products, as well as jumbo and portfolio programs. The company is an agency-approved lender for Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, FHA/VA, FHA 203K and USDA. Inlanta Mortgage also offers numerous state bond agency programs.

Inlanta Mortgage is the second largest mortgage financing provider in greater Milwaukee as ranked by the Milwaukee Business Journal, as well as the second largest provider of FHA purchase loans and the number one WHEDA lender in Wisconsin. Inlanta Mortgage was named a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Top Workplace for the third consecutive year in 2016. Inlanta has been consistently recognized as one of the 50 Best Mortgage Companies to Work For by Mortgage Executive Magazine and one of the countrys Top Mortgage Employers by National Mortgage Professional.
Fast Series - Your Fast Track to Compliance We are proud to offer a line of products that can be delivered in as little as six weeks  thats a real game-changer in the pharmaceutical industry.

Member of Optel Group, Optel Vision, a leading provider of inspection and serialization systems for the global pharmaceutical industry, announced today the launch of its new Fast Series, a line of preconfigured Track & Trace products that are specially designed to help pharmaceutical manufacturers meet compliance requirements, fast. Delivered in as little as six weeks, they are the perfect solution to the tight regulation deadlines imposed by the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) in the U.S. and the Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) in Europe.

Built with the highest standards of quality and performance in mind, Optel Vision's Fast Series units were specifically developed to accommodate various product sizes, speeds and print locations  for optimal productivity and versatility. Every Optel Vision Fast Series unit features a simple and convenient user interface with clear operational instructions and, combined with the Open SiteMaster software solution, manufacturers can control the entire serialization and aggregation process.

Many small pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. havent started their serialization process yet, and they are finding themselves in a difficult situation because time is running out for the delivery of full-scale systems," mentioned Etienne Gagnon, President of Optel Vision. "With the recent expansion of our production facilities and a new streamlined and dedicated manufacturing process for Fast Series units, we are proud to offer a line of products that can be delivered in as little as six weeks  thats a real game-changer in the pharmaceutical industry, continued Mr. Gagnon.

In addition to fast delivery time, Fast Series also offers organizations optimum scalability and flexibility opportunities for their future serialization expansion. "We understand that modifying business processes can be challenging and, to overcome this challenge, we've leveraged all the experience we've gained from 2000+ serialization projects worldwide," stated Mario Simard, Director of Product Line Management at Optel Vision. "We're not only providing customers with the necessary features to start their serialized production now, but also allowing them to generate additional revenues in the future, when they are ready to scale up, added Mr. Simard.

Join Optel Vision at Interphex New York  Booth 2964  on March 21, 2017, at 2 p.m. for a live product demonstration. For details on Optel Vision's Fast Series and related technical specifications, please visit optelvision.com/fast.

Contact:

Ken Fallu, Marketing Director, Optel Vision

Tel.: 418 688-0334, ext. 6113

ken.fallu(at)optelvision(dot)com

About Optel Vision

Founded in Quebec City in 1989, Optel Vision integrates automated inspection and serialization systems into pharmaceutical production lines, helping ensure the safety of customers products. Optel Vision is a worldwide leader in traceability systems for the pharmaceutical industry with a wide customer base, including eight out of the ten biggest generic drug manufacturers in the world. As a founding and active member of the Open-SCS working group and organizer of several serialization roundtable events worldwide, Optel Vision also initiates various collaborative efforts that bring together key industry players to address important serialization issues. Optel Vision has four main operation centers (Canada, Ireland, India and Brazil), and a total of over 800 employees across 20 countries. For more information, visit optelvision.com.

About Optel Group

Parent company of well-renowned Optel Vision, Optel Group oversees a group of business units that use common technologies, mainly in optics, electronics, computer science, and robotics. Each of these business units develops inspection, serialization, traceability and engineering solutions and services for various industries for the purpose of solving real, important issues to ultimately help create a better world. Optel Group is committed to supporting communities in order to ensure the well-being of future generations while respecting employees, customers, and the environment. For more information, visit optelgroup.com.
SpectraSensors will exhibit at Instrumentation 2017 Expo in San Pedro, California, on March 28th, 2017. The event is one of the largest exhibitions on the west coast providing industry roundtable discussions, technical training, presentations and hosts exhibitors from the instrumentation, process control and process automation industry. The one day event will be held at Brouwerij West Craft Brewery at the Cabrillo Landing Marina.

Attendees can visit SpectraSensors at booth #105 to learn more about TDLAS spectroscopy used to perform on-line, real-time compositional analysis of process gas streams.

SpectraSensors, an Endress+Hauser company, is a leading global provider of laser-based process instrumentation. We design and manufacture TDLAS and Raman analyzers for on-line monitoring of H2O, H2S, CO, CO2, C2H2, NH3, H2, N2, and other components in the process gas streams. We also offer Quenched Fluorescence analyzers for on-line, real-time measurements of O2. All analyzers are built to ensure the highest levels of efficiency with reliable measurements and low cost of operation. Our analyzers are used in the natural gas, synthetic natural gas, LNG, gas processing, petrochemical, refinery, and atmospheric testing industries.

For more information contact: SpectraSensors, Inc. 4333 W Sam Houston Parkway N, Suite 100, Houston, Texas 77043; Phone 713-466-3172; Fax: 713-856-6623; or visit the web site: http://www.spectrasensors.com.

# # #
Toyota pulling LDT 360 drill rig

Jonny Herjawan of Jakarta, Indonesia, has business interests in surgery centers and virgin coconut oil production. He also chairs the Christian based organization JPCC Foundation. Bob Hather is a money manager and thirty year member of the rotary club of San Luis Obispo, California. Both strive to bring clean water to the 700 million people that are without it. Bobs approach to solving the problem was to develop a drill rig with advantages for drilling bore holes in developing countries. Jonnys challenges included transporting drilling equipment on the network of small barges connecting the 1000 inhabited islands in and around Indonesia with the capability to drill through rock.

In his search for a solution Jonny found the website for Lifewater Drilling Technology, the manufacturer for Bobs drill rig. Bobs portable drill rig had everything Jonny was looking for. Small enough to easily transport to the remote islands; a cable tool rig capable of drilling through rock with no risk of loosing circulation inherent with rotary rigs drilling through cavernous volcanic and limestone formations, the LDT 360 as its called, seemed perfect. So Jonny embarked on the 24 hour flight and drove for hours to drill a well with Bob using his new drill rig. Bob was drilling a 250 foot well that week. Jonny put on a set of coveralls and a hard hat and jumped right in. It was exciting watching Jonny take over the drilling operation the first day, says Bob. One week of drilling sold Jonny on the LTD 360 rig. It was perfect for Indonesias remote islands. There was only one problem; Bob hadnt yet begun commercial production of the rig yet.

The two men had developed a bonding relationship over that week. Jonny needed the rig and Bob needed a kick start to get his production going. So it was decided that Jonny would pay a 50% ($35,000) deposit for a rig that Bob expected to deliver in six months; a significant leap of faith. Right on schedule, the rig was finished in time for Jonnys arrival to ship it back to Jakarta in the 20 foot sea container. Back in Jakarta, Jonny was able to re assemble the 32 foot mast and prepare the rig for its first test hole. Initially Jonny ran into two problems: the trailer jacks were mounted too low for the local road conditions and there appeared to be a restriction in the hydraulic lines. With the help of communicating through Whats App along with Jonnys resourcefulness, both issues were resolved and Jonny went on to completing his first well.

The rigs next destination was set for Kupand, Timor Island. At the dock the rig was set on top of two cargo nets and hoisted onto the barge for the seaward journey. Upon arrival the rig was hooked up to the trailer hitch on the back of the Toyota and off to Pandhega Jaya High School and Dormitory. Drilling proceeded smoothly, boring a 9 hole through rock at the rate of 10 feet per hour for the first 150 feet. That is when the hydraulic motor blew out. Fortunately, the rig was designed to be serviced by no-mechanical types and Bob saw to it that Jonny received a new motor in a few days so drilling could resume. At 188 feet the well made good water and nothing but smiles were on everybodys faces when water gushed from the new well. With his group of dedicated volunteers, Jonny is ready for his next well.

Jonny Herjawans continuing adventures in drilling with the LTD 360 are on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BQjpIAPhkMK/?taken-by=jonnyherjawan&hl=en Bobs progress at developing drill rigs to provide a reliable source of clean water can be seen at http://www.lifewaterdrillingtechnology.com.
Fifteen Cache Valley mayors awarded scholarships1 to college degree-seeking students from their cities in 2016.

Stevens-Henager College granted the Mayors Choice Scholarships to fifteen participating mayors offices, who then selected deserving students from their communities to award. The scholarships provide $25,000 to students pursuing a bachelors degree and $15,000 to those pursuing an associates degree.

The 19 Mayors Choice Scholarships awarded in 2016 total $375,000.

Our students receive phenomenal support from the Cache Valley community, and this is how we give back, said James Birman, executive director of the Stevens-Henager College campus in Logan, Utah. Im proud of these hardworking students, and I thank the people who so wholeheartedly cheer them on and help them succeed in their education.

The scholarships are funded by the Good Neighbor Initiative, which supports local communities through training and development opportunities that include free GED2 test preparation, workshops in basic computer skills, college preparation and job-hunting skills.3

We look forward to supporting the community once again in 2017 in the townships of Logan, Providence, Smithfield and Nibley for the Mayors Choice Scholarship program, Birman said.

About Stevens-Henager College

Stevens-Henager College provides career-focused higher education to students in Utah and Idaho. Offering both undergraduate and graduate degree programs in healthcare, business, graphic arts and technology, Stevens-Henager College is committed to preparing professionals for meaningful careers and an increased sense of satisfaction. Stevens-Henager College is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC) and admits students of any race, color, and national or ethnic origin.

Stevens-Henager College is a registered trademark of Center for Excellence in Higher Education, Inc.

1Scholarship awards are limited and only available to those who qualify. See http://www.scholarshipshc.com for details.

2GED is a registered trademark of the American Council on Education (ACE) and is administered exclusively by GED Testing Service, LLC under license. This material is not endorsed or approved by ACE or GED Testing Service.

3These services are not within the scope of the institutions accreditation.
It was a rough week for the crude oil market.

After months of relative price stability, with WTI oil prices pinned between $50 and $55 per barrel, the floodgates of selling opened wide, as the record amount of long positions that was built up by speculators over the preceding weeks was, quite obviously, liquidated, as evidenced by sky-high volume in both futures and option contracts.

There were several catalysts: Crude oil inventories in the United States hit a new, record level, according the Department of Energy's weekly status report, which also showed U.S. oil production rebounding to within five percent of last year's record to nearly 9.1 million barrels per day.

Of course, the steadily rising oil rig count indicates that even more production is on the way, and it is not impossible to foresee overall production rising toward 10 million barrels per day over the course of the next 12 months.

There was also a large gathering of global energy interests in Houston, Texas this week that included officials from several OPEC countries and Russia.

Statements by Saudi Arabia 's oil minister and OPEC 's Secretary General were hardly reassuring about them continuing the current production limiting accord, after June 30, when it is set to expire.

The Saudi oil minister explicitly said that the accord adherents would not abide "free-riders," which is how he referenced the shale producers, in particular. Apparently, sideline discussions among this disparate group was even more pointed.

The production deal has been shouldered almost entirely by Saudi Arabia. If you take out their over-compliance, the OPEC compliance rate with the cutbacks is under 50%.

Up until this week, rosy rhetoric about limiting output from OPEC and Russia, among others, lifted prices and kept them elevated. At one point, a run at $60 per barrel looked possible, if not likely. Not anymore.

It is natural to think that the renewed sell-off would harden the resolve of producers to limit production, and restore the market balance, but that looks increasingly unlikely.

Story continues

Saudi Arabia's patience has been tried, and they have come to realize that their efforts have only served to resuscitate the U.S. shale competition, which is increasingly taking the battle for global market share to OPEC by ramping up exports that have at times exceeded 1 million barrels per day.

In response, Saudi Arabia announced that it would, once again, supply full contract volumes of crude oil to its Asian customers, and it has aggressively discounted its pricing.

In truth, the most effective strategy for Saudi Arabia, in terms of dealing with competitive threats, is to exploit its position as the low-cost producer (by a lot) and flood the market with oil.

The price crash last year was a result of unbridled production by OPEC members, when the quota system was scrapped. It sent a shudder through the energy market and wreaked havoc on the U.S. shale industry. The U.S. rig count fell by more than two-thirds from its 2015 peak, but has since recovered.

The Saudis have done this in the past. In 1998, they sought to teach Venezuela a lesson about competing for market share. They cratered prices, but not only did the kingdom squash Venezuela, U.S. oil production was gutted, and it did not recover, until the nearly decade long oil price close to $100 per barrel spurred the tight oil or fracking revolution and the ensuing rebound in output.

This could get ugly, again, for oil producers, especially if the OPEC-NOPEC production accord is scrapped.

With U.S. refiners undergoing seasonal maintenance right now, U.S. oil inventory levels will only grow further, until the units return to service, in the coming weeks.

Prices for WTI will likely fall steadily back to the November lows near $42 per barrel over the next few weeks.

The real test comes after that.

Could we retrace the entirety of the gains off the February 2016 low at $26.05? It is quite possible.

If the Saudis won't abide free-riders, then they need to act against them.

While it is painful to all concerned to undertake a price war, you can bet the lowest cost producers will be the last ones standing.

Commentary by John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital, an investment-management firm that specializes in commodities. Follow him on Twitter @KilduffReport.



For the latest commentary on the markets in U.S. and around the world, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.


SIGMA Marketing Insights We are excited about the expansion and look forward to offering our expertise throughout the Boston Metro area that has such a long history of best-in-class database companies and agencies.

SIGMA Marketing Insights, a data-driven marketing firm based in Rochester, NY, today announced the expansion of their deep data analytics and marketing insights to the Boston area with the opening of their new offices in the town of Rockland, MA.

While we did consider several major markets in our efforts to expand our footprint on the east coast, our research repeatedly pointed to the innovative city of Boston for this expansion, stated Stefan Willimann, CEO of SIGMA Marketing Insights in Rochester, NY. We are very fortunate to have our headquarters in Rochester, where we have access to a distinct concentration of the best data scientist in the business and where we can grow our team with talent entering the workforce from nearby schools like Rochester Institute of Technology and The University of Rochester.

Martha Bush, President of SIGMA added, We are excited about the expansion and look forward to offering our expertise throughout the Boston Metro area that has such a long history of best-in-class database companies and agencies. Before joining SIGMA, I experienced the citys vibrant marketing scene as head of the Direct Marketing Unit at the former Ingalls, Quinn & Johnson Agency on Boylston Street. Boston is, and always has been, a hub of thought leadership and expertise that is difficult to match  and we are very happy to have a stronger footprint there.

Additionally, SIGMA has successfully recruited Gregg Sullivan, a 20-year veteran to the industry, to join their senior team and lead efforts in this new market. Gregg, a seasoned database marketing professional local to Boston, is excited about the potential. Ive been keeping my eye on SIGMA throughout the years and Im glad to join their team in this important role. We see unlimited potential in new client development and also the chance to grow our current client engagements. We look forward to expanding our efforts in Boston by hiring additional Boston-based account leaders over the next year, Sullivan offered.

In its 32-year history SIGMA has seen data go from the obscure corners of the marketing world to front and center in most marketing organizations today. While their clients needs continue to evolve, SIGMA continues to successfully lead the discussion around insights and analytics, and ultimately, strategy. The team is confident that expanding into Boston will bring them closer to new clients and continue to grow their thought leadership.

About SIGMA Marketing Insights

SIGMA Marketing Insights delivers analytics, strategy, and marketing technology solutions to power customer acquisition, retention, and growth for their clients. SIGMAs data scientists turn Big Data into customer insights designed to transform leading marketing organizations and agencies. With over three decades of analytics and technology experience, SIGMA helps clients and their marketing teams put data to work to build more successful marketing and sales programs. SIGMA takes the data complexity out of multichannel marketing and helps clients focus on optimization and ROI. For more information visit http://www.sigmamarketing.com
We are proud to embrace the SIF industry standard and to be the first commercial provider certified on the xPress Roster API integration...

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, made up of thousands of schools, regional, state, and government education agencies and marketplace providers across the globe, is pleased to present its first xPress Roster API Certification to West Corporation and its Education group, best known for its SchoolMessenger solutions for school communications and community engagement.

In education, the roster is a fundamental building block of instruction, assessment, and administration. Typically, a roster specifies the teacher and the list of students in a program, class, or section of an organization and they enable teachers to manage and teach students as members of a group. Ideally, teachers can create a class roster once, identify the required software assets that the class may access, and update the software applications with the roster information easily and automatically. The expanding ecosystem of educational services (devices, applications, and websites) that students must access on a daily basis requires a simplified roster exchange solution.

"We are proud to embrace the SIF industry standard and to be the first commercial provider certified on the xPress Roster API integration, which is needed to support our West Education Ecosystem partners and our strategic state education agency clients who rely on it for secure student roster data integration", commented Robert Iskander, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Wests Education group.

xPress Roster has already been implemented by applications supporting thousands of students providing fast, simple and secure integration between a districts student information system and multiple applications, including assessment, instructional and administrative applications. Developers are finding that utilization of existing tools to develop to this standardized API now takes hours to implement  not days or months. Wests extensive education marketplace footprint and leading work in supporting entire district information ecosystems makes it the ideal organization to lead the way in becoming the first provider xPress Roster API certified as both a standardized provider and consumer of data for applications.

The entire A4L Community celebrated West having the first xPress Roster Certified application at our Annual Meetings last week directly adjacent to Wests Santa Cruz-area offices, states Dr. Larry L Fruth II, Executive Director and CEO A4L Community. Not many organizations are willing to be on the bleeding and not just cutting edge of technical marketplace support for their customers. We are proud that West has committed to push the envelope and lead in the usage of standardized APIs for application rostering.

More information on xPress Roster and Student Records Exchange APIs visit: https://xpressapi.org

About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, previously the SIF Association, is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants who collectively address all aspects of learning information management and access to support learning. The A4L Community is Powered by SIF specifications as its major technical tool to allow for this management and access simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of the platform hosting those applications. The Access 4 Learning Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit http://www.A4L.org

About Wests Education Group

Wests Education group, part of West Corporation, is the trusted provider of SchoolMessenger solutions. Thousands of schools and other educational institutions in all 50 states and Canada depend on SchoolMessenger products and services. From notifications and websites to custom mobile apps and social media, school leaders have relied on the SchoolMessenger platform since 1999 to engage with their communities in multiple languages and on any device. To learn more about SchoolMessenger products, visit http://www.schoolmessenger.com or call 888.527.5225.
Coffee and tea growing in Kenya It takes several months after we return from a trip to roast samples, place orders and receive imports of coffees. We hope to be offering some of the Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees I discovered later this year. Past News Releases RSS Crimson Cup Welcomes The Office...

Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea...

Barista Magazine Names Crimson...

Brandon Bir, coffee sourcing and education director for Columbus coffee roaster Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea, recently traveled to Ethiopia and Kenya to discover new coffees and expand relationships with coffee farmers and co-op managers.

The legendary home of the first coffee trees, Ethiopia is the source of some of our favorite coffees," said Founder and President Greg Ubert. Were committed to expanding partnerships with farmers and co-ops there. We also are exploring relationships in Kenya, which produces some of the worlds most universally admired coffees.

Bir flew into the capital city of Addis Ababa and then to Jimma, the largest city in Southwest Ethiopia. The next day, he drove about two hours to the town of Bonga in the Keffa Zone. From Bongo, he rode on horseback for another half day to reach the Girma Eshetu farm, which sits in mountains between 6,500 and 7,000 feet in elevation in the Bita Genet District. The organic coffee farm takes its name from its owner, who has more than two decades of coffee-growing experience.

The area has been suffering from a devastating drought, but it rained the night we arrived for the first time in six months. It was amazing to witness the excitement and celebration among the people living on the farm, he said.

The next morning, we did a farm survey to ensure that the farm was treating employees fairly, providing housing and other amenities, and to identify opportunities for growth and improvement in efficiency and sustainability of coffee growing and processing. We found that Girma offers a pretty good example of how to do things and how you should treat people.

From Girma Eshetu, Bir drove back through Jimma to Agaro. I was happy to return to our favorite farm in Agaro  the Biftu Gudina Cooperative, he said. This co-op produced Crimson Cups Ethiopian Jimma Agaro coffee, which won a 95 rating from Kenneth Davids and the Coffee Review.

The manager of the co-op pointed out news clippings hanging on his wall that resulted from Crimson Cup press releases, Bir noted. He thanked us for the attention weve brought to the co-ops coffee and said he considered us partners, which is our goal in forming farmer relationships. Crimson Cup is in the process of securing a fresh supply of the co-ops coffee.

Returning to Jimma, Bir met with a several coffee unions and cupped their coffee. From there, he returned to the Kossa Geshe co-op in Western Ethiopias Limmu Kossa District, which produces Crimson Cups Ethiopian Kossa Kebena coffee. I shared news that their coffee had won a Good Food Award, and got a video of them speaking to consumers, he said. We are awaiting samples of current-crop coffee from the co-op to roast and cup at our Innovation lab in a few months - stay tuned for a new supply later this year.

After camping in the Kebena Forest, Bir flew back to Addis Ababa, where he met with coffee unions, did a final cupping of Ethiopian coffees and conducted barista training for a local hotel. The Oromia Union expressed interest in having Bir return for a week to train baristas in the Jimma area.

From Addis Ababa, Bir flew into Nairobi and then traveled to Nairobi, where he visited Dorman, the Kenyan Coffee Exchange and Louis Dreyfuss Company offices. Between the three sites, we cupped over 250 coffees  750 cups in all! he said. We found a lot of cups were interested in.

The next day, he drove to the Komothai co-op, which operates 13 wet mills in Kiambu County, central Kenya. Due to drought and frost brought about by climate change, they saw a 30 percent reduction in production over the past year, Bir said. Because production is going down, costs are rising. We expect that Kenyan and Ethiopian coffees will be especially hard to come by next year.

Bir spent two days inspecting coffee farms and wet mills. Through our Friend2Farmer program were hoping to get involved in improving the wet mill processes at the co-ops Kanake factory, he said. In a year or two, wed like people to go to Kanake and say, this is exactly how you double-ferment and wet-process coffee in Kenya.

While visiting the regions farms, he found that many grew both tea and coffee. Were hoping to import both crops from one farm, he said.

Of course, it takes several months after we return from a trip to roast samples, place orders and receive imports of coffees, Bir said. We hope to be offering some of the Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees I discovered later this year.

About Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea

Columbus, Ohio coffee roaster Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea is Roast magazines 2016 Macro Roaster of the Year. Since 1991, Crimson Cup has roasted sustainably sourced specialty and craft coffee in small batches. The company also teaches entrepreneurs to run successful coffee houses through its coffee franchise alternative program, which includes a coffee shop business plan. Crimson Cup coffee is available through a community of more than 350 independent coffee houses, grocers, college and universities, restaurants and food service operations across 29 states, Guam and Bangladesh, as well as the companys own Crimson Cup Coffee Houses. To learn more, visit crimsoncup.com.
Pine nuggets are easy to install and come in various sizes, from mini to jumbo. Mulch plays an important role in helping to control weeds and manage soil moisture.  Doug Scott

For many homeowners, mulch is often an overlooked component of a well-maintained yard. Once you have chosen and installed plants that compliment and anchor your lawn, its time to consider mulch options. The goal is to give planting beds the beautiful finished appearance that compliments the rest of the lawn.

According to landscape designer, Doug Scott, of Redeem Your Ground in Atlanta, Georgia, mulch does more than provide a finished appearance to planting beds.

Mulch also plays an important role in helping to control weeds and manage soil moisture.

Scott said that, with the wide variety of mulching products to choose from, the choice of which to use boils down to the desired design aesthetic, budget and the functionality of the materials being used.

Great mulch options to consider:

Lightweight and natural looking, pine needles and pine straw are excellent for mulching around acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias.

If you already have pine trees in your yard, using pine straw is an obvious choice, given nature will help cover your costs, Scott said.

The interlocking quality of pine needles helps it stay put in heavy rains better than some other mulch options, making them a good choice for sloped beds. Often, the primary reasons many homeowners choose pine straw are low cost and ease of transportation.

Although more expensive than pine straw, hardwood mulch is another popular option to consider.

Hardwood mulch serves as a better weed and moisture barrier than pine straw, Scott said. But at the end of the day, as long as its within the budget, I find most of my clients choose hardwood mulch over pine straw because they simply like the look of it better.

Dyed wood is another attractive, durable mulch option that many homeowners choose, primarily because there are numerous color options to match the design aesthetic. However, Scott offered one word of caution about the use of dyed mulch.

Although the dye used to color this type of mulch isnt toxic, some are manufactured using recycled wood that may contain additives, much like pressure treated wood.

For this reason, Scott recommends homeowners choose mulch made from raw wood instead of recycled wood.

Pine nuggets are another great option to consider. Like other organic mulch options, pine nuggets enrich the soil as they break down.

Pine nuggets are also easy to install and come in various sizes, from mini to jumbo, giving you more options to choose from, Scott added.

The potential downside of pine nuggets is that they can float away in heavy rain, making them a less than ideal option for sloped areas.

Stone mulch is another popular option with homeowners.

In the right setting, various sizes of rock or stone can provide a unique, high impact look to bedding or border areas.

While stone mulches are durable and dont break down quickly, they can eventually sink into the soil. This requires fill-in applications.

In addition, when leaves drop into other mulches, it still looks natural, Scott said. With stone mulch, thats not the case.

As a result, its important to keep areas with stone mulch leaf-free to maintain their appearance.

It can also be difficult to add plants in and around stone mulches, and theyre less effective at maintaining soil moisture in sunny areas due to the warmer soil conditions they create. This leads to increased evaporation.

Each mulch type has its strengths and weaknesses, but Scott noted that adding mulch to landscape beds is a necessity from both a design and functional perspective.

Visit WeAreExmark.com/diy to view five more Done in a Weekend videos featuring project ideas to increase the appeal of your outdoor living space.

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About Exmark

Exmark Manufacturing was incorporated in May 1982 as an independent manufacturer of professional turf care equipment. Today, it is the leading manufacturer of commercial mowers and equipment for the landscape professional. Exmark mowers are purchased 2-to-1 over the next best-selling brand by landscape maintenance professionals. In addition to designing, building and marketing quality turf care equipment, Exmarks goal is total customer satisfaction. All Exmark products are designed to help customers increase productivity while delivering unmatched quality. Products are sold to distributors and dealers who share the companys commitment to customer service and quality products. Learn more at Exmark.com.

Note to Editors: All media inquiries, image or interview requests should be directed to Matt Gersib at (402) 314-2150 or mattgersib(at)gmail(dot)com. For other inquiries, please contact Exmark Mfg. Co., Inc., Industrial Park N.W., P.O. Box 808, Beatrice, NE 68310-0808; (402) 223-6300.
2016 Destin Charity Wine Auction donates $2.66 million to children in need in Northwest Florida The best thing about this incredible recognition is what it means for our ability to help children in our community. We are beyond grateful for the support we have received from our local community and our friends in the wine industry.

Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation (DCWAF) proudly announces that the 11th Annual Auction in 2016 ranked third among the nations top 10 highest-grossing charity wine auctions by Wine Spectator Magazine. DCWAF has earned a spot in the top 10 for the last five consecutive years, and since its inception, has donated more than $13 million to support children in need in Northwest Florida. In 2016, DCWAF donated $2.66 million to 14 local charities serving children in need in Northwest Florida.

We are ecstatic about our ranking as the number three Top Charity Wine Auction in the US by Wine Spectator Magazine, said Destin Charity Wine Auction President, John Russell. The best thing about this incredible recognition is what it means for our ability to help children in our community. We are beyond grateful for the support we have received from our local community and our friends in the wine industry.

Wine Spectator reported that the top five highest grossing wine auctions of 2016 were Naples Winter Wine Festival, Auction Napa Valley, Destin Charity Wine Auction, Sonoma Harvest Wine Auction, and Southwest Florida Wine & Food Fest.

During the past several years, DCWAF has experienced exponential growth in name recognition, attendance, and revenue. As a result, the organization has been able to attract some of the most influential vintners in the world to participate in the event. The weekend also draws celebrity chefs from across the country who are paired with premier vintners for 14 patron dinners, each supporting a different benefiting charity.

In 2017, Destin Charity Wine Auction will feature approximately 250 silent and live offerings, and will welcome hundreds of auction attendees who look forward to the ability to secure rare and highly sought after wines, wine-oriented excursions and other exclusive opportunities. In 2017, DCWAF is proud to offer a selection of 55 live auction lots that include trips to Virgin Gorda, Italy, Napa Valley, Argentina, Tahiti and so much more. In addition to the multitude of trips offered, the 2017 Auction will feature its first vehicle: a rare 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport donated by the St. Joe Community Foundation. The public is invited to visit the Cafe at WaterSound to vote on which Tesla (white or black) will be placed in the auction. The 2017 Auction will also offer a powerhouse line-up of wines including Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate, Scarecrow and several highly allocated cult wines and well-respected Old and New World brands from around the globe.

This year, the Destin Charity Wine Auction will be held on Saturday, April 29 at Grand Boulevard at Sandestin. The 2017 Honorary Vintner is DeLille Cellars and owners Greg and Stacy Lill will be attending the auction in April. In addition, DCWAF has named Marchesi Antinori as this years International Honorary Vintner. Accepting the award for the Italian winery will be Erik Saccomani, Antinori State Manager, and Glenn Salva, Wine Estate Manager for Antinoris California vineyard, Antica Napa Valley.

The weekend kicks off with 14 intimate Patron Dinners held on Friday evening, April 28, allowing patrons to experience exclusive wine and food pairings and get a closer look at one of the 14 charities this mission-driven event benefits. For more information on DCWAF and the Auction, visit http://www.dcwaf.org. To view the 2016 financials and annual report, visit dcwaf.org/annualreport2016/.

About Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation

Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundations mission is to connect wine enthusiasts to raise money to benefit children in need in Northwest Florida. Founded in 2005, DCWAF has donated more than $13 million to Northwest Florida charities through hosting world class wine and culinary events. These funds have impacted the lives of over 75,000 youth, including those afflicted by health issues and abuse. The funds raised are distributed to 14 local non-profit organizations for specific projects and programs that benefit children. Charity partners for 2017 include Children in Crisis, Childrens Volunteer Health Network, Emerald Coast Autism Center, the Emerald Coast Childrens Advocacy Center, Food for Thought, Habitat for Humanity of Walton County, Arc of the Emerald Coast, Opportunity Place, Pathways for Change, Sacred Heart Hospital on the Emerald Coast, Shelter House of Northwest Florida, AMIKids Emerald Coast, Boys and Girls Clubs of the Emerald Coast, Mental Health Association of Okaloosa and Walton Counties and Youth Village. Learn more at DCWAF.org or facebook.com/DCWAF.

DCWAF Media Contact: Kate Milkos, 850-650-3732, kate(at)dcwaf(dot)org
TrialCards Karen Baker, Director of Business Process Improvement, was recently named as a winner of the Triangle Business Journals Women in Business Award. The award recognizes women in the Raleigh-Durham area that have made exceptional contributions to the success and advancement of their businesses and communities.

Baker was selected for the awards Inspiration category, which recognizes women leaders who, through their words, actions and attitude, inspire those who work with and around them. "We're extremely proud of Karen and fortunate to have her as a member of our team, not only for the business acumen she brings but also because of her energetic personality and genuine desire to help others in so many ways," said TrialCard President and CEO Mark Bouck.

In addition to introducing several process improvement initiatives throughout the TrialCard organization that have helped gain efficiency and reduce workload and costs, Baker has also taken a leading role in establishing the companys first Womens Development Program. Outside of the office, Baker serves as a Certified Court Monitor and Victim Impact Panel Facilitator for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in Chatham County, North Carolina.

She will be honored along with the rest of this years award winners at a luncheon on April 21 at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley.

About TrialCard

TrialCard Incorporated provides product access, medication adherence, and patient support services on behalf of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Founded in 2000, TrialCard has become the largest provider of patient access programs in the industry, connecting patients with over $1.7 billion in annualized branded drug savings. In 2016 the company established TC Market Access as its dedicated HUB services division. TrialCard holds nine U.S. patents related to the processing and marketing of patient access programs. The company is headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina. For more information about TrialCard, please visit http://www.trialcard.com
Sashes + Glass window blog Homeowners have many questions when shopping for windows and patio doors, said Jeremiah Noneman, director of marketing at Milgard. The Sashes + Glass blog is a great resource to educate, advise and inspire those who are conducting online research.

Milgard Windows & Doors recently launched a new blog designed to provide tips and inspiration to homeowners. Articles will cover basic information about windows and patio doors, feature real customer stories to generate ideas and help shoppers discover the possibilities new windows and patio doors can bring when remodeling or starting new home construction.

Homeowners have many questions when shopping for windows and patio doors, said Jeremiah Noneman, director of marketing at Milgard. The Sashes + Glass blog is a great resource to educate, advise and inspire those who are conducting online research.

The blog will also feature projects from Architects, Contractors and Builders that talk about home design, how to select the right windows, frame styles, color choices, glass options and more.

Not only will the Sashes + Glass blog have great content around how to choose windows and patio doors, Jeremiah went on to say, we are looking for professionals in the window and door industry as well as homeowners who have purchased Milgard windows to share their projects with us so we can include real stories that can spark ideas.

Professionals who wish to submit their projects can fill out a form on the Milgard website. Milgard customers who wish to have their home featured on the blog can contact Milgard on Instagram, Houzz, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter where a Milgard staff member will contact them for more details on their project.

About Milgard Windows & Doors Corporation

Milgard Windows & Doors, a Masco company based in Tacoma, Washington, offers a full line of vinyl, wood, fiberglass and aluminum windows and patio doors for builders, dealers and homeowners, all backed by a Full Lifetime Warranty, including parts and labor. The company has been recognized for manufacturing the nations highest quality vinyl windows eight times in a yearly survey sponsored by Hanley-Wood Inc., publishers of BUILDER Magazine. Milgard has approximately 3,800 dealer locations nationwide. For more information, visit milgard.com or call 1.800.MILGARD.

About Masco Corporation

Masco Corporation (NYSE: MAS), parent company of Milgard Windows & Doors, is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of branded home improvement and building products. Our portfolio of industry-leading brands includes Behr paint; Delta and Hansgrohe faucets, bath and shower fixtures; KraftMaid and Merillat cabinets; Milgard windows and doors; and HotSpring spas. We leverage our powerful brands across product categories, sales channels and geographies to create value for our customers and shareholders. For more information about Masco Corporation, visit Masco.com.

# # #
Family Convention This kindred [Currie] as bardic dynasty with such a remarkable history ought now to be recognised on the wider stage of Scottish culture as a family with an independent role at the centre of a widely connected and well-ordered culture...

In August 2017, members of the worldwide Currie/Curry/Currey family (anciently MacMhuirich, MacVurich), once influential poets and historians to the MacDonald Lords of the Isles and other prominent families and clans, will gather in Scotland to take part in two special events. They will hold a Family Convention to select their first Commander and later join, at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, with other honoured families and clans to celebrate the Scottish Diaspora as part of the Tattoos Splash of Tartan celebration.

Family Convention

In a process regulated by Dr. Joseph Morrow, QC, Lord Lyon King of Arms, family members will meet at The Trades Hall of Glasgow on 15 August 2017 at 2.00pm for a Family Convention to select a Commander who would act as Head of Family in the anticipation of a later selection of a Chief of the Name and Arms of Currie. As part of the procedure to find that person, the family has conducted an international search for Representers. The closing date for nominations is noon, 30 June 2017.

The Court of the Lord Lyon, which has jurisdiction in such matters, said there are a number of reasons why a family might hold a Family Convention. Most appropriately for the Curries, its, Where neither blood link to a past chief nor Representer of a cadet line can be identified but it is wished to propose a particular person of the surname as Commander. The proceedings in Glasgow will be overseen by Liam Devlin, Unicorn Pursuivant, as the appointed Presiding Officer.

Professor Hugh Cheape from the National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture added, This kindred [Currie] as bardic dynasty with such a remarkable history ought now to be recognised on the wider stage of Scottish culture as a family with an independent role at the centre of a widely connected and well-ordered culture...

Will this family, descended from the 13th century Irish bard, Muireadhach O Dalaigh (ODaly) ever be considered a Clan? Well-known genealogist, heraldist and historian Dr Bruce Durie said, Historically there never was a Clan Currie or Clan MacMhuirich, with territories and a quasi-military structure. The term family is probably inappropriate for Currie, as it indicates the Lowlands. The MacMhuirichs, however, were proud Highlanders, and hereditary bards to a number of clans. They were truly a learned kindred, which may be the best designation for Currie.

Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

On Saturday 19 August at 10.30pm, as part of an exciting new partnership between the Scottish Diaspora and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the Curries, one of a number of honoured clans and families, will march up the Royal Mile onto Edinburgh Castle esplanade and be recognized in a pre-show ceremony. A proud moment for all involved.

The Rev. Dr. David Currie said, As chaplain of the Clan Currie Society, I have had the privilege of meeting hundreds with my surname from around the world at our Pipes of Christmas concerts, Tartan Day on Ellis Island, and other events. One of the most memorable events for me was marching up the Royal Mile as part of the Gathering of the Clans event about a decade ago. As we Curries took our place alongside other Scottish families, the only thing that I thought could make it better would be if we could take our place as formally recognized by the Lord Lyon with a commander or chief.

After our Family Convention on the 15th of August I look forward to retracing our steps on the 19th having fulfilled that hope as a recognized 'Learned Kindred' with a Commander leading us to the castle as one of the honored clans for the Edinburgh Tattoo.

Ends

Notes to editor

For further information (United States) contact: Rev. Dr. David Currie, Clan Currie Society Chaplain: currieconvention(at)gmail(dot)com

Neil Gunn (Scotland) currieconvention(at)ngwriting(dot)com

Neil Gunn (Scotland) Tel: 07493 509991

Clan Currie Society website: http://www.clancurriegathering.com

Clan Currie Society Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ClanCurrieSociety

Clan Currie Society Twitter page: @ClanMhuirich

The Court of the Lord Lyon: http://www.lyon-court.com/lordlyon/221.185.html/

Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (Scottish Diaspora): https://www.edintattoo.co.uk/news/tattoo-unites-with-scottish-diaspora-to-celebrate-splash-of-tartan/
LearnHowToBecome.org, a leading resource provider for higher education and career information, has ranked the best four-year and two-year colleges in Louisiana for 2017. Of the 22 four-year schools honored, Tulane University of Louisiana, Loyola University of New Orleans, Xavier University of Louisiana, Louisiana College and Louisiana State University came in as the top five. 18 two-year schools also made the list, with Louisiana State University Eunice, Delgado Community College, Southern University Shreveport, Bossier Parish Community College and Northwest Louisiana Technical College coming in at the top of the list. A full list of schools is included below.

Students looking at colleges in Louisiana have a wide variety of program options and schools to choose from, said Wes Ricketts, senior vice president of LearnHowToBecome.Org. Weve compared each and found the colleges that provide high quality educational experience with high student success rates as they pursue their careers.

To be included on Louisianas Best Colleges list, schools must be regionally accredited and not-for-profit. Each college was also analyzed based on more than a dozen metrics that include the annual alumni earnings 10 years after entering college, availability of career counseling services, student/teacher ratio, graduation rate and financial aid availability.

Complete details on each college, their individual scores and the data and methodology used to determine the LearnHowToBecome.org Best Colleges in Louisiana list, visit:

http://www.learnhowtobecome.org/college/louisiana/

Louisianas Best Four-Year Colleges for 2017 include the following schools:

Centenary College of Louisiana

Dillard University

Grambling State University

Louisiana College

Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

Louisiana State University Alexandria

Louisiana State University Shreveport

Louisiana Tech University

Loyola University New Orleans

McNeese State University

Nicholls State University

Northwestern State University of Louisiana

Our Lady of Holy Cross College

Our Lady of the Lake College

Southeastern Louisiana University

Southern University and A & M College

Southern University at New Orleans

Tulane University of Louisiana

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

University of Louisiana at Monroe

University of New Orleans

Xavier University of Louisiana

The Best Two-Year Colleges in Louisiana for 2017 include the following schools:

Baton Rouge Community College

Bossier Parish Community College

Capital Area Technical College

Central Louisiana Technical Community College

Delgado Community College

Fletcher Technical Community College

Louisiana Delta Community College

Louisiana State University-Eunice

Northshore Technical Community College

Northwest Louisiana Technical College

Nunez Community College

Remington College-Baton Rouge Campus

Remington College-Lafayette Campus

River Parishes Community College

South Central Louisiana Technical College-Young Memorial Campus

South Louisiana Community College

Southern University Shreveport

SOWELA Technical Community College

###

About Us: LearnHowtoBecome.org was founded in 2013 to provide data and expert driven information about employment opportunities and the education needed to land the perfect career. Our materials cover a wide range of professions, industries and degree programs, and are designed for people who want to choose, change or advance their careers. We also provide helpful resources and guides that address social issues, financial aid and other special interest in higher education. Information from LearnHowtoBecome.org has proudly been featured by more than 700 educational institutions.
Gold Coast Smiles on Long Island, NY When searching for a cosmetic dentist, you want to make sure that the dentist has the experience, expertise, and reputation to do a good job. We hope that our new website can give new patients more insight into the quality of our practice.

Gold Coast Smiles in Glen Cove, NY is pleased to launch its new Hybrid-Responsive Website: http://www.goldcoastsmilesli.com/.

Gold Coast Smiles has become known for high quality cosmetic dentistry services, such as porcelain veneers, porcelain crowns, and dental implants. According to Dr. Andrew Sami DDS, owner of Gold Coast Smiles, Quality makes a real difference in cosmetic dentistry. Your smile is an important part of your appearance. A great smile can change your outlook. When searching for a cosmetic dentist, you want to make sure that the dentist has the experience, expertise, and reputation to do a good job. We hope that our new website can give new patients more insight into the quality of our practice.

With the new website in place, Dr. Samis patients can learn more about the practice without having to come in first for a consultation. Gold Coast Smiles provides the highest quality dental care to patients living in Glen Cove, Oyster Bay, Glen Head, Locust Valley, Brookville and other areas on the Long Island Shore. The new Hybrid-Responsive enables patients from all around Long Island to quickly book appointments online, even from their mobile devices browser.

Dr. Andrew Sami DDS has been practicing dentistry in the New York area since 2007 and has continued to ensure patients have superior results with all phases of their dental procedures. Dr. Sami is a recognized expert who also lends his expertise as an Attending Physician at Nassau University Medical Center.

Dr. Sami understands advanced dental techniques and employs the most advanced technology available while maintaining his skills with recent training. He participated in an Implant Fellowship Program at NYU to gain advanced training in all phases of implant dentistry with an emphasis on treatment planning and restorations of implants. In addition to his knowledge of implant dentistry, Dr. Sami is also vastly experienced in all areas of cosmetic dentistry including porcelain veneers, CEREC one-day porcelain crowns and smile makeovers. Hes a member of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists, the American Dental Association, the New York State Dental Association, and the Academy of General Dentistry.

Dr. Sami and his team are very excited about the new website launch and the potential to help serve even more clients. As Dr. Sami explains, From routine and emergency dentistry to innovative cosmetic dentistry and implants, this website will help more prospective patients find out about Gold Coast Smiles.

About Gold Coast Smiles

Owned by Dr. Andrew Sami DDS since 2010, Gold Coast Smiles is a leading dentist on Long Island, NY. The practice specializes in general and implant dentistry, as well as cosmetic dentistry. To learn more or to request an appointment, call (516) 676-0250 or visit the office at 128 Glen Street, Glen Cove, NY 11542 or visit http://www.goldcoastsmilesli.com/.
Beyonce and Serena Wiliiams It was the most amazing experience. It proved to myself that I was ready for the world, Past News Releases RSS

Newheart Ohanian has built up a diverse group of clients, including Amazon, Capitol Records, MAC Cosmetics and many international publications, such as Harpers Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vogue and Elle. She works as a celebrity stylist, as well as a creative collaborator on film projects. Her star already was on the rise, but Lemonade has brought increased visibility and attention. Brought in by the director, Kahlil Joseph, Ohanian styled the celebrity co-stars, such as Serena Williams, Quvenzhane Wallis, Zendaya and more, for several of the scenes in the one-hour HBO film that accompanied the records release.

She will be the special guest at a fashion night presented by the New England Fashion+Design Assoc. from 6 to 8 p.m., Thursday, March 23, at ArtsWestchester Bldg., 31 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, N.Y. She will share her story, insights and advice about her career and latest projects, during a Q&A with Irina Simeonova, founder of the association, which has locations in White Plains, N.Y. and South Norwalk, CT. There also will be a fashion show, demonstrating the work of the students in the associations Junior Fashion Design Academy.

It was the most amazing experience. It proved to myself that I was ready for the world, said the New York City-based designer of filming of Lemonade, the 2016 HBO film that accompanied the superstars record release. It was magic when we were there. I remember thinking that everything was happening so quickly that I didnt have a moment to breathe. I was deeply honored to be a part of such a project. It was a moment I will never forget.

During her appearance at ArtsWestchester, she hopes to impart some of the lessons she has learned and wisdom she has earned while working in the fashion industry. She is forthright and honest in her approach, and hopes to guide aspiring fashionistas with solid advice  listen to yourself, be determined in your approach and find a way to do the job you love. I graduated from school, got a job and thought it was going to be all happily ever after, she says. But there were upsets and difficult moments  but I was super blessed because I kept searching. I had a tenacity about where I was going and what I wanted to be. I was going to find it no matter what  I wasnt going to give up.

For more information about Newheart Ohanian, visit http://www.newheartnyc.com

Event location:

New York City stylist Newheart Ohanian will be the guest for a fashion stylist talk by the New England Fashion+Design Assoc. from 6 to 8 p.m., Thursday, March 23, at ArtsWestchester Bldg., 31 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, N.Y. (914) 222-5220

Tickets are $7-25 and available at http://bit.ly/2lG5JO7
Fernando Azevedo y-bus.com Online Reputation Management Ybus has it's own Blue Print for Online Reputation Management. Our clients range from big companies to celebrities, but we also get calls from desperate parents and we see kids and families that are not ready to deal with this kind of problem.

MIAMI BASED WEB TECHNOLOGY COMPANY Ybus

COMMENCING A PRO BONO CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT VICTIMS OF CYBERBULLYING

Ybus, a Miami based company that specializes in web technology including Apps, E-Commerce, SEO, Online Reputation and Social Media Marketing is applying its expertise toward a noble cause; aiding the victims of cyber bullying. Every month, Ybus receives at least a dozen calls from desperate, panicked parents of a child that is being victimized online. Noting the importance of eliminating this unjust activity, Ybus has now elected to take on one free case per month.

Please visit to send your case:

https://www.y-bus.com/help-my-child/

How do they do it? Ybus creates blogs, websites and social media profiles containing everything Google likes or looks for to create positive content on the victims name. Ybus uses their own network of blogs to endorse those sites reinforced with back links to get Google to recognize the positive content and push the previous sites containing slanderous material down on the search. Ybus also has capabilities to effectively create and surface content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to push the derogatory remarks down and have the positive material to surface first.

Tips from Ybus to Negate Malicious Content Online:

DONT SHARE & DONT COMMENT ON UNETHICAL POSTS

Do not engage with hateful comments online. Even if you dislike the material or leave a furious comment, you are still helping the link to appear more frequently.

DONT SEARCH FOR OR CLICK ON A LINK THAT CONTAINS CYBERBULLYING

When you search for or click on a link that contains slanderous content, Google is recognizing this as material that is ranking well and it will then remain at the top of the search.

CLICK ON NEUTRAL OR POSITIVE NEWS WHEN SEARCHING FOR THE VICTIM

When you click on this sort of content you are effectively moving this material to the top of the persons search.

About Ybus: Founded in 2015 by Fernando Azevedo who created himself his blue print for online reputation services. Fernando Azevedo is an o-1 visa, for individuals with extraordinary ability. He graduated in 3 Engineer Fields, has a Master Degree. He was a professor at PUC-University for 7 years, has a book published in Brazil and studied Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Stanford University.

Ybus specialty is in creating a positive image and is often contracted to develop a strong online presence for individuals that are applying for a university abroad, starting a business, attracting new customers and followers and for personal and business networking. Ybus has the capability to create 20-30 sites on a person or company and implements SEO techniques to occupy Googles 1st page on a search.

To learn more about Ybus or for media requests, kindly contact Danna@Canpublicity or (305) 776-7715.
The COEBO Code or Code of Ethics for Behavioral Organizations is used to ensure that organizations develop and maintain ethical administrative supports to guide their employees toward ethical clinical and educational practices. The COEBO Code began originally as a seven item document created by Jon S. Bailey, PhD, BCBA-D that served as an attestation that all organizations that provide behavior analysis services would agree to follow. Over time the document became a movement rallying behavior analysts from around the world to help spread the word about a Code of Ethics for Behavioral Organizations (COEBO Code).

The Columbus Organization is headquartered in the State of Pennsylvania and was formed in 1984. Its founding mission was to make a difference in the lives of people with special needs and its guiding principle has been to provide high-quality services in a manner that maintains the dignity and privacy of the consumers and families served. Columbus provides behavior supports to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and mental health disorders. Columbus provides behavior services throughout the State of Tennessee.

Columbus is the nations leading provider of on-site professional staffing and consultative services, focusing exclusively on agencies that serve individuals with special needs. Since 1984, Columbus has assisted more than 140 state and local agencies in over 40 states and the District of Columbia to help solve staffing and programmatic problems. Many of these agencies faced challenging regulatory, certification, and litigation issues. In every instance, Columbus achieved positive outcomes. Columbus is an organization of professionals who have extensive expertise in clinical practice, recruiting professional staff, clinical research, staff training, forensic issues, litigation issues, and developing policies and procedures for agencies servicing individuals with special needs. Columbus has designed high-quality services that meet and exceed customers expectations, achieving improved outcomes within identified timeframes and fiscal parameters.

For more information about The Columbus Organization visit their website at http://www.columbusorg.com or e-mail them today at info(at)columbusorg(dot)com.

About COEBO

The Credentialing of Ethical Behavioral Organizations (COEBO) is a corporation established to set and maintain the standards of ethical practice for behavioral organizations set forth in The Code of Ethics for Behavioral Organizations (The COEBO Code). The COEBO meets these standards by certifying worthy organizations through a multi-level credentialing program. The COEBO Code was designed by behavior analysts, for behavioral organizations. Our mission is to establish a standard of ethics for behavioral organizations.

Visit us at http://www.coebo.com or email us at info(at)coebo(dot)com
Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The take away is that this film made Mozart, and his genius, a hot global commodity for both musicians and media.  James Cassidy, KSO Music Director.

The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra continues its 25th Anniversary Season at Greaves Concert Hall with a another regional premiere  Amadeus Live (2nd U.S. performance). Highland Heights, KY will join the international cities of London, Prague, Paris, Lucerne, Toronto, Seoul, Istanbul and Munich, where the film Amadeus with live-orchestral and choral soundtrack has received recent screenings (Eugene, OR offered the first U.S performance).

The 1984 film, directed by Milos Forman, won 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture. Adapted by Peter Shaffer from his original play Amadeus, the film version made Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his music universally recognized and admired, resulting in new recordings, festivals, biographies and childrens books about the child prodigy composer.

The film is stunningly set in Vienna (though shot in Prague), where court composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) recounts the entire story to a young priest, shortly after Salieris failed suicide attempt. Salieri weaves a tale of envy and intrigue as he describes the impetuous child genius portrayed by Tom Hulce in a series of flashbacks. Shaffer, Forman and cast keep the audience riveted to the story twists, but how much history in the film is fact, fiction or simply embellished?

Fiction: Salieri was not a dried-up old bachelor who had vowed his chastity to God. He was a married father of eight.

Fact: Mozart is known through his letters and music for his crass humor and pranks (See K. 231). Therefore, many such scenes are indeed plausible. Today Mozart may have been simpatico with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park).

Fiction: Hit or Miss: Though the film depicts Mozarts operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni as being flops, they were immediate and sensational hits of the day.

Fiction: Salieri did not, as the film suggests, assist in writing the Requiem. Mozarts copyist and composer Franz Xaver Sussmayr (a student of Salieri) actually did. Mozart was actually on good terms with Salieri at the time of his death, inviting him to The Magic Flute premiere and writing endearingly of him in his diary. Following Mozarts death, Salieri gave his bereaved younger son free music lessons.

In 1830 Alexander Pushkin published his short play  Mozart and Salieri  about an alleged rivalry between the two Vienna-based composers. The play, in which Salieri murders Mozart, was later set as an opera by composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. This dramatic premise has continued to grip the artistic imagination ever since. It is from Pushkins notion that Shaffer created his play and then film.

"The play and film was never intended to be a biography," said KSO Music Director James Cassidy. "It's a wonderful, fun yarn, with Mozart dazzling both the nobility as well as the bourgeois and peasants, while the jealous Salieri plots his demise. The take away is that this film made Mozart and his genius a hot global commodity for both musicians and various media."

The music for the film (see the attached playlist) was chosen by the late Sir Neville Marriner, together with producer Paul Saenz, with Shaffer and Foreman. Marriner recorded the complete selections with the Academy of St. Martins in the Field. Forman took the finished tapes to Prague and shot the film to the timing of the music.

Experience the multi-Academy Award winning motion picture, Amadeus on the big screen, while Mozarts most celebrated works are performed live, in-sync by the KSO, members of Voices of the Commonwealth, Collegium Cincinnatis SummerSing Chorus and pianist Sophie Wang at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 8, 2017 in Greaves Concert Hall on the campus of NKU, Highland Heights, KY. Reserved seating tickets are $24, $32, $40 and are available online at kyso.org, or by phone (859) 431-6216.

About the KSO:

For nearly 25 years The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra has taken the phony out of symphony through live thematic concerts that culturally enrich, educate and entertain the residents of Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati. The KSO performs throughout Northern Kentucky with three series of concerts.
SigScale Global Inc. announced the first public release of SigScale OCS, an online charging system, under an Apache 2.0 open source license. The carrier grade solution for authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) with real time credit management enables WISPs to offer prepaid or usage sensitive services. SigScale OCS includes a high performance embedded RADIUS server with the modern authentication methods (EAP-PWD, EAP-TTLS) required for advanced cellular experience as well as legacy username/password, MAC and Mikrotik WPA-PSK methods.

SigScale is focused on cloud native solutions for the network functions virtualization (NFV) environments our communications service provider (CSP) customers demand today, said Vance Shipley, CEO of SigScale. This solution was developed from the ground up using functional programming (Erlang) for massive concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance.

This release comes after a pilot project at the WISP FaciNet S.A. de C.V. in Aguascalientes, Mexico. SigScale worked closely with the service provider to design an end-to-end solution for a new prepaid wireless service as an overlay on their existing network as well as adding usage caps to the existing customer base of unmetered monthly packages. The company is actively developing a roadmap of features driven by WISP feedback.

As we aggressively grow our network we need operations and billing support systems (OSS/BSS) which cater to the increasing traffic and changing use case scenarios of our subscribers, said Adrian Sience, CEO of FaciNet. Our close partnership with SigScale has allowed us to innovate new services with quick agile deployments using SigScale OCS.

SigScale Global Inc. was was founded in 2015 by Vance Shipley, a Canadian veteran of the Communications Service Provider (CSP) industry, with a research and development arm, SigScale Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. SigScale develops cloud native solutions for CSPs and is an active member of the TM Forum.
This conference will not only help increase the awareness of the future challenges for executives and for those who work with intelligence, but also improve the knowledge and creativity around how the intelligence work can be carried out.

Nordic Intelligence Network, the network for those who work professionally with competitive, market and business intelligence are proud to announce that the agenda for this years event now has been set. The conference Nordic Intelligence Day 2017 will be held on the 27th of April at Summit Building in central Stockholm.

This years theme Future Oriented Intelligence is extremely relevant today as we are moving towards a more disruptive world. This conference will provide the right set of tools to handle issues such as fake news, lack of source criticism and the new information challenges people are facing. It is a great opportunity to learn how organizations can with new analytical methods and creative thinking understand those challenges better.

Too often Board of Directors and executives work traditionally and tend to look more in the rear view mirror than to the future. When questions about the future come up there is often too little knowledge and insight says Par Lager, an experienced Intelligence professional and one of the keynote speakers. This conference will not only help increase the awareness of the future challenges for executives and for those who work with intelligence, but also improve the knowledge and creativity around how the intelligence work can be carried out.

The Nordic Intelligence Day 2017 conference features interesting case presentations from different organizations, methods examples, interactive round-table sessions, expert panel session, networking, pre-conference workshops, exhibiting companies, pre-conference dinner and general knowledge sharing among all participants. See the full agenda here http://www.intelligencedagen.se/agenda/

The conference is moderated by Hans Hedin, one of the words most respected experts within Strategic Analysis and Intelligence, as well as the author of the book The Handbook of Market intelligence. In addition to Hans, other speakers include:



Par Lager, Chairman of the Board at Berghs School of Communication and a board member in a number of Edtech companies

Ingemar Svensson, Director of Competitive Intelligence, Ericsson

Lena Olofsson, Competitive Intelligence Director, SCA

Klaus Solberg Silen, Professor in Management & Marketing, Halmstad University

Tina Bundgaard, Corporate Market Intelligence Manager, Rockwool International

Johan Wiktorin, CEO of the intelligence company Brqthrough, writer for Dagens Industri, commissioner in the Royal War Academy and Chairman for the Nordic Baltic Strategic Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)

For further information and to reserve your seat, please visit http://www.intelligenceday.se or contact the conference moderator Hans Hedin at info(at)intelligencedagen(dot)se
Celebrity Maker Adam Savage

The Fab Foundation is pleased to announce that, in collaboration with Chevron, we are hosting a visit to the Austin, Texas digital fabrication community by celebrity maker, Adam Savage.

This national tour with Adam celebrates the impact of digital fabrication and making in education and youth development, business and entrepreneurship, and invention. It includes diversity in people and place and seeks to expand a communitys awareness of the power of new tools such as 3D Printing, laser cutting, CAD design and robotics. Additional tour cities include Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Detroit, and Boston.

Adam Savage is an internationally renowned television producer, special effects designer/fabricator, host, maker and public speaker. He is best known as the former co-host of the Discovery Channel television series Mythbusters. His model work has appeared in major films, including Star Wars: Episode II  Attack of the Clones and The Matrix Reloaded.

Adams Austin visit will begin at SXSW Interactive, where he is hosting a panel on March 13 with Sonya Pryor-Jones of the Fab Foundation, and Andrew Coy, former Senior Advisor for the Office of Science and Technology Policy at The White House. They will discuss the future of maker spaces and the implications that these spaces can have on the future, Making Moving Forward.

The first stop for the national tour in Austin will be at Travis High School. During this visit, participants will engage in an inquiry activity designed to test the sensitivity and reliability of biometric fingerprint scanners, in particular an iPhone device. They will investigate the validity of several scanners including those that grant computer access. Tools incorporated into the methodology include 3D Printing. Adam will also tour the TRILab area of the school, which comprises a photography studio/art room, makerspace, and engineering shop, all of which enrich students experience by creating experiential, hands-on learning.

Adams afternoon will be spent interacting with the innovative staff at The Thinkery, an evolution of Austin Childrens Museum. Sharing with Adam the creative process used from conception to design to the building of projects such as an Interactive Wall, a working session with staff will draw upon Adams expertise. Thinkerys staff will tackle the challenges of certain exhibits with help from Adams unique problem-solving and design skills.

Portions of Adams Austin tour will be videotaped for a series hes producing for Tested.com. The series debuts March 13 with scenes from his Pittsburgh tour stop and airs each week through June 19th. The Fab Foundations Chief Implementation Officer, Sonya Pryor-Jones, who organized the Adam Savage tour remarks that we are thankful to Chevron for funding this unique opportunity and to Adam for using his platform to tour the country and showcase the Fab Lab and Maker communities. Adams tour celebrates the ingenuity of people and shows future makers the possibilities in their own communities.

The Fab Foundation makes the tools of digital fabrication accessible to everyone, so that anyone of any skill level can make (almost) anything. To achieve this goal, the 501(c)3 non-profit organization fosters the development of fab labs in schools, higher education, libraries, museums community centers and innovation centers. There are now over 1,000 fab labs around the world in more than 78 countries.
Erie, Pennsylvania & Washington, D.C., InnovaTel Telepsychiatry, a leading provider of psychiatric telehealth services to adolescents and adults, and the National Council for Behavioral Health, the unifying voice of Americas community mental health and addictions treatment providers, announced a strategic partnership focused on the effective use of telepsychiatry.

InnovaTel is committed to providing high quality, psychiatric services to patients in underserved communities, said Jon Evans, co-founder and CEO of InnovaTel Telepsychiatry. By integrating telehealth technology with our staff of leading mental health professionals, we are able to increase access to care and ultimately improve patient outcomes. InnovaTel is honored to be partnered with the National Council at a time when telepsychiatry is poised to become an integral part of community mental health.

Under the partnership, InnovaTel and the National Council will work collaboratively to inform providers about the effective use of telepsychiatry, particularly in the roughly 4,000 communities the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has designated Mental Health Care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs). In addition, Chuck Ingoglia, the National Councils senior vice president for public policy and practice improvement, has joined InnovaTels Board of Directors.

Demands on mental health organizations have never been greater, and the National Council is thrilled to work with InnovaTel to help organizations across the country understand how telepsychiatry can help them better meet the needs of their communities, said Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council. Far too many people are unable to gain access to mental health treatment when they need it, and telepsychiatry is an effective and clinically proven way to help close that gap.

About InnovaTel Telepsychiatry

InnovaTel Telepsychiatry was founded in 2014 to address the shortage of psychiatrists in community mental health settings, particularly clinics in rural areas who experience difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified psychiatrists. For more information, visit http://www.intelpsych.com.

About National Council for Behavioral Health

The National Council for Behavioral Health is the unifying voice of Americas mental health and addictions treatment organizations. Together with more than 2,800 member organizations, serving 10 million adults, children and families living with mental illnesses and addictions, the National Council is committed to all Americans having access to comprehensive, high-quality care that affords every opportunity for recovery. The National Council was instrumental in bringing Mental Health First Aid to the USA and more than 780,000 individuals have been trained. In 2014, the National Council merged with the State Associations of Addiction Services (SAAS). To learn more about the National Council, visit http://www.TheNationalCouncil.org.

InnovaTel Telepsychiatry

Jonathan Evans

Chief Executive Officer

jon.evans(at)intelpsych.com

National Council for Behavioral Health

Joy Burwell

Media Relations

JoyB(at)TheNationalCouncil.org
The entire media ecosystem in APAC is enormous and still growing, which makes it an ideal geography in which to expand our customer base.

Social video creation platform Wochit today announced several new publisher relationships in Asia and Australia, indicating significant growth in the APAC region resulting from the companys aggressive global expansion strategy.

Following a recent funding round from investors including Singapore Press Holdings SPH Media Fund, Wochit is actively pursuing growth throughout Asia. The company is already used by SPH news properties such as The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, The Business Times, AsiaOne, Stomp and magazines such as Mens Health, Womens Health, Young Parents, Home and Decor, Torque, The New Paper and Icon.

Other significant deals with media companies in APAC include:



Australia: Pacific Magazines has enlisted Wochit to produce timely, short-form social videos for over two-dozen brands including Womens Health, Mens Health and InStyle. Additionally, West Australian News has tapped Wochit for use at Perth Now and The West Australian.

China: Wochit is powering video production for cross-platform news video provider, Pear Video, enables its team of digital natives and videographers to rapidly produce optimized content for consumption on mobile devices and across social media.

Japan: Yahoo! JAPAN, the largest portal in the nation, incorporated Wochit into its newsroom workflow to help build audience engagement.

Malaysia: Digital media company Hybrid News Group, has selected Wochit to power video creation its Kuala Lumpur-based news bureau to service brands including Asian Correspondent, Study International, Travel Wire Asia and Tech Wire Asia.

In addition to the growth of partnerships with publishers, Wochit is also increasing its partnerships with key content providers in the region. To date, Wochit has signed content deals with China Central Televisions CCTV+ and Xinhua News Agency. These agreements bring assets from two of Chinas largest media companies into Wochits library of pre-licensed assets, substantially increasing the platform's Asia-specific content and bolstering their ability to support culturally- and geographically-relevant coverage in the region.

The entire media ecosystem in APAC is enormous and still growing, which makes it an ideal geography in which to expand our customer base, said Christoph Pleitgen, SVP of Sales and Business Development at Wochit. eMarketer estimates nearly a billion individuals are watching digital video in the region, which is almost half of all viewers worldwide. And this will continue to grow as mobile proliferation increases penetration, especially in rapidly-developing economies like China.

About Wochit

Wochit is a video creation platform that empowers newsrooms, media companies and brands to expand audience engagement through the power of social video. Worldwide media brands such as Time Inc., Daily News, USA Today, Gannett, AOL, The Week, ProSieben, Singapore Straits Times, Focus online and Der Spiegel use Wochit to produce short-form videos around trending topics at the scale and speed required in the video-first, mobile era. With rights-cleared assets from AP, Reuters, Getty, Bloomberg and others, cloud-based editing tools and native uploads, horizontal and vertical videos are quickly created and distributed across all social and digital platforms. Wochit is among the 2016-2017 EContent Top 100 companies in the digital content industry as well as the the winner of both the Gutenberg Prize for its disruptive technology in the field of journalism and Digidays Best Video Technology Innovation for its significant impact on publishers bottom line. The Company is backed by ProSieben, Singapore Press Holdings SPH Media Fund, Carlo de Benedetti, Redpoint Ventures, Marker LLC, Greycroft Partners and Cedar Fund. Wochit is based in New York, with offices in London and Tel Aviv. Find out more at http://www.wochit.com.
I am so proud that Surefire Local is in a position to attract such highly qualified executives to help us continue our exciting growth, said Chris Marentis, CEO and founder of Surefire Local.

Surefire Local, the leading marketing technology platform for brands and their local affiliates, has announced two additions to its executive management team: James Bruno as Executive Vice President of Sales and Dan Moser as Vice President of Finance & Operations.

I am so proud that Surefire Local is in a position to attract such highly qualified executives to help us continue our exciting growth, said Chris Marentis, CEO and founder of Surefire Local. Both James and Dan bring deep, broad experience in marketing SaaS that we need as we evolve into the leading platform for brands with multi-location marketing challenges.

Bruno brings broad global expertise in both corporate and startup environments, having spearheaded sales and business development in the marketing technology space. Previously, he held executive sales management positions at Clarabridge and was SVP International Sales and Marketing at Vocus. Bruno earned his Bachelor of Science in Marketing from St. Joseph's University and his MBA from Drexel University. He is fluent in English, Spanish, French and Italian.

Moser brings more than 18 years of experience in the areas of Finance, M&A, Sales and Operations. Prior to joining Surefire Local, Moser was Director of Finance at Socrata, a SaaS company based in Seattle, Washington. During his tenure, he was instrumental in helping the company raise over $40 million in capital and triple its revenue. He also held an executive sales position at TargusInfo (purchased by Neustar), where he gained significant expertise in the local digital marketing space. Dan earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Longwood University and his MBA from George Washington University.

About Surefire Local

Established in 2009, Surefire Local provides simple, accessible and cost-effective new customer acquisition products and services to help business owners reach their local customers more effectively. It has emerged as a top local marketing technology company and a top Google Premier Partner for home improvement businesses, medical practices and franchise owners. Large manufacturers like GAF, Renewal by Andersen, Wellborn Cabinets and Louisiana-Pacific also partner with Surefire Local to provide preferred local digital marketing services to their dealer and distributor networks. Surefire Local has been included on the Inc. 5000 List of Americas Fastest Growing Companies for three years in a row.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 14, 2017 / Further to the news release dated February 9, 2017, Kramer Capital Corp. (KRM-H.V) (the "Company" or "Kramer") is pleased to provide further details of its proposed acquisition of Sixty North Gold Mining Ltd. ("Sixty North") (formerly 1082138 BC Ltd.), and proposed financing. Sixty North holds the right to earn 80% of the Mon gold property (the "Mon Property") located in the Northwest Territories. The acquisition and financing will comprise the Company's qualifying transaction (the "Transaction"). Upon completion of the Transaction, the name of the Company will be changed to "Sixty North Gold Mines Ltd." or such other name as may be agreed between the parties, and the Company will carry on the business of mineral exploration and development.

The Mon Property

The Mon Property is located 45 kilometres north of Yellowknife and consists of 11 mining leases and two mineral claims. The property is located on public lands in the NWT, Canada. Mining Leases were obtained by converting pre-existing Mineral Claims. An annual lease fee is payable to the Northwest Territories, and in each instance, the fees are up to date and mineral rights are in good standing.

The Mon Property is held of record by Giauque Holdings Ltd. New Discovery Mines Ltd.("NDM") holds an option (the "Underlying Option") to acquire 100% interest in the Mon Property from Giauque Holdings Ltd., subject to a 2% net smelter royalty (the "Royalty"), by bringing the property into production by December 31, 2019. An advance Royalty payment of US$20,000 commences in January, 2017, payable within 30 days of the year end. Twenty percent (20%) of any advance Royalty payment may be deducted against future Royalty payments, commencing in the first year of commercial production.

Sixty North has an agreement to earn an 80% participating, 100% working interest (with NDM retaining a 20% carried interest in the property). In order to earn its interest Sixty North must:

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incur expenditures of $2,000,000 on or before the 12 month anniversary of December 30, 2016 (the "Approval Date") (to date Sixty North has made a total of over $1,020,000 in project expenditures); and incur minimum expenditures of $6,000,000 (inclusive of the initial $2,000,000 million above) on or before the third anniversary of the Approval Date.

In addition, Sixty North must maintain the Underlying Option, maintain the Mon property in good standing, and make the advance Royalty payment. In order to ensure that NDM's interest in the Mon Property is transferred to NDM (and then 80% of the property to Sixty North) Sixty North will need to bring the Mon Property into production by December 31, 2019.

A technical report (the "Report") has been completed on the property by David Dupre, P.Geo., an independent qualified person under NI 43-101, dated February 15, 2017. The Report will be reviewed by the TSXV analyst for compliance under NI 43-101 as part of the Transaction and will subsequently be filed on www.sedar.com under the Issuers name. The following excerpts with respect to the Mon Property have been taken from the technical report:

A number of gold-bearing quartz veins occur on the property. Only the A-Zone has seen significant exploration.

The Mon deposit is an Archean, turbidite-hosted, stratabound, non-stratiform quartz shear/vein deposit and as such has substantial potential. The deposit is described as an anticlinally-folded quartz vein, plunging to the south at around 20 to 40 degrees. The multi-ounce grades at the fold nose are consistent over the mined length of 75 meters (open to south), with lower grade gold values being found in the limbs of the structure.

The overall size, grade and form of the mineralization as well as its host rock assemblage is similar to the Discovery Mine (located 50 km to the north) where 1 million tons of ore were mined and 1 million ounces of gold were recovered between 1949 and 1969. The A-Zone appears to be a viable exploration target for a "Discovery Mine" type of deposit.

It is recommended that, initially, diamond drilling of the established trend should test below the old stopes, to a depth of 50 to 100 meters below the mined areas. The 2016 drilling program has already affirmed this geological premise for the controls of mineralization. Future drill targets should be immediately down-plunge of the high-grade fold hinge. It is believed that two to three set-ups, each with 4 to 5 100 to 200 m drill holes would assess this adequately. In addition, several large outcrop samples (panels) should be collected and analyzed.

Once the diamond drill program provide confirmation that the A-Zone can be extended below the mined stopes, then it is recommended that an underground exploration/development program be carried out, accessing the vein at depth for bulk sampling and the development of diamond drill platforms. The large sample of the vein by sub-drifting will allow for a most definitive assessment of grade, width, and continuity which is critical in high-grade vein deposits."

The report recommended a $635,000 drill program.

Sixty North has contracted for 2,000 meters of drilling on the Mon property to confirm the extension of the geologic model. To date, Sixty North has expended $367,000 in exploration expenditures, including 383 meters of drilling in five holes described in the technical report. In addition, Sixty North has identified and acquired, for the joint operation, $645,000 on mining equipment required for the recommended bulk sample.

Transaction Structure

The Transaction will proceed by way of a three cornered amalgamation, pursuant to which Sixty North will amalgamate with a wholly owned subsidiary of Kramer, and the securityholders of Sixty North will receive equivalent securities of Kramer on a one for one basis. The Transaction will be subject to the approval of the shareholders of Sixty North, which will be sought at a meeting of Sixty North shareholders.

Proposed Financing

Sixty North will arrange for the completion of a non-brokered private placement of subscription receipts (the "Subscription Receipts"). Sixty North intends to complete a financing for a minimum of $1,000,000 and up to $2,500,000 (the "Financing") prior to or concurrent with the closing of the Qualifying Transaction, with the final amount dependent on market conditions. The upper limit may be increased depending on market conditions.

Sixty North anticipates that, subject to market conditions, each Subscription Receipt will convert to units of Kramer concurrently with the closing of the Transaction. Pricing and terms of the units have not yet been determined. If the Transaction is not completed within 150 days of the closing of the private placement, the subscription funds will be returned to the subscribers, without interest.

The Company may pay finder's fees to certain registrants or eligible persons exempt from registration on a portion of the Financing. Proceeds of the Financing will be held in escrow pending closing of the Transaction.

Use of Proceeds

The net proceeds of the Financing will be used: (a) to fund the business plan of Kramer post completion of the Transaction, including completion of the current drilling program and, if warranted, the proposed bulk sample; (b) for Transaction expenses; and (c) for general working capital purposes.

Relationship Between Sixty North and NDM

Sixty North is the operator of the Mon Property during the earn-in period. NDM acts as the Manager of and is responsible for carrying out all exploration and work programs and for completing the expenditures on the property. As Manager, the NDM charges a management fee equal to 5% of all Expenditures made on the Mon Property. The Operator in consultation and with the assistance of the Manager, considers and adopts programs and budgets for the completion of expenditures for each contract year.

Upon Sixty North having exercised the earn-in right and acquired an 80% undivided interest in the property, Sixty North and NDM will enter into a formal joint venture agreement for the continued exploration and development of the Mon Property.

Management and Directors of Sixty North

Upon closing of the Transaction, all of the current directors and officers of Kramer will resign.

It is expected that Ronald Handford, Grant Block, John Campbell, and Ian Klassen will be appointed to the Resulting Issuer board at closing, with Mr. Campbell to be chair. Mr. Handford is expected to be named chief executive officer of the Resulting Issuer and Andriyko Herchak is expected to be named the chief financial officer and corporate secretary of the Resulting Issuer. The relevant experience of the incoming directors and officers is set out below:

John Campbell, MBA, CFA, CPA, has over 30 years of investment management experience as a securities analyst, investment banker, M&A specialist, and money manager with Camlin Asset Management Ltd., CWC Capital Ltd., Pemberton Securities and The Jim Pattison Group. Currently Mr. Campbell is Chairman and Co-founder of Triview Capital Ltd., a boutique investment firm that specializes in private investments.

Ronald L. Handford, P.Eng., B.A.Sc., MBA, has over 20 years of international experience as a mining and technology entrepreneur, executive, and advisor, including being the founding CEO of Yellowhead Mining Inc. (YMI.T) and Ouro Brasil Ltd., a former VSE-listed company; plus 15 years as an international mining project finance and corporate banker, including Barclays Bank and the International Finance Corporation in Washington D.C.; and 6 years as an engineer/project manager. He has led or assisted companies in raising close to $80 million in equity capital.

Grant Block, CPA, CA, CMA, CPA (Nevada) is a Managing Partner at Davidson & Company LLP. Grant is a UBC graduate, completing his CA and CMA in 1985 with a national firm. Following a tour of duty in industry with Teck (formerly known as Teck Cominco), he returned to public practice, joining Davidson & Company LLP in 1989. He has since earned his CPA (Nevada) and has taken the Canadian Securities course.

Ian M. Klassen, B.A. (Hons), has 25 years of experience in public company management, public relations, government affairs and entrepreneurialism. He has extensive experience in public company administration, finance, government/legislative policy, media relationship strategies and project management. He is CEO of GMV Minerals Inc. (GMV.V) and Grand Portage Resources Ltd. (GPG.V).

Andriyko Herchak, B.Comm., CPA, CA, has over 20 years' experience in senior leadership roles with publicly traded companies. He was formerly the Chief Financial Officer of Hathor Exploration (sold to Rio Tinto for $654 million in cash in 2012) and the Chief Financial officer of NexGen Energy. During his tenure as CFO, both of these companies had world class mineral discoveries and raised collectively over $130 million in equity financings.

Management of NDM

NDM is the vendor of the Mon Property and manager of the exploration and development programs. NDM is owned and operated by David R. Webb and Gerry V. Hess. The Corporation expects NDM will have an important role in the exploration and, if warranted, development of the Mon Property.

Dr. Dave R. Webb, Ph.D., P.Geol., P.Eng., Director, focused his Ph.D. on gold mineralization in the Yellowknife Greenstone Belt. Dr. Webb subsequently is credited with discovering both the largest granitic hosted gold deposit in the Northwest Territories, and the largest gold deposit in the Yellowknife Greenstone Belt in the past 30 years. He served as president and director of Tyhee Gold Corp. where he and his team developed a high-grade gold deposit into production - Mongolia's first hard rock gold mine. He developed the Mon Gold Mine into the most recently permitted gold mine in the Yellowknife Gold Belt, shutting down in 1997 due to declining gold prices. Recently he has been a Qualified Person acting for GMV Minerals Inc.

Gerry V. Hess, President, is a metal worker, miner, superintendent and manager and who has transitioned into mine contracting and development. He is a former shift boss and mine captain at Giant Yellowknife Mine, and the Con Mine, and acting mine manager at Ptarmigan Mine, all located in Yellowknife. He co-founded Germac Contracting and acquired a lease to mine the Mon Gold Mine in Yellowknife, starting operations at this greenfield project at 100 tpd. Mr, Hess also contracted for development work at the Yellowknife Gold Project for Tyhee Gold Corp.

Summary Financial Information of Sixty North

Sixty North is a private company incorporated under the laws of British Columbia on July 7, 2016. Sixty North's financial statements for the period from incorporation through fiscal year end October 31, 2016 were audited by Manning Elliott LLP.

Sixty North incurred a net loss and deficit of $162,690 for the period ended October 31, 2016, that has been funded by the issuance of equity.

Selected information for the period ended: October 31, 2016



Total revenues $ nil Net loss and Comprehensive Loss:

$162,690 Loss per-share (basic and diluted)

$(0.01) Working capital

$1,073,720 Total assets

$1,779,035 Exploration and Evaluation Assets

$521,410 Total long-term financial liabilities

$ nil



As of the date of this news release, Sixty North has 34,020,000 common shares outstanding, plus 10,238,500 warrants and 250,000 options.

Dr. David Webb, P.Geo., P.Eng., Q.P. as defined in NI 43-101 and has reviewed has approved its the technical information relating to the Mon Property contained in this news release. Dr. Webb is an owner of the vendor of the Mon Property, and holds 400,000 common shares of Sixty North.

In accordance with the policies of the exchange, the Kramer shares are currently halted from trading and will remain halted until further notice.

Further Information

If and when a definitive agreement between Sixty North and Kramer is executed, the Company will issue a subsequent press release in accordance with the policies of the Exchange containing details of the definitive agreement and additional terms of the Transaction.

All information provided in this press release related to Sixty North has been provided by management of Sixty North and has not been independently verified by management of Kramer.

Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or filing statement to be prepared in connection with the Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of a capital pool company should be considered highly speculative.

For Further Information, Please Contact:

Kramer Capital Corp.

Richard Graham, Director

Telephone: (604) 689-1428

Cautionary statements

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the proposal to complete the Transaction and associated transactions, including statements regarding the terms and conditions of the Transaction, the Kramer Financing, and the use of proceeds of the Kramer Financing. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements depending on, among other things, the risks that the parties will not proceed with the Transaction, the Kramer Financing and associated transactions, that the ultimate terms of the Transaction, Kramer Financing and associated transactions will differ from those that currently are contemplated, and that the Transaction, the Kramer Financing and associated transactions will not be successfully completed for any reason (including the failure to obtain the required approvals or clearances from regulatory authorities). The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this release. The Corporation undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third-parties in respect of the Corporation, Sixty North, their securities, or their respective financial or operating results, as applicable.

Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions including, but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and, if required by the Exchange policies, majority of the minority shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.

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.

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the Transaction and has neither approved or disapproved the contents of this press release.

The common shares have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended and may not be offered or sold in the United States without registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirement. 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 the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Not for distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States.

SOURCE: Kramer Capital Corp.
iTimeKeep does exactly what it promises: allows our attorneys to enter their time anywhere, anytime.

Bellefield Systems, LLC, the leader in mobile and anywhere time entry solutions for firms of all sizes, announced that Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog LLP, one of North Carolinas largest litigation firms, has chosen Bellefields iTimeKeep as its firm-wide mobile time entry solution.

Our attorneys work across the state and around the clock, said Barry Pennell, Executive Director with Cranfill, Sumner & Hartzog. We needed to make it easy for them to enter their time securely and have it link instantly with our systems. iTimeKeep takes care of all three of those requirements  simple, secure, instant.

Pennell further stated, iTimeKeep does exactly what it promises: allows our attorneys to enter their time anywhere, anytime. Weve had iTimeKeep embraced by attorneys across the firm, and I think thats in no small part due to Bellefield making the onboarding and training process so simple, fast, and easy.

When a firm like Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog recognizes the fundamental changes coming to the legal industry with increased dependence on mobile and attention to revenue every step of the way, its an honor for our team and reinforcement that our hyperfocus on improving timekeeping is exactly what top firms want and need, stated Gabriela Isturiz, President & CEO of Bellefield Systems. iTimeKeep continues to be the clear leader in mobile and anywhere timekeeping, as firms all over the world are looking for a way to give their professionals a solution that keeps up with them, not limits them.

After launching in 2012, iTimeKeep quickly became the most-widely used mobile time entry solution for attorneys. Today, Bellefield continues its relentless commitment to maintaining iTimeKeeps simplicity  allowing attorneys and other professionals to work the way they want to work, any time, anywhere and any way through its Time Entry as a Service Model (TEaaS). The TEaaS model enables firms and their users to be up and running in a few hours without taxing the resources of the law firm with costly and complex hardware and software implementations. Bellefields TEaaS model is transforming the way the modern professional services firm works.

About Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog

Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog LLP (CSH Law) attorneys serve clients statewide and beyond from offices in Raleigh, Charlotte, and Wilmington. Building on more than two decades of representing clients in federal and state courts in NC, CSH Law is redefining the relationship between client and law firm by delivering new levels of client service, information, and innovation. The firm handles cases in 26 practice areas, including alternative dispute resolution, aviation law, business law, civil litigation, commercial litigation, criminal defense, cyber liability and privacy, elder, employment law, family law, insurance law, intellectual property, land condemnation & eminent domain, medical malpractice, premises liability, professional liability, and workers compensation. For more information, visit http://www.cshlaw.com.

About Bellefield Systems & iTimeKeep

Bellefield is committed to helping lawyers improve their work lives by developing innovative and intuitive applications that solve real-world challenges. Bellefields flagship product iTimeKeep is built with a focus on three simple aims: security, simplicity, and increased revenue for firms. This game-changing mobile application simplifies contemporaneous time entry while eliminating the burdens of complicated and invasive time capture applications. It ranks #1 as the most adopted Mobile Time Entry solution for attorneys for the fourth consecutive year. Founded by software veterans Gabriela Isturiz, Daniel Garcia, and John Kuntz, Bellefield is an independent, privately held company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

For more information, please visit http://www.Bellefield.com.
This movement has now garnered 1.766 million pledges for mentoring relationships (on the way to 2 million) by Million Women Mentors (MWM), launched January 8, 2014 by STEMconnector as they seized upon the need to build more girls and women in STEM careers. There are 18 Senators scheduled to join during Womens History Month to recognize the efforts of the MWM movement. STEM jobs provide pay equity, yet only 26% of STEM workers are women. The Senate event salutes the movement with private sector and public sector participation including 87 organizations nationally, 40 state teams and honorary chairs including several Governors and 20 Lt Governors.

Those joining the Salute Luncheon in support of the MWM program include: NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand; MN Senator Amy Klobuchar; CO Senator Michael Bennet; TN Senator Bob Corker; MI Senator Debbie Stabenow; HI Senator Maize Hirono; NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen; AR Senator John Boozman; PA Senator Bob Casey; NJ Senator Cory Booker; FL Senator Marco Rubio; NH Senator Maggie Hassan; OR Senator Jeff Merkley; MD Senator Chris Van Hollen; DE Senator Chris Coons; ND Senator Heidi Heitkamp ; CA Senator Kamala Harris and others. Expected to join is IA Senator Joni Ernst.

National Lt Governors Association Chair and Governor-Elect, Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds of Iowa is the Honorary Chair of MWM for the States said, I am so proud to serve MWM for Iowa and the United States, as STEM is a driving force behind economic growth, stability and educational success. Governor Terry McAuliffe officially launched MWM in VA and at the launch noted, I am proud to be the first governor to serve as the Honorary Chair for Million Women Mentors effort.

Congress and public officials in our states recognize the importance of moving the needle for opportunities for women and girls toward great jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), said Edie Fraser, CEO of STEMconnector and MWM. We are proving that we can advance women and girls for great careers through mentoring and support by changing the career and jobs opportunities for millions.

Did you know:



71% of American jobs in 2018 will require STEM skills.

STEM jobs pay 92 cents on a dollar for women and 96 cents for tech jobs.

Interest in STEM for girls upon graduation has been declining to 15.6% today vs. 44% of boys; and only 4% of 368,000 girls who plan to pursue STEM said a mentor encouraged them, according to research from My College Options.

Employees who mentored were promoted six times more often than their peers who did not mentor (Wharton Study).

Mentors are needed to impact these numbers. With MWM, mentors and mentees commit to a minimum of 20 hours through a variety of platforms for the purpose of impacting their career paths. Pledges are significant with our companies, organizations and states as they are converted to mentoring relationship.

Recent state pledges include efforts from TN, IA, IL, NM, MA, AL and other states along with a newly formed Native American Council who pledged 50,000. We have received several hundred thousand pledges from a variety of different partner organizations. Corporate pledges and state pledges are in the offing to get MWM to 2 million by end of the year. Our highest pledge to date is University of Iowa with 49 state program commitments and 300,000 pledges followed by Jason Learning and Science Olympiad. We are currently at 1.766 million pledges with over 810,895 actualized pledges to date!

MWM leads a national call to action with many corporate sponsors. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has contributed by building the web site, MillionWomenMentors.org along with their counted pledges of 55,000. Other supporters of the movement include PepsiCo, BP, Cisco Systems, Walmart, Deloitte, Johnson & Johnson, Credit Suisse, Sprint, Cigna, Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Carnival, Glenmede and an additional 50 firms including women entrepreneur firms such as GravityPro, Pinnacle Group, TechnaLink, TiViTz, MIND Research and over 30 others.

We encourage you to participate by visiting MillionWomenMentors.org and pledge. Follow us on Twitter with more than 23 million impressions @MillionWMentors.

About Million Women Mentors(MWM)

Million Women Mentors is a massive movement, supporting the engagement of millions of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) mentors (female and male) to increase the interest and confidence of girls and women to persist and succeed in STEM programs and careers. MWM is an initiative of STEMconnector in collaboration with over 87 partners reaching over 30 million girls and women, 60 corporate sponsors, and 40 state leadership teams. MillionWomenMentors.org

About STEMconnector

STEMconnector is a consortium of companies, associations, societies, policy organizations, government entities, universities and academic institutions concerned with STEM education and the future of human capital. With several products and services, STEMconnector is both a resource and a service, designed to link all things STEM. STEMconnectors network includes organizations at the global, national, state and local levels. STEMconnector focuses on the STEM workforce and jobs, with a particular emphasis on diversity and women. Our work spans the entire pipeline (Kindergarten to Jobs) and how STEM education experiences translate into careers. To learn more, visit http://www.STEMconnector.org

Media Contacts:

Michael DuBois

STEMconnector

michael.dubois(at)STEMconnector(dot)org

202-296-3118

Jordan Bullock

STEMconnector

jordan.bullock(at)STEMconnector(dot)org

202-304-1960
GPMI, a manufacturing and marketing support company serving various consumer packaged goods sectors, announces the addition of Chuck Tornabene as the new Chief Operating Officer.

Since its establishment over 27 years ago, GPMI has been fully committed to support its customers with new innovating products and creative marketing ideas which includes the successful addition of the Four Peaks brand found today in many retail chains," says Yarron Bendor, president. The success of that brand extension lead the company on a search to find a seasoned leader that could support the growth of the company through additional product offerings within the automotive aftermarket category.

As of February, 1st 2017 Mr. Chuck Tornabene joined GPMI as its Chief Operating Officer (COO). Chuck brings over 30 years of experience as executive with leading Companies within the industry including his executive rolls with Turtle Wax, Qualitor and Pylon.

An aggressive growth and expansion goal has been set for the company under Tornabene including the launch of a premium branded line of innovative appearance chemicals and new lines of branded car accessories. I am extremely excited with the move to GPMI Company, Tornabene indicated, because of its long history and strong reputation throughout the automotive aftermarket industry. He continues, GPMIs innovation of the non-woven pre-moistened towel business was my first introduction to the company, and that vision for forward-thinking is the vein where I plan to continue expansion alongside Yarron to help elevate the company to its next phase of success.

Tornabenes leadership includes use of his prior marketing, acquisition, and product development experience spanning decades to help more than tripling sales while at Turtle Wax Inc, and doubling sales at Qualitor/Pylon. "Along with the manufacturing, marketing, and sales teams throughout the GPMI team, we envision an aggressive rollout of additional products as well as additional services offered to existing and future customers in our product development and manufacturing teams with this new addition to our executive team, says Leslie Bendor, Director of Marketing.

"I am honored to represent a brand with such a strong history and reputation," comments Tornabene. "The Four Peaks brand was a testament to what this team can do to bring quality products to the marketplace and fill a void. But Four Peaks is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the GPMI brand brings to the table and will continue to bring to both consumers and other brands in the future."

About GPMI

For over 27 years, GPMI has been supporting leading national brands of consumer products in the areas of product development, manufacturing, engineering, supply chain and logistics, and marketing support services. In addition, the company has launched its own line of automotive aftermarket care products, Four Peaks. GPMI pioneered the expansion of pre-moistened wipes for home, laundry, car, personal, and other care categories. For more information on GPMI please see http://www.GPMICompany.com.
Discovery Health Partners Logo

LaunchPoint division Discovery Health Partners, a provider of payment integrity and population risk management solutions for healthcare payers, added 16 clients in 2016 for its Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) Validation solution. MSP Validation, honored two years in a row as a top 100 finalist in the Chicago Innovation Awards, helps Medicare Advantage plans recoup millions of dollars to their bottom lines by ensuring the accuracy of healthcare premiums paid by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for members with other health insurance. In the last three years, Discovery has restored more than $150 million in underpaid premiums for its MSP Validation clients.

SummaCares experience with the Discovery team was an award-winning experience as their staff was well-trained and professional, provided great customer service, and most of all improved our financials through their MSP Validation process, said Rick Alexsonshk, Manager, Financial Reconciliation, SummaCare, a regional health plan offering a full range of health insurance services. It was a totally enjoyable and profitable experience that I would recommend to other health plans!

MSP Validation combines the expertise of healthcare payment integrity experts and powerful MSP software residing on Discoverys Healthcare Analytics Platform. Our proven process covers identification of open MSP records, validation of primacy, ECRS submissions, response monitoring, and premium reconciliation, said Paul Vosters, Discovery President. Not only does it deliver near-perfect premium restoration success within a matter of months, it also enables clients to correct inaccurate eligibility information so they receive correct premiums and pay claims correctly in the future.

Discovery Health Partners is the market leader in MSP Validation, with more than 35 national and regional health plans on its client roster, representing a third of all Medicare Advantage plans with at least 5,000 lives. New clients in 2016 include Commonwealth Care, Health Alliance Plan of Michigan, Health First Health Plan, Vantage Health, and four Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans, among others. In Q1 of 2017, Discovery added one of the top 5 health plans in the nation to its roster of MSP Validation clients.

The MSP Validation solution is typically delivered as an outsourced business process with Discovery experts managing the entire process on behalf of the client. It is often provided as a supplemental offering that complements clients existing efforts to help restore more. Clients can also subscribe to the service as cloud-based software to manage the MSP process in-house, with their own staff. Many choose to take over ongoing maintenance after Discovery manages the initial restoration effort.

About Discovery Health Partners

Discovery Health Partners, a division of LaunchPoint, offers payment and revenue integrity and risk management solutions that help health payers improve revenue, avoid costs, and influence member well-being. We offer a unique combination of deep healthcare expertise and analytics-powered technology solutions to help our clients improve operational efficiency, achieve financial integrity, and generate measurable results. More information about our solutions including Coordination of Benefits, Eligibility, Medicare Secondary Payer Validation and Subrogation is available at http://www.discoveryhealthpartners.com.
Where Creativity Cures AGT is extremely optimistic that we can significantly improve the quality of life for HIV-positive individuals, encourage more infected persons to seek care,... and in the long term, broaden access to highly-effective treatment options.

American Gene Technologies International Inc. (AGT)  announced today its collaboration with GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB: GOVX) for the conduct of a Phase 1 clinical trial investigating AGTs viral vector technology as a functional cure for HIV infection.

AGT is preparing an investigational new drug application (IND) to conduct a Phase 1 clinical study with HIV-positive individuals. The study will test the safety and feasibility of genetically modified CD4+ T cells generated using AGTs proprietary lentiviral vector technology. Pursuant to the collaboration agreement, GeoVax will provide AGT with its MVA-VLP HIV vaccine for use in the study. T cells obtained from vaccinated individuals will be programmed by AGTs lentivirus vector and infused back into the study participants as a therapeutic cell product.

The overall goal of the program is to develop a functional cure for HIV infection. The primary objectives of the trial will be to assess the safety of the therapy; secondary objectives will be to assess immune responses and changes in viral status as potential measures for treatment impact.

Jeff Galvin, AGTs CEO commented, HIV/AIDS continues to be a global epidemic that exacts an enormous toll on individuals, their families, and society. The burdens and costs imposed on individuals are substantial. Even with the existence of highly active antiretroviral therapy, access to treatment is not assured, especially in developing countries. AGT is extremely optimistic that we can significantly improve the quality of life for HIV-positive individuals, encourage more infected persons to seek care, reduce individual and societal burden, and in the long term, broaden access to highly-effective treatment options.

Mr. Galvin continued, We have assembled a highly-recognized team of HIV scientists and advisors that give us strong confidence in this upcoming trial. AGT has over a decade of experience refining a comprehensive, accelerated development process for vectors utilizing the significant proprietary enhancements within our lentiviral vector platform. Our unique technologies enable complex vectors that provide treatments for complex conditions.

Robert McNally, PhD, GeoVaxs President and CEO, commented, We are pleased to be a part of this program with AGT and look forward to collaborating with them on this clinical trial. In a previous Phase 1 clinical trial, we demonstrated that our vaccine can potently stimulate production of CD4+ T cells in HIV-positive individuals  the intended use of the MVA-VLP HIV vaccine in the proposed AGT study. Our vaccine also has a well-documented safety profile in humans.

About GeoVax

GeoVax Labs, Inc., is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing human vaccines against infectious diseases using its Modified Vaccinia Ankara-Virus Like Particle (MVA-VLP) vaccine platform. The Companys development programs are focused on preventive vaccines against HIV, Zika Virus, hemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, and Lassa), and malaria, as well as therapeutic vaccines for chronic Hepatitis B infections and cancers. GeoVaxs vaccine platform supports in vivo production of non-infectious VLPs from the cells of the very person receiving the vaccine, mimicking a natural infection, stimulating both the humoral and cellular arms of the immune system to recognize, prevent, and control the target infection. For more information, visit http://www.geovax.com.

About American Gene Technologies International Inc.

American Gene Technologies International Inc. (AGT), http://www.americangene.com, is an emerging gene technology company with a broad, robust lentiviral delivery platform evolved over ten years of advanced development. The anticipated HIV clinical trial will transition AGT from a pre-clinical to clinical-stage company. AGT has developed an extensive patent portfolio surrounding its lentiviral platform innovations that accelerate the development of a wide variety of drug candidates. This platform allows AGT to pursue exciting clinical cures in large and orphan indications, complex diseases, and monogenic disorders. AGTs proprietary platform technologies provide reusable components that allow AGT and its collaborators to create new drugs in a fraction of the time of traditional drug development processes and other drug companies. For more information, visit http://www.americangene.com.

Contact:

Shannah Koss

Chief Strategy Officer

skoss(at)americangene(dot)com

301-337-2275
Today, the U.S. Department of Education released a new application for states to use in developing their accountability plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act. The application does not require stakeholder engagement, eliminating a key provision aimed at ensuring community participation in the accountability process for ESSA. Guidelines under the Obama Administration required that states conduct timely and meaningful engagement in the development of state accountability plans. Trump does away with that required engagement under the new application.

"Over 50 percent of our students in the K-12 public school system are students of color," said LULAC National President Roger C. Rocha, Jr. "Our families care deeply about accountability and oversight issues because we want to ensure that Latino students receive the best quality education. Not consulting with diverse stakeholders, civil rights groups, educators, and others when developing state accountability plans shuts out important feedback and is a disservice to the accountability process."

Guidelines under the Obama administration required engagement with a comprehensive list of stakeholders including school districts, civil rights groups, employers, and institutions of higher education. The newly released application says that states "may" but "are not required" to submit documentation detailing how they have engaged stakeholders in the process. The application changes come on the heels of a congressional vote to strike down Obama-era rules developed last year. Congress voted to invoke its authority under the Congressional Review Act to nullify Obama's guidelines.

"LULAC has been working in multiple states to inform the community about the new education law and ensure that our community is involved in any stakeholder discussions," said Rocha. "The new application does not make engagement a priority, and we are concerned that the accountability plans will not reflect the priorities or address the needs and concerns of our families. We encourage everyone to remain vigilant and hold states accountable to engaging in stakeholder outreach to create a quality education system for all students.
9th Annual SHOUT! For Women Veteran Artists Exhibition SHOUT! 2017 Women Veteran Artists Exhibition seeks to illuminate the experiences of women veterans and service members as they begin and end their military service through the intersections of art, community, health, and healing.

Swords to Plowshares is proud to present the 9th annual SHOUT! For Women Veteran Artists Exhibition. This annual event will take place March 16, 2017 in San Francisco and is generously hosted by our community partners at Zendesk. This years exhibition will feature the work of five artists on the theme of Self & Transition. SHOUT! 2017 Women Veteran Artists Exhibition seeks to illuminate the experiences of women veterans and service members as they begin and end their military service through the intersections of art, community, health, and healing.

The five artists hail from across the country and will present their unique collections at the free to attend event. Trish Brownlees media altered photographs are printed on handmade paper created from old military uniforms. Stina Olivers triptych is comprised of three metal prints with dramatically staged photographs that represent life before, during and after trauma. Teri McCans abstract watercolor paintings on canvas use negative space to imply emptiness and incompleteness. Barbara Lees series of mono prints depict the possibilities of women and engage the viewer in the process of self discovery. Bert Leavertons unique photos feature photography of carefully constructed small scale models that recreate scenes from her time in Iraq.

During the exhibition, the artists will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Rachael Myrow of KQED to discuss the intention of their work, their creative process, and how they military experience informs their work.

9th Annual SHOUT! 2017 Women Veteran Artists Exhibition

Thursday, March, 16; 6:00-8:00 PM

Zendesk, 1019 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Please join us for an evening exploring the intersection of art, healing and the underrepresented voices of women in the military. This community event is free and was made possible with the support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit http://www.calhum.org.

About Swords to Plowshares:

Founded in 1974, Swords to Plowshares is a community-based not-for-profit organization that provides case management, mental health assessment and referral, rapid re-housing and eviction prevention services, employment and training, supportive housing, and legal benefits assistance for low-income, homeless and at-risk veterans in the San Francisco Bay Area. Swords to Plowshares promotes and protects the rights of veterans through advocacy, public education, and partnerships with local, state and national entities. Learn more about the work of Swords to Plowshares, and ways in which you can help, by visiting our website at http://www.stp-sf.org.
Spinal Simplicity Logo

Spinal Simplicity, a medical device company developing innovative solutions to treat complex spinal and orthopedic surgical problems, announces Gary Henley has agreed to serve as an Advisor and will join the Companys Board of Managers.

Gary Henley is an accomplished medical device executive with over 34 years of experience in the orthopedic industry. Most recently, Mr. Henley served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of United Orthopedic Group from 2011 to 2014. Prior to United Orthopedic Group, Mr. Henley served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Wright Medical Group, Inc. from 2006 to 2011. Mr. Henley also spent nine years at Orthofix International N.V. as President of its Americas Division from 1997 through 2006. Early in his career, Mr. Henley successfully created Cecorp, Inc., a surgical visualization pioneer in the arthroscopic and endoscopic markets and then sold the company to Smith & Nephew. After the sale in 1987, Mr. Henley served as President of Smith & Nephews Endoscopy Video Division until 1996. Mr. Henley has significant board experience, including Board Chairman of OrthoAlign, with similar roles at Orchid Orthopedic Solutions, Hutchinson Technology, Wright Medical Group, Innovative Spinal Technologies, and BioFuse Medical.

Todd Moseley, CEO of Spinal Simplicity said, Garys decision to join Spinal Simplicity [as an Advisor and Member of our Board of Managers] reinforces our position that our innovative technology in the orthopedic and spine markets will bring about sweeping enhancements to the treatment options available to patients. Gary has successfully orchestrated transactions and built critical mass within companies that have dominated the spinal and orthopedic markets. Spinal Simplicity will benefit greatly from the industry expertise and healthcare-related innovations that have been the hallmark of Garys career. The fact that we can tap into Garys experience as we bring the Minuteman G3-R to the minimally-invasive spine market will truly change the landscape of posterior supplemental fusion and fixation. Equally critical is the fact that Garys expertise in the extremities space will be invaluable to the company during development of the Wolffs LawTM plating technology.

Mr. Henley added, "I am excited about joining Spinal Simplicity's Board. I think they have some very compelling technology in their products that will bring better clinical outcomes for patients, while also reducing the cost of doing certain procedures. It is going to be fun being part of the team that is bringing these innovative products to market."

Spinal Simplicitys Minuteman family of sterile packed, posterior, non-pedicle supplemental fusion and fixation devices for use in the non-cervical spine (T1-S1) provide an alternative to traditional fixation, such as pedicle screws. The Minuteman family of devices consists of a plating system intended for supplemental fusion in patients with degenerative disc disease, spondylolisthesis, trauma and tumor.

Spinal Simplicity will be exhibiting at the 2017 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons meeting in San Diego, booth 659.

About Spinal Simplicity

Spinal Simplicity, LLC, headquartered in Overland Park, KS, is dedicated to the creation of simple solutions for the treatment of complex spinal and orthopedic problems. Spinal Simplicity has regulatory clearance for the Minuteman system in the US, Europe and Canada. Our vision is to be the global leader in innovative, simplified surgical solutions, while delivering uncompromising quality. For more information, please visit http://www.spinalsimplicity.com
The session will cover strategies for success, best practices and an in-depth conversation on sustainability in the next decade.

Three leading companiesInterface, Patagonia and Unileverare making sustainability the cornerstone of their brands and are shaping the way that sustainable business is conducted all over the world. The International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP) is proud to present a webinar on Thursday, April 6th, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET featuring executives from each of these industry giants as they explore how their companies have overcome old ways of thinking and a business as usual mindset. ISSP is offering the webinar to all interested participants - both members and non-members - at no cost.

The webinar discussion will be moderated by ISSP Board Member Tad Radzinski, ISSP-CSP, LEED AP, PE, SFP, who is President of Sustainable Solutions Corporation.

In this webinar, sustainability leaders from the Big 3 in sustainability will discuss the obstacles they have faced in making sustainability the norm. They will also share the innovative, exciting solutions that have helped them to not only succeed, but to triumph  driving a spirit of optimism even in these uncertain times. The session will cover strategies for success, best practices, and an in-depth conversation on sustainability in the next decade.

Webinar participants will discover insider insights about the journeys of these three leading sustainable companies, as well as an exclusive look at how they made sustainability core to their corporate DNA and a critical mechanism to drive product innovation. Webinar participants will also hear the presenters perspectives on the next decade of sustainability, gaining an understanding of the market direction and business climate.

Commenting on the companies to be featured in the webinar, moderator Tad Radzinski says, They have each made lasting commitments to creating positive impacts on the world, our environment, and our communities while generating revenue, reimagining their brands, and emerging as leaders in the commercial sphere.

About the Presenters

Rick Ridgeway  Patagonia, Inc. Rick is Patagonias Vice President of Public Engagement and represents and promotes the companys core values with external stakeholders. In this role he is one of Patagonias key spokespersons in all its global markets. During his 12-year tenure at the company he has developed environmental and sustainability initiatives including the Footprint Chronicles and Worn Wear. He also was founding chairman of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, today the largest apparel, footwear and home textile trade organization in the world.

Erin Meezan  Interface, Inc. As Chief Sustainability Officer, Erin gives voice to Interfaces conscience, ensuring that strategy and goals are in sync with its aggressive sustainability vision established more than 20 years ago. Today, Interface has evolved its thinking to go beyond doing less harm to creating positive impacts, not just for Interface and the flooring industry, but for the world at large. Erin led the company to unveil a new mission in 2016  Climate Take Back, tackling the single biggest threat facing humanity: global climate change. This mission is focused on creating a path for Interface and others to reverse global warming, not just reduce carbon emissions.

John Tran  Unilever. John is Unilevers Manager of Sustainable Living, North America. He joined the company in 2015 and is responsible for the shape and implementation of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan and supports the organizations journey towards zero waste to landfill. John also chairs Unilever PRIDE, the companys business resource group for LGBTQ employees and allies. Prior to joining Unilever, John held various roles in sustainable sourcing and procurement at Campbell Soup Company based in Camden, New Jersey.

About the Moderator

Tad Radzinski, ISSP-CSP, LEED AP, PE, SFP  Sustainable Solutions Corporation. With over 30 years of practical experience, Tad Radzinski is a leading expert in corporate responsibility and environmental management. Tad, co-founder and president of Sustainable Solutions Corporation, delivers consultative services to companies in a wide range of global industries. Tad is additionally co-founder of and Certification Officer at GreenCircle Certified, LLC, providing third-party verification of environmental claims and ensuring transparency in the green marketplace.

Webinar Registration

The webinar Looking Into the Future with Sustainabilitys Big 3: Interface, Patagonia and Unilever will be presented on Thursday, April 6th, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET. There is no charge to attend. If you are unable to attend live, please also register to receive a link to the recording. To sign up, go to http://bit.ly/2mBMy8N. Upon registering, participants will receive further instructions on how to login.

About ISSP

The International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP) is the world's leading professional association for sustainability professionals. ISSP is a member-driven organization committed to moving the profession of sustainability forward by leading the design and delivery of the ISSP Sustainability Professional Certifications, and by building strong networks and communities of practice. Webinars, online courses, sustainability professionals body of knowledge, special reports, resource directories, and salary surveys are just a sampling of the rich content offered to members. Formed in 2007, ISSP boasts almost 1000 members from every region of the world. For more information about ISSP, please visit http://www.sustainabilityprofessionals.org.
Ajay Menendez, a 30-year IT security veteran, is SecureSet Academy's Hunt Analyst Program Director.

SecureSet Academy today announced the May launch of its 12-week Hunt Analyst Bootcamp  a response to a shift in cybersecurity practices that requires unique new skill sets to detect and trap hackers.

SecureSet Academy is the first private educator in the US to develop comprehensive, accelerated cybersecurity programs. Partnerships with top-tier industry employers ensure environment-ready skills and, to date, a 100% job placement rate for its graduates. Now the Academy adds a program focused on fast-tracking candidates to a new kind of role: the hunt analyst.

Hunt analysts are creative data sleuths who work alongside security engineers and other technical roles to analyze IT environment activity, find areas of vulnerability and set traps for hackers who try to compromise sensitive corporate and government systems.

Theres a paradigm shift to offensive security that cuts down the time required to detect and respond to hackers, said Hunt Analyst Program Director Ajay Menendez, a 30-year IT security veteran. Hunt analysts leverage research and analytical skills  which you find across math, social science, and business disciplines  and apply creative, lateral thinking to catch things that purely technical personnel and traditional methodology might miss.

Up until now, there was no complete, end-to-end career-launch education for the hunt analyst role, added Bret Fund, founder of SecureSet Academy. Our goal is to offer the fastest, most complete balance of technical and analytical training required to enable this dynamic new methodology.

SecureSet Academys Hunt Analyst Bootcamp begins May 1 at its Denver campus. Prospective students interested in learning more about the hunt analyst role, training requirements and salary range are encouraged to contact Erich Hartnett directly via email (erich(at)secureset(dot)com) or at 800.445.0024, ext. 709.

About SecureSet Academy

SecureSet Academy offers the first bootcamp-style, comprehensive cybersecurity education programs in the U.S.  and the fastest route to entry-level careers in the field. The Academy was launched in response to the global shortfall of cybersecurity professionals who are needed to meet the rise in sophisticated threats worldwide.

SecureSet Academy compresses the time required to achieve necessary skills and certifications from years to months. This immersive, hands-on education ensures skills that are immediately applicable in working cybersecurity environments  100% of the Academys graduates have received job offers to date. SecureSet Academy has campuses in Denver, Colorado Springs, and will soon launch in Tampa. For more information, please visit http://www.securesetacademy.com.

# # #
Embedded core technology in LTE base station We have successfully introduced the LTE-in-a-Box solution to our network. The new embedded EPC gives us the ability to deploy a full-outdoor LTE network directly on the tower.

Telrad Networks, a global provider of innovative LTE telecom solutions, today announced the launch of the BreezeCOMPACT LTE-In-a-box product designed to simplify fixed LTE network operations, providing uncompromised performance without the need for an additional expensive LTE Core.

LTE-in-a-Box  Embedded EPC Launch

The new LTE-in-a-Box solution integrates the core network, also called Evolved Packet Core (EPC), directly into the base station hardware, offering an all-in-one LTE solution or LTE-in-a-Box. With the deployment of the unique BreezeCOMPACT LTE base stations, the operator gains an LTE-Advanced 4Tx/4Rx radio, LTE core and network management all from one, all-outdoor, extremely compact unit. The radio supports the 3.3-3.8 GHz bands, including the CBRS band 3.55-3.7 GHz in the US.

The system is addressing some of the price and network size challenges that operators often face  where pricier solutions designed specifically for larger network operators are not viable. Telrad is determined to offer a solution that enables both small and large operators to deploy affordable LTE. The LTE-in-a-Box design not only reduces the cost of network deployments, but also delivers a high level of flexibility, placing the core intelligence where it is needed most.

The embedded EPC solution is:



Best fit for fixed networks services  QoS and flexible networking topologies

WiFi-like simplicity ("Core-less") for fast deployment

Special EPC HW Acceleration technology for uncompromised performance

Maximized profit  No expensive core for small networks

Integrated Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF)

Authentication with integrated HSS or AAA Radius Server

Telrads LTE-in-a-Box will help operators effectively manage their growing subscriber base by providing superior features for any size network or business model scenario, including residential and enterprise customers.

Successful LTE-in-a-Box Deployment

One of the first Telrad customers in North America to successfully integrate the LTE-in-a-Box embedded EPC to their network is Skywerx Internet Services located in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Justin Davis, Founder and COO of SkyWerx stated, We have successfully introduced the LTE-in-a-Box solution to our network. The new embedded EPC gives us the ability to deploy a full-outdoor LTE network directly on the tower. This

is a very cost-effective solution  especially in the rural areas we serve. Telrad has been a great partner, and with continued innovative technology launches such as this, our business will reap the flexibility and cost benefits that they deliver.

Telrad End-to-End Fixed LTE

Telrad has designed an LTE solution that is tailored to the needs and business model of fixed broadband operators, said Mark Altshuller, chief technology officer of Telrad. Our new LTE-in-a-Box offers operators the flexibility they need to deploy efficient and reliable networks. Also, our system meets certain criteria that other solutions lack, including Layer-2 support for business end users and the ability to start with smaller LTE networks. Our solution is equal opportunity and is finally making LTE accessible to all operators  regardless of their size.

The end-to-end solution offers several differentiating features, including:



Layer 2 functionality, enabling operators to properly serve business customers with the features they need

Standards-based product which saves money and future-proofs the network

Flexibility in architecture options giving operators more control of costs and growth

Software defined 4x4 radio which extends the life cycle of product with software-only upgrades

We are proud to announce our new embedded EPC at this years WISPAmerica show, commented Chris Daniels, vice president and regional GM of North America for Telrad. Telrad has distinguished itself as a leader in LTE technology, with a growing customer base in North America. We take into account every operator need, including cutting business costs, overcoming NLOS, increasing coverage and capacity, deployment flexibility and overall network efficiency and reliability. Our aim is building long-term customer partnerships.

At this years WISPAmerica Conference, Telrad is demonstrating its portfolio of LTE solutions at Booth #304, in Memphis, Tennessee, March 14-16, 2017. Visitors can learn more about the companys suite of high-performance products and services for todays wireless broadband market.

About Telrad Networks

Telrad Networks is a global provider of innovative LTE telecom solutions, boasting over 280 4G deployments in 100 countries. Telrad stands at the forefront of the technology evolution of next-generation TD-LTE solutions in the sub-6 GHz market. Since 1951, the company has been a recognized pioneer in the telecom industry, facilitating the connectivity needs of millions of end-users through operators, ISPs and enterprises around the world. (http://www.telrad.com)

About SkyWerx Industries

Founded in 2003, SkyWerx is a locally owned Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) based in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Our continually expanding wireless infrastructure has been designed to effectively deploy high-speed wireless broadband to the communities in Southwest Colorado. Our mission is to provide the highest quality Internet related service and technology to our customers. (skywerx.com)
Shiitake Mama 10" log kit, $33 including shipping. Lost Creek Mushroom Farm has kits from $20-$90 We're the only company that guarantees its logs. We hand-pick "proven fruiters."

Shiitake Mama, aka Sandra Williams of Lost Creek Mushroom Farm, awaits the equinox eagerly, knowing that Lost Creeks shiitake logs will yield thousands of mushrooms. She knows, too, that people who own shiitake log kits will see one of the biggest fruitings of the year between mid-March and mid-April.

The shiitakes have been storing up food and energy all winter. They thrive at the equinox, with equal light and dark. Temperatures are ideal, 70s during the day and 50s at night. Let the rains come, and you have shiitakes bursting through the bark.

She suggested, If you already have a shiitake log set it outside in shade so it can do what Nature intended it to do. If you dont already have a log, get one now so itll be in place and ready to fruit when the conditions are right.

Lost Creek Mushroom Farm Shiitake Mama log kits can grow organic shiitakes about every two months for 3-5 years. The mushrooms grow indoors like plants in summer and winter and can grow outside in spring and fall in the shade. They need regular soaking in non-chlorinated water. Shocking the log in non-chlorinated ice water starts the mushrooms growing.

Now is the optimum time to grow and eat shiitakes. according to Shiitake Mama. We are naturally attracted to shiitakes because our bodies crave their nutritional support in the spring. The mushrooms clear out the toxins and sluggishness built up during the winter. Shiitakes stimulate the immune system, theyre high in protein and low in fat, and they have a mood-brightening effect on us. Research has shown that they can reduce oxidative stress, lower cholesterol and regulate blood pressure. Shiitakes are a major medicinal mushroom.

Shiitake Mama sells a variety of kits, ranging from $20-$90. Everyone who wants to grow mushrooms can, with a size and price they like.

Kits include a hardwood log, such as oak or gum, ready to grow mushrooms, recipes, and plenty of instructions. Logs10 inches and over are fully guaranteed to grow shiitakes.

"Lost Creek Mushroom Farm is the only company that guarantees their logs will fruit. We provide strong customer support. We hand pick every log and choose what we call proven fruiters -- logs that have already grown mushrooms. It takes 8 months to a year for a log to fruit, and it yields only a few mushrooms at first. The shiitake keeps growing inside the log and puts on more mushrooms each time for about 2-3 years, then tapers off. "When they have enough water, the shiitakes can't help it -- they have to make mushrooms when conditions are right.

Shiitake Mama has a second unique offering: Kits with two logs. Alternating the producing log provides a harvest every month instead of every two months. The Shiitake Ma & Pa Kit has two 10-inch logs. The Best Buy has two 14-inch logs with their own soaking trays for soaking, fruiting, and storing the logs. Both are more economical and more fun to grow.

Buy Lost Creek Mushroom Farm's Shiitake Mama log kits at http://www.shiitakemushroomlog.com or Amazon.com or order by phone at 1-800-792-0053.

Shiitake Mama donates a portion of sales to Mushrooms for Well Being Foundation to build a spawn (mushroom seed material) laboratory in Ghana, West Africa. She and her husband Doug Williams have been volunteering there and working to improve mushroom production and products for small-scale mushroom farmers, most of them women, since 2007.
Catalent Pharma Solutions, the leading global provider of advanced delivery technologies and development solutions for drugs, biologics and consumer health products, today announced that a number of the companys experts have been invited to contribute to the educational and speaking programs at the upcoming INTERPHEX exhibition and conference, to be held at the Javits Center, New York City, on March 21  23, 2017.

Executives from Catalent will be giving a number of presentations throughout the event. On Tuesday, March 21, at 10:30 a.m. in the Technical Theater, Kimberlee Steele, Director, Business Development, Drug Delivery Solutions, will present Beyond Fill & Finish: How Market Demands and Regulatory Requirements are Expanding Deliverables of Traditional Sterile Fillers.

On Wednesday March 22, David Persky, Global Engineering Manager, will present Serialization: Catalents Journey at 11:30 a.m. in the INTERPHEX LIVE Theatre Meeting Room; and later that afternoon, Scott Gunther, Vice President, Drug Delivery Solutions, will be part of the Pharma & Biopharma Outsourcing Association (PBOA) panel discussion entitled Quality Agreements, Relationships to Succeed at 3 p.m. in the INTERPHEX LIVE Theater.

Kimberlee Steele has over 15 years experience in sales, marketing, and new business development in pharmaceuticals, consulting, and wireless technology. She joined Catalent in 2011 and manages Catalents business development team that supports tech transfer and commercial manufacturing of complex oral and sterile technologies. She has worked extensively with injectable, ophthalmic, and respiratory products, and has experience with pre-filled syringes, blow-fill-seal, and glass-free sterile vials and ampoules.

David Persky has over ten years of packaging engineering experience, specializing in high speed product inspection and secondary packaging technologies. He first became involved in Catalents serialization programs in 2014 and has overseen the design and implementation of serialized pilot lines in Catalent facilities in both Germany and the U.S. He holds a bachelors and masters degree in manufacturing engineering from Western Illinois University.

Scott Gunther joined Catalent in 2012 as Vice President, Quality, and is responsible for all quality operations within the companys Drug Delivery Solutions business unit. Previously he has held positions at Bristol Myers Squibb, including Executive Director Quality Operations Americas, where he was responsible for quality operations covering the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Latin America. He holds a Bachelors degree from the State University of New York College, Buffalo, and an MBA from Canisius College, also in Buffalo.

For more information on the 2017 INTERPHEX Convention, visit http://www.interphex.com and to arrange a meeting with Catalent executives attending the event, contact Ed Dutton at NEPR- edward@nepr.eu

About Catalent

Catalent is the leading global provider of advanced delivery technologies and development solutions for drugs, biologics and consumer health products. With over 80 years serving the industry, Catalent has proven expertise in bringing more customer products to market faster, enhancing product performance and ensuring reliable clinical and commercial product supply. Catalent employs approximately 10,000 people, including over 1,400 scientists, at more than 30 facilities across five continents, and in fiscal 2016 generated $1.85 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey. For more information, visit http://www.catalent.com

More products. Better treatments. Reliably supplied.
Rolodesk With Rolodesk, SMBs can differentiate themselves in a competitive landscape by providing world class Freshdesk support.

Freshdesk, the leading provider of cloud-based customer engagement software, today announced that they are partnering with Rolo, the most advanced contact management and communication app to create Rolodesk, a mobile-first customer support solution for startups and SMBs.

Recent research indicates that worldwide SaaS revenues from SMBs alone is set to grow to $76B before 2020, with mobile-first revenues occupying a lions share. Rolodesk will help SMBs and startups provide world class Freshdesk support without leaving the dialer on their mobile phones. Owners and founders in SMBs and startups do everything from sales to customer support. The Freshdesk-Rolo integration will eliminate the need to learn another software by bringing Freshdesk to the dialer. With Rolodesk, SMBs can differentiate themselves in a competitive landscape by providing world class Freshdesk support. said Ganesh Ram Natarajan, Senior Director - Marketplace, Freshdesk.

Rolodesk also introduces the concept of the Roloscope. With the Roloscope, agents can get a complete history of the customer that they are speaking with at the touch of a button. SMBs and startups rely on extraordinary customer support to differentiate themselves. Knowing why a customer is calling before answering a call can dramatically improve customer satisfaction, thereby offering a real competitive advantage, said Murali Rangarajan, Co-Founder and CTO of Rolo. Freshdesks marketplace is a powerful ecosystem that helps developers reach businesses worldwide and we are delighted to be a part of this journey.

Rolodesk is available on the Freshdesk App Gallery and Google Play starting today.

About Freshdesk:

Freshdesk Inc. is the leading provider of cloud-based customer engagement software. Freshdesks suite of products include the flagship product, Freshdesk, which allows organizations to support customers through email, phone, websites, forums, and social media; Freshservice, a cloud-based service desk and IT service management solution; Hotline.io, an in-app support and engagement platform for mobile-first businesses; and Freshsales, a CRM solution and sales system for high-velocity sales teams. With powerful features, an intuitive interface and a freemium pricing model, Freshdesks products are widely used by teams and companies of all sizes, from SMB to enterprise. Based in San Bruno, California, with offices in Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and India, Freshdesk is backed by Accel, Tiger Global Management, CapitalG and Sequoia Capital India. The company has over 100,000 customers around the world including 3M, Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco. For more information, visit http://freshdesk.com.

About Netmine:

Chennai based Netmine Mobile Innovations Private Limited is the maker of Rolo. Rolo is an innovative and powerful contact management and communication app that helps users build better relationships with their contacts. With its powerful features and a slick UI, Rolo is very popular amongst individuals and professionals who use Rolo to replace their stock dialer and to track interactions with important people in their lives.

Contact:

Janani Dwarakanath

Email: jananidwarak(at)freshdesk.com

Freshdesk

+91 9790907224

Srinath Rajaram

Email: srinath(at)getrolo.in

Netmine Mobile Innovations Private Limited

+91 8056247833
Prowly Logo Establish a newsroom that journalists actually like to visit and that makes their job easier and faster. And this is exactly what Prowly had in mind when started designing a custom press center for Vimeo.

Despite of the all-digital era being here for some time now, recent research by ISEBOX showed that digital newsrooms are still way behind. While most reporters access online press centers at least once a month, these websites dont meet the expectations of 70% of journalists.*

Any media opportunities missed here? Plenty. Journalists may miss your key announcement or use random brand assets they find on Google Search. Or they may end up using packshots of products that are not actually yours. Any of these is a recipe for a PR nightmare. Better establish a newsroom that journalists actually like to visit and that makes their job easier and faster. And this is exactly what Prowly had in mind when started designing a custom press center for Vimeo.

"The mobile revolution has completely changed the way we browse websites. People prefer images and videos over written content. The same goes for the expectations of reporters. Theyre always busy, they process tons of content every day and want instant access to company news, assets or spokespeople. They need press centers that work fast, are responsive and give whatever content needed."

-Joanna Drabent, CEO & Co-founder at Prowly

Vimeos new Press Center is a variation of a digital newsroom we call the Brand Journal. The communications team can post press releases, news, articles, as well as set up brands social media streams and press kits. The pitching module allows users to share press releases with their media contacts directly from the app and then track each contacts behavior.

Key Press Center features are:



Full catalogue of Vimeos announcements since 2010 available in one place;

Contact details for all press or event inquiries;

Related assets and releases available for each press release;

Visual content  photos and videos  embedded directly into releases;

Instant access to all Vimeo media resources: brand guidelines, B-roll and original programming assets.

"We needed a flexible newsroom design that would be intuitive and easy to navigate for journalists on the front end and our internal team on the backend. Visually, it was important to represent the creativity behind our brand and functionally it needed to support everything from hosting our brand guidelines to our original programming press assets. Prowly was the best fit to meet both those needs."

-Jessica Casano-Antonellis, VP of Communications and Head of Diversity at Vimeo

Check out Vimeos Press Center at press.vimeo.com.

*ISEBOX.COM, survey conducted in April 2016.

About Prowly:

Prowly is a PR and Content Marketing CRM for agencies, businesses and freelancers. It lets you create interactive press releases, articles or blog posts, post them on brand newsrooms, then distribute to the media and measure results. Several thousand professionals already use Prowly, including PR team members for brands such as Vimeo, Deloitte Digital, IKEA, Spotify and National Geographic. Prowly is a member of the European Tech Alliance, alongside some of the biggest technology startups from Europe (King, Spotify, BlaBlaCar, Deezer), supporting the European Commission in the Digital Single Market (DSM) project. Read more at prowly.com
The greenest contest of the year takes place until 16 March, 2017, on KeepCallings Facebook page.

KeepCalling.com wishes all its customers a lucky St. Patricks Day and invites them expats worldwide to show that they have the luck of the Irish by taking part in a competition. A lucky participant will win $10 worth of credit for international calls with KeepCalling.com.

By visiting KeepCallings Facebook page until March 16, customers will be able to watch a short video of a mysterious Saint Patricks hat. All they have to do to enter the competition is try to guess what is hiding under the hat. They dont even need to be right, they just need to be lucky. The winner will be chosen randomly to win $10 Voice Credit.

The greenest contest of the year takes place until 16 March, 2017, on KeepCallings Facebook page: facebook.com/iamhomesick. To have the most chances to win, contestants can post as many answers as they can think of.

The Voice Credit gift received by the winner can be used to make calls anywhere in the world at the best rates from:



any phone through the use of access numbers

from any computer with an Internet connection through the Web Call application

from any smartphone using KeepCallings free app, for both iOS and Android devices.

In addition to Voice Credit, KeepCalling.com also offers Mobile Recharge, Monthly Plans, and Virtual Numbers. Mobile Recharge is a service through which customers can recharge phones anywhere in the world. The process is fast and secure and the credit reaches its destination instantly. With over 430 operators from more than 135 countries, KeepCalling.com can satisfy every need of international mobile top up.

Monthly Plans are monthly subscriptions which offer discounted rates for certain destinations for low monthly fees. The countries which customers can call through KeepCalling.coms monthly plans are: Bangladesh, Canada, China, Colombia, Germany, India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, and United States.

Virtual Numbers are monthly subscriptions through which customers pay a low monthly fee and receive unlimited calls from another country. The people calling the Virtual Number only pay the rate of local calls.

To find out more about KeepCalling.coms new offers, customers are invited to visit the blog at blog.keepcalling.com or to follow them on:



Facebook.com/iamhomesick

Twitter.com/KeepCalling

Plus.Google.com/+KeepCalling

KeepCalling.com offers smart expat services worldwide. It is a brand of KeepCalling, a global telecommunications company registered in 2002 in USA. Presently, KeepCalling provides its services to hundreds of thousands of consumers and businesses, with a focus on customer satisfaction. KeepCalling was listed by Inc 5000 as one of the fastest growing companies in the USA for 5 consecutive years.
Nelson Levin, Esq.

The Law Offices of Michael T. van der Veen is pleased to announce that Nelson Levin has joined the firm as an Associate.

Nelson Levin, Esq. is an extremely skilled trial attorney who has been practicing law in Philadelphia for over 30 years. He is known for his exceptional attention to detail, as well as preparation for, all aspects of his cases. His practice is focused in the areas of products liability, motor vehicle accidents, premises liability and medical malpractice.

Mr. Levins experience has resulted in many large settlements and verdicts. He has obtained six and seven figure settlements for individuals harmed by defective products, including an electrician rendered paraplegic when he fell from a ladder using defective wire cutters and a warehouse worker who lost the use of his hand as a result of a defective carpet-cutting machine. He was awarded a million-dollar jury verdict for a woman who lost part of her lower jaw due to a dentists negligence.

A magna cum laude graduate of Temple University School of Journalism, elected to the National Journalism Honor Society (1984), Mr. Levin received his law degree from Temple University School of Law in 1987. After law school, Mr. Levin served as a Law Clerk to the late Honorable Eugene Gelfand of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. An active member of the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Associations, Mr. Levin also is a member of the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations.

The Law Offices of Michael T. van der Veen is considered one of the premier personal injury and criminal defense law firms serving individuals and families across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. With decades of experience fighting for clients, and a history of outstanding litigation success, the firm is pleased to have earned a much-deserved reputation as one of Pennsylvanias toughest, hardest-working law firms.

For more information, visit the firms website: http://www.mtvlaw.com.
ESChat today announced its selection by EFJohnson Technologies, a JVCKENWOOD Company, to provide a secure Push to Talk over LTE system for use at the DFW Airport. The order includes ESChat servers that will be hosted at DFW and co-located with EFJohnsons ATLAS P25 Land Mobile Radio (LMR) system. The system will provide encrypted voice communication between LTE smartphone users and the ATLAS P25 radio users via the P25 Inter RF Subsystem System Interface (ISSI).

The DFW deployment includes the following standard features of ESChat: Encrypted Push to Talk voice, Encrypted Multimedia Messaging and Live Location Tracking and Mapping for all ESChat enabled cell phones. The ESChat network uses an Advanced Over the Top architecture that supports users on all wireless carriers and allows its users to communicate across the carriers. All ESChat communications are encrypted using AES-256 to ensure voice privacy.

The ESChat product suite supports Android and iOS smartphone devices and personal computers. ESChat can be purchased as a monthly service hosted on the Amazon AWS Commercial or GovCloud platforms. ESChat servers can optionally be hosted by the end customer where required. The DFW deployment features ESChat servers hosted on-site and co-located with EFJohnsons ATLAS P25 system.

The ESChat system has been staged for deployment at EFJohnson, and is scheduled to be installed at DFW during the summer of 2017. The integrated communication system will also be available for demonstration at the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) in Las Vegas, NV Conference on March 29-30, 2017.

About ESChat:

ESChat (http://www.eschat.com/) is the leading solution for carrier independent secure Push to Talk (PTT) over LTE communications. SLA is celebrating its 25th year in the wireless communication industry, providing solutions for military, government, industrial and commercial applications. In addition to the ESChat products, ESChat technology is available for partner licensing and can be found in numerous other PTT solutions.

Additional information can be found at http://www.eschat.com/
MedicaSoft is an Accredited DTAAP HISP

MedicaSoft, a next generation healthcare IT company, announced today it has achieved 100% interoperability with all DirectTrust Health Information Service Providers (HISPs).

The DirectTrust Accredited Trust Anchor Bundle includes HISPs, Certificate Authorities (CAs), and Registration Authorities (RAs) that have achieved accreditation through the EHNAC-DirectTrust Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP).

MedicaSoft is committed to delivering the highest quality software and cloud services to commercial and government clients and completed the Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program for Health Information Service Provider (DTAAP HISP) accreditation as certified by the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) in 2016.

Interoperability testing by DirectTrust verifies all messages containing personal health information are encrypted, securely delivered between two trusted entities, and are decrypted as intended. MedicaSoft joins companies such as Cerner, McKesson/Relay, and Surescripts, who are also 100% interoperable with HISPs in the DirectTrust Accredited Trust Bundle in 2017.

View the full list of DirectTrust Accredited Trust Bundle Interoperability Benchmarking Results here.

We are proud to be a part of the DirectTrust community. Our membership reinforces our commitment to deliver modern, high quality software and cloud services to our clients, said Brandt Welker, MedicaSoft CTO. Achieving 100% interoperability represents the ability to exchange data securely between vendors. This means doctors using MedicaSoft products can easily and securely communicate with their peers and other clinicians in the field.

MedicaSoft puts interoperability at the core of its systems, delivering secure, cloud-ready healthcare IT products, including Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health Record (PHR) software and HISP secure messaging services, to clients worldwide.

About MedicaSoft:

MedicaSoft designs, develops, delivers, and maintains software solutions for healthcare providers and patients around the world. Visit http://www.medicasoft.us, follow us on Twitter @MedicaSoftLLC, like us on Facebook, or follow our LinkedIn company page.
Artemis Women in Action Film Festival, Year 3 Our film festival seeks to redefine the image of women, not just on screen, but in culture as well, said film festival Founder Melanie Wise. Our official hashtag is #womenkickass and we try to convey that sensibility in everything that we do.

The Artemis Women in Action Film Festival is thrilled to announce honors for Ingrid Bols Berdal, Cynthia Rothrock, Gina Carano and Luci Romberg at their next edition of the festival in April of this year.

Ingrid Bols Berdal captivated audiences as the character Armistice in season one of HBOs Westworld, will receive the Artemis Action Next Wave Award at the upcoming Artemis Film Festival. Ms. Berdal is an alumnus of the prestigious Oslo National Academy of the Arts and rose to prominence in such action films as Cold Prey, Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunter and Hercules. With her role as Armistice, she is certain to be at the forefront of the next wave of female action heroes.

Action star Cynthia Rothrock (China OBrien, Lady Dragon, Rage and Honor) will be honored with The Artemis Action Lifetime Achievement Award for her extraordinary body of work comprising over 50 action films. A holder of a black belt in seven martial arts disciplines, Ms. Rothrock is a legend both in Hong Kong and the US and has one of the most extensive female action career of any woman in the world.

Gina Carano will receive the Artemis Action Warrior Award for her contributions to the female action genre and womens mma. A skilled martial artist and one of the most popular and successful womens mma fighters ever, Ms. Carano has gone on to star in several action films including Fast & Furious 6, Deadpool and most notably Haywire where she electrified audiences as Mallory Kane. She continues to build an impressive career as a go-to woman for action movies.

Artemis will also honor Luci Romberg as part of the next generation of stuntwomen icons. A regular stunt double for Melissa McCarthy, she has made a name for herself for her stunt work in films such as Ghostbusters, Spy, Identity Thief, Jason Bourne and Green Lantern. A gifted athlete, Ms. Romberg is also one of the world's top practitioners of freerunning. She will certainly be at the forefront of the stunt world for many years to come.

Our film festival seeks to redefine the image of women, not just on screen, but in culture as well, said film festival Founder Melanie Wise. Our official hashtag is #womenkickass and we try to convey that sensibility in everything that we do.

The idea of female action heroes is nothing new, women have been action heroes from Antiquity to the present day remarks Co-Founder Sean Marlon Newcombe We want to increase awareness of that for the industry and for audiences.

Press Contact: Info(at)ArtemisFilmFestival(dot)com

For More Info:

http://www.WomenKickAss.com

http://twitter.com/Artemis_FilmFF

http://www.Facebook.com /ArtemisFilmFestival

Official Website: http://www.ArtemisFilmFestival.com

About the Artemis Women In Action Film Festival

A first of its kind, inspired by the popularity of the genre, its longevity, and their love of film, Artemis Motion Pictures is producing the world's first film festival devoted exclusively to honoring female driven action films. Artemis has been attracting the attention and support of high profile influencers such as Paul Feig, Carrie Fisher, Rosie ODonnell, Patricia Arquette, and Wynonna Judd all of whom have graciously helped boost the popularity of the official hashtag, #WomenKickAss.
Aptech Computer Systems is the leading provider of hotel software for business intelligence, budgeting, and enterprise financial accounting. It is also a family business that was started over 45 years ago. We have a personal commitment to our clients and the industry to represent the best solutions and provide the most exceptional customer service available, said Jill Wilder, Aptech vice president. Our new website highlights our professional services and offers a personal look at Aptech, its systems, and our people that make us the most trusted solutions provider in the industry. Click here for more on Aptechs products and services.

Aptech Computer Systems offers Execuvue web-enabled Business Intelligence, Targetvue Budgeting and Forecasting, and Profitvue and PVNG Enterprise Accounting systems that are 100% hospitality specific. Aptech is the only company that provides a complete suite of financial management and analysis solutions for the hotel industry.

The new website is mobile optimized, easy to read and uses fewer words to clearly describe solutions and services. We give visitors a variety of illustrations showing in detail what our solutions provide, said Wilder. We are also pleased to share a glance at some of the core members of the Aptech team who create the hotel technologies that drive our clients profitability. Aptech is one of the few hospitality solutions companies that offers 24/7 support from a North American-based team of hotel professionals. Now when clients call, they can put a face with the voice. This brings our clients closer to the support person helping them.

Wilder said the new site displays a number of client references and case studies. We want our work and clients to speak for us. This gives hoteliers evaluating business intelligence, budgeting and forecasting, and enterprise accounting solutions an opportunity to talk with operators like themselves for real world feedback. The new site also provides links to Aptechs social media channels for fast access to current company activities.

Aptech values human relationships and applies its technology to solve complex business problems for people. It recognizes that each hospitality industry professional views accounting and operations differently. More than 3,500 properties rely on Aptechs solutions. The company delivers customized, web-enabled solutions that can fit any operating requirement.

About Aptech Computer Systems, Inc.

Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the only provider of a fully integrated enterprise accounting, business intelligence and planning ecosystem to the hospitality industry. All of its clients are companies like yours, which own or manage hotels. Its solutions help customers at both the corporate and property levels understand their financial and operational data for faster goal achievement.

The company is renowned for introducing business intelligence into the hotel industry, and offers a solid resource of hospitality professionals. Aptech is an IBM Software Value Plus partner and Premier Solution Provider.

Incorporated in 1970, Aptechs state-of-the-art back office, true business intelligence and enterprise planning solutions are 100% hotel specific. Solutions include Profitvue, Execuvue, Webvue and Targetvue. Clients comprise over 3,500 properties - including large chains, multiple-property management companies and single-site hotels. Execuvue and Profitvue are registered to Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective holders. For more information please visit http://www.aptech-inc.com.
We have developed an off-the-shelf, synthetic scaffold constructed from biocompatible polymers that harnesses the same regenerative remodeling process.

Biorez, Inc., formerly known as Soft Tissue Regeneration, Inc., today announced the close of a $1.5 million investment following preliminary results of the first in-human study of its novel implant for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction.

The breakthrough approach makes use of a proprietary tissue-engineered scaffold that stabilizes the knee, facilitates the body to regrow new ACL tissue, and then fully resorbs, leaving only new, functional tissue.

Connecticut Innovations, Connecticuts leading source of financing and ongoing support for Connecticuts innovative, growing companies, led the investment round. Vertical Group and KLP Ventures, an affiliate of Launch Capital, also participated in the round.

Biorez has learned a great deal through their early stages of development and testing, said Dan Wagner, managing director at Connecticut Innovations, and a Biorez board member. With a new CEO at the helm and a new path ahead, we look forward to supporting the progress of this company and technology in the future.

Typically, a torn ACL is surgically reconstructed using a tissue graft harvested from the patient or a cadaver, said Kevin Rocco, CEO of Biorez. Neither option is ideal for patients, but both biologic grafts remodel into new functional tissue over time. We have developed an off-the-shelf, synthetic scaffold constructed from biocompatible polymers that harnesses the same regenerative remodeling process.

Biorez will be sharing the detailed results of the human trial in private meetings with key partners, surgeons, and researchers during the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) meeting in San Diego, from March 14 through March 18, 2017. Biorez is the first company to clinically investigate a tissue-engineered scaffold for ACL reconstruction in a human trial.

The clinical study has validated our unique approach, and given us a first-mover advantage to further optimize our technology, said Rocco. We look forward to publishing our results.

About Biorez, Inc.

Biorez, Inc. is a privately-held, early-stage regenerative medicine company engaged in developing bioresorbable scaffold implants to regenerate functional tissue in vivo. Its lead product candidate is an off-the-shelf implant for ACL reconstruction that spares harvesting of patient donor-tissue, and provides a better alternative to cadaver-based materials. The company plans to commercialize its lead ACL technology, as well as expand its platform to develop new and innovative clinical solutions. To learn more, visit http://www.biorez.com.
A new product is helping local companies reduce losses and increase profits. Skunkwork states Polybags Turkey Bags are vital to the integrity of maintaining quality product, and in turn the profit. The professionals in this field know this fact. What separates one bag from the next? Many think they are all the same, but they are not. The crafty sales tactics of the vendors and lack of concern, or knowledge in quality control department is costing these product owners money.

Spoilage due to something as nominal as price (yet vital) is costing companies literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars such an unnecessary reason. Lack of knowledge can cause a quality control department to put these companies out of business.

After a blind study with 5 different agricultural growers, and the top 5 bags on the market, 5 out of 5 were impressed and switched over to Skunkworks to ensure their products' longevity. 4 months after using the product consistently Knack Media sent our reporter Laura Norris to do a follow-up.

I cant believe I picked the cheapest product to house my most important product!

-Daniel Jordan

I feel nauseous wondering how much spoilage was due to something so preventable!

-Maliki Campoy

This bag is amazing, and their pricing is competitive! I didnt expect to be so impressed."

-Tony Tamerez

Hearing this common issue Knack Media decided to go to the top but smallest manufacturer in the study to find out what makes this creation so unique in preserving the integrity of products that spoil.

Laura Norris (reporter for Knack Media): As I was walking toward I couldnt help but feel at 57 short in comparison to this humble and very tall man. So I asked him what is the science behind his product?

Stanford responded, I went to school at DeVry Institute of Technology and got my MBA at Pepperdine Graziadio School of Business in Financial Management. Degrees in Packaging Science and Information Technology. I worked for Johnson & Johnson, Herbalife International and Geneva Pharmaceuticals as a Senior Packaging Engineer from 1999-2008, Leveraging Packaging Engineering & Management Expertise. This offered me a rare combination of expertise that includes packaging specifications, package development & testing, project management, plant trials, process improvement, and cost control. My experience extends across pharmaceutical, food, and personal care product lines. I wanted to engineer a bag that was able to hold in moisture longer, stronger, could stand up on its own and did the right kind of job for the people that were purchasing it. My business partner (Andy Rondon) agreed to build Skunkwork Packaging as a company that works simple and not have anyone that is unhappy or they get their money back. The company can be reached at (949) 903-1803 or view their YouTube video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YriC_IjPkk&feature=youtu.be

Laura Norris commented, As an unbiased reporter I couldnt help but feel the impulse to advocate for this small family company amid giant competitors. It reminded me as a child when I sat on my grandfather's lap and he explained to me how good business is run from the owner's values all the way down to the product they sell  The American Way till his integrity spread through his design."

Knack Media provides a full range of services to cover any and all of their clients' needs in web design, SEO, video editing, and social media marketing, but there is certainly more. The team of professionals has a streamlined approach to their work, and utilizes the best reporting and tracking software in existence, and this gives them the luxury of providing real time reporting on any & all statistics pertaining to their companys marketing, as well as projections on what would enhance their clients internet presence. For a full breakdown of the companys services, or information about addiction treatment lead generation or other internet marketing services please call.

Contact: 877-957-2244

Website: http://www.knackmedia.com
Stealth Japan by Scott Foster We are facing a new political landscape. Putin, Brexit, and Trump are not the only recent disruptions to the global political norm

Cyon Research announced today that Scott Foster, partner TAP Japan, Mark Anderson, publisher of Strategic News Service (SNS) and Harry Blount, Founder/CEO of Discern, will deliver keynotes on Saturday at COFES 2017: The Congress On the Future of Engineering Software. COFES 2017 is being held in Scottsdale, Arizona, April 6-9 at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.

This year at COFES 2017, attendees will take a deep dive into Complexity and Transformation. The growth of complexity is presenting businesses with new and difficult challenges  from the constantly changing business environment to conflicting requirements of more complex products that must be delivered more simply to the customer. New phenomena result from complexity, often requiring consideration of things that were not previously an issue. Rather than focus on how to design complex systems from scratch, COFES 2017 will challenge attendees to focus on interventions that can transform existing systems to mitigate the effects of complexity.

Foster and Anderson will deliver the keynote on Business Implications of the New International Political Landscape. We are facing a new political landscape. Putin, Brexit, and Trump are not the only recent disruptions to the global political norm, said Brad Holz, president and CEO of Cyon Research Corporation., Our keynote speakers are unusually well positioned to understand the business impact of these and other coming international political disruptions.

For over 300 years, the political, economic, and military power were controlled by nation states, said Richard Marshall, CEO of X-SES Consultants LLC. Increasingly those powers are now being exercised thru the medium of the Internet by non-state actors and private citizens. The impact of this radical change will be profound.

To set the stage for Scott Fosters talk, Mark Anderson will provide insight on the global geo political arena. "Almost every aspect of international trade appears to be in flux, said Mark Anderson. Not only as a result of the Trump election but because of shifting international political, economic and military programs, including the daunting business climate created by massive swings in (manipulated) currency values, explained Anderson. There has not, in recent times, been a more difficult environment facing businesses trying to navigate trade and profit plans than today. We will bring our proven experience in understanding and predicting these exact types of shifts to the COFES audience," he concluded.

Scott Foster will then go into depth the Japanese perspective. "The election of Donald Trump sparked panic and dismay throughout East Asia as people contemplated a throwback to the angry, protectionist and demanding America of the 1970s and 1980, stated Scott Foster. Relief has followed with Prime Minster Abe's successful meetings with Trump, the visits of secretaries Mattis and Tillerson to Japan and South Korea, and - ironically - North Korea's ballistic missile tests, which have taken the spotlight off trade. However, the issue of persistent Asian surpluses and the loss of American jobs will be back, most likely with a vengeance. Meanwhile, for COFES attendees, perhaps the most important developments are Industry 4.0 and the eclipse of low-wage manufacturing, which are already transforming East Asia, said Foster.

In the keynote, Though the Eyes of Data, Harry Blount will share his insights on how to create a sustainable information advantage using Big Data while avoiding the most common pitfalls. Blount will lead attendees through the key aspects of a big data process including targeting the optimal data sources, designing a scalable data model, passive and active insight discovery, persistent improvement in platform intelligence, contextual analytics, and synthesized visualization.

Companies are just beginning to understand how Big Data can benefit their decision making, said Harry Blount, founder and CEO of DISCERN. They need to get ready, as the impact will be swift. Companies building and leveraging these analytical data models will create a sustainable information advantage over those that do not Big Data will force companies to adapt or die."

Harry is changing the way we can get to insight out of data. Its more true now than in previous administrations that we need to look at the data to get at the truth, said Holtz.

ABOUT FOSTER AND ANDERSON

Scott Foster is a partner at TAP Japan, a financial consultancy based in Tokyo; and alliance partner at Translink, a multinational corporate finance network headquartered in Europe. He previously worked for Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and other investment banks as a research analyst covering electronics, alternative energy, engineering, and other sectors in Japan and Korea. Scott holds a BA from Stanford University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Scott's most recent book, Stealth Japan, dives into the realties of Japan's global business footprint, dispelling many myths along the way.

Mark Anderson is CEO of Strategic News Service (SNS) and publisher of the SNS Global Report on technology and the global economy, CEO of SNS Conference Corp., Chairman of the Future in Review (FiRe) conference, founding CEO of Coventry Computer, Chairman of INVNT/IP (Inventing Nations vs. Nation-sponsored Theft of IP), Chairman of Orca Relief Citizens Alliance, and co-founder of the Pattern Recognition Lab at UC San Diego; and plays a key role in SNS Project Inkwell, Nutritional Microanalysis, SNS FiReBooks, and the SNS FiReFilms and Global Carbon Trifecta initiatives. With a 94.5% accuracy rate since 1995 looking 3-5 years into the future, Marks successes include being the first to fully document the central role of stolen IP in Chinas national business model, as well as predicting the Great Financial Collapse of late 2007, the contemporary outbreak of currency wars, the advent and success of the CarryAlong computer and the Internet Assistant, and the Global Currency Crisis of late 1997. He is the only person to have publicly predicted both the Great Financial Collapse and the Oil Price Collapse, the two most important economic events of modern times. Mark is also a frequent public speaker and corporate consultant and appears regularly in US and international media.

ABOUT BLOUNT

Investment research industry veteran Harry Blount formed the DISCERN founding team, building on more than 20 years of executive and financial experience on Wall Street, including senior roles at Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse First Boston, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and CIBC Oppenheimer. Harry has been named an Institutional Investor All-American in both Information Technology Hardware and Internet Infrastructure Services, and The Wall Street Journal has recognized him as an All-Star covering the Computer Hardware sector. Harry also lent his expertise to the National Academy of Sciences where he served as a member of the Committee for Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies; and to The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, where he chaired the Futures Committee. Harry graduated from the University of Wisconsin  La Crosse in 1986 with a B.S. in Finance.

ABOUT COFES

Now in its 18th year, COFES is the annual, invitation-only event for the design and engineering software industry. Widely recognized as a think-tank event, COFES (cofes.com) gathers design and engineering software leaders (vendors, users, press, and analysts) together to discuss the role engineering technology will play in the future survival and success of business. COFES is renowned for hosting leading keynote visionaries that provide a new perspective to the future of the industry. The by-invitation-only COFES is a Cyon Research event. Apply for an invitation at apply.cofes.com.

ABOUT CYON RESEARCH

Cyon Research Corporation is a think-tank providing key information, research, analysis, and consulting to its clients worldwide. COFES (The Congress on the Future of Engineering Software) and ASSESS (Analysis, Simulation, and Systems Engineering Software Strategies) are Cyon Research's primary events. cyonresearch.com.
Harold Crye,Tom Kimbrough, Jeanne Arthur, and Dick Leike It is wonderful to work for a company that encourages its agents to volunteer in our community. This service criteria for the Circle of Excellence offered me an opportunity to do really meaningful work with the Wolf River Conservancy. Past News Releases RSS Crye-Leike Realtor Jeanne Arthur...

Crye-Leike, the largest real estate company in Tennessee and the Mid-South, recently announced that Jeanne Arthur, who is affiliated with Crye-Leikes East Memphis branch office, and six other sales associates were inducted into Crye-Leikes Circle of Excellence, one of the highest levels of professional and personal achievement in the real estate industry. Members of the Circle of Excellence are awarded the honorary title Vice President of Crye-Leike.

In keeping with our belief that success is a journey, not a destination, we created the diamond Circle of Excellence award to recognize those unique individuals who attain the highest level of professional development, said Chief Executive Officer Harold Crye of Crye-Leike Real Estate Services. Simply stated, they are The best of the best.

The Circle of Excellence, founded by Crye-Leike in 1987, has a total of 211 sales associates within Crye-Leike who have attained this elite distinction out of its 3,100-plus sales force. In order to receive this honor, each real estate professional must meet stringent requirements of the program, showing exemplary performance in closed gross sales volume as well as in the areas of advanced education, ethics, loyalty and service to the community and the real estate profession.

It is wonderful to work for a company that encourages its agents to volunteer in our community. This service criteria for the Circle of Excellence offered me an opportunity to do really meaningful work with the Wolf River Conservancy. I cannot wait until our current greenway project is finished. It will give Memphians the opportunity to understand and enjoy the importance of land conservation, clean water, and abundant wildlife, not to mention better health for all of us, said Arthur.

About Jeanne Arthur, Crye-Leike Realtors - East Memphis office

Jeanne Arthur works with both buyers and sellers, and is licensed in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. She is a Certified Residential Specialist and life member of the Multi-Million Dollar Club. Crye-Leike, a full-service real estate company for 40 years, is the nations sixth largest residential real estate brokerage firm and the largest serving Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and the Mid-South. Jeanne has a long history of volunteering in Memphis and is the immediate past president of Wolf River Conservancy, an Elmwood Cemetery Trustee and board member of Friends for our Riverfront. For more information, call Jeanne at (901) 634-2800, fax (901) 653-2287, or visit http://jarthur.crye-leike.com/. Crye-Leike Realtors is located at 585 S. Perkins Road, Memphis, TN 38117.

For media inquiries, please call the NALA at 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
We are thrilled to give the Arlington community convenient access to world-class dental care. Our new office offers the latest treatments in modern dentistry while creating a rewarding and relaxing experience for each patient, says Dr. Qureshi.

For years, Dr. Farhan Qureshi has led a reputable family and cosmetic dental practice in Alexandria, Virginia. Dr. Qureshis success has recently led him to embark on a practice expansion with the opening of an additional office location in Arlington, VA. The new office will provide the same unrivaled patient care and comprehensive dentistry as the original location, yet with greater convenience for Arlington residents.

Dr. Qureshi is a distinguished dentist with numerous achievements and awards in his field. While his practice welcomes patients of all ages, he is known for his excellence in implant and cosmetic dentistry. His respected training and experience in advanced cosmetic dentistry and postdoctoral implantology from Boston University has undoubtedly helped him earn his success in this area of dentistry. Dr. Qureshi believes in delivering state-of-the-art dentistry with a personal touch. His office features the latest dental technology in the industry as well as patient amenities that feel like home.

The office of Farhan Qureshi DDS in Arlington offers a full menu of routine and advanced dental services, including specialized treatments such as no-prep veneers, Invisalign, snoring prevention and more. Dr. Qureshi is able to perform complete implant dentistry in his Arlington dental office, helping patients replace missing teeth with the gold standard solution in restorative dentistry.

We are thrilled to give the Arlington community convenient access to world-class dental care. Our new office is prepared to offer the latest treatments in modern dentistry while creating a rewarding and relaxing experience for each patient, says Dr. Qureshi.

More About Dr. Farhan Qureshi

Dr. Farhan Qureshi is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards and achievements. He was voted Top Dentist by both Washingtonian Magazine and Northern Virginia Magazine in 2011 to 2013. Dr. Qureshi was also recognized as one of Americas Top Dentists for nine consecutive years by the Consumers Research Council of America and is a Top Patient Rated Dentist according to Find Local Doctors directory. He received his dental degree in 1995 before completing his residency in Advanced Education in General and Cosmetic Dentistry from Boston University. In 1999, Dr. Farhan Qureshi completed 2 years of postdoctoral training in dental Implantology at Boston University. His Alexandria practice currently serves patients with complete dental care, including preventative, restorative and cosmetic services as well as implant dentistry and clear orthodontics.

For more information on the services offered by Farhan Qureshi, DDS, visit skylinedentist.com or call the Arlington office for an appointment (571) 970-5082.

Prepared by Find Local Company
I am honored and proud to achieve this award for the fifth time. I want to say thank you to all my clients.

Michael D. Diot, Guaranty Federal Financial Corporation is featured in a special section of the March issue of Connecticut Magazine as a 2017 Five Star Mortgage Professional award winner.

I am honored and proud to achieve this award for the fifth time. I want to say thank you to all my clients. The fact that Connecticut Magazine included me in this selection of elite mortgage professionals confirms all my hard work and desire to provide outstanding service to my customers and business partners, Michael Diot of Guaranty Federal Financial Corporation.

Five Star Professional partnered with Connecticut Magazine to identify and showcase an exclusive group of mortgage professionals who have demonstrated excellence in their field. Less than 4% in the Connecticut-area received this recognition.

My business is 100% referral. I appreciate every opportunity to help someone. I am passionate about working with clients and business partners and helping them through the home financing process. As an experienced mortgage professional with over 30 years experience, I understand that every client is unique, said Michael Diot.

The 2017 Five Star Mortgage Professional award winners have been carefully selected for their commitment to professional excellence and overall client satisfaction. The award is based on rigorous research with significant focus on customer feedback and providing quality services.

I got into this business because I truly love working with people. The mortgage industry provides me the opportunity to utilize my love of finance with the real estate industry and consumers. I knew the minute I provided my first mortgage, this is what is wanted to do, said Michael Diot.

Five Star Mortgage Professionals provide world-class service which is evident through their clients loyalty. With a strong foundation of knowledge and experience, they work to understand their clients needs and provide a financing solution that fits, Dan Zdon, CEO, Five Star Professional.

Now entering its 15th year, Five Star Professional conducts in-depth, market-specific research in more than 45 markets across the United States and Canada to identify premium service professionals.

Five Star Professional contacts thousands of recent homebuyers, along with real estate agents, to identify award candidates and measure their client satisfaction levels. Phone, mail and online respondents rate their mortgage professional on criteria such as overall satisfaction and referability. Qualifying candidates are then evaluated on objective criteria such as experience, production levels and disciplinary and complaint history.

Professionals do not pay a fee to be considered or awarded. For more information, visit http://www.fivestarprofessional.com.

Guaranty Federal is a Connecticut based Correspondent Lender located in Bloomfield, CT. serving Connecticut and Florida (860) 216-3557 ext. 6.

Contact:

Michael D. Diot

Vice President

Guaranty Federal Financial Corp

34 Jerome Avenue Suite 310

Bloomfield, CT

(860) 216-3557 ext 6 Office

Guaranty-Federal.com

NMLS Originator I.D. 24454

NMLS State I.D. 2624
Managing Your Cold Chain  Lessons Learned from the Ebola Clinical Trials. The roundtable topic includes: Are you effectively managing your temperature requirements in Zone 4 climate zones? Come learn practical solutions for the real-world challenges that led to a flawless execution of the STRIVE Ebola clinical trial in sub-Saharan Africa with zero temperature excursions, said Dan Littlefield Past News Releases RSS Cold Chain Experts Modality...

Modality Solutions Appoints Robert...

Modality Solutions Names Gabrielle...

Modality Solutions, LLC, a privately-held company that delivers integrated cold chain management solutions for highly-regulated public health and life science industries, is pleased to announce its sponsorship and roundtable leadership at the 17th Annual World Vaccine Congress, April 10-12 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC. The Congress promotes research, development and strategic partnering for the global vaccine industry.

Daniel Littlefield, Principal at Modality Solutions, will lead an interactive roundtable discussion on WVC Day 1 at 11:20 a.m. Titled: Managing Your Cold Chain  Lessons Learned from the Ebola Clinical Trials. Littlefield will cover the topic of: Are you effectively managing temperature requirements in your clinical trials in Zone 4 climate zones? The discussion will include the management of multiple temperature ranges from <-60 C to 2 C to 8 C, the transport and storage with minimal infrastructure to remote depots and clinical trial sites and compliance by partnering with the local regulatory authorities.

I invite Congress attendees to join my interactive roundtable, said Modality Solutions Principal, Daniel Littlefield. Come learn practical solutions for the real-world challenges that led to a flawless execution of the STRIVE Ebola clinical trial in sub-Saharan Africa with zero temperature excursions.

Our sponsorship and participation in the WVA supports our continued commitment to work with vaccine experts from top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide, said Modality Solutions President Gary Hutchinson. The Congress will cover some of the crucial technological developments that are changing how vaccines are researched, manufactured and distributed.

The World Vaccine Congress Washington is well-established as the leading event on vaccines each year. Now in its seventeenth year, attendees are guaranteed the best experience on-site ever. The Congress will cover the crucial topics which are affecting the whole sector. Leadership anticipates more than 700 senior vaccine executives will take advantage of the World Vaccine Congress as well as the eight co-located streams on Immune Profiling, Cancer & Immunotherapy, Influenza & Respiratory, Clinical Trials, Emerging Diseases, Partnerships, Veterinary Vaccines, and Bioprocessing & Manufacturing.

For more information and to register for the 2017 World Vaccine Congress, visit https://goo.gl/5I6XtF

About Modality Solutions, LLC

Founded in 2011 Modality Solutions delivers integrated cold chain management solutions for highly regulated industries. Its Advantage Transportation Simulation Laboratory tests the effects of transportation environmental hazards on formulations. Key areas of service are: ensure regulatory compliance; deliver cold chain thermal packaging design / qualification and controlled-environment logistics solutions; conduct transport simulation testing; decrease development cycle times for a faster route-to-market; develop transport validation strategies to support global regulatory applications; and clinical trial operations. Modality Solutions subject matter experts are frequent presenters at global cold chain industry conferences. For more information visit http://www.modality-solutions.com.
Novi Backyard, Pool & Spa Show March 24 - 26 Healthy living, family fun, entertaining friends, backyard living and making your home your castle is what you will find at our show

The 22nd annual Novi Backyard, Pool & Spa Show will run from Friday, March 24 through Sunday, March 26 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi with everything needed for home entertaining, exercising and swimming this summer.

Over 45 exhibitors are ready to transform your backyard into your personal resort, said Richard Martin, president of APSP. We added a new consumer education and showcase area that will display the best of backyard, pool and spa projects by Association of Pool & Spa Professionals - Michigan Chapter members. And this is the one time per year homeowners can meet with Michigans backyard, pool and spa industry professionals, in one location. APSP is the event sponsor and a non-profit local trade association comprised of member companies in the pool, spa and backyard living business.

Exhibitors will have a wide selection on display and showcase the latest trends and innovations to fit any space or budget for enhanced backyard living relaxation and fun. Hundreds of ideas, products and services are available from the major outdoor living environment categories including inground and above ground pools, spas, swim spas, hot tubs, saunas, decks, patios, fencing, awnings, outdoor kitchens and living spaces, landscaping, water features, brick paving, decorative concrete, patio furniture and accessories.

Homeowners will find the information they need about building, buying or servicing a pool or spa at show exhibits. Experts are available with tips and advice on designing, building, purchasing, planning, maintenance, safety and landscaping.

Healthy living, family fun, entertaining friends, backyard living and making your home your castle is what you will find at our show, said Martin. We are here to help and show you the way to a new outdoor living space or renovating an existing backyard.

Suburban Collection Showplace is located at 46100 Grand River Avenue between Novi and Beck Road in Novi. Show hours are from 3  9 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.  9 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $8; $4 for children 6-14 and children 5 and under admitted free. Discount coupons for $2 off adult admission are available at shows Web site. On-site parking is available for a fee. For information on APSP, visit http://www.APSPmi.org. For show information, visit http://www.NoviPoolShow.com or call (734) 398-9700.
I am eternally grateful to my peers and clients for this recognition as a Five Star Professional.

Five Star Professional is pleased to announce Rebecca Turley, First Weber has been chosen as one of Milwaukees Rising Star Real Estate Agents for 2017.

I am eternally grateful to my peers and clients for this recognition as a Five Star Professional," said Rebecca Turley of First Weber.

Five Star Professional partnered with Milwaukee Magazine to recognize a select group of Milwaukee-area real estate professionals who, in only a short period of time as agents, have performed at a high level with strong client satisfaction. Rebecca Turley is featured, along with other award winners, in a special section of the May issue.

The greatest compliment is to have my name passed along to others. Regardless of the circumstances or number of times you move, my hope is to be the only Realtor you will ever need! said Rebeccat Turley.

As part of the Rising Star Real Estate Agent award program, agents are measured using an objective, in-depth research methodology with significant focus on customer feedback, sales volume and overall satisfaction.

For me, my role as the agent is being the support team for the client," said Rebecca Turley.

Rising Star Real Estate Agent award winners are agents to watch. Based on their impressive sales volume, transactions and client service they show tremendous potential to excel in the profession for years to come, says Jonathan Wesser, Research Director, Five Star Professional.

My personal approach is to partner closely with clients to learn their needs and be a creative problem solver in the real estate process. I strive to be an information resource and counselor in what is often an emotional journey," said Rebecca Turley.

About the research process:

Now entering its 14th year, Five Star Professional conducts in-depth, market-specific research in more than 45 markets across North America to identify premium service professionals.

Five Star Professional contacts recent homebuyers and seasoned real estate professionals to identify Rising Star award candidates who are strong performers, provide superior customer service and embody professional excellence. Candidates are also evaluated on objective criteria such as experience, production levels and disciplinary and complaint history.

Real estate agents do not pay a fee to be considered or awarded. For more information, visit http://www.fivestarprofessional.com.
Resident360 This company has an outstanding culture of innovation excellence, and I am excited to apply my expertise and leverage industry trends to drive revenue growth for our clients and Resident360.

Resident360 President Josh Grillo has announced the appointment of multi-family executive Lisa Young as the companys vice president of sales and marketing. Young brings more than 20 years of executive level property management experience to the position. Her expertise includes apartment product marketing, corporate marketing and communications, lead generation strategies, creative services and brand marketing, developer relations, amenity solutions marketing, and digital and social media marketing.

Youngs responsibilities will include helping to promote the Resident360 brand, stimulate increased demand for the companys innovative marketing solutions, driving revenue growth across its product portfolio, and managing the growth and development of the sales team.

Multifamily Zone, LLC, Young has worked extensively as an independent consultant to multifamily business and vendor partners, helping with the naming, branding, and marketing of their assets. Young has successfully led the repositioning of teams and programs to meet a variety of client business objectives. She has extensive experience with lease-ups and asset repositions in multiple markets, including private owners/investors, merchant builders, and fee management companies.

Young spent more than 12 months researching and interviewing marketing companies before accepting the position with Resident360.

"Resident360 is well-positioned for its next stage of growth in helping customers realize the power of combining a digital marketing strategy with an onsite branding and messaging package for their assets, as well as their corporate organization, she says. This company has an outstanding culture of innovation excellence, and I am excited to apply my expertise and leverage industry trends to drive revenue growth for our clients and Resident360.

According to Grillo, Youngs experience and knowledge of the industry make her a natural fit for his progressive multifamily design and marketing agency.

"Lisa brings extraordinary property management expertise along with sales and marketing leadership to Resident360, Grillo says. "She is well-recognized for developing strategies that accelerate growth, and has built strong marketing plans for developers and management companies, and are delighted to welcome her inspiration and leadership."

Prior to joining the RESIDENT360 team, Young founded Multifamily Zone, LLC, a San Francisco-based one-stop shop for all things multifamily. Young is a highly regarded industry speaker, trainer and panel expert for CAA, TCAA and NAA, private retreats and business events. Prior to launching Multifamily Zone, Young served as vice president of marketing and education for Woodmont Real Estate Services, Northern Californias largest fee management company with more than 13,000 units.

For more information, visit the RESIDENT360 website, email josh(at)resident360(dot)com or lisa(at)resident360(at)com, or call (855) 360-9327.

About RESIDENT 360:

Founded in 2010, San Diego-based RESIDENT360 is a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in multifamily responsive apartment websites, 3D floor plans, lead generation and mobile apps.

Known for creating sleek, elegant website designs and results-oriented marketing strategies, RESIDENT 360s talented team of digital strategists includes designers, marketers, copywriters, project managers, business developers, and SEO/SEM specialists working closely with owners, management companies, and developers on branding and marketing campaigns to help achieve their marketing goals.

Josh Grillo, President and co-founder of RESIDENT360, is an expert in multifamily marketing. In 2013, Grillo authored the book "The Definitive Guide to Apartment Marketing: How to Generate More Leads, Close More Leases & Retain Residents All While Saving Time, Money & Frustration, an Amazon.com top seller.

###
98% of St. Benedict's Prep graduates enter college. 87% earn their degree. "We are pioneers!" says Edwin D. Leahy, O.S.B., headmaster at St. Benedict's Prep. "It's a big win for the kids."

St. Benedicts Preparatory School, one of the nations most successful all-male urban schools, today announced a new academic program to provide a comprehensive K-12 curriculum. The move comes two years after taking responsibility for St. Mary School, the oldest existing Catholic elementary school in New Jersey.

After careful planning, and in response to calls to further serve the residents of New Jerseys largest city, St. Benedicts Prep will now operate a co-educational Lower Division (Grades K-6), a Middle Division comprising separate single-sex programs for boys and girls (Grades 7-8) and an all-boys Upper Division (Grades 9 through post-grad). The new model, which also provides opportunities for post-graduate studies for young men, takes effect July 1.

St. Mary, a co-educational school for children in kindergarten through eighth grade founded in 1842, is located on the grounds of the Benedictine Abbey of Newark, the same monastic home of St. Benedicts Prep. St. Mary had long been the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Newark before the Abbey was asked by the Archbishop of Newark to assume responsibility for its operations in 2015. Since 1968, St. Mary has been a mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill, Pa., who will remain an integral part of St. Benedicts Prep.

This is an exciting time for St. Benedicts, said the schools Headmaster, Rev. Edwin Leahy, O.S.B., a member of the schools Class of 1963. We were pioneers in 1973 when St. Benedicts was re-opened to serve the needs of Newark and its surrounding community. Today, we are pioneers again. To bring two sets of dedicated and caring teachers and administrators, including laypersons, Sisters of St. Joseph, and the Benedictine Monks of Newark Abbey, under one St. Benedicts umbrella is a real plus for Newark. Most importantly, it is a big win for the kids.

With this new model, St. Benedicts Preparatory School now boasts an enrollment of nearly 800 students.

About St. Benedicts Prep

St. Benedict's Preparatory School was founded by the Benedictine Monks in 1868 and is one of the oldest and most successful urban schools in the country. Over its history, the Catholic school has educated a rich variety of successive immigrant groups and the local community in and around Greater Newark. It now serves students primarily of African-American and Latino heritage, in grades K through post-graduate. Ninety-eight percent of its graduates go on to college with 87 percent obtaining a degree or on track to graduate. The Resurrection of St. Benedicts, a segment on CBSs 60 Minutes was aired in 2016 (http://www.sbp.org/60Minutes).

For more information, contact:

Michael Fazio

Chief Advancement Officer

973-792-5777

mfazio(at)sbp(dot)org

http://www.sbp.org
* (Updates death toll, displaced with latest figures)

By Lova Rabary

ANTANANARIVO, March 14 (Reuters) - Vanilla producers on the tropical island of Madagascar say a cyclone that killed 78 people has also damaged around 30 percent of the crop in the world's biggest producer.

The valuable beans are often kept under armed guard after prices shot up from around $20 a kg in 2010 to around $500 a kg last year.

A U.S. buyer supplying ingredients for supermarkets Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and coffee chain Starbucks said she expected prices to jump.

The flavouring is used in products from ice cream to coffee. Madagascar produces nearly half the world's crop, according the U.N. Food and Agriculture Administration.

In 2015, Madagascar was estimated to have produced 3,914 tonnes out of a global total of 8,294 tonnes, projected U.N. data showed. No more recent data was available because of the lag in harvesting time.

Cyclone Enawo tore through the East African island last week. On Tuesday, authorities said the storm had killed 78 people, displaced nearly 250,000 and wounded 250.

"The destruction of uprooted fields and plants (means) losses are estimated at 30 percent," said Mamy Razakarivony, president of the national vanilla exporters' group.

He said he feared higher prices would drive away buyers and that locals would sell immature vanilla pods damaged by the storm, introducing poor quality vanilla to the market. The harvest will not be ready until July.

"High prices and poor quality vanilla: this announces a catastrophic season," he said. "People are already starting to pick up the immature vanilla that has been pulled out due to the cyclone."

Reuters data shows the price for black non-split Madagascar vanilla (VAN-MG-BNS) (VAN-MG-IND) is currently at $487.50 per kg. Black non-split vanilla from India is $420 per kg, and from Papua New Guinea it is only $210 per kg.

"The market is so volatile that it jumps on any news," said Josephine Lochhead, the president of the 100-year-old U.S.-based Cook Flavoring Company, which supplies ingredients to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Starbucks.

Story continues

Producers in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia were negotiating prices of $500 per kg for the spring/summer harvest, she said.

"They are feeling out an excited market but we don't know where it is going to land," she told Reuters.

She said increased planting due to record profits, and consumers turning to artificial alternatives because prices were so high, could help dampen prices.

Eddie Fernand, mayor of the Antalaha region, said years of spiralling profits meant many locals had poured all their resources into vanilla farms. Around 95 percent of his region's crop had been destroyed, he said. Now some families face ruin.

(Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld in Nairobi; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Emily Chow

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd warned on Tuesday of a cautious outlook for 2017, although sharp cutbacks in expenses by the state-run oil major allowed it to swing to a fourth-quarter profit from a loss in the year-ago period.

Petronas maintained what it called a "conservative" outlook for this year - despite also posting a higher profit for 2016 - saying it expects oil prices to remain uncertain and that it will continue to pursue lower costs.

Petronas, as the company is known, is relying on lower operating expenses, job cuts and project rollbacks to help it navigate through a low oil price environment.

Malaysia relies on its only Fortune 500 company for nearly a third of its oil and gas-related revenue. Petronas is one of the country's largest employers with a workforce of over 50,000.

"I don't know whether the worst is over or not. We are preparing ourselves for a very uncertain second half of this year," Petronas group CEO Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin told reporters.

He said Petronas was budgeting for an oil price of $45 a barrel for 2017. Benchmark Brent crude on Tuesday was trading around $51.50 a barrel, still at less than half the levels of mid-2014.

"We are not deferring any of the sanctioned projects ... But at the same time projects will be held to more stringent hurdle rates," Wan Zulkiflee said.

Petronas' capital investments tumbled 22 percent in 2016 due to project deferment and other cost-cutting steps, while "controllable" costs fell by 8 percent.

The cuts helped the state oil firm post a net profit after tax of 23.5 billion ringgit for 2016, higher from 20.9 billion ringgit in 2015.

For October-December last year, it reported profit after tax of 11.3 billion ringgit ($2.54 billion), compared with a 2.96 billion ringgit net loss for the same quarter a year ago, primarily due to a drop in operating expenses and impairment costs. Revenue dropped 2 percent to 58.6 billion ringgit.

Story continues

Peter Lee, Asia oil and gas analyst at BMI Research, said Petronas won't have to implement drastic cost cuts this year.

"The one advantage Petronas has is they resorted to cost cutting much earlier compared to their (national oil company) peers in the region," Lee said.

As oil prices traded near 12-year lows in early 2016, Petronas said it would slash spending by 50 billion ringgit over the next four years. The company also cut about 2,300 jobs last year, the CEO said on Tuesday.

Petronas said it expected to pay a 13 billion ringgit dividend to the government this year, unchanged from a figure announced earlier by the government. That's lower than a 16 billion ringgit dividend Petronas has said it would pay for 2016 and the 26 billion ringgit it paid in the year before that.

MAJOR PROJECTS

Petronas is involved in two major projects, one at home and one in Canada, even amid its aggressive spending cuts.

Petronas' finances got a boost last month when Saudi Aramco agreed to invest $7 billion in its Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project that is slated to cost $27 billion.

CEO Wan Zulkiflee said Petronas has still not made a decision on the future of its other big project, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in western Canada, and that it was studying conditions set forth by regulators.

Canada approved the $27 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project in September after a three-year wait, but included conditions to limit its environmental impact.

"We are looking at all options how to develop an LNG plant that will be very competitive among other North American LNG plants ... We will take our time," Wan Zulkiflee said.

($1 = 4.4460 ringgit)

(Reporting by Emily Chow; Writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Tom Hogue)
News

From Bulgaria

Bulgaria to Issue Statement on Gazprom CEE Market Measures Within 7 Weeks

The Bulgarian side would like to be sure that the announced engagements will actually dispel all doubts of the European Commission about violations on the behalf of Gazprom, the press release by the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy said

AUTHOR: publics.bg



 EC Audiovisual Service



On Monday the European Commission (EC) invited all concerned parties to present their views on the measures presented by Gazprom as a response to the Commissions concerns with competition on the natural gas markets in Central and Eastern Europe. Among the suggested measures Gazprom said it would not seek damages from Bulgaria for the cancellation of the South Stream gas pipeline project.

Bulgarias gas companies and the Ministry of Energy are currently getting acquainted with the measures proposed by Gazprom, the energy ministry said in a statement diffused on Tuesday.

Sofia has 7 weeks to present its opinion on the proposals.

The Bulgarian side would like to be sure that the announced engagements will actually dispel all doubts of the European Commission about violations on the behalf of Gazprom, the press release by the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy said.

The procedure of the upcoming consultations gives two options: the EC would either accept the proposals of Gazprom as they are, or to modify them to incorporate possible suggestions by member-countries.

Bulgaria maintains its right to comment on the final version of the Gazprom engagements, the press release said.


On January 27, Donald Trump's executive order banning U.S. entry for people from seven Muslim-majority nations threw Americas immigration system into chaos. Lawful permanent residents were detained or sent overseas. Refugees and asylum-seekers were turned away. Families were separated. And that weekend, the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it had received more than $24 million in donationssix times its annual intake from private donors.

The neoclassical model of economics predicts that human beings will behave as "rational economic actors," always seeking to maximize their personal utility. But the ACLUs experience suggests people also place valueand will also spend moneyon things that are not directly related to personal utility, but reflect their values.

This April, Tor (in the U.S.) and Head of Zeus (in the U.K.) will publish Walkaway my first novel for adults since 2009. It's my "optimistic disaster novel," about people behaving kindly towards one another in times of crisisa countervailing narrative to all those stories in which disaster precipitates barbarism, and where the failure of the our infrastructure is swiftly followed by marauders who smash down your door and eat you.

When we are faced with a crisis and need to think fast, we deploy the "availability heuristic." That's where we treat things as likely outcomes because we can vividly imagine them. The stories we consume are bound up with this availability heuristic: if you've thrilled to dystopian fiction where the few and the good battle the ravening mob, then, when confronted with unprecedented crisis, that fiction becomes a predictionwhen the blackout hits, you assume your neighbors aren't coming over with a covered dish, they're coming over with a shotgun.

You've probably noticed that when disaster strikes, the media tends to focus on the few aberrant episodes of bad conduct. Walkaway is about the opposite of this: a reality-inspired tale of everyday bravery and selflessness drawn from the real world of real disasters, which are always, always moments in which humanity shines.

How do I Support You?

In all the years that I've made e-books available through unconventional means, such as Creative Commons licenses, my number one question from readers has been: "How do I pay you for this without making some digital monopolist richer?" I don't pretend that this is a concern of the a large proportion of the casual readership, but based on my data, it is the most pressing concern for thoughtful, engaged readersreaders who care about books like Walkaway.

 A bookstore operated by an author has an advantage no giant tech platform can offer: a chance to buy your e-books in a way that directly, manifestly benefits the author. 

Walkaway has traditional publishers, and it will have a traditional e-book edition. But I'm going to sell that e-book in a nontraditional way. I'm launching an e-book store with the book, a store that I've privately developed for the past three years, code named "Shut Up and Take My Money" (SUATMM). SUATMM is what I like to call a fair trade e-book store, in which the writer also serves as a retailer.

There are many small, niche-oriented e-book stores serving highly specific markets, but SUATMM is different. It's a retail platform that lets authors with traditional publishers serve as retailers for their those publishers, on the same terms as Amazon, Kobo, Google, BN.com, Apple, and other giants. Those stores have resources no individual author (save, perhaps, the delightfully DRM-free J.K. Rowling) can muster. In particular, they can manage a seamless experience that no indie bookstore can hope to match.

Buying an e-book from a website and sideloading it onto your Kindle will never be as easy as buying it from the Kindle store (though if the world's governments would take the eminently sensible step of legalizing jailbreaking, someone could develop a product that let Kindles easily access third-party stores on the obvious grounds that if you buy a Kindle, you still have the right to decide whose books you'll read on it, otherwise you don't really own that Kindle). But a bookstore operated by an author has an advantage no giant tech platform can offer: a chance to buy your e-books in a way that directly, manifestly benefits the author.

As an author, being my own e-book retailer gets me a lot. It gets me money: once I take the normal 30 percent retail share off the top, and the customary 25 percent royalty from my publisher on the back-end, my royalty is effectively doubled. It gives me a simple, fair way to cut all the other parts of the value-chain in on my success: because this is a regular retail sale, my publishers get their regular share, likewise my agents. And, it gets me up-to-the-second data about who's buying my books and where.

It also gets me a new audience that no retailer or publisher is targeting: the English-speaking reader outside of the Anglosphere. Travel in Schengen, for example, and you will quickly learn that there are tens of millions of people who speak English as a second (or third, or fourth) language, and nevertheless speak it better than you ever will. Yet there is no reliable way for these English-preferring readers, who value the writer's original words, unfiltered by translation, to source legal e-books in English.

Amazon and its competitors typically refuse outright to deal with these customers, unable to determine which publisher has the right to sell to them. Most publishing contracts declare these nominally non-English-speaking places to be "open territory" where in theory all of the book's publishers may compete, but in practice, none of them do.

Even in the Anglosphere, readers are often left to their own devices. Told that Amazon U.S. can't sell the book to them, they must discover for themselves where to find the book on Amazon U.K. But acting as my own retailer, I can easily determine who gets the publisher's end of the payment: in the U.S. and Canada, it's Tor; in the U.K. and the Commonwealth, it's Head of Zeus. Everywhere elseall that open territoryits me.

For the other defined territories, it's a simple matter of calculating the remittances and sending payments and statements to my other publishers, just like any other retailer. The difference being that rather than my publishers sending me 25% of the money due twice a year in the form of a royalty check, I am in control of the money.

A New Reader Experience

After my experiences organizing name-your-price e-book bundles with the Humble Bundle peopleraising $2M in voluntary payments for a couple dozen backlist titlesI had a realization. Most e-book readers were already living in a "name your price" world: one in which the only two prices they were allowed to quote were zero, and full retail.

But people are kind. People are good. Homo Economicus is a lie. People want to do the right thing. And when the name-your-price offer is couched in terms of being a good person, people open their hearts and their wallets. SUATMM has lots of bells and whistles. And I think fair trade e-books are an idea whose time has come.

As I was preparing this column, I learned that my U.K. publisher, Head of Zeus, had been developing BookGrail, its own author-centric e-book retail platform, one that offers a very similar slate of terms, with thousands of titles, and far more resources than I could bring to bear on such a project.

It's an exciting moment! BookGrail is a platform I'll be delighted to have my books on, even as I use SUATMM to serve my own quirky needs: name your price, 100% DRM-free, etc. But both platforms represent a way for readers who care about the book trade, about authorial independence, about their money going preferentially to the people who make the art they love, to express those preferences.

And both platforms make offers Amazon, Google, and Apple can never match: the chance to buy books in a way that benefits the whole ecosystem of writers, agents and publishers.
The 2017 London Book Fair officially opened today, and at the fairs opening press conference LBF director Jacks Thomas smiled as she raced through her slides. For the second year in a row, Thomas noted, publishers headed to London with fairly strong sales in the U.K. (and the U.S.), with literature in translation growing, childrens and digital audio surging, and print booksand bookshopslooking especially resurgent.

But following Thomas on stage at Olympias Grand Hall, a panel discussion broke down the potential effects of the looming Brexit on publishers, one day after British lawmakers cleared the way for the formal work of leaving the E.U. to begin.

The U.K. now has around two years to work out what type of country it wants to be in the future, said U.K. Publishers Association chief executive Stephen Lotinga. The referendum in June may have provided an answer to our membership in the E.U., but many questions remain about the type of nation we want to be in the future. And one of the reasons U.K. publishing is so successful is because of the type of country we are: open, diverse, international. How and whether these values are sustained in the future will have enormous consequences for our industry.

In his talk, DK Publishing CEO Ian Hudson said that, for publishers, the devil will be in the details when it comes to Brexit.

You may or may not like the outcome of last year's referendum, he said. Like me, you may believe that socially, culturally, and in terms of standing we will be much the poorer for [leaving the E.U.]. But it's far from clear to me that we have to be worse off economically.

 The U.K. now has around two years to work out what type of country it wants to be in the future. 

Hudson then ran down a number of issues that DKa global publisher, doing in business in 100 countriesnow faces: chief among them, retaining good, international talent. Hudson said the government should immediately guarantee the right of international workers to stay in the country, saying it was inhuman to use their live and careers as negotiating chips.

Talent diversity and internationality is crucial to DK, and I would suggest that over the past couple centuries it has been crucial to the U.K. and its development as a highly creative society, Hudson said, noting that of the 500 employees in DKs U.K. office, 81 do not have British passports. Diversity and creativity go hand-in-hand. We need to be able to retain our European talent, and we need to be able to recruit European talent, and talent from outside Europe, so they can help us continue to develop books that will appeal to global markets.

In the Q&A period, HarperCollins CEO Charlie Redmayne backed up Hudson, saying that Polish workers in Harper's Scottish outposts are "going back home" as uncertainty looms over whether they will be allowed to stay in the U.K. These Brexit departures, he said, are already impacting business. "Not giving security on residency will impact U.K. businesses and jobs," said Redmayne.

Currency fluctuations are also an issue, Hudson noted. Although he conceded that the weak pound has helped the export business, and could help U.K printers compete internationally, it has also significantly increased DKs overseas printing costs as well as the costs of maintaining international offices. But most damaging, fluctuating currency is hindering the business as many DK customers must commit to taking quantities of books 12 or 18 months before they have to pay for them.

Hudson also urged the U.K. government to commit to free trade principles. It is a well-established fact: trade barriers destroy economic value, Hudson said. And, he urged the U.K. to find a way to remain engaged on copyright issues in Europe.

Copyright, intellectual property, and piracy protection are fundamental, and the loss of our seat at the E.U. table and the ability to influence E.U. copyright decisions is a backward step, he said. "Over many years we've proven to be a voice of reason at the E.U. table that has helped deliver copyright frameworks and intellectual property rights frameworks that we can all work with. We just voted to lose that voice. So we need to find another way of offering influence.
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* Petronas says oil prices to remain uncertain this year

* Holds to "conservative" outlook, plans to focus on cost-cuts

* Capital investment fell 22 pct last year, 2,300 jobs cut

* No decision yet on future of Canada LNG project -CEO (Adds CEO comments Canada and RAPID projects, analyst comment)

By Emily Chow

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd warned on Tuesday of a cautious outlook for 2017, although sharp cutbacks in expenses by the state-run oil major allowed it to swing to a fourth-quarter profit from a loss in the year-ago period.

Petronas maintained what it called a "conservative" outlook for this year - despite also posting a higher profit for 2016 - saying it expects oil prices to remain uncertain and that it will continue to pursue lower costs.

Petronas, as the company is known, is relying on lower operating expenses, job cuts and project rollbacks to help it navigate through a low oil price environment.

Malaysia relies on its only Fortune 500 company for nearly a third of its oil and gas-related revenue. Petronas is one of the country's largest employers with a workforce of over 50,000.

"I don't know whether the worst is over or not. We are preparing ourselves for a very uncertain second half of this year," Petronas group CEO Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin told reporters.

He said Petronas was budgeting for an oil price of $45 a barrel for 2017. Benchmark Brent crude on Tuesday was trading around $51.50 a barrel, still at less than half the levels of mid-2014.

"We are not deferring any of the sanctioned projects ... But at the same time projects will be held to more stringent hurdle rates," Wan Zulkiflee said.

Petronas' capital investments tumbled 22 percent in 2016 due to project deferment and other cost-cutting steps, while "controllable" costs fell by 8 percent.

The cuts helped the state oil firm post a net profit after tax of 23.5 billion ringgit for 2016, higher from 20.9 billion ringgit in 2015.

Story continues

For October-December last year, it reported profit after tax of 11.3 billion ringgit ($2.54 billion), compared with a 2.96 billion ringgit net loss for the same quarter a year ago, primarily due to a drop in operating expenses and impairment costs. Revenue dropped 2 percent to 58.6 billion ringgit.

Peter Lee, Asia oil and gas analyst at BMI Research, said Petronas won't have to implement drastic cost cuts this year.

"The one advantage Petronas has is they resorted to cost cutting much earlier compared to their (national oil company) peers in the region," Lee said.

As oil prices traded near 12-year lows in early 2016, Petronas said it would slash spending by 50 billion ringgit over the next four years. The company also cut about 2,300 jobs last year, the CEO said on Tuesday.

Petronas said it expected to pay a 13 billion ringgit dividend to the government this year, unchanged from a figure announced earlier by the government. That's lower than a 16 billion ringgit dividend Petronas has said it would pay for 2016 and the 26 billion ringgit it paid in the year before that.

MAJOR PROJECTS

Petronas is involved in two major projects, one at home and one in Canada, even amid its aggressive spending cuts.

Petronas' finances got a boost last month when Saudi Aramco (IPO-ARMO.SE) agreed to invest $7 billion in its Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project that is slated to cost $27 billion.

CEO Wan Zulkiflee said Petronas has still not made a decision on the future of its other big project, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in western Canada, and that it was studying conditions set forth by regulators.

Canada approved the $27 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project in September after a three-year wait, but included conditions to limit its environmental impact.

"We are looking at all options how to develop an LNG plant that will be very competitive among other North American LNG plants ... We will take our time," Wan Zulkiflee said.

($1 = 4.4460 ringgit) (Reporting by Emily Chow; Writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Tom Hogue)
SEATTLE - The trade group representing the nation's largest aerospace and defense companies is throwing its full weight behind a sweeping Republican plan that would transform the U.S. tax system, lowering the corporate tax rate while imposing new taxes on imported goods.

In a letter Tuesday to congressional leaders, Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg, who is chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association, or AIA, this year, expressed the group's strong support for measures it described as "comprehensive reforms of our tax code."

That puts all 330 companies in the aerospace lobbying group firmly on the side of what's called the border adjustment tax, which they say will stimulate U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The tax-system reform package is hugely controversial and opposed in particular by large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, which say it will cause steep price increases for consumers.

Muilenburg - along with the CEOs of other major corporations including GE, Caterpillar, United Technologies, Raytheon, Oracle and Merck - had already last month joined the American Made Coalition that is lobbying for the change.

In a separate statement, AIA Chief Executive David Melcher described the current U.S. tax system as "broken" and not globally competitive.

"We need a modern tax system which creates a level playing field with the rest of the world in order to locate and grow jobs, manufacturing and profits inside the United States," Melcher said.

The plan proposed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady, represents a structural shift from taxing bottom-line corporate profits to taxing companies through their cash flow.

If the Ryan plan becomes law, every time an item is sold in the U.S., the sales revenue would be taxable at 20 percent, with deductions allowed for labor and inventory costs.

Another boost to business is that capital investment - such as the billions of dollars Boeing invests in its assembly plants - would be immediately deductible in the year the money is spent, instead of being accounted for through depreciation over many years.

The most controversial piece of the proposal is the "border adjustment" element, which would exempt U.S. exports from the tax entirely, while imports would be taxed at 20 percent.

President Donald Trump was initially cool to the plan but recently seems to have come around to the idea.

"I certainly support a form of tax on the border, because everybody else does," Trump told Reuters last month.

Bloomberg News reported that top Trump strategist Steve Bannon is an enthusiastic backer, citing a person familiar with discussions between Bannon and Ryan.

A company like Boeing, a huge net exporter, is likely to come out well ahead. The impact on other companies will vary according to how much they import.

How other countries might react to the tax on imports is uncertain.

Proponents of the new system insist it won't distort the trade balance. But some experts are skeptical and believe U.S. trading partners, including perhaps China, could impose retaliatory tariffs - potentially even triggering a destructive trade war.

Nonetheless, the AIA leadership, in its letter, urges Congress "to act now."
An old Marine told me that Marines guard Marines from the other side. And when one of their brothers is being threatened, the Devil Dogs (aka Marines) will "go wild on them" for eternity.

Yes, but what about the sisters? Do the Devil Dogs protect them, too? What about the female Marines whose nude photos were posted to a Facebook group where comments ranged from raunchy to suggestions of violence?

Do women Marines count in the Devil Dogs lore?

The questions arise as the Defense Department begins an investigation into recent revelations about the Facebook group, Marines United, which the Associated Press reports was comprised of active-duty and retired male Marines along with some Navy Corpsmen and Royal British Marines.

Some of the nude shots were grabbed from Instagram, which mostly prohibits nudity. Others were shot surreptitiously. Most were passed along a testosterone-rich grapevine. More than two dozen active-duty women in the photographs were identified by their rank, full name and location. Needless to say, the women were horrified to learn that they had been sexually objectified by their peers.

One said the scandal had ruined her Marine experience and that she wouldn't re-enlist. One active corpsman said he'd seen the photos on the Facebook page, which also provides news and support, but wasn't interested and skipped over them. He didn't find the collection surprising, however, likely given his generation's comfort with nudity in all its forms.

The young women who knowingly had their photos taken apparently thought that viewers would be of their own choosing. One can imagine, however, that a libidinous corpsman (pardon the redundancy) who discovers a picture of a semi-nude or nude female Marine might be inspired to share it. Isn't "sharing" the operative terms in today's narcissistic, show-and-tell-all culture?

The difference and the distinction, however, is that the Marines United boys club basically stole the images and used them without the subjects' consent. Marines being Marines? Or are they guilty of something more sinister, potentially deserving court martial?

To the civilian mind, the answer is rather simple: The Pentagon, now fully infiltrated and indoctrinated by modern feminists, has decided to put women in combat (thank you, President Obama). Therefore, women must be treated as men.

But what about the vice-versa? Must men be treated as women? That is, should they be trained to be more "sensitive"? If so, can you simultaneously create sensitivity in the desensitizing, killing culture that breaks down an 18-year-old's humanity and instills in him an instinct for extreme brutality?

Put another way, how stupid are we?

There's a reason we say in times of great peril, "Send in the Marines," and it's not because of the few brave, committed women among them. But try to find someone in today's military willing to say so.

Older vets with nothing to lose will sometimes open up. Two of my regular Marine correspondents, "Jack" and "Russ," both of them Vietnam vets, explained the culture that creates killers and how this environment isn't conducive to civilian norms.

Jack, who told me the afterlife story, is my brother. Russ is a retired Methodist minister who counsels veterans navigating post-traumatic stress disorder. Neither they nor I intend to justify the Facebook group but rather aim to illuminate the mindset that might have led to it and the misunderstandings that create havoc.

"Hollywood makes this s--- up," says Jack in his best "French." "I never saw a Marine shed a tear for lost buddies. Now in the Middle East, these guys have f------ breakdowns and unit ceremonies and all that s---. In Vietnam, your buddies put you in a body bag, a chopper flew your dead a-- to Da Nang and off you went on a jet back home.

"It ain't Hollywood. It is stinky, bloody, sweat-soaked, soil-your-britches killing and being killed. You push that cr-- down so far in your guts that it comes out 50 years after the job is done. That's PTSD."

Russ explains the culture in somewhat more polished terms.

"Marines embrace the warrior archetype more than other branches. The shadow of this is patriarchy, misogyny and brutality. We are trained to be killing machines, deadening all emotion except anger. We're told we don't have the luxury of sensitivity, so we objectify everything, including women."

Still, he's optimistic, saying that we need to return to "the embodiment of the hero archetype in the medieval knight. Aggressiveness can be coupled with honor, nobility and compassion."

Maybe so. But knights typically didn't joust with women, which may be the most salient inference. That said, chivalry has a place here. An apology to the women who exposed themselves to the few, not the proud, would be appropriate -- both as gesture and punishment.
A former Riverwood Rehab resident is suing the East Moline nursing facility for improper care during her stay in 2015.

Adele Erwin filed the lawsuit last month in Rock Island County Circuit Court, according to court documents. Her suit states she stayed at Riverwood from April 3 to July 20. Upon admission, she had no pressure ulcers but was assessed as being at high risk for developing them due to open wounds from previous shingles rashes, the lawsuit says

The care plan for these wounds included the use of a pressure-reducing device, a turning schedule and the application of ointments and dressings.

Her lawsuit states that on April 16, her nutritional assessment documented Stage 2-4 pressure ulcers and classified her as "a high-risk nutritional assessment." On May 4 she had tan drainage with a strong odor coming from a wound. She lost over 20 pounds in less than a month's time, her suit states.

Ms. Erwin was transferred multiple times between Genesis Medical Center, Riverwood Rehab and Unity Point Health, the lawsuit states. She alleges that, as a result of the injuries she sustained during her residency at Riverwood Rehab, her then-stable medical condition deteriorated requiring extensive ongoing medical treatment.

Riverwood Rehab is owned by Aperion Care Inc. Fred Frankel, general counsel for Aperion, said Illinois officials monitor the care at all of their facilities.

"We take all of the allegations we receive seriously and work to correct them," Mr. Frankel said.

Ms. Erwin is requesting damages in excess of $50,000. She demands a trial by jury. A case management conference is set for May 18.
LOMBARD, Ill. (AP)  A serial shoplifter from Florida known as the "Toys 'R' Us Kid" and the "Lego Bandit" has been found guilty of stealing art supplies in northeast Illinois.

Ignatius Pollara, 51, was convicted Monday on burglary and retail theft charges in DuPage County, the Daily Herald (http://bit.ly/2moj3Ei ) reported. Police said he was arrested on July 3, 2015 after stealing about $80 in art supplies from a Hobby Lobby in Lombard.

Pollara was convicted in 2012 in Florida, where authorities allege he stole more than $2 million in Lego sets and Toys "R'' Us toys.

More than 10 police officers followed Pollara after they were tipped off on July 1 that he would be flying into Chicago from Florida the next day, Downers Grove police Sgt. Jeremy Thayer testified. Police obtained a search warrant for his rental car and found receipts for several small purchases, as well as items that appeared to be stolen.

The Tamarac, Florida, resident has been held on $125,000 bond since his arrest in Illinois.

Pollara declined to testify at a hearing Friday. He has been citied three times during the case for criminal contempt of court, often for profane courtroom outbursts.

His sentencing is scheduled for April 24.
ROCK ISLAND  The Rock Island Police Department will host its monthly crime prevention meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the department's community room.

The topic of the meeting will be criminal investigations. The educational meetings are meant to strengthen relationships with citizens and improve the community. Attendees are encouraged to provide feedback on issues and concerns, the department said.
Today is Tuesday, March 14, the 73rd day of 2017. There are 292 days left in the year.

1867  150 years ago: Block & New Burger Brothers are manufacturing in this city fine bedspreads and also nice carpets.

1892  125 years ago: The George E. Bailey Commission House at 217 18th St. incurred about $4,000 damage in a fire.

1917  100 years ago: Another international crisis approached when a German submarine sank the American steamer Algonquin.

1942  75 years ago: Mrs. C.A. Fisher attended the Midwest Beauty Trade Show at Chicago.

1967  50 years ago: Two Quad-Cities barbershop quartets, the Hub-bubs of Davenport and the Bear Tones from Rock Island, placed first and second, respectively, in a novice quartet contest Saturday night at the Davenport YM-YWCA

1992  25 years ago: Everything about Casino Rock Island's first day of cruising the Mississippi River went off wonderfully. Wednesday's first cruise carried 96 passengers. By the end of the day's six cruises, 1,097 passengers had boarded the floating casino.
Rock Island County is planning to tear down a levee that has stood for 42 years (built in 1974) which could flood the Barstow community and the Carbon Cliff-Barstow Fire Station, a critical infrastructure for the community.

Prior to 1974, river heights greater than 16 feet resulted in Barstow residents having to rely on boats and hip boots to navigate the community.

The county has denied that removing the levee will flood Barstow. They have produced no technical analysis or even simple analysis to prove this. They say Barstow Road is higher than the levee and the road will serve to protect the community. What is wrong with these statements is:

1. Roads are not levees and RICo does not build its roads to be levees;

2. Barstow Road has five culverts under it, three of which are 36 inches in diameter or greater. Water flows through these culverts at river levels as low as 16 feet. How do we know this? An extrapolation of Flood Profiles, from the FEMA flood insurance study for RICo, shows that without the levee flooding will be initiated at river levels of 16 feet.

A comprehensive study also was conducted by the Corps of Engineers and provided a hydrological analysis of Rock River flood profiles for river heights starting at 16 feet. Mapping from this study shows flood waters encroaching into the Barstow community at 16 feet.

The county has stated that the risk (equating to chance) for Barstow is the same with or without the levee. This might be true if one is only considering the 1 percent chance associated with a 100-year flood.

According to Flood Frequency Analysis of the Barstow area, during the past 17 years, a flood greater than 16 feet occurred every 1.54 years. This equates to a chance of flooding greater than 64 percent in any given year.

The county originally said that FEMA required removal of the levee. Researching FEMA regulations and RICos Hazard Mitigation Grant and finding no such requirement, a Freedom of Information Act request was sent to the county asking for the requirement for levee removal. The response indicated one did not exist.

The county then obtained from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources a letter citing the Rivers, Lakes and Streams Act stating that the levee at Barstow was not a permitted levee and unless the county obtained a permit it would be required to remove it.

The letter did not mention that levees built prior to 1985 are grandfathered in. The issue is what the levee height was in 1985 versus today. There is no question sandbags were added to the levee in 1993-1996. Because these materials were not compacted, there has been significant settling in 24 years. Removal of any material exceeding the 1985 level would make the levee acceptable.

Another alternative would be to determine if the current levee meets the requirements of the act today and can be permitted as it exists. A third alternative might be to request a waiver.

But the countys objective appears solely to remove the levee which could potentially flood Barstow and the fire station.

For three years we have asked RICo to come to Barstow to discuss the potential impacts to the community. The only response was a verbal one from Greg Thorpe, director of zoning, at a meeting with Sen. Neil Anderson, when he replied to the request with, why would we want to do that?

Is it any wonder why when the county asks citizens for support they are turned down!

What the county is planning in Barstow is wrong and needs to be stopped!
Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller (L) testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the implementation of the decision to open all ground combat units to women on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The Marine Corps has no idea how to fix its nude-photo-sharing scandal, as even the service's top general seemed to acknowledge in a press conference last week.

"I'm generationally challenged here," said Gen. Robert Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps. "My children help me try to understand this stuff."

"Come on guys," a clearly frustrated Neller told reporters. Female Marines, he said, "just want to do their job."

"Let 'em do their job," he said, "and you do yours. And you know what: It'll all work out."

Unfortunately for Neller, and, more important, for the 7% of the Marine Corps made up of women, it isn't all going to work out. The problem will continue to metastasize if top leaders don't face it head on.

That will be especially true if the service tries to sweep this latest scandal under the rug as it did in 2014, when the website Task & Purpose revealed that active-duty Marines were harassing their female colleagues online with impunity.

When the commandant says this behavior is against the Corps' values, he's wrong. The problem of harassment of female Marines has existed for a long time, with little pushback from leadership. The only difference is that now it has gone online  and turned into a media frenzy.

With so few women in the ranks of a male-dominated, infantry-centric force, it's easy to see the roots of the problem. Former Marine Sgt. Alexander McCoy traced those roots back to the Corps' initial training, writing in an op-ed article published last week in The New York Times.

"The message we got was clear: Female Marines are disgusting and worthless and physically unsuited for the service," McCoy wrote, citing segregated training units of male and female Marines.

Marine Corps OCS boot camp

I can't claim to be above the fray. As a former Marine infantryman, I am near certain that I've said negative things about female Marines. It's rather easy to do when you are segregated from them on base and hardly interact with any of them.

Story continues

Take, for example, Camp Pendleton, California, the sprawling West Coast home of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Though some 70,000 military and civilian personnel are working on the base on any given day, its male-dominated infantry units are sequestered in its northern half.

When just seeing a woman in your area of the base is an anomaly, it's not all that surprising that some male Marines look at female Marines as outcasts, not worthy of any respect. That kind of view comes on top of the generally unfavorable view that infantrymen have of anyone outside the combat arms' military occupation specialties. Infantry "grunts" call them pogues, or personnel other than grunt.

"It's a shark tank. We don't have the numbers to defend ourselves," Stephanie Kline, a former Marine officer, told me, echoing a point made by Maximilian Uriarte, a former enlisted Marine who has a large following among the active-duty ranks.

Kline shared one anecdote to demonstrate the uphill battle that many female Marines still face.

At one point in her career, for example, she was injured and thought she needed to get surgery. In a meeting with five male Marines, her commander told her he would need her to pull her pants down so he could see the scars. Despite her and the others' shocked faces in the room, no one said a word.

"It was on me to just be cool about it," she said.

female marine

This should anger Neller.

It should anger Neller that there are Marines and veterans thumbing their nose at him by starting a "Marines United 2.0." It should anger Neller that some women in the ranks are "absolutely terrified" of reprisals if they speak out.

"I wanted my commandant to be pissed," Kline told me. "I wanted him to at least pretend to feel the frustration and pain and anger and humiliation that so many female Marines have gone through and are going through."

But that anger is not what Neller demonstrated. Instead, we saw a general who was confused by the problem and who seemed more upset not by the behavior demonstrated by some of his male Marines but by the fact that he had to address this scandal instead of taking a planned trip to Norway.

"If you asked me two or three weeks ago, what's my number one concern, it wouldn't be looking for websites where Marines are allegedly posting pictures of other Marines," Neller said. "I was gonna go to Norway this weekend, see a bunch of Marines above the Arctic Circle up there training ... Instead I'm going to be up on Capitol Hill."

Respectfully sir, this is your problem.

marine general neller

Neller has taken ownership of the issue, which is commendable. But now it is time he forcefully condemn this behavior and stand up for the women in his ranks. Though the latest scandal apparently extends beyond the Corps, the Marine commandant has the chance to lead from the front and protect the Corps' most precious resource: its people.

This isn't an impossible task. The Corps can take steps to address this issue immediately. First, Neller can push to integrate initial recruit and officer training. All other military branches have integrated their basic-training schools, and there is no reason the Corps cannot do the same. It should also eventually implement universal physical-fitness standards for male and female Marines, so everyone knows they are on the same playing field.

Second, the Corps should attack this problem just as it did with the problem of drug use. Before the Pentagon adopted a "zero tolerance" approach to drugs, the Corps in 1980 saw nearly 50% of its Marines acknowledging illegal drug use in the previous year. The number of personnel admitting to using drugs in 2008 for the entire military was less than 3%.

It's obvious that the message  we will kick you out of the military if you use drugs  has been heard loud and clear. But, as this latest scandal shows, plenty of male service members are harassing their female colleagues online with little fear of repercussion.

Still, before Neller makes any changes, if any, he needs to listen to his female Marines.

He needs to get in a room and speak with the female Marine corporal who was reportedly stalked by a male Marine on her base at Camp Lejeune. Neller needs to speak with the female Marines who have contributed to success on the battlefield, such as the female-engagement-teams that helped in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And he needs to make it clear that he truly has their back. He needs to show male Marines that he is not going to tolerate what some of their colleagues have done, while showing female Marines that he's going to stand up for them, no matter what.

He can't just ask them to trust him. He needs to earn that trust.

Here's what Neller should say:

"To the women who serve alongside me: You are Marines. You have served our Corps for nearly 100 years. We could not do what we do without your contribution to the Marine Corps. I am going to do everything within my power to investigate this and ultimately, do what is right. That's what you deserve. I won't let you down.

"And to the male Marines who engage in what appears to be a disgusting cyberstalking campaign: Know this. You are not Marines. You are not worthy of my uniform. If you think it's OK to denigrate the service of another Marine, you shouldn't be doing it while wearing an eagle, globe, and anchor. There is absolutely no place for you within our Corps, and I will do everything in my power to find you and weed you out."

The general is set to testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Let's hope some anger finally comes out.

NOW WATCH: ACLU: Here's what you should do if you're stopped by the police as a pedestrian





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Bert Coursey Bio Metrology Saving Marie Curies Last Radium Standard The famous chemist and NIST shared technical know-how during her U.S. visit in 1921

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Author Archive Marie Curie is perhaps the most famous woman of 20th-century science. Major films and best-selling biographies have chronicled her discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium, for which she shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and then received a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, in 1911. Very little note, however, has been made of her leadership role in developing radioactivity standards. In 1910, she was asked by her peers to prepare the worlds first radium standard: a glass ampoule containing 21.99 milligrams of radium chloride, whose mass and radioactivity had been carefully measured. She agreed, on the advice of Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford, that this international standard would not be kept in her Paris laboratory, but would instead be stored at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres in the Paris suburbs. Like what you're reading? Log in or create FREE account to continue Enter your Quality Digest username OR email address. Enter your Quality Digest password. By logging in you agree to receive communication from Quality Digest. Privacy Policy Remember me Create a FREE account Forgot My Password Quality Digest does not charge readers for its content. We believe that industry news is important for you to do your job, and Quality Digest supports businesses of all types. However, someone has to pay for this content. And thats where advertising comes in. Most people consider ads a nuisance, but they do serve a useful function besides allowing media companies to stay afloat. They keep you aware of new products and services relevant to your industry. All ads in Quality Digest apply directly to products and services that most of our readers need. You wont see automobile or health supplement ads.



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Quality Digest Discuss About The Author Bert Coursey Bert Coursey is currently a guest researcher in the Standards Service Group at NIST. He received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Georgia and came to the NIST Radioactivity Group in 1972. He has spent 45 years at NISTwith nine of these on detail to the Dept. of Homeland Security. He pursues outside interests including jogging, kayaking and beach walking with family in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
LOGO Layers by Lori Goldstein Printed V-neck Knit Tank with Straight Hem is rated 4.2 out of 5 by 72 .

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When Jacinda Ardern was rattling off the things that matter most to all of us incredible Kiwis - it rang a little hollow when held up against Labours record.

6 hours ago
FINANCIAL EDGE March 2017: He sure plays a mean game of Railroad Written by David Nahass , Financial Editor









When the Financial Edge last addressed the topic of Hunter Harrison, it was during the failed takeover of Norfolk Southern (NS) by Canadian Pacific (CP). Pursuit of NS was not Harrisons first transcontinental endeavor.

Both before and during his public spat with NS, Harrison pursued CSX, first in October 2014, and then again in January 2016. Having been resoundingly rebuffed by NS, Harrison turned his attention back to CSX in what has clearly become one of the most interesting games of East Coast-style M&A pinball.

But there has to be a twist. In this case, Harrison has gone corporate raider and most likely prompted the May 31 retirement of current CSX CEO Michael Ward. And in one of the greatest insult-to-injury moments in recent memory, hell make CSX shareholders pay the money he gave up as CP CEO to take over CSX.

Check please? How does $300 million sound, plus 1% of CSX common stock? Most people would likely concede that there is a pretty big spread between the Harrison ask and a reasonable payment for his services as CEO.

Putting aside for a moment what Harrisons boardroom end run might mean to a future merger with CP (or in lieu thereof, shared trackage rights that would amount to a merger in everything but name), two interesting issues spring to the foreground in this round of Harrison vs. CSX.

The big headline is clearly the pay requirement that Harrison is toting. Since mid-January, when Harrison announced that he was leaving CP, CSXs stock price has leapt up an easy 30% and added roughly $10 billion in market capitalization. Harrisons $300 million (plus an additional $440 million in stock value) is less than 10% of that increase. Additionally, investors expect an additional run-up post-inauguration of Harrison as happened at CP. (The equity market thinks so: January 2018 $50 call options are trading at roughly $4.50/share. All in, another 15% above todays stock price.)

An equally important but less eye-popping issue is the following: Since 2007, there have been three CSX activist/takeover events. In response to those attempts, CSX made active, vocal, litigious, and successful responses to anyone who got in its way and tried to tell CSX and Ward how to run the railroad. This includes an activist shareholder dispute in late 2007, which languished in the U.S. appeals court until 2011, between CSX and Childrens Investment Fund and 3G Capital Partners.

In this case, however, CSX has pulled an about-face. Within a month, CSX has just about conceded the corner office to Harrison and made significant boardroom concessions.

For many industry watchers, CSX throwing in the towel to Harrison is veritable heresy. Harrisons Precision Railroading policies rankle many rail veterans who dont see precision as much as they see cost cutting (a.k.a. headcount and hard assets) and resource depletion, all in favor of reducing operating ratio.

It is difficult to argue with Harrisons successful track record, but the more interesting question at CSX is, why at this time, 14 years into his tenure, no one is standing up for Ward?

CSX has weathered three big storms in the past decade. Has this current series of events just given CSX an opportunity to tell Ward that hes not delivering on his promises to improve performance and returns, that theyve just had enough? Is the arrival of Harrison a way of avoiding finding and possibly losing Wards replacement, a second time, to a more lucrative, sexier opportunity (like Oscar Munoz to United Airlines) if they wage a successful fight against Harrison and his activist partners?

Other shareholders, seemingly angry at the use of the Harrison bully pulpit, have worked with CSX to create some opposition. The opposition seems somewhat halfhearted and blatantly obvious. (Were just not going to give them $750 million dollars in cash and stock as a payoff for replacing our CEO, are we?)

While probably not unprecedented, watching one railroad CEO hand his crown to another with only a dispute about exactly how much money and stock he should get for remaking the corner office is strikingly unusual. It is even more so when the incoming CEO is a septuagenarian. Maybe the board of CSX, its investors and executives just decided that if you cant run a railroad your way and make money, maybe youre just better off taking the money.
Maggie Lancaster has joined the staff of Railway Track & Structures as Assistant Editor, reporting directly to RT&S Editor and Railway Age Engineering Editor Mischa Wanek-Libman.

Lancaster graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism with a concentration in Magazine Writing and Editing and a minor in Public Relations, graduating with honors in December 2015. She has interned with Fashion Scout Daily, Brand Connections and Flats Chicago. Her written work can be found on Dormify, USA Today College, ChicagoTalks and Literally Darling.

During her time at Columbia, Maggie excelled in her classes while balancing a full-time job and full-time class schedule, said Wanek-Libman. We welcome her to the RT&S staff and know shell make a significant contribution.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) on March 6 awarded NRE a five-year contract to overhaul six EMD GP40-2H locomotives that are part of the states fleet and operated on the Shore Line East service.

The locomotives, which were originally built in the 1970s, will be rebuilt by NRE for another life cycle of passenger service.

We are very proud to have been awarded this contract, said NRE President and CEO Steven L. Beal. This contract shows that our move toward vertical integration gives us a true competitive advantage on quality, price and delivery.

NRE said one of the key factors in ConnDOTs decision to award the contract to NRE is the fact that NRE will produce more than 90% of the locomotive content in house. This was a key factor in NRE guaranteeing delivery of the locomotives within 450 days of receipt from ConnDOT.

As we continue to grow and expand our capacity and capabilities, we intend to more-aggressively pursue transit system contracts, said NRE Marketing Director Brandon Bullard. This contract is only the tip of the iceberg of where were headed in the transit industry.
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There are lots of theories about what's causing the epidemic of obesity in America. Already, two in three Americans are overweight or obese. If current trends continue, some people believe a majority of Americans will be obese in another decade or so.

A few years ago we teamed up to crunch the data looking for possible policy solutions. We used national studies and government databases to search for ways to combat the epidemic. To do that we needed to look for evidence of what was driving Americans' weight gain. Was it neighborhood food deserts where it was hard to find healthy food? Is healthy food just too expensive? Are Americans exercising too little? Drinking too much sugary soda?

Along the way, we found out that the data don't support many of the popular theories about what's causing obesity to increase so dramatically. And we reached one indisputable conclusion: We're all getting fatter.

Here are a few misconceptions our study disproved.

Myth No. 1

Americans with less education and lower social status are the ones getting obese.

Truth: Americans of all education and income levels are getting fatter. While obesity is more prevalent at lower education levels, Americans at all rungs on the socioeconomic ladder have been gaining weight at about the same rate since the 1980s.

Myth No. 2

Blacks and Hispanics are gaining weight at a faster rate than other racial groups.

Truth: While at any point in time, a higher percentage of blacks and Hispanics may qualify as obese, the trend line for all racial groups is pretty much the same.

Myth No. 3

Obesity is mostly a problem in southern states like Mississippi.

Truth: The populations of all states have been getting fatter at similar rates. Colorado, which has the lowest obesity rate of any state, currently has as many obese residents as Mississippi, the fattest state, had about a decade ago.

Myth No. 4

Americans are exercising less, in part because they are working longer hours and have less free time.

Truth: Leisure time has increased over the past few decades, paid work hours have gone down and self-reported exercise has increased (even though a majority of Americans fall short of physical activity recommendations).

Myth No. 5

Obesity is caused by lack of access to healthy food, primarily fruits and vegetables. This is because healthy food is too expensive or people live in food deserts where stores don't sell fruits and vegetables.

Truth: Americans have been eating more fruits and vegetables, not less. What they haven't done is reduce their consumption of unhealthy foods at the same time. All types of food are more affordable and available than ever.

Conclusion: So What Do We Do?

If our study showed one thing, it's that there's no single subgroup of Americans we should be targeting  the trend lines are similar no matter who you are and where you live. It's true some groups are heavier than others, but we're all headed the same direction, and that's the trend we need to change. And nothing we found contradicts the most basic advice you've heard about how to keep weight off: Eat less, exercise more.

We were looking for economic solutions, not lifestyle advice. So what would a sound anti-obesity economic policy look like? Although the data isn't conclusive, some studies suggest that if you can shift people's intake from junk food toward healthy food, their overall calorie counts can go down. So our analysis suggests that taxing unhealthy foods and redirecting those funds to subsidize healthy foods is a promising policy approach that deserves more work. We also favor increased availability of clean water in schools and other settings to reduce the consumption of more caloric beverages.

So far, most policy interventions are focusing on positive messages, such as increasing fruit and vegetable consumption and increasing physical activity. However, our analysis shows that there needs to be a new emphasis on reducing calorie consumption, particularly of sugar-sweetened beverages and salted snacks that add calories without nutrition. The bottom line is that a majority of American adults eat more than the recommended discretionary calories for energy balance. Although increasing fruit and vegetable consumption may be a laudable goal for other health reasons, on its own it is unlikely to be an effective tool for obesity prevention.

The hard truth is simple: If we want to stop getting fatter, we have to start eating less.

Ruopeng An is an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois-Champaign. Roland Sturm is an economist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on Politico on March 8, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Dutch company files appeal with Supreme Court over Black Russian brand protection

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI)  A company from Netherlands, Berklee Capital S.A. has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court asking to cancel decision of Russian patent agency Rospatent, which ruled against granting legal protection to the Black Russian brand, the court documents read on Tuesday.

On December 9, 2016, Russias Intellectual Property Court (IP Court) upheld the ruling of Rospatent.

The patent agency found out that Black Russian name was created long before the date of patent application of cocktail made from vodka, coffee liquor and ice. It is noted that the cocktails name included both Black Russian name and its translation into Russian language.

Rospatent noted that the description of classic proportions and recipe of the Black Russian cocktail are placed on the official website of the International Barmen Association, meaning that each barman can use those and in fact is required to learn them. Although cocktail may come in different variations, such as adding Coca-Cola for complementary fortitude, the base ingredients have always remained the same, the agency noted.

According to Rospatent, Russian residents understand Black Russian name as a specific cocktail made out by following specific recipe and therefore this name applies to all goods of specific category.
ECHR awards 50,000 to Chechen militant sentenced to life for murders

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI)  The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has awarded 50,000 in compensation to Chechen militant Arsan Mukayev sentenced to life in prison for murdering members of the Russian armed forces and law enforcement officers.

The court held that rights of Mukayev, who complained of tortures by police, had been violated.

According to Russias Prosecutor Generals Office, Mukayev, the member of a militant group headed by Islam Chalayev, was implicated in 13 murders committed in the Chechen Republic including the murder of Vladimir Moroz. the prosecutor of Grozny, the republics capital.

Mukayev was arrested in Kazakhstan in 2006 and extradited to Russia. In June 2007, The Supreme Court of Chechnya found him guilty of criminal gang activity, infringement on life of law enforcement officers, murders and robbery, ammunition trafficking, stealing weapons, intentional destruction of property, and sentenced him to life in prison. The sentence delivered with account of confessionary statements took effect in November 2007.

Mukayev in his application filed with ECHR insisted that he had confessed under tortures. He complained that he had been punched and kicked by police officers. When he refused to confess and give statements against certain persons whom he knew personally, officers tortured him with electric shocks and beat him about the head with plastic bottles filled with water, according to the applicant. The man also noted that Russian authorities declined to open a case over alleged tortures.

Mukayev claimed that Russia had violated Article 3 (prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), Article 6 (right to a fair trial) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention of Human Rights (Convention).
Russian Supreme Court finds results of State Duma elections legal

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov)  The Supreme Court of Russia has ruled in favor of Russias Central Election Commission and dismissed an appeal against the results of 2016 State Duma elections, RAPSI learnt on Tuesday from the courts press-service.

The appeal against a lower courts ruling was filed by Yabloko political party challenging the Election Commissions decree on results of the elections.

According to Yabloko, the results of the parliamentary elections held on September 18, 2016 must be cancelled. The party believes that there were violations during the election campaign and that there were violations in the organization of voting and counting of votes, which made it impossible to accurately determine the voters will. On November 29 , 2016, the Supreme Court concluded that there were no grounds for satisfying the claims of the political party. The ruling came into force.
Prosecutor General: 584 terrorist group members sentenced in Russia and abroad in 2016

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI)  Prosecutor General Yury Chaika announced on Tuesday that 584 people were convicted and sentenced in Russia and abroad in 2016 for participating in illegal military groups and terrorist organizations.

According to Prosecutor General, conviction of terrorist group members was one of premises of avoiding terrorist attacks. Almost all offenses of terrorist nature registered last year were terminated at the stages of their preparation and criminal attempt, Chaika said during the enlarged meeting of the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office.

Efficiency of targeted preventive actions increased due to the coordinating role of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee and commissions in Russias territorial entities, he added.

Earlier in March, head of Russias Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin reported that over 1,000 cases connected with terrorist and extremist crimes were opened in 2016.

In February, President Vladimir Putin said during the Federal Security Services (FSB) collegium that amount of terrorist crimes had dropped in Russia.
Moscow court upholds $420 mln claim of BTA Bank against Ablyazov

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Commercial Court has granted a petition by BTA Bank demanding to uphold and execute in Russia a ruling of Londons High Court of Justice ordering to collect $420 million from banks ex-chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov, according to court records.

The High Court of Justice granted the banks claim against Ablyazov, former BTA Bank Board Chairman Roman Solodchenko, companies Drey Associates Limited, Interfunding Facilities Limited, AMK-Invest, TuranAlem Capital, and Zrl Beteiligungs AG on November 23, 2012. The Kazakh bank has asked the Moscow Commercial Court to recognize claims against Ablyazov as justified.

Kazakh authorities have already completed investigation into the tycoon charged with embezzling BTA Banks funds. Investigators claim that he has stolen pension assets and personal savings of citizens as well as loans received from foreign financial institutions. The total amount of damage caused by his actions reportedly exceeded $7.5 billion.

BTA Bank ex-chairman was also charged with embezzlement, forgery of documents and abuse of office in Russia. He has been arrested in absentia.

Ablyazov fled to the UK after the Kazakh government acquired a stake in BTA Bank in 2009 and the bank came under the control of its sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna.

He was granted political asylum in Britain in 2011. However, he remained a fugitive from justice since February 2012.

His whereabouts remained unknown until he was detained on July 31, 2013 near Cannes, France. Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine are all seeking his extradition.

In October 2015, French authorities approved Ablyazovx extradition to Russia. In December 2016, French Conseil d'Etat, highest administrative government body, overruled prime-ministers decision to extradite Ablayzov and released the tycoon from jail.
Ruling on inclusion of Russian polling NGO in foreign agents list upheld

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova)  The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld a decision to add one of Russias largest non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Levada-Center, which regularly conducts sociological and market surveys, to the foreign agents list, RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

The court thus dismissed an appeal filed by the NGO against a lower courts ruling. In November 2016, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow found legal the Justice Ministrys inspection resulted in declaring the Levada-Center a foreign agent.

On September 6, Russias Ministry of Justice announced that the Levada-Center had been declared a foreign agent.

Current situation much complicates the work of our organization, director of the Center Lev Gudkov said earlier. He stated that the foreign agent status, which may be interpreted as synonymous to a spy could prevent sociological surveys by the Center.

In October, the Moscow Tverskoy District Court fined the NGO 300,000 rubles (about $5,000) over its failure to comply with the foreign agent law.

Thus, the autonomous polling and analytical center was found guilty of committing an administrative offence by continuing its activities, but failing to register its foreign agent status with the Russian Justice Ministry.

The law adopted in November 2012 requires that all NGOs engaged in political activity and receiving foreign funding register as foreign agents.

Under the amendments to the law, which were adopted this year, political activity is linked to such fields as state-building, securing Russias sovereignty and territorial integrity, enforcement of law, order and security, national defense, foreign policy, political system integrity, social and economic and national development of the country, regulation of rights and freedoms of man and citizen.

NGOs which are engaged in organization and holding of public events, including meetings, manifestations, demonstrations, discussions and performances would be deemed to be involved in political activity.

Moreover, those NGOs which are involved in work aimed at achieving certain results during elections or referendum, vote monitoring practices, establishment of election commissions or support of political parties would also be put on the list of those organizations which are engaged in political activity.

Levada-Center, named after famous Russian sociologist Yury Levada, is one of the largest Russian NGOs that conducts sociological and market surveys.
Russian antimonopoly watchdog finds Apples subsidiary guilty of fixing iPhones prices

Context Russian Antimonopoly Service launches case against Apple over equal prices for iPhone 6

MOSCOW, March 14 (RAPSI)  A commission of Russias Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has found Apples subsidiary Apple Rus guilty of fixing prices of iPhones, RAPSI learnt from the watchdog on Tuesday.

FAS has stopped proceedings against Apple Holding B.V., Apple Sales Ireland, Apple Operations International, Apple Inc. because no violations were found in their actions. As far as Apple Rus is concerned, FAS will not order the company to fix violations because it has already stopped fixing prices.

Violations were concerning such models of smartphone as iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus.

The antimonopoly watchdog launched a case against group of Apple companies in August 2016. Investigation found out that resellers set the same prices for iPhone 6 smartphones during the launch of sales. Prices were matching for other Apple smartphone models as well. Back then FAS noted that Apple faces fines of up to five million rubles ($86,000).

FAS noted that there were signs of price coordination by Apple iPhone resellers, which resulted in matching prices for several smartphone models. Resellers included MTS, M.Video, Beeline, Eldorado, Euroset, OZON, Re:Store, Svyaznoy, Megafon, Ulmart, Media Markt, Citilink, Holodilnik.ru, DNS, ION (Know-How), Tehnosila.
The United States has launched more than 40 air strikes since March 3 on suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, more air strikes than all of 2016. The Trump administration hopes to boast of progress in stopping the advance of al-Qaeda in the Arabian...
For many art critics, Auguste Rodins most successful public sculpture is the Burghers of Calais. The work captures the moment, occurring in the midst of the Hundred Years War between France and England, when six prominent citizens left their besieged city to surrender to the English. Their facial and bodily expressions convey nearly unbearable tragedy. Heads bowed and feet bare, with loose ropes tied around their necks, the half-dozen despairing men fully expected King Edward III to sentence them to death.

The French have recently witnessed a similar scene, one unfolding on the countrys political stage. Whether it ends in tragedy, or instead in farce, remains to be seen.

For those who watched the conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillons public address on March 1, Rodins sculpture might well have come to mind. Fillon made his appearance upon learning, along with the rest of France, that the courts would open a full judicial inquiry into Penelopegate. This is the moniker given to the seemingly never-ending story of how Fillons wife Penelope profited royally from a position as her husbands parliamentary assistant -- a position, it appears, that entailed little more than opening his mail and reading the occasional speech. The problem for the Fillons is that while French politicians can legally hire family members, they cannot legally pay them from public monies for work they are only pretending to do.

Before Fillon stepped in front of the microphone that night, several leading members of his party, Les Republicains, preceded him. As they gathered uneasily to one side, all that was missing in order for them to pass as Rodins burghers were the bare feet and dangling ropes. Ill at ease and sadly gauche for right-wing notables, they already knew their fate. The rumors that had been swirling that Fillon would step aside as Les Republicains candidate turned out to be only that: rumors. Instead, denouncing what he called a political assassination, Fillon announced he was in the race to stay and exited without taking questions.

For the knot of notables Fillon had herded on stage, their man was announcing not just his own imminent beheading, but that of his party as well. During the 40 days since the scandal first erupted, polls tracking Fillon had shown him in full free-fall. By March 6, a Harris poll revealed that fewer than 30 percent of French voters believed Fillon should remain in the race, while only 17 percent planned to vote for him. These numbers strike a stark contrast to the great surge in Fillons candidacy during the Republicains primary last November, when he won over 66 percent of votes. No doubt the Republicain leadership were mulling these poll numbers as they smiled wanly at the end of Fillons statement.

The Harris poll, even more tellingly, was published after a remarkable event took place the preceding day. On March 5, catching a political Hail Mary pass heaved a few days earlier by Fillon, between 30,000 to 40,000 tricolore-waving supporters showed up at the Trocadero in Paris. Under a pelting rain, they cheered Fillon as he lambasted those Republicains -- like his spokesperson Thierry Solere, campaign director Patrick Stephanini, and dozens of party luminaries like Christian Estrosi and Georges Fenech -- who had quit his campaign and urged their colleagues to choose a replacement candidate. Though Fillon dropped the earlier claims of being the victim of a political assassination or a judicial coup detat, he made clear yet again that he represented an electorate whose voice risked being silenced by entrenched political and institutional powers. They attack me everywhere and I must, in conscience, listen to you, this immense crowd pushing me on.

Fillons team insisted the immense crowd numbered at least 300,000 -- a Trumpian claim flying in the face of physics: the Place de la Trocadero, which was not entirely filled, can contain no more than 40,000 people. Nevertheless, the 40,000 who did show up -- largely mobilized and bussed to Paris by Sens Commun, an arch-conservative and Catholic organization -- were enough to make Fillons gamble pay off. At a high-stakes summit meeting in Paris, Fillon forced the party elders again to don their rope neckties. Expressing their unanimous support for the man for whom, until then, they had been desperately trying to replace with a so-called Plan B, the elders declared: There is no Plan B.

This was less a clarion call to arms than a collective confession of impotence. Having failed to impose a Plan B, the party leadership instead fell back on Systeme D: the national knack to improvise or wing it -- debrouiller is the uniquely French verb -- by less than scrupulous means if needed. This might well spell disaster not just for the party, but also the country. Fillons colleagues seem less preoccupied by either the charges of corruption or Fillons dizzying inconsistencies.

Fillon had once presented himself as Mr. Clean. Looking askance at the legal ennuis of his fraternal enemies Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppe, Fillon insisted that only someone who is irreproachable can lead France and promised that, should he ever be the object of a police investigation, he we quit his campaign.

And yet the party now finds itself led by a man who is neither irreproachable nor consistent. The next six weeks will reveal how this plays in the first round of the election. We will need to wait a bit longer to see how it plays out for Frances republican institutions. Michel Winock, one of Frances great political historians, described as unprecedented Fillons decision to mobilize his followers to challenge the courts. It is one thing to call them to the voting booths, quite another to call them to the streets. Winock recalled a fundamental principle of a true republic: the will of voters cannot trump the principles of law.

With Fillons sudden populist turn, French voters now confront a possible future not unlike our own. The question, for these sister republics, is whether their constitutional foundations will prove greater than these populist threats.
When President Trump unveils his fiscal 2018 budget plan this week, he will be kicking off an explosive debate on Capitol Hill that could lead to another government shutdown.

The new Republican administration plans to shrink scores of domestic agencies and programs as well as the State Department and the Internal Revenue Service to offset the cost of a $54 billion boost in defense spending. And Trump needs tens of billions more to fund a massive buildup of immigration and border patrol forces and to begin construction of a 2,000-mile-long wall along the southern border that could cost $25 billion.

Related: Trump Could Face His First Fiscal Crisis Over Raising the Debt Ceiling

Until recently, Democrats have had relatively little critical to say about Trumps spending priorities. A few  including Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) -- even suggested the Democrats might find common ground with the new president on a handful of proposals, such as $1 trillion for infrastructure spending or a paid family leave program.

But it now appears that the Democrats have concluded that their best comeback strategy is to oppose Trump and GOP leaders at every turn -- just as the Republicans regained control of the White House and both chambers of Congress by opposing former President Obama on virtually every major issue, from health care and infrastructure to the environment and a nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran.

On Monday, Schumer and four other leading Democrats put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on notice they were prepared to precipitate a government shutdown if Trump and the Republicans insist on including the first down payment on construction of the border wall in a $1 trillion package of spending bills needed to keep the government operating for the remainder of the fiscal year.

The Schumer letter also warned against adding other poison pills to the spending bills, such as defunding Planned Parenthood or rolling back environmental or consumer protections. And it argued that additional funds should be added for domestic programs to match any additional military spending demanded by Trump.

Story continues

Related: Trumps Lofty Vision of Renewal Comes with a Huge Price Tag

We believe it would be inappropriate to insist on the inclusion of such funding in a must-pass appropriations bill that is needed for the Republican majority in control of the Congress to avert a government shutdown so early in President Trumps administration, the letter stated.

While Trumps overall fiscal 2018 budget proposals will be subject to a lengthy review and action over the coming months, Congress is facing a looming April 28 deadline to complete authorization of funding for the remainder of the current fiscal year that runs through Sept. 30.

McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) decided late last year to postpone final action on this years spending to give Trump an opportunity to weigh in on budget priorities, especially this years defense spending levels. Trump  who has vowed to increase military funding sharply -- is pressing Congress to lift the legal caps on discretionary defense spending this year and next.

The Republicans are using special budget reconciliation rules to try to ram through the Obamacare repeal and replacement legislation in the coming weeks with a simple majority, without any assistance from the Democrats. However, they will definitely need at least some Democratic votes in the Senate to achieve the 60-vote super-majority necessary to complete work on this years appropriations bills and avert a government shutdown.

Related: Putting Trumps $54 Billion Military Spending Boost Into Context

The Republicans hold a 52 to 48 vote majority in the Senate. Even if McConnell can hold together all the GOP votes, he would still need the support of at least eight Democrats to achieve cloture and move to final passage of the massive spending bills.

The last government shutdown in October 2013 lasted for 16 days and forced the furloughing of more than 800,000 federal workers. That shutdown was triggered by a bruising battle between the Obama administration and conservative Republicans in the House and Senate who were attempting to cut funding for the Affordable Care Act.

The funding disputes this year will be every bit as difficult to resolve, with neither party inclined to engage in the type of political give and take necessary to avoid a crisis.

Trump and the Republicans are gambling that they can achieve their most important goals  including the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, overhauling the Medicaid program and passing major tax cuts -- without inviting Democrats to the negotiating table.

But with their own party badly fractured over an Obamacare replacement and sharp divisions over tax policy and trade, Trump eventually will have no choice but to seek Democratic support to achieve the semblance of a successful legislative program.

Related: The Debt Ceiling: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

Whats more, the Trump administration and GOP leaders have yet to reveal their strategy for averting a debt ceiling crisis this fall. Its far from clear whether Democrats will agree to cooperate or find ways to put up obstacles to increasing the Treasurys borrowing authority.

With the national debt fast approaching an historic $20 trillion, the Treasury this week technically bumped up against its borrowing authority and has begun taking extraordinary measures to buy some extra time before it must default on its loans.

By early September, Trump and Congress will be under mounting pressure to enact legislation to increase the Treasurys borrowing authority to protect the governments AAA credit rating. Because many conservative Republicans will be unwilling to vote for a higher debt ceiling, Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California should have some added leverage over the Republicans in negotiating a budget or tax deal.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
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'We are in the middle of an unprecedented SIP revolution.'

'Monthly inflow through SIPs will be Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore soon.'

'Traditional avenues of Indian savings like bank fixed deposits, gold or real estate are no longer attractive to invest.'

IMAGE: The Nifty50 index will move to new highs this year and will sustain at five-digit levels going forward, says Porinju Veliyath, managing director and portfolio manager, Equity Intelligence.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

Porinju Veliyath, managing director and portfolio manager, Equity Intelligence, speaks to Puneet Wadhwa.

The markets are nearing their all-time high again. Will they be able to surpass and sustain at higher levels over the next six to 12 months?

I am not a technical expert and predicting market movements is a tricky thing.

From a simple common sense view, I can say that the Nifty50 index will move to new highs this year and will sustain at five-digit levels going forward.

In terms of stocks and sectors, where do you see the leadership in the markets coming from if they were to move and sustain at higher levels from here on?

Some sectors like information technology are having so many challenges and it is very difficult to expect significant upward movement in companies like Infosys and TCS say in the next year or two.

Reliance Industries has been leading the rally recently after nearly a decade of consolidation.

Many other large-caps will follow the path and contribute significantly to the Nifty50 in the coming days.

Is the Indian stock market pricing in the global uncertainties?

Global uncertainties have always been there and will continue to be around -- be it Greece, Euro crisis, oil glut or Brexit or Trumpnomics.

Media and experts will come up with new terms every other week giving opportunities for smart stock pickers to buy their stocks at a discount.

The impact of these events on Indian economy and stock markets, if any, will be minimal and temporary.

How much importance will the markets give to the outcome of the assembly elections?

Markets will go up regardless of who wins the UP elections. Significance of UP elections is largely limited to media discussion, and beyond that it's the outcome that will only motivate the government to focus more on development.

The most significant achievement of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi to me is that he has brought development to the centre-stage of Indian politics.

Political parties which survived on caste and religious identities in the past are now being forced to talk development.

Voters are smart today, they will reward performing governments and punish the non-performing ones.

IMAGE: Porinju Veliyath, managing director and portfolio manager, Equity Intelligence. Photograph: Kind courtesy @porinju/twitter

What is the road ahead for domestic and FII flows over the next six to 12 months?

We are in the middle of an unprecedented systematic investment plan revolution.

Monthly inflow through SIPs will be Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore soon.

Traditional avenues of Indian savings like bank fixed deposits, gold or real estate are no longer attractive asset classes to invest.

As market depth increases, FII flows -- unlike the past -- will become insignificant.

I expect a panic buying from FII funds in two to three months.

How are the valuations looking at this stage? Do you expect the rally in the mid-and small-caps to sustain?

aluations are rich today and it will become richer due to expected faster economic growth and earnings visibility.

Investors should focus on stock-picking rather than attempting to predict the Nifty50 and S&P BSE Sensex levels.

India will continue to be a stock picker's paradise!

Are there any mid-or small-caps that investors can add in their portfolio at the current levels?

Yes, large number of mid-and small-caps will be re-rated.

Management culture and ethics of many traditionally unprofessional companies are changing, especially with respect to shareholder wealth creation.

Investors should keep their eyes and ears open to such turnaround stories and catch them early!

I like two mid-cap media stocks currently, Zee Media at Rs 35 levels and Balaji Tele at Rs 85 levels.

Investors could explore and try to understand the business model and their relevance for the future.

We hold both stocks in our portfolio (PMS).

What is the outlook for telecom stocks?

I am not a fan of sectors, I prefer to look at individual stocks.

Telecom is a challenging sector with continuously evolving business models; disruption in technology, spectrum charges, competition all impact the business.

Only companies which can adapt and re-invent will survive, maybe three to four companies will survive in the long run.

I cannot comment on exiting stocks now, but selling long-term investments on short-term disruptions can be a bad idea.

The market seems to be re-rating Reliance Industries post the recent Reliance Jio announcement. How should investors treat this stock now?

I had talked about Reliance Industries being at an inflection point few months ago, and the market is agreeing with me now.

I feel Reliance Jio could make it really big and take the market cap of Reliance Industries much higher.

Bharti Airtel is adapting well to the new scenario and I wouldn't be surprised to see it come out strong of this current disruption.

How do you see the corporate earnings trajectory in the next 12 to 18 months? Have the asset quality pressures for banks peaked out?

Non-performing assets with public sector banks continue to be a challenge.

The government is making serious efforts to address the issue and bring back banks on track, which is very important to revive private investments and credit cycle.

Corporate earnings will look up along with faster economic growth, as the government initiatives start trickling down to bottom of the pyramid.
(Reuters) - OPEC's compliance with output cuts remained high even though the group's monthly report indicated a rise in global crude stocks and a production jump from Saudi Arabia, Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday.

Goldman said in a research note that market rebalancing is still progressing, and it saw demand for oil finally exceeding supply in the second quarter aided by production cuts, despite an expected rise in U.S. shale output.

OPEC on Tuesday reported a rise in oil inventories and raised its forecast for production in 2017 from outside the group. It said its biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, increased output in February by 263,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 10 million bpd.

That news sent U.S. crude on Tuesday to its lowest settlement since Nov. 29, which was the day before Saudi Arabia led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut supplies. Brent settled at its lowest since Nov. 30. [O/R]

"Our expectations that inventories will draw through 2017 therefore leads us to expect that Brent timespreads will continue to strengthen with the forward curve in backwardation by 3Q17," Goldman said in its research note.

Goldman said it was not in OPEC's interest to extend output cuts beyond six months as the group's goal was to normalize inventories, and not to support prices.

The bank reiterated its base case that production cuts will be followed by new production highs.

"Combined to the shale ramp-up and greater visibility on the majors shifting focus to future growth, we see potential for long-dated oil prices to continue to decline below our $50 per barrel long-term price forecast."

(Reporting by Apeksha Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Hospitality chains are hosting dual brands on one property, looking for operational efficiencies without diluting their brands, says Shivani Shinde Nadhe.





Given the highly competitive and crowded market for travel in the country, Indian hospitality chains have been experimenting with a concept that has taken off in a big way in the West.

They are locating multiple brands on one property; Accor, Lemon Tree and others have opened up budget and premium branded hotels within the same premises during the past three to four years and, buoyed by the response and impact on the bottom line, both are opening their third two-in-one properties this year.

Accor plans to set up its third Pullman-Novotel combine in the second half of 2017 in Chennai.

Pullman is the high-end international brand targeted at global travellers who combine work and pleasure according to the brands tagline. Novotel is pegged at a scale lower than Pullman, but it reaches out to a similar category of global business and leisure travellers.

The third Lemon Tree-Red Fox combine is opening up in Gurugram and will have a capacity of 300 rooms. It owns two such properties in Delhi and Hyderabad, where the upscale brand Lemon Tree Premier is paired with Red Fox Hotels, the economy brand.

Such an arrangement is attractive on account of the economies of scale and efficiency that the model provides.

This is where the dual-branded strategy comes in handy, maximising the value of land and better management of construction and operational costs, said Lokesh Sabharwal, vice president, development, South Asia, Accor Hotels.

It also makes for good business say industry experts as the hospitality chain can offer diversified fare within the same property.

A large inventory of rooms under a single brand restricts focus to a single segment, while two hotels positioned at different levels of the market helps target different price points and cater to customer segments with varied interests.

Putting a large inventory within the same category in one big land parcel can at times be challenging. So, once you map the market and look at the potential customers and business feasibility, it is advisable to split the risk in two different brands and different positioning, said Sabharwal.

The other advantage that the dual-triple brand strategy offers is operational efficiency.

A twin property with two brands positioned at different price points helps garner the attention of a broader customer base. It not only helps reduce project costs but also lets hotels share certain costs like sales, security, finance and administration, said Vikramjit Singh, president and chief revenue officer, Lemon Tree Hotel Company.

Most dual branded hotel properties in India are in the metro cities, especially in markets like Delhi and Bengaluru where land is expensive and location features big in the customers decision making matrix.

Sabharwal said, These are usually highly urbanised cities which are strong hubs in their own right and also serve as MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) destinations. The dynamics are conducive to set up dual-branded properties.

Some hospitality chains are taking the concept to popular tourist destinations too.

Last year, the Leela Group and Aiana Hotels and Resorts announced plans to develop a two-hotel complex in Agra near the Taj Mahal. The hotel was to have a total of 250 rooms. The company however did not respond to an e-mail asking for more details on the venture.

Having two brands in the same property will mean two different entrances, food services and other offerings.

This could get tricky as travellers are known to be particular about the brand they stay with, especially when every travel destination is a Facebook status update. Maintaining the branding of the respective hotel is paramount.

Pavethra Pooniah, VP, ICRA believes that, for the dual brand strategy to work, the chain must have a clear distinction between its brands. If there are overlaps in terms of the experience or the brand communication, travellers are likely to get confused and there is a risk of dilution of the core brand.



The dual branded property concept works well if there is a clear distinction of brands. In India the trend has just started. Unlike the global markets, in India, hotels do not have the concept of select services. This can be a distinct factor of differentiation among brands especially if you are clubbing a premier and budget brand, she added.



Sabharwal agrees that it is a challenge, maintaining distinct brand positioning is something that the hotels must keep an eye out for while adopting the model.

Therefore, he says, the two brands chosen must have a clear identity and a limited degree of overlap of their customer base. At the same time, however, the positioning of the two brands should not be too far apart for them to co-exist successfully.

We have touched upon some of the key benefits in terms of diversification, flexibility and operating efficiencies in this model, he added.

Notwithstanding the pitfalls of marrying multiple brands into a single property, the trend has caught on worldwide. In the US, chains have moved from dual to triple-branded properties.

In an article in its online magazine JLL Real Views, investment management firm JLL wrote, Todays triple branded hotels build on the popularity of dual branded hotels, which have gained traction over the last five years. Today, there are at least 75 dual-branded hotels open across the United States. JLL estimates that at least 3,000 additional rooms are being developed or converted in dual-brand developments, showing the demand exists and is growing.

Indian hospitality chains are in agreement.

Photograph: Courtesy Careers360.
For many years now, India has given the Commonwealth short shrift so its support for the Commonwealth trade initiative signals a renewed interest in the body.

New Delhi will most probably host a Commonwealth SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) summit in May as the next stage in a bid by the 52-nation association to evolve an ease of trading accord, which is aimed to be formally announced at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London next year.

The current Commonwealth trade turnover is in the region of $700 billion, and the target is to increase this to $1 trillion by 2020.

The Indian high commission in the United Kingdom estimates India's share of this to be roughly $120 billion or a noteworthy 17 per cent.

The conference will be co-hosted by the London-headquarteredCommonwealth Secretariat and the Indian commerce ministry.

The announcement was made by Rita Teaotia, Union commerce secretary, who attended the two-day inaugural meet in London, which ended on Friday. Minister of State for Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman reportedly could not attend the meet because of the ongoing Parliament session.

Dinesh Patnaik, Indias deputy high commissioner to the UK, said: The strength of the Commonwealth lies in its SMEs. So an accord as envisioned will give them access to investment and technology.

He also tied in the 5 per cent corporation tax reduction granted to SMEs in India in the recent Budget proposals to Indias interest in the Commonwealth proposal.

The pact envisaged will be far from being a free-trade agreement (FTA). It will be an attempt to deepen and harmonise economic ties by lowering tariffs, port charges, among other steps, to facilitate growth in the turnover.

For many years now, India has given the Commonwealth short shrift. Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi have, in fact, skipped CHOGMs.

Indias support for the Commonwealth trade initiative, therefore, signals a renewed interest in the body.

It also re-confirmed Indias preference for a lifting of barriers, as opposed to the protectionism advocated by US President Donald Trump. This is unsurprising, since Indias trade deficit for April-December 2016 was still a significant $76.5 billion.

Concerns remain about the fallout of Brexit on the international economy. The Commonwealth Secretariat said: Discussions took place on the likely impact of the UKs withdrawal from the European Union, which could disrupt market access to the UK and Europe.

More than 700 Indian companies, including Tata group firms, are based in the UK and utilise it as a staging post to sell goods and services to the 500-million-strong EU market.

Referring to the Commonwealth Advantage, the organisations secretary-general, Patricia Scotland, said: Because we share common law, common language, common institutions and common parliamentary structures, that has given us a de facto advantage.

The accord is being covertly driven by Britain, which is uncertain about how much it can export to the European Union if it comes out of the EU single market after Brexit, which is expected to be complete by 2019.

To avoid violating EU rules about negotiating trade treaties while remaining a member of the union, the British exploration of the Commonwealth alternative is being piloted by the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council.

Lord Marland, its chairman, spoke of developing a standard of rules and identifying common business practices. These, he added, would give greater certainty to exporters, in particular SMEs.

The Commonwealth, comprising mainly former British colonies, of which India is the most populous, has 2.4 billion people living in it.

The UKs Guardian newspaper reported, though, that in private many British officials are despairing of the new-found political obsession with the Commonwealth, warning that its mostly small, far-flung and underdeveloped markets are little substitute for lost access to the EU single market".

A survey of British businesses commissioned by the Royal Commonwealth Society and Political Lobbying and Media Relations showed 90 per cent of the respondents think Whitehall should prioritise trade with Australia.

Canada and Singapore are joint second priority with 82 per cent; and New Zealand and India are third and fourth priorities with 79 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively, while South Africa is fifth with 70 per cent.

A Commonwealth-wide FTA is unfeasible. However, there is talk of bilateral FTAs between member nations, as, for instance, between the UK and Australia.

Dr Linda Yueh, adjunct professor at LondonBusinessSchool and fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, felt; As the UK government planned new trade deals after Brexit, it is worth reactivating the long-standing trading relationships embedded within the framework of 52 nations comprising the Commonwealth.
Have Muslim women taken to the BJP even as their menfolk cling to 'secular' politics, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

IMAGE: The Bharatiya Janata Party's Muslim supporters celebrate the BJP's victory in the UP assembly election at the party office in Lucknow. Photograph: PTI Photo

Over the Holi weekend, as the rest of the nation animatedly discussed the Uttar Pradesh assembly election results (and not so much over the one from Punjab), I watched the Israeli animated film, Waltz With Bashir.

But only after reading the newspapers to understand what reasons various columnists, experts all, gave for the Bharatiya Janata Party's thumping win in UP.

One analysis that caught my eye (external link) was by the articulate minister of state for external affairs.

M J Akbar's views when he was a journalist was always spot on, and here he was in his BJP avatar talking about why the poor have embraced Modi and how the vote merchants still don't get it.

I only met Akbar once. I was very keen to interview him and approached him with my request.

On seeing my name on the visiting card, Akbar gave me a condescending look, presumably like the one his party boss Amit Shah gives aspiring Muslim candidates.

Akbar's response to my interview request was a firm no.

Akbar, a former Congress member of Parliament turned BJP leader, wrote in his Sunday column about how Muslim women have become the first positive responders to Narendra Modi and how the BJP has won 104 UP seats, constituencies with substantial Muslim populations.

Muslim voters, Akbar emphasised, have embraced the BJP's development agenda, but the secular vote merchants still don't get it.

Which set me thinking. Was Akbar right in his analysis and conclusions?

Have Muslim women taken to the BJP under Modi, even while their menfolk cling to 'secular' politics?

The reason trotted out by analysts, experts and BJP leaders for this supposed turnaround by Muslim women was that the latter want to emerge from their purdah and vote for the BJP because they don't want triple talaq which the BJP is opposed to as well.

Change in the air, you say?

Nearly 150 years ago, another Muslim intellectual with an identical name, Akbar (Syed Akbar Hussain, popularly known as Akbar Allahabadi) wrote some beautiful poetry about the changing times for Muslims under the British.

Post 1857, Muslim society in India was in a state of shock, turmoil and decline.

English was given prominence and Persian went into oblivion. Urdu too started losing out to Hindi.

Akbar -- the poet, not the mantri -- wrote these poignant lines:

Faarsi utth gayi, Urdu ki woh izzat na rahi

Hai zubaan moonh mein magar uski woh kuvat na rahi

Persian has vanished, Urdu has lost respect

Though we speak the language, it has no meaning and strength in society.

Another change that occurred in Akbar Allahabadi's time was that some Muslim women started coming out of purdah.

The poet wrote satirically:

Be-parda nazar aayi jo kal chand bibiyaan

Akbar zamin mein ghairat-e-qaumi se gadh gaya

Puchha jo main ne aap ka parda vo kya hua

Kahne lagin ki aql pe mardon ke pad gaya

When Akbar saw some Muslim women without purdah, he felt ashamed of Muslim nationhood

Asked why they were not covered in purdah the women replied, men must change their attitude.

Akbar Allahabadi's observations then is the same as that of M J Akbar now, that Muslim women are looking for liberation.

I doubted M J Akbar's claim that Muslim women's votes in UP had gone to the BJP in good numbers.

I got my answer after I watched Waltz With Bashir.

The film is about an Israeli soldier, Ari Folman, who is on a quest to recover his lost memories of the 1982 massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon.

The film's message is about coming to terms, and is an honest account of a journey to confront the guilt of massacre.

I understood what Akbar meant in his column.

Instead of facing the guilt over the Gujarat riots of 2002 and the Muzaffarnagar, UP, riots of 2013, the BJP wants to change the narrative.

The BJP is not doing any soul-searching like Ari Folman did. Its leaders like Akbar want to divert the agenda by giving things a new twist: Divide the Muslim vote into male and female, which is nothing but a clumsy bid to push through the Uniform Civil Code agenda.

If Muslim women were raped (external link) during the Muzaffarnagar riots and riot accused politicians win elections, then the BJP wants the rest of us to believe that they won because Muslim women voted for the BJP.

M J Akbar needs to watch Waltz With Bashir. If he is too busy running the MEA -- since his official boss Sushma Swaraj is recovering from surgery -- Akbar should read Akbar Allahabadi's lines written 150 years ago:

Qaum ke gham mein dinner khaate hain hukkam ke saath

Ranjh leader ko bahut hai, magar aaram ke saath

Grieving for the community, the Muslim leader eats dinner with the authorities

He does grieve for the Muslims, but at leisure.

INTERVIEWS YOU MUST READ...

FASCINATING ELECTION COLUMNS in the RELATED LINKS below...
In 28 months, Manohar Parrikar as defence minister developed easy relationships with the top brass of the three Services as was rarely ever witnessed before.

He threw caution to the winds and managed to pull the forces out of a downward spiral in operational capabilities.

BharatShakti.in Editor-in-Chief and long-time Rediff.com contributos Nitin A Gokhale takes stock of what Parrikar achieved and the challenges that await his successor.

Now that Manohar Parrikar's return to Goa is done and dusted, the immediate priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be to find an equally hard working, transparent and approachable Raksha Mantri for India.

Though Arun Jaitley, the perennial 'go-to' man, has been given additional charge of the defence ministry, surely he cannot be expected to handle two large and critical ministries simultaneously.

However, whosoever is the new occupant in South Block in the coming months will find it a hard act to follow since Parrikar, in his 28-month stint, had brought in a new sense of vigour and purpose in the largely moribund MoD.

Before Parrikar took over as defence minister, he had been variously described to me as a reluctant politician, an even more reluctant minister at the Centre and an outsider in the power corridors of Delhi.

To my mind, after getting acquainted with him over the past two-and-a-half years, Parrikar can be best described as a simple man who is not a simpleton; a man of frugal habits who shunned all visible trappings of power and was quick to understand complex issues.

Those attributes not only allowed him to grasp the intricacies and complexities of the important ministry, but also enabled him to put his own stamp on the day-to-day functioning of the MoD.

There have been slip-ups and some embarrassments too because well-entrenched vested interests tried to undermine his authority.

I remember meeting him for the first time in February 2015 (before that, I had only heard of Parrikar as an unusual politician).

One of the questions he had was: "What, in your view, is the biggest challenge here?"

At first, because of unfamiliarity with him, I had thought of playing safe and gave a standard reply that, "It is a large, sensitive and important ministry and therefore not easy to understand quickly."

But his easy manner encouraged me to be bolder and remark: "Your greatest challenge will be the status quo mindset that pervades through the civil and military bureaucracy. Everyone will tell you that such and such thing cannot be done because there has been no precedent to it. If you can overcome that trend, maybe you would have made a big start."

I cannot judge if Parrikar took that input (not advice) seriously, but whoever I came across since then -- whether in the Services or in the defence industry -- swore by Parrikar's efforts to re-engerise the MoD and bring in more accountability.

This in itself is a big change because at the best of times, the MoD is a lumbering giant, slow to stir and act.

It is not only entrusted with the defence of the country but is also the administrative ministry for India's nearly 15 lakh military personnel (Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard).

It also has one of the largest budgets in the government. For 2017-18, for instance, it has been allocated Rs 359,854 crore ($53.5 billion).

Critics have quibbled over the comparatively low increase in the defence budget this year. But that is the least of the challenges.

Instead, reducing timelines for acquisitions, better and optimum utilisation of available resources, bringing in more accountability and transparency in the MoD's functioning and making sure most critical voids in India's defence preparedness are made up in quick time, have been the focus areas in South Block.

But above all, the MoD under Parrikar saw to it that the prime minister's Make in India initiative gets the necessary impetus in defence production.

Promulgation of Defence of Procurement Policy-2016 was the first step towards making fundamental changes in the way weapons platforms are acquired in India.

The Buy IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured) category, introduced in DPP-2016, now gets the topmost priority among six categories that constitute the new DPP, which is the guiding document for all defence purchases in India.

In effect, this means all those Indian companies who have the capability of designing and developing their products indigenously will from now on get the first preference in most purchases that the three armed forces undertake.

Under the new category for IDDM equipment, it will be mandatory for 40 per cent of the content to be sourced locally.

The new DPP has many fresh ideas designed to accelerate defence acquisitions while encouraging indigenous companies under the flagship programme of Make in India.

For instance, in order to cut down delays, the DPP henceforth mandates that all Acceptances of Necessity of a particular platform will be valid only for only six months as against the 12 months deadline that it currently provides.

Moreover, no AON will be notified until it is accompanied by a finalised RFP (Request for Proposal or detailed tender).

In essence, this eliminates one intermediate stage since notifying an RFP after an AON used to be inordinately delayed.

Prioritisation of projects was the first step.

Defence acquisitions are expensive and since very little was purchased in the past five years, the backlog just added to the problem.

A review of proposed projects made over the previous five years found that the bureaucracy in the ministry -- both civil and military -- was sitting on some 400-odd big and small projects that were critical to the three armed forces.

A thorough review revealed that nearly one-third of the 400-odd projects were now irrelevant. So they were discarded.

About 50 projects were accelerated since they were of critical importance.

Next, important schemes across the three services that needed immediate funding and implementation were identified.

The figures speak for themselves: The MoD cleared a total of 124 new contracts worth Rs 209,751 crores since the Modi government came to power.

These include artillery guns, attack and medium lift helicopters for the Army (Chinook and Apache helicopters from the US); frigates and mine counter-measure vessels for the Navy and Akash missiles for the Air Force.

Post-September 2016, when India conducted 'surgical strikes' against Pakistan, it seemed for a while that Pakistan may mobilise for a larger conflict,

India's Cabinet Committee on Security authorised the three forces to make fast track acquisitions worth nearly Rs 20,000 crores making it one of the most productive years for the MoD.

This had to be done on priority because the previous government had neglected even the basic requirements.

The previous Comptroller and Auditor General report tabled in Parliament made for grim reading.

'Stocking of ammunition even at "minimum acceptable risk level" was not ensured, as availability of ammunition as on March 2013 was below this level in respect of 125 out of a total of 170 types of ammunition.'

Also, in 50 per cent of the total types of ammunition, the holding was 'critical' -- insufficient for even 10 days of fighting, the report added.

This has now been corrected by making sure that ammunition for 10 days of intense fighting is always in stock.

Once that objective is achieved, the ministry will look at further replenishing the stocks.

The delegated financial powers for the vice-chiefs of the three Services and army commanders have been enhanced to allow speedier purchases.

This is a big change in the notoriously slow and opaque functioning that has historically besieged the MoD.

In another major decision, the government opened up the defence sector for FDI, allowing 49 percent FDI through the automatic route and up to 100 percent FDI on a case to case basis.

Also, the restrictions on what was 'state-of-the-art technology' has been reduced to 'modern technology'. This would increase the number of defence companies investing in India.

Procurement and modernisation of three services apart, the biggest decision by the Modi government was to grant the One Rank One pension -- a 40-year-old demand of the veterans.

Although there have been some voices of disgruntlement on the issue, the fact is, this government showed the necessary political will and resolve to give due dignity to military veterans.

Significantly, the MoD has now allowed authorised, registered agents to represent companies and eliminate delays or cancellation of contracts because of anonymous complaints. Anonymous letters are now a no-go.

The ministry wants to use the power to ban a firm only in the rarest case. The previous government had indiscriminately blacklisted over a dozen firms, severely restricting the options of the forces to source equipment.

Despite Parrikar's efficiency and good intentions, a toxic legacy left behind by a decade and more of lethargy and timidity under A K Antony will take sustained efforts by Parrikar's successor to ensure that the MoD effectively discharges its duties towards securing the nation.

Half-done initiatives like choosing the strategic partners for making defence platforms in India, reforming higher defence management (appointing a CDS -- even if 4-star), creating joint commands for space, cyber and special operations will have to be followed upon by Parrikar's successor.

It is for Prime Minister Modi to choose the right man -- or woman -- to do that, and do it fast.
For the AIADMK cadres, it is much more than an election symbol, they believe the partys electoral chances rest on owning it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Winning does not always mean keeping too. At times, even to win, you will have to first keep it.

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam factions in Tamil Nadu are learning it the hard way, ahead of the R K Nagar assembly by-election scheduled for April 12.

The late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had retained the R K Nagar seat for the party in the May 16 assembly elections in 2016. Today, to win the seat, either faction of the party will have to first try and keep the AIADMKs Two Leaves symbol.

Its another matter that they would have to identify a candidate who could win the by-election, which is a referendum on the post-Jaya leadership of the party, or party factions, to be precise.

If both lose, and the rival DMK were to win the seat, then either there would be fresh attempts to overthrow the government led by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami, or for re-uniting the two factions of the AIADMK.

Jaya had won the assembly polls by just over 40,000 votes. She had polled 97,218 votes against DMKs candidate, Shimla Muthuchozhans 56,732.

A very respectable margin otherwise, it was not the highest for a charismatic leader like Jayalalithaa. Instead, it reflected the prevalent political mood in the state when the Opposition DMK won the highest number of 89 seats in the 234-member house.

Together with the Congress and IUML allies, the DMK-led Opposition now has 99 members, enough to move and take on the ruling faction of the AIADMK, led by jailed general secretary V K Sasikala Natarajan.

Already, the DMK has declared its intention to consider moving a no-confidence motion against speaker Dhanapal for his conduct of the house, when CM Palanisami sought and won a trust-vote as directed by acting governor, Ch Vidyasagar Rao.

The Palanisami government is also set to present its maiden Budget on March 16, which will have to be discussed, debated and voted upon before the end of the financial year on March 31.

With polling for the R K Nagar by-election due only on April 12 (followed by counting three days later), the Election Commission is duty-bound to decide on the symbol issue if the rebel faction of the AIADMK, led by three-time chief minister, O Pannerselvam, challenges the automatic allocation of the partys Two Leaves to the ministerial faction, if the government side could be dubbed so.

Already, the OPS factions plea for not recognising Sasikala as the elected leader of the party, as per the AIADMK by-laws, is pending before the Election Commission.

The EC served notice on the Sasikala leadership, addressed to the Paranagara Agraharam prison in Bengaluru, where she is housed as per the Supreme Court verdict in the disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa and others.

The Sasi camp goofed up upfront after T T V Dinakaran, her nephew and party deputy general secretary nominated by her, responded to the EC notice.

Though the by-laws allow the party general secretary to appoint deputies of his/her choice, as the EC response pointed out, Dinakarans name did not figure in the official list of office-bearers that Sasikala had filed with the EC after her election.

The Commission thus gave a March 10 deadline for Sasikala to file her response -- which might in effect be a copy of what Dinakaran had filed, on substantive issues.

But the most substantive of issues before the EC pertained to Sasikalas very election as general secretary. On that would hinge the ECs decision on allowing the Sasi/ministerial faction to retain the Two Leaves symbol for the R K Nagar by-election.

However, with the nominations for the by-poll opening on March 16, and the last day for the withdrawal fixed for 27, the EC has only that many days left to decide on the larger question of party leadership.

If the EC found the need for more information, documentation, and arguments, if any, then it could well be left with little choice but to freeze the symbol, until after the by-elections are over, and the hearing on the Two Leaves issue had concluded, later on.

This however does not mean that the OPS faction could directly stake claim to the symbol, which under the Form B protocol for allocation of registered symbols for elections, rests only with the person recognised under the party by-laws and hence the EC, as its leader.

This would also preclude the third, MGR-Amma-Deepa Peravai claimants to the MGR-Jaya political legacy , from claiming ownership of the Two Leaves symbol. Peravai founder and Jayas niece, Deepa Madhavan-Fredrick, was/is not known to have been even a primary member of the AIADMK even when aunt Jaya was around.

The bylaws insist that he/she elected holding any office in the AIADMK should have completed five full years as primary member of the party. Deepa would not qualify, now or in the foreseeable future, whatever the other favourable circumstances that might exist or emerge.

Already, the question has been raised before the EC that Sasikala having been sacked by Jaya under the relevant party rules in November 2011, and re-admitted in April 2012, she would not have qualified for being elected general secretary when she was supposedly elected to the post in December last.

This is not the first time the leadership and thus the ownership of the the AIADMK has come under a cloud -- and with it, those of the Two Leaves symbol. In the 1989 assembly polls, the first one to be held after party founder M G Ramachandrans death, the AIADMK was divided as two factions, one under his widow Janaki Ramachandran, and the other under Jaya, his political protege.

Both lost the elections to the DMK rival, which returned to power after a 13-year vanvas when MGR was around. Post-poll, Janaki retired from active politics -- she was never ever active in politics, barring those few months when she became CM, post-MGR.

The two factions merged, and the Two Leaves symbol, frozen by the EC ahead of the 1989 polls returned. There was then no looking back for the party, now exclusively under Jayas care and unchallenged leadership. The results were visible in successive elections, too, though one way or the other.

From then on, the AIADMK cadres have come to believe that the loss of the Two Leaves symbol was the main reason for the party to lose in 1989, and the return of MGRs symbol was the one that helped the Jaya leadership to win the 1991 polls -- though the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, and the AIADMKs alliance with the Congress at the time, were the real factors of those days.

Thus, when from hospital bed, Jaya was believed to have affixed her thumb-impression (duly attested by two civil surgeons) to Form B issued to AIADMK candidates in three by-elections, the party had concluded that their victory in the by-election was a foregone conclusion.

Incidentally, with Jayas hospitalisation itself becoming the subject matter of speculation and controversies, and the Madras high court already seized of a petition for a CBI inquiry into the same, the thumb-impression episode too might come under a cloud.

With memories fresh about the EC promptly allotting the ruling Samajwadi Partys Bicycle symbol in Uttar Pradesh, to the faction led by Akilesh Yadav in the run-up to the assembly polls, the temptation to compare it in the Tamil Nadu context is high.

However, the comparison should stop there. The SP bylaws make the general council, the highest party authority, for internal elections, as well. In the case of AIADMIK, the general secretary has to be elected directly by all primary members, supposedly numbering around 1.5-crore at present.

If MGR and Jaya did not actually go through the process of winning a formal party poll in which all 1.5 crore members voted, they were the unanimous choice, and they did not face any challenger.

In Sasis case, Lingam, the husband of Sasikala Pushpa, party member of Rajya Sabha who sacked by Jaya in her time, had claimed to have gone to the party HQ to file her nominations, only to be beaten up by pro-Sasi cadres, with the state police watching helplessly.

Lingam has already moved the court, though the argument against him was/is that he too had been sacked by Jaya from the party.

In this, Sasikala Pushpa may have a case against her expulsion from the party, as Jaya had not notified the Rajya Sabha secretariat of the same, nor has Sasikala as general secretary done so.

The same might apply to the 11 OPS camp MLAs and 10 MPs, whom the Sasi camp might find difficult to notify the Parliament Secretariat for the two Houses, even if they were to defy the bench-mark, for matters under the anti-defection law.

The question would thus arise if the ministerial faction in the party would want to issue a whip, and/or seek to disqualify the OPS camps MLAs, for voting against the trust-vote moved by CM Palanisami already, or ahead of the DMKs planned no-confidence vote against the Speaker and/or against the Budget, later on -- but ahead of polling for the R K Nagar by-election

Whatever the case, from the time the governor notifies the by-election on March 16 and the counting of votes on 15 April, whatever the EC decision on the symbol question, no stake-holder has any right to move the high court or the Supreme Court for a judicial review in the matter. The law is very clear on the matter, and courts have jealously preserved and supported the provision.

Image: An AIADMK support tattooes former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's image on his arm. Photograph: PTI Photo.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and policy analyst, is Director, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.
'Muslims may turn to the BJP or may not come out to vote in great numbers like they have in the past.'

'Anything can happen.'

'They can feel an increased sense of alienation, but that depends on the BJP -- on how it includes them.'

Professor Badri Narayan's scholarship has played a prominent role in the understanding of Indian politics.

The author of several books on the Dalit movement, including a highly acclaimed biography on Kanshi Ram, Badri Narayan spoke to Rediff.com's Archana Masih about what Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi need to do if they want to reclaim relevance in the wake of Modi's March.

Do you see Dalit youth buying more into Narendra Modi's promises than Mayawati's talk about caste identity?

There are many aspects (of the election results) that are unexplored. We need to explore what happened and how it happened.

We still haven't received all the data as yet, we can only speak on the basis of the 'feel' of the field.

From the sense I get from the 'feel' of the field is that the BJP has been able to mobilise the MBCs (Most Backward Castes) and non-Jatav Dalits to their advantage.

A section of the Jatavs that lived in the cities and is aspirational has also voted for BJP.

The BJP has worked with the smaller Dalit castes.

There are 65 Dalit communities in Uttar Pradesh, out of that only 4, 5 are visible. The remaining are invisible, scattered and not very informed.

Whichever party is able to mobilise them, they end up voting for them.

Amit Shah has been able to create a social coalition comprising of the Forwards, non Yadav OBCs, non Jatav Dalits and MBCs.

The BJP's ascent under Modi is compared to the Congress' growth under Indira Gandhi in the early 1970s for using the weapon of populism to attract the poor -- what are the similarities and differences between the two?

At the moment, there is no parallel to Modi.

I will not say he is like Indira Gandhi because they are two personalities. At the moment the Opposition has no to response to him.

Maybe time will produce its own leader from the Opposition -- it could be Rahul, Akhilesh, Nitish Kumar.

Modi was unsettled by Rahul's remark of 'suit-boot ki sarkar' and took up the issue of poverty after that.

Maybe a time may come when the Opposition will be in a position to reply back to Modi.

But at the moment, Modi is the victor.

How do you explain the transformation of Modi -- a man seen as close to the corporate world -- to being the messiah of the poor?

When he was attacked for his embrace of the corporate world, he shifted his politics and started raising the issues of the poor.

He realised if he didn't do this, he would be finished.

He started fashioning a pro-poor image.

Modi has the quality of making people believe what he says.

With the poor on his side, does it guarantee 2019 for the prime minister?

If he is able to maintain this alliance, then 2019 becomes easy for him.

It also depends on who they select as the chief minister of UP.

If the next UP chief minister does not do good work, it will have an impact on the rest of the country in the 2019 election.

If the BJP government does well in UP, 2019 will be winnable.

Did you expect the BJP sweep in UP?

It is unexplainable. Politicians are more innovative than analysts. They adopt new methods and we analyse those methods later.

Like the BJP made poverty a major plank in the election like Indira Gandhi had done.

They spun demonetisation in a way that made the poor believe that the rich were the reason for their poverty.

So there was a parallel polarisation based on depravation between competing communities.

A parallel polarisation between the poor and rich, between the dominant Yadavs and the non-dominant OBCs, between the Jatavs and the non Jatav Dalits.

How will the Muslims read the UP verdict?

The BJP broke the myth of the Muslim vote in 2014 and it has broken it again in 2017.

The BSP did not get the Muslim vote, it went to the SP.

In places where the BSP and SP did over-polarisation, the BJP countered it with non-Muslim polarisation.

Will this make the Muslms feel disenfranchised?

They might turn to the BJP or may not come out to vote in great numbers like they have in the past. Anything can happen.

They can feel an increased sense of alienation, but that depends on the BJP -- on how it includes them.

The BJP might become inclusive towards Muslims after this mandate -- that can also be a possibility.

What should Rahul Gandhi do now?

Rahul and the Congress have to reinvent themselves.

Rahul needs to introspect about how he can establish a connect with the people. He is serious about it and has attempted to do so.

The Congress needs overhauling.

The Congress is like a defeated army. It has to be salvaged, it needs fresh enthusiasm, new people.

Rahul Gandhi is not the problem; the Congress party is the problem.

It has become like a presidential election -- we either credit Modi or discredit Rahul.

As it has been seen in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, it is very difficult to dislodge the BJP once it comes into power in a state. Will we see this in UP as well?

UP is a complex state. It is a difficult to maintain and sustain social balance in UP.

The first test will be who they (the BJP) make CM.

Secondly, if they waive off farmers' debt which was a poll promise.

This will decide the future of their politics.

Mayawati has been able to hold on to the 20% of her core vote base in UP, but what is the point of maintaining this base if it cannot translate into electoral gains?

The function of the 'core vote' is that it works as the 'base vote' to which other votes can be added upon.

That makes a winning alliance, but when no other votes get added on to it, then it does not translate into electoral gains.

The BSP has gone back to being what it was in the 1990s.

You had told me in an earlier interview that Mayawati would be destroyed politically if she lost two elections in a row -- where does she go from here?

Mayawati ke liye bahut difficult time aa gaya hai. Mayawati has reached a very difficult stage in her political life.

There is no second rung of leadership. They have experienced the trappings of power.

They have to once again win the trust in the people -- but who will do that?

That is a difficult task and if that doesn't happen, the Dalits will shift in great numbers towards the BJP.

Is she capable of reinventing herself?

She is capable, but it has to be seen how much hard work she can do to achieve this.

She has a sharp mind, is intelligent, and is receptive to her community.

She did not do any work in the last four years (after she became a Rajya Sabha MP). She had no direct connect with the people because she lived in Delhi.

When she came to UP, she met the leaders and returned. She did not intervene in issues or taken up new causes through movements.

The BSP was basically a party of mass movements, but it stopped being so.

She only started working for the election in the last one-and-a-half years. But her Dalit-Muslim coalition backfired.

It gave the BJP the space for counter-polarisation.

She did not have the time to successfully create a Dalit-Muslim coalition because she announced it just a couple of months before the election.

What are the three things Behenji needs to do?

She needs to reinvent herself and the BSP's politics. It needs a new language.

She needs to reconnect with her own people and revive the 'movemental' character of the BSP.

She needs to build it like Kanshi Ram did. Mayawati knows how they did it because she was a part of it.

So both the SP and BSP need to go back to their basic politics?

They have to build trust within their communities.

The language of politics is no longer just the language of caste. There are other elements that have added on to that.

Akhilesh speaks the modern language, he does not speak the language of caste.

He will have to reconnect with his traditional roots.

You cannot reach the marginal poor through laptops, metros and highways.

You need to engage in a politics that fulfills their basic needs.

INTERVIEWS YOU MUST READ...

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'Educated Muslim women overwhelmingly voted for me because of Modiji's stand on triple talaq.'

IMAGE: Muslim women at a polling booth in Uttar Pradesh. Photograph: PTI Photo

Newly minted Deoband MLA Brijesh Singh speaks with Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore about his victory from a seat dominated by 50 per cent Muslim voters, and which is the home to the Darul Uloom, the Islamic seminary founded in 1866 and where the Deobandi movement began.

Brijesh Singh, left, below, who won the Deoband constituency in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district by polling 102,244 votes, 29,400 votes more than the Bahujan Samaj Party's Majid Ali, who polled 72,844 votes.

Mavia Ali, the Samajwadi Party's sitting MLA, ranked a distant third with just over 50,000 votes.

Who gets the credit for your victory?

I owe my victory to all the workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party from my constituency and all those who voted for me and reposed their faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The constituency from which you won, Deoband, has more than 70 per cent Muslims, and their share in the total voters is 50 per cent.

Generally, it is considered that Muslims don't vote for the BJP but yet you defeated the BSP's Majid Ali and the SP's sitting MLA Maviya Ali, both Muslim candidates.

What went right for you?

The voters of Uttar Pradesh, whatever their caste or religion, have been suffering hugely because of the goonda raj and corruption of the SP and the BSP.

In contrast, people have been watching the performance of the Union government under the leadership of honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and his policies.

It was quite evident to the people of Uttar Pradesh that Akhileshji's government was not implementing the policies of the central government meant for UP.

Just not my seat, if you look at the way the people of UP voted you will be convinced that the people have voted for the performance and policies of the honourable Modi government.

Our opponents criticised demonetisation, but the UP mandate has shown that people have stood firmly behind demonetisation and Modiji.

BJP candidates have won seats which have a Muslim majority. Is it an indication that the BJP has struck a chord with Muslims or vice versa?

This is my personal conviction that a lot of Muslim women voted for us because of the stand taken by Modiji on the issue of triple talaq.

In my constituency I personally believe educated Muslim women overwhelmingly voted for me because of Modiji's stand on triple talaq.

I have not analysed the booth-wise data yet, but this is my personal opinion based on what I saw on the ground during my election campaign.

I could clearly see Muslim women standing in support of Modiji's stand on triple talaq.

Didn't the split in Muslim votes among the BSP and SP in Deoband work in your favour. BSP leader Mayawati has raised doubts about your victory.

I rubbish such claims of Behenji.

The day I was nominated for the Deoband seat, the BSP had already declared its candidate, but the SP had not even declared its candidate.

The SP candidate was declared after I filed my nomination papers from Deoband.

In fact, the Deoband seat first went to the Congress. They had declared Mukesh Chaudhary as their candidate, but after the Congress-SP alliance took shape Deoband went to the SP.

But this had no impact on my victory because the people of Deoband were already two steps ahead of such political machinations and had made up their mind.

In such situations, you always get the results that you saw in UP on March 11.

The UP voter has given a clear mandate for the policies of Modiji.

On the ground during your election campaign, did you feel that Muslims were connecting or were trying to go along with the BJP and the prime minister's policies?

The BSP, SP and Congress have always won their mandate by dividing Hindustanis as Hindus and Muslims.

The BJP has always considered every citizen as a Hindustani. We never do the politics of communal division of voters.

Prime Minister Modiji has always maintained that all those who want development have always voted for the BJP.

Now that a BJP government will be in place in Uttar Pradesh after almost two decades, what do you think should be the top priorities of this government?

The BJP had put forth its Sankalp Patra, in the presence of the state and national president Keshav Prasad Mauryaji and Amit Shahji, before the people of UP.

All the promises we made to the people in our Sankalp Patra will be our top priorities.

The overwhelming mandate of UP's voters clearly shows that they want us to implement the promises made in our Sankalp Patra.

The state government will fulfil all its promises to the people of the state under the policies and guidance of Modiji.

Did you expect the BJP to win Uttar Pradesh so overwhelmingly?

100 per cent! 100 per cent!

I was in Varanasi after my constituency went to the polls in the second phase to oversee the responsibility given to me by my party. I campaigned in three to four seats there.

When Modiji conducted his roadshows in Varanasi, looking at the huge turnout and enthusiasm of the people there, I was very confident that UP's mandate in our favour will help us cross the 300 seat mark.

Now that the BJP has a sweeping majority in Uttar Pradesh, would you like to see the construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya?

Let me reiterate that not only a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, but we will work towards fulfilling all the promises we have made to the people of Uttar Pradesh in our Sankalp Patra.

Our single most principle is sabka sath, sabka vikas and under Prime Minister Modiji's leadership we will do it in Uttar Pradesh in the next five years.

Who should become the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh?

I am a newly elected legislator and this decision is not in my domain.

The BJP is a party of disciplined workers and the decision taken by our central leadership will be accepted by each and every worker of the party.

Would you be part of the next government in Uttar Pradesh?

I never live under delusions. I have already stated that in the BJP, an ordinary worker is shaped by our our organsation's ideology and principles.

These decisions are taken by the organisation, and not an individual.

The BJP gave me an opportunity to contest an election and by the blessings of our workers I have won the Deoband seat.

I will always respect the decision my organisation takes for me and keep working as a party's loyal soldier.

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Former Congress chief minister Digambar Kamat blames the 'central observers from Delhi' for his party's failure to cobble up the numbers to form a government in Goa, despite emerging as the single largest party.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party, with just 13 legislators, acted swiftly to bring back Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar as Goa's next chief minister and stitched an alliance with three MLAs each from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party and two Independent MLAs, to take its tally to 21, the Congress is in complete disarray.

In a desperate bid to stop the BJP juggernaut from rolling on in Goa, the Congress' leader of the legislature party Chandrakant Kavlekar, who was elected from Quepem, has approached the Supreme Court challenging Governor Mridula Sinha's invitation to Parrikar to form the next government, even as the central observers from Delhi under the leadership of Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh draws flak for being indecisive in naming their chief ministerial candidate.

Congress leader Digambar Kamat, who ruled Goa from 2007 to 2012 as chief minister, spoke to Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore about what stops his party from claiming the mantle.

With only 13 MLAs, is it ethical for the BJP to form the government?

The people of Goa have not given them a mandate to form a government, but the fact is they are trying to form the government.

Why isn't the Congress trying to form a government?

You should ask this question to our leaders who are here. I am not blaming anybody for not acting swiftly.

Our party goes by some systems.

Central observers come from Delhi, then they try to build a consensus or organise a secret ballot to choose the leader of the elected legislators.

Has the Congress forfeited the right to form a government?

I don't know. You ask them, ask Mr Digvijay Singh.They are the people who must take a call quickly.

They are the representatives of the central leadership.

I am not an office bearer; I will not comment on it.

Governor Mridula Sinha has already invited Manohar Parrikar to form the next government.

The governor has to follow the well-established law and if the law permits it, then it is okay and if the law doesn't permit, then...

So, the BJP will form the next government in Goa?

I said no, they didn't have the people's mandate. But still they are trying to form the government. What more can I say?

Also, let us wait for the Supreme Court order, which will be hearing our plea on an urgent basis on Tuesday.

IMAGE: Former Goa chief ministers Digambar Kamat, left, and Manohar Parrikar.
'The only narrative before India is what Modi and the BJP is presenting.'

'Nationalism has been taken as a serious plank by the BJP and RSS.'

'They want to keep the nationalism thing alive to make people forget the economic reality.'

IMAGE: Narendra Modi felicitated by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders during a victory ceremony at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, March 12, 2017. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Apoorvanand, a professor at Delhi University and well-known commentator on political issues, explains to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why he is concerned about the Bharatiya Janata Party's massive victory in Uttar Pradesh.

The UP election results have been described by many as the second Modi wave. Some even call it a Modi tsunami. Do you agree?

I dont know whether to call this a Modi wave or Modi tsunami or not, but it is definite that the people of UP have gone with what Modi and the BJP were commenting on.

This time it was unambiguous.

Was it the so-called social engineering managed by Amit Shah or Narendra Modi's vikas mantra that gave the BJP a massive victory?

I don't know why we are talking about vikas mantra because this time, from the beginning, the BJP was unambiguous about its plank.

They brought back the Ram Mandir issue. The BJP president talked about Akhilesh Yadav's discriminatory state polity relentlessly and the prime minister tried to tell the people of UP that jobs were given to Muslims.

The plank was not development at all; it was definitely a Hindutva plank.

Yes, there was social engineering. It was done not only in these 2, 3 months, the BJP has been doing it for the last 10, 15 years in UP and the other states.

What it has learnt from the Social Justice movement was the need to accommodate the backward castes and Dalits in its fold.

The Social Justice movement in Bihar had a strong Yadav leader and in UP, there were two leaders -- one a Yadav (Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav) and the other a Jatav (Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati).

Given the extreme nature of our society, when Yadavs emerged at the top, the other sub castes -- which we call backward castes, but known in their areas by their caste -- felt left out.

So, it is not a homogenous growth. When it comes to power, the others feel that they don't have a share and only the Yadavs enjoy it.

In Haryana, the BJP targeted the Jats.

In Maharashtra, they targeted the Maratha hegemony and it worked for them very cleverly.

In UP, they targeted the other backward castes and the non-dominant Dalits.

In UP, they started a train in the name of Suhaildev, considered a leader by a particular community. They even had a campaign in the area surrounding Suhaildev.

The fact is Ghazi Mian is the cult hero of both the Hindus and Muslims, but the BJP changed the folklore and made Suhaildev the hero.

So, contrary to what others would like to believe, that the BJP was above caste, what it has done is group the other backward castes and the non-Jatav Dalits in a very clever manner.

You said the BJP had the Ram temple on its plank, but at no rally did Narendra Modi speak about Hindutva or the Ram temple; he always talked about development...

For once I want to agree with what the MIM leader (Asaduddin) Owaisi says, that Narendra Modi's username is development and his password is Hindutva.

So, if you want to open his system, you have to type Hindutva.

Narendra Modi did it very cleverly in both Bihar and UP. I don't know why journalists are missing it.

If you follow all his speeches, you will see that he always spoke about discrimination that is happening there and he played it very cleverly.

Most of the people do not know Hindi well and cannot understand the nuanced way he is telling the Hindus that they being discriminated against.

He said, what had happened till now was 'kuch ka saath, kuch ka vikas.'

What he was effectively telling them was the kuch are the minorities.

What he meant in Bihar and UP was Muslims need to be cornered and need to be pushed out.

He wanted them to deal with the kuch firmly.

This was his message in all his speeches and not vikas mantra.

It appears out of the 115 seats in Muslim dominated areas in UP, the BJP won 85 seats. How do you explain this?

Look at this in a different way. Before this mandate, Akhilesh Yadav had come with a decisive mandate.

It was not called a mandate above caste, but this time, why do you want to call this a mandate above caste and religion?

What happened was clever social engineering.

The caste equation was understood and used carefully to bring them (the BJP) to power.

In the Muslim dominated areas, the BJP saw to it that the others consolidated against the Muslims.

In Bihar, this was the story. Some Muslims might have voted for the BJP. I read someone say yesterday (Sunday) that they wanted to say, just spare our lives.

So, you are saying this was not a vote beyond caste and religion, but clever social engineering?

Definitely it is not beyond caste and religion. It has very much to do with caste.

I still remember (Bihar's BJP leader) Sushil Modi giving a statement that the BJP would be the party that would give India its first OBC prime minister.

Is it a statement beyond caste or a casteist statement?

If it had come from Lalu Yadav or Mayawati or Rahul Gandhi, everybody would have pounced on them saying they were talking the casteist language.

Modi himself portrays himself as a man from the other backward castes.

In UP, why do you think the Dalits deserted the BSP?

We tend to speak in very broad terms. Dalits include many sub castes and there is a hierarchy there.

Those in the lower rung are discriminated against even now.

Their immediate oppressor is not a Brahmin or someone from the backward caste, but those in the upper level among Dalits.

Social justice politics failed because it couldn't fashion a universal language.

The BSP is seen as a Jatav party and not a Dalit party. The Dalit is a much broader category.

Mayawati has failed to establish herself as a Dalit leader who has the universal language.

The BJP says schemes like Jan Dhan Yojana, Ujwala, etc helped it win over the poor. Do you agree?

These schemes have also played a role, yes.

Why only Ujwala, demonetisation also helped them win the votes of the poor.

Demonetisation was portrayed as something that hit the rich and the corrupt hard and people in general bought this line.

So, there was an imaginary satisfaction among the poor that the rich were hit hard by demonetisation.

People also believed that their hardship was because of the bankers and not Modi.

They bought the line that Mod did the right thing and it was the bankers who messed it up.

Why do you think people trust Narendra Modi?

I am coming to terms with this new reality.

What was before Modi? A total vacuum in terms of communication.

Democratic politics works through dialogue and speeches.

Somebody has to talk to the people.

If you go back three years, there was complete silence.

Manmohan Singh was not speaking and Sonia Gandhi was not speaking.

No Congress leader was speaking.

Arvind Kejriwal entered the scene and it was only shouting people heard.

There was a general sense of despondency.

Now comes a man who speaks. And he talks relentlessly.

He talks to the people. And people want to hear him speak.

The only narrative before India is what Narendra Modi and the BJP is presenting.

No other credible narrative is presented by the Congress or the Left or the other regional parties.

In democracy, the power of rhetoric works.

People see in Narendra Modi a man who is talking to them and who is presenting himself as a man among them.

When he says that he was one among them and he has risen to the level of PM, they see in him a kind of revolt against the elite.

Do you think he has become bigger than the party?

Yes, he has. In 2013, I wrote an article that Narendra Modi was to the BJP what Stalin was to the Communist party of the Soviet Union.

Stalin decimated the politburo of the Communist party. All the comrades of Lenin were either killed or sidelined or sent into exile.

This has happened to the BJP; all the stalwarts of the BJP are sidelined and those who exist, exist because of Narendra Modi.

Even the RSS is following the dictates of Narendra Modi.

Do you feel Narendra Modi and the BJP are heading for a long innings in India?

At this juncture, it seems so. The other parties are stunned into silence.

They will have to gather their wits, stand up on their feet and start thinking.

They have to look at the elements that are resisting the BJP even now and work on them.

What kind of impact will the UP results have on Indian politics?

In parliamentary terms, it will change the composition of the Rajya Sabha, it will give an absolute majority for the BJP in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

So, it will be able to push all its bills comfortably.

In political terms, it may affect people from other states.

They may feel that the BJP is the party which should be trusted and they would tend to go with it.

Gujarat may go its way, similarly, Rajasthan.

So, in all coming elections, the BJP may able to fight anti-incumbency and win.

Then the language of the BJP will be the language of Indian politics.

Will victory in the 2019 general election be easy for the BJP?

At this juncture, it seems so.

They were saying till now that they had not been able to push the bills because they didn't have the majority in the Rajya Sabha.

They also will have their own President, vice-president. There won't be any discordant voice anywhere.

Of course, expectations are there.

If the economy doesn't work, if they are not able to create buoyancy in manufacturing and agriculture, they will find it tough to fulfil their economic promises.

That can create disillusionment among the people as expectations are huge.

That is one possibility.

The other possibility is if people are fed culture instead of bread. I feel we will see a very fierce cultural battle in the next three years.

Nationalism has been taken as a serious plank by the BJP and the RSS. It is a very well thought out strategy that they have.

They want to keep the nationalism thing alive to make people forget the economic reality.

Are we seeing the Indira Gandhi days of the 1970s when she was the undisputed leader all over India?

What we are seeing is the reconfiguration of India with Muslims and Christians being made irrelevant with majoritarian politics.

Narendra Modi is just an instrument, an important link in the whole story.

After all, he is the son of the RSS, and the RSS has found an effective voice in Narendra Modi.

I see the BJP ruthlessly implementing majoritarian politics all over.

Indira Gandhi's period was different. She was authoritarian and she did play with a majoritarian impulse, but the decisiveness with which majoritarian politics is being implemented now is something we have to be concerned about.

I am worried, concerned and perturbed because I cannot be neutral right now. But I have not given up hope.

MUST READ features in the RELATED LINKS below.
Congress leaders, including partys chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Satyavrat Chaturvedi, on Tuesday criticised the delay in garnering support from other MLAs in Goa where it lost out to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the race to form government despite emerging as the single largest party.

They also demanded that accountability be fixed for not being able to form the government after the party squandered the opportunity to return to power in the coastal state.

The strong reaction came a day after a group of partys Goa legislators blamed the central leadership for failure to form the government.

Asserting that the party knew that it did not have a clear majority and therefore, it has to garner support from other political parties or may be Independents, Chaturvedi said, This exercise should have been conducted well in time.

Another Congress leader and former union minister Renuka Chowdhury said the mandate was given to the party and it was natural for its MLAs to feel bitter about not being able to form the government.

Accountability should be fixed and heads should roll for Goa as well as for other states, she added.

However, Chaturvedi maintained that the final verdict will be after the floor test in the Goa assembly.

That will decide one's majority, not the Governors House, Chaturvedi told reporters outside Parliament.

On Monday, a group of Congress legislators in Goa blamed the partys top leadership for the failure to form the government in the coastal state despite emerging as the single largest party in the assembly polls.

I am very upset with the way our party leaders handled the situation after the (Goa assembly poll) results, which gave us the first right -- as the single largest party -- to form the government.

I feel let down at the functioning of the party leaders who could not take a decision at the right time, Vishwajit Rane, who won from the Valpoi constituency, had said.

He said that gross mismanagement by party leaders and the delay in choosing the Congress Legislature Party leader hurt them.

In the recently held assembly elections in Goa, BJP bagged 13 seats, while Congress got 17 seats in the 40-member house. However, BJP staked claim to form the government on the basis of support from eight other MLAs.

Goa Governor Governor Mridula Sinha had invited Manohar Parrikar to form the government after he produced the letter of support of 21 MLAs. Parrikar was on Tuesday sworn in as chief minister of Goa.
OPEC's oil production ticks down in February as Saudis shoulder most cuts

OPEC production fell in February as Saudi Arabia continued to compensate for other cartel members who have not yet achieved promised output cuts.

The producer group also raised concerns about rising global oil inventories and resurgent U.S. supply in its monthly report, and raised its forecast for non-OPEC production for 2017.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries produced a combined 31.96 million barrels a day last month, compared with 32.1 million barrels a day in January, according to secondary sources.

"High compliance with supply adjustments by OPEC and some non-OPEC producers supported gains" in crude oil futures in February, OPEC said.

Output by the members that committed to cutting production late last year was 29.7 million barrels a day, compared with 29.9 million last month. Libya and Nigeria are exempt as they attempt to restore supply sidelined by internal conflict.

Iran is permitted to increase its pumping to a certain extent. The February figures showed it was producing about 17,000 barrels a day above that level.

Among the cartel members still pumping beyond promised levels are Iraq, OPEC's second largest producer, and the United Arab Emirates, which pumped 63,000 and 51,000 barrels a day above their quotas, respectively.

OPEC agreed in November to curb output by 1.2 million barrels a day in the first half of 2017 to reduce a global oversupply of crude oil. Eleven other exporters including Russia committed to reducing their total supply by 556,000 in December.

While Reuters put the group's combined compliance to the output cut deal above 100 percent, Saudi Arabia continues to provide the lion's share of reductions.

Riyadh once again cut more deeply than required under the deal, according to both Saudi and secondary sources.

However, the Saudis reported significantly higher output than independent assessments showed. Riyadh said it produced 10.01 million barrels a day last month.

It pumped 9.8 million barrels a day in February, below its 10.06 million barrel per day quota under the accord, secondary sources said. That would be lower than its 9.87 million barrel a day output in January.

Story continues

The discrepancy is likely the result of a rebound in internal demand, which secondary sources can miss because they're focused on exports, said John Kilduff, founding partner at energy hedge fund Again Capital.

"If the Saudis are saying it, we take them at their word," he said. "They're probably the only ones you can believe when it comes to self-reporting."

Angola, OPEC's largest African producer, was the only other member to produce below its quota, secondary sources reported. Gabon, Kuwait, Qatar and Ecuador were 1,000 to 4,000 barrels a day above set levels.

The united front OPEC members showed in the early days of the deal has begun to crack. Saudi Oil Minister Khalid Al-Falih warned last week at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference that the kingdom would not underwrite other producers' investments at its own expense.

Also during the conference, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar Ali Al-Luiebi said Baghdad could raise output to above 5 million barrels a day by the beginning of the second half.

OPEC ministers convened a last-minute conference at CERAWeek following those comments to reaffirm their commitment to the deal.

Supply and Demand Outlook

OPEC raised its forecast for 2017 oil demand by 70,000 barrels a day on the view that developed European nations and the Asia-Pacific region will consume more crude than previously thought. It now sees world demand averaging 96.31 million barrels a day this year.

The cartel also raised its 2017 non-OPEC supply outlook by 160,000 barrels a day, accounting for an "improving outlook for Canadian oil sands and US supply."

Higher oil prices, bolstered by OPEC's production curbs, have made more high-cost U.S. shale oil production profitable. Crude futures slid 9 percent last week after data showed another build in U.S. crude inventories.

"It seems that the oil supply recovery is gathering momentum in the world oil market, stimulated by gradually rising prices as well as improvements in drilling efficiency and well productivity in North America," OPEC said in its March report.

Oil held in storage in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of developed nations, rose in January to more than 3 billion barrels, above the five-year average, according to OPEC.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Gabon, Kuwait, Qatar and Ecuador produced between 1,000 and 4,000 barrels a day above their quotas.





More From CNBC


Beyond the British and Russian strands interwoven into the Indian Navy's equipment profile and the strong drive towards indigenisation evident today, its future in aircraft carriers appears increasingly linked with America. Ajai Shukla reports.

The navy on March 6 decommissioned Indian Navy Ship Viraat, the worlds oldest aircraft carrier, 58 years after she entered operational service with the Royal Navy in 1959. During this period, she sailed over a million kilometres, enough to circumnavigate the world 27 times.



According to centuries-old naval practice, the decommissioning was formally completed when two flags -- the Viraat's commissioning pennant, and the naval ensign -- were lowered at sunset in Mumbai on March 13, 2017.



Highlighting the nostalgia around the decommissioning, all but one of the carrier's 22 Indian commanding officers attended the ceremony.



As a mark of respect, the Royal Navy's First Sea Lord (navy chief), Admiral Sir Philip Jones, also attended the decommissioning.



The 28,000-tonne aircraft carrier was first commissioned into the United Kingdom's Royal Navy as HMS (Her Majestys Ship) Hermes in 1959. The highlight of her 26 years in British service was the Falklands War, when she served as the flagship of the Royal Navy task force in the Southern Atlantic.



Three years after the Falklands War, she was decommissioned in 1985. After two years of refit in Devon Shipyard, she was commissioned as INS Viraat into the Indian Navy, eventually serving another 30 years.



Symbolising a bygone era, INS Viraat was the navy's last British-built warship. The Royal Navy established and trained the modern Indian Navy, which British admirals commanded till April 21, 1958. Up to the 1970s, the UK supplied Indias first modern warships, including its first aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, and six Leander-class frigates.

In the 1980s began decades of Russian affiliation, when India bought dozens of cheap Russian missile corvettes and its first destroyers, the Rajput class.

As Indian designers began building the first indigenous warships, including the Godavari-class frigates, Russian influence was evident in their design.

Meanwhile, the navy continued buying Russian warships, such as the six Talwar-class frigates and the navys current flagship -- INS Vikramaditya (formerly Admiral Gorshkov).

Currently, India is building its next carrier, also named INS Vikrant, at Cochin Shipyard Ltd, Kochi. This 40,000-tonne vessel, which has been delayed by almost a decade, is likely to be commissioned in 2023.



Beyond the British and Russian strands interwoven into the navy's equipment profile and the strong drive towards indigenisation evident today, its future in aircraft carriers appears increasingly linked with America.

The navy has decided that INS Vishal, the 65,000-tonne indigenous aircraft carrier that will follow INS Vikrant, must be a technologically cutting-edge warship with numerous American features.

These include nuclear propulsion and the new US 'electro-magnetic aircraft launch system' that makes it possible to quickly launch different types of combat aircraft that would provide a major combat edge.



Given the US Navy's pre-eminent reputation as the premier operator of carrier borne air power, New Delhi is consulting closely with Washington on designing INS Vishal.

A 'joint working group' that discusses design aspects is amongst the most successful cooperative enterprises between the two militaries.

The navy wants at least 55 aircraft on board INS Vishal, including two squadrons of fighters, electronic warfare aircraft to mask them in combat, airborne early warning aircraft to monitor and control airspace, and helicopters for special operations, anti-submarine warfare and communications duties.



After earlier supporting the indigenous Tejas fighter for its aircraft carriers, and also the Russian MiG-29K/KUB, the navy has now switched to backing the American F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which Boeing has offered to build in India.

Choosing US carrier-borne fighters would further tighten design and operational cooperation with America.



The future of the decommissioned Viraat remains uncertain. Unless a buyer emerges in the next four months, or the Andhra Pradesh government makes good on its offer to convert it into a floating naval museum, the Viraat will head to the ship-breakers and sold as scrap.



Alternatively, NDTV quotes the navy chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba, as indicating that the warship may be sunk and converted into a divers' destination.
After Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday doubted reliability of electronic voting machines as he sought use of ballot papers in next month's municipal polls in the national capital.

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken has also written to Kejriwal and the State Election Commission, seeking use of ballot papers in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls.

Following a directive from Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Secretary M M Kutty, in a letter to the State Election Commission, asked it to hold the municipal elections through ballot papers.

But the Election Commission, after announcing that the polls will be held on April 22, said very little time was left to use ballot papers and that certain rules will have to be amended to shun the electronic voting machines (EVMs).

The chief minister has directed the chief secretary to ask the state election office to hold MCD elections through ballot papers, a source in the CMs office said.

The move comes close on the heels of Mayawati questioning the reliability of EVMs. She had alleged that they were tampered with in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, where her party suffered a debacle.

Maken also threw his weight behind Kejriwal as he asked the chief minister to take steps to ensure that EVMs are not used in the elections.

Many are doubting EVMs-Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results; I want @ArvindKejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot Papers, he had tweeted.

State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava said if the Delhi government wants voting through ballot papers, rules will have to be amended first, which he said is a time-consuming process.

Aam Aadmi Partys Jarnail Singh, who lost to former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal from Lambi in the recent elections in that state, also demanded use of ballots in the elections ahead.

Although we accept defeat, we have serious doubts over the results in Punjab. There are several villages in the Lambi constituency where we have received less votes than the number of volunteers we have there.

For the first time, voter-verified paper audit trail was used in Punjab. When we asked the Returning Officer to tally the number of votes to the VVPATs, he declined to do so, Singh said.

AAP sources said there were 33 assembly constituencies in Punjab where VVPAT was used, and that it would ask the poll panel to verify them again with the number of votes received.

They said the party had been gathering evidence before it could officially take up the matter with the poll panel.

Where a paper trail audit or VVPAT is used, the counting agent can call for a count of the paper slips in the drop box attached to the voting machine, but the final count is taken by the Returning Officer.

Reacting to Kejriwals demand, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said in that case fresh polls should be held to the 67 seats won by the AAP in the 2015 assembly polls.

See, taking a call on this issue is the commission's job. We are ready irrespective of how the polls are held, be it through ballot papers or EVMs, he said.

AAPs Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey also raised doubts over functioning of the EVMs and demanded use of ballots in the upcoming civic body polls.
Here is some interesting information released by the government in response to questions posed by MPs in Parliament on Tuesday.

175 mobile phones stolen per day in Delhi!

Around 175 mobile phones were stolen every day in the national capital in January and February this year, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

While answering a question on the number of electronic devices stolen in 2016 and 2017, Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said the Delhi Police has registered 10,497 cases of mobile phone thefts till February 28 this year.

Last year, 36,217 cases of mobile phone thefts were reported, he said.

Till February this year, the Delhi Police registered 638 cases of laptop thefts, while last year, the number stood at 3,060, the minister added.

*******

7.32 crore Indians are users of alcohol, drugs





An estimated 7.32 crore people in India were users of alcohol and drugs, the Government informed the Lok Sabha quoting a 2000-01 survey.

In a written reply to a question, Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said the Social Justice and Empowerment ministry had conducted a national survey on the extent, pattern and trend of drug abuse in the years 2000-01.

"It is estimated that about 732 lakh people in India were users of alcohol and drugs of which 87 lakh used cannabis, 20 lakh used opiates and 625 lakh were users of alcohol. Thereafter, no national survey on drug abuse has been conducted," he said.

Ahir said that in 2016, the drug law enforcement agencies in India had seized 46,873.052 kg of Methaqualone and arrested 20 persons, including 8 foreign nationals.

It indicates that the drug is in demand in India and may be popular among users, he said.

*******

Govt gets Rs 672 cr fine from overcharging pharma cos





Drug pricing regulator NPPA has received Rs 672.28 crore fine till date from pharmaceutical companies for overcharging.

Since inception, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has issued 1,527 demand notices to companies for overcharging on sales of formulations at prices above the notified ceiling price.

"Demand notices have been issued for an amount of Rs 5,038.72 crore. Amount of the tune of Rs 672.28 crore has been deposited by the companies. An amount of Rs 3,469.91 crore is under litigation," Minister of State for Chemicals Mansukh L Mandaviya said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

NPPA has recovered Rs 294.84 crore during the current financial year till February, he added. The government had recovered Rs 90.17 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 12.36 crore in 2015-16.

*******

Govt procures 14.66 lakh tonnes of pulses for buffer stock





The government has procured or contracted for imports about 14.66 lakh tonnes of pulses to create a buffer stock.

"The government has approved creation of buffer up to 20 lakh tonnes of pulses. As on March 8, 2017, around 14.66 lakh tonnes of pulses have been procured or contracted for imports towards building the buffer," Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs C R Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

The government has contracted for imports 4.06 lakh tonnes of pulses for the buffer stock, he added.

The government has approved engaging a professional Buffer Stock Management Agency (BSMA) for efficient management of the buffer stock including procurement, storage, maintenance and liquidation of the stock as per government directive from time to time, Chaudhary added.

"The agency for designing and managing the bid process has been selected. Contract for appointment is being finalised," the minister said.

Pulses production is estimated at record 22.14 million tonnes in the 2016-17 crop year as against about 16.5 million tonnes in the previous year. The annual domestic demand is about 24-25 million tonnes and the gap is met through imports. The government had decided to create a buffer stock for market intervention in case of price rise.

*******

Over 3 lakh registered refugees in India till 2014





More than three lakh refugees have been registered with various states as on December 31, 2014, the Centre said on Tuesday, adding that it has no "exact data" on people seeking political asylum in the country.

Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju informed the Lok Sabha that India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention related to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 protocol thereon.

However, he said, there was a standard operating procedure in place with effect from December 29, 2011 to deal with foreign nationals who claim to be refugees.

"While there is no exact data on the number of foreign citizens who have sought political asylum in India during the last five years, whereas the year-wise/state-wise/country-wise refugee estimates suggest registration of more than three lakh refugees with various states as on December 31, 2014," Rijiju added.
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.
Azerbaijan: Five years' jail for leading worship?

Publisher Forum 18 Author Felix Corley Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Forum 18, Azerbaijan: Five years' jail for leading worship?, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ea524.html [accessed 7 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.

In the first known use of punishments on foreign-educated Muslims for leading worship, Shia Imam Sardar Babayev faces up to five years' imprisonment if convicted. Educated in Iran, he led Friday prayers at a Masalli mosque. Arrested on 22 February, he is in pre-trial detention.
UN Human Rights Council discusses situations in DPRK, Iran, Myanmar and Burundi

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN Human Rights Council discusses situations in DPRK, Iran, Myanmar and Burundi, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ec0c4.html [accessed 7 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.

At respective interactive dialogues today on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Burundi, Iran and Eretria, senior United Nations independent human rights experts called on the governments to take immediate steps to ensure human rights protection in their respective countries.

During the dialogues, member countries of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council - the highest intergovernmental forum on human rights within the UN system - discuss rights situation with delegations from a particular country on the Council's agenda, as well as other Council members, officials of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts.

The dialogue includes a presentation or a briefing on a report by the rights experts followed by discussions.

On the situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana highlighted that there were no "quick fixes or instant solutions" to tackle human rights abuses of the scope and nature that have been reported in the country for a long time.

"The focus on developments in the political and military arenas should not shield ongoing violations from the scrutiny of this Council," he said. "Nor should it prevent it from taking a leading role on inspiring and coordinating international action on this situation of great concern."

The rights expert also expressed particular concern over continuing escalation in hostilities on the Korean peninsula, including nuclear tests and missile launches, and underlined that such tensions only further isolated the country.

RELATED: Latest ballistic launches by DPRK raise risk of regional arms race, Security Council warns

Drawing attention to last month's killing of DPRK leader Kim Jong Un's brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Kuala Lumpur, he urged all parties to cooperate in carrying out a transparent, independent and impartial investigation, as well as to observe guidelines regarding witness protection.

"Should the investigation confirm the involvement of State actors, Mr. Kim Jong Nam would be a victim of an extrajudicial killing and measures would need to be taken to assign responsibilities and protect other persons from targeted killings," he said.

The rights expert also spoke of the humanitarian situation in the country including in response to the typhoon last year, the situation of migrant workers and labour issues, and on DPRK's engagement with UN human rights mechanisms.

The Special Rapporteur's briefing was followed by an update from the Group of Independent Experts on Accountability designated pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 31/18 on the country.

Also today, Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar called for prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into killings and other serious human rights violations in the country.

In particular, she raised alarm over multiple cases in which civil society actors and human rights activists were killed for their work, including many who were killed in recent months, and that cases remained unresolved for years.

A number of such cases related to vested commercial interests or the military, she said, underlining: "No stones must be left unturned. The alleged victims, as well as all the people of Myanmar, deserve to know the truth."

Further, recalling harrowing testimonies she heard from individuals who fled violence in Rakhine state, the UN rights expert called for a Commission of Inquiry into events that occurred there and continue to surface "increasingly and persistently".

In a report last month, OHCHR documented the violence in Rakhine and said that the widespread human rights violations against the Rohingya population by the security forces in the indicated the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.

In her briefing, Ms. Lee also spoke of escalating conflict in Kachin (in Myanmar's north-east) and Shan (in the east of the country) states and the resulting impact on civilians, and expressed concern that the UN and other international organizations have been "systematically denied" authorization to deliver vital since May 2016.

Concluding her statement, the expert also welcomed some positive developments in the country, including increasing representation of women in discussions making up the peace process and called for the minimum level of 30 per cent across all groups to be reached at the next conference.

'Near-complete impunity' enjoyed by those responsible for rights violations in Burundi

In a separate dialogue, Fatsah Ouguergouz (Chair), Reine Alapini Gansou and Francoise Hampson, members of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Burundi presented their first oral briefing to the Council today, during which the experts expressed concern at "the scale and gravity of the human rights violations and abuses that have been brought to our attention."

On the basis of a first series of interviews held with a range of sources, they said the trends observed in 2015 and 2016 appear to be continuing, including persistent allegations of violations of the right to life and physical integrity, notably an increase in enforced disappearances. Arrests, particularly of people suspected of participating in opposition groups, continue to be reported, as do allegations of torture.

The exercise of some civil liberties continues to be obstructed, especially following the adoption of restrictive new laws on non-governmental organizations. Most journalists, members of civil society and opposition parties who had fled in 2015 are still in exile, they added, also drawing attention to the practices of extortion and ransom, which appear to have increased following a weakening of the rule of law in the country.

"We are particularly concerned by the near-complete impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these violations. Even when victims or witnesses are able to identify suspected perpetrators, cases of prosecution of State agents, or those who appear to have their support, are rare," they stated and reiterated their call to the Burundi Government to cooperate with the Commission.

In her briefing on the rights situation in Iran, Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir underlined the importance of the independence of lawyers and legal professionals to protect human rights and ensure a fair administration of justice.

"[However] the judiciary in Iran is neither independent nor free from influence from the executive," she said, noting concern that recent developments in this field, including a Bill, introduced last July, which, if adopted, could further undermine the independence of the lawyers.

"Broad and vague definition of certain offences, disrespect for the right of any accused to be promptly informed about charges against them, preventing the accused from freely choosing their legal representation are all contributing factors to violations of the right to fair trial and due process of law," she added.

The Special Rapporteur also voiced concern over the use of torture and ill treatment, which remains legally condoned as well as a number of recent arrests of journalists, writers, social media activists and human rights defenders, in particular women's rights activists, and called on the authorities take corrective measures.

"I am disturbed by the level of fear of those who try to communicate with me. Several interlocutors living outside and inside the country expressed fear of reprisals against them or their family members living inside the country," said Ms. Jahangir.

RELATED: Halt imminent execution of juvenile offender, urge UN human rights experts

In her briefing, the rights expert further spoke of a high number of executions in the country, including of juveniles executed once they turned 18; violence and harassment on religious grounds; and restrictions to women's labour rights, sexual and reproductive health care services and their freedom of movement.

UN Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
UN envoy for Somalia condemns bomb blasts in Mogadishu

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN envoy for Somalia condemns bomb blasts in Mogadishu, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ed774.html [accessed 7 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.

The United Nations envoy for Somalia has strongly condemned this morning's bomb blasts at two locations in Mogadishu that reportedly killed a number of civilians.

"These latest attacks come at a time when solidarity, not violence, among Somalis is badly needed," said Michael Keating, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the African country, in a press statement.

"The country is grappling with a severe drought that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of people. The timing and suffering caused by today's blasts are outrageous; this violent extremism cannot possibly be justified," he added.

According to the statement, the first blast occurred near the General Dhagabadan training facility of the Somali National Army, and initial accounts indicate that only the suicide bomber who was driving an explosives-laden minibus died in the explosion.

The second attack was also carried out by a bomber driving a vehicle filled with explosives who attacked the gate of the Weheliye Hotel on the Somali capital's congested Makka al-Mukarama road in a deliberate attempt to inflict a high number of casualties on hotel staff and guests, motorists and pedestrians.

Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the explosion at the hotel.

"We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the deceased and wish a full and speedy recovery to those who sustained injuries in today's attacks," Mr. Keating said.
Yemen on brink of famine, warns UN food relief agency chief, appealing for resources and access

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Yemen on brink of famine, warns UN food relief agency chief, appealing for resources and access, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ee934.html [accessed 7 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.

Unless the international community provides additional resources and authorities in Yemen allow aid workers access to hungry people, families in some of the war-torn country's most food insecure areas will die, warned the head of the United Nations emergency food programme.

Ertharin Cousin, the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), who is in Aden and Sana'a on a three-day visit, met with families struggling to feed their children and visited nutrition centres and health facilities.

"It is a race against time, and if we do not scale up assistance to reach those who are severely food insecure, we will see famine-like conditions in some of the worst-hit and inaccessible areas which means that people will die," Ms. Cousin said.

Describing the situation as "heartbreaking," Ms. Cousin noted that WFP reached a record number of 4.9 million food insecure people in the country in February alone.

The UN agency has plans to reach all seven million in need, but urgently needs nearly $460 million, and access by sea and land.

"Humanitarians and aid workers are making a difference in Yemen as they have prevented Yemen from slipping into a famine until now," she said.

"The challenge is that there are areas that are inaccessible where people are severely food insecure. These are the pockets that are at serious risk of people dying of hunger," she added.

The two-year long conflict in Yemen has worsened chronic food insecurity in the country, which was already considered one of the poorest in the world.
Thailand: Finalize Disappearances Convention

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Thailand: Finalize Disappearances Convention, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ef154.html [accessed 7 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.

On March 10, 2017, the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly unanimously approved ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which Thailand signed in 2012. However, the government has not yet set a clear time frame for either depositing the treaty with the United Nations secretary-general as required, or reconsidering and enacting the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Bill, which the assembly rejected in late February.

Thailand is scheduled to appear before the UN Human Rights Committee on March 13 and 14 to defend its record on civil and political rights.

"The Thai government should finally ratify the disappearances convention and enact the criminal law needed to fully prosecute officials responsible for heinous crimes," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "After years of waiting, more promises are simply not enough. The government needs to take swift and concrete action to enact a law that severely penalizes torture and enforced disappearance."

The Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Bill, if passed, will be the first Thai law to recognize and criminalize torture and enforced disappearance, whether committed inside or outside of Thailand. Importantly, the current draft provides no exemptions or immunities for acts committed during states of emergency or other extraordinary circumstances. Those convicted of either torture or enforced disappearance would face a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, extending longer in cases of serious injury or death. Commanders or supervisors who intentionally ignore such crimes will also face prison terms.



Human Rights Watch has repeatedly urged successive Thai governments, including in a January 14, 2016 letter to Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha, to ratify the Convention against Enforced Disappearance and to amend its penal code to make enforced disappearance a criminal offense. Following the military coup in May 2014, Human Rights Watch has raised serious concerns regarding the government's use of secret military detention authorized under section 44 of the 2014 Interim Constitution (against political dissenters and suspects in national security cases), as well as the 1914 Martial Law Act and the 2010 Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations (against insurgent suspects in the southern border provinces).

Enforced disappearance is defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person's fate or whereabouts. Enforced disappearances violate a range of fundamental human rights protected under international law, including prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and detention; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and extrajudicial execution.

Since 1980, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has recorded 82 cases of enforced disappearance in Thailand, including the disappearances of prominent Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit in March 2004, and ethnic Karen activist Porlajee "Billy" Rakchongcharoen in April 2014. None of these cases have been successfully resolved. Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups working in Thailand believe that the actual number of such cases in Thailand is higher because some families of victims and witnesses remain silent for fear of reprisal, and because the government lacks an effective witness protection system.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment are prohibited under international treaties and customary international law. Since October 2007, Thailand has been a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which specifically places an obligation on governments to investigate and prosecute acts of torture and other ill-treatment. Under the Convention against Torture, any statement made because of torture "shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

Successive Thai governments have dismissed allegations that the military, police, or other security forces tortured and ill-treated detainees. Despite failing to provide evidence to refute allegations, the authorities have frequently attacked their accusers by alleging those complainants made false statements with the intent of damaging Thailand's reputation.

Thailand's scheduled March appearance before the UN Human Rights Committee would be a moment to assess the government's seriousness in tackling disappearances and improving human rights.

"If Thailand wants to convince the Human Rights Committee that it is seriously addressing torture, disappearances, and other grave abuses, it will need to do more than say what it is planning to do," Adams said. "Thailand is only going to end its long record of failure by ratifying the disappearances convention, enacting strong legislation, and fully investigating and prosecuting torture and disappearance cases to break the cycle of abuses and impunity."

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Jordan: A Strong Move for Justice Reform

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 14 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Jordan: A Strong Move for Justice Reform, 14 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ef464.html [accessed 7 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.

Proposals from a royal committee to reform Jordan's justice system are an important step forward, Human Rights Watch said today. The government and parliament should act swiftly to put the proposals into effect.

The proposed changes would guarantee all suspects the right to access a lawyer from the time of arrest and during interrogations and would create a legal aid fund to provide lawyers for suspects who cannot afford them. The proposal also includes new limits on pretrial detention, provisions for improving prison conditions, and the elimination of reduced sentences for so-called "honor crimes."

"Jordanian authorities should seize the opportunity to carry out long-awaited measures that would dramatically improve the country's criminal justice system," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Given the king's full endorsement, the government and parliament should move quickly to formally enact the justice system measures."

In September 2016, King Abdullah II established the Royal Committee for Developing the Judiciary and Enhancing the Rule of Law and appointed former Prime Minister Zaid al-Rifai to head the committee. Al-Rifai presented the committee's 282-page report to the king on February 26, 2017. The report included 49 specific recommendations to improve the judiciary and criminal justice system, proposed changes to 13 laws and four new draft laws and regulations, as well as timetables for implementation. The report calls for all proposed changes to be carried out during 2017.

The recommendations are based around the goals of strengthening judicial independence and administration as well as criminal justice reform. Human Rights Watch has advocated for many of the recommendations for years. Some were previously reflected in Jordan's National Comprehensive Human Rights Plan, issued in March 2016, as well as in proposed amendments to the country's penal code in 2015 that were never adopted.

The recommendations include major changes to Jordan's criminal procedure law that would grant all suspects the right to access legal counsel at the point of arrest and during interrogation by police and prosecutors. Jordanian law does not currently guarantee the right to access legal counsel during interrogation. The proposed changes would prohibit interrogations without legal counsel present unless the suspect consents, and prosecutors would be required to include in the investigation file the means by which a person was able to contact a lawyer. In the absence of the suspect's consent, the results of interrogations carried out without a lawyer present would be thrown out. Legal representation would be required for cases involving crimes carrying a minimum punishment of 10 years in prison.

The recommendations also call for establishing a fund to provide legal representation for suspects who cannot afford a lawyer. A study of criminal cases in 2012 by the Justice Center for Legal Aid, a local organization that offers free legal services, found that 83 percent of defendants were not represented by a lawyer during the investigation and pretrial stage, and 68 percent had no legal representation in court.

Under the proposed changes, the law will state that pretrial detention is an "exceptional measure" rather than the norm and only allowed under limited circumstances, including when it "is the only means of preserving evidence or material signs of a crime" or "to prevent coercion of witnesses or victims, or to prevent the suspect from contacting his partners or associates in a crime..." Pretrial detention for minor offenses would be held to a maximum of three months by removing the authority of courts to extend these detentions, and will only allow courts to extend pretrial detention for serious offenses and to a year or 18 months. For the first time, anyone sent for pretrial detention would have the right to appeal. Jordan's National Center for Human Rights (NCHR) said in its 2016 annual report that 28,437 people were in pretrial detention during 2015, almost double the 15,765 serving judicial sentences.

The proposed changes also provide for alternatives to pretrial detention, including electronic monitoring, travel bans, house arrest, or other restrictions on the movements of a person charged with a crime.

The recommendations also call for the judiciary, prosecutors, the Health Ministry, and the Jordan Medical Association to provide more supervision of medical reports involving detainees and enact penalties for issuing false medical reports. The recommendations also mandate improved prison conditions and regular prison visits by prosecutors to observe conditions, as well as complete separation of people in pretrial detention from sentenced offenders.

The proposal includes long-awaited changes to the penal code that would protect women from violence, including full removal of the exemption from investigation and prosecution for a person accused of sexual assault who agrees to marry the victim, as well as of reduced sentences for so-called "honor crimes." The proposal also clarifies that a child's mother can make emergency medical decisions on a child's behalf, on equal footing with the father.

Despite these advances, the recommendations fall short in several areas, including by failing to modify penal code article 208 to bring the definition of torture into line with international standards. The definition does not differentiate between private actors and public officials or impose sanctions that reflect the gravity of the crime, which Jordanian law regards as a minor crime. The proposal would only raise the minimum punishment for torture from six months to one year and maintain the maximum three-year punishment.

The amendments also do not appear to apply to detentions by Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the country's most powerful intelligence agency. It also does not prevent arbitrary administrative detention of up to a year by local governors under the Crime Prevention Law of 1954, which circumvents Jordan's Criminal Procedure Law. The National Center for Human Rights reported in its 2016 annual report that 19,860 people were administratively detained in 2015, some for longer than a year.

While calling for rethinking the policy of criminalization, the recommendations also fail to reform penal code provisions that the security services, prosecutors, and judges have long applied to curtail basic rights of free expression and peaceful assembly. For example, the changes do not address penal code article 149, which outlaws "undermining the political regime or inciting opposition to it," a vague charge that has been used to jail and try dozens of peaceful political activists in Jordan's State Security Court since 2011. The recommendations also do not address barriers faced by journalists and the public in gaining access to public information.

"Despite some shortcomings, the recommendations to improve Jordan's justice sector could mark a major step forward for human rights in Jordan," Whitson said. "The government should put them into practice without delay."

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Iraq: Hundreds Detained in Degrading Conditions

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Iraq: Hundreds Detained in Degrading Conditions, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7ef964.html [accessed 7 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.

The Iraqi interior ministry is holding at least 1,269 detainees, including boys as young as 13, without charge in horrendous conditions and with limited access to medical care at three makeshift prisons, Human Rights Watch said today. At least four prisoners have died, in cases that appear to be linked to lack of proper medical care and poor conditions and two prisoners' legs have been amputated, apparently because of lack of treatment for treatable wounds.

Two detention centers are in the town of Qayyarah, 60 kilometers south of Mosul, and the third at a local police station in Hammam al-Alil, 30 kilometers south of Mosul. At least one detainee has been held in Qayyarah for six months, with many others detained since November 2016. According to the Qayyarah prison staff, at least 80 of their detainees are children under 18, with the youngest being 13. Children are in Hammam al-Alil as well.

"The deplorable prison conditions in Qayyarah and Hammam al-Alil show that the Iraqi government is not providing the most basic detention standards or due process," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Iraqis should understand better than most the dangerous consequences of abusing detainees in cruel prison conditions."

On March 3, 2017, Human Rights Watch visited two of three houses in Qayyarah the Iraqi government has been using since retaking the area in August to detain men and boys suspected of being affiliated with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). On March 12, researchers visited the local police station at Hammam al-Alil, which is holding 225 people accused of varying crimes, including ISIS-affiliation, in four rooms. Human Rights Watch was unable to interview detainees, but spoke to prison staff.

The prisons are under the authority of the Interior Ministry's intelligence service, which provides services there together with the Justice Ministry. Staff said that Iraqi security and military services combatting ISIS hand over people they detain to the intelligence service, which holds the detainees in the facilities while individually interrogating them.

The intelligence service then takes the detainees before an investigative judge to assess whether there is enough evidence to bring charges for supporting ISIS under Provision 4 of the Federal Iraqi Counterterrorism Law (no. 13/2005). The judge then either orders their release or transfers the detainees to Baghdad to face charges.

Prison staff in Qayyarah said they had released about 80 detainees and transferred another 775 to Baghdad by early March 2017. Iraq's Criminal Procedural Code (no. 23/1971) requires detaining authorities to bring detainees before an investigative judge within 24 hours. But Qayyarah prison staff said they had held some detainees for as long as four months, while Human Rights Watch learned of the case of the man held without charge for six months.

Prison staff in Qayyarah said that the investigative judge had cleared at least 300 men for release who are now being held unlawfully after the National Security Service, a security body under the prime minister with a mandate to screen people fleeing ISIS-controlled areas, intervened. Security forces' failure to comply with a judicial order for release is a crime under Iraqi law. If the security forces are failing to comply with judicial orders in a systematic manner as part of a state policy to ignore such orders and detain people arbitrarily, this could represent a crime against humanity.

Prison staff in Hammam al-Alil said they had released 115 detainees and transferred another 135 to Baghdad. They said they have been holding at least 60 men since the detention site opened in November, 2016.

The prison staff and Justice Minister, Haidar al-Zamili, who met with Human Rights Watch on February 2, 2017, said that detainees held on terrorism charges have no right under the counterterrorism law (no. 13/2005) to communicate with their family during the investigation period, and that the Qayyarah detainees have not been allowed to communicate with their families. A local judge overseeing the cases told Human Rights Watch that once a detainee has been brought before the investigative judge, they have the right to contact their families, but that family visits are being delayed because of the delays in bringing detainees before the judge.

They also said that despite the Iraqi constitution and Criminal Procedure Code (no.23/1971) guaranteeing detainees the right to a lawyer during interrogations and hearings, none had been provided with a lawyer present during their interrogations and many did not have a lawyer during their hearings before the investigative judge.

Human Rights Watch observed that the facilities are all extremely overcrowded, so that no detainee can lie down to sleep. Because of the overcrowding and lack of proper ventilation, the makeshift prison cells are overheated, with an incredible stench. Detainees at the Hammam al-Alil prison called out to the visiting Human Rights Watch researchers, begging them to crack open the door because they said they could not breathe. The detainees have either no time or minimal time outside their cells, eat inside their cells, and have no access to showers and limited access to bathrooms. The facilities have no medical support, contributing to the deaths and amputations, prison staff said.

While the staff said they were trying to improve conditions, they could not reduce the overcrowding. The overcrowding may have been exacerbated due to a temporary freeze, in early 2015, on transfers of prisoners to Baghdad due to the cost of such transfers, a Qayyarah court official told Human Rights Watch on March 11, 2017. He said that the transfers had resumed in mid-January. Prison staff in Hammam al-Alil said that on March 11, they were asked to accept another 11 prisoners but refused, saying there was simply no more room.

One interrogator in Hammam al-Alil said that he sometimes beats ISIS suspects, and an observer who visited the prison in February 2017 said he witnessed the ill-treatment of three detainees.

Detainees charged and convicted may still be entitled to release under the General Amnesty Law passed in August 2016 (no.27/2016), staff said. The law offered amnesty to anyone who joined ISIS or another extremist group against their will, and did not commit any serious offense, like torture or killing. The head of the Iraqi parliament's legal committee, Mohsen al-Karkari, told Human Rights Watch during a meeting on February 7, 2017, that it was a roundabout way to limit the scope of the wide-reaching Iraqi counterterrorism law and release of thousands of terror suspects. According to the Justice Ministry, authorities have released 756 prisoners since the law was passed.

Human Rights Watch learned from a reliable source that the Iraqi government had sent a committee to review conditions in the facility a few weeks before the Human Rights Watch visit. The committee promised to send up to 20 more interrogators from Baghdad, to speed up investigations. On March 2, 2017, 10 interrogators had arrived at the Qayyarah prisons.

The evidence documented by Human Rights Watch strongly suggests that conditions at the Qayyarah and Hammam al-Alil facilities are hazardous, unfit to hold detainees for extended periods of time, and do not meet basic international standards. As a result, holding detainees there probably amounts to ill-treatment. The state of the facilities and severe understaffing pose severe risks to the prisoners, the prison administration, and the local community.

The authorities should transfer all detainees from these facilities to official prisons built to accommodate detainees, and equipped to meet basic international standards. Until that happens, the Interior and Justice Ministries should, as an urgent priority, improve the conditions, and speed up the investigative process so that it can transfer the prisoners out of the facility as quickly as possible. The ministries should provide all detainees a medical screening upon arrival, and ensure access to medical care.

The authorities should also ensure that there is a clear legal basis for detentions, that all detainees have access to legal counsel, including during interrogation, and that detainees are moved to facilities accessible to government inspection, independent monitors, relatives, and lawyers, with regular and unimpeded access. They should immediately notify families of the detention of their loved ones and under which authority, promptly take detainees before a judge to rule on the legality of their detention, and immediately comply with any judicial order for release.

Judges should order the release of detainees or prisoners being held in inhuman or degrading conditions.

When prosecuting children alleged to have committed illegal acts, they should be treated in accordance with international juvenile justice standards. International law allows for authorities to detain children pretrial in limited situations, but only if formally charged with committing a crime, not merely as suspects. The authorities should release all children not yet formally charged.

"The Iraqi authorities should immediately release the children it is holding in these hellholes unless they promptly charge them with a crime," Whitson said. "Iraq should recognize and treat children accused of ISIS affiliation as the victims of illegal and unconscionable recruitment and exploitation by the group."

International Law on Detention

International law governing the treatment of prisoners strictly prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The international norms regarding prison conditions are set out in the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the "Mandela Rules"). The rules require that "[a]ll accommodation provided for the use of prisoners and in particular all sleeping accommodation shall meet all requirements of health, due regard being paid to climatic conditions and particularly to cubic content of air, minimum floor space, lighting, heating and ventilation."

They also state that, "[t]he sanitary installations shall be adequate to enable every prisoner to comply with the needs of nature when necessary and in a clean and decent manner," and that "[a]dequate bathing and shower installations shall be provided." "The provision of health care for prisoners is a state responsibility. Prisoners should enjoy the same standards of health care that are available in the community," the rules state. Rule 58 protects a prisoner's right to receive visits "at regular intervals" from family and friends.

Under Iraqi law, the High Judicial Council is responsible for monitoring prison conditions, while the ministries in charge of facilities are responsible for maintaining the conditions inside. The High Judicial Council should fulfil its mandate in monitoring these facilities. Iraq should ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture allowing independent international experts to conduct regular visits to places of detention in Iraq and provide for the creation of an independent inspectorate.

Special Provisions Regarding Child Detainees

In particular, children should enjoy full due process guarantees, including access to counsel, the right to challenge their confinement, contact with their families, and separation from adult detainees. Any punishment for criminal offenses should be appropriate to their age, and be aimed at their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

It is important to note that some of the child detainees may have committed acts of violence while simultaneously being victims of ISIS. The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for children and armed conflict said in 2011 that when dealing with children who took part in armed groups "more effective and appropriate methods, other than detention and prosecution are encouraged, enabling children to come to terms with their past and the acts they committed."

The government should also consider how to treat children accused of membership in a group like ISIS, but not of any specific violent act. In 2016, the UN secretary-general criticized countries for responding to violent extremism by administratively detaining and prosecuting children for their alleged association with such groups. He noted that such deprivation of liberty is contrary to the best interests of the child and can exacerbate community grievances.

The special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, has also stated that child soldiers should not be prosecuted "simply for association with an armed group or for having participated in hostilities." Many countries worry that children who are ISIS members pose a future threat. But prosecution and detention of a child should always be a measure of last resort, and the purpose of any sentence should be to rehabilitate and reintegrate the child into society.

Qayyarah Prisons

In one Qayyarah detention facility, a room approximately 4 by 6 meters held 114 men, and in the other a room 3 by 4 meters held 38. They have no furniture or mattresses, with insufficient space for detainees to lie down to sleep. One prison houses 374 detainees within six rooms. The other facilities are smaller. The room with 114 detainees has a single toilet and blocked off windows. It had no ventilation system until early March 2017, when the prison director broke two small holes in the walls and installed ventilation fans. Despite these improvements, the smell is overwhelming. The detainees in the other five rooms share another single toilet.

The second prison houses 270 detainees in a building that was hit by a projectile while the area was under ISIS control, with a hole in the hallway roof. Staff said the building is unstable and could collapse at any moment. The room Human Rights Watch saw has windows boarded up with only a small hole, from which detainees have thrown dozens of water bottles filled with their urine. The heat and smell are staggering. Staff members are building another room connected to the building to hold some of the detainees. The prisons that hold 374 and 400 detainees respectively each only has one guard at any given time. The prison holding 270 has two because the single toilet is a pit in the yard, which opens into a main road, so a guard accompanies prisoners to the toilet. Staff said they took the prisoners out into the yard for 10 to 20 minutes a day, but allowed them only to sit, not walk around. None of the three prisons have showers. The prisoners eat in the rooms. Prison staff said they recently decided to hold child detainees separately. But Human Rights Watch was not allowed to visit a third building where staff said the child detainees were held. Prison staff said that while conditions in the third building are slightly better, with less overcrowding, they do not allow the children to leave their cell. They have no opportunities for activities, exercise, diversion, education, or contact with their families. The only exception is for a small number who provide uncompensated labor for the prison staff by distributing food and water, including to the adult prisoners. Staff said that until January 2017, the food served to detainees was inedible, and that the head of the prison finally refused to serve it, telling officials at the Justice and Interior Ministries that he would start buying food from his personal funds for the detainees. This finally triggered the ministries to send more support for better food. Now the detainees get three varied meals a day, prison staff said. Staff told Human Rights Watch that despite repeated requests to the Baghdad authorities, the government had not provided any medical support to the prisons for months. The first two visits by doctors from the local branch of the health department were in early March 2017. Sources said that the doctors then suspended their visits, but did not know why. They said that two detainees had entered with what they believed to be treatable wounds, but they were not given access to timely medical care and eventually each had needed to have a leg amputated. The family of one prisoner, Ali Muhammad Atiya, 41, a former grocer, told Human Rights Watch that when Iraqi forces retook Qayyarah in August 2016, Counterterrorism Service officers came to their home and detained Atiya for several hours. Four days later, intelligence officers returned and detained him, telling his son that the father had been affiliated with ISIS. The family said staff did not allow them to visit him, but that an intelligence officer told them that although an investigative judge ordered his release, he remained detained. In early February, a neighbor told them he had been at a hospital in Qayyarah, and had seen Atiya arrive there for treatment. Atiya's mother went to the hospital, where medical staff told her he had severe diarrhea from dehydration. She spent five days with him and said he was very sick and weak and finally died. When Human Rights Watch interviewed the family, they had yet to receive the results of the forensic examination. Staff told Human Rights Watch there were ongoing efforts to install air coolers and ventilation systems. During the week of March 12, 2017, they cleaned all the rooms for the first time to address an outbreak of scabies, allowed all the prisoners to shower in makeshift facilities set up on that day, and set up sanitation facilities for each building. Hammam al-Alil Prison Human Rights Watch visited two of the four prison rooms in the police station, one 6 by 4 meters, holding 72 men, and the other 7 by 4 meters, holding 103. They have no furniture or mattresses, with insufficient space for detainees to lie down to sleep. The prison houses 225 detainees, including three women in a separate cell, with about 50 of the 255 on ISIS-affiliation charges. The male detainees share six toilets in unsanitary conditions, with sinks blocked with dirty water, and no showers. The windows in the two rooms visited have been blocked off, with a small hole for a ventilator fan in each. The smell is overwhelming. Prison staff said that the ministries are not providing water for the bathroom, and that the director is trading fuel and other items in exchange for water from local authorities. Prison staff said that the ministries did not provide any food for the detainees for the first several weeks after the facility opened, and that the staff had to ask the families of detainees to bring food that was then shared among all the detainees. Staff said they did not know how many detainees were under 18, but said there were a considerable number, in cells with the adults. They said the youngest was 13. The child detainees have no opportunities for activities, exercise, diversion, education, or contact with their families. Staff said that despite repeated requests to the Justice Ministry, Baghdad had not provided any medical support. They said one detainee with diabetes came to the prison in November 2016 after being held and not properly fed for 11 days in Qayyarah prison. They took him to the local clinic, but he died within days. Another prisoner arrived in November with gangrene in both his legs. In December, staff took him to a local hospital to have both legs amputated, after which he returned to the unsanitary conditions of the prison cell. He died three months later, in late February 2017. Another overweight detainee died in early 2017 after complaining for many days that he was unable to breath because of the stench and heat. Staff said they allow one elderly prisoner to spend the nights in a separate, guard room, because the heat and stench of the cell is causing him serious breathing problems. When Human Rights Watch visited the cells, prisoners yelled out that they could barely breathe and begged staff to crack open the doors. Prison staff said the total staff is 10 people including the guards and interrogators, and that no one cleans the bathrooms or cells. They said they allow the prisoners from two of the rooms to pass between the rooms and the connected bathroom several hours of the day, but are unable to allow the prisoners outside because the building has no gates, walls or fences.

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Evidence shows Palestinian security forces violently suppressed peaceful protest in Ramallah

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Evidence shows Palestinian security forces violently suppressed peaceful protest in Ramallah, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7f1064.html [accessed 7 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.

Photographic evidence and witness testimony gathered by Amnesty International at the scene suggest that Palestinian security forces used excessive force to violently suppress a peaceful protest outside of the Ramallah District Court in the West Bank on 12 March 2017.

Ten minutes after the protest against the prosecution of six Palestinian men, including slain activist Basil al-Araj, began outside the courthouse in al-Bireh area, Amnesty International researchers witnessed heavily armed security forces arriving, carrying batons and shields. They immediately began to charge towards the protesters, violently striking them with the wooden batons, using pepper spray and firing tear gas into the crowd. At least 21 people (13 men and eight women) were injured, including four journalists covering the event. Seventeen were hospitalized.

"There can be no justification for violently storming a peaceful protest. Video evidence obtained by Amnesty International shows Palestinian security forces resorting to brutal and alarming means to crush the protest in flagrant violation of their obligations to uphold and protect the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Following a public outcry, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah today announced the formation of a committee to investigate the actions of the police at the courthouse.

"The Palestinian authorities must ensure that the investigation announced into this incident is independent, impartial and thorough and that all those found to be responsible are held accountable for their actions," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

International human rights standards require that police and security forces avoid using force to disperse a peaceful assembly.

Amnesty International staff present at the scene observed no violence from protesters prior to police attacking them with batons, tear gas and pepper spray. Those injured suffered bruises from heavy beatings with wooden batons or after being struck by tear gas canisters. Four journalists from Wattan TV, Roya TV, and Palestine Today were also beaten in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to prevent them from covering the protest. No injuries were reported among members of the security forces.

Khader Adnan, a protester who was hospitalized for his injuries, told Amnesty International: "I was standing peacefully when tens of baton-wielding soldiers attacked me and beat me to the ground. Once I fell down one of them stepped on my head while others continued to beat me, ripping my clothes. I have injuries on my back, my shoulders, and my leg."

He was taken to the Criminal Investigations Department with six others where he says he was verbally abused before five of them were released. The other two remained in detention.

Farid al-Atrash, a lawyer, human rights defender and the head of the Bethlehem office of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, who was present at the protest said he was beaten to the ground with wooden batons. He told Amnesty International he also witnessed police officers beating the father of Basil Al Araj, a Palestinian man who was killed by Israeli soldiers last week. "I tried to protect him when I was attacked by the officers; they hit me to the ground and beat me on my legs," he said.

Bassem Tamimi, a well-known Palestinian activist from Nabi Saleh and former prisoner of conscience was also injured in the demonstration. "I can't believe they did this to us. I was speaking to the head of the police unit there telling him we will disperse in 15 minutes. We were almost done when I saw a large crowd of police begin to swarm us and attack in a vicious manner. They used wooden clubs and started to hit people left and right, I walked back when they shot a [tear-gas] canister directly into my lower back, hitting my tailbone. I didn't expect [them to behave like] this."

Bassem Tamimi's wife, Nariman, also an activist from Nabi Saleh, was beaten after she intervened to tell security forces to stop beating and dragging a young man. "What did we do? We did nothing wrong! My shoulder and arm are now injured. I didn't believe they would do something like this," she said.

One eyewitness, Hafez Omar, said the protesters were standing peacefully when the police told them to leave the area. When they refused, the police started pushing them and beating them with batons. He witnessed two other men being beaten before the police dragged him and beat him with batons on his arms, back and legs.

Between 100 and 150 people had gathered outside the courthouse in al-Bireh to protest against the prosecution of six Palestinian men accused of possessing firearms. Four of the men - Haitham Siyaj, Muhammad Harb, Muhammad al-Salameen and Saif Idrisi - are currently held without charge or trial in administrative detention by Israeli authorities. The fifth man, Basil al-Araj, was killed by the Israeli military last week. The sixth man, Ali Dar al-Shaikh was not arrested by Israel and was present at the court yesterday.

In a media interview on Monday, a spokesperson for the Palestinian authorities' security forces, Adnan al-Dmeir, accused the protesters of being "mercenaries" and "foreign agents" who he said were seeking to "spread chaos".

In the rare cases where Palestinian authorities have taken steps to ensure accountability in the past, they have resorted to disciplinary measures rather than criminal prosecutions to hold police or security forces to account even in cases where the use of force was abusive or arbitrary.

"The Palestinian authorities must ensure that the security forces' use of force is not excessive, abusive, arbitrary or otherwise unlawful. Anyone suspected of responsibility for arbitrary or abusive use of force must be prosecuted in a fair trial," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

"Given the Palestinian authorities' poor record of bringing security forces to justice after violent crackdowns on protests, it is even more crucial for the authorities to send a clear message that use of excessive force will not be tolerated and that violations will not go unpunished."

Background

Palestinian security forces police have used unnecessary or excessive force against peaceful demonstrators, including men and women, repeatedly in recent years.

In a recent incident documented by Amnesty International, human rights lawyer, Mohannad Karajah, described how 10 members of the Palestinian security forces in plainclothes punched and kicked him and beat him all over his body with sticks at a demonstration on 4 October 2016. At least five others were also assaulted. No one has been prosecuted over the incident.

In February 2016, mass strikes and protests over low wages for teachers were met with a heavy-handed response from Palestinian security forces who arrested 22 teachers and set up roadblocks around Ramallah to prevent teachers joining demonstrations.

Palestinian security forces also used excessive force to disperse protests in previous years.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Ethiopia: Government failures to blame for dozens of deaths at rubbish dump

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Ethiopia: Government failures to blame for dozens of deaths at rubbish dump, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7f1ab4.html [accessed 7 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.

The death of more than 60 people in a landslide at a vast rubbish dump on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital over the weekend is a clear case of dereliction of duty by the Ethiopian authorities, said Amnesty International today.

Dozens are still missing since the landslide at the 36-hectare Repi municipal dumpsite in Addis Ababa on 11 March, and many families have been left homeless after their makeshift houses were buried under tonnes of waste.

"The Ethiopian government is fully responsible for this totally preventable disaster. It was aware that the landfill was full to capacity but continued to use it regardless. It also let hundreds of people continue to live in close proximity to it," said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

"These people, including many women and children, had no option but to live and work in such a hazardous environment because of the government's failure to protect their right to adequate housing, and decent work."

Now in its fifth decade, Repi - also known as Koshe, which means "dust" - is the oldest landfill in Addis Ababa, a city of more than 3.6 million people. More than 150 people were at the site when the landslide happened. Many of them had been scavenging items for sale while others lived there permanently, in unsafe makeshift housing.

"The government must do everything in its power to account for all those who are missing, provide survivors with adequate alternative housing, and safe and healthy working conditions," said Muthoni Wanyeki.

"It must also ensure that a full-fledged inquiry is held to determine the specific causes of the landslide, and hold the individual officials responsible to account."

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Belarus: Biggest crackdown in years as dozens detained at peaceful protests

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Belarus: Biggest crackdown in years as dozens detained at peaceful protests, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7f1f84.html [accessed 7 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.

Belarusian authorities arrested dozens of peaceful protesters and journalists across the country over the weekend in a massive escalation of their crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, Amnesty International said today.

According to media reports, at least 48 protesters, including civil society leaders and independent journalists, were detained on 10, 11 and 12 March in connection with protests in the cities of Babruisk, Kobryn, Brest, Luninets and Maladzechna. The "We are not spongers" marches were called against a so-called "social parasite" tax imposed on unemployed people.

"With basic freedoms strangled in Belarus, it has been years since we saw protests of this scale, which appear to have taken the Belarusian authorities by surprise," said John Dalhuisen, Director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International.

"After initially allowing protests against the deeply controversial unemployment tax to proceed, now the authorities have returned to their habitual knee-jerk reaction of arresting peaceful demonstrators. This escalation is disturbing and the arbitrary detention of dissenting voices must end immediately."

"The Belarusian authorities must not crack down on peaceful dissenters just for daring to voice their opinion. Instead of detaining them, the authorities must respect the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. Anyone arrested during the protests for peacefully criticizing the government must be immediately released," said John Dalhuisen.

Background

The protests in Belarus erupted in mid-February after hundreds of thousands of unemployed Belarusians had received tax bills under the Presidential Decree "On Prevention of Social Dependency". The Decree, adopted in 2015 in order to fight what the authorities called "social parasitism", introduces a special tax for those who have been unemployed and not paid any tax contributions for over six months. This lump-sum tax rate is BYR 460 (US$ 245). The failure to pay the tax may result in administrative arrest and compulsory community service, which may amount to a form of forced labour.

After the first wave of protests, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced the suspension of the decree for a year in order to "correct" it. No one was detained during these initial protests, but at least 18 people were questioned by the police and a judge handed them administrative fines for attending an "unauthorised" rally.

On 10, 11 and 12 March at least 48 people, including protest organizers, other protesters and independent journalists, were detained across Belarus.

On Saturday, a court in Maladzechna, central Belarus, sentenced activists Yury Hubarevich, Anatol Liabedzka and Vital Rymasheuski to 15 days of administrative detention and activist Volha Kavalkova to 5 days in administrative detention for participating in an "unauthorized gathering". Eleven other people in Maladzechna received administrative fines.

On 12 March, the police detained a group of opposition leaders and at least three journalists in Vorsha (eastern Belarus). Among those detained is former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience Pavel Sevyarynets. They were awaiting their trial to be held on Monday.

Trials of detained activists Andrey Denyushkin, Ruslan Khalikau, Z'mitser Levchuk, Uladzimir Asinchak, Kanstantsin Kopat' and bloggers Z'mitser Garbunou and Syarhey Petrukhin were also scheduled on Monday in Brest (western Belarus).

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Two journalists jailed in run-up to Iranian New Year

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Two journalists jailed in run-up to Iranian New Year, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7f9104.html [accessed 7 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.

In the run-up to the Iranian New Year on 20 March, when prisoners might have expected to be released, two journalists - Henghameh Shahidi and Ehssan Mazndarani - have been arrested and others have been threatened with arrest by the courts, the Revolutionary Guards and the ministry of intelligence.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its condemnation of the Iranian regime's continuing harassment of journalists.

Henghameh Shahidi, who edits the blog Paineveste, was arrested at the home of her sister in the northeastern city of Mashhad on the orders of the office of the Tehran prosecutor for culture and media. In a letter published after her arrest, she said she had been the target of "threats from government organs."

"I will go on hunger strike until my release or my death," the letter added. Mostafa Turk Hamadani, a lawyer who is waiting to see if he will be allowed to defend her, said she had been transferred to Tehran and had been refused the right to receive visits. She is ill and has undergone two heart operations in the past, her mother, Nahid Kermanshahi, said.

Shahidi was originally arrested in June 2009 and was released in November of the same year on the orders of a Tehran revolutionary court on bail of 9 million toman (8,000 euros). After a ministry of intelligence summons in February 2010, a Tehran court sentenced her on appeal to six years in prison and a fine of 50,000 toman, but she was released on medical grounds in October 2010.

Violence was used by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence operatives who arrested Ehssan Mazndarani, the editor of the newspaper Farhikhteghan, yesterday, claiming that he should not have been released a month ago and that he had not fully served his sentence.

Mazndarani was freed on 9 February as a result of a decision that he had completed his two-year sentence. One of the victims of a wave of arrests in November 2015, he was originally given a seven-year jail sentence that was reduced to two years on appeal.

While in prison, he was hospitalized several times with heart and chest problems after a three-week hunger strike. His family says that, following yesterday's arrest, he was taken to Tehran's Evin prison, where he immediately began another hunger strike.

Issa Saharkhiz, a well-known independent journalist who was one of the other victims of the November 2015 wave of arrests, was manhandled by prison guards during a search of his personal effects on 11 March. He has been held in hospital since March 2016 on medical grounds. His family members say they are concerned about his health.

RSF is also worried about Tahereh Riahi, the Borna news agency's social affairs editor, who was arrested on 27 December. Still in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin prison and still denied the right to visits, she is said to be in very poor physical and psychological health.

Ranked 169th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index, Iran is one of the world's five biggest prisons for media personnel, with a total of 30 journalists and citizen journalists detained.
Albania: Journalist who covers corruption hospitalized after attack

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 March 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Albania: Journalist who covers corruption hospitalized after attack, 14 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c7f9b54.html [accessed 7 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.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores last week's violent attack on Elvi Fundo, a respected journalist who specializes in covering corruption, and urges the Albanian authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

The editor of the Citinews website and Radio Best, Fundo had to be hospitalized after being badly injured in the face and a leg by two unidentified men who assaulted him near Tirana's main railway station on 8 March.

The police are said to be actively looking for the perpetrators of the attack, which caused a stir in Albania and was strongly condemned by Prime Minister Edi Rama. Interior minister Saimir Tahiri visited Fundo in hospital less than 24 hours after the attack to assure him of his support.

Fundo recently investigated the funding of several media outlets including Ora News TV, a privately-owned news channel. Speaking from his hospital bed, he said the attack could be linked to his recent reporting.

"We hope that everything possible will be done to identify those responsible for this attack and bring them to justice," said Pauline Ades-Mevel, the head of RSF's EU-Balkans desk.

The Association of Professional Journalists (APJ), the Union of Albanian Journalists (UGSH) and the Broadcast Media Agency (AMA) have all expressed their outrage at the attack and their support for Fundo.

Albania is ranked 82nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index.
Connectivity brightening future of refugees in Malawi

Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Author Tina Ghelli Publication Date 14 March 2017 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Connectivity brightening future of refugees in Malawi, 14 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c805424.html [accessed 7 November 2022]

"Everything about computers interests me," says Remy Gakwaya, a 22 year old Burundian refugee who resides in Dzalaka refugee camp in Malawi. He currently runs the only computer lab in the in camp, called Takeno Lab where he voluntarily teaches other refugee youth how to programme.

"Java, Python, MYSQLITE, Android Development" Gakwaya lists the programming languages that he teaches his fellow refugees.

"I love programming," says Gakwaya. "It is inspiring to see something that I create myself. Here in the refugee camp you are not free to do anything. We aren't able to work outside of the camp. However, if you do programming, you can do it from anywhere in the world and be paid for that."

After his parents were killed in Burundi during ethnic clashes, Gakwaya fled with his older brothers to Tanzania. When they saw that young people were being recruited to join a rebel movements they decided to flee to Malawi in 2008, when he was 15 years old.

After finishing secondary school in the camp, Gakwaya learned how to programme by taking a class in Lilongwe. He also learned through some courses offered at the online university run by Jesuit Refugee Services in Dzaleka, where he is enrolled as a diploma student.

He opened the Takeno Lab in 2016 because he wanted to help other youth in the camp also learn to programme. He first taught six students from the basics - how to use a mouse, how to use a keyboard and by the end of the year, they had learned how to programme and make apps. Because the refugees had no access to the internet, he had to teach the students offline. Initially, they also didn't have enough computers, so Gakwaya managed to print photocopies of a computer keyboard layout and students would take that sheet of paper home to practice typing and using the keys. Eventually, he received some donated computers for the students to practice on. Another major challenge is electricity in a camp which often faces frequent power cuts. When they don't have power to run the computers in the lab, Gakwaya uses the class time to teach theory.

Apps benefitting the overall refugee community are already being developed by Gakwaya and his team. One of the apps will help teachers facilitate the registration of student's enrollment and registering of their grades, which currently takes up a lot of time. They are also working on an app that will map the different tribal groups and share cultural practices so that the various ethnicities and nationalities in the camp can better understand each other.

"I want to use technology to solve local problems that big software companies do not have the time to take on," says Gakwaya.

"I wanted to be part of the modern world so I joined the class. I originally hoped to study law but now I'm invested in learning programming," says 20 year old Gracia from the DRC who is one of Gakwaya's students.

This past weekend, Microsoft and C3, their contractor in Malawi installed Wi-Fi access points in Dzaleka. It is one of the pilot sites for the Connectivity for Refugees project between UNHCR and Microsoft. Microsoft also donated 1,000 smart phones, which are to be distributed to individuals or community groups chosen by UNHCR, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Plan Malawi and Jesuit Refugee Services. Some thirty "refugee ambassadors" have been selected to engage in the project and help establish the mechanisms to roll it out.

Gakwaya was very excited and honored to be selected along with some of his students to be part of the "refugee ambassadors." He is confident that having faster and cheaper ways to connect to the internet, he will be able to complete more online training to complement the programming skills he learned so far, but he also will be able to strengthen the training he is giving to other young people.

Dzaleka refugee camp is located some 70 km from Lilongwe and currently hosts about some 28,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Paraguay: Court must consider freedom of speech in gender-based online abuse case

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as Article 19, Paraguay: Court must consider freedom of speech in gender-based online abuse case, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c806084.html [accessed 7 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.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Juvenile Court of Paraguay (Jueza de Primera Instancia de la Ninez y la Adolescencia del Quinto Turno) to consider international standards on free expression, in the case of a small human rights organization, TEDIC (www.tedic.org).

In the case, TEDIC, published an article about gender-based abuses online. The article included screenshots of a conversation on Facebook Messenger where a group of men chat about sexually abusing a journalist to correct her sexual orientation.

A journalist, who had access to the conversation, published the article on her Twitter account. TEDIC used the case to demonstrate the increase of gender-based abuse against female journalists and minorities. Subsequently, one of the individuals who was a part of the Facebook conversation filed a lawsuit against the journalist and TEDIC, arguing that the article damaged his honour, reputation, and privacy.

The key issue in the case before the Court is to consider the extent of the right to privacy and protection of reputation by disclosure of the Facebook Messenger conversation, the importance of the information to the public and the interest of freedom of expression and women rights, and the balancing of those rights based on the public interest.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Juvenile Court to consider freedom of expression standards in the case. We believe that the ruling in favour of the plaintiff would amount to a violation of the right to freedom of expression of the journalist and TEDIC, and set a dangerous precedent for freedom of expression. Such a ruling would deter individuals from reporting on gender based abuse online and women rights in general. It would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and womens rights and effective journalism in the country.

Applicable international freedom of expression standards

The right to freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, recognized in international human rights law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and other regional treaties, including the American Convention on Human Rights. The right to freedom of expression also protects electronic and Internet-based modes of expression.

Under international human rights law, freedom of expression can be limited only if the restriction complies with a three-part test, under which the restrictions:

must be  provided by law ;

; may only be imposed for one of the legitimate grounds set out in Article 19 para 3(a) and (b) of the ICCPR: respect for the rights or reputations of others, and the protection of national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals; and

set out in Article 19 para 3(a) and (b) of the ICCPR: respect for the rights or reputations of others, and the protection of national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals; and must be necessary and proportionate: necessity requires that there must be a pressing social need for the restriction; the party invoking the restriction must show a direct and immediate connection between the expression and the protected interest. Proportionality means that if a less intrusive measure is capable of achieving the same purpose as a more restrictive one, the least restrictive measure must be applied.

The right to privacy is also recognised in international human rights treaties. The wording of Article 17 ICCPR prohibits arbitrary and unlawful interferences with the right to privacy. Under international human rights law, restrictions to the right to privacy can only be permissible if the same three-part test is met as that applicable to Article 19 of the ICCPR. ARTICLE 19 has also recently released The Global Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy that provide a comprehensive framework for balancing two rights. The Principles also explicitly recommend that when seeking to reconcile the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, courts should give regard to all the circumstances of the case, including the extent to which the publication at issue contributes to a debate of public interest.

As for protection of reputation, the utility of the three part test is elaborated in the Defining Defamation: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Reputation (Defamation Principles), recently revised by ARTICLE 19. These Principles have achieved significant international endorsement, including by special rapporteurs on freedom of expression. The Principles outline various defences that should be available to defendants in defamation cases, and exemption from liability in certain cases.

A number of international norms and standards relate to ending violence against women. While the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) does not explicitly mention violence against women, the CEDAW Committee's General Recommendations 12 and 19 clarify that the Convention requires State parties to eliminate violence against women, as both a form and driver of discrimination against women, and make detailed recommendations in this regard.

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women 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." Further provisions regarding violence against women were included in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, which also identified specific action for governments to take to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. The UN General Assembly adopts bi-annual resolutions on the issue. Various regional instruments also address the issue, including theInter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belem do Para).

Issues to be addressed in the present case

ARTICLE 19 believes that the Paraguayan court hearing the case should consider these standards in the present case. In particular, we submit:

Exemption of liability in defamation cases: The Defamation Principles also explicitly state that certain types of statements should be exempt from liability unless they can be shown to have been made with malice, in the sense of ill-will or spite. These should includestatements made in the performance of a legal, moral or social duty or interest. The need for enhanced protection for statements on matters of public interest has been explicitly recognised in the specific context of defamation laws.

In this case, the publication concerned the discussion on gender based abuse online and the threats of violence against female journalist. As such, they constitute comment on matters of the utmost public and political concern. The challenged statements are part of an ongoing public debate in the country and how the protection against gender based violence should apply for online speech. Regardless of ones views on the challenged statements, the point is to allow this very discussion to occur.

Public interest and privacy: It is well-established under international law that statements on matters of public concern deserve enhanced protection due to the key role they play in safeguarding democracy and the overall public interest. Although the protection is afforded to the speaker, the reason why considerable latitude should be afforded to public debate on issues of public importance is because the public is entitled to receive such information. Hence, similarly to above, in cases of balancing the freedom of expression and privacy, the court should consider the public interest of the publication. Even though the publication in question including the material discussed in the private Facebook chat, the publication contributed to public interest.

It is beyond any question that in this case the TEDIC article and the post by the journalist about the conversation on Facebook Messenger were true and concerned a matter of public concern, namely online gender-based abuse. ARTICLE 19 notes that gender-based abuse online has subjected to increasing concerns, including by international human rights bodies. For example, on 8 March 2017, the UN experts on freedom of expression and on violence against women called on governments, companies and civil society organisations to tackle online gender-based abuse and violence, while also safeguarding freedom of expression. Hence, publications in this case by TEDIC and the journalists on matters related gender based abuse, undoubtedly relate to a matter of public concern. Accordingly, they fall within the scope of the principles outlined above.

Requirement of serious harm: Under international freedom of expression standards, plaintiffs should show significant or serious harm to their reputation in order for a claim in defamation to proceed or succeed. Such threshold tests may be applied, among other things, to defamation claims generally; to applications to strike out a claim as an abuse of process. Hence, the Court should place the onus on the plaintiff to prove that the serious harm has been caused by releasing this true information in the public interest.

Conclusion

The central issue in the present case is balancing the right to freedom of expression of TEDIC and the journalist with protection of reputation and the right to privacy in matters of considerable public interest. International human rights standards show that courts and other authorities grant a high degree of protection to this category of statements, given the central role they play in open public debate and protection of women rights online. This is particularly so where the speakers are, as in this case, those whose position in society includes disseminating information in the public interest.

A finding in favour of the plaintiff would represent a very serious setback for freedom of expression in Paraguay. It would send a signal to all women who wish to report gender-based abuse online that any reporting and exposure places them at risk of sanctions. The consequence is likely to be a serious chilling effect on freedom of expression and women rights, to the detriment of the Paraguay public as a whole. A finding in favour of TEDIC and the journalist, on the other hand, would send a clear signal, both within Paraguay and around the world that the countrys commitment to women rights and freedom of expression is strong and will be rigorously upheld.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
A Syrian refugee family's year-long Greek odyssey

Publisher IRIN Author John Psaropoulos Publication Date 13 March 2017 Cite as IRIN, A Syrian refugee family's year-long Greek odyssey, 13 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c80f004.html [accessed 7 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.

By the time Ilida Alali was 16, she had been a prisoner in her own home for four years. Both government and rebel ordnance fell without warning on the hotly contested Karm al-Myassar neighbourhood near Aleppo's airport where she and her family lived. In any case, she had nowhere to go. Opposition groups had occupied the area's schools since she was 13.

In January last year she asked her father, Ahmed, if she could go out to buy some crisps. "I said 'okay'," he recalled. "She went as far as the corner shop and that's when the bomb fell. When I heard the explosion, I ran out and I found the place covered in dust and my daughter in pieces."

Ilida's death was the final straw for the family. Ahmed's wife, Ramia Aldaher, had already lost a sister and three brothers to the war. A month later, the entire extended Alali and Aldaher families  some 41 people  stole out of Aleppo under cover of night.

"We took nothing  just the clothes we were wearing and our IDs," said Ramia. They trekked more than 1,000 kilometres to Izmir on Turkey's Aegean coast and crossed to the Greek island of Lesvos in a rubber dinghy.

Stuck in Greece

The Alali family had fled a civil war only to land in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. An estimated 850,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Greece during 2015 and another 150,000 during the first three months of 2016. Most continued through the Balkans towards northern Europe, where member states were increasingly desperate to stem the flow.

Fences went up on the Greek border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia three weeks before the Alali family arrived. They managed to leave Lesvos just two days before the EU-Turkey agreement went into force, which would have kept them there during their asylum process, but their plan to reach Germany on foot had to be scrapped.

The closed border had left more than 50,000 refugees stranded in mainland Greece  too many for civil authorities to house. Under pressure from the European Commission, the Greek military set up 30 tent cities on industrial sites and disused army bases across the country.

Most of these camps were far from urban centres and difficult for aid organisations to reach. With almost no time to prepare the sites, they initially lacked basic amenities such as running water, bathrooms, heat, and electricity.

From warehouse to camp

On 17 March, the Alali family arrived at the place they would be forced to call home for the next six months  a cavernous warehouse behind Gate 10A in Thessaloniki's port.

"For about the first month we slept on the floor in sleeping bags given out by the army. Then the mayor visited us and asked the army to send us cots," said Ahmed.

The mayor also ordered the delivery of heating units, portable lavatories, showers, and electricity, but 450 people were still sharing a space where blankets hung from ropes provided the only modicum of privacy.

These arrangements came to an abrupt end when an electrical fire broke out one September morning as people slept. The warehouse was cleared and the Alali family was moved to a tent in Langadikia camp, east of the city.

"The sun hit our tent at seven in the morning and we had to get up. During the middle of the day we had to go to the forest and sit under the shade of the trees," Ahmed told IRIN. "When winter came, it rained and the whole tent was drenched. The water came up through the ground... Sometimes we asked for new blankets and were told that there weren't enough, so we slept under wet blankets."

Surviving the winter

Worse was to come. In mid-December, overnight temperatures dropped below freezing, and, in January, rain turned to snow. Residents of the camp tried to take refuge in the few brick buildings available, "but there wasn't enough room for everyone," said Ramia.

And yet there was plenty of room in Greece. The financial crisis and the introduction of a new property tax in 2011 had brought property sales virtually to a standstill. Hundreds of thousands of apartments stood vacant as unemployed adults moved back in with their parents.

In December 2015, the European Commission had announced an 80 million rent subsidy programme to provide 20,000 accommodation places for refugees in Greece during the following year. The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, was tasked with implementing the scheme, but progress was slow. By early October 2016, it had secured only 13,000 spots, leaving thousands of families still living in tents and warehouses during the height of Greece's coldest winter in years.

"We had this horrible winter and the conditions in camps deteriorated so badly that we were really afraid at one point that people would actually die of hypothermia in the camps - especially newborns, who were turning blue," said Anne Forget who manages the Urban Response Programme of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Antipathy and broken promises

The NRC wanted to help address the housing problem before it became a crisis, but it took the NGO months to get its project proposal approved by the European Commission and for the money to be disbursed. Forget was only able to start recruiting her Thessaloniki staff on 12 October, at which point they began touring half a dozen camps in the area to identify those in greatest need of being moved into bricks-and-mortar housing.

But despite the housing glut, the NRC struggled to find apartments to rent. Landlords were wary of a programme that was funded for only six months at a time, and of having refugees as tenants.

"Mainly the objections were: 'I don't want to rent to refugees because they are dirty, they have diseases, they will break my apartment. I don't want to rent for a short period of time. Your rate is too low,'" said Forget.

In an effort to stay ahead of the worsening weather, the NRC decided to move 400 individuals into hotels. This enabled pregnant women, the sick, the elderly and families like the Alalis to move out of tents. But the cost was high: The NRC paid 25 a night for each hotel resident  some 4,500 a month for the Alali family of six alone.

UNHCR eventually stepped up its efforts, and by the end of 2016 had housed 21,000 refugees, nearly 12,000 of them in apartments.

The agency's spokesman in Greece, Roland Schoenbauer, said the scheme was designed to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers while they awaited relocation to another EU country, and that many more would have benefited if EU members had honoured their pledges to take in a total of 63,000 refugees from Greece. To date, less than 10,000 refugees have been relocated from the country.

Greek Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas has also come in for criticism for the slow rate of progress on refugee housing despite unprecedented levels of EU funding. "You are responsible for 60,000 people with a billion euros: more than anyone ever had at his disposal," said conservative MP Miltiadis Varvitsiotis in parliament last month, referring to the funds the European Commission says it has earmarked or disbursed to Greece for refugees since 2015. "I think any local government official would have done a better job than you."

Privacy, at last

Over the last month, the NRC has finally begun to transfer refugees into longer-term housing. It has put the Alali family up in an apartment for a quarter of the cost of the hotel, and estimates that through such savings it will be able to house some 2,800 people in apartments by July.

For now, furnishings are sparse: "it's mattresses on the floor; one mattress per person, one pillow per person, a fridge, a double stove There's no tables, no chairs, no frames, even, for the beds and no Wi-Fi," said Forget.

The Alalis don't seem to mind. After walking across Asia Minor and living in a warehouse, an open-air camp, and a hotel, here, for the first time, they have a space of their own, and they are living among Greeks rather than refugees. They beckon guests to their only furniture  a sofa bed left by the owner, its springs long ago caved in  and sit cross-legged on the tile floor while their four children, aged six to 17, retire to equally empty bedrooms. "We are happy that we are in Greece. We are not in a good situation, but we are safe and better than before," said Ramia.

Menios Skordas, a hotelier who rents nine studio apartments to Syrian and Afghan families referred to him by the NRC, admits he was hesitant at first, but explained: "When I saw the faces of the children I lost every inhibition."

He has noticed that they, too, have acclimatised. "For the first two months, they were very afraid," he told IRIN. "Now they're going to the supermarket. Once or twice they've taken the bus The kids are amazing learners. In two months, they are able to communicate in Greek."

Mutual benefit

Schoenbauer of UNHCR described apartment living as a double benefit. "Just a few weeks ago, I visited a Syrian family in an apartment close to our office," he said. "They told me: 'Every day our Greek neighbours are knocking at our door asking whether we needed anything.' This is the kind of interaction that starts the process of integration from both sides and this is an underestimated benefit of the whole programme."

There are benefits for the Greek economy as well. The crisis has depressed real estate prices by more than 40 percent since 2007, and 45 percent in the Thessaloniki area. Rents have fallen proportionally. UNHCR spent the European Commission's 80 million plus another 5.4 million in donations on apartments and hotels last year. It could top that budget this year.

"The money [landlords] get is much, much better than what they'd get on the [open] market," said Thessaloniki real estate agent Stefanos Vasileiadis, commenting on clients who have rented to Syrian families via the NRC.

Of the original group of 41 Alali and Aldaher extended family members, 27 have been relocated to Germany. Most of the rest are scattered across camps in northern Greece, where conditions are not as bad as they once were. Tents have been replaced by mobile housing units, adults receive a monthly stipend of 150 to feed themselves, and children can now attend Greek schools.

Currently, 29,000 refugees are still living in camps, including 14,200 on the islands (where the official capacity is just under 9,000), but Mouzalas assured parliament last week that another 10,000 people will be moved to apartments in 2017 and, "if the EU-Turkey agreement holds", a further 10,000 in 2018.

Ahmed and Ramia have also applied for their family to relocate to Germany, a process that may take many more months. In the meantime, they're enjoying the privacy and space of their apartment, but they aren't enrolling their children in Greek schools or putting down roots. They want to start new lives in Germany before doing that.
Syria 'worst man-made disaster since World War II'  UN rights chief

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 14 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Syria 'worst man-made disaster since World War II'  UN rights chief, 14 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58c811004.html [accessed 7 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.

The conflict in Syria is the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II, the United Nations human rights chief today said, calling for an end to all tortures, executions and unfair trials, and at the very least, for the names and localities of people held in detention or information about where they are buried.

Today, in a sense the entire country has become a torture-chamber: a place of savage horror and absolute injustice, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein told a high-level panel discussion at the Human Rights Council on the situation of human rights in Syria.

The entire conflict is this immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity, Mr. Zeid said.

The High Commissioner said that he had recently met with a group of Syrian women whose relatives had been detained or are simply missing. Their relatives are among the countless people in Syria to suffer arbitrary detention, torture, kidnapping, and enforced disappearance.

The Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) has been refused access to the country, and no international human rights observers are admitted to check on sites where very probably tens of thousands of people are currently held, Mr. Zeid said.

Despite a limited access, OHCHR is working alongside the Commission of Inquiry to collect and analyze evidence, building up the basis for criminal proceedings against individual perpetrators.

In his statement, Mr. Zeid noted that the conflict started with torture which spawned rebel movements, fueling violent extremists and setting the stage for a regional and proxy war.

Nearly 6.3 million people have been displaced and an additional 4.9 million people  mostly women and children  were forced to seek refuge since 2011, according to UN figures.

His comments come as the conflict in Syria is entering its seventh years, triggered on 15 and 16 March, 2011, when authorities clamped down on demonstrations in Damascus, setting off massive anti-Government protests.

Mr. Zeid called also for ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations, if Syrians are ever to find peace and reconciliation.
(Adds comment from government)

By Ethan Lou

CALGARY, Alberta, March 13 (Reuters) - Shippers have taken up Transcanada Corp's sweetened offer to move natural gas on its Mainline pipeline, the company said on Monday, granting Canada's remote western plays a boost against more easily accessible American counterparts.

Western Canadian shippers have been increasingly squeezed out of the Ontario natural gas market by eastern U.S. shale basins like the Marcellus and Utica. They have comparable production costs to Canada's remote Montney and Duvernay gas plays, but lower delivery costs.

The resulting lack of movement on the Mainline in the last decade caused tolls to rise even more. That further reduces the competitiveness of Canadian gas, causing more shippers to leave in what the industry calls a "death spiral," according to an internal government briefing note seen by Reuters under access-to-information laws.

In its latest terms, TransCanada offered lower tolls at a 10-year term for 1.5 petajoules of capacity per day on its Mainline system to southern Ontario.

Such a move could have a "positive effect on the competitiveness" of Canadian natural gas, federal government officials told Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr in the November 2016 note, after TransCanada first offered its lower tolls.

In a statement, the Natural Resources Canada federal department said shippers' backing the new toll "highlights the ability of Canadas natural gas industry to adapt to an ever evolving competitive environment."

TransCanada said it intends to file an application for approval with the National Energy Board (NEB) regulator in April and hopes to have an in-service date of Nov. 1, which would be before rival pipelines from U.S. shale basins come online.

Energy Transfer Partners LP's Rover and Spectra Energy Partners LP's Nexus lines both have targeted in-service dates to Ontario's Dawn hub in November.

Energy infrastructure development has faced strong opposition in Canada among environmental and aboriginal groups, who may seek intervener status before the NEB to block TransCanada's application.

Story continues

For its part, TransCanada will move "fairly quickly," said Tracy Robinson, the company's senior vice president of Canadian natural gas pipelines.

"There's no requirement for any build, so our producers can access the market upon the NEB approval," she said in an interview. "We believe it puts them in there competitively, regardless of the various options."

TransCanada's current terms allow shippers to exit after five years, but they must temporarily pay higher tolls than the 77 Canadian cents per gigajoule offered.

Robinson said the company does not yet know how many will trigger that option.

(Editing by David Gregorio and Lisa Shumaker)
Singapore's central bank imposed a 10-year industry ban on Tim Leissner, a former director of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) in the city state, for his involvement in the scandal-hit Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).



Under the prohibition order that took effect Monday, Leissner is not allowed to perform any regulated activities under Singapore's Securities and Futures Act and manage, directly or indirectly, any capital markets services firm in the country, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement.

MAS's move against Leissner had been telegraphed in 2016.

Leissner was a representative of Goldman Sachs Singapore from June 2002 to February 2016. He was a director from June 2007 to September 2011. He moved to Hong Kong in November 2011, but retained his representative status with the bank's Singapore arm until his resignation last year.

Investigations found that Leissner issued an unauthorized reference letter to a financial institution based in Luxembourg in June 2015 using the letterhead of Goldman Sachs (Asia). The letter, sent without the bank's knowledge, said Goldman Sachs had conducted due diligence on Malaysian tycoon Low Taek Jho and had not detected any money laundering concerns.

Low has since been identified as a "key person of interest" in allegations of illegally moving 1MDB funds  a case currently investigated by jurisdictions globally including the U.S. , Switzerland , Singapore and the Seychelles.

"MAS will not tolerate conduct by any finance professional that threatens to undermine trust and confidence in Singapore's financial system. MAS will not hesitate to bar such individuals from carrying out regulated activities in the financial industry," said Ong Chong Tee, the central bank's deputy managing director for financial supervision, in the statement.

"It is imperative that industry professionals and representatives of financial institutions are fit and proper persons. They must be worthy of the trust that people place in them and their institutions."

Story continues

MAS began investigations into 1MDB-related breaches in March 2015. It shut down two Swiss-based private banks, BSI and Falcon, fined several other financial institutions, including Standard Chartered (London Stock Exchange: STAN-GB) and UBS (Swiss Exchange: UBSG-CH), and it hauled a number of individuals to court.

In its statement on Monday, the central bank also said it issued lifetime prohibition orders on former branch manager of Falcon Bank, Jens Fred Sturzenegger, and former BSI Bank representative Yak Yew Chee. Another ex-BSI banker, Yvonne Seah, received a 15-year ban.

Questions about movement of funds from 1MDB came to widespread attention when the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2013 nearly $700 million had flowed from the debt-ridden fund to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal bank account.

Najib has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and, under pressure from the outcry caused by the report, said the funds were a private donation from a Middle Eastern country he declined to name. He has denied benefiting personally from the funds.

Malaysian Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali later said that Saudi Arabia's royal family gave Najib a $681 million gift, of which about $600 million was later returned. Apandi said that no criminal offense had been committed.

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Cambodias minister of the interior on Tuesday questioned the legitimacy of the oppositions newly appointed leadership, saying their promotion may violate internal regulations and could prevent the party from running in upcoming commune elections.

Speaking at a highway ribbon-cutting ceremony in Kampong Speu province, Sar Kheng said the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) might have infringed on a mandatory grace period by recently replacing exiled former president Sam Rainsy.

What I have heard is that under the CNRPs previous statute, the position of the president of the party would have to be left vacantif the president was absentfor no less than 18 months, the minister said in an address carried by Bayon radio station.

Nonetheless its party congress was convened to elect the new president in two months, which fell short of the required 18 months. How could that be possible? I guess they might have breached their party statute.

The CNRP convened its extraordinary congress on March 2 to amend some articles of its party statute and appoint Kem Sokha as president, along with deputies Mu Sochua, Pol Ham and Eng Chhai Eang.

Former CNRP president Sam Rainsy has been in exile since late 2015 after his conviction on charges of defamation that supporters say were questionable rulings by a court system beholden to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

He resigned as CNRP chief on Feb. 11 in order to preserve the party in the face of a new law that bars anyone convicted of a crime from holding the top offices in a political party, among other changes.

The law, which was approved by the National Assembly on Feb. 20, passed with 66 votes by the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP), despite a CNRP boycott of parliament in protest. It was signed into effect last week.

Sar Kheng said Tuesday he is weighing the situation and warned that if he finds the CNRP to have violated its statute by appointing new leadership, it will be hard for the party to be recognized.

Other parties might take issue with [such a violation] as well, he said.

The CNRP may have referred to the new law on political parties as its [reason for convening its party congress]  but that might not be correct. A clear decision will need to be made about this.

Compelled to convene

CNRP deputy Eng Chhai Eang told RFAs Khmer Service Tuesday that his party was compelled to convene its extraordinary congress and amend its statute before the new CPP-initiated law on political parties went into effect, or risk being dissolved.

According to the new law on political parties, we were given only 90 days to elect our new leaders, so we were left with very few options, the deputy said.

We were compelled to rearrange our party apparatus to suit the situation, even though our party statute stated that such arrangements shouldnt be made unless the president had been absent for 18 months, he said.

The new law required our party to have a president [within 90 days].

Sam Kuntheamy, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), told RFA that the CNRP could be seen as illegitimate if it is found to be in breach of its party statute.

But he called for compromise, noting that the countrys June 4 commune elections are rapidly approaching.

This case should be treated as an extraordinary and politically motivated one, he said.

A new president is needed to lead the party. I think the ministry of the interior should base its consideration into this matter on practical circumstances.

Meeting supporters

Also on Tuesday, Kem Sokha met with CNRP commune chief candidates at the opposition headquarters in the capital Phnom Penh, telling them he is confident the party will be able to implement its political platform after making gains in local polls.

He stressed that the CNRP is committed to improving the lives of all people through a decentralized power structure.

No matter what order is rendered from the top, if it badly affects our people and national interests, the CNRP commune councilors shall not implement it, he said.

Kem Sokha said the CNRP would honor a pledge to provide all senior citizens with a stipend of at least 40,000 riel (U.S. $10) per month and work to make Cambodia a better place to live.

CPP spokesman Sok Eysan told RFA Tuesday that the ruling party is impressed by the CNRPs goals, but should not be discounted ahead of the upcoming elections.

The CPP has set out and implemented its political platform, he said.

Over the past six months, the CPP has done a lot to improve public services and we will continue to do better.

CNRP officials have warned that the CPP seeks to prevent the opposition from standing in the June elections through a variety of different measures, including the passage of the political party law.

The CPP won more than 70 percent of the vote and secured 1,592 of 1,633 communes in Cambodias 2012 local elections, held before the CNRP was formed. The opposition party won nearly half of the vote in the general election the following year.

Observers say the CNRP could give the CPP, which has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years, a run for its money in the June pollsa race that many believe may foreshadow the general election in 2018.

Reported by Neang Ieng and Moniroth Morm for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.



CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that the National Assembly approved the bill on Feb. 20 with 44 votes by the CPP.
Detained activist Su Changlan, who has been in pre-trial detention for more than two years, on Tuesday received a prestigious human rights award from a coalition of Chinese human rights groups.

Su, 45, is the third recipient of the Cao Shunli Memorial Award for Human Rights Defenders, in honor of her work "promoting human rights at the grassroots level in China," the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said on its website.

There are growing concerns for her health after a prolonged period in police detention with no medical treatment, the group said.

"Su Changlans health has worsened in detention due to a lack of medical treatment, a form of torture commonly used against incarcerated human rights defenders in China," CHRD said.

It said Su is suffering from heart arrhythmia and tremors in her hands and feet because of denied and inadequate care for hyperthyroidism, which can be fatal if not properly treated.

However, she has been hospitalized at least a half dozen times due to eczema caused by poor conditions in detention, most recently in August 2016, CHRD reported.

The authorities have refused multiple requests for Su's release on medical parole.

Born in the southwestern province of Guangxi, Su was an elementary school teacher for more than a decade before being fired in retaliation for her rights activism in the early 2000s, CHRD said.

A self-taught legal advocate, she helped rural women in neighboring Guangdong province to file lawsuits, appeals and official complaints, some of which led to compensation for the loss of their land rights and inheritance after marriage.

No change likely



Her husband Chen Dequan told RFA he didn't believe the award would change the authorities' treatment of his wife.



"I don't think that they'll pay any attention to it," Chen said. "Lots of people around the world have expressed concern about her case, but they still keep dragging their feet. We still don't even have a verdict."

Before her incarceration, Su had become a "highly influential" activist for women's rights in Guangdong, working to expose the trafficking of underage girls as child brides and official corruption around rural elections.

The trigger for her detention on Oct. 27, 2014 appeared to be her publicly expressed support for the pro democracy Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong, however.

Since then, Su has repeatedly been deprived of her legal and due process rights, including secret detention, denied legal counsel, prolonged pre-trial detention, and delayed announcement of a trial verdict, CHRD said.

Su eventually stood trial on April 21 last year at the Foshan Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong on charges of "incitement to subvert state power."

The authorities have yet to issue a verdict or sentence in the case, and Su has been denied visits from her husband and brother, who have themselves been detained for protesting about the situation.

'Arbitrary detention'



Su's detention has been judged as "arbitrary" by the United Nations, which has called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to release and compensate her. She is still being held in the Nanhai Detention Center in Foshan.

"She has a clear conscience about everything she did," Chen told RFA. "She would have done all that she did with or without such a prize. The most important thing is that she never did any harm to anyone."

"She chose to do this work, and I never stood in her way," he said. "She wrote thousands of articles, which the authorities then used against her in court."

"But freedom of speech is a right that is enshrined in the constitution of the People's Republic of China, so they have now deprived her of her constitutional rights," Chen said.

Su's lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said he isn't optimistic about his client's fate.

"I don't think there is cause for optimism, because she has been locked up for such a long time, so somebody somewhere is blocking the progress of her case," Liu said. "This is probably somebody in a specific government department, and it's ... definitely someone very powerful."

"The reason that there is no verdict is that the evidence, in my view, simply doesn't stack up," he said.

Su's award is named for late human rights activist Cao Shunli, who died in police detention on March 14, 2014 after being denied adequate medical care.

It was awarded by three Chinese rights groups: Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch, Human Rights Campaign in China and Weiquanwang.

Cao was detained on Sept. 14, 2013, as she was boarding a flight to Geneva, where she was to attend a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, where she hoped to participate in drafting Chinas human rights action plans and reports for its U.N. human rights reviews.

Rights groups say her detention was a form of official retaliation for those efforts.

Reported by Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Screenshot of footage supplied by relatives of farmer-turned-petitioner Wang Fengyun after she was beaten unconscious by police following her trial in Inner Mongolia's Duolun county, March 14, 2017.

Authorities in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia have redetained an activist beaten unconscious by police, taking her from her hospital bed without treatment, and detained three of her relatives after they complained, relatives said on Tuesday.

Wang Fengyun, the petitioner at the heart of a row over a local government surveillance budget in Inner Mongolia's Duolun County, was beaten up by court police on Monday shortly after her trial on public order charges adjourned.

She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she remained in a comatose state surrounded by relatives.

Footage supplied by relatives showed Wang motionless, connected by tubes and monitors to hospital equipment, with a doctor performing an electrocardiogram (ECG).

Later, a group of around a dozen uniformed officers is seen jostling around a hospital bed, with heated exchanges with civilians standing nearby.

A group of officers then escorts one of the relatives down a corridor as she screams, before scuffling with a man filming her detention on his cell phone.

Around the same time, Wang Fengyun had been forcibly taken from her hospital bed by police with no medical treatment, her brother told RFA on Tuesday.

"The doctor diagnosed her with sinus tachycardia," Wang's brother Wang Fenglong told RFA. "But while my sister was still unconscious, the police from the Duolun County People's Court forcibly took Wang Fengyun away, and wouldn't allow them to treat her."

'Comatose state'

Police also detained three other family members, he said.

"Around that time, my sister Wang Fenghua, [her husband] Zhang Huan and Wang Fengyun's daughter demanded that she be treated, because she was still in a comatose state," Wang Fenglong said.

"But the Duolun county police refused to listen, and detained all three of them separately," he said.

Wang's lawyer Wang Fei said he was still in the court writing up notes when Wang Fenghua shouted to her relatives at the main entrance to the Duolun county court that she was being beaten up.

"I didn't actually see them beat her unconscious," Wang Fei said."When I went out there, Wang Fengyun was lying on the ground, and she has remained comatose since being taken to the hospital."

Wang Fengyun, from a farming community in Xilingol League near the border with neighboring Mongolia, stood trial on charges of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" at the Duolun County People's Court on Monday.

Footage shot by relatives showed Wang Fengyun lying immobile and unconscious on a stretcher surrounded by uniformed police officers, and lying in the ambulance being cared for by paramedics with a police escort.

The attack on Wang came after the Duolun county government said it had spent U.S. $48,650 on round-the-clock surveillance of the petitioner, who made nine trips to Beijing to complain about a land grab by local government.

Detained after petitioning

Wang and her father Wang Xingshu and husband Zhang Shufeng were detained last September following a petitioning trip to Beijing, all on the same charges.

They were charged after the three of them traveled to Beijing to lodge a complaint against officials in their local government over the loss of their land to a highway development.

According to their lawyers, the government took over their land and built a road on it from 2011-2013, but a land requisition order was issued by the government only on June 16, 2015.

The family's complaint was that the local government had acted illegally.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party's domestic security budget was last reported in 2013 at U.S. $130 billion, when it exceeded military spending.

Since then, no further figures have been forthcoming for the cost of nationwide operationsknown collectively as the "stability maintenance system"aimed at curbing mass protests, petitions, and other forms of peaceful dissent.

According to official figures, some six million complaints are registered against the government across the country every year, which would result in a nationwide bill of roughly U.S. $146 billion if half of those petitioners incurred costs similar to Wang's.
The Ukrainian Security Service, or SBU, has arrested activists who were blocking rail links to areas held by Russia-backed separatists. Dozens were detained in the operation, which prompted protests in Kyiv. The blockades have disrupted coal supplies and caused severe power shortages across the country. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
An explosion in the center of Kabul destroyed a bus carrying employees of one of the country's biggest telecom firms on March 13, killing at least one person and wounding at least 19, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.

Security forces surrounded the smoking remains of the Roshan Telecom bus, which appeared to be completely burned out.

Sediqqi said the blast appears to have been caused by a roadside bomb. He said three suspects related to the explosion were arrested.

The explosion, as people were leaving work in a well-to-do area of the city, came less than a week after more than 30 people were killed in an attack on the country's largest military hospital by gunmen dressed in medical uniforms.

Officials are still investigating that assault, which was claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

The two attacks underline the broad security threat in Afghanistan, where IS has recently established a foothold and the Taliban has stepped up its insurgency against the Western-backed government.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters
The United States and the United Nations have voiced concern about what human rights groups say is the Belarusian government's biggest crackdown on protesters in years.

Washington is monitoring "the ongoing peaceful protests in Belarus," a State Department official told RFE/RL on March 14, responding to a request for comment.

"We are concerned by the detention of multiple participants and members of the media in a recent demonstration," the official said. "We urge the government of Belarus to abide by its international commitments to respect the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly."

More protests are planned, including a major demonstration in Minsk on March 15, despite President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's March 9 announcement that collection of the tax would be suspended until 2018.

Lukashenka has said the unemployment tax is needed to fight what he called "social parasitism" -- a term reminiscent of the Soviet era.

Meanwhile, a UN human rights expert has urged Minsk to refrain from violence and harassment against protesters, and to respect freedom of peaceful assembly.

"While the international community should remain attentive, I call on the authorities of Belarus to stop acts of violence and harassment, and to respect the freedom to peacefully assemble, Miklos Haraszti, the special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, said in a statement issued on March 14.

Crowds of hundreds of people have turned up in cities across Belarus in recent weeks for protests against a controversial tax on the unemployed in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

Amnesty International said on March 13 that at least 48 people had been detained and charged with attending "unauthorized" demonstrations on March 10-12 in Belarus, which Lukashenka has ruled since 1994.

The European Union has called for the immediate release of all the detained protesters.

Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Unions foreign policy chief, said on March 13 that "the detention and sentencing of peaceful protesters, including leaders of opposition movements, is in contradiction with Belarus's declared policy of democratization."

President Lukashenka, whom the United States has dubbed "Europe's last dictator," has been ruling Belarus for more than two decades, quashing political opposition, civil society groups, independent media, and other forms of dissent.
Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he is in constant contact with international security authorities to ensure stability in Kosovo as more ethnic Serb police officers in the north of country resigned.



Kurti said on November 6 after a rally by ethnic Serbs in the streets of North Mitrovica that the security situation in Kosovo was threatened by various criminalized individuals and groups, but said that during his time in office, we have made great progress in the fight against crime and corruption."



He added that the rule of law goes hand in hand with peace and security and cannot be threatened, adding that authorities do not distinguish criminals on the basis of ethnicity, but only on the basis of their criminal acts."



When asked about the decision on November 5 by the Serbian List party to leave Kosovo's institutions, Kurti repeated his call that Kosovo Serbs refrain from doing so.



"I once again I invite all Serb citizens of our country to not abandon institutions, not to resign, not to leave their jobs, because there would be less service for the people," he said.



Kurti has blamed Belgrade for seeking to destabilize Kosovo by supporting the ethnic Serbs in their boycott of state institutions.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on November 5 that the withdrawal of Kosovo Serbs from the country's institutions "is not a solution to the current disputes" and it has the potential to further escalate tensions.



A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo released to RFE/RL's Balkan Service late on November 6 said the United States agreed with the European Union that the recent developments around relations between Kosovo and Serbia "are of great concern and put important progress achieved in the EU-facilitated Dialogue at risk."



"The Kosovan Serbs' withdrawal from Kosovan institutions is not a solution to the current disputes and has the potential to further escalate the tensions on the ground," the statement added. "All involved must take steps to reduce tensions and ensure peace and stability on the ground."



The Serb officers who resigned on November 6 submitted written resignations to the police station in North Mitrovica. One of the policemen told RFE/RL that the officers only submitted their resignations in writing but had not yet turned in their uniforms and weapons. However, he said this will follow in the coming days.



Numerous media outlets reported that the police officers took off their uniforms as part of the wider Serb movement to withdraw from institutions in Kosovo touched off by a move to implement a mandate on the conversion of vehicle license plates.



A statement from the Kosovar police force said it was aware that Serb police officers had abandoned their posts and that some have handed over police equipment.



The rally by ethnic Serbs in North Mitrovica on November 6 came a day after Serbs there said they would quit their posts in state institutions to protest against the use of license plates issued by Pristina.

Following a meeting of Serb political representatives in the north of Kosovo on November 5, the minister of communities and returns, Goran Rakic, said he was resigning from his post in the Pristina government.



He told reporters that fellow representatives of the Serb minority in the north had also quit their jobs in municipal administrations, the courts, police, and the parliament and government in Pristina.



Rakic said they would not consider returning unless Pristina abolishes the order for them to switch their old car license plates, which date to the 1990s when Kosovo was a part of Serbia, to Kosovo state plates.



Addressing the rally on November 6, Rakic accused Kosovo government authorities of not respecting international law and agreements negotiated in Brussels.



Rakic has called on the protesters "not to fall for provocations and to continue the fight with peaceful and democratic means."



The license-plate measure took effect on November 1, and Kosovo authorities said enforcement would be gradual.

The U.S. Embassy statement reiterated Washington's position that the Kosovar authorities should extend the process of converting vehicle license plates and suspend any punitive actions until the license plates issue can be resolved through dialogue.

Many ethnic Serbs in Kosovo refuse to recognize the countrys independence from Serbia, which it declared in 2008.



The European Union has told Kosovo and Serbia that they must normalize ties if they want to advance toward membership in the 27-nation bloc.

With reporting by dpa, AP, and AFP
BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz authorities say a former prosecutor-general who is now an opposition lawmaker has been ordered not to leave the country pending an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing.

The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) told RFE/RL on March 14 that Aida Salyanova is suspected of illegally prolonging the license of a lawyer with links to former President Kurmanbek Bakiev's son, Maksim Bakiev, in 2010.

The UKMK said it issued the order after questioning her on March 13.

Salyanova has rejected the accusation, saying it is politically motivated.

She is one of at least four members of the opposition Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party facing potential prosecution in the Central Asian nation on what they contend are trumped-up allegations.

Ata-Meken leader Omurbek Tekebaev, a former parliament speaker and a vocal opponent of President Almazbek Atambaev, is being held at the UKMK's detention center and investigated on suspicion of bribe-taking and fraud.

Supporters of Tekebaev believe the investigation is aimed at preventing him from running for president in November.

Atambaev is barred from running for reelection, and opponents accuse him of seeking to maintain a hold on power by pushing though constitutional changes in a referendum that was held in December.
BISHKEK -- Some 200 residents of a Kyrgyz village devastated by a deadly cargo-plane crash in January have held a demonstration to demand relocation by the state.

Demonstrators at the rally on March 14 in Dacha-SU held signs saying "Move Us To A Safe Place!" and "Authorities, Think About Our Children!"

They also reiterated calls for compensation for material losses caused by the crash, which destroyed or severely damaged some 20 homes.

A Turkish-owned Boeing 747 crashed in Dacha-SU while trying to land at Bishkek's Manas International Airport on January 16, killing the crew of four and 35 people on the ground.

A representative of the Chui regional administration, Bakytbek Kudaibergenov, met with the protesters and told them that there was no place to relocate them at the moment.

He promised that compensation payments would begin soon.
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Economy Minister said on Monday he was "convinced" that Spain would have a seat on the European Central Bank's six-person executive board next year.

"It will be an absolute priority for the Spanish government," Luis de Guindos said in a speech in Madrid.

The next vacancy on the ECB's executive board opens at the end of May in 2018, when the term of vice president Vitor Constancio, a former Portuguese finance minister, expires.

The next vacancies will then come up in 2019, when the terms of three board members, including President Mario Draghi, expire.

Guindos also said on Monday that the government wanted to continue selling "small parts" of Spanish lender Bankia (BKIA.MC), in which it owns a 65.5 stake, over an adequate time frame to maximise return.

(Reporting by Sarah White; Writing by Angus Berwick; Editing by Amanda Calvo)
A former prime minister of Montenegro has appealed to the European Union to curb Russia's "destructive" influence in the Balkans.

Milo Djukanovic made the statement on March 14, several months after what prosecutors said was an attempted coup to overthrow Montenegro's pro-Western government and prevent the country joining NATO.

Djukanovic stepped down after the alleged pro-Russian plot in October.

He said Moscow "is waging a kind of war against Europe and the West as a whole" and is threatening "the very existence of the European Union" by supporting right-wing groups which are against the 28-nation bloc.

"Montenegro has found itself in the line of fire," Djukanovic told the Associated Press. "But, I'm sure Montenegro is not the main target."

Djukanovic led Montenegro for over 20 years, and brought the former Yugoslav republic of 600,000 people to the threshold of NATO. It has also been the most advanced state in the region on the path to EU membership.

"The Balkans appeared as a good terrain for the demonstration of force after Russia's campaigns in Ukraine and Syria," Djukanovic said. "With the example of Montenegro, [Russia] wanted to show that Europe and NATO cannot expand without its consent. I believe that this is the key message for the EU and NATO."

Montenegro's prosecutors have accused Russia and its secret-service operatives of plotting the election-day coup attempt that included alleged plans to kill Djukanovic and take over parliament. Some 20 people -- including two Russians -- have been accused of taking part.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement in the plot. But it has openly supported nationalist parties and groups opposed to Montenegro's NATO membership.

Djukanovic said he believes that Moscow will continue its bid to destabilize Montenegro with its "subversive" propaganda campaign.

With reporting by AP


Voters head to the polls in the Netherlands on March 15 in the first of several elections across Western Europe likely to test EU unity amid a wave of nationalist and populist sentiment sweeping the continent.

Balloting in the densely packed, coastal nation of 17 million people rarely attracts attention outside of the country, but this time it's different.

The battle between center-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Geert Wilders -- a populist who has campaigned on banning the Koran, shutting mosques, and pulling the country out of the European Union -- has increased the focus on the vote, especially with far-right parties showing well in opinion polls in France and Germany, where elections are due later this year.

Populist parties in Europe are seizing on the nationalist sentiment that spurred two surprising outcomes in recent balloting.

First there was Britain's decision to leave the European Union in the so-called Brexit vote in June, sending shockwaves through Europe. That was quickly followed by the surprise victory of U.S. President Donald Trump in November, ushering in his "America First Foreign Policy" in Washington.

Those results have left many in Europe wondering whether the EU can survive the current wave of antiestablishment sentiment.

Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) led in opinion polls for much of the campaign, though Rutte's Liberals (VVD) appeared to erase the deficit as the race wound down.

A number of estimates this week said more than half of voters were still undecided.

In a heated debate March 13, the two candidates traded verbal punches in a last-ditch effort to sway voters.

'Wrong Kind Of Populism'

Rutte accused Wilders of using "voodoo numbers" and offering "fake solutions" to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment, while Wilders scolded his opponent for breaking election promises and called him the "prime minister of foreigners."

Hours before the debate, Rutte told reporters in Rotterdam that he hoped the Netherlands would provide an example for other European countries to stop embracing "the wrong kind of populism."

Rutte did not specify what the right kind of populism was, but the elections in the Netherlands come with the National Front's Marine Le Pen seemingly poised to reach a runoff in the French presidential election on April 7, and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) rising in popularity ahead of fall elections that could topple Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has emerged as one of Europe's leading voices against rising nationalism.

"Just say an anti-EU populist leader won in Holland, it would embolden, no doubt, populist movements certainly in France, and perhaps a little in Germany," said Judy Dempsey, nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels.

Opinion polls were turning in favor of Rutte's Liberals in the waning days of the campaign. Three surveys published two days before the election put his party slightly ahead of Wilders Freedom Party, while one showed a virtual tie.

With 28 parties contesting the election and no single party likely to win more than 17 or 24 seats in the 150-member lower house, analysts said there was a good chance Wilders will be shut out of power once governing coalition talks start as other parties have ruled out including his party in the government.

"We continue to expect the center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy of the current Prime Minister Mark Rutte to emerge as the largest party in parliament after the election," said Pepijn Bergsen, lead analyst for Germany, Netherlands, and Austria at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"However, this will be in a fragmented political landscape, with no party likely to gain more than 20 percent of the vote and four or five parties being necessary to form a majority government."

Rutte's VVD is currently the senior partner in a majority coalition government with the Labor Party. The administration has been pro-EU and fiscally prudent in its moves, though it has toughened talk on liberal immigration policies as Wilders' party gained popularity.

International concerns over the election have been stoked over the past week when a diplomatic confrontation with Turkey spilled onto the streets of Rotterdam, prompting riot police to use water cannon on protesters.

Keeping A Close Eye On The EU

Turkey said on March 13 that it was halting all high-level political discussions with the Netherlands and that as far as Ankara is concerned, an agreement with the EU to help hold back a flood of Asian migrants has ended.

Ankara's move comes amid a growing dispute with the Netherlands and Germany over their refusal to allow Turkish government ministers to stage political rallies on their territory and could fuel the populist backlash that has buffeted anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe.

Bergsen noted that, although the United Kingdom's Brexit vote and Trump's victory have increased international attention on the Dutch elections, anti-immigration and anti-Islam sentiment arent new in the country's politics.

"The European migrant crisis has provided a boost to these forces but did not create them -- they were already there," he said, pointing out the success of Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn, who, days before elections in 2002, was gunned down by a man who claimed to be protecting Muslims from persecution.

Though the elections are unlikely to result in a sharp turn in Dutch policies away from the EU, Steven Blockmans, a policy expert with the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies, said he expects the government that emerges from the vote will keep a close eye on the 28-nation bloc.

That scrutiny, he said, is unlikely to stop the Dutch Senate from voting to approve the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, already approved by the lower house, the final hurdle before the deal, which was signed in March 2014, can enter into force.

The Netherlands is the only EU country that still hasn't ratified the Association Agreement with Ukraine after 61 percent voted against it in a citizen-driven, nonbinding referendum in April 2016.

"I dont see the Netherlands developing into a destructive force within the European Union, not more than the Euroskeptic attitude that it already has," Blockmans said.


Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered that "blasphemous" content on social media websites be removed or blocked.

Sharif also said those responsible for posting such material will be "strictly punished."

"Effective steps must be taken immediately to remove and block such content," Sharif said in a March 14 statement.

Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Pakistan and can carry the death penalty. It is also a highly sensitive issue in a country where dozens have been murdered over blasphemy allegations, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.



Sharif instructed Pakistan's Foreign Ministry to demand the blocking of blasphemous content by foreign social media companies. No company was mentioned by name, but social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are popular in Pakistan.

"All relevant institutions must unite to hunt those who spread such material and to award them strict punishment under the law," Sharif said.



Sharif's move is likely to appeal to his conservative voter base ahead of elections next year.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dawn.com


The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the Russian state was behind an attack on a prominent rights defender and three journalists in 2007, and ordered Moscow to compensate them for "illegal freedom deprivation and torture."

The ECHR's March 14 ruling says that Russian security services were involved in the attack on the leader of the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center, Oleg Orlov, and a crew from Russian channel REN-TV.

Orlov and a crew from REN-TV were in the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia to cover protests over the death of a child during a security operation. They said that unidentified men in military uniforms rushed into their hotel in the city of Nazran, abducted them, beat them, and threatened to kill them if they ever came to Ingushetia again.

"Given that the [Russian] Government [has] advanced no plausible explanation for the events in question, the Court finds that the persons who took the applicants from the hotel to the field... and subjected them to ill-treatment on the night of 23 November 2007 were State agents," the ruling said.

Authorities in Ingushetia dropped their investigation into the attack in 2008. Orlov and the journalists filed the lawsuit with the ECHR in 2012.

The ECHR also ruled that Russia must pay the men 84,000 euros ($89,700) in compensation for the "illegal freedom deprivation and torture" that it said was not properly investigated by the officials.

With reporting by tvrain.ru and meduza.io


Russia said its anti-doping agency should be reinstated in November, but the World Anti-Doping Agency said it still has "significant work" to do before that happens.

Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said on March 13 that Russia will "work diligently" toward a clean culture and listed what he said was progress on restructuring its anti-doping system after years of cheating scandals.

"We are open for all kinds of inspections of individual athletes and organizations," he said at a meeting in Lausanne. "We are ready to pass any kind of external inspection."

In Moscow, Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko told TASS on March 13 that Russia is "implementing everything required by the road map" laid out by WADA for Russia's reform.

WADA's investigations have found rampant state-sponsored doping in Russia, and it has prescribed steps to get back in compliance with anti-doping rules.

WADA President Craig Reedie told the Lausanne meeting that while Russia has taken steps forward in the past year since its track-and-field team was banned from global competition in 2015, they have not gone far enough.

"There remains significant work to do. [RUSADA] must demonstrate its processes are autonomous and independent from outside interference," Reedie said.

Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS


The Reuters news agency reports that Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an air base near the Libyan border in Egypt.

The report on March 14 cited unnamed sources, including U.S. and Egyptian officials.

Reuters cited U.S. and other sources as saying such a deployment could be part of an effort to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who is opposed to the country's UN-backed government.

U.S. officials told Reuters that the United States has seen what appeared to be Russian special forces and drones at Sidi Barrani, Egypt, about 100 kilometers from the Libya border.

Asked about the report, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said: "There are no Russian special forces units in Sidi Barrani."

Russian President Vladimnir Putin's spokesman, Dmity Peskov, said: "We do not have such information."

Reuters reported that Egyptian security sources described a 22-member Russian special forces unit, but declined to describe its mission, and said that Russia also used an Egyptian base further from the border in early February.

Egypt has denied the presence of any Russian forces on its territory.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged this month to help unify Libya, which was a longtime Soviet client and had close ties to Moscow before the death of dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Asked on March 14 whether Russia is placing its bets in Libya on Haftar, Peskov said that "any excessive interference by Russia in Libyan affairs would hardly be possible and hardly be expedient."

"But nonetheless, that does not mean that Russia is not making contact with the sides with which it considers it necessary [to do so]."



With reporting by Reuters and Interfax
Security authorities in Russia's Tatarstan region have detained 15 alleged members of the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir organization.

A spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Tatarstan said on March 14 that the suspects were detained after a special operation.

Thirty homes were searched in Kazan and Tatarstan's two districts, and books with suspected extremist content were confiscated at the searched homes, the FSB spokesman said.

Authorities in Russia and other former Soviet republics say Hizb ut-Tahrir plays a role in a strategy used by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants to radicalize young people and recruit them to fight in Syria and Iraq.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, a London-based Sunni political organization, seeks to unite all Muslim countries into an Islamic caliphate.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia and Central Asia, says its movement is peaceful.

Based on reporting by RIA and Interfax


Over the past five years, Iranian officials and state media have touted the "indigenous" ingenuity in the Islamic republic's mass-produced Mohajer-6 combat drone, which Russia has deployed in its war against Ukraine.

But a new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, has found that electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 are far from homegrown.



The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of such technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes  dual-use technology.

The presence of these components in the Mohajer-6 does not mean their producers are in violation of U.S. or EU sanctions, and RFE/RL does not have evidence that this is the case.

The investigation also found Mohajer-6 components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm that said it was "very sorry" that its products were being used in war.

At least one major foreign-produced component of the Mohajer-6 has previously been identified by reporters in a Mohajer-6 recovered from the battlefield by the Ukrainian military: an engine made by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products.

But Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Iranian combat drone contains components from nearly three dozen different technology companies based in North America, the EU, Japan, and Taiwan, the Schemes investigation has found. A majority of these companies are based in the United States.



A Schemes reporter who personally inspected the foreign-made drone parts identified components produced by at least 15 of these manufacturers.

These include parts made by the U.S. technology firm Texas Instruments, which said in a statement that it does not sell into Russia or Iran and complies with applicable laws and regulations.

To identify these components, Schemes reporters examined parts of the Mohajer-6 drone that the Ukrainian military shot down over the Black Sea near the Mykolayiv region coastal town of Ochakiv. They also reviewed Ukrainian intelligence records on the sources of these components.

The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China.

Both Western officials and experts on illicit technology transfers say Iran has built a broad, global procurement network using front companies and other proxies in third countries to obtain dual-use technology from the United States and the EU.

"Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they'll think that they're selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran," Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told RFE/RL.

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions specifically targeting Iranian companies that Washington links to the production and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for deployment in its war on Ukraine. Fighting rages with no sign of an end more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion on February 24.

"Non-Iranian, non-Russian entities should also exercise great caution to avoid supporting either the development of Iranian UAVs or their transfer, or sale of any military equipment to Russia for use against Ukraine," U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement announcing the sanctions.

Chinese Cameras, California Chips

Development of the Mohajer-6, the latest model in a series of drones Tehran has used since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, began in 2017, while mass production began the following year. During a ceremony commemorating the Islamic Revolution, then-Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that the new tactical drone could perform surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as help destroy targets.

Hatami extolled what he described as the drones domestic design, a portrayal echoed in later reports by Iranian media.

"The homegrown drone was made through cooperation among the army, Defense Ministry, and Quds Aviation Industries," the English-language Tehran Times quoted an Iranian military official as saying in July 2019.

The dismantling of the Mohajer-6 drone recovered by the Ukrainian military shows that the UAV is packed with foreign components.

One of these parts is a bright-orange real-time mini-camera produced by the Hong Kong-based company RunCam Technology. Documents seen by Schemes show that Ukrainian intelligence has also identified RunCam as the producer of the camera, which likely assists in remote guidance of the drone.

Founded in 2013, RunCam is involved in the development and production of so-called "first-person-view" real-time cameras. "Our users are our friends," the company's website states. The site says that RunCam has two authorized Iranian dealers.

Reached by Schemes for comment about the use of its camera in the Iranian drone deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine, RunCam said in an e-mailed response: "We are very sorry to know that RunCam's products were used in warfare. RunCam is specialized in producing products for model aircraft hobby. We never contact any customer related to military."

The provenance of the Mohajer-6 drone-s thermal-imaging camera is more difficult to determine. A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reviewed by Schemes indicates it could be the Ventus Hot model produced by Sierra-Olympic Technologies, based in the U.S. state of Oregon, but that it also resembles a cheaper analog available for sale by the Chinese company Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology.

Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology said in an e-mailed statement that the company did not "have any business with Iran," because "it will affect our business." The company said it specializes in marine services and is not involved in manufacturing. It also said that it did not have a single successful order for its online advertisement of the thermal-imaging camera resembling the one recovered from the Iranian drone.

Sierra-Olympic Technologies did not respond to a request for comment on the possible use of its thermal-imaging cameras in Iranian combat drones in time for publication.

Microchips recovered from the drone also featured the logos of the California-based company Linear Technology Corporation and its parent company, the Massachusetts-based semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). ADI did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the possible use of its technology in the Iranian combat drone.

Schemes reporters also observed among the components of the Iranian drone a voltage step-down converter produced by Texas Instruments. The company said in an e-mailed statement that it "does not sell into Russia, Belarus, or Iran."

"TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and does not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren't designed for," Texas Instruments said.

Schemes reporters also saw several components produced by the California-based technology manufacturer Xilinx, whose parent company is the multinational semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also based in California.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, one of these Xilinx components was integrated into a video data-link module located in the wing of the Mohajer-6 that helped carry out attack missions.

"This module transmits information from the board to the missile head. That is, guidance for the missile. With the help of this module, it was possible to guide the missile to the target," a Ukrainian military intelligence representative told Schemes.

AMD did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

'No Authorization'

Previous media reports about the components of the Mohajer-6 drone, including by CNN, have shown evidence that its engine was produced by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, whose parent company is the Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP).

The Canadian company responded to the reports on October 21, saying in a statement that it "has not authorized and has not given any authorization to its distributors to supply military UAV manufacturers in Iran or Russia."

"As soon as we were made aware of this situation, we started an investigation to determine the source of the engines," BRP said. .

But Schemes reporters found that the authorized Rotax distributor listed on the Austrian manufacturer's website advertised itself as a Rotax aircraft engines distributor for Iran as recently as December 2020.

The distributor, the Italian company Luciano Sorlini S.p.a., has posted multiple magazine advertisements on its websites in which it describes itself as a Rotax distributor for numerous countries. Prior to January 2021, Iran was listed among these countries.

The Rotax website also lists a Tehran-based company -- MahtaWing -- as an official service center for its engines. The company, known in Persian as Mahtabal, conducts repairs of Rotax engines, including the Rotax 912 iS, the engine that was found in the Mohajer-6 combat drone recovered in Ukraine.

BRP said in an e-mailed statement on November 4 that while Luciano Sorlini S.p.a. is the appointed distributor of Rotax aircraft engines in Iran, "since 2019, no Rotax engines have been sold in Iran, and we will not sell any engines to Iran moving forward."

The Canadian company said it had "internal controls" that "significantly" restrict the sale of its products for military purposes.

"For example, the sale of any BRP product to operators with any military activity in Iran, Turkey, and Russia is strictly prohibited," BRP said. "We conduct our business in compliance with all EU, Canadian, and U.S. applicable regulations."

BRP described the Iranian company MahtaWing as a "local service center" that "offers maintenance services for previously sold aircraft engines."

Shahriar Siami of RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his government to conclude an agreement to effectively incorporate the military of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region into the Russian armed forces' command structure.

The order, issued by the Kremlin on March 14, comes a day after the Russian government published a draft agreement paving the way for separatists in South Ossetia to serve as contract soldiers in the Russian military.

The move was quickly denounced by Tbilisi, which said that "any agreement between the Russian Federation and de facto leadership [of South Ossetia] is illegitimate."

"Such steps are not aimed at protecting peace and are impeding peaceful process, which is necessary for the conflict resolution," Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze said in a statement.

Russia has long held a strong influence on South Ossetia, a mountainous region in northeastern Georgia, and stepped up its control after fighting a five-day war with Tbilisi in 2008.

The text of the draft agreement provides for the separatists to switch to new operating procedures for their armed forces which will be subject to approval by Moscow. It says the forces' structure and objectives will be determined in agreement with Russia.

It also states that South Ossetian military personnel can transfer to serve as Russian soldiers on a Russian military base in the region.



The Kremlin order signed by Putin instructs his defense and foreign ministries to work with the separatists to conclude and sign the agreement.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in a 1991-1992 war in which an estimated 2,000 people were killed.

Russia sent in tanks, troops, and warplanes in August 2008, ostensibly to protect of civilians in South Ossetia from what Moscow described as an attack by Georgian forces.

Georgia said the Russian military intervention was an invasion of its territory, and the United States and the European Union have backed Tbilisi politically in the standoff.

After the brief 2008 war, Russia recognized South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia, as independent countries. Only a handful of governments have followed suit.

Moscow maintains thousands of troops in both regions, in deployments that NATO and Western governments say violate the EU-brokered deal that ended the fighting.

With reporting by Reuters and Interfax


Steve King

Rep. Steve King on Monday doubled down on his controversial anti-immigrant tweet, saying, "I meant exactly what I said."

King, a Republican from Iowa, tweeted in favor of the Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders on Sunday afternoon, linking to a cartoon of Wilders plugging a cracked wall with "Western civilization" written on it.

"Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny," King wrote. "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

The tweet prompted backlash from both sides of the aisle, but King stood firm.

"Well, of course, I meant exactly what I said, as always is the case," he told CNN's "New Day" on Monday.

"To expand on that a little further: I've been to Europe, and I've spoken on this issue, and I've said the same things as far as 10 years ago to the German people and to any population of people that is a declining population that isn't willing to have enough babies to reproduce themselves, and I've said to them, 'You cannot rebuild your civilization with someone else's babies, you've got to keep your birthrate up, and that you need to teach your children your values.'"

King said that this means of preserving culture was "not happening in any of the western European countries."

"We need to get our birthrates up, or Europe will be entirely transformed within a half a century or a little more, and Geert Wilders knows that," King said.

CNN's Chris Cuomo said King's thinking seemed like "a complete contradiction of what we're all about," saying America is known as a "melting pot" of diversity.

"You're kind of trying to white-cleanse our population," Cuomo said.

King said the US was proud of "different-looking Americans that are still Americans," then pivoted to talk about abortion.

"There's an American culture, an American civilization  it's raised within these children in these American homes, and that's one of the reasons why we require that the president of the United States be raised with an American experience," King said. "But we've also aborted nearly 60 million babies in this country since 1973."

Story continues

King said there has been an effort to fill the void left by abortions with "somebody else's babies."

"That's that push to bring in much illegal immigration into America, living in enclaves, refusing to assimilate into the American culture and civilization," King said. "Some embrace it, yes. But many are two and three generations living in enclaves that are pushing back now and resisting against the assimilation."

Watch the clip, via CNN:

Rep. Steve King doubles down on his controversial tweet: "I meant exactly what I said" https://t.co/onPwAdQ3SD https://t.co/Rkn8J2MMC4  New Day (@NewDay) March 13, 2017





More From Business Insider


ON MY MIND

Russia is trying to reclaim its old clients in the Middle East.

The first step was Moscow's intervention in Syria, where it bombed its way into that country's civil war, upended Western policy, and propped up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

And the next step is apparently Libya.

According to a report in Reuters, Russia has deployed special forces to an air base in Egypt near the border with Libya. The move looks to be an effort to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, a figure Moscow appears to be betting on as Libya's next ruler.

And Vladimir Putin's regime also has its eyes on Iraq, where a high-level Russian delegation visited last month to discuss political, economic, and military cooperation.

The Kremlin has been seething about losing clients like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi.

Putin's drive to reinject Moscow into the Middle East began in earnest in late 2013. It picked up momentum with the intervention in Syria in the autumn of 2015. And now the Kremlin is moving on to its next targets.

IN THE NEWS

Reuters is reporting that Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an air base near the Libyan border in Egypt.

Russia said its anti-doping agency should be reinstated in November, but the World Anti-Doping Agency said it still has "significant work" to do before that happens.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance saw a 60 percent increase in "cyberincidents" during 2016 compared to the previous year.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager says Russia's state-run gas giant Gazprom appears ready to comply with European Union rules in order to end a five-year antitrust case and avoid fines.

A deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, the Mejlis, has been summoned to the Russian-run Center for Combating Extremism in Ukraine's Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Ukraine, which is hosting this year's Eurovision Song Contest, is considering banning Russia's competitor because she has performed in Russia-annexed Crimea, according to Ukraine's main security agency, the SBU.

Ukrainian police have arrested several dozen activists who were blocking trade with eastern areas held by pro-Russia separatists, officials and activists said.

The Kyiv headquarters of Russia's state-owned Sberbank has suspended operations in the midst of protests by anti-Kremlin demonstrators who blocked the entrance and windows of the building with concrete blocks.

A municipal appeals court in Kyiv has upheld the two-month pretrial detention of Roman Nasirov, Ukraine's suspended tax and customs service chief, on embezzlement charges.

Western governments and human rights groups are criticizing Belarusian authorities for the biggest crackdown in years against peaceful protesters.

The European Union says it will not recognize what it described as "so-called 'elections'" conducted on March 12 by Russia-backed separatists who control Georgia's Abkhazia region.

WHAT I'M READING

Angels And Demons In U.S.-Russia Relations

Stephen Boykewich has an op-ed in The New York Times, Angels And Demons In The Cold War And Today, in which he looks at how U.S. policy toward Russia has "veered between bitter demonization of the country and Messianic fantasies about remaking it in Americas image."

"Russia presents obvious challenges to American interests and ideals. But those challenges require thoughtful analysis and fresh insights -- not millenarian fantasies about a battle for the spiritual fate of humankind," Boykewich writes.

"Americans should also remember that the heat of our Russia talk has always reflected anxieties about the health of our own democracy. The deepest challenges Americans face at home dont come from the Kremlin. They come from homegrown authoritarianism, entrenched inequality, the corporate capture of our politics, and the collapse of the 20th-century social contract. The way we address these problems will determine more about the future of the American experiment -- and Americas role abroad -- than all the anti-Russia epithets in the world."

America's Man In Moscow

Politico has a couple of pieces about Jon Huntsman, who will likely be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Melissa Chan writes that "Huntsman was smart and savvy" as former President Barack Obamas envoy to Beijing, "but his lack of local knowledge could be crippling in Russia."

And Tunku Varadarajan speaks to Michael McFaul, who served as Obama's ambassador to Moscow, about what Huntsman can expect.

A Century Of Izvestia

The Moscow Times has a piece looking at the history of the newspaper Izvestia, which was founded during Russia's February 1917 revolution and celebrates its centenary this week.

"From a small revolutionary rag, Izvestia became the official publication of the Soviet government with thousands of employees and it built its iconic editorial offices in the constructivist style, during the tumultuous 1920s, on Moscows central Pushkin Square," the author, Howard Amos, writes.

"A leading proponent of reform in the 1980s, Izvestia reinvented itself as a democratic broadsheet after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under President Vladimir Putin, Izvestia has seen its influence collapse as short-lived editors and a strong pro-Kremlin editorial line hollow out the once influential publication."

Russia's Immigration Policy

In a piece for Bloomberg, Leonid Ragozin looks at Russia's immigration policy. "While Europe and the U.S. tighten border controls, former Soviet states are encouraged by Moscow to send their workers," Ragozin writes.

The Moscow That Never Was

The Guardian has a photo essay from the Imagine Moscow exhibition currently showing at London's Design Museum. The images depict the designs of top Soviet architects for Moscow from the 1920s to the '50s.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has proposed a bill that would ban dual citizenship.

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, said on March 14 that the amendments to the law on citizenship proposed on March 13 were sent to the parliamentary Committee for Human Rights, Ethnic Minorities, and Interethnic Relations for discussion.

The bill was described as urgent.

Under the proposed amendments, Ukrainians would lose their citizenship if they "voluntarily" obtain citizenship in another country.

They also specify that anyone who obtained Ukrainian citizenship but did not return the passports of the countries of their previous citizenship would also lose Ukrainian citizenship.

The discussion of dual citizenship has come to the fore in Ukraine following unconfirmed media reports saying that suspended tax and customs service chief Roman Nasirov, who has been arrested on suspicion of corruption, holds foreign passports.
Ukrainian opposition lawmakers have demanded an explanation from authorities after the arrests of several dozen activists who were blocking trade with eastern areas held by Russia-backed separatists.

The blockade began in January and has mainly disrupted rail shipments of coal that is mined in separatist-held territory and fuels power plants elsewhere in Ukraine.

Activists and lawmakers who support the blockade say coal sales have funded the separatists' war against government forces, which has killed more than 9,750 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

Ukraine's main security agency, the SBU, said that it arrested 43 "blockader" activists at three sites on March 13 after they refused to surrender weapons.

Opposition lawmakers demanded answers from President Petro Poroshenko, the Interior Ministry, and the SBU on March 14 over the detentions.

Lawmaker Semyon Semenchenko wrote on Facebook that security forces dismantled the activists' makeshift camp and cordoned off the area on March 14.

The blockade remains intact in at least two other parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Deputy parliament speaker Oksana Syroyid said the activists were released early on March 14.

Legislatures in the western cities of Rivne, Volyn, and Ternopil held what they said were emergency meetings on the detentions on March 14.

Activists staged a protest rally in central Kyiv attended by about 500 people on March 13.

The blockade has causing power shortages and added to the troubles faced by Ukraine's economy, which is drained by the war against the Russia-backed separatists.

The disruptions prompted Poroshenko to declare an emergency in late February and to urge all Ukrainians to try to conserve energy.

The separatists have threatened to stop supplying coal to the government in Kyiv or companies that are not in separatist-controlled areas.

With reporting by UNIAN
Bostwick Laboratories, once one of the Richmond regions fastest-growing companies, plans to sell its medical diagnostics business and most of its assets.

The laboratory company sent a letter dated Monday to its employees that it has accepted an offer from Poplar Healthcare, a Memphis, Tenn.-based laboratory services company.

Poplar Healthcare will become a stalking horse bidder in Bostwick Laboratories planned bankruptcy court-supervised auction of its business. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is necessary to facilitate the sale and protect the business until a sale can close, the letter said.

The sale should wrap up in the next 45 days, the letter said.

It is exciting to see a positive way forward for the company and a solution to struggles we have been facing together, Jerry Diffley, chief operating and compliance officer at Bostwick Laboratories, and Tammy Hunt, the companys chief financial officer, wrote in the letter to employees.

Diffley and Hunt did not return requests for comment. Neither did Poplar Healthcare CEO James Sweeney, nor did Dr. David Bostwick, the founder and CEO of Bostwick Laboratories.

It is uncertain if and where Bostwick Laboratories has filed for Chapter 11. A search Tuesday afternoon on the federal courts website did not produce any results.

Employees received the letter and a frequently-asked-questions document in an email Monday afternoon. It explained that selling the company through Chapter 11 bankruptcy will allow us to continue to operate the business in much the same way as we have always done.

Bostwick, an internationally known expert on prostate cancer, started Bostwick Laboratories in 1999 and built it into the leading medical laboratory for prostate cancer diagnosis in the nation, employing as many as 750 workers. It filed documents in 2008 to sell its stock in an initial public offering, but the IPO never took place.

In 2011, New York-based Metalmark Capital LLC purchased a majority stake in the laboratory, and it then severely downsized its local operations.

The company retains a small administrative office and operations at 4355 Innslake Drive in the Innsbrook Corporate Center in western Henrico County. It also has a location in Orlando, Fla., and its corporate offices are in Uniondale, N.Y.

Bostwick left the company in 2015 to pursue another venture, but again took the reins in August 2016 when he was reinstated as CEO.

His reinstatement came after he agreed to pay the federal government $3.75 million in January 2016 to settle allegations that he directed Bostwick Laboratories to breach the False Claims Act between 2006 and 2011 by billing Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary cancer detection tests and offering incentives to physicians to obtain Medicare and Medicaid business, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

That wasnt the companys first run-in with the federal government. In 2014, Bostwick Laboratories settled an allegation that it violated the False Claims Act by offering physicians kickbacks in exchange for referrals.

The allegation of laboratory companies giving out kickbacks has happened at another fast-growing firm in Richmond. Health Diagnostic Laboratory filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2015 months after the company settled with the federal government for $47 million for violating the False Claims Act.

It is unclear if Bostwick Laboratories settlement with the federal government led to its current intention of filing for bankruptcy and selling its business and assets to Poplar Healthcare.

Bostwick Laboratories told employees in the frequently-asked-questions document that there are no plans for layoffs as a result of the Chapter 11 filing. In fact, the company will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure the value remains in the business to complete a successful sale.

However, it is unclear whether Poplar Healthcare will hire all of Bostwick Laboratories employees. Bostwick Laboratories said the transition plan is still under development.

The stalking horse bidder (Poplar Healthcare) will be reaching out to many of the staff and finalizing their transition plans in anticipation of a successful sale, the document said. Once these communications are underway, we will have a better sense of their plans for offering employment. That being said, should another firm participate in the auction and successfully outbid the stalking horse, then their employment needs and transition timelines/requirements wont be known until after the auction.

Bostwick Laboratories said Poplar Healthcare is supplying sufficient working capital to allow the company to operate as normal through the expected sale date.
JetBlue Airways has added a second daily round-trip flight between Richmond International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, beginning June 15.

The two markets were first connected by JetBlue in 2008.

The new flight will have a departure time of 7:25 a.m. to complement the current midday departure, according to Troy Bell, the Richmond airports director of marketing and air service development.

The enhanced JetBlue schedule is now available for purchase on jetblue.com. Flight times are about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

As JetBlue celebrates 11 years serving Richmond this month, were so pleased to announce even more service in the commonwealths capital city, said John Checketts, director route planning for New York-based JetBlue. With this added frequency to our Fort Lauderdale focus city, its easier than ever for travelers to visit the attractions of south Florida, or continue on to any of the dozens of great destinations we serve in the Caribbean and Latin America.
It was like falling in love, Julian Parker told the crowd of Chesterfield County parents and officials.

Thats the best way the recovering addict could explain what it was like to try heroin for the first time.

Parker is a participant in the Chesterfield jails celebrated HARP program, one that stresses peer-to-peer counseling. Hes grateful for the HARP program for releasing him from the grips of that demon.

But he and three other recovering addicts in HARP spoke to the crowd of parents Monday with the hope that they could catch their children before they may end up in jail, before they become another statistic in an opioid epidemic that the state health commissioner declared a public health emergency late last year.

Parker, other addicts and representatives from state and local offices spoke to roughly 50 people for the Chesterfield County Council of Parent Teacher Associations substance abuse prevention forum Monday.

Im appalled and disgusted at the amount of people who are not here, said Debbie Rosenbaum, the mother of a son whos in long-term recovery. All of us are in denial, really. We dont want to think our kids are addicts ... and we cant afford to think that way anymore.

Rosenbaum is on the board of directors for the nonprofit McShin Foundation, which she became involved in when her son started his recovery.

Two other Chesterfield residents who attended the forum also said their only issue was the low turnout for the forum. Opioid addiction, they said, has become an issue they see more of in their daily work as special advocates for children in court.

In the first nine months of 2016, 822 overdose deaths occurred in Virginia, up from 811 in all of 2015. Officials expect the tally for overdose deaths for 2016 to surpass 1,000.

We dont even talk about overdoses anymore. We talk about deaths, Sheriff Karl Leonard said Monday.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed four bills into action this year to address the epidemic. As that legislation begins to take hold, Parker wanted to give the parents hints that their children may be becoming addicts.

As a teenager, Parker said, he hid his addiction by saying he spent his money on items that he actually used to buy drugs. He advised parents to watch what their kids spend their money on. Watch how much time they spend in their room, he added, and how their crowd of friends may change.

He and the other recovering addicts  in addition to other forum speakers  also stressed another important parental skill: listening.

If my parents were more my friend, I would be more open to talking and explaining to them, Parker said.

They kept saying I didnt have a problem, when I did really have a problem, one of the HARP participants added of his parents.

Audience members asked the recovering addicts how much drug access they had in recovery groups like Narcotics Anonymous, when they took accountability for their addiction rather than blaming their parents and how much trauma played into their addiction.

Almost all of them said their addiction stemmed from self-medicating some earlier trauma, what Leonard called a void.

Although they wished their parents had been more involved and listened, the HARP participants said hitting rock bottom helped them realize that they had to take responsibility for saving themselves. They also defended the recovery groups.

Its my choice to stay clean. If I see something going on, I go to the other side of the room, Parker said.

Other than the HARP participants and the county sheriff, parents also heard from representatives from the Virginia Attorney Generals Office, a senior clinician with Chesterfields juvenile drug court, and Chesterfields prevention services office.
"We have been working to better understand the facts of these situations and, importantly, both the intent and impact of these events on members of our community," the provost says.
Investigators are trying to determine the cause of a two-alarm fire that destroyed a vacant home on Richmond's North Side early Tuesday.

The two-story home in the 2000 block of Rose Avenue was engulfed in flames when crews arrived shortly after 2 a.m., said Lt. Chris Armstrong of the Richmond Fire Department.

The fire, which could be seen for miles, was so intense that a second alarm was called, he said.
A former Midlothian physician was arrested Tuesday and charged with murder in the suspicious, sudden disappearance of his live-in girlfriend more than 2 years ago, police said.

Dr. John E. Gibbs, 39, who police said now lives in Ashland, was arrested in Massanutten with assistance of police there and the U.S. Marshals Service Capital Area Regional Task Force, police said.

Chesterfield County police detectives presented facts in the case Monday to the Central Virginia Multi-Jurisdictional Grand Jury and obtained an indictment against Gibbs for first-degree murder. The case has been reclassified from a missing person case to a no-body homicide.

Gibbs is accused of killing Zulma L. Pabon, 26, who vanished under suspicious circumstances on June 6, 2014.

Chesterfield police Capt. Michael Louth said Pabons body has not been recovered and, as a result, her cause of death is unknown.

Weve been collaborating with the Commonwealths Attorneys Office and looking at the case  the totality of everything  and we believe we had enough (evidence) at this point to go before the grand jury, Louth said. I really cant get into the details of the evidence that brought us to where we are this second.

The detectives assigned to the case from the very start have worked very hard, Louth added, from interviewing people, putting together the facts of the case  and forensics always play a part in that as well. It really is the totality of what we have right now is what has brought us to this point.

Pabon was last seen leaving her job at Commonwealth Fertility and Womens Health at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center in the same complex where Gibbs formerly worked.

The licensed practical nurse was reported missing by co-workers the following Monday after she failed to show up. Pabon was living with Gibbs at the time of her disappearance in a condominium in the 5300 block of Terrace Arbor Circle near Commonwealth Centre Parkway.

Police said Gibbs has consistently declined to cooperate in their investigation of Pabons disappearance in the 2 years since she vanished, exercising his constitutional right not to speak.

He hasnt said anything to us, Louth said.

In November, Gibbs was convicted of felony child neglect in an incident in which the couples 5-year-old son was found wandering in a busy commercial area after being left unattended. Gibbs was required to wear an electronic monitoring device pending his scheduled sentencing on March 28.

Gibbs also was ordered not to have any contact with his son, who last September was staying with Gibbs sister. Pabons family was fighting for custody.

During Gibbs trial in September, it was disclosed that he was no longer practicing medicine. He had been a physician at Sheltering Arms Hospital in Midlothian until his arrest on the child neglect charges in late February 2016.

In the summer of 2014, in an effort to trigger leads, Chesterfield detectives released a series of surveillance photos and other pictures related to Pabons disappearance.

The images included a photo of Gibbs walking back to the couples condo at 6:39 a.m. on June 7, 2014, about 14 minutes after a vehicle believed to be Pabons can be seen in another surveillance photo leaving their condo. However, the cars occupants are not visible.

The Pabon case is the second no-body homicide Chesterfield authorities have pursued in less than two years.

In September 2015, Michael Anthony Edwards, 56, was indicted in the murder of his former girlfriend, Altria executive Leyla Namiranian, 41, who disappeared in April 2012.

Despite her body never being found, and no direct forensic evidence tying Edwards to Namiranians death, prosecutors succeeded in convincing a Chesterfield jury that there was enough evidence to convict him. Jurors returned a guilty verdict of second-degree murder in April 2016 and recommended a 30-year prison term. A judge later imposed that sentence. Edwards has appealed.

The prosecution presented the victims journal that included entries on Namiranians relationship with the defendant, along with a wealth of other circumstantial evidence that included analysis of Edwards cellphone records.

Louth declined to say whether the success Chesterfield police and prosecutors had with the Namiranian case had emboldened them to try again.

I do feel like its a very strong case, Louth said. Even putting the Namiranian case aside, I think (once) you sit in court and listen to the testimony on this case, I think this is a really good case when you get down to look at the facts and the circumstances.

Gibbs was being transported back to Chesterfield on Tuesday and was likely to appear before a county magistrate that evening. Louth said a pretrial hearing for Gibbs will be held today in Chesterfield Circuit Court.
The Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare looks troubled. With a key report predicting it will cut healthcare coverage for 24 million Americans, the plan drafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan and backed by President Donald Trump may not muster the votes to pass Congress. Its even possible Republicans could set aside plans to repeal Obamacare to focus on other priorities, such as tax reform.

But the GOP plan offers an important preview of changes in federal benefit programs that may be inevitable, and affect millions of Americans eventually. A key provision of the Ryan legislation, known as the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, involves cutbacks to Medicaid, which provides healthcare to the poor. The plan would cut $880 billion in Medicaid spending by 2026, forcing 14 million people out of the program, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The AHCA would also cut federal subsidies established under Obamacare, which help lower-income people pay for health insurance. That and a few other provisions would reduce the rolls of the insured by another 10 million. All told, the CBO predicts the number of uninsured Americans would rise to 52 million by 2026, which is slightly higher than the number before Congress passed Obamacare in 2010.

Those sharp cutbacks in coverage could be the Ryan bills undoing, since several Republican senators say they wont vote for legislation that reduces healthcare coverage in their states. That could bring the Senate tally well below the 50 votes needed for passage of the bill. But the time may not be far off when a more urgent budget crunch necessitates deep cutbacks somewhereand todays debate over healthcare reveals what the easiest targets are.

Where to cut spending?

The national debt is now $20 trillion, which is 105% of the nations GDP. Nobodys sure when, but at some point Washington will hit its borrowing limit and have to start cutting spending. Four big programsMedicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defenseaccount for about 60% of federal spending, so when its time for cutbacks, thats where the big money is.

Story continues

Of those four programs, Medicaid is probably most vulnerable, since the lower-income people it covers have less political power than seniors covered by Medicare or Social Security, or the muscular defense industry. So the Ryan plan is probably an apt preview of a more strenuous effort to cut Medicaid in the future. The first to feel the hit would be people trying to enroll in Medicaid for the first time, since part of the Ryan plan would limit new enrollees, while current enrollees age out of the program and join Medicare instead. There would also be caps on the amount of federal Medicaid payments to states, instead of the open-ended system in place now. That could force states to reduce what they cover under Medicaid and find other ways to shave costs for those who do have coverage.

A few states are already going further, which theyre permitted to do, since Medicaid is a hybrid state-federal program. Maine is considering a five-year lifetime limit on Medicaid enrollment for able-bodied people in its program, along with work and education requirements. A proposal in Kentucky would require Medicaid enrollees to work or demonstrate that theyre looking for work. At least 15 states require drug tests for various forms of public assistance, and Wisconsin wants to extend drug tests to people who receive food stamps, which would require federal approval. Seema Verma, Trumps appointee to run the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, favors such reforms and could ease rules on states to encourage more of them.

Reining in federal entitlements

Such tough-love provisions are generally considered the conservative approach, while liberals push for more generous aid to the needy. But the conservative view may become more mainstream, if budget pressures worsen, for one simple reason: middle-income taxpayers will bear the brunt of a budget crunch, with many supporting cutbacks that once seemed more affordable. Lower-income families pay modest taxes, and sometimes no taxes at all, while drawing benefits funded by those who pay more in taxes. Generous entitlements become less appealing when taxes have to go up to keep them in place.

Its not hard to envision other new rules on aid that conservatives have long pushed for, such as tougher limits on Social Security disability payments, a prohibition on the use of federal food aid to purchase junk food and soda, and drug-testing as a condition to receive many types of federal subsidies. Some of these probably seem sensible to ordinary voters. The United States has a huge problem with obesity and diabetes, for instance, which costs one part of the government billions in higher healthcare costs. Yet another part of the government essentially subsidizes, through food aid, the consumption of sugary, processed foods that contribute to those problems. The government is arguably driving up its ownthat is, taxpayerscosts.

Medicare and Social Security are considered untouchable, but they may not be in a crisis. Serious budget hawks have argued for years in favor of modest increases in the retirement age, limits on the benefits paid to wealthy retirees and other prudent measures to put these two programs on sounder financial footing. If Medicaid gets whacked, other huge programs may have to bear some cuts, as well.

Its notoriously difficult to take away a government benefit once its been granted, a political truism that has stood in the way of entitlement cutbacks for a long time. But someday the only choice will be tax hikes or spending cuts to get the federal budget under control, or some combination of both. The outline of the cuts is being drawn up now.

Read more:

Trump now owns Obamacare

Why Trumps tax cuts are looking iffy

Trumps absurd claim about the US labor force

Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com

Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman
In a bad sign for the prospects of a Republican bill to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st, announced late Monday that hes opposed to the plan.

Wittman issued a statement that said he still wants to repeal and replace Obamacare, but that the proposal on the table from congressional Republicans falls short.

After reviewing this legislation and receiving the Congressional Budget Office score today, it is clear that this bill is not consistent with the repeal and replace principles for which I stand, Wittman said in the statement.

I do not think this bill will do what is necessary for the short and long-term best interests of Virginians and, therefore, I must oppose it. I do believe that we can enact meaningful health care reforms that put the patient and health care provider back at the center of our health care system, but this bill is not the right answer.

While conservatives who are members of the congressional Freedom Caucus have announced opposition to the bill because it doesnt do enough to control costs, Wittmans opposition stems from the concern that it would increase the number of uninsured.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday predicted that 14 million Americans would lose health insurance by next year under the GOP plan.

Had Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., been elected vice president, Wittman was interested in running for the Senate seat this year. Kaine is seeking re-election in 2018, and Wittman is among names mentioned as possible GOP contenders. They also include U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-10th, who has not said how shed vote on the GOP Obamacare replacement.
After intricate explanations of mapping software and math formulas, perhaps the most striking piece of evidence shown in a Richmond courtroom Monday on the opening day of a trial over political gerrymandering in Virginia was a map showing what an expert called the toilet-bowl configuration.

As a judge considered a motion to throw out the lawsuit challenging 11 General Assembly districts as unconstitutionally drawn, Wyatt Durrette Jr., an attorney with the redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021, pulled up an image showing the jagged semicircle that is the 72nd House of Delegates District, which winds from west of the University of Richmond through Innsbrook to Glen Allen and North Side.

Durrette asked the judge to consider what that does to the people of western Henrico County and what state lawmakers were thinking when they approved the district lines.

They didnt really try to make this district compact, Durrette said of the district, whose seat is currently held by Del. Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico.

Citing in part the obvious visual component of the evidence, Richmond Circuit Judge W. Reilly Marchant rejected a motion to strike the case on the first day of a multiday bench trial, allowing the potentially far-reaching lawsuit to proceed after the attorney for the plaintiffs, a group of voters in the challenged districts, finished laying out their case after a full day in court.

On Tuesday, the legal team defending the maps will begin laying out its side, which is expected to include testimony from Del. S. Chris Jones, the Suffolk Republican who crafted the House redistricting plan.

The civil suit centers on the question of whether state lawmakers prioritized other discretionary factors over compactness, the standard of drawing districts based on logical geometric shapes rather than serpentine lines that cut across communities, when redrawing political maps in 2011 after the 2010 U.S. census.

The state Attorney Generals Office and a team of private lawyers representing the House and House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, have said lawmakers properly exercised their authority when weighing compactness against other redistricting factors.

Its not this courts responsibility to establish a standard for how compact is compact enough, said E. Mark Braden, an attorney with the BakerHostetler law firm representing the House.

The case, which is expected to ultimately reach the Supreme Court of Virginia, could reshape the statehouse, though its unclear how and when the districts would be changed if the courts find the lines violate the state Constitution.

Several attempts to create an independent, nonpartisan redistricting process, which supporters say would prevent lawmakers from drawing lines to protect incumbents or gain partisan advantage, have failed in the General Assembly.

A separate redistricting challenge alleging racial gerrymandering is pending in federal court after the U.S. Supreme Court this month ordered a lower court to rehear the case using a different legal standard.

In his opening argument Monday, Durrette, a former Republican delegate and the partys 1985 nominee for governor, said the redistricting suit, funded by OneVirginia2021, is probably the most significant case hes handled after practicing law since 1969.

Taking aim at a House map drawn by a Republican majority and a Senate map drawn by Democrats, he said, makes the case politically neutral.

Rather than treating compactness as a vague standard to adhere to as much or as little as it wants, Durrette said, the General Assembly has a constitutional duty to make districts as compact as possible.

It is supposed to be a restraint, Durrette said.

In arguing their case, the plaintiffs have highlighted degradation scores calculated by comparing the challenged districts to an alternate plan with more compact districts. Those percentages, the plaintiffs attorneys said, give the court an objective metric to weigh against lawmakers assurances that they gave compactness due consideration.

As its star witness, OneVirginia2021 called University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, who created the alternate map, to explain his methodology.

McDonald, who taught at George Mason University from 2002 to 2014, said he calculated average compactness scores from three widely used measurements, then compared the scores of the existing districts to his alternate districts.

In districts with a degradation score above 50 percent, McDonald said, a conclusion can be drawn that discretionary factors, whatever they may be, overrode compactness.

McDonald pointed out the toilet resemblance when discussing House District 72, which he gave a degradation score of roughly 70 percent.

The maps defenders sought to cast doubt on McDonalds methodology, portraying it as an incomplete and novel theory created solely for the OneVirginia2021 litigation despite there being no universally accepted bright-line test for compactness.

If they made a new test, that should tell you something, BakerHostetlers Richard B. Raile told the judge. It should tell you they cant win under the current test.

The defense also sought to cast doubt on the testimony of McDonald and former OneVirginia2021 attorney Nicholas Mueller, another witness for the plaintiffs who helped draw the alternate plan, by highlighting that they had no direct knowledge of the inner workings of the redistricting process and therefore couldnt presume to know to what degree compactness was considered. Mueller said he drew his conclusions from the maps themselves.
The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association has expressed concern about the American Health Care Act in letters it sent to Virginias representatives in Congress.

Proposed last week as a replacement to the Affordable Care Act, if approved, the American Health Care Act would most drastically change the Medicaid program and how tax subsidies are doled out to help people afford health insurance.

In the letters, VHHAs president and CEO, Sean T. Connaughton, applauded the fact that the proposed replacement does not change Medicaid to a block-granting system, but expressed concerns about the proposed per capita cap, which would lock Virginia in at what it paid per Medicaid enrollee in 2016. Virginia is ranked 47th in the nation for per capita Medicaid spending. And because the state did not expand Medicaid, it would be locked in at a much lower rate than other states.

Rather than rectifying the inequity brought about by the Supreme Courts decision on the ACAs original expansion provisions, the AHCA continues it by providing expansion states with enhanced funding through at least 2020 while non-expansion states would share amongst themselves only $2 billion annually over the next five years, Connaughton states in the letters.

If Virginia had expanded Medicaid under the ACA, it would have received about $3 billion annually, whereas under Congress proposed plan, Virginia would receive $87.7 million, he adds.

This inequity, with far-reaching ramifications for Virginias health systems and their patients, must be addressed before any final legislation is adopted, he states.

The VHHA also takes issue with the proposal for refundable tax credits for health insurance, which the replacement plan bases on age rather than on income, as is the case under the ACA.

Initial analysis suggests that this approach may make it even more difficult than it currently is under the ACA for low-income and elderly Virginians to afford health insurance in the individual marketplace, Connaughton states.

He continues by raising concerns over the time limitations on funding for state-run high-risk insurance pools, which would likely cover the sickest Virginians. Connaughton concludes the letter by stating that VHHA will continue to advocate for enhanced patient access to essential health services.
As a former police chief, Im grateful President Trumps budget proposal would increase law enforcement budgets but question the wisdom of closing the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). The COPS Office, a division of the Department of Justice, provides funding and resources to innovative programs across the country. Cutting funding in this area in order to protect police would be like trying to put out a wild fire with jet fuel.

The COPS Office has done some great work funding programs that save officer lives and protect our communities. It is essential these programs continue. In 2016, the Department of Justice gave $12 million to the COPS Office to advance community policing efforts and collaborative reform and another $119 million to specifically hire trained community-policing officers. Early research suggests communities whose police departments receive COPS Office funding see a decrease in crime and arrest rates, meaning some of the programs could be having a crime-deterring effect. Funding these programs is key to improving public safety, so closing the COPS Office must coincide with a new system for making sure these programs are funded.

At a time when tension between communities and police is palpable, we need to use every tool available to create better relationships with the people officers have sworn to protect and serve.

The COPS Office website catalogs extensive information on best practices for body cameras, which, when used with sufficient oversight, improve civilian and officer safety and reduce complaints from both parties.

The COPS Office also provides resources on how to implement procedural justice practices, a term that refers to civilians perception of fairness during interactions with police.

People are more likely to trust officers and the system if they perceive their experience was fair and reasonable, even if the outcome wasnt desirable.

This means a driver is still likely to have trust in the system even after being pulled over and written a speeding ticket if he believes the officer treated him fairly.

Research shows groups who distrust police are less likely to report crime, so if police care about solving crime, they have to take seemingly simple and low-profile interactions with civilians seriously and conscientiously. When officers are trained to deal with every civilian respectfully, the entire criminal justice system gains legitimacy and efficacy.

When police have enough funding, the right officers, the right training, and the resources to be effective, everybody wins. Officers and departments have what they need to do their jobs and civilians are kept safe.

Maintaining these programs is an effective way to achieve public safety goals. If the Trump administration plans to go through with closing the COPS Office, then there needs to be a replacement for ensuring vital community-policing programs are kept running and resources are kept available.
A noreaster will bring plenty of rain  and possibly a trace of sleet and snow  to the Richmond area before departing on Tuesday morning. Bitter, unseasonable cold will settle in for a few days after it departs.

Light snow and sleet accumulations will be possible on Tuesday morning just off to the north and northwest of the metro area. Louisa, Fluvanna, Buckingham and Spotsylvania counties are under a winter weather advisory for the possibility of 1- to 2-inch totals.

Heres a timeline of how the weather will change in the immediate Richmond metro area:

Overnight

Expect a nearly continuous rain between midnight and sunrise, with temperatures hovering in the mid-to-upper 30s in the metro area. Rain will occasionally mix with sleet just to the north and northwest of the metro area, with little to no accumulation. Rainfall totals will likely end up between 1 and 1.5 inches.

Winds will shift from the northeast to northwest late overnight as the center of low pressure slides northward along the Virginia coast, with some gusts up to 35 mph.

Closer to the low, areas along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay could experience strong gusts up to 40 and 50 mph.

Daybreak and morning commute

Steady precipitation will taper off in Richmond between 6 and 10 a.m. as the noreaster races up the Mid-Atlantic coastline. During this time, rain may briefly turn to snow or sleet. Because of the short duration, significant accumulations are unlikely.

A very light coating of wet snow and sleet cant be ruled out during the morning commute. This would be a better possibility for Hanover, Caroline and Goochland counties, but unlikely toward Chesterfield County and the Tri-Cities and points east.

A slushy, 1- to 2-inch coating of snow and sleet is possible in parts of Louisa, Fluvanna and Spotsylvania counties, mainly on the grass.

Otherwise, it will be cold and blustery for the morning commute, with temperatures in the mid-30s and northwest winds at 15 to 25 mph.

Tuesday

The day will turn partly cloudy with a slight chance for a passing flurry or snow shower, especially toward the afternoon. A quick dusting cant be ruled out, but no significant accumulations should occur. Afternoon temperatures will top out in the lower 40s, then drop below freezing during the mid-evening as a steady breeze continues from the northwest.

Wednesday

The day will start with a low in the lower 20s, probably staying above the record low of 17 degrees. Northwesterly winds will continue at 15 to 30 mph, with a morning wind chill in the lower teens. Skies will feature a mix of sun and clouds, and there will be a slight chance for another brief snow shower or flurry  but accumulations are unlikely. Afternoon temperatures only reach the mid- to upper 30s, potentially rivaling the coldest high on record for March 15.

For updates on the noreaster on Tuesday morning, check Richmond.com/weather.
According to the Dominion online outage center, more than 43,000 customers were without power earlier Tuesday.

An alert on Dominion's outage page said "due to high winds and heavy rains, widespread outages have affected Dominions service area.

"Our prepared crews are restoring power as quickly and safely as possible. If you see downed wires, please stay at least 30 away from it. Report all downed wires and power outages on Dom.com or call 1-866-DOM-HELP."
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
The cannabis industry could be in for a serious buzz kill.



Marijuana dispensaries and manufacturers are increasingly worried that the Trump administration will crack down on enforcement of federal laws that ban growing and selling marijuana  reversing the president's stance during his campaign and potentially upending what has become a $7 billion market. The anxiety was sparked by surprise comments from White House spokesman Sean Spicer last month that the government would likely step up its enforcement of drug laws.



Shortly afterward, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a conference of state attorneys general that he is "dubious" about the benefits of pot. He reiterated those concerns in an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt last week.



"Marijuana is against federal law, and that applies in states where they may have repealed their own anti-marijuana laws. So yes, we will enforce law in an appropriate way nationwide," Sessions said. "It's not possible for the federal government, of course, to take over everything the local police used to do in a state that's legalized it. And I'm not in favor of legalization of marijuana. I think it's a more dangerous drug than a lot of people realize."



The comments have set off alarm bells for Chuck Smith, co-founder of Dixie Brands, a Denver-based company that manufactures tinctures, topicals and treats infused with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. He founded the company in 2010 and now employs more than 100 people across Colorado, California, Nevada and Arizona, with plans to expand in Washington state and Maryland.



"My concern right now for both the company and industry is just uncertainty," Smith told CNBC. "It's hard to build an industry or a company when you don't have clarity."



The administration's remarks also took a toll on shares of Innovative Industrial Properties (IIPR), which invests in marijuana-growing facilities and is one of the few publicly traded cannabis companies. Its stock price tumbled on the day of Spicer's press conference and are down more than 13 percent since then. But two other prominent pot stocks, GW Pharmaceuticals (:GW2-FF) and Cara Therapeutics (CARA), have shrugged off the news.



Story continues

States march onward to more legalization

Eight states now allow recreational use of marijuana, while more than half of states have legalized it for medicinal purposes. Twenty-one states have decriminalized the drug. A recent poll Quinnipiac Poll found 71 percent of voters believe the government should not enforce federal drug laws in states where pot is legal.



Growing acceptance has led to an explosion in the market for marijuana in North America, with sales skyrocketing 34 percent to nearly $7 billion in 2016, according to Arcview Market Research. By 2021, the industry is expected to reach close to $22 billion.



Companies like Dixie Brands are fueling that growth. The privately held company would not provide current figures, but it raised $8 million in 2014 and was valued at $40 million.



Smith said he expects Dixie Brands to double its revenue and its workforce over the next year. It sells products under three brands: Dixie Elixirs spans beverages, breath mints and chocolates. Aceso manufactures product with hemp and cannabinoids for the international market, while Therabis is a line of cannabis-derived pet supplements.



"It's hard for us to kind of go backwards," Smith said. "President Trump said he was going to allow this to be a state's rights issue. ... We took him at his word."



Trump has delivered mixed messages on marijuana. In the 1990s, he called for legalizing and regulating all drugs. On the campaign trail, he emphasized his support for medical marijuana and his deference to states to pass their own laws regulations the substance. But Trump, a famous teetotaler, also warned during the election about the effects the drug could have on mental functioning.



The cannabis industry is fighting back by rallying a dozen lawmakers to send a letter to Sessions in support of legal marijuana. Under guidelines issued during the Obama administration, the agency agreed not to enforce federal laws in states where the drug is legal as long as they followed certain guidelines, such as not selling to minors and steering clear of drug cartels. The letter calls on Sessions to uphold that arrangement.



"It is essential that states that have implemented any type of practical, effective marijuana policy receive immediate assurance from the DOJ that it will respect the ability of states to enforce thoughtful, sensible drug policies in ways that do not threaten the public's health and safety," the letter states.



The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.



'A lot of cliches'

The issue has drawn rare bipartisan support, with signatories including Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. That could prove important as legislation that prevents the Justice Department from devoting funds to enforcement is set to expire next month. The so-called Rohrabacher-Farr amendment was passed as part of the broader resolution on the federal budget  and it could get tangled up once more in the upcoming fight over federal spending.



Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said the group has focused recently on emphasizing its role in creating new jobs and building domestic manufacturing facilities. An analysis by New Frontier Data, a market research firm specializing in cannabis, forecast the industry would create more than 250,000 jobs by 2020.



"We have had a lot of success in changing the story around what the marijuana industry looks like," West said. "There are a lot of stereotypes and a lot of cliches. It's really important for policymakers in D.C. to understand who this industry really is."

WATCH: Weed entrepreneur brings in over $1 million a year running 'bud and breakfast' hotels





More From CNBC


WASHINGTON  Undaunted by fellow Republicans defiance, GOP leaders and the White House redoubled their efforts Tuesday to muscle legislation overhauling Americas health care system through Congress following a sobering report about millions being shoved off insurance coverage.

President Donald Trump, whose strong Election Day showing in GOP regions makes him the partys ultimate Capitol Hill vote wrangler, discussed the legislation by phone with the Houses two top Republicans. He also dispatched Vice President Mike Pence and health secretary Tom Price to hear GOP senators concerns.

With leaders hoping to move the measure through the House next week so the Senate can debate it, changes in the measure seemed all but certain. Trumps spokesman acknowledged they were open to revisions to win support.

This has never been a take it or leave it, press secretary Sean Spicer said.

The GOP bill is the partys response to seven years of promising to repeal President Barack Obamas 2010 health care overhaul. It would undo that laws individual mandate, which requires most people to have coverage, by ending the tax penalty on those who dont.

It would also provide age-based tax credits instead of the subsidies geared to income in Obamas statute, end that laws expansion of Medicaid and curb its future spending, and let insurers boost rates for seniors.

On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office said the Republican legislation would reduce the ranks of the insured by 24 million in a decade, largely by cutting Medicaid recipients and people buying individual policies. That would be more than the 20 million who have gained coverage under Obamas overhaul  and attach a big number to a problem haunting GOP governors and members of Congress whose states have benefited from Obamacare.

I plan to vote NO on the GOP bill, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., tweeted Tuesday. As written the plan leaves too many from my #SoFla district uninsured.

The budget office report also said the measure would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the next decade, largely by cutting Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, and eliminating Obamas subsidies for low- and middle-income people. The report said that the bills changes would result in federal subsidies that would fall to half their current size in a decade and that older, lower-earning people would be hit especially hard.

Those findings further energized Democrats, who already were unanimously opposing the GOP repeal effort and showing no sign of relenting.

Of course you can have savings if you cut off millions of people from access to health care, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. She said the measures shift of billions of dollars from lower- to higher-earning families actually would effectively transfer money from GOP to Democratic regions, and, seemingly taunting Republicans, she added, Explain that to your constituents.

Pence and Price discussed the legislation over lunch with GOP senators at the Capitol. Participants said senators suggested targeting the bills new tax credits more at lower-earning people, improving benefits for seniors and protecting the expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program that helps lower-income people afford care.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., all but acknowledged the widespread assumption that the measure will be reshaped, saying, It will be open to amendment in the Senate. Emerging from the senators lunch  which included two House committee chairmen as well as Pence and Price  Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said, All four of them are open to suggestions and change.

Even so, criticism cascaded from both ends of the GOP political continuum, suggesting leaders face a festering problem.

Freshman Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y., from a closely divided district in the Catskill Mountains, said he was concerned the bill would hurt hospitals and was undecided about supporting it. Hes a member of the House Budget Committee, which is expected to sign off on the bill Thursday in what Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said could be a bumpier ride than last weeks approval by two other panels.

Citing the bills projected increase in uninsured people, Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., from another close district, said he opposed the bill. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., said he was leaning no because of people losing coverage, saying of CBOs projections, If the numbers are in the ballpark, it sounds like weve gone back to where we started after seven years.

Conservatives continued complaining the Republican measure doesnt fully repeal Obamas law, as they and Trump promised in last falls election campaigns. Their demands include voiding the laws requirement that policies cover 10 specified benefits like mental health services, which they say drives up consumers costs.

Ultimately it will be President Trump that saves this deal, said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., head of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus.

No. 3 Senate leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he was working on a proposal to devote more of the GOP tax cut to lower-earning people. It would currently begin phasing out for people earning $75,000 annually.

Itd be nice to add it to the House bill, but if necessary itd be in the Senate, Thune said.
RICHMOND  Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has joined attorneys general from 13 other states in filing a brief in support of Hawaiis bid to halt enforcement of President Donald Trumps revised travel ban.

The brief, filed in the District Court for Hawaii, backs Hawaiis bid for a temporary restraining order to block implementation of the revised order, which takes effect Thursday unless a court intervenes.

The revised ban suspends the admission of refugees to the U.S. for 120 days. It bars new visas for people from six predominantly Muslim countries  Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen.

The attorney generals brief argues that the revised order will harm state colleges and universities and their faculty and students, disrupt staffing and research at state medical institutions and harm states economies.

It also argues that the revised order will decrease the states ability to enforce state anti-discrimination laws.

Most fundamentally, the revised order prevents states from honoring the commitments to openness, tolerance and diversity that lie at the heart of our state constitutions and laws.

It seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to prevent what it terms irreparable harms.

Herring, a Democrat who is seeking re-election, has been combating the presidents travel orders since Trump issued the first order in January.

He said in a statement: Were going to continue to fight this ban alongside our fellow states because, even after all the concessions President Trump made from the first ban to the second, it still remains a harmful, deeply un-American, and unconstitutional attempt to enact the Muslim ban he promised as a candidate.

Herring filed suit Jan. 31 in an effort to block enforcement of the presidents initial travel ban. On Feb. 13, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria issued a preliminary injunction against the first order.

A federal judge in Seattle blocked the presidents initial travel ban and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate it.
RICHMOND  After intricate explanations of mapping software and math formulas, perhaps the most striking piece of evidence shown in a Richmond courtroom Monday on the opening day of a trial over political gerrymandering in Virginia was a map showing what an expert called the toilet-bowl configuration.

As a judge considered a motion to throw out the lawsuit challenging 11 General Assembly districts as unconstitutionally drawn, Wyatt Durrette, an attorney with redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021, pulled up an image showing the jagged semicircle that is the 72nd House of Delegates district, which winds from west of the University of Richmond through Innsbrook to Glen Allen and Northside.

Durrette asked the judge to consider what that does to the people of western Henrico County and what state lawmakers were thinking when they approved the district lines.

They didnt really try to make this district compact, Durrette said of the district currently held by Del. Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico.

Citing in part the visual component of the evidence, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Reilly Marchant rejected a motion to strike the case on the first day of a multiday bench trial, allowing the potentially far-reaching lawsuit to proceed after the attorney for the plaintiffs, a group of voters in the challenged districts, finished laying out their case after a full day in court.

On Tuesday, the legal team defending the maps will begin laying out their side, which is expected to include testimony from Del. Chris Jones, the Suffolk Republican who crafted the House redistricting plan.

The civil suit centers on the question of whether state lawmakers prioritized other discretionary factors over compactness, the standard of drawing districts based on logical geometric shapes, when redrawing political maps in 2011 after the 2010 U.S. census.

The state Attorney Generals Office and a team of private lawyers representing the House and House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, have said lawmakers properly exercised their authority when weighing compactness against other redistricting factors.

Its not this courts responsibility to establish a standard for how compact is compact enough, said Mark Braden, an attorney with the BakerHostetler law firm representing the House.

The case, which is expected to ultimately reach the Supreme Court of Virginia, could reshape the Statehouse, though its unclear how and when the districts would be changed if the courts find the lines violate the state Constitution.

Several attempts to create an independent, nonpartisan redistricting process, which supporters say would prevent lawmakers from drawing lines to protect incumbents or gain partisan advantage, have failed in the General Assembly.

A separate redistricting challenge alleging racial gerrymandering is pending in federal court after the U.S. Supreme Court this month ordered a lower court to rehear the case using a different legal standard.

In his opening argument Monday, Durrette, a former Republican delegate and the partys 1985 nominee for governor, said the redistricting suit, funded by OneVirginia2021, is probably the most significant case hes handled after practicing law since 1969. Taking aim at a House map drawn by a Republican majority and a Senate map drawn by Democrats, he said, makes the case politically neutral.

Rather than treating compactness as a vague standard to adhere to as much or as little as it wants, Durrette said, the General Assembly has a constitutional duty to make districts as compact as possible.

It is supposed to be a restraint, Durrette said.

In arguing their case, the plaintiffs have highlighted degradation scores calculated by comparing the challenged districts to an alternate plan with more compact districts. Those percentages, the plaintiffs attorneys said, give the court an objective metric to weigh against lawmakers assurances that they gave compactness due consideration.

As its star witness, OneVirginia2021 called University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, who created the alternate map, to explain his methodology. McDonald, who taught at George Mason University from 2002 to 2014, said he calculated average compactness scores from three widely used measurements, then compared the scores of the current districts to his alternate districts. In districts with a degradation score above 50 percent, McDonald said, a conclusion can be drawn that discretionary factors, whatever they may be, overrode compactness.

McDonald pointed out the toilet resemblance when discussing House District 72, which he gave a degradation score of roughly 70 percent.

The maps defenders sought to cast doubt on McDonalds methodology, portraying it as an incomplete and novel approach created solely for the OneVirginia2021 litigation despite there being no universally accepted bright-line test for compactness.

If they made a new test, that should tell you something, BakerHostetlers Richard Raile told the judge. It should tell you they cant win under the current test.

The defense also sought to cast doubt on the testimony of McDonald and former One-Virginia2021 attorney Nicholas Mueller, another witness for the plaintiffs who helped draw the alternate plan, by highlighting that they had no direct knowledge of the inner workings of the redistricting process and therefore couldnt presume to know to what degree compactness was considered. Mueller said he drew his conclusions from the maps themselves.

Barring complications because of weather, the trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning.
RICHMOND  The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association has expressed concern about the American Health Care Act in letters it sent to Virginias representatives in Congress.

Proposed last week as a replacement to the Affordable Care Act, if approved, the American Health Care Act would most drastically change the Medicaid program and how tax subsidies are doled out to help people afford health insurance.

In the letters, the associations president and CEO, Sean Connaughton, applauded the fact that the proposed replacement does not change Medicaid to a block-granting system, but expressed concerns about the proposed per capita cap, which would lock Virginia in at what it paid per Medicaid enrollee in 2016.

Virginia is ranked 47th in the nation for per capita Medicaid spending. And because the state did not expand Medicaid, it would be locked in at a much lower rate than other states.

Rather than rectifying the inequity brought about by the Supreme Courts decision on the ACAs original expansion provisions, the AHCA continues it by providing expansion states with enhanced funding through at least 2020 while non-expansion states would share amongst themselves only $2 billion annually over the next five years, Connaughton states in the letters.

If Virginia had expanded Medicaid under the ACA, it would have received about $3 billion annually, whereas under Congress proposed plan, Virginia would receive $87.7 million, he adds.

This inequity, with far-reaching ramifications for Virginias health systems and their patients, must be addressed before any final legislation is adopted, he states.

The VHHA also takes issue with the proposal for refundable tax credits for health insurance, which the replacement plan bases on age rather than on income, as is the case under the ACA.

Initial analysis suggests that this approach may make it even more difficult than it currently is under the ACA for low-income and elderly Virginians to afford health insurance in the individual marketplace, Connaughton states.

He continues by raising concerns over the time limitations on funding for state-run high-risk insurance pools, which would likely cover the sickest Virginians.

Connaughton concludes the letter by stating that VHHA will continue to advocate for enhanced patient access to essential health services.
Trump says Republicans are putting themselves in a 'very bad position' on Obamacare





President Donald Trump suggested again Monday that Republicans could hurt themselves politically by trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, saying the GOP may be better served letting it fail on its own.

Key House Republicans and the White House have pushed the American Health Care Act, a bill to replace the landmark Obama administration law, also known as Obamacare. Trump and key congressional Republicans have repeatedly promised to roll back the law and made it a priority at the start of the new administration.

The party faces a possible backlash as millions of people could lose health care under the plan. Trump on Monday echoed his earlier sentiment that letting the ACA fail on its own could prove more politically wise for Republicans.

"The Republicans, frankly, are putting themselves in a very bad position  I tell this to (Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price ) all the time  by repealing Obamacare," Trump said during a White House session with people he called "victims" of Obamacare. He argued that the system would eventually implode, and said letting it do so is "certainly an option" though not one he likes.

With his comment, the Republican Trump appeared to draw a distinction between himself and Republicans in Congress. Still, White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted Monday that Trump supports the House proposal.

"The president is fully committed to this plan," Spicer told reporters in his daily briefing. He added that the White House is willing to work with skeptical lawmakers to "enhance the bill."

The House proposal as it stands faces a tough road to passage. Democrats already oppose efforts to repeal the ACA. Some moderate Republicans senators have criticized the bill's provision that rolls back the ACA's Medicaid expansion, while conservatives have raised concerns that its tax credits too closely resemble the current system.

Adding another roadblock to Republican plans, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its analysis of the proposal on Monday. It could estimate that 15 million or more people will lose coverage under the GOP plan, according to the Brookings Institution.





More From CNBC


March 14 (Reuters) - The world should be far better prepared for the next Ebola outbreak, with further promising results on Tuesday showing the potential of a long-lasting vaccine against the deadly virus.

The two-part shot from Johnson & Johnson and Danish partner Bavarian Nordic induced a durable immune response lasting a full year in 100 percent of healthy volunteers vaccinated, researchers reported.

"The persistence of vaccine-induced immunity to one year post-immunisation is truly impressive," said researcher Matthew Snape of the University of Oxford.

"The fact that all participants retained Ebola-specific antibodies to the end of the study does raise hope that this vaccine could induce responses that last for several years."

The vaccine requires one dose to prime the immune system and a second shot to boost the body's response.

That is different from another Ebola vaccine from Merck , which was the first to prove effective in preventing human infection during a large trial in Guinea last year.

Scientists have been racing to develop vaccines for Ebola after more than 11,300 people died in West Africa's 2013-2016 epidemic. Recent progress means experts are now confident the world will not be defenceless when the next outbreak hits.

There is debate, however, as to the best vaccination strategy for different groups at risk.

While Merck's rVSV-EBOV shot could be deployed to provide "ring vaccination" of people in recent contact with new Ebola cases, a longer-lasting option might be a better bet for healthy support workers coming in to fight the crisis.

The "prime-boost" vaccine developed by J&J and Bavarian Nordic is currently being tested in large global trials that include more than 1,000 subjects in Africa.

Results from those studies are still awaited but the vaccine has already been submitted to the World Health Organization for Emergency Use Assessment and Listing, which could allow it to be deployed on an accelerated basis in the event another Ebola crisis.

Story continues

J&J said it had a stockpile of 1.8 million dosing regimens on standby in deep freeze, with the capacity to produce several million more if needed.

"We are so much more advanced now than two or three years ago," said Paul Stoffels, J&J's chief scientific officer. "We are ready to intervene if tomorrow there was a new emergency."

Keith Chappell from the University of Queensland said the data to date was encouraging, especially since the J&J vaccine was non-replicating and therefore potentially safer than the Merck shot.

The findings, based on a Phase I clinical trial involving 75 healthy subjects, were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler and Will Boggs; Editing by Mark Potter)
Going to graduate school requires people to bet on their own potential for professional growth -- and it's a move that can dramatically increase annual salaries.

The median annual earnings of a full-time worker with a professional degree is $49,500 higher than the median income of an individual who only has a bachelor's degree, according to a 2016 report by the College Board. In addition to financial benefits, a graduate degree can also lead to professional advancement or a career change.

Calculating the potential return on investment for graduate school is one necessary step in deciding whether to attend, and it can also clarify what type of degree would be most marketable. Prospective students can refer to the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools rankings, released today, for guidance on identifying the right program to accelerate their career.

The 2018 edition of the rankings evaluates graduate schools of business, law, medicine, nursing, engineering and education. These schools are rated based on a variety of factors, including acceptance rates, standardized test scores and grade-point averages of incoming students, and academic experts' opinions about program excellence.

For the business, law, medicine, education and engineering rankings, U.S. News also incorporated feedback from hiring managers who assessed how well those programs prepared students for the working world. Each discipline's ranking methodology varies to take into account program differences.

[Video: See three ways graduate school can pay off.]

Business: Harvard Business School tied for the No. 1 spot in the full-time MBA program rankings with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which moved up from No. 4 last year. This in turn bumped the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago down one spot to No. 3. Stanford University fell from a tie at No. 2 last year to a three-way tie at No. 4.

The Stern School of Business at New York University, whose rank was negatively affected last year due to omitted data on the U.S. News survey, jumped up eight spots this year, rising from No. 20 to a tie at No. 12. The Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University also rose in the rankings, soaring 18 spots from a tie at No. 83 to a tie at No. 65.

Story continues

Among part-time MBA programs, the Haas School of Business at the University of California--Berkeley once again claimed the No.1 title, followed by Chicago's Booth School of Business. The NYU Stern School of Business and the Anderson School of Management at the University of California--Los Angeles are tied at No. 3.

[See photos of the Best Business Schools.]

Law: The hierarchy of the top law schools shifted slightly this year. Yale Law School is No.1 again, and Stanford Law School is still No. 2, but Harvard Law School, which was previously tied for No. 2, dropped to the No. 3 spot.

Both Duke University and the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University cracked the top 10 this year, tying at No. 10. The University of California--Berkeley fell out of the top 10, landing at No. 12. Farther down the list, Washington and Lee University climbed 12 spots, rising from a tie at No. 40 to a tie at No. 28.

Among part-time law programs, the No. 1 school is Georgetown University, as it was last year, but George Washington University and Fordham University switched places this year, with the former taking second place and the latter taking third place.

[Explore photos of the 2018 Best Law Schools.]

Medicine: In the research-based medical school rankings, Harvard was once again No.1, followed by Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University. The University of California--San Francisco and the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, which both tied with Johns Hopkins for third place last year, are now ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.

In the rankings of primary care medicine programs, the top three schools remained the same, with the University of Washington at No.1, the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill at No. 2 and UC--San Francisco at No. 3. Duke University fell in the primary care rankings, dropping from No. 8 to a tie at No. 34, and so did Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, which went from No. 15 to No. 33.

Nursing: Among nursing master's programs, there were significant changes at the top of the rankings. Duke took the No. 1 spot this year, climbing three spots from last year, when it was tied at fourth place.

Johns Hopkins, which was No. 1 last year, is now in second place and the University of Pennsylvania, which was No. 2 last year, is now in third place.

In the rankings of Doctor of Nursing Practice programs, Duke claimed the No.1 title, swapping spots with the University of Washington, which is now in third place.

Engineering: The top four spots in the graduate engineering rankings were claimed by the same schools as last year with the Massachusetts Institute Technology at No.1, Stanford at No. 2, Berkeley at No. 3, and the California Institute of Technology at No. 4.

Education: Harvard took the No. 1 title from Stanford, which is now in second place among graduate education programs. The University of California--Los Angeles now ties for third place, eight spots higher than where it ranked last year.

Searching for a grad school? Access our complete rankings of Best Graduate Schools.

Related:

Watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android.



More From US News & World Report
Sorong (Indonesia) (AFP) - A British-owned cruise ship has smashed into pristine coral reefs, causing extensive damage in a remote corner of Indonesia known as one of the world's most biodiverse marine habitats, researchers and officials said Tuesday.

Raja Ampat in eastern Indonesia has long been a top attraction for intrepid travellers and avid divers, home to palm-fringed islands surrounded by an underwater kaleidoscope of coral and fish.

But the 4,200-ton Caledonian Sky slammed into the reefs at low tide around Kri, one of hundreds of small islands in Raja Ampat, earlier this month after taking the tourists aboard on a bird-watching expedition.

The boat, which was carrying 102 passengers and 79 crew, became grounded on the reefs and had to be refloated by a tug boat before continuing on its journey.

The accident has damaged an estimated 13,500 square metres (145,000 square feet) of coral reef which could cost up to $16.2 million to restore, according to Ricardo Tapilatu, a marine researcher from the University of Papua who headed a team assessing the impact.

There has been outrage in the local tourism industry which relies on Raja Ampat's natural wonders for its survival.

- 'Very big loss' -

"How can this happen? Was a 12-year-old at the wheel?" Stay Raja Ampat, a website that links tourists up with homestays, said on its Facebook page.

"Anchor damage from ships like these is bad enough, but actually grounding a ship on a reef takes it to a whole new level."

Head of Raja Ampat's tourism agency Yusdi Lamatenggo confirmed the accident, which took place on March 4.

Environmental group Conservation International said that the Bahamas-flagged ship had gone into an area that it should not have entered due to the unique coral reefs.

"This is a very, very big loss for us," Victor Nikijuluw, the marine programme director at Conservation International Indonesia, told AFP.

"Even when (the reefs) grow back, they will not be as pristine as they were before," he added.

Story continues

Local search and rescue agency officials said they were called to help when the ship ran aground and had intended to evacuate the passengers immediately.

"However when we reached the site and spoke with the captain of the ship as well as one passenger, they refused to be evacuated and asked instead for a tug boat," local agency chief Prasetyo Budiarto told a television station.

But the tug took numerous attempts to refloat the massive vessel, causing even more damage to the reef.

The ship's operator, Britain-based tour company Noble Caledonia, said in a statement they were working with the Indonesian government to reach an agreement in relation to any damage caused.

"The company is firmly committed to the protection of the environment and as such deeply regrets any damage caused to the reef," it said.

The Indonesian government said it was assessing the impact and would seek compensation from the operator.

The remote archipelago of Raja Ampat -- which means Four Kingdoms in Indonesian -- lies between the Pacific and Indian oceans. A 2002 report from Conservation International said it was home to nearly 1,400 varieties of fish and 603 species of coral.

Related Video:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.
Rachel Broughton

AN EXPERIENCED lawyer from Rotherham is returning to her home town to inspire and offer to mentor the next generation of would-be lawyers.

Former Wickersley School student Rachel Broughton is Social Mobility Ambassador for the Law Society and is keen to help young people from less privileged backgrounds who are interested in a career in law.

Rachel, who grew up in Wickersley, is a partner at Averta Employment Lawyers in Birmingham.

She said: I came from a close-knit mining community in South Yorkshire.

I had an extremely happy childhood and benefited from excellent education at Wickersley School.

However, as a child from a working-class background what I lacked most was self-confidence and mentoring from within the profession.

The Law Societys Solicitors for Social Mobility campaign aims to highlight how the solicitors profession is made up of talented individuals from all backgrounds.

It aims to promote role models from non- traditional backgrounds who have achieved their ambitions and are willing to support young people coming through.

Rachel added: I want to connect with pupils in my old school and offer my services to other schools and colleges in the area to encourage young people from less privileged backgrounds to achieve their potential and understand that the legal profession welcomes talent, tenacity and a strong work ethic.

Anyone interested in a career in the law can get in touch with Rachel or other Ambassadors through the Law Society, by sending an email to: ask.an.ambassador@lawsociety.org.uk.
De Beers said macro-economic conditions underpinning consumer demand for diamonds remain broadly stable in aggregate, with the U.S expected to continue to be the main driver of global growth in 2017.

Group chief executive Bruce Cleaver said in a statement in Anglo Americans annual report for 2016 that the extent of global growth will, however, be dependent upon a number of macro-economic factors, including the new administration in the US, the strength of the US dollar impacting consumer demand, economic performance in China, the effects of Indian demonetisation, and sentiment following the main US and Chinese New Year retail season.

With midstream stocks having returned to more typical levels in 2016, rough diamond demand is expected to normalise in 2017, reflecting underlying consumer and retail demand, he said. While producers continue destocking, forecast diamond production (by De Beers) for 2017 is expected to be in the range of 31-33 million carats, subject to trading conditions.

Cleaver said producers destocked during 2016, as sentiment in the midstream improved and rough and polished inventories normalised, supported by a series of initiatives put in place by De Beers, starting in the second half of 2015.

These, he said, included lowering rough prices, providing flexibility to Sightholders for their purchase arrangements and increased marketing activity to drive consumer demand.

De Beers rough diamond production decreased by 5 percent to 27.3 million carats in 2016 compared with 28.7 million carats a year earlier, reflecting the decision, taken in 2015, to reduce production in response to prevailing trading conditions.

However, its total revenue increased by 30 percent to $6.1 billion from $4.7 billion in 2015, driven by higher rough diamond sales, which increased by 37 percent to $5.6 billion.

This, said Cleaver, was attributable to a 50 percent increase in consolidated sales volumes to 30.0 million carats from 2015s 19.9 million carats, partly offset by a 10 percent decrease in the average realised rough diamond price to $187/carat from $207/carat, a year earlier.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




The Namibian Government is said to have earned R4 billion ($305 million) from De Beers last year in corporate tax, royalties and dividends.

De Beers and the government of Namibia jointly own Namdeb Holdings, which has operations along the south-west coast of the country as well as land-based operations at Oranjemund and satellite mines near Luderitz and along the Orange River.

The Southern Times reports that Windhoek raked in R2.2 billion in corporate tax, R1.1 billion in royalties and R700 million in dividends from the diamond giant.

Namibia was also expected to get up to R6 billion when factoring in R2 billion from a state-owned company Namib Desert Diamonds (Namdia).

Namdia was formed after De Beers agreed last May to let Namibia sell diamonds obtained from Namdeb worth around R2 billion per annum.

Production at Namdeb Holdings decreased by 11 percent to 1.6 million carats from 1.8 million carats, a year earlier, with reduced output at Debmarine Namibia as a result of the Mafuta vessel undergoing extended planned in-port maintenance and lower grades at Namdebs land operations.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council of India (GJEPC) will host the International Diamond Conference on 19th & 20th of March 2017. The conference is being held with an objective of bringing together the leading Miners, Diamantaires, Retailers, Bankers and Analysts from across the globe on a platform to discuss the supply and demand issues faced by the Global Diamond Industry.

The two-day conference will witness Ministers from mining countries, delegates from Mining Companies, heads of Retail and Luxury brands, Int. Diamond heads of various banks and other prominent personalities of the Diamond industry. Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Honble Minister of State for Commerce and Industry (Independent Charge) and Shri. Piyush Goyal, Honble Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines, will be the chief guests and keynote speakers at the event.

Commenting on this event, Praveenshankar Pandya, Chairman, GJEPC, said, India is the largest cut and polished diamond manufacturer in the world. 93 % of its production is exported. As a major player in the world market, I believe it is our responsibility and take pride in organising this event wherein we bring together all the stakeholders from the world diamond industry on a single platform to discuss various challenges faced by the industry and come out with future road map

The conference will be a comprehensive one, covering all aspects of the diamond pipeline including mining, midstream, marketing & retail, international finance, valuation with KP and Diamond certification.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Winnipeg geologists discovered the very first micro-diamonds in the Manitoba province in Canada. The discovery was made by an informal consortium of Manitoba and Alberta prospectors in the northeastern part of the province.

According to Ruth Bezys, president of the Prospectors and Developers Association based in Winnipeg, the discovery was made by the Lynx Consortium group in bedrock in the northeastern part of the province near Knee Lake and measure less than a millimeter in size. At this time, she is unable to say exactly how much was found, but possibly a handful of diamonds, and maybe more. For 16 years, prospectors and geologists have been actively seeking diamonds in the Manitoba region, as diamonds have been mined in its neighboring territories: northern Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. Some major players have conducted exploratory mining in the region including Kennecott in 2001 and De Beers a few years later.

It is too soon to announce whether there is in fact a mine to discover. However, should further prospecting suggest there is mine potential, the next phase will require a significant investment of possibly millions of dollars for deeper exploration. Through the work of Manitoba Geological Survey geologists and their industry partners, Lynx Consortium diamonds have been discovered in northeast Manitoba for the first time in the provinces history. This preliminary prospecting does not assure mining development, but rather confirms the potential for a certain mineral exists in the geological area, Minister Cliff Cullen said in a news release.




First Element has informed about the holding of the Jagersfontein and Rooipoort Developments Tender.

The tender is running from Monday the 13th of March 2017 to Friday the 17th of March 2017 and will close at 12:00 on Friday the 17th, with results being announced shortly afterwards.

The tender takes place at the Antwerp Diamond Tender Facility at the AWDC building.

Bookings can be made immediately by confirming the following: dates required, number and names of persons attending.

First Element, a fully independent diamond services company, is one of the premier diamond valuing, marketing, cleaning and tendering companies in the industry.



Alex Shishlo, Editor of the Rough&Polished European Bureau in Brussels




The Supervisory Board of ALROSA elected Sergey Ivanov as the companys president at a meeting held on March 13, 2017.Sergey Ivanov was born in Moscow on October 23, 1980. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2001, majoring in Economics and in 2002 in Finance and Credit.He held various positions in the State Investment Company and Gazprom in 2002-2005. In 2005-2011, Sergey Ivanov served as Vice President, First Vice President and then Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprombank. He chaired the Board of SOGAZ in 2011-2016. From April 2016 until he was approved as President of ALROSA, Sergey Ivanov worked as Senior Vice President and Welfare Management Head at Sberbank.Sergey Ivanov is currently seated on the boards of directors at Rosneftegaz, NPF Gazfond, Sberbank Asset Management, NPF Sberbank, Sberbank Insurance and Sberbank Life Insurance.He has been honored with letters of merit from the President of the Russian Federation and the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and has departmental awards. Sergey Ivanov is fluent in English and German.
File Photo: A view of the BHP Billiton's Escondida, the world's biggest copper mine, in northern Chile, in Antofagasta, Chile March 31, 2008. Picture taken March 31, 2008. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado/File Photo

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - The union on strike at BHP Billiton's (BHP.AX)(BLT.L) Escondida copper mine in Chile again rejected an invitation by the company to return to negotiations as worker demands were not adequately addressed, leaving the parties without an obvious path forward.

In a statement late Monday, the 2,500-member Escondida union, which has been on strike since Feb. 9, said BHP did not sufficiently address workers' demands in its latest invitation sent to the union earlier on Monday.

The union demands include that BHP agrees not to trim benefits in the existing contract, that shift patterns should not be made more taxing for workers, and new workers be offered the same benefits as those already employed at the mine.

"After revising its content, the union members have decided that unfortunately this response presents a series of inconsistencies and falsehoods," the statement said.

"The union will maintain the strike for an indefinite amount of time," it added.

It was the third failed attempt to restart dialogue during the strike, which has pushed global copper prices (CMCU3) higher due to supply concerns.

On Friday, BHP, which could not be immediately reached for comment, invited the union to return to negotiations. The union rejected that invitation, saying it did not respect workers' core non-negotiable demands.

Escondida, majority owned by BHP, produced slightly more than one million tonnes of copper in 2016, making it the world's largest copper mine.

Rio Tinto (RIO.AX)(RIO.L) and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi hold minority interests in the mine.

(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing and additional reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (CRL) has agreed to pay the U.S. government $1.8 million to settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act by improperly charging for labor and other associated costs that were not actually provided on certain National Institutes of Health contracts, the U.S. Justice Department announced. Charles River is a for-profit corporation headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

Charles River holds contracts with National Institutes of Health (NIH) for services relating to the development, maintenance, and distribution of colonies of animals as well as the provision of laboratory animals to the NIH. Charles River billed to NIH labor and associated costs of employees at its Raleigh, North Carolina and Kingston, New York facilities despite the fact these individuals did not render the services as Charles River had claimed. Charles River disclosed the improper billing to the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (ADRND.PK,AHODF.PK) announced its Belgian subsidiaries have reached agreements to divest five stores and one project in Belgium. The divestments are made to comply with the conditions the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) attached to its approval of the merger of Ahold and Delhaize Group in 2016.

Lidl Belgium has agreed to buy three Albert Heijn stores and one project. Tanger has agreed to buy one Albert Heijn store and one Proxy Delhaize store.

The agreements are subject to customary closing conditions. Upon fulfillment of these conditions, the stores are expected to be transferred within the next three months. The current labor and working conditions of the associates will be respected in accordance with Belgian labor laws and regulations.

The BCA approved the merger of Ahold and Delhaize Group on March 15, 2016, conditional upon the divestment of eight Albert Heijn stores, five Delhaize affiliated stores and a limited number of projects in Belgium to address competition concerns raised by the regulator.

Ahold Delhaize continues to work to complete the divestment process for the other stores that need to be divested in close cooperation with the BCA and potential buyers. Until all divestment requirements are met, Albert Heijn and Delhaize stores in Belgium will continue to operate under mandatory separation.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Bank of England Deputy Governor Charlotte Hogg offered her resignation after lawmakers sharply criticized her for not disclosing about her brother's job in Barclays Plc.

The Treasury Select Committee remarked in a report, published Tuesday, that Hogg's "professional competence falls short of the very high standards required to fulfill the additional responsibilities of Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking".

Hogg voluntarily offered her resignation on Monday, admitting the mistake in declaring the conflict of interest.

She acknowledged in a letter on March 3 that she formally disclosed her brother's position as Director, Group Strategy at Barclays for the first time only in a response to a questionnaire from the lawmakers for appointment scrutiny.

"I have made no secret of my brother's job - indeed it was I who informed the Treasury Select Committee of it, before my hearing," she said in her resignation letter addressed to BoE Governor Mark Carney and Anthony Habgood, the chair of the bank's governing court.

"I have not shared confidential information or misused it in any way."

"I do not have any financial relationship with my brother and I am utterly committed to the safeguarding of confidential information and the separation of a home and work life," she wrote.

Hogg became the first chief operating officer of the BoE in 2013 and took charge as Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking on March 1.

Governor Carney expressed deep regret that Hogg has chosen to resign from the bank.

"The Bank of England today is stronger, more diverse, secure and effective in large part because of Charlotte Hogg," Carney said in a response letter to Hogg's resignation.

"We will do everything we can to honor her work for the people of the United Kingdom by building on her contributions."

Hogg, a member of one of Britain's influential political families, would have been in charge of the central bank's asset purchases in her role as the deputy governor. Her resignation comes at a crucial juncture as the country's prepares to trigger its exit from the European Union at the end of March.

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.
Saudi conducts 47 airstrikes, killing 4 civilians in 24 hours

br>



By Najat Noor



SANA'A, March 14 (Saba)  US-Saudi aggression warplanes launched 47 air strikes over the past 24 hours, killing at least four Yemeni civilians, including a woman, officials told Saba on Tuesday.



The air strikes targeted citizens, their farms, public and private properties in the provinces of Sanaa, Sa'ada, Lahj, Taiz, Dhalee, Mareb and Najran.



In Sanaa, the three civilians, including a woman, martyred and two others wounded after Saudi air strike targeted their car in Mahali area in Nehm directorate, and two other raids hit south of Beni Zatr area in the district.



In the capital Sanaa, two air raids hit guards school.



In Sa'ada, the Saudi aggression launched five air raids on al-Saifi camp, and more three air raids on Takheh area and two strikes on Maran mountain in Haydan district, including an airstrike on a villager's farm in Al Maghram of Bakim district.



In Lahj, six air strikes hit Kahbob directorate.



In Hajja, two civilians martyred when the Saudi warplanes dropped two cluster bombs on a farm in Al Jar area in Abs district.



Also in Hajja, the aggression launched six air raids on Haradh and Medi district, as well as the aggression fighter jets hit their friends of Saudi paid mercenaries north of Medi desert, killing and wounding scores.



In Taiz, US Saudi warplanes launched two raids on Khaled camp in Moza'

a district and three more raids on Barah area in Makbana district and one more strike on Yakhtil in Mokha.



In Dhalee, a citizen was injured by Saudi paid mercenaries' fire in Katabah district.



In Mareb, the enemy warplanes waged three air strikes on Hilan mountain and Al Zayedi area in Serwah district, and further air attacks on other lands in the same district.



In Najran, the aggression fighter jets hit al Shabaka site three times.







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[14/March/2017]
donald trump election night

The surprising result of the US 2016 election awoke many Americans to a fact they'd rather not acknowledge: The US is under attack from foreign nations armed with weaponized information.

Indeed, the US's top spy agencies all credit Russia with hacking the Democratic National Convention's email servers, and subsequently leaking information that helped to sway the election.

But from the Russian point of view, the US cast the first stone, and Russia's attempts to influence the US and other countries amounts to little more than an active defense.

According to Dr. Ken Geers of cybersecurity firm Comodo, Russia has long been a powerhouse of information warfare, and it's "something we havent gotten our heads around" in the West.

US spy agencies since World War II "knew all about the Russia problem," said Geers, who has worked with NATO and the NSA, told Business Insider. Russians are good at math, operational security, and have a long history of perceived threats to their regime, according to Geers.

"Even in the Tsarist period, Russia had a robust secret police and counterintelligence apparatus, so the Soviets in 1913 already had a lot to work with," said Geers.

Today, this 100-year-old history of information security and warfare translates into a laser like focus in the cyber arena. US cyber warriors focus on vulnerabilities, plugins and holes in networks that can be exploited.

But in Russia, cyber vulnerability is seen as merely a "means to an end," according to Geers.

In the space between cyber security, favored by the West, and information security, favored by the East, Russia and China have left the US behind. No matter how secure US networks become, there will always be some leakage, and Russia and China have proven incredibly capable with deploying information seized in leaks, and controlling the broader information climate.

Even objectively true facts can be massaged and misrepresented in Russia's state-run information space, as they were when Russian troops poured into Crimea in 2014.

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nsa phone spying

Since the Russian and Chinese governments are "more Orwellian than ours," Gears said, it gives them strict control over their media and the access their citizens have to the internet. This allows them to "massage the information space more," according to Geers.

"It comes up in cyber diplomacy today in international discussions between the East and West," said Geers, where US cyber operators talk about securing networks and Eastern operators talk about securing information, and that often means censorship or even aggressive disinformation campaigns.

"If you look at 2016 election, Russia had real impact," said Geers. "It makes you reconsider that the Russians may have been much more correct about the topic over time ... it really is about information security. A flash browser plugin exploit is a means to an end. What you do with that can be small or large."

With its hacking of a major political party in the US, brutal air campaign that savagely slaughtered civilians in Syria by the tens of thousands, and annexation of a strategic peninsula in Europe under the nose of NATO, Russia has proven it has the correct conception of information warfare, and big plans in the battle space.

How Russia sees itself as a victim of US informational warfare

putin church cathedral orthodox religion russia

Russian lawmakers recently tried to ban the US film "Beauty and the Beast" from the country because it features a homosexual character.

Russian news outlet Ria Novosti reported that State Duma deputy Vitaly Milon wrote a letter to culture minister Vladimir Medinsky urging that action be taken as the movie is a "blatant, shameless propaganda of sin and perverted sexual relationships," according to Time.

But the film "Beauty and the Beast" wasn't crafted by the US government as a piece of pro-LGBTQ propaganda.

It's just a Disney movie.

Geers said to look to France for examples of how the US's massive footprint in the information space makes waves that can irk even its closest allies.

"For years France has been quite annoyed with the US and also like other countries, fascinated," said Geers. "Think about from a French perspective," McDonalds, Apple, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Google  all English words, all US companies, and all threaten France's cultural identity, according to Geers.

While McDonalds and Coca Cola promote themselves as good products and businesses, their purpose does not match a company like RT, a Russian state-run broadcasting agency purpose-built to counter Western media.

US brands promote capitalism and prosperity, which reflects well on the US. But the autocrats of Russia and China have long known their oppressive societies cannot survive direct comparison with the West, and so even McDonalds becomes a grave threat to regime preservation.

coca cola coke africa kenya

Even if the US started funding films and propaganda networks, free speech in the West means that this information would have to go toe-to-toe with more accurate, balanced, verifiable information in the media. Americans and Europeans can disagree with their governments and back whatever products, philosophies, or lifestyles they enjoy.

In this way, Russia's weaponized information has made a meal of the US's open, non-militarized information space, but Geers has a message for those who fear the sun is setting on the West: "Relax."

"You cannot equate the opinion of NATO to the opinion of the Kremlin," said Geers. "NATO is 28 functioning democracies. If you look at the map you see Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Albania  they all joined NATO. Why? Because its the future. Its providing a secure space in which you can build culture and economy."

With just 145 million living in Russia, less than half the population of the US, Geers said the information war is "mathematical in nature." Countries on Russia's border who have seen the freedoms enjoyed by the West, like some current NATO states and Georgia, have all made "incredible efforts to prepare their country" for ascension into NATO, said Geers.

When a country wants to join NATO, "you start buying the right weapons and using the right uniforms and calling and enforcing democracy and civil rights," said Geers.

Performing tactical movements latvia nato close air support

The slide towards the US's sphere of influence among some of Russia's neighbors has been nothing short of terrifying for Russia's autocrats, who don't hold power temporarily or democratically. Additionally, the US's second-to-none military and long streak of interventionism horrifies the Kremlin.

Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst based in Moscow, told Vice News in 2016 that Russia's paranoia grows each time the US removes a murderous dictator from power.

"They killed Saddam. They killed Qaddafi. Now they want to kill Assad," Felgenhauer said. "And Putin believes he may be next in line."

Perhaps the last straw for Putin's Russia was the 2014 Euromaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine. NATO had been openly improving ties with Ukraine, a buffer state that would put NATO on Russia's doorstep should Kiev join the alliance.

A recent NATO research paper cites multiple Russian military officials and publications saying that the Kremlin saw many of the color revolutions and Arab Spring uprisings of the early 2010s as being engineered by the West to undermine stable governments.

Euromaidan_Kiev_2014 02 18_15_8.JPG

With color revolutions sweeping MENA and Europe, the Kremlin's paranoia took a turn for the worse, and they assumed that Moscow must be next should they fail to act.

"From Moscow's perspective, you see the whole revolution move Eastwards towards you," said Geers. There were protests in Moscow against Russia's autocracy "but you dont see anything about that," due to Russia's command of media and information. Putin critic Boris Nemtsov was killed on the Kremlin's steps, part of a larger intimidation campaign by Russia, according to Geers.

Still, Russia's iron grip on information could be its undoing. Because Russia's internet has few points of access and few servers, a US cyber attack could cripple the whole country in moments.

The very nature of the internet is pro-Western. The information revolution brought about by an open internet has spread like wildfire across the world in a way that uniformly undermines dictators. So while Russia may be winning the information warfare right now through very active measures, it's an uphill battle, and time isn't on their side.

"Putin will also find, speaking even more broadly, the internet is on the side of the West. It looks more like democracy than it does autocracy. We have all kinds of vulnerabilities in the West  thats true, but its also part of the point that tells me the West we can relax, and not overreact ... You can use those tools for surveillance, but ultimately theyre going to come get you. The pitchforks will come for you," said Geers.

NOW WATCH: A Navy SEAL explains what to do if you're attacked by a dog





More From Business Insider


Iraqi government forces recaptured the eastern side of Mosul, ISIS' last urban stronghold in Iraq and the country's second-biggest city, in late January, and since February 19, the fight against ISIS there has ground on anew in western Mosul.

A US-led coalition of dozens of countries has aided Iraqi forces on the ground and in the air. In a February 26 strike  footage of which can be seen below, provided by the US Defense Department  coalition aircraft destroyed a roadblock set up by the terrorist group near Mosul.

In total, coalition forces carried out 10 strikes in Iraq on February 26, amounting to 80 engagements. Near Mosul, five strikes targeted fighting positions, weapons, vehicles, tactical units, ISIS-held buildings, two roadblocks, three vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and two VBIED factories.

On the ground, elite Iraqi units have advanced deep into western Mosul, while army units and pro-government paramilitaries  many of them Iranian-backed Shiite fighters, whose presence has added to concerns about potential sectarian tensions  have engaged ISIS west of the city.

Those units notched a victory on Saturday, when the 9th Armored Division cut the final road leading out of Mosul.

"Any of the fighters who are left in Mosul, they're going to die there, because they're trapped," Brett McGurk, US envoy to the international anti-ISIS coalition, told journalists in Baghdad.

A sniper from Iraq's Federal Police force takes aim at Islamic State positions from the roof of a house on the frontline in Albu Saif, south of Mosul. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

On Sunday, Staff Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi of Iraq's elite Counter Terrorism Service said on Sunday that "more than a third" of western Mosul had been taken by government forces after a renewed push in the second week of March had pushed ISIS fighters from several neighborhoods and important sites in the city.

The push into the city has taken Iraqi forces into the close confines of the historic city, exchanging fire with ISIS militants from sometimes just a few meters distance. Iraqi troops are on guard not only for ISIS fighters lurking around them, but also for sleeper cells and civilians sympathetic to the terror group's cause.

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"The fighting is at much closer quarters. It was street-by-street  now it's house-by-house," Iraqi commando Alaa Shaker, 32, a member of the Counter Terrorism Service, told Reuters. "We are often literally in the same house, on the roof, and Daesh (Islamic State) is downstairs. Sometimes we drop grenades. If there are civilians, families in the homes, we shout to them to take cover inside a room."

A girl stands in front of a hole used by Islamic state's fighters to move from house to house as a battle continues in western Mosul, Iraq March 10, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

"The battle is not easy... we are fighting an irregular enemy who hides among the citizens and uses tactics of booby-trapping, explosions and suicide bombers, and the operation is taking place with precision to preserve the lives of the citizens," Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operations Command, told AFP.

But, he said, ISIS's resistance "has begun to weaken in a big way."

There were thought to be about 750,000 civilians still in western Mosul when the offensive against ISIS there started in late February.

Tens of thousands of them have fled, but many more remain there and are dying in the onslaught.

While ISIS has deliberately targeted civilians in their homes and as they flee, evidence suggests that loosened rules of engagements have led to a significant number of civilian deaths from coalition bombs and bullets.

"They dropped leaflets over the city telling us not to worry about the strikes, saying that they were extremely precise and would not hurt the civilians," Abdulsalam Ahmed, 47, whose brother and his family were killed by an airstrike in early March, told The Telegraph.

"Now it feels like the coalition is killing more people than Isil," he said, using another acronym for ISIS.

NOW WATCH: Footage reveals ISIS' secret underground tunnels near Mosul





More From Business Insider


By SA Commercial Prop News

Shoppers waiting outside Maponya Mall in Soweto, where an attempted armed robbery took place inside Pick n Pay on 17 December 2014. Picture: Masego Rahlaga/EWN.



A recent spate of shopping centre heists in South Africa ahead of the festive season has prompted fears that organised criminals are turning their attention to these soft targets.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) have confirmed that there was an attempted robbery on Wednesday at the Pick n Pay in Maponya Mall in Soweto.



Seven robbers entered the back of the store but were soon engaged by mall security and fled the scene before they could get away with any items.

No injuries were reported and Police are now on the hunt for armed men.

With cellphone shops, electronics stores and jewellery stores being targeted, the latest mall robbery in Khayelitsha Mall brings the total up to 20 armed robberies in the last 2 months in Cape Town alone.



While in Gauteng, scores of violent robberies at malls were recorded in the last 3 months.

Khayelitsha Community Trust CEO Mkhululi Gaula confirmed that Khayelitsha Mall in Western Cape had also been the target of criminals.



He said they had taken some measures to ensure the safety of businesses and customers in the area.



"Prior to the improvement of security at the mall, it was open and there were many getaway exits for criminals," he said.



"We used to have armed robberies at the mall once a week.



"We then appointed a security company to install gates to address the openness and getaway exits by criminals."



Canal Walk Mall's CEO, Gavin Wood, said their management had recently met police and community safety MEC Dan Plato in a bid to ensure safe shopping in the area.



He said a full risk assessment of the shopping centre had been conducted.



"We have increased our security personnel and have also deployed more undercover guards," he added.



Wood said they were introducing further technology which enhanced their existing CCTV and other security infrastructure.



The mall will be conducting random security searches at various entrances.



In addition, Wood said, perimeter fencing and improved access control would be installed before the festive season.



Police spokesman Andre Traut said a suspect had recently been arrested in connection with a robbery which took place at Canal Walk Mall.



The police were investigating whether a syndicate was responsible for the spate of robberies at malls and small complexes, he said.
By SA Commercial Prop News

The Umzimkhulu CBD is set for a major facelift as result of a R125 million development financed by Nedbank Corporate Property Finance for the construction of a retail centre that is set to be a hub for much needed economic activity in the area. Image gallery



The Umzimkhulu CBD in KwaZulu-Natal is set for a major facelift as result of a R125 million development financed by Nedbank Corporate Property Finance for the construction of a retail centre that is set to be a hub for much needed economic activity in the area.

More than just creating economic revival, the issue of unemployment will be addressed as 200 people will be employed during construction while the Mall will create 600 permanent jobs for members of the community.

Umzimkhulu CBD is situated in the prominent south-east corner of the R56, a provincial route linking Pietermaritzburg to the N2 leading to the Eastern Cape. It is the main commercial hub for the Umzimkhulu area and attracts many people from small surrounding towns as well a transit shoppers between KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Nedbank Corporate Property Finance is pleased to participate in the exciting economic revival taking place in the Umzimkhulu CBD. The new mall is well-located in the heart of Umzimkhulu and offers easy and convenient accessibility off the R56 and Main Street, says Anand Joseph, Regional Executive of Nedbank Corporate Property Finance, KwaZulu Natal.

The site will also be supported by an onsite taxi rank which will enhance the appeal of the centre by being accessible to taxi commuters, while the existing main road network is being upgraded by the Council to facilitate vehicle access to the Mall. These improvements will enhance flow to the shops, making it convenient for consumers using public transport.

The Mall is anchored by large supermarket, Shoprite. Clothing retailers are represented by Mr. Price, Jet, Edgars Active, Exact, Markhams, Total Sports, Ideals, Ackermans, Pep, Power Fashion, Sheet Street, Franco Ceccato Fashion World to name but a few. OK Furnishers, Ellerines, Joshua Doore and Price n Pride will offer a wide range of furniture. Five fast food franchises will cater a variety of foodstuff, while smaller shops will offer everything from Medical, Dental and Opticians services to internet, cellphone repairs and photographic shops.

Nedbank and African Bank are opening branches in Phase 1.

Phase 1 is over 90 % let and a second phase of between 5000 to 7000 m2 is expected to follow shortly to accommodate the shops and banks that were too late to secure space in Phase 1, says Mike Graham of Graham Projects.

Negotiations are underway with several Government Departments who wish to consolidate Government services on one site as envisaged by the Governments Thusong Centre concept. The Department of Home Affairs is already on site operating from 500 m2 of mobile offices until their new permanent offices become available, he adds.

This is the fourth shopping centre that Nedbank Corporate Property Finance has financed for Graham Projects since 2003 when their association began with the development of the Esikhawini Mall near Richards Bay.

Our longstanding relationship with Nedbank has positioned us to be in the forefront of developments in previously underserviced areas, thereby allowing us to play a role in the revitalisation of economic activity in the local economy, says Graham.

Last year, President Jacob Zuma, in his state of the nation address, mentioned Umzimkhulu as a town in dire need of services and infrastructure. Since then National Government has been working closely with the Municipality to provide finance and support for programmes to uplift the town.

Nedbank Corporate Property Finance is proud to be part of the transformation that is taking place in Umzimkhulu. We are cognisant of the fact that creating a prosperous economy cannot be the sole responsibility of our local or national governments, but the responsibility of every stakeholder in our country, concludes Joseph.

The development is being undertaken by Thina Bantu Trading (Pty) Ltd, and project managed by Graham Projects. Construction of the first phase of 17000 m2 of GLA commenced in May 2012 with completion set for April 2013.
Actress Priyanka Chopra took the spirit of Holi to New York in "desi" style when she had an impromptu live celebration with TV host Jimmy Fallon on his popular chat show.

The actress lived up the fervour of the festival of colours, which was celebrated in India on March 13, with Fallon when she became a part of his show "The Jimmy Fallon Show".



Priyanka, who appeared on the show for the third time, said playing Holi with Fallon was fun and made her a "little less homesick".



She tweeted: "This was so fun Jimmy Fallon my favourite part besides your shocked face after I got you with a big blob of face paint was The Roots playing 'Rang barse'."



The "Quantico" star added: "And a happy Holi to you too Jimmy Fallon...I am a little less homesick now! I got you good... again!"

Fallon also took to Instagram to share the image with colours splattered over his face, with the caption: "Happy Holi".



The actress then celebrated the festival with her friends and family in her New York apartment. She tweeted: "Happy Holi with the family and team. The white in my house is all colourful now! Nyc Holi homesick".



Priyanka will make her Hollywood debut with "Baywatch" this year.


Bollywood actor-producer Aamir Khan, who turned 52 on Tuesday, says he is looking forward to work with megastar Amitabh Bachchan in "Thugs of Hindostan" this year.

He also spoke on nepotism and on freedom of expression, on the sidelines of a cake-cutting ceremony for his special day, with the media.



Dressed in a crisp white shirt and flaunting a bearded and bespectacled look, Aamir spoke like an excited child about how his mother has prepared his favourite 'seekh kebab' for his birthday. So, he is hoping for some quality time with the family.



Talking about his film projects, he said: "At this time, I am looking forward to work with Amitabh Bachchan for my next film. This is going to be a very special experience for me."



There have been rumours that Aamir will feature as astronaut Rakesh Sharma in a soon-to-be-made biopic.



But the actor said: "Currently, I am only working on 'Thugs of Hindostan' and shooting will start from July. I did not sign any other film."

Asked to comment on the current hot favourite subject of nepotism in Bollywood, Aamir said: "I keep emotion out of workplace. But yes, I always try to help my loved ones and people I care for."



The actor, who once courted controversy for his comment on intolerance in India, also spoke on freedom of expression in India.



"I have always been conscious about expressing my opinion. And I will always be. But that does not mean I will not talk about issues. I will just be conscious," said the "Dangal" star, who has been in the industry for close to three decades.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday assumed charge as Defence Minister, a day after he was given additional responsibility of the ministry.

This comes after Manohar Parrikar resigned on Monday as Defence Minister to head a new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa.



On the advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee directed Jaitley to be assigned the charge of the Defence Ministry in addition to his existing portfolios.

Jaitley was earlier handling Defence from May 26, 2014 - when the Modi government was sworn in - till November 9, 2014, when the portfolio was handed over to Parrikar.


Ive managed to find what I believe is the only explicit show of support for the American Health Care Act outside of House Speaker Paul Ryans office. Joseph Swedish, the CEO of health insurance giant Anthem, threw his support behind the bid to repeal and replace Obamacare in a letter to Congress, saying it addresses the challenges immediately facing the individual market and will ensure more affordable health plan choices for consumers in the short term.

As the Republican plan promises generally stingier support for health insurance, with higher premium costs, co-pays and deductibles on the individual market, I dont understand Swedishs claim. Even in the short term, the proposal eliminates the individual mandate penalty, enabling healthy consumers to avoid getting insured unless they get sick. That could worsen the current problem for insurers: a sicker covered population than expected. Indeed, even Americas Health Insurance Plans, the main lobbying group for big insurers like Anthem, expressed concern over numerous pieces of the GOP bill, including the inadequate tax credits to purchase insurance and the vanishing mandate penalty.

Related: Why the Republican Health Care Plan Is Destined to Fail

So why does Anthem see success in repeal and replace where so many see failure? Why is the CEO more excited about this plan than many Republicans are? It may have something to do with the fact that Anthem wants to buy fellow giant Cigna for $54 billion. And in the Trump era, Anthem, like many other corporations seeking mergers and acquisitions, has decided that the path to success in building monopoly power goes directly through the White House.

Thats a very disturbing prospect, because merger reviews operate out of nominally independent federal agencies, at both the Federal Trade Commission and (in the case of the insurance industry) the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Yet corporate wooing of Trump to grease the wheels for merger approval creates a serious conflict of interest hanging over one of the greatest challenges facing the U.S. economy.

Story continues

A federal judge blocked the Anthem/Cigna merger in February; Anthem decided to appeal (Cigna is grudgingly going along with the challenge). In its arguments ahead of the March 24 appeal, Anthem said in open court that it believed the Trump administration would be more favorable to the merger than Justice Department officials under President Obama. And just a couple weeks after that comment, Anthems CEO stakes out a lonely position in favor of what to this point is Trumps signature legislative initiative.

Related: Republican Health Plan  Good for the Budget, Bad for the Poor and Elderly

If anything, Anthems strategy is less overt than those of its corporate counterparts. CEOs of companies awaiting completion of merger reviews have formally met with Trump. AT&T chief Randall Stephenson sat down with the president-elect in January; the two sides claimed the telecoms pending $85.4 billion merger with Time Warner didnt come up. Even if true, ex parte communications between the president and CEOs awaiting merger approval are highly unusual.

The heads of Bayer and Monsanto, meanwhile, did discuss their $66 billion proposed merger with Trump at a January meeting. In fact, Trump appeared to dictate terms, announcing a pledge that the new company would spend $8 billion on research and development and add jobs. This completely disregards due process, sells out family farmers and weakens competition in the seed and pesticide markets, in exchange for vows that were apparently already made well before the Trump meeting, and a vague reference to jobs, when the merger itself is designed to create corporate synergies that will downsize workers, as is typical for corporate consolidations.

Trump also met with SoftBanks Masayoshi Son, securing another dubious pledge of $50 billion in U.S. investment. But the meeting appeared to give SoftBank the greenlight to pursue a merger between its subsidiary Sprint and T-Mobile, which SoftBank has considered previously. Talks between SoftBank and Trumps team have continued since that initial meeting in December. Last week, reports indicated that Son was betting big on Trump, and that Sprint could join with either T-Mobile or Comcast.

Related: OMB Director Mulvaney Blowing Smoke on Health Laws Impact

It was strong antitrust enforcement from the Obama administration that blocked T-Mobile from a series of proposed mergers, leading to competition that has proved beneficial for consumers. We wouldnt see every major wireless carrier offer unlimited data plans without T-Mobile making the first foray.

But Trump hasnt filled any of the vacancies in antitrust positions at the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission, much like the other open posts across the federal government. This centralizes power inside the White House in unusual and disturbing ways. We have a legal process for determining whether markets have grown unfairly concentrated, based on enforcing century-old laws that promote competition. That doesnt include sucking up to the president and hoping that influences whatever monopolization corporations want.

The Justice Department has of course maintained that it wont be swayed by political considerations in merger review. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions was one of Trumps closest confidants on the campaign trail, and his independence has already been questioned. Moreover, if Trump is cutting deals with the likes of Bayer and SoftBank, the Justice Department will be under enormous pressure to not inhibit them by blocking those plans.

Related: GOPs Repeal of Obamacare Taxes Could Put Medicare Closer to Insolvency

The end result here is a de facto private government, with corporations able to appeal to one man who thinks running the country equals having CEOs visit the White House every other day to chat. Communications channels to Trump come overwhelmingly from a small subset of the country, one that has its own agenda in mind: more consolidation, more accumulation of power and more use of that power to maximize and hoard profits while destroying competitors. We know that concentrated markets, which have worsened over the past three decades, equal higher consumer prices, fragile supply chains, greater inequality and a kind of sickness in the economy  a lack of dynamism that harms all of us. While its bad for the country, its good for those at the top. And they have a straight channel to the president to get things done.

The Republican health care proposal is so battered that Anthem might not get its wish of a reworked insurance market. But it will have shown a president who values loyalty highly that it was willing to give support when few others would. And that could mean getting its prized merger. These days, success in business merely means pleasing a small man who lives on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Three people were killed when an oil tanker exploded in Meghalaya's Ri-Bhoi district on Tuesday, police said.

"The driver of the oil tanker, bound for Manipur from Guwahati, reportedly lost control resulting in the vehicle to overturn," a police official told media.



The tanker exploded due to oil leakage.



The victims are yet to be identified, the official added.
The Philippines Senate on Tuesday ratified the Paris global climate agreement, making the Southeast Asian nation an official signatory to the historic pact.

With a vote of 22-0, the Senate unanimously voted in favour of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the world's first comprehensive climate agreement that commits the government to move away from fossil fuels, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Wherefore, be it resolved, that the Philippines Senate concur, as it hereby concurs, in the Philippines accession to the Paris Agreement," said Senator Loren Legarda.



Legarda said the Senate's concurrence "will send a strong signal of our continuing commitment to work with the rest of the world in ensuring the survival of this generation and the generation to come and ability of the Earth to sustain life."



"Even as we complete the process, we are already moving forward in our efforts to combat climate change impacts," she added.





On February 28, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte signed the climate pact.



After Duterte affixed his signature, the "Instrument of Accession" was submitted to the Senate for concurrence.



The "Instrument of Accession" is a document signifying the Philippines' ratification of the climate change pact. Senate concurrence is the final step in the ratification process.



The pact is the first ever legally binding global agreement signed by 194 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in December.



The Philippines has promised to cut carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, even if the country is not a major emitter.



Duterte, who took office in June last year, was reluctant to sign the Paris pact, saying the agreement is tilted in favour of the industrialised nations.



The pact was signed during the administration of former President Benigno Aquino.
3 things to think about for Kansas mens basketballs opener

The No. 5 Jayhawks are opening their season Monday. Its the start of their run to try to defend their national championship this past season.
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's mining output is under threat because banks are delaying processing foreign payments by up to three months due to a shortage of dollars, the southern African country's mining chamber warned on Monday. Mining generates more than half of Zimbabwe's foreign exchange and should be given priority by the central bank when making offshore payments, Chamber of Mines economist Pardon Chitsuro told a parliamentary committee. Zimbabwe introduced a so-called bond note currency, which is denominated in U.S. dollars, in November in a bid to ease cash shortages, but long queues continue outside banks while U.S. dollars are slowly disappearing from circulation. Some businesses, especially those importing goods, are offering discounts on cash purchases in U.S. dollars, while charging more for mobile or card transactions. Mining companies need to import machinery and inputs such as explosives and chemicals. Importers say they are struggling to pay for goods abroad because accounts held by local banks overseas have been depleted of foreign currency. "We have been facing a foreign payments gridlock with delays of up to 12 weeks impacting negatively on production," Chitsuro said. The world's two largest platinum producers Anglo American Platinum and Impala Platinum have operations in Zimbabwe, alongside local firms Bindura Nickel and Hwange Colliery Company. Bankers Association of Zimbabwe president Charity Jinya acknowledged the delays, which she blamed on a lack of dollars and depleted offshore accounts of local banks. Last month, the central bank said Zimbabwean banks only had enough cash in offshore accounts to finance about two weeks' worth of imports. Zimbabwe needs an average $430 million a month to pay for imports, according to central bank figures for 2016. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Carlsbad start-up Amionx said Tuesday that it has launched new technology aimed at making lithium ion batteries safer by shutting down faulty cells before they catch fire.

The start-up calls its patented technology Safe Core. It recently spun out of American Lithium Energy, a long-time supplier of rugged, next generation batteries to the military.

Amionx hopes to license the technology for use in rechargeable lithium ion batteries, which power billions of electronic gadgets ranging from cellphones to laptops to electric cars.

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The company said Safe Core acts like a fuse that kills battery cells when they get too hot or exceed current/voltage thresholds. That typically occurs from physical damage, internal shorts, overcharging or exposure to high temperatures.

Our proprietary Safe Core technology is a transformative technology in an industry where, over the past 20 years, there have been only incremental advances, said Jiang Fan, chief technology officer of Amionx and co-founder of American Lithium Energy.

The technology itself was developed through U.S. Army funded programs to create batteries that wont explode even when hit by gunfire from high-powered military rifles.

Though relatively infrequent, lithium battery fires have made headlines recently. On Friday, a house fire in Harrisburg, Penn., killed a 3-year-old girl, and officials linked the cause to a hover board that exploded into flames while recharging.

The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission has warned consumers to stop using hover boards made by certain manufacturers because of the fire risk.

Last summer, Samsung recalled more than 3 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after reports that some phones were overheating and catching fire. U.S. airlines banned passengers from bringing Galaxy Note 7s on-board. The South Korean electronics giant estimates the recall will cost it at least $5.3 billion.

According to Amionx, current battery safety techniques take a layered outside-in approach to prevent overheating, including hardened shells with fire retardant chemicals inside.

Amionx applies safety technology at the core, power cell level of the battery.

It diminishes the chance of thermal runaway by shutting down the cell at the basic cell level before it can reach a critical temperature, said Jenna King, chief executive of Amionx.

Amionx currently has fewer than 50 employees. Company executives declined to say how much money it has raised to spin off from American Lithium Energy  founded in 2006 by Fan and Robert Spotnitz.

Retired Qualcomm President Steve Altman is an investor in Amionx. I was immediately impressed by the elegant simplicity of the Safe Core technology from Amionx, said Altman in a statement. The market for Safe Core includes every product application that uses lithium ion batteries and other chemistries as well.

American Lithium Energy continues to design and manufacture batteries for the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and national research labs.

Business

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973
National City enacted an emergency moratorium this month to prevent new massage parlors from opening in the city.

Assistant City Attorney Nicole Pedone said the 45-day suspension gives the city time to update the laws that regulate massage parlors so they comply with state rules.

The National City Police Department found evidence of prostitution at three businesses during recent raids. And at least six massage parlors were operating without proper permits or business licenses, according to a staff report.

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City codes for massage parlors fall under police regulated businesses with the focus of protecting citizen public heath, safety and welfare.

Pedone said the state has flip-flopped between giving and taking away local regulatory control of massage parlors since 2009, when it enacted the Massage Therapy Act, which governs the massage industry.

Amendments were made in 2014, 2016 and as recently as January.

Some of the changes include:

Who receives a license to practice massage

Requirements regarding criminal background checks

Whether its defined as an adult-oriented or adult entertainment business

Bianca Morales-Egan, who works with Project Concern International, said many illegal massage parlors are fronts for human trafficking.

She said having appropriate ordinances in place is crucial in reducing the number of victims who are out there.

Marisa Ugarte, of the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, that in the past two years, her organization has taken in five Chinese victims into its shelter.

We need to come together to consider all the ways of addressing the different parts of this dragon, she told National City council members.

Both women addressed the City Council on March 7, the day the moratorium was enacted.

The emergency measure followed the Feb. 21 raids, conducted after lengthy investigations into prostitution and sex trafficking.

Part of the investigation involved Backpage.com, which advertises prostitution at specific businesses and addresses.

National City police Cpl. Colleen Stanich said that arrests for prostitution were made at three of the four massage businesses that were raided, and code, building and fire violations were also found. They include:

 Adele SPA at 916 E. Eighth St.

 Golden Massage & Spa at 2240 E. Plaza Blvd.

 Mayfower Massage at 1615 E. Plaza Blvd.

All three businesses are now closed.

Seven women were arrested and one was rescued as a sex trafficking victim.

The female victim, who is in her 40s, told authorities shed been brought to the U.S. from China to work off a debt.

The other six women, ranging in age from 30 to 50, also are from China but here legally on work visas, Stanich said. They were cited for misdemeanor prostitution or conspiracy, then released.

Undercover cops had been setting up stings at National City massage parlors for the past two years, arresting workers for prostitution, according to law enforcement agencies.

The owners would just get another girl. It wasnt doing any good, Stanich said.

Stanich, who worked on human trafficking cases for nine years, said National City began seeing a jump in requests for business licenses for massage parlors in the past few years.

She said the uptick followed a major crackdown at similar businesses in Los Angeles, where National City saw a jump in requests for business licenses from some of the same owners who left LA.
Chula Vista recently launched a promotional campaign to change some peoples minds about the countys second-largest city.

THIS is Chula encourages people to take another look at what Chula Vista offers and to correct any misperceptions, said Mayor Mary Casillas Salas.

Research showed that people with a negative perception of the city had never been there.

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We know that when people learn about Chula Vista, their perception will change, the mayor said.

Earlier this year the City Council approved $100,000 for the campaign, which was launched in February and runs through June 30.

The capital, bold, underlined THIS, is very specific ... its a statement, said Gabriela Dow, director of community relations with NV5, a technical and engineering consulting firm.

Not what you may have thought, but THIS.

Dow, along with the citys spokeswoman Anne Steinberger, gave a presentation on the campaign to business leaders, local elected officials and members of the community earlier this month.

There are many people that have not been to Chula Vista  or people who are new to San Diego and dont even know that Chula Vista is its own city, Dow said.

In 2014 the city hired a consultant from Luth Research to conduct a survey to see how citizens living outside Chula Vista but within the county, felt about the city.

The survey was taken by more than 400 respondents age 18 and older in North County, East County and the city of San Diego.

The results revealed that 35 percent had a positive perception of the city, 35 percent also had a negative perception and about 30 percent didnt have an opinion either way.

Steinberger said the citys campaign picks up where the survey left off and was meant to help develop marketing and communications messages.

NV5s research found that people formed negative opinions about the city without actually visiting it.

We want people to feel almost remiss for not knowing how wonderful Chula Vista is, Dow said.

NV5 staff met with community members, had focus groups and received input from the citys department managers.

What really came through during the focus groups was incredible pride from the city and what we decided  was that there is nothing to apologize for here in Chula Vista, Dow said. If there are misperceptions, thats what they are.

The firms research also found that people from Chula Vista, call the city Chula.

The word Chula means beautiful in Spanish.

Signature ads include young adults or millenials, on a sailboat on the citys bayfront.

Dow said the younger generation represents a lot of the new workforce that is coming to the San Diego region.

Other billboards showcase the citys growing craft beer movement, the newly renamed Mattress Firm Amphitheater where concerts are held, and SeaWorld Aquatica, the citys waterpark.

Billboards will rotate in high traffic areas throughout San Diego County. They are currently at:

State Route 163 and Balboa Avenue

Miramar Road and Cabot Street

El Cajon Boulevard and Boulevard Place

The city is inviting the public to get involved in the campaign by writing #THISischula and sharing a photo of them enjoying some aspect of the city.

For more information visit: explorechulavista.com.
The words that rang out over a brooding blues-guitar riff at the Horton Grand Theatre on Sunday told a story of both struggle and resilience: She aint seen peace for a while, but you can still see the sun in her smile.

Those lyrics were from Justines Peace, a spoken soul piece by Kendrick Dial that was among 11 creative works unveiled at a free public showcase for Intrepid Theatres new program Exiled Voices: The Refugee Art Experience.

Struggle and resilience were common components in the real-life stories of the 13 students whose experiences were interpreted into art for the program, a partnership between Intrepid and SAY San Diego Crawford Community Connection.

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The Crawford High students are all refugees; many of them had spent most of their lives in refugee camps before coming to San Diego, and some have been here only a matter of months.

Intrepid recruited a dozen creative mentors  musicians, playwrights, choreographers and more  to learn about those students lives through weeks of get-togethers and group exercises, and then come up with works that translated their young subjects experiences into art.

Justines Peace was inspired by Justine Ushindi, a 14-year-old student from the war-ravaged Congo. Kathryn Clowards country-inflected My Name is Divine (Jina Langu ni Divine) told of Divine Ngabire, an 18-year-old from Mozambique who has taken on the roles of translator and mentor for newer arrivals.

The artists brought a wide variety of stylistic approaches to the project: Paul Eddys song Something New was a beautifully spare and lyrical ode to the experiences of Tamman Abo Nabout, a 14-year-old from Syria; while Gill Sotus Black Boy Joy, which he performed with three band mates, was a rousing, clap-along anthem that connected the irrepressible spirit of Espoir Makula, a 16-year-old from the Congo, with that of Sotus own young son.

Asmas Story, a dance piece by John Malashock and Lara Segura, was a graceful swirl of music and costumes and gestures of uplift, capturing the journey of Asma Farah, an 18-year-old from Somalia.

Exiled Voices will continue its own journey; this first showcase will soon head out on a Southern California school tour. (Intrepid also continues to raise funds for the project.)

Sundays event, meanwhile, was a reminder that the students life stories (and struggles) can defy tidy endings.

Choreographer Michael Mizeranys dynamic dance piece Unshakeable, inspired by 15-year-old Tanzanian refugee Machumbe Esube, depicted a figure surmounting challenges thrown in his path by two aggressive antagonists.

Yet even as he stood tall atop a pair of large blocks that had once been obstacles, and the lights began to fade, the others continued to shake the foundations beneath his feet.

The message seemed clear: Success is in reach for these young refugees  especially if they dont have to stand alone.

San Diego Theater  On Now Video: Bruce Springsteen's solo trip to Broadway On Now Video: Inside the rehearsal room of SDMT's Damn Yankees! 2:22 On Now Video: La Jolla Playhouse-bred shows earn key Tony nominations 3:05 On Now Video: Broadway moment has arrived for La Jolla Playhouse's 'Come From Away 0:33 On Now Video: Lamb's Players Presents "An American Christmas" 2016 1:21 On Now Old Globe's 'Grinch' ready to rumble again 0:52 On Now Little Miss Sunshine at La Jolla Playhouse On Now Working the Magic On Now San Diego Repertory Theatre presents "Federal Jazz Project" On Now An American Christmas

Twitter: @jimhebert

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com
The Russian president Tuesday paid homage to the late Uzbek leader at his tomb in the historic city of Samarkand.

Vladimir Putin spoke of a sense of personal loss following the death of President Islam Karimov who had ruled the doublylandlocked, Central Asian country with an iron fist since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov and I developed very a close and personal relationship of trust, especially in recent years, Putin said at a meeting with Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

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He added that it was for this reason that the death of 78yearold Karimov on Sept. 2 was a great loss and a very difficult time for him.

Karimov had achieved a lot for his country during his tenure, even during the most difficult of times, Putin said.

The Russian president thanked Mirziyoyev for the chance to visit Samarkand as he had been unable to attend the funeral of the former leader on Sunday due to his attendance at the G20 Summit in China.

The current Uzbek PM, in office since 2003, is widely tipped by international political analysts to replace Karimov.

The prime minister vowed to maintain the strategic relations with Russia that, according to him, Karimov had always promoted.

He thanked Putin for his visit, adding that it showed the support of a true friend, at a time when our republic is going through difficult times and we mourn the death of our first president, Islam Karimov.

Karimov, who died on Thursday at the age of 78 after reportedly suffering a stroke, was buried according to Islamic tradition.

The funeral was attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.
Oscar Wilde, the Irish writer and poet famous for his wit, once said, Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. For true brilliance early in the morning, Mr. Wilde never needed to look any further than his plate, for a full Irish breakfast is a glory to behold. It isnt just the fried eggs and potatoes and wide array of sizzling pork products that make a classic Irish breakfast so enticing, its the homemade bread and scones, baked fresh every morning, that make it special.

The two most famous Irish loaves  brown bread and soda bread  are uncomplicated, free-formed quick breads leavened with baking soda. Bicarbonate of soda was introduced to Ireland around 1840, and it quickly became popular, as bread leavened with baking soda was easier and faster to make than yeast leavened bread. Many Irish kitchens of the era had open hearths rather than ovens, and soda bread was simple to stir together and bake in a covered Dutch oven or on a griddle over a turf fire.

Irish Soda Bread With Golden Raisins and Currants, created by Jill OConnor. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T)

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Brown bread and soda bread are made with minimal fuss and just a few basic ingredients  white and/or whole-wheat flour, salt, baking soda and sour milk (or buttermilk, in a modern kitchen.) The acid in the buttermilk activates the baking soda and helps the bread rise. With their crisp, crunchy crust and dense, moist crumb, both types of bread became a staple, best eaten the day they are baked, and delicious spread with plenty of good, salted Irish butter.

Irish brown bread, made with stone-ground whole-wheat flour, is rustic and healthy. Its beautiful, crisp crust is made extra crunchy by starting the loaf at a very high temperature for the first few minutes of baking. My recipe harks back to the oldest, most frugal recipes made without eggs or butter  a basic combination of whole-wheat flour, baking soda, salt and just enough buttermilk to form a soft dough. I stray just a little from this basic recipe with the addition of a little oatmeal and a dash of dark brown sugar for a complex and pleasing flavor and texture.

Brown Bread is delicious served warm with jam or marmalade, but thin buttered slices are also a classic accompaniment to Irish smoked salmon or fresh oysters served with a wedge of lemon.

Irish soda bread is brown breads richer, more refined cousin; its made with soft white flour and is sometimes sweetened with a little sugar and enriched with butter and egg. You can flavor it with caraway seeds and grated orange zest or speckle the dough with raisins and currants.

When making quick breads like brown bread, soda bread and scones, the most important rule is to use a light hand, as over-mixing or kneading will make them tough. I like to make a well in the dry ingredients to hold the buttermilk and use a fork to gently pull the dry and wet ingredients together just until a tender, shaggy dough forms. Quickly dump the dough on a lightly floured surface and use your hands to gently fold the dough over itself once or twice as you pat it into round loaf. Use a thin, sharp knife to slice a cross on the top of the bread. This helps the dough expand as it bakes, or as Darina Allen, owner of Irelands famous Ballymaloe Cookery School says to let the fairies out.

OConnor is a San Diego-based food writer and author of six cookbooks. Her seventh cookbook, Cake, I Love You, will be released in April.

Classic Irish Brown Bread. prepared by Jill OConnor. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T)

Classic Irish Brown Bread

1 cup quick-cook (1-minute) oats (not instant)

2 cups stone-ground whole-wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 cups cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, give the oats 2 or 3 quick pulses to break them up a little.

Transfer the oats to a large bowl and whisk together with the whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt and brown sugar. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk.

Use a fork to gently mix the ingredients together, just until they combine to form a soft, shaggy dough. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently shape it with your hands, folding it over once or twice into a 7- or 8-inch rounded loaf. Use a sharp knife to cut a cross on the top of the bread and place the loaf on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce the temperature to 400 and continue baking for another 20 to 25 minutes until the bread has risen, is deeply brown and crusty. Use a wooden skewer to test for doneness. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for at least 15-20 minutes before slicing with a serrated knife.

Irish Soda Bread With Golden Raisins and Currants

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups all-purpose flour

 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons frozen unsalted butter

 cup dried currants

1 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a 2-cup measuring cup, use a fork to mix together the buttermilk, egg and vanilla. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Grate the frozen butter on the large holes of a box grater and toss evenly with the dry ingredients. Add the raisins and currants and use your hands to distribute them evenly.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk mixture. Use a fork to gently mix the ingredients together, just until they combine and form a soft, shaggy dough. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently shape it with your hands, folding it over once or twice into a 7- or 8-inch rounded loaf. Use a sharp knife to cut a cross on the top of the bread and place the loaf on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce the temperature to 375 and continue baking for another 20 to 25 minutes until the bread has risen and is golden brown and crusty. Use a wooden skewer to test for doneness. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 15 to 20 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife to slice the bread into -inch-thick slices. Serve with butter and jam or marmalade.

Jill OConnors Oatmeal Scones with Jumbled Berry Jam. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T)

Oatmeal Scones

Makes 8 large scones

1 cup cold buttermilk

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups quick-cook (1-minute) oats (not instant)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into -inch cubes

Demerara or raw sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a 2-cup measuring cup, use a fork to mix together the buttermilk, egg and vanilla. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt and brown sugar. Use your fingertips, or the paddle attachment of the stand mixer on low speed, to blend the butter into the dry ingredients until the texture becomes crumbly and mealy with a few larger bits of cold butter strewn throughout.

Gently fold the buttermilk-egg mixture in by hand using a large rubber spatula, to form a soft dough. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently shape it with your hands, folding it over once or twice and pat it into an 8-inch-long rectangle. Transfer the dough to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Use and sharp knife and cut the dough in half, forming two 4-inch squares. Cut each square in half again. Then cut each square of dough in half on the diagonal to form 8 triangular scones. Arrange the scones on the baking sheet, 2 inches apart. If desired, brush the top of each scone very lightly with a little milk or water and sprinkle with Demerara sugar for a little crunch and added sweetness.

Bake for 13-15 minutes until the scones are crusty, golden brown and baked through. Serve warm with butter and jam, marmalade or honey.

Jumbled Berry Jam

Frozen, organic, unsweetened berries make homemade jam quick and easy to prepare any time of the year. Frozen berries are actually a fine substitute for fresh, as they are usually picked when at their peak of ripeness and frozen immediately. This small-batch jam is made without pectin and will set to a soft gel, meaning it will be thick and spreadable, but not as firm as store-bought jam or preserves. It will keep, tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.

Makes 2 pints

10 ounces frozen, organic strawberries

10 ounces frozen, organic raspberries

10 ounces frozen, organic blackberries

3 cups granulated sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Chill a small plate in the freezer and keep it there, at the ready, to test the jam for proper jelling.

Stir the fruit and sugar together in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Allow the fruit to thaw completely, stirring occasionally as the juices are dispersed into the sugar. Let the fruit sit after thawing completely for at least an hour. Stir in the lemon juice. Set the pan over medium heat and use a potato masher to coarsely crush the fruit. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes.

To test, put a spoonful of the jam on the plate and leave it to sit for a minute or two. The jam is ready when it is thickened, and firm enough to hold its shape on the plate without running or becoming watery, and your finger leaves a clean trail on the plate when pulled through the center of the jam.

Spoon the jam into two 1-pint containers, cover tightly and keep refrigerated for up to three weeks.

Recipes and food styling by Jill OConnor.
The mayors of Tijuana and San Diego pledged continued collaboration between their two cities on Monday, through an agreement that commits their administrations to working together on issues such as economic promotion, cultural programs and law enforcement training.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum hosted San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer during the signing ceremony on the steps of the Casa de la Cultura, a historic building on a hilltop overlooking the border.

While some are thinking of walls, we will continue to build bridges of understanding, Gastelum said.

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We are neighbors and we are partners, Faulconer said. Signing this agreement today reaffirms those bonds.

The joint memorandum of understanding serves to outline and formalize interactions between the two municipal governments. It extends a similar pact signed by Faulconer and Tijuanas previous mayor, Jorge Astiazaran.

The meeting was attended by staff members from both cities, as well as by Tijuana business leaders and the top diplomats in the region representing Mexico and the United States: Marcela Celorio, the Mexican Consul General in San Diego, and Will Ostick, the U.S. Consul General in Tijuana.

The collaborative spirit between the two mayors has stood in contrast to friction between the United States and Mexico following statements by President Donald Trump  including one that he intends to have Mexico pay for a continuous border wall between the two countries.

Later this month, the mayors plan to travel to Mexico City with a delegation headed by the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce to lobby jointly for local issues.

When local mayors can get together, and say, This is what we need, this is whats working for us, it cant be overstated how important that is, particularly on those issues that are either state or federal issues, Faulconer said.
In their final words at the end of a bruising retrial, federal prosecutors and an attorney for former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca painted contrasting portraits of the man  as a selfish coward who used subordinates to carry out a plan to obstruct an FBI investigation and a transparent leader who acted reasonably and decisively to protect others.

A king, Asst. U.S. Atty. Brandon Fox called Baca  one of several times he returned to a chess analogy to describe Baca and his actions. A king who is now trying to disown everything that happened. Dont blame me, blame them. Thats not how a leader acts. Thats how a criminal acts.

In closing arguments Monday morning, Fox and fellow prosecutor Lizabeth Rhodes gave jurors a lengthy review of the case the government presented during the two-week trial. The evidence, they argued, left it clear Baca schemed with other sheriffs officials in 2011 to interfere with the FBI investigation into inmate beatings by deputies in county jails and then lied about his role in an interview with federal officials a few years later.

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Testimony by several former sheriffs officials, phone records and other evidence, they said, showed Baca was aware of and helped direct the effort to obstruct federal agents, which included hiding an inmate who was working as an informant from his FBI handlers and trying to intimidate the lead agent in the case by threatening her with arrest.

Fox, for example, took the chess reference from the testimony of former Lt. Greg Thompson, who told jurors about an exchange in which he apologized to Baca after FBI agents were allowed into the jail to interview the informant. Thompson said Baca responded coolly that the mistake was just one part of a larger chess match the department was locked in with federal officials.

The trial comes after Baca, who resigned in 2014 as the jail crisis enveloped the department, nearly won an acquittal in his first trial in December. That proceeding ended in a mistrial when all but one of the 12 jurors voted to acquit Baca.

By pursuing Baca a second time, the government is trying to cap a five-year legal battle over the FBI jail investigation with a clear showing that corruption in the Sheriffs Department reached the top. Already, nine rank-and-file deputies and command-level staff, including former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, have been found guilty of playing roles in the obstruction plan or lying to cover it up.

In his closing argument, Bacas attorney Nathan Hochman urged jurors to view the case through the eyes of Sheriff Baca.

From that perspective, Hochman said, Bacas decisions and words were not criminal but reasonable actions to maintain control of his jails when he discovered the FBI had been secretly looking into the allegations of abuse and corruption among deputies.

Hochman summarized for jurors the main arguments he raised at trial: Far from trying to thwart the federal investigation, Baca ordered only that the informant be kept safe and that his department investigate how FBI agents managed to smuggle a cellphone to the inmate.

It was Tanaka, Hochman said, who had wanted to derail the federal inquiry. Bacas second in command took advantage of the trust the sheriff placed in him and directed the others in the group while keeping Baca in the dark.

Sheriff Baca could not have been more open, more direct, more transparent with federal officials, Hochman told jurors.

Jurors began deliberations following closing arguments but soon broke for the day. They will continue deliberating Tuesday morning.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

For more news on the federal courts in Southern California, follow @joelrubin on Twitter
A month after Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) won reelection in the closest congressional race in the country, the congressman got a warning that his next contest could be even tougher.

An internal poll by Issas campaign showed a nearly 10-percentage point drop in his favorability ratings between mid-October and early December  and that one likely reason the lawmakers image took a hit was because of his support for President Trump.

Overall, the poll suggested Issa was hurt significantly by negative television advertising.

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On Oct. 18, he had a 40% unfavorable rating, a score that rose to 49% by Dec. 7. His favorable rating edged down from 42% to 41% during that time.

The poll found that voters who saw television ads remembered Issas ties to Trump more than any other detail. And when voters had negative things to say about their representative, his support for Trump was at the top of the list.

Issa, one of Trumps highest-profile supporters in last years campaign, has since distanced himself from the president and his administration.

Issa called for Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to recuse himself so an independent prosecutor could investigate Russias alleged interference in the 2016 election, but then said a prosecutor wasnt necessary because nobody had been accused of a crime. He later called for an independent review.

Trump and his policies were the major focus of sometimes sharp questions Issa faced during a town hall-style meeting Saturday in Oceanside.

In the context of the poll and the demands from constituents in the last month, it makes sense why Issa decided to hold the meeting, said Robert Dempsey, the campaign manager for Issas opponent last year, Democrat Doug Applegate.

We know that when we hold our elected officials accountable, they have to stand up and stand by their records, he said. If I was Congressman Issa, I would not want to be in that position, which is why he is doing those town hall meetings, and seemingly moving to the center, and joining the climate change caucus.

Issa defeated Applegate by 0.6%, a 1,621-vote margin. Applegate immediately announced he would seek a rematch in 2018.

The congressmans campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the poll.

The survey and analysis were contained in documents for an unsuccessful $10-million libel lawsuit Issa had filed against Applegate. A judge dismissed that case on Friday.

The poll sample was exclusively from the San Diego portion of Issas district, an area that includes 75% of the electorate. (Issa historically has done better in the Orange County portion, which has the remaining 25% of the 49th District.)

The poll showed Issas strengths and weaknesses, but it also revealed, more than any other single factor, that the new president was a big influence on Issas public image.

Donald Trump is deeply unpopular in the 49th District because his values are not shared by a majority on a wide array of issues, said environmental attorney Mike Levin, former executive director of the Orange County Democratic Party who announced last week that he would enter the 2018 race. And Darrell Issa is a full-blown Trump apologist.

Issa won the district, but Trump received 43.2% of the vote to Hillary Clintons 50.7%.

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

Stewart writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune
Nine more Navy officers, including an admiral who was the director of naval intelligence operations before retiring, were indicted Tuesday on conspiracy, bribery, obstruction of justice and other charges in the ongoing Fat Leonard bribery scandal.

An indictment unsealed in federal court in San Diego accused the group of current and retired officers of receiving a stream of gifts beginning in 2006 from Leonard Glenn Francis, who was known as Fat Leonard because of his size. In return Francis, who owned the ship servicing company Glenn Defense Marine Asia, got access to classified information such as ship schedules and to the services of the officers who used their position to steer Navy business to his company.

Among the indicted was Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, who was once the Navys director of intelligence operations. Loveless retired in October but had been under investigation for his role in the scandal for several years, at one time losing his access to classified material while the probe continued.

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Also named in the indictment was Navy Capt. David Newland, former chief of staff to the commander of the Seventh Fleet, the services largest fleet and the center of the bribery scheme.

Others indicted from the Navy were Capt. Donald Hornbeck, Capt. James Dolan, Capt. David Lausman, Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Shedd, Cmdr. Mario Herrera and Chief Warrant Officer Robert Gorsuch. Also named in the indictment was Marine Col. Enrico DeGuzman.

Federal agents arrested Loveless Tuesday morning at a penthouse apartment in Coronado he is renting. It has a sweeping view of the ocean he once sailed upon.

Just after 2:40 p.m., he appeared in a small federal courtroom in downtown San Diego clad in the same white jail-issue overalls donned by accused drug runners, human smugglers and other defendants charged with federal crimes.

A pair of ankle shackles jingled slightly as he shuffled to a seat in the courtroom.

This defendant abrogated his official duties over and over again.  Prosecutor Patrick Hovakimian, referring to retired Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mitchell Dembin entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. He also ordered that Loveless could be released on his own recognizance and not have to post a bond. Loveless said little during the brief hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Hovakimian said Loveless should be required to post a $50,000 bond. The prosecutor said the retired admiral had shown a callous disregard for the authority the government had conferred upon him, saying he had participated in wild sex parties while assigned to the Seventh Fleet  all paid for by Francis.

This defendant abrogated his official duties over and over again, Hovakimian said.

The judge also allowed DeGuzman to be released on his own recognizance without having to put up money for a bond. The Marine colonel appeared in court on Tuesday as well, but he was not in custody, having flown in for the appearance from his home in Hawaii.

Related: How Fat Leonard fleeced the fleet 

Federal agents fanned out across the country Tuesday arresting others named in the indictment, Hovakimian said. Navy Capt. Hornbeck lives in the United Kingdom and arrangements were being worked out to get him to appear in court in San Diego.

Two defendants, Shedd and Herrera, are both on active duty. The others indicted are retired, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

The indictment also names several other people with Navy ties who have been charged in related Fat Leonard cases. They are Edmond Aruffo, a former Navy officer who went to work for Francis and was a key liaison for him in recruiting people into the bribery ring; Cmdr. Jose Sanchez, who has pleaded guilty to his role and is awaiting sentencing; Capt. Daniel Dusek, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced last year to four years in prison; and retired Capt. Michael Brooks, who pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

The indictment also references someone in the Royal Australian Navy, identified only as AG, as a member of the conspiracy.

Francis has pleaded guilty to orchestrating the scheme that overbilled the Navy by at least $20 million. For more than a decade, the Singapore-based contractor bribed Navy officials in the giant Seventh Fleet to use their influence to steer ships to ports that his company controlled. Once they were there, he systematically overbilled the service for fuel, water, transport and many other services.

The indictment contains what is now a familiar litany of misdeeds  lavish meals, the services of prostitutes and gifts all paid for by Francis. One meal in February 2006 that Francis paid for in Hong Kong cost $20,435.

Another incident a year later involved Francis paying for a stay  and prostitutes  at the MacArthur Suite of the Manila Hotel in the Philippines. During the party, historical memorabilia related to General Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts, the indictment said.

The defendants also referred to themselves as the Cool Kids, the Band of Brothers, the Brotherhood and The Lion Kings Harem, the indictment said. Francis, who was well known for his girth and outsized personality, was called the Lion Man by Sanchez and others.

During the party (at a Manila hotel), historical memorabilia related to General Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts.  Federal indictment

The indictment describes the benefits Francis showered on them  from $2,000 boxes of Cuban cigars to a $30,000 stay at a Park Avenue hotel in New York to a multi-day stay in the Presidential Suite at a Manila hotel in May 2008.

Loveless, Hornbeck, Dolan, Lausman and Shedd drained the hotel of all its Dom Perignon champagne during a raging multi-day party, with a rotating carousel of prostitutes, according to the indictment.

Through it all, the defendants maneuvered ships to ports favored by Francis, where it was easier for him to overbill the Navy, and helped him secure lucrative military contracts. They bad-mouthed Glenn Defense Marine Asia competitors to give Francis an advantage with the U.S. government.

They also helped the years-long conspiracy along by recruiting new members into the group, after cautious vetting for their perceived discretion as well as their ability to perform official acts to benefit GDMA, according to the indictment.

The indictment said some of the defendants lied about their relationship with Francis, deleted email accounts that carried incriminating messages about the bribery scheme, and destroyed a hard drive from the George Washington aircraft carrier in an effort to impede the probe and cover up their actions.

Loveless is the second admiral who has been charged in the case, following retired Rear Adm. Robert Gilbeau, who pleaded guilty in June to a charge of lying to federal investigators.

The latest indictment represents a new level of investigation in the Fat Leonard scandal, now in its fourth year, by charging a network of officers for working together in a wide-ranging conspiracy.

In addition to federal criminal charges such as bribery and honest services wire fraud, the officers are accused of breaking official Navy rules they are sworn to abide by as officers, such as handling classified information and acting with good virtue and honor.

The scandal has now ensnared 25 people, including 20 Navy officers and enlisted men as well as employees of Francis company.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

5:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 1 p.m.
Did a San Diego police officer change his story about what led him to shoot a domestic violence suspect during a struggle five years ago?

A civil trial that began in San Diego federal court Tuesday largely hinges on that question, attorneys for both sides told the jury in opening statements.

The suspects widow, Shakina Ortega, and her two children are suing the Police Department and Officer Jonathan McCarthy on claims of wrongful death, assault and battery.

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The familys attorney said the death was unnecessary and unreasonable, while the citys attorney said the officer had to defend himself.

The incident began on June 4, 2012, when the wife called 911 reporting her husband, Victor Ortega, had beaten her. McCarthy chased Ortega as he ran from the home, and the two struggled in a narrow breezeway in a condominium complex in Mira Mesa.

At some point, McCarthys small backup gun came loose from his ankle holster and ended up near Ortegas head. Moments later, the officer fired two shots, one striking Ortega in the neck and killing him.

Shortly after, McCarthy told his sergeant what had happened, and the sergeant then repeated that to a group of investigators who had gathered at the scene. The sergeant told them that McCarthy had said Ortega had picked up the backup gun and aimed it at the officer, prompting the officer to fire from his primary weapon.

But at the police station later, McCarthy gave a full statement and said Ortega had reached for the backup gun, even touching it, but the officer was able to bat it away. They struggled more, and the officer, who had taken his Taser out, decided to put his Taser away and instead pull out his primary gun. Ortega lunged for that gun and the officer fired.

Which version, if any, is correct?

Youll have to determine some credibility issues, the Ortega familys lawyer, Paul Pfingst, told the jury.

Sgt. Alan Karsh testified that he and McCarthy spoke about the incident right after giving Ortega CPR, both of them covered in blood. He said he kept telling McCarthy not to explain the whole story, because it wasnt the sergeants job to investigate the incident, only to handle any outstanding public safety issues, such as in what direction the shots were fired.

But he said McCarthy kept wanting to tell him what happened.

A day or so after the shooting, a homicide investigator asked Karsh to again write down what McCarthy had told him, and the supplementary report was the same as before  that Ortega had aimed the backup gun at McCarthy.

Karsh testified that, in reflection, he told the investigators what I assumed I had heard. He said McCarthy told him that the two were fighting over his gun and, in the sergeants mind, that meant Ortega had picked it up and aimed it at McCarthy.

It turned out I was wrong, Karsh testified.

But when questioned by Pfingst about his memory of the conversation with McCarthy, Karsh acknowledged that he does not remember now what McCarthy told him.

Deputy City Attorney Keith Phillips said in his opening statements that despite Karshs comments, the statements McCarthy has given in the case never changed.

Its not lying. Its not covering up, Phillips said.

The case is expected to reach the jury by Friday.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
A 31-year-old woman who tried to elude U.S. Border Patrol agents and caused a crash in the Imperial Valley that killed two Mexican passengers and seriously injured three others was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison.

Lydiana Castro, of Calexico, pleaded guilty in July 2016, admitting she was smuggling the five unauthorized immigrants when she crashed an SUV near Andrade, a few miles west of the Arizona state line, on March 23.

An agent had seen the five Mexican men run into Castros Dodge Durango at a gas station, according to a federal complaint. About five minutes later, another agent tried to pull her over.

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Castro admitted she started to slow down, then decided to speed away. She lost control of the Durango, veered down an embankment and crashed into a semi-truck on Interstate 8.

Entangled with the trailers frame, the Durango was dragged until the semi-truck driver stopped on the right shoulder.

Two of Castros passengers, Gustavo Sanchez-Orta and Jose May-Gonzalez, died in the wreckage.

The other three passengers were taken to a trauma center in Phoenix. One of them was brain dead and later taken to Mexico on life support at his familys request. Another was paralyzed from the waist down and the third suffered serious injuries, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

Breaking News

Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  During her final years working for the state tax board, Peggy Robinson went to work afraid of the building mold that she says left her with constant coughing, headaches and skin rashes.

She also recalls water problems culminating in burst pipes flooding floors and forcing employees to relocate. And thats not to mention the near-daily annoyances for nearly 2,000 workers at the Board of Equalization headquarters, where Robinson worked from its 1993 opening until her retirement two years ago.

A malfunctioning heating system forced workers to wear jackets at their desks. Water dripped onto their desks. Elevators stalled mid-flight.

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Some of the buildings persistent problems even pose a danger to the public. Outside the 24-story office building about five blocks from the state Capitol, scaffolding protects pedestrians from glass panes that have popped out and shattered on the sidewalk.

It was definitely not conducive to getting your work done on time, Robinson said of being an employee inside the Board of Equalization building. They made a choice: It was either having to keep paying for the building or let the employees suffer. I believe they let the employees suffer.

With repair bills mounting, the state Legislature is now considering how to resolve the long-festering problem and get the employees into a healthier office environment.

State taxpayers so far have shelled out about $60 million for building repairs and $2.3 million to pay workers compensation claims and settle lawsuits from fed-up workers.

AB1656 by Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, requires that the state find a new building to house the agency, which collects about $50 billion in tax revenue each year.

Any other landlord would be categorized as a slum lord and forced to fix this problem, said Jerome Horton, the elected chairman of the Board of Equalization.

But advocates for the move say Gov. Jerry Browns administration has been resistant and is delaying action.

Legislative staff have estimated that planning, designing and building a new headquarters could cost up to $500 million, with an additional $300 million to $400 million in interest payments.

AB1656 would give the Department of General Services, which oversees state government buildings, the authorization to move the tax agency but does not guarantee future funding to do so.

Dickinson and Board of Equalization officials say the governors office would rather wait until a larger assessment of Sacramento-area government buildings finishes before deciding what to do with a single site. That review could take up to five years.

Jim Evans, a spokesman for the governor, referred questions to the Department of General Services, which says officials are not indifferent to the concerns but face hurdles. For one, the state still owes $77 million to pay off the high-rise, and terms of the bond require the building to be occupied.

The state settled a lawsuit against the buildings contractor in 2000, but the statute of limitations for suing over defects ran out more than a decade ago. Meanwhile, the repair costs keep mounting and legal challenges keep coming.

What theyve done is periodically plug the leaks to the dam instead of rebuilding the dam, said Anthony Perez, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in 2008 over the mold issue on behalf of 31 employees, including Robinson, with the state eventually settling it.

Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the Department of General Services, says employees are not exposed to mold and would be evacuated if that was the case.

Its probably the most tested building in all of the state for air quality, he said.

Perez disputes that and filed a $50 million claim last week, alleging that workers continue to fall ill from mold despite false assurances from management. The agency declined to comment on the claim filed on Wednesday.

At a recent meeting with Board of Equalization employees about AB1656, Dickinson acknowledged it would take another five years for relocation even under the best case scenario. Frowns and sighs spread through the audience of more than 70 employees.

While they wait, the problems persist.

One employee recently found brown water oozing from around a toilet seat cover dispenser as corroding pipes compromise the wastewater system. A state worker has been walking up and down the building checking for smoke because the fire-control system is broken.

Board of Equalization officials say the constant problems damage morale and undermine productivity.

Its like someone running through the room screaming, said Liz Houser, the deputy director of administration tasked with handling building problems.

___

Follow Fenit Nirappil at https://www.twitter.com/FenitN.
The San Diego Association of Governments Board of Directors took a crucial first step last week toward trying to recover lost credibility. It decided to hire a law firm to look into how and why deceptive taxable-sales estimates came to be used last year to persuade San Diego County voters to OK Measure A to fund 40 years of infrastructure improvements.

Voters were told that over those four decades the measure would generate $18 billion for the infrastructure projects  a number that SANDAGs top economist had concluded was highly unrealistic in late 2015. SANDAG Director Gary Gallegos said he was unaware of his agencys internal doubts about the revenue and denies any attempt to manipulate the public, but an outside investigation by a law firm with a background in white-collar crime makes a lot of sense. The fact that voters rejected Measure A should not diminish concerns about the possibility that this government agency tried to con the public.

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But now Voice of San Diego, which broke the SANDAG scandal, has revealed another example of funny numbers SANDAG may have used to hide the truth from voters. In the run-up to the Measure A vote in November, voters werent told that the cost of projects from the voter-approved 2004 TransNet infrastructure program had gone up $8.4 billion, as SANDAG staff had concluded more than a year earlier. Such a disclosure surely would have shaken voters confidence in SANDAGs assurances. This also deserves investigation by the lawyers looking at the agencys misleading revenue estimates.

On Monday, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, announced the introduction of a bill that would make sweeping changes in how SANDAG, the Metropolitan Transit System and the North County Transit District operate. It includes new financial controls for SANDAG.

As people analyze Gonzalez Fletchers proposal, one aspect needs no debate: SANDAG needs outsiders to fix its trust problem, and thats troubling.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: UTOpinion
I read your editorial Friday (Political misadventures of Issa, Hunter and Maienschein March 11) after I attended Congressman Issas town hall in Oceanside.

I wouldnt blame Congressman Issa for avoiding town halls. These Indivisible people didnt want to discuss concerns. They were rude and shouted down the Congressman as he tried to answer to their questions.

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All they wanted was a platform to disrespect the Congressman and call for the unjustified impeachment of President Trump. The loss of civility in the public square and lack of respect for the offices of our government are sad to see.

Democracy requires compromise and that wont happen if the closed-minded wont shut up long enough to listen to the other side.

Jackie Peacock

Carlsbad

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. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

I was disappointed Saturday I couldnt get into the town hall meeting in traffic, congested Ramona. This would have been my first town hall.

Contrary to the conservative activist who thinks only liberals come from other districts, liberals and moderates live in the 50th, and Hunter needs to listen to our concerns, also.

At least Darrell Issa and Susan Davis had their meetings in buildings large enough to accommodate their constituents. Issa had two meetings and Davis had her meeting in a building that held 1,200 people. Also, she live streamed for those who could not get in.

Issa and Davis asked people to reserve their seats. I get the impression Hunter was trying to keep people away having the meeting in a small building where only 385 people could attend and in difficult to-get-to Ramona.

Jay Warren

Escondido

The news tonight showed an organized protest for the town hall meetings held by Darrel Issa and Duncan Hunter.

The audience held up identical pre-made signs at both meetings and they protested against almost everything the two congressmen said. However, the town hall meeting held by Susan Davis was quiet and orderly.

The fact that the first two were held by Republicans and the last was held by a Democrat was a coincidence? I think not!

Im sure that the town hall meeting to be held by Democrat Peterson will also be very civil. The fact that coordinated and loud protests by Democrats happen only at Republican events is obvious and getting old. Grow up and act like adults!

Ron Shipley

Lemon Grove

I attended to Duncan Hunter town hall in Ramona. Imagine getting in line at 5:30 a.m. for a 10 a.m. event to have your congressional rep ridicule and berate you for 90 minutes. Hunter chose a very small venue in territory that normally hosts tea party events. Nevertheless more than 1,000 constituents showed up.

Having a special needs grandson, I am extremely concerned about the Republican bill that Hunter has touted as being far superior to the ACA (Obamacare) . Truth be told, Hunter has no idea what the new bill will do, and appallingly he has no idea of how many of his constituents are on ACA now. He seems not to care that mental health care, maternity care and subsidies will be removed from his bill.

AARP has sent a scathing letter to Congress. The American Medical Association and the American Pediatric Society have all said this bill will be a disaster.

I would implore those persons who are leaning in favor of this repeal to do some research. CBO, the non- partisan budget office, stated today that 14 to 24 million citizens will lose their coverage if this legislation passes.

Barbara Cummings

El Cajon

Trump fan calls on him to be presidential

I voted for Donald Trump. I dont think I had a choice. I couldnt vote for Hillary Clinton. Trump needs to grow up, and there is no other way to say it. Ive heard people criticize him for his tweets and his spontaneous reactions, and I agree. Other than the speech he made before Congress, he has failed to act presidential. He needs to think and seek advice before he reacts.

I am concerned not about his maturity but his ability to run this country and unite this country to the extent that can happen. He is the president and he needs to act like one. It was OK during the campaign for him to make a jerk of himself, they all do. But he is now our president, like it or not.

William Gammon

Point Loma

Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
If pictures can be worth 1,000 words, this one is a novel.

A photo of an elderly man sitting on a bed while listening to his vinyl player in a bedroom reduced to rubble in Aleppo is being called one of the most haunting, powerful images to come out of war-torn Syria. (Update: A few readers emailed to point out that what the apparatus the man is most likely listening to is a 78-r.p.m. record on a wind up Victrola.)

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The image captured by Agence France-Presse photographer Joseph Eid was taken on March 9, according to image records, but its existence came to full view recently and on Monday it captured the internets attention as people shared it on social media.

Some were moved by the photo.

This @AFP photo from Aleppo is one of the most haunting, powerful images I've seen in a long time. A novel in one shot. pic.twitter.com/PbSH1o619r  Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) March 13, 2017

My heart aches for you, Aleppo. https://t.co/3FC2IvGNgm  Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) March 13, 2017

What little I own, I would not hesitate to share with this person. A human being that has suffered grievously. While I take life for granted https://t.co/NkkUiCP02l  Catwinkers (@Catwinkers) March 13, 2017

Others offered political commentary.

But no, let's not give refuge to this man. Because, you know, he might be a terrorist. Let's not invite him to live in a land of safety. https://t.co/t4mmjnZrUK  Taylor Bronisz (@tbronisz) March 13, 2017

Where we see an image of both despair and hope, Assad sees a terrorist and Trump voters see someone to be feared. https://t.co/Kl9qJNoj9i  Jim Janda (@JimJanda52) March 13, 2017

The caption offers a little glimpse of the mans story: Mohammad Mohiedine Anis, 70, smokes his pipe as he sits in his destroyed bedroom listening to music on his gramophone in Aleppos formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood.

In an Instagram post where the photo was shared, the caption offers more: Aleppo car lover aims to revive his wounded classics --- Pictures taken on March 9, 2017, shows vintage cars parked outside the home of Mohammad Mohiedine Anis in Aleppos formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighbourhood.

The photo calls to mind other heartrending images that have emerged from Aleppo since the clash between the Syrian regime and rebel forces erupted in the country. One striking image of a boy covered in blood after a bomb destroyed his Aleppo home last August shook the internet and newscasters alike.

@CNNs @KateBolduan cries while covering story of Syrian boy who survived bombing in Aleppo https://t.co/HkbXhFY0vR  danbouzu  (@danbouzu) August 18, 2016

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez
Youve heard all about the super bloom taking place in Southern Californias Anza-Borrego Desert, but the thought of driving out to the desert sounds anything but super. This post is for you.

Many considered last weekend to be the official start of the much-anticipated wildflower display that one researcher described  after an onslaught of rain in recent weeks  as having the chance to be the biggest in 20 years.

Richard Minnich, a professor in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of California, Irvine, said this in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle: "In this world of invasive grasses and mustards that outcompete our native wildflowers, this year's outstanding bloom is not only a result of heavy rainfall this winter, but also the collapse of invasive species during drought over the past 5 years."

It sounds like a scene in a spring time day dream, but for those who traveled to see it last weekend, traffic on the way there was a nightmare.

So heres the next best thing. Enthusiastic flower hunters shared much of what they saw east of San Diego on social media.

As the tweet below from the park on Monday pointed out, maybe the weekdays are better for making the trip if you are able to get away?

Heres everything you need to know for your trip if you decide to go see the super bloom for yourself:

How to have the best wildflowers experience amid potential super bloom

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

ALSO

Prepare for traffic on your way to the desert wildflower bloom

The desert is in super bloom at Anza-Borrego state park

New app for hiking in Anza-Borrego
Tuesday morning, Fox News anchor Heather Childers accused three major U.S. newspapers  the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune  of media bias in full display for selling merchandise bearing anti- President Trump rhetoric.

The merchandise in question includes T-shirts, mugs and sweaters with slogans such as Democracy Dies in Darkness and We Will Not Shut Up.

The Washington Post unveiled its new slogan Democracy Dies In Darkness last month and slapped it on its newspaper masthead  and on T-shirts  as the official motto. Owner Jeff Bezos has been using the phrase since at least May when he said it not in reference to Trump but connected to his plans to make the Post a global paper.

The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune (both owned, as is The San Diego Union-Tribune, by Tronc ) followed up with their own merchandise. The Los Angeles Times sells T-shirts bearing the slogan Journalism Matters #nottheenemy while the Chicago Tribune sells ones that say Speaking Truth to Power Since 1847.

But is that proof of bias? Naturally, journalists were having none of it.

Childers report comes at a time President Trump has pushed back at the media, accusing certain TV and print outlets of bias and dismissing them as fake news.

During his speech at this years largest conservative political gathering, the Conservative Political Action Conference , President Trump smeared journalists as being the enemy of the people. He criticized the media repeatedly during his presidential campaign, going so far as to call some of its members the "lowest form of humanity.

Agree or disagree, the media vs Trump narrative is not likely to go away any time soon. The way some see it, bias is very real.

When Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway got involved, the conversation took another turn.

Do you think particular media outlets show bias? Which ones? And how? Let us know.
A 34-year-old Rancho Penasquitos man was behind bars Tuesday for allegedly breaking into two of his neighbors houses while the residents were home.

A woman who lives in the 14000 block of Del Diablo Lane allegedly saw Jonathan Romero Miranda, 34, sneaking into her home through a downstairs window shortly after 4:30 p.m. Monday. She yelled at him, then went upstairs to call for help, according to San Diego police.

The intruder took a laptop and ran out through an open garage door, which he closed on the way out, SDPD Officer John Buttle said.

Less than 10 minutes later, Miranda entered a home in the 15000 block of Penasquitos Drive through a broken garage window and demanded money and other items from a resident, according to the officer.

A roommate heard a commotion from outside and came in to see what was going on. Buttle said the suspect threatened to stab both residents before fleeing empty-handed.

Miranda was arrested after one of the victims in the second break-in recognized him as living in the neighborhood and alerted police. Victims in both break-ins told police he was wearing a blue shirt.

Email: editor@pomeradonews.com
On March 15, San Diego County supervisors are scheduled to consider a proposal banning commercialization of marijuana in the unincorporated county.

The ban would prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries, cultivation for commercial purposes, and retail shops, and would include an amortization clause that would give any vested dispensary five years to recoup its investment before shutting down, according to county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, board chairwoman.

County staff will also present the Planning Commissions Feb. 10 recommendation to not ban all medical marijuana facilities in the unincorporated county but to instead ban any new dispensaries beyond those already operating or vested. In Ramona there is one licensed and operating dispensary, ShowGrow at 736 Montecito Way, and two vested dispensaries  at 1210 Olive Street and 618 Pine Street.

Staff will also present to the board possible future zoning ordinance amendments that address regulations permitting cannabis farming in agricultural zones.

A board agenda is available at www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/cob/bosa.html. The marijuana issue the second item on the agenda.

The board meeting starts at 9 a.m. in Room 310 of the County Administration Center, 1600 Pacific Highway, San Diego.
Charlotte, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- 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



Contact Adam Green!

c: 801-809-7766

e: g3president@comcast.net



Charlotte, NC 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.rich.goodchocolateblog.com/



The Pilgrims did not leave behind any lists of the items they brought with them on the Mayflower, but historians have used a provision list put together by Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) to take an educated guess. However, in 2012, Caleb Johnson, Simon Neal, and Jeremy Bangs started transcribing and studying a rare manuscript (a page of which is here illustrated) in the possession of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, that was written by one of the investors in the Pilgrims' joint-stock company. This manuscript actually contains several lists of suggested provisions the colonists should bring with them. It is the closest thing we can get to a list of what the Pilgrims would have actually brought.



A summary of some of the key items on the provision lists: http://mayflowerhistory.com/pilgrim-history/



-Food and Drink: Biscuit, beer, salt, (dried) beef, salt pork, oats, peas, wheat, butter, sweet oil, mustard seed, ling or cod fish, "good cheese", vinegar, aqua-vitae, rice, bacon, cider.



-Clothing: Monmouth cap, falling bands, shirts, waistcoat, suit of canvas, suit of cloth, Irish stockings, 4 pairs of shoes, garters. Slippers, plain shoes, little shoes, French soles, sewing needles.



-Bedding: Canvas sheets, bolster "filled with good straw", rug and blankets.



-Arms: Light armor (complete), fowling piece, snaphance, sword, belt, bandoleer, powder horn, 20 pounds of powder, 60 pounds of shot.



-Household: Iron pot, kettle, frying pan, gridiron, two skillets, spit, platters, dishes, spoons of wood, napkins, towels, soap, hand mill, mortar and pestle.



-Tools: Broad hoes, narrow hoes, broad axe, felling axe, steel handsaw, whipsaw, hammers, shovels, spades, augers, chisels, gimlets, hatchets, grinding stone, nails, locks for doors.



Admittedly, Adam was not initially a fan of Network Marketing. He did not understand the business model because it was new to him. However, once he learned that the REAL focus of Direct Sales is to help average people get a taste of entrepreneurialism --- with minimal risk and at a low cost --- Adam was absolutely convinced of the potential with Multi-Level Marketing.



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



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
Penndel, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- General Partition Company, Inc., located in Croydon, PA, would like people to know that they offer protection for shipping items with the help of box partitions and chipboard layer pads. For more than half a century, this company has been in the business of meeting their customers' needs in the industry. They have grown and worked their way up to become considered as one of the finest manufacturers of box partitions across Pennsylvania and even the rest of the nation.



The engineers at General Partition Company, Inc. are always available for consultation. For clients who would like to review their current interior box packaging needs, they can contact the team at this company, who will be happy to review with them. Protecting products during shipping is one the things that this company takes into serious consideration. They're always looking for new ways to better protect items more effectively and efficiently.



Chipboard partitions, including polycoated chipboards, are highly-effective and cost-friendly alternatives to other types of interior box packaging. General Partition Company, Inc. manufactures and sells these types of partitions to help customers save money by using chipboard instead of more expensive, and often unnecessary, materials.



Another reason that sets General Partition Company, Inc. apart from competitors includes the ability to make products from 100% recyclable materials. This eco-friendly approach allows the company to not only protect their clients but also to protect the environment in the process.



To learn more about receiving the correct protective materials for shipping, contact General Partition Company, Inc. at 888-501-4685.



About General Partition Company, Inc.

General Partition Company, Inc. is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania-based organization providing durable and versatile box partitions for a wide variety of implementations. They manufacture partitions comprised of chipboard, corrugated cardboard and Solid Bleach Sulfite (SBS).



General Partition Company, Inc. also has services to assist businesses plan and engineer intelligent shipping solutions using their box partitions. Their delivery services have a reputation for being fast and reliable. They also accommodate special orders like unique labeling. Reach General Partition Company, Inc. by phone nationwide at 888-501-4685.



For more information, please visit: http://www.generalpartition.com/.
Atlanta, GA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- In a write-up just released on his firm's website, Darwin Johnson explained some of the basic facts regarding workers' compensation in Georgia. Johnson is a workers' compensation lawyer in Atlanta who founded and heads up The Law Offices of Darwin Johnson.



Workers' compensation is understandably often a confusing subject," said Johnson. "I wanted to write a short introductory piece explaining what it is, how it works and how it can benefit injured workers."



According to the article, in Georgia, workers' compensation insurance must be carried by all companies with three or more employees, and is used to pay out injured workers to cover the costs associated with medical, rehabilitation and loss of income expenses. Since there are myriad situations in which workers' compensation can apply, the way those benefits are treated can vary.



"Most employers are honest about accepting responsibility when one of their employees makes a workers' compensation claim," said Johnson. "However, in the rare case that an employer denies his or her employee's claim, that person should get in touch with a qualified attorney."



The article notes that people often ask about catastrophic or deadly injuries. In Georgia, there are a variety of resources that help catastrophic workplace injury victims recover from their loss of ability to work in the positions they once held, such as new job skills training programs. Dependents of fatally injured accident victims are entitled to two-thirds of the victim's average weekly wages, up to $575 per week, for up to 350 weeks.



To read the full write-up, or to learn more about the workers' compensation lawyer in Atlanta, please visit The Law Offices of Darwin Johnson's website, or call 404-692-6482.



About The Law Offices of Darwin F. Johnson

The Law Offices of Darwin F. Johnson provide legal defense for individuals all throughout the greater Atlanta, Georgia area. He provides effective legal defense for individuals unjustly injured while at the workplace, and gets them the compensation they need. Clients of Darwin F. Johnson don't pay unless he delivers compensation.



Reach the Law Offices of Darwin F. Johnson today by phone at 404-692-6482.



For more information, please visit http://www.darwinfjohnson.com.
Edmonton, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- In partnership with Canada's top residential alarm monitoring services, HomeSecurity-Edmonton.com has launched an offer to homeowners in search of advanced home alarm and surveillance systems. Eligible customers can benefit from a completely free and comprehensive wireless home security system.



Authorized dealers of modern and reliable security systems Edmonton, the company also offers features and equipment in response to the population's ever growing need of home security. Unfortunately the capital city of Alberta, Edmonton has seen its share of burglaries, which is why it can be worthwhile to seek assistance from a highly specialized alarm system Edmonton contractor who specializes in helping protect homes and families.



HomeSecurity-Edmonton.com can now equip homes for free with a wireless system consisting of a control panel with illuminated display, a high decibel siren, motion detector, door contacts and smoke detectors, plus a keychain remote to arm and disarm the system at a distance. The offer, which exceeds $800 in value, is valid as long as the customer agrees to purchase the monitoring service as outlined by the eligibility criteria on the website.



As one of the most reputable security companies in Edmonton, HomeSecurity-Edmonton.Com helps ensure round the clock protection and an immediate response in the event of an emergency. It connects the system to the city's own emergency services, such as the fire department and the police.



Homeowners looking for alarm companies Edmonton can benefit from the convenient, two-way voice communication feature included in this offer. 24/7 alarm monitoring means that one's home and its occupants can be better protected from fire, theft, burglary, and medical emergencies. Thanks to the wireless technology, users can easily arm and disarm the system. The systems is easy enough for a child to use. It also enables convenient two-way communication between family members at home and a person using the system remotely.



About HomeSecurity-Edmonton.Com

HomeSecurity-Edmonton.Com provides home alarm systems for Edmonton homeowners and connects these to nationwide top monitoring centers, as well as to local emergency services for a quick emergency response and intervention.



To view all the details of the offer, go to homesecurity-edmonton.com or call 877-248-5199



Contact:

John Martin

Home Security Edmonton

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

info@homesecurity-edmonton.com

http://homesecurity-edmonton.com/
Pune, Mahrashtra -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- The report entitled Global Citronella Oil Market 2017 presents key insights into the global Citronella Oil market along with the latest up-to-date industry details and forthcoming Citronella Oil industry trends, which will assist the readers to focus on product specification and end users driving the overall market revenue and profitability.



Report Keynotes:



The main motive of the report on "Global Citronella Oil Market 2017" is to study comprehensive details of the market investors, key industry players which will enable them to make vital decisions in regards to Citronella Oil growth opportunities and future investment scope.



This report highlights the prominent industry competitors and provides the deep analysis of the major factors influencing the market. The report also covers the forecasts market study related to industry trends, market volume, market share estimates and company profiles of top industry players.



Do Inquiry Before Buying Report Here: https://market.biz/report/2017-top-5-citronella-oil-market-lpi/40021/#inquiry



Dominant Citronella Oil market players:



1 Anhui Great Nation Essential Oils Co., Ltd.

2 Jiangxi Hengcheng Natural Flavor Oil Co., Ltd

3 Nanchang Yang Pu Natural Essence & Spice Co.

4 EOAS

5 Van Aroma

6 Yunnan Aroma Source Manufacturing Co.,Ltd

7 Yunnan Tian Lake Essential Oil Company Ltd

8 Karimun Kencana Aromatics

9 Manohar Botanical Extracts Pvt. Ltd

10 Reho Natural Ingredients

11 VIETNAM ESSENTIAL OIL. JSC

12 The Essential Oil Company

13 Phoenix Herb Company

14 Kanta Group

15 Bhoomi

16 Aromatic & Allied Chemicals

17 Jiangxi Kang Shengtang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd



Get Sample Copy Of Report Here: https://market.biz/report/2017-top-5-citronella-oil-market-lpi/40021/#requestforsample



This Report examines the global Citronella Oil market concerning product type, application service, client and geography. The global Citronella Oil market covers major continents.



Region wise Analysis of Citronella Oil Market:



1 North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

2 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and Korea)

3 Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy and Russia etc.

4 South America (Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina)

5 Middle East and Africa (Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia)



The global Citronella Oil market has been segmentized into two parts product and application.



Product Segment Analysis of Citronella Oil Market:



1 Ceylon

2 Java



Application Segment Analysis of Citronella Oil Market:



1 Food & Drink

2 Daily Chemical Product

3 Others



Finally, the research study provides a comprehensive view of the global Citronella Oil market, offering market size and estimates for the period from 2016 to 2021, keeping in mind the above mentioned factors.
Willow Grove, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- Anyone searching for a fencing company near Delaware County or any of its surrounding areas, is encouraged to reach out to the professionals at Greenhill Fencing Inc. this spring. With the average temperature on the rise, it's a perfect time for customers to start planning those long overdue home improvement projects they've been waiting years to complete.



Whether someone wants PVC, chain-link, wood or aluminum fencing installed on their property, they can trust that the design team at Greenhill Fencing Inc. will help guide them through the product selection process. Moreover, they'll draw up a design that most closely suits the needs and desires of their customers.



The trained technicians at Greenhill Fencing Inc. have experience installing fences for a wide variety of purposes. While some customers are interested in improving the security of their homes, for example, others are more focused on providing an enclosure for their children and pets, so they can run around and play freely.



Although spring will here in just a few days, summer will soon follow; which means that anyone who has a pool that isn't currently surrounded with a fence, will be legally required to install a "pool fence" before swimming this summer. The most popular type of fencing in this case is aluminum fencing in Delaware County and its surrounding areas.



Don't wait any longer to enjoy all the advantages of a brand-new fence. Request a free quote form the professionals at Greenhill Fencing Inc. by filling out a contact form on their website, or by calling 267-329-3005 today.



About Greenhill Fencing Inc.

For over 25 years and 3 generations of family ownership, Greenhill Fencing Inc. has consistently met its goal of providing fast, affordable fence installations to their community. Located in Willow Grove, PA, the company hires the most experienced technicians and offers high-quality materials at competitive prices. Greenhill Fencing serves homes in Philadelphia as well as customers throughout Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware Counties.



To learn more visit http://www.greenhillfencing.com/
Trondheim, Norway -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- Maria Johnsen, an award winning Digital Marketing Expert is a well-known name in the industry. Maria and her team are experts in delivering sophisticated multilingual SEO services, social media marketing, digital marketing and various other SEO services. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, Maria has helped numerous ecommerce sites achieve the highest traffic, revenue, conversions and return of clients. Maria has made a mark in the most competitive markets in the world. This includes the USA, UK, Russia, Canada, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Japan, France, Germany, Finland and Ireland. The methods (as per Google Algorithms) of search engine optimizations that Maria adopts have proved to be very beneficial to her clients.



Each and every eCommerce site is different and so are the SEO needs. And that is the reason why Maria has a customized approach to each and every client thereby helping them yield maximum results for their respective eCommerce sites. Maria has also provided her clients with excellent results with her latest multilingual SEO services. Spanish speaking eCommerce entrepreneurs can now take advantage of the SEO services in Espana or SEO services in Spain. The multilingual digital marketing takes a larger share in the overall marketing or selling campaigns. It will also help the websites explore new arenas. This particularly holds true when the sites are open to customers who speak different languages be it Russian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Norwegian, Chinese or any language for that matter.



E-commerce websites can tap into new markets and advertise their products and services for a better visibility, attraction and retention. The multilingual SEO services include SEO, PPC, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, PR writing in multiple languages, Creative Advertising, Video Creation with Voice Over (with 2D explainer) and a Lead Generator that works wonders. "Effective Multilingual Marketing means generating leads by finding those who find what you have interesting and something they have been searching for in their own markets", says Maria. With Maria and her expert team working on the multilingual SEO marketing, ecommerce sites can venture into new markets, have a global SEO outreach and get a better conversion rate.



To know more about multilingual SEO or SEO in Spain services visit http://www.maria-johnsen.com/SEOspain/



About http://www.maria-johnsen.com/

Maria Johnsen comes from a diverse academic background as well as professional background with experience in sales, content writing, multilingual digital marketing, business intelligence and software design and development. Also known as a hyper polyglot entrepreneur, Maria is an influencer, a speaker, programmer and a bestselling author. With her knowledge in 18 languages, Maria is an expert in multilingual SEO, Social Media Marketing and PPC. In 2016 she ranked #6 as the most Influential Digital Marketing Expert in the world.



Contact

Maria Johnsen

Address: Urdsvei 5 Trondheim, 7033 Norway

Phone: +47-90612731

Email: mail@maria-johnsen.com

Website: http://www.maria-johnsen.com
Jieyang, Guangdong -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/13/2017 -- Those who required synthetic paper have reason to be happy because RIF Company offers a range of PP synthetic paper. The company offers various types of synthetic paper which includes conventional printable, sensitive thermal, desktop inkjet printable and many more.



The company which was established in the year 2010 is basically a professional manufacturer of PP synthetic paper, synthetic label materials, sticker materials and PE stone paper. PP synthetic paper finds application in a wide range of fields that includes electronics, manufacturing, chemicals, logistics and advertising.



BOPP thermal coating synthetic labels are also manufactured by this company. PP synthetic paper is considered to be more advantageous than conventional paper products. It is long lasting with folding and printing ability. It is also resistant to weather and corrosion. It has better rigidity with advanced water resistant features. It is also long lasting compared to ordinary wood pulp paper.



Stating the benefits of synthetic paper, the head of the company says, "Synthetic paper print-ability is better than traditional paper and could be a good alternative for various printing applications. It is applicable for diverse printing methods including offset, rotogravure, letterpress, screen and digital printing. It is also an ideal option for label stickers such as for bottles or containers such as detergent container/bottle, shower gel bottle, shampoo bottle, bottled water, beverage, wineetc. As it is water-resistant, it can be used on ice cream packs, frozen foods and cold drink packets."



He also states, "Our RIFO Company established in 2010, we are domestic professional manufacturer of PP synthetic paper and coated BOPP. We adopt GERMANY Bruckner Maschinenbau GmbH & JAPAN MITSUBISHI base materials, use Taiwan advanced coating produce line, with an annual production capacity excess 5000tons."



The use of PP synthetic paper is increasing day by day as more people are becoming aware of its beneficial uses and properties. It is widely used now in packaging industries. It is also used for labels and packaging materials. Now the industry is seeking new avenues and markets for synthetic paper products.



To know more about PP synthetic paper, please log on to: http://www.pppaper.com/



About RIF Company

RIF Company was established in the year 2010. It focuses on the manufacture of PP synthetic paper and other such products. It also manufactures a wide range of PP synthetic paper that can be used in various fields such as manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, electronics and many more.



Media Contact

Tel: 0086-663-8827000

Fax: 0086-663-8812838

Email: vivianrifo@gmail.com

Homepage: www.pppaper.com

Add: Room 302, NO.22 WangHuJiaYuan, RuiAn, Zhejiang, China 325200
Nairobi, Kenya -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- Keeping in mind the heart breaking situations in Somalia, somali-aid.org, a non profit organization based in Kenya, works ceaselessly for the people of Somalia. "Somalia is struggling to rise to the current living standards of the world. It would be a failure of humanity if we fail to help the Somalis. Somali-aid.org aims to provide the very basic needs of man to the Somalis. We aim to educate them of their basic human rights," a representative of the non profit organization said.



Somalia is one of the least developed countries in the world torn by civil war. The country is also one of the poorest countries in the world with more than seventy percent of the population of the country living below poverty line.



The representative of the non profit organization said that it was the duty of every responsible man to help Somalia rise again. "Not everybody can go to the country to help them. But every like minded individual who wishes to help the Somalis can always donate to our site. We run our operations through donations from like minded individuals across the globe," he said when asked how the organization financed an operation as big as a country. He added that the organization maintained transparency and every audit of the organization's incomes and expenses were always made available to their donors through their site.



He was also asked about the activities of the organization.He explained, "We work to provide basic needs like clean drinking water, and we also try to educate them of their basic human rights. We provide trainings to help them become independent and self-sufficient. We try our best to provide basic health facilities as well. You see one in every three children die before reaching the age of five in Somalia."



For more details please go to http://somali-aid.org/donate/



About Somali-aid.org

Somali-aid.org is a non profit organization based in Kenya. The organization works for the uplifting of humanity in Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world.



Contact Media

Somali-aid

Nairobi,Kenya

ahmed@somali-aid.org

http://somali-aid.org/donate/
Nashville, TN -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- Anyone searching for a company offering sprinkler installations in Franklin, TN or any of its surrounding areas, can place their trust in the experienced crew at Southern Irrigation this spring. As the temperature rises, this is a perfect time for home and business owners to start planning how they're going to improve their curb appeal in 2017. Customers are encouraged to ensure a flourishing property throughout the months ahead, by giving it the hydration it needs to grow as healthy as possible.



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In fact, Southern Irrigation can also perform irrigation system repairs in Franklin, TN and its surrounding areas, for those customers dealing with a broken or malfunctioning system. Whether they failed to request a proper winterization service, for example, or they're having issues with pop up heads or valves, their highly trained crew can diagnose and resolve any problems that customers might be experiencing with their sprinkler systems. At Southern Irrigation, they recognize how important it is for customers to ensure they're sprinkler systems are up to par before the hot weather arrives. That's why they're there to help in any way possible.



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After only nine generations, the same plant species is larger and more fragrant if pollinated by bumblebees rather than flies, according to University of Zurich evolutionary biologists Florian Schiestl and Daniel Gervasi.

For their experiments, Gervasi and Prof. Schiestl used the field mustard (Brassica rapa).

They allowed one plant group to be pollinated solely by bumblebees for nine generations, another only by hoverflies, and a third by hand. Afterwards they analyzed the plants, which differed greatly.

The plants pollinated by bumblebees were larger and had more fragrant flowers with a greater UV color component, which bees and their relatives see.

The plants pollinated by hoverflies, on the other hand, were smaller, their flowers were less fragrant and they self-pollinated considerably more.

The mechanism of evolutionary change is fact that different pollinators differ in their preferences and thus preferentially cross-pollinate specific plant individuals, much like a plant breeder using individuals with favorable properties, Prof. Schiestl said.

The flies considerably lower pollination efficiency is the cause of the increase in self-pollination.

The plants essentially help themselves if the pollinator transfers too little pollen.

The fact that the plants change so significantly already after nine generations came as a surprise to the team.

The traditional assumption is that evolution is a slow process, Prof. Schiestl noted.

A change in the composition of pollinator insects in natural habitats can trigger a rapid evolutionary transformation in plants, he said.

This is particularly interesting as certain pollinator insects such as bees have been vastly decimated by the extensive use of pesticides and the depletion of the landscape in recent decades.

According to Prof. Schiestl, it would thus be conceivable for plants to increasingly rely on flies as pollinators, which would result in the evolution of weaker flower fragrances and more self-pollination. In the longer term, this would reduce a plant populations genetic variability and the plants would become more susceptible to disease.

The findings will be published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

_____

Daniel Gervasi & Florian Schiestl. Real-time divergent evolution in plants driven by pollinators. Nature Communications, published online March 14, 2017; doi: 10.1038/ncomms14691

This article is based on text provided by the University of Zurich.
[SAO PAULO] The placenta  an organ responsible for carrying oxygen and nutrients from the mother to the foetus  is much more vulnerable to Zika infection in the first trimester of pregnancy, and this explains why the congenital damage caused by the virus is more serious in the early stages of a childs prenatal development, according to a study.

The researchers, who published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (February 13), used reprogrammed embryonic stem cells to reproduce cells of the human placenta in the first trimester of gestation.

Their results show that in this period, the virus finds a favourable biological environment for infection. This is because the placenta produces genes encoding proteins that help the virus to cross it.

In addition, the placentas immune defense mechanisms are not yet fully developed in the first trimester.

Over time, however, the organ matures and stops producing these proteins, and it begins to activate molecules associated with antiviral defenses, such as interferons type I and III.

Any therapeutic intervention at the beginning of pregnancy is considered to be a high risk for foetal development and, therefore, should be treated with discretion. Michael Roberts, University of Missouri

"The results corroborate other studies suggesting that the placenta is more vulnerable to Zika infection in the first trimester of pregnancy," biologist Michael Roberts, a researcher at the University of Missouri, United States, and lead author of the study, which is supported by FAPESP, told SciDev.Net.

He noted that an earlier study, published in 2016 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found brain abnormalities in 5.9 per cent of the children of 442 American women exposed to Zika at some time during their pregnancy. However, among these, there were no cases of congenital damage among children of women who had been infected during the second and third trimester of pregnancy.

The researchers also verified that the Zika strain identified in Africa is more virulent than the Asian strain, which gave rise to the Brazilian strain of the virus.

According to Roberts, the African strain multiplies faster than the Asian strain, destroying placental cells and compromising gestation.

Although the results are important, there is still a long way to go before obtaining an effective alternative against infection with this virus, he warns.

The study reinforces the message that pregnant women should have quality care during pregnancy, especially in the first few months but without neglecting the risks of infection in other months, according to Jean Pierre Schatzmann Peron of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Sao Paulo (ICB-USP), Brazil.

"Any therapeutic intervention at the beginning of pregnancy is considered to be a high risk for foetal development and, therefore, should be treated with discretion," the biochemist tells SciDev.Net.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has the support of the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Sao Paulo (FAPESP), one of the donors of SciDev.Net.

This article was produced by SciDev.Net's Latin America and Carribean edition.
NASA released new images of the New Zealand glaciers and it is retreating. The country has more or less 3,000 glaciers and it is slowly diminishing since the 1890s. Most of the glaciers are found at the Southern Alps on the South Island of the said country.

NASA and United States Geological Survey Landsat took an image way back on Jan. 12, 1990. It shows that the area measures at 39 by 46 kilometers and is covered with white. The Muller, Hooker, and Tasman glaciers are included in the area of New Zealand's South Island.

Going back to 2017, using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) by NASA the captures images of the area turned out to be gray. The images, which were taken last Jan. 29, have revealed that it has less snow over and larger terminal lakes.

NASA mentioned in a statement the "Notice the larger terminal lakes, the retreat of the ice-free of moraine cover. The higher moraine walls due to ice thinning."

The Team Leader of the ASTER Science, Michael Abrams said in an interview the that there are several causes for the glaciers to retreat. "The primary cause is that melting surpasses accumulation of snow. This change in the precipitation/melting budget can be a local weather condition or a more regional weather change," according to Yahoo New Zealand.

Abrams added that the New Zealand glaciers are retreating at a slower pace compared to the other parts of the world. As for the future of the glaciers, he said that it is hard to predict when or what will happen. He added that "though the recent past behavior suggests we will see retreat for some unknown future time" or the glaciers could stop to retreat.

The current image that was captured by ASTER is one of the five Earth-observing instruments on Terra which is a satellite that was launched back in 1999. It has a Via spatial resolution data in 14 bands, ASTER monitors the planet's changing surface, from the visible thermal infrared wavelengths, such as the glacial advances and retreats, coral reef degradation, volcanoes and the thermal pollution and surface heat balance.
As global warming changing the shape of the world, its highly effecting on the Polar regions of the earth. Maybe some day it will vanish and the polar animal species will be extinct. Experiencing the beauty of snow world is everyones fantasy, but future generation may not be able to enjoy the beauty.

To gift the future generation the experience of snow world, Anthropologist Jean-Christophe Victor took an intellectual step. He has opened a polar museum because a museums are one of the best ways to create awareness and spread the knowledge. According to Scroll Today, this museum is the first permanent museum in the World which represents both Arctic and Antarctic environment.

Anthropologist Jean-Christophe Victor founded the museum with the help of Naturalist Stephane Niveau. It is a jutting iceberg shaped structure and Its been named as Espace des Mondes Polaires Paul-Emile Victor. Almost 60 percent of its own volume are buried underground. This mega structure contains a 650 square-meter exhibition hall and it is organized in two poles.

The Hindu reported that the antarctic part is 42 meters long and the other part displays an Inuit coastal village of Arctic which is 20 meters in length. This museum is also decorated with a naturalized 3.30 m tall white bear along with penguins and wolves. Museum authority also added kayaks, harpoons and other expedition aids, photographs, videos and recorded sounds to enhance the beauty.

At the end of the exploration, there is a space named Pole Alert for creating awareness in spectators. There are several videos for the spectators to highlight the consequences of the melting of the sea ice. It also has a temporary exhibition hall, skating rink, conference room, multipurpose hall, and restaurant. Glass and metals were used to build the architecture and it has 16 geothermal wells and also recovers heat from the refrigeration units for its energy.

The museum was named after the honor of Paul-Emile Victor. He was an ethnologist of France. Royal Geographical Society of London awarded him with Patrons Gold Medal in 1952. Mount Victor in Antarctica is also named after him. Jean-Christophe Victor also followed his fathers footsteps. He died in December 2016. Before his death, he told that the museum would be a visiting place for at least 50,000 to 70,000 people per year.
Mexico has signed seven new contracts for oil production in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday. The National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) has initiated the signing bringing seven deep water explorations and production that will stop Mexico from auctioning oil from other countries.

The said contracts are just addition to the contracts signed last week. The following oil companies are the ones that signed a contract with Mexico - Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) with BHP Billiton, American oil super major Chevron Corp. and Japan's Impex. These contracts have all been bid last year and were awarded in December. The new contracts are going to take place in the blocks of the Gulf of Mexico. Three in the Perdido Fold Belt, a 40,000 sq.-kilometer (15,450 sq.-miles) area located in the northwestern part of the Gulf and four in the Saline Basin, situated in the southern part of the Gulf.

The Gulf of Mexico will definitely be explored and in the Perdido Fold Belt, block one and four will be explored by a Chinese corporation, China National Offshore Oil Corporation. For block two, a French and American oil companies have signed for it, France's Total and the United States' Exxon Mobil Exploration. Meanwhile, in the Saline Basin, Norway's Statoil, the United Kingdom's BP Exploration and Total's local unit has signed Block one and three. Block four was signed up by Malaysia's Petronas, PC Carigali Mexico Operations and Mexico's Sierra Offshore Exploration. Lastly, the block 5 is signed by U.S. energy company Murphy Oil's local unit, the UK's Ophir Energy, PC Carigali and Sierra Offshore.

All contracts have a 35-year life span. At the same time, all contracts can be extended for 10 more years and an additional of five years after that, reported Petroleum World. This contracts and exploration will definitely increases the low and declining crude output of the country.

All the companies that have signed the contracts will not violate any law as they "are fully qualified and have the capital and experience to undertake projects of these dimensions (in which) there is no room for experimentation or error," Energy Secretary Pedro Joaquin Coldwell said.
The Indian spacecraft known as Chandrayaan-1, which was lost on Aug. 29, 2009, has been recovered by NASA radars. It was located orbiting the Moon 124 miles above the surface.

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was about 1.5 meters (5 feet) in height and had orbited the Moon for over 3,400 times since its launching on Oct. 22, 2008. On the other hand, it lost track in August 2009.

The researchers speculated that it might be 200 km (124 miles) above the Moon. After 8 years, it was detected by NASA's Earth-based radars, according to Science Alert.

Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said that finding India's Chandrayaan-1 required a bit more detective work because the last contact with the spacecraft was in August of 2009. The scientists radiated microwaves on the Moon's north pole at about 380,000 km (237,000 miles) away. They used a big antenna at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California to locate the missing satellite.

Ryan Park, the manager of JPL's Solar System Dynamics group, said that it turns out that they needed to shift the location of Chandrayaan-1 by about 180 degrees or half a cycle from the old orbital estimates from 2009. On the other hand, he further said that Chandrayaan-1's orbit still had the shape and alignment that they predicted.

Meanwhile, the NASA scientists were able to detect as well the NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Brozovic stated that finding LRO was relatively easy as they were working with the mission's navigators and had precise orbit data where it was located.

According to NASA, rediscovering the LRO and the Chandrayaan-1 signals a new and distinctive expertise. The ground-based radars could have a role in the futuristic robotic and human missions to the Moon for evaluating dangerous collisions and a secure tool for spacecraft. Meanwhile, the huge radar antennas at Goldstone, Arecibo and Green Bank could identify and monitor small spacecraft in lunar orbit.
NASA and NOAA satellites detected a major winter storm heading toward the U.S. East Coast on March 13 and March 14. The agencies are monitoring the region with many satellites.

Winter storm madness - Satellites tracking a storm expected to bring large snowfall totals to the U.S. East Coast: https://t.co/cOWLeID10p pic.twitter.com/2SYy5nDdre  NASA (@NASA) March 14, 2017

The National Weather Service forecasts that a low-pressure system traversing the Midwest states and the Ohio valley will fuse with another low-pressure system off the southeast coast of the U.S. This will trigger large snowfalls from the Mid-Atlantic to New England, according to EurekAlert.

The forecasters from the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center (WPC) said that there will be a strong northeaster that will develop near the coast and will cause a late-season snowstorm from the central Appalachians to New England. This includes several major cities in the northeast U.S.

Meanwhile, there will be extreme snowfall from the northern Middle Atlantic to southern New England. It is expected that this will be 12 to 18 inches with localized amounts up to 2 feet. The WPC also stated that heavy winds will be experienced, which might cause uprooting trees and power outages. Areas from southern New Jersey to the Carolinas will experience more than an inch of rain.

The satellites used by NASA include the Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-East (Geostationary Operational Environmental-East). The Aqua satellite captured the storm indicating the cloud top and ground temperatures. NASA stated that as the clouds get higher, they become colder and could intensify the storm.

Meanwhile, the GOES-East satellite gave information about the infrared and visible wavelengths indicating the path of the low-pressure system. NASA has produced an animation using this gathered data between March 11 and March 13. The animation was transformed onto a true-color image of the ground and ocean, which came from the data from MODIS or the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, according to Space.com.
Boaty McBoatface may seem like the name of a cartoon character in a children's show, but the yellow submarine has far more serious work than many other boats in a marina. The yellow submarine is actually set to leave for its first science expedition and is bound for Antarctica in a few days.

According to BBC, the robot will be mapping the movement of deep waters, which has a critical role in regulating the planet's climate. While the name is fun to say, Boaty's original body was supposed to be that of a polar research vessel that the public voted on. The government, however, thought this was going to be inappropriate for the important mission, so it designated the boat to a submersible instead.

Boaty is not alone with the name, either. There is actually more than one Boaty McBoatface. The name actually covers a trio of vehicles in the new underwater robots developed by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), and they are set to be configured depending on the tasks they are given.

The first yellow submarine that will start the "adventures of Boaty" will be heading out to Punta Arenas, Chile, on Friday aboard the British polar ship RRS James Clark Ross. Later in March, Boaty will be checking the deep current in the Southern Ocean that originated in Antarctica. Among the things that Boaty will study are the extent of the ice melt and the proceses that are driving changes in the Polar Regions.

The NOC website also noted that Boaty will surface from time to time to transmit data via a radio link, making it one of the most capable marine robot vehicles in the world. The Autosub Long Range vehicles were after all developed specifically to travel thousands of kilometers on missions that will last for months at a time, ensuring that Boaty McBoatface and the others can discover more of the mysterious ocean below.
Scientists came up with an artificial retinal implant that could give hope to millions of people suffering from retinal degeneration. The new implant could transform the light into an electrical signal that fuels the retinal neurons. This has been tested in rats and could be on trial in humans within this year.

The findings of the discovery were printed in Nature Materials. The study was led by scientists from the Italian Institute of Technology, according to Science Alert.

Grazia Pertile, one of the researchers and an ophthalmologist from the Sacred Heart Don Calabria in Negrar, Italy, is hoping to reproduce the implant in humans. "We plan to carry out the first human trials in the second half of this year and gather preliminary results during 2018." She further said that this implant could be a turning point in the treatment of severe debilitating retinal diseases.

The developed artificial retina implant could replace the damaged retina. It is made from a thin layer of conductive polymer. It is positioned on a silk-based substrate and enclosed with a semiconducting polymer, which serves as a photovoltaic material. The polymer then attracts photons when light enters the lens of the eye. Once this had occurred, the electricity then incites the retinal neurons.

The device was implanted into the eyes of rats that have retinal degeneration. The results showed that the implant stimulates the "residual neuronal circuitries in the degenerate retina." On the other hand, a research must be conducted to know how the stimulation works on a biological level.

Retinal degeneration is the weakening of retina that might lead to blindness. It is triggered by the death of cells of the retina, diabetic retinopathy, artery or vein occlusion, retrolental fibroplasia, retinopathy of prematurity or hereditary. Its symptoms include night blindness, impaired vision, light sensitivity, retinal detachment, tunnel vision and loss or peripheral vision that leads to blindness.
President Donald Trump's viewpoints regarding hastening the FDA drug approval process are no secret. Previous Deputy commissioner of FDA, Scott Gottlieb, has almost similar views regarding the necessity of speeding up the currently followed drug approval process. It seems these similarities may have played an important role in Trump's decision of nominating Scott Gottlieb to be the next FDA commissioner.

The announcement was made via a tweet that was posted last Friday by Sean Spicer, the White House Press Secretary. The tweet read "@POTUS has announced his intent to nominate Scott Gottlieb as next Commissioner of the FDA."

The agency is currently run by acting commissioner Dr. Stephen Ostroff, after Dr. Robert M. Califf voluntarily stepped down from the post the day Donald Trump was sworn in as the new President. Scott Gottlieb will take the official charge of the agency after receiving official confirmation from the President's office, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News reported.

Scott Gottlieb was the deputy commissioner of the FDA during Bush's presidency and is highly familiar with the agency's modus operandi inside and out. He is presently working as a resident fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, an organization that helps in embracing free enterprise approaches to federal policies. It is evident that he possesses the knowledge and the experience required to lead the FDA. This is why President Donald Trump and his advisors deemed him fit to be nominated as the next FDA commissioner.

Furthermore, Scott Gottlieb is a firm advocate of modifying the prevalent FDA guidelines, especially those concerned with the process of drug approval, just like Trump. According to him, this can not only help in propagating the availability of newly developed drugs but it will also cause a significant reduction in their prices. Though the proposed method has shown positive results in the FDA cancer division, its impact on the generic medicine market is yet to be found out, Fierce Biotech reported.

While Scott Gottlieb's nomination is pending confirmation from the members of the Senate, there have been allegations that his industry connections and his "dangerous deregulatory approaches" may deter the quality of the approved drugs. In the meantime, Dr. Califf has criticized the notion that regulatory guidelines of FDA are impeding the availability of new drugs. He further explained that overlooking these regulatory aspects may lead to dangerous consequences.
HARTSVILLE, S.C.  Darlington County law enforcement officials have said there is a connection with two drive-by shootings earlier in the month and two arrests late last week that yielded guns, drugs and gang literature.

A community meeting of elected officials and law enforcement personnel has been announced for Monday. An announcement was sent out Tuesday, but no one has announced an agenda.

S.C. Sen. Gerald Malloy, who represents Hartsville and Darlington County, released a short statement.

Due to recent tragic events in Hartsville and Darlington County, I find it necessary to call a meeting for community leaders and local law enforcement to encourage open conversation and community awareness, he said. This meeting will be held on March 20, 2017, at 4:30 p.m. in the Jerusalem Baptist Church Fellowship Hall. For further information, please contact my office at 843-339-3000.

On Monday, the Darlington County Sheriffs office released information that said it along with the Hartsville Police Department, the Chesterfield County Sheriffs Office and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division conducted a joint operation in the Hartsville area of Darlington County on the nights of March 9 and March 11 in response to recent shootings.

The joint operation included agents saturating high-crime areas, surveillance and the service of a search warrant in the 400 block of Marlboro Avenue in Hartsville.

As a result of the joint operation on both nights, five firearms were seized, including one high powered rifle, according to the sheriff's office.

Three people were charged with unlawful carry of a handgun. One person was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Thirteen people were charged with possession of drugs, including marijuana, crack cocaine and meth. Seven were charged with drug distribution.

Other charges included public disorderly conduct, trespassing, driving under suspension and unlawful liquor sales.

Three bench warrants and two outstanding warrants were served. Also, gang literature and gang paraphernalia were found.

Arrested and charged were:

Gregory Lamont Benjamin, 31, of Hartsville, charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct. His bond was set at $10,000.

Larry Lee Blakney, 36, of Hartsville, charged with possession of crack. His bond was set at $5,000.

Ryan Deveaurux Pierce, 28, of Hartsville, charged with two counts of distribution of marijuana, two counts distribution of marijuana within proximity of a school and possession with intent to distribute Marijuana. A bond hearing is pending.

Frederick Blue, 30, of Hartsville, charged with unlawful carry of a handgun. He was released on a $1,500 bond.

William Chad Brigman, 38, of Patrick, charged with possession of methamphetamine and driving under suspension. He was released under a $2,500 bond.

Terence Ford, 41, of Hartsville, charged with unlawful carry of a handgun. He was released on a $1,500 bond.

Luther McCoy Jones, 33, of Hartsville, charged with the unlawful sale of liquor. He was released on a personal recognizance bond .

Matthew Matron Plight, 23, of Hartsville, arrested on two outstanding warrants charging him with shoplifting and one outstanding warrant charging him with possession of stolen goods. He was released on a $3,262 bond .

Darius Tyquan Reed, 22, of Hartsville, charged with domestic violence 2nd warrant and petit larceny. He was released on a $20,000 bond .

The investigation into the two shootings is continuing.

The Darlington County Sheriffs Office, Hartsville Police Department, Chesterfield County Sheriffs Office and SLED will continue to conduct joint operations. Anyone withinformation about the shootings you are asked to contact Darlington County sheriffs investigators at 843-398-4501 or Crime Stoppers of the Pee Dee at 1-888-CRIME-SC or text tip number 274637 (CRIMES). Callers do not have to give their identity to leave information.
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Deputies later this year will be hitting the streets armed with 10 new digital in-car camera systems given to the department by the South Carolina Department of Public Safety.

The state will also fund the installation of the L3 Flashback cameras in 10 new cruisers on order for the Darlington County Sheriff's Office, according to a release issued by the department.

The value of the cameras, which are compatible with the department's current digital media storage system, is $52,950, Lt. Robert Kilgo wrote in the release.

"The cameras will help the Sheriffs Office prosecute DUI cases and provide transparency," according to the release.

The new patrol vehicles are expected to arrive beginning this summer.
WASHINGTON - It's time to put an end to the myth that Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility. Saving taxpayer dollars takes a back seat to the ideological imperative of blaming and shaming the poor.

Witness the GOP's long-awaited plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. House committees are moving forward on the legislation before the Congressional Budget Office has even had a chance to estimate how much the measure will cost. Why the rush? Because if the plan doesn't snatch away health insurance coverage from millions of people -- and both President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan swear it won't -- then it's surely going to cost a ton.

The Republican plan would take away the ACA's subsidies and replace them with refundable tax credits based on age, not income. This means a windfall for those who are older and well-to-do. In essence, the plan would expand government assistance to encompass many who don't really need it -- in order to avoid targeting help toward those who do.

The GOP plan would also eliminate the ACA's penalty fee for not having health insurance, which goes into the public till -- and replace it with a different penalty fee that goes to the insurance companies. Apparently Republicans have no problem committing what they once called "extortion" if the benefit goes to private companies, not the common good.

Keep in mind that Trump and GOP leaders in Congress promise that after dealing with health care they will seek huge tax cuts, including for the wealthy. As fiscal policy, how does this make sense?

It doesn't. It only makes sense as ideology. In today's Republican Party, policies have to satisfy the belief that the less fortunate are poor by choice.

Rarely do Republicans just come out and accuse the poor of being lazy freeloaders, but Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, came close. He suggested that "rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."

The priciest iPhone advertised on Apple's website is a 7 Plus model with 256 gigabytes of storage and all the bells and whistles. It costs $969. If Chaffetz will cancel the cushy health insurance plan he is provided as a member of the House, I will write him a check for that amount -- and wish him the best of luck providing health care for his family. Maybe he'll be able to pay for a single visit to the emergency room.

It would be one thing if the GOP's mean-spirited ideology actually saved money, but it doesn't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

When you ask Republicans what they're going to cut, they mention foreign aid -- which totals about $35 billion, or slightly less than 1 percent of federal spending. They threaten to eviscerate smaller agencies by cutting $6 billion here or $8 billion there -- but at the same time, they applaud Trump's pledge to increase the $600 billion defense budget by an incredible 10 percent.

They're going to end up spending more -- perhaps lots more -- and collecting less in tax revenue. And this is the party that claims to care about deficits and debt?

But wait, Republicans say, we're going to "save" the big entitlement programs by trimming benefits. Yeah, sure. I'm not holding my breath. The problem is that Medicare and Social Security serve middle-class and upper-crust taxpayers, including many who share the GOP's punish-the-poor belief system. If you think these ACA-focused town halls are hostile, just you wait.

The fact is that among recent administrations, at least, Democratic presidents have been the relative skinflints. Bill Clinton, you will recall, actually balanced the budget -- and yes, he had help from Republicans in Congress. Barack Obama spent heavily at first to save the economy, which was teetering on the edge of a dreadful abyss, but he ended up slashing the deficit in half and presiding over years of uninterrupted economic growth.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, fought hugely expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without accounting for them in his budgets. He also convinced Congress to expand Medicare to cover prescription drugs, which was compassionate but costly.

Trump promises to be even more of a big spender. Among other things, he promises a trillion-dollar program to renew the nation's infrastructure. Imagine the Republican howling if Obama had suggested such a thing.

The GOP will surely persist in its sanctimony about balanced budgets, but no one should pay any attention. Republicans, we see what you're doing.

Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.
CHT Global Steps Up SD-WAN

By Steve Anderson , Contributing Writer

The growth of software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) in recent years is bringing with it a variety of new opportunities and capabilities from both makers and users of such systems. Recently, Chunghwa Telecom (News - Alert) (CHT) Global announced that it was bringing its own SD-WAN systems out on a global scale thanks to a new partnership with VeloCloud Networks.







With the new partnership in place, CHT Global can better produce the basic infrastructure that allows an SD-WAN system to be most readily put to use. With such a system in play, businesses get access to cost savings, better customer experience, and further improvements from there that help ensure return business. CHT Global was already known for its agility and security in the field, as well as its ability to offer a system that could be brought up and running with a minimum of problems. Thanks to VeloCloud's help, CHT Global can offer a complete secure cloud network option, protecting sensitive data and making branch deployment easier.

This is also a move that gives VeloCloud some extra opportunities; since CHT Global ranks among the current leaders in cable line networks in the Pacificand even beyond that thanks to its undersea cable systemsit's a major presence in both voice and data traffic worldwide. Thus, working with CHT Global gives VeloCloud some new opportunities to break into a market as well.

CHT Global president and CEO Joe Yang commented CHT Global SD-WAN will minimize the congestion that commonly occurs with traditional broadband Internet that would otherwise interfere with the delivery of time-sensitive applications and lower the QoE for end users. By pairing up VeloClouds technology and knowledge of managed services with CHT Globals submarine cable network, businesses around the world can increase operational efficiency and maximize performance.

SD-WAN systems have already shown their value worldwide as a means to not only offer more services, but to do so more rapidly according to changing conditions on the ground. That's great news for both the users and those who offer SD-WAN services, as it assures a market of eager users ready to put these systems to work to in some cases save money, in some cases make money, and in a few cases, do both at the same time.

With CHT Global and VeloCloud working together here, the duo is likely to put out an impressive new capability in the SD-WAN field. That should prove to be good news all around.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
Both the Hamburg and Seattle centers provide real-time support for the company's 102-ship fleet. A third center will be added to the global network later this year when construction is scheduled for completion on a facility at the companys Miami headquarters.

The new Fleet Operations Centers use the latest tracking and data-analysis platform that enables real-time information sharing among Carnival Corp. ships and specialized onshore teams that support fleet operations. The proprietary system significantly improves communication from ship to shore, providing new capabilities for enhancing the safe passage of ships at sea while improving operational efficiencies and supporting overall environmental initiatives at Carnival Corp.

The system, which initially captures thousands of data points and provides real-time analytics for 28 distinct parameters for navigational safety from each ship, focuses on various strategic areas to optimize safety, efficiency and overall fleet performance.

Those include nautical operations and safety, including the capability to see real-time radar visuals, stability conditions, automation, the Safety Management and Command System, and webcams from each ship, along with GPS location, routing, ship conditions and weather data.

Another strategic area is procedural optimization and efficiency, including speeds, navigational data and engine conditions. And sustainability is a third strategic area, including fuel and energy usage, emissions levels, water and waste management.

'Our teams have done a remarkable job in developing the most sophisticated and capable system in the cruise and commercial maritime industry for taking safety management to a completely new level, overcoming the hurdles faced with ships sailing in the middle of oceans around the world,' said Bill Burke, chief maritime officer for Carnival Corp. and a retired US Navy vice admiral.

'With our new operations centers running our proprietary technology, both our ship and shoreside teams have greater than ever ability to ensure we are operating at safety levels that far exceed industry standards, Burke added. 'We can now also access and analyze data that can significantly increase the operational efficiency of our ships, which is another major benefit.'

Using cloud-based technology from Microsoft, this new systemdubbed 'Neptune'has been in use at the Carnival Maritime Fleet Operations Center in Hamburg, as announced in October 2015. Carnival Corp. has been piloting the system with its European cruise brands in Hamburg and Southampton. Based on the systems success, the company will continue rolling it out this year to further increase the monitoring capability of its ships sailing in the US and Caribbean, through its Fleet Operation Centers in Miami and Seattle.

The new Fleet Operations Centers will provide an additional layer of support, where the shore-based analytics system will automatically generate alerts to help provide support in addressing any potential safety or weather-related issues across the fleet. Moving forward, the systems ability to process and analyze big data in real time will enable Carnival Corp. and its brands to do predictive analysis with the potential to further improve safety and operations.

The implementation of the advanced support system is aligned with the companys Arison Maritime Center, home of its Center for Simulator Maritime Training Academy, or CSMART Academy, the maritime training, professional development and research facility in Almere, just outside Amsterdam. The CSMART Academy provides some 6,500 deck and technical officers from the companys 10 global brands with extensive annual training programs.
Diamond Princess will make eight visits to Penang this season and Sapphire Princess will follow with another eight calls for the next. The pair will bring over 40,000 guests for two seasons.

Diamond Princess visited Penang March 13, arriving from Port Klang en-route to Phuket on a five-day Malaysian Peninsula voyage before returning to Singapore.

'Penang is proud and honoured to have Diamond Princess berthing at Port Swettenham,' said Y.B. Danny Law, Penang State EXCO for tourism development, who boarded the ship for a tour and lunch onboard.

He welcomed the guests and crew to Penang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

'Penang has become one of our guests favourite port of calls, with over 80% of guests disembarking the ship when they visit Penang to enjoy the wonderful local food, great shopping and charming sight-seeing attractions,' said Farriek Tawfik, director of Southeast Asia, Princess Cruises.

Guests from Penang and northern Malaysia will continue to have the option of boarding the ship from Port Swettenham on her Southeast Asian voyages.

Penang will welcome Majestic Princess on a maiden call in June, and the vessel's first stop in Southeast Asia.
Under the new convention, ships trading in international waters will need to ensure they are fitted with a ship-specific ballast water management systems, costing the industry as a whole billions of dollars.

But speaking at last weeks Marine Money event in Dubai, Svein Eloff Pedersen, ceo of Noah Ship Management warned against owners rushing into costly installations.

New regulation is coming soon meaning owners will have to install ballast water treatment systems, but there is a five year window, Pederson told an industry conference in Dubai last week.

There are around 50-70 suppliers of ballast water systems that have IMO have approved, but there are very few that have been approved in the US.

So, for those that havent installed, I would wait. It is better to wait because not all systems are being approved by the US. In the US there is an up to five years grace period to install a system that is compliant.

Pederson also warned operators that installing the systems would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even then would not necessarily be approved by US authorities.

Under US Coast Guard rules, shipowners can apply for an extension to their compliance date if they can prove an approved ballast system is not available to install on their vessel.

However, vessels will have to comply with new rules by the beginning of 2021, with no exceptions.
I wish to congratulate the great achievement of Panama in celebrating 100 years of ship registry and the major contribution it represents to the maritime sector, together with the countrys support to the work of the IMO, tangible with the large number of ratifications of the conventions adopted by the organisation, expressed Kitack Lim.

For IMO, 2016 was another of considerable progress on many key areas of our work. Amongst the highlights were the agreement on year 2020 for a global reduction of the sulphur content of ships fuel oil; adopting a mandatory requirement for ships to collect and report data on the fuel and a road map to develop a comprehensive strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ships.

It was also the year of ratification of the Ballast Water Management Convention that triggered the entry into force of that important instrument later this year, Lim said.

The shipping industry is searching for ways to prosper in the current climateand while some sectors have been hit harder than others, the overall picture has not been good.

However, the IMO continues to work towards common global standard and to enhance efficiency of maritime trade and to pursue better regulation and listening to the needs of the maritime industry, Lim told the attendees from the shipbuilding sector, from bunker and port industries, from shipyards, classification societies, service providers, auxiliary maritime suppliers with the most important leaders of the maritime industry of Panama and experts from more than 50 countries.

Panama Maritime is held every two years and is organised by the Panama Chamber of Shipping the Panamanian Maritime Law Association with the collaboration of the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP). This year the Organising Committee president was Ms. Flor Torrijos, a lawyer from the InterMaritime Group and representing the Panama Maritime Law Association.

At the end of the opening ceremony, an award was made to relevant industry players amongst them, the award given to the Panama Canal Administrator, Jorge L. Quijano, who was chosen as the "Maritime Personality of the Year".

The conference was initiated Monday with presentations from Jorge Barakat, Minister of Maritime Affairs and the award-winning. Quijano, followed by speakers from the presidents of the Shipowners' Association of South Korea and Greece, representatives of companies such as Oldendorff Carriers, Wartsila North America, Chemoil Corp and many others as the conference extends to Wednesday.
The acquisition sees ocean shipping electronic market place INTTRA make its first foray into the landside of the business. Belgium-headquartered Avantidas business is based around the provided digitized systems for the automated re-use of empty containers matching the locations of empties with shippers requiring boxes.

With Avantida we are bringing additional products and services to that customer base with the opportunity to be more efficient with container usage on the landside, which is a very large pain point for customers, John Fay ceo of INTTRA told Seatrade Maritime News.

Its widely accepted within the industry that carriers and shippers need to improve the innovation and technology on the landside to be more efficient in the positioning of containers. From our customers this is a topic that comes up consistently.

For example a container arriving in the port of Hamburg and delivered to a company 100 miles inland would traditionally then be trucked back to the terminal where it would be stored until another shipper required that container, when it would be trucked out to that shipper. Using the web-based Avantida system when the loaded container is delivered to the consignee the system identifies customers nearby in need of an empty container instead of it having to be returned to the terminal.

The result is a reduction in the trucking of empty containers back and forward to the terminal resulting in both cost savings and on emissions, as well as storage at the port. It saves really significant costs for all parties, Fay stated.

Avantida currently operates in seven European countries and as part of INNTRA is expanding further in Europe this year and rolling out its products in the US in the third quarter. Expansion into Asia will come later in 2017 and into 2018.

One of the real benefits of INTTRA and Avantida combining is leveraging our global network of customers, our sales force and support area, Fay explained.

Avantida will remain as separate unit of INTTRA with Luc De Clerk staying on as ceo of the Belgium-based company.

It is really important for Avantida to continue its expansion rapidly and weve decided the strongest way to do that is have the team on growing the product and rolling it out to more customers, Fay said.
Budweiser has set its sights on brewing the first beer on Mars.

"The King of Beers" announced its "Bud on Mars" initiative - including a partnership that could lead to flying malt and other experiments on the International Space Station - on Saturday (March 11) at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

"This takes the Budweiser experience to the future, where colonization and socialization might go," Valerie Toothman, Anheuser-Busch's Vice President of Marketing Innovation, said during a panel discussion devoted to brewing beer on the Red Planet.

"We know that travel to Mars might still be a decade or two away, but this is the first step in the journey in a long-term commitment by the company to make sure that when we get there and we achieve that American dream, Budweiser is the beer people will be toasting with and will be enjoying there on Mars," said Toothman.

The early evening event, which included a happy hour with specially-labeled "Bud on Mars" beer, also featured former astronaut Clayton Anderson and Patrick O'Neill, marketing and communications manager for the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory at CASIS, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space. Actress Kate Mara, who played an astronaut in the 2015 movie The Martian, moderated the panel.

"I'm so flattered to be here, but I don't at all feel qualified," said Mara. "That said, I will just go with it and do what I did when I made the movie The Martian and pretend like I am a genius when it comes to space."

Burps, pops and hops

A mission to send humans to the Red Planet is well-within NASA's long-range plans, said Anderson, who is a veteran of two space missions, including spending 152 days on the space station. "A successful mission will include many key components, including the need to provide crew members with commodities that remind them of home."

"Popping the top on a cold Budweiser mid-mission could very well be one of those things," he wrote in an email sent to collectSPACE.com after the panel.

"While the idea poses considerable technical challenges, the concept - which may lend itself to some valuable initial test ideas and experiments on the space station - is valid and potentially worthy of consideration with respect to a commercial partnership," Anderson added.

Beyond the possible issue of "wet burps" ("you just tumble a few times and all the liquid in your stomach will separate from the air; then you burp a solid dry burp," Anderson told the panel to laughter), there are also container concerns. Astronauts during the space shuttle-era experimented with non-alcoholic carbonated beverages in the 1980s, but the cans, cups and dispensers were unsuccessful.

"When you have a Budweiser and you pop the top [of the bottle], the pressure inside is higher than outside, so things will happen. As soon as the lid is popped on Earth, you let it 'fizz' and you enjoy. In space, it 'pops,' and then maybe you'd need to clean everything," described Anderson, who wrote about his experience with alcohol in orbit in his book, The Ordinary Spaceman (Univ. of Nebraska Press). "That would be an interesting dilemma to solve for the engineers at Anheuser-Busch."

The pull of gravity on Mars, which is about one-third of that on Earth, may help with bottle designs, but the distance to the Red Planet from our home planet may mean having to grow and source the main ingredients to brew Budweiser on Mars.

The American-style pale lager is made of two- and six-row malt, rice and hops and is propagated from the original strain of yeast as was first used by Adolphus Busch in 1876. And that is just 10 percent of the recipe.

"Beer at its core is 90 percent water," said Toothman. "And does everyone know what doesn't exist on Mars' surface? Water. There is ice and [other sources] like that, so we are going to learn about that."
"No artificial colors" is listed on many product labels, given that most of us try to avoid unnatural ingredients. When 44,000 animals recently ingested a manmade dye as part of a new study, however, their longevity increased, with some living twice as long as usual.

The catch is that the animals were all various species of roundworms - round-bodied, unsegmented worms, some of which are parasitic. Even so, roundworms share surprising genetic similarities to humans, and researchers suggest that the dye - Basic Yellow 1, also known as Thioflavin T - could someday work as an anti-aging drug for humans and other animals.

The authors of the new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suspect that the dye extends lifespan by preventing damaged, improperly folded proteins that commonly occur as an individual ages.

"Proteins lose their 3D shape during aging, and as a result cannot function properly," co-senior author Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging explained to Seeker. "This is also a feature of many age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's. Thioflavin T prevents this, at least in worms. It also turns on lots of genes that are the natural defense system to prevent protein misfolding."

RELATED: Parkinson's-Fighting Steroid Is Identified in Fast Food Fish

Lithgow, lead author Mark Lucanic, and their colleagues raised multiple species of roundworms on plates of agar, a gelatinous substance. They mixed various compounds into the agar, which the roundworms ate. The researchers then documented the lifespan of the roundworms, which normally live just 15 to 20 days.

The roundworms' fast-living ways make them popular for longevity studies, since scientists can monitor the worms over a period of days or months instead of years. Roundworms also feature more genetic diversity than can be found between mice and humans, the researchers say.

The experiments, which were conducted in three separate labs, all came to the same general conclusion: Basic Yellow 1 extended the lives of roundworms.

RELATED: The Average Life Expectancy Will Break the 90-Year Barrier by 2030

"This paper was all about establishing a platform where we could reproducibly test compounds for effect on lifespan," Lithgow said. "I think this is important for the field to find compounds that could go forward to pre-clinical [mouse] and clinical studies."

"Importantly, we tested the compounds in very, very diverse genetic strains," he continued. "A compound that extends lifespan across such diverse strains might be targeting a conserved process. That gives us some confidence that such a compound could have similar effects in mammals, including humans."

The video that follows below shows Basic Yellow 1 experiments on worms as part of a prior study conducted by Lithgow and his team. The footage features a worm after 20 days under standard culture conditions (control) versus a 20-day-old worm treated with Thioflavin T. According to the researchers, the treated worm displays better movement and appearance, both of which are consistent with a delay in the aging process.
Would you deliver a painful electric shock to another human being if an authority figure told you to do so?

This was a question that Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram sought to answer with a series of experiments that began in 1961. Prompted by Adolf Eichmann's trial for Nazi war crimes, in which Eichmann defended his abhorrent human rights violations as staunch obedience to Hitler's orders, Milgram wanted to see whether Eichmann and other Nazi accomplices were an anomaly or represented some part of human nature we did not understand.

In the original experiment, a volunteer was instructed to act as a teacher and give a quiz to a student. When the student gave incorrect answers, one of the researchers would tell the teacher to give him an electric shock. The shock increased with intensity as more wrong answers were given.

The student was actually not being shocked at all, but he expressed physical pain and suffering in the presence of the teacher, who believed the simulation was real. To Milgram's astonishment, 65 percent of participants in his study chose to shock the student when instructed to do so, brushing aside the student's obvious signs of distress and, in some cases, their own deep reservations.

Fast forward five decades, well after Milgram's work became notorious, and a team of social psychologists from SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland decided to recreate the experiment for their own study. Their results appear in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Again the aim was to discover whether people would shock a fellow human being when prompted by a person of authority, despite the fact that most people insist that they would never do such a thing.

"It should be emphasized that tests in the Milgram paradigm have never been conducted in Central Europe," the authors write. "The unique history of the countries in the region made the issue of obedience towards authority seem exceptionally interesting to us."

RELATED: Getting Good People to Go Bad

In the modern update, the researchers wanted to assess the obedience of subjects in Poland and compare the results with those obtained by Milgram more than half a century earlier. They also wanted to know whether or not the gender of the participants would have any effect on the results.

The study consisted of 80 volunteers, 40 men and 40 women, ages 18 to 69. There were four types of student-teacher combinations: male/male, male/female, female/male, and female/female. Every teacher had 10 buttons to press, each one delivering a higher level of "shock" to the student. As in the original trials, the shock was not real but volunteers were unaware of this.
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Press Release

March 14, 2017 Three decades after free high school law:

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR FREE COLLEGE TUITION -ANGARA Senator Sonny Angara lauded the Senate's passage of the bill that grants free college tuition fee for all students enrolled in state universities and colleges (SUCs) in the country. "Edukasyon para sa lahat--wala namang tututol dito dahil isa ito sa pinakamahalagang maiaalay natin sa bayan. Isa itong pamana na walang katumbas na halaga. Kaya lubos nating pinupuri ang mga kasamahan natin sa Senado sa pag-prioritize sa panukalang batas na ito," said Angara, vice chairman of the education committee and one of the authors of Senate Bill 1304. "Halos tatlong dekada na mula nang maisabatas ang free high school kaya't napapanahon na at dapat lang naman talaga na gawin nang libre ang tuition sa kolehiyo," added the lawmaker whose father, former Senator Ed Angara, is the author of the Free High School Act of 1988. Angara also welcomed the amendment by Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto that underscores the grant of tuition subsidy and financial assistance to students even in private higher education institutions (HEIs), pursuant to the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) Act. Some education officials have expressed concern that with 113 SUCs and the University of the Philippines offering free tuition, students would likely transfer from private HEIs to SUCs, and some private HEIs might not survive the drop in enrolment. Republic Act 10687 or the UniFAST Act of 2015 mandates the government to put up a system and create a body that would oversee and harmonize all student financial assistance programs for a more targeted, speedy and sustained granting of scholarship programs. "The UniFAST law, which we principally authored, ensures that all poor and deserving students will be given the opportunity to finish college. This would allow students and their families to choose the schools they want, whether in SUCs, private HEIs or in technical-vocational schools," said Angara, who is a known advocate of educational reforms. Currently, approximately 4.1 million students are enrolled in higher education institutions--1.9 million of which are enrolled in public schools while 2.2 million are in private schools. Apart from tuition, Angara also stressed the need to assist poor families with the costs of dorm, fare, food, books and other miscellaneous fees. To address this, he has filed Senate Bill 134 that aims to provide five-percent student discount on food, medicine, miscellaneous and other school fees, including books and school supplies, to underprivileged students in all levels throughout the country.
Press Release

March 14, 2017 Cayetano vows continuous support for Du30 admin

Plans to work with new DFA Sec. in pushing for genuine reforms Senator Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday (March 14) vowed to continue supporting the Duterte administration through whatever means the President deems fit, be it in the Senate or in the Cabinet. This is in reaction to President Rodrigo Duterte's recent statement that the senator may be needed in the Senate than in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Duterte earlier said he would offer the DFA post to Cayetano after the one-year appointment ban gets lifted. But whether or not he gets offered a cabinet position, Cayetano pledged his assistance to the administration and said he would continue to help the President, particularly in pushing for his legislative agenda in Congress. "Nothing has changed... Dedicated pa rin akong maging successful ang administration na ito. Dedicated akong gawin ang trabaho ko kung saan man ako," Cayetano said. "The preference of the President during the campaign was for me to join him in the Cabinet. Now the need changes. May mga legislation, may mga pinangako kami na gusto naming mapasa sa Senado," he added. The senator also expressed his full support for newly appointed acting DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo. Cayetano, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said he would closely coordinate with the new DFA leadership as they both push for more genuine reforms aimed at making Filipino's lives better. "I was supportive before of Secretary [Perfecto] Yasay, and now, [I support] acting Secretary Manalo... Si Sec. Manalo ay professional. He's been there for the longest time. Hindi pulitiko 'yan na mangangako nang hindi kaya. He knows the ins and outs of the problem," he said. Among the initiatives, which the senator plans to endorse is the provision of better protection and care for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). He has been pushing for the creation of one-stop shops that will cater to migrant workers' needs, as well as additional funds to provide legal assistance to Filipinos facing charges abroad. "As I said, ang success ng ating Pangulo ay success ng ating bansa. So I want the President to be successful," Cayetano said. "Ang aking misyon talaga ay matupad ang pangako ng ating Pangulo."
Press Release

March 14, 2017 WOMEN LAWMAKERS: EXPANDED MATERNITY LEAVE LAW WILL ADDRESS THE "MULTIPLE BURDEN" OF PREGNANCY Saying that pregnant women carry a "multiple burden," lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives close ranks to push for the passage of a bill that seeks to double the paid maternity leave of working women. In a press conference today in Quezon City, Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros and Atty. Joy Anne Lai, Chief of Staff of Diwa Partylist Representative Emmeline Aglipay-Villar said that the government should address the "physical, mental and economic burden of pregnancy." "The physical demand of pregnancy alone is challenging. A nine-month pregnant woman carries an average weight of 15 kilos. This is as heavy as a regular hollow block or mid-size microwave oven. Yet, this is but a small fraction of the multiple burden of pregnancy," Hontiveros said. "The mental and economic challenges of pregnancy are also daunting. The existing maternity law doesn't give enough paid maternity leave for working mothers to fully recover from childbirth, properly care for their child and establish a stronger mother-child bond through breastfeeding. An expanded maternity leave bill does not mean a vacation for mothers. We want women to have the chance to take care of their children and their health and well-being without worrying about the economic costs of being away from employment," Hontiveros added. For her part, Lai called on Congress to reciprocate the action of the Senate in passing its version of the Expanded Maternity Leave bill. She said that the country's alarming statistics on child malnutrition are the result of a lack of a progressive maternity Leave policy. Citing a study by the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in 2011, Lai explained that 65.4% or 4.3 million of Filipino children are suffering from long-term chronic malnutrition. Malnutrition was also blamed for about one-third of deaths of children below five years of age. "The number of paid maternity leave days granted to working women are not enough for their new-born children to be properly fed. Thus, nursing mothers who need to return to work are often forced to stop breastfeeding and shift to infant formula. Two-thirds of deaths among malnourished children are associated with inappropriate feeding practices," Lai explained. To dramatize the "physical and multiple burdens" of pregnancy, Hontiveros presented bags of sand and hollow blocks weighing 15 kilos each. She asked members of the media to lift them in order for them to temporarily experience the physical challenges of pregnancy. Last week, the Senate passed the Expanded Maternity Leave Law of 2017 granting all female workers, regardless of civil status or legitimacy of her child, 120 days maternity leave with pay and an option to extend it for another 30 days without pay. 30 days can also be allotted to fathers and alternate caregivers.
Press Release

March 14, 2017 Speech of Senator Loren Legarda Senate Concurrence in the Accession to the Paris Agreement

14 March 2017 | Senate Session Hall Mr. President, fellow members of the Senate, ladies and gentlemen: I stand before you today as your Chair for the Committees on Climate Change and Finance, and apart from this duty, in my many years as public servant, I have learned to fight for what I believe is best for the environment and our people. Since the Philippines' signing of the Paris Agreement on Earth Day, April 22, 2016, in New York, I have advocated for its ratification on the firm belief that it is in our best interests to do so. Thus, my heartfelt thanks for your unanimous support on this historic day of the Senate's concurrence in the accession to the Paris Agreement. First, the Paris Agreement is a testament of solidarity and a call for global climate action. The Paris Agreement shows that developing nations and the developed countries could pursue climate action and uphold climate justice together. With the Yolanda tragedy, the Philippines became the face of climate vulnerability. We have hardly contributed to climate change, and yet we are the victims. The world listened to our voice in the climate talks. We had the moral suasion. We were regarded the leader of the vulnerable, the champion for climate justice. During the Philippine Chairmanship of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, we fought for a climate goal that limits global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius and calls for ambitious and immediate reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would minimize climate and disaster risks, enable adaptation, and ensure sustainable development. Our country also championed the mainstreaming of gender equality and the rights of indigenous peoples, migrants, and children in climate policies; the use of comprehensive risk assessment in addressing further loss and damage; and the provision of grant-based financing for developing countries for climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. These are all embedded in the Paris Agreement. Second, the Paris Agreement is a manifesto for climate justice. In pursuit of the international law principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" used in climate negotiations, commitments to reduce emissions from all countries must be equitable and just. The industrialized countries--those that have contributed the most to global warming--must lead and shoulder the far greater burden of acting faster, sooner, and with far greater accountability to our environment. Third, acceding to the Paris Agreement allows our country access to international climate finance mechanisms and to acquire support from developed countries for adaptation, mitigation, technology development and transfer, and capacity building. These could help finance the development and roll out of our early warning systems, comprehensive risk assessment and management tools, and other capacity-building projects and programs that would make our communities more resilient to climate change. Fourth, acceding to the Paris Agreement strengthens our country's role in climate talks. We will not be mere observers. We will exercise governance, oversight, leadership, and decision-making in the implementation of the Agreement, and continue to be a strong actor in advancing our country's interests as the voice of the vulnerable in international climate negotiations. And fifth, the Paris Agreement is an embodiment of a legacy. Committing to the Paris Agreement will go down in history as one of our shining achievements. The 17th Congress can be regarded as the legislative assembly that championed climate action, environmental protection, and sustainable development. The 17th Congress, under the Duterte Administration, will be remembered for paving the way for green jobs and green growth for the Filipino nation. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Press Release

March 14, 2017 Senate Unanimously Concurs in Accession to the Paris Agreement The Philippine Senate on Tuesday unanimously concurred in the President's accession to the Paris Agreement, said Senator Loren Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change who sponsored the Committee Report on the accord. Twenty-two senators voted to approve the resolution seeking the Senate's concurrence in the Paris Agreement. "I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my colleagues' unanimous support on this historic day of the Senate's concurrence in the accession to the Paris Agreement. I thank the President for signing the Instrument of Accession, the Cabinet Members for heeding the call for urgent climate action, and everyone who fought hard for this Agreement, including the individuals and organizations who have been fighting for climate justice and religiously taking part in the climate negotiations," said Legarda, a UN Global Champion for Resilience. The Senator explained the importance of the Agreement especially to a vulnerable nation like the Philippines. "The Paris Agreement is a testament of solidarity and a call for global climate action. It shows that developing nations and the developed countries could pursue climate action and uphold climate justice together," she said. "This accord is a manifesto for climate justice. It also allows our country access to international climate finance mechanisms and to acquire support from developed countries for adaptation, mitigation, technology development and transfer, and capacity building," she added. Legarda explained that access to international funds could help finance the development and roll out of early warning systems, comprehensive risk assessment and management tools, and other capacity-building projects and programs that would make local communities more resilient to climate change. The country's accession to the Paris Agreement likewise strengthens its role in climate talks, which means that it can exercise governance, oversight, leadership, and decision-making in the implementation of the Agreement. "The Paris Agreement is an embodiment of a legacy. This will go down in history as one of our shining achievements. The 17th Congress, under the Duterte Administration, can be regarded as the legislative assembly that championed climate action, environmental protection, and sustainable development," Legarda concluded. From the day the Paris Agreement was signed by more than a hundred countries on April 22, 2016 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York where Legarda was present, the Senator has called on the Philippines and all nations to immediately ratify the Agreement. Legarda, principal author of the Climate Change Law and Chair of the Senate Committees on Finance and Climate Change, has been working behind the scenes in pushing for the Philippines' ratification, explaining the Agreement to Cabinet members, including the President's economic team, as well as to local government units, while also coordinating with various climate organizations on the way forward.
Press Release

March 14, 2017 Transcript of Sen. Grace Poe's Opening Statement

Public hearing on transportation safety In today's discussion, we will tackle bills and resolutions that address road safety; air, land, and sea passenger rights; and a privilege speech on road accidents. Transportation safety is an important issue that has long languished as a secondary priority. Various mishaps on land, such as those involving buses, and those at sea- particularly in the case of ferries- have given rise to public outcry over their handling and investigation. Currently, the PNP Highway Patrol Group and the MMDA are the two agencies that compile data on vehicular accidents. In 2014, the MMDA reported that there were 90,258 vehicular accidents resulting in 418 deaths. In 2015, they reported 95,615 traffic accidents - 5,357 more than in 2014. Of this number, 519 persons died; 17,103 were injured, and 77,993 of these cases were damage to property. However, these two bodies are limited with regard to area, capacity, and investigating powers. What about areas outside Metro Manila? Who takes note of that? Also, the lack of a central autonomous body to investigate accidents has meant, more often than not, that regulatory bodies would conduct their own investigations. These agencies have acted as judge, jury, and executioner, leading to rumors of institutional whitewashes and cover-ups. For instance, the existing Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), which regulates air transport safety, came under fire during the investigation of the accident involving a department secretary who died during a plane crash. Thus, there is a need to avoid "conflict of interest" situations wherein an agency is both the regulator and the investigating body on accidents under their purview. The lack of an independent body to address transport safety incidents has resulted in a lack of public confidence both here and abroad. Recently, news of a field trip gone bad, resulting in the death of 15 people, drew public attention on schools requiring field trips for students. I believe that excursions provide a means for students to learn outside the four walls of their classroom. True enough, we should investigate the necessity of such field trips for the purpose of crafting laws that will act as guidelines for learning institutions. However, we should not take the easy route and simply deter schools from allowing its students to engage in practical learning. Thus, we need to ask the right questions and create a legislative measure that will prevent road accidents, whether during the course of a field trip or not, from happening again. But it is not only the need to create an investigating body that we call for this hearing today. Matagal pa ang Halloween pero hindi tayo natatantanan ng horror stories tungkol sa delayed flights, stranded and bumped-off passengers, and exaggerated transportation costs. We also hear horror stories about taxi passengers who are held-up, not at gun point, but by crafty taxi drivers, who will demand more than the metered fare just because a passenger is in dire need of a ride. This summer, we expect even more horror stories, as several bakasyonistas will be travelling via land, air, and sea transportation. We may be a third world country as they say, but we may and should demand for first-world services. Airlines may offer cheap flights, but we do not want the passengers to suffer from cheap services. Taxi drivers may have the personal choice of smoking, but should be required to keep their vehicles clean and smoke-free at all times. Travelling inter-island may require only small boats, but we expect them not to overbook and to provide quality life jackets and other equipment to ensure passenger safety. The saying "you get what you pay for" does not and should not apply to basic services that common carriers are required to provide, especially safety.
Press Release

March 14, 2017 POE POISED TO ENDORSE CREATION OF INDEPENDENT PROBE BODY FOR TRANSPORT ACCIDENTS Sen. Grace Poe today said she is poised to recommend remedial legislation that will create a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that will conduct independent investigations on transport-related accidents on land, air, maritime and rail. Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on public services that opened an inquiry into the deadly bus tragedy in Tanay, Rizal last month that killed 15 people including several college students, said the passage of a measure seeking to establish an independent and non-regulatory panel to make transportation safer is very timely following the findings that separate regulatory and law enforcement agencies and even non-government organizations were involved in the investigation of the Tanay bus crash. "The current setup is so incoherent. There is no primary agency tasked to investigate all of the these accidents," Poe said during the three-hour hearing. Poe filed Senate Bill No. 162 or the NTSB Act that will form a board tasked to investigate accidents involving transportation, such as aircraft, highway accidents, railroads, pipelines, and major marine accidents. Under the measure, the board will be headed by a chairman to be appointed by the President. Each member of the board must have at least three years of experience in administering, operating or managing a transport firm or regulatory agency in land, air, sea, or rail transportation. It is an independent body that will conduct studies on transport safety and report to Congress, the President and concerned state agencies on how to make transportation safer. "Walang protocol itong mga ahensya. Walang malinaw kung sino ang first responders o kung dapat ba ang mga sumasamang guro sa field trip ay dapat may first aid training. With an NTSB, you have a body to conduct special studies and recommend the proper protocol to be followed by other agencies," Poe said. Senate probers were also told that for maritime accidents, the Philippine Coast Guard forms a Board of Marine Inquiry to probe sea mishaps while the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines creates an Aircraft Accident Investigation and Inquiry Board for aviation accidents. "What we learned from our hearing is that we really need to have an NTSB. Hindi puwedeng imbestigahan ang sarili nila sapagkat may conflict of interest," said Poe, adding that the NTSB will address the conflicting functions of investigating agencies, particularly on transport mishaps. Poe said her committee will prepare a report to be submitted to the plenary upon resumption of session in May. Congress will adjourn on March 18 until May 1. "Yung sistema ay palpak dahil hindi natin nalalaman kung anong edad ng mga sasakyan natin dahil nadadaya sa registration. Palpak din yung naging desisyon ng paaralan na hindi maglagay ng guro na kasama ng kanyang mga estudyante sa kanilang field trip. Nakita rin natin na problema din na kulang tayo sa safety equipment para ma-check yung ating mga bus kung maaayos ba o hindi. Kulang tayo ng motor vehicle inspection system. So lahat iyan, sa tingin ko ang nagiging problema dito ay wala tayong investigative body na nagrerekomenda kung ano ang dapat gawin para maging ligtas ang ating mga kababayan," Poe later told reporters.
Press Release

March 14, 2017 Senate concurs in ratification of Paris Agreement The Senate adopted a resolution today concurring in the Accession to the Paris Agreement. The agreement seeks to limit the average global temperature to "well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels." Adopted was Senate Resolution 320. Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on the Paris Agreement under the Committee on Foreign Relations, said the Philippines' ratification of the agreement would send a strong signal of the country's continuing commitment to work with the rest of the world in ensuring the survival of mankind. "Our nation bears the brunt of climate change even if we are among those who contributed the least to the crisis," Legarda said. Under the agreement, developed countries have agreed to continue their obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to provide for financial assistance to developing countries with respect to both climate change mitigation and adaptation. According to the agreement, emissions reduction or programs for adaptation would be nationally-determined and voluntary. "The Paris Agreement is a vehicle towards achieving climate justice as it compels developed nations that have polluted the world and caused this climate crisis to finance the Green Climate Fund and provide developing and vulnerable nations, like the Philippines, needed support on capacity building and technology transfer for adaptation and mitigation efforts. This means that our vulnerability presents opportunities for green, sustainable and resilient growth," Legarda said. "Pursuing a development path consistent with 1.5 degrees will not only protect our people and the environment, it will also spur economic growth. Ratifying the Paris Agreement is a vital step towards dealing with climate risks and delivering our commitments for sustainable growth," she added. A study conducted by Climate Central scientists and statisticians showed that climate change "is on track to be much warmer." According to the study, the average global temperature change for the first three months of 2016 was 1.48 degrees Celsius or almost the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold agreed upon by global leaders during a meeting last December. February exceeded the 1.5 degrees Celsius target at 1.55 degrees Celsius, marking it as the first time the global average temperature had surpassed the agreed upon threshold in any month. March checked in at 1.5 degrees Celsius while January's mark of 1.4 degrees Celsius put the global average temperature change from early industrial levels for the first three months of 2016 at 1.48 degrees Celsius, according to experts. Scientists and statisticians made the calculations based on the average global temperature data reported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (Christel Angel Reyes/OJT)
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A 14-year-old Honduran refugee jailed for almost a year in a Northern California juvenile hall because he had no family to be released to was freed from the facility Monday and headed to a foster home, accompanied by a team of law school students and a stack of Spanish-language Harry Potter books.

The abrupt change in fate for the boy  who traveled alone to the U.S. from the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa to flee severe domestic abuse  follows stepped-up attention by local and federal authorities in charge of his care and custody after his case was reported in The Chronicle.

The paper has protected the minors identity, naming him only by his initials, G.E. After a March 5 article on his extended jailing despite having committed no crime, local activists planned a vigil outside the gates of the Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility where he was held, and U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove (Sacramento County), began pressing for his release.

On Monday afternoon, the boy stepped out of the Woodland facility into the sunshine  headed for a therapeutic Spanish-speaking foster home, his San Francisco attorney said. He was welcomed with a meal of pollo asado and given a new wardrobe of clothes donated by a retired judge.

Im really, really happy for him, immigration attorney Cecilia Candia said, while awaiting a call from the client she has fought for since April. It happened really, really quickly.

G.E. was first taken to the local child welfare office, a first step toward his move to a new family home.

Yolo County officials, who had earlier maintained they could not discuss the case due to confidentiality concerns, issued a press release Monday saying that after the newspaper story ran, officials acted quickly and consistent with the value of doing right by others.

Yolo County recognizes the publics interest in this matter and the concerns expressed for this child, the release stated. The county now aims to assuage those concerns by affirming that Yolo County has taken immediate, responsible steps.

The boys release was made possible after the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which had custody of the teen, released him to local child welfare officials in Yolo County. The move delighted those who had been concerned about his deterioration while stuck in indefinite detention.

Reacting to the news, Dr. Eleanor Chung, of the San Francisco General Hospitals department of pediatrics, said she is relieved, encouraged and heartened by G.E.s release, adding all the more reason to continue fighting for this unique population of children.

G.E. is among the more than 250,000 unaccompanied minors who have been apprehended at the south U.S. border in the last three years and taken into federal custody. But unlike many other such minors, G.E. had no family to join in the United States. Because he demonstrated self-harming behaviors and impulses to flee, he ended up in Yolo Countys juvenile hall.

The county has a roughly $2.8 million contract with the federal government to house up to 30 unaccompanied minors who are considered a danger to themselves or others.

G.E.s trauma from his abuse and his trek to the U.S. was compounded by his lengthy detention, his advocates said, as he saw no hope for release and spent extended periods confined to a cell.

Im thrilled that G.E. did not have to spend his one-year anniversary in this country locked up. He deserves love and healing and the opportunity to be part of a family, said state foster care ombudsman Rochelle Trochtenberg of the California Department of Social Services.

Trochtenberg, Legal Services for Children in San Francisco and the UC Davis immigration law clinic all advocated for the boys release. I feel like he finally got a little justice, she said.

I am very relieved that the Department of Homeland Security is doing the right thing not only for G.E. but for other minors, Chung said. For this young gentleman, she added, by keeping him in detention it just worsens the situation.

Karen de Sa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kdesa@sfchronicle.com
A wayward California sea lion apparently stuck in a concrete spillway on the edge of farmland in Vacaville, far from its regular waters, prompted a rescue effort by animal experts Tuesday.

But they had to call it quits for the evening when darkness fell and the sea lion, believed to be a large young adult male, holed up in a drainage pipe off the spillway, which is located off Leisure Town Road, a stretch that connects farmland and a residential neighborhood in Vacaville.

The Marine Mammal Center, the Sausalito-based nonprofit that rescues and rehabilitates marine mammals, sent a team of 13 experts to assess the animal, said Giancarlo Rulli, a spokesman for the Marine Mammal Center.

Though the rescue team tried to flush the animal out of the pipe with water and coax it back into the spillway with air horn blasts, he refused to move as darkness fell, and rescuers were set to resume their efforts in the morning.

Vacaville Crime & Community Info / Vacaville Crime & Community Info

Scientists believe the animal likely swam up the Sacramento River and then took a wrong turn through a series of connected agricultural ditches and waterways to the spot where it was stranded.

Its not clear when the animal arrived in the canal, and the center first recieved reports from local authorities around 10 a.m.

Its far away from a main source of water, Rulli said. Its traveled a fair distance, and its a rare rescue location. This is not a normal area.

The sea lion appeared to be in good health, with plenty of body fat and no obvious injuries.

Options for rescuing the animal include netting the sea lion or sedating the animal before capturing it.

If rescued, the sea lion would be transported back to mammal center Sausalito headquarters to undergo tests for malnourishment, wounds and acid toxicity, among other possible ailments.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
A suspect in at least two sexual assaults in Palo Alto surrendered to police after seeing a surveillance photo of himself that authorities released to the public, the San Mateo County Sheriffs Office said Tuesday.

George Moubarak, 26, of South San Francisco turned himself in Friday and was booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of felony sexual assault, official said.

In one case linked to Moubarak, a victim was assaulted as she waited at a bus kiosk at the Palo Alto Caltrain Station on March 1, officials said. The victim fought the attacker off, and he fled toward University Avenue on foot.

In another incident, which occurred about 9:17 p.m. on March 8, a woman got off a bus at the Palo Alto Caltrain station and was walking north on Alma Street when she noticed a man was following her, police said.

When she reached the 200 block of Alma Street, the man charged up to her from behind and grabbed her crotch over her clothing, according to police. She screamed, and her assailant ran south, only to find himself pursued by his victim.

She chased him for a couple blocks before she lost sight of him, said Capt. Zach Perron of the Palo Alto Police Department.

Both of [these victims] fought back, and while we dont ever make recommendations one way or the other, people have got to do what seems right to them in a particular situation. And he ran away both times, Perron said.

The Palo Alto Police Department and San Mateo County Sheriffs Office worked together on the investigation. In the earlier incident, a police sketch was produced, and in the second, a surveillance photo captured the suspect shortly after the assault.

Moubarak turned himself after seeing his photo on the news and on social media, according to the sheriffs department.

Filipa A. Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
The State Bar of California has agreed to launch a comprehensive assessment of whether the minimum score needed to pass its bar examination should be lowered to allow more prospective attorneys to pass.

In recent weeks, a growing chorus of voices  from state legislators to law school deans to court officials  have registered urgent concerns that the lowest score needed to pass the exam, commonly referred to as the cut score, is too high, flunking would-be attorneys who would qualify to practice law nearly everywhere else in the country.

That sense of urgency has increased since November, after it was revealed that the passage rate for the states latest bar exam had tumbled to a 32-year low, with just 43 percent making the grade  nearly a 3 percent slide from the previous exam.

Californias bar exam tests law school grads with a mixture of multiple-choice questions, essays and a performance exam that assesses practical skills, like writing a legal brief or analyzing a contract.

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California requires a score of at least 144 out of 200 to pass the bar. Only Delawares cut score is higher.

While there is near-universal support for a system that ensures only competent individuals practice law, critics say Californias cut score, which has remained unchanged for more than 30 years, is burdening potential attorneys with undue financial and psychological burdens and limiting the number of attorneys available to take on public-interest work.

Critics also say that the states high cut score is warping legal education to emphasize passing the bar exam, rather than promoting practical knowledge and legal skills, and that it disproportionately disadvantages lower-income and minority law students.

Having an appropriate standard for who can become an attorney is important because it means we have the broadest number of people practicing law as possible, said Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Monterey Bay, who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

The standard we set has to be thought through so it ensures we have the highest caliber of practitioners who can then afford to be public-interest attorneys and go help people who really need access to justice. Thats the balance, said Stone, a lawyer himself.

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle

On March 2, Stone and seven other Judiciary Committee members sent a letter urging State Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who has authority over the State Bar, to temporarily lower the cut score as the bar conducts its reviews. The deans of 20 California law schools sent a similar letter to the state Supreme Court last month, asking for the cut score to be lowered unless or until we have strong justification for the benefits of Californias approach.

Cantil-Sakauye responded to the deans on March 10, saying that, while the court believes the impact of the low pass rate on law school graduates is significant and calls for a thorough and expedited investigation, she declined to alter the cut score before the State Bars assessed the situation.

Last week, the State Bars Board of Trustees voted to fund four internal studies that will examine, among other things, how scores and passage rates have changed over time, whether the content of the exam aligns with the skills and knowledge needed to be an entry-level lawyer and, ultimately, whether the cut score is calibrated to reflect minimal professional competence. Cantil-Sakauye gave the bar until Dec. 1 to present its findings.

In a letter to the chief justice on March 1, State Bar President James Fox and Executive Director Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker wrote that we share concerns about the sharp decline in bar exam passage rates and are committed to a comprehensive review of the exam. A State Bar spokeswoman declined to comment further.

The minimum score needed to pass the bar in California has been the same since 1986. After convening a hearing on the cut score issue last month, the Assembly Judiciary Committee wrote to Cantil-Sakauye that the the reasoning behind setting the score at 144 is not entirely clear.

By comparison, New Yorks cut score is 133. Among those taking the test for the first time in July, 62 percent passed the California bar, compared with 83 percent in New York.

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle

It shocks the conscience to suggest that 38 percent of the graduates of  accredited law schools are unqualified to practice law in the state, said David Faigman, the chancellor and dean of UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

Faigman was one of the 20 deans who urged the state Supreme Court to adopt a cut score somewhere between 133 and 136.

He and others stress that Californias low pass rate is the product of an arbitrarily high threshold, not the competency of the test takers themselves.

The exam isnt the hardest in the country, its simply the hardest to pass, Faigman said. According to data from the National Council of Bar Examiners, those who took the California bar exam in July outperformed those who took the bar exam elsewhere 143 to 140.3 on average.

Students who have to take the test more than once risk losing out on employment opportunities and often months of income, atop the $100,000 or more in student loans that most law school graduates accumulate. Taken together, critics contend that costs of having to take and retake the bar may steer candidates away from critical public-interest jobs, and toward positions that promise bigger paychecks needed to pay down their debt  if they continue to pursue the law at all.

Lawyers are needed for the homeless, for tenant evictions  we dont have enough of those lawyers. Lawyers arent just the ones in ivory towers, in suits, getting the big money, said Samuel Chang, a second-year law student at UC Hastings and president of the schools student body. Government lawyers might get paid $51,000 a year. Those are the people were losing out on.

In their letter to the state Supreme Court, the law school deans also argued that the cut score has a direct negative impact on minority populations.

In particular, law schools seeking to improve their respective state pass rates are forced to take fewer chances on non-traditional students, and will seek to admit as many strong test takers as possible rather than making more holistic evaluations, the deans wrote. This will ultimately have a dire impact on minority representation in law schools, and, ultimately, in the legal profession.

Chang said that the curricula of many law schools reflect the outsize importance placed on passing the bar, to the detriment of learning other essential skills. Chang, who said hes looking to practice in a government setting, was told to scale back on his extracurricular activities, including his work as student body president, to focus on prepping for the bar.

My professors said, I know you want to do all of these things, but you need to drop those and try to take more bar courses, Chang said. You end up taking more bar classes than clinics  clinics with real-life clients. All of these schools are demanding you take prep classes to pass the bar.

Taking a battery of exam prep classes can mean missing out on courses that can help students gain a fuller picture of the law, which, Chang said, can contribute to a poorer performance on the test.

I see their pain, said Faigman, referring to students studying for the bar. Its not just financial. Its professional, its emotional, and its all happening on the basis of no good grounding in reason.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.

com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
The health care bill proposed by House Republicans would disproportionately affect older and poorer Californians by shrinking federal assistance to hundreds of thousands of older people who buy plans on Covered California and by reducing federal funding to Medi-Cal, the insurance program for the poor, experts say.

The American Health Care Act, the GOP proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act, includes two provisions that health care experts calculate would lead to lower-income Californians in their 50s and 60s paying more for health care.

First, it would change the ACAs income-based subsidies to a flat tax credit based on age instead of income. This would cap tax credits for people ages 60 to 64 at $4,000  significantly less than the average subsidy a 60-year-old in California currently receives under the ACA, according to state-level data analyzed by the Kaiser Family Foundation. By comparison, in most cases, younger people would receive larger subsidies under the Republican plan. A 27-year-old and a 40-year-old, for example, would receive larger average subsidies than they do under the ACA, the Kaiser analysis found.

At the same time, the GOP bill would allow insurance companies to charge older people higher premiums. Currently, insurers are not allowed to charge older consumers more than three times what they charge younger consumers. But the Republican proposal would allow insurers to charge older consumers five times more than they charge younger people.

Taken together, the two changes would disproportionately hit lower-income older Americans, said leaders of AARP, the influential seniors group that is lobbying aggressively against the GOP proposal.

Insurance premiums for older adults would skyrocket, said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. These are increases the American people simply cant afford.

In California, these changes would most affect the 365,000 people in their 50s and 60s who buy plans through Covered California  who are low-income but who earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal. They represent about 30 percent of the 1.2 million people who buy insurance on the exchange, according to Covered California demographic information as of November.

Under the Affordable Care Act, California lowered its uninsured rate to a record low 7 percent by using an influx of federal dollars to expand Medi-Cal and by creating Covered California, the state-run exchange where people use federal subsidies to buy insurance.

More broadly, the bill would affect poor Californians of all ages by significantly reducing the amount of money California gets from the federal government to expand Medi-Cal. Under the ACA, California receives about $8 billion a year in additional money from the federal government, which allowed the state to enroll 4 million new people in Medi-Cal. But that federal money gets reduced significantly starting in 2020, and unless the state can find a way to backfill the hole, there is a chance that millions of Medi-Cal enrollees will lose coverage.

Benefits and coverage are at risk for the (Medicaid) expansion group, said Robin Rudowitz, an associate director at Kaiser Family Foundation who analyzes state and federal Medicaid financing issues.

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The bill also aims to fundamentally restructure Medicaid by capping the amount of money states receive from the federal government, which health policy experts say would likely lead to Medi-Cal getting less federal funding in the long run.

On Monday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the GOP bill would lead to as many as 24 million Americans losing health insurance.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: Cat__Ho
FRANKFORT, Ky.  Donald Trump promised to bring back coal jobs, but even the countrys third-largest coal producer appears to be hedging its bets on a comeback. Kentucky is on the cusp of doing what was once unthinkable: opening the door to nuclear power.

The Republican-controlled Legislature is close to lifting its decades-long moratorium on nuclear energy in a state that has been culturally and economically dominated by coal. Politicians from both parties have promised for years to revive the struggling coal industry, with Trump famously billing himself as the last shot for miners. But as the coal industry continues its slide, even Republican lawmakers are acknowledging a need for alternatives.
It's a well-known fact around here that iconic thriller film director Alfred Hitchcock had a special bond with the Bay Area.

He even set or filmed several of the most famous cinematic works in or near the city, including 1940's "Rebecca" (shot in part at Point Lobos State Reserve), 1963's "The Birds" (filmed in San Francisco and Bodega Bay), 1943's "Shadow of a Doubt" (filmed in Santa Rosa), and of course, 1958's San Francisco-set "Vertigo."
Sandy Huffaker/For The Washington Post

Californians who would rather secede from the union than be governed by President Trump  a third of us, according to a post-inaugural Reuters/Ipsos poll  would do well to recall another populist president known for his confrontational manner and hairdo.

Andrew Jackson, who turns 250 this week, has seen his place on the $20 bill challenged for such good reasons as his monstrous Indian removal policy. But he was an early and fierce advocate for union, staring down separatists figuratively and literally: He famously looked at secessionist John C. Calhoun at a political dinner while toasting, Our federal union: It must be preserved.
When Judge Neil Gorsuch ruled against our family member battling cancer, Grace Hwang, almost three years ago, his decision was heartless. It removed the human element from the equation. It did not bring justice.

This total lack of a human perspective is absolutely not what we want to see in a judge, and we find it disturbing, especially when you think about the power a judge has to affect peoples lives. Given how Gorsuch ruled as a federal circuit judge, he should not be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Grace was mother to two of us and sister to the other two. After coming to America from Taiwan at a young age, Grace grew up to become a fighter for the rights of minorities and women. She always kept an upbeat, positive attitude, no matter how hard things became. She died last summer at age 60.

Grace had a passion for justice. We saw this throughout her life when she was a political science undergrad at Kansas State University, a Fulbright scholar in Sweden, a law student at Georgetown University, a corporate lawyer and board member of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, a parent and, after returning to Kansas, a successful fundraiser of millions of dollars for the Kansas State University Foundation and a professor there.

Supreme Court confirmation Heres why I support Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court

Grace was in her early 50s when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It came as a huge shock to her and for us, who considered Grace invincible. She got treatment, and finally her doctors said she was in remission.

Then came several episodes of poor health, a couple of misdiagnoses, and ultimately, the doctors said Grace had leukemia. She was teaching leadership studies at the time (she was passionate about that, too) and underwent a stem cell transplant. Even when she was in the hospital, she was in contact with fellow teachers and students.

Grace had a six-month paid leave from work. She wanted to go back to work afterward, but her doctors advised her not to, because there was a flu epidemic on campus and her immune system was compromised. So she asked for her sick leave to be extended. The university rejected that request and said she couldnt work from home either.

Grace lost her job. We felt the university had betrayed our trust.

But Grace wasnt a quitter. She sued Kansas State. Her complaint said the university had violated the law, because federal law says people with disabilities must be reasonably accommodated at work. In May 2014, Gorsuch sided with Kansas State.

In writing his decision, Gorsuch said the purpose of federal law is not to turn employers into safety net providers for those who cannot work. He said that Graces six months of leave were more than sufficient, and that attendance was a basic expectation of employees. But Grace wasnt asking for a vacation. She was asking for what the law provides: a reasonable accommodation so she could work from home instead of going to campus and potentially dying.

When she heard about the courts ruling, she couldnt believe it. We couldnt either.

Our hearts were broken by the way our justice system failed Grace. Key to that failure was the ruling written by Gorsuch, with its callous disregard for Grace and her condition. We dont want other people facing disabilities to suffer in the same way. We need judges who will think about the real people at the center of cases such as Graces, more than anything else.

Judge Gorsuch does not appear to be that kind of person. For our family, it would be very disheartening to see him granted a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court.

David and Katherine Hwang are Grace Hwangs children. Frank Hwang and Jean Hwang Carrant are her siblings.
A red light blinked to life on the microphone in front of Mauricha Robinson as she rose to speak last Wednesday. Before her sat an ad hoc committee of the San Francisco Board of Education  including Commissioners Emily Murase, Mark Sanchez and Matt Haney. Top San Francisco Unified School District officials also waited, eager to hear what the African American Parent Advisory Council thinks of the assignment system used by the district to divvy up spots in more than 100 public schools.

The meeting was in some sense just one more in a string of attempts to afford African American children equal educational opportunity, decades after the landmark 1954 ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education. Which is why its surprising that separate but equal seemed to carry the day.

In a polite yet insistent tone, Robinson said she and other African Americans are tired of having their kids shipped across town, and would have no problem with predominantly black schools if, that is, they were well-resourced.

Commissioner Sanchez wasnt shocked to hear it, in light of the districts long history of unsuccessful desegregation efforts. A 1978 desegregation case prompted the district to cap each racial group at around 40 percent per school, and the change, Sanchez said, led to a district-wide mass exodus of middle class students. A second lawsuit challenged the resolution of the first, and so in the 1990s the district turned to proxies like parental education level and income to help determine school assignment. In its current incarnation, the assignment system uses a Census Tract Integration Preference to give priority to applicants who reside in neighborhoods with low academic test scores.

Using the census preference, 79 percent of African American kindergarten applicants who met the January deadline got their first choice school last year, the committee learned from Rionda Batiste, another advisory council member. An additional 8 percent nabbed a seat at their second.

What are the parents choosing? Of all African American students living in the Bayview, 73 percent opt out of their neighborhood schools, Batiste reported, heading to places as far flung as Alice Fong Yu Alternative Elementary in the Sunset District.

Judging by these numbers, the system would seem to work for African American parents. But that doesnt mean theyre happy, Batiste said. Because the complex process isnt well explained, among other reasons, many parents miss the deadline and otherwise dont effectively engage with the placement system.

Those who do still suffer. African American students grapple with in-school segregation, cultural disconnect and racism. On a logistical level, riding the bus means losing sleep, sitting still and often arriving just as the bell rings. Truancy rates are high because a missed bus means a missed day, and having buses leave only once, sometimes as early as 1:50 p.m., deprives those students of after-school tutoring, enrichment and socializing. As the distance between home and school increases, barriers to parental involvement mount and children see fewer classmates outside school.

Commissioner Murase responded to these concerns by saying she finds the idea of walkable schools increasingly attractive. The problem, of course, is that in a city with housing segregation, tying attendance to residence tends to produce racially isolated schools.

In 2014, Commissioner Rachel Norton and Sandra Lee Fewer proposed a change that would have allowed students living near most schools a shot at seats ahead of census-preference applicants. The resolution didnt pass, in part because commissioners like Haney thought giving African American families choice was still the best way to ensure access to quality education.

The Advisory Council seemed to disagree. Their highest priority, Robinson said, is fixing staffing issues at schools in the southeast sector of the city, adding foreign language programs, increasing special education supports and otherwise work[ing] to make sure all schools are high performing schools, regardless of location.

Decades of experience teach Sanchez thats unlikely to happen: Im very pessimistic, he said, given the current funding structure.

Realizing as much, and perhaps not truly ready to disregard the Supreme Courts finding that [s]eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal  as well as modern research proving that integration benefits all children  the Advisory Council also asked the district to hold a percentage of seats based on income/zip or have a special enrollment round for [census-preference] families. That way, if good, walkable schools dont materialize, African American children will still have options, imperfect as they may be.

Im very leery about anything working after all these years, after all these efforts, Commissioner Sanchez said of the committees determination to address unequal, segregated schooling by changing the assignment system. But we certainly wont get there if we ignore the issue.

Gail Cornwall, an SFUSD parent, is a freelance writer in San Francisco. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter, or read more at gailcornwall.com.

Get involved

Learn more and provide public comment at the next San Francisco Unified School District Board meeting on student assignment.

When: 6 p.m., Monday, May 15

Where: Board of Education Meeting Room, 555 Franklin St., San Francisco
Give me an epiphany, demands the protagonist early in Betroffenheit (2015), the often gripping Canadian dance theater epic that opened in Berkeleys Zellerbach Hall Friday evening, March 10, to a disappointingly sparse audience. We all need an epiphany once in a while, but for this chap, the alternative is oblivion.

To make a full-evening, multimedia work on the subject is a chancy proposition, but this collaboration between Jonathon Young of the Electric Company Theatre (who wrote it) and Crystal Pite (who directed and choreographed it for her Kidd Pivot troupe) adds up to a remarkable fusion of talents. Dancers act, Young dances after a fashion, and the prerecorded text yields a fluency of word and gesture that our local practitioners should note.

Betroffenheit is a German expression translated as extreme impact. We learn in the first part of the 120-minute work that Young has suffered the loss of a daughter in a fire; in blaming himself, he has become addicted to some unmentioned substance, has been institutionalized and cannot kick the habit. He makes phone calls to himself (there are autobiographical elements here). Dancer Jermaine Spivey acts as his embattled conscience, until he metamorphoses into a ventriloquists dummy in the second half. What retains our interest is the sense of struggle. Young, for all his verbalizing, hasnt quite yielded to despair.

Michael Slobodian

Instead, he yearns to return to the stage, which he does as an emcee in a hideously hued suit and a fright wig. We get a unison tap number with the Kidd Pivot dancers in bowler hats. We get showgirls with pink headdresses. We thrill to a salsa episode. We even get a duet between Young and a scantily clad woman (Tiffany Tregarthen), all suggestive of returning normalcy. Regeneration is a cabaret, old chum.

Betroffenheit sags a bit in the first part; you can only take so much psychovaudeville at one sitting, and the metaphor wasnt exactly original with Young and Pite. After intermission, the curtain rises on the second part, where dance supplants the word. Pite (whose work is, alas, scarcely known in the Bay Area) favors thrusting, balance-testing moves, which these five ballet-trained dancers, alone on a smoky stage, animate with special grace. They separate, but always return as a unit. They join hands, form a circle and seem to foreshadow Youngs climb back to wholeness.

The other dancers in Kidd Pivot are Bryan Arias, David Raymond and Cindy Salgado. They performed in Jay Gower Taylors grim asylum room with multiple doors, lit evocatively by Tom Visser. Composition and sound design credit is shared among Owen Belton, Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe.

That score turns rapturously lyrical in the final scene, as Spivey launches a devastating serene solo. In context, you might even call it healing.

Allan Ulrich is The San Francisco Chronicles dance correspondent.
Samson Koletkar always had comedy in his blood, writing sketches and directing comic plays growing up in a working-class family in Mumbai, India.

But it wasnt until Koletkar was in his 20s and had the mind-blowing experience of his first live comedy show  a Don McMillan performance at the San Jose Improv  that he realized it was a real-life career option.

The stage was bigger than our house in India, Koletkar remembers. The first thought in my head was, This is an amazing job. You just go up there and tell jokes, and people pay you money for doing that? I would love to do that.

Koletkar, 40, has become a force in the East Bay comedy scene since then, performing five times most weeks, and co-founding the Desi Comedy Fest, an August event that brings local and national South Asian comics to multiple venues. The Fremont resident bills himself Mahatma Moses, the worlds only Indian Jewish stand-up comedian.

But his centerpiece achievement is founding Comedy Oakland, which has grown to five shows on three nights every week, transforming the top floor of the Spice Monkey restaurant into a thriving comedy club.

Oakland stand-up comic Adam Pearlstein praises Koletkar for his drive and striking organizational skills.

Theres like a thing in the scene, in amateur and local comedy, that if you try too hard and it looks like youre treating it like a job, then youre not cool, Pearlstein says. Samsons completely comfortable with not being cool.

That last part is a joke between friends, but like a lot of comedy, theres more than a kernel of truth. Koletkars background as a hard-working problem solver  hes had day jobs in Silicon Valley tech support, information technology and product management  permeates Comedy Oakland. As much as he has honed his stand-up, he may be even stronger as a promoter.

Theres just a lot of bad comedy rooms, Koletkar says. Most comics are not producers and businesspeople. Theyre comedians. They know how to go up and tell a joke, but they dont know how to run a show.

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Now a married father with two small children, Koletkar was a showman from an early age. He was one of a small number of Jewish children in India, writing sketches in youth programs at the only Jewish community center in Mumbai.

When he moved to the Bay Area in 2000, Koletkar had only seen stand-up comedy performances on TV and had never seen an Indian comic. He started dancing with a Bollywood troupe in Milpitas as a creative outlet.

Two events made a huge impact in the mid-2000s: seeing a viral video by Canadian-born Indian comic Russell Peters and attending that San Jose Improv show with PowerPoint comedian McMillan. By early 2006, Koletkar was appearing at every poorly produced comedy night and rowdy bar room open mike event that would have him.

It was like this challenge. Yeah, I know the setup is bad. But can I overcome that and still make people laugh? That whole excitement in the beginning is what kept me going, Koletkar says. By the end of 2006, I was a comedian. That was my definition.

Eric Kayne/Special to The Chronicle

Frustrated with comedy shows that didnt cater to the artist, in 2009 Koletkar started his own show at the Washington Inn in Oakland. During opening night, his headliner dropped out.

We got 15 or 20 people, which is not bad for a first show, Koletkar says. Every Friday we would sit and wonder, Are we going to have a show today? Will anyone walk in? Four or five or six people would walk in. Thats a show. Yay!

Now he hosts one Spice Monkey show on Thursdays and two each on Fridays and Saturdays; and the 75-seat room frequently sells out. Stand-up comedian Ira Summer is a co-host, with others, including Pearlstein, helping out.

A recent Thursday night is typical for Koletkar, hustling behind the scenes while preparing for his own 15-minute set. He puts out small fires and excitedly greets guests, after working multiple social media and online advertising accounts to ensure a 50-person crowd on the clubs slowest night.

Eric Kayne/Special to The Chronicle

Onstage, Koletkars personality is the opposite  taking his time to make a connection with the audience. Hes not a caricature, but he brings the Jewish, Indian and immigrant experience into his comedy from the beginning.

I used to work in tech  because it is the law, Koletkar begins one story, drawing strong laughter.

Koletkars abilities as a promoter can be seen in the room itself, which transforms from a light-filled banquet room into the vibe of one of those great basement clubs born out of the 1980s San Francisco comedy scene. Curtains, a quality sound system, spotlights and a huge COMEDY OAKLAND backdrop all contribute to a startling metamorphosis.

Pearlstein, who co-founded his own comedy show at the Uptown Nightclub, was the host and opening comic on Thursday, March 9.

I probably have some of my stronger sets here, Pearlstein says. The atmosphere is perfect. Youve got the low ceilings  it keeps the laughter in. Everyone is focused on the stage. There are a lot of things that people dont see that makes a show good. Sam kind of hits everything that makes it good.

Eric Kayne/Special to The Chronicle

Local comics Joey Avery, Adrian McNair and Josef Anolin filled out the talent that night. An all-female lineup, which included Sureni Weerasekera, performed the next night. Most of Koletkars lineups have the diversity of a United Nations subcommittee  which the comic says is deliberate.

That Russell Peters video was amazing. Thats when my mind changed completely, Koletkar says. It was the first time I had seen an Indian comedian, onstage, destroying. Until then, stand-up was something I had only seen white guys do and black guys do.

Koletkar took a break from his day job at the end of 2015, working on comedy full time. The Desi Comedy Fest, which Koletkar has co-produced with Abhay Nadkarni, will return Aug. 10-20; previous versions have brought more than 50 South Asian comics to multiple venues from San Francisco to Livermore, Santa Cruz and Sacramento.

Somewhere deep inside, my goal is to make people laugh, Koletkar says, and that brings me happiness.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicles pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub

Comedy Oakland: Thursday-Saturday at Spice Monkey restaurant, 1628 Webster St., Oakland. Most tickets are $10-$15 online, and a few dollars more at the door. Tickets, showtimes and comedy lineups at www.comedyoakland.com.

Desi Comedy Fest: Returns Aug. 10-20. More information at www.desicomedyfest.com.

More on Samson Koletkar: www.mahatma-moses.com
Chefs may change at Frances, but several other things never will: crisp panisse frites ($8), rich bacon beignets ($8) and, to end a meal, the gooey, rich lumberjack cake ($9).

Melissa Perello opened the restaurant in 2009, and it quickly became one of the most popular places in town. When she opened Octavia two years ago, she put Michaela Rahorst, who had been with her since the beginning, in charge of the Frances kitchen. Rahorst left quietly last year and was replaced by Connie Tsui, who had been at the restaurant for 18 months.

Tsui is an excellent fit for reproducing Perellos vision, refreshing the favorites and tweaking the menu just enough to keep it interesting. The standby kale salad ($13) is chopped fine enough so the iron qualities of the greens are tamed by anchovy vinaigrette. The salad also now cleverly includes Brussels sprouts, crispy chickpeas and the smoothing effect of grana padano cheese.

Herb-roasted mushroom soup ($14) has an intense, earthy flavor punched with black garlic persillade, chunks of fried bread and a puddle of burrata. Again, Tsui successfully found the balance that made the ingredients sing in perfect harmony.

Pasta is always among the four appetizers; this time, wide pappardelle noodles ($16) that look like satin ribbons are tightly wound into a fist with duck confit, broccoli rabe and breadcrumbs.

At many restaurants, main courses are a letdown, but at Frances theyre a highlight. Portions are so generous they would satisfy the clientele of a truck-stop diner, but thats where the comparison ends.

In one dish, four thick slices of bavette steak ($33)  draped over layers of broccolini and fleshy oyster mushrooms  have a bright accent of cilantro-ginger chimichurri. The thick honey-brined pork chop ($34), distinguished by a perfect diamond-shape grill mark, was strewn with parsley and fennel fronds, accompanied by creamed escarole, shaved fennel slaw and a thick pool of spiced huckleberries bleeding juice in front.

The chef props wild striped bass ($32) on black rice, then adds shiitake mushrooms in a kombu and miso broth, covered with shavings of watermelon radish and lacy Asian greens.

Pastry chef Sarah Bonar continues to show why shes one of the citys best  not only with the lumberjack cake ($9), but with the disk of toasted black sesame pavlova ($9), where the meringue is flavored with candied Buddhist hand, sections of mandarins and chicory-root ice cream sprinkled with black sesame seeds.

When Perello opened Frances, she envisioned a neighborhood restaurant near the Castro, but the food was so good it quickly became a destination. Its just as popular today. The layout of the compact 46-seat restaurant almost forces diners to meet other diners; the tables are as close together as youll find in New York. Theres also seats at the bar and around the storefront windows overlooking 17th Street.

The wine service also promotes a neighborly feeling. The restaurant offers a house blend, either red or white, in a carafe marked in ounces. The staff fills the carafe and diners are charged $1.80 an ounce for what they drink. Waiters successfully strike that fine balance of being friendly but thoroughly professional.

While Perello concentrates on Octavia, its nice to know that Frances is in good hands.

Michael Bauer is The San Francisco Chronicles restaurant critic and editor at large. Find his blog at http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com and his reviews on www.sfchronicle.com. E-mail: mbauer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michaelbauer1

  

Frances

Food:   

Service:   

Atmosphere:  

Price: $$$$

Noise: BOMB
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As the nations museums and art scenes anxiously await federal word on the fate of the National Endowment for the Arts, local art lovers better beeline to two major exhibitions currently wowing appreciative crowds: Matisse/Diebenkorn at SFMOMA and Monet: The Early Years at the Legion of Honor.

The works hanging at these vaunted cultural institutions is jaw-dropping. Yet despite Trumps proposed defunding of the NEA, both museums remain buoyed by support from their donors, lenders and collectors.

In SFMOMAs 82-year history, I dont think weve ever had an exhibition that boasts 32 sponsors, said SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra at a Directors Circle conversation in Wattis Hall with curator Janet Bishop.

Both Henri Matisse and Richard Diebenkorn, two of the 20th centurys greatest colorists, share a history in San Francisco: Diebenkorn was an S.F. native, Stanford grad and S.F. Art Institute professor who developed a great admiration for the French master. SFMOMA holds 43 Diebenkorns in its permanent collection.

Just one year after SFMOMAs 1935 founding, the late Grace McCann Morley organized the first Matisse exhibition on the West Coast. And thanks to the beneficence of patrons, such as the late Elise Haas, SFMOMAs collection holds 47 Matisses, including its most important work, Femme au chapeau (1905), which forms the foundation of the museums modern collection.

Benezra prefaced that good fortune with a brief editorial comment:

The value of great works of art has gone up in an extraordinary way, and that increase makes insurance valuations extraordinarily high. All great museums in this country have become dependent on the NEAs indemnification of insurance costs, he said. And we cant make great exhibitions like Matisse/Diebenkorn without that support.

Artful impression: Supporters were also out in force at the Legion of Honor, where Fine Arts Museums Director Max Hollein and board Chair Dede Wilsey hosted a black-tie dinner celebrating Monet: The Early Years.

This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see something that very rarely comes together, said Hollein, during the dinner held in a clear tent set on the museums Thinkers Courtyard. In fact, this is the very first early Monet show ever.

The Francaise-flavored fete featured authentic Parisian sounds by musician Michel Michelis and the chanteuse-inspired Sono Musette band, as well as a Gallic-influenced McCalls meal.

Among revelers: John and Cynthia Fry Gunn, Carole McNeil, Lisa and Douglas Goldman, Lucinda Watson, George and Marie Hecksher, Anne Giannini McWilliams, David Wollenberg, Yurie and Carl Pascarella, Lucy Hamilton, Mary Beth and David Shimmon, and French Consul General Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens.

The show focuses on pre-Impressionist Monet  and there isnt a water lily to be found among 53 dazzling works (47 of which were loaned by collectors and institutions from around the world) in the exhibition, organized by FAM curator Esther Bell with the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

Nothing is more beautiful than early Monet until you get to late Monet, toasted Wilsey. I dont know why were not doing a middle Monet, but Im sure someone will think of it.

Hot seat: During the inaugural Art of Fire fundraiser at Terra Gallery, the sold-out crowd, which consisted mostly of firefighters, raised $250K for the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation.

Established 10 years ago by retired SFFD Capt. Tony Stefani, a 28-year veteran and cancer survivor, the foundation promotes early detection of and research on elevated cancer rates among firefighters exposed to a toxic soup of flame-retardant furnishings.

So began Stefanis crusade, assisted by the efforts of researchers, public health officials and politicians, including former state senator Mark Leno, who drafted numerous bills to curb the use of these toxic chemicals.

Flame retardants are a $5 billion industry that doesnt even prevent fires, explained Leno. Those chemicals just cause cancer.

The gala featured keynote speeches by actor and cancer survivor Evan Handler and award-winning actor BD Wong, a San Francisco native whose brother, Barry Wong, serves at SFFD Station 37. There was also an auction of firefighter-themed art, a Taste Catering dinner, and a moving White Hat ceremony led by the S.F. Pipers Band and SFFD members who presented local heroes with its highest honor, a white firefighter helmet.

On the podium: filmmakers Kirby Walker and Jamie Redford for their award-winning HBO documentary Toxic Hot Seat; Dr. Marshall Stoller, assistant chairman of the urology department at UCSF Medical Center; former SFFD Capt. Rich Elb and S.F. Workers Compensation Director Peggy Sugarman.

Dr. Jennifer Brokaw, a former emergency-room physician turned patient advocate, kicked off the program recalling the serious cancer diagnosis delivered to her father, broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw.

When it comes to cancer, the words battle and fight are all wrong. So heres a firefighter analogy: A person with cancer is in a burning building and we, here in this room, are the ones with the hoses, she said. By joining with cancer researchers, oncologists, surgeons, nurses, geneticists, public health officials, regulatory agencies and filmmakers, we are the ones with the power to extinguish cancer.

Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicles society correspondent. Email: missbigelow@sfgate.com Instagram: @missbigelow
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The father of modern-day BASE jumpers was a classic San Francisco character.

On a recent trip to the archive, I turned up decades-old photos and articles on Robert Niles, the unquestioned king of Golden Gate Bridge stunts. His high-flying story is one thats not often told 68 years later, but his audacity made it a natural for me to jump on.

Niles first attempt to parachute from the Greatest Bridge Ever Built ended in disappointment, but not death, as some feared it would. He made the mistake of telling too many people about his plans, so on March 6, 1949, five camera boats, a helicopter, newsmen galore and a band of California Highway Patrol officers were waiting for him. He didnt even make it to the railing.

Bill Young/The Chronicle

Niles, in what became somewhat of a signature, persisted against better judgment. On April 15, 1949, he set out for a second parachuting attempt, and this one was a success. From The Chronicle, reporter Carolyn Ansbacher and photographers Bill Young and Bob Campbell were on hand, and Ansbacher interviewed Niles shortly after he was plucked from the water below the bridge.

I planned on an 11-second trip but I was off a half second, he said. It took me 12 seconds to hit the water. Niles grinned through his still-damp whiskers. My cigar didnt even get wet.

About a month later, on May 10, 1949, Niles hopped out of a Cadillac on the Bay Bridge and scrambled up a cable to near the top of the west tower. With a 10-cent cigar in his mouth and parachute on his back, he leaped and drifted 450 feet down to the bay below  almost twice the distance of his jump from the Golden Gate.

I faced the bridge all the way down. At car level, I grinned and waved to a few people standing there, he said.

Climbing to near the top of the tower took seven minutes and created a mile-long backup on the bridge. Most drivers and authorities were not amused.

On June 24, Niles was sentenced to 30 days in jail for the Bay Bridge stunt. Judge Clarence W. Morris was quoted in The Chronicle as saying: I dont like the job I have to do this morning, son. ... There was nothing intentionally vicious in what you did, but you endangered the lives of thousands of motorists that day.

In August 1949 Niles headed east for a New York City stunt  jumping from the George Washington Bridge. Another leap nearly cost him his life: He threw himself off Pasadenas Colorado Street Bridge  known as the suicide bridge  and fell 150 feet. Miraculously, he only suffered a fractured arm and leg.

More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond.

Given the risk involved, a reporter asked Niles why he had a passion for jumping off bridges.

It beats working, he said.

Side note: The last story I found about Niles in the archive was from March 27, 1951, and its a doozy. The former stuntman was charged with grand theft for stealing a lion, a Capuchin monkey and an albino ferret from a Los Angeles County zoo where he had worked. Now thats a stunt.

Bill Van Niekerken is the library director of The San Francisco Chronicle, where he has worked since 1985. In his weekly column, From the Archive, he explores the depths of The Chronicles vast photography archive in search of interesting historical tales related to the city by the bay.
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A naked man screaming for help was found early Tuesday stuck in a shaft above a Togos and Baskin-Robbins shop in Napa, officials said.

Emergency crews responded to the sandwich-ice cream shop on the 200 block of Soscol Avenue about 8:15 a.m. after employees arrived for work and heard screaming coming from the walls, said John Callanan, a division chief of operations for the Napa City Fire Department.

Definitely never had anyone stuck in our wall before, said an employee of the shop, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, Robyn.

Robert Turbidy, 48, allegedly climbed on the roof of the shop and entered an access door where he lowered himself into an 18-inch diameter crawl space using a makeshift rope, police said. At some point, the rope broke and he became wedged in the fetal position for about eight hours.

I have no clue where his clothes are, how he lost them, Callanan said.

It took emergency crews about 15 minutes to break through the rock facade of the building and peel back the plywood to fish Turbidy out.

Turbidy was conscious and speaking when he came out, Callanan said.

Just being stuck in a spot like that, your blood compartmentalizes. You can suffer significant injuries, Callanan said.

Turbidy was immediately taken to the Queen of the Valley Medical Center where he was treated for minor injuries.

He will booked into the Napa County Jail on suspicion of burglary and violating his probation terms, police said.

I dont know if the gentleman was attempting to burglarize the building or looking for a place to sleep, Callanan said. Its been a little strange up here lately in Napa.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
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Five cars parked in a row along San Francisco's Dolores Park all had smashed windows on a recent morning in March.

A vandal likely broke into the cars in the middle of the night, searching through the glove boxes, center consoles, and the backseats in search of anything the cars' owners left behind that might be worth selling.

Shattered glass on the street beneath a broken car window is a common scene throughout San Francisco. And the sight on March 3, five cars in a row, all in need of window repairs that will cost $200-plus, is symbolic of the city's ongoing problem with car break-ins, especially in the Mission District.

Smash-and-grab car burglaries spiked 31 percent between 2014 and 2016, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and the city took 25,899 reports of car break-ins in 2015, or more than 70 per day on average.

More recent car break-in data is limited. The San Francisco Police Department hasn't released a total number for 2016 breaks-ins, but SFPD spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca points to a recent report revealing 2,177 incidents in January 2016 and 2,062 in January 2017  that's a 5 percent decrease between two isolated months.

"I totally understand the community still reeling from their cars getting broken into, but as far as citywide numbers, we're seeing that number go down, but of course that doesn't make neighbors feel any better when your car gets broken into," Rueca said. "We're recommending that people file reports online or at a district station. It's valuable information and the only way we know what's going on is when people are reporting incidents."

The Mission District reveals a different story. In January 2016, SFPD received 74 reports of vehicle burglaries and in January 2017 that number was 266, resulting in a 255 percent increase between these two months.

Those numbers come as no shock to Mission District resident Siamak Akhavan.

Akhavan is the developer and a resident of the Light House, a multi-unit building on Dolores Avenue, and said he's faced with cleaning broken auto glass from the sidewalk after 99 percent of evenings, usually due to multiple car windows being smashed.

"The historic boulevard's width and relative distance/sparsity of residences in the street make it a perfect serial break-in target," Akhavan said. "I wish the City would initiate better monitoring systems, like better patrolling, more protection of culprits, and the very least install better lighting and camera systems."

Emmy Clausing also lives in the neighborhood and is appalled at the rows of cars with splintered window glass along Dolores.

"Yes, this usually involves rows," Clausing said. "When a car that has been vandalized is still parked, the glove compartment is always wide open and contents strewn about. To me this is another sign of crime run amok; there is far more than can be managed. There is never a policeman in sight."

While SFPD says the number of car break-ins is on the wane, Ricky Villareal, manager of In & Out Auto Glass on Bayshore Boulevard, where car window repairs range from $160 to $250, has seen a steady rise in business. Five year's ago, Villareal's team was repairing on average 20 windows a day. In the summer of 2016, he said business took off and ever since he has averaged 35 a day.

"Now I don't see any downtime," Villareal said.

Something everyone can agree on is your chances of a break-in are decreased if you don't leave any valuables in the car.

An iPhone forgotten in the center console, a Patagonia jacket crumpled in the backseat, a pair of Ray Bans on the dash, and a backpack on the floor are all items that give opportunistic thieves reason to smash a window.

Dolores Heights resident Jason Lopezjones parks his cars on the street every night and has never had a window broken.

"Our cars are totally empty," Lpezjones said. "One can see through the windows that there is nothing at all inside. I do see car windows broken, and know it has happened to lots of people, but my car is on the street every single night, empty, and never a problem. Maybe that is the lesson people need to learn? Especially since the city seems unable to stop the problem."
Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening in the next few weeks.

Wednesday

Call for secure elections: A meet-up with the San Francisco Elections Commission, 6 p.m. at City Hall, Room 408, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, San Francisco.

Postcard party: An opportunity for people to write postcards to elected officials on issues of concern from 6 to 8 p.m. at Pier 23 Cafe on the Embarcadero, San Francisco.

Thursday

Antitravel ban rally: A protest against President Trumps travel ban, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the San Francisco Federal Building, 90 Seventh St.

Friday

Community forum: A conversation on civic engagement with elected officials, business leaders and community activists, hosted by Golden Gate University. The event is from 5 to 8 p.m. at 536 Mission St., San Francisco. Purchase tickets: http://bit.ly/2n3L87U

Sunday

Forum: A Jewish Community Forum to discuss the political climate and how it affects the Bay Area Jewish community. The forum will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, 1835 Ellis St., San Francisco. Tickets available: http://bit.ly/2mSh7qK.

Author series: A conversation with Aya de Leon, a local poet, author and performance artist, and Kate Raphael, author and producer of the KPFA FM radio show Womens Magazine, on how to organize against President Trump. The talk will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia St., San Francisco.

Community conversation: Sierra Club San Francisco chapter leader Arthur Feinstein leads a discussion on local and statewide environmental issues. The event is from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Northern Police Station Community Room, 1125 Fillmore St., San Francisco. RSVP: www.sierraclub.org/san-francisco-bay/activities

Monday

Political discussion: A panel discussion on how to be involved at the local, state and federal level, hosted by the United Democratic Club. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 6 union, 55 Fillmore St., San Francisco.

March 25

Danville town hall: Hosted by Mayor Renee Morgan with Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, state Sen. Steve Glazer, Assemblywoman Catharine Baker and Contra Costa County Supervisor Candace Andersen. The event is from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, 400 Hartz Ave. in Danville. Contact Nat Rojanasathira, assistant to the town manager, at (925) 314-3328 or nrojanasathira@danville.ca.gov for more information.

March 26

Womens rally and march: A Walk for Equality from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Rinconada Park, 777 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto.

March 29

Panel: A discussion with immigration attorneys on sanctuary cities, hosted by the United Democratic Club. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 6 union, 55 Fillmore St., San Francisco.
Just six months after being the first airline to sell seats on regularly scheduled flights to Cuba, Silver Airways, a regional carrier from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that specializes in smaller markets, will scrap its service to the island next month. It is the latest industry move to underscore that fewer Americans are traveling to Cuba than originally anticipated.

Citing low demand and competition from major airlines, Silver said it would cease its operations in Cuba effective April 22. The move follows other reductions by American Airlines and JetBlue, which in recent weeks either switched to smaller aircraft or cut back on the number of flights. Experts say the changes in the young market illustrate not so much a lack of interest, but the rush of airlines into new territory combined with an abundance of seats the market could not possibly fill.

On Monday, Frontier Airlines said that it would cease its daily flight to Havana from Miami on June 4. The airline said costs in Havana significantly exceeded initial assumptions, market conditions failed to materialize and too much capacity had been allocated between Florida and Cuba.

Regularly scheduled passenger jet service to Cuba had been cut off for more than 50 years. Americans who wanted to go there had to go through third countries or take expensive charter flights that were notorious for long delays and steep baggage fees.

Restaurants

Ruby Tuesday

 a good buy?

Ruby Tuesday says it will explore strategic alternatives including a sale or merger, and that a key sales figure fell in the latest quarter.

The restaurant chain says its at the start of its strategic review and it doesnt plan to make more public comments until the process is completed. It said it can give no assurances to the outcome or timing. Its shares surged nearly 18 percent in after-hours trading.

The company reported preliminary results for the quarter ended Feb. 28, with sales down 4 percent at established locations. The metric is considered a key indicator of financial health because it strips out the volatility of newly opened and closed locations.

Acquisitions

Yahoo names

Altabas execs

Yahoos email and other digital services will become part of Verizon after their $4.48 billion deal is finalized, which the companies hope will occur by June 30, they said in a filing Monday. Now Yahoo is disclosing what will happen with Altaba, the valuable part that will remain  and has investments in Chinas Alibaba Group and in Yahoo Japan.

The new company will be run by a Yahoo board member, Thomas McInerney, instead of CEO Marissa Mayer.

Mayer isnt expected to work for Verizon. If she leaves, Mayer will receive a $23 million severance package, according to Mondays filing. That is lower than a $44 million valuation disclosed in September because $21 million in stock options and other awards have vested in her account since then.

Besides her severance, Mayer will gain control of stock options valued at $56.8 million.

The stock will help ease the sting of a penalty that Mayer is paying for the big data breaches that occurred on her watch. Yahoos board is withholding Mayers annual bonus of up to $2 million and a potentially lucrative stock award to punish her.

Besides naming McInerney as Altabas CEO, Yahoo also filled several other key positions at the new holding company.

Arthur Chong will serve as general counsel and secretary and Alexi Wellman as chief financial and accounting officer. DeAnn Fairfield Work was named chief compliance officer.

Medicine

Breast cancer

drug approved

U.S. regulators have approved a new drug as an initial treatment for postmenopausal women with a type of advanced breast cancer.

Kisqali is a pill that works to slow the spread of cancer by blocking two proteins that can stimulate growth and division of cancer cells. Its for women who have metastatic breast cancer known as HR+/HER2-.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed the approval on Monday. Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, which developed the treatment, said there are no firm statistics on how many U.S. patients get this type of cancer.

This is an important therapy for these patients, who have limited options, said Dr. Vas Narasimhan, chief medical officer and head of drug development at Novartis, which has its U.S. headquarters in New Jersey.

Chronicle News Services
BERLIN  Social media giants including Facebook and Twitter are not doing enough to curb hate speech on their platforms and face fines of up to $53 million if they do not strengthen their efforts to delete illegal posts, a German government minister said Tuesday.

The move by the countrys authorities comes as technology companies face increasing scrutiny worldwide over how they police online material, including hate speech, potential terrorist propaganda and fake news. The debate has been particularly acute in Germany, which has become a case study for combatting such material because of its stringent laws on what can and cannot be published.

For tech companies and free speech campaigners, this global regulatory push could limit how individuals communicate online by restricting peoples digital activities and allowing governments to expand their control over vast swaths of the Internet.

Yet a growing number of policymakers across Europe, the United States and elsewhere believe the social media companies have a responsibility to block harmful content from their digital platforms, and must respect national rules that often run counter to Silicon Valleys efforts to operate across borders.

On Tuesday, Heiko Maas, Germanys minister of justice and consumer protection, said he would propose a law that would impose stiff fines on tech companies whose social media platforms did not respond swiftly enough to complaints about illegal content. Maas has been a vocal critic of how such companies treat online content that violates his countrys strict rules on hate speech.

We must increase the pressure on social networks, he said in a statement announcing the proposed legislation.

This will set binding standards for how companies running social networks must handle complaints and require them to delete criminal content, he said of the proposal.

If the law is approved, tech companies may face fines of up to $53 million, for not cracking down on hate speech, potentially the highest such penalty in the Western world.

It would require social media services to make it easy for users to report contentious material, and to respond to those requests promptly. It calls for obviously criminal content to be deleted or blocked within 24 hours, while companies would have seven days to remove posts that are less clear-cut.

Communications experts in Germany welcomed the move.

It doesnt mean that the Internet will no longer be a free space, said Birgit Stark, head of the institute for communications at the University of Mainz. You cant just defame people, just because it is the Internet.

The development followed the publication Tuesday of the results of a study that showed that Facebook and Twitter failed to meet the German target of removing 70 percent of hate speech within 24 hours of being alerted to its presence.

The yearlong study noted that while the two companies eventually had erased nearly all illegal hate speech, Facebook during January and February managed to delete 39 percent in the window sought by the German authorities and Twitter erased 1 percent. YouTube fared the best, taking down 90 percent of all content flagged within the 24-hour period.

Since September, the figure for Facebook has fallen by seven percentage points, while Twitters takedown rate has not changed. The issue has taken on fresh urgency as Germany gears up for parliamentary elections in the autumn.

Tech companies deny playing fast and loose with national hate speech laws, saying they have taken down illegal material when it has been flagged by users. They also argue, however, that there is a fine line between complying with a countrys rules and outright digital censorship.

We are doing far more than any other company to try and get on top of hate speech on our platform, Richard Allen, Facebooks head of public policy in Europe, said in an interview last year. We recognize that this is a work in progress.

Germany, where it is illegal to promote Nazi ideology or to deny the Holocaust, has been at the center of the debate surrounding what can be published on social media platforms and who is responsible for the content.

Many Germans  among the most engaged users of these services  also remain overtly wary of how much information U.S. tech companies routinely collect about their online activities. Facebook and Google have run into problems with local lawmakers over what can be disseminated on their social networks and on video sites like YouTube.

In response to this criticism and a recent rising tide of hate speech against new refugees in Germany, many tech companies agreed to work with the countrys officials in 2015 to remove xenophobic and racist messages from their digital channels.

We are disappointed by the results, said Klaus Gorny, a Facebook spokesman, in a statement Tuesday referring to the German government study. We have clear rules against hate speech and work hard to keep it off our platform.

Al Verney, a YouTube spokesman, said that the company is analyzing the proposed legislation and that the video service has procedures in place to remove the offensive content. Twitter declined to comment on Maas proposal.

The German criticism over how social media companies handle hate speech and other illicit content online is part of a wider global movement.

In December, a number of companies, including Facebook, Google and Microsoft, announced that they had teamed up to fight the spread of terrorist content on the Web by sharing technology and information. They also have agreed to a voluntary code of conduct in Europe to fight the spread of online hate speech.

Many of these companies also have been accused of not doing enough to tackle fake news, which became endemic on many social media sites ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. With a spate of national elections looming across Europe this year, Facebook and Google have said they will clamp down on false reports shared on their platforms.

Trust is one of the main assets that social media has, Andrus Ansip, a European Commission vice president in charge of the regions digital agenda, said in an interview last month. If people cant trust these channels, then they will stop using the social networks.

Melissa Eddy and Mark Scott are New York Times writers.
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Oaklands Sungevity has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the latest example of a solar company struggling to stay afloat even as the technologys popularity rises.

A collection of investors, led by Northern Pacific Group, has agreed to take control of Sungevitys assets in exchange for $20 million in financing to keep the companys operations going. Those assets will then be sold off in a court-supervised auction, according to Sungevity.

The company specializes in a software platform that connects homeowners interested in going solar with installers who could perform the work, supplying instant online quotes. Although executives touted their asset-light model and aggressively expanded both in the United States and Europe, Sungevitys share of the residential solar market remains well behind such competitors as SolarCity and Sunrun.

Last year, privately held Sungevity planned to go public in unusual fashion, merging with a blank check company set up by investors to take a promising firm into the public markets. But a brutal year for solar stocks  as well as the incoming Trump administrations perceived attitude toward renewable power  gave the deals backers second thoughts, and they canceled the transaction in December.

Since then, Sungevity has been shedding staff, cutting roughly 100 jobs in January and another 400 last week, according to a former employee.

The board and its advisers reviewed a range of options and ultimately decided that a court-supervised sale represents the best path forward for our customers, suppliers, employees and business partners, CEO Andrew Birch said in a press release.

The number of residential solar arrays installed across the country each year continues to grow, rising 19 percent last year, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association. But thats a far slower pace than the 66 percent growth seen in 2015.

Analysts say that in some states, including California, the pool of early adopters is starting to dry up. That forces rooftop solar companies to spend more money reaching out to other potential customers and places intense pressure on profit margins. In addition, utilities in many states are pushing regulatory changes to slow solar powers growth.

Even the fields leaders are struggling. SolarCity, the nations largest residential solar company, suffered through a string of widening annual losses before being acquired last year by electric car maker Tesla, in a deal that some critics called a bailout for the solar firm.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
WASHINGTON  A year ago, the U.S. government was campaigning for an international ban on shipments of rechargeable batteries on passenger planes because the batteries can self-ignite, creating intense fires capable of destroying an airliner.

The risk is immediate and urgent, Angela Stubblefield, a U.S. aviation official, declared then.

Today, that urgency has evaporated as safety regulations stall under President Trumps push to ease what he sees as red tape holding back the economy.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency that sets global aviation safety standards, decided last year to ban bulk shipments of lithium-ion batteries on international passenger flights. On cargo flights, the batteries can be charged to no more than 30 percent, a level that may reduce the likelihood of fires.

As a result, countries around the world have been adopting the new international standard for domestic flights as well. The Obama administration also looked to do so, submitting rules for publication that makes them binding. But after Trump took office on Jan. 20, he signed an executive order freezing the publication of new regulations. That means airlines and cargo operators remain free to ignore the standard for domestic flights.

The Obama administration had considered the change so urgent that it was fast-tracked in the rule-making process. Trumps executive order says urgent safety rules can be exempted from the freeze, but the new administration isnt invoking that exemption for battery shipments.

This is part of our ongoing regulatory review, the Transportation Department said. The safe movement of hazardous materials remains a priority. We will provide updates as soon as decisions are made with regard to these and other issues at hand. No time frame was provided.

Rechargeable batteries are used in consumer products ranging from cell phones and laptops to electric cars. Manufacturers like them because they pack more energy into smaller packages, but the batteries can self-ignite if they have a manufacturing flaw, are damaged, exposed to excessive heat, overcharged or packed too closely together. The fires can burn up to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, close to the melting point of the aluminum used in aircraft construction.

Since 2006, three cargo jets have been destroyed and four pilots killed by in-flight fires that investigators say were either started by batteries or made more severe by their proximity.

Most passenger carriers and some cargo operators are voluntarily abiding by the international standard for their domestic operations for the time being. Trade associations for the U.S. and international airline industries, as well as the Air Line Pilots Association, say they support extending the standard to domestic flights.

But lobbyists for the battery industry, which opposed the international standard when it was adopted last year, are urging administration officials to make changes that would allow certain batteries to continue to be shipped on passenger flights. The U.N. agency standard already allows for limited exemptions, but lobbyists are asking for blanket exemptions for medical-device batteries and shipments to remote locations and other changes.

The position of U.S. negotiators last year was that medical-device batteries were no less dangerous than other kinds.

Extending the international ban to domestic flights is a matter of life and death, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the House transportation committees senior Democrat and an advocate of banning air shipments of batteries.

If we dont start following the (organizations) guidelines and stop stuffing giant boxes of lithium batteries that are fully charged into passenger aircraft, sooner or later were going to kill a lot of people, he said. When something is this critical that it will take down an airplane, voluntary compliance with a nonexistent rule is not adequate.

But Bob Richard, a battery industry lobbyist, said people living in the Alaskan outback, for example, might not be able to receive batteries for their backup heaters or emergency beacons if the international standard is extended to domestic flights.

Battery makers and electronics companies say the problem is mostly limited to manufacturers in China that make substandard batteries and dont follow hazardous materials shipping regulations. They say greater enforcement of the previous, less stringent shipping rules is the better solution. But a study by Canadian safety authorities found that the problem of battery shippers not following regulations was widespread and not limited to China.

Congress directed the Transportation Department last year to adopt the international standard for domestic flights. But its not uncommon for federal agencies to ignore congressional directives or delay compliance, especially if they disagree with them.

Safety concerns about rechargeable batteries increased after FAA tests in 2014 showed gases emitted by overheated batteries can build up in cargo containers, leading to explosions capable of disabling aircraft fire suppression systems. An organization representing aircraft manufacturers said in 2015 that airliners arent designed to withstand lithium battery fires and continuing to accept battery shipments is an unacceptable risk.

Joan Lowy is an Associated Press writer.
Today in Stupid Ways to Wreck Your Car ...

The driver of a Mustang with Texas plates asked a friend to record him drifting as he left a Lamborghini dealership, according to the description accompanying a video of the maneuver.

We should mention it was raining at the time. The road was slick.

As the friend recording the action followed in his car, the Mustang drifted left, then right, then left again  right through the fence at Lamborghini Houston (or possibly another building adjacent to the dealer.)

Story continues below

As dealership-exit, operator-error car crashes go, this one had relatively minor consequences.

CHECK CAR PRICES:

The driver was not hurt, and the Mustang not too badly damaged. No innocent bystander Lambos were harmed in the filming.

Certainly it paled by comparison to last year's driver-induced destruction of one of the world's most expensive Ferraris in Budapest.

Sources: Jalopnik, CarScoops.
Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle

A man was arrested after he set fire early Monday to a boat docked near the St. Francis Yacht Club in the Marina district of San Francisco and jumped into the water, officials said.

The suspect, a 41-year-old man whose name was not released, set the boat ablaze about 1:26 a.m. in a berth off Yacht Road, police said.
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San Francisco brewery Speakeasy Ales & Lagers will cease operations indefinitely, the company announced Friday. The Bayview taproom served customers for the last time on Thursday evening.

"The last year and a half, we've been looking for options to secure additional capital to keep us going, and unfortunately we couldn't come to terms to make that happen," Brian Stechschulte, the brewery's public relations and media director, told Inside Scoop. "It left us with no choice but to cease operations."

The future of the brand will now be up to the company's primary creditor. That creditor, though Stechschulte would not name it, we believe to be Union Bank, which financed the company's 2015 expansion -- an upgrade from 15,000 to 90,000 barrel capacity estimated at around $7.5 million. (According to Stechschulte, Speakeasy produced around 35,000 barrels of beer in 2016.)

Speakeasy has been a San Francisco mainstay since 1997, and those shifty, neon-lit eyes are a fixture of our city's bar windows. In a recent debate among Chronicle food staff (topic: What are the four iconic Bay Area beers?), food editor Paolo Lucchesi nominated Prohibition Ale: "The amber ale was the Bayview brewery's first beer and it still holds up," he wrote.

Now's the time to hoard your favorite ales. What remains of Speakeasy's inventory, which is sold in several states, has been sent to distributors and will be sold through.

The brewery is still hoping for a lifeline. "The unfortunate thing about this whole situation is that we don't have direct information from the creditor," said Stechschulte. "There's a whole bunch of situations we can speculate about  obviously what we would like is to see the brewery and the brand."

When asked whether the increasingly competitive nature of craft beer in the Bay Area may have played a role, Stechschulte said he believes it was not the primary cause. "It's certainly hard to deny that that played a role," he said, "but we had a lot of things going on that led us to the situation today."

Stay tuned in the weeks ahead as we learn more about the fate of Speakeasy.
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Last month, Wise Sons on 24th Street celebrated its five-year anniversary. In that time, the Jewish deli company has gone from a pop-up with a cult following to the region's most recognizable Jewish food brand, spreading outposts to the Fillmore, the Contemporary Jewish Museum and soon, Marin County.

Yet the past five years have also seen notable closures of Jewish delis across America.

In 2012, Wise Sons was the local leader for what seemed to be a Jewish food renaissance bubbling up across the country. While the more traditional Saul's Restaurant & Deli was already a fixture in the East Bay, Wise Sons represented a San Francisco youth movement that included the openings of Shorty Goldstein's in 2013 and the Rye Project in 2014. Both have since closed.

Last year, the owners of Saul's were looking for new owners to take over the location.

"The Jewish deli in general has definitely seen a decline as people stopped eating as much meat and started to think healthier," Wise Sons co-owner Evan Bloom said.

The 75-year-old Stage Deli in New York, one of the first notable old-school closures, shut down in 2012, as new places like Kenny & Zuke's in Portland and DGS Delicatessen in Washington, D.C. gained attention. It's been a similar story for the old school delis in Los Angeles.

New York's famous Carnegie Delicatessen, which opened in the 1930s, closed at the end of 2016.

DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images

"I think the number one thing with a place like that is if your menu is so big, how could you possibly make everything good and everything of quality," Bloom said.

Carnegie Delicatessen, for example, had a menu that included cold and hot sandwiches, cold cut platters, burgers, hot dogs and chicken tenders.

Bloom said with all of the volatility in the food scene, Wise Sons is all about controlling its numbers through fast counter-service and compact menus. The concept has become familiar in the Bay Area over the last few years.

"Its about limiting the menu and doing a few things well. It's also about building it around the community. For any place, building around the neighborhood is important," Bloom said. "A lot if our success is we just got the formula right. Location and luck, that's a big part of it, too."

In Marin County, the scaled-down Wise Sons shop will rely on the commissary kitchen in San Francisco for daily dishes.

Moving forward, his said the Wise Sons bagel shops are going to be similarly modeled -- smaller space requiring less staff, which in turn reduces operating costs.

As far as the future goes, Bloom said anything is possible for Wise Sons. Maybe even a move outside of the Bay Area, if the opportunity presents itself.

"I'm from SoCal originally so who knows," he said.
Jay Lynch, an artist, writer and satirist who was a central figure in the underground comics revolution of the 1960s and 70s, died March 5 at his home in Candor, N.Y. He was 72.

His cousin Valerie Snowden said the cause was lung cancer.

Mr. Lynch, who had a wry, deadpan sense of humor, held strong views about the importance of underground comics, which differentiated themselves from the mainstream through raunchy and grotesque depictions of sex, drugs and violence.

Underground comix were the most important art movement of the 20th century, he wrote, using the comics spelling preferred by underground cartoonists, in the introduction to Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics Into Comix (2009), by Denis Kitchen and James Danky.

Copies of many of the early books sell to collectors for many thousands of dollars, he continued. Its all quite ironic: Rebellious cartoonists mocking consumer culture were inadvertently producing collectible artifacts for the same consumer culture 40 years down the road.

Mr. Lynch played several roles in the underground comics world. Using a retro style with a tight crosshatching technique, he created comics like Nard n Pat, about a conservative man who bickers with a hip cat.

It was sweetly rooted in the past, cartoonist Art Spiegelman said in an interview. Two characters who oddly refracted the themes of old comic strips but now they surrealistically dealt with sex, drugs and cheap thrills.

Mr. Lynch founded Bijou Funnies with fellow cartoonist Skip Williamson to publish his work and that of other artists, and acted as a publicist for the loosely defined industry.

He put people together, said Patrick Rosenkranz, who is writing a biography of Mr. Lynch. He publicized what was going on. In the back of Bijou, he had small free ads for other underground comics. He was a crossroads figure.

But his most significant role might have been as an archivist of underground comics history. He kept nearly everything from his teenage years on: letters, original art, comics, fan magazines, merchandise and publicity campaigns. He donated it all to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at the Ohio State University.

We have letters between 14-year-old Art Spiegelman and 17-year-old Jay talking about their favorite EC Comics and Mad magazines  and about reading the first issue of Spider-Man, said Caitlin McGurk, the museums associate curator.

Spiegelman recalled that about a year ago he asked Mr. Lynch to let him see some of their old letters.

So he sent me a bulging 3-inch-thick binder with a Xerox of every letter he received from 1961 to 1963, he said. He kept all this history so well organized, but if you had taken a camera pan of the rest of his daily life, it would have been the opposite.

Mr. Lynchs early life was a bit unconventional. Jay Patrick Lynch was born in Orange, N.J., on Jan. 7, 1945, and grew up in Belmar, N.J. His father, William, and his mother, the former Alice Mangan, divorced when he was young, and he was raised in his grandmothers house, surrounded by aunts, uncles, his cousin Snowden and his grandfather.

At 11, he moved with his family to Miami, where he focused on his artwork, painting murals for neighbors homes and stage sets for school productions. He later moved to Chicago, where he attended the Art Institute.

The education that pointed him to his future in underground comics was provided by Mad magazine, whose editorial mastermind was Harvey Kurtzman, and the Realist, a satirical political journal founded by Paul Krassner in 1958.

After reading my first issue of the Realist, I was in a daze which almost bordered on frenzied religious ecstasy, Mr. Lynch was quoted as saying in Rosenkranzs book Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution (2008). Here was a magazine that pointed out, through satire, the hypocrisies in the society that nobody else dared even speak of, let alone print discussions of.

His path to underground comics took him through fanzines, college humor magazines and alternative newspapers. He contributed to Wild, Cracked, Whack and Sick magazines.

He and Williamson began a humor and comics magazine, Chicago Mirror, which they turned into Bijou Funnies, after the transformational publication of Robert Crumbs Zap No. 1 in 1968, which featured the big-footed, long-bearded, guru-like Natural.

Mr. Lynchs comics never reached as broad an audience as some of his more famous brethrens. Rosenkranz suggested that this might have been because he did not use sex as much in his work as others and was not part of the slash and drip school of underground cartoonists.

He was more interested in intellectual ideas, he said.

Some of Mr. Lynchs work reached the mainstream  through Playboy in the 1980s, but more regularly through Topps, the trading card company, which provided an income for artists like Spiegelman and Mr. Lynch. They were our Medicis, Spiegelman said.

Over a few decades, Mr. Lynch illustrated Bazooka Joe comics; Garbage Pail Kids, which began as a satire of Cabbage Patch Kids; and Wacky Packages, which parodied consumer culture. He recalled that he was told which food conglomerates not to mock, but with a list of products that he could parody, I would go to the supermarket and buy those products.

Ira Friedman, a Topps vice president, said in an interview, Jay was at the epicenter of Wacky Packages.

He also branched into childrens books, including a collaboration with Frank Cammuso on Ottos Orange Day (2013) and Ottos Backwards Day (2013).

Mr. Lynch was divorced twice and had no children.

When he resurrected Nard n Pat for the cover of Mineshaft magazine in 2015, he seemed to split his life into his two creations. He drew Nard busily typing and telling Pat: And thus, kitty-kat, while you draw cartoons to cleverly illustrate mankinds folly, I textually chronicle my astute observations on lifes passing parade. Alas! What fools these mortals be!

Filling in a comics panel at a drawing table, Pat says: You said it, Boss! Fun, fun, fun, til Daddy takes the T-square away.

Richard Sandomir is a New York Times writer.
NEW YORK  A blustery late-season storm plastered the Northeast with sleet and snow Tuesday, paralyzing much of the Washington-to-Boston corridor after a stretch of unusually mild winter weather that had people thinking spring was already here.

The powerful noreaster fell well short of forecasters snow predictions in New York and Philadelphia but unloaded 1 to 2 feet in places mostly inland, grounded more than 6,000 flights, and knocked out power to nearly a quarter-million customers from Virginia northward.

By the time it reached Massachusetts, it had turned into a blizzard, with near hurricane-force wind gusting over 70 mph along the coast and waves crashing over the seawalls. Up to a foot of snow was expected in the Boston area.

It was easily the biggest storm in a merciful winter that had mostly spared the Northeast, and many werent happy about it.

Its horrible, said retired gumball-machine technician Don Zimmerman, of Lemoyne, Pa., using a snowblower to clear the sidewalk along his block. I thought winter was out of here. ... Its a real kick in the rear.

While people mostly heeded dire warnings to stay home and off the roads, police said a 16-year-old girl was killed when she lost control of her car on a snowy road and hit a tree in Gilford, N.H.

The storm closed schools in cities big and small, Amtrak suspended service, and the post office halted mail delivery.

Philadelphia and New York City escaped the brunt of the snow, getting just a few inches and not the foot or more forecasters had expected before the storm switched over mostly to sleet. In New Jersey, which saw rain or just a little snow in many areas, Gov. Chris Christie called the storm an underperformer. But officials warned of dangerous ice.

Inland areas, meanwhile, got hit hard. Harrisburg, Pa., and Worcester, Mass., received a foot or more of snow. The Binghamton, N.Y., area was hit with more than 2 feet, while Vernon, N.J., got at least 19 inches.

The storm came just days after the region saw temperatures climb into the 60s, and less than a week before the official start of spring. February, too, was remarkably warm.

The winters seem to be upside down now. January and February are nice and then March and April seem to be more wintry than they were in the past, said Bob Clifford, who ventured out on an early morning grocery run for his family in Altamont, near Albany, N.Y.

His advice: Just hide inside. Hibernate.

In the nations capital, non-essential federal employees were given the option of reporting three hours late, taking the day off or working from home. The city got less than 2 inches of snow.

Colleen Long and Denise Lavoie are Associated Press writers.
A new analysis of federal student loans reveals the number of people severely behind on repaying their debt has soared in the last year, painting a bleak picture of one of the largest government programs.

The Consumer Federation of America released a study Tuesday that found that millions of people had not made a payment on $137 billion in federal student loans for at least nine months in 2016, a 14 percent increase in defaults from a year earlier. The consumer watchdog used the latest data from the Education Department, which manages $1.3 trillion in federal student debt owed by 42.4 million Americans.
WASHINGTON  The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government.

For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldnt find a single page of files that were requested.

And it set records for outright denial of access to files, refusing to quickly consider requests described as especially newsworthy, and forcing people to pay for records who had asked the government to waive search and copy fees.

The government acknowledged when challenged that it had been wrong to initially refuse to turn over all or parts of records in more than one-third of such cases, the highest rate in at least six years.

In courtrooms, the number of lawsuits filed by news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act surged during the past four years, led by the New York Times, the Center for Public Integrity and the Associated Press, according to a litigation study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Of the $36.2 million in legal costs fighting such lawsuits last year, the Justice Department accounted for $12 million, the Homeland Security Department for $6.3 million and the Pentagon for $4.8 million. The three departments accounted for more than half the governments total records requests last year.

The figures reflect the final struggles of the Obama administration during the 2016 election to meet President Barack Obamas pledge that it was the most transparent administration in history, despite wide recognition of serious problems coping with requests under the information law. It received a record 788,769 requests for files last year and spent a record $478 million answering them and employed 4,263 full-time FOIA employees across more than 100 federal departments and agencies. That was higher by 142 such employees the previous year.

A spokesman for Obama did not immediately respond to an email request for comment late Monday.

Ted Bridis is an Associated Press writer.
The two young children who crashed their father's very important interview with BBC about East Asian affairs are back in front of the laptop camera, thanks to the Wall Street Journal.

Robert E. Kelly, a professor based in Busan, South Korea with his wife Kim Jung-A and their two children, was giving an interview live on a BBC show on Friday when his daughter bounced into the room, interrupting the interview. A baby in a walker bumbled in shortly after.
A Riverside, California-area mother who may have purposefully abandoned her two-year-old daughter while grocery shopping has been identified by social media users as 31-year-old Chiengkham Vilaysane.

The woman was seen on a surveillance tape entering a Food-4-Less with her young toddler in tow early Sunday evening, but was reportedly separated from her at the store shortly thereafter.
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California community colleges would be free to full-time students for one year, tuition subsidies for middle-income students would remain intact, and extra money for college living expenses would flow under a package of bills announced Monday by Assembly Democrats in Sacramento.

As negotiations over the state budget get underway for fiscal year 2017-18, Democratic leaders said Monday they hope to protect the middle-class tuition subsidies that Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed eliminating to save roughly $37 million a year.
Regarding Where Trump resistance should go from here (March 13): E.J. Dionne Jr. tallies the victories of the President Trump resistance so far, but he is right to ask: What should we do now? Lets make history. The resistance movement should launch the largest nationwide voter registration drive this country has ever seen. Millions of Americans who are eligible to vote are unregistered. But the energy of the movement has now grown to meet this historic challenge. How do we do it?

First, we can press in our states for legislation to adopt Oregons model automatic voter registration law, which signs up every qualified unregistered citizen who obtains or renews a drivers license or state ID card. Second, any qualified citizen can become a volunteer deputy voter registrar and start or join a voter registration drive.

Thats what happened during the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi and fueled the Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Lets use democracy to confront Trump and the right-wing movement head-on by registering tens of millions of citizens to strengthen the most fundamental right we have  the right to vote  and take back our country.

Bob Ryan, San Francisco

Protect farmlands

Regarding Rain no help to oysters (March 10): Marin County is deservedly proud of the food its farms, ranches and aquaculture operations produce.

Unfortunately, as reported in The Chronicle, heavy storms this winter and the mandated closures that come with them made business challenging for Tomales Bay oyster farmers. Yet, through stringent regulations and a community-based strategy for reducing pathogen sources to the bay, including increased regulation of grazing lands through waste discharge requirements, required actions to reduce polluted runoff and boat discharges, and education, outreach and monitoring, Tomales Bay remains a thriving destination for agriculturalists, tourists and recreationalists.

Since 1980, Marin Agricultural Land Trust has protected 80 farms and ranches from development, work defined by successful family farming and a healthy natural environment. MALT works with farmers and ranchers like Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery to help improve their land in ways that reduce erosion, sequester carbon, improve downstream water quality and protect wildlife. As conservationists, we are acutely aware that improvements upstream directly impact Tomales Bay. Its one of the reasons MALT is committed to protecting more of Marins farmland.

Jamison Watts, Executive Director of Marin Agricultural Land Trust, Point Reyes Station

Health care impact

Regarding Effect on state: Older, poorer likely to see sharp rise in costs (March 14): Thank you to The Chronicle and the Congressional Budget Office for the detailed information regarding the potential impact of the proposed bill. Rather than get bogged down in the numbers, I would simply state that if you no longer provide a financial benefit, obviously money will be saved.

As the administration is so quick and proud to illustrate: If you take that a step further, if you eliminated 14 million people who get Social Security benefits, you could reduce the deficit fourfold. On a personal note, if I stopped giving my kids an allowance and the tooth fairy went away, Id also reduce my deficit. Remember the old acronym: KISS (meaning keep it simple, stupid).

George Topor, Corte Madera

Study the history

Regarding Divided we fall (Editorial, March 14): Of course it would be folly for our state to secede from the rest of our nation, but no more folly than President Trumps desire to restore former President Andrew Jacksons tattered reputation. Trump has dismissed the decision to remove Jacksons image from the $20 bill as a case of political correctness. But there was nothing politically correct or moral about Jacksons advocacy of a policy that displaced millions of Native Americans during the 1820s and 1830s.

These people walked a Trail of Tears due to Old Hickorys cruelty. Trump may fancy himself a Jacksonian, but he is obviously not a student of history.

Vincent DiCostanza, San Francisco

Unaffordable act

Regarding Dont repeal and displace (Editorial, March 14): The Congressional Budget Offices estimate that 24 million Americans, mostly poor and older, will lose their health coverage due to rising premiums and decreased Medicaid benefits, is both shocking and shameful. House Speaker Paul Ryan and his fellow Republicans are only interested in reducing our nations deficit through this cruel unaffordable care act, while enriching themselves through unjustifiable tax cuts. An appropriate social media response to these actions would be #Disgraceful.

Carolyn Crawford, San Francisco

Refute the claim

Why doesnt former President Barack Obama come forth to publicly and aggressively refute President Trumps seemingly ridiculous wiretapping charges? Doesnt Obama owe it to the American people to set the record straight and put the arrogant Trump in his place? Unless, of course, there is some merit in what Trump alleges, heaven forbid.

Daniel Woodhead, San Francisco

We Dont Care Act

Dont call it Trumpcare or anything other than what it is: the We Dont Care Act.

Stephen Maffin, Berkeley
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Noelle Vinas and Kevin Vincenti are the playwrights of the sci-fi drama Apocalypse, Please, a Stable Production Company world premiere at PianoFight. But another, unconventional group of collaborators helped shape the piece: workers in the tech industry.

The play envisions a not-too-distant future in which corporations and digital technology are all the more enmeshed in our consciousnesses, and Vinas and Vincenti recruited tech workers partly to accurately reflect the future of mobile technology, they said in a statement  and partly as a means of getting them to come to the theater.
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Boaty McBoatface, the name the Internet picked for a new British polar exploration ship, will begin its first mission this week, but not as a boat.

After online voters chose that name for the successor to the research ship the James Clark Ross during a public campaign, the U.K.'s Natural Environment Research Council backed away from the popular choice. Instead, the Science Ministry settled on the more dignified the Sir David Attenborough.
Four members of the Logan View FCCLA chapter  freshmen Noah Fowler, Dean Moeller and Anna Ready, and junior McKayla Ward  attended the FCCLA State Peer Education Conference held Feb. 27 in Kearney.

The theme of the meeting was Su-PEER Heroes! The outreach project of the conference was CEDARS, Home for Children. Nebraska FCCLA contributed to CEDARS by donating over 500 items.

In addition, there were several speakers and sessions. The keynote speaker was Lloyd Roberts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He shared what his family experienced when his daughter died in a drunk driving accident. He also spoke about all the other people who were affected by her decision to drink and drive

There were also three breakout sessions, the first was Empowering Leaders with the Su-PEER Heroes! In this session, the state peer officers educated members about peer teams and how to use FCCLA as a tool for success.

Erin Rea, the founder of Love Adelyn, presented a session, titled Giving Hope to Little Hearts. She shared her familys journey, from the birth and death of her daughter with a congenital heart defect to starting a foundation. The purpose of the Love Adelyn Foundation is to help other families who have critically ill children in Nebraska hospitals.

Rea also encouraged FCCLA members to use self-accountability to get through tough situations in their lives. She also urged FCCLA members to find a way, even if it seems small, to make a difference in others lives; they shouldnt wait for something tragic in their lives to feel like they can make a difference.

Jill Goedeken, a 4-H extension agent from Columbus, presented a session titled Resumes 101. Students were presented with an example of a well-written resume. Students were also given examples of items to include in a resume to make it successful. While presenting, Goedeken provided tips about wording and helpful ways to share information within the resume document.

Logan Views adviser, Pat Kassmeier, serves as a state adviser for the Family Leader Team.
LONDON  Employers are allowed to bar workers from wearing headscarves provided restrictions on religious garments are applied to employees of all faiths, the European Unions top court ruled on Tuesday, in a decision that could shape the place of Islam in public life on the Continent.

In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said that internal regulations banning the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign did not constitute direct discrimination.

The court also said that, in the absence of a general ban on religious symbols, employers could not prevent a worker from wearing a headscarf simply because a customer demanded it.

The decision by the court comes as countries across Europe are grappling with how to accommodate huge numbers of migrants, many from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia. Nationalist, right-wing parties have seized on the issue of Muslim immigration to build support before elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The decisions of the European Court of Justice, which interprets the law for the 28-nation European Union, are binding on member states. Legal experts said the headscarves ruling could have far-reaching consequences for the balance between freedom of religion and the rights of companies across the bloc to put in place policies requiring religious neutrality.

Rights advocates criticized Tuesdays decision, saying that it undermined the guarantee of equality.

Maryam Hmadoun, a policy adviser with the rights organization Open Society Foundations, said that in many EU member states, national law would still recognize that a ban on religious headscarves at work constituted discrimination.

She expressed concern, however, that the ruling would exclude many Muslim women from the workforce in countries where the laws on wearing religious symbols are different.

Dan Bilefsky is a New York Times writer.
1 Ex-ruler released: Egypts ousted president Hosni Mubarak was ordered to be freed from detention Monday, according to the prosecutor who signed his release order  ending nearly six years of legal proceedings against the long-ruling autocrat. The prosecutor, Ibrahim Saleh, said he ordered Mubaraks release after he accepted a petition by the former presidents lawyer for his freedom on the basis of time already served. Mubarak, 88, was acquitted by the countrys top appeals court on March 2 of charges that he ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 29-year rule. The ruling, according to Saleh, cleared the way for the release since Mubarak already has served a three-year sentence for embezzling state funds while in detention in connection to the protesters case.

2 Russia sanctions: The European Union has extended for six months sanctions against 150 Russia-linked people over territorial disputes in eastern Ukraine. The EU said in a statement Monday that the asset freezes and travel bans were extended because the situation on the ground had not changed. Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine has soured relations between the EU and Russia.
MOGADISHU, Somalia  Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, local officials and an expert said Tuesday, the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel on the crucial global trade route since 2012.

The reported seizure Monday of the Aris 13 came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

However, the United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile and that Somali pirates possess the intent and capability to resume attacks. One expert said some in the region had let down their guard as the situation calmed.

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalias capital, Mogadishu, when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, the director of Oceans Beyond Piracy.

An official in the semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off Somalias northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabab. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to journalists.

The ship was anchored Tuesday off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. The ship is on the coast now, and more armed men boarded the ship, he told the Associated Press by phone.

An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident told the AP that no ransom demand had been made.

The vessels captain reported to the company they were approached by two skiffs and that on one of them they could see armed personnel on board, the official said. The ship changed course quite soon after that report and is now anchored. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

A Britain-based spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force operation off Somalia, Flt. Lt. Louise Tagg, said an investigation was under way. The U.S. Navys 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain and oversees antipiracy efforts in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Abdi Guled and Jon Gambrell are Associated Press writers.
Senator Says Martinez Lobbied for Real Estate Deal

This keeps getting more interesting. Santa Fe Senator and Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth says Gov. Susana Martinez personally asked him to vote to approve an unusual real estate lease that existing state law wouldn't allow. He did. But then senators discovered over the weekend that the $1.9 million lease is in a building owned by campaign donors who gave more than $20,000 to Martinez. The Republican sponsor of the bill recalled it, stalling approval for the lease.

New Mexico Has Nation's Worst Unemployment Rate

The worst. That's what the recent employment report from the feds says about

. At 6.7 percent, the state's unemployment rate towers above neighbors like Colorado, which dropped below 3 percent, and the national average of 4.8 percent. The ignominious distinction provides rhetoric we're

during the Legislature's last week in session.

Comparing Obama and Trump on Healthcare

The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency tasked with evaluating the impact of proposed legislation, says President Trump's healthcare plan would reduce the deficit by $337 billion versus Obamacare over the next decadebut also that 24 million fewer people would have health insurance. Reaction from New Mexico's congressional delegation fell along party lines.



House Approves New Political Donation Disclosure Rules

Political groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on electionsas long as they do it "independently" of candidateswould have to disclose the source of their donations, a major change to current law that passed the House yesterday. The bipartisan bill raises the total contributions allowed to Legislative candidates. If the Senate agrees, with House tweaks, the bill is on its way to the governor.

House Committee Blocks Background Checks for Gun Shows, Online Sales

The headline about says it all. The bill would have expanded requirements for selling a gun to include background checks for purchases made at a gun show and online in New Mexico. One Democrat joined with six Republicans to set the bill aside, likely killing it for the current legislative session, which ends Saturday.



New Mexicans Can't Sue Texas Docs for Malpractice

The state Supreme Court ruled yesterday the New Mexico medical malpractice law doesn't apply to residents who have medical procedures outside of the state. Texas has much more restrictive malpractice laws, making it harder to sue doctors. Many New Mexicans in the eastern part of the state get medical care across state lines.



Santa Fe Library Staff Believes Couple May Have Desecrated Quran

Earlier this month, it appears some self-styled guerrilla activism went way too far at the Southside public library. Staffers there called the police after finding what appeared to be pee on copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. They also suspected a couple who had parked their Wyoming-plated Ford F250 in the parking lot of placing copies of the Bible and Ann Coulter's books around the library in an apparent effort to encourage people to read them.



Hemp Advocates Voice Support

Gov. Martinez vetoed both bills this session to create an industrial hemp program in the state. It's something dozens of other states have done. Martinez didn't explain her vetoes, though she's previously articulated her concern about the crop's similarity in appearance to marijuana and the difficulties that might present for law enforcement. Yesterday, advocates met in the governor's office to sing a Lithuanian folk song about growing hemp. The lyrics (this is true) talk a lot about growing by the sea. Might our landlocked state's governor be skeptical of the seafaring ways of hemp growers? Only the ocean knows, my friends.



Thanks for reading! The Word thinks this would be a pretty solid beach day if we had any water.



Subscribe to the Morning Word at sfreporter.com/signup.

Santa Fe Reporter
Santa Fe's craft breweries are serving up an increasing number of beers that are worth taking home in a growler or buying in special-edition bottles. And drinking at home is a sure-fire way to avoid ye old DWI checkpoint. But if you're pouring in the kitchen, you're going to need proper glassware.

No, not that free taster cup you got at a festival. And not a standard shaker pint. Science says the straight-sided pint glasses you get at middle-tier bars suck. They're good for a bar's branding, but not for a discerning drinker. If you serve savvy guests, they'll think you're a brutish rube at best, and a tacky buffoon at worst. We know people who literally cringe when they bring a bottle of Duel's Seraphine over to someone's house and see it poured into an old glass mug.

Here are the four glasses anyone who drinks good beer should have in their cupboard.

Spiegelau IPA glasses

Hop-heavy beers are the most popular beers in the Northwest. In Oregon, nearly half of the craft beer sold comes from the IPA family, which includes doubles and sessions and fruit-spiked IPAs.

Germany's Spiegelau, one of the world's elite glassware makers, teamed up with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head and Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada to design this glass specifically for IPA. It has a rounded top with a wide mouth to concentrate the aromas of the hops and allow them to emerge forcefully from the glass but a narrow, ribbed bottom to keep the beer cool. They feel great in your hand and really do seem to make IPAs taste better. Buy them here.

Set of two for $21.95 at Amazon

Teku 3.0 glasses for fruited beers, sours and wilds

Even compared to other high-end beer glassware, the Teku is spendy. A set of four will set you back about $70. But if you spent $25 for a 750 milliliter bottle of really nice sour or wild beer, do you really want to savor it from the plastic taster cup you got for free at the last beer festival you went to? No, you want the Teku.

This glass is a lot like a wine glass, but has a squared-off edge that subtly encourages you to open your jaw and allow the beer to flow back to the rear of your tongue, where many beers tend to reveal themselves in ways they don't in the front. They say this glass is good for all beers, but we really notice the difference with fruit beers, sours and wilds.

Set of four for $69.95

Libbey 16 ounce can-shaped glasses for lagers and light English ales

You've probably seen these around at a few of the hipper new beer bars. On one hand, they are a little bit of a cheatevery beer in Germany and England has its own glass, and if you're a huge fan of a particular company, you should probably get their branded glassware.

On the other hand, most people don't have the money or space for a full array at home.

So we like these simple, modern pint glasses. The curved ridge on the top is pleasant on the lips and concentrates the aromas. They look cool, they feel nice and they show you're not a total shlub. Sometimes that's what it takes.

Set of four for $43.57 with free shipping

Luigi Bormioli Birrateque stout glasses for anything dark and not imperial strength

We like stout glasses that emphasize the roundness of a good, malty beer without sacrificing the benefits of a shapely curve. This Italian-made glass has a curved top to concentrate aromas but also has a cuppable shape that feels good in the hand.

Set of two for $18.19

Editor's Note: Cool Stuff is a new feature at SFR that reviews the best gear and stuff. Our reviewers are experts in their field and are asked to provide honest and independent assessments. When readers choose to purchase our editorial picks, we earn affiliate commissions that support our journalism.

Santa Fe Reporter
Local Government New Zealand estimates the country needs to plan for $1.38 billion of new public toilets, carparks, freedom camping facilities, footpaths and other basic infrastructure if the tourism industry is to keep up with booming arrival numbers.

The call comes amid widespread news media reports of an international tourist relieving themselves in a Dunedin street and is accompanied by a call for urgent decisions both to allow councils to develop new funding sources beyond property rates and user-pays charges.

The estimate covers requirements identified by local government over the next decade or so for tourism infrastructure that it agrees with the tourism industry should be paid for jointly by central and local government, and private tourism operators.

Some 683 projects, covering public toilets, waste water disposal, wi-fi, parking and freedom camping have been identified in a joint study involving LGNZ, Tourism Industry Aotearoa, Air New Zealand, Auckland and Christchurch international airports, and campervan hire firm Tourism Holdings.

LGNZ chair Lawrence Yule suggested some of the sharp increase in GST revenues coming from overseas tourism spending in New Zealand should be siphoned to tourism infrastructure.

GST receipts from tourism rose from $950 million to $1.5 billion between 2015 and 2016, said Yule.

"Not one dollar of that goes to local authorities," said LGNZ chief executive Malcolm Alexander, who said government funding should also include ongoing assistance for operating expenses. The government's $12 million in funding over three years,announced last year to start addressing public tourism infrastructure, was "not sufficient".

"You want to do these strategic things when things are burgeoning, not when things are really difficult," he said, saying government grants were not a long term funding solution. "We are talking system change.

" Yule suggested also that tourism operators were less likely to object to imposing a "bed tax" to help fund tourism infrastructure than they would have been before the surge in visitor arrivals over the last few years.

"The risk to our reputation is very real if we don't get onto it," said Yule, citing evidence that repeat visits were among the greatest sources of growing value in New Zealand tourism, making impressions on a first visit vital.

Announcements may emerge in the government's May Budget, Yule said.

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Vector will put up the capital needed for its newly acquired home ventilation unit E-Co Products Group, known as HRV, and solar installation division PowerSmart to expand, says chief executive Simon Mackenzie.

The Auckland-based electricity, gas and telecommunications lines company today bought HRV and PowerSmart for undisclosed sums, using existing facilities to pay for the purchases. Mackenzie told BusinessDesk the new businesses fit nicely with Vector's broadening array of energy services, which has seen it branch out into new energy technologies including smart meters, batteries and solar panels.

"Both E-Co and PowerSmart completely conform with that strategy of delivering solutions to customers, whether they're residential, commercial or industrial," Mackenzie said. Vector will "help them grow further and encourage them to look for other acquisitions."

Vector's unregulated businesses managed to generate higher earnings for the utility firm in the six months ended Dec. 31, rising 2.3 percent to $84 million due to growth in its New Zealand smart metering business. That helped offset a 0.4 percent decline in earnings from the regulated electricity and gas distribution service to $195.7 million.

Mackenzie said both businesses were in "very good shape" and will start adding to Vector's earnings from the 2018 financial year, which starts on July 1, with settlement due near the end of this month. However, the company doesn't have any other acquisitions looming, he said.

Vector's acquisitions come as the government reassesses its energy efficiency and conservation strategy, with a consultation document focusing on transport, heat used in industrial and manufacturing processes, and innovative and efficient use of electricity, the three areas seen as delivering the biggest emission and energy savings.

The company has also been building a closer relationship with Auckland Council, this year signing a partnership with the local body to fund a series of projects to promote sustainable and renewable energy use in the country's biggest city. Yesterday, Auckland mayor Phil Goff, Vector and its controlling shareholder Entrust launched a programme to deliver free hot water heat control units, up to 15,000 LED lightbulbs and energy advice to residents in the suburbs of Papakura and Takanini.

Forsyth Barr equity analyst Andrew Harvey-Green said the acquisitions were "quite a big step" in the direction Vector's been talking about in recent years to broaden its alternative energy assets. Still, the acquisitions were relatively small and not material to the finance of the company, which generated a first-half profit of $107 million on sales of $626 million.

"What it really gives them is businesses with a lot of direct contact points into the home which they will hopefully be able to leverage," he said.

Vector shares fell 0.9 percent to $3.19 in early trading today, and were down 0.6 percent so far this year.

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SCRIBNERAn informational program on stopping human trafficking is being held on Monday, March 20th at Scribner-Snyder Community Schools.

The program is sponsored by the area Men in Mission organization of Scribner, Hooper and Uehling and will be presented by Dodge County Sheriffs Office Detective Craig Harbaugh.

We are going to be covering how these people recruit juveniles, ways for juveniles to avoid being victimized, and what signs to look for whether you are an adult, or another kid, Harbaugh said.

The free program will be held at 1 p.m. in the auditorium at the school in Scribner and is open to the public.

Our organization is made up of men from six churches in the area and every year we try to put a program on and try to gear it towards the youth, Men in Mission member Jim Ebel said.

This is the fourth year that the Men in Mission organization has put on an informational program, in past years the program featured a Holocaust survivor, a serviceman talking about PTSD, and a former convict and recovering alcoholic.

Trafficking is such a big thing right now, there is so much of it going on that we dont realize and for these kids its a dangerous thing they get out there and dont know what they are doing and they get themselves tangled up in it, Ebel said.

The program comes on the heels of Creighton University study that focused on human trafficking throughout the state.

The report by the Human Trafficking Institute found that 1 out of 10 individuals sold for sex in the state of Nebraska are under the age of 21.

The Heider College of Business at Creighton University conducted the report, and also found that overall 20% of individuals sold for sex in Nebraska are advertised as very young based on keywords or their posted age.

Researchers looked at a website that features classified ads for escorts called Backpage, which according to the report accounts for 80 percent of online commercial sex advertising. Based on Backpage alone, 70-75% of individuals sold for sex in Nebraska show some sign of being underage or controlled by a third party both indicators of trafficking.

With human traffickers targeting young people in communities across the state, it is important for local students to know how to avoid becoming a victim, and how to recognize the signs of human trafficking.

Some kids are brought into it by force they are either kidnapped or forced into servitude and for some unfortunately it starts with the allure of money, Harbaugh said.

According to Harbaugh traffickers can take advantage of crowded places like fairs, concerts, and shopping malls to recruit young victims.

We had a situation last year at a local fair where some girls were approached by someone who actually brought the word trafficking up to them, it was very odd, he said.

But those are the places they are looking for people that are unsuspecting, so when you are at large events, or malls, you dont go to those alone.

Along with using sites like Backpage to advertise the individuals they are trafficking, traffickers also target potential victims online.

Social media and chat rooms are used to target young people because compared to having a conversation in person it is not as visible, and the young people they are targeting dont really know who exactly they are talking to, Harbaugh said.

Some warning signs that a juvenile may be a victim of trafficking include:

- Signs of physical abuse, such as burn marks, bruises or cuts

- Unexplained absences from class/truancy

- Secretive

- Withdrawn, depressed, distracted or checked out

- Has unexplained money/presents

- Displays expensive clothes, accessories or shoes

- In relationships with significantly older people

- Seen entering or leaving vehicles with unknown adults

If you suspect someone may be the victim of human trafficking call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text HELP or INFO to 233733.
SEOUL: Hyundai has signed a deal worth three billion euros ($3.2 billion) to invest in a major Iranian oil project, it confirmed today.



Hyundai Engineering plans to invest 3.1 billion euros in the second phase of the Kangan oil production and refinery project in southwest Iran, it said in a statement.



The agreement marks one of the biggest investments since a nuclear accord with world powers lifted global sanctions on Iran.



The South Korean firm will have nine months to secure financing for the project -- a potential obstacle given the continued reluctance of international banks to engage with Iran.



Securing the financing through Korean banks will be "the most important and most difficult step," said Asghar Arefi, head of Iran's Ahdaf Investment Company which is partnering on the project, according to the Shana news agency, which is linked to Iran's oil ministry.



"The start and execution of this project relies on 95 pct of the project's financing coming from Korean banks (with) full support from the Hyundai Engineering Company in securing those funds," Arefi told Shana.



However, a Hyundai Engineering spokesman told AFP that 85 pct of the funding would come from Korean lenders, including Export-Import Bank of Korea and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation.



The second phase of the deal, involving the construction of four production plants at the Kangan site, is expected to take four years.



Iran has signed initial oil deals with European firms Total and Shell in recent months, potentially worth billions of euros.



But doubts persist over how these deals will be financed so long as Iran remains frozen out of the international finance system by continuing US sanctions.

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Page Content

Honorable Minister VROMI, Christopher Emmanuel gave a donation to the Sint Maarten Pro Softball Association.





The Controllers Male Softball team and the Survivors Girls Team have been invited to participate in the upcoming Aruba Day Softball Tournament which is scheduled from March 5th to March 22nd, 2017. This will be their 11th year participating in this competition.





Honorable Minister C. Emmanuel is honored to be able to contribute to the teams participation and wish them great success in the Aruba Softball Tournament.





Photo caption Representative of St. Maarten Pro Softball Association Ashton Lake, Support staff of the Minister Cabinet of VROMI Labriska Courtar, Honorable Minister of VROMI C. Emmanuel




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Commission spokesman Reid Magney said Monday that he'd never seen this issue crop up before. The teenagers were likely encouraged to go to the polls by messages flying around social media during the spring primary season saying 17-year-olds can vote in some states as long as they turn 18 before the November election, the report said.
The argument is over the Netherlands' refusal to allow Turkish officials to campaign there to drum up support among Turks who are eligible to vote in an April 16 referendum that would greatly expand the powers of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It was the latest in Erdogan's war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend. The two ministers had sought to campaign for an April 16 referendum on expanding Erdogan's powers, courting the votes of eligible Turks in the Netherlands.
An unexpected surge in staff resignations at the national pesticides authority is putting "significant pressures" on those remaining ahead of its forced move to Armidale.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority predicts its approvals of new products will slow during the relocation, when more staff are expected to leave, others prepare the agency for the move, and new recruits are trained.

The APVMA is losing more staff than expected as it prepares to move from Canberra to Armidale. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"The APVMA is experiencing higher than expected staff departures," it said.

Twenty regulatory scientists and an additional 28 staff members, with 204 years' service between them, left the agency between July and February.
In what appeared to be the very first case of its kind in Canberra, a pest controller has been fined $14,000 after failing to provide a termite barrier certificate to two homeowners.

It meant the homeowners could not sell, or refinance the properties, which also decreased in value from when they were built in 2015.

A Canberra pest controller was fined for failing to provide two homeowners with a termite certificate.

On Tuesday, Christopher Smith, the owner of Integrated Pest Management Systems, also copped criticism from the magistrate hearing the case, who described his conduct as "reprehensible".

Without the certificate, which was proof a termite barrier had been installed, the homeowners were unable to get a "substantiated certificate of use and occupancy", which meant they were unable to sell the newly constructed homes in Crace and Casey.
Her body was found with 57 stab wounds in an upstairs bedroom in 2015.

A photo from outside the scene of the death of Sabah al-Mdwali in Gordon in March 2015. Credit:Jeffrey Chan

Maged Maged Mohommed Ahmed Al-Harazi, 36, is accused of murdering his wife, Sabah Al-Mdwali, 28, during an argument as she breastfed their 10-month-old son.

The father of a woman stabbed to death in her Gordon home told a court he hadn't wanted his daughter to return home in the weeks before she was killed because she was being degraded by her husband.

Police say Mr Al-Harazi claimed his wife's father and brother asked him to leave the Knoke Avenue house the night of March 16 and when he returned home she was dead.

Her father and brother were arrested but released without charge. Mr Al-Harazi was later charged with his wife's murder but has pleaded not guilty.

His ACT Supreme Court trial has heard the pair's relationship was turbulent and they had disagreed about where they would live; Ms Al-Mdwali wanted to stay in Australia with her family, while Mr Al-Harazi desperately wanted to return home to Yemen.

Ms Al-Mdwali's father, Mohammed Al-Mdwali, told the jury on Tuesday his daughter and the couple's three children had moved in with him and his wife after an incident where the accused had grown violent in the months before she died.

His daughter had called her parents, who arrived at the house shortly before police. Mr Al-Mdwali said the accused started saying "bad words" about his daughter and wife.
The chief executive of the Catholic Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council says Catholic Archbishop Christopher Prowse needs to fully explain the rationale behind moving a disgraced priest next to two schools. Francis Sullivan told ABC Radio Canberra on Tuesday morning you couldn't "heal communities with a lack of information" and that the archdiocese needed to come clean about the decisions that led to the former priest being housed next to the schools. Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council. Credit:Jeremy Piper "The church, probably from the archbishop, need to explain fully what the decision making was all about, what were the logistics, what was going through everyone's mind at that moment. I am sure he and everybody else knows they've mucked this one up," Mr Sullivan told the station. However Mr Sullivan stopped short of saying if anyone should resign over the fiasco.

When asked if "heads should roll", he said the community needed "to know all of the facts". "I've got a funny thought about people resigning, I'd prefer people to stay and feel the pressure of improving things," he said. "I think it's easy to go and, at a time like this in the Catholic Church, we really need people to feel the pressure to stay, to put things at a very high bar, to have their feet to the fire, to make sure it happens. It's easier for a fresh face to come in and start all over but what's the point? We've got to go from where we're at." The archdiocese has previously said it decided to move ex-priest Brian Hassett to Lanigan House, next to Sts Peter and Paul Catholic School and Malkara School in Garran, because there was no other accommodation available. They said he remained there because of poor health and a risk assessment that found he was of low danger to nearby children because of the policies and procedures already in place at the school.
Consumer advocate Choice has shone a light on unreasonably long online contracts, after a review of the Amazon Kindle terms and conditions found the document took almost nine hours to read.

The contract for the popular e-reader amounts to some 73,198 words and takes the average reader eight hours and 59 minutes to read  longer than Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth put together.

For the Kindle Voyage product, there are at least eight documents that a purchaser must read, in addition to those required for anyone looking to use subscription services.

"In practice ticking a box to accept a contractual agreement with Amazon only takes a few seconds but ... the length and complexity of these contracts is completely unreasonable," said Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey.
Australia's businesses have largely welcomed the South Australian government's half billion-dollar plan to secure the state's energy supply but raised ongoing concerns about fragmented national policy.

The plan announced by Premier Jay Weatherill  which includes a second, privately run gas plant; an energy target; and other measures to encourage gas production and use in SA  follows a statewide blackout last September after storms downed transmission lines and brought widespread disruption in early February.

Power and gas giant AGL said the plan to safeguard SA from a repeat of crippling blackouts that hit last year appeared to be a "considered and comprehensive" response to the state's energy crisis.

AGL said it was pleased the SA government saw it as vital to secure more gas to improve competitiveness for the state's businesses.
"It's about incentivising South Australia power for South Australians," Premier Jay Weatherill said on Tuesday of the six-point plan outlined to resolve its energy woes, laying the blame on the national electricity market and Canberra's dismantling of the carbon tax.

Reducing the vortex of problems that has hit South Australia's electricity supplies during the past six months  serial power blackouts that are likely to worsen with the planned closure of the Hazelwood power station  to a series of sound bites is only to be expected.

A state premier's responsibilities are clear enough. Putting your state first has been played out many times since Federation, and is getting another run-through in South Australia.

South Australia's measures  principally two new gas power stations with one to be owned by the government, battery storage, exploration incentives and the like  won't insulate the state from electricity shortages, which could recur well before year end.

This is no quick fix for any power shortages. Credit:Domino Postiglione

And the decision to give the energy minister extraordinary powers of market intervention threatens to open a Pandora's box of issues at a time when many in the electricity market are calling for a more cautious approach overall to help cope with the energy market's stresses.

Despite the big headline of a shiny new power station, this is no quick fix for any power shortages. And where will the gas to fire the new power stations come from, and at what price, since the high gas price is why the Pelican Point power station sits largely unused.

There are cheaper options, especially since Mr Weatherill has conceded the state-owned station could lose money. Similarly, rolling up the bulk of the government's electricity contract into a single deal with a new provider could work to force an existing supplier out of the market. After all, this proposal won't result in a large new block of power demand.
Former AWB chairman Trevor Flugge has been cleared of being a "crook" who knew about the wheat exporter's sham payments to Iraq and should not face any penalty, a court has heard.

The corporate regulator wants Mr Flugge banned from managing a company for 10 years and fined the maximum $200,000 for breaching his duties as a director.

Former AWB executive Trevor Flugge. Credit:AAP

After a nine-year legal battle, a judge in December cleared Mr Flugge of knowing about the AWB's $US223 million in sham payments to Saddam Hussein's regime but said he could have found out the truth and stopped the conduct if he had made inquiries.

Mr Flugge's barrister Kanaga Dharmananda, SC, said the Australian Securities and Investments Commission failed in its fraud and dishonesty case.
Nic Moore's Macquarie Group has sold its final stake in Thames Water for up to 1.5 billion ($2.4 billion), according to UK reports.

According to UK reports, Macquarie sold its 26 per cent stake to Canadian pension fund Omers and the Kuwait Investment Authority. The deal was expected to go through last year but was delayed by the outcome of the Brexit vote.

It ends an 11 year association with the utility that endeared it to the Brits so much it was labelled the "vampire kangaroo" by Rupert Murdoch's paper, The Sunday Times, for its ruthless focus on profits and tax minimisation and poor service.

Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes told the paper that under Macquarie "Thames has paid out large dividends, run down its capital [and] not paid taxes."
Brexit's impact on consumer confidence rather than the housing market or currency is the key concern for Wesfarmers as it rolls out Bunnings to the British public.

Just over a year after Wesfarmers unveiled its $705 million acquisition of the Homebase chain in the UK and Ireland, the boss of the UK venture, Peter Davis, has led an investor tour to provide an update on the business and the performance of the first Bunnings UK pilot store in St Albans.

"Just like in Australia, when there 's uncertainty people stop shopping," Mr Davis said.

"What we've seen to date is that people are still shopping, still reasonably comfortable ... but these are very interesting times, it's just a washing machine at the moment.
Emma Walmsley, poised to take over as the first female chief executive officer of global pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline, will earn about a quarter less than her predecessor Andrew Witty to reflect her lack of experience at the helm, according to the company.

Walmsley will be paid an annual base salary of about 1 million ($1.6 million), the London-based drugmaker said in its annual report. That compares to Witty's pay of 1.15 million last year. Her targeted bonus won't exceed her salary, whereas Witty was given the opportunity to collect 125 per cent of his pay through the bonus.

The lower compensation, for a woman who is breaking the gender barrier to become the first female to manage one of the world's top 25 pharmaceutical companies, is likely to re-ignite a debate on the pay gap between the sexes.

But it isn't unusual that compensation levels change when a new chief executive takes office as boards seek to link pay packages to the person's level of experience and tenure.
The fastest present service takes 4hr 5min, but almost 22 years ago, in May 1995, the then CountryLink was providing two services each way per day with three taking just 3hr 25min, and the fourth, 3hr 28min. That is 40min quicker than today, admittedly with better "riding" carriages. Almost three-quarters of an hour quicker using the existing infrastructure is proven doable. A few tweaks here and there to the infrastructure, and to train speed and ride capabilities, should make up the saving to onehour. Is it too much to hope that Trainlink will lose its seeming apathy and get CountryLink's mojo back? Roger Shelton, Spence Poised for purchase

Good to read some first home buyers are currently fighting back against investors by buying as an investment and not as their homes. Not ideal, though. The spivs are talking up changes to negative gearing/capital gains provisions (not before time) in the coming federal budget. London to a brick there is a significant jump in investment before May as people panic before the changes take effect. Meanwhile, the ACT government/ACTPLA happily approve a glut of units/apartments in Canberra. Not a day passes without further multistorey approvals. Anybody else noticing the frenzy by developers to get these big projects done ASAP? First in to sell, best dressed. The lacklustre interest by smaller builders in the Mr Fluffy blocks may be a portent of what's coming. Guess who pays overall for these disappointing sales results?

If I were a first home buyer, (fortunately not), I would be holding off buying for the moment. As they say at Coles, prices might be going down, down, down! John Mungoven, Stirling Tapping into problem Lack of water certainly is affecting development in Bungendore ("Lack of water delaying growth in Bungendore", camberratimes.com.au, March 11), though the growth is unwanted by many residents concerned about the effect on the character of the town. It's a little deceptive to say that the Bungendore East rezoning proposal was "approved by the former Palerang Shire Council"  the council endorsed it and the Bungendore North (or Elmslea 2) proposals only for their first step in the long journey towards rezoning. To my knowledge, neither has yet been through its mandatory public consultation period.

It's praiseworthy Administrator has held back on progressing these proposals until the water issue is resolved. Hopefully this will mean the final decision is made by an elected council, not an appointed Administrator. However, it's a little disingenuous given that in January he approved the first step to rezone light industrial land in Bungendore to 24 residential lots, and in February approved 40 medium-density units (Bungendore's first medium-density housing), without regard to either's impact on the water supply issue. Peter Marshall, Captains Flat Come for the scrum If Canberra wishes to retain the most successful rugby union franchise in Australia, Canberrans had better start rolling up to home matches in far greater numbers than of late. Match schedulers need to sort things out. It is nonsensical to have a Brumbies match at GIO Stadium at the same time the AFL GWS Giants are playing at Manuka.

No wonder crowds are down. N. Bailey, Nicholls Well done so far Belated congrats to the ACT government on the new bus service between the airport and the city. Given it used to be a remote posting for service personnel some 40 years ago, as there was little in the way of public transport back then to the airport, it is good to see the catch-up begin. Now perhaps we might also see provision of cheap secure parking at Kingston railway station, and a decent bus service there too.

Please, not another 40 years (wait) though. Russ Morison, Theodore All together now Is Barrie Cassidy serious? When referring to Insiders, "the last thing you want is group think". It would be difficult to find a better example of group think than Insiders. Challenging points of view are rare.

Owen Reid, Dunlop Roo cull implications We have seen a reduction in roo numbers. The mobs are long gone, and on many trips past their former grazing areas none are seen at all. And yet, distressingly, the numbers seen dead at the roadsides seem way out of keeping with their post-shootout population. Not only dead, but too often isolated, disoriented individuals are seen standing beside roads, crossing bridges along footpaths, or very small ones alone on the wrong side of a fence. I wonder if, in our statistically modelled territory of careerism, bureaucracy and development, where science is the poorest substitute for wisdom and morality, some have failed to understand the behavioural implications of their culling algorithm?

It does seem to be the case that, absent the influence of natural mob aggregations, depleted roo populations splinter into aimless, inexperienced and spectacularly shortlived misadventures. There is likely a publication or two, some research funding, a conference speaking engagement, and a PhD in all of this. I knew there'd be an upside. Ross Kelly, Monash Agencies no answer It should be no surprise to readers of The Canberra Times that the Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, made "a number of surprising omissions" when releasing, without detail, changes to the Land Development Agency ("Barr's LDA details give little detail", canberratimes.com.au, March 10).

Two bureaucratic government agencies instead of one will allow for a doubling of the ability to spend millions of dollars in taxpayer funds without transparency, accountability and rigour; to manipulate documents and make unusual arrangements with consulting firms and to continue "pricing many Canberrans out of the market". As Liberal leader, Alistair Coe, states these changes "will not fix the serious integrity issues at the heart of the agency and government". The only true way forward for Canberra is for these "Agencies" to be scrapped altogether and the federal National Capital Authority to take over the responsibility for producing a proper, long-term, master plan for Canberra, drawn up by professional town planners and based on true town planning principles. The ACT government would then be charged with carrying out the required development to grow the master plan as required. Murray Upton, Belconnen Worth the price?

I see that the Liberals are exercised about the salary package of the light rail project director, Scott Lyall ("Light rail director's contract questioned", canberratimes.com.au, March 10). If Mr Lyall delivers the light rail project on time, on budget and to specification, the owners of the project and the people paying his salary  we, the ratepayers of the ACT  will likely be unconcerned at his level of remuneration. However, if he doesn't deliver ... Peter Moran, Watson No Barnaby, no An urgent appeal to Prime Minister Turnbull: do not appoint Barnaby Joyce as Minister for Infrastructure. Barnaby has form as a serial offender when it comes to decisions about deployment of Commonwealth resources. He seems to wilfully disregard the national interest or he arrogantly believes that it's OK for the government of the day to take political advantage of its (temporary) position of authority.

Keith Croker, Kambah Off the rails Former chief minister Jon Stanhope provides common sense critique of the current ACT government on more than one front. One concerns the undersupply of land for detached housing (Letters, March 11). Another is the suspect business case behind the Gungahlin tram project and how a very expensive expanded tram network will be paid for.

Clearly his ALP successors have gone badly off the rails. Murray May, Cook Footpath a hazard The workmen picking up material in the yard of the recently demolished "Mr Fluffy" house felt the need to wear complete hazard protection clothing, including breathing masks. And I, in shorts, T-shirt and sandals, am supposed to feel safe as I walk past on the public footpath, not more than three metres from those in hazard gear, with nothing between me and them but an open-mesh temporary fence?

What of the primary school kid walking the other way? Bruce Wright, Latham A protection fail I happened upon Chief Minister Barr's glossy electoral brochure 'Our Canberra' in which there was an announcement the Boundless playground is to receive shade sails. Good! We know that the sun does serious damage to exposed skin.

One should think that it would be good public health policy that any children's playground should have shade sails included as a matter of good design. However this is not the case. ACT government primary schools must rely on hours of fundraising if they are to raise the $20,000 required to install such utilitarian luxury. Secondary schools are in a marginally better position and have the opportunity to apply for a grant from the Cancer Council. The Education Directorate's advice on protection is limited to advising individuals to wear sunscreen and hats. Peter Curtis, Waramanga

Speedy cyclists If MLA Mark Parton is serious about using Strava to fine cyclists going too fast on bike paths ("Liberal Mark Parton suggests Strava data to track speeding cyclists going too fast", canberratimes.com.au, March 9) then perhaps he could set the community an example by attending the nearest police station and volunteering to pay fines for exceeding 50km/h seven times around Lake Tuggeranong on his rides of March 2 and 3, as featured in the article. However, from my viewing those events happen around bad GPS recordings, so are just errors. Sorry Parto to burst the bubble on your 62.6km/h maximum, but I doubt readers of this paper will be reading the headline "Local politician thrashes pro-peloton in sprint challenge" anytime soon. Peter Bradbury, Holt TO THE POINT

CYCLING DILEMMA Cyclists aren't welcome on shared paths because they travel too fast. They're not welcome on roads because they don't travel fast enough ('Track troublesome cyclists with Strava: Parton', March 10, p.2). What are they to do if they want to ride fast enough for some exercise or training benefit? Andina Faragher, Macquarie GESTATIONAL DEBATE John Popplewell (letters, March 13) prompts me to state two facts. Before our mothers knew they were pregnant we had started on life's journey and were genetically the same person we are now. A procured abortion is the premeditated termination of the life of the most innocent and defenceless of all human beings.

P. Robinson, Holt POOR STANDARDS Lindy Edwards writes "images of western wealth are being beamed into the living rooms of the world's poor through television and the internet" ("Forget Tony Abbott", canberratimes.com.au, March 10). How many of the world's (really) poor have living rooms, TV or the internet? Michael McCarthy, Deakin RARE COURAGE

Pauline Hanson isn't my favourite politician, but at least she has the courage to admit her mistakes, apologise, and take responsibility for them. On the other hand, her opposition do nothing but blame others. Vanessa Lauf, Bungendore, NSW Pauline Hanson has done two things that, as far as I know, have never been done by any other politician. She asked for an explanation of something she didn't understand, and she admitted she was wrong. Mike Dallwitz, Giralang DEPRESSING THOUGHT

What a depressing start to the week for Vince Patulny (Letters, March 13) to suggest CT letters writers won't change the world, instead we are merely boosting our egos. It's even more depressing to think that he might have a point on both counts. Eric Hunter, Cook MORIBUND TREASURER If Mr Turnbull doesn't trust his Treasurer as the Government's chief economic spokesman, does that make him Scott Moribund? Nigel Thompson, Queanbeyan East, NSW
I'm lucky enough to have three great options for after-school care at my local public school, but some areas don't have it at all, or if they do the costs are astronomical. That's why the participation rates for women in the workforce don't magically return to the pre-kids normal when the youngest child goes to school. If one partner has been at home or working part time while the children are little, it is the path of least resistance for that to continue. In Australia that usually means the mother. And for single parents, affordable and accessible out-of-school-hours care is absolutely essential. If you don't have it, you're locked out. Just last week an OECD report found Australia lags behind comparable countries in the workforce participation of women with at least one dependent child at home under the age of 15.

Of the 20 countries in the study, Australia has fewer mothers in the workforce than all but two - Ireland and Turkey. Having a partner matters hugely in Australia. Only one out of two lone mothers works outside the home, compared with two out of three partnered mothers. By contrast, women's partnership status makes little difference in other comparable countries; the OECD average is that 65 per cent of lone mothers and 67 per cent of partnered mothers work outside the home. In some countries - Switzerland, Luxembourg, Israel, Mexico, the United States, Chile, Italy and Turkey  lone mothers are actually more likely to work. Regardless of whether they're parents or not, the latest workforce participation figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a stark contrast between women and men.

Three out of four Australian men work full time, while less than one in two women do. Only two out of three women aged 15-64 are in paid work, compared with four out of five men, ABS figures show. That's despite the fact that women are typically better educated and have been for some time. The Grattan Institute estimated in 2012 that if Australia's female workforce participation rate increased by 6 per cent, our GDP would be $25 billion higher. However, this assumes no corresponding decline in male workforce participation. What's really needed is for society to see childcare as the shared responsibility of both parents and for flexible working for both genders to become the norm.

Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency has found big business is failing to offer flexible work arrangements. And even when flexible working is on offer, people are reluctant to use it because workplace culture didn't support it. A report by Bain & Company and Chief Executive Women, based on a survey of 1030 employees of large businesses, found there is a stigma around men working flexibly or part time to increase their caregiving duties. Australian Human Rights Commission research found that 27 per cent of fathers and partners have reported experiencing discrimination related to parental leave and return to work, despite taking very short periods of leave. Men are also twice as likely as women to have their request to work flexibly rejected. Well, fellas, if you want it, you need to fight for it.
Cartoonist Murray Ball, the creator of Footrot Flats, has died aged 78. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's and had been nursed at his Gisborne, New Zealand, home for some time.

In an interview with Radio New Zealand in January 2016, Ball's wife, Pam, said her husband had been unwell for about six years.

Footrot Flats cartoonist Murray Ball with some of his characters. Credit:Sunday StarTimes/John Cowpland

"He's slowly declining you know, it's one of these dementia things, we just have to make the most of Murray," she said.

The family had lived in the same house in Gisborne for 42 years since returning from a period living in England. She said Gisborne was where Ball had created all of his best-loved characters, and said it was the "spiritual home" of Footrot Flats.
The outrage at Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's decision to transfer the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from the national capital to his electorate is perfectly understandable.

It's bad public policy, a terrible waste of taxpayers' money and a brutally cynical piece of pork-barrelling. It's everything a sceptical public is entitled to hate about the way the country is run.

Canberra is the story of a successful public service relocation. Credit:Chris Holly

It feeds the cynicism about political leadership, which responsible leaders should be trying to overcome. It's not the only example of such behaviour, merely the worst.

However, the appropriate response for those of us who live in and love Canberra should not be blind resistance to change.
Pro-life advocates are pushing the Turnbull government to copy Donald Trump's ban on foreign aid money being spent on abortion.

The Australian Christian Lobby wants the Coalition to reinstate a similar ban, which was brought in by John Howard and later abolished by Kevin Rudd.

Wendy Francis, the lobby's spokesperson on women's issues, said it was a form of "colonialism" for Australia, through its foreign aid program, to impose a practice on women living in developing countries that were culturally opposed to abortion.

"In many countries, abortion is not seen as something women want," Ms Francis told Fairfax Media on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has backed "the right of all nations" to sail through international waters after Japan reportedly decided to send its biggest naval warship through the politically-sensitive South China Sea.

The move by Japan to send its Izumo helicopter carrier through the waters where Beijing has been expanding strategic control signals clear fears even among close US allies about Donald Trump's commitment to Asia, leading Australian experts said.

Ms Bishop, when asked for her views on the reports of Japan's planned naval transit, said: "The Australian government supports the right of all nations and their vessels to traverse international waters according to international law."

Overnight, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had seen the media reports about Japan's actions, but hadn't heard Japan's official explanation.
The ABC has demanded an explanation from Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party after its reporters were blocked from attending election celebrations on Saturday, describing the move as an attack on independent media.

ABC reporters were locked out of a West Australian election night event in Perth, as a controversial preference deal with the Liberal Party and Senator Hanson's comments on vaccinations and praise for Russian president Vladimir Putin saw One Nation's message all but drowned out.

Other journalists, including a reporter from Fairfax Media, were allowed to attend the event, prompting ABC editorial director Alan Sunderland to ask why his staff had been singled out.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Sunderland said party officials had claimed all media had been treated appropriately, with a pool camera arrangement for TV crews in place inside the function.
Over the past few weeks, it seemed like US luxury department store Neiman Marcus could not make up its mind about whether to sell Ivanka Trump's fine jewellery. The brand's baubles disappeared, reappeared and then disappeared again from the store's website.

But now, Neiman Marcus won't have much of a choice.

Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner. Credit:AP

Trump's brand has discontinued its line of high-end bracelets, necklaces and rings, the company confirmed on Monday. Instead, it will focus on more affordable fashion jewellery, according to Abigail Klem, the president of Trump's brand.

In a statement, Klem attributed the decision to the company's "commitment to offering solution-oriented products at accessible price points". She did not mention Neiman Marcus, or any of the other retailers that had recently backed away from carrying Trump's increasingly politicised products.
Issues at two of Australia's largest radioactive waste storage facilities have put a controversial government plan back under the spotlight.

For years the federal government has tried in vain to build a national dump for the country's nuclear waste.

A controversial government plan to build a national nuclear waste storage site has come back under the spotlight. Credit:Andrew Quilty

Staunch opposition from prospective locations has repeatedly stalled the project, which opponents believe is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

Each year Australia produces about a shipping container full of low and intermediate-level waste through industrial, medical and research applications.
Australian students are trying to learn in more disruptive classrooms than many of their peers in other OECD countries, a global study has revealed.

But lack of discipline in the classroom is by no means confined to poor schools, with one-third of students in rich schools reporting "disorder" in class time.

The most disadvantaged students in Australia are also lagging three years behind their peers at advantaged schools and bullying is an issue across the country, especially in primary school, with 20 per cent of year 4 students reporting that they were bullied almost weekly, new reports from two global studies shows.

The findings, in reports on the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), follow the release last year of student achievement in both the international tests.
The boy was sent home form the ED, but was rushed to another hospital hours later. Credit:Jay Cronan The rise in more serious cases took its toll, with fewer "emergency" and "urgent" patients starting treatment on time. One-third of triage 2 patients (considered to have imminently life-threatening conditions) waited longer than the recommended 10 minutes for their treatment to start, and roughly 30 per cent of triage 3 patients with potentially life-threatening conditions did not have their treatment start on time (within 30 minutes). Putting the results into perspective, Dr Levesque referred to the Australian College of Emergency Medicine, which acknowledged that not all patients could be seen within the recommended time frame. For instance, the college recommended a target of 80 per cent of triage 2 patients should be seen within 10 minutes. The system was carving out improvements in the midst of the barrage. Overall, 92 per cent of patients who arrived by ambulance were transferred to hospital staff within 30 minutes  the highest result since the BHI started releasing its report  and more than 74 per cent of patients were able to leave the ED within four hours, though this was still below the over 80 per cent target.

Liverpool Hospital was among the most improved, with a 12.5 percentage point jump for patients treated on time, lifting the western Sydney hospital above the state average. Concord Hospital recorded an almost 10 percentage point improvement. But the onslaught of patient numbers battered several western Sydney EDs, with Blacktown, Westmead and Bankstown hospitals all recording poorer performances in ED treatment times compared with their results previous year. Blacktown Hospital was deluged over the quarter, with 7.3 per cent more patients, and it admitted 25 per cent more ED patients compared with the same period in 2015. The rising patient load affected performance, with 44 per cent of patients not starting treatment on time, an almost 10 per cent drop compared with the 2015 quarter. Westmead Hospital ED  which recorded a 4 per cent increase in presentations  had the worst result in terms of time to treat, with 58 per cent starting treatment outside the recommended time frames, a 12.2 percentage point rise. Only one-third of category 2 "emergency" patients started treatment within the recommended 10-minute time frame.

Bankstown Hospital, which had previously sailed above the state average, recorded a 9.7 per cent drop in the proportion of ED patients starting treatment on time, falling to 71 per cent. Western Sydney surgeon and chairman of the hospital practice committee for AMA NSW Fred Betros said staff were being "pushed to the absolute limit". He said overcrowded EDs meant patients with serious abdominal pain were left in chairs for up to 24 hours after they were admitted as they waited for surgery. "At the coalface there is no doubt the system is literally holding back the tidal wave of patients flowing in. If we don't change something dramatically we will be sacrificing quality," he said. Health minister Brad Hazzard said it was clearly "boom time for hospitals".

"To have almost 75 per cent of patients being in EDs four hours or less is a reflection of the incredible efforts of staff throughout the hospital system," Mr Hazzard said. "We have front-line staff who are working under big time pressure and yet they keep effectively reinventing how they look after patients in a timely and professional manner." AMA NSW president Brad Frankum warned the situation was "a pressure cooker set to blow", and the record breaking exposed a failure to address the state's healthcare needs. "The system is at breaking point and patients, doctors, nurses and healthcare workers are suffering," Professor Frankum said. He called on all levels of government to address chronic underfunding and invest in general practice to keep patients out of the state's hospitals.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has left open the possibility of two Powerhouse museums  one for the city and one for the west  as controversy over the institution's move to Parramatta gathers pace.

Appearing on ABC radio on Tuesday, Ms Berejiklian reaffirmed the NSW government's commitment to "a Powerhouse museum" in Parramatta, but said all options were on the table as the government considered the business case for the move.

"I don't know if I've said this publicly but I'm looking at the costings to see how we can deliver this in the best way and to see what opportunities exist," Ms Berejiklian said.

Asked if this meant the government might build a second Powerhouse museum, Ms Berejiklian said: "I'm just saying we're looking at opportunities but I want to say straight away that western Sydney is going to get a cultural institution, a Powerhouse museum, but I'm looking at all the options."
Only weeks before the widow of slain businessman Michael McGurk was herself threatened, police were listening to wealthy property developer expressing his anger and frustration with Kimberley McGurk.

"She's not going to win!" Ron Medich said angrily. "She knows she's a crook and he was one."

Ron Medich stands outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Credit:Kate Geraghty

The wealthy Sydney property developer was referring to his ongoing legal battles with Mrs McGurk, whom Mr Medich allegedly hoped would drop her husband's legal battles with Mr Medich, after Mr McGurk was murdered in September 2009.

A series of telephone calls were played while defence witness Andrew Howard was giving evidence at Mr Medich's trial for murdering Mr McGurk and intimidating his wife. The property developer has pleaded not guilty.
Gold Coast health officials have scrambled to prevent a measles outbreak, after more holiday-makers returned with the infection.

The latest discoveries became the third and fourth measles cases in the last week, with all having recently returned from holiday.

South-east Queensland has now had four confirmed measles cases in the last week. Credit:US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

A woman in Brisbane's south was confirmed to be carrying the infection on March 7 and a Chermside man became the second case in two days on March 9.

Two family members returned from a Bali holiday on February 27 and on Tuesday were confirmed to be carrying measles.
Police are on the hunt for two Irish men that have been scamming elderly Queenslanders who may be unable to maintain their homes.

The actions of the two men, pretending to be road workers, were reported to police four times across the state's south-east last week.

In one instance, they visited the home of a 78-year-old man in Deception Bay, north of Brisbane, with a white ute full of gravel, telling him they could make property repairs with their excess material.

But when the man told them he wouldn't pay until the job was finished, the pair allegedly restrained and searched him, stealing about $1500.
Police are ramping up the search for a Brisbane man they fear has been murdered, with investigators returning to a bushland reserve where his car was spotted.

It's been a week since 22-year-old Samuel Thompson was last seen leaving his Albion home last Tuesday.

Homicide detectives fear he's met with foul play after his bright orange Ford Mustang was found abandoned in northern NSW on Thursday.

Mr Thompson's car was spotted in the car park of the Deep Water Bend Reserve at Bald Hills in Brisbane on the same day he vanished.
Buderim will be reshaped to become a hipster-haven "Byron Bay of the north" in the coming decades, a respected demographer believes.

Asked by the Sunshine Coast Council to analyse population shifts, education, arts and business decisions on the coast, Bernard Salt said a younger, smarter "tech-savvy" population would be drawn to the area, transforming it by 2040.

Is Buderim to become the hipster Byron of the North?

In his report The Activated City: Reimagining the Sunshine Coast in 2040, Mr Salt predicted that the younger population's youth and energy would trigger an artistic culture.

"The Coast becomes a haven for contemporary art, music, theatre and for festival of creative thinking," Mr Salt predicted.
Good Morning



There were coughing fits and technical glitches, and he wasn't as chatty as Adele, but Justin Bieber still managed to pump up the 40,000-strong crowd at Suncorp last night. And speaking of Adele, guess where she was performing last night when the lights went out. Poor old South Australia.



Your two must-know moments from TV last night were protesters at Q&A - more on that shortly - and Casey Donovan being crowned Queen of the Jungle. In the world of radio, the first ratings of the year come out today. Lots of interest because of changes to several breakfast shows - including Triple J, Hit 105, 97.3, 882, ABC and Triple M (now with Robin Bailey, pictured). You'll find the numbers here. Meanwhile, for a fun thrown-back to the '80s and '90s, Jamie Dunn has revealed more of his secrets in this week's Game Changers: Radio podcast.

Robin Bailey is now at Triple M. Credit:Triple M



1. Sara Connor jailed over death of Bali police officer

Four years in jail is the price Byron Bay woman Sara Connor will pay for her role in the death of a Bali police officer. In sentencing the mother of two (she has boys, nine and 11), the judge said an aggravating factor was that Connor tried to get rid of evidence by cutting up the officer's cards. Connor had claimed she did so to protect him from identity theft but the judge found she had acted out of guilt.



2. Rescued British backpacker breaks silence

The British backpacker allegedly raped and beaten by her former boyfriend as they drove from Cairns to Mitchell has broken her silence. The 22-year-old, who's waiting for a new passport so she can return home to England, has posted on social media : "I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me." Her alleged attacker faced court in Roma yesterday. At the same time, concerns have been raised that proposed laws to tackle domestic violence could instead harm the women they're intended to protect.



3. Crocodiles will be 'encouraged to leave' under plan

The Australian reports crocodiles will not be culled in Queensland under a new state government management plan to be unveiled today. If they're spotted near large urban populations, they'll be moved to croc farms and zoos. Crocs bigger than 2m in the waters off Cairns and Townsville will be "encouraged to leave the area".



4. Waning immunity blamed for mumps outbreak

Mumps are back and it's not because of anti-vaxxers. In fact, a recent outbreak - what The Courier-Mail describes as the largest in 20 years - predominantly affected people who had been fully vaccinated during childhood. "Waning immunity" means a third vaccination during adolescence is now under "active consideration".



5. Queen's message to the Gold Coast begins its 12-month journey

The 2018 Gold Coast and Brisbane Commonwealth Games (yes, we do have events in Brisbane) are a step closer with the Queen's baton leaving Buckingham Palace last night. Here's how the BBC is talking about the relay and our games. To capitalise on this week's attention in the UK, Queensland has plastered images of Surfers Paradise on 50 London cabs.

Also catching my eye...
St Lucia traffic could be cut by 20 per cent if a multimillion-dollar underground bus interchange was built underneath the main part of the University of Queensland, the university's vice-chancellor believes.

A new underground bus interchange is included in the University of Queensland's 20-year master plan which was released for comment on Monday.

Deputy Premier and local MP Jackie Trad said she was aware of concerns in the community and said the University of Queensland needed to apply for a new Community Infrastructure Designation if it wanted to make changes - without following Brisbane City Council's town planning guidelines - outside the area that was approved by the state government in 2000.

More efficient bus use would further cut car use in St Lucia, UQ vice-chancellor Professor Peter Hoj told Fairfax Media, as the campus grew in line with population growth in south-east Queensland.
Evidence has been discovered of a star orbiting a black hole at just 2 times the distance between the Earth and moon.

Astronomically speaking, at a million kilometres, that's very, very close.

No star before has been discovered lingering so near a black hole.

Data taken from a telescope array near Narrabri in NSW has convinced astronomers that the star system 14,000 light years away is most likely that of a white dwarf and black hole locked in a tight orbital dance.
An airline passenger has spoken of her horror when her battery-operated headphones exploded on her face mid-flight.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has issued a warning after the woman, travelling from Beijing to Melbourne on February 19, was left with a burnt face, hand and burnt hair.

The woman, whose identity has been concealed by the ATSB, said she was listening to music on a pair of battery-operated headphones when she fell asleep about two hours into the flight.

She woke to a loud explosion.
A Melbourne councillor has lost his position  and lord mayor Robert Doyle handed a powerful voting majority  in an unprecedented decision by the state's administrative tribunal.

Michael Caiafa, a trader at the Queen Victoria Market, has been declared a "victim of circumstance" after a voting recount and subsequent decision by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Nic Frances Gilley and Brooke Wandin, who ran on the An Indigenous Voice on Council ticket in last October's election.

The recount was set in motion after it was discovered that the woman elected as Melbourne's first Indigenous councillor, Brooke Wandin, was ineligible to stand because she did not live in the municipality.

Mr Caiafa and Ms Wandin will be replaced by former Brotherhood of St Laurence executive director Nic Frances Gilley and Susan Riley.
The eight-year jail terms imposed on two men who shot a policeman in the head have been condemned by the officer's mother and the Victorian Police Association.

Rodney Phillips and Sam Liszczak were in a stolen four-wheel-drive when one of them shot at First Constable Ben Ashmole with a shotgun from about 4.5 metres in Moonee Ponds in the early hours of July 7, 2015.

Sam Liszczak was charged after the shooting of police officer Ben Ashmole.

Phillips, 25, and Liszczak, 23, were on Tuesday respectively jailed for eight years and seven years and 10 months. Those sentences were condemned as inadequate outside the Supreme Court by Sergeant Wayne Gatt, the secretary of the Police Association, and First Constable Ashmole's mother.

"Our justice system is in crisis when somebody can receive a seven-to-eight-year sentence for shooting at police who are just doing their job," Sergeant Gatt said.
Energy storage technologies will gain a $20 million government funding boost to shore up Victoria's power supplies as national debate heats up over electricity security.

The move to increase energy storage, including batteries, comes amid warnings that Victorian households had been exploited by power retailers seeking to drive up their profits.

The state government has set a renewable energy target of 40 per cent by 2025. Credit:Glenn Hunt

The state government is seeking to increase energy storage capacity by 100 megawatts by the end of 2018.

Companies will be able to access government grants for battery, pumped hydro or solar thermal energy storage projects.
The former speaker and his deputy, dumped from their plum posts after claiming $150,000 in entitlements, face further questions from auditors after the first step of a parliamentary probe into politicians' perks.

As revealed by Fairfax Media, western suburbs Labor MPs Telmo Languiller and Don Nardella moved their homes to the Bellarine Peninsula and then claimed a second residence allowance designed for country MPs who have to visit Melbourne frequently.

Don Nardella entitlement claims are being investigated by auditors. Credit:Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.

Both men now face further questions arising from a desktop audit conducted by parliament's internal auditors Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Late on Tuesday a spokesman for the parliament said internal auditors had completed a desktop audit of all MPs receiving the allowance since the 2014 election.
The medical procedures performed by Ms Pacheco have not been released nor is it known if she provided prescriptions. Documents of 145 of Phoebe Pacheco's patients were handed to the Health Department in February. The procedures were "minor", and there was no evidence of harm to patients, said the Health Department's acting chief health officer Dr Brett Sutton. "We know that this will be a cause of anxiety for a number of people," he said. Werribee Cosmetic Clinic. Credit:Facebook

"The worst-case scenario is that someone has had a misdiagnosis or inappropriate management advice." The clinic and Ms Pacheco came to AHPRA's attention in September last year before a warrant was executed and documents seized in October. An advertisement for dermal fillers on the clinic's Facebook page. Credit:Facebook Documents of 145 of her patients were handed to the Health Department in February. Letters have been sent to the patients, who have been urged to contact AHPRA or the department with any concerns and to consult with a registered medical practitioner.

Phoebe Pacheco AHPRA executive director of strategy and policy Chris Robertson did not reveal how the clinic came to the agency's attention, only that a patient did not report it. "We do need to advise the public that there may be a risk," he said. Phoebe Pacheco Credit:LinkedIn Mr Robertson said Ms Pacheco could have seen more patients, but their contact details were unknown.

"We currently have a significant number of documents to continue reviewing," he said. Mr Robertson said he was unable to provide details on Ms Pacheco's background, including whether she was an Australian citizen, or her work history. He said he did not know whether she was in the country, but that the agency had recently been in contact with her. A LinkedIn account for a woman named Phoebe Marie Rojales Pacheco states she was certified as a registered nurse by the "Board of Nursing State of Vermont," and qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1996 at the University of Santo Tomas, which is in the Philippines. She has been working as a "physician assistant" and medical laser specialist at the Werribee Cosmetic Medicine since January 2013, the profile states.

She also worked as as administration assistant at a general practice clinic in Werribee. Patients who suffer injury at the hands of a fake doctor may be able to pursue legal action against the clinic, said Kathryn Booth, the head of medical negligence at Maurice Blackburn. "If you have suffered injury from the services of a fake doctor you may be able to make a legal claim. However, if the fake doctor is not insured, it may be difficult to pursue this claim and recover compensation," she said. "In an instance like this, there may be a claim against the clinic where the fake doctor was operating, if it is insured and if it did not apply due diligence and take reasonable care to ensuring its employees' qualifications to practise medicine were in order." Health Minister Jill Hennessy said the state government was leading an overhaul of the national health workforce regulator to make sure patients were protected against dodgy operators.
A man is believed to have been home alone when he died in a house fire in Melbourne's north on Tuesday morning.

The victim, believed to be a 45-year-old man, was found inside by firefighters shortly after the blaze was extinguished.

The upper level of the house on Lantern Close, Epping, was gutted by the fire. Credit:Twitter/@DeanFelton7

The two-storey brick home in Lantern Close, Epping, caught fire shortly before 10am.

It took 24 firefighters about 45 minutes to gain control of the blaze, which gutted the upstairs area of the house.
A massive early-morning sting targeting the Comanchero bikie gang has seen raids on 25 residential and commercial properties across Melbourne.

Twenty-one people have so far been arrested in the operation, which is expected to run throughout the day.

Anti-bikie Echo Taskforce detectives began raiding properties from 5am on Tuesday, seizing drugs, cash, cars and motorbikes.

A Range Rover four-wheel-drive and Holden Commodore were seized from a property in Tobin Way, Lyndhurst, in Melbourne's south-east.
A move to ban rough sleeping in Melbourne has been condemned by a senior United Nations official as violation of human rights law, in a shock development likely to prove highly embarrassing for the world's most liveable city.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, Leilani Farha, said a plan to outlaw people camping in the city and fine those who leave their personal items unattended was a serious international human rights concern.

"The criminalisation of homelessness is deeply concerning and violates international human rights law," Ms Farha said via a statement from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

"The proposed law goes further and is discriminatory  stopping people from engaging in life-sustaining activities, and penalising them because they are poor and have no place to live."
Two South Hedland police officers, accused of threatening two 14-year-old boys in the North West town with a gun, have been cleared in an internal inquiry by WA police.

According to ABC News, the Aboriginal Legal Service alleged the officers used excessive force when firearms were drawn and a gun was pointed at one of the boys on the night of April 5, 2016 after a car chase.

The mother of one of the boys spoke out, saying they were traumatised. Credit:ABC News: David Weber

The advocacy body lodged a complained against the officers, saying one of the boys was also assaulted and both boys were strip-searched at the South Hedland police station.

The mother of one of the boys told ABC News her son was left traumatised by the events.
Allowing a vote in Scotland - and potentially the devolved bodies in Wales and Northern Ireland - would further complicate May's Brexit plans. Credit:Getty Yes, Scotland was one of the fiercest 'Remain' strongholds in the British Isles during the Brexit referendum. But the word 'mandate' is one of the most abused in the political vocabulary, and not even Sturgeon tried to pretend last year's Brexit vote patterns gave her a mandate for Indyref 2. The Scots have been burned once. Indyref 1 stirred up a lot of anger. There was some appalling bullying on social media. It divided families, towns and cities. And the result was fairly convincing. They may not want to go there again, just yet. Independence supporters gather in George Square after the announcement that Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will ask for permission to hold a second independence referendum. Credit:Getty On the other hand, it's hard to argue that the Scots shouldn't be given a say if they want one.

Brexiteers, long-standing or recently converted, have been banging on for a year now about how wonderful and democratic a referendum is, and how the will of the people must be respected. Independence supporters gather in George Square in Glasgow, Scotland. Credit:Getty For them to turn around and deny the Scots a referendum, either through a refusal by Number Ten to even consider the option, or through a hostile vote in Westminster, would be a bold work of hypocrisy by direct democracy's most fervent self-proclaimed fans. Scotland voted to stay in a pre-Brexit UK, but post-Brexit UK will be a very, very different place, politically and economically. Indeed, one of the big issues in the 2014 referendum was whether Scotland would be part of the EU if it left the UK. Researchers were worried they'd lose their EU grants. Businesses fretted about years of economic uncertainty. A big chunk of voters chose the UK because it represented the status quo - but it turned out this wasn't an option. They may justifiably feel betrayed.

If Theresa May, or the Westminster parliament deny the will of the Scottish Parliament and refuse to allow a referendum, they'd stoke a fire of political and social unrest. Half of Scotland, roughly, is pro-independence, and they're not likely to take "no, so shut up" as an option. So there may well be an Indyref 2. Would it succeed? It's such an interesting question. The case for independence has lost none of its major flaws. There's even less oil under the North Sea than there was two years ago. Scotland leans, if anything, more heavily on subsidy from the south than before. The argument that Scotland could join the EU with minimum fuss and maximum speed is made up of more parts wishful thinking than political, or legal evidence.

Europe is barely holding together at the moment. The east is pushing away from the west, the south from the north, and bits of the middle from each other. The EU might not want Scotland: a case study in how nationalists get rewarded (the counter-argument, of course, is that Europe would dearly love a demonstration that nationalism and European federalism aren't mutually incompatible). Still Sturgeon has ammunition. There is a perception, not too far from the truth, that the political class currently in the ascendant in Westminster and Downing Street couldn't actually give a toss about Scotland, because with Labour about as electable as the Monster Raving Loonies they don't need to worry about anything north of York to stay in power for a generation. The country's social services are screaming with need but the Whitehall mantra is "crisis, cash, repeat" against a rising theme of austerity economics. The gang of SNP MPs in Westminster are a rowdy, entertaining breath of fresh air, but their impact on the nation's policies has so far been nil. Without the threat of an Indyref, Scotland has very little clout in London.

If Scottish voters are presented with a stark choice between Brussels and Westminster, they may well decide the Eurocrats are a much more congenial choice, a more benign overlord. Nicer. More socialist. Sturgeon isn't stupid. She knows all this. There's a theory that this is all a bluff. That she knows Indyref 2 will fail, but its very existence gives her a lever to jump on to win a better Brexit deal for Scotland. But this is the stuff of conspiracy theories. There's a simpler explanation. She's the leader of the Scottish National Party.
Seoul: North Korea warned the United States on Tuesday of "merciless" attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is joining South Korean forces for exercises, infringes on its "sovereignty or dignity".

North Korea, which has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a string of missile launches since last year, said the arrival of the US strike group in the area was part of a "reckless scheme" to attack it.

"If they infringe on the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater," the North's state KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Bill author: House Speaker Paul Ryan makes his case for the GOP's plan to replace the Affordable Care Act on Friday. Credit:AP This was to be the Republicans' brave new world, but their first major bill is being cast as exploding the number of uninsured Americans - seemingly gouging the needy and the vulnerable, either by driving them from the market or by foisting on them cheaper policies under which they'll have to make more out-of-pocket payments because higher deductibles will reduce the scope for them to make claims. The new bill walks away from Trump's campaign promises not to cut the associated Medicaid scheme for the poor, and of "insurance for everybody"; abandons the Republican Party's explicit promise of relief from steep policy premiums and high deductibles; and breaches its explicit promise that millions would not lose their insurance - all of which, Trump is reportedly being warned by loyalists, would fracture his coalition of working and middle-class voters, many of whom are older and get by on federal aid. Republican senator Rand Paul said the plan was "bad law". Credit:AP By the CBO analysis, as many as 52 million Americans, or 19 per cent of the population, would be without insurance by 2026 under Trumpcare, compared with about half that number, 10 per cent of the population, if Obamacare were to survive.

In just the first year of Trumpcare, as many as 14 million currently insured Americans would end up without cover, the CBO predicts, and analysts say that many of them would be the poor and near-poor, and rural whites, especially the elderly, in states that voted strongly for Trump. Donald Trump listens during a meeting on healthcare on Monday. Credit:Bloomberg In an analysis of electoral implications of Trumpcare, in which The Washington Post overlaid the CBO research with that of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health think tank, Grant County in Nebraska is revealed as a boil that might prove difficult for Trump to lance; with just 700 people, the county voted 93 per cent for Trump, even though as many as 60 per cent of them won tax credits to help buy insurance under Obamacare. But under Trumpcare, in what the Post describes as a nationwide pattern, many in Grant County now face steep cuts in the tax credits on which they have come to rely because the harshest consequences of the Republican plan would be felt mostly in rural Republican strongholds. Looking at 25 counties in which Trump won the largest share of votes, the Post finds that, in all but one, people would pay more for health insurance and lose most in tax credits.

Perversely, in a political context, many in liberal areas that voted more than 80 per cent for Hillary Clinton, would benefit under Trumpcare because health costs are lower in urban areas and their Trumpcare tax credits would amount to more money in their pockets. By the Kaiser Family Foundation calculations, a middle-aged man earning about $US30,000 ($39,000) a year in Grant County would lose $US3670 in tax credits - more than 10 per cent of his Obamacare era income. But in the suburbs of Atlanta, say, the same man would get an extra $US1620 in tax credits under Trumpcare. Few among Trump's voters would get much of an associated $US600 billion tax cut over the next 10 years - that's reserved for the richest Americans. And while more young people might get insurance, it will be at the expense of the elderly - under Trumpcare a 21-year-old earning $US68,200 would pay an average $US1450 out of pocket for a year's cover, compared with $5100 under Obamacare. The out-of-pocket spend for a 64-year-old on the same income would be little altered from Obamacare to Trumpcare, but a 64-year-old earning $US26,500 would pay almost half his salary, $US14,600, for coverage under Trumpcare, compared with $US1700 under Obamacare. By the CBO's estimate, after 10 years of Trumpcare, the portion of Americans aged 50 to 64 and earning less than $US30,000 a year would more than double - from the current 12 per cent to about 30 per cent.

Anticipating only bad news from the CBO, the White House set about discrediting the report in advance of its release on Monday. But the news was mixed, and so Republicans are doing the splits as they spin the report. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney dismisses it as "deeply flawed", telling reporters: "This is exactly what we thought the CBO would come forward with - they're terrible at counting [insurance] coverage. It's just absurd." Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price agrees, saying: "The CBO report's coverage numbers defy logic." But House Speaker and author of the bill, Paul Ryan, is seizing on some of its conclusions and language as proof that Americans will have greater freedom to chose to be insured and that, in time, premiums will be less and the national deficit will be reduced by about $US337 billion. Ryan told Fox News that the bill ushers in "the most fundamental entitlement reform in a generation  it's about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. That's what this report shows."

But Republican members of Congress are walking away - either on equity grounds or because the Trumpcare bill doesn't drive sufficient stakes through the heart of Obamacare. Republican and Freedom Caucus member Jim Jordan: "This bill doesn't repeal Obamacare. This bill doesn't unite Republicans. This bill doesn't bring down the cost of premiums ... There's a reason every major conservative organisation in the country is opposed to this legislation." Senator Rand Paul: "It is bad law and it can't pass. If House leaders try to do a little less using the same basic framework as the failed Obamacare experiment, then it will fail too." Maine Senator Susan Collins: "These kinds of estimates are going to cause revisions in the bill, almost certainly. I don't think that the bill that is being considered now is the bill that ultimately will be the one that we vote on in the Senate." Louisiana Senator and physician Bill Cassidy: "President Trump said that he wants as many people covered as under Obamacare. He said that healthcare should be affordable. If there's 14 million people losing insurance, of course it's concerning. I try to avoid hyperbole and adjectives, but it's concerning."
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used the email alias 'Wayne Tracker' to discuss climate change while he was ExxonMobil's chief executive, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Mr Tillerson sent messages from the account to discuss the risks posed by climate change, Mr Schneiderman said in a court filing about his office's fraud investigation of the company. Mr Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, used the Wayne Tracker account on the Exxon system from at least 2008 through 2015, Mr Schneiderman said.

Mr Schneiderman made the claim in a letter on Monday to Justice Barry Ostrager in New York state court in Manhattan, accusing Exxon of failing to turn over all relevant documents required by a court order. The filing comes in a protracted legal dispute in which Exxon seeks to derail probes by New York and Massachusetts into whether the company misled investors for years about the possible impact of climate change on its business.

Mr Tillerson used the account for "secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics," after his primary account began receiving too many messages, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in an email.
New York: Hate crimes in nine US metropolitan areas rose more than 20 per cent last year, fuelled by inflamed passions during the presidential campaign and more willingness for victims to step forward, a leading hate crimes researcher says.

Bias crimes appeared to increase in some cities following the November 8 election of President Donald Trump, a trend that has extended into this year with a wave of bomb threats and desecrations at synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, according to California researcher Brian Levin.

The White House could not be reached immediately for comment on the research.

Levin collected data as director of the non-partisan Centre for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, where he is a professor of criminal justice. The new numbers, collected from police departments, reverse a trend toward fewer hate crimes in many of the cities in recent years.
Houses are being searched in St. Maarten, Suriname and the Netherlands.

PHILIPSBURG/THE HAGUE:--- Local police are assisting the Dutch police in raiding a scrap metal yard located on Pond Island on Tuesday morning.

The investigation code name Subervision started in the Netherlands where four persons have been arrested after house searches. However, the investigation and searches stretch to St. Maarten, Suriname and Germany as reported in the Telegraph.

The spokesman for the Prosecutors Office on St. Maarten said that the Prosecutors Office on St. Maarten received a request for assistance but the operation is being conducted by the Dutch.

The subversion investigation surrounds organized crime where cocaine was being shipped to the Netherlands Schoonebeek at a scrap metal company. The authorities in the Netherlands have been investigating the smuggling of cocaine that is packed in containers with scrap metal. The DEA already reported that there has been an increase in the coke smuggling business through the Caribbean.

In the Netherlands several investigations into the smuggling of cocaine, packed in containers with scrap. In recent years is the investigation and the US anti-drug control DEA, that there is a huge increase in coke smuggling through the Caribbean.

Police northern Netherlands on Tuesday morning raids near the town of Nieuw-Schoonebeek and here and elsewhere certainly arrested four people on suspicion of money laundering. It would be about eight million euros.
Cayenne, French Guiana:--- Great news for shark conservation in the Caribbean. Today it was officially decided to protect eight shark species under the international Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) Protocol following a proposal by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs in cooperation with a team of shark experts. The SPAW protocol is the only cross-border legislative instrument for nature conservation in the Wider Caribbean Region.

Political representatives of 14 Caribbean countries came together in Cayenne, French Guiana to vote which species would officially be added to the SPAW protocol. Through the SPAW protocol, which is a United Nations initiative, the signatory countries set agreements to protect vulnerable animals and their unique habitats. The agreements concern trade and fisheries, as well as tourism and coastal development. Until now, no sharks or rays were included in the protocol, despite being an especially threatened animal group, both on a global scale and in the Caribbean region. The main threats to shark populations are overfishing and destruction of vital habitats such as coral reefs and mangroves.

We are delighted that our proposal got such broad support from the present countries, says Guus Schutjes of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Netherlands has strived for the structural protection of nature and biodiversity in the Caribbean for some time now and cross-border protection is an essential part of this.

Threatened species

The Ministry of Economic Affairs proposed a shortlist of eight shark species for listing on the protocol. This included three species of Hammerhead shark, the Whale shark, the Oceanic Whitetip shark, the sawfish (of which few people know it is a shark), and two manta ray species. All of these species are Caribbean natives and threatened by human interference. Protection is needed to ensure the species are safeguarded for the future. In November 2016, the proposals of all eight species were accepted during a technical meeting in Miami. Todays vote was the final step towards legal protection.

Irene Kingma, director of the Dutch Elasmobranch Society (DES) and one of the shark experts that helped with the shortlist: Sharks do not respect borders and cover enormous distances, which is why it is important to protect them on a region-wide scale. The proposals from the Dutch Ministry have helped providing these fragile species with the protection they deserve, which we consider a great success.

Tadzio Bervoets, chair of the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and leader of the Save Our Sharks project: The Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and its partners have been working hard in the Dutch Caribbean region and in the Caribbean in general to increase protection for sharks. Through the funding provided to us by the National Postcode Lottery we have been doing scientific research, education and outreach and in this case significant lobbying work, and we are encouraged by this excellent development coming out of French Guiana. Sharks are critical to the Caribbean region and their conservation is essential to the health of our Caribbean Sea. With this historic vote, shark conservation efforts have been significantly increased in the region and we are elated to have been a part of the process. We hope that more species will soon be added to the annexes of the SPAW Protocol giving them the conservation status that they need in the Caribbean Sea.

Background

Sharks and rays belong to the animal group of Elasmobranchs, a subclass of the cartilaginous fish. As large predators, elasmobranchs keep our largest and most important ecosystem healthy and productive. They are also key contributors to maintaining the natural balance of coral reefs, adding to their biodiversity and durable function. All available evidence points to a strong local decline in shark numbers in the Caribbean, mirroring the dramatic decline of sharks globally. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently estimates that one-quarter of all shark and ray species are threatened with extinction, mainly from overfishing and habitat destruction.

Save Our Sharks is a project headed by the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance, a collaborative network of nature organizations, founded to enhance cooperation and exchange between the six islands that are associated with the Netherlands: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St. Eustatius en St. Maarten. The DCNA celebrates its ten-year anniversary in 2016. Princess Beatrix is a patron of the DCNA. See: www.dcnanature.org

The Dutch Elasmobranch Society (Nederlandse Elasmobranchen Vereniging; NEV) is a project partner with regard to policy, education, and communication about sharks and rays in the Netherlands. The main purpose of the society is to conduct, facilitate, and stimulate scientific research on sharks and rays, with means to improve the knowledge base required for (inter)national policy, management, and conservation of cartilaginous fish. The focus of the society is on species from Dutch waters and the waters of Dutch overseas territory.

*Elasmobranch is the Latin term for sharks and rays

Funding for the Save Our Sharks project was granted as a Special Project by the Dutch Postcode Lottery during the Goed Geld Gala in February 2015.
Claim: Senator John McCain admitted that he was a 'war criminal' and was pardoned by President Nixon for his crimes. Rating: About this rating False

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Arizona senator John McCain's background of service to his country is well-known: A U.S. Navy pilot during the Vietnam War, Lieut. Commander McCain was shot down in his Skyhawk dive bomber while flying a mission over Hanoi, North Vietnam on 26 October 1967.

McCain was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese (with fractures in his right leg and both arms, for which he received minimal care) and spent the next five-plus years enduring torture and brutality as a POW before being released following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in early 1973. Given Senator McCain's reputation and status, first as a military officer and later as a member of Congress, many people would be rather surprised to learn that many years after the end of the Vietnam War, during an interview with a major news magazine, he supposedly declared himself to be a "war criminal" who "bombed innocent women and children."

John McCain did no such thing, however, and the claim that he did is a prime example of how important context is in understanding the meaning of one's statements.

As John McCain recalled shortly after his return from captivity, the pressure put upon him by his captors to acknowledge that he was a "war criminal" began almost immediately after he was taken prisoner:

For the next three or four days, I lapsed from conscious to unconsciousness. During this time, I was taken out to interrogation  which we called a "quiz"  several times. That's when I was hit with all sorts of war-criminal charges. This started on the first day. I refused to give them anything except my name, rank, serial number and date of birth. They beat me around a little bit. I was in such bad shape that when they hit me it would knock me unconscious. They kept saying, "You will not receive any medical treatment until you talk." After I had been there about 10 days ... "The Cat" [a man in charge of all the POW camps in Hanoi] said  through an interpreter, as he was not speaking English at this time  "The French television man is coming." I said, "Well, I don't think I want to be filmed," whereupon he announced, "You need two operations, and if you don't talk to him, then we will take your chest cast off and you won't get any operations." He said, "You will say that you're grateful to the Vietnamese people, and that you're sorry for your crimes." I told him I wouldn't do that.

Nearly twenty-five years later, what Senator McCain said to Mike Wallace during an interview for a segment of the 60 Minutes news magazine (originally broadcast on 12 October 1997 and aired again on 6 June 1999) was not a personal declaration that he had been a "war criminal" who "bombed innocent women and children," but a lamentation that while a POW he had, under pain of torture, finally allowed his captors to coerce him into issuing a "confession" stating such.

A transcript of the relevant portion of the 60 Minutes interview from 1997 shows that when McCain spoke the sentences "I was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people" and "I intentionally bombed women and children," he was referring to the substance of a confession his North Vietnamese captors had forced him to write as wartime propaganda, not making a open admission of personal guilt:

WALLACE: (Voiceover) People who know McCain well say he can hold a grudge. He also has a legendary temper. But if McCain can be hard on his friends and even harder on his enemies, he can also be very hard on himself. Sen. McCAIN: I made serious, serious mistakes and did things wrong when I was in prison, OK? WALLACE: What did you do wrong in prison? Sen. McCAIN: I wrote a confession. I was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people. I intentionally bombed women and children. WALLACE: And you did it because you were being tortured and you'd reached the end of the line? Sen. McCAIN: Yes. But I should have gone further. I should have  I never believed that I would  that I would break, and I did.

In early 2017, related rumors about McCain began recirculating alongside media coverage of his opposition to some of incoming President Trump's actions, with videos and memes on social media asserting that McCain would have been tried upon his release from captivity were it not for a pardon granted by President Richard Nixon:

Those who promulgate the "pardon" aspect of McCain rumors never cite a single piece of evidence documenting that such a pardon was extended to McCain, save for occasional vague references to the notion that McCain was supposedly one of a group of 33 Vietnam-era POWs who were collectively granted pardons.

We contacted Professor of Political Science and Pardon Power Blog editor P.S. Ruckman, Jr. to ask whether there was any truth to the claim that John McCain had been pardoned by President Richard Nixon, who told us that his extensive review of data from multiple sources did not corroborate it:
QuikFlo updates private placement

CALGARY, ALBERTA  (Marketwired)  03/13/17  QuikFlo Health Inc. (QuikFlo or the Company) ( TSX VENTURE: QF)(FRANKFURT: 1QF) announces that it anticipates having its first closing early next week of its previously announced non-brokered private placement of up to $7,500,000, subject to regulatory approval (the Offering). The Company is offering units at a price of $0.075 per unit, with each unit consisting of one common share and one half of a share purchase warrant entitling the holder to purchase one additional common share for $0.15 for a period of 2 years from closing. The warrants will contain a forced conversion provision that if the shares of the Company trade at $0.25 or more for a period of 10 trading days, the Company has the option to accelerate the expiry date to no less than 30 days from a press release advising of the same. The Company will pay qualified finders a commission of 8% in cash and finders warrants.

The Company will complete a portion of the Offering pursuant to Multilateral CSA Notice 45-318 Prospectus Exemption for Certain Distributions through an Investment Dealer (CSA 45-318) and the corresponding instruments, orders and rules implementing CSA 45-318 in the participating jurisdictions (collectively with CSA 45-38, the Investment Dealer Exemption). In addition to conducting the Offering pursuant to the Investment Dealer Exemption, the Company will also accept subscriptions for Units where other prospectus exemptions are available. In accordance with the Investment Dealer Exemption, the Company advises that, as at the date hereof, there is no material fact or material change in respect of the Company that has not been generally disclosed. The Company further advises that there is no minimum number of Units being offered pursuant to the Offering.

The shares of Quikflo will be halted from trading pursuant to the policies of the TSXV Exchange, and may not return to trading until closing of its previously announced acquisition of a Las Vegas based medical marijuana business.

Notice regarding Forward Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements. The use of any of the words anticipate, continue, estimate, expect, may, will, project, should, believe and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. This news release includes forward-looking statements with respect to the regulatory approval in respect to the acquisition of new businesses and raising funds. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Companys disclosure documents which can be found under the Companys profile on . Such risk factors may cause the inability of the Company to successfully commercialize any of its biomedical technologies.

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:

David Lane

President

+1 604 428-0511

Investor Relations

+1 604 428-0511
Certive Solutions Inc. Announces the Appointment of Honorable Ed Holder, P.C., ICD.D, former Minister of State, (Science and Technology) for Canada as a Director

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA and VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA  (Marketwired)  03/13/17  Certive Solutions Inc. (OTCQB: CTVEF)(CSE: CBP)(CSE: CBP.CN) and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Certive Technologies Arizona Inc., (collectively, Certive or the Company), proudly announce the appointment of The Honorable Ed Holder, P.C., ICD.D to the Board of Directors of the Company, effectively immediately.

Ed Holder was elected as a Member of Parliament with the Government of Canada in 2008, serving with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. From May 2014 to October 2015, he served in the prestigious role of Minister of State (Science and Technology). During his seven year tenure as a federal Member of Parliament, he also sat on the Standing Committee on International Trade, the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities, and served as Chair of the Canada-UK Parliamentary Group. He is a member of the Privy Council of Canada.

Mr. Holder brings to the Company an extensive background in corporate governance and serves as a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors, internationally acclaimed for its contribution to excellence in corporate directorships. He has the distinction of being named Valedictorian of the Institutes Fall 2016 graduates.

Mr. Holder founded Ontario West Insurance Agency in September 1981, which merged with Stevenson & Hunt Insurance Brokers. He served as President of the merged firms for nine years before his election to federal Parliament in 2008. Under his stewardship Stevenson & Hunt grew into one of Canadas largest independent insurance brokerage businesses with offices in four cities offering full lines of insurance and financial protection.

Mr. Holder graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a Bachelor of Arts degree (Philosophy) in 1976. In addition, he has earned many additional professional designations and acknowledgements during his extensive career both in private industry and public service. He is national Board Chair of the Sunshine Foundation of Canada, serving young people with severe physical disabilities and life-threatening illnesses, as well as Patron of St. John Ambulance, South-western Ontario.

The Board of Directors joins all shareholders in welcoming The Hon. Ed Holder to our Board. He will focus on driving continuous improvement in statutory reporting and shareholder value creation, with his vast network of international associations.

Michael Bartlett, Chairman of the Board, stated: Securing the appointment of The Hon. Ed Holder is a significant milestone in the affairs of the Company that will have extremely positive implications for our growth and prosperity as a recognized contributor to U.S. healthcare.

Van Potter, CEO and Brian Cameron, CFO commented: The addition of the Hon. Mr. Holder to our Board signifies the attentiveness our Company requires in order to achieve the standards of operating excellence to which we aspire.

It is the Boards intention to seek out additional independent directors over the coming months in a direct effort to match the growth objectives of the Company with the strategic planning necessary to accomplish those objectives.

The Board also wishes to announce the resignations of two directors. Jack Saltich, a director of the Company since 2012, has resigned from the Board. MaryAnn Miller, who was appointed to the Board in late 2015, has also resigned from the Board. Both individuals provided exceptional governance and independence to the Board. Their contribution is recognized and highly appreciated.

Brian Cameron

Chief Financial Officer

About Certive Solutions Inc.

Certive Solutions Inc. (Scottsdale, Arizona) provides revenue cycle management solutions to the U.S. healthcare market. Certives claim audit and recovery services, billing services, and software solutions help providers work with payers to efficiently manage the reimbursement process and improve financial performance. Certives highly skilled and experienced management team, combined with proprietary workflow and analytics, audit and identify, and bill and collect, underpayments in accordance with contractual obligations between the public or commercial insurance carrier and the designated provider. The healthcare market is changing. Certive works with clients to provide efficient and effective solutions aligned with reform initiatives to improve healthcare and reduce costs.

FORWARD-LOOKING AND OTHER STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect our expectations and assumptions regarding our growth, financial performance, results of operations, business development activities and business prospects and opportunities. Such forward-looking statements reflect our current beliefs and are based on information currently available to us. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as may, would, could, will, should, expect, plan, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, continue, or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts.

A number of factors could cause actual events, performance or results, including those in respect of the foregoing items, to differ materially from the events, performance and results discussed in the forward looking statements.

Factors that could cause actual events, performance or results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to:

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on what we consider to be reasonable assumptions based on information currently available to us, there can be no assurance that actual events, performance or results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements, and our assumptions may prove to be incorrect. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements made in this press release are made as of the date of the original document and have not been updated by us except as expressly provided for in this press release. As required by securities legislation applicable to reporting issuers, it is our policy to update, from time to time, forward-looking information in our periodic management discussions and analyses and provide updates on our activities to the public through the filing and dissemination of news releases and material change reports.

Contacts:

Certive Solutions Inc.

480-922-5327

Brian Cameron

Chief Financial Officer
NewVoiceMedia recognised among top 50 fastest-growing tech companies in Europe

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM  (Marketwired)  03/14/17  , a leading global provider of cloud contact centre and inside sales technology that enables businesses to have more successful conversations, has ranked in the 2017 Tech Tour Growth 50 for the second consecutive year, a list of the fastest-growing tech companies in Europe.

Through a combination of quantitative research and a qualitative selection process, Tech Tour, together with Silverpeak Investment Bank and a committee of international investors, has identified Europes fastest growing pre-exit investor-backed companies. Founded in 1999, Tech Tour has championed European innovation by providing a place where entrepreneurs, investors and corporations can come together to ensure companies get the funding and support they need  to help them become global champions.

Collectively the companies featured have raised over $3.7 billion of venture funding and created over 9,000 high-tech jobs. The businesses each meet criteria including more than EUR 10m in revenue and upwards of EUR 20m in total funding.

The accolade closely follows several other victories for NewVoiceMedia including recognition in Deloittes Technology Fast 500 EMEA programme and Softech Internationals Leading Experts in Tech Awards, and further validates the companys position as a leader in the cloud communications industry. NewVoiceMedia now serves more than 650 customers worldwide, including MobileIron, Lumesse, Vax, JustGiving and Canadian Cancer Society.

William Stevens, Managing Director at Tech Tour, commented, The billion dollar unicorn successes that grab our attention are just the tip of the iceberg. The Tech Tour Growth 50 puts the next layer of Europes high-tech, high-growth businesses in the limelight. These are Europes future potential unicorns  the companies with the most promise to have a global impact. The Tech Tour Growth 50 companies have created over 9,000 high-tech jobs and raised over $3.7 billion of investment from 309 investors. This is a clear demonstration of Europes strength and competitiveness in scaling-up tech businesses.

Its a great honour to be named one of Europes fastest-growing tech companies, added Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia. Our rapid acceleration, together with our innovative technology, is helping us to attract the highest caliber people around the world who are dedicated to making our cloud capabilities best-in-class. Its great to be formally recognised by this report for our achievements, impact and momentum, and we look forward to continuing our growth trajectory ahead of the market.

For the full analysis of The Tech Tour Growth 50, visit . For further information about NewVoiceMedia, visit

s cloud contact centre and inside sales platform delivers more successful conversations.

The leading vendors award-winning customer contact platform helps organisations worldwide build a more personal relationship with every customer or prospect. It joins up all communications channels without expensive, disruptive hardware changes and plugs straight into your CRM for full access to hard-won data. With a true cloud environment and proven 99.999% platform availability, NewVoiceMedia ensures complete flexibility, scalability and reliability.

NewVoiceMedias 650+ customers include PhotoBox, MobileIron, Lumesse, Vax, JustGiving and Canadian Cancer Society. For more information, visit or follow NewVoiceMedia on Twitter

Founded in 1998, Tech Tour provides a Community facilitating investment into world class entrepreneurs with event and online matching platforms between growing and emerging innovative companies and investors across borders, regions, sectors and stages. Tech Tour is also the trade name for Europe Unlimited. (see also )

Nicola Brookes

Tel: +44 (0)7500 006 458

Email:
Rubrik Appoints Ashish Gupta as VP of Engineering and Head of Rubrik Bangalore

PALO ALTO, CA  (Marketwired)  03/14/17  Rubrik, the Cloud Data Management company, today announced the appointment of Ashish Gupta as VP of Engineering and Head of Rubrik Bangalore. Gupta will grow and lead Rubriks Bangalore Development Center, and will have full development responsibility for specific product areas. This is the latest move in Rubriks global expansion and another example of its high growth, as the company recently a global annual run rate approaching $100M.

Were excited to welcome a technical leader of Ashishs calibre and experience, said Bipul Sinha, founder and CEO of Rubrik. As we continue to rapidly innovate Rubriks Cloud Data Management platform, its critical that we hire the best talent worldwide. We plan to more than double our U.S. engineering team, and now we can attract top local talent in India to work at the Bangalore Development Center, which will offer end-to-end development responsibility for specific product areas.

I was impressed with Rubriks incredible growth and the companys bold vision to enable enterprises to secure, manage and orchestrate data in the hybrid cloud, said Gupta, VP Engineering at Rubrik. The quality of the current team and the problems were trying to solve should enable us to attract world-class engineers, and well be focused on hiring the best.

Prior to joining Rubrik, Gupta was VP of Engineering at Flipkart where he founded the Retail Technology group, helping to drive revenue from $50M per year to $1B per year in 5 years. At Flipkart, he designed scale-out, predictive-model based decision support systems that supported 70 percent of the companys revenue. He also has previous experience in wireless and wireline networking. He received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and is a co-author of a patent in networking.

Rubrik has developed the worlds first Cloud Data Management platform for data protection, search, analytics, archival and copy data management for hybrid cloud enterprises. Fortune 500 companies use Rubrik to manage data at scale while realizing data-driven services anytime, anywhere. Rubrik has been named to and recognized by Forbes as a . For more information, visit and follow on Twitter.
UnitySC Pushes the Boundaries of Measurement With New Nanotopography Metrology Platform

GRENOBLE, FRANCE  (Marketwired)  03/14/17  a wholly owned subsidiary of and a leader in inspection and metrology solutions for advanced semiconductor packaging, today introduced its new NST Series at SEMICON China in Shanghai. The NST Series is the worlds first non-contact metrology solution for accurately measuring the nanoscale surface topography of semiconductor wafers in high-volume manufacturing. The new platform enables higher wafer yields and throughputs, and targets advanced processes being implemented for next-generation image sensor and memory technologies.

The ever-increasing performance requirements of todays advanced semiconductor devices are driving the need for accurate, high-throughput inline metrology. This is true for Cu CMP processes, pre- and post-Cu-to-Cu wafer hybrid bonding processes, as well as any type of front-end CMP and etch processes, all of which are necessary to enable the semiconductor industrys move toward more efficient manufacturing.

We developed the NST Series in response to the needs expressed by the industry and our customers, said Gilles Fresquet, CEO, UnitySC. The first tool was delivered in late 2016 to a key customer and partner, and is in operation. We foresee significant shipments of this series this year. We believe it is a game changer in process control capabilities that will impact throughput and yield for all semiconductor profiling applications, and particularly advanced CMOS image sensors and 3D memory stacks.

The CIS industry was the first to directly leverage the development of 3D hybrid bonding techniques. According to our latest technology and market analyses, the significance of this hybrid bonding technology will exceed $1 billion USD in 2017 and will double the CIS market CAGR at an expected 20% until 2022, said Pierre Cambou, Activity Leader, Imaging at Yole Developpement. With its new NST Series nanotopography metrology platform, UnitySC is directly addressing this growing market(1).

UnitySCs NST Series semiconductor measurement equipment surpasses conventional optical interferometry by not being impacted by transparent layers. The NST Series extends beyond contact profilometry into the atomic-force-microscope-level performance. Contactless full-field profilometry at resolutions down to 0.1nm captures artifact-free area scans to deliver critical information much faster than existing solutions. A streamlined preparation process eliminates the metal deposition step after Cu chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) that is required by competing platforms to control wafer surface quality before the hybrid bonding process, thereby reducing wafer scrap and delivering higher yields. Additionally, NST is the only metrology platform that offers overlay capabilities for post-bond metrology in Cu-to-Cu hybrid bonding applications.

The NST Platform is now available in two configurations:

The system provides versatile, high-speed and high-precision non-contact, full-field profilometry for single-die or multi-die surface topologies. It can perform a wide array of measurements, such as dishing, erosion, CD, step height, deep trench, and roughness.

The platform is a complete metrology solution for hybrid bonding, combining the NST XPs capabilities with additional features for high-resolution measurement after the Cu CMP and Cu-to-Cu bonding processes, including in-plane and out-of-plane overlay.

UnitySC is exhibiting at SEMICON China, March 14-16, 2017 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Shanghai. Please stop by booth #5375 in Hall W5 to learn more, or to arrange a meeting.

Journalists, NST Platform images can be downloaded here:

(1) Source: report, Yole Developpement, 2016.

ABOUT UNITYSC

UnitySC is recognized worldwide as a key player in inspection and metrology, combining advanced technologies in automated optical inspection and 3D imaging with microscopy, temporal-mode interferometry, and spectrometry, which enables customers to deliver higher yields and faster time to market. Customers include the largest foundries, integrated device manufacturers, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test service providers, and R&D centers. The company provides standard and customized solutions adapted to specific industrial needs and constraints, enabling a new era in process control. Headquartered in Grenoble, France, the company maintains offices in Taiwan and is supported by a network of representatives and distributors. Learn more at .

Yann Guillou

UnitySC

Tel: +33 456 526 800

Eric Lawson

Impress Labs

Tel: +1 480-276-9572
Tech-Guided Vocational School for Blind and Visually Impaired Opens in Denver

DENVER, CO  (Marketwired)  03/14/17  Mike Hess is on a vision quest to help blind and visually impaired (BVI) people in Colorado and throughout the country to obtain the same employment opportunities as those who can see, though he cannot.

Hess, the founder and executive director of the (BIT), along with Salesforce, Colorado Technology Association, the St. Vrain Valley School District, Downtown Denver Partnership, The Commons on Champa, and ITESI Global, P.B.C., have their eyes fixed on providing accessibility-first training to an underserved population of jobseekers.

Together theyve formed a public-private partnership to help BIT start a new vocational school for BVI people, with an aim to train unemployed or under-employed disabled students in high-demand jobs. Our mission, Hess said, is to prepare blind and visually impaired individuals, particularly those with IT and other technical interests and the employers who hire them for long-term success. Weve made substantial progress since our inception in 2013, but are asking public and private business leaders to rethink what BIT believes is a narrow conversation about diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

What does the new school, called the BIT Academy, mean to students?

I live in Toledo, Ohio, and traveled more than 1,000 miles to participate in this new program, said Ethan Holliger. BIT and its partners have presented me with an exciting vocational training opportunity to earn my certification as a Salesforce administrator and learn interview skills that will help me reach my career aspirations.

The BIT Academy opened its doors last week, initially offering curriculum that enables students to become certified and learn soft skills that upon graduation will aid them in securing jobs in high-demand IT and sales support positions. The training programs are eight-weeks long and free to BVI and other people with disabilities.

BIT Academy graduates will be eligible for career placement through the Blind Institute of Technology and ITESI Global, P.B.C., a key contributor thats lending its vocational training expertise to help students hone their interpersonal skills and prepare them for job interviews with mock interviews. ITESI Global, P.B.C. also has helped BIT put together the BIT Academy.

Advances in tech have made roles accessible to many, including talented professionals who are blind or visually impaired, said Andrea Young, President and CEO, Colorado Technology Association. The need for skilled tech workers continues to grow, and the Blind Institute of Technology has proven that blind and visually impaired workers perform at the same high level as the rest of the workforce. Were proud to partner with BIT, which has made incredible strides in driving diversity and inclusion within the tech workforce.

Colorado Technology Association (CTA) works to focus the incredible efforts of Colorados tech community, accelerate collaboration and tell its story of innovation. Founded in 1994, CTA advances the tech ecosystem across the state and solidify Colorados place as the definitive tech hub between the coasts. Its philanthropic branch, Colorado Technology Foundation, influences the development of a robust and diverse tech talent pipeline by leading programs and initiatives that equip students and jobseekers with the skills and experience that match local tech employers needs. Learn more: .

Founded in 2013, the is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that offers solutions-based programs aimed at achieving its mission of reducing the excessively high unemployment and underemployment rate among the BVI community by preparing BIT candidates and the employers who hire them for long-term success. To learn more, visit and connect with BIT on , @ and .

ITESI Global, P.B.C. is lending its vocational training expertise and professional development expertise to ensure success of BITs students and programs.

St. Vrain Valley School District donated eight end-of-life MacBooks to the BIT Academy.

This partnership represents Salesforces original venture into accessibility-first certification.

CTA and the Downtown Denver Partnership are donating classroom space at The Commons on Champa.

BIT volunteers collaborated to make the Salesforce course material completely accessible for blind and visually impaired students.

Paul Lonnegren

Pulse8 PR

(720) 470-7488
Alliance Memory Signs Distributor Agreement With Macnicas TecStar Company

SAN CARLOS, CA  (Marketwired)  03/14/17  today announced that it has signed a franchise distributor agreement with TecStar Company, a Japan-based company of Macnica Inc., a global leader in supplying electronic components to OEMs and manufacturers. Under the agreement, TecStar will offer Alliance Memorys complete lineup of DRAMs and SRAMs to its customers around the world.

Located in Shin-Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, TecStar provides a global supply channel for state-of-the-art electronics  backed by world-class technical support and design services. For the companys customers, Alliance Memory products provide reliable drop-in, pin-for-pin-compatible replacements for a number of hard-to-find DRAMs and SRAMs in communications, computing, consumer electronics, medical, automotive, and industrial markets.

Alliance Memorys lineup of high-speed CMOS synchronous DRAMs (SDRAM) includes low-power mobile (MSDR), double data rate (DDR), DDR2, mobile low-power DDR2 (LPDDR2), DDR3 SDRAMs, and mobile low-power DDR3 (LPDDR3) devices. The devices are available in a wide range of densities, configurations, package options, and temperature ratings, including automotive temperature ranges of -40 degrees C to +105 degrees C. The companys offering also features several discontinued devices from Micron Technology, including 512-Mb SDRAMs in the 54-pin TSOP II package and lead (Pb)-bearing 64-Mb, 128-Mb, 256-Mb, and 512-Mb SDR SDRAMs; 256-Mb and 512-Mb DDR SDRAMs; and 2-Gb DDR2 SDRAMs.

TecStar will be an invaluable partner as we continue our expansion in the worldwide industrial, medical, automotive, communications, and consumer electronics markets, said Ted Kasahara, director of Japan sales for Alliance Memory. In addition to being a first-class distributor with an efficient logistics infrastructure and strong customer relationships, the company offers unmatched technical support and service to provide designers with a complete solution. We couldnt be more pleased for TecStar to be supplying our DRAM and SRAM memory products.

For electronics OEMs and manufacturers in Japan and around the world, there is a high demand for EOL memory solutions to eliminate the need for costly redesigns, said Kazuyuki Sawada, director of product sales at TecStar Company. By allowing us to meet this demand, Alliance Memorys solutions portfolio makes a powerful addition to our line card that we are excited to offer to our customers.

More information on Macnica and TecStar is available at .

Alliance Memory is a worldwide provider of critical and hard-to-find DRAM and SRAM memory ICs for the communications, computing, consumer electronics, medical, automotive, and industrial markets. The companys product range includes SRAMs and DRAMs with commercial, industrial, and automotive operating temperature ranges and densities from 64Kb to 8Gb. Privately held, Alliance Memory maintains headquarters in San Carlos, California, and regional offices in Europe, Asia, and South America. More information about Alliance Memory is available online at .

Bob Decker

Redpines

+1 415 409 0233

Kim Bagby

CFO

+1 650 610 6800
FacilityONE Technologies Appoints Frederick Fey to Board of Directors

Posted by Publisher Hardware

LOUISVILLE, KY  (Marketwired)  03/14/17  FacilityONE Technologies, LLC, which provides a cloud-based Facility Information Solution (FIS) that enhances a buildings functional and economic lifespan and boosts employee productivity, announced today the appointment of Frederick Fey to its Board of Directors. With more than three decades of experience in entrepreneurial healthcare leadership, Fey brings to FacilityONE a valuable breadth of expertise, leadership and insight into the successful construction and operation of healthcare facilities.

Feys exceptional aptitude derives from his rich background in the development of healthcare companies  including three Medicaid managed care organizations  and the unprecedented growth achieved under his leadership. Fey is Managing Partner of Star Administrators, LLC, a third-party administrator; Star Health Management, which provides consulting services to payer organizations, healthcare associations and other specialty businesses; and Star Capital Partners, LLC, a private equity firm specializing in healthcare and healthcare technology. Additional executive experience includes Senior Vice President for Strategy and Business Development of HealthCare USA, which was later sold to Coventry Health Care. In just three years, Fey led the companys rapid growth into a multi-state, 115,000-member HMO that achieved NCQA certification and was rated the states top HMO based on care quality by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

At FacilityONE we are dedicated to providing organizations with seamless intelligent management solutions and interventions. We depend on insights from innovators and thought leaders to help guide our approach to meeting the diverse needs of our clients, including those in the healthcare space, said Cathy Powell-Voigt, Executive Chair of . Freds proficiency and experience will be vital components in FacilityONEs growth and development of solutions to enhance the experiences of the customers we serve.

Previously, Fey was president and CEO of Family First Health Plan for the University of Chicago, later acquired by Harmony Health Plans. He also helped create HealthScreen America, a national retail preventive screening company, and BioQube, one of the first databases of individual test data that analyzes and predicts significant diseases. Fey is a graduate of the University of Florida.

This is a time of great opportunity and growth potential for FacilityONE, as it continues to expand its reach and tailor its services to achieve success for all its client organizations, said Fey. I am honored to be a part of the company and to work alongside my fellow board members to help steer it through its development and achievements.

Based in Louisville, Ky., FacilityONE Technologies provides web-based Facility Information Solutions (FIS) that simplify facility management by enhancing a buildings functional and economic lifespan and employee productivity. It offers the only Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), Computer-Aided Facility Management (CAFM) and asset management solutions enhanced by SmartPrint technology to support data aggregation, compliance and risk mitigation. The FacilityONE FIS is suitable for buildings and organizations of all sizes, and is currently being utilized to organize and transform facility management of millions of square feet worldwide. For more information, visit .

Liz Goar

813-333-2844
Anupam Singh has been appointed as Assistant Director of Sales - MICE by Millennium Airport Hotel Dubai.

He brings strong experience to his new role having worked previously with Jumeirah, InterContinental and Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

As a young and dynamic leader, Anupam is very passionate about his job. During his career, he had the opportunity to be associated in the organisation of a wide range of social, cultural and corporate events such as weddings, parties, exhibitions, meetings, seminars, workshops, etc  which gave him a strong knowledge of event planning and execution.

Anupam holds a Bachelors degree in Hotel and Tourism Management Catering Technology, Hygiene & Sanitation (1st Class) from National Institute of Hotel Management & Catering Technology in Goa, India.















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